Your web site is just like your business, in fact it is an extension of your business in some cases and it IS your business in others. Your advertising campaign must address each of these methods to the best and fullest extent possible given your advertising budget.

Let’s take a look at how you can use these different advertising methods to your best advantage:
Using Articles to market your web site
Short articles are a great way to generate traffic to your website. Articles can be used to keep the material fresh on the site so that your customers keep coming back, they can also be used to ‘advertise’ your site on web sites owned by others. Placing your article on article submission sites allows others to download it and use your article in their newsletters and on their web sites. Of course there are links in the article that point to your site for more information or other reviews etc. These links are great as they help increase your standings in the search engines.

The articles can be about any topic and you will find there are hundreds of article submission sites available to place your articles on. Most are free as they need fresh information so that their customers keep coming back as well.
Using Affiliates to market your web site
Affiliate programs can add thousands of independent sales people to help market your products and services.

Over the years I have been involved with many businesses, and one of the things I remember from my Amway days was that as an individual, I could only do so much. I have 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year in which I can work. I will hit a maximum point of sales that I can handle by myself. After that I’m done. The only way to do more is to automate and have others duplicate what I do. The same is true on the web. We need to automate and duplicate what we do so we can have others expand our sales for us. The first part of this equation is duplication. We can have others follow what we do and sell our products and services for us and pay them a portion of the profits. This is different than having employees. Employees have no requirement to sell. They are overhead that must be paid regardless of sales. That is NOT what you want for a new business. Keep your hard-earned cash for other things. What we need is someone that is willing to do the work for part of the profits. This is where affiliate programs come in to our formula for success. Affiliates are basically a partnership between web sites to advertise and promote products, services, or information for a share of the profits. When someone they refer to you buys, you pay them a percentage of the sales. Result? More traffic, more sales and less time required by you to find the customers as someone else does it for you.

What else can a good affiliate program do for you?

· How about driving more traffic to your site!
· Build brand awareness as more people visit your site from the hundreds or thousands of affiliates that are advertising for you.
· Obtaining qualified leads that you can follow-up on to increase or up sell to.
· Increasing the links to your site, which will increase the ranking of your site on the search engines resulting in more traffic and more sales.
There are all kinds of affiliate programs. Some programs charge to be a member and some do not. Some are web based and some are software programs that you load on your computer to set up and track the sales and affiliate yourself. Which one you use is up to you. Here are a few that I have found.
Affiliate Net - This is one of the more affordable server side affiliate programs. With this software there are no monthly fees only a one-time software charge. At the time of this writing this package sold from $49.95 to $99.95. Referral Software - This package is also server side although more expensive, it has many more features and is worth while to consider if you are serious about earning a lot of money with your Internet business. At the time of this writing this package sold for $299.00.
Click Bank - This is a web based affiliate program. By signing up on their web site you have access to over 100,000 affiliates. ClickBank is free to be an affiliate and has a charge if you want to run an affiliate program for your products.
clixGalore Affiliate Networks - This is a web based affiliate program. There are monthly and set up fees.
I highly recommend affiliate programs. For the reasons listed above. Remember they will help drive traffic to your site, which means more sales and you can use the affiliate programs to offer others services and make the commission once you are done with the client. This could be a good business all by its self.
Using Auctions to market your web site
Ok, you have a product or service you want to sell; you need to let people know about that product or service and you don’t have much money to spend. Imagine a place that gets over 3 million customers that are ready, able, willing and looking to buy everyday. It is a Super Mall!
Ask any businessperson what they would pay to be in a mall that got 3 million visitors a day. You can see the dollar signs light up in their eyes… both in terms of cost and sales potential. Remember my goal from earlier in the course when we talked about business planning? I need to have 4200 visitors a month come to my web site in order to sell 420 copies according to my business plan. Well E-Bay gets 3 million visitors a day! Do you think that might be a place that I would want to advertise my books or my web site? You bet! In fact I have sold quite a few of my other books on E-Bay as well as bottles, baseball cards, clothing, computers, software, training, video and much more. So can you.
Let’s take my Weekend Chef’s guides and see how I can sell them on E-Bay, Yahoo Auctions, or MSN Auctions. First I need an account. This is simple, but does vary based on which you are signing up with. Follow the instructions (at the end of this page is an excellent course on how to really make money on auctions, but this will get you started). Once you have an account, we now need to place something for sale. Think of the auction site as your web site As such we need to create a web page that offers you product/service for sale. I use a software package call Auction Wizard 2000. They have an excellent program that allows you to try it for 60 days before you have to register. It is so easy to use as well. Using Auction Wizard, I can create an auction page and automatically post it and re-post as needed to any of the supported auctions. No special knowledge of html is required. Simple fill-in the blanks and add any pictures or graphics and I’m done. It also will track the sales, send emails to successful bidders, track inventory and so much more. If you are thinking of doing auctions, this is one piece of software to take a hard look at.
Back to selling my guides and building my business. Within the auction listing, I can place a link to my site, offer a free download of some chapters of the book, of course, I will need your email before you can download. Remember that I need to keep you coming back. Be careful here, E-Bay does not like you selling outside of their auction so make sure the visitor is not allowed to buy from your site at that link. Well, now we have given something away for free (a chapter of the book), we have the visitors email address, and we hopefully will get a bid on the product/service. If not, we have the email to follow up. What has it cost us? Each item up for auction on E-Bay cost, are you ready for this, 30 cents to list it plus a small percentage of the selling cost. If I list my Weekend Chef’s Guide to Sushi on E-Bay with a starting price of say $1 it will cost me a total of about 30 cents for the week. 30 cents to reach millions of potential customers a day. If I sell the book, I will have recovered my 30 cents and started building my customer email list as well.
Now I could write a series on using auctions, but this page is just how to use auctions to market your business. You can sell items and make a profit or you can just list items and build a customer database to market too later. Either way Auctions make a great way to market your business.
I have on my website a couple more tips on using auctions as well at rd-webhosting.com or visit my eBay store for other e-books that are available from time to time.
Using Auto responders to market your web site
Depending on the products, services or information you are selling auto responders may be able to automate a good portion of your web site business. An auto responder is a piece of software that checks email for certain words or phrases and responds according to your wishes. For example, you may have received a newsletter by sending an email to me with Subscribe as the subject. My auto responder sees that email come in and has a set of actions defined that when the subject has subscribe in it that it will email back to you our newsletter. Another thing that the auto responders can do is following up with your customers at predetermined times with a predetermined letter. This is good for driving traffic to your site after they have visited and left their email address such as to subscribe to a newsletter or download a free chapter of an e-book or other information you have made available. For my training business I send up to 4 different emails to each person that request my guide to increase their income. Each email introduces them to other benefits and services that are available. Some of the emails will offer a discount or free training class as an incentive to sign up for a class. All of it done without me having to get involved.
Auto responders can be installed on your computer or used via the Internet. Some are free and others you have to pay either by the email address or based on the number of responses you want to program it to respond to. Here are some links to auto responders on the web as well as a software package with a trial version you can use yourself.
Promasoft: This is the one we use with our servers. I highly recommend. They have a trial version that is a full version. It places a header in the outgoing email, so you will want to register once you have it up and running. I think it is a great program.
GetResponse: This is also a great program, although, this one is a subscription service. It can be a less expensive way to try out an auto responder. They do offer a free account as well.

Learn how to start and build a successful home based Internet business with me. My name is Raymond Laubert and I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer teaching Database Management and owner of several web-based businesses including http://rd-webhosting.com which specializes in small and home based business web hosting, http://theweekendchef.com a free recipe website with over 350,000 recipes and http://zero2won.com which guides you from choosing a home based business to building a successful and profitable business within 6 months using the web. Look for more of my articles on this site and may the Lord bless you, your family and your business venture.

Banner advertising is on just about every web site you visit today. Banners are a form of advertising. This advertising is used to help pay for the site and help make the owner money. Regardless of the type of business or web site you have, you can use banners to help increase your income. The advertising revenue generated from banners falls into 3 groups: Pay Per Impression (PPI), Pay Per Click (PPC), and Pay Per Sale/Lead (PPS).
Pay Per Impression
With PPI banner advertising you are paid each time your advertiser’s banner is shown on your web pages. A term CPM is often used with banner advertising. It means cost per thousand, which basically means you will be paid $x.xx for every 1000 banners displayed to the visitors of your web site This is the easiest method to earn money with as every time someone visits your web site you get paid. However, this is not used very much and is very easily abused. If you have a 1000 visitors per day and are paid $5 per thousand then you make $150 per month. As an advertiser you do NOT want to use PPI. It would be like paying the newspaper or phone company money every time they said someone opened the newspaper or phonebook.
Pay Per Click
With PPC banner, you are paid more than with PPI but only when the visitor actually clicks on the banner rather then just seeing it. With PPI you many be paid $5.00 CPM (per thousand) and with PPC you could be paid $5 per click. However, not as many will click on the banner. Banner design has a lot to do with what we call the conversion rate. That is basically how effective is the banner. Conversion rates for banners are usually less than 1%. A very good banner may have a 5% conversion rate. Remember that is a passive income stream. It is working around the clock and requires no work on your part. So, if you have 1000 people a day coming to your web site and you have a 1% conversion rate with a payment of 50 cents per click, you could be earning $150 a month just for having the banner there. As an advertiser this is a little better than PPI. At least now the visitor is on your web site and you have a chance to gather information about them and possibly sell them your product or service.
Pay Per Sale/Lead
PPS banner advertising using pays the highest dollars of these three methods, but only generates income when the advertiser makes a sale to someone visiting from your web site It will have the lowest conversion rate of the three. PPS banners only work well for the web site owner if the advertiser does a good job with the banner design (creating a desire to click), selling (presenting information), and closing (getting the sale). None of these do you control directly. Selecting PPS advertisers for your site should be well thought out. As an advertiser, this is the preferred type of banner advertising.
Where to find advertisers
I think the best place to find people that want to place banner ads on your site will be the affiliate programs. This is also a good place for you to advertise that you would like to place banners on others sites as well. Read the pages carefully. Banners can be expensive if you don’t generate any sales.
If you have friends or business associates that you do business with you can ask them if they would like to place a banner on your site or if you could place a banner on theirs. These exchanges become more and more popular as your site becomes more popular as well.
A new source for banner ads is from the major search engines. Google Adwords are probably the best known new source for advertising on pay per basis. This works both ways. You can pay to have your ad/banner placed on others sites as well as have other web site ads placed on your site. When your ad is displayed and someone clicks on it they will visit your site and you pay Google for the visit. When you allow Google to place ads on your site and someone clicks the ad, you get paid.
In the resource section of rd-webhosting.com you will find more information on using banners to market your website.
Using Classified Ads to market your web site
Classified ads are just like in the newspaper. They are small detailed ads that offer your product or services and provide a contact (your email or web site). A quick search on Yahoo for classified ads will find over 58,000,000 entries for sites and people who will either sell or place your classified ads on their web sites.
Classified ad sites fall into two categories: Free and Paid. Free sites should be avoided. BE CAREFUL… most free classified ad web sites. are farming your email address to sell to others. You will find you email box loaded with tons of offers and once it starts it will never stop. Paid classified web sites, however, can be like having a store in the world’s largest shopping mall for pennies a day in rent.
One of the largest classified ads web sites is…eBay. Think about this. For about 30 cents an ad (item to sell) you get listed for one week where over 1 million people a day come to shop. I have more information on eBay and other auction sites under Web Basics.

There are other forms of advertising as well. One of which we discuss in part 4 is a newsletter. Others include, your email signature, banner ads, e-books and affiliates. Each are discussed here. Click on the Marketing Resources to review each form of advertising..

Learn how to start and build a successful home based Internet business with me. My name is Raymond Laubert and I am a Microsoft Certified Trainer teaching Database Management and owner of several web-based businesses including http://rd-webhosting.com which specializes in small and home based business web hosting, http://theweekendchef.com for free recipes and cooking related information, great for the weekend chefs and http://zero2won.com which guides you from choosing a home based business to building a successful and profitable business within 6 months using the web. Look for more of my articles on this site and may the Lord bless you, your family and your business venture.

A Beginners guide

Part 3
Using email, e-books, letterhead and magazines

By Raymond Laubert
MCSE, MCDBA, MCT

http://www.rd-webhosting.com

Using Email to market your web site

This is a very touchy subject. One that needs to be addressed and that you need to understand. Email marketing falls into three categories. First is simple, you place a signature line in your email program that automatically adds your signature block to each out going email. This signature line identifies your web site and a brief tag line or catch phase. Every time you respond or send an email, your signature advertises your business, no problems with that. However, the next two types of email marketing are very touchy.

By now, everyone has heard of SPAM. Your definition may be different from mine and from the governments. However, you look at it, SPAM is unwanted email. Now email marketing requires that we send emails to our potential customers. This can be done either with or without their permission. Sending email without the permission of the recipient put us in a bad light. Often resulting is negative feelings and responses from the recipient. This is bad for business. If you piss off the potential customer, well, they are no longer a potential customer as they have deleted you email and won’t be visiting your site. You have wasted valuable time and money. So, the only people you will be sending any marketing emails to will be those that have requested information from you or have agreed to receive information from you. This is called permission-based email.

Where can you find people who are willing to receive your emails? First provide a place on your web site to gather the names and addresses of your visitors. Offer them something in exchange, such as a free publication, or your newsletter, or something else of potential value to them. Let them know when they sign up that you will from time to time be sending them information. Include in the email a means to unsubscribe at any time. As people sign up you are building your email list, which you can market to as often as you like. I wouldn’t recommend more than twice a month.

There are other web sites that maintain a list of people who want to hear from your. This permission-based method is usually based on a particular subject matter. Such as hobbies, business ideas, childcare etc. You can find them on the web by searching for mailing list.

Emails are an inexpensive way to keep in touch with your customers. If you have a brick and motor store, try to get the email addresses of your current customers and add them to the list as well. You will be surprised at how much extra business can come from a personalize email about a special you are offering for their support over the last year etc.

Using E-books to market your web site

What can your own E-zine or E-book do for your business or web site? How about:

* Sell more products or services. An e-zine/e-book can increase your credibility, making it easier to sell your product or service as well as those of others in which you have a stake.
* Attract more affiliates to help sell your products or services. This form of advertising is viral in it approach. E-zines and e-books get passed from person to person. Creating more interest which makes people want to jump on board and become part of that success.
* Establish yourself as an expert in your field, creating more ‘believability’ and trust. People don’t buy from strangers. With you e-zine or e-book you become better known to them. When the time comes they need or want your products or services, there’s no question who they’ll buy them from — YOU!
* Show your visitors and clients everything you can really do for them, maximizing your sales efforts.
* Build a base of customers who are ready to hire you, buy from you, evangelize for you and create more fans for you.
* Effortlessly spread the word about your business via “viral marketing.”
* Create new revenue streams from selling ad space and recommending other products that you’re an affiliate of. See our affiliate page for more information.
* Become a recognized publisher. Have others writing your articles, advertisers paying for exposure in your publication.

Here is an IMPORTANT point, capture the email addresses of your Web site visitors, gaining permission to market to them over and over again and multiple chances closing the sale. Not to mention the sales of other products or services.

Keep in touch with all of your customers, prospects, and associates on a regular basis.

Simple tips for creating e-zines and e-books

Package your knowledge on a regular basis into tips and articles that can be reprinted in other publications for tons of additional exposure and traffic. There are thousands of e-books and e-zines in publication today. Most are specialized in a particular segment of the web or interest. When you find an e-book/ezine that reaches the people that may be interested in your product or service. Contact them to see if they take outside articles. If they do, send them an article or two that you may have written. Include information on your business and your web site If they publish your article, your name and web site will be listed. This is a great way of getting free advertising and traffic to your site.

Another way to get articles for your e-books is to find someone to write them for you. Much like the process above but in this case you are the one publishing the material. Use your web site, chat rooms, forums etc to advertise for articles.

Save thousands of dollars printing and postage by producing your newsletter online instead of printing it. Adobe Writer is a good program for your e-books and any email program can be used for e-zines.

Using Letterhead to market your web site

Every business uses paper to correspond with its customers, vendors and other businesses. Many small businesses and home based businesses today use the computer a and a word processor to generate this correspondence whether it is printed or electronic we all do. So how can we use this correspondence to market our business? Simple, create a letterhead template and make it your default document when ever you create a business related correspondence.

In your letterhead template make sure you have your website address and you company slogan (if you have one) prominently displayed. I have even seem some letterhead lately that simply has the website address listed and no physical address as many companies are Internet based or figure that you will have access to the Internet and can visit their site to look up the street address if needed. This is actually a clever move, in that it get you to visit the site, which is what our marketing is trying to do to begin with.

Using Magazines to market your web site

Those articles that you wrote or had written for your business can also be sent to magazine and newspapers for publication. Each one that is printed is free advertisement for your business that lasts for years. Just think how many issues are passed around from person to person before they end up in the trash. I saw several magazines at the Laundromat that were from 1996-1998 that people were still reading. You can do a search on the web for publications in your area of expertise. Visit their web sites and find the editors email address. Be sure to find out the policy for submitting an article for publication and follow it. Some editors don’t like it when the mailbox is full of unsolicited articles that do not conform to their policies and will just trash the email instead of replying to you.

This is part one of a multi-part series of marketing you web site. Please visit us at http://rd-webhosting.com for the rest of the series. In the next section we will cover marketing you web site using newsletters, search engines and the yellow pages.

Talking with a co-worker the other day it dawned on me that many people do not know how websites work. So I thought I would take a few minutes to explain the very basic yet required knowledge if you are going to have a web based business.

First we all know that files are stored on the computer. These files may be data, music, pictures or programs. When we access this information we make a request to the computer by clicking on the file or typing the name of the file into one of the many programs that we use. The computer then finds the file in what is called a directory. The directory is a listing of the files and where they are stored. To make the directory a little easier to manage we use folders.

In the world of the Internet this is basically the same process. We make a request for a website by typing in the name of the website (it’s address), the computer goes to a domain name server or DNS which is a directory of websites and their location, finds the location or server that has the files and presents the information in that location to your web browser.

Each website is really nothing more than a collection of files that present information. The first file that is always returned will be an index file. These index files are usually the home page for the website. From there, the information displayed will depend on what you want to see next.

A very basic web page then is nothing more than a text document such as written in Word. In fact, you can use Word to create web pages. Now a days you can get as fancy as you want. Putting pictures, sound files, movies, automations, just about anything that you can create on a computer can be used on the web page. Once you are finished, simply save the file with the proper extensions (3-4 characters after the period) such as htm, html, php, or jsp and you have a web page. Put several web pages together and you have a web site.

Now that you have a web site, there are other things to keep in mind as well. You have probably heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. These are things you do to your web pages so that the millions of people on the Internet that are searching for you can find you. Let’s see what SEO really means.

We know that there is a directory (domain name server) that the computers use to find the server that stores your web site. But there are other directories on the Internet as well. These directories are kind of like the Yellow Pages. They are used to help humans look up website addresses so that they (the humans) can go to that site. The most popular web site directory is Google. These directories are called search engines. They consist of a set of databases. When you place web site on the Internet, eventually the search engines find out about your site and enter information into their databases. The information entered is based on what is found on your website, both visible and hidden. The visible information is what you typed on the page. Notice I said typed. Music, pictures, flash, etc are not stored in the database and can not be used to find your web site. Hidden information is the stuff that the search engines find that make up formatting, information tags about objects on the web page such as names of pictures, audio files and movies and specific information that we can add to the page to help the search engines catalog our web page. This specific information is called Meta tags.

When you create a web page then you are in fact deciding on what information will be in the search engine’s database. Now, let me make one point clear. When you search for information on the web, you are searching for ONE piece of information, a word or couple of words related to your subject. The search engines take that one or two words and use it to search the database, returning records (web sites) that match your request. So ideally, if your site has those words or terms typed on the page, your page should be returned when the query is run.

There isn’t enough time nor space in this article to cover every aspect of SEO, nor is that my purpose. So as the last part to this article, I want to discuss a very simple way to perform SEO for your web site. Here it is….

Every page for your web site should be related to one or two related facts, items or what the industry calls keywords. Keywords are the terms that you are going to type into the search engine to find the information you are looking for. So, if your site is about cooking in general, you have a lot of work to do. Because each page of your web site should be limited to one specific aspect of cooking. Too many sites try to cram baking, stews, cookies, cakes, spaghetti, etc into one or two pages. If you want your site to do well, each page needs to be specific in the topic. Then it will be easier to rank well in the search engines.

There are companies such as Picky Domain Names that specialize in finding the perfect URL for your business, but there is no reason why you can’t do the same thing yourself, for free! All it takes is a good imagination and some time to brainstorm. If you have friends who can help, all the better.

Most of the regular domain names have been bought up and used now, so it is a real challenge to find ones that are unique, describe your business and are easy to remember. That’s why you need to get creative.

-First off, there are a few general ground rules to ensure that your visitors remember your domain names. This is obviously the most important part of choosing an URL, so keep the following in mind:

-Limit yourself to a maximum of three words. Longer phrases tend to be difficult to remember and also they take too long to type in. People want information fast and if they have to try and remember a twenty letter URL, they probably won’t bother.

-Use words that are easy to spell. If you use weirdly spelled words just to get the domain names you want, you will lose a lot of visitors. For example, if myspace.com is taken, don’t go for myspayce.com, you will just end up sending traffic to the other domain name.

-Think carefully before using anything apart from .com as an ending for your domain names. It is the most common and often people will forget if you use a more unusual ending such as .name or .tv.

Now that you have the basics in mind, it is time to brainstorm. Start by writing down all the words you can think of that relate to your business. For example, if you have a diaper service, you would end up with a list of keywords that include “diaper, diapers, baby, bottom, cloth, wet, dirty, clean, service” etc. Include any slang or nicknames as well, such as “nappy, stinky,” etc.

Once you have a good long list, start trying to put the words together in a form that would work as domain names. You should be able to come up with at least a dozen that fit the description of your business. For our diaper service example you might end up with nomorestink.com, dirtytoclean.com, nappybottom.com, etc.

Next, you need to go to a domain names registrar such as RD-Webhosting and check to see if your domain names are available. Start with the ones you like best and work your way down the list. Chances are you will find at least two or three that are available. These are then your choices for domain names!

This whole process works best if you have two or more people to bounce ideas off of. Domain names that are wacky and outrageous are sure to come up as you work your way through a brainstorming session with friends or coworkers! And at the end of it all, you should have a handful of domain names that you can go with.

Talking with a co-worker the other day it dawned on me that many people do not know how websites work. So I thought I would take a few minutes to explain the very basic yet required knowledge if you are going to have a web based business.

First we all know that files are stored on the computer. These files may be data, music, pictures or programs. When we access this information we make a request to the computer by clicking on the file or typing the name of the file into one of the many programs that we use. The computer then finds the file in what is called a directory. The directory is a listing of the files and where they are stored. To make the directory a little easier to manage we use folders.

In the world of the Internet this is basically the same process. We make a request for a website by typing in the name of the website (it’s address), the computer goes to a domain name server or DNS which is a directory of websites and their location, finds the location or server that has the files and presents the information in that location to your web browser.

Each website is really nothing more than a collection of files that present information. The first file that is always returned will be an index file. These index files are usually the home page for the website. From there, the information displayed will depend on what you want to see next.

A very basic web page then is nothing more than a text document such as written in Word. In fact, you can use Word to create web pages. Now a days you can get as fancy as you want. Putting pictures, sound files, movies, automations, just about anything that you can create on a computer can be used on the web page. Once you are finished, simply save the file with the proper extensions (3-4 characters after the period) such as htm, html, php, or jsp and you have a web page. Put several web pages together and you have a web site.

Now that you have a web site, there are other things to keep in mind as well. You have probably heard of SEO or Search Engine Optimization. These are things you do to your web pages so that the millions of people on the Internet that are searching for you can find you. Let’s see what SEO really means.

We know that there is a directory (domain name server) that the computers use to find the server that stores your web site. But there are other directories on the Internet as well. These directories are kind of like the Yellow Pages. They are used to help humans look up website addresses so that they (the humans) can go to that site. The most popular web site directory is Google. These directories are called search engines. They consist of a set of databases. When you place web site on the Internet, eventually the search engines find out about your site and enter information into their databases. The information entered is based on what is found on your website, both visible and hidden. The visible information is what you typed on the page. Notice I said typed. Music, pictures, flash, etc are not stored in the database and can not be used to find your web site. Hidden information is the stuff that the search engines find that make up formatting, information tags about objects on the web page such as names of pictures, audio files and movies and specific information that we can add to the page to help the search engines catalog our web page. This specific information is called Meta tags.

When you create a web page then you are in fact deciding on what information will be in the search engine’s database. Now, let me make one point clear. When you search for information on the web, you are searching for ONE piece of information, a word or couple of words related to your subject. The search engines take that one or two words and use it to search the database, returning records (web sites) that match your request. So ideally, if your site has those words or terms typed on the page, your page should be returned when the query is run.

There isn’t enough time nor space in this article to cover every aspect of SEO, nor is that my purpose. So as the last part to this article, I want to discuss a very simple way to perform SEO for your web site. Here it is….

Every page for your web site should be related to one or two related facts, items or what the industry calls keywords. Keywords are the terms that you are going to type into the search engine to find the information you are looking for. So, if your site is about cooking in general, you have a lot of work to do. Because each page of your web site should be limited to one specific aspect of cooking. Too many sites try to cram baking, stews, cookies, cakes, spaghetti, etc into one or two pages. If you want your site to do well, each page needs to be specific in the topic. Then it will be easier to rank well in the search engines.

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A beginners guide
Part 4
Using newsletters, search engines and the yellow pages

By Raymond Laubert
MCSE, MCDBA, MCT

http://www.rd-webhosting.com

Using Newsletters to market your web site

As I stated before, it can take several times for a potential client to begin to trust you. You also want to keep the clients that you have. Part of your marketing plan will be to stay in touch with your clients. Letting them know what is happening, any sales that you may be holding, or new products/services that you may have. A great way of keeping in touch is with a newsletter.

What is a newsletter? Simply put it is a communication between you and your subscribers. By offering information that the client may find helpful, you are offering a service to them that is of value. Immense value in fact. Your information may save them time and money. Building a trust between you and the client. This trust will turn to sales over time.

So what does it take to get a newsletter off the ground so to speak? Two things: First is to have the clients/customer sign up for the newsletter. This can be a simple email or mailing program. RD Web hosting has a mailing list package that is part of the hosting plan. It is simple yet effective. Click here to see it in action. The second thing is a newsletter. This can be written in any word processing program or in your email software. It doesn’t have to be long and complicated.

Let’s say, for example, you have found a new recipe. Something that you think your subscribers would be interested in. You type up the recipe along with an introduction and paste it into your email program or mailing list software. From there you send it to each of your subscribers. Cost? A few minutes of time. No printing or mailing charges required. Oh, by the way, in that email you sent to each subscriber, you place a little advertising for your web site or store, or maybe you have ’sold’ some space to a friend or business associate who may have something of interest to your subscribers as well.

Newsletters are a great and inexpensive advertising medium. Just remember to place articles of interest in the newsletter and not all advertising. There is nothing worse than getting mail that is all ads. Over time people will stop reading it if they don’t find the information useful.

Using Search engines and marketing your web site

Search Engines (SE) are the mystery of the Internet. So many different types even from the user standpoint. There are over 225,000 search engines and directories on the Internet. How do they work and why should you care?

Basically, a search engine is a database of web pages that contains information about that page such as: where it can be found (URL); what is on it (Keywords); when it was last indexed; and a title and description of the web page. When you go to a search engine and type in your request (query) the database engine pulls up the data that matches your request. So a search engine is only as good as the data in it. How do we get that data? Most search engines are copies of the major databases. There are only a few real databases out there. So lets talk general terms. The owner of the website can enter data. This information is then indexed and your site is listed. In the past that is how things worked. But we soon found out that people will do anything to get their website listed at the top of the page where they will be more likely to have the searcher click on their site. The owner of the database needed a better way. So programs where written called spiders to go out on the web and find web sites. They catalog each page of the website and enter that information into the database. Today that process is still going on. However, again the owners of the database have tried to make sure that the web site information is correct and have been constantly changing the formula used to determine how a website should be listed based on it keywords, headers, titles, content, alt tags, etc. Some database owners even have people visit the website and make a judgment call. All of this is to insure that when you enter a search phrase into the search engine you receive the type of information you want. If you are happy with the search engine you will continue to use it and the advertisements placed on the search engine will help pay for the site.

Search engine technology is changing daily. To try and cover it here would be a waste of your time as it will be out of date tomorrow. So I have listed a site that does nothing more than follow and report on this technology. It is:

Search Engine Watch

What is important for us as website owners is know how to make sure we are properly listed and learn how to get the best listing on the search engines. So lets see… there are 1440 minutes per day and 225,000 search engines. That means if we spend just 10 minutes per search engine entering in our website information it will only take us 1562 days to enter the information. But you should submit your website at least every other month, so you can see that is not going to work. There are all kinds of software and website services that will do this for you. But remember there are really only a few major databases that feed all those search engines. Even when your website is listed you may not have a very good placement due to other factors. As I said the database owners are constantly changing the rules. So what can you do?

Start with proper design of your website. Good content that is kept up to date. The spiders will find you over time and your ranking will improve as your use of keywords and content is evaluated. Other things that will help is the linking to your site from other web sites. If you have good information, others will point their web site to yours which will help your ranking in the search engines. All in all, this takes time to accomplish. But you want to start making money today!

Another way to get listed on search engines faster and at the top of the rankings is with PPC or Pay Per Click. PPC Search Engines charge you each time a user clicks your listing and goes to your website. In addition, many PPC have made arrangements with other search engines to place the paying website URL at the top of the listing (these are called sponsor sites). What does that mean for you as a website owner? Well, it means lots of traffic to your website that you can sell to over and over again. What will it cost? Hmmm how many secrets to give away in a free book :). Oh well, why not! The cost is dependent on how many other people want to be in the top listing. For example: Overture.com has agreements with Yahoo, MSN, AOL and others that the 3 top bidders for keywords will be listed in the top 3 spots for that keyword on each of these search engines. Today (2006) it is estimated that Google provides over 60% of the search results. Think that these search engines might be a nice place to have your website listed? Ok, back to the example. Let’s say I sell training, I research the keywords and find out that the top 3 positions go for $1.50, $1.45, $1.00 per click to my website. I have a product that sells for $795 per course. I could bid $1.51 and take the top spot. But remember I will have to pay the PPC for each person that clicks on my link. It can quickly run into the hundreds of dollars. I could also pay $1.01 and take the 3rd position saving me $.50 per click. Not all keywords are that expensive…some are more :). Actually you may find your keywords very inexpensive around 10- 20 cents per click.

PPC also do not care about keywords, titles, headers, content etc. So I can write a more compelling description here that will call to action the searcher to click on my site. BUT, once there I want to do everything I can to get them to leave their email address in exchange for my free product or gift. I do not want them coming back though PPC again. It will cost me more money that way. If I have their email address I can send them my link in other correspondence. We will talk about that later in auto responders.

Here is a list of some of the PPC. Since they drive qualified traffic to your site I would recommend using all of them. You will find your keywords cheaper on the less used sites but that is still traffic that you can sell to.

www.overture.com

www.google.com

www.findwhat.com

www.looksmart.com

www.7search.com

This is a lot of work. I know I have spent hours on Overture alone trying to monitor the website, keywords, and ranking.

I have said before in this course that automation is the key. The more we can automate the more time we have to spend on other things… maybe the family or building the business?

I am going to expand on this a lot in the next e-book. If you would like to stay up to date, sign up for our newsletter at http://rd-webhositng.com.

Using Yellow pages to market your web site

If you have a local business then you probably already have a business phone number. Most business phone services come with a listing in the local yellow pages. Be sure to list you website address. This is much more powerful form of advertising then just placing your address and phone number. Remember your site can offer specials, gather email or contact information, give away items or gifts to your customers to get them to visit your store, tell the customer so much more than you could afford to do in the phone book itself. Plus many people will bookmark your site and return time and time again once they see all the great information that you have available on the site.

I hope you have found some useful information in this package. I strive to put together information about most of the different methods you can use to market you business. For more information on any of these topics please visit our web site at http://rd-webhosting.com

Why use newsletters to market your web site? Well, first it will take several times for a potential client to begin to trust you. Second, you also want to keep the clients that you have. In order to do both, find new clients and keep the ones you have newsletters should be part of your marketing plan. A newsletter will help you stay in touch with your clients and potential clients. Letting them know what is happening, any sales that you may be holding, or new products/services that you may have. A newsletter is a great way to keep in touch.

What is a newsletter? Simply put it is a communication between you and your subscribers. By offering information that the client may find helpful, you are offering a service to them that is of value. Immense value in fact. Your information may save them time and money. Building a trust between you and the client. This trust will turn to sales over time.

So what does it take to get a newsletter off the ground so to speak? Two things: First is to have the clients/customer sign up for the newsletter. This can be a simple email or mailing program. RD Web hosting has a mailing list package that is part of the hosting plan. It is simple yet effective. Click here to see it in action. The second thing is a newsletter. This can be written in any word processing program or in your email software. It doesn’t have to be long and complicated.

Let’s say, for example, you have found a new recipe. Something that you think your subscribers would be interested in. You type up the recipe along with an introduction and paste it into your email program or mailing list software. From there you send it to each of your subscribers. Cost? A few minutes of time. No printing or mailing charges required. Oh, by the way, in that email you sent to each subscriber, you place a little advertising for your web site or store, or maybe you have ’sold’ some space to a friend or business associate who may have something of interest to your subscribers as well.

Newsletters are a great and inexpensive advertising medium. Just remember to place articles of interest in the newsletter and not all advertising. There is nothing worse than getting mail that is all ads. Over time people will stop reading it if they don’t find the information useful.

The Overture Search Tool is a wonder to behold. There are so many tools and so much help available at the site that when you visit you will be asking why nobody has told you about this before now. The costs are small and the services are large and extremely helpful to Internet entrepreneurs. It is free to join the site and there are so many ways for you to help yourself. You can locate the best keywords for your business you can find out what the top bid is on the best key words and you have to opportunity to place a higher bid. For only the very small price of $1.99 you can get even more help and information from professionals.

There are a couple of differences to take note of, however. The free service gives you access to the STST. The way that overture will make a profit here, since the service is free, is by selling you the best key words. There’s nothing wrong with that everybody has to make a profit to stay in business. The Keyword tool on Google gives a complete different set of Keywords. They don’t sell the keywords so it makes you wonder which list of Keywords are the best.

If you have not yet made use of Overture, this is certainly a tool you should take the time to explore. Bidding very high on the best Keywords can move your advertisements into the top ten search results in the major search engines very quickly.

We all know that search engine optimization (SEO) is the key to making sales and making use of Overture is one of the best ways to accomplish that task.Â

Overture was originally named GoTo.com. It changed its name to Overture in October, 2001 and was purchased by Yahoo in 2003.