Fortune-Magnet News

by: David Zohar

Any business, online or offline, that wouldn’t require any initial cash layout, would be a win-win situation.

This is what makes affiliate programs so much enticing. An affiliate program allows the affiliate marketer to act as a middleman between the consumer and the merchant, without having to add anything to the price of the product. The affiliate marketer is given a commission for every successful sale, and these percentages can be a substantial sum.

Many online citizens actually claim that they have given up their day jobs because of affiliate marketing. The amount they are earning from affiliate programs is significantly larger than their normal income.

If you wish to enter the very promising world of affiliate marketing, here are ten tips that would definitely help you maximize potential profit from the system.

Focus on a particular area of interest. You can’t sell products that target different markets. It is better to concentrate on one specific field, study its ins and outs, and work your way around its demands. To illustrate, if you choose dogs as an area of interest, research on the places where dog lovers gather online. Then look for an affiliate program that offers products which cater to their needs.

Choose an advantageous affiliate program. There are some things to consider when choosing the most profitable affiliate program. First among these is the salability-commission ratio. Usually, products which are difficult to sell offer a higher commission, whereas products that are easy to sell offer lower percentage cuts. Try to find an advantageous balance. Look for a product that is easy to sell and offers an attractive commission. Additionally, you should also consider the credibility and reliability of the affiliate program. Do they actually pay? Do they pay on time? Are their products worth something? These are but a few of the things you have to clarify before committing yourself to their terms.

Build a focused and content-filled site. You will primarily sell the affiliate products in your site. But if your site does not attract that many visitors, sales conversion is virtually impossible. Create a site that focuses on the area of interest you have chosen, and populate it with rich, informative content that people would love to read. Just like that famous line from the movie Field of Dreams, “build it and they will come.”

Market your site. People would not automatically know about your site, so you have to advertise it across the web. Submit it to search engines, exchange links with well-visited sites, and promote it in online communities. You have to spread the word that your site exists, and that it’s good.

Market the product. Once a consistent influx of visitors is established, it’s time to promote the affiliate product you’re selling. This is usually done through a sales page that can be accessed from your site. A sales page is an article full of praises or the product. Things like “it changed my life,” “the secret that they don’t want you to know,” “be a millionaire in one week,” and the likes are not uncommon lines for sales pages. But they work. Hire a professional ghostwriter to write a sales page for you.

Discard anonymity. Anonymity is a common thing on the internet, but it is bad for a business venture. People would rather deal with someone they know, rather than a username like B1GB3N or R2D2. Give your real name. You could choose to keep your contact information undisclosed however, until you become sure that the other party is likewise worthy of your trust.

Build a network. Befriend other affiliate marketers. Share information about the best deals, the most effective strategies, and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. Remember, the world is all about a network of contacts. Each person you know would eventually help you out at one point. There is no reason why the internet should be any different.

Build a list. It is not enough that a visitor visits your site. You have to keep him. He may not purchase any of your available products now, but there’s no telling that he won’t decide to buy your future offerings. So build a list by encouraging them to sign up. Create a free service that would make them keep in touch. Remember, a lost visitor is a lost sale.

Protect your link. Your affiliate link is the one thing that would inform your chosen affiliate program that you were the one who was responsible for a particular sale. Link theft is rampant these days, which is unfortunate, because in affiliate marketing, your link is your bread and butter. So protect your affiliate link at all costs.

Do not limit yourself to one affiliate program. Join as many as you can without losing the focus of what you want to sell. The greater the variety of the products you offer, the more chances that one will be bought. Joining affiliate programs is free, so might as well make the most out of it.

About The Author:
David Zohar Is The Author Of The “Residual-Income-success” Book Where You Can Learn His Special Methods To Get Paid Every Month Promoting Residual Income Affiliate Programs. http://www.residual-income-success.com

by: John Kovacs

People sign up with affiliate programs everyday, looking to expand their income and make a good living for their efforts. The unfortunate part of all this is that most people will sign up with a company without really knowing what the company is all about. In many cases, the majority of these people who sign up, never see the income they had hopes for. In too many situations they find themselves loosing interest and give up because they are greatly disappointed.

There are many factors that can play into this type of situation. The most common complaints are; lack of support and getting paid the proper commissions. With the many affiliate programs that are offered on the Internet, you need to be able to distinguish between a well-established affiliate program, verses one that is not.

Here are 12 tips on what to look for when selecting an affiliate program:

1.) Look for the length of time the company has been in business. Are they a legitimate company that is well established with a solid presence on the Internet?

2.) Do they offer a quality product or service? If they offer to pay you a high commission, but do not have a quality product or service, is it worth your time?

3.) Does the company stand behind their products or service offering a 100% guarantee?

4.) Do they offer all the promotional tools you will need, like banners, text links, ads, flyers, etc?

5.) Look for companies that provide you with training materials and marketing support to help you achieve success.

6.) Look for companies that will give you updates on new products or services, selling tips and training material.

7.) Does the company have a statistics/log page that you have access to? This page should show you your current sales, sign ups, commissions, etc. Look for programs that have real time tracking capabilities that you can access 24/7.

8.) Do they have an administrative page that you can make changes to your personal information?

9.) When a sale is made or an affiliate joins their program through your website, do they send you notification of this? What form of information do they send you? You should receive information on the type of sale, the name of the person, phone number and email address of your new sign-up. This is an important issue when you are in a two-tier affiliate program.

10.) Do they offer a fair commission structure? A reputable company will make it very clear what you are paid for your efforts. You should avoid any company that does not paint a clear picture of the commissions you receive. Most established companies offer 20% and up.

11.) Check on what form of tracking code they use. Are you paid only on the initial sale, or do you get paid on repeat business.

12.) Look for companies that are offering unique products or services that are relevant to your website. Choose merchants that offer products or services that you yourself believe in.

To summarize, signing up with a company that is well established can generate a stronger business partnership, which will increase your motivational interest as well as significantly increase your levels of success.

About The Author:
John Kovacs is the CEO and founder of “A Home Business Opportunity”. His website mainly focuses on supplying free marketing tips, resources and support for home startup businesses and Internet marketing. To get a step-by-step guide in building an online business, visit http://www.ahomebusinessopportunity.net

by: S. Housley

Affiliate programs are commonly misunderstood, in order to understand affiliate programs lets start with terminology. For clarification purposes, an affiliate is defined as any “referrer” or website that promotes a product in an effort to earn revenue. A merchant is defined as someone who owns a product and is sharing revenues with an affiliate based on the affiliate’s performance. Affiliate programs can drive targeted traffic to your website.

There are 3 basic affiliate programs, though only the first two are commonly used.

Pay Per Click - this is when an affiliate is compensated for sending traffic to the merchant. (AdSense is an example of PPC affiliate program).

Pay Per Sale - this is when the affiliate is compensated by the merchant if the referral generates a sale or purchase.

Pay Per Lead - this is when the merchant agrees to pay for a qualified (or sometimes unqualified lead), which is very uncommon because it is subjective and up to the merchant.

Affiliate websites tend to provide information, entertainment, and content services to their customers. The online merchants sell products, goods and services online. These are programs permitting affiliates to earn money based on the visitors to your site who click through to another’s website. Some pay a token amount for the click through and others provide a percentage of sales when a visitor “clicks through” to your site and buys a product or service on the other party’s site. This could represent a value added service to your visitors.

Affiliate programs allow you to pay and track incentives from other websites that send web surfers, leads or paying customers to your website. Commissions based on purchases made by traffic sent from the referring website can be paid. Besides a commission, an affiliate can receive a flat fee, or other incentives for all valid transactions it refers that generate a sale or lead.

Be careful that the affiliate’s web page is not cluttered with banner ads that may crowd out your link, or that be annoying to customers. Affiliate programs enable affiliates to leverage their traffic and customer base in order to profit from e-commerce while merchants benefit from increased exposure and sales.

Commonly traffic to merchant sites is measured and affiliates can clearly see conversion rates. Meaning, they track the percentage of people they are referring, and how much of it results in earned revenue. If the affiliate finds a very low conversion, they will find a better way to use that traffic, quite possibly with a competing merchant product.

In order to be a successful affiliate, the affiliate site needs to either have tons of traffic or target a specific audience, frequently one untapped by the merchant. It has been my experience, the closer the affiliate site content resembles the merchant products, the higher the likelihood of a good conversion rate.

Once you are committed to the idea of affiliates, the next step is to determine the kind of tracking system you are going to use. Sales can be tracked by HTML code, which is placed in a shopping cart or on the ‘order confirmation’/'thank you’ page, and cookies, which are created after the customers click on a banner ad. Cookie killers have been a problem for the affiliate industry. Software vendors have an advantage over other merchants in that new technologies allow software developers to better control compensation. Vendors can ‘wrap’ their software insuring that their affiliates are compensated for referrals, even if the customer downloads a trial version prior to purchasing. Buy now buttons in the software have affiliate ids imbedded in the download. Combined tracking systems have more success than those that rely on a single tracking technology.

In order to develop a successful affiliate network, merchants must realize that affiliates spend ad dollars on site, and product promotion. If the affiliate is not compensated fairly they will not remain in the merchants network. The bottom line is that affiliate relationships are partnerships, when both sides feel the situation is fair and equitable the relationship will be a success.

About The Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.feedforall.com, http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com and http://www.small-business-software.net

For some it’s just a fun thing to do, while some others feel they will soon be left out; they soon join the crowd. Everyone who uses the internet knows someone who has a blog. Now what do you find in a blog that you don’t find anywhere else… Nothing? If you are a friend of the blogger you visit his blog probably because you want a sneak peek into whats happening in his life right? don’t deny that… been there done that! oh, and if you are a blogger yourself you visit other blogs thinking that the other guy reciprocates.

So why do you blog? Ask yourself this question. If you can’t answer this I can tell you why you blog -

1. You wanted to be famous like the friend of yours getting all the attention? You want people to give you more attention and listen to you more.

2. You are socially disabled and the only contact you have is with the computer. You obviously have not taken a bath in a week or more. And you believe that the only people in existence on the planet are living on the internet.

3. You do not really care what people think about you. You want to drown others in your personal agony. You come up with some thoughtless contradictions that you think others will like to argue with you about.

4. You want to have a say in all things that is happening around you. You want to talk about what you ate this morning, which side of the bed you got up etc. You have an agitated head that wants to express all the million bits of thoughts that is entering your head.

5. You want to be a self-proclaimed town crier. You think of those eyeballs of people who know you who are constantly looking for important updates about another person they know. You want to be the first to announce a friend’s wedding date that the others know about already. You want to keep the rumor mills turning.

6. You think you are very important in the society. They want your opinions to be read and heard. You want to give profound insights and meaningless thoughts that you feel will affect the society at large.

7. You want to be a writer and you are only practicing your skills.

8. You have a lot of time and maybe you are even jobless at the moment.

If you said YES to any one of these and that is the only reason you blog, you probably need to rethink about what you want to do with your blog to put it to better use today.

Now I will tell you the reasons why I blog.

a. A blog is a very important source of information online. We know we are constantly on the lookout for more data to process and blog is an all important source. No denying that. I want to be a source of such useful information.

b. I have a business and I need to promote my business online. If I own my own blog… I can self promote my services to you and because you know me you are probably going to recommend me and refer your friends.

c. I know that Search Engines like contents. Blogs are a great way to get my site noticed by the search engines. Because a blog is fresher than static sites, search engines love to visit blogs to index them. If I talk about my business in my blog and put a lot of keywords related to my business, people are more likely to find me when they search for something in google and they find the link to my business site and visit it. Believe me internet works that way and this alone is a very good reason why you need to have a blog.

d. I want to establish myself as an expert in my field. The more people are going to hear about me and my business, the more likely they are to put their confidence in me.

e. Blogs are a great way to position my company in the eyes of my existing clients. In other words, giving it a more human face.

Here is what Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer of server maker Sun Microsystems had to say about blogs after he started his blog himself and found that it was a gold mine. “It wi’ll be no more mandatory that they have blogs than that they have a phone and an e-mail account,” Schwartz says. “If they don’t, they’re going to look foolish.”

Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates is considering starting a blog, says a company spokesperson. Filmmaker Michael Moore began a blog on July 4 to promote his controversial new movie, Fahrenheit 9/11.

I blog for a reason, do you?

About The Author:
Joji M John is the CEO of 2edge Solutions http://www.2edge.com, a web development firm specializing in ecommerce & CMS development. He also owns a number of successful websites.

If it wasn’t for my blog, I wouldn’t make any online sales at all.

It’s true that I have a “regular” website, my so-called “main website,” which I first set up to sell my goods, in this case, men’s and women’s health products. It’s my workhorse, the source of most of my revenue. Most of my sales resulted from generic listings in the search engines, particularly Google.

That is, until Google sandboxed me.

Some of you may have heard of the legendary Google sandbox, sometimes called, “The Goggle Sandbox Effect.” What happens is that newly listed sites rank well for about two to three weeks, then suddenly drop off the radar screen. These new sites are placed in a type of probational sandbox, away from the “real” sites.

Why does this happen, you ask? There are almost as many theories as there are SEO (Search Engine Optimization) experts. Many believe that this probation period is not related to the sites themselves, but to their links. It is believed that back link (pure link popularity) credit is placed in a reserve for a period of time (2-4 months) before it is applied to ranking and has an effect. The theory behind this is to combat PR (Page Rank) purchasers from dominating PR from the beginning. It is meant to deter spam websites.

Others believe this alleged filter that is placed on new websites is an illusion. These skeptics argue that the phenomenon merely echoes already existing Google algorithm calculations.

Whatever the reason, I got sandboxed, the rug pulled out from underneath me; shiskobobbed. The high-ranking and sales that I was receiving from my site suddenly plummented.

I was devastated. What’s a poor boy to do now?

Desperate, I wrote to a number of online SEO forums, seeking advice from the SEO gurus. Some thought it was amusing and laughed in my face. Others offered advice such as forgetting about Google for awhile and optimizing my site for the other search engines (not a bad idea). Others thought that I should continue adding content, since content is king as far as the search engines are concerned. Still others thought I should try to gain as many quality links as I should, and this would help pull me out of the sandbox (it felt more like quicksand to me.)

I committed to doing all these things, but in the meantime, what about my website and the products that I was trying to sell, the money I was hoping to make?

I kept hearing about blogs, those personal websites that are published on the Web. As you probably know, blogs contain philosophical reflections, talk about social issues, and opinions about everything under the sun. They are usually presented in journal style with a new entry each day, or almost every day.

Some people have found out that blogs can also be used to sell products. In fact, an entire industry has evolved around commercial blogging and ways to market them. Some of these commercial blogs appear in the same journal style as the most popular blogs, while others do not look any different from a regular commercial website.

At any rate, I decided to check them out. The fact that a number of blog publishers allow you to build and post your comments for free, certainly didn’t hurt either.

I studied many of the blogs that are out there on the Internet, particularly the ones relating to my niche. The more I read, the more I liked. I was surprised to learn that some of the top websites in my niche were actually blogs. They ranked high on Google and all of the other search engines. And no doubt, they were making sales.

Soon, I had a pretty good idea about how I was going to build my blog. I didn’t want to copy the others, I just needed to get an idea of how some enterprising webmasters were creating them.

Within minutes, I had created my blog, published it on the Web, and began posting and tweaking it. I inserted some HTML code to monitor my stats, and continued to work on making it a better blog. I also continued to work on my other websites, so that whenever I do climb out of Google’s sandbox, my site will get a good rating.

Not long afterwards, I made my first blog sale!

Elated, I built other blogs. The more lines you have in the water, the better chance you’ll catch a fish, right? Each was slightly different than the preceding one, but I still hawked the same products. All have links back to my “main” website, and all have brought me sales.

I might have been down, but thanks to my new-found knowledge about blogs, I wasn’t out.

So, while I’m waiting to climb out of Google’s sandbox, I have an ace in the hole and another up my sleeve that is continuing to make sales for me - my blog. Unknowingly, I had stumbled upon one of the best ways to get my products out there before the buying public.

What I had thought was the worse thing to happen turned out to be the best thing. Had Google not sandboxed me, I probably never would have discovered the awesome marketing power of blogs!

About The Author:
Van Whitsett is the author of numerous articles, both online and in the print media. He has tried (and failed) with a number of Internet businesses. His website, Natural Male Enhancement, has proven to him that the Holy Grail does indeed exist, and that it’s possible to earn money online.

You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money:

1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market.

2. Updated regularly.

3. Enough back links (Don’t worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with)

4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and

5. High quality articles or news items supported with images.

Get the above criteria in place and Hurray… You are ready to Make Money Blogging.

Top 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging

Lets now take a look at top 5 ways using which you could make money blogging:

1. Google Adsense

Google Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page. Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads.

Google bills advertisers on price per click basis (PPC). Advertisers are required to pay only when any visitor clicks on their ads. They bid against each other for the keywords in order to receive better placement and thus prices for each keyword differ from one another. It is better to choose keywords for your blog which pays high $ per click.

2. Amazon

Amazon Associate program is another important way to make money blogging. The Amazon Associate program gives opportunity to website/blog publishers to promote any product from its inventory by adding a predefined code to their website/blog, which, when clicked by a visitor, takes them to the relevant product page. Once the visitor buys the product, the blog owner will be compensated with a commission.

3. Blogads

You can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks.

Alternative Services:

• Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues.

• Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price.

Users can place their text-based ads in the site within minutes and the ads will be displayed instantly on the website.

4. Affiliate Programs

Your affiliate programs can help you earn a lot of money for selected products and services. Lot of websites offers you to become affiliate members. These affiliate programs can provide a better reach and an in-depth exposure to the products. The commissions for the sales differ according to the quality of the product, sales and marketing strategy involved. You can gather information related to the commissions by looking into the catalogues of Link Share and Commission junctions.

5. Text Links

Text links has emerged out to be the best form of moneymaking source that you can use instead of cluttering or crowding the page with ads. You don’t have to make these text links prominent within your website. This link can act as an extra value to your site and will also help to promote the rankings of other sites. In most of the cases you will find these text links placed in the bottom of the web pages. The best part of this strategy is that the publishers send and accept links as the market continues to grow.

Matt Bacak, The Powerful Promoter and Entrepreneur Magazine e-Biz radio show host, became a “#1 Best Selling Author” in just a few short hours. He has helped a number of clients target his specialty, opt-in email direct marketing systems. The Powerful Promoter is not only a sought-after internet marketer but has also marketed for some of the world’s top experts whose reputations would shrivel if their followers ever found out someone else coached them on their online marketing strategies.

About The Author:
About The Author:
For more information, visit Bacak’s site at http://www.powerfulpromoter.com or sign up for his Powerful Promoting Tips at http://www.promotingtips.com

By the end of 2004 blogs had established themselves as a key part of online culture. “Blog readership shoots up 58% in 2004 6 million Americans get news and information fed to them through RSS aggregators But 62% of online Americans do not know what a blog is.” - Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Tip #1 - How and Where Should I Start?
You should begin your blog with a free blog hosting service such as Blogger, www.blogger.com, or other similar free services such as www.JournalHome.com,  www.LiveJournal.com or www.Blog-City.com. The learning curve for using such free services allow you to spend more on developing your content rather than worrying about the advanced areas of scripting, hosting, or programming.

Tip #2 - The Things You Should Decide to Write About
Although not a required prerequisite for you in order to write a blog, it is highly recommended to try to find a topic to write about based on your level of interest and knowledge. The higher your level of interest, the easier it is for you to get your quality content posted on your blog. Always try to choose an area which you can enthusiastically write about on a daily basis. Try to pay attention to a niche which suites you well. A niche is basically a targeted product, service, or topic.

Tip #3 - Always stay on topic.
Opinions are generally accepted but the content of the items in the blog should all relate to a general theme. The majority of your readers will be interested in the content that relates to a specific defined theme or loosely defined area of interest. Define a topic and try not to run too far away from it. This will ensure that you create a loyal following of interested readers.

Tip #4 - Information is king, be informative.
If you are attempting to create the impression that you are knowledgeable about a specific industry or sector, be sure that you stay current on news. Checking your facts before you’re giving out an opinion or a product review is always a good idea, your reputation is at stake. If by any chance you’re utilizing other people’s articles for you blog content, ensure that you follow the terms of usage defined by the author.

Tip #5 - Old news is not news, but old information can be recycled and made new.
While blogging everyday can be strenuous and time consuming, it is important that the information presented is current and accurate. Information, articles or any other archived resources can be recycled / modified to add more substance to your content. As long as they’re relevant and informative, there’s no reason why it’s not a good approach.

Tip #6 - Be disciplined and stick to a fixed posting schedule.
Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don’t create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don’t want to lose them due to lack of communication. If time is not on your side, take advantage of tonnes of automatically updating contents which are available for your blog. Looking at the constantly updating nature of RSS feeds, other RSS feeds from similar topic can be inserted within your blogging post.

Tip #7 - Posting Frequency.
If your blog content is updated frequently, search engines will tend to spider the pages at regular intervals. Updating your blog daily not only keeps your blog more interesting to readers, but it also gives your blog fresh content on a day to day making it more appealing to search engines. To keep your blog traffic and retain your visitors interest it is a must to update your blog daily with multiple entries. You should try to update your blog everyday with at least 2 - 3 or more daily entries, depending on your daily schedule.

Tip #8 - Quantity matters.
In order to attract the attention of search engines, you will need to produce a relevant amount of content and information. A headline or simple sentence is not going to generate the interest of readers or help with search engine ranking. Be sure to archive old blog posts to develop a large portal of similarly-themed content.

Tip #9 - Clarity & simplicity / Short & Concise.
Keep your posts and blog entries clear and easy to understand. Simplicity always produce better results at the end of the day.

Aside from the lengthy article a week for syndication and publication your blog entries should be short & concise (if you can help it). Should you insist on partaking on the lengthy road, try to maintain a clean paragraphing style, proper spacing, use different size, color and bold for your titles as well as the subtitles. Use bullet points, go straight to the point and never run out of topic. Insert images to spice up things if you’re an avid fan of long posts.

Tip #10 - Utilize the “blockquote” and “code” tags.
Being one of the few most underutilized blogging formatting tags, these 2 items can help you on emphasizing certain points, in the most efficient and striking way. Formatting is simple and straightforward. Just get your message into a blockquote tag, and your message will appear distinctively different from the rest of your text, thus gets more attention which it deserves. Take note that the formatting for these 2 tags differ from blog to blog depending on how the owner defines the tag in the CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).Click the below link if you want to read more about CSS:
http://www.w3schools.com/css/default.asp

Tip #11 - Keyword-rich.
If the goal of your blog is to increase your visibility, include related keywords in the title of the blog. Use the title as a headline to attract interest. Each item post should have a title that will attract attention but still be relevant to the post. The title should be no longer than 10-12 words. Experiment with the titles if you must, possibly try to avoid general and ordinary titles. Try to include extraordinary and innovative titles to grab the readers’ attention.

Tip #12 - Spell checking and proof-reading.
It only takes a few extra moments and can save you from having to make embarrassing explanations. The hazards of Internet is that if you’re too late to correct your mistake, most likely it’s already been crawled by the search engines and read by many. It is extremely essential to think / proof read carefully twice or even thrice, about what you post before doing so. Take note of your language and grammar.

Tip #13 - RSS Feeds
RSS to a blog is like fuel to cars. Mostly every single free blogs or blogging software out there will have an automatic RSS feed generating feature. Although it’s most unlikely that you’ll find one without a RSS feature, simply leave it and find a new one, if you happen to come across one without it.

Tip #14 - The essence of the Internet - Traffic.
It’s no secret. You must have traffic to realize the definition of a blog.. There are numerous ways to build traffic. Paid and free advertising, viral marketing, search engine marketing, RSS/XML feeds, word-of-mouth, submitting to numerous blog and RSS directories, etc. RSSBlogsubmit: http://www.rssblogsubmit.com provides a submission service for your Blog & RSS feeds. You should always use your blog URL address in the signature of your email, forum discussions, message boards, or any other communication media. Never forget to share your blog to your friends, colleagues, and any other invidious that you know of.

Tip #15 - Track Your Blog
Tracking your blog does not have to be overly sophisticated usually a simple free page counter like www.StatCounter.com, www.ActiveMeter.com, www.extremetracking.com or www.Sitemeter.com will do the trick. Install (copy/paste) the code into the html of your blog template and start tracking your visitors. Its better to use a service which gives you advanced traffic analysis, such as keyword tracking information, referral information, and search engine information. Visitors, returning visitors, and unique visitors should be standard for any page counter service you choose.

Tip #16 - Make use of your Blog’s statistical and tracking information.
Believe it or not, your visitors’ information from your tracking scripts will provide you priceless information on how you can attract more readers. Keep note on the keyword terms used from search engines which bring you traffic. You can identify relevant closely related topics which you can venture into and add more variety into your blog, yet staying very much in topic. Simply put, more topic coverage and more variety = more traffic. You may analyze your tracking information further on how you can strategize your blog’s content. You can also apply some keyword optimization strategies here.

Tip #17 - The essence of your Blog is your Audience, listen to them.
Always interact with your readers who post comments on your blog. Reply with a brief thank you note or just simply attend to their questions if they have any. It’s a proven fact when there’s a direct human interaction and knowing the fact that there’s a “real human” at the other end of the blog makes most of them coming back. If your audience provide suggestions, comments or feedbacks, take them constructively and inform them if you have any desires of implementing such ideas on your next update. And of course, don’t forget to thank them for their ideas. If it’s a great idea, why not throw in a free gift? Mention their website in your blog?

Tip #18 - Create and increase the “Why Must I Return” Value to Your Blog.
Everyone knows the fact that Blogs get a huge level of returning visitors because of its constantly updated content. Why don’t you add more interesting items to that return value by having fixed periodical posts / offers, e.g. Monday Top 10 Tips, Picture of the Week, Free Bonus of the Month, Free Daily Wallpapers, etc. to give them the absolute excuse to return to your blog. As long as you can efficiently and appropriately increase that Return Value constantly, it is mostly guaranteed that you’ll be getting tonnes of repeated visitors, period.

An advance notice, prelaunch announcement or anything similar to that also can act as a short term return value strategy. Encourage readers to comment on your such notices / posts. Experiment and play around with this idea.

Tip #19 - Multiple blogs.
It never hurts to use multiple blogging accounts to attract more people. You can even have multiple blogs within www.Blogger.com itself, but you may also want to try different free blogging services such as www.JournalHome.com, www.LiveJournal.com, www.Blog-City.com, etc. Should you have the urge to have multiple similar duplicates of your blog just to gain more traffic, it is wise to avoid it as search engines / feed directories might translate that as excessive redundant information which simply brings you trouble, and you’re tend to get penalized, banned or even accused of spamming.

Tip #20 - Digital Art, Creative Graphics.
Another proven fact - Monotonous and continuous display of text will make your readers run away! Try to include non- advertising graphics, pictures, photos, and art in your blog entries, but try to keep them at a limit. Too many graphics also mean slower loading time and messy text and graphical combination. You don’t want your blog to look messy. Most of the time, graphics can bring your blog to life. Pictures can make boring texts interesting no matter how long it is. Graphical elements are by far the fastest message delivering element available on the net today. It may deliver various messages by a split second of a look.

Tip #21 - Maintain a Personal Blog.
A blog is most successful when it is kept personal. Try to include personal experiences which relates to the topic of your blog entry. Stay away from the business style of writing. Write with a more personal style and use first- person narratives. Share product reviews and personal endeavors, instead of trying to make it sounds like you’re selling.

Tip #22 - Credibility & Popularity.
As thing progresses, things need to change in order to cope with the flow and nature of development. If your number of readers are reasonably huge, and still using a free blogging service to get your messages out, you may want to consider getting your own domain name and hosting plan to have a more personalized Blog.

Domain names and hosting plans are pretty much straightforward. Research is all what it takes to get the best of all the available options. For the most highly recommended comprehensive listing of Free Blogging software out there, drop by at www.opensourcecms.com. This is by far the best place to drop by if you want to get your research done about which blogging software to choose. Reviews, ratings, public votes, demos, etc are provided. And the best thing is, all of them are Open Source, which means they are totally free. Try going through the server requirements for each software before purchasing your web hosting.

Tip 23# - Customize the look of your Blog.
If you happen to be using one of the Free blogging services out there, you might notice that most of us are using the same template again and again for our blogs. It is well understood that not everybody has the technical knowledge to change the layout as how they want it to be, but if you have the knowledge, by all means try to customize it and make it look DIFFERENT. You can grab that extra attention, if you’re different in certain ways. Create that image for yourself.

Tip #24 - Blog and Make Money
Once your blog has gained some real momentum and your blog traffic is increasing then it is time to start thinking if you want to turn your traffic into profit. Some of the recommended income generating sources are as follow :-

Google Adsense, Amazon Associate program www.amazon.com, www.Blogads.com, www.Crispads.com, www.Tagword.com, Affiliate Programs and any advertising related text links can be your place to start off.

Final #Tip - Conclusion.
Following these blogging tips should make your blogging experience much more rewarding. Blogging is generally done out of interest and enthusiasm and sometimes for income generating purposes. The flexibility of blogging will never cease to expand. Through time, dedication, and persistence you will be rewarded with all the royalties of blogging.

About The Author:
John Teh is an internet blogger enthusiast, exposed to the fun and the extreme possibilities of blogging on the net. Get to know more about the author at his homepage.
http://www.rssblogsubmit.com

RSS also known as rich site summary or real simply syndication, arrived on the scene a number of years ago, but was only recently embraced by webmasters as a means to effectively syndicate content. RSS Feeds provide webmasters and content providers an avenue to provide concise summaries to prospective readers. Thousands of commercial web sites and blogs now publish content summaries in an RSS feed. Each item in the feed typically contains a headline; article summary and link back to the online article.

Benefit to the Webmaster:

As the web has become more crowded webmasters have been striving to provide fresh and up to date content for their website visitors. Many webmasters have discovered they can easily utilize the information in RSS feeds to provide fresh web content.

RSS feeds are composed in XML, which is a very simple markup language. Similar to HTML, XML uses tags to identify fields. Webmasters can easily parse the RSS feed and dynamically create web pages that contain headlines and summaries. The feeds will continuously update, supplying a steady stream of automatically generated fresh content.

RSS allows webmasters to:

• Provide fresh and relevant content on their website, which encourages users to return. Constantly changing content means that search engine spiders will visit more frequently.

• Automate content delivery. The benefits of RSS feeds are not limited to webmasters, surfers too benefit from the technology as well.

Benefit to Web Surfers:

The beauty of RSS is that readers can quickly scan headlines (titles) and read articles of interest. Because the information is condensed and provided in a single location users can generally review more information in a shorter time frame. Additional information is only a click away. Best of all readers choose the feeds they wish to see, there is no spam with RSS. If you are not completely thrilled with the content appearing in a feed simply remove it from the newsreader. The technology is a pull technology rather than push technology, meaning the content is not forced on the consumers, who pull the content they want to see.

RSS allows for users to:

• Easily locate information. Read condensed information or ’soundbytes’ with clearly marked and dated topic material.

• Classify and categorize information in an easy to navigate manner.

• Maximize their time without having to deal with spam.

RSS feeds can be viewed in a news aggregator or reader, which constantly updates and shows unread feeds. I found the functionality of the newsreaders to be similar to a simple email client. Consumers generally enter the URL of any RSS feeds that interest them. Topics with a common theme can be segregated into related groups.

I highly recommend FeedDemon http://www.feeddemon.com by BradSoft as a newsreader. FeedDemon is extremely easy to use and allows for quick scanning and indexing of topics. FeedDemon allows users to quickly scan, sort and scroll through headline and article summaries, while viewing the actual content in a split screen web browser.

Finding Topic Specific Relevant Feeds:

In order to find feeds that provide niche information users can search Feedster. Feedster http://www.feedster.com is a rapidly growing news search engine that indexes information contained within RSS feeds. Searches for topic specific feeds can be conducted and feeds can be retrieved for syndication.

Benefit to Content Developer:

While the benefits to users and webmasters are clear the distribution opportunities made available to content developers should not be overlooked. Information contained in the RSS feed can be easily syndicated, increasing content distribution and reach.

RSS allows for content developers to:

• Increase exposure in niche markets.

• Communicate with user bases and reach potential customers via an alternate communication method.

• Disseminate relevant information.

• Define themselves as an industry expert.

• Automate content delivery.

RSS has effectively standardized the format for content delivery and has effectively defined the accepted standard for content distribution and syndication. RSS will likely rival email as a means of content distribution in another few years. The shear simplicity makes the technology very appealing.

The distribution potential, while albeit difficult to measure, is still attractive to all parties making the likelihood that RSS popularity will only continue to grow.

RSS Feeds to Try:

Feeds exist for almost any topic consider trying these feeds out by entering the url in your feed reader

• Small Business Feed - small business tips and news:
  http://www.small-business-software.net/blog-feed.xml

• Software Marketing Blog Summary - software marketing and online news
  http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/blog-feed.xml

• SMS, Wireless Messaging Related News. - news related to telecom, wireless industry and NotePage’s software
  http://www.notepage.net/blog-feed.xml

• Free Content Articles - collection of free content articles, updates when new article is released.
  http://www.small-business-software.net/article-feed.xml

• Software Marketing News - news related to software conferences, awards, software development and marketing
  http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/feed.xml

About The Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for NotePage, Inc. http://www.notepage.net a company specializing in alphanumeric paging, SMS and wireless messaging software solutions. Other sites by Sharon can be found at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com, and http://www.small-business-software.net

All marketers are the e-mail delivery problem, hoping that just somehow our messages are going to reach our customers and subscribers this time … and then hoping that they’re going to open them, instead of mistaking them for spam.

The reality usually hits us hard. While e-mail is still the primary and most important internet marketing tool, we need to start using other complimentary tools to get our content delivered.

Most important among them is RSS (Real Simple Syndication), which gets your content directly in front of your readers, without having to »face« any filters along the way.

And it’s easy and even free to use…

The marketing and profit potential of RSS is, simply said, quite amazing. It’s not just good for blogs, and it’s certainly much more than »just another« way of getting your content to your readers.

And it’s just reaching the tipping point. There are still only »a few« RSS publishers and RSS usage is growing every day. This is your best chance to get on the wave…

To get you started, here’s a quick overview of what RSS can do for your internet business…

1. GETTING YOUR CONTENT DELIVERED

AOL blocks about 75% of the 2 billion e-mail messages they receive daily, and on the average, over 64,7% of all the business e-mail you send is not even opened, let alone read. These two facts are destroying your internet business.

But fortunately, RSS has a solution.

It gets your content delivered directly in front of your subscribers, prospects and customers, whenever you want and how often you want.

In essence, it means that 100% of your marketing messages are delivered to your RSS subscribers, and that’s 100% of possibilities to make the sale and improve the relationship.

2. IMPROVING YOUR SEARCH ENGINE RANKINGS

Traffic is the life-blood of every internet business, and RSS makes improving search engine rankings a breeze.

Combined with special web sites, called »blogsites« (advanced blogs), RSS has been demonstrated to bring total newcomers to the market to #1 search positions for their selected keywords, and that without any costs whatsoever.

And it’s easy. All it takes is publishing an RSS feed, submitting it to the right places, keeping it updated and using some other little known but easy techniques.

3. GENERATING AMAZING NEW TRAFFIC

But the traditional search engines are not everything that RSS »offers«. Far from it.

There are now more than 100 search engines and directories that specialize in aggregating content from RSS feeds. Getting in to them is easy, and each of them will provide you with new »spending« traffic.

4. GETTING YOUR CONTENT PUBLISHED ON OTHER WEB SITES

The traffic doesn’t stop here. RSS makes it easy to publish your content on other web sites, which creates additional exposure and more importantly, brings you new targeted customers.

5. DISCOVERING NEW BUSINESS OPPORTUNITIES

But it’s really all about the new business opportunities that didn’t even exist before RSS became popular.

Most of these haven’t even been discovered by the majority of marketers yet. We’re talking about new and effective ways of getting new content to your readers, content that will make them buy.

Just think in terms of easily delivering daily or even hourly content updates, coupons, customized product updates, audio content (podcasting), video content (videocasting), whitepapers and free reports, and so on.

6. GETTING MORE SUBSCRIBERS MORE EASILY

Because RSS is so fundamentally different than e-mail, getting more subscribers is easy as 1-2-3. The profit potential is quite amazing: just imagine converting more than 50% more of your visitors in to e-zine subscribers…

And much much more…

And the list doesn’t stop here by a long shot. RSS feeds also make for an excellent affiliate marketing tool and help you get the most out of your affiliates, and so on.

With this many profit generating possibilities, the even greater benefit is that most marketers haven’t even touched them yet.

You can be one of the first, today.

About The Author:
Rok Hrastnik is the author of »Unleash the Marketing & Publishing Power of RSS«, acclaimed as »the best and most comprehensive« guide to RSS for marketers by leading RSS experts. The complete guide on RSS for marketers: http://rss.marketingstudies.net/index.html?src=sa1

A blog usually is a web page that contains brief, discrete hunks of information called posts. These posts are arranged in reverse-chronological order (the most recent come first) and each is uniquely identified by an anchor tag which is marked with a permanent link that can be referred to by others who wish to link to it.

A blog is a means of communication and there are many different types of messages carried by blogs. Some are nothing but pointers to other web sites, while others run long essays, some are personal diaries, others feature technology, and some are edited by one person, others by teams.

There are hundreds of thousands of blogs on the Internet, and new blogs are created every day. Can anybody and more importantly can you blog? Yes, there are bloggers of all types, equipped with all levels of technical skills. Bloggers approach their sites with as much variety and passion as the general Net public approaches the Web itself.

The most commonly used blogging tool is Blogger. It requires the least amount of commitment in time or resources, allowing you to go from wanting a blog to having one in about five minutes and at no cost. The Blogger software is the property of Pyra Labs (www.pyra.com). Blogger is often credited as the reason for the explosion of blogging that’s occurred in the last couple of years. It is a web-based tool, requiring no installation of software on your personal computer or on your server if you happen to have a web site. You access the tool through the Blogger web site (http://blogger.com) and the blog pages are posted to your web site or to Pyra’s BlogSpot (http://blogspot.com) community blog server. For more detailed information on this see O’Reilly’s Essential Blogging.

Re-read anything before you publish. Electronic text can expose unintended meaning easily and it will also make what you say a lot more focused. If nothing else, it should help you catch spelling mistakes! Blogging is a way to share your opinions and thoughts to the rest of the world. If you post interesting things, share links with other bloggers and post comments on other blogs. Linking is the way of the Web that is the key of successful blogging.

In order to keep your blogs really fresh, invite a group of your friends / colleagues and give them blogging access. That way you will have several reporters blogging information and you won’t end up killing yourself, trying to keep your blog populated with good information. If you use Blogger, upgrade to Blogger Pro. You can have your team post to the blog from email, create and syndicate your blog as an RSS feed, and a whole lot more! Adding the ability to post comments on your blog extends interactivity and usefulness to the blog itself. Blogs are about community and information, and commenting is a real way to gauge your viewer’s blogging efforts. Blogging is one of the quickest ways to update your site. Syndicating others’ blogs into your own site is another. There is a wealth of information out there – just tap into it!

About The Author:
This article was written by Inka-Maria Kunz, CEO of a flourishing multilingual translations agency with offices in Germany and New Zealand. This article may be printed or used in its entirety with full author contacts and details. For more information, translations or purchases of a new website/e-business, contact the author thru the official website www.linguatransl.co.nz or the blog www.linguatransl.blogspot.com.