Smart advertising |e-commerce

Archive for July, 2009

How To Write How-to Articles

Learn how to write “how to” articles and it is easy to promote your website. They are one of the most popular types of articles online. Some people will read articles just for entertainment or to learn general information but everyone wants to know how to do something.

Before you start cranking out those “how to” articles though you need to know a basic principle and a few tricks. First an online article is not the same as an article in a print magazine. In the print world the writer is paid to be purely informative and entertaining. Online articles are informative as well but since you give them away they have little value to you unless they get readers to come to your website.

Keep that important principle in mind. Make sure you know how to create a good “authors resource box” that will motivate the reader to click on that link and visit your website. You also have to get the reader to read that far which you can do by using the first tip below. Since it’s ontopic and relevant to this article I can simply tell you that you’re going to like what you see in my own resource box below. That’s an example of using curiosity to “hook” the reader.

HowTo Articles Three Tips

1. Tell the reader almost everything she needs to know. Almost but not everything. The point here is to give real value but leave her wanting more. This keeps her reading to see what else there is and finally it get’s her to look at the author information at the end of the article where hopefully she clicks through to your website to learn more.

It is easy to use this technique. For example two paragraphs ago I mentioned that you need to know how to create a good “authors resource box” to make a reader into a visitor. Of course how to do that isn’t covered in this article so the curious reader will hopefully click through to my site to learn how. Another way to do this is to have six tips on how to do whatever and then mention in the resource box that there are ten more tips on your website.

2. If you sell products mention them relevantly. You can’t use an article as a sales pitch but what if the things you sell are relevant to your article? Mention them specifically but don’t mention in the article that you sell them. Keep that to the resource box.

For example suppose you sell scrapbook materials and your article is on how to create the perfect scrapbook. Go ahead and mention the specific materials and even the brands you recommend. The reader will wonder where he can get these things and in the author’s resource box he’ll see that you sell them on your website. There is nothing wrong with this technique. A woman who reads an article on “How To Tie Fishing Flies” also wants to know the best materials and where to buy them.

3. Have something new to say. You are telling the reader how to do something but so are many others. Try to have your own unique angle or a “special” tip that isn’t found in other writings on the subject. You want the reader to know that you are the expert and your website is the one to visit.

About the writer:  Copyright Steve Gillman. For more on How To Write Articles including that allimportant resource box and to get a free ebook visit: http://www.999articles.com

Basic Ecommerce Of Doing Business Online

Ecommerce is a big thing these days and anyone wanting to get into earning money online needs to know a bit about this popular topic. Ecommerce is basically online business whether selling a product or service on the internet if you are earning money online you are involved in ecommerce. This article will explain a bit more about the basics of this emerging phenomenon.

Starting an online business is not that different from starting an offline one. The concept is much the same in that you still need to have a product to promote customers to buy it and a way to reach those customers. The process is similar to starting an offline business you will need a business plan and funding although ecommerce can be cheaper than the traditional storefront.

Choosing a product is the first step in beginning an ecommerce venture. This can be absolutely anything under the sun from consumer electronics to bathing suits from ebooks and ereports. Whether you decide to sell information products that are available online for download or physical real world products that can be shipped to the customer is up to you and your budget.

Information products are ideal for ecommerce because they require very little investment if any. If you can write you can create an information product and make it available for download without any cost whatsoever. Physical products are a little more difficult since you need to have them on hand to be able to ship to the customer when an order comes in and this requires maintaining an inventory.

The most common way to reach your ecommerce customers is through the use of a website or estore so you will either need to have someone build your ecommerce site for you or learn how to do it yourself. The advantages of having a website over a realworld storefront are many but the first is cost. You can find extremely cheap website hosting and a domain name can be had for less than ten dollars making ecommerce extremely affordable.

There are many resources online if you are willing to take the time to learn how to build your own website and you can save a lot of money this way. However it is often more efficient to hire an expert to create the site that you want or to use a template predesigned for ecommerce use. Many web hosts offer premade templates.

Last you need to be able to bring in customers. This can be done through advertising article marketing and by providing quality products and information that encourage people to tell their friends about you. If your ecommerce idea and product is good enough you will even have other webmasters linking to you which can really boost sales!

Ecommerce is a great way to get into sales but you do need to do some research ahead of time. Decide what you want to sell and research the market for it then build a website and start advertising. There is quite a bit of competition in ecommerce but you can get into it for such a low price that it is well worth the effort.

About the writer:  I’ve been in business and a business coach since 1990 my expertise is in marketing and sales both off line and online. I’ve partnered with David Vallieres to bring you an online course called Think and Succeed Training. For more information go to our site: http://www.courseinternetmarketing.com

Way To Increase Traffic To Your Affiliate Marketing

While many techniques exist to promote affiliate marketing programs it is simple websites that are normally the most productive. Selling other companies products online using affiliate marketing is a fantastic way to make sales and earn money. Other than a small or large website often just one page is all that is required as long as it is designed for the product in question. Many people like this because they can pick and choose which product they want to sell.

At this point you may not have a good idea what it is you want to sell but this is not as difficult as it seems. Each company has a terms and conditions page for their affiliates which you should always check before you start selling for them. If you are taking your business seriously then this is something you would do in the ordinary world so do not be fooled by the ease with which the virtual world appears to work. There are a number of programs that will only pay people if they live in America and can provide their tax id number.

Be wary of affiliate programs that pay less than fifty percent commission unless you can guarantee a high turnover. A good place to look for products is Click Bank. Almost all reputable affiliate programs will allow you to join them at no charge not even an admin fee so be very careful handing over money to any company that says you need to pay them any type of registration fee. As far as payments are concerned for more details visit to www.moneysecretexposed.com stick with companies you know you can trust; Clickbank and Paypal are two such companies with good reputations. There is no reason why you cannot use other companies though but it might pay to wait until you become more experienced at affiliate marketing.

To find ebooks and other sites that can help with your marketing affiliate products business just do a search online you will be surprised just how much information is out there. Many of the free ebooks contain web links to buy products that the author receives an affiliate commission on but you do not have to click on these and it does not mean the information is of little worth. When you get involved you may chose this route also to affiliate marketing.

Of course the way to increase traffic to your affiliate marketing project is to use many forms of advertising because people can miss your online efforts if you don’t direct them to your site. Hopefully after driving traffic to your website a certain percentage of people will place an order. Just about every affiliate marketer needs to know what advertising methods they are using to provide traffic is working for more details visit to www.affiliatemanagerpro.com so they use tracking techniques to discover what is working and what is not. There is a great deal of money to be made with affiliate marketing because you are not restricted to just one product or company. While the Internet is full of information to help you you are warned that some of it may be incorrect inapplicable and out of date.

About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;www.myspacemarketingsecret.com

www.ppcprofitmarketer.com