- Can You Really Make Money From Blogging

Can You Really Make Money From Blogging

One of the questions I see frequently asked on online discussion forums is, "Can You Really Make Money From Blogging?" People want to know if there's some way to profit from the time they spend maintaining their weblogs or personal online journals.

My answer is an emphatic "YES," because I do it... everyday!

Today I'll share with you how I do it.

Let me begin by saying that I don't make thousands per month from MOST of my blogs. However, I do have many making hundreds. Since I don't put in a lot of time maintaining them, and I enjoy blogging, I consider the money a bonus. I blog while sitting in my yard with my laptop (on a wireless connection)... watching the clouds roll by.

Another bonus I get from blogging is that it helps my regular websites that are set up as my "money machines."

The search engines visit my blogs more often than they visit my regular sites, and they follow the links from my blogs pointing to other sites. Some of these links point to my sites, and some point to sites of partners. This does help the search engine rankings of these sites MASSIVELY.

How Do I Monetize My Blogs?

I monetize my blogs by creating blogs on topics people are searching for... and that they are spending money on. I know which niches are hot to an extent based upon what my research proves pay-per-click advertisers are willing to spend their advertising dollars on.

I run Google AdSense ads on my blogs. I simply insert these ads in my menu bar and other strategic places on the webpage. I also experiment with other paid advertising on my blogs.

I sell affiliate products from my blogs. I simply find affiliate products at places like PayDotCom.com and Commission Junction. I incorporate these into my blogs. I do things like product reviews, how-to articles, etc. You can also locate suitable affiliate products by typing your target keywords + "affiliate program" at any major search engine. This should point out numerous websites with suitable affiliate programs to you.

How Do I Setup/Host My Blogs?

I have blog hosted on some of my own domains using Moveable Type. This is just one of many great pieces of blogging software. You have other choices... my programmer recommended this one to me.

I also have blogs hosted for free on Blogger.com. I have them on Blogger.com because they are incredibly easy to set up and maintain. A secondary reason I have them on Blogger.com is that Google OWNS Blogger.com and they index webpages hosted on their servers OFTEN and FAST!

The secret to getting Google and Yahoo! to visit your blogs often is a technique called "blogging and pinging." It's a method of notifying all of the major search engines, and blog directories, each time that you update your blog. The search engines come to take a look and they follow links from your blog to spider other blogs/sites. It's very powerful.

I won't go into too much details on blogging and pinging here. If you want more information on that topic I invite you to drop by my free, Internet marketing discussion board and ask any and all questions! It's at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

Examples Of Profitable Blogs?

I know, you want to see examples of profitable blogs :-)

To show you how simple it can be I'll show you just ONE. It’s less than 2 months old :-)

The problem is that as soon as I show a site to anyone as an example, it's instantly ripped off. So, I'm going to "sacrifice" one making me about $60 per day from affiliate product sales and about $20 per day in AdSense revenue. That site is at:
http://cure-nail-fungus.blogspot.com

The above site currently ranks Number 6 on Yahoo for the term "cure nail fungus." It's a small niche but one that makes me $2400 per month... just from that one blog.

If you searched on the same term at Google, this site is not very highly ranked. However, THIS page is Num ber4:
http://www.chitterlings.com/no-more-nail-fungus.html

That happens to be one of my pages too :-) I won't tell you what ALL I'm up to on that page... that's another article. The technique involves using your own domains to promote affiliate products rather than advertising someone else's domain... so it improves your link popularity.

I'm not going to show more of my blogs because that just invites competition. Instead, I'm going to answer another question you have to be wondering...

"How do I find time to maintain all of these blogs, even if they are profitable?"

Well, first of all, I don't really need a lot like the "sacrificial lamb" that I showed you above to keep me satisfied.

I do have a number of secret weapons though. One is called AutoBlogger. You can check it out at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/auto-blogger.html

What AutoBlogger does is allow me to queue up a number of posts for my various blogs in advance. It lets you queue up "articles" which can really be anything you want. Then you tell the software at what frequency to make a post.

My AutoBlogger account allows me to automatically post to an UNLIMITED number of blogs.

WARNING: A program like AutoBlogger can get you in trouble if you misuse it! If you use it to spam or abuse the search engines, it's just going to get you banned. If you use it to abuse the blog hosts, they're just going to delete your blogs.

Here's how I use AutoBlogger:

I have sites where I discuss Internet marketing... as just one example. On these sites I share many of my articles and tidbits. I simply queue up these articles/tidbits to post at a given frequency. This frequency can be a set number of hours, days, weeks, or months. So theoretically, I can set up a blog, pre-schedule 50 posts, and not touch it in months, while it is automatically posted to for the next 50 intervals.

AutoBlogger even lets you set it to start rotating through the posts again when they run out, if you want to. I personally wouldn't do this since you'd just be posting duplicate content.

AutoBlogger allows you to insert RSS feeds right into your blog posts. So in addition to posting articles you can also auto-update by adding new RSS feeds at a set interval. Since I HATE sending my traffic to other sites (without reciprocation), these RSS feeds generally pull from MY sites. That way, my traffic is only sent to my other sites.

If you don't even feel like queuing up a lot of posts, you can go to a site like Elance.com and hire someone else to do it for you... or just hired your kids to do it for you. It can be as easy as you want to make it.

OK, I've just proven to you that you can make money off of blogs. In-fact, you can make more money than many people make off of their REGULAR websites. It just takes a little thinking outside the box!

It also takes not being too greedy. What I just showed you works for me because I'm not doing anything that's likely to get me banned from the search engines, Google AdSense, Blogger.com, or any affiliate program. It's only when you get carried away, and do things that harm the search engines that you "shoot yourself in the foot."

Set up blogs providing useful content. Make regular posts to these blogs but not in a manner that seems unnatural. By that, I mean don't auto-post twenty times in an hour, or post every hour for a month! No human can possible post to a blog at these rates for long, so the search engines detect something is "wrong." They don't generally prohibit you from using tools to make your job easier... just don't get carried away!

There are actually, thousands of people earning a living doing things similar to what I just shared... but with little twists. I'm meeting up with many of them in New Orleans in September. You're invited to join us. We'll basically be sharing how we make a fortune off of niche websites and programs such as Google AdSense. You can register today at:
http://WillieCrawford.com/meet-in-new-orleans.html

About the author:
Willie Crawford has taught PROVEN Internet marketing techniques to thousands of successful Internet entrepreneurs since late-1996. Grab a free copy of his comprehensive, 20-Lesson Internet Marketing Success Course now at: http://WillieCrawford.com

- Creating A Blog To Promote An Existing Business

Creating A Blog To Promote An Existing Business

If you belong to any of the following groups, then this article is for you.

* You already have a business and a website that serves as the official hub for your online sales. The website may be serving as an online store for your enterprise.

* You need a venue wherein you can promote your affiliate links.

* Your already have a website, which may not necessarily be a commercial one, and it is enrolled with a Pay Per Click (PPC) program, like Google AdSense.

Success in these fields depends on one essential principle which you might have already realized: traffic is the key to your online business thriving.

You may have in your digital inventory the best products in the world, but they won’t mean squat if no one would get to see them. This is why each and every online businessman will fight tooth and nail just to have a piece of the Internet traffic. After all, the more visitors who get to visit your site, the more potential clients you have.

And blogs can most definitely help you drive visitors to your pages. Here is how you could use them to achieve such a purpose:

1. Download the Wordpress blogging software, which is available for free at www.wordpress.com . An alternative is to go with blogger.com. I have posted instructions for setting up a Blogger blog at your own server in this PDF file:
http://www.pluginprofitstraining.com/blogsetup.pdf

2. Remember that good content is always at the heart of a progressive online traffic stream. People are always looking for information, and if you will give them that, they would read what you have to offer. Dedicate your blog to the subject of your main website. Publish informative entries that would hook your readers and make them come back for updates. In between purely educational entries, strategically include a link to your site by suggesting their importance to your readers.

3. Using the above mentioned strategy, you could also include your affiliate links to pre-sell your affiliate products. The more traffic you drive to your affiliate merchant’s site or sales page, the more chances you will have of effectuating a successful sale and bigger commissions.

4. Links from blogs are unilateral, meaning, they are one way links to your websites. The more traffic a unilateral link generates, the more it becomes prominent in online searches. Avoid reciprocal links at all costs! Do not include a link to your blog from your website. Search engines abhor reciprocal linking.

5. 80% of your traffic will come from the search engines. You have to tweak your blog to attract the attention of the search engine spiders. Now, blogs are already search engine friendly. However, there is a very big possibility that you would be competing with other blogs on the same subject. You have to make sure that once you upload your blog, it is able to outperform its competitors in the search engine rankings.

One way you can do this is by using the title of your post to match the keyword phrases you are targeting, plus put a sprinkling of your keyword phrase in the post itself. I am doing this with great results.

6. Check your blog offline. It should be as readable and as navigable as possible for your prospective readers. Make appropriate adjustments if necessary.

7. Upload your blog to a reliable server that has enough bandwidth to accommodate many viewers.

8. Constantly update your blog. Search engines love regularly updated content, so publishing new entries will greatly increase your blog’s page rank, and consequently, your main website’s traffic.

9. Accepting links from other related blogs will also bring to your site some traffic from sources other then search engines. The way that a blog is designed fosters the building of a community of blog sites, and this will provide for an added stream of visitors for you.

10. You could also decide to enroll your blog site in the Google AdSense advertising program. This will give you an additional income stream. We will discuss this in future articles.

Blogs are excellent promotional tools for your existing business. Use them well and you will harvest the rewards in a matter of weeks.

About the author:
Get Your Hands on My FREE and Exclusive 7 Day Blogging Report by Sending and Blank Email to freeblogreport@getresponse.com In this Report I Reveal All The Secrets for Creating and Running A Successful Online Blog.

- Five Knockout Affiliate Tips

Five Knockout Affiliate Tips

Here are five “hook em in the jaw” affiliate tips that really
work. Implement them and see how well they work for you.

(1) Develop a positive and realistic mindset. Do you believe that
you can get rich quick or that your business will take time to
grow? Those who believe in the online hype are the ones who
normally lose. Think positive and know in your heart you can earn
an income from your efforts.

(2) Too much information or the lack of it can be dangerous. Not
using the knowledge that you have gain can stop your business
from getting off the ground and not having the right information
can have the same effect.

(3) Market your programs with Google Adwords. This is a powerful
strategy you can use and as long as you earn more in commissions
than your PPC costs, then you are getting something for nothing.

(4) Write your own ads, articles and reviews instead of the
pre-formatted ones offered by affiliate programs. This will set
you apart from all the other affiliates in the same program.

(5) Make sure your affiliate program matches the content of your
website or newsletter. If you have marketing content then you
should promote marketing products on that page. Think of it like
matching ads to the page content like the way Adsense does. There
may a few exceptions to the rule though, even Adsense does it
some time.

There you go. A few tips to help you with your affiliate programs
whether you are looking for your first check or to boost your
current earnings. Try them all or even a couple and test and
track your results. I am sure Lennox Lewis would be proud of your
hooks and jabs

© Oceanroc Web Publishing

About the author:
Nicholas Dixon is the CEO of Oceanroc Web Publishing. You are
invited to sign up for a free five day mini course on search

- A Smart Trick for Attracting Higher Paying AdSense Ads

A Smart Trick for Attracting Higher Paying AdSense Ads

There are no guarantees in life, so I don’t guarantee that following these tips will bring you more money every time. However, I do guarantee that they will greatly increase your chances of pulling more of the top-paying AdSense ads to your site than if you don’t follow these suggestions.

Enough with the disclaimers, let’s get down to the business of making money. Google lets advertisers bid anywhere from a minimum of .05 per click right up to a whopping $100. It should be pretty obvious that you’re not going to get rich running .05 cent ads on your site, but getting a few $100 ads, or even some $10, $20, or $30 ads can’t be a bad thing, right?

Now the problem is, Google is pretty closed-mouthed about who is paying what for their ads, and there is no real way to determine which words pay the most per AdSense click.

But ah, far away in a parallel universe we find another Pay-Per-Click provider called Overture. It seems that Overture is less sensitive about releasing their top-priced words and anyone who cares to find out what web sites are paying for words and phrases can do so by simply using Overtures tattle-tale special pricing tool (http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/). And it couldn’t be easier to use. You simply type in a key word or phrase and the tool returns a list of advertisers using that word and how much they are paying. It even shows you the actual ad.

Oh what a treasure trove of wealth-grabbing results this can be if you know what can be done with that priceless information.

Consider this possibility

Any key word or phrase that’s worth big bucks on Overture is probably worth big bucks on Google as well, maybe even more, right? So try this experiment:

Enter the phrase “SEO Services” without the quotes in the Overture tool (http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/). When I entered that phrase on the day I wrote this article, I was found a company called SEO Inc. that was willing to pay $8.01 per click, followed by SEO Advantage at $8.00, and Online Web Consultants at $6.50. Other bidders appeared below them in the $3.00 range straight on down to some who wouldn’t pay more than a dime per click.

Now, if a company is willing to pay that much money for a click on Overture, it is probably willing to pay that or more on Google. Even if that particular company isn’t advertising on Google, you can be pretty sure that the same key phrase is drawing near the same bid price from other companies who do advertise on Google. So what that means is there is no way that you can possibly afford NOT to have some web pages posted somewhere that are targeted to those sweet-paying words.

All you have to do is use Overture’s pricing tool to find the highest-paying key words that are related to your site and then optimize those words to start pulling similar ads. If all goes to plan, you can perhaps double, triple, or even quadruple your AdSense revenue without needing any increase in traffic or click-through rate.

About the author:
Diane provides marketing and internet profit tips.
For more Google AdSense tips, visit http://www.adsense.deeljeabiz.com

- Gaga over Google Adsense

Gaga over Google Adsense

Google Adsense has taken the world by storm. Now the small guy can get a slice of big profits. But exactly how should one go about generating revenue from it? This article is designed to help you to decide what sort of web-page to make – one that will realize the largest profits.

First you should pick a theme where there is at least some competition. That is to say, if you choose a family history web page, you may only get genealogy ads in your Adsense boxes. These may be very low paying ads and hardly worth your while. Before building a web page you should check and see how much people are paying for a certain type of ad. To that end – PC Bidbrowser will give you an idea how much advertisers are paying at Overture, and you can extrapolate or take an educated guess at Adsense.

But is finding the highest paying keyword the best way to build a page around? Consider the point that there may be so much competition that your web-page may never see the light of day. If no-one ever reads your site, you have no clicks, hence no revenue. No, the money-making truth lies somewhere in the middle. You need a topic that has low enough competition that people will actually find it on search engines, but also high enough competition that you will receive some cash from advertisers.

A neat program called ‘keyword sleuth’ allows you to find alternate keywords that are still highly searched yet low in competition. Other programs do similar functions.

Find 6 or so topics that you find a nice balance between competition and reward. Now how do you build a web-page that will give some new slant on the topic?

Does your web-page really need to be unique? Perhaps you could write an interesting page or two about the subject along with some links. For instance, perhaps you want to write a site on stock market trading. If you’ve ever been in the stock market you could write a real life trading experience. Make it exciting, while keeping it truthful. What led you to invest? What stocks did you trade and why? Did you make money or lose some? Do you have any advice to give to new investors? Could you find a couple of links for free screeners or some other tool that would be useful? Did you employ any special techniques – humorous or not?

You see, it doesn’t have to be about making millions with your trading system, it can be a funny life experience which we all can learn from.

Thanks for reading and I hope you start your profitable business soon.

About the author:
Resource Box
The author - Dustin Hemmerling - enjoys music, computers, and family.
He also provides free information for building a profitable website at:
http://www.freehomebusiness.d2hosting.com
E-mail:turkey303030@yahoo.com

- Getting Approved by Adsense in a Jiffy…

Getting Approved by Adsense in a Jiffy…

I don’t understand why everyone makes Adsense out to sound like some kind of devil. So far, I have a 100% approval rate for my consulting clients. You would think that we spend months developing the site to submit for approval – but to be honest; I spend less than a day (if that!)

What we found is that Google is not nearly as picky as they make themselves sound to be. The trick is to make your site in such a way that you are just providing content; we have found that the less selling you do on your approval site, the better.

Don’t worry, once you’re approved you can use that code wherever you want – so put it on other sites that sell later. But for the purposes of getting approved, try to limit to just content, content and more content!

Now, for the disclaimer before we start talking about how to get your site approved for Google Adsense. I am not a member of Google at all, everything I am about to say is all speculation and experience. I have helped over 50 clients get approved for Google Adsense without having even 1 of them not get approved – we have 100% approval rate on FIRST try.

All I am going to teach you is exactly what I do for them.

There are three main elements that I focus on when getting a client approved:

1. Site look and feel – Not that Google wants a $10,000 professionally designed website, but they also don’t want some piece of junk. Make sure to at LEAST have a presentable website – even if it is just a few tables and a solid background color. Avoid using tacky backgrounds or unprofessional color contrasts.

2. Content – The most important – Google believes in content. If you try to get a website with just a few pages approved, I don’t think you will have any luck. You need to have at least 15-20 pages, preferably, 15-20 pages of articles/resources, a.k.a. content.

3. Traffic – Many “experts” say that Google looks to see what kind of traffic you have and that they do not approve new sites with no traffic. My experience says that these experts are FULL of it. BUT, just to be safe, before you submit your site for approval – try to get your site some traffic.

Here are useful tips you need to make the entire approval process easier and quicker:

>> Get content from article directories like www.goarticles.com – just put those articles in your site, getting 15-20 is easy.

>> Before you submit your site for approval, post at some forums with your website’s link in the signature file – this will help you get some immediate traffic.

>> Make a very simple website with 15-20 articles, a contact us page, a privacy policy and the typical disclaimer.

That’s it – you’re ready to get approved for Google Adsense. I know I made it sound too easy, but honestly, we have a track record that proves it. And remember, if you do not get approved, you can always fix things and try again.

So, stop waiting – apply now – Google Adsense is a great source of income.

About the author:
This article is written by Anik Singal, founder of AffiliateClassroom.com Anik Singal has developed his own affiliate system that helped him earn well over $10,000 in just 60 days. Now, he's looking for a few students to train one step at a time.
http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com

- Getting Great Deals on EBay

Getting Great Deals on EBay

I love getting a deal. I try to smell them out from miles away. I love frequent garage sales, flea markets, closeouts, and more -- but found that I could much better by simply buying through online auctions - if I shop carefully.

Getting a deal out of EBay auctions is an art. Buying from auctions can be a costly proposition or a very economical option depending on your tactics. Buy wisely by learning from my (sometimes costly) experiences.

1. Is the Seller Trustworthy?
Both EBay and Yahoo auctions have seller ratings. Read these and their associated reviews. If the seller has a great rating from buying and a poor one from selling, you probably don't want to buy from them. Look at both praises and complaints as they may or may not apply to what you are bidding on.

2. Read the Description Throughly
It is very easy to read what you want to see in an Ebay auction rather than what is actually written there. Read both what is in the Ebay description and what is NOT in the description. Often your mind will want to fill in details with what is your dream interpretation. You need to re-read the description until you find out whether what you are searching for and what the seller is selling match.

* Used or New?
Is the item you are buying used or new? If it doesn't say new, you are most likely buying something that is used.

* Real or Fake
Is the item you are interested in "real" gold, sterling silver or pearls? For example, a description saying: "gold necklace for sale" does NOT say 14 kt gold or 18kt gold. That most likely means a gold COLORED necklace which may or may not have actual gold metal. This also applies to pearls as many call plastic fake pearls simply "pearls".

If the seller is selling beads, those beads could be plastic, glass, stone, scrap metal, crystal, chips, wood, clay, gemstone or some other material.

* Item Details
Does the EBay description really say how much you are getting, how long the item is, and quality of the item? Selling by the pound can be a great deal - or a horrible deal.

* Beware of Hidden Costs
Look at shipping and handling costs. I've seen many penny auctions that have $13 or more shipping. Some auctions even have handling fees.

* How Fast Will it Ship?
I've been seeing a fair amount of auctions that note that the product will ship in 2 months or that shipping time is 2 months. If you are buying for a particular holiday, be sure that you will get the item in time.

3. Is it a Bargain For You?
Many times an EBay auction will say that the items are "worth $XXX". In many cases, that price is inflated. Often you can find similar items much cheaper tah "$XXX" at normal stores. (However, the auction price may still be cheaper than you can by elsewhere - it really helps to know how much you usually pay for items!) If you are only interested in some of the items in an auction, adjust your bid to reflect how much you are willing to pay for just those items unless you plan to sell the rest as that is how much you would pay for it elsewhere.

4. Auction Fever
Compare prices on the net at the same time to avoid overpaying. Know that usually you can get the item later elsewhere. Wise buyers know to walk away when the price is higher than the item is worth to them.

About the author:
Find deals and create great gifts. Get your Free report: "10 Ways to Make Your Gift Extra Special" as well as find more jewelry and gift buying tips by going to http://www.jewelrymall.com

- Google Adsense

Google Adsense

here's an all about Google letter. It didn't start out that way, but when my fingers got typing that's what flowed out of them.

My brain could have had something to do with it too. But not a lot. It's still quite muddled from being ill.

Hope you find this stuff below useful.

1. Google Adsense stuff

I've heard that Google have been getting tough on Adsense sites recently, investigating sites displaying Adsense and removing ones which don't meet the criteria.

You see, what's happening is that people are getting approved for one site, then adding the code to other sites they own.

That's fine by Google as long as the new sites have nothing wrong with them/don't break Google's small print.

Well some of that small print is mighty small and two friends have written to me this week to say their sites have been banned in the past 7 days.

Why?

Well both for the same reason. They both put a lot of work into building new content sites and put the Adsense ads up on almost every page.

But it was obvious that the sites had no purpose other than displaying the Adsense code.

They didn't try to get subscribers to their ezines, they didn't promote affiliate programs, etc.

All they did was have good quality targeted content + Adsense.

Now you might think there's nothing wrong with building a site like that, but Google just doesn't like it when it comes to Adsense.

One friend sent me the letter Google sent him. Here's part of what Google had to say:

"Ads may not be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant."
______________________________________

Ok, so seeing that having quality content isn't enough, what can you do to make sure your own Adsense sites don't fall foul of the rules?
______________________________________

Well what you have to do is give your sites an extra purpose.

Here are a few ways of doing that:


# also display some affiliate links on the pages, and include an affiliate graphic or two.

# perhaps run a news ticker. You can get good ones from a number of sources, but one of the best is http://www.moreover.com which
has newsfeeds covering a huge variety of niches.

# link to authority sites on the subject, even though they're probably not linking back to you.

# start an ezine and have a subscribe box displayed prominently on each page.

# if your site is about online business/marketing give away a free ebook or two. But make sure they're quality one's you can customize with your affiliate links so that you stand a chance
of profiting from them.

# have a poll running on your site. I use a good one from One Minute Poll

If I were you I'd do all of them.

2. Google Adwords Traffic:

One way of GUARANTEEING plenty of visitors from Google is by buying Adwords.

If you do it right you can make a fabulous income. If you do it wrong, you'll be well out of pocket.

Recommended Adwords Resources ->

Chris Carpenter's GoogleCash ebook, which details how Chris makes a living from Adwords. An excellent resource.

I'm a big user of Google Adwords to promote my many mini sites. And it's now made easier because of the help I get from using GoogleCash and AdWords Analyzer. Read the page listed below to
follow this strategy (it works).

http://www.ozemedia.com/google-adwords.htm

3. Google and blogging...

Google is still ranking frequently updated Blogs very high. And having your own blog (and keeping it to the theme of your main site) could be a great way of getting more traffic.

To learn how to do it well I'd like to recommend you read James Maduk's Blogging Secrets which is a really good multimedia ebook. Very tasty.

Like his excellent Google course "How to Get Ranked #1 On Google" it's a combination of Audio / Video / Whiteboard Training and Screen Captures. (plus you get 4 Hours of bonus audio
interviews from his private E-learning sessions.

If you're thinking of blogging for profit you need to read this first.

4. More Google Stuff...

Your commercially oriented sites probably took a rankings kick in the guts in the last Google update.

Don't worry, you're not alone. This site lets you enter the main keywords for your site and see how many other sites with the same keyword phrase have dropped in rankings.

Not really useful, but interesting.

http://www.scroogle.org/

More useful - in fact a MUST READ if you're at all interested in learning more about how and why Google's latest update is affecting your sites - is a detailed online report "A Statistical and Experimental Analysis of Google's Florida Update" written by Leslie Rohde who developed that marvelous ranking software Optilink.

There's no charge to read it, though Leslie could easily have packaged it up into a "special report" and sold it.

When you've done with reading it though, I seriously suggest taking a look at Optilink.

Leslie is one of the most knowledgeable search engine people around, and the Optilink software works a treat.
_______________________

Looks like an Adsense competitor is on the way early in 2004 http://www.quigo.com/adsonar.htm

Overtures efforts in this field are in beta, with some major sites already running content matched Overture advertising, (and rumors that it's going to be opened up to all of us) and Commission Junction have got a contextual advertising/content matching solution in the works - though unlike Adsense it's very unlikely
to offer pay per click.

You can get more on Overture's Content Match here and while you're there you might want to consider advertising on them. I've had an account there for years now and get tons of traffic to my mini sites. A friend of mine, Paul Manuel, wrote a free report
detailing how he makes a great living from his Overture advertising. you can get it here.

Ok, one last Google thing: Trackmeat.

It's no cost software that saves you logging into Adsense 50 times a day to check how your commissions are doing.

Once you install it and click "Go" it minimizes right away, and your AdSense income will update down in the taskbar and system tray at intervals set by you.

It also works for Commission Junction.

(note: I haven't used this software, so I'm not recommending it, just informing you that it exists)

About the author:
Phil Wiley is the author of the best selling book Mini Site Profits www.minisiteprofits.comand writes the free weekly Letter from Phil at www.ozemedia.com

- Google AdSense: 7 Tips For Creating Sites That Make Money

Google AdSense: 7 Tips For Creating Sites That Make Money

Having a Google AdSense site is a great way to make money. And to create an AdSense site, all you have to do is have a Google AdSense account (which is free), a website or a blog (which is free), and some articles (which are free if you write them yourself). Once you get your site up and running, the AdSense ads will be targeted to your content.

Therefore, those looking for your content will come by, read your articles, and have a high probability of being interested in the targeted ads. Every time someone clicks an ad, you get paid! That is, as long as you have designed your site to maximize AdSense clickthroughs!

Let's look at seven tips for creating AdSense sites that create money.

#1: Keyword Density

Before you place ads on your site, be sure your keyword density is good. You will want to be sure that the right kinds of ads are placed on your site. A free way to determine what the ads will look like on your site is to go to http://www.resultsgenerator.com/adsense/ and type in your keywords. You will then be able to see exactly what ads would show on your site.

If you don't like what you see, then you know that you need to make changes to your keywords! You can get keyword suggestions from Results Generator from Overture or from the free trial version of Word Tracker.

#2: Focused

Not only will the ads be based on your keywords, but they will also be based on your content. You definitely want your keywords and your content to match as closely as possible.

#3: Write Often

The more information you have the better. Why? Because the more content you have, the more visitors you get. Many people suggest that you write a new article every day since no one wants to come back to your site to find the same old messages!

#4: Choose The Right Format

AdSense allows you to choose many different ad formats. Research has shown that wider ads are more successful. The top three formats are:

" 336x280 large rectangle
" 300x250 medium rectangle
" 160x600 wide skyscraper

Additionally, the 468x15 horizontal ad link under the navigation bar is also a good bet.

#5: Color Counts

You have the option to create a Google AdSense ad in any color of your choice. The best thing to do is to make your ad blend well with your site color scheme. You should make the border color and the background color the same color as your web site. You will want your text color to either be black or the color of your main content.

When creating your Google AdSense ads it is recommended to use the color scheme and style of your website so that the ads blend in well. Ads without background color and borders perfom better than ads within borders with background color.

#6: Position Counts, Too

It is well known that visitors to a website scan the site to determine if it is worth reading. You definitely want them to see and scan your AdSense ads. Therefore, the best place to put them is in the top left part of your page or directly under your headlines.

#7: Increase The Number

AdSense allows you to use up to three AdSense units on a page, two AdSense search boxes, and one unit of ad links. Using all that you can increases the chances of earning money.

Keep these seven tips in mind when creating your AdSense site and you will find that your clickthrough rates increase, thus increasing your money making potential.

About the author:
AdsenseSitesForSale.com makes it easy to generate Google Adsense Income, quickly & easily. Find all the tools and resources you need to get started fast. To receive your free Google Adsense site visit: http://www.adsensesitesforsale.com

- Google AdSense and Blogs

Google AdSense and Blogs

If you have a blog, or are thinking about starting a blog, then you are definitely going to want to read this article. It’s all about how to line your pockets with money that’s just waiting to be made without working much harder than you already are.

No only are blogs the hottest thing on the ‘net right now, but they are custom-made for Google’s AdSense program. Why? It’s simple. Blogs represent constantly changing and fresh content to Google’s search engine spiders. Feeding fresh content to those little spiders is just like tossing raw meat to a tiger. They just gobble it up. The more pages of your blog that get indexed, the more traffic you get. And the more traffic you get, the more exposure your AdSense ads get. Are you beginning to see where I’m heading here?

It’s not just Google that loves new content, all of the major engines do. In fact, some web-savvy bloggers are testing Google ads on one page and Overture ads on the other. It doesn’t take too long to see which ads are doing the best when you have nearly side-by-side comparison statistics to look at. Just don’t make the mistake of putting Google and Overture ads on the same page together. While they won’t kill each other like a pair of Siamese fighting fish in the same bowel will, you will be violating both sites’ Terms of Service, and it isn’t worth killing the goose (geese) that laid the golden egg.

It’s a snap to set up Google AdSense ads on your blog. Everything you need to know is right inside of the Google control panel. What’s not so easy is figuring out what ads are going to appear on each page. Since Google targets your key words, and your blog articles could possible wander towards any subject, you never know what you’re going to get.

Well, “never” is a strong word because there actually IS a way to pre-test your blog’s ads before you post your newest edition. Here’s what you do:

• Write your blog article like you normally would
• Plug in your AdSense code and then post your newest page to a sub directory that’s not part of your blog.
• Click refresh a few times until Google wakes up and starts sending ads.
• If you don’t like what you see then fine-tune the article until you see the types of ads that you’re looking for.

With some ads paying as much as $5 per click or more, I’d certainly spend an extra 30 minutes or so tweaking my blog. That’s for sure.

If you’re working hard to get your blog in front of visiting eyeballs, then it doesn’t make any sense at NOT to be using Google AdSense to draw every penny out of your site that’s possible. OK, that’s the end of the article. Now get busy tweaking your blog and checking your ads. You’ve got money waiting to be made!

About the author:
Diane provides marketing and internet profit tips.
For more Google AdSense tips, visit http://www.adsense.deeljeabiz.com
Email : deeljeabiz@gmail.com

- Google Adsense Page Positioning

Google Adsense Page Positioning

Correct positioning of your Google adsense ads can make or break your success with the Google adsense program. Why is this true? Some studies suggest that eye positioning on website gravitate to particular sections of web pages. And if you don’t have the necessary ads in these positions you will not get the clicks.

I talked to countless people that have great traffic, some with 300 to 1000 new visitors a day that say that they only make approx. at max $10 to $20 dollars a month on the adsense program. What a shame. But when I look at their websites the ads are either buried in wording that no one usually pays attention to or the ads are located in positions that just don’t call any attention to their presence.

So were the best locations for you Google adsense ads. Well, I have found the number one best place for the ads are near or in proximity to your main menu. Why near your main menu. Because you know that visitors eyes will and always look for the menu structure of your website. So the common places for placement should be to the top right, the very top under your menu, or the top left. These are the most common locations for you main menu.

But what about the color scheme of the Google adsense ads? Yes, color is very important. You have to make the ads looks as seamless as possible. Here is an example on one of my website http://www.pottery-barn-outlet.com. Here I decided to position the ads at the very top right under my main menu. In direct eye contact. Also, remove the borders; just these two changes will increase your adsense proceeds one hundred percent.

By using these tactics I was able to increase my adsense click through rate significantly depending on traffic level and people's interest.

Take my advice and give it try. I believe you will see a change and hopefully make adsense a more pleasurable experience.

About the author:
Kenneth Elliott is the owner of http://www.marketassociate.comwebsite. He helps real people relize their dream of an successful affiliate experience. Discover why so many have found their ideal business with Kenneth Elliott today.

- Google AdSense – The text link ad with clout

Google AdSense – The text link ad with clout

Webmasters place advertisements on their site to (hopefully!) help their web site visitors find additional information and products that are relevant to their site’s theme and therefore what those visitors came to their website looking for. Of course, it also helps if those advertisements also make money for the webmaster!

Unfortunately, serving advertisements online isn't always easy. Many advertisement companies offering the service of placing ads on our sites have managed to turn the advertisement business into one big mess. Thousands of sites are bogged down with non-relevant pop-ups, pop-unders, pop-ins and banners.

What happens to our sites if these advertisements rarely hit their mark? No matter how many banners and pop-ups we show about herbal remedies to our visitors if we run a website about car parts they will not be interested and they will never click on those ads.

Not only that, but this kind of untargeted advertisement can even have a negative effect on our traffic. Who wants to go to a site that requires us to close pop-ups every minute or for every page we view?

In order to have advertisements that are interesting AND relevant to our visitors there is now a program called ‘Google AdSense'.

Google AdSense is a fast and easy way for website publishers of all sizes to display relevant, text-based, un-obtrusive Google AdWords ads on our website's content pages and earn money.

Since the ads are actually related to what your users are looking for on your site, you'll have a way to both monetize and enhance your web page content. The program is free, and Google pays you for clicks on the AdWords advertisements on your site.

Google offers their AdSense program to just about all website owners. After signing up for the program with Google you receive code to enter on the pages of your site and Google will dynamically generate ads that are relevant to your own web site’s content.

Whenever a visitor clicks on one of the links in the AdSense ad on your site Google credits you with a percentage of money that was paid by the advertiser for that ad.

AdSense also provides us with the option to be selective in which type of ads we want to display on our websites making it possible to send our visitors towards a certain type of products.

To make it possible for everyone to integrate AdSense into their sites the program offers a wide variety of settings that allow us to alter the ads appearance.

The Google AdSense program is incredibly accurate. By stepping beyond the boundaries of simple keyword matching it has become one of the most prominent tools to display accurate advertisements. A list of keywords is still used as the basis of triggering ads, but complex algorithms now ensure that ads that are not related to your site’s theme no longer show up.


An AdSense service can be set up within minutes from the comforts of your chair and by providing your website's visitors with a certain amount of directed ads you can generate for yourself anything from a small to a sizeable income through the use of AdSense.

To sign up for Adsense just visit http://www.google.com/adsense

- Google's own AdSense Tips

Google's own AdSense Tips

Google is at least as interested as you are in having your ads perform well on your site. And they've gone to some work to provide the information you need to optimize your AdSense.

What's fascinating to me is that apparently not everyone bothers to read their tips. And even some that do, fail to apply it.

That said, you need to be aware that simply using their tips doesn't guarantee successful ads and decent CTR (Click Through Rate). How many times have you heard this? You have to test. You have to try alternatives and see what really works best for you, on your pages, with your content and your visitors. Test, test, test some more. Track your results, analyze them, try variations. Too many of us don't test. We hear the mantra, but we don't do the work.

First, let's see if we can get an idea about location. (The graphic is included in the article on my site or you can take a look at it at the Google link included below) Generally, above the fold, at the top center of your content, below top navigation is the hottest location. Not immediately below which is good but not quite as hot. In a left sidebar, to the immediate left of primary content or below the primary content are also good. Most other locations are generally cooler.

Again, you need to test and you need to consider your users behavior - and their behavior may vary on different pages with different kinds of content. Google suggests that in some cases, such as articles, the best location can be at the end of the article. To quote Google, "It's almost as if users finish reading and ask themselves, What can I do next?" Well targeted relevant ads right there can provide the answer.

Don't blindly assume that sticking a nice big rectangle in the center above the fold will do it. It may, but depending on your content, it may annoy or inconvenience your users.

Users tend to focus on content, navigation and to a lesser extent graphics. Positioning your ads near these elements will often work well -- if those ads are targeted to your visitors needs.

The top three performers among the Google ad formats are the 336X280 large rectangle, the 300X250 inline rectangle and the 160X600 wide skyscraper. Google reports that the wider formats tend to do better than the taller ones. One reason may be that these are, perhaps, easier to read since they have fewer line breaks and require less eye movement. But, you need to use formats that fit your pages well. Once again, you need to test, but redoing your pages to suit a particular ad format may not be a reasonable alternative and you may discover that a different format actually gets better results.

Now we come to color. Conventional wisdom says that colors which tend to blend into your content do better. Some go so far as to suggest that colors which make the ads look like part of the content are best. Personally, I think anybody really believes those ads are anything but ads, but who knows. Google suggests that you may find that colors that standout from your content do better - or maybe the opposite. This is absolutely an area where you need to test alternative color schemes. Going with the conventional wisdom usually works fairly well, but without testing you could be leaving a lot of money on the table.

Google allows you to have up to three ad units and one link unit on your pages. If you have long pages with lots of text, can only use small ad units or are in a niche with a large ad inventory, multiple units can pay off. Keep in mind that the way ad serving works is that the higher value ads are delivered to the first ad unit block encountered in your code. Always make sure that this first ad unit is displayed in the best location (yeah - test). You want the higher paying ads to be in the prime hot location on your page. Weaker locations can get the lower priced ads. And if none are available, then nothing will display unless you've included an alternate ad URL in your Google code. To maximize monetization you should be including alternate ad URLs, especially if you are putting multiple units on a page. The use of an alternate ad URL also eliminates the possibility of being served PSAs (Public Service Announcements). It's your real estate, maximize your returns.

Nothing here is secret. Except for using the alternate ad URL, all of this information is available from Google's Optimization Tips page - http://www.google.com/support/adsense/bin/static.py?page=tips.html . You can buy books and courses, visit a dozen forums and, in the end it comes down to what your visitors do on your site. The best you can get is general guidance. This means averaged outcomes over many sites, many types of content. If you are serious about doing whatever you can to really optimize your AdSense returns, there is only one thing to do - test. Whether it's AdSense, opt-ins, copy, headlines - anything with a measurable outcome that you can track - then the way to improve is to test and keep on testing.

About the author:
Richard writes, teaches, trains and consults on business and professional presentations and eCommerce related matters. For more information on eCommerce sites and eCommerce site building visit http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com- and you can find more articles at http://www.building-ecommerce-websites.com/articles.

- Google to Compete with PayPal ?

Google to Compete with PayPal ?

PayPal is secure in its domination over the electronic payment industry, at least for now.

Following reports that Google planned to launch a new Internet payment service (nicknamed Google Wallet), Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google, denied that Google would be directly competing with PayPal. He did, however, acknowledge that Google has plans for some type of electronic payment service.

Without revealing any details, Schmidt emphasized that the Google payment service will not offer the same sort of “person to person, store-valued payments system” as PayPal provides.

The Internet commerce industry was rampant with rumours of the new Google service following an e-commerce conference hosted by securities firm Piper Jaffray. Speculation that Google Wallet would encroach on PayPal territory was reinforced by the appearance of a June 20th article in the Wall Street Journal which stated that Google was planning an online payment service to compete with PayPal.

PayPal is a unit of eBay and generates almost 25% of total eBay revenue. It is used by consumers for making a wide variety of Internet purchases. It allows purchasers to use their credit cards without divulging their credit card numbers to merchants. PayPal takes a percentage of each transaction and had revenues of $233.1 million in the first quarter of this year.

Most of Google’s revenue comes from online advertising and this expansion into online payments was seen by many in the industry as yet another example of the rivalry between the two companies.

Google is a giant in Internet commerce with revenues of $3.2 billion last year. A payment service that competed directly with PayPal would be a serious blow to both PayPal and eBay.

Google maintained silence about the rumours until Schmidt’s comments last Tuesday. Without elaborating, he stated that Google’s payment service would be an extension of its existing advertising programs.

About the author:
Copyright 2006 by Ross MacIver

This article may be redistributed freely on the Internet or in ezines as long as the resource box and hyperlinks remain intact.

Ross MacIver is the director of Best Online Content. We provide quality content for your web site and offer a full range of design and SEO services.

- Growing eBay Sales with Top-Notch Customer Service

Growing eBay Sales with Top-Notch Customer Service

Painters were at our house this weekend, doing the trim outside and a few rooms inside. My wife provided most of the direction, but I asked the head guy (and owner of the company) to pay attention to a few details for me.

The whole experience reminded me of how critically important it is to pay attention to customer requests when dealing with eBay sales. On the Web (and with email) it's easy to lose contact with customers and forget to address their concerns.

Make sure you don't fall into this trap. You may not see the results directly, but your customers will become upset and you'll eventually lose business - like my painter has. Not only did he lose business, he lost a valuable referral source.

He started to lose me when he failed to record my suggestions and concerns. I didn't get into interior design much, choosing between mauve and tope, but I did have some input as far as the whole project goes.

I wanted them to make sure they cleaned up the "misses" on the outside, where some black trim paint accidentally hit the white house paint. I needed them to unstick some of the windows and put all the screens back, as well.

When the project started wrapping up, it was obvious that the lead was ignoring some of my requests -- namely the screens and window unsticking. I loved the work, but I wasn't so hot on their finishing skills.

From a customer service perspective, the timing couldn't have been worse. Just when the painters wanted to consider it a job well done, I was having second thoughts about their competence.

That sinking feeling should not have come at the end of the project. The lead should have been going out with a celebration rather than with some gripes. He should have lead me around, showed me how great everything looks, showed me the extra work he'd thrown in, and gone down my list of requests one by one, demonstrating that he met my needs and respects my wishes.

If he performed these "finalizing" customer service/marketing steps, he'd have my 100% recommendation. I'd rave about him to friends, pass out his business cards and even write up a testimonial for him. I'd offer to help him out with his advertising materials, in fact. We'll certainly have more painting jobs in the future, and I'd like to stay on good terms with him.

On eBay, the same steps need to be followed in order to build business and collect loyal customers that rave about you. You need to send customers follow-up emails that confirm what they bought, what kind of deal you're giving them (on shipping, bonuses, etc.), and how you appreciate their business and would welcome any questions they may have. You need to offer them targeted cross-sell and up-sell items as they bid and shop. And, you need to quickly address their concerns as they come up. All this attention and service ensures that your customers refer you to others, leave positive feedback, and return to do more business with you.

Don't be like my painter. Pay attention to detail and your business will grow at a healthy pace.

About the author:
Phil Dunn, author of The 7 Essential Steps to Successful eBay Marketing (McGraw-Hill, July 2006), is a marketing writer and strategic consultant. He helps people persuade, influence decision making, and close business with the written and spoken word. His business, Synapse Services Co. (http://www.qualitywriter.com), produces direct mail, brochures, scripts, newsletters, white papers and related collateral for Fortune 500 companies like Pitney Bowes, Hewlett Packard, IKON and Microsoft.

- Here's What I Use to Help my eBay Selling

Here's What I Use to Help my eBay Selling

I get many requests about the systems I use in running my own eBay and internet business.

To give you the answer in one place, here is the software which I use daily in my own business.

I should point out that much of my own activity is now to do with selling digital information via eBay and from websites i.e. ebooks and software, which is why some of the software programs I use are concerned with this activity.

General productivity

Shortkeys
This is lovely utility which saves me hours of time each week. It is perfect for those occasions when you are required to key in information to websites. For example, how often do you key in your name and address, or a username and password, or an email address?

With Shortkeys, you associate 3 or 4 unique keystrokes with a string of frequently used information. Let's suppose I want to have a shortkey for my email address, and I set this as ##z1 in Shortkeys. Whenever I am required to key in my email address, in Outlook, on web forms, in Word documents etc, I just type in ##z1 and Shortkeys instantly replaces that with my email address.

There is an uncharged version called Shortkeys Lite which has a limit of 30 items. The full version of Shortkeys allows you an unlimited number of items.

You can get it here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrshortkeys.htm

Download Accelerator

If you regularly download ebooks or software, and it seems to take forever, you will find Download Accelerator is a useful addition to your portfolio. Download Accelerator increases download speeds by up to 300%, regardless of the speed of your internet connection. I don't know how it does it, but I guess 89 million users can't be wrong!

You can get Download Accelerator on 14 day test here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlraccelerator.htm

Ebook Production

Acrobat Adobe
I create all my ebooks in pdf format as this file can be read by anyone with Acrobat Reader, and this includes Mac users too. The way I create an ebook is to write it in Microsoft Word first. Once I'm happy that the Word version is exactly how I want it, I use an integrated converter which takes the Word file and converts it automatically into a pdf file. This conversion preserves everything which appeared in the Word document, including headers/footers, page numbers and web links.

You can read all about Adobe Acrobat here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlracrobat.htm

If you are considering developing your own ebooks using Acrobat, the most cost effective way of purchasing it is to buy online from Adobe's US site, and select the download option. To buy the download version this is the place to start: http://www.workwinners.com/nlracrobat_dl.htm

At 167 Mb, Acrobat is quite a large software product. If you would therefore prefer to buy the boxed CD version, the cheapest way in the UK is to get it from Amazon. http://www.workwinners.com/nlramacrobat.htm

ebook Covers
It is a fact that showing your ebook in 3D form so it looks like a book really helps to boost sales. Compact Draw is the software I use to create my ebook covers. You can try it for 30 days here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrcompact.htm

Website creation and maintenance

Website design
I use Macromedia's Dreamweaver to design websites, and indeed to create eBay auction description pages. Dreamweaver is a premium web design product, and unless you're going to do serious website design I wouldn't advise you to acquire it.

It comes in boxed form, and Macromedia will channel any UK purchasers to a UK based reseller. The cheapest way in the UK is to get it from Amazon. http://www.workwinners.com/nlramdream.htm

Image Manipulation & Optimising
I use Paint Shop Pro for picture manipulation and for optimising. This is important for auction pictures, as eBay have a size limit of 50KB on any pictures which you want to upload to their Picture Service.

The authors, JASC, have just released Version 9 of this software. I find Version 8 is perfectly acceptable for everything I want to do, and it's cheaper than Version 9.

You can't now buy Version 8 from the author's USA site, which is unfortunate as this was the cheapest way of buying the product before Version 9 came out.

The good news is that Version 8 is currently half price at the author's UK site, as you can see here: http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpsp.htm

It's available for trial at the UK site, and I recommend you test it to see if you can work with it.

Website upload
Cute FTP is probably the best known FTP software. I have used it for several years and have been very satisfied with the software. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrcute.htm

Website hosting
ProWebSpace are excellent and reasonable web hosts which I have now been using for over a year. I transferred to them from another host with whom I was having lots of problems. Now, I have a better service, and it's at one third the price! Of course, you can get web space for nothing from a variety of ISPs. Take a look at http://www.freeisp.com

You only need companies like ProWebSpace if you intend to "go commercial" in your internet activities. If you do, it's important to have a paid service as this gives you the right to kick b**t if ever you experience hosting problems. If you would like to know the hosting company who I moved from, email me. If you think you need professional hosting, this is definitely where I would start. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpws.htm

Newsletter and other Mailings

As my newsletter has grown, I've tried various ways of managing my mailing lists. I currently use Press-Manager, and have found their service to be very easy to set-up and to use. It's a web based service, and all mailings are performed from their site. This means there's no software to be installed, I can manage my mailings from any PC and my ISP no longer bears the mailing load. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpm.htm

Autoresponding

You may know that the use of autoresponders is one of the keys to marketing on the internet. I use Promasoft, and have found it can easily handle everything I want. http://www.workwinners.com/nlrpsoft.htm

I hope this glimpse into the systems and services I use has been helpful.

Good luck in your own internet business developments and in your eBay selling.

About the author:
Brian McGregor specializes in showing website owners how to make more money from their sites by applying inventive and original use of eBay. For a free copy of ‘The eBay Traffic Funnel’ which shows you how to use the power of eBay to make more money with your website, visit http://www.more-auction-sales.com/websites/

- How are con artists stealing money from eBay buyers? Case I

How are con artists stealing money from eBay buyers? Case I

Someone is using another person as a middleman.

Just imagine: you want to buy a fast and modern laptop but you see that in retail stores and internet superstores it costs tons of money. Where will you go? Right! You will connect to Internet; start your favorite browser and type "www.ebay.com".

You find a laptop there and you like a price, you think: "Okay. It's very good deal! I will win this auction!" And you win.

You write to a seller and ask him how to pay. The seller is reply that you should send a money order to him/her. Then you send the money order and... nothing. You try to contact with the seller, but nobody replies on your messages.

You use eBay to get seller's information. What a hell!? I sent the money to another person!!! You call to the seller and find that he doesn't know what eBay is. Someone used his credit card to signup.

You find a phone number of a person who had received your money order. You call to her and learn that she is just receiving money orders on behalf of an overseas company.

She doesn't know what eBay is also. Heck! You want your money back! But it's very problematic…

As I know it's impossible!

What do you learn from it?

Before bidding on an auction:
- Look at the payments part of a page. If a seller accepts money orders and cashiers' checks only when it's a 95% scam. Feedback means almost nothing. I will explain it later.

- Ask a seller for his/her phone number and make a call to be sure that the seller is real person who is selling an item.

- If a seller is refused or avoiding to contact you via the phone ask for the eBay escrow service. Use eBay escrow only! Do not trust other companies.

- If you are paying a seller by http://www.PayPal.com always check that a seller name the same as on eBay. If different it's 95% scam.

- If you reached a seller by a phone and negotiated with him about a payment method you can bid on the auction safely.

Some advanced knowledge:

I said early that feedback means nothing. Why?

Because some scam artists are buying eBay accounts with a high feedback rating.

They are buying it from hackers who overtake legal users' accounts and inactive for a long time period accounts. It's also true for PayPal accounts.

And why you should trust eBay escrow services only? Because rippers are running bogus escrow sites and try to rip you off.
Theirs site looks very fine. You will see a professional design and great domain name. But... it’s only fake, intended to take your money and run.

Very often such services tell you to transfer money to an overseas bank account or e-gold account.

REMEMBER THAT A BIG PART OF SCAM ARTISTS SIMPLY DON'T DO THE NEXT STEP IF YOU WILL ASK FOR THE EBAY ESCROW OR PHONE CALL. I KNOW IT, BECAUSE I'M THE RETIRED RIPPER.

About the author:
Article by Nikolai Nikonov - the publisher of eBay and internet fraud blog
http://ebay-fraud.blogspot.com

- How can you make money out of your site with no product, no affiliate program, no services and no idea of how to sell

How can you make money out of your site with no product, no affiliate program, no services and no idea of how to sell

This was the question my copywriter asked me at one of our meetings about joint ventures on the web. What follows is the question and answers as best as I can remember them. Just to let you know he was making money 24 hours later…

Question: How do you make money out of your site with no product, no affiliate program, no services and no idea of how to sell…

Answer: Easy use Adsense.

Question: But what is Adsense.

Answer: Adsense is the other side of Google's Adwords. These are little three line text adverts that companies use to get targeted traffic to their websites.

Question: But how does it work.

Answer: Simple. Your Website is Internet real estate. The more your website is vested the more valuable the real estate. Just like a piece of real estate you can sell bits off. In this case it is the same as you putting up an advertising billboard on your property. You rent this to a company; in this case Google and they put their ads on it.

Question. OK But how do I get paid

Answer: You get paid every time somebody goes to your site and clicks on one of the ads. Simple enough. (In fact very sophisticated from a technical and marketing point of view but that is getting off the subject.)

Question. How much do I get paid?

Answer. Well here is a thing; you will probably not be able to work out exactly how much you get paid for any one ad that changes ad to ad. But after a few days of running this system you can probably work out how much you are getting per page per day.

Question. How much are you getting?

Answer. I am not allowed to tell you because I have signed a contract with Google that tells me that I am not allowed to say. However, I can tell you that to get to a stage where you get up to $1 per page per page is not impossible, but if you work on $0.30 per page per day, for a well-visited site you could be very happy.

Question. OK but $0.30 per page per day is not a lot.

Answer. No not if you only have 5 pages. But even that would cover the cost of a web site. Have a look below at the figures.

5 page web site at $0.30 per page per day

5 x 0.30 x 365 days = $547.50 per Year

10 page web site at $0.30 per page per day

10 x 0.30 x 365 = $1095.00 per Year

25 page site at $0.30 per page per day

25 x 0.30 x 365 = $2,737.50 per Year

50 page site at $0.30 per page per day

50 x 0.30 x 365 = $5,475.00 per Year

OK We are not talking retiring owning your own island and helicopter. But if you said well I think I could put up one page a day for every day of the year. Have 50 pages per web site. That’s means 7 web sites with 50 pages each and 15 day off.

365 divided by 50 = 7 and 15 over.

That would give you 7 sites at $5,475.00 per year or $38,325.00 in annual income after all the pages were finished. Now does that sound interesting. And all you have had to do is write 200 words per day. Just to let you know this article is so far 543 words.

Even if it is only half that is $19,162.50 per year. That is the repayments on an interest only loan at 5% of just under $400,000.

Question. Why not just have one big website?

Answer. It is better to build a number of columns to hold up a building. Better to diversify and survive.

Question. OK if this is so good why isn’t everybody doing it?

Answer. Many reasons, some people make more out of selling their own products, some do not know about it, some are just too purest. In the end who cares; if you quest is to make some money. There is nothing bad here. In fact there is only good.

Question. What do you mean there is only good.

Answer. Well let’s think. Somebody has got to your site because they have either searched for you on a search engine or somebody has referred them. They will only visit your site if they are interested in what you have. The ads that google put up on their billboard on your site are targeted to what your site is about. Therefore your visitors not only get to see your info but they get to see other offerings. If they are interested they click on the ad. Now look what has happened here. You have made money because somebody has paid to put an ad on your site. The user has clicked on the ad because they are interested in the subject and ad. The advertiser gets a warm lead. Google make a slice as the middleman and can continue to run their excellent service. So everybody wins. And it only costs people pennies.

Question. OK I’m sold what do I do now.

Answer. Simple go to www.google.com/adsense download all the info on setting up and account, the details what specifications your site must meet. Basically, no competitive ads, not profanity, must be a reasonable site with good navigation and no to many spelling mistakes.

The just get going.

Question. Are there ways that I can maximize the adverts and make more money?

Answer. Yes there are. But that is not for this article.

For further information come back to this web site for the next article – Now to maximize your adsense review stream.

Bye for now.

About the author:
George Slater
www.the-web-master.com
www.1st-retirement.com

George Slater is an SBI Webmaster and can help you generate massive amounts of traffic to your site that can then be turned into paying clients.

- How Non-technical Webmasters Are Harnessing the Power of RSS

How Non-technical Webmasters Are Harnessing the Power of RSS

The opportunity to quickly and easily implement and harness the power of RSS is quite real and new programs become available every week that allow non-technical marketers and webmasters to capitalize on the effective use of RSS.

Jim Edwards spoke of this trend in the recent "For a Greater Cause" teleseminar. Media-rich blogs and content sites are stickier and keep visitors on site longer.

Consider delivering audio content via the internet by setting up a blog and incorporating streaming audio. By doing so, your media-rich message creates a relationship with visitors that cannot be achieved with text alone.

If you'd like to take this one step further, start using video content. It's the difference between reading a flyer versus listening to the radio versus watching television. Why do people gravitate to the TV when every home has a radio? When presented with the option, we prefer the satisfaction of both the auditory and visual senses.

The real power of blogs, audio and video is that you can invite your visitors to participate and interact with you by allowing them to post comments. Your blog becomes a community event and we all love a party.

If you'll be using the strategy of blogging with audio and video, there are three things that you should do.

First, as mentioned above, allow your visitors to post comments to your blog.

Second, always give visitors the opportunity to sign up for your newsletter or ezine directly from your blog.

Third, for those who prefer to receive news via RSS feeds, post your RSS feed on every page of your blog.

Recorded interviews with industry experts fed via podcast can raise your credibility simply by association. Arrange for a phone interview with an expert in your market area, get permission to record the call and post it to your blog. If you're offering publicity and exposure for the interviewee, it should be simple to find willing and eager parties.

RSS offers you the ability to provide high frequency content updates. It can be daily or hourly. Deliver important messages, news and other content on demand rather that waiting for your regularly scheduled e-zine.

What's next?...

Here's where things get fun for the online marketer and webmaster. One area in particular where you can really start to take advantage of RSS technology is to build sticky content on your sites and monetize it with programs like Google's Adsense.

RSS feeds are available in abundance that provide product news, press releases and updates. Sites such as PRWeb (http://www.prweb.com) want you to use their news feeds on your site. So why not? Build your site's content with news and information feeds that deliver steady streams of traffic.

Do a bit of searching and you'll find programs and scripts that make the addition of RSS feeds to your website very simple and fast.

RSS gives you an edge over your competition by allowing you to create a sense of community, offer interaction and provide the latest news and information nearly on autopilot.

About the author:
Ron Hutton is a 20 year sales and marketing veteran with a passion for coaching and training. To watch a free video tutorial on how RSS was used in one little experiment to generate an extra $100 in Adsense income in 2 weeks (10 days actually), go here now... http://www.gothrive.com/auto-news-video.htm

- How To Boost Your Marketing Campaign With Visitor Tracking

How To Boost Your Marketing Campaign With Visitor Tracking

Who cares, as long as they visit your site, right?

Wrong!

It is a fact that traffic, or the number of people who visit your site, could make or break an online business. After all, we cannot sell our products if no one would get to know about them. The problem is, most webmasters would rather concentrate on generating more traffic by dabbling in countless marketing strategies instead of honing a particular one to perfection. The former is susceptible to new risks, while the latter eliminates old problems for improved performance. Clearly, tweaking your site is the way to go. And you could do this efficiently with the aid of visitor tracking.

Visitor tracking has long been hailed as a science, and for good reasons! The accurate findings that visitor tracking can provide is the key to creating a site that is both friendly to everyone who would grace its pages, and enticing to everyone so that they may try its features.

How is visitor tracking capable of all these, you might ask. Consider the powerful deeds that visitor tracking is capable of:

* With visitor tracking, you would be able to know where your visitors are coming from. With this knowledge, you could make corresponding adjustments to your marketing campaign. Know what area to target, what kind of people to focus your attention on, and how to win their interest so that they would come to your site.

* With visitor tracking, you would also be able to know the sites your visitors would go to after lingering in yours. You would be able to ascertain an aspect that has eluded even the best socio-oriented marketers in the world: consumer behavior. Visitor tracking would allow you to determine a pattern based on the conduct of online users, and you could make this work to your advantage.

* With visitor tracking, you would know how much time your visitors spend in your site. If their visits last for mere seconds, then such is a telltale sign that something is wrong with your pages, and adjustments need to be made to sustain their interest and make them stay longer.

* With visitor tracking, you’d know which links work best. This is awesome for two reasons:

A. You’ll be able to find out which of your links are producing the best results, and you could pattern subsequent campaigns based on that method; and

B. You’ll be able to increase your Google AdSense revenue by knowing which ad links are actually being clicked and which ones are just collecting dust.

* With visitor tracking, you would be able to know how your visitors go about in every visit to your site. Which pages do they open first? Where do they go next? Where do they stay longer? This is an invaluable knowledge as it would help you tweak your site to lead your visitors where you want them to go, instead of relying on where they would rather proceed.

It has been said that success can only be attained and sustained by constantly improving ourselves to meet every challenge thrown our way. With all the benefits that visitor tracking provides, success won’t be that far away.

About the author:
Discover EXACTLY What Your Visitors Are Doing When They Arrive At Your Site: http://www.clickspyplus.com Discover the Secrets of Starting and Running a Successful Home Business and Receive Loads of Free Bonuses for Subscribing to Our Newsletter: http://www.home-business-tips-newsletter.com/

- How To Make A Serious Income Online Without A Website !

How To Make A Serious Income Online Without A Website !

Did you know that eBay gets over 1.8 Billion (yes that's Billion with a B) page views per month, and moves over $15 Billion a year in merchandise? It is the 4th most visited site on the Internet, and at the time of this writing has sites in 26 countries worldwide. So do you eBay? I do! And, thousands worldwide are taking advantage of the Goldmine on eBay. Shouldn't you? If the idea of turning your lose change into hundreds of dollars appeals to you, then keep reading.

The great thing about operating an eBay Auction Business is you don't need a website to make money online and it allows you the freedom of working at home. And currently over 400,000 people are doing just that. Working at home, and making a full-time income, online without a website with their eBay Auction Business. Have you ever wondered if you could be a successful eBayer? Have you ever asked yourself... "How do they do it?" or "Where do they find all their "Hot Merchandise?". Well, here's an insight from my book "eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak" into how to start your eBay Auction Business from Home on a Shoe String Budget using Dropshippers.

Using Dropshippers is a smart way to get your eBay Auction Business up and running especially in the beginning. By using Dropshippers you will not have to worry about storage of costly inventory, packaging of inventory, or the shipping of inventory. Your Dropshipper will look after all of that for you. And with the ease of using Dropshippers you will have more time to concentrate on improving your sales skills and learning how to bring more customers to your eBay Auctions. The fact is, most Dropshippers charge you nothing to become a member to sell their products. While others may charge just a nominal administration fee. Plus, you can list your item on eBay for approximately .35 cents. So, as you can see your eBay Auction Business will cost you very little to get started. With such a low financial risk the only thing you have to lose is a bit of your time.

At this point you might be wondering how Dropshipping on eBay would work. It's a simple process. First you should browse eBay to find an item(s) you would like to sell. Then become an eBay member. Once you have an item(s) you are interested in selling, locate a Dropshipper for that item(s). Sign up with the Dropshipper. Now, list an auction on eBay for the item(s). Once your auction is over and you have a buyer, email your Dropshipper the required information. Your Dropshipper will then send the item(s) directly to your customer and charge your account the wholesale price for the item(s). The difference between the wholesale price and your retail price is pure profit!

All successful eBayers know that they must sell what the public is wanting to buy at a price the public is willing to pay for it. So research your item thoroughly. Know what your cost will be, and approximately what you can sell the item for before you decide to sell it.

Happy Selling!
Joe Clare

About the author:
Joe Clare is an active Netpreneur and eBayer! He is the author of numerous articles on how to succeed on eBay! Check out his latest Best Selling eBook "eBay Marketing Wholesale SourcePak" Your Passport to Success! at http://www.ebooksnsoftware.com