Affiliate Tools Online

Ever wish you had access to a computer programmer or writer or some other professional? One of the toughest things about creating your own products is having the necessary skills and training to get the job done.

Even if you have the necessary skills and training, it’s sometimes difficult to find the time to do some of the more time consuming tasks, like writing an eBook, or building a software program, etc.

That’s where sites like Elance.com and RentaCoder.com come in handy. These sites bring people together. Now even the small business owner can afford to hire a computer programmer to do a job or a ghost writer to write your next eBook. The possibilities are endless.

The process is simple. You can post a job on the site and let others bid on it. This will give you an idea of how much a job will cost and who can do it. Once you come to an agreement with somebody, they do the job and you pay them.

Folks with time and skills can offer their services on the site for others. This is a great way to work from home. You can do research, write eBooks, graphics design, etc. The list goes on.

Need to rent a coding expert? Choose the perfect coder from over 10,000 at Rent A Coder.com

RentACoder is specifically designed for those folks who need custom software. This is a great way to create a new software product that your business or web site can sell.

Elance.com and RentACoder.com are two of the best resources out there for the small internet marketer. Be sure to check it out. The more work you can outsource, the more time you have to grow your business or enjoy life!

One of the common problems of writing an eBook, is the need to create a professional looking cover. This is something you’ll either have to do yourself or hire somebody to do it for you.

There are a couple of different options available.

Create Your Own eBook Covers

The first is to create it yourself in your favorite image editing program. But this is very time consuming and tedious and takes a great deal of skill. And after all that work, you’re likely to find that the resulting image lacks that true professional look.

Download eBook Covers

Another option is to download a free eCovers and edit them. While this is a better solution than the one above, these free eBook covers are still very limited and won’t give you a truly professional look. But if you’re just starting out, this may be a good solution if you don’t have money to spend.

Download eBook Creation Software

Another option is to purchase software that will create eBook covers for you. Some of the popular eBook software programs include:

• Dynamite Covers
• CoverFactory.com (free trial available)
• Virtual Cover Creator

Hire Somebody to Create Your eBook Cover

The next option is to hire somebody to create your eBook cover for you. There are several different sites that will create your eBook cover for you:

• MonsterCovers.com

The downside to this method is that it can be very costly. While each cover typically only costs $50-$75 … keep in mind that you will often need covers created for your free bonus eBooks too. So by the time you add all your eBooks together, this can be an expensive option.

Use Photoshop Actions to Create Your eBook Covers

The last option (and my personal favorite) is to use Actions in Adobe Photoshop. The only catch to this solution is that you have to have Adobe Photoshop 6.0 or higher on your computer (Adobe Elements won’t work).

If you’re not familiar with Actions, they’re little scripts that run in Adobe Photoshop to automate certain actions. And there is an Action script that will create great looking eBook covers for you - all you need to do is edit your cover text and images.

This is how I create all of my eBook covers. The really nice thing is that these actions are so flexible and powerful, that they can be used over and over again to create an unlimited number of eBook covers. To learn more about the eCover Actions for Photshop, click here.

If you’re new to HTML, you may or may not have heard of CSS. In short, Cascading Style Sheets (or CSS) is a web technology that can not only simply your site, but also reduce the size of your web pages.

Most people starting out, build each web page separately. Text color, fonts and sizes are all edit on individual pages. Each time you set an attribute, HTML code is generated (unless you manually create it). While this is fine, there are two inherent problems with this method.

The first problem is that if you decide to change your text on one page (make it bigger for example), you would have to make the same change on every page in your site to maintain consistency. This is time consuming. And if you have a large web site, it’s not uncommon to miss a change - creating inconsistencies in your site (and making it looks less professional).

Another problem is that every element on a web page, has HTML code behind it. The more HTML on a page, the bigger your file size - and the more stuff search engine spiders have to wade through to read your valuable content.

With CSS, you can configure basic text elements on your web pages (size, color, font, etc.). You can specify what size and color your different headlines should be. If you later decide you want your headlines bigger, you can change one line in a CSS file as opposed to having to change every single page on your site.

You can also configure other common elements on your web pages - such as the color of your navigation menu. Again, if you decide to change it later, you only have to change one file as opposed to every page on your site.

As you can see, there are a lot of advantages to using CSS. But like anything else, it takes a bit of time to learn how to use it. Like many folks, I learned how to create and edit CSS from a book. And my favorite book on the subject is called, Beginning CSS Web Development: From Novice to Professional

This book is extremely easy to understand and follow and is one of the best books in my library. I highly recommend it for everybody wanting to learn CSS!

How much do you know about your customers?  The more you know, the better.  But at the same time, you don’t want to burden your customers with a lot of questions.

But there is a way to gather some important information (such as when they’re online) without having to bother your customers.   Hopefully, you’re keeping a spreadsheet of all the people who complete your optin offer or buy your products.  So you probably already have their names and email addresses (you need this information at a minimum).

All you have to do now is add a couple of columns to track a few more details that you can usually get off your optin emails and order forms.  Here’s some of the information I track regularly from these emails:

• Day of the week they filled in my optin offer or bought my product
• Time of day they filled in my optin offer or my product
• What state or country they live in (which I can usually figure out pretty easy from the phone number, if it’s listed). And often times, I can find this information in their eBook Pro registration.

Knowing the information above, helps me better target my market. In other words, if I know when they’re online, I can send my marketing emails to them during this time.   If I do, I’ll have a better chance of them reading my emails (and less chance of them being deleted next time they log into their email).

Knowing where they live (state or country) helps me cater to their need for information better.  I can segregate my optin and customer lists into geographical regions and email information relevant to that region.

Getting this kind of information is easy - it just takes a bit of more work on your part. But it’s worth it in the long run because it will help you do your job more efficiently and better reach your target audience.

When building web pages, there’s a few unwritten rules you should follow.   Some of the deal with linking to other pages.

When you’re linking to  pages within your web site, you generally want them to open in the same window.  This usually makes it easier for folks to navigate your site.   It also means there’s less chance that one of your pages may be blocked by a pop-up blocker!

However, linking to pages on other web sites, it’s a good idea to have the page open in a new window.  The main reason for this is that it keeps your site open - so that when a person closes the new window, your site will still be visible (which gives you a better chance of keeping people on your web site).

While some web authoring programs make it easy to configure this setting, others don’t - and there are times you need to know how to manually configure web pages to open in a new window (like when you’re working in Blogger).

Here’s how you do it.

After creating your hyperlink, take a look at the HTML code.  Here’s an example:

<a href=”http://www.arizonafishingholes.com/gila-trout.php”>

To make this link open in a new page, all I have to do is add target=”blank” to the end of the link.  So the new link will look like this:

<a href=”http://www.arizonafishingholes.com/gila-trout.php” target=”blank”>

Notice that there is a space between .php” and target.  It’s also important to include the quotes around “blank”.

I mentioned blogger earlier.  When you create links in blogger, they are configured to open in the same window by default.  This means that when linking to pages on other sites, you’ll  have to edit the HTML so your links will open in a new window.

But now you know how to do it!

With so many different internet marketing tools available today, it’s hard to understand what they all do and whether or not need them. One of the questions that I get asked frequently is, “What is Mailloop“?

In short, Mailloop is an autoresponder and email marketing software program. Do you need it? That depends.

Mailloop will let you set up an unlimited number of autoresponders or emails. It will even let you pre-set delivery dates (so you can easily set up a mini-course to be emailed every day or week, etc.). These are nice features - and very helpful for the internet marketer.

Internet marketers need to have the ability to keep in touch with their subscribers and customers easily (so automation is the way to go). You have two options for doing this - either subscribe monthly/annually to a service like aWeber or pay a one-time fee for a Mailloop and have unlimited capability (I prefer the second option).

Another thing Mailloop can also be setup to process your subscribers and customers email addresses (that is, save them to a file for you - so you don’t have to). Mailloop can be configured to add subscribers to one list, and customers to another list, etc. This makes it much easier for you handle your autoresponders and email marketing campaigns.

Being able to manage different email lists is a must for successful email marketing - and Mailloop makes this task very easy.

If you use eBook Pro, then I would say that NEED Mailloop. Why? Because with eBook Pro, you need a way to deliver usernames and passwords to customers and there’s currently only two ways to do it (for most people). The first is to use Mailloop (which makes this whole process very easy). The second is to sign up with 1ShoppingCart.com and let them handle this task for you.

Once again, Mailloop has the advantage of being a one-time expense (as opposed to an ongoing monthly one).

The only downside to Mailloop, is that it needs to be installed on a computer that is up and running 24/7. For folks working out of a home office, this usually isn’t a problem. But for those trying to run a business on a laptop - it can be (in which case, signing up for 1ShoppingCart’s services is probably the way to go for these folks).

I personally use Mailloop for all the reasons mentioned above. I started out on aWeber and liked the service - but after doing the math, figured out Mailloop was the better option for me (especially since also use eBook Pro).

Have you noticed how all internet marketing sites display the current day and time near the top?

One of the reasons for doing this is that it shows the reader the information is current (and not some old abandoned web page that is still online).

It’s easy to add this bit of information to your web site.  All you need to do is copy and paste a bit of javascript into your HTML where you’d like the date and time to appear.  After you paste the code into your web page and upload it to your server, the date and time will automatically update each day.

Feel free to copy and past the script below into your web pages (there’s no need to change it).

—————————

<script><!–

var mydate=new Date()

var year=mydate.getYear()

if (year < 1000)

year+=1900

var day=mydate.getDay()

var month=mydate.getMonth()

var daym=mydate.getDate()

var dayarray=new Array(”Sunday”,”Monday”,”Tuesday”,”Wednesday”,”Thursday”,”Friday”,”Saturday”)

var montharray=new Array(”January”,”February”,”March”,”April”,”May”,”June”,”July”,”August”,”September”,”October”,”November”,”December”)

document.write(”"+dayarray[day]+”, “+montharray[month]+” “+daym+”, “+year+”")

// –></script>

——————–

There’s no need to change any of the code above.  Just make sure your start copying  before <script> and end after </script>.

On most internet marketing web sites, this script is added between the <BODY> and </BODY> tags.   Click here for an example.

Just about everybody who’s new to internet marketing, starts out by doing affiliate marketing.  Why? Because you don’t need a product and it’s easy to start.  And if you already have a web site or blog that is getting lots of visitors, it can also be free to start.

More and more merchants are catching on to the concept of affiliate marketing - and how beneficial it is to their bottom line.  So many merchants already offer affiliate programs - and they’re usually (and should be) free to join.

There are different ways to get started with affiliate marketing.

First, if you already own a web site or blog and are catering to specific audience … then you can search for affiliate programs to compliment your site.

For example, I have a site about trout fishing.  Trout fishers are always in need of more fishing gear.  So I’ve joined many of the more popular trout fishing gear sites and posted banners on my site - as well as look for ways to work in affiliate links to specific gear in my blog posts.   This method is easy and free.

If you don’t already have a web site, then to be a successful affiliate marketer, you will need to do a lot of keyword research to find out what products (or solutions to problems) people are interested in.  The goal here is to start by promoting something folks are already looking for.

How do you promote affiliate products without a web site?

There are a couple of answers to this question.  One is to promote products using Pay-Per-Click campaigns (linking to directly to the merchant’s site).  There are pros and cons to this method, but it works.  The eBook Google Cash gives step by step instructions on how to do this.

Another method is to build a niche web site and promote related affiliate products.  Review sites are a common example of this method of affiliate marketing.

Finding affiliate programs to join is pretty easy.  You can start by signing up at some of the more popular affiliate networks like, ClickBank, LinkShare, and Commission Junction.

You can also the internet for affiliate products in your field or go directly to a merchants web site and search for information about affiliate programs.   If you don’t see any information on the merchant’s web site, contact them and ask directly.

One last thing to remember …. the most successful internet marketers do regular keyword research so that they can stay on top of what people are looking for.  This way, they can better cater to their existing audience or look for new streams of revenue.

One of the problems that a lot of new internet marketers face is the daunting task of learning HTML so they can build their web pages. Many fear that it’s too difficult for them.

If this sounds like you, then let me put those fears to rest. Learning HTML is not as hard as it sounds. Let me also assure you that you’re not alone. Every single person who has ever built a
web page has felt technically challenged when building web pages for the first time.

But, the trick is to get over that fear and just start doing. The majority of us have learned as we went along. We had the idea that we wanted to build a web page and just started doing it.

I built my first web site in the days when before Front Page and other software packages existed. So I learned to manually type each line of HTML in order to create my web page. But you no longer have to do this! Thanks to great WYSIWYG (or, “What You See is What You Get”) software programs, you can easily create a simple web site without needing to know much HTML!

If this is all new to you, I recommend downloading free web design software and just start playing with it. KompoZer is a great program for this. It’s a free WYSIWYG web authoring program.

While you don’t to know as much HTML to create web pages using these kinds of programs, learning some HTML is still a good idea - because it will give you a lot more control over your pages.

Here are some links to sites that offer free online HTML lessons.

W3 Schools
http://www.w3schools.com/html/default.asp

HTML Net (HTML and CSS lessons)
http://www.html.net/

Dave’s Interactive HTML lessons
http://www.davesite.com/webstation/html/

The sites above can help you learn HTML - and the best way to learn HTML is to learn as you go. In other words after downloading the KompoZer software and installing it on your computer, create a new blank page and just start creating text and then learn to “bold” it and make other changes to it. Learn to hyperlink the text to a web site.

The cool thing is that as you practice, you can preview your web pages (which is a way of seeing in advance how your web pages will look online.).

Learning HTML by doing is the best and quickest way to learn how to build web pages. It’s not as hard as it looks - so don’t put it off. Just do it!

CAPTCHA is short for “Completely Automated Turing Test To Tell Computers and Humans Apart”. The goal behind CAPTCHA is to prevent automated spamming.

No doubt you’ve been to web sites that make you decipher the warped letters in those little boxes before you can complete your request - that’s CAPTCHA!

Over the years, CAPTCHA has been improved upon and you may sometimes hear people refer to “reCAPTCHA” (which is the new and improved version). Unless you like to understand the technical stuff, there’s no need to worry about differences. Everybody is using the new and improved version (reCAPTCHA) today on their web sites.

CAPTCHA can be used to help …

• Prevent Comment Spam in Blogs
  Blogs using Black Hat tricks use automated computer programs to comment on other people’s blogs in order to get a link back to their site. CAPTCHA can help prevent this from happening by ensuring humans (not computers) are commenting on blogs.

• Prevent Fraudulent Email Registrations
  Another black hat trick is to sign up for a bunch of free email accounts with free services like Yahoo and MSN and then use those free accounts to spam people. CAPTCHA can help prevent this from happening by ensuring humans (not computers) are completing registration forms.

• Prevent Scraping of Email Addresses
  Ever wonder how spammers got hold your email address and started using it to send spam? Known as “spam harvesting”, spammer programs crawl the Web in search of email addresses posted in clear text. CAPTCHAs provide an effective mechanism to hide your email address from Web scrapers. The idea is to require users to solve a CAPTCHA before showing your email address. A free and secure implementation that uses CAPTCHAs to obfuscate an email address can be found at reCAPTCHA MailHide.

• Prevent Stuffing the Ballot for Online Polls
  Why place nice when you can cheat, is the model of many. And folks have found a way to “stuff the ballot box” (so to speak) for online polls. CAPTCHA can help prevent this by ensuring that only humans (not computers) are voting.

• Prevent Dictionary Attacks
  You’ve no doubt heard before that you’re not supposed to use words found in the dictionary in your passwords. That’s because aautomated password crackers check for words in the dictionary. Many computer systems will lock you out of your account after specified number of unsuccessful login attempts. We all make mistakes sometimes (for example not recognizing the caps-lock key is on) … and getting locked out our account is no fun. One way of working around this problem is to use CAPTCHA. The idea is simple. If you”re having trouble logging into your account, you’d be required to solve the CAPTCHA puzzle (rather than get locked out).

• Prevent Search Engine Bots from Reading Non-Indexed Web Pages
  It’s sometimes desirable to keep web pages from being indexed to prevent others from finding them easily. There is an HTML tag to prevent search engine bots from reading web pages - but it doesn’t guarantee that bots won’t read the page (it only serves to say “no bots, please”). The only way to guarantee that bots won’t enter a web site is to use CAPTCHA.

As you can see, there are lot of good reasons to use CAPTCHA on your web sites! And it’s easy to do.

To use CAPTCHA, you must first sign up for an account (it’s free). Next , you’ll want to get a reCAPTCHA API key (also free). You’ll need this key for CAPTCHA to work correctly. Be sure to save this key in file for future use.

By the way, if you use WordPress, you’ll also want to download the free CAPTCHA plugin and install it on your blog. After you upload and activate it, you’ll be asked for your reCAPTCHA API key.