Friday, February 24, 2006

Adsense Revenue

Here is an article by Brad Bahr regarding Adsense Revenue. It's an interesting article that you may find useful. What I'm finding with Adsense, is nothing is a given -- you do have to experiment, and what is right for one site, is not necessarily right for another.



The One Simple Trick That Can Double
Your Adsense Revenue

I've been working with Google's Adsense program for a while now. If you're not already in the program, why not take a look at it now at https://www.google.com/adsense. I really like Adsense. It makes me money and it's easy to work with. Just some simple copy & paste into your webpage and you're done. Right?

Wrong! You can do it that way if you want. Who knows? Maybe you'll get lucky and get a lot of clicks. But if you're really serious about making a lot of money with the program, you're going to have to tweak it a little.

I've invested quite a bit of time experimenting with the program. When I first signed up, I got some clicks and made a tiny bit of money. That wasn't good enough. I knew there must be a way to get more of my visitors to click on the ads.

Google has a strict policy about not pointing to the ads in any way or asking people to click on them, so there were two things I couldn't do. What else was there?

Then I remembered reading an article once that discussed the psychological impact of colors on the human mind. I started researching everything I could find on the subject.

After a lot of reading, many tests and periods of watching my clicks go up and down, I found the one color combination that seemed to work the best.

Testing previously done at supermarkets had revealed that the same product could pull more sales from just changing the colors of the label. What were these colors? Red and yellow! The combination of these two colors has an immediate impact on the person who sees them. They make your eyes stop and focus. They pull your eyes right to that part of the page. They grab your attention! I'm not sure exactly why the combination of red and yellow does this, but it does. On one of my sites, I changed my Adsense ads to a bright red border and a yellow background with black text and URL.

My click through rate more than doubled with just that one simple change. That's what worked on my site. Your site's color scheme may work better with a slightly different color combination. Try lots of different color variations. Make a change in the morning and let it ride for the whole day. The next morning, try a different set of colors. Change the border, background, text. Change everything you can. Most importantly, keep detailed records of the color scheme you used, click ratio and revenue generated.

After you've done all the experimenting you want to, go back to the most profitable one and let it run for a week or so and see how it does. I'm always trying different colors even after my run of good clicks with red and yellow. There are a lot of color combinations to choose from. You never know when you'll find just the right one.

(c) Brad Bahr - All Rights reserved
http://www.no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com

About The Author
Brad Bahr is the author of the NEW eBook: "How to "Really" Make Money on the Internet". It's filled with no nonsense, practical information. To get your FREE copy of the book, go to ==> http://www.no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com
brad_bahr@no-nonsense-internet-marketing.com


Need some intro information about Adsense check out my web page on Adsense Basics.
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Friday, February 17, 2006

SEO -- And Dirty Little Tricks

SEO is one important element to your website's health. So, it is always wise to be aware of some of the dirty tricks that may cause you some harm. It may not happen to you -- but then again -- who knows who your competition is. It is always wise to be informed, and to know how to proceed when things go wrong.




SEO Dirty Little Tricks - The Things People Will Do To Put You Out Of Business

Ahhh...business it is wonderful, isn't it? It's great to know
that you can make money online without owning a storefront.
Despite the low overhead most online businesses enjoy, there
are certainly down sides as well. Instead of competing with other
providers of goods and services in your immediate area as
storefront businesses must do, yo are competing with everyone
in the world. Still, it can be easy to make money on the Internet
but even easier to have your business sabotaged. Sabotaged,
you ask? Yes, sabotaged! In fact, sabotage is not as uncommon
as you might think. Before I go any further, I want to make sure
you are aware that some of the things I will be discussing in this
article are illegal. I shouldn't have to tell you that anyone who
uses this information to harm another could (and should) face
prosecution. This article is intended to help web owners spot
potential threats and stop them before they get out of hand.
With that said, let's move on.

Early in Google Adsense's not so distant history, there was a
substantial amount of pay-per-click fraud going on. People
were paying others in 3rd world countries to click ads on their
sites. That's a common example of someone trying to make
money in an underhanded and illegal way. Now read what
underhanded and illegal things people will do to put their
competition out of business.

Pay-Per-Click fraud can be devastating. It's a sad world
when your competitor will click on your ads to deplete
your advertising budget. This is not as big problem as
it once was, but you can bet your money it's still going on.
People have simply become more ruthless and put more
effort into their trickery. What can you do about this?
Not a whole lot. The best advice I have is to keep an eye
on you PPC campaigns. If you average 30 hits a day and it
all of a sudden you double or triple that a few days in a
row, you may want to contact the search engine you
advertise with and have them look into it. Better to be
safe than sorry.

This type of sabotage isn't unique. There are also those
who will hurt you by helping you make money, at least
initially. Earlier in this article I mentioned people having
others click on their Adsence ads to make money. It now
seems people are clicking on their competitor's google ads
in hopes of getting them in trouble with Google and other
publishers. These people are more concerned with getting
a competitor's site banned than the fact that their actions
could get someone locked up or paying a hefty fine. As I
stated before with the PPC fraud, keep an eye on your
Adsence ads. If they jump higher than normal, look into it.
Check your stats to see if there are hits from the same IP
and how long the IP stays on your site. If you suspect something,
contact Google or which ever search engine you're using to place
ads on your site.

I have also come across some tactics that go beyond belief.
People have actually created doorway sites for their competition
and then reported the sites to Google. Oh yes, it has been done.
How to stop that isn't as easy as it sounds. Many hosting sites
allow the domain owner to remain incognito. How do you prove
you don't own something?

I wanted to make readers aware of some of the negative things
that are going on in the SE world. Chances are, none of these
will happen to you. Still, knowledge is power, so use it to fine
tune your senses. I don't want to inspire paranoia, but there
are a lot of bad elements on the net and caution is often
necessary. If everyone conducted business with the golden
rule in mind, we would never have to worry about these
things. Unfortunately, the net is just like the real world...there
are always going to be those that want to better their
situation at the expense of someone else's.

Author: Submit your article to www.articleuniversity.com
To get a free seo evaluation, purchase SEO services, listen
to a podcast on SEO or read articles on SEO visit Mr-seo.com
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Monday, February 13, 2006

Create An Online Store -- Info to Consider

If you're thinking about building an online store -- then this article by Halstatt Pires may be of great benefit. The article gives you a rundown of what an e-commerce site is, requirements needed, and what to consider with the software you buy.




Building Your Online Store
By Halstatt Pires





The Internet is great at leveling the field for businesses. Where else can you put up a site and immediately compete with huge companies on an international basis?

What It Is

E-commerce, clearly termed as web commerce, basically means selling of merchandise or services over the Internet with electronic transactions and also through a secure network. E-com is not merely buying and selling or providing services but it is also a method of advertising and marketing through an electronic system as well. E-com also means facilitating the progress of commercial transactions electronically. Right now e-com is a well-established technology in all major countries. In most cases internet marketing requires you to have your own E-commerce store for maximum return.

Requirements of an E-commerce Store

Building an online store is not an easy job. Software is required that can manage customers as well as their needs. E-commerce software should be able to handle inventory, shipping and handling costs, taxes, dispatching and payment processing of client's orders. You may encounter many options when setting out to build an e- commerce store. Before choosing any of them it is important to have a clear view of your requirements. Technical requirements might include coupons, tracking systems, customer login options or any number of other things. Other requirements include what type of impression you want to provide to your valuable clients.

Study the Sales and Marketing Cycle to Determine Your Needs

Before you opt for any of solutions for building e commerce store, study the basic model of e commerce that represents the entire sales and marketing cycle. The first building block of this cycle is audience in which you define what type of customers you will target. Second are commodities, in which you characterize the types of products you will put on the market. Third is customer support where you will answer the questions and offer solutions to clients' or potential clients' problems. Next are advertising, marketing and endorsement where a business promotes the products or services. Then there is transaction processing, the most important technical phase of the cycle, which will handle orders, taxes, payment processing and order delivery. Transactions may be automatic or manual. In manual processing you have to enter credit card information manually through an offline terminal. In the case of automatic processing a client's order form will be setup with a program that processes and charges the credit card for you. After that there are post-deal services regarding how you provide solutions and services after the sale. Last but not least is brand name with which you will create a distinctive business image to correspond with customers. Nobody is going to pay attention to your online store unless something catches their eye.

Research Your Options

Once you have defined your needs, you can then begin researching your options. There are two basic paths you may follow when building an e-commerce store - either buy ready made software or build a custom system with components and parts according to your requirements and budgets.

Flexibility

Some business firms offer gifts and well placed impulse products for better marketing approaches. This requires an e-com solution to be flexible enough to allow various give-aways, coupons and promotions. Also, if your product comes in a variety of models or styles, with different options and different prices then you must communicate these factors and portray them distinctively in your online store. A true businessperson will certainly follow the patterns of his or her usual clients as well as those who directly visit the site. Web statistic tracking tools can be a great help to this end.

Ease of Use

Some e commerce stores are very easy to use and require only a few minutes to learn while others are more complex with so many features that they can be overwhelming. Being able to see a demonstration of software before buying it is a great help to determining ease of use.

Scalability

Being able to grow with your company is very important. If you choose a very simple solution now, then require a more robust solution down the road, you will lose time converting your store. If the URL structure of your store is not consistent, you can also lose search engine rankings by changing e commerce solutions. Therefore, it is important to choose an e commerce solution that can grow with you. For example, some stores owners may not want coupons in the beginning but then down the road decide it is a good idea. Some stores may also have limits on number of products, inventory control and tracking that down the road will be very important.

Security

Of utmost importance to online stores is transaction security. The priority for any business firm should be secure transactions. Thanks to Netscape for introducing SSL (secure socket layer), data can be protected by online store owners. SSL is an encryption technology that encrypts a message and the receiver decrypts it by using RSA security. To enable SSL on your web server you need a digital ID (a form of identification that will recognize you). Many web hosts provide SSL installation for anywhere from a few bucks to a few hundred bucks per year.

Overall, you want flexibility, ease of use, security and scalability in your store. Research your options before you make a final choice, and whenever possible, get a free trial of your solution before you buy.

Halstatt Pires is with the Internet marketing firm - http://www.marketingtitan.com - a San Diego Internet marketing and advertising company offering automated web site systems - http://www.businesscreatorpro.com - create web databases, e-commerce sites, business lead management systems and more.
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Saturday, February 4, 2006

Ebook Creation

These is a lot to learn when it comes to ebook creation. That doesn't include the other elements, such as the sales letter (Which is important.), promotion, what affiliate program directory to choose, the ebook cover and as always, the costs and your budget.

Since I have started my ebook, I thought I would share some of the information that I have discovered.



Creating Ebooks A Learning Process

People say that one the the best ways to making money is by creating your own Ebook. You're probably whispering under your breath, "I know, I know, but where do I begin?" Right? You have to begin at the begin-let me explain. Read More.....




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