My Buy Essay

Since the product is so sound, it has withstood assaults by the scammers and marginal developers. It has reached maturity to the point that the major timeshare players from here on will be the Hiltons, Marriotts, Hyatts, etc. Timesharing works! Most people who own them love them. Not everyone, however, can keep them forever.

While the developers were pumping out virtually millions of new timeshares, no attention was paid to what happens when someone wants to or must resell them. Just now a method of resales is beginning to happen. Unfortunately it is way overdue. Prices fall in a market vacuum and when there was no system, people would try to sell their timeshares, fail, drop the price and fail again. What would stocks and bonds be worth if there were no New York Stock Exchange? The result was such that the pricing of timeshare resales fell to ridiculously low levels. Most resales now are priced at about a quarter of replacement value (75% off). Let’s face it. Timeshare resales represent one of the greatest consumer values anywhere today.

Does that mean that the public paid too much for the timeshares they bought from the developers? Not really. In my many years in the business there have been very few timeshare developers who really made a lot of money. Anyone developing a new project today must price it way up there just to recover his or her investment and hopefully make a reasonable profit. For one thing the cost of selling new product is very high. Remember all those free gifts you got when you went to the timeshare presentation? Guess what? They weren’t free. The cost was in the price. About half the price of new product went to sales and marketing costs. The second major factor was financing. The people who made the real money in timesharing were the lenders. The hotel chains do not have such high marketing costs due to economies of scale. Further, they in most cases do their own financing. If you have priced such product, you will find that it still goes for two to three times that of resales.

Unfortunately, some of the left over scammers from the original business saw another great opportunity, that of preying on the timeshare owners who needed to sell. The system was simple. They would call the owners of timeshares and say that they had their timeshares sold for a lot of money and would consummate the transaction as soon as they had received $350 or $500 or $3,000 up front. Needless to say, as soon as they had enough money, they would close down and move on to the next county where they would start the process over. They were hard to catch although some progress has been made recently and some of them (way too few) are now in prison. The simple solution for you to this problem is to just not pay front sales fees. You will be right most all of the time. The payment of nominal advertising fees is of course legitimate. Just as you would place an ad in the newspaper (doesn’t work for timeshare resales), some specialty advertising is necessary if you want to attempt to sell the timeshare yourself. Once you are over $100 for such services you are probably paying too much. As an example, one legitimate resale broker holds auctions. He charges up front for the auction hall and advertising because the auctioneer charges him those same fees.

People such as us saw a need to provide a legitimate method of resales. This timeshare sub-industry is just now in its infancy. So what will happen next? We have already seen it. As the resale industry becomes more efficient, it will exert more and more upward price pressure and the prices will go up! We have seen a major impact in the resorts in which we are involved. Most of the really low priced timeshares have already resold. It’s like harvesting apples. You shake the tree and pick up the apples. The next time you have to shake the tree harder. As the prices go up, two things will happen. The sellers will not have to take such a big loss and the buyers will not get such good deals. It seems that the public is starting to understand this. We have seen a great upsurge in the business in just the last few months.

As we tell potential sellers, as long as you are using the timeshare, renting it or otherwise achieving value out of it, there is no real downside to hanging on to it until the prices rise. On the other hand, if you are getting no use out of it, it’s like the retail business where the first markdown is the least costly. Whereas the price will go up, it’s highly unlikely it will go up faster than the buildup of homeowner’s dues and taxes. As a result, it’s better to just take your lumps and sell it as soon as you can.

On the other hand, if you are a potential buyer, don’t wait around! You can either obtain a timeshare now at these ridiculously low prices or you can wait and pay more later for the same thing. Your call.

Keyword tracking allows a site owner to know what keyword searches are resulting in sales. Search term information can be logged into a database and presented to web site owners in a meaningful format. This data can be used to see which keywords are producing the most sales per search and to determine where to focus web marketing.

What Search Engine or Web Site

Knowing what search engine a sale has originated from allows site owners and marketers to know where their efforts are paying off the most. Good tracking and analysis software will also show what web site referred visitors. Knowing what sites are sending the most visitors allows site owners to give special attention to ensuring this traffic continues and increases. Knowing what referrers are generating the most sales further allows a site owner to hone his or her marketing efforts toward site referrals that result in the most sales.

What Keyword Was Searched For

Knowing what keyword searches are resulting in sales on a site allows the owner to focus more on those words. Perhaps you are marketing your site for two main keywords, “air hook widgets” and “air hooks.” Using keyword tracking that traces keywords down to the sale ensures that you will know if searches for “air hook widgets” convert into sales more often than visits resulting from searches for “air hooks.”

Sales Conversion Ratio of Keywords and Return on Investment

Tracking keyword searches through to sales allows site owners to determine the return on investment. If a web master spends $100.00 on the pay-per-click keyword “air hook widgets” and sells $1000 worth of product, his or her return on investment is likely very good. If the same web site owner spends $100.00 on the keyword “air hooks” and sells $200 worth of product, it is likely that the return on investment was not as great. Of course, if the markup or profit on one product is greater than on another, this must be taken into account.

Cost of Keyword

If a web marketer is using pay-per-click engines, knowing exactly what has been spent on a keyword, and what the return was, allows money to be put where it will do the most. Keyword searches, unlike many advertising mediums, are targeted by the viewer. For this reason, in addition to the accurate return on investment feedback, keyword marketing can be very worth the cost.

Added Benefit of Branding

Marketing your site by keyword in pay-per-click engines means that you will only be charged if a person clicks through your ad to your site. Pay-per-click ads and organic search listings have the often overlooked added value of showing the ad or listing many times over in addition to the clicks the ad or listing receives. Only a small percentage of people are likely to click on a keyword ad or search result listing, yet your ad or listing will be visible time and time again to people searching for terms you have bid on or marketed, increasing your site branding. Nonetheless, care should be taken to generate a compelling key word ad or page description, since in most cases you will want to receive as many clicks as possible.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you are spending money on search engine marketing, it is often well worth the effort to track your keywords through to sales. Without tracking your keywords, you will not know where your efforts are paying off. By tracking your keywords, you are able to put your efforts where they are paying off the most.

Cruising along 6-lane expressway that skirts east of Kolkata, the city I grew up in, my mind wandered off to my childhood days. Kolkata was then a pleasant place, not overtly intolerant or arrogant. Life was easy, schools nearby, offices not afar, amenities close at hand. Yet, on occasions when we were to visit relatives outside city’s periphery, plans had to be readied in advance. Road connection beyond city was poor, and so moving about longer distance was cumbersome.

Today, many roads have cropped up, many are in making. Places that seemed inaccessible even a few years back, can now be reached without much of a fuss. If this is called rapid urbanization, I feel it has a parallel in the way Google has transformed AdWords. Just as I hardly thought swanky roads would ever come up in so large numbers in my city, it was similarly difficult imagining AdWords would one day be what it is today.

What it is that makes AdWords so dear? I’m not too frequent an advertiser, so I wouldn’t be commenting on campaigns, adgroups and suchlike. Instead, I’ll tell you how the keyword tool of AdWords will make you forget you ever used anything else.

How it started

For long an open secret, but barely touched upon till recent past is that keywords used by surfers have demographic variance to a largish extent. What this means is except for some obvious terms, surfers from different locales of the globe will most likely type in different search terms to look for information on the web. Even in big countries like US or India, search terms used by surfers vary from place to place. Search engines knew this for long, but it took them awhile to chalk out suitable products tailored to be effective in serving aggregate needs on the net.

Talking about Google, products like local search or, for that matter, the advantage of geo-targeting in AdWords campaign are all part of strategy accrued from search behavior pattern, accumulated and studied for nearly a decade.

What are ways to get you the most promising keywords? I’ll attempt answering this formidable question in 2 parts. In this part, we’ll discuss how AdWords’ keyword tool can help you get going. In the next part, we’ll compare AdWords’ keyword tool with some of the best out there. On to AdWords now.

AdWords opens up

Admittedly, AdWords is meant to maximize revenues to Google. What pleases the most is Google’s fatherly approach to ensure that AdWords maximizes returns to advertisers too. And how? Look at how easily you can fetch your choicest keywords from Google’s vast repertoire.

Start at AdWords Keyword Tool and after selecting the country and language you’d like to target (English and United States by default), slip below and select one of the 2 tabs, namely Keyword Variations and Site-Related Keywords. Now on, let’s go step by step to unravel a real wonder that the tool is.

Keyword Variations

If you select this tab (by default selected), just type in some keywords in the box, one in each line (pressing ‘Enter’ after each keyword to go to next line). If you want similarly meant keywords, do not forget to select ‘Use synonyms’. A good idea that, since it broadens your keyword search. For example, I found ‘top 10 ranking’, a very popular key-phrase, as a synonym for ‘top ranking’, which would have otherwise remained unknown to me. Another point stressed upon frequently by veterans is that it is better to begin your keyword search with general terms. As you progressively narrow down your keyword selection, you’re more likely to discover promising phrases along the way.

So you have a long list of keywords presented by Google based upon your few initial keywords. Watch closely, you’ll find Google saying that it’s a list sorted by relevance. What’s that? It’s Google’s way of gently prodding you to begin an AdWords campaign, for the keywords that appear at the top are the most relevant ones, should you consider ad campaign with them.

What would you do now? Well, you may start adding them as necessary, search for more related keywords (link at the bottom of the list), or even download them in your chosen format. But wait before you do anything of these. Look around and see how Google helps you with excellent tools to further fine-tune your list of keywords.

Refining your keywords

Move to ‘Show columns’ and in the accompanying drop-down list, you get to select eye-popping options. Wow! What a help! Choose the first option, ‘Keyword popularity’ and you’ll simultaneously see 2 adjacent columns of data. Click a column heading, the list re-arranges in decreasing importance. In the column ‘Advertiser Competition’, the list shows which of your keywords are hotly sought after. Similarly, the column ‘Search Volume’ gives you a measure of popularity of respective keywords. Still want more specific info’? The generous Google is there for that. How? Amble to far right of the columns and alongside ‘Match Type’, select ‘Broad’, ‘Phrase’ or ‘Exact’ and watch how the scenario changes. What are broad match, phrase match and exact match? Help is just there (a question mark). Click on it to know more.

We’ll now move on to third option in ‘Show columns’, which is ‘Global search volume trends’. This is a recent addition. When you select this, you’ll get to see an amazing display of how keyword popularity changes globally (not only US) through the year in the form of bar-charts. Once again, hook on to ‘Match Type’ (spoken above) and refine your search further.

Start an AdWord campaign?

If you do not contemplate starting an AdWord campaign, you may skip the other 2 ‘Show columns’ options. In case you do plan one, first select ‘Cost and ad position estimates’ and in the ensuing page, choose your currency and mention your maximum CPC. This is the maximum cost you agree to bear each time your ad is clicked on when displayed for your chosen search terms (note this is different from another oft-used term, CTR, the click-through-rate). As you finally hit ‘Recalculate’, your list will turn up myriad combinations of ad position and average CPC for your keywords. If your max CPC is too low, you may not see any value for average CPC.

The remaining ‘Show columns’ option is ‘Possible negative keywords’. This is a tool that assists your keywords to maintain a sharp focus in an ad campaign. Depending on campaign strategy, one has to decide whether or not to include negative keywords. To give an example, for my web marketing website, if my keyword ‘top ranking’ fetches other probables like ‘top 10 ranking’, ‘uptown top ranking’, ‘top ranking universities’ and so on, I might decide to include ‘uptown’ and ‘universities’ as negative keywords, but certainly leaving out the term ‘10’. This would mean that if I select ‘top ranking’ as broad match or phrase match, my ad will not show up for search terms that included negative words ‘uptown’ and ‘universities’. More often than not, expert campaigners will choose one-word broad match and then work on a long list of negative words to disallow unwanted ad impressions.

Site-Related Keywords

Till now, we’ve spoken about keywords you chose and ways of refining them. Suppose you are eager to know what keywords your competition is using! Well, why not? If indeed so, AdWords Keyword Tool comes to your assistance. To start, click the other tab ‘Site-Related Keywords’, enter the URL of your competition in the search box and hit ‘Get keywords’. Don’t forget to check ‘Include other pages on my site linked from this URL’. As you set Google to work, it dutifully comes up with a list of keywords, grouped by common terms with number of occurrences in the entire website within parentheses for each group.

Grouping keywords by common terms is a great help as you’ll find, and each group lists related keywords as in earlier case. If you uncheck grouping option, Google will fetch you a scrolling list of keywords, which may often be uncomfortably huge if you happen to spy on a giant competition. Once there, similar to Keyword Variations, here too you can start working on your keywords with abundance of tools at your command.

AdWords, a facilitator

Keyword Tool is great because it is very easy to use. No doubt Google intends it that way so as to make AdWords less and less daunting for potential ad-campaigners who are afraid to cross threshold for the fear of making unknown mistakes. Let’s remember, businessmen incline to take risks on known parameters, and not something that is difficult to comprehend. To that extent, the newly-designed keyword tool is a good facilitator.

In the next part, we’ll look at how AdWords’ keyword tool fares with other keyword finders.

Ah, keyword research: the foundation of every successful website out there.

Wow, that’s a strong statement, isn’t it?

Well, it’s true. For those of you who put little to no thought into, OR who don’t understand the high significance of keywords, the keyword research you do before getting one single web page up will have a tremendous impact on how well you market to your target audience.

No pressure.

So, why is this keyword research so darned important, you ask?

Let’s say you and I are standing behind a curtain. You are probably the most revered speaker in your area of expertise. I pull back the curtain and motion for you to go up to the podium and speak in front of an audience of about 200.

No problem. You pull some notes out of your pocket, confidently place your hands on the mic and speak ever so compellingly for about 35 minutes.

After you are finished, the crowd claps nicely…almost out of obligation. You don’t understand. It was actually one of your best presentations yet! You were compelling, but not too sales-y. You presented the problems, outlined the solutions available, and then unveiled your perfect product to fit the bill.

So, what happened?

This audience wasn’t waiting for you…they were actually waiting on someone else who was going to talk about a totally different subject. They don’t even know what you were talking about.

So…..this wasn’t YOUR audience. This was not your target market.

You had everything prepared…you had everything all perfectly laid out to be a “slippery slope” that led right to the obvious solution…your product. But….you were talking to the wrong people.

How does this relate to keyword research?

The visitors you get to your site are a direct relation to what keywords your site is known for. If you are telling the search engines that your site is known for “niche widget solution” or using other keywords such as your name, the name of your business…..that’s not the stuff your market is out looking for.

The keyword research you need to do is to determine what phrases people are searching for that have the problem for your solution. They are searching for “perfect posture” or “correct golf swing” not “Xtreme Putter.” They don’t even know your Xtreme Putter even exists!

And, unless you do effective keyword research, they never will.

So, how do you do the right kind of keyword research? Put yourself in their shoes. If you were someone out there with the problem your product solves, what would you be searching for?

“How to train my dog”

“Popular 30 something hangouts in L.A.”

“Seattle modern art”

“Ping golf clubs”

These are the things prospective buyers are searching for….you just need to have the right keywords as bait to catch them before they go surfing by.

So, take a little time, spend a day being a customer searching for a solution. You’d be surprised at how easy it is to do keyword research when you come at it from this angle. And you’ll be much more effective this way as well!

In this article, we are going to discuss a major problems involving keyword selection for existing businesses. It is a simple mistake, but one most people do not think about.

Keyword Perspective &ndash Avoid This Mistake At All Cost

The two prime Internet marketing platforms are pay-per-click advertising and search engine optimization. The issue we are going to discuss today applies equally to either of these platforms as well as any other internet advertising you undertake.

The biggest mistake most businesses make with marketing is keyword perspective. Keyword perspective refers to the point of view one has when developing keywords for any type of Internet marketing. There are primarily two perspectives, but each only works with one audience. If you get them crossed up, you are in for a nightmare.

The industry perspective is usually the area where I see the biggest problems. Industry perspective refers to using industry terminology to develop keywords instead of using terms your prospects actually use. For example, a mortgage professional might view HELOC [home equity line of credit] as a keyword. Most prospects, however, are not going to search for this acronym. Instead, they will search for home equity line of credit or simply line of credit. When you are marketing to the general public, do not use industry terms. Instead, use the terms your prospects apply to your services or products.

The opposite of the industry perspective is found in the business-to- business field. If you are providing services or products to businesses, than you may very well want to use industry terms! If you sell medical equipment to hospitals, your prospects are going to be both sophisticated and using technical terms in their searches. They will search for medial collateral ligament isolation braces instead of knee brace. In the business-to-business scenario, use of laymen’s terms for keywords my kill your marketing plan before it gets off the ground.

Whatever your business, picking keywords is all about knowing your audience. Focus on terms your prospects actually use and you will have a good starting point for your marketing plan.

Whenever you are starting up a business, you are not going to have a lot of money to just throw around, which means that you are going to need to know what kind of advertising is getting you the best results. There are a few ways that you can go about checking this. Keeping up with your Internet marketing stats is a must in this day and age. Sure you are going to want a hit counter on your web page, but that is just the tip of what you will need. You are going to want things that track how long people are staying on your site, what links are bringing them there, and of course, if they are buying anything. By knowing this kind of stuff, you are going to be able to tell what ads are getting you the most business and which ones are not. That way you can take down the ads that are not doing so well, and put up more of the good ones. This is a prime idea for first time marketers.

There are many different ways to track your Internet marketing. First of all, sometimes when you sign up with a program like Google AdWords, they are going to have link tracking. This way you are going to know how many people are clicking on your links, and when they click on them, how long are they staying on your site. This is all very important information. Not only is the fact that they are clicking on it good, but how long the people are staying there is even better. If someone clicks on your link and they stay there for just a few seconds, chances are they did not mean to go to that site. In other words, it was not a good click. However, if they get on there and they are on there for a few minuets or even an hour, you know that they were looking around your shop, and that is what you want. Even if they did not buy something, it’s good that they know what you are selling. That is because they may come back to buy more lately.

Although the stats that they give you on places like Google AdWords are helpful, that is not all you need. You are going to want your own program on your site that you can check whenever you want to. This kind of program needs to be looking at how many people come to your site and buy something, and how many things they are buying. Not only that, these programs will also keep up with things like how long they are staying and what link brought them to your site. It’s very important that you keep up with this kind of information. This is the kind of stuff that you are going to want to know to turn your little shop from a mom and pop store to a worldwide business. Working from home is not something that is easy, however, if you have the right stats, then you can tell where your advertising is having the most effect, and you can turn your small business into a big one.

When it comes right down to the topic of how best to grow your online business, there is plenty of conflicting information on the internet. Why? Because everybody wants to make a dollar! Everybody has a program to sell, but few really offer a genuine program that helps YOU sell. What they offer is THEIR formula, not YOUR solution. “It worked for me”, they’ll say. Then, when it doesn’t work for you, they expect you to shoulder the blame. “Well, you didn’t do this right”, or “You didn’t follow the formula”. I don’t have time for those people. Here’s a fact: You already have the resources you need. You do not need to buy into anybody else’s program. For that matter, you don’t even need to buy into mine. All you really need to do is remember one simple word, “network”. Just network. Here are a few ideas to help bring it into focus.

Make Friends, Not Business Partners

This may seem contradictory to what you’ve learned or what you believe, but I’ve found the best people to do business with are the people who have earned my trust, my friends. I do not do business with those who assume I should just trust them. I’m sorry, but they’ve not earned my trust, and my trust can not be bought. Make friends, and do business with your friends. This is one reason why I refuse to throw my website on auto-pilot. I want people to know that there is actually another living, breathing person on the other end, and I want to be accessible to those people who choose to do business with me.

Wish Others Success

When you truly wish others success, you are attracting success. I make it my mantra. “I wish you success. I wish you success. I wish you success.” I truly do wish success to those I choose to do business with, because I choose to do business with those who would wish me the same success. I do business with friends.

Then, help your friends succeed. Trade banners, trade links, and really get into the business of promoting each other. Contribute to each other’s newsletter. Do what right and good for both, and don’t be afraid to take chances. Try something new.

Search For New Opportunities

Look for additional streams of revenue. Find opportunities that do not take you away from your business, but enhance your business. Affiliate programs, drop ship programs, joint ventures, and even MLMs can provide that stream of revenue. But, at the same time, be aware. Be careful. But be willing to follow your instinct. Just remember to make friends, not business partners.

By all means, don’t hesitate to contact me. I’d love to build a friendship and network with you!

There are those people who come to the web with a solid business plan, a large amount of investment capitol, and a precise strategy for how they are going to leverage the internet and exploit the incredible revenue potential of the cyber-age. Then there are the rest of us.

Millions of people have arrived on the . with the notion of making their fortunes, and millions more will arrive in the next two years. These hopeful masses hail from the full spectrum of financial status, from six figure earners to minimum wage employees. Likewise, the newbie-networker can be an individual with an extensive background in traditional business, or a high school graduate with no clue about the dynamics of commerce and marketing.

I’ve observed an interesting progression among those net-marketers who came onto the scene without a road map, and with little idea of how the micro cosmos of internet marketing worked. Or maybe I’ve just watched my own journey, and it makes me feel better to assume others have shared my experience.

Either way. Indulge me a few more paragraphs, if you will, as I lay out what I like to think of as the evolution of a net-marketer.

Stage One: Easy Money… Not!

Right out of the gate, most people seem to think the internet “levels the playing field”, or allows anyone with fingers and a keyboard to generate staggering riches with just a few hours of busy work each week. It usually takes a couple of months for this bubble to pop, but when it finally does, the majority of newbies don’t survive the event.

However, when that dark day of realization comes, and it looms evident that one must actually work this business if he/she hopes to see any results, the strong of the networking gene pool sprout their working legs and move beyond the fog of delusion. Supremely confident in the knowledge they have surpassed those lazy sluggards who squeeled and fled at the suggestion of buckling down and putting some hard work in, the survivors of Stage One move onward and upward, where surely they will be rewarded for their tenacity.

Stage Two: Hard Work Doesn’t Pay the Server Fees

In Stage Two, our post primordial networkers are laboring tirelessly through the deep thickets of website-construction, traffic-generation, email-list-building, and all manner of grueling and structured tedium. Their behinds sore from being glued to a worn out office chair, and their eyes bloodshot and bleary from the all night clicking sessions, they push on day after day, certain of their forthcoming vindication.

But they still aren’t making any freakin’ money. And what’s more, they are starting to see past the free web hosts, free classified ads, and free trial memberships. All the good stuff seems to cost money, but our Stage Twoers had hoped to put off any kind of monetary investment until they could create at least some kind of income to offset such expenditures.

And so another enormous batch of inferior networkers dies out. The thought of putting some cash into their web-business was more than their fragile little hearts could bear.

But, as always, those more suited to the challenge live on. With a deep breath, and a good look at their monthly budgets, the survivors of Stage Two determine they will invest as much money as needed to keep their operations afloat until they are able to become self-funding marketers.

Stage Three: Throwing Money at it Doesn’t Work Either

Enter the golden age of upgrades and paid memberships. Five bucks a month for this. Ten bucks a month for that. Anything with a Paypal button is fair game.

No longer clueless newbies who think this can be done for free, our marketers are in full stride. Buying every ebook that comes down the pipe, upgrading in programs they login to once a month, and hitting every buy now button they can find, they cruise through cyberspace on a mission to buy their way right to the top. “I’m not afraid to spend money on *my* business.” they tout.

Lots and lots of money goes out. Considerably less revenue comes back in.

Inevitably, the moment arrives when those who have made it to Stage Three see the folly of their current direction. Maybe it’s when the credit card bill comes, or perhaps it happens when they are balancing the checkbook.

Once again, the brutal process of selection strikes down those without the heart for further trials. Uncountable numbers of washed-up, would-be internet marketers sink beneath the sludge of this stage.

And once again, that fraction of the whole with the guts and gumption to keep going grow stronger than ever before. More than a regimen of hard work and the willingness to invest money is needed here, they resolve. On the verge of a real breakthrough (they can feel it in their bones now), those who have thus far refused to fall decide a well devised plan for all future endeavors is in order.

Stage Four: Plan to Fail, Fail to Plan, and All that Other Crap

Plans are drawn up to cover every possible aspect of the game from here on out. A strict but healthy budget is imposed. Daily tasking is fine tuned for maximum effectiveness. Projections are made prior to each ad campaign, and results are measured afterwards. Tracking, testing, brain-storming, and constant attention to the hows and what-ifs become paramount.

This carries on for some time. Until another moment of clarity is reached.

A question is posed…

“Is all of this work really worth the small amount of money I am generating?”

Or, more often…

“How is it that I’m still not making any #$%! money?!”

This stage progresses rapidly into the next. Many specimens are lost in the transition, but due to the great speed with which Stage Four becomes Stage Five, a surprising number of marketers actually make the jump.

Stage Five: “What the Hell am I Doing Here?”

Here’s where it gets ugly. Stage Five is more of a bitter quagmire than part of the evolutionary journey.

Typical phenomenon exhibited by specimens at this stage include verbal outbursts like:

“Lousy bunch of #$%! stinkin’ #$%!!! I can’t believe I’ve wasted three #$#*& years of my #$%$# life with this bunch of !!#$% silly #$%#!!!, and still don’t have #$%## to show for it!”

As you might readily imagine, droves and droves of networkers die out over the course of this stage.

But those who are able to survive this particularly crucial stretch of development will find the arduous journey has paid off. For in the breathless, weary aftermath of their well earned tantrums, an epiphany is born.

Stage Six: The Cold Hard Facts

For the love of cheese fries, this is a business like any other. Hard work, monetary investment,and sound planning are required, but all of these combined are not enough to put you into profit.

You have to know what works, and you have to understand to some extent why it works. Real Knowledge of the market, the methods, and the meaning behind the apparent madness is what makes the difference between a person who works their butt off for nothing, and a person who makes a big, sweaty fortune with the same or less effort.

Nobody cares how much money we invest, or how many hours we spend each day in front of our computer. Competition is fierce, expectations are high, and the only thing that matters is whether or not we can penetrate, deliver, and get the sale.

This is a pretty far cry from what most of us want to hear. But lessons that are worth learning usually have a bitter taste.

Seek out people who are successful in this field, and find out what they are doing. Watch them. Ask them questions. Take notes. Absorb as much knowledge as you can, then put that knowledge into practice.

While it’s great to get a multiple visitors one time on your site, it’s even better to get returning visitors mulitple times. This means that your site really has an interest to them enough that they’ve bookmarked it. Bookmarkers over time will lead to sales, and once you’ve sold to someone it’s always easier to get them to buy from you a second time than getting them to buy the first!

So is your site “sticky” enough to keep them coming back?

Here are a few good ways to make your website “sticky” so that you get repeat visitors that are interested in your site:

1. Have frequently updated, fresh content. People aren’t going to come back if your site stays the same all the time. If they’ve already got all the information they need from your site, why should they return? Make sure that the information is always new, fresh, and changing so that they have an incentive to return. Perhaps even give away prizes or rewards to make them return. Free gifts are a great motivator!

2. Your content must be valuable. Don’t talk “small talk” and fill your site up with gimmicks, bells and whistles, and other page fillers. Make the content on your site actually useful to someone. Use relevant articles to your topic, maybe have free tools or calculators or something that are relevant to your product, or even just keep the people up to date about what’s happening with your product. Refrain from using flashy animated objects, java applets, and midi files. These are only annoying to the surfer and it will discourage them from coming back.

3. Make your site easy to navigate. Especially if your site has got lots of competition on your product or service, maybe they’ll choose your site over your competitor’s site just by the sheer fact alone that they can get around your site easier! People want to get the information they need quickly and easily. Don’t make it a challenge for them or they’ll only become frustrated and click off of your site.

Using these easy and common sensical tips you can make your website “sticky” and watch the traffic increase!

Did you know that your tracking url could be costing you sales?

It’s true! Repeatedly experienced marketers have learned that using a tracking link lowers the click through rate of any ad. If you think about it this does make sense. How often do you click through on a link that reads like a line of gibberish?

First and foremost, the internet is about trust. If you do not offer a link that at least appears “trustworthy” then many people aren’t going to click. And ask yourself the hard question? Does a link filled with an odd sequence of letters and numbers appear trustworthy to you?

Another drawback to using a tracking url is that ezine ads often have a very long life — often much longer than that of any tracking url or program. You don’t want to lose out on the potential of a long-term link or future visitors because of your tracking url.

If you are able to use your main web site address or a subpage then it just appears so much more trustworthy. Plus you are more likely to catch people in the future who lost your original ad but NOW want to visit your site. They will never remember a complicated tracking url but may remember BoatsRus.com etc.

No matter how much you want to be able to promote your web site directly there is still that tricky question of being able to track click throughs. Well there is actually a simple (and free) way to do both.

You create a redirect page.

This way you can promote your main url and have a unique page to track clicks. In fact, you can even name your page something to make it even more clickworthy, such as boatsrus.com/classicboats.php .

You can create unique landing pages for any number of advertisements but this might be time consuming. It is far simpler to code that page with a redirect script that loads whatever sales landing page you choose.

Now you can track your clicks without worrying about losing customers due to unfriendly tracking urls. You will always have full control over the url so you can change the redirect destination at any time and if you ever choose to take it down the visitor will still land on your site. It is the perfect tracking system! It also works great for affiliate links.