Posts Tagged ‘Marketing’

If you want to have a business online, you need to build a website.  A website helps to promote your products, as well as, identifies you on the Internet. When I created my website, I went on the premise of "wanting to learn how to do it" as I experience the essence of building my business.  I realize now, that even though I learned quite a bit, it did slow my progress down.  Read on, I'll tell you want I mean.

A Little History First

After attempting to do typing on the Internet -- you're right -- my first newbie scam.  It wasn't a true scam, because I was paid.  However, I put in long hours for very, very little pay.  Does that read green, naive newbie all over it?  Yes, I'm afraid it does. Needless to say, I gave that up and began looking for something that would give me a viable income -- affiliate marketing was the answer.  Thus, my adventure began.

Getting a Web host and Domain

Well, after much reading, I realized I needed to get a web host and a domain if I was looking for a long-haul attempt at making it in affiliate marketing.  I found a pretty good web host, paid for my domain -- And, now I was ready to build my website...

My first advise here is -- If you are inexperienced in web construction and you want a quick presence online, I would go with a web host that has web tools which includes Site Studio.  It saves you time, money and gets you up and moving quickly.

Building My Website

I decided to use FrontPage (with a dash of HTML) to create my website -- in my first attempt.  Well, my first attempt was beyond words -- no one wanted to hurt my feelings -- the website was beyond bad and the color was what I call Medicine Yellow. But I was still in the glow, and I must say, working
with blinders on.  (This was my first mistake, my knowledge was limited -- I should have utilized Site Studio that was available to me.)

Needless to say, my first attempt did not stay up long.  I went back to work, restructuring my ugly site -- my second attempt.  I changed the color to a dark green with a base of gray.  At the time it looked good, I thought.  I actually got, "you're improving" from a friend.  But somehow, it looked, well --downtrodden.

Third restructuring came when -- after a year, I came upon an article that stated, "if you are using Times Roman -- even though it is easy to read, it reads amateur all over it."  My first internal thought was, "Crap, I've got to do my website over again."

So, once again, I began restructuring my site. This time around, I decided to go with a lighter green for my website (just as well, I was going to have to change everything anyway), revamped by Google Ads (4 times), and changed the lettering to "Arial".

By the way, it has been said that either "Georgia" or "Arial" are the two fonts that will give your website a professional look.  And you know -- they were right. After changing from "Times Roman" to "Arial" -- it gave my website a cleaner and more professional look.

Color as well, is important to your website -- it is part of your total presentation of your site to prospective visitors.  How important is color -- if they don't like it, they are just a click away from removing your site from their vision.

After all the overhauling and tweaking of my website, I believe it is now presentable, brighter and personable to my visitors. However, I, as well as you, should realize that you are never done with your website. You should always be looking at ways to improve the appearance, products, and service available to your visitors.

Becoming An Affiliate

You cannot be an affiliate marketer without affiliate products. With that being said, you can start your journey as an affiliate marketer by looking at the following sites for items that fit your theme and of which you can make a commission.

Commission Junction
ClickBank
BeFree

Now, don't be disappointed if some of the vendors turn you down in the beginning -- after you have your website up for a while, you will find that some vendors will be dropping you an email and requesting that you sell their product for them.  It's flattering, however, be sure that you can blend it nicely into your website theme.

Getting Your Feet Wet

The water may be cold, tepid, or hot -- it depends on your skill level when you begin your journey online (I believe my feet were in the cold phase when I started) -- but you have to get your feet wet.  Do your research, get all your ducks in a roll, and begin your journey.  If you sit on the fence too long, you will never jump in.

Get what Internet tools you can, read all that you can, and stay positive, even if it means you have to step away from your computer for a day or two to regroup your thoughts.

As you can see from my experience, I jumped in, had some setbacks, some disappoints, but also some individual triumphs. The most important thing to remember is to close your mind to your own negative thoughts, and the negative words of those around you. Why? They can cripple you, and slow or even end your journey toward success.

If you know in your gut, that what you are doing will succeed -- say nothing -- just keep on keeping on.  Soon, the naysayers will be saying something positive.

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Tourism Management, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
Internet with current and emerging multimedia features provides ample opportunities and particularly useful for dealing with intangible nature of the service, and transforming ma... More >>

The website design and Internet site marketing practices of upscale and luxury hotels in Turkey

Product Description
Here is a little of what you will learn inside of this book: - How to use what you already know to found the capital of a blog empire - How to develop a theme and a brand that will claim a portion of the internet as your very own - How to earn and protect your reputation as an expert, one whom people will return again and again to read - How to create blog entries that make people read you, link you, and promote you - How to consi... More >>

How To Make Money Blogging Online In Your Spare Time Using A Simple, Common Sense Approach!: The Easiest Way To Earn Income Online Without Any Website Building Or Internet Marketing Skills!

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Tips, tricks, and techniques to eat your competitors lunch online.... More >>

Guerrilla Website Design and Interactive Marketing

You’ve spent hours/days/weeks on your website’s design; now it’s time to build it. The thought of actually building a website can make many a newbie affiliate marketer cringe and is often the biggest stumbling block on their road to success. But it can be done…

First, let’s look at some building basics. HTML (hyper text markup language) is the simple programming language that tells a browser what a webpage should look like online. HTML is made up of elements such as paragraphs, text, or headings. Elements are in turn, made up of tags, attributes, and some times content. Tags are simple descriptive terms that tell browsers what they are dealing with. Attributes are modifications to an element. Content is anything that goes between the tags.

Next, what about page building programs? If you have knowledge of HTML you can create a web page using only a text editor such as Windows Notepad or with text editors such as Coffee Cup or Hotdog. If you are a first time builder a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) program is a great learning tool. There are hundreds of programs out there including Web Studio, Go Live, Front Page, and Dream Weaver to name a few. Creators of both text editors and WYSIWYG programs often give free online trials for their products. I’ve listed possible resources at the end of this article.

Now comes structuring your site’s content. Some of the things you might want to consider are the use of frame sets, as well as text size and font, headings, color, images, and links. Frame sets are used to divide a webpage into to different areas. Each area or frame contains its own webpage. A site without frames (or a regular page) consists of a single webpage. A regular page is less complicated to build and also easier on search engines.

Navigation is very important to your site. It should be usable and consistent on every page. If your site consists of more then one page it would be helpful to visitors to have links to your home page and a search function (for your site only) on each page.

Finally, In order to get visitors to stay (and hopefully click) your site must be unique, but not create sensory overload. You can add sparkle and shine to your site through graphics, audio, and video. The key is to remember not to get carried away and to check and re-check all links to make sure they work. Other possibilities include guest books, blogs, or message boards, free weather, news, or articles.

Building a website for the first time can be challenging, but fun. The possibilities for your site are as endless as your imagination. You can do this—so get out there and build!