My Buy Essay

Archive for December, 2007

There are many factors to keeping someone’s interest on your web page or site. It is not an easy task. Your ultimate goal is to get them to come back repeatedly. There is one precious commodity that most of us do not have much of – time. Face it even you do not have the time when surfing to read in depth every site you want to. Naturally, you bookmark it because it was impressionable enough for you to want to put it in your favorites. Now read about what will keep the customers coming back for more!

Before you consider setting up a web site, you will need to have your goals in mind. Answering a few targeted questions will help you decide how to best approach setting up the site. Targeting your customer is very important. Their age, economic status and gender will play a part in deciding how you will need to have your site designed. For example, you would not sell jeans in larger sizes and higher waist styles to a junior teen sized woman. Good market research is the foundation for setting the goals of your site, and marketing and designing your site with your customer in mind. This is only the beginning and a mere part of the story of getting customers and keeping them

You will need to look at how your customer interacts with the graphics and total site layout. Ask yourself is there any design flaws that stop them from going to the next page? Is there too many banners, buttons and graphics that confuse them? Is the text on the site clear and easy to understand? Is it confusing on directions about information on ordering? Consider having others evaluate the site to give an honest opinion on site layout.

Next, consider if your site leaves the customer with a feeling of confidence in your product and service. If the writing is timid, sparse or overtly braggadocio, it is more than likely, your customer will click away without so much as a thought of returning. Take some stock of others review of your site, and work to improve on the writing. Remember though you will not be able to please everyone. Keep tweaking it until it is in line with the image you want to portray and the product it represents.

The third step is looking at the content of information on the site. Is the information relative to what you are selling? Is it up-to-date and does it helps the customer decide what they want to buy? Do you offer other content that will give your customer a sense that you care more about them than your wallet, such as information on a subject they might be interested in? This is where your market research will come in handy. A person that is in the age bracket of 30 &ndash 35 will be much more interested in a retirement fund than a 20 &ndash 25 year old. It is, of course, not a standard to cling to, but it is a market idea theory that you will need to tweak and refine for your site.

Does your site generate interaction with your customers? Do you provide easy ways for them to tell you about themselves like providing surveys about other interests and hobbies? Are there fun things to do on your site? Kids are not the only ones that will enjoy entertainment. Do you have jokes of the day, puzzles or a pleasant inspiring story to read? Communicating with your customer is a nice way to get them to come back and visit too. That is a real shot of personalization that will set your site apart from the others.

Finally, consider the whole package. Does the whole website design entice them, make them want to come back and visit because it was a very user-friendly experience? Without trust and pleasant user experience, most customers will not return. Trust is a key value to happy customers and returning customers too.

It does seem like a lot of work to get your website up and running. The Internet is an impersonal arena with many busy people with limited time. To break through that barrier and capture their attention takes a lot of hard work and dedication on your part. As time goes by though you will be able to capture a loyal customer base that will want to return and buy again. It will not be because of tricks or just slick words. It will be because you care about your customer, and are determined to give them the very best website you can. You will love it when it happens.

Choosing the right keywords can really increase your website traffic by increasing your search engine ranking and by encouraging visitors to stay on your site and return to your site. Choosing the wrong keywords, though, can be disastrous. There are five simple ways to choose your keywords wisely and improve your web traffic.

The first, and perhaps the easiest, way to choose the right keywords for your website is to brainstorm ideas with regard to your individual goods and services. Sometimes simply the name of your goods or services will work as an excellent keyword. For example, if you offer writing services, consider “technical writing” as you keyword. Creating a page around “writing” may not get you the customers you deserve. Think specifically about what you offer and create a page to advertise it. Within this, though, you must remember to stay away from general keywords. The competition for these keywords is rather stiff.

Thousands of sites are optimized for words like “computers,” and doing the same thing with yours can simply make it redundant and hard for customers to find. Moreover, customers are more search savvy than you are giving them credit for. If a customer wants to find information on something specific, he or she will search for something specific. For example, they may want to know about flea treatments for their cat, but instead of searching for “fleas” or “cat,” they may search for something more specific like a product name or type of treatment. If you feel you must use a general keyword, try taking a keyword and adding a more specific term to it. For example, if your key word is “cat,” try adding more specific terms like “behavior” or “specialist” to that for site optimization. With these general terms, you might also consider adding regional terms. If you service a particular area of the country, you may have some regional terminology that will help customers find you. Names of nearby cities or towns can help as can terms that your customers know and respect. For example, if you run a sandwich shop in New Orleans, you might want to optimize for the term “muffuletta.”

The second way to choose the right keywords for your website is to use a service like Google Keyword Sandbox or Overture Term Suggestion Tool. This way to choose your keywords can be a bit time consuming, but in the end, it is certainly worth it. Start with either service, and you’ll end up with a huge list of possibilities. Once you’ve finished with that service, pick another and try running the same search. See what keywords you have in common with the two lists.

The third way to choose the right keywords for your website is to check your server log files. When someone visits your site from a search engine, the words they used to find your site are recorded in your server log files. Analyzing the actual files, though, can take some work. You can use various methods to examine those files depending on your server operating system. It can sometimes be best to use a software program to extract the information if you are not technically inclined.

The fourth way to choose the right keywords for your website is to use a keyword counter service. These analyze your web page and compare them with other, similar web sites. They offer you a density percentage report and the top words for the two pages based on their analysis. Keyword counter services are available all over the internet in both free and costly forms. Choosing the right service for you will simply be a matter of reading the reviews.

The final way to choose the right keywords for your website is to review sites that have both similar missions and products with regard to yours. It is important to notice sites that have rankings within the top ten on any given search engine. The point here isn’t to copy the site; it is to figure out which keywords they are using to draw in potential customers.

Choosing the right keywords can be both a difficult and a long process. However, if you pick the right terms, you won’t regret it based on your increased web traffic.

Building an online business is not easy, especially

when you are on a very limited budget. As I come

in contact with more people, I realize that numerous

publishers and netpreneurs are overlooking some very

effective free advertising opportunities.

Examples of these opportunities are:

1. Welcome letter for your subscribers – I subscribe to

tons of groups and ezines and am always disappointed

when I get the default welcome letter. Personalize it

by introducing yourself and letting the subscriber know

about your website/business. This is a crucial moment

in that you can start bonding/connecting with the reader

before they even get your ezine.

*Inform them of any specials you might have.

*Tell them your advertising rates and add a testimonial.

*Invite them to your site to utilize the free resources.

*Let them know your email so they can contact you.

*Use some of the space for ad swapping with other

publishers and their welcome letters.

*Add an affiliate product or program review.

2. Goodbye letter for your subscribers – This is your

last chance to get this person back. Make it a good

one!

Thank them for being a subscriber and encourage them

to re-sub. I also have a little message in my goodbye

letter that encourages people to let me know why they

unsubbed.

Example:

Thank you for being a subscriber to the Bulletin.

I am sorry to see you go. If you could take a minute

to let me know why you unsubbed, I would appreciate it.

Please drop a quick note to (put email here)

Thank you.

By doing this you might be able to change their minds

and if not, you could find ways to improve your ezine

for the next subscriber. Remember, always send them

an appreciative thank you note as well.

3. Email Signature – This simple but powerful method

of promotion is unknown to some. By using an effective

email signature, every time your email goes out to

someone, you have free advertising. Join several

discussion groups and message boards to utilize your

sigtag to the maximum.

Example of a email signature:

Warm regards,

Jane Doser

FREE Ecourses – Sign-up for one or all!

(Put link here.)

Build Your Business with Us!

(Put subscribe email here.)

You want to keep your signature fairly short – about

6 – 8 lines. Many discussion groups will have a limit

to the number of lines you can have in your sigtag.

4. P.S. – It has been found that a P.S. is very likely

to get read. Using a P.S. can be quite effective.

Make it short and to the point. A P.S. novel will more

than likely be ignored!

Example:

P.S. Need more subscribers? FR~E Report

(put email or link here)

Then you would have your main message on auto-

responder. Do not just send them a sales pitch. Add

some useful information and resources that will

actually help the reader. This will get you more

credibility, which is extremely important if you want

more customers.

5. Thank you page – An excellent way to get more

subscribers is to get together with a group of fellow

publishers and set up a group subscription page.

Every time someone subscribes to one of the group’s

ezine, the thank you page will come up with a message

something like this:

Thank you for subscribing to the Bulletin. Take this

opportunity to check out more quality ezines. Please

check the ones you wish to receive.

You would have each groups member’s ezine listed with

a short description. This is a very powerful method of

gaining subscribers because the person is already in

a subscribing mood and will most likely check most or

all of the other ezines.

The above advertising opportunities are quite simple,

but simple can be most effective!

My first entrepreneurial venture was with a very famous network marketing company a friend of mine recruited me to. I remember well he and his wife coming to our house that evening to tell us about this great mlm business that was going to make us millionaires before we turned 30. Going by the way he had been trained by his upline he spent most of that first meeting talking about our why. We looked at pictures of yachts and mansions, talked about how fun it would be to drive a Lamborgini, and fantasized about being multi-millionaires. Even after we signed up and began doing what he was doing, our upline dutifully kept the “dream” in front of us. Just think, if we recruit 97 people I could buy that super-duper speedboat that I had always dreamed about.

I eventually quit the company after spending a bunch of money I didn’t have on motivational material I didn’t need and products no one else wanted. And I wondered why I had failed! I couldn’t blame the company because other people were getting rich selling their products. I couldn’t blame my upline because they hounded me every day to work the business. So I blame the dream!

You see, I was working to have that mansion and speedboat when I didn’t really want a mansion or a speedboat. Sure, it would be nice to take a Hawaiian vacation every other week, but at that point in my life I was just wanting to be able to afford health insurance. My dream was not a Lamborgini; my dream was to pay off the Ford I was already driving. There is nothing wrong with having a multi-millionaire dream, but if that is not your dream it won’t motivate you to do whatever it takes to be successful. My upline was keeping the dream in front of me, but it wasn’t my dream.

I had to find out what motivated me. What would make me get out of my comfort zone, ignore the skepticism of family and friends, and persevere until I became successful? For me, it was to get out of debt, be able to afford braces for my kids, have health insurance, have funds set aside for college, and to be able to pay every bill the day it came in. Not millionaire stuff, but it was my dream. I despise debt and will do anything to get rid of it. I like speedboats but won’t do anything to have one. And when I discovered that I hate debt more than I like speedboats, I found my dream.

We all know that you must define your why, but it must be your why. I would do absolutely anything in my power to ensure the health of my children. I would give my blood, donate any organ, and even give my very life for them. But I don’t know that I would do it all for your children. My children mean more to me than any other children in the world and I would do for them what I would not do for any others. So it is with your dream! My dream won’t motivate you. But your dream will drive you to the ends of the earth.

Discover your dream and you have taken the fist step in becoming successful. You can do anything you want … if you want to bad enough.

There are hundreds of ways that you can promote your online business or website, some more effective than others. These five proven methods will help you to generate traffic to your site and also to generate income into your wallet.

1. One thing that appeals to everyone is “free.” If it is free people will take it. Think of the samples of cheese given away at grocery stores. Do you really

want a small piece of cheese? Of course not! But you take it simply because it is free and someone is nice enough to offer it to you. The same principle applies

with information or services offered from your website. You can send out free newsletters or offer a free trail period. One popular thing that is being given away now are free credit reports or free PC scans. These freebies are what we in the marketing field like to call teasers. After running the free credit report or PC scan we alert the customer if there is something found on their credit record or PC and then offer to show them what it is or repair the problem for a price. This can be an effective way to get information to your potential customers, create sales or to generate traffic to your site.

2. Your website contains information about a service or product that you are very knowledgeable about. You can use this knowledge to generate traffic to your site by writing articles in your area of expertise and having them published in an ezine or an article information site. The most effective way to use these

articles is to write them for free and ask in return that the publisher allow you to include a byline. A byline is a very short summary of the author, their credentials and their website. Your byline is a way that readers will come to know you as an expert on the topic and will in turn come to trust your site as a

source of credible information.

3. Some search engines will allow a website to purchase their ranking. This is an excellent Internet marketing technique in that it is effective and inexpensive. In the pay-per-click programs, website are only billed for those who actually visit the page, unlike banner ads which may be seen by millions but only used by a few. When using the pay-per-click program you are asked to choose keywords and when those are entered your site will appear and if the surfer chooses to view your site, you are billed for that click. Many pay-per-click programs will offer other benefits as well, such as updated lists of commonly used keywords.

4. You should remember that others are in the same boat as you. You can choose to network with those who have similar marketing ideas. When networking you will be able to share links and refer customers to each other. You should always be very cautious when choosing a networking partner as everything that you recommend is a reflection of yourself or your product

and therefore, you should be certain that your networking partner is a reputable source of

information.

5. Simply because your website is online, doesn’t mean that all your advertising should be. Advertise in newspapers, TV, the radio or you can even send out a press release to get your information to thousands of people all over the country.

Are you dying to work from home? If so, you are definitely not alone. Working at work at home can often seem like the perfect working situation, especially if you are a mother, or simply need or love the freedom of setting your own schedule. Working at home can do much more than that. Working at work from home can actually turn into the realization of your dreams into a working experience. Sorting out a perfect home business opportunity on line often means integrating your own special skill sets and interests, and somehow fashioning them so that they can allow you the benefit of working from work from home.

Narrowing down your home business enterprise options

If you are searching for the home business opportunity on line that can allow you to work from home, here are some things to keep in mind. First, you want keep an open mind. Many people assumed that they would be able to make a living from their favorite hobbies. Although this is certainly an perfect to strive for, in many cases you have to make sacrifices and compromises. For instance, if you have a creative guy and a love to make arts and crafts, you will toughly desire to appear for a home business enterprise on line that allows you to work your passion and to our strengths. However, sometimes you will not be able to create exactly what you want to make it your spare time. Often you will have to follow the specifications of a client, or simply follow the prevailing tastes, even if they do not happen to be your own.

Consider sales when seeking a home business opportunity online

Even if you have never considered yourself a salesperson, you’ll locate that there are many jobs on line that have to do with sales. When you are looking for a home business enterprise on the internet, keep in mind that you are more likely to do into plans in sales. Do not discount these right away, even if your larger goal or dream does not happen to live in the sales field. Any sort of experience you can get with a home business opportunity on the internet can be very helpful in your future home business ventures. Your goal should be to try to work in a field that is related to your future goal. For instance, if you are interested in launching your own cooking money making business, you may desire to get started with by gaining a few experience in food sales.

Avoiding the scams associated with home business jobs Unfortunately, we have all probably heard of scams associated with many home business enterprises. The Internet has drawn those who would prey on others. Avoid marketing ventures that rely heavily on enrolling other sales personnel. You should also avoid business ventures that require you to adopt aggressive sales tactics. Of course, avoid home business opportunities that require you to pay money upfront for sales kits or other such materials.

There’s dozen of ways to earning money online but for beginners who want to learn how to make money online is difficult. Beginner tents to have overloading of information which makes them do everything at one time. Due to beginner starting passion.

It is good to learn a lot of ways to make money, but you will be spending months or even a year time to master everything. You will be spending months to years to learn? What’s that for? You will be loosing out a lot of stuff.. Doing an Online Business need a lot of time and patience. I rather you spend months to create your own business straight away then wasting your time learning now. All you need is to focus on one thing and start up, once you got your first step done, everything else will be very easy. I always advise my students to Focus on one thing at a time. And Earn As You Learn.

In order to make your First $1000 online, you need to choose just one money making business model and stick of it. Always learn how to walk first then running straight away. Once you master the business model, then you can pick up other form of business model and added on different tactics.

Always remember the big picture is that opportunities are out there, and you can succeed. If you have the discipline to Focus on one thing at a time.

Affiliate Marketing is the best start up model for beginners:

-Don’t need to create a product. (Creating a product need alot of time)

-Investment low. (Less than $20 a month to maintain it)

-Start up fast. ( Less than a day, you can get your affiliate website launched)

At first your when you just started up your affiliate business, for the first month, you wont really see any sales or opt-in but on the second month, you see the “Snow-Ball Effect”. The longer you’re in the business, the stronger your business get.

In order to locate products that sell online, we need to understand what people already want to buy. Finding a good choice of idea or product is always accompanied by interfacing the demand for the product in the current market and the level of competition or market share that the product will be having in the long run.

“What should I sell? What products are hot selling? These are the questions most people are trying to find an answer in order for them to make the definite decision. And if we really want to know the answer to this question, our only choice is to do some research. There are all kinds of twists along the road that may lead you to think you have a high-demand idea. We must be able to understand and satisfy the need, wants and expectations of our customers on a certain product that they’re trying to buy. This three are called the basic needs or minimum requirements in a purchase. Needs are the basic reasons or the minimum requirements consumers are looking for in a product or service. They are called the qualifying or “gatekeeper” dimensions in a purchase. Wants are the determining dimensions among many choices. Expectations, on the other hand, are values or intangibles associated with a product or service. Expectations are actually part of “wants” but they become extremely important when products or services are not differentiated.

For example, in reading a logic book, university students look for the following: Relevant logic concepts use of simple language, easy to understand and affordable prices. These similar ideas can be applied to Internet Sales as well. After all, the Internet is just another place to sell products. The basic concept of demand is the same there as it is anywhere else, and has been all the time.

Now, the second thing that must be considered in finding “hot” products to sell are the level of competition or the market shares do your product will have. Market share or level of competition means the ratio of your brand sales versus the total market sales. While companies would naturally define its target competitors, it is actually the consumers who ultimately decide the competitive frame, or the list related products or services that consumers consider when exercising their purchasing power. We must therefore choose the market segment where we can have a potential leadership or at least a strong challenger role. Because the overriding objective of getting into this business is not just to satisfy the needs and wants of our customers but to do so profitably better than his competition. Otherwise, our competition will end up satisfying the customers better than our own interest.

Third factor to be considered in finding hot selling products is finding out the general interest level about the product. General interest in a product helps us to gauge where our demand and competition numbers fall into the big picture. Simply saying, if there isn’t much demand for the product, and there isn’t much competition, it would seem that it might not be good a good put up for sale. But the research doesn’t stop here; there is one last thing to be considered to exactly find the hot selling products that you’ve been looking for. We must also learn how others are advertising those products. If there are a good number of them doing so, it may mean that it’s a good product to get into. Coming to the last phase of the process is analyzing and evaluating all the information that has been collected. We have to look at all of the data we have collected on demand, competition, and advertising, and make decision as how they all balance out.

And here are several factors or aspects that must be measured: (a) not enough demand means not enough people are going to buy (b) too much competition means not enough of a profit to go around (c) too much advertising drives up the price of pay per click ads, and competition as well (d) not enough general interest, combined with low demand, means there may not be a good market even if there is competition trying to make the sales.

If you haven’t heard the word ‘niche’ being batted around by Internet Marketers then you haven’t been listening. Finding a niche has become the antidote to competing in overly saturated online markets.

What is a niche?

According to Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary a niche is described as “a place, employment, status, or activity for which a person or thing is best fitted… a specialized market”.

Have you noticed that despite the closing of many businesses in these harsh economic times, the local hobby train store is still around? That the ‘hole-in-the-wall’ eatery is thriving? Or that trends such as scrapbooking can start with a bang and still close within a year when four similar businesses start up in the same area?

The online business world reflects the same trends as experienced in the offline world – often with faster turnover and startup rates. Those who promote a product or site that targets a small, select audience can tap into a market that is otherwise not being served. Despite the limitations of the client base, the targeted nature of the business creates a devoted and active market – the aim of any business.

HOW DO I FIND A NICHE?

Finding a niche requires diligent research. Whether you have access to software that harvests and sorts information or you take a manual approach you must first start with ideas.

With a pen and paper (or computer, if that’s more comfortable) brainstorm a list of businesses, products and industries. Create a list of keywords and phrases you think would be used by individuals looking for these items online.

Use a software program such as Wordtracker or a free resource such as the Overture Keyword Selector Tool to find keywords for your niche that have a high amount of traffic.

Although a program like Wordtracker makes it easy to find details such as how many sites compete for that market, you can also do your own research.

Concentrate your attention on question phrases such as “how do I…” or “where can I…”. These questions will clue you into potential markets that need servicing.

Next, look in Google Answers. Type one of your keywords into the search area. What questions are being asked and how much are people willing to pay for answers? If you find a group of keywords with a high number of questions then enter these words in your browser’s search engine.

What sites come up? Do they provide answers or solutions to the problem? How are they making money? Can you see an opportunity to service these individuals?

Finding a niche can open the door to a profitable online business. Research the market and be certain that your product or service is valuable to this group. Find forums or groups that target this audience and pay close attention to their concerns.

If you can help these people you WILL make money. The best of both worlds!

We all want a piece of the pie. Why not, it’s large enough to spare a chunk to you right? There’s nothing wrong with wanting more than just a piece, You’re an entrepreneur, you want a LARGE piece.

I want to show you how, by simply adding a few testimonials here and there , you can dramatically increase your chances of making more sales online and offline.

We all want to believe that you have the best “gidget & widget” out there. We want to believe it because you said so. But, the harsh reality is, is that we simply can’t just take your word for it.

For instance, just for an example, let’s use “Company Logo Design”. Here is the difference between facts tell and stories sell.

Ex #1 (Facts Only)

—————————————————————————————–

Company Logo Design – You will get

- 5 concepts to choose from

- Unlimited Revisions to 1 concept

- CD Included (All images print ready)

- Satisfaction Guaranteed!

- All of this for $199.00 CLICK HERE

—————————————————————————————–

Sounds like a good service for the buck no? Not bad. Now let’s see the power of adding a story to these facts.

Ex #2 (Story + Facts)

—————————————————————————————–

“PERFECT, that’s the only word I can use when describing this companies logo design service. They not only saved me a lot of time but they also spent most of their time finding out what I wanted. In the end, they provided EXACTLY the type of logo I was looking for, thank you so much!!!!”

We are here to help you succeed and want to deliver something you’re looking for, not only what our designers want to create. Get a logo you are looking for with these extra features attached:

- 5 Concepts to choose from

- Unlimited Revisions to 1 concept

- CD Included

- YOUR SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!

Click Here to order now!

———————————————————————————————-

Do you see the difference in the two???? In the example #1, I added all the features plus the price. In the 2nd example, I DIDN’T even add the price. Even without the price, example #2 will bring in more sales than the example #1 ever will.

It’s all about “Fear Of Loss”.

Fear of loss is a powerful tool to use. Don’t tell people what they need. Have them fear the fact that if they don’t have it, nothing will work out for them. A good industry to follow is in “Make-up” companies & Beauty Products. This industry has used “fear of loss” to it’s fullest. They consistently insert into young female minds that, if they don’t use their products, they will never be as beautiful as they hope to be.

Like I mentioned before, we all want to believe that you have the best product out there, by simply inserting a testimonial, this will ultimately help your visitors to further believe that you do.

When promoting online, here’s another given you should always consider:

People are simply sitting at a computer desk browsing through the internet. There’s no personal touch to searching for services, in your visitors mind, it’s only duty should be strictly informational. Testimonials and utilizing that fear of loss helps you to create a sub-conscious emotion that triggers an attachment to your companies services. If you’ve accomplished this correctly, your visitor could go looking at another company for the same services but, they will likely have problems concentrating on anything else.

Around 8/10 people go with a company from a gut feeling, not facts. This is a very high number to loose by simply failing to appeal to feelings instead of just facts.

I’ll put it to you another way. When you look at a web design company. They may have the best price out there but, your main concern is to view their work. To see their portfolio in action. Adding testimonials to each web site in their portfolio would be a powerful venture for any web design company. Why do we always want to see their work? Fear of loss.

What would you feel like if you saw a portfolio that was full of sensory rich web sites that not only looked great but also functioned perfectly? Would you feel excited to talk to these people at that affordable price? I know I would. On the other hand, yeah the price is right but the quality is poor. Most of us will simply move onto the next web design company.

The more you can grab some ones attention and keep them interested online, the more they will learn to like you, trust you, and call you for your services, no matter the price.

In Conclusion:

Spice up your piece of the pie by spicing up some stories and grabbing peoples attention through fear of loss & success stories.

Hope this article helps you out!

Read more of Martins articles online here:

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