Learning Social Networking

Web 2.0 and social networking is the process of site promotion via social media channels to attract targeted traffic. It is low-cost, but can be confusing and time consuming.

There are three types of marketers in respect to social networking. First there are those who don’t believe there is any value in social networking and don’t realize a social networking strategy can bring targeted visitors to any site or business. Then there are those who know nothing about social networking and last but not least, there are those who are interested but don’t know how to use it.

Those who don’t see the value are doomed to marketing mediocrity or worse total obscurity on the internet, fairing little better than those who have been living under a rock and know nothing about it. They both have much worse marketing problems than just not knowing or understanding.

The rest of us fall into the interested but don’t know enough about it group. We know participating in social networking can drive traffic to your site directly from social media websites. We also know, participating can provide links from the social networking sites which as we all know, are so very important to raise your page rank and help you garner visitors via the search engines. After that, it all seems to be just an insurmountable heap of indecipherable information.

To rectify this problem, over the next few weeks I’ll be posting some ideas and suggestions to help us get up and running in this area. We’ll take things one step at a time; we'll learn as we participate.

The first is the Netscape 9.0 browser. The main reason to use the browser is for its integration with the Netscape.com social news portal. You can submit and vote for sites, whether they have widgets installed of not. Just surf the net as usual, and when you run across a site of interest, simply vote for that site.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

Submit to Social Websites

Who are you marketing to?

Whether you’re doing business at the local mall or online, you’ve got to know your market. And if you’re doing business on the internet, over the last seven years the average internet user has changed.

According to eMarketer, the internet market that use to be mostly men is now mostly women – and likely to stay that way. In 2007, women equal about 51.7% of the internet population, and those numbers are expected to reach 51.9% by 2011.

Among other information reported, the eMarketers’ Women Online report analyzes the impact that new Internet video content and advertising are having—or not having—on female Internet users, who make up that very large US Internet population.

Amid all the excitement online video is causing, marketers must keep one fact in mind: Of the estimated 97 million females online in the US, only 66% of them actually watch videos online, compared with 78% of males who do. This and other statistics may change the way you want to market to your potential clients.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

No more sitemaps? You don’t say . . .

For those of us with websites, the competing search engines at SES (Search Engine Strategies) made the following announcement yesterday:

“Today, Ask.com, Google, Microsoft Live Search and Yahoo! together are announcing support of “autodiscovery” of Sitemaps. The new open-format autodiscovery allows webmasters to specify the location of their Sitemaps within their robots.txt file, eliminating the need to submit sitemaps to each search engine separately.”

Find the full report at Ask.com’s official blog.

As far as I’m concerned the jury is still out as to whether sitemaps are worth the effort made by web owners. Personally I’ve found I have more pages indexed without a sitemap – autodiscovery or manually submitted. With my 60 page site I can count on having all my pages indexed unless I have a sitemap. With a sitemap my total pages indexed usually drops to 20 or so. And I’m not alone.

Many website owners I’ve talked to find they have the same results. To be fair, there are those who believe sitemaps are just wonderful. (The cat's meow.) My opinion is you need to test for yourself. Try your site with and without sitemaps and see which works best for you.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

What is Web 2.0?

Just what exactly is Web 2.0? What is it, what does it do, and what does it mean? Is there a precise definition that webmasters can get their little SEO boggled minds around? Well there probably is . . . . but I’m one of these people who likes to cut to the chase and get to the heart of the matter.

In business terms, Web 2.0 is the wave of the future. There are thousands and thousands of web surfers who depend exclusively on Web 2.0 for their web search choices. But the short answer is, Web 2.0 is just a giant game of tag. He who gets the most tags, wins the traffic prize.

The problem is, how to learn the rules, systems and players. It could be a full time job. And to overlook this market is to leave a lot of money on the table for somebody else.

If you try to Google Web 2.0 you get a lot of confusing and long rambling articles leaving you knowing just about as much as you did when you started. Enter Mike Worthington – this young man has taken the topic and made it his own. For a cut to the chase e-book on how to master Web 2.0, check out Web 2.0 Traffic System.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

Co-Citation - and SEO

Okay, apparently getting backlinks to your website is not the "be all, end all" it use to be. For some time the prevailing thought was to get the search engines attention - to show them your worth - you had to get massive amounts of backlinks. However, it seems backlinks won't get you where you want to be . . . there's more to it.

Enter - Co-Citation. I won't pretend to understand completely, but Jim Boykin's Internet Marketing Blog seems to have a handle on it and has a marvelous explanation of the whole thing.

As you've probably noticed, there are groups of marketers who all market similar products or maybe I should say complementary products. They'll each refer customers to each other and will all benefit from the association. And this is a natural thing and search engines recognize this. If you are a quality site - a site which provides value to the web and those searching the web, you will have people in your business or in businesses complementary to your business linking to you.

This is what Google and the other search engines are looking for. Natural linking. For a great (read better than mine) explanation of Co-Citation, check out Jim Boykin's Internet Marketing Blog.

Of course getting great backlinks is not all there is to SEO, it is a piece of the puzzle and the info on Co-Citations is great information to have.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

Digging your way out of Googles Sandbox

Many have debated it’s existence, but if you’re in business on the web and your site is less than three years old . . . you’ve probably been a victim of it. I’m of course referring to the infamous ‘Sandbox’. Google’s way of say, “I won’t trust you until I can see you are trusted by your traffic . . . but of course you don’t have any traffic because Google doesn’t trust you. Ahrrg!

Andy Hagans of the Link Building Blog gives us the Secrets to Beating the Sandbox 2.0 Revealed. The self proclaimed "Organic-Is-My-Middle-Name" Hagans gives practical advice to help you dig (or maybe Digg) you’re way out of the Sandbox.

Andy writes: “The sandbox is no longer the pink elephant in the room. As webmasters, together we've cried about it, argued about it, and fretted over it. We've gone through the emotional steps, too; first there was grief (waah waah my site won't rank), then bargaining (I promise I won't spam if you un-sandbox me), anger (darn it, greedy Google just wants me to spend more at AdWords!), and finally, acceptance (OK, how do I beat it?).”

Andy gives information to first decide if you're in the box and ideas of why you're there and then gives suggestions of ways to get out of the box. His suggestions are complete with linking strategies to help you gain the trust of Google. Great information to have.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

Improve your blogs performance - Increase Traffic

For those of us who are dependant on the traffic we are able to generate for our blogs, we have “3 Ways to Immediately Increase Search Engine Traffic”. And to add further, Nick Wilson of Performancing Blog, gives us The Art of Linkbaiting.

Nick cuts to the chase on Linkbaiting and gives us the answer to what we have all wondered in the past . . . how do you get someone to link to you if you’re a new blog. He writes; Ever found it hard to get other bloggers to link to a new blog? Sure you have, it's not easy sometimes. Even established blogs need to expand their traffic and influence on a regular basis, and linkbaiting is one way to do it. It's not without potential perils, but the time honored tradition of being contrary, in order to get attention is well proved, and done right, it's a killer way to break into a new area. There are also safer ways of linkbaiting, they're just less fun :)
In order to bait a link, you need a hook. Hooks come in variety of flavors, some of the more popular would include:

• News Hook
• Contrary Hook
• Attack Hook
• Resource Hook
• Humour Hook

And then he proceeds to show examples of each which are very enlightening. If you’re planning on earning on your own blog, you don’t want to miss this one. Performancing Blog is dedicated to helping bloggers succeed; great site.

You may also want to check out the Copyblogger post; 'How to Attract Links'. Great reading. Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Work at Home Business

Traffic – Give me Traffic . . .

The bane of every online marketer is the need for traffic. You can have the perfect site and sell the perfect product at an unbelievably low price and it won’t matter unless you have traffic. And unfortunately organic traffic is one of the hardest things to get.

In fact to stay in business, at least in the beginning, you almost have to resort to some form of advertising. And paid advertising can cut into profits pretty darn quick if you’re not extremely careful.

Kim Roach of 'UnleashTheTrafic.com’ wrote this week about Untapped Advertising Hot Spots. With an expected 20 Billion in online advertising next year (yes that’s a ‘B’ – Billion) every affiliate marketer should be able to find advertising venues that fall within their budget. She explores 4 of the most lucrative online advertising spots that are currently available to you. They include CPA programs, blog ads, comparison shopping engines, and the ISEDN.

Hopefully this will give you some advertising ideas that extend past the Pay-Per-Click we all seem to rely on. Check out the Traffic page on www.EarnOnYourComputer.com for more ways to increase your traffic.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a business from home!

Spammer in the Slammer – and – Human Phone Support

Spammers and Customer Service Reps . . . wouldn’t you know it, we seem to have an abundance of the first and a shortage of the second. Though these two items are not directly related to Internet Marketing at first blush, they both serve to rob marketers of their time. Hopefully these two items will serve to help the situation.

• Lisa Barone posted on Bruce Clay, Inc.’s Blog, that Jeremy Jaynes, one of the worst spammer in the world, received 9 Years for his nefarious deeds. (Only illegal because he exceeded an average of 10,000 unsolicited e-mails sent per day; doesn’t that seem a tad high or is it just me?)
  
  I’d like to believe this might slow the flow, but I’m not holding my breath. It looks as though tighter controls would be in order just for starters. Click the link to look at the full article. Of course the spam filters of most e-mail service providers have to be cutting into their profits. Right? We can always hope.
  

• Next, is there anything more annoying than the endless phone trees you find yourself on when you call customer service departments? Stephen J. Dubner of Authors’ Blog gives us
  Things to Do in Customer-Service Hell. If phone trees were as interactive as the talking computer on Star Trek – and don’t forget the voice of Majel Barret – perhaps we wouldn’t mind it so much. But until that happens, visit GetHuman database before you dial that CS number to see if they have any suggestions to help you ‘get a human’.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start your own home business!

Eat like a bird, and poop like an elephant.

To write a blog that others want to read, you have to read blogs . . . lots of blogs. This will not only help you stay current on the issues and provide topics for your own blog but will also help you find that all important scoop. And while the following could not be classified as a scoop, it is good advice.

Here's a great post by Guy Kawasaki (he posted it in April . . . I'm behind in my reading to say the very least). In his post The 120 Day Wonder: How to Evangelize a Blog he points out the interesting honor system in blogging. "Suppose Blogger A finds an obscure article and posts it to his blog. Blogger B reads about it on Blogger A's blog and links to it. However Blogger B doesn't link only to the article; she also links to Blogger A to give him credit for finding the article.

"This means that if you hustle and scoop stuff, other bloggers will link to you. For example, when I found and publicized the Stanford Social Innovation Review article by Jeffrey Pfeffer and Bob Sutton, many other bloggers linked to my blog, not just the article itself. I was surprised by this. Bottom line: if you want lots of people to link to you, read voraciously and find cool stuff first. As a Japanese philosopher once said, "Eat like a bird, and poop like an elephant.""

To read the entire post on Evangelizing your Blog follow the link. Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a Business from Home

Going for the 'Long Tail'

If you’ve been around the net for very long you’ve heard the expression ‘Long Tail’ being bandied about and wondered what it was and why everyone seemed to be going for it. For a great explanation of ‘Long Tail’ you may want to follow the link.

Savvy Internet Marketers will want to chase the ‘Long Tail’ and capture those shoppers. To do this there are several simple things we can do.

• First, look at each of the pages on your site with a critical eye and evaluate the buyers as they arrive at your site. Exactly what are they looking for and what would have been the best and most specific terms they could have used in their search to arrive at the perfect site (yours of course).



• Next, add these terms to your ‘Meta Keyword’ and also optimize your page for those terms. Visitors using highly descriptive search terms to arrive at your site are more likely to buy than the casual surfer using broader terms.



• Last but not least, provide links, in and out of that page using those same terms as anchor text. This will further optimize that page for those keyphrases.

Rest assured someone is going to capture the profits from those buyers – wouldn’t you much rather it be you?

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start a business from home !

Boost response rates with a "Johnson Box"

What is a Johnson Box? Glad you asked . . .

Some say it's named after the 'Johnson Boxes' at train stations that have offers and brochures displayed, but others credit a direct sales guru named Frank H. Johnson some sixty years ago or so who wanted to increase the conversion rate of his sales letters.

He decided that instead of making his potential customers read through a long sales letter before making his offer, he would highlight it in a rectangular box, centered, and placed at the very top of the letter above the greeting.

The results were fantastic, and the rest, as they say, is history. It's a no-brainer. The box really stands out at the top of the letter, and catches your attention. Your eye just automatically gravitates to the headline. There are statistics claiming the addition of this one little feature can boost sales by as much as 20%; which is well worth the effort.

Just remember to put your offer, the main benefit of your service or product, and the URL to visit in the box. If you have a guarantee now's the time to tout it and if the offer expires in the near future that's even better. (This adds the ticking clock element.)

There are lots of ways to increase your income without having to increase the number of visitors to your site. The easiest is to convert more of the visitors you have into buyers.

Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
Start your own home business

Let’s Review . . .

One of the best ways to earn online is through product reviews. You sign up as an affiliate of a certain product, (for additional information on Affiliate Marketing click the link) then you give a review of the product.

Just think about it . . . how often do you see the name of a new movie coming out and immediately go see it. Usually, you’ll see a trailer and then, more often than not, you ask a friend or wait for a review.  Someone’s opinion carries more weight for you than the production company’s ad.   As it should; a testimonial can be a wonderful thing.

How do you choose other products you buy? You talk with your friends and family? You may not sit around talking to them exclusively about products to buy or movies to see, the subject just casually comes up in conversation.

And that’s the way we should be as affiliate marketers reviewing products. Talk to your visitors as though they are your friend . . . dropped by for a cup of coffee, and you mention how you feel about a certain product they might be interested in.

Until next time . . .


All the best,
Joyce
Start your own home business

Look What Google Just Bought . . . will this be Affiliate Marketings New Playground?

When Google goes shopping everybody wants to see what they bought! But when the Google blog announced the purchase of Neven Vision, a key player in face and image recognition, there’s speculation there may be more in the works than what is apparent at first blush. Google's trying to pass their new purchase off as a technology that will make it a lot easier for you to organize and find the photos you care about. But insiders are looking far beyond pictures . . .

So what could this mean for the everyday affiliate marketer? Advertising with Google AdWords could get a whole lot more interesting. Loren Baker writes, “Seems like Google AdWords on buses, billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising is not just a joke among Madison Avenue players anymore.

“Imagine Google AdWords technology monitoring the profiles of users and the paths they generally take to the workplace, favorite lunchtime eatery, or commute home; and then optimizing the outdoor or subway advertising to show the most relevant ad to the most relevant group at the most relevant time.

Question is, will Google bring mobile face recognition to its consumer marketplace? Will one be able to take a picture of someone at the bar, search on Google for him or her, then be able to read that person’s blog, MySpace profile or home address? Chances are doing so would conjure up all kinds of privacy controversies, but the technology to do so is right around the corner.” (For the complete article visit Loren Baker’s Search Engine Journal Blog ).

And even if the average Joe doesn’t have this technology, what will Google know about the average Joe. What will Google know about you? Paranoia, alive and well! Until next time . . .

All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com

Just a little survey . . .

People sometimes wonder why I don’t have surveys listed on   EarnOnYourComputer.com   as a good way to earn money online. Well there’s one very good reason. I’ve never known anyone who made any money taking surveys online.

Most of the businesses, offering to put you in touch with companies paying for surveys, make a nice chunk of change when you purchase the information from them. But you, as the individual actually taking the survey, usually don’t make any money.

And the e-mails . . . don't get me started. Once you begin doing surveys you start getting all this spam mail. That alone will cost you more in time than you'll earn taking the survey.

I’d love to be proven wrong. So let’s take a survey! Has anyone made any significant money taking surveys; answer either way. I look forward to the results. Until next time . . .


All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com

Where do I start?

Lots of times people feel overwhelmed when they begin setting up their business. Usually it’s because they have information overload. They don’t know where to start. The answer is much the same as you’d find in any situation where you need focus and clarity; make a list.

If you’re interested in starting your own business, the first thing you’ll want to do is decide if there is an area or market you can concentrate on which also interests you. You know the saying, "Find a job you love and you'll never work another day in you life"; something that you're the 'go to' person for now. Is there something you know quite a bit about now, that interests you and gets your juices flowing or an area you have been wanting to learn a great deal about.

Then begin looking at keywords. There are lots of free tools out there so don't think you have to spend a lot of money. Check out our Free Tools page. During this process you'll be looking at the number of times a particular phrase or keyword was searched for. So by the time you get through your keyword research phase you'll have a pretty good idea if there is a market out there for any products you want to sell or develop.

As you do the above and from then on you'll want to keep a running list of the things you want to do and/or implement in your business. Then you prioritize your list. That way you always know what you want to do next. You don't have to accomplish everything right away. Just focusing on one step at a time will keep you from feeling overwhelmed.

And just a quick reminder, don't forget to get your free copy of the "7 Step Guide to Profits Online". Hope you have a great weekend.

All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com

Affiliate Marketing - Heads-Up

Greetings fellow marketers, this morning I found this information waiting on my newsfeed:

Monday Daniel Gross of Slate.com reported “Starbucks attributed its lackluster quarterly earnings to long waits caused by people ordering frozen drinks -- which take longer to prepare than coffee -- to beat the summer heat. Please. Many businesses that cater to "the better-off" are struggling.” In recent years, retailers catering to the ‘better-off’ have thrived. But now, there's mounting evidence that rising inflation, slow wage growth, and higher energy prices are pinching the upper-middle class. In the past few weeks, several of the companies that cater to those with more disposable cash, have reported disappointing results; while those who supply the working class are seeing a rise in sales.

As an affiliate marketer, even if you’re not pushing coffee sales, this ought to give you a ‘heads-up’? Though your niche may stay the same your marketing strategies ought to change. With this information in mind, you might want to be a little more inclined to push products that have a greater perceived value but are easier on the pocket book. You’ll want to make sure your customer feels she’s getting the most for her money.

Uh-oh, I can hear the affiliate gurus now saying if you sell the high priced item you only have to sell maybe one item to get X amount of dollars, you’d have to sell a lot more of a less expensive item to make the same amount of money. And while this is true, it’s not so much about the price of the item as the perception it’s a good deal (though a lower price is one of the easiest ways to accomplish this.)

We know from our own lives, the cost of living is out pacing wage increases, and the bills still have to be paid. Our customers are going to have less money available for non-essentials. They’ll still want the product; but they’ll be looking for the best deal. Now more than ever, as a good affiliate marketer, it’s up to you to make sure they see they’ll get their best deal when they shop with you.

All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com

What comes first; the chicken or the egg?

Often the question arises when you first begin your affiliate business, should you get your website up and running first, or should you sign up as an affiliate first?

Well as crazy as it may sound, you need that website or blog, complete with content, before you begin signing up as an affiliate for the products you want to sell.

Find the niche you want, then begin building your site with lots of content, after that you can find a program. Many affiliate programs won't accept you without a site. And there are lots of products. Don’t worry.

For more information on starting your own business as an affiliate marketer, visit EarnOnYourComputer.com

All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com

An ad by any other name might smell just as sweet

Good Friday evening to all of you out there; I hope you have big plans for the weekend.

As mentioned earlier this week, many affiliate marketers have been hit hard by Google's new rate hikes in AdWord pricing and are faced with major overhauls of websites or paying someone else to do the overhauls.

If you don't have the time, and/or don't want to go to the expense of making changes, this might be a great time to investigate alternative advertisers.  Don't forget Google isn't the only guy in the game.   First, if you haven't already, check out  Yahoo.  Another advertisers to try out would be  Bidvertiser,  and also  Enhance.com.  Both have good reputations.  If you're leery about trying out another pay-per-click provider, after all the horror stories about click fraud.   Start small, test and keep track of your numbers.

Oh and last but not least . . . or maybe it is least; a list of the  10 Dumbest Online Business Ideas That Made It Big Time.   Cute.  Now why didn't I think of one of those.

And just a quick reminder, don't forget to get your free copy of the  "7 Step Guide to Profits Online".   Hope you have a great weekend.


All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com

Google Woes For Some Affiliates

Good Morning and a happy Monday to you, on this the last day of July. Well it's good as long as you’re not one of the affiliates hit by the latest Google changes. Yes, the big “G” has been at it again. Some affiliates using Google AdWords have been hit with huge price increases and only partly because of Google’s distrust and borderline prejudice towards affiliate marketers.

With Google it seems we have to go the second mile to prove we’re on the up-and-up. We’re sort of guilty until we are able to prove ourselves innocent.

So for those hit by the latest rate hikes, take another look at your landing pages and see if the content is worthy. If you have what is referred to as a squeeze page, (there for the purpose of gleaning e-mail addresses) before sending your viewer to the sales page they're interested in, don’t be surprised if the cost of your clicks spiral up.

As they say, “Content is King”. If your content is drivel, it will cost you; which is actually good for affiliate marketers who are in it for the long haul and bad for those who have thrown up a site to grab a fast buck. Look at it from Google's point of view. Their users want relevant, substantive responses to their searches; and Google wants their users to get what they want. And so we want Google to get what it wants.

Just wanted to add a quick note and let you know the free 7 Step Guide to Profits Online is now available and ready to be downloaded. If you want a copy just click the link, or visit us at EarnOnYourComputer.com. Hope you have a great week.


All the best,
Joyce
EarnOnYourComputer.com