Archive for July, 2007

Much have been said about multi-level marketing (MLM) of he online variety.  While a lot of people claim that it is a marvelous way of earning an income in the World Wide Web, an equal number of people condemn it for so many reasons that are borne from the fears they have with something as seemingly novel as online MLM programs.

Which of these fears are true, and which are false?  A closer study on some of the issues raised against online MLM programs will reveal the truth behind the subject. 

1. Online MLM is a “get rich quick” scheme.  It is not.  You will have to invest some time and effort to achieve the highest possible success in this field.  Online MLM will not gain for you some passive income, at least not immediately.  You will have to develop your network and fill it up with dedicated individuals from whose efforts you will earn lower tiered commissions.

2. Online MLM is a pyramid scheme.  It is not.  Online MLM is a creative kind of direct selling.  Basically, a person is a customer of the MLM program, though unlike other setups, he is given the opportunity to earn because of his purchase.

3. Online MLM is illegal.  It is not.  If online MLM is illegal, direct selling should likewise be considered as unlawful.  Online MLM, after all, is a form of direct selling by its very nature.

4. Online MLM is just as unstable as any pyramid scheme.  This is a falsity.  Pyramid schemes fail because they don’t have capital to rely on.  They depend on the money they could derive from the multi-tiered “investors.”  Online MLM is based on real products that are actually sold to consumers.  There is a real economy involved, hence ensuring the strength of the legs that support this kind of system.

5. Online MLM requires recruiting.  It does not.  The term “recruiting” is quite misleading.  You just have to pre-sell the MLM program’s products to earn some commissions.  Consequently, the people you manage to refer will become members of your down line, and if they decide to pursue the earning opportunities presented by the MLM program itself, you could also earn from their activities.

6. Online MLM requires steep financial investments.  This is partly true, though the adjective “steep” is quite relative, as well as questionable.  You will have to purchase a package prepared by the MLM program.  But this is a condition precedent to the earning opportunities that you will gain access to.  Consider it as your enrollment fee.  The price of these packages vary, nonetheless, it’s a onetime fee which you are sure to recoup after referring three or more sales.

7. Online MLM is just a fad.  Multi-level marketing has been practiced by many enterprises since the 60’s.  With the advent of the internet, an online variety is but the logical evolution of this strategy.  Surely, something that has become a popular sales technique for such a long time cannot be considered as a mere fad.

8. Online MLM programs are scams. Though some fraudulent companies use MLM programs to hide their devious schemes, most MLM programs are legit.  The responsibility to determine credible MLM programs from dishonest ones would lie on the shoulders of the enrollee.  Due diligence is required before committing to any undertaking, after all.

Online MLM programs offer great opportunities for amazing income which you could savor and enjoy.  Hesitations, of course, are always healthy in endeavors like this.  But try to investigate on your fears and you’ll discover that online MLM programs are safe investments that hold so much promise. 

Article marketing is most probably the most effective link building strategy in existence.  Picture it this way.  Article directories allow you to include a resource box for every article you will submit.  Inside this resource box, you could include a link to your website.  If you will submit just one article to 100 article directories, you’d immediately receive 100 back links to your website.  There are thousands of article directories in the World Wide Web!

Now, if you will submit, say, 5 articles to a hundred directories, you’ll get 500 back links easily!  The best part about this strategy is that quite a number of article directories have high page ranks.  We’re talking about PR4, PR5, and on occasion, PR7 websites!  Having a link to your own website in a website which has a high page rank would give a significant boost to your own pages’ search engine standing!

All seems rosy with article marketing, but as with everything else, there are doubts as to its real nature.

Let’s have a no hold barred, truly in depth discussion about the matter, by asking the questions you always had in your mind but had no opportunity to set loose.  Let’s begin.

1.  If I will submit the same article to many article directories, won’t it violate a search engine’s policy against duplicate content?

No, it won’t.  Since we’re dealing with high ranking websites, the search engines would assume that the submitted content is their original work.  This is the reason why a lot of article directories are pretty confident about the articles they display.  The problem that they encounter, really, is with regards to the credibility of their services.  They don’t want to be known as a repository of junk content, that’s why they have outlawed the posting of PLR articles as well as articles imbued with affiliate links.

2.  Does this mean that I could submit articles which I have already posted in my own web pages?

No!  Since the search engines would assume that the higher ranking websites are the originators of the content, your web pages would be distinguished as duplicates, and this could possibly lead to the de-indexing of your website.  You wouldn’t want this to happen.

3.  Could I submit as many articles as I could to as many article directories as possible?

Yes, you could!  In fact, this is very much advised, to build up your link popularity and secure for your website a great page rank. 

However, please bear in mind that search engines, and Google in particular, become quite wary about a website that suddenly experiences a great increase in the number of its back links.  It is advised that before you submit another article to the article directories, you have to wait for at least 3 weeks after your last submission.

4.  My page views are quite low.  Does article marketing really work?

Yes, article marketing does work!  If your article’s page views remain in low levels, ask yourself the following:

1. Is the subject of your article interesting enough?  Does it cater to a wide audience?
2. Is your title enticing enough to merit a reading of your entire work?
3. Is your article informative enough to merit recommendation?
4. Is your article readable enough to give your audience an easy time in digesting the information you want to share?

These are the factors that contribute to low page views.  Doing some necessary editing to correct these problems can dramatically increase the number of times your article would be viewed.  Additionally, some article directories really attract a few visitors.  But the popular ones like www.ezinearticles.com , www.goarticles.com and www.isnare.com should give you hundreds of readers in a month’s time.

5.  How sure am I that my article would be kept intact by people who would use it in their own websites or eZines?

You can never be sure.  This is why you have to run your own check from time to time.  Search for unique phrases in your article, and click on the results.  Determine if the webmaster honored your resource box.  If he did not, you could ask him to include the same, or you could file a complaint with the article directory so that they themselves could act on the matter.  Vigilance is the key.

Multi-level marketing, or MLM, has taken the world by storm.  This ingenious manner of direct selling allows the customer to become a representative of the MLM program.  As a result, the customer-cum-recruit would be given the opportunity to earn from his efforts.

MLM has been implemented for the online audience in recent years, further elevating its popularity to new heights.  A lot are joining MLM programs in this day and age.

But only a few are succeeding.

The reason?  It’s because countless multi-level marketers are committing the same mistakes over and over again.  Instead of learning from the errors of their predecessors, they fall victim to the very same faults, thus jeopardizing their chances of attaining success in the MLM field.

What are these mistakes?  Better yet, how can you avoid them?

1. Believing that MLM is a “get rich quick” scheme.  Any person who has experienced a certain degree of success with MLM would tell you that this system is far from being one of those profitable opportunities that you could pursue while being idle.  The fact is, you will have to work – and you will have to work hard – to be able to achieve success with multi-level marketing, whether it is conducted online or offline.  Though eventually, and if you work hard enough for such a status, you’d be able to receive passive income from the sales that would be generated by your down line, you’d have to extend a lot of effort to establish a solid battalion of committed individuals who will share your devotion to the program.  Though all of these may seem like hard work, MLM remains to be a very rewarding opportunity for anyone who would be wise enough to invest their time and industry to the program.

2. Believing your own hype.  “This is easy.”  “I’m too good for this job.”  “I could do these with my eyes closed.”  These are statements born from confidence – or overconfidence to be more precise.  And this haughty disposition could very well be your number one obstacle to attaining success with MLM.  Don’t get me wrong.  A certain level of confidence will serve you well.  You will have to win some sales for the MLM program after all, and you’d have to believe in the said program to be able to convince others to join the cause.  And this requires confidence – the right kind of confidence, that is.  But too much of the same would make you rest on your laurels, which is something you cannot afford in this line of business.

3. Leads are useless.  This kind of attitude is doomed from the very beginning.  Leads are the lifeblood of any MLM campaign.  Leads represent your prospects, your future recruits.  Without leads, your MLM campaign is sure to be a failure. 

4. Generating a certain volume of leads is enough.  Again, this is an attitude that would spell doom for your success.  Lead generation is, as it should be, a continuous commitment.  It should never cease.  Even if you feel that you have generated enough leads from which you could convert some new recruits, there will come a time when all those leads would be exhausted.  What then?  Where will you gather your earning potentials if you have stopped looking for leads?  A multi-level marketer’s task is to continuously – and unceasingly – discover new prospects everyday.  Let’s face it, it’s the only way by which you could sustain the profitability of your MLM campaign.

5. Lack of focus.  Many multi-level marketers are of the belief that they should join as many MLM programs as allowable to provide for themselves several income streams from which they could derive their earnings.  This could prove dangerous.  Spreading yourself too think by engaging in several programs at the same time would make you lose your focus.  Instead of concentrating all your efforts to achieve success with one program, you’d be dividing the same among several platforms.  The best way to deal with things is to firmly establish yourself in one program before venturing to the next.  Build a solid down line from which you could earn some residual income in a sustainable and substantial level before joining another program.  This way, you’d be ensuring that you’ll receive some profit from the first program even while you’re concentrated on the new one.

Knowledge, they say, is half the battle won.  Knowing the common mistakes the multi-level marketers make is the first step towards success, as it would guarantee that you won’t fall prey to what has caused their failure.  Learn from them, and succeed where they have fallen.

Time and time again, it has been said that affiliate marketing is, without a doubt, the quickest and most efficient way of earning a living online.  There are a variety of reasons for this.  For starters, most affiliate programs do not require any enrollment fees.  There is no financial investment on the part of the affiliate.  Secondly, the affiliate is only tasked with pre-selling the affiliate merchant’s products.  The sales page, the payment processing, the digital delivery, and the post sales services shall be borne by the affiliate merchant.

These shouldn’t mean that the affiliate should want in commitment, however.  As a matter of fact, an affiliate’s success wholly depends on how much commitment he could give the program, and how much effort he could invest to pursue such commitment. 

Sometimes, this requires some monetary expenses.  Getting a web host, for example, as well as a domain name, would necessitate some cash to be laid out.  Getting professionally made graphics to make his website attractive can also cost some dough, in the event that the affiliate cannot do this for himself.  PPC advertising can equally be just as costly, if not even more, if the affiliate would ever decide to utilize this option.

But not everything needs to come at a price.  There are vital tools that would help ensure the affiliate’s success, and they can be availed of for free.

Here are the top five tools under this category.  Knowing them would give you the edge you need.  Using them would give you the head start that would push your online enterprise to the next level.

1. WordPress.  WordPress is a movable-type blog.  It is a software program you could download and use to create your own blogs which you could upload in your own server.  You won’t have to settle for the words “blogspot” or “livejournal” or “xanga” to be attached to your URL.  You could host your blog under its own domain name, or as another page in your main website.  Blogs are great marketing tools.  They get indexed quite quickly by the search engines, and often, the figure prominently well in the search engine results pages (SERPs).  They could also give your main website the backlinks it needs to boost its own page rank.  Additionally, a blog can be customized to become your main website.  The primary advantage of this approach is the convenience you’ll receive when it comes to publishing content.  Download the WordPress client for free from www.wordpress.com .

2. NVU Website Creator.  Macromedia Dreamweaver is too expensive?  Microsoft Front Page is too complicated?  Then the NVU Website Creator is the program for you.  This software program streamlines the website creation process through an interface that is easy to use, but powerful enough to make professional-looking web pages.  Download the client for free from www.nvu.com .

3. Backlink Builder.  If you’re maintaining your own website, either as a review center for your affiliate program’s products, or as an affiliate mall for the same, or even as a blog which promotes the aforementioned digital items, you will need to build a thorough list of backlinks to increase your page rank.  The higher your page rank is, the better chances it will have of appearing in the first few pages of search engine results.  Don’t know where to start?  Use the free tool available at www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php to discover all the places where you could leave some links to your website.

4. Keyword Selector Tool.  Keywords are the primary ingredients of any search engine optimization (SEO) campaign.  You will use them for your meta tags, your h1 tags, your ALT tags, your page title, and your content.  You will even use them for the articles you will submit to the many article directories in the World Wide Web.  The proper use of keywords would result in the more efficient documentation of your website so that the search engine spiders will have an easier time finding your web pages for any relevant query.  And since 80% of the traffic that you will be able to generate for your website would come from the search engines, keywords become the most essential aspects of your site building efforts.  Need to find the right keywords?  Go to www.nichebot.com and use their powerful tool to determine the profitability of the keywords related to the affiliate products you will be promoting.

5. Statcounter.  You will need to study your website’s statistics so that you’ll know what you’re doing wrong, as well as replicate what you’re doing correctly.  For this purpose, simply copy and paste the code that will be provided by www.statcounter.com to get in-depth reports about the performance of your website.

All of these tools would improve your performance as an affiliate.  And the fact that they all come without charge just makes the deal even sweeter.  Try them out.  Chances are, you will realize that the best things in life can be free after all.

Resale rights marketing is an emerging approach in the field of internet marketing.  There is a growing market for resale rights products and more and more online businessmen are catering to this segment and have been reporting monumental profits from their efforts.

Resale rights marketing involves the sale of products with their accompanying resale rights.  These rights may either be basic resale rights (where the purchaser can resell the products he will buy), master resale rights (where the purchaser can resell the resale rights of the products he will buy) and private label rights (where the purchaser can alter the products he will buy, and by nature of the same, can sell the products as they are or with accompanying resale rights as well). 

It is not difficult to explain the growing interests on resale rights products.  These goods afford the purchasers the opportunity to earn from their purchases, as they could sell the same for profit.  They won’t have to pay the creator any cumbersome royalty fees.  They get to keep all the income they will earn from the sales they manage to effectuate.

Though resale rights marketing does seem like a promising field, it is not completely free from problems.  A lot of internet marketers who have decided to enter resale rights marketing have been prone to committing some fatal mistakes that gravely compromise the earning potentials of this approach.  Let’s take a look at the top five mistakes that resale rights marketers make so that we’d learn how to avoid them.

1. Selling resale rights products to an unlimited number of people.  Your potential customers would find this unsettling.  Every purchaser of your resale rights products would be each other’s competitor.  Though the idea of selling an unlimited number of copies sounds very lucrative, you’d find it hard to effectuate some sales because people would stay away from such offers.  The value of your resale rights products would diminish.  Solution: set a cap as to how many copies you will sell.

2. Selling resale rights products to many people.  Indeed, you would set a ceiling as to how many copies you will sell.  But if this ceiling is too high, the value of your resale rights products would still suffer.  Selling to 1,000 people for example, would mean that each purchaser would have to compete with 999 other people for the same market.  Your products would still be a hard sell.  Solution: increase the price of your package but limit the cap to 50 or below.

3. Failing to clearly enumerate the terms and conditions of usage license.  Essential in resale rights is the license wherein they should be delineated.  This license is a where the rules are established, and is likewise your guarantee to the purchasers that such rules shall strictly be implemented for the protection of their interests.  Solution: carefully write down the limitations of the rights you will convey, and present the same in a license agreement, preferably in .pdf format.  Adobe documents cannot easily be changed, and it would give your potential customers the security they need.

4. Failing to honor the terms and conditions you have set yourself.  Nothing can compromise your brand worse than your failure to live up to your promises.  If you promise to sell 50 resale rights of a product, you can’t sell 51 and claim a counting error.  If you promise to give them private label rights, you cannot restrict the way they could alter the work.  Solution: exercise candor in your dealings at all times.

5. Selling resale rights at the height of the product’s market life.  This may be a plus for your potential customers, but it surely is a negative for you on a business standpoint.  If the product promises high salability, you’ll be better off selling it yourself, exclusively at that.  Nonetheless, this is a matter of preference.  If you want to focus on product creation and allow your customers to take care of the marketing aspect, then this would prove to be a good approach.  Solution: have a business plan before venturing to resale rights marketing.

Many online marketers today make a living by selling their own products.  Among the most popular digital products to sell are eBooks and special reports.  These are files in written form where useful and desired information can be conveyed.  Indeed, information is what fuels the internet.  It’s not called the information superhighway for nothing, after all.  People log online to search for information.  If you have the information they need, then they will come to you.  And if this information holds a lot of value, you could sell the same and make some wonderful profit.  And since words are the primary tools of communication in the World Wide Web, information is often conveyed in written form, i.e. the aforementioned eBooks and special reports.

But preparing written works is not easy.  For starters, not everyone could write.  And those who could often don’t have the time to embark on such an undertaking.

Fortunately, there are some alternative routes you could take which would allow you to prepare your own eBook or special report without having to write down a single word.  Let’s take a look at 5 of these options.

1. Gather some articles and compile them in a single volume.  This would be the easiest way to prepare your own digital product.  These articles can be PLR works which grant you the right to alter them and use their content anyway you please.  Or they may be articles written by other people, which you have compiled from renowned websites like www.ezinearticles.com or www.goarticles.com .  If you choose the latter set, just make sure that you respect the terms and conditions of their usage, primary of which is the inclusion of the original author’s resource box.  You can’t just bundle up articles left and right, however.  Make sure that one article would organically and logically flow to the next.  You can ensure this by studying the articles you want to include.

2. Conduct an interview with an expert and record the same.  Thereafter, hire someone from www.rentacoder.com , www.elance.com or www.guru.com to transcribe the conversation you had with the said expert.  You’d be surprised how quickly you could jack up 50 to 200 pages worth of essential reading material using this method.

3. Buy an existing eBook or special report that comes with private label rights.  This would enable you to alter the contents of the same, and even name yourself as the author of the work.  You could add some materials as you feel are necessary, or better yet, you could combine two, three, or even ten of these PLR eBooks or special reports to come up with an encyclopedic tome of information worthy of some notice.

4. Hire a ghostwriter to prepare an eBook or a special report for you.  There are many, many freelance writers looking for work at the websites we have mentioned in no. 2.  It’s just a matter of selecting the best writer for the job at a price that will not be too daunting to your budget.  Expect to pay $200 to $1,000 for a 50 page eBook, however.

5. Here’s a novel approach.  Join an internet marketing forum, and ask a query.  A good example would be “How Could You Profit From The Internet With A $0 Budget.”  For  certain, you’ll get some amazingly enlightening replies.  Compile these replies until you’ll have enough materials to come up with an eBook or a special report.  Ask the posters’ permission to avoid any copyright issues.  Chances are, they’ll agree, provided that a link to their respective websites would be included in your work.

Lack of writing prowess, or the time to write at that, is never a bar for the production of your own digital products.  All you need is a little imagination, and hopefully, the suggestions above have stirred up some concepts in your mind.

Though anyone can achieve success with affiliate programs, not everyone manages to do the same.  The reason?  Well, there are 10 of them, actually.  These are the biggest mistakes that make success in affiliate marketing very elusive.  Study them well, and read up on how to avoid them.  Hurdling through these mistakes can spell the difference between monumental profits and dismal performance in your affiliate marketing campaigns. 

1. Believing that people would just click on their affiliate links.  Though an affiliate’s job is merely limited to pre-selling, pre-selling involves more than just displaying the affiliate links.  It also entails encouraging people to click on them by enumerating the benefits that can be derived from the affiliate merchant’s products, giving favorable recommendations about the use of the same, and providing an encouraging offer that would entice readers to check out the package.

2. Believing that there’s such a thing as organic traffic.  Organic traffic, or traffic that is naturally generated by a website, is a myth.  There is no such thing!  If you’re hosting your affiliate links in one website, you can’t expect people to find it just like that.  You have to make them find it.  This can be done through effective SEO techniques and efficient marketing strategies.

3. Believing that employing one marketing strategy is enough.  Some people actually think that submitting one article to the article directories would give them the amount of traffic they need.  This is a fatal mistake.  Limiting yourself to a single, or even a couple, of marketing tactics would be limiting the number of visitors you could generate for your website.  Also, you’ll fail to tap into other segments of your targeted market if your tactics aren’t flexible enough to expand.

4. Failing to study your campaign’s performance.  Most affiliates merely check on how much they have earned per day, and if such an amount remains at low levels, they fail to make corresponding adjustments because, well, they don’t know which aspects of their campaigns need improving.  It is important to study every facet of our marketing strategies.  How many visitors are we generating for our website?  How many of them are unique?  How many are returning?  How much time do they spend in our pages?  Where are they coming from?  To where are they exiting?  These are the questions that can be answered by an excellent visitor tracking software program, and these are the questions that could help us improve the performance of our marketing endeavors.

5. Failing to find an affiliate program which actually offers sellable products.  Some affiliate programs may offer as much as a 95% commission per sale.  But if the products are impossible to sell, you’d never realize the profit the program promises.

6. Failing to find an affiliate program with a proven record of consumer satisfaction.  The credibility of an enterprise depends on how people view it.  If the affiliate program has established great relationships with the members of its target market, then it has established a brand which is recognizable for its excellent service.  You’d have an easier time pre-selling such an affiliate program’s products.

7. Failing to keep abreast with the latest developments in the industry.  There will come a time when the marketing knowledge we know would become obsolete, more so in the field of internet marketing where everything transpires at a rapid pace.  You have to constantly update yourself with the newest trends, techniques and news in this field to always keep your competitive edge.

8. Failing to invest on knowledge.  Knowledge likewise evolves and you have to evolve with it.  Buy noteworthy eBooks, special reports and the likes… those which would teach you the latest tactics to help you conquer your field.

9. Resting on your laurels once a semblance of success is achieved.  Success is not eternal.  You have to sustain it.  If you leave your business alone once it shows the promise of success, you’re just setting it up for failure.

10. Believing that affiliate marketing is a “get rich quick” scheme.  It is not.  You have to invest a certain level of commitment, a lot of time, some financial resources on occasions, and a whole lot of effort if you want to truly realize the many wonderful things that this field does promise.

Internet Marketing Mistakes To Avoid As A Beginner.

1. Not taking it serious as business - it is truth that internet is a medium but if you are to succeed here you must take anything you do serious and treat is as business.

2. Get rich quick - most people have been made ot believe that they can make money quick on internet. This is absolute lie. It  is true that there are occassional overnight success but not without lots of investment of time, money and leveraging skills. If you want to make it online. Be ready to stop the idea of getting rich quick because you may be dissapointed.

3. Never quit you job - don’t quit your job because of false internet dream you’ve been sold. It will surely take time for your internet business to start bringing in result. It may be shorter or longer. That depends on how hardworking you are at implementing all you learn.

4. If you don’t have job now get one as fast as you can becaue your internet will surely seed money to grow. However, if you can’t find job concentrate on acquiring sellable skills.

5. Most beginers often make mistake of having everything up there today to start getting money tommorrow morning not considering the market and what the market really want. Don’t fall into such trap. It’s not all about your website. What if you build it and they didn’t come.

6. Failure to find market first. You have to start with a market and not product.

7. Not finding right mentor. Find right mentor. When you find one make sure you respect his/her time and ideas.

F 

FAQAn acronym for Frequently Asked Questions. This is a list of Questions that areFrequently Asked, with the answers. This mini-help file saves time because clientscan get the information they need without support personnel having to repeatedlysend the same information to different clients. 

FDDIFiber Distributed Data Interface. A way of transmitting data over optical fiber cablesat about 100,000,000 bits-per-second (10 times the rate possible with 10-BaseTEthernet and twice the speed of T-3). 

FingerSoftware that may be used to find if certain people are associated with a particularInternet site. Most sites do not allow Finger requests. 

FirewallEither a software program or a combination of hardware and software that protects acomputer or network from intruders. 

FlameNegative comments in Chat rooms, forums etc which are mostly intended to upsetindividuals and start arguments which interfere with the usual traffic in that Forum orchat room. Usually made by people so bereft of a real life that they regard anyreaction to their crudity as some sort of success. 

Flame WarThe result of a “successful” flame which has people exchanging personal insultsinstead of discussing the subjects which brought them to that Forum or Chat room ina reasoned and friendly way. 

ForumSection of a web site where people can discuss topics related to the subject whichthe site is focused on. Some Forums have paid or restricted Membership. Even thefree Forums usually require you to register with a confirmed email address tominimise flames and other problems. 

FTPFile Transfer Protocol. A program to move files over the Internet between yourcomputer and a web site, uploading to the site and downloading from the site to yourcomputer. 

E 

E-mailElectronic-mail. This tool is usually provided by your ISP. It allows you to send andreceive mail (messages) over the Internet. Through e-mail you can write yourfriends, ask your ISP a technical question about your service, or even receive anInternet birthday card. 

Email Signature (or Sig File)Signature option allows for a brief message to be imbedded at the end of every emailthat a person sends. 

EthernetA method for networking computers in a Local Area Network. 

ExtranetA network owned and maintained by a company which can be accessed by othercomputers owned by associates/clients/suppliers which are not part of the network,but not anyone else outside of the company. 

eZineShort for electronic magazine. Some e-zines are simply electronic versions ofexisting print magazines, whereas others exist only in their digital format.