18 - My Top 7 Favorite Ecommerce Tools

When you make your living on the Internet, you sometimes forget that the resources you use every day (and take for granted) might rate an incredible discovery to anyone who doesn't already know they exist.

Whether they help you make money, save time, save money, or avoid frustration, these ecommerce tools and services rate my highest recommendation for anyone who conducts any form of ecommerce online.

ClickBank.com -

If you sell a downloadable product such as an ebook, report, or software, you can't beat ClickBank for processing credit card payments. Not only do they take the payments and send you a check twice a month, they also plug your product into an existing network with tens-of-thousands of affiliates who can sell it for you. Also, unlike a traditional merchant credit card processing account, ClickBank assumes all the fraud risk and prevents many of the "horror" stories you hear in connection with online credit card processing.

MySiteSales.com -

Since ClickBank only allows the sale of downloadable products, MySiteSales.com comes to the rescue for anyone selling a physical product or service. Offering a suite of integrated product catalogs, follow up autoresponders, advertising tracking, a secure server, and even limited-time coupon offers, this tool rates a "must have" for setting up and integrating a professional ecommerce solution on virtually any size website.

Aweber.com -

If you need an unlimited number of follow up autoresponders and the ability to send an email "broadcast" to all your contacts at one time, Aweber offers an excellent managed solution. Specializing in helping small to medium-sized Web businesses implement an effective email follow-up strategy without complicated software, Aweber gets our highest marks for service and dependability.

GoDaddy.com -

Cheap, reliable, easy-to-use domain name registrar that only charges $8.95 per year for each domain name you register. Godaddy rates cheaper and just as, if not more, reliable than any other domain registrar. They also offer a "private registration" option that allows you to keep your identity as the domain owner a secret from unscrupulous people who exploit domain name records to compile mailing lists, spam databases or worse.

FrontierPowerHosting.com -

Any successful ecommerce endeavor begins with a solid website hosting service. Nothing shuts you down faster than an unreliable web host because, the second they go offline, your business goes offline. I host one of my servers at FrontierPowerHosting.com because of great customer service and guaranteed up-time.

ClipArt.com -

Ever pulled your hair out searching for that perfect image, photo, or piece of clipart for your website? Once you exhaust the Microsoft collection on your computer, the next stop (if you want to find something fast) is Clipart.com. With thousands of images searchable by keyword, you can always find the perfect image in less time and without the worries of copyright infringement if you just pull something off the Web.

Google.com/Adsense/ -

Website got traffic but no making much money? Open a free account with Google AdSense and earn a commission any time someone clicks on any of the targeted ads. An excellent way to earn extra cash on virtually any website.

17 - Is Click Fraud Really a Problem?

by: Tommy Maric

Click fraud is currently a major topic in online advertising. Many argue that it presents a threat to the stability and viability of pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, the key revenue generator for both Google and Overture. In actuality, click fraud is not a significant issue at all. Click fraud occurs when ads are clicked for reasons other than a genuine interest in learning more about the product or service advertised. Click fraud occurs in two forms. In one instance, fraud arises from competitors trying to sabotage each other. One competitor clicks on the ads of another just to drain the budget of that company. The other instance occurs when webmasters (or people associated with the webmaster) repeatedly click Google AdSense ads (which are syndications of others’ ads) on their own web pages in order to generate more revenue. While both Overture and Google have developed sophisticated technologies to detect click fraud, their systems are, and may never be, foolproof. The real question is how much does click fraud actually damage the PPC industry? Gross fraud, i.e., when one person or technology consistently and repeatedly clicks on an ad, aside, which Overture and Google can easily detect, we believe that click fraud has no real impact on the industry. The following explains why. Efficient market theory says that it is impossible to “beat a market” because prices already incorporate and reflect all relevant information. As the PPC industry has matured, efficiency has begun to take root. That is, the price of each keyword has been driven up to the point where it reflects the highest price an advertiser is willing to pay for a click. For instance, a book retailer may pay $1.00 per click based on internal metrics. These metrics dictate, for example, that on average 30% of clickers purchase a book and the average profit per sale is $4.00. So, for every 100 clicks ($100 cost), they make 30 sales ($120 revenue) and generate a $20.00 (20%) profit. Note that years ago, the same retailer may have been able to pay only $0.50 per click, but as the market matured and more retailers began advertising, competitive bidding forced the price up to $1.00 where the highest return the most advertisers can make is 20%. The key point is that click fraud is already taken into effect when advertisers select the highest amount they will bid. For instance, there is no difference whether an advertiser pays $0.83/click for 121 clicks with 21 being fraudulent, or $1.00/click for 100 clicks when there is absolutely no fraud. In either case, the advertiser pays $100 and generates a profit of $20, and Overture and/or Google make $100. What changes is the advertiser’s yield (e.g., the percent of clickers who purchased the book) which in turn effects their highest bid price. That is, with fraud, 30 out of 121 clickers (24.8%) purchased the book, and without fraud 30 out of 100 clickers (30%) purchased it. Without fraud, the bid price in an efficient market will rise from $0.83 to $1.00. In summary, online advertisers must focus on analyzing and improving their internal metrics (e.g., conversions) and not worry about click fraud as it is already incorporated into keyword bid prices. Hopefully, the frivolous lawsuits and refund requests spawned by apparent click fraud will end as those in the industry recognize this undeniable fact.

16 - A Website Model That Makes Money

by: Michael Keenan

I would like to share with you one simple stratergy in creating income with your own website. This is just one method out of simply millions that you could create for yourself. Remember the internet provides no limits. This is one example that does work for me, and may give you an insight into exactly a website model, that you may like to put into action for yourself. Affiliate marketing and/or sales of any kind on the internet, requires a real commitment, as I am sure you do already realize. The internet is really one of the greatest training grounds in the world for sales. You can try and fail many times, until you find that system and approach that will work for you. But the commitment that you show in meeting this challenge, will be a lesson that you will always remember. Success is always achieved in no matter what you do, through simple hard work. There is no easy path to success, but when you achieve the success you are after, there is no greater feeling. So lets begin. In this example my website, which for the purposes of this article i will call '????'. I will give you the exact profit breakdowns. With this website I treat all my affiliate products as purely residual income, much like adsense. Adsense itself generates for me, on this website, on average around $2 per day. I also use various other companies affiliate products, which generate around $200 per month. Also within the website, I sell e-book informational products, which I own the full resale rights for, which generate around $700 per month. And here lies the answer to making money online, no matter what you sell. The products, that generate the most income, are the ones that you will own yourself. Certainly I should be making more from the affiliate info products that I sell. But I lose commissions through simple affiliate url tampering. Commissions that are stolen or lost are a real pain. You can try every method in the book to protect your affiliate codes. But after all the hard work is done, you still lose that valuable income. The people who sell the original affiliate product know this, which is mostly why a high percentage of the sales price is offered to an affiliate to begin with. Because they realize that a very high ratio of sales made on their products will give them the total profit back. The reasons why people change affiliate product codes etc, could run into pages. Lets just say it is inevitable. This is the reason why I treat all my affiliate based products as purely residual income. But as you can see in this example clearly where the highest return on investment lies. And that is in the products that you actually own. You can purchase resale rights for info products easily, and it involves not much money at all, most products are available for under $50. Or if you have the time and patience to search the internet. You can find amazing e-books that have free resell rights and the information they contain is really valuable. You will find these types of treasures occasionally, and the lights will start flashing in your eyes when you do. The information that you have just discovered is of value and that is a real key to success. This is why I, at this point, strongly emphasize the importance of this one principle. Only sell products that you feel strongly about and you know that will be of great value to the person who may purchase it. That includes products you have bought the resale rights for, or a free product, you have discovered with resale rights. If you sell strong products with real informational value consistently you will always succeed. Your customers will return, quite simply because they know where the value of the information they seek is the greatest. And that is at your website. Always remember to put yourself into your visitors shoes. Ask yourself the question? Would you buy the products you are selling? Answer this question with a Yes. And you will be really on the start too online success.

15 - Make Money Blogging

by: Matt Bacak

You have created a blog and your blog is dedicated to a niche industry. Have you ever thought that the blog could make money for you? We would look here in this article, ways and means, to make money blogging. Lets first have a look at what are the prerequisites for a blog needed to make money: 1. Blog needs to be dedicated to a niche market. 2. Updated regularly. 3. Enough back links (Don't worry for it. Directory submission would be enough to begin with) 4. Good blog host or application (blogger, Xanga or typepad recommended), and 5. High quality articles or news items supported with images. Get the above criteria in place and Hurrah... You are ready to Make Money Blogging. Top 5 Ways to Make Money Blogging Lets now take a look at top 5 ways using which you could make money blogging: 1. Google Adsense Google Adsense delivers text and image ads to the authorized websites/blogs depending on the content of the website. Small code is required to be pasted at proper locations on a webpage and Google automatically recognizes the page. Google shares the revenue it gets from the advertisers whenever a visitor clicks on these ads. Google bills advertisers on price per click basis (PPC). Advertisers are required to pay only when any visitor clicks on their ads. They bid against each other for the keywords in order to receive better placement and thus prices for each keyword differ from one another. It is better to choose keywords for your blog which pays high $ per click. 2. Amazon Amazon Associate program is another important way to make money blogging. The Amazon Associate program gives opportunity to website/blog publishers to promote any product from its inventory by adding a predefined code to their website/blog, which, when clicked by a visitor, takes them to the relevant product page. Once the visitor buys the product, the blog owner will be compensated with a commission. 3. Blogads You can use Blogads as an effective tool to have a better control over the advertisers in your blogs. You can analyze and compare your profits with any one of your online agencies. Blogads can be simply specified as an advertising service used for the web logs or blogs. From the total money generated by Blogads, it retains 20% of it and the remaining money is paid to you through PayPal or checks. Alternative Services: • Crispads is another useful network focused on the blogs. You can put your advertisements in their blogs using Crispads. You can move through their RSS/ATOM feeds that help in generating revenues. • Tagword – It is similar to Blogads. It makes you select the ads and their price. Users can place their text-based ads in the site within minutes and the ads will be displayed instantly on the website. 4. Affiliate Programs Your affiliate programs can help you earn a lot of money for selected products and services. Lot of websites offers you to become affiliate members. These affiliate programs can provide a better reach and an in-depth exposure to the products. The commissions for the sales differ according to the quality of the product, sales and marketing strategy involved. You can gather information related to the commissions by looking into the catalogues of Link Share and Commission junctions. 5. Text Links Text links has emerged out to be the best form of moneymaking source that you can use instead of cluttering or crowding the page with ads. You don’t have to make these text links prominent within your website. This link can act as an extra value to your site and will also help to promote the rankings of other sites. In most of the cases you will find these text links placed in the bottom of the web pages. The best part of this strategy is that the publishers send and accept links as the market continues to grow.

14 - Tips for maximizing Your Google AdSense Revenues

by: Diane Nassy

Despite what you may hear, the Google AdSense program is not for everyone. There are some types of web sites that do poorly no matter how hard the owners try, and there are others that should be doing well but the webmaster simply isn’t putting in the effort to make things happen. Here are some tips to make AdSense work better for you. If you do them all and you’re still not having any luck, then you just might be running one of those sites that don’t make money 1. Determine if your visitors are “in the mood” Like I mentioned at the top of this article, some web sites just don’t work with pay-per-click programs. The best performing sites fall into one of these categories: • Sites where users go and expect to buy something while they are there. E-commerce sites fit the bill here.. • Sites where users go to find specific information on something that they want to buy now. Music and video review sites, vacation information sites, resume building sites, etc. You don’t have to actually be selling these types of things; your site can just be a mecca for information pertaining to these things. Then, when the visitor comes to read your content, they are more likely to click on your ads. • Sites where people who have disposable income and a credit card like to visit. This includes sites with money management, investing and lifestyle content. • Sites that draw a large amount of new users every day. Free coupon sites and “How to” sites are good examples. • Sites where people go who expect to read ads. Classified ads and shopping comparison sites fit into this category. 2. Make sure that your visitors don’t feel that you just want to grab their money Give them plenty of relevant and well-written content. If writing isn’t your best skill then hire someone to do it for you. Good content brings steady traffic and steady traffic pays the bills. 3. Play by the rules Google has some very specific Terms of Service (https://www.google.com/adsense/policies) for participating in their AdSense program. Learn those rules and follow them so you don’t lose all of your investment by getting shut out. 4. Use the tools that Google gives you Google gives you tools for determining the best keywords for your site, measuring ad performance, and setting up different ad “channels” for fine-tuning ad results. These guys and girls are the 800 lb. Gorillas in the Pay-Per-Click market. They didn’t build these tools just to keep their programmers busy. Take advantage of their knowledge for they are very big and you are not! 5. Tweak, fine-tune and then tweak again You should never be happy with your AdSense performance. If it’s good, then you need to make it great. If it’s great then you need to make it amazing. If it’s amazing then you need to take it to the UPS club. The UPS club? Google sends all checks over $10,000 per month to the webmaster via UPS overnight delivery. Now there’s a club that I wouldn’t mind belonging to. 6. Get more traffic No matter how much traffic you have, you need more. More eyeballs translate to more clicks. Even if you’re only pulling a 2% click-through. That’s a lot of clicks when you have thousands of visitors each day. 7. Experiment with new keywords New keywords can bring new ads and new eyeballs along with it. Set up some new pages on your site and experiment with different content. Once you get something that’s working then refer back to Tip # 5. You can see results in near real time when you use Google’s AdWords. Don’t be afraid to be different. If something that everyone else is doing doesn’t work for you, then invent something that does work and get it on your site.

13 - 10 Great things NOT to do with Google AdSense

by: Diane Nassy

There is no question that you can make some good money with Google AdSense, but you’re setting yourself up for disaster if you make any of these Top 10 mistakes! 1. Do not use fake information when opening your Google AdSense account. Google says that’s a no-no and they will cut your account off and keep all the money you may have earned. Besides, trying to hide your true identity can cause serious problems with the I.R.S. or whoever your tax authority is. 2. Do not hack or modify Google AdSense code other than to change the parameters that Google authorizes you to change. Any attempt to bypass Google’s built-in algorithms not only poses a danger to the integrity of the network, but it threatens the financial modle that Google operates under. You’re not dealing with some Mom-and-Pop company here, and Google has the legal muscle and deep enough pockets to drag you through every court in the land if you damage their business with your hacking antics. 3. Keep AdSense ads off of your registration, confirmation, and all "thank you" pages. Don’t ask me why you can’t put your ads there. It makes sense to me that those would be wonderful locations. Google thinks otherwise, however, and doing so is a hanging offense according to their Terms of Service. 4. Do not display AdSense ads and a competitor's ads (like Overture's) on the same page at the same time. That just makes plain good sense. Google doesn’t demand 100% SITE loyalty from you, but they do insist that their own ads not be cluttered up by offerings from their competitors. 5. Don't "beg for clicks" or provide any incentive for clicking on your Google AdSense ads. This is a biggie and you see this rule violated all the time. Any of the “get paid to do stuff” sites that put Google ads in the member’s control panels are walking the plank and they don’t even realize it. Even those sites with the polite little messages asking you to “help keep my site running by clicking on our sponsor’s ads” are asking to be cut off if those happen to be Google ads. 6. Never click on the ads running on your own site, even if you are genuinely interested in the product or service and are thinking of buying it! Nothing screams FRAUD louder than a webmaster running up his or her own click counts by happily clicking on ads fromtheir own site. The Google Gods can track this activity and it won’t be long until you find yourself getting a goodbye note from their fraud team. 7. No misleading labeling Google is very specific about what text can be placed around their ads. Their Terms of Service state: “Publishers may not label the ads with text other than ‘sponsored links’ or ‘advertisements.’ This includes any text directly above our ads that could be confused with, or attempt to be associated with Google ads.” This is to keep visitors from becoming confused and barking up Google’s tree when they clicked on an ad that led to a porn site instead of the recipe site they were expecting to visit. 8. Avoid keyword spamming and other divisive tricks You may be tempted to buy one of those “generates thousands of key-word rich pages in seconds” programs that are so popular these days but I’ll tell you this: Their days are numbered. Google is wise to such shenanigans and they will be hot on your trail. Other prohibited gimmicks include: • ”Sneaky” page redirects that send a visitor off to a different site then they were expecting to visit. • Multiple sites, domains, pages, etc. which have substantially duplicate content. • Hidden text or links of any type. • Excessive outbound links on any page. Google recommends no more than 100. I’d keep it way below that. • And here is a nugget of wisdom straight from Google’s mouth: “Do not participate in link schemes designed to increase your site's ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or "bad neighborhoods" on the web as your website may be affected adversely by those links. 9. Don’t advertise anything on Google’s prohibited items list. It’s a lot shorter lists than PayPal’s or eBay’s, but it includes a lot of the same stuff like hacking/cracking content, porn, illegal drugs, gambling sites, beer or hard alcohol (I guess wine is OK), weapons, and the other usual stuff. 10. And the 10th dumbest thing NOT to do with Google AdSense is to let the other nine things stop you from running an honest site that’s designed to make the most out of this very profitable opportunity that Google offers!

12 - Blogging for Dollars

by: Sharon Housley

Copyright 2004 Sharon Housley Blogging for dollars might sound like the latest game show or some new drinking game, but it's the latest craze to hit the Internet. Bloggers began blogging for a number of reasons, but as the blog movement has increased in popularity, they have found ways to monetize their blogs and are seeing their commitment pay off. Whether a blogger's focus is to communicate with customers or just to have fun, they have begun looking at ways to earn revenue from their blogs. The most popular ways for bloggers to earn some added cash for their pet projects are: 1. ) Google Adsense in Blogs Google AdSense allows webmasters to dynamically serve content-relevant advertisements in blogs. If the visitor clicks one of the AdSense ads served to the blog, the website owner is credited for the referral. Webmasters need only to insert a Google-generated java script into the blog or blog template. Google's spider parses the AdServing blog and serves ads that relate to the blog's content. Google uses a combination of keyword matching and context analysis to determine what ads should be served. 2. ) Affiliate Programs (Product Endorsements) Affiliate Programs work when an affiliate web site receives income for generating sales, leads, or traffic to a merchant website. Generally, bloggers will mention or endorse specific products and if site visitors purchase the product, bloggers will receive a portion of the sale. 3. ) Product Promotion Businesses use blogs to detail how specific features or product add-ons can increase functionality and save time. Content-rich product promotion will help with search engine placement. 4.) Banner Ads While less popular than in the past, websites with high traffic levels can still earn decent revenue by selling banner space. As the Internet evolves bloggers will continue to seek out ways to monetize their opinions and thoughts. Daily journals and online blogs have become more than just a communication means to many.

11 - Getting Approved by Adsense in a Jiffy…

by: Anik Singal

Copyright 2005 Anik Singal I don’t understand why everyone makes Adsense out to sound like some kind of devil. So far, I have a 100% approval rate for my consulting clients. You would think that we spend months developing the site to submit for approval – but to be honest; I spend less than a day (if that!) What we found is that Google is not nearly as picky as they make themselves sound to be. The trick is to make your site in such a way that you are just providing content; we have found that the less selling you do on your approval site, the better. Don’t worry, once you’re approved you can use that code wherever you want – so put it on other sites that sell later. But for the purposes of getting approved, try to limit to just content, content and more content! Now, for the disclaimer before we start talking about how to get your site approved for Google Adsense. I am not a member of Google at all, everything I am about to say is all speculation and experience. I have helped over 50 clients get approved for Google Adsense without having even 1 of them not get approved – we have 100% approval rate on FIRST try. All I am going to teach you is exactly what I do for them. There are three main elements that I focus on when getting a client approved: 1. Site look and feel – Not that Google wants a $10,000 professionally designed website, but they also don’t want some piece of junk. Make sure to at LEAST have a presentable website – even if it is just a few tables and a solid background color. Avoid using tacky backgrounds or unprofessional color contrasts. 2. Content – The most important – Google believes in content. If you try to get a website with just a few pages approved, I don’t think you will have any luck. You need to have at least 15-20 pages, preferably, 15-20 pages of articles/resources, a.k.a. content. 3. Traffic – Many “experts” say that Google looks to see what kind of traffic you have and that they do not approve new sites with no traffic. My experience says that these experts are FULL of it. BUT, just to be safe, before you submit your site for approval – try to get your site some traffic. Here are useful tips you need to make the entire approval process easier and quicker: >> Get content from article directories like www.goarticles.com – just put those articles in your site, getting 15-20 is easy. >> Before you submit your site for approval, post at some forums with your website’s link in the signature file – this will help you get some immediate traffic. >> Make a very simple website with 15-20 articles, a contact us page, a privacy policy and the typical disclaimer. That’s it – you’re ready to get approved for Google Adsense. I know I made it sound too easy, but honestly, we have a track record that proves it. And remember, if you do not get approved, you can always fix things and try again. So, stop waiting – apply now – Google Adsense is a great source of income.