Dot Dew

Domains are hot again. After the bubble burst in the 90’s, no one ever thought that anyone would pay a 5 years salary for a domain name again. Think again. iFly.com was recently sold for $65.000. Thats not a wild sum, but it’s not a wild domain either. I did read somewhere that creditcards.com was sold for $2.750.000 last year. Someone did a pretty good investment there. I browsed ebay and found that ss.com was up for bidding, and the tag was around $55.000.

So why do people spend a redicoulus amount of paper on something as silly as the right to use a certain address on the internet? Think of it as real estate. Buy and sell later. Another reason is that the clever SEO crowd discovered that anchor text is one of the strongest SEO tool availible. That means if someone link to my site with the text “widgets” in the anchor tag, search engines will associate my site with “widgets” and give the site higher rankings on that particular search phrase. So this means that if I own “widgets.com”, chances are that many people will link me up with the domain name, and since that contains my main keyword, half the SEO is already made.

How to choose a domain name and stay out of trouble.

In theory, choosing a domain name is simple. If it is memorable, pronounceable, short, clever, easily spelled and suggests the nature of the commerce on your website, you’ve got yourself a winner. But even if your choice is brilliant from a marketing standpoint, it may not be so smart from a legal perspective.

If you choose a domain name that conflicts with any one of the millions of commercial names that already exist, you risk losing it. And if you’ve put money and sweat into marketing your website and then are forced to give the domain name up, your Web-based business is likely to suffer a damaging, if not fatal, blow.

The rules for understanding whether a legal conflict exists comes from trademark law. Here are the basics you need to understand:

* Names that identify the source of products or services in the marketplace are trademarks.
* Trademarks that are clever, memorable or suggestive are protected under federal and state law.
* Trademarks that are descriptive and have achieved distinction through sales and advertising can be protected under federal and state law.
* One trademark legally conflicts with another when the use of both trademarks is likely to confuse customers about the products or services, or their source.
* In case of a legal conflict with a later user, the first commercial user of a trademark owns it.
* If a legal conflict is found to exist, the later user will probably have to stop using the mark and may even have to pay the trademark owner damages.

Customer Confusion

Applying these principles to your domain name selection, you are at risk of losing your chosen domain name if the owner of an existing trademark convinces a judge or arbitrator that your use of the domain name makes it likely that customers would be confused as to the source or quality of the products.

So many times I have heard this. So many examples I do remember. People have left the internet business after being disappointed with their so called affiliate programs.

An affiliate program is an excellent way to earn money especially in the beginning. I said beginning because at that time one does not understand the market and is too naïve to bring his own product out in right way.

Affiliate programs fill that gap nicely. You have got a readymade product and a readymade webpage too (though you can develop your own and you should be doing that).There is only one aspect left to make that money.

Making sales.

But you need to choose your affiliate program carefully.

An affiliate program should be free to join. You should be cautious of the programs that will charge you upfront to be able to become their affiliates. Sometimes you buy a product and get affiliate status as bonus. That is acceptable. But a good affiliate program should not charge you a membership fee monthly or yearly whatever the case may be.

There are some programs which charge you a monthly fee for becoming a member and you are expected to recruit more for getting a commission. These are not affiliate programs but MLM programs.

Be cautious when you join such programs. They do not offer a good product to sell. The only thing that you have to sell is the membership. Such programs may eat up a lot of your money before you realize their worthlessness. In such programs you sell a membership and your recruit is expected to sell the same in return.

This kind of sale is not only hard to accomplish but also associated with high attrition. That means the rate of members dropping out is very high.

Also you should get a good commission. Check the percentage offered. Good programs offer 50-60% commissions. Though high priced products seem quite lucrative due to apparent volume of money in commission but selling a high priced product may not be that easy task too. It is because the market for those may not be that large. So you need to select your product carefully.

One very important factor that is often ignored is your aptitude for the particular product. Select a product that you can associate your interests with. For example if you like gardening then a product that caters the gardening needs will be easier to sell than a selling a real estate product.

Because in sales first of all you need to be convinced about the usability and benefits of the product before you attempt to sell it. If the product is around the area of your interest you can easily identify the beneficial aspects. Then you will find it easier to convince your potential customers.

Study the market and demand for that product.

If the demand is high the sales are easier. To study the demand go to Overture or Google and look for the search made around the keywords of your product. It will give you a fair idea about the demand.

Plan your market strategies beforehand.

It is better if you make your own website instead of promoting the copy of the original page laced with your link. Having your own website gives you a unique identification and professional look. The other advantage is that you can promote multiple products on the same page rather than promoting different pages separately.

Web hosting is quite cheap now a days and webpage can be easily built in front page.

Try and give your full efforts into promoting what you have got. Affiliate programs are good way to learn the market tactics. Learn and try them best to your abilities.

Stick with the product you have chosen instead of jumping to the new offer of some other product. New products are being released everyday but being new does not mean that it is better and easier to sell.

Analyze regularly. Test regularly and keep working.

Your commission graph would definitely rise.

Do you go through affiliate programs like most people go through pairs of socks? Many Internet marketers do. In fact, 97% of all Internet marketers never make a single cent advertising opportunities on the Internet. They jump from one opportunity to the next and never see results. If you want to break free from this cycle of failure– if you want to earn a living off of your Internet ventures–continue reading. I will tell you exactly how you can earn money from any legitimate affiliate program.

In order to get the most information from what I am about to explain to you, you must accept that these methods are not intended to be “secrets.” These are scientifically-proven, best-practice methods that all top marketers use. If you want results, you will have to do and continue to do the following five things:

1. Know your product. Do not advertise for a product or affiliate program that you are not currently using. I cannot even count the amount of affiliate programs and product offers I have rejected immediately from people who know very little about what they are actually promoting. If you want to make money selling a product or service, you have to use it, understand it, and be able to convince your prospects that they should own it. If you yourself do not believe in it– because you have not even tried it–then you will have a hard time convincing anyone else it is worthwhile.

2. Know your field. You must continually become more knowledgeable about the market in which you are selling your product or service. For instance, I try to read at least 50 pages on Internet marketing each day to complement the marketing I do. This keeps me learning about my field. The best part about this is that you can do it without spending any money at all. The Internet is loaded with free content sites where you can find free ebooks and special reports on any subject. The Internet is also loaded with affiliate program promoters who are out-selling you. Use google to find these sites and then reverse engineer them–pick apart the source code, page setup, and content layout to find out how you can become more like your competition who is outselling you.

3. Focus your efforts and limit your innovation. As much as “limiting your innovation” may go against your business instincts, it is an absolute must with a limited marketing budget. Figure out what works for you scientifically by measuring your advertising results. When you find something that works, stick with it. If you are getting traffic from reciprocal links, continue to build them. If you are getting constant sign-ups from your newsletter, improve your newsletter and order more leads. Do not stray far from your original plan. Preset the amount of innovative ideas you want to try out each night, but center your marketing efforts around getting better results from methods that have already worked for you.

4. Spend money wisely. The Internet is loaded with scams and bad information. It is really easy to be tricked into blowing money on “get rich quick” schemes and information that you can find in free resources. I personally have spent thousands of dollars needlessly. But do not get me wrong; I am not saying there are no legitimate affiliate promotion services or information products out there: I am saying that the vast majority of them do not work as well as they say they do. So hold onto your cash. When you find a product that multiple people have personally recommended to you, then consider buying it. Otherwise, conserve your cash for purchasing services or products that will produce hard, definite results, such as email leads for your newsletter or phone leads you can contact personally to promote your program.

5. Remember that your success is dependent on your choices and your work alone. If you get upset about not becoming successful with a specific affiliate program, do not blame the program–blame yourself. Do a thorough analysis of what you could be doing better and how you could be making quantitative progress every single day. There are people who do not pay any money at all for promotional services and yet are still able to make a living just from using free tools on the Internet. If they can do it, there is no reason at all why you cannot. Joining a marketing group or forum in your field will help you realize this reality. Seeing and talking to people who are succeeding in your field will remind you that it is entirely possible to make money online without having a million dollars to begin with.

While there are some “secrets” to getting more sign-ups and site visitors, the bigger part of affiliate program marketing is following a sound business plan. If you keep the five concepts I have listed above central to your marketing campaign, you will not fail. But, if you continue to market sporadically–switching from product to product and method to method–you will never break out of that 97% who never make money.

Every day, thousands of would-be marketers scour the internet
looking for any and every affiliate program, sign up, sit back
and wait for the money to pour in and get frustrated just as
fast when the bank balance still shows a big, fat ZERO!

There are tons of guru’s floating around and even more eBooks
and articles claiming to know the latest and greatest trick to
make tons of money with no effort at all (oh and of course,
unless you use their method then you will never, ever get
anywhere in your online business and stay broke the rest of
your life). We’ve all seen these before.

Let’s get real for a moment.
If you don’t put any effort into your marketing and don’t
spread the word of whatever you are marketing, then you will
get exactly that much out of your effort.
Zero effort = Zero results!

I hope that’s plain enough and now let’s have a look at the
sensible way to market your affiliate programs, so you can
actually earn some of that Internet-Money-Pie (and it’s yummy
too).

There are two types of affiliate programs generally. Those that
pay you (1-tier) and those that pay you, plus they pay you a
bonus for actions taken by visitors sent by other webmasters
you have referred (2-tier).

Let’s think about that for a moment. What’s the easier way to
make money? You sell a bunch of products and get paid on that
alone, or if you sell product and also introduce the affiliate
program to a bunch of webmasters who in turn also sell and they
earn a nice commission and you get a bonus every single time
they sell something, just for having referred them to the
affiliate program?

Ok, I know you probably just smacked your forhead and
said ‘Duh’ quite loudly and think I am stating the plain and
obvious.

If you can get others to do the same thing you are doing, by
keeping in touch with them and helping them and duplicating
your efforts, then of course it stands to reason that the bonus
you receive for referring the webmasters will generate
potentially a large team of people making you money.

So, your first task is to find good, well-paying 2-tier
affiliate programs. You can always use single tier programs as
a back end sale or on other projects, don’t get me wrong, they
will still make you money, but right now, we want to get you
started off on the right foot to your own internet income.

So, you’ve gone out and found a well-paying affiliate program,
and you are ready to rumble and make money… Not So Fast!!!

How are you going to promote it? What is your plan of attack?
That’s another problem many marketers run into, they just run
off and don’t think before they act and that again results in a
lot less return for all of your efforts.

Here’s what I have done in the past and always do each time.
Feel free to try this out and see the results for yourself.

After finding the affiliate program I want to promote, I check
the resource material provided by the program. Sometimes,
depending on how new the program is, I use their material to
get things rolling but almost every time, I start to write some
ads of my own, perhaps an article or even an ebook that I can
use to promote the product and the affiliate program with.
Some of those resources are available to readers of the
eBusinessCornerNews newsletter if you are interested.

Another thing I do, after putting together all the marketing
material I want to use is to check out the competion that’s
already in the market. I don’t really care if there is
competition, as a matter of fact, many times that is a good
indicator that there is a good demand for the type of product I
am promoting. You can do this pretty easily by just going to a
search engine and typing in keywords you associate with the
product for example (there are a lot of additional ways to do
this that we discuss in our newsletter).

There are a ton of places you can advertise your product, and
the marketing material you are using, such as article
directories, free advertising forums or websites, you can even
find a lot of ezines that allow you to place free classifieds
and websites you can post your ad on, at no cost.

Another thing that is handy to have is a website of my own,
where I can post my thoughts and comments (nothing sells better
than your own, plain english comments and reviews) along with
any other articles I can find that will help to draw visitors
in and make the search engines list my site better.

Most of the time, I will take a few of my articles and turn
them into a free ebook, or post the articles in article
directories where other webmasters are permitted to reprint
them in their own newsletter, provided they leave my resource
box (see the bottom of this article for an example) in place.
So now they are spreading the word for me, driving traffic on
my behalf and generating orders too.
But I like to help, as much as I like to earn money too, so
here’s what I do most of the time.
When I find a good newsletter that I like then I touch base
with that publisher and offer him the article, but I also tell
him it’s for a 2-tier affiliate program and if he would like,
then he could use my article, if he either leaves my box in
place or signs up under me and then I let him add his link into
my box, so he can earn the bigger piece of the pie and I get
the bonus commissions from his sales.

Now, why would I do that? Simple…

I do that, because there’s a much better chance that he will
send out my article sooner, rather than later because now he
has the potential to earn money with it too.

Find a few publishers like that and you are well on your road
to getting a nice piece of the pie and the great thing is that
anytime you find a new affiliate program to promote and write a
new article, you already have made contacts that you can send
it to, so it gets easier every time and takes a lot less effort
on your part.

Well, there you have the sensible way of making money with
affiliate programs.
(Note: There are a lot of other methods available to market
your affiliate program and earn money, but this is one of the
best methods I have ever used.)

Here’s to your success,
Xavier
P.s. Quit reading this article already and get out there and
find yourself a good affiliate program and start making money.
Now get moving…

(Note: You have permission to reprint this article in it’s
entirety, provided you do not change the article in any way and
leave the Resource Box above intact. If you would like to earn
money with this article, please visit
http://www.makemoneymarketingonline.com today and sign up for
the generous 2-tier affiliate program that pays 50% for any
sales you make, plus an additional 20% for any sales generated
by webmasters you refer into the program)

When I designed my first website, I was so proud of it. I had spent many long nights over a period of months designing it. All of my friends and family told me how professional it was, and how very impressed they were. I swear I went to my site several times a day just to look at it and soak in the glory of what a wonderful job I had done. It was definitely “my baby.”

Then reality set in. I had asked a simple question in a web design group, and two senior members proceeded to tear my site to shreds. With no holds barred and in great detail, they explained that it looked like a homepage, not a business site.

I hated them both. I told a friend how terrible they were, and who did they think they were anyway! I truly thought they were rude individuals who didn’t have a clue what they were talking about, because hadn’t everyone else told me how great my site was?

It would be nearly a week before I calmed down enough to take another look at my site. Suddenly when looking at my site through their experienced eyes, I saw a completely different site! One by one I worked through every single recommendation.

Often I would spend days researching a recommendation they had made. These two individuals spent countless hours answering my questions and teaching me step by step how to make the corrections to these common web page mistakes. Stubbornly I held onto a few things until the last, such as my giant buttons and tons of centered text.

Then finally, I was through the list of corrections. I was sure I had fixed each and every item on the list. I was ready for my pat on the back. C’mon, tell me how wonderful I am! Tell me this is the best looking site you have ever seen anywhere on the planet!

They ripped me to shreds again, more gentle this time, but still to shreds.

One said, what happened to all of the CSS we discussed? You have a total disaster in your code! The other blatantly explained that I was far better than I was showing through the sloppy work in my code. “You are better than this, or I wouldn’t be so hard on you. Go back to work.”

I turned off the computer and yelled, “GAWD I HATE THEM!”. My friend smirked and gave a knowing grin that once again I was going through another learning phase. He also knew that in a few days, I would turn the computer back on and go back to work.

This process repeated itself many times, and my learning curve was very steep. When I look back at each new site I created, each a little better than the next, I realized how very far I had come. Following are some common web page mistakes that many of us have made as new designers.

Hi,

video_tutorial

I just released more of my Dreamweaver MX video tutorials.

Thought Dreamweaver MX was released in 2004, not much in Dreamweaver has changed since that time … especially when it comes to the basics.

Anyway, for those new to Dreamweaver, these videos should be useful.

PS: I also have Dreamweaver CS3 videos for those who need the cutting edge stuff.

Unless you have taken a particular fancy to the default theme that comes with your blog, chances are that you would have had to design or modify a theme or template for your blog before. Creating a new theme for a blog often requires consideration of a number of issues so that your blog can be more user friendly and search engine friendly. This article gives a checklist of some of the main principles which guide the way I configure a new theme or template for a blog.

Note that while this article talks primarily of blogs, the principles also apply when you are configuring a content management system (CMS).
Theme or Template Related Configuration Principles

It should be admitted that when we create a new theme or template, we often think of its visual appearance. Notice how most blog software, from the ones you download and install on your own server to the online blogging services, give you a way to select a new theme based on thumbnail pictures of how it appears.

However, visual appeal is only one aspect of the process of configuring a new theme or template for your site. There are a number of other important things to look out for, when you create a new theme.
Navigation, Categories, Archives, Recent Posts and Breadcrumbs

The navigation system of a site, be it a traditionally-structured website or a blog, is always important. It is the means by which visitors to your site access the other articles. You’ll be surprised how many blogs have a deficient navigational system that makes it hard for new and old visitors to find other articles on your site.

By navigation system, I don’t just mean a link to your main page and “About” page. Those sorts of links are probably present in all the default themes in every blog script. Rather, I mean a way for your visitors to find other articles that you have written on, say, a particular topic. Or perhaps, if you have somehow made a fan of that visitor, a way for him/her to access your all your older articles.

Many blog systems have, by default, archive pages, where your articles are linked to according to month. While archive pages are not without its problems, they at least function as a sort of site map that you see in traditionally-structured websites.

If you have eliminated such archive pages, and perhaps even if you have not, I suggest you take a look at implementing “categories” or “tags” for your blog posts. This allows you to place every post that you make in a particular category. The blog or CMS software then automatically generates a new index for you for that category.

In your new theme or template, make sure that you link to these category pages somewhere. Put it on every page, perhaps in your side panel or something. Don’t rely on the automatic links created by the blog software at the bottom of each post linking to the tag for that particular topic. Give your visitors the ability to reach every category from any page.

Some blogging software allow you to do this easily by putting a “tag cloud” on your side panel (WordPress springs to mind here). If you have that facility, use it. And then when you post, maintain the discipline of tagging all your posts, to put them into some meaningful category. If there is a particular ad-hoc post that doesn’t belong to any category (because, for example, you traditionally don’t post such topics), then put it in a “miscellaneous” catch-all category. But don’t post everything into “miscellaneous”, obviously, or else your tagging system becomes useless.

If you find tag clouds ugly, or you have too many tags to place into the side panel, another way to improve the usability of your blog is to create a master index page that links to all the category indices on your site, and link to that master index from every page.

A useful feature, usually provided by default in most (if not all) blog software, is the ability to list the recent posts to the blog in the side panel. Do not remove this feature when you redesign your theme. Recent posts are another navigational aid to your site, and it keeps interested visitors on your blog.

Another way to improve navigation in your blog is to leave breadcrumbs. Breadcrumbs are something like the “You are here” markers on the newer pages of thesitewizard.com and thefreecountry.com. They help your visitors navigate around your site. Blogging software typically have very poor support for breadcrumbs. However, don’t break your back over implementing this if your software does not. Most (if not all) of the breadcrumb advantages disappear when you implement tagging or categories for your post. Tagging also tends to be more flexible, in that you can place a post into multiple categories, while traditionally designed breadcrumbs forces an article into only one category.
Search

Ideally, you should really implement a way for visitors to search your blog, the way many traditional websites do. However, I empathize with the webmasters who have disabled search on their site: searching blog posts adds to the server resource usage for your site, resulting in your blog hitting your web host’s resource limits earlier than it might otherwise, particularly if your blog has many visitors.

I noticed a few blogs work around this by using an externally hosted search engine. I don’t particularly fancy this approach, but I guess your preferences and needs will be different. In any case, my personal opinion is that blogs, like websites, should have some sort of search facility. If this is not possible, then try to make sure that your navigation structure is good enough to help visitors locate the articles they want.
Linking from the Teasers to the Main Article (Permalink)

If you are reading this, you are probably a seasoned blog reader and web surfer. When you read the teaser (usually the first paragraph or so) of an article on a blog’s main page, and want to read the rest of the article, it’s a simple matter for you to find the link (or permalink) to the main article. However, not everybody who reaches your site is going to be equally seasoned. What may seem obvious to you is not necessary so for the average user.

When you design the template for your main, archive and category pages, make sure that links to the real article can be clearly seen as links by the visitor. A “read more” link that is blue and underlined usually works well, since people are accustomed to recognizing those as clickable links. You may think that “it’s obvious that the title of the article is clickable”. But if your title is not blue and underlined, you’ll be surprised to learn that it’s not at all obvious to many people. Note that I’m not saying that your titles must be blue and underlined - it doesn’t need to be. Add a link somewhere after the text of the teaser that leads obviously to your main article. Words (in blue and underlined) like “More…” or “Read the rest of this article…” usually do the trick. Those words are superior to even the word “permalink”, which is meaningful only to a blogger.
Page Title

The page title of a blog post page should not be solely the name of the blog. I’m not talking about the main page of the blog itself, but the article pages which contain the individual post, what some people call the “permalink” page. Nor am I talking about the printed text that appears in the main window of the web browser. I’m referring to the HTML