by Christopher Heng, thesitewizard.com
Now that you've created a website, how do you make money from it? There are at least two ways in which sites can make money:
Advertising Revenue
Selling Goods and Services
I shall deal with the second case, "Selling goods and services", in another article. In this article, I will address the issue of how your site can actually make money from advertising.
Making Money From Advertising
If you look at many websites, you will probably notice that there are banner advertisements displayed on most pages. If you are a newcomer to the scene, you might think that you must either be a company or that your site must be famous before you can get advertisers, just as it is the case in hardcopy publications.
In reality, anyone with a website can get advertisers. While it is true that if your site is well-known, you may get companies contacting you to offer to advertise on your site, you can get advertising revenue even if you are just starting out and your site is relatively unknown.
The way to do this is to join as an "affiliate" of various sites, either directly, or through an affiliate network. An affiliate network is simply an intermediary where you can select from a variety of advertisers.
Payment Schemes
Before joining any program, you should probably be aware of the different payment schemes available.
Pay Per Impression (CPM)
Here, you are paid according to the number of times the advertiser's banner is displayed on your site. The amount you earn is typically calculated based on the number of thousand impressions of the banner (impressions = number of times the banner is displayed), often abbreviated CPM (cost per thousand, with the M being the Latin numeral for thousand). That is, $5 CPM means that you get paid $5 for 1,000 displays of the banner. In general, the amount paid is usually small, but it is easy to earn since everytime a visitor loads the page, you earn. This is known as a "high conversion rate". Needless to say, this method will allow you to automatically earn more if your site attracts a lot of visitors.
Pay Per Click (PPC)
When you are paid per click, you are only paid when visitors click the advertiser's banner on your site. The amount paid is usually higher than the pay per impression scheme. Whether you get a high conversion rate here depends on the banner (whether it attracts people to click it), although in general, it has a higher conversion rate than the pay per sale method. A high traffic site will probably enjoy a higher click rate than a lower traffic site, although you will probably get better results if your banners are carefully selected to suit the target audience of your site.
Pay Per Sale or Lead
While you will probably get the highest payment rates with this method, it has the lowest conversion rate of the three schemes. You will only earn if your visitors click through the banner and either purchase an item from the advertiser or take some other prescribed action (eg, sign up for a service). Like the Pay Per Click method, you get much better results if you carefully select your advertisers to suit the target audience of your site.
In general, to avoid wasting resources in issuing cheques for very small amounts, advertisers will usually accrue the amount owing to you until it reaches a certain level (such as $25) before they pay you.
Where to Find Affiliate Programs
You can find a list of affiliate programs and affiliate networks on thefreecountry.com's Affiliate Program page at http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/affiliate.shtml
To join an affiliate network or program, simply go to the site and complete their online application form. Some programs will give you instant approval while others require a human to check out your application before it is approved. Once it is approved, you'll be given some HTML code which you can cut and paste into your web page. Note that some affiliate networks and programs will not accept you unless you have your own domain name. If you are planning to earn from your site, you should seriously consider registering your own domain name.
How To Choose An Affiliate Program
How should you choose an affiliate program? My suggestion is not to choose a program according to the payment scheme, but rather according to the kind of people who are likely to visit your website. For example, if you are targeting parents on your site, links to affiliates with educational software, books and the like may generate more revenue than banners that link to web hosting companies. The most important rule of choosing an affiliate program is to know your target audience.
Another point to consider is whether you really want to join every single affiliate program that comes your way. Some studies suggest that sites that make the most money from affiliate programs are affiliates of only a small handful of programs. Furthermore, concentrating your advertisements from one network may allow you to be paid faster. If you advertise for hundreds of different affiliate networks on your site, you may wind up earning only (say) a few dollars per month from each network. If your advertiser's minimum payment amount is higher than what you can earn each month, it may take you a long time before you accrue enough to be paid.
On the other hand, that formula does not necessarily hold true for every site (or every page on your site, for that matter). For example, if your site has a particular theme, and an affiliate network only supports one or two suitable advertisers, you might want to sign up for a few affiliate networks so as to get a greater number of relevant advertisers. After all, advertisements that are relevant to your audience are more likely to be taken up than general advertisements. (What's the point of putting banners from only one affiliate if nobody is going to click them?)
Automated Context-Sensitive Advertising
One of the latest trends in website sponsorship is to sign up with an advertising network like Google AdSense The advertising network automatically checks your web page and determines the most relevant advertisement for the page. As a result, without much additional effort from you, you get advertisements targeted at the interests of your visitors. As mentioned earlier, targeted ads tend to result in better performance and returns. ( Generate revenue from your website. Google AdSense. )
Get Started
Advertising revenue is one of the most effortless way to earn money from your site. You merely have to put the banner there and wait for the money to roll in. (Well, okay, not quite. You will still need to have some visitors first before you can make anything.)
Why wait? If you already have a website, let it earn even while you sleep (literally). Every day you let your site "idle" without advertising is a day of lost opportunity.
All the best in your endeavour! Remember also to check out our other article, Increasing Your Affiliate Program Income, for more tips on earning from your website: http://www.thesitewizard.com/archive/moremoney.shtml
Copyright 2000-2007 by Christopher Heng. All rights reserved.
Get more free tips and articles like this, on web design, promotion, revenue and scripting, from http://www.thesitewizard.com/
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6/30/2551
Affiliate Marketing
by: Bhavani Vijay
Affiliate program is nothing but you hearten other webmasters to sign up and advertise your services and products on their sites, in exchange you pay them based on their performance. An affiliate program is an excellent way to gain additional sales. There are options for all budgets, but you generally get what you pay for.
There are various way that affiliates are paid:
1. Per Impression: The affiliate is paid a set amount for every time that your ad is shown. The downside is that affiliates have no incentive to send you traffic, or to put your ad in a attention-grabbing location.
2. Per Click: You pay a set amount for each unique person that clicks on your ad. This is similar to a PPC engine. The downside is that you must pay even if the traffic is of a low quality.
3. Per Lead: You pay your affiliates based on the number of unique people that click on your ad, and then proceed to complete a particular action (for example, a "lead" might be when someone downloads a trial, or signs up for a mailing list). This is very similar to Per Sale, but is more common on sites promoting free services .
4. Per Sale: The affiliates are remunerated either a percentage or a set amount for each sale generated by a user that originated from the affiliate's site(for example I came across a template selling site named templatemuseum.com which offers a high rate of Per sale commission).
Affiliates generally prefer receiving commissions on a Per Impression or Per Click basis, but site owners have a preference of the inevitability of Per Lead and Per Sale.
There are three ways to start an affiliate program: Your own script, install a script, or use a third-party service.
Your Own script
If your website's order system has been custom-made, then one option may be to ask your programmer to add an affiliate program to the system. The programmer would add some code to the payment script, and then develop a simple interface for affiliates to see how they're doing, and for you to check on your affiliates.
This is an cost-effective choice for sites based on custom scripting, but site owners may be somnolent to trust your reporting (after all, it would be in your best interest to fudge the numbers). Established sites can get away with this, but new websites may have difficulty here. Also, if you roll your own then it will be entirely up to you to promote it.
Installing a Script
If you don't have a custom-made order script, or if the required modifications would be too pricey, then a similar alternative would be to install a ready-made script. The CGI Resource Index has a list of such scripts. Free scripts are out there, but are generally difficult to find if you're interested in the script's quality (which is important for an affiliate program). Expect to pay $20 to $60 for a good affiliate script.
Like rolling your own, this presents the problem of finding affiliates. Also, affiliates may be just as apprehensive of using a script controlled by you as they would be of a custom-built affiliate system.
Using a Third-Party Service
The final alternative, and the one chosen by the largest number of sites, is to use a third-party service. Here, you let another company control your affiliate program. They will take care of managing it, and to some extent finding affiliates, but at a price. For example templatemuseum.com can be viewed as a destination place for retrival of information regarding the best affiliate program in the market today.
About The Author
Bhavani Vijay is a Administrator of a reputed IT firm & her hobby is to write & collect articles on various topics. You can visit http://bhavanivijay.blogspot.com to read her blogs
Affiliate program is nothing but you hearten other webmasters to sign up and advertise your services and products on their sites, in exchange you pay them based on their performance. An affiliate program is an excellent way to gain additional sales. There are options for all budgets, but you generally get what you pay for.
There are various way that affiliates are paid:
1. Per Impression: The affiliate is paid a set amount for every time that your ad is shown. The downside is that affiliates have no incentive to send you traffic, or to put your ad in a attention-grabbing location.
2. Per Click: You pay a set amount for each unique person that clicks on your ad. This is similar to a PPC engine. The downside is that you must pay even if the traffic is of a low quality.
3. Per Lead: You pay your affiliates based on the number of unique people that click on your ad, and then proceed to complete a particular action (for example, a "lead" might be when someone downloads a trial, or signs up for a mailing list). This is very similar to Per Sale, but is more common on sites promoting free services .
4. Per Sale: The affiliates are remunerated either a percentage or a set amount for each sale generated by a user that originated from the affiliate's site(for example I came across a template selling site named templatemuseum.com which offers a high rate of Per sale commission).
Affiliates generally prefer receiving commissions on a Per Impression or Per Click basis, but site owners have a preference of the inevitability of Per Lead and Per Sale.
There are three ways to start an affiliate program: Your own script, install a script, or use a third-party service.
Your Own script
If your website's order system has been custom-made, then one option may be to ask your programmer to add an affiliate program to the system. The programmer would add some code to the payment script, and then develop a simple interface for affiliates to see how they're doing, and for you to check on your affiliates.
This is an cost-effective choice for sites based on custom scripting, but site owners may be somnolent to trust your reporting (after all, it would be in your best interest to fudge the numbers). Established sites can get away with this, but new websites may have difficulty here. Also, if you roll your own then it will be entirely up to you to promote it.
Installing a Script
If you don't have a custom-made order script, or if the required modifications would be too pricey, then a similar alternative would be to install a ready-made script. The CGI Resource Index has a list of such scripts. Free scripts are out there, but are generally difficult to find if you're interested in the script's quality (which is important for an affiliate program). Expect to pay $20 to $60 for a good affiliate script.
Like rolling your own, this presents the problem of finding affiliates. Also, affiliates may be just as apprehensive of using a script controlled by you as they would be of a custom-built affiliate system.
Using a Third-Party Service
The final alternative, and the one chosen by the largest number of sites, is to use a third-party service. Here, you let another company control your affiliate program. They will take care of managing it, and to some extent finding affiliates, but at a price. For example templatemuseum.com can be viewed as a destination place for retrival of information regarding the best affiliate program in the market today.
About The Author
Bhavani Vijay is a Administrator of a reputed IT firm & her hobby is to write & collect articles on various topics. You can visit http://bhavanivijay.blogspot.com to read her blogs
6/10/2551
Home Based Business Tips for Newbie
Home Based Business Tips for Newbie
by: Tsuyoshi Suzuki
A major concern of all Home Based Business Entrepreneurs is to get Traffic to their websites. Most people who have searched for a suitable home based Internet Business opportunity complain about a common illness: They are sick and tired of websites that promote best home based Internet Business opportunities… sick and tired of the false promises, the over-hyped sales pitches, and the downright SCAMS that lurk behind most Internet Business opportunities. Millions of people around the world have had the dream of finding the perfect home based business and being able to fire their boss.
Starting a home based internet business can be a run away success if the website comes up within the first 20 results of organic searches. Promoting your Internet Business Offline is a great way of getting over this problem and at the same time creating an image for yourself and your Home Based Business. Hence SEO is one of the main tools for your websites promotion as well as marketing, when starting a home based internet business.
Looking at the above statistics and statements, you must have gathered a basic picture in your mind on how important SEO can be to your starting a home based internet business. If you are new to the Internet business, you might feel that you would prefer to remain anonymous because you are still learning the trade and have no expertise to share. Once you’ve decided what you are going to sell on the internet and how, you venture online to search for profitable home based business opportunities that appeal to you.
In addition to diversifying your online business, you should also take a few other things in account that are unique to the problems that home based business owners face. These are just a few of the reasons that you should consider diversifying your business. Promoting an home business calls for 3 things: increasing traffic to your website, selling goods/services that are worth the money and retaining/adding to your customer base.
In order for your internet home business to be successful, your website must well set up so that it attracts the traffic you need, and so that the visitors who will come to your website will make you some money. For your business to be successful, it is important that you constantly improve your website or products/services, and you can achieve this by having a feedback form on your website. The final fear to overcome when thinking about putting your photo on the Internet for your website, is that you are not good looking or just don't photograph well.
One of the easiest, low capital and requirement little knowledge and skill initially to build a home based business is to join a MLM or network company. Another way is to get into the mind of the small home business owner. As a Web Designer or a Business owner wearing a Web Designer Hat it seems you have 2 Choices, do what seems right and in many ways best and use a Pretty Directory Structure and Loose Ranking points or Throw out the Directory Structure and Gain Ranking Points.
Tsuyoshi E. Suzuki makes it easy to build your home based business and earn a substantial income. Finally, you should make sure that lifetime support for your profitable home based business opportunity is provided. For more information, make sure you follow the link in the recourse box below now.
About The Author
Tsuyoshi E. Suzuki is an Expert Internet Network Marketer. Discover How To Build Up 1,000+ Downline. Generate Your Own MLM lead for FREE! Find out the best MLM business opportunity. The Dirty Truth about MLM Marketing that You Don't Know. Get FREE Report Now! Go to ==> http://www.HappyMLM.com
by: Tsuyoshi Suzuki
A major concern of all Home Based Business Entrepreneurs is to get Traffic to their websites. Most people who have searched for a suitable home based Internet Business opportunity complain about a common illness: They are sick and tired of websites that promote best home based Internet Business opportunities… sick and tired of the false promises, the over-hyped sales pitches, and the downright SCAMS that lurk behind most Internet Business opportunities. Millions of people around the world have had the dream of finding the perfect home based business and being able to fire their boss.
Starting a home based internet business can be a run away success if the website comes up within the first 20 results of organic searches. Promoting your Internet Business Offline is a great way of getting over this problem and at the same time creating an image for yourself and your Home Based Business. Hence SEO is one of the main tools for your websites promotion as well as marketing, when starting a home based internet business.
Looking at the above statistics and statements, you must have gathered a basic picture in your mind on how important SEO can be to your starting a home based internet business. If you are new to the Internet business, you might feel that you would prefer to remain anonymous because you are still learning the trade and have no expertise to share. Once you’ve decided what you are going to sell on the internet and how, you venture online to search for profitable home based business opportunities that appeal to you.
In addition to diversifying your online business, you should also take a few other things in account that are unique to the problems that home based business owners face. These are just a few of the reasons that you should consider diversifying your business. Promoting an home business calls for 3 things: increasing traffic to your website, selling goods/services that are worth the money and retaining/adding to your customer base.
In order for your internet home business to be successful, your website must well set up so that it attracts the traffic you need, and so that the visitors who will come to your website will make you some money. For your business to be successful, it is important that you constantly improve your website or products/services, and you can achieve this by having a feedback form on your website. The final fear to overcome when thinking about putting your photo on the Internet for your website, is that you are not good looking or just don't photograph well.
One of the easiest, low capital and requirement little knowledge and skill initially to build a home based business is to join a MLM or network company. Another way is to get into the mind of the small home business owner. As a Web Designer or a Business owner wearing a Web Designer Hat it seems you have 2 Choices, do what seems right and in many ways best and use a Pretty Directory Structure and Loose Ranking points or Throw out the Directory Structure and Gain Ranking Points.
Tsuyoshi E. Suzuki makes it easy to build your home based business and earn a substantial income. Finally, you should make sure that lifetime support for your profitable home based business opportunity is provided. For more information, make sure you follow the link in the recourse box below now.
About The Author
Tsuyoshi E. Suzuki is an Expert Internet Network Marketer. Discover How To Build Up 1,000+ Downline. Generate Your Own MLM lead for FREE! Find out the best MLM business opportunity. The Dirty Truth about MLM Marketing that You Don't Know. Get FREE Report Now! Go to ==> http://www.HappyMLM.com
6/08/2551
Use the Internet to Make Money Anywhere
Use the Internet to Make Money Anywhere
When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.
- Clifton Fadiman (1904 - 1999)
There are basically two ways to make money. You can either work for yourself or for someone else. For the nomad who plans to really be on the move, changing locations every few weeks, try setting up an income-generating web site. You don’t need to be an educated and experienced computer engineer to design and maintain a web site that brings in money. Anyone with basic computer literacy and knowledge in a specific area can make enough money to travel the world.
You may be surprised how little work it takes to support your nomadic lifestyle. A clever Internet entrepreneur can set up a web site that makes money automatically on a regular basis. If you have enough visitors to your site, with a combination of online stores and affiliate programs, you can achieve the freedom to travel. Once established, it can be maintained with relatively little work. The income from my web sites, fantasyislands.com, thebouncerofblueball.com, themicronariesofmelchizedek.com (forthcoming, scheduled for March 1) and this site, computernomad.com, along with the sales from the associated books, let’s me travel the world. The only work I need to do is a few hours of maintenance and updating the next edition of the books every couple of years. The lifestyle isn’t luxurious. It’s somewhere between frugal backpacker and budget traveler, but it’s freedom. Remember that getting paid in U.S. dollars is an enormous advantage. In most developing countries US$1,000 lets you live an upper middle class lifestyle.
Become an Internet Merchant
It’s possible to get an online store up and running in a couple of weeks. You don’t have to invest hundreds of millions into your business like an Amazon.com or Buy.com. You ought to have a site up and running in less than a week. You can sell your own stuff or arrange affiliate agreements with other suppliers. Almost anything sells on the Internet, from yams to yachts. The first question you may ask is, who's going to process my orders and ship my products while I'm on the beach in Boca Chica?
There are several possible solutions. One is to hire someone to do it for you. Another is to have your supplier drop ship. This is the easiest way to set up an online store. All you have to do is set up a web site, put the appropriate links to your drop shipper, and collect the checks. Of course, you need an attractive web site with plenty of traffic. Set up a store with thousands of books in five minutes. All you have to do is visit doba.com. Choose from thousands of products, from DVD players to books.
Another method is to use a fulfillment service, where a company carries your stock in their inventory. They ship orders for you for either a set fee or a percentage of the price of the item. Some fulfillment services will also process orders. You use their name and address and 800-number. All you have to do is keep them supplied with inventory.
Small operators stand the best chance of success if they specialize in a specific area, such as hot and spicy sauces rather than something broad like Mexican food. It is important to add value and information to your web site. Don’t just sell products. Offer free information such as recipes, reviews of products and links to other related web sites. Interesting, lively articles will also attract prospective buyers. My sites include excerpts from my books, a discussion forum, recommendations and reviews of other related books and products and links to other sites I find useful. It is important that the information be related. If your site is about hot sauce why would you link to a site on hamster breeding?
Don't try to set up a bookstore, for example, with subjects ranging from travel to mystery novels. Travel is too broad a topic for the small Internet merchant. Having a site with a limited selection of topics such as travel books on diving is a better approach. Embellish your site with free articles about diving. Dress it up as a free newsletter. Post articles with reviews of books, maps and diving equipment you market.
If you have a site on scuba diving, for example, you could also provide a directory of hotels and resorts that cater to divers. A diving site such as this might use keywords such as diving, resort, vacation, islands, instruction, beach and boating. Specific countries and regions such as Mexico, Central America, Jamaica, South Pacific and the Philippines might also be used if your store carries books or products on diving in a particular country or region of the world.
It is best to offer as many different ways to order as possible. Include an address for mailing checks and money orders, a toll-free 800 number (remember that many international toll-free numbers cannot be called outside of the home country). A fax order number should also be provided. And finally, you need to provide a way to take orders via on-line secure transaction processing. This is basically a form that is filled out by the customer indicating the products they want, their billing and shipping address, and their credit card order information. Many Internet service providers offer electronic commerce software that let you process secure credit card transactions for an on-line store. A Paypal.com account, the Internet's largest financial services site, will let you easily process credit card orders for a reasonable fee.
Affiliate Programs
If setting up your own on-line store still sounds like a bit of a hassle, don't bother. Affiliate programs are the easiest way to make money on the Internet. They are easy to set up, and sometimes the profit margin is higher. All you do is fill out an online form and put a link to your affiliate’s web site. That’s it. The affiliate program will provide pre-made advertisements that you can cut and paste into your web site. The commissions can vary widely. Discount international airline tickets, for example, may pay only a 1% commission while international dating services may pay as high as 50%.
Affiliates take care of everything for you. They take the order, process and ship it, then send you a check. With on-line stores you have to hassle with order processing and inventory. Choose affiliates that are reputable and offer products that are related to your web site’s topic. Since my book, Fantasy Islands: A Man’s Guide to Exotic Women and International Travel , is related to dating and travel, I offer products and services such as a database of over 10,000 women around the world interested in corresponding or meeting men. Other examples of related affiliates I could add include travel agencies, a travel store carrying luggage, cameras and books or an offshore financial services company. All I have to do is place their ads on my web page.
Look for affiliates where you get commissions on all future sales from customers originally referred from your web site. Once the customer passes from my web site to my affiliate, you get money from all future purchases. Amazon.com has the web’s most recognized affiliate program. Affiliate programs with items with smaller markups such as Amazon.com tend to pay smaller commissions. When choosing an affiliate program, ask for a list of other affiliates to check their web sites on how they are marketing the program. Don’t be afraid to test affiliates for a month or more to determine which ones are giving you the most income.
There are many sites on the Internet that offer information on how to choose an affiliate. Some include reviews and ratings of each affiliate program by category.
Electronic Publishing
Another way to make money on the Internet is to sell electronic information. There are two basic ways to market electronic information in cyberspace. One way is to simply sell subscriptions to the information on your web site. A number of services, such as Paypal.com, allow you take and process credit cards online. Your subscribers will then either choose a login name and password or have them assigned automatically. Operators of the thousands of adult web sites have used this method successfully for years.
Another method is to sell ebooks or special reports for download. Using the example of the diving site mentioned above, you could offer special reports on particular locations such as Phuket, Thailand and Puerta Galera, Philippines. Para Publishing is a good example of a site that not only sells electronic information, but also information on how to become an electronic publisher.
The following are sites that will store and process your information as ebooks:
Clickbank
Charges $49.95 setup. Commission is 7.5% plus $1.00 on each sale.
Payloadz
No charge for setup, sliding scale based on monthly sales. Up to $100 is free.
Lulu
No setup fee, commission of 20%.
Ebookmall
$19.95 listing fee plus 50% commission.
Of these, Clickbank is the biggest with the most traffic. They have a sophisticated affiliate network that can significantly increase revenue. Lulu can handle not just electronic information, but can also print, warehouse and distribute your book while you are iceberg hopping in Greenland.
You don’t have to sell information on your web site to make money, though. Besides affiliate programs, you can also sell advertising on your web site. Some advertisers pay on a set amount every time a browser clicks their ad on your site, which takes them automatically to the advertiser’s site. Other advertisers pay a set fee like advertisers in magazines and newspapers. Google has a program, called AdSense, that pays you to run keyword ads on your web site.
There are also numerous other similar sites on the Internet.
Web Site Promotion
Once your web site is up and running do your best to get a top listing in the major search engines and directories such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Google has 50% of all search engine traffic, Yahoo! 24% and MSN 9%. Over 80% of the visitors to your web site will probably come through search engines. The competition for high listings with search engines is fierce. Think carefully about the keywords that you want to associate with your site. Don’t even think about trying to get listed in the top ten with simple keywords like “computers” or “sex”. Your site will get lost among countless other hits. The people who visit your site will probably have little interest in your product because the keywords are not focused enough.
It is better to concentrate on a more specialized and brief keyword phrase. Let's say, for example, that your site is called The Southeast Asia Diver. You carry products including books, special reports, maps and diving equipment for people interested in diving in countries like Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. There are numerous keyword tools on the Internet. Google Adwords will help suggest keywords and show how popular they are. Type in "diving" and Google will offer a list of dozens of related keywords.
Besides search engines, there are also directories. Yahoo! and Google both offer a directory in addition to their more popular search engines. Directories, unlike search engines, are usually compiled and written by human beings. When submitting to a directory you are asked to write a description. An example of a title for a directory such as Yahoo! is The Southeast Asia Diver: Books, maps, and diving equipment on Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. A description, typically a maximum of 200 characters, is required when you submit your site for a listing. This information, along with the name of your site, is an important decision to make. It can mean success or failure for your site.
Think hard and long about this, and carefully edit your description. Pack your description with appropriate keywords. Keep in mind that you want to avoid duplication of keywords because it is a waste. You want the directory to list your site as high as possible when someone types in your most important keywords. When you have identified those keywords, list them and then write a description that makes use of as many of the keywords as possible. Use the 200 character maximum but still keep your description readable, descriptive and grammatically correct. You can't just list all your keywords as a description.
Search engines use the information on your web page. All search engines use different schemes to determine the order in which web sites appear based on the keywords you enter. Generally, they look for the frequency of how the keywords appear in the title, description, meta tags and body text of your web site. The method search engines use is constantly being revised. A software product called WebPosition shows you how to optimize your web site for a high ranking on the major search engines. It helps you select keywords, then shows you how to write your site to maximize keyword recognition when it is scanned by major search engines. You can use it to run comparisons of your site with other sites that have the top ranking for your keywords on the search engines you want to target.
How to Hire a Consultant
If you don’t feel you have the time or technical expertise to develop or promote your site, you can always hire a consultant. Since the design and content of your web site play such an important role in getting a high ranking, your consultant should work closely with you in selecting keywords and working them into the text of your web site. Many consultants use WebPosition software to promote their client’s sites.
When evaluating consultants consider hiring one consultant to design the graphics and layout of your site, but hire another to edit and promote it. Most promotion is geared toward the major search engines. They look for pages based on incidence of keywords in the title, address and body of web pages. A specialist is more likely to understand the nuances of either design or promotion. It is possible to find someone who has good expertise in both, but you may have better success using specialists in one or the other. A lot of web developers will say they can also promote your site, but what they really mean is just submitting your site to search engines. Simply submitting a site through one of the many software programs designed for this is not likely to give you a high rating. You don't need to submit to the major search engines anyway. They will find your site automatically.
There are many consultant directories on the Internet. A good way to find a web designer is to simply use a search engine to locate other sites similar to the one you are planning. Choose one you like and check to see if the name of the designer is posted on the page. It is usually located near the bottom of the home page. If not, try sending an email to the page’s webmaster asking the name and email address of the designer. Another method is to browse the myriad companies under the category of web page design in any directory. Any good designer's web site will have links to other web pages they have designed. Always ask for at least three professional references from any consultant before you hire one. Some web page designers specialize in certain fields such as dating services or computer technology.
Consultant Directories
The following are directories of consultants on the Internet. These can also be useful for marketing your own consulting services:
Guru.com
This directory of “gurus” has lists of gigs and gurus. Many job postings specify whether the work is to be done on-site or off-site.
Consultant Directory
This is an extensive directory of consultants listed by category with keyword search functions. There is no listing of job postings.
Freelancers Network
Another large database, this consultant directory also has listings of thousands of consultants worldwide along with extensive search capability. You can also search and post specific projects.
When you travel, remember that a foreign country is not designed to make you comfortable. It is designed to make its own people comfortable.
- Clifton Fadiman (1904 - 1999)
There are basically two ways to make money. You can either work for yourself or for someone else. For the nomad who plans to really be on the move, changing locations every few weeks, try setting up an income-generating web site. You don’t need to be an educated and experienced computer engineer to design and maintain a web site that brings in money. Anyone with basic computer literacy and knowledge in a specific area can make enough money to travel the world.
You may be surprised how little work it takes to support your nomadic lifestyle. A clever Internet entrepreneur can set up a web site that makes money automatically on a regular basis. If you have enough visitors to your site, with a combination of online stores and affiliate programs, you can achieve the freedom to travel. Once established, it can be maintained with relatively little work. The income from my web sites, fantasyislands.com, thebouncerofblueball.com, themicronariesofmelchizedek.com (forthcoming, scheduled for March 1) and this site, computernomad.com, along with the sales from the associated books, let’s me travel the world. The only work I need to do is a few hours of maintenance and updating the next edition of the books every couple of years. The lifestyle isn’t luxurious. It’s somewhere between frugal backpacker and budget traveler, but it’s freedom. Remember that getting paid in U.S. dollars is an enormous advantage. In most developing countries US$1,000 lets you live an upper middle class lifestyle.
Become an Internet Merchant
It’s possible to get an online store up and running in a couple of weeks. You don’t have to invest hundreds of millions into your business like an Amazon.com or Buy.com. You ought to have a site up and running in less than a week. You can sell your own stuff or arrange affiliate agreements with other suppliers. Almost anything sells on the Internet, from yams to yachts. The first question you may ask is, who's going to process my orders and ship my products while I'm on the beach in Boca Chica?
There are several possible solutions. One is to hire someone to do it for you. Another is to have your supplier drop ship. This is the easiest way to set up an online store. All you have to do is set up a web site, put the appropriate links to your drop shipper, and collect the checks. Of course, you need an attractive web site with plenty of traffic. Set up a store with thousands of books in five minutes. All you have to do is visit doba.com. Choose from thousands of products, from DVD players to books.
Another method is to use a fulfillment service, where a company carries your stock in their inventory. They ship orders for you for either a set fee or a percentage of the price of the item. Some fulfillment services will also process orders. You use their name and address and 800-number. All you have to do is keep them supplied with inventory.
Small operators stand the best chance of success if they specialize in a specific area, such as hot and spicy sauces rather than something broad like Mexican food. It is important to add value and information to your web site. Don’t just sell products. Offer free information such as recipes, reviews of products and links to other related web sites. Interesting, lively articles will also attract prospective buyers. My sites include excerpts from my books, a discussion forum, recommendations and reviews of other related books and products and links to other sites I find useful. It is important that the information be related. If your site is about hot sauce why would you link to a site on hamster breeding?
Don't try to set up a bookstore, for example, with subjects ranging from travel to mystery novels. Travel is too broad a topic for the small Internet merchant. Having a site with a limited selection of topics such as travel books on diving is a better approach. Embellish your site with free articles about diving. Dress it up as a free newsletter. Post articles with reviews of books, maps and diving equipment you market.
If you have a site on scuba diving, for example, you could also provide a directory of hotels and resorts that cater to divers. A diving site such as this might use keywords such as diving, resort, vacation, islands, instruction, beach and boating. Specific countries and regions such as Mexico, Central America, Jamaica, South Pacific and the Philippines might also be used if your store carries books or products on diving in a particular country or region of the world.
It is best to offer as many different ways to order as possible. Include an address for mailing checks and money orders, a toll-free 800 number (remember that many international toll-free numbers cannot be called outside of the home country). A fax order number should also be provided. And finally, you need to provide a way to take orders via on-line secure transaction processing. This is basically a form that is filled out by the customer indicating the products they want, their billing and shipping address, and their credit card order information. Many Internet service providers offer electronic commerce software that let you process secure credit card transactions for an on-line store. A Paypal.com account, the Internet's largest financial services site, will let you easily process credit card orders for a reasonable fee.
Affiliate Programs
If setting up your own on-line store still sounds like a bit of a hassle, don't bother. Affiliate programs are the easiest way to make money on the Internet. They are easy to set up, and sometimes the profit margin is higher. All you do is fill out an online form and put a link to your affiliate’s web site. That’s it. The affiliate program will provide pre-made advertisements that you can cut and paste into your web site. The commissions can vary widely. Discount international airline tickets, for example, may pay only a 1% commission while international dating services may pay as high as 50%.
Affiliates take care of everything for you. They take the order, process and ship it, then send you a check. With on-line stores you have to hassle with order processing and inventory. Choose affiliates that are reputable and offer products that are related to your web site’s topic. Since my book, Fantasy Islands: A Man’s Guide to Exotic Women and International Travel , is related to dating and travel, I offer products and services such as a database of over 10,000 women around the world interested in corresponding or meeting men. Other examples of related affiliates I could add include travel agencies, a travel store carrying luggage, cameras and books or an offshore financial services company. All I have to do is place their ads on my web page.
Look for affiliates where you get commissions on all future sales from customers originally referred from your web site. Once the customer passes from my web site to my affiliate, you get money from all future purchases. Amazon.com has the web’s most recognized affiliate program. Affiliate programs with items with smaller markups such as Amazon.com tend to pay smaller commissions. When choosing an affiliate program, ask for a list of other affiliates to check their web sites on how they are marketing the program. Don’t be afraid to test affiliates for a month or more to determine which ones are giving you the most income.
There are many sites on the Internet that offer information on how to choose an affiliate. Some include reviews and ratings of each affiliate program by category.
Electronic Publishing
Another way to make money on the Internet is to sell electronic information. There are two basic ways to market electronic information in cyberspace. One way is to simply sell subscriptions to the information on your web site. A number of services, such as Paypal.com, allow you take and process credit cards online. Your subscribers will then either choose a login name and password or have them assigned automatically. Operators of the thousands of adult web sites have used this method successfully for years.
Another method is to sell ebooks or special reports for download. Using the example of the diving site mentioned above, you could offer special reports on particular locations such as Phuket, Thailand and Puerta Galera, Philippines. Para Publishing is a good example of a site that not only sells electronic information, but also information on how to become an electronic publisher.
The following are sites that will store and process your information as ebooks:
Clickbank
Charges $49.95 setup. Commission is 7.5% plus $1.00 on each sale.
Payloadz
No charge for setup, sliding scale based on monthly sales. Up to $100 is free.
Lulu
No setup fee, commission of 20%.
Ebookmall
$19.95 listing fee plus 50% commission.
Of these, Clickbank is the biggest with the most traffic. They have a sophisticated affiliate network that can significantly increase revenue. Lulu can handle not just electronic information, but can also print, warehouse and distribute your book while you are iceberg hopping in Greenland.
You don’t have to sell information on your web site to make money, though. Besides affiliate programs, you can also sell advertising on your web site. Some advertisers pay on a set amount every time a browser clicks their ad on your site, which takes them automatically to the advertiser’s site. Other advertisers pay a set fee like advertisers in magazines and newspapers. Google has a program, called AdSense, that pays you to run keyword ads on your web site.
There are also numerous other similar sites on the Internet.
Web Site Promotion
Once your web site is up and running do your best to get a top listing in the major search engines and directories such as Google, Yahoo! and MSN. Google has 50% of all search engine traffic, Yahoo! 24% and MSN 9%. Over 80% of the visitors to your web site will probably come through search engines. The competition for high listings with search engines is fierce. Think carefully about the keywords that you want to associate with your site. Don’t even think about trying to get listed in the top ten with simple keywords like “computers” or “sex”. Your site will get lost among countless other hits. The people who visit your site will probably have little interest in your product because the keywords are not focused enough.
It is better to concentrate on a more specialized and brief keyword phrase. Let's say, for example, that your site is called The Southeast Asia Diver. You carry products including books, special reports, maps and diving equipment for people interested in diving in countries like Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. There are numerous keyword tools on the Internet. Google Adwords will help suggest keywords and show how popular they are. Type in "diving" and Google will offer a list of dozens of related keywords.
Besides search engines, there are also directories. Yahoo! and Google both offer a directory in addition to their more popular search engines. Directories, unlike search engines, are usually compiled and written by human beings. When submitting to a directory you are asked to write a description. An example of a title for a directory such as Yahoo! is The Southeast Asia Diver: Books, maps, and diving equipment on Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia. A description, typically a maximum of 200 characters, is required when you submit your site for a listing. This information, along with the name of your site, is an important decision to make. It can mean success or failure for your site.
Think hard and long about this, and carefully edit your description. Pack your description with appropriate keywords. Keep in mind that you want to avoid duplication of keywords because it is a waste. You want the directory to list your site as high as possible when someone types in your most important keywords. When you have identified those keywords, list them and then write a description that makes use of as many of the keywords as possible. Use the 200 character maximum but still keep your description readable, descriptive and grammatically correct. You can't just list all your keywords as a description.
Search engines use the information on your web page. All search engines use different schemes to determine the order in which web sites appear based on the keywords you enter. Generally, they look for the frequency of how the keywords appear in the title, description, meta tags and body text of your web site. The method search engines use is constantly being revised. A software product called WebPosition shows you how to optimize your web site for a high ranking on the major search engines. It helps you select keywords, then shows you how to write your site to maximize keyword recognition when it is scanned by major search engines. You can use it to run comparisons of your site with other sites that have the top ranking for your keywords on the search engines you want to target.
How to Hire a Consultant
If you don’t feel you have the time or technical expertise to develop or promote your site, you can always hire a consultant. Since the design and content of your web site play such an important role in getting a high ranking, your consultant should work closely with you in selecting keywords and working them into the text of your web site. Many consultants use WebPosition software to promote their client’s sites.
When evaluating consultants consider hiring one consultant to design the graphics and layout of your site, but hire another to edit and promote it. Most promotion is geared toward the major search engines. They look for pages based on incidence of keywords in the title, address and body of web pages. A specialist is more likely to understand the nuances of either design or promotion. It is possible to find someone who has good expertise in both, but you may have better success using specialists in one or the other. A lot of web developers will say they can also promote your site, but what they really mean is just submitting your site to search engines. Simply submitting a site through one of the many software programs designed for this is not likely to give you a high rating. You don't need to submit to the major search engines anyway. They will find your site automatically.
There are many consultant directories on the Internet. A good way to find a web designer is to simply use a search engine to locate other sites similar to the one you are planning. Choose one you like and check to see if the name of the designer is posted on the page. It is usually located near the bottom of the home page. If not, try sending an email to the page’s webmaster asking the name and email address of the designer. Another method is to browse the myriad companies under the category of web page design in any directory. Any good designer's web site will have links to other web pages they have designed. Always ask for at least three professional references from any consultant before you hire one. Some web page designers specialize in certain fields such as dating services or computer technology.
Consultant Directories
The following are directories of consultants on the Internet. These can also be useful for marketing your own consulting services:
Guru.com
This directory of “gurus” has lists of gigs and gurus. Many job postings specify whether the work is to be done on-site or off-site.
Consultant Directory
This is an extensive directory of consultants listed by category with keyword search functions. There is no listing of job postings.
Freelancers Network
Another large database, this consultant directory also has listings of thousands of consultants worldwide along with extensive search capability. You can also search and post specific projects.
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