Donna Knight’s Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews

By Donna Knight

Ask any successful internet marketer how to convert visitors into sales and they’ll all give you the same answer: You must have a follow-up tactic strategy.

While getting visitors to your site is very important, the fact is more than 90% won’t buy from you. Don’t despair. They might not want your product today but they might be interested later. But if you don’t have any way to follow up with those visitors, those potential sales are lost forever. That’s why you need a good autoresponder system.

With an autoresponder, you can capture those leads and follow up with them later with more information or any offers you have. An autoresponder is an opt-in form that you put on your website inviting visitors to sign up for your newsletter, ezine, ecourse, freebies or any information that can be sent to subscribers in a series of emails. Once they sign up, they automatically get added to your mailing list, you can also send them occasional ads or offers since they have now given you their permission to send them email.

If you only had a few subscribers, you could follow up with them manually using your email program such as Outlook, but for the success of your business you want to build a mailing list with 10,000 subscribers or more. Even a million subscribers is possible if your mailing list is very successful.

Don’t underestimate the power of a good autoresponder since there are many successful internet marketers who credit their autoresponder systems with helping to make them rich.

An autoresponder system allows you to prepare a series of messages in advance, program them into the system, and specify the intervals at whih the emails will be sent out. They can be sent out once a week, once every 3 days or even at irregular intervals. For example you could have 3 emails sent out in a series, one after 3 days, the next after 4 days and the final one after 7 days. You can even have multiple autoresponder series, one for each of your websites, one for all customers, one for prospects, and one for customers who have purchased high-priced items. This allows you to mail different offers to different groups.

Another benefit of an autoresponder is that sending emails regularly to prospects helps them warm up to you and learn to trust you. If you make your emails personal, subscribers will feel like they know you personally and will less resistant to buying from you.

You can also use autoresponders to cut down on customer service emails. If a client or prospective buyer asks you a question about a product, you can preset the autoresponder to reply with a general FAQ that will answer most questions. I’ve noticed on websites I manage, the vast majority of email questions I get are the same questions asked over and over again.

With autoresponders, you have two choices. You can buy a service that runs everything or you can buy a website script that you or someone you hire installs on your website. A script is usually the cheapest option but may require technical ability.

Not all autoresponders are equal though. Here are 10 questions to ask before you choose an autoresponder system

: 1. How much does it cost? Is it a one-time fee or a monthly fee? If it is a free service, what are the disadvantages? 2. If it is an autoresponder script, does it come with instructions that anyone can follow to install it themselves or do you have to hire a professional script installer to install it? 3. How many accounts can you create with their system? A different account may be required if you want it to display different information, such as a company name or website, in the FROM field of the autoresponder messages. 4. How many mailing lists can you create? 5. How many follow-up messages can you preset? 6. What’s the maximum number of subscribers you can have on a mailing list? 7. How much personalization can you add to your emails? Can you personalize emails with the name or purchase information? Personalization increases the effectiveness of autoresponder emails, especially when it comes to customer purchases. 8. How does the system let subscribers sign up to the autoresponder? The simpler the process, the better. 9. What formats can you send emails in? Does it allow HTML and text emails? Does it give the subscriber a choice about which format they can sign up for? 10. Will you be able to track your subscribers for targeted marketing? 11. Is the autoresponder system easy to use?

Price is not necessarily an indicator of quality. There are expensive autoresponder services that have less features. If the autoresponder system you’re considering meets all these criteria at a good price, the sooner you buy, the sooner you’ll be on your way to continuous profits.

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Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.

By Donna Knight

With an online business, your website is perceived as a reflection of your business reliability and credibility. A poorly designed website makes your business appear unprofessional. Likewise choosing an unreliable host, makes your website and your business appear unreliable, as well.

For that reason, the success of your business is directly tired to your choice of web host. In case you don’t know, a web host is a computer that stores your website. When an internet user types in your website address or URL into their web browser, their computer connects to the web host which then points them to the pages that make up your website.

As a professional website builder who has built over 200 websites over the past three years, I could tell you some hosting horror stories, such as mysteriously broken or disappearing websites. But I would rather tell you how to avoid such disaster. Once you read the following tips you’ll be able to make more informed decisions about choosing an affordable web site host, and avoid mistakes myself and my customers made when first starting out.

Here is a list of what to consider in choosing a reliable cheap web host with the best features:

1. Know the bandwidth limits. Bandwidth is the maximum amount of data that can be transferred over a network. Bandwidth limits can be measured daily or monthly. If bandwidth limits are too low, you will have to move your website if you get a lot of traffic.

Unlimited bandwidth falls under the category of too good to be true. There is always a limit, whether they tell you what it is or not. When comparing prices, try to get the most bang for your buck, but don’t assume unlimited bandwidth is the best value. Whether it is will depend on other factors listed here.

Bandwidth is usually specified in GB (A GB or gigabyte is 1 million megabytes. A megabyte is 1 million bytes. Get it?).

1. 30-day Money back guarantee. Most web hosts do not give a money-back guarantee, but you should give extra points to a website which does offer this. It gives you a chance to try out the speed and reliability of the service without risking your money.

2. Unix or Windows Hosting. Unix is an operating system just like Windows, which is the operating system on your personal computer (unless you’re using a mac). Which type of host is right for you depends on what type of website you have. If your website is a bunch of HTML pages, either one will work. If your website has complicated functions, or has different types of pages or uses a database, ask your web designer which type of hosting your website requires. If your website is loaded onto the wrong type of host, it will not work.

3. Allowable disk space. Most web hosts offer multiple hosting accounts with increasing amounts of disk space. More disk space is usually more expensive. You want to give more weight to host services that give more disk space for the money when doing comparisons. Most websites don’t use more than 100 MB (MB is megabytes). If it is a static website, such as a sales page, it might even take up less than 1 MB.

If you see a host offering unlimited disk space, you should know this is a marketing ploy. There is always a limit, so keep this in mind when you see this.

1. Compatibility. If your site is simply a few HTML pages, this is not an issue. It will work with any host. If you have a website created by a designer or programmer, you will need to check with them to find out what features your web hosts must have before your buy your hosting account.

2. Technical support availability. If you want to maximize your visitors and sales, your website needs to be available 24/7. Likewise you need a host that offers support around the clock. Most web hosts do not offer phone support. Those who do are usually more expensive. Give extra points to those who do. Most support is web-based and response times can vary.

3. Reliability of the hosting company. Choosing a web host is like choosing a partner. You want to give preference to a host that has been around a while. A new host could disappear just as quickly as it appeared, taking your website along with them. You don’t necessarily need to choose a major company, such as Dell, because their hosting will almost certainly be more expensive. Smaller web hosting companies can be just as reliable as larger ones for the same reason that smaller companies sometimes give better service than larger ones.

4. Reliability of hosting service. Many hosts list their reliability in terms of uptime, such as 99.7% uptime. Some hosts will given give you free hosting time if they fail to meet their uptime. There is no such thing as 100% uptime. Web host servers are more reliable than personal computers but no computer is perfect. Generally, anything over 99% is good.

Remember that the cheapest host is not necessarily the best. Consider all the factors I’ve listed above, then decide. The best choice will give you the most features for your money. Most importantly, reliability is one area you should never ever skimp on just to save a few bucks. If you do, it could end up costing you more money then you saved. It possible to find a good low cost host as long as you keep reliability in mind.

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Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.

Ten Ways To Maximize Affiliate Income By Donna Knight

Any business, online or offline, that doesn’t require an initial cash investment, is a win-win situation. That’s what makes affiliate programs so enticing. An affiliate program allows the affiliate marketer to act as a middleman between the consumer and the merchant. When the affiliate marketer refers a successful sale, they earn a commission. These percentages can add up to a substantial amount of money.

If you spend enough time in internet marketing circles, you’ll find many individuals who were able to give up their day jobs because of success in affiliate marketing. This was made possible when the amount they earned in affiliate commissions far exceeded their job income.

If you want to enter the potentially lucrative world of affiliate marketing, there are some things you need to know. You definitely won’t achieve success if you go about it in a haphazard way. Here are ten tips to help you maximize your affiliate commissions and profits.

1. Focus on a particular area of interest or niche market. One mistake I see many affiliates make is they try to sell products that cater to wildly different target markets. It’s better to concentrate on one specific field and study its’ advantages and disadvantages compared to other niches. For example, if you choose dogs as an area of interest, research to find the places where dog lovers hang out online. Then look for an affiliate program that offers products which cater to their desires. 2. Choose an affiliate program wisely. Your goal is to choose the most profitable affiliate programs. Stick with higher commissions whenever possible. Promote products people actually want. Additionally, you should also consider the credibility and reliability of the company offering the affiliate program. Do they actually pay, and on time? Are their products worth selling? Read the terms of the affiliate program very carefully before agreeing to them. 3. Build a content-filled laser-targeted site. You will primarily sell the affiliate products in your mailing list. But if your site does not attract many visitors, sales conversion is virtually impossible. Create a site that focuses on the market you are targeting; Fill it with rich, informative content that people love to read. 4. Promote your site. If you believe the line “build it and they will come” applies to your website, you’re in for a rude awakening. People will not automatically know about your site just because it’s there. The way people find out about your site is when you advertise it on and off the internet. Submit it to search engines, exchange links with high traffic sites, and promote it in online forums and discussion groups. Tell your friends about it. Get business cards made to promote it. You have to spread the word about your site because no one else will do it for you. 5. Promote the product. Once a consistent flow of visitors starts, it’s time to promote your favorite affiliate product. This is usually done through a sales page on your site. A sales page is an article full of praises for the product. Things like “it changed my life,” “the secret that they don’t want you to know,” “be a millionaire in one week,” and such are typical for sales pages. But they work. Hire a professional copywriter to write sales copy for you. 6. Don’t be anonymous. You’ll find many people trying to conduct business in anonymity on the internet, but this is a mistake. People would rather deal with a name they know, rather than a username or YourDomain.com Support. Give your real name. You could choose to keep your contact information undisclosed or use a P.O. Box address, however, until you are sure you’re dealing with a trustworthy party. 7. Build a network. Befriend other affiliate marketers. Share information about the best deals, the most effective strategies, and perhaps, even some lists of potential buyers. By referring others, you could end up with referrals yourself, even from competitors. There is enough wealth to go around. You can get much further in your success by knowing the right people than by trying to do everything on your own. Anyone you meet could end up helping you out in the future when you need them. Networking online is just as beneficial as networking offline. 8. Build a list. It’s all well and good if you get visitors and you make some sales, but what about the future. One way to ensure future sales is to make repeat visitors and repeat customers. You do this by building a list. Always encourage your visitors to sign up for your mailing list. A lost sale and a lost visitor who joins your list could become a future sale and a repeat visitor. 9. Hide your affiliate links. This is not a matter of being sneaky. It’s a matter of increasing your affiliate marketing sales. Your affiliate link ( also known as your referral link) is how you make your commissions so it’s very important to do anything you can to increase the number of people who click on it.

You can use services such as shorturl.com to shorten and hide it. You can run a script on your site that helps you hide it or you can use an affiliate software program that helps you mask your link. There are multiple choices, but using your bare affiliate link is usually not the best choice. This makes you vulnerable to affiliate hijacking. That means that people will go straight to the main site, such as http://whatevermerchant.com, instead of http://whatevermerchant.com/?aff=you. The painful result is that you will lose a sale.

1. Multiple streams of affiliate income. While you don’t want to join a bunch of unrelated affiliate programs, you do want to create multiple sources of affiliate income. Join multiple programs so that if a target prospect is not interested in one product you’re introducing them to, they might be interested in another related product.

One solution is to join an affiliate merchant network such as http://www.linkshare.com or http://cj.com. These are two of the most popular merchant networks. Not only are there hundreds of affiliate programs but there are lots of related affiliate programs in networks like this.

Joining affiliate programs is free, so there is no risk involved as long as you remember to stay focused in your marketing efforts and choose the affiliate programs wisely.

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Donna Knight is a Website Promotion Specialist and Website Builder. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. Visit her Internet Marketing Tools blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.name
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Copyright (C)2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

By Donna Knight

Would you believe an 18 year old girl earned $4000 for the month of March. That may sound like hype for some business opportunity, but in fact, it’s a true story. Would you like to know her secret? Of course you would. I’ll tell you in two words.

Google AdSense.

That’s right. She made four thousand smackeroos by slapping some AdSense code on a site that got lots of visitors. Okay, there’s a little more to it than that. First she chose a subject with ravenous fans, Final Fantasy. She was also fortunate enough to be one of the few fans of the series who had the talent to make a beautiful online shrine for people who shared her passion. Most importantly, she took advantage of a time where you can build a site that gets enough visitors so that Google AdSense can be the key to untold riches.

Fortunately for you, we’re still living in a time where there are plenty more riches to be reaped from the AdSense goldmine. If you want to know more about what you need to do to position yourself to get some of that AdSense gold, read on.

Increasing website traffic is always the first priority for internet marketers. More visitors means greater chances for a sale. Sales is a numbers game. With AdSense, more visitors means more clicks which means more money. Does that make sense?

AdSense, however, won’t do you any good if you have no traffic. The rest of this article will focus on how to boost your traffic. Read on. One way to increase your website traffic is through maximizing search engine positioning. Being on the first page of the search engine results will do wonders to increase your chances of getting scores of unique website visitors.

The million-dollar question is how do you get your website on that first page of the search engine results page (also called the SERP). Part of the solution is to choose the right keywords to use in your site. These keywords would be the words that searchers type into the search engine box, which then show a list of related websites. The better your keyword choices, the greater your chance of getting a higher search engine position. However, choosing the right keywords is only the first step in search engine optimization.

Here’s a little known secret the gurus don’t want you to know: Search engine spiders are the little programs which actually grab information from your site which will be integrated into the search engines. These spiders love websites with constantly changing content. The more you update your site, the more the spiders will come back to visit your site and spider it.

The problem is that manually updating your site constantly would be so tedious that even if you thought you really could make a lot of money as a result of doing it, you would eventually lose your motivation. Your goal is an internet marketer is always to save time by automating as many of your tasks as possible.

That’s where RSS enters the picture. The definition of RSS is Really Simple Syndication. It is a standard for publishing constant updates to a website. RSS technology lets web publishers send out news and updates, called feeds, which visitors can quickly and conveniently read with a program called an RSS reader. RSS now has more uses than it ever was intended for.

1. RSS allows you to easily and quickly send messages to your target audience, whether they are customers or your mailing list subscribers. Do you have a new promotion to send out an ad for? Do you have new information for your readers to ponder? Have you added new products to your product line that you want your past buyers to consider? Syndicate it! Gone are the days when your only choice was to wait until new information arrived in the mail. RSS feeds are delivered immediately as soon as the user comes online.

2. The true power of RSS is best realized with a blog. Blogs were originally created to serve as online journals, but leave it to smart internet marketers to find more uses, most importantly how to monetize them.

Blogs are much easier to update than a website, therefore making it very easy to add new content every day. It’s all automated. Write, publish, and voila!, new content! The best part is that your blog updates can also be syndicated as RSS feeds. The benefit are twofold. 1) It saves time and 2) it makes search engine spiders love your constantly updated site as well as your other sites where RSS feeds originate.

3. RSS is a free web promotion method, so you don’t need any expensive programs to take advantage of it. Blogs are free as well. RSS is still a new technology which means if you start taking advantage now you will be head and shoulders above any competition.

RSS will expose more people to your site and make search engine spiders frequent visitors to your site. As a result, you will get more visitors. More visitors means more potential sales. The girl with the Final Fantasy site is proof of that. To boost your online present, taking advantage of RSS is a must.

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Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free eBooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.

By Donna Knight

Try to win the love of a man by wearing a pretty dress, and you’re in for a major heartbreak. Likewise, try to get a sale by posting just a product description and picture, and you’ll get your heart broken every time. Winning a man’s heart and winning a customer’s trust requires the same process, salesmanship. With winning the one you love, unconscious salesmanship may work; he may like you for characteristics you never knew were lovable. In selling a product, however, passive salesmanship won’t work. You have to consciously take steps to win over a customer.

The painful truth is products don’t sell themselves, no matter how good they are. You, the marketer, have to tell the prospect why they need your product. You must convince them of why they will love your product. You have to let them know they must buy now or they will miss out on an opportunity they may never have again.

While selling products online and offline have some similarities, there are some major differences you need to know. Online you don’t have the benefit of your potential customers seeing your trustworthy face and winning smile. People are much more resistant to parting with their hard-earned money to a faceless stranger or company.

Copywriting is the key to making a sale online and offline. The sooner you take this to heart, the sooner you’ll be making more sales than your little heart ever thought possible. Most people think the product is the most important element to getting a sale. The fact is even a mediocre product can sell boatloads with great sales copy backing it up. Good sales copy can convert an undecided prospect into a successful sale.

If you try to write sales copy on your own, without knowing anything about copywriting, you will fail miserably. All it takes is one word to win or lose a customer. That’s why many business owners willingly fork over $10,000 to an expert copywriter just to write one sales letter. They know that winning sales copy will earn them their investment back in no time.

If you don’t have hundreds of dollars to hire a copywriter, don’t worry. All is not lost. You can learn to write sales copy that sells. You just need to know some proven direct response copywriting rules.

Here is a step-by-step formula for writing killer sales copy to increase your conversion rate:
1. Write an attention grabbing headline. There are 3 parts to a winning headline:    A.   A line that sets up the main headline.    B.   The main headline, using the biggest font you’ll use in your entire sales copy. Preferably it should be in a different color and in bold text. Most expert copywriters swear by red as a color that draws the most attention to the headline. Blue is another color frequently used by copywriters. It must be readable, i.e. no lilac.    C.   A line that elaborates on your main headline.

Here is an example of a headline that uses this method:

Would you like a website that will make you money even while you sleep?

“FINALLY! A FULLY AUTOMATED WEBSITE THAT WILL HAVE YOU READY TO MAKE SALES IN ONLY 7 DAYS. DON’T TRY TO BUILD A BUSINESS OFFLINE THAT FAST. YOU CAN’T!”

Take Orders and Deliver the Product Without Even Touching Your Website!

2. Write an introduction that your readers can relate to. The most effective way to do this is to write about a problem that your target market has. Examples include baldness, acne, or lack of money.
3. Tell them why they should trust you. Tell them who you are and what are your relevant accomplishments. This helps establish your credibility and trustworthiness. Most people are wary of buying online. This section helps put a face on your product.
4. Now tell them about your product. The mistake many people make is they talk about the product before they explain what problem the product will solve and why they should buy from you. Internet users hate sales pitches. If you mention a product right from the start, they’ll be onto the next site so fast it will make your head spin.
5. Let them know why your product is effective. Here are two ways:    A.   List statistics with sources related to the need for your product.    B.   Show testimonials from satisfied customers who have already bought your product. To make testimonials most convincing, include:      i. The customer’s full name      ii.  City and state or their website URL
6. List the features of your product. Don’t use technical jargon. Don’t always assume someone looking to buy your product is familiar with the technical terms associated with it. You can lose a customer just by using words they don’t know, no matter how badly they need your product.
7. Describe the benefits of your product. While all of these steps are important, this is one of the most important sections of the sales letter. This is usually where the sale is made.
8. Add valuable and unique bonuses. Tell the value of each bonus. Bonuses make customers feel like their getting way more for their money. They might even feel like they’re stealing from you. Some people will even buy the product just to get the bonuses.
9. Give them a reason to buy now. Ways to do this include:    A.   Threaten a future price increase    B.   Tell them bonuses are available for a limited time only

Whether you’re getting 100 visitors a day or 10,000, traffic will do you no good if you don’t know how to convert the visitor into a sale. I’ve had customers literally begging to buy a product that was not even available for sale just because of copy I wrote telling them what the product would do for them. Using these simple rules, you too can transform disinterested website browsers into customers who crave your product.

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Donna Knight is a Website Promotion Specialist who has sold everything from digital products, including ebooks and software, to hard goods such as computers and medical transcription equipment. For more tips to help you sell your product or service, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.

By Donna Knight

15 years ago there were only two ways to learn a new subject. You could go to a trade school, college or adult education school. Or you could study a book on the subject on your own. If you didn’t have time to travel back and forth to school, especially after a long hard day of work, the first method was too time-consuming. If you weren’t very disciplined, learning by book wasn’t right for you either.

With all the technological advances in the last decade, including but not limited to the internet, you now have a bevy of ways to learn something new. In addition, you can now learn more subjects than ever before. One cutting edge way to get an education or even teach others is via teleseminars.

Teleseminars are classes that allow a room full of people to learn over the telephone. What’s more, each teleseminar attendee can attend without leaving the comfort of their own home. You can even stay in your pajamas! How it works is that each participants is given a phone number to dial at a specific time. This allows them to listen to and even speak to the teleseminar holder and others attending. Teleseminars usually last anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours. If you’re looking for a business to start, this is a great business you can run right from home.

There are also classes called webinars which are more of a website-based classroom. The disadvantage of webinars over teleseminars is that they require technical savvy both from the person who holds the webinar and from the attendees. With teleseminars, the only equipment attendees need is a telephone. Everyone knows how to use one of those, right?

Starting your own teleseminar business does have some requirements. Here’s what you need to know to start your own teleseminar business:

1. You must have access to a teleseminar system that will allow multiple parties to connect via a single line. There are lots of companies offering this service that you can search for online.

2. You need a subject that people would love to learn about. Examples of popular topics include starting a business, making money online, offline marketing, as well as highly specialized skills that require expert knowledge, such as taking care of pets or plants.

3. You should prepare an outline of all your lessons ahead of time. This outline will allow you to practice the teleseminar and determine how long it will take, how many individual sessions it would require, and how much time per session.

4. You must prepare each lesson beforehand. You can list everything you want to discuss. Make sure it is interesting and easy to understand over the phone. Remember that attendees don’t have the benefit of visual material as they would in a classroom. There are two alternatives though. You could mail handouts to attendees before the teleseminar starts. Alternatively, you could direct attendees to a website, where there are links to different graphics to illustrate your points.

5. You don’t have to be the expert on the subject of the teleseminars. You could simply interview others who are well-known experts in your chosen field. You could even have the interviews pre-recorded and then use the teleseminar to discuss them and answer questions. Attendees will like it more if the teleseminars are interactive.

6. You will need to determine how to price your teleseminar series. The answer is simple: The price should be what you think the information is worth. Using the internet, you can look for eBooks or classes on the subject and see what their pricing is.

7. Like any business venture, you will need to advertise your teleseminar in order to gain attendees. You can market both online and offline and you should. If possible, advertise in places where your target market is most likely to be. For example, if your teleseminar is related to children, pass out flyers at a PTA meeting or little league game. Make enrollment as easy as possible for attendees. If you make it difficult, potential attendees won’t sign up even if they’re dying to learn what you can teach simply because they’re turned off by the sign-up process. The easiest sign up process would be a simple opt-in form on a website.

8. Integrate a simple payment process that accepts multiple forms of payment. I recommend PayPal (http://www.paypal.com ) or ClickBank (http://www.clickbank.net ) both of which I have used extensively. Both allow you to accept echecks from people who don’t have a credit card. Both are secure payment systems using encryption so that credit card information can’t be viewed by hackers.

9. Decide if you want to conduct each teleseminar live or by playing a recording. A live teleseminar will allow for interaction with students having the ability to ask questions and discuss the subject further. Interactivity is an added value that will allow you to charge more for the teleseminar. If you are insecure about your speaking abilities, you may not want to do it live. Besides, you can ask students to send in their questions ahead of time and then record the answers when recording the teleseminar.

10. When it’s time to go live, be sure to start on time. If you’re charging a high price for your seminar, that’s all the more reason attendees will expect you to be a professional in the delivery of your teleseminar.

11. You must have a good quality phone. A cordless phone or cellphone may be convenient but the sound quality isn’t good enough for a teleseminar. For maximum comfort, you might want to try a headset with a good quality microphone that plugs into the phone. Your neck will thank you!

That’s not all. There’s more than one way to make money from your teleseminars. You could record the teleseminar with a recording device that hooks onto the telephone and convert it into mp3 format. You can find this device at Radio Shack. You can sell the mp3 files as a download. You could have the whole teleseminar transcribed and sell the transcriptions along with the mp3 recording at a higher price. You can print out the teleseminar into a book and sell it offline as a printed course. You can charge even more for this course than for the previous options. You can include mp3 recordings of the teleseminar on CD or DVD.

Teleseminars allow you to get into the information product business using a device everyone has, the telephone! You can start doing teleseminars as a part-time business, and if you get really good at it, it can become profitable enough to become a full-time profession. =============================================
Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.

By Donna Knight

In online business, it may seem like the world is your marketplace, but it is also true that the world is your competition. As a result you still have to choose your target market carefully.

One way to narrow down your potential market to maximize your profitability is to choose a business that caters to a special niche. The definition of a niche market is a smaller segment of the population that has special desires or needs. The best niche may be overlooked by the vast majority of marketers, and as a result there is much less competition. As a result of this neglect by most marketers, niche markets have the potential to be vastly more profitable than an overexploited market with too much competition.

If you choose your niche wisely, you could end up being the only source for a ravenously hungry market that makes repeat purchases. That’s the best situation for a business to be in. With that said, you may be asking, “Okay, so how exactly do I choose a good niche?” I’m glad you asked!. Here are 8 expert keyword research tips for finding a niche to sell a product or service to:

1. Take inventory. Know what abilities you have and what products you have that may service a niche. You may not be in a good position to cater to a niche that requires a large expenditure of money or specialized knowledge that you don’t have. Write down a list of things you are good at. Your past job descriptions are a good place to start to get ideas. Even extracurricular activities such as coaching a baseball team can be included on this list. You should also write a list of products you already have resell rights to.

2. Split niches into subniches. Once you have a list of some specific niches you want to pursue, narrow them down even further by listing subniches in those niches. The more general a market is, the more likely it is to be saturated. Smaller marketers have a greater chance of having a higher demand and lower supply, which makes for greater potential profit. If you’re having difficulty finding smaller subniches, use free keyword research tools such as the Overture keyword tool at http://www.inventory.overture.com and http://www.nichebot.com . Simply do a search of a keyword relevant to your target market, and these tools will list related keywords. This is an excellent way to discover untapped niches.

3. Find a hungry audience. It’s very important to find a niche where there are enough searches to make it profitable. Using the previously mentioned tools, make a record of how many searches there are. A high number of searches (such as 100,000) indicates a strong demand. If there are fewer than 100 searches, that might be too small a niche. However, keep in mind that is only one search engine. There may be more searches on other search engines. Specifically, however many searches there are on Overture for that keyword, Google will have many more since it is a more popular search engine.

4. Check out the competition. Your next step is to get a feel for how much competition there is in that niche. Manually search multiple search engines for the keywords for your chosen niche and note how many results there are. Also try using Metasearch engines such as http://www.dogpile.com and http://www.mamma.com . Nichebot.com tells you how much competition there is on Google and Wordtracker.

5. Compare demand vs supply. Compare the number of competing websites (look at the number of search results, which is usually at the top of the page) with the number of searches made. The greater the difference between the two numbers, the less potential profit. For example, if there are 100 searches for a keyword and 10 million search results, this indicates too much competition, especially for such a small audience. If there are 100,000 searches and 10,000 results, this is more promising. If there are less results than there are searches for a keyword, you may have struck gold! For example, if there are 10,000 searches for a keyword, and only 10 results in the search engine, this could signal a potential windfall of profits.

6. Check your knowledge base. If you’re like me, you may already have a bunch of unread eBooks sitting on your computer. Check out niche marketing eBooks and special reports that provide valuable tips and tactics on finding a good niche. You’ll find a lot of repetitious material, but you could still find some valuable nuggets of information. Paid eBooks are more likely to have valuable information than free ones, so you should focus on these first.

7. Check niche lists. Although these are not as common as eBooks, there are niche lists prepared by successful marketers. Some people make a living by doing the “dirty work,” of finding potentially profitable niches. Even with one of these lists, you still want to follow the previous steps to confirm the potential profit of any niche. However, a niche list will save you time, especially you have no idea where to start.

8. Mix and match. You may be able to combine related niches as your target market because your product or service may cater to more than one related market. In your keyword research you may have found several subniches that show 100 searches. If you combine 5 of these subniches, that may be a large enough audience to make it profitable.

By now you realize, online prospects are not the easy targets some internet marketing experts might want you to think they are. But if you choose your target market carefully, because of a larger potential customer base, you can have an online business more successful than you ever could imagine in the offline world. =============================================
Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time when marketing online, visit her Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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Copyright (C) 2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact. For product reviews, you may substitute your affiliate referral link for the product URL.