ATTRACT VISITORS TO YOUR BLOG OR WEBSITE
TOO MANY WEB MARKETERS work on the if-you-build-it-they-will-come model. They won’t. Once you build a Web site you must give them a reason to come. A Web site is a passive form of marketing: providing a signboard which points visitors to your products and services. To be most effective, a Web site should be used in conjunction with seven active forms of marketing which we will examine briefly in this article. Just how do small business people on a limited budget entice visitors to their Web site?
First, advertise your Web site to Web search engines that index the Web, such as Yahoo, Lycos, WebCrawler, and InfoSeek. The actual registration process can be deceptively simple. A service called SubmitIt! (http://www.submit-it.com) provides a way to submit information to approximately 15 of the most important indexes. If you do this late at night when Internet traffic is at its lowest, you can transmit your business’s on-line address and description to all of these within three-quarters of an hour. Done right, a person who is seeking a consulting engineer in Northern California with experience in large electrical systems will quickly locate your name. Widget customers will be able to pick you out from the increasing crowd of on-line vendors.
The danger is that the untutored can construct a carelessly-written 25-word or 200-character marketing description that blows their opportunity to be seen by vast blocks of potential customers. These 25 words must be written to include the chief keywords by which customers would locate you. If you want to change your description in a month or two, it takes much longer than an hour to contact each of the services separately, and then convince or nag them into making changes.
You can pay modest amounts to several services to perform this important task for you. For example, my company, Wilson Internet Services, offers as part of our website packages to carefully register your Web site with the most important indexes.
2. Second, you must give them a good reason to come. A tried-and-true marketing approach is to offer something of value for free. A number of well-financed corporate Web sites offer an entertaining fare which changes constantly. While most small business Web marketers can’t afford to compete, you can afford to offer valuable information. If you take the time to provide up-to-date information about your industry, for example, you’ll find people returning again and again to your site, each time increasing their chances of doing business with you.
3. A third approach is to find industry-wide linking pages and negotiate reciprocal links to and from their Web pages. Your trade association probably lists members. Several on-line craft centers, for example, offer free links to other crafters. If you are a hotel, be sure to get a link with “All the Hotels on the Web” Consultants will seek links with The Expert Marketplace, or try for a listing in the Virtual Trade Show. The entire list can seem endless, but specific for each industry. Surf the net enough to find which are the key sites for your field, and then seek links there.
4. A fourth method is to purchase Web advertising–usually a rectangle ad with a clickable link to your site on a carefully-selected, high-volume Web site. A certain percentage of their thousands of visitors will explore you Web site, and hopefully like what they find. A whole industry has sprung up to act as brokers for such ads .Small business people will need to find ways to test the effect of specific ads on the bottom line, perhaps by sending people from each ad to a different Web page “front door” so you can monitor traffic from each ad.
5. A fifth important way to let people know about your Web site is to become active in several of the thousands of Internet news groups and mailing lists. Find the groups that are most likely to be frequented by your potential customers–groups can be very narrowly targeted–and join in the discussion. You might find groups that relate to your industry by doing a bit of research with DejaNews (http://www.dejanews.com), which searches messages about particular topics or companies voiced in thousands of news groups and mailing lists.
“Lurk” for a few weeks so you understand the particular culture of the group you are targeting. Then find ways to add constructive comments to the discussion. At the bottom of each message include a “signature”–a 4- to 8-line mini-advertisement with your product, phone number, and Web address. Every time you contribute to the discussion, your mini-ad is seen by hundreds. You’ll find considerable fruit this way, but like anything, it comes in response to hard work and persistence. Resist the temptation to send bulk e-mail messages to dozens of news groups–”spamming” in Internet parlance. People do it, but while it may bring customers, it doesn’t offer the solid reputation and respect which will build your business in the long run.
6. Sixth, make your Web site part of one or more of the many “malls.” Businesses in physical shopping malls benefit from the traffic flow of multitudes window shopping. The same can be true on-line.
Some malls only include businesses who subscribe to a particular Internet Service Provider (ISP) or pay a fee or percentage of their gross revenues. Others take any business that fits their particular criteria. Dave Taylor, for example, developed The Internet Mall (http://www.internet-mall.com/), a collection of upwards of 30,000+ businesses that meet under one roof. The mall is illusory, however, since businesses in the mall are hosted on separate ISP sites all over the world. Perhaps the largest mall, if you will, is Yahoo (http://www.yahoo.com), which doesn’t charge anything, but gets its revenues through advertising. Make sure you have a good link there.
7. Finally, include your e-mail and Web addresses on all your company’s print literature, stationery, and display advertising. If people believe they can find out more about your products or services by looking on-line, many will do so.
There you have it, seven important ways to increase traffic to your company’s Web site. If you use most or all of these forms of marketing, the chances are that two years from now you’ll be bragging about your foresight in developing a Web site when you did, rather than trashing Web marketing as just another fad where you threw good money after bad.
Which payment processor to use?
Here we go with my opinions again, but hey, it’s my blog – whaddya expect.
There are only 3 payment process I personally would consider using:
Now, they all offer recurring billing but we really need to take a brief look at each one to see which are suitable, the advantages and any disadvantages.
PayPal
The biggest advantage to using PayPal is that you’re paid instantly – funds are direct in to your account which you can use right away or withdraw to your bank account.
It’s also difficult for subscribers to cancel as you have to dig around in PayPal History, find the subscription and then cancel it from within PayPal. You could say this is a disadvantage, but if people want to leave and are having trouble – why not let them figure it out, and if they can’t, throw an extra month of subscription your way automatically.
PayPal fee’s are low when compared to other payment processors and they only skim off 1.4 to 3.4% off each transaction received.
The disadvantage to using PayPal is the many horror stories lurking around the Internet. Personally I have used PayPal for years and never experienced any problem, but then so have others and that didn’t stop their accounts going under suspicion. Accounts can be suspended for months and funds frozen if your account is under suspicion for any number of reasons.
Using PayPal for day to day sending and receiving payments is fine and if your membership site is only going to run for a few months, but I believe if you’re going to run a proper business that needs to stand the test of time, PayPal isn’t an option here.
2Checkout
2Checkout take 5.5% + $0.45 off each transaction and costs $49 to set-up – but it’s the credibility and safe-guard which makes me sway toward using 2Checkout. There are no horror stories and are well established. They pay every 2 weeks or every week and those in America, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom can have payments sent direct to our bank accounts at no cost. Other countries are supported for wire transfers.
I can’t actually think of a disadvantage – they may take a fair amount off each transaction but that’s a small price to pay.
CCBill
The choice for adult webmasters and those wanting to peddle smut with their membership websites. PayPal and 2Checkout don’t allow adult sites, and CCBill has been the favorite in the adult industry for subscription billing for years. CCBill takes 14.5% off each transaction, which comes down if you’re doing a lot of volume – but the lowest percentage is still 11.5% for up to 50,000 transactions per month.
In this case, the advantage (peddling smut) is also the disadvantage on payment. But this is one of few companies which has a solid reputation and the one I would chose if I were to enter the ‘adult industry’.
Choosing a good host with back-up facilities
If you have a few thousand of even a few hundred paying members, the last thing you want is for them all to lose their usernames/passwords and be unable to access the site, as they will head off straight to the payment processor and cancel their subscription.
Website’s, servers.. they all crash. They all fuck-up sooner or later, therfore it’s crucial to chose a host that offers daily back-up facilities. You can back-up your entire website every day, or hour if you wish. Definately don’t skimp on hosting. You will also require hosting that supports the full requirements of Amember. They recommend 3 hosting companies but Hostgater or another solid host will be just fine.
I mentioned in the previous entry on membership sites that I would talk about making sales on the back-end, but I’ll save that for another article – this one is long enough with plenty to chew on. If you didn’t catch the first entry, read it here.
From: gadood.com
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Membership Websites; What’s The Catch?
It’s the dream – a steady and reliable income from the Internet that you can count on, month after month. Forget flaky search engine rankings and ever-improving algorithms designed by uber-nerds to induce stress, anxiety and frustration in online marketers.
On the face of it membership websites seem to offer the holy grail that is residual income. Unfortunately there’s a catch. Oh, there’s always a catch.. but you knew that. We all bloody know that. Membership websites just aren’t that simple.
I’m considering starting up a couple of membership websites later in the year and I’ve been doing a lot of research on the subject a long with a lot of head scratching. It’s far more complicated than it seems on the surface.
Members will not stay with you forever
The first thought I had when thinking of membership sites was ‘If I have 1,000 members paying $10/month that’s $10,000 in revenue each month. Fantastic!’.. this however, while exciting to imagine, is not the reality when you dig in to it all.
The fact is, members that sign up will not last forever. At some point they will unsubscribe or simply not wish to use the service any longer no matter how great your content or website is. This goes for any membership site meaning the income isn’t that steady after all, and there will be an average life-time value of each paying subscriber.
So much for the dream of residual income. What you’re basically doing by running a membership site is instead of selling a product one-off for $27, you’re hoping to extract a larger amount off each member over a longer period of time. Let’s say $67. This means you can either spend more money to acquire members or a similar amount and earn more off them than you would of selling them a single one-off product.
That’s the primary catch over with; don’t be fooled in to thinking you can relax once you have a level of paying members. They will drop off at a certain rate each and every month, meaning your income dwindles unless you’re actively promoting and advertising for new members. This is a complicated process to keep a track of as you would need to know:
- Average number of months members subscribe
- Acquisition cost of each member
- The average value of members
Finding out the above figures will take months and hundreds of members, meaning cost, time and effort before you even know if the membership site you’re running is even profitable! Of course, if you’re acquiring members via free methods of advertising and creating the content for your membership site yourself, this isn’t a problem and it’s all gravy. That probably isn’t going to be the case though, so let’s look at the costs in creating content and break even examples.
What to create a membership on
Personally I believe if you’re asking people to subscribe at a monthly fee, you must look at targeting groups who you definitely know can afford to pay monthly. While a teenager who wants to make money may be able to afford The Rich Jerk e-book from the money he received for his birthday for a special one-off price of $9, they certainly couldn’t pay $9 the month after, and again after that.
I would look at markets such as investment, stocks, gambling, leisure, sports which are expensive to play etc and markets that generally attract the wealthy or people will money to spare but also includes an active interest and not a flash in the pan hobby they may not care about in a few weeks – common sense tells us this will reduce drop-off rates and increase the length members are subscribed to your membership website.
The cost of content creation, membership fee’s and your break even point
Alright, you’ve chosen your market and decided to offer personal advice as you’re a successful stock trader with a record to back it up. People want your tips and are willing to pay you $19 per month for them.
You can either create the content yourself and offer articles, videos, presentations and audio, or out-source the work to a knowledge writer or someone in the industry. Let’s say you want to focus more on advertising your website and would prefer someone else to create the content – costing $650/month for 5 original articles, 2 stock tips and a video presentation that includes time-frames of stocks and some general advice.
Charging members $19/month you would require 34 paid and current members just to break even – and that’s not the actual reality, as the cost of acquiring those members must be factored in before you’re breaking even. This can be worked out after your first handful of members, here’s an example:
Let’s say you spent $300 on an Adwords campaign in the first month targeting stock and investment keywords which got you 1,200 clicks costing $0.25 each, and there was a click to membership ratio of 3% – 36 paid members. That’s an acquisition cost of $12.50 per paid member, meaning the first month the statistics where:
- Cost to create content: $650
- Cost to acquire 36 members: $300
- Initial revenue from 36 members: $684
- Revenue after acquisition costs: $384
- Overall profit after cost to create content: -$266 (negative profit)
Did I mention there was a catch?
Ok – let’s say in month two you increased your spending on Adwords and paid 0.25 again but for 5,000 clicks. That’s $1,250 to acquire another 150 paying members.
Assuming no members from month one unsubscribed you now have a total of 186 members paying $19/month.
Month 2 statistics:
- Cost to create content: $650
- Revenue from month one subscribers: $684 (pure ‘profit’ now from these members)
- Revenue after acquisition cost of month two subscribers: $1,600
- Balance carried over from month one: -$266
- Overall profit in month two: $1,368
Now we’re getting somewhere and breaking even – wohoo.
Ok, that’s all for now – I made my point and I’m tired as hell. I will be posting a part 2 for this as it really, really demands one. In part 2 I will look at making more revenue off the back-end, membership site software, hosting, payment processors and more…
From: gadood.com
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How to Escape Your Day Job, Pay Your Bills And Make Progress Towards The Ideal Lifestyle
By Marlon Sanders
There are 6 basic ways to get dough online:
1. Promote affiliate products
2. Google adsense
3. Sell a service
4. Sell advertising
5. Sell physical products (think ebay)
6. Sell information
You’ll notice that the last 4 all involve selling something. That’s the approach I wanna talk to you about today.
I did a survey with my Milcers and Alist members. I found out that most of them are still stuck to a degree in getting things going.
I want to give you an abbreviated action plan that I spend 100 pages elaborating on in “Gimme My Money Now” and that the icons walk you through in “The Marketing Dashboard”.
There are MANY Formulas out there. Here’s the Marlon Sanders Formula in a nutshell. So many of you have written and said, “I need a Formula. I need step-by-step.” This is the big picture:
1. Find demand
2. Write sales letter
3. Create info product to meet demand
4. Roll out with affiliate program
That whole formula is elaborated on in much greater depth in both Amazing Formula and Gimme My Money Now.
Here’s what I found out from my survey. Most of you guys and gals have jobs that you want to escape from. You have bills and debts to pay.
And most of you are coming into this without a lot of prior knowledge of marketing and some of you have limited computer skills.
Based on that, do you think it’s safe for me to say it’s unrealistic to think you’re going to quickly and easily become a zillionaire? Well, it’s true. If you have no background in sales and marketing, and you don’t have very good computer skills, you have a learning curve ahead of you and that takes time.
HERE’S HOW I PERSONALLY DID IT
I remember when I was broke and bought deodorant with all pennies. But what I did was kept learning and didn’t expect easy nor overnight results.
I kept buying books when I could afford them. There were no cheap and easy ebooks back then. I could have done it
10 times faster if I had access to all the information available today.
Anyway, my way out was self education. And action. I kept doing little projects to put what I learned into ACTION.
I ran this one little business where you sold booklets using answering machines. You didn’t have voice mail then. So I had 3 answering machines hooked up in my home (my friends hated it).
I ran these little ads in what we call in the U.S. “penny shoppers.” These are little papers given away for free that are all classified ads.
I ended up running ads in 72 cities! And people would leave their name and address on the answering machines. I shipped the books C.O.D. Half the books came back. It was sorta like paying out 50% affiliate commissions.
You didn’t have Paypal or easy merchant accounts in those days. So you had to do C.O.D. I sold $12,000 of books via “mail order.” And I was exhilerated to do so. I think at the end of the day I probably LOST money.
But I sure learned a lot.
Then AOL and CompuServe came along and I started writing sales letters and running ads on there. You’d run a little classified ad (they were free on AOL). People would email you.
Since autoresponders didn’t exist, you’d personally email them back your “free report.” Since there weren’t any PDF’s then (at least, that I knew of), the free report was a long email.
The “big trick” my friend Jonathan Mizel taught back then was to put their name in the return email! That was a big secret back then.
Mizel, me, others all learned copywriting from Tested Advertising Methods by John Caples. That was like one of 4 or 5 books on copywriting. But you know what? We wrote some pretty good sales letters back then. I first met Jonathan Mizel ’cause he sent me one of his sales letters, and I thought it was good. So I wrote and asked him where he learned to write copy.
Of course, he said “Tested Advertising Methods” by John Caples. So we were immediate friends.
AOL was great. You could test out your little ads, emails and sales letters. I don’t even think in those days we sent out follow up emails.
As far as I know, my friend the late Corey Rudl created the demand for autoresponders when he wrote about how he brought in all this money by automatically emailing buyers 4 days later.
It was only after that someone was smart enough to create an autoresponder. Corey’s stuff was hand coded. Gosh, I miss Corey. And I reckon you’ve been in this business a long time when you see your friends move on to the next great adventure.
Somewhere in this timeline (it all escapes me), I had a little retail store selling self help books and tapes. The first thing newbies think to sell online is either diet stuff or self help.
Man, self help is a tough sell. Both Dan Kennedy and I had self development stores. And we both lost bux on ‘em. But I did have the chance to write and send out a few sales letters. And since I often didn’t have the money to print and mail letters, I’d call ‘em on the phone.
I found out that just by calling people, I could say ANYTHING and I’d STILL get a lot of people coming in for the next 3 weeks.
That’s the power of staying in contact with your customers.
Anyway, I could go on with this story. I’ve told the rest of it in bits and pieces in different places.
What are you supposed to get out of this?
Dan Kennedy I think had a path kinda like mine. And what he said once is profound. He said, “I became an overnight success after 20 years of effort.”
Now, I’m NOT saying you need 20 years of effort. You don’t. But neither is 20 minutes a week gonna do much for ya.
Most of the people I’ve seen make it in this business do so after trying things that didn’t work. And they kept on trying. And sooner or later, somethin’ clicked.
I think I shoulda called this article, “Sooner or Later, Something Clicked.”
So you got a job that sucks. You got bills that are stacked up. Hopefully you can buy deodorant with something other than pennies like me in the old days.
So what do YOU do?
My friend, I’d personally tell ya to do what I did. Fall in love with the process more than the immediate fixation of “I gotta make this work now or the whole thing is a scam.”
What you’re learning is marketing.
And that’ll benefit you your whole life. It can help you get your son or daughter or friend a job. It can help you raise money for your Church or charity. It can help you promote an idea whose time has come.
See, a LOT of people say, “I feel like I’ve just wasted my #*$&* money on stuff.”
I my response is, “Then you don’t understand what you’re learning. No wonder things haven’t clicked for you yet.”
See, this isn’t about gimmicks. It isn’t about you figuring out how to trick people into buying with magic words. It isn’t about fooling the search engines into stickin’ your stuff at the top. If you do this business the way I teach it, it’s about learning marketing. And yeah, I said the dirty 5-letter word — LEARN. You can paint it up. You can put perfume on it. You can sell the sizzle not the steak.
But my friend, what you’re doin’ is learning. And like my friend Jim Edwards says, “That isn’t something you microwave.”
“So Marlon, tell me how long this is gonna take and how much I’m gonna make when I’m done?”
Rule 1: People learn at different rates, so no one knows.
Rule 2: You’ll never be done.
Rule 3: It depends on what you sell, who you sell to, how much you charge, what your margin is and how often they buy.
Some people like Russ Brunson get in this business, do it part time between classes in college and go great guns with it. Russ was one of my top affiliates. But he figured out this business so quickly, before I knew it he had his own line of highly successful products. More power to him!
Others are like me and take like 10 or 20 years to learn it. What’s average? Average is not doing anything, therefore not learning anything, therefore the bills pile higher and the job gets tougher.
“Well, if you can’t tell me how much I’m gonna make, how long it’s gonna take and how much it’s gonna cost me, then I think this whole thing is a scam.”
To say that is to say you believe marketing is a scam. Because at least the way I teach it, that’s what you’re learning.
What’s my advice?
Think of the best info product idea you know how to come up with. Interview some experts and record it. Or have a friend interview you. Do a little 3-hour product, write a sales letter for it. And see if anyone buys.
If they don’t buy, guess what? You asked the market a question and the market answered.
You asked the market, “Do you want to buy this?” And the market responded, “No, not in the way you’re presenting it to me.”
Your choice is to present it differently or do another product. Along the way hopefully you learn some things about how to find out what people want, how to get ‘em to buy, how to fulfill products, write letters, create sales pages and so forth.
Honestly, in the DOING, you’ll learn a lot more than you’ll ever learn in the reading. You ask. The market answers. You learn along the way.
But if you’re a spectator and you never get in the game, I can guarantee you one rock solid thing: You’ll never win the game if you aren’t in it.
This is a great business. It isn’t for everyone. It sure isn’t a way to become a zillionaire overnight. Maybe after 5, 10 or 20 years you hit that zillion and you’re the next John Reese or Jeff Walker.
I don’t think everyone should be in this business. If you don’t wanna figure anything out yourself, if you don’t wanna learn how to solve problems, if you don’t wanna learn more things about html and the computer than you really wanna know, if you can’t tolerate risk, if you need your first attempt to be a success, or even your first 3 or 4, then I don’t know, if you can’t afford to spend money on learning and education, if you can’t afford to try things that don’t work, if you think it should all be simple and easy, I don’t know if this industry is for you.
A lot of people get seduced by the lure of ez dough. The promises of zillions without learning. Just connect the dots and you too can be John Reese, Marlon Sanders or whoever you wanna choose.
Here’s the deal: People WILL sell you a turnkey system to escape your job, make zillions or whatever. They’ll give you the fish. I want to teach you TO FISH.
I have a strong belief that unless you buy a franchise, in most cases your going to better off learning marketing than “buying a fish.” There are exceptions. But more often than not, buying a fish doesn’t serve you well.
Some of my friends would disagree with that premise. I happen to have a strong conviction that you are better off learning marketing. My friends are RIGHT in that people DO want to buy the fish versus learn how to catch it. So oftentimes, you’re best off selling a “fish” product.
But everybody has their perspectives. And for me, my criteria for buying a product: If whatever “IT” is doesn’t “pan out” for you, are you STILL better off from having spent money on it? Will it continue to benefit you, your family or your friends in the future?
If the answer is NO, then think twice before spending your money.
You have a job you wanna escape, bills to pay off, retirement to prepare for. Or special needs like a sick loved one. Or a sickness yourself.
I can’t promise you ez zillions. There’s no integrity in that.
I can’t promise you 6 figures a year ez as pie.
What I CAN promise you is that selling products works. It’s no scam. People been doin’ it for thousands of years.
I can promise you that marketing works. Always has. Always will.
I can promise you that money and time spent learning marketing can pay off in many ways.
I can promise you that if you find demand, meet it with products and well-executed promotions, and you do that over time, those bills will likely fade away.
I can promise you that everybody on the Net selling you this or that “dough making system” ALL have 1 thing in common — THEY are selling you a product, service or seminar.
They have a target market.
They have an intro offer.
They have a back end.
I believe in paying more attention to what people DO than what they SAY.
People get all confused what to DO. And there’s a new system invented every day that’s the next big thing. Thank God. I love commerce.
But to remove the confusion, understand this:
They all may disagree on HOW you make money. But one thing is certain: They’re making bux selling a product to a target market — YOU!
Go and do thou likewise.
I remember back then. When I bought deodorant with all pennies.
I remember the date I had with a model in a car that smoked like a bomb.
And to me, there’s no confusion. It’s all crystal. It’s all simple. Take away the smoke. Take away the mirrors.
You need a product. You need people who want it with the money to buy it. You need some great promo out there.
There’s only ONE method people having using to pay their bills and quit their jobs for the past 1,000 years –
Selling products and services to a target market with a great sales pitch that presents benefits and solves problems.
I know you want more details on how. How do you find target markets? How do you identify demand? How, how, how.
I have provided a lot of those answers in the Milcer’s newsletters, Amazing Formula, Gimme My Money, Action Grid.
You wanna quit that job? You wanna liquidate that debt? I don’t have an ez zillion for you. But I do have a crystal clear answer.
Find a group of people. Find out what they need and want. Meet those wants with a product. Provide great service.
And who knows. Maybe. Someday. If the stars shine down on you, you’ll hit that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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Marlon Sanders is the author of “The Amazing Formula That Sells Products Like Crazy.” If you’d like to get on his mailing list and receive tips, articles and information about online marketing, visit: http://www.marlonsblog.com
P.S. Great web promotion apportunities:
How To Spot An Affiliate Marketing Scam
Everyone’s seen them – the websites that promise they’ll make you money. All you have to do is give them your money first! Some of these sites are genuine, and really can help you earn money from the internet. But many – maybe even most – are scams.Pretty much everyone hates scammers. You might have a reason yourself – have you ever lost money to one? Genuine affiliate marketers hate them because they make people suspicious and less likely to trust – and therefore less likely to believe what the affiliate marketers say! The only way to stamp them out is to starve them of what they want: your money.But how do you spot a scam? It can be very difficult. The best scammers, the ones that make the most money, are identical in appearance to legitimate sellers. But most aren’t that good. Most can’t be bothered. Scammers, after all, are lazy. They can’t be bothered to make a living honestly, so they do it by cheating instead.
And while it’s probably impossible to stay completely safe (there is always an element of risk when you buy something, after all, online or off), there are some things you should look for when visiting a website. It will take a little extra time, but it might well save you money.
The first thing to always, always check is contact information. Is there any? If not, run! A genuine seller will want you to be able to contact them – after all, you might want to offer them more money! Or you might have a question you want to ask about their product before you buy. Genuine sellers will be happy to answer – scammers just want to hide.
If there is contact information, look at the e-mail address. Is it free? There’s nothing wrong with that by itself, but remember how easy Yahoo and Hotmail accounts are to set up. They’re also more likely to be blocked by spam filters. A paid-for e-mail address means a higher chance this person is legitimate.
Second, check the small print. Is there a disclaimer? Genuine sellers realise that their product will not be able to help everybody – no product can – and that there is a chance you’ll be disappointed. As such, they’ll add a disclaimer saying so. They’ll also have a money-back guarantee. Of course, the words ‘money-back guarantee’ are no guarantee of anything – typing something doesn’t make it true, and the words alone don’t mean you’ll get your money back. But they’re a step in the right direction.
Third, have a quick exploration of the site. What other websites does it link to? Reputable sites won’t be happy about scammers linking to them – and scammers probably won’t want to let reputable sites know they exist. After all, if the wrong person finds out the scammer could find themselves in court – much of what they do is against the law. Scam websites tend to be small – often just one page. Genuine websites have more content, and therefore more pages. A small website isn’t proof that you’re being scammed – but it should make you wary.
A final thing to check, and this is one of the main things that gives scam sites away, is the testimonials. They’re supposed to reassure you, convince you that the product is worth buying. You can use them you work out whether you’re being scammed or not. Read them carefully. Do they sound natural, like something you might write? Or do they sound like a continuation of the sales pitch? The latter is a sign that they’re probably fake. Also look at their photographs – and this goes for all the photographs on a site. Do they look professional, like they could belong in a catalogue? Or do they look like ordinary snapshots? The more professional they look, the more likely they are to be fake.
It is possible to avoid the vast majority of scammers. You have to be careful, take your time when reading a website, and not rush into anything. Don’t get carried away by a sales pitch! If they’re genuine, they’ll still be there tomorrow – and still at the same price, whatever they might say!
The only way to defeat scammers is by preventing them from making a profit. So in future, be careful – don’t give your money away!
Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard
About The Author: Anita Buchan is a full-time affiliate marketer who now wants to help others become a success. For genuine affiliate marketing opportunities and free resources visit www.dont-get-scammed.biz
P.S. Great web promotion apportunities:
7 Tips for Effective Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking…does it work? Yes it does. One can debate the value of reciprocal linking compared to other linking strategies. And without a doubt, one way links far outway the value of a reciprocal link. However, if done correctly, reciprocal linking can be a powerful SEO strategy for your website.
Tip #1
Search for reciprocal links from pages that have a Google PR equal or greater to your own. By doing so, you are enhancing the quality/value of the reciprocal link improving your overall success in the eyes of the search engines – especially Google. The higher the Google PR the more valuable the link becomes.
Tip #2
Exchange links only with sites that are related to your site/industry in some way. For example, don’t link to web sites about athletic clothing if you’re selling hardware. Sites that you’re exchaning links with need to be contextually relevant. When they are, you earn extra points in the eyes of Google and other major search engines.
Tip #3
Make sure that your anchor text, the text that comprises your link contains your keywords. This is one of the most important aspects of linking. For example, a link to my primary site should look like this: “Internet Marketing Expert Marketing Secrets” instead of “www.marketingscoop.com”. Doing so will signal the search engines with the specific keywords that you’re optimizing for. This enhances your search results when someone searches on your keywords or keyword phrase.
Tip #4
Your links page should never include more than one hundred links. Keeping your link quantity below one hundred ensures that search engines do not discredit the value of your site or challenge it as SPAM. One way to include more than one hundred links to to create a mini-link directory. Develop categories and group your links appropriately.
Tip #5
Check your partner’s websites on a regular basis to ensure that they are still linking back to you. Often I’ve exchanged links with a site only to find that they removed the link back to my site only days after the exchange. You can do this manually or utilize software to do it for you. There are a variety of options out there. No matter how you validate reciprocal links, check them on a regular basis.
Tip #6
View the title of the links page where your link will be placed. You can do this by visiting the link page and then pressing “view” on your browser menu bar. Then select “view source code” and find the meta tags. The title tag should include keywords relevant to your site. It doesn’t have to, but if it does, the more valuable it becomes.
Tip #7
Quality over quantity. When you being the process of building reciprocal links for your website, go for quality over quantity. Once you get started, you will undoubtedly have numerous sites looking for an exchange. If the sites don’t meet your linking criteria, you must say no to the link exchange.
In summary, make sure your reciprocal link program includes relevant links that have an equal or greater Google PR. Check your links often and make sure not to include more than 100 links on your link exchange page. Follow these tips and you’re well on your way to a successful reciprocal linking campaign. Lastly, be patient. The value of reciprocal links is most clearly seen over time.
* Michael Fleischner is an Internet marketing expert and the president of MarketingScoop.com, the Internet’s biggest source of marketing information and free marketing resources. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and has appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Visit Marketingscoop.com for further details, marketing secrets, or more FREE reprint articles.
7 Tips for Effective Reciprocal Linking
By Michael Fleischner Marketing Expert, Internet Marketing Secrets*
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