HOW TO MONETIZE YOUR WEBINAR

Apparently, there is money in webinars that is why it has become one of the top marketing tools today. More than starting or increasing a company’s client base, webinars can also be a business opportunity. There are free webinars being advertised on the internet but at the same time there are those that require fees. To come up with webinars that are worth somebody’s hard-earned money, there are certain tips that could help you do it.

A webinar’s top selling point is content. People buy tickets to webinars because they know that they could get something out of the presentation or lecture. The basic question they would ask themselves is, “what’s in it for me?” Thus, if you are conceptualizing a webinar which focuses mainly on selling something, then you are in for disappointment. If you want your webinar tickets to sell like hotcakes, you should stop thinking about what you can get from your audience but what you can offer them. This way, you can give something of value to your audience which could be additional skills, a solution to a problem or personal development.

Once you have laid out the content of your webinar, the next thing to do is to set your ticket price. It is best to study the prices of similar webinars you are offering. When you are a beginner in the field of webinar hosting, you should set a price lower than the prevailing price in the market. You can raise your price once you already established yourself in the field.

To further get attention to your webinar, it is best to offer incentives to those who buy your tickets. One suggestion is to offer two webinars for the price of one especially when you are promoting your first webinar. You can also give out free tickets to those who register early or cash to those who refer a friend. Or you can start a raffle and give out the prices on the day of the webinar.

To maximize the potential of your webinar to give you extra income, you should schedule your webinar properly. Webinar developers have found webinars are less attended during vacations and holidays because people are busy having fun. It is also not wise to schedule it over dinnertime for obvious reasons. Webinars are best scheduled during the middle of the week because this is when most people have time to spare. 

Mondays and Fridays, on the other hand, are usually the busiest days of the week so inserting a webinar into their working schedule could be close to impossible.

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My name is Toyo Theophilus; One of the leading Nigerian blogger. If you want to share an interesting article as a guest post, “submit guest post here”.

If you want to promote your business, product or services, continue reading. My blog, Naijaultimateblog is a great place to promote your business, startup, products or services with a sponsored post which can also include images, contact information etc. The post stays on my blog forever as long as the blog exists.

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HOW TO EXPLODE YOUR LIST WITH WEBINARS

Companies the world over are taking advantage of the internet to grow their clientele. Internet marketing is starting to catch up with the traditional marketing methods which have reigned in the market for so long. The most common methods to promote products and services in the internet today are email invitations, banner advertisements, search advertisements and press releases. However, another tool is gradually becoming known in the virtual marketplace and these are webinars.

The term webinars are derived from seminars which are web-based. Basically, webinars are intended to transmit information to an audience who may or may not be within the same area as the individual or team who organized it. Thus, webinars are used for educational purposes like lectures. These can also be utilized as companies’ training tools and now for increasing clients, consumers or customers.

12 ALTERNATIVE AD NETWORKS TO GOOGLE ADSENSE

What a nice phrase on an email to start the day! “Your Google Adsense account has been disabled or temporarily banned”.

Well, consider you’re not alone. Everyday, hundreds or thousands of accounts are being banned from Google’s Adsense program. Why? Either there’s something wrong with the web you’re putting you ads on, or you just simply missed one rule from Google’s TOS.

Instead of crying or bashing Google in multiple forums (actually, this is a very bad idea), remember the world is not over yet, and there are plenty of alternatives out there to try.

Types Of Ads
Now let’s briefly take a look at the main types of ads available to publishers looking to shift to an AdSense alternative.
Targeted Text Ads: These ads are text-based and are usually found in groups. They are targeted to match the site’s content or the search phrase that was used on a search engine to bring them to your site’s page.

HOW TO USE ARTICLE SITES TO DRIVE TRAFFIC TO YOUR BLOG

Article sites are still, stickiness wise, one of the single best ways to drive traffic and build a name as a expert, all at the same time.
So how does this tie to your blog?

Well, for a start, if you're blogging on the same topic as you're writing content on, you should have a fairly good niche to promote into – and can use any of your longer, more coherent posts as article content.  But if you want it to work really well, there are a couple of steps you MUST follow.

1)    Make sure your article is coherent.  Blog posts, by their nature are supposed to be less informal than the standard 'article' – like you're having an intimate conversation with a group of friends, instead of a more impersonal discussion with your readers, but at the same time,  the best blog posts make TERRIBLE articles.  So a blog post that is also going to be used on article submission sites should be both interesting, and slightly more 'formal' than standard blog posts.

2)    Post it on your blog, and add your resource box at the end – you can make it clear that its a free reprint if you want, or you can simply post it in a category for your reprints.  That way, you can offer a feed of your reprints too, and include the link in your resource box.  Also include the permalink to the post itself in your post – which means you will need to edit the post after posting the first time.

3)    Wait a month – in that month, submit the article to any bookmarking sites, and ensure that you maximize its impact by encouraging your readers to 'vote' for it too.

4)    Ensure your post is in the search engines by searching for the first line of your article.  If its not in the search engines, work on getting it there – read up on site maps and other products designed to get you in the search engines.

5)    Submit your content to a maximum of 10 reprint sites.  Make sure your resource box doesn't break any of their rules, and make sure that you leave comments OPEN on these posts (if you close them ordinarily.

Following these five steps won't guarantee your success in using article marketing, but they will eliminate most of the serious beginner mistakes people make when submitting to article reprint sites.

HOW TO GAIN THE TRUST YOU NEED IN BUILDING YOUR LIST

In order to be successful with your list, one of the first things you need to do is gain the trust of your customers.  There are tons of services that have been set up to keep email boxes spam free.  This means that you need to set up your list so that your customers are willing to allow your email promotions to come directly to their inbox.  At the same time, they are going to expect to receive emails on what your website is about.  They are going to want to receive new information and updates on the products or services that they are interested in and it is up to you to hold up that end of the deal.

When your customers trust you, they will be willing to buy from you and your sales will see a boost.  Because you are providing a useful service, people will be more than willing to allow your email promotions to come through to their inbox.

This ensures that your email recipients are able to read and view what you have sent them without it being caught in a spam box.  In order to ensure that your customers trust you, then you need to do the following:
•    Show that you are legitimate. Nobody wants to buy from a site they think is a scam.  As a website business you need to show that you are legitimate.  There are several ways that you can do this.  For example, you can sign up on verification services and offer security for purchases.  You can also offer live customer service or at least online customer service.  These types of systems show people that you are trustworthy and you're not going to be scamming them out of their hard earned money. 

•    Show your customers you are credible and professional. Provide your customers with good, solid knowledge.  You want to show people that you know what you’re talking about.  If you have credentials in a field, ensure that they are prominently displayed.  You can also provide them with helpful hints, articles and other resources to help them out.  Remember, people are often on the Internet simply looking for useful information.  If you can provide this, they will be happy and will be likely to sign up on your newsletter if they feel you will keep providing them with information.

•    Don’t be too salesy.  Too much hype can work against you.  There are some hardcore sales letters out there, but for the most part, the service or product should be able to sell itself. If you do hype up your products, then you need to at least provide some sort of guarantee.  The more satisfied customers you get from a simple service or product that sells itself, the more likely you are going to find that people will trust you and recommend you.  Those people are then likely to go to your site, sign up on your list and look forward to the same good service you provided their friend or family member.  This means that you need to gain their trust and keep it by providing consistency in your services. 

•    Always provide an out. People don’t like to sign up for something they think they are going to be stuck with.  Always provide them with information on how they can get off the list if they decide that they want to.  Show your customers that you are not trying to trap them.  You can also elaborate on how easy it is to get off the list if they decide to.  When they request removal – be sure to abide to their wishes quickly.

BEST PREPARATIONS TO MAKE FOR YOUR WEBINAR

If you are planning to promote a new product but do not have the budget to launch an aggressive marketing campaign on broadcast or print media, you might want to consider organizing a webinar. With the use of the internet, webinars can now be conducted for participants in different locations all over the world. These web-based seminars have been introduced recently as internet marketing started to become a popular and definitely cheaper alternative to traditional methods. From its inception, webinars are beginning to make its mark as one of the potent means in attracting more customers not only locally but also internationally.

Not all webinars are effective. There are those that were unheard of let alone get an audience. In order to avoid this, planning and preparation for the webinar should be given a lot of consideration. As the cliché goes, this can make or break the webinar. Planning for a webinar must focus on three stages which are conceptualization, preparation and promotion.

Prior to the conceptualization stage, you would probably already have a topic for your webinar. It is during the conceptualization stage that you start setting parameters on the topic because you cannot provide a lecture with an all-encompassing subject that would overwhelm your audience. A good seminar is supposed to provide clarifications on a particular topic and not to muddle audience with voluminous information that is hard to process. As an example, if you want to promote a diet program that you designed, talking about all kinds of available diet programs in the market would confuse your audience about what you are trying to sell. Instead, if the diet program does not entail the user to take diet pills, then the natural diet programs should be given focus.

The preparation stage is as crucial as the first since this is where the actual webinar would materialize. Details like who to choose as speaker or lecturer, moderator and assistant would have to be determined. The right webinar format should also be chosen such as one-way style where the speaker conducts the lecture and the audience asks him questions. Or it could be an interview style where there is an interviewer who asks the speakers a set of questions. It can also be a moderated panel discussion where a moderator facilitates the discussion of several people who are simultaneously online and the interactive style where the audience participates in exercises and conversation with other members of the group and the speaker.

The promotion stage is where the webinar is sold to the public. This could be the most challenging and the most exciting part as well because the webinar has already been put together and it is just a matter of delivery. Whether or not the webinar gets an audience depends on how effective the promotional methods used are.

THE DIFFERENT TYPES OF WEBINARS AVAILABLE

Webinars are fairly new innovations but are starting to become a byword for internet savvy people.

Gradually, entrepreneurs, corporate entities and educators are beginning to look towards it to reach their market. Webinars, being proven to be effective as marketing as well as training tools, are now an important part of doing business. As such, there are different types of webinars available today.

The basic classification of webinars is based on whether they are free or not. Free webinars are usually just informational with the audience just being made aware of an important general issue. Basically, free webinars are designed for marketing purposes and are usually conducted to get a market for books and DVD’s or to get a client’s base for consultancy. Paid webinars, on the other hand, are usually for training whereby the goal is to provide audience with additional skills. They are conducted for the personal development of the audience, thus, the need for payment.

Webinars are also classified according to their format. These are interactive, non-interactive and question and answer formats. In an interactive webinar, the audience gets the chance to fully participate in the event with features for telephone conferencing and chat rooms. Interactive exercises and discussion also characterize these webinar types. The non-interactive formats are one-way with the speaker addressing the audience and with limited or no interaction at all from the audience. These webinar types are also called webcasts. The question and answer format, on the other hand, is also called an interview format whereby there is a set of questions posed to the resource speaker by the moderator with the audience being encouraged to pose their own questions.

Another classification of webinars is based on execution. They could either be live presentation or recorded training videos. While the two are the same in all aspects differing only because the latter has a speaker speaking live on schedule, there are pros and cons against either type. A live webinar just like any other live event is prone to mistakes compared to a recorded webinar. However, a live one can be more interesting as it is spontaneous unlike its recorded counterpart so there is room for necessary adjustments.

Whatever type of webinar is chosen, the most important thing is that the message is delivered properly to the audience. So, preparation is the key to the success of webinars. When the right preparations are made, the goal of getting the message across will be accomplished regardless of the webinar type.

AVOIDING NERVES WHEN PRESENTING YOUR WEBINAR

Even expert speakers get the nerves whenever they have a speaking engagement so imagine how nervous a novice can get in his first public speaking engagement. Although webinars do not entail a speaker to be physically in the same place as the audience, the feeling could still be the same. But as they say getting butterflies in your stomach prior to your presentation would pump up adrenaline into your system making you more alert and ready for action. By realizing this and accepting that it is normal, you could begin to arm yourself with the best weapon and that is preparation.

Apparently, preparation could be more important than the actual delivery of the webinar since everything stems from the latter stage. Smooth delivery of the webinar depends upon the preparations you make. So, aside from mastering your material you should make sure that all other aspects are running perfectly such as the web conferencing software, audio, visuals and other tools. Without worrying about these things, you can focus on making a blast of your presentation.

Do not show up in the seminar with some remaining loose ends in your material. Days before the webinar, you should already have put the presentation together. Knowing that you have mastered your material would give you the confidence boost that you need in order to give the presentation of your life. It would also help if you conduct a dry run so that you will be able to assess if there are still aspects that needs improvement not only in the material but also in the other parts of the webinar.

If you are not the only speaker in the seminar and the others are already experienced webinar speakers, request for the initial slot. Watching these speakers deliver their presentation might increase your nerves and you might end up not able to present well if at all. Or if there are other novices in the group just like you, choose a slot next to them so that you would at least have the comfort of not being the sole newbie.

Finally, face the things that are making you nervous. For example, if you fear that you are going to make mistakes then make fun of yourself when you do. Make the mistake appear like it’s nothing major or it has been done intentionally so that your audience would be able to join in the fun instead of raise their eyebrows. 

With this, you will appear relaxed and make your audience feel the same and be less critical.

THE NO REGRETS METHOD OF GETTING STARTED WITH EBAY

If you think eBay might be a good place to make some extra cash, then you’re right.  With 157 million shoppers, and 100,000 new users each day, eBay is a hot market.  It is an excellent place for potential sellers of all experience levels to quickly and inexpensively set up shop.  The user-friendly environment makes it a great place for the budding entrepreneur to learn the ropes while taking very little financial risk.

This report will provide tips and warnings of potential pitfalls that will assist you in setting up your account, listing your first auctions, filling orders, and following up with your new customers so they come back and buy from you again.  Following these instructions will lay a solid foundation for the long-term success of your new eBay venture.


Setting up Your Seller Account

There are two important things you should consider prior to setting up your eBay seller account.  The first is what email address you will use, and the second is what your User ID will be.

You should avoid using a free email address for your account if at all possible.  The best solution is to use an email address on your own domain, the second best solution is one with your internet service provider (ISP), and the final and lest favorable solution is to use a free email address such as hotmail, yahoo mail, or gmail.  I recommend using separate email addresses on the same domain for your eBay and PayPal accounts (we’ll talk about PayPal later).  This will help you keep your auction and payment communications separate.

You should think carefully about your User ID prior to registering with eBay.  You are going to want to “brand” yourself in a way that your customers remember and recognize you.  Your eBay User ID is an important element of the branding process.  You are free to change your User ID later, however this is not advisable if you can avoid it.  Changing your User ID may result in your customers not being able to find your auctions later.

When selecting your brand or User ID, you should consider what you will be selling and what image you want to present to your customers.  If you already have another business that your eBay business will tie into, then you will want your eBay User ID to reflect that.  In that case your ID should probably be your existing business name, or an abbreviated version of it.

If you will be selling primarily collectibles, then your eBay User ID should reflect that in some way.  If your focus is cheap items in general, then your ID should emphasize cheap (my first eBay User ID was 99_cent_guy, and all of my auctions started at 99 cents).  If you’re going to specialize in college textbooks, then your ID should indicate that in some way.  Ensuring that your User ID reflects what you sell will assist greatly in ensuring that existing and potential customers are able to find you when they want to purchase what you are selling.

The use of website addresses (URLs) and email addresses in eBay User IDs is prohibited.  I have personally found a way around this by using an asterisk before and after the URL (*www.naijaultimateblog.blogspot.com*), however doing this could result in eBay requiring a change to the User ID. 


Setting up a PayPal Account

The more payment options you offer potential customers, the more sales you will make.  PayPal is the standard method of electronic payment on eBay, and many eBay’ers use PayPal accounts as their “mad money” accounts.  If you don’t offer PayPal as a payment option, you will never make a sale to these people.  PayPal is also the easiest way for you to accept credit cards and electronic checks as payment for your auctions.  PayPal and eBay have tracking mechanisms that interact with each other in a way that makes managing sales, payments, and shipping a breeze.

You should set up a PayPal account as soon as possible, because the verification process may take a few days.  At a minimum you should offer check, money order, and PayPal as payment options on all of your auctions.  (However, you shouldn’t accept checks from foreign bidders.)  You can set up a PayPal account at www.PayPal.com.


Deciding What You’ll Sell

While the online garage sale approach can be profitable, you are likely to have more success on eBay if you specialize in a particular type of product.  Your customers will learn to associate your specialty with your User ID, and will remember you when they are shopping for those types of products again. 

You should start by exploring your areas of personal interest.  What are you an expert at, and what do you enjoy doing in your spare time?  Simply answering those two questions is often enough to identify a niche that could be a goldmine for you.  After answering those questions, conduct a search of both active and completed auctions to see what related products are in demand and bringing a price that will adequately pay for your time. 

It is important to note that if a lot of products in your chosen specialty are going unsold, or are selling at well below their value, then you need to find a different specialty.  Spend as much time on this as necessary.  Diving into a market blind could result in a big investment with little return and a lot of unsold items collecting dust in your garage.

If you’re having trouble identifying a niche, just take a look around your house.  Do you have lots of old books or record albums?  Look them up on eBay and see what they’re selling for.  Go ahead and auction some to test the waters.  Do you have old collectibles, Christmas ornaments, or china boxed up and in storage?  Dig it out and research it on eBay.  You may have thousands of dollars in your attic and not even know it.  And exploring what you have in your house could reveal a hot product that you might otherwise not have thought of.

Are there products manufactured in your area that you can buy wholesale and pick up locally?  By not having to pay freight, you may be able to undercut competing sellers.  Explore everything you can think of and research it fully against what is selling and what it’s selling for before diving in head first.  This will save you a lot of money and frustration later.


Building a Reputation

Your biggest obstacle to selling at the outset is going to be that you have no transaction history on eBay.  Buyers have no reason to trust you.  And the best indicator of whether or not they should trust you to deliver what you promise is your feedback rating.

This is how eBay describes feedback ratings:

Feedback ratings are used to determine each member's feedback score. A positive rating adds 1 to the score, a negative rating decreases it by 1, and a neutral rating has no impact. The higher the feedback score, the more positive ratings they've received from members. However, a member can increase or decrease another member's score by only 1 no matter how many transactions they share.

There are two ways to quickly build feedback while you are establishing your new eBay business.  One is to make purchases, and the other is to sell inexpensive things that bidders are willing to risk a couple of dollars on.  You should achieve a feedback rating of no less than 25 before listing items in your specialty (unless you can sell some cheap items in that niche).  Doing so will bring more bids and higher selling prices when you list those items.

When exploring eBay for bargains to build your feedback, you might think about picking up some business or success books.  These are tax deductible for you as a business owner.  One book that every business owner should read at least once a year is “Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill.  You should be able to pick it up for five or six dollars, including shipping.  Be wary of shipping costs while bidding, by the way.  Always decide the most you are willing to pay for an item prior to bidding, subtract the shipping cost, and bid no higher than the difference between those two figures.  You might also look for some books about selling on eBay, or a recent edition of “Taxes for Dummies.”  If you haven’t received feedback by the time you receive your item in the mail, first leave feedback for the seller, then send them an email informing them that you received the item, posted feedback for them, and ask them to post feedback for you as well.

Another quick way to build feedback is by bidding on penny auctions that have no shipping fees associated with them.  These are usually placed by sellers trying to recruit bidders into a business opportunity.  Listing these types of auctions is against eBay’s policies, and many will be closed before the auction ends.  However you should be able to gain at least a couple of feedbacks a week by bidding on them.  Use the advance search feature to ferret them out.  Search for the terms “no shipping,” “free shipping,” “free auction” or something similar in the auction description, and only search auctions that are between one and three cents.  Sort the results to display the auctions ending soonest, and bid on the ones ending in the next couple of days.  Make sure you don’t win more than one from the same seller, as only the first feedback from each member will count in your rating.

We also mentioned selling some cheap items that bidders will be willing to risk a couple of bucks on.  Small paperback books or other items around your house that are inexpensive to ship work well for this.  Mark the shipping up by about a dollar more than it will actually cost to ship your item, and start the bidding at a penny.  Even if the item only sells for a penny, you will probably break even on the auction after you pay your eBay and PayPal fees.  Remember, this is about building feedback, and not about making money (yet).


Your Auction Listings

The best way to learn about the best way to list your auctions is by analyzing auction listings for items that are the same or similar to what you are selling.  Try searching eBay for completed auctions of exactly the same item you are selling, sort the list by price (descending), and study the listings for the items that sold for the highest price.  Observe the similarities between the words in the auction title, similarities in the auction descriptions, what categories the auctions were listed in, how pictures were used, whether or not there were gallery pictures, the shipping costs, and what day of the week and times the auctions were listed and closed.  Analyzing this information will give you the best information on how to get the highest price for your item.

When listing an item, you should try to put yourself in the mind of your customer.  Think about what search terms your customer would use when looking for your product.  Those terms should be used in your auction title and description. 

Auctions for items such as collectibles, clothing, and jewelry should always include pictures.  Again, observe completed actions for similar items to see how pictures were used in the most successful auctions.  Items such as office supplies or paperback novels do not necessarily need an accompanying picture, though it certainly wouldn’t hurt.

Ensure you are charging an appropriate amount for shipping.  You will lose money by undercharging, and you will lose bidders by overcharging.  For expensive items, you should require insurance, and include that cost in your shipping price.  Marking your shipping up by a dollar or a dollar fifty will help defray the cost of your shipping supplies and auction fees.

Pricing your items can be tricky.  You don’t want an item to sell for less than you paid for it, but by starting the bid too high the item may end up actually selling for less than if you had started the bidding lower.  If you are selling an item that has resulted in a sale in nearly all of the completed auctions for that item, then you are safe in starting the bidding low.  Demand is high, so you item is very likely to sell.  Starting the bidding low will draw more bidders.  More people bidding against each other on your auction will ultimately drive the price higher.  If you want to make a quick sale, you can often use the Buy It Now feature, and price Buy It Now at a couple of dollars less than the average completed auction price of like items.

Don’t buy features such as bold, highlight, or border.  The extra cost of these items is generally more than the feature will increase the selling price of your item.  After you are more experience, you may want to try featured auctions, but it is expensive so use it with caution. 

After you gain some experience you will also want to try using html in your auctions, the free listing software Turbo Lister, or a third party auction manager. 


Shipping Your Items

You should always use quality packing materials to ensure the item reaches your customer undamaged, and you should also ship the item promptly to ensure the customer is satisfied and will purchase from you again. 

Always charge for insurance on items you think will sell for more than $50.  Don’t give the bidder the choice of whether they want to insure.  Just charge for it in the shipping and make it a requirement.  If you are shipping via UPS, your item is automatically insured for $100 at no additional cost.

Become intimately familiar with different methods of shipping, the associated costs, and the speed at which the shipping method will get the item to your customer.  Becoming an expert in shipping methods will save you a lot of money, time and grief.  It will also result in happy customers.

Include some kind of promotional material with every shipment.  This can be a flyer for your eBay business with your User ID displayed prominently, it can be a brochure and order form for items related to what you shipped, or it can be promotional material for another related business you may own.  You can even include promotional material for someone else’s business, and charge them to include it the packages you ship.

There is no need to ship daily.  Set a schedule of two or three shipping days a week, and stick to that.  Shipping every day will wasted valuable time that can be used for other tasks.


Following up With Your Customers

At a minimum, you should send three emails to every customer.  The first is to congratulate them on winning the auction, and instructing them on how to make payment.  The second communication is to let them know their item has been shipped, how it was shipped (USPS, UPS, Fed-Ex), and to remind them to look at your other auctions.  The third email should be sent several days after you expect they should have received their item.  Thank them for purchasing from you, tell them you want to ensure they received their item, tell them you have left them positive feedback, request that they leave feedback for you, and remind them again to look at your other auctions.

You should also capture the contact information of every customer and use it for further follow-ups.  Capture every piece of information you have access to:  name, email, physical address, and phone number.  Send all of your customers an occasional email reminding them that they purchased from you before, and that you have more items up for auction.  You can even include links to your current auctions in the email.  Once or twice a year, send them a postcard.  This will put you well ahead of your competition.


You are now armed with the information you need to get started on eBay.  You will learn much more by actually doing this than by simply reading about it, so go ahead and get started.  You have all the information you need to successfully sell on eBay.

HOW TO USE PPC ADVERTISING

Many businesses are unable to get the most out of their PPC search engine advertising campaign.

PPC search engine advertising involves a lot more than just bidding on the highest keywords. Information is a main concern of many online users.

Providing online users with relevant information they need will help bring about a more long-term relationship with an online user that will more likely result in a sale.

Information provided to online users may be in the form of a newsletter or e-zine that online users would likely sign up for. Sign-ups may be enough to cover the expenses of a PPC search engine advertising campaign.

Sign-ups also help generate leads for websites as they build opt in list from qualified online searchers who clicked their PPC ad. Getting personal information from qualified online searchers can be done in a variety of ways such as offering freebies for surveys or signing up for newsletters.

PPC search engine advertising is a continuous process that requires hands on supervision and a thorough understanding of PPC search engines. Businesses may opt to hire the services of a professional or do PPC search engine advertising with in-house experts. Whatever course of action is selected, a business is sure to get a huge return on investment with PPC search engine advertising.

BEST WAYS TO GET MAXIMUM ATTENDANCE TO YOUR WEBINAR

The secret to getting the maximum attendance for your webinar is promotion. To get people to attend your webinar, you must first make sure that they learn about it. The best medium that you can use to promote your webinar is the internet as the same has better reach and is less costly than other medium.  The internet also provides you with more options in designing your marketing campaign.

1.       Articles and blogs. The web is a virtual marketplace and everywhere you look there are products and services being advertised. Articles and blogs are the most prominent marketing tools in the internet and it is best to take full advantages of their benefits. Prior to the scheduled webinar, you should make sure that write ups are scattered over relevant channels on the web about the subject of the webinar providing a link back to your sales page or your url where more information can be found.

2.       Website. If you have your own website, make sure that the sales page for the webinar is designed to attract attention. Weeks before the event, most roads on the web should lead to your website. If at all possible, a link to your website should proliferate in the internet. If you do not have one yet, you should consider coming up with one as this serves as your window to more clients.

3.       Social networking sites. If you want free advertisement, then social networking sites can provide you this and more. These sites are the most visited sites in the internet, thus, making your presence felt in these would do your webinar a lot of good. You can promote your articles, blogs, website and the webinar itself. If you have allocated some budget for the advertisements, consider pay per click advertisements as these come definitely cheaper.

4.       Joint Marketing. Having other people promote your webinar for you would multiply your promotional efforts. If you can partner with people who are offering the same product or service that you are offering, then you can present the concept of the webinar with him and split the income in half later on. You can share contacts for a bigger client base, thus, doubling the marketing efforts.

You can also offer incentives to your affiliates who get people to sign up for the webinar. Giving a dollar for every referral or giving ten or twenty percent of the signup fee would surely pick their interest.

PPC ADVERTISING FOR MAXIMUM WEB PROMOTION

Engaging in pay-per-click (PPC) advertising has its own benefits and drawbacks. But what exactly is PPC advertising and what it can do to your business?

Business nowadays is doing different kinds of austerity measures when it comes to advertising their products and services. This is because of high rates of placing ads on print and on television. But there is a fast growing approach that businessmen can utilize to bring their services closer to the people and that is through Internet Marketing.

One tool that is causing internet marketing popularity is PPC advertising. This is a technique used in search engine marketing that requires one to pay a fee every time someone clicks an ad on your website.

Usually this placement is done through a bidding process. If you are a top bidder for your keywords/phrases, you are sure to be on the number one spot on all search engines. Just be sure of the effectiveness of your ad copy to get the most number of clicks you need for your business.

Here are the benefits of PPC advertising:

1.    You need not be a genius in computer and technology to be able to run this ad campaign.

2.    Immediate results are seen after a few days.

3.    No need to make a website conform to the SEO rules.

4.    Nothing to lose even if you do not top the pages of different search engines. You can still always choose PPC advertising.

5.    You can make use any search engine available.

6.    You can type in any keyword you like.


Cons of PPC advertising includes:

1.    Fixed payments every month to the search engine you choose.


2.    Pay for each click received by your website. At times, visitors are just competitors or people playing pranks on search engines. This hassle wastes money you put in to this advertising.

3.    Inability to pay for the fees next month would mean removal of your website on the paid listings.

4.    This advertising can only be used temporarily because it is difficult to handle in the long run.

5.    Pay-per-click pricing can be costly for long periods of time, therefore, this should be stopped after an ad campaign.

But how exactly PPC advertising can increase traffic, leads and sales?

PRE-QUALIFIED TRAFFIC. All visitors of your website are already considered as a qualified consumer or buyer of your product. PPC advertising leads your customers to you for a lesser cost.

INSTANT EXPOSURE, IMMEDIATE PROFITS. PPC search engines enable you to get your desired results fast. They will have your website live within just a few hours which means immediate increase in sale.

CONSISTENT TOP LISTINGS. This is to get your website on top of the sponsored search results for free. You just have to choose the keywords related to your site and business and place them within your web pages. After this, you are done.

PPC advertising enables advertisers to control their advertising campaigns. Advertisers have effectively targeted their audience and set their own price per click. PPC advertising networks provide the platform to identify the desired audience by geographic setting, topic and industry.  These networks have a list of websites of the publishers where the ads will be placed.

Tools are provided by the networks to check how the pay per click limit is working for a certain advertiser. If its still competitive, would it be even listed among the paid search lists or does it generate sales?

Of course, if the advertiser made the highest bid, the better chances the ad will be seen in the search engine. These networks too provide protection for the advertisers against click fraud.

This advertising set-up allows advertisers to set a daily budget for his ads, thus, less spending for unnecessary clicks. Advertiser will never go over his budget. 

In PPC advertising, what are important are the keywords and phrases. You have to select at least ten "very specific" keywords that would give you the best traffic in the search. Then, write the ad creatively but straightforward.

Tell the truth about your product or service and do not lie. Good thing if your product or service will not disappoint those that are relying on your ad's promise - but what if it did otherwise? Important too is the clarity of the ad. Do not use very vague languages. Include important details like the price.

You should also remember to budget your bids. Do not go overbidding because you will only lose your money and do not go so low that your ads will never get the chance to show up. Check your profit against your spending. If you see no progress then most likely you have to drop your ad campaign.
  
More and more advertisers have been using PPC advertising and it will continue to grow faster than any online advertising techniques. From revenues of $2.6 billion in 2004 to $5.5 billion in 2009, cost per click will dramatically go up as well from $0.29 to $0.36.

PPC advertising is new in online marketing and it is going to continue in the years to come. For advertisers, this means increase revenues with fewer advertising expenses, savings, more sales, good return of investment (ROI) and effective ad campaigns in the days to come.

INTRODUCTION TO PAY PER CLICK MARKETING

The Internet has now become an important medium for product and service advertisements.  Almost every company that can afford print, radio and TV advertisements have also ventured into placing ads on the Internet.

But with millions of websites out there being visited by millions of computer users, how can you make sure that your ad can be seen by your target customers and that your leads will be followed by these users?

Here are a few tips.
1.   Place an ad on the websites frequented by your target customers. Before doing this, you need to define who will be your target customers.  Placing an ad on sites that they usually visit will increase the possibility that your ad will gain the attention and will be followed your target customers.

Also, consider the website's search engine placement, traffic, external linking and the other ads placed on it.  External linking will determine if there are other sites that link to this site.  This will mean that people can get to the site where your ad is placed, even if they are browsing a different site.  Check if many of your competitors have ads on this site.

2.    Placing ads on some sites cost some money.  However, there are also sites that can place a link to your site, product or service in exchange of having their link being displayed on your site.  This is also true about the newsletters sent by site owners to its mailing list members regularly.

Also, having helpful links placed on your site and having sites link to your pages help in boosting search engine ranking.  This is similar to making a statement that your site's content is important that other sites have links to your web pages.

3.   Pay-per-click (PPC) is also a good method in Internet marketing. You will only need to pay for the ad if the link is clicked.  If you prefer this method of advertisement, make sure that you are using services that set limits on daily expenses.  There are also services that help you determine effective keywords and monitor the PPC results.

4.   Choose your domain name wisely.  It is still being debated if domain names matter when it comes to search engine placement. Whether it does or not, having product related domain names help consumers remember your domain, that they can go back to your site even without the links.

5.   Make sure you have useful content on your sites.  While keyword density is important in search engine placement, having useless information or annoying repetition of keywords will not increase your customer's confidence in your site.  It may even affect your sites traffic and can get your site removed from search engines.  So make sure that keywords are used strategically.

6.   When thinking of keywords, think like your target customers. What do you think are they going to search so they can get to your site?  Also, use specific keywords or key phrases. Submitting a single word or a very general phrase to a search engine will not get you to the top of the search results compared to submitting specific keywords that describe your product and services perfectly.

7.   Track your ads.  Always check how much you have spent on placing links on frequently visited sites and on PPC.  There are services that allow you to monitor PPC transactions and how many of these end in sales.  You always need to consider if the ads that you have placed on these websites are getting you to your target consumers and if these ads can lead to revenue.

One final tip on marketing products and services, sell the benefits.  It will help your marketing strategies a lot if you highlight the benefits of choosing your products and services instead of merely discussing the product specifications.  Product specifications may not mean much to customers, unless they know what these stand for (how these specifications affect the quality of the product or service).

Many people say getting to the top of search engine results is difficult since millions of websites exist, which can be using the same keywords.  While this is true, this doesn't mean that your website has to stacked under your competitors' websites when presenting search engine results.  Strategic advertising and linking, together with useful content, can also get you to the top of the search results.

SEO or PPC IN VIEW

The online community is definitely a large market place that you cannot ignore, especially if you have an internet business. There are thousands if not millions of consumers that you can tap in the internet.

At the same time, the internet also poses a quite different challenge. The easy access that internet provides also gives you as much competition as you can imagine. It is too crowded and congested.

Having a website is not enough to make your business running and able to compete. You must take other alternatives to give way for the online community to access your website at any rate or chance possible.

You have to expose your website. Make it known. It has to be visible. It has to be frequently targeted by consumers and surfers.

Invest in marketing your internet site.  There are basically two options available to you, the SEO and PPC.

These two are probably the most desirable alternatives you can get for your internet business as strategy for search engine marketing.

1. SEO

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Some researches indicate that 60% - 70% of internet surfers and users actually resort to using the Google search engine to find and locate web sites and pages, for any topic they desire. SEO is the process taken to make sure that the internet uses will find your website when ranked among the top results of a search. This way you can make sure that you will be visible and can clearly stand out from the rest.

To get a search engine optimization, you will have to build on your own internet site frequently hit internet links to web site pages. The process will involve IBLN or Independent Back-Linking Network, wherein hundreds or even thousands of pages will be utilized to promote a particular website of a client.

In SEO, there is no need for you to pay for the clicks although it will require you to spend time doing research to get a favorable combination of ads and target audience. The SEO process is a long term one. It requires months, 6 months at the least, before the proper outcome is fully achieved, but once the goal is accomplished, you will definitely get a steady source of profit.

2. PPC

PPC means Pay Per Click. It gives way advertising on a search engine. These are sponsored listings that you see whenever you make a search. There will be a charge whenever a visitor or web surfer clicks on any of your ads. There will first be a bidding process. The highest bidder for the price per click will definitely get the chance to be first listed in the search engine.

With this kind of advertising, you can still basically control your campaign as you get to create your own ad. You will also manage the target audience and still stay within the bounds of your budget. Most of the providers of PPC advertising will allow you to specify the target market, either by topic, industry or geographical location. You can also very well check if your ad gets to be shown at all and if it is competitive with the rest.

There are some guaranteed benefits when you get to maximize the PPC strategy.

1.    PPC lets you advertise to the whole of the online community. It is also relatively easy to set up.

2.   At first glance, PPC advertising may seem very expensive. Could it possibly happen that someone out there will go on clicking on your ad? This will definitely give you a large bill without the expected profit on your part. If this provides a lot of worries, be rest assured that there is a protection for you. Networks are able to recognize fraudulent clicks.

3.    You can also set a budget for a certain period. The moment your budget has been used up by the target number of clicks, your ads will no longer be displayed until the next period you want it again displayed.

4.    You will also be able to adjust well to changes in market demands and trends.

In deciding which of the two strategies will work right for you, think of your goals and of your resources. They definitely offer benefits and advantages that will work for your good. The better way to approach this two is to evaluate according to your short term and long term plans. Take the PPC course for your short term goals and choose SEO if you have long term ones.

There world is out there for you now. Just make sure you do what will work best for your entrepreneurial endeavors and visions. The secret to success lies in your hands. Just study your options well and you’ll get exactly what you want.

BEST POINTERS FOR PLANNING YOUR WEBINAR

Web-based seminars or webinars are beginning to make their mark as effective training tools. The extent of the effectiveness of webinars, however, largely depends upon good planning and implementation.  As such, companies or individuals intending to conduct a webinar should understand that the planning stage is crucial to the success of the webinar. The planning stage determines how the webinar would turn out. A badly planned out webinar, just like any event, would certainly turn out poorly.

To come up with marketable webinars, the first thing to do is to decide upon a relevant and functional topic that answers the needs of a particular audience. If you choose otherwise, you are certain to gain a small number of followers or none at all putting all your efforts to waste. To be more effective, the chosen topic should be aligned with the speaker’s field of expertise. It is a fact that the speaker’s credibility is one of the selling points of all kinds of training tools like webinars. Choosing the right topic entails both consideration of the audience and the speaker as well.

Once this initial step is made, the actual conduct of the webinar should be conceptualized. At this stage, the members of the team should already be determined starting from the resource speaker, assistants and moderator. For a person starting this venture on his own and working only under a small budget, he could fill out all of these roles himself. If the webinar is to be organized by a company or a group, the tasks could be distributed among several people. Whether the webinar is an individual or a group undertaking, it is important that member or members have the competence and commitment to the goal of coming up with a webinar that would give the audience their money’s worth.

During the planning stage, all the important details should be carefully laid out so there is no need to get stressed out about small details that have been missed out. The format, visuals, web conferencing tools, equipment and space should all be planned out. Everything needs to be ready at least five days prior to the scheduled webinar.

Finally, it is wise to conduct a dry run of the webinar. This is to ensure that everything is working and in place. Having a dry run is not limited to a live webinar but also a recorded one since both has essentially the same concept except that in the latter the lecture or training is not conducted live. The key to the success of any event like a webinar is always preparation.

HOW EFFECTIVE ARE WEBINARS AS A TRAINING TOOL

Today, with most of the world being affected by the internet revolution, innovations in the provision of basic needs like food, clothing and education have been introduced with online shopping and distance learning. Slowly, other services like banking and travel are already catching up with the trend. As such, businesses are beginning to look at the use of the internet as a venue for training their personnel through what you call webinars.

The term webinars actually refer to web-based seminars. Through the internet, speakers are able to give presentations, lectures or workshops to a group of people across distance and time. Webinars allow people who are in different parts of the globe with different time zones to come together in one virtual web conference room to listen and participate in one discussion. With this, companies that have branches all over the world are enabled to give trainings to their personnel without having to physically gather them together in one venue.

The effectiveness of webinars as training tools is now being explored. Are webinars as effective as their on-site counterparts? The answer will depend on how the webinars are conducted which is also applicable to on-site trainings.  However, webinars definitely offer some advantages which can enhance them as training tools.

For one, webinars can be transmitted across distance and time. This implies that participants can attend the webinar in an area where they are most comfortable whether at home or in the office. Usually, the physical set-up of the seminar venue can be uncomfortable to the attendees, thus, limiting comprehension of the training subject. Furthermore, technical problems like the audio is either too loud or too soft depending on where you are seated unlike the webinar audio which can be set based on the listener’s preference.

Another thing is that webinars allow for greater participation among audience. Unlike regular trainings where questions may only be raised at the end of the lecture, webinars allow participants to actively join the discussion even while the lecture is ongoing as there are features for chat rooms and telephone conferencing. There is also an option where the participant may remain anonymous if they choose to be. This functionality helps create an unbiased learning environment where the speakers and participants are not affected by prejudices brought about by race, gender or other factors.

These advantages can make webinars very effective training tools. When properly planned and executed, webinars would not just be mere practical alternatives but would help companies reach their goals in personnel development.

HOW TO CUT DOWN ON YOUR TRAINING COSTS WITH WEBINARS

Whether you are a company who wants to conduct training for your personnel who are assigned in different branches in one city or country or just someone who want to acquire additional training for career development, webinars are practical alternatives to on-site trainings because they radically reduce your budget for the conduct or acquisition of said training.

On-site trainings, when organized by a company for its personnel, are very costly. The cost of gathering your people together in one venue would entail cost for transportation, venue, accommodation and food. How much these will cost your company would depend on how many personnel you are going to train, where the training will be conducted and the duration of the training. This still does not include your costs for the speaker or speakers who you would most likely provide with better accommodation on top of their professional fees.

Individuals who want to attend trainings at their personal expense would probably spend for the same things. But unlike companies who can avail of discounts for bulk services, individuals have to pay singly for everything which could be costlier unless they find someone who is interested in the same training or be lucky enough to get training support from their companies.

Webinars are less expensive compared to on-site trainings for obvious reasons. Expenses for the usual logistics are done away with. For example, instead of transporting the speaker to a particular venue, providing him with an expensive hotel room, good food and some R and R, a company could choose to hire a webinar speaker who will conduct live training or provide previously recorded videos of a particular training topic. With this, the company would save a lot because they would only spend for the speaker’s professional fees. 

Web-based seminars would give the company even further options to cut on costs by giving them the choice to gather the trainees in one area or schedule the web conferencing during their regular work schedule. In any of these two options, the company has already cut down on training because the fact that the speaker does not go on site but does the training through the internet alone is already a huge source of savings. Still the first option is costlier than the second since fare, accommodation and food would still be at the expense of the company. The second option is apparently the better choice if the company really wants to cut training costs.

These very same parameters are the reasons why individuals who opt to get their training through webinars would spend less. Since webinars are less costly to organize, then the training fees would also be lesser.

THE BEST TYPES OF WEBINAR SOFTWARE AVAILABLE TODAY

Modern technology has brought marketing to a higher level. With the use of the internet, many marketing tools have been created such as article marketing, blogging, e-newsletters and social networking. Aside from these, another marketing tool is slowly on the rise. This is called the webinar which is derived from the merging of the word web, another term for internet, and seminar. Thus, webinars are seminars that are given out with the internet as the medium.

With the increasing popularity of webinars, different software were developed to support it. In order to come up with the best webinars, a webinar host should wisely choose the webinar software that he is going to use because it would determine the success of the webinar to some extent.

The decision to buy a particular type of webinar software should be based upon your specific webinar needs. Today, with the attention that webinars are getting, the most relevant type of webinar software is one that can be used for a big audience. As webinars are mostly being organized for marketing purposes, they usually target a bigger number of prospective clients. As such, choosing one is the wiser move since you can also use it for a smaller audience as well.

One such software is GoToWebinar which is considered to be one of the top webinar software available today. Its best asset lies on the fact that it is very user friendly. Even a person who has mediocre knowledge about the technology could easily use it. It also has several features that would really prove helpful to the webinar host which includes preset email templates and webinar registration. There are also free features like voice conferencing and practice sessions.  As this software is user-friendly, it can be set up anywhere as long as it is compatible with the computer. It can accommodate up to a thousand people for each webinar.

Aside from the above features, a good type of webinar software should also provide other functionalities like white boards for collaboration and interaction. Chat rooms are good to promote interaction among the members of the audience. Remote control capability would be beneficial for the speaker or the moderator.

It should be remembered that getting good webinar software does not guarantee the success of the webinar. It is actually value-rich content and skilled presentation that would ensure the sales, however, if you top these with the best webinar software available, then you would have a powerful tool that could skyrocket your sales.

SEVEN DAYS TO PROFITABLE BLOGGING SCENE 7

Tying it all up

The seventh day to blogging is a relatively short one – is everything you're doing, working so far?

You won't be able to evaluate traffic, but you should have a comfortable grasp of what you're going to be doing with your blog, and possibly a few fledgling commenters’.

From here on in you should be scheduling regular posting, and regular interaction on other blogs, in communities and forums, and of course, most of all, planning a strategy for continuing the building blocks you've started.

You won't know – yet – where the best bookmarking sites for you are – nor will you be able to decide whether your keywords are appropriate as yet.  You WILL, however, know how easily you've found your first week, and you will be able to adapt your project overview accordingly.

You should also decide at this point, where you want to focus properly.  Do you want to post daily – and can you commit to that?  DO you feel posting less often will allow you to build a stronger, fluff free blog, without over committing?  OR would once a week be enough?

Whatever you decide, after the first week or two, you NEED to be consistent.  You should find a routine to settle into and then work towards continuing that schedule for as long as possible.

It IS possible to make money from a blog, but those blogs are at the top of their field, and this is simply because they are the best in their niche, blogs wise.  As long as you aim for the best quality you can possibly produce, comfortably, you can't go wrong.  It may take you a while to attract traffic, but if, in a month, you're still struggling to bring people in, you should review that side of your blogging. 

While great content is the cornerstone of the best blogs – they also have a certain amount of focus on traffic driving. At critical mass (when that traffic brings in its OWN traffic) you can relax a bit on that side, but it takes a while to get there.

You should always keep an eye on what works, and what doesn't though, because eliminating that will leave you with a leaner, stronger blog than people that don't pay attention to these things, giving you a definitive edge over your competition. And beyond.