Sunday, December 19, 2010

Fast Money Generating Schemes

Even though it is a fact that the best tools for internet marketing won't be the ultimate solution to your internet endeavours, yet, they can  play a great part to your end success. It is true especially when you are new to your online adventure.

As in the physical world tools for internet marketing are instruments to make your online experience easier, much easier, almost always time savers. I'll focus on one of these tools you should definitely consider, before anything else.

There is a  first essential task to be accomplished in internet marketing. t is indispensable if you want to have a solid foundation and a head start in your online business. Let's explain  so to better understand. Taking a step and more back, we had the stone age, the agricultural age, the industrial age (also more in between) and now ours can be claimed as the information age.

With knowledge, events and information impossible to keep up, the premier solution   has become the personal computer. All that's needed and you have probaly done that, is to enter a word or a phrase into a search engine to finding the answer.

It's a recognized fact that a seemingly unassuming choice of words, makes a difference.You certainly now can understand the determining factor of a word or phrase when applied to your web site. The words in your site must then reflect what people are searching for. You must be able to literally put words (your words) in their mouth.

This is the simplest, easiest  process on how your site and what you have to offer can be found. But you must understand that the particular most evident keyword you apply in your site, may be used and  most certainly is by thousands. If you want to be noticed, you have to stand out. That's the way you'll  be  on top in the searches.

So you have to choose less competitive words (keywords)  and also consider to put 3 or more in a phrase (long tail phrase). Mind that there must be a reasonable number of searches for your chosen keywords. Of course there is much more to it than  the simple explanation   in the previous paragraphs. To meet those requisites, you must realize, if you didn't  yet, that it's not going to be a simple easy and quick task.

There is a tool from Google, to show you a way. It is still a long  time consuming imperfect way, and you may still end up with cases of trials and errors. The good news is that there are tools that perform all those tasks precisely and in seconds. 

Moral of the story : Save yourself time and money with all the pain in between and consider taking advantage of the tools for internet marketing.

Gianfranco Focarelli

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

An Online Article About Online Articles

Okay, you are asking yourself at this moment, "Why would anyone write another article about writing articles online?" Well, to start with, this article will not tell you that writing online articles is easy just because you love to write. You have good command of the English language and excellent grammar (not a dangling participle in YOUR grammar). You do not insert a comma every time you take a breath or write a sentence that is almost a paragraph in length. You've got the right stuff; now to find the right people.

This article will not inspire you to rush to your computer to find that site delighted to have found you and take you in hand, nor will it lead you to believe that the articles get written on a well-oiled assembly line, everyone is happy and there is plenty of money rolling in for everyone.

It would be ridiculous to ignore the thousands upon thousands of successful writers of online articles, blogs, etc., who make excellent incomes on the internet. Most of them have years of hard work invested in their craft and many have a professional writing background. They were the front line of internet writers ten to fifteen years ago and they forged a path for all of us hopefuls coming up behind them.

Then, there are the rest of us hopefuls, "newbies" so to speak. We have no idea where to start but we do know what we want to do. Some of us have just retired, have time on our hands and could use the extra income. Others do have jobs but could certainly use additional income in today's economy.

The most important aspect of making any significant money on the internet is research. I cannot stress that enough. You must do your due diligence - investigate every opportunity and be very cautious of home businesses who, for a fee, offer immediate substantial income using your writing skills. If you don't have to WORK for the money, you're not going to EARN the money - simple as that.

Use multiple search engines and phrases to find the online sites that don't ask you to pay them before they pay you! They do exist, but there can be pitfalls. Your research should be intensive so you get a general idea of what is out there and what is specific to your skills and interests. Most importantly, KNOW what you're getting into before you sign on the virtual dotted line. Don't be one of us who find a site that offers projects needing article writers and think you've found heaven. Don't get onboard if you don't know what you will be paid, when you will be paid and how you will be paid. The projects listed on these sites are up for bid. There are listings for everything from simple data input to article writing and rewriting, proof-reading, copywriting and shadow writers. The clients list their requirements and their budgets but very seldom do they list what the successful bidder will be paid per article.

You peruse the many, many projects offered and you note what others are bidding (although, in my case, I had no idea what the numbers meant). Bids for $30.00, $50.00 - but for what? Are you bidding per article? Per project? The numbers are good but you have failed to take the absolutely necessary step of learning just what these numbers signify. You blindly jump into the process by just looking at what everybody else is bidding and throwing in a similar bid, knowing that the low bidder is usually awarded the project.

Your skills and general experience win you 2 or even 3 projects your first day. You are thrilled but absolutely ignorant of what you have signed up for. Your first client wants 10 articles in 2 days, on a specific subject, between 500-550 words and using keywords a specified number of times. Your roll up your sleeves and delve right into the first article. You are a conscientious worker and you want to prove yourself. The research on the subject matter alone takes anywhere from ½ hour to 45 minutes. Then you write the article, being absolutely certain you do not plagiarize, which means re-writing everything you've found online. The formatting, re-writing, final proof-reading and spell-check take you another 2 to 2-1/2 hours. You are a fast and accurate typist but you spend 3 hours on the first article. It has the acceptable number of words, it has the required number of keywords and it is both interesting and error-free. It is accepted and the client is pleased. 

You ask what you are being paid but do not get a response.
You're on to the 2nd article (big mistake) and you again spend 3 hours on it. It is submitted and the client is again pleased with your effort. You ask what you are being paid but, again, for some reason, no response. It is now four days later and you have spent countless hours submitting your articles, one after the other. Your brain is tired, you've sat far too long at the computer and you've even gotten up in the night to write just one more article so that you meet the required deadline. Finally, after five articles have been submitted and accepted, you demand to know what you are being paid. Only now do you realize that this is of paramount importance and must be answered before you complete the other 5 articles due.

Since I have now recovered the function of speech and can actually form sentences other than gibberish, I will share with you, who are still reading, what 15 hours of pure dedication poured into 5 completed articles earned me. I made the princely sum of $1.00 per article! I earned a total of $5.00 for 15 hours' work which breaks down to thirty-three cents per hour. Never has one worked that hard and diligently for thirty-three cents per hour. The best part is that I accepted 3 projects, so I now owe the site provider $15.00 ($5.00 per project). I am, my friends, $10.00 in the hole!

Do not do what I did. Do not engage the client in argumentative emails as you submit your resignation and decline payment of your $5.00 in highly suggestive terms. Do not be drawn into angry words, accusations and useless statements falling just short of obscenity. It will do nothing but make YOU feel better and is neither professional nor dignified. You do not want words you regret out there on the internet to perhaps come back and bite you when you least expect it. You don't need enemies. Just end the relationship and chalk the whole thing up to bad experience. Oh, but do get yourself out of any similar projects you've accepted. Just lick your wounds and use the hard-learned lesson in the future. Now you know a little more about offering your services online. Never again will you be foolish enough NOT to do your research and learn what you're getting into.

This experience has taught me that I am a darn good article writer, that I enjoy the research and the challenge of taking information and turning it into a cohesive, interesting article. I enjoy the structured guidelines and have a better understanding of limits and deadlines and what I'm worth financially. Best of all, I have five written articles as examples of what I can do. You can't usually buy invaluable experience for $5.00 but I did - it just about killed me - but I did!
By Kelly Bashtanyk

10 Safe Ways to Make Money Online

There are certainly might be more ways to make money online but these are the more common ways that a larger audience could easily get into with relative ease. This list is in no way sorted by order. It would be hard for me to say what is important to me when that may have no importance to someone else. I hope you enjoy my article and find some usage in your own life.

1. Mystery Shopper - This means that companies have a need to know how the stores are doing providing excellent service to there customers. The most important thing to a company is its brand and customer loyalty. You can get involved with no contracts and be going out to dinner for free. The idea here is after the dinner or hotel night stay is complete, you have to be prepared to give very detailed feedback to the company through it's contracted shopping organization. Most times they want this information within 24 hours of completion of the assignment. But, if you are detail oriented and patient, you could be getting paid in free food or small cash payments.

2. Be an eBay Seller - There are two ways to do this without paying a bunch of money. First idea is to find things in your own or a friend's house that needs to be sold. Ideally, this item would have some value for someone. Old crayons probably won't provide much cash value but a vintage collectible would. You can list the item on eBay for a very small fee and you would wait seven days and see what you won as the final bid. The second way would be to go to yard sales or swap meets and hunt for good deals and sell those items.

3. Surveys - You provide feedback on products or services you use. You might have to try a product for a period of time to obtain payment. The good thing about this is you can do these generally with little time spent and sometimes in 10-15 minutes. You most likely will not achieve financial freedom but this is a good way to make some spending cash.

4. Building websites - If you have a talent and are a little creative you can build websites for others who will in turn pay you. You can leverage this into a full-time job or just do some side projects to make some vacation money.

5. Article Writing - Article Writing will help you to pay the bills if you are a good writer. You would write and submit articles to the top article directories. A very good article directory is EzineArticles of which the author personally loves to use.

6. Virtual Assistant - This is where you could find freelance or full-time work helping people to take care of odds and ends, manage a calendar, edit documents, etc. These are sometimes short term but could also lead to long term full-time income.

7. Ebook writing - This falls similarly to article marketing but would be at least 20 pages in length. Writing an ebook would require extensive subject knowledge and a passion for providing valuable information. After the ebook is written, you would try and find some buyers. You could use ClickBank as a resource.

8. Affiliate Marketing - There are tons of companies that use affiliate marketers as distributors of there product. Sometimes this industry has gotten a bad rap because of the unscrupulous activities of some marketers. These people should be banned for trying to scam people. There are people making large incomes in this endeavor and some have been able to achieve financial freedom. It depends on a desire to help others because your paid handsomely for helping people you sponsor achieve wealth. People are making part and full-time incomes in affiliate marketing. Much of this kind of work can be done at home with only an internet connection. Be sure to check out the Better Business Bureau prior to joining a company as there may be a monthly fee.

9. Submit websites and unique content to social media websites - There is a new form of advertising that people are using is to reach customers on sites. The idea here is that if a bunch of your friends like a certain ice cream, you should try it too and that is a way to build a massive following quickly.

10. Transcribe Audio files - There are lots of people out there creating content through audio means and have a need to get that audio content onto paper in case of need in the future and having proper documentation. This is a good way for people with an attention to detail to earn either a part of full-time income.

To Your Success!

By Tom Kucan

Sunday, December 5, 2010

3 Things You Should Expect From Your Affiliate Marketing Venture

There are many different ways to make money online and one of the most popular models is the affiliate marketing business model. If you want to make a long term income through the internet, it is important that you have access to the right knowledge so that you will take the correct action. Here are the 3 things you should expect from this business.

Expectation 1 - You Need To Work In This Business
There are many products available on the internet that promises quick income without doing any work. The fact is that most of these products do not work and the merchants are simply targeting those people who are lazy and greedy. If you want to see any results in this business, you must be prepared to work for it. It is true that you can run this business on autopilot but you will still be required to put in the initial work to get your business going.

Expectation 2 - You Can Make A Full Time Income From This Business
Many people have already earned a full time income from their internet business and you will need to have faith in this business too. If you do not have faith in this business, it is very difficult to motivate yourself to overcome any obstacles that you face while you are building your business. The internet is purely just a medium that people uses to do business online. If you are providing real value and promoting good products, you will be able to earn a full time income by getting consistent stream of people to purchase the products.

Expectation 3 - Traffic And Conversion Is The Key To Success
Once your website is live online, you will need to focus on sending consistent stream of traffic back to your website. This is to ensure that there will always be new stream of people who will be aware of your promotion. When your website start to have a consistent flow of traffic, the next thing that you will want to track is the opt in conversion of your website and the sales conversion of the product that you are promoting. Your income will definitely increase when you focus on improving the conversion of your business and increase the flow of traffic back to your website.

Here are the 3 things that you should expect before starting your own affiliate marketing business. Be consistent in taking action as that is the only key to success.


By Zack Lim

What Everybody Should Know About How To To Avoid Affiliate Marketing Mistakes

Have you ever considered affiliate marketing as an avenue to make some extra money?
It certainly is a great way to venture out on your own without having to deal with the hassles and cash outlay of starting a typical business.

Learn how you can avoid the most common affiliate marketing mistakes so many people seem to make when they start out.

One of the biggest mistakes you can make in the online world is to allow yourself to become a victim of "information overload"... and it's so easy to do it!

You see when you take a look around the web, almost without exception there will be an opportunity to buy some wonderful gadget that promises to make you rich overnight... wish it was that simple!

But the truth is it's so easy to end up purchasing a bunch of these cheap products, and then spending all your time trying to comprehend all the details.

Then when you're ready to launch your business you don't know where to start because your brain has become overloaded.

Here are 5 secrets to avoid affiliate marketing mistakes.
Keep it simple... you do not need any experience to start with. Don't get bogged down before you ever get started.

Pick the right market... don't end up promoting a product or niche you have no knowledge of. The majority of the people starting out are usually limited with the amount of time they can invest.
And even if you have the time, you're learning something new. Keep it simple and stick with an area you have some expertise in.

Work with the right company... Stick with a company that has a proven track record. Stay away from companies who don't list an address, phone number, e-mail etc.

Drop them an e-mail and see how quickly you get a response. If it takes them more than a few days to get back to you, move on.
There are too many good companies out there to end up with one like that.

Sales and Marketing support... When you are new and just starting out there is no need to sell for anyone who doesn't give you great support.
As an affiliate you should have advertising support available to you such as images (e-book cover), PPC ads, keywords, newsletters (auto-responder material), pre-sell page ideas along with a killer sales page.

Use free traffic generation... Although an excellent way to get visitors to your site, stay away from PPC (pay per click) in the beginning.

You'll want to gain some experience before attempting the paid methods. Start out with the free methods in the beginning.

Buy your own domain... If you're flat broke start with a free blog. Otherwise invest $10 or $15 and put up a small website. It's not hard at all to do and tends to produce better results then a free blog.
Hopefully these tips will be helpful and you can avoid the most common affiliate marketing mistakes.


By David Pearson

Article Marketing for Traffic - The Key to Online Success

Running an online business isn't as easy as others might think. Contrary to popular beliefs, it doesn't end when one build a website. Internet marketers will need to do different types of promotions to ensure that they will attract steady flow of traffic to generate decent sales. One of the best traffic-generating tools these days is article marketing. Do the process right and it can lead to your online success. Here are some important tips to keep in mind :

Conduct keyword research. First thing to do is to know the keywords that you can use when optimizing your articles so you can make them search engine-friendly. Launch free keyword suggestion tools or keyword tracker to get a list of the most searched terms in your chosen niche. Target those that appear on top as they are more profitable compare to others. Just understand that the more competitive your chosen keyword is, the harder it will get for you to make your articles appear on the top 10 search page results.

Be very creative when choosing your topics. Giving your readers what they want is the best way to capture their attention. So, talk about their areas of interest, their problems, and their most common questions that are related to the niche that you're targeting. The keywords that you're targeting will give you an idea about their specific needs and demands. For instance, if these people are always searching for the phrase "article marketing tips" you'll know that they're looking for ways on how they can make their article marketing campaign more effective and more powerful.

Focus on giving your readers with useful information and not selling your products and services. One of the most common mistakes that article marketers commit these days is that they get too excited when talking about their offerings. Instead of addressing the learning needs of their readers, they tend to load their articles with blatant ads and sales pitches. Well, let me tell you know that this will not help you get the kind of response that you're looking for. If you offer your readers with ads and not the information they need, you can be assured that they'll ignore your articles. You don't want that to happen, right? Besides, you will need to earn their trust and confidence first before you can get them to buy from you.

Quantity counts. It's very important that you're committed in producing more articles as this is one of the secrets to make your article marketing campaign more powerful. Try your hardest to produce at least 5 short articles per day (around 400-600 words). Ensure that you deliver different information each time you tap on your keyboard. Also, ensure that you will not sacrifice the quality of your articles. It would help if you allot more time for this endeavor so you will not need to rush each time you tap on your keyboard.

By Sean R Mize

Targeted Traffic - 3 Useful Tips for Beginners

Most people who are starting out in the field of internet marketing are having a hard time attracting qualified prospects. This is because their internet marketing campaign is not targeted. If you're one of these people, you need to know that there's no sense in spending so much time and energy in reaching out to those individuals who do not need or want your products and services. Obviously, they will not be able to help you reach your marketing goal which is to increase your sales and profits.

If you're using article marketing as one of your traffic-generating tools, the following tips are for you. These will help in making your campaign more focused and very targeted :

Be very smart when choosing your topics. One of the reasons why webmasters fail in getting targeted traffic is because they try to discuss different unrelated topics and issues on their website. I remember one site that I have visited a couple of days ago. Judging it from its domain name, the website is supposed to be about traveling.

However, the owner of the site is talking about issues that will not help him attract his potential clients. On one of his posts, he talked about the different types of laptops and he discussed about getting marriage license on the other. Now, can you tell me if these topics will help him attract tourists who want to book a room in the hotel that he's promoting? What I suggest is that you talk about issues that are closely related to your offerings. Better yet, talk about certain problems or goals that can be achieved or remedied using your products and services.

Understand the learning needs of your target audience. Before you start writing your articles, you need to ask yourself; "what information will address the learning needs of my prospects?' Knowing these information will surely help you in making your articles more focused and impacting. Let me give you an example; if you're offering coaching programs about internet marketing, you need to figure out if you want to serve those people who are considered newbies or those who have been in this business for at least 1-3 years. It is through this that you'll figure out the kind of information that they will appreciate. You wouldn't want to write an article entitled "What is online traffic?" if you're targeting expert internet marketers, right?

Post your articles to websites that are frequented by your target audience. Choose the sites that you're going to use when publishing your articles in the online arena. Aside from article marketing directories, you can also promote your articles using blogs and forums that are related to your chosen niche. For example, if writing about search engine marketing and blogging, you would want to use those forums and blogs that are related to internet marketing.

By Sean R Mize

Best Way to Generate Search Engine Traffic

There are so many things that you need to do when running an online business. First, you will need to build and design your own website and launch it in the online arena. Then, you will need to drive as much traffic as possible to it so you'll have a better shot at securing decent sales. In this article, I wish to help you boost the number of people you drive to your website. I would recommend that you write and distribute high quality content. Here's how you can do that :

First, think of the best topics that you can discuss on your articles. Keep in mind that the success of each article that you write will depend largely on your chosen topics. Choose those that are very useful and interesting to your target audience and I can guarantee you that your articles will be read by thousands if not millions of online users. You will not go wrong if you stick with those that are related to products or services that you sell or those that are closely related to your chosen niche. It's best if you talk about the problems, struggles, or goals that can be addressed by using what you offer.

Create an outline. Before you go ahead and start tapping on your keyboard, I would recommend that you make some preparations first. This can help you make your articles come out very organized. Start by listing down the information that you might include in your content. Then, arrange them in a logical manner. Review the list and ensure that it contains everything you need to make your articles useful and educational to the eyes of your target audience. As much as possible, limit the ideas that you'll discuss so you can keep your articles short and tight.
Choose the best titles. Knowing the exact information that you're going to share and the angles that you're going to target will make it much easier for you to write your title. All you need to do is to summarize your content using as few words as possible. Ensure that you write it in such a way that you can pique the curiosity of your readers. If that's not possible, just make your titles benefit-driven so you can make them sound more enticing.

Show off your in-depth knowledge. It's very important to convince your prospects that you're really knowledgeable in your chosen niche. This is the best and only way to earn their trust and respect. So, don't hold back when offering in-depth information. Tell your readers some tips on how they can do things better or help them solve their problems or reach their goals. Share with them your personal techniques, some insider tips, and other solid information that they're dying to know about. If you do this all the time, these people will surely visit your website and they might even recommend it to people they know.

By Sean R Mize