Archive for February, 2008

As promised, here’s a little peek into what is going into Scrap Venture Start Up. I would say it’s probably about 80% finished at this point but there’s more I want to put into it. My goal is that this could be a resource that you could print out and makes tons of notes to plan and develop your very own scrapbooking business.

Here’s a look into Pricing Your Products and Services…

One thing you�ll have to figure out before you get started is how you are going to price your products or services. This is the part that many entrepreneurs dread, because they are afraid of setting the wrong price. If they set their prices too high, they will get fewer customers. If they set them too low, their profits won�t be as high, and they may have trouble covering their expenses.

The best thing you can do before setting your prices is conduct lots of research. Find products or services that are comparable to yours, and make note of the prices they are selling for. You can do a great deal of the research online, but it is also important to check prices locally. Prices for the same things do tend to vary by location.

You may be wondering what the new feature is on the right. It’s called Top Spots, I found out thanks to my friend Lynn for telling her subscribers about it. Top Spots is an easy way to monetize your blog by selling text links.

And you gain some exposure for your own craft site or podcast. So it’s truly a win-win situation.

I’m excited about this new widget I’ve added to my blog. It’s only $2.00 for you to add your own link and your link goes right to the top!

Thanks again to Lynn, this just creates more cash that I can hand over to the ministry that I love. And if you have a blog it’s very easy to add the code to your site. I got it up and running within 10 minutes.

Would you like to blog for chocolate? It’s pretty simple, just check out the rules here.

Lead generation has been around practically since the beginning of business as we know it. Some businesspeople do their own lead generation, while others pay professional lead generation firms to handle it for them. But one thing is for certain: Lead generation is important for business.

What Is Lead Generation?

Lead generation is simply the generation of interest in a certain product or service, and the acquisition of the interested parties’ contact information. This can be accomplished in many different ways, but that is the essence of it. So why is lead generation such a hot topic lately? Because it is undergoing a lot of changes.

New methods of lead generation came about with the rise of the Internet. And since the Internet is still relatively young, these methods are still being tweaked and experimented with and refined. They’re being combined with other methods. And most importantly, they are working.

Tips for Creating Attention-Grabbing Adwords Titles and Descriptions

Writing effective ads is imperative in order to succeed with Google’s Adwords. With a limited amount of space, advertisers must get their message across quickly and powerfully to capture attention and achieve click-thrus.

Titles - Keep titles and descriptions focused and relevant. Be as specific as possible, while still communicating a good reason for viewers to take action. They must be convinced in the course of a few lines of text, so every word counts.

Focus on the reasons a viewer would want to know more: what is the benefit of the product or service? Marketing experts have identified three primary reasons people buy: to fulfill a basic need, to solve a problem, or to improve their self-image. The title and description should state what is being offered as well as the need it fills, the problem it solves, or the emotional benefit it brings. Without this message, the ad will not be as compelling as the competition’s.

There are literally thousands of online joint venture possibilities to pursue. However, they generally fall into a few basic categories: list leveraging, product creation and general sharing. Here are ten online joint venture possibilities:

1. List leveraging. This is a common and generally simple joint venture. If you have a great opt in list and someone has a great product, you can promote their product to your list for a percentage of the sales.

2. Information marketing businesses can partner to bundle their products together and promote them to their combined email lists. The benefit to this type of arrangement is potentially huge. Each business increases their exposure and customer base, each business makes money, and each business gives their customer and email list an opportunity to take benefit from a new product.

3. Another simple joint venture might involve sharing or exchanging text links or banners with other related web sites.

4. Partner with another online business with a similar target market to create and share a web site. For example, you create dog training information products and your partner makes home made dog treats. You will both be marketing and advertising the same web site which means double the traffic.

Google Adsense is a program that allows web publishers to partner with Google and earn additional income. When someone joins the program, they allow Google to place ads on their website or blog, and based upon the ad that is shown, they will either get paid for a certain number of ad impressions or when one of their visitors clicks on these ads.

Google uses their technology to “read” the content on the pages the web publisher is allowing them to place ads on. This increases the chances of the ad being relevant to the topic of that particular web page or blog entry, which also increases the chance of a reader clicking on that ad.

While Google does have the final say in which ads appear on which pages, the web publisher is the one that decides how they will look and where they will go. Adsense users can choose from several styles of ads, including links only as well as full ads with text and even ads with pictures.

In addition to choosing which type of ad, a user can choose from many sizes and shapes of ad boxes, also known as ad units. In the final step, the user gets to fully customize the color of the ad units, including the borders, links and text.

High click-thru rates net greater income for Google Adsense users. Improving the CTR of a website will result in increased revenue. There are several simple steps webmasters can take to accomplish this.

First, determine the current CTR. The formula for this is to divide the number of click-thrus by the total number of views. If, out of 1,000 impressions, the ad is clicked 10 times, the CTR is 1 percent. Record this statistic for later comparison.

Next, test the website to determine which keywords are used most often. A free tool is available at www.seobook.com to help with this task. The tool will also show how these keywords rank in Google. This is important information, because Google determines which ads will appear on the website based on keyword content. Modifications to content could result in placement of ads that hold more appeal for the audience of the website, which will lead to a higher CTR. Keywords should appear at least once per 80 to 100 words.

Pay attention to content. Text should be of high quality, and should be rich in relevant keywords. Content drives ad placement as well as traffic to the website, and both are necessary elements in healthy CTRs.

Google’s Adsense program lets website owners generate income by allowing ads to be displayed on the site. Payment is made either per click or per thousand impressions. Ads that are displayed on the site are selected based on their relevance to the site, and this is determined by the frequency of keywords.

Volume of traffic on the site and click-thru rate both affect the amount of income that can be generated through Adsense. To improve income generated through Adsense, a number of steps may be beneficial:

• Focus on the quality of the website as a first step to increasing traffic. Adding solid content and keeping it fresh will give visitors a reason to keep coming back.

• Implement traffic-generating activities. Webmasters have found that activities such as emailing a weekly newsletter or offering a free item bring new and repeat visitors to the site.

• Optimize the website to ensure relevant keywords appear frequently on the pages of the site. Researching the term “search engine optimization” will provide a great deal of information on how to accomplish this.

Contextual advertising can be a highly cost-effective way to maximize the return on investment (ROI) by reaching a well-targeted audience. Webmasters who are new to internet marketing can be assured of a more successful campaign by avoiding these common mistakes:

• Bidding too high on cost per click (CPC) for either content or search engine advertising. Doing the research first will save Adwords users a great deal of money and ensure that they stay within their budget. A search of keyword CPC will bring up websites that list rates being paid, which can serve as a guide in determining the initial bid.

• Creating only one ad campaign or failing to monitor ad performance. It is important to create several types of ads, each one worded differently, to determine the most effective campaign. Likewise, it is imperative to measure the performance of ads. Two tools are available to Adwords users: conversion tracking and Google Analytics. These allow the user to measure actions taken by viewers so that campaigns can be adjusted to maximize response.

• Using words like “free” simply to increase the number of clicks. While this will initially drive traffic, it will not lead to higher conversion rates. More effective would be to focus on targeted keywords. This attracts a more concentrated number of people who are more likely to want what the webmaster has to offer.

• Adding too many keywords. Casting a wide net is not always the best way to proceed. Focus on choosing the most relevant keywords in order to reach the target market. Google automatically matches ads to websites based on the advertiser’s list of keywords and the number of keywords appearing on the site. The closer the match, the better the advertiser’s ROI.

Webmasters have experienced varying degrees of success with Google’s Adsense program. Those who report higher satisfaction with their Adsense income have learned to monitor the performance of their ads and make changes that increase click-thrus. Learning to test and track ads is an essential step in making the program work.

It is important first to determine how ads are performing by tracking clicks. The free Adsense tracker allows webmasters to collect statistics on clicks. The data shows up in the stats soon after the webmaster inserts the specified java script into the website.

Watch the statistics and compare how ads are performing on each page of the website. If some pages achieve better results than others, evaluate the pages to determine what factors are shared by the high performers. Pay attention to quality of content, keywords, and graphic elements in order to understand what makes some pages work effectively. Then incorporate these ideas into the less successful pages. Again, track the statistics to test whether these changes are effective.

One of the attractive features of Adsense is that webmasters can control the entire appearance of the ad. Many website owners have found that changing the shape, size, and color of their ads has increased click-thrus. If the click rate remains unsatisfactory after reviewing page quality, it may be beneficial to develop new ad designs.

Various people in professions such as direct sales and network marketing depend on leads. These leads may come from many sources, including their own advertising. Some people do choose to buy leads from outside companies, and new people who come into these types of businesses wonder if they should buy leads, too.

As with most questions, there really is no “one size fits all” answer. Paying for lead lists may work well for some people, but it might not work very well for others. In this article, we will discuss some of the benefits of buying leads as well as some of the reasons that lead lists may not be the best solution.

Some of the benefits of buying lead lists are that the leads are delivered relatively quickly. When someone is starting a new business and needs to have leads to call, buying a lead list enables them to get started quickly.

There are many creative people in the world who can write great ads and create great graphics. Not everyone has these gifts, and for those that view advertising as a chore, buying lead lists eliminates the need to create one’s own advertising.