How To Get Celebrities To Endorse YOUR Product

Copyright © 2005 Louis Allport

How would you like celebrities to endorse your product?

Perhaps that sounds crazy. Well, here's the info...

But before anything else - let me stress that when I say
"celebrities", I'm not talking about Tiger Woods or Tom
Cruise!

Who I'm talking about is celebrities in YOUR market. People
who are very highly thought of and well known in the market
you're selling to. People who your target market look up
to.

Take this real life example:

An online publisher named Alex was just about to launch an
information product revealing psychological sales tactics.

However, even though his product was of the very highest
quality, Alex was looking for something "extra" that would
increase sales of the product even more.

What Alex wanted to achieve is to boost *credibility* in the
sales message presenting the product. So visitors to his
site would actually believe what they read, and therefore be
a lot more likely to buy.

Now, since the product Alex was selling was revealing sales
and marketing tactics, it would of course be purchased by
people interested in selling more online.

So who better to give Alex a testimonial than a world famous
marketing expert?...

Alex managed to get a testimonial from none other than Joe
Sugarman - hugely successful direct marketer and famous for
his BluBlocker sun glasses infomercials.

So - how do YOU go about boosting your own sales with
testimonials from celebrities?

Well, let me firstly stress that unless you already have a
relationship with the person (you know each other), there's
a strong chance they won't reply to you. They may, or they
may not. So be prepared for that.

Sending them an email is quick, but I get 200+ emails a day
at the moment (spam included), and that's on the low end
compared to the number of emails some people I know get.

So email may work if you're looking for a testimonial from a
celebrity in your market, but don't hold your breath.

How about a phone call? It's worth a chance, but then again
the person you're trying to reach may have a secretary, and
what are your chances of getting past them with a
testimonial request?

Or of course you could always send them a good ole fashioned
"snail mail" letter, preferably including a complimentary
copy of your product.

Will this work? Well, it will definitely help get their
attention. You may want to contact them via email initially
asking them for their postal address so you can send them a
review copy of the product.

By doing that initially you're sure to get the right
address, and it helps put a mental note in the person's mind
that they're going to receive a package from you soon.

Or here's an almost fool proof way: why not buy time from
them? Especially if they offer consulting already. It
doesn't guarantee they'll offer a testimonial, but if your
product's great, chances are they will.

So let's say you've got the product in their hands, and they
like it. Here's the last step:

Make it as easy as possible for them. The people you
contact are very busy, since that's how they got to where
they are.

So what you need to do is write the testimonial for them.
And once you've done that, send it over saying "I've
included a potential testimonial outline for you. If you
would be happy to offer a testimonial for the product,
please feel free to change this draft testimonial as you
would like to."

Now I can't guarantee you'll get testimonials every time you
try, especially if you're not well known in the market or
don't have a relationship with the person already. But if
you don't try, you'll never know. And just one or two
celebrity testimonials can make a real positive impact on
your sales for the long term.

--------------------

Louis Allport is the creator of over thirty (and counting)
unique and high quality information products selling very
successfully online. One of Louis' recent products reveals
a proven four-step formula that can make creating
best-selling online products a lot more predictable:
http://www.createoffers.com/new/

How To Attract More Interested, Enthusiastic Prospects... More Customers... And More Cash Profits From Every Ad, Sales Letter, Web Page, Or Any Other

What is the #1 most important part of all your marketing on the Internet? The one thing that is even more important than your sales letter?

It's your headline.

Think about something very carefully for a second. How do people reach you on the Internet? What makes them click over to your web site or read your email message? (a subject line is still a headline)

The answer is the headline. It is the most vital of all. If your headline does not make them click, your site never gets read. If your headline on your site doesn't make them stay they simply click away.

Nothing is more important than the headlines you use in your emails, your ads, your banners and your web pages. All of them must be powerful and make people want to know more.

Headlines are so important that not spending the most time on them will make you lose tons of money. More time should be spent on your headlines and titles than the actual writing of your salesletters. They are that vital to your success in any type of advertising.

When you realize that one headline can pull 1700% more than another you begin to realize just how important they are. If you are placing ads right now and they are pulling in 500 hits a week, one simple change in the headline could make the same amount of work pull 5,000 hits a week.

The difference can be massive and will determine the success or failure of your business. It can also determine how many people care to read your article.

Titles for articles should be given the same amount of consideration as headlines for sales letters. The more power and impact the title has the more people will read it.

Many people give very little thought to the title of their articles. Don't make that mistake. Make your titles provocative, exciting, promising a huge benefit and they will draw the maximum number of readers. Your articles should be just as exciting as your sales letters.

When you consider that the only way for anyone to reach you on the Internet is through a headline, it gives you some idea of their power.

A classified ad should be created out of the best headlines you have. Your banners should contain the most potent headlines you can think of. All links on your site should be thought of in terms of headlines.

Links on most sites say things like, "Free E-Book". They expect you to click on that and download it. It's not going to happen. 'Free ebook' tells you and I absolutely nothing. We'll pass it over without even a second glance.

Give all your links life, power and benefits and then watch what happens to the response. Treat each link like you absolutely had to get every visitor to click on it.

What would happen if all the links on your pages suddenly got 20 times more clicks than normal?

If you're already making money, then your income would skyrocket. All from some very simple changes that would take no more than a few minutes.

To Your Success,
Allen Says


Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

"Trading Minds - Mastering The Art of Persuasion!"

Have you ever sat down, closed your eyes and really looked at yourself or your product through another persons eyes?

Have you, in your mind, literally become your customer or your lover and looked hard at yourself or your work through their eyes?

Can you do it?

I hope you can. It is one of the most powerful techniques man has ever used. Ground battles, corporate battles and the hearts of great Women have been won because of it.

When you become your customer, the secrets of how to influence them magically appear. The same thing happens when you trade minds with your wife or husband. Some of the things you see may shock and change you in ways you could not have imagined.

The man or woman who has the power to really look at their work through another persons eyes has an incredible advantage in all business and personal situations. If you find that this ability comes easy to you then by all means really do it. Sit down and do it very deeply and totally and you will be shocked at what you are able to see that you could not see any other way.

Can you look, and I mean really look, at your sales letter through your prospects eyes?

Get good at doing this and you will find 100's of ways to dramatically change both your business and personal life immediately.

Many people only ' think ' they see their product through their prospects eyes. They think that when they are looking at their sales letter or web page that they can do this. But really, they are still looking at their work filtered through their own feelings, attitudes and background. You have to remove ' you ' from the the picture entirely.

This is a deeply serious technique that, for most, require the eyes to be closed to even begin to touch its real power.

And if you think the author has somehow lost his mind, it would do you well to know many, many millionaires and billionaires have confirmed in public and in published writings the incredible power of this strategy and that they have always used it to build their wealth without fail.

I would never think of using a sales letter without first looking at it long and hard through the eyes of an average customer. Never let yourself get too close to your own work.

In order to do this right you have to completely move 'I' out of the way. You must get your own feelings, thoughts and attachments about your work out of the way so you can see it clearly and see it the way other people are seeing it.

When you do that, you will know how to write irresistible ad copy, you will know how to create web sites people instantly understand and buy from, you will know how to make yourself 100 times more attractive to your wife or husband.......and much, much more ....test it and see!

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I've just added 6 new books and Special Reports written by the insane Michael Ross.


Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

"Move Your Reader To Action Using Command Copy!"

From the 'guru' marketers to multi-billion dollar Fortune 500 companies most of them have one thing in common - All Use Command Copy!

You see it on sales letters and on television: Act Now!
- Order Now! - Pick Up The Phone And Call Now!
- Do it Now! - Take Action Today!

Command copy creates impulses to act!

It has the power to make a reader actually pick up the phone and order when otherwise he would have put it off if the command had not been given.

I'm not saying you turned him into a robot that had to obey you and order. I'm saying that when you gave the command to: 'Go Ahead And Order Now' ..you helped give him the impulse to act. You 'opened' his mind up to the thought of actually going ahead and picking up the phone to call. Tell your reader exactly what he should do and it will shock you when you discover he actually does it!

Is this hard to believe?

It has been proven through millions of dollars in testing sales letters and tv commercials both with and without command copy. The differences in responses are astounding!

The owner of a popular real estate package being sold on cable tv reported that when they put the words "Get up and call now - 1-800-xxx-xxxx" across the bottom of the screen and added a part at the end where he again gave the order to 'get up and call now' the commercial immediately began making a profit whereas every time it was ran before it lost money!

Your reader or the TV viewer may be blown away by your product. He may sit hypnotized by the thoughts of all he could do with your product. But unless you tell him to order now and show him a clear and easy way to do it, he may just keep right on sitting there spaced out about your product but never actually making the move to order it.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I've just added "Magnetic Sales Letters" to the Warrior download site. 281 pages of Proven sales letters you can model to create your own hot copy in just minutes.

There's no better way to learn how to write killer copy than modeling already written and proven letters.

This is the same book being sold on the Internet for $67 right now. Yours free as a Warrior member.

Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

"Perceived Value - The Art of Making Your Product Look Like It's Worth 20 Times What You Are Charging For It"

Here's another technique that is perfect for Internet marketing.

Increasing the perceived value is easily done by simply adding bonuses that cost you little or nothing to add and create a 'package deal'!

Let's say you are selling a book on getting to the top of search engines....

You could add 2 or 3 web marketing reports you found as bonuses. You could add some free software you discovered that made your job 100 times easier, you could add this e-book you're reading now and so on.

Write down every benefit the reader will get from theses bonuses and make a bulleted list of them!

This can make your $29.95 book seem like it's worth $229.95!

Look for things that can go along with your product as bonuses but yet cost you very little to produce. With a little effort you can easily make your current product seem like it's worth 20 times what you are charging for it.

It will actually be worth more than you are charging if you put some good bonuses together. And that's great - it cost you nothing extra and will blow your sales through the roof. Everybody wins.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I've just added the powerful book "How To Make Maximum Profit In Minimum Time" to the Warrior site. This book is written by marketing guru Peter Sun. 104 pages of genius marketing ideas.

Find out:

* How To Make Up To $10,000 A Week (or more) From Tiny Classified Ads And Two-Step Marketing

* How To Make An Extra $100,000 A Year Publishing Your Own Newsletter

* How To Steal Customers From Your Competitors

* How To Get $25,000 In Free Advertising For Your Business Each Year..

And Much More...

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.


Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

"Irresistibly Magnetic Words That Draw The Readers Attention To Your Ad"

Certain words, when combined together, literally draw the readers eyes to your ad...the words below are those I have found to work every time.

You - Ultimate - Free - Master - Power - Discovery - Easy - Guaranteed - Love - Money - New - Scientific - Proven - Results - Incredible - Discover - Breakthrough - Secret - Private - Cash - Shocked - Shocking - Revealed - Uncovered - Hidden - Profit's - Inside - Sex...Sex?

Yes Sex...used only in certain situations where it can apply though. For example, when I wrote the headline "Sex Sites Are Not The Only Ones That Can Pull In $5000 A Week Using The Power of Instant Access!" ..it immediately added about $50,000 to my income last year. Just that one headline!

I thought it was a unique angle because all you heard on the news for months was how people where making big money with porno sites. You never heard about those of us who where making great money without selling sex.

Some example headlines using those words above:

"Revealed! - Scientifically Proven Strategies Guaranteed To Double Your Profit's Every Month or You Keep The System For Free!

"Master The Art of Building Web Pages In 30 Minutes With This Proven, Easy to Use Software!"

"Breakthrough Money-Making Secrets That Sex Sites Do Not Want You To Find Out About - Uncovered And Revealed Inside!"

Power words, like those above, are already implanted deeply in the minds of all your readers simply because of what the words mean.

For example, when I see the word " Discovery ", it evokes a response from within me and draws my attention to the rest of the sentence because Discovery 'means' something to me and most other people.

The Discovery might give me a great advantage before you and others find out if I read about it first. People love to discover things and the word attracts them instantly when they see it.

Just like the words 'Scientific Breakthrough' will immediately draw the attention of most everyone. I can not pass up a headline that has those two words in it. If I see those two words I will always read the rest of your headline. And if the rest of your headline is something I am interested in, then you are well on your way to a new customer.

If the Scientific Breakthrough had to do with a new kind of Hair Growth Formula then I would move on with no interest.

BUT...you at least got me to read the 'full' headline...and you got a lot of other people to read it too!

If the Scientific Breakthrough had to do with making money you would have had me hooked into reading more and possibly all of your letter.

You got the attention of the maximum number of people with the first two words, then, with the rest of the headline, you weeded out those with no interest and hooked your target prospects.

We love things to be revealed , we love secrets, hidden things, proven things and shocking things...we always have and always will.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

P.S. UPDATE: I've just added the awesome ebook "Classified Magic" to the Warrior site. This is an incredibly detailed book that will allow you to extract the maximum profit possible from classified ads.


Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

A Simple 4 Step System People Are Using To Generate Easy, Automatic Profits On The Internet!

Are you ready to use a simple, proven system that is making an incredible amount of money right now for hundreds of different products?

If so, I'm going to reveal a horribly simple way certain "Masters" of the game are making fortunes all around you right now. It doesn't take a genius or a $100,000 investment. In some cases the entire thing can be put together for $0 cost.

This article assumes you will be selling either information, software, streaming audio, video seminars, cgi/perl scripts..etc. Products that can be downloaded immediately after the order is placed. Instant Access - we all love it.

Let's get to it.

The first and most vital rule of all is this...

Your site MUST be a Direct Response Site.

Here's where some shine and the rest just don't get it. For a web site to make the most money it must be a Direct Response Web Site. It must focus on selling one product and get an immediate response in the form of an order or lead.
(Preferably order)

Most sites exist as nothing more than portals leading their traffic off in all directions away from their own site. A home page full of links is just that - a home page full of links. It's not a profit machine and never can be.

A web site created out of a hot sales letter and an image of your product will make you much more money than a web site full of links ever will.

To me, advertising on the Internet is no different than advertising in an income opportunity magazine. The only difference to me was the fact that now I could not only sell the prospect, I could also take the credit card order and deliver the product at the same time.

That was an exciting thought to me and it's no less exciting today. In many way it is even more exciting now. Today we have services we could only hope for just a few years ago. On today's Internet you have services that do it all. A true plug and play opportunity to sell anything you can come up with.

You don't have to have a merchant account. You don't have to know about password protected directories. You don't have to install any affiliate script yourself. And the list goes on. If you choose, all this can be done very easily for you. All you have to do is acquire your own products to sell.

Once you have them you are going to create a direct response, self advertising cash machine to sell them. A simple system that works even when you don't.

Here's an example...

Bill is out clicking around on the net and comes upon a site created by an obvious programming genius. The owner of the site is a 22 year old who simply loves to create different software programs. He's not really interested in trying to sell what he creates.

Bill sees an opportunity. He contacts the young man and convinces him to create a custom software program that will create incredibly professional web sites automatically by simply answering the questions the software asks. Perfect for newbies worldwide!

Bill immediately begins creating his direct response web site to sell the product. A Buy, Bookmark or Leave site.

He chooses a combination of...

www.digibuy.com and www.affiliatetracking.net

...to accept credit card orders, give instant access to his product, accept affiliates to sell his product and have affiliate checks sent out all automatically. Once the software is done, Bill uploads it and he's ready to sell.

Bill then contacts e-zine owners in an attempt to make a deal. He offers the e-zine owners a large percentage of the profit if they will make an announcement about the offer. Bill contacts a total of 138 e-zine owners. 23 bite on the offer. Bill's in the money.

Over the next 3 weeks Bill sells 400 copies of his software and acquires 227 affiliates who will promote his product for him. After the e-zine runs cooled down Bill averages $2,400 a month in sales and growing. As more people visit Bill's site he signs up more and more affiliates to sell for him..all automatically.

Now this may seem like small numbers to you but realize that Bill has a whole world of products available to him. He also has 23 e-zine owners that already know him and will more than likely deal with him again.

Bill can duplicate this system 100 times if he wants to with 100 different products. More than this, Bill can go to the Bahamas any time he chooses without having to worry about much at all. His money machines are on autopilot. Everything is done for him.

This is not fantasy talk. It's happening right now. One of my own clients uses the service www.clickbank.com to sell over $11,000 a month worth of one of his offers. ClickBank accepts the credit card orders, allows him to accept affiliates AND pays his affiliates.

I'm talking about a simple system with huge potential. Anyone from any place in the world can do this. The product and the web site are all you need to concentrate on. The rest can be done for you. You are only limited by the limits of your own imagination.

Here are the simple steps:

1. Get A Product.
2. Create A Direct Response Web Site To Sell It.
3. Plug In A Card Processing And Affiliate Tracking Service.
4. Do An E-Zine Blast. (Paid Ads or Commission Based Deals)

And wherever you may get stuck in the process, members are standing by to help you through it in our forum. There is not a single question you can ask about this process that can't be answered.

Here's another awesome bonus I do only for Warrior members. Once you have your product created contact me and I will include a link to it in one of my newsletters. I have over 90,000 readers as I write this so if you have a hot product this should give you a great start. The only requirement is that it must be a new product created by you or someone you made a deal with.

To Your Success,
Allen Says

Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

A Millionaire's Secret

Washington DC was nasty as could be. As I sat on the bench waiting for my bus to arrive I couldn't wait to get back to the backwoods of Louisiana. I had almost sat in a pool of blood that was on the far end of the bench and I was ready to go. I truly hope people coming to visit our country don't make DC one of their stops.

Anyway, before my bus arrived I was approached by a nicely dressed elderly gentleman in need of directions. I told him I had no idea what he was looking for as I too was just passing through. To this day I'm not sure why, but we started talking as if we had known each other for years.

We talked about life, people and eventually the conversation turned to business. It was here that the gentlemen saw something in me, I suppose, that made him feel like sharing what he said was the greatest secret ever told. He said everyone had heard it but almost no one paid any attention to it, even though it was the one thing that could bestow a fortune upon any man or woman who used it.

My ears where definitely starting to perk up. Something about his tone told me this man knew from whereof he spoke. And I wanted to know what the secret was with a passion. He must have sensed my anxiousness because at that very moment he gave me a warning that was almost a scolding.

I'll try to recount here as best I can the rest of our conversation...

Man: "Do not make the mistake of shrugging off what I am about to tell you because you have heard it before. No doubt you have heard it already from at least one person in your life. You may have even heard it many times. Do you have any aversion to religion Mr. Says?"

Me: "No I don't. I don't believe many preachers know what they are talking about or even what they are trying to teach, but I do know the Bible has a lot of great knowledge in it."

Man: "Good. I would not want you to discount what I am about to tell you because it does come directly from the Bible. But its applications reach far beyond what most people can conceive of. It will take thought, intense pondering on your part, to begin to get some inkling of its power."

"This simple secret, when applied to business, will draw money to you as easily as water runs down a mountain. Even a fool can apply it and prosper. When applied to relationships, it will create more friends than you can handle" (laughing heartily)

Me: "What is it, I'm dying to know now?"

Man: "Patience Mr. Says, Patience. I will not give it to you as it has always been repeated by fools who have no respect or knowledge of what it even means. No. I will give it to you another way."

"What type of business are you interested in?"

Me: "Well, I'm dabbling in Mail Order right now. I would like to place ads and sell books."

Man: "Fine. Fine. Mail Order it is. Let me tell you how to create a fortune in this Mail Order. All you have to do is create the product you want to buy"

Me: "I don't understand"

Man: "You will"

"You see, you are your market. Whatever you want, there are millions of other people wanting the same thing. That elusive product you are looking for is the product millions of others are also looking for right now."

"All you have to do is create the product you want to buy, the product you yourself have been looking for. Once you have this product, what would you want the sales message to say so that you know this is the product you have been looking for?"

"If someone else where selling this product, what would you want the ad to say, what would get you to buy this product?. When you have that answer, that is the ad you want to create."

Me: "I see" (hesitantly)

Man: "See the business across the street here? Pizza. I could triple the business that place does inside of 10 minutes. That's what I do by the way" (smiling)

"All I would do is walk into the business as a customer. I would sit there and imagine all the things that could be done to me that would make me a loyal customer to that business for life. What could they do for me that would make me feel this way?"

"Once I had the answers to that question, I would implement them across the board. Every customer would be treated the way I had imagined. And without any doubt what so ever that business would triple the profits it now makes."

Me: "I think I know..."

Man: "Wait, you don't really know anything yet. That's the problem with people. They brush something off because of where it came from or because they heard it many times. Leave that for fools. You won't "know it" until you have deeply pondered it and put it to use."

Me: "Ok"

Man: "What I am telling you has power undreamed of. The simple words used to describe it cannot contain it. Does not do justice to it, and has been prostituted by blabber mouths who let wisdom fall off their lips with not even a single brain cell grasping what they are rambling about."

"What I am telling you is Law, not man's Law, but the very Law's of nature herself. It's the way things work and those who truly understand it rise to the top in every field known to man."

"What people don't understand is that it applies to everything. This secret can be applied with virtually every step you take, everything you do, every word you speak and everyone concerned profits by it."

"If you are a writer, write like you would like to be written to"

"If you are a salesman, sell like you would like to be sold to"

"If you are a speaker, speak like you would like to be spoken to"

"If you want more love, then love like you would like to be loved"

"If you want more friends, be the friend you would like to see"

"When you infuse everything you do with this secret it takes on a magical power. Businesses dominate the market, books become best sellers, leaders attract huge and loyal followings."

"How would you like it?"
"How would you respond to it?"
"How would it make you feel?"

"Those are great questions to think about every time you do or create something. You will get into the hearts and minds of everyone who comes under your influence if you will first think how you would have it done to you."

"I'm certain you already know the quote from the Bible I'm referring to. But don't repeat it, just ponder it and pratice it."

Me: "I do. But I've never thought of how it could actually apply to everything in life. I too was one of those fools who passed it over without so much as a second thought. I really want to thank you for sharing this with me."

Man: "It's been a real pleasure talking with you Mr. Says, have a safe journey home."

-----------

And with that, he was gone. The funny thing was, as I was riding home on the bus I realized I never got his name, nor do I remember ever giving him mine. Maybe he saw my luggage tag. I'm not sure. It really doesn't matter. What does matter is that I've profited from that advice for the last 15 years.

I'm not even really any good at it either and I've still pulled in huge amounts of money. Especially from the Internet. This is one place this knowledge can really shine. People have always asked me my secret. How come the Warriors is still here, with the same products, with all this competition, after all these years?

This one simple secret is the answer. I always ask myself how would I like to be treated by this company? What would I like to see? What would I like to get? How would I like to be dealt with?

Those simple questions are all you have to answer. When you do get the answers, put them into action and watch what happens.

Create The Site You've Been Looking For
Write Like You Would Like To Be Written To
Sell Like You Would Like To Be Sold To
Talk Like You Would Like To Be Talked To
Deal Like You Would Like To Be Dealt With
Create For Others What You Would Like Created For You
Excite Others The Way You Would Like To Be Excited

To Your Success,
Allen Says

Become A Warrior Member Today - Click Here!  

Host With Us And Get Your Warrior Membership Free!
http://www.Host4Profit.com

Copyright © Internet Warriors.
All rights reserved.

Why Publishing MP3 Can Cost You A Fortune

Copyright © 2005 Louis Allport

This was news to me. It might be news to you too:

MP3 is NOT free to use if you're an online publisher. BUT -
let me be clear - there are some opt-outs. It appears you
don't have to pay any license fees if:

It's for personal use or non commercial reasons (not
generating income). OR - if your company revenue is below
$100,000 a year.

Now, these rules might change of course. Make sure to check
these yourself and ensure you're up to date by visiting
mp3licensing.com for full details.

However, when there's alternatives I don't see why anyone
publishing audio online would want to or should publish in
MP3 format.

So what's the best alternative? Well - it's all about OGG.

Okay, a slightly strange name. Here are the facts:

OGG is just as high quality as MP3.

OGG is just as quick to download as MP3.

OGG is open source - this means no fees due, ever (for full
details on OGG visit vorbis.com).

The only current downside of OGG is that it isn't as widely
supported by audio players as MP3.

BUT - I'm convinced this will change. As more and more
online publishers say "No!" to paying hefty and unnecessary
licensing fees, more and more audio will be published online
in OGG format, meaning more and more audio players will
support OGG.

So if you're currently publishing audio online in MP3
format, what does this mean for you?

Well, my advice is to convert your audio from MP3 format to
OGG format, without delay.

Now I'll admit it can be a little bit time consuming, but
once it's done, it's done. And would you rather make a
little effort to convert your audio, or pay licensing fees
year after year?

So how do you convert MP3 to OGG? Easy - use an audio
converter. You'll find a ton of high quality free ones by
searching download.com and also sourceforge.net. My
personal favorite is WinLAME (awful name, great software)
from winlame.sourceforge.net.

So use WinLAME to convert your MP3 to OGG. Pay attention to
keeping the MP3 and OGG files around the same size (I've
actually found OGG files to be slightly smaller). And then
compare the audio quality. I'll be surprised if you can
find any difference between them.

Now this conversion process might take a while. For about
six hours of audio it took my computer at least a couple of
hours of processing time. But I just left the computer to
it and came back when it was done. You can even leave this
process running overnight if you have a lot of audio to
convert.

Now here's an extra snippet you need to pay attention to:

Some OGG audio has "Tags". Tags are extra information
inside the audio file which often includes the name of the
song for example.

At this time (this will probably change) some audio players
have trouble playing OGG with "Tag" information in them. So
take the tag information out. It's easy and doesn't affect
the audio in any way - here's how you do it:

Download "MP3Tag" from mp3tag.de/en/. Install the software,
and start it up. Then just choose to "Remove All Tags" from
your OGG files. This process takes literally two minutes
but is very important.

Now after you've converted and de-tagged the OGG audio,
you'll need to upload it to your server of course.

Then you'll have to change all your download links. This is
fiddly, but needs to be done. For example - you would need
to change all your links from:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.mp3

To:

www.domain.com/folder/audio.ogg

Then test every download link to make sure it's working
correctly.

Important Note: Don't forget about the audio you've got in
Zip files too. You'll need to recreate those Zip files with
OGG audio instead of MP3 audio and re-upload them.

If you're not sure where all the MP3 and Zip files are on
your websites, here's an easy way to list them:

Now, this only works on Unix-based servers (which covers
Linux servers, FreeBSD...etc - ask your web host if you're
not sure)...

This is pretty advanced so don't do this if you're not
comfortable with the process. Or ask your web host to do it
for you if they're happy to do that:

You need to Telnet into your server and then type the
following:

find . | grep mp3 > allmp3

Then type:

find . | grep zip > allzip

This will then give you two files on your server: allmp3 &
allzip

Download these files and take a look at them in a text
editor. They'll show you the path of every MP3 and Zip file
on your server so that you can quickly and easily find which
files you need to convert to OGG. Dead handy.

Okay - so after you've converted and uploaded the audio,
you'll need to change the text around the download links.
You'll need to take out any mention of "MP3" from your
website.

I don't suggest replacing it with "OGG" on a sales page for
example since that will probably confuse people. Just
replace "MP3" with "downloadable audio" or "high quality
downloadable audio".

And then on your download pages mention that the audio is in
OGG format which is just as high quality as MP3 and just as
quick to download. Then link to a couple of audio players
that you know for a fact support OGG.

The audio players I personally mention are Winamp from
winamp.com and Quintessential Player from quinnware.com.

Important Note About Winamp: As I write this only the Full
version (not the Lite version) of Winamp supports OGG
successfully. So make sure to tell your visitors to
download and install that version. It's still free though
so your visitors won't have to spend any extra money just to
listen to your audio.

And that's pretty much all the steps needed to convert your
published audio from MP3 to OGG, which can save you a small
fortune in licensing fees without compromising audio quality
or speed of download.

--------------------

Louis Allport is the creator of over thirty (and counting)
unique and high quality information products selling very
successfully online. One of Louis' recent products reveals
a proven four-step formula that can make creating
best-selling online products a lot more predictable:
http://www.createoffers.com/new/

Search Engine Keywords Selection

by Michael Rasmussen
(C) Michael Rasmussen
All Rights Reserved
http://www.search-engines-revealed.com

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination - your website - you need to provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it. So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your understanding of your business and your customers' understanding is significantly different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between "Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their career, have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. There is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work - and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your business' rewards.


Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Fr*e monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!
Go to http://www.search-engines-revealed.com

Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

by Michael Rasmussen
(C) Michael Rasmussen
All Rights Reserved
http://www.search-engines-revealed.com

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods. Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engines tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine's index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked up to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in forming their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye - but the eye of search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine perceive the use of hidden text - splat! the page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called "Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as "pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.


Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Fr*e monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!
Go to http://www.search-engines-revealed.com

Pay Per Click Advertising

by Michael Rasmussen
(C) Michael Rasmussen
All Rights Reserved
http://www.search-engines-revealed.com

Advertising your services or products on the Internet is both extremely effective and extremely competitive. There are several ways to go about attracting traffic to your website; Pay-Per-Click is one of the options you can choose from, along with developing an SEO, or search engine optimization campaign. Both pay-per-click and SEO are targeted to get your website placed as close to the top of search engine results as possible. One of the differences is that it takes minutes to set up a pay-per-click campaign versus months for a good SEO campaign.

Pay-Per-Click is a simple type of paid advertising that most search engines, including some of the largest ones, now offer. It requires a bid for a "per-click" basis, which translates to your company paying the bid amount every time the search engine directs a visitor to your site. There is the added bonus that when a per-click site sends your website traffic, your site often appears in the results of other prevalent search engines.

As with all marketing campaigns, there are advantages and disadvantages. If you understand the process and monitor your pay-per-click campaign frequently, it can be very effective. One of the greatest advantages is that you never have to tweak your web pages to change your position in search engine results, as you must do in a typical SEO campaign. What you do have to do in a pay-per-click campaign is pay a fee.

Another advantage is the simplicity of the pay-per-click process. You just bid and you're up and running. It doesn't demand any specific technical knowledge, though the more you know about search engines and keywords, the easier - and more effective - the process will be.

The downside is that pay-per-click is essentially a bidding war. A higher bid than yours will lower your position on search engine results. This means that you will have to raise your bid to regain your position - which can obviously become quite expensive, especially if you are bidding on a popular keyword.

In order to determine if pay-per-click is a cost effective form of marketing for your business, you must do some computing to figure out how much each visitor to your site is worth. You can compute this value by dividing the profit you make on your website over a given period of time by the total number of visitors for that same time period. For example, if your site made $5,000 in profits and there were 2,5000 hits, each visitor would be theoretically worth 50 cents. The basic formula is profits divided by visitors.

The figure of 50 cents per visitor is the point at which your business breaks even. The idea, of course, is to show a profit, not to merely cover your costs. Therefore, you are aiming at a figure less than 50 cents per click.

Be aware that the most popular keywords often cost considerably more than 50 cents a click. The only way around this is to bid less for these phrases or you will be paying too much for each individual hit.

The key (pun intended) to success is to learn everything you can about search engine keyword research. The good news is there isn't a limit to the amount of keywords you can add to your bid because additional keywords do not add additional cost. This translates into a lot less hassle for you because there is no need to optimize your site to index a particular set of keywords.

Obviously, some keywords are much more effective than others are, but they will not cost you anything except time to set-up your account in your pay-per-click bid. Of the popular search engines that offer pay-per-click, one called Overture provides an online tool that will give you the data on how often particular keywords are entered into their search engine. They also offer suggestions for keywords after you enter a description of your site.

In pay-per-click, this written description is crucial. You must understand that the object of your description is not to generally attract visitors, but to be as specific as possible so that only those visitors who are likely to buy your service or product go to your site. You must use expert marketing copy to guarantee that your description is both precise and enticing to attract the most ideal candidates to your site. This description is your most powerful tool to insure that your bid is profitable.

Another essential element of pay-per-click advertising is that you constantly monitor your bid. It is very important that you bear in mind that the results of the top search engines providing pay-per-click advertising, which are Overture and Adwords Select, usually appear on other popular search engines. Because of this, the competition for top ranking is intense, and very often you will find that the bidding price balloons too high for pay-per-click to yield a profit.

If this happens, it is advisable to withdraw your bid on that particular keyword and try another one. Remember: when you pay too much per click to make a profit, you are in essence losing the bidding war.

Since losing is not acceptable, you must have a plan in place to closely track the effectiveness of your keyword. It is advisable to monitor your keywords on at least a monthly basis.

Not only is careful monitoring important, but the analysis of visitor behavior can produce invaluable knowledge about consumer motivation, habits, and trends. Expert monitoring and consumer analysis is essential to your overall business needs, and will also insure that your pay-per-click campaign is a success.


Michael Rasmussen is a successful Internet Marketing Consultant and author of many top-selling eBooks. Michael has been marketing online since the early days and he knows what it takes to make money and succeed online. Stop by his Web site and subscribe to his Fr*e monthly newsletter full strategies and techniques for successful web site promotions that can help YOU!
Go to http://www.search-engines-revealed.com