Digg it UP - Internet and Businesses Online

Affiliate Marketing - The Challenges of Making Money Online
What goes through the mind of an individual starting a new venture? Uncertainty? Almost always. Apprehension? Definitely.Fear of the unknown? Yes. For some, this is the very essence of living. These are the reasons we excel, what motivates and drives us to overcome and be successful. For the majority, these are the stumbling blocks to success.What, then, is the future of the average person who wants to do well as an internet marketer? The environment is constantly changing and the technology is improving all the time. The fact that there is a huge potential to be successful means that it is also a highly competitive arena. It is, therefore, no surprise to learn that the vast majority of attempts to capture a slice of this lucrative market are unsuccessful. If you do not believe me, do a search for a product and then repeat the same search a week later. Take careful note of how many of the same affiliates are still there just one week later.The main problems facing a new affiliate are:Products. What is a good product to market? Will it be profitable? There are literally thousands of products to choose from. The trick is to find a product that pays more than it would cost to advertise and sell the product. Researching the product is the key. Pay attention to th

rds.com

All of these with the exception of eshow.com (computer networking) should get address bar traffic, because people who type will type in the descriptive names — if I’m looking for sex-related stuff, I’ll type in sex.com. Where my mind gets boggled is in ROI. If you’re selling something on asseenontv.com that nets you $25, you’ll need to sell 200,000 of those George Foreman grills just to pay for your domain name.

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’s a 6) - $7,000,000
ajobformom.com - $3,500,000
Exbay.com - $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Remember ba

Why Great Sales Copy Helps Increase Internet Sales
Do you have a website and know how to get plenty of traffic, but are struggling to make sales? Are you ready to increase your internet sales with the help of great sales copy? Sales copy helps increase internet sales and can be responsible for your newfound riches.Sales copy is probably the absolute most important thing when it comes to marketing your website. Let’s face it you can have a ton of traffic coming to your website, but if your offer is not spelled out in a way that your potential customers want to hear it, you will never make a sale.Most internet marketers want to stress getting traffic to your website, and don’t get me wrong this is important, but I would rather have 100 visitors a day with 50 sales than 1,000 visitors with 20 sales. Your sales copy is so much more important than traffic.Sales copy is basically the content of your website and how your offer is spelled out. You can have the best price in town on the best product on the web and never make a sale because you don’t relate the benefits of the product to your audience in the correct manner. You have to make your audience understand why they need the product and what it is going to do to make their lives easier.I have spelled out plenty of reasons why sales copy is so important to he

Your domain name is the .com, .net, .org or some other dot something that people use to get to your web site. affiliateblog.com is mine.

A group of investors headed by Jake Weinbaum (the guy behind Disney’s go.com) paid $7.5 million for the name Business.com back in 1999, aiming to make it a showcase B2B site. According to their own press they have succeeded. Yes, it’s a terrific name — short, sort of descriptive and easy to remember. There’s some cachet there, but is it $7.5 million worth? That cash could have bought a lot of promotion or branding for whatever name they could have had for ten bucks, or a hundred, or two hundred grand.

Each year for 15 years The first $500K in profit goes toward amortizing the cost of that domain name. That could also pay for a terrific affiliate program, a truckload of banner and PPC advertising, and a nice BMW lease for Mr. Weinbaum (who probably doesn’t need a BMW).

But the Business.com thing has set off a wave of domain name speculation that staggers the mind. People are snapping up domain names and ransoming them off to wide-eyed entrepreneurs with business plans and dreams of riches. Being a hardcore capitalist I am torn about domain name speculation — I am tempted to applaud the person making a buck by getting there first and grabbing up the good names, but I am annoyed at the restraint of commerce that takes place while someone negotiates with one of these guys to get the right name.

So if I look at the top 50 websites on Alexa, most of them should be easy to remember names, right? Wrong. I would argue that only one, match.com, is an easy-to-remember name that describes what the site is about.

I keep hearing that the reason these so-called generic or descriptive domain names are so valuable is that some people just type domain names into the address bar of their browser rather than using a search engine. This fact seems to be intuitively false. I find it hard to believe that someone looking for information on a particular business would type in www.business.com. Furthermore, if I look at the top 50 websites on Alexa only one, match.com, is an easy-to-remember name that describes what the site is about.

I wondered how many people actually type in their address bar (address bar?) instead of using a search engine anyway. I didn’t find the answer, but Jupiter Media tells me that 64% of people looking for something use a search engine.

That means that 36% of people use something other than a search engine. What makes me believe that people typing stuff into their address bar doesn’t happen much is this simple fact…of the people using search engines last November, 43% searched for common websites like Ebay. In other words, instead of typing in http://www.ebay.com, people Googled Ebay and clicked on one of the results. That is absolutely hysterical. And totally believable.

What do all these facts mean? They mean that as far as getting the person there the first time, everyone starts off on the same square. If your domain name can get the minority of people who just type into their address bar to your website without a search engine, it’s worth more than someone who can’t.

Here are some of the legendary domain name sales in the past several years, according to Zetetic:

$14,000,000 - 2006 - sex.com
$7,500,000 - 1999 - business.com
$5,500,000 - 2003 - casino.com
$5,000,000 - 2002 - asseenontv.com
$5,000,000 - 1999 - korea.com
$3,500,000 - 1996 - worldwideweb.com
$3,350,000 - 1999 - altavista.com
$3,300,000 - 1999 - wine.com
$3,000,000 - 1999 - eshow.com
$3,000,000 - 1999 - loans.com
$2,750,000 - 2004 - creditcards.com

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’s a 6) - $7,000,000
ajobformom.com - $3,500,000
Exbay.com - $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Remember bac

Freelancing In a Free World
Freelancing brings unmatched flexibility and in fact this is one of the most popular reasons for becoming a freelancer. Flexible working hours allows the freelancer to tailor his/her work around their life style and growing responsibilities. Another plus is that you only get paid for how long you work – overtime is actually paid! Furthermore, if you like to set your own holiday and travel time, freelance allows you the option to go on holiday two weeks, or two months – depending on your financial/business needs.Freelance work is also an excellent way to earn quick money and a good amount of it. Generally, freelance workers earn more money at an hourly rate than their permanent counterparts. Because the recruitment process for freelance is much shorter then for permanent roles, speedy turnaround allows individuals to get in and out of a project quickly and still receive a good income from it.Career Variety For those individuals who like variety in the workplace, a career as a freelancer enables professionals to work on a wide range of projects for some of the leading firms in the country. Freelance work can often improve career prospects – allowing an individual to gain valuable experience on many different sector schemes while working for a variety of majo

Here are some of the legendary domain name sales in the past several years, according to Zetetic:

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’s a 6) - $7,000,000
ajobformom.com - $3,500,000
Exbay.com - $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Remember ba

Success with Outsourcing
At first, outsourcing gives a company a splendid opportunity to get high quality work performed by skilled and experienced specialists at reasonable prices that off course leads to significant cost savings on software development and support.Also, outsourcing allows their customers to focus on their core functions. Thus, outsourcing its IT maintenance work allows company to concentrates on its core competency tasks and as a result can deliver better services and products into the market. Other advantages and benefits of outsourcing include the following: provider alternatives, share risks with a vendor, elimination of recruitment, training and staff maintenance for non-core functions, and scalability.Through developing, testing and supporting various custom software solutions, InnoInco can really help its clients businesses to succeed in their industries.InnoInco is a global software development company headquartered in Canada, with office in Ukraine. The company has over 4 years experience in delivering outsourcing services for customers all over the World and uses a wide range of platforms and technologies for its software development process. It includes: Windows, Macintosh, Unix, Linux, .Net, J2EE, J2SE, J2ME, Symbian OS, Windows Mobile 2003 and other mobile embe

their browser rather than using a search engine. This fact seems to be intuitively false. I find it hard to believe that someone looking for information on a particular business would type in www.business.com. Furthermore, if I look at the top 50 websites on Alexa only one, match.com, is an easy-to-remember name that describes what the site is about.

Here are some of the legendary domain name sales in the past several years, according to Zetetic:

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’s a 6) - $7,000,000
ajobformom.com - $3,500,000
Exbay.com - $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Remember ba

Marketing Research Types
All marketing research falls into two basic categories: secondary and primary. Secondary research involves literature searches, article reviews and analysis of existing, available data. While secondary research is limited to the information you have on hand, it is usually much cheaper than primary research and can be conducted by small businesses themselves. There are two general types of primary research: qualitative and quantitative. Qualitative research is used for developing new ideas or to get a "gut feeling" for a given subject or problem. Quantitative research primarily involves surveys based on representative samples, where data is collected using mail, telephone or personal interviews. Results from quantitative studies can be projected to entire populations and therefore used in predicting. Qualitative Research Nearly all qualitative research is done using focus groups. These groups consist of eight to ten carefully selected and recruited individuals who participate in a directed discussion concerning some issue. The specifications for recruiting these participants are based on the objectives of the study. For example, the owner of a gardening service who is interested in expanding into a new geographic t

m, people Googled Ebay and clicked on one of the results. That is absolutely hysterical. And totally believable.

Here are some of the legendary domain name sales in the past several years, according to Zetetic:

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’s a 6) - $7,000,000
ajobformom.com - $3,500,000
Exbay.com - $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Remember ba

Joint Ventures - Part XII
JV the Costs – Whether it’s an office you share, or a receptionist, or an administrative assistant, or standby conference call lines, you can make deals with other businesses that may not need a full-time receptionist, for example, to keep the costs down. A local school supply business shares an office with a surveyor. A small downtown Hartford mail order firm shares office space and conference rooms with an advertising agency. A New York investment consulting firm shares the mailing address with a Florida realtor who is also licensed in New York and wants a local presence. Things like office and mail services, help desk support, and other shared services are becoming more common. If you can’t find one that makes sense for your business, why not invent your own solution?JV to Build Your List – Your list is your greatest asset, right? But if you only have 1,000 names where 50,000 or 100,000 is the norm (more is better, right?), then why not JV a list exchange. Bear with me. It’s true that you may not have much to offer to the list owner of 100,000+ names, when you only have 1,000. But it can be done.One way to do this? Ok, let’s pretend that I convince a speaker to do a teleseminar with me that I know at least 2 or 3 other 100k+ list size owners would love to tell their subscr

rds.com

It also dawned on me that if you pay $12,000,000 for sex.com, the free publicity generated is probably also worth millions.

So now everyone gets dollar signs in their eyes and thinks they can make a million with their domain name. Here are some examples of asking prices from Ebay:

6usiness.com (yes, that’s a 6) - $7,000,000
ajobformom.com - $3,500,000
Exbay.com - $1,000,000

What does this mean for you? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. Remember back a few paragraphs when I said that everyone starts on the same square? That’s really the good news. You can choose a pretty good domain name, put together some terrific content, employ some simple Search Engine Optimization and buy some keywords or exchange some links and you have a pretty good chance of getting people to your site the first time. Since most of them are coming via a search engine they’re not going to notice your domain name until they get there anyway, so your domain name means the same thing (nothing) to the majority of people using the search engine.

One last thing: if you’re hoping to be close to the top in the search results (the so-called organic SEO), having your keywords in the name of your website gives you a huge boost. For example, if you’re looking for affiliate blog, we will be in the top five search results. In this case, Google ignores TLD unless you tell it otherwise. Affiliateblog.info will come up before us because their pagerank is higher (that’s a discussion for another day). So if you think getting near the top of the organic search results is more important than having someone type your name directly into the address bar (and you very well could be right), then grab yourkeyword.cc or yourkeyword.to. I’ve done it, and I’ve suggested it to others.

Once the user comes to your site the name just needs to be memorable enough so they type it in to get there the next time. Or they may forget and Google you again. I do it every day. No matter how great your name is, if the content is lousy they won’t come back anyway.

So should you buy a domain name? I don’t know — I bought this one. And I made honorable mention in the Domain Name News for the price I paid ($2500). I bought the name because I liked it, I liked the number of incoming links to it, and I felt comfortable paying for it. I’ve never paid more than a couple hundred dollars for a domain otherwise, and I have more than 200 of them. My favorite by far is Blozzo.com, which I just bought today for $25. I have a pretty terrific idea in mind for Blozzo too.

I would try to come up with my own name before I bought someone else’s. Here are some tips:

1. Try to go with a .com. It’s the name everyone associates with the Internet. Any other Top Level Domain (TLD) like .org or .net is just going to confuse people, unless it sounds better than the .com. For example, if you are about networking or a network, a .net is more natural. If your site is informational, you should use .info if it sounds okay. One of my favorite $10 domains is seosecrets.info. I think it sounds good. Hands down the most ingenious use of a TLD is del.icio.us, the social bookmarking site. The use of the .us TLD is absolutely brilliant.

2. Leave out the dashes and meaningless numbers. If it’s a choice between this-domain.com, thisdomain123.com and thisdomain.net, take the .net. No one remembers to put the dashes or the numbers in, unless they are an integral part of the name like studio54.com or e-books.com.

3. Use the fewest letters possible to describe what you do. I own Purple Monkey Media Group. Purplemonkey.com would have been perfect. It’s taken, of course. Purplemonkeymedia.com was not. I grabbed it. I could have taken purplemonkeymediagroup.com, but it would have been too long. Remember, every additional letter is a potential typing error.

4. If you have a domain name that needs to be reinforced, get a good logoand sprinkle it liberally on your web site, along with some slogan that will reinforce the name in people’s minds. You would be surprised at how inexpensive this can be.

5. If you can save a few bucks with your own domain name or by buy

HTTP = HTML link (for blogs, profiles,phorums):
<a href="http://www.diggitup.net/article/59393/diggitup-Domain-Name-Insanity--Does-Your-Name-Really-Matter.html">Domain Name Insanity - Does Your Name Really Matter?</a>

BB link (for phorums):
[url=http://www.diggitup.net/article/59393/diggitup-Domain-Name-Insanity--Does-Your-Name-Really-Matter.html]Domain Name Insanity - Does Your Name Really Matter?[/url]

When you add features to your products and services be sure they add value. Too often we focus on up selling and what it means to us without thinking about how much of an intrusion it may be to our customers. When a customer visits us, he is looking for a solution to a problem. When we introduce a solution to another problem we think or hope the customer has - we have made his or her life more difficult.

Facilitation is a complex activity. Thus, you want to make sure that you engage someone who knows how to help you get results. Here's what to look for.

Here are two easy ways to make more money on the internet. Please read the article to find out more.

Tags

Links

Digg it UP - Domain Name Insanity - Does Your Name Really Matter?

Related Articles: