FREEBizTraffic Classroom

Need help setting up your Internet-based business?
Internet Income is the answer! SFI's exclusive course series by George Little provides step-by-step instruction and help in plain English on how to start and run a profitable online business. New courses added each month!

Course Index:
Lesson #        Description
       1                What Not To Do—Spam 
       2                The Potential Of Internet Income
       3                Introduction To Internet Traffic
       4                The 10 most common Internet marketing methods used by successful SFI affiliates.
       5                The 10 most common Internet marketing methods...(continued)
       6                History of affiliate programs.
       7                How to get started on building your team of affiliates in SFI.
       8                "Doorway" Pages—Part 1 of 2.
       9                "Doorway" Pages—Part 2 of 2.
      10               Introduction to search engines.
      11               Lesson #11:  Introduction to meta tags. 
      12               Submitting your Website with the Yahoo! search engine.
      13               The Google search engine.
      14               The Open Directory Project (DMOZ).
      15               Paying for search engine attention and ranking—an overview
      16               Starting Your First Web Project.
      17               Starting Your First Web Project, Part 2.
      18               Starting Your First Web Project, Part 3.
      19               Starting Your First Web Project, Part 4.
      20               Starting Your First Web Project, Part 5.
      21               Starting Your First Web Project, Part 6.
      22               Starting Your First Web Project, conclusion.
      23               Free Advertising Strategies – Part 1
      24               Free Advertising Strategies – Part 2
      25               Blogs
      26               In-Context Link Placement
      27               Can-Spam Act Of 2003
      28               Running an Efficient System
      29               Overcoming Obstacles—Workthroughs & Workarounds
      30               Making Information Flow
      31               The Importance of Information Retrieval Science
      32               Information Retrieval - Understanding Databases
      33               Information Retrieval - Searching Text
      34               Reciprocal Links
      35               More on Link Building
      36               Syndicated Content - Real Simple Syndication
      37               Creating and Promoting Your Own RSS Feeds
      38               Promoting Your RSS Feeds
      39               Displaying RSS Feeds On Your Website
      40               The Evolving Internet - Part I
      41               The Evolving Internet - Part II
      42               Websites for the Future
      43               Web Pages That Work
      44               NiceOffers.com, Part I – The Potential and the Method
      45               NiceOffers.com, Part II – NiceOffers.com Mechanics
      46               Buying From Your Own Store
      47               Feeling The Excitement
      48               PPC Search Marketing
      49               PPC Search Marketing, Part II - Strategy
      50               PPC Search Marketing, Part III - Microsoft adCenter
      51               PPC Search Marketing, Part IV - Microsoft adCenter: Bidding Strategies
      52               Social Networking
      53               Social Networking Sites
      54               Online Social Networking—Other Sites     

 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this Lesson, you will learn what spam is and why it is prohibited. You will learn how to avoid spamming. You will learn that there are many effective alternatives to lead generation on the Internet that do not involve spam. You will learn the "Rules of Thumb" to avoid spamming. You will learn how not to be overwhelmed by the many different sources of spam rules and definitions, but rather to use your common sense and the Rules of Thumb to avoid spam while still maintaining an aggressive Internet marketing program.

INTRODUCTION

The first thing you want to know when starting any new endeavor—and the first thing you are usually told—is what NOT to do. You need to know what to avoid in order not to get in big trouble while learning the ropes of Internet Income. You can get into big trouble by using unsolicited commercial e-mail (UCC), commonly called "spam."

A subsequent lesson will address the formal definitions and rules of spam. For now, let's take a few minutes to just talk about spam. Unless you are very unusual, you will never memorize all the definitions and rules pertaining to spam (for there are many) and, thus, will never have a foolproof system of avoiding spam technically. If you gain a relatively simple understanding of it, however, you can safely avoid spam just by using your good common sense.

WHAT IS SPAM?

There are many definitions of spam. For example, Netscape defines spam as the sending of more than five e-mails in bulk to persons you do not personally know. Most others define spam more strictly. The most general definition of "spam" is "the sending of unsolicited commercial e-mail."

When you open your snail mailbox everyday and see numerous unsolicited commercial advertisements that have been delivered to you by the postal service, it makes you wonder why unsolicited electronic e-mail is outlawed. Like all laws and rules, however, we should look more to history than to logic to understand why they came to be. Although the Internet did not become popular with the public until the early 1990s, the Internet has been in existence for a long time. Prior to the early 1990s, the Internet was used primarily by the military and university scientists. These users were conducting what they justifiably felt was important business which could not be interrupted by any commercial correspondence. For most of the Internet's history, ALL commercial correspondence was completely banned. Only recently has commercial use of the Internet been allowed at all. Although this total restriction on commercial use was lifted, a restriction on unsolicited commercial e-mail remains—and for good reason.

E-mail is for communicating, not for advertising. Unsolicited commercial e-mail is annoying! Without restriction, it has the capacity to come in such large numbers as to render your e-mail completely useless and even to shut down your e-mail server altogether. This is due to the fact that, unlike snail mail, e-mail can be sent in tremendous bulk with very little effort and very little cost. Because it is so cheap and easy to send, we would all receive thousands of messages a day from each of thousands of sources were it not prohibited. Since many people break the no spam rules and send it out anyway, we all have had some taste of what it would be like if it were not prohibited. Spam understandably makes people mad. When they get mad, they report spammers to their ISPs or other organizations or to the government authorities. Bad consequences, such as losing Internet service or even facing civil and criminal penalties, result from spamming. Therefore, you want to make sure that you never spam!

The Internet covers the entire world. There are many different laws in many different jurisdictions pertaining to spam. Plus, losing your Internet service or having your domain blocked due to spam is a matter of contract that varies from provider to provider, each having its own specific rules about spam in its "Acceptable Use Policy." So, how can you possibly avoid spam when there are so many different rules and regulations? The answer is to use common sense. In a subsequent installment we will discuss the technical rules and contracts, but for now, let us just show you how to use your common sense to avoid spam.

THE RULES OF THUMB

Here are the Rules of Thumb you can use:

1. Never use e-mail for advertising with one, and only one, exception: when you have a clear "opt-in" event.

2. When advertising with e-mail in an "opt-in" situation, always supply a working "opt-out" mechanism.

3. Never annoy anyone with any kind of e-mail.

4. Never mislead anyone (in either the opt-in process or in the e-mail subject header).

Now we will discuss each rule of thumb in turn.

RULE OF THUMB NO. 1—NEVER USE E-MAIL FOR ADVERTISING UNLESS YOU HAVE A CLEAR "OPT-IN" EVENT.

Again, e-mail is for communicating, not for advertising. The same is generally true of Newsgroups (Usenet), Internet Relay Chat (IRC) and Web-based Discussion Boards. Your own site on the World Wide Web (or another's site - with permission) is the only Internet Resource where advertising is generally acceptable. Many marketers are resistant to this, but the sooner you accept this simple truth, the better off you will be. There are many effective ways to use Websites to market on the Internet. These techniques often involve using the one exception to the e-mail rule—the "opt-in" exception—as part of the process. But, the process begins with a Web page, whether that Web page is yours or another's with your ad on it.

The spam rules usually refer to UCC. If the e-mail has been "solicited," it generally is not considered spam. (Also, if the e-mail is not "commercial," it is generally not considered spam—more on this in later installments.)

How do you know whether e-mail has been "solicited"? While there are no hard and fast rules that everyone will agree on, your common sense will provide you with a working definition that should be relatively safe. E-mail is not spam if it has been requested or consented to or if permission has been granted to send it to a particular recipient. There are two kinds of consent: express and implied. Express consent is where someone communicates directly to you permission to send an e-mail. Examples of express consent are when someone types in their e-mail address on a form on your Web page requesting more information or sends you an e-mail in response to a classified ad. Implied consent occurs when someone performs some act from which permission can be inferred. An example of implied consent is when someone posts a URL on your FFA page or takes advantage of some other free resource you are offering. (Be careful here, though, the extent of implied consent is very limited.) Implied consent also arises in many instances where you have a pre-existing relationship with someone. Ultimately, the question of whether implied consent exists is a question of fact to be decided based on all of the circumstances of a particular situation. Your opinion as the one accused of spam is not the opinion that matters. The opinion that matters is the opinion of your ISP or local authorities who will decide whether you have spammed or not.

When someone fills out a form or accepts a free service, this is generally referred to as "opting in." That is, they have opted to accept an e-mail from you. When we use the term "opted," we are referring to the same concept as "consent" or "permission" discussed above. Another example of an opt-in is the opt-in e-mail lists. There are a few such e-mail lists on E-groups, Onelist, Topica, and other such free e-mail list services available on the Internet. If the list's creator allows, and the hosting service allows, ads may be acceptable on the list. The people who subscribe to the list are deemed to have "opt-in" to receive commercial e-mails sent through the list. (Note that the extent of this implied consent is only for e-mail sent through the list. If you send the list members e-mail directly, rather than through the list, you will be spamming.)

If you are accused of spamming, you will need to be able to clearly establish a documented opt-in event to justify the e-mail. The e-mail you sent must also be within the scope of the opt-in, or you will be guilty of spamming.

So, the bottom line is that e-mail is NOT a tool you can rely on to generate leads or new customers. Rather, e-mail is a tool that can only be used in conjunction with some other resource through which an opt-in can first be established. However tempting it is to buy a CD of over a million e-mail addresses and blast your ad out to them, do not do it. You will be spamming if you do.

RULE OF THUMB NO. 2 - ALWAYS SUPPLY AN OPT-OUT MECHANISM.

Even when you have a clear opt-in event (which is the only situation where you should be sending commercial e-mail), you must include an opt-out mechanism in the e-mail. You must give the recipient the option of communicating with you that your e-mail is no longer welcome. The mechanism you use must work to get that communication to you in a timely manner and you must immediately obey the opt-out request. Opt-out mechanisms are generally of two types. One is a line in the e-mail that states that one can reply to the e-mail or send an e-mail to another stated address, putting "REMOVE" in the subject heading. The other common opt-out mechanism is to supply a URL in the e-mail, which if clicked on, will automatically remove someone from your mailing list. Either one is fine—as long as it works.

A belief commonly held among Internet users is that opt-out mechanisms are untrustworthy. It is often advised that the process is used by unscrupulous marketers to confirm that you have a working e-mail address, which they will use for further spamming rather than to remove you from the list. Therefore, any mistake or negligence with your opt-out mechanism will immediately put you under a cloud of suspicion. Make sure that you timely and carefully attend to your opt-out requests.

An opt-out request must be immediately honored. Despite what many ill-informed people believe and say, you should know that it only takes one "no" anywhere in the process to void all prior expressions of consent. There is no way to trap anyone into being forced to receive e-mail from you. Nothing they do prevents them from opting out at any later point.

One tricky situation for opt-outs is the opt-in mail list. You send your mail to the list and the list then forwards it to the other members on the list. Often you will be sent a request to remove from one of the other members, but you do not have the capacity to remove them from the list. In opt-in e-mail list situations, you should always include a statement in your e-mail advising the recipients that the e-mail is being sent through a particular e-mail list and that they must remove themselves from the list to opt-out of the e-mail. Give them the name of the list and the opt-out address.

RULE OF THUMB NO. 3 - NEVER ANNOY ANYONE WITH ANY KIND OF E-MAIL.

With respect to the gray areas, it helps to remember that you will never get in trouble if no one ever accuses you of spamming. If you never annoy anyone, no one should ever be motivated to report you. If you treat others as you would have them treat you, you are not likely to annoy them. Because some people have thin skin, however, and will be annoyed where you would not be, using the Golden Rule is by no means foolproof. It helps to think in terms of what annoys the average person, but to be safe, you need to think in terms of what annoys the overly sensitive person as well.

It's a mystery to me why, but many aggressive marketers approach Internet marketing as a kind of war game. They want to kill your e-mail or your ad and strike you repeatedly with theirs. I don't know about you, but it sure as heck doesn't put me in the mood to join something or buy something when I have been defeated in an Internet war game of ads. E-mail autoresponders are the weapon of choice in these war games. For example, I place an ad on Yahoo! Classifieds. I receive an e-mail that says, "Responding to your ad." The content of the e-mail clearly reveals that the sender knows nothing of my ad and could care less. He only wants to put his ad in my face, using some ridiculous pretext that his reading of my ad (which he didn't do) demonstrates to him that I am a good candidate for his opportunity. Then, were I naive enough to respond to his e-mail and point out that I am not interested in his opportunity, I would immediately receive an autoresponse message with even more information about his opportunity. Also, in the process of responding, I would have gotten myself added to his e-mail list so that I would receive more info every week about this opportunity in which I have no interest. No matter how hard I search, I can find no way to actually opt-out from his list. Am I going to report him for spamming? You bet your bippy I am!

Another example of the war game is people who join the opt-in lists and then hook up an autoresponder to the account with which they joined the list. Even though every single one of these lists prohibits using autoresponders, they are quite commonly used anyway. When you send out e-mail to the list, you immediately get back autoresponses from hundreds of the members of the list. They will never read the list nor your e-mail, but they will stack the list with their ads and then, on top of that, will autorespond to yours sent from the list.

Such tactics are absurd, ridiculous, ineffective, annoying, and unlawful. People get away with them only because they are technically savvy enough to hide their identities and make it so time consuming to track them down that most victims will not take the time to do it. But these are the extreme examples. Let's look at some of the more subtle issues.

If you take care to always make sure that your e-mail is pleasant, you will not only be less likely to be accused of spamming, but you will more effectively develop relationships—which is the key to any successful marketing. You should take pains to be polite and sincere in all your e-mail correspondence. While you have to protect yourself from the war game spammers, you need to provide some way for people who read your e-mail to directly respond to you—where you will actually read their response. Only use e-mail autoresponders in the most controlled of situations and use them with great care. In fact, there are really only two situations I know of where an autoresponder is appropriate. One is where someone fills out a form on your Web page and you need to confirm that the e-mail address they supplied is a valid e-mail address. The other is when you host FFA pages. Autoresponders should rarely, if ever, be triggered by an incoming e-mail in my opinion. The only exception would be form submissions. While automation is a goal for some tasks and is being made more and more possible by the Internet, communication should be personal, not automated.

Take pains never to annoy people with your Internet marketing, whether through automation, insincerity, rudeness, or as we discuss below, misleading tactics.

RULE OF THUMB NO. 4 - NEVER MISLEAD ANYONE.

Being bothered by correspondence one did not ask for and does not want is something that annoys most everyone. Another thing that annoys the heck out of the average person is being misled. What most people want is good, solid, honest information about what they have expressed an interest in and no more.

People become annoyed when they are misled. If they request one type of information and get another, they feel used. This factor comes into play, among other places, in choosing a subject header for e-mail that you do choose to send. If the subject says "$50 deposited into your bank account tomorrow—no strings, no obligation," and then the body of the e-mail mentions nothing about a free $50, but proceeds to try to sell them something, they have been misled and will be understandably annoyed. I have read so-called marketing advice that recommends using subject headings that will get people to read your e-mail regardless of whether the subject has anything to do with your offer. Nothing could be worse advice! Such "bait and switch" tactics are dishonest, immoral, often illegal, and are guaranteed to annoy the dickens out of the recipient of your e-mail. Do not do it.

Another guaranteed way to annoy someone, spurring them to report you for spam, is to mislead them about the type of information they are requesting. If you have a Web page which collects e-mail addresses to send more info about an interesting subject, but you send entirely different correspondence from what they expected, you will certainly have trouble. Honesty is more than just morality, it is good business practice. You do not want to start any relationship with a client, customer, or affiliate by dishonest correspondence. As we will discuss later in this course, "trust" is the most important factor in any business relationship.

So, it is very important in both the opt-in event and the subject header of e-mail to be very honest and straight-forward about the information that will be in the body of the e-mail. To do otherwise, can only make people mad and get you in trouble.

THERE ARE MANY EFFECTIVE INTERNET MARKETING TECHNIQUES THAT DO NOT INVOLVE SPAM

A common response to the spam rules is to throw up one’s hands and say "It's too complicated and too risky, why bother with Internet marketing?" The answer to that question is that Internet marketing is a powerful, yet inexpensive tool, that can be used by people of few resources other than a will to succeed in obtaining financial success. In later installments, you can look forward to learning how to research the web to find high traffic Websites and then use non-commercial, non-spam e-mail to develop relationships with the publishers of those Websites. From these relationships can arise the opportunity to partner with them to promote your business or your opportunity at little cost. We will also discuss how to correctly use opt-in procedures to reach large audiences without spamming. We will also discuss how to use content to gain some Internet traffic to whom you can promote your business. This is just a small sample of the effective techniques we will teach you in this course. We need to cover spam to make sure that you don't knock yourself out of the game before you have a chance to get started right. The bulk of this course, however, will dig in with earnest on the how-to's of successful Internet marketing.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

The next installment will address the potential of producing income on the Internet. We will share with you a principle of Internet marketing based on mathematical law that demonstrates that the best is yet to come!

 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, you will learn the three factors which assure us of continued exponential Internet growth. These three factors are: Moore's Law, acceptance of digital environments, and convergence. You will learn how these principles prove that Internet marketing will have exponential growth and exponential results for decades to come. You will learn how to best position yourself as a home-based entrepreneur to take advantage of the digital opportunities that lie ahead.

MOORE'S LAW

Moore's Law describes the falling cost of digital technology. When my daughter was born in 1980, the price of the memory chip for a home PC was $1,000.00 (not the whole PC, mind you, just the memory). When my daughter was one year old, the same amount of memory cost only $500.00. When she was three years old, the price was $250.00. When she started the first grade, the same amount of memory cost only $62.50. When she graduated from high school in 1998, the price of that same amount of memory had fallen to less that $0.25. Now, as she begins her junior year in college, the cost for the same amount of memory as in that original PC is just pennies. I assure you that nothing else we have purchased over her lifetime has decreased in cost anything like that! We, of course, upgraded the amount of memory we used over the years. Each time we upgraded, we spent about the same amount of money but got more and more computing power. So, what really happened was that our computing power increased by four times every three years for the same cost.

Gordon Moore, one of the co-founders of Intel Corporation, made mathematical observations in the 1960's of the engineering practices which allowed miniaturization in semiconductor technology. This miniaturization applies to processors and other computer components as well as memory chips. What he observed mathematically is that computers can be made four times more powerful every three years for the same cost. Some argue that this same formula has held true for a full century, if you include the mechanical computers of the early 1900's and the old-fashioned transistors that followed.

If you knew that you could get four times more raw materials every three years with no increase in cost in a given business, would you want to get into that business? The overwhelming answer everywhere is, of course, a resounding "yes!"

All businesses, even traditional brick and mortar businesses, must market their goods and services. Because businesses look for the lowest cost to perform their processes, more and more marketing information and marketing processes, even for brick-and-mortar businesses, will become digital.

Moore's Law ensures that Internet businesses, especially Internet marketing, will continue to grow and flourish at an astounding rate. Will Moore's Law continue to hold true in the future? Can engineers keep making computer chips cheaper? Intel's engineers assure us that Moore's Law will continue to operate for several more device generations, if not indefinitely. (http://developer.intel.com/technology/itj/q41998/articles/art_1.htm)

ACCEPTANCE OF DIGITAL ENVIRONMENTS

The next factor that ensures continued growth for Internet businesses is the acceptance by consumers of digital environments. People have taken to Cyberspace. Despite the many predictions to the contrary, people have warmed up to digital environments with enthusiasm. Many Web communities have been formed and their participants report feeling all warm and cozy in those digital environments. Participants have developed a strong sense of identity with some of the digital communities. As Moore's Law continues to operate, our technology becomes more and more capable of producing engrossing digital environments in which even larger numbers of people will enthusiastically participate. Online communities are forming in much the same way that communities have formed in the physical world throughout history—only much faster. The success stories of Yahoo! and eBay and others make it pure folly to think that brick-and-mortar business will go on as usual, unaffected by the Internet.

CONVERGENCE

The third factor assuring a prosperous future for Internet entrepreneurs is convergence. Simply defined, convergence is the coming together of separate things. Convergence is now occurring at both the industry level and the consumer level. On the industry level, computing, communications, and media companies are merging to form such multimedia ventures as MSNBC and Disney's Go Network. On the consumer level, new devices are being used to combine computing with phones and televisions. In the very near future, consumers will replace their phones, TVs, and PCs with one central media center (which may have several satellite devices for convenience and portability). Even our money is fast becoming digital, as we have automatic bank deposits of our earnings while we buy things with credit and debit cards. What this means is that digital products and processes become more and more important as the Internet gets closer and closer to people's everyday lives.

THE POTENTIAL

These three factors—Moore's Law, acceptance of digital environments, and convergence—assure us that the potential of the Internet for the home-based entrepreneur is nothing less than incredible. In fact, the belief in these three factors has been driving our economy for some time now. Venture capitalists are pouring hundreds of millions of dollars into purely digital ventures. In the digital world, the large corporations have to compete, not just with each other but also with the home-based entrepreneurs. The large conglomerates no longer have the exclusive advantage. Given the low cost of computing power, individual entrepreneurs now have at their disposal the raw materials to develop digital products and processes and make them available to the world. Even more importantly, individual entrepreneurs can ban together in digital environments (such as SFI's Full-Circle Success) to combine their skills and knowledge and use convergence to their advantage in a very efficient way, rivaling the large companies with the results.

HOW TO POSITION YOURSELF

To obtain convergence, you must bring together computing power, media content, and information processing. To obtain the economies of scale, you should position yourself within a digital community where resources can be shared. Despite the low cost of computing, there is still power in numbers with regard to media content and information processing. To position yourself as a marketer for one of the fastest growing digital communities in existence is without doubt the smartest move you could possibly make right now. Having done that, you can use your individual creativity, skills, and resources in an environment of freedom employing the low cost computing power at your disposal to obtain your financial goals. Due to the three factors discussed in this lesson, there is an unprecedented opportunity available to you right now as an SFI affiliate. You have but to take advantage of it.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

This lesson introduced you to the big picture. True success, however, is in the details. Beginning with our next lesson, "Introduction to Internet Traffic Patterns," we will begin to address the details you need to master in order to become a successful e-commerce entrepreneur. In that lesson, we will start you thinking about how traffic flows across the Internet. Understanding those traffic patterns is crucial to your ability to interact with Internet traffic in a successful way.

FOR FURTHER STUDY

Janet H. Murray of MIT explores the capabilities of digital technology to create engrossing environments in which people freely participate in her book, "Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narative in Cyberspace." (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0262631873/theveryvipmaill)

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson you will learn how to analyze Internet Traffic. You will be reminded that Internet traffic consists of human beings with desires and interests and goals of their own. You will learn how to get into the "flow" of Internet traffic using value and ease of use, combined with effective traffic building strategies.

IT'S LIKE WATER

Think of what we know about early humans and how they migrated and settled. Water is a basic human need. If early man did not live close to water, then he had to bargain for it from others who transported the water into his area. People who did not live close to water had to have several vessels to store what water they could get their hands on. The consequence was that people who settled far from any river or stream had to spend a great deal of their time and resources trying to obtain and store water -- and they never really had more than just enough to get by. On the other hand, people who settled near a large river or stream could freely dip out all the water they needed in abundance. When it came to water, positioning was everything. Any map will show that large successful settlements are usually close to free flowing water.

Analogies have been made between money and water. It has been suggested that if you position yourself where money freely flows, you will obtain a lot more of it with less effort than if you position yourself in some remote location relative to the "money stream". The analogy to water is equally useful when applied to Internet traffic.

ANALYZING INTERNET TRAFFIC

MARKETING FORCES IN HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE

Similar to how the forces of nature and history determined where rivers flow across the earth's surface, the history and forces of the Internet have shaped how Internet traffic flows across the wires and ether. For the most part, people make their initial connection to Cyberspace in one of two fashions: they either dial in from home or work, or they connect through a network at work. In order to do this, they have to have software that creates a TCP/IP socket. To view the World Wide Web, they also need software called an Internet browser. That socket and that browser are the first opportunities for anyone to get their attention in Cyberspace. Some socket software allows for ads to be shown as the Internet connection is established.

Browsers have three features that control Internet traffic. Those three features are "Home Page", "Favorites" or "Bookmarks," and "History." The Home Page is all important. That is the first page you see when you open your browser. You see this page over and over on a daily basis. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) provide their subscribers software which sets the ISP's page as the subscribers' home page and even sets some of their favorites. Even though many subscribers may eventually change their home page, ISPs, by their very nature, have a natural tap into much of the Internet's traffic. ISPs that provide an expansive and encyclopedic digital environment along with their access, such as AOL, really have a tap into the traffic. Software companies that make browsers (and there are really only two players here - Microsoft and Netscape) can have pre-set bookmarks and favorites. Operating systems can control consumers' choices of an ISP by having software built into the operating system. (Sometimes it seems like there is a battle for your attention going on inside your computer when various software packages pop up and ask to be made the "default" software.) The fairness of this type of competition has been the subject of a major antitrust action by the Justice Department against Microsoft.

The History feature of a browser, on the other hand, just makes it more likely that you will return to a page once you have been there before. This, in addition to the other features, makes it more likely that pages with traffic will gain even more traffic.

Other types of software-based online marketing include software that resides on your screen independent of a Web browser and displays ads while you surf. You are paid or otherwise rewarded for the time you spend using this software. An example is AllAdvantage.

THE ROLE OF CONSUMER CHOICE

Once a user gets beyond these built-in features vying for his or her attention, it becomes more a matter of choice. The Internet user can type in a URL and go to Web pages that have come to the user's attention through word of mouth or some other media. From there, the user is likely to follow links to other similar pages. As memories may fail, typing errors may occur and links may be outdated; this process only takes the user so far. The next thing a user looks for on the Web is a way to directly find things of interest to him or her. Search engines fulfill that function and have been the most popular sites on the Web. Yahoo! was the original Web search engine and thus, by mere force of history, has been one of the most popular site on the Web. As a general rule, search engines and the large digital environments of the media companies (such as AOL, Go.com, MSNBC, etc.) maintain the top traffic rankings. Because search engines exist, the choice and interests of the user are a strong factor, dispersing Internet traffic according to demographics. That is, unlike the traditional broadcast media, traffic branches off to different sites according to people's interests.

UNDERSTANDING PEOPLE

Stephani Richardson, the administrator of the SFI Discussion Board and one of the most successful affiliates in SFI, advises that you put yourself in the position of the persons you are trying to recruit. Think from their perspective rather than your own. This, of course, is excellent advice! People on the Web are looking for content. They seek information applicable to themselves. To be a successful Internet marketer, you must take time to think about how people use the Internet.

When staring at their Web browser, people have these choices: They can type in a URL that someone told them about, they can read their home page and follow links from it, they can look at a page in their history or in their favorites, they can go to one of the very popular sites and follow links, or they can go to a search engine and follow links or compose a search phrase.

In order to be the target of a link or be listed in a search engine, you must have a Web presence.

TWO IMPORTANT PRINCIPLES FOR YOUR WEB PRESENCE: VALUE AND FLOW

The first principle illuminating how people use the Web is that it takes value for a Website to be "sticky." A 1998 article in Science magazine stated that Web surfers are constantly making a judgment about continuing to visit a Website or exiting the site. Two factors come into play: the value of the current page and the promise of value in future site pages. That is, even if the current page has a low perceived value, if there is an indication that the quality of pages may improve, users will stay on the site for another page or two more. But if there is no value, they will leave the site very quickly. This is why we hear so often that "content is king." When they leave for lack of value, they are never coming back.

The second principle is that there must be a balance between the difficulty of using a Website and the rewards the user obtains from the Website. The term "flow" has been used to describe what occurs when a user loses himself in a Website. Flow occurs when the user becomes so absorbed that time and task temporarily become unimportant. Whatever the user started out to do online gets temporarily forgotten while they enjoy your site. When flowoccurs, direction, inhibitions, and caution give way to impulse, and the user is much more likely to join or buy something promoted on the site. The site must be both interesting and easy to navigate for this to occur.

Flow is also a concept that applies to movement from one Website to another. Banners or textual links must be in context and create a smooth transition from one site to another to be effective. Otherwise, the flow is broken and interest is lost.

TRAFFIC BUILDING

Once you have planned a Website that has value and creates flow, you need to direct traffic to your site. The four important goals of traffic building are: 1) obtaining the right domain name, 2) obtaining good publicity, 3) obtaining an effective portal presence, and 4) utilizing and maintaining flow in the placement of your Internet ads. Ads, of course, can be free, exchanged, or paid. All of these will be discussed in detail in future lessons.

CONCLUSION

To be an effective Internet marketer, you need to analyze and understand Internet traffic and, very importantly, you must understand that the "traffic" consists of human beings with feelings and interests and desires. You must understand that they are looking for what they want to find - not what you want them to find. You must understand that they will get there through their methods - not the methods you may prefer for them to use. The old broadcast media methods of controlling attention do not work so well on the Internet. It's a new game. You must use valuable content and ease of use to create flow. You must properly position your site within the flow of Internet traffic. Once you get this right (and you will), you are on the road to becoming a very successful Internet entrepreneur.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In previous lessons, we have introduced you to Spam and the exciting potential of Internet income. In this lesson, we introduced you to Internet traffic patterns. With this foundation laid, our next lesson will address some nuts and bolts to get you started right away with Internet marketing. We will list the ten most common Internet marketing methods and give you a brief overview of the first five. We will point you to resources to help you get started immediately on this exciting and profitable venture.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, we will enumerate the 10 most common Internet marketing methods used by successful SFI Affiliates. While space prohibits us from giving you more than a brief introduction to the first five of these methods in this lesson, we will give a brief introduction to the last five in our next lesson and future lessons will address each of these methods in more detail.

MARKETING METHODS

The most common Internet marketing methods, particularly useful in promoting the SFI affiliate program are these:

1) Doorway Pages and Search Engine Registration
2) Banner or Textual Ad Placement (Exchange Programs)
3) Banner or Textual Ad Placement (Online Classifieds)
4) Banner or Textual Ad Placement (Affiliate and Paid Placement)
5) Building Your Own Content-Rich Website
6) Utilizing an Opt-In Program
7) Hosting FFA Pages
8) Using Safelists, Announcement Lists, and Viral marketing
9) Press Releases, Relationship Building, and Offline Promotion
10) The Latest New Technique

Many of these methods overlap or have much in common. Depending on what you read, there are various ways to describe each of these methods and various names with which to identify them. There is no particular importance to the order in which we have listed them here. The only reason to enumerate them into the list above is for ease of learning. We will take the first five in turn and give you a brief introduction in this lesson. The next lesson will give you a brief introduction to the last five. Subsequent lessons will cover each of these methods in great detail (although not necessarily in order). Let's get right to it.

DOORWAY PAGES AND SEARCH ENGINE REGISTRATION

A "doorway page" is a Web page that is used to lead people to the target interactive site. The doorway page contains a link to your target page. The target page is where you hope the user will take some action, such as purchasing an affiliate product or opting in to your program. The target page sells. The doorway page gets their attention and leads them to the target page. Doorway pages serve two main purposes: they are used to optimize search engine placement and they allow you to target your initial approach to different demographics.

When you join SFI, you are given links to different target pages that you can use to sell SFI products or recruit affiliates. Because these pages contain what is called a "CGI variable" to identify you as the seller or recruiter, they can not be individually registered in the Search Engines. That is, because there is a "?" in the URL (Website address), search engines will not accept them or will truncate off the most important part—your ID number.

To work around this problem with the search engines, affiliates use doorway pages. Savvy SFI affiliates design and host a Web page on another server with a different name so that the URL does not contain a question mark. This doorway page then links to one of the SFI target pages, and the link, of course, contains the CGI variable identifying the affiliates ID number to ensure proper credit. Really enterprising affiliates create several different doorway pages, each appealing to different types of people.

Even when there is no need to work around a cgi variable in the URL, Internet marketers use doorway pages to target different demographics. Different things get different people's attention. Many of the affiliates that come into SFI do so because they are very serious about creating a successful home-based business. They find SFI while searching for information pertaining to home-based businesses or network marketing. They understand network marketing terminology and are seeking a comparison of this program with the ones already familiar to them.

Other affiliates come to SFI because they want an Internet business. They may have had little experience with home-based businesses or network marketing. These people understand Internet terminology and are looking for a great affiliate program. Obviously, you have to approach these different types of people differently to attract them to the SFI program.

Thus, it is best to have one doorway page for those seeking a home-based, multi-level business and another doorway page for those seeking a lucrative affiliate program. SFI well serves the needs of both, but they need to be drawn to that realization in different ways. You may also want to have different doorway pages for younger prospects and older prospects; one for the highly educated and one for those with little formal education; one for those who are already financially successful but want an Internet income and one for those who are still struggling daily with bills and creditors. There are many different demographic groups that you can target with different doorway pages.

The best doorway pages are pages that attract the targeted demographic by providing useful information or entertainment, while remaining easy to navigate. Stay tuned to future lessons to learn how even the technically challenged can easily create useful content for their Websites.

(Note: In SFI, doorway pages that you design yourself must be approved by the SFI administration if they do more than just contain an approved link or textual ad. That is, if you provide information or opinions about SFI above and beyond insertion of an approved ad, you must seek prior approval.)

When you have your doorway pages in place, you need to register them with the search engines. There are many factors involved in doing this properly. You need to prepare your pages properly with metatags, keywords, descriptions, keyword balancing, content indications, as well as incoming and outgoing link considerations. You then need to know the right submission procedure and schedule your submissions properly for each major search engine or directory. There is much to say on these subjects and each will be the topic of a future lesson in this course.

BANNER OR TEXTUAL AD PLACEMENT (EXCHANGE PROGRAMS)

To gain traffic for your Website, you need to prepare effective banners and textual ads. In SFI, this is already done for you. Having banners and textual ads prepared, you need to find places on the Internet to place these banners and textual ads. One of the earliest methods devised on the Internet was banner exchanges. You agree with other Website owners to place their ad on your page in exchange for placing your ad on their page. This process has been facilitated by the emergence of several banner exchange programs. You register with the exchange program, upload your banner, and your banner will automatically appear on other registered Web pages throughout the world. In exchange, they provide code for you to put on your Web page, which hosts rotating banners from other sites. These are not particularly effective, mainly because placement in context on a page is rarely achieved. Context placement is crucial to an ad or banner being effective in drawing traffic.

Banner exchanges are very useful for one purpose, however. Most of the exchange programs allow you to target the types of pages on which your banners will be placed. If you happen to have a high-traffic Website which appeals to one demographic, but your target in a particular affiliate program is another demographic, you can "exchange" your traffic through use of an exchange program. Say your site draws high traffic from retired people who love to garden and travel. With a banner exchange, you can have your banner targeted to sites which appeal to home-based entrepreneurs. In return, you host banners on your site which target the group which frequents your site (advertising, for example, gardening tools or motor homes). Since effective context placement is much more likely to be achieved in this situation, it usually works fairly well for all parties involved.

BANNER OR TEXTUAL AD PLACEMENT (ONLINE CLASSIFIEDS)

One of the easiest ways to get your banners and ads on a high-traffic Website is to place them on some online classified ad pages. Several major sites allow you to place classified ads for free. There are others, such as Yahoo!, that charge fees for placement of classifieds. These can be effective depending upon the volume of ads being submitted at any given time. If it is a high traffic site, your ad will only appear for a matter of hours before it is pushed too far down by new submissions to be useful. Daily attention and resubmission is crucial to an effective classified ad campaign on the free sites.

There are links to the many online classified sites that have been effective for SFI affiliates on the SFI Team Resource Center (http://www.sfiteam.com/). Starting with classified ads is a good way to get your feet wet in Internet marketing.

BANNER OR TEXTUAL AD PLACEMENT (AFFILIATE AND PAID PLACEMENT)

You can also pay to have your banner or ad placed on other Websites. This is a broad category that covers many different possible arrangements. You can pay for placement for a period of time. You can pay only for clicks actually received through your ad on a site. You can pay only for sales or sign-ups that come through a particular site. Affiliate programs encompass the latter of these options. There are services where you can register an affiliate program and people who go to these services can sign up to host your ads. When they sign up, they download your banner or ad to their site. The service independently tracks and verifies the clicks, sales, or sign-ups, that originate from particular affiliate sites and facilitates the payments that are due.

Also included in this category are ezine ads. Ezines are e-mail newsletters that people have opted-in to receive. They are full of interesting content so that people actually read them when they show up in their inboxes. You can pay the ezine publisher to include your ad and a link to your site in an ezine edition. Ideally, your ad will fit into the context of the information in that particular ezine edition.

"Pay-pers"—services which pay people to receive and read e-mail or host software which displays ads on their screen—also fall under this category. You can pay to have your e-mail ad sent to people who have agreed to receive the e-mail for a small fee per e-mail. This is not spam because the people who receive the e-mail have opted to receive it in exchange for a small payment per e-mail received and read. These programs are very effective because the e-mails are actually read and the links clicked.

BUILDING YOUR OWN CONTENT RICH WEBSITE

As explained in our first lesson on Spam, except for safelists and paid ads purchased from opt-in programs, you cannot rely on e-mail for Internet marketing. You must use Websites and opt-in programs instead. We discussed the doorway site concept at the beginning of this lesson. Whether a doorway page or an independent target site, the most effective Internet marketing method available is to have a site with rich substantive content and entertaining attention grabbers. There are hundreds of thousands of Websites on the Internet now that consist of nothing more than banner ads thrown on a page. They are all worthless! There is no point in creating a Website if it does not have content. Your Website must have both value and ease of use to be effective in drawing and keeping traffic. (As stated above, do not be dismayed if you feel incapable at this time of creating such a site. Just relax and keep reading your SFI materials.)

CONCLUSION

Remember that this lesson is just a brief introduction to many different concepts. Do not be concerned if you are still a little confused. Things will become clearer as we address each method in more detail. If you are itching to get started with your Internet marketing campaign, you can start with posting classified ads. Go to the Marketing Aids section of the SFIMG Website. Pick out some of the text ads available there for you to use. Then go to the SFI Discussion Board's Resource Center and click the link to "Classifieds." Pick out a couple of the free classified sites and read the rules and instructions for posting. Then, post one of the ads you copied from the SFI marketing Resource Center. (You may want to create a new e-mail address to use just to receive responses to this ad. The Dboard Resource site also has a link to several places where you can get a free e-mail account.) Go ahead and get your feet wet with classifieds. You can move onto the other methods as we discuss them in more detail in future lessons.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will give you a brief introduction to the last five of the Internet marketing methods enumerated at the top of this lesson. Subsequent lessons will discuss all of these methods and more in great detail.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In our last lesson, we gave a brief description of the first five of the 10 most common Internet marketing methods used by successful SFI Affiliates. In this lesson, we will briefly describe the last five. While space prohibits us from giving you more than a brief introduction to these last five methods in this lesson, future lessons will address each of these methods in more detail.

MARKETING METHODS

Recall from our last lesson that we enumerated the most common Internet marketing methods, particularly useful in promoting the SFI affiliate program, as follows:

1) Gateway Pages and Search Engine Registration
2) Banner or Textual Ad Placement (Exchange Programs)
3) Banner or Textual Ad Placement (Online Classifieds)
4) Banner or Textual Ad Placement (Affiliate and Paid Placement)
5) Building Your Own Content Rich Website
6) Utilizing an Opt-In Program
7) Hosting FFA Pages
8) Using Safelists, Announcement Lists, and Viral marketing
9) Press Releases, Relationship Building, and Offline Promotion
10) The Latest New Technique

Also, in the last lesson, we briefly described the first five. Here's a brief description of six through 10.

UTILIZING AN OPT-IN PROGRAM

E-mail is a vehicle that works in conjunction with other interactive features of a Website to create a flow of communication with your prospects. In order to avoid spamming, you have to have consent from a prospect to send them e-mail. The best way to get that consent is to have them do something on your Website that establishes that consent. Such devices are called "opt-in" programs.

The simplest example of an opt-in program is to have a line on your Website which says "Join our Newsletter" and provides a form for the viewer to submit his or her e-mail address. From there, the extent and variety of opt-in programs that can be created is limited only by imagination. Often effective are contests. Viewers enter a contest to win something by entering their e-mail address. Often, there are interactive games which pit the viewer against other players around the world, and the scores and results of the games are communicated to the participants with e-mail. Particularly interesting is one which has a slot machine interface on the site which you can play for free, but if you accumulate any winnings, you have to opt-in to collect your money.

There are many types of opt-ins. You can sign up to receive news, weather, stock tips, pictures, and many other types of information to be received by e-mail. There are many educational opt-in programs for school children (and adults) including "science facts," "strange animals," "today in history," and other education subjects. A prayer of the day, week, or month is available from many different sources.

You can also allow people to post information on your Website and thereby gain consent to e-mail them. Examples of this are business directories and FFA pages (discussed below), among many others. Remember, imagination is the only limitation.

It is both intuitive and supported by research that an e-mail inbox is a much more effective place to communicate with a prospect than a Website. But, it takes the Website to get the necessary permission to communicate by e-mail. Thus, the "Opt-In" program is a crucial step in an effective Internet marketing campaign.

One of the most effective opt-in programs on the Internet is the SFI marketing Group's affiliate program. As an SFI affiliate, you need only point people from your Gateway page to the SFI page for this very effective opt-in to be made available to your viewers.

HOSTING FFA PAGES

"FFA" stands for "Free for All" which is short for "Free for all to post here." FFA's are Websites where you can post a link and perhaps a short description to your Website without having to pay an advertising fee. When you post on one of these FFA sites, you will receive an e-mail from the site host confirming that your link was placed and, in all likelihood, containing an advertisement as well.

It is not an effective use of your time to individually post your link to these sites. These sites are actually rarely seen by anyone. Plus, almost all these FFA sites have a maximum number of posts that will be displayed. The old ones are dropped to make room for the new ones. In many cases, this process occurs in just minutes or hours so that your link is not on the site long enough for it to do you any good at all.

There are FFA submission services that will post your link to hundreds of these sites at once. That makes it somewhat more time effective, but even with that, this is still not a terribly effective way to promote your Website. Should you use one of these submission services, be sure to create a separate e-mail address to use. You will receive confirmation e-mails from several hundred FFA sites after using one of these submission services. It will choke down your e-mail. Thus, do not use your everyday e-mail address when making such submissions.

An effective way to use FFA sites, however, is to HOST an FFA site. When you host an FFA site, you get to send out all the confirmation e-mails - with YOUR ad in them! There are services on the Web which will allow you to host an FFA site on their server without charge or for a small fee. There are also autoresponder services available (for free or a small fee) which you can connect to your FFA site to send the confirming e-mails.

There is helpful information on posting to and hosting FFA sites on the SFI DBoard Resource Site.

USING SAFELISTS, ANNOUNCEMENT LISTS, AND VIRAL MARKETING

Safelists are e-mail lists which allow you to join and post advertisements in exchange for receiving advertisements from others. You and other members send your e-mail to a list address and from there it is distributed to the members of the list. There are several such lists at Yahoo! Groups and other e-mail list services. These also are only effective if done in bulk. That is, you must create a separate "throw-away" e-mail address to sign up for these and use group mail software to send to hundreds of lists at once. The e-mail you will receive from being a member of hundreds of lists will be in the thousands per day. Thus, it is imperative that you use a different e-mail address from the one you use for daily correspondence.

It is not easy to use safelists effectively. Until you are experienced, you should seek the tutoring of a more experienced Internet marketer in setting this up properly. You can begin to learn, however, by going to Yahoo! Groups and searching for lists that allow advertising. For now, just join one or two groups to become familiar with the process. Do not expect any results from the ads you post to just one or two groups, but use it as a learning process. It will be much easier for you to master the skills necessary to effectively market with safelists in bulk if you have had some hands-on experience with the lists first.

Announcement Lists are similar to advertising lists but with a slant toward announcing new sites rather than advertising per se. Unless you obtain a list of "safelists" from a very trusted source, carefully read the rules for each list before you post and keep your posts within the guidelines for the list.

The next Internet marketing technique, VIRAL marketing, is interesting but not very effective. Viral marketing is designed to circumvent the spam rules by hoping the recipient of the e-mail will forward it on to the people on his or her forwarding list. Since you have not sent the e-mail to these other persons directly, you can not be accused of spam. The concept is that the e-mail will spread out to many recipients like a virus - being passed from one to another to another. Each recipient receives the e-mail from someone with whom they have a pre-existing relationship. Since a pre-existing relationship is an exception to most spam rules, the e-mail is not considered spam.

All of us have had the misfortune (or perhaps good fortune, if you have a lot of spare time) of being on a number of our friends' e-mail forwarding lists. Every time they receive a joke that they think is funny or the latest urban legend ("Watch out for AIDS-infected needles hidden in theater seats or gas pump handles."), they very generously pass it on to us and the 15 or more other people on their list. Many of the people on their list then pass it on to 15 or more other people. Observing this phenomenon, it occurred to a number of enterprising Internet marketers to try to harness this distribution technique for marketing.

A consulting group I organized ran an experiment on viral marketing about 18 months ago. Our results were interesting. What we found was that in order for the distribution to be effective (i.e. for people to keep passing it on) it had to be either of a "hysterical" nature (ex: hidden AIDS needles or people stealing your kidneys) or it had to be humor or complete nonsense. Otherwise, it died in two generations (that is, it was not passed on more than twice). In theorizing about these results, we considered the effectiveness of an ad traveling along with one of these hysterical or nonsensical e-mails which would survive several generations. We concluded that the state of mind induced by either the hysteria or the nonsense of the primary message was not conducive to generating response to the ad. In other words, the ad did not flow with the material and thus would not be effective.

One of the funniest things I have seen was the viral e-mail that convinced the reader that the technology now existed for an ordinary computer monitor to take someone's picture like a camera. You were then given a link to a page where you were instructed to hold your face in front of the monitor and then click a "shutter button" and count down the exposure time. To see the results, you were taken to a full screen picture of a surprised looking monkey - which was a pretty accurate picture of you at the time! This particular viral achieved extremely wide distribution. However, it could certainly not be used effectively for marketing. Who wants to buy or join something when it has just made a monkey out of you?

Thus, while viral marketing per se does not appear to be an effective Internet marketing technique, an understanding of its limitations can lead us to consider the most powerful technique of all - sincere communication. People decide whether to pay attention to e-mail based on two obvious factors: the source and the subject. Viral e-mail, by definition, comes from a trusted source. It also has an attention grabbing subject. Its limitation is that it is either not serious at all (just humor or a practical joke) or it is too serious (warning of some bizarre danger).

There is a somewhat slower, yet very effective process, however. You can send sincere communication to someone you know (and who you know does not mind receiving e-mail from you) and sincerely tell them about your successful experience with an affiliate program such as SFI. Do not make it sound like an ad in any form or fashion! Rather, let it just be a sincere sharing with them of your experience. Mix in other things about your life and inquire about their lives so that it is not just a single subject e-mail. They, in turn, may become interested in your program and may later join. If they do, they may later share their successful experience with others that they know. And so it continues and grows! Let's not call this process "viral marketing." Let's call it "infectious enthusiasm"!

PRESS RELEASES, RELATIONSHIP BUILDING, AND OFFLINE PROMOTION

While the offline world does not exist to the exclusion of the online world, neither does the online world exist to the exclusion of the offline world. Although the SFI program is primarily online, you can certainly use offline marketing in conjunction with your online techniques. You should combine offline and online efforts in effective ways. For example, you can send classified ads and press releases by e-mail to newspapers, which will then appear in print publications. The printed announcements and ads can then direct people online to your Website. Successful SFI Affiliates use the two together effectively.

You can use the relationship building techniques effective in the offline world in the online arena as well. Relationship building and "infectious enthusiasm" are things that occur both online and offline. You can meet people online and then build a relationship which carries over to the offline world. You can communicate with people online that you have met and known from the offline world. The bottom line is that it takes trust to induce someone to buy or join. It takes a relationship of some sort to build trust. These principles have always been true in the offline world and they are still true in the online world. The relationship begins when people first see your ad and they continue to judge you by everything that follows. An ad does not sell—it starts a relationship. The resulting relationship sells—provided it becomes a trusted relationship.

THE LATEST NEW TECHNIQUE

Have you heard of "vortals"? They are single subject portals and they are the latest buzz. And, hey, what are "portals" anyway? Isn't that what we used to call "Search Engines" before they added a bunch of new features and some personalization capabilities? The only thing constant about the Internet is that it is constantly changing!

The latest tip is that you should be on a constant search for new subject specific portals (vortals) dealing with your subject and make sure your site gets listed there. Search for these vortals through the search engines by searching for words dealing with your product or service. When you find them, read the rules for posting and post a link to your site there.

One constant is that you should always stay on top of what's new on the Internet and be one of the first to take advantage of each new technique as it becomes available. You will need to stay informed and be adaptive to be successful in Internet marketing. How can you do that? There are a bunch of experts at the SFI sites just waiting for you to read their articles and ask them questions. Hang out with the right people and you can not help but be successful.

CONCLUSION

Remember that these last two lessons have been just a brief introduction to many different concepts. Do not be concerned if you are still a little confused. Things will become clearer as we address each method in more detail as this course continues. You can get more information immediately by joining FCS and consulting the experts there.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will discuss the history and evolution of affiliate programs on the Internet. You will see how the SFI marketing Group has established itself at the forefront of the new revolution, empowering home-based entrepreneurs by drawing from the best of the traditional networking concepts and applying them successfully to the digital frontier.

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In this lesson, you will learn how affiliate programs have evolved as the means of advertising for e-commerce. You will learn how the Internet created an entirely new channel for selling goods and services and how the multitier commission structure supplies the missing link to make this new channel fully effective.

THE EMERGENCE OF THE WEB

Ten years ago, there was no such thing as e-commerce as we know it today. Although the Internet has been around in some form or fashion for many years, for most of its history it was used only by the military and research scientists. As the technology became friendlier, others began to use it. The key event to the popularization of the Internet was the creation of the World Wide Web—especially the capability to show pictures and play sound from the Web, which became available around 1994. Adding that multimedia capability to the Web made it inevitable that the Internet would eventually pervade business and commerce. It did not take long.

The graphical Web was shortly followed by the capability to transmit credit card information securely online, which was shortly followed by the ability to process the card payments in real time online. A new venue to sell products and services had arisen seemingly overnight.

A NEW DISTRIBUTION CHANNEL

The Internet provides a new and quite different distribution channel for vendors to sell their products and services to consumers. Consumers can learn about, view pictures of, and order products from anywhere at anytime from the comfort of their home or office.

To sell anything, though, a vendor needs to get traffic to his or her Website through advertising. This was first approached from the old model of TV, radio, and print ads. That is, vendors went to popular Websites and offered to pay for placement of their ad for a period of time. Since the Internet is different from the old broadcast media, however, new more efficient methods of advertising were sought. It is relatively easy to determine the size of a TV or radio station's audience. The same is true with the circulation of print media such as newspapers and magazines. It's not as easy with a Website, however. Sure, there are counters, but they can not always be trusted.

Plus, a Web page being retrieved from a server (and thus adding to the counter) does not necessarily mean it will be seen by a human being. Bots and automated processes can retrieve pages that are never seen by any human being. It became important to know whether the page views were coming from the same source or whether they were "unique views"—i.e. new people rather than the same few over and over or some automated process. Another problem was that unless the ad is placed prominently and in context on the host site, it will not draw traffic, even from a large audience of unique viewers to the host site. So, paying a flat fee for displaying an ad on a Website for a set period of time turned out to be undesirable.

Rather than paying for a set period of time, advertisers began to prefer to pay according to the number of clicks on their banners. Standard sizes evolved for banners used to advertise Websites on other Websites. The banners can have words, pictures, and animation and serve as a link to the advertised Website. When you click on the banner, you are taken immediately to the advertised site. Thus, with "pay per click" if you did not get any traffic, you did not have to pay. This motivated the host site Webmaster to place the banner effectively on the site so it would draw traffic. Even "pay per click" had its problems, though. Clicks could also be automated and unscrupulous hosts could cheat. Clicks also needed to be from "unique viewers" to be effective.

Thus, vendors ultimately came to prefer paying only when a sell was actually made or someone at least interacted with the site by joining an opt-in program. The vehicle for paying only for sells or opt-ins on your site from persons sent from the host site became known as "affiliate programs."

AFFILIATE SERVICES

As the popularity of affiliate programs has grown, services, such as LinkExchange, Commission Junction, BeFree, and many others, have arisen to provide centralized locations where Webmasters can pick and join affiliate programs. These services also monitor the vendors and keep them honest. They provide standardized software and interfaces to run the affiliate programs so that each new vendor does not have to re-invent the wheel when they start up an affiliate program.

As a Webmaster, you can go to one of these sites and pick out the programs you want to join. You fill out a form providing information about yourself and your Website and then you download the "banner code" to place on your site. When someone clicks on the banner from your site and buys something from the vendor, the sale is tracked and they pay you a small commission. Most provide online reporting so that you can see your how your sales are going at any time.

While these affiliate services help to promote affiliate programs for the vendors, and provide some efficiency for the Webmasters, vendors are still looking for better ways to promote their affiliates' programs and Webmasters are looking for more profitable arrangements.

BUYING FROM YOUR OWN STORE

Only a small percentage of the millions of Websites on the Internet actually draw any significant traffic. ISPs and other services provide free personal home pages and many people have designed sites more for their own amusement than any serious purpose. Nevertheless, it is advantageous to vendors to have their affiliate banners on as many pages as possible. Even the sites that do not draw significant traffic have the benefit of the loyalty of their own Webmaster. If you have put the Amazon.com affiliate banner on your site, you will go there to buy your books rather than Barnes and Nobles because you get a little commission back when you buy from your own "store." Because of this, most vendors make it as easy as possible to join their affiliate programs and want affiliates even with low traffic sites.

After the new wears off, however, most Webmasters realize it is too much work for too little value to keep affiliate programs on their low traffic Web pages. Because vendor sites are constantly being redesigned, your banner stops working and you have to download new "banner code" and replace it on your site. As promotions change, the vendors make you change your code or the pictures stop showing up. A few of the major vendors with affiliate programs have gone bankrupt and the links just quit working. It turns out to take a lot of time and effort to keep affiliate banners working on your site. Yet, it would benefit both the vendors and the Webmasters of the low traffic sites if this could be more conveniently and more profitably done.

A BRAIN TEASER SOLVED

There are thousands upon thousands of affiliate programs available on the Internet. A Webmaster cannot put more than just a very few affiliate programs on any one Website without losing effectiveness. (Nothing is worse than a Web page crammed full of banners.) Thus, Webmasters have become selective in choosing affiliate programs. As competition heats up among the vendors, the vendors find themselves focusing on finding creative ways to promote their affiliate programs. Affiliate programs are excellent for marketing products and services on the Internet, but how do you effectively market an affiliate program to the Webmasters?

A few bright entrepreneurs, including SFI marketing Group's founder, Gery Carson, have come up with the answer. The answer is to have a multitier affiliate program. This solves two problems. One, it makes it worthwhile for the ordinary person to become involved in e-commerce. You can make good money even without a high-traffic Website because you share in the sales of an entire organization. Plus, you don't have to hassle with keeping banner code for multiple programs up to date. SFI's Catalog allows all SFI affiliates to "buy from their own store" without the hassle of trying to maintain hundreds of affiliate programs yourself. Two, the attractiveness of the multitier commissions effectively promotes the affiliate program without distracting from product promotions.

Plus, this solution involves multitier training as well. Webmasters become involved in affiliate programs not only for their own savings but also to generate income from selling to others as well. This is not easy and requires training. It would be extremely costly for each vendor to establish an effective training program, providing the one-on-one communication necessary for true results. A multitier system with Team Leaders providing one-on-one training as needed eliminates the vendors' substantial affiliate training costs.

Thus, the next logical step in the evolution of affiliate programs in e-commerce is exactly what the SFI marketing Group has already done: a multitier commission and training structure.

NETWORK MARKETING AND THE INTERNET

When you step back and look at the history of e-commerce, you see that affiliate programs have independently evolved into something very similar to network marketing, which has been around for a long time. Ironically, though, network marketing itself has not taken well to the Internet. Most network marketing companies mistakenly believe that face-to-face interactions are necessary and that recruiting can not be effectively done online. (The research is in, however, and it shows the contrary to be true.) Another factor is that many network marketing companies do not encourage analytical examination of their opportunity, which is inevitable on the Information Superhighway. Thus, most network marketing companies only use the Internet to provide forms downloads and similar services to their existing representatives. They do not effectively use the Internet as a recruiting tool or to sell products to the general public.

Some enterprising independent representatives, however, have evolved the "downline clubs." Downline clubs sign people up on the Internet, promising to place them in multiple network marketing opportunities based on the order in which they signed up. Downline clubs theoretically offer the possibility of a large organization below you in multiple opportunities without any recruiting effort on your part. In actuality, though, most downline clubs have been disappointing. The greed of the club founders, the hope of instant riches, and the lack of focus due to joining multiple network marketing companies have usually yielded poor results. Training and commitment are lacking, so large downlines (if they get built in the first place) often crumble even faster than they were collected.

Thus, network marketing as we traditionally have known it has not grasped the potential of the Internet and does not appear likely to do so. Plus, and perhaps because of the Internet, the old model of network marketing is less effective in any venue of late.

THE NEW PARADIGM

SFI's founder, an experienced and successful network marketer, was one of the first to recognize that the old network marketing model quit working for many previously successful marketers around the same time that e-commerce was evolving toward a similar but different paradigm. He realized that an entirely new model was needed. He drew upon those principles of network marketing that remained viable and applied them to solve the current e-commerce challenge of promoting affiliate programs on the Internet. The results are phenomenal. SFI now has well over 7 million affiliates and the numbers of new affiliates each month is growing progressively.

SFI works because it is an e-commerce affiliate program. Unlike the old network marketing model, SFI does not require you to make unnecessary purchases or meet stringent qualifications to earn commissions. In contrast to almost all of the old network marketing companies, SFI fully embraces the powerful recruiting potential of the Internet. The SFI opportunity stands up well to the analytical scrutiny characteristic of the Information Superhighway. It is a forerunner in the next stage of evolution of e-commerce. Adding the multitier structure to an Internet affiliate program makes the new e-commerce channel of distribution fully workable. Because of this, SFI has been able to negotiate fantastic savings and commissions for its affiliates from world-class vendors and will continue to attract more and even better deals as SFI continues to grow.

CONCLUSION

The natural evolution of e-commerce has pointed to a multitier commission structure to give life to the new channel of distribution of goods and services created by the Internet. SFI is in the forefront of this new adventure in commerce. SFI embodies the most advanced stage of evolution of e-commerce. As Moore's Law (discussed in an earlier lesson) ensures the continued growth of e-commerce, history and logic dictate that affiliate programs will continue as the distribution channel for e-commerce. It follows that SFI, representing the most advanced evolution of affiliate programs, will continue to have lasting phenomenal growth and prove profitable for all involved.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will focus on how you should approach finding other Webmasters to join your team of affiliates in a multitier affiliate program.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, you will learn how to get started on building your team of affiliates in SFI.

CHOOSING UP SIDES

When I was a kid, the boys from our neighborhood would meet at the vacant lot on the corner every Sunday afternoon to play ball. The first thing we would do is choose two captains for the day, and the captains would choose up sides. The captains would take turns picking players for their team from the ragtag group of neighborhood kids who showed up that day. Often the outcome of the game for that day was predetermined by the choosing of sides, due to an uneven distribution of ages, sizes, and talents. Getting the right players on your team was very important to the outcome.

Team effort and healthy competition among opposing teams is the most natural of things for human beings. Cut a bunch of kids loose on a Sunday afternoon and that's what they will most likely do: choose up teams and have a competitive game between the opposing teams. The games may be different in different parts of the world, but the activity of picking teams and playing some sort of competitive game is universal.

When you join the SFI affiliate program, you have two ways to advance your business:

1) Build your team of affiliates
2) Market products from the Website

While you can do both simultaneously, the question arises as to which of these two tasks should be given priority. The answer for SFI is to first focus on expanding your team of affiliates. Like the kids at the neighborhood vacant lot, most ventures naturally begin by picking your team. In SFI, like any venture, picking the right team can be the most important part of obtaining a successful outcome.

Picking your team might not be your first priority if you were solely responsible for training the affiliates you bring into your team. In SFI, the training is allocated to the Team Leaders and Group Leaders, who already have the experience and proven track record. Were that not the case, it would be necessary for you to gain experience in Internet marketing of the products before bringing in new affiliates who would depend on you for training. After all, no one makes any commissions until products are sold. But since experienced Team Leaders and Group Leaders are available to train your new affiliates, you can follow the natural order of things and focus first on building a great team of affiliates.

ONE BAD APPLE DOES NOT SPOIL THE BARREL

In many ventures, whether those ventures involve sports or business, picking one bad apple on your team can often cause problems and interfere with the overall success of the team. (The scrawniest kid with the thickest glasses was always the last one to be picked in our neighborhood ballgames.) The careful design of the SFI program, however, substantially eliminates this risk. SFI has "full compression" in its multitier pay plan. That is, there can be hundreds of inactive affiliates between you and the next member, and the next member in line will still be considered to be on your next level for purposes of the pay plan. Thus, while you definitely want good, motivated affiliates on your team, you do not have to worry about excluding the bad ones in the process of finding the good ones. This said, however, you want to make an effort to find and recruit good team players.

FINDING THE GOOD ONES

When you are first getting started in SFI, you will want to hand pick several good affiliates to start your team. This activity comes naturally and does not require a lot of technical training. Even if you know very little about Internet marketing, you can begin to succeed immediately by finding and recruiting good quality affiliates. The remainder of this lesson will outline the simple steps for you to follow in order to accomplish this task.

PUT YOURSELF IN THE SHOES OF THE ONES YOU WANT TO RECRUIT

As discussed in an earlier lesson, you should always focus on the perspective of your potential recruits. Put yourself in their shoes. Think like they will be thinking.

First, you should spend some time thinking about what qualities you want in your affiliates. What are the characteristics of the new affiliates that you would want on your team? You probably want people who enjoy a good challenge and are willing to become involved in new things and learn new ways to increase their income. You should want people who are capable of critical thinking, but also capable of taking practical, effective action. You also want to find some people who already know a good deal about Internet marketing. People who already have a good Website that draws substantial traffic would be great to have on your team. Ask yourself, "What would these people search for on the search engines when looking for new and better ways to make money on the Internet?" Come up with a list of words and phrases with which they would likely search.

I cannot offer you any example search words or phrases. In order for this to work, you have to come up with your own search terms. If I or anyone writing about Internet promotion to a large audience were to give a specific list of words with which you should search, several thousand people would wind up at the same Websites and those poor Webmasters would be inundated with queries. Originality is what makes this work. You have to be original and come up with your own search terms for this to work for any of you. This is your chance to use your own imagination and creativity to rise above the crowd by finding those choice spots to advertise. You do this by carefully thinking out the search terms your targeted recruits would likely use.

When you have come up with your list of search terms, go to the popular search engines (Yahoo!, AltaVista, WebCrawler, Google, etc.) and perform a search with the terms on your list. The sites that show up on the first three pages of your search engine results would likely be the sites also discovered by the people you want to be on your team. If these are personal sites, rather than large, corporate venture-capital type sites, the Webmasters of these sites themselves would be a great addition to your team! Thus, you want to inquire both about advertising on the site and recruiting the Webmaster as well.

MAKING CONTACT

Any time you start to contact someone over the Internet regarding a commercial matter, be very careful not to spam. Thus, you must be careful how you contact the Webmasters of the sites that turned up in your search. If a site in which you have become interested allows free postings such as classifieds or announcements, you have hit pay dirt—but read the rules for posting on the site very carefully before posting and follow the rules! The next thing you would look for is contact information for the Webmaster. If there is a phone number listed, you have also hit pay dirt. You can call the Webmaster on the telephone without any worries of a spam complaint. In your phone conversation with the Webmaster, explain that he or she has a Website you believe could help you recruit a team of affiliates for SFI. If you have an advertising budget, tell them that you would like to purchase some advertising on their site. (Don't say this if you can not afford any advertising because you do not want to be misleading.) Explain further, however, that they can doubly profit from this if they will also join SFI. Tell them that they can join as an affiliate for free, and all of the recruits you obtain from advertising on their Website will also fall under them. Thus, they will profit twice from selling you some advertising.

If the Website on which you arrange to advertise this way is productive, the Webmaster will see all of the affiliates coming into the network and will soon get the idea. The Webmaster will likely start promoting on the site with his or her own affiliate number. Then you will not have to pay for advertising on that site anymore and yet it is still building your team.

If you cannot afford any paid advertising, you will have a somewhat more difficult task. Webmasters get very interested in speaking with someone who is offering to pay them for advertising on their Website. Most people who have worked to build a good Website and build good traffic to it have planned on making their money through paid advertising. On the other hand, they will not be terribly receptive to using space on their sites for an affiliate program with which they are not familiar. Nevertheless, a polite phone call in which you give them your Gateway URL for the affiliate program (www.YourGateway.com/YourSFIID/FREE/) and a brief mention that there are presently over 7 million affiliates, some of which are earning over $10,000 per month with this program, may well get their attention.

If there is not a phone number for the Webmaster on the Website, but only an e-mail address, you will have to be careful that your e-mail does not give the appearance of being spam. Remember that even if your message is technically not spam, a recipient who erroneously believes that it is spam may well report you anyway and cause big problems for you. All Webmasters who list their e-mail address on their Website get a lot of spam and are, consequently, quite annoyed by it. The reason that happens is that the people who harvest e-mail addresses for the spammers get those e-mail addresses with software which searches Web pages and grabs any e-mail addresses listed. Thus, anyone who has had a Web page with their e-mail address on it up for any length of time is already on these lists and is being bombarded with spam. Most of those spam messages begin with "I was looking at your Website . . ." In almost every case, it becomes immediately apparent that the spammer has never seen your Web page. They are clearly lying and that makes you mad right from the start. Thus, whenever you send e-mail to a Webmaster, you must make it clear from the beginning of the message that you have truly just visited their Website and are responding to the e-mail contact link you found there. You must make it clear that this is a single message (not bulk) sent only to that Webmaster. Something very important to realize is that you can not make these things clear simply by asserting them in the e-mail. Spam e-mails that Webmasters get daily boldly (albeit falsely) assert that they are not spam. Thus, you have to PROVE that you were just looking at the Webmaster's Website by mentioning very specific things about their site right up front. Otherwise, you will not only lose their attention, but they will likely report you for spam.

Because you are responding to a Contact Us link on their Website with a single, non-bulk e-mail, you are not technically spamming them. By placing that link on their Website, they have given you permission to send them a one-time personal, non-bulk e-mail pertaining to their Website. And if they recognize your e-mail as being honest and sincere and recognize that you have indeed spent some time at their Website, they will welcome your correspondence. It is important that the subject heading and the first sentence of your e-mail reference something that could only be known from having seen the Website. Mentioning the domain name itself is not convincing because the spammers know that as well, but it does help to mention it. Mentioning the color scheme, the graphics, and some of the advertisers or information on the site will be convincing—if you are very accurate. The more you talk about the Website with specific and accurate information, the more the Webmaster will be intrigued by your e-mail. You need to be complimentary and not critical of the site, of course. People love compliments. Your e-mail should not sound like an ad, but should sound like personal correspondence from someone who became excited from visiting their Website. In your first e-mail, do not mention the SFI affiliate program by name, but rather make a general inquiry about advertising on their site for your business. (If you cannot afford paid advertising, just make a general inquiry as to whether they would be interested in an affiliate program that would work well on their site.) After they respond with interest, it is appropriate for you to reveal the nature of your business. As discussed earlier regarding the phone call, explain that the Webmaster can doubly profit from selling you advertising and becoming an affiliate. Add that that there is no charge or obligation for becoming an SFI affiliate.

CONCLUSION

With the process outlined in this lesson, anyone, regardless of their technical knowledge of Internet marketing, can begin immediately to build a successful team of SFI affiliates. By following the steps which have been outlined here, you can find appropriate Websites and, through free or paid advertising, place on these sites the SFI-approved banners or textual ads provided for this purpose. If you have a bit of luck, you will find a few Webmasters who will also join as SFI affiliates. Just like playing ball on the corner lot, I think you will find building your SFI team to come naturally and to be a lot of fun!

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Our next lesson will touch on the basics of designing a Website that you can use as a doorway page to help build your SFI business.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

In this two-part lesson, you will learn the basics of planning, designing, building, and publishing doorway pages. This lesson will cover planning and design. The next lesson will cover building and publishing.

REVIEW OF THE CONCEPT

There are many different types of Websites and Web pages used for different purposes. One category of Web pages is "doorway pages." You may recall that we introduced you to doorway pages in Lesson 4 of this course. We said there that a "doorway page" is a Web page used to lead people to another target interactive site. The doorway page contains a link to your target page. The target page is where you hope the user will take some action such as purchasing an affiliate product or opting in to your program. The target page sells. The doorway page gets people's attention and leads them to the target page. Doorway pages serve two main purposes:

1. To optimize search engine placement, and

2. To target your initial approach to different demographics.

We also said that the best doorway pages are pages that attract the targeted demographic by providing useful information or entertainment, while remaining easy to navigate. In Lesson 3, we concluded that any Web page must have valuable content and must be easy to use if it is to succeed. That is, a Web page must flow. A doorway page must flow with content and ease of use, and it must flow into the target page where the desired action can happen.

While the information in this lesson applies generally, we will focus on the SFI affiliate program to simplify our discussion. As an SFI affiliate, you already have several very effective target pages with effective opt-in programs. Your doorway pages can point to the SFI main site, the SFI Affiliate sign-up site, the Full-Circle Success site, or any of the product pages. Any and all of these are effective target sites.

You can have one or several doorway pages for each target site. You can design your doorway pages to attract specific types of prospects (demographics) or to be general in approach.

Before we begin, let me reiterate from our last lesson that you can succeed in SFI with very little technical knowledge. Following the procedures from our last lesson will get you well on your way to success. For those of you who want to learn more of the technical process, let's look now in more detail at the process of planning, designing, building, and publishing doorway pages.

AN OUTLINE

It will be helpful if we start first with an outline of the process.

Planning Your Doorway Page
- Choosing the "value" you will offer
- Deciding on the demographic you will target
- Deciding whether to use a virtual domain or a subordinate URL
- Choosing a name
- Planning your "flow" from the demographic to the value to the target page
- Deciding on the level of interactivity
- Determining update needs
- Determining security needs
- Deciding whether to farm it out

Designing Your Doorway Page
- Wording your content
- Choosing your layout
- Optimizing your search engine use
- Gathering your graphics
- Choosing which editor to use

Building Your Doorway Page
- Browser compatibility issues
- Resolution compatibility issues
- Loading speed
- Language, grammer, and spelling
- Graphics refinement
- Navigation issues
- Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
- Space requirements
- Code writing

Publishing Your Doorway Page
- Choosing an ISP
- Contract issues
- Uploading your site
- Registering your site
- Maintaining your site

With this outline, we can now discuss each item in turn.

PLANNING YOUR DOORWAY PAGE

As with anything worthwhile, planning is the most important step. You should put a great deal of effort into your planning. This will save you effort later on.

The first two issues you must address in the planning stage are interdependent. They are "What demographic group will you target?" and "How will you provide value to that demographic?"

You can provide the valuable information or entertainment for your doorway page yourself, or you can obtain it from another source. There are sources on the Internet (such as YellowBrix or BraveNet) that will provide dynamic information that you can easily incorporate into your Website. They have both free and fee options. The free options may have links in the content that will divert some of your traffic to the content provider's target pages. The reason they provide free content to you is to gain that traffic. If this is all you can afford—and you can not come up with value of your own—this is far better than nothing. If you can afford it, you can purchase information from many different sources to provide on your page that will not divert traffic. Better yet, you can provide your own valuable content.

Most everyone knows something that would be of value to others. Maybe you are good at small-engine repair, gardening, canoeing, backpacking, fresh-water fishing, photography, skydiving, or fashion accessorizing. Or, maybe you just know the good restaurants in your city and the ones to avoid. You can provide value to your doorway page with well written information on any of these subjects or an infinite number of other subjects. The one catch is that you either have to be able to write fairly well . . . or you have to find someone who can write well to help you. If you have a creative streak in you, it can be worlds of fun to plan your doorway page.

The point is that you have to have valuable information or entertainment from somewhere to offer on your page. A Web page must have value. If you expect your Web page to be effective, it cannot just be a list of links and banners. Doorway pages, however, by definition, can be very short and sweet. In fact, the more focused they are, the more effective they will be. Do not try to do all things with your page—just do one thing well.

Depending on the value you have to offer, you can identify the demographic group you will be targeting with your doorway page. Or, if you will be acquiring the content from other sources, you can pick that content to match the group you want to target.

Let's look at an example. Let's say you decide to target persons approaching retirement who are worried that their retirement income will be insufficient to meet their needs. First, think of information that this group will find valuable. A lot of companies offer senior discounts. You could research and formulate a list of such companies and the discounts they offer. You could then offer this information on your doorway page. You can then easily make this content flow into your link to the SFI program by stating that savings from discounts is one way to manage your retirement budget, but increasing your income by working part-time from home is another. Then provide the link to your SFI page as the means to obtain that extra income.

When gathering content for your page, be careful to avoid violating copyrights. You cannot just copy information from someone else's page without his or her permission. Either get permission to use content created by others, find content which is in the public domain (such as certain government publications produced for free dissemination), or create your own content.

Another decision you have to make is whether you will purchase a virtual domain or just use a subordinate URL. A virtual domain is where the name you have reserved, such as "mydomain.com," is permanently tied to your Website through DNS (Domain Name Service) entries overseen by ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, the authority responsible for managing domain names for the Internet). Alternatively, you can purchase space from an ISP or even find free space from services, such as Angelfire.com, where your URL (the address of your Website) will be a subdirectory of someone else's domain, for example, http://angelfire.com/yourname. We refer to these addresses as subordinate URLs because they are a subdirectory of someone else's domain name.

If you want to have your own domain name, you have to pay a fee to register it. More importantly these days, you have to find a decent name that is not already taken. That gets more difficult to do with each passing day as millions have already been reserved. The oldest and most respected source for searching and registering domain names is Network Solutions. At the time of this writing, they charge $35 per year for registration of a domain name. Other services, such as 000domains (which charges only $13.50 per year) are now available for much less.

Having your own domain name will help your standing with the search engines and provide ease of advertising. Picking the right name is important. You can search for available names at one of the registrar's sites or at a Whois site. Most obvious names that you could think of are already taken, but with some imagination and time you may find a suitable one still available for your purposes.

Once you know what your address (whether your own domain or a subordinate URL) will be and have decided on your demographic group and content, you need to give some careful thought to making it all flow into the link to your target page. We cannot overemphasize the value of flow. Your viewers' mind must be naturally led to your link from the content of your page. If not, they will not likely click on the link regardless of how much they enjoy the content.

Any time you plan a Web page, you should give some consideration to interactivity. By interactivity, I mean that the viewer can select choices or input information, and the content will change accordingly. A quiz is a good example of interactivity. Correct answers yield a reward. Incorrect answers result in a buzzer effect. Interactivity makes your page much more interesting than a static, brochure-type page. Interactivity requires some programming beyond basic HTML, however. You will have to use a CGI scripted program, JavaScript, or VBScript, or your host will have to have an API (Application Program Interface) program available for your use. Doorway pages do not have a great need for interactivity since their sole purpose is to catch traffic and direct it to the target page. Interactivity is always a plus, however.

Another important consideration is updating your Web page. You will need to keep the content on your page current as the information changes. Design your page to make updating easy. Some of the free hosts allow you to update your pages at will. Some Web designers will design your own custom administration section to allow you to update your page at any time, even without knowledge of HTML. Both of these methods allow you to add changes to your content into Web forms, which when submitted will update the content of your Web page. The traditional way of updating your Web content, however, is to use an FTP program, such as WS_FTP Pro. This will let you upload a new version of the entire page each time you change it. You also need to plan and schedule when and how you will go about the updating process. A regular schedule and a routine of keeping your page current should be an important part of your plan.

Your plan should also take into account any security needs. There are generally two types of security. One type of security is limiting access to specific pages so that only authorized viewers can see them. The other is protecting private information as it travels across the Internet to and from your site. Will you be collecting private information from your viewers? If so, you will need to have the HTTPS protocol available. This protocol encrypts the information as it is passed to and from the site so that it cannot be read by unauthorized persons, even if it is intercepted as it travels across the Internet. To obtain this latter type of security, you have to obtain and install a Security Certificate (such as the ones available from Verisign) or use one already obtained by your ISP. Security certificates identify you as being who you say you are to those passing private information to you from forms on your Web page.

Unless you are already familiar with HTML (the code language that is used to build Web pages) and are not traumatized by the above discussions of CGI, Java, APIs, and Security Certificates, you may want to farm out the building of your Website. Many people have enjoyed the process of learning to build their own Websites, but many have found it to be extremely frustrating. If you fall into the latter category, there are many good Web design and hosting companies available at reasonable prices.

You must be very careful in choosing a Web design firm, however. Because this is all so new, there are few standards to judge who is really an expert and who just claims to be an expert. I have encountered many people who have proclaimed themselves to be Web-design experts but who are in fact dangerously ignorant. You do not become a Web-design expert just by figuring out how to build a basic template site with one of the HTML editors such as FrontPage. To be a true Web-design expert, one should be thoroughly familiar with computers, operating systems (including Internet server operating systems), Internet protocols, HTML, CGI, APIs, and some of the scripting languages such as JavaScript or VBScript. The firm you choose should also have good knowledge of graphic design and graphic file compression standards and software. Some artistic talent needs to be added to this knowledge base for a firm to produce high-quality products.

Also because this is all so new, there is tremendous variation in pricing for these services. Some not-so-expert firms will charge thousands of dollars to design a site which could have been obtained from a true expert for a fraction of the cost. Thus, you should use great care in selecting a design firm you choose to farm out the building of your site.

At the time of this writing, SFI is negotiating with expert firms to offer special deals to SFI affiliates who are members of the IAHBE. If you're not an IAHBE member yet, e-mail me at designfirms@georgelittle.com and I will direct you to suitable firms for design and temporary hosting in the interim.

DESIGNING YOUR DOORWAY PAGE

Once you have a good solid plan for your doorway page, you need to begin the actual design process. Whether or not you farm out the design of your doorway page, you need to participate in the design process. At this point, it is time to turn your attention again to the content you will have on your page. Hopefully, you have decided during the planning stage the type and source of content you will use. Now you must decide how to display that content on a Web page.

The next step is to rough out a design layout on paper. Think about the most pleasing way to display the content on your Web page. This is where you begin to think seriously about the graphics you will use. You will need a background color or image for your page. The subtler, the better. You do not want to blind your visitors and overwhelm the content on your page with a busy background. You will also need a logo or similar type of "branding" graphic to give your page some identity. You may want to use photographs that you have available or can take to add a visual dimension to your written content. Consider how you will place the logo and photos in relation to the textual content on your site.

The goal, again, is to create flow. You want your visitors' attention to start at the top and flow down your page to your target link. Mentally and visually, you need to have a starting point and a flow path. Design your graphics (or have them designed) so that the eye is naturally led down the page from the top to the bottom. Remember that the focal point of the entire page is the link to your target page. Design your page so that if attention is first caught by any other part of the page, it will be led to your target link. Word your content to have the same directional effect mentally as your graphics have visually. Work to make both your graphic content and your textual content come together as a unified whole that creates a reaction in the viewer and leads him or her to your target link through a pleasant and interesting visual and mental process.

One of the most important aspects of design is to optimize your page for the search engines. Web pages contain metatags which are invisible to the visitors to your page, but are specifically read by the search engines. We will have more on this in the next lesson and even more detail in subsequent lessons, but for now you need to come up with about 25 to 30 keywords for the search engines to index that will draw people to your site. You also need to draft out a one paragraph description of your site, utilizing the most important keywords from your list. Your description should concisely state in very inviting terms what your site has to offer. Finally and most importantly you must word the content of your entire site with your keywords and description in mind. Search engines are not happy when a site has keywords and a description which has little to do with the actual page itself.

After creating the layout for your site, it's time to prepare the final wording of the content and to gather up the graphics you need. You can design your own logo with a drawing program or you can have someone else do it for you. You need a graphic file preferably in a .GIF or .JPG format that is small in terms of the bytes used in the file size so it loads fast. Using a digital camera or a scanner, you can digitize the photographs, if any, you need for your page. When you have all this together, you are almost ready to start actually building your site.

The one final issue before beginning to build your site is how you will write the code. If you have the knowledge, the prefered method is to write your own HTML code in a simple text editor. If not, you will have to rely upon an HTML editor. HTML editors are like word processors that allow you to type text, insert graphics, build tables, insert links, and do the other things necessary to build a page. The editor then writes the HTML code for you in the background. Most HTML editors provide pre-built templates which have a layout already in place for you. Many feel it is better not to use these templates because they are recognized as such when people see your page. If time is an issue and economy requires you to build your own page, however, templates can be useful.

If you are going to use an HTML editor, you want to find one that actually saves you time, rather than one that burns up your time while you try to learn how to it. If the editor is not very user friendly, your time might be better spent learning the HTML code itself, which is not really that complicated. HTML is a tag type code. You insert tags before and after content to produce the placement and effect you desire for that content. Learning HTML is not like learning a programming language, such as C++ or Visual Basic. It is much simpler.

CONCLUSION

Doorway pages can be very useful in promoting affiliate programs. They allow you to target specific audiences and lead them to your target link. Doorway pages allow you to optimize search engine acceptance and placement. Just as with any other undertaking, good planning is the key. Start with planning and designing your site as discussed in this lesson before you begin to actually build your site.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In this lesson we discussed planning and designing your doorway page. Our next lesson will continue with discussion of building and publishing your doorway page.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson we cover the basics of building and publishing doorway pages.

THE OUTLINE

Recall the outline given in Lesson #8 for Building and Publishing:

Building Your Doorway Page

- Browser compatibility issues
- Resolution compatibility issues
- Loading speed
- Language, grammar, and spelling
- Graphics refinement
- Navigation issues
- Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
- Space requirements
- Code writing

Publishing Your Doorway Page

- Choosing an ISP
- Contract issues
- Uploading your site
- Registering your site
- Maintaining your site

BUILDING YOUR DOORWAY PAGE

BROWSER AND MONITOR RESOLUTION COMPATIBILITY ISSUES

Everyone sees the Internet from the perspective of their own computer. Most people have only one browser installed and running on his or her computer . As browsers differ somewhat in the way that they interpret and display the code they read from retrieved Web pages, we see Web pages somewhat differently than other users with different types or versions of browsers. Also, people use different resolutions on their monitors or have their monitors adjusted differently. This doesn't have much significance until you start the process of designing your own Web page. What you see when you look at your own Web page may not be exactly what others else see when they look at it.

Although Internet Explorer and Netscape are by far the most common browsers, they behave differently from each other and each has had several different versions to date, with each version behaving somewhat differently from previous and subsequent versions. When you add in the different monitor resolution settings, there are quite a number of possibilities as to how a Web page will look from computer to computer. Just because your Website looks good on your computer does not prevent it from being a jumbled mess on someone else's screen. For example, if you design your site to fill your screen using 1024x768 resolution, only a portion of your page will be seen on a monitor using 640x480 resolution.

Sophisticated Web designers deal with this problem with Java or other code that reads the browser version of each computer before it is displayed. The code that is sent to the browser then depends on which browser is reading the page. An appropriate page of code will be sent to each browser version. Such designs are expensive, however, and are not feasible for the novice Webmaster to code for themselves. Another approach is to use basic, standard HTML code, which is compatible with all browsers, and build the page so that it looks good on a variety of different platforms. With a little time and research, this is within the reach of the novice Web designer. It is better to build a simple page anyway. Simple can be quite attractive.

LOADING SPEED

Another reason to keep your page simple is the loading speed. Research suggests that the amount of time viewers will wait for a page to load depends on how valuable they expect the page to be. However, if they are not already convinced the page will contain value for them, they will not wait very long. Thus, a doorway page has to load very fast. The simpler the code and the fewer graphics and script it contains, the faster it will load.

When you use graphic designs and photos on your main page, keep them small. You may give your viewer the option of waiting to see a larger version of the photo by clicking on it if you think it will be important to them. Do not make them wait for the large photo to load on the main page. These smaller pics which click through to larger versions of themselves are called "thumbnails." Using thumbnails helps to keep your main page fast loading.

Also, keep the number of graphics and photos as small as possible on your doorway page. I once knew a would-be Web designer who designed a beautiful page for a local agency. The page was truly beautiful, but had one small problem—it took 25 minutes to load through the average modem. Finding the right balance between using graphics and fast loading speed is the key to an effective page.

LANGUAGE, GRAMMAR, AND SPELLING

How many of you noticed in the outline listed in the last lesson that the word "grammar" was misspelled? For those of you who noticed that, how did it affect your reading of the last lesson? How did it affect your feelings about the competency of this course in general (before reading here that we did that on purpose)? It made a difference, didn't it? While not everyone notices small errors, it makes a difference to those who do notice them.

It goes without saying that you should take care that the written content of your page does not contain glaring errors in language, grammar, or spelling. While electronic communications such as chat rooms, e-mail, and, to some extent, even Web pages are more tolerant of such errors than the print media audience, it will make your page much more effective if you take care to draft your wording wisely and effectively and use proper grammar and spelling.

GRAPHICS REFINEMENT

It is not advisable to grab the free clipart from popular clipart pages to build your Website. That same clipart is probably already in use on thousands of other pages precisely because it is free and readily available. In addition, clipart is not really what you want on your page. You need graphics which provide identity and flow. Clipart tends to be cute rather than professional. The novelty has worn off for the popular clipart. It would be better, in my opinion, to have fewer graphics on your page than to use clipart. Small buttons and arrows are ok, but use the subtle ones. Flashy animation can detract from the flow of your page.

It takes both art and science to develop professional-looking graphics. Knowing the right resolution to maintain quality appearance within acceptable loading speeds is crucial. Reducing an image or a scanned or digital photograph to the desired size and resolution without distortion can be a tedious task. You need to have good graphics software and some knowledge of how to use it. In sizing your images, remember again that different people use different resolutions on their monitors. The relative size of the image on a screen will depend on the resolution of the monitor on which it is viewed. The standard graphics file formats across all browsers are .GIF and .JPG. Thus, you want to put your graphics in one of these formats. You need to put the size of your image in the HTML image code to speed loading. Otherwise, the browser has to determine the size of the image first in order to allocate the space for the image on the screen, slightly reducing loading speed.

Also refine your graphics for visual effect. If you have sophisticated graphics software, you can slightly adjust your images to pull the eye in the direction you desire to promote the flow of your page.

NAVIGATION ISSUES

If you have more than one page on your doorway site, the method you provide for visitors to move around your site is of utmost importance. Each site with more than a couple of pages needs a well thought out navigation scheme. Navigation of the site is accomplished, of course, by the insertion of hyperlinks that move the visitors to other pages on the site. A doorway page should not have too many links because it has a directional purpose. Links that are used should be clearly identified and should lead the viewer logically through the information on the site. Links can also give your visitors a choice of the content on your site. A navigation bar across the top or side of your page should be sufficient for a doorway page. Some links within the content itself may be appropriate, but do not overburden your visitors with choices. Links, like footnotes, can be distracting from the flow of your content.

Be sure to include return links to bring your visitors back into the directional flow. You don't want your visitors to wind up at a dead end somewhere because they clicked on a hyperlink. A navigation bar on every page can be a safeguard against this. By "navigation bar" we mean a set of links placed together with some symmetry of design. When you create a navigation bar, you can then just copy the code and paste it on your other pages.

PRIVACY POLICY AND TERMS OF USE

Including a Privacy Policy for your site will give your site a professional feel and provide a comfort level to your visitors. Your Privacy Policy is simply your statement of what information you intend to collect from your visitors and what you intend to do with that information.

There are two ways to collect information from the visitors to your site. One is to have the visitor fill in information on a Web form. The other way is to collect information by capturing the CGI variables that accompany the request to retrieve your page. This less-obvious method is cause for more feelings of insecurity for your visitors. When surfing the Web, a browser sends out a signal to the Web server hosting the desired page. That signal says, in effect, "Here's my IP number, send me your page." The page is then sent to the computer so that the browser can read the code and display the page on the screen. The signal sent to the Web server also contains some other information, such as the user ID, the type and version of the browser being used, and other information.

Thus, even if you do not collect personal information with a form, it is a good idea to include a Privacy Policy stating your intentions as a Web host with respect to the personal information you could be collecting from the CGI variables accompaning the requests for your page. If you do collect information with a form, it is even more important to have a clearly stated Privacy Policy on your site.

"Terms of Use" is different from the Privacy Policy. Terms of Use is where you make legal declarations which may protect you against liability if someone misuses the information on your page or injures themselves somehow while trying to use information you have provided. If you have a discussion board or other means for your visitors to post information to your site, your Terms of Use can set the rules for participation. Terms of Use can also be used to claim intellectual property rights in the information on your site, including the information posted there by others. Discussion of all possible legal issues that may need to be addressed and how they should be addressed in your Terms of Use is beyond the scope of this course. Competent legal advice should be sought if you feel you might have any liability issues with respect to your site.

SPACE REQUIREMENTS

Finally, you should approximate the size of your site in terms of bytes of disk space needed, including all images and graphics you will be using. Take into account future updates. Make sure that the size of your site matches the server space available from your host.

WRITING THE CODE

Coding a Web page can be very simple or very complicated, depending on what you try to do and how you try to do it. It is beyond the scope of this course to teach you HTML, and it would be reinventing the wheel if we attempted to do so. There are countless tutorials for HTML on the Web itself. Just go to any search engine and search for "HTML help" or "HTML Tutorial" and you will get a wealth of information. If you learn better with a book in hand, I would recommend Creative HTML Design.2: A Hands-on HTML 4.0 Web Design Tutorial with Cdrom available from Barnes and Nobles. Barnes and Nobles also offers a free online course in Web design under "Online Courses." Excellent online courses can also be found at http://phonl.com/training/.

If learning HTML gives you a headache, but you don't want to hire a design firm, you have two other alternatives. You can install an HTML editor on your computer and use it to build your code. Free editors are even available at such sites as download.com. However, some HTML editors take more time to learn than HTML code itself, so be careful in your choice. Your other option would be to use a site like http://www.bigstep.com. Bigstep allows you to build and host a Website using their forms system, which is easy to use and does not require any knowledge of HTML.

PUBLISHING A DOORWAY PAGE

CHOOSING AN ISP

Web pages reside on Internet Servers. While it is possible to host a page from your own computer, you would need to have Internet Server software installed and configured, and you would need a continuous high speed connection to the Internet. In addition, you would also need a permanently assigned IP number, which is used to find your page. If it changes each time you connect, your page will be lost to the Internet.

Thus, you need to find a hosting service for your Web page. You want one that has a lot of bandwidth so that your site will be served up fast, even at busy times. You will want one that has good support. If you have problems getting your page on their server, you want to get someone on the telephone to work out the problem. You also want one that's going to stay in business. At the time of this writing, a popular free Web hosting service just went belly up and left a lot of affiliates without a site (many did not even have a backup copy of their HTML code)! Websites went offline and the phones were disconnected with little advance warning. Thus, while free is nice, you may prefer to pay a reasonable fee for hosting of your site to ensure that you get good support and that your site will not just disappear.

CONTRACT ISSUES

You should consult an attorney before entering into any important contract. It is beyond the scope of this course to identify all issues that may be important in your hosting contract. Some issues that are usually important, however, are the following.

How much disk space and bandwidth are you allotted for the base fee? What are the charges for exceeding the diskspace or bandwidth limitation. (Bandwidth is used each time someone retrieves your page—approximately the same amount as the size of your page in diskspace.) What notice will you be given when the base allocation is exceeded?

What is the term of the contract? That is, how long are you committed for? Can the price be increased during that time?

Who pays for the domain name registration with the registration service—you or your host? For how many years will the name be registered? Who is responsible for renewing it?

Make sure you maintain ownership of your domain name if you are registering one. I knew an unscrupulous ISP that registered all of its Web customers' domain names as its own. When anyone tried to change services, they were told they did not own their domain names.

Make sure you maintain the intellectual property rights for your own site, even if the ISP is hired to design it.

What editors do they support? What CGI support do they have? Do they provide database integration? If so, for what platforms?

Find out what the updating charges will be, if any. What access do you have to update your site on your own?

What backup procedures does the ISP use and are copies available to you?

Do you get e-mail addresses with your domain? How many?

What will the ISP do to promote your site, if anything?

What exactly will happen if you fail to pay on time? Will an embarrassing notice be posted in place of your site?

Again, these are just a sampling of the things that may need to be spelled out in a written contract with your hosting service. You should consult an attorney regarding any other issues that may be important in your particular situation.

UPLOADING AND MAINTAINING YOUR SITE

Another thing to discuss with your hosting service is how you will get your site on their server. Some hosts support FrontPage, which is an editor that has a unique way of uploading the Website. If you build your site with FrontPage, you will need FrontPage support on the server, not only to upload it, but for it to work at all on the host's server. Otherwise, the most common method is FTP (File Transfer Protocol). You will need FTP software on your computer. I would recommend WS_FTP LE which can be downloaded with a free trial from download.com. You will need to find out the FTP address to your Web directory from your host and the username and password to access it.

Some hosts allow you to send in your page and its updates as e-mail attachments or through an uploading form on their Website.

REGISTERING YOUR SITE

"Registering Your Site" can mean two different things. If you want your own domain name, it must be registered with ICANN through one of the registration services, such as Network Solutions. The registration service must also be supplied with the proper DNS numbers for the primary and secondary DNS servers for your host. If you registered your domain name before you acquired your hosting service, you will need to make sure that your host's DNS numbers get listed in your registration profile with the registration service.

The term "registering your site" is often used to refer to registration with search engines. There is no one definitive place to register your site. There are countless search engines on the Internet now. Fifteen or so of them are generally considered to be the important ones because they get 90% of the traffic. Registering your site with the search engines can be a complicated process, which we will begin to discuss in the next lesson.

CONCLUSION

Doorway pages can be very useful in promoting affiliate programs. They allow you to target specific audiences and lead them to your target link. Doorway pages allow you to optimize search engine acceptance and placement. Building and publishing your own doorway page can be an exciting and interesting adventure.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Our next lesson will introduce you to search engines.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This is the first of many lessons in this course that will address search engines. Search engines have extreme importance to Internet marketers. In this lesson, we will introduce you to the general concepts and point out the popular search engines. Subsequent lessons will deal with individual search engines and more detailed information.

WHAT IS A SEARCH ENGINE?

When people look for things of interest to them on the Internet, they go to search engines and directories. A directory is a listing of category subject headings with Websites listed under the specific categories. You browse through (often called "drilling down") the categories until you find what you are looking for. Search engines, on the other hand, have a form in which you input keywords, and pages of results are displayed. The results are lists of Websites that pertain to the keywords you have used.

Search engines seek out and index Websites on the Internet according to keywords. When a user types a search phrase, a search engine scans its database and returns a list of successful matches to the request.

WHICH SEARCH ENGINES ARE IMPORTANT?

According to Nielsen//NetRatings, as of the date of this writing, search engine popularity within the top 25 online properties is as follows, with the most popular listed first:

Yahoo!, Google, Lycos, Go.com, Excite, InfoSpace, and Ask Jeeves.

HotBot, which has always been a very popular search engine, is now part of the Terra Lycos Network. Other search engines worth noting but not presently in the top 25 online properties are Northern Light and LookSmart.

Thus, although there are thousands of search engines, you can narrow your main focus down to just those mentioned above, as they receive the overwhelming majority of all search engine traffic.

The "reach" of a search engine is usually defined as the percentage of all Web users who visit the site at least once a month. Services, such as Nielsen//NetRatings, also periodically release statistics on the current reach of a search engine.

Another factor by which to judge a search engine is the percentage of Web pages it has indexed. Even the most comprehensive search engine was aware of no more than 16% of the estimated 800 million pages on the Web, according to a study published in the July 8, 1999, scientific journal Nature.

"The amount of information being indexed (by commonly used search engines) is increasing, but it's not increasing as fast as the amount of information that is being put on the Web," according to Steve Lawrence, a researcher at NEC Research Institute in Princeton, N.J.

Even the pages that do end up indexed take an average of six months to be discovered by the search engines, according to the study. That study was a long time ago in "Internet time." The situation is much worse today. Thus, you can not wait for the search engines to find your site. You have to submit it to them.

THINKING LIKE A SEARCH ENGINE

By now we hope you have noticed a theme running throughout the Internet Income Course. When we discuss recruiting affiliates, we ask you to think from the perspective of the prospects you are targeting. When we discuss selling products, we ask you to think from the perspective of the potential consumer. When we discuss contacting Webmasters to place your ads on their sites, we ask you to think from the Webmasters' perspective. When we discuss spam, we ask you to think from the perspective of the e-mail recipients. Now, as we begin to discuss search engines, we are going to ask you to think from the perspective of the search engine operators.

Take a few minutes and pretend that you are starting your own search engine. Say it is back in the mid 1990's and you want to establish your site as one of the popular search engines on this new fantastic Internet. You are going to take your company public and retire as a zillionaire! What would be important to you? How would you make that happen? You would certainly want your database to include all of the important, valuable Websites on the Internet. You would also want a comprehensive list of all the other not-so-great sites on the Internet as well. You would want your visitors to be able to efficiently find just what they want among those sites when they search your engine. You would want the most useful, valuable, high-quality sites to come up first in the list, followed by the less useful sites. You would want the most relevant sites to show up first, followed by the less relevant sites in the search results.

Say you start your index of Websites and for each entry you have a field for "site name," "site description," "site URL (address)," and "keywords." When visitors search from your search engine, they will input search words or phrases and then be led to sites pertaining to those words or phrases. Again, you want the most useful, valuable sites to come up first in the results. How would you accomplish this?

Let's say, for example, that one of the visitors to your search engine has to write a report on the planet Saturn for a class he is taking. He types in the keyword "Saturn." When your engine searches through its index of keywords, it will pull up sites that discuss the planet Saturn, but it will also pull up sites that deal with the automobile named Saturn, the Saturn Sega game system, the comic strip character named Sailor Saturn, perhaps a rock band named Saturn's Rings, and maybe even a porn star who goes by the nickname Saturn (provided you have not taken steps to filter out porn sites).

These diverse results are to be expected. What you do not want, however, is for a number of business opportunity sites, credit card sites, long-distance service sites, and porn sites (at least those that don't have stars named Saturn) to come up also. If those sites come up under a search for Saturn, then your search engine is not very efficient and your visitors will become frustrated and quit using your search engine. (If your visitor loses valuable time needed to write his report on the planet Saturn while plowing through all of these other non-relevant sites, he or she will find another search engine to use next time. If this happens often, there goes your zillion dollars!) You also want a means to identify the most valuable sites and rank them to come up first in the results. So, what you realize is that you need a means to exclude irrelevant sites and to rank relevant sites according to their value. The better you do these things, the more people will like your search engine and the more successful it will be.

The first thing you have to figure out as a search engine operator is how to associate keywords with sites. You will not have time to examine all the sites on the Internet and write keywords for them. You will either have to create a program that can read sites and make the keywords for them, or you will have to get the site publishers to do that themselves. There are at least two ways that you can get the sites' Webmasters to do this. One (employed by Yahoo!) is to make the Webmaster submit keywords in the process of submitting their site to your engine. This does not work for the "spider" engines, which go out and find the pages themselves, however. Since you want as many sites on your engine as possible, you do not want to wait for the Webmasters to submit them. You want to go out and find them. What you could do is support a standard whereby a certain meta tag included in the HTML code of all Web pages contains the keywords the Webmaster thinks are appropriate for his or her site. That is indeed what has happened. HTML supports the meta tag keywords for that very purpose.

When knowledgeable Webmasters build their Websites, they use the meta tag keywords on each page and insert the relevant keywords for that page. The tag looks like this:

<META Name="keywords" Content="saturn, planet, planets, planetary, solar system, astronomy">

Thus, when your search engine indexes sites, it automatically grabs the keywords from the keyword meta tag, and you are good to go. . . Or, are you? What if the Webmasters cheat when coding in their keywords?

Why would Webmasters want to cheat, and how would they go about doing so? Let's switch gears away from our Saturn example for a moment to explore these questions. Although the statistics are now changing, over the last several years the Internet has been used mostly by young men. Thus, the "hot" search terms—the ones most frequently searched for on the search engines—have been things of interest to young males. Because of this, as you might expect, search terms relating to sex and nudity, rock music, famous female stars, and outlaw-type sites (called "warez sites") have been high on the list of popular search terms. Some Webmasters have kept themselves aware of the current popular search terms and used them in their keywords, even though they may not be relevant to their Website. They do this to increase the probability of their site showing up in a search and, therefore, to increase their traffic.

Currently, one of the most popular search terms is "Britney Spears." It may occur to a Webmaster of a business opportunity site that if he adds "Britney Spears" to his keywords, he will increase traffic to his page and perhaps get more signups. But, as a search engine operator, you would have a problem with this Webmaster. You want your search engine visitors to find the pages they are looking for. If some young man is looking for a page discussing Britney Spears and finds business opportunity sites, your search engine has not done a good job. The young man, being unhappy, will take his search engine business elsewhere (so to speak) and your search engine will lose popularity. Thus, as a search engine operator, you are at cross purposes with these Webmasters who want to cheat with their keywords. Because you want that zillion dollar retirement, you are dang sure going to figure out ways to deal with them.

Now let's return to our "Saturn" example and say that a space probe launched by the United States has just gone into orbit around Saturn and is returning images from the planet's surface. NASA is publishing these images on the Internet as they come in. For a period of time before, during, and after these pictures are coming in, the word "Saturn" becomes a hot search term. People are going to search engines and trying to find sites where they can see these pictures of Saturn as they are downloaded from the space probe. A business opportunity Webmaster, being aware of this, decides to add "Saturn" as a keyword to his or her new Website. It will increase traffic to his site to add this keyword. But, the keyword has no relevance to his actual site, as he does not provide the NASA pictures on his site or any other information about Saturn. If your search engine does not catch and correct this attempt to cheat, your search engine will be ineffective. People who are trying to find the real sites with the Saturn pictures will become frustrated using your search engine because all they are finding are business opportunity pages which have nothing to do with Saturn. They will quit using your search engine and your goal of having one of the most popular search engines on the Internet will be defeated. Thus, as a search engine operator, you have to develop means to detect this keyword cheating.

The various search engines do exactly that in various ways. Search engine operators are constantly trying to improve their means of detecting such cheating. They closely guard the algorithms they use to do this as industrial secrets because if they become widely known, people will find ways around them.

When search engines detect people cheating, they can exclude the page from the search engine (and even any future submissions from the same person or company), give it a very low overall ranking, or give it a low or non-existent ranking with respect to the offending keywords.

Since we are never going to know with certainty how the search engines actually go about detecting keyword relevance and ranking sites, at least at any particular point in time, all we can do is imagine that we are the search engine operator and think how we would go about doing those things.

Thinking again like a search engine operator, how would you go about detecting keyword relevance? One thing you would soon realize is that you do not want to throw the baby out with the bath water. That is, you would realize that by only looking to see if the keywords show up in the actual content of the site and assuming that cheating has occurred if the words do not, you will exclude some very relevant, very valuable sites. This, too, would be bad for you as a search engine operator.

There are many legitimate situations where a keyword may not be repeated in the actual content of the site. Say a Webmaster has a regional site which provides news and current activities for a three county area commonly known among people in the region as the "River Basin Area" or perhaps the "Wiregrass Area" or some similar term. Say the three counties are Washington County, Adams County, and Jefferson County. Imagine further that the Webmaster included the state name and the name of all three of these counties in her keywords, but never actually mentions them in the content of her Website. The Website just refers to "news and events for the River Basin Area." The county names are very relevant keywords, even though they do not appear in the content of the site. People looking for news and events for Washington County would want to see this page. As a search engine operator, you would want them to find this page because it has information they are looking for. It would have been better if the Webmaster had included a statement like "covering the Washington County, Adams County, Jefferson County news and events and more" in her content. But, since she did not, you will have a more effective search engine if you recognize that she is not cheating, and her keywords are relevant. Thus, you realize that you are going to have to come up with a pretty sophisticated procedure for determining keyword relevance and ranking the Websites in your search engine.

Since you cannot afford to pay someone to sit and look at all of the millions of pages submitted to your engine in person, you will have to develop some algorithm that will do this task as best it can be done without human intervention. Clearly, it's not going to be extremely accurate. It would be far too difficult to write a program sophisticated enough to figure out all the different variations of relevant keywords. Most likely, you will have to settle for doing it on some statistical bases. Say, for example, you decide that if 90% of the keywords actually appear on the site, then that's close enough. The other 10% could be cheating or it could simply be legitimate oversight like the River Basin Area example above. You may have to settle for that margin of error. On top of that, you could look for certain keywords that suggest cheating and deal with them separately. You could try to develop algorithms which judge whether the keywords which do appear in the content are actually in context or just thrown in to fool the search engines. Whatever means is actually employed, it is a constant struggle between the aggressive Webmasters who would manipulate the search engines and the search engine operators who want to keep their search engines effective.

SITE DESCRIPTION

In addition to keywords, there is also a meta tag standard for the site description. This is where the Webmaster provides a description of the site which can appear in the search engine listing. We will discuss this in another lesson.

RANKING VALUE

In addition to producing search results containing sites that are relevant to the search terms used, search engine operators also want to place the most valuable sites high in the results list, leaving the less valuable sites for the end of the list. They want the people who use their search engine to find high-quality sites first.

Thus, as a search engine operator, you will want to find means to evaluate the quality and value of sites submitted. How would you go about this? Here are a few things you might consider. Check the HTML code of the submitted pages for errors. If the code contains errors, it is a signal that few resources were put into the site or else the Webmaster is less than knowledgeable. If the Webmaster is less than professional is his coding, he may also have been less than professional with the content. Check to see the number of other sites which link to this site. If there are many sites out there linking to this site, obviously some human beings have looked at it and determined that it has some value. You may also want to consider the quality ranking of the sites which link to it. If known high-quality sites are linking to it, it probably is a high-quality site itself. You may also want to look at the number of outgoing links from the site and see where they go. There is probably some ratio of links to volume of text content that is characteristic of high-quality sites. The quality of the pages linked to is also a factor. You would also want to look at how long the site has been at the same address. Many sites come and go. The fact that a site lasts is an indication of its quality. Thus, you will need to revisit the ranking of the sites on your engine from time to time to revaluate these factors. Simple things like the amount of content on a site and whether it has its own domain name would also be important.

CONCLUSION

As a Webmaster or an affiliate doing Internet marketing, search engines are important to you. Set aside some time to spend thinking like a search engine operator. Think of other things that would be important to you in evaluating keyword relevancy and judging the value of sites. Then incorporate all of these things into your Web pages. While you can never really know the true current search engine secrets, you can use your common sense and imagination to design Websites that would be favorably evaluated and ranked by you if you were the search engine operator. That should go a long way toward having your pages favorably evaluated and ranked by the real search engines.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

More on search engines!

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

This lesson will focus on the use of meta tags in your Website design. You will learn how to properly place the appropriate meta tags on Web pages that you create.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT HTML

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the basic code used to design Web pages. To help get a feel for HTML, think about the "Markup Language" part of the name. Remember the old days when an executive penned out a document and then gave it to the secretary to type on a typewriter. When the typed document was returned to the executive, he or she would often "mark it up" with a pen or pencil, indicating changes that needed to be made to create the final draft. In efficient offices and the publishing business, an efficient set of shorthand symbols was used to "mark up" the documents. Marking up was also used when a document had to be routed to several people within an organization. Each person would leave comments on the document (which were not to be confused with the original text itself). Thus, corrections, revisions, and comments to a document were accomplished by markup symbols.

HTML is not about correcting a document, but about displaying it. However, HTML is to some extent based on the historical markup concept. Web pages at their basic level are simply text documents prepared in a simple text editor (such as the Notepad or Wordpad applications built into the MS Windows operating systems). Web browsing applications (such as Internet Explorer) can read basic text documents (saved as file types with the .TXT extension) but do not know how to format them without a little help. This help comes from HTML tags placed in the document. When such tags are placed in the document, the document is given the .HTM extension (instead of the .TXT extension) so the Web browser applications will know the document is ready to be read and formatted in a Web browser. (Unix systems will use the four-letter.HTML extensions, instead of the three-letter .HTM file extension used by Windows operating systems and servers.) The HTML tags serve much the same purpose as the old mark-up symbols used in proofreading. The tags tell how the material should be displayed. They provide font style and size, paragraph formatting, spacing, listing order, and many other formatting features. For example, the <P> tag tells the Web browser to start a new paragraph. The </P> tag (with the forward slash) signals the end of the paragraph.

As you can see from the above example, HTML tags usually come in pairs. The opening tag is placed right before the text you wish to effect and the closing tag is placed right after the text you wish to effect. Some tags are an exception to this pairing rule, however, and all of the information is placed within a single tag. All HTML tags must be placed within the <head> and </head> tags on a Web page.

Before we get into meta tags, there is one other HTML tag with which you should be familiar. The comment tag is used to add comments about the page. These comments are not visible to those who view the page in a Web browser, but are visible to those who read the file as a text document. This is important because the search engines read a Web page as a text document and see the comments. The comment tag looks like this:

<comment> -- this a comment not visible from a Web browser, but visible when the source text file is read ---</comment>

HTML, like everything else having to do with computers and the Internet, comes in different versions. Newer browsers support the newer versions of HTML. This is only important so that you will understand that some people who use old versions of Web browsers may not get the effect of HTML tags (including meta tags) supported only by the newer versions.

A WORD ABOUT KEYWORDS

We introduced you to keywords in the previous lesson. Search engines, in one way or another, index your Web pages by keywords. Before you begin to design your meta tags, you need to have determined your keywords and your keyword strategy.

With respect to keyword strategy, you should become familiar with the concept of "key phrases." Key phrases are keywords that consist of more than one keyword. For example, you could have the keywords: "earning" and "profit," but you could also combine them into the key phrase: "earning profit." Due to the stiff competition in search engine placement, you should use key phrases along with keywords. Key phrases are much more precise in finding particular subject matter. The key phrase "earning profit" is more likely to be searched for by someone looking for pages discussing how a home-based entrepreneur can earn profit, while the keywords "earning" and "profit" used separately may be used by people looking for pages comparing the earnings and profits of various industries and large corporations. For a searcher, using key phrases helps to narrow down the results of a search. For a Webmaster, using key phrases on your page increases the likelihood that your page will show up when your target market searches.

Keywords and phrases are important in all of the meta tags, not just the keywords meta tag. Thus, the first step in preparing your meta tags is to identify your keywords, and, more importantly, your key phrases and the strategy behind them.

THE TWO CATEGORIES OF META TAGS

Meta tags are often divided into two categories: 1)HTTP-EQUIV, and 2) meta tags with a NAME attribute. You should not be confused or concerned with this, as we mention it here only so you can ignore it. The difference between these two types of meta tags has to do with how the Web browser applications talk to the Internet Web server applications before the actual Web page is sent. (Recall we discussed this concept briefly in an earlier lesson on Web page design.) But, for now, you do not need to worry about it.

META TAGS USED IN PROMOTION

While there are many different meta tags that do many different things (from refreshing your page automatically to preventing your page from being cached), our focus is on those tags that serve to promote your site in the search engines. The main ones are "title," "keywords," "description," and the "robots" tags.

THE TITLE META TAG

The "title" opening and closing meta tags look like this:

<title>Put the title of your Web page here.</title>

To draft your page title, pick your two most important key phrases and include them in a sentence or two that does not exceed 200 characters. Make this an attention grabbing, powerful sentence. Some of the search engines will use your title along side your link in the search engine listings. Your title will be the information used by people to decide whether to click through to your page. You have to make them want to see the page by the wording of your page title. Many search engines search the title content first when matching keywords. Thus, be sure to include your most important keywords and key phrases in your title meta tag,

THE KEYWORDS META TAG

As discussed in the last lesson, the keywords meta tag looks like this:

<META Name="keywords" Content="first key phrase, second key phrase, keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, etc">

Note that, unlike the title tag which has an opening tag and a closing tag with the text between the tag pairs, the keyword meta tag is just one tag with the text of the keywords and key phrases included within the quotation marks in the content attribute of the tag.

There is always an ongoing debate among the experts as to how many keywords you should use, whether to include the commas and/or the spaces between the keywords and phrases, and other such issues. The best course for beginners to follow is to start the list with two or three key phrases (such as "earning income, part time income, . . . ") and then add about twenty (20) more single keywords, including the keywords that make up the two key phrases. That is, in the example above, your keyword tag might look like this:

<META Name="keywords" Content="earning income, earning parttime income, earn, earning, income, earning, money, earning, profit, parttime, work, learn, homebased, entrepreneur, marketing, sales, business, course, opportunity, wealth, rich, financial, security, sixfigure">

The strategy is in using key phrases rather than just keywords. Also, the strategy is in which words and phrases you pick to use. Further, there is strategy in the order of placing your keywords. Note the places where the keyword "earning" is repeated in the example above. It ties the keyword "earning" to the words that come before it as well as the words which come after it, thus doubling the chances of matching a search phrase in some search engines. Picking the right words and phrases to match the content of your site to search queries made by your target market is the name of the game. Exactly how many words you use, and whether you use spaces or commas are secondary considerations which you can safely ignore for now.

The final consideration for the keywords tag is to avoid keyword spamming (repetitive use of a single keyword in order to manipulate search engine indexing and ranking). Do not use the same word repetitively, at least without other meaningful keywords between each instance of your main keyword. There is no known exact number of times you can repeat a single keyword before it will be considered keyword spamming by the major search engines. The number seven is touted about as the maximum number of times you can use a single keyword, but there is no real basis for this number. Looking back at our last lesson and the considerations discussed there will help you to realize that whether keyword spamming has occurred depends on how meaningful and useful it is to repeat a keyword, in light of the content of the site. Less important is trying to determine any particular number of repetitions that will penalize the site.

THE DESCRIPTION META TAG

The description meta tag looks like this:

<Meta Name="Description" Content="Put the description of your site here">

Use your keywords and key phrases in your description, but make it meaningful! Like the title tag, what you put in the description tag content is used by some search engines to tell people what your site is about. It's your only chance to motivate most people to click to your site.

Common questions include: "How long can the description be?" and "How many times can you repeat your keywords in it?" Again, there are no exact answers to these questions. The rule of thumb is just to describe your site as attractively as you can using the fewest words possible. Put the most important stuff first in your description so that, if some of the description does get truncated by the search engines, the important stuff will likely still be included.

In addition to using a description meta tag, it is also smart to include the description in an HTML comment at the top of the page. Some of the search engines simply ignore the meta tags and grab the first few words they see on your page. Even better, use your description as the beginning of the displayed page itself. If worded properly, your description will serve to entice your visitors to continue reading your Website.

THE ROBOT META TAGS

Despite the standards specifications for the robot tag, which suggest a means of controlling the search engines, in reality the robot tag is only used by most search engines to honor your wishes to exclude certain pages and content from the search engine's reach. Your instructions for revisits (which can be included in the robot meta tag) are pretty much ignored. But it is very useful to be able to exclude incomplete or distracting content that may interfere with your search engine rankings.

You can tell a search engine to ignore a page and all the links from that page with the following tag:

<META NAME="robots" CONTENT="noindex,nofollow">

To be safe with most engines, you should also include a text file named "robots.txt" in any directories on your Webserver that you want excluded from the search engines and put the words "noindex, nofollow" in that file as well.

Thus, the robot meta tag can be used to exclude certain content which you feel will penalize your ranking in the search engines, either because the content is incomplete or because it is off-subject from the rest of your content.

CONCLUSION

There are no magic rules that apply to all search engines. However, there are standards for meta tags that are followed to some extent by some of the search engines. It is important to properly include meta tags in your Web pages. The most important of these meta tags are the title, keywords, and description tags. A common strategy applies to the use of all three of these tags. Pick out the important keywords and key phrases that best match both the content of your site and the search queries most likely to be used by your target market. Order these words properly in these three tags so as to accomplish the best use of language and best positioning of the keywords and phrases to match likely search queries of your target market. Do not worry so much about how many words you use or how many times you repeat them. Rather, be concerned with the meaningfulness of your tags when compared to the actual content of your site.

Then, work to improve your ranking in the search engines by improving the quality of the content of your site to more closely match the search queries you anticipate from your target market, and adjust your meta tags accordingly.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

More on Search Engines! Looking at specific search engines.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson you will learn how to submit a Website to Yahoo!

FIRST AND UNIQUE

Yahoo!, the original search engine on the Web, continues to be unique among search engines and directories. Yahoo listings are maintained by humans rather than algorithms. Each site submitted for inclusion is accepted or rejected by a Yahoo editor who actually views and evaluates the site.

This is in contrast to other search engines, which often use automation programs (called spiders) to gather site information for the listings, as well as to evaluate and rank sites.

Because of the limited time available for editors to make choices about all submitted sites and a desire to keep the directory unique, Yahoo is quite picky about the sites it includes. Thus, having your site in Yahoo's site listings is a coveted accomplishment, especially since Yahoo generally ranks as the most visited search engine on the Internet.

You should NEVER use any type of automatic submission software or service to submit your site to Yahoo They build their directory by hand on Yahoo's end, so you should submit your site by hand on your end. However, the most important factor affecting the review of your site by the Yahoo editors is whether you have a high quality site with original content.

CATEGORY MATCHES VS SITE MATCHES VS WEB PAGE MATCHES

In order to properly submit your Website to the Yahoo search engine, you should first have some understanding of how Yahoo works. When you input a search into Yahoo, you can get up to five kinds of results: Inside Yahoo Matches, Sponsor Matches, Category Matches, Web Site Matches, and Web Page Matches.

The first two, Inside Yahoo Matches and Sponsor Matches, are not relevant to our discussion because a site submitted for inclusion in the Yahoo directory is not listed within these two categories. Therefore, we'll cover only the three categories that matter—Category Matches, Web Site Matches, and Web Page Matches.

The difference between Web Site Matches and Web Page Matches is that Web Site Matches include only sites listed in the Yahoo directory. Web Page Matches pull results from one of the spider-based engines (Google.com at the time of this writing) to supplement the Yahoo Web Site Matches.

So, even if your site is not listed in Yahoo as a Web Site Match, it may be found in a search through Yahoo if it is listed in Google. Since you have to click on Web Page Matches link to see this list of results, however, it is important to have your site listed on Yahoo (as well as Google) if you can obtain a listing there.

Yahoo displays Category Matches before the Web Site Matches and Web Page Matches (and after Inside Yahoo Matches and Sponsor Matches). If the search word or phrase is in the category name, that category will be included in the results of a search. As most people click on a category if one shows up, it is important in preparing your submission to Yahoo to select a category that includes your most important keyword or key phrase.

Thus, when people search with your main keywords or phrases, they will be presented with, and likely click on, a category that includes your site. When they get to the category listing, they will see your site, provided it ranks high enough to show on the first few pages of the category listing.

Yahoo is able to create Category Matches because it groups the various Websites in its directory under various subject headings, thus creating a hierarchy of categories. The broad initial categories are divided further and drill down into more and more specific subject areas.

For example, Web sites dealing with the subject "business opportunity magazines" are found in the following hierarchy:

Business and Economy > Business to Business > Business Opportunities > Magazines

As another example, should you register a domain name to house a doorway page for your main SFI affiliate site, the drill down to the category for such a site on Yahoo is:

Business and Economy > Business to Business > Business Opportunities > Network Marketing > Carson Services, Inc. > Six-Figure Income Marketing Group > Independent Distributors

Sometimes, you may have difficulty finding a category to match your particular subject. Recall the example of a doorway page listing senior discounts discussed in an earlier lesson in this course. If one were submitting such a site to Yahoo, there would be a problem picking the right category. When you search for "senior discounts" on Yahoo, no Category Matches occur. This is because that particular phrase does not appear (at the time of this writing) in any Yahoo category.

On the other hand, 17 Site Matches show up when you search for "senior discounts." Those 17 sites are organized under 15 different categories! (Note again that none of those 15 categories show up as Category Matches when you make that search, but when you look at the Site Matches, you see the categories under which those sites are individually organized.)

The most relevant site for "senior discounts" shows up in this category:

Society and Culture > Cultures and Groups > Seniors > Web Directories

However, some of the sites which show up for "senior discounts" in the Yahoo Site Matches are in the following categories:

Recreation > Travel > Seniors > Airline Programs

Business and Economy > Shopping and Services > Health > Senior Care

Business and Economy > Shopping and Services > Coupons > Discount Cards

And 11 more categories, which we will not list here.

Many sites listed in Yahoo are only listed under one category (even though they may logically fit under several different categories). Other sites are listed under two different categories when they fit well under both categories. In the situation above, however, Yahoo lists the "senior discount" sites across 15 different categories. This means that there is no way you could drill down through the Yahoo categories to find a place where all senior discount sites are listed.

This is a situation in which you may want to suggest a new category to Yahoo. A good proposal would be

Business and Economy > Shopping and Services > Seniors

Yahoo does provide an area where you can propose new categories. However, the directory receives tons of suggestions daily, so don't count on having Yahoo act on your suggestions automatically. You would have to convince the editors at Yahoo that the directory would be improved by adding such category—and you would have to do so within the limited communication available. You would also still have to select an existing Yahoo category for your site in the very likely event that your suggestion for a new category is ignored.

Even among the existing categories, the Yahoo editors—being human—may or may not accept the category you have chosen for your site. Picking the most appropriate category in your submission, however, improves your chances of inclusion and will affect the traffic you receive if included in the directory. You make the editors' work easier by submitting your site under the right category. Thus, they will look more favorably on your site in the review process.

Take the time to become familiar with the Yahoo categories relevant to your site. Choosing the correct category while submitting your site is crucial, both for your chances of inclusion in the directory and for strategic placement of your site within the directory, if included.

SUBMITTING YOUR SITE TO YAHOO

Now that you're familiar with the process of picking the right category for your site, you're ready to select the Suggest A Site link FROM THE CORRECT YAHOO CATEGORY to begin your site's submission process. Just drill down through the categories from Yahoo's main page until you come to the appropriate category for your site. Then, on that page, select the Suggest A Site link. (It's down at the bottom of the page.)

You'll now see a page where you can choose between a Standard Submission and Yahoo!Express. The Standard Submission is free. Yahoo!Express costs $299 (at the time of this writing; $600 for adult content sites). For commercial sites, that fee will be charged on a per year basis. That is, each year after your commercial Website's inclusion in the Yahoo directory, Yahoo will review your site and charge you another $299 for your site's continued inclusion in the commercial directory. This yearly charge went into effect for commercial sites submitted through Yahoo!Express after December 28, 2001.

Note that Yahoo!Express does not guarantee you a listing in the Yahoo directory! It's pretty darn arrogant of Yahoo to take $299 from you and then reject your site, but they will do just that if your site has no original content or is unprofessional. Also, there is no refund if your site is rejected! Yahoo gets away with this because of the unique traffic-generating capabilities the directory and search engine is able to provide. It's worth the money just to have them review your site for inclusion. For your $299, you get a guarantee that Yahoo editors will look at your Website within seven business days and make a decision one way or the other to include your site.

Prior to February of 1999, all submissions to Yahoo were reviewed without charge. The submissions became so numerous that the existing staff could never review even a significant portion of them within a reasonable time. Thus, Yahoo!Express submission was created to generate the funding for the additional staff needed for timely review of the submissions.

Yahoo!Express is required for commercial sites and available for all sites.

After selecting your submission method, you are asked to confirm a number of things about your site. The most notable of these confirmations (at the time of this writing) is as follows:

"My site contains substantively unique content that is not already accessible from the Yahoo directory. (For example: a user who submits multiple URLs to the same content is not submitting substantively unique content.) "

This is a warning that you will waste $299 if you submit multiple pages with only minor details changed or try to submit a doorway page or a banner page that has no unique content. Take heed. Yahoo likes only quality sites with unique content. If you do not have one yet, do not waste your money on the submission.

After you complete this section by checking all the boxes to confirm things about you site, you will proceed to a page where you'll provide your site title, URL, geographic location, and a description. (If you have not already done so, read the previous Internet Income lessons about preparing keywords, titles, and descriptions before completing this part of the submission process!) Follow the same principles as discussed in these lessons about meta tags.

Remember, Yahoo doesn't use the meta tags, but it does use what you submit here. Be sure to take care to match your keywords with the desirable Yahoo category names as well as desirable search terms. Also, note that Yahoo list its sites alphabetically by title (for the most part). Remember that when choosing a title. However, obvious attempts to artificially gain alphabetical advantage (such as "AAA Discounts") are disfavored by Yahoo.

Next, you'll be asked to provide a login name and contact information. The final section is for additional information. There have been situations where submitting some additional information got sites listed on Yahoo within a couple of days (even though it was submitted through the standard submission, which usually takes weeks).

In one instance, the site host was scheduled to make a public appearance with a celebrity to promote the site. Making that known to Yahoo made for a fast and favorable determination. Thus, it's a good idea to use the Additional Information box to submit any information that may add to the quality and popularity of the Website but may not be obvious from a review of the site.

WHAT IF YOU GET REJECTED?

If your site is rejected by Yahoo, when should you resubmit? There is a clear answer to this question: Resubmit your site only when the quality of your content has been significantly improved. That is, the only fruitful response to being rejected by Yahoo is to work hard to improve your site. If your site has not improved, the mere passage of time or a different staff member reviewing it will not likely improve your odds.

CONCLUSION

As Yahoo generally ranks as the most visited search engine on the Internet, it is important to carefully submit your site for possible inclusion as a Yahoo Site Listing. Make the submission by hand rather than using an automated service or software. Carefully pick the category under which your site should be included and make your submission from that category. Carefully pick and fill out the site title, URL, and description. Be sure to add any important additional information to help in the review of your site.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

More on Search Engines!

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

In this lesson you will learn about the Google Search Engine.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?

The term "Google" comes from the American mathematician Edward Kasner's nephew. When his nephew was nine, Dr. Kasner asked him to invent a name for the very large number 1 followed by 100 zeros. The nephew came up with "googol," later sometimes spelled as "google." Although the Google search engine was a latecomer in Internet time (not starting until 1998), it now holds a prominent place among the major search engines. The name chosen by its founders, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, suggests that large numbers or large amounts of data do not easily intimidate them. Indeed, at the time of this writing, Google is the secondary listings source for the Yahoo! search engine and one of the top 10 most popular search engines in its own right. It's also now one of the most important search engines on the Internet.

GOOGLE'S ALGORITHM

Unlike Yahoo!, which uses humans to rank its listings, Google uses software. The ranking algorithm used by Google is its trademarked "PageRank." The key to a high ranking on Google is to have lots of links to your site from other high ranking sites. That is, you need lots of sites linking to yours, which in turn have lots of sites linking to them.

Google is one of the most useful sites for those searching the Internet and has sophisticated and effective ranking and searching software. At the time of this writing, Google does not sell placement within the ranking. Thus, sites are ranked with pure objectivity and results are usually quite relevant to your search. For the marketer, however, this makes it extremely difficult to manipulate your ranking. To get a high ranking in Google, you have to have a content-rich site that is already popular as expressed by links from other popular sites.

ADVERTISING ON GOOGLE

If you do not have a lot of links to your site yet, you can still buy textual ads to appear to the side of the Google search listings. These ads are keyword specific and you can pay by impressions or by clicks on your site's link with Google's "AdWords Select" program.

Google also has a "Premium Sponsorship" program where your textual ads appear at the top of the search results page for the chosen keywords. Google does not allow any images in the ads. (Textual ads, if properly placed, have proven to be more effective than graphical banners anyway, so this restriction is not so bad.)

Google touts that its ad results are five times greater than industry averages. One competitive edge that the Google AdWords Select program has at the time of this writing is that it only charges you the minimum necessary to hold your ad's position. That is, if you hold the second spot for a certain key phrase and the advertiser below you in the third spot reduces the amount of his or her bid for that phrase, your amount will be reduced to the amount just necessary to hold your second spot. This occurs automatically, saving you the time of constantly monitoring the bids for your search phrases as you have to do on other, similar sites.

SUBMITTING YOUR SITE TO GOOGLE

If it took any significant time to submit your URL to Google, we would say, "don't bother." Google only ranks sites that it finds from following links on the Internet with its spider, Googlebot. Even though Google may have your site in its database from your submission, your site will have no ranking until some other included site links to it...and Google's spider finds that link. The only advantage of submitting your site to Google before it is found by the spider is that your site will show up if someone types in the URL or the exact description of your site in a Google search. Since it takes very little time to submit your site to Google, you should do so for that purpose. Although it may be rare that people will type in your URL or an exact match of your description, they are the very ones you do not want to miss while you are waiting for your site to be spidered.

To submit your site to Google, go to http://www.google.com and click the Advanced Search link. At the top right of the resulting page, click All About Google, then the Submitting Your Site link on the resulting page. At the time of this writing, you can also simply go straight to http://google.com/addurl.html. Enter your site's complete URL (that is, include the "http://" in your Website address) in the appropriate field and type a short description of your site for the comment. Check your typing and spelling and then click the Add URL button below.

SUBMITTING TO DMOZ CAN GET YOU INCLUDED IN GOOGLE

If other sites link to your Website, Google will find it pretty quickly. Google currently spiders the entire Web at least once a month. Rather than waiting for the spider to find you, however, the best way to ensure inclusion in Google (as well as Netscape, AOL, AllTheWeb, Alta Vista, HotBot, Lycos, and Northern Light) is to submit your site to the Open Directory Project. Google, as well as the other search engines listed above, include data from Netscape's Open Directory Project, which uses human indexing like Yahoo! does. Thus, Google uses its own software-driven spidering technology and supplements it with the dmoz's human indexing. Since you cannot manipulate the results of the spider technology (other than to create a high-quality popular site), your submitting efforts are best placed with dmoz. A good ranking with dmoz can ensure your inclusion in several major search engines. Submitting to the Open Directory Project will be the subject of our next lesson.

CONCLUSION

If you have a Website with lots of links to it from popular Websites, Google will find it and give you a good ranking without any effort on your part. If you have a new site that does not yet have a lot of links to it, you should submit your URL to Google, but you should focus your submitting efforts on the Open Directory Project (dmoz). A good ranking by dmoz will earn you a good position in Google as well as other major search engines. You should also consider placing an ad with Google if your budget allows.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

More on Search Engines - The Open Directory Project (dmoz)

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, you will learn how to submit your site to the Open Directory Project (dmoz) at http://www.dmoz.com. You will learn that the Open Directory Project is a backend database for AOL Search and other major search engines. Thus, your submission to dmoz, if successful, will improve your site's odds of appearing in several other important search engines.

CHALLENGING YAHOO!’S UNIQUENESS

In a previous lesson, we discussed that Yahoo! was the first to use human editors. The Open Directory Project, partially in response to the commercial direction Yahoo! has taken over the last few years, was also founded on the principal of using human editors to review submissions. However, the Open Directory Project (abbreviated “ODP” and also referred to as “dmoz”) is committed to never charging a fee for reviewing submissions. The economic reality in applying that principle means that ODP uses volunteers and can often be excruciatingly slow in reviewing sites.

ODP draws upon the spirit of Internet community, providing a free service by using volunteer labor. ODP states that there will never be a charge for submissions and the data will always be freely distributed to anyone who will follow the license terms. Thus, ODP is doing what it thinks Yahoo! should have done: not sell out to commercial interests. ODP is purposefully rejecting the trend of the major directories and search engines to become fee-driven.

THE IMPORTANCE OF ODP

Because its data is comprehensive and free, ODP listings are used by the Web's largest and most popular search engines and portals, including Netscape Search, AOL Search, Google, Lycos, HotBot, DirectHit, and hundreds of others. Thus, ODP is a free backdoor to inclusion in the major search engines. If ODP can continue to acquire and maintain sufficient volunteers to catalog the tremendously growing Web, it will become increasingly important for Webmasters to have a listing for their sites in ODP.

LIMITED INCLUSION

Not all sites submitted are included in ODP, however. ODP sees itself as a coalition of net citizens who are organizing the Web for the rest of the Internet population. These net citizens see their mission as “culling out the bad and useless and keeping only the best content.” Since ODP editors work for no pay, it follows that ODP editors have a bit of an anti-commercial bias. They do not hide their distaste for what they refer to as “affiliate link farms.” Thus, your Website must be characterized by substantive, original content with minimal affiliate links for any hope of inclusion in the ODP directory.

The upside is that ODP inclusion is not dependent on your site's popularity expressed by links to your site, as is inclusion in Google and some of the other search engines. With ODP, you really only have to impress one person: the editor reviewing your site. ODP offers an opportunity for a really good site to be included in several major search engines, even though the site may not yet be popular. Thus, ODP offers a way out of the Catch-22 situation of your site not being popular because it does not show up in the search engines…and not showing up in the search engines because it is not popular.

It should be noted, though, that ODP does not rank sites. It either includes them or it does not. Ranking of the data is done on the searching end by the search engines that include ODP data. Inclusion in ODP does seem to help your ranking in most of the other search engines, however.

SUBMITTING YOUR SITE TO THE OPEN DIRECTORY PROJECT

Like Yahoo!, you need to pick the most appropriate category for your site and submit directly from that category page. The “Add URL” link is in the menu bar near the top right of each page. From the main page (http://www.dmoz.com), drill down through the categories to the one which is most appropriate for your site. From that category page, click the “add URL” link to submit your site. NOTE: Some ODP categories may not have an “add URL" link. Consequently, you may have to drill down to a more specific category in order to submit your site.

Read over the submission policies and instructions before submitting your site. Make sure your site is not already included. Just as with any other search engine or directory submission, do not submit mirror sites or sites with similar content. Your site must have original content and not be repetitive of any other site in order to be considered for inclusion. Thus, you should not submit pages that only contain links or redirects to other pages. Do not submit sites that are still under construction.

Also like Yahoo!, ODP requires you to type in a title and description for your site. Follow the same principles we discussed regarding meta-tags and Yahoo! submissions in previous lessons when composing your title and description for the ODP submission.

OPEN DIRECTORY PROJECT PUBLIC FORUM

Currently located at http://www.resource-zone.com, the ODP provides a public discussion board for communication with its editors. This forum gives you an opportunity to see into the minds of the editors. Very recently, ODP added a specific category to the discussion for specific site-submission issues. While the editors will not allow you to argue about your site's rejection, they may (as time allows) give you an explanation for its rejection.

An editor’s recent post to the new “Site Submission Status” forum is characteristic of many of the rejection explanations. The editor states that sites consisting primarily of affiliates links will be rejected “no matter how you slice them or dice them.” It is not quite fair to accuse the ODP editors of being anti-commercial. Commercial sites are not excluded as a general principle. There is, however, an obvious aversion to sites which seek to engage in commerce through affiliate links.

The difference seems to be that if a site is selling some product or service directly from the site owner, it will be included if it is a professionally done site that otherwise conforms to the ODP guidelines. On the other hand, if the site is selling some product or service through an affiliate status, it will be judged by a much more stringent standard. If a site is attempting to sell several goods or services through affiliate links, it will be judged by an almost impossible standard. If your site includes affiliate links, you must not only have original content but also original content expressing original ideas--and done in a very original and appealing manner. The more affiliate links you include on your site, the better and more original your site must be to have any hope of inclusion.

You should spend some time reading through the threads on the ODP Public Forum discussion board before submitting your site. Much can be learned from seeing actual sites that are included and excluded and reading the editors’ explanations.

CONCLUSION

While it is tough to get a site with an affiliate link included in the Open Directory Project, consider it a challenge to your creative ability. Create a site that expresses original ideas in a unique way. Let the content of this site flow into your affiliate link in a natural, pleasing manner. Submission and review are free and inclusion in ODP will do much for the success of your site. If included in ODP, your site will likely show up in most major search engines over time.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

Paying for Search Engine Attention and Ranking--An Overview. In our next lesson, we will begin to sort out the evolving world of pay-per-click, pay-per-inclusion, and keyword-triggered advertising.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This lesson will discuss some general principals of paying search engines for services. Search engines are going through a shakeout at the present time. Competition is heavy. They are changing their game plans on a continual basis, looking for the right way to provide a useful service to the Internet public while, at the same time, providing a good return to their investors. In this lesson, we will examine principals that apply in the long run, rather than focusing on the specifics (which will certainly change over time) of the search engines themselves.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN YOUR WEB PAGE AND A SEARCH ENGINE

What exactly do search engines do? They collect information on Websites and attach that information to certain search words and phrases. When users search the Internet using particular words or phrases, the search engine provides a list of Websites matching those words or phrases. Search engines also rank these results to determine where each of the many pages matching a particular keyword or phrase are displayed in a list and in what order. Sometimes, a search engine also enhances listings with other material or displays ads.

Websites change over time. Thus, search engines also need to revisit Websites to see what keywords and key phrases remain applicable to them and (if necessary) to re-determine their rankings.

The relationship between a Website and a search engine involves four things: 1) Initial reviewing and including; 2) Ranking relative to specific keywords and key phrases; 3) Revisiting, reviewing, re-ranking, and reporting; and 4) Listing enhancements.

INITIAL REVIEW AND INCLUSION

As we discussed in previous lessons, many search engines and directories do not include all pages submitted or found. The Websites they do accept often take many weeks or months to be reviewed and included. Thus, there are two initial factors important to the aggressive Internet entrepreneur: being included and being included in a timely manner.

With almost all the search engines, you can pay for a timely review of your site. As you may recall from our discussion of Yahoo!, Yahoo! Express guarantees review within seven days for $299. However, as you also may recall, Yahoo! Express does not guarantee inclusion—only that your site will be reviewed and included or rejected within seven business days. Many search engines do guarantee inclusion, though, and package it with a timely review and other services.

The Open Directory Project, discussed in a previous lesson, is the most notable exception to the pay-for-quick-review opportunity. ODP does not accept payment for review, inclusion, ranking, or anything else.

When looking at the search engines that do provide pay packages, examine the package of services offered to see exactly what you will get for your money. How soon will your site be reviewed? Is inclusion guaranteed? What are the total costs?

RANKING RELATIVE TO SPECIFIC KEYWORDS AND KEY PHRASES

No doubt you have heard the terms "Pay Per Clicks" or "PPCs." These terms apply to search engines that let you bid on the list ranking you will receive when someone uses a particular keyword or key phrase to search for something on that search engine. At the time of this writing, Overture.com is the leader among these PPCs.

When you open an account with a PPC and make the necessary deposit, inclusion in the search engine database is guaranteed. More importantly, you can then bid for the ranking you want for particular keywords and key phrases. For example, when someone searches a PPC, such as Overture, with a particular keyword or key phrase, the Website with the highest bid for that keyword or key phrase shows up at the top of the results list, the second highest bid shows up second in the results list, and so on.

The person bidding on the keywords only pays when someone clicks the link to his or her Website. Thus, if you bid $0.15 on the key phrase "senior discounts," and that was the highest bid for that key phrase on the PPC, your site would show up at the top of the results list every time someone searched that engine for "senior discounts." However, you would only pay the amount of your bid (in this case, $0.15) each time someone actually clicked the link to your Website. (Note: A search engine that charges you each time your site shows up in a listing, whether or not anyone clicks your Website's link, is not a PPC. Rather, it would be a "pay per impression" service.)

Most PPCs require a minimum bid amount, a minimum monthly payment, and a minimum balance in your account. Most will allow you to set a maximum monthly budget and will withdraw your site from the results list each month when your monthly budget is exhausted.

Many search engines, such as Google, will allow you to place ads that show up when people search for specific keywords or key phrases. This is slightly different from the traditional PPC search engine because your link is displayed in an ad to the side of the listed results, rather than in the list itself. Google and PPCs are similar, though, in that your ad is tied to a particular keyword or key phrase and in that you can bid for rankings for a particular keyword or key phrase. The top placement for an ad on Google, though, is the top ad position, not the top position in the search results listing.

You can find out about current PPCs by visiting the SFI Discussion Board. There are also a few Websites that, at the time of this writing, provide listings and reviews of PPCs. They are:

http://www.PayPerClickGuide.com,
http://www.PayPerClickSearchEngines.com,
http://www.PayPerClickAnalyst.com,
http://www.PPC-Directory.com, and
http://www.searchenginePayPerClick.com.

Many PPCs now exclude SFI Gateway pages. That means that even though you are willing to pay for the clicks you get, some PPCs will not accept your business if the Website is an SFI Gateway site. This is not due to any lack of legitimacy on SFI’s part but because of the sheer volume of SFI affiliates establishing accounts with PPCs. For PPCs to retain an audience of searchers, search results must have some variety. When every search for a work-at-home related keyword or key phrase results in hundreds of identical SFI Gateway sites, the results no longer have variety. PPCs have become the most common method of advertising for SFI affiliates over the last several months prior to the writing of this lesson. Thus, most of the PPCs have become saturated with SFI affiliate Websites.

There is a way around this problem. As we have stated repeatedly in this course, the best strategy is to obtain your own domain name and build your own content-rich Website that includes a well-placed affiliate link to your SFI Gateway sites. You could then list your domain URL with the PPCs and bid on keywords and key phrases relevant to the content of your Website. The enduring principal of the Internet is that it is information driven. Although it takes some effort, you must lure people to your Website with useful information. Develop a flow of information on your Website that leads to your SFI affiliate links. The PPCs should not reject a Website because it has an SFI link on it unless that is all the site contains.

Before we move on, it's important to note that the established trend for top PPCs is to contract with traditional search engines and directories to include PPC results as "sponsored links" or "featured links." The top few links on the PPC then show up in the traditional search engines’ results. For example, at the time of this writing, if you have bid one of the top three spots for a certain keyword or key phrase with Overture, your site will also show up as a "sponsored" or "featured" link at the top of the results for Yahoo!, MSN, Ask Jeeves, AltaVista, and many other popular search engines. This trend is likely to continue and accelerate in the coming weeks and months.

REVISITING, REVIEWING, RE-RANKING, AND REPORTING

Although usually packaged with other services, you can pay most search engines to review your site within set time periods and re-rank your site according to its improved content. This is important because most Internet entrepreneurs are continually working to improve their Websites by focusing more accurately on their target market. Learning comes from trial and error-- experimentation is crucial. If you have to wait months to see the effects of each small change to your Website content or your metatags, the process is not effective. Webmasters need the search engines to revisit and re-rank their sites frequently in order to determine the effectiveness of the changes they have made.

Reporting to webmasters by the search engines is also something to look for in the package of search engine services. Any information about the effectiveness of your keywords or key phrases, the performance of your site, or how to improve its ranking for particular keywords or key phrases can be very useful.

When submitting your site to various search engines and considering their pay submission packages, check how often your site will be revisited and what reporting will be available.

LISTING ENHANCEMENTS

Although this is not presently seen as often as the other pay services, listing enhancements is something you should keep an eye on. For a fee, it is possible for search engines to objectively include and rank sites according to content and relevancy and then allow webmasters to enhance their listing (in the place it shows up, according to objective ranking) by bold text, graphics, and other attention-grabbing techniques. Search engines constantly struggle to balance the needs of providing useful, relevant listings to searchers with generating revenue in the process. Listing enhancements seems to be a fair compromise in this balancing process.

SORTING OUT THE TERMINOLOGY

The terminology in this subject, like many things having to do with the Internet, often gets confusing. Generally, paying to have your site included in a search engine (whether or not some guaranteed ranking is included) is called "pay per inclusion." Paying to ensure a particular ranking for a specific keyword or key phrase is called "pay per placement." The term "pay per placement" is often confused with "pay per click" or "PPC" because the PPC search engines are the most prevalent way of paying for placement. The term "pay per click," however, relates to the means of payment, rather than the service for which payment is made.

Each search engine has its own terms to describe various fee-based services and often packages the various services together in different ways. Pay attention to the specifics of the services offered, rather than the terminology used, to avoid confusion.

CONCLUSION

When considering paying for search engine services, examine the packages offered by each for available services and pricing. Does it offer guaranteed inclusion? How about ranking for specific keywords or key phrases? If guaranteed ranking is not included, how often will the search engine revisit your site and re-rank it? How much and in what way do they charge you? Is it a flat fee, an annual fee, a fee based on impressions, a fee based on clicks to your site, or some combination of these? If you are bidding on keywords to pay for ranking (placement), how does the engine process the bidding? Will you be notified if a lower bid will maintain your position, or do you need to monitor it yourself?

Also, you want to look at the number of exposures the search engine will generate. The top ranking in a seldom-used search engine is not worth as much as the 20th ranking in a high-traffic search engine. If you are only paying per each click, this last issue is not so important. However, if there is a flat fee or annual fee involved, the question of exposures becomes paramount.

The goal is to get the best return on your investment (ROI) for any paid search engine service. In the constantly changing environment of today’s search engines and directories, this requires that you examine the offers in light of the concepts and issues discussed in this lesson.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

Our next lesson will review what we have covered thus far in this course and tie the concepts into a practical strategy for online marketing.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

It’s time to take the academic concepts discussed in this course and apply them to produce multiple income streams on the Internet. We will start by reviewing the basic purpose of our efforts and then explore a practical example—a Web project that produces a stream of income.

A FOOTHOLD ON THE BASIC CONCEPTS

You should think often about what you are trying to accomplish through your efforts. You want to build multiple income streams that are either residual or leveraged. Remember that residual income comes from doing something once and getting paid for it again and again for a long time afterwards. Leveraged income comes from your share of the accomplishments of people you have recruited and trained. If it were not for residual and leveraged income, we would all be destined to toil our lives away in an unending effort to make ends meet. Rather than just trading time for money, your goal is to set processes in motion that make money--and continue to make money even after you stop working on them. That gives you residual income. Your goal is also to recruit people to your team and help your team members initiate processes that make money. That gives you leveraged income. You want to set these money-making processes in action and let them work for you, so you will have the time and money needed to do the things in life you enjoy.

This course is designed to train you to do just that by creating multiple streams of income via the Internet. Let’s focus for a moment on the adjective "multiple" in the previous sentence. You want to create a process that works. Then, you want to start over and create yet another process that works, and then another and another. Why? Because the more you have working for you, the more money you will make. Plus, if one or two of your strategies stop working, you will have others still working for you. With multiple strategies, you can often combine two or more of them in ways that enhance each other. With multiple strategies, you can also afford occasional failures, learning from them and taking that knowledge and applying it to other existing and new strategies.

Think of creating your income strategies as planting trees in an orchard. The more trees you plant and the more carefully you nurture what you have planted, the more fruit you can eventually collect. When the trees are strongly established, you can just keeping coming back and picking your fruit in abundance. If a few of the trees die, your orchard has many more to take their place. However, you still have to start by planting one tree--your first tree.

PLANTING YOUR FIRST TREE

With these concepts in mind, let’s get started with your first strategy. Remember, SFI is designed with multiple income streams already available. You could start by picking one of the products or services in the SFI arsenal (see the Affiliate Store or Marketing Aids section for more information) and concentrate on promoting it. At the time of this writing, you could concentrate on promoting the following:

• International Association of Home-Business Entrepreneurs (IAHBE),
• Veriuni Wireless Long-Distance service
• Veriuni Dial-Up Internet access service,
• Great Domainia domain registry service,
• Veriuni environmentally safe cleaners,
• Veriuni wellness products,
• Or one of the many other products, services, books, and training series available through SFI.

After you develop one successful promotional strategy for your chosen product or service, you can move on to another, and then another.

However, you may want to first consider a personalized strategy, in which you promote your own product or service alongside these SFI products and services. After all, if you already have your own brick-and-mortar business, why not use the Internet promotion skills you learn here to promote your own business? You can then use your own products/services as a stepping-stone to promoting SFI products and services.

If, for example, you have a flower shop, you could build and promote a Website featuring your store, as well as some or all of the various SFI products and services. If you do not already have your own business, why not give thought to some product or service that you could provide over the Internet? If you cannot come up with a product or service to offer, try to think of some information you could offer online for free and that would be of use to others.

As we discussed previously, most search engines do not like affiliate Websites. Even some PPC’s exclude SFI Gateway sites because of the sheer volume of SFI affiliate sites already listed there. The upshot is that search engines do like unique and useful content. Search engines are not prejudiced against commerce--just affiliate-based commerce. Search engines, as a general rule, favorably rank sites in which the Webmaster sells his or her own products or services or offers some useful information. The reasoning is that such a Website, by definition, is unique because only that person sells that particular product or service or offers that particular information. Such a site, if professionally done, should earn you a good search engine ranking over time.

So, to summarize--creating a unique product or service and designing a Website to sell your product or service and also promote your SFI Gateways in one very useful strategy for generating income. You can obtain a good search engine ranking because your site will be unique. You can then use this ranking to promote your own sales, as well as SFI products and services.

DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS

Everyone has his or her own different background, education, knowledge, talents, and skills. What works well for one person may not work at all for another. Some of you have your own brick-and-mortar business and some do not. Some of you have financial resources and some do not. Some have a lot of time to devote to online ventures and some do not. Thus, there is no one way for creating income on the Internet that will work for all people. We have to find the way that works for each of us.

In creating an example for this lesson, I tried to find one in which the largest number of readers could relate. It requires few resources to apply the strategy I will describe here. However, keep in mind that hundreds of thousands of people read this course. Consequently, the following example may not work for everyone simply because of the number of readers using the same strategy. What will work for you is a strategy that is uniquely yours. Just use this lesson as an example of how to go about the process of creating and implementing a strategy for online income. Then, develop a strategy that is best suited to your particular knowledge, skills, and resources.

AN EXAMPLE

Let’s say that our friend "Donna" has some very good family recipes that have been handed down in her family for years. She can sell her family recipes online and effectively promote her SFI business with just one Website.

First, she needs to make sure that Grandma didn’t just copy those recipes out of a published book. She can’t sell something that's copyrighted and legally belongs to someone else. If she is comfortablethat her recipes are the work of her own family, she is then free to sell the material via the Internet.

Next, before putting a lot of work into the Website, Donna should look ahead a bit and see how her efforts may eventually play out. She can go to a prominent PPC search engine (which, at the time of this writing is Overture.com), and search for "family recipes." At the time of this writing, a search on Overture.com reveals there are no bids showing on any of the results for such a search. That’s good! That means that a $0.05 bid (the minimum bid) will provide the top spot for that search phrase at this time.

Note that using a key phrase (family recipes) rather than a keyword (recipes) gives Donna more flexibility for her promotional budget. A search on Overture.com for the sole keyword "recipes," for instance, shows a bid of $1.86 for the top listing in the results at this time. The key phrase "family recipes" has no bids on it at this time.

The next thing Donna will want to know is how often people search for "family recipes," as opposed to the single keyword "recipes." The "Search Term Suggestion Tool" on Overture reveals that, at this time, the key phrase "family recipe" received 587 hits in the previous month. The single keyword "recipe," on the other hand, received 857,591 hits in the previous month. If Donna has a particular ethic background, there are even more options. The search phrase "Greek recipes" was searched for 9,214 times last month, and the top bid at this time is only $0.05. The search phrase "Italian recipes" was searched for 48,610 times last month and has a top bid at this time of $0.08. "Cajun recipes" was searched for 6,751 times last month and currently has a top bid of $0.06. "Southern recipes" was searched for 4,520 times last month and has a current top bid of $0.08. Also, don’t forget misspellings of various search phrases. For example, there is no bid on the phrase "sourthernrecipes" (with the space left out), yet it was searched for 38 times last month.

This quick investigation has revealed some important information. First, the keywords related to Donna’s content do generate traffic. The keyword "recipe" was searched for more than 850,000 times last month on Overture and its related sites. Our investigation also reveals that Donna can generate some reasonably priced traffic through the PPCs by bidding on some key phrases while she continues to improve her ranking in the traditional search engines. You can see from the example above that by using the key phrase "family recipe," Donna could get about 600 hits for $0.05 apiece. Hits beyond those first 600 could cost her as much as $1.87 per hit (using the single keyword "recipes"). However, she could use a key phrase designating her particular heritage (i.e. Italian, Cajun, Greek, etc.) that could generate thousands more hits for $0.09 apiece or less.

So, at this point Donna knows that if she can produce an average return on investment (ROI) of $1.87 or more per hit, she has a very viable strategy right from the start using PPCs. By using key phrases,she can make the strategy work right from the start, albeit on a smaller scale, with an ROI of only $0.06 per hit. If Donna determines that she cannot produce an ROI of at least $0.06 per hit to the site, then she may want to opt for a different strategy to build her rankings in the traditional search engines.

To get some feel for how stiff the competition may be in traditional search engines, let's perform a hypothetical search on Google.com using the keyword "recipes." Now, let’s say that the site at the top of the search results listing is "toprecipesiteongoogle.com" (a hypothetical site). We already know that Google relies heavily on the number of links to a Website in its ranking algorithm, and we can easily see how many sites link to the site by typing "link:toprecipesiteongoogle.com" into the Google search engine field. When we do this, let’s say we find out that 2,430 sites link to that site.While links to a site are not the only factor involved in ranking, it is a prominent factor with the Google search engine. Thus, the competition for ranking sites with the keyword "recipes" might appear to be pretty stiff; it would take quite a bit of time and effort to get 2,430 links to your site.

On the other hand, more than 850,000 people per month perform a search for "recipes" on Overture, and we can assume a similar number do the same on Google. Donna could have a hugely successful site with just a small fraction of that 850,000 plus traffic each month. Following the procedure above, we could determine that the last site on the first page of the results for a search for "recipes" on Google has only 500 sites linking to it. The last site on the second page of the results has only foursites linking to it. If Donna's site shows up anywhere on the first three pages of results for a Google search for "recipes," she can expect to get some portion of those 850,000 potential hits. Thus, if she can build a very professional site and get just a few other sites to link to her Website, she can compete effectively on the traditional search engines.

Let’s say that Donna is encouraged enough by this preliminary investigation to proceed with her chosen strategy. In the next lesson, we'll look at this example in more detail and show you how Donna implements her strategy. In the meantime, think about your own unique subject area and run your own preliminary investigation of keywords, as we did for Donna’s site. Hopefully, your results will be even more encouraging than Donna’s.

CONCLUSION

To begin building multiple streams of residual and leveraged income on the Internet, you have to start somewhere, preferably with your own unique knowledge, talents, skills, and resources. In this lesson, we started with an example for our hypothetical friend Donna, who is building a Website to publish and perhaps sell her collection of family recipes. We walked through Donna's preliminary investigation of PPCs and traditional search engines to assess the feasibility of succeeding with this project. To make this assessment, Donna utilized searches and keyword suggestion tools available on the PPCs and traditional search engines. You can investigate your own keywords and key phrases just like we have done for Donna.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will continue with our example as Donna builds her Website and begins to promote it.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

You will learn by example in this lesson the issues involved in preparing materials for a Website, finding a design and hosting company, and registering your domain name.

PLANNING, DETAILS AND EFFORT ARE IMPORTANT

Since we last visited our hypothetical friend, Donna, she has been busy collecting and typing up her family recipes. For some of her recipes, she has begun preparing the dishes and taking pictures of the process with her digital camera. Going a step further, she has used the video camera (which she purchased to take family pictures a few years back) to video the major steps in preparing some of the dishes. She has decided to start talking to some Web design and hosting companies while she finishes up this process.

FIND A DESIGN AND HOSTING COMPANY WITH WHICH YOU ARE COMFORTABLE

After browsing on the Web and calling around to a variety of companies both large and small, Donna has received a wide range of quotes for both design and hosting of her site. Her estimates for design have ranged from $800 to several thousand dollars. Hosting quotes ranged from free to more than $80 a month. She has decided that free hosting will not be effective because visitors will be distracted from her site with the popup ads that come with most free hosting services. Plus, she just doesn't feel that a free site will have the serious and professional feel that she wants her site to have. However, she has found one small design and hosting company that she likes and with which she feels comfortable. They have quoted her $1,500 for the design (including the video processing) and $35 a month for hosting the site. She has viewed several samples of their work and it is all very professional.

While she is comfortable with the hosting fee, Donna has decided that she really does not want to invest the $1,500 design fee at this time. Working only part-time, she would rather take a shot at learning a little HTML and designing her own site to begin with. Perhaps later, if the site is successful, it would be worth the investment for the professional design. She realizes, though, that she will need some professional help streaming her video from the site. She contacts the company again and they give her a quote of $400 to edit and convert the videos she will make. Donna decides this is a good compromise and sets out to learn some basic HTML.

THE DO-IT-YOURSELF OPTION

Donna goes to the SFI Discussion Board and notices the link at the bottom of the page to the DBoard Resource Center. Going there, she finds some links to basic HTML tutorials and training on the Web. Being an IAHBE subscriber, she finds even better information at www.iahbe.org under IAHBE Web Resources. To round it out, she searches on the Yahoo! and Google search engines for "HTML help" and "HTML tutorials." Donna now has more than enough materials to learn how to design her own site. She sets herself a study schedule and allocates one hour every day for one month just to learning HTML and Web design. The rest of her time will be spent on preparing the dishes from her recipes and taking photos and videos of the steps involved in each.

REGISTERING A DOMAIN NAME

Having discussed her plans with the hosting company, Donna decides to go ahead and register a domain name. The hosting company will then set up an area on their server for her to upload her work as she designs her site. They will start to work on converting her video and preparing it for streaming from her site.

Donna goes to her gateway for GreatDomainia and finds the search box to explore what domain names are available. She first searches for "familyrecipes.com" and, as she expected, it is already taken. Luckily, her second search reveals a domain name that will be useful for her: "southernfamilyrecipes.com" is available, and being from the southern United States, she registers it right away.

There are, of course, other issues besides domain name availability that might come up regarding any name that someone wants to use for business. Someone else may have a copyright, trademark, tradename, or corporation registered in some state with this name. Just because the name is available for registration as a domain name on the Internet does not necessarily mean that no one has intellectual property rights established in that name. Donna makes a note to check with her lawyer as soon as financially feasible to make sure any such problems are dealt with before too much is invested in the name.

In the registration process, Donna is also given the option of registering "southernfamilyrecipes.net" and "southernfamilyrecipes.org". Knowing that most people associate ".com" with domain names, she decides to save the money required to register "southernfamilyrecipies.net" and "southernfamilyrecipies.org" for now and just register "southernfamilyrecipes.com." She also makes a note to herself to revisit these options, depending on her success with the site.

Even though Donna now has the domain name registration secured, after a discussion with her hosting firm she decides to request that they not enter it in their DNS servers just yet. Once her hosting firm assigns an IP number to her site, she can access it from the Web using that IP number for purposes of previewing the design work she has done and yet not risk the search engines finding her site too soon. She wants it to be ready before the search engines evaluate it.

As we conclude this visit with Donna, she plans to spend the next month making photos and videos of the preparation of her recipes and learning basic HTML. We will check back with her when she begins the actual design of her site.

CONCLUSION

Careful preparation and attention to detail are the keys to a professional Website. Even when you design your site yourself, it can be effective if you put great care into the preparation of the content. While preparing your content, shop around for a design and hosting firm with which you feel comfortable. Also, register your domain name early in the process. It is probably best at first just to register the ".com" domain to save money. Do not let your hosting company publish your site until it is complete. You want the first impression of your site by the search engines to be a good impression.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will revisit the important issues of keywords, key phrases, and integration of keywords and key phrases into site content. We will do this by following the example we have begun in the last two lessons.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, we will discuss the analysis you should use to determine your target market and develop the keywords and key phrases your target market will likely use when searching on the search engines. We'll explore these issues in the context of our continuing example, using our hypothetical friend Donna, who is developing a Website of southern family recipes.

PSYCHOLOGY OF SUCCESS

Since our last lesson, Donna's life has become more interesting. One of her friends came over while she was videotaping the preparation of some recipes. The friend asked what in the world she was doing and Donna explained. Since then, her circle of friends and neighbors have good-naturedly teased Donna about "doing video" for the Internet.

Donna has discovered an important social factor, one that comes into play whenever you begin to accomplish something powerful. People will tend to both misunderstand and denigrate what you are doing. Even though they like you, they tend to get uncomfortable if you try to become more successful than they have decided you should be. So, as you move toward success, friends and family often misunderstand your effort and even make fun of it.

Donna decided to take the teasing good-naturedly and even tease back a little in a light-hearted way--all the while proceeding on with her project with even more enthusiasm. Donna is not waiting for everyone to agree that she should be successful. She is moving forward to create her own success on her own terms. Her next step in this venture is to work out her keyword and key phrase strategy for her recipe Website.

DISTINQUISHING KEYWORDS FROM POWERWORDS

By reading about advertising techniques, Donna has learned that certain words catch people’s attention much better than others. If you are preparing ad copy, you need to use the "powerwords" in your advertisements. Donna has teased her circle of friends and neighbors that she plans to have a banner promising "hot, spicy videos" on her site (after all, many of the dishes she prepares are hot and spicy). She knows that in ad copy and banner ads, it would be better to say that she was "revealing spicy secrets" than to say that she was "listing family recipes." In ad copy and banner ads, you need to use attention-grabbing techniques and powerwords.

It is good, however, that Donna also understands the difference between ad copy and keywords for a Website. With ad copy you are trying to anticipate the words that will grab peoples’ attention. With keywords, however, you are trying to anticipate words that people will actually type into a search engine. There is a difference. It is important to understand that words that may grab people’s attention in advertising are not necessarily the same words they will type into a search engine when looking for information on the Web. When developing keywords for your site, you want to focus on the words that will likely be typed into the search engines by your target market.

DEVELOPING A KEYWORD STRATEGY

Developing a keyword strategy is the first step in the final design phase of a Website. Since your keywords must match your content, the keywords and key phrases you choose will predetermine the actual content on your site.

From her readings, Donna knows that she needs to come up with approximately 20 to 25 keywords, combining some of these keywords into key phrases. These keywords and key phrases will then be inserted, among other places, in the keywords meta tag, which is located in the "head" section of her Website code. These should be words that people will likely use when searching for sites like hers from the Internet search engines.

Coming up with the first few keywords was easy. "Recipes, food, cook, cooking, southern, meals, menus, ingredients" came to her as fast as she could type them. But, beyond these first few obvious keywords, Donna wants to come up with the best possible words to give her site the greatest exposure.

Donna also knows that she could use different keywords on different pages on the site and repeat keywords from the main page in a different order on different pages of her site. The section on pasta, for example, could have "pasta" as the leading keyword and then pick up on the other keywords. The section on steaks could lead with "steaks" and "beef" and then pick up on the other keywords. By having many pages with different keywords and different order of the keywords, she could maximize the chance of someone finding her site with a specific narrow search. That is, by using "steak recipe, steaks, recipes, beef" as the first few keywords on the steak page, those searching specifically for steak recipes should be led directly to that page of the site by the search engines. She should also put these words in the title for the steak page as well.

Each section, if not each page, of a multi-page Website should have keywords and key phrases specific to the particular section or page, at least for the first few keywords; rather than just repeating the same keywords in the same order on every page of your site. This technique greatly enhances the chances of your site showing up in very narrow searches.

DEVELOPING YOUR KEYWORDS AND KEY PHRASES IN LIGHT OF YOUR TARGET MARKET

To come up with keywords, Donna must put herself in the shoes of an Internet user who might be interested in her site. Who will they be? What will they be thinking? How will they search? It would be great if Donna could hire a Market Analyst to perform an empirical study and give her exact results. Not being able to afford that, however, Donna uses her common sense.

Defining a target market is, in part, a process of elimination. In answering the question "who will they be," it occurs to Donna that she can immediately eliminate children. In general, adults do the cooking, not children. Donna also decides that she can eliminate men over the age of fifty-five. These men grew up in a culture that relied on women to do the cooking and most have not likely changed with the times. On the other hand, women over fifty-five most likely have done a great deal of cooking and are quite interested. So, her market is at this point narrowed to both sexes between the ages of 21 and 55, and includes women over 55; eliminating children and men over 55. Donna also decides that she can eliminate the very rich due to their hiring servants to do the cooking.

Defining a target market is also a process of determining specific inclusions. Thus, Donna concludes that--in this age of microwaves, frozen pizza, and fast food restaurants on every corner--most people aren’t motivated to cook unless they have someone to cook for. Thus, parents of younger children become a prime target because most parents feel the need to provide home-cooked meals for their children–at least on occasion. Since men are more involved in parenting after divorce now, it further occurs to Donna that recently divorced men may be a prime market. They now find themselves with the children a great deal of the time and need to cook for them. Finally, it occurs to Donna that people who are overweight or who have health problems may have to learn new recipes to meet the requirements of new diets.

So, to summarize, Donna has decided that she can eliminate everyone under 21, men over 55, and the very rich. She needs to particularly target parents, especially recently divorced men under 55, overweight people, and people with health problems.

Of course, to be true to the southern tradition of cooking, Donna will have recipes on her site that are not particularly healthy or weight reducing. But she realizes while thinking through this process that the people most likely to be searching for new recipes will be looking for healthy and low-fat alternatives. Thus, she is guided in how to better develop the content of her site by defining her market. She needs to add a number of low-fat and otherwise healthy recipes.

EXTENDING THE REACH OF YOUR SITE

Now that Donna has some idea of who may be interested in her site, the next question is, "what will these people be thinking as they search the Internet?" The above analysis provides a real hook here. Since parents of younger children are her main target, and since parenting is such an overwhelming obligation, she assumes they will be searching for information to help them to be better parents. Thus, Donna will want to include words such as "child," "children," "parent," "parenting," and "raising," in her key phrases and tie them to cooking. She may even consider including the words "divorce" and "father." She will also want to use words such as "health," "healthy," and "slim" to reach the health conscious market.

By including these words, Donna may catch those people who will like her site even though they are not specifically looking for a recipe site at the time. A recently divorced father, frantically searching the Internet for any information to help him be a better parent, may type in "parenting" or "raising children" and may even type in "divorced father" in a phrase such as "help for divorced fathers." When he sees the site’s listing, he may say to himself, "Yes, this is something I need to learn. I like this site." Thus, using these techniques, Donna will have extended the reach of her site to some people who were not even sure what they were looking for!

CONCLUSION

Developing your list of keywords and key phrases is the first step in the final design of your Website. You need to decide on your keywords and key phrases in order to develop your final content. To develop your list of key words and key phrases, you need to define your target market. Defining your target market involves a process of elimination and a process of inclusion. Decide who will not be interested in your site and decide who specifically will be interested. Think of the words that your target market will likely search for on the search engines.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

The real trick, as may have become apparent to you from our examples above, is to order the keywords you have chosen and tie them together in key phrases within your keywords meta tag and the title meta tags for specific pages. You need a specific strategy for each section or each page of your site. This will be the subject of our next lesson.

TOP   BOTTOM

 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson you will learn how to generate additional keywords from your starter list and how to order those keywords to achieve the maximum economy in matching possible search engine queries.

MARSHALLING YOUR KEYWORDS

By reviewing our last lesson, we see that an analysis of the target market has resulted in the following starter list of keywords for Donna’s recipe site:

Recipes, food, cook, cooking, southern, family, meals, menus, ingredients, child, children, parent, parenting, raising, divorce, father, health, healthy, slim

Now, we'll refine this list and put the words in the proper order for the Title and Keywords meta tags for Donna's site.

PLAYING A WORD GAME

This part of the process can be fun if you approach it with the proper attitude. Think of it as a new word game. Here are the objectives of the game:

First, we want to sort out the root words. For example, "recipes" is the plural of the root word "recipe" in the above list of keywords. "Parenting" is the verb derived from the root word "parent." "Cooking" is the verb derived from the root word "cook." Note that we included the verb "raising" when we collected our list of keywords from the last lesson, but the root word "raise" was not included. So, go through the list above and list only the root words. Your list will then look like this:

Recipe, food, cook, south, family, meal, menu, ingredient, child, parent, raise, divorce, father, health, slim

The next step is to write out each root word at the top of an index card or piece of paper. We have 15 words in our list thus far, so we will need 15 index cards to start. Leave lots of space under the root word on each card.

Now, take each card and write all the derivatives of the root word underneath it. For the first card, which has "recipe" at the top, write "recipes" right underneath the word "recipe." Donna couldn’t think of any other endings that would make sense with "recipe," so she stopped there. For the next card with the root word "food" at the top, write "foods" underneath it. Underneath that, write "foodstuffs." The third card with the root word "cook" at the top should have "cooks," "cooked," and "cooking" as derivatives. "South" should have "southern" underneath it. The next four words, "family," "meal," "menu," and "ingredient" each seem to have only the plural as a meaningful derivative. So, Donna wrote "families," "meals," "menus," and "ingredients," respectively, on those cards.

Don't make this process harder than it is. It is an art, not a science. The process just gives you the opportunity to think of different endings for your root words that easily come to mind; you can later consider using these derivatives in your final key word ordering.

FINDING SYNONYMS

After you have listed the derivatives, it is time to think of synonyms for your root words. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar meanings. Take each card and write any synonyms you can think of for the root word on that card. You may even use a thesaurus (a reference book for looking up synonyms) to help you with this task.

While doing this, Donna came up with no synonyms for "recipe," but she came up with several for "food," such as "chow," "eats," "edibles," "grub," and "victuals." She writes these words on the "food" card.

For the word "cook," Donna decides to include "bake," "broil," "boil," "fry," "melt," "grill," "roast," "toast," and "bar-b-q." She also decides to include the word "prepare" here. She then writes all these words on the "cook" card.

For the word "south" (referring here to the Southern United States), Donna decides to write the words "Dixie" and "Dixieland" as possible synonyms on that card.

For the word family, Donna found "clan," "folk," "kin," "kindred," and "lineage."

For the root word "meal," Donna discovers "breakfast," "lunch," "dinner," "supper," "feast," "spread," "refreshment," "regalement," "fare," "snack," "grub," "mess," "dish," "banquet," and "table." Donna, while looking up synonyms for the word "meal," also discovers a previous oversight. She glances at the definition and sees that a meal is the amount of food necessary to satisfy the appetite. Donna left out the word "appetite" in her original list of keywords, so she adds it now.

Complete this process for the remainder of the keywords and then compare your list with Donna's below:

Menu: carte de jour

Ingredient: element, component, constituent

Child: kid, young one, young'un, youngster, nipper, youth

Parent: father, mother, mom, dad, mommy, daddy, ma, pa

Raise: rear

Divorce: dissolution, separation

Father: (see parent)

Health: fit, sound, vital

Slim: thin, slender, svelte, lean, skinny

Donna now has a revised list of keywords and, for each root word, she has a list of derivatives and synonyms. From here, we can refine and order our list of keywords.

Take all of the cards you have made and find a large uncluttered space in which to work. Lay out the cards so that you can see them all. Now take two or three cards at a time and put them next to each other, in varying orders, looking for phrases that make sense from the words on the cards. For example, if you lay the "slim" card to the left of the "meal" card, you will see many possible phrases, including: "slender snacks," "lean lunch," etc. If you lay the "south" card to the left of the "cook" card, you will see, among other phrases, "southern cooking," "southern baking," and "Dixieland cooking." This process will be very helpful in identifying phrases that might be used in the search engines by people looking for a site like Donna's.

Using this process of setting the cards next to each other, try to identify the best three phrases that uniquely identify each particular section and page of your Website.

ECONOMY OF WORD PLACEMENT

The final stage of the word game is to maximize your word economy. This involves two steps.

First, from your entire list of all words on all cards, eliminate the not-so-useful words and identify the 25 most useful words.

For the second step, order your final keywords list so that each word bears relation to the word to the left and to the word to the right. That is, if you have word 1, word 2, and word 3 in that order; word 1 and word 2 should form a key phrase and word 2 and word 3 should form a key phrase. Thus, word 2 is pulling double duty!

For example, if Donna used "southern breakfast recipes" as the first three keywords for her breakfast section, she would be creating an economy of words. "Southern breakfast" standing alone is a useful phrase (i.e. one someone might search for it in the search engines). "Breakfast recipes" standing alone is also a useful phrase. Here we also have a triple economy because the three-word phrase "Southern breakfast recipes" is a useful phrase also. Thus, we have gotten three phrases out of just three words by ordering them property.

Word economy is extremely important because of the way most search engines work. If someone types in more than one word in a search, the search engine will first look for Websites whose initial keywords exactly match that phrase. If someone types in "southern breakfast recipes," Donna's breakfast page will most likely show up at the top of the search engine results because all three words match--and in the same order. If someone types the search phrase "southern breakfast," there will be a two-word match with Donna's first two keywords. This will also place Donna's page at the top of the results. If someone types the search phrase "breakfast recipes," there will be a two-word match for Donna's second and third keywords--still close enough to warrant a prominent place in the search results. Whenever two or more words in a search query match the order of your initial keywords, you fall much higher in the results than if the keywords matched but were not in the same order--and much better than if only a single keyword matched.

It is permissible to repeat two or three of your most important keywords in order to maximum the number of phrases in your keyword list. Thus, the words "southern," "breakfast," and "recipes" could be used again later on in the keyword list if necessary to create an important key phrase with other keywords. For example, "breakfast" could be used again prior to the word "menu." Just do not use the same word more than five or six times in your keyword list on any particular page or you might appear to be "spamming" the search engines.

CONCLUSION

After creating a starter list of keywords from an analysis of your target market (as we did in the last lesson), you then need to convert your starter list into the root words. It is useful to use index cards for your root words and write down all the derivatives and synonyms that you discover for each root word. Then, you can lay your index cards out in different orders to find the key phrases that appear most effective. Cull your final list of keywords down to 25 of the most important ones (for each section or page), and then order those words to create as many possible useful key phrases as possible.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will test our final keyword list against actual search engine statistics and make the final refinements.

TOP   BOTTOM

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson you will learn how to generate additional keywords from your starter list and how to order those keywords to achieve the maximum economy in matching possible search engine queries.

MARSHALLING YOUR KEYWORDS

By reviewing our last lesson, we see that an analysis of the target market has resulted in the following starter list of keywords for Donna’s recipe site:

Recipes, food, cook, cooking, southern, family, meals, menus, ingredients, child, children, parent, parenting, raising, divorce, father, health, healthy, slim

Now, we'll refine this list and put the words in the proper order for the Title and Keywords meta tags for Donna's site.

PLAYING A WORD GAME

This part of the process can be fun if you approach it with the proper attitude. Think of it as a new word game. Here are the objectives of the game:

First, we want to sort out the root words. For example, "recipes" is the plural of the root word "recipe" in the above list of keywords. "Parenting" is the verb derived from the root word "parent." "Cooking" is the verb derived from the root word "cook." Note that we included the verb "raising" when we collected our list of keywords from the last lesson, but the root word "raise" was not included. So, go through the list above and list only the root words. Your list will then look like this:

Recipe, food, cook, south, family, meal, menu, ingredient, child, parent, raise, divorce, father, health, slim

The next step is to write out each root word at the top of an index card or piece of paper. We have 15 words in our list thus far, so we will need 15 index cards to start. Leave lots of space under the root word on each card.

Now, take each card and write all the derivatives of the root word underneath it. For the first card, which has "recipe" at the top, write "recipes" right underneath the word "recipe." Donna couldn’t think of any other endings that would make sense with "recipe," so she stopped there. For the next card with the root word "food" at the top, write "foods" underneath it. Underneath that, write "foodstuffs." The third card with the root word "cook" at the top should have "cooks," "cooked," and "cooking" as derivatives. "South" should have "southern" underneath it. The next four words, "family," "meal," "menu," and "ingredient" each seem to have only the plural as a meaningful derivative. So, Donna wrote "families," "meals," "menus," and "ingredients," respectively, on those cards.

Don't make this process harder than it is. It is an art, not a science. The process just gives you the opportunity to think of different endings for your root words that easily come to mind; you can later consider using these derivatives in your final key word ordering.

FINDING SYNONYMS

After you have listed the derivatives, it is time to think of synonyms for your root words. Synonyms are words that have the same or similar meanings. Take each card and write any synonyms you can think of for the root word on that card. You may even use a thesaurus (a reference book for looking up synonyms) to help you with this task.

While doing this, Donna came up with no synonyms for "recipe," but she came up with several for "food," such as "chow," "eats," "edibles," "grub," and "victuals." She writes these words on the "food" card.

For the word "cook," Donna decides to include "bake," "broil," "boil," "fry," "melt," "grill," "roast," "toast," and "bar-b-q." She also decides to include the word "prepare" here. She then writes all these words on the "cook" card.

For the word "south" (referring here to the Southern United States), Donna decides to write the words "Dixie" and "Dixieland" as possible synonyms on that card.

For the word family, Donna found "clan," "folk," "kin," "kindred," and "lineage."

For the root word "meal," Donna discovers "breakfast," "lunch," "dinner," "supper," "feast," "spread," "refreshment," "regalement," "fare," "snack," "grub," "mess," "dish," "banquet," and "table." Donna, while looking up synonyms for the word "meal," also discovers a previous oversight. She glances at the definition and sees that a meal is the amount of food necessary to satisfy the appetite. Donna left out the word "appetite" in her original list of keywords, so she adds it now.

Complete this process for the remainder of the keywords and then compare your list with Donna's below:

Menu: carte de jour

Ingredient: element, component, constituent

Child: kid, young one, young'un, youngster, nipper, youth

Parent: father, mother, mom, dad, mommy, daddy, ma, pa

Raise: rear

Divorce: dissolution, separation

Father: (see parent)

Health: fit, sound, vital

Slim: thin, slender, svelte, lean, skinny

Donna now has a revised list of keywords and, for each root word, she has a list of derivatives and synonyms. From here, we can refine and order our list of keywords.

Take all of the cards you have made and find a large uncluttered space in which to work. Lay out the cards so that you can see them all. Now take two or three cards at a time and put them next to each other, in varying orders, looking for phrases that make sense from the words on the cards. For example, if you lay the "slim" card to the left of the "meal" card, you will see many possible phrases, including: "slender snacks," "lean lunch," etc. If you lay the "south" card to the left of the "cook" card, you will see, among other phrases, "southern cooking," "southern baking," and "Dixieland cooking." This process will be very helpful in identifying phrases that might be used in the search engines by people looking for a site like Donna's.

Using this process of setting the cards next to each other, try to identify the best three phrases that uniquely identify each particular section and page of your Website.

ECONOMY OF WORD PLACEMENT

The final stage of the word game is to maximize your word economy. This involves two steps.

First, from your entire list of all words on all cards, eliminate the not-so-useful words and identify the 25 most useful words.

For the second step, order your final keywords list so that each word bears relation to the word to the left and to the word to the right. That is, if you have word 1, word 2, and word 3 in that order; word 1 and word 2 should form a key phrase and word 2 and word 3 should form a key phrase. Thus, word 2 is pulling double duty!

For example, if Donna used "southern breakfast recipes" as the first three keywords for her breakfast section, she would be creating an economy of words. "Southern breakfast" standing alone is a useful phrase (i.e. one someone might search for it in the search engines). "Breakfast recipes" standing alone is also a useful phrase. Here we also have a triple economy because the three-word phrase "Southern breakfast recipes" is a useful phrase also. Thus, we have gotten three phrases out of just three words by ordering them property.

Word economy is extremely important because of the way most search engines work. If someone types in more than one word in a search, the search engine will first look for Websites whose initial keywords exactly match that phrase. If someone types in "southern breakfast recipes," Donna's breakfast page will most likely show up at the top of the search engine results because all three words match--and in the same order. If someone types the search phrase "southern breakfast," there will be a two-word match with Donna's first two keywords. This will also place Donna's page at the top of the results. If someone types the search phrase "breakfast recipes," there will be a two-word match for Donna's second and third keywords--still close enough to warrant a prominent place in the search results. Whenever two or more words in a search query match the order of your initial keywords, you fall much higher in the results than if the keywords matched but were not in the same order--and much better than if only a single keyword matched.

It is permissible to repeat two or three of your most important keywords in order to maximum the number of phrases in your keyword list. Thus, the words "southern," "breakfast," and "recipes" could be used again later on in the keyword list if necessary to create an important key phrase with other keywords. For example, "breakfast" could be used again prior to the word "menu." Just do not use the same word more than five or six times in your keyword list on any particular page or you might appear to be "spamming" the search engines.

CONCLUSION

After creating a starter list of keywords from an analysis of your target market (as we did in the last lesson), you then need to convert your starter list into the root words. It is useful to use index cards for your root words and write down all the derivatives and synonyms that you discover for each root word. Then, you can lay your index cards out in different orders to find the key phrases that appear most effective. Cull your final list of keywords down to 25 of the most important ones (for each section or page), and then order those words to create as many possible useful key phrases as possible.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will test our final keyword list against actual search engine statistics and make the final refinements.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, we will discuss the final content drafting of your Website. In our ongoing example of Donna’s recipe Website, you will learn to display your Website content to maximize search engine ranking. You will also learn how to tie in profitable links.

SMALL, SIMPLE PAGES

You may recall Lesson 10 of this course, where we discussed the search engines’ way of "thinking" about things. Fortunately, most search engines like the same things most Internet users like: quick loading and simple, clean sites with lots and lots of useful information.

By "simple" and "clean," we mean that the site has a good flow of information and is easy to navigate and find what you need. We also mean that there is more text (i.e. more information) than fancy scripts and programming. Remember, a search engine reads each page as a text file. It sees all the programming– including all the counters and gadgets–and goes through it all to find the content. Thus, you should use very simple HTML, avoiding unnecessary scripts and fancy programming. Use more text (language) on each page than any other item. You want the search engines to find the actual content of your page easily. Keep in mind as well that you should keep your Web pages small–not too much information on any page. Web pages should load fast so the search engines will not "time out" and move on before reading them.

KEYWORD DENSITY

You also want your textual content to reflect what your title, description, and keywords indicate the page is about. There is a concept referred to as "keyword density" that describes the ratio of your keywords to the total number of words on the page. Keyword density is one of the ways that search engines measure the relationship between your metatags and your content. If your keyword density is too low, the search engines will decide that your content is not related to the topics reflected in your metatags. If your keyword density is too high, the search engines may decide that you are playing tricks or trying to manipulate your site's placement in search engine results.

As you might expect, there is no agreement among experts as to the appropriate value for your keyword density. However, surveys of differing opinions suggest that a site's keyword density should be somewhere between 1% and 20%. That is, no fewer than one out of every 100 words and no more than one out of five words on a page should be your primary keyword.

The best rule to follow here is the rule of common sense. Make the language on your page useful to the reader, and the keyword density should fall in the right range. Don’t worry about particular numbers, so long as your page is written well and says what you want it to say.

CROSS LINKS

Cross links are links from one page of your site to another page of your site. Although ease of navigation and flow of material should be your main concern, the effect of cross linking on search engines is still something to consider.

In our example, Donna is not allowing herself to become confused with the technicalities of cross linking and search engine ranking value, but she has read that cross linking spreads the ranking value across same-topic pages on a Website. While she does not fully understand this topic, she agrees with the experts in her reading that cross linking can be a good thing. She has also learned she should keep off-topic cross linking to the minimum necessary to serve her purposes. Again, the principle here is: What is good for the people viewing your site is also good for the search engines.

OUTBOUND LINKS

When you are typing a page, consider the links to other Websites you should include. In our example, Donna may be aware of other Websites that provide information about ingredients in particular recipes or ways to present certain meals for certain occasions–or any number of things that might be useful to someone using a particular recipe. Donna should investigate the quality and the search engine ranking of any Website link she is adding to her site.

When considering a link, be sure to read over the site and make sure it has good quality information. Also, search for the primary keyword in the major search engines and see if the site comes up. As a general rule, if you link to sites the search engines consider to be of low value, they will reduce the value of your site. On the other hand, each time you link to a high value site (with the same subject as your site), it will increase your site’s value.

This works because, from the search engines’ perspective, links to sites with highly useful information indicate that you are indeed trying to educate and inform the people who come to your site. This is a good thing. You get extra points for it. If you are linking to sites without good information, you lose points.

On a technical note, outbound links should open in a new window. This will leave your site open on the viewers' screens, so they will come back to it after they close the other site (even though they may have forgotten about it). You do this by placing a "target" attribute in the anchor tag of your link and creating a name for the new window.

(Note: The subject of inbound links (links to your site from other Websites) and their effects on search engine ranking is not an immediate issue in the creation of your content. It will be discussed elsewhere in this course.)

THE PAYOFF

As Donna types the various pages of her recipe Website, she is also keeping in mind her purpose in publishing her Website. While she wants her site to be useful and informative, she also wants to make a profit. There are three main ways that Donna can profit from her Website:

1. She can place paid advertising on her Website.

2. She can sell some of her recipes. She can do this by selling downloads or having a subscription area of her site.

3. She can profit through her affiliate relationship with SFI. She can use her site to sell SFI products or recruit new SFI affiliates.

In this lesson, we will focus on the third revenue possibility and how Donna can promote SFI with her site.

One obvious example is that SFI (at the time of this writing) sells nutritional supplements. Donna could have a discussion of each recipe’s nutritional value. She could conclude this discussion on each page by stating that supplements are a good way to ensure that one gets all the nutritional value needed each day and then link to her SFI Gateway for the nutritional supplements. In doing so, however, Donna must take care to follow the rules set out for affiliates in promoting the SFI products. Only approved advertising text or banners can be used.

Donna could also use her site to recruit new SFI affiliates. To create flow with her existing material, Donna could include her "recipe for financial success for stay-at-home cooks," which links to one of the affiliate sign-up gateways.

Another idea would be to have an "About Me" page on her site to introduce herself and discuss her involvement with SFI. Again, Donna will need to get approval for the language used to promote the SFI program or any of its products, but this should not be a problem if tastefully done.

We have stated earlier in this course that the worse mistake you can make is to have too many affiliate links or banners on your site. One of the reasons we say that is because of the outbound off-topic linking penalty of most search engines. Thus, you should not try to promote other programs or other products on your site. Stick to one "payoff" link per page and keep it as on-topic as you can.

CONCLUSION

In creating your final content, keep it simple. Keep your pages short and to the point. Be mindful of keyword-density, cross-linking, and outbound-linking issues and their effect on search engine ranking. Let your primary guide be to create a useful and informative page to the persons who will be reading it. Carefully and economically include your payoff links–no more than one per page–and keep them on topic with your content as much as possible.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will discuss site promotion issues that arise after your site is completed.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this final part of our example of Donna’s recipe Website, we will address promoting the completed Website. Now that Donna has her recipe site completed, she now turns her attention to getting traffic to her site. She does so with traditional search engine submissions; accumulating inbound links from high ranking, similar subject sites; discussion board presence; press releases; traditional promotion; and PPCs.

SEARCH ENGINE SUBMISSION

The topic of search engine submission has previously been introduced in Lessons 10 through 14 of this online course.

Donna has correctly determined that she should avoid automated search engine submission services. She also knows that it is not the number of search engines on which she gets listed that is important, but rather the quality of the search engines that include her site and the ranking she receives on those search engines. Most traffic comes from only a handful of the most popular search engines.

Using the information in Lessons 12 through 14 of this course, respectively, Donna submits her site to Yahoo!, Google, and ODP. Next, she selects approximately 10 of the other popular search engines. After carefully reading all submissions instructions given on each site, she lists her site in these search engines one by one.

As an ongoing project, Donna will search for subject-specific search engines and directories dedicated to cooking for possible submission of her site. For example, Donna goes to Google and searches for "recipe search engines." There are several promising results, many of which allow her to suggest her site for inclusion.

INBOUND LINKS

Links to your site from high-ranking Websites increases your site’s value with the search engines and, of course, directly draws traffic to your site. (Links to your site from low-value sites do not improve your site’s ranking and draws no significant traffic. Most experts believe that links to your site from low-value sites does not reduce your site's ranking with the search engines, however. It is believed that such a penalty would make sites vulnerable to their competition, who could submit sites to these low-value pages as sabotage.) Thus, the objective is to persuade the high-ranking sites to include links to your site.

It is important that the links to your site come from pages on the same or a similar subject. It is also important that the inbound links come from pages that do not have a lot of other links on them (with the major search engines being the obvious exception). While links from FFA sites and other sites that are nothing more than a list of links may not penalize your ranking, it will do you no good and, thus, is not worth spending any time on.

Donna searches for high-ranking Websites that deal with cooking or recipes and contacts the Webmasters regarding exchanging links. She negotiates for in-context links rather than just inclusion on a "links page" that has numerous links on it already. She starts with those sites that she has already determined warrant outbound links in her content. In the search engine ranking world, you are measured by the company you keep, so to speak. Since Donna has worked hard to create a valuable site, she wants her outbound links to be to, and her inbound links to come from, only top-notch sites.

There are services that assist you with exchanging links for your Website. You are better off to handle this matter yourself, however. It is a simple matter to find high-ranking sites that pertain to your keywords. You just type your keywords into the search engines and see what sites come up in the first three pages of search engine results. These sites, by definition, are the high-ranking sites. Then, you simply look for contact information for the Webmaster. Contact the Webmaster to discuss exchanging links.

You will be at a disadvantage at first, because your site has not yet obtained a good ranking. A link from your as-yet unestablished site to an already high-ranking site will not be much of carrot to them. As you can see, it is a bit of a catch-22 for the new Webmaster. High-ranking sites are not interested in exchanging links with low-ranking sites. Yet, you need high-ranking sites to link to you in order to gain a high ranking. What’s a new Webmaster to do?

Some enterprising new Webmasters have used this strategy. Create an "Awards" page on your site and bestow awards to a couple of the high-ranking sites in your subject area. Create a graphic banner with a trophy for them to put on their site to announce the award. Require that this graphic link back to your awards page. For example, Donna could review the top cooking sites and pick a couple that she particularly likes. She could then bestow them the "Donna’s Best Cooking Site Award" or the "SouthernRecipes.com Best Cooking Site Award." She would then notify the Webmaster of the award and give instructions for how to place the trophy graphic and link on their site. Webmasters of high-ranking sites are more likely to go along with this because it gives their site more perceived value to its audience. The Webmaster may be so pleased with the award that she creates other links to your site as well. (Obviously, you have a good site because it recognizes the value in her site!)

Remember that the spirit of the Internet has always been the free flow of information and cooperation, rather than competition. Hopefully, other Webmasters will not see your site as competition but as another source of good information for their audience. You should become very familiar with the high-ranking sites in your subject area and even consider customizing areas of your site to be complementary to them. Find out what information they need to add value to what they already offer and provide that information on your site.

Above all, be patient. It takes time to accumulate links to your site. If your site has value, however, it will happen over time.

DISCUSSION BOARD PRESENCE

Another way to promote your site is to make yourself known on discussion boards pertaining to your site’s subject. Be very careful here, though. It is a mistake and often considered spamming if you do this incorrectly. Make sure you become familiar with the rules of each board and read the board for several days before posting anything. When you do post, do so to answer someone’s question or provide useful information. Do not hawk your site! If allowed, put your URL in the signature line of your posts. Then do not mention your site, but establish a reputation of being knowledgeable in the subject area and people will begin to look at your signature line and be curious about your site. If you have been helpful on the discussion board, readers will assume that your site is helpful also.

Over time, participants of the board will go to your site and they will begin to talk about it. Some of those high-ranking Webmasters may be there and if they like you, they may link to your site. Your goal is not to promote your site yourself on these discussion boards, but to let others do it for you.

Note: SFI does not allow any of the SFI URLs to be posted on Discussion Boards--even in signature lines. The line between appropriate use of discussion boards and inappropriate promotion is a fine line. Many spam complaints result from postings on discussion boards. If you decide to use discussion boards to promote your own Website, be careful to do it appropriately. In fact, do not think of it as promoting your site, but think of it as providing a useful service that will allow you to make friends who will eventually provide promotion for your site.

PRESS RELEASES

Draft an interesting and catchy press release for your site. Here is where the power words (discussed in Lesson 18) come into play."Suburban Mom Launches Hot and Spicy Website," for example.

The trick to writing an effective press release is to do as much of the work as you can for the reporters. Write like you were the reporter writing it. Quote yourself and get quotes from others if you can to make it sound like a professional news story. If you do a good job writing the press release, it will be used by a lot of media who have space to fill and no time left to write anything. You have already done the work for them!

Send your press release to as many newspapers, radio stations, TV stations, news Websites, and other media as you can. You can submit your press release to many of the media online. When stories are written about your Website, get permission to reproduce them on your site. It will make your site look professional to have news stories about the site included on it. (In the meantime, put your press release itself on your Website.)

START AN AFFILIATE PROGRAM

If your budget allows, you can start your own affiliate program and pay for clicks to your site generated by your affiliates. There are affiliates services available on the Internet that will promote and manage your affiliate program for you for a fee. With the advent of the PPCs, however, it is a lot less expensive and a lot less trouble to use the PPC’s to generate paid clicks to your site rather than managing your own affiliate program.

TRADITIONAL PROMOTION

You can also promote your new site with all of the traditional online and offline techniques. Put your URL in the signature line of your e-mail. Print up business cards for your Website and leave them everywhere. Stick your business card in every piece of mail you send out. If your budget allows, consider traditional media advertising (newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc.). Classified ads in newspapers can be a relatively inexpensive way to reach a target audience for your subject.

PAY PER CLICK SEARCH ENGINES (PPCs)

As we conclude our focus on the example of our hypothetical friend Donna’s recipe Website, let’s return to the concept that we started with in Lesson 16. Donna initially assessed the profitability of her Website by determining the cost of her keywords and key phrases on the PPCs and the amount of traffic she could expect from those keywords. Most of the other promotion techniques we have discussed in this lesson so far take a while to work--especially traditional search engine optimization. Donna can jumpstart her site promotion within her budget by using the PPCs, however. With most of the PPCs, you can set your own budget. We discussed using the PPCs in Lesson 15. PPCs are very useful to get traffic to your site while you are waiting for the traditional search engines to rank you.

CONCLUSION

Donna is off to a good start in promoting her site. She has submitted her site properly to the major search engines. She has begun accumulating inbound links from high-ranking sites. She is establishing her presence on the major cooking discussion boards. She has prepared a catchy press release and sent it to as many media as she could. She has used all the traditional promotion techniques that her budget would allow. She has established an account with the major PPCs and set her price-per-click for the primary keywords and key phrases she is using. She is well on her way to having a successful and profitable Website.

Over the last several lessons, we have followed Donna through the entire process of planning, designing, and promoting her recipe Website. We will conclude our focus on this example now, and say goodbye to Donna, although we will revisit her when examples are needed for concepts discussed in later lessons.

If you have followed this course from the beginning, you should now have a good grasp on the basics of Internet Marketing. If you haven’t started your own Website yet, there is no reason why you should not start it right now! I can picture Donna saying, "If I can do it, you can do it too!"

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet Marketing.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, we will cover the preparation required for placing free ads on the Internet. We touched on some of the free advertising strategies is Lessons 4 and 5 of this online course. In this lesson, we will take a more in-depth look. In our next lesson, we will discuss in more detail the process of finding effective places to advertise.

FREE ADVERTISING DOES WORK

People come to Affiliate Marketing from many different circumstances. While the fortunate have substantial money to invest in building their new business, some have no money to invest at all. (I recall one SFI affiliate from the SFI Discussion Board who was homeless. He would go to the public library to access the Internet everyday in order to work his SFI business.)
As with all things, the more you have to invest, the easier and quicker it will be for you to build your business. But, affiliate marketing, especially with the SFI Marketing Group, can be done successfully without any financial investment, if you must approach it that way.

Even if you do have money to invest in paid advertising, you should learn the ropes of free advertising. The learning experience is valuable and will help you be more efficient with paid advertising. Also, learning the ropes of free advertising will enable you to teach your team members who do not have money to invest in advertising.

FOUR ELEMENTS OF AN ONLINE ADVERTISING STRATEGY

Online advertising strategy involves four elements. You need an ad. You need a URL (Website address) or an e-mail address to which the ad will point. You need to be prepared for the posting process. And, you need a location to place the ad.

PICKING YOUR AD

SFI Affiliates can obtain approved ads from the Marketing Aids link on the SFI Resource Center site (http://www.sfimg.com). You should use only these approved ads if they are pointing directly to your SFI Gateways or if your ads mention SFI by name. If your ads are pointing to your own Website and do not mention SFI, you are free to create your own ads.

POINTING YOUR AD

With respect to the URL to which your ads will point, all SFI Affiliates are furnished several Gateway sites upon signing up for SFI. A few of the gateways are used to sign up new affiliates on your team. Others are for selling specific SFI products and services. For example, at the time of this writing, the "SIM" and "FREE" gateways are used to sign up new affiliates. The "GD" gateway is used to sell the domain name registration service. The "LD" gateway is used to sell SFI's long distance service. The "ISP" gateway is used to sell dial-up Internet access service. The "IAHBE" gateway is used to sell memberships to the International Association of Home Business Entrepreneurs. And there are others.

If allowed at the location where you place your ads, your ads can point directly to these furnished gateway URLs. Many of the ad sites, however, ban the large affiliate programs such as SFI (due to sheer volume), and you will need to have your own Website or doorway page for the ad to point to. (You then put the gateway links are on your own site and people who respond to your ad can access them there.)

The other possibility is to use an e-mail address in an ad, rather than have the ad point to a Website. Many people suggest that using an "autoresponder" e-mail as the pointer in your ad is the most effective way to go.

You should not just use an ordinary e-mail address, however. Most of your responses to an e-mail address in an ad will be insincere. It is very common, when you use free advertising, to receive numerous e-mail responses to the effect of "I saw your add and see that you are interested in making extra income. I would like to talk to you about that." Such responses are nothing more than someone trying to get you to join their program. These e-mails, which are automatically generated, really are not interested in information about your program. Thus, your ad needs to point to a Website where the serious responders can sign up immediately or to an autoresponder that will automatically send them further e-mails pointing to your URL. Otherwise, you would have to work your way through all those e-mails to find those who are serious and then point them to your gateway manually.

The argument for pointing to an autoresponding e-mail rather than a Website URL in your ad is based upon the fact that many people will not sign up on the first encounter with anything. People need time to mull it over in the back of their minds. Some studies suggest that it takes seven to 11 contacts before most people will commit to anything online. Setting up an autoresponder to send out seven to 12 messages over time increases the odds that someone will sign up.

In my opinion, it is better to have your ad point to your own Website and then let the Website have a sign-up form for further contact--i.e. a newsletter or e-mail series--than to use an autoresponder in your ad. This reduces the odds of spam complaints and is a bit more professional manner of creating the additional contacts needed to achieve the signups. (I can't help but envision these autoresponding e-mails still triggering each other and still trying to convince each other to sign up for something long after the humans who set them up are dead and gone.) The more personal your communications, the more effective they will be.

PREPARING FOR THE POSTING PROCESS

Secondary E-Mail Address
Whether your ad is designed to point to a URL or an e-mail address (autoresponder or not), all ad locations will require that you submit an e-mail address to the site host in order to post an ad. It is absolutely essential to obtain a secondary (often called "throwaway") e-mail address for this purpose. Posting ads will result in your e-mail getting farmed by the spammers and you will receive tons of spam. Do not expose your primary e-mail address to this! You can acquire e-mail accounts fairly easily these days from your ISP or from one of the free e-mail services, such as Yahoo! or Hotmail. You have to give an e-mail address to post ads anywhere, so create a new e-mail account just for this purpose.

Physical Address And Phone Number
Many sites also require you to give an address and phone number. Although these are "required fields" in the form to post the ad, many people get away with just typing "N/A" or similar text in these fields. There are ethical issues here that you will have to resolve for yourself. The ad posting service is being provided in exchange for your information. In a real sense, you become a lead for the host site. It would not be ethical to provide false information to acquire the service. Some people even set up secondary post office addresses and phone numbers (like the secondary e-mail) to avoid this ethical problem. Others do provide their primary contact information and deal with any resulting telemarketing or junk snail mail as it arrives.

Tracking System
Also essential is to set up a tracking system. Tracking is crucial. Without it, you do not know which sites are working and which are a waste of time. At a minimum, each ad you place should have a tracking code in it that exclusively identifies the location you placed the ad. With some tracking systems, you can also code for the specific ad used, the date and time you placed the ad, and other variables. SFI provides keycoding to track your ads. The keycode consists of numbers, which you choose and place, preceded by a period, after your SFI ID in the SFI gateway URL you use in the ad. You will need to set up your own system of matching keycodes with locations. Be sure to record a keycode for each ad you place. Start a list of keycodes and the corresponding ad locations and keep the list safe and handy.

For each advertising campaign, you will need to pick the gateway or Website that will be the target of your ad. Then you will need to pick the ad you will be using. Then you are off to find some places to post the ad. For each place you post, remember to keycode the ad's URL and record the location of your ad on your keycode list.

PREPARING YOURSELF FOR THE QUEST FOR AD SITES

The big issue is where to place the ads.

Do not think of this issue as being one of acquiring a list of Websites from someone or someplace and then placing your ads on those Websites. It doesn't work that way, and I will explain why in a moment. Instead, you must think of it as a process. While others can't tell you where to place the ads, they can teach you the process of finding sites on which to place your ads.

Let me make an analogy. Let's say that you are in a group of 15 people who are going blackberry picking. The field that you go to has more than enough blackberries for everyone. But, the bushes are spread out over a large area and each has only a few blackberries on it. It would make sense for everyone to spread out with much distance between each person and each go from bush to bush in their area picking the blackberries. What would not make sense would be for everyone to stay clumped in a group and, as soon as anyone found a bush, all 15 try to pick from the same bush at the same time. Only the first two of three people would get any blackberries and the other 12 or so people would only serve to be in the way and to stomp down the nearby bushes before anyone could pick from them.

In a way, many of the Websites that accept free ads and are effective are like those blackberry bushes. They have a limited capacity to produce results. They only work for anyone because everyone is not posting there. No matter how unselfish affiliates who have found effective advertising sites may be, it is not in anyone's interest to publish the site on a list somewhere for all to use. That usually only serves to kill the sites effectiveness for everyone.

So, your task is to learn the process to use to continuously find new and effective advertising sites. Some sites, while very effective at first, have a limited audience and thus a limited capacity to produce results for your ad. You will likely need to move from site to site as the sites' capacities are exhausted.

The Internet is vast and constantly changing. New sites crop up all the time to replace the old ones as they lose their effectiveness. Thus, the process of searching for places to place your ads is a continuing process. Fortunately, it is also a very interesting and exciting process.

CONCLUSION

Free online advertising can work for affiliate marketers provided they are properly prepared and approach the process in the right way. To be prepared, you need to have an effective ad, you need a target URL to which the ad will point, and you need to be prepared for the posting process. This includes having a secondary e-mail account and a tracking system in place. Finally, you need to understand the process of finding effective locations to place your ads.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will discuss in more detail the process of finding effective free ad sites. In the meantime, it would be helpful for you to review lesson seven of this course, which introduces you to some of the concepts we will be addressing.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, we will discuss in more detail the process of finding effective places to place free ads. If you have not already done so, please read Lesson 23 first. Lesson 23 covers the preparations you need to make before placing fee ads.

IT'S A CONTINUING PROCESS

Recall from our last lesson that finding locations to place free ads is a continuing process. The Internet is not static. The Internet changes every day. Sites that may work for you for a while may lose their effectiveness. New sites with lots of potential are published all of the time. The more practice you have looking for sites, the more efficient you will become with the process. It is a fun and exciting process if you accept the challenge and apply a little creativity to it.

ONE MORE TIME

Let me also say this one more time (because it is so important). Do not just look for a list of sites that someone else is using. Like the blackberry bushes from the last lesson or a good fishing hole, a good free ad site only works when a few people use it at a time. Learn the process to find your own free advertising sites.

In fact, I would suggest this: Go ahead and find all the lists of free ads sites you can find. Talk to everyone and get all their suggestions and add them to your list as well. Search for "free classifieds" on a major search engine and write down all the links that show up on the first three pages. Then use this list as a list of places NOT to place ads on at first! (You will eventually want to place ads on some of these sites, but make it a point to not do so at first.)

Why do I make such an outrageous suggestion? Two reasons. First, I suggest this because it will save you a great deal of time in your searching process. If you see that you have found one of these recommended sites, move on. You are not there to be searching for the obvious. You are there to be searching for the hidden treasure. This will help to keep the process moving quickly for you. Secondly, I suggest this because it will save you frustration and maybe even save you from giving up on affiliate marketing altogether. Far too many people spend countless hours posting to these obvious and frequently listed free ad sites. Then, after those long hours of work, they become discouraged when the ads produce no results. They decide that affiliate marketing doesn't work and they quit. I don't want that to happen to you. I want you to post your first few ads on effective sites, so you will know that affiliate marketing does work. It will take a little more time to find these sites, but you will save that much time and more in the time spent posting ads.

OK, OK, OK! SO WHAT IS THE PROCESS?

The way most people approach the process is to use the Search Engines.

If you are an advertiser, you have a product or service to sell or you are attempting to recruit people to your affiliate program. We will discuss the products or services later and focus now on recruiting affiliates.

In SFI, the primary method of recruiting new affiliates is by offering free information. In the process of receiving that free information, the prospects are given an opportunity to sign up for the SFI affiliate program. The ads that you have available from SFI are good at presenting the free information in an attractive way. Your job is to get those ads in front of live humans beings--but not just any human beings. You will prefer to get your ad in front of those people who have a pre-existing interest in starting their own home-based business or joining a multi-tier affiliate program. You can use the Search Engines to find the Websites that these people may be visiting.

Many affiliates, in searching for sites to place free ads, just search for "home-based business," "work at home," "work from home," or similar key phrases. This works to a certain extent. It is better to be a bit more creative, however. Try to think of search terms that are not quite as obvious, but are still likely to be used by your target market. Then, search for these phrases on the major search engines and look for places to place free ads.

BEWARE OF THE BLACK HOLE

Before we go any further, however, let me make this important point. The Internet can be a black hole that consumes all your time if you do not approach it with discipline. If you do not have a definite plan and stick to it relentlessly, you will soon be lost somewhere out in cyberspace, not even remembering what you were trying to do. When you search for ad sites, stay focused. Keep your objective constantly in mind. You are looking for Websites which allow free ads to be posted. Move through the results of your searches quickly and do not allow yourself to be distracted. Since you, yourself, are interested in the subject of home business and affiliate programs, it will be tempting to turn this time into browsing time. Don't do it. During this time you are not there to learn or to find new opportunities or to sign up for traffic generation programs. Save that for later. For now, you are looking for free ad sites--and that is all that you are doing.

Only go through the first three or four pages of the results for any search. Move through the results quickly. Look first at the links on the site, not the content. Free ads are almost always in the form of classifieds or FFA (add your link) pages. If you don't see a "classifieds" link, a "list your program" link, a "post your URL" or similar link on a Website, move on quickly.

It's OK to follow other links from these sites for your stated purpose of finding good free ad sites. (In fact, many of the good new sites may not have made it into the search engine rankings yet, but have been noticed and linked to Webmasters of some of the established sites.) The point is, if you do follow a link, do so for the purpose of evaluating the linked-to site as a free ad site. Look at the links on this site for "classifieds," etc. Do not get bogged down reading and evaluating new programs and products on these sites. If you do, you will lose focus on what you are trying to accomplish.

FOLLOWING THE RULES

A common obstacle is that many sites allow you to submit for "possible inclusion" and have very strict and sometimes complicated rules about the types of submissions they will accept. Let me give you an example.

Using the search phrase "my own home business," I searched on Google. It didn't lead to anything promising until the third page where I encountered a link that led to a page with a "Submit Your Home Business" link. Problem was that right on the form it stated that you must own all the rights to the information that you were submitting and the Website you listed. Since I don't own all rights to the SFI furnished ads or the SFI Gateways, I could not have used this site if I did not have my own domain name and my own personally created ads for my own domain.

Some of the sites get pretty tedious with their rules and restrictions. For each site, you have to make a judgment whether it is appropriate to post your ad there and whether it is even worth the trouble to read and learn their rules and fill out their complicated forms.

It is a good idea to take notes as you go through the process. If a site looks like it might be promising but is too tedious in its rules and forms, jot down the URL and perhaps come back to it later. The point is to keep the process moving.

Another obstacle is that many sites will allow you to add your URL, but require a reciprocal link in return. Many require a special button or banner be displayed on your site and in a certain way. If you are just using SFI Gateways, you cannot add links to your site. Even if you have your own Website, you could not use very many of these because you would not have room for all the buttons and banners at the places they required them to be placed on your site. You want to keep control over the design of your own site. You definitely do not want it cluttered with all these buttons and banners to other sites. So, these sites you must also pass over, just making a note that it might be worth coming back for a second look later.

(Reciprocal links are a good idea, but they must be done in the right way. Only agree to reciprocal links when you can put the other site's link on your "Links" page--as opposed to your home page. Searching for reciprocal link sites is a different process from searching for free ad sites, though. Don't try to do both at the same time--other than making quick notes if you find something promising. Come back to it when you are searching for reciprocal link sites.)

Here's a tip that will save you some time: Many of the classified sites are just front ends for a limited number of back-end classified databases. That is, there are a few companies that provide the opportunity for Webmasters to include classified ads on their Websites. The sites are customized by each Webmaster and look to be part of their own Website, but in fact they just tie into the classifieds database of the providing company. When you post to one of these sites, your ad will show up on all of them. So, there is no need to post on the other Websites that use the same database. To determine if this is the case, look for a "powered by" or similar graphic on the classified site. If you find one, you can see the ultimate database in which your classified will be posted. When you see this same "powered by" graphic on other sites, you do not need to post there also.

Yet another catch to this process is that many sites limit the free listings to "non-commercial" ads. The notion is that if you are advertising a yard sale or trying to sell your old guitar online, it's OK to post for free. If you are an affiliate selling Internet Service or Cell Phones or recruiting other affiliates, it will be considered "commercial." You can often get around this problem if you have your own Website and advertise it as providing free information.

COMING UP WITH SEARCH TERMS

Now back to the task of coming up with Search terms to use to find effective free ad sites.

A friend of mine recently decided to look for ways to work from home. Without my knowledge, she spent three days searching on the Internet for opportunities to work from home. When I found out about this, I inquired as to how often she had seen the SFI opportunity and what she thought of it. To my surprise, she said she had not seen a single SFI site!

This clearly tells me that the Internet is NOT saturated with SFI affiliate advertisements. Indeed, us old-timers are slacking! Some affiliates, who keep looking in the same old places over and over again, believe that the opportunity is saturated. The Internet is bigger than we think it is. It is so vast that it truly boggles the mind to try to comprehend it. The Internet changes every day. There is still plenty of opportunity for the new SFI affiliate--as my friend's search proved.

The task of coming up with search terms to use in searching for free ad sites is simply this: Put yourself in the shoes of someone like my friend. Try to figure out the terms she was using in the search engines. Then use those terms and find sites that allow free ads. Upon further questioning, my friend told me that, for the most part, she approached her search in this fashion: She used terms describing her office skills and looked for jobs or employment opportunities that would allow her to work from home. She had not really contemplated starting her own business or taking up affiliate marketing, but she was open to the idea.

On this point, it is important that you not misrepresent what you have to offer, either by the wording of your ads or by the placement of your ads. Some people want a job where they will be paid for their time--and that is all they want. They are not interested in a business opportunity, even when there is no financial investment required. We should not slow these people down in their searches with our ads for business opportunities or affiliate programs by disguising our ads as job openings. That is neither ethical nor fair to these people looking for jobs. But, there are areas where these searches overlap and if your ad is honest about what you have to offer, it can be useful to you and to the people searching.

Here's another angle. Many SFI affiliates think of SFI as a home business, which it is, of course. But that business is in large part an Internet affiliate program. People who are looking for profitable affiliate programs (who do not really even think of it as a "home business") would be great additions to your SFI team. They may be searching for affiliate programs offering specific products. They will include the product type in their search terms--along with such terms as "affiliate program" or "reseller" or "partner program." (For example, a search that I just performed for "nutritional supplements reseller programs" yielded a promising place to put a free link and took me less than ten minutes to find. )

There are many other angles. Be creative! Put yourself in the shoes of people you want on your team who may be searching the Internet. Think of the search terms they may be using. Use those same terms to search for free ad sites.

NOT JUST THE SEARCH ENGINES

Lesson 3 of this course points out ways, other than the search engines, that people use to find sites on the Internet. For example, go to the very popular Websites and follow links from their pages that may lead you to relevant sites. Use this method of searching for free ad sites also.

LEADING WITH THE PRODUCTS

In addition to building your team of affiliates, your ultimate task is to sell products. This can also be done with free ads. In this case, you put yourself in the shoes of someone looking for the product that you have to sell. Or better yet, put yourself in the shoes of someone looking for information about products in this category. Come up with terms that they will be using on the search engines to search for information or products. Then, search those same terms looking for classifieds or other free ads sites to place your product specific ad. When you begin to make retail sales of the products, you know you are on your way to success.

CONCLUSION

Finding locations on which to place free ads is a continuing process. Nothing worthwhile is entirely easy, but it can be a fun and rewarding process if you apply a little creativity. Put yourself in the shoes of people you are trying to reach. Anticipate what they will search for on the search engines. Search with those same terms and look for sites that allow you to place free ads. Stay focused and keep the process moving. Keep notes of anything interesting you find that would be too time consuming now and come back to it later. Look at the links on sites for an indication whether they allow free advertising. Do not confuse free ads with reciprocal links--they are somewhat different animals. In coming up with search terms to use, be creative and use your imagination.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet Marketing.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this Lesson you will learn about "Blogs." You will learn what they are and how you can use them to promote your affiliate program.

EVOLUTION IN PROGRESS

The Internet is constantly changing. A decade ago, there were resources called "WAIS" and "Gopher." "WAIS" was a precursor to the search engines and "Gopher" was a precursor to the World Wide Web. To chat back then, you needed to be familiar with numerous complicated IRC commands that you typed in from a command line prompt. Now most chats take place from a Web-based format and are very simple to use. A decade from now, without doubt, the Internet will, likewise, be something very different from what it is today.

There are certain enduring principles that apply to the Internet, however. The "prime directive" of the Internet, so to speak, is that it is an information and communication tool. It was originally designed by, and intended to be used by, the military and research scientists. They used it to exchange highly technical information. Because of the highly technical nature of the Internet and the information it was used to communicate, a tradition of informality and personal expression evolved to soften the cold technical feel of it. That tradition can still be very much felt in the Internet today.

"Blogs" are, in a way, both a step forward and a step back from today's Internet. Blogs, while appearing to be the latest fad, really resurrect in modern form an older, more traditional way of using the Internet to exchange information with a personal touch. Blogs, which are replacing static Websites on an increasing basis, are, in my estimation, an important evolutionary step in the development of the Internet. Blogs provide current information from a particular perspective. Blogs provide information in a format that easily integrates with other information from other perspectives. Over time, the Internet will do a progressively more efficient job of integrating vast and diverse information and perspectives into a seamless whole--a universal consciousness, if you will. Blogs are a step in that direction.

WHAT ARE BLOGS?

"Blog" is short for "Web log." A "Web log" is a log that is kept and shared on the World Wide Web. A "log" in its simplest form is a record of events in chronological order. Think of a ship's captain sitting down in his captain's quarters each evening and recording the progress of the ship's voyage and the events which have affected that voyage. Each entry has a date followed by the events and progress since the last entry. That is a log. A "Web log" or "Blog" is similar. It records events and points to sources of information about those events. It is chronological, usually with the latest entries on top and prior entries below.

Many Blogs are political. For example, when the United States recently sent military troops to Iraq, I followed the events on an hour-by-hour basis by frequently visiting two or three Blogs that dealt with the events in progress. I had my choice of Blogs written from a perspective that favored the military action to those that were highly critical of it. Those on one side of that issue thought that certain events and information were very important, while those on the other side of that issue thought other events and information were very important. The people publishing these Blogs were online full-time, scouring each news release and each source of information and summarizing it from their perspective on their Blog. From these Blogs, I was able to obtain an in-depth understanding of current events from all perspectives as they occurred. I could not have done this from television, radio, or even newspapers--at least not in such a timely and efficient manner.

Blogs can be and have been used for many other subjects as well. Regardless of the subject, to be true to the nature of a Blog, the entries should be chronological and event oriented. They should contain links to each original source of the information that is being summarized. Within these parameters, however, Blogs can deal with any type of subject and express any perspective.

CAN BLOGS BE USED IN E-COMMERCE?

Blogs can also be used in e-commerce. An important characteristic of a Blog in this context is that Blogs, like discussion boards and chat rooms, bring visitors back to your site over and over again. Blogs, if done well, create an audience that will return repeatedly. Blogs help to create a relationship between you and the visitors to your Website.

Repeat visitors who develop a relationship with you through your Website are exactly what you want in order to succeed in e-commerce.

Blogs also tend to do well in search engine ranking because they are information driven. As we have said repeatedly in this course, search engines like Websites with unique and useful information. Blogs are a way to provide unique and useful information. By leading with this information, you can then offer your visitors opportunities, products, and services.

MECHANICS OF PUBLISHING A BLOG

While there are services available that will publish your Blog for you, Blogs are really quite simple to publish yourself. If you have your own Website, you can just add a page to your existing Website and use this page for your Blog. Simply format this page into a table or paragraphs with a date and caption line above each entry. Add new entries at the top of the page. That's really all there is to it.

For example, Profitpropulsion.com RocketStart customers can use the dynamic page that is available in their template for a Blog, if they want. Any Web page that you can update can easily be made into a Blog.

Blogs are more a matter of information than they are of design and formatting. Any page that has periodic entries of current information, with a date and caption line for each entry, is in fact a Blog.

GETTING THE INFORMATION

Publishing a Blog, however, will take an investment of time. What makes the Blog useful is that you are doing the research--finding the sources of information on your subject and summarizing them--so that your viewers can save time. You are also adding your unique perspective to the information. To keep visitors coming to your Blog, you will have to add entries often. You can get this information, especially news sources and announcement services--even other Blogs--on your particular subject by searching the Internet.

It has been said that writing a book is just a matter of reading several other books and articles and then condensing that information and providing a new perspective. The same can be said for Blogs. There is so much information available today that few people have time to follow very many subjects with any depth. People prefer to find sources with whose perspective they identify and get their information on each subject from a limited number of sources. Visitors who share your perspective will be attracted to your Blog. The time you put in finding and summarizing the information will save your visitors time. You are providing them a service which saves them time and effort.

USING BLOGS TO SELL

Because you are providing a useful service to your visitors, they will develop trust in you. If you prove worthy of that trust, this relationship will build. A relationship of trust is the most important element in marketing. If your visitors trust the research and the summaries in your Blog, they will also trust your recommendations for opportunities, products, and services.

Try to incorporate your affiliate links into the text of your Blog entries. It's OK to have banners and buttons in the margins of your Blog page, but the textual links in text of the entries, in context with the other information, are the ones that will really produce results. If your visitors are interested in the text of your Blog entries, that interest will flow over to your affiliate links.

Do not force the affiliate links into your context. Opportunities will arise to place the links naturally into the flow of the content. Wait for these opportunities rather than forcing links in awkwardly. Your Blog will lose credibility if there are too many affiliate links or if they are forced into the content rather than flowing naturally from the content.

It should be noted that Internet purists do not believe that Blogs should contain any commercial content or links. That is well and good, but it ignores the fact that the publisher is expending time and effort, as well as incurring costs, in publishing the Blog. It is important that the information remain objective--not just be commercial hyperbole--in order for the Blog to be trustworthy. If a Blog proves to be generally trustworthy, however, most Internet users will not object to appropriately placed affiliate links that naturally flow from the content of the entries.

AN EXAMPLE

Nutrition and health is a subject that interests many people worldwide. New studies about how various foods and chemicals affect our health are constantly being released. One thing I have noticed consistently is that you rarely see anyone attempt to integrate all these studies into a comprehensive common sense approach to diet, nutrition, and health. Instead, most writers and reporters just take the latest study and come up with recommendations based solely on the results of that one study.

I remember Jimmy Buffet (a singer and songwriter whose hits include "Cheeseburger in Paradise") saying once that if he lived long enough, someone would come up with a study showing that cheeseburgers were good for you. A few years later, a study was indeed released showing that cheeseburgers did help somewhat to prevent certain rare types of cancers.

The point is that there is no shortage of studies coming out and the results are often quite diverse and even sometimes contradictory. A Blog summarizing health and nutrition studies as they are released, as well as covering new diets and new nutrition products, would be an excellent tool to sell SFI's nutritional supplements. People frequenting such a Blog, being health conscious, would have an interest in these products.

If an SFI affiliate were to publish such a Blog, he or she could become familiar with the ingredients in SFI's nutritional supplements. Each time a study came out referring to one of those ingredients, he or she could mention, in context of summarizing the study, that SFI's product contained that ingredient. This way, the affiliate could include in-context links to the sales page of these products. This could prove to be a very powerful selling technique.

CONCLUSION

The emergence of Blogs as a new form of Internet publishing is exciting for a number of reasons. Blogs, by providing a form of expression that easily integrates with other sources and other perspectives, marks an evolutionary step in the progress of the Internet. Blogs, when used properly, can be an effective e-commerce tool. Appropriately placed affiliate links, flowing from the context of the Blog entries, can be a powerful marketing tool.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet Marketing.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In this lesson, we will explore the powerful strategy of placing links to individual products appropriately in the content of your Website. SFI's New Veriuni Store allows you to link directly to individual products. In this lesson, we discuss how to place such links effectively.

TEAR JERKING DRAMA

On a rainy afternoon a few weeks back, I was watching a rerun episode of the television show ER. In this episode, Dr. Mark Green had taken his dying father home to keep him comfortable and to visit with him for the final hours of his life. There were several touching scenes of the interaction between this doctor and his dying father. In one of those scenes, Dr. Green was sponge bathing his father's back. The father stated that it used to be his job to bathe Mark, when Mark was an infant. On its emotional level, this scene dramatically revealed two adult men becoming aware of their dependence upon the other at helpless times in their lives. Meanwhile, on the surface level, the conversation between them turned to the brand of soap that Mark's father had used on Mark when he was an infant.

For several moments this dramatic and tear-jerking scene brought the brand name of a soap to the viewing public's attention. It did so at a time when the viewers were drawn into tender feelings that are rarely acknowledged in everyday life. It did so at a time when the viewers were forced to acknowledge that we are all at times helpless and dependent on the love and care of others. In effect, this scene equated the brand name of a soap with the purest of kind of love and care. It equated this brand of soap as the instrument needed to express the love and care necessary at both the beginning and the end of life.

Powerful stuff!

I haven't done the research on this, but we have to assume that the promoter of that brand of soap paid a pretty penny for use of that brand name in that scene in that fashion.

PRODUCT PLACEMENT

From the use of Reese's Pieces in the Movie ET, to the discussion of Ivory soap in ER, through the multitude of products featured in the latest James Bond movie; products have been successfully promoted by "placement" in the scenes of movies and television shows for several years now. Any time a character enters a diner and orders a cola, whether they order a Coke or a Pepsi, that scene can impact sales of that product for the entire life of the movie (which winds up in many people's homes on VHS or DVD after its run in the movie theaters). Research confirms that sales of the featured products dramatically increase after a successful placement in a popular movie. We can expect to see more and more of this in the future as "product placement" has proven itself to be an extremely effective marketing technique.

Product placement is an aspect of the "branding" strategy. "Branding" refers to making a brand name and logo well-known and associated with positive feelings. When product placement occurs in movies, unless the product is popcorn, candy, or cola (which are sold in the movie theater lobby), the viewer has no immediate opportunity to buy the featured product. Movies lack the capacity to "close" a sale; they can only make a product seem more desirable when a later opportunity to purchase arises.

You may have also noticed that most television commercials are of the "branding" type. While there are a few commercials that give you hard information about a product, explaining factually why you should buy it; most commercials spend their 15 to 60 seconds just trying to make you feel good and associate that good feeling with their product. They are hoping you will remember that good feeling next time you are at the store and see their product.

You may be wondering what this has to do with Internet marketing. Only the top 50 or so Websites on the Internet would stand much of a chance of negotiating significant money for "placement" of products in their content. So, why discuss it here? We discuss it here because understanding product placement lays the foundation for understanding the most powerful aspect of Internet marketing: in-context product links.

IN-CONTEXT PRODUCT LINKS

Imagine a middle-class couple who have decided they want to take up canoeing. They enjoy and respect nature, like to be outdoors, and want to instill this enjoyment and respect of nature in their children. Wanting to learn as much about canoeing and water safety as they can before their first adventure, they turn to the Internet to find information.

Marketers like it when behavior can be predicted. It is very easy to predict the behavior of this couple on the Internet. They will most likely go to one of the popular search engines such as Google or Yahoo! and search for "canoeing." They will then peruse the sites that come up and look for ones that have lots of good information about canoeing and are easy to read and to navigate. If you have a good site on canoeing that is ranked well in the search engines, they will likely spend some time on your site.

Knowing what this couple is likely to do demonstrates the unprecedented marketing power of the Internet. Those desiring to sell canoes, canoe books, canoe magazines, canoe trailers, canoe carts, paddles, life preservers, ice boxes, dry boxes, and related camping gear want to find this couple--or more accurately, they want this couple to find their products. Since this couple's Internet behavior can be predicted, the Internet becomes the best place to present these products to them at the time when they are most interested.

Our earlier discussion above of product placement in movies and television gives us insight into HOW these products can best be presented to this couple and others like them on a Website. The obvious way would involve straightforward discussion of products needed, the features of the different brands, and a link to purchase the promoted brand. The better way, however, would be to mention the products (and include the links to purchase them) in context of other discussions and stories about canoeing. It would be powerful to have a story about turning your canoe over one day but your valuables, being safely stored in a BrandX drybox, were saved. It would be powerful to describe how you were able to reach that exotic launch area because you had the right canoe cart.

Consider the following which might appear on a canoeing Website:

". . . When my wife and I first decided to take up canoeing, we were lost until we got our first issue of <a href=http://www.ezinfocenter.com/128498/ Item.vstore?id=170>Canoe and Kayak Magazine</a>. We would have overlooked many important preparations for our first trip had we not read a few issues of this great magazine first."

This example contains a direct product link to purchase this magazine subscription from my SFI Veriuni Store Gateway site. The link is very easy to set up. Just go to your Veriuni Store Gateway (your main SFI "home" gateway). Then find the product page for your chosen product. Just copy the URL of that page from the address line of your browser, and place this URL in your content within an HTML anchor tag as illustrated above. You can also link to a specific department within the Veriuni Store by using this same technique.

For linking to departments, the Veriuni Store uses a department template page and a CGI variable to identify the department to display. For linking to specific products, the Veriuni Store uses a product template page and a CGI variable to identify which product to display. In both cases, the CGi variable is in the form of a number. In both cases, the variable is named "id."

Thus, to link to a department:

1. Start typing in your Gateway address as usual, followed by your SFI-ID.
2. Then, after the forward slash, put "Department.vstore" followed by a question mark and "id=[the department id number]" (without the quotes). Department.vstore is the name of the department template page. The value of the CGI variable "id" tells the page which department to display.

CGI variables are always identified by a question mark. After the question mark comes the name of the variable (in this case "id"), followed by the equal (=) sign, followed by the value of the variable.

To link to a specific item:
1. Start typing your gateway address as usual, followed by your SFI-ID.
2. Then, after the forward-slash, put "Item.vstore" followed by a question mark and "id=[the item id number]" (without quotes). Item.vstore is the name of the item template page.

I see that the ID number for the Canoe and Kayak Magazine page is 170. Since I want to link to an item, I use "Item.vstore?id=170" at the end of my URL.

If you were not an SFI affiliate, it would still be possible to set up a multitude of specific affiliate agreements on your own, but as we discussed in Lesson 6 of this online course, it is way too much trouble to keep up with all of that. The Veriuni Store takes care of everything and keeps everything current for you.

Bringing products to life is the way to sell products. Demonstrating how the products integrate with and effect real-life situations in a positive way is the key to creating a need for the product in the mind of your customer. When you can do that and provide a link to a sales page for the product at the same time, you have something really powerful.

The Internet is such a powerful vehicle for selling products because it can do three important things at the same time. It can 1) isolate the target market (those interested in canoeing can easily find the Website); 2) create a need and desire to purchase the product (your story gives them a real-life example of the need for the product); and 3) provide an immediate means of closing the sale (you can have a link to purchase the magazine right in the story on your Website).

The Nutrition Blog we discussed in the last lesson is also an excellent example. The Veriuni Store sells great nutritional supplements. You could include in-context links to these products in the content of your Health and Nutrition Blog.

ANYONE CAN DO IT

If nothing you have read to date has inspired you to jump into affiliate marketing on the Internet with both feet, this should. Just think about how powerful the Internet has made individuals working from home with only limited resources. Canoeing may not be your thing. Nutrition may not be your thing. BUT SOMETHING IS! We have all had experiences that would be valuable to other people. All you have to do is write about those experiences on your Website and appropriately place affiliate links to the products in your story. If you are not good at writing or know little about Website building, there are services available at Websites such as Millpondproductions.com or profitpropulsion.com to take your knowledge and convert it into Internet content for you.

CONCLUSION

An individual working from home with limited resources can do something very powerful that even movies and television shows cannot do. You can create the need for the product and close the sale all at the same place and the same time. Using the techniques you have learned in this course, you can acquire a Website on a subject known to you. Then, using the techniques you have learned in this course, you can acquire some ranking for that Website in the search engines. By placing direct product links to products in your Veriuni Store in a manner that brings those products to life, you can effectively sell products and build an income with the SFI affiliate program at the same time. These are very powerful tools you have at your disposal.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will revisit the subject of Spam and discuss the "Can-Spam Act of 2003," a new federal law in the United States designed to deal with spam.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
 
We discussed Spam in Lesson One of this online course, setting out the Rules of Thumb to help you avoid being accused of Spamming. In that lesson, we noted that there were many sources for definitions and rules regarding Spam. We noted that there were many different laws in many different jurisdictions and many different rules in the various "Acceptable Use Policies" of Internet Service Providers. While that observation still holds true, the Can-Spam Act of 2003, which became law January 1, 2004, does simplify things somewhat for Internet users in the United States (and for those who send commercial e-mail into the United States). The Can-Spam Act of 2003 is a Federal Law that supercedes differing State laws in the United States. In this Lesson, we will give an overview of the highlights of this new law.

STARTING ON A HIGH NOTE
 
It is encouraging for Affiliate Marketers to note something stated at the very beginning of the Can-Spam Act of 2003. The first section of the Act lists the findings of the legislature that have led to passage of the Act. The first of these findings is:
 
Electronic mail has become an extremely important and popular means of communication, relied on by millions of Americans on a daily basis for personal and commercial purposes. Its low cost and global reach make it extremely convenient and efficient and offers unique opportunities for the development and growth of frictionless commerce.
 
For those still skeptical about the opportunity for online profit, take note. You can’t get more official verification than a factual finding of the United States Congress. The U.S. Congress has officially determined that the Internet offers "...unique opportunities for the development and growth of frictionless commerce."
 
The SFI Marketing Group is on the forefront of the development and growth of these unique online opportunities. With a little effort to learn the skills and play by the rules, you can, through your involvement with SFI, take part in this amazing growth of "frictionless commerce."
 
All participants in this exciting new world of Internet opportunity need to work to reduce and avoid the devastating effects of Spam, however. So, let’s turn our attention now to understanding the new law.

WARNING RE: LEGAL TOPICS
 
First, there are two things you need to keep in mind when reading articles on legal topics. You need to know that the law that applies to any particular situation is determined from an examination of many different sources of laws...and additional laws pertaining to how those sources interact with each other and with particular fact patterns. Therefore, you should consult an competent attorney in your jurisdiction to learn the possible legal consequences of your particular situation, before undertaking anything important or risky, rather than relying on your reading of any particular article.
 
I have often seen people get in red-faced arguments over what the law is in a particular situation. Both insist that they have read the law and understand the law, and yet they arrive at different conclusions. Laws come from many different sources. For example, some states in the United States have already passed laws dealing with Spam. Now the Federal Congress has also passed a law. Within each state, there may be state agencies that are charged with promulgating administrative rules to flesh out the law passed by the state legislature. The federal law also delegates rule-making authority to the Federal Trade Commission and preserves the authority of other agencies in certain overlapping areas. You also have the courts, both state and federal, which interpret again what these various laws and agency promulgations mean and to make sure the laws are constitutional. Governments are not perfect, and there are often inconsistencies in these various promulgations and interpretations. Quite often, people who argue over what the law is have simply each read different laws from different sources. Usually both have failed to take into account which of those sources have control over the others in which situations.
 
The second thing to keep in mind is that laws also vary in their application depending on the particular factual situations involved. No two situations are exactly alike. There are many factors that must be assessed before an interpretation of the law can be applied to any particular situation. It is certainly a good thing for you to read articles and keep yourself abreast of new legal topics, but you must keep in mind that reading articles is not a substitute for competent legal advice from an attorney who is familiar with the law as applied in your particular jurisdiction and is well apprised of your particular factual situation. Thus, nothing in this article or anywhere in this course is intended to be, or to be a substitute for, legal advice.

SUMMARY OF THE FINDINGS IN THE CAN-SPAM ACT
 
Legislatures like to have good reasons to pass new laws. They often express these reasons in the "Findings" that appear at the beginning of the law. The reasons given for passing the Can-Spam Act may be summarized as follows:
 
E-mail is an extremely important and cost efficient form of communication used by millions of Americans. The convenience and efficiency of e-mail is being threatened by the rapidly growing volume of Spam, which is currently estimated to account for over half of all e-mail traffic. The necessity to store, access, review, sort, and discard Spam is costly in both time and money. Spam also increases the likelihood that wanted e-mail will be lost, overlooked, or accidentally discarded amidst the large volume of Spam that most Internet users receive daily. Many of the Spam messages are deceptive, fraudulent, vulgar, pornographic, or otherwise offensive. Spam is costly to ISPs and educational institutions who handle large volumes of e-mail traffic. Many spammers disguise the source of the Spam and include misleading subject lines to induce the recipients to view the mail. Many spammers do not provide or honor opt-out requests. Many spammers farm e-mail addresses from Websites and online services. The laws enacted by the various States are inconsistent, confusing, and have not been effective. The problems associated with the rapid growth and abuse of unsolicited commercial electronic mail cannot be solved by Federal legislation alone. The development and adoption of technological approaches and the pursuit of cooperative efforts with other countries will be necessary as well.

WHAT IS PROHIBITED
 
Having made these findings, the Act then proceeds to prohibit the things found to be most harmful. The following list paraphrases what is prohibited by the Act. The Act uses different wording and has specific definitions for the words used in the Act. The following is intended only to give you a general conceptual idea of what the act intends to prohibit:

• Accessing another computer without authorization and sending bulk commercial e-mail from that computer.
 
• Using another computer to relay bulk commercial e-mail with the intent to hide the source of the e-mail.
 
• Falsifying headers in bulk commercial e-mail.
 
• Registering with a false identity for five or more e-mail or access accounts or two or more domain names and sending bulk commercial e-mail from any combination of those accounts.
 
• Falsely acquiring five or more IP addresses and sending bulk commercial e-mail with those IP address.
 
• Conspiring to do any of the above.

Violators can be punished with a substantial fine and up to 5 years in prison under certain circumstances. Your property, equipment, and software can also be confiscated under certain circumstances. The Act also prohibits:

• Sending any commercial e-mail (bulk or not) that does not contain an opt-out mechanism that is functioning for at least 30 days after the message is sent (barring uncontrollable technical problems).
 
• Sending any e-mail more than 10 days after someone has opted not to receive e-mail from you. Importantly, the act also prohibits passing an opted-out e-mail address on to anyone else who will send e-mail to the address. This includes selling or even giving away e-mail lists that contain the e-mail addresses of those who have opted-out.

This last provision is significant in that the practice among many over-aggressive marketers has been to stop sending mail to those who opt-out of their list, but then to turn around and sell that address to others. It is now a federal offense to do so!
 
VERY IMPORTANTLY, all Internet Marketers should note that the new law prohibits sending any commercial e-mail (bulk or not) to anyone unless the message provides:

(I) clear and conspicuous identification that the message is an advertisement or solicitation;
(II) clear and conspicuous notice of the option...to decline to receive further commercial electronic mail messages from the sender; and
(III) a valid physical postal address of the sender.

This provision, however, does not apply when someone has given prior affirmative consent to receive the message (such as opt-in newsletters)­it is still good practice to include these things anyway.

Harvesting e-mail addresses from Websites in contradiction of the stated Privacy Policy of the Website or knowingly using such addresses is also prohibited. In other words, you can’t have a Privacy Policy stating that the operator of a Website or online service will not give, sell, or otherwise transfer addresses maintained by such Website or online service to any other party for the purposes of initiating, or enabling others to initiate, electronic mail messages...and then do so anyway. To do so now is to commit a federal crime.

"Dictionary Attacks"–i.e. randomly generating possible user names to combine with known domain names in a shotgun approach to spamming­is also made unlawful by the Can-Spam Act.

There are also provisions in the Act setting additional requirements on sexually explicit e-mail.

Further included in the Act are provisions outlawing businesses from profiting from Spam. This is an important provision in the Affiliate Marketing arena. Businesses who market their goods through affiliate programs and the affiliate program operators must now take active steps to prevent the affiliates involved from using Spam, directly or indirectly. In order to comply with the Act and avoid criminal charges against them, such businesses and affiliate program operators must also take active steps to detect any use of Spam by their affiliates and to report such violations to the FTC.

The Act also provides for studies to implement a future "Do-Not -E-mail" list and for rewards to be given to those who help identify violators of the Act.

DO NOT CONFUSE THE CAN-SPAM ACT WITH ISP RULES

The main purpose of the Can-Spam Act is to outlaw Spam and provide criminal and civil enforcement measures. The Can-Spam Act does not prevent Internet Service Providers from having their own policy of declining to transmit, route, relay, handle, or store certain types of electronic mail messages. Thus, even though an e-mail may be in full compliance with the Can-Spam Act, there is nothing in the Act to prevent an ISP from refusing to deliver the e-mail anyway.

Remember that the Can-Spam Act is designed to punish criminals by fining them thousands of dollars and putting them in jail. However inconvenient it may be to have your Internet account terminated, going to jail for up to five years is a lot worse! Thus, it follows that this type of law will be much less strict than contractual agreements and Acceptable Use Policies which are usually only enforced by refusing to deliver your e-mail or denying you access through that service.

For example, the SFI Marketing Group Spam Policy is more restrictive than the Can-Spam Act. This has been a necessity in order to keep SFI on the "White Hat" lists of various ISPs who handle large volumes of SFI e-mail (and who also have more strict policies than the Act). The Can-Spam Act, being less strict than these policies, does not change what is prohibited by the policies. SFI prohibits sending any e-mail containing an SFI link to any lead, with which you do not have a previously existing relationship, until you obtain their consent to do so. Even though some such e-mails (for example, a single e-mail sent to only one recipient ) may not be a violation of the Can-Spam Act, the e-mail may still violate SFI’s Spam Policy and thus still be a lawful basis to terminate your SFI account. The fact that the e-mail does not violate the Can-Spam Act is not a defense in this situation.

(SFI, of course, supports, and works diligently to protect, the rights of Affiliate Marketers to send commercial e-mail under reasonable circumstances. Reasonable e-mail should not be arbitrarily rejected by over-zealous ISPs. Marketers have rights too. That is a subject for another lesson, however. The point here is that the Can-Spam Act does not say what you CAN do­it only says what you CAN’T do.

CONCLUSION
 
Only send commercial e-mail to those who have specifically, with confirmation, opted-in to your newsletter or mailing list. That is, when they sign up with an e-mail address, you should send a confirmation request to that e-mail address, and they must then click on the link in the e-mail to confirm before inclusion in your list. (This is, among other things, to prevent someone from signing up someone else’s e-mail address.) When you send e-mail, you should either send it from an e-mail account to which the recipient can directly reply or you must include an opt-out link in the e-mail. You should include your physical post office address in the e-mail. You should accurately and honestly identify the subject of the e-mail in the subject header. Certainly do not attempt to trick or mislead anyone in any way.
 
There is much more to the Can-Spam Act than has been mentioned here. An exhaustive analysis of the Act is beyond the scope of this lesson. You can read the Act in its entirety (in Adobe PDF format) at http://profitpropulsion.com/articles/can-Spam.pdf .

WHAT’S COMING NEXT

Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet Marketing.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
 
If you have read all 27 Internet Income Course lessons prior to this one, you should have a pretty good handle on Internet Marketing by now. If you have been putting the principles discussed in this course into practice, you should also have some good experience by now. In this lesson, we turn our focus on how to be more efficient in doing what you are doing. Now is the time to start thinking of your efforts as a system. It’s time to fine tune that system into an efficient money making machine.

CLOCKS AND SHOES AND BROOMS MAKE MONEY

Many people labor under the misconception that you have to be brilliant--or at least quite smart – to become wealthy. But you do not. The secret to financial success is not necessarily intelligence, but rather efficiency. Many extraordinarily brilliant people have been poor all their lives, while many people with only average intelligence have amassed great fortunes.
 
An example of the former is John Harrison (1693-1776), the clock maker. King Charles II founded the Royal Observatory in 1675 to solve the problem of keeping accurate time and finding longitude at sea. In 1714, the British Government offered £20,000 for a solution which could provide longitude to within half-a-degree (2 minutes of time). John Harrison, a working class carpenter, invented a very accurate clock that could be used at sea (no pendulum involved to be affected by the rocking of the boat) to solve this problem. The British Government, however, found excuse after excuse for not awarding him the prize. He was over 80 years old and near death when he finally received the money. Despite his brilliance, over 80 years of his life were lived in extreme poverty.
 
In contrast, Seth Thomas (1785-1865), a Connecticut manufacturer, who contributed nothing significant to the science of time-keeping, amassed a huge fortune efficiently manufacturing clocks designed by others.
 
Thus, the trick is not to build a better clock, but to sell clocks more efficiently than the next guy. The trick is not to build a better mouse trap, but to sell mouse traps efficiently.
 
Many fortunes have been made selling clocks as well as other ordinary, everyday items, such as shoes and brooms. Everybody wears shoes and every floor needs sweeping, at least occasionally. The more ordinary the item--the more it is used by more people--the more you can sell it.
 
Thus, to be successful in Internet Marketing, you need not create any brilliant new products or strategies; rather you simply need to efficiently employ the proven strategies to promote available products.

WHAT IS EFFICIENCY AND HOW DO YOU GET IT?
 
It is the person who counts his or her pennies who accumulates wealth. Efficiency is, as much as anything else, paying attention. Efficiency is counting and measuring and knowing where your resources are coming from and where they are going.
 
Simply stated, the notion of efficiency has to do with comparing what you put into something with what you get out of it. Generally speaking, what you put into something is time, energy, and money. What you get back is often referred to as “production” or “return.” In Internet Marketing, the ultimate “return” you seek is profit from sales.
 
To create an efficient Internet Marketing System, you seek to increase your profits relative to the time and money that you invest. You do this by paying attention to each facet of your Internet Marketing system.

CREATING A SYSTEM
 
You can’t even begin to think about efficiency until you start thinking of your Internet Marketing efforts as a system. Take a blank piece of paper and draw a box in the middle of it. On the left side, draw arrows pointing into the box. On the right side, draw arrows coming out of the box. Now, think of this box as your Internet Marketing System. The arrows going in represent time, energy, and money. The arrows coming out represent profits (in this case, money from commissions). The value of the profits coming out relative to the time, energy, and money going in gives you the ultimate measure of the efficiency of your system.
 
Do not be distressed, however, if you see that, time and energy aside, you have more money going in than you have coming out right now. This will be the case for many of you and here is why: There are two kinds of time that go into your system. Over one of the arrows going into the box in your drawing, write “My Time.” Over another of the arrows going into the box in your drawing, write “Passage of Time.” Not only do you have to put in your time and effort building a good system, but then you have to wait for the “passage of time” for your efforts to produce results. This “passage of time” is something that has to go into the system before it will work properly. This passage of time is necessary for your Website to be noticed, both by the search engines and others who may link to you, and is necessary for your other promotional efforts to accumulate into a “critical mass.” That is, it takes time to get enough ads and other promotional material “out there” floating around (on Websites and in people’s e-mail inboxes, for example) to begin to take effect.
 
As time passes, however, you hope to see the profits coming out of your system increase relative to the time, energy, and money that you put into the system. To ensure a constantly accelerating increase in return, you should be constantly improving the efficiency of your system.

FINE TUNING YOUR SYSTEM
 
Grab another sheet of paper and draw a bigger box on it. This box, again, represents your Internet Marketing System, only this time we are going to write inside the box. You need to sketch out the components of your Internet Marketing System. While there are many different approaches to Internet Marketing, the most common type of system focuses on a Website--your Website. Draw a rectangle inside your system box to represent your Website.
 
On your Website, you will certainly have some product links. Draw some symbols inside your Website to represent these product links. Then, draw some right-pointing arrows from these links out of your Website and on out of your system to the right. Place a “$” at the point of these arrows. Selling products from your Website links is a successful event. It produces the ultimate return of commissions. This is a good thing. You like these arrows!
 
Not everyone who visits your Website will buy a product, however. The ratio of people who buy a product from your Website to the total number of people who visit your Website is a measure of the efficiency of your Website in selling products. If you have a poor ratio, you will want to improve the effectiveness of your Website to sell products.
 
Let’s back up a step. Draw another symbol in your system box (away from your Website) to represent your search engine ranking. Then draw an arrow from your search engine ranking to your Website. The higher your search engine ranking; the more people who will visit your Website. If you have a low search engine ranking, you will want to work to improve it.
 
Now draw yet another symbol inside your system box to represent one of your ad campaigns. Draw an arrow from this symbol to your Website. Then draw arrows connecting the arrows that represent time and money coming into your system box to this symbol. The amount of money flowing into this ad campaign compared to the number of visitors coming from it to your Website measures the efficiency of this ad campaign.
 
Notice, however, that no matter how efficient your ad campaign may be, if your Website is not efficient at converting these visitors into sales, your overall system is not efficient. Or, consider the reverse. Your Website may be very efficient in converting visitors to sales, but your ad campaign may not be sending enough visitors for the money you invest in it. It is important to analyze the inner workings of your system to know which parts need attention the most.

GETTING THE MOST FROM YOUR TRAFFIC
 
Numerous studies have shown that it takes several “exposures” before a consumer will buy a product. Your system should be designed to deal with this reality. You are setting yourself up for disappointment if you believe you will sell enough products to first-time visitors to make a profit. This rarely happens. Thankfully, there are ways to overcome this problem.
 
Realizing that most of your first-time visitors will not buy from your site is the first step toward becoming a true Internet Entrepreneur. You have expended resources to get these visitors to your site. Those time, energy, and money arrows pointing into your system go, for the most part, to getting traffic to your site. An efficient system will make the most of this traffic. An efficient system will eliminate waste. It is downright wasteful to let these visitors leave your site--most likely never to return--without getting some sort of hook in them.
 
If these first-time visitors will not buy, perhaps they will join. Your site should have a newsletter signup and your site should be designed to entice your visitors to join your newsletter. The great advantage of having a newsletter is that you can continue to expose a visitor to your products through your newsletter content, which you can send out periodically. This way, you can achieve the number of exposures necessary to maximize sales of your products.
 
Yet another strategy you can employ is to have a “back-end” system. Give your visitors the opportunity to join a program, such as the SFI affiliate program, and you have yet another way to profit from them. Sophisticated multi-tier affiliate programs, such as the SFI Marketing Group opportunity, provide a means for you to profit from a visitor over and over again for years. Not only do you get a commission from what that new affiliate buys, but also from what he or she sells--and from what is bought and sold by the affiliates that he or she brings into your Powerline!
 
You should also consider employing an “exit fee” for your system. Everyone who comes to your site has to leave your site somehow. Even those that do not buy or join anything may not be a total loss. You can become an affiliate of a search engine such as Overture.com and place a search box on your site. For everyone who uses the box to search the Internet, you receive a small commission. Those visitors who do not find what they are looking for on your site will be looking for the nearest search engine to keep on looking. Why not put this right on your site (in the appropriate place, of course, so as not to cause a premature exit of your site) and grab back a little of your investment in this visitor. If this visitor cost you $0.07 to get to your site, by earning back $0.02 cents when they leave, you have reduced the cost of that visitor to only $0.05 cents and thus improved the overall efficiency of your system.

OVERVIEW
 
Your system should focus on having information (and selling specific products related to that information) on the “front-end” with the newsletter and affiliate program options (such as SFI) on the “back-end.” Then you should also have an “exit-fee” strategy. Remember that you attract visitors into your system with information. You also trigger their need for a product or service with information. You take advantage of their continued search for information when exiting your site. For this process to work, your system has to be streamlined with respect to the flow of this information.
 
Single-subject Websites work better than crowded hodge-podges of various banners and links. Thus, if you want to promote more than one thing at each level, you should consider using multiple Websites--or at least multiple entry points (pages) into your Website. You should have one entry point for nutritional products, another for Internet and phone services, and yet another for informational products. Each of these entry points should follow distinct paths designed in light of the information that attracted the visitor in the first place.
 
It is fine to let one Website (or entry point) be the “back-end” for another Website or entry point; but, if you do this, make sure that “flow” is preserved. Do not distract your visitor with a new type of product or service until they have had every opportunity to buy the primary product or services that corresponds to their entry point and the information that attracted them.
 
As with all things, direction and timing are crucial to efficiency. Do not lose sight of the directional flow of your system. Do not lose sight of the timing involved in product exposures.

CONCLUSION
 
To be profitable, you should take a systematic approach to Internet Marketing. Being systematic means counting, measuring, and comparing what goes into your system; how it flows through your system; and the return that flows out of your system. It means, as much as anything, paying close attention to what you are doing and what is happening as a result of your efforts. If you are not getting the results you desire, identify the part of your system that is failing to perform to expectation and then fine tune it. Always be striving to fine tune your entire system to achieve greater efficiency. An efficient system is the key. Brilliance is not required. Luck is not required. Efficiency is required.

WHAT’S COMING NEXT
 
In our next lesson, we will discuss some of the obstacles to success in Internet Marketing and provide insights and tips to overcome them.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN
 
In this lesson, we discuss overcoming the obstacles you encounter in Internet marketing.

ARE YOU ON THE PATH TO SUCCESS?
 
The American Heritage Dictionary defines "Success" as "the attainment of something planned, desired or attempted." Thus by definition, you cannot have success without having first planned, desired, or attempted something.
 
We all desire things—that comes naturally. From basic needs to extravagant luxuries, we are all, as humans, familiar with the experience of desire. Occasionally, even without plans or directed effort on our part, something happens along that fulfills one of our desires. When this occurs, we consider it a successful event—or, if we recognize that it occurred randomly despite our lack of planning and effort, we more accurately call it a "lucky event." Most of us, however, are not satisfied with the random satisfaction of occasional desires dependent upon luck. We want to take our fate into our own hands, at least to some extent, and thus we make plans and expend effort attempting to obtain the things that we need and desire.
 
Without planning and effort there can be no real success—only occasional luck. Thus, to be on the path to success, you must have a plan and you must expend effort. You must set goals and you must plan the efforts you will invest to obtain those goals. How carefully you plan and how faithfully you direct your efforts in accordance with your plans determines how successful you will be. This is as true in Internet marketing as it is in any aspect of life.

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN EXPECTATION AND FRUSTRATION
 
Frustration, in this context, is the feeling of discouragement that we experience when our expectations are not met. Frustration is an unhappy feeling of helplessness when our actions are not leading to our goals. Frustration saps our motivation. It makes us less likely to continue our efforts to reach our goals, whatever those goals may be.
 
We set our expectations when we set our goals. If we set our expectations unreasonably high, we are setting ourselves up for frustration. If we set our expectations based upon what we expect others to do for us, rather than upon what we intend to do for ourselves, we are also setting ourselves up for frustration. While we have no real control over what other people do or don't do, we can control our own actions. Thus, we should set our goals based upon reasonable expectations of what we can expect to achieve for ourselves through our own efforts and our own determination.
 
As we achieve these reasonable goals through our own self-reliance, we gain confidence. With this confidence, we can then set higher and higher goals. Ultimately, it is truly astounding what can be accomplished when this path is followed.

ENJOYING THE CHALLENGE
 
While it is beyond the scope of this nuts-and-bolts course on Internet marketing to delve much into philosophy, psychology, or spirituality; a couple of additional points do merit brief mention here:
 
First and foremost, you should have fun with your challenges! Life without challenges would be thoroughly boring. However, we don't have to worry about that because there will never be a time as long as you are in this world when the challenges stop coming. Eliminating obstacles and challenges from ever arising again is not the secret to success—no one ever accomplishes that. If you are waiting for the obstacles and challenges to stop coming so that you can be successful and happy, you will always be waiting...and will never be successful or happy. When you learn to find success and happiness despite constant obstacles and challenges, you have indeed found the secret.

POSITIVE THINKING
 
The other "secret" to success is to understand the power of positive thought. The first step to successful action is thought. If you can succeed in your mind, you can succeed in the world. If you believe you can overcome your obstacles and challenges, you will overcome them. If you believe there are opportunities for you, you will find opportunities—even in the worst of situations. The secret to success is to think successfully. Use the power of your thoughts to plan your success. Then, use the power of your thoughts to fortify your belief in your plan. Anticipate obstacles and challenges. Enjoy the efforts involved in overcoming them. Never give up. Make it happen!

WORKING THROUGH OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES
 
When an obstacle or challenge arises, there are generally three responses from which you can choose: 1) you can give up; 2) you can work through it; or 3) you can work around it.
 
A common obstacle for new affiliates trying to set up Doorway pages or place banner ads is the failure of a banner (a graphic image) to show up on the page or in the ad. At some point in every Internet marketing career, one stares helplessly at that infamous "X" showing up where the banner image should be.
 
In order to successfully place a graphic image, you have to first download the image from its source. Then you have to upload it to the server you are using. Then you have to insert the "image source" code exactly right in the HTML code where you want the image to appear. If any single character is wrong or left out, either in the name of the image file or in the display code, the picture will not to show up. You must have the "path" to the image's location on the server exactly right in the code also.
 
On their first few attempts—even though they have gone over and over it—many affiliates just can't get the graphic image to display. It can be very frustrating!
 
Your response to this frustration could be to give up. If it's going to be this complicated, why bother? You could give into your feelings of frustration and discouragement and quit. Or,...you could try to work through the problem.
 
The first step in working through any problem is to carefully define what the problem is. In this case, the affiliate is either using the wrong method or is making a typing error. There are really two problems here. One is that the image does not work and the other is that you are expending too much time trying to fix it. The affiliate is unsure whether the problem arises because the method they have been given is wrong or because, while the method may be right, they are just being careless with the details. It is time consuming to painstakingly proofread every character to make sure you are doing it accurately. You think to yourself that since you may not be employing the right method in the first place or since the image may be in the wrong place on the server, why bother with all that proofreading?! There are so many different ways you could be getting it wrong. How do you know?
 
You need to remind yourself that there are only two questions here. Am I employing the right method? Am I employing the method accurately? To work through the problem, you will have to allocate the time necessary to think it through, explore, experiment, consult experienced affiliates, and study over the training materials on the subject. It may turn out that you were just leaving one quotation mark out of the code. It may turn out that you have placed the image in the wrong directory on the server. It may turn out that the code you were trying to use is not correct—you got it from an uninformed source or it is intended for an entirely different situation.
 
Whatever the problem is, you can ultimately find and fix it. With persistence and patience, you can ultimately solve the problem and get your image to show up properly. When you do this, you will have worked through the problem. You will have overcome the obstacle.

WORKING AROUND OBSTACLES AND CHALLENGES
 
If, on the other hand, you simply do not have the time to study the problem out fully, you may want to take the work-around approach. Instead of using a banner ad, use a textual ad. While it may not be quite what you had planned, it still gets the job done—a Doorway has been created or an ad placed.
 
You can then continue to work on the banner image problem as time allows, without losing your momentum in getting your promotional campaign started.
 
It is not always possible to work through every problem that may arise, but you can almost always find an acceptable work-around. Although a work-around may be a slight deviation from your plan, at least you are not quitting. You still have your momentum. You are still moving toward your goals.
 
For another example, let's say that you have placed some "work-from-home opportunity" ads on some free classified ad sites. What you expected to happen is that some number of people would respond to your ad with an e-mail to your posted e-mail address and that, upon further follow up, you would persuade some of these people to join the SFI Marketing Group in your Powerline.
 
You are somewhat pleased to see that you do immediately get a large number of e-mails in response to your ad. You begin to become frustrated, however, when you discover that nearly all of these e-mails are trying to get you to join various other programs. You soon realize that not a single one of these replies is seriously interested in joining your program—they are just promoting their programs to you. How do you deal with this?
 
Again, the first available response would be to simply give up. You could harbor feelings of being mislead (because you have read in the training that free advertising can work and yet it doesn't work for you). You could feel that you are not being treated fairly by anyone involved and that you have no hope of making any of this work for you...Obviously, again, that response is not the successful one.
 
Alternatively, you could proceed to correspond with these people who responded to your ad in hopes of convincing them that your program was more worth their efforts than the program they were promoting to you. In this case, unless you are very creative and convincing, you would likely have unpromising results. You soon decide that this is a waste of effort. Thus, you have been unable to "work through" this problem.
 
But, as Thomas Edison said, "Just because something didn't do what you planned it to do in the first place, doesn't mean it is useless." So, you look for a "work-around" to this problem.
 
The first step in finding a work-around (just like the first step in working through a problem) is to clearly define your problem. Here, your problem is stated rather simply. The problem is that free classified ads produce numerous insincere responses to the posted e-mail address (and most free classified ad sites do not allow you to post anything other than an e-mail address). You don't want to spend your limited time reading through insincere responses and yet you don't want to miss that rare response that is interested. So, the question becomes what to do about it.
 
One answer would be to set up an autoresponder for the e-mail address that you use in the ads. You could draft a message to be sent by the autoresponder that invites the person to join your newsletter and gives a URL (Website address) from which they could do just that. This way, those few who were genuinely interested could go to your Website and join your newsletter. Then, you would have ample opportunity to follow up with them in your newsletter. Those who were not genuinely interested would simply ignore your e-mail and that would end your involvement with them.
 
Over time, if you seek out the right places to place your ads, you will gain affiliates this way. Some of these affiliates may produce commissions for you for years to come!

AVOID FRUSTRATION
 
Never expect anything to work as smoothly as you may have hoped at first. By keeping your expectations realistic, you will be less likely to experience frustration. Try to look forward to each new obstacle and each new challenge that comes along. It is in overcoming these obstacles that you will find true success. Always believe that you can work through or at least work around any obstacle that may come your way. Allow yourself to enjoy the process.

LEARNING FROM YOUR SETBACKS
 
Whether you work through an obstacle or work around it, every obstacle is a learning opportunity. If all else fails and an obstacle does appear to defeat you, at least you have learned what doesn't work and now know what to avoid. Just be careful not to throw the baby out with the bath water. Define very narrowly what you are eliminating as undoable and continue to look for something similar that does work.
 
Most importantly, do not be afraid of failures. No one succeeds without having failed a number of times first. Einstein, one of the most renowned physicists ever, whose name has become synonymous with the word "genius," spent several years of his life working on theories that ultimately proved incorrect. To quote Thomas Edison one more time:
 
"If I find 10,000 ways something won't work, I haven't failed. I am not discouraged, because every wrong attempt discarded is often a step forward...."

CONCLUSION
 
You cannot have success without setting goals and developing plans to reach those goals. Rely on your own efforts in reaching the goals that you set. Make your goals realistic but optimistic. Expect to encounter obstacles, challenges, and difficulties in Internet marketing as you would expect them in any part of life. Approach these challenges with enthusiasm and look for ways to work through or work around the problem. When you do encounter setbacks and failures, learn from them. Most importantly, always think positively and enjoy the challenge.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT
 
Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet marketing.

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 WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

In Lesson 30 of this online course, we first introduced you to the concept of "flow." To be effective, a Website must "flow." In this lesson, you will learn to create "flow" through effective organization and presentation of information on your Website. The concepts involved are: knowing your audience, organizing your information, using repetition, using concrete examples, finding agreement and overcoming resistance, using hyperlinks to adjust your presentation, tying your information together, and creating opportunity for continuing contact.

SQUARE PEGS AND ROUND HOLES

Have you ever become frustrated while trying to explain something to someone? Sometimes, when people are being hard-headed, it feels like you are trying to cram a square peg into a round hole.

The psychology of how people learn supports this analogy. The human mind cannot accept new information unless that information "fits" with pre-existing attitudes and perspectives. A person is not receptive to new information unless it smoothly integrates with the information already assimilated in that person's mind. While healthy people do not lose the ability to learn as they grow older, it sometimes seems so; because their heads are already crowded with stuff interfering with new information.

Thus, you cannot influence a mind unless you know something of what is already in that mind. In short, you have to know your audience and you have to speak to your audience in the context of their existing attitudes, perspectives, and knowledge. If you are promoting with square pegs and your audience has round holes in their minds, you either have to round off your pegs or square off the holes in your listeners' minds—or a little of both.

What if I told you that water did not freeze at zero degrees Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit)? You would be resistant to that information. That information would not fit with the information already firmly implanted in your mind. You have known since you were very small that water does indeed freeze at zero Celsius (32 degrees Fahrenheit)! You have seen it with your own eyes time and time again. You would reject my assertion. You would also likely reject anything else I had to say thereafter. I would have lost credibility by making an assertion that you could not accept.

But, what if I explained that I was referring to absolutely pure water? Pure H2O, Something that rarely, if ever, exists in nature but can be created in the laboratory. If I were to explain that water must have impurities in order to form crystals...and that crystals were necessary for freezing to occur, then I might have a chance of convincing you. Absolutely pure water, water with no impurities at all, has nothing to which the crystals can attach. Thus, it does not freeze at the normal freezing point. With this explanation, I would be rounding off the pegs of my information somewhat and squaring off the holes in your mind somewhat. You would be more likely to accept my assertion. But, I would still have an uphill battle. You would still be somewhat skeptical. To fully convince you would require calling upon several other facts with which you were already familiar and show you how they all fit with the assertion I was making.

To have an effective presentation, you must build upon information already in the minds of your audience. Your presentation must fit with their existing attitudes, perspectives, and knowledge. You cannot cram square pegs into round holes. Thus, as we have pointed out in earlier lessons in this course, it is helpful to design your presentations for narrow audiences and to target your promotions for each presentation to that narrow demographic group for which the presentation is designed.

If you were designing a Website for a group of physicists, you would need very little space to support the assertion that pure water does not freeze at zero Celsuis. If your Website is designed for a group of fishermen, much more space and effort would be needed.

ORGANIZATION OF INFORMATION

In order to influence your audience, you must also present your information in an organized fashion.

Any presentation—be it a book, a speech, a television show, a Website, or whatever—should have a beginning (the introduction), a middle (the body), and an end (the summary).

Any type of presentation, including a Website, should begin with an introduction. The introduction has two main purposes:

First, the introduction should capture attention. With all the noise in today's world, people have learned to tune most of it out. You have to capture your audience's attention at the start, or you will just be part of the noise they tune out. Second, the introduction should prepare your viewers' minds for things to come. You can use words to draw a sketch in your audience's minds of the entire picture painted by the presentation. People's minds have to be warmed up to things. You can't just hit them cold. You have to tell them about what you are going to be telling them...before you actually tell them what you have to say.

At the end of your presentation, you should have a summary. The summary reminds your audience, in a more concise form, of what you just told them. It ties everything together. The mind has to work with information before it is absorbed. Information has to be churned around in the mind much like food has to be churned around in the stomach. By providing another overview of the information at the end of your presentation, you are starting the process that will hopefully continue in your listeners' minds to digest and absorb the informationyou have presented.

The body of your presentation, the part between the introduction and the summary, is the meat of your presentation. Between your introduction and your summary, you say in detail what you have to say. Every fact and detail that is important to your presentation should be included in the body.

Do not include anything in the introduction that is not covered in the body. Likewise, do not introduce anything new in the summary. That is, everything promised in the introduction or summarized in the summary should be covered in detail in the body of your presentation.

ACCENT WITH REPETITION

Many presentations, from infomercials to Supreme Court opinions, use the technique of repetition. If you have watched an infomercial lately, you will have noticed that, about five or 10 minutes into the show, they start over again with a new introduction, body, and summary. A few minutes later, they start over yet again. This is especially useful if your information is complicated. With each pass through, you can emphasize and explain a different element.

When you use this approach, you should have a main or master introduction at the very beginning and a main or master summary at the very end, with intermediate introductions and summaries in each of your repetitions.

Repetition is effective when you are calling your audience to action. As stated above, the mind must digest information before it can act on that information. When you want people to take action immediately, you must assist in the digestion process by repeating your information, rather than leaving it to your audience to do after the presentation is over.

MAKE ABSTRACTIONS CONCRETE

One common form of repetition is repetition by example. Consider the following outline for a sales presentation for weight loss supplements:

Main Introduction:

Everyone wants to be thin and healthy. Our supplements make you thin and healthy. You can afford our supplements. Our supplements are more economical than the alternatives considering the benefits you derive from them. You should buy our supplements now.

Main Body:

Our supplements work because (provide details). You can afford our supplements (provide "costs less than..." price info). Our supplements are more economical than the alternatives because (provide details). You will be glad you bought our supplements because (provide details of benefits).

Jack wanted to be thin and healthy. Our supplements made Jack thin and healthy. Jack could afford our supplements. Our supplements were more economical than other alternatives available to Jack. Jack bought our supplements and he is glad that he did.

Jill wanted to be thin and healthy. Our supplements made Jill thin and healthy. Jill could afford our supplements. Our supplements were more economical than other alternatives available to Jill. Jill bought our supplements and she is glad that she did.

More specific price info.

More detailed benefits info.

Main Summary:

Everyone, including Jack and Jill and you, wants to be thin and healthy. Our supplements work because (brief summary of details). Jack and Jill could afford our supplements and you can afford our supplements. Our supplements were more economical than other alternatives available to Jack and Jill and they are more economical than other alternatives available to you. Jack and Jill are glad they bought our supplements and you will be glad you bought our supplements. You should buy them right now.

Notice that repetition is provided by using examples. You can go over all the points in discussing Jack. You can go over all the points again while discussing Jill. Repetition by example has the added benefit of making the information concrete rather than abstract. Concrete information has a greater impact and is easier to remember than abstract information. The average person is more likely to remember Jack and Jill than they are to remember the scientific explanation of how the supplements work.

POINTS OF AGREEMENT/ POINTS OF RESISTENCE

As you present information to your audience, any given member of your audience will agree with some points and disagree with, or be resistant to, other points. In order to win over your audience, you must have more agreement than disagreement overall. You must start from points of agreement. You must build on further points of agreement. Then, you must use points of agreement to overcome the objections and resistance that arise along the way.

Envision a salesperson sitting down with a potential customer. The salesperson will certainly find a point of agreement to start the conversation. Imagine a salesperson that sits down with a potential customer and brags on the good weather of late. If the potential customer responds that he hates this weather because it aggravates his sinuses, any salesperson worth his or her salt will leave skid marks reversing themselves on that point.

Notwithstanding their original observation, they will readily agree with the potential customer that the weather of late is a bad thing. Why? Because the potential customer's opinion of the weather is not important to closing the sale. The salesperson will not "waste" a point of disagreement on an issue that does not matter to the sale. Sales are closed by agreement, not by disagreement.

When a potential customer has disagreement on an issue that is important to the sale, however, the salesperson will work to overcome that resistance. Resistance is overcome by finding other information supporting the salesperson's position with which the potential customer agrees.

For example, say the salesperson is trying to sell enzyme supplements. The salesperson and the potential customer both agree that there are benefits from using the supplements. The potential customer objects to the price, however, because the same volume of the same ingredients is available at the local discount market for half the cost. The salesperson will then have to convince the potential customer that, all things considered, it is still economical to buy from him or her. Alternatively, the salesperson will have to convince the potential customer that the product at the local discount market is somehow inferior. The objection must be overcome in order to close the sale.

Different people have different objections and different points of resistance. In a one-to-one sales meeting, like our example above, the salesperson learns the objections as they occur. In a media presentation to a mass audience, however, the salesperson can only guess what the objections may be. Anticipating the objections and points of resistance most likely to arise in a particular audience is crucial to preparing an effective presentation for that audience.

HYPERLINKS AND FLOW

With the advent of the World Wide Web, hyperlinks created a new tool in communication. With hyperlinks, you can allow any visitor to your Web presentation to move directly to other information simply by clicking a word or picture.

You are missing the full potential of hyperlinks if you think of them simply as navigation tools to move your visitors through a set presentation. Hyperlinks can allow you to change the flow of your presentation based upon particular characteristics of each viewer. That is, hyperlinks allow you to customize your presentation based upon the attitudes, perspectives, existing knowledge, and points of resistance of individual members of your audience.

Going back to my water-not-freezing-at-zero-degrees example, on a Website I could say; "If you still don't believe this, click here." I could make the word "here" a hyperlink to a more detail explanation of my premise. Then, after overcoming that resistance, I could lead my skeptical audience back into the main presentation by links from that auxiliary page.

Sometimes, you will want to lead the person into an entirely different presentation that will be more effective given what you have learned about them from their choice of hyperlinks, rather than leading them back into the main presentation.

Hyperlinks allow you to incorporate elements of adjustment (that have historically been available only in one-on-one presentations) to a presentation to a large audience. If you have 10 pages and each page has 10 hyperlinks, you can effectively create 100 different presentations in a single Website! It takes a lot of work, but it creates a very powerful vehicle for presenting your information.

TYING YOUR INFORMATION TOGETHER

In their novels fiction writers use a technique known as "foreshadowing" to provide subtle hints of what will happen later in the story. This technique helps the story to "flow" in the readers mind. When the foreshadowed event occurs in the story, the reader says, "AHA! I somehow knew that might happen." The readers usually do not consciously recognize the subtle hints when they are given. The subtle hints work in the subconscious mind to make the reader feel as though she had anticipated the event.

Stand-up comedians use a technique referred to as the "call-back" in closing their routines. A comedian may start his routine telling jokes about his wife not supporting his ventures. Then, his jokes may move on to other things such as doctors, lawyers, and politicians. At the end, he will likely conclude his routine with a joke about how some politician's wife, like his wife, does not support her husband either. The last joke alludes back to an earlier joke at the beginning of the routine. The last joke turns on the same issue as the first joke. This ties the routine together in the audience's mind, giving the routine a sense of completeness.

There are other similar techniques used by various writers, performers, and presenters to tie up their presentation. It is an art rather than a science. No one can tell you exactly how it should be done in your presentation. Leave subtle hints early in your presentation for things that will come later. Toward the end of your presentation, make subtle allusions back to the beginning.

THE NECESSITY OF CONTINUING CONTACT

Even the most effective of presentations will not make every possible sale on the first pass through, however.

As we have previously cited in this course, there is research to suggest that it takes several encounters (generally seven to 11) before action will be taken by your potential customer.

Because absorption of information is a process that continues in your viewer's minds after they have viewed your presentation, it is important to stay in contact with them. The influence of your presentation will not have its full effect until sometime later. If you have a newsletter that reinforces the presentation of your Website, you will be able to continue the repetition that is necessary to inspire action on the part of your viewers, giving them time to complete the mental digestion process.

Thus, it is crucial to have a newsletter signup option on your Webpage. This way, you can continue the "flow" of information, even after the viewer has left your Website.

CONCLUSION

In Lesson 3 of this online course, we first introduced you to the concept of "flow." To be effective, a Website must "flow." When a state of "flow" is created in the viewer's mind, they are much more likely to take action on your page (such as buying something or joining your newsletter or program). You create flow on your Website through organization of your information. You should organize your information in light of what you anticipate regarding the existing attitudes, perspectives, and knowledge of your audience. You should use repetition to reinforce your message. Repetition by example is a way to achieve repetition while making your information concrete rather than abstract. Your flow of information should build upon points of agreement and overcome points of resistance. You can use hyperlinks to individualize the flow of your presentation, depending upon the choices made by your visitors. You should use techniques similar to foreshadowing and call-backs to tie your information together. You should provide a newsletter signup form to make a continued flow of information possible. Following these principles will help to tightened up your presentation, allowing you to get those square pegs through the round holes in your audience's minds.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet Marketing.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

We will now turn our discussion to the art and science of information retrieval. This lesson will provide an overview of the importance of information retrieval science to your Internet business. The next lesson will cover the fundamentals of databases. The third lesson on this subject will introduce you to the art and science of searching textual information. With this foundation, we will be prepared for advanced discussion later in the course of many important areas of Internet marketing, such as search engine optimization.

THE IMPORTANCE OF INFORMATION

While it is extremely rare, sometimes a child is born without the ability to feel pain. A defect in the child's nervous system prevents pain signals from reaching the brain. At first blush, this might seem like a wonderful thing—a life without any pain. The unfortunate reality, however, is that it is always tragic. These children become severely injured and die very young. Pain serves a purpose of providing information. Pain tells you what is harmful and should be avoided. If a child does not feel pain when he sticks his hand in the fire, he will leave it there. If a child does not feel pain when he jumps from a high perch, he will keep doing it, even though bones get broken. If a child does not feel pain when he slams his head into a hard surface, he will never watch where he is going. If a child does not feel pain when he backs into a sharp object, he will not retract from it quickly enough to prevent injury. Without the information that pain provides, the body cannot be protected and is soon destroyed.

I have started this lesson with this bizarre and disturbing example to drive home a crucial point. The very experience of being alive is the experience of observing, processing, and responding to information. In the tragic case of these children being denied the information that pain provides, they cannot survive. We all need a constant flow of information to survive. The more accurately we observe and the more efficiently we process and respond to information, the more successfully we live.

Our bodies, when they work properly, are designed to process information. The human mind is the most powerful information processing device known to date. However, just as we have developed tools to assist us with physical work, we have also developed tools to assist our minds. We developed pen and paper, the printing press, and then computers to assist in information processing and communication. While no computer yet invented can do all that the human mind can do, computers can do some things faster and better and do assist our minds in very useful ways. Understanding and efficient use of tools has always been the hallmark of the successful. This is certainly no less true with computers and networks than with any other tools.

For those of us who run our own businesses, efficient information processing is even more important to our successful living than for the average person. For those of us whose businesses are founded on the Internet, the largest information network in history, understanding the importance of information processing science and its tools cannot be overstated.

In Lesson 28 (https://www.sfimg.com/Training/Lesson28.sfi) of this Internet Income Course, we discussed the importance of running an efficient online marketing system. We observed that a large part of being efficient was simply a matter of paying attention. Paying attention involves accurately observing and recording information about the results of your various efforts. After observing and recording, you must retrieve and process that information accurately and in a way that has meaning to you—a way that will help you decide your next step to a more efficient system.

In Lesson 29 (https://www.sfimg.com/Training/Lesson29.sfi), we discussed how we learn from our mistakes and failures.

However, if we are not accurately observing, recording, retrieving, and processing information, we cannot efficiently learn from our mistakes. Unless we track our results, efficiently using the computers and networks available to us, we are doomed to repeat many mistakes. The success of any business is dependent on how well that business manages and processes information.

YOUR INTERNET MARKETING BUSINESS

As a reader of the Internet Income Course (https://www.sfimg.com/Training/InternetIncome.sfi), we assume you have undertaken your own Internet marketing business. The Internet is the primary environment within which your business exists. Your computer, an information processing device, is the primary tool that you use to run your business. Furthermore, information is the primary vehicle that will attract people to your business. Your customers and future teammates will find you on the Internet using information retrieval techniques. You will find ways to attract your prospects on the Internet using information retrieval techniques.

Thus, automated information retrieval, while it may seem like an overly technical, dry, and academic subject, is doubly important to any Internet business.

As with any business, online or off, information processing and retrieval skills are important to measuring the success of your various strategies and thus improving the efficiency of your business. Unlike traditional business, however, understanding information retrieval skills is crucial to promotion of an Internet-based business. Information retrieval is what the search engines do. Information retrieval skills are what people use to find things on the Internet. Information retrieval is the very essence of the Internet. To excel in this environment, you must give some thought to how it works.

THE HISTORY OF INFORMATION RETRIEVAL SCIENCE

The day-to-day information about the results of our business activities is important, but we must also draw upon the body of knowledge that others have accumulated as well. We use computers and the Internet for both of these purposes—to record and process our own information and to do research on information accumulated by others.

Whether you are aware of it in these specific terms, you use the art and science of information retrieval on a daily bases. Every time you use the Internet, you are using information retrieval tools. As the Internet becomes more sophisticated, your understanding of these tools and strategies becomes even more important to your efficient use of the Internet.

Long before the Internet, the science of information retrieval has existed, in one form or another, for quite some time. The ancient Greeks amassed the first known world library, containing copies of all known books of that time (later unfortunately destroyed). It soon became apparent, however, that vast collections had little use without some efficient way to find what you wanted. Libraries began to catalog books by author, title, and subject. Each book printed today is provided an internationally accepted ISBN number. Every book in a library is given a card catalog number. You can search the card catalogs by author, title, or subject. Once you locate the books you need, the books themselves have tables of contents, and often indices or other means to find the specific content you need within the books.

Periodicals (newspapers and magazines) are also sorted and categorized in the libraries and various other places. Separate reference works have evolved just to help find information that appears in books and periodicals. For example, there is a publication that provides an index to periodicals, which is used to find information that has appeared in magazine articles and other periodical publications. Many devices and strategies were developed, before the advent of computers, to help people find the specific information they sought.

Many younger readers born into the Internet age may have a hard time conceiving of the process of having to frequently and physically travel to a library to do important research. At the library, we had to search the card catalog, as well as various other reference indices to find the information we sought. While most young people are still taught these offline research skills, they are no longer as necessary as they were before the days of personal computers and the Internet.

The skills that are necessary today, however, require an understanding of automated information retrieval, especially as it is employed on the Internet. As we will discuss in Lesson 33, the Lexus/Nexus service was one of the first commercial online information retrieval systems. This company built a huge database of legal case opinions and statutes from many jurisdictions as well as newspaper and magazine articles from many publishers, which could be searched by the words contained within the cases or articles. When first offered, this service was accessed via a modem over an ordinary phone line connection to their mainframe computer. While very expensive at first (upwards of $40 per minute for connect time plus over $100 per search request), for those that knew how to use it, this service could find information much faster and much more efficiently than traditional offline research techniques.

As the Internet became more popular, many different search and retrieval techniques were developed to help one find the computer files, wherever they may be located geographically, needed for one's research. Before the World Wide Web and its predecessor, Gopher, finding information on the Internet required logging on to each computer on the Internet, one at a time in turn, and searching its published menu for the information you sought. Gopher streamlined this process somewhat by providing menus of menus. WAIS, or wide area information search, was an Internet resource developed to search several computers at once. The information explosion occurred, however, with the development of the World Wide Web and the search engines that quickly and efficiently searched the published pages of the World Wide Web.

There are millions of computers throughout the world, publishing countless pages of information on the Web today. The Search Engines find and then retrieve the information you need from these computers quickly and relatively efficiently. The companies that run the search engines employ information retrieval scientists to help develop their systems. Thus, the more you know about automated information retrieval science and the skills that follow from it, the more efficiently you can find the information you need and the more efficiently you can make your own information available to others.

ANSWERS TO COMMON "GETTING STARTED" QUESTIONS

Our brief and simplified study of iInformational retrieval in the next two lessons, believe it or not, will be directly relevant to the common, basic questions that newbies to the business frequently ask. Common questions by new affiliates are: "Where do I place ads?" How do I get listed in the Search Engines?" "How do I generate traffic to my gateways?" "How do I track my results?" We have provided answers to these questions already in this course, but we will now go deeper.

For example, we have told you that you should place ads where the prospects you seek will find them. We have suggested that you use the search engines to find sites that your prospects will likely also find. We have urged you to use search words and phrases that your potential prospects will likely use when searching for an online opportunity or for a specific product that you are offering. We have encouraged you to use information to attract visitors and then use that information to dramatize your visitor's need for the product or service you are offering. We will now delve deeper into how the search engines will process the search terms that your prospects may use to determine which pages to display to them and in what order.

Also, we have told you that you need unique information on your Website to obtain ranking in the search engines. It is now time to look a little closer at the techniques available to search engines to parse out the content of your site, evaluate it, and make it available to those seeking information. Understanding these techniques will help you optimize your content for the best results.

We have also told you that you need to record and analyze the results of your efforts. A closer look at the applications and techniques available to you to do that efficiently is in also certainly in order.

Delving into the science of information retrieval is a way to obtain deeper, richer answers to these common practical questions.

CONCLUSION

While it may seem somewhat impractical to talk about the obvious, it does provide useful insight to reflect on how information and information processing plays a vital role in every aspect of our lives. To be truly successful in business, you must take time to reflect upon the information processing skills that you employ in your business. To be truly successful in an Internet-based business, you must take time to think about the information retrieval systems that form the foundation of the Internet. To become a true search engine expert, you must have some understanding of the information retrieval techniques upon which the search engines are based.

As demonstrated by the tragic stories of the children born without pain reception, our survival depends upon our processing of information. We have developed computers and the Internet to assist us in processing larger and larger amounts of information to enhance all aspects of our lives. Some familiarity with the science of information retrieval that drives these developments is well worth a little time and effort, especially for those of us involved in Internet businesses.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson, we will discuss the fundamentals of databases and how they can be used to process information important to your business. The following lesson will address information retrieval techniques used to search text-based documents, the process used by search engines to find and rank Websites as a result of specific searches.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This lesson will introduce you to the fundamentals of databases and how they can be applied to your business.

DATABASES

A database is defined as a collection of structured similar data organized for rapid search and retrieval.

Let's say that you want to create and maintain a list of all the products you can sell on commission. Let's say you also want to create and maintain yet another list of all potential customers (prospects) you have for these products. Your first inclination may be to use a word processor like Microsoft Word or Corel WordPerfect to create and maintain these lists. Even though the products change from time to time and your prospects and their information change from time to time, word processor files are easy to edit, so there should be no problem...But, let's say that you have need to organize your products according to the affiliate program through which you can sell them. Most of your products are SFI products, but you also have some books, that closely match the subject matter of your Website, that you sell through the Amazon.com affiliate program. Say you also have some traffic generation products that you use to build your business that have their own affiliate program as well. If you used a word processor, you would have to create another list, organized by affiliate program, separate from your original list. You now have two lists instead of one.

Let's also say that you want to organize your products by category. Some of your products are books, some are nutritional products, some are online information products, some are leads and traffic generation services, some are telecommunication products, some are cleaning products - and you also sell coffee...Now you have to create yet another list.

If you wanted to organize your products alphabetically under each affiliate program and organize them alphabetically under each product category, you have to create two more lists.

As you can see, using word processor files to maintain this data soon becomes quite cumbersome. If information on a product changes, you have to change that information on several lists. If information about a prospect changes, you have to change that information on several lists. You wind up with a lot of files and spending a lot of time editing them to keep all your information current.

Plus, the more you have to type the same information in, the more likely you are to make a mistake. When, due to a typing error, you wind up with two different spellings for the same prospect or product, how do you know which one is right?

So, you need a better application to maintain and manipulate your data. The answer - a database.

Using a database, you list all your product information in one place and you list all your prospects' information in one place. When the information changes, you only have to change it once. If you make a typo, you only have to correct it in one place. When you want a list of your products organized by affiliate program, you simply create a report to pull the information organized by affiliate program. When you want a list of products organized by category, you simply create a report to pull the information organized by category. If you want a list of products organized by both category and affiliate program - no problem - you just set up your report to do that.

TABLE STRUCTURE

Most database applications use a table structure (also called a two-dimensional grid). Imagine a table to record your products that looks like this:

Each horizontal row contains information about a single product. The rows are divided into vertical columns. Each column contains a characteristic of the product. In database terminology, each row is called a record and each column is called a field. The first column in our example contains only the names of the products. The second column contains only the category to which you have assigned the product. The third column identifies the affiliate program through which the product is available for you to sell.

Any list of information that can be broken into records containing similar characteristics, which can be defined by specific fields, can be made into a database.

A collection of data, like the one we have above for our products, is called a table. Again, the individual rows in the table are called records (although often just referred to as rows). The individual columns are called fields (although often just referred to as columns). A collection of tables is called a database.

There can be more than one table in a database. A given database may contain a table for products, another table for prospects, and yet another table for active customers. As we will discuss below, different tables in a database can be related to each other through common fields. When a prospect becomes a customer by purchasing something, you can just pull the information (address, phone number, etc.) about that person from the prospect table, where it was first entered, rather than re-entering all the information in the customer table.

DATABASE PROGRAMS AND STANDARDS

There are many different database programs (aka, applications) available for you to use to organize your information. Database applications included in common office suites are Microsoft's Access and Corel's Paradox. A unique and user friendly database program that has become popular in certain segments is the AskSam software package.

It is also important to be familiar with database standards and languages. SQL (short for Structure Query Language) is an industry standard language specifically designed for databases. You can use this language to work with databases across different applications.

The need for sharing database formatted information across networks and the Internet has skyrocketed in recent years. Incompatibility of different software applications has been a major obstacle. For example, if you had data stored in an old dbase format and needed to share that data with a network running Microsoft Access; it could not be done without hours of effort to convert the data. The solution to this problem is to use ODBC and SQL to share the data. ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) is a standard interface between the data and the database application that works with that data. SQL is the standard language used to manipulate the data accessed through an ODBC connection.

That is, with an ODBC connection to a database, you can use the SQL language to create tables, add or modify data, and retrieve information; regardless of the database application with which the data is created and maintained on its source computer.

Also important are the applications that integrate database data with the World Wide Web. More technically stated, we refer here to the applications which convert database information into the hypertext transfer protocol (http) used by the World Wide Web. This can be done by scripting languages or API's, such as Java, MacroMedia's Cold Fusion, or the open source PHP. These applications integrate and display database information within web pages. They also allow you to manipulate database information from a web interface.

Many of the forms you fill out on the Web will automatically enter the information submitted into a database on the server network. Many of the Web forms used to correct or update your information will automatically modify the information about you on the database. (The alternative procedure is for the form to generate an e-mail to the administrator who will then make or modify the database entries using the main database application.)

When you view your Powerline Genealogy at the SFI Resource Center, you are viewing database information integrated with a Web page. When I log into the SFIMG Resource Center with my SFI ID and password, it knows to display my Powerline when I select the PTL Genealogy Report. When you log in with your SFI ID and password, it knows to display your Powerline when you select the PTL Genealogy Report. The affiliates in both of our Powerlines are stored in the same SFI database. The code used at the SFIMG Resource Center knows how to sort them out to display those in my powerline to me and those in your powerline to you.

DATA TYPES

Each column in a database table contains a single piece of data, part of the complete record stored in that row. When you create a table in a database you have to define each column by setting its name, its size, and the data type it can accept.

In our example table above, the name of the first column is "Product Name." The name of the second column is "Product Category." The name of the third column is "Affiliate Program." These column names identify the information that will be stored in each column for each record.

In earlier days, setting the appropriate size limitations for each column was very important to conserve resources. Database programs tend to set aside disk space to hold data for each column that is created. If you didn't limit the size, you would run out of disk space. This is not so much of an issue any more as database programs have become better at dynamically assigning space and computers have much more disk space available now. Size restrictions can also be useful, however, for certain formatted data such as phone numbers or zip codes. Within a particular country, there will be limits to the length of phone numbers and postal codes. By limiting the size of your column for these entries to the standard limitations, you can prevent incorrect entries due to inattention, while at the same time conserving disk space. In other words, if a key sticks when someone is typing in a phone number and it turns out to be 25 numbers long, you know this is incorrect for a U.S. customer. You may not notice the key sticking while typing in the data, but it will be brought to your attention with the error message that will result from attempting to enter too many characters in the form that will populate this column of the customer record.

Data type limitations, the other thing you can limit when creating a new column, are also very useful. Some data types allow the entry of free-form alphanumeric data, while others restrict data entry to just numbers or dates, or "true/false" switches. Common data types are: character (aka, "text"), numeric, date, money, boolean, and binary. These refer, respectively, to: letters; numbers; date formats such as "7/15/04"; numbers to 2 decimal points with dollar signs; yes/no flags; and non-textual data such as pictures, sound, or video files.

If you have a form that allows someone to submit their picture, they shouldn't be typing text into this field of the form. The reverse is even more important for security reasons - you definitely do not want anyone uploading a potentially harmful binary file (such as a virus) where they should just be typing their name. Data type limitations are used to make sure the right type of data is entered into each field.

Different data types are also useful in controlling how data is sorted for reports. Data in a text field is sorted alphabetically, one character at a time, from left to right. Numbers come first, then letters. Because each character is evaluated individually, the number 10 comes after the number 1, but before 2. Thus, you would not want to store quantitites in a text field because they would not sort in the correct order. Quantities need to be stored in a numeric field in order to sort out in numerical order, rather than alphabetical order.

Different database applications use different terminology to define the various data types. When setting up data types, make sure you use the terminology and the conventions of the application you are using.

RELATIONAL DATABASES

Let's return to our example of keeping a list of prospects in a database table. Let's say you have expanded that table to include last name, first name, street address, city, state or province, country, and phone number. You also add a field (column) to your table to indicate how you became aware of each prospect. Now, you want to keep up with your history of contacts with each prospect. It's beginning to get pretty complicated when you think of all the ways you can sort out the information. For example, you can think of four ways that you can follow up with a prospect:

1) You can phone the prospect,

2) You can e-mail the prospect,

3) You can send a snailmail letter through the postal service, and

4) You can chat with the prospect online with an instant messaging service such as ICQ.

There are also many types of outcomes you can have for each contact attempt:

1) You can receive no response,

2) The prospect can express indifference or disinterest,

3) The prospect can request to be removed from your contact list,

4) The prospect can express interest in further contact, or

5) The prospect can purchase a product (the outcome you want!).

Even more troublesome is the realization that you will need to record many contacts with each prospect. How many columns can you create for each prospect and retain manageability? If you used this approach, you would wind up with columns like 'first contact', 'second contact', 'third contact' and so on. Then you would need 'first contact date', first contact type' and 'first contact outcome', 'second contact date', 'second contact type', 'second contact outcome' and so on. As you can see, if you tried to keep all this information in a single table, it would become way too cumbersome.

The best way to keep up with this contact history is to create another table. You can create columns in this new table for 'type of contact method', date of contact, and 'outcome'. Each row will be tied to a specific prospect. It is not necessary to reenter all the name and address information for each prospect in this table because you already have it in the other table. You just need to tie the rows in this table to the specific prospects in your original prospects table. You do this by using primary and foreign keys.

Every row in every table of your database should have one field that uniquely identifies that row. In your original prospects table, you might be tempted to use the name fields to uniquely identify your prospects. This will not work, however. Names may be duplicated. You may have two people both named John Smith on your prospect list. The rule for primary keys is that they can never be duplicated! If they are duplicated, they can no longer serve as unique identifiers. Most database applications will not allow entry of duplicate data in the primary key field. Thus, the second John Smith could not even be entered.

The way to handle this is to create a special id number for each prospect as they are entered into your database table. No other prospect will ever be assigned this same number. (In fact, most database applications prevent the number from ever being used again even after the original record using that primary key number has been deleted.) The unique id number assigned to each prospect in the original prospect table is then used as a 'foreign key' to identify that prospect in the contact history table.

There can be more than one row using the same foreign key in the contact history table. The foreign key in the secondary table is not a primary key in that table. It is only a primary key in the original table. Thus, it can be duplicated in the contact history table. And, this is good because you will want to make several entries for each prospect as you contact them over time.

To make this relationship work as we have described, you need to create a new column in your original prospect table and name it something like "prospect_id". Then, when you set up your contact history table, you also need to create a column named 'prospect_id'. In the original prospects table you set the prospect_id field as a primary key. You do not set it as a primary key, however, in the contact history table. It serves as a foreign key in that table - not a primary key. Every entry into the contact history table will contain a prospect_id which matches a unique value in the primary table (and thus matches a particular prospect). When you generate reports, you can pull the name and other information about the prospect from the primary table and include it with the contact history information from the secondary table. Notice, however, that no information from the primary table has to be repeated in the secondary table except for the prospect_id.

Whenever your primary table is becoming too cumbersome due to repeating information, consider creating another table for the additional data and relating that new table back to existing table through primary and secondary keys.

FORMS AND REPORTS

To put information into a database, we use forms. These can be forms created within the database application or forms in some other format but tied to the database through ODBC and SQL. As we mentioned above, many of the forms you encounter on the web are tied to a database somewhere.

To get information out of a database, we use reports. If you wanted the contact history for a particular prospect, you would create a report that would look up the prospect_id of that prospect from the primary prospect table and then retrieve every entry with that prospect_id as a foreign key in the contact history table. The design of your report would determine what information was displayed and in what order.

It may be that you want to know every prospect that you contacted last weekend. You would design your report to query the database by date and retrieve all of the entries in the contact history table that have a date of last Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Then your query would match those entries with the prospects' information by searching the primary table using the prospect_id's resulting from the contact history table search. Your output could then be sorted by prospects. That is, all of the contacts with each prospect would be listed together under that prospect's information - unless you wanted them listed chronologically - in which case your report could do that.

Perhaps you want a list of all prospects who have not been contacted in over thirty days. This query would identify the prospect_id's for all contacts from the last thirty days. It would then search the primary contacts table for all of the prospects except the ones you have contacted within the last thirty days.

Once you have identified the information that you want, you can then design your report to sort the information in the fashion that you need. There are numerous ways you can sort the information. Prospects that you have not contacted within the last thirty days can be sorted by country or by area code. Or, they can be sorted first by country and then by area code. They can be sorted by date of first contact or they can be sorted by date of last contact. It's up to you. There are so many different ways to query and organize your data when database technology is used!

GARBAGE IN / GARBAGE OUT

An old concept dealing with computers and databases is worth repeating here as we begin to wrap up our discussion of databases. The accuracy of your reports depends upon the accuracy of your information input. If you put the information in wrong, it will come out wrong in your reports. Since with databases you only have to enter the information once, you can take the time to enter it correctly. Since you only have to make changes in one place, you can keep up with the changes and make sure they are accurate. Thus, your reports are more likely to be accurate.

(One big problem with computers is that they tend to perpetuate errors. If something is entered wrong, it is difficult for many organizations to get it corrected. Take the time to make corrections as you learn of them to avoid this problem.)

CONCLUSION

The more efficiently we process information, the more successful we will be. Database applications are much more efficient than word processing applications for dealing with certain types of information. Database applications are very useful tools to store, organize, process and retrieve structured similar information (such as records of our products or records of our prospects). Using ODBC and SQL, we can share database information across other networks. Additional applications such as ColdFusion or PHP allow us to share and work with database information on the Internet. As we determine our information processing needs, we can design tables to record the characteristics that are important for each item in the records that we need to keep. When necessary to avoid duplication of data, we can create additional tables that relate back to records in our primary table by using primary and foreign keys. We use forms to input data and reports to retrieve and sort the data. For our reports to be accurate, we must input the data accurately into the database. Our reports can retrieve and sort data in numerous ways depending upon our needs at the time. Database applications can make us much more efficient in running our businesses.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

In our next lesson we will discuss information retrieval science as it relates to searching and retrieving textual information.

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WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

This lesson will introduce you to the advanced techniques of searching online textual information. It will also address some basic principles of Information Retrieval Science as they relate to Website optimization.

WHERE DID I PUT THOSE INSTRUCTIONS?

If you're like me, you're always looking for something. I jot things down on scraps of paper that get left around everywhere. I create little tornados of paper scraps as I move around the house hunting the one scrap of paper that I need at the moment. When I started using computers, I carried this bad habit over into my Cyberworld. I pull up notepad files and jot things down when in a hurry and save them to whatever location seems logical to me at the time. Only problem is, when it comes time to find it, I can never remember where I saved it.

Fortunately, it is easier to find things on a computer than it is in the physical world, but you have to know the fundamentals of text searching to make it work.

Sometimes it is easy. If you are searching for the notes of your last phone call with a specific prospect, you can search through all the files on your computer for the prospect's name (using the "Search" selection on your Start button of Windows and then selecting "for files or folders"), and it will likely come up. Sometimes it is more difficult. If the name doesn't bring it up, you will have to remember something about the conversation and come up with an exact phrase likely to appear in your notes.

(If you use Outlook or Outlook Express as your e-mail client, there is also a "find" feature that allows you to search through the text of your e-mail to isolate that specific message that you need to find.)

Whether you are searching your own computer or the Internet, if a unique word is involved, you can often search just for that word and find what you need. Other times, you have to think about combinations of more common words likely to appear in the desired document. Then you compose a search to find that combination of words.

Some people who do a lot of searching install more sophisticated search programs on their computers. Because words may show up in different forms, there are advanced strategies that can be used with these programs, such as "wildcards" and synonyms, to make your searches more effective. For example, if you are looking for the watering instructions for a new exotic plant in your garden, those instructions may use the word "water" or "watering," but you can't remember which. By placing a wildcard (usually an asterisk - * ) after the "r" in water, in programs that will allow this type of searching, you can pick up either word in a single search. In other cases, you may have to search for all possible synonyms of a word to make your search exhaustive. For example, if you are searching for information related to cars, various sources may use the word "car" or the word "automobile" or the word "vehicle." To get everything, you would have to search for all these words. To do this in a single search, the search program needs to have a synonyms operator. Otherwise, you will need to use Boolean connectors, which we will discuss below.

COMPARED TO DATABASE QUERIES

In our last lesson we discussed databases. In doing so, we used the example of creating database tables to keep up with our prospects. Recall that we created a primary table containing name, address, phone, etc. for each prospect. Then we created a secondary table to keep up with the contact history for our prospects. Let's now take that example a little further.

Since relationship building is so crucial to marketing, it is important to remember the personal things that prospects tell us about themselves in the course of our conversations with them. The issues that these prospects may talk about will be diverse, varying from prospect to prospect. Some may tell you about their relationship issues, others may speak of health issues, while others may tell you about their hobbies. Many will talk about their children or grandchildren. Thus, the personal "information" that prospects may share with you will not be "similar" or "structured." Therefore, it would appear difficult to design database fields to keep track of this information.

However, one "data type" available in most databases that will be useful in this situation is the "memo" field. A memo field is an alphanumeric field that will accept an unlimited amount of data in text format. Thus, in the "contact history" table that we created in our last lesson, we may want to add a memo field for "personal notes." In this field we could type free form textual data about whatever we discussed with the prospect. The next time we contact that prospect; we can pull up our prior notes from this field and review them.

However, what if we are trying to remember with whom we discussed a certain subject? We remember the subject but not the person. How do we find the person when we can only remember the subject? Simple database queries are not so helpful here. This would require the same type of word searching that we discussed above for finding files on your computer. You will have to think of word combinations likely to appear in your notes and then search the text of these memo fields for that combination.

Even though you are searching within a database in this example, you are using the techniques of text searching.

SEARCH ENGINES AND WEB PAGES

When you want to find information on the World Wide Web, you use the search engines to search the text of Web pages.

As we have discussed elsewhere in this course, search engines search more than just the displayed text of a Web page. Some search the contents of the meta tags (such as "title," "description," and "keywords"). Some engines search the anchor text of incoming links (i.e. they search the words used on the other Web page that links to the page). Most also search the "alt" text that accompanies the graphics on a Web page.

Understanding how these searches work is crucial to both finding the stuff you need with the search engines as well as designing your site to be found by others on the search engines.

COMMERCIAL RETRIEVAL SERVICES

As we mentioned in Lesson 31, the Lexus/Nexus service, which began in the 1970s, was the first popular commercial document retrieval service based on text searching. It indexes most major newspaper articles, magazine articles, statutory laws, and court opinions. Rather than going to the library and sweating over indexes, you can simply type a word search into the Lexus/Nexus system and it would bring up all the newspaper articles, magazine articles and/or court cases using that particular combination of words. The service is very expensive, however, and thus only affordable to a few conducting important research. I mention it here because it was a precursor for many of the techniques that search engines now use to find documents on the World Wide Web. As stated earlier, Information Retrieval Science is not new. It has been evolving for some time and will continue to evolve in the future.

COMPOSING WORD SEARCHES

Wherever you may be searching, the more refined your search, the fewer documents or pages you will have to sort through to find what you need. The more information you provide to the search program, the fewer results you will get and the more likely they will be on target.

When you go to the Yahoo! search engine, there is a link next to the search box titled "Advanced." At Google, there is a link titled "Advanced Search." These links provide a user-friendly way to employ a Boolean search. (You won't see the word "Boolean" at Google or Yahoo, but that is the traditional Information Retrieval Science term to describe searches that allow you to search for combinations of words using "connectors," such as AND, OR, etc.)

Both Google's and Yahoo!'s advanced search features give you the option to use multiple words and then decide how the search will treat them. At the time of this writing, those options on both search engines are to show results with: all of the words, the exact phrase, any of the words, and none of the words.

In Boolean terminology, the first option available on the advanced search (to search for documents with all of the words) is equivalent to placing the AND connector between the words. Thus, if your search words are "bass guitar players," this search will only bring up Websites containing all three words. In Boolean terms, the underlying search is read as..."Find me all documents containing the word 'bass' AND the word 'guitar' AND the word 'players.'" The search will not bring up documents containing one or two of the words. This is quite handy. Otherwise, your search would bring up sites that contained any of the words. You would have to filter through sites about bass fish, other types of guitars, and all sorts of stuff that would come up with the word "players." Using the Boolean AND connector helps to narrow your search significantly. (Both Yahoo! and Google allow you to type the AND connector directly into the basic search box, rather than using the advanced search page. Google calls this AND an "operator" rather than a "connector.")

This search for pages containing all three of the words will still bring up some irrelevant documents, however. Some pages will have all three words (bass, guitar, player) but they may be far apart on the page and unrelated to each other. For example, a page about a baseball player who enjoys bass fishing and 12-string guitar playing might come up with this search. Thus, this search can still besomewhat inefficient. The second advanced search option will help with this problem.

The second option Yahoo! gives you is the "exact phrase" option. This narrows the search even more than the AND connector. With this option, all three of the words have to be right next to each other and in the exact same order. In other words, your entire search is treated as a single entity, and documents are retrieved only if they contain that exact phrase. This would eliminate pages that happen to have all the words but apart from and unrelated to each other (such as our bass fishing, 12-string guitar playing baseball celebrity). In old-fashioned Boolean searches, this type of search was created by typing quotation marks around the words you wanted to be treated as an exact phrase. In a Yahoo! advanced search, however, you simply type the phrase into the indicated search box for that type of search; quotation marks are not necessary. (In both the Yahoo! and Google basic search forms, you can create a phrase search by using quotation marks without having to use the advanced search page.)

The third option in the Yahoo! advanced search is the same as the basic search. It searches for "any of these words." In Boolean terms, this search uses the OR connector between the words. Using our bass guitar players example, it would search for sites that contain either the word "bass" OR the word "guitar" OR the word "players." (This option is included in the advanced search even though it is the default in the basic search option because it can be used here in combination with the other advanced search criteria.)

The fourth box in the Yahoo! advanced search is "none of these words." Here, you can enter words you want to exclude in your search. For example, if you wanted to search for bass (the musical concept), you may want to exclude pages which also contain the words "fish or fishing" to clarify your search and eliminate sites discussing bass fishing. Thus, to search for bass music but not bass fishing pages with the advanced search form, you would put the words "fish" and "fishing" in this fourth box.

In Boolean terms, excluded words are usually designated with the BUT NOT or the dash or minus sign (-), connector. Thus, to search for bass music but not bass fishing in the basic search form, you could search with "bass -fishing -fish." Note that you must put a space before the dash in the basic search box. It is not necessary to use the dash in the advance search form. Any words typed into the fourth text box of the advanced form will be used to exclude pages that contain those words.

To clarify, on the advanced search pages you do not have to type any of these connectors we have mentioned. You use the connectors (or operators) only if you are submitting an advanced search using the basic search form. Thus, if you just want to use one of these advanced features and can remember the connector to use, you can use the basic form. If you can't remember the connector to use or you want to combine two or more of the advanced features for a very refined search, you will need to use the advanced search page. The advanced search form puts the connectors in for you behind the scenes. You do not have to type them in.

Google also has a synonym operator, which is called the tilde (~). Putting a tilde before a word will cause the engine to search for the word and all of its synonyms. Thus, the search "online ~opportunity" would bring up pages with the keywords "jobs" and "employment" in addition to the keyword "opportunity," because Google considers these words to be synonyms for the word "opportunity."

Interestingly, there are limitations to the intelligence used in these searches. For example, one would think that a search for "~online opportunity" would include the word "Internet" as a synonym for the word "online." I could see no evidence that it did, however. Google does not seem to recognize synonyms for the keyword "online." Thus, in this particular situation, you would have to use the OR connector and type in both words to create this search in the basic search form (or use the advanced search form and type both these words in the third box).

Despite minor limitations, advanced searches are quite powerful. Referring again to the Yahoo! advanced search page, you can combine all of these search criteria into a single search. You can search for pages that include all of the words in the first box and include the exact phrase you have typed into the second box, but exclude any sites that contain any of the words you type in the fourth box. With a little effort, you can create a very exacting search to find just what you need while excluding irrelevant sites that incidentally contain many of the same words.

In both Yahoo! and Google advanced searches, you can also eliminate outdated sites, limiting your results to only pages that have been updated within the time period that you specify. You can also limit your results to just certain file types. You can also use the "+" to force the search engine to search for a word it would normally exclude from the search. (Many common words are automatically excluded because they appear on so many pages.) The search engines also have many other features, preferences, and shortcuts that you can use. You can read about all of these features on the help pages of the search engine you are using.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL CONCEPTS USED TO RANK RESULTS

Given the number of Websites on the World Wide Web today, there will likely be more than one Web page that matches the search criteria in any given search, regardless of how advanced that search may be. Thus, the search engines have the task of ordering the pages that do match one's search criteria. That is, the search engines have to guess which page you want to see first, second, third, and so on among the many pages that match your search. This becomes really important in less refined searches. Most searchers do not take the time to create sophisticated advanced searches. Most searches, therefore, result in a very large number of pages that match the search criteria (often in the millions)! The search engines are left to guess what might be important to the searcher. The method used by a particular search engine to make this guess controls the order in which the search engine displays the results of a search. Whether a page is first in a list of 98,000 page results for a particular search or last in that list becomes of extreme importance to both the searcher and the Webmasters of the pages that match the search criteria.

How the search engines determine the order in which results will be displayed for a given search is probably the most discussed issue in Internet marketing. The exact methods used by the search engines are closely guarded industrial secrets. They are so closely guarded because the search engines do not want anyone figuring out how to manipulate the results unfairly.

Notwithstanding the secrecy, there is a great deal that can be learned from studying Information Retrieval Science and then observing the behavior of the search engines in the context of those scientific principles. An entire industry of SEO's (Search Engine Optimizers) has arisen to assist businesses in designing their Websites to be ranked high in the results for a particular search. While many of these experts do more harm than good, there is a growing body of ethical and competent companies in this new industry.

There has also been good success by some do-it-yourselfers. Because most of the legitimate SEO's charge large fees and work for the larger companies, small businesses and home-based entrepreneurs usually have little choice but to take the do-it-yourself route with respect to Website optimization.

In order to successfully optimize your own Website, it helps to have some basic familiarity with Information Retrieval Science. You also need to carefully observe the search engines as they change their methods and strategies from time to time (to stay ahead of the manipulators). It also helps to frequent the Websites, blogs, and discussion boards where search engine methods are knowledgeably discussed.

INFORMATION RETRIEVAL CONCEPTS

It is beyond the scope of this lesson and even this course to provide an in-depth discussion of the science of Information Retrieval. However, it will be helpful in laying the foundation for future lessons on Website optimization, however, to introduce a few of the basic terms and concepts. (First, let me explain that while I have made a distinction between database and text searching in the last two lessons, the terminology of Information Retrieval does not necessarily do so. In general, it often refers to the collection of information to be searched as "the database" regardless of how that collection is structured.)

Here are some of the common terms:

Term Frequency (often represented mathematically as "tfi") is the number of times that a word appears in a document.

Document Length (often represented mathematically as "Li") is the total number of words in a document.

Document Frequency of a word or term (often represented mathematically as "dfi") is the number of documents containing the specific word or term in question, within a collection of documents.

The total number of documents in a collection (whether or not they contain the word in question) is often represented mathematically as "D."

Term Vector Theory provides a couple of useful formulas, using the above definitions. The first one determines Term Density (a/k/a Keyword Density). The second one determines Term Weight.

Let's start with the Keyword Density Formula:

Keyword Density = KDi = tfi/Li

That is, Keyword Density equals the Term Frequency divided by the total number of words in the document. Despite the scary looking math, this is really quite straightforward. It is just a simple measure of the concentration of a word in a document—the relative frequency of that word to the total number of words in the document. For example, if you have a document with 1,000 words total and uses the word "bass" 100 times, the Keyword Density for that document for the word "bass" is 100 divided by 1,000 or 1/10 or 0.1.

Many believe that search engines measure the Keyword Density of your Web page in ranking your page for a particular keyword.

Another formula brought to us by Term Vector Theory is a little more complicated.

Term Weight = wi = tfi * log(D/dfi)

That is, Term Weight equals the number of times a word appears in a document times the logarithm of a number calculated from the total number of documents in the collection divided by the number of documents in the collection containing the word. (And you swore to your high school algebra teacher that you would never have any practical use for this stuff!)

Term Weight is used to determine which of the words used in a search phrase should be given the most weight in the search results. For example, if you search for "a good fishing hole" on Yahoo! or Google, the words "a" and "good" will not help to order the results because they will appear in almost all of the pages indexed in the search engines. These words are too common to be useful in a search (unless they are treated as part of an exact phrase containing other less common words). Thus, for the search results to be meaningful, these words have to be identified and given very little, if any, weight in how the search results are displayed. On the other hand, very rare words used in a search phrase will be given high weight because they are useful in identifying a small number of documents containing the rare word which will then appear near the top of the results.

Said another way, term weight can be used to choose between words in a multiple word (OR connected) search as to how those words will affect the ordering of the results. If you are searching for Web pages including any of the multiple words you put in the search form (which is what the basic search form does), the search engine will have to decide how to display the results. In doing so, it will have to determine which one of the words in your search is most important, which one is next most important, and so on. In doing that, search engines are believed to use something similar to the "term weight "formula above.

It is really less complicated than you may think. Basically, very common words are given less weight in general. Rare words are given more weight in general. If a document contains a high frequency of a rare word, that document will be given great weight with respect to that word. If a document contains a low frequency of a common word, it will have very little or no weight with respect to that word.

The formula is most helpful, however, when searches use words that are neither particularly common nor particularly rare. The formula may be used to help the search engines make tedious choices in ranking the results from among the millions of Web pages on the Internet that match the search.

Another basic concept of Information Retrieval Science is that of Term Co-Occurrence (a/k/a Keyword Co-Occurrence)

Term Co-Occurrence has to do with how often two words show up in the same place together. The "place" referred to could be, among other things: a sentence, a paragraph, a document, or a Web page. For simplification, we will assume a Web page in our discussion. Term Co-Occurrence is a factor in "Semantic Connectivity"—how words relate to one another.

You can measure term co-occurrence for two keywords fairly easily. Go to Google and search for "bass." When I did that just now, it came up with 18,800,000 pages. Now run a separate search for "fishing." I came up with 25,600,000 pages. These two searches each measure the number of pages containing a single term, "bass" in the first and "fishing" in the second. Now run a search for pages that contain both "bass" and "fishing." This search, at the time of this writing, resulted in 2,280,000 pages. You can assign a value to the co-occurrence with the following formula:

c = n12/(n1 + n2 - n12)

Where n1 is the number of results containing the first word ("bass") and n2 is the number of results containing the second word ("fishing") and n12 is the number of results containing both words.

Plugging the numbers in, we get c= 2,280,000/18,800,000 + 25,600,000 - 2,280,000. If my math is correct, the answer should be approximately .05 (which sounds about right because the answer should be between 0 and 1).

Let's compare this with the term co-occurrence for the keywords "bass" and "guitar." Following the same procedure as above, I get approximately 0.15 as the value for c in the above formula.

Analyzing this, we see that, while neither of these numbers is very close to 1 (the largest possible value for co-occurrence), "bass" and "guitar" have a higher co-occurrence value than do "bass" and "fishing" in the Google search engine. That is, the word "bass" has a greater co-occurrence with the word "guitar" than it does with the word "fishing" within the Web pages indexed by Google.

This particular example is not very useful for any purpose, but just an explanation of how to work the formula. Does term co-occurrence have any relevancy to page ranking? The honest answer is that we don't know. But, we do know that search engines hire Information Retrieval scientists to help develop their ranking algorithms...and that Term Co-Occurrence is a concept that such scientists use in their research. Perhaps they use this measurement in some fashion to evaluate the relevancy of a page to a particular keyword.

Here is one way that the search engines might use this. They could develop a set of words that have a high co-occurrence with each of many of the popular keywords. When ranking a page for a keyword, they could look to see how many of these high co-occurrence words are also prominently used on the page. If they find a lot of words that have a high co-occurrence with the keyword in issue, they may give this page a higher ranking. The reasoning would be something along these lines. When people are writing naturally about a certain subject that is tied to the keyword, they will use a high incidence of these other semantically related words. If these other semantically related words are not present in sufficient numbers, the writing may be artificial, i.e. designed to manipulate the search engines with respect to the keyword in question.

If there are several other words in prominent places on the page that have a high co-occurrence with the keyword ranked for, perhaps they give that page a higher ranking. If all the other keywords on the page have a low co-occurrence value with the keyword ranked for, perhaps they give it a lower ranking.

Regardless of whether the search engines actually use term co-occurrence in the rankings, this concept does have some utility in optimizing your pages for particular keywords. With some investigation and some calculations, you can find words that have a high co-occurrence with the keyword you are targeting within a particular search engine. By using these words liberally in your meta tags and content, you can increase the likelihood of your page coming up for someone interested in that subject who searches with one of the other words. You will have determined other words they are likely to use and place them in your page, all due to your co-occurrence research!

CONCLUSION

Some familiarity with basic concepts of Information Retrieval Science can help you to perform better searches as well as help you better optimize your own Website. You should explore and experiment with the advanced search features of the major search engines, such as Yahoo! and Google. Identify the keywords you are targeting with your Website and experiment with different searches using these keywords. Examine the pages that rank high in the results of your searches. See if you can calculate keyword density, term weight, and keyword co-occurrence for the pages that rank high in your searches.

Remember that keyword density is a measure of the concentration of the use of a word on a page. Term Weight is a measure of the use of a word in one document to the use of the word in all other documents in the collection. Term Weight can be used to rank documents with relation to a particular search. Term Co-occurrence is a measure of how often words appear together in a particular document with respect to how often those words usually appear together. It is another way to test the relevancy of a document to a particular keyword used in a search.

Understanding how searches work behind the scenes is important to Internet Marketing.

WHAT'S COMING NEXT

Stay tuned to upcoming lessons in the Internet Income Course for detailed discussions of timely and important topics in Internet Marketing.

by George Little
Copyright (year) Panhandle On-Line, Inc.
License granted to Carson Services, Inc. for distribution to SFI affiliates. No part of this work may be republished, redistributed, or sold without written permission of the author.

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