Online branding or internet branding is essential in today’s ever-changing marketplace. Most business owners fail to realize the potential behind establishing a powerful brand name.

If anyone has the ability to explain his or her brand right from the moment a user logs onto your web page, the brand will have much more of an effect on the visitor because they instantly know what you are about, what your purpose is and what you are trying to convey. On the average, you have about 8 seconds to capture the visitor’s attention before they choose to stay or move on from your website. If you make most of these 8 seconds useful, users will not forget your brand and be more likely to come back to the site at a later date.

At the time when you are about to define your brand, make it special by giving the advantages right on the home page. It is also a better method to upload a video of your business on the home page to make a strong first impression. Consumers love to know that they are dealing with an actual person, not a bot.

The leading process for “online branding” or “internet branding” as some may call it, is to target the accurate demographic category. For example: if you want to deal in cosmetics for women, focus on.conveying the brand only to women and women that are within your target range for age.

The result of “online branding” can be both negative and positive. If you detect a possible negative effect along with a positive one, your first goal should be to improve the negative matters so that a positive view will come to mind, when your brand is spoken of.

Always remember that if you wish for branding strategy to be successful, you should submit high quality content that is advantageous and helpful to your target customers, if not they will not be impressed to share it with others. Also, ensure that all of the content you make, has your website URL posted or an alternative way where customers can get back to you for further information. You can do this by using social networking websites such as Facebook and Twitter.

“Online branding” also requires website design and logos but your first priority has to be content. It’s very important to brand yourself with a website that is simple to navigate, professionally laid out, and full of relevant content. Also, you do not have to go overboard with graphics, but it is a great way to support your brand with a professionally designed logo.

These are all-powerful ideas for “online branding” which can help make your online venture a successful one.

Online branding and internet branding are essential in today’s market. Visit alamead.com for more information.

I am over 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

Every month, Google alone receives over 31 billion searches which means that on average, Google receives 1 billion searches a day and that is 1,000,000,000 searches each and everyday on just Google alone. That amounts to over 40 million searches inside of one hour and just under a million searches a minute or rather 700,000 searches per minute. About 12,000 searches are conducted in one second and in the time it took me to compile this first paragraph, about two or three minutes, 3 million people have used the Google search engine.

We can say that a moderate figure of about a few hundred people will in any likelihood be, after every single second, searching for what you are selling. This will not stop after that second, but will go on for the whole day for 24 hours, for seven days a week, for the whole month and for the 365 days of the year.

If you can get a fraction of these people to buy what you are selling at least every week, for example get a fraction of the seven billion people who conduct a search online every week looking for what you are selling, how much would you in all probability make in sells? I’d say that you would make a fortune.

If 0.0005 people bought what you are selling, you would have a 35,000 total in weekly sells. Let as assume that you were selling whatever it is you were selling for about $7. That would make you a weekly sell worth $245,000 and a monthly sell of just about $1,000,000 worth. While these figures are just projections based on actual statistical data available online, the important question is how many of the seven billion people actually get to see your website?

Well the answer is probably nearly not enough. So why do you think that is? The simple answer is that you are probably not visible online. It’s good to be dead level, if you are not known online, you will achieve nothing and search engine optimization is the foolproof way to achieve visibility online.

You must get your target market to see what you offer them by generating traffic towards your site. Your target market or target audience is the classification of online customers that are in need of the product that you are selling online. When you know your target market, you need to know how to reach them.

Search engine optimization places you at a level where you are visible to the people who are looking for exactly what you are selling. Creating online visibility through search engine optimization will decisively impact on how well you are able to sell online and the options for this are limitless just as the internet is.

Search engines are the most common methods used to locate a product or service anywhere globally. When your website is designed using search engine optimization, it will get its way to the top of the search engines. A higher search ranking always improves the visibility of your website and gives you a platform to present your products or services to your clients.

A website that looks great is wonderful. But that is not enough to draw customers to it. More is required and this is where search engine optimization comes in. It is very simple actually. The vast majority of internet users search for products, services and information with the help of search engines such as Google, yahoo, MSN, Bing and other search engines. The higher your website achieves visibility on these search engines, the more people who get to know that your business exists and they more likely you are to get more business coming in.

Do you want to achieve greater results online? It is time to make your website search engine friendly. It is believed that if your website cannot appear on the first three pages of Google’s search engine, it probably does not exist. It might exist alright but to the internet world, it simply does not have an online presence.

When you make any attempt to enhance visibility for your website, we call that Search Engine Optimization (SEO). On-site SEO is the process of improving your website and off-site SEO is the promotion of the website. When you engage the services of search engine optimizers, they will work at getting your website to high ranks in the search engine result pages (SERP). But search engine optimization is not just for the purpose of improving the rankings of your website’s visibility but is also works to give your website greater volume of quality traffic from the search engines through what is called organic or algorithmic

A website that has been optimized for search engines will always generate more internet traffic and this will enable the business to get more leads and which will turn into sales and thus bring in more revenue for the business. Administering search engine optimization services and hiring an SEO company to deal with complicated internet marketing approach to business will give a business the competitive advantage that will bring them to the top of the business world.

While this may seem like it is easier said than done, there is more to it. It is true that you need to hire an SEO company to help you attain top ranks in most of the search engines by giving you more visibility and by doing so you get more business coming to you. But the idea of SEO is not just to improve the visibility of your website but to increase the visibility and give your website a greater volume of quality traffic from the search engines through what is called organic or algorithmic search results as contrasted to search engine marketing (SEM) which is more of an arrangement where you pay to be included in the search engines.

Studies have proved that organic search engine optimization strategies are not only much more cost effective as compared to paid advertising, but they are also a more effective tool for online marketing in the long run. When you hire an SEO company, you leave it to the experts who are experienced in putting into practice SEO techniques to achieve the desired results for your website.

Any business that wants to develop a consolidated online presence through internet marketing will need to hire the services of professional SEO. The SEO service will come in and work with you to create a strategy that will promote your business while giving you a regular update through well kept reports and details that will keep you abreast of the progress your site is making.

SEO services are able to analyze your website and provide you with market intelligence that will provide you with valuable and timely to keep you on top of your competition. The research work that they carry out will help you remain consistently on top of the search engine rankings. Through a unique traffic generator, there are changes that are done to the content and the code of the website so that the websites dominance in the Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs) and directories is improved. Thus the content and the code of the website are edited to improve its visibility in one or many search engines.

Search engine optimization is thus the collective terminology that is used in the search engine industry that is connected with the act of directly or indirectly enhancing the position or the ranking of a website so as to cause more traffic that will result in business to come to it. Any process that makes an attempt to influence the visibility of a website or any attempt to give a website a more prominent search engine organic ranking with a view to drive traffic to the website through natural listings or rankings is called Search engine optimization (SEO).

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.OneMillionIncome.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

As Internet marketers we all know how important it is to have a successful newsletter to help us keep in touch with our customers. But it can be pretty frustrating to spend all those hours developing content and campaigns only to have the program flop. Open rates can dive into the single-digits and click-through rates can fall to mere fractions of a percent.

So if this happens, what do you do?

First of all, don’t panic. Usually, if you spend a few minutes looking at your data you can identify the problems pretty easily.

Determine Which Problem to Fix

Take a look at where your leads are coming from. If you are purchasing lists from other websites or publishers, make sure you segregate each source in your reporting so you can measure the quality of each list. You want to make sure you have a way of determining the quality of a list source before you merge the purchased group into your master list.

Also, if it has been around for a while, try segregating your opt-in list into three groups by age:

* Under 6 months
* 6 months to 1 year
* Over 1 year

It is normal for open and click through rates to be highest for the “Under 6 Month” category, and lowest for those who have been on your list for over a year. However, there should not be a significant drop off as people move from one category to the next.

Look for anomalies in the data. Here are a few things I look for when I’m troubleshooting a client’s campaign:

* Is there a significant drop-off behind the first mailing? If the first mailing that a recipient gets typically achieves a 35% open rate, but the second has a 7% open rate, then the problem is not with the list source, or the header information (subject line, “From” address, etc.) it is with the content of the newsletter itself. If the drop off is 35% to 29%, then one might consider that to be normal.
* Has there been a change in frequency? We all get busy, and one of the first activities that can get forgotten is the newsletter. Unfortunately, absence in the Email marketing realm does NOT make the heart grow fonder. In fact, a prolonged period of non-communication is one of the leading causes of opt-outs.
* Are your articles relevant to the demographic? It is a good idea to survey your house list periodically to test your assumptions about their levels of expertise and interest in different subjects.

Wake Up Your Sleepy Optin List

Look at how you approach the people who have subscribed to your list. Remember that with email newsletters the permission your subscribers have given you to send email to them is not permanent; they can opt out at any time if they lose confidence or interest in your newsletter.

More often than not, however, people don’t actually opt-out. They simply stop opening and reading your email. I call these “sleepy” subscribers. They are getting your messages, but since they are “asleep” they can’t read them. Although there’s no way to know for sure, I would guess that your “sleep” rate is probably about 4 to 5 times the size of your opt-out rate. So your opt-out rate is an indicator of your “sleep” rate.

It is vital to understand what your subscribers think of your publication. Again, surveys are a great way to get feedback on your program. You can also provide an open link on each newsletter that asks for general feedback. Very few people will take the time to provide feedback on a feedback form, but you can bet that those who do represent a large chunk of your audience. Take their feedback seriously, and learn from it.

Five Steps to Improve Your Performance

Following are five steps that have always lifted the performance of my campaigns.

* Get in touch immediately – From the moment someone signs up for your newsletter, they start to forget you. If you take three weeks to send something to them, then they won’t remember signing up and they will reject your email as spam. Make sure they get an issue of your newsletter (or an ebook, or a free report; something that is relevant to them and has value) immediately after they sign up.
* Make it personal and entertaining – Email marketing is a one-to-one communication, it is almost always best to keep the tone personal and entertaining. Try telling a few stories about yourself or your company. Let people get to “know” you, and feel like an “insider” with your company. This increases their personal equity in your brand.
* Make all emails “high-value” – Every time you send an email it should be valuable to the recipient, not just to you. Straight sales letters with no “meat” can dampen open rates for future mailings. Train your recipients to view each email you send as a valuable piece of information they cannot afford to miss.
* Test multiple article types – You can write all kinds of articles, and depending on your industry and demographics of your subscribers, they may prefer instructional and how-to articles; others may prefer current industry events, or breaking news. Test these out and see what works best.
* Test different formats – Try splitting your list and send half your recipients an HTML newsletter and the other half a “text-looking” email. Make sure that the “text-looking” email really does have HTML in it, or else you won’t be able to track the open rates!

Keep Your Chin UP

All newsletters can experience a blow to their response rates. If this happens to you, it is important to identify the problems and fix them before you lose too much of your list to opt-outs and list fatigue. Variety is the spice of life, and it can “wake up” a sleepy list by injecting some excitement. Make sure each communication you send is high value, and provides something new. And keep the lines of communication open so your subscribers can help you improve the quality of your content.

I am almost 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

I have learned so much over the past year about creating an online presence. There is so very much to know and most people who start their own businesses really don’t know how to create, maximize and leverage their online presence.

I will give you just a summary of what I’ve learned over the past year from reading, masterminding and coaching. I know I have only scratched the surface but if I can in any way cut down on your learning curve by sharing the things I’ve already learned, then that’s what I want to do.

Niche Marketing

This is the first thing you learn when creating an online presence. It’s about narrowing your focus. It is not possible to be all things to all people and when you try, you end up watering down your message and in essence, being nothing to no one. This probably was the hardest lesson I learned. I fought the whole niche marketing idea because I believed that my niche was choice theory and I know choice theory applied to every possible life situation. While I still believe that this is true, I need to focus my marketing efforts on a much more specific and targeted niche. While I am still refining this, I have decided to market to two basic niches. The first is small to midsize companies who are interested in creating, inspiring and leveraging diversity in the workforce and the second is managers interested in learning Empowered Leadership to increase production, improve quality and reduce employee turnover.

What is your niche? You know you have a good one if you can identify how to find them. You need to know what they read, what entertainment they gravitate toward, and what groups they belong to. It is your goal to ultimately obtain a mailing list or email list to be able to market to your niche. If you can obtain a list, then you have a well-narrowed niche.

Creating a List

This is perhaps the most important asset to an online business—the email list of potential customers and prospects. When doing business online, it is critically important to capture prospects’ email opt-in addresses so you can begin to market to them. The best way to get people to give you their email address is to offer them something compelling. This is intricately tied to your niche. Find out something they are looking for—create a giveaway product in exchange for getting their email address. You can see how critical it is to have correctly identified your niche market because if you offer a list of cat owner’s information on how to train their dogs, you can see how that might not entice them to provide you with their email address. It must be information they are hungry for.

The opt-in part is also important. You can’t just go add people’s email addresses to your mailing list. That is considered spamming. They must have the opportunity to opt-in, as well as the opportunity to remove their address from your database. Don’t ruin your business before it gets started by tainting your reputation unnecessarily.

Sales Letters

Sales letters are very important. If there is one thing I’d like to outsource, it would be sales letters. They are not fun for me to do but they may be fun for you. There are several things to be considered in a sales letter. First of all, research shows that the longer a sales letter is the better. It must have a captivating title. It must be filled with information about WIIFM—What’s In It For Me, meaning your readers or potential customers. This is again tied to the first point about niche marketing. Your sales letter will be most effective when you can write as if you know the mind of the reader. You must understand their pain or speak to a goal they have. How can you be specific enough if you haven’t narrowed your niche? You can’t.

The letter should be crafted with both the skimming reader and the detail reader in mind. This means making main points subheadings so the person who skims can get the general idea of what you are talking about just by skimming the headings. However, include sufficient detail to convince the person who is interested in lots of facts and statistics. You don’t want to write your letter with only one group in mind because then you will lose out on the possibility of selling to the group you omitted.

Create products and services your niche is hungry for and then tell them why they must have your product to either solve their problem or help them become more successful.

Sales letters must have an urgent call to action. Create some type of advantage for those who act NOW. Research shows that even if a person is interested in what you are offering, if they don’t act as they are reading your letter and decide to wait for another day, they never come back to it. Get them to act now by making it worth their while. You can even offer an extra incentive for the first 20 people who respond. It’s up to you.

Articles

Writing articles is a tremendous way to get your name out there to the general public. I write at least two articles each month. I used to have my virtual assistant submit each one to online article banks individually. Now, for $100, I submit my article to I-Snare and they do the submitting for me. They will submit 100 articles for my $100 which is much more cost-effective than having to pay my assistant to do it.

The purpose of writing is to help readers get to know you and what you have to offer. When you write, you are not necessarily trying to sell something—you are basically providing useful information, just like this article does. And you get to include a bio box at the end with a link back to your website home page, a product page or a sales letter. This will help increase the traffic to your website and it will be a targeted audience, meaning those who are already interested in what you have to say.

These are just some of the things you want to give attention to as you develop your presence on the World Wide Web. My next article will focus on writing press releases, generating search engine traffic and getting listed in various online directories. Then, we will discuss writing a blog, producing an online newsletter, creating a sales funnel and embarking on joint ventures.

I am almost 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

Perhaps “blogging” isn’t such a graceful word. For me, personally, it sounds like a worded drudgery the way cereals can be soggy, skies can be foggy, and the way minds can be groggy. But for now, it’s too late to rename this shortened word for web-logging. Widespread blogging is nevertheless one of the most engaging Internet developments of the past few years. As a medium it gives rise to many new and worthy voices and plays a new and vital force in shaping opinions, political realities, trends, and even our language.

I believe that a blog is simply a tool to use for someone who’s got something to say. Let me be clear in saying that a blog is a poor choice for someone who needs a megaphone to scream out to cyberspace in order to elicit a meaningful response from Internet users. If you want attention and want it now and expect blogging to bring it to you, then this will surely be a disappointment. However, if you like to write and engage others on subjects of which you have some command or experience, then it’s a wonderful application with which you can interact with people who share similar interests as you. The hype is well founded.

Anyway, here’s a list of blogging tips…

1.) Be topical.
Cohesiveness in message is not optional. Readers may or may not be interested in your topic, but if your message is haphazard that few will bother remembering to return to your blog because it essentially would offer nothing to remember. This doesn’t mean blogs can’t jump from subject to subject. For instance, a blog with a humorous focus has all the leeway in the world for subject matter, but it would be foolish for such a blog to turn the humor on and off. In such an example, the aspect of humor would be content’s glue, the strength of the blog. The beauty of staying on point and on topic is that eventually, due to the nature of the Internet, you will find those interested solely in your topic. (as opposed to online diaries. There are millions of them on the internet, few have any readers. Email me with examples if I’m wrong and I’ll be able to show you why you’re showing me a blog and not a diary.)

2.) Refresh your content
Create a schedule and stick to it. Realizing that blogging requires time and effort, don’t create unrealistic expectations and be unable to deliver. An occasional lapse or holiday is generally understood but readers returning to find stale, out-dated content are going to find another blog with similar content. New blogs and RSS feeds are popping up on a daily basis. If you have worked hard to develop an audience and a community you don’t want to lose them due to lack of communication.

And remember, what’s old is not new and, for blogs, thusly not interesting. 2006 isn’t the time to rail against Enron or Vanilla Ice. Insight doesn’t matter much to yesterday’s news.

3.) Clear Language Counts.
Blessed is the blog with a clear line of logic. Write without inside jokes, clique-y catchphrases or ambiguous logic. First time readers need to be close to your message. They are more likely to return to blogs that strike them positively. If the first read is confusing there will not be a second read.

4.) Feed the Spiders.
Search engines take notice of active blogs and blog search engines are especially sensitive to activity. If nothing else, search engines are smarter today than they were yesterday and are only getting smarter. In constantly improving they are seeking to aggregate quality; quality blogs are updated several times a week, if not daily, as opposed to once or twice a month. I don’t mean to scare you but a big spider is watching, so dance for them.

5.) RSS.
Think of RSS like a magic to blogging world, because that’s the effect it’s had. RSS feeds are a way to exponentially sound your voice to the interested. These feeds are a great means to increase the distribution and readership of your original content.

6.) Spell check.
Hey man, use the spell-check. I do – if I didn’t you probably wouldn’t have made it to #6. It only takes a minute and can save you from looking like a hack.

Your weblog audiences will be small at first. And, frankly, that’s the way it should be. Who are you to think that half the internet will flock to you after three or four posts of your blog, anyway?

If you tough it out while maintaining quality, readership will materialize. You will link to good, relevant blogs and, in turn, they will to you. While your voice may be unique, your niche likely isn’t and if your content is emitted smartly to the Internet those relevant readers will respond through readership and interaction. That I guarantee.

I am almost 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

Your web business probably gets product inquiries from potential customers around the globe. Inquiries come via e-mail and your web site, and you try to send information to each hot prospect as quickly as you can. You know that you can drastically increase the likelihood of making a sale by satisfying each person’s need for information quickly!

But, after you’ve delivered that first bit of information to your prospect, do you send him any further information?

If you are like most Internet marketers, you don’t.

When you don’t follow that initial message with additional information later on, you let a valuable prospect slip from your grasp! This is a potential customer who may have been very interested in your products, but who lost your contact information, or was too busy to make a purchase when your first message reached him. Often, a prospect will purposely put off making a purchase, to see if you find him important enough to follow up with later. When he doesn’t receive a follow up message from you, he will take his business elsewhere.

Are you losing profits due to inconsistent and ineffective follow up?
Following up with leads is more than just a process – it’s an art. In order to be effective, you need to design a follow up system, and stick to it, EVERY DAY! If you don’t follow up with your prospects consistently, INDIVIDUALLY, and in a timely fashion, then you might as well forget the whole follow up process.

Consistent follow up gets results!
When I first started marketing and following up with prospects, I used a follow up method that I now call the “List Technique.” I had a large database containing the names and e-mail addresses of people who had specifically requested information about my products and services. These prospects had already received my first letter by the time they requested more information, so I used the company’s latest news as a follow up piece. I would write follow up newsletters every now and then, and send them, in one mass mailing, to everyone who had previously requested information from me. While this probably did help me win a few additional orders, it wasn’t a very good follow up method. Why isn’t the “List Technique” very effective?

The List Technique isn’t consistent. Proponents of the List Technique tend to only send out follow up messages when their companies have “big news”.

List Technique messages don’t give the potential customer any additional information about the product or service in question. He can’t make a more informed buying decision after receiving a newsletter! If someone is wondering whether your company sells the best knick-knacks, what does he care that you’ve just moved your headquarters?

List Technique messages convey a “big list” mentality to your potential customers. When I used to write follow up messages using the List Technique, I was writing news bulletins to everyone I knew! I should have been sending a personal message to each individual who wanted to know more about my products.

What follow up method really works?
Following up with each lead individually, multiple times, but at set intervals, and with pre-written messages, will dramatically increase sales! Others who use this same technique confirm that they have all at least doubled the sales of various products! In order to set this system up, though, you need to do some planning.

First, you’ll need to develop your follow up messages. If you’ve been marketing on the Internet for any length of time, then you should already have a first informative letter. Your second letter marks the beginning of the follow up process, and should go into more detail than the first letter. Fill this letter with details that you didn’t have the space to add to the first letter. Stress the BENEFITS of your products or services!

Your next 2-3 follow up messages should be rather short. Include lists of the benefits and potential uses of your products and services. Write each letter so that your prospects can skim the contents, and still see the full force of your message.

The next couple of follow up messages should create a sense of urgency in your prospect’s mind. Make a special offer, giving him a reason to order NOW instead of waiting any longer. After reading these follow up messages, your prospect should want to order immediately!

Phrase each of your final 1 or 2 follow up messages in the form of a question. Ask your prospect why he hasn’t yet placed an order? Try to get him to actually respond. Ask if the price is to high, the product isn’t the right color or doesn’t have the right features, or if he is looking for something else entirely. (By this time, it’s unlikely that this person will order from you. However, his feedback can help you modify your follow up letters or products, so that other prospects will order from you.)

The timing of your follow up letters is just as important as their content. You don’t want one prospect to receive a follow up the day after he gets your initial informative letter, while another prospect waits weeks for a follow up!

Always send an initial, informative letter as soon as it is requested, and send the first follow up 24 hours afterwards. You want your hot prospects to have information quickly, so that they can make informed buying decisions!

Send the next 2-3 follow up messages between 1 and 3 days apart. Your prospect is still hot, and is probably still shopping around! Tell him about the benefits of your products and services, as opposed to your competitors’. You will make the sale!

Send the final follow up messages later on. You certainly don’t want to annoy your prospect! Make sure that these last letters are at least 4 days apart.

Following up effectively seems complicated, but it doesn’t have to be! So many potential customers are lost because of poor follow up – don’t you want to be one of the few to get it right?

I am almost 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

The webmaster’s biggest job is to get their traffic up and keep customers/visitors coming back. Building the site is one thing, but simply building and posting a website does not guarantee traffic. In fact, a website could be beautiful and an example of all the latest technology and still not attract a single visitor if not promoted correctly. Here are 10 tips to guide you to success with your website.

(1) The internet is a new medium.
At least compared to print, it is. A website is a waste if it simply re-hashes something which could easily be put into print. Don’t have the site be just an online brochure. Put up features which take advantage of the internet as a medium of communication. Filter information for them. Provide search capability. Provide interactivity with features like forums, quizzes and tools. Web visitors like to interact.

(2) Treat the Customer’s Time as Valuable.
When a person visits your website, you have their attention for that point in time. You either need to use it or you will lose it – fast. Most visitors have short attention spans, what you need to design your site homepage so that it grabs their attention and provides what they are looking for right away. Its like walking into a restaurant. If you walk in and just stand there and nobody comes to greet you, you might wonder what is happening. But, if the hostess comes and greets you right away and walks you to a table, then you will be there for awhile and eat. The same analogy goes for websites. Don’t overcomplicate your website homepage. Best results will be obtained if you make it very clear where to click to find what they need.

(3) Design the site for customers, not the company.
Your site needs to satisfy the needs of customers, not the company. So, don’t post content which is not really useful to the site’s customer. And avoid over-flattering marketing hype about the company. It inflates the ego of the company more than it helps your customer.

(4) Involve the Visitor.
Keep the visitor involved and make them feel like a valuable contributor. Actively ask for the feedback and suggestions. Ask for communication from your visitors and answer that communication swiftly. When getting that communication, capture their email address. This will allow you to communicate with them long after they have moved on and forgotten about you.

(5) Keep it Current.
You need to have content on your website which is timely and relevant to the customer’s life. Posting month-old news is not interesting. Posting dry product information which never changes is not interesting. Yes, you need to have product information and other information on your site that won’t change much, but you can also post more timely content. You can, for example, post content about how your products can be used in certain situations in life. Provide tips and techniques – things which are immediately applicable and solve a problem.

(6) Pay Attention to Form/Design.
Some sites simply over-do it on the eye-candy. Big graphics just for the sake of graphics often impress the site’s designer more than the visitor. Do not use graphics that are large and purposeless. Remember, some visitors may still be accessing your website via dial-up. Your site needs to load up quickly for all users. A slow website will cause your users to leave quickly. Also, pay attention to graphic and design size. Many web designers operate on fairly large screen resolutions and sometimes forget that even though a graphic looks great to you, it will appear enormous to somebody on a smaller resolution. On the flip side, don’t go too light on graphics. A site which is poorly designed and using the default font and no color is not very aesthetically pleasing. Any web visitor, whether they admit it or not, judges your company by your website unless they have something else to go on. A well-designed site communicates professionalism. A poor design makes the site seem like an afterthought.

(7) Promote.
When a visitor communicates to you via email, it is best to use a web form. not only will this keep your email address from being picked up by spammers, it will also allow you to ask your customers for their email address and then store that address for later use. Employ the “push/pull” marketing strategy. A visitor coming to your website is the pull, but later you want to push content back to them in the form of a newsletter or other promotional material. Start a mailing list and use it. Invite visitors to sign up. Promotion makes or breaks a business, and as long as you respect the ethical considerations of your mailing list, you should use it.

(8) Don’t Operate in a Cocoon.
The internet is a medium which is shared by millions. When you set up your website, don’t operate as if you are a self-contained island. Get out there and keep in tune with what is happening on other websites related to your own. Participate in forums. Post links to other websites and ask for a link in return. Form partnerships with other sites if it is appropriate. When it comes to communication, people like personal contacts. Hiding behind general email address like “sales” and “info” is OK as long as there is a way to also email you directly. A company site which allows email direct to the management is good. Just remember how much you hate calling a company and getting stuck in their phone system. Sometimes you just want to talk to somebody. Give your visitors that ability.

(9) Have a Plan to Attract Repeat Traffic.
Use newsletters, out-going email, contests, forums, clubs, auctions – anything that will cause people to return to your website. When posting links to other websites, don’t just send your visitors somewhere else. They may never return. Provide them an exit page. Give them a pop-up when they try to leave your site. Or at the very least make external links open in a new window.

(10) Track Your Visitors
Pay attention to your site’s statistics and react accordingly. What are people reading? How are they finding you? Do they just come and leave right from your homepage? How long as they are on your website? Do they return? This data is immensely valuable in fine-tuning your website based on customer needs and wants. Remember, the biggest mistake of any webmaster is designing the site for what THEY want. A successful website is designed for the target audience, not to impress the site’s owner.

I am almost 10 years now FULL TIME working from home on the internet making money online and I have put together the following website to share all of my secrets with you at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.CoachOfSuccess.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

If you ever considered owning a piece of the ultimate real estate (internet), then this article is for you!

Whether you want a website for fun (e.g. hobby) or to making a living, there are a few basic factors to consider before jumping in. If you decide to buy a website, then consider looking at various online auctions (i.e. Flippa). The process works like eBay and the auctions are for intangible property (e.g. domain and website content).

In order to properly value a website, make sure to perform some basic research and consider the following questions:

Does the domain name contain keyword phrases of the niche topic which gears toward the website? For example, if you have a tattoos website, then does the domain contain the word tattoos or related keyword phrases (e.g. tattoo ideas, designs, images, pictures)? This will add more value to the domain, but good unique content carries more weight.

What type of domain is it? For example, does the domain extension have.com,.net, or.org, etc.? This is not really important, but.com is preferred.

What’s the age of domain/website? The more value is placed on established domains and websites.

How uniqueness is the content and has it been copied from another source? Often times, the contents are replicated and modified to look unique.

How easily can the website be replicated? Once you buy it, can someone easily steal the code and contents?

How many quality back links (sites linking to the site)? Are those links paid or organic? Back links represent votes to your site.

What is the page rank according to Google? This represents the trustworthiness and authoritativeness of the site and is related to the quality back links.

What are the keywords that generate traffic and how are those keywords ranked in various search engines? Ideally, you want a diversification of traffic source from various keywords.

What are the traffic sources to site? Is it from search engines or referral sites? Again, diversification is the key.

Is the niche of the website seasonal? Looking at a years’ worth of data for the niche market will usually determine if certain times of the year generate more traffic.

How competitive is the niche? Areas such as health related products are highly competitive and thus require more promotional effort to get noticed.

What are the monthly profit amounts and sources? Some of the popular revenue sources include pay-per-click (PPC), fixed revenue ads, or commission based.

Lastly, how much is the monthly maintenance cost and the required effort (hours and skills)? For example, does the site require a dedicated server which can cost hundreds of dollars per month? Ask about special software licenses and technical skills. You may need to hire a programmer to maintain it, so there is additional cost to think about.

The final value of a website can vary depending on the above factors. Typically if the site is established for 1 year or more and generating consistent revenue from month to month, you can expect to pay about 15 times the monthly profit to get an estimate of websites’ worth. Half of the challenge is to find timely information and there are great tools on the internet that can assist you in making the right decision.

Website buying experience: BuyingWebSites Blog

FREE tattoo ideas and tattoo designs: Tattoos Designs

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.OneMillionIncome.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

If you currently have a Home Based Business which you are looking to build on the internet then you will know that one very crucial element to take your Home Based Business to the level where it allows you to earn extra income is driving traffic to your website. When it comes to driving traffic to your website there are many methods which you can employ however what you will find is that most of them are very much short term therefore you need to keep repeating them daily however you will never see any long term benefit from them.

So the question is what Traffic Generation Strategies will produce a long term benefit from you?

The answer to the above question is Blogging, ever since I started out on the internet full time just over 9 years ago blogging was a massively great way to get FREE traffic to your website both short term along with long term and believe it or not Blogging is even better now for getting FREE traffic to your website. One of the main problems I have noticed internet marketing entrepreneurs coming up against when looking to use Blogging to get FREE traffic to their website is quite simply they either dont know what to write onto their blog or they quite simply do not know how.

Which brings forward the question of what you need to do now in order to use Blogging?

Posting updates onto your blog will always be crucial in order to get the FREE traffic for your home based business that you are looking for in order to earn extra income however that alone does not mean you have to write the updates does it?

Below I have listed several things that other people producing massive results with Blogging do.

Alot of internet marketing entrepreneurs who have an issue writing to their blog hire a Ghostwriter to do it for them.

Some people who can’t afford a Ghostwriter then look for people throughout the world who want experience of writing and then get it done for FREE.

The remainder of Home Based Business owners research the subject of their articles to gain the information needed to write to their blog.

One of the important things you must remember when it comes to writing articles onto your Home Based Business blog is if you are experiencing difficult that will most likely be because you are short of knowledge in the subject you wish to write about. The only real answer to this is either have someone do it for you and post to your blog or research the subject in full then take time to put your article together for your blog.

Whilst many people know what I am about to say there is still alot of people who dont therefore let me tell you that the purpose of updating your blog is because the search engines such as Google will then index your blog for relevant keywords targetted to the articles you have on your blog.

In finishing to this article there is a few methods in which you can employ to bring further FREE traffic to your Home Based Business blog therefore allowing you to earn extra income even more.

Visit other people’s blog’s which are based upon the same Niche Market as your blog and leave comments regarding the articles posted on their blog which will then product traffic along with backlinks to your blog.

Placing Google Adsense or affiliate links to various Clickbank products onto your blog can also let you earn extra income due to everytime someone clicks on the Google Adsense ads you will earn money and of course if people clickthrough to the clickbank products and purchase you will also earn money.

Well that is me for now so I will wish you the very best of luck with your Blogging for your Home Based Business and may you earn extra income everyday with your blog.

Should you want to learn even more information to show you how to earn a very substantial Internet Income then I highly reccomend you check out Decide Your Income which is a DVD Training Set exposing every secret you would ever need to know and more.

You can find Decide Your Income at http://www.DecideYourIncome.eu

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.OneMillionIncome.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1

Everyday on the internet people worldwide are always coming up with a great idea for a new web site and then of course many of them make the decision to action this great idea for a new web site. So what happens now is they start to come up with ideas for their new domain name however the obstacles many end up facing is that new domain name is usually already taken. Therefore when you do finally find a domain name that has not already been taken you are so enthusiastic that you snap it up without thinking that you have not build the web site as of yet.

However most likely you will not realise that you have a problem quite simply because once you have registered your new domain name your web hosting company will then put into place a domain name parked page which will disappear when you have built your new web site. When it comes to parked domain name pages I am sure you will have seen many of them around when surfing the internet visiting web pages especially ones hosted with GoDaddy as these are coming for having parked domain name pages.

What you have to remember in your mind is that you are planning to use your new domain name to build your new web site onto it which means you should beware of setting up a parked domain name page.

When the search engines such as Google crawl around the internet they tend to find out about your new domain name and new web site very fast which means when they crawl onto your new web site they will see your parked domain name page. At this point the search engine quite possibly Google will realise that they have hundreds of these parked domain pages in their index therefore they will hold your parked domain name page will very little priority meaning they will not crawl your web site for quite some time.

However when your new web site is live on the internet if you are like everyone else with a web site you will want the search engines especially Google to crawl your web site in order to give it good search engine rankings bringing FREE traffic to your web site but at this point search engines and Google will no longer crawl your web site once they have seen the parked domain page. Therefore the only way now will be hard work to bring the search engines and Google back to your web site now your parked domain name page is gone.

When it comes to getting Google interested in your web site after they have seen your parked domain name page that used to be there it can become extremely difficult.

Of course you also need to remember that you do not want Google to place your website into their Google Sandbox with alot of the other new sites awaiting entry into the Google Index therefore I would not place a parked domain name page on your new website but instead simply avoid anything untill your web site is ready.

Regards Always

Mark McCulloch

http://www.OneMillionIncome.com – mark@markmcculloch.com

Internet Marketer and Entrepreneur, Committed to creating success

(UK) 07875 647 867 (Call Me Anytime), Skype – mark.mcculloch1