Archive for the ‘Web Advice’ Category

Affiliate marketing is a way for you to make money by placing advertisements on your Web site or E-Mail. It is also one of the most cost efficient methods to promote a business. You earn commissions by marketing and selling another person’s products or services.

Affiliate marketing is a form of marketing in which a business rewards its affiliates for the sales and marketing efforts that they undertake on its behalf. This is similar to multi level marketing and is a rage among users of the Internet, but it does not equate to build it and they will come.

Affiliate marketing is not complicated. However, it becomes complicated for people who fail to grasp the simplicity of it. At its core, affiliate marketing is user-friendly. An example of affiliate marketing is Amazon.com. Amazon provide links that affiliates place on their website. When visitors click on the Amazon link and make a purchase the affiliate earns a commission.

Cire Web Site Design & Hosting has an affiliate network that markets their affordable web design and hosting services. They pay $50.00 every time a visitor orders a web design. They also pay the affiliates $10.00 in commissions on sales made by anyone the affiliate recruits into their program. You can join their affiliate program be clicking on the following link: http://www.cirelive.com/join

Affiliate Marketing is not about generating “cheap” advertising but rather about developing profitable, strategic, long-term win-win relationships for both the merchant and the affiliate marketeer.

Whether you are a consumer or a business owner, most of us will use a merchant account service. When you make an Internet purchase with a debit, credit, or gift card most stores require a merchant account to process your electronic payment. The merchant account allows buyers and sellers to use and accept non-cash payments for goods and services.

An Internet business can not take cash payments, but they can take checks. However, they will be losing a lot of potential customers by accepting only check payments. It is also safer for the consumer to use a credit card when purchasing on the Internet.

For new businesses, I highly recommend Google Checkout for your merchant account services. Google Checkout is a checkout process that you provide on your web site to enable your customers to buy from you quickly and securely, using a single user name and password. For a small business, Google Checkout is particularly advantageous, because it helps legitimize your brand.

With Google Checkout, there are no monthly, setup, or gateway service fees. When a purchase is made they charge the merchant 2% + $0.20 per transaction. However, If you advertise with Google AdWords, you will also be eligible for free transaction processing for some or all of your Google Checkout sales each month. For every $1 you spend on AdWords each month, you can process $10 in sales the following month for free through Google Checkout.

If you aren’t an AdWords advertiser, learn more about AdWords and sign up to earn free transaction processing with Google Checkout. The more you spend to promote your business through AdWords, the more you save on transaction processing fees with Google Checkout.

A merchant account service is critical for a successful business. It is a low risk way to make and accept payments electronically. If you are trying to establish your own business, you should make it a priority to have a merchant account . This will give you the proper payment processing options for the convenience of you and your customers.

• Your order form should be easily found
• Make it hassle-free to complete.
• Minimize the chances of them getting lost.
• Put a prominent link to your order page from every page on your site.

Make people will feel confident about buying from you. An easy way, to do this, is to offer a money back guarantee. Also, make it easy for your customers to contact someone if they have problems after purchasing.

Additionally, you can add customer testimonials, this will help them feel safe about buying something from a total stranger on the other end of the Internet.

In short, it would be very sad if you marketed and sold well to a prospect and something goes wrong when they are ready to buy. Eliminate problems and maximize your profits!

When it comes to your website, extra attention should be paid to every minute detail to make sure it performs optimally to serve its purpose. Here are four important rules of thumb to observe to make sure your website performs well.

1) Do Not Use Splash Pages

Splash pages are the first pages you see when you arrive at a website. They normally have a very beautiful image with words like “welcome” or “click here to enter”. In fact, they are just that — pretty pictures with no real purpose. Do not let your visitors have a reason to click on the “back” button! Give them the value of your site up front without the splash page.

2) Do Not Use Excessive Banner Advertisements

Even the least net savvy people have trained themselves to ignore banner advertisements so you will be wasting valuable website real estate. Instead, provide more valuable content and weave relevant links into your content, and let your visitors feel that they want to buy instead of being pushed to buy.

3) Have a Simple and Clear Navigation

You have to provide a simple and very straightforward navigation menu so that even a young child will know how to use it. Stay away from complicated Flash based menus or multi-tiered dropdown menus. Also, make sure that your visitors can access any major pages from your site from any other page in your site. If your visitors don’t know how to navigate, they will leave your site.

4) Avoid Using Music on Your Site

If your visitor is going to stay a long time at your site, reading your content, you will want to make sure they’re not annoyed by some music looping over and over on your website. If you insist on adding music, make sure they have some control over it — volume or muting controls would work fine.

Following these rules does not guarantee your site will be a success, but it will give your visitors a much more pleasurable experience.

Here are Five Ways to get Web Traffic at Low Cost

When it comes to making money from your Website there is one rule that must be obeyed. That rule is that you must be able to generate a steady stream of Visitors. It stands to reason that you will not be able to make any money if no-one arrives at your site to see what you have to offer.

This has been the demise of many a fledgling online business. They have tried but without success. It is a fact that you require money to advance an income generating Website. It is also the fact that it takes capital to make money. And this is where many have failed. They have not had the cash to invest in getting traffic to their site.

HOWEVER

Generating traffic to your website does not take a huge bundle of cash if you know how to go about it.

It is true that the ‘Big Guns’ can drive huge amounts of traffic to their online businesses by investing very large amounts of money on sophisticated advertising campaigns and the many different marketing schemes available and even by using gimmicks. For them this is definitely worth the money they spend after all this is what has got them to the point they are today – with high volumes of traffic and huge profits they have become online Mega sites.

But don’t be discouraged. You don’t have to spend mega bucks to succeed if you don’t have the necessary resources. Sadly there have been many people who have ‘lost the very shirt off their backs’ because they have depended on using high cost ways of promoting their website when they really could not afford it.

This does not need to be the case as there are several ways to generate traffic to your website without spending the fortune that you can’t afford or do not have. Here are 5 Ways to Generate Traffic at Low Cost.

These methods could vastly improve your website traffic statistics. If only a small percentage of visitors convert to becoming clients it works well especially if your traffic is way beyond your present levels.

1. Get Good Quality Links pointing to your site: Well how do you do this? – Exchanging links is still a useful method. It is very rare that you come across a site that has no link to another site. Exchanging Links enables web-masters to expose their site to the net more readily and thus ensuring that their site comes to the fore in the public eye. Perhaps a more desired linking method these days is One way Linking. This is where you encourage other good quality, high ranking websites to link to your site. One excellent way of doing this is submitting your site to as many Directory sites as you can. There are usually several Directories in most niche subjects.

Most online marketers are willing to exchange links and Directories will usually accept your submission but a VERY IMPORTANT factor is that you link to ‘relevant’ sites i.e. ones that fit with what you are promoting. It will be detrimental if you link with a company promoting ‘pig food’ if you are trying to sell high quality jewelry or if you submit your site to a Directory promoting ‘belly dance costumes’ if your niche is gardening. Your traffic will not appreciate that.

It is important that linking sites have a common purpose, a continuity in the provision of information or a service that interests their target traffic. If you ignore this factor the Search engines won’t like it either and you will fail to make any headway.

One of the key benefits of linking strategies is that the Search engines put a high significance on your linking popularity. They see all the ‘back links’ and consider you to be an important site to be reckoned with. As a result they increase your ranking and you move up their listings. As you move higher in the rankings your site will be seen by more surfers and you will get more ‘organic’ traffic that doesn’t cost you anything.

2. Write Your own Articles and Submit them to E-zines – If you search the internet you will find many online encyclopedias and e-zines which allow you to submit articles for free. If you cannot write yourself there are my freelance writers who, for a small fee, are willing to write articles for you. However if you want to save money you can write them yourself.

Once again it is important to stress that any article you write should coincide with the theme of your site. Everyone has expertise on something – write about what you know. If you do this those that read your articles will ‘feel’ your knowledge and will eagerly visit your site. It is a good idea to write articles that contain guidelines or tips on the subject matter of your website. Write an interesting, information packed, article and they will be hurrying to your site for more.

All that you need to do then, and this is very important, is to provide a resource box at the end of your article that links them back to your website. You could write a little about your site or you could simply place a link.

3. Traffic Exchange – What is ‘Traffic Exchange’? The principle of traffic exchange services is that a website set up for the purpose receives submissions from web-masters that join the network. The person who submitted the website then earns credits by browsing other member sites on the exchange program. These credits then allow the web-master to have his site viewed by other members in the system. This means that all of the sites involved have an increases in the number of visitors to their sites.

There may be a cost involved but very often these web exchange sites are free. Generally traffic exchange programs are used by small business owners who are working on a low budget and need free or low cost advertising. And they can be a good source of traffic if used correctly.

There is a note of caution however. You should choose carefully which traffic exchange site you use. It has been said that the usefulness of some of these programs is doubtful as sites are forgotten by many people once the time limit is up. Also some say it is risky to use these as it can get you banned ~from some advertising packages and some traffic exchanges use forms of advertising that are banned. However if you choose carefully there shouldn’t be any problem.

4. Create a Newsletter – Your first thought might be that this sounds like hard work. It is true that you do need to use a lot of articles to successfully build a Newsletter. But contrary to what you may think this is not difficult.

There are many websites and copywriters who are more than eager to provide you with free articles. Their only stipulation is that you place their name at the foot of their article. Your Newsletter brings you more traffic and gives the copywriter more advertising.

Your letter gets passed around and as it does more and more people become aware of your internet presence. Producing a Newsletter is great as, when folk sign up, it builds an ‘opt-in’ emailing list of interested parties who can revisit your site time and time again.

5. Online Communities and Forum Memberships – Joining these sites does not cost you anything but your time. You share your expertise and knowledge on your website – why not with online communities and Forums. As before, choose Forums that deal with the same niche or subject as your own website.

Publish your two cents worth and amaze other members with your knowledge about your particular subject. This has the effect of building your reputation. Then as your reputation grows so does the reputation of your website. Your Website eventually becomes known for the honest and reputable business that you have known it is all along. It will then begin to be trusted and visited by many relevant visitors who, because they have come to trust you will take advantage of what you offer.

So there you have it. Five very useful ways to increase traffic to your site. On Ebooks in Abundance I am using all five strategies to great effect. Why don’t YOU Start today, don’t delay and you will definitely see your business grow.

ShopRMall.com Launches Custom Experience
for iPhone, iPhone 3G, and iPod Touch

ShopRMall.com launches what could potentially be a new trend in mobile commerce, a new site that allows shoppers to browse and purchase products directly from their iPhone.

Charlotte, NC, July 17, 2008 — ShopRMall.com, a shopping portal that offers direct links, coupons, and special offers for online stores, has launched iphone.shoprmall.com, an iPhone/iPod Touch version of the ShopRMall.com web site. The new site includes daily coupons and specialoffers along with easy access to over 1,000 name brand and specialty stores, all from a familiar iPhone interface.

Stores in ShopRMall.com include The Apple Store, Dick’s Sporting Goods, Fingerhut, JCPenney, Overstock.com, Staples, Amazon.com, Bowflex, Macy’s, Best Buy, and Brookstone.

This is not ShopRMall.com’s first foray into the mobile realm. In 2001, Eric J. Katowitz, a professional multi-platform engineer and graphic designer with Cire Web Site Design & Hosting, along with his cutting edge team of experts, launched mobile.shoprmall.com for various mobile devices and cell phones, including those running the Blackberry, Palm, and Windows Mobile platforms. That site is a coupons only version that allows users to browse the latest special offers, but not purchase products directly.

ShopRMall.com and Cire Web Site Design & Hosting, owned by Cire Computer Productions, Inc., an e-commerce technology and interactive services provider, offers what could potentially be a new trend in mobile commerce. The keystone of this trend is the ability to allow shoppers to browse and purchase products directly from each merchant’s online shopping web site via their iPhone or iPod Touch.

In October of 2006, ShopRMall.com was featured in Internet Retailer magazine for our ShopRMall.com Mobile site. This site began life as a project called ShopPocket which was launched way back in 2001.

You can find the full text of the article below, and to see the latest site to spring up from the ShopPocket project view our newest press release here.

ShopRMall.com Miniaturizes for Mobile Shoppers

ShopRMall.com, a web site that offers coupons and special offers for myriad online stores with links on its site, has launched a mobile version of the site, mobile.ShopRMall.com/pda/. The site’s mobile edition presents daily offers with links to e-commerce sites, some of which also are mobile editions of the sites.

Web stores on ShopRMall.com include Dick’s Sporting Goods, Fingerhut, JCPenney, Oriental Trading Company, Overstock.com, Staples, PajamaGram, Newegg, Little Giant Ladder Systems and Bowflex.

ShopRMall.com, operated by Cire Computer Productions Inc., an e-commerce technology and services vendor, represents what potentially could be the beginnings of a trend in m-commerce: E-commerce and m-commerce technology vendors launching m-commerce sites of their own. The model to date has the vendors launching mobile versions of retailer web sites for free and combining them into an online shopping mall setting; vendors then take commissions on sales to recoup their investments. A tangential part of this model, like the one now being used by ShopRMall.com, has the vendors setting up mobile sites that shoppers searching for products on their mobile phones can use as a jumping off point to web stores.

Similarly, wireless telecommunications carriers have begun adding shopping portals, or decks, to their user interfaces. Mobile phone users access the shopping area, which enables them to link to m-commerce sites—either wireless carrier-based versions of sites or Internet-based mobile-enabled sites—of retailers that have commission agreements with the carriers.