<?xml version='1.0' encoding='UTF-8'?><?xml-stylesheet href="http://www.blogger.com/styles/atom.css" type="text/css"?><feed xmlns='http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom' xmlns:openSearch='http://a9.com/-/spec/opensearchrss/1.0/' xmlns:georss='http://www.georss.org/georss' xmlns:gd='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005' xmlns:thr='http://purl.org/syndication/thread/1.0'><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200</id><updated>2011-11-27T16:34:19.496-08:00</updated><category term='website traffic'/><title type='text'>lmorton401</title><subtitle type='html'></subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default?max-results=100'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>22</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>100</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-2453080697322152375</id><published>2009-08-21T22:34:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-21T22:36:26.954-07:00</updated><title type='text'>TargetPro Blaster</title><content type='html'>Our program is 100% safe and secure. Our program is highly targeted to persons seeking information on business opportunities, working from home, supplemental income, and investment opportunities.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;· The program sends to a total of 37,221,932 email boxes &lt;br /&gt;· Nothing to download, everything is web based&lt;br /&gt;· A lifetime membership is only $10&lt;br /&gt;· 100% Reseller Commission included&lt;br /&gt;· 56 day refund policy&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Our program is 100% safe and secure. Our program is highly targeted to persons seeking information on business opportunities, working from home, supplemental income, and investment opportunities.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;“If you continue to work out the same way, you're going to get the same results. What I'm offering you is the easiest, most risk-free way to try the "TargetPro Blaster" for 56 days so you can see for yourself results you have always wanted.”&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;-Tom Ambrozewicz&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Visit: &lt;a href="Visit: http://vur.me/Lesanndra-Morton/Marketingleads"&gt;http://vur.me/Lesanndra-Morton/Marketingleads&lt;/a&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-2453080697322152375?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/2453080697322152375/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/targetpro-blaster.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2453080697322152375'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2453080697322152375'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/targetpro-blaster.html' title='TargetPro Blaster'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-2220056956296216675</id><published>2009-08-06T16:21:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:25:03.082-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Steps to Publishing Success</title><content type='html'>Even if your best friend owns a top publishing&lt;br /&gt;company, giving you an immediate "in," this does not&lt;br /&gt;guarantee publishing success.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, you have to write a quality book that has a&lt;br /&gt;clear target audience. And your book must answer a&lt;br /&gt;common problem or need that audience shares. Then you&lt;br /&gt;have to develop a marketing plan, and stick to it for&lt;br /&gt;at least two years.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let's begin with the process that should commence&lt;br /&gt;before you write your first word. Begin by reading A&lt;br /&gt;LOT. Read both books you passionately love and books&lt;br /&gt;you can't seem to make it past page five. Then figure&lt;br /&gt;out what the author did in the book you loved, and&lt;br /&gt;what was wrong with in the book you couldn't finish.&lt;br /&gt;Write down these points so they are crystal clear to&lt;br /&gt;you. Read other people's books for inspiration and to&lt;br /&gt;discover what you should avoid as a writer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The next step is to plan out your book. Narrow down&lt;br /&gt;your subject, and then divide it into chapters. Each&lt;br /&gt;chapter should address a specific aspect of the&lt;br /&gt;problem your book is going to solve. In each chapter,&lt;br /&gt;break the specific aspect down into several parts.&lt;br /&gt;This will help your readers take in your information a&lt;br /&gt;bit at a time instead of overwhelming them with every&lt;br /&gt;bit of information clogging up the pages until they&lt;br /&gt;feel like they're about to go blind. It's not quite&lt;br /&gt;spoon-feeding the information to your readers, but&lt;br /&gt;it's close.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The next two steps are obvious. Write your book and&lt;br /&gt;then revise it. And then revise it again. And perhaps&lt;br /&gt;again. Of course, writing is extremely hard, and&lt;br /&gt;writing a book can seem like an impossible task. There&lt;br /&gt;are many books out there that give you guidelines to&lt;br /&gt;help you become familiar - and even love - the process&lt;br /&gt;of writing and revision. Find a number of books about&lt;br /&gt;writing. Better yet, find a number of books about&lt;br /&gt;writing the specific type of book you aspire to write.&lt;br /&gt;These can serve as roadmaps on your writing journey.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you've written your ebook and revised it at least&lt;br /&gt;twice, show it to someone else whose opinion you&lt;br /&gt;respect. If you're lucky enough to know a good editor,&lt;br /&gt;see if you have something to barter for him or her to&lt;br /&gt;go through your manuscript. Or join a writing group&lt;br /&gt;and let the other members critique your work.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then take all these ideas from other people, and&lt;br /&gt;revise your manuscript one last time. And then stop!&lt;br /&gt;Put down that pen! Get your hands off the keyboard!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One of the most important steps to actually producing&lt;br /&gt;a book is to know when to stop writing and tinkering&lt;br /&gt;with it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You've finally written your ebook! Pop open the&lt;br /&gt;bubbly! Give yourself a night out on the town!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Okay, now that this necessary celebration is out of&lt;br /&gt;your system, what do you do next?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How to turn your ebook into Profits&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebooks are a revolutionary way to publish your book&lt;br /&gt;without incurring the costs of print production. All&lt;br /&gt;you need is a relevant and targeted subject and some&lt;br /&gt;inexpensive software, and you can transform your&lt;br /&gt;manuscript into a book.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The problem, in terms of actually seeing any profits&lt;br /&gt;from your ebook, is that the market is overwhelmed&lt;br /&gt;with ebooks, and many of them are not worth the time&lt;br /&gt;it takes to download them. Just because the ability&lt;br /&gt;exists to easily produce an ebook, doesn't make it&lt;br /&gt;good writing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make sure your book does not simply rehash old&lt;br /&gt;material. You will injure your credibility as an&lt;br /&gt;author by claiming to offer valuable new insights and&lt;br /&gt;disappointing your audience with material they've read&lt;br /&gt;a zillion times before. So spend enough time writing&lt;br /&gt;and revising your book to make sure it's of the&lt;br /&gt;highest quality and presents the most current&lt;br /&gt;information. A good book will eventually sell itself;&lt;br /&gt;false claims about your book will make it extremely&lt;br /&gt;difficult to sell any future books you may write.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Assuming you have determined that you do indeed have a&lt;br /&gt;quality product that answers some question or need of&lt;br /&gt;your target audience with NEW information, how do you&lt;br /&gt;know how much to charge for it? Rule number 1: Set a&lt;br /&gt;price for your book equal to its value. An&lt;br /&gt;under-priced book will only give the impression that&lt;br /&gt;your book isn't worth very much.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To figure out a fair price, estimate how much time you&lt;br /&gt;put into creating it and how difficult it was to&lt;br /&gt;transform the necessary information into&lt;br /&gt;understandable and engaging writing. Figure out how&lt;br /&gt;much your time and effort is worth, and then price it&lt;br /&gt;accordingly. The goal is for you to be adequately&lt;br /&gt;compensated for your talent, your time, and your&lt;br /&gt;effort.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you've figured out a price that is high enough to&lt;br /&gt;convey the value of the book, but not so high as to be&lt;br /&gt;out of the reach of your target audience's mean&lt;br /&gt;budget, then it's time to offer it for sale on your&lt;br /&gt;website. To attract sales, you will need to develop a&lt;br /&gt;promotional campaign, particularly if you are an&lt;br /&gt;unknown author.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are multitudes of books about self-promotion&lt;br /&gt;that will guide you in your efforts. Choose a plan&lt;br /&gt;that is both creative and professional. Learn how to&lt;br /&gt;write a catchy yet informative press release, and send&lt;br /&gt;copies of your ebook to sites that specialize in ebook&lt;br /&gt;reviews.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Learn how to write powerful sales copy, or hire&lt;br /&gt;someone to write it for you. This is an essential. You&lt;br /&gt;absolutely need excellent sales copy to sell your&lt;br /&gt;book. Make sure the copy includes all the reasons your&lt;br /&gt;target audience needs your book, and the benefits they&lt;br /&gt;will derive from buying it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Use graphics in your promotional materials. Beautiful&lt;br /&gt;graphics have the power to instantly convey the&lt;br /&gt;quality and value of your ebook. Graphics can also&lt;br /&gt;convey the amount of valuable information the book&lt;br /&gt;contains, and your careful attention to detail.&lt;br /&gt;Professional graphics sell professional books. They&lt;br /&gt;reassure the customer that the product is what it&lt;br /&gt;claims to be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Consider excerpting chapters for articles. You can&lt;br /&gt;offer these tidbits for free on your website as a sort&lt;br /&gt;of demo of your book. Include an order form for your&lt;br /&gt;ebook at the end of the excerpted articles.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, when you set-up your download link, make sure&lt;br /&gt;to simplify the process. It's a good idea to offer a&lt;br /&gt;few bonuses that make your book even more enticing to&lt;br /&gt;purchase, but make sure the bonuses are valuable and&lt;br /&gt;high quality. Too many bonuses that are basically a&lt;br /&gt;load of useless stuff will compromise the impression&lt;br /&gt;your audience has of your ebook. The goal is to convey&lt;br /&gt;to your audience that they are getting a quality&lt;br /&gt;product for a good deal. That means applying&lt;br /&gt;restraint, especially when it comes to adding bonus&lt;br /&gt;items. Too much free stuff offered diminishes your&lt;br /&gt;credibility.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make sure your book is a quality product. Make sure it&lt;br /&gt;is relevant and current. Develop an effective&lt;br /&gt;marketing plan that includes excellent sales copy and&lt;br /&gt;excerpted articles. Then offer your book for sale, and&lt;br /&gt;wait for your audience to discover you!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-2220056956296216675?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/2220056956296216675/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/steps-to-publishing-success.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2220056956296216675'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2220056956296216675'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/steps-to-publishing-success.html' title='Steps to Publishing Success'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-6730283506115498974</id><published>2009-08-06T16:17:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:20:03.522-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Rating e-book Compilers</title><content type='html'>Now that you've finished writing your eBook and have a&lt;br /&gt;basic understanding of what an eBook compiler does,&lt;br /&gt;you may be feeling overwhelmed by the number of&lt;br /&gt;compilers on the market. To help you make your&lt;br /&gt;decision, These are tested and reviewed the best-rated&lt;br /&gt;eBook compilers currently available.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* E-ditor&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This software has a demo version that you can download&lt;br /&gt;to try out before purchasing. You can't actually use&lt;br /&gt;the demo to create an eBook, but you can run the&lt;br /&gt;software and test it out thoroughly to see if it does&lt;br /&gt;what you need it to do for your particular eBook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This eBook compiler is one of the easiest to use. The&lt;br /&gt;software has a very user-friendly help menu that&lt;br /&gt;provides instructions for and explanations of every&lt;br /&gt;field on every screen. The program also includes video&lt;br /&gt;tutorials demonstrating every step of this compiler&lt;br /&gt;with clear explanations of all fields that need to be&lt;br /&gt;filled out. There are 7 screens that you use to choose&lt;br /&gt;your eBook options.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This compiler requires your files to be in HTML&lt;br /&gt;format. You follow simple directions, and the compiler&lt;br /&gt;loads your files. If you decide to edit your eBook&lt;br /&gt;after it has been compiled, make any changes in your&lt;br /&gt;original files and click on "Compile you eBook" and&lt;br /&gt;your changes will appear in your compiled eBook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;E-editor allows for some customization of your eBook.&lt;br /&gt;You can create a special page that appears when the&lt;br /&gt;eBook is opened; create customized icons that appear&lt;br /&gt;on the desktop after downloading; use your own logo on&lt;br /&gt;the task bar of your eBook; customize the task bar's&lt;br /&gt;buttons, where the task bar appears in your eBook, and&lt;br /&gt;choose the task bar's colors. Additionally, you can&lt;br /&gt;choose to have the eBook open to the last page read,&lt;br /&gt;which many of your buyers will appreciate.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An excellent and unique feature of E-ditor is the&lt;br /&gt;capability to choose a standard Microsoft window or to&lt;br /&gt;create your own design for a window to personalize&lt;br /&gt;your eBook. The program provides some sample window&lt;br /&gt;designs, but you can use any .bmp (bit map skin)&lt;br /&gt;graphic you have stored on your hard drive.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;E-ditor is a good choice if you are new at producing&lt;br /&gt;eBooks because it is easy to use and allows you to&lt;br /&gt;customize the appearance of your eBook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Desktop Author&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This compiler does not require a browser, nor do you&lt;br /&gt;have to download software or plug-ins. The program&lt;br /&gt;converts exe. files into pages that look like a&lt;br /&gt;standard book. You can create and produce eBook pages&lt;br /&gt;scaled to fit on your computer screen without any&lt;br /&gt;scrolling. Additional features include WYSIWGY (what&lt;br /&gt;you see is what you get) page editing and creation,&lt;br /&gt;the ability to manipulate internal images, cut and&lt;br /&gt;paste functions, hotlinks to pages, email, website, or&lt;br /&gt;other files. It is an excellent compiler to use for a&lt;br /&gt;marketing tools, such as creating brochures and&lt;br /&gt;manuals in addition to eBooks.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* EBook Edit Pro&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This compiler provides a demo version, which allows&lt;br /&gt;you to test out its features. The software uses a&lt;br /&gt;Wizard that leads you step-by-step through the set-up&lt;br /&gt;and creation of your eBook. Customization includes&lt;br /&gt;text editing that appears on the pop-up starting&lt;br /&gt;message window; the ability to allow or prevent&lt;br /&gt;resizing of your book and the mouse-click pop-up menu;&lt;br /&gt;enabling or disabling the navigation bar and choosing&lt;br /&gt;the buttons you want to appear; and customizing the&lt;br /&gt;eBook's desktop icon and the logo that appears on the&lt;br /&gt;navigation bar.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebook Edit Pro is loaded with excellent features that&lt;br /&gt;allow you to create multi-media Ebooks, and includes a&lt;br /&gt;Wizard that is customized for beginners and for&lt;br /&gt;advanced users. The software uses HTML files,&lt;br /&gt;downloading them from the directory where they are&lt;br /&gt;saved. Edit and resave your files in the original&lt;br /&gt;software used to create those files, and then with a&lt;br /&gt;single click you can re-compile your Ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Features include customization of icons, toolbars, and&lt;br /&gt;the "about box." This compiler has a particularly&lt;br /&gt;useful feature called the Rebrander feature. This&lt;br /&gt;permits you to enter customized code into your Ebook&lt;br /&gt;pages and distribute the Rebrander software to your&lt;br /&gt;affiliates or distributors. They can then customize&lt;br /&gt;the links included in the Ebook, but they can not&lt;br /&gt;alter any link or information that you have not&lt;br /&gt;entered a customized code for.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The software includes "eBrand-It" software that allows&lt;br /&gt;custom fields for your customer's name, affiliate ID&lt;br /&gt;or URL. This feature is a powerful marketing tool&lt;br /&gt;because affiliates are much happier giving away your&lt;br /&gt;Ebook from their own site when they can customize it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Ebook Compiler&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This compiler offers a demo version that allows you to&lt;br /&gt;compile 10 files. If you don't include graphics, you&lt;br /&gt;can create a 10 page Ebook that allows printing and&lt;br /&gt;copying of the Ebook. The catch is that you can't sell&lt;br /&gt;any Ebook you create in the demo version.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The purchased software is user-friendly with&lt;br /&gt;easy-to-follow help files that not only guide you&lt;br /&gt;through the steps of compiling your Ebook, but also&lt;br /&gt;explains what an Ebook compiler does. The software&lt;br /&gt;provides detailed instructions on how to create source&lt;br /&gt;files from Microsoft Word 2000 and 1997, PowerPoint&lt;br /&gt;2000 and 1997, and HTML documents. It contains less&lt;br /&gt;detailed instructions for creating source files from&lt;br /&gt;other programs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This compiler allows for password protection of your&lt;br /&gt;entire Ebook or for selected pages. Additionally, you&lt;br /&gt;can set a time limit on your Ebook. When the runs out,&lt;br /&gt;the customer no longer has access unless they pay for&lt;br /&gt;it. In other words, it allows you to create a demo&lt;br /&gt;version of your Ebook for marketing purposes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can set a single password or multiple passwords.&lt;br /&gt;Using multiple passwords assigns each user their own&lt;br /&gt;specific password. Online help files guide you through&lt;br /&gt;setting up your passwords. You can also create a Sales&lt;br /&gt;and Thank-you page for selling a password protected&lt;br /&gt;Ebook. This is a good choice for the novice,&lt;br /&gt;particularly since it includes basic features for&lt;br /&gt;password protection and distribution.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Activ Ebook Compiler&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is an easy to use compiler that provides&lt;br /&gt;excellent features. This software can support HTML,&lt;br /&gt;JPEG, GIF, and all active plug-ins. Features includes&lt;br /&gt;password protection, branding, internet linking, icon&lt;br /&gt;customization, assigning unique serial numbers, splash&lt;br /&gt;screen, file compression, and start-up messages. It&lt;br /&gt;also provides free lifetime upgrades. Additionally, it&lt;br /&gt;includes a preprocessor, re-brander, active script,&lt;br /&gt;and detailed instructions for using HTML, Power Point,&lt;br /&gt;and Microsoft Word files.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are several other excellent Ebook compilers on&lt;br /&gt;the market that are worth looking into.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebook Generator features splash screens, password&lt;br /&gt;protection, branding, icon customization, and&lt;br /&gt;compression control. Additionally, it includes virus&lt;br /&gt;prevention that alerts the user to any modifications&lt;br /&gt;made to your Ebook and offers usage statistics so you&lt;br /&gt;can track your Ebook's use. With all these advanced&lt;br /&gt;features, this is an excellent compiler for the&lt;br /&gt;beginner because it is exceptionally easy to run.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebook Creator is another excellent compiler,&lt;br /&gt;supporting HTML, JPEG, GIF, and PNG graphics, and&lt;br /&gt;Javascript, VB script, and Java applets. It also&lt;br /&gt;supports all Internet Explorer plug-ins. Standard&lt;br /&gt;features include unique serial numbers, direct linking&lt;br /&gt;to a form or a page on your website, disabled right&lt;br /&gt;clicking, and search functions. The software allows&lt;br /&gt;for expiration after a set number of days or usages,&lt;br /&gt;which allows you to create demo versions. You can&lt;br /&gt;create up to 1000 different passwords; every time the&lt;br /&gt;Ebook is downloaded, a unique password is required to&lt;br /&gt;access protected pages. The software provides&lt;br /&gt;user-friendly menus and buttons that allow the&lt;br /&gt;beginner to the advanced user to easily create their&lt;br /&gt;Ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Obviously, there are some excellent compilers out&lt;br /&gt;there. So figure out EVERYTHING you need in terms of&lt;br /&gt;features, and then compare prices and options. Do take&lt;br /&gt;advantage of demo versions if they are offered before&lt;br /&gt;purchasing. And then, have fun creating your Ebook!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-6730283506115498974?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/6730283506115498974/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/rating-e-book-compilers.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/6730283506115498974'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/6730283506115498974'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/rating-e-book-compilers.html' title='Rating e-book Compilers'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-8327785842617420037</id><published>2009-08-06T16:15:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:17:27.995-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Choosing an e-book Compiler</title><content type='html'>What is an eBook compiler?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You've written and revised your ebook, hired an artist&lt;br /&gt;who has produced outstanding graphics, and now you're&lt;br /&gt;ready to actually put together your ebook. What you&lt;br /&gt;need to make an ebook is software called an ebook&lt;br /&gt;Compiler.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are many different compilers to chose from, but&lt;br /&gt;first, you need to know exactly what an ebook Compiler&lt;br /&gt;does. Here is the simple explanation:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An ebook compiler is a software program that converts&lt;br /&gt;either text pages or HTML text into a single&lt;br /&gt;executable file or an ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you or someone you hired has created a file with&lt;br /&gt;graphics in HTML, you will need an HTML ebook&lt;br /&gt;Compiler. This type of compiler requires a working&lt;br /&gt;knowledge of the HTML tag language. You can also use&lt;br /&gt;software to do this for you, such as Microsoft&lt;br /&gt;FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How do you choose an eBook Compiler?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a large number of ebook Compilers available&lt;br /&gt;on the market, all with glowing sales copy and tekkie&lt;br /&gt;language. It can get very confusing and overwhelming&lt;br /&gt;very fast without some simple guidelines to help you&lt;br /&gt;figure out which compiler is right for you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Choosing an ebook Compiler depends on a number of&lt;br /&gt;factors:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. How did you create your pages? Did you use HTML or&lt;br /&gt;PDF format? There are many more compilers available&lt;br /&gt;for HTML, but you can find some very good compilers&lt;br /&gt;that will covert your PDF files into an ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Consider how easy the program is to use and the&lt;br /&gt;thoroughness of the software's instruction manual. It&lt;br /&gt;is absolutely necessary that the compiler you buy have&lt;br /&gt;an instructional manual, documentation, or online&lt;br /&gt;"wizards." If it doesn't, your chances of figuring out&lt;br /&gt;how to correctly use the program are compromised, and&lt;br /&gt;the time required doing so is going to be significant.&lt;br /&gt;Many manufacturers of compilers offer a free trial&lt;br /&gt;version so you can play around with it and see if it&lt;br /&gt;suits your needs. Download the trial version and&lt;br /&gt;ascertain that it actually does what it claims to do.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. Security features. If you plan to sell your ebook,&lt;br /&gt;check out the security features of the compiler&lt;br /&gt;software carefully. Security features should include:&lt;br /&gt;prevention of the reader from modifying text, access&lt;br /&gt;only to the pages you assign or by entering a&lt;br /&gt;password, different ways of generating passwords such&lt;br /&gt;as secure passwords, user-friendly, and open&lt;br /&gt;passwords.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. Supported scripting. Find out what scripts the&lt;br /&gt;software supports. Scripting allows you to create&lt;br /&gt;special effects, customize menus, and create and&lt;br /&gt;modify other user interactivity. Choose a compiler&lt;br /&gt;that permits you to include graphics, search windows,&lt;br /&gt;hyperlinks, forms, surveys, etc.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. Pricing. This is a factor that is not always easy&lt;br /&gt;to gauge. The highest priced compilers are not&lt;br /&gt;automatically your best choice. Choose your compiler&lt;br /&gt;based on the necessary requirements for your Ebook.&lt;br /&gt;That means you need to know exactly how you plan to&lt;br /&gt;use your Ebook and what functions you require.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let's look at some of these factors in more detail.&lt;br /&gt;First of all, make sure you have the correct browser&lt;br /&gt;to run the compiler. The majority of HTML compilers&lt;br /&gt;use Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape. Check out&lt;br /&gt;the version that the compiler supports. Compilers that&lt;br /&gt;require a browser will not run on a computer that does&lt;br /&gt;not have the required browser installed. However,&lt;br /&gt;there are ebook HTML compilers that don't require you&lt;br /&gt;to have any browser installed on your computer. These&lt;br /&gt;compilers run on any Windows system.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you choose a compiler that requires a browser,&lt;br /&gt;check to ascertain that the browser is installed&lt;br /&gt;correctly and that it is properly configured to the&lt;br /&gt;specifications of the compiler. Check to see if&lt;br /&gt;certain functions are turned off or on, and make any&lt;br /&gt;adjustments according to the compiler instructions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Security is an essential element of any compiler,&lt;br /&gt;regardless of whether you plan to sell or give away&lt;br /&gt;your ebook. One of the main reasons for using a&lt;br /&gt;compiler is to prevent the reader from modifying the&lt;br /&gt;contents. A secure compiler allows access only to the&lt;br /&gt;pages you want the user to access unless they enter a&lt;br /&gt;correct password.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To find out how secure an ebook HTML compiler is, open&lt;br /&gt;an ebook on it. While it is open, check the temporary&lt;br /&gt;directory of your computer. This can usually be&lt;br /&gt;accessed by typing in C:\Windows\temp. If you see a&lt;br /&gt;bunch of files when your ebook is open or running, it&lt;br /&gt;means that your computer is decompressing the secure&lt;br /&gt;data from your ebook before showing the ebook to the&lt;br /&gt;viewer. This method is not secure! It means that&lt;br /&gt;anyone with the knowledge of how to access these&lt;br /&gt;temporary files can steal the secure data and then&lt;br /&gt;they can fiddle with your ebook to their evil heart's&lt;br /&gt;desire. Remember, one of the main purposes of buying&lt;br /&gt;and using an HTML compiler is to protect your&lt;br /&gt;property.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, let's discuss passwords. When trying to choose&lt;br /&gt;an ebook Compiler, check out the type of passwords&lt;br /&gt;that the compiler supports. Almost all compilers offer&lt;br /&gt;some kind of password protection that insures that the&lt;br /&gt;user can only access the contents they have purchased&lt;br /&gt;from you. However, the best compilers offer varied&lt;br /&gt;ways to generate different types of passwords. Choose&lt;br /&gt;a compiler that gives you the options of secure,&lt;br /&gt;user-friendly, and open password generation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another important factor when it comes to passwords is&lt;br /&gt;how the compiler generates them. A compiler that has&lt;br /&gt;internal password protection generation built into the&lt;br /&gt;software is more secure than compilers that link to&lt;br /&gt;live Internet password control systems.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Find out if the compiler generates passwords online.&lt;br /&gt;If it has this option, it allows you to choose any&lt;br /&gt;payment processing system you want or to do the&lt;br /&gt;payment processing yourself.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, look into the size of ebook the compiler&lt;br /&gt;supports. The best compilers can create ebooks up to 2&lt;br /&gt;GB in size without decompressing the HTML pages or&lt;br /&gt;images to your hard disk. Usually, ebooks that are 2&lt;br /&gt;GB in size can easily support 6 GB of compressed data.&lt;br /&gt;The catch here is that only text files will generally&lt;br /&gt;be compressible.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You do not want a compiler that decompresses this&lt;br /&gt;amount of data when the user attempts to open your&lt;br /&gt;ebook. This would mean that anyone who purchases your&lt;br /&gt;ebook will have to wait for all the data to decompress&lt;br /&gt;before they can access your ebook right after&lt;br /&gt;downloading it. So look for compilers that only&lt;br /&gt;decompress temporarily files that are NOT HTML to the&lt;br /&gt;local hardisk. Non-HTML files include Flash, Word, and&lt;br /&gt;Acrobat files. This type of compiler is more secure&lt;br /&gt;and certainly faster.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make sure the compiler you choose is compatible with&lt;br /&gt;your system software. Check out what version of&lt;br /&gt;Windows it requires, and make sure you have that&lt;br /&gt;version before buying your compiler.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Support issues are extremely important. Choose a&lt;br /&gt;compiler that includes an installation program. This&lt;br /&gt;program allows your user to choose a number of&lt;br /&gt;different places on their computer to install the&lt;br /&gt;ebook, to place a shortcut on their desktop, and to&lt;br /&gt;add the ebook, if they choose, to the Start Programs&lt;br /&gt;menu.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You also want excellent and accessible vendor support.&lt;br /&gt;Make sure you can access quick technical support! At&lt;br /&gt;three o'clock in the morning, this factor will be VERY&lt;br /&gt;important. Also, check to see the terms of free&lt;br /&gt;technical support offered. Unlimited technical support&lt;br /&gt;is obviously the best option.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Check to see if the company that puts out the compiler&lt;br /&gt;software offers a service level agreement. This&lt;br /&gt;agreement is to assure you of their quality response&lt;br /&gt;to your questions or problems.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A good thing to consider is how long the compiler has&lt;br /&gt;been on the market. Usually, the version number will&lt;br /&gt;give you an idea. The longer the program is on the&lt;br /&gt;market, the higher the version number, the more bugs&lt;br /&gt;have been worked out.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When choosing an ebook compiler, do not be swayed by&lt;br /&gt;incredible promises and dazzling sales copy. Do your&lt;br /&gt;homework first, and then consider all the above issues&lt;br /&gt;and factors before choosing an ebook compiler.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-8327785842617420037?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/8327785842617420037/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/choosing-e-book-compiler.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/8327785842617420037'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/8327785842617420037'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/choosing-e-book-compiler.html' title='Choosing an e-book Compiler'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-3041221150748714621</id><published>2009-08-06T16:14:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:15:05.656-07:00</updated><title type='text'>How to Write an e-book</title><content type='html'>The hardest part of writing is the first sentence.&lt;br /&gt;When you look at the whole project, it seems like an&lt;br /&gt;impossible task. That's why you have to break it down&lt;br /&gt;into manageable tasks. Think of climbing a mountain.&lt;br /&gt;You are standing at the foot of it and looking up at&lt;br /&gt;its summit vanishing into the clouds. How can you&lt;br /&gt;possibly scale such an immense and dangerous mountain?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is only one way to climb a mountain ? step by&lt;br /&gt;step.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now think of writing your ebook in the same light. You&lt;br /&gt;must create it step by step, and one day, you will&lt;br /&gt;take that last step and find yourself standing on the&lt;br /&gt;summit with your head in the clouds.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first thing you have to do, as if you actually&lt;br /&gt;were a mountain climber, is to get organized. Instead&lt;br /&gt;of climbing gear, however, you must organize your&lt;br /&gt;thoughts. There are some steps you should take before&lt;br /&gt;you begin. Once you've gone through the following&lt;br /&gt;list, you will be ready to actually begin writing your&lt;br /&gt;ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Beginning Steps to Writing an ebook&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First, figure out your ebook's working title. Jot down&lt;br /&gt;a few different titles, and eventually, you'll find&lt;br /&gt;that one that will grow on you. Titles help you to&lt;br /&gt;focus your writing on your topic; they guide you in&lt;br /&gt;anticipating and answering your reader's queries. Many&lt;br /&gt;non-fiction books also have subtitles. Aim for clarity&lt;br /&gt;in your titles, but cleverness always helps to sell&lt;br /&gt;books ? as long as it's not too cute. For example,&lt;br /&gt;Remedies for Insomnia: twenty different ways to count&lt;br /&gt;sheep. Or: Get off that couch: fifteen exercise plans&lt;br /&gt;to whip you into shape.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, write out a thesis statement. Your thesis is a&lt;br /&gt;sentence or two stating exactly what problem you are&lt;br /&gt;addressing and how your book will solve that problem.&lt;br /&gt;All chapters spring forth from your thesis statement.&lt;br /&gt;Once you've got your thesis statement fine-tuned,&lt;br /&gt;you've built your foundation. From that foundation,&lt;br /&gt;your book will grow, chapter by chapter.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your thesis will keep you focused while you write your&lt;br /&gt;ebook. Remember: all chapters must support your thesis&lt;br /&gt;statement. If they don't, they don't belong in your&lt;br /&gt;book. For example, your thesis statement could read:&lt;br /&gt;We've all experienced insomnia at times in our lives,&lt;br /&gt;but there are twenty proven techniques and methods to&lt;br /&gt;give you back a good night's sleep.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you have your thesis, before you start to write,&lt;br /&gt;make sure there is a good reason to write your book.&lt;br /&gt;Ask yourself some questions:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Does your book present useful information and is&lt;br /&gt;that information currently relevant?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Will you book positively affect the lives of your&lt;br /&gt;readers?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Is your book dynamic and will it keep the reader's&lt;br /&gt;attention?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;* Does you book answer questions that are meaningful&lt;br /&gt;and significant?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you can answer yes to these questions, you can feel&lt;br /&gt;confident about the potential of your ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another important step is to figure out who your&lt;br /&gt;target audience is. It is this group of people you&lt;br /&gt;will be writing to, and this group will dictate many&lt;br /&gt;elements of your book, such as style, tone, diction,&lt;br /&gt;and even length. Figure out the age range of your&lt;br /&gt;readers, their general gender, what they are most&lt;br /&gt;interested in, and even the socio-economic group they&lt;br /&gt;primarily come from. Are they people who read fashion&lt;br /&gt;magazines or book reviews? Do they write letters in&lt;br /&gt;longhand or spend hours every day online. The more you&lt;br /&gt;can pin down your target audience, the easier it will&lt;br /&gt;be to write your book for them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, make a list of the reasons you are writing your&lt;br /&gt;ebook. Do you want to promote your business? Do you&lt;br /&gt;want to bring quality traffic to your website? Do you&lt;br /&gt;want to enhance your reputation?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then write down your goals in terms of publishing. Do&lt;br /&gt;you want to sell it as a product on your website, or&lt;br /&gt;do you want to offer it as a free gift for filling out&lt;br /&gt;a survey or for ordering a product? Do you want to use&lt;br /&gt;the chapters to create an e-course, or use your ebook&lt;br /&gt;to attract affiliates around the world? The more you&lt;br /&gt;know upfront, the easier the actual writing will be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Decide on the format of your chapters. In non-fiction,&lt;br /&gt;keep the format from chapter to chapter fairly&lt;br /&gt;consistent. Perhaps you plan to use an introduction to&lt;br /&gt;your chapter topic, and then divide it into four&lt;br /&gt;subhead topics. Or you may plan to divide it into five&lt;br /&gt;parts, each one beginning with a relevant anecdote.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How to make your ebook "user friendly"&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You must figure out how to keep your writing engaging.&lt;br /&gt;Often anecdotes, testimonials, little stories, photos,&lt;br /&gt;graphs, advice, and tips will keep the reader turning&lt;br /&gt;the pages. Sidebars are useful for quick, accessible&lt;br /&gt;information, and they break up the density of the&lt;br /&gt;page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Write with a casual, conversational tone rather than a&lt;br /&gt;formal tone such as textbook diction. Reader's respond&lt;br /&gt;to the feeling that you are having a conversation with&lt;br /&gt;them. Break up the length and structure of your&lt;br /&gt;sentences so you don?t hypnotize your readers into&lt;br /&gt;sleep. Sentences that are all the same length and&lt;br /&gt;structure tend to be a good aid for insomnia!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Good writing takes practice. It takes lots and lots of&lt;br /&gt;practice. Make a schedule to write at least a page a&lt;br /&gt;day. Read books and magazines about the process of&lt;br /&gt;writing, and jot down tips that jump out at you. The&lt;br /&gt;art of writing is a lifetime process; the more you&lt;br /&gt;write (and read), the better your writing will become.&lt;br /&gt;The better your writing becomes, the bigger your sales&lt;br /&gt;figures.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In an ebook that is read on the screen, be aware that&lt;br /&gt;you must give your reader's eye a break. You can do&lt;br /&gt;this by utilizing white space. In art classes, white&lt;br /&gt;space is usually referred to as "negative space."&lt;br /&gt;Reader's eyes need to rest in the cool white oasises&lt;br /&gt;you create on your page. If your page is too dense,&lt;br /&gt;your reader will quit out of it as soon as their eyes&lt;br /&gt;begin to tear.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make use of lists, both bulleted and numbered. This&lt;br /&gt;makes your information easy to absorb, and gives the&lt;br /&gt;reader a mental break from dissecting your paragraphs&lt;br /&gt;one after the other.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, decide on an easy-to-read design. Find a font&lt;br /&gt;that's easy on the eyes, and stick to that font&lt;br /&gt;family. Using dozens of fonts will only tire your&lt;br /&gt;readers out before they've gotten past your&lt;br /&gt;introduction. Use at least one and a half line&lt;br /&gt;spacing, and text large enough to be read easily on&lt;br /&gt;the screen, but small enough so that the whole page&lt;br /&gt;can be seen on a computer screen. You will have to&lt;br /&gt;experiment with this to find the right combination.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, don't forget to run a spell and grammar&lt;br /&gt;check. You are judged by something as minor as correct&lt;br /&gt;punctuation, so don?t mess up a great book by tossing&lt;br /&gt;out semicolons randomly, or stringing sentences&lt;br /&gt;together with commas. (By the way, that's called a&lt;br /&gt;"comma splice.")&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Last of all, create an index and a bibliography.&lt;br /&gt;That's it! You've written a book! Now all you have to&lt;br /&gt;do is publish your ebook online, and wait for download&lt;br /&gt;request from your website visitors.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=" http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-3041221150748714621?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/3041221150748714621/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-write-e-book.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/3041221150748714621'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/3041221150748714621'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-write-e-book.html' title='How to Write an e-book'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-7040243245367400109</id><published>2009-08-06T16:11:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:13:44.607-07:00</updated><title type='text'>How to Price your e-book</title><content type='html'>You've written and compiled an ebook. Now you have to&lt;br /&gt;decide how much to charge for it. Finding the right&lt;br /&gt;price is essential to the success of your product. If&lt;br /&gt;you charge too little, people will think it's of&lt;br /&gt;little value, and they won't purchase it, or even it&lt;br /&gt;they do buy your book, you will have to sell thousands&lt;br /&gt;of copies to get to the point where you can begin to&lt;br /&gt;see a profit. If you price it too high when compared&lt;br /&gt;with your competition, you will find yourself steadily&lt;br /&gt;lowering the price, which will cause you all kinds of&lt;br /&gt;new problems in the future. For example, if you sell&lt;br /&gt;your ebook at first for $39.99, and later reduce it to&lt;br /&gt;$24.95, don't you think the people who bought it for&lt;br /&gt;$39.99 are going to be PISSED?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Choosing the right price for your ebook is one of the&lt;br /&gt;most critical parts of the marketing process. The&lt;br /&gt;first rule of pricing ebooks is to never underprice.&lt;br /&gt;Determine the highest price your audience can afford,&lt;br /&gt;and then if you find your book isn?t selling, you can&lt;br /&gt;always reduce the price. Before you take that step,&lt;br /&gt;make sure you are promoting your book like crazy on&lt;br /&gt;the Internet and on websites. The price should be&lt;br /&gt;aimed at bringing in profits, but you should never&lt;br /&gt;forget that price is one of the factors that people&lt;br /&gt;use in judging the value of your ebook ? before they&lt;br /&gt;buy it. So always start with the highest price, and&lt;br /&gt;then launch a mega-marketing campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pricing an ebook is particularly difficult because&lt;br /&gt;ebooks are a fairly new commodity. Since they are&lt;br /&gt;digital, the value of an ebook is as confusing as the&lt;br /&gt;understanding of what digital actually is to the&lt;br /&gt;average layperson. This means that we must look at&lt;br /&gt;ebooks in a different light in order to determine&lt;br /&gt;their actual worth in this brave, new cyber world.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let's look at the difference between a book in print&lt;br /&gt;and an ebook. A printed book is an object you can hold&lt;br /&gt;in your hand, store on your bookshelf, even hand down&lt;br /&gt;to the next generation. It is priced on factors such&lt;br /&gt;as paper stock, design and production costs, and&lt;br /&gt;marketing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But the fact that unites ebooks and print books is&lt;br /&gt;that they are composed of ideas. It is the ideas in&lt;br /&gt;these books that have the ability to change, or&lt;br /&gt;possibly transform, people's lives.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What do you think an idea is worth when evaluated&lt;br /&gt;against the cost of paper and ink?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is the IDEAS that are valuable! That is how you&lt;br /&gt;determine the cost of your ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;What should I charge for my ideas?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are all different formulas and methods for&lt;br /&gt;determining the correct price for your ebook. Let's&lt;br /&gt;begin with honing in on your ultimate goals.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Decide if your goal is to get wide distribution and&lt;br /&gt;maximum exposure. This goal is aimed at drawing&lt;br /&gt;customers to your business or service, or to&lt;br /&gt;establishing the credibility of your reputation. If&lt;br /&gt;this is your main goal, you should aim to keep your&lt;br /&gt;price on the low side. Some authors have even priced&lt;br /&gt;their ebooks at a profit loss to draw a high number of&lt;br /&gt;new customers. The key is to find a price that&lt;br /&gt;maximizes your profits and the number of books you&lt;br /&gt;sell.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is an excellent pricing strategy if you are&lt;br /&gt;looking to acquire long-term customers. Long-term&lt;br /&gt;customers are extremely likely to buy from you again&lt;br /&gt;and again ? as long as the first ebook they buy is of&lt;br /&gt;exceptional quality and beneficial to the customer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, if your book contains valuable ? and more&lt;br /&gt;importantly NEW information, references, or techniques&lt;br /&gt;? then you should aim to price it on the high end.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After you figure out your goal, you must figure out&lt;br /&gt;what your audience's need is for your ebook. For&lt;br /&gt;example, does your book solve a particular problem? If&lt;br /&gt;it does, and solves it in a way that hasn't been&lt;br /&gt;written about in one hundred other ebooks, you will be&lt;br /&gt;able to achieve high sales at a high price. If your&lt;br /&gt;book solves a problem or answers questions in a new&lt;br /&gt;and unique way, you should price your book as high as&lt;br /&gt;you can go. You will achieve larger profits this way,&lt;br /&gt;but bring in fewer customers. Just make sure the&lt;br /&gt;question or problem that your book solves is one that&lt;br /&gt;is important and relevant to the majority of your&lt;br /&gt;market audience. If your ideas are not common&lt;br /&gt;knowledge, or you are presenting a brand new&lt;br /&gt;technique, you will be able to sell books at a high&lt;br /&gt;price. Just be prepared for your competition to&lt;br /&gt;undercut you on price as soon as they hear about your&lt;br /&gt;book.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Keep in mind that the above pricing strategy is&lt;br /&gt;temporary. Eventually, you will cease to sell books at&lt;br /&gt;this high price. So figure out in advance how long you&lt;br /&gt;plan to offer your ebook at this high price, and when&lt;br /&gt;that time is up, change your pricing strategy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you want to see large profits over customer draw,&lt;br /&gt;aim for an audience that is looking for easy solutions&lt;br /&gt;to their problems at a low price. If your book is&lt;br /&gt;aimed at solving one particular problem rather than&lt;br /&gt;general advice, then you can charge more. Start at the&lt;br /&gt;highest price the market will bear to bring in the&lt;br /&gt;largest profits, and plan to discount the book a&lt;br /&gt;number of times throughout the year.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Marketing Strategies&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The key that unlocks the sales potential of your ebook&lt;br /&gt;is to find a single sentence that becomes your selling&lt;br /&gt;handle. This sentence states what question or problem&lt;br /&gt;your book answers and the benefits your ebook can&lt;br /&gt;provide. Then be sure to use that sentence in every&lt;br /&gt;piece of sales and promotional material, and every&lt;br /&gt;time anyone asks you about your ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Besides promoting your books assiduously online, there&lt;br /&gt;are several other strategies that can help you sell&lt;br /&gt;more books.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One is to give something away for free with your book,&lt;br /&gt;such as a valuable bonus item. Or bundle several&lt;br /&gt;ebooks under one price, which lowers the price for&lt;br /&gt;each ebook if they were sold separately.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;An effective technique for figuring out a price is to&lt;br /&gt;send out a survey to your current customers. If these&lt;br /&gt;customers have already bought an ebook from you, ask&lt;br /&gt;for their opinion in terms of price. Do this by&lt;br /&gt;creating a sales page for the new book, but don't&lt;br /&gt;include a price on that page. Instead, add a number of&lt;br /&gt;links to survey questions that ask pointed questions&lt;br /&gt;to aid you in assigning a price to your ebook.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another strategy is to test out prices by creating a&lt;br /&gt;number of duplicate sales pages with different prices&lt;br /&gt;on each page. Make sure your sales copy is exactly the&lt;br /&gt;same on every page, and includes your selling-handle&lt;br /&gt;sentence. Then figure out for each page the conversion&lt;br /&gt;ratio between visitors to your site and sales of your&lt;br /&gt;book. This will tell you what your optimum price is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ultimately, if you've written a book that solves a&lt;br /&gt;problem or presents a new technique, your book will&lt;br /&gt;bring in both traffic and profits. So be sure to write&lt;br /&gt;that selling-handle sentence that sums up what problem&lt;br /&gt;your book solves and what the benefits of your book&lt;br /&gt;will be to the customers who purchase it. And then&lt;br /&gt;watch your market come to you!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-7040243245367400109?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/7040243245367400109/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-price-your-e-book.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/7040243245367400109'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/7040243245367400109'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/how-to-price-your-e-book.html' title='How to Price your e-book'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-8985997975083336350</id><published>2009-08-06T16:08:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:11:12.697-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Overcoming Writers block</title><content type='html'>What is writer's block?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Well, I just can't think of a single darn thing to&lt;br /&gt;say. Oh well, I'm outta here!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sound familiar? No! Oh, get real! We've all&lt;br /&gt;experienced this phenomenon when we absolutely have to&lt;br /&gt;write something, particularly on deadline. I'm talking&lt;br /&gt;about. . . . .uh, I can't think of what the word is .&lt;br /&gt;. . oh, yes, it's on the tip of my tongue . . . it's:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;WRITER'S BLOCK!!!!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Whew! I feel better just getting that out of my head&lt;br /&gt;and onto the page!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Writer's block is the patron demon of the blank page.&lt;br /&gt;You may think you know EXACTLY what you're going to&lt;br /&gt;write, but as soon as that evil white screen appears&lt;br /&gt;before you, your mind suddenly goes completely blank.&lt;br /&gt;I'm not talking about Zen meditation&lt;br /&gt;stare-at-the-wall-until-enlightenment-hits kind of&lt;br /&gt;blank.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I'm talking about sweat trickling down the back of&lt;br /&gt;your neck, anguish and panic and suffering kind of&lt;br /&gt;blank. The tighter the deadline, the worse the anguish&lt;br /&gt;of writer's block gets.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having said that, let me say it again. "The tighter&lt;br /&gt;the deadline, the worse the anguish of writer's block&lt;br /&gt;gets." Now, can you figure out what might possibly be&lt;br /&gt;causing this horrible plunge into speechlessness?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The answer is obvious: FEAR! You are terrified of that&lt;br /&gt;blank page. You are terrified you have absolutely&lt;br /&gt;nothing of value to say. You are afraid of the fear of&lt;br /&gt;writer's block itself!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It doesn?t necessarily matter if you've done a decade&lt;br /&gt;of research and all you have to do is string sentences&lt;br /&gt;you can repeat in your sleep together into coherent&lt;br /&gt;paragraphs. Writer's block can strike anyone at any&lt;br /&gt;time. Based in fear, it raises our doubts about our&lt;br /&gt;own self-worth, but it's sneaky. It's writer's block,&lt;br /&gt;after all, so it doesn't just come and let you know&lt;br /&gt;that. No, it makes you feel like an idiot who just had&lt;br /&gt;your frontal lobes removed through your sinuses. If&lt;br /&gt;you dared to put forth words into the greater world,&lt;br /&gt;they would surely come out as gibberish!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let's try and be rational with this irrational demon.&lt;br /&gt;Let's make a list of what might possibly be beneath&lt;br /&gt;this terrible and terrifying condition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Perfectionism. You must absolutely produce a&lt;br /&gt;masterpiece of literature straight off in the first&lt;br /&gt;draft. Otherwise, you qualify as a complete failure.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Editing instead of composing. There's your&lt;br /&gt;monkey-mind sitting on your shoulder, yelling as soon&lt;br /&gt;as you type "I was born?," no, not that, that's wrong!&lt;br /&gt;That's stupid! Correct correct correct correct?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. Self-consciousness. How can you think, let alone&lt;br /&gt;write, when all you can manage to do is pry the&lt;br /&gt;fingers of writer's block away from your throat enough&lt;br /&gt;so you can gasp in a few shallow breaths? You're not&lt;br /&gt;focusing on what you're trying to write, your focusing&lt;br /&gt;on those gnarly fingers around your windpipe.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. Can't get started. It's always the first sentence&lt;br /&gt;that's the hardest. As writers, we all know how&lt;br /&gt;EXTREMELY important the first sentence is. It must be&lt;br /&gt;brilliant! It must be unique! It must hook your&lt;br /&gt;reader's from the start! There's no way we can get&lt;br /&gt;into writing the piece until we get past this&lt;br /&gt;impossible first sentence.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. Shattered concentration. You're cat is sick. You&lt;br /&gt;suspect your mate is cheating on you. Your electricity&lt;br /&gt;might be turned off any second. You have a crush on&lt;br /&gt;the local UPS deliveryman. You have a dinner party&lt;br /&gt;planned for your in-laws. You . . . Need I say more.&lt;br /&gt;How can you possibly concentrate with all this mental&lt;br /&gt;clutter?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6. Procrastination. It's your favorite hobby. It's&lt;br /&gt;your soul mate. It?s the reason you've knitted 60&lt;br /&gt;argyle sweaters or made 300 bookcases in your garage&lt;br /&gt;workshop. It's the reason you never run out of Brie.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;FACE IT ? IT?S ONE OF THE REASONS YOU HAVE WRITER'S&lt;br /&gt;BLOCK!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How to Overcome Writer's Block&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Okay. I can hear that herd of you running away from&lt;br /&gt;this article as fast as you can. Absurd! you huff.&lt;br /&gt;Never in a million years, you fume. Writer's block is&lt;br /&gt;absolutely, undeniably, scientifically proven to be&lt;br /&gt;impossible to overcome.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Oh, just get over it! Well, I guess it's not that&lt;br /&gt;easy. So try to sit down for just a few minutes and&lt;br /&gt;listen. All you have to do is listen ? you don't have&lt;br /&gt;to actually write a single word.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ah, there you all are again. I am beginning to make&lt;br /&gt;you out now that the cloud of dust is settling.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;I am here to tell you that WRITER'S BLOCK CAN BE&lt;br /&gt;OVERCOME.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Please, remain seated.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are ways to trick this nasty demon. Pick one,&lt;br /&gt;pick several, and give them a try. Soon, before you&lt;br /&gt;even have a chance for your heartbeat to accelerate,&lt;br /&gt;guess what? You're writing.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Here are some tried and true methods of overcoming&lt;br /&gt;writer's block:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Be prepared. The only thing to fear is fear itself.&lt;br /&gt;(I know, that's a clich?but as soon as you start&lt;br /&gt;writing, feel free to improve on it.) If you spend&lt;br /&gt;some time mulling over your project before you&lt;br /&gt;actually sit down to write, you may be able to&lt;br /&gt;circumvent the worst of the crippling panic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Forget perfectionism. No one ever writes a&lt;br /&gt;masterpiece in the first draft. Don't put any&lt;br /&gt;expectations on your writing at all! In fact, tell&lt;br /&gt;yourself you're going to write absolute garbage, and&lt;br /&gt;then give yourself permission to happily stink up your&lt;br /&gt;writing room.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. Compose instead of editing. Never, never write your&lt;br /&gt;first draft with your monkey-mind sitting on your&lt;br /&gt;shoulder making snide editorial comments. Composing is&lt;br /&gt;a magical process. It surpasses the conscious mind by&lt;br /&gt;galaxies. It's even incomprehensible to the conscious,&lt;br /&gt;editorial, monkey-mind. So prepare an ambush. Sit down&lt;br /&gt;at your computer or your desk. Take a deep breath and&lt;br /&gt;blow out all your thoughts. Let your finger hover over&lt;br /&gt;your keyboard or pick up your pen. And then pull a&lt;br /&gt;fake: appear to be about to begin to write, but&lt;br /&gt;instead, using your thumb and index finger of your&lt;br /&gt;dominant hand, flick that little annoying ugly monkey&lt;br /&gt;back into the barrel of laughs it came from. Then jump&lt;br /&gt;in ? quickly! Write, scribble, scream, howl, let&lt;br /&gt;everything loose, as long as you do it with a pen or&lt;br /&gt;your computer keyboard.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. Forget the first sentence. You can sweat over that&lt;br /&gt;all-important one-liner when you've finished your&lt;br /&gt;piece. Skip it! Go for the middle or even the end.&lt;br /&gt;Start wherever you can. Chances are, when you read it&lt;br /&gt;over, the first line will be blinking its little neon&lt;br /&gt;lights right at you from the depths of your&lt;br /&gt;composition.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. Concentration. This is a hard one. Life throws us&lt;br /&gt;so many curve balls. How about thinking about your&lt;br /&gt;writing time as a little vacation from all those&lt;br /&gt;annoying worries. Banish them! Create a space, perhaps&lt;br /&gt;even a physical one, where nothing exists except the&lt;br /&gt;single present moment. If one of those irritating&lt;br /&gt;worries gets by you, stomp on it like you would an&lt;br /&gt;ugly bug!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6. Stop procrastinating. Write an outline. Keep your&lt;br /&gt;research notes within sight. Use someone else's&lt;br /&gt;writing to get going. Babble incoherently on paper or&lt;br /&gt;on the computer if you have to.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just do it! (I know, I stole that line from&lt;br /&gt;somewhere?). Tack up anything that could possibly help&lt;br /&gt;you to get going: notes, outlines, pictures of your&lt;br /&gt;grandmother. Put the cookie you will be allowed to eat&lt;br /&gt;when you finish your first draft within sight ? but&lt;br /&gt;out of reach. Then pick up the same type of writing&lt;br /&gt;that you need to write, and read it. Then read it&lt;br /&gt;again. Soon, trust me, the fear will slowly fade away.&lt;br /&gt;As soon as it does, grab your keyboard ? and get&lt;br /&gt;writing!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-8985997975083336350?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/8985997975083336350/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/overcoming-writers-block.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/8985997975083336350'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/8985997975083336350'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/overcoming-writers-block.html' title='Overcoming Writers block'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-653585029376573192</id><published>2009-08-06T16:04:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:31:21.276-07:00</updated><title type='text'>E-Books are Promotional Powerhouses</title><content type='html'>Ebooks are part of the new frontier of cyberspace.&lt;br /&gt;They are an entirely new medium for sharing marketing&lt;br /&gt;information, ideas, techniques, and expert knowledge.&lt;br /&gt;Each day the number of people accessing the Internet&lt;br /&gt;grows, causing the exposure of your ebook to increase&lt;br /&gt;incrementally. It's obvious why electronic&lt;br /&gt;self-publishing has become so popular so quickly.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The publishing industry, I hope, does not intend to&lt;br /&gt;forever banish the printed word to the dustbin of&lt;br /&gt;history. Books in print have their own special&lt;br /&gt;qualities and merits, and the world would be&lt;br /&gt;diminished by their disappearance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Having said that, let's look at what makes ebooks so&lt;br /&gt;important and so unique. Ebooks have certain abilities&lt;br /&gt;and qualities that other mediums do not possess.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For example, ebooks are fairly easy to produce, and&lt;br /&gt;their production cost is inexpensive. Just think about&lt;br /&gt;it: you don't need a publisher, an agent, a printing&lt;br /&gt;press, offset film, ink, paper, or even a distributor.&lt;br /&gt;You just need a great concept, the ability to write it&lt;br /&gt;or to hire a writer, and the right software.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Additionally, ebooks are easily and rapidly&lt;br /&gt;distributed online. They are also easily updated; they&lt;br /&gt;do not require a second print run. All you need is to&lt;br /&gt;go into your original creation and modify the text or&lt;br /&gt;graphics. Because of this flexibility, ebooks can&lt;br /&gt;change and grow as fast as you can type.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebooks are also immediately obtainable. You don't have&lt;br /&gt;to go to a bookstore or search through endless titles&lt;br /&gt;at an online bookstore. All you have to do is download&lt;br /&gt;it from a website, and presto! It's on your computer,&lt;br /&gt;ready to be read.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebooks are interactive. This is one of the most unique&lt;br /&gt;and specific qualities that ebooks offer. You can add&lt;br /&gt;surveys that need to be filled out, order forms for&lt;br /&gt;customers to purchase your products or goods, sound&lt;br /&gt;and video that draw your reader into the virtual world&lt;br /&gt;of your ebook, even direct links to relevant sites&lt;br /&gt;that will expand your ebook outward. The potential is&lt;br /&gt;virtually limitless.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ebooks have a particular kind of permanence that other&lt;br /&gt;mediums do not possess. Television shows and radio&lt;br /&gt;shows air once, and then may rerun a few times. Ebooks&lt;br /&gt;remain on your computer for as long as your choose,&lt;br /&gt;and they can be read and reread whenever you choose&lt;br /&gt;to. They can even be printed out and stored on the&lt;br /&gt;shelves of your traditional home library.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another wonderful quality is that ebooks have no&lt;br /&gt;barriers in terms of publishing. You don't need to go&lt;br /&gt;through the endless process of submitting your&lt;br /&gt;manuscript over and over again, and then once you land&lt;br /&gt;an agent, having the agent submit your manuscript over&lt;br /&gt;and over again. Nor do you have to shell out thousands&lt;br /&gt;of dollars for printing a self-published book. All&lt;br /&gt;ebooks require is a writer and appropriate software.&lt;br /&gt;Figure out your market, write your book, post it on&lt;br /&gt;your website, and with the right business savvy, your&lt;br /&gt;audience will come to you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, you have creative control over your ebook.&lt;br /&gt;You don?t have to compromise with an editor or the&lt;br /&gt;publishing trends of the time. You don't have to&lt;br /&gt;haggle with a designer or wait for copyedited galleys&lt;br /&gt;to arrive by snail mail. You are in complete control&lt;br /&gt;of the design and the text.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;How to Use ebooks for Marketing and Promotion&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are innumerable ways to use ebooks to promote&lt;br /&gt;your business and drive quality traffic to your&lt;br /&gt;website. Once posted on your site, you can turn them&lt;br /&gt;into a daily course, which brings your customer back&lt;br /&gt;to read the next chapter. You can use them as a free&lt;br /&gt;gift for making a purchase or for filling out a&lt;br /&gt;survey. Put your ebook on a disc, and you will have an&lt;br /&gt;innovative brochure. Blow your competition away by&lt;br /&gt;inserting the disc into your sales packages.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most effective marketing products are those that&lt;br /&gt;are unique. Copyright your ebook, and immediately, you&lt;br /&gt;have a powerful tool that you, and you alone, can&lt;br /&gt;offer to the public. People will have to visit your&lt;br /&gt;site to acquire your ebook, which increases the flow&lt;br /&gt;of quality traffic and the potential of sales and&lt;br /&gt;affiliate contacts.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make sure that you keep your ebook current. Update it&lt;br /&gt;frequently as the market and trends change. Add new&lt;br /&gt;advice and techniques to show your prospects how your&lt;br /&gt;goods or services can enrich their lives. By&lt;br /&gt;constantly keeping abreast of new trends and&lt;br /&gt;techniques, you can continue to see profits from your&lt;br /&gt;ebook for years after your original creation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another phenomenal advantage of ebooks is that you can&lt;br /&gt;test their marketing potential without putting out&lt;br /&gt;hardly any cash at all. You can even produce an ebook&lt;br /&gt;one copy at a time, each time you receive an order,&lt;br /&gt;eliminating the need for storage and inventory. By&lt;br /&gt;this method, you can gauge the saleablity of your&lt;br /&gt;ebook, and make adjustments as necessary until the&lt;br /&gt;orders start pouring in. Ebooks allow you to learn&lt;br /&gt;about your market and customer habits and motivation&lt;br /&gt;over a period of time, without risking your precious&lt;br /&gt;financial resources. They also provide you with an&lt;br /&gt;invaluable way to gather marketing information, which&lt;br /&gt;you can use in many different facets of your business.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Use your ebook to discover what the specific goals and&lt;br /&gt;problems are in your specific industry. Then figure&lt;br /&gt;out how to solve these problems, and publish an ebook&lt;br /&gt;with this invaluable information. This will increase&lt;br /&gt;the value of your business, upgrade your reputation,&lt;br /&gt;and get you known as an expert in your field.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can extend the value of single ebook by breaking&lt;br /&gt;the book down into chapters for a serial course, into&lt;br /&gt;special reports available on your website, or into&lt;br /&gt;audio or visual tapes. Ebooks can be broken down into&lt;br /&gt;several different promotional materials by excepting&lt;br /&gt;some of the articles and using them to promote your&lt;br /&gt;product. You can include a catalog in your ebook to&lt;br /&gt;promote all the products or services you sell. You can&lt;br /&gt;include a thank-you note for reading your book and an&lt;br /&gt;invitation to download a trial version of your&lt;br /&gt;product. Or you can include a form for your audience&lt;br /&gt;to contact you for further information or with&lt;br /&gt;questions, thereby building your business&lt;br /&gt;relationships and your mailing list.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Using ebooks in this manner helps to cut the cost of&lt;br /&gt;individually producing separate promotional materials.&lt;br /&gt;You can use a single ebook to entice new prospects and&lt;br /&gt;to sell new products to your current customers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;No other medium has this kind of flexibility and&lt;br /&gt;ability for expansion. Think of your ebook like a&lt;br /&gt;spider spinning a beautiful and intricate web. Now go&lt;br /&gt;and create that web, and see how many customers and&lt;br /&gt;prospects you can catch!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://lmorton401.webs.com/ "&gt;http://lmorton401.webs.com/ &lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-653585029376573192?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/653585029376573192/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/e-books-are-promotional-powerhouses.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/653585029376573192'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/653585029376573192'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/e-books-are-promotional-powerhouses.html' title='E-Books are Promotional Powerhouses'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-5774218477941170960</id><published>2009-08-06T16:00:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:01:37.212-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Analyzing website Traffic</title><content type='html'>Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable&lt;br /&gt;tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can&lt;br /&gt;make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to&lt;br /&gt;interpret the data.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web&lt;br /&gt;traffic information that you then have to interpret and&lt;br /&gt;make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from&lt;br /&gt;your host company can be overwhelming if you don't&lt;br /&gt;understand how to apply it to your particular business and&lt;br /&gt;website. Let's start by examining the most basic data - the&lt;br /&gt;average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and&lt;br /&gt;monthly basis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;These figures are the most accurate measure of your&lt;br /&gt;website's activity. It would appear on the surface that the&lt;br /&gt;more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume&lt;br /&gt;your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate&lt;br /&gt;perception. You must also look at the behavior of your&lt;br /&gt;visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge&lt;br /&gt;the effectiveness of your site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is often a great misconception about what is commonly&lt;br /&gt;known as "hits" and what is really effective, quality&lt;br /&gt;traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of&lt;br /&gt;information requests received by the server. If you think&lt;br /&gt;about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number&lt;br /&gt;of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown&lt;br /&gt;the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage&lt;br /&gt;has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits,&lt;br /&gt;when in reality we are talking about a single visitor&lt;br /&gt;checking out a single page on your site. As you can see,&lt;br /&gt;hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The more visitors that come to your website, the more&lt;br /&gt;accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the&lt;br /&gt;traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis&lt;br /&gt;will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller&lt;br /&gt;the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors&lt;br /&gt;can distort the analysis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out&lt;br /&gt;how well or how poorly your site is working for your&lt;br /&gt;visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long&lt;br /&gt;on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time&lt;br /&gt;spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an&lt;br /&gt;underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out&lt;br /&gt;what that problem is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type&lt;br /&gt;of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are&lt;br /&gt;confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit&lt;br /&gt;rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are&lt;br /&gt;spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and&lt;br /&gt;after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as&lt;br /&gt;a gauge of how effective your fix has been.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine&lt;br /&gt;effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you&lt;br /&gt;have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are&lt;br /&gt;exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could,&lt;br /&gt;for example, consider improving the link to this page by&lt;br /&gt;making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could&lt;br /&gt;improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors&lt;br /&gt;can access the necessary information on that page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are&lt;br /&gt;spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less&lt;br /&gt;important, you might consider moving some of your sales&lt;br /&gt;copy and marketing focus to that particular page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital&lt;br /&gt;information about the effectiveness of individual pages,&lt;br /&gt;and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential&lt;br /&gt;information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final&lt;br /&gt;order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your&lt;br /&gt;visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your&lt;br /&gt;site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking&lt;br /&gt;for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit&lt;br /&gt;pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a&lt;br /&gt;particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In&lt;br /&gt;the case that a significant percentage of visitors are&lt;br /&gt;exiting your website on a page not designed for that&lt;br /&gt;purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to&lt;br /&gt;discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential&lt;br /&gt;weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or&lt;br /&gt;graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping&lt;br /&gt;visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the&lt;br /&gt;wrong page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it's time&lt;br /&gt;to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular&lt;br /&gt;keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your&lt;br /&gt;site. The more targeted the visitor - meaning that they&lt;br /&gt;find what they are looking for on your site, and even&lt;br /&gt;better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase - the&lt;br /&gt;more valuable that keyword is.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, if you find a large number of visitors are being&lt;br /&gt;directed - or should I say misdirected - to your site by a&lt;br /&gt;particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands&lt;br /&gt;adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors&lt;br /&gt;to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close&lt;br /&gt;analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find&lt;br /&gt;your site will give you a vital understanding of your&lt;br /&gt;visitor's needs and motivations.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website&lt;br /&gt;by typing in your company name, break open the champagne!&lt;br /&gt;It means you have achieved a significant level of brand&lt;br /&gt;recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-5774218477941170960?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/5774218477941170960/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/analyzing-website-traffic.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/5774218477941170960'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/5774218477941170960'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/analyzing-website-traffic.html' title='Analyzing website Traffic'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-4200977569295272877</id><published>2009-08-06T15:50:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:55:56.494-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Evaluating Website performance</title><content type='html'>Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet&lt;br /&gt;marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site&lt;br /&gt;depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your&lt;br /&gt;website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to&lt;br /&gt;accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish&lt;br /&gt;anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and&lt;br /&gt;monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online&lt;br /&gt;announcement that you are in business.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action,&lt;br /&gt;whether it is visitors filling out a form so a&lt;br /&gt;representative can contact them, or purchasing a product,&lt;br /&gt;there are steps you can take to insure that your website is&lt;br /&gt;functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators&lt;br /&gt;of how well your site is working for you is finding out the&lt;br /&gt;number of visitors in a given period of time. A good&lt;br /&gt;baseline measurement is a month in which you haven't been&lt;br /&gt;doing any unusual offline promotional activities.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, just because hoards of people have passed through&lt;br /&gt;your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually,&lt;br /&gt;you want those visitors to actually do something there. It&lt;br /&gt;is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to&lt;br /&gt;your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the&lt;br /&gt;site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the&lt;br /&gt;efficacy of your website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To find the site conversion rate, take the number of&lt;br /&gt;visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them&lt;br /&gt;that actually performed the action your site is set up for.&lt;br /&gt;For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only&lt;br /&gt;25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion&lt;br /&gt;rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of&lt;br /&gt;visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors&lt;br /&gt;who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ?00 X 100).&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a&lt;br /&gt;form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is&lt;br /&gt;between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion&lt;br /&gt;rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form&lt;br /&gt;will actually become your customer. However, whether your&lt;br /&gt;site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the&lt;br /&gt;visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will&lt;br /&gt;measure the success or failure of your website whenever you&lt;br /&gt;make changes to the site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You may find that you need to implement some additional&lt;br /&gt;marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site&lt;br /&gt;is extremely low. There are several effective methods to&lt;br /&gt;improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly&lt;br /&gt;launching a search engine optimization campaign. This&lt;br /&gt;campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search&lt;br /&gt;engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster&lt;br /&gt;and easier. You can either research the steps you need to&lt;br /&gt;take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a&lt;br /&gt;search engine optimization company to do the work for you.&lt;br /&gt;In either case, after your have improved your search engine&lt;br /&gt;positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular&lt;br /&gt;monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high&lt;br /&gt;positions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor&lt;br /&gt;to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up&lt;br /&gt;for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill&lt;br /&gt;out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the&lt;br /&gt;visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If&lt;br /&gt;it's too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw&lt;br /&gt;in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your&lt;br /&gt;buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or&lt;br /&gt;ordering page quickly accessible.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your&lt;br /&gt;website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to&lt;br /&gt;make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be&lt;br /&gt;specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a&lt;br /&gt;cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right&lt;br /&gt;copy can make the difference between profit and loss in&lt;br /&gt;your online campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-4200977569295272877?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/4200977569295272877/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/evaluating-website-performance.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/4200977569295272877'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/4200977569295272877'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/evaluating-website-performance.html' title='Evaluating Website performance'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-5075901887215051852</id><published>2009-08-06T15:46:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:50:41.231-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Increasing Link Popularity</title><content type='html'>Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are&lt;br /&gt;the first tool that potential customers use to find the&lt;br /&gt;products and services they need. This is why link&lt;br /&gt;popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find&lt;br /&gt;your website, you have no possibilities of making any&lt;br /&gt;sales.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about&lt;br /&gt;a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to&lt;br /&gt;the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines,&lt;br /&gt;and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords&lt;br /&gt;are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably&lt;br /&gt;wondering, how do I make my link popular?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking&lt;br /&gt;to sites that have links to their pages from related,&lt;br /&gt;quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important&lt;br /&gt;one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the&lt;br /&gt;most popular search engines employ it to rank your web&lt;br /&gt;pages in their indexes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will&lt;br /&gt;be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this&lt;br /&gt;step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly&lt;br /&gt;on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are&lt;br /&gt;tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the&lt;br /&gt;most competitive keywords.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is&lt;br /&gt;that just linking up with a large number of other websites&lt;br /&gt;will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have&lt;br /&gt;quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when&lt;br /&gt;pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link&lt;br /&gt;farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate&lt;br /&gt;links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against&lt;br /&gt;your website if you are associated with a link farm, so&lt;br /&gt;steer clear of them!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site&lt;br /&gt;you are linking to. Never link to a page you have&lt;br /&gt;reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you&lt;br /&gt;want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap.&lt;br /&gt;Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link&lt;br /&gt;popularity, if not completely destroy it.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link&lt;br /&gt;popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on&lt;br /&gt;all the popular search engines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the&lt;br /&gt;door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as&lt;br /&gt;Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is&lt;br /&gt;business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and&lt;br /&gt;despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year,&lt;br /&gt;it will be money well spent. If your site is&lt;br /&gt;non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take&lt;br /&gt;time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open&lt;br /&gt;Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are&lt;br /&gt;business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make&lt;br /&gt;a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site&lt;br /&gt;listed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of&lt;br /&gt;appropriate category, and this just takes some common&lt;br /&gt;sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from&lt;br /&gt;an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny&lt;br /&gt;State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from&lt;br /&gt;Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is&lt;br /&gt;look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine&lt;br /&gt;Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself&lt;br /&gt;with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a&lt;br /&gt;national category.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The next step after you have attained directory listings is&lt;br /&gt;to locate other quality sites that will increase your link&lt;br /&gt;popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related&lt;br /&gt;to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase,&lt;br /&gt;but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to&lt;br /&gt;avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful&lt;br /&gt;to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site&lt;br /&gt;example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies&lt;br /&gt;would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the&lt;br /&gt;knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are&lt;br /&gt;also greater. By linking to a related site that will be&lt;br /&gt;relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both&lt;br /&gt;of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites'&lt;br /&gt;link popularity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have&lt;br /&gt;to do some research when you are looking for possible&lt;br /&gt;linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for&lt;br /&gt;your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think&lt;br /&gt;quality customers will also enter to find your own site.&lt;br /&gt;Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked,&lt;br /&gt;non-competing websites that have a links or resources page.&lt;br /&gt;Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the&lt;br /&gt;quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use.&lt;br /&gt;Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and&lt;br /&gt;determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must&lt;br /&gt;set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link&lt;br /&gt;on your own links page to their site. This is an essential&lt;br /&gt;first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances&lt;br /&gt;significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added&lt;br /&gt;their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site.&lt;br /&gt;Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make&lt;br /&gt;sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk&lt;br /&gt;mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat&lt;br /&gt;that you have added a link to their page on your site. A&lt;br /&gt;hook like this almost always insures the reader will read&lt;br /&gt;on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much&lt;br /&gt;you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that&lt;br /&gt;you have actually visited their site, and that their site&lt;br /&gt;is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your&lt;br /&gt;links page, and ask them to check out the link for&lt;br /&gt;themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not&lt;br /&gt;only benefit from the increased traffic your website will&lt;br /&gt;direct their way, but you will also increase their link&lt;br /&gt;popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so&lt;br /&gt;essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't&lt;br /&gt;sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would&lt;br /&gt;greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on&lt;br /&gt;their own links page to your website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as&lt;br /&gt;you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and&lt;br /&gt;non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant&lt;br /&gt;sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if&lt;br /&gt;they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month,&lt;br /&gt;and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then&lt;br /&gt;give it another month, and if your site is still absent&lt;br /&gt;from their links page, it's time to remove their link from&lt;br /&gt;your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a&lt;br /&gt;link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial&lt;br /&gt;to your link popularity and your business needs. Just&lt;br /&gt;remember to keep all your communications complimentary and&lt;br /&gt;cordial.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search&lt;br /&gt;engines frequently to see if your link popularity has&lt;br /&gt;improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It&lt;br /&gt;will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no&lt;br /&gt;way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your&lt;br /&gt;link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with&lt;br /&gt;such importance.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined&lt;br /&gt;site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you.&lt;br /&gt;Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long&lt;br /&gt;as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-5075901887215051852?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/5075901887215051852/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/increasing-link-popularity.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/5075901887215051852'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/5075901887215051852'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/increasing-link-popularity.html' title='Increasing Link Popularity'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-8979566209157927386</id><published>2009-08-06T15:44:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:46:26.651-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Increasing your Search engine Ranking</title><content type='html'>The methods employed to increase your search engine&lt;br /&gt;rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have&lt;br /&gt;probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell&lt;br /&gt;you - the time has come to face your website! A high search&lt;br /&gt;engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you&lt;br /&gt;have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your&lt;br /&gt;business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this&lt;br /&gt;issue.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on&lt;br /&gt;the Internet find websites through search engines such as&lt;br /&gt;Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages&lt;br /&gt;for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted&lt;br /&gt;customers to your site who will be more than likely to make&lt;br /&gt;a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine&lt;br /&gt;results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your&lt;br /&gt;website. That's what search engine optimization is about.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can immerse yourself in all the technical information&lt;br /&gt;available online to figure out how to optimize your web&lt;br /&gt;pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few&lt;br /&gt;simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments,&lt;br /&gt;and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The&lt;br /&gt;first item you should examine is the title bar on your&lt;br /&gt;homepage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page.&lt;br /&gt;Look at the words that appear there when you access your&lt;br /&gt;home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on&lt;br /&gt;your homepage's title bar should include the most important&lt;br /&gt;keywords or phrases, one of which would include your&lt;br /&gt;company name.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on&lt;br /&gt;the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page&lt;br /&gt;of your site should contain the most important keywords and&lt;br /&gt;phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very&lt;br /&gt;long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or&lt;br /&gt;less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title&lt;br /&gt;bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to&lt;br /&gt;each other.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The next item to put under your microscope is your website&lt;br /&gt;content. Search engines generally list sites that contain&lt;br /&gt;quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The&lt;br /&gt;text on your site must contain the most important keywords&lt;br /&gt;- the words that potential customers will be typing into&lt;br /&gt;search engines to find your site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is&lt;br /&gt;not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100&lt;br /&gt;carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high&lt;br /&gt;ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However,&lt;br /&gt;the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning&lt;br /&gt;that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your&lt;br /&gt;cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able&lt;br /&gt;to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not&lt;br /&gt;highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case,&lt;br /&gt;ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in&lt;br /&gt;order to increase your search engine rankings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this&lt;br /&gt;sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is&lt;br /&gt;really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags&lt;br /&gt;are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality,&lt;br /&gt;they only have a limited effect. Still, it's worth adding&lt;br /&gt;them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags&lt;br /&gt;in their ranking formula.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must&lt;br /&gt;access the code. To do this, click the "view" button on the&lt;br /&gt;browser menu bar, and select "source." This will pull up a&lt;br /&gt;window revealing the underlying code that created the page.&lt;br /&gt;If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of&lt;br /&gt;the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta&lt;br /&gt;name="keywords" content=. If you do not find code that&lt;br /&gt;reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This&lt;br /&gt;may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any&lt;br /&gt;little boost helps.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a&lt;br /&gt;factor that is extremely important in terms of search&lt;br /&gt;engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link&lt;br /&gt;popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based&lt;br /&gt;on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your&lt;br /&gt;links page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you type in "free link popularity check" in a popular&lt;br /&gt;search engine, the search engine will then show you what&lt;br /&gt;sites are linked to your site. In the case that there&lt;br /&gt;aren't many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites&lt;br /&gt;that are linked up have low search engine rankings,&lt;br /&gt;consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially,&lt;br /&gt;this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that&lt;br /&gt;they exchange links with your site. Of course, this&lt;br /&gt;requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want&lt;br /&gt;to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only&lt;br /&gt;boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more&lt;br /&gt;quality traffic to your website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Search engine rankings are extremely important for a&lt;br /&gt;successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out&lt;br /&gt;and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking&lt;br /&gt;some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can't&lt;br /&gt;boost your rankings yourself. Don't ever ignore this&lt;br /&gt;all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the&lt;br /&gt;higher your search engine ranking, the more quality&lt;br /&gt;customers will be directed your way.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=" http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-8979566209157927386?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/8979566209157927386/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/increasing-your-search-engine-ranking.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/8979566209157927386'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/8979566209157927386'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/increasing-your-search-engine-ranking.html' title='Increasing your Search engine Ranking'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-3404797026941568008</id><published>2009-08-06T15:43:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:44:35.582-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Monitoring You Search Engine Position</title><content type='html'>Since search engines are the first stop for people on the&lt;br /&gt;Internet looking for goods or services, the position your&lt;br /&gt;website appears in search results is an important factor.&lt;br /&gt;If your URL shows up far down the results list, the chances&lt;br /&gt;of the consumer never finding you increase incrementally.&lt;br /&gt;Once you achieve a high search engine position, it is&lt;br /&gt;essential that you make sure you maintain the high ranking&lt;br /&gt;you have worked so hard to achieve.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This means you must come up with a strategy to monitor your&lt;br /&gt;search engines positions. This strategy is crucial to the&lt;br /&gt;success of any marketing campaign. Think of your search&lt;br /&gt;engine positions as your online portfolio. Would you let&lt;br /&gt;your stock portfolio be ruled by chance and market&lt;br /&gt;fluctuations, or would you keep close tabs on your stocks&lt;br /&gt;so you could buy and sell when the time is right? This is&lt;br /&gt;the way you must consider your search engines positions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be aware that at first, after you have launched your search&lt;br /&gt;engine campaign and done all the right things to increase&lt;br /&gt;your rankings, you will most likely see a continual upward&lt;br /&gt;climb. What you need to be on the lookout for is the moment&lt;br /&gt;that upward climb reaches a plateau. When this happens,&lt;br /&gt;your search engine position campaign moves into stage two,&lt;br /&gt;the monitoring and protecting stage.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In stage two, do not be concerned about the short-term&lt;br /&gt;fluctuations in your positions. These are similar to the&lt;br /&gt;subtle rising and falling of stocks in a portfolio.&lt;br /&gt;Short-term movement is an integral part of the whole&lt;br /&gt;process. It's the long-term changes that you must watch for&lt;br /&gt;and prepare to act on immediately.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Analyzing the long-term trends of search engines positions&lt;br /&gt;is imperative. The way in which search engines rank&lt;br /&gt;websites may change at the drop of hat. If you are unaware&lt;br /&gt;of these changes - many of which are subtle yet can be&lt;br /&gt;deadly to your ranking - your position may drop to the&lt;br /&gt;bottom of the list before you can get your bearings. To&lt;br /&gt;prevent this kind of precipitous drop, you must create a&lt;br /&gt;system to monitor your positions on a monthly basis. Devise&lt;br /&gt;a chart to keep tabs on your top ranking positions or your&lt;br /&gt;top pages, and make sure to watch "the market" closely.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Each search engine uses a formula to compute website&lt;br /&gt;rankings. When a search engine changes this formula in any&lt;br /&gt;way, it may raise or lower your ranking. Some search&lt;br /&gt;engines use a number of different formulas, rotating them&lt;br /&gt;so that a formula doesn't become overused or outdated.&lt;br /&gt;Depending on which formula is being applied, your search&lt;br /&gt;engine position may suddenly drop or rise in rank&lt;br /&gt;significantly. Therefore, you must check your positions&lt;br /&gt;frequently in order to catch when a search engine changes&lt;br /&gt;formulas and what effect it has on your positions.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You must also deal with your competition - a crucial factor&lt;br /&gt;you must always be vigilant about. Your competitor's&lt;br /&gt;position may suddenly rise, automatically lowering your&lt;br /&gt;position. Or their position may drop, pushing your position&lt;br /&gt;higher. Each month, expect position changes due to the&lt;br /&gt;continual changes that are occurring in your competitor's&lt;br /&gt;position, and be prepared to adjust your marketing strategy&lt;br /&gt;to compensate for decreased rankings. Monitoring these&lt;br /&gt;fluctuations will also give you vital information about how&lt;br /&gt;to improve your website to increase your position in search&lt;br /&gt;results.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, you must discern what the most popular search&lt;br /&gt;engines are in order for your monitoring efforts to be&lt;br /&gt;effective. Right now, there are ten popular search engines&lt;br /&gt;that direct most of Internet traffic to your sites. The&lt;br /&gt;challenge you face is that these top ten may change from&lt;br /&gt;month to month.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This means that your must not only monitor your search&lt;br /&gt;engine positions, but you must also keep track of the&lt;br /&gt;ranking popularity of the search engines you are&lt;br /&gt;monitoring. Find out which search engines people use most&lt;br /&gt;frequently every month and be sure to live in the present!&lt;br /&gt;People are fickle about their favorite search engines, and&lt;br /&gt;it takes constant vigilance to follow their dalliances. The&lt;br /&gt;search engines they loved when you first launched your&lt;br /&gt;campaign may be old news in the next few months. You must&lt;br /&gt;adjust your list of engines according to the whims of the&lt;br /&gt;Internet users. Check out&lt;br /&gt;http://www.searchenginewatch.com/reports/netratings.html&lt;br /&gt;for a current list of website favorites.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another factor to monitor carefully is a sudden drop of&lt;br /&gt;your positions in all search engines. This is not the same&lt;br /&gt;as monthly fluctuations - this is a neon red warning sign!&lt;br /&gt;It could mean a number of different things.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It all your search engine positions have plummeted, it may&lt;br /&gt;indicate that search engines spiders - those sneaky&lt;br /&gt;programs that seek out your site and rank their positions -&lt;br /&gt;have found some type of problem with your website. If you&lt;br /&gt;have recently changed the code, for instance, the spider&lt;br /&gt;may become utterly confused and consequently drop your&lt;br /&gt;positions disastrously. If a spider creeps up on your&lt;br /&gt;website when it is down for adjustments or changes, you may&lt;br /&gt;actually disappear from a search engine index entirely. Or&lt;br /&gt;a search engine may drastically change its formula, and&lt;br /&gt;suddenly all of your website come up as irrelevant. If that&lt;br /&gt;search engine is a current favorite, it may create a domino&lt;br /&gt;effect, causing all of your position to drop in all search&lt;br /&gt;engines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some search engines rely on the results from other search&lt;br /&gt;engines, and it is vital that you know which engines these&lt;br /&gt;are and keep track of all the engines they influence. The&lt;br /&gt;biggest problem here is that search engines will sometimes&lt;br /&gt;change affiliations, and this can create a major shift in&lt;br /&gt;the geography of the Internet. For example, recently Yahoo&lt;br /&gt;decided to display only results gleaned from Google. So you&lt;br /&gt;must not only monitor your own positions, but you must keep&lt;br /&gt;abreast of seismic shifts in the landscape of the Internet&lt;br /&gt;as a whole.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Finally, pay attention to your keywords. Keywords are the&lt;br /&gt;foundation bricks of the entire search engine system, and&lt;br /&gt;they demand individual scrutiny in your monitoring efforts.&lt;br /&gt;If you have found that a number of your positions have&lt;br /&gt;plummeted, it may mean that a page of your website has&lt;br /&gt;become invisible or inaccessible to search engine spiders.&lt;br /&gt;Or the competition for that particular keyword or phrase&lt;br /&gt;has recently rocketed into outer space. In either case, you&lt;br /&gt;must act quickly and efficiently to regain lost ground.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your search engine marketing campaign is an investment. If&lt;br /&gt;costs you time and money on a continual basis. Protect this&lt;br /&gt;investment as diligently as you would your financial&lt;br /&gt;portfolio. In the same way, track your positions from an&lt;br /&gt;objective perspective, and monitor your positions on a&lt;br /&gt;regular basis. Make sure your time and effort reap rewards&lt;br /&gt;by keeping your eye on the big picture - your long-term&lt;br /&gt;marketing campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-3404797026941568008?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/3404797026941568008/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/monitoring-you-search-engine-position.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/3404797026941568008'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/3404797026941568008'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/monitoring-you-search-engine-position.html' title='Monitoring You Search Engine Position'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-1645081019800484810</id><published>2009-08-06T15:22:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:42:57.938-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Paid Url Inclusion</title><content type='html'>There are many ways to promote your website and one of the&lt;br /&gt;most efficient ways is to use search engines. Search&lt;br /&gt;engines are the first stop for most people trying to find&lt;br /&gt;information, services, and products online. Because of&lt;br /&gt;this, it is essential that your website appears quickly in&lt;br /&gt;search results.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The Internet contains numerous search engines, some of&lt;br /&gt;which offer what is known as "paid inclusion." This means&lt;br /&gt;that you pay the specific search engine an annual fee for&lt;br /&gt;your web page to be included in their index.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, every search engine already has an automated&lt;br /&gt;program commonly called a "spider" that indexes all the web&lt;br /&gt;pages it locates online, and it does this for free. So&lt;br /&gt;whether you pay or not, your web page will eventually be&lt;br /&gt;indexed by all Internet search engines, as long as the&lt;br /&gt;spider can follow a link to your page. The major issue is,&lt;br /&gt;then, how quickly your page is indexed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A search engine that offers a paid URL inclusion uses an&lt;br /&gt;extra spider that is programmed to index the particular&lt;br /&gt;pages that have been paid for. The difference between the&lt;br /&gt;spider that indexes pages for free and the spider that&lt;br /&gt;indexes only pages for a fee is speed. If you have paid for&lt;br /&gt;inclusion, the additional search engine spider will index&lt;br /&gt;your page immediately.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The debate over paid URL inclusion centers around the&lt;br /&gt;annual fee. Since the regular spider of these search&lt;br /&gt;engines would eventually get around to indexing your web&lt;br /&gt;page anyway, why is a renewal fee necessary? The fee is&lt;br /&gt;necessary to keep your pages in the search engine's index.&lt;br /&gt;If you go the route of paid inclusion, you should be aware&lt;br /&gt;that at the end of the pay period, on some search engines,&lt;br /&gt;your page will be removed from their index for a certain&lt;br /&gt;amount of time.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's easy to get confused about whether you would benefit&lt;br /&gt;from paid inclusion since the spider of any search engine&lt;br /&gt;will eventually index your page without the additional&lt;br /&gt;cost. There are both advantages and disadvantages to paid&lt;br /&gt;URL inclusion, and it is only by weighing your pros and&lt;br /&gt;cons that you will be able to decide whether to spring for&lt;br /&gt;the extra cash or not.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The advantages are obvious: rapid inclusion and rapid&lt;br /&gt;re-indexing. Paid inclusion means that your pages will be&lt;br /&gt;indexed quickly and added to search results in a very short&lt;br /&gt;time after you have paid the fee. The time difference&lt;br /&gt;between when the regular spider will index your pages and&lt;br /&gt;when the paid spider will is a matter of months. The spider&lt;br /&gt;for paid inclusion usually indexes your pages in a day or&lt;br /&gt;two. Be aware that if you have no incoming links to your&lt;br /&gt;pages, the regular spider will never locate them at all.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Additionally, paid inclusion spiders will go back to your&lt;br /&gt;pages often, sometimes even daily. The advantage of this is&lt;br /&gt;that you can update your pages constantly to improve the&lt;br /&gt;ranking in which they appear in search engines, and the&lt;br /&gt;paid URL inclusion spider will show that result in a matter&lt;br /&gt;of days.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;First and foremost, the disadvantage is the cost. For a ten&lt;br /&gt;page website, the costs of paid URL inclusion range from&lt;br /&gt;$170 for Fast/Lycos to $600 for Altavista, and you have to&lt;br /&gt;pay each engine their annual fee. How relevant the cost&lt;br /&gt;factor is will depend on your company.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another, and perhaps more important, disadvantage is the&lt;br /&gt;limited reach of paid URL inclusions. The largest search&lt;br /&gt;engines, Google, Yahoo, and AOL, do not offer paid URL&lt;br /&gt;inclusion. That means that the search engines you choose to&lt;br /&gt;pay an inclusion fee will amount to a small fraction of the&lt;br /&gt;traffic to your site on a daily basis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Google usually updates its index every month, and there is&lt;br /&gt;no way you can speed up this process. You will have to wait&lt;br /&gt;for the Google spider to index your new pages no matter how&lt;br /&gt;many other search engines you have paid to update their&lt;br /&gt;index daily. Be aware that it is only after Google updates&lt;br /&gt;their index that your pages will show up in Google, Yahoo,&lt;br /&gt;or AOL results.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;One way to figure out whether paid URL inclusion is a good&lt;br /&gt;deal for your company is to consider some common factors.&lt;br /&gt;First, find out if search engines have already indexed your&lt;br /&gt;pages. To do this, you may have to enter a number of&lt;br /&gt;different keywords, but the quickest way to find out is to&lt;br /&gt;enter your URL address in quotes. If your pages appear when&lt;br /&gt;you enter the URL address but do not appear when you enter&lt;br /&gt;keywords, using paid inclusion will not be beneficial. This&lt;br /&gt;is because your pages have already been indexed and ranked&lt;br /&gt;by the regular spider. If this is the case, your money&lt;br /&gt;would be better spent by updating your pages to improve&lt;br /&gt;your ranking in search results. Once you accomplish this,&lt;br /&gt;you can then consider using paid inclusion if you want to&lt;br /&gt;speed up the time it will take for the regular spider to&lt;br /&gt;revisit your pages.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most important factor in deciding whether to use paid&lt;br /&gt;URL inclusion is to decide if it's a good investment. To&lt;br /&gt;figure this out, you have to look at the overall picture:&lt;br /&gt;what kind of product or service are you selling and how&lt;br /&gt;much traffic are you dependent on to see a profit?&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If your company sells an inexpensive product that requires&lt;br /&gt;a large volume of traffic to your site, paid inclusion may&lt;br /&gt;not be the best investment for you; the biggest search&lt;br /&gt;engines do not offer it, and they are the engines that will&lt;br /&gt;bring you the majority of hits. On the other hand, if you&lt;br /&gt;have a business that offers an expensive service or product&lt;br /&gt;and requires a certain quality of traffic to your site, a&lt;br /&gt;paid URL inclusion is most likely an excellent investment.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another factor is whether or not your pages are updated&lt;br /&gt;frequently. If the content changes on a daily or weekly&lt;br /&gt;basis, paid inclusion will insure that your new pages are&lt;br /&gt;indexed often and quickly. The new content is indexed by&lt;br /&gt;the paid spider and then appears when new relevant keywords&lt;br /&gt;are entered in the search engines. Using paid inclusion in&lt;br /&gt;this case will guarantee that your pages are being indexed&lt;br /&gt;in a timely manner.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You should also base your decision on whether or not your&lt;br /&gt;pages are dynamically generated. These types of pages are&lt;br /&gt;often difficult for regular spiders to locate and index.&lt;br /&gt;Paying to include the most important pages of a dynamically&lt;br /&gt;generated website will insure that the paid spider will&lt;br /&gt;index them.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Sometimes a regular spider will drop pages from its search&lt;br /&gt;engine, although these pages usually reappear in a few&lt;br /&gt;months. There are a number of reasons why this can happen,&lt;br /&gt;but by using paid URL inclusion, you will avoid the&lt;br /&gt;possibility. Paid URL inclusion guarantees that your pages&lt;br /&gt;are indexed, and if they are inadvertently dropped, the&lt;br /&gt;search engine will be on the lookout to locate them&lt;br /&gt;immediately.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As you can see, there are numerous factors to consider when&lt;br /&gt;it comes to paid URL inclusion. It can be a valuable&lt;br /&gt;investment depending on your situation. Evaluate your&lt;br /&gt;business needs and your website to determine if paid URL&lt;br /&gt;inclusion is a wise investment for your business goals.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-1645081019800484810?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/1645081019800484810/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/paid-url-inclusion.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/1645081019800484810'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/1645081019800484810'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/paid-url-inclusion.html' title='Paid Url Inclusion'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-145654593760637112</id><published>2009-08-06T15:18:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:22:01.205-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Pay Per click Advertising</title><content type='html'>Advertising your services or products on the Internet is&lt;br /&gt;both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There&lt;br /&gt;are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your&lt;br /&gt;website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose&lt;br /&gt;from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine&lt;br /&gt;optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are&lt;br /&gt;targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of&lt;br /&gt;search engine results as possible. One of the differences&lt;br /&gt;is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign&lt;br /&gt;versus months for a good SEO campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that&lt;br /&gt;most search engines, including some of the largest ones,&lt;br /&gt;now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which&lt;br /&gt;translates to your company paying the bid amount every time&lt;br /&gt;the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is&lt;br /&gt;the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your&lt;br /&gt;website traffic, your site often appears in the results of&lt;br /&gt;other prevalent search engines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and&lt;br /&gt;disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor&lt;br /&gt;your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very&lt;br /&gt;effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never&lt;br /&gt;have to tweak your web pages to change your position in&lt;br /&gt;search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO&lt;br /&gt;campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click&lt;br /&gt;campaign is pay a fee.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click&lt;br /&gt;process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't&lt;br /&gt;demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more&lt;br /&gt;you know about search engines and keywords, the easier -&lt;br /&gt;and more effective - the process will be.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding&lt;br /&gt;war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on&lt;br /&gt;search engine results. This means that you will have to&lt;br /&gt;raise your bid to regain your position - which can&lt;br /&gt;obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are&lt;br /&gt;bidding on a popular keyword.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective&lt;br /&gt;form of marketing for your business, you must do some&lt;br /&gt;computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site&lt;br /&gt;is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit&lt;br /&gt;you make on your website over a given period of time by the&lt;br /&gt;total number of visitors for that same time period. For&lt;br /&gt;example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were&lt;br /&gt;2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50&lt;br /&gt;cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which&lt;br /&gt;your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show&lt;br /&gt;a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you&lt;br /&gt;are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost&lt;br /&gt;considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way&lt;br /&gt;around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be&lt;br /&gt;paying too much for each individual hit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything&lt;br /&gt;you can about search engine keyword research. The good news&lt;br /&gt;is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can&lt;br /&gt;add to your bid because additional keywords do not add&lt;br /&gt;additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for&lt;br /&gt;you because there is no need to optimize your site to index&lt;br /&gt;a particular set of keywords.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than&lt;br /&gt;others are, but they will not cost you anything except time&lt;br /&gt;to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the&lt;br /&gt;popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called&lt;br /&gt;Overture provides an online tool that will give you the&lt;br /&gt;data on how often particular keywords are entered into&lt;br /&gt;their search engine. They also offer suggestions for&lt;br /&gt;keywords after you enter a description of your site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You&lt;br /&gt;must understand that the object of your description is not&lt;br /&gt;to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as&lt;br /&gt;possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy&lt;br /&gt;your service or product go to your site. You must use&lt;br /&gt;expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is&lt;br /&gt;both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal&lt;br /&gt;candidates to your site. This description is your most&lt;br /&gt;powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is&lt;br /&gt;that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important&lt;br /&gt;that you bear in mind that the results of the top search&lt;br /&gt;engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are&lt;br /&gt;Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other&lt;br /&gt;popular search engines. Because of this, the competition&lt;br /&gt;for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find&lt;br /&gt;that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click&lt;br /&gt;to yield a profit.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on&lt;br /&gt;that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when&lt;br /&gt;you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in&lt;br /&gt;essence losing the bidding war.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in&lt;br /&gt;place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword.&lt;br /&gt;It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a&lt;br /&gt;monthly basis.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis&lt;br /&gt;of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about&lt;br /&gt;consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring&lt;br /&gt;and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business&lt;br /&gt;needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click&lt;br /&gt;campaign is a success.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="  http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;&lt;br /&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-145654593760637112?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/145654593760637112/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/pay-per-click-advertising.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/145654593760637112'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/145654593760637112'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/pay-per-click-advertising.html' title='Pay Per click Advertising'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-697999583590049747</id><published>2009-08-06T14:48:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:17:55.663-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings</title><content type='html'>Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element&lt;br /&gt;of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to&lt;br /&gt;improve your link popularity through legitimate methods.&lt;br /&gt;Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of&lt;br /&gt;dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link&lt;br /&gt;popularity by faking out search engines.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The good news is that search engines have figured this out,&lt;br /&gt;and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have&lt;br /&gt;increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a&lt;br /&gt;search engines tracks down such a site, that site is&lt;br /&gt;demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search&lt;br /&gt;engine's index.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The bad news is that some high quality, completely&lt;br /&gt;above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page&lt;br /&gt;criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in&lt;br /&gt;the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index,&lt;br /&gt;even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh&lt;br /&gt;treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you&lt;br /&gt;should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of&lt;br /&gt;misperception.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you&lt;br /&gt;are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning&lt;br /&gt;website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the&lt;br /&gt;Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about&lt;br /&gt;increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you&lt;br /&gt;must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose&lt;br /&gt;to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites&lt;br /&gt;that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of&lt;br /&gt;artificially boosting their link popularity. They have&lt;br /&gt;actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be&lt;br /&gt;penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site;&lt;br /&gt;penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the&lt;br /&gt;link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and&lt;br /&gt;double-check, all the links that are active on your links&lt;br /&gt;page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages&lt;br /&gt;you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way&lt;br /&gt;to do this is to download the Google toolbar at&lt;br /&gt;http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most&lt;br /&gt;pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by a&lt;br /&gt;sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the&lt;br /&gt;scale. This is especially important when the scale is&lt;br /&gt;completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages&lt;br /&gt;have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you&lt;br /&gt;may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be&lt;br /&gt;difficult to recover from the infection.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose&lt;br /&gt;scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale.&lt;br /&gt;These sites have not been penalized, and their links may&lt;br /&gt;grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that&lt;br /&gt;you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that&lt;br /&gt;at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have&lt;br /&gt;linked up to them from your links page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to&lt;br /&gt;artificially boost their link popularity is the use of&lt;br /&gt;hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web&lt;br /&gt;pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means&lt;br /&gt;that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you&lt;br /&gt;have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine&lt;br /&gt;ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of&lt;br /&gt;keywords.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding&lt;br /&gt;their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to&lt;br /&gt;any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the&lt;br /&gt;keywords but made them the same color as the background&lt;br /&gt;color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on&lt;br /&gt;a white background. You cannot see these words with the&lt;br /&gt;human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot&lt;br /&gt;them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to&lt;br /&gt;index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it&lt;br /&gt;goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but&lt;br /&gt;search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a&lt;br /&gt;search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the&lt;br /&gt;page is penalized.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit&lt;br /&gt;overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For&lt;br /&gt;example, if the background color of your page is gray, and&lt;br /&gt;you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider&lt;br /&gt;will only take note of the gray text and assume you are&lt;br /&gt;employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty,&lt;br /&gt;simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color&lt;br /&gt;to text as the background color of the page - ever!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is&lt;br /&gt;called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your&lt;br /&gt;keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you&lt;br /&gt;can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please&lt;br /&gt;those spiders. A search engine uses what is called&lt;br /&gt;"Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying to&lt;br /&gt;artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of&lt;br /&gt;keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search&lt;br /&gt;engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a&lt;br /&gt;keyword before it decides you have overdone it and&lt;br /&gt;penalizes your site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass&lt;br /&gt;without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your&lt;br /&gt;keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case,&lt;br /&gt;it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword&lt;br /&gt;is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase&lt;br /&gt;in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so&lt;br /&gt;that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not&lt;br /&gt;repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword&lt;br /&gt;should never appear in more than half the sentences on the&lt;br /&gt;page.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To&lt;br /&gt;those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should&lt;br /&gt;be easy to understand. For the rest of you?cloaking is when&lt;br /&gt;the server directs a visitor to one page and a search&lt;br /&gt;engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees&lt;br /&gt;is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic,&lt;br /&gt;and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine&lt;br /&gt;ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything&lt;br /&gt;it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the&lt;br /&gt;list.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It is natural that search engines have responded to this&lt;br /&gt;act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep&lt;br /&gt;penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that&lt;br /&gt;sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as&lt;br /&gt;prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as&lt;br /&gt;"pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary these&lt;br /&gt;days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link&lt;br /&gt;popularity, that cannot be stolen.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is&lt;br /&gt;aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure&lt;br /&gt;the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will&lt;br /&gt;put your website at great risk.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link&lt;br /&gt;popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent&lt;br /&gt;to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor&lt;br /&gt;your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially&lt;br /&gt;boosting your rankings.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=" http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-697999583590049747?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/697999583590049747/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/protecting-your-search-engine-rankings.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/697999583590049747'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/697999583590049747'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/protecting-your-search-engine-rankings.html' title='Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-2649186990652327391</id><published>2009-08-06T14:45:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T15:22:29.130-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Search Engine Keyword Selection</title><content type='html'>Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential&lt;br /&gt;customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to&lt;br /&gt;reach their destination - your website - you need to&lt;br /&gt;provide them with specific and effective signs that will&lt;br /&gt;direct them right to your site. You do this by creating&lt;br /&gt;carefully chosen keywords.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the&lt;br /&gt;Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and&lt;br /&gt;presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front&lt;br /&gt;door. But if your keywords are too general or too&lt;br /&gt;over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it&lt;br /&gt;all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits&lt;br /&gt;from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing&lt;br /&gt;strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no&lt;br /&gt;matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the&lt;br /&gt;right people may never get the chance to find out about it.&lt;br /&gt;So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather&lt;br /&gt;and evaluate keywords and phrases.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words&lt;br /&gt;for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't&lt;br /&gt;followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG.&lt;br /&gt;It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center&lt;br /&gt;of your business network, which is the reason that you may&lt;br /&gt;not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the&lt;br /&gt;inside. You need to be able to think like your customers.&lt;br /&gt;And since you are a business owner and not the consumer,&lt;br /&gt;your best bet is to go directly to the source.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of&lt;br /&gt;potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words&lt;br /&gt;from as many potential customers as you can. You will most&lt;br /&gt;likely find out that your understanding of your business&lt;br /&gt;and your customers' understanding is significantly&lt;br /&gt;different.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the&lt;br /&gt;words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you&lt;br /&gt;probably never would have considered from deep inside the&lt;br /&gt;trenches of your business.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from&lt;br /&gt;outside resources should you add your own keyword to the&lt;br /&gt;list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for&lt;br /&gt;the next step: evaluation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a&lt;br /&gt;small number of words and phrases that will direct the&lt;br /&gt;highest number of quality visitors to your website. By&lt;br /&gt;"quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most&lt;br /&gt;likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around&lt;br /&gt;your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating&lt;br /&gt;the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements:&lt;br /&gt;popularity, specificity, and motivation.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an&lt;br /&gt;objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the&lt;br /&gt;more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a&lt;br /&gt;search engine which will then bring up your URL.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity&lt;br /&gt;of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating&lt;br /&gt;based on real search engine activity. Software such as&lt;br /&gt;WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and&lt;br /&gt;phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a&lt;br /&gt;given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to&lt;br /&gt;be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this&lt;br /&gt;concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the&lt;br /&gt;search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are&lt;br /&gt;down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will&lt;br /&gt;probably never scroll down to find you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice.&lt;br /&gt;You must move on to the next criteria, which is&lt;br /&gt;specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater&lt;br /&gt;the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase&lt;br /&gt;your goods or services will find you.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have&lt;br /&gt;obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile&lt;br /&gt;companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork&lt;br /&gt;only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower&lt;br /&gt;on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it&lt;br /&gt;would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of&lt;br /&gt;getting a slew of people interested in everything from&lt;br /&gt;buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get&lt;br /&gt;only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled&lt;br /&gt;fenders being directed to your site. In other words,&lt;br /&gt;consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will&lt;br /&gt;immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the&lt;br /&gt;specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you&lt;br /&gt;will face.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this&lt;br /&gt;requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer&lt;br /&gt;rather than the seller to figure out what motivation&lt;br /&gt;prompts a person looking for a service or product to type&lt;br /&gt;in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another&lt;br /&gt;example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as&lt;br /&gt;an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between&lt;br /&gt;"Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do&lt;br /&gt;you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were&lt;br /&gt;looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would&lt;br /&gt;you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second&lt;br /&gt;keyword targets people who have decided on their career,&lt;br /&gt;have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you&lt;br /&gt;as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school&lt;br /&gt;who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or&lt;br /&gt;her life in between beer parties. You want to find people&lt;br /&gt;who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires&lt;br /&gt;subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most&lt;br /&gt;specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most&lt;br /&gt;motivated traffic to you site.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done.&lt;br /&gt;You must continually evaluate performance across a variety&lt;br /&gt;of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends&lt;br /&gt;change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log&lt;br /&gt;traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how&lt;br /&gt;many of your visitors actually made a purchase.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you&lt;br /&gt;judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual&lt;br /&gt;search engines. There is now software available that&lt;br /&gt;analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic.&lt;br /&gt;This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you&lt;br /&gt;the most valuable customers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a&lt;br /&gt;good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find&lt;br /&gt;keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually&lt;br /&gt;buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your&lt;br /&gt;product. This is the most important factor in evaluating&lt;br /&gt;the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the&lt;br /&gt;sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective&lt;br /&gt;or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better&lt;br /&gt;profits.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for&lt;br /&gt;search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work -&lt;br /&gt;and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into&lt;br /&gt;your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your&lt;br /&gt;business' rewards.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href=" http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-2649186990652327391?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/2649186990652327391/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/search-engine-keyword-selection.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2649186990652327391'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2649186990652327391'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/search-engine-keyword-selection.html' title='Search Engine Keyword Selection'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-4102635786841143269</id><published>2009-08-06T14:43:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T14:45:01.542-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company</title><content type='html'>A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable&lt;br /&gt;asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize&lt;br /&gt;in knowing how to raise your search engine positions,&lt;br /&gt;monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and&lt;br /&gt;adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable&lt;br /&gt;results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time,&lt;br /&gt;effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best&lt;br /&gt;interest to go to an outside source rather than try to&lt;br /&gt;maintain high search engine positions on your own.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;However, like every business, there are good companies and&lt;br /&gt;there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and&lt;br /&gt;the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an&lt;br /&gt;affordable, effective search engine optimization company.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When looking at different companies, begin by considering&lt;br /&gt;the approach they employ to raise your search engine&lt;br /&gt;positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked,&lt;br /&gt;doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These&lt;br /&gt;techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the&lt;br /&gt;worst case scenario, will only get your website severely&lt;br /&gt;penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's&lt;br /&gt;index.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible&lt;br /&gt;to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is&lt;br /&gt;coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to&lt;br /&gt;this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost&lt;br /&gt;your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages&lt;br /&gt;utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely&lt;br /&gt;different server. Google, one of the largest and most&lt;br /&gt;important search engine on the Internet, will remove your&lt;br /&gt;website from their index if they detect you have cloaked&lt;br /&gt;pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this&lt;br /&gt;technique!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another important element is to get a guarantee that the&lt;br /&gt;company you hire will not work with your competitors while&lt;br /&gt;they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously&lt;br /&gt;compromise the effectiveness of the search engine&lt;br /&gt;optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will&lt;br /&gt;use the success they achieve for your website to sell their&lt;br /&gt;services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in&lt;br /&gt;writing, and make sure it is legally binding.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, one of the most important factors you want to&lt;br /&gt;check out is the company's track record of results.&lt;br /&gt;However, don't take the company's word for it. They will&lt;br /&gt;undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell&lt;br /&gt;their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement&lt;br /&gt;of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify&lt;br /&gt;their answers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results&lt;br /&gt;on. The ones that are important are the most popular&lt;br /&gt;engines, and these are the ones you want to see good&lt;br /&gt;results on. Since the popularity of search engines can&lt;br /&gt;change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check&lt;br /&gt;out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You&lt;br /&gt;can access this at&lt;br /&gt;http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming&lt;br /&gt;great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with&lt;br /&gt;unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes"&lt;br /&gt;will get high popularity ranking because no one else would&lt;br /&gt;think of using it. What you are looking for is good results&lt;br /&gt;using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker,&lt;br /&gt;available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free&lt;br /&gt;trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This&lt;br /&gt;software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based&lt;br /&gt;on actual search engine use.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Next, look for good results over an entire site that the&lt;br /&gt;company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to&lt;br /&gt;see a wide range of positions over a number of different&lt;br /&gt;search engines using different keywords or phrases for the&lt;br /&gt;entire site. Request a report for any client the company&lt;br /&gt;claims to have done well for. This report should show good&lt;br /&gt;positions on a number of the most popular search engines&lt;br /&gt;for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you are checking out search engine optimization&lt;br /&gt;companies, make sure they have actually done the work they&lt;br /&gt;are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other&lt;br /&gt;company's results in order to get you to sign on with them.&lt;br /&gt;If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you&lt;br /&gt;results for, and ask for the name of their search engine&lt;br /&gt;optimization company.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's important to keep in mind that a successful search&lt;br /&gt;engine optimization campaign will result in maximum&lt;br /&gt;exposure across a wide range of popular search engines&lt;br /&gt;using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the&lt;br /&gt;formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it&lt;br /&gt;always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Ask the search engine optimization company you are&lt;br /&gt;considering for a report that shows you rankings across a&lt;br /&gt;number of popular search engines for a period of at least&lt;br /&gt;six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process&lt;br /&gt;that is continual, and you need a company that not only&lt;br /&gt;understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search&lt;br /&gt;engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust&lt;br /&gt;its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your&lt;br /&gt;positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your&lt;br /&gt;search engine optimization company to do this for you,&lt;br /&gt;request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that&lt;br /&gt;this report should show rankings for the most popular&lt;br /&gt;search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only&lt;br /&gt;shows great results for a limited number of small search&lt;br /&gt;engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also&lt;br /&gt;confirm that the popular search engine results they are&lt;br /&gt;showing you are indeed the popular search engines&lt;br /&gt;currently.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a&lt;br /&gt;format that you can easily understand. For example, it&lt;br /&gt;could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at&lt;br /&gt;least six months and presents data such as the top 50&lt;br /&gt;positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages&lt;br /&gt;each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are&lt;br /&gt;considering actually monitors these positions or pages&lt;br /&gt;every month, and that the sample report they show you&lt;br /&gt;includes findings and recommendations for the specific&lt;br /&gt;site. This insures that the company will actively monitor&lt;br /&gt;and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis&lt;br /&gt;rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You&lt;br /&gt;need a company that is actively participant in your search&lt;br /&gt;engine marketing campaign, not just an information&lt;br /&gt;gatherer.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of&lt;br /&gt;company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization&lt;br /&gt;company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign.&lt;br /&gt;It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a&lt;br /&gt;company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your&lt;br /&gt;website, you might consider waiting until you do have the&lt;br /&gt;finances in place.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;If you have to find a company and can't wait for your&lt;br /&gt;finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable&lt;br /&gt;company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable&lt;br /&gt;work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that&lt;br /&gt;there are risks involved with using a company without a&lt;br /&gt;proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't&lt;br /&gt;take that leap unless the company can supply you with a&lt;br /&gt;least a few references.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;References are the most reliable indicator of a good&lt;br /&gt;company. Don't use a company that won't show your&lt;br /&gt;references because of any reason, confidentiality included.&lt;br /&gt;Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm&lt;br /&gt;you choose should provide you with a minimum of two&lt;br /&gt;references, one that is from the past, and one that is&lt;br /&gt;current.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;When you contact these references, be prepared to ask&lt;br /&gt;precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is&lt;br /&gt;wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the&lt;br /&gt;company, such as their availability to answer questions and&lt;br /&gt;deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask&lt;br /&gt;the reference to rate the overall performance of the&lt;br /&gt;company.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Find out if the company requested that the reference make&lt;br /&gt;significant changes to their web pages that affected the&lt;br /&gt;visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search&lt;br /&gt;engine optimization company that can balance the needs of&lt;br /&gt;both search engines and site visitors without compromising&lt;br /&gt;either.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The most essential question to ask is whether the work of&lt;br /&gt;the search engine optimization company resulted in higher&lt;br /&gt;profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't&lt;br /&gt;matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or&lt;br /&gt;not.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-4102635786841143269?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/4102635786841143269/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/selecting-search-engine-optimization.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/4102635786841143269'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/4102635786841143269'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/selecting-search-engine-optimization.html' title='Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-4415316719916687488</id><published>2009-08-06T14:32:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T14:34:06.674-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Introduction to Autoresponders</title><content type='html'>If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up&lt;br /&gt;with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to&lt;br /&gt;bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn&lt;br /&gt;about autoresponders.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their&lt;br /&gt;email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to&lt;br /&gt;work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough&lt;br /&gt;people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're&lt;br /&gt;eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news&lt;br /&gt;is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free -&lt;br /&gt;method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs&lt;br /&gt;do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as&lt;br /&gt;they are received.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Emails are essential to your business for many different&lt;br /&gt;reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices&lt;br /&gt;give you their feedback about your website - for free!&lt;br /&gt;However, if you spend all your working hours answering&lt;br /&gt;these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?&lt;br /&gt;The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders&lt;br /&gt;are programs that automatically respond to your emails&lt;br /&gt;without you so much as having to click on your mouse.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a number of good reasons why you need an&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder besides just answering your email. For&lt;br /&gt;example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to&lt;br /&gt;send information about your services or products, price&lt;br /&gt;lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across&lt;br /&gt;large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site&lt;br /&gt;visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or&lt;br /&gt;relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your&lt;br /&gt;business and then build stable relationships with your&lt;br /&gt;customers by using autoresponders.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with&lt;br /&gt;your email program to a specialized script that runs on&lt;br /&gt;your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may&lt;br /&gt;use a web page form or simply operate with your email&lt;br /&gt;account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a&lt;br /&gt;standardized message whenever an email is received. The&lt;br /&gt;message is sent to a particular script or email address.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out&lt;br /&gt;standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited&lt;br /&gt;number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval&lt;br /&gt;of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to&lt;br /&gt;send out a new message every day for as long a period as&lt;br /&gt;you desire.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free&lt;br /&gt;of charge. Your website hosting company often provides&lt;br /&gt;autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case&lt;br /&gt;with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies&lt;br /&gt;who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge,&lt;br /&gt;providing you attach an advertisement for their company to&lt;br /&gt;your emails.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach&lt;br /&gt;a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business&lt;br /&gt;cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact&lt;br /&gt;numbers and addresses, and a brief message.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that&lt;br /&gt;is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your&lt;br /&gt;business identity every time a customer sees it. The more&lt;br /&gt;they look at your signature, the more likely your company&lt;br /&gt;will spring to mind when your particular service or product&lt;br /&gt;is needed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can create a standardized signature that every employee&lt;br /&gt;in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every&lt;br /&gt;staff member create their own personal signature. Of&lt;br /&gt;course, like everything in life, there are some rules and&lt;br /&gt;guidelines to creating a personal signature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines&lt;br /&gt;of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line.&lt;br /&gt;Make sure that your email program does not cut off your&lt;br /&gt;text! The content should include your name, your company&lt;br /&gt;name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact&lt;br /&gt;details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a&lt;br /&gt;short personal message about your company. It should be a&lt;br /&gt;subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly&lt;br /&gt;your company's reliability and longevity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create&lt;br /&gt;courses that you can then offer your site visitors for&lt;br /&gt;free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert&lt;br /&gt;and that precisely targets your potential customers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into&lt;br /&gt;a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site&lt;br /&gt;visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a&lt;br /&gt;different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a&lt;br /&gt;welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation&lt;br /&gt;about what is to follow. Your explanation should be&lt;br /&gt;enticing, getting the point across that you are offering&lt;br /&gt;free, quality information that your target audience will&lt;br /&gt;find of great value.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the&lt;br /&gt;topic title, information about your company and its&lt;br /&gt;services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs&lt;br /&gt;about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue&lt;br /&gt;on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable&lt;br /&gt;information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more.&lt;br /&gt;Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, you have to write up your course before you can&lt;br /&gt;offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the&lt;br /&gt;material carefully, employing a professional writer or&lt;br /&gt;editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try&lt;br /&gt;http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or&lt;br /&gt;go onto Google and you will find a long list of free&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions&lt;br /&gt;as to how to set it up and transfer your text.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and&lt;br /&gt;it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing&lt;br /&gt;your email address carefully. Your website should contain&lt;br /&gt;different email addresses for different contact requests.&lt;br /&gt;For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information&lt;br /&gt;requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about&lt;br /&gt;sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such&lt;br /&gt;as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in&lt;br /&gt;a personal, approachable light and insures that direct&lt;br /&gt;contact is provided.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing&lt;br /&gt;tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of&lt;br /&gt;potential customers. This is an invaluable asset&lt;br /&gt;considering how many potential customers you usually have&lt;br /&gt;contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially,&lt;br /&gt;an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your&lt;br /&gt;marketing campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt;http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-4415316719916687488?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/4415316719916687488/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/introduction-to-autoresponders.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/4415316719916687488'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/4415316719916687488'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/introduction-to-autoresponders.html' title='Introduction to Autoresponders'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-257250586011055031</id><published>2009-08-06T14:25:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T16:35:02.977-07:00</updated><title type='text'>An Introduction to Autoresponders</title><content type='html'>If you've reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up&lt;br /&gt;with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to&lt;br /&gt;bury you alive every single day, you're ready to learn&lt;br /&gt;about autoresponders.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their&lt;br /&gt;email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to&lt;br /&gt;work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough&lt;br /&gt;people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they're&lt;br /&gt;eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news&lt;br /&gt;is an autoresponder is an inexpensive - or even free -&lt;br /&gt;method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs&lt;br /&gt;do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as&lt;br /&gt;they are received.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Emails are essential to your business for many different&lt;br /&gt;reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices&lt;br /&gt;give you their feedback about your website - for free!&lt;br /&gt;However, if you spend all your working hours answering&lt;br /&gt;these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?&lt;br /&gt;The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders&lt;br /&gt;are programs that automatically respond to your emails&lt;br /&gt;without you so much as having to click on your mouse.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a number of good reasons why you need an&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder besides just answering your email. For&lt;br /&gt;example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to&lt;br /&gt;send information about your services or products, price&lt;br /&gt;lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across&lt;br /&gt;large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site&lt;br /&gt;visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or&lt;br /&gt;relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your&lt;br /&gt;business and then build stable relationships with your&lt;br /&gt;customers by using autoresponders.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with&lt;br /&gt;your email program to a specialized script that runs on&lt;br /&gt;your web hosting company's server. This kind of script may&lt;br /&gt;use a web page form or simply operate with your email&lt;br /&gt;account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a&lt;br /&gt;standardized message whenever an email is received. The&lt;br /&gt;message is sent to a particular script or email address.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out&lt;br /&gt;standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited&lt;br /&gt;number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval&lt;br /&gt;of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to&lt;br /&gt;send out a new message every day for as long a period as&lt;br /&gt;you desire.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free&lt;br /&gt;of charge. Your website hosting company often provides&lt;br /&gt;autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case&lt;br /&gt;with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies&lt;br /&gt;who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge,&lt;br /&gt;providing you attach an advertisement for their company to&lt;br /&gt;your emails.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach&lt;br /&gt;a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business&lt;br /&gt;cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact&lt;br /&gt;numbers and addresses, and a brief message.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's a good idea to attach a signature to every email that&lt;br /&gt;is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your&lt;br /&gt;business identity every time a customer sees it. The more&lt;br /&gt;they look at your signature, the more likely your company&lt;br /&gt;will spring to mind when your particular service or product&lt;br /&gt;is needed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;You can create a standardized signature that every employee&lt;br /&gt;in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every&lt;br /&gt;staff member create their own personal signature. Of&lt;br /&gt;course, like everything in life, there are some rules and&lt;br /&gt;guidelines to creating a personal signature.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines&lt;br /&gt;of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line.&lt;br /&gt;Make sure that your email program does not cut off your&lt;br /&gt;text! The content should include your name, your company&lt;br /&gt;name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact&lt;br /&gt;details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a&lt;br /&gt;short personal message about your company. It should be a&lt;br /&gt;subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly&lt;br /&gt;your company's reliability and longevity.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create&lt;br /&gt;courses that you can then offer your site visitors for&lt;br /&gt;free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert&lt;br /&gt;and that precisely targets your potential customers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into&lt;br /&gt;a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site&lt;br /&gt;visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a&lt;br /&gt;different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a&lt;br /&gt;welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation&lt;br /&gt;about what is to follow. Your explanation should be&lt;br /&gt;enticing, getting the point across that you are offering&lt;br /&gt;free, quality information that your target audience will&lt;br /&gt;find of great value.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the&lt;br /&gt;topic title, information about your company and its&lt;br /&gt;services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs&lt;br /&gt;about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue&lt;br /&gt;on.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable&lt;br /&gt;information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more.&lt;br /&gt;Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Of course, you have to write up your course before you can&lt;br /&gt;offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the&lt;br /&gt;material carefully, employing a professional writer or&lt;br /&gt;editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try&lt;br /&gt;http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or&lt;br /&gt;go onto Google and you will find a long list of free&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions&lt;br /&gt;as to how to set it up and transfer your text.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and&lt;br /&gt;it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing&lt;br /&gt;your email address carefully. Your website should contain&lt;br /&gt;different email addresses for different contact requests.&lt;br /&gt;For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information&lt;br /&gt;requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about&lt;br /&gt;sales. It's a good idea to set up one for the owner, such&lt;br /&gt;as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in&lt;br /&gt;a personal, approachable light and insures that direct&lt;br /&gt;contact is provided.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing&lt;br /&gt;tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of&lt;br /&gt;potential customers. This is an invaluable asset&lt;br /&gt;considering how many potential customers you usually have&lt;br /&gt;contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially,&lt;br /&gt;an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your&lt;br /&gt;marketing campaign.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-257250586011055031?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/257250586011055031/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/introduction-to-autoresponders_06.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/257250586011055031'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/257250586011055031'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/introduction-to-autoresponders_06.html' title='An Introduction to Autoresponders'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-2610209164061912712</id><published>2009-08-06T14:09:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-08-06T14:25:30.523-07:00</updated><title type='text'>Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Autoreponders</title><content type='html'>An interested visitor who has been strolling through your&lt;br /&gt;site has finally come to just what she is looking for and&lt;br /&gt;is about to make a purchase. It's a sunny afternoon, and&lt;br /&gt;her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the&lt;br /&gt;visitor's large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree,&lt;br /&gt;suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and&lt;br /&gt;your sale is dust - unless you have had the foresight to&lt;br /&gt;utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email&lt;br /&gt;address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can&lt;br /&gt;then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the&lt;br /&gt;sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her&lt;br /&gt;precious bonsai.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do&lt;br /&gt;so much more than just automatically answer your email.&lt;br /&gt;Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and&lt;br /&gt;productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual&lt;br /&gt;visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder&lt;br /&gt;to:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders&lt;br /&gt;will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested&lt;br /&gt;prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed&lt;br /&gt;about your services or products, while building your&lt;br /&gt;reputation as a credible expert in your particular&lt;br /&gt;business.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform&lt;br /&gt;them of current sales you are running and of promotional&lt;br /&gt;material that your affiliates can use themselves to&lt;br /&gt;increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and&lt;br /&gt;techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go&lt;br /&gt;out and promote your business.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books,&lt;br /&gt;movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder.&lt;br /&gt;Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your&lt;br /&gt;affiliate's page in your autoresponder.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing&lt;br /&gt;targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business&lt;br /&gt;credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your&lt;br /&gt;sales potential. If your articles contain valuable&lt;br /&gt;information, many editors will print what is known as a&lt;br /&gt;resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and&lt;br /&gt;a brief description of your service or product. It can also&lt;br /&gt;contain your autoresponder address. Let's say you've&lt;br /&gt;written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder&lt;br /&gt;accounts and create a master list that contains the titles&lt;br /&gt;of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief&lt;br /&gt;abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally,&lt;br /&gt;include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can&lt;br /&gt;add their articles to your list, increasing the number of&lt;br /&gt;writers who are represented in your article list.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your&lt;br /&gt;articles when you've written new ones that they may want to&lt;br /&gt;publish in their own newsletter or website.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure&lt;br /&gt;repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to&lt;br /&gt;effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to&lt;br /&gt;numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances&lt;br /&gt;of converting visitors into customers. For example, if&lt;br /&gt;you're selling a particular product, put testimonials about&lt;br /&gt;how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a&lt;br /&gt;detailed, enticing description of your product.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;7. Distribute advertising. Let's say you sell advertising&lt;br /&gt;on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder to send the information about rates and how&lt;br /&gt;to place an ad automatically to all prospects' email&lt;br /&gt;addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can&lt;br /&gt;also send notification of any special deals you are&lt;br /&gt;currently offering.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that&lt;br /&gt;each lesson has quality content - not a sales pitch. Your&lt;br /&gt;content will do the selling for you, and will do it much&lt;br /&gt;more effectively. You can include tips centered on a&lt;br /&gt;different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your&lt;br /&gt;product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible&lt;br /&gt;benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.&lt;br /&gt;Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each&lt;br /&gt;lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a&lt;br /&gt;purchase.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after&lt;br /&gt;a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the&lt;br /&gt;possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your&lt;br /&gt;course but are dragging their feet about actually making a&lt;br /&gt;purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new&lt;br /&gt;products or services, and the products and services of your&lt;br /&gt;affiliate programs.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an&lt;br /&gt;idea of the type of information you can provide and the&lt;br /&gt;quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports&lt;br /&gt;are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a&lt;br /&gt;potential customer than gain a sale.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the&lt;br /&gt;answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be&lt;br /&gt;motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have&lt;br /&gt;a record of the visitors' email addresses who took your&lt;br /&gt;quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter&lt;br /&gt;send their responses to your autoresponder. Your&lt;br /&gt;autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of&lt;br /&gt;their entry.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your&lt;br /&gt;prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software,&lt;br /&gt;membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste&lt;br /&gt;often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture&lt;br /&gt;their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from&lt;br /&gt;your website. Set up your autoresponder to give&lt;br /&gt;instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then&lt;br /&gt;make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For&lt;br /&gt;example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that&lt;br /&gt;contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links&lt;br /&gt;that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors&lt;br /&gt;that they may have free access to your affiliate page by&lt;br /&gt;simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather&lt;br /&gt;a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your&lt;br /&gt;affiliates.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request&lt;br /&gt;form for visitors to be notified of special offers or&lt;br /&gt;discounts in the future. This creates a very effective&lt;br /&gt;mailing list that contains the names of people who are&lt;br /&gt;already your customers.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should&lt;br /&gt;contain up to fifty links that would be of particular&lt;br /&gt;interest to your visitors.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used&lt;br /&gt;creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant&lt;br /&gt;ideas of your own!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;br /&gt;&lt;a href="http://vur.me/lmorton401/V"&gt; http://vur.me/lmorton401/V&lt;/a&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Email me with any questions you might have.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To your Success,&lt;br /&gt;Lesanndra Morton&lt;br /&gt;lmorton401@gmail.com&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;20-Articles&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-2610209164061912712?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/2610209164061912712/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/creative-and-profitable-ways-to-use.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2610209164061912712'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/2610209164061912712'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/08/creative-and-profitable-ways-to-use.html' title='Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Autoreponders'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-990587319109213200.post-1273172565242585248</id><published>2009-07-23T23:46:00.000-07:00</published><updated>2009-07-24T00:08:22.657-07:00</updated><category scheme='http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#' term='website traffic'/><title type='text'>Is Your Opt-In Form Driving Away Customers?</title><content type='html'>&lt;span style=";font-family:arial;font-size:130%;"  &gt;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Over the years, we've all been taught that the best way to grow a sizeable mailing list is to give our visitors a great offer they can't say no to. And the most common way to attract more traffic and readers is to pay or trade with another marketer to have a popup window or hover ad on their site with your offer and hope that the visitors will be intrigued enough to sign up.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;But more recently, we're learning that popup ads, hover ads and all those other gimmicks are simply driving visitors AWAY and leaving us with no sales and an unresponsive list.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Until now, there wasn't a sure-fire way to get your ad noticed without getting on people's nerves. One ad network is looking to change that - and do it all for free.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;It's called SlideUpAds - http://www.SlideUpAds.com/393&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SlideUpAds is a unique, eye-catching way to advertise your site across an entire network without having to resort to distracting popups or banners.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;With SlideUpAds, your ad appears at the bottom frame of the user's screen, so they can still scroll on the web page without being interrupted on whatever they're viewing. Since your ad slides up from the bottom gradually (and quickly), it's more likely to get noticed without being distracting and abruptly closed.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;SlideUpAds costs nothing to join and there's no charge for any advertising. You simply fill out a short form and get the details of your account, then upload your ad and you're ready to go! It's simple and straightforward and most ads can be online within a few minutes.&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;For a limited time, SlideUpAds is also opening the doors to what they call a&lt;br /&gt;"Viral Marketing Avalanche". If you refer a friend and THEY join, you get 100% of that person's credits. If your friend refers a friend, you get 100% of THEIR credits too! Of course, your friends still get to keep their credits, but it's like getting double or even triple the exposure without doing any extra work!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;Many people are reporting terrific success with SlideUpAds, particularly where popups and hover ads simply haven't performed well in the past. Consider testing your current opt-in form with SlideUpAds and gauge the response for yourself - you may be pleasantly surprised at the results!&lt;br /&gt;&lt;br /&gt;To learn more, visit &lt;a href="http://www.slideupads.com/393"&gt;http://www.SlideUpAds.com/393&lt;/a&gt; - it's free to join and there's no membership fee.&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="blogger-post-footer"&gt;&lt;img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/990587319109213200-1273172565242585248?l=lesanndra.blogspot.com' alt='' /&gt;&lt;/div&gt;</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/feeds/1273172565242585248/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/07/is-your-opt-in-form-driving-away.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/1273172565242585248'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/990587319109213200/posts/default/1273172565242585248'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://lesanndra.blogspot.com/2009/07/is-your-opt-in-form-driving-away.html' title='Is Your Opt-In Form Driving Away Customers?'/><author><name>lesanndra Morton</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/09608783284014362057</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='16' height='16' src='http://img2.blogblog.com/img/b16-rounded.gif'/></author><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>
