The internet is booming, most people use it these days to communicate, keep in touch with friends and family all over the world. Many of us make new friends on line who we never even meet.

If you haven’t caught on yet you should take some time to get to know how it works, but more importantly how it could fit into your life. You could meet long lost friends, or find products and services which you never even knew existed. The internet is a vast network of constantly evolving information, ideas, and communication channels.

If you are in business, whether it be commercial or charitable, there is a huge opportunity to reach out to others with free web advertising, to promote your business, any business, on line, for free. It makes no difference whether if your enterprise is small or large, the world wide web is global and includes a fantastic number of marketing opportunities that you could avail yourself of, with no damage to your budget whatsoever.

You could advertise through your own website. I recommend that you

pay for web hosting

rather than take on one of the freebies available and of course your domain name. A paid web hosting service is more reliable and will allow you to take control. Your own domain name such as http://www.paulpalmer.ws would impress upon your visitors an immediate sense of professionalism. 

You can advertise through other people’s websites, there are a number of methods you can use to achieve this. You could create a banner that would summarize your business’ offers and have it displayed on existing pages. Or if you have your website for your business, you could use the said banner to link to your pages, or you could even settle for simple links. Additionally, you could have other webmasters rave about your venture and they could talk about it in their own websites.

You could create your own affiliate program, there are a range of scripts available to do this. By giving commissions as incentive, you could invite a lot of Internet users to become your affiliates. Each affiliate would work to help you make a sale. It’s like having a battalion of sales representatives that you’d only have to pay if they manage to refer a willing customer so in actual fact they do the hard work and you make a profit

Then there is viral marketing, this is the online equivalent of word of mouth advertising. It usually takes the form of giving something away for free, for as long as that something has a link or a simple reference to your business, you’re encouraging the recipient to spread the word about your business to the people he knows. This could result in the exponential expansion of your business message like wildfire.

There are numerous on line communities; forums and mailing lists are popular venues that you can use to convey your business message. Choose the popular ones who’s membership is free and you have nothing to lose. You could also create your own mailing list and start capturing leads for future sales by doing some value adding follow ups.

The Internet is a great place for promoting your business. There are five million people online at any given time and the world is, quite literally, your market. It would be best for your business to capitalize on this wonderful opportunity and expand your audience a thousand fold bigger!

And you wouldn’t have to build up a huge debt while you’re at it when you use a free web advertising strategy.

Paul Palmer

Time is money, use it wisely as you can never get it back once seen it’s never repeated

Here are three internet web site advertising methods you can use, through simply placing adverts on other sites and paying that website to show your add. The first of these is a sponsorship ad. This can include pictures and text and is usually a prominent feature of the website, hence the notion of sponsorship of that site.

Secondly you can use banner ads, similar to sponsorship adds but smaller in size and less pricey. When someone is looking on another website that may be similar in content or related in some way to your business, this banner ad will be in their line of vision, enticing them to follow it to your website.

The third way is a pay per click advert, whereby you pay the website each time someone follows the link to your website. This is an effective way to keep informed about where your traffic is coming from so you can focus on the most effective types of sites that is driving people towards your online business.

So, its not too difficult to start getting people towards your online business to increase your profitability but if you have a presence online, this kind of advertising is vital. There is no point in being a standard blank document online, your online business needs to be alive, organically developing and pushing people towards your business to make money through internet web site advertising.

Paul Palmer

You should understand the importance of getting your own website, but just as important is the web site promotion marketing system you use. It can be the central location to grow your business affecting not only on line sales, but also an excellent way to show your products to people you meet in person. A web site is used to capture visitor contact information or to promote your whole range of products and services, but you must start by establishing your web site.

It isn’t as easy as just getting the word out in the way you would on the high street. People get blasted with so much promotional material today that it a large proportion of what is available is ignored. Unfortunatley it is worse for advertising, particularly on line where we are all bombarded with one offer after another. The key to success is a plan of action, a strong focus on providing high quality content on your web site. People are looking for information rather than constant sales pitches. The provision of valuable content in your own terminology will raise your internet profile and help you with your web site promotion marketing.

A business web site has to be built up, you have to start small and plan for the medium to long term. It is improtant to realise that everything takes time and sometimes it is hard to be patient to grow your long term future and that of your business. While you put the effort in to build your presence  there are free internet web site promotion marketing techniques which everyone can use. Here are a few to start with ;

1. Submit your primary URL to Search Engines
Initially you shoudl focus on submitting your site to the top search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN. With time you will be indexed and you can expand your scope to include other search engines focussing particularly on any which specialise in your specific niche. There are of course software and online services which can be used to automate the process.

2. Submit your primary URL to directories 
There are quite literally 1000′s of web site directories online many of which require manual submissions and a backlink. This can be hard work, but the benefits are worth it, the result can be you get links back to your website giving you a higher authority  with the search engines which influences your ranking when someone searches online.

3. Contact other webmasters 
It is useful to research webmasters who provide link exchanges or doing joint venture agreements. The important issue here is to ensure the site linking to yours is relevant to your niche otherwise any links will be worthless. Do not trade links just for the sake of getting them, and becareful to avoid those sites who are in direct competition with your web site, after all you don’t want to help the competition. 

4. Private ads and classifieds
There are numerous classified advertising sites on line many of which are free for example; Craig’s List, US Free Ads and gumgtree. Private advertising works well too, but costs more of course

It is improtant to realise that web site promotion marketing takes time, rasiing your profile takes work, time and money. The methods detailed above are good tostart with, but of course there are many more.

Start with one of the tips above; get it up and running then move to the next. Above all be persistent. Track your results as not everything works for everyone, use it and soon you with have a tribe following you.

Paul Palmer

The easiest way to start making money online is with affiliate programs however many newbies to the scene gain limited income even when they follow the exact methods their upline is advising them to use. This is someimes because people look at the URL they are being forwarded to and “steal the commission”

When you are experienced in the field of affiliate marketing you learn the importance of affiliate links cloaking. Cloaking is used to avoid the issue mentioned above, there could potentially be a significant percentage of your hard earned visitors who intnetionally stop you gaining your commission if you don't use the cloaking. The following simple procedure can address this issue showing you how to cloak affiliate links using 301 redirect to avoid stealing your commission.

Here is an explanation on how your commission can be redirected. When you place the mouse over a link on any web page you will see at the bottom the web site the link is pointing, including your affiliate ID. Experienced users who see link such as  domain.tld/track.php?id=your-affiliate-id can sign up for the affiliate program, then generate their own affiliate link and use their own link before purchasing the product. In this way they are paid the commission rather than you.

You can avoid losing your affiliate commission being stealen you have to cloak your affiliate links. You can achieve this using a 301 redirect in this way the above method cannot be used since they will not see the affiliate link prior to being redirected to yours. This is how the 301 redirect works ;

Initially, rather than using links like domain.tld/track.php?id=your-affiliate-id use your-domain.tld/something.php. you need to create a file example.php, open this file in notepad and paste the following code into the file:

< ?Header( "HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently" ); Header( "Location: http://www.domain.tld/track.php?id=your-affiliate-id" ); ? >

This code will cause that the visitor will be automatically redirected to domain.tld/track.php?id=your-affiliate-id.

It's as simple as that. You can hide multiple links using different file names. Just rename example.php and edit the target URL. Your affiliate links are hidden and people are less likely to steal your affiliate commission.

Good luck with your affiliate programs.

Paul Palmer

 What are you going to do to turn a visitor into a customer? With its personal touch, a video testimonial could do just that.

Driving traffic to your website has never been an easy feat. If you’re in the business market, turning traffic into potential customers can be a long and frustrating journey.

A video testimonial is a customer giving their opinion of your service on video. It is more personal than a generic customer review tagged onto the bottom of your website with questionable authenticity.

To make your video you can consult a professional or by doing a simple Google search or, if you prefer, you can do it yourself. If you are choosing the latter, make sure you have the right equipment. Quality is everything when it comes to advertising so invest in a decent video camera or perhaps hire one.

Once you are set up, find out who is willing to participate. To make a good testimonial, the message needs to be sincere, clear and concise. 

Now that you have the equipment and your customers, you can begin the testimony itself. Keep it short – a good testimony should be short and sweet, no more than a couple of minutes long. Do a few takes, that way you can find the perfect one later. 

Whilst a video testimonial isn’t the be all and end all of successful internet marketing, a clear and sincere message from a happy customer is a good place to start.

Paul Palmer

Website content is the heart of a site, it is made up of the text on the page as well as the images and
videos and of course the structure the web site. The best way to build a relationship with your potential customers is to provide valuable and useful content if you can’t provide value, why would they want to come back.. The way your site looks when viewed is crucial to potential conversions but the nature of your content is essential to get the people there in the first place.

The top methods of getting traffic to your site are advertising such as pay per click and search engine optimisation.

Search engines are competitve in terms of the way a site is ranked, however since they account for over 90% of all traffic we have to join the competition if we want to get a significant amount of traffic. Bearing this in mind, businesses which are interested in gaining a share of the online market have to be committed to achieving top 10 rankings for the keyword phrases which relate to the products and services they are offering.

Many individuals believe the best way to obtain a return on your investment in on line real estate, your website is to take up the services of a company specialising in search engine optimisation. It is true that as a one off this is the best way to get top rankings, however what happens 6 months down the line when they have been to visit your top competitor who paid a little more than you. It is important that you also understand what they are doing, either gaining the knowledge yourself or bringing it into your company so that top rankings can be maintained over time, the alternative of course being to retain the expert services on an ongoing basis.

Personally when I work on a clients web site I don’t recommend optimisation on a one off basis since optimisation over time allows data to be collected relating to site performance and in particular relevant keywords. There are a numerous companies helping website owners get people coming to their site using organic search engine traffic. These are the search engine results where you don’t have to pay for the rankings, you are selected as top by the search engines based on the quality of your site.

Pay per click advertising is the fastest way to get web traffic by paying for advertisements on search engines,which appear alongside the search engine results. This method allows you to select the keywords you believe people who are likely to buy might be using. Unfortunately you can’t guarantee they will click nor that they will like what they see when they reach your site. This is where you have to monitor conversion. Conversion is the rate at which visitors make the decision or "convert" into customers.

Pay per click systems such as google have a built in system for monitoring conversion, they aren’t perfect of course as they may not fit exactly into your site design but they do make it a lot easier. By giving you an indication as to whether the campaign you are running is resulting in sales you can decide whether to increase the budget or change your advertising to something which might work better.

Obviously the more money you are willing to pay the more people you can get to visit your site since you have to pay for every click someone makes. Bear in mind however if you don’t set a budget you could soon end up with a bill much higher than the cost of a professional web site optimisation service.

Unfortunately there is no best way to get traffic to your site. however, search engine bots will crawl your site once it has been found and look for good quality unique content more than anything else. You may think this means nothing if you are intending to run a pay per click campaign, but you would be wrong. The cost of a click is dependant upon the relevance and content of your site based, for example; in the case of google adwords, on the quality score.

Search engines are designed to always provide the best results for their users, in this way their users are more likely to come back and use their service again. I hope this answers the question posed initially for you, if it doesn’t I shall now make it clear.

Your website content is important and should not be skimped upon, always offer value and people will come back time and again.

Paul Palmer

I’d love to hear about your experiences in SEO and PPC please leave a comment but if you want a reply please contact me on facebook as I have found the emails left here often don’t work for some reason.

It really takes very little influence which or affluence that makes a big difference in our lives and in the world. In professional baseball for example, most batters hit for an average of about .250, which means that they get one hit for every four times at bat. Anyone who hits .300, three hits out of ten, is considered a star. By the end of the season, there are only about a dozen players out of hundreds in the leagues who have maintained a .300 average, and these are the ones who get the big contracts, the acclaim, and the TV commercials.

In other words, the difference between the great players which or ordinary players who don’t is only one hit out of twenty! This slim margin of greatness in baseball symbolizes to me the dynamics of greatness in life, because when we use just a tiny bit more of our potential, we become outstanding human beings.

Now, the purpose of being outstanding is not to win acclaim or glory, but to be more of what we can be. If you accept the idea that most of your present limitations are not based on any unchangeable reality but are rather the result of beliefs you hold about your reality, then the next step is to deliberately and systematically change those beliefs.

It’s called possibility thinking, which or opportunity that is a skill you can learn. You have probably done it before . . .

Paul Palmer

What makes an excellent web site?

You need a site with a significant amount of traffic, acutal people not just search engine bots. A high quality server is essential to establish a rapid loading time and a significant amount of desirable unique content. Successful companies making most out of internet web site marketing employ a range of strategies to make their online business thrive.

Internet web site marketing begins with a relevant keyword rich domain name. Just you choose your brand name carefully, so your company domain name will help put you at the top of the list in the search engines.

The domain name you register must be easy to remember and preferably appealing to pronounce as part of your internet web site marketing strategy. It could cost you dearly if the name is a premium domain, but if its right the extra cost could be worth it. Alternatively you could consider a unique combination of names allowing you to select to a low cost domain name to register.

A couple of advantages of internet web site marketing is the interactive nature of the internet as well as the ubiquitous presence. Clients purchasing online can get what they need easily and privately without worrying about personal interaction. A deal can be completed discreetly without too much social interaction, although this may not be a good thing

To keep a good ranking you need to consider how keep the level of traffic up on a web site, you can use a range of methods with tangible and intangible items provided you are offering them a reason to visit. Site membership is often used, with a nominal payment up front. However this is not an easy option since it may discourage them from coming to your site in the first place.

Marketing your web site can become costly where you need to maintain a secure membership system. The most popular type of membership site is a forum since it provides a means for members to share and contribute to the site content while embracing their interests not just yours.

Unfortunately this is not the only area to consider when planning your internet web site marketing campaign. The rank of a site not only depends on what is on the site but also which other sites link to yours as well as their popularity. To show up on a search engine at a reasonable position it is important to have a linking strategy which shows the search engine spiders that your site is respected sufficiently by others to want to send people to it.

How do you know if you are doing a good job in setting up your internet web site marketing campaign? Do you wait and see if you get sales and then change something if you don’t get any orders? Of course not you have to monitor the amount of traffic coming to your site.

There are free systems such as google analytics to monitor the source of your visitors and how long they spend on your site. Sometimes however this isn’t enough to allow you to optimise your internet web site marketing campaign. There are a number of commercial packages available however most hosts also provide a system which just needs activating to start the capture of data. You must remember though monitoring data is only of benefit if you use it and improve your site accordingly.

Paul Palmer

Social networker, dancer and all round fun guy.

If you are in business on line and you are not on twitter you should put micro blogging twitter on your list of thngs to do in the high priority category. Its really easy, just 140 characters per post so you don’t have to spend hours thinking about what to say, although if you repeat the same thing again and again you won’t make any close friends.

Twitter is growing, the release of the API key meant companies jumped in a developed applications to get in on the micro blogging twitter bandwagon. Twitter can be accessed easily on home computers,  mobile phones, ipods, laptops and a whole host of mobile devices which is expanding evbery day. Twitter has its own search function and has become a huge platform for sharing and researching live information.

Many large businesses and celebrities have hundreds of thousands of followers on Twitter and use it to their advantage by micro blogging on twitter. They even run competitions and test the level of interest in new products with their micro blogging twitter strategy. Examples include IBM, Starbucks, Brittany Spears Oprah and many more besides.

Twitter is already a place where companies build brands, carry out market research, contact new prospective customers, attract e-commerce customers and market communities for their users. Even traditional retail businesses are being transformed by Twitter keeping their local customers informed.

Twitter users can make contact with other local users by adding approapriate keywords to their profiles and of course in their posts. Meetings are even arranged by twitter users turning virtual aquaintences into real friends.

Care must of course be taken in setting up a business campaign on Twitter direct communication with customers can be a good thing if they like what you are saying. However the community is a close one and saying the wrong thing is just as likely to turn them all against you, its very easy to unfollow someone. There are also numerous twitter tools available to manage your account and recommend to your colleagues to unfollwo someone you feel is "spamming" for example by only posting commercial links all the time.

Paul Palmer

Twitter addict

, social marketer, dancer and all round fun guy

When the student is ready the teacher will appear, have you ever thought about something so much every day that one day it just happened? A strong focus will lead you subconciously to your goal, but you have to create a subconcious drive, by reminding yourself about your goal every single day.

Anyone who has used an affirmation process will know the strength of using a positive belief system, how does it work> The mind is a wonderful thing, when the student is ready the teacher will appear, not literally, the teacher won’t land in front of you in a flash of smoke, but opportunities will be noticed, not pointed out not something that wasn’t there before but something real you could have seen before.

A good example is increasing your income, everyone wants to have the money they need to pay for their house, put food on the table and care for their family. However is that a focussed goal which one can easily aim for? It certainly is not and nor woudl it put the student, you in a position, sub-conciously, ready to find a teadcher to help you reach your goal. Only when a student is ready the teacher will appear and not until the student really believes he or she is ready.

Many of us dream of a lifestyle only achieved by the rich and famous, but how do they get there in the first place, drive and determination, good luck or just choosing the right lottery numbers. I’m sure you will agree that the rich and famous all have to work hard to get there, it’s not something which happens overnight.

You can achieve your goals, but only if you know what they are in the first place, after all if you are unaware of the direction you are going in how on earth will you manage to get there? Attempting to succeed without a goal is like getting into your car to drive to the shops and hoping you get there without actually touching the steering wheel. How many times will you crash and burn before you arrive?

Success is a journey, one which has a beginning and a goal, a destination, but not necessarily the final destination but rather steps en route

Paul Palmer