---- IN
THIS ISSUE----
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Letter From the Editor
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Quote For The day
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Article I -
"Entertaining Political Issues"
by Kat Harris
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Article
II - "My $44,590 Internet
Marketing Lesson"
by Jim Daniels
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Article III - "Search Engine Rankings Confession"
by Jim
Daniels
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This Ezine can also be accessed online at:
http://www.internetmarketingnews.org
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Letter From The Editor
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I believe it
was P.T. Barnum who once said, "You can fool all of the people
some of the time and some of the people some of the time, but you
can't fool all of the people all of the time." Doing
business on the Internet may have been put into one of these
categories.
If you've been "fooled" it's not only therapeutic but just
being a good neighbor to get the word out so others won't fall prey to
the same trap.
Let us in on the facts and we will publish your story. Email
us / Editor/Internet Marketing News
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Quote For
The Day
Thus we see that the all important thing
is not killing or giving life, drinking or not drinking, living in the
town or the country, being unlucky or lucky, winning or losing. It is
how we win, how we lose, how we live or die, finally, how we choose.
R. H. Blyth
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Article
I
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Entertaining Political Issues
by Kat Harris
If you're like most of the population, domestic and world
politics were not your favorite subjects in school. Even for
those who attended college, study in a major area took so much
time that it prevented a serious following of changes in the
world's political climate. Let's face it, understanding current
events completely would require 24/7 viewing of cable news
networks, all while reading the current issues of news magazines.
Who has that kind of time? To top that off, most twenty or
thirty-somethings are so busy with their new post-education
adulthood that politics has never even had time or space to climb
the list of priorities. There's the house, or getting ready to
buy a house, the overtime building a name for yourself at work,
dating or marriage commitments, and for many the challenges that
children bring. With all that going on, one could turn on the
news after just a couple of days and have almost no idea what the
reporters are referring to. Sound familiar?
On the other hand, recent events in the United States and around
the world are enough to make any politically starved fence-sitter
sit up and pay attention. Unless you're one of those who did
study politics and world affairs in college, the events that led
up to the current state of affairs has eluded you, at least on
some level. Yet even with a careful study of history, there's an
element that none of us can control.
We are not always told the truth, the complete truth. Who's job
is it on capitol hill to make sure that the general public, as
busy with their lives as Washington ought to be, are given facts
that are truthful, current, and concise so that the most
mainstream of us can understand them? Not Congress, you say?
How about Mrs. Rice? George Bush? John Kerry? Last we checked,
there was no Czar of Accurate and Concise Information.
We all need a source we can look to for that concise and accurate
information on current events. Somewhere where information is
presented in a user-friendly format that allows us to look
further into issues that are most important to us. Somewhere we
can form an educated opinion. Much of what we hear already is so
dry that it's difficult to follow along. It's just not very
engaging. It would be nice if we could find information
presented in an entertaining as well as useful format, where we
might actually get a laugh with our bit of serious news. The
truth is out there...if we're willing to look hard enough.
So the next time the news gets a little over-whelming and you
feel buried in a load of political broo-ha-ha that's difficult
for anyone to follow, try looking for some alternative sources.
NO TREE HUGGING REQUIRED, just a quick connect to important
issues. http://www.ceodick.com Political citing, t-shirts &
finger puppets. The site includes independent articles and
sources of information, so you can read as much or as little as
you want. Informative and fun, not too technical. You can even
find a T-shirt to help you express your opinions.
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Article
II
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"My $44,590 Internet Marketing
Lesson"
By Jim Daniels
"Just when I thought I was becoming a smart cybermarketer, along
comes a humbling lesson I'll never forget..."
"An extremely successful web entrepreneur taught me a basic
business lesson last year. His one lesson paid off to the tune of
$44,590 last year alone. Are you in need of this valuable lesson too?
Read on and find out..."
THE HOLE
For years I had been puttering along and doing quite well online. My
income had grown to six figures and I considered my marketing plan
solid and well-rounded. It was not.
One day a well-known cybermarketing guru approached me and invited me
into a joint venture. I reviewed his service and it was top-notch.
However, it was priced at a few hundred dollars. My first thought was
that it was not ideal for my audience. After all, most were small or
home based business owners like myself, so they were working with
limited budgets. I declined his offer.
Like the great marketer he is, this guy didn't give up that fast. The
very next day, he took my reason for saying no, and identified it for
what it really was... a "hole" in my business plan. And
while it was a glaring hole from his perspective, being on the inside
I had never seen it.
THAT FATEFUL DAY
He revealed the hard facts to me with one sentence that fateful day...
"Jim, you are severely limiting your income potential by offering
primarily low-priced products and services at your website. "
Admittedly, the average amount of each sale I made was in the $30
range. My books, manuals and software sold well and my highest ticket
item was about $100. To me that sounded like a high-priced ticket
item. He explained that on the Internet, it is not. He was pulling in
a better sales to visitor ratio than I was, and his service cost
almost ten times as much as mine!
So I agreed to join this expert in an attempt to plug the hole in my
business. As I mentioned, at first I was a bit reluctant to offer any
high-priced items at my website. I didn't want to seem greedy. But I
quickly learned that online, there are more people willing to pay for
premium services such as the one I was about to offer.
THE LESSON PAYS OFF
The service I added to my line of products was a private site
membership which provided a way for entrepreneurs to increase the
speed of their success online. The service worked well for the members
and after personally sampling it myself, I too was thrilled with the
results. In more ways than one...
By simply adding this one higher priced service to my site I was able
to increase my income immediately by over $1000 a week. Actually, I
cashed commission checks totaling $44,590 throughout the next six
months, from this one program. And in the process I'm able to satisfy
the folks who are willing to pay for 'round-the-clock' expert
consultation for their online business.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
So do you have a hole to plug in your online business? Are you
offering at least one high-priced item at your site?
If not, the time to get started is now.
There are now more reasons to offer at least one high-priced item at
your site than ever before. Here are just a few...
1. Online spenders have more money.
By marketing to people online, you are reaching the highest income
bracket in the world. Selling one $250 item is easier than selling ten
$25 items.
2. Spending habits differ from one person to the next.
Don't make the mistake of thinking your potential customers' spending
habits are the same as yours. Everyone spends differently.
3. The big ticket items ARE selling!
Someone is going to sell the high-priced items and someone is going to
buy them. That's a guarantee. Why not be the marketer who fills the
need.
IN CLOSING
Are you convinced yet? If so, get started today. Find a solid product
or service that would fit in well at your site. Make sure it is
directly related to what you are currently marketing and make sure it
is worth the price.
If there's no affiliate program available for the product or service
you want to offer, contact the webmaster with a joint venture
proposal. You may be surprised at how many webmasters are receptive to
these offers.
If you're in the internet marketing arena like me, consider joining me
and my new "expert friends" promoting private site
memberships. Full details are right here, and who knows... this may
turn out to be an extremely valuable lesson for you too!
http://www.bizweb2000.com
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Article III
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"Search Engine Ranking Confessions"
By Jim Daniels
Here's a question I get at least once every week... "Search
engine ranking. How important is it really?"
Well, if you can never seem to find your web site through search
engines, you may think it could be keeping you from success.
Not true. Today I'd like to make a few confessions about my own search
engine ranking efforts and share with you some personal findings on
the subject of search engine ranking. You'll learn how to make your
web pages search engine friendly and some great ways to improve your
traffic from major search engines -- with very little effort.
Confession #1:
There was a time when I felt that ranking high in search engines
was very important. I even spent hours every week trying to get those
top spots. I mean I tried everything. And lots of the stuff I tried
worked. I enjoyed #1 rankings at Infoseek, AltaVista, WebCrawler and
more. I was in the top 10 of nearly all the major search engines.
Then a funny thing happened.
I wised up.
You see, I finally realized that there were literally thousands of
other folks promoting related products and services. I knew that
keeping those high search engine positions would become quite a chore
eventually. Hey, I'm just one guy, sitting at my computer. If the few
hours a week I was spending on search engine ranking grew into ten, 12
or 15 hours, something else would have to suffer.
Which leads me to confession #2...
I dropped out of the game altogether. That's right, I gave up the
battle. And it was the best decision I ever made.
Not only did this decision free up time for more important online
marketing strategies, it helped me see the bigger picture.
That big picture is this:
You need more than search engine traffic to make money online. You
need business relationships. You form these valuable business
relationships by promoting your business in other ways. Regular email
contact, newsletter publishing, discussion group participation,
offering an associate program - these are the methods that have
brought me full-time income on the internet. They are also the methods
that will take me further.
I can honestly say that if the search engines all closed up shop
tomorrow (or started to rank pages by who pays them the most - which
is more likely) my cyberbusiness wouldn't miss a beat. Why? I chose
not to rely on search engines for web site traffic.
That's not to say I don't get traffic from search engines. I just
don't rely on search engines for *ALL* my traffic. Like any wise
internet marketer, I take what I can get - especially when it's free.
Which leads me to Confession #3...
I now enjoy some of my best search engine ranking ever!
"What's that Jim? You gave up the battle and you're
winning?..."
Actually, yes. I now receive hundreds of visitors each day through
search engines. There's a good chance that's how you originally found
my site.
So how does a guy drop out of the search engine battles and come up
with top ranking?
Simple. I said I dropped out of the battles, not the war. You see, I
still make sure that every web page I create is search engine friendly
and optimized for good ranking. I do this by inserting meta tags,
using a good title and adding keyword rich content.
I recommend this as a minimum. It's simple. All you have to do is
create one good meta-tagged web page, then use it as a template when
creating all your other pages. If you want a good example, just view
the source code of this page by clicking View then Source in your
browser. Notice my title and meta tags. I created this page from my
own template. Each time I create a new page I use the template. I
simply adjust the title, meta tag and keywords according to the
content of the new page.
You can and should be using this method too. Every time you create a
new page, start from your template and adjust the title and keywords
for the content on that page. If you're not familiar with html at all,
here's a program you can use to automate your search engine
positioning efforts.
I also recommend you spend a lot of time getting other sites in your
industry to link to yours. Link popularity is growing in importance as
major search engines strive to show the best search engine results for
their users. The more sites you have linking to yours, the better your
search engine results will be.
I've learned this first-hand, as I have over thousands of sites
linking to mine (as reported by linkpopularity.com) and my search
engine ranking as improved dramatically as a result of these links.
Note: Here's the tool that helps me achieve more links on a regular
basis.
In closing...
With the "casual" search engine ranking methods mentioned
above, you can't help but get better search engine raking. Plus, all
the time you save battling for those top spots can be better spent on
REAL internet marketing!
So there you have it. Confessions from a once-hooked search engine
junkie. Are you caught up in the search engine ranking battles?
Perhaps it's time to surrender some of the battles. Who knows, you may
just win the war!
Best regards, Jim Daniels
Owner - bizweb2000.com
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Article IV
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Love at First Site: Giving Your Website Visitors the Right
Impression
By Sam Serio
http://www.morninglightmarketing.com
Think of the people who visit your site as blind dates. When you
open the door, your blind date usually knows whether they are
attracted to you within the first minute. How do they know? Easy.
By how you look, what you say, and how you treat them. If you
open the door wearing the same clothes you wore in 1987, say,
"Wow, from my friend's description, I thought you would be a lot
better looking," and sneeze in your dates face, not only will you
never get a second date, your date will run for his/her life.
The same rules apply to your website. When people do a search for
something they want to buy, they usually have many sites to
choose from. If yours does not impress them right off the bat, it
takes about five seconds for them to find another that does show
them what they want to see. There are plenty of other fish in the
sea. You are just one among many.
So what do people want to see, you ask? There are 3 standards
of website excellence, and they are the same standards you would
use to judge your blind date:
1. How it looks: If I visit two different websites with the
purpose of buying something, and those two websites sold the
exact same product at the exact same price, I would buy from the
site that looked better--the one whose design made me think,
"Wow, these guys must be making good money if they can afford to
hire a good graphic designer." The more money I think the
business makes, the more I will identify them with value and
professionalism.
The bottom line is, you need to make web design a priority. There
are plenty of people out there who have graphic designer friends
willing to design their website for next to nothing. Those people
have the advantage because, even if they aren't the superior
business, visitors will perceive them to be superior.
If you don't have any connections with graphic designers willing
to do you a favor, see if you can find a starving artist willing
to design the layout of your site. If anyone has an eye for
aesthetics and is willing to work cheap, it's a starving artist.
Once you know what your site should look like, either you or a
web designer can bring the artist's vision to life.
Take the time to design something that represents your business
or product well. Don't just throw up a website with gaudy
wallpaper, out of focus pictures and graphics placed at random.
Remember that first moment when you open the door to a blind
date. Remember how much appearances count for in this world.
2. What you say: You want the person who visits your site to know
instantly what you're selling and why they should buy from you.
Visual representation has a lot to do with this, but you need to
watch what you say as well. You must be clear, concise and
focused. Don't make the visitor decipher a cryptic headline full
of spelling and grammar errors. Include headlines that shout to
the reader exactly what you want them to hear.
Go over your copy a hundred times if you must, or have a
proofreader edit your copy. You must be sure that a potential
customer won't get lost in a stream of consciousness narrative
about your product or company, and come out saying, "What was
that all about?"
Above all, think carefully about the colors you use for your
font. Make sure there is plenty of contrast between the
background and the font color. Never put a yellow font on an
orange background. Also, be careful with white fonts on black
backgrounds. If the letters are large, they will be easy enough
to read, but if they are 14 point or smaller, your visitor won't
even bother with the copy. No matter what colors you use, always
make your font large enough. If people have to squint to read
your copy, it is too small.
3. How you treat them--It is socially acceptable for a woman to
keep her date waiting, letting him know that she doesn't consider
him a priority. However, it is not acceptable for your site to
keep a visitor waiting. If your site takes too long to load, the
visitor will simply find another site.
Do what you can to ensure that your site will download quickly.
One easy thing to remember is that, if you have too much content
on a page, it's going to take a long time to load. Also, if you
are on a free server, and you are sharing a port with others,
your loading time will be lengthy. More specifically, if you have
images that are uncompressed, they could be at 70k or 80k, as
opposed to compressed images that look almost identical and load
at a preferable rate of 5k or 10k.
Author Sam Serio, himself an internet marketer,
offers information and marketing resources to small businesses and
individuals who want to make their web sites more profitable. He is
currently presenting a FREE 7-lesson mini-course entitled
"Climbing the Ladder of Internet Success." For more
information please visit http://www.morninglightmarketing.com or email
samserio@ccisp.net or call 757-824-3868
Copyright 2004 Jmar
Marketing Concepts. All rights reserved
