Reseller Roundup Blog

Brand your company for higher profits

Jen — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:53:28 GMT

Branding is one of those words that’s often thrown around and just as often misunderstood. Although the process involves several steps, the idea is really quite simple.

Branding is what Coca-Cola®* has – the minute you catch sight of that curly red “C,” you know beyond a shadow of a doubt what you’re dealing with. Your mouth may even water at the thought of that cool, refreshing liquid pouring down your throat. And all it took was a single letter!

To do what Coca-Cola did, you’ll need to create a brand for your company. How? Simple. Present an image and message that appeals to your target audience over and over again until your customers begin to associate that image and message with your company and yours alone.

The branding process usually begins with the creation of a logo and a tagline.

A logo may be made up of words (your company name), an illustration and/or graphics.
A tagline should sum up what you offer to customers that they can’t get anywhere else.

You sell domain names and related products to [fill in the blank with your niche]. Who else does that? What do you offer that your competitors don’t? A broader selection of products? Then your tagline might be “Your one-stop shop for all things Internet.” Or maybe your biggest sellers are domains and hosting and your biggest customers are extreme athletes. If so, a good tagline would be “Xtreme domains & hosting” or “Domains & hosting for those who live on the edge.”

Unless you’re a graphic designer, creating your own logo can be tricky – it needs to work in a variety of mediums and that kind of flexibility takes some skill. Regardless of whether you do it yourself or hire someone else to create your logo and tagline, be sure to run them past people who represent your target market (not your couch-potato uncle if your company caters to women runners) before putting them to use.

Once you have a logo, use it everywhere – on every page of your storefront, in newsletters, on receipts, on stationery, signage and business cards. You can even incorporate it into your Express Email Marketing® emails with a little HTML know-how.

If it’s short enough, your tagline can appear with your logo except in cases where the logo is too small to make the tagline readable. Your tagline should also appear on every page of your Web site. For bonus points, make your tagline clickable and link it to a page that describes your key promises and how your company delivers on them.

Over the long haul, branding pays off. It not only increases customer loyalty, ensuring that your customers continue to buy from you for years to come, but allows you to charge more than your non-branded competitors. How sweet it is!

DOs
>Test. Get feedback on your logo and tagline from people who represent your target market.
>Follow up. Your long-term success depends on how well you deliver on your promises.
>Stick with it. Coca-Cola’s been doing it for decades; that’s why their brand is so powerful.

DON’Ts
>Alter the individual elements of a logo once it’s been created and approved. You want the viewer to take one look at that logo and think of you, so don’t confuse them. Use it consistently.

RESOURCES
Don’t feel comfortable creating your own logo? Ask our Dream Design Team to create one for you.

*Coca-Cola® is a registered trademark of The Coca-Cola Company.

Add value with Tutorials

Jen — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 09:54:49 GMT

Looking for a way to add value to your products and services and generate keyword-rich content for your site? Offer how-to articles.

Offering free advice is one of the oldest and most effective tricks in the marketer's book. It not only sets you up as an expert with advice to give, it makes your customers feel indebted to you. People value good information, and they appreciate it all the more when it's given away for free.

You don't have to be a professional writer to produce useful articles, either. A quick Internet search [Break and link if needed] on any topic -- how to market your business, write your own HTML snippets, optimize your site for the best search engine listings -- will yield an abundance of information. Once you've found a handful of really good nuggets, think about how those tactics or tools mesh with your niche market. Use concrete examples to explain them.

If your article is a marketing how-to, create a Sample Company and give concrete examples of how Sample Company would build its Web site content. Don't be afraid to explain why Sample Company chose the Deluxe Hosting Plan based on their organization's size, pairing it with Group Outlook® with Mobile for maximum flexibility as the company grows. Maybe Sample Company didn't have a logo yet and used the Dream Design Team to design a new logo, along with letterhead and business cards.
Or do you have a real customer who would be the perfect example for your concept? Contact them and ask if they'll let you use them as a case study with a link back to their new Web site -- don't forget to get a testimonial if they're willing.
If you're pulling together an article on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) -- include a sample meta tag with keywords relevant to your target customer. (Do a couple of quick searches yourself to determine good keyword sets -- you can even view the source code of great sites you find and take examples from their keyword lists.)

Better yet, since you have personal experience with the products you sell, write about them. Tell your customers what you've learned about keyword advertising, or about time-saving shortcuts in Quick Shopping Cart®. Tell them how you increased your inbound links by swapping links with other sites. By making your experiences available to your customers, you shorten their learning curve. And cement their loyalty in the process.

EXPERT's tips
> Provide useful information that is directly relevant to your customers' everyday lives.
> Quote reliable and widely recognized experts, setting their words off with quotation marks.
> Break information down into numbered steps.
> Double-check to make sure your instructions are accurate.

RESOURCES
>MarketingProfs.com
>MarketingExperiments.com
>MarketingSherpa.com

Placing Banner Ads on Partner Sites

Jen — Thu, 18 Dec 2008 13:25:40 GMT

There are currently several dozen great-looking banner ads in the Marketing Tools section of the Reseller Control Center under "Banner Downloads." We've created these ads for you to use in promoting the products you sell.

So how do you get people to see your ads?

The idea is simple, really. You place one of these ads on a Web site that attracts customers who may be interested in what you sell - this can be another site within your own network of ventures, or you can find external partners. Customers who see your ad and are interested in your product can click on the ad to be taken directly to your Web site. Every time someone clicks on a paid partner ad, you pay a small fee to the host site. On your own sites, or sites that offer trades, there will be no cost to you.

When you're looking for sites to advertise on, look for businesses that don't compete directly with yours. For instance, let's say your Web site sells domain names and related services to golfers. You might place a banner ad on a Web site that sells golf equipment. While your site and the site hosting your banner ad have customers in common, you don't sell the same products so you're not competing directly against one another.

There are a number of ways to find likely sites on which to place your banner ad. If there are trade journals in your niche market, read them and look to see who's advertising there. Visit those companies' Web sites and look for a page on advertising rates. Be sure to get answers to the following questions:

What are your rates and how many visitors do you attract each month? Rates are typically either flat (5 or 10 U.S. cents per click) or based on Cost Per Thousands (CPM) views. Expect to pay $10-$15 CPM depending on how much traffic the Web site attracts.
Do you have a banner exchange program? Programs like these don't cost you a thing - you exchange ad space on your site for ad space on theirs. Be picky about where they place your ad, though. Make sure it gets placed on the top half of a relevant page.
My ads have already been created - do you offer an agency discount? This can be as much as 15% or more, so be sure to ask.

Choose one or two sites and place an ad for a month. Be sure to check the click-through ratio once a week-this is the number of times your ad appears on a page compared to the number of times a viewer clicks on it. (An average click-thru ratio is between 0.5% to 2.0%.) If the host site doesn't provide this information, you can just check your access logs to see how many visitors you're getting from the ad. (Using Marketing Source Codes appended to the end of your link as ‘?isc=MYCODE' makes tracking easy - see our Blog article "Setting Up Marketing Source Codes" to learn how.)

At the end of the month, if you're not making more money that you're spending on the ad, try another site. If it's working, stay with it until performance drops off, then try another ad or another site. Remember, constant measurement is the key to knowing when to try something new - be sure to schedule time for this activity whenever you initiate an advertising campaign.

Increase Profits with Regular Customer Contact

Jen — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:55:13 GMT

If you have a list of customer names and contact info but aren't doing anything with it, you're missing a golden chance to increase sales and build your business. A key tool in maintaining your relationships and increasing recurring revenue is to simply stay in regular touch with the customers you currently have.

Why contact. Your purpose in setting up a customer contact plan should be to help your customers, whether it's with free advice, breaking news or money-saving solutions. Express a genuine interest in their needs and concerns and your customers will reward you with repeat business.

How often. Opinions on how often to contact customers vary widely. One consultant advises once every 2-5 days, another suggests once every 1-2 weeks and a third says 1-2 times a month. The real answer is, as often as is useful to your customers. Start with once every 2 weeks, testing various frequencies to find the one that gets the best response.

Messages. Offer free advice to your customers or send a regular newsletter with brief text highlighting a couple of different products each time. Email them with product updates or new discounts.You can even tuck a come-back offer into your order confirmation emails. This puts you ahead of the curve, planting the seed of the next sale even as you thank them for their most recent purchase.

Mediums. Email is the easiest and least expensive means of contacting your customers - check out your free version of Express Email Marketing. But don't overlook print, as you can now order high-quality printing online for very little. One really successful approach is to send a direct mail piece first - say, a letter or postcard - followed by an email scheduled to arrive three days after the postal piece arrives.

Tracking your results. The easiest way to track the effectiveness of an offer is through a source code*. By requiring customers to enter a source code in their shopping cart when responding to a promotion, you can see exactly how many people respond to each offer, running the most successful ones again. Express Email Marketing will also track open and click-through rates to help you gauge reader interest.

Dos and Don'ts

Give them a little text and a small selection of products in every communication.

Test frequency to see what works (sells) best. Contacting them too often annoys people; too seldom allows them to forget you. Find the sweet spot -- just often enough.

ALWAYS give them the option to stop receiving your communications. If they ask to be taken off your list, do it. Send them an email confirming the change.

*Don't miss our blog article "Setting Up Marketing Source Codes" to learn how to use this tracking tool in the Reseller Control Center.

Setting Up Marketing Source Codes

Jen — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 12:01:24 GMT

Marketing Source Codes are a tool you can use to track your advertising campaigns right from the Reseller Control Center. These codes allow you to track incoming traffic to your website and see which offers lead to a sale. You can use marketing source codes with email campaigns, banner ads, traded links with other sites, custom landing pages, and more.

Here’s how to create marketing source codes. There's no limit to the number of marketing source codes you can set up, so be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to create unique identifiers for each of your marketing efforts. You'll find the "Marketing Source Code" set-up under "Marketing Tools" in the RCC.

For example, let's say you have a trade with Widgets.com where they agree to run three banners for you on different pages of their site. You'll want to know exactly which pages generate hits back to your site, so you'll need to create a different Marketing Source Code for each banner. You might set up your codes something like this:

Advertising Vendor: Widgets.com
Advertising Campaign: 2008 Banner Series 1
Advertising Codes: WIDGET01, WIDGET02, WIDGET03
Description: Email Banner offer from Widgets.com home page

Include Marketing Source Codes in the links tied to your advertising. To identify incoming traffic using marketing source codes you'll need to embed the code in the links that come back to your storefront. You can either direct traffic back to your home page, or better yet, send customers to a specific landing page that repeats your offer or describes product details. Embed the code by adding isc=WIDGET01 to the variable string on your link - the ‘?' after the page name indicates the start of the variable string, and multiple variables are separated with an ‘&'. Your link might look like:

http://www.myresellerstore.com?isc=WIDGET01
or
https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/email.asp?prog_id=YourStore&isc=WIDGET01

That’s all it takes. Once you’ve started getting your marketing source codes out there, you can check on your responses using the Marketing Source Codes Report under My Reports in the Reseller Control Center. To go a step further and learn even more about customer behavior, pair Marketing Source Codes with your free Traffic Facts application – see our article Using Traffic Facts to Measure the Success of Marketing Campaigns.

Using Traffic Facts to Measure the Success of Marketing Campaigns

Jen — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 07:40:30 GMT

Using Traffic Facts to measure the success of marketing campaigns

To track the success of your external marketing efforts, try using marketing source codes with Traffic Facts (free with Pro or Basic reseller plans). By tying a marketing source code to each and every external advertising campaign -- whether it's a banner ad on your blog, a link trade on a partner's Web site, or a pay-per-click advertising campaign -- you can use Traffic Facts to tell you what's working and what isn't.

1. Set up Traffic Facts. If you haven't already done so, enable Traffic Facts in the Reseller Control Center under the "My Settings" menu. You'll need to create a login, then check the box to enable Traffic Facts. If you're using your free WebSite Tonight® account or other hosting for a custom storefront, see exactly where traffic enters your site. Use the custom JavaScript to add tracking to all your custom pages.

2. Create marketing source codes. There's no limit to the number of marketing source codes you can set up, so be sure to take advantage of the opportunity to create unique identifiers for each of your marketing efforts. You'll find the "Marketing Source Code" set-up under "Marketing Tools" in the RCC.

Advertising Vendor: Widgets.com

Advertising Campaign: 2008 Banner Series 1

Advertising Codes: WIDGET01, WIDGET02, WIDGET03

Description: Email Banner offer from Widgets.com home page

3. Include Marketing Source Codes in Links. To identify incoming traffic using marketing source codes you'll need to embed the code in the links that come back to your storefront. You can either direct traffic back to your home page, or better yet, send customers to a specific landing page that repeats your offer or describes product details. Embed the code by adding isc=WIDGET01 to the variable string on your link - the ‘?' after the page name indicates the start of the variable string, and multiple variables are separated with an ‘&'. Your link might look like:

http://www.myresellerstore.com?isc=WIDGET01
or
https://www.securepaynet.net/gdshop/email.asp?prog_id=YourStore&isc=WIDGET01

4. Check your Results. Once your links are out in the world and live for a few days, you'll want to see if you're getting any results. You now have two sources of incoming data - you can check the Marketing Source Codes Report in the RCC under "My Reports" for a quick update on how many hits, customers, and orders your marketing campaign has bought in.

Once you have that snapshot - it's time to use Traffic Facts to learn more about ad performance. Launch your Traffic Facts account from the RCC and use it to check on the following:

Which referring sites are performing the best? If you're running multiple campaigns that enter your site on the same landing page, you'll want to know who's driving the most traffic. You can use the Referring Domains report to measure this activity, identifying the campaign by checking the marketing source code embedded in the link.

If your advertising campaign spans several pages on one site, as in our example with Widgets.com, you can use the Referring URLs report to drill down and see which pages in particular are bringing in the most traffic. This can help you evaluate whether a particular site or page within a partner site is a good fit for you. Before deciding to cancel an agreement, think about tweaking or overhauling your ad or link text to appeal to that site's audience.

Are you using the right landing page? If your Marketing Source Code report is showing a good number of hits but no conversions, consider whether you're driving your traffic to the right page of your site. You can use the Entry Page report to evaluate how often specific pages on your site are the first page incoming visitors see. Use this information to gauge traffic generated by your advertising efforts - this is particularly telling if you are using an internal page to your site as a landing page or if you've created a custom landing page using WebSite Tonight or a custom-hosted solution. When your campaign is running, a marked increase in landing page traffic indicates your campaign is effective.

Once you've identified the entry pages to your site, you can use the Visitor Path report to learn more about your visitors' experience on your site. After they've entered your site on the correct page, does it keep their interest and result in a sale? Or do they lose focus and wander to other pages and eventually away from your site? If they do purchase, are they purchasing the product you originally advertised? You can figure this out by seeing which page(s) lead to the cart, and by checking the sales volume via your Product Sales report in the RCC. If the answer is consistently no, that's an indicator you should consider changing your offer/landing page and cater to what shoppers are looking for.

5. Tweak, measure, evaluate - Now that you have a snapshot of your visitors' behavior, use that information to tweak your campaigns and test variations of your advertising. The more you work to understand your customers and their actions, the more you'll sell!

IDN: Around the World with a Click!

Jen — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 06:36:06 GMT

Reach out to customers in the international community. Now’s a perfect time to see if an Internationalized Domain Name is a right fit for them.

Many non-English languages use characters containing diacritics or non-Latin scripts. Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) contain these non-ASCII characters. Characters range from a few special characters found in Italian and French to entire character sets found in Arabic and Chinese. IDNs let users register and use domain names consisting of their native language instead of relying solely on the standard ASCII format.

Examples of IDNs:

English: http:// idn.icann.org
Arabic: مثال.إختبار
Russian: пример.испытание

Viewing an IDN is possible in both Firefox and Internet Explorer 7 browsers. And while most languages are preloaded into these browsers, there are instances when an additional download is required to view a specific language.

Please note that just because someone owns a domain name’s English version, they do not own its non-English counterpart. If you or your customers do business in other countries, it may be wise to register the equivalent domain(s) in native languages for those countries, making it easier for international customers to reach their business Web sites.

Top languages for IDN domain sales include Arabic, Chinese, Greek, Hebrew and Spanish. Even your Western Language-based customers may be looking ahead to expanding their international business opportunities and would benefit from early registration of an Internationalized Domain Name.

Ready to get started? IDN lookups, where customers specify the language for conversion, are found under the Domain Names dropdown menu of your turnkey storefront.

Use Cross Sells to Make Attachment Rates Work for You

Jen — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 08:46:01 GMT

Attachment rate is the measure of how often you sell one product in tandem with another product. The key to understanding attachment rates is to analyze your product line and order sales to see what products are commonly sold on the same order. With this valuable information you will see patterns for complementary products and you can use that to put together a custom shopping cart Check-Out Specials that will maximize your attachment rates…and your profit!

Here’s how the Check-Out Specials work
When you opt in to Check out Specials, your customer will be shown one of the products from your ordered list based on the purchase(s) they already have in their cart.

This is where your research comes in
The Check-Out Specials allow you to choose the top 4 products that you would like to feature. Let’s say that your research shows that a customer who purchases a domain name also purchases hosting 35% of the time; purchases WebSite Tonight® 25% of the time; and occasionally adds on a SSL Certificate or Private Registration. When you set up your shopping cart Cross Selling Tool you would want hosting to be the number one product offered with a domain purchase, Website Tonight as the number two product, and so on up to four product choices. This tool will encourage customers to purchase the complementary items that go along with the products they already have in their cart.

Don’t forget to test this tool over time to see what combinations work best for your customers and their needs. So, do your research, select your check-out special products, and start seeing your sales increase today! To locate this new tool, simply go to the product offerings page in the product section. (If you prefer not to take part in this offer, opt out and the check out special will not be incorporated into your check-out process.)

For more information on attachment rates, check out the Reseller Roundup Blog article: Attachment Rates

Ready-to-use email templates make marketing easy!

Jen — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 09:37:32 GMT

Every reseller account comes with Express Email Marketing® to help you keep the conversation going with your customers. Contacting your customers by email keeps them up-to-date on your current sales. It also keeps you top-of-mind so they know where to go when they need new products and services for their Web presence.

Express Email Marketing is tied to your reseller customer records, so it’s a snap to import the contact information of customers who have opted-in to receive your communications. And since it's CAN-SPAM compliant, you know you’re reaching ONLY those people who want to hear from you.

Express Email Marketing includes a number of handy tools:

Reseller-specific templates – Just for resellers we’ve built a series of ready-to-go templates that pull pricing and product information directly from your storefront settings for a truly custom email – without the work! Look for Reseller Announcements in the Campaign Type when you create an email campaign.
Announcement templates – Pick your favorite template from this series to build your own email announcements. This is great for product sales you set within your storefront using the sale pricing option in the Products & Pricing section. Don’t forget to create a Marketing Source Code and tie it to your campaign for tracking.
Newsletter templates – Are you marketing to a niche you’re passionate about? Include tips, tricks, stories -- even excerpts from your blog -- along with your store offers and deals in a regular newsletter. Contact your customers quarterly, monthly or even weekly with this type of communication.
Custom HTML – Ready to take it to the next level and show off your design skills? Use the custom html option to upload your own layouts and artwork. Just be sure to create a text version of your email as well for those folks who have email programs that won’t accept graphics (Express Email Marketing has a tool and prompt for this, too.)

Text Only – Prefer to keep it simple? Choose the text-only option.

To activate your Express Email Marketing account:

Log in to the My Account of the account you used to buy your reseller plan.
Choose Express Email Marketing from the My Products menu.
Find the listing for ‘New Account’ with ‘prod id: [Your Store]’ next to it. Click “Open Express Email Marketing” for the account.
Click “Getting Started” to establish your account settings and create a subscriber list. Get your list started by importing your customer list from your storefront - to stay current, be sure to set it to update nightly.

That’s it, you’re ready to go! Go ahead and set up an email campaign. (TIP: Be sure to do a test run by sending the email to yourself to make sure it looks the way you expect it to. You can do this at any time under the Options drop-down at the top of the design screen.)

For more information on how you can use Express Email Marketing to communicate with your customers, read “Promoting Your Business and Nurturing Your Customers with Express Email Marketing.”

Building a Custom Landing Page

Jen — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:58:45 GMT

You know how important it is to have custom landing pages for your pay-per-click campaigns, email campaigns, and any other marketing efforts that drive potential customers to your Web site. But if the thought of creating a custom page scares you, don’t worry. The trick isn’t to write it from scratch, but to recycle the content you already have. Here’s how:

First, determine the messaging for your marketing piece and landing page. For this example, let’s say we’re sending an email to your current customers telling them about a week-long sale on Traffic Blazer®. (You would set the sale in the Reseller Control Center on the Product Pricing page.)

For the content of the email, we’re going to include the following elements:

Introduction appealing to customer’s desire to draw more visitors to their site, thereby increasing sales
Product description cut and pasted from the Traffic Blazer page in your turnkey storefront
Sale price of $19.99/yr (min. retail) versus the regular price of $24.99
Sale Dates – “You must hurry, because this offer expires on [DATE].”
Call-to-action – “Act now to increase your site traffic and SAVE 20%.”

For the landing page we’ll incorporate the elements from the email, plus add more details to show the user how this product will benefit them:

Insert the plan features from the product page with a "Buy Now" link
Call out sale price and dates of sale (make this easy to change out with standard price after the sale is over)
Emphasize how easy it is to get started, pull the ‘4 Steps to Success’ from the overview tab on the product page with a "Buy Now" link.
Call-to-action – “Act now and SAVE 20% on Traffic Blazer, the surefire way to increase visitors to your site.”

Now that you know where to find all the elements, the writing doesn’t seem so bad, does it? Here’s some sample copy – remember you would want to make the tone of both the landing page and the email match the tone you’ve chosen for the rest of your site.

Email

Subject: [Customer Name], Increase Site Traffic and Save 20%

Dear [Customer Name],

Is your Web site attracting the attention it deserves? If not, Traffic Blazer® is for you!

Most Web site traffic and online purchases come from search engines like Google®, Yahoo!® and MSN®. Make sure your site appears in top Search rankings with Traffic Blazer®. Promote your business online, increase your visibility, and make money on the Internet...in a few simple steps. NO technical expertise is necessary. If you can type and click, you can use Traffic Blazer.

Traffic Blazer is a great deal at our standard price of $24.99/year, but now through [DATE] we’re offering it for just $19.99/year!

Act now, this price won’t be around for long - increase your site traffic and sales at [MyResellerStore].

Landing Page

Increase Your Site Traffic and SAVE

Most Web site traffic and online purchases come from search engines like Google®, Yahoo!® and MSN®. Make sure your site appears in top search rankings with Traffic Blazer®.

Get your site listed in major search engine rankings
Bring more traffic to your Web site
Increase customers
Just $24.99/yr

Special Offer: $19.99/yr for a limited time only, offer expires [DATE]. Order Now

Traffic Blazer makes it a snap to promote your business online, increase your visibility and make money on the Internet...in four simple steps. NO technical expertise is necessary. If you can type and click, you can use Traffic Blazer. It even works with Safari, so Mac users can enjoy the benefits, too. Still not sure? We’ll even include the comprehensive Traffic Blazer Help System, offering tips, guidance, and detailed tutorials on search engine optimization and the search engine industry.

4 Steps to More Traffic

1. Search Engine Optimization - Position your Web site for the highest possible ranking with leading search engines. Traffic Blazer's keyword and site optimization tools show you the words and phrases search engine users enter most often (powered by Yahoo! Sponsored Search).

2. Web Site Analysis - Traffic Blazer's robust analysis (including keyword usage, spiderability, and files and Robots Meta tags) of your site's strengths and potential weaknesses helps you secure crucial search engine success.

3. Submission - Easily submit your Web page(s) to leading search engines. Around the world or region-specific, it's up to you. Traffic Blazer helps you submit your site to more than 200 search engines and directories in all!

NEW! Target your local audience. Submit your site to local search engine programs like Google® Local, Yahoo!® Local, Live Search (MSN) and Local.com™. * For brick-and-mortar businesses only; not available to online-only businesses. Or use Traffic Blazer to submit your blog to more than 75 blog search engines and directories.

4. Reporting - No more wondering about what works and what doesn’t. Traffic Blazer is loaded with reports that give you answers.

Link Popularity report gives you the number of inbound links to your Web site;
List Checking verifies that your Web site is listed with the Internet's leading search engines and directories;
Alexa®/Google® Rank assesses your site's online performance;
Competitor Rank compare your site's search engine ranking to that of your competitors;
Keyword Ranking reveals your current ranking on AltaVista®, HotBot®, Lycos®, and MSN®.

Traffic Blazer makes increasing your site visibility a snap. Get started today!

*Traffic Blazer supports submission to AlltheWeb, AltaVista, AOL, A9, Dogpile, Netscape, Excite, and Hotbot by enabling submission to search engines Google, Yahoo! and Windows Live, which provide the search results for these search engines and portals. All search engine names are registered trademarks of their respective owners. All rights reserved.

That’s all there is to it! You have the building blocks for custom landing pages within each of the product pages in your reseller storefront. Just take a moment to read through the content and decide which pieces work with the message you want to share with your customers. Then craft your call-to-action and use it to tie your marketing email and landing page together. Be sure to include more details on the landing page to close the sale.

Quick List of Small Business Tax Resources

Jen — Mon, 11 Feb 2008 07:31:59 GMT

You may have already completed your 2007 taxes, but if you’re dreading the task or tackling your Internet-based business’s taxes for the first time, here are some resources that may help:

The Small Business and Self-Employed One-Stop Resource from the Internal Revenue Service. The IRS is doing their part to help make filing easier, pulling forms and FAQs into one location. This Web site includes a quick A-Z index if you need a specific form; answers to qualifying business expense questions; tax-related guidelines for employers; how to get an Employer ID Number if you don’t have one; and more.

New Tax Law Changes for Your 2008 Federal Income Taxes from American Consumer News. This article offers a short summary of tax law changes for 2008, giving you a good heads-up on areas where you might want to pay special attention when filing this year, including new business mileage rates and new rules for charitable giving deductions.

Glossary of Tax Terms from Entrepreneur.com. Whether you’re working on your taxes or using your tax accountant, you’re probably running into terms that are over your head. Here’s an alphabetical resource to help explain those terms and bring them closer to everyday vocabulary.

Top Tax Deductions for Your Small Business by Attorney Stephen Fishman (Nolo). This article is about small business in general and is not specific to your reseller business. But once you get to the end of the article, there is a handy section on “Advertising and Promotion” and a list of “Easily Overlooked Business Expenses.”

Going forward – Here are some strategies for going forward with your 2008 taxes.

Six Tax Tips for 2008 from the Small Business Resource Center – This article has a variety of practical (and one or two iffy) suggestions, but the strongest message you’ll get is to be organized in 2008 and keep track of everything related to your small business for 2009.

Estimated Quarterly taxes are confusing, but it will be worth your while to figure out if you should be paying them before you get penalized on a future tax return. This TaxMama article is a couple years old, but gives a clear idea of when you’re required to go this route. Estimated Payments. Hate Them? But Pay Them!

Express Email Marketing® Opt-In Magnet – In depth

Jen — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:11:05 GMT

Email marketing is a great tool for getting out the news about your reseller business – the Express Email Marketing® account you received with your reseller plan can automatically import customers who have opted in to receive emails from your company.

But current customers aren’t your only market – building up a mailing list offers you even greater reach. Plus, if you can segment your audience based on their interests, you can make your messages even more relevant and valuable to the recipient. Express Email Marketing gives you all the tools necessary to build your lists and create these segments via Interest Groups.

Step 1: Build a Sign-Up Form

To start building a sign-up form, look under the ‘Opt-In Magnet’ menu. You’ll see options for adding a logo and changing fonts and colors. Be sure and use these to make your sign-up form friendly and approachable. Find the logo and color scheme that goes with your site and you’ll keep your branding strong and ensure visitors that they’re in the right place.

You may also wish to change the section heading copy to set the tone for the form. Stick with the standard “Please tell us a little about yourself” or lighten the tone to “What’s the 411 on our favorite customer?” Then carry that tone through to the custom questions – think of these as an introductory survey. Ask how they heard about you; how they’d rate your pricing; ask them for their Web site url so you can learn more about their business, etc. These questions do not determine your email segments; they should be considered additional user information – you will be able to view the responses when you look up an individual subscriber profile.

Interest Groups allow you to create custom demographic segments. In the form builder, set up your Section Heading now. Then we’ll talk about what you might want to add for Interest Groups in the next step.

The Subscription Confirmation Message is the perfect spot to customize your message and remind users of a current special, and then drive them back to a product page or custom landing page to make a purchase. If you use this page for offers, you’ll need to keep the completion page up to date, or choose an offer that doesn’t expire.

Step 2: Manage Interest Groups

There are two types of Interest Groups available in your Express Email Marketing account. The first, Public Interest Groups, is where you let your customers decide to opt in to lists via the sign-up form and their individual profile. The second, Private Interest Groups, is where you build your own segment that users won’t have access to – it’s managed via the List Database Manager. Here are suggestions on how to use each type:

Public Interest Groups – Use these to define the demographics that let you customize your offers. For example, you might want to call out entrepreneurs versus web hobbyists. Is the person who buys your eCommerce product running their own online store, or are they working with a charity and taking donations online? Think of creative ways to ask for this info that make it fun for respondents to tell you more about themselves.

Example:
I consider myself an Internet…
[] newbie – I’m just getting started self-publishing
[] self-starter – I’m building my Internet presence from scratch
[] entrepreneur – I’m taking my brick-and-mortar business online
[] veteran – the ‘Net is my home ground
[] junkie – the Web is where I live

How could you use these demographics?

Be sure to let the newbies and self-starters know about Website Tonight®, Online Photo Filer, Online File Folder, Traffic Blazer® and Traffic Facts – newbies might need more help getting up and running, and the self-starters just need to know you have these things available.
For the entrepreneurs, focus on the importance of owning domain variations for their business and give them examples of how they can use each: .com for main site; .net for private employee login; .org if they have a tie to a non-profit or just want to protect their interests; .info as a landing page for business listings; .jobs to post their careers page, etc. You can also focus on the eCommerce tools, Express Email Marketing, Traffic Facts and Online File Folder as essential business tools.
The veteran and junkie are going to want to do everything themselves – let them know about the features of the virtual dedicated and dedicated servers. They may also be candidates for Express Email Marketing and Quick Blogcast to share their knowledge with their Internet contacts.

When coming up with your Interest Groups, think about how you want to tie your reseller business to your target market (or your other existing businesses).

Private Interest Groups – If you want to A/B test subject lines or email content, use Private Interest Groups to segment your audience. Create a group for each – you’ll have to opt in half of your audience (tedious if you have a large subscriber list). A quick way to do it: Once your Interest Groups are built, go into the List Database Manager and do an Advanced Search in ‘View Subscribers.’ Use the wildcard symbol, *, to search alphabetically, assigning every other letter of the alphabet to your ‘A’ list segment, and the other half to your ‘B’ segment. Here’s how you build the search string:

Condition: [Email Address] [is] [a*]

You can add multiple search strings, so go ahead and build it a-z for the group you want to add to the ‘A’ list and run the search. At the bottom of the page you’ll see a count in ‘Displaying results 1-100 of NNN.’ Check to see if NNN is roughly half of your overall subscribers. If not, you might want to add or remove a few letters of the alphabet until it is. When the number is good, use the dropdown boxes at the top of the list to ‘Assign to Interest Group.’ Then pick your new Private Interest Group.

The ‘B’ half is even easier. Run your search for Interest Groups ‘Not in an Interest Group’ and pick your ‘A’ list. Next, assign the results to your ‘B’ list and your A/B test lists are ready to go. By assigning everyone to one list or the other, it will be easier to update new subscribers – just run a periodic search on anyone not in either ‘A’ or ‘B’ and assign half of them to each list.

Another use for Private Interest Groups is to identify groups that have meaning to you, but that you don’t want your users to use to self-identify, such as:

A monthly renewal list – Build a monthly list of people up for product renewal. Send them a custom announcement in addition to standard renewal notices.
Bulk domain buyers – Do you have an audience segment that buys domains in bulk? To make sure they’re aware of the reduced pricing, identify these people to get special emails each time a new domain sale starts.
Online Photo Filer customers – Time communications to this crowd around each holiday. Remind them of holiday-themed templates they can use to customize their albums, as well as the low pricing to get pictures printed directly from their photo albums.
Your best customers – Repay their loyalty by dropping pricing for a 24- or 36-hour period. Make sure these people know it’s a sale just for them.

Step 3: Add Subscriber Link

This is one of the tools you’re going to use to build your list. Put the invitation to join your mailing list everywhere you can think of – include it on your storefront and include it in your order confirmation emails (as an invitation to receive exclusive email updates). If you have an email newsletter, be sure to invite people to subscribe on your site, in blog posts, and in your email signature. If you do banner advertising, use a banner that invites people to subscribe to special offers and drive them to your sign-up form.

Step 4: Edit Email Notices

Here’s another opportunity to include your own branding, a conversational tone, and/or refer subscribers to a special offer. For example, set it up as “This Week’s Customer Special” and send them to one landing page – just be sure to keep the offer on that landing page up to date.

It doesn’t hurt to part with kind words either – if someone chooses to unsubscribe, you can create your own message to let them know you’re sorry to see them go, and invite them to come back and rejoin the mailing list if their needs change in the future.

Keyword Density for SEO

Jen — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 14:11:01 GMT

Keyword Density is the percentage of keywords compared to the rest of the text in your Web page. This metric is important because it gives you a tool to compare a Web page or site to that of similar pages with higher rankings. You can see how your use of keywords compares to theirs.

If you see a comparable keyword density between sites, chances are their higher ranking is due to inbound links and/or inherited page rank. If their keyword density is higher than yours, there’s a good chance you can increase your ranking with some careful keyword placement for organic search optimization.

Use one of the following free keyword cloud tools to check your site’s actual keyword density:

Visual Results
Use font size and bold-face to get a quick visual of what words have the highest density on the pages you search (without the actual statistics).

Keyword Cloud from webconfs
http://www.webconfs.com/keyword-density-checker.php

Keyword Density Checker from iwebtool
http://www.iwebtool.com/keyword_density

Statistical results
These tools give you actual number of occurrences, percentages of density and other key metrics by keyword.

Keyword Density Tool from SEO Tools™
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/

Keyword Density from Link Vendor
http://www.linkvendor.com/seo-tools/keyword-density.html

Compare two sites
Use this tool to see how your site compares to another.

Keyword Density Analyzer from KeywordDensity.com
http://www.keyworddensity.com/

What do you do with the information once you have it?

Get a good understanding of what keywords are strongest on your site. You might be surprised that your organic content is pointing search engines in a direction you didn’t expect. Evaluate that and decide if you need to modify your copy and tags/titles, or if it’s something you should use to your advantage and build upon.
Take a new look for competition. Try searches on the top keywords in the major search engines and see who shows up. Take a look at their sites and see if they truly are competition. Review their offers to see how they compare to yours. Also be sure to read the search engine results set for their site compared to yours…whose is more compelling? How can you change your copy to better grab the potential customer’s attention if your results were to come up side-by-side
Compare keyword density with your known top competitors. This might give you an idea who’s more likely to come out on top in the major search engines (of course, keyword density is only one factor in the mix – don’t forget that incoming links, overall relevancy, etc., also determine page rank). Use the results to help prioritize the copy you need to tweak in the future, or maybe set your goals to build some new content pages that will make you a stronger competitor in those areas.
Target online directories where you can submit your site and increase incoming links. To ensure you get approved for inclusion, have a blurb that clearly ties your site to that directory.

WebSite Tonight® 4.0

Stacey — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 09:16:00 GMT

WebSite Tonight® 4.0

PREVIEW IT BEFORE CUSTOMERS GET IT

We're getting ready to roll out a new version of WebSite Tonight, but before we let customers have it, we're giving you the chance to check it out and become familiar with it first!

BETTER EDITING CAPABILITIES

They've raised the bar. Literally. The text edit bar is across the top, no more quick or advanced edit. Click in a box, make your updates, click OK and you're done.

To the Left, To the Left. Everything you need is in a box to the left. That's where you'll find the page/site editing tools.

What else? Fewer pop-up windows, better image size constraining and content formatting issues have been resolved (so you don't have the horizontal scroll).

SCHEDULE FOR RELEASE

We'll be switching customers over in a staggered format. Customers will be converted from 3.4.3 to 4.0 over a two-week period. During this time, you will have customers using both versions of the product.

Why You Need a Newsletter

Stacey — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 15:31:32 GMT

Generating traffic to your Web site is the first step towards building a successful online business. Without traffic, you won't have customers - it's that simple. But, since new visitors to your Web site may not purchase on the first visit, you need to find a way to get them to come back again. There are two obvious methods for securing such return visits: You can "pay" for return visits by continuing to advertise to the same market. Or, you could collect email addresses from your visitors and use your Express Email Marketing tool to reach out to visitors on a regular basis. The latter is most certainly the least costly option. And if you take full advantage of your email marketing, this option will also prove the most effective.

So how do you get those visitor email addresses? Simple: Create a monthly (or weekly) newsletter and add a subscription box on your custom home page.

I know... I'm already hearing the excuses: I don't have anything to say in a newsletter; I don't have anyone to send it to because I don't have a list; I hate writing; I don't have time to write a newsletter every month…. Not to worry; I have the answers to all those questions and more.

Fake It Till You Make It
When I first started sending out my newsletter I had four (!) subscribers – myself and a few friends I talked into subscribing. Still, I wrote my newsletter as though I was sending it out to 1000's of recipients. That is: I made sure that my message was carefully crafted and the offers enticing enough to appeal to a broad customer base. You never know when one of your subscribers is going to forward the newsletter to a friend. And the more appealing the newsletter, the more likely your recipients are to share it with friends, family, coworkers, etc. So, fake it till you make it. Act like you've got a list of a million and one day you just might. The important thing to remember is that you're using your newsletter to build your list. Don't wait until you have a list to build your newsletter. Besides, you can use the feedback from your first newsletters to improve it as you grow.

Getting Visitors to Subscribe
Once you've decided to create a newsletter, you need to convince your visitors/customers to subscribe to it. One way of doing so is to combine a newsletter subscription with the 5% off $25 promo: Offer this discount as a bonus for subscribing – e.g., "Subscribe to my free newsletter and get 5% off!" You can then add the promo code to the Web page subscribers see AFTER they have confirmed their subscription. If you're using Express Email Marketing, you'll find this page by clicking Opt-In Magnet. It's the last step in Build Sign-Up Form called the Subscription Confirmation Message.

If you have a clear idea of what you intend to put in your newsletter, you can place a "teaser" segment next to the subscription box, thus allowing potential subscribers to get a gist of what they can expect from your mailings.

Be sure to put your "subscribe" block in a prominent place on your custom home page. Alternatively (or additionally), you can use a "hover ad". A hover ad displays on your home page when the page loads, and then disappears after a few seconds. You can create a hover ad using a free tool at: http://www.tamingthebeast.net/generators/popup-hover-ad.htm. Also, hover ads are not blocked by pop-up blockers so your visitors are sure to see it. I got a new subscriber to my list within an hour of adding my hover ad. Note, however, that some Internet users are annoyed by any kind of pop-up/hovering content on the pages they visit, so tread carefully if you elect to use this concept.

What to Put In a Newsletter
Composing and distributing a newsletter may seem daunting. But don't panic: You're not aiming to write a bestselling novel or trying to win a Pulitzer. All you need to do is provide some interesting reading for your subscribers and a special offer to attract them to your storefront. People don't have time to read pages and pages of copy, so keep you content to 1500 words or less. In other words: Keep your message simple, appealing, and to the point.

The content of your newsletter should be relevant to your niche market. Write a short piece on how one of your products can be used in your niche, preferably a product you have on sale that month. Write another article that is strictly informational and relevant to your niche – no sales pitch. Include a few links to other interesting articles or news stories you've found on the Web. Write a case study of one of your customers: What they do, how they use your products and link to their Web site. Include a short article about a new feature that's available for a particular product, or describe a new product that you've added to your storefront. The key to writing an article that your visitors will read is keeping the sales pitch soft and giving them interesting information. As you compose more and more articles for your newsletters, you'll gradually learn to get the balance right between useful information and subtle, yet effective product marketing.

Obviously, you want to link any offers and products you mention in your newsletter to your storefront pages, with a source code, but you can link informational articles to your site, as well. For example: Display the first few sentences of the article (or a quick overview of its main points) in the newsletter and add a Read More link that takes the readers to your custom site. This will help direct the newsletter recipients to your site, which is where you want them.

Re-Purpose Your Newsletters
Don't have time to write a newsletter??? You don't have time NOT to! Look at all the ways you can use your newsletter articles to grow your business:

Archive past editions of your newsletter on your custom Web site. This gives your site more unique content for search engines to spider and index.
Use the informational articles in your blog.
Submit the articles to free content sites.
Compile the list of articles to create a free e-book to give away on your site.
Create a "Resources" page on your custom site and list each article.
Create RSS feeds of your articles
Use the articles to create and publish a podcast.
Create a special "how-to" section on your Web site that tells user exactly how and why they should be using your products.

Still not comfortable creating your own newsletter? There are tons of free content Web sites out there with articles that have already been written. You can use those articles in your newsletter and on your Web site as long as you follow the publishing rules of the site you take the articles from. Typically, you will just need to give credit to the author.

So no more excuses – start your own monthly newsletter and watch your business grow!

Using Traffic Facts as a Marketing Tool

Stacey — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 09:01:00 GMT

Yes, that’s correct; I said Traffic Facts, not Traffic Blazer®. Oh, you should also use Traffic Blazer, but I think you all understand how and why to use that application. Most of us use Traffic Facts simply as a basic measurement tool – how much traffic am I getting and is it generated by my advertising. But, Traffic Facts can provide a treasure trove of important marketing data if you think about this information as a “to-do” list rather than just the end result of your marketing efforts. In other words: You can use the Traffic Facts information to continually review and improve the marketing strategies for your reseller business.

The following is an overview of the most useful Traffic Facts reports and how to take advantage of them.

Note: Many of the features of Traffic Facts are available through the Traffic Blazer Traffic Report, as well.

Referrer Report

The Referrer Report tells you where visitors to your site are arriving from. That is, the report lists the URLs of the pages visitors were viewing immediately before coming to your site. Usually, these originating pages include links to your site, and the visitor clicked on the link. Sometimes, though, if a visitor already knows your Web site’s URL, he/she just enters your address in the browser and finds your site that way. Both types of visitors will generate a “referral” in your report.

The Referring Domains part of the Referrer Report groups your referrals by domain. I mainly use the Referring Domains report as a quick, broad overview of here my visitors are coming from. The real "meat" of the referral information is in the Referring URLs Report. This report tells you the exact URLs your visitors come from, right down to the specific pages on the referring Web sites. Why is this important? Because it can gauge the effectiveness of an ad or link on a particular page thus helping you zero on in the most and least effective locations for your ads and/or links.

For example: Let’s say you have a couple of back links within the same Web site, but located on different pages. The links use different copy, are in a different position on the page, or they display a different offer. By comparing the referrals from each page, you can tell which ad copy is more effective. You can then attempt to increase your click-through rate by adjusting the link/ad that generates the least traffic.

Another way to look at the Referring Domains report is to replicate the top-performing link(s) to other pages where you have links. This is especially useful if you control multiple interlinked Web sites, such as a blog, a personal site and your reseller storefront.

When you look at the referrals that stem from your blog, you can easily determine which of the blog articles generate the most clicks. You might then consider writing more of those types of articles. Or you can update the link(s) in the blog post(s) so that users are sent to a more targeted page on your reseller site. A more targeted (i.e., more contextually relevant) landing page can help increase your conversion rate.

If some of your articles or links fail to generate the site traffic you were expecting or hoping for, you might consider revisiting the article/link with an eye on improving the click-through rate.

As you peruse this report, be sure to click on any URLs you’ve never seen listed before. (Each listed URL is an active hyperlink.) When you go to one such “new” site, check it out for advertising opportunities. The site may have a free business listing section, a forum you can join, free article submission services or offer banner advertising. This is a great opportunity to research ways to reach a new audience. The bottom line is that you should make the most of such new traffic generators.

Key Phrases Report

This report tells you the top search keywords and phrases visitors used to find your Web site, and the specific search engines the visitors were using. These keywords/phrases can help you find and research new or improved keywords to use in your PPC ad campaigns or your search engine optimization efforts. I’ll bet you’ll find keywords and phrases that you never thought to investigate. Do a search on those keywords – what do you see? Your competitors? Complimentary sites where you could find advertising opportunities? Community sites you can participate in? You won’t know unless you follow through and do the research.

Page Requests Report

Another Traffic Facts report to take beyond the “oh, isn’t that interesting” and actually act upon is the Page Requests Report. This report tells you how many of your visitors looked at each page and how long they stayed on the page. Pages that get very low amounts of visitors (and pages whose visitors don’t stay as long as you would like them to) need to be either removed or updated. There’s no point in maintaining a page that no one spends any time on. Therefore, you need to figure out how to make the content more enticing to visitors so that they perform the actions you expect them to. Alternatively, you should lose the page entirely.

Note: Keep in mind that the ideal amount of time spent on any given page on your site will vary, depending on the content and purpose of that particular page.

Your top-performing pages – the ones that attract the most visitors and whose visitors stay the longest – also need to be analyzed: Do you have an offer on these pages, or is the visitor only reading content? What offer is on the page?

Use these pages to test different offers, phrasings, etc. Be sure to measure your page views, conversions, and time spent on the page, as you do your testing so you know if the changes you are making are hurting or helping your page.

The suggestions above only scratch the surface of what Traffic Facts has to offer in the way of marketing advice. I just wanted to point out that this application is so much more than a measuring tool for your current marketing efforts. There are a ton of ideas that can be gleaned from the data if you take the time to research where your visitors are coming from, what keywords they used to find you, and what they do when they get there.

Attracting Traffic by Writing and Publishing Internet Articles

Stacey — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 13:55:46 GMT

Write and publish articles on the Web, and the traffic to your reseller Web site will increase...? The connection might not be obvious, but if you do it right, your editorial work can actually help you promote your business online.

Because your reseller business faces fierce competition on the Internet, you need to do something extra in order to separate yourself from the mix. Obviously, you optimize your Web site content or pay for visibility through Google® AdWords®, Yahoo!® Search Marketing and other pay-per-click providers, but creating and distributing original, editorial content can help you position yourself as an expert and authority on a given field. Internet users who read and learn from your content may be compelled to visit your Web site or refer to or reply to your content. Authoring original content can help you reach audiences beyond your regular customer base. And it can help you become part of one of the many communities that increasingly influence Internet users’ behavior and preferences.

You can publish your articles in various third-party Internet directories and libraries, as well as on your Web site or your blog. (If you don’t currently have a blog, now is the time to start one). In order to allow readers to easily access your reseller site, the articles should be accompanied by a brief paragraph about the author (i.e., you) that includes a link to your reseller site.

Teach, Don't Sell
In order for you to build credibility as an author of online contents, your articles should be strictly informational and/or educational (they may be entertaining, too, if applicable). Your content should not, however, in any way add up to or include a blatant (or even a subtle) sales pitch. The key is to cover topics that are somehow related to the products you are selling at your reseller store without in any way mentioning that you are, in fact, distributing the products/services in question.

If your content is compelling, it might be quoted or mentioned on message boards, social search Web sites and blogs, creating further traffic-generating buzz. Furthermore; by soliciting and analyzing feedback to your articles, you may obtain valuable information that can assist you in improving the marketing tactics for your reseller store.

Finding and Using Your Niche
Carving out a market niche for your reseller business is highly recommended as it allows you to focus your marketing efforts on a clearly-defined and less-competitive field than taking on the heavyweights of your business head-on. Such a niche also can serve as inspiration for your editorial content. For example: If your reseller business is focusing on Internet services for the outdoors community (e.g., bicycling, running, hiking, or mountaineering enthusiasts and businesses), you can compose a series of articles that advise people on the proper equipment, maintenance, trails, routes, etc. If you are actively engaged in these activities yourself, you can write about your own experiences. You should not, however, mention in your copy that you just happen to be selling Internet domains, Web site builders, hosting services, etc. that can help your readers build an online outdoors store or personal Web site. In fact, the only reference to your reseller business should be the link to it in the biography segment accompanying your articles.

Just as important as your content is your target audience. Your writing style and presentation must clearly reflect the reader groups you wish to reach. The key, of course, is to strike the right chord in terms of what might catch your audience’s attention, and what writing style will suit that particular audience, as well as the Internet venue you are using for your publications.

Keep a few basic rules in mind when you compose your content:

The articles should be easy to read (i.e., stick to (fairly) simple words and short sentences). This ensures that you won’t "lose" any readers while making your point.

Keep postings at 400-1500 words. Don’t write a novel. But you can still cover your topics in much detail if needed.

Keep your content informational/educational. Steer clear of "sales-minded" copy; your readers should be able to actually learn from reading your material.

Obviously, you can play around with your format, style and content before finding the perfect fit for you and your audience.

Getting Your Material Published
When you have completed writing your articles, you need to publish them. One option is to use your own Web sites: You can place the content on a page on your custom reseller Web site or your personal site. Or you may post it on your blog. Doing so enables your readers to subscribe to present and future compositions via RSS. The blog format also facilitates feedback from your readers. As well, you can include (parts of) your articles in your reseller business newsletters as a means of providing your customers with useful information.

In addition to your own Web sites, you can turn to a multitude of Internet-based content directories and article-submission services as distribution channels for your content. A simple search for “article submission” via Google®, Yahoo!® or any other search engine will return a comprehensive list of free or fee-based services that allow you to publish your articles to readers across the Web.

While we don't endorse any submission service in particular, examples of article-submission services include:

EzineArticles.com

ArticleWheel.com

ArticlesFactory.com

SubmitYourArticle.com

Digg.com

And many more...

Spend some time checking out these content-submission sites before settling on your distributor(s).

Having third-party Web sites distribute your material will help you gain credibility and reach a broader audience than you would by using your own sites exclusively.

How Often to Publish
In order for you to establish yourself as an expert/authority on a given subject matter, you must provide a continual flow of high-quality articles that enable you to build a solid and expanding reader base. Assuming that they like your compositions, the readers likely will spread the word or even "borrow" your content. (You can allow readers to copy your material on the condition that they include your bio, and thus the link to your reseller site).

It is difficult to say what the ideal article-submission frequency is. But you must find the proper balance between boring your readers with too much information and losing readers because you don’t post enough. Keep in mind that some topics are better suited for frequent articles than others.

Note that some article-submission services may restrict the submission frequency.

Measuring the Impact
Although writing and publishing editorial content on the Web may be fun, your ultimate objective should be to drive traffic to your Web site. In order to actually measure the impact of your efforts, you can simply keep an eye on the URLs that send visitors to your reseller site. Checking your Web logs will reveal all traffic that originates from pages that hold your articles. This is an easy way to gauge the immediate impact.

Another, less clear-cut, result of publishing original content is the effect your work has on your reseller site’s search engine ranking. Each link that points to your reseller site, including the ones featured in the biography snippet that accompanies your articles, counts as a back link (inbound link) to your site. The actual value of a given back links varies. For example, some of the online article bases that publish your content may have different Google® PageRanks, which will directly impact how important Google® considers the back links that originate from there. Similarly, back links from blogs can have little or no impact on your search engine ranking. But occasionally, they can really boost it. The “big four” search engines – Google® (including AOL®), Yahoo!®, Live Search (MSN®), and Ask™.com – use link analysis as a key element in their ranking algorithms, so the back links generated by your published content may improve your performance across the board.

Finally, Google® likes unique and informational Web site content (the other top search engines like it, too, but emphasize the "informational" element less). Consequently, if you write and publish content that fits this description you may be able to secure a high search engine ranking for the page/site on which you post your articles.

There are no guarantees, of course, that writing and publishing articles will actually yield the traffic boost you are hoping for. Nor is there any way to accurately predict how long it will take before the potential results will materialize. This is not supposed to be a magic bullet that instantly puts you ahead of the competition. However, if you write quality content, target the right audiences and use the most opportune channels for distributing your material, composing original content just might prove to be an effective cog in the wheel that is the Internet marketing campaign for your reseller business.

Measuring the Results of Your Online Marketing

Stacey — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:50:20 GMT

Whether you’re a reseller just starting out or you already have an established online business, online marketing is going to be one of the keys to your success. Online marketing is an essential tool when establishing and growing an online business. To become an expert online marketer; read on…

Test and Measure, Test and Measure, Test and Measure…

I can’t stress it enough – you MUST test and measure the results of your online advertising. And you must do it often. To make sure you are spending your advertising dollars – or your time with free ads – effectively, you need to know the results of each advertisement and be willing to test different ads. The only way to determine which of your ads and offers are the most effective is to continually test and measure every one of them. This is true for email advertising, search engine advertising, banner advertising… any advertising, online or offline.

Testing Basics

In its most basic sense, testing is simply trial and error. But don’t get discouraged by poor results from any type of advertising campaign – you’re probably going to have to err quite a bit before you find the most effective ads for your business. The test results provide you with the knowledge and information that enable you to make better decisions. In fact, ad campaigns that fail to yield the desired results provide valuable information that you probably wouldn’t have obtained if the ads had been immediately successful.

If, on the other hand, you hit the bull’s-eye right out of the gate – good for you! Leave that particularly successful ad alone and test another. The interesting (and, sometimes, rewarding) thing is finding out if what you thought would hit the mark actually turns out to be true. You may find that while a particular ad did well, another test may prove to be even more successful. This is where the learning begins. Your idea of a successful ad will change over time, as you gain more experience and have more data to compare.

What to test? Everything! Your imagination is the limit, but start with the basics:

Ad placement – different locations and media have different audiences. You may have a fantastic ad that works well on search engines, but doesn’t perform in banner advertising, or vice versa. Test your ad placement to find out what ads work best in each applicable context.
Ad copy – different words and layout affect results. Try putting the price at the top, middle and bottom of your copy, as well as testing with no price. Test different wording to describe your offer, and experiment with different graphics and color schemes.
Ad offer – different price points, different products, different product combinations. Depending on the audience for a particular ad, the lowest price point may not necessarily be your most effective offer. Test offering single products and combinations of products. Some audiences may be single-item purchasers while other are looking for “package” deals (review the article on Price Testing if you’re unsure how to price test).

Measuring Results

Your next step is to measure results and determine the effectiveness of each advertising campaign. This will be impossible to do unless you use source codes. Please review the article "Using Marketing Source Codes" if you haven’t started using this tool.

What to Measure

You must be consistent with how you measure each ad in order to get accurate results. Listed below are some key metrics, their definitions, and explanations of the types of advertising they are typically used for.

Banner/Search Advertising

CPM – Cost Per Mille (Thousand). This type of advertising requires you to pay a flat fee per 1,000 impressions of your ad. An impression means your ad was displayed on a Web page. It does not necessarily mean that the ad was actually clicked on and a visitor thus came to your site. This format makes CPM advertising somewhat risky as you may end up paying a lot of money and never getting anyone to actually click through to your Web site to make a purchase. CPM advertising can be effective – but beware. Keep a close eye on the impressions you’re paying for and the actual number of Web site visitors the ads are generating.

CPC – Cost Per Click. While often resulting in higher conversion rates than CPM, CPC advertising is also typically more expensive. With this type of campaign, you are only charged when someone actually clicks on your ad. The key to CPC advertising is making sure that the Web page your ad links to is highly effective: Your offer should be prominently displayed on the Web page and your Web page must look professional, appealing and secure so the visitor feels comfortable purchasing from you.

Conversion Rate – This number tells you the average number of impressions or clicks needed to generate an order from your storefront. For CPM and CPC campaigns, you calculate the conversion rate as follows::

CPM: Orders / Impressions = Conversion Rate

CPC: Orders / Clicks = Conversion Rate

If my ad generates 5,000 impressions/ clicks and 100 orders, my conversion rate is .05%. Is this a good conversion rate? You won’t know until you test several ads. Your audience, storefront, niche market, existing customer base, brand awareness, ad offer, and ad copy are all unique to you. There is no “standard” for conversion rates – you must test enough offers to create your own standard for your own business. The same is true for any advertising measurement.

For each type of campaign described above, your advertising partner should provide you with impression and click-through data. You can also use the Marketing Source Code Report in the Reseller Control Center (under My Reports) to see hits, orders, new customers and repeat customers by source code.

For search advertising, tracking measures are built in to your storefront for Google® AdWords®, Yahoo!® Search Marketing and Microsoft® adCenter campaigns. You’ll find instructions on how to set this up in the Reseller Control Center under Design & Layout -> Receipt Info. You’ll also find a Google Analytics tracking tool under Marketing Tools.

Email Marketing

We provided you with a free Express Email Marketing® account when you purchased your reseller program. This tool lets you automatically import your customers – who opted to receive marketing email messages from you – to your subscriber list in Express Email Marketing. For more information on using Express Email Marketing, you can review the blog article "Promoting Your Business and Nurturing Your Customers With Express Email Marketing.

Email marketing lets you market special offers to your existing customer base, and, typically, some of those customers forward your offers to friends and family. This can help you gain new customers. Measuring email marketing is a little more complex than measuring banner and search advertising – there are more metrics to review and more ways to interpret that data.

Open Rate – The Open Rate tells you how many of the emails you sent were actually opened. The open rate is calculated as follows:

# Emails Opened / # Emails Sent = Open Rate

Getting your customer to open your emails is the first step toward the end goal of getting an order. This is why the open rate should be measured and evaluated. The subject line of your emails can influence the open rate. It needs to be intriguing enough to get the user to open the email. You should test different subject lines to determine which ones are most effective at increasing your open rate.

Click-Through Rate – The Click-Through Rate tells you how many customers opened an email and clicked on a link to get to your Web site. The perceived value of your offer and the creative element (copy, graphics and layout) can impact your Click-Through Rate. You should test the same offer with different creative, and the same creative with a different offer to determine the most effective combination for your customer base. The Click-Through Rate is calculated as follows:

# of Clicks / # of Emails Sent = Click-Through Rate

The number of opened messages and clicks can be found in your Express Email Marketing tool if you are using it for your email marketing campaigns.

Response Rate – The Response Rate helps you determine the overall effectiveness of your campaign based on the number of orders received. The Response Rate is calculated as follows:

# Orders / # Emails Sent = Response Rate

You’ll want to look at your Response Rate, along with total revenue earned, to determine the overall effectiveness of a campaign.

AOS – Average Order Size. Determining your average order size will help you estimate a return on your advertising investment. You should find an overall AOS (all orders from your storefront) and an AOS for each individual offer. The overall AOS can be used as a “standard” for new campaigns. The AOS for each offer will help you gauge offer effectiveness from different audiences (i.e., search ads vs. banner ads vs. email campaigns).

For example, if my overall AOS is $20 and I try a new ad and get an AOS of $30, the result was better than expected. If I get an AOS of $25 on a specific search ad campaign and then test that same campaign in a banner ad, but get an AOS of $40, I might want to consider shifting my ad budget to the banner ad, or test the offer on more banner ads. Of course, this will also depend on the number of orders I get. One order at $40 AOS is not as good as 10 orders at $20 AOS.

When measuring the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, you’ll want to use a combination of the metrics above to reach your conclusion about a specific campaign’s effectiveness. Always consider total revenue earned, response and conversion rates.