Modern-Trends

Let’s face it. The internet is a very convenient shopping establishment. You don’t need to lose time getting to a store and you don’t lose money for paying cab fare or gasoline. The only thing that I lose is money when my wife goes on an inspired shopping binge. As a result of this convenience, more and more people are regularly logging onto the internet to shop. Manufacturers, distributors, independent shops, importers and exporters realize the strong earning potential by being online. The internet has its own economy and the potential to earn money is incalculable.

For this reason, marketing firms and advertising agencies joined the bandwagon with frenzy. You have this newsletter as a result of this new economic development. Every year, different strategies are being formulated, developed, tested and applied to better and improve existing advertising and marketing methods.

At the start, most advertisements were in the form of combination text and picture messages. Pop-up windows were developed to open new browsers windows where products and ideas could be advertised. This improved to animated pictures with text and finally to full streaming video with audio.

The pop-up text and picture window was a success; but not as much as advertisers and marketing specialists hoped it would be. For one thing, people soon grew tired of these pop-ups that, as soon as they appeared, they were immediately closed. You wouldn’t stare at a billboard you see everyday, right? To further add to the loss of advertising opportunities, anti-virus software and other protection software utilities were created to
prevent pop-up messages from appearing. Mozilla developed the Firefox internet browser which has a built-in feature that immediately blocks pop-up windows from being opened. Pop-up windows became, and still is, an annoyance much like marketing and advertising spam messages.

During this period in internet history, advertising through television still had no significant rival until internet video streaming was created. Let us analyze why videos are a more effective means of communicating.

The immediate and main concern of advertisers is to grab the interest of the consumer. When a new billboard is put up, you might stare at it for a couple of weeks before it becomes a common sight that you begin to ignore it. The same principle applies for pop-up windows. Pop-up windows are fun in the beginning because of their novel nature. Wow! I get to see all these special and discounted offers for different merchandise. After a while, however, it becomes an annoyance every time it interrupts your browsing. Also, staring at a picture will not turn it into a frog prince. You can only stare at an inanimate object for so long before you get bored. When boredom sets in because of monotony or constant repetition, the advertisers fail their jobs.

This is why advertising through television and internet video streaming is a most effective tool. The ability of a moving or animated picture to capture attention knows no bounds. Just look at people stopping in front of shops that sell TV sets to watch the videos being played. Advertisers know that a moving, talking and colorful video is an easy way to grab a person’s attention. In the internet, video streaming replaces television commercials
as the number one method for marketing and advertising.

For businesses that require movies or trailers as a method of demonstrating their product, internet video streaming comes in very handy. Watching a moving picture that demonstrates how to assemble your child’s plastic swing is simply better than reading a manual.

Websites that offer online cooking classes will find video streaming a very helpful tool in demonstrating cooking methods and technique. A mechanic giving instruction on how to change your car’s fuel, oil and air filters is certainly a better option than reading a manual. Internet video streaming is a definite advantage to entrepreneurs who want their customers to understand the merchandise they are selling. If your customer understands how to use and knows about every detail of the product you’re selling, chances are he will trust your product and choose to buy your brand over anyone else’s.

Probably the most exciting company to not only survive, but come out strong out of the dot-com crash of the late 90’s is Google Inc (http://www.google.com). Having started out small as a company operated in the garage of a friend and employing a staff of three, Google’s meteoric rise to a top name on the Internet is not really that perplexing when we analyze the core strengths and policies of this company.

Here are a few key points that you, as a home based business entrepreneur, can learn from Google:

1) Capital Isn’t Everything

It may be hard for the newcomer to the home based business scene to swallow this fact. After all, more capital investment would mean more money to spend on advertising and building a home business. Its tempting to think how your business would be right now if you had, say $100,000 to start with, instead of the meager $1000 you scrambled to get from selling things around your home.

But here’s one thing more important than capital - ingenuity. Ingenuity involves making the best of the resources available to you, making every advertising dollar count, and treating every customer or prospect invaluable to your business.

Capital in the wrong hands, in the hands of an inexperienced entrepreneur or marketer, is just a waste of money. Ingenuity, on the other hand, can turn a $1000 capital into a thriving business. And yes, when you get the ingenuity part right, then whatever extra capital you get would be worth so much more.

2) Differentiate and Win - Think Outside the Box

Innovation, ability to think outside the box and a willingness to test ideas and make mistakes is the trademark of any truly successful company, especially in Google’s case. Recently when Google’s Gmail (http://www.gmail.com) was launched, many ISPs and email providers were scrambling to offer more space to their free email accounts, simply because Google offered 1G of space. What they didn’t get, however, was that Gmail was more that just about space.

So how did Google differentiate? They turned what would otherwise been just another email service into something much more. It is, as any user would be able to testify, the best way to store, organize and find information contained in emails. Keeping track of business responses and follow-ups is a breeze with Gmail. Try it yourself if you cannot believe that statement.

Many home based business entrepreneurs, especially the ones involved in network marketing, shiver at the word “saturated”. In a network marketing environment it may dawn upon every person, at one point or another, that there are many others with products and opportunities that are similar to theirs, and the products that they are expected to sell may be in the highly competitive industries. I felt that way once too, but here’s the real question - what can you offer?

Not too long ago a friend of mine, after completing her course on cosmetics, offered free facials and beauty consulting to promote cosmetic products sold by her network marketing company. By doing things most people were not doing at that time, she simple blew the competition away.

So what can you contribute to your home based business to make it different, to make it stand out from the crowd?

3) Give Your Customers Exactly What They Want

The success of Google’s AdWords (http://adwords.google.com) and AdSense (http://adsense.google.com) is due to this simple fact - they gave advertisers exactly what they wanted. Marketers wanted a quick, results based, and dynamic advertising tool, and they got Adwords. Website owners wanted more advertising revenue, but did not want the hassle of maintaining it over the hundreds of pages that they have, and they got Adsense.

Its a pretty simple strategy - understand what your customers want and give it to them!

My ex-sponsor in my old network marketing company used to say that in order for me to move their nutritional supplements, I had to teach people that supplements can prevent many hazardous illnesses. Prevention is better than cure. But here’s what I learned in a few years - the majority of people are looking for cures, not prevention. Most of the people I met in Malaysia are looking for a cure to sleeping disorders, a cure for fatigue, a cure for arthritis, and so on.

Sure, it may be a noble deed to educate people about prevention, but the world does not always work that way. The majority of people look for a home based business only when they get retrenched, when they run out of savings, or when they retire. So why not make your recruitment efforts match this need? Why not develop your niche market based on this category of people?

Instead of teaching them about residual income and the power of duplication which they are not interested in, wouldn’t your message be more effective if you taught them how to earn a comfortable retirement income, or how to replace their current income instead?

The point is this - as a home based entrepreneur you must understand your target market’s need, and serve them well. You should focus on being the best in providing the cure, not the best in preaching about the prevention. Focus on customer needs, and they will flock to you.

4) Are You Having Fun?

Everything about Google spells fun. But don’t get me wrong. They are probably the most innovative company at the moment.

The fact that they can present their complicated technology in such a simple way to end-users is an act that every company can envy. Have you ever heard anyone complain about Google search being too complicated to use? Yet as an Internet marketer I can go crazy trying to understand the complexity behind the simple white page and squiggly logo.

Leave the complexity of a home based or network marketing business behind the scenes. Teach people how to have fun, while achieving goals and building their business. Show them that you are having fun yourself, and they will buy, they will join, or at least tell someone else about you, and your exciting business.

When you’re having fun, it will not seem like work at all. Everyone could use a little fun in their lives, don’t you think?

5) Focus on Your Core Competency

Yes, this is another phrase that is thrown around in the business world, but how many entrepreneurs actually practice it? As a home based entrepreneur, you may find the need to explore other sources of income. There’s nothing wrong in that, but here’s the catch - don’t go where the money is, especially if it’s not related to what you’re doing.

Many people tend to find other sources of income that is totally unrelated to their main home business. As a result of that, they become an expert in nothing, and they become the best in nothing. If you make custom furniture at home, why take a job at a fast food chain to make ends meet, when you can explore other ways to make money out of your core competency? Having woodworking workshops, writing a ‘how to’ book on woodworking, or even a sales job at a furniture outlet can make good sources of additional revenue, while building your name and expertise on your core competency itself.

Starting out as a search engine, Google pretty much maintained their core competency until today. When they explore other sources of revenue or develop new products, you can be pretty sure it’s related to search technology. And the undisputed result of that is that there is simply no other better alternative when it comes to search and information retrieval.

Therefore, we have much to learn from the success story of Google. Just as much as the age old story of entrepreneurs who drop out of school, and go on to develop multi-million dollar businesses armed with nothing more than guts and ingenuity, Google’s success story is inspirational to say the least.

The biggest problem that most are running into seems to do with getting INTO the search engines. Rankings aside, you need to first get them to index you. Here are the four main ways to assure yourself fast indexing:

Indexing Tip #1:
Never launch a new site with a lot of back links. Build natural links over weeks and months.

Let’s face it, there is no guaranteed method of getting indexed by Google fast, and buying links from high-ranking sites does not guarantees anything either.

The most immediate red flag you should watch out for is your number of incoming links. According to Google, it takes time to get link popularity and sites should not have more than 100 incoming links.

It’s okay to launch with a quality link or two. But beyond that, you are pushing it!

Here is the scoop! It takes 30-45 days for Google to deep index new sites. Instead of sitting around during “sandbox” time, use that period to build a strong set of natural back-links with a variety of sites.

Indexing Tip #2:
Register your domain name at least four months before you plan to launch the site.

No I am not kidding! Whether you agree with it or not, history shows that Google takes older URLs far more seriously than newer ones. So register your domain name as soon as you plan on developing a site.

Indexing Tip #3:
Blog and ping carefully.

Blogging & pinging is one of the fastest ways to get into the Yahoo index - it can literally get you into Yahoo overnight – helps with MSN as well.

Will blogging and pinging help get you into Google? Maybe. But over-pinging can set off red flags on the ping servers, and if you’re using automated blogging software, overdoing it can cause Blogger.com and other services to shut down your blog.

Blogging and pinging intelligently can get your blog indexed in Yahoo quickly, but ping carefully.

Does Yahoo de-index junk blogs? Absolutely. Especially since the creation of all this software, the search engines are watching closely for red flags (use software wisely).

So what can you do about Yahoo Search? Not much… You can be smart about blogging and pinging or even better, you can create real (not by software) blogs. You still have to be careful with pinging though.

In the end, blogging and pinging should be part of every beginner’s indexing strategy.

Indexing Tip #4:
If you build bulk directory/portal sites - keep them in the 200-300 page range.

We know it’s such a blast to build those monster 1000-5000 page sites, even with growing evidence of Google bots’ tendencies to stall after indexing the first 200 pages or so…

So if you’re into blasting out those gigantic directories and sick of waiting months for them to get indexed, experiment with building smaller sites around more targeted niches.

In a nutshell: Divide those mega-keyword lists, spend a little time grouping your sub-lists, and build smaller sites.

All in all, the best way to get indexed, stay indexed and eventually get ranked is to recruit incoming link partners. See, blogging and pinging could be gone tomorrow. But, linking is an integral part of how the internet works – it will never go away.

Concentrate on building sites and recruiting links – the links get you indexed, ranked and even bring you free traffic from those who click the links!

Correct positioning of your Google adsense ads can make or break your success with the Google adsense program. Some studies suggest that eye positioning on website gravitate to particular sections of web pages. And if you don’t have the necessary ads in these positions you will not get the clicks.

So were the best locations for you Google adsense ads. Well, I have found the number one best place for the ads are near or in proximity to your main menu. Why near your main menu. Because you know that visitors eyes will and always look for the menu structure of your website. So the common places for placement should be to the top right, the very top under your menu, or the top left. These are the most common locations for you main menu.

But what about the color scheme of the Google adsense ads? Yes, color is very important. You have to make the ads looks as seamless as possible. Also, remove the borders; just these changes will increase your adsense proceeds one hundred percent.

The key to earning an income with Google Adsense is to have your ads match the rest of the site, making them look like part of your content. Your focus is to avoid having the Adsense blocks look like blatant advertisements.

The following are six ways that you can do this and increase your revenue at the same time:

1) Find the right place- Most website visitors read content that is in the middle of a webpage. As a result, the best place to put your Adsense block is in the top part of the page, at the beginning of your web content. You want to weave the Google Ads into your web content to give the appearance that they are extra links which expand on the information of the page.

2) Use the Large Rectangle-With Google Adsense, you have the option of picking different ad formats. Most of the time people opt to use the Leaderboard (728×90) or Wide Skyscraper (160×600) style ads. Unfortunately, this is the wrong choice, because both look like blatant advertisements. Instead smart webmasters have found that using the Large Rectangle (336×280) yields the best amount of click-thrus.

3) Ditch the border- Many people experience a sharp increase in Adsense revenue when they changing their border. What they change is very simple…they get rid of the border on their Adsense blocks. This is another way to make the advertisements look like useful web content.

4) Adapt the font- Whenever you write content, it should be the same font size and style as your Google Adsense block. This will help make it appear that the advertisements are a natural part of your website.

5) Match the colors- In addition to changing the fonts, you also should match the colors of your website. For instance, if your content is written in black, and your hyperlinks are blue, then the Adsense blocks should also be the same color. Again, this helps the advertisements appear to be normal web content.

6) Don’t have too many distractions- On a webpage, it is important to give web visitor a limited number of options. By having too many links and graphics, the web visitor might go to a section that doesn’t help increase your profits. While it is important to inform and entertain your web visitor, it is also vital that you monetize your site. So if the main focus of your site is to earn an income through Google Adsense, then get rid of all non-essential links and graphics.

By taking the time to implement these six simple steps, you’ll see a dramatic increase in the click-thru ratio of your ads. If added to all of the content of your site, your Adsense income will skyrocket!