The Best Way to Increase Website Conversions?

There's no question that the marketplace is loaded with vendors offering solutions to increase website conversions. With an increased drive toward true alignment of search marketing and site optimization for online shopping, it would seem that a majority percentage of people arriving on a website would buy.

But they're not.

In fact most organizations rarely have better than a 1% conversion rate for all unique traffic. What's worse is that many of these organizations have less than 1% unique traffic conversion. Yet, marketing directors and other leaders responsible for online sales in organizations whose names you probably know, continue to burn through massive online budgets, running large infrastructures and managing large teams for what amounts to an anemic performance.

Increasing conversion is the only thing that matters online.

You've really got to sit down and ask yourself why these organizations think the only way to increase revenues is to increase traffic. This is insane. For starters, traffic is not infinite. In fact, most website traffic will never come back to your site. The majority of good prospects are lost to no decision at all.

If you think your traffic is going to come back and buy from you, you'd better think again.

* In a study released by BizRate and The NPD Group, more than 10,000 consumers were surveyed. Respondents indicated what occurred after they abandoned the shopping cart:

* 39% did not purchase the item at all

* 26% purchased the product from a competitor

* 17% made their purchase offline

* 18% returned to the site to make the purchase at a later time.

The next largest group of departing site traffic is driven into the arms of the competition. When you consider how poorly sites convert, you've got to wonder why people continue to burn cash and other valuable resources on traffic without looking closer at this problem.

Instead, marketers should first re-focus on making the site convert better, THEN turn up the tap on traffic. The etailing Group found in a study that 47% of e-commerce directors didn't even know their abondoment rate.

Embarassing.

What's worse, consider the following facts:
* 35% of online shoppers find navigating sites difficult (Yankee Group)
* 20% of online shoppers find technical glitches frustrating (Zendor)
* 61% of people who abandon may not come back (Zendor Study)
* 55% of online shoppers are reluctant to provide their credit card information online (Yankee Group)
* Consumers, on average, spend more than 19 hours deciding where to buy online for a given purchase. (ScanAlert)

The fastest way to long term conversion improvements.

One of the best ways to increase site traffic without wholesale changes to navigation and graphics is with real human beings. Deploy a service that offers live chat to site visitors when they arrive based upon some entry criteria like the keywords they used to find your site in the first place. Chat is anonymous and non-confrontational for site visitors who genuinely would appreciate some help.

Staff that chat system with trained sales agents who know your products and can properly qualify based upon the most common needs of your visitors. Be careful not to overload those agents with too much traffic or you'll burn your brand with yet another version of poor customer service. Offer people the ability to speak with your agents on the phone during that sales cycle and conversions will go up even higher.

Then measure those results.

Is it that easy?

Probably not, but you won't know if you don't try. And with websites converting less than 1% of traffic, it would be hard for things to get much worse. Realistically though, you WILL increase conversions.

If you do it right, conversions will DOUBLE. What would that mean for your revenues?

People like to buy from people.

A sale is not just a transaction...it is a transfer of positive energy from one person to another. It is one person helping another make a solid buying decision. Imagine going to the mall and no one being in any store to help you. That would seem weird wouldn't it?

So why do we think it's normal to abandon decades of learning and retailing best practices from with on-line stores? Forget about new navigation and fancy graphics for now. Leverage something that will always be more powerful: the human element.

Then outsource it.

Brooks helps organizations convert existing traffic into revenue without increasing advertising spend.
http://www.onlinesalesaccelerator.com

The Battle For Your Hosting Account

There is a quite battle being waged everyday all over the world. It is being fought house to house and street to street. It is a battle of incredibly high stakes and most people have no clue it exists including some of those who are called on to fight it.

The battle being fought isn't over land or oil or drugs. It's being fought over data traffic moving over the internet. I know your thinking that's a bit melodramatic but it is a fact. There is currently a legislative effort being pushed through to strip away fundamentally rights we as citizens of the internet have grown accustomed to.

Like no other place on earth, every person's data flow over the internet is created equal. No one user gets higher ranking than any other. No hosting company delegates which customer's data moves through the backbone of the information superhighway first or last. This is the truest form of equality the human race has ever seen. Which means someone isn't squeezing every last cent out of the system. And for the largest service providers, both ISP and hosting, that can't be allowed.

The battle being waged over this fundamentally right goes by the name 'Net Neutrality'. And like most battles fought in government it's been started by lobbying groups for a specific industry. In this case service providers want to be able to offer tiered service. If you the end user wants to have a blazing fast connection you're going to have to pay twice. You're going to have to pay your monthly broadband fees and then a second fee for high priority transmissions. Online retailers are going to be in for a world of hurt as well which is going to jack up the prices of every product bought or sold online.

A company like amazon.com which serves millions of page views everyday is going to be forced into paying for higher priority transmission service as well. One of the long standing rules of the internet is if you don't give the user content within five seconds they are going to hit the back button and try someone else. Where the bigger problem comes into play isn't the gargantuan online retailers but the small mom and pop boutiques doing business online. The big guys will be able to cut a check to their hosting providers to ensure whatever competitive advantage they can. For smaller businesses with generally higher prices due to lower volume sales anything that cuts into an already slim profit margin will be catastrophic to their financial well being.

And let's not over look the fact that once you give these companies a legal way to discriminate against users and bleed businesses for higher performance they are never going to stop. There will always be a higher tier just waiting for the customer with the deepest pockets.

One of the biggest proponents of giving hosting companies and ISP's the right to screw their customers is Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, who famously tried to explain why this is a good idea. His explanation included 'The internets are a series of tubes. And f you send more and bigger trucks down those tubes they should be charged more.' Your elected officials ladies and gentleman.

Learn more at http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/, and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/top-ten-hosting/, and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/e-commerce-web-hosting/

An Online Storefront Can Level the Shopping Playing Field

An online storefront can offer customers plenty of options and make shopping online easier and quicker than ever before. Most small business owners don't give these online storefronts the credit they deserve for another advantage that they offer, however. The real consumer revolution is the ease with which small to medium size retailer companies can implement an online storefront and successfully compete with the big dogs of online shopping.

Stores like Amazon, Overstock and a handful of other big box stores offer tons of specials and an easy-to-use template for shopping, but they are getting some stiff competition these days from smaller, regional retailers and specialty boutiques. A few decades ago, this wouldn't have been possible because the regional stores had a limited reach and weren't as easily accessible as large chain stores. Today, however, the no boundaries realm of the Internet means that you can sell your product to customers around the world regardless of whether you're operating from a huge warehouse just outside of a major city or your basement in a midwestern small town.

In the early days of the Internet, many small businesses and boutiques tried their hand at online marketing but weren't as successful as they had hoped. Part of the problem was lack of expertise in designing an appealing website and part of the problem was the lack of an easy-to-use customer interface for a shopping cart. Without the kind of money needed to hire top-of-the-line developers or the know-how to do it themselves, the smaller boutiques and mom-and-pop shops quickly lost customers' interest because it was difficult to browse, order and purchase online.

Fortunately, there are many sources today where businesses can purchase professionally designed templates for online storefronts at reasonable prices. These templates are polished, attractive, professionally designed storefront solutions that can be tailored to the individual needs of any company or service. Small businesses and stores no longer have to rely on inexpensive solutions that end up looking cheap compared to the mega stores they are competing with. With an online storefront, a two-person operation can look as slick and modern as the multinational competition.

The latest storefront solutions offer hundreds of different templates tailored to all kinds of industries, including interior design, medical and legal, apparel, electronics, business-to-business and personal services. With a wide array of templates to fit a company's specific industry, customizing it for a "perfect fit" is easy to do and can give exceptional results. Stunning colors, outstanding graphics and professional photography are now within reach for even the smallest boutique-style website, giving them a huge presence and massive appeal. Customized color options, lettering and the option to upload your own company logo or showroom photos mean that a website designed using an online storefront template looks just as good as those designed from scratch by high-priced private design firms.

One of the problems smaller businesses can have when they establish an Internet presence is how to give plenty of options that will make shopping easier for the customer without breaking their operating budgets. Online storefront packages offer a great solution. The code is already written, the ability to make changes remotely is built-in and the designs are extremely intuitive for shoppers. If an online boutique tried to have a complex shopping system built from the ground up, it could cost in the tens of thousands of dollars. But a shopping cart template included with an online storefront program can offer options like the ability to add new products and services whenever needed and easy methods for changing photos and descriptions as inventory changes. Programs can also include inventory tracking, purchase, discount and exchange features that are easy to use and even sales, coupons and special discounts for customers.

Check out some online retailers the next time you're browsing the Internet. We bet you'll be amazed at the impressive online storefronts you'll find being operated by small businesses, if you can figure out which ones those are.

Andy West is a writer for AspDotNetStorefront, a premier online storefront and shopping cart provider. Visit http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/ for your online storefront needs.

Web 2.0 Goldmine- A Comprehensive Approach To Using Web 2.0 To Drive Free Traffic To Your Website

Web 2.0 Goldmine offers a comprehensive plan for any business- large or small- that may be interested in optimizing their website to achieve high natural search engine rankings. Information is presented so that any user, regardless of knowledge of Web 2.0 can obtain a full understanding along with a step by step plan of implementing Web 2.0 into their business.

"When I began looking for ways to optimize our various businesses websites it become apparent there were many components to a comprehensive Web 2.0 implementation- but not one single source that could explain a step by step implementation plan. So, while configuring our own Web 2.0 plans for our own sites, we took it a step further and developed this guide for all business owners", Chad Bates, author of Web 2.0 Goldmine explained. "Web 2.0 has been proven to have tremendous amounts of benefits to website owners and businesses- but the challenge has been the enormous amount of time involved to establish a comprehensive Web 2.0 program. We wanted to share our experience on how you can implement a comprehensive plan while also having a life.", Bates explained. Web 2.0 Goldmine offers users many proven tools to help gain the power of search engine optimization without the massive amounts of laborious postings to an extensive number of sites on the internet. These tools allow you to semi automate the process- but still gain the benefits of Web 2.0 strategies.

One of the basic tenets of Web 2.0 is to create a much "wider web" than any single URL might be able to muster themselves. Careful and strategic utilization and knowledge of how search engines work is easily explained in Web 2.0 Goldmine. The material touches on the vast array of tools in Social Networking sites, blogs, article submissions, video use, forums, and many other forms to gain a huge amount of what is known as "backlinking". Full and very complete information is given in each category- along with detailed steps on how to implement Web 2.0 to gain superior search engine rankings that allow highly targeted traffic to any business website.

The real beauty of Web 2.0 Goldmine is the material is concluded with a step by step implementation plan- along with access to numerous tools that help with Web 2.0 implementation. This allows any website or business owner- regardless of their knowledge of the internet- to be able utilize the search engines to their own benefit without the large expenses associated with paying search engine optimization consultants.

Chad Bates is a successful award winning entrepreneur who has founded numerous online and offline companies. He can be reached through one of his websites at http://www.web2-0goldmine.com

Find The Right Hosting Company For Your Online Business

How many times have you had to change hosting companies? For your sake and your sanity I hope the answer is never.

Your website is your digital life. Be it business or a personal blog your website needs to be easily accessible to you at all times to make any changes you may require, from a content, programming or design aspect. And this is normally the case. Most web hosting providers give you a litany of easy to use frontends and desktops with which to manage your site.

Most provide easy FTP access as well. But what happens when you find yourself at the mercy of an unscrupulous service provider who tells you everything you want to hear when signing up but drops the hammer on you when you want to move on?

This unfortunately is more common than you would think and more common than is acceptable. Many low cost web hosting providers have absolutely stupendous rates which they use to lure you in. Once you're signed on that's when the fun begins. If you never have a problem or need support then hooray for you. But oh heaven help you if you need tech support with these budget providers. The first cost cutting measure is to lose any telephone support.

I don't mean some support I mean ALL of it. There's not a phone number listed anywhere. If you do find one it rings into a voicemail box of the janitor's office. If he picks up the phone he doesn't speak English. If you speak his native tongue then he'll quickly switch to something else. If you speak every language they switch to binary. You laugh but I'm serious. Your only assured way to contact these companies is through email. By assured way I mean hitting send over and over on message after message, opening one support ticket after another. When the reply finally comes it is written by a person whose writing classes stopped sometime before third grade, in Afghanistan. Oh and they aren't even replying to your original problem. They are responding to your email asking why they haven't responded.

So you've now decided, after much gnashing of teeth and strewn obscenities, to move your website over to another hosting provider who has better support staffed by people from the planet earth (or one of its close neighbors at the least). My advice is to start the process early. It took me nearly three months to move my site from one of these bottom feeders. Not only do you deal with the standard issues we've already discussed but you get to see an entirely new level of scumbaggery.

While fighting with the provider to free my site, which they locked to their domain servers, my domain registration ran out. They then proceeded to register my domain name, helpfully they claimed, so no one could snatch it out from under me. They were more than willing to hand it over for a small fee of $100.
Moral of the story is don't be cheap. You get what you pay for. A domain stealing janitor from the planet X.

Learn more about web hosting at http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/dedicated-server-web-hosting/, and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/windows-dedicated-server-hosting/, and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/cheap-dedicated-server-hosting/.

No Squeaky Wheels with the Online Shopping Cart

Without an online shopping cart, any expectation of reaping sales from an online website is pretty much nil. This handy feature performs a number of important functions, making it the one thing an online retailer cannot do without. After a customer chooses the products he or she wants it is the means for exacting payment in full.

A shopping cart feature allows the retailer to transact an acceptable form of payment safely and securely. The most common method of payment by Internet shoppers is credit card. When a credit card is not used, a bank account can be debited using an electronic check.

Though some websites still provide an address for checks to be sent in, purchasing products and services on the Internet is all about convenience. Both check and credit card can be processed in a matter of moments. This means consumers can expect the products they ordered within a week or less instead of waiting for a week just for a check to clear.

An online shopping cart is generally composed of software that is encrypted. This means any and all personal identification and financial information is kept safe and secure from hackers and Internet thieves. In fact, most features are designed to recognize suspicious activity and alert credit card companies of possible fraud.

Using a safe and secure shopping cart feature gives customers peace of mind. A shopper who is suspicious or displeased with a checkout process will likely take his or her business elsewhere. Once that customer is gone, so is the chance for gaining a repeat customer.

This website feature should be both easy to use and efficient. Smooth running software instills in customers a sense of dealing with a solid, professional online business. Aside from having good products, a checkout process that goes off without a hitch can be one of the most appealing aspects on a retail website.

Depending on what is being sold, a retailer can opt for a simple shopping cart software program or something a little more sophisticated. While some features simply move a consumer through the payment process, others allow individuals to save merchandise, record and log previous searches or even create a list of preferred items.

To keep a flowing customer base, online retailers have to exact a number of different strategies. Without an online shopping cart, a merchant would never be able to collect the valuable contact information of its shoppers. Using this information, a retailer can let previous customers know when sales and other promotions are on the horizon.

This feature works for the online retailer as well, providing information on average credit card sales, what products are selling well and which are not and average price per sale. These are all things that help a retailer better plan his or her business. It can show where an online business needs to add or cut away certain aspects to increase business.

A smart online retailer will put as much thought into his or her shopping cart feature as the products being sold on the site. If it is not something they would use themselves, then it is obviously inefficient and needs improvement. If an individual is new to the concept of online retailing, sometimes the help of an online retail specialist can be of great help.

An online shopping cart is one of the many inconspicuous aspects that can make or break a cyber shopping experience. Many take the feature for granted when it works; but when it doesn't everybody notices. This is why having reliable software should rank high on the retailer's list of imperatives.

Andy West is a writer for AspDotNetStorefront, a premier online shopping cart and storefront provider. Visit http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/t-s-online-shopping-cart.aspx for you shopping cart needs.

Instant Blog Links- Does This Product Help You Take Your Blog To The Next Level?

Blogging can be a very profitable way to enjoy your passion and also still make money. However, for most bloggers, while they may have a significant amount of expertise in their field and good writing skills, the challenge is being able to set up their blog for profitability- and that means how to get traffic to view their quality material. Here Are All The Features and Benefits You To Gain Control Of With Instant Blog Links: Gain an unlimited number of backlinks from blogs with high PR traffic, search engine spiders, and higher search rankings - Best of all, you can point these links to any page you want for high-impact boosts in your search engine rankings!

In most markets, you can receive hundreds of targeted visitors, within mere days of putting your software to work for the first time. New sales for your affiliate programs, ad sense revenue, or more sales for your product are just moments away!

Get any page you want visited by the search engine spiders - quick, possibly in mere hours. When you put all of your pages to work in the search engines, you increase your revenue exponentially! You won't have to wait months to get results with your new websites. The best part is you do not have to do a lot of laborious individual postings- you just submit to many sites with the push of a single button.

Find and submit to an unlimited number of blogs. Supplied with more keywords, your Instant Blog Links finds potentially tens of thousands of targeted blogs. You can then pick-out the ones most likely to produce results to submit comments to.

Instantly ping dozens of search engines and blog directories whenever you post, so the search engine spiders come running to find your links. You're going to see the first results trickle in within hours!

Quickly identify the blogs with the highest PR to ensure your time is spent wisely -- and you get the most from this technique!

Use optional built-in delays throughout the entire submission process. Being considerate to others is key to making the results last for a long time.

Get full reporting so you can keep track of where your comments have been submitted! This is a HUGE time-saver because you are certain not to submit to the same blog twice!

Keep track of how your pages are doing in the search engines so you can see what pages you need to submit more comments for! Instant Blog Links is the ultimate search engine optimization tool for getting high-quality, quick and easy, traffic-filled links!

View the blog before you submit your comments with the click of a button so that you can personalize to each blog! This ensures your comment is approved by the blog moderator and produces results for many years to come!

Chad Bates is a successful award winning entrepreneur who has founded numerous online and offline companies. He can be reached through his one of his websites at http://instant-blog-links.com/

Google Ads Can Cost A Lot- Does This System Help You Get Google Ads For Free?

Via a secret revealed in this product a retired MD has amassed a huge fortune. In keeping with being ethical in our review- we cannot reveal the basis for the "secrets" of how to Get Google Ads for free. What we can do is tell you there is a huge number of testimonials since this product has been released that give this product a strong level of credibility. Couple that with the fact that the author, Dr. Jon Cohen MD, noted internet businessman, who has amassed a huge fortune- estimated at over $ 68 Million net worth- individually is using this technique that he teaches in this system.

Included in Get Google Ads for Free for a limited time is Dr. Jon's Power Lessons for Google. Included in this training is an outline of how you can outspend your competition by using this method- to insure you get # 1 ranking among sponsored links in the keyword category of your choice. This product has been demonstrated successfully in a variety of industries- so you can purchase it with full confidence. Now, with this system- outspending your competition does not mean eliminating all your profits.

We give this product a full endorsement for those that will implement the techniques to build their business and offset those tremendously high costs of sponsored links. An added bonus is the concepts work not only on Google- but also on Yahoo, MSN and all the other search engines who sell sponsored links.

Google is by far the # 1 search engine on the internet today- some estimate a commanding 70%+ of all traffic for searches goes through Google. Considering all the other search engines out there on the internet today- that is truly an amazing statistic. Naturally- with it being very difficult, costly and tedious to get and maintain high search engine rankings there is a high demand for premium paid "sponsored links" to help drive traffic to websites. Google does this through a competitive bid process- which due to demand- can be quite expensive. Google themselves manifests the constant challenge of maintaining a high search engine ranking as they are constantly changing the search engine algorithms so you might be # 1 one day- and fall off the map the next! So, what is an entrepreneur to do to try and compete with this high bidding environment of costly adwords campaigns?

This is one of those once in a lifetime products here folks that you cannot afford to miss. The information in here alone is enough to change your financial future!

Chad Bates is a successful award winning entrepreneur who has founded numerous online and offline companies. He can be reached through one of his websites http://www.get-googleads-free.com/

Even eBay Is Getting Into Social Networking

As the largest marketplace in the world, I'm sure that you have had some experience on eBay as a buyer or seller. If you have sold or are currently selling items on eBay, you know that just like any other site on the net, your success depends on how much traffic you get to your auctions or your store. EBay has a relatively new tool that you can utilize to help create more traffic. It is the same tool used by most marketers who are utilizing social networking to drive traffic.

Social networking is a phenomenon that has reached popularity of unmatched proportions in user traffic. Sites like MySpace and Facebook are examples of social networking sites. These are sites where the users create all of the content. The users also create networks of that content and in so doing create large like minded groups.

The granddaddy of social networking is blogging. What started out as an online diary has become mainstream tools for disseminating any kind of information you could possibly imagine. Blogs have also become a major marketing tool for internet marketers. Why am I telling you about social networking and blogs since what you are interested in is driving traffic to your eBay auctions? The reason is, you can now start your own eBay blog.

For the same reasons blogs have become good marketing tools outside of eBay, a blog inside of eBay can be a useful marketing tool. Blogs add exposure of your products and you as the seller to the ebay buying public. If someone is searching the ebay blogs about the product niche they are interested in, if they find a good blog post on your eBay blog, they are likely to visit your auctions or your store. It is one more way to get traffic to your actions.

There is even a greater benefit than just eBay traffic. The blogs on eBay, just like blogs off eBay are indexed by the search engines very quickly. If you tag your eBay blogs with the proper keywords, your blog post could end up in Google search results.

EBay blogs are very versatile in terms of the content you can post. There is support for audio and there is support for video. You can literally sell in person by inserting a video in your blog. You don't want to make your blog a blatant sales page, but you can gently suggest they check out your auctions.

Your eBay blog entries should be, again like off eBay blogs, informational, useful and interesting to the visitor. If your blog reads like an advertisement, your visitor will click away and won't come back. If the reader finds useful information about the products or niche that they are interested in, they will stay and read and most likely visit your auction from there.

EBay has an incredible volume of traffic. To be successful as an eBay seller, you want to have as many views of your auctions and store items as possible. The more visits, the more bids, and the higher your selling price will be. EBay blogs are a relatively new tool that you as an eBay seller can take advantage of to enhance your selling efforts. Not only will it help to bring eBay traffic to your auctions, it could also bring non eBay traffic to your auctions.

To find out how you can follow the advice of a highly profitable eBay eBook seller, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/e-z-sell-ebooks

Send SMS Messages Online

Ever wondered what could be the best way to stay in touch with your family and friends when e-mails and chat is no longer the exciting method and not a possible way when your friends are offline. Welcome to online texting, the surest way to reach your friends
anytime (whether they are offline or online), and that to without wasting time in keying in your message on the small keypad of your mobile.

The online texting or sending SMS online is a new and exciting way of being in touch. Fast catching up as a need rather than a leisure activity online texting is the easiest way of getting connected. Sending SMS online is very easy and can be used by a layman effectively. To send online message saves time and compared to your mobile plan is absolutely free of cost.

What you need to do is to visit the service provider and follow some really simple steps. First step is to enter the receiver's cell phone number in the mentioned field. While doing so remember not to use dashes or other characters other than the number and to enter the area code as well. The second step is to enter the subject of the message you want to send. It helps the receiver in identifying the content of the message.

The third step is to enter your message you intend to send to the receiver and here you need to remember that the limit o the message is 140 words. So enter the precise message and continue to the final step. The fourth step is to choose the receivers cellular service provider from the given list. And the final step is to click on the send text message button to send the message. Using these simple steps your message is delivered to the person you want to send it to.

Isn't it a simple way of sending your message across without you or the receiver paying anything for using the service.

Most of the websites ensure that by using this service you can cut on the fee you pay your cellular service provider for sending those important as well as cheeky messages to your friends. Not only it's 100% free but they also ensure that you get the service to every corner of the United States and that is why almost every cellular service provider is listed. With the quality service it is also ensured that your receiver never receives a spam message or advertisement on his number. The websites respect complete privacy of our users and keep the data secured.

So the next time you use online texting services be assured that your message will be delivered in no time and as said absolutely free. You can even prank your friends because of the anonymous text messaging, which means that your friends will never know who sent them the text message! So enjoy sending those texts online using free online SMS service and bring a smile on many faces.

For more information visit our website http://www.textforfree.net

Accumulating Business with a Reliable Ecommerce Storefront

The ecommerce storefront is one of the most valuable tools for the online retailer. No matter what the main product is, there is a web-store that can perfectly showcase a site's goods. There is a vast array of designs available, from the super simple to the wonderfully chic and sophisticated.

It is fairly easy to see that a site with one product does not need an overly elaborate storefront. Just the same, a site that sells many different products cannot get away with a basic, one-dimensional design either. Both need a storefront that is not only a good fit but offers adaptability as well.

Naturally, an ecommerce storefront needs to be attractive, neat and concise. The wise online retailer will experiment with a number of designs before making a final decision on a look. An attractive design on a site that sells perfumes is not likely be the best design for selling fishing poles.

The result of a storefront that is well put together can be seen in sales. Selling anything online means competing with hundreds of thousands of other websites. Online retailers need to employ all the best features and aspects they can to get noticed, attract customers and keep them coming back.

Internet shopping allows the convenience of being able to find anything and everything a person could possibly want or need within a click of a mouse. However, many online shoppers have become weary of illegitimate websites over the years. One that is ill kempt, sloppy or neglected is likely to scare off customers in droves.

Many who do online retailing opt to get a professionally designed online store. Many times these services that provide web-stores can offer not only a design, but also a package deal that helps with everything from integration to troubleshooting. This can be a blessing for the individual who is new to the world of online retailing.

At the same time, these designs are very easy to operate and require little in the way of technical savvy to maintain. The ability to customize a design means being able to adapt for the adding or removal of products. A site that is regularly updated with correct pricing and product information results in higher sales.

A package design is also a good idea for those individuals wanting or needing to sell a product online but do not have a website. Many times the software can be leased from a service provider for a nominal monthly fee. This is an excellent option for the person who only sells products on a seasonal basis.

An online storefront can be as economic as a retailer needs. Like with any brick and mortar business, the main rule of thumb is to start small and build up from there. As the cyber business takes off and begins to develop, one can appropriately expand little by little.

Because the Internet never has closing hours, many service providers include round the clock customer service along with a guarantee on their product. This guarantee can include the update of software as needed to keep up with changing technology. Keeping a site operating in a smooth and unhampered manner is the key to gaining a good reputation amongst customers.

It does not take long before an online retailer is running his or her ecommerce storefront like a pro. With time and experience one will be able to tell just by looking what will increase sales and what will stagnate them out of existence. This can end up negatively or positively affecting a retailer's bottom line.

Andy West is a writer for AspDotNetStorefront, a premier ecommerce storefront and shopping cart provider. Visit http://www.aspdotnetstorefront.com/t-s-online-storefront.aspx for your e-commerce needs.

How To Use Ebooks To Create More Products

Ebooks are the most widely sold information products on the internet. Most internet marketers sell ebooks. It is a great way to start your internet marketing business. Once you get the basics of internet marketing by selling ebooks, you can actually use those same ebooks to create several other products.

As I said, ebooks are a great way to start online marketing. The trick is to find quality sets of ebooks that you can resell or rebrand. Ebooks that have resell rights, you can sell but can't change. Ebooks that are sold as PLR or Private Label Rights ebooks can usually be used in any manner that you wish.

The first and most obvious way to market ebooks is to sell them individually. That is usually the way most internet marketers start. Of course, your ebooks must have come with Resell Rights to do that.

The next step would be to combine a number of ebooks from the same niche into sets. You can sell the sets out right or you can use the sets as an upsell when you sell a single book in the same or a related niche. For example, if you sold an ebook about cooking chicken, you could create a set of ebooks showing how to cook, beef, pork and fish to compliment the chicken ebook.

If you have ebooks with PLR authority, you can do a lot more to create extra products. You can create a new master ebook by combining two or more ebooks on the same subject. The resulting product would be a new ebook that would be your unique product.

Another way to use ebook PLR content is to break an ebook into small segments and use them as articles. You can use the articles for your internet marketing efforts or you can sell the articles as an article pack for that niche.

Another way to use a PLR ebook to create another product is to read aloud an ebook into a digital recorder. The resulting audio recording would be a new audio product that again would be your unique product. You can sell the audio by itself as a product or you could use it as an upsell to the ebook you recorded.

There are many other iterations and combinations of these strategies that you can use to create multiple products. You could go for quite a long time with one good set of ebooks creating all kinds of unique products. You could sell a new product you created from the ebooks every week or everyday, if you can create them fast enough.

All of these product ideas are in addition to the regular ebook business you started. You can continue to sell ebooks, since you can automate that process quite easily, while you utilize the ebooks to create more products that you can get more revenue from.

The process depends upon being able to find a good quality collection of ebooks with Resale Rights and Private Label Rights right from the start. Make sure you obtain your ebooks from a reputable seller who stands behind his business.

Ebooks are a great way to start your online career. Not only can you take advantage of the products as they are and start making a living on the direct sales they generate, you can also start to create more products utilizing those same ebooks to broaden your portfolio. You can never have enough good products to sell. The more you can sell the faster you will reach your online goals.

To find out how you can INSTANTLY receive your own product, your own ebook sets and follow a successful and highly profitable system to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/e-z-sell-ebooks

Top 2 Hottest Online Businesses

Do you like to write? Have you dreamed of seeing your name in print? It is possible to make money as a freelance writer. The term freelance may be misinterpreted by aspiring writers. One may assume that work will be hard to come by. This is not true if you are willing to do research and can produce quality work. Thanks to the Internet, a myriad of possibilities exist. Finding writing gigs, is not as difficult as it seems. There is a high demand for writers and freelancers in just about any area of expertise. Today, companies are interested in saving dollars and time by electing to freelance work; instead, of the hassle of overhead and overhead expenses. Online magazines are a good place to start. It seems that most are looking for writers. However, you may have to start off writing for free. Yet, you are still making your name known to viewers and building respect with the magazine. It also, looks great in your portfolio. Some websites may also list companies looking for freelance writers.

The research for finding writing opportunities is time consuming, but rewarding when you find yourself writing, getting published, and getting paid.

Websites to Consider
1. www.writersdigest.com
This is a very helpful website, besides having writing job listings.
2. www.writersweekly.com
3. www.sunoasis.com
4. www.mediabistro.com
5. www.fwointl.com
You can sign up for their weekly email newsletter, which is loaded with tips for writers, and possible markets.

As a freelance writer, you will find that most potential clients expect to be able to view your portfolio . This allows them to gain perspective of your writing style and ability. If you dont have a portfolio they may ask you to provide a sample writing on a topic the employer suggest. Do not be intimidated. This is common procedure.

Ebay/Online Auctions

Ebay is the most popular online auction community. It is also a lucrative source of income for sellers. Selling is easy and fun with Ebay tools and its large community. If you have a solid product, a well written sales letter, and patience, online auctions can be a lucrative and successful online business. You do not have to be an expert to sell on Ebay or any other online auction site. I most cases, the tools are already in place. The buyers are ready to bid. The key to success is the product. It has to be a product that buyers want. It does not have to be expensive or unique just easy to sell. As an auctioneer research is required an necessary to discover what items are hot and which ones are not. Take the time to do a little research and business will be running itself in no time.

Scott Johns runs a penny stock company that ranks very high with users and Google. Take a look at http://thequarry.net

Ebooks: The Easiest Way To Start Internet Marketing

You might be considering becoming an internet marketer. But I'm sure you have some trepidation. You are probably thinking that you don't have anything to sell. That's the easiest problem to solve. You can start with the easiest item to sell, ebooks.

Ebooks belong to a product group called information products. There are several types of information products. Along with ebooks, there are audio products and video products. They are called information products because that is what they contain, information about some subject that a specific group or niche is interested in.

Ebooks are an easy way to start out online for a number of reasons. They are readily available. You can find collections of ebooks that come with resell rights. When you purchase ebooks with resell rights, you can sell them and keep all of the proceeds for your sales. There is no royalty or anything else you have to pay. Whatever you sell them for becomes your money.

Another reason ebooks are a good way to start an online business is because there is no physical inventory. You do not have to store ebooks. They reside on your computer, they are just computer files. Once you have them, you have them, no need to restock. You will never run out no matter how many you sell.

If you were selling a physical product, you would need to ship it out when a sale is made. That means that you would need to pack it, post it and take it to the post office. Ebooks require no effort on your part to deliver to your customers. The entire sales process can be automated so that you don't have to do anything when a sale is made. The automated system will send an email to the buyer with the ebook attached or the system will send an email with instructions explaining to the buyer how to log on to the internet to download their purchase.

Ebooks can be sold a number of different ways. You can set up your own website, with your own domain, and sell them from there. Just starting out, it might be easier not to have your own site. The easiest way to start selling ebooks is on eBay.

EBay is the largest marketplace in the world. EBay claims that during any month, one third of all internet traffic stops at eBay. Ebay may also be the largest ebook marketplace. Approximately two thousand ebooks are sold on ebay each day. Forty six percent of all ebooks listed sell.

It is very easy to set up an eBay selling account. You can do it in minutes and be online with your ebooks for sale almost instantly. Ebay also makes it easy to set up your own ebook store. You could list literally hundreds of ebooks at practically no cost.

If you really want to get into online marketing, the easiest way to do that is to sell ebooks. The fastest way to get up and running is to sell ebooks on eBay. You can literally have an ebook business up and running in minutes. So what are you waiting for!

To find out how you can INSTANTLY receive your own product, and follow a successful and highly profitable system to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ezsellebooks.com

Increase Sales Page Conversion With Basic Graphic Elements

Your sales page is your most important tool for online marketing. It is the one piece that directly leads to a sale. Everything else is just a build up to the sales page. With out the sales page, you have no sales. The tiniest change in the conversion rate of your sales page can have dramatic effects on your profits. One way to increase your sales rate, is to use the proper graphical elements on your sales page.

There are 6 basic graphical elements you should use to enhance the conversion rate of your sales page.

They are:

1. The Header
2. Graphics for bullet points
3. Graphics for product
4. Graphics for the guarantee
5. The Pay Button
6. The Footer

The header brands your site. It can also be used as part of your personal branding, depending how you market yourself and your product. The header sets the tone of the sales letter and can do as much to draw the users attention as the headline. A great header can be the stimulus for your prospect to read your sales letter.

Graphics for bullet points separate and draw attention to features and benefits that you want your prospect to see. Even if your prospect is quickly browsing down the page, these graphical designs, usually oversized check marks, will grab the visitor's attention and cause them to stop and look.

Graphics for your product is the visual that your prospective customer has to have. A product with out some visual representation is not going to sell. Customers want to see what they are buying. Online, your buyer cannot pick up and hold the product so they must have a visual que to push them along the path to the ultimate buying decision.

Graphics for the guarantee is what draws attention to the guarantee to make sure it is not missed by the prospect. As you lead the visitor step by step through the buying process, you want to make sure their attention is properly funneled to the main selling sections of the page. The guarantee, as one of those selling sections needs a significant graphic to ensure the potential buyer realizes the guarantee alleviates his concern of risk. A guarantee medal or seal is commonly used along with an offsetting guarantee frame.

The Pay Button is the final step in the sales process. It is the call to action. It tells the potential buyer exactly what to do next. It tells the buyer: "CLICK RIGHT HERE TO BUY NOW!" A great big, in your face, can't miss this graphical button with the directions on it will make sure your visitor knows exactly what to do and where to do it.

Finally, the Footer is your last stab at the prospect. If the prospect has read down that far, he has passed your pay button by, and apparently has decided not to buy. A properly done graphic footer could be just the small nudge your potential customer needs to scroll back up and buy.

Your sales page is a selling system. It is designed section by section to slowly grab your customer and lead him to the inevitable conclusion that he has to buy. The proper graphics through out the sales page will highlight each section, each stage of the selling process, so that your prospect follows the correct path. The closer you can get the prospect to follow your sales letter's path, the easier it will be to convert your prospect to a buyer.

To find out how you can utilize graphics and design templates to enhance your online business, and get profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson-online-design.com

Is Your Web Page Designer Hurting Your Business?

Your website is your income producer. Your sales page is your direct link to your customer. Your sales page is designed to lead your prospect step by step through a systematic realization that a buying decision must be made. The question is, is the person or firm designing your sales page, hurting or helping that process?

Your sales page is made up of specific sections, each one having it's own unique purpose in the sales process. The headline gets your prospect interested. The sub headline keeps him interested. The product graphic helps the prospect visualize the product. The bullet points tell your prospect why they must have your product. The guarantee creates the proper comfort level and the order button is the call to action that seals the deal.

Every one of the preprogrammed steps in your sales process has to work for your prospect to buy. If there is a breakdown in any of those pieces, chances are, you won't have a buyer.

The person or firm designing your web page has to know this step by step process. They have to know the process in order to design a page that enhances and emphasizes each of the selling sections of your page. If they don't know sales, then the chances are they will not know where the emphasis should be.

If the proper sections in the proper order are not emphasized they will be missed. Most visitors to your sales page will not read the whole page. Most will browse through the page picking up on the emphasized parts. If your designer is emphasizing the wrong places in your sales page, it won't work. Your visitor will miss the areas you absolutely want him to see.

On the other hand, if your designer has some knowledge of internet marketing, or direct marketing, then they should be able to create a page that will increase your conversion rates because they know how to utilize the right graphic elements in the right places. The result of that is, your prospect will be drawn specifically to the points in the sales page that he or she needs to see in order to lead them to the sale.

A graphic designer that does not know internet marketing, does not know the sales process will not be able to provide you an optimized sales page. They may be great graphic artists, and will most likely produce a great looking page. The graphics on the page might knock your socks off. The trouble is, the page won't produce sales.

It will look great, but will be ineffective. That is the trap that many new internet marketers find themselves in. They hire someone to create their site, including the sales page. It is created by someone who knows graphics, not sales. Then they wonder why their gorgeous website doesn't produce any sales.

Your business is only as good as your sales page. If you let someone create it for you that does not know sales, it will produce poorly. Make sure you use a designer that knows how to create effective sales pages that follow the complete selling process. Make sure your sales page is optimized, otherwise you will be wondering why your sales page doesn't sell.

To find out how you can utilize graphics and design templates to enhance your online business, and get profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson-online-design.com

Keyword Density: Tips for Business Success

Now that you have selected a set of keywords for your website, what do you do with them? Keywords are words that describe the main topics of information for a website. This means that the text of your website should include these carefully selected keywords.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is a measure that indicates how many times a particular keyword appears in the text of your website, expressed as a percentage. To calculate the keyword density, first count the number of times the keyword appears on a page (you can easily do this by using the "find" feature on a word processing program). Next, divide the keyword count by the total number of words in the text, and multiply by 100 to get the keyword density percentage.

Keyword Tips

*Keyword density should be between 1% and 3%. Anything more might be treated as keyword stuffing, the overuse of a keyword in the text in an effort to rank higher for that keyword on a search engine results page. This practice can backfire big-time, causing the search engine to ignore your website.

*A lower keyword density is best when used in conjunction with other related keywords on the same page. Most search engine spiders have an almost intuitive way of determining the relevance of a topic. Displaying related terms on the same page shows the spider that the keyword topic is relevant. If your keyword is "lovely roses," related terms would be "flowers," "red roses," "aromatic roses," "rose petals," "rose scent," "beautiful bouquets," and so forth.

*Keywords should read naturally in the text. It is generally best to write about a topic and then check the keyword density. If you need a higher keyword count, you can go back and look for synonymous words that can be substituted with the desired keyword.

*If you make the keyword the topic of your content, proper density should come naturally. Never compromise the flow and interest of your content for the sake of keyword insertion.

*Relevance is everything for website content. If the topic is not relevant to your website, it is not worth displaying. Search engines may skip your website if they cannot find a solid theme to help categorize your website. If you sell cleaning products, your text should talk about stains, fabric treatments, cleaning processes, cleaning tips and cleaning products. If a search engine spider visits your website that sells cleaning products and finds information on how to put a deck on your house and news about Paris Hilton's social life, it is not likely to list your website for keywords pertaining to cleaning products. These may be interesting topics, but they are not relevant to your website.

*Interesting content with relevant keywords will attract visitors and inspire return visits. Returning visitors are more likely to purchase a product or service from your website.

The proper use of keywords can increase your search engine ranking, make it easier for potential customers to find your website and increase your sales by encouraging return visits.

Mike has been online since 2004 building Multiple Streams of Income. He can show you 3 steps to build a massive downline. http://www.profit-unlimited.net Free Website
Mike can also introduce you to the #1 Online Home Business. Click the link and confirm the email mailto:sfi_prospect@getresponse.com

Use Graphics To Highlight Your Guarantee

There are many parts to a good sales page. The headline, the unique selling proposition, the features and benefits, the call to action, to name a few. One of the most important parts of your sales page is your guarantee. The correct use of graphics can add real punch to your guarantee and make it much more effective.

All the parts of your sales page have specific purposes. The headline grabs their attention, the unique selling proposition convinces your prospect that your product is better than anyone else's, the benefits convince your prospect that he needs the product because of everything it will do for him.

As each part has a specific job in the selling process, you want to make sure your prospect doesn't miss any of the sections. The proper use of graphics to draw attention to each of those sections and to highlight each section gives you a better chance at making sure your prospective customer gets all the messages necessary to create a buying decision.

Your guarantee is no different. The guarantee is an important part of your sales process. The guarantee creates the comfort level that the customer needs to feel before the buying action can take place. A prospect that is not comfortable with your offer because they may be taking a risk, will not buy. On the other hand, a customer that knows he has no risk is that much closer to making a positive buying decision.

As an important part of the sales process you want to emphasize the guarantee. You want to make sure your visitor does not miss your guarantee. The correct graphic elements will draw your prospects attention to the guarantee and make sure your visitor gets the warm fuzzy secure feeling that a guarantee provides.

To highlight your guarantee, the first thing you need is a guarantee medal or seal. There are many possibilities as to the design of the medal. The two things it needs to be is easily read, and large enough to make a significant impression on your visitor.

The second way to draw attention to your guarantee is to make sure it is set apart from the body of the sales page. This can usually be accomplished by utilizing tables with backgrounds that contrast with the body. Very often, in order to really emphasize the guarantee, the entire guarantee is made into a graphic. That way you can utilize all kinds of graphic vehicles to enhance and emphasize the guarantee.

One type of graphic I often see used is the use of the internet marketer's own handwriting, making the guarantee more personal and sincere. The only way to do that is with a graphic.

Your sales page is created to lead your prospective buyer step by step to the inevitable conclusion that a purchase must be made. Your guarantee is an important step in that process. The proper graphics in conjunction with a good guarantee will help seal the sale. If you use graphics to enhance your sales page, they will enhance your sales too.

To find out how you can utilize graphics and design templates to enhance your online business, and get profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson-online-design.com

Business Hosting Can Improve Your Business

Business hosting can be an exceedingly complicated affair for any business. Whether it's a small home office selling the next big thing or a multinational service provider the challenge remains.

Stay competitive, stay under budget, always be on and always be right. No big deal! But how to make headway on from the countless number of options available to you the business owner. Let's take a look at some of the available options.

For the purposes of this article we are going to assume you're a small business owner ready to make the leap into the world of the internet. Welcome! Now this should go without saying but free hosting is not an option. I know the price is right but you get what you pay for.

The days of geocities hosting a successful webpage for a successful company are long, LONG gone. And thankfully so. Most customers in today's online world are savvy enough to recognize a free webhosting service when they see it. (Hint-It could be the giant ads slapped all over your company's website for the hosting provider. Call it a hunch.)

At the prices most hosting services charge there is no reason not to have your site on a paid service. After all if you don't have twenty dollars a month to pay rent for your online location you're not even in business.

Paid hosting can be acquired from a multitude of hosting providers. Most offer you several payment options are it monthly quarterly or yearly, with varying discounts for longer term commitments. These packages will offer you a variety of sizes both in storage and bandwidth, email accounts, and server side software implementations.

Don't be discouraged by the complexity of what's on offer. At the beginning of your website odds are the smallest hosting package will be fine. When choosing a provider make sure there is no penalty for upgrading your service as you determine your businesses needs. Most hosting providers are more than happy to work with you as your companies online presence grows.

Things to look for are dedicated support numbers. Most lower priced services only provide support through email. Guaranteed uptime. The industry average is 97% but you never want to lose a sale in the 3% gap. Look for 100% guarantees. Just remember if you're not online, you're losing out!

Data backup is also an important aspect of hosting. The ideal situation is constant online backups at the hosting provider as well as backups to your webpage/database/accounts on your local system as well. There is nothing worse than losing your entire website to a data loss that could have been prevented by an automated backup system.

Trust me, as a business owner there are two words you never want to hear when it involves you company's data "total loss". Other things to stay on the lookout for are server side anti-virus, spam filters, and software packages such as PHP, Joomla, or other content management systems.

As I said before when it comes to hosting, you get what you pay for.

Learn more at http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/dedicated-server-web-hosting/, and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/windows-dedicated-server-hosting/, and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/cheap-dedicated-server-hosting/.

Pick Your Hosting Provider Carefully

My hosting experience is I'm sure similar to what a lot of first time web hosting buyers run into, sheer confusion. It seems like there are a million different companies out there offering hosting packages with 500 different options to each one. Where do you even begin to figure out what you need and what you don't. What's overkill and what's unprepared. Which way is up and how do I get out of here? These are all valid questions that I , as well as thousands of others have had to deal with. If you've found this article your dealing with it too. Welcome to web hosting anonymous. Grab a chair and a coffee, I'm here to help.

Before beginning your search for a hosting provider you first have to determine what your needs are. How big of a website are you planning on building. If yours is a niche site, then your needs are completely different from a mammoth ecommerce site like Amazon or iTunes. As you'll see once you begin to search out hosting providers the differences in the price brackets is astounding. No matter what your website encompasses there is a web package built for you with a price you can afford. Everything from free advertising supported sites to several thousand dollar per month dedicated hosting and server farm setups, you can spend as much or as little as your business will need to transition onto the web.

As with any startup there will be growing pains. Again this holds true if we are talking about a personal website selling your handmade cat shoes, or you are launching the next Etrade. Be prepared to go through a period of testing and retesting your website. It is not uncommon to put your site up onto your hosting services system for weeks or months testing and retesting the site until it is ready for public consumption. And consumption is the name of the game when it comes to the web. When most people think of consumption they think of it only in the sense of the physical act of purchasing and using an item . The Big Mac eaten, or the DVD watched, but your first rule of consumption with the internet is bandwidth consumption and managing that against your number of visitors.

If you don't have any traffic you have no bandwidth usage. This is bad. Whether you are selling shiny widgets or slinging advertisements for pay per click, if you don't have eyeballs you don't have a prayer. On the flip side having an abundance of traffic and a very extensive website can kill you, if you are going over your bandwidth allotment form your hosting provider. Like any other aspect in life or business you have to find that perfect balance to keep your site running smooth and turning a profit.

So remember when searching out hosting packages look for larger bandwidth, lots of support, and a pricing structure you can live with that meets your needs and gives you a sense of confidence.

Learn more about hosting at http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/cheap-hosting/ and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/dedicated-hosting-linux/ and http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/top-ten-hosting/

Search Engine Basics for the Online Business Owner

Every online business owner benefits from understanding the basics of search engine results. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Windows Live Search and Ask are services that index the millions of pages of information on the Internet and categorize them according to topics. This allows a search engine to recall relevant information when a user types a search phrase into the search box. The search engine displays the results of the search in numbered order, with the most relevant pages listed first. This is called the Search Engine Results Page or SERP.

Search Engine Indexing

The Internet is an ever-changing structure of information, with millions of pages of information added or changed every day. The process of indexing such a structure is too tedious and complex to be performed by people. Each search engine creates its own program that continually scans the Internet and compiles an index of the information found. These programs are often called spiders, web crawlers or robots.

Algorithms

Each search engine spider follows a complex series of algorithms created by the search engine programmers. The search engine formulates these algorithms to ensure that a spider indexes information in a meaningful way. For instance, when a user types "diabetes" into a search box, the returned information should discuss the diagnosis, treatment, causes and research pertaining to diabetes--it should not discuss women's fashions. This is called indexing by relevance.

How Indexing Occurs

Google, the world's most popular search engine, uses spiders to crawl the entire known Internet once every 28 days. It follows special links from one website to another and searches its own database of listed websites, hunting for new information. Google creates its own database of information that contains a copy of every page of information it crawls and presents this information to the user in the form of a cached search result. Users have the option of viewing this saved version of a website or seeing the most current version of a site by visiting the selected website's server.

Recent theories suggest that it is not necessary to submit your website manually to each search engine's database. In fact, it is better to let a search engine find your website through links from popular websites or those with similar content to your own.

Why Are SERPs Important?

Because businesses that rank highest on a SERP are likely to get more traffic, these top 10 spots for any given topic are very desirable. A process called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, helps website owners structure their information in a way that is search engine-friendly, which in turn increases their relevance for a given topic and boosts their website's ranking on a SERP.

Search Engine Optimization

Because search engines perpetually use newly-created algorithms, SEO has become a complex and evolving process. Many website owners resort to any tactics available to gain an edge over the competition, even deceiving visitors and spiders when possible. They attempt to gain higher SERP rankings without providing relevant information, or they try to improve their rankings by stuffing their websites full of search terms. For this reason, the algorithms of a search engine have built-in systems to weed out these dishonest tactics and present only relevant search results to the user. Search engines constantly alter their algorithms, and these changes are closely guarded secrets.

Search Engine Competition

Each search engine competes with other search engines for users, just as online businesses compete with each other for customers. This creates a fierce rivalry to provide better results and services for users as they surf the Internet. As a result, various search engines may display the SERP for a given search term, or keyword, in a different order. A website may rank #1 on Google for the term "Internet consultant," but rank #5 for the same term on Yahoo and #30 on Windows Live Search. SEO can often correct this inconsistency.

Search engine optimization is a highly competitive and profitable industry. Online business owners who understand search engine basics are better prepared to position their websites for increased profits.

Mike has been online since 2004 building Multiple Streams of Income. He can show you 3 steps to build a massive downline. http://www.profit-unlimited.net Free Website
Mike can also introduce you to the #1 Online Home Business. Click the link and confirm the email mailto:sfi_prospect@getresponse.com

A Logo Can Help Brand Yourself

As an internet marketer one of your goals is to brand yourself. You want to make sure that you are known as the expert in your niche. You want instant recognition when the subject of your niche comes up. One way to help your branding is to have a logo.

One of the most important parts to the internet marketing puzzle is branding. Branding is creating a profile or reputation as an expert in your field or niche. Branding helps your sales because people like to buy from an expert. Branding helps your relationship with your list as they like getting information from an expert and they trust an expert.

By branding yourself, any product you promote or create, if it is tied to your branding, will have a much better sales result. Once you establish yourself as an expert, you want to have any product or communication or web site to piggyback on your expert status. One way to make sure that happens is to have some type of logo that is associated with you.

If you establish a logo that is associated with you, the expert, then anytime a visitor sees that logo, what ever is utilizing that logo will be associated with you. That association is extremely valuable as it lends credibility and trust to any site, or product that is linked to it.

Your logo is a graphic design that you use on all of your websites in the same or similar niche. The logo can incorporate your picture, your product, a representation of your niche, or just a graphical design using names or initials. I have seen many internet marketers utilize a picture along with a unique representation of their name used as a logo. I see it on most of their websites so there is no doubt whose site or product is being represented.

The logo can be large, a header for example that you use on all of your websites, or it can be small where you can insert it anywhere on the page or even add it to a pre-built header. What ever it is it has to be done in a manner that represents you and reflects your reputation as an expert.

As it represents you, you certainly want it to be a quality piece of graphic art. You want it to be unique and instantly recognizable and you want it to be easily incorporated into your websites.

You should have your logo graphic done by a reputable professional.You certainly don't want it to look like you made an ad hoc logo that isn't of the best quality. Remember, it represents you and your reputation. You might even want to work with a theme that you will use on your websites for your specific niche so that it blends in or compliments the other graphics you use on your sites.

Branding is an important part of internet marketing. You can enhance your branding by associating yourself with a logo that you can utilize in multiple ways. The continuity of using the same branding logo all the time, will add to your overall branding success. Branding success translates into sales success.

To find out how you can utilize graphics and design templates to enhance your online business, and get profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson-online-design.com

The Easy Way and The Hard Way To Create Your Web Page

You are ready to start your sales page layout. You have your sales letter written so now all you need to do is lay out the page and the rest of the site. You have two options, you can do it the easy way or you can do it the hard way.

Here is the hard way. First, you have to decide on the overall layout. Do you want a header or not. Most sites you have seen have headers but how do you create one. You open Photoshop and start to play with some shapes, colors, find some clip-art and when you are all done you have something that doesn't really look very professional, and it took you all day to create.

Now you have to think about the rest of the layout. You know you need a headline, but how big should you make it? What color should you make it? How big should your sub-headline be? What color should that be? You spend about three hours playing back and forth with sizes and colors and you finally think you have it.

Now you look at your other text. Your bullet points listing the benefits don't really have the impact you want. But you don't know how to add those big check marks that you see on other sites. You know your testimonials should be segregated in boxes with different backgrounds but you aren't sure how that works. You think it has something to do with tables but they don't seem to work right when you try to insert them. You look at the HTML code to see if the answer lies there, but you realize you may be in over your head.

That's the hard way, here is the easy way. Find a reputable graphic design shop that knows how to put a sales page together. Tell them what you want and how much you want to spend, they design the page, and you are done. While they were doing that, you spend all the time you would have spent trying to design your site, working on your marketing plans so that when your site goes live you are ready to drive traffic to it and generate sales.

If you choose the easy way, there are some things you should look for when hiring a graphic design group to do your work. There are lots of graphic designers that will create wonderful looking pages for you. The problem is, those wonderful pages won't sell anything. You need to find graphics professionals who are also sales professionals. That is much harder to do.

You want a graphics company that knows internet marketing. You want to find graphic designers that know how important headlines are, the importance of a good header, how sub-headlines work through the sales letter, how testimonials should be used and how they should be formatted. The graphic designers should know the flow of the sales page process from the attention grabbing headline all the way down to the prominent guarantee with the large guarantee badge to make sure the viewer doesn't miss it.

You also want a graphics group that won't cost you an arm and a leg. You don't want to mortgage your house just to have a website designed. Good graphic design groups should have some reasonable cost packages that you can use without breaking the bank. Sales page templates are a good example of a value priced solution. A good firm will be able to provide you with templates, optimized as sales pages, that you only have to cut and paste your text into.

You have two choices when it comes time to put your sales page together. You can spend a lot of time and effort on your own, get frustrated and end up with a less than professional looking site, or you can do it the easy way. Hire a good graphics group with internet marketing knowledge, and let them do it. Spend your time on marketing, which is how you make money and let someone else take care of the mechanics.

To find out how you can utilize graphics and design templates to enhance your online business, and get profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson-online-design.com

Use Ebay To Help Build Your List

The internet marketing mantra is "the money is in the list" There are all kinds of suggestions and strategies, courses and ebooks, videos and audios that will tell you the secrets to building a list.

Basically they all boil down to a common strategy, get targeted leads to visit your sign up page, otherwise known as a squeeze page, and get those leads to subscribe to your list. The trick is finding the targeted traffic and convincing them to visit your squeeze page.

A huge resource of traffic that is highly segregated into groups or niches, is often left out of the mix. A common marketing expression is fish where the fish are, which means go to where your target lead is hanging out. The biggest pool of fish in the internet world is Ebay. The great thing about the traffic on Ebay, they are already searching for things to buy.

Ebay is the largest marketplace in the world. Ebay says that during any given month, one third of all internet traffic goes to Ebay. There are millions of customers on Ebay every day just looking to spend money. Those customers are self segregating. With the Ebay category system, you can pretty much target in on almost any niche you can think of.

The person looking for watches is going to be browsing the watches category. The buyer looking for sunglasses will be in the sunglass category. The person looking for information products will be in the information product category.

If you are selling ebooks, it's the information product category that you should be interested in. Prospective buyers who are in essence looking for ebooks and are ready to buy. How much more of a targeted audience do you need?

This method does not have to be limited to ebooks, although they seem to work the best in terms of list building from Ebay. You can build a list from any category your product would fit into.

What you need to do is entice the buyers browsing your category to visit your website. Now Ebay does not let you link to any external sites from auction pages but Ebay does allow you to link to external sites from your About Me page. As part of your auction sales copy, suggest they visit your About Me page where they can learn about you and find out how to get a free report.

On your About Me page you can offer a free report or ebook or anything else you think would entice your buyers to click the link you have on you About Me page that will take them to your squeeze page. Now you have leveraged your Ebay traffic and converted it into your website traffic.

As I said you can do this for any category. If you are selling watches, you might give away a report on use and care of watches, or history of watchmaking, or any information related to watches that your customers might be interested in.

Even though any category can take advantage of this enormous traffic machine called Ebay, the ebook business seems to work the best. If you are selling information products you have another way to build your list in addition to using your About Me page.

You can sell ebooks at very low prices to entice customers to buy. Then when it is time to deliver the product, you can send them to a download page where you provide them with an extra bonus for subscribing to your list. Just another way to get targeted traffic on your list using the incredible traffic on Ebay.

As part of your overall strategy, you should include Ebay in your traffic generating system. Remember, you need to fish where the fish are and Ebay is the biggest pool of fish in the world.

To find out how you can INSTANTLY receive your own product, and follow a successful and highly profitable system to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.powersellerebookbusiness.com

6 Article Strategies To Energize Your Internet Marketing

One of the best ways to build targeted traffic is to use articles. Because articles are so flexible as to their uses, most savvy internet marketers utilize articles in multiple ways. Here are six ways to use articles.

1. Post to your blog

As it is almost a requirement for successful internet marketers to have blogs now, the first way to use your article is to post it to your blog. Not only does it give your article exposure but it adds fresh content to your blog. The fresher your blog content the better it will rank in the search engines and the more often you will get returning readers.

2. Post to Your Squidoo Page

One of the newer web 2.0 sites that many internet marketers are taking advantage of is Squidoo. It is almost like having another blog but it is more commercial. It is also a very heavily trafficked site. Posting your article here will, again provide your Squidoo lens with new content which will enhance your Squidoo traffic. You can even set up Squidoo to pull articles from your blog so if you post to your blog you will update both your blog and your Squidoo page all at once.

3. Submit To Article Directories

This is the most common use of articles. You submit your article to article directories which post your articles and make them available for anyone to read and use. The more directories you can post to the more links you will generate and the better the search engines will like it. There are many software packages and websites that will help automate submitting articles to multiple directories.

4. Post Your Article On Your Website

You can create another page for your main website and post your article there. If you include a link to the article from your index page, the search engines will find it fast. They will look at the new article as fresh content to the overall website. If you post enough articles, you can set up an article index page with links to each article and one link from the main web page to the article index.

5. Modify the Article Into a Press Release

You can make some small editing changes to your article to make it a little more newsy by adding a what, why, where component. You can then submit the revised article as a press release to PRweb and other online PR sites where they will be picked up by news organizations and reporters. PRs are one of the best ways to create traffic for your sites.

6. Mail the Article to Your Subscriber List

You can make an email out of the article and mail it to your list. You can enhance your relationship with your list by regularly providing them with good useful information that they are looking for. For long articles, you can break them into parts and make multiple emails out of them. You can also just email a link to your blog or website to the page where the article is posted. This helps get your subscribers to your site or blog.

Articles are one of the most useful marketing tools. There are so many ways you can use them. You can use one of the ways listed or you can use any combination of those listed or you can use all of those listed for each article. The more you can use quality articles the better your internet marketing will be.

To find out how you can successfully make a living online, and follow a successful and highly profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson.co.uk/

Find The Best Hosting Providers

It's time to relieve yourself of any worries that have arrived due to the info you read on the Internet about the worries dealing with selecting a web hosting provider. You should be spending far more time worrying about learning and perfecting your business that you will be running online.

Of course, there are plenty of poor web hosting companies. However, an experienced web masters has the proper questions in place and can easily find a quality web host. Now, let's go take a deeper look in the world of hosting, and see what secrets we can uncover.

Normally, a web hosting review will spend time showing you the difference between a $5 shared hosting account and a $10 shared hosting account. But, we aren't going to waste your time by focusing on a $5 a month difference.

After all, if that's a concern for your online business, it may be time to rethink your strategy. The easiest way to find a quality web host is to ask people that have used them. Luckily for you, there are forums and news groups that are devoted to this topic. Just take a minute and look through news groups and forums and you will see the companies that show up repeatedly.

Pay close attention to when the information was posted. Try to find the most recent reviews. Things do change. Try to evaluate the source of the information. Was it a user trying to get a $200 hosting account for $5 and then complained when they didn't get it? Is it a web savvy individual?

Remember, customers are quick to complain when they don't get what they want. And, it's easy to not get what you want when you are expecting a Harvard education for a city college price.

Let's not waste any time going over storage size or bandwidth, which is what you will normally find in a hosting review. Fact is, you will only use a small fraction of either your space or bandwidth, so don't worry. Most hosting companies offer so much space that it is a mute point.

So, what should we focus on? Things that can actually help your business succeed. In lieu of comparing variables that we don't really need or use, like bandwidth, we are going to compare resources that actually can help you.

You want to find a hosting company that provides the tools most important to you. If you are a new web master, you may want an easy to use site builder. On the other hand, you may want a minimum number of databases. Other features like forums, blogs, shopping carts, and other scripts are probably far more important to you.

If you are working with someone else that will develop your site, speak to them about what you should look for. How a site is developed will determine its needs. In some cases you'll want a host that offers .NET, and in others you will want PHP. You may need a specific CMS which is only available at specific hosts.

But, most importantly is to have high quality, quick responding tech support. You want to be able to reach someone 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Learn more about dedicated hosting at http://www.ourdedicatedhosting.com/

Make Your Sales Page Convert Better With Graphics

Your sales page, the most important piece of your internet marketing system. It can make you or break you. You can have the most traffic of any site on the internet, but if you have a sales page that does not convert any of your visitors into buyers, all that traffic is for naught. You always need to work on your sales page to make it convert the maximum number of visitors that it can. The proper graphics can make a big difference.

The first thing your sales page must do is convince your prospective customer that you are legitimate. No one is going to lay down their hard earned money on something that looks like it is being sold by a fly by night operation. A well designed sales page, with the right amount of graphics in the right places will make your site and ultimately you look professional

The second thing graphics can do on your sales page is to brand you. If part of your goal is to brand yourself or brand your product as a leading product in a niche, then you will want to have a header that portrays that.

Have you seen many of the sites of the very successful and famous internet marketers? They all have headers that help to define them and their product. Many times the header uses a photo of them. Their goal is to make sure that everyone identifies them as the expert in their niche.

Another function that graphics can provide is to help you define the points that you want your customers to see. For example, if you have a list of benefits, a large graphic check mark next to each benefit will help to draw your customer to each point. If you just have the usual dot to identify your bullet point, some important information, vital to your sales pitch, might be missed.

Graphics can help your customer find your guarantee. A large Guarantee Medallion on your sales page drives the customer's attention right to your guarantee, which is always an important part of getting the sale. The graphic makes it harder for you prospect to overlook this.

One final graphic may be the most important of all. The sales button. One thing they always say is you have to ask for the sale. You have to tell the customer to buy. A large graphic button that says "BUY NOW:CLICK HERE!" is much more effective than the text that says "click the link below to make your purchase".

The sales button screams out "YOU HAVE TO BUY NOW" The text says maybe you should buy if you think you like the product. The graphic BUY NOW button will induce your customer to take action now!

Your sales page is the most important web page you have in your online selling system. The goal of the sales page is to convert as many visitors as possible into buying customers. Anything you can do that will help your conversion rate must be incorporated into the sales page. If you know the right graphics to use and how to use them they can vastly improve your sales page effectiveness.

To find out how you can utilize graphics and design templates to enhance your online business, and get profitable advice to making money online, talk with Ray Johnson - Google.com No.1 Ranked eSeller:

http://www.ray-johnson-online-design.com

5 Important Rules in Website Design

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are seven important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do not use splash pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like welcome or click here to enter. In fact, they are just that -- pretty vases with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the "back" button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do not use excessive banner advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valueable content and weave relevant affiliate links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a simple and clear navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. If your visitors don't know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Have a clear indication of where the user is

When visitors are deeply engrossed in browsing your site, you will want to make sure they know which part of the site they are in at that moment. That way, they will be able to browse relevant information or navigate to any section of the site easily. Don't confuse your visitors because confusion means "abandon ship"!

5) Avoid using audio on your site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they are not annoyed by some audio looping on and on on your website. If you insist on adding audio, make sure they have some control over it -- volume or muting controls would work fine.

Web design is more of an art than a science so dont get frustrated if you do not achieve great results at first. The visitors will come with hard work and persistence. Web traffic comes to the deserving somtimes unexpectedly. Stick with the goals and you will have the success you desire.

Scott Johns conducts research and analysis of stock market picks and trends. To check out some of his company's latest picks go to http://thequarry.net

PCI DSS Compliance

Organizations that process credit card payments are subject to fraud, hacking and many other security threats and vulnerabilities. Any company that processes, stores, or transmits credit card numbers must be PCI Compliant or else risks losing its rights and abilities to process credit card payments of any type. Merchants are required to validate compliance via audits by PCI DSS Qualified Security Assessment (QSA) Companies.

PCI DSS, which stands for Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard was developed by major credit card companies to protect themselves, their clients, and the businesses and organizations that use their cards.

PCI DSS began, originally, as five separate programs operating individually through MasterCard, Visa, American Express, Discover, and JCB to protect data security and to create an additional level of protection for customers by ensuring that merchants meet minimum security levels when they process, store, and transmit cardholder data.

The Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council was formed in 2004 when these companies aligned their individual policies and created the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard. PCI is considered to be one of the more comprehensive standards of data security. It is regarded as being relatively more prescriptive than other similar laws.

PCI Compliance Requirements in Small Business

PCI Compliance is a necessary requirement for all businesses that use credit card machines or process and store credit care information of any sort. This can be quite difficult for many small to medium size business due to the time, money and technical aspects involved. In house efforts for small businesses to become PCI compliant can take up to 18 months and cost upwards of $40,000. Furthermore, hardware and software upgrades could add additional thousands of dollars in order to maintain a safe and secure set of processes.

PCI DSS compliance addresses two crucial components: safe storage and protected payments. Any business that stores or processes any credit card information is required to safely store any and all information it gathers. Remote storage solutions are ideal because they ensure that credit card information is stored separately from other financial information that could be compromised.

Another important factor in PCI DSS compliance is a company's ability to securely send and receive credit card information online and via the phone. When collecting information online, it would be ideal for the customer to remain on a business's secure website and not redirected to an external site. This could compromise information and cause a major security risk.

Updating a small business' systems to comply with PCI DSS regulations can be quite expensive and tiresome; there are alternatives for small to medium sized businesses however.

There are companies available that are PCI DSS experts, and provide PCI compliance solutions for companies around the country. Generally speaking, these companies can get a company within the ranks of PCI compliance within 30 days for relatively low cost -- allowing SMB owners to focus on the day to day operations of their business and not alleviating the burden of becoming PCI compliant.

Whether you choose to meet PCI compliancy in house, or outsource that duty to a specialist company, it is a critical to meet compliance and remain compliant to PCI DSS regulations.

Art Gib writes for Brain Tree Payment Solutions (http://www.braintreepaymentsolutions.com/pci-compliance.php), a PCI compliance company that focuses on helping businesses attain and maintain PCI compliance.