As more and more people are hosting their own webpage or pages, advertisers have learned how to make contact with the audiences who visit the pages. And not just randomly either; there are now advertising programs that target ads specifically to the site that the person is viewing. They are called contextual advertising programs because they search through the context and content of a page and identify keywords. They return ads to that page that the program believes would be relevant and interesting to the viewer. For example, if you are visiting a website on low fat recipes, you might find ads about low fat products or weight loss products.

Website owners aren’t the only ones using this form of advertising to generate revenue. You’ll see these ads on search engine pages themselves. For example, on Google, the ads appear in a column on the right hand side of the results page. The keywords you enter in the search box are used to target ads to you. Advertisers are hoping that the short ad they supply will lure you to their site, where hopefully you’ll either order their product or use their service.

Website owners can now earn money by allowing contextual advertisers to place ads on their webpages. The more people visit and click the ads, the more money the advertisers will pay to the website owner. Many website owners make a considerable stream of income from these programs. But the ads have to be well targeted in order to get people to click. Which is why right now there is so much excitement about a new contextual advertising program being tested and prepared for the market. Everyone out there making money on contextual advertising is waiting to see if the Yahoo Publisher Network (YPN) product will return better results than the leading Google Adsense product.

At the moment, YPN is still in beta testing. A group of users were invited to trial

the product and the reviews on blogs and postings all over the web are somewhat consistent on one aspect. As of now, it seems that YPN is not returning ads that are as relevant as the ones that Adsense users are finding. For example, one blogger reported that on a website on PHP programming, YPN returned ads for a florist and for a phone service provider. The blogger couldn’t understand what words the YPN program picked up for the florist. But it was the word ‘hello’ that apparently signaled the ads regarding the phone service.

Additionally, some users have complained that YPN doesn’t seem to update earnings and visitor information as often as Adsense. So website owners have to wait to learn if changes they have made have actually impacted the visitors that they get. However, although neither program will release payment schemes until you register as a user, it seems that YPN is paying more per click than Adsense. But the feeling is that payments will be made more appealing long enough to get website owners to switch from Adsense to YPN, but then prices will even out. Some argue that in the long run it won’t matter if YPN pays more if they can’t improve their ad relevancy because they won’t get the number of clicks from visitors to see a real difference in their earnings.

As YPN is being tested, they are getting opinions and feedback from the participants. So in time, the service may be improved. However, competition for Adsense is a healthy thing. It will force both companies to continually strive to improve their service and offerings so that webmasters can continue to benefit from a healthy stream of income in the future.

Richard Warren is a veteran user of Google Adsense and is skilled in the art of boosting CTR and Adsense revenue. Visit http://www.AdsenseHowTos.com for a complete Adsense how to guide.

There’s so much public domain content available all over the internet, with Master Resale Rights available and sites springing up left and right with Private Label articles you can use to create your own products, but what do you need to bear in mind, what is the best way to use all this content and what can you create with it?

What to Look Out For:

Copyright – you absolutely must check on this – violating someone’s copyright is not clever and can be a really expensive mistake not to mention seriously damaging your reputation. Is it really public domain? All those lawyers fees can really mount up when checking into all this but believe me, you really don’t want to end up in court over it.

Public Domain Content -

If you have the money to have a lawyer look at copyright for you then fine, go ahead and get started. Where can you find this type of content? It can be difficult to find content that is free to use but here are a few links to get you started:

http://www.gutenberg.org/

http://www.wikimedia.org/

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/index.html

Master Resale Rights -

If you can’t afford expensive lawyers what else can you do? One rather less pricey way is to buy Master Resale Rights to a product – this gives you the opportunity to name yourself as the author, use the content in another product, rewrite the whole thing – the possibilities are endless. Just be aware with this that you will need to look at the terms and conditions of what you are allowed to do with the product before you buy.

On a budget? – not to worry, there are still many ways you can find great content without spending a fortune or worrying about whether you can legally use it. Look for membership sites that provide private label and/or guaranteed public domain content. You could also sign up to some of the well known internet marketer’s newsletters. Why? Well if you’re serious about internet marketing you should be checking out all the latest happenings anyway, but a lot of newsletter owners will have free ebooks, giveaways and articles to download – some of which you will be able to use as your own.

So you’ve got your content ready to go and you’ve checked your rights and permissions but there is one more thing to think about – sites such as http://www.copyscape.com can check for duplicate content on the internet and of course so can the search engines. This could mean anything from the search engines deciding they won’t rate your site as highly because the exact same content is available elsewhere to some smarty pants asking you if you really did write that incredibly good article because they’ve seen someone else claiming that they

wrote it too, so you do need to be aware of this when looking to use content you haven’t personally created, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go ahead and make the most of all that wonderful information.

What Can You Do?

You could just read the information to learn from it yourself; you could read it to get ideas for businesses, more articles, content, the list is limited only by your imagination.

How about:

Ebooks

Print Books

Presentations

Membership Sites

Face to face courses

Mini courses

Teleclass content

Webcast content

Podcast content

Blog content

Content for your Autoresponder

Ezine content

Articles for your site to build AdSense income pages

Viral Reports

Tips Lists

When it comes to using all the content you have gathered, you need to look through it all and decide what you want to produce. If you plan to use content from more than one source, such as 2 or 3 articles by different authors to be combined into a report, you will need to go through and change the content into a similar style, check that it is all written in the same tense, make sure the formatting is the same throughout, check for spelling and grammar (for example – spelling for some words is different in the US than the UK) and look through all the articles to see if any of the points made are duplicated.

Once you’ve done this, make a list of points you want to make in your report, read the articles through again and start combining them together to fit what you want to say – cut and paste to copy sections into the right place.

Next, look at the way your draft reads now and see if it fits your style of writing, your personality and your business. Reword it to fit with this – there’s no point in producing a very formally written, stiff sounding report for a hobby site.

At this point you could just tweak it, proof read it, and then go ahead and publish it but to take it a step further and make it really unique, why not look at how you might rewrite it so that all of the content is yours – now you’ve got the basic idea down and laid out, it shouldn’t take you long to reword things, add in some of your own ideas and keywords that fit your site, and maybe a few quotes and suddenly you’re looking at something that no-one else has got, that the search engines will love and that no-one can claim you copied.

Time to start creating!

Want to go beyond private label content? How about *high end* private label services! Bet you’ve never heard of THAT before. Deepak Walia suggest you head on over to “MonthlyNicheProfits” http://www.topgunpublishing.com/recommends/mnp_articlemarketer_03.html to see what the newest buzz is all about!

It’s not an article directory, it’s not a search engine and it’s not a bird, a plane or even superman. Then what exactly is this new “content home” from the Google team and what does it mean for web site marketing? Let’s get it straight from the horse’s mouth: “Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we’ll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.”

The new GoogleBase is a database to help people get all kinds of information about anything. It’s a throwback of sorts that allows people to publish anything they want and then have it be found, not by relevant search engine rankings and optimization of webpages as we know it, but by attributes. Say for instance you have class information you want posted for a basket weaving, simply change the attributes searched for to “Basketweaving 101 with instructor Baskethead”, tell folks in the class what these attribute are and when they go to GoogleBase.com and search for it, BLAMO – they have found your information! This is the theory behind the giant’s new website anyhow.

One major difference between this form of publishing and standard web page publishing is that you give Google your information and they host it as opposed to you hosting it on your server. This means everything in the base is self contained. This isn’t all together true though, websites can be

posted to the base through direct link postings to the site. A simple search for SEO in the base will show that some of the results still go to hosted websites outside of the base.

A picture is worth a thousand words! With GoogleBase you can add a picture that will be displayed in the search result pages making this type of searching more attractive that normal text based searching.

What does this mean for SEO Experts? Since its launch in November 2005, we are not sure what effects this will have on SEO, yet. Google does say that based on a postings relevancy your submissions to the base might also get included in Google’s search engine, Google Local and Froogle however this is still yet to be seen.

My first impressions of GoogleBase are good. This type of “information at your fingertips” will certainly help in a lot of ways. Look out though; the porn industry is already on the GoogleBase prowl using it as a medium for mischievous purposes. David Berkowitz from SearchInsider insightfully says that GoogleBase could potentially cause problems for AdWords marketing at Google as products can now have a free medium of advertising:

“This could conceivably cause problems for its AdWords business. If a small business can market its products and services through Base for free, why would it use AdWords? There are obviously some kinks to work out.”

Remember: As Google changes its face, so does the rest of the internet. Let’s watch this beta database program over the next few months and see what happens.

Todd Levi is a search engine optimization specialist and web designer found at LeviSolutions. He also supports an internet marketing and SEO blog found at SEO-Marketing

Marketing Series

Perhaps the most powerful component of any Web site sales copy is the use of testimonials. Inserted in your sales copy, unbiased words of praise from satisfied customers have the following potent effect for your prospect. Effective testimonials;

Rationalize your prospect’s buying decision GOOGLE ADSENSE Back up the claims you make for your product or service Vouch for the benefits of your product or service.However, despite their clout as an influential sales tool, it is amazing how many clients fail to effectively gather and use this precious commodity. Some tips for including this essential component in your future promotions.

· Whenever a great unsolicited testimonial from a customer crosses your desk, contact the customer for permission to use all or part of it in your marketing campaign. And also request a photo.

· Always include the full name, as well as address under the testimonial.

· Be proactive in soliciting testimonials from your customers. Send personal letters or notes to your customer list indicating you are updating your marketing program and would be grateful for comments about what they liked most about your product or service. Phone surveys are also an option. Elicit the reasons they purchased your product, the three features or characteristics they like most about it (and why), and the product’s strongest feature, More importantly, ask them how the

product or service has most benefited them; e.g. how it saved them time, money or frustration. And of course, solicit any comments they have on what they would like to see changed.

Note a secondary benefit of such an approach; learning things about your product or service that can be improved or corrected.

· Of course, if you are not receiving testimonials from customers, find out why. The problem is most likely with your product or service. Improve that and the testimonials will come…as well as increased sales!

Sprinkled throughout your sales copy, testimonials provide a compelling reason for purchasing your product or service. A good rule of thumb is; include 1-3 testimonials for each product or service benefit. A collection of testimonials can also be included as a separate stand-alone piece of your promotional package.

Wherever you place them, make sure each testimonial adheres to the four golden rules…

Be specific

Stick with one benefit per testimonial

Make sure all claims are believable

Keep the testimonial targeted to your audience, excluding anything

irrelevant or offensive.

Copyright Alan Richardson

About The Author

Alan Richardson is a well-known internet consultant and publisher with http://www.optimalwebservices.com – a Web resource firm in North Easton, Massachusetts, offering free advice and information for web-based small businesses and entrepreneurs.

To read other articles by Alan, click http://www.optimalwebservices.com/articles

To signup for the free ‘Optimal Web Services for Small Business’ ezine, click http://www.optimalwebservices.com/subscribe

No matter what business you are in it always helps to be seen as an expert. If you were calling someone to fix a drain or sell your house you would approach the person you saw as most credible and reputable in that area of expertise.

To become an expert takes hard work and experience. It can involve study or the honing of practical skills. It demands high standards of work. But after all this effort will you be perceived as an expert? If you feel you’ve earned the mantle of expert but are not recognized as one, here are eight ways to start establishing your reputation.

Publish a book or series of reports or articles

The internet has made this much easier. You can now create an ebook that can be downloaded without having to involve a publisher. There are ezine owners always looking for good quality articles and reports for their ezines. A well-written book or series of articles will establish your reputation as an expert in your field.

Publish a newsletter

Set one up on the internet and distribute it to your customers. This is an excellent way to regularly keep your name in front of your prospects as an authority on your subject.

Write press releases

Used correctly these can gain you a lot of positive publicity. Make sure the press release looks like newsworthy information and not like an advertisement.

Create a website

Set up a user-friendly website that will appeal to customers and you have expanded the reach of your reputation. Keep it timely and informative, and people will continue to return to your site. If you don’t know how to set up a website there are plenty of web designers who do. Alternatively enquire at a college teaching web design. Some students might want to build a portfolio.

Join

associations

If you are a member of an association it will enhance your credibility. But don’t just be a member. Be an active member. This will build your reputation among your peers and lead to useful introductions. Membership can have many benefits, and it will certainly keep you up to date in your field.

Networking

You can boost your reputation and influence by speaking to the right people. Keep your name in front of your prospects. Organize mutually beneficial ventures. You cannot predict what may come from a contact so make as many as you can.

Public Speaking

Even speaking to a local group of people can establish you as an expert and get you referrals that may lead to a wider audience. If you are not sure you can speak in public, preparation and rehearsal are the keys to success. Make sure your presentation is aimed at the right level, follows a sensible sequence and will not sound like a dry textbook-like monologue. Write your main points on small cards so you are not relying solely on your memory and start in front of a small audience.

Teach workshops or seminars

If you have knowledge that people would like to tap into you can pass on your expertise. If your presentation is well planned you will be seen as an authority in your subject. You will also meet people who are likely to recommend you to others. If you are teaching a hot topic you will also be gaining a useful income stream.

Any of these methods will start building your reputation as an expert. Use them all correctly and you will gain the sort of reputation that will have potential clients approaching you without having to seek them out.

Morris gathers information about event ticket online event marketing group.

Ever wonder which form of advertising is best for you?

The answer is the method you can afford that will gainyou the greatest bang for your buck.

Over the past several years, I’ve had a.dvertisers callwondering which service would I choose if I were them.

My number one answer above all answers? The clas.sifiedad; nothing beats the 6 line clas.sified for long-haula.dvertising.

For one thing, the price is right.

The small town weekly we used to pick up for fr.ee charged 10 cents a word, regardless of length. Some papers may charge higher, some lower, but if (for examples’ sake) every word in your ad was 5 characters, using all 6 lines of available space, that local newspaper ad would run $7.20.

The circulation for my example newspaper had a potentialreadership of 15,000 give or take a few hundred – thosetraveling through and picking up something to read atthe local gas station or small casino.

Now consider the online clas.sified ad.

As of this writing, My Wizard Ads has a potentialreadership of over 1 million.

That same 6 line, 60 characters per line ad will costyou $25, but anyone can join the MWA two-tieraffiliate program for fr.ee and, using your ownurl, save yourself an additional 35%.

Your total outlay is $16.25 to reach a potential one million (join first and cl’ick your own url before placing any order.)

Now, let’s head back to our local newspaper example above for just a second.

For easy math, let’s say the first local newspaperhas the 15K readership, but I want to make sure myad reaches a potential one million readers.

Let’s also assume I want to reach a smaller, tightercommunity of readers so I set my total readershipaccordingly.

After diligent research I manage to find additionalout-of-the-area newspapers each having 40,000 potential readers. To reach my one million mark, I’d need to locate 24 other papers, plus one25K circulation (plus my original 15K) for a totalof 26 newspapers.

My next step would be to contact them by phoneor mail (or maybe the internet) and place that admyself.

The total cost to reach my one million potentialreaders in print, assuming each charges 10 cents per word? … $187.20

But, keep in mind that doesn’t include my time,postage, or long-distance. Nor does it includeprinting paper and ink nor the gas for that trip to the post office if needed.

Hmmm…

Online 1 million… $16.25

Offline 1 million… $187.20 plus, plus, plus.

[This is conservative for offline a.dvertising.I recently received an email from a friend who paid $500 to one magazine with

a potential 800,000 readers.]

So now we’ve got an idea of cost.

Let’s harken back to why I’m even writing about online 6 line clas.sifieds in the first place.

The 6 line clas.sified ad:

1. Is easy to place

2. Reaches a huge potential readership

3. Is filled with readers looking for that perfect

program, product, or service

4. Is affordable (top priority).

Your starting point? A monthly budgeted clas.sified.The cost is do-able and budget you must. Onlinemarketing is not a flash in the pan approach. Youmust be systematic and consistent month after monthafter month.

You now know that setting aside less than $20 a monthwill keep your text ad in front of millions, and you must keep it there for the most obvious of reasons.

Does the Pepsi commercial expect you to jump up andrun out to buy that Pepsi now? No, but they arelaying odds you’ll remember when you next go groceryshopping how much you’d just love that Pepsi.

How many times have you read an a.d, bypassed it for the moment, seen it again, again skipped the chance, seen it again, etc., etc., until presto! you cli’ck the link and discover “oh my!” this IS what I’ve been looking for?

Think… Longevity and patience and budgeting equalsbranding equals sales.

Will your clas.sified do all the work for you?No it will not. Does it serve its purpose to brandyour ad in the minds of readers at an affordablemonthly budgeted price? It most certainly does.

Should you go on at that point with solos andwebsite traffic, and maybe guaranteed signups orleads? You bet.

But for those with limited funds, go clas.sified.

For those with greater means? Still, don’t forgetthe humble cla’ssified

Marketing and gaining traffic is an never-endingquest for the savvy internet promoter. Hunting downand making use of additional fr.ee and pa.idmethods of gaining ex.posure is a JOB. You maynever have to leave your house, you may neverget out of your jammies, but it’s still a JOB.

All businesses must have a plan and a workable,manageable a.dvertising budget. Pick what you canafford. Commit to a long-haul mentality andimplement it.

It just makes cents.

© Theresa Cahill – All Rights Reserved. Feel free to distribute this article. Please keep it intact and with the resource box included below.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Theresa Cahill, a two decade veteran of marketing, is the owner of http://www.mywizardads.com and invites you to take a look at the services of MWA and download fr.ee helpful information and more at http://www.mywizardads.com/sitemap.html

Spend some time in a real estate marketing forum online, and you’ll soon discover that search engines top the list of hot topics.

Every agent wants his or her website to rank high in the search engines, and rightfully so. But with so much information (and misinformation) out there, the path to success can be hard to follow. This article will help you navigate.

Five steps to better search engine rankings:

Step 1 – Choose Your Key Phrases

The first step in any search engine optimization (SEO) campaign is to determine your key phrases. Key phrases are those words and phrases you want your website to be found for in the search engines. For example, if you’re a real estate agent in Smithville, Texas, one of your key phrases might be “Smithville Texas real estate.”

Don’t choose your key phrases based on a hunch. Research them. Find out how many people are searching which phrases. Overture (a Yahoo company) has a key phrase research tool you can use for free. It’s located at http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/.

If you really want to get scientific, you can sign up with WordTracker. It’s not free like the Overture tool, but it’s much more thorough. It includes all of the major search engines with its results.

Step 2 – Evaluate Your Infrastructure

This section will step *briefly* into the technical weeds. Even if you don’t fully understand this information, you will benefit from it. If you hire a web designer, for example, you’ll be able to speak intelligently about your search engine aspirations.

A website with clean, properly structured HTML (web code) will have greater search engine visibility than a site with complex, poorly structured HTML code.

Search engines rank your website on its content (among other things). The more complicated your website’s HTML code, the harder it is for search engines to find what they want … your content. That’s the importance of having clean “lightweight” coding on all your pages.

Burying your site’s content under mounds of Javascript, table tags and graphics will only reduce your SEO success.

You can avoid these things by hiring a professional designer, and telling him or her you want a properly built website that’s primed for SEO.

Step 3 – Create Quality Content (And Plenty of It)

Even if you do everything else right, your site will rank low if it lacks quality content. Search engines love content. It’s one of the ways they

validate genuine websites from “spam” websites.

Revisit your list of key phrases from Step 1. Find ways to interweave those phrases — in a natural way — throughout your content.

One way to achieve this is to add article pages to your website. An article of 300 – 500 words will allow you to integrate your key phrases in a natural way. Good for search engines, and good for your readers!

Step 4 – Obtain Inbound Links from Quality Websites

Search engines also evaluate your website based on the number (and quality) of inbound links. Inbound links are hyperlinks on other websites that link to yours.

When it comes to inbound links, you should favor quality over quantity. It’s far better to have inbound links from a handful of quality websites (that already rank high with search engines) than 100 “starter” sites with low ranking.

You can increase the number of inbound links in several ways. In my opinion, writing and publishing articles online is the best way to go about it. “Article marketing,” as it’s known, warrants a discussion all to itself. Just know it can help you increase the number of quality sites that link to yours.

Step 5 – Be Patient and Persistent

Search engine optimization takes time. People who say they can get your website on page one of Google overnight are either (A) lying to you, or (B) using practices that will do you more harm than good in the long run.

A solid SEO program takes time and persistence. But take heart in the fact that once you achieve good ranking through the practices outlined above, you’ll be able to maintain your ranking for quite some time. Of course, it helps to make SEO a perpetual part of your overall marketing efforts.

Conclusion

There you have it, five steps to a solid SEO program: Determine your key search phrases. Evaluate your website’s structure. Add quality content to your site. Seek inbound links from quality sites. Be patient and persistent.

By taking the time to do it right, you’ll be able to achieve better rankings, maintain them longer, and drive qualified traffic to your website. So keep learning, and keep at it!

Brandon Cornett has worked as a web writer and marketing manager for a direct mail company serving real estate agents since 1986. His “Agent’s Guide to Web Marketing” and his free newsletter are available at: http://www.ArmingYourFarming.com

Is your business still in its earliest stages and you are not sure where to begin in terms of marketing and advertising? Who could help you? Perhaps you are feeling a bit lost because the idea of marketing your offerings seems so foreign to you. Sadly, many businesses fail because owners do not spend enough time and energy to devote the marketing side of things. But you will not fail, because there are ways to promote your business and these methods are neither hard nor expensive.

Beginners in local business marketing should compare themselves with competitors to create an effective business and marketing strategy. It is better to use a top business owner as a model rather than to copy a rough outline of a similar business. That does not mean that you have to do every single method the way your competitor does, but take a notice at how he or she brings in new business and ideas. Starting to notice could be hard but it will be a learning experience for you. For local business owners and professionals, it is also advantageous to create local business profiles. Keeping data profiles showing the growth between competitors and your business, could allow you to notice what mistake you had encounters.

There is no need to copy the traditional business plan of others blindly. It is better to switch from old marketing devices such as mom and pop advertising like newspaper ads, radio and television spots, posted ads at local shopping centers and on community bulletin

boards, and other obsolete methods to custom marketing techniques such as online local advertising to achieve local merchant success. A clear understanding of marketing concepts is essential to reach your target audience. You need to target your customers using methods that are appealing to them. Targeting the population with old methods that are no longer effective will not land you new business. Instead, you will be spending money that does not reach your most precious commodity – your customers.

It is always advisable to consult experts in the local marketing field. But you might not cover all the strategies, in this case the best results can be achieved by joining local business categories. The aim and objective of a marketing strategy should be to get the best bang for the buck.

If your business is not yet online, you need to get it there now. Opportunities are waiting for you and if you are not there, those opportunities will be heading to your competition.

For an online business there are two ways of making more money – increase your web traffic (get more customers into your shop) or improve your conversion (get more of the customers in your shop to buy from you).

Let me illustrate this:

A site has 10,000 visitors per month generating 50 sales, equivalent to a conversion rate of 0.5 and up to 2-3 equals 150). Alternatively the site could forget about increasing traffic and instead concentrate on increasing its conversion rate from 0.5, which would also result in 150 sales (10,000 times 1.5.

A lot of the web marketing related articles and information are focussing on increasing traffic – the best strategies for SEO (Search Engine Optimization), how to select the best keywords, how to run PPC (pay per click) campaigns and so on. Very few people are focussing on conversion strategies, how do you convert the 98-99% of people that are leaving your site without buying.

In the following we will discuss some of the most important aspects when it comes to conversion. One word on the term ‘sales’. We will use ‘sales’ throughout the document but you may be in a different business where the aim is to generate leads by convincing people to sign up to something (a newsletter for instance). However, the principles we will be discussing apply to both lead generation and sales.

So how do you improve your conversion? Well, there are four main things you need to focus on:

Web site usability

Usability is the art of creating convenience for the visitor’s interaction, the structure or skeleton of the site. A site with strong usability enables a frictionless customer experience where intuition instead of thinking drives the visitor’s movements. This includes intuitive and instructive navigation, clear call-to-actions, clear value propositions, credibility-building communications, convenient order process – all of which create a smooth process for the visitor’s movements .

Website Design

Design is the front end to the technology and to the structure/usability of the site. It is the first impression of the website and directs the visitor towards a desired path. Great design directs a visitor’s actions through the effective use of colors, graphics and lines. With the average visitor spending 10 seconds or less determining your website’s relevancy to them the design is crucial in the early stages of the visit.

Technology

Technology is the website’s foundation that must work seamlessly supporting the customer experience. Visitors should not notice the technology and typically only do so when it is broken.

Content – call to action

The last, and to some extent most important part, is the content – the copy writing and how to get a clear call-to-action message across to the visitors. When it comes to copy writing there are two simple tips – headlines and special offers.

Headlines are crucially important to the success of your website. Testing has proven that headlines can increase

your sales significantly and professional copywriters consider the headline the most important part of an ad. On average, five times as many people will read the headline as the actual body copy, which means it is important to spend time creating headlines.

Some professional website copywriters write as many as 100 headlines before deciding which one to use. You may think this would be a daunting task but there are some standard practices that can be followed.

The ‘How To’ headline is one the easiest to write and it get people’s attention because of the promise of learning something of value. For example, ‘How to increase your conversion immediately with Traffic2Sales‘.

Another headline template that is good is the ‘If’ ‘Then’ statement. For example ‘If you give me 2 minutes of your time I will show you how I can improve your conversion rate, you only need to pay me for sales that I save for you’.

The last headline type is the testimonial headline, which has to be as specific as possible. Here is an example “Traffic2Sales has had a positive impact on our conversion rate and subsequent advertising ROI, because it saves a good percentage of lost orders, and their pricing model allows us to only pay when our company makes a sale” Joe Bloggs, Internet Entrepreneur

The other tip that is important is to making irresistible offers. Or as Don Corleone said in The Godfather ‘I’ll make him an offer he can’t refuse‘. A powerful factor in making irresistible offers is taking risk out of the transaction for your prospective customer. After all, nobody want’s to lose money and get stuck with a bad product. Taking away that fear will boost your online sales. If you can offer something for free or if your payment is performance based then you are on to a winner.

So, if you follow these steps above you have a good chance of converting more of your visitors into happy buying customers. But, there is still a risk that the customer will abandon the purchase at the very last minute. This is where services like Traffic2Sales come into play. By interacting with your leaving visitors, as they attempt to abandon your website, through the medium of instant messaging – one of the most popular tools on the internet today – an automated sales agent will attempt to turn your leaving visitors into paying customers. Most of the time this is done by offering a special discount. It is like having a live salesperson on your website, 24/7, except for the cost. There are no upfront fees or ongoing charges, you only pay a fee per converted customer.

Marcus Jones has more than 10 years experience in online marketing and sales conversions. To find out how you can improve conversions on your site, please visit http://www.traffic2sales.net?ref=as

Everybody has a different reason for wanting to earn an income from home. For some of us, it’s the freedom of not having to answer to a boss. For others, it’s to make some extra cash. For me it was because I lost my job and didn’t see any other way around the problem. But whatever your reason is, there’s still that one nagging question that a lot of home business owners don’t want to ask themselves because they’re afraid of the answer they’re going to get. Are you prepared to run a business?

I’ll be the first to admit, I didn’t have a clue what was involved in running a home based business. I figured you just had to throw up a web site and the customers would come flocking by the thousands. I quickly learned that it’s not quite that easy. There’s a lot of work involved, including advertising, customer service and so on. Some of the days can be very long.

But it’s more than just the actual work involved. There’s the discipline factor that a lot of people don’t even give a second thought. See, when you’re working for a boss, you’re being told what to do every minute of every day. You don’t have to think about what has to be done. Every decision is made for you. But when you’re

running your own business, you have to force yourself to get up every morning and make your way to that computer. Nobody is going to make your schedule for you. You’re going to have to do that on your own. You’re going to have to make sure that the advertising gets done; that the product creation gets done; that the customer support emails get answered. In other words, you have to motivate yourself all on your own. Not everybody can do that.

And then there are things like finances and paying taxes. You need to make a budget and stick to it. You need to track what you’re spending and what you’re taking in. You need to keep accurate records for the government. You can’t just claim your business as a hobby unless it actually qualifies as one. And you won’t know that unless you research the laws. Yes, you need to understand some basics business tax law. If you don’t, you’ll need to hire yourself a good accountant…especially if the money starts pouring in.

And the above items only scratch the surface. Point is, running a home based business takes a lot of work and discipline. And not everybody is cut out for it.

So, are you prepared to run a business?

It might help to know the answer to that question BEFORE you start.