Effective Website Promotion
My personal experiences
By Roy Cook
(c)2,000 Celestial Visions Co.

Hello, my name is Roy Cook and I have been
marketing on the internet for the past 3
1/2 years through my website selling
books, tapes, and beneficial information.

I have tried many of the most common marketing
methods that are used on the internet and have
a good idea what works for me, and what doesn't.
The following is a summary of the marketing
methods that I have used, and some of the results:

Affiliate programs: I have been affiliated with
quite a few major players on the internet for
a while, and I would only recommend one affiliate
program because I was consistently making money
through them for a while - till my hits dropped
way down.

Banner advertising: Drew a little traffic till
the click through ratio died out - then nothing!
I tried all the major free banner companies,
and at best the clickthroughs to my website were
poor - with a great banner!

Bulk Email:  I tried bulk email for a while and
got flamed, and email bombed, threatened, and
black listed.

My recommendation : Don't even think about bulk
email! It's not worth the trouble it takes to
write the advertising.

Opt in email lists: If you can get into a good
list that has Real Email addresses it would be
great, but most people get garbage email addresses
that are just used for receiving junk email and
they delete everything they get in them! I do the
same thing.

Customer recommendations:  This works great - if
you have a script such as recommend it on your
website your customers will use it to recommend
your website, or products to their friends, and
it's FREE advertising!

Search Engines: I have been consistently submitting
my websites to the search engines myself since 1997
and have had mixed results with them. There have
been times that I had the Number One position in
some of them for a while, and other times that I
couldn't find any reference to my websites Anywhere
in the search engines!

My advice: Don't pay anyone else to submit your
website to the search engines - no matter how many
they say they will submit your site to, or how low
their prices are for doing it! You will get the
best results if you personally do it yourself, but
only if you use the Right keywords, and search phrases
that relate to your website! The best way is to
manually do it to the search engine's submit your
url pages.

Newsletters: If you are looking into starting your
own newsletter be sure that you have content that
is worth reading - first! Don't produce a newsletter
that is just a bunch of advertising - your readers
will automatically delete it!

A good newsletter has beneficial content to the
reader that will keep them interested in what you
have to offer, and they will most often Save the
copies of your newsletter for future reference if
you have good content - Articles. The advertising
should be secondary to the articles, and should
be complimentary to the theme of your newsletter.

Newsletter Advertising:  Only works if you advertise
in a high circulation newsletter that is focusing
on your target market!

In this type of market you will do well - if your
advertising doesn't try to sell the product, just
get their interest in what you have to offer. Use
the guidelines of writing a good classified
advertisement here, and Grab your prospect's
interest and get them to email for More Information
from your ad. Use the newsletters that are published
once a month, and have a high circulation for
the best results.

FREE eBook publishing: An excellent way to get your
work noticed, and generate FREE advertising everywhere
your eBook goes. I use this method now, and it is
starting to work well for me. I embed links in the
pages of the eBooks that go to a tracking script that
sends the person to a web page on my website to provide
more information.

Writing Articles for distribution: Works very well
for anyone that can use their computer, and knows
how to write reasonably well. It performs several
functions at the same time, and gets your work
published all over the internet, and in some cases
offline. It can be used for indirect marketing of
your products by placing references to products
in the closing of the article. If you don't know
how to write well, read what other people are writing,
and follow their examples. The most important thing
in writing articles is keep your content interesting,
and watch your spelling and grammar! Most people hate
spelling mistakes, and will just stop reading your
article if you can't spell properly. Most newsletter
publishers love this method of getting articles for
their newsletters because they don't have to sweat
through the process of writing their own articles every
issue. They just go through their archives of articles
and select the articles they want for that particular
issue that are in line with their current issue theme,
and add advertising and a few comments, and they're done!

Easy, and quick, and it benefits the author too by giving
him or her exposure!

I hope you have enjoyed this, my first article for
distribution, and will pass it along to others so that
they may reap the benefits of my experiences in the
world of internet marketing.
____________________________________________________

Roy Cook
mailto:webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com
Your Success Resoure on the web!
Life Improvement books, tapes, CD's,
eBooks, and Business Reports.

For a great business opportunity
Click on the link below:
http://celestialvisions.com/cgi-bin/go/go.cgi?a2
_________________________________________________

You are free to use this article without permission
provided that the resource box Above Must Accompany
the article above upon publication on your website,
or newsletter. All of the information in this
article is Original Content by me, Roy Cook
Please, email me a copy of your newsletter
that contains this article to let me know that
you are in fact publishing it. If you are
placing the article on your website email me
that you have done so, and place a link to it
in your website in the email.


Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com
Celestial Visions Co.
Your Success Resource!

P.O. Box 95697
Hoffman Estates,
IL., 60195-0697

Please feel free to use this article in your newsletter or on
your website as long as you include the complete resource box
at the end of the article, including a link to the authors
website.

© Copyright 2000
by Michael J. McGroarty

How to Really Make Money at Home

There’s a secret to making money that very few people will ever
share with you. Probably because they don’t even know that this
secret exists. I’ll share the secret with you in a few seconds.

But first. If you really want to make money at home, then you
have to have a really good product to sell. That product can be
something tangible like the Wacky Wall Walker, or it can be
something intangible like a service.

The ideal product should be something proprietary that you
control. Like the Wacky Wall Walker. Remember that thing?
It was a little rubber octopus like toy that you threw at the
wall, it would stick, then start flipping over and walking it’s
way down the wall.

It’s been years since I read the story of the Wacky Wall Walker,
but as I recall it was originally invented in Japan and marketed
under a different name.
A young man from the United States saw it, obtained the exclusive
rights to market it in the U.S., changed the name to the Wacky
Wall Walker, and then came up with all kinds of truly unique
ways to market his new found product.

As the story goes he once went into a very upscale restaurant,
sat down and ordered dinner, and then right in the middle of
the evening stood up and started tossing Wacky Wall Walkers at
the wall. It seems that there was an important editor that he
was trying to get the attention of to get some free publicity
for his little toy.

He got the toy into the big chain stores and sold a ton of them.
Then as the fad was beginning to fade, he promoted his product
to the cereal companies as a premium they could give away in
their cereal boxes.

As I recall, he made something like 20 million dollars with a
product that only cost a few cents to make. All because he
recognized an opportunity when he saw it.

This particular product was a fad, and you have to be quick
because fads come and go quick. Not only that, but as soon as
the fad gets popular, everybody and their brother starts violating
your patent and starts selling knock offs. (imitations of your
product)

About that secret I mentioned earlier. The secret to making
money at home or anywhere else is you have to offer a product
that solves a problem. The Wacky Wall Walker solved the problem
of cheap entertainment. People always seem to have money to
spend on entertainment, and the Wacky Wall Walker offered them
an affordable option during a weak economy.

So what kind of a product can you come up with that will be
proprietary to you, and will solve a problem? The answer is a
simple information product. It could be something as simple as
a report, a booklet, a manual, a book, a video, or an audio
cassette.

We all know people who suffer from one form of arthritis or
another. A lady well into her years had this problem. Her
fingers ached everyday. Then she discovered something that
actually helped relieve the pain, and allow her to do things
that she hadn’t been able to do.

She was so happy about what she discovered, she wanted to share
it with others, so she wrote a small booklet about her method
of getting arthritis relief.

Through free publicity she sold something like 200,000 copies
of her little booklet.

What information product can you come up with?

Visit the message board at http://www.homemadebooklets.com and
get a daily dose of inspiration from the others who visit there.
You’ll be amazed by the ideas and advice offered each day.
_____________________________________________________________
Michael J. McGroarty is the author of the manual "How to Make
Money at Home Self-Publishing Booklets" as well as the popular
website http://www.homemadebooklets.com Stop by and sign up
for his free newsletter, "How to Really Make Money at Home".


_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.

Marketing On The Internet
                By Roy Cook
       (c)2,000 Celestial Visions Co.

Hello, my name is Roy Cook and I have been
marketing on the internet for the past 3 1/2
years through my website selling
books, tapes, and beneficial information.

In this article I will deal with building credibility with your prospects.

Credibility is one of the most valuable assets
that anyone that wants to do business
Absolutely Has To Have!

The dictionary definition of Credible is "Can
Be Believed"

I can accept that credibility is indeed
Believability, without it you are Lost!

What are you willing to believe in?

By reading this article, you are showing an
interest in what I am writing about, and are
willing to Believe in what I am writing here,
because the fact that I have written this
article gives Me Credibility as an author!

Credibility is something that you build
like a brick wall, each course is built on
the previous one till the wall is finished.

In this case you tell people the Truth about
the subject that you are writing about, with
no outlandish statements that make the product
or service to be More than it really is. Sure,
you might have an absolutely Fantastic product,
or service, but don't say that it can do any
more than it can! People can sue you for making
false promises, or false advertising! At the
least you are going to lose prospects, and that
is a disaster if you are trying to make a
living online!

Just read the headlines of most of the bulk
email that you get. Much of it makes false
statements such as:
"Make 200,000 in 90 days or less, Guaranteed!
By sending Bulk Email Just Like This!"

Friends, Bulk Email just makes people Mad,
and statements like that will blow all chances
of your ever gaining any credibility. Even if
the claim is accurate, people are just not
willing to believe that what you are talking
about is real, and hence you have No
Credibility when you make such statements, even
if they are true!

______________________________________________

This resource box Must Accompany the article
above upon publication on your website, or
newsletter. All of the information in this
article is Original Content by me, Roy Cook
Please, email me a copy of your newsletter
that contains this article to let me know that
you are in fact publishing it. If you are
placing the article on your website email me
that you have done so, and place a link to it
in your website in the email.

Thanks for reading this article, and remember:
Credibility Is Everything in online marketing!
Without it you are nothing!

Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com
Your Success Resoure on the web!
Life Improvement books, tapes, CD's, eBooks,
and Business Reports.
For a fantastic business opportunity click on
the link below:
http://www.celestialvisions.com/cgi-bin/go/go.cgi?a2

Thanks, and have a great day!


Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com
Celestial Visions Co.
Your Success Resource!

P.O. Box 95697
Hoffman Estates,
IL., 60195-0697

Website Design
      The Tools And Tricks
          By Roy Cook
(c)2,000 Celestial Visions Co.


      Hello, and welcome to the second
part of my article about website design.
In this article I will cover the website
building tools that I have used, and my
personal experiences with them, the good
and bad.

When I first started building my original
website back in 1997 there really weren't
a lot of website building programs out there
that a beginner could learn to use effectively.

There was a lot of information circulating on
the internet about building webpages, so I
decided to try some of the methods that were
described.

Some of the articles I read about building a
website recommended using Windows Notepad to
write the HTML code.

Notepad works very well if you don't mind not
knowing what your webpages look like till you
open a browser. I tried this for a while, and
decided to give it up! It was just too much
work.

I was an avid fan of Netscape Navigator browsers,
and I discovered that the full browser package
included a complete HTML editing package within
it that worked very well. What a great discovery!
I had the best of both worlds, a great browser,
and a webpage editor package, all in the
browser package I downloaded from Netscape!

I recommend using the Netscape Communicator
browser package to anyone that is just starting
out, that doesn't want to spend a lot on software
to build their website. It gets the job done well,
and you can preview the pages right away to see
what they look like in that browser.

I also recommend downloading Microsoft Internet
Explorer, if you don't already have it, because
many people use it as their primary browser.
Using both browsers covers about 85% to 90% of
the browser users out there, and lets you know
what your webpages look like in both.

If you are building a very large website with
hundreds of pages you need a tool that was designed
for heavy duty website building such as Microsoft
Front Page.

I personally have been using Front Page for the
past few years, and I love the fact that it has
bulk page editing features such as common borders
for making a border that you want included on
pages. You have the option of including any of
4 borders that you design on each page, or going
with the Web Default setting that you chose when
you start using Front Page.

The borders are very useful for placing common
links that you want on all pages of your website,
or for common images, or both! I use them for both
common links, and graphics on my websites.

Front Page also has the option of using page themes
that include a selection of graphics and patterns
that are used in each webpage that you design.
You select the theme, and Front Page does the rest!
Each theme has its own banner, background, buttons,
and line patterns that are used within it, and you
have the option of not using the themes on each page
if you don't want them on that page. You also have
the option of using different themes on each page,
if you want!

One feature that I use Very Often is adding, changing,
or deleting information on the borders on all pages
that use the borders at One Time. I make the changes
I want in the border, and save the changes. Front Page
makes the changes to All Pages that use the border,
all at once! This one feature Saves Me Weeks Of Webpage
Editing!

With the old method I would have to edit each
individual page, and save it, and it did take a very
long time to change every page! I had so many broken
links from using this method that my website was very
difficult to get around!

Please note: I am not being paid by Microsoft, or Netscape
to make these recommendations. I just use the products,
and like the ease and simplicity of the programs!
I recommend them to anyone that wants to build a website.

That's enough for this article.

My next article about website design will get into
the background functioning of the website that is
used for such things as delivering form results, and
for accepting orders over the internet.

________________________________________________________

By Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com/cgi-bin/go/go.cgi?a1
Your Success Resoure on the web!
Life Improvement books, tapes, CD's, eBooks,
Business Articles, and Business Reports.
For a fantastic business opportunity click on
the link below:
http://www.celestialvisions.com/cgi-bin/go/go.cgi?a2
________________________________________________________


The resource box Above Must Accompany the article
above upon publication on your website, or
newsletter. All of the information in this
article is Original Content by me, Roy Cook
Please, email me a copy of your newsletter
that contains this article to let me know that
you are in fact publishing it. If you are
placing the article on your website email me
that you have done so, and place a link to it
in your website in the email.

Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com
Celestial Visions Co.
Your Success Resource!

P.O. Box 95697
Hoffman Estates,
IL., 60195-0697

Website Design,
       Some Common Sense Methods
              By Roy Cook
    (c) 2000, Celestial Visions Co.

     Hello, and welcome to another article about
marketing on the internet. In this article I will
give you an idea of how a good website is built,
and the tools that are really needed to get the
job done.

It seems that a lot of people that start a website
on the internet have no idea what they are doing, or
how to do it! That's a shame!

Designing a website isn't a simple process, but it
isn't that difficult either. It's an organized
process that starts with an idea of what you want
to tell your prospects about in your web pages.

An excellent method of designing a website is based
on what you want to tell your prospects, one step
at a time. Keep it simple, and easy to read. Use
Black Text on a White Background with a minimum of
graphics on the main page. You don't want any
animations or music content in the pages unless
you know it will help to sell your product!

Your Index.html page is your Advertisement for your
website, and should be easy to read, and with as few
links as possible going out from it. This page is your
Front Door, and it must have content on it that will
Grab your visitor's attention, and hold their interest
long enough to get them interested in the rest of your
website. It's like a Million Dollar Salesletter with
a few links to other parts of the salesletter.

In the Index.html page there should be an attention
grabbing headline about a benefit for the prospect.
Your visitor is looking for what you have to sell,
or they wouldn't be there so grab their attention,
and give them a Major benefit for Reading what you
have to offer. The prospect has some problem that
they are looking for the solution to. Provide Benefits
for them that will help them to solve their problem.

In the body of the page have more benefits that will
help the prospect solve their problems as easily as
possible. Make your text as easy for the prospect to
understand as possible, and write about your Prospect.

If you sell more than one product, or service and
the products or services need a good description
of each, then build a web page for each product and
pack each web page with as much information about
how your product works, or how your service can benefit
them. The more information about your products, or
services, the better!

Using this method of packing each page with Beneficial
information about your products, or services will
accomplish two things at the same time:

First is it will provide your customer with the
information they are looking for that could make
the difference between them clicking the Back button,
and buying your products, or services!

Second is it gives you a much better chance of getting
a good position in the search engines, and getting
your website more exposure, and more hits.

I have looked at the background of many of the top
ranking pages in the search engines, and have found
that most often the pages have very little if any
meta tags in them! They aren't using the keywords,
or description meta tags, and yet they have the top
positions - without having to Pay for them! These
pages have benefit packed text about their products
that gets them the top position.

More on Meta Tags, and Keywords in another article.

The main thing about a website is that it is like a
salesman, only it never sleeps, eats, takes a break,
or asks for a raise! It's up 24 hours a day, 365
days a year, or as long as your server keeps running!
That brings up another requirement for your website,
reliability of the server.

I have had to switch server companies a few times
because of reliability problems either with the
server hardware, or software, and it looks like I'll
have to switch again real soon because of reliability
problems. If you are looking for a good webspace
provider check them out thoroughly before setting up,
or transferring a domain to them. Make sure that the
server company provides customer recommendations that
you can verify by contacting their customers!

It doesn't do any good to have a fantastic website if
your virtual server is down most of the time! I have
gone through that and it isn't fun when you type in
your website URL and find out that your server is down
During Peak Hours! That is the time you need the server
to be up the most, and is when the money is made.

Enough for now, and have a great day!

_______________________________________________________

This resource box Must Accompany the article
above upon publication on your website, or
newsletter. All of the information in this
article is Original Content by me, Roy Cook
Please, email me a copy of your newsletter
that contains this article to let me know that
you are in fact publishing it. If you are
placing the article on your website email me
that you have done so, and place a link to it
in your website in the email.

Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com/cgi-bin/go/go.cgi?a1
Your Success Resoure on the web!
Life Improvement books, tapes, CD's, eBooks,
and Business Reports.
For a fantastic business opportunity click on
the link below:
http://www.celestialvisions.com/cgi-bin/go/go.cgi?a2

Roy Cook
webmaster@...
http://www.celestialvisions.com
Celestial Visions Co.
Your Success Resource!

P.O. Box 95697
Hoffman Estates,
IL., 60195-0697

How much of an entrepreneur are you?

What problem can you solve?  What does the word "opportunity" mean to you?
Is it a chance to for you to gain something?  I bet you never thought that a
problem could create an opportunity for you.. but it can. You can even use
your own hobby to create an opportunity for yourself but that is a whole
article by itself.

The desire to make money is not strong enough to start a business even
though it is necessary to make the business survive.  Most successful
businesses are started with someone's dream.  Profitable businesses are all
based on good ideas or implementation of old ideas. Bill Gates imagined his
software on every one's computer and he accomplished his vision. That
doesn't mean that he was the first one to invent software.  You can invent
your own software program to solve a computer software program.

Take the survey below to see how much of an entrepreneur you are. This
survey, developed by the National Federation of Independent Business, is a
great way to assess your character.  Read each of the qualities and
explanations listed.  Rate the degree to which you believe you possess that
quality by circling a number from 1 to 10.  After three months, you can take
the survey again, using a different color pen or pencil, and see how you
have grown.


QUALITY    RANGE

Motivation   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Perseverance   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Risk Taking   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Organized   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Confidence   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Persuasiveness   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Honesty    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Competitiveness   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Adaptability   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Understanding   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Discipline   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Vision    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Positive Attitude  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Problems Solving  1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Creative   1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10



Date of first evaluation:    Calculate your Total Score:
Date of Second evaluation:    Calculate your Total Score:


Excercise:

1. List six other traits that you think you have.
2. List five more traits that you think you could    develop.

If you are lacking some characteristics but have energy and motivation, the
other traits can be developed.
Entrepreneurship is a discovery process.  Each time you make any choice
regarding your business, you will quickly get feedback from the market.
Competition encourages change.  Each time the demand for your product or
service goes up or down, it is time to make changes.

One way to start thinking like an entrepreneur is to imagine how you would
respond to a challenge or an opportunity, or even to some information about
consumers.  Where other people see problems, entrepreneurs see opportunities
for creating new businesses.  Countless businesses start from finding the
solution to a problem.

Here are some hypothetical situations.  What business would you consider in
order to find solutions to these needs?  If you find creative ideas and
solutions to these, then your entrepreneurial instinct is very good.

See if you can find ways to solve these problems.

1. Kids with after school activities and working parents
2. A going-out of business sign placed in a local store
3. A new retirement home is built near your home
4. Four new working families with small children just      moved into your
neighborhood
5. Your neighborhood friends just bought computers for     their children
6. 100 percent increase in gas prices
7. You live near a college
8. You know a lot of families who have birthday parties    for their
children
9. A lot of people in your community speak only one        language.
10. Your neighbors don't have time to mow their lawn.


Think of ways that you can work out solutions to different problems or
needs.  Uncover a new resource or technology or apply existing resources or
technologies in new ways.

Sometimes all it takes is recognizing a need and filling that need.
"Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart." You have to be a risk
taker to succeed as an entrepreneur and you also cannot be a "quitter."
Your success depends on you and how willing you are to go the extra mile.


---------------------------------------------------

This article is written by Cheryline Lawson, webmaster of Startbiz at
http://internet-home-employment.net, newsletter publisher of Homebiz4U and
Freejobs4U.  To subscribe to the newsletters and receive 7 free gifts, you
may send a blank email to homebiz4u-subscribe@... and
freejobs4u-subscribe@....  This article can be used in its entirety
without the written permission of the author as long as the resource box
stays intact.

Hi,

I know you must be bombarded with request for article submissions but please
take the time to read the article and if it is suitable to your ezine, I
would consider it a privilege to be published in your ezine.  Thank you and
have a great day.  Here is my article:


Does your customer talk back to you?


What is your customer saying about you?  Do you really know?  Does your
customer really know who you are?

If you don't know what your customer thinks about you, your business, your
product and your services, then you might as well close shop!

A customer is the lifeblood of every business and you must always strive to
be in tune with what your customer thinks and how they feel.  Don't leave
your customers unattended and in the dark.  Invite feedback.  Add a
feedback form to your website or a simple "mailto:" link that looks
something like this:
"Questions? Comments?  Send email to info@...."

People love to give their opinion especially if they decide that your
product or services, which they have purchased, needs improvement.  How will
you know this if you don't provide a means to communicate with your
customers?

A customer's independent review of your site or product carries far more
weight than your own ravings about how great your site is.  Sure you know
that your products and services are great or you wouldn't be selling them,
but you will be more convincing if you can get honest endorsements from
people who have tried them.

Oh, what are you thinking now?  Yeah, Yeah... I know.  Yahoo! Has already
given you special attention.  Even Wired Magazine has profiled your
entrepreneurial skills.  That's all good!  But Yahoo or Wired Magazine
doesn't know anything about your business because they haven't actually
tried your products or services.

People should endorse your business not because they think it looks good but
because they know it is good.  If they have problems with your products,
they can be a great source of objective advice to you on how to
make improvements and if you allow a customer to critique your product or
services, they will be happy and proud to endorse it.

Satisfied customers are another great source of endorsement.  Approach your
customers for testimonials about your product or services.  If you don't yet
have satisfied customers, ask someone to use your product for
free or offer your services for free, then ask for their comments.  If they
are satisfied with using your product or services, ask permission to use
their comments on your site.

Make your site interactive for your customers.  Give them a reason to return
to your site and especially to tell others about your unique product and/or
services. The entire organization must become obsessed with what the
customer wants.

Here are some suggestions:

You can create a survey that asks consumers the questions you need to
understand in order to make well-informed business decisions. Target more
than 70% of online consumers across multiple behavioral and demographic
categories and gather refined
and up-to-date information in hours. The answers to your survey questions
will help you develop a deeper understanding of the needs, opinions, and
behaviors
of your consumers, customers, and even visitors.

To keep your customers happy, you need to know what they are saying online.
Have a look at some of their responses at http://karnak.com

- Provide a help number - give people a number to call if they have
questions about their order or your site.
- Return an acknowledgement that you have received their payment or their
email.
- Create a feedback form as previously mentioned. But there is more to
feedback than just asking for it: You have to do something about it!  Thank
your customers for their comments. Even if the feedback message is
negative or the customer's request is completely off the topic, thank him or
her anyway.  Use an autoresponder only to acknowledge receipt of your
customers email, then send a follow up email afterwards.

You should think about compiling your customers ideas and comments in a
database or spreadsheet.  This should make it easy to track comments so that
you can easily recognize when certain comments are made and act upon them
according to when they are made. If you can't incorporate your customers'
ideas right away, then
plan to do so in the future if the idea is feasible.  Your reaction to your
customers' feedback will make all the difference to making that sale or a
return visit.
- Create a "tell your friends about this site" form that enables visitors
and customers to email information about your site, directly from your site
to others telling them about how great your site is.
- Create a guest book and invite customers and visitors to sign it so you
can know who visited your site and you will be also able to send follow up
emails to them.
- Be sure your site has contact information or contact link - too many sites
forget to include such important information.
- Be sure to have an "About Us" link that includes information about your
business as well as a mission statement.

OK - Now you are saying you have all that!!  Now What?  Well, if you have
done all that, you are on the right track but there are many more things
that can be done to create awareness and a liaison between you and your
customers.  You have to be very creative and design new and unique ways that
you can continue to interact with your customers.

One of the proven methods that have worked consistently for me is sharing my
expertise, especially through this medium - writing articles.  The article
you are reading suggest that I have knowledge of certain topics
and you can use this to enlighten your readers and gain their respect.  Put
a link on your site that lists all the articles that you write.  This is a
very good source that will provide "inside tips and goodies" to your
customers that they wouldn't be able to get anywhere else and will also
bring new customers to your site.

Another way is to provide a "Tips Corner" on your website or a discussion
board that your customers can find helpful and valuable information.  They
will develop trust and respect for you and this will bring you success in no
time.

Visualize your customers.   A market research helps you get to know your
customers. Find out how old they are?  What kind of income they earn?  What
benefit of your product or service would attract your ideal customer?  Make
that benefit the center of your business.

Every businessperson wants to attract a wide range of customers and as an
Online business owner, you have a greater advantage when it comes to how far
your business reaches but it all depends on the effect you have on
your customers. The web can be a lonely place. Find ways to let your
customers talk back to you.

---------------------------------------------------

This article is written by Cheryline Lawson, webmaster of Startbiz at
http://internet-home-employment.net, newsletter publisher of Homebiz4U and
Freejobs4U.  To subscribe to the newsletters and receive 7 free gifts, you
may send a blank email to homebiz4u-subscribe@... and
freejobs4u-subscribe@....  This article can be used in its entirety
without the written permission of the author as long as the resource box
stays intact.

Free to publish in your ezine or website as long as the
bylines remain intact.

Author: Steve Nash
Email: webmaster@...
URL: http://www.shoptour.co.uk

                 Promote Your Site Every Day!
                 ----------------------------

By Steve Nash

You want traffic at your site, but with so many new websites added
every day it isn't easy. The only solution is to promote your
site, each and every day...

Here are 7 promotion methods for you to try, one for each day of
the week:

--->>> Day 1 - Submit Your Site To A Search Engine

No big surprises with this promotion method. Just submit your site
to a new search engine, or blast your website address to hundreds
of directories and Free For All (FFA) sites. (Take care with your
e-mail address with the FFA sites!) Try to keep a log of just when
and where you submit your site.

Link: http://jimtools.com/submit.html

--->>> Day 2 - Post A Newsgroup Discussion

There are newsgroups, bulletin boards or forums on just about
every subject imaginable. A good place to start is
http://www.deja.com/usenet which allows you to search all of the
Usenet newsgroups for a particular term or phrase.

Post a message online, via Deja.com, or offline using Outlook
Express (or similar). Follow the forum or newsgroup guidelines,
when you start a discussion or answer someone's query. It *is*
okay to mention your website in a 2-line signature, though.

--->>> Day 3 - Swap Links With Other Sites

Links make the World Wide Web go around; they also improve your
search-engine ranking! One way of achieving lots of links to your
site is to swap links with other sites. There is an excellent
article on link-swapping at http://www.bannertips.com/howto.shtml
but basically:

  - Identify sites with similar content to yours
  - Request a reciprocal link (be polite, and use webmaster's name)
  - Create a "Links" section on your site and put the links there.

--->>> Day 4 - Write A Testimonial

Writing favourable comments, testimonials, about another website
could make you an instant online friend (we all respond well to
flattery after all!). This could lead to a link-swap or even a
possible joint venture (see Day 6).

Just review their website (or product), and write about the
benefits you gain from the site in specific terms (so it sounds
like you're actually talking about *their* site). Just be honest
and tell them what you like.

--->>> Day 5 - Be An Expert, Have An Opinion

Believe it or not people are interested in what *you* have to say!
Several websites are even willing to pay you for your opinion! And
we all have an opinion, don't we! Remember, it's good to talk
(especially if your listeners then visit your website!).

If you *really know your stuff*, you can become an 'expert' at
several sites. You may have to write articles on your subject of
expertise, or just answer questions from site-visitors. Either way
*you* gain more exposure, and your site gains more exposure too.

Opinion site: http://www.epinions.com
  Expert site: http://www.askanexpert.com/

--->>> Day 6 - Start A Joint Venture

A joint venture can be as simple as joining an affiliate program.
But basically you sponsor another's product and take a share in
the profits. Joint ventures can also improve 'site-stickiness'.

You need to:

  a) CONTACT webmasters who market similar products/services and
     ask them if they would be interested in offering
     yours. Share the profits, and it's a win-win situation.
  b) PROMOTE another webmasters' product or service (something
     you believe in) to your subscribers or customers.

--->>> Day 7 - Follow Up!

No new websites to visit here. No new methods of promotion. Just
an opportunity to measure the success (or otherwise) of the
previous 6-days' efforts. This is a time to follow-up and perhaps
plan for the next 6-days.

--->>>And If All Goes Well...

If all goes well then just take a break, but if you're really
keen, however, you *could* take a look at some of these other
promotion methods too:

   * Encourage visitors to bookmark your site
   * Join a banner-exchange program
   * Write a press release
   * Run a competition
   * Create great content, and allow others to use it
   * Create an online community


Good luck,
Steve Nash

______________________________________________________________
This article is a summary; the full-length article(s) can be
viewed online at http://www.shoptour.co.uk/promote_your_site/

Steve Nash is webmaster of Shop Tour UK: "A unique, fun way to
browse over 900 secure UK shopping sites" http://shoptour.co.uk

Free to publish in your ezine or website as long as the
bylines remain intact.  Please inform me when and where
the article is being published so I can see it in action!

Author: Dan Grossman
Email: webmaster@...
URL: http://www.websitegoodies.com
~~

Making the Most of Paid Placement Search Engines
By Dan Grossman


Paid placement search engines, ones in which you bid on keyword
positions in their search results, are an effective way to get
targeted traffic to your website at low cost. Unlike normal
search engines, the trick to success with these isn't bidding on
the right keywords, but bidding on as many relevant keywords as
possible. Here's a quick list of the major search engines you can
bid on listings at:

http://www.goto.com/
http://www.sprinks.com/
http://www.rocketlinks.com/
http://www.searchhound.com/
http://www.7search.com/
http://www.findwhat.com/
http://www.kanoodle.com/
http://www.brainfox.com/

To achieve success at these search engines without spending your
entire advertising budget in a few days is to bid low on many
listings. If you take a look at top keywords, companies are
placing bids as high as $5 on up for a single visit to their
site. To most websites paying more than a couple cents per
visitor would mean losing money.

If you're interested in knowing just how much a person is worth
to your site, use this equation:

Average Monthly Earnings / Average Monthly Unique Visitors

Make sure you're using unique visitors and not impressions. Each
person may view several pages of your site, so a unique visit
from a search engine would be worth more than an impression.

THE KEYWORDS:

The smarter webmasters will bid a few cents on several hundred or several
thousand keywords relevant to their sites. So how do you
find hundreds of keywords to bid on? You can't be expected to
think of every single one. There are two great tools you can use
to generate several hundred in only a few hours (or sometimes
only minutes) of work:

http://www.jimtools.com/keywords.html
http://inventory.go2.com/inventory/Search_Suggestion.jhtml

Using the JimTools tool, you simply choose a search engine, enter
a few keywords relevant to your site, choose "a lot" for how many
results you want and let the tool do it's work! It will check the
meta tags on each site in the results of the chosen search engine
and return to you a list of keywords they used in their sites.
Using this method, you can easily generate 500 keywords to bid
on in an hour or two.

With Goto.com's search term suggestion tool you can also find
hundreds of keywords relevant to yours in very little time. By
entering a few keywords about your site, the tool returns the
most searched for terms at Goto.com with the keywords you entered
in them.

Paste the results from these two tools into a text file and use
them when bidding on search terms. Most of the pay for placement
search engines allow bulk submission through an Excel file, which
you can easily paste into from your text file.

THE LISTINGS:

Now that you've got a list of several hundred keywords prepared
for your listings, you need to prepare the rest of the listing.
The easiest way is to use your homepage for all the listings so
that you only have to write one description, but you could also
write a separate one for each major page within your site and
assign each page their own keywords.

To increase the clickthroughs on your listings when they turn up
in search engine results, your title should catch the visitor's
attention. For my own site, I use "WebSiteGoodies - FREE Tools
and Resources!" as this title fits the length requirements for
most of the search engines, shows what you're going to get at
my site, and draws attention to itself. Your description should
tell what the person's going to get if they visit the website.

CONCLUSION:

The secret to paid placement search engines is to bid on hundreds
of relevant keywords. Using the methods above you can have
significant traffic to your site at a very low cost.


About the Author:

Over 250 hand-picked resources, articles, and tools when you
visit: http://www.websitegoodies.com - As a bonus, Dan also
publishes the free weekly "WebDevPortal" newsletter for website
owners!  Subscribe today and get articles like this every week:
mailto:subscribe@...?subject=webdevportal-subscribe

Publishing Guidelines:
----------------------
This article may be freely published in your newsletter, on your
website, or in your eBook, so long as the copyright notice and
the resource box are left intact.

Please let me know if you use this article by sending me a note
to mailto:alwynbotha@...

(There is no need to ask permission first, just say where
you used it.)

Thank you.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Article authors - How to get maximum exposure for your articles

by Alwyn Botha

You can get maximum, leveraged exposure (widespread publication)
for your newsletter articles by:

- Writing articles that address topics that enables leverage,
- Promoting your articles using leveraged exposure principles,
- Focussing on newsletters where you will get most leverage,
- Combining these principles in the most leveraged ways possible.

This article explains these points further.

Address topics that enables leverage
------------------------------------
Pick your article topic to address topical issues most sought
after by your prospective readership audience.

The topic of your article should be covered by many different,
frequent (weekly) newsletters with many targetted newsletter
subscribers.

Promote your articles using leveraged exposure principles, by:
--------------------------------------------------------------
Submitting your articles to all of the following

- all well known, general article announce newsletters,
- article announce newsletters that targets your article's topic
- article syndication services
- newsletter publishers that specifically request articles
- newsletters that contain guest feature articles
- websites that contain resource libraries (like articles) on
   your article topic.

Features of newsletters where you will get most leverage
--------------------------------------------------------
Features are sorted in descending order of leverage power:

- specialist newsletters that focus on your article topic,
- newsletters that specifically request articles,
- newsletters with fewer ads - the better quality newsletters,
- newsletters that contain guest articles, but that do not
   specifically request its readers to submit articles.

Combine these in the most leveraged ways possible
-------------------------------------------------
Do all the above in the appropriate combinations for maximum
leveraged effects, for example:

Focus on submitting your articles on much-sought-after topical
issues to the largest, best-known newsletters, websites and
article syndication services.

Spend some time up front to determine the most leveraged return
you are going to get from submitting your articles.

Suggested further reading:

Here are imaginary titles of other articles you need to read to
become more qualified in getting leveraged benefits from your
articles:

- The best places to announce your articles
- The best newsletters to write articles for
- How to write good newsletter articles
- How to write good newsletter article headlines
- A list of the 30 most-wanted newsletter article topics
- A list of the 30 most-wanted newsletter articles

Are those not good topics YOU should write and publish articles
for ?

This article is another case of where you write something
yourself, because you need to read it.

(I wrote this article - primarily for myself - to structure and
clarify in my mind how I can get the most leveraged, widespread
publication for my articles.)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This article was written by Alwyn Botha, the founder of
http://www.leveragedsuccess.com

Visit http://www.leveragedsuccess.com for more articles and
other resources to help you leverage the Internet for your
financial success.

Publishing Guidelines:  Article may be freely published,
provided the resource box is left intact.


======[ ARTICLE ]======

Bringing Your New Business Back to Life
(c) Copyright 1999-2000, BuildYourHomeBiz.com
---------------------------------------------------------------

You drag yourself into the kitchen after a hard day at the
office.  Staring glumly at the empty fridge, you try to
block out the sounds of the kids squabbling, the dog barking
to go outside, and the blare of the TV in the background.

You are just *so* tired.

Day after day, week after week, you promise yourself that
you're going to work on your business.

'What business,' you think bitterly, 'The one that still
hasn't produced a single thin dime?'

That's the one.  It is incredibly easy to get discouraged
when your business isn't making money ... and even more so
when your life is filled with other priorities.  You're
just plain worn out - and you don't savor the prospect of
spending your precious free time struggling with a
business that has yet to turn a profit.

But the simple fact of the matter is:  If you don't work
your business, who will?

To get anywhere in life you have to work hard.  It may
involve some short-term sacrifices ... that's where you'll
have to sit down with your family and figure out whether
those sacrifices will justify the end result.  Here are a
few tips to help you get back up and work on your business:


> Drop any negativity.  For example, instead of moaning
about how you still haven't made any money, focus instead
on how great it will be to make your first sale.  Believe
me, that first sale is an incredible feeling!  It energizes
you in a way that's hard to describe.


> Take it one small step at a time.  There's no point
in setting a lofty goal, only to fail at achieving it.
Keep your goals realistic.  For example, you could make
it your goal to do 5 small advertising or promotion
activities every day.  A bunch of small steps will
eventually lead to the achievement of the larger goal.


> Don't be afraid to ask for help or encouragement.  You
can find a lot of supportive people if you just ask.  A
good place is right here on the Internet, on message boards.
You can start looking for forums that interest you at
http://www.delphi.com/ .


> Re-prioritize.  There is no way that anyone can do
everything.  Let small things go while you concentrate
on your business.  The house does not always have to be
perfectly clean, and a garden with a few weeds won't
hurt you.  Ask others in the family to help out.


> Be willing to make a few smart investments.  While we
would all prefer to spend nothing and make millions,
it's simply not realistic.  Many of us have heard the
phrase, "It takes money to make money" - well, there's
more than a grain of truth to it.  Smart investments
save us both time and money in the long run.  Do your
research, and don't be afraid to spend a few dollars.


> Force yourself to do a little most days.  I know it's
hard; I literally dragged myself to my computer every
single day for about two months and made myself do 5
small tasks - despite having already sunk several
hundreds of dollars into my business and not having
seen a single sale.  It was hard, all right ... but in
the end it paid off:  it took me one year to build my
business to the point where I could quit my job.


> Stay 100% focused on what you want.  Keep your final
destination firmly in mind: do you want to be able to
spend more time with the kids?  Do you simply want to
leave the stress of the corporate world?  Do you want
the independence and sense of achievement that comes
from running your own business?  Imagine what it will
be like once you achieve it.  Focus on WHY you want
the business in the first place; it will help to keep
you motivated.


Only YOU can change the course of your life.  So what
are you waiting for?  Get going! :-)

-----

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela has been fortunate to be able to quit her job and
work online full-time.  Subscribe FREE to her popular ezine,
The Netrepreneur's Notebook by visiting her website at
http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/ .  Angela's smartest
investment was also the most inexpensive!  What was it?
Find out at http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/myss.html

Article Title: Hurricane or Fog Syndrome Vs Clear Day Aficionados?

Author: Lena Sanchez

Contact Author: webmaster@...

Publishing Guidelines: May be freely published w/bylines

Web Address: http://www.envirodocs.com


Hurricane or Fog Syndrome Vs Clear Day Aficionados?
By Lena Sanchez

Are you new to the world of Internet business? Then you may fit into one of
three categories and those categories are hurricane syndrome, fog syndrome
or a clear day aficionado! What's that you ask?

You're in business on the net and may find yourself in a hurricane
syndrome! Yes to some of you Internet business is like a hurricane raining
traffic of confusion, excitement and allusive money. Not understanding
which move to make next. Or maybe a fog syndrome with your dreams of
success just out of reach but you know you will walk out of that foggy haze
and realize your dream of success any day now if you continue doing what
you are doing! Probably not! A proven definition of insanity is, "To
continue doing what you are doing but expecting a different outcome!"

Then there are the "Clear Day Aficionados" who have it all together and
have a completely successful business that truly is a hurricane of money
raining down on them with foggy shadows of even greater success looming on
the horizon. How did they get there?

The "Clear Day Aficionados" have utilized the hurricane and the fog and
cleared their path and raised the blanket of fog by looking in all the
right places. Reading all the right things and following all the right
people or person's tips and tricks to successful wealth on the Internet.
Have not attempted to cut a new path but follow the path that brought those
others through the fog and hurricanes of the Internet and bringing them as
well! But most of all they jumped in and just went to work following the steps.

Okay now let's get you into that "Clear Day Aficionado" position real soon.
The steps to doing that are;

STUDY THOSE SUCCESSFUL ONES who have what you want and follow their plan to
get what you want. No you do not want to try to make a new path on the
Internet right now. Save that for the day you have the riches and wealth
you desire then go out there and cut a path through the ravages of
destruction that has taken it's toll on the majority of Internet
entrepreneurs. Don't fall into the trap of thinking that all you have to do
is put a lot of money into your business/project and it will bring back
much more money!

Yes, be prepared to spend some money but do it wisely by utilizing it to
purchase those things that truly bring in traffic and money to your business!

Start with the PROFESSIONAL WEBSITE DESIGN and SOFTWARE TO AUTOMATE your
website, a must if you are to reach the tens of thousands of people you
need to reach and keep in constant contact until they have the total
picture about your business. If your site is gorgeous and very enticing
with all the right products necessary to make it possible for anyone to be
successful but you lack the ability to follow up daily, weekly or monthly
or offer backend products, shut down now!

Lack of follow-up is one of the top reasons businesses fail. No one is
actually taking care of customers/clients. If you had a storefront in any
city and people walked in but nobody helped them make the decisions or
purchases how long do you think that store is going to last? Not very!
We've all seen vacant stores on any street in the world sitting there
forlorn and lonely in a great location but someone failed. You will usually
find two reasons for those failures. One is lack of advertising and two
assisting or follow-up with their customers.

Online businesses are in the same boat and need those two elements.
Advertising will bring needed TRAFFIC TO YOUR SITE. There is no one
advertising medium on the net that will drive enough traffic to your site
to put that financial success in your pocket. I have found that multiple
advertising traffic mediums are necessary.

The following are all mediums I work with and at to succeed.

1)      Banners. A lot of people will tell you that banners are passe and
don't work anymore. I have found this to be my number one traffic magnet. I
have my banner exchange linked to tens of thousands of other sites that
bring in a large portion of my daily traffic slightly behind at #2.
2)      Writing articles to help others giving tidbits from my experiences
in my 63 years of life. I learned a long time ago that helping people be
the best they can be gave me not only pleasure but got me the riches I
wanted. No, I do not do it just for that purpose but have found lasting
friendships and business associates by just helping them to maybe find a
piece of knowledge that they were searching for or have shown empathy as
they went along their learning path. Written word is such a powerful medium
at helping others!
3)      Building my newsletter list and disseminating accurate and timely
information with my very own list server. By using my own list server I am
not carrying anyone else's' advertising to build their business.
4)      Helping others to get where they want to go by sharing my special
secretary. My secretary is not a person but a great piece of software that
allows me to follow up over and over while I'm sleeping, writing this
article or off shopping and I don't even have to think about it. My
secretary's name is *Sales Manager* and manages my business life 24/7.
5)      Following a guru who has already gotten where I wanted to go and
freely willing to guide me through the fog and winds of the Net.  Yes my
guru has become a multi-millionaire online and I figure if he did it he
knew some secrets that I needed to know and sure enough he does and shares
them with me daily by phone and or email!
6)      Having the right products that are a proven big seller on the
Internet. Those products (proven by multiple survey's for the last five
years) are the tools and software to building a business on the net that
are assembled in one place that work together like well oiled machinery on
my computer giving me the least problems. Tools I can help others with in a
big way!
7)      Lastly but most importantly are *Tenacity* and
*Stick-to-it-ive-ness* that carried me and will carry you through the hard
times in the beginning. Two traits that are a must have to obtain success
as a Home Based Business person! You cannot expect to be up for just a
short while and become an overnight wealthy person. Doesn't work outside
the net and won't work inside it either.

Go and prosper in grace and knowledge and wealth.

```````````````````````
Lena Sanchez a retired Medical office nurse/administrator/consultant Short
bio at
http://www.envirodocs.com/lenas_bio.htm Lena is a business consultant and
alternative health matters helping to totally round out lives
http://www.envirodocs.com
Editor of "Natural Environmental Health & Business Facts," newsletter
subscribe at http://www.envirodocs.com/newsletter.htm

Does your customer talk back to you?


What is your customer saying about you?  Do you really know?  Does your
customer really know who you are?

If you don't know what your customer thinks about you, your business, your
product and your services, then you might as well close shop!

A customer is the lifeblood of every business and you must always strive to
be in tune with what your customer thinks and how they feel.  Don't leave
your customers unattended and in the dark.  Invite feedback.  Add a feedback
form to your website or a simple "mailto:" link that looks something like
this:
"Questions? Comments?  Send email to info@...."

People love to give their opinion especially if they decide that your
product or services, which they have purchased, needs improvement.  How will
you know this if you don't provide a means to communicate with your
customers?

A customer's independent review of your site or product carries far more
weight than your own ravings about how great your site is.  Sure you know
that your products and services are great or you wouldn't be selling them,
but you will be more convincing if you can get honest endorsements from
people who have tried them.

Oh, what are you thinking now?  Yeah, Yeah. I know.  Yahoo! Has already
given you special attention.  Even Wired Magazine has profiled your
entrepreneurial skills.  That's all good!  But Yahoo or Wired Magazine
doesn't know anything about your business because they haven't actually
tried your products or services.

People should endorse your business not because they think it looks good but
because they know it is good.  If they have problems with your products,
they can be a great source of objective advice to you on how to make
improvements and if you allow a customer to critique your product or
services, they will be happy and proud to endorse it.

Satisfied customers are another great source of endorsement.  Approach your
customers for testimonials about your product or services.  If you don't yet
have satisfied customers, ask someone to use your product for free or offer
your services for free, then ask for their comments.  If they are satisfied
with using your product or services, ask permission to use their comments on
your site.

Make your site interactive for your customers.  Give them a reason to return
to your site and especially to tell others about your unique product and/or
services.

Here are some suggestions:

- Provide a help number - give people a number to call if they have
questions about their order or your site.
- Return an acknowledgement that you have received their payment or their
email.
- Create a feedback form as previously mentioned.
- Create a "tell your friends about this site" form that enables visitors
and customers to email information about your site, directly from your site
to others telling them about how great your site is.
- Create a guest book and invite customers and visitors to sign it so you
can know who visited your site and you will be also able to send follow up
emails to them.
- Be sure your site has contact information or contact link - too many sites
forget to include such important information.
- Be sure to have an "About Us" link that includes information about your
business as well as a mission statement.

OK - Now you are saying you have all that!!  Now What?  Well, if you have
done all that, you are on the right track but there are many more things
that can be done to create awareness and a liaison between you and your
customers.  You have to be very creative and design new and unique ways that
you can continue to interact with your customers.

One of the proven methods that have worked consistently for me is sharing my
expertise, especially through this medium - writing articles.  The article
you are reading suggest that I have knowledge of certain topics and you can
use this to enlighten your readers and gain their respect.  Put a link on
your site that lists all the articles that you write.  This is a very good
source that will provide "inside tips and goodies" to your customers that
they wouldn't be able to get anywhere else and will also bring new customers
to your site.

Another way is to provide a "Tips Corner" on your website or a discussion
board that your customers can find helpful and valuable information.  They
will develop trust and respect for you and this will bring you success in no
time.

Every business person wants to attract a wide range of customers and as an
Online business owner, you have a greater advantage when it comes to how far
your business reaches but it all depends on how the effect you have on your
customers. The web can be a lonely place. Find ways to let your customers
talk back to you.

---------------------------------------------------

This article is written by Cheryline Lawson, webmaster of Startbiz at
http://startbiz.hypermart.net and Internet Home Employment at
http://internet-home-employment.net, newsletter publisher of Homebiz4U and
Freejobs4U.  To subscribe to the newsletters and receive 6 free gifts, you
may send a blank email to homebiz4u-subscribe@... and
freejobs4u-subscribe@....  This article can be used in its entirety
without the written permission of the author as long as the resource box
stays intact.

Publishing Guidelines:

This article may be published on any web site, in any e-zine,

or in any e-book. It may be distributed freely. Please

keep my resource box intact. Also, let me know if you

wish to publish.


Author: John Soares



John Soares has written numerous articles on web site selling

and promotion. To see his articles, send a blank email to:


mailto:success@...?subject=articles_please





-------------------------------------------start of
article-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Go That Extra Mile For Unhappy Customers...


Have you ever experienced poor customer

service after the sale? If so, you know how

angry it makes you. This article shows you,

the commercial webmaster, how to deal with

online customer complaints. You will learn

how to make everyone concerned happy,

including yourself!




1. Don't ignore your customer when he

complains. If you do, your good name

will be mud within 48 hours. You will

receive less and less new customers and

new orders from old customers. Remember,

bad news spreads like wildfire!




2. Don't write back and tell him that you

will research the problem and get back to

him. DO NOT USE AUTORESPONDERS.

Nothing turns me off more then to get an

autoresponder message, and then hear back

from a real person much later, if at all.




3. Don't fight with the customer. If he is

unhappy, there is no way you are going to

convince him otherwise. Don't insult his

intelligence and make him even angrier.

If you know you are in the wrong, admit it

right away and bend over backwards to

resolve the problem. Don't say that nothing

can be done!  Most people don't like to

complain and find it hard to do so. Follow

the old saying: "The customer is always

right".




4. Don't sell your customer a product that

you don't have in stock. If the customer

wants it anyway, be sure to tell him how

long he can expect to wait before order

fulfillment. Keep him apprised if you

find that it may take longer. That way,

you give the customer a chance to

change his mind and cancel the order.

It's better for the customer to cancel the

order then to make him wait and wait, and

then complain.




5. Don't tell your customer that he can't

cancel an order. This is a ridiculous thing

to say and is sure to start a "bad news

wildfire". Your customer should be able to

cancel at any time from order placement to

just before order delivery. You can protect

yourself by having a VERY clear cancellation

policy. I am assuming here that you have a

decent stock of your own products, and that

you are not depending on some other company

to drop-ship the ordered items.




Go the extra mile for the unhappy customer.

Do whatever it takes to make him happy. He will

not only appreciate it, but will tell others, who may

become new customers.




====================================================================

John Soares

Go That Extra Mile For Unhappy Customers!

http://www.persuasive-web-writing-means-higher-web-sales.com/?cust_artanncint.ht\
ml

mailto:success@...?subject=cust_artanncint

====================================================================



------------------------------------------------------------------end of
article-------------------------------------------------



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

---------------------------------------------------------
YOU MAY PUBLISH THIS ARTICLE FREELY, IN WHOLE OR IN PART,
AS LONG AS THE AUTHOR CREDITS BOX AT THE BOTTOM IS KEPT
---------------------------------------------------------

A Crash Course In Website Promotion

By Chris Bate

---------------------------------------------------------

So, you have planned, designed and constructed your website. Now
what are you going to do with it? You want people to visit it.
Getting people to visit your website is your ultimate goal,
because this leads to your website's success, be it helping
people find information, raising awareness of a topic or problem
or earning you or your business money.
Getting traffic to your website is also the hardest and often
most frustrating part of building a website. Hopefully, if you
follow this short guide you will be on the right track to building
traffic to your website.

There are two big potential suppliers of traffic to your website,
search engines and other websites. This leads on to the two ways
of achieving traffic through these sources:

Search Engines

In order for people to be able to find your website through search
engines, you must first submit your website to the engines'
databases. There are many places where you can submit your website
to multiple search engines for free
with just one form, and I have listed some of these below.

It is not enough though to just submit your website to search
engines. It is no good if your website is found at number 572,382
for a relevant keyword search on a certain search engine,
because no one will find it. Your goal is to try to get your
website listed near to the top of the results for related keywords.
The websites that get the most visitors will be listed in the top 10
results.

The first thing that you can do to improve how your website ranks is
to add Meta Tags to your website. Meta Tags are a small section of
HTML code which go in the head
of your HTML document. Meta Tags provide search engines with extra
information about your website, such as a short description and a list
of relevant keywords.
So including Meta Tags in your webpages means that your website is
more likely to be found in relevant keyword searches. To create your
own Meta Tags you can use our online Meta Tag Generator. Visit
http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk/metatags.htm to create your own
Meta Tags quickly and easily.

Meta Tags are not the only way that you can increase the positioning
of your website on search engines. After you submit your website to
search engines they normally send a 'robot' to 'spider' your site.
This means that a program called a 'robot' is sent by the search
engine to read your website.
It reads what is on you website (usually the first page) and uses
this information to build a better picture of it, and positions your
website accordingly. So the information that you include on your
first page is also used to position it in keyword searches and
sometimes the first paragraph of text is used as a short description.

So, your opening page is all important. Try to include as much
relevant information about your website on the first page as possible.
I would, though, discourage you from having lists of irrelevant
words or hidden words on your page in an attempt to get a better
position. This is often interpreted in the same way as SPAM by the
search engines and your page might not get indexed at all or may even
get banned from the database.

Most of the search engines (at least the major ones) are inundated
with submissions and it can take weeks or even months to get indexed.
Also, with so many websites submitting, your website probably won't
hold its position and will drop down the results as more sites get
indexed. This is why I urge you to submit your website
to search engines regularly. But be careful, don't do it too often
otherwise your site might be banned for spamming the database. I
recommend that you submit your website to search engines no more
than once a week, probably every two weeks to a month, depending
on your position.
There are some programs out there that will report on your
website's position in search engines, but you can check yourself
with a simple search on the major engines.

Some search engines also index websites depending on their
'link popularity', in other words, how many other websites have
links to your website on their website. See below Links From Other
Websites for more information. One way of building lots of links
to your website quickly and easily is FFA Links Pages, although
the link is only very temporary. See below FFA Links Pages for
more information.

Some places where you can submit your website to multiple
search engines:

http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk/dir - Promotional Resource Directory
http://www.selfpromotion.com - Self Promotion
http://www.submitexpress.com - Submit Express
http://www.addme.com - AddMe

Links From Other Websites

The second way to get a lot of traffic to your website is through
links to your website on other people's sites. Getting your link
on other relevant websites across the Internet can build a large
amount of traffic for you.

If you get your link on websites about topics related to yours
then the visitors to that website are also going to be interested
in your website, and so this is as good as paid targeted
advertising. Most webmasters are happy to exchange links with
you because a link on your website means more traffic for them too.

So, try to find websites with a similar topic to yours and see
if the webmaster would like to exchange links with you. You can
exchange links with theinternetresource.co.uk by visiting
http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk/linkex.htm

Banner Exchanges

Banner exchanges work like this - you display banners on your
website for other people, and your own banner is displayed on
other peoples websites. A separate company takes care of the
exchange so it requires no special effort from you. Most exchanges
have a ratio, that is, for example, your banner is displayed once
for every two banners you show.

Most banner exchanges talk about how their program can boost your
website traffic to huge levels. I would be careful though; most
banner exchanges have click-through ratios of about 1%. In other
words, if your banner was shown 100 times, you would get 1
visitor. And with a ratio, it would mean that you might have to
show anywhere between 100-300 banners for one visitor.

So I would be wary of banner exchanges. Banners are often very
intrusive and can degrade your website. By all means give them
a try, but if you don't get lots of visitors through them then
I would say try other methods.

FFA Links Pages

The idea of FFA (Free For All) Links Pages is that anyone can
post a link to their website on the page and in return the owner
of the page can send a conformation e-mail to the poster, normally
promoting a website or sceme.

Good in theory - webmasters get free promotion and page owners
also get free leads. But it's not as good as it sounds. There are
now so many websites that will send your link to thousands of FFA
Links Pages that a few hours or even minutes after posting your
link, so many more have been posted that your link has been pushed
off the list. Also, with most people posting their links from
multiple posting software/websites, hardly anyone actually views
the links that are posted. So your link is not going to get seen.

But, you might think, the owners of the pages must get a lot of
promotion from all the auto-responder e-mails sent out? But the
people who post their links to thousands of pages don't want their
mail boxes filled with auto-responders promising miracles. Instead
they set-up a new e-mail account with a free provider and let it
fill up. Then they either delete the whole lot at once or just
leave it until their mail box is deleted by the provider for
being too full.

There is one good thing about FFA Links Pages though. Because some
search engines rank websites by their link popularity, having your
link on thousands of pages will help you. So, if you submit to FFA
Links Pages daily, it may help you to get a better position in the
search engines, but don't expect floods of traffic from these pages
alone.

To submit your website to the whole of FFANET visit:
http://pages.ffanet.com/links/netres.htm

Filling out FFA submission forms can be made much easier with a
small program called Gator. It will save you a lot of time and
you can download it for free from
http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk/software.htm

Mailing Lists and Ezines

Having your own mailing list can be a great way to bring repeat
traffic to your website. If people who visit your website sign
up for your mailing list then you can send them a weekly
newsletter, for example, telling them about updates to your
website or detail special deals related to your site. When your
subscribers read the newsletter and are interested in something,
they will return to your website to find out more. There are
lots of places where you can get your own free mailing list.

You can also gain traffic by advertising in mailing lists/ezines.
Some ezines allow free advertising, some you have to pay and some
allow you a free ad for joining their mailing list.

Advertising in ezines related to your website's topic can be a
great source of traffic. The people who read your ad will have
signed up to recieve that mailing and so will be interested in
the topic and will be looking to find out more or to find
resources. This means that you should get a good response from
advertising in ezines, much better than from banner exchanges.

Another way to gain traffic from ezines is to write articles
for them. Many ezines are always looking for articles to feature
in them, and if you can write one good enough and get it in the
mailing, you should gain traffic from readers wanting to find out
more about the topic you were writing on.

To subscribe to theinternetresource.co.uk mailing list and
recieve one free 30 word ad in our weekly ezine visit
http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk/joinlist.htm

Tasks

Daily Tasks

Submit your website to FFA Links Pages - for link popularity
Submit an ezine ad
Exchange links with relevant websites you come across

Weekly Tasks

Submit your website to search engines
Send out a newsletter to your mailing list
Analyse your traffic and statistics
Update your website

Monthly Tasks

Write an article for an ezine
Make sure your website is fully up to date

---------------------------------------------------------
Chris Bate is the webmaster of theinternetresource.co.uk
All the resources required for points made in this article
can be found at http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk
theinternetresource.co.uk
Find all the free resources you need to build, maintain
and promote a website, earn money from it, find MP3s,
software, earn beenz, enter competitions and more...
http://www.theinternetresource.co.uk
---------------------------------------------------------


_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.

Free to publish on your site or in your ezine as long as bylines
remain intact.  Please notify me when and where this article is
going to be published in advance so I can see it in action!

~~

12 Quick Promotion Tips
By Dan Grossman


1. Submit your site to the major search engines monthly, whether
you've made a major change or not. This way the search engines
will add you to their queue to visit. If they're backed up a few
weeks, any changes you make before that will be included when the
spiders arrive at your site.

2. Try to include links to many of your pages from the main page
of your site. Spiders will only move through your site so far,
so the more pages linked to from the first mean more search
engine listings.

3. Offer an eZine or newsletter for your site's visitors. You can
use it to promote your own website and your affiliate programs.

4. Offer bookmarking instructions on your main page, especially
if your audience isn't very experienced on the internet. Visitors
to your site may want to return to it often but might not know
how to bookmark a site.

5. Make your site "sticky" by adding a service that requires the
people visiting your site to return later to use it. You could
offer free email, daily news on the topic of your site, or a
forum.

6. Add a "refer a friend" service to your site. Let those who
enjoy your site tell their friends, family, and colleagues about
it. Word of mouth promotion is one of the most powerful.

7. Bid on listings at pay-per-click search engines. Depending on
which ones you choose, you could recieve 1000 or 10000 visitors
for just $10. Cheap, targetted traffic.

8. Run a contest on your website. Have visitors purchase a
product, subscribe to a newsletter, refer friends, or anything
else you can think of in return for an entry into the contest.

9. Give away something for free! Write an eBook or distribute
someone else's for free when a visitor buys a product,
subscribes to a newsletter, refers friends, etc.

10. Trade links with websites that would interest your visitors.
Place a link back to each site and write a polite email to the
webmaster of each site asking that they return the link.

11. Place your URL and a short description of your site in your
email signature. Every email you send should be a short promotion
for your website!

12. Actively participate in discussion boards and email lists.
Contribute consistently and build a reputation among the members
of that forum or discussion list and people will come to respect
you. Each post you make will have your signature, containing your
website URL. Give quality feedback and people will visit.


About the Author:

Over 250 hand-picked resources, articles, and tools when you
visit: http://www.websitegoodies.com - As a bonus, Dan also
publishes the free weekly "WebDevPortal" newsletter for website
owners!  Subscribe today and get articles like this every week:
mailto:subscribe@...?subject=webdevportal-subscribe

Publishing Guidelines:

This article may be published on any web site, in any e-zine, or in any e-book.
It may be distributed freely. Please
keep my resource box intact. Also, let me know if you wish to publish.

Author: John Soares

John Soares has written numerous articles on web site selling and promotion. If
you would like to read his articles, send a blank email to:

mailto:success@...?subject=articles_please


-----------------------------------------start of
article-------------------------------------------------------------------------

If You Must Try  Email Advertising, Please Read This First...


I cannot, from hard experience, recommend email advertising of any
sort. It simply has not worked well for me, and I've tried at least a
dozen different ways. Here is what I found:


1. Rented/bought email lists are old. At least half of the addresses
will be bad for one reason or another.


2. So-called "opt-in" lists are 90% sellers! They are not interested
in buying ANYTHING! I'm not sure why they put their names on
that list to begin with. They will simply email you with THEIR
sales message. What a waste of time!


3. Even if you think you will get targeted potential customers,
don't let some company do the emailing for you. You'll never
know for sure if they mailed out anything at all! Or they may
mail out a few only. You'll never know!


4. Whatever you do, DO NOT USE one of those email
harvesting software programs. I did that once and I heard
from all kinds of people who had no interest at all in my
product. I got a lot of "why did you write to me?" and
"please take me off your list" letters. Also, there is a
new product that will capture the email of any person
who visits your site. This is very sneaky, and will not
be appreciated by your site visitors.


5. Let's say you somehow send out your email
message to 1,000,000 email addresses. By the way,
with a reputable dealer, you can figure on paying at
least $500-$2500 for a "targeted" list this large.With
even a clean list, you can figure on 250,000 bad
addresses or "bounce-backs".

Now we are left with 750,000. Out of that, you will be
very lucky indeed if 7500 read your email headline. Why
only 1%? Many Internet users use industrial-strength
email filtering programs. I've seen filtering programs with
hundreds of "marketing" words.

Now out of that 7500 who actually read your headline, perhaps
2500 would open the email and read the first few sentences.
And out of that, you might get 250 persons that finish your first
paragraph. About 125  will be interested enough to read your
sales message through to the end. And out of that, you might
have 12 or so click through to your site. You might get two sales
out of it. Was that worth even $500? I don't think so.



So what are viable alternatives? There are three ways you
can go that will build you a decent mailing list. These
suggestions work for me, and should work for you too:




6. Build your own email list. This is easily done by
publishing an ezine.  Your first step here is to submit a
announcement message to appropriate newsgroups,
message boards, and bulletin boards. This annoucement
should describe what types of articles you will publish, how
often, how the ezine will be run, and when the first issue will
be sent out. When you get a positive reply, be sure to ask if it
is OK to add the person to your subscriber list.  Within a
month, you should have about 125 interested subscribers.


7. You should also write ezine articles and then submit
them to ezine article archives like ezine-z.com. The beauty
of this is that once your article is accepted, it goes to
the email box of everyone on the archive mailing list. Granted,
at least half of these are other sellers like yourself. On the
other hand, ezine owners are on the list too, hoping to find
quality articles for their newsletter. If they are interested in your
article, they will email you. This is MUCH easier than buying
a "tired" email list with disinterested prospects. And MUCH
BETTER than harvesting email addresses and then sending
your sales letter to VERY disinterested recipients.


8. And finally, when you have at least ten good useful articles
written and published, put them all in an ebook and offer
them for download on your site! This makes it very
convenient for your interested customer and puts him in
a nice buying mood. Chances are good that he will
click back to your site and buy one of your products!


One last thing. Writing ezine articles and publishing your own
ezine takes time and effort. Results for your efforts won't come
overnight. I know, since I have to tell myself "be patient" nearly
every day! Best of luck with your promotional campaign!

===================================================================
John Soares
Opt-In Email Advertising Will Get You Marginal Results At Best!
http://www.persuasive-web-writing-means-higher-web-sales.com/?emailad_aainternet\
.html
mailto:success@...?subject=emailad_aainternet
===================================================================


---------------------------------------------------------------end of
article----------------------------------------------------





[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Publishing guidelines: May be freely published in any ezine, ebook, or on any
web site as long as my signature files stays intact.

Author:     John Soares
Web Address:    http://www.persuasive-web-writing-means-higher-web-sales.com
Email:               mailto:success@...


-------------------------------------------------start of
article--------------------

How To Get Your Ezine Article Published


Writing useful articles is the most accepted way
to attract potential targeted customers to your
commercial web site. It costs you nothing but
a little time and effort!

Following these tips in order will go a long way
towards getting your article published:


1. Read the publisher's submission rules carefully.
Make sure you know:

  a. Types of articles wanted

  b. Formatting rules

  c. Article length(minimum/maximum)

Follow these rules to the letter and you will increase
your chances by a factor of two.


2. Get a copy of the newsletter before you send in
your article submission. Ask yourself:

  a. Does this ezine have their featured articles
  buried under a sea of ads?

  b. Does this newsletter seem to feature only
  well-known writers?

  c. Does this ezine seem to run only articles
  already published in other newsletters?

  d. Has this ezine published a very similar
               article to yours in the recent past?

  e. Does this newsletter feature a lot of
  off-topic articles or ads?


If your answers to any of the above are "yes", then
submitting your article to that particular newsletter will
give you borderline results at best.


3. Find the publisher's name and address your article
submission to him/her. Write: "Dear Mr. Jones" rather than
"Hi Joe". You don't know Joe, and should not be addressing
him by his first name. Also, spell the publisher's name
correctly! It only takes a few extra seconds...


4. Write "Article submission" in your email subject line.


5. Now write an introductory paragraph that tells the
newsletter owner:

  a. Where you got his name and address.

  b. What your article is about(be brief!)

  c. Why you are sending your article to him
  and how it would benefit his subscribers.

  d. Thank the publisher for his consideration.
  Ask him to pass your article on to other
  ezine publishers if he cannot use it.

  e. Include a resource box that tells the
  newsletter owner your name, title, web
  page address and email address. Some
  publishers also require your mailing address
  and telephone number.



6. Now cut and paste your article. Put some sort of
border before your headline and after your resource
box. This makes your article's start and end points
very clear.


7. Your article headline must have "stopping power"!
Most ezine owners will look only at your headline. If
the headline is not exciting or does not motivate them
to read the first paragraph, you have lost! Remember,
many newsletter publishers receive hundreds of
article submissions per day.


8. Make the ezine publisher's task easy by writing
short paragraphs and sentences. Use numbered lists
to get your points across fast. Use simple, everyday
words. The quicker the newsletter owner can read
your article, the more inclined he will be to publish it.


9. Be sure your submission is not a thinly-disguised
advertisement for your products.  Think of something
useful and unique that you would save your fellow
Internet entrepreneurs time and money!


10. Put a resource box at the end of the article. There are
various ways to do this, but most ezine owners want you
to limit it to six lines. See my resource box at the end of
this article. Note that the only link to my web site is here!


11. Take a look at my web page address in my resource box.
Notice the "/?thisEzine.html" part at the end? This is called
"keying". It makes it easy to track where your click-thrus are
coming from. You will buy paid advertising in ezines that send
many potential customers to your commercial web site.


12. Have realistic expectations. If an ezine owner says
he has 1000 subscribers, figure that only half, or about
500, will actually glance through the newsletter from top to
bottom.(Note that I said "glance", not "read"). Figure that
only 100 or so will pause and read even a great headline.
Out of that 100, perhaps 20 will read your article carefully.
These 20 are potential customers. And out of that 20,
perhaps four(4) subscribers will click through to your
commercial website. And out of that four(4) that click through,
you might get one(1) sale. I know this doesn't sound like
much, that's why you have to find which ezines give you the
most click-thrus and then ADVERTISE in those newsletters.

Keep the writing and advertising cycle going and going...



Best of luck with your newsletter article writing.


=========================================================
John Soares, Webmaster
Writing Useful Articles Attracts Targeted Visitors To Your Web Site!
http://www.persuasive-web-writing-means-higher-web-sales.com/?ea_artanncintnt.ht\
ml
mailto:success@...?subject=ea_articleannounceinternet
=========================================================


---------------------------------------------------------end of
article-------------------------------------



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Publishing guideline:

May publish and freely distribute in any ezine or web site, as long as my sig
file box is kept intact. Please let me know if you intend to publish.

Author: John Soares


----------------------------------beginning of
article------------------------------

How To Put Your Targeted Customer In A Buying Mood


1. Know your targeted customer. You must have an intimate
knowledge of his wants and needs. Ask yourself:

     a. "How does my product(s) benefit my targeted market?"

     b. "Why should my targeted customers buy from me?"

     c. "How will I fill my targeted customer's wants and needs?"

    Once you have answered these questions, start writing your
web copy. When you think you are finished, get an unbiased
person(s) to read it and give you constructive criticism. When
you think you have excellent web copy, move on to # 2.


2. Now take a closer look at your sales copy. It MUST make
your targeted customer think:

         a. "Hmmm..I really need this Product X" AND

         b. "Gee, I wish I'd found this Product X six months ago".

Does it make you think those thoughts? If you have any doubts,
get a few more unbiased persons(not the same ones!) to read your
web copy. Ask them what thoughts come to mind as they read it.
Don't stop rewriting until you hear your reviewers echo "a" and "b" above.

Do this properly and you can be sure that your targeted customers will
have these positive thoughts too once they read your web copy.

Now let's move on to # 3.



3. Your potential customer is now in a receptive or buying mood. This
is exactly what you want! Your customer will think you are giving him
valuable information, as opposed to a sales pitch. Work hard to keep
that positive impression. Now that your potential customer is in a
buying mood...


4. It's decision time! Your customer MUST feel that he is making up
his own mind. He will then justify his decision based on his wants and
needs. Once your targeted customer has completed this step, your
chances are excellent that he will place an order. Now for the most
important thing...


5. Explicitly ask your customer to order your product. Make it VERY
easy for him to do so. If you sell your own products, be sure you can
handle credit cards, or at least online checks. The less time your new
customer spends in the ordering process, the less time he has to
change his mind!


6. Offer further information that your targeted customer can read online.
He may not be ready to order your product today, but he may order after
he reads your more detailed sales material. Remember, your potential
customer may just need a little more convincing for him to become a
buying customer!


Best of luck and many sales to you!

==============================================

John Soares
Persuasive Web Writing Makes The Web Sale!
http://www.persuasive-web-writing-means-higher-web-sales.com/article_anninternet\
.html
mailto:moose@...?subject=article_anninternet_questions

==============================================


-------------------------------------------------------------------end of
article--------------



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Publishing Guidelines:

This article may be freely published in your newsletter,
on your website, or in your eBook, so long as the copyright
notice and the resource box are left intact.

Additional Comments:

Please let me know if you use this article by sending me email
to mailto:alwynbotha@...


Article:

Top 7 characteristics of much sought-after website information
content

Lots - the larger the volume of (mostly free) content you have
        available the better chance you have that potential
        customers will bookmark your website and visit your
        website again.

Unique - the 'more unique' your content the better chance you
          have that people will bookmark your website and visit
          it again - they can get your unique content ONLY from
          you.

Free - the larger the volume of free content you have
        available, the better your potential customers can
        clearly see your ability to meet their needs.

Relevant - the more relevant your content is to a specific
            customer, the better the chance they will do
            business with you.

Practical - the more practically useful your contents is, the
             better the chance potential customers will do
             business with you. They need practical (how to)
             advice they can act on.

Quality - the higher the quality of your free content, the
           more you stand out from the competition. Free
           quality content is scarce.

Needs - the better you understand and address potential
         customers' specific needs the better ... for them
         and therefore potentially for you too ... ;)

When these characteristics are used in combination their
powerful effects are multiplied, for example:

Websites that want to stand out from the crowd should provide
lots of unique, free (but valueable), relevant, practical
(how to), quality content focussed on the customers'needs.

Warning ! - there is no correlation between the length of an
article and its potential value to you and your business
- especially when considering this article.

Think about it ... then ... act on it ...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

This articles was written by Alwyn Botha, the founder of
http://www.leveragedsuccess.com

Visit http://www.leveragedsuccess.com for more articles and
other resources to help you leverage the Internet for your
financial success.

To subscribe to the newsletter: Leveraged Internet Success,
send email to mailto:leveragesuccess-subscribe@egroups.com

Please feel free to reprint this article in your
e-zine or on your web site. Please include
the resource box at the end.
----

10 Hot Ways To Sell Your Products Like Crazy!

by Larry Dotson

1. Turn your ad copy into a story or article. Your
visitors won't be as hesitant to read your ad and
will become more interested in your product.


2. Give visitors a freebie for filling out your online
survey or they usually won't. Surveys will give your
business valuable intelligence for your business


3. Enhance the power of your ad copy benefits by
using attention getting words, highlighting keywords,
using color, bolding key phrases, underlining, etc.


4. Give your visitors tons of choices so they don't
get the feeling of being controlled. Offer them a
variety of ways to order, contact you, navigate, etc.


5. Put yourself in your visitors shoes. Design your
site for them, not for yourself. Create your product
around your visitors not because you would buy it.


6. Get free advice from successful online business
owners. Participate in business chat rooms and
message boards to chat with them.


7. Use your free bonuses to create an urgency for
your visitors to buy. Only offer them for a limited
time with your main product.


8. Offer your customers extra add-on products at
the point of purchase. For example, if they are
buying an electronic toy try to sell batteries with it.


9. Make your visitors feel good about themselves
by giving them compliments. If they feel good they
will also feel good about buying from your web site.


10. Add multiple profits to your web site. If you're
selling business books try to sell business services,
courses and supplies too.
----
Over 40,000 Free eBooks & Web Books when you
visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com As a bonus, Bob
Osgoodby publishes the free weekly "Your Business"
Newsletter - visit his web site to subscribe and place
a FREE Ad! http://adv-marketing.com/business

"Don't Think about what you thought"

I thought that I was doing the right thing and making the right choices for
my family when I accepted the new job.  I was leaving behind familiar people
and surroundings to go into the unkown.  It was a scary feeling but I had
goals and aspirations that were not being accomplished where I was.

This new job presented and promised to be goal-directed and growth oriented.
Well, so I thought.  I was excited to get started but I had a week to think
about it.  The more I thought, the more I got an unsettling feeling but I
concluded that it was just a fear of the unknown.

September 5th rolled around, my first day on the job.  I am sure that you
can identify with me that the first day is one of the most difficult days on
a new job.  Adjustments to be made, new personalities to get acquainted with
and new task to accomplish.

I was lucky that one of the employees, Scott, was quite an outgoing guy who
made me feel at home from the very start and who became my friend right
away.  I became his sounding board and he made me laugh.  He had been with
the company for six years and I learned quite a few things from him, one of
which, is that the company needed improvement and lots of it.

One thing that was quite disconcerting when I accepted the position was that
I was moving from a larger, more professional company to a smaller, more
informal company, but I didn't want to discriminate.

During the interview, I felt there was a good rapport with myself and the
two sisters who interviewed me.  They wanted to give me the opportunity to
improve the productivity of the company.  That first day on the job,
however, those two sisters had a completely different persona than the same
two women who interviewed me that day.  It was like night and day.

That was when I had a gut feeling that I was in for something but I didn't
know exactly what it was.  It took me two weeks to find out. Over the course
of two weeks, their unprofessional attitude became very apparent.  I will
not go into the details.

I tried so hard to please them and to do my work as best as I knew how, to
prove to them they had made the right choice.

Part of my agreement was that I would be given three months and then after a
performance evaluation that I would get an increase in salary.  That was one
of the incentives that made me work even harder.

No matter how hard I tried, though, it did not seem to be enough.

Since it was a small Internet compnay, I used my knowledge and expertise to
make great suggestions on improving the productivity of the company.  Some
of the suggestions that I made and actually started doing were:

. Write and submit articles and press releases
. Participate in targeted discussion forums and leaving   the company's
signature file
. Make joint venture proposals with selected competitors
. Changing, editing and proofreading their Web Content
. Repositioning the business to increase the selling      power of the
services that so many other businesses     are offering and giving away for
free.
. Exchange links with some of their top competitors
. Give away tangible free gifts to visitors to the        website.
. Create a message board or discussion forum for their    members and
visitors.
. Find 5 good ezines to advertise in.
. Start their own affiliate program or get involved with   2 or 3 good
affiliate prograsm that compliment their    business.
. Start their own newsletter that would provide     additional resources and
services to their members
. Research the market to find out the continuing needs    of individuals in
their target market..
. Use webtrends software program to find out where     visitors to the site
were coming from so we could do    targeted advertising.

These were only a few suggestions and I felt that I had even more to bring
to the company.  UNTIL that day in October.  It was October 7th - one month
into the job, when I was called into their office and from the look on their
faces I knew it wasn't going to be good.

I was told that even though I was given a three month probationary period,
they felt that after a month, I was not the right person for the job.  I was
given two choices: either sign a letter of resignation or a letter of
termination.  I was asked if I had any questions.  I had many but I was too
shaken to find the words.  I remember mumbling something and then I quickly
signed the resignation letter and made my exit.

I wanted to run away as far as I could but I got my bearings and went to my
desk, collected all my belongings and exited with pride.

I knew that I had done my best but my aggressiveness was a bit intimidating
for them.  I was upset at first but I was not in the failing business - I
refused to be.

I consoled myself by thinking positively.  How others see me does not
determine who I am and with the knowledge and motivation that I had, it was
time to start my own business.  I was tired of thinking about what I
thought.  I knew now that I needed to put my thoughts and desires into
action.  I also knew that there were many companies that would appreciate my
aggressiveness toward business and that is when "Startbiz" was born.  It
didn't happen overnight but it took that experience to get me moving towards
a goal that seemed farther away.  I thank those two women today for giving
me the "boot" to make my dream a reality.


--------------------------------------------------------
This article is written by Cheryline Lawson, webmaster of Startbiz at
http://startbiz.hypermart.net and Internet Home Employment at
http://internet-home-employment.net, newsletter publisher of Homebiz4U and
Freejobs4U.  To subscribe to the newsletters and receive 6 free gifts, you
may send a blank email to homebiz4u-subscribe@... and
freejobs4u-subscribe@....  This article can be used in its entirety
without the written permission of the author as long as the resource box
stays intact.

12 FREE INTERNET TIPS!


  12 important tips for announcing
your site the right way!

By, Joe Brennan
        Internet Direct


Tip #1

HAVE TEXT ON YOUR HOME PAGE

Search engines catalog the text read from the various
home pages the engines visit. If a page lacks descriptive text,
then there is little chance that page will come up in the results
of a search engine query. It's not enough for that text to be in
graphics.
It must be HTML text. Some search engines will catalog ALT text
and
text in comment and meta tags. To be safe, a straight HTML
description is recommended.
For more see Consulting.

Tip #2

PICK MEANINGFUL KEYWORDS

Focus on the two or three keywords that you think are most
crucial
to your site, then ensure those words are both in your title and
mentioned early on your web page. Generally, most people will
already have those words present on their pages but may not also
have them in page titles.

Tip #3

MORE KEYWORDS

Keep in mind that the keywords you consider crucial may not be
exactly what users enter. The lack of success with some search
engines does not mean that the site isn't being found. Many
people
find the site by entering more words. For example, if you had a
web
site centered on "Orange County", others might go to a search
engine and enter words such as "Orange County California" or
"Orange County Web." The addition of just one extra word can
suddenly
make a site appear more relevant, and it can be impossible to
anticipate
what that word will be. The best bet is to focus on your chosen
keywords
but to also have a complete description. These keywords should be
in
the text of your site and in the Meta tags. You can also use
these same
keywords when you submit your own site to search engines.

Tip #4

HAVE LINKS TO INSIDE PAGES

If there are no links to inside pages from the home page, it
seems
that some search engines will not fully catalog a site.
Unfortunately,
the most descriptive, relevant pages that are often inside pages
rather than the home page. You can also try sending search
engines
directly to your lower levels, if they don't ordinarily go there.
.
Tip #5

THE META TAG

Meta tags will help you control your site's description in
engines
that support them. They will NOT guarantee that your site appears
first. Adding some meta description code is not a magic bullet
that
cures your site of dismal rankings, but you should still do it.

O.K.. But what is a meta tag?

A meta tag gives a spider specific information, such as keywords
or site summaries, about a site. In Web lingo, meta tags are
defined
as "information about information."

These tags are part of the HTML code. They stay behind the
scenes --
the end user never sees them. A Web author may surround
sentences,
even whole paragraphs, with these tags. Certain spiders then read
the information in the tags as a way to help them index the site.

Can you give me an example?

Here are two common examples of Meta tags that you would put in
the header of your HTML document:

<META NAME="description" CONTENT="Automotive Web USA is
the Automotive Industries Internet Publishing Service. Use AWUSA
to find out who's who in the Automotive Industry! See how easy
and
lucrative it is to advertise your auto products and services on
the
Information Superhighway.">

<META NAME="keywords" CONTENT= autos, cars, for, sale,
services, web hosting, web design, classifieds, dealerships,
manufacturers.">

Tip #6

SUBMIT TO THE "BIG 5"

After you have done all the right things with text, keywords,
Meta tags,
etc. submit yourself to the following search engines. 95% of all
links
come from these locations:

1- Lycos:
    http://www.lycos.com/addasite.html

2- Webcrawler:
    http://www.webcrawler.com/info/add_url

3- Infoseek:
    http://www.infoseek.com/AddUrl?pg=DCaddurl.html

4- Altavista:
    http://www.altavista.com/av/content/addurl.htm

5- Hotbot:
    http://hotbot.com/addurl.asp

6- Excite: (Aol Net Find)
    http://www.excite.com/info/add_url

7- Northernlights:
    http://www.northernlight.com/docs/register.htm

8- Yahoo:
    http://www.yahoo.com/docs/info/include.html


Tip #7

SWAP LINKS

Swap links with other sites! First place a number of related
links on
your site, and then contact those sites asking for a reciprocal
link.
You'd be surprised how many people are willing to do this. If
they're
really cooperative ask if you can include a graphic or banner
with the
link! Better yet have a page on your site exclusively for this
purpose,
call it "Hot Links".

Tip #8

THE LINK EXCHANGE

If you're really adventurous, join the "Link Exchange", a free
banner
exchange program linking sites all over the world. They have some
quirky rules, and it can take a lot of energy, but the results
are worth it!
Simply visit (write this down) www.linkexchange.com

Tip #9

BE PERSISTENT

Once you are in an engine, check your site at least once a week.
Strange things happen. Pages disappear from catalogs. Links go
screwy.
Watch for trouble, and resubmit if you spot it.


Tip #10

RE-SUBMIT REGULARLY

Many engines are now visiting sites on a schedule developed from
site changes. The engines have grown smart enough to realize some
sites only change content once or twice a year, so they don't
visit regularly.
Resubmitting every month or two will ensure that your site's
content is
kept current. Join the ASR Total Web Services family right now
and
automatically be re-submitted every 60 days. Find out more here.

Tip #11

HAVE PATIENCE

Some search engines take weeks or months before they update
their catalogs. They may be "crawling" each night, but those new
findings aren't available to the public until the catalogs are
updated.
For example, in mid-April 1996, WebCrawler's catalog only listed
finds through Feb. 1996. The same seemed true for Alta Vista. On
the other hand, Excite's catalog consistently reflected changes
soon
after they were made, an indication that the catalog is
constantly
updated. However, recent reports reflect that they too are
slowing
down considerably due to the massive volume of submissions.

Tip #12

DON'T SPAM OR TRY TO "BEAT" THE SYSTEM
THROUGH ABUSE.

For one thing, spamming doesn't seem to work with every search
engine. Ethically, the content of most web pages ought to be
enough
for search engines to determine relevancy without Webmasters
having to resort to repeating keywords for no reason other than
to
try and "beat" other web pages. The stakes will simply keep
rising,
and users will also begin to hate sites that undertake these
measures.
Efforts would be better spent on networking, link exchanges and
alternative forms of publicity.

Need your Questions answered?
Go To: http://www.asrtotalwebservices.com/consulting.htm

*Article may be used freely as long as the entire article
appears along with this sig file.


Thank You,
Joe Brennan
Internet Direct

**
"Your Internet Service Station!".... ASR Total Web Services!
Internet Advertising, Website Design, Domain Name
Registration, Hosting, Search Engine Submission, consulting,
logo design, Business Opportunities, free tips, and more!
http://www.asrtotalwebservices.com


------------------------------------------------

Article Title:-   Internet Marketing - One Giant Leap for Mankind
Author:-   Paul White
E.mail:- mailto:webmaster@...
URL:-  http://www.profitmountain.com
Publishing comments:- May be published freely with bylines.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

One Giant Leap for Mankind

By Paul White

Those Oldies amongst us who can actually remember Neil Armstrong
walking on the Moon never think of it as just history. We were
there. It was live, and we were all part of it.

Practically everyone on earth who could, was huddled around a TV
set watching the shaky black and white pictures in awe.

It was something that united the whole world like nothing before.
First stop the moon,then onwards to the stars!  They talked about
tourist trips to the moon within 5 years. Hotels on Mars within
10 years, and a passenger cruiser to Jupiter by 1999!

But harsh economic and scientific realities meant a rapid slow
down in our race to the stars, the space program was downgraded,
and dreams of space travel for everyone were pushed aside, and
all but forgotten. But then something else came along, even
bigger than the moon landing in the history of the World - The
Internet.

Now there really was no limit to what man or womankind could
achieve.

With the internet, you could make your own personal journey to
the stars!  Untold wealth for everyone we were told, just pick up
your free site, and wait for the money to roll in. Not just to
the stars, but to heaven itself!

At least that's what we were all led to believe just a couple of
years ago, when Amazon introduced the first affiliate sites.
But sadly, just like the little boy playing with his space toys,
excitement, and expectation have given way to frustration and
disappointment, and a general feeling that it just isn't possible
for normal people to go to 'infinity and beyond!'

So is it time to take off your play spacesuit and give up? Is it
time to shrug your shoulders and resign yourself to the fact that
yet another of your dreams has been jettisoned out of orbit?

NO! In fact the space race has only just begun!

Even though your experience with the internet may be a
disappointment so far, just stop and think. Can you imagine what
disasters would have happened in the early Apollo missions if the
astronauts had not been such highly trained professionals with
the best possible equipment and resources.

Why should the internet be any different?

The journey to the stars is not just for the elite few. It is for
everyone who chooses to travel. But you must have the right
resources. You must have the knowledge, expertise and equipment
necessary to survive. Quite simply, your business will die
without it, just like an astronaut without life support.

For example, did you know:-

*You must have your own Website. It should be professionally
designed with links to several affiliate/associate sites. A free
affiliate/associate site is not enough on it's own.

* You also need to have your own domain name, not a free site
name with a really long URL that no one will want to click on.

* You need to read everything you possibly can to learn how other
people have done it. I now have a collection of dozens and
dozens of Free e-books which I give away on my site, which
contain all of the knowledge you will need.

*You can get thousands of people to your website by offering
freebies and other things. Just spend a few hours surfing all the
freestuff sites for things you can give away on your own site.

* You must have a constant source of traffic going to your
website. Only a tiny fraction of people visiting your site will
buy anything, so you need to get thousands to visit. Once you
understand and accept this, and know how to get them, then you
are on your way!

*You will never make any money by only advertising on free sites,
even with submission software. Let people place an ad free on
your site. You will get far more response than placing your own
ad on someone else's free site.

*Once you start to become successful, then you can become even
more so, by writing your own articles and submitting them to some
of the thousands of e-zines and getting free publicity.

* Definitely the best way of doing business is to have your own
newsletter to communicate with your customers to build up a
relationship with them. For this you need a listserver. This is
software which enables you to communicate with thousands of
people at once.

I used to be like one of those poor monkeys in the early space
flights, being led blindly into oblivion by their masters.
Believing all the hype about instant riches, and not being able
to do anything about it. Luckily I realised before too late, that
instant riches is just fantasy. But with an investment of time to
learn what to do, and an investment of money to get the right
tools, anyone can be in control of their own flight to the stars!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul White webmaster of:-  http://www.profitmountain.com  is a
former teacher who now dedicates his time to helping
ordinary men and women to recapture their dreams and make money
online. Feel free to e-mail regarding any online questions you
may have:- webmaster@...
Subscribe to profit mountains money making newsletter, and get
free advertising for a year, and tons of other things!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Article Title: 10 Practical Principles for Leveraged eBook Success

Author: Alwyn Botha


Contact Author: alwynbotha@...


Publishing Guidelines: May be freely published w/bylines


Web Address: http://www.leveragedsuccess.com


Additional Comments:


Article:

(Leveraged eBook Success(tm) = to get maximum, exponential,
synergistic financial benefits from your eBooks.)

This article explains 10 powerful principles that enable you to
get maximum, exponential financial success for your eBook/s:

- Integration - combine one-topic eBooks to provide more
   comprehensive, customer-focussed eBook solutions.

   eBook authors can combine their (focussed, one-topic) eBooks
   with eBooks of others into a set of eBooks that target a
   customer's total needs.

- Vision - eBook authors should understand the power of all
   Internet functionalities, especially when used in powerful
   combinations.

   Your eBook should focus on Internet functionalities that will
   help potential customers to get the best profits from their
   website. The better your visionary understanding of how all
   Internet functionalities work, and can be combined to help
   customers, the better you are equipped to write eBooks that
   focus on these topics.

- Align - align your work with those of other topical area
   experts

   Your can align your focussed eBook/s with eBooks of others into
   sets of eBooks that target customer needs. The whole set of
   ebooks make up a complete solution, as seen from the customers'
   view.

- Context - understand your eBook topic within its appropriate
   context.

   You should understand that your eBook might only focus (very
   well) on one particular topic. You should understand your
   topic within the context of the overall solution that your
   customers want. Team up with other topical area experts to
   provide a total solution.

- Benefits - customers are only interested in the benefits of
   your eBooks for them.

   eBooks should be written only to help customers, not to focus
   on you - the author, your company, etc.

- Information Architecture - you should have an understanding of
   how different eBooks are interrelated and can be linked into
   ONE, overall information architecture. This is used to
   determine where the leverage points are within this
   information required for Internet success. You want to be AT
   THE CENTER of these powerful, profitable leverage points.

   eBook authors writing about the following, critically
   important topics understand how their ebook topics work
   together to provide the one, total-solution ebook focussed on
   their potential customer needs:

   - website promotion,
   - search engine submission,
   - website design,
   - Internet strategies.

   These topics are critically important to businesses that want
   to make a success on the Internet, and therefore potential
   customers are very interested in free ebooks that deal with
   these topics.

- Position - focus your eBook on a topic from which you can gain
   maximum advantage, for example: by being the central topic of
   a critical, Internet-wide problem/solution.

   The topics mentioned above are the topics you should position
   yourself as an expert at.

- Team - focus your eBook on your area of expertise. Let other
   eBooks complement your expertise.

   Focus on your topic of expertise. Team up with other eBook
   authors to provide a set of eBooks that provide a total
   solution from the customer's viewpoint.

- Free - use the power of free for potential customers (lead)
   generation.

   You already know, understand and apply this principle very
   well by making your eBooks available for free in the
   following ways:

   -  on as many websites as possible,
   -  to anyone that wants to include their ebooks as freebies,
   -  by listing their ebooks in as many ebook directories as
      possible,
   -  by having more than one free ebook,
   -  by including links to other free ebooks in your ebooks,
   -  announce your ebooks in appropriate, relevant newsletters,
   -  giving ebooks away for free when subscribers subscribe to
      your newsletter,
   -  mentioning your ebooks in:
      -  your signatures,
      -  your newsletters,
      - discussion forums.

- Leverage - You can have highly leveraged success on the
   Internet by thoroughly understanding and coherently applying
   all principles listed here in the most leveraged, integrated
   ways possible, as explained in the summary below.

Summary

Each practical implication mentioned in this article can be acted
on in isolation to get some benefits from.

Much more leveraged benefits can be obtained by combining,
aligning and integrating these suggestions in the appropriate
context in the most visionary ways, by writing free ebooks in
teams that focus on providing benefits to your potential
customers.

That sentence might sound powerful, and it is ... ;)

That might sound like some work is required, and there is ... :(

Here are some suggestions on how you can get maximum financial
benefit for your eBooks from this article:

- print this article,
- underline words, phrases and ideas you consider important,
- compile a to do lists for each of these words, phrases and
   ideas,
- reread your printed article (full of your notes and scribbles)
   a number of times over the next few days.
- think about how all these (and your) ideas can be implemented
   by combining the ideas for better leveraged (exponential)
   effects,
- implement all these ideas,
- revisit your printed article once a month to apply insights
   you gained during the previous month's practical actions.

  - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
This article was written by Alwyn Botha, the founder of
http://www.leveragedsuccess.com

Visit http://www.leveragedsuccess.com for more articles and
other resources to help you leverage the Internet for your
financial success.

To subscribe to the newsletter: Leveraged Internet Success,
send email to mailto:leveragesuccess-subscribe@egroups.com

Please feel free to reprint this article in your
e-zine or on your web site. Please include
the resource box at the end.
----

10 Magic-Like Ways To Multiply Your Orders!

by Larry Dotson

1. Use reward programs to keep people revisiting
your web site and buying your products. You could
reward gifts or discounts for revisiting or buying.


2. Publish e-zines for other web sites to increase
your traffic. You could do it at no charge and in
return just ask for a sponsor ad in each issue.


3. Trade endorsement ads with other e-zines. They
pull more hits and sales than just trading classified
ads because it gives your ad instant credibility.


4. Test your ad copy before you start taking orders.
Tell your visitors to e-mail you if they want to be
notified when you launch a new product.


5. Get your visitors excited about your product by
letting them know how excited you are about it. Tell
them why you're excited and use exclamation points.


6. Use incentives to gain referrals if you don't have
an affiliate program. Tell people when they refer
customers you will award them with free products.


7. Tell your visitors the reason why you're having a
sale so they don't think your products are cheap. It
could be a holiday/seasonal sale or clearance sale.


8. Stay away from overloading your web site with
high tech gadgets. They can create a slow loading
web page and distract people away from your offer.


9. Cut out words, phrases, and paragraphs in your
ad copy that aren't selling or supporting your product.
This will stop people from getting bored with your ad.


10. Keep people at your web site as long as possible.
Allow them to download free ebooks, sign-up for
contests, use free online services, etc.
----
Over 40,000 Free eBooks & Web Books when you
visit: http://www.ldpublishing.com As a bonus, Bob
Osgoodby publishes the free weekly "Your Business"
Newsletter - visit his web site to subscribe and place
a FREE Ad! http://adv-marketing.com/business

Article Title:  Are You Driving Your Customers to Your Competitors?
Autoresponder:  mailto:customers@...
Author:  Angela Wu
Contact Email:  webmaster@...
Website:  http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/
Publishing Guidelines:  May be freely published with resource box.
Comments:  Email notification of your intent to publish would be
appreciated.


======[ ARTICLE ]======

Are You Driving Your Customers to Your Competitors?
(c) Copyright 1999-2000, BuildYourHomeBiz.com
---------------------------------------------------------------

It makes my teeth ache when I am ignored.

How many times have you emailed a business and never
received a reply?

My guess is:  plenty.  I can sympathize with you; in this
day and age of lightning-quick email, it is beyond
frustrating to send out a legitimately interested email to
someone about their website or product ... and not even
receive the courtesy of a reply.

That, to me, is unforgivable.

And to YOU, the small business person, it should be as
well.  It is well known that poor customer service leads
to poor sales - perhaps not at first, but bad service WILL
eventually get around by word of mouth!

Someone who emails you is likely very interested in some
aspect of your business.  A lack of response is going
to cause her to go elsewhere - more precisely, it will
drive her straight to your competitors!  Here are a few
tips on handling email inquiries:


> Try to answer emails within 48 hours - 24 is even better.

   Set aside time each day to answer your email.  I do it
   three times a day - first thing in the morning, mid-
   afternoon, and just before bed.  That way I can ensure
   everyone gets a timely response.


> Learn to effectively use email filters.

   You can set up filters to automatically file your email
   into separate folders, as well as to discard spam.  For
   example ... my own filters automatically slot my email
   into folders called 'Sales', 'Ezines', 'Visitor Feedback',
   'Inquiries', and others ... This saves me from wasting
   time sorting it all out myself.  I know I can ignore the
   'Sales' and 'Ezines' folder for the time being.  The
   email in the other two folders get answered promptly.


> Be courteous and professional.

   We all have 'off' days when we just don't feel like
   taking the time or making the effort to properly answer
   an inquiry.  And let's face it:  we ALL get questions
   that are plainly answered right on our website.  If
   you've got that itchy, hot, gotta-get-away-from-here
   feeling, then take a break and relax.  Tackle your email
   after you're feeling better.


> If you can't answer your email promptly, let people know.

   Whatever your reason, announce your new schedule.  Make
   use of autoresponders, post it on your website or in your
   newsletter ... just make sure people know when they can
   expect to hear back from you.


> Keep a stash of 'standard' replies.

   Some questions are asked often.  Instead of typing in the
   same thing over and over again, keep a standard reply that
   you can cut and paste into your response ... then tailor
   it to specifically address your visitor's inquiry.


> If you can't do it yourself, hire someone.

   If you really hate answering email or you simply can't
   keep up, hire someone to do it for you.  Choose someone
   that's friendly, knowledgeable about your business, prompt
   ... and who has a good grasp of English.  I don't know how
   many times I've received an incomprehensible response to
   an inquiry!  Choose carefully; the person you hire will
   be representing your business.


Ignore your customers, and lose them to your competitors.
Treat them well and you'll build customer loyalty and
improve your bottom line!

-----

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela has been fortunate enough to be able to quit
her job to work full-time from home.  Her website
offers articles, tutorials, and tips for aspiring
online entrepreneurs ... plus subscribe to her FREE
newsletter, The Netrepreneur's Notebook, by emailing
mailto:buildyourhomebiz-subscribe@...
or visit http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/ .

Title:- Internet Marketing- Creation and Evolution
Author Paul White
May be published freely with bylines
Article Below:-
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Internet Marketing - Creation and Evolution
By Paul White

And in the beginning came the creation of the internet, the
entrepreneurs paradise on earth!

And with it came the Billboards and Discussion groups, and
newsgroups then FREE classified and FREE links sites and
FREE FFA software, and bulk E-mail programs to send your
sales message to 10 billion eager credit card holders!

And when Bill Gates said:- 'you simply must have a website', how
could the people ignore the word? Both big and small, every
business had to have one, because the word had been spoken.

All of their sales projections were multiplied a thousand fold in
anticipation of the new customers around the world, who would
be sure to buy from them online, rather than at their local
store. They knew it would happen because the creator had
said so.

And then Amazon created a FREE self replicating affiliate website
in its own image to show the true way to go. And the word was
that everyone on earth could now start up in business, and it was
their destiny that they should all become millionaires, for FREE!

How could life get any better? Pure heaven! Paradise created here
on Earth for all of mankind! ...Mmm...What happened?

Like everything else the internet evolved. From it's humble
military origins, used by a few elite 'cybernerds', it became
the multimedia worldwide phenomenon we know today,
and it still has a long way to go before it finishes its
evolutionary journey. But is was never meant as an
entrepreneurs paradise, whatever people wanted to believe.

Yes the faith and belief are still there, and rightly so, but the
realities of evolution have changed everyone's perception
of reality.

All of the small and large businesses have realised that just
having a website does not mean that people will visit them,
or buy anything.

And just like the creation of the universe, the internet is now
going through it's own big bang, but in reverse.
The internet is imploding, getting smaller, as the companies
who believed that the internet was created for them,
and that new customers would be sent to their site by divine
intervention are folding.

The internet was not created for business. The internet was not
created as a way of making everyone on earth with a website rich.

But the internet has evolved into the most amazing marketing tool
ever invented in the history of the world!

But like any tool, you have to learn how to use it.

Just having a website will not make you money. You need to
promote it just like any other business.

A search engine was not created to send people to your website.
It is used by people who are interested in something, which may
be the same thing you offer, but unless you are lucky enough to
be in the top 20 of a search engine, no one will find you.
Which means you have to promote your site in other ways.

(Incidentally, search engines change their criteria so often
nowadays, that it has now evolved to the point where luck is just
as important as scientific analysis in getting a good position!)

So sites like GoTo.com have come into being where you can choose
your position on the search engine by bidding on key words.

Placing your ad in a FREE classified or FREE link site, may have
been worthwhile at the beginning of creation, but they have now
evolved to the point where they are only useful to the actual
owner of the classified/link site. Having a FREE classified
section on your website is a way of getting people to visit.
You can also keep in contact with them by sending them an
e-mail when their ad expires.

And what of bulk emailers? SPAM has evolved into a socially
unacceptable practise, and spammers are realising that there
are far more effective ways of marketing and making money
without offending anyone.

People are also realising that their FREE affiliate site that
thousands of other people have got, will not turn them into
millionaires.

However a way of marketing has evolved which does work, where you
have lots of different programs and promote them all at once by
having them all featured on your own individual website,
and drive traffic to it.

A vast amount of ezines has also now evolved. You can place your
ad in targeted ezines to thousands of customers at a very
reasonable price.

Or even better, start your own ezine or newsletter. You can get
thousands of people to subscribe by offering things on your site
like FREE Ebooks and Software.

Using a listserver, you can communicate with all of them at
virtually no cost to yourself, and as all of the people have
subscribed, they want to hear from you, and see your latest
offer.

Even if, like most people you used to believe in the creation
theory. The realities of evolution are much better as far as
your bottom line is concerned, since there is far less
competition!

The internet was not created to make everybody on earth rich, but
is has evolved so that anyone who invests in the tools and works
hard to learn how to use them, will be successful!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Paul White is a former teacher who now helps people around
the world to become wealthy online. Visit his popular site:-
http://www.profitmountain.com    Subscribe to the newsletter
and receive FREE advertising for a whole year as well as tons
of FREE E-books and FREE Software. Any questions on
this article or any other related topics please send to:
mailto:webmaster@...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Publishing Guidelines:
     The article below may be freely published in your newsletter,
on your website, or in your eBook, so long as the copyright
notice and the resource box are left intact.

======[ Article ]======

Save Time, Make More Money:  Automating Your Sales
(c) Copyright 1999-2000, BuildYourHomeBiz.com
-------------------------------------------------------------

It's going to be another long day.

Your heart sinks as you stare at the dozens of emails
sitting in your mailbox, awaiting your response.  Most of
them are asking for approximately the same information, yet
you have to answer them all manually.  You want to provide
excellent customer service - which means no bulk email -
and so you also need to respond within the same day.

But the very thought of wading through these emails makes
your head throb.

As every online business person knows, answering emails
like the above can be somewhat tedious.  Heck, sometimes
it's downright agonizing!

This is where autoresponders can help.

Autoresponders are simply email addresses that
automatically answer requests with a message that you
create.

For example, if you had a website about pets, you could
stick an autoresponder on your site saying, "Top 10
Considerations Before Choosing Your Pet" and ask for your
visitor's email address so that you can mail them the
information.

Your autoresponder would automatically answer the email
with the message you previously created - and without any
additional effort from you!  Not only that, but your
visitor also gets the information he or she wants right
away - no waiting for you to answer your email.

Autoresponders also have the potential of generating more
interest in your message.  Put up an autoresponder on your
website, add a catchy headline, and you'll attract more
requests for information than you otherwise would have.

That said, choosing the right autoresponder can make a huge
difference.  Look for the following features:


___NO SIZE LIMIT

There's nothing worse than coming up with a great sales
letter, only to have to edit it down.


___QUICK RESPONSE

Your autoresponder should reply to a request within a few
minutes.  Careful with this one; many autoresponders *claim*
to answer emails within minutes, but few actually do.


___INSTANT ACCESS TO YOUR MESSAGE

You should be able to change your autoresponder message any
time, and have it take effect immediately.


___NO CHARGE FOR CHANGES TO YOUR MESSAGE

Success on the Internet depends in large part on
experimentation, testing, testing, and more testing.  That
means you'll be continuously trying to improve your
autoresponder message; you shouldn't have to pay for it.


___ABILITY TO SEND UNLIMITED FOLLOW-UP MESSAGES

Ideally, you want an autoresponder that will let you send
follow-up messages to your prospects.  It usually takes 7
or more exposures to a message before you can close a sale.
For example, your main message is sent out immediately.
Three days later, a follow-up message could be mailed out
automatically, and two days after that a third message
could be mailed out.


___NO LIMIT ON THE NUMBER OF REQUESTS

If someone requests a message from your autoresponder, then
they should receive it.  Period.


___REQUEST SUMMARY

You should be able to view every request sent to your
autoresponder, including the date of each request.  This
way you can place your autoresponder in various spots on
your website, or promote your autoresponder using different
methods and immediately know how well each is working.


___ABILITY FOR PEOPLE TO "OPT-OUT"

*Every* autoresponder you use should give the recipient the
option of removing himself or herself from your mailing
list.  If you don't provide for this, you could very well
be accused of spamming and ending up with a whole lot of
trouble!

Your autoresponder should handle this automatically for you
- the recipient of your mailing should be able to send an
email to a specified address and your autoresponder
immediately removes their address from your mailing list.


___NO SPECIAL SUBJECT REQUIRED

When someone sends an email to your autoresponder, whether
it's by filling out a form or by sending an email, they
should get your message regardless of what's in the
'Subject' line of their email.  Some autoresponders require
that the sender put a specific 'code' in the subject line
in order to receive certain information.

*Don't* use these; people make typos or forget or don't
follow instructions.  Make it easy for your visitor to get
the information he or she wants.


___NO LONG-TERM COMMITMENT

This is usually only applicable to paid autoresponders.
If you're paying for an autoresponder, you don't want to
commit to any long-term contract; businesses come and go
all the time on the Internet, and there's no guarantee that
the autoresponder you've chosen will be around in the long
term.


Free autoresponders are a popular choice, but the vast
majority of them have one big drawback:  They're offered
free because other advertisers pay to have their own
message added to each message YOU send out.  That means in
addition to seeing YOUR sales message, the recipient also
sees an advertisement for someone else's product or
service.

Now, this may be acceptable to you when you're sending out
purely information.  If you're trying to sell a product of
your own, however, you might want to think of upgrading to
a 'premium' version.  Your sales can increase dramatically
when your reader doesn't have to view an ad for someone
else's products!

I've personally tried about half a dozen autoresponders.
Most claimed to answer requests immediately (within a few
minutes, at the most) ... but I had some take as long as
3 DAYS to respond!

Not exactly what I had in mind when I wanted to offer
"great customer service" ...

Other autoresponders limited the size of my message.  This
was extraordinarily frustrating -- after I'd sweated over
THE perfect words, I found that I had to cut the message
down just because my autoresponder wouldn't allow me to
send a message of that size.

The autoresponder I use now is fabulous.  I'm very happy with
it - it gives me a whole lot of benefits, including unlimited
message size, unlimited number of autoresponders, and
excellent response time.  Of course it has a lot more than
that ... but those are the ones I was most concerned with.

If you don't have an autoresponder, I'd suggest getting one
now.  And if you already have one, I'd suggest trying this
one out.  It has run very smoothly for me and I couldn't be
happier.  You can get your free autoresponder from:

   http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/autoresponse.html

Take the time to carefully choose the right autoresponder.
The right one can save you time ... and increase your sales!

-----------------

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Angela has been fortunate enough to be able to quit
her job to work full-time from home.  Her website
offers articles, tutorials, and tips for aspiring
online entrepreneurs ... plus subscribe to her FREE
newsletter, The Netrepreneur's Notebook, by emailing
mailto:buildyourhomebiz-subscribe@...
or visit http://www.buildyourhomebiz.com/ .


======[ End of Article ]======

*Article may be used freely as long as the entire article
appears along with the sig file.


MAINTAINING MOMENTUM

by Joe Brennan
Internet Direct


In all my dealings and years of consulting with business
owners I have seen one very critical mistake made by over
95% of them. The number one mistake I have come across
is that business owners do not realize the importance of
"Maintaining Momentum"!

This is the most important task of any business.
"DO NOT STOP THE PROCESS"!
What is the process for maintaining momentum?

"Maintaining Momentum" is actually a two step process.

Step One : Advertising for new leads or prospects.
Step Two : Follow up with existing leads and prospects.

These two steps are critical for success. Simply because
"Working your Leads" and keeping contact makes people
believe in you, your product and gains trust. This is very
important especially if you are offering your business
products or services over the web. If your prospects are
comfortable with you they are more likely to buy from you
as opposed to your competitor.

Below are examples and tips to accomplishing the art of
"Maintaining Momentum"!

Step One : Advertising for new leads or prospects.
First you will need to set yourself an advertising budget.
This budget will be what you follow with absolutely no
exceptions if you wish to succeed. Let's say you have a
budget of $100 per month for advertising. That means you
have $25 per week to work with.
DO NOT BLOW YOUR BUDGET IN THE FIRST WEEK!
You must maintain consistency.

Example:

Wrong Way:
You see a site that will give you a discount on advertising
an extended amount of time. It looks good so you decide to
spend the $105.
NO GOOD! Why? You may have saved money and your
ad may run for an extended amount of time, but what if the
ad does not work or create any leads or sales. You have now
expired your entire ad budget for the month. You have lost
momentum and will now have to wait 3 week's to START OVER!

Wrong Way # 2:
You have done your research and have decided on a place that
you feel comfortable placing an ad. that ad is on a classified
site that a 200 word ad costs $24.99 for 8 week's. Two days
later the ad is a hit and is bringing you 20 leads a day.
A few sales and you're as happy as can be. You're now spending
your time answering questions, loving life and you say to
yourself "I'd better lay off my ads because I'm getting so many
leads from this one". WRONG!

Eventually this ad will be moving it's way to the bottom
of the list because new ads on that site will be going ahead
of yours. the replies and leads will quickly become less and
less each day.
This is the biggest mistake because you will now have to place
another ad and... you guessed it START ALL OVER AGAIN!

Correct Way To Maintain Momentum:

Use your budgeted amount each week, no exceptions!
Place your ad for $19 to $30. If you are receiving many leads
and answering their questions, great! You will want to keep the
momentum by placing another ad somewhere else. You should
do this 7 days from the date you placed your first ad for the
month.

Remember not all your ads will work. Keep track of where and
when you placed them, if they do not work then use your budgeted
amount the next week to find a new place to test an ad. If the
first and the second ad both work well then you will have many
more leads to work with. You  will begin to learn how to convert
these leads to sales.

I have only one comment on how to convert
leads into sales....... HONESTY!!

By "Maintaining Momentum" as described above you will
find you will have a continuous flow of leads or prospects to
work with. Leads are very important and you must also
"Maintain Momentum" with old leads as well as with new leads.
Obviously the way to generate new leads is mentioned above.

"How can I Maintain Momentum with existing leads?"

This brings us to step number two.

Step Two : Follow up with existing leads and prospects.

Follow up, follow up, follow up! It boggles my mind when I
speak to business owners and I ask them "How many Leads or
Prospects are you currently working with"? "Do you have a
data base of everyone who has asked about your business"?
most of the time when I ask these questions I get blank stares
or squinted eyes. If you have ever been to Radio Shack you may
remember that every time you are at the counter they will ask
you your name, phone, address and zip code.

They do this so they can follow up with you and notify you of
the next big sale or event they are running. Most likely they
will send you a flyer or postcard by postal mail. They do this
because they realize that if you have been in their store or
have purchased anything from them that you must enjoy or have
a need for their products.
They realize that you may have a need or want to purchase from
them again.

You spend money every day to attack prospects for your
services and products and you must capture their contact
information.

"How can we do this on the web"?

Personally following up with each person by hand each couple
a days would be quite tedious and time consuming. The beauty
of the web is that we can have computers do this for us. You
can now have computers automatically follow up through email
for you at any time you wish. You can concentrate on advertising
and new leads and let an automated follow up system contact your
existing prospects.

This type of follow up system is called "Autoresponders"!

What is an autoresponder?
An autoresponder system that automatically sends a reply
message to any email address that sends mail to it.

Why do you need autoresponders to follow up for you?

Experts have shown that it often takes a prospect 7 or more
exposures of your ad or product before they purchase from you.
With an Autoresponder Follow Up System your prospects will
automatically receive your follow up marketing messages.
This is possible and takes you absolutely no time after the
initial setup. You see, the computer system will follow up for
you the essential seven times.
"Automatically"! This will make your sales skyrocket!

How much is just one extra sale worth to you every month?
How much is double, triple, or even quadruple your normal
sales averages worth to you and your company? Hundreds,
maybe even thousands of dollars in extra profits.

Below is a summary of how it can work for you.
Prospects request information via email from your ads or
your site. The autoresponder will then automatically deliver
your pre-written sales letter (just like this pre-written report)
within seconds back to the prospects email box. Information
is sent and their email address and is automatically added
to your database (like at Radio Shack) saving you hours
of endless data entry. You spend more time with other business
tasks since the autoresponder system is doing all the follow
up work for you.

Personalized follow up letters are automatically sent to
each of your prospects at regular predetermined intervals.
This will build credibility, trust and a qualified rapport
with your prospects.
Your personalized, effective, efficient follow up letters will
convert prospects into customers for you... "Automatically"!
You save time, save money, reduce tedious work, build
customer loyalty, increase conversion ratios and make more
money!

I have been around the web and have seen many systems
that can provide you with such a service. By far one of the
best systems I have seen is called "The Aweber Autoreply
System"! the company is owned by a gentlemen named Tom
Kulzer. I have spoken with him many times by phone, I have
used his system and believe Tom to be a very honest and
intelligent person to work with. I also have been in contact
with dozens of other respectable online entrepreneurs who
all have said the same thing. You can visit Tom's site to
view more information at:
http://www.aweber.com/?11056

If you are currently looking for a reputable on-line business
to apply the above techniques to you can look at 2 that I
highly recommend.

Online business 1:
http://www.asrtotalwebservices.com/bizop.htm


Online business 2:
http://www.interwebclassifieds.com/resellers.htm

By applying these two techniques and "Maintaining Momentum"
you will be well on you way to a successful on-line business.

I hope you have enjoyed this report and you can be assured
you will here from me again in the near future.

*Article may be used freely as long as the entire article
appears along with this sig file.


Thank You,
Joe Brennan
Internet Direct
http://www.iypdirect.com

**
Joe Brennan has been an Internet Pioneer and webmaster
since 1995.  It is estimated that millions of dollars a
week from online sales are being made from his ideas and
knowledge.
Have questions about business, web designing, search engine
ranking, how to turn your idea into reality or any general
questions about how to effectively advertise your business?
Well, talk to a professional LIVE by phone. Guaranteed results!!
Go To: http://www.asrtotalwebservices.com/consulting.htm
------------------------------------------------