I’ve actually created about 2 dozen ebooks that use this strategy, and I offer them in numerous niches.
The way my gentler system works is that after they’ve read my free ebook, when they close it they get a popup requesting that they join my list.
The popup contains my standard subscribe form that feeds right into my autoresponders. A very large number of people fill in these forms and join my lists everyday.
Since they voluntarily joined my list, instead of being squeezed into doing it, we start the relationship off on friendlier terms, and provided I deliver quality information, they stay longer.
You can see a video demonstration of how I set my PDF’s up at: http://HowToAddAPDFPopup.com
I still have squeeze pages on many sites, but as I watch the results from this process, I’m beginning to see that it’s a much more productive approach.
It respects the future subscriber more.
It doesn’t force people on your list who don’t want to be there and can’t wait to get off of it.
You don’t get your database polluted with fake email addresses, or email addresses that are never checked.
Think about it. If you hate being “squeezed” should you really be doing it to your new clients?
Willie Crawford has been teaching proven effective internet marketing techniques for 12 years. To learn more of Willie’s tactics and tips, just drop by his frequently updated blog at: http://WillieCrawford.com/blog/
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
Hate Squeeze Pages? A PDF Popup Is More Polite
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Hate Squeeze Pages? A PDF Popup Is More Polite
These days, most people who spend a lot of time online manage at least one blog. Blogs are the new web sites and they’re cheaper, faster and easier to build than ever before.
With all the free blog services available now, such as WordPress, Blogger and LiveJournal, you can set up a new blog in about 10 minutes and the only investment required is time and commitment.
But how exactly do you make money with a blog?
Take a look at Technorati’s Top 100 blogs and you’ll see blogging rockstars like:
- Jeremy Schoemaker (ShoeMoney)
- John Chow
- Duncan Riley
- Maki (Dosh Dosh)
- Darren Rowse (ProBlogger)
Look at their sites and you’ll see the secret formula is made up of just 2 ingredients: traffic and advertising.
So how can you apply this to your own blog? How do you get the traffic to justify selling advertising space?
Let’s take a close look at these tactics:
Traffic Tactics
The blogging heavyweights spend a LOT of time building up their subscriber base and attracting more and more eyeballs to their blogs.
You too can do this in several ways:
1) Generate valuable timely content on a daily basis
This is the time consuming part. You need to make regular posts on your blog (daily if possible) that people want to read. You can either do this yourself, hire some writers, find guest bloggers, or syndicate content from other sites, either free or purchased.
2) Make your blog appealing enough to entice visitors to return
This is an obvious one. Your blog needs to provide value or generate enough interest in your readers that they will come back regularly.
3) Encourage visitors to subscribe to your blog feed
Anyone can do this but it is surprising how often it’s overlooked. ASK your blog readers to subscribe to your feed!
4) Make it EASY for visitors to subscribe
Another easy one. Make your feed button large and stick it in an obvious place on EVERY page of your blog. Use a feed format that is readable by a wide range of readers. Services like FeedReader convert your feed into a reader-friendly format.
5) Remind visitors to bookmark your blog
Another no-brainer. ASK your readers to bookmark the blog and come back!
6) Aggressively participate in social networking and post-sharing
Apart from content, the other time-consuming part of blogging is social networking. When you write a new post on your blog, don’t just let it sit there and hope for traffic. Submit it to your favorite social networking haunts like Digg, Sphinn, StumbleUpon etc. Send a link to your friends and colleagues and ask them to send it on.
Create a profile in the major social media sites, participate in the community and support other bloggers by submitting and sharing their posts if you like them. You’ll be amazed at the amount of support and traffic this can generate. Such is the power of social networking.
7) Encourage readers to share your posts with others
Make it easy for your blog readers to promote your content by placing icons to the most popular social media sites underneath each post. Encourage them to share the posts that they like via email. Provide the ability for your readers to comment on your posts. If you receive comments, reply in a timely and helpful fashion, making sure you thank visitors who make the effort.
Push marketing to your subscriber base via newsletters and email
Once you’ve got a subscriber list, make sure you keep in touch with them regularly. Send them links to useful articles. Ask them to comment on your latest post. Seek advice about your blog design. Offer them something for nothing. Or simply thank them for subscribing. The key here is not to overdo the contact and to remember why they subscribed in the first place.
9) Give stuff away
Shoemoney works this angle well. Got an e-book you think your readers would like? Offer it to your readers as a bonus for subscribing to your feed. Run a competition and give away Amazon vouchers or other prizes. Better still, find advertisers who are willing to donate prizes so there is no cost to you at all.
10) Have an attractive design
Another no-brainer. The lovely anime images on DoshDosh are a major factor in the blog’s appeal. People tend not to hang around places that hurt their eyes. Make your blog a pleasant visual experience and use a soothing color scheme and design.
11) Create a sense of community
Like-minded people tend to congregate in the same places. If your blog is attracting a certain niche crowd and you are interacting with them, you’ll find that word of mouth will spread. They will tell their friends and so on and so forth. Your readers will start to “hang out” at your blog for the sense of community it provides.
12) Create some controversy
Another thing that Shoemoney is good at. Jeremy likes to drop a bomb and watch the fallout. It’s a risky tactic, but a very good traffic generator.
Advertising Tactics
The most successful bloggers gain advertisers like a magnet. How can you imitate this?
1) Attract a high level of traffic
Traffic generation is your key to getting advertisers to hand over cash to you. Once you have followed the traffic tips above and your blog is pulling high numbers of subscribers and visitors, advertisers will start knocking on your door almost immediately.
2) Focus on a niche market
The most successful blogs are verticals - those that specialize in a specific vertical market e.g. SEO, politics, humor and so on. Make sure your blog is targeted at a specific niche market and feed that niche with only relevant, related content. Advertisers will pay good money for access to a highly qualified audience in their target markets. This is because you are providing access to a market that advertisers can’t get anywhere else.
3) Have an attractive, professional looking site
As mentioned already, people like soothing color schemes and professional looking web sites. This means no obvious spelling errors or tasteless graphics. Advertisers know this and would be more likely to advertise on a blog that follows these rules.
4) Provide appealing ad options
Many blogs only provide a single advertising option, usually the 125 x 125 pixel banner ad, surrounded by 3 or more ads from other advertisers. But the blog rockstars know that advertisers like to have other options such as exclusivity, text ads, peel-back ads and skyscraper banners.
You should also think about whether you want to charge for advertising based on time frame, cost per impression (CPM) or cost per click (CPC). Providing a wide range of advertising options will increase the potential number of advertisers your blog can attract.
5) Promote your advertising programs on your blog
This one sounds obvious, but take a look at 10 blogs and you’ll see that only a couple will be actively promoting their advertising programs. What a waste! Be in the minority and promote your blog advertising by sticking a big link or button marked ADVERTISE HERE which links through to your contact form or to details about advertising rates.
6) Provide value for money to advertisers
Obviously advertisers are going to expect value for their advertising dollar. Keep your ad rates low until your subscriber base reaches a reasonable level. Provide discounts for long-term advertisers. Give them something for nothing e.g. buy 2 months, get 1 month free.
7) Respond quickly to potential advertisers
Once you receive an advertising enquiry, respond quickly and get them booked in. If you have no slots available for the current month, offer them a discount to book into a future time-slot. Be willing to negotiate with advertisers and encourage loyalty.
Use the scarcity principle
The scarcity principle is a well-researched phenomenon. Scarcity indicates the lack of something. When we realize that we do not have something, we desire it. Telling someone that something is not available only makes it more desirable.
Rockstar bloggers use the scarcity principle all the time to hype up readers and advertisers with the “you don’t want to miss out” factor. You can imitate this by promoting a limited no. of advertising opportunities, promoting a time-limited offer or talking about how your ad slots sell out quickly.
9) Make it easy for advertisers to pay you
Provide a range of payment options for advertisers. Allow payments via PayPal, credit card, check or bank transfer. The more options you provide, the wider range of advertisers you are likely to attract. Remember, you can’t make money unless you give people a way to pay you.
You may not become a blogging rockstar overnight, but if you implement these tactics you’ll be well on your way!
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
How to Make Money From Your Blog
How to Make Money From Your Blog
Untruths: If it does not work, don’t sell it. Don’t say it’s in perfect condition when it has a defect of any lind. Honesty will be rewarded.
Your auctions end anytime: If your auction ends say during the middle of the night, how many potential bidders do you think will be around to create that bidding frenzy? How many will be around to ensure that they are the winner?. Ensure your eBay auction finishes at a “profitable” time.
Why would you ever sell rubbish?: If you would not be prepared to sell it elsewhere else, don’t expect a rush of bidders just because it is eBay. If you think that you can make good money selling anything that you can pick up then think again. eBay buyers are just as discerning as any other buyers. And they won’t buy rubbish either!
Never give discounts: Ever considered that a special deal might just seal a sale to a very happy and grateful customer that will make them return to your site to buy again. eBay is still like the real world, discounts and special deals are always good incentives to make sales. Don’t ignore their power.
Unattractive listings: The easiest way to make a potential bidder click the back button is to have your listing full of noise, clutter, colour, capital letters, wrong font. You get the answer. Just because it is eBay, does not mean you can be bold and brash with your listing. What listings are professional and successful? Look at them and copy their ideas.
Photos. Who needs them?: You do! Never, I repeat, never make an auction listing without the benefit of a photo of the item. All eBay Power Sellers use photos, so make sure you do to. As a customer, you will want to see the item that you are buying, so have the same atitude as a seller. And the more photos the better. Leave no question unanswered by the use of photos.
Only use a short description: Never think that a two line quick description shall do.The more information that you give the potential bidders, the more inclinded they will be to place a bid. eBay is all about giving as much information as possible so an informed decision can be made by the person as to whether they wish to bid or not. Never let a potential bidder click off because they did not have enough information on which to make a decision.
Ignore emails: A potential bidder may want to ask you a specific question about the item. This person could be the winning bidder, they may start what could turn into a bidding frenzy. You don’t know, so don’t restrict your opportunities by giving poor service by ignoring emails. If the customer does not receive a reply from you, how likely is is that they will bid?
Posting at your leisure: An ebay customer will remember, they will post bad feedback and your reputation will suffer, all because your mailing of the itemjwas not efficiently dispatched. A last point, don’t overcharge on the posting. There is fair post charges and there is blatant money making postage charges. Don’t antagonise the customer, here is someone that is liable to buy from you again so treat them well and that will be rewarded.
Michael Tasker operates a successful information marketing business and continues to expand to various websites plus direct marketing channels as well. Discover the secrets to become an Ebay power seller in the new A-Z guide and power yourself into the 2% Ebay elite. The audio and transcript guide shows you everything that the elite use to generate a huge income selling on Ebay. Sign up for a free course at: http://www.goodbyemoneyworries.com/ebaycashpoint/ebaysign.html
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How to Destroy Your eBay Business
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How to Destroy Your eBay Business
If you’re like me, then you’ve probably heard all about article marketing, SEO, video marketing, social bookmarking, press releases, blogging, etc…
They are the cornerstones of Internet Marketing. And they work. But sometimes don’t you just want to read about something new. I know I do. In fact, every time I discover a new traffic technique, it’s like opening a shiny new present on Christmas morning.
And I’m hoping I can give you that feeling with this article, because I’m about to reveal 3 traffic methods that you may not have heard of yet.
1. Download Sites - You can get thousands of visitors with download sites, even if you’ve never programmed a day in your life.
Here’s what I do. I take my articles and turn them into EXE files. This allows me to submit my article to hundreds of software directories, sending me hundreds of one-way links and visitors.
Now, here’s a quick tip on how you can use this technique to build your subscriber list quickly. Require people to register for your software (in this case your ebook is considered software) before they are able to read your ebook. This allows you to grow your list quickly simply by recycling your articles and turning them into EXE files.
You can turn your articles into EXE files using some free software called WebSiteZip Packer. This software will allow you to turn an HTML page into a solid executable file (.exe) with an integreated HTML browser.
Quick Tip: This is an excellent way to get hundreds of one-way backlinks by using those PLR articles you have laying around.
Since you’re converting the articles into software, you don’t have to worry about duplicate content. Just one of your plr articles can now generate you 100’s of one-way backlinks by converting it into software and submitting it to all the different software directories.
Here’s a list of some of the top download sites you can submit to…
Download.com
Tucows.com
Versiontracker.com
Jumbo.com
freedownloadcenter.com
regnow.com
regsoft.com
5star-shareware.com
shareit.com
topshareware.com
passtheshareware.com
sharewarejunkies.com
softpedia.com
shareware.com
Plus, Google loves these authority sites, especially Download.com. I’ve found many of my software titles ranking on the front page of Google with these high-authority download sites.
2. Get your articles into Google News. Google News has become very popular in the past couple years and can send you a ton of traffic. To get your article into Google news, all you have to do is get published on one of the many sites that is syndicated by Google News.
I personally use the American Chronicle.
You can sign up for an author’s account and start submitting articles. Once your article is published, it will be listed on 20 sites owned by the American Chronicle as well as Google News.
This strategy can send you a lot of traffic, especially if you use the right keywords.
3. Webwire.com. I have saved the best for last…
Webwire.com is a hidden gem that I have been using to rank on the front page of Google within 24 hours.
Here’s a quick overview of how I am able to capture front page rankings…
First, I title my press release with the keyword phrase that I want to rank for. I have found that keyword phrases with a competition of less than 30,000 (in quotes) in Google rank really well.
I then make sure to include the phrase and variations in the first and last paragraph. Sprinkle it in but don’t go hog wild.
This simple formula has landed me multiple front page rankings and thousands of visitors.
Kim Roach - For step-by-step videos on how you can get front page rankings within 24 hours, go to http://www.buzzblogger.com/traffic
Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources
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3 Hidden Traffic Tactics
Here’s a brief overview of some of the rules. Your landing pages cannot contain pop-ups or be under construction. Your ad copy and landing pages must be relevant to your keywords. There can be no duplication of your ads, no using trademarks that belong to others, cannot use a “nonspecific” call to action such as “click here”. You’ll also need to pay attention to grammar and punctuation. You cannot repeat punctuation marks, cannot capitalize entire words, and there is no use of exclamation points in your titles.
Before your campaigns go live, MS conducts what they call an “Editorial Review”. This is done to make sure your ads and keywords are relevant. If not, they’ll be disapproved. Ads can be active, inactive or disapproved.
Following this, it’s time to select your keywords/phrases. There is a “keyword research tool” you can use to help with brainstorming. You can type in a URL and it gives suggestions for the page. Again, two or three keywords will work better than singular.
If you’d like some software help, there’s a keyword research and optimization tool that’s based in Excel. It helps you to build keyword lists quickly and easily and keep precise metrics. You can download it at:
http://advertising.microsoft.com/advertising/adcenter_addin
In addition to choosing your keywords, you’ll also want to select the “match types”. There are three available.
1)Phrase Match: Any phrase that contains even one part of your keyword will display your ad. For example: your phrase is “new homes”, the searcher types in “Chicago new homes” and your ad will be displayed.
2) Exact Match: Your ad only shows up when the searcher types in your keywords exactly. For example: Your phrase is “new home” - they must type in “new home” exactly or your ad will not show up. This is more targeted but you’ll get less traffic.
3) Broad Match: Your ad will display if someone types in even one of your keywords in their search request. For example: Your phrase is “new homes” - your ad will display for a search of “new” or “homes”.
You can set separate bids for all three match types. Some match types don’t apply to “Content Ads”. You can also make a list of “negative keywords”. These are words or phrases you don’t want your ads displayed for.
Now that your ads and keywords are in place, let’s talk about the bidding process. There is a five cent minimum bid. In addition to regular bids, you can bid an extra amount above your keyword bid to target customers by demographics. This is optional.
If you’re not using “incremental bids”, your keyword bid amount is the maximum amount you will pay when your ad is clicked. You pay one penny more than the next highest bidder, all other factors being equal. So, you could potentially pay less than your actual bid amount.
You can also set separate bids for “Content Ads” and “Search Ads”. Microsoft does not allow you to see what others are bidding. Your ad ranking can be improved by increasing bids or improving your ad relevance.
So how are ads ranked? Ranking includes: highest bid or incremental bid, greater relevance, and click-through rate.
As mentioned earlier, advertising on the Content Network is optional. Your ads will appear alongside information based pages that contain content that is related to your keywords. Content Ads appear on a select network of high-traffic pages such as MSN Money, MSN Entertainment, Fox Sports, MSN Tech & Gadgets, Windows Marketplace and other participating partners.
Microsoft makes it easy to target your audience with what they call “Intelligent Targeting”. With this advanced targeting, you can select the target markets you want to reach by age, gender, location, etc. If you know your target market only goes online during certain times of the day, you can even pick the days of the week and times of day that you want your ads to run.
Conversion tracking is available and with the in-depth reporting function, you can easily keep an eye on how well your campaigns are doing. You can track click-through rates, impressions, and more.
Some excellent resources for further study are:
MS adCenter Labs: http://adlab.microsoft.com/
adCenter Community: http://adcentercommunity.com
If you’re already using pay-per-click marketing in your online marketing efforts, you might want to take MS adCenter for a spin. With their advanced targeting, you’ll be given the ability to hit your target market with more precision, and expand your reach and on-line exposure.
By Merle http://www.PayPerClickResearch.com The Pay-Per Click Authority when it comes to paid search engine advertising, helpful articles, how-to’s and tips that will help you make the most from your advertising investment. Download a FREE “How To” ebook at….. http://www.PayPerClickResearch.com
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Pay-Per-Click Advertising with Microsoft adCenter
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Pay-Per-Click Advertising with Microsoft adCenter