How will your product or services be priced?

Although pricing your product or service may seem like simple task, it is a little more difficult than you may realize.

If you price your product too low, it may be perceived as a poor quality product.

Remember the old saying, "You get what you pay for?"

A higher price is naturally perceived as a better quality product.

However, if you price it too high, your product may not measure up.

Make sure you take your time and select your selling price very carefully.

Visit your competitor sites and see how they're pricing their products.

Test different prices to determine the best price for your product.

How will your product or services be delivered? I

f you're selling a tangible or physical product, what shipping options will you offer?

What shipping prices will you charge?

Will you charge higher shipping rates for orders outside your country?

If you're selling an information product (i.e. an ebookor software), will you have security measures in place?

Will your product be password protected?

How will your customers retrieve your product?

Will your product delivery be automated or manual?

Developing an Internet business plan will provide you with a road map to achieving your dreams.

Plan each step very carefully and fully research your options.

Plan your work then work your plan and you'll be well on your way to achieving your goals.

However, it is only the first step.

Before you begin the actual design process, you must first determine your overall strategy and design your website accordingly.

Internet marketers have basically two choices:

1. Design a content website that includes not only your products and services, but also information and resources that will be of interest to your target market.

2. Design a mini website that focuses on just one product or service, with no other content of any kind.

Although both types of sites can be effective, your success will ultimately depend on your site design and marketing strategies -- both will play a very important role.

Content oriented sites are sites that provide visitors with content such as articles, tutorials, free ebooks and resources.

This type of site attracts their target audience with incentives.

Their products and services are mentioned on the main page with a link to further information.

Content sites usually profit by educating their visitors.

For example, a content site selling pet supplies might provide a basic tutorial to assist their visitors in learning how to groom a dog.

They provide this tutorial completely free; however, the main purpose for this tutorials to educate their visitors.

And in turn, plug their products.

When you provide your visitors with quality information that teaches and informs, you are not only gaining their trust in you by sharing your expertise, but you're also building your credibility, which is very important on the Internet.

 Once you've gained your visitors' trust, they will be much more apt to purchase your products or services.

However, above all else, you must never abuse their trust in you.

You must be completely honest with your visitors and have a sincere desire to assist them.

If your sole purpose in developing your own Internet business is for financial gain, your chance of success will be minimal.

The key to using this technique effectively is to provide content that targets your potential customer.

This content is used to pre-sell your visitors through education.

Mini-sites are different from content sites, as they don't provide any content.

They usually contain one or two pages and completely focus on one product or service.

Basically, the site is just a sales letter for the product.

A mini-site should be neatly designed in standard HTML with no Flash or fancy plug-ins and very few graphics.

There should be no banners or outside links of any kind -- nothing that will distract your visitors' attention.

The sole purpose of a mini-site is to attract highly targeted traffic.

The more targeted the better.

For example, if you have a website that sells a number of products, a good mini-site would focus on one specific product instead of all of the products.

You could create a mini-site for each product you offer.

 No matter which type of site you design, keep in mind, your website is a direct reflection of you and your business.

The appearance of your website is the most important factor in determining your website's value.

If your site doesn't look professional or pleasing to the eyes at first glance, its perceived value will be low.

The perceived value of your website will have a great impact on your success.

 Not only must your website have a professional appearance, but it must also be specifically designed to sell.

Everything within your website should have one specific purpose -- getting your visitors to take action.

Every part of your website must be strategically designed.

From your overall design to your sales copy --each will play a very important role.

Your website is the most important sales tool you have.

A professional website should possess all of the following

:• Professional Appearance

• Professional Looking Graphics

• Quality Products/Services

• Effective Sales Copy

• Easy Ordering Process

• Automated, Personalized Thank You Letters

• Customer Database

• Personalized Follow-up Letters

• Opt-in List

• Well Organized

• Easy to Navigate

• Load Quickly

• Search Engine Optimized. 

Take your time and do your homework prior to designing your website.

Look at the entire picture and plan each step very carefully.

Your website is the storefront of your business.

If you're designing a mini-site, your website should focus on one particular product.

However, content sites are a bit different.

If you' re developing a content site, your site should focus on a subject on which you have a great deal of knowledge and of course, should relate to the products or services you'll be promoting.

The first step in establishing a credible Internet business, is to invest in a domain name.

This will instantly convey to your visitors that you take your business very seriously.

Websites hosted on free servers are not taken seriously and will suffer a serious loss of business.

Your visitors may feel that if you don't have your own domain, you may not be a credible company.

They'll simply take their business elsewhere.

You will need to spend a little time choosing your domain name as many of the best names have already been taken.

Stick with a name ending in ".com" if possible and try to keep the name fairly generic in case your business develops in an unexpected direction.

The easiest way to get a domain name is to order it at the same time as your hosting (from the same company).

Choosing Your Web Hosting Company. 

There's lots of web hosting companies around, varying in price from $5 to $25 per month.

It's essential to choose a quality web hosting company that provides all the technical resources you may need in future (such as PHP, CGI and SQL), provides lots of bandwidth to allow your business to expand without incurring additional hosting costs, provides sufficient online storage space for all your future requirements and provides highly reliable service with rapid customer response in case of problems.

The hosting company I selected offers probably the best range of features, bandwidth and storage available online, coupled with excellent reliability and customer support.

Click here for my recommended hosting service:

Using A Web Template

If you want to be taken seriously, you must have a professional looking web site.

 An unprofessional web design will instantly lose credibility, costing you visitors and sales.

Unless you are a natural designer, the easiest solution is to take a web design already created by a professional web designer and alter it to fit your requirements.

Many professional designers create special "web templates" which they sell for use in this way.

If you use ThirdSphereHosting it's all included with your hosting account.

Designing Your Site

When you begin designing your site, your top priority must be your products.

If your potential customers can't find your products, you're not going to make any sales.

It's that simple.

Every part of your website should have one specific purpose -- to lead your potential customers to your products.

For example, if you will be providing your visitors with tutorials, these tutorials should relate to your products or services.

They should identify a problem, provide instruction to assist your visitors, and promote your products as the solution.

If you use ThirdSphereHosting it's all included with your hosting account.

Your Storefront. 

The main page of your website is your storefront.

It should load quickly and provide your visitors with a complete overview of everything your website offers.

Instead of trying to cram all of your information into your main page, consider creating sections.

These sections can contain highlights of your information with a link to further information.

You can divide your page into sections by using tables.

These tables can contain colored heading sections for information such as news, articles, products or whatever you'd like.

 It's much better to keep your main page down to the most essential elements.

 You can then use links to additional pages to provide the detailed information.

 A good rule of thumb is "less is more."

In other words, keep your main page as small as possible, while at the same time, include your most important elements.

Load Time. 

According to two surveys conducted by Forrester Research and Gartner Group, ecommerce sites are losing $1.1 to $1.3billion in revenue each year due to customer click-away caused by slow loading websites.

The main page of your website should load within 8 seconds or less with a 56K modem.

There are many things that can cause a web page to load slowly including:

* Large graphics

* Too many graphics

* Animated graphics

* Too many banners

* Special Effects

* Large pages.

Optimization

You can significantly decrease your site's load time simply by optimizing your graphics.

This process will decrease your graphic's file size without sacrificing the graphic's quality.

You can optimize your images right online. Completely on-line -- nothing to download or install. Better yet, it's ABSOLUTELY FREE -- no prepaid tokens or subscriptions.

http://www.gifworks.com/image_editor.html

Pixia 3.3 Free It is a great drawing and image editing software but totally free. It supports unlimited layers, 10240*10240 pixels layout, effect plug-ins (also accept Photoshop's plug-ins), undo 100 times. Also can working with your TWAIN devices (eg. Scanner or Digital Camera and Digitizer.

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Photobie 4.4 is a free image editing software with multiplayer support. Photobie includes many embedded filters and supports many Photoshop filter (.8bf) plug-ins. Photobie featured with advanced screen capture tools; It can create/edit high quality gif animation with/without transparency. Photobie is full feature packed, which enables you to create eye-catching images and animations. Image directory browser feature allows you to open as many image directories and browse them in a simple fast way, and it also provides batch resize/rotate tools. Photobie can generate high quality PDF file. Photobie integrates most useful features which are essential for you to finish daily photo editing work within one environment. Photobie is also a perfect digital scrapbooking tool, which added embellishment to your photo easily. Version 4.4 adds Photobie Design Template support and Layer Mask support.

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36-Image Converter 4.2.2.87  

36-image converter is an image converter that can batch convert: jpg, bmp, gif, and many others to png, tiff, icon, bmp, gif, jpg, psd, pcx, raw, sct, cut, ras, clp, pict, mac, jp2, tub, img, ncr, rle, xwd, pii, iff, call, ppm, emf, res, psp, fpx, tga, msp, rgb, lbm, pgm, .psp, .pcd, .tif, .icb, .jfif and sgi. You can resize, rotate, lighten, darken, blur, sharpen, set transparency, move, use special effects, merge, use a filter or picture-frame on any image, you can use a central-focus effect on the image to make spectacular action pictures or merge images with other pictures, backgrounds, colors and masks to create beautiful scenes. This image editor and converter can be used as alternative for expensive applications like photoshop or paint shop pro. All actions can be redone by using the history function. With an automatic update panel to update 36IC in no time. Works on all windows including windows Vista and is available in English, French and Dutch.

Enhancing Your Site

For example, if you can use the same small images such as bullets or arrows, it will give the illusion that you're using a lot of graphics.

However, your graphic will only have to load one time.

This will enable you to "recycle" your images to keep your page's load time down, while at the same time, enhancing your site's appearance.

In addition, you can enhance your site by using tables with colored backgrounds instead of images.

If an image doesn't enhance your page in some way, you'll be better off to just leave it out.

Tables

If you'd like to set up your web page using tables, try to place your Heading text above your table code.

If this isn't possible, make sure you include your most relevant keyword phrase within your top left table cell.

This will assist you in ranking higher in the Search Engines.

Screen Resolutions

When designing your site, keep in mind, your visitors will have many different screen resolutions.

The resolution of a monitor refers to the total number of pixels.

The higher the resolution, the greater the number of pixels.

Higher resolutions present higher quality images.

To accommodate the majority of your visitors, use a standard screen resolution of 800x600 pixels.

Colors

Although there are an unlimited number of background and text colors you could use for your web page, a white background with black text will be your best option.

You must be very cautious when selecting alternative background and text colors.

Reading on a computer screen is much more difficult than paper.

You must make your web page as easy to read as possible.

Web Browsers

Before you begin the actual design process, I highly recommend that you download and install two web browsers --Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator.

These are the two most widely used browsers on the Internet.

Why download and install both browsers?

So you can view your pages through both browsers, as they are not created equally.

Your page might look great when viewed through Internet Explorer, but may not display well when viewed through Navigator.

Internet Explorer http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp

Netscape Navigator http://home.netscape.com/computing/download/index.html

 It is very important that you take the time to designyour web pages to accommodate both browsers.

In addition, you can also visit www.anybrowser.com to view how your site will look through different browsers and screen resolutions.

 http://www.anybrowser.com

Your products should be displayed above the fold of your webpage.

This is the top portion of your web page that is visible when your page is first loaded, without scrolling.

This is the most important part of your entire page -- use it wisely.

Take your time and plan your website very carefully.

There is much more to web design than meets the eye.

Do your homework and learn how to design a website that sells.

If you're not accepting online payments and processing orders online, you're losing a massive amount of business.

Studies have shown, you can increase your online sales up to 400% simply by accepting credit cards.

In addition, by offering a combination of payment options, you can increase your sales even further.

With today's advanced technology, you can start accepting payment through your website almost instantly (depending on the service you select).

Preparing your website to process orders can be as simple as pasting some HTML code into your web page.

There are many professional companies online that will enable you to accept payment through your website without a merchant account.

These companies are known as third party payment processing companies and provide an invaluable service for home based businesses.

Most companies will enable you to accept all major credit cards and electronic checks.

Some companies will also provide telephone billing and recurring billing for paid subscription and membership sites.

There may or may not be a set up fee and there are usually no monthly fees.

 Some companies charge a "percentage" and a "per transaction" fee.

While others simply charge a set percentage fee per transaction.

They will process your orders and send you payment for all your orders processed, minus their fee and a reserve fee.

A reserve fee is withheld to cover any charge backs (refunds) you may have.

If you have no charge backs within a period of time, your reserve will be refunded to you.

Each company has their own guidelines in regard to reserves.

Once you've applied with a company and/or have been approved and paid the setup fees, you can immediately begin accepting payment.

You will then be provided with special coding to place within the HTML of your order page.

When your customer clicks on your order link or image, they will be taken to the processor's secure server to process their purchase.

Once their order has been processed, they will then be directed back to a page on your website that you specify.

This page may be a download page, or even a " complete your purchase" page that you can use to collect your customers' name and email address and then direct them to your download page.

Once your customer places an order, you will instantly receive an email notification letting you know that you've made a sale.

Your account will be instantly credited, minus the company fee, and you will be paid according to the company's payment schedule.

Third party processing companies are great for startup businesses, as if you don't make any sales, you won't be charged a fee.

You are only charged a fee when and if you make a sale.

The following third party processing companies will enable you to accept payment through your website.

A summary of charges is included for each company, but please note that while these details were correct at the time of writing, you should check the latest figures with the relevant web site.

PayPal (owned by Ebay) is the Internet's largest payment service and the cheapest way to start accepting payments on your website.

PayPal enables any business or consumer with an email address to securely send and receive payments online.

You can also accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover and electronic checks.

You can sell with PayPal through an online auction, on your own website, or as part of an online marketplace.

They also offer recurring billing.

There are no setup fees.

They charge 2.9% + 30¢ per transaction.

Services are available for both US based and non-US based merchants.

ClickBank will enable you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover, Eurocard, Visa-Debit, MasterCard-Debit, Novus cards and electronic checks.

They charge a one-time $49.95 activation fee, and a $1 + 7.5% fee per sale.

 There are no monthly fees.

The great thing about this company is that they'll enable you to run an affiliate program.

2Checkout.com http://www.2checkout.com/

2Checkout.com enables you to accept Visa, MasterCard, American Express and Discover.

They also offer recurring billing and a free shopping cart.

There is a $49 set up fee.

There are no monthly fees.

They charge 5.5% + $0.45 fee per sale.

Services available for US and non-US merchants.

Accepting payment through your website is an essential part of your online success.

Don't put it off another day.

Take your time and select a company that will best suit your needs.

It will be well worth your effort.

Although there will always be daily tasks that you must handle personally, there are a number of your daily tasks that you can automate or at least partially automate.

For example, if you're receiving the same basic support requests or questions over and over again, you can create a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page for your website and/or products.

FAQ

Your page should include a list of commonly asked questions and provide the answers for each.

They are also known as mailbots, automatic email and email on demand.

They are designed to automatically send an email in response to a request.

Your visitors can trigger your autoresponder either by sending an email to a special email address, or by entering their details into a form on your web site.

You can automate lots of things with an autoresponder, including all the following:

Articles

If you're writing articles to promote your business, you can place them within an autoresponder.

This will enable your visitors to quickly and easily retrieve your articles on demand.

Ad Rates

If you're selling any type of advertising space, you can place your ad rates within an autoresponder to enable your visitors to request them at any time.

Business Opportunities

If you're promoting a business opportunity, you can provide your potential customers with further information via autoresponder.

Free Courses

In addition to the standard autoresponder systems, which send a single email message, there are also Autoresponders that can send an unlimited number of follow-up messages.

These follow-up messages can be set up to automatically be sent out at predetermined intervals.

In other words, you can set up your autoresponder to automatically send out a new message each day for as many days as you would like.

It can take up to seven contacts with a potential customer before closing a sale.

 By setting up an autoresponder and offering a free course, you can completely automate a portion of your marketing efforts.

The examples above can be set up with any of the following autoresponder services:

GetResponse

SendFree http://www.sendfree.com/affref/105935/

These services can also be used to operate your own mailing list or newsletter.

Some of these services offer a free option, so you get set up without additional cost.

I recommend upgrading to the paid for version as soon as possible though, as this will avoid other people's adverts being included in your mailings.

Automating portions of your Internet business is an essential part of your success.

Not only will it lighten your workload, but it will also free up valuable time.

An important part of building a successful Internet business, is developing your credibility.

Although the Internet has opened a whole New World of opportunity for all of us, it has also created a breeding ground for scam artists.

Internet users are very reluctant to order online and share their personal information.

For this reason, you must take every opportunity to build your credibility.

 Contact Information

It is very important that you provide your visitors with your complete contact information.

This information should include your "real" postal address and not a Post Office box number.

A business that hides behind a PO box loses credibility.

It's perfectly acceptable to use a PO box as long as you also include your postal address.

A great way to display your information is to create an "About" page.

Your "About" page should include all of the following:

• A personal or professional biography

• A photograph of yourself

 • A complete description of you and/or your company

• Your website and/or company objectives

 • Your name, address, phone number and email address

An "About" page is a very important part of building your credibility -- especially if you're selling a product or service.

You must do everything in your power to put your potential customers' mind at ease.

Privacy Statement

A credible business should let their visitors know exactly what their policies are in regard to the personal information they collect.

A great way to disclose your policies is to create a "Privacy" page.

Your "Privacy" page should include all of the following that apply:

• How do you plan on using your visitors' information?

• Is your visitors' information sold or shared with anyone?

• Why do you collect email addresses and how are they used?

• Do you track your visitors' IP address and if so, why?

• Let your visitors know that you're not responsible for the privacy issues of any outside websites you link to.

• Do you run contests and what do you do with the information that you gather?

• Do you have a discussion forum or message board? Let your visitors know that any information that is disclosed in these areas becomes public information.

 • Do you have security measures in place to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under your control? If so, let your visitors know.

• Let visitors know how they can opt out of mailing lists.

• Provide your visitors with your contact information, should they have any questions on your privacy policies.

Testimonials

A great way to convey your credibility to your potential customers is to display customer testimonials.

Your testimonials should include your customers' name and web address.

In addition, try to avoid using testimonials that you have to ask for.

For example, instead of using a testimonial like this: "John is a great web designer and I have been very happy with his services."

Display unsolicited testimonials like this: "John, your web design services are absolutely fantastic!

My sales increased 200% the first day! Thank you so much for providing such an exceptional service. "

Can you see the difference?

The second testimonial is much more believable and will have a much greater impact on your potential customers.

Make sure you always ask permission to use your customers' words prior to displaying their testimonial.

You can find a nice script that will rotate your testimonials each day here:

 http://willmaster.com/master/daily content/index.shtml

Money Back Guarantee

Provide them with a solid, no risk, money back guarantee.

This will not only build your credibility and put their mind at ease, but it will also build their confidence in you and your product.

In addition, you must honor ALL refund requests in a timely manner with complete professionalism.

No matter what you're selling or how great your product is, you will receive refund requests.

It's just a part of doing business.

Don't take it personally or try to argue the point with your customers -- simply give them a refund.

You may be surprised to learn that the customers who ask for a refund may purchase other products from you in the future.

Feedback

Many times, your potential customers will have questions in regard to your products and services.

To further build your credibility, provide your potential customers with an easy way to contact you.

Create a page on your website called "contact" or "feedback".

You may want to place a form on this page to enable your visitors to contact you or simply provide your email address in the form of a "mailto" link.

It is very important that you answer any questions you may receive as quickly as possible.

Your personal response to your potential customers can literally determine whether or not you're going to make a sale.

A feedback form will also enable you to gather testimonials and receive suggestions to assist you in improving your website, products or services.

Secure Server

If you're processing your customers' orders yourself instead of a processing company such as Paypal or Clickbank, you will need to place your order form on a secure server.

This will protect your customers' personal information and provide them with added confidence in placing an order with you.

In addition, make sure you let your visitors know that their information will be processed on a secure server.

Share Your Expertise

Another great way to develop your credibility is to share your expertise.

You can do this in a number of ways including:

• Writing Articles

• Providing Free Tutorials

• Offering Free Courses

• Writing Reports

• Distributing Free Ebooks

• Publishing an Ezine.

Sharing your expertise will enable you to promote yourself as an expert in your field.

Not only will it assist your potential customers, but it will also develop your credibility.

By taking the time to build your credibility with your potential customers, you will increase your Internet sales considerably.

You probably will not want to write scripts yourself unless you have a technical background, but understanding the basic concepts will help you maximize the potential of the many powerful scripts available on the Internet.

Javascript

Javascript is a scripting language designed for use within a web page.

Javascript is executed by your visitor's browser when the browser opens the page concerned.

This means that your visitors ability to correctly run Javascripts on your site depends upon the browser they are using.

Fortunately almost everyone online now has full JavaScript capability, so this is much less of a concern than it used to be.

It is still however worth remembering that occasionally you may get visitors without JavaScript capability, and you should allow for them where possible by ensuring that your pages are still at least readable without Javascript.

Javascript is often used to create special effects within a web page.

Elements such as links, images and forms can be manipulated using this powerful technology.

It can also be used to automatically capture email addresses, add count-down timers and other mechanisms to boost customer response rates, add "bookmark your site" features, create popups and much more.

Although it is possible to write Javascript from scratch, it is generally much more complex than creating HTML.

There are however lots of ready made scripts and script generation tools available which will build script for you.

You then simply paste the script directly into your web pages wherever you want the effect or feature to appear.

Server Side Scripts

Server side scripts are very different to Javascripts.

They run on your web server and are not reliant on your visitors' browsers.

 Server side scripts are able to perform much more complex tasks than Javascripts.

Server side scripts are normally ready made to perform a specific task, and are installed complete into their own folder on your web site.

Example scripts include search engines, forums, shopping cart systems, autoresponders, adtracking systems and affiliate management systems.

The majority of scripts are either Perl (also referred to as CGI) or PHP.

Perl has been around much longer than PHP, so there are more of them, but Perl scripts are generally slower and more difficult to install than PHP scripts.

Although many experienced webmasters pick up a little JavaScript knowledge as they go along, Perl and PHP tend to be exclusively used by programmers.

For most webmasters however, it is worth learning what scripts can do and possibly even how to set up and install them, in order to benefit from the huge range of powerful features they can add to your site.

For more information on server side scripts, visit

http://www.hotscripts.com

Many webmasters are aware of obvious threats from viruses and spam, but do not realize how much money they can lose to hackers and thieves every day.

The strength of the Internet lies in its easy accessibility, but unfortunately this can also be its greatest weakness.

One of the most common security issues is lost affiliate commissions through link chopping and commission theft.

Although almost all webmasters promote some form of affiliate program, most lose a significant proportion of their income, by failing to apply the simple security solution of hiding their affiliate links from web site visitors and ezine subscribers.

There's lots of other security issues relating to website design, too many to cover effectively in this short course.

PC Security

As well as securing your web site, an equally important and often overlooked issue is protecting your own PC. Viruses, trojans and spyware can infest your PC, steal business sensitive information, damage critical data and even damage your reputation by spreading through your site or emails to your visitor's computers.

The recommended free tools below will help eliminate the most serious threats.

I recommend you download and install them as soon as possible.

Protection From Viruses

Up to date anti-virus software is essential for anyone using the Internet.

Avast Virus Cleaner is a free tool that completely removes selected viruses and worms from your computer. It stops viruses that are active in memory, disinfects your files, removes virus registry and start-up items, and even deletes the virus-working files.Version 1.0.209 can handle virus families: Badtrans--Beagle (aka Bagle), (A-Z, AA-AH), Blaster (A-I), BugBear (A-I)--Ganda--Klez/Elkern, all variants--MiMail (A, C, E, I-N, Q, S-V)--Mydoom (variants A, B, D, F-N).

Download this software from Download Now

Note that if you had anti virus software installed on the PC when you bought it, but have not downloaded any updates, your software may be seriously out of date with the latest threats.

You should be able to download the latest update for the software already installed over the Internet (you may have to pay for this depending on which software it is).

Protection From Hackers

Your PC is also at risk from automated hacking attacks and trojans (which can take control of your PC and can broadcast your passwords).

You can protect your PC easily by installing a personal firewall, which will monitor all Internet traffic for you automatically.

Protection From Spyware

Spyware consists of various types of undesirable computer components which attempts to spy on your activities for commercial or illegal gain.

You pick up Spyware while browsing or when installing software, generally without knowing anything about it.

The most common type is data miners - cookies left on your PC while you are browsing which will identify your browsing history for use in targeted advertising.

Not harmful, but still undesirable.

If you have been be unlucky enough to have picked up one of the other types of Spyware, some of these can represent a more serious threat, potentially harvesting passwords or business critical data.

All Spyware is undesirable and best removed.

Ad-Aware is no ordinary anti-spyware, it is the original anti-spyware product, offered to consumers worldwide to protect their personal and home computers from malware attacks. And today, with over a quarter of a billion downloads, computer users put their trust in Ad-Aware more than any other anti-spyware software program.

Please take the time to install these security tools and to consider the security of your web site as soon as possible.

It may not seem a high priority, but a little time and effort spent now could save you a lot of heartache later.

Part 10 - Your Marketing Strategy

Your plan must include both short-term and long-term strategies in order to succeed.

Short-term marketing strategies are those that bring you a temporary boost in traffic.

Although these techniques are very important to your overall plan, they are only a temporary traffic source and must not be solely relied on.

Short-term marketing strategies include

• Purchasing advertising

• Bulletin Boards

• Search Engines

Long-term marketing strategies are those that bring you a steady stream of targeted traffic over time.

These strategies will continue to produce results even years down the road.

 Long-term marketing strategies include:

• Opt-in Lists

• Freebies

• Content

By creating and implementing a balanced marketing strategy, using both short-term and long-term strategies, you will drive a steady stream of targeted traffic to your website.

Creating a successful Internet presence involves much more than designing a great website or having the "perfect" product.

Listing your website with the Search Engines is your first step, however, you must not solely rely on the Search Engines to bring you traffic.

Search Engines

A significant amount of website traffic originates from the major Search Engines.

Most Internet users will go to a Search Engine, type in a keyword phrase and look through the top 10 - 20 results.

Most of the time, they'll find what they're looking for in the first 10 results.

Listing near the top and grabbing the attention of your target audience is the top priority.

Optimize your web pages to the best of your ability, but it is rarely worth spending too much time on this.

The top engines such as Google are becoming increasingly sophisticated at identifying quality content for themselves, and more efficient at penalizing sites which attempt to use tricks to improve their ranking.

Probably the single most important criteria for attaining a high position on the search engines is link popularity (the number and quality of links to your site).

 Visit www.google.com  for more details of how this is used to rank your site.

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For a complete overview of the Search Engines and optimization,

visit http://www.searchenginewatch.com.

Opt-in List

As soon as your website is up and running, you should immediately begin building an opt-in list.

An opt-in list is a list or database containing email addresses of individuals who have chosen to receive your email messages.

Your messages may be web site updates, product updates or an  sine.

They provide you with a direct line of communication with potential customers and enable you to promote your products or services.

Organizing Your Strategies

A good way to organize your promotions is to set up a web page, for your personal use, which will contain your complete strategy.

This page should be stored on your hard drive and not uploaded to your server.

Your page should contain four sections:

• Daily Promotions

• Weekly Promotions

• Monthly Promotions

• Miscellaneous Promotions

Each of these four sections should contain the appropriate information for each of your promotional resources such as website name, user ID, password (if applicable) and hyperlinked web addresses for each website you plan to use for your promotions.

This will enable you to open your web page each day and visit the sites you have listed.

Daily Promotions

Link Exchanges: Exchange links with websites similar to yours, but not in competition.

Discussion Boards: Visit some popular discussion boards and share your expertise.

Although you may not advertise on discussion boards, you can include your signature file with your post.

Weekly Promotions

Your weekly promotions should consist of placing adverts in other people's ezines.

There's lots of sites offering free adverts but you'll have a lot better response with paid for advertising.

Ezine advertising is one of the most important and difficult areas of online promotion.

Monthly Promotions

Your monthly promotions should include writing an article in the area of your expertise and promotional exchanges.

Writing Articles:

Writing articles that may be freely published with your bylines is one of the best promotional methods online.

Your article may be published in hundreds of ezines, on websites or even in magazines.

Promotional Exchanges:

Cross promoting is a powerful technique used by many Internet marketers to increase the exposure of their products, services or publications.

You simply decide what type of promotional exchange you would be interested in and contact fellow marketers to discuss an exchange.

The most effective technique used in cross promotions is recommendations.

By providing each other with a personal recommendation you can increase your response rates tremendously.

• Ezine Ad Swaps

• Subscription Exchanges

• Ezine Column Swaps

• Byline Exchanges

• Signature Exchanges

• Ebook Exchanges

• Private Web Rings

• Ride Alongs

• Upsells

• Free Bonuses

• Forum and List Moderation

Miscellaneous Promotions

Promoting your website offline is an often over looked way to increase your traffic.

Your web address should appear on all of the following

:• Business cards

• Letterhead

• Envelopes

• Receipts

• Invoices

• Sales letters

• Brochures

• Flyers

• Post cards

• Fax documents

• T-shirts

• Pens

• Pencils

• Mouse Pads

• Phone book listing

• Voice mail message

• Newspaper/magazine ads

• Vehicle

Track Your Promotions To Maximize Your Income

With so many different ways to promote your business, all vying for your time and your advertising budget, it's essential to test and track all your marketing efforts using some form of ad tracking system.

This will give you a clear indication of the level of response to each of your promotions and stop you wasting time and money on things which don't work.

It will also allow you to easily test the effectiveness of different wording for your adverts.

Conclusion

Although these promotional strategies are far from complete, they provide you with a basic overview to get you started.

Once you've implemented your promotional strategy and continuously work it each day, you'll be amazed with the results of your efforts.

Consistency will be the key to driving massive traffic to your site.

This is the final part of this short course.

I hope you found it useful.