The Lure Guide Center

The biggest mistake that many new internet marketers make is investing everything in one method of traffic generation. The old saying “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” doesn’t just apply to the stock market. When you’re trying to build an online business, you need to employ several different methods to bring visitors to your site. When you only use one method, your success depends on the success of a particular item. This means that you don’t really have guaranteed web site traffic. For example, if you only use pay-per-click advertising, what happens when you reach your daily budget? If you’ve maxed out your marketing budget for the day, you can’t make any more sales. If you didn’t manage to make a sale with your pay-per-click advertising for the day, then you just wasted that money. The best way to approach internet marketing is to diversify your methods. If you like pay-per-click, that’s ok. Just use article marketing or blogging as well. This means that you will be more likely to succeed. If one method stops working, you’ll still have your backup methods that are sending you steady traffic. While you want to use different methods to generate traffic, you don’t want to diversify so much that you’re not getting anything done. Pick a few methods and stick to them. Be consistent every day and the guaranteed web site traffic will come. The more work you put into these methods, the more traffic you will receive. To a newbie in internet marketing, this can all seem a little overwhelming. You might not have any idea where to turn to get started. The good thing about this process is that you have resources available to you. Check out http://www.frequenttraffic.com for all of your traffic generation questions. They will guide you in the right way to build your online business.

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Many internet marketers believe that their autoresponder is their key marketing tool. With your autoresponder, you can deliver your sales message or other information to all or some of your clients, 24 hours a day, anywhere in the world. Writing autoresponder messages are difficult to write and more importantly keep writing. So you need to get results from each and every message.

1.It’s about the reader, not yourself so ensure that you write what you know they want to here. No matter how may giveaways you produce, people will only read things that they are interested in. Do not tell endless stories about your personal life nor become political, racist or inappropriate. People are reading your ezines for the information and to satisfy a need they have.

2.Write as if each customer was the only customer that you have. Treat them well and use a personal writing style as if you were individually helping them. When your reader, reads your ezine, they are unaware, and frankly don’t care, about the many others that received the ezine as well.

3.Be interesting, amusing and helpful in your messages. You want your customers to enjoy and look forward to your message. People buy from those they like and trust. Don’t be too wordy - this is a sales message not a novel.

4.Emphasize the benefits for receiving your message and purchasing your products or services.

5.Use action words and several compelling sub headers to excite your reader.

6.Include a “call to action” - after reading your message - give your readers an action to take - be it go to a download page for a giveaway or send an email for further information, or go look at the benefits a product can provide them with.

7.Pick a subject for each message. Try a theme around a product that you are trying to sell. If you are offering an e course in autoresponder messages then map this course out before you start.

8.Ensure that your message is spelt and punctuated correctly and is grammatically correct. This makes your message professional and easy to read.

9.Have a consistent and easy to read layout. ASCII text is always best. Keep white space above and below your heading and key sub headers so that they stand out. Try and keep your paragraphs short and put a spare line between each of them. Use bullets wherever necessary as it is easier to read.

10.Be legal - MLM letters are illegal in many countries. Chain letters are illegal in most countries including USA much of Europe. Similarly contests and any kind of gambling or lotteries are similarly illegal in the majority of countries and states. Ensure that your messages do not look like these types of emails. The CAN SPAM laws of the USA require address details amongst other features. Double opt in lists are by far the safest types of lists to own. This means that each member has subscribed and then confirmed that they wish to subscribe to your messages.

Remember - a well written series of messages will build a good quality and loyal list of buying customers - so it is a skill well learnt.

© Copyright 2006 Biz Guru LLC
Lee Lister, writes as The Biz Guru, for a number of web sites including her own sites http://www.BizGuru.us and http://www.clikks.com for all our informational products.

With over 20 year’s management and business consultancy experience with businesses large and small as well as being a serial entrepreneur, she now helps others set up, develop and market their businesses.

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

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Have you seen Jesse James on the Discovery Channel’s Monster Garage?
Each week Jesse and his handpicked team create a customized vehicle to dazzle and amaze you. So what does this have to do with eLearning? Read on…

Big boys like big toys

Did you see the episode when the:
* Cadillac Escalade becomes a tailgate party?
* DeLorean is transformed into a hovercraft?, or the
* Scary monster Santa float as it makes it debut in a parade?

WOW they were great… and it got me thinking…Jesse’s approach to monster car design is directly related to leading successful eLearning programs. Here’s why…

Each episode starts with a sketch of the “dream machine” and Jesse’s verbal description of what he expects the machine to do. Just like Jesse’s articulated vision, the training project leader has to be able to articulate the program vision and expectations to his boss and the team. If you can’t describe the training purpose, it’s time to re-think the project!

The Monster Garage rules are simple:
1) When completed, the monster machine must appear to be stock.
2) The team can spend no more than $3,000 cash for parts.
3) Jesse and his crew have only seven days and nights to design, build and race the machine.

So let’s relate this to your training team… Have you taken time to create a simple set of rules for your team? Maybe you should take a lesson from the Monster Garage pit crew and make this a priority!

For the record, Jesse doesn’t take NO for an answer, and whining is NOT an option. Hmmm… yet another good project managment tip!

Each Monster Garage project starts with a day of planning
Even though the team is running on a very short time schedule, the first full day is set aside for PLANNING. Then the construction begins.

How often have you been tasked with developing a huge training project and no one really bothered to schedule time to PLAN? Using the Monster Garage analogy, if you are planning a 5 week development process, a full week should be devoted to planning. This is a good rule of thumb with about 20% of the project time should be spent in planning. Why? Because you can clearly articulate expectations, conduct essential research, collect information from a variety of stakeholders and produce a solid strategy for achieving the stated objectives. Keep in mind if you fail to plan, you plan to fail…

Just like the Monster Garage creations, online learning projects are big beasts and require a team effort. Jesse assembles his “dream team” based upon individual areas of expertise. He has welders, mechanics, fabricators and custom air-brush painters. His team must make the transformed vehicle not only look good, but “deliver on the promise” of functionality.

Likewise, the training project manager sets the scope with clearly defined roles and responsiblities for each team member:

Researchers determine existing content to leverage and competitive information as well.
Instructional designers look for ways to create standardized templates that facilitate the learning process. They create the instruction sequence and determine the best way to create meaningful activities for accountable training.
Programmers must produce solid error-free code.
Developers take raw content and create lessons while the graphic artist adds visual elements with graphics, animations and color cues. The tighter you define roles and keep people on-track, the better. When it all comes together, a training project is truly a work of art.

And finally….the moment of truth and accountability happens…will the monster creation work? Jesse always takes “the dream machine” out for that victory spin. Just like the monster’s moment of truth, it is inspirational when the AHA moment (light bulb) happens for your students in your beta test. It is fun to see students demonstrate proficiences from the training you created.

When your training team is successful and your training customer are happy, it’s a win-win!! You accomplished what you set out to do. We thank Jesse James and the Monster Garage for his inspiration on project management!

Karen Miller has over twenty years experience in applying instructional systems design principles to create blended training solutions. She consistently delivers web-based training products on-time, under budget while exceeding customer expectations. She is a national training award winner (ASTD’98, ISPI’02), published author, adjunct college professor and an ISPI-Certified Performance Technologist. Her company, Instructional Design Consortium provides instructional expertise and USA-based outsourcing services for the design, development and delivery of online training.

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Although CSS layouts have been around for years, they haven’t become so commonplace until recently. This was basically due to limited browser support (especially from Netscape 4) - nowadays though, CSS 2.0 (which introduced positioning) is compatible with over 99% of browsers out there (check out the browser stats over at http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2004/August/browser.php).

So, why should you convert your website from its current table-based layout to a CSS layout? It’ll make you money. Simple really. And here’s four reasons to explain why:

Reduced bandwidth costs

Web pages using CSS for layout tend to have much smaller file sizes than those using tabular layouts. It’s not unusual to see reductions of 50% or more in file size when switching from CSS to tables. Smaller file sizes obviously mean reduced bandwidth costs, which for high traffic sites can mean enormous savings.

The main reason for this dramatic decrease in file size is that presentation information is placed in the external CSS document, called up once when the homepage loads up and then cached (stored) on to the user’s computer. Table layouts on the other hand, place all presentation information inside each HTML, which is then called up and downloaded for every page on the site.

Additionally, CSS can be used to replace JavaScript image rollovers, again allowing a large reduction in overall page size. See the article, CSS navigation menu for more on this (http://www.webcredible.co.uk/user-friendly-resources/css/css-navigation-menu.shtml).

A higher search engine ranking

A CSS-based website will appear higher in the search engine rankings for three reasons:

- The code is cleaner and therefore more accessible to search engines

- Important content can be placed at the top of the HTML document

- There is a greater density of content compared to coding

A higher search engine ranking means more site visitors, which, provided your website is usable, should lead to an increase in enquiries or sales.

Faster download speed

A faster download speed will make you money? Well, yes. Slow download speed is often cited as one of the biggest usability complaints for websites. A faster download speed therefore leads to increased usability, and a web usability redesign can increase the sales/conversion rate by 100% (source: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030107.html).

CSS downloads faster than tables because:

- Browsers read through tables twice before displaying their contents, once to work out their structure and once to determine their content

- Tables appear on the screen all in one go - no part of the table will appear until the entire table is downloaded and rendered

- Tables encourage the use of spacer images to aid with positioning

- CSS generally requires less code than cumbersome tables

- All code to do with the layout can be placed in an external CSS document, which will be called up just once and then cached (stored) on the user’s computer; table layout, stored in each HTML document, must be loaded up each time a new page downloads

- With CSS you can control the order items download on to the screen - make the content appear before slow-loading images and your site users will definitely appreciate it

Increase in reach

The more people you can reach, the more visitors you’ll get to your site and the more enquiries or sales you should get. A CSS-based website is compatible with PDAs, mobile phones, in-car browsers and WebTV. Don’t underestimate the importance of this: In 2008 alone an estimated 58 million PDAs will be sold (source: http://www.etforecasts.com/pr/pr0603.htm) and one third of the world’s population will own a wireless device (source: http://www.clickz.com/stats/markets/wireless/article.php/10094_950001).

You can make an additional CSS document specifically for handheld devices, which will be called up in place of the regular CSS document, thereby ensuring your website is accessible to this lucrative market. This isn’t possible with a tabular layout.

Conclusion: Switch to CSS!

Switching your website from a table layout to a CSS layout can be a long, arduous process, especially for large websites. Given the money making possibilities though, it could very well prove to be well worth it.

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He’s crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone. They offer fantastic accessibility & CSS support packages, which you can read all about at http://www.webcredible.co.uk/support .

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Yesterday I received a nice email in my inbox, I read that short and interesting email, it was like 5 to 6 lines max, at the end was a link which I was asked to click on. I did exactly that. I wait for about 1 minute but no page downloaded. I think my Internet connection gets down so I checked it but it was perfect.

I refresh the page many times but results were same. I read all other mails and did my routine work. In evening suddenly I remember that mail. Since it was so Interesting, I again read it and click on the link but this time also same results appears. I finally give up and delete that mail.

This whole episode left a question in my mind that why people don’t choose their web host wisely. In fact it’s the most vital part of Internet business.

A web host is the first important step towards building our Internet business. You can get cheap or even free hosting services but don’t prefer free hosting for commercial sites. Your users are going to get blasted with annoying pop-ups every time they surf to your page, it’s going to be impossible to get a
decent position in a search engine, and you don’t even get a real business URL. No one’s going to remember your web address if they have to type www.myfreehost.com/my_site.

So the question is what points we should consider before select our web host.

1. Space
It’s the first point to consider that how much space your host is providing to you. If you have one or two page website with no downloads, it’s not an important point but if you are planning to go for resale right product, you need at least 100 MB space. Most good web host provide minimum 1 GB space to their clients.

2. Bandwidth
It’s the most important part to check. Did you know that sites with high downloads causes many people to go over budget on bandwidth and lose their host? Sometimes they have to pay fees up to hundreds of dollars. It’s essential to check before buying any hosting services. Most good host provides 25 to 50 GB Bandwidth.

3. Support System
It’s also key point. If you get stuck at any point, how long does it take to get support? Do they provide 24/7 phone support.

Some Additional features we must check:

How many POP email account they are providing?
How many database they are providing?
Do they have Web based e-mail?
Do they have Anti-Spam and Anti-Virus filters?
Can you Password Protected your directories?
Do they take regular backup in case of server get crashed?
Do they have money-back Guarantee, if you don’t like their services?
Do they support Perl, PHP, Crontab and Secure Server Layer? (You don’t require these facilities in beginning but after some time you need it.)

I personally trust “Ultimate Web Hosting Services” for my hosting needs. They have all features that a professional host must have. The must to tell feature of this hosting service is that it gives one hour response guarantee but usually I get response in 5-10 minutes. I prefer this hosting service just
because of its speedy response and its tons of superb qualities. You can try their services at:
http://www.ultimatewebhostingservices.com

I am not saying that they are the best. There may be other companies that have even better services but in terms of their prices they are the best.

So whatever host you choose you must consider these points so you never get in trouble.

———————————————————–
Copyright 2005 Raamakant S.

Raamakant S. is owner of www.umtezine.com.
Subscribe to his Ultimate marketing Tips eZine by sending a blank
e-mail mailto:umtezine@getresponse.com — Learn Everything
You’ve Been Wanting to Know about Internet Marketing. REAL
Tips, Tricks and Techniques You Can Use In Your Business and
Consistently Produce MASSIVE Amounts of Profits.

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If you don’t have a web site yet, are thinking of slapping one up or have one that simply isn’t producing, this Warning is for you!

All too often folks contact me about getting a Web Site when they really have not done their due diligence in determining even if their “idea” is one worth investing in. And although they hate spam and don’t believe most of it, they do tend to fall into believing much of the fast, easy and cheap noise online in existence only to line the pockets of shysters and unscrupulous developers.

Here are some questions you need to ask and investigate getting the answers to so you can realistically determine if your idea is one worth pursuing and investing in. If any “solution” tells you these questions are not of concern, raise that red flag and run as fast as you can in the opposite direction! Certainly don’t give them a dime of your hard earned money!

=> What will your online expenses be for your Web server, ISP connection, E-Commerce application, Web Site development and maintenance?

=> Why will people buy this product/service from you over any of the number of Web Sites currently online?

Have you searched at Google with your top 3-5, 2-3 word keyword phrases to get an idea of the level of competition you may be up against?

=> How do you intend to get your new site found?

=> What is your marketing plan to compete with the Sites already online that are promoting the same product/service?

=> Can you offer your product or service at a competitive price and what is that?

=> Will your suppliers support your requests and potential growth/demand for the product?

=> Is the quality of your product/service in line with the price you are asking?

=> How much will it cost to have enough inventories to support orders while additional product is in transit?

=> What options will I have for shipping, where will I ship and what will I charge respectively for shipping and handling?

=> What are the issues to consider and the best rates/providers for a Merchant Account so that I can accept credit cards securely on my site?

=> What are my policies and return procedures in regard to online ordering?

=> What are the tax and legal requirements and implications I need to consider when doing business online?

Unfortunately, all too many think that by just getting your own dot com and throwing up a Web Site - selling… er… well… anything, and then just sitting back and waiting for the orders or e-mail to roll in, they will soon be on the path to IPO-dom or financial freedom.

What happens when site owners do not do their due diligence or realize after the fact that this is a business with the very same responsibilities just as in the off-line world? What if they do not get all the above questions answered and a firm understanding of what will be involved before they jump online? They end up not becoming successful while wasting a lot of their hard earned money.

Having a Web site for commercial gain is not simply a bunch of pictures and code that make a pretty presentation. It is serious business and needs to be run as such if you plan to succeed. You need to know the basics of running a business from accounting, to operational policies, to tax and legal issues. You need to be prepared to plan how your marketing program will adjust to this evolving technology both on and off-line based on data and trends; how you will adjust as well.

Do you want to have your very own successful online enterprise that you worked hard at, built to be successful and are proud of based on sound business practices and proven principles? Or do you prefer to throw money at the hype that negates the need for any serious efforts? The choice is yours to make - not the developer or promotion touting Fast!, Cheap!, Easy!. Remember to use your common sense - if it sounds too good to be true when it comes to becoming successful online, it is!

About the Author:
Judith Kallos is an authoritative and good-humored Technology Muse
who has played @ http://www.TheIStudio.com for over a decade. Check out her popular Technology Cheat Sheets @: http://www.LearnAndThrive.com

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[1]. Your Web pages with content should be interested in
reading. As content is king for search engines content in your
site should be both unique and interesting.this can improve your
impression. [2]. Content should be highly focused with keyword
phrases. rather than phrases that are too general and
competitive Specially when there is more competition. [3].
Optimize your Web pages for at least three to five keywords at a
time. You should optimize your page for minimum three
keywords-for three keywords your page should be highly
relevant.for that you need to choose better keywords,choosing
keywords is not a game of guessing.it is one science.Write your
site’s content using the keywords for which users search, and
you’ll literally be speaking the same language as your visitors.
Useful sites:-Nichebot.com and Wordtracker.com [4]. Use
regionally specific keywords, when applicable. If your target is
regional than try to choose keywords that are regional.
Example:-you can choose ‘loans in new york’ rather than just
‘loan in USA’ that’s why you will get highly targeted visitors
and improve your visitor to sales ratio [5]. Use the most
commonly used variations of your keywords, with keyword research
Don’t choose keywords that are highly competitive(specially when
your page rank is low.) You can choose their synonyms etc.as per
i said you need to do some research work for that.also consider
some variation that can occur due to typing mistake etc.. [6].
Each optimized page should contain a unique title. It will some
time meaningless if you will choose same title pages more than
one.title tags are very important and perhaps you know that
searcg engine give lots of weight to title if title of your page
will different. than you can get more traffic for more
keywords.this is important. [7].Use multiple keywords in your
title tags when appropriate. Choose better title for every page
using synonyms etc..so that you will probably also get traffic
for that keywords too.but don’t go overboard. [8].Most important
keywords appearing above the fold and throughout each optimized
page. First few lines are very important for search engine page
relevancy.so write that with special care and using your all
main keywords.also include your keywords in other part of page
too. [9]. Using keywords in hypertext links, whenever possible.
If you will use keywords in hypertext links than your page which
you link will improve its page relevancy automatically [10].
Each optimized page contain a unique meta-tag description. Some
search engines still give more weight to meta tags so like title
meta tag should be different for each page if possible. [11].
Each optimized page contain a unique meta-tag keyword list. Like
meta tags you should also change meta tags wherever possible.and
that keywords should also include in page body. [12]. Place
common misspellings of your keywords within your meta-tag
keywords. Many people using this system to get traffic you can
use misspellings in youe meta details and can drive traffic. due
to typing mistakes of searchers [13].your graphic images should
contain descriptive keywords within the alternative text
attribute, when appropriate. Google also decide relevancy
through name of icons,images etc..so try to include your
keywords in it. [14]. If you are submitting pages to non-U.S.
search engines. write your pages in the appropriate language if
you will not do it.it may possible that in international search
engines your rank will down. Visit my seo resources at>
http://seo-resources.inetzeal.com/

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Having spent a number of years in the internet design and marketing industry I have seen how important the balance of web design / optimization is to the success of any e-marketing venture.

In the past I have had clients who were frustrated by the fact that competitor web sites ranking high in the search engines were of poor quality compared to their own.

When I looked into this it was obvious what was happening. The so called poor quality sites were composed of simple navigation and then lots of pages with text and an odd image here and there. The clients web site in comparrison was an all singing / dancing mix of flash and bright graphics. The text in the site was limited to a few lines here and there.

Here was an excellent example of two web sites built at different levels. One was basic and probably built by someone at home while the other was professionaly built by a designer. In my mind I was in no doubt that the professional site would probably sell more than the basic one. The only catch here was that the professional site was nearly invisible to the search engines due to the nature of its design and content. A great looking site that no one can find.

Had the web site been built with optimization in mind then it would have probably had far more success. Just because a web site needs to be optimized does not necessarily mean the design has to be sacrificed. There are many ways a web site can be made search engine friendly and still look and function professionaly.

When a visitor arrives at the web site then first impressions really do count. A business does not have very long to promote itself so its important that any visitor is given good reason to stay and explore other pages. This is when clever marketing and copywriting take over from the initial optimization.

If you are thinking of having a new web site built then think very carefully about how it’s design / content will influence its’s position in the search engines.

If you have a high ranking but poor looking site then consider adding some enhancements that will not affect it’s current position.

If you have a site that is extremely search engine unfriendly then consider having it completely re-designed.

Marketing Advice

The best things in life are free so I give this information at no fee.

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When you use a visual HTML editor like FrontPage or Dreamweaver,
they tell you that WYSIWYG: what you see is what you get. This
means that, in theory, what you see while you’re editing the
page should look just like what you get when you’re done. While
word processors have pretty much got the concept working now
when it comes to printing (it didn’t used to be as reliable),
there are still problems when it comes to HTML editors and web
browsers - of course, if you’ve spent more than five minutes
using visual HTML editors, then you’ll know that.

The Advantages of WYSIWYG

WYSIWYG is quite uncontroversial at this point - its advantages
are clear, in that it lets you make your page look exactly the
way you want it to while you’re writing it, with no surprises.
In the early days, it was sometimes referred to as being like a
kind of ‘interactive print preview’. Professional typesetters
were at first opposed to its use in publishing, but it’s easy
and quick enough that it has come to dominate. The alternative
now, though, is to go back to the days of layout commands, which
isn’t something most users want to do.

On the web, WYSIWY it can be far more problematic, because what
comes out of the other end of the program isn’t a static,
printed page - it’s computer code, HTML, that has to be
interpreted by a web browser before it becomes anything viewable.

Not Even All Browsers are the Same

The first problem with what you see in an editor being what you
get in a browser is that all the different browsers available
don’t always make the same page look the same way. How are HTML
editors supposed to account for bugs in Internet Explorer? They
can’t, really.

Each piece of HTML editing software is forced to either write
its own HTML rendering engine (the engine that decides how the
code is translated to a visible page), or use one from an
existing program. Recently, for example, Dreamweaver moved over
to Opera’s engine, which means that it shows pages the way Opera
does. FrontPage has always been closest to Internet Explorer.
Because Mozilla is open source, there are a lot of HTML editors
based on its engine, the most usable of which is Nvu.

That doesn’t exactly help, though, when it comes to things
looking the same in every browser - if you use Dreamweaver, for
example, what you see will be what you get in Opera, but not
necessarily in Internet Explorer. This is a problem that can be
partially solved by testing everything in every browser, but
doing that doesn’t let you see what your page is going to look
like as you’re going along.

Maybe What You See Shouldn’t Be What You Get

While users demand WYSIWYG software, it’s somewhat misguided
when it comes to the web, for the simple reason that it expects
everyone to be using your site the same way, and designs towards
that expected use. In reality, the web was designed to be a
document format that was interpreted by the program receiving
it, meaning that if a browser wants to leave out all the
graphics, or ignore all your tables, then it’s perfectly
justified in doing so. This is especially significant when it
comes to mobile browsers - they simply don’t have large enough
screens to display normal designs, and it’s silly to force them
to try.

Realising this is one of the most important differences between
being a good designer and being a bad one. Bad designers will be
constantly nudging at their designs, doing everything they can
think of to get them to look exactly the way they intended in
every browser possible, even if it doubles the size and
complexity of the code. A good designer will write good code
that displays in all browsers, but doesn’t necessarily have to
be pixel-perfect.

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