Website content, as articles, has taken center stage as web publishers scramble to differentiate their online offers. As both the quantity and quality of articles have accelerated, so too have online directories. These directories often resemble mere lists, but they can be powerful content additions that serve to deepen the value of the overall selling proposition by helping users in locating critical, related resources that for the visitor is otherwise much too time consuming.

On today's websites, it is not uncommon to find online databases designed to provide the data-hungry website visitor with more comprehensive database management functions which are far superior to list-style directories. At a minimum, we find web-driven data pages that include search and display functions which facilitate quick and easy manipulation of back-end SQL databases. Many sites also include options to add, edit, delete, print, and even download data directly from the database to the desktop, all enabled with multiple levels of login/password security. While this is not revolutionary, the technical expertise required to build database-driven web pages has been the domain of more sophisticated online publishers who not only owned the back end database outright, but possessed the required expertise to build and maintain such access for their loyal constituents.

But that has all changed. A flurry of new, low-cost desktop tools have entered the scene, leveling the playing field for the budget-strapped internet marketer who, until recently, was limited to throwing in a basic "telephone book" style directory in an attempt to bolster his value proposition.

Three such tool categories warrant a closer look:

Web data extraction tools costing less than $400 enable web content, as "repeating data", to be easily extracted to MS Excel, MS Access, or virtually any SQL database in high volume. This data serves to build, or at least augment the publisher's's new online database. (Ideally, one should first obtain permission from the website owner before scraping large volumes of data).

The next challenge is to manipulate the collected data now resident in multiple files, and often in disparate data formats. Though list processing applications have long been available, lower cost tools now offer powerful merge/purge capabilities without the need to import and export files in the process. Some simple routines and the data is ready to upload to the database on the host web server.

Finally, the publisher builds the web pages which access the database. Perhaps most exciting is the arrival of a wide variety of desktop code generators, many which are open source, that allow a non-programmer to build customized web pages that rival the database search, display, add, edit,delete and download capabilities previously reserved for the more technical publisher. No longer is the web publisher required to know a single SQL command to accomplish this feat. Amazingly, most of these tools generate pure PHP or PERL code. All that remains is to upload the generated code to the host database and the project is complete. The website now houses a "living, breathing" database, to the extent that the publisher desires to maintain fresh data.

One of the more common, and simple applications of database-driven web pages is to build versatile Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) pages. Questions and answers can be queried by category (e.g. pricing, product) or keyword (e.g. sporting goods), while enriching the users support experience.

How can such newfound capabilities be monetized? The possibilities are plenty. Limited datasets can be made freely searchable and viewable for casual visitors, though it's usually wise to request that the user register even if membership is free. The idea is to prime the pump, getting casual users to thirst for more comprehensive database access. Extended and full database access can be reserved only for paid members.

Never has a publisher had such power to build data-rich content that can serve to immediately strengthen his unique selling sales proposition. In the old paradigm, he who owned the data held all the power. Today, data is everywhere for the internet entrepreneur. By applying the latest database tools, any website publisher can now cement the most loyal of customer relationships by ensuring that his customer has a reason to keep coming back.

Web visitors have a difficult enough time sorting out the perceived sameness of online offerings. For the content builder, there are few better methods to establish and lock in immediate credibility with customers than to implement an easily accessible database that underscores the site's overall content theme.

Online, there are an unlimited number of websites. New websites are being developed each day. Most websites can be classified as personal websites, but professional websites are also being developed. If you are operating one of these websites, particularly a professional website, you may need to use the services of a professional website marketing specialist.

Professional website marketing specialists are individuals or companies that are trained and experienced in the marketing of a website. If you hire the services of a marketing specialist, their goal will be to increase the amount of traffic that your website receives. Additional services may be offered, but many specialists are concerned with website traffic.

When it comes to professional website marketing, there are many individuals and companies that claim to be specialists. If you are interested in obtaining the services of a website marketing specialist, you will see that you literally have an unlimited number of options. Your first impulse may be to obtain the services of the first individual or company that you see, but you are advised against doing this. While you may assume that all marketing specialists offer the same services, not all do.

Perhaps, the first thing that you should do is find a number of different individuals or companies that have website marketing experience. You will want to examine the services that they offer and the cost of those services. You may even want to create a simple chart. Developing a chart or just writing down the information will make it easier for you to compare all of your choices.

As previously mentioned, it is important to examine the cost of using the services of a website marketing specialist. You will want to find an individual or company that is offering affordable service, but you should also keep in mind that you get what you pay for.

Searching for a website marketing specialist based solely on price is not advised. You will also what to examine what services they are offering.

All website marketing specialists should advertise what their services are upfront. This information should be used to determine if the fee for those services is worth the money. When searching for a marketing specialist you may want to look for some of the most popular website marketing features. These features may include, but should not be limited to, e-mail marketing, search engine optimization, pay per click management, link integration, and much more.

The services you will be provided with and the amount of money they cost are the most important things to consider when obtaining the services of a professional website marketing specialist. It may also be a good idea to examining their timeline. A professional website marketing specialist should be able to give you an exact date, or at least an estimated one, as to when you should start seeing an increase in your website’s traffic.

By taking the time to research, examine, and fully compare a number of website marketing specialists, you should be able to make the best decision for your online business. With the services of a marketing specialist, you will likely see that your website traffic will increase, as well as your profits.

Today, it's easy to create a static web site. But on the surface it appears hard to create a dynamic, community based web site. Why create a community web site? Because it means that your users will be able to interact with your site rather than just view it. They will be able to add content, upload photos, post their own profiles, and even talk to each other via chat or instant messaging.

Online communities are all around us. Practically everyone has heard of MySpace and Yahoo Groups. If you're putting a web site up, however, why not hold onto your users rather than forcing them to go to another web site to share information and talk to each other? If you don't give your users the ability to do what they want on your web site, they will go elsewhere, and you will lose the ability to interact with them and see what they have to say. Moreover, every time one of the visitors to your web site posts some content, it makes your site more attractive to the search engines, which delivers more traffic to your site, resulting in more business for you.

Building a community web site is easy and can be free with the right software. Open source software, which is free of charge, makes it possible for you to get a community web site up and running in a matter of minutes or hours. You can think of a community web site much like a blog, except that instead of you being the only person who can post content, all visitors to your web site can post content too! That means you don't have to stay up trying to create page after page: your users will do that for you.

The open source software program drupal is a popular system for putting communities online. Drupal supports a wide variety of features, from basic content uploading, to support for user profiles, chatting, tagging, and voting. Suppose you're creating a web site about travel. With a community based travel web site, your users can talk about their own experiences too and vote on places to stay and things to see and do.

Among the many advantages of drupal is that you can start off with basic functionality and then add modules to enhance the core feature set. You can even design your own custom modules (or have others design custom modules for you) to enable new functionality.

Though stringent measures have been taken to secure the information pertaining to federal government employees, lapses often take place and vital information is leaked either inadvertently or due to a laxity in vigilance. The result is that vital data about federal employees finds its way into the pages of popular websites and newspapers.

These cases come to the notice of vigilant public viewers, who then report these lapses to the press. This proves to be extremely embarrassing for the concerned department, not to mention the damage that the leaked data causes.

Data leakage is not entirely caused by hackers. Sometimes, the lapses may be due to the carelessness or the negligence of the concerned department. Take the example of the social security number, which is issued to all citizens of the USA. A social security number is well-guarded and precious personal information, which can be misused if it falls into the wrong hands. Yet this lapse occurred by none other than the US Department of Justice, which inadvertently published social security numbers on its website. When the blunder was brought to the notice of the department, it admitted its mistake and removed the numbers, but this example shows that all data leakage is not just the prerogative of hackers alone, and organizations, too, have to be vigilant and alert. The point is that though departments take all possible measures to reduce such lapses, they do occur. This may be due to the absent-mindedness of the employees, or the careless handling of back-up tapes.

One way to secure data is to get it encrypted. Yet many organizations do not adopt this measure because of the high costs involved in data encryption. Also, the process of data encryption is very complex.

Before adopting new security measures, organizations should conduct a test run to ensure that there are no loopholes. Also, employees who have to handle data transmission should be adequately trained so that lapses do not occur.

Keeping your computer in top shape is an important aspect to an online business. Why? Without it, you are not in business, or your business will come to a complete halt. There are simple things that you can do to keep your computer safe and running at top-notch speed.

Your Computer You can keep your computer in top shape if you maintain it properly. Clean the inside of the unit and make sure that your have enough fans in your unit to keep the components cool. Fans can help extend the life of your computer.

Operating System If you are going to be doing business on-line, I would recommend XP Professional, this operating system is more robust than the home version.

Utility Software AntiVirus software is a necessity if you work online. You can go with the free AntiVirus software, although there is no guarantee that they will always be diligent in keeping the antivirus definitions current. Or you can go with the paid AntiVirus, such as Norton antivirus, or CA Associates EZ AntiVirus. Whatever you choose, no protection is definitely online suicide whether you have an online business or you surf the net.

Without any security, I would not do any personal transactions online. Why? You would be a sitting duck for keyloggers -- which are hackers that attach a program to catch your log-in info.

I would also run an Adware Program along with your antivirus software, such as Ad-Aware SE Personal, which is free. This will hold you for awhile, but later you may want to move up to the paid version.

One last free option is to scan your computer with an online tool called ShieldsUP. ShieldsUP will scan your system for any possible backdoors in which hackers can get in. Just go to Google Search and type in ShieldsUP for a free scan.

Daily Computer Maintenance You can manually keep your computer clean and running by doing the following:

Open up your Internet Explorer, hit Tools, hit Internet Options, and go to the Temporary Internet Files. Here you can delete cookies and files online and offline. In addition, go into History, right under the Temporary Internet Files, and clean that as well.

Or you can get a neat program that does a lot of window washing for you. It's called "Free Internet Window Washer", and as the name implies it is free. However, they do accept donations to keep their expenses down. This little program washes system files, MS Office programs, Internet Temporary Files for Mozilla FireFox, Internet Explorer, Netscape and Opera, and more. You can grab a free copy by going to my tools section and hitting the "Internet Tools Section".

Hard-Drive You know your hard-drive will not last forever (in most cases, it can last about 5 years if you are lucky), so it is always wise to have a back-up hard-drive piggy-backed to the main if the main drive fails. Or, you can have all the information on another computer and run Norton Ghost to upload the info from one computer to the new hard-drive.

Back-up Data It is always wise to backup your data and software programs, in the event your computer crashes and you have to reload everything from start to finish again. Your back-up data will save you time.

Important data, such as transactions should not sit on your desktop. You should keep them offline to protect yourself from hackers, should one get through to your computer.

It can happen. It's scary to see a search box pop up in front of you, and it ask's "what do you want to look at next"! If you see something on that order, shut down your computer to get them off-line, and increase your security -- or find out where the hole is in your security system. Such as, turning off a portion of your security and forgetting to turn it back on? Trust me, it may happen once, but after that, it will not happen again.

But never fear, this article will help prepare you to stay well protected from any Internet Baddy.

So what dangers are there

Well, there are a lot. This articles intent is not to go into detail on these dangers, but just to help describe ways you can protect yourself while online.

Briefly, here's a list of the most common dangers:

Malware: These are little programs that can get onto your computer, either through email, by downloading "free" software that is infected by it or even just by surfing a site that exploits a bug in your browser. Malware includes things like viruses, trojans, spyware, and many more. Identity Theft: An individual farms information about a particular person, and at some point is able to take on that persons "identity" often for financial gain, and financial and reputational loss of the victim Phishing: A psychological threat where victims are fooled into giving up confidential personal information such as usernames, passwords and/or account numbers.

There are others, but lets get to how to protect yourself.

Firewall:

The firewall is a piece of software that monitors traffic going out of and traffic coming into your computer over the Internet. This piece of software is essential to any Internet user, as it will protect from automated hacking by little Internet spider programs, as well as from spyware and trojans, as it wont let important information about you get out of the computer.

The good news is that a good firewall can be gotten free. And its a darn good free firewall too. The firewall is called Zone Alarm, and by clicking here and then clicking the download link, you can go ahead and get it. The licence is for non-business use, so you can also go for one of their business packages, which is a more advanced version.

Anti-Virus

Anti virus is also a good thing to get. If the firewall doesn't stop something getting in in the first place, then a good antivirus can find it and remove it. Once you do have a good anti-virus, it is a good idea to scan your computer regularly for viruses.

The good news is that you can also get good free antivirus. The Internet really can be a good place. Its called AVG Antivirus and by clicking here you can start downloading this great piece of free software.

Anti-Spyware

Spyware is a program that has morphed from a nuisance to a down right menace. Spyware is designed to capture information on your computer activites. Some spyware use that information to put pop-ups onto your screen with advertising that the developers think is relevant. Other spyware simply gathers information in order to defraud you. Whatever the reason, you have to get spyware protection.

Some more good news. There is also free anti-spyware software available. By going here and then clicking on the link on the left that says "Adaware Personal" then clicking the "Download Now" button, you can get free anti-spyware. Its that easy.

Phishing

Now, there really hasn't been anything good come along to protect Internet users from this relatively new problem. But simple common sense will prevail here.

Phishing is an attempt to defraud a potential victim. Normally a potential victim recieves an email from some source they normally trust. Often these emails will try to get the user to click a link inside an email to go to the site and use their login details. These sites are actually then not the genuine sites, but spoofs of the originals. It is simply done to try and phish (see the relevance now) for account detials which the fraudsters can then use for financial gain.

So, if you recieve any email with a link to a site asking for user name and password details, dont click the link. Rather open your browser (like Internet Explorer) and type in the address yourself to that site. If the email was accurate, the details should be there as well, so no harm was done.

Generally, with the right tools, and a bit of common sense, an Internet user can remain safe without having anything nasty happen to them. And I sincerely hope that many people read this article, so that the Internet is just that much safer.

Automation makes running any online business a total breeze. More importantly, only by automating your whole online business will you achieve the freedom and lifestyle that makes Internet Marketing so attractive to millions of people worldwide.

The Internet is tailor made for automation. It can retrieve, process and transmit data at a lightning speed. It can keep track of billions of pieces of information on a single server. In reality, the whole system is one giant automated machine run by countless servers and an ever decreasing number of wires as the web goes wireless.

And then there is the computer -- your main business automation tool. The computer is the perfect automation tool. It can handle incoming data, process files, and dispense information all within the blink of an eye. Computers are the real workhorses of our modern age -- they do most of the work for us. They are so important, running any competitive online or off-line business now without a computer would be hard to imagine, not to mention foolhardy.

Combine these two key elements with automated marketing software and running any business on automation will indeed seem like a total breeze. It all comes down to numbers, with the Internet and computers, you can handle, sell and process a million units as easy as you can handle ten units.

Computers and the web make these large numbers possible. They make marketing online not only viable but also very lucrative. Whole automated marketing systems can be put into place, bringing in revenue automatically. Virtual auto income machines can be created.

Let's look closely at some examples and discover what you need in order to put these automated marketing systems to work for you.

Let's say you have a digital information product that you wish to sell online. Your automated marketing system will probably start with the acquisition of a domain name www.widgets-info.com and construction of an online website where customers can purchase and download your product.

Designing your own site and sales letter will take some work and you must know what you're doing or all the automation in the world will be pointless because if your online site doesn't convert traffic into sales, it's game over. Your site or online business MUST convert your visitors into paying customers.

Many marketers hire or get someone else to design their profit generating sites for them. You may have to pay highly for a good professional quality site and high quality sales copy but it is the key to the success of your whole marketing operation.

A well optimized website will pull in free targeted traffic from the different search engines automatically. A high quality sales letter or copy will then convert this traffic into sales and income automatically. To increase sales many marketers buy their traffic from Pay-Per-Click advertising such as those services offered by Google Adwords or Yahoo's Overture.

Once you have targeted traffic hitting your website... all your marketing procedures can be automated. In most cases, with simple software programs that will run your online business on auto-pilot.

Most professional marketers capture the contact information of their visitors. They follow up with the grand daddy of all automated systems -- the autoresponder. Studies have consistently shown, it usually takes from 6 to 7 follow-up emails before a customer buys your product. The autoresponder is one automated tool you must use with your online business.

Many marketers offer ecourses or free newsletters as a way of automatically keeping in touch with customers or potential customers. An autoresponder can draw visitors back to your site and marketing page again and again, to hear your sales pitch. It is the vital element in your automated marketing system.

Automation of your whole checkout system can be done with programs like ClickBank, PayPal or 1ShoppingCart... these automated checkout systems will take your customers through the checkout process and can deliver digital products or software downloads immediately.

Here Are Some Automation Tips:

* Use autoresponders for follow-ups and building contact lists
* Use automated checkout systems like ClickBank or 1ShoppingCart
* Use simple online videos to explain complex tasks or products
* Use Google Sitemaps to automatically index and update your pages
* Use organic SEO tactics like keyword rich articles to get traffic
* Use RSS feeds to automatically syndicate your content and articles
* Use RSS feeds to automatically build content and webpages
* Use datafeeds to automatically update your products or content
* Use audio testimonials to warm up visitors (the net is a cold place)
* Use a well defined Frequently Asked Questions page or pages
* Use Paypal or a similar system for paying your online business bills
(hosting, advertising, promotions) and for receiving payments/commissions
- this way you can be away from your business for long periods
of time and everything will still run smoothly, on auto-pilot

Once all these elements have been put into place: your targeted traffic, your website with sales page and checkout cart, your autoresponders with follow-up messages, your delivery of purchased products, and a payment system to pay your bills/receive your commissions or payments... you will have constructed an automated system that will deliver sales and income 24/7/365. There are countless websites and businesses on the web doing exactly that -- automatically running and earning money for their owners.

Another popular online business model uses affiliate programs and advertising such as Google Adsense as their main sources of income, instead of offering products for sale.

If you are developing a product to sell on the Internet, then the information in this article can help you multiply your sales before you even start selling it.

Let me explain:

Most people don't know this but, back when Napoleon Hill was creating, “Think and Grow Rich”, (the legendary book about making money and achieving success in business) he went to his publisher and his original title was, “How to Use Your Noodle to Make a Boodle”.

Now, let me ask you something: Do you honestly think his book would have been published at all -- much less turned into a virtual success cult classic in the business world -- if they had let him keep that title?

I don't think so either.

In fact, I bet that book would have flopped so bad it would have died on the vine as soon as it was published.

But it didn't die. Instead it is now one of the single highest selling books on making money and achieving success ever created.

So what's my point? What does this have to do with the product you are creating to sell on the Internet?

This: The title is critically important to your overall sales. In fact, entire books and detailed studies have been written on the importance of titles in relation to sales. A good title can sometimes sell a terribly written book or information product, even if the advertising is sloppy and the marketing flawed.

It is not something to be decided at the last minute, on a whim. Nor is it something anyone but you or your marketing people should decide after a lot of thought and study.

So as you create your product, put a lot of thought into the title. Doing so can make a gigantic difference in your overall sales and profits, no matter what you are selling or who you are selling to.

If you are a loan officer or mortgage broker looking to keep your name, and your products and services in the face of the public, you may want to consider internet marketing.

You may be thinking to yourself that you are not savvy enough with a computer in order to market via the internet.

Well, these days you don’t have to be, thanks to blogs.

One of the best ways to market yourself and your products is with your own personal blog.

Trust me, it is easier than you think.

Anyone can set up a blog in no more than five minutes and it is absolutely free. It is only a matter of finding a blog provider, which can be done very easily with a google search.

Once you have set up your blog, including domain name and template which the blogger will help you out with, you will be good to go.

On the blog, you can post a biography of yourself, as well as your picture, and the products and services you have to offer.

Now, you can add your blog address to your business card, and tell people in face to face networking to visit your blog.

Blogs are also great for long distance loan customers that you work with. By telling them to visit your blog, they can see your picture and will be able to put a face with your name. This is a great way for them to find a comfort level with you.

By using the internet as a marketing tool, you have added a great weapon to your arsenal of marketing strategies. Best of luck.

If you decided to use email marketing to promote your business, then let me congratulate you on this very wise decision.

You might have read over the internet the buzz created by this type of marketing, and I’m sure you have already learned that “The money is in your list” – this is 100% true.

Even though email marketing is a very powerful way to transform leads into hungry buyers many people are discouraged to use this technique because of the time they need to invest in it. A recent study has showed that about 75 % of people who use email marketing need between 15 and 50 hours per week to handle it.

If you’re like me, then you’re a very busy person who can’t afford to spend that much time just on email marketing. So this is why I decided to make a list of the great advantages brought by Mailloop 7.0. , the best email marketing software on the net.

1. You get an opt-in form template which comes with full instructions so you can easily add it to your site.

2. It automatically stores every email saving you precious time and headaches.

3. It e-mails new subscribers a welcome message just moments after opting in. No more preparing and sending e-mails to hundreds, even thousands of subscribers manually.

4. Mailloop gives you attractive looking templates to use for your newsletter so that it looks friendlier to your subscribers.

5. It keeps your e-mail safe from spam complaints, blacklists or filters so that it doesn’t get trashed.

6. You can schedule your promotions so that you can go on your vacation without worrying about interrupting campaigns.

7. You can use as many autoresponders as you need, create as many campaigns, write as many emails as you wish … the sky’s the limit.

8. Manage all of this from a complete user-friendly control panel.

Firstly, why would you want to be responsible?

1. Reputation – keep it intact.
2. Improving customer relationships (and not harming them).
3. To be a good internet citizen, and make the internet a better place.

Responsible email marketing consists of the following:

Subscribers – only email those people who have subscribed to receive your emails, or where you can justifiably demonstrate that their consent to receive your emails has been implied. So what is justifiable? Here are a couple of examples:

A. You have a bowl in your premises asking people to drop in their business card to win a prize, and you have a notice on the bowl that email addresses will be added to your mailing list to receive information from your business.

B. As part of the process of selling a product to a person, you ask for the customer’s email address.

Relevance – only send out information that is relevant to the recipient and associated with the purpose for which you received the email. For example, if you gathered the email address in response to selling a motor vehicle to a customer then sending that customer an email about a business opportunity would be inappropriate. However, sending an email about vehicle accessories, servicing, road-side assistance and new vehicles may be relevant.

Volume – I recently ordered self-address label printing from an online printer. After receiving the printed material, I now receive approximately one email per day regarding some deal or other, or requesting that I complete a survey. The constant emails are very annoying. With each email I receive I become:

1) less likely to recommend the company to anyone else, despite the fact that their service was very good and inexpensive, and

2) less likely to order from the company again, and more likely to ask to be removed from their email list.

Keep the number of emails you send to your contacts to a reasonable volume!

Attachments – keep them small in size; no more than 300KB. You can't assume that everyone has broadband and therefore can download emails quickly. Nor can you assume that everyone checks their email everyday and wont run the risk of exceeding their mailbox size limit.

Unsubscribe – always give the recipient the opportunity to unsubscribe from your emails, and make it easy. To make this easy for yourself you should use an un-subscribe service, which will also ensure that you don’t accidentally send a later email to that address. The only time you may send another email would be to confirm that you have in fact removed the recipient from your list, and to ask for feedback as to why they wish to be removed (if you didn’t get this at the time they un-subscribed).

Business or Pleasure – try to only send business information to business email addresses, and only send personal information to personal addresses. In this way, a person will consider their personal email most likely when they are at home outside of working hours and will have the time to focus on it. On the other hand, they will receive their business related email at work, rather than during the personal time. If at all possible, when you collect an email address find out whether it is a personal or business address, and try to obtain both types of email addresses. If one of the email addresses bounces (i.e. the email cannot be delivered, perhaps a person has moved employment), having an alternative email address can be helpful.

Bouncing – don't continue to send emails to addresses that have previously bounced. This is just increasing the traffic on the internet for no good purpose.

Email Format – give recipients the choice of receiving text only emails (as opposed to HTML format), and then only send the format that they choose. The recipients who only want text emails (for security or other reasons) will be very grateful.

Much of the characteristics of responsible email marketing described above are actually embodied in spam legislation. Spam legislation also applies to SMS and other electronic messages. It is no longer a matter of just being considerate and maintaining your reputation, but also a matter of law.

Email marketing is big business. It can boost your sales and skyrocket your profits in your online business. Once you set it up it literally runs itself.

Email marketing involves sending your offers or sales messages to interested prospects. It is one of the most cost-effcetive of all marketing methods.

Setting up an email marketing campaign is simple and you can do it without requiring any sophisticated equipment or resources.

You'll need an autoresponder service to automate the process. You simply preload your autoresponder service with your messages, set the intervals of the delivery of your messages, and you're done.

When running an email marketing campaign, you'll have to have a way of capturing your prospect's contact details. Using freebies is an incredible marketing tool. It is a great way to entice people to join your list. You can give away a report, ebook or other item that will be of value to your target prospects.

By giving something for free to your prospects, you can almost instantly ensure your success in getting people to subscribe to your mailing lists.

There are hundreds, even thousands of downloadable products, such as ebooks, reports and software, you can give out for free to your site visitors in order to get them to join your lists.

You can make huge amounts of money with email marketing. But you have to find out how successful email marketers do it and follow in their footsteps.

If you are developing a product to sell on the Internet, then the information in this article can help you multiply your sales before you even start selling it.

Let me explain:

Most people don't know this but, back when Napoleon Hill was creating, “Think and Grow Rich”, (the legendary book about making money and achieving success in business) he went to his publisher and his original title was, “How to Use Your Noodle to Make a Boodle”.

Now, let me ask you something: Do you honestly think his book would have been published at all -- much less turned into a virtual success cult classic in the business world -- if they had let him keep that title?

I don't think so either.

In fact, I bet that book would have flopped so bad it would have died on the vine as soon as it was published.

But it didn't die. Instead it is now one of the single highest selling books on making money and achieving success ever created.

So what's my point? What does this have to do with the product you are creating to sell on the Internet?

This: The title is critically important to your overall sales. In fact, entire books and detailed studies have been written on the importance of titles in relation to sales. A good title can sometimes sell a terribly written book or information product, even if the advertising is sloppy and the marketing flawed.

It is not something to be decided at the last minute, on a whim. Nor is it something anyone but you or your marketing people should decide after a lot of thought and study.

So as you create your product, put a lot of thought into the title. Doing so can make a gigantic difference in your overall sales and profits, no matter what you are selling or who you are selling to.

As someone who uses audio to sell with more than any other Internet media I always get people asking me why I don't use video. That video is the "wave of the future" for Internet marketing and why don't I use it?

It's a good question. And truth is I do use video for certain products. But if you are using audio to sell, and do it in a way where it is not so much a "sales pitch", but is more of a free report that gives good, solid information people can really use, then there is no need to mess around with other media.

Because with audio, you can reach those people who are in their cars a lot, who move around a lot. People who have time to maybe burn audio to a CD but don't have time to sit there and watch a video on their computer screen.

With audio, people are hearing your message, and being sold on your product (again, if you do it right, and make it a "disguised" sales pitch) when they are jogging, taking a shower, picking their kids up at school or riding their bike.

And, because audio is so convenient and easy, there is a much better chance of the person listening to your pitch multiple times. Unlike a video or book which time permits maybe one or two exposures -- max.

So the message is clear: audio is a great selling tool. And if you do it in a way where it is more information than "sales pitch" -- where people can learn and be educated on what you sell and feel like they are getting real value from it -- it can multiply the chances of you making the sale.

Almost everyone selling on the Internet will agree the easiest way to sell a product is to do a "bill me later" or "try it before you buy it" offer.

In other words, you send them the product and don't charge their credit card or cash their check for X number of days.

The only problem with this is, it almost always tends to explode refunds. In fact, you can strangled by refunds if you don't really understand how this works.

One expert on this is a guy names Vic Conant (of the world famous company Nightingale Conant). I recently had a chance to interview him and I asked him how his company deals with this issue. They send almost everything out "on approval" and yet, they get a low refund rate. They have been doing it since 1978 and their business has never looked back.

His secret for keeping refund rates down?

Simple:

1.) They only mail to highly qualified lists -- lists of people who are serious, have spent money and not likely to take advantage of the situation and be shady.

2.) They have a sophisticated collection process.

Frankly, and I've witnessed this with my own business, having a great collection process is almost mandatory with a try-it-before-you-buy-it offer. Especially if you sell on the Internet, to people all over the world.

Now, that doesn't mean you have to be a bully or threaten them or anything. In fact, Vic Conant told me they basically use guilt. They don't yell and scream or anything like that, they use good old fashioned guilt and it works very well.

Anyway, if you want to start exploding the sales for your Internet marketing business, test a try-it-before-you-buy-it offer. Just make sure you have a good collection system in place and you are only going after your list or a highly qualified list.

I've been in business almost all my life. I've sold everything from toothpicks dipped in cinnamon syrup (when I was in grade school) to $4,000 information products.

And during that time I've picked up quite a few ideas on how to cut down refund rates any Internet marketer can use. I will reveal the biggest one here in this article.

Here's what it comes down to:

Whether it’s a physical product or a digital product, if it’s a crappy product and it’s not worth what the person’s paid, they’re going to refund it. They’ll send it back in the mail or they’ll just say, “Don’t charge my card.” Or “I want a refund.” Refunds are almost always directly proportionate to the value you give. ??Think about it:

Let’s say you do a poor job in your sales letter and you make promises you don’t deliver.

They’re going to say, “The sales letter said this and I’m not getting this. I feel like I’ve been misled.” They’ll refund. ??On the other hand, if you over deliver and give them more than you told them they were going to get, then they’re extremely happy. They are going to love it. They are going to feel they got MORE Than their money's worth. They are not going to feel they were suckered or ripped off.

And really, that's what it comes down to in the end.

People just don’t want to be ripped off. Especially online, where they don't really know where you live or who to contact if they get screwed over.

They want to feel like they got the value that they paid. If you deliver on your product and deliver true value for that customer they’re not going to refund. If you under deliver (and over promise) you might as well not even sell your product.

Because even if you did get a sale that wasn't refunded, that person is probably never going to buy from you again.

I have a TON of audio interviews and content on my websites. In fact, I have over 120 hours of pure audio content with well over 50 experts in various different fields on all kinds of different topics.

And because of all this content, I once played around with the idea of having a membership site where people would pay me a monthly fee for access to all this content.

What happened?

It flopped. It just didn’t work.

At the time, I had 60 hours of content and I piled on the bonuses.

I would get people to sign up. I had a "gold" and a "platinum" membership. I had $19.95 a month and I had a $29.95 a month and it was for access to all the audio recordings and some other content.

But I realized it just wasn’t happening.

I had it set up as an ongoing monthly automatic recurring membership that I set up with PayPal. And people would sign up on the membership site and they would download everything and then they would just cancel their membership.

And so, because of this, I decided instead of having a pay membership site, I would use my audio content to sell people on me and to sell people on the content, and use the audio recordings as a way to get people to the site over and over again.

Now that has worked like gangbusters.

Not just to build my credibility and name and all that, but to make me a lot of money.

How?

Because let’s say I do an audio interview with someone on -- for example -- joint ventures.

And we talk all about joint ventures, what they are, how to use them, some of the best secrets, etc.

Well, what happens then is when people who like that audio come and I capture their attention, I then direct them to an offer or sales letter about joint ventures.

By that time there is no question of my credibility and knowledge and people read the sales letter which further sells them, further opens their mind to what I have, and they buy.

Internet businesses are on the rise. Everyone has something or a knowledge of something that they could utilize to create an online business. If you have a product or services to sell you need website presence to promote your services. In this day and time, if you are not on the internet, you are not in business.

My son left Texas some 15 years ago and moved to Connecticut where he began his online business. He worked for various ad agencies and built websites for many companies. Eventually, he developed his own site that draws millions of visitors monthly. As far as I can tell, he does pretty well with his site http://www.biggerfish.com.

Even my 12 year-old granddaughter built a website last summer to sell her ice pack covers. We purchased her a sewing machine and she went to town, sewing ice pack covers for chiropractors in our town. She even confiscated all of my business cards and called my clients to sell them over the phone!

The internet has become the future of selling for the world. From ebay to Craig's list, selling is what everyone on the internet is doing. If you have a product or service, build a website or a blog. Add your site manually to the search engines to get yourself in the public eye. Add Adsense or one of the other online ads from MSN or Yahoo to your site. This will help in promoting your site.

When building a site, try and get a domain name that best describes your business or try and get your actual business name as your domain name. You can search to see if a certain name is available at register.com or godaddy.com. Of course, there are other sites as well that offer these services, but these are the ones I use.

If you are not computer literate, there are companies all over that will build a site for you for a price. Classifieds on the Internet are another way to promote yourself. There are many free classifieds on the internet. Search them out and use them. This is the best way to get your information out there for the world to see.

There are many sites on the internet to help you build a website. For a minimal fee, you can have a website up in an hour or so and you are on your way with your "internet" business.

Additionally, once you get your site or blog up and running, you can add content to them daily or weekly. You may want to check out the many article directories, such as this one, to write and post articles that will promote you and what you know and what you do.

With the billions of dollars spent on advertising daily, internet marketing is the least expensive to utilize. Be consistent, persistent and tenacious. Within a year, you should see the fruits of your labor, if not sooner.