Rss Feeds.

RSS works so well that a lot of site owners swear it stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’. Why is it simple? Because you just select the content you like and have it delivered directly to your site.

If you’re a busy person—and who isn’t, these days-RSS feeds can take the hassle out of staying up-to-date, by streaming in the very latest information that you are interested in.

So where do you get this good stuff? Well, if it’s news you want, most of the major news sites provide it since it is growing rapidly in popularity. A few news services that provide it are Guardian, New York Times and CNN.

How do I start using RSS feeds?

Well, the first thing you’re gonna need is a news reader. There are many different versions of these, some of which are accessed using a browser, and some of which are downloadable applications. All allow you to display and subscribe to the RSS feeds you want.

My top picks for news readers, listed by the operating system they work with, are:
1. Mac OS X: NetNewsWire This is a simple yet elegant Mac-like aggregator that any one can use, yet it’s powerful.
2. Windows: SharpReader A very simple tool, but it delivers the goods.
3. Linux: Straw The best very aggregator for GNOME.
4. Web: Bloglines Enough said.

Now, after you’ve chosen a news reader, all you have to do is to decide what content you want. For example, if you would like the latest BBC News Entertainment stories, simply visit the Entertainment section and you will notice an orange RSS button on the left hand side.

If you click on the RSS button you can subscribe to the feed in various ways: you can either drag the URL of the RSS feed into your news reader, or you can cut and paste the URL into a new feed in your news reader.

Some browsers, including Firefox, Opera and Safari, have functionality that automatically picks up RSS feeds for you. To make absolutely sure, check the details on the homesites of those browsers.

RSS feeds are a great way to get free content streaming onto your pages.

The only downside is that most of the free RSS feeds are news-oriented or entertainment-oriented, so if you run, say, a site that focuses on the latest video games, your audience may not really care that they can get the latest news streaming in there.

As far as the nitty-gritty, each RSS channel can contain up to 15 items and is easily parsed using Perl or other open source software. If you want more details, I suggest you check out Jonathan Eisenzopf’s excellent article in the February issue of Web Techniques. But you don’t really have to worry too much over the details, since a simple Google search on “free open source RSS feed scripts” will produce the code you need to create your own RSS channel.

The next step, once you’ve created and validated your RSS text file, is to register it at the various aggregators, and start watching your traffic really spike. This happens because now any site can grab and display your feed regularly, which will drive traffic straight to your site.

It gets better-if you update your RSS file, all the external sites that subscribe to your feed will be automatically updated. What could be easier, other than watching those nice, fat checks from your Google AdSense ads roll in? Well, if you use RSS feeds, they’ll work together!

Waht Is Clickbank & How to Market a Product?

A quick overview of Clickbank and what it has to offer an affiliate who is looking to earn from the digital marketplace, this is an introductory video that reviews the beginning steps to become an affiliate and why you should at least think about it.

Good Website Content - Why It's Your Most Valuable Asset

What do you want to achieve?

- Why does your business website exist?

- What do you want visitors to do when they land on your website?

If you answered "to impress people" or "for fun" then you may have the wrong attitude towards your on line business website.



If you answered "to turn my visitors into customers" then you're spot on.

Good website content is all about turning those curious website visitors into feverish customers. Ones that buy, sign-up, click through your affiliate links/ adsense or what ever it is that you want them to do.

Good website content gets those visitors to TAKE ACTION

Getting visitors to your website is one problem... once they're there, getting them to 'take action' is quite another.

Website browsers read and react quite differently to written words presented to them on the screen to those in a brochure or magazine.

Good website content is created by understanding the way humans read off a computer screen. Understand this and you can win them over and achieve your goals...get them to take a desired action!

Visitors Scan - good website content writers know that visitors quickly scan the screen to find key bits of information. They don't read every word.

- Use subheadings for impact, to draw attention to the main point of the following paragraph.
- Use bulleted lists to deliver information in small chunks.
- Avoid mixing figures and words e.g It was found that 357, 000, that's 78%, of all visitors to London said the Tower of London was the best attraction. Better to have said "Most visitors voted 'The Tower' their 'top' attraction" - See how much more punchy that was.

Visitors use the 'F' movement

- Visitors scan the top & left column first, then move across to the right.
- Most read or noticed - Top left section.
- Least read or noticed - Bottom right.

Put important content or sign-ups 'top left' of the page.

Visitors are impatient - Good website content is:

- Brief.... enough said?

Don't use long words, flowery language or rambling sentences - you'll loose your audience because they loose concentration.

Keyword Rich - Good website content is 'Keyword focussed'
Every page of your website should be built using a keyword... right? Good website content starts with your keywords, the ones that those visitors used in the search to find you. Using those same keywords will help you to connect with those visitors - empathise with them.

- Don't over use the keyword, it will disrupt the flow of your text.
- Aim for a density of 3-5% use.
- Find variations that use the keywords in different combinations.

Keep it focussed - One idea per page

- Website visitors will only focus on one new idea per page - keep it focussed.

Good content is 'Empty'

Blank areas of a page? What nothing at all? Yes it's known as 'white space' though it doesn't have to be white. Remember that reading from a screen is tiring. Often those poor visitors are bombarded by busy, visually noisy screens with too much going on. This causes them to feel bamboozled and switch off from the information in front of them. Think how nice it is to visit 'Googles' home page. Just one thing right in the centre of all that white space.

- Give the text or content room.
- Give the visitors eye's a rest... they'll be able to focus on the information on screen.

Good website content builds trust:

- Well researched.
- Accurate in it's facts and information.
- Deliver on their promises.

No readers are impressed by factual errors or poorly researched articles. If you want those first time website visitors to become regular visitors and customers... this should be your goal.

Think of Amazon, Google or Yahoo. Love them or loath them but they all deliver the goods that their users want.

Make sure you over deliver with your good website content.

So much for humans! Good website content pleases the search engines too.

- Headlines and 'H' tags
- Keywords/ keyword phrases
- Title tags
- Description tags
- Keyword rich content
- Relevant text rich links to other relevant pages

Don't forget those search engines that visit your website to read the content, they'll reward you and the website if the content is good (notice I used website, good and content in a different order).

So lets sum it all up - Good website content is:

- Brief - Scanable
- Positioned well - 'F' movement
- Keyword rich
- Focussed - One idea per page
- Empty - white space
- Accurate - Build trust
- Tight & Neatly punctuated.
- Crisp & punchy
- Remember those search engines

When you've finished writing get someone, who doesn't know your subject, to read it through.

- Does it make sense?
- Did it hold their interest?

So no excuses - make sure every page has good website content to keep turn those website visitors into feverish customers.

Keywords: good website content, website visitors,

Want more great articles for you website or newsletter? Take a look at my website www.simplewebsitemarketing.com see the authors box for info.


Brian Cotsen writes articles & reviews tools to help you succeed with your website or online internet affiliate marketing. Visit http://www.simplewebsitemarketing.com

How to write Articles to boost sales

If you’ve been checking out this series of articles, you’ve seen how important it is for any serious affiliate marketer to have good web content. Good content can mean the difference between someone clicking onto your site and clicking away a moment later and someone staying for a while and then clicking through to buy the product or service you’re trying to sell. But what if you just aren’t a very good writer? What if your mind is programmed for business, not English. Don’t worry, there are options for you.
• Search the public domain. There are millions of articles that are currently in the public domain that you can use on your web site free of charge. A simple web search can bring up hundreds of these kinds of articles. And the best part is you can edit them, change them, alter them or do whatever you want to them so that they sound exactly like you want them to. You don’t have to worry about paying any authors or stepping on any toes. This is an excellent way to go if you don’t want to write content yourself.
• You can pay companies to write content for you, and in most cases, it’s cheaper than you think. When you consider how important good web content is, paying someone a few dollars to write exactly what you need isn’t such a bad idea. Of course, some companies charge more than others and it always pays to shop around, but don’t shut yourself off to the idea of paying for content. Sometimes you have to spend money to make money and this is one of those cases if you don’t want to write your own web content.

• Maybe the best choice of the three is to simply read and learn. Spend a week or two clicking around on the Internet and reading the web content on other affiliate websites. Take as much of that content in and then try to write in a similar style about the product you’re trying to sell. You don’t instantly become the best writer in the world this way, but studies have shown that the more you read, the better writer you’ll be. Experience pays and the more you know about how to write in this style, the easier it will be.

Having solid web content can’t be overstated. You will never have a truly successful affiliate marketing website unless you have good content. If you can’t write it yourself, you do have other options, but the best thing you can do is to learn how to write in this style. It will be an investment that will pay off time and time again.

Affiliate Marketing with no Money

Maybe the single greatest part about affiliate marketing is the incredibly low initial investment you need to start earning money for yourself. All you really need is a website. That’s it. There are so many FREE programs out there that will walk you though basic web design, even if you know nothing about it, you can be up and running in the span on a day. All that’s left at this point is finding an affiliate marketing program to subscribe to.
Here are a few tips about starting up your affiliate marketing campaign today!

• There are tens of thousands of affiliate marketing programs you can subscribe to. The list is essentially limitless. An important piece of advice, though, is that if an affiliate marketing program wants you to pay money to sign up, you might want to think twice. Unless the initial investment is very small, there are many other choices that you could make. You see, almost all affiliate marketing programs are FREE! That’s right, you read that right. FREE! And not only that, but some of the big time programs will even train you and give you tips on the right keywords to put on your webpage so random web surfers will find you, click on your link, buy a product and earn you money! Unless you really want to be part of an affiliate marketing program that charges money, don’t do it. There are thousands that are free.

• Don’t use a low-quality internet provider. This can be a tough choice for those looking at keeping their costs at zero or as close to zero as possible. But your local full Internet Service Provider is going to do a better job of hosting your new money making website then some free site that crashes all the time. Your new web site is a money-making machine for you, don’t trust it to a company that isn’t going to do everything they can to make sure it’s up and running 24/7. You probably pay for an internet connection in your home already, and with your basic Internet account, you get web space. Use it and rest easy knowing that your website is in good hands.

>As you can see, there are a few ins and outs to affiliate marketing that everyone needs to know. But the key here is the fact that you can earn money with almost no work involved. Just make a website, write some snappy content and set up your links and then sit back, relax and count your money.

Video as Way to Generate Traffic

Video is the up and coming thing in marketing today. There are just so many ways you can use this media. A picture is worth a thousand words and what better way to market your hot selling product than through a video.

The latest thing to hit the marketing scene is video blogging. You can just use your own video camera and up load your video to your blog. It is not too hard and can easily be done for pennies. You can then promote it as you would a regular blog.
As well as blogging there are many other websites where you can upload your video for the world to see and sell more of your product than ever before. Many of them are free like Utube and Google video. You can generate traffic by putting their URL on the video.

You can announce your video to your visitors and newsletter subscribers to generate more traffic to them.

You can also place a link to your video in your direct marketing advertisements. This will mean that you can pre sell with your ad and then close the sale with your video clip. You can additionally use your videos to create curiosity and excitement about your sponsor’s products and get visitors to click through to your sponsor’s site. When done properly this will increase sales conversions and get you a bigger commission check.

Marketing with videos is a fun way to promote and pre sell products. You can make your own videos and upload them to your website or the others mentioned. Your visitors will be enthralled and you will increase your sales conversions. Everyone likes watching videos and seeing is certainly believing. Videos can win over those visitors who are just a little skeptical as to whether it really works.

Good Website Content

To achieve the success of your affiliate marketing business, the site should contain good web content. Through this, visitors will be interested click through your sponsor’s selling page. The content invites the visitors while the sponsor sells directly to them. And the last thing you need to be doing is to giving your visitors a double sell. This is a sure fire way to decrease sales conversions.

There are many types of web content.

• Informative Content – it can be used to pre sell your product or service to your visitors. A good content will prove to your visitors that you are credible enough in your field. With that, it can increase your sales conversions.

• Product Review – it is another popular web content type used in giving reactions towards a certain product or service you have used. Make sure you make a honest review because for every review you make, you pre sell your products, create interest and make your visitors click through your sponsor’s site.• News stories about your industry are fun and interesting for readers.

• Humorous Anecdote – it is popular and intriguing. A little humor in your visitors’ days will intrigue them to get the click through.

• Resource Article and How-To-Piece – it is a popular article that will really make the visitors interested.

Good website content needs to be optimized to gain favor with the search engines. You should accomplish your keyword research to find good niche keywords in doing your content. It would help keep your site updated by adding new content to your website every week to attract visitors and increase your Page Rank. Through this, you will gain a good position with the search engines and will bring more traffic to your site.

Five Brilliant Ideas for Traffic Generation

The life of affiliate marketing business depends on traffic. No traffic, no site to exist. It will help you increase your click ratio and sales commissions. Here are the 5 ways to drive visitors to your website:

Blogging - like a web diary where you can write interesting articles for readers. The articles you made can be use to link your readers to your site also known as back links. Back links can help you to improve search engine ranking. Register one of your blogs on www.blogspot.com and Google will promote your blog in 2 days with RSS feeds to gain more traffic.

Forums – a fun way to promote your business where you can post questions and answers to learn a lot and help others. Advertisements are not allowed here but you can display your email signature every time you post.

Viral Marketing - one of the oldest and best forms of marketing. You can give away an e-book on your site and have a couple of links and a full-page ad in the back for your product or service. Grant permission to your readers to give away the book and see this promotion snowball.

Social Marketing – one good example is MySpace. Myspace is now being used as a popular way of marketing products and services.

Article Distribution - a powerful way to promote your business where you can write interesting and informative articles for your readers. It will bring many visitors to your site.

Avoiding Affiliate Scams

Affiliate marketing helps you in making your business profitable and fun at the same time. The key is choosing the right programs. You can benefit with the good programs either be involved with scams that will not pay you for your hardships and owe you the commission you deserve in the end.

How to avoid scams: The best way to avoid these scams, do your research well. Consider these points before joining:

1. Does the company have good support? Do they answer emails and have valid contact information?

2. Do they have a valid offline address?

3. What % of commission do they pay; 30%-50% is the best.

4. Tracking system - this should be in real time and accurate.

5. Products should be well targeted for your market and of good quality.

Where to research:

1. Forums related to your industry. There are many savvy people who use the forums for reference. You can ask advice from others base on the programs they use.

2. Discussion lists.

3. Look into the program carefully.

4. Put the company name, plus the word scam, into the search engines and see what comes up. Use your own judgment, as sometimes these reviews may not be 100% true.

GOLDEN RULE: Look before you join to prevent being victimized with these scams. It is advisable if you ask other people's opinions. Do not rush, choose good reliable programs wisely that will give you the profits you want for many years to come.

E-Mail Marketing

Email marketing is a powerful way to promote products. It does not matter whether it is your sponsor’s products and services or your own. You will still find this form of marketing very effective.

Your email marketing will begin with your opt-in list. This can easily be built by offering a free newsletter about your industry to your website visitors. You place a subscription box on your website that will capture names and email addresses of your subscribers. You can also be extra careful and make this a double opt-in, meaning that the subscriber must confirm their subscription before they join your list.

Once you have built a good sized list you can place small ads for your product in your newsletter and can even start an announcement list for those who are looking for new products, tools and opportunities.

Email marketing can take several forms.

1. There is of course your free newsletter, which will have a couple of ads, as mentioned above.
2. Then there is information please mailer, which can help you close many sales. You have a link on your website, or in your publication, for readers to click on, if they need more information. The mailer will be a sequence of emails that give more information about the product and a call to action at the end. These are very effective in closing sales and getting the click through to your sponsor’s site.
3. You can also send special announcements to your entire list about new products and services that you think will meet their needs.

There are 2 tools you need:

1. An autoresponder
2. Email signature file

Can Spam Act: It is very important to comply with the Can Spam Act when sending email. Always give your name, company name and physical address at the bottom of your email. It is very important to provide an opt-out or unsubscribe link at the end of your email.

Spam filters: Always Spam check your email messages before you send them out.

Much of email marketing can be put on auto pilot and prescheduled with your autoresponder. It is a very cost effective and highly effective form of marketing.

Why to be Affiliate?

Affiliate marketing is one of the best ways to start your business. You can either use it as a stepping-stone to build up income to start your business, or you can supplement your income from an established enterprise. You can even expand your affiliate marketing in such a way that you can earn a full time income from it.

Affiliate marketing has other advantages. It can be a good learning tool. Good affiliate programs will not leave their affiliates high and dry; they will provide good tools and advice to get them started. As a new entrepreneur you will be able to learn the basics of marketing for free. Plus get a good idea of how to write good sales copy from their promotional material. This will help you get a good start for any business you need to engage in.

One of the cardinal rules of Affiliate marketing is to stick with one program and not flit like a butterfly from one program to another before you have had time to test and learn about it carefully. Work a program for at least one month before you quit. By that time you may even be making money from the program. After one month add another program, test it and then move on to the next program. In this way you will gain experience and build up your income. Choose your programs wisely, so that you can get maximum benefits from them. Learning and earning is what you are looking for.

These are just a few reasons to join affiliate programs. These programs are only as good as the work you put into them. You can either just earn a little money with minimum investment of time and money or you can earn a comfortable living by doing whatever it takes to succeed.