Internet Marketing Buyers Beware
Copyright © 2006 Willie Crawford

One of the saddest things I've witnessed in personally consulting with literally hundreds of people, is someone attempting to start an online business with a virtually useless product. These are usually people trying to sell outdated products that are generally available for free from hundreds (if not thousands) of other websites.

I see the above far too often. Here are two ways that I've seen this happen:

1) Someone, often a newbie, buys a set of reprint or resale rights from a long copy sales page. This page does such a great job of selling the package that the prospect can see setting up dozens of sites and "making millions."

The newbie buys the package, picks out a few products that look promising, and begins setting up websites for each. Shortly afterwards is where I often come into the picture, as these webmasters often approach me for help in getting more sales. They are perplexed as to why they haven't made even a single sale.

I often take a quick look and instantly identify the problem. The product is often "older than dirt" and available all over the internet for free. At other times, the product is not outdated, but is available on dozens of other sites at a much lower price. In the latter case, the webmaster is trying to sell the product at the price that was listed on the sales page where the bundle of products was described. This would work if it weren't for the fact that MOST of the other people who bought rights to the product were selling it much cheaper, or even using it as a freebie to get new subscribers.

2) A relative newbie buys a package containing dozens of "web businesses-in-a-box." These are complete packages containing a ready-to-go website and a product (usually software or an ebook). Often these ready-to- go packages are comprised of outdated products that countless other people are GIVING away.

How do you avoid the two situations described above? There's a Latin expression - "caveat emptor." It means "let the buyer beware." It means that it's the buyer's responsibility to know what he's buying.

Does this mean that you shouldn't buy these packages of reprint and resale rights? No, it just means that you need to know what you are buying. You also need to know how to properly market it. I've made a small fortune from buying, repackaging, and then reselling reprint rights, resale rights and private label rights.

My secret is that when I buy one of these packages, I go through and look for items that I can combine in different ways. I look for gems within these packages that weren't even emphasized on the sales page, but that I know many of my customers would get a lot of use out of. I look for items that I can add to other packages I'm already selling... to breathe new life into an old sales page or add more value to my offerings.

As an example, I once purchased a resale rights package that included 38 PDF cookbooks. I added these cookbooks to the sales page for my soul food cookbook that I was already selling (as a time limited bonus). This increased my sales for that cookbook substantially while adding practically nothing to the cost of delivering the basic product. If you'd like to see that example in action, check out my sales page at: http://Chitterlings.com/cookbook.html

Another one of my secrets is that I buy private label rights and source code, modify these, and come up with new products at a very low cost. I've done this with over a dozen ebooks, and with several software titles that I currently market. This gives you your own unique product at a very low cost.

The final thing that you MUST do is not overpay for these reprint and resale rights. You WILL find lots of marketable gems in these packages. You can market these as parts of new packages, or as stand alone products. However, you do want to minimize your initial investment.

You can actually find packages containing literally thousands of dollars in reprint and resale rights for under $100. You can even find these bargains for under $50. An example, is the Kick Start Mega Sale, conducted to raise funds for building a homeless shelter. Here you can get a package worth over $4000 for pennies on the dollar. This package is available for a very limited time at: http://kickstartmegasale.com/ks/?ksa=2

You CAN set up an online info-marketing business and do extremely well. The whole key is to get started with the right product... one with some real value. The whole key there is to do your due diligence, and to be aware of the traps. Now, you need never fall victim to the horror stories that we opened this article with. Feel free to pass this article on and to help spread the word.

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Willie Crawford has been marketing and teaching on the
Internet since late-1996. One of the most unusual
projects he helped orchestrate involved using an
Internet "fire sale" to fund the launching of a television
show, and building of a homeless shelter. Read about
that at: http://kickstartmegasale.com/ks/?ksa=2

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Ronald
http://www.affiliateutopia.com/

The Benefits of Affiliate Marketing
Copyright © 2006 Michael Saville

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant's products by linking to the merchant's website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant's side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant's website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate's site, is redirected to the merchant's website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission. The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

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For more information on affiliate marketing visit http://www.affiliate.marketing.me.uk

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Ronald
http://www.affiliateutopia.com/

Copyright © 2006 Angela Booth

You have a Web site. You're disappointed.

Your site just hasn't lived up to promises like: "Get a Web site -- you can do non-stop business 24x7, every day of the year"! Your site has been live online for six months and you haven't made a single sale. You doubt that you ever will.

Want to know why your site isn't selling? It's simple. There's not enough content.

Use your imagination, and come with me for a moment, as we walk through a local mall -- any mall. Let's go into this shoe shop. Do you like those Nikes? Want to try them on? It's OK, I'll wait while you buy the shoes.

Now, what made you buy the shoes? You were given dozens of signals that prompted you to buy, because you had enough information. A Web site doesn't have the advantages of a shop in a mall. You have to give your visitors enough information so that they feel comfortable doing business with you. People feel at ease when you have enough content (that is, text, images, multimedia) on your site to prompt them to buy.

Here are five ways in which more Web content helps you to sell more:

1. More Web content brings more traffic, and more traffic brings more sales

When you've got content, you can use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques to bring more traffic to your site. The Web search engines (Google etc) are indexing software. If you have a four-page site, with 200 words on each page, you're giving Google just 800 words to index. A few more pages with more words will make a lot of difference.

2. You can target the Long Tail of Web surfers

Chris Anderson's Wired article coined the term "The Long Tail". His book of the same name was published in 2006. As applied to Web content, you can target the Long Tail of Web surfers if you offer more information on your site: you increase the chance that you'll reach the people who are most interested in what you're selling, because more people will find you via the search engines.

3. You can instill enough confidence in your visitors so they feel comfortable buying from you

Compare your Web site to the shoe store in the mall. Your visitors can't know more about you than what's on your site -- are you giving them the confidence that you're a good company from which they can buy with confidence? You're going to have to work hard to give them confidence. Give them the information they need to feel comfortable buying from you.

This is where a blog helps your site, because although you're targeting a global audience, people are individuals, and you make one sale at a time. When you blog, you're adding content to your site, and giving people confidence that they know you and your business.

4. You can establish yourself as an authority in your industry

If you've got a tiny site, unless you've got an additional platform, such as a bricks and mortar store, a book, or a catalog, you may be an expert in what you do or sell, but you need to be able to show this. Saying on your home page "We're the greatest" doesn't help, unless you provide evidence.

5. You build Trust Rank with the search engines, which delivers more traffic

With millions of new Web pages being created every day, it's harder for search engines to decide which sites to return as query results. It seems that Google and Yahoo are starting to estimate the value of pages according to trust factors. No one knows how the search engines calculate trust, but offering more content on your site is a way to add to your trustability, especially when other sites begin to link to yours.

So, now you have five good reasons to add content to your Web site. Remember the shoe store. You were told in hundreds of ways that you could buy at the store with confidence. More Web content gives you more ways to convince your visitors to buy from you.

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Angela Booth is a veteran copywriter and marketer. She develops marketing strategies for businesses large and small. Visit her creative copywriting site at http://angelabooth.com/ and her Creativity Factory marketing copywriting blog at http://www.angelabooth.com/wp/ NEW: subscribe to Top Words, Angela's exclusive free marketing tips ezine: http://angelabooth.com/Top_Words/subscribe.html

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Ronald
http://www,affiliateutopia.com/

by BB Lee (C)2002

(Clever tips to turn your home business into a family affair)

IT'S SUMMER VACATION!

The kids are screaming. "It's "WAY TOO HOT" outside. And there's nothing to watch on cable." Kids are bouncing off the walls!

"MOM". We're B-O-R-E-D!

Your husband complains he doesn't remember what it's like to have a decent conversation with you. And he looks at the family album to remind himself what you look like. Why? Because you've locked yourself away in your home office. Toiling away for hours on your computer.

Instead of your family constantly fighting and bickering over your venture. Let them join in. And become a vital part of your home business. Ultimately, this will bring the family closer together, help them to understand the business factor, teach your children responsibility, build their self confidence. And who knows, you might be on the verge of your own Family Business Empire!

Here's a few nifty tips to get the whole family involved in your business during summer vacation or any school break. And, of course, you can adapt them to your own situation. Find out what works for you!

-Delegate easy task to the younger children. Let little fingers sort pencils, pens, office supplies into the right compartments. Arrange file boxes or stack them neatly. Sort sheets of paper by color or weight into neat little groups. You could easily turn this into a game and make it fun. Reward them with a healthy snack or favorite toy.

-Let middle children spell check your letters, proof-read papers for you. Or file and sort papers, run copy machines, send faxes. You might arrange to pay them a small salary or purchase something they've asked for.

-Assign your older children to answering the business telephone. Taking messages. Running important errands to the post office or purchasing needed office supplies. Consider paying older children a nominal salary if your budget allows.

-Assign your spouse to checking your email, downloading important files, helping with accounting or financial statements. Or delegate your spouse to research special projects.

-Once a week have a business meeting with your spouse and children. Discuss where you are now and where you see the home business in a year. Discuss any new projects, task, or assignments. Discuss openly any problems. Let the children and your spouse add their input into how they would like to see the business managed.

Use these suggestions to meet the unique challenges you may face in running a home business. Make it a family affair! And, remember, running a home business is not like running a corporation. Ultimately, you must realize it is the family that is most important.

~ Article may be freely distributed as long as the resource box is included.

========================================================== BB Lee is Editor/Publisher of SmallBizBits FREE Home Biz Newsletter published twice per month. You can visit SmallBizBit's website at http://www.angelfire.com/zine/smallbiz. Subscribe Now! And you will receive 5 ebook Bonus worth 100.00. To subscribe ...mailto:Smallbiz-subscribe@topica.com ----------------------------------------------------------

Ronald
http://www.affiliateutopia.com/

Copyright © 2006 Guillermo Puyol

Many people sometime in their lifetime consider starting a business of their own. Lately, these entrepreneurs at heart tend to resort to the internet as the medium for their businesses. Unfortunately, most of them fail drastically. The reason for that most of these people fail is not lack of effort, knowledge or business background; it is their business plan. Some of these eager individuals are so enthusiastic about their new quest, that they forget to stop and come up with a plan. Now, I don’t recommend you over-plan things to the extent that your idea will sound impossible. But do consider whether or not your business idea has the following parameters.

First of all, your idea has to be something that excites you and drives you. You have to be completely passionate about what you want to do in order to be successful at it. It is very hard to find a successful entrepreneur that doesn’t like what he is doing. When you think of a business idea, consider whether you would be happy doing that for the rest of your life. Is your investment buying you freedom or is it buying you a job? It is interesting to me to see the number of people that invest their life savings in a business that doesn’t appeal to them; you see them buying franchises to become professional burger flippers, pizza toppers and chicken fryers, and they slave away firing manager after manager in order to make their business successful.

Once you have found an idea that sounds exciting, you should try to determine whether you can afford to carry it out. In this stage of the process it is necessary to find out how much will it cost to launch the business, but most importantly, how much it would cost to keep the business running. At first it is very likely that you will not be profitable; you have to make sure you have enough capital to run the business for at least two or three months without making a penny. It pays to be pessimistic when it comes to this. You should find out whether you are going to need partners, investors or creditors in order to finance your operation.

Another point to consider is how much work (labor) will take to keep the business running. If you are going to require a customer service department, or shipping department, then you must see how many people you will need to employ. This will be closely related to the budget aspect of your business plan; the more people necessary to run the operation, then the more money you will need to start out.

Last, but not least you must consider the most important aspect of all –the one you have no control over: time. Do you have the time to manage your business or will you have to hire somebody else to manage it? The more time your business takes out of you, then the less time you will have to start another venture.

In conclusion, you want a business idea that drives you, something that is within your budget, it doesn’t take too much labor to keep it running and it is time friendly. Only with a business model like this will you be able to succeed online.

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Author of "Turn Ideas Into Cash! Newsletter" The newsletter features great online business ideas, advice and tools that are essential to beginning webmasters as well as seasoned pros. To get your free copy log on to http://www.TurnIdeasIntoCash.com

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Ronald
http://www.affiliateutopia.com/

Copyright � 2006 Jim Edwards

Every serious online business owner eats, sleeps and breaths targeted traffic to their website.

They spend the most money and time trying to attract first-time visitors to their sites in hopes of generating new sales and subscribers.

But, believe it or not, it�s easier to increase your income by simply selling more of the visitors you already get than trying to chase down more traffic.

The solution? Tracking & testing!

Probably the most overlooked and underutilized, but certainly the most powerful strategy for increasing sales and opt-in subscriptions.

If you spend any time or money on advertising, you must start testing and tracking.

Simply put, �tracking� means you measure the effectiveness of each individual advertising source you use to promote your business.

For example, if you advertise in email newsletters, you should know how effective each newsletter ad rates compared to all the others in terms of sales and subscribers generated.

This enables you to know whether an ad makes or loses money.

Testing means you constantly look for ways to improve your ads in small, incremental amounts that add up over time.

The most common (and effective) tests you can run are A-B split tests, which pit two variables against each other to determine which converts more lookers into buyers.

Split testing headlines, price points, and guarantee periods make, from my experience, the best places to start testing.

The reason testing and tracking can double your profits (or more) lies in the power of small, incremental improvements.

Lets say, for example, you decide to do a series of split tests on a website that currently converts 1 in every 100 visitors (1% conversion).

You test, headline, price, guarantee and a payment plan. If each of the 4 tests yields a .25% increase in conversion, you would not see an increase in sales to 2% (4x.25%), but actually an increase to almost 2.5% since each improvement builds on the last!

The most basic tool in testing and tracking revolves around the use of advertising link tracker software.

These tools measure the number of clicks on individual advertisements (text links, banners, pay-per-click ads, etc) and then measure sales or subscriptions generated as a result.

You get two choices with link trackers: a hosted service or software you install on your own server.

A hosted service offers the advantage of easy setup and use. Most of the time you just sign up for the service, enter the link you want to track, get your tracking code, and you�re off to the races.

The disadvantage of a hosted service is that, if it gets abused, using the URL of the service in your links can get your emails blocked or your pages banned by search engines.

The advantage of hosting the software on your own server is that you maintain a higher degree of technical control and can avoid the banning issues.

The main disadvantage of hosting it yourself involves the fact that you really don�t have anyone to call for help if something goes wrong.

One of the most popular hosted link trackers online is HyperTracker.com, though I�ve not used the service.

My favorite link tracker is actually part of an integrated e-commerce system at http://www.MysiteSales.com.

This service enables you to track your sales and subscriptions made through the shopping cart.

Two options for software you install on your own server are Dynatracker.com and ProAnalyzer.com.

Both provide decent link tracking, though no system I�ve tested provides 100% accurate results.

But, with that said, failure to test means you�re leaving money on the table by wasting visitors you could otherwise convert to buyers with basic effort at improving your sales messages.

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Jim Edwards is a syndicated newspaper columnist and the co-creator of an amazing course that will teach you step-by-step and click-by-click how to get your own money-making videos posted online... "Finally! A Quick and Easy Way For YOU To Painlessly Create, Post and PROFIT From Your Own Money-Making Online Videos... Without Being a Computer Geek or Paying Outrageous Fees To A Webmaster!" => http://www.WebsiteVideoSecrets.com

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Ronald
http://www.affiliateutopia.com/