Industry:
Religious

Solution:
Content Management System for the website

Technologies Used:
WordPress (HTML, PHP, JavaScript)
MySQL

The Challenge

Saint Gertrude Church needed a system that could help them manage the regularly changing church events and notices. An interface was to be configured that could assist the website administrator in all these activities without requiring the administrator to indulge into the technicalities of database and data presentation.

The Solution

Squirrel Productions configured an interactive content management system that helps the website administrator to manage effectively the contents on the website in a systematic and easy manner.

The solution presents an interactive interface that allows the website administrator to edit and alter all content that the user can see at the front end. The basic features of the interface can be summarised as under.

1. No HTML skills are needed. Anyone can make daily or weekly website updates with do-it-yourself ease; changes to content require no programming knowledge! Anyone who can use a word processor like Microsoft Word can update the content and images on the website. Adminstrators can add pages, update the calendar; all they need is the web browser they already have!
2. The parish can quickly post and publish up-to-the minute information or reports. As schedules change or as unexpected events occur, the members and attendees and will recognize the church site as the best place for current updates.
3. The content management system allows the parish to create as many different security groups as needed. The parish can then associate a security group to a particular ministry or system, only allowing members of that group to make edits or changes.
4. The administrator’s section is a secured area, which can only be accessed with the help of a user-id, a password and a security code. This password can be changed by the website administrator anytime.

Recently while reviewing some text changes on one of my web pages I noticed something that nearly knocked me off of my chair.

I found several new links on all the pages of my website. I had not created them. No one had paid me anything for the links on my pages. Moreover, many were leading my visitors to my competitor’s websites. Someone was web-jacking my hard earned visitors.These new links have a heavy yellow underline. When the mouse hovers over them, they show a bright yellow background, much more noticeable than any of the other hyperlinks on my pages. You can see an example of these links on the following page.

>> http://www.smithfam.com/smartag.html

I thought it might be a virus so I visited Symantec. I wanted to see if there was a newer virus data file or a virus warning that would explain these links.

On the Symantec site, where I found the words “virus protection.” I found a link to Symantec’s rival, McAfee.com Corp. Same results.

Something is badly wrong here

I went to work to find the source of these mystery links.

I discovered that after deleting all my cache files in Microsoft’s Internet Explorer, the links went away, but every time I restarted IE, the links came back. They also appeared in ebooks compiled to use IE for display.

These links didn’t show up when viewed in Netscape.

Microsoft Smart Links Technology

Smart Tags, according to Microsoft, are “… a feature of Internet Explorer that add smart links to pages you view. Smart Tags enable real-time, dynamic recognition of content on web pages and offer you relevant options as you work. By hovering and clicking on these smart links, you can get access to additional information or perform convenient web tasks.”

Many Internet marketers, fearing Smart Links could be used to hijack visitors by using their content to divert traffic to another website without permission or compensation, complained loudly to Microsoft.

Microsoft’s received a so much negative feedback from webmasters about the damage Smart Tags technology poses to developers and businesses on the Internet that a month ago, it announced they had backed off of plans to ad “Smart Tags” to its Windows XP operating system.

“Smart-Tag” Technology is like a scalpel. In the hands of a doctor, it can restore health, but in the hands of a killer it can cause only pain and suffering.

Disabling Smart Tags on a Web Page

If you are a Web author, you can disable Smart Tag recognition in Internet Explorer within a Web page by adding a Meta tag to that Web page.

After adding this tag, any Smart Tags that the author has added to the page will continue to work, but Internet Explorer will not dynamically add new tags when users view the page.

The tag is: >>

More Info: >> http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/preview/smarttags/>

On The downside, while this may disable Smart Tags by Microsoft it does nothing to disable browser pluggins.

What makes this work?

To make a long story short I discovered the source of these links was a browser pluggin my son had installed as part of a file-sharing program similar to Napster.

KaZaa is the fourth most downloaded PC program on Cnet Network’s Download.Com site. It has been downloaded 4.9 million times since July 11. <http://www.kazaa.com/>

KaZaA makes it possible for people to download licensed software and music without paying the owners anything. When KaZaA is downloaded a copy of a special Internet Explorer pluggin is installed.

The pluggin adds hyper-links to keywords purchased by advertisers on every page the user views with Internet Explorer ANYWHERE on the Internet.

The Source of The Pluggin

The pluggin is named TOPtext. It’s provided by eZula.com. It’s listed in the KaZaA installer as:

” TOPtext, a browser plugin to give Internet Explorer relevant quick links” <http://www.eZula.com/>

I contacted several of the advertisers the links sent me to and in every case they claimed they had had complaints, but had no actual knowledge of where the links were coming from. Even after I supplied them with information about the source of the links, they all have remained active.

“Contextual Advertising Theory”

Ezula supporters say “contextual advertising has promise because it is far less obtrusive than other forms of online and offline advertising while delivering only what a consumer wants.”

The purpose of my website is to deliver value-added content on the subject of Internet Marketing and Home Based Business. I have spent over five years developing this site, and I maintain well over 5,000 pages of valuable free content.

This content works much like a TV program. It provides a vehicle for delivering highly targeted traffic and builds trust and sales over time. In the case of TV, programming content is possible because advertisers pay for commercials. No third party is allowed supply different commercials in place of the paid commercials. If third parties were allowed to hijack TV programming where would the money to develop the programming come from?

It’s exactly the same on the web

Now I have learned that in less than 20 days, over four million potential customers visiting my website may see links appearing on my pages to products I don’t sell and would not recommend.

I maintain that my website content belongs to me and your content belongs to you. I can only assume all content developers would feel the same way. No one has the right to hijack our hard earned traffic by adding links to the words we use.

Vote With Your Feet

We can’t put the genie back in the bottle. If advertisers and the buying public are willing to fund this type of advertising, this technology may be the killer blow for small content rich web developers.

Small businesses such as myself can’t afford to sue the corporations that dream this stuff up. The best we can do is to not support the advertisers. We can also let them know that we don’t support this form of advertising and will not buy their products.

The Bottom Line

Microsoft’s Smart Tags technology and browser pluggins like TOPtext pose a substantial threat to content driven marketing. Shawn Collins has launched an online petition to protest against Smart Tags. You can sign the “No More Smart Tags” petition here:

>> http://www.PetitionOnline.com/nmst2001/

If you feel this form of advertising is a violation of the copyright laws that protect your content, you may also want to register your thoughts with eZula.com, the company that owns the TOPtext pluggins in use today.

<http://www.ezula.com/company/contact.asp>

If this technology is allowed to develop, I am concerned that soon the whole concept of developing free content for the Internet will be threatened. If content developers can’t earn income indirectly through content development, we soon may be required to pay for every scrap of information we now get free.

Have your sales dropped off lately? In just the last 20 days over 4 million web surfers are viewing links on your website you didn’t put there. These links are taking your customers elsewhere, the really scary part is unless you have TOPtext installed on your browser you won’t even know it’s happening.

Robert Smith (C) all rights reserved

ROBERT SMITH helps thousands successfully market their Internet based home business. You’ll find tons of free marketing tools & resources on his Internet Marketing web site at: <http://www.smithfam.com/>.

The Master’s WebKit CD Package <http://www.smithfam.com/webkit/>

You can reach him by phone at: (541) 689-1847 PST, and by email at. <mailto:bob@smithfam.com>

Checking your site ranking of this magnitude can be very painful, especially if you wish to do it every month, unless you are using a rank-checking software. Google and most other search engines discourage the use of automated software to check site rankings. Most search engines clearly mention this in their Terms of Service. Understandably, they would like to provision their server resources and bandwidth for human visitors and not waste their resources feeding content to software based queries.If a rank-checking software like WebPosition Gold is setup to check ranking for 50 keyword phrases in the first 5 result pages, Google would have to deal with 50 x 5 = 250 software driven search queries. If the ranking were checked every month, Google would have to deal with 3,000 search queries per year for every site owner running automated rank checking software. Imagine the search volumes the search engines deal with even if a fraction of the billions of websites use the rank-checking software.

Most webmasters are aware that checking site rankings using software is disallowed. However, they do not have many ‘legal’ options to check where their sites rank. It is unrealistic to expect webmasters not to check their site rankings using a software. Even if webmasters check the website ranking manually, Google does not really save server resources spent on such search sessions. Webmasters on the other hand also waste a lot of time, energy and resources (and often) dial-up bandwidth in evaluating the website ranking.

Website Ranking Report (in 0.74 Seconds) Now imagine a scenario, if you could type in 100 keyword phrases along with your site URL in a special Google interface, and in a jiffy, Google shows up where your site is ranked for each of your keywords along with a count of number of pages ‘competing’ for each keyword. All this in Google’s famous 0.74 seconds!

Looks too good to be true? Read on…

If Google and other search engines were to offer this rank-checking facility, it would greatly help webmasters in checking their site ranking and would take away a lot of pain associated with the task. As you would read further down this article, the webmasters would not be the sole beneficiaries. The search engines too would gain tremendously.

What should Google do? Google should provide a rank-checking facility focused towards the webmasters, as a separate search interface, perhaps in their advanced search section. A proposed interface is suggested below:

Check your site ranking on Google

Site ranking result page

Google could offer two methods of rank checking. One as an interface proposed above and a second one through web API’s, which can be queried through rank-checking software.

Does Google have an Ability to offer Website Ranking Check Facility? Since the database index is available to Google for querying in any manner, Google has the capability of querying its database and completing such a search in a single stroke, as against dealing with 100’s of queries to get to the same result. Sure they would have to write new codes and interfaces to offer this but the effort would be well worth it.

Who Benefits from a Web Ranking Search Facility? There are several categories of Internet users who can benefit from a website ranking check facility. The following are the prominent gainers –

Benefits for Webmasters, Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing Companies It would save webmasters their precious time, bandwidth and resources.

Results would be faster than anything they would have experienced in the past.

Some webmasters set a monthly (sometimes weekly) scheduler in the software to run periodic reports. If the website rank checking facility is freely available, they do not need to set an auto scheduler in their software. They can use the facility on as-needed basis, saving unnecessary resource wastage.

Benefits for Search Engines Google would save significant bandwidth and server resources by handling such queries as a single search.

Since, Web API search queries generated by software can be easily isolated from their main search traffic, Google would have more accurate data of real human traffic. This will give them more accurate information for evaluating traffic patterns and planning their future business strategies.

Google can prevent serving AdWords to the Web-API based software queries and get higher yield on serving AdWords to human visitors.

Google would be able to claim and publish traffic figures of higher integrity gaining industry and advertiser trust.

Google will have a focused audience of webmasters, SEO/SEM companies querying ranking on their human interface versions. Google can leverage this highly focused audience to sell AdWords to premium advertisers, such as SEO/SEM Companies, PPC companies, web development companies, web hosting companies, E-commerce solution providers, payment gateway providers, software companies or any company wanting to sell products to site owners.

Traditionally, the Search Engines and SEO companies have been in opposing camps. This one step can win Google friends in the SEO industry and build brand loyalty.

Benefits for PPC / AdWords Advertisers Google advertisers using AdWords are forced to maintain a minimum click-through ratio (CTR) to keep their campaigns live. Unfortunately, AdWords are also served to non-human software-based queries, since Google cannot differentiate between software and human queries. This dilutes the advertisers’ CTR throwing their campaigns into ‘stopped’ modes while also portraying an incorrect picture of their CTR. If software driven queries are isolated, advertisers would get the benefit of continued campaigns and a higher yield by serving AdWords only to humans.

Benefits for Rank-Checking Software Makers Website Promotion software companies will find it easier to simplify their rank-checking software modules and improve rank-reporting efficiency by tying up their software codes with the Web APIs for rank checking.

Website Promotion software companies have to constantly update their search code to keep in tune with the changing search engine interfaces and sponsored listing locations to report ranking in natural results. An access to a Web-API can help them get free from this constant code updates.

Benefits for Search Engine Analysts and Statistics Companies It is needless to point out that Search Engine Analysts and Statistics Reporting companies would have access to a more accurate industry data, which will help them in a more accurate industry analysis.

Summary: Search engines are unlikely to succeed in warding off webmasters from frequently checking their website ranking on their search properties, no matter how many stringent rules they have in their “Terms of Service”. Perhaps the age old saying holds good

– “If you can’t beat them; join them”

Google, are you listening?

Note: If you would like Google and other search engines to offer this kind of a website rank checking facility, vote for it here . We will try and get your voice to these search properties.

Last Updated: 30^th April 2004 <!–->

Related Reading:

Google Advanced Search Tips

Analysis and Implications of Hilltop algorithm. How will it affect your site ranking?

About the Author: Atul Gupta is the founder & CEO of www.SEORank.com, a leading Search Engine Optimization services company and www.PugmarksDesign.com, a leading eCommerce and Web Development services company. He has about 20 years of experience in the field of Graphic Design, Visual Communication, Web Development and Search Engine Marketing Services. He has spent last 9 years of his career devoted solely in pursuing Search Engine Marketing and Web Development activities.

© Copyright 2004 Atul Gupta, SEORank

UNDERSTANDING THE VALUE OF INBOUND LINKS ON YOUR WEBSITE

Besides search engines, the next most common way people move from one website to another is through links on other sites.

The reason that the Internet is often refered to a the *Web* is because it exists so much as a web of links running from one site to another in a maze more complex than the spider web from which it is named.GETTING YOUR LINKS ON OTHER SITES

If you submit your site to search engines, provided you get good results on the keywords being searched for, you will get good results.

If you write articles that will be published by ezine publishers and webmasters, then the externally placed links to your website through your resource box can be very profitable. The resource box is an *about the author* paragraph, that you will attach at the end of your article.

If you are willing to share a certain amount of your profits with others, you can set up an affiliate program for your offerings, and then you can rely upon your affiliates to provide your inbound links for you.

If you participate in online forums dedicated to a certain topic, then your links placed with your post can be very effective.

If you leave reviews for others to read on sites like Amazon or Cnet, then you will find a certain number of click-through’s (CTR’s) to your website.

If you sign guestbooks with your own link in place, you might be a little disappointed by your results.

If you use Free For All (FFA) pages, you will certainly be disappointed. The reason for the failure with FFA pages is two-fold. First, your link will be placed on an external site that rotates links. Your link may only be in place for ten minutes or two hours. Secondly, your link is often placed on a page that will likely never be seen by human eyes.

THE YIN AND THE YANG OF THE INTERNET

The Internet is a prime example of the benefits of the Yin and the Yang. What goes around, comes around.

The truth is that if you help others, others will help you.

If you provide outbound links on your site to resources that are not on your site, people will flock to your site to find the resources they are looking for.

What is more, if you provide a good resource to others, then webmasters, reviewers and publishers will be lining up to tell their people about your website. Thus, giving you more inbound links.

BEWARE THE DEAD END

If on the other hand, you construct your website as a dead end, you are bound to fail.

People who do website reviews and publish ezines do not tell their followers about dead end sites. The value of a single website is drastically reduced by a lack of outbound links.

After all, no one person is so brilliant that they can deliver everything their visitors want.

By the very nature of dead end sites, they will not be linked to by others, so their success or failure is entirely reliant upon search engine and email success.

If the owner of the dead end site does not send out tons of email advertising and it does not have good placement in the search engines, then the site will not turn big profits.

GOOGLE PAGERANK (PR)

Besides traffic earned by inbound and outbound links to a website, one should also consider ranking schemes like the Google.com PageRank scheme.

Because Google wants to provide their users the very best in information from their search results, Google employs a program called the Google PageRank. The basic premise is to provide a rating for a given website, based in part on the value of the content on the website, and more so, based on how many external sites with a PageRank of four or higher actually link to the given website.

To review the Google PR for any one domain, one must use the Google Toolbar ( http://toolbar.google.com ) in their Internet Explorer browser.

INBOUND LINKS ARE CRUCIAL

In order for a site to get a good Google PageRank, the site must have inbound links from other rated sites.

Let us return for a moment to the dead end site. We have already shown that the dead end site that has no outbound links, will very likely have few inbound links, if any.

When a site can boast of no inbound links, then the webmaster can rest assured that their likelihood of getting a good Google PageRank is almost nil.

In order to build one’s inbound links, they should strongly consider employing outbound links also.

PROTECTING YOUR INTERNET ASSETS

Most people who build dead end sites do so from a fear of sending their hard earned traffic to another domain.

Given the short attention span of many surfers, we always have to be concerned that redirected traffic may never return to our websites.

In order to protect your hard work by losing the distracted surfer, you should always place a *target=_blank* inside of the href tag for all outbound links on your websites.

This ensures that a person who clicks on an outbound link will see the new page in a new browser window. So, once the surfer has reviewed the new site, they will have to actively shut down the browser window that your website still resides in.

This is extra special good news for people who have provided a great resource for web surfers. The more valuable a website is considered to be as a resource, the more likely that the web surfer will bookmark the website for future use.

BROKEN LINKS ARE NO GOOD

Some people have ventured to provide reviews of external sites or to publish articles that are targeted to their marketplace, but they have provided the information with broken links to the external sites.

This method serves no real protection for the webmaster, since the search engine spiders and publishers know that all of the outbound links return a *404 error, page not found.*

A phony resource is not really a resource at all.

BUILDING YOUR INBOUND LINKS

To ensure the success of your website, you need to get to work building both your inbound and outbound links for your website.

Remember. What goes around comes around. Honor will bring you many rewards.

Bill Platt owns http://thePhantomWriters.com . Do you need free content for your website or ezine? Our archives deliver more than 270 free-reprint articles available for your use. http://content.thePhantomWriters.com . Do you write your own articles? Let us distribute them for you to our network of 6000+ publishers & webmasters http://thePhantomWriters.com/distribution

Visit Ebay or any of ten thousand other websites and you’ll see people offering reprint rights everywhere. They all tell you that with their great reprint rights you’ll be in business instantly with “your own product” and that you get to keep all of the money.

By can you really make money selling reprint rights and is it worth your time?Let me give you a few examples from my personal experience, and then you be the judge….

I’ll start with the most recent rights I bought first. After reading Paul Hancox ebook “Small changes: Big Profits – How to quickly and easily make more sales from your website,” I saw that he offered reprint rights for only $149. This product had a suggested retail price of $27, which I had gladly paid and I was very satisfied with the product.

To digress a little… one of my criteria for buying reprint rights is that I have to have actually used the product FIRST. I won’t offer my list something that I have not seen, read, touched, experienced, and enjoyed. I suggest that if you are going to offer your list a product that you adopt the same rule.

Anyway…. I reasoned that if I invested $149 in Paul’s reprint rights I only needed 6 sales to break even. So it wasn’t a very big risk. Therefore I went for it! I sent a mailing to my list but before I even did that, I began mentioning the book in personal emails to clients and friends. In less than a day I had tripled my money. After sending a mailing to my I list had multiplied my money by some embarrassing number of times!

This product was the type of reprint rights that I like to buy. It’s a product that I know is needed…. I can put up a simple sales page and I know that the product will sell itself for years to come. I know that with very little effort I’ll earn over $1000 a month in profits from that simple product. You can check it out at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/thebook/ to see how simple my marketing is for this ebook.

Another product that I market the same way is a $19 interview on how to host your own seminars and teleseminars. Fred Gleeck (who has done over 1350 seminars) was interviewed by Jim Lanford and they recorded it. When Audrey Lanford decided to sell her business at WZ.com she offer reprint rights to Fred’s interview. The rights were less than $150…if I am not mistaken.

I run ads for this interview/ebook in various targeted ezines and mention it on a few of my sites. It routinely earns me $500 to $1000 per month. All this with very little effort on my part because the product sells itself. You can see how I have this set-up at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/your-own-seminar.html

A third example of how simple it can be, is that I purchased the reprint rights to Bob Serling’s Power Copywriting For The Internet from Corey Rudl’s Internet Marketing Center. These rights cost me just under $1000 and the suggested retail price for the course is $147. It took me less than a month to recoup my investment, and every month I do very well with that product too. You can check it out at: http://PowerCopyWritingForTheInternetByBobSerling.com

Notice with that last example how I got a domain name that had my keywords in it and that it’s fairly easy to remember… if you know the copywriter? That domain name costs me less than $8 per year and my hosting is only $5 per month. That’s for something that semi-automatically generates over $1000 per month

I could give you numerous other examples, but won’t. You get the point. I put on a teleseminar on buying and selling reprint rights a while back and recorded that teleseminar. I then turned the teleseminar into another income stream as well as offered reprint rights to it! Do you see how easy this can be? That teleseminar with myself and internet marketing expert (and lawyer) Dr. Bob Silber took less than 2 hours to do, and also generates an embarrassing amount each month. You can check it out at: http://AmazingProfitsBuyingAndSellingReprintRights.com … another clever name

I mentioned that you can grab domain names for as little as $8 per year and host them for as little as $5 per month. I get my domain names through my own registration service at: http://williecrawford.com/domains/ I host many of my sites at Host4Profit. You can check them out at: http://WillieCrawford.com/myhost.html

So now I’ve convinced you that you can do well with the correct reprint rights! The key again is to know and love the product. Know that it will provide your customers with genuine value. Check out my teleseminar for more tips on both buying and selling reprint rights at: http://AmazingProfitsBuyingAndSellingReprintRights.com

I did come across some terrific reprint rights this week that I will recommend. They are offered by Rebecca Hagel. She is only offering 20 licenses total, so you won’t face crazy competition. I really love her material! You can check out Becky’s reprint rights at: http://TheRealSecrets.com/becky.html

To answer my question, “Can you really make a fortune off of reprint rights” … that depends upon your definition of “fortune.” However, I generate several very nice income streams from reprint rights, as I’ve just shared with you. I know many others doing the same. I don’t see why you can’t too.

Willie Crawford has been teaching others how to build an on-line business since late 1996. Frequently featured in radio, magazine and newspaper articles and interviews, Willie teaches the average guy what the top marketers are doing but seldom talking about. For example, Willie demonstrates the power of automated residual income through his system at: http://ProfitAutomation.Com Visit now for a business boost.

Someone had asked Philippa why Websites are such a ‘pain’ in a pre-seminar question. Her opening reply was simple, yet powerful, “when you stop improving your site, you stop growing.” She believes that Websites are a work in progress much like a business plan or one’s own self-improvement. In fact, the first question you should ask yourself about your own Website is, “What does it really do for people?”The second question is “Who is your audience?” You see, websites are really a lot like a business plan! If you are trying to attract prospective clients, then each individual page on your site should offer something of value to your audience. The number one way that Philippa adds value to her audience is through her articles. The best way to keep getting top listings with the most popular search engines such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN, is to constantly change or add content. Her articles add value to her audience and are her number one search engine strategy. Maybe this is why she doesn’t cold-call. Her customers tell her that they have seen her name in multiple locations before they call her directly.

She said that we should think about the emotional connection that our website makes. How does your website represent you when you are not there? Unfortunately most websites are not a true reflection of what we do and who we are. The reality is that our websites need to become an expertise center. We need to show a clear benefit such as how our programs will increase the creativity and balance of a prospective customer. Every page should have a strategy, a way to increase our database and provide a call to action.

Philippa also believes that each web site should have a dynamite testimonial across the front of the homepage, because testimonials are the least-viewed section on every website! She recommends that we pull out our testimonials and sprinkle them throughout our site. And when we think of testimonials, we should be thinking about the substantive ways that we have helped our customers. If we attempt to be clear and specific about our program benefits, why not be clear and specific about their outcomes from real customers. She recommends that we have specific testimonials for specific programs. Talk about maximizing our congruency!

In order to get started, Philippa wants to know what we have done today to improve our website. Two days after her seminar, I added a question and answer section and submitted my site to a dozen search engines. My next step is to write another article. What are you going to do today to improve your web site, your business and even yourself? She encourages you to contact her about the changes you have made.

For more information on how to improve your website further, Philippa recommends that you download her tip sheet, “Twenty- Three Proven Tips and Ideas for On-Line Marketing” at http://www.cyberspeaker.com/tipsheet.html. Philippa can be contacted directly at her office in Santa Cruz, California at 831-465-0317 or pgamse@cyberspeaker.com. If she doesn’t get back to you immediately, it is due to her ongoing quest to find the best deli sandwich outside of New York City.

(c) 2004, Mark Sincevich. All rights in all media reserved.

About The Author:

Mark Sincevich is a professional speaker, photographer and author of two books and numerous articles. He works with organizations to increase their creativity, balance, leadership and personal development. He can be reached at 301-654-3010, mark@staashpress.com, or http://www.staashpress.com.

I have to admit, this week’s article was written out of sheer frustration and some pity.

Many people have contacted me lately asking online marketing questions before they have even picked a product to sell.

The ask, “Should I run a Google Adwords campaign to drive traffic to site X” I get asked?

“To sell what product I ask?”

The response is usually a high-level suggestion of an extremely general topic like…”something to do with marketing” or “helping people save money doing X”

All of a sudden, I drop the bomb that catches almost everyone off guard…

“Who are you going to sell this product to?”Now, one of two things happen, either I lose them for a few minutes OR the response is that “I will sell it to anyone who want to save money with X?”

Wrong!!

Here’s a little tip that comes from years of trial-and- error, thousands of lost dollars and more advice than you can pack into one lifetime – and you know what?

You won’t find this tip in Online Marketing books, tapes or seminars.

******************************************************

First – find out who you are going to sell your products to and THEN go find out what they want.

******************************************************

You see, without a clear understanding of WHO will buy your products you have no idea….

1. What they want 2. How to reach them 3. If they will buy what you offer 4. How many of them are there 5. How to market to them 6. How much they will pay for what you offer

I certainly don’t blame anyone who wants to skip past this tedious task of finding out who to sell to.

First of all, it takes work to find target markets – you have to identify a group of people who have similar characteristics such as: profession, personal traits, geography, desires, demographics, hobbbies, etc…

Second, you have to give up the thought that you are going to sell what you offer to everyone – and understand that by focusing on a smaller, defined group you will put much more money in your pocket in the long-term.

Third, you have to have RAZOR sharp focus – something many of us are unwilling to do as it takes effort, discipline, planning, and confidence. Something many new business entrepreneurs are lacking in their quest to turn their frustrating situations into immediate riches.

An EXAMPLE!

I was driving down our major highway yesterday, on my way back from an outing with my kids when I noticed a sign titled “Wine Storage!”

What was it?

Someone had the smarts to NOT compete with the thousands of other storage warehouses in the city, but to designate a section of their storage targeted at Wine Lovers.

How easy would it be to find wine lovers versus finding people who wanted to store stuff?

Can I find mailing lists for people who like to store STUFF? Not likely.

Can I find mailing lists for people who are wine lovers.

Absolutely!

Another example – you know those hand car wash garages that sit in many villages around the country. You drive your car in, deposit a few bucks and you get the privelege of spraying your car until you get your frustrations out.

How about a PET WASH.

Pretty ingenious right?

I spoke with the owner and figures he brings in 30% more business just based on people coming in on the weekend to wash their pets.

So – what about your products or services?

Do they FIRST target a group of people you can reach and THEN give them something they want badly?

It really can make the difference between making allot of money online or struggling to get by.

You Need A Product To Sell Online – That’s How The Big Names Become BIG! Discover the Pain-Free Way To Quickly Create Income-Generating Information Products You Can Sell Online and Keep 100% of the Profit! http://www.highertrustmarketing.com

What is the best (and most effective way) to get the word out regarding your product or service to those “millions of consumers out there in cyberspace”… to bring TARGETTED traffic to your web site?

And best of all, it’s FREE (that “magic” word of the www)

What is it (I can’t wait for the suspense a moment longer)?In my opinion (humble),

WRITE ARTICLES – for ezines (or online newsletters) and article announcement lists.

WHY DO THAT? WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS TO ME (“WIIFM”)?

If it is well-written and most importantly, helpful and informative, your article could become widely published =

* Extra exposure (sounds rude that!)

* You’ll “brand” yourself and your business. You then “make a name” for yourself online; so that you become known as an expert in your field.

* You’ll gain people’s trust, as you establish extra credibility online, regarding your product or knowledge in your field.

* It’s free advertising at its very best (ie. most effective). Writers don’t get paid. But on the other hand, they get free advertising, which may be just as valuable…especially as most writers live off tins of baked beans and carrots (no wonder they are “arty-farty types!).

What’s the difference between a writer and a large pizza?

The pizza can feed a family of four!

After that little joke at the expence of my occupation (get a “proper job”, Craig!), back to my point…

You are advertising your web site (in the form of your resource box with your web site listed at the end of the article); so that your www… could multiply all over the internet, like a “marketing virus”, a “bubonic plague” (that’s a metaphor, by the way!).

Now a little “info” on E-BOOKS…

When you have a number of useful articles written and published, you could perhaps put them all in the form of an electronic book and offer them for download on your web site. We’ve done this with my various articles (internet marketing, writing, self help and money) at: http://www.bridgeniche.com/clockarticles/index.html (thanks, Stefan in South Africa).

At the end of each article is a resource box with a link back to your main product site… and hopefully you’ll make some sales (especially if your site visitor likes the style and content of your articles)! (Incidentally, one of my main writing aims is to inform in a “light breezy style”, ie. inform + entertain at the same time!).

Finally, if you’re really adventurous and innovative, you can even create an e-book and give it away for free. Really good for promotion of your product or service. Just place a link to your web site on each page of your e-book. I’ve got the first three chapters of my various books available as e-books at http://www.bridgeniche.com/ and my e-book Handbook to Survive Life is available FREE at: http://www.bridgeniche.com/stepstosuccess/.

You are giving away free information (or entertainment) of value (hopefully!). Give and you’ll freely RECEIVE many benefits – in business and in life (the law of “sowing and reaping”, which is the basis for most of the world’s religions, I believe).

No harm in all this, is there? Now after that ‘little philosophical interlude’, do you see the benefits of article writing? Enough questions, Craig (like the Spanish Fly, er sorry, Inquisition!).

Lastly (and most importantly), writing ezine articles HELPS others out there in cyberspace. Though it takes quite a bit of time and effort (even for us writers). Though you don’t have to be a writer to write good articles. I believe, virtually ANYONE can do it.

The results for your efforts don’t usually come overnight. My advice is…Do a little writing and research on your topic(s) every day…even if it’s only an hour.

Just do it regularly and re-write your article (many times). Re-read it aloud, so that it flows nicely. With practice, you’ll get better in your article writing and your confidence will increase in “leaps and bounds”. Funny expression that, like a “runny babbit” (that’s a simile, by the way)!

Tourist to street vendor… “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”

“Practice, Sir, practice!” Back to my point after that little interjection (my “grasshopper mind” at work – creative minds are rarely tidy, as my dear exasperated mother, Hazel, often said to me) .

Then just be very patient and the results DO come.

As the saying goes…

When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on. Success comes to those who ride out the “ups and downs, the highs and lows” of life – the ones who stick with their dreams, never giving up.

To your internet marketing dreams in 2004 and beyond…

Craig Lock

P.S:

Hope this helps and best wishes in your newsletter article writing and internet marketing strategy. Why not start writing articles for the www?

This year could be a new beginning.

YOU CAN DO IT… and there is no better time to start than…

NOW.

Craig Lock http://www.craiglockbooks.com

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

P.S: We hope that these tips help in your article writing. In my opinion it’s the best internet marketing strategy there is… and best of all it’s FREE.

Happy writing To your internet marketing dreams.

Craig

The various books that Craig “felt inspired to write” are available at: http://www.craiglock.com http://www.bridgeniche.com/southern-african-experience/index.htm and http://www.bridgeniche.com/get-motivated-now/index.html

All proceeds go to needy and underprivileged children – MINE

P.S: Don’t worry about the world ending today… it’s already tomorrow in “little” scenic and tranquil New Zealand

Most paid-for internet advertising is a complete waste of money!

I’ve tried them all! OK, I got some results from some methods. But it was very rare to make a good PROFIT – often the cost of the advertising was higher than the income generated.

I used to marvel at high traffic websites, wondering just how they managed to generate so much traffic while my own sites dried up. So I researched and came up with a perfect traffic building system that works 24/7/365.

I learnt how you can get traffic from virtually any website you want with the site owner’s consent! This system is built around three crucial aspects of Online Marketing:1. How to easily, professionally and effectively advertise to your website visitors 2. How to convert idle “browsers” into paying customers or opt-in subscribers 3. How to keep new visitors coming into your websites at no cost

Current internet marketing trends

If you visit almost any high volume website, you’ll probably get a “pop-up” or “pop-under” page advertising something or other. Pop-ups open a new page right on top of the page you are viewing. Pop-unders appear after you close a page you have finished with. These can work well under certain conditions: a) They must offer a product targeted at the people visiting the site and b) They must actually be looked at by potential customers.

The targeting is just down to common sense – you don’t try to sell vacations for people over 60 on a site whose customers are interested in fashion for the under 25′s!

Getting potential customers to see your message in a pop-up or pop-under is harder. Both types have spawned a whole industry of software writers who have written programs which eliminate them before they are read by anyone. Even major ISPs have now built pop-up killers into their email systems. So a very high proportion of pop-ups and pop-unders are never seen by anyone. How many times have you heard someone say “I hate advertising!”? And yet much of what we buy is a direct result of advertising. What people really mean is “I don’t want to see advertising unless its for some product or service I’m interested in.” So these pop-up killing programs actually prevent legitimate buyers and sellers from knowing about each other just because not every buyer needs every seller!

The answer

There is now a new technology which delivers all the advertising power of pop-ups and yet is non-intrusive and cannot be stopped by the pop-up stoppers! It’s the PopThroughT. It has all the advantages of a popup, pop over, pop under BUT has more features unlike its predecessors. Here are just some of the amazing features that are built into a PopThroughT.

* They are easy to create. Simply point and click and your PopThroughT is ready to go! * Professional looking – gives your website a professional look that your visitors will simply love. * Increases your website conversion rates by as much as 114% right off the bat. * Defeats virtually ALL current popup blockers and stoppers! Your PopThroughs simply Pop right Through the popup blockers and stoppers – hence the name PopThrough! This makes them unstoppable. * Non Intrusive – PopThroughs blend into your website’s design, theme and overall concept of your site and are user-friendly. * Cool animations for entrance and exits are easily incorporated that will totally win over your website visitors. The animations are so amazing that we guarantee that you’ve never seen anything like them before. And your website visitors will simply love them too.

As I said earlier, I’ve tried just about all advertising methods currently available on the net. The PopThrough idea is the very best I’ve found and I’ll be delighted to help anyone who wants to try it.

Paul Denham is a successful online marketer in the UK who knows the secret of how to generate a lifetime of traffic to his website from ANY website he desires and advertise to their email subscribers for free! Visit his website at: http://www.excitingbiz.co.uk/popthru.htm

For those of you who are new to this area, an “ezine stands for Electronic magaZine. Ezines can be either published on the web or via email. A web zine is strictly published on your website while an email ezine is delivered directly to your subscribers’ mailboxes. Needlessly to say, an email ezine is a more powerful marketing tool than a web zine since your subscribers can hardly not notice that a new issue has just arrived in their mailboxes. Therefore the rest of this article will explain fully how to harness the power of email ezines. Ezines usually contain articles on a particular topic (such as web marketing, gardening etc). This is one of the reasons why ezines are such excellent marketing tools. Because they are devoted to a particular topic, their subscribers are generally fans of that topic. This makes it easy for you to locate a target market to peddle your wares. Simply promote your business in ezines that reach out to your target audience. There are basically three ways you can profit right now from ezines:

1) Advertising in ezines 2) Having your articles published by other ezines 3) Producing your own ezine

1) Advertising In ezines

This is the simplest way to start your ezine promotion. You pay for your ads to be run. Many ezines offer low cost advertising. Nonetheless, it is still important to track your ads. You need to know your campaign’s return for investment (ROI) to determine whether it’s worthwhile to advertise in future issues. An excellent ad tracker used by many gurus in the industry is adminder:

http://www.adminder.com/c.cgi?valtay&article

I would also recommend that you subscribe to some ezines which target your specific audience before buying ad space. The reason is simple. You need to get an idea of some basic things such as:

=> the quality of the articles published => where the ads are placed => how many ads are run per issue (this is important because if your ad has to compete with many others, its response usually won’t be great)

To find a list of ezines to subscribe to (and possibly advertise in), search the following ezine directories:

http://ezine-universe.com/ http://ezinehub.com/ http://gort.ucsd.edu/newjour/

Just because ezine advertising is cost-effective doesn’t mean you should submit any ad. To get the most out of your advertising, ensure that your ad is well written. A lousy ad in a great publication will still fail and you are simply wasting your advertising dollars.

Last but certainly not least, ezine advertising – as with any other forms of advertising – is best used to capture leads, not produce sales. People are more willing to respond if you offer a free report or a free subscription to your newsletter. Once you have captured your leads, you can start sending your sales materials to them to convert them into actual customers.

2) Having your articles published by other ezines

Don’t be intimidated by the idea that you have to write. I am sure you know your business well and if you research your subject in depth and spend time planning and writing your article, it will be a high quality piece of information that publishers are willing to place in their publications. A cardinal rule for this form of advertising is that your article must contain how-to information that will benefit the subscribers of those ezines you want to target. As a rule of thumb, do not write something that is blatant self-promotion. Self-promotion should only appear in the footer or signature file of your article. After the readers have read your educational article and are satisfied that you have expertise knowledge, they will want to click to your site listed at the footer. Don’t dismiss this method of advertising. It is totally free and has the potential of bringing really targeted prospects to your site.

3) Producing Your Own ezine

I cannot stress enough the importance of collecting the email addresses of those who visit your web site. It takes you a lot of effort, not to mention monetary investment to bring visitors to your site. Past marketers have taught us that it takes at least 7 contacts with a prospect to induce a sale. If you can’t get your site visitors to purchase on their first visit, why not invite them to leave their email addresses? This way, you can still send follow-up information to them which allows you more opportunities to sell to them.

A great way of capturing the email addresses of those who visit your site is to publish your own ezine. All you have to do is place a sign-up form on your main site inviting people to sign up for your free ezine. Be sure to describe what training information is provided in your ezine. The following sites are examples of the different ways you can invite people to subscribe to your ezine:

http://adhomebase.com/make-a-living.htm http://NitroKnowledge.opportunity.com http://NitroListBuilder2.opportunity.com

If you still have reservation because you think you can’t write an ezine, fear not. There are numerous marketers who are more than happy to let you publish their articles (leaving their self-promotion message on the footer of course) in your ezines. With the contents of your ezine settled, you only need to produce the publisher information that subtlety advertises your site.

Ezine marketing has become an integral part of marketing online these days. Advertising in ezines is a relatively cheap form of targeted advertising. Writing articles for other ezines helps you reach out to their subscribers who are also your potential customers. And producing your own ezine allows you to build a rapport with your prospects. So, get busy now and build your business online with email.

For more free tips on building your online business, subscribe to Valerie’s ezine, “BizBytes.” All new subscribers receive a FREE eCourse on making a living online. Subscribe at: http://www.adhomebase.com/bizbytes.htm Or email: yieshan-59182@autocontactor.com