Well… I just love it.

The moment I understood the concept of Simplicity and applying it, my life changed.
I will talk about that alot in the future.

It is about macheting down the jungle of information overload and eliminating the perfectionist inside.
Don’t misunderstand though: I always and still do believe in the power of QUALITY! Just that to achieve quality, it is not always neccessary to exhaust yourself, others and the idea you are working on by sticking to perfectionism.

By talking about simplicity, I mainly talk about doing things one-by-one whilst having the goal in mind and clearly defined.

As said, I will talk much more about it here in the near future.
For now, I at least changed the layout of my blog to become even more simple and easy to read.
I will test some more font-styles, but am pretty sure the current design is very easy to read. Cool abouit it: If you click to read a whole article, it opens without a sidebar!

Some may say that’s not good for navigation purposes. I say: It’s perfect for focusing on THAT article you read at the moment and not being distracted by more options.

I will let you know how I work on implementing Simplicity in my business workflow-systems in following posts. You’ll get real-life examples.

Have a great weekend!

Norman

Internet Marketers who use split testing experience higher success levels than those who do not perform such tests. Split testing allows marketers to measure the effects of different content on their landing pages against user response, and thus select the best performing page. Split-testing is typically a time consuming process. Without any special tools, a marketer would need to create their landing page content, and run it for a specific period of time to test the results. Then, the marketer would need to run the same page with one change- perhaps a different headline font, or a different wording for the headline, and test the results of that variation. It’s expensive and time consuming because you can only test one item at a time in order to obtain accurate results, and because it is completely based on trial-and-error.

Google Analytics has allowed marketers to measure their conversion rate (how many visitors become buyers or perform the specific action a web site asks them to make), but tracking this doesn’t tell you what content on your site is effective and what areas need improvement. As any internet marketer knows, if you’re going to spend money on pay per click advertising and other means of getting web site visitors to your web page, then what content you actually put on that page is priceless! You want successful performance from your ads. How can you monitor the actual effectiveness of the content on your page, and know what content is performing well and what isn’t working?
Google is currently offering a new service for split-testing landing pages, called “Website-Optimizer”. It makes split-testing much more manageable and less expensive than testing without the tool. Basically, the optimizer is going to allow you to try different variations of content on your landing page and measure the results to see which page has a better performance (conversion rate).

The Website Optimizer is free, and can be used without extensive experience running testing experiments on landing pages. In other words, you need not be a split-testing genious to use the optimizer tool. Before beginning a landing page experiment, Google even provides internet marketers with a “pre-experiment checklist”. It details step by step what you’ll need to do, from selecting your test page, to setting a goal for the experiment, to the actual running of the experiment and reading of results.

Using the optimizer, a marketer can experiment with new headlines, different promotional copy, and a variety of images designed to turn web site visitors into “conversions”. Google will provide you with easy to read, graphical reports to determine the content that performs the best and encourages site visitors to the highest conversion rates.

When determining what to test on your page, you need to take your goal into consideration. If you want your site visitors to take a specific action such as downloading a document or making a purchase (the call to action) then you might want to test different headlines. You might try different graphics- to see whether photographs of products or a person using the product has a better result. Changing the actual page copy to decide whether lengthier text offers better results, or shorter and more direct copy has better conversions. Testing the format of text might offer changes in conversion rates as well; try bulleted points or paragraphs. Finally, try altering the actual “call to action” portion of the site. If you have a button that says “sign up”, try a different phrase, like “quick sign up” or “get it free”.

While you need to have an active Google AdWords account to use the optimizer tool, you will be able to test traffic coming from various locations. You’ll test incoming visitors that are a result of your AdWords advertisements, Google search results, and other search engine traffic.

View the impressive demo here:http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/overview/index.html

Ressource: http://services.google.com/websiteoptimizer/

From Google:

“…You want your ads to be successful. To measure that success, you use click and conversion tracking to gain insight into user behavior on your pages. If users are reaching your pages, but you aren’t getting the conversion results you want, what do you do? It’s time to make improvements to your site. Website Optimizer can help.

The Website Optimizer allows you to test changes in the website content of your pages in order to determine what will be most effective in getting conversions. You choose what parts of a page you’d like to test — headline, image, promo text – and we’ll run an experiment on a portion of your site traffic to determine which content on your site users respond to best. When we’ve collected enough data, we’ll provide you with reliable reports and a suggested course of action in order to optimize your site for maximum business results.”

From Overture, a keyword suggestion tool, you will see the millions of searches done to a certain keyword. When these keywords are typed on search boxes of search engines, indexed websites containing articles with those keywords will be displayed. And this is what leads traffic to websites with keyword-rich articles. Yes, the magic word is articles.

Content is king. You can say that again. That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today. Internet surfers just can’t get enough of information on various fields. Providing information through these articles is a surefire way to drive hot traffic to your web site.

Why is this so? Here are the benefits that writing articles can give your Internet business.

1. It’s absolutely free.

Too good to be true? Not. Okay, you have to pay for your Internet Service Provider. That’s it. All you need is your thoughts, your computer, and your hands. If you have those, nothing will stop you from typing words that will make you complete that article for your website. On which aspect of that process did you really shell out any cent? Maybe later when your electric bills come.

2. Your website will be noticed in a short period of time.

Submit that article of yours to article directories that get the most web traffic and in no time your web site will be crawled. That is if you don’t forget including your resource box or byline.

3. Obtain back links automatically.

When you submit your articles to directories, surely, other websites will make use of your article too. With the copyright terms of your articles, the URL of your website will still be in tact and will subsequently direct more traffic to your website.

4. Improve your reputation.

As an Internet marketer, if you plainly display your products on your website, you will not gain much conversion rate. Conversion is when your traffic converts to sales. You have to show that you are knowledgeable on your field. And what better way to show that than by writing articles that will allow you some bragging rights, right?

Just make your creative juices flow and jot down or key in those ideas quickly to jumpstart your article writing momentum. With those benefits listed above, a writer’s block is the last problem you will ever be able to surmount.

Affiliate marketing has become one of the most effective ways to advertise online. It is also one of the easiest ways for anyone with a website to make a profit online. Affiliate Marketing is an agreement between a merchant and a website owner. The website owner, or the affiliate, allows the use of their site for the promotion of the merchant’s products by linking to the merchant’s website. In exchange, the merchant pays a commission to the affiliate on all sales generated by the affiliate. Every time someone clicks on the link on the affiliate website and proceeds to make a purchase, the affiliate gets a commission. The merchant will pay the affiliate only when a customer clicks on the product link and makes a purchase.

Affiliate marketing programs are described as a win-win situation for both the merchant and the affiliate because of the pay-for-performance scheme. Both the merchant and the affiliate enjoy some benefits in affiliate marketing. There are many benefits on the merchant’s side. It gives the merchant a wider market in which to advertise a product or service. Affiliate marketing will give the product or service the maximum exposure that it may not get with other traditional advertising techniques. The more affiliate sites a merchant has, the higher the traffic, which can convert to sales. Affiliate marketing is the equivalent of having an army of sales people who will do the advertising and will only get a commission if a customer purchases.

Meanwhile, since an affiliate marketing relationship is a win-win situation, the affiliate also enjoys many benefits. Foremost among these is the easy way to make a profit. The affiliate can earn by having an ad or link to the merchant’s website, which prospective customers will hopefully click and proceed to make a purchase. As soon as the customer clicks on the ad on the affiliate’s site, is redirected to the merchant’s website and goes on to buy that particular product, the affiliate earns a commission. The more referrals there are the more profit for the affiliate.

Affiliate marketing is an excellent way to earn money while at home. There are virtually no production costs. The product is already developed and proven by the merchant, and all you have to do to find, as many prospects as you can that will bring in the profit for both the merchant and the affiliate. Affiliate programs are usually free to join, so affiliates do not have to worry about start-up costs. There are thousands of products and services you can choose from. You can find affiliate programs for every product under the sun. Surely, there is a product or service out there that is relevant to your website.

In addition, there is absolutely no sales experience necessary. Most affiliate programs offer excellent support when it comes to providing marketing material. The simplicity of affiliate marketing allows you to be an affiliate marketer at the least cost and the most comfort. You can even build a successful affiliate marketing business right in the convenience of your own home. In affiliate marketing, your responsibility is simply to find prospects for the merchant; you do not have to worry about inventory, order processing, and product shipping. These, along with customer service support are the duties of the merchant.

Because of the global reach of the internet, you can easily find thousands of prospects. You can intensify your advertising campaign by exploiting more aggressive and productive strategies such as viral marketing. By attracting more prospects, you also maximize your potential to earn. Another benefit of an affiliate marketer is the minimal risk involved. If the product you are advertising is not making money then you can dump it and choose another. There are no long-term binding contracts tying you to products that are not making enough money.

All the same, the best benefit of being an affiliate marketer is the opportunity to increase your income; and you can make a profit even if affiliate marketing is only a sideline business. With your own affiliate business, you can earn easily earn extra income, although you do have to exert effort and use your imagination to maximize your earning potential. Indeed, affiliate marketing is one of the simplest and most effective business opportunities on the web today.

The idea of being mere passengers on a ship meant to sail to the farthest points does not appeal to people who like to put their destiny into their own hands. They have the desire of maneuvering the ships themselves, of being able to be the ones to take it anywhere they want to. Being aboard a ship on its way to a particularly great destination is something each and every one of them dreams of, and the knowledge that they have the capacity to steer it themselves is what makes them actually want to.

Perhaps this is the reason why more and more people are succumbing to one of the most popular businesses around – affiliate marketing. It is because in this business, there are no bosses to order the employees around. There are no deadlines to meet and no clutter of work do to. One only needs to be equipped with the tools needed to succeed in a business such as this, and he is bound to get what his heart ultimately desires.

Just what are the things needed to be able to succeed in affiliate marketing? What must one have within himself to be able to do well in this industry? There is a lot of competition involved in affiliate marketing, and to be able to rise above the norm, one must be equipped with just the right stuff necessary to propel him forward. There are five things one must ultimately possess if he wants to achieve the glory he is yearning for in this business, and these five things are a must for him to possess to be able to stand out among the rest.

The very first quality one must possess if he wants to try his hand in affiliate marketing is the willingness to learn and be trained. Treading through unfamiliar territory is scary stuff if one is not properly equipped, and he might get lost amidst a jungle of the unknown. Learning the tricks of the trade is also an important aspect of the game, and one’s willingness to know it all will give him far better advantages in the business than he could ever imagine.

The second quality one must possess is the willingness to invest time and effort even if direct results do not seem at all apparent. Although several months may pass without good news, it is important for one who has his foot in the industry to hold on and wait. It is this quality which would save him from giving up after investing a lot of himself in the business.

The third quality one must possess is self-determination. If one wants to conquer the affiliate marketing world, he must have the ability to push himself ahead. Never having to say die is a quality each and every affiliate marketer should possess, and the ability to motivate oneself into scaling greater heights is an ability which would actually take an affiliate marketer there.

The fourth quality one must possess is discipline. If one knows how to teach himself to work everyday with all the energy he can muster, then he is close to achieving what he has set his heart to having in the first place.

The fifth and last quality one must possess is optimism. Negative attitudes and hearsays should not discourage an affiliate marketer from pursuing what he has to in order to make life better for himself and for everyone concerned. Neither should anyone influence his attitude toward the business, because once in it, it is a must for him to be the captain of his ship and the master of his soul.

The ingredients to success in a business such as affiliate marketing are diverse and manifold, but the most important thing one needs to be able to make it big lies in himself alone. It is he who has the capacity to do everything to be able to realize his prospects, and the desire which fuels his heart in doing so is the gasoline which should keep the engine going.

Affiliate marketing is all about putting one’s fate into his own hands. The right attitude is the key to being able to steer one’s ship into that part of the ocean where a certain kind of serenity can be found, one that permeates the atmosphere as the ship sails calmly on.

Dear fellow internet marketer,

Let’s get something dead straight before we start.

I hate Keyword tools . I hate them more than you do, and I always have. They just don’t keep the promises they make!

Really, I can’t stand another one far too complex to get FAST GOOD USEFUL results…

And if you give me a few seconds I will tell you why.

But first, let’s start with how I got here, and why I’m writing this…

It must have been about three weeks ago now, I was browsing the web when I got saw a small little AdWords ad about a new Keyword-research tool called “Keyword Country”…

Now, I don’t really trust anyone, especially not those hyping AdWords-campaigns promising the holy grail in keyword-research (which is, has been and – so I thought – will always be a pain in the ass, right?).
Nevertheless, I can afford it and gave it a test-drive (it’s ridiculously cheap for a test-day!).

It’s somewhat similar to Wordtracker. It’s online and not a local Software on your own PC.

“But why do I hate those damn keyword tools with a manic passion…”

Well, let me explain. I am an internet marketer, and I spend close to $400 a day on Google Adwords (giving me a return of about $2000 on average). In short, I know what I am doing.

Also, I have hundreds (yes, there are people like me. And they make profit with it!) of Domains bringin in profits through Google AdSense ads. If you don’t know what that is, you may stop reading here and surf somewhere else…).

But, I have never been a big fan of keyword research tools – for me, having a keyword list 20,000 long has never conferred much of an advantage on the marketer. What it does do, though, is sound good on a sales letter… and lots of newbies see “build a list of 20,000 keywords”, and think “wow! What a big number, here are my credit card details”.

Then, the same guys who bought the keyword tool realize that a big list of keywords doesn’t mean anything on its own – only after wasting their cash on Adwords… and then, the next tool comes out and the cycle repeats itself…

Great for the guys who made the software – pretty crappy for the poor newbie who bought it.

So, you can imagine my thoughts when I came accross Keyword Country.

When I reached the Keyword Country website, I was actually pretty impressed with the professional look. It looks different to all the standard “salesletter-type-all-formatted-the-same” internet marketing product sales pitches.

Actually, they seem to address not only the “guru” marketers and their “make money quick” community, but are really dead serious about a high quality service. And even more impressed I was with some of the features that this appears to have – search keywords by bid-range of AdWords advertisers, count competing sites not by number of sites listed in google, but by those listed AND have the keyword in the title tag, doing a “blank” search, have a concrete earning prediction (!!!) and much more…

But, again, I have to be honest with you…,

At this point, I still thought to myself, “nice site, lots of features, this will convert well… but yet again, there will be a catch… so forget it“.

… but a few days later my friend e-mailed me, letting me know he had used this new keyword-tool to setup a few tests to target the best words for promotions on Adwords and for his new AdSense Sites and that he was about $200 up. He also said that I needed to drop what I was doing and have a close look at it! So, I finally spent the money and purchased my account at Keyword Country.

Just so you know, I only purchased because… well, money isn’t too much of an issue for me, and I was about to file it away on my to-do list when my friend started up again – in fact he pestered the hell out of me to get using the tool once I had it!

So, I decided to give it a chance, and make full use of Keyword Country… I sat down for an hour to play around with the functions…

But an hour wasn’t enough…

From Overture, a keyword suggestion tool, you will see the millions of searches done to a certain keyword. When these keywords are typed on search boxes of search engines, indexed websites containing articles with those keywords will be displayed. And this is what leads traffic to websites with keyword-rich articles. Yes, the magic word is articles.

Content is king. You can say that again. That is why writing articles is one of the most utilized Internet marketing media today. Internet surfers just can’t get enough of information on various fields. Providing information through these articles is a surefire way to drive hot traffic to your web site.

Why is this so? Here are the benefits that writing articles can give your Internet business.

1. It’s absolutely free.

Too good to be true? Not. Okay, you have to pay for your Internet Service Provider. That’s it. All you need is your thoughts, your computer, and your hands. If you have those, nothing will stop you from typing words that will make you complete that article for your website. On which aspect of that process did you really shell out any cent? Maybe later when your electric bills come.

2. Your website will be noticed in a short period of time.

Submit that article of yours to article directories that get the most web traffic and in no time your web site will be crawled. That is if you don’t forget including your resource box or byline.

3. Obtain back links automatically.

When you submit your articles to directories, surely, other websites will make use of your article too. With the copyright terms of your articles, the URL of your website will still be in tact and will subsequently direct more traffic to your website.

4. Improve your reputation.

As an Internet marketer, if you plainly display your products on your website, you will not gain much conversion rate. Conversion is when your traffic converts to sales. You have to show that you are knowledgeable on your field. And what better way to show that than by writing articles that will allow you some bragging rights, right?

Just make your creative juices flow and jot down or key in those ideas quickly to jumpstart your article writing momentum. With those benefits listed above, a writer’s block is the last problem you will ever be able to surmount.

You have that site on-line for quite a while, its generating a good number of hits every day and you’re thinking whether or not to use AdSense advertising on it to make it generate some form of income.

Well this is a description of the pros and cons of this approach to Internet advertising. AdSense has definitely hit the Internet like something from another planet and people are very excited about it everywhere. There are negative aspects to Adsense and alternatives to consider.

AdSense is generally a great tool for webmasters. Whereas, they would use to worry about how to raise enough money to keep their sites profitable, or at least keep them on-line those worries are gone.

AdSense allows webmasters to forget about those worries and concentrate on creating good content for their sites. In fact, the emphasis is now on creating quality content (often associated with the top-paying words) which will bring you many visitors.

AdSense can also very well integrated with your website, it’s easily customizable in terms of colors, size and position which means you can experiment with it in any way you like to maximize your income.

AdSense is a very good means of generating a constant revenue on your site. All you need to do is create some quality content and keep it updated constantly and you can literally live off your website. A lot of people are doing just that nowadays with AdSense, so it’s become sort of a business in itself.

It’s also a great program because you can have the same account advertising on all your pages. This is great for webmasters wit a lot of content because it means they don’t have to create many accounts unnecessarily.

But as stated, above, there are some negative aspects to advertising with AdSense and here’s a small list of such cons.

Clearly the largest negative impact the AdSense program can have on you is through Google closing your accounts. Most of the time this happens because of so called ‘click fraud’, which means somebody would be producing artificial clicks on your page.

There’s one really nasty side to that. It doesn’t have to be you making those artificial clicks. It could very well be your competition doing this in order to shut you down, or the competitor of whoever is advertising on your page, looking to drive their marketing costs up.

The earning AdSense brings you are by no means constant. In fact, they’re not even close to that. Anything you do to your site could end up being a big mistake costing you a great deal of money. It’s that kind of pressure that has a negative impact on you.

First of all, you constantly need to make sure your site is in the spotlight of search engines when people are searching for whatever it is your site is about.

If you fail to do that you won’t have any visitors, and that of course means you won’t have any AdSense revenue. In a way this is nothing new, as any form of generating revenue on the Internet with advertising has such a drawback.

And finally, another major problem is that you constantly have to feed your site with better and better content. Now, of course, certain sites are very well geared towards doing this but with some types of content this is rather hard to achieve. This is often why the services of a copywriter are employed to generate more and more content.

When writing original content, the best thing a website owner can do is research a topic thoroughly and then return to writing with lots of information they can out in their own words, and show their own opinion on.

So there are the pros and cons of using the AdSense network for generating profits through advertising. Now the choice of whether or not these work for you is yours.

All the products that you want to sell online are ready. You have already signed up with the Google Adsense program or with other affiliate marketing programs and you have already prepared the ad you want to post on your affiliate’s site. Your mind is now set to being the next most successful online businessman. But is there anything else that you might have forgotten to prepare? Maybe none. But how about your landing pages? Are they all set for your business?

Landing pages are simply web pages where visitors are directed to whenever they click a result in a web search or whenever they click a web ad. For affiliate marketing, landing pages would refer to the web page where you, as a merchant, would want your potential customer to be directed after clicking your ad on your affiliate’s website. Landing pages are, at most times, nothing really different from other web pages in a particular website, especially if the said website is an e-commerce site. Some online businessmen would even use the homepage of their websites as the landing page for their ads. Are these businessmen making a big mistake? Or should you follow their method in creating landing pages for their ads?

Well, you can always follow what most online retailers do, directing their potential customers to the homepages of their websites. But if you want to achieve something more from your online business, and if you want to earn a lot of profits, you better create a special landing page for your web ads. Why? Here are a few reasons why you need to use landing pages for your web ads. And take note, it would do you a lot better if you create a great landing page than a so-so one.

Reason no. 1: It is the only way you earn conversions in an affiliate marketing program.

There are a variety of affiliate marketing programs today, but most of these programs let the merchant pay the affiliate in a pay per click basis. Basically, all you have to do is sign up with the program and submit your ad. The program owner would then distribute your ad to various affiliates who would then place your ad on their websites. Whenever your ad is clicked, a visitor would be directed to your landing page and you would have to pay the affiliate for his service.

As a merchant, you earn in an affiliate program through conversions—that is whenever a visitor that is directed to your site actually buys a product on your site. Without these conversions, you actually earn nothing from the program. Also, the more visitors that your affiliates have directed to your site, the larger would your expense be. And the only way that you can recover from these expenses is through conversions.

Now, you sure won’t get any conversion if you have posted an ad on your affiliate’s site without an actual landing page for the potential customer to be redirected into. It’s just like advertising a product without actually having a store to sell your product. Your advertisement may be enticing enough to encourage people to purchase a product, but without the landing page, how will they know how to purchase the product

It is therefore important to have landing pages for your ads because it is the only way for you to earn something in an affiliate program. Without landing pages, all you do is spend money paying your affiliates without actually getting anything in return.

Reason no. 2: Other web pages may just not be enough.

Many people make the mistake of making their website’s homepage as the landing page for their ads. The same is true for those who make use of other pages like a “contact us” page or a product page. Homepages are often designed to serve multiple users and contains a lot of links to other pages or to other websites. The same is with the other two pages mentioned. If you want to be successful in an affiliate program, we’re sure that you don’t want your landing page to cater to the needs of various people, most of which may not be really interested with your product.

When choosing a landing page, you must always have the customer directed into that page in mind. Therefore, your landing page must be relevant to the keywords and the contents you placed on your ad. It is also important that the landing page can induce your visitor to take action—that is to purchase your product or at least provide leads for potential customers.

Final Word

You probably entered into an affiliate marketing program with these things in mind: to save on advertising expenses and to gain more profit. But if you get into an affiliate marketing program without actually having a landing page, you’ll end up paying too much without getting anything in return. So if you still don’t have a landing page for your ads, you better start creating one now. And don’t get us wrong; it isn’t enough for you to have just a landing page—it should be a great landing page!