If your goal is to make money from your web site, collecting customer e-mail addresses is one of the THE most important tasks you can complete.
This important task can be easily done by using an
autoresponder.
Since most people don’t usually buy the first time they
visit your site, you need to build a certain level of trust
in your site and this is not generally done on the first or even the second visit.
To overcome this you can offer a newsletter by using an autoresponder to stay in touch with your visitors and remind them why they should re-visit your site and/or buy products you recommend or sell.
If done effectively, it may increase your sales tremendously.
For those of you that may not know, an autoresponder is an automatic e-mail message or series of messages that are sent at certain intervals specified by the sender.
Autoresponders are good tools for building relationships with your existing visitors by following up on purchases and promoting additional products you may have to offer. They also help you establish trust with your visitors that have given their e-mail addresses to you but have not yet
purchased anything from you.
However, before you start collecting email addresses, here are certain things you should keep in mind:
1. Learn your visitors and their needs.
The more you know about them, the better you can tailor your messages to their wants and desires.
You want to be able to push their emotional buttons, answer any questions, and be able to provide solutions to potential problems they may have.
Don’t start sending out junk, you’ll lose your subscribers in a heartbeat.
The AWeber autoresponder lets you customize a form which will allow you to not only collect email addresses, but can gather other information about your subscribers (age, sex, hobbies, etc.) and it is all stored in
a report you can review at any time.
2. Keep your e-mail messages relevant.
Stay focused. Remember, it is very important to keep your visitors interested. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute and think about what you would want to know if you were in their position.
3. Don’t be too anxious to close the sale.
If you throw one sales pitch after another in your emails, it will be obvious the only thing you’re trying to do is get a sale. Sure that’s your ultimate goal, but you can’t make it so obvious.
The exception: If your autoresponder is setup to send emails to people who have already purchased something from you and your goal is to promote the other products at your site, you can be a little more forward about getting the sale in this situation because these people have already purchased from you.
Your conversion rate may be a lot higher with these people than a person who has never bought from you.
4. Add value to your subscription
Offer freebies only to your subscribers. Make sure the free offer is relevant to their needs and is of good value. Don’t insult them by offering some product that they won’t want or need.
5. Show personality
Show people there is a human behind these emails and sale pitches. Add a humor touch in a world where faces are not seen at times. Lighten up your messages by adding humor now and then.
My Favorite Autoresponder is…
AWeber. I send out monthly newsletters and their autoresponder comes in handy because I set up the newsletters in advance and then AWeber sends them out at the interval I specify.
I tried other autoresponder programs but they did not offer half as much as AWeber.
Many successful affiliates said their autoresponder was their most effective marketing tool and many of them use Aweber. They stress how important it is to build relationships and conduct follow-ups via email.
Aweber’s autoresponder allows you to send an unlimited amount of follow-up messages at the intervals you specify. They provide great reports that include “open rate”, “click-thru rate”, and leads generated daily, weekly and monthly. You are also able to import leads into your account and they allow you to create as many different lists as you want (newsletters, follow-up to purchases, special promotions etc.) and you can even send HTML emails.
Here are the details on AWeber autoresponder free trial
reprinted from www.createawebsitetutorial.com
Tags: autoresponder, e-mail, free, trial
Need to find out what the difference of Xsitepro, Wordpress and Site Build It are? Not sure which one is the right software for you to use to help you create a website? Here is your information to help you compare these website builders.
XsitePro (US$197.00 one time fee)
If you know what your website theme will be and have done keyword research for it, but have never created a website or have one and are looking for a new website builder, you may want to take a look at this program. Here are just a few things about Xsite Pro:
- Xsite Pro sits on your computer and work on your site whenever you want.
- Create page quickly and easily
- Each page can be checked for search engine optimization
- Add Google Adsense easily
- Keep all affiliate links within the wizard to use across any web sites you create with Xsitepro
- Create Sitemap and submit to Google
- Create pop-ups, pop-overs and pop-unders
- Creates Robots.txt file (to let them spiders follow, index or disallow any page you choose)
- Easily create redirect pages to help hide unattractive urls or disguise affiliate links (many call cloaking or redirect)
- One click publishing to your web hosting plan
These are just a few of the benefits of this program, for more information see the Xsitepro review.
Wordpress (software free)
This is free blogging software. You can create a free blog using wordpress software or buy a web hosting plan and register a domain name and install onto your domain.
Wordpress.com (free)
You can create your own blog and use wordpress.com to host it (called 3rd party hosting). Your blogs name would be nameofyourblog.wordpress.com
There are many themes you can choose from when you set up an account, but you can not use plugins (Google Adsense, SEO Pack etc) with this free hosting.
If you use wordpress.com to create a blog, you can not use any affiliate links, google adsense or any other methods to make money online.
The search engines love wordpress (free) blogs and many times will index quickly, but just as quickly if they feel you are spamming they will shut your blog down.
If you are looking to get into affiliate marketing or any of the other ways to make money online, the free wordpress. com is not for you.
Wordpress.org (needs web hosting)
This is the same software that the .com has but you need to purchase web hosting. Many of the web hosting companies now have a quick installation of blogging scripts.
If you are looking to get into affiliate marketing and don’t want to take the time to create a website, this software is very easy to use. This blog is hosted at GoDaddy and a basic package of web hosting and a domain name can be found for about $50 a year.
By using your own web hosting, you have complete control of the look of your blog. There are hundreds of plugins that you can upload to your hosting and some of the plugins available for you to use are for templates to change the look and layout of your blog, Google Adsense, Google Sitemap, make your blog search engine optimized and much more.
If you are on a tight budget, for around $50 a year you can get a domain name and web hosting to start your own online business at home.
Site Build It! ($299. a year)
This website builder is more than just a program to create a website. Sitesell, the company that owns this product have everything you need in this one package to help you build a website that works.
If you are a beginner and do not have the technical background for building a web site, SBI teaches you everything you need to know AND explains everything in simple language to help you learn.
Here are just a few things that are included for the price:
- Helps you find your website niche
- You domain registration
- Web hosting
- A keyword and marketing research tool (called Brainstorm It!)
- Step-by-step tutorial (called Site Build It action guide) written or video to help you learn
- A forum to help you if you get stuck on any part
- A block-by-block web site page builder
- Analyzes each page you create for search engine optimization and tells you what is wrong so you can fix it
- Once a page has been created automatically tells the major search engines of your new page (or web site if you just created your home page
There is much more to Site Build It than meets the eye. There is not any other program on the internet that can even compare to what Site Build It! can do for you.
I am using this product and here is a Site Build It Review so you can see for yourself that Site Build It is not a scam and they really do back what they say; “Help you create a website that works.”
Tags: compare, difference, SBI, Site Build It, wordpress, xsitepro
Many people are looking to compare GoDaddy and Site Build It. Even though these are both web hosting providers, the jobs they do are very different.
GoDaddy
With multi level hosting plans and able to register a domain name for a very cheap price, this hosting company does have a website builder plan that can be purchased with 5, 10 or unlimited number of pages but it only includes web hosting.
Additional Charges for:
1. Your domain name
2. Getting your web site listed with the major search engines
3. Your traffic stats
4. Keyword Research Tool
They do have tutorials to help you build your website, but information is lacking on how to generate traffic to your new site and help with search engine optimization, which are the two biggest obstacles that beginners face when just starting out and have no idea how to create a website that works.
Site Build It
This product is for most people who want to build a website, but don’t have the technical knowledge or are not really into learning it.
SBI is truly an all-in-one website builder package.
When you purchase SBI, you are purchasing not just web hosting but ALL help you need to help you create your own website from help with finding a website niche idea to make sure your each page is search engine optimized.
Site Build It Price Includes:
1. Web Hosting
2. Domain name
3. Traffic Stats
4. Step by step action guide
5. Blog script
6. A forum full of uses from beginner’s to experienced to help with ANY problems you may have.
7. Keyword and Market research tool (Brainstorm It!)
GoDaddy and SBI difference in a nutshell
GoDaddy’s main purpose is web hosting and domain registration. Nothing more. They do not teach you how to build a website that is search engine optimized nor help you with generating traffic to your site.
Site Build It teaches you from start to finish all the steps you need to build a successful website with a money back guarantee if you decide their site builder is not for you.
Here is a chart that compares Site Build It to other web hosting providers.
If you are looking at free blogging software be aware that it can be very limited to what you can do.
I checked into the domain mapping for this blog when it was at uponmainstreet.wordpress.com, but found out that I would still be very limited on what I could do with it. I would still have all the limitation that wordpress.com has for their blogs.
Wordpress.com does not let you use ANY type of advertising on your site. It is a free service, so why should the owners of it let you get paid for blogging?
If you want to use wordpress for Google Adsense or any other type of money making opportunity online, you MUST use Wordpress.org for your blogging software platform.
Sure you have to pay for web hosting and a domain name, but you can get a basic plan and the domain name for around US$50. a year. That is pretty cheap considering all the stuff you can do with a blog.
I went to Godaddy.com for my hosting plan and just got the basic plan. Which runs less than $4 a month (cheaper is you purchase the 12, 24 or 36 month plan). Also when you purchase their hosting plan you can register a domain name for $1.99 (that is the cheapest price I found to register a domain name) GoDaddy.com Hosting Plans
Yes, having the free blogging software is great to keep family, friends or just for fun purposes, but if you want more from your blogging paying less than $4 a month can’t be beat!
Tags: cheapest, hosting plan, register cheap domain name, Web Hosting
Once your web hosting and you have installed wordpress on your hosting account. Go into your wordpress.com blog admin area. Go to:
1. Manage Tab
2. You will see under it Posts, pages, etc.. Click on the Export tab.
3. Export tab: will let you export (almost) everything to your computer. It does not save your blogrolls, but does save your posts, categories, comments, and custom field. Click on Download Export File. A box will pop up and you want to click the box for Save to Disk. This then will save to your computer. Remember to which area that you have saved it. If you can’t find it on your computer. Open the search box (on your task bar Start>search>files or folders and put the name of the file – usually called http://yourdomainname.wordpress.com)
4. Open your new wordpress blog at your hosting company.
5. Go to Manage Tab (again) Click on Import tab
6. Import Tab: They will have a list of different types of programs. Go to Wordpress link and click on it. Now use the browse button to find the wordpress.com information you exported above to your computer. Click on Upload file and import.
7. All of your posts, comments and all are now in your new blog. Make sure you keep the old blog at wordpress.com and add a post on there to let people know you have moved to a new “place”.
Many of the web hosting plans have the ability to add the wordpress (or other blogging software) to your new domain. If at all possible use the one click installation of the blog to help with your move, it is much easier to do.
Enjoy your new location and control over your blogging!
Tags: add blog to host plan, cheap hosting for blog, help, how to host a blog, move wordpress blog to paid hosting
Once your hosting is set up sign into your account.
a. Under the area of My Products (or something to that effect), click on your hosting accounts.
b. This will take you to another page that shows your domain name and if your hosting plan is ready, you can click on Open and it will take you to your hosting panel.
c. Your control panel. If you did use Godaddy for your hosting plan, then click on the link that is located in the upper right corner that says “Go Daddy Hosting Connection”. If you have another web hosting company, look for something that may say “Fantastico De Luxe”. Here is the place where you can install your wordpress to your domain.
d. Places to put the blog: There are a few different ways to add a wordpress blog. This will give you an example of the different ways:
On the domain: www.yourdomainname.com
As a sub-domain: www.yourdomainname.com/blog
As an addon domain: www.blog.yourdomainname.com
I have mine set up on the domain since this is the only thing that I will use it for. Some people say that an addon domain is better if you are going to have a website.
On the domain: Just click the install and it will ask you which domain, click on that and for the “Install in directory” leave this blank. The admin access data will be your user name and password, Then go through all the rest of the steps. My wordpress blog was set up within an hour or so and I received an e-mail for when it was ready.
As a sub-domain: If you want to have it like that, you need to put in the “Install in directory” the name you want example: blog, my blog etc… This will then create the directory for it. You do not need to create it.
As an Addon Domain: You need to first set up the addon domain before you can install wordpress. In your control panel, create an addon domain, Whatever you name this it will be where you put your blog. So if you call the addon domain blog then the above will be the URL for it (blog.yourdomainname.com). It may take a any where from 30 minutes to a few hours for the system to set this up.
Once you have the wordpress installed on your domain. You will get an email with the login information (or you may have to use the one you created when you installed it).
Part 3 – will explain how to easily move your blog contents from wordpress.com to your new blog at your web hosting service.
Tags: add blog to host plan, cheap hosting for blog, help, how to host a blog, move wordpress blog to paid hosting
I had a blog at wordpress.com but since it is free software, was very limited to what I wanted to do with it. So I moved to a paid hosting.
The free blog was uponmainstreet.wordpress.com
The paid hosting blog is uponmainstreet.com
I didn’t have a lot of posts at the wordpress blog but enough that I did not want to lose them. If you are going to move to paid hosting, see if the hosting plan has one click install for a wordpress blog. This makes your move extremely easy to do and will explain in Part 2.
1. Find a hosting company. I used godaddy.com (see GoDaddy.com Hosting Plans)
for my hosted blog as I found they were the cheapest hosting company. The blog does not take up a lot of room so I just started with the Economy Plan. It is $3.99 for 2 months or if you want a 12 month plan it is $3.79. I purchased the plan for 36 months and it was only $3.39 a month. The reason I purchased so long was: 1. the discount. 2. If I decide in a year to move to another hosting company, I will be refunded for the time that I have not used. As time goes by, if I need more space I can upgrade but the Economy plan has plenty of available space!
2. Register your domain. I already owned my domain, but if you purchase the hosting plan through godaddy, your domain purchase will only be US$1.99 at the time you buy the hosting plan. This is so much cheaper than any other place I have found. I have seen other companies that a domain name purchase is up to $15.
3. Wait for setup. Once you have purchased your hosting and domain name (from whomever you decide). You have to wait for the hosting company to set up your host plan. This can take anywhere from a few hours to 48 hours. My hosting was set up within about 2 hours and I was ready to rock and roll!
4. Once setup is complete. If you have never had paid hosting take a look around in your admin area and look at all the different information that is available for you.
Go to step 2 to see how you will be moving your information from your wordpress.com blog to your paid hosting account.
Tags: add blog to host plan, cheap hosting for blog, help, how to host a blog, move wordpress blog to paid hosting
I have seem alot written about they launch of pay per play was a complete flop and that the program is not worth getting into for an affiliate.
Who knows for sure? Could they really have a huge following like Google Adsense? or will it be another flop for Netaudio ads? Time will tell.
When google came out with adsense, how many people said that it would NEVER make money for any webmaster and how many people are paying money to be advertised with adwords now?
I figured, heck, pay per play is a free program so are all the other affiliate programs I am in. What is there to lose?
I am glad that I signed up when I did since the doors for pay per play have closed to new members until further notice.
But if you didn’t get to sign up and would like, they are putting people on a waiting list and you will be notified when the doors come back open.
They also have a blog and a forum to keep people posted on what is going on.
If you are interested you can sign up here. If not, I will keep you posted.
Tags: Affiliate marketing
If you did not join the Netaudio ads when the first started to sign up new publishers, you will have to wait for a while. If you go to the homepage, under the sign up it says
“This program is currently closed to new member”
But… you can put your name on the waiting list to be notified when the doors do open back up. The page you go to may not say that, but that is the information given to the core affiliates. Pay per play page.
Why did they shut their program to new affiliates just 11 days after the program was to launch?
Because the core group of affiliates did such a good job recruiting others into the program before the launch even took place!
The bad news (for those who decided to wait and see how the program goes) is that no one knows when the doors will open back up.
If you are wondering, Yes, I am in the core group of affiliate marketers for this program. Have I made any money yet even though they have not went to full launch? Yes.
There are many people saying that the program is a scam and we won’t see anything from it, but I figure when Google Adsense (and other advertising programs to make money) started many people were very disappointed with that and look where that program is today!
Some affiliates in the program are angry because they expected the launch on Feb. 1, 2008 and expected to make all kinds of money right off the bat. Well because there are many more web pages than advertisers, this didn’t happen. Plus there were bugs in the system that need to be worked out. Which happens when you launch any new product or service.
It’s free to sign up, so what have you got to lose to put your name on the waiting list?
Go to Pay per play
Tags: netaudio, pay per play, payperplay
If you have became an affiliate and not making money, before you throw in the towel, take a little time to find out what you are doing wrong and locate different avenues to help you start money making on your blog or website.
Many new affiliates see all the ebooks, forums, blogs and websites stating they can make money within a short amount of time using affiliate programs, only to find out that effort (many times a lot) is needed to obtain the super affiliate status. Remember even the people who are super affiliates started out as beginners and had their share of mistakes. So if you want to become a high money making affiliate, you can’t quit. It just take time.
I recently saw a posting in a forum where affiliates go to share ideas, tips and ways to help make money online. Anyway this poster stated he had gotten into the affiliate marketing arena and was not making any money so he was going to throw in the towel. After a few postings from other people trying to help this person, the original poster stated they have been working on an affiliate business for about 3 months.
3 months? That is still just a beginning. There are people who have been doing it for years and still not making the kind of money that they thought they would be.
So what went wrong?
1. Internet marketing network – are you using all of the social areas to help bring targeted traffic to your site? Getting the word out about the products you are promoting?
2. Free stuff – On your blog or website are you giving away free information? No, not just the ebooks and such people can find all over the internet, but original helpful ways to help people solve the problems that they have, and then, of course, by using many of your products you are promoting.
3. Collecting e-mail address – are you compiling a list of e-mail addresses on your blog or website? If you are, are you using these e-mail address to generate additional (or first time) sales for products you promote. If I sign up for a newsletter at a website, I sure don’t want to receive an e-mail every day saying “Buy this, Buy that…ect” Give me a good reason to want to purchase from you and not one of your competitors.
4. Tracking your affiliate links – Many affiliate programs have the ability to let you track your affiliate links. You can even put the same link on different pages of your website, see which page is doing better after a time. If page A has more clicks than page B, try to figure out why? More relevant? Maybe your link need to be in a different place on page B or even though page A and B goes to the same product page, maybe you need to change the wording a little on the page B link.
5. Contact the affiliate manager of the merchant you are using – These managers (most of the time) will help you anyway they can. They can be a fountain of knowledge to help you figure out what may work on your product promotions. They know who the super affiliates are and what has worked for them. Don’t overlook contacting them for help.
6. Useful content – does your website have informational/useful/unique content on it to help people deal and/or solve their problems or is it just a web page with links going to all different types of products that you are promoting?
If you have a website and it just does not seem to work, maybe if needs a face lift?
Even though my create a website tutorial is geared towards beginners learning how to build a website, sections of it may help give your website a new beginning.
Tags: affiliate marketer, making money
