Some terms you should know...

Ok here's a few terms you should know.... bit dull I know but hey let's get past the boring stuff and then we can get down to some real money making processes!

Banner Glossary

· Banner Ad — A graphic ad linked to an advertiser’s website. These usually run across the top of the page but can also run up the page (“skyscrapers”). Banners are usually limited by size.

· Banner Views —The number of times a banner is seen by users. This is usually the same as "page views," but counts the number of times the banner is actually downloaded rather than the number of times the page is downloaded. Some users click away before the banner finishes loading.

· Clicks/ Click Throughs — Banners are operated by clicking the cursor over them. Not too surprisingly these responses are called “clicks” or “click throughs.”

· Click Through Rate (CTR) — The percentage of users who see the banner and click on it.

· Conversion Rate —The percentage of people who visit your site and actually give you money. The higher the better!

· Cookies — Small files placed on a user’s computer. They’re used for all sorts of reasons and by all sorts of sites. Banner ads use them to make sure the user hasn’t seen the banner recently, which banner brought them to the advertiser’s site, and even which adverts they’ve seen recently.

· CPM — "Cost Per Mille." The amount you pay for every thousand times a banner is shown—the usual way of charging for banners.

· Hits — The number of times a server receives a request for a Web page or an image. Not a great way to measure interest. One page can have lots of images and get lots of hits, even if it’s only seen once. Often, people will say "hits" when they really mean "page views" or "impressions."

· Page Impressions or Page Views —The number of times a Web page has been requested by the server. Much more accurate than hits: each view is a potential customer looking at a page of your site. But not necessarily a different customer...

· Unique Users — The people who download a Web page, counted by IP address. You want to bring lots of users to your site so that you can create a broad customer base. The same user clicking on a banner a dozen times could cost you money without increasing your sales. Most reputable sites will check the IP address of the person clicking on a link and only count it once in a 24-hour period. If a site doesn’t do this, don’t advertise with them.

Why banners are rubbish!

Banners

In this article we will discuss the ins and outs of banner ads. Are they worth your advertising dollars or are they a thing of the past?

When the Web first started, banners were all the rage. Today, they’re pretty much passé. They’re no longer a novelty and unless they’re super-clever, users pretty much ignore them. Conversion rates have dropped through the floor and many advertisers have found other ways to push their products.

And yet, every website still contains a whopping great banner ad splashed along the top or running up the side. In part, that’s because they’ve become more sophisticated with better targeting and improved graphics. But in practice, banner ads tend to be used for one of two reasons: as a method of gaining/ giving users through an affiliate program; or as a way of generating revenue—or traffic—through paid advertising.

Both these methods work to some extent, but the key is always to make sure the economics make sense. We’ll look closely at the math in this chapter, but before we go on to talk about the math of banner ads—and how to tell whether your banner campaign is worthwhile—let’s just take a look at the terms involved. You’re going to see these words whenever you join an affiliate program or take part in any other kind of online marketing scheme. You should definitely be familiar with them.... when I get round to it....

A way to make easy money with domain names!

Using expired domains to skyrocket your traffic

At some point while you’re building your website, you’re going to have to buy a domain name. This is the address that users type into their browsers to reach your site. That takes about five seconds, and depending on the name you want and whether anyone else owns it, it won’t cost you more than a few bucks.

But domain names are also a golden opportunity to make some easy money.

I’m not talking about Internet real estate, where you buy up good names and sell them on for a profit—if you haven’t got into that now, forget it. The bottom’s fallen out of the market and the best domains are long gone.

I’m talking about expiring domains.

Thousands of webmasters invest time, effort and money to promote their site and build up traffic. Many of them then lose interest and move on, leaving their site active. That means that although they still own the domain, they’re not actively promoting it. But they don’t need to. All the automatic marketing systems they’ve put in place are still bringing in traffic. The site runs itself.

Now, at some point the ownership of those domains is going to expire. If you snap up those domains once they come back onto the market, you’ve got a pre-built stream of customers. You can either rebuild the site, or redirect the traffic to your domain. You could set up an affiliate program get paid for users someone else paid for.

It’s that easy.

There are tons of options, and lots of easy ways to make lots of money with very little effort. Opportunities like these are everywhere.

Websites such as www.expiredtraffic.com or www.deleteddomains.com actually do all the legwork and let you reap all the rewards. Expired Traffic even has an affiliate program and www.snapnames.com allows you to back-order a specific domain name.

Do be careful when using other sites though. There are some swindlers out there that will sell you subscriptions, provide you with outdated lists, take your money and keep the good domains for themselves. It happens, and there’s little point in taking a risk when www.deleteddomains.com does such a great job.

The right domain name is so important...

Choosing a Domain Name

In this post you will learn how to chose an effective and memorable domain name.

Times wasting so lets get started…

In the physical world, you can distinguish a business because of its structure, window displays, or signs. You can tell that a bank is a bank, or a clothing store is indeed a clothing store.

In the Internet, however, it is an entirely different story altogether. Your domain name is the only clue to your online business. You do not have visual clues: no location, no look, and no store design. Instead, users have to type in a word or a set of words to reach your site. Your prospective visitor has no way of knowing what your site is all about until he/she finds it and reads its contents. Who can ever tell that Amazon.com sells books? Or that Excite is a search engine?

Your domain name can spell your success on the Internet. A good domain name is the best asset you can ever have. It can make your business stand out in the crowd, or just float aimlessly in space.

The need to provide immediate clues to an online business led to the prevalence of generic domain names. Generic names instantly provide the user with an idea of what a business is all about, what to expect and look for in a site. For instance, Etoys.com is a toy store.

The temptation of the generic name has been so powerful; that some companies even paid ridiculously high prices to get the name they want. The domains Loans.com and Wines.com were both bought for $3 million each. Telephone.com was acquired for $1.75 million, while Bingo.com sold for $1.1 million.

However, generic names do not necessarily create the “buzz” that you’d like surrounding your website. Branding has always been about proper names: McDonald's did not name their store Hamburger. Hertz is not called Car Rental. FedEx is not Mail Carrier. Kodak is not Photographs. Microsoft is not Computer Software.

For better branding results, your domain name should be memorable and easy to remember. Remember the following tips when creating a domain name.

The domain name should be short
The domain name should be simple
It should be suggestive of your business category
It should be unique
It should be easy to interpret and pronounce
It should be personalized
It should not be difficult to spell
It should not be difficult to remember

Domain names can be registered through many different companies (known as "registrars") - a listing of these companies is available at ICANN: http://www.icann.org. You can register for 1 to 10 years - prices can vary anywhere from $10 to $20 per year. Most web hosting companies, as explained later, will handle the registration process for you, but make sure that you are properly listed as the owner of the domain when it is registered. If you have registered a domain name for a specific period, make sure you renew it in time. You can be surprised at the number of cases, where site owners have let a domain name slip by if they have not renewed in time.

Later today or tomorrow if I run out of time, I'll show you a way to buy a domain and immediately make some easy money. Til then...

Matt

Why "gurus" really bug me

The Internet Marketing world is full of a lot of BS.

By that I mean that there's so much information flying around about how to succeed and only around 10% of that stuff is going to be of any use. Not to mention the fact that the majority of this kind of stuff is created solely to make you, dear reader, spend money on their products.

But something that really bugs me is the term Internet Marketing Guru.

These self-appointed experts claim to have the "answers". They paint the picture of operating from their condo on the beach raking in cash "automatically" (there's a favourite term they use) while enjoying a care-free day to day existence.

Now while I'm aware that there are many people out there who do live like this (indeed isn't that what we're all aiming for?) why oh why do these guys all appear to be licking each other's boots?

Go and read the majority of sales letters and you'll see testimonials from certain people. Go and read one of their sales letters and you'll no doubt see the same people as before including the guy whose sales letter you've just read.

It appears to me that they're all doing each other favours and keeping out Joe Public from their elite inner circle. That's business I hear you say and to a degree you're right. But on the net, the great leveller, let's just stop worshipping these gurus for a while and support our fellow hard-working small biz operators, after all the gurus have enough money!

Rant over, something more useful tomorrow...

So, what should you sell on the net?

The Internet is primarily used to communicate, entertain, educate and research. It is thus no wonder that nonperishable, information-intensive products - including computers and software, books, travel, consumer electronics,magazine subscriptions - are the most popular online products at present. Content-rich sites, subscription-based sites to advertiser-supported sites focusing on a wide rangeof topics, have been sprouting all over the Internet.
Services such as hotel reservation, air travel and investments have successfully translated themselves to theInternet.
Unique services such as Online driving schools have been prospering. Some states in the US have set up online payment sites for Government services. Residents of a state can logon to a common site to pay all bills and other expenses, such as parking tickets to the local/County courts.
However, all kinds of services cannot be run entirely on theInternet. The Internet is less effective when face-to-face selling is needed to close a deal. The Internet can give lots of preliminary information that's useful in setting the scene for the closing. But the actual closing takes place offline - i.e., not on the Internet.
Products can also be marketed and sold successfully on the Internet. The kinds of products and services that sell best on the Internet are those that take advantage of the convenience of the Net. Remember that convenience is the primary reason why consumers flock to the Internet in the first place. People can shop any hour of the day at any site. They can avoid crowded stores, irritating sales clerks, and even avoid pickpockets.
Offbeat or unusual products and services often attract online attention and sell strongly. You would generally not try to sell items people can get at the corner store. Thus, few toothbrushes are sold on the Net; the same thing with daily food and beverage purchases. But special cheeses, rare cigars, Turkish plates, long-aged wines, even diamonds, can and do sell on the Net.
Most products sold by catalog and mail order also sell well on the Net. However, people tend to buy only those products that could be shipped at a reasonable price. Higher shipping costs diminish the price competitiveness of online products and turns-off a lot of potential buyers. In fact, high shipping costs is the primary factor that discourages people from buying online more than any other single reason. AnErnst and Young report shows that 53 percent of online shoppers are concerned with shipping costs that are too high, compared to only 19 percent who are concerned with credit cards being stolen.
As an online merchant, you have to work out the advantages as well as disadvantages of selling either products or services. However, in the recent past, online services have known to flourish. Nevertheless, if you chose to sell products you need to rethink your product offering if the total costs of the product and the shipping are higher than what is offered elsewhere.
Take some time to evaluate your products or services. There is a growing market of potential customers on the Internet, you just need to offer the products and services they are looking for.

Which businesses are actually successful on the net?

Today let's look at the kind of businesses that are doing well and why...

After the settling down of the dot-com bubble, sanity checks have brought realistic expectations to the fore. Initially,a backlash was seen, forecasting the doom of the Internet.Finally, merits have made the Internet gain its rightful place. In breakthroughs that show the promise of e-commerce wasn't all smoke and mirrors, four dot-coms recently reported their first quarterly profits. The list of theInternet’s publicly held money makers includes eBay Inc.,Amazon.com Inc., Yahoo! Inc., Overture Services Inc.,Expedia Inc., FindWhat.com Inc. and E-Trade Group Inc. Several privately owned dot-coms, including search engines Google and DealTime, say they have been making money, too.

In 2001, the last full year where numbers are available, theDepartment of Commerce broke out e-commerce sales versustotal U.S retail sales which revealed the $3.16 trillionretail industry saw a total of $37.7 billion in sales takeplace online -- comprising 1.2 percent of the total. Thisyear e-commerce is tracking about the same. Through the third quarter, the last full quarter where numbers are available, total retail sales were $856 billion versus $11billion in e-commerce, about a 1.3 percent share.
There were big gains made in Home and Garden, a 78 percentincrease; Furniture and Appliances, a 75 percent increase;and Toy shopping online with a 61 percent increase in the year 2002. There is no doubt that online shopping isgrowing.
Nielsen//NetRatings found that more than 35.5 million U.S.Internet users made shopping trips to virtual department store sites during the week ending November 3, 2002 - that's a 20 percent increase from the week ending October 20 androughly 14 million more than almost the same time period in2001.
There is a growing tendency amongst Internet users to pay for valuable content online. There are many reasons for this. First, only a few websites operated by big companies can afford to provide valuable content without being compensated. The rest of us can't be so generous. And trying to recapture our expenses by selling advertising on our websites has failed to pay the bills. Online advertising and click-through rates are on the decline.
Second, many people are now more than willing to pay to receive quality services and products even if they were offered for free earlier. Several paid content websites have already proven this unmistakable trend. The discerning buyervalues his/her time as also the quality of information orservice and is willing to pay for it.

Thanks for reading. Continued tomorrow...

Where better to start....

In this article we will discuss a relatively new intertnet tool – the Blog.

Blog (also known as Weblog) is traditionally a webpage where a surfer or a blogger “logs” all pages he/she finds interesting. In other words, it is a Web page that contains brief, chronologically arranged items of information.Typically updated daily, blogs often reflect the personality of the author.
Weblogs provide a series of annotated links to items such as news stories, and often include personal rants. They are maintained by one person, most commonly someone who is involved in Web design or some other tech-related field.

A blog is often a mixture of what is happening on a particular website and what is happening on the Web, a kindof hybrid diary/guide site, although there are as many unique types of blogs as there are people. Blogs can be used to introduce products to potential customers.
People maintained blogs long before the term was coined, but the trend gained momentum with the introduction of automated published systems, most notably Blogger at blogger.com (where you are reading this!) Thousands of people use services such as Blogger to simplify and accelerate the publishing process.

Blogs offer huge marketing potential. They are highly strategic tools that can strengthen relationships, share knowledge, increase collaboration, and improve branding. Besides, blogs can represent the real voice of the website.

A weblog can take the form of a diary, a news service (or summaries of and links to current news items on a topic), a collection of links to other Web sites, a series of book reviews or products, reports of activity on a project, the journal of an expedition, and much more. Businesses can use this tool to effectively advertise their products or services.

One of the most interesting ways to use a weblog is by allowing it to function as a discussion forum for customers of your products or services. In this case, the webmaster can give posting rights to other people – visitors and customers, and their posts may or may not be reviewed before they are published to the Web page. Customers, in such a way can post favourable comments about the websites offerings.Some weblogs are set up in such a way that only the owner orthe owner and certain other people have posting rights, but anyone else can add comments to the posts.

Articles within newsletters can be linked to a blog, extending life and creating a massive conversation. You can offer a bi-directional forum to customers to get true, personal opinions on your products and services. Company experts can start a blog and become industry experts, helping your company edge out competition and, through this interactive forum,draw customers into another exchange of information and thoughts.* The beauty of this interplay is you can layer your blog with editorial controls.

The majority of weblogs are now created using software orservices designed specifically for this purpose. Some of the software is free - and some of the organizations that provide weblog software will also provide free server space to house a weblog so that it is publicly accessible on the Internet. There are also commercial versions of some of the free software; these commercial versions often provide more features. Some weblog software is available only as commercial software. Alternatively, bloggers can create and maintain their weblog using free software or a free weblog service, but use FTP (File Transfer Protocol) to load the resulting weblog to their own Website.

So get out there and start your own Blog…it’s free,easy and can work seamlessly with the rest of your website or newsletter. Until next time…

Check out the ultimate internet marketing guide here

OK, so there's plenty of this kind of stuff around already...

Welcome to my Blog!

My name's Matt and you're probably thinking why oh why is there another blog/site about making cash on the net?

Well, I'll tell you why. For me personally there has never been a site that really explained thing clearly and concisely and n such a way that a complete novice could pick up the tools he's gained and start making money immediately.

That will be the purpose of my blog.

Making money on the net - SIMPLIFIED!

I hope you'll keep checking back for further posts...

Matt