Monthly Archives: May 2009

Review of the Day

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Thought I’d review the Internet Marketing process I learned from the 30 Day Challenge. It is an approach that makes sense and applies to a product or service offering that you may have in mind. It also addresses the fact that most online (and offline for that matter) business start ups fail for the following reason. They have the process wrong from the beginning.

A lot of people pick a product or develop a technology and then try to find a market for it. That is putting the cart before the horse and is why lots of money and effort go to waste.

The 30 Day Challenge process does not do that. It is as follows: market research, traffic, conversion, product.

Market Research

Market research involves taking an idea and doing some serious keyword research at the outset. That means finding out what people are actually using as search terms when looking for a product or service. What terms are they using? How often are those terms being used in a 24 hour period? In short what are they looking for specifically. You want to mine your research to find a niche that allows you to start a small business under the radar. You don’t want to pick an area where the big guys will crush you in a minute.

There are tools and methods to help you do that. Google adwords, Wordtracker and one that I like Market Samurai.

Once you have developed your keyword list, you are ready to test for traffic with a test product or service.

Traffic

Traffic is one of the critirea of keyword selection. You need to pick keywords that have a minimum volume of use in order to assure that enough traffic (better known as customer demand) is there for your product or service. That demand has to be qualified demand, people who want to buy, not customers who are just browsing.

How do you create traffic? One way is to write content, ie articles, and post on different sites and article directories. The other way involves buying your traffic through Pay Per Click on Google Adwords. The latter involves an investment of anywhere from $100 to $500 in the early stages.

Conversion

Once you have traffic coming in,  you want to measure the volume that is visiting your site. 200 visits per day is the minimum volume the 30 Day Challenge looks for. If you have a 1% conversion rate you would get 2 buyers per day. That is considered low. If you get a 5% conversion rate, or 10 buyers per day, that is considered great and you have a winner site.

Product selection

Product selection occurs after you have passed the keyword selection, traffic and conversion testing and you know you have a site that will convert. If it does not convert, drop the test site and start over.

If you have a site that tests well, then you go and search for a series of products or services that will build on the product or service concept you just tested.  You are now on your way to building your Internet Marketing business.

This in short is the 30 Day Challenge process.  It is one that I have found makes far more sense to me than the get rich quick schemes that proliferate the Web.  This is not a short and easy path to riches.  It is a methodical approach to starting an Internet Marketing business whether you try the 30 Day Challenge or chose to go your own way.

Take a look for your self and see if it makes sense for you.  I think you will find it does.

May Your Travels Be Prosperous

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Just Starting Out? — 2 Key Steps in Setting Up Your Online Business

Affiliate Marketing for Beginners
Registering a Domain Name—Selecting a Web Host

One of the most important decisions to make when deciding to start your online business is setting up a Web site. Now, the term Web site can refer to a set of pages dedicated to a product or service. This concept is what you think of in the business or corporate world. A site specifically dedicated to a single business purpose.

But Web site also refers to a Blog. That is a set of pages that can not only be dedicated to commercial use, but that can also be used for private or personal expression. Blogs have been around from the very early days of the Internet but they really took off after the introduction of software such as WordPress in 2003 and have had a huge impact on how information gets presented on the Web.

For the first time internet marketer, setting up a blog or more traditional Web site will involve two key steps: establishing a domain and finding a host or home for that domain.

Establishing Your Domain Name

The first thing you need to do is develop your business plan and then decide on a name for your blog or site. A domain name will be your unique Web address that people will use to type into their browser to find your business online. If you are setting up a tile business and your business name is “Italian Tiles”, you might select Italian Tiles.com as your domain name. A domain name is by definition unique, so no one else can have it or use it. That is where registering your domain name comes into play.

Register Your Domain Name

Once you’ve selected a prospective domain name you will then want to register that name through a service that specializes in domain registration—a domain registrar. These are services certified and approved by the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). There are many registrars available. Some of the more notable are GoDaddy, Register.com, Network Solutions, NamesDirect, NameCheap to name a few.

Once you have selected a service you can then sign up and do a name search to see if your prospective domain name is available. You are now at step 2. You can check to see if the name is available using different extensions such as .com, .net, .org, .info or extensions using country identifiers such as us, fr, uk, etc…

With your domain name checked out and confirmed available, you then can purchase the name for a specified period of time. The cost varies depending on the service you use and the time frame selected. You can pay a yearly reservation fee or go out to five years. Fees can range from $9 on an annual basis to $45 for a 5 year lock in. Whatever you choose, once you have made the purchase of the domain name, you are then ready for the next step, finding a place to host it.
Finding a Host

With a domain name registered and ready to go, you now need to find a place to put it. That means you need a Web host. A Web host is a business that provides a black box called a Web server that will house your domain. It allows you to have the space or bandwidth to transfer files, or Web pages, and does it all for a monthly fee of between $3 to $10 per month to start.

Responsibility for content and software support lies with you and the software provider whose software you are using. The Web host is only responsible for the “pipes” you are using to transmit your data.

Two items you will want to know about are disk space and bandwidth.

Disk space is what the Web host will give you as your working space. Typically, this space runs from 10 gigabytes or more. What you will specifically need will depend on what your intended use is, so you should determine that, and order accordingly. Obviously, the more space the higher the monthly cost of hosting.

Bandwidth is the second factor to consider. Bandwidth refers to the amount of information that will be moving through the pipes. A straightforward text document like a letter requires less bandwidth than a streaming video sales piece. Web Hosts offer a variety of bandwidth limits on different types of accounts. They typically measure similarly to disk space; 10-50 gigabytes. Here again, depending on what you will be doing with your Web site or Blog, you will need to determine how much bandwidth you will need before deciding on the package to select from your Web host.

File Transfer Software

There is one more item you will need before you can set up your Web host. That is software that will allow you to transfer files from your computer to the Web host computer. This software is called File Transfer Protocol or FTP. The program is called an FTP Client and is used to upload Web or Blog files to your Web host server. The more commonly used programs are WS_FTP, SmartFTP, FileZilla, FTP Explorer, but there are many more to choose from.

With your domain name registered, a Web host selected and an FTP program ready to go, you are now ready to begin to create and install the content for your site and get your business underway. Take some time and find a good tutorial to show you the steps for setting yourself up or outsource some of the work. Whatever you decide, you are well on your way.

May your travels be prosperous.

Review of the Day – Copyblogger

Inspiration
Image by h.koppdelaney via Flickr

I signed up for +Partnering Profits, a program offered through Copyblogger. It is written by Jon Morrow, a partner of the owner/creator of Copyblogger, Brian Clark. I received the 158 page eBook that anchors the course and read it over the first couple of days after was emailed.

Overall I am impressed with the information and the emphasis on the business of partnering as much as the tactics and strategies that Jon and Brian are going to teach. One thing that I have found missing from other offers is precisely how to go about setting up a viable business online. It is no surprise that setting up the legal framework for an online business is no different than setting up an offline business. It’s just that it doesn’t get covered in most of the other products I have bought. So that is a big plus from the get go.

As far as the course is concerned the first installment starts December 4, so we’ll see how that plays out. The cost for the early adopters is $97. That includes the eBook, the follow up training and one year membership in the +Partnering Profits forum.

I’ll be making periodic updates so stay tuned.

May Your Travels Be Prosperous.

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Review of the Day – ClickNewz

Two coffees...

Image by Tonyç via Flickr

Took in Lynn Terry’s SelfStarterWeeklyTips webinar today. It was very informative and useful. Among the important points to remember:

  • Don’t pretend to be what you are not. If you have a blog let folks know what you can do for them and be ready to help.
  • When posting several items to your main home page use the “read more” function on your longer posts to keep information in smaller increments. That way you don’t overwhelm your visitor with too much information. The “read more” function also shows your reader is really interested in the article and is more apt to leave a comment.
  • Lynn left a couple of useful links. One is for learning to use and editorial calendar in order to schedule regular content to your blog. It’s a blog activity organizer. http://www.clicknewz.com/1389/babb-13-use-an-editorial-calendar-for-your-blog/
  • The other link is for Yanik Silver’s Web Site analyzer. Check it out and see if this is for you. http://www.selfstartersweeklytips.com/free/dl/14-point-web-copy-analysis.pdf

Hope this is useful for you.

May Your Travels be prosperous.

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How to Monetize Your Site

How to make sense out of Adsense

If you are just starting out in internet marketing, one of the ways to create a revenue stream or monetize your Web site is to display contextual ads from a number of advertising networks. By far the most prominent and popular with affiliates is Adsense, a program run by Google. If you haven’t enrolled yet and you are in Internet Marketing, make a point of reading this article and then go to Google and sign-up. It’s free and it is part of any affiliate marketers tool kit.

Before you do sign up, there are some things you need to know as you consider putting these ads on your site.

Page Content

First off, the Web page on which you want to place these ads should be theme based and rich in content. Google ads are based on the content of a page and the geographic location of the customer, so there has to be a way for the ad to relate directly to the information you are displaying. For example, if your site is about a breed of dogs, Adsense will place ads that directly bear on the care or business that relates to that breed of dogs and has some bearing on dog care and maintenance.

Make sure your content is focused and target one or two keywords or keyword phrases; that will ensure that the search engine will serve more relevant ads and increase the chance of clicks for which you get paid. That is how you monetize your site.

Ad Placement and Format Choice

Ad placement and choice of format are other factors to consider.

Ad placement is generally considered to be best where the ad can be seen by the customer. Conventional wisdom places them on the right side of a page, placed on white backgrounds and clearly separated to allow for easy reading. I have seen Adsense ads in the center right top of web sites. The best thing is to test where they are most effective depending on the design of your page and how the information is displayed.

Formats for ads have vertical or horizontal characteristics. The format you choose has more to do with site design and display of the specific Web page. Here again you can experiment to see which format looks better and gives the best results in click throughs.

Ad Placement

There are some rules of thumb to respect however when placing ads. For example, it is not a good idea to place Adsense on your homepage. This gives your visitor the chance to click away from your site before they have had a chance to look around and give you some business. So let your potential customers spend time finding the information you have for them before you hand them over to someone else.

If your page is a product endorsement page, you will not want Adsense for the very same reason. You want that lead to buy your product and not leave for someone else’s.

Informational pages are perfect for Adsense, just make sure you don’t overload with too many ads. Google allows for three ads per page. Anything more than that is just overselling and a turn off for the customer.

You also don’t want to put Adsense on social pages or pages used for interaction with others such as a forum. In many cases blog site rules don’t permit ads so be mindful of the agreement rules of your site host.

Remember that you are trying to establish a relationship with your customer and overloading on ads in every nook and cranny will work against that goal.

Conclusion

With all that said, effective use of Adsense can be a real source of income to supplement and add to the revenue for the affiliate marketer. So make a point of learning about the ways you can use Adsense to your advantage. It is very easy to set up.

The sign up takes only a few minutes and once you have registered the site on which you want to put the ads, Google will review and send confirmation with a clip code you will place on your Web pages. This code can be positioned wherever you want and within a short time thereafter, ads will start appearing.

Commission earnings are not disclosed by Google but estimates from experienced users put the rates at between 40 to 60% of Adwords rates and Adsense earnings. That’s not bad given you are not doing all the heavy lifting.

And there you have it! Once you have Adsense under you belt, you can take a look at other Ad services such as ValueClick, Affiliate Sensor and others to find new ways to monetize your site. With time, and some trial and experimentation, you will find new revenue streams awaiting you.

May your travel be prosperous.

Over the past 20 years Claude Pelanne has worked in a series of startup ventures including some of the first commercial webcasts. He is an internet marketer and serial entrepreneur. Get information on internet marketing atcpelanne or claudepelanne

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Claude Pelanne

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