Build A Community

16. Build A Community 

One of the reasons for the ever increasing popularity of the internet is that it allows like-minded people to get together from anywhere in the world. From sports to politics to gum wrapper collectors; if it is something you are interested in, chances are very good that you can find someone who shares your interests. Take a look at Yahoo Groups. They host hundreds of thousands of different groups from around the world. A search for “viral marketing” groups brought a list of 360 different groups. While I.m not suggesting you try to become the next Yahoo Groups, it does demonstrate the desire for internet users to get together with people who share the same interests. One method you could consider to take advantage of this is to host a forum on your website. Find an area of interest that is related to your business, and set up a forum on that topic. Allow your users a way to leave messages in the forum, or contact each other using email or an instant messaging program, and maybe even set up chat rooms where they can engage in active discussions. As the host of the forum you could help answer any questions, which will help to further establish you as an expert in your field. You would also help moderate discussions, and share new and interesting information. Encourage your users to participate. Give them the ability to share ideas and to establish themselves as experts. Make it a safe, friendly environment where they can share their opinions (within reason). If your community stays active, it will continue to grow, and some of the community members will become customers. You can find some very good forum programs that are available for free. Download the program and upload it to your web host and you are up and running. Many of the web host companies have software as part of their hosting packages geared toward building communities on your site. They make it very easy to set up forums, chat rooms, guest books and more. Building a community in this way will bring people that are interested in your line of business to your website. Once they are there, it is easy for them to look around at what you have to offer them. Because they  are already interested, it is much more likely that they will take advantage of what your business offers.

Offer An E-Comment Or E-Card Service

15. Offer An E-Comment Or E-Card Service 

Social networks have become an extremely popular way for people to stay in touch with each other. If you have not been to MySpace or Fac eBook, it is worth a look around. While a lot of the publicity these sites have gotten is because of the teens and college students that use them, businesses have discovered they are a useful way to build their networks as well. Some of the sites are very bare-bones, but some of them are quite elaborate. One thing most of them have in common is a place for  visitors to leave comments. Many times these comments are text messages back and forth between friends, but some of the messages are small digital pictures and graphics with a prewritten message. There are web sites that provide these e-comments free to their viewers. If you see one you like and want to share with a friend, you can copy and paste a small line of code into your friends comment box, and the e-comment will appear. When you look at these e-comments you will notice that on every one there is a company name or web address at the bottom. Most of these graphics are clickable links that will take the viewer back to the web site of the person that created it. If your e-comment is attractive or quirky enough, social network users will start sharing it with their friends. When their friends (or their friend.s visitors) see the graphic, they will click on it to see what other e-comments you have to offer. While many businesses are using these services to build their networks, the majority of users are teens, young adults, and women. If your business is aimed toward adult men, this method may have limited success, but if you are marketing to the younger generation, you can bring a flood of traffic to your site with this method.A similar service you can offer is free e-cards. People are always searching for cards to send to friends, family members, acquaintances, and co-workers. They are easy to use, and have maintained their popularity over the years. These cards come in several different varieties; with or without music and static or animated. Some are very simple animations; others are very elaborate Flash animations.  Once the person finds the card they like, they can fill in the message box, add the email of the person they are sending it to, and press the send button. An email is sent telling the recipient that their friend has sent them a card, and it gives them a link to click that will allow them to view the card. The person receiving the card gets a message from a friend to enjoy and a small line telling them who sponsored the card. Because you are hosting the card service, the viewer is already at your site. You just have to give them a good reason to click the links that will take them where you want them to go. In early 2006 job listing service CareerBuilder.com launched a program called Monk-e-mail. With the click of a mouse you could choose which chimpanzee you wanted to use with your card, then personalize that chimp with different clothing, glasses, hats, and backgrounds. Users also had the option of writing or recording their own message, and even had a text to speech functions that allowed the chimp to deliver your message. As an extra bonus, when you move your mouse around the screen, the chimp follows your movement. Within 3 months of launching, over 14 million monk-e-mails had been sent. The kicker is that CareerBuilder spent no money in marketing this service. In the first week CareerBuilder sent out 1,500 monk-emails to employees and agencies, and word of mouth did the rest. Monk-e-mail was so original and quirky that the buzz quickly spread across the internet, and even maid it to the main stream media outlets. You do not need to create a program as elaborate as monk-e-cards, but it does need to be creative and unique. If you do digital photography or graphic art, this could be a very good way to use your talent to build traffic to your site, or you could hire a freelance designer to create your cards for you. Do a search for e-cards and you will get a good idea of the types of designs people are using. As always, quality and uniqueness are an advantage.

Make It Easy For Readers To Email The Page To A Friend

13. Make It Easy For Readers To Email The Page To A Friend 

 Allowing your readers to send a link to your site through email is another way to encourage your visitors to tell their friends and family about your site. It is very similar to the tell-a-friend button in the way it works. If someone likes your site, they have an option to click on a button that will open a window in their email program. The script the button activates will insert your web address in the message window of the email. They can then fill out the rest of the message and send your link to as many friends and family members as they like. One reason this works so well is that the message come from someone they already know and trust, not from you. The email will not get stopped by the recipients spam filter, and there is a very good chance they will open it and read what it says Like the previous method, it may not send a flood of traffic your way, but the traffic that does come is there because someone they trusted told them to check it out. They come to your site in a much more receptive state of mind, and more open to considering your message. They are there for a purpose, not just someone who is wandering through.

Make it easy for visitors to refer others

12. Make it easy for visitors to refer others 

-Have you noticed the number of websites that include a button that lets you tell others about the site you are visiting? They are becoming more popular, because site owners have learned that if you want your visitors to do something for you, you have to make it as easy as possible. If you want viewers if your site to tell others, it does not get much simpler than giving them a button to click. The nice thing is, if you design and set up your own site, it is quick and easy to add the button. The hardest part is deciding where you want the button located. If you do not do any site design, it is a small cost to have a designer do it for you. The button runs a small bit of code called a “tell-a-friend” script. When your viewer clicks the button it opens up a small window that allows them to enter their friends email address and a short message so they can tell others about your site. The power of this script goes back to what I discussed back at the beginning of this book; people will listen to what their friends and family say. There is a level of trust there that you can not come close to, at least not initially. That kind of trust is built over time. 

Linkbait -

10. Linkbait -





 The term “Linkbaiting” meets with mixed reaction among internet marketers. It refers to the practice of “baiting” viewers into linking back to your site from there site. You write something on your site that catches the interest of other website owners and bloggers, and they trackback to your site with comments about what you wrote. The reason that linkbaiting is sometimes looked down on is that some marketers use somewhat controversial methods to get those links. While most of the methods are very legitimate, there are some that many feel cross the line, and are not appropriate to use. There are several ways to get other site owners to link back to your site, many of which I.ve already discussed. The first is to provide useful information that is new, or a unique view of existing information. The second way is to offer fresh, hot information. This is especially good if you are credited with breaking a story. When it works, this can generate a lot of traffic very quickly. The downside is, news stories have a very short life. The viral effect from a hot news story could be over within a day or two. The third way is to use humor. People love jokes, cute or funny stories, and things that make you go, “hmm…” Everyone likes to be entertained. The trick is to get your message across, while being entertaining at the same time. The fourth way to get links is to offer free tools or games that people can use from your site. Banks and insurance companies take advantage of this when they offer financial and loan calculators on their websites. While you are using the calculators, you are also being shown a message about other products and services that are offered. Even if you are not actively looking at the information, it is still planted in your brain, and builds brand recognition for the company. The final method is the more controversial one. It relies on the power of controversy to get links. The way it works is for the site owner or blogger to take a contrary position on a popular subject, or to attack a popular person. Other blogs start to comment on what you said, either because they can not believe you had the nerve to post it, or they are coming to the defense of the person who was attacked. The reason this is seen as somewhat controversial is that often times it is less than honest. The person making the post may not really feel that way at all, they only take that position for the passion, and links, that taking a contrary position it evokes. The danger of this last method is the damage it could do to your reputation. If you are seen as a trouble maker or rabble-rouser, many of your regular viewers may leave your site and begin frequenting other sites that are a little more in line with their way of thinking. So why would site owners risk damaging their reputations for links? The first reason is the immediate flood of traffic it can send to their site. Even though they may not agree with your opinion, some people will still check your site out to see if there is anything else controversial.  The second reason is that links represent popularity, and some search engines, most notably Google, use the number of sites that link to your site when they determine the ranking of each site. When other sites link to your site, it improves your ranking with Google. This is especially true with sites that are ranked higher than yours are. The more sites that link to you, the higher your site climbs. For some site owners, the traffic generated by getting links outweighs the negative consequences that might come from a bruised reputation. For your business, you need to consider whether it is more important for you to have a quick burst of traffic to your site, or whether you would rather build a steady stream of regular customers that will continue to return to your site long into the future. There are a number of sites that have effectively used gotten other sites to give them a link. Most notably are The Million Dollar Home Page, One Red Paper Clip, and All My Life For Sale. All three of these sites used unique ideas that made other site owners and bloggers want to write about what they were doing. The resulting surge of traffic made all three of these efforts overwhelmingly successful (and yes, the Million Dollar Home Page really did earn a million dollars

Create a Brand able E-Book

5. Create a Brand able E-Book 

-Have you noticed the number of sites that offer free e-books to subscribers? Give your email address, click the link and you have instant access to an eBook full of useful information. The reason so many sites use this method of advertising is because it works, and here is how you can make it work for you. Write a short eBook on a topic that relates to your business. In that book you include a little information about your business, and at a couple of key places include a link that will drive traffic from the book to your website. Now post it on your website and let anyone interested download a free copy. However, it does not stop there. Encourage anyone who likes your eBook to offer it as a free gift on their website as well. If the information is useful, and the book is well written, the number of websites that are offering your book will begin to grow, Soon 50 or 100, or even 1,000 other sites will be helping you spread the word about your business. A successful campaign with timely information could keep driving traffic to your site for months or years to come. Be careful not to overdo the information about yourself, or include too many links back to your site. The more about yourself you include, the less likely others will be willing to give your book away for you. Another advantage of having your eBook before thousands of people.s eyes is it establishes your credibility. People give more credence to a published “expert” than they do to someone who has not written a book, even if the book is very short. You begin to build name recognition, and when people see your name associated with something in the future, they will be more likely to check it out. Internet marketer David Meerman Scott used this successfully when he released an eBook titled The New Rules of PR. He posted a link to the book on his blog, and sent link by email to friends and colleagues. Within 3 days his eBook had been downloaded over 1,000 times. At that point it caught the attention of a couple of internet marketing gurus who talked about it on their own blogs. In the 3 days following those blogs Scott.s eBook had been downloaded over 15,000 times. To date, the eBook has been downloaded over 60,000 times, and it has resulted in a continuing flow of traffic, and several speaking arrangements. He is now considered an expert in the field of internet marketing, largely because of his eBook. Do a search for eBook compilers to find a program to create your eBook, or find a program that will allow you to save a document as a PDF. Whichever program you decide to use, make sure it allows you to include active, clickable links. If the person reading the eBook has to copy and paste the link into a browser, many of them will not. Make it as easy as possible for them to get to your site. Also, make sure the program you use will not let anyone change the information in your eBook. There are less than honest people who will remove references to you and the links to your site, and include their own information into your eBook. Many programs will allow you to safeguard your information, so take advantage of them. PDF Brandable is an good piece of software that allows you to create brandable eBooks.

Require A Referral

3. Require A Referral 

-An added twist to the idea of giving something away for free to your customers is to require them to refer someone to you in exchange for what you are giving away. Simply provide a space where they can enter the email address of one or more people that they have to fill out before receiving the item you are offering. This is especially effective when your free item is something the person can download instantly. This technique not only puts your message in front of the eyes of potential customers, it also helps you build your own mailing list. You can send an email the people that were referred saying “Your friend (name) saw this, and would like to share it with you. By having the ability to use the friend.s name, it helps to establish your credibility. This will decrease the possibility of person receiving the invitation tagging your message as spam. Like many of the techniques listed, this will only work if your visitor thinks what you are offering is of enough value to make it worth giving you information about a friend or family member. Friendships are built on trust, and most people will not be willing to risk that trust on a worthless gadget. Do not expect in instant flood with this method. It usually starts as more of a trickle, but that trickle increases the longer it flows. Over time, the referrals will add up. If each person that takes advantage of your free offer refers two or more friends, it will not take long to have quite a list of potential customers, all at no additional cost. I personally use a script called ViralFriendlyGenerator.com to set up this viral marketing „word of mouth. campaign. It has added 1000s of subscribers to my list within months and I.m receiving new sign-ups to this very day from something I did years ago.

Give Something Away

2. Give Something Away 

 

 One of the best early examples of building a business by giving something away is Hotmail. Hotmail gave away free email services and email addresses free to anyone who signed up for one, and a lot of people did (and still do). Today millions of users have Hotmail addresses. What made hotmail successful was one of the early successes of viral traffic building on the internet. At the bottom of every email that was sent through one of the free Hotmail accounts was a message telling others how they could get a free Hotmail account. Every time a  Hotmail user sent a message, they were helping spread the name of Hotmail. How did Hotmail make any money off of free accounts? They did it by offering premium services to their customers such as additional storage space, and the ability to send emails without any advertising attached. Hotmail became successful enough that in 1997, less than 2 years after it was created, it boasted over 8 million users and was purchased by Microsoft. It is still one of the top web based email services in the world. While you may not be able to achieve the same amount of buzz that Hotmail was able to generate, it does demonstrate the power of getting your message out be attaching it to something that people are willing to share with their friends, family, and co-workers. Do not discount the fact that people love to get things for free. If it looks interesting, and it is free, people are more than happy to give it a try. While it is easy to get them to try your offer initially, it is a different challenge to get them to continue using it once the novelty has worn off. Repeated use is critical for your success because multiple exposures will cement your companies name in your customer’s minds. People are more likely to buy something from a company they have heard of than from one they have not heard of. They might not even know how or why they know the name, but that sense of familiarity will make them more susceptible to your message. What ever you are offering has to be functional, easy to use, and add value to the user. You customers have to feel that it is worth their time and effort to pass the information along. Then, and only then, will they be willing to tell their friends and family what they have found.

Provide Quality Content, Products, Or Services

1. Provide Quality Content, Products, Or Services   

 Providing quality content, products, or service is by far the best way to build your reputation, and build repeat traffic to your site. Research has shown that on average, when someone has a positive experience they will tell two other people about that experience. On the other hand, if they have had a bad experience, they will tell seven other people. That act of telling others is how the viral traffic generation techniques start. If your customers never tell anyone else about you and your site, you are back to doing all of the marketing on your own. To build returning customers to your site, you need to establish a reputation as an expert in your field, very entertaining, or someone who has unique insights. That does not happen if all you are offering is cheap, recycled drivel that you found on someone else’s website. Make sure that what you offer is your own work, and something that is different from what can be found on every other website. As your reputation as an expert increases, other websites and bloggers will start to pay attention to your website. They will begin to talk about what you are doing, and will even give links from their website to yours. Suddenly every one of their readers becomes a potential customer. The higher the quality of material you produce, the more often your site will be linked to. Each link to your site is an avenue for new visitors to your business. If you do not think you have the ability to create something that will touch people like it needs to, you may have to spend the money and hire someone else to do it for you. Fortunately for you, there are a lot of service that will put you in touch with freelance writers, site designers, and program designers. If you have an idea about what you want, chances are there is someone available to do it for you. If you are willing to take a chance on a freelancer who has not yet established themselves, you can often find one that will work for a low wage in exchange for the experience the job will give them. Be careful though; often times you get what you pay for. Make sure the work you get is up to the standards necessary to appeal to your audience.

21 Viral Traffic Generation Techniques

Below are 21 techniques that you can use to bring traffic to your website. Whether there is a flood or a trickle really depends on your ability to give your visitors something they can use or enjoy. It is important to remember that your customers are not stupid. They will know whether what you are offering is something they want, or if it is a cheap advertising ploy. If it is, they will pass the word along. If it is not useful, they will leave your site and say nothing to others about you. The key to all of these techniques is to give something that adds to the user.s experience. This can be by offering useful information, telling them about something new and exciting, or something that is entertaining or humorous, but the key is to make it the highest quality possible. With so much information on the internet that is just a click away, what you are offering has to be unique. This can mean being completely new, or it could mean looking at something old from a different and unique point of view. If your message does not touch them in some way, your message will not go viral. You may still get some traffic out of it, but that traffic will come the old fashioned way,  through hard work, search engine optimization, and daily on-going marketing efforts. While for many people, going viral is a one-time accomplishment, others manage to see repeated success. When one of your messages goes viral, not only does it drive a flood of traffic to your site on a short term, but many of those people will become subscribers, which increases your daily traffic. If you can continue to write unique, compelling material, those people will be more than likely to return to your site, and to tell others. The more eyes that see you message, the better your chances of repeating your viral success. Viral traffic generation should not be used as a stand alone technique. It needs to be a part of a larger marketing strategy. Many of the techniques by themselves may only send a small stream of traffic to your site. That is why you need to use more than one marketing method. One stream may not amount to much traffic, but several streams could be significant. As your message starts to go viral, these several streams could quickly become a flood. Look though the list of items listed and think about which ones will work for you. Chances are, not all of them will work for everyone. Some of them will naturally go together, others will not. The list is not meant to be a comprehensive list of everything possible. It is meant to be a tool; an example of things that have worked for others. As you read through the different techniques, keep thinking about your own business. It may help you to come up with other ideas on your own. Be creative. Modify some of the ideas listed and come up  with something new that is unique to you and your business. The only limit to what is possible is your imagination.

How Can I Make My Message Go Viral?

This is an often asked question, and there has been a lot of time and money spent to find the answer. The truth is, there is no guaranteed way to make your message go viral. There are some things you can do to increase the chances that it will take off, but you can not “make” it happen. Successful viral traffic generation is part skill, part creativity, part timing and circumstances, and part luck. You may try dozens of things with no real success, and then strike gold in a completely unexpected place. There is a quote that says “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” If you continue to market your site, and continue to lay the groundwork for success, you greatly increase the odds that you will be “lucky”. For some sites it takes a long time to become an overnight success. By presenting your message in a useful, unique or entertaining way, it encourages people to spread the word. It requires creating a message with a wide appeal, and has a high potential of getting passed along.  Once it begins, there is no telling where it will go, how far it will spread, or who it will reach. If you happen to be one of the fortunate ones who have several messages going viral, you could easily reach millions of people. It does not happen for everyone, but it could happen for you. 

How Much Does Viral Traffic Generation Cost?

The cost of viral marketing really depends on the type of marketing campaign you decide to use. With the 21 Viral Traffic Generation Techniques listed below, there are many that are free, or very low cost. Some may cost a little more to produce and get started, while others could become quite expensive. How much you spend is entirely up to you and the how you want to use the different methods. One of the greatest things about viral traffic generation is, once you get the initial message out, it really doesn.t cost you any more once it goes viral. Your customers bear all of the time and expense of spreading the word. All you have to do is be prepared to handle the traffic when it comes. Depending on your website hosting service, there may be some costs for additional bandwidth as more customers flood your site, but if your sales increase because of the traffic it is worth the additional cost. 

What Is Viral Traffic Generation?

In recent years there has been more and more written about Viral Marketing and why you should be using it to drive traffic to your site. So, what is viral marketing, and why should you care? Is this just another fad that will soon fade away? In short, viral marketing involves getting other people to willingly spread your message for you. People who like what you have done tell other people, and the message spreads from person to person like a virus. When that happens, it is referred to as your message “going viral.” It relies heavily on word of mouth advertising; someone sees or reads what you have to offer and tells a couple of their friends. Their friends see or read your message and they tell a couple of their friends, and they tell a couple of their friends, and so on. The number of people who are aware of you and your message increases exponentially. The more people hear about your site, the faster your traffic grows. How large will it grow? There is really no way to tell. The only real limit to the amount of traffic possible is how many people your site host can handle. Just think about how quickly it could spread. If one person saw your message and told 2 people, who told 2 people, who told 2 people, and it continued, your message would very quickly be in front of thousands of people. If each person just told two other people, look how quickly it can grow.

1 x2 = 2

2 x2 = 4

4 x2 = 8

8 x 2 = 16

16 x 2 = 32

32 x 2 = 64

64 x 2 = 128

128 x 2 = 256

256 x 2 = 512

512 x 2 = 1024

Now just imagine if you started with 100 people spreading your message, or 1,000 people. You can see that it doesn.t take long before hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people are aware of who you are, and better still, are visiting your web site and buying your products or services. Viral marketing effectively taps into pre-existing social networks that your customers are already using. By creating something that is worth talking about and passing along, you create a “buzz” that spreads across the internet, and traffic floods to your site to see what the buzz is about. Once they are there, if they like what they see, they pass the information along, and the buzz continues to grow. Word of mouth marketing is by far the most effective way to get word out about your site. People will listen to others that they already know and trust much more readily than they will listen to you. These people do not know you, so why should they trust what you are telling them? After all, you might be likely to say anything in order to make a sale. However, they will listen to a friend or family member, especially if the person spreading the word does not have anything to gain by telling them. It is just a friend passing along a great deal they found, or some useful or interesting information.

Picking The Best Cash Generator

 Every blog is different, and each blogger may find success with a different monetization method. The topic of your blog, the amount of traffic your blog receives, and your personal goals are the biggest factors to consider when deciding which method of making money are best for your blog. Before you decide to advertise, become an affiliate, or review products for payment, you have to take the time to develop your blog and make it successful. Your focus should always be creating and interesting, entertaining, or informative blog that will attract readers.  Do not lose sight of the reason people read blogs, it is not to be marketed to or to see ads, it is because they like the content in the blog. If you focus on ways to make money before you develop a popular blog, your money making efforts will probably fail.  This is not to say that you should not consider ways to make money, but you should always stay concerned with giving readers great content that makes them want to come back. The more readers you have, the better your monetization methods will work. So which money making method is best for your blog?  AdSense and other advertising services that place ads work the best in content based blogs that talk about a specific topic or give information. If you blog about a specific topic, Google will have no problem finding relevant ads to display and your readers will probably be interested in them. If you have an opinion or entertainment based blog  AdSense type advertising may not work as well for you. If your readers visit your blog for entertainment they may be less effected by these types of ads because there is less informational content to display relevant ads for. If your readers come to enjoy and respect your opinions, affiliate marketing may be a better fit for you as you can offer your opinion or recommendation of a product. If you don’t mind getting paid to blog about products or websites (without disclosing it) reviewing products may be a good way to make money for you. Any type of blog can profit from this type of monetization, provided the website you get your topics from has things that relate to your blog. Your blog will also have to have enough traffic and be indexed by search engines in most cases to qualify for these programs. The best way to find the right money making method for your blog is to try them all and se which one makes you the most profit. You can track your profits with each method and get exact profit numbers. Sometimes what doesn’t work at first will be successful later after you have more traffic, so never give up! 

Create A Newsletter

If you have a successful blog with a large readership, you can consider branching out with a newsletter or email campaign to make some extra cash. Creating this type of campaign will require extra work, but if done correctly can ultimately leads to more profit.  Chances are if you have dedicated readers who enjoy your blogs, you can profit from giving them an interesting opt in newsletter or email campaign. This list can then be used for other marketing promotions or you can monetize your newsletter.  If your blogs offer something of value to your readers, chances are they will expect your newsletter or email campaign to do the same. This is a good thing because you will attract subscribers, but if you don’t deliver you will find that many of your readers end up unsubscribing. Add value to your email correspondences in the same way you make your blogs interesting to retain and attract subscribers.   Make sure you give readers something of value in these emails and give them a reason to read them so that your advertising methods have the greatest chances of being successful. If you promise little known tips or hard to find information, you better deliver or readers will unsubscribe. A good way to drive subscriptions is to include extra information in your newsletter or to conclude a blog entry in an email for subscribers only. Readers will be eager to get the whole story and will be more likely to subscribe to your newsletter if you give them a reason. Sign up systems that include free incentives are also a good way to get subscribers, it doesn’t have to be something fancy, a free e-book or list of tips is all you need.  Monetizing a newsletter or email campaign is similar to monetizing your blog. While you cannot use AdSense and other similar advertising methods, you can directly sell ad space, and depending on the size of your subscriber list you can charge a hefty sum.   You can also use affiliate marketing in your newsletter, just be sure to have the bulk of your newsletter contains relevant content and not just ads or else your readership will fall. Make sure your affiliate marketing is related to the content of your newsletter or email and that your audience will be interested in what you are promoting.  You can also sell your own merchandise through your newsletter. If you have created merchandise with your blog logo or related slogans, adding a link in your news letter asking readers to check out your store or merchandise won’t hurt, just make sure it is paired with good content.  If you build up a large subscriber base, you can also use it to send other email campaigns and promotions for your merchandise, book, or affiliate products. A word of caution, however, no one likes unsolicited emails so you should be sure that you have permission to send additional emails and that they offer something of value and are not just viewed as annoyances.

Affiliate Marketing

If you do not want to run ads on your blog, or you are looking for an additional way to monetize your blog, affiliate marketing is a good way to make money provided you have plenty of readers to market to.   Affiliate marketing does not have to be blatant “hey buy this” advertising, rather bloggers can subtly slip in a review or recommendation for a product and include their affiliate link in their blog.   If you can find an affiliate product that is relevant to the topic of your blog and you do a good job of slipping it in, you can stand to make some tidy profits. Affiliate marketing generally pays more per sale than you would make per click with other forms of advertising, but you have to have visitors that both click on your affiliate link and purchase the product.  The best way to make sure readers purchase the affiliate products you market is to pick products your audience will be interested in and that are relevant to your blog. If you blog about outdoor living, chances are no one will respond to your affiliate marketing attempts at selling PSP downloads.   Make sure the product you are trying sell will appeal to your readers and that you can do a good job of including it in your blog without seeming to preachy or desperate. Keep your marketing attempts natural and make sure they fit in with the flow of your blog. there are plenty of places to go to find affiliate marketing opportunities. Many websites such as Amazon and eBay have affiliate programs. Your favorite website or company may even have an affiliate program and it can’t hurt to look, especially if they are related to your blog.    You can also find affiliate marketing opportunities on websites that specialize in connecting companies with publishers. The good thing about using one of these websites is that you have a huge list of products to choose form and the website will manage your payments and track your selling statistics. Here is a list of websites you can use to find affiliate marketing opportunities. 

Clickbank  – The most popular affiliate marketing website, Clickbank offers bloggers a dizzying array of products to market as an affiliate. All of their products are digital products, such as e-books and reports.  You can find things on virtually every product, arranged by category. So no matter what you blog about, chances are that you can find an affiliate product on Clickbank. Payouts range from a few dollars per sale to fifty dollars or more.

Commission Junction  – This affiliate website operates in much the same way as Clickbank. Companies add their products to the Commission Junction  marketplace and publishers add links to these products in their blogs. Commission junction offers a wider variety of products, however, some require visitors to buy a product for you to get paid and others require visitors to sign up for newsletters or fill out a form.

Link Share  – Another affiliate website that connects affiliates with products to market. You can pick from a wide variety of products to market on your blog and like Commission Junction, you do not always have to sell something in order to get paid. Sometimes the required action is to get visitors to sign up for a newsletter or fill out a form in order to get paid. 

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to make money from your blog. Remember to keep your marketing attempts natural and try not to “sell,” rather rate or inform. Most affiliate websites that connect you with products to market will keep track of your earnings and statistics which makes them very convenient

Using AdSense In Your Blog

Using AdSense In Your Blog

Now that you know ho to make your blog popular, it is time to profit from it. One of the best ways to monetize your blog is  AdSense, and this advertising program will work with just about any blog and if you receive enough traffic, it  can be very lucrative.  AdSense puts relevant ads on your blog after you sign up and insert a few lines of code into your blog; this requires some basic HTML knowledge and a blog that allows you to modify the HTML. Don’t be intimidated, it is easy to do. The good thing about  AdSense is that the ads are displayed based on the content of your blog, so readers only see ads that will likely appeal to them, increasing the chances that they will click on them.   AdSense operates by pairing relevant ads with your content. As long as your blog has enough content to support a few text ads, you will be able to run a few non intrusive ads along the side of your blog. You will need to have a blog that allows you to add a few lines of HTML code into your blog in order to use AdSense. If your blog is hosted independently, chances are youwill be able to make the necessary modifications. If you blog on a network or on another site, you will have to check to see if it is compatible with AdSense, many are. To get started with  AdSense, go to www.adsense.com and sign up. It is free to use  AdSense and if you have an existing Google account you can use it as your  AdSense account as well. Signing up with  AdSense is free, but you must provide tax information and report your earnings.     you then choose what type of ads you want displayed on your blog. You have the choice of text ads that run along the top, side, or bottom of your blog or graphic ads that display an ad with a picture on your blog, either in a size  like a banner ad or in a smaller size.   AdSense is a cost per click advertising program, which means that every time that a visitor clicks on an ad in your blog you get paid. Google does not disclose exactly how much you make for each click before you sign up, but you can track your daily, weekly and monthly earnings once you have started running  AdSense and calculate how much you are making per click. If you do not have a large readership base, most types of monetization on your blog will probably not be successful and  AdSense is no exception. The more people you have clicking your ads, the more money you make.Earnings will vary widely depending on how many visitors you receive and if your blog is very popular you can make a good income from  AdSense alone.

trust and expectation

Trust

Back in the days when the internet was new, you could slap up a page, offer something for sale, and someone

would buy. Things are different today.

Visitors have certain expectations of a website, and meeting those expectations helps them feel like you

are professional, helpful, and familiar.

With trust and small business relationships, familiarity is a huge thing –

if your site feels familiar and they can find things where they expect to, and the information they want is readily

accessible, then you've begun to forge a long term reciprocal relationship with them.

If your site is awkward, and your information hard to find, and the expected validation info is nowhere to

be seen, they will feel like you are shifty, inexperienced, or untrustworthy. That translates into a lost

sale.

Some common expectations of visitors to your site are:

1.

Understandable product descriptions,

which include necessary performance specs and details.

2.

About Us, and Contact Us info,

placed in an expected area (links at the top or bottom of the page, or

at the bottom of your product or service links). They want to know who you are and how to reach you.

3. Clearly posted prices.

4.

Clearly posted and reasonable support and guarantee policies.

Also, shipping policies, return

policies, and privacy policies, if they apply to your business.

5.

Easy navigation

(covered in detail in the navigation section).

6.

A professional site design, that works predictably.

It does not need to be elaborate, it DOES have to

work!

Think about how you react when you come into a site, and find things that are confusing, misplaced, or

completely missing. Do you want your customer to act that way?

Web standards and styles have changed in the last few years also.

Business sites that looked like personal

sites used to be acceptable, but they are not now. The expectation of professionalism is a lot higher now than it

used to be, and people will assume that if you cannot afford to hire a designer – or to do a quality job yourself –

that you are not successful at business. And they like to patronize successful businesses.

The same issue holds with free web space. Someone else's ads on your product or service sales site is not

good. It makes you look desperate. Lack of a true domain also makes you look cheap –

after all, a domain

name only costs about $9 a year. Good hosting costs less than $10 a month, so if your business is

making anything at all, or if you expect it to, then it is a reasonable expense, and a necessary one.

It isn't all about money, and it isn't all about hiring someone to do it for you.

It just means that if you do it

yourself, you need to be prepared to spend a lot of time learning about it, and be willing to take criticism so you

can improve it and make it work well. Web design is now a highly complex field, with many areas of sub-

specialty. It takes years to learn, layer on layer, to develop the proficiency to build a site that functions flawlessly

all the way around.

When you hire someone, and you have a tight budget, you need to make sure they are making cost

cutting economies in areas where it won't hurt your site's ability to do what you need it to do right now.

That means they won't try to sell you on a 3 page “business card” site (which will not help your business and

may hurt it), they won't take shortcuts with the basic essential elements, and won't waste time or money on fluff

at the expense of core function.

Because it is a certainty that if they make the wrong cost containment

choices, it will affect your visitor's trust level on the site.

Web builders are not capable of leveling the playing field either, they produce templates that do not reflect the

character of your business, and which are not in any way unique. The sites are also typically slow, inflexible, and

LOOK like they were produced by a web builder.

Not all business owners will be able to quickly learn the basics – or they may feel it frustrates them so

 

badly that it is not worth it to them. For those who can learn these skills, it takes time, and good

instructions.

Sadly, most of the problems with trust issues in a site are created by web designers who charged the

site owner for the work.

Many are caused by do it yourself site owners who simply did not have the time to

learn everything at once (no criticism there!), but given the time it takes to learn the skills, it is understandable.

Web designers, though, ought to know better!

One reason we created this book is so business owners would be able to spot issues more easily

themselves,

whether they are doing it themselves, or whether they are hiring someone.

Business owners who

understand basic issues with web design are empowered, and do not need to be held hostage by

problems that they do not know how to spot.

A business owner SHOULD specialize in their business. But they need to know enough about what makes good

design to be able to insure that their site welcomes and reassures the visitor, and presents a virtual business

presence that is persuasive and effective in increasing revenue.

Common Website Mistakes to Avoid

Ok, here is the comprehensive listing of “Bad Website Ideas”, that will hopefully help you know what

design and text issues to avoid.

This is a listing of common mistakes made by first time website designers,

and do it yourself web designers (and an appallingly large number of professed commercial web designers!). It is

not meant to criticize, but to help you understand what the mistakes are, why they matter, and what to do

instead. It can also help you insure that your designer is doing a quality job if you have hired someone on a strict

budget.

Some of these issues are covered in context in other sections, this listing is just a quick reference so you can

assess a site quickly.

1.

Bad Backgrounds

– Background patterns that have high contrast will conflict with text. You can put the

image into a graphics program, and turn the contrast down, and the brightness up. You may need to

adjust the color some. Wash it out so it is very pale. If you still want it strong, then put your text into a

box with a plain colored background, and just keep the pattern around the outside of the box.

2.

Huge Images

– Compress large images, and crop and scale them so that they are faster to download.

3.

Sound Loops

– These are annoying! Set the sound to loop just two or three times, or give your visitors

the option of turning it off.

4.

Unnecessary Flash

– Make it optional, or make sure that Flash design really is an asset to 95% or

more of your site visitors. Otherwise, use a simpler development method.

5.

Useless Pages

– Each page should be there for a reason that benefits the customer. If it is not, then

take it out.

6.

Wasting Time

– Awkward functions, cumbersome shopping carts, slow pages, features that do not

work, confusing instructions, etc. Have several people review your site, and take their comments

seriously.

7.

Bad Doorways

– Home pages that say nothing but “click to enter”, or that have obscure graphics for

entering the site. Get to the point, provide options and good info on your home page!

8.

Bad Text Size

– Keep text sizes compact, but not too small – size 2 or 3 is right for most info, 1 or 2 for

less important, 4 or 5 for emphasis.

9.

Low Contrast

– Make sure your text and background color contrast well. Avoid “vibrating colors” (colors

of the same intensity which compete for attention). Avoid pale pink on white, or yellow on white, unless

you choose very intense colors. Remember, always choose a stronger contrast with text than you think

you need to, as it tends to wash out due to its small size.

10.

Bad Frames

– Do not use frames unless you have a strong reason for doing so. They are bad for

search engine indexing, and they are of no use to the visitor.

11.

Overlapping Items

– Check your site in several browsers. Some HTML editing programs produce items

that do not stay in the same place all the time, and this can cause embarrassing problems.

12.

Horizontal Scroll

– Avoid making a site so big that most of your visitors have to scroll sideways to see it

all. 1000 pixels wide is the largest you want to make a site currently.

13.

No Scroll

– NEVER set a page to No Scroll. All it does is permanently remove the scroll bars – maybe

you think that looks nice, but it means that your visitors cannot even SEE the parts that are hidden,

because they cannot scroll to get at them. It is rude.

14.

MS Word Pages

– PLEASE, PLEASE do not create pages in MS Word, Open Office, Publisher, Excel,

or other programs that were not designed to create web pages as their primary function! They do it

badly! Try out NVU (a free HTML editor) – it is not perfect but at least it does better than secondary

programs. MS Office programs are the worst, they produce bloated code, and pages that do not function

predictably. NO professional designer worth paying will use that kind of program!

15.

Form Problems

– Make sure your forms function, or put an email address on the page. Remember,

when a form does not function, the visitor has no way of telling you that it did not function!

16.

No Contact

– No contact means “possible scam”. Make sure you have clear contact information posted

– on every page, or on a Contact page that is accessible from every page.

17.

Popups

– Don't use popups. They annoy people. Do not use dhtml “windows” either – they STILL annoy

people! Annoying your site visitors is not good. Half of all visitors have them turned off anyway, so they

won't even see it long enough to BE annoyed.

18.

Typos

– Clean up your text. A typo or two is not going to be a big deal. A page riddled with them is

unprofessional, and deadly to a business.

 

19.

Purely Ugly

– Lack of aesthetic balance, bad graphics, ugly color combinations, etc. Ask your neighbor

– the one with the nicely decorated house, for a site review. Then listen.

20.

Bad Animations

– Too fast, too many, or unmeaningful animations need to be corrected. Slower frame

rates are more effective, and no more than ONE animation per screen view.

21.

Bad Navigation

– Confusing, illogical, or tangled navigation needs to be corrected. Logical link names,

logical categories and organization of pages, and no more than three clicks to get to what you want (in

general – there are a few exceptions to this).

22.

Flashing or Scrolling Text

– Avoid it except for a single word or two at most – attention getters only,

NEVER use it for key content or important titles. Keep it slow enough to actually READ, or it is useless.

23.

Poor Information

– Talking about it but never getting to the point, lack of unique content, inaccurate

information, badly written information, etc. Clean it up and give it genuine value.

24.

No Consistency

– Message, design, navigation, and function should coordinate throughout the entire

site. If it doesn't, it confuses your visitor and makes them think your business is unreliable.

25.

No Marketing

– You have to register your site with the search engines, but you also have to market it in

effective ways. If you don't, it won't grow.

26.

Overcomplexity

– Keep It Simple Silly! Simple sites that work well are the goal. Do not make anything

more complex than it needs to be to perform essential functions.

27.

No Differentiation

– Your site needs something valuable and unique about it.

28.

All Links, No Info

– A page of links is not information. If you provide a directory, give commentary on

the links.

29.

Browser Specific

– It is rude to tell your visitors that they have to use a certain browser to visit your

site. This is a sure way to lose customers.

30.

Requires Plugins

– Don't require plug-ins unless you have a compelling reason (which benefits the

customer).

31.

Under Construction

– Avoid “under construction” signs. They stop search engine indexing, and they

make people think you are unprepared. Use a more helpful notice, such as, “We are not completely

finished adding information or products to this site, if you need something that is not available yet,

please email us and we'll be happy to help you personally.” This provides something of value.

32.

5 Pages or Less

– You cannot showcase a business well enough to compete when using only a 5 page

website. You need certain standard pages (About, Contact, Policies, etc), to maintain credibility, and you

need well thought out information pages which answer the questions that the visitor is most likely to

have. A “one page website” REALLY hurts your credibility! The dirty secret of web design is that it takes

very little more effort to create a 10 page website (which will be sufficient to either showcase a simple

business well, or to provide a solid foundation for a larger site) for very little more than a 5 page one.

The design and structure process is the most complicated aspect of a simple site, and adding pages is

easy after that. If they can provide a 5 page website for $400 or $500, they can give you a 10 page one

for $500 or $700, because all they have to do is use the same template, and put in additional content (if

they tell you it will cost you $100 a page to add pages, RUN, don't walk, and find a more reasonable

designer!).

That was a long list, but it includes the most common issues. Notice, they are not things like “failure to comply

with W3C coding standards” or anything else that is technical. They are identifiable, and correctable things.

This list doesn't cover every reason why a business site does not make money, but it does cover the most

common reasons why people leave a site instantly.

Long Term Maintenance

I mentioned in the previous chapter that site design tends to get outdated in the same way clothing

does. What is less obvious, but just as important for site function, is that CODING gets outdated, much

the same way computer hardware or electronics do.

Web pages are written in code – it is a language that tells the browser how to show the page. Roughly

translated, it is like a list of instructions: show this image here, put this text here (in this size, with this

font, in this color), put a box here and put this text inside it... etc.

When a visitor asks for a page, the server sends the page to the browser. The browser “reads” the page,

and follows the instructions.

The problem comes in because each year, new kinds of code instructions are written, and browsers are updated

to be able to read the new code. Sometimes when the new ones are written, it means that old ones have to be

eliminated, or the newer browsers interpret the older instructions differently.

So a page that looked fine one

day may suddenly look weird when the site visitor updates their browser (or when they get a new

computer).

Computers are changing too. Monitors are getting bigger.

Design for large monitors is distinctly different

than design for smaller ones – more complex, richer in content per page.

A site that was designed for a

small monitor will look funky in a big one – a little bitty box sitting in the middle of a great big screen – or worse, a

page that flexes, which gets stretched way out of shape on a large monitor!

Those changes are not ones that can be anticipated, so even good design requires maintaining and updating.

You can expect to have to have your site overhauled (with significant code changes), about once every 2-3

years. You can expect to have to rebuild from the ground, up, about once every 4-5 years. This is just part of

maintaining a site.

Other maintenance issues exist also

, because sometimes files get corrupted, sometimes download problems

occur, sometimes a shopping cart will develop a problem. Programming code is not 100% stable, and never will

be. Even with simple sites, sometimes things go weird, and someone has to go in and troubleshoot.

When you have dynamic features on your site (shopping carts, forums, Content Management

Systems, etc), then there are also security issues.

Some of them are annoyances, or things that will

just make a customer a little leary of using your site. Some of them are major things that can get your

site shut down if someone hacks into it and uses your site for illegal purposes.

Now, while there really is no need to stay up nights worrying about this, it IS something you need

to take seriously.

If you have that kind of site, it will need to have security updates run periodically, and

it will need to have the server software (which provides the framework for the site) updated now and

again. It is wise to check once a month for minor updates, and once every six months for major

upgrades.

If you use a form on your site, you will also want to have the code for it reconstructed every six

months or so. I highly recommend that you use a service to provide form processing for you, and

that you NOT use form code that is hosted on your own server

– this can be a huge security risk,

and can get your site shut down if someone uses the form in an illegal manner (when you use a service,

they keep the form more secure so this is not likely to happen). This is one way you can turn your

security headaches over for someone else to have to worry about!

Regular maintenance of a site helps you to insure that what you think you are delivering to your customers, and

what you actually ARE delivering, are one and the same. And it insures that your site will steadily grow, instead

of sitting there without progress.