As you are aware, for your blogging to be effective, you will need to add fresh content to your blog on a regular basis. This article presents five tips that you can use to make blogging easy.

1. Write your blog content in advance and save it so that it’s ready to be posted everyday. When you have time to write, try to write enough blog content that will be enough for several days or for the whole week. You can write and save your blog posts on your blog, and all you have to do is to publish the posts everyday. This means that on those days when you do not have the time to write, you can still post fresh content on your blog using the blog posts you would have saved.

2. Blog about a wide range of things that relate to your niche. Think about any information relating to your niche which your website visitors will be interested in seeing on your blog. Identify the sub-niches in your niche and write about those as well. You should never run out of ideas on what to blog about.

3. Invite your blog visitors to leave some comments relating to your posts and your niche. This is an easy way of getting unique content on your website. The more interaction you allow on your blog, the more content you will have on your blog.

4. Research and look for the key questions and issues that people in your niche are interested in, and provide information that addresses those questions on your blog. Look in the relevant forums for the hot topics that people are asking, and provide answers to these questions on your blog. This will make your blog useful to your visitors because it will have information which your visitors are looking for. This gives you a wide range of topics that you can blog about.

5. Use PLR content, customize it and make it unique and break it into blog posts. It is essential that you make the PLR content very unique otherwise you will be penalized for duplicate content. Using PLR content as a starting point for your blog posts means that you will be able to create blog content easily and quickly.

Use these five tips outlined above to make blogging easy. The more you blog, the more traffic you drive to your website.

There are a lot of great PLR sites to get you the content that you need.

If you repeat your keywords with every other word on every line, then your site will probably be rejected as an artificial site or spam site.

Keyword density is always expressed as a percentage of the total word content on a given web page.

Suppose you have 100 words on your webpage (not including HMTL code used for writing the web page), and you use a certain keyword for five times in the content. The keyword density on that page is got by simply dividing the total number of keywords, by the total number of words that appear on your web page. So here it is 5 divided by 100 = .05. Because keyword density is a percentage of the total word count on the page, multiply the above by 100, that is 0.05 x 100 = 5%

The accepted standard for a keyword density is between 3% and 5%, to get recognized by the search engines and you should never exceed it.

Remember, that this rule applies to every page on your site. It also applies to not just to one keyword but also a set of keywords that relates to a different product or service. The keyword density should always be between 3% and 5%.

Simple steps to check the density:

• Copy and paste the content from an individual web page into a word-processing software program like Word or Word Perfect.
• Go to the ‘Edit’ menu and click ‘Select All’. Now go to the ‘Tools’ menu and select ‘Word Count’. Write down the total number of words in the page.
• Now select the ‘Find’ function on the ‘Edit’ menu. Go to the ‘Replace’ tab and type in the keyword you want to find. ‘Replace’ that word with the same word, so you don’t change the text.
• When you complete the replace function, the system will provide a count of the words you replaced. That gives the number of times you have used the keyword in that page.
• Using the total word count for the page and the total number of keywords you can now calculate the keyword density.

Google announced this week that it has completed changes to the serp algorithm to reflect local searches. Google now guesses where a searcher is located by their ip address and if they search for something like “dentists” or “restaurants” then relevant local sites will be included in the results.

If you can get a page on your site rated high for a particular location, this will bring in more traffic.

To read Google’s announcement, check out their official blog.

Amazon has been sending the following email to US affiliates. They are essentially ending PPC referral fees for affiliates. If you are currently using ppc traffic to send buyers directly to the Amazon site, you will no longer get referral fees for that traffic. You can buy traffic and but you have to send it to your own site, and then through a link on your site to Amazon. This means a lower conversion rate because not everyone who comes to your site will then click on another link to get to Amazon.

“Dear Amazon Associate:

We’re writing to let you know about a change to the Amazon Associates
Program. After careful review of how we are investing our advertising
resources, we have made the decision to no longer pay referral fees
to Associates who send users to Amazon.com: Online Shopping for Electronics, Apparel, Computers, Books, DVDs & more, Amazon.ca: Online shopping for Canadians - books, electronics, music, DVDs, software, video games & more, or
Shoes & Handbags - Free Overnight Shipping & Return Shipping: Endless.com through keyword bidding and other paid search on
Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other search engines, and their extended
search networks. If you’re not sure if this change affects you, please
visit this page for FAQs.

As of May 1, 2009, Associates will not be paid referral fees for paid
search traffic. Also, in connection with this change, as of May 1,
2009, Amazon will no longer make data feeds available to Associates
for the purpose of sending users to the Amazon websites in the US or
Canada via paid search.

This change applies only to the Associates programs in North America.
If you are conducting paid search activities in connection with one of
Amazon’s Associates Programs outside of the US and Canada, please
refer to the applicable country’s Associates Program Operating
Agreement for relevant terms and conditions.

We appreciate your continued support and participation in this
advertising Program. If you have questions or concerns, please write
to us by using the Contact Us form available on Associates Central.”

Imagine you run an e-commerce website of some sort, and have done for a while. Business is steady and you’re getting a relatively good amount of traffic and new customers. But many small business owners will argue that repeat business is the key; retaining your customer base and making people come back time and time again.

So how do we do this? You can have an easy to remember URL, good rankings in the major search engines and even a “bookmark us” link in a prominent place on your home page. Many businesses however, will swear by a strong e-mail marketing campaign to bring back their customers.

Predictably, quite a few smaller businesses get scared by this and will look into outsourcing their campaign to a third-party specialist. This is not always necessary however, and here’s why…

E-mail marketing is low-cost, but there is a reason for this. I have found that regardless of how amazing your offer, or how attractive your e-mail may be visually, you do require a LARGE list of subscribers to see a good conversion. E-mail marketing only becomes cost-effective when the cost is relative to the size of your list. This means that you really need at least 500 subscribers, all of which must be up-to-date and opt-in.

Once you cross off the points listed in this article, you will find yourself with an effective campaign that can give your business an unimaginable boost.

One of the most magical things about AJAX is its ability to talk to the web server behind the scenes. For example, once upon a time when submitting a form on the web you would need to wait for the page to reload before a “thank you” message appeared. With AJAX the same action can be performed behind the scenes so that the page does not need to reload. This is AJAX at its base level.

There are so many ways in which AJAX technology can enhance your website, here are a few ideas that you may wish to implement.

AJAX is still a relatively new technology but it is being used widely and I think that within the next 2/3 years we are going to be seeing a lot more of it. Unfortunately, this is just another nail in the coffin for those who do not keep up with web technologies, because the enhanced usability AJAX can offer will become expected and sites that do not offer it will get left behind. Are you on the bandwagon?

The first thing you’re going to need is to find a domain name for your business. This is where you’re going to have to use a little imagination. Let’s say you decided to sell CDs through Amazon and you decide to focus on the ones that are sold at a big discount, which is usually the older stuff. You might want to get a domain name like www.cheapcds.com, or something like that. You want the domain name to be as descriptive of what your business is as possible. If it’s a band review site then maybe you might choose something like www.rockbandreviews.com or something like that. I seriously doubt either of those domains are available, but you get the picture.

To get your domain, simply go to Google and type in “Domains.” You’ll find about 95 million places to get domains. Lots of people use GoDaddy.com
. However, I do recommend another hosting company, Hostgator, because they are cheaper and easier to use. You can also buy your domain at Hostgator. I use Hostgator for all of my hosting, including this site.

Domains are cheap for the first year, about $9-10 or so. But after that, they get very expensive if you renew on a yearly basis, so it’s a good idea to get your domain for a number of years if you’re sure you’re going to be keeping it.

After you get your domain, the next thing you’re going to need is hosting

This is where most people get caught with their pants down.

Why?

Because they don’t realize all the things that they can run into.

Why?

Because they’re brand new to this. They’re entering a world that is so foreign to them that the things I am going to list here wouldn’t even dawn on them. So, in order to keep you from waking up one day and wishing you had this stuff, I am going to outline for you a few things you may want to get BEFORE you actually start thinking about building a web site and advertising it to the masses.

1. You’re going to need a backup for your computer. I don’t care whether you get a zip drive or an online service or duel RAID drives. If your PC crashes and you don’t have all your important files saved somewhere, you are going to be in for some serious hurt. I am speaking from experience. I never thought of these things until they happened to me.

2. You’re going to want to get a professional email account. You’ll normally get one of these with a hosting package. Why do you want a professional email account? Without going into a long boring rant about spam and spam filters and how tons of email just simply doesn’t get delivered to these free email accounts like AOL, Hotmail, Yahoo and on and on, just do yourself a favor and get a pro email account. The last thing you want to happen is somebody writing to you inquiring about your business and their email either lands in your bulk folder or doesn’t get delivered at all. Get a pro email account.

3. Get a safety deposit box. If your house burns down, no backup is going to save your valuable papers and contracts, not to mention all the passwords you’re going to accumulate for all the sites and services you’re going to subscribe to. And make no mistake about it, you’ll have TONS of passwords. Write them all down and maybe once a month, go to your safety deposit box and put the updated papers in it. This way, if you have to start from scratch, you’ll at least have every site you belong to, along with your username and password on a sheet of paper. Saves a ton of time.

4. Get a business phone. If you’re going to communicate with potential JV partners or customers, the last thing you want is for somebody to call home and have your kid answer the phone. If you’re going to run a professional business, get a business phone. Even a private cell phone is fine.

5. Anti Virus and Firewall protection. The Internet is a nasty place. The last thing you want to do is go online to any site and risk getting hit with a trojan or worse. It happens. Not to mention some of the things you’re going to find in your email. In today’s Internet, going online without anti virus and firewall protection is like sending a blind man through a mine field.

There are other things that you’re probably going to want to get over time such as a text editor, a budget and expense program, a filing cabinet and high speed Internet connection, but the 5 things I mentioned above are a must. It’s just plain suicide not to have them and they’re not very expensive.

You now have your keyword phrase. Guess what?

This doesn’t necessarily mean this is what you’re going to be focusing on for your business.

Huh? Did I hear that right?

Yes, you heard that right. See, just because you have an interest in something, doesn’t mean other people are going to have an interest in it. And even if they do, if you’re going to go up against a million other sites promoting the same niche, you are going to have one heck of a tough time getting your piece of the pie. This is why I advise people to stay AWAY from Internet marketing. Why? It’s a jungle. Yes, you can make it work. I did. But why beat your brains against a stone wall when you can find something that is more like hitting a pillow.

So let’s take my own choice of health. I decided to go with the more narrowed keyword phrase “Masterbilt AJ-500M“.

Great, now what?

Well, let’s see what our demand and competition is.

How do we do this?

Well, the competition is easy. Just go to Google and type in, with the quotes YOUR keyword phrase. I’ll type in mine.

I get 1210 sites coming up with that keyword phrase. Okay, that’s great.

Now, let’s see how many monthly searches we get.

To do this, go to a keyword suggestion tool and type in the same phrase.

I use many. Here’s one of them.

Adwords Free Keyword Tool

Now, the tool will also give you alternative keyword phrases, because not everybody is going type in YOUR phrase.

Okay, type in your keyword phrase, and see how many monthly searches you get. Use the pull-down menu to choose “exact” instead of “broad” to find out how many people search for your exact keyword.

In my case, not too good. My original phrase only got 36 monthly searches. And even one of the best words in my list, “Masterbilt Guitars” only got 56 monthly searches and it’s not very targeted. What I mean by targeted is this.

Does everybody who types in masterbilt guitars into a search engine want a specific guitar? That’s why you want your target phrase to be as specific as possible.

So let’s see what we have.

36 searches for a non targeted phrase and over 1000 sites to go up against. I don’t know about you but those odds are ok, but not great. Now, I’m not saying you shouldn’t pursue this, but if you do, I just want you to understand what you’re going to be up against. It will be an uphill battle due to the number of searches. With that low number of competitors, you could put in some work and get your site listed high in the search engine returns, but if only 36 people a month are looking for your keyword, you will only get a few visitors each month.

Ideally, you want to find a keyword phrase where you have about 1000 - 2000 competing sites and about 5,000 to 10,000 searches a month. Believe it or not, these ratios exist. They’re not easy to find but they do exist. And when you latch onto a niche with very little competition and a good number of monthly searches, you’ve basically found yourself a goldmine. The key is cashing in on it.

Just keep repeating the above process until you find a niche that you are happy with. It may take some time, but it’s time well spent.

In Part 4, we’ll begin to build our business.

]]> http://onlineincomeunleashed.com/getting-started-part-3/feed/ http://onlineincomeunleashed.com/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/ http://onlineincomeunleashed.com/what-is-a-good-conversion-rate/#comments Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:26:02 +0000 Admin http://onlineincomeunleashed.com/?p=55 A conversion rate is the percentage of visitors that perform a certain action. In most cases this a purchase, but it could also be anything else you want to measure, such as signing up for a newsletter.

Many marketers claim to have excellent conversion rates. Remember, those are just claims. Some will tell you that a conversion rate of 10% is excellent and others will tell you that if you manage a 2% conversion rate. You will find a lot of discussion online about what the number should be. I think that is all nonsense.

A good conversion rate is any rate that makes a profit. You obviously want to make your conversion rate as high as possible, but the actual number is relative only to you.

A lot of factors can affect your conversion rate - your traffic source, your product type, the cost of the product, etc. For example, if you are getting only free organic traffic, then the keyword searches that visitors used to get your website can affect your conversion rate. If your SERP placement is high for a keyword that is used by people looking to make a purchase, then your conversion rate should be higher than if most of your traffic is coming from a keyword used by people who are just looking around, but not necessarily interested in spending money. If you are selling a product with a high price tag, you will need very targeted traffic that is motivated to buy if you want to have a high conversion rate.

What you need to do is tweak your traffic and your website to make the conversion rate as high as possible.