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Archive for the ‘Useful Software or Tools’ Category

Why you have to use autoresponders

June 18th, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, List Building, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

My previous blog entry explained the advantage and necessity of having an autoresponder on your business website.

You’ll now know that they are a means of collecting names and email addresses in order to create a list or lists that you can then keep in contact with, and market to.

What I am going to go through today is what you can do with the names that you have collected, in order to make your business even more profitable than it currently is.

There are basically two ways of sending emails to your prospects and customers using an autoresponder; and these are called ‘broadcast’ and ‘follow-up’.

The broadcast option is a bit like sending a normal email. You write the email that you want to send – it may be about an upcoming event regarding your business, perhaps a sale or a promotion that you are looking to run.

You only have to write the message once and then it can be sent once to all the people subscribed to your list.You can then relax as the autoresponder sends the email as per your instructions. This is often the preferred method of sending email messages when you have to send time sensitive information like current promotions and upcoming events.

Send personalized messages

In the case of follow-up emails, you have to create one or a series of messages as a sequence within your autoresponder. You could have the messages programmed to be sent every day, every other day or once a week – its entirely up to you.

To make the message look more personal, you can include a few tags or variables in the autoresponder. One tag can be programmed to include the actual name of the person, and you could also use a tag for your signature too.

So the difference with a follow up message is that it is often pre-written, and more commonly it entails a series of emails rather than just one or two. This is designed to gain rapport with the people on your list so that they begin to see you as a trusted figure, and therefore they’ll be more inclined to do business with you.

How to use an autoresponder in your business

June 12th, 2009 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Traffic Generation, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

One of the perhaps the most important tools used in an internet-based business, whether it’s for a pure internet-only business, brick and mortar business or e-commerce site, is what is called an autoresponder.

An autoresponder is basically a piece of software that collects the contact details of prospects and website visitors for you. It also enables you to preload emails, newsletters and other communications so that you can keep in contact with the contacts that you have in your database.And if you have a special launch planned, a promotion on a particular product or a sale planned, then you can send an email to your entire list of prospects quickly and easily by using an autoresponder on your site.

There are several products on the market that are considered the best by many experts, names such as Aweber, Autoresponse Plus, Get Response and Email Aces to name but a few.

My personal favourite is Aweber, and you can visit their site here for more details. I use them because their service is easy to use, effective and renowned in the industry plus, you can track who opens the emails that you send and a host of other crucial data that is so very useful as a business owner.

Collecting names is SO important

To use an autoresponder to help you with your business, you need to have a little form on your home page that will help you capture names and email addresses from visitors. This is both very easy to do and extremely effective as a marketing tool.

The data that is collected in this form is automatically sent to the autoresponder, and so there is very little work for you to do, which is the beauty of this software.

The autoresponder then sends out a confirmation message (that you will have already pre-written) to visitors, welcoming them to your site and perhaps explaining a little bit about the business and how it could benefit your customers.

It is better to write your own message as it is more personal, and makes it more friendly and easier to be related to your website.

Although this sounds like quiet a basic thing to do (capturing the email addresses of prospective customers), do not underestimate how powerful this is, as most businesses I see do not even think of doing this.

Now that you have learned a little bit about the advantages of using an autoresponder in your online business, my next blog post will give you more details and elaborate a little more with some juicy tactics that you start using immediately.

5 Tips for protection from spyware

February 4th, 2009 | By Simon In Protect Your Business, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

All computer users are always on the attack of different forms of spyware and malware. These spyware and malware not only monitor and keep a track of all the sites that you visit, I have to tell you that it also captures passwords and other private, personal and security information you use on the internet.

This proves to be a security threat to you, but ironically, many a time we are the ones who actually invite spyware and malware into our computers. In fact, there are some programs that become useless when spyware and malware are removed from them.

Today, there are many antivirus protection software available on the market that help control spyware and malware on the computer. Use them in addition to these few tips to be free from spyware and malware.

1. One important tip is to be careful when downloading. Freeware and shareware programs have to be downloaded from reputable sites while music sharing sites have to be avoided.

2. When downloading any software, make sure you read the EULA; the End User License Agreement before downloading.This is a legal agreement that you make with the software vendor. If you agree to its terms before reading it thoroughly, you may end up agreeing to install spyware to your computer.

3. If you are sent attachments by unknown people, don’t open them. Open attachments that are sent by people you know as image files can carry malware in them.

4. Another tip to remember is not only to get antivirus or Spyware and Adware detection software, but also to scan the computer regularly.

5. And when using browsers, use Firefox or IE7 as they are safer when to other browsers. Make sure you let automatic Windows updates take place on your computer. This way you get the latest patches and security fixes installed as soon as possible in your computer.

Follow these tips for a protected system that also detects and removes malware that enters your system.

Keyword Research Is All Important

September 15th, 2008 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Traffic Generation, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

In terms of begining a new campaign for an existing business or a completely new project, keyword research is the starting point.

It is very important to at first, assess if your business is viable, and if your initial research shows that it may be, then you need to collate a list of keywords and phrases to target, that can drive traffic to your site.

I hope you had a chance to look at the Keyword Elite tutorials over the past week or so, if not you can see them here… and I really do recommend you take a look.

If you have had a chance to look at them, you’ll have seen just how powerful and useful a tool this is. The ability to research the volume of keywords that you can in such an easy and efficient way is so cool.

The ability to create adwords ads from within the Keyword Elite interface is also an excellent feature, saving lots of time and toggling.

But being able to spy on the top performing websites, whether for their paid ads or their organic listings, well that is something really awesome and well worth the ticket price alone in my opinion.

In summary, whether you are new to internet marketing or whether you’ve been in this game for a while, this tool is something else. The ability to research your keywords in such depth, detail and speed gives you a huge advantage over your competition, and whilst there are cheaper products on the market, there are probably none as effective and versatile.

Please contact me any questions as always, and I’ll be glad to help. I’ll be writing about my experience with auto-responders in the near future, so please stay tuned.

Keyword Elite Frees Up Your Time

September 8th, 2008 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Getting Started, Google Adwords, Pay Per Click, Traffic Generation, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

I mentioned last week that since I have been using Keyword Elite, I have had more time to concentrate on other important aspects of my business. This is a key point here, and time is something that you cannot get back and so its critically important that you use it to the max.

Today I’ll be explaining in a bit more detail as to how Keyword Elite works and why it is such a useful piece of sofware to have in your internet marketing tool box.

The starting point with Keyword Elite, is to identify a keyword that is relevant to the niche, product, service etc, that you intend to drive traffic to. So for example, you may want to sell widgets, so you would type “widgets” into the software and watch it go to work.

It will produce a keyword list of related terms and keywords enabling you to decide which you think are relevant and which are not. So for example, Keyword Elite may come up with “useful widgets” as a key phrase which you may decide is worth looking at. On the other hand, it may also come up with “free widgets” which you may decide is not right as you don’t want to target the word free.

The next section allows you to analyse not only the keywords that you’ve identified and assess which may provide you with more traffic, which that may be very competitive keywords and therefore to be avoided … But it also enables you to analyse your competition too!… it really is versatile, even allowing you to create and export adwords ads into your Google account… direct from Keyword Elite.

I thoroughly recommend you look at the tutorials, which you can find by clicking this link. I could go on and on but the tutorials are so good and explain everything that clearly, that this would be the best way to see the power of this software.

Keyword List Building – Where To Start ?

September 1st, 2008 | By Simon In Building Your Business, Pay Per Click, Traffic Generation, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

Whether you’re creating a complex e-commerce site, a content site or a simple landing page, a key element that you need to master is keyword and keyphrase list building.

This is something that alot of people often find difficult and time consuming, as there are potentially many avenues of research in the search engines that you can use.

I was speaking about this to my good friend Steve Campbell one day and he suggested I look at a tool that he had successfully been using for a little while. he highly recommended Keyword Elite, and went onto explain how much time it saved him in building keyword lists and campaigns, and that its many features would be very useful for what I was looking for.

Given that I know Steve pretty well, meant that I valued his opinion, so I went ahead and purchased Keyword Elite and as its an instant downloadable product, it meant that I could start playing with it immediately.

The product is very sophisticated in that it draws search data from the major search engines, enabling you to create keyword lists that could make it possible for you to generate lots of free traffic. The real key for me was, that it enables me to save lots of precious time I can use in other areas of my business.

This was the first piece of software of its kind that I had used, let alone purchased, however as it comes with a comprehensive manual and several video tutorials, I soon found my feet and was able to start using it.

I’ll be explaining about the various features of Keyword Elite in a future post, so stay tuned. In the meantime, if there are any questions that you’d like to me to answer, please drop me a line.

Social networking sites are considered to be internet marketing tools

June 24th, 2008 | By Simon In Useful Software or Tools, Web 2.0 | No Comments »

With the rise in the demand in online media, there has been a corresponding growth in the number of social networking sites. These sites have not only increased in size but have also increased in its number too.

Once upon a time, these social networking sites were used only as a platform for communication. This is why most of its members were young adults. However today, social networking sites have other benefits to the internet world, and one of them is with internet marketing.

Social networking sites are internet marketing platforms

Why I say that social networking sites help in internet marketing is because its consumers are mostly adults, and professionals, who have services, products and businesses that they want to offer to other interested people.

In fact, this is why its platform is not only used for communication purposes, but also in internet marketing. I say that this transformation of the use of social networking sites from communication to internet marketing a worthwhile swap as this enables a greater growth of the social sites and different businesses.

It is basically the large list of users found in different networking sites that has led to the growth of internet marketing through social networking sites. In addition to this, it is the features of these sites which are dynamic and have a wide reach that has induced internet marketing through social networking sites.

Blogs help in internet marketing

Moreover, social networking sites have blogs, discussion boards, forums, video and text chatting, content promotion and other services that have lead to the success of internet marketing. This is because it is thorough these blogs and discussion boards, that internet marketers can leave their links for other visitors to the blogs and boards to click on and visit.

In fact, if this liaison between social networking sites and internet marketing continues like this, one day, social networking sites will even be referred to as an internet marketing tool for all the online marketing help it carries out.

Search engine optimization techniques help improve social networking site rankings

Of course, I have to remind you that these social networking sites manage to work as internet marketing tools only because of the traditional marketing tips that have been used to bring these sites to their present position and search engine ranking.

What I mean to say that you still have to use search optimization techniques, exchange links and index these links in different sites to make a social networking site help in internet marketing. Once these tips are implemented in social networking sites, they prove to be as effective in internet marketing as any other internet marketing tool can be.

Want to learn more about internet marketing, following soon …….

Blog Hosting Websites: How to get More Bang For Your Buck

June 6th, 2008 | By Simon In Getting Started, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

The Internet is lined with thousands of blogging sites. Blogs are becoming a large market for content and information. A Blog or a ‘web log’ can be started by most anyone; so how do you find the best option for you?

Free Blogging Sites:

There are several free sites out on the World Wide Web, Blogger being one. Using Blogger, you can create a blog in literally seconds as it doesn’t require you to have hosting, however you do not technically own the blog, and the host (in this case Google) can shut your blog down in an instant if it wants to.

Many larger “open source” blog hosting sites like Wordpress and Movable Type often provide the best options. They do require you to have a host already in place, however it is very easy and I highly recommend it over a FREE Blogger type service, mainly because you actually own the blog.

3 ways to Spot a Good blog host:

Tip 1: Does the host have a large amount of options and widgets and is it easy to use? If the host can provide you with more options in set up, templates, and special features the site is generally a large and reputable one.

Tip 2: What are people saying about the site? If there is a lot of chatter about the blog host it generally means its a popular one. Check out forums or search via Google, Yahoo or MSN to see what’s being said about them – do your research.

Tip 3: Look at other people’s blogs… who do they use. This is a good indicator as to which services to use and which to avoid. I use Wordpress for all my blogs as its easy to set up, install and ultimately use, but there are plenty of options out there for you.

By following these tips you will be able to ensure that you create a blog quickly and easily. Go on, create a presence on the World Wide Web today!

Affiliate Marketing, Part 2

December 15th, 2007 | By Simon In Affiliate Marketing, Useful Software or Tools | No Comments »

In Part 1, we discussed the topic of affiliate marketing and how it is a good way to start in Internet Marketing, no matter what market(s) you’re interested in. In Part 2 we will talk about how to get into affiliate marketing and what to look for.

So, what does it take for you to become a successful affiliate marketer? What are the ingredients of an affiliate marketing success story? Is there a shortcut to affiliate marketing glory? All these questions play around in the minds of affiliate marketers who want to make it big in this business.

Although affiliate marketing is touted as one of the easiest and most effective ways to earn money online, it still requires that you put in some research, creativity and work. Below are what I believe to be the top three necessary tools for a successful affiliate marketing business.

Important Tool #1: You must have your own website

The most important tool to achieve success in affiliate marketing is to have your own website. By building a good, credible and professional looking website, with an autoresponder such as aweber to collect prospect’s names, you will have the foundation for creating an online business.

Your website is the jump off point of all your marketing efforts. Thus, you must first build a user-friendly website, which will appeal to your prospects and encourage them to click on the links to the products and service you are promoting and make a purchase.

One of the best places to look for products to promote is Clickbank, an excellent site where you can get commissions as high as 75% for selling ebooks on all manner of subjects. There are others too, such as Commission Junction and Affiliates4U so there is plenty of choice. They are typically free to sign up too.

Something crucial that you should consider is that almost all web users go online to look for information, not necessarily to go and buy something. Above all else, make your website full of original, relevant and useful content. People love articles that are appealing and helpful. Keep in mind that, on the internet, content is still king and good quality content will not only build your credibility, it can also help you achieve a higher search engine ranking. By posting relevant and useful articles, you establish yourself as a credible expert in the field, making you a more trustworthy endorser of the product or service you promote. Establishing a good reputation is a good step in building up a loyal consumer base.

Important Tool #2: Incentives

Competition is extremely tight in the internet world. You must always be one-step ahead of your rivals to ensure that you capture a significant share of your target market. Therefore, you must use every possible means to encourage people not only to visit your site but also to click and proceed to the websites of the products and services you are promoting. Building an opt-in email list is one of the best ways to gather prospects and this can be done by offering them a free newsletter or an e-zine. as a thank you for subscribing to your list. You can also present free softwares, access to exclusive services and other freebies that will be help to build your list of prospects.

Important Tool #3: Link Popularity

The importance of driving highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be emphasized enough. The all-important web traffic is at the top of the list of the most important entities in the internet world. Attracting people to your site should be the first step you should carry out. Do everything to achieve a high search engine ranking. Link Popularity is one of the factors that search engines use to determine search engine rankings. Therefore, to enhance your link popularity, you must launch an aggressive reciprocal link campaign.

One of the best ways to do this – at no cost at all – is by submitting articles, with your website’s link at the resource box, to e-zines and free article sites. We will cover the art of article writing in another thread, but its a very useful way to get links back to your site. You will not only gain exposure, but you will also have the opportunity to advertise for free, by simply including a link back to your site. The more sites you submit your articles to, the better your link popularity is. Make your articles original, relevant and useful so that more websites will pick it up and post it.

These are but three of the many tools that an affiliate marketer can use to maximize earning potential. The possibilities are endless and are limited only by your imagination, creativity, resourcefulness and determination. You can always explore other ideas and adapt other strategies, which you think might help you become a high rolling affiliate marketer.

Simon Paul Thurston