Xigaware

With only 140 characters at a time, you can make millions…

Twitter. Why is it that Twitter is only 140 characters by the way? Well, because many cell phones can only text 140 characters, that’s why! And why can cell phones only text 140 characters? Because the message piggybacks on signals already being sent by the phone and it costs the cell phone company NOTHING AT ALL to send the text message! So the phone companies are charging us or per month for something that is absolutely free for them. Smart… infuriating, but smart.

Ok, let’s get back to business. How do I capitalize on the vast popularity of Twitter and get the millions of daily Twitter users to give me their cold hard cash? How can I monetize Twitter??

You don’t!

Monetizing means to make money directly from something with affiliate links, or adwords ads etc. Take a look around on the Twitter.com site; even Twitter themselves have yet to monetize the site!

If you’re new to Twitter you need to learn some basics about how it works and what exactly is going on in the messages that you see.

First off go to www.twitter.com and sign up for an account. I highly suggest using your business or website name, or even your real name for your Twitter user name. Don’t make it something that may be offensive, hard to remember or unprofessional if you are doing this for your business.

- Yes you may have more than one Twitter account, but one is hard enough to manage, who needs more?
– Upload a small image, preferably a small photo of you or your company logo. Now you are prepared to start using Twitter!

Next you will need to know more about how it works and what it is you will be seeing in the tweets of those you follow. Most of what you will see will be garbage of two distinct types: 1) Spam 2) Random worthless updates by strangers and “goodnight” messages. (Don’t waste people’s time by posting “Goodnight Twitter”… please!!)

The information you are honestly interested in seeing will not appear in your tweet stream! The information that you do see will be every update by every person that you follow. Imagine that you follow 2000 people like I do, or what about 15,000 or 25,000… how can you possibly follow all those people?

YOU CAN’T.

You’re on Twitter to get your message across, to speak to your audience, and to respond to only those messages that are actually sent to you and are not spam, but a human that is interested in speaking to you. And, in a nutshell, twitter.com is completely USELESS for doing this!

Now if you follow me, don’t get me wrong; I’m not discounting you as a person or uninterested in what you may have to say, but I can’t possibly be that involved with the thousands of people I would like to reach on a daily basis regarding digital camera repair. Twitter is so powerful that if I could afford to have one person do Twitter full time I would probably do it.

I’m on Twitter daily, and I see pretty much every person that says something about a broken digital camera or digital camera repair. I wish I could message everyone, but when I try I think it looks like spamming. The best advice I can give is to do as much as is comfortable and make it human. You are here to build relationships, not to sell.

Ok now, in your tweet stream you will see messages with different symbols, abbreviations and crazy looking links.

- The most common symbols you will see are @… (a message sent to the person after the symbol so that it shows up in their tweet stream) and the # (a subject like #photography that is searchable)
– Some of the most common abbreviations are TT (Trending Topic: something that is mentioned in many different tweets right now), DM (Direct Message: sent only to you, nobody else can see it), RT (ReTweet: somebody else posted this first and I can ReTweet it letting others know I think it’s good) and FML… I’ll leave it to you to find out what FML stands for.
– The crazy looking links have been shortened so that they take up less space. They look odd, and yes they can take you to any site without your knowledge so you must trust the person that posts it. You only have 140 characters remember, so shortened URL’s are a must.

If you want to seriously use Twitter then you will need software like Tweetdeck from www.tweetdeck.com; it’s awesome. Twitter is completely useless for any sort of business purpose if you try and use it through Twitter.com. Myself, I never actually go to Twitter.com as there’s no need to!

Download and install Tweetdeck, configure it and get it running. You will have columns for tweets where you are mentioned (with the @ symbol before your name) and sent Direct Messages (DM). Beyond these two, you can add new columns for custom searches that are automatically updated and lets you see exactly what people are saying all over the world on Twitter at all times!!

Maybe you have a dog training business online; create a search column for ‘dog training’ and you will see every single message every person tweets with the words ‘dog’ and ‘training’ in any order of the tweet. They won’t always be about ‘dog training’, (I’ve been in training for scuba diving testing… oh the dog has to go out) but most will. Now figure out other combinations of keywords or search phrases… ‘dog training’ won’t show any search results when the person says ‘training dogs’, but the search term ‘dogs training’ will becuase they don’t have to be in order. Hopefully I am able to clarify the difference!

Any time you see a relevant message about something in your area of expertise, you can follow the person that posted the tweet (you aren’t really interested in following them, but they like it and normally will follow you back) and then send them an @ message. You SHOULD NOT try and sell anything to the person you are tweeting with your first message to them. Open a dialog with the person, let them know you are an expert in the subject manor and gently prod to see if there is anything that you may do for them… FOR FREE. Yes you can post a link to your site if you feel you must, but they will ask or figure it out if they are interested. Don’t try and push for a sale!

If you want to be a spammer and annoy people, then by all means please try to monetize Twitter! This is how!

1- Harass people with your first tweet when they follow you, by sending them an automatic DM that spams them with something to buy.

2- Spam the same tweets over and over all day and night, every day. Better yet, spam the same tweets at the same time from multiple accounts every 15 minutes 24hrs a day.

3- Post tweets that are obviously stuffed with TT’s!

4- Never talk with people who are interested in your area of expertise, use software to create every tweet for you.

5- Never give free advice, or post tweets to sites that will help people and have nothing to do with something you sell.

6- Post obscene or controversial messages about relition, politics or bodily functions. Also swear whenever possible.

7- Tweet @ every user you see with your offer and website

and so on and so forth…

I know there is information here that you can use starting today to get started on Twitter. Don’t worry about not understanding everything that’s going on or what you should do or say. Start following some people in your area of expertise and see what they do. Don’t follow celebrities unless that is your area of business; follow them once you know what you are doing and have the time to do your work plus see what Shaq is eating for lunch.

Tweet you later.

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If you follow the economy you’ve probably noticed a pretty bad feeling from experts and articles being published. It is easy to get sucked in to the negative attitude and caught up in the problem. When problems arise it is crucial to look for solutions instead of dwelling on the negative. A great solution to increasing sales is by having an online store.  Make it simple for your sustomers to buy from you.  Allow then to order products from your website through an online merchant account.

To highlight this consider the following article discussing small business trends and the type of year they had: “The year 2008 is turning out to be a tough one for small florist businesses. Sales are down nearly 15%.”

It’s a valid point that many people are not running out to buy flowers right now. on the other hand, what are small businesses doing to capture customers attention? Are they giving people reason to shop? One poorly used resource is online sales. Online sales have the opportunity to significantly increase a small business’ profits.

If you’ve spoken to a business associate who has tested out online payments they will tell you it does two great things for your company. First it is cost effective and customer friendly, and secondly it allows you to strengthen your cash flow. By giving more options to your clients you open the door for an increase in job opportunities.

One bonus to having an online section to your business is advertisements and special sales or discounts. You can stay in touch with your clients and touch base with new customers through the world wide web. This strategy can make the difference in the sales a small company brings in.

With business being down it is a great time to add a fresh new aspect to your company. By setting up online payment systems you provide flexibility to your customers and potentially increase sales. If you act now we are offering free set up over the holidays. This is the right time to give your customers a new way of purchasing your goods or services.

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So what is E-commerce?  E-commerce simply refers to financial transactions occurring on the Internet.

Selling online has proven to be a big success, and selling online is a natural progression for many companies once they have established their web presence. Although selling online is a great way to make market your products, it has been getting tougher! Over the past year, sellers have experienced higher costs of doing business online, lower sell-through rates and lower selling prices. Selling online can also be time-consuming and requires consistent monitoring. Someone needs to be checking the email daily and packing and mailing orders promptly.

Also, online customers are often more impatient and intolerant than their offline equivalents. One glitch and they go elsewhere, however, if a customer finds an excellent online shopping experience they will keep coming back.

E-commerce websites are a must for the entrepreneurs or companies that wish to have an internet presence and do business activity online, but surprisingly, only a number of successful e-commerce websites survives and gets business done. This fact shows us that having a shop on the net does not guarantee success. Unfortunately, many online retailers do not put much emphasis on the design part of their website, and lose customers. Designs should hold enough interest to be visually appealing but refrain from being too cluttered and busy.

E-commerce is an area that can be intimidating, and e-commerce website design is not simple, but providing you select a good designer, with experience in working with databases and with excellent design skills, you will be well on your way over the first hurdle.

Professional, attractive and stylish e-commerce website design is what a professional e-commerce website must contain. It is important to realise that you cannot afford to a friend who “does website design as a hobby” to create your website. It is essential to use a professional, and give your business the best chance of success. Professionally designed e-commerce websites can make quick sales, and your products or services can be sold online even if you are sleeping. The finished result has to look extremely professional, be easy to update and most importantly actually sell your products for you.

Web designers often use some unconventional techniques to promote e-commerce web designs. Sometimes a web designer may utilize the potential of a single paged website by integrating the order form at the end. Websites are not a “one size fits all” type of solution. There are many different types of websites with unlimited variations, which makes choosing the right one a very important decision.

It is important that your e-commerce has a comprehensive shopping cart, sophisticated pricing and offers engine, multi-faceted navigation, card payment gateway integration a full search engine optimisation suite; and also integrates critical back office processes such as supply chain, sales order processing and stock control.

E-commerce websites are updateable websites, which means you are able to add new products and amend product/price details. You can even create discount and special offers which can be integrated in to the website. Customer can log in to e-commerce websites, and view products at their own specific pricing. E-commerce websites are meant to be a link between your company and your clients. That is why, maintaining them is very important.

Choose your hosting provider carefully – a good host will have excellent support. A bad host can have almost no support at all! Choosing the right web server system is actually a balancing act between your needs. Your website designer will be able to give you advice on this matter, and may even offer an economical hosting service for web design clients.

You will also need to optimise your website for the search engines. Your website designer should be able to give you advice on this, or do it for you. Search engine optimisation practitioners will usually advocate choosing the simplest form of website which suits the company’s needs, as less complex sites are easier to optimise and generally perform better. Search engines rank these pages highly if you freqently put content on them. Initially, all you need are two or three sentences introducing the products. Search engine visibility takes time to develop, so you want to get your site live as soon as possible to start laying claim to your important keyword phrases. You are better off having your website go live with 20 products rather than waiting months to develop the content for 200 products.

Contact, privacy and FAQ pages should be included on your e-commerce website. Most e-commerce website owners find it useful to add a squeeze page to their website, to capture the contact details of their website visitors. Squeeze pages can be easily created with squeeze page software, or your website designer can build your squeeze pages.

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You have decided to start an online business. From the very start you should plan to implement a coherent plan to obtain email addresses from your site’s visitors in order to build a long term relationship with them.

Developing a good newsletter for your subscribers can do a lot to bring visitors back to your site. Repeat visitors are actually much more valuable than visitors on their first visit to your business. Obtaining this high quality traffic is a wise marketing decision.

Use your newsletter to keep the readers informed about your company. Let them know about special promotions that you are offering, and remind them that you are reliably able to meet their relevant needs.

Your newsletters will allow you to establish your brand in the minds of your potential customers. Your copy can impress upon your readers your professionalism, while reminding them to refer your business to their friends and associates.

Here are a few of the issues that you should keep foremost in your mind in creating your newsletter marketing plan:

1) Remember that visitors of a certain site are there because they are interested in what the site has to offer. If they sign up for an opt-in list or for a newsletter this means that they want to be updated for that certain theme or subject. Be sure that when you publish your newsletter you are providing for the need of the subscriber as well as their interests. In other words, stay focused upon the theme of your business’s website.

2) Your subscribers’ trust in your business is tied to the image that you present in your periodic newsletters. Make sure that it always contains plenty of useful, pertinent information, presented in a professional way.

3) Fact-check your articles. Make sure that you provide true facts and figures so that your reputation as an expert and knowledgeable in that field is not questioned. If you lose the trust of your subscribers these may persuade them to unsubscribe to your newsletter. You will lose many potential sales this way.

4) Always make sure that the content of your newsletters is fresh. Do not write them so far in advance that the subjects become outdated before they reach your subscribers. You want to be sure that your newsletter is current in order to keep your readers opening the emails that you send them.

5) Don’t use copyrighted materials such as images and articles. This is plagiarism, and you may get into a lot of trouble for this. You can lose your business and get sued over copyright infringement. If you do not have the time to write your own articles, there are many willing and able professional article writers that can do it for you for a reasonable fee. All your investment in writing and publishing articles will be well worth it when you see your list build and your traffic increase.

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When you have had enough of punching the time clock day in and day out, it’s time for a change. If you feel like a slave to your job and can’t get the credit you deserve, it’s time to work for yourself and create the change in your life that is needed. You can sell products that will earn you full time wages with part time hours. Begin by offering things that people truly need. Be unique in your plan and watch the business run itself.

It may sound simple enough, but the process is hardly the easiest, and you have to be careful about the first crucial steps you take. You have got to get out there and sell yourself first. Make whatever you are selling the cream of the crop! It’s time to decide what you are going to market. The best way to do this is to have a brainstorming session first. Start with what you know. Make a list of the things that you know the most about. What are your hobbies or talents?

If you don’t think that your current area of expertise is anything that you can incorporate into a business plan, don’t fret. The internet literally puts the world at your fingertips and is itself an indispensable tool to make money online. You can research any topic or skill and become a master at it, and, consequently. Get your thoughts together and start comparing your prospective product to what is on the market now. Use SEO analysis to find out what works and what doesn’t. Another great way to find out what the hottest selling thing on the market is would be to watch TV. It may sound silly, but advertising on television will show you what people are buying.

Once you’ve found one or two products that you feel strongly about selling, figure out how you’re going to create a niche market for yourself. If you are selling an already existing product, make it better! How are you going to do that? Find out everything you can about the product. Look at online and print product reviews. Read about what people like but more importantly, what they don’t like about the product.

Customer feedback from previously marketed items can help design the niche you’re hoping to fit into. Make your item the next big thing by increasing or decreasing size, changing color or shape or packaging it better. When you choose to work with a third party distributor, there’s value in time and shipping through them. You can be the buyer and seller and win big.

If you want to have the best chance of doing well, you need to have a professional looking webstore. Use a third party to design your site if necessary. In fact, you can even make money blogging if you build your site well enough and provide good information to your visitors. Snatch the public’s attention and then keep their interest with high quality goods and low prices. You know you won’t be a millionaire by the end of the week, so make sure you can stand on your own. As time goes by, your sales will get better if you create products that consumers can’t do without. Don’t give up, it will all happen in time.

Once you get the attention of buyers, you can tweak your store and products as the trends dictate. As you get repeat customers, you will see your profits increase. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t have a cash cow overnight. Just hang in there and keep your eyes on market changes. To stay in the niche you’ve made for yourself, elicit ideas from your current customers. Make sure you keep your products fresh.

If you stay ahead of the pack, you are sure to come out on top. Provide the best products at the best prices. You will see income streaming on a constant basis as long as you market well. You will find your way into a niche market with your new product web store if you put time and thought into it. Always make sure to stick to your business plan and keep your eyes on the road ahead.

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Every business must create and sell products for their target market, whether they’re a tangible item or a service. There are some companies that choose to sell their expertise in a particular field and market that for other online businesses for advertising revenue. In those cases, your expertise is your product.

Information is a common product that gets sold online. Internet searches are conducted online in an effort to find information. There are businesses that will supply that information in the form of videos, audio files and e-books to customers that value this information. If you have a particular skill or expertise, you can create products that tap into this large market.

When you create products to sell online, keep in mind that they should be something that you are passionately interested in. Running your own business is not all glamour and piles of cash. Your own business will require you to work long hours for very little money in the beginning and if you are not totally committed to your product, you will not last very long. Your goal for finding the right product should never be about money.

Another step you should make when you are considering the correct product to make for your business is learning about market analysis. You must understand what is selling and the types of products that appeal to customers.  For example, you can make money blogging by innovating on an old idea, by providing your own unique take on a topic of your choice.  Sometimes market analysis will lead you to a new twist on an old idea that will bring you success.

If there is a great deal of competition for your product, you should research how they are selling their products to find where you will fit. One of these existing companies is going to have to give up some of their market to you if your business is going to be successful. Look for ways to market your product against these others.

Creating new products is a fun and exciting way to start a business and make money online.For those who are looking to operate a business on a shoe string budget, the online business community is a great place to start. There is very little overhead with an online business and you can put all of your funds into creating the very best product to sell. Always make sure that you are using the very best for your product, promote your merchandise and services well, and you shouldn’t have such a hard time establishing your business and earning money from it.

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Ebay Weird Al Yankovic

Have you considered starting an Ebay Business? In the United States more than 430,000 people are working full or part time on Ebay.  It may be easier to start an Ebay business than you think.

Your chances of success in you Ebay business are greater if it is convenient for you to buy.  This means your Ebay business should sell similar items.  If you sell CD’s then having CD racks or players would be an excellent combination.  The more compatible items you have on sale the better your chances of success.  People would much rather purchase what is needed at one place.
Remember try not to get complacent after you have gotten comfortable with all the auction formats, and other aspects of your Ebay business.  You will want to read about any new features, keep in touch with your customers, and also be mindful of what your competition is doing.  If you are not growing and adapting your not taking your Ebay business to its full capacityand attaining you’re earning potential.  Not only will you be more successful with your Ebay business but you will have more fun. Now get to it.

Want to learn how to become an Ebay Power Seller?This is a great resource. Go to this website now at: 90daypowerseller.com

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Do you think you have a good Domain name in mind for your site?

WAIT!
Before you rush out register it there are a several things you need to consider.

• Is your idea marketable do people want it?
• What other words describe your site?
• How competitive is your market?
• Does the domain name describe your sites contents?
• How easy is it to remember the URL?

Existing Businesses

If you have an existing business you already have brand name recognition so its important to include your business name.

i.e. www.shopname.com

If that domain is taken then consider how people will search for your site. Most people will google something like (shop name) + (city) so  why not name it www.shopnamecity.com or www.shopname-city.com these domain names will almost certainly be available.

You may find that .net .us .org domain extensions are available beware of these extensions as people type .com automatically. You may wish to purchase these domains & forward to your main site.

Online Businesses

Very Important – Do people want what your selling?

Before you rush ahead & spend hours developing a site with no value think of 6 or more words that best describe your idea.

Go to Wordtracker (Its Free) & see how many people are searching those exact words. List your keywords by search volume.

Now you now know 2 things;

1. Is this an idea worth pursuing?
2. What words generated the most searches.

Obviously if  very few people are searching for your main keywords then this idea is not worth pursuing as an e-commerce business. Save your money & register for a free blog at www.blogger.com if you are really dedicated to the idea.

If your keywords have goog search volume you can move on.

Don’t worry about competition at this stage I will cover search engine optimization in competitive markets later, it is more important that there are allot of searches.

Armed with your keywords you are now ready to find the perfect domain name for your new business.

Write down some options using the most popular keyword or a mixture of your keywords. It is very important that the url is representative of the sites content.

A person searching the internet for  E-Commerce will click www.E-CommerceNewbie.com before  www.mywebsite.com

TIP – Hyphens as in E-Commerce are not generally a good idea however using Wordtracker you will find that more people search for E-Commerce than eCommerce.

More Webmaster Tips & Tools

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