Author : Traci VanoverDon’t you just LOVE being in the know?

We all know that knowledge is power, and that if you want to position yourself as an expert, you need to have knowledge that people want

It isn’t enough to know that your second-cousin on your mom’s side is double jointed and should really be in the circus because outside of family reunions and reality television, when is that going to actually be useful?

That said, I’m going to share three helpful resources for identifying knowledge that is actually worth having, and better yet, worth creating lenses about

Of course there are more than three, but I didn’t want to overwhelm you

By focusing on just three resources, you are far more likely to take the additional step of actually checking them out (as opposed to simply scrawling them down on what is no doubt an ever-growing to-do list)

So, let’s just stick to these three for now

Resource #1: Tweet Scan
After Twitter search was disabled, folks were scrambling about looking for a way to quickly obtain information from Twitter Tweet Scan is one of several such directories, but it is the one that I use the most often

What Makes it a Great Resource:
On the Tweet Scan homepage is a tag cloud that creates a visual representation of the topics that are the “most tweeted” at that particular time The larger the type, the hotter the topic If you want more information on any particular tag, just click on it

It doesn’t get much easier that this - and there is plenty of potential to stumble upon blogs that offer feeds that you could utilize in your lens creation

Resource #2: Alexa
From Alexa’s website - “Founded in April 1996, Alexa Internet grew out of a vision of Web navigation that is intelligent and constantly improving with the participation of its users Along the way Alexa has developed an installed based of millions of toolbars, one of the largest Web crawls and an infrastructure to process and serve massive amounts of data ”

What Makes it a Great Resource:
By glancing at their homepage, you can quickly get a run-through of the top ten hot URL’s on the web at any given time Want more than ten? Click on the link at the bottom of the list

For those who like to get their information from RSS, you can quickly get a look at the top sites by country by subscribing to one of Alexa’s free feeds

Resource #3: Springwise
I love this site! It features cool, innovative business ideas from around the world Broken down into multiple categories, you can browse this site easily, and come up with literally DOZENS of lens ideas

What Makes it a Great Resource:
From their website, “Springwise and its network of 8,000 spotters scan the globe for smart new business ideas, delivering instant inspiration to entrepreneurial minds ” The site also has a Most Read quick list on the home page, for those who may be in a hurry While you are browsing the site, don’t forget to sign up to receive their weekly newsletter I would recommend this site for anyone who is interested in staying on the cutting edge of new business trends and ideas Traci Hayner Vanover, aka The Promo Diva(R), is a freelance writer, coach and consultant specializing in small businesses and startups. Drawing on over 20 years experience in marketing and promotion, Traci’s blog, http://www.PromoDiva.com, blends tips and resources with a healthy dose of humor.

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Author : Sean WhellerOn the 10 of March the daily headline on ITWeb was the article called “Crisis sparks e-marketing boom” This makes many marketers in an uncertain market ask a very good question: will e-marketing deliver results?

It has already been established that e-marketing, or in simple words marketing online, is cheaper in more ways than one, but is it worth it? The answer to this question is slightly more complicated than the marketing medium itself, though the medium has a big role to play in the results

When looking at e-marketing one cannot simply look at price That would be foolish because internet marketing itself, is not only about buying clicks and impressions on other websites It stretches much further than that

Firstly, any company that sells something, must ensure that whatever medium of advertising is used targets the audience required to make a sale There is no point in hard economic times to spend large budgets on any advertising that does not bring the return
Though on the internet, it is far easier to target the correct audience, it is just as easy to miss the correct audience

Hence the first thing to look at when considering marketing and advertising on the internet is not how cheap it is or how expensive it is, but does it target the right audience in the first place

Many marketers and business owners want to place their message in front of as many people as possible That is a very good thing, but here lies a big trick Thinking this way, the business owner or marketer goes on the search for websites with high traffic, visited by as many people as possible Such sites are large media sites such as online newspapers, magazines and similar sites Advertising on such sites is not bad, however, if the media has no targeted audience the budget goes to waste simply because there will be no customers wanting to buy what the advertiser is advertising It is okay, for an insurance company to be everywhere on the net for brand recognition, but for an auto parts manufacturer or reseller, it is a waste of time and budget

I know you may think that this is simple logic, but look around on the web and see how many adverts may be in the totally wrong places

When turning to internet marketing and advertising to save on budget in hard economic times, such issues must be carefully considered There is no point on wasting budget without making sales On the other hand; branding on less targeted online website to get the odd sale while in return building a strong brand may be a different strategic consideration

The next thing to consider In the off line media an advert or any piece of marketing will carry some information about the company Often this is a telephone number, email and website, this is pretty standard When a potential customers views the advert, they choose to visit the website, or call While in the online media the calling option from an advert can also be available users online have a tendency 99% of the time (or more) to click on the advert to see more information about the company When is the last time you saw and advert online and you didn’t check out the site before you called the company? Probably never, because in the online world more information is just a CLICK AWAY This is great, but could also be very bad Here is why

There is always the consideration of the most wanted response in an advert This is true of any advert Off line or online, once the audience sees the advert, the marketer or business owner would want them to take action Online this is often to click on the advert and visit the website of the marketer And here is where things often go sour

Just opting for the cheaper form of advertising, does not guarantee results, because clicking on an advert takes the potential customer to the website Now here is the hard part: does the website convert to the most wanted response? Is the website up to date? Is it effective? Does it make the sale, or bring in the leads?

This is what you paid money for? Isn’t it?

Here is where many businesses in South Africa lose a lot of potential clients and others spend mega bucks without the desired results and sometimes without any results at all and it is not even the fault of the advertising medium

Many websites have been built like a product brochure, or company profile, that “thing” that you give away to a potential client on a piece of fancy paper In the online world, brochure websites don’t make money The potential customer is approaching the website online, this means he or she has many things to click on, other than your website If the website did not attract his or her attention, the potential customer is gone and has forgotten about the company forever In paper they may keep the paper brochure for a while, they may even keep the magazine and look for the advert in the future, but online it doesn’t work this way, if there is no immediate interest, you’re gone forever from the potential customers mind with the next click

Before spending one cent on advertising, start looking at the website to ensure that it will deliver customers and leads from the adverts

Finding the right places to advertise, which is the first consideration, is relatively easy with research, the second part is not so easy Websites often have to be redone, re-built from scratch to deliver the customers and leads Many websites have not been built with sales generation processes in mind Usability is most often never been tested even for the target market

In conclusion, if you want to advertise online, this would be a good choice in hard economic times, but also in boom times However, before you do that, have a careful look at what you want to achieve with the advert and decide whether your website can deliver the return once the audience has clicked on your advert
If you have been advertising online and the clicks bring no results, meaning; no calls, no leads, no emails, no sales

The first two things you should be looking at are:

1 Are you advertising in the right places to the right audience? if the answer is yes, then:
2 Is your website up to scratch or turning away the clients because of usability, lack of information, too much information, or the wrong information, or the wrong call to action (or everything combined)

The good news is both these things can be fixed to produce more sales in hard economic times with a reduced advertising budget

So, before you go and spend a bunch of cash on online advertising make sure you have your strategy right, your website is up to scratch and you do the research to target the audience that will bring you the sales Sean Wheller is the founder of www.TheWebDesignCompany.co.za, a web design and development company specializing in developing search friendly websites with focus on e-commerce websites and online shops.

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Author : Emilie NottleDo the graphics on your website or promotional materials look sloppy? Unprofessional? Blurry? How does this reflect on you and your biz?

Your promotional materials are often the first impression people get about your business Your website is your store front The image you project affects how people think of your business

In order to build a successful business, you need to be considered professional and trustworthy How do you perceive businesses with sloppy, unprofessional websites and promotional materials?

When I see sloppy graphics out there in the world, I know that it’s usually because the client, and/or designer didn’t know enough about graphics file formats to remedy the problems

In this article, I’d like to share some ideas on how to help your graphic designer get the best results for you, so you don’t have to settle for sub-par materials to represent your business

Whether you’re giving your designer existing graphics files to modify or appropriate for your promo materials, or requesting new graphics, it will be helpful to be informed about graphics file formats

There are too many graphics file formats to mention all of them here, so I’ll cover only the ones you’re most likely to come across

GIF files are used mostly on web pages Their file sizes are small, so they load quickly on the web, and don’t use a lot of bandwidth However, the compression technique for GIFs allows them to only have up to 256 colors Therefore, GIF is the format used mostly for logos and simple graphics Photos or graphics will complex gradients won’t look good in GIF format

GIF is NOT the format to give a designer if you need the graphic resized or modified It’s always best to give her/him the original, uncompressed file

JPG is also used for web graphics While file sizes are a bit larger, this is a good format for photos and complex graphics with shading and gradients

Again, giving a designer a JPG file is not ideal, if you also have the original However, if you have a high resolution JPG file, the designer may be able to work with it

ai (from Adobe Illustrator) is a vector format Vector graphics are based on mathematical equations, to represent images in computer graphics I use Adobe Illustrator to create logos, illustrations, simple graphics, business cards, and any other one page promotional materials

The advantage of vector graphics is that they can be re-sized and manipulated without losing quality, and will give you the best possible quality for print

Vector graphics formats are complementary to bitmap graphics (also known as raster graphics) Bitmap graphics are made up of pixels, with each pixel containing its own color information Photos, and images with complex gradients and shading work best as a bitmap However, when you resize a bitmap graphic, the number of pixels changes, and your image loses clarity

A TIF or a PSD file might be a photo or a complex graphic from Adobe Photoshop (or similar graphics software)

Giving your designer a high resolution, uncompressed TIF or PSD file with layers - where each element in the graphic is in a separate layer - will make it much easier to modify, and you will get better results

May all your promo materials inspire confidence and interest!Copyright 2009 Emilie Nottle. As web developer and online strategist at Zooop Design, Emilie helps entrepreneurs to establish an effective and profitable web presence. If you’re ready to get the most mileage from your website and online marketing, sign up for her free monthly eZine, and receive the free eBooklet, ‘Three Surefire Ways to Increase Targeted Traffic to Your Website.’

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Author : Darren YatesIt’s true, you really can make ANY / ALL of your sites 9 times bigger within minutes And this is not some underhand trick that will see your rankings nosedive

Very much the opposite in fact

Imagine turning a small 10 page site into 100 pages with all new relevant content with 9 times the internal links! The internal links alone will boost your search engine ranking never mind the new content that is created

Now how much more traffic will you receive?
I’ll get straight to the point this is very straight forward It simply involves translating your site into 9 other languages AUTOMATICALLY and easily You don’t need to use an expensive translation service Keep reading you’ll be glad you did

These extra pages are cached on your site instantly boosting your search engine / Net footprint with new static foreign language content

If you have an Adsense network then you need to get busy NOW translating your sites Google will display foreign language Adsense on your new pages, again AUTOMATICALLY, boosting your Adsense revenue

Don’t add any more Adsense sites to your network instead get to work exploding the size of your current network

Imagine this, if you have just 10 Adsense sites each with 10 pages you’ve got just a 100 pages out there pulling in the Adsense revenue By translating these sites, easily within an hour, you can boost those pages to 1000!

Open up a whole new revenue stream by getting rankings and traffic in foreign language search engines easily, in fact it doesn’t get any easier For those of us that are native English speakers the foreign language search engines are a greatly under utilized market

Lets take just one language example The Chinese Internet audience was estimated at 100 million in 2005 and it’s growing fast Simply being listed in the Chinese search engines and reasonably ranked will make a significant impact on your site traffic

Are you getting excited now?
These are the languages supported -

Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
English
French
German
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Portuguese
Spanish

Boost Your Credibility

An added bonus to enhancing your sites like this is the massive boost in credibility you will receive

Think about it

How much more trusting are you of a site that has taken the time to translate its content into multiple languages? Even if you don’t speak any of those languages or even visit those language pages
And get this, none English speakers want to read your content They routinely use translation tools to read English language website content By providing a translation feature right on your site you are bringing them one step closer to you and making it easier for them to get at your content and stay on your site This is another sure boost in credibility from their point of view
Best of all you can get this script for just

$9!

That’s it! No more At that price you really would be mad to pass this up!

Grab it now -

http://www youwilllovethis info/translate-me

Still not sure then take a look at a site with the script already running -

http://www ppcprime com

This is a brand new install and so the Adsense still displays in English on some foreign language pages Hit refresh a few times and you will see it change
The ‘Ads by Goooooogle’ will change first Darren Yates is the developer of Ad Injector. Unique software designed to boost your Adsense profits and speed up Adsense site creation. www.ad-injector.com. Boost your site size here www.youwilllovethis.info/translate-me

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Author : Darren YatesAdsense is probably one of the quickest and most powerful roots to website profits with the easy implementation of a simple snippet of code If used properly it can generate a great passive income for any site But that’s the crux if you’re not placing the right Adsense code in the right style and in the right position on your pages then you’re actually loosing money

Apart from the ease of implementation the results you can achieve are fast and they can also be surprising and exciting

The first thing to do when considering Adsense is to research your keywords Research your market if you’re adding Adsense to an existing site or explore niche markets if this is a new site Examine keywords and keyphrases from the market that get the most searches on the search engines There are a number of sites and software tools that will allow you to do this some of them even giving you the click costs, essentially how much you will make per click on an ad

Select say 10 keywords or keyphrases and then consider your site content or for best results create new content Unique and keyword rich articles related to your site theme work well Use your 10 keywords to choose an article theme and then create an article for each keyword Aim to have around 3% keyword density for each article Keyword density is the number of times your keyword appears in relation to the number of over all words in the article

Be sure to make your article informative and grammatically correct Badly written articles, focused on SEO only, will do you no favours and often turn visitors away and maybe pop up on the search engine radar, which could mean a slip in your site rankings Think long term here There is no reason that, once set up, your Adsense site wouldn’t continue to bring in a passive growing income for years to come

Once you have your articles build your site

Now before you insert the ad code you should consider two things, the styling of the ads and the positioning The styling is possibly the most important A badly styled ad in the perfect position on your page will get a poorer click through rate than a well-styled ad in the same position

The best click through rates, when it comes to styling, have been proven to come from removing the ad borders and setting the background colour to match your page background colour Essentially blending the ads into the page and getting them to look like part of the page content You should also have the colour of the links on your page match those of the ads

Next consider the positioning of your ads Place your ads where site visitors are most likely to click on them Research shows that the top left of the page is the first spot to draw the eye and in turn get the most clicks The new format ‘Ad Links’ work well here The other hotspot is directly within the body of your content The square formatted ads at the top right of your body copy work best here

The correct styling and positioning of your ads is crucial for better click throughs and higher payouts

You will get clicks on your ads almost no matter where you place them if you have enough site traffic But styling and positioning them properly from the start can triple or more your click through rates

Adsense has good tracking statistics that allow publishers to track their results across a number of sites on a site-by-site, page-by-page basis You should make the most of this facility to learn which ads are performing the best and fine-tune them accordingly to improve your results

Finally, you have the option to use image ads instead of text only But, the average Net user is sophisticated enough now to ignore image based ads They’re now almost universally blocked subconciously by Net users as advertising Stick to text ads only Be sure this is set in your account you can do this in ‘My Account’

To really start making money with Adsense, you should have a definite focus on what you want to achieve and how you will go about achieving it Set income goals day by day and work to increase your income by tweaking your pages and adding more keyword targeted content

Consitently improving your site and introducing new content will see your Adsense profits grow Darren Yates is the developer of Ad Injector. Brand new software that places your Adsense code directly into your unique content across hundreds or thousands of pages fast.

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Author : Darren YatesA good money making Adsense site needs a number of elements in place before it will succeed

In the article below I discuss technical assets and techniques you should be using You should also consider the site design, but that’s a whole other article

I’ve broken down the basics below -

1: Regular Content Updates

Ideally you are adding fresh, unique, keyword targeted content to you site on a regular basis Every few days at a minimum, daily if possible

The search engines will come back to your site more often, rank it higher and in turn provide more traffic if you consistently add fresh unique content

A naturally growing site gets the search engines interested and keeps them interested

If you don’t like to write or can’t write then you can outsource this chore to a third party

On the other hand you can also use freely available articles from the numerous article directories out there This is not ideal because the content is not unique and will most likely be found on hundreds of other sites

Another option is to use ‘Private Label Rights’ articles These are articles that you buy and use as starting point for your own unique article Essentially you re-write the PLR article Don’t be tempted to use these as is, otherwise you may as well use the article directories as your article source instead

Which ever route you choose you should start with a good number of pages on which to build

You need to place your Adsense directly into the body copy of each of your articles for the highest CTR (Click Through Rate)

2: Rotate Your Content

It’s fine consistently adding new content but if your homepage stays the same you’re seriously missing out

You should endeavour to have content rotate on a daily basis on your homepage This gives the impression of a site update You can do this by hand or you can have a script on your site rotate content I know which I would choose
In fact I have a script that chooses a random article from the hundreds on my site and posts it automatically to my homepage for 24hrs before selecting a new article and doing the same again for the next 24hrs

In essence to both visitors and the search engines my site is updated daily

3: RSS Feeds

To further make you site appear to update regularly you should introduce a relevant RSS feed I won’t go into the details of exactly what RSS is here If you’re not sure do a Google
Basically you will get fresh relevant links appearing on your site at regular intervals

There are numerous site scripts available now to allow you to show RSS feeds on your site When you choose one make sure it is either PHP, CGI or ASP Don’t use javascript!

The reason for this is that the above mentioned languages will display the RSS feeds as HTML which the search engines read as content

Javascript will be ignored! It does not convert the feed to a search engine friendly format which the above languages will do

If you are interested in a free RSS feed converter for your site email me at the site below

4: Place Your Adsense Ads

You must place your Adsense ads within the body of your article It’s a proven fact that the area to the top right of the content receives the highest CTR

Beyond the body copy the next two hotspots are across the top of the page and down the left hand side The two areas that Net users naturally look to for a sites navigation

5: Place Your Ad Links Ads

The Google Ad Links ads have been found to work best when placed either above or below the site navigation, again either across the top or down the left hand side

A further boost can be had by ‘blending’ the look of the ads with your site navigation By that I simply mean having your navigation match the ads in both font type, size and colour

Many Adsense publishers have experienced a large boost in revenue after blending all there navigation to match their ads

6: A Site Map

This is very important Without a good site map to which you can add your newly uploaded content the search engines will never know you are updating your site They’ll never be able to find the new content without a link going to it

Be sure not to forget to update your site map each time you add new site content

There you have it That’s a general overview of a working Adsense site Of course I haven’t the space to go in to much detail but I hope you found what I have revealed of use ;)Darren Yates is the developer of Ad Injector. Software designed to boost your Adsense profits and speed up Adsense site creation. Sign up for the f.ree Adsense Mini Guide for more Adsense tips

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