Power Ideaz

By Pinaki Ghosh

1. Co-registration leads
Co-registration leads are better known as the commercial leads that are available on sale from leads traders. There are plenty of leads sellers who deal in such co-registration leads. They sell leads in several packages and at the same time promise to deliver general or targeted leads on demand, and in packages of 10,000, 100,000 or 500,000 leads.
They usually get these leads from the other small traders, or websites who sell them their own list. These sites build lists using various methods, like offering free e-books if visitors sign up the squeeze page. The list of hundreds of such sites are purchased by commercial leads traders, and compiled into general or categorical lists, which are sold to buyers on payment.

Here are some of the vendors of commercial leads, or co-registration leads:

 http://www.coregleadsource.com/
 http://www.leadsales.net/coregistration_leads.htm
 http://www.national-leads.com/bulkemailleads.html
 https://www.incentaclick.com/coregistration.php
 http://www.multiplestreammktg.com/buy_leads.html

Although, it is a good idea to be cautious while purchasing the co-registration leads, as sometimes unknowingly you might be drawn into a scam. Understand the 3 points that you should be careful about:

Scams with co-registration leads you should be careful about
o You paid good money to buy leads, you are getting visits, but not sales: The leads are fake, which means, they are not names and addresses of genuine people. Some times, children over the age of 13 are hired by the leads sellers to click on your email and visit your site. Needless to say these fake visitors will not generate any sales.

o Your hosting service provider has shut down your site: Most of the people unknowingly pay the spammers for illegal spam lists, thinking them to be genuine lists. The spam lists include email addresses of people who have opted out of the list; meaning, they prefer not to be mailed. If you mail these people, your site may get flagged and shut down. If your e-mailer cannot produce the IP address along with date and time stamp for each name he mails to, he does not have an opt in list. And this is how you can be on the safer side!

o You sent 2 million emails, but did not get a single response: If you outsource your email campaigns to the service providers, it may often happen that they do not carry out your campaign, even after receiving the payment from you. Due to which you do not get a single response. It is better to (a) go for a deal with the outsourcing company, where you want a fixed number of guaranteed conversion sales rather than a fixed number of emails sent out; (b) send the emails yourself, after creating your own list.

2. Website opt in box
It is the most simple, clean, and honest way to generate your own leads. There is no reason or any doubt about if whether you are being sold illegal leads or whether the leads will land you in trouble. These are your very own leads that your visitors have voluntarily offered you, by opting in to your newsletter list.
In all the sites which are of 5 pages, there is an option where you can subscribe to the site or even become a member. The members get the privileges over the non members; like to post in the forum one has to be a member. Non members can read the forum but cannot interact. This encourages the visitors to become opt in members by giving their details. This allows them to sign in, and allows you to legally send them newsletters announcing your very tempting offers.
It may be time consuming, but is a good way of list building.

3. Squeeze pages
The squeeze pages are better known as the landing pages, which are there for people to just collect the names and email addresses of visitors, in exchange of giving a free gift like an e-book which is essential. This is quite common in small websites. Some small websites have nothing except just a squeeze page. The content is kept to the least for avoiding distraction.
Here is an example of a squeeze page to understand it more:http://www.adsense-secrets.com/ .
Although the content is less, still people gather on these sites and even provide with their email addresses in the greed of getting the much hyped free e-book. The email addresses collected in this method is compiled into a sizeable list.
Squeeze pages are a simple method of list building than website opts in box, just because of the minimum content and the free gift exchange.

Ways to get visitors
1. Writing articles: The search engines and human visitors like the unique content. Articles are a splendid way to draw visitors. Articles on interesting topics like self help, or self development can be the way to go about, or you might try specific topics.

2. Posting in Ezines: Posting the content or articles in popular ezines is one of the good ways to get visitors. People come to popular ezines like http://ezinearticles.com in search of information and knowledge. Your info-rich article that also highlights your site and links to it is a sure success formula for drawing the attention from the crowd.

3. SEO: Hiring a professional SEO person can be a good investment which is worth making to attract the crowd. They have several legal and at times illegal ways of pulling the crowd.

4. Newsletters: The Newsletters and email campaigns can bring in the visitors if carried out successfully and in an innovative manner.

5. Affiliate programs: Means giving commission to the associates for every paid signup which is an excellent option to see visitors coming in.

6. Click advertising: (PPC) maybe expensive, but the programs such as Google Ad Words, can get in visitors within minutes of making your payments.

7. Free gifts: Most of the visitors are in search for items that are free. Giving out free digital gifts will not cost you much, yet can change the visitors scene for your site. Such digital gifts can be e-books or downloadable software’s.

By Pinaki Ghosh

An amusing line says that an internet marketer would first try to save his backup disks containing his lists, before anything else, if his house catches fire. Here are some of the facts about the importance of list building, to understand it better:

List building is an integral part of email marketing and also that of e-business. This business cannot prosper if you decide not to build your own lists.
The larger your list, the more are your chances of profit. It is like simple logic! If you have 10,000 people in your list, and run an email campaign, you are likely to get response from 100 – 400. If your list consists of 20,000 names and addresses, your response is likely to be between 200 and 800.

 You possibly cannot grow your e-business without the help of list building. It will always remain static and there will be no growth curve.
 List building helps you majorly to run email campaigns, to inform about new products and services, new schemes, new offers, discounts, etc.
 It helps in mailing newsletters, which is nothing but an email campaign in a more creative, concealed and helpful manner. The more the creative and helpful newsletters are, the better are the prospects of winning buyers.
 List building is a must for running viral marketing campaigns. Do go through the chapter on viral marketing in this book for additional information on the same.
 It helps you to get back your old visitors; it helps in sending a reminder to the visitors that they had once visited this site. It is said that in any business, the old customers are the best customers that one can get. Therefore, the list of your old customers is the best leads to get repeat business.
 The longer lists help in saving a lot of money on advertising. If most of your visitors come in revert to your email campaign which is obviously dependent on the list, what is the need of running expensive email campaigns?
 List building is legally safe and hence you will not be recognized as a spammer if you send emails to people in your list, since these people had by themselves given you their names and email addresses.

 By Pinaki Ghosh

Most of the people know by now that YPN is the biggest competitor of Google AdSense. From various blogs (eg. http://www.lithman.net/2007/02/making-money-with-ypn) it seems true that Yahoo is paying three times more to YPN (Yahoo Publishing Network) members than Google is paying to AdSense members. 

#How your income comes from YPN
As people have advertised through the program of Yahoo called ‘Search Marketing’, you can earn from YPN. The Ads that are under the Yahoo Search Marketing appear on your websites, and every time some visitor clicks on the Ads, you earn! Experts like Anthony Yap, [http://www.anthony-yap.com] State that Yahoo keeps a total of 32 % of the revenue from the advertisers, giving away 68% to the website owners who advertise.

  Step 1: Setup your website/blog
Get you website or blog ready and complete. It should be professional looking to get approved at the first instance.

Step 2: Apply for YPN membership
Only then, one can apply for the YPN membership (http://ypn.yahoo.com). Hit the ‘apply now’ button. You will have to fill up the following information, so make sure you are ready to answer the following:
 Email 
 First Name 
 Last Name 
 Phone Number 
 Company Name 
 Web Site URL 
 Monthly Page views
 Primary Type of Content
 Primary Purpose of Your Site (Blog/Content/Directory/Ecommerce/Social Networking/Other)
 Are you currently Displaying 3rd Party Ads? (Are you showing Google or other ads?)
 Do you have a Valid U.S. Social Security or Tax ID Number?You must agree to the terms and the conditions of Yahoo.

Step 3: Get feedback from Yahoo
You will have to wait for 7 days for a reply from YPN customer care. Presently YPN is offered to only members or the websites in the USA. Interested non US members have to wait a longer for this excellent opportunity to be opened to publishers or websites all over the world.  If you are approved, you will receive a mail and an YPN account with Yahoo.

Step 4: Design your advertisements
Try and customize the way you want the advertisement to appear in your website. You can customize the shape, size and color of ads to suit the color and available space of your website/blog.

Step 5: Copy and paste code
When you’re done with the customization, you will get a java code (see sample) that you have to copy and paste among the HTML code of your website, at suitable places, where you want the ads to appear. You can perhaps ask your technical friend to help you out with placing the code in your site, if you are not so comfortable with technical and HTML stuff.

Step 6: Advertisements start appearing
The Advertisements appear almost immediately. You can earn a lot from these advertisements every time a visitor on your site clicks on them. This means there are a lot higher the number of visitors and a lot more are your chances of earning. So, go ahead and make you presence felt, popularize your website; get a steady traffic flow. You are not allowed to click on these advertisements, or your membership will be terminated.

Step 7: Receiving payment
How much would a person earn from a single website with 1-3 pages? If SEO expert David Lithman is to be taken seriously, you are likely to earn $10 - $12 each day from it, with an average daily traffic flow of 400, amounting to a monthly $300 - $360 from 1 website. You can use these codes for all your websites thereafter. Multiply your earnings accordingly. You will receive your payment 45 days after the end of a month, for that accounting month.  The best advantage YPN has over Google AdSense is that you can transfer your earnings from YPN to place your own advertisements with Yahoo Search Marketing. So, what are you waiting for? Get spoilt with YPN! 

Pinaki Ghosh

Are you planning to get your personalized blog on the internet? If that is the thought, you would love to know more about blogging and how to divert and attract people to your blog. Generally blogs provide really useful information and have a certain thought, or not many would want to waste their time on the same. Promotion of a product, or servicing and partnering a site is what a blog is mostly known for. To get a good and crowded blog, here are some seven tips you would not want to miss out on:

1. Unique content
Do not put the same kind of content on your blog that means similar to what is already available. This way you will face the toughest competition on the internet. To get the most attention, select a good category that people would love to know about.

2. Keyword rich
The articles must contain the keywords to get the attention from the audience. The keywords are what the people usually search for on the various search engines. Therefore, more the keywords, the higher your blog will flash. It does give your content a little mechanical look, but is extremely beneficial.

3. Make your choice of blog software
The audience or the number of visitors by and large depends on the way you present your site, also on how fast one can locate your site or maybe how one can get a refined search on the specific topic. Thus, to get a Blogger.com good result what one needs is a good blog program. You may choose from a lot of blog software’s but the best are namely, Wordpress (http://wordpress.com), Blogger (http://blogger.com), TypePad (http://typepad), MovableType (http://movabletype.com), BraveJournal (http://bravejournal.com). Before zeroing down on one, you must understand the features of every program.

4. Submit to web-directories
Get your blog flashed on a number of good and popular web directories which will link to your blog. Most of us depend on such useful sites. For example:
• Strongest Links, http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php
• SEOCompany, http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html

5. Make forum posts
You must publish your blog in a forum which is popular or known by people. This way you can inform people about your blog and attract a number of people too. To benefit more, you may hire a freelancer to make some thousands of forum post and at the end; you will see a result too.

6. Make the best posts on busy days
You may notice that the blogs have irregular traffic. If your post is appealing you may find your blog flooded with visitors. Don’t waste the opportunities that you get. Try and use the traffic and make the best from these posts. Not only will it boost your traffic flow but also get overnight popularity to your blog.

7. Blog comments
You may not see a lot of people commenting early on your blog. When your blog does not receive comments, it ends up looking quite dull and un interesting also incomplete. When one faces such a situation, creating your id in some other name and commenting will also help to attract people. Automatically you may see that people view your blog and later, you can have 500+ visitors everyday.

These steps have been proved essential for the commercial success of a blog. You never tend to go wrong when you follow all the steps. When you have a fixed number of visitors on your blog, you can earn from other sites such as Google ads, the affiliate programs or even by promoting your own site which can sell of something.

Given below is a typical agreement which you can sign with your ghostwriter.

CO-WRITER/GHOSTWRITER-AUTHOR AGREEMENT OVER A BOOK

By this memorandum of understanding, signed this _____________ 2008; both the parties described herein under as PARTY A, represented by ______________, address, _____________________________________ also described as the ‘author’; and PARTY B, represented by ___________, address ____________________________________________________________________________________, also described as ‘ghostwriter’, do hereby agree to all the terms described and given below:

1. Party A is commissioning Party B to begin the project of writing a book on the subject: _______________________________________________________.
2. The tentative working title of the book shall be _______________________________________________________’. This title is subject to change subject to mutual consent of both the parties.
3. The deadline for completion of this book is _______ days after the signing of this agreement.
4. Party A agrees to pay Party B a consolidated sum of $_________ for the project that will include the following:
   1. Writing the content of the book on the guidelines of Party A.
   2. Getting it edited by a pro-editor before submission.
5. The fees of the co-writer/ghostwriter will be paid as follows:
   1. 50% advance to get the project started.
   2. 50% within 10 days of complete work submission (irrespective of whether Party A found time to go through it in 10 days or not).
6. Party B (ghostwriter) is subject to NO royalty or commission on the sales of the book. He is only entitled to the one time fees of $_________.
7. Party B (ghostwriter) will maintain full confidentiality about this project.
8. The book will be __________ pages long.
9. Party B agrees that he will not take the help of any plagiarism, meaning he will avoid using borrowed material in this book exactly as they are found elsewhere.
10. Party A will own all copyrights for this book, including sale and distribution rights.
11. Party A will have full freedom to set the retail price of this book, deal with any publisher, and may even distribute it free of cost if she wishes. Party B will have no say on setting the price of this book.
12. Party A can request party B to make a reasonable number of changes and edits during the period of production of this book and within 7 days of completion of the book.

Both the parties do hereby agree to the terms laid and set above.

Signature

Party A (author)

————————————————————————————-

Signature

Party B (ghostwriter)

Date:

By Pinaki Ghosh

A. Setting up an account with a domain name registrar
When you feel the urge to drink coffee, you can make a cup of coffee in a jiffy. Setting an account with a domain name registrar; or in simpler words, registering a domain name of your site is as simple as making yourself a cup of coffee.

For your help, here is a list of accredited companies that do the needful for you:
http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

Here are some well known registrars for you:

• GoDaddy.com
• behosting.com/register.html
• DomainInvestigator.com
• InexpensiveDomains.com
• NameCow.net
• NamesAreCheap.com

As we enter the process of registration, you must know the various extensions which are:
• Companies have the Dot Com.
• The non profit organizations use the Dot Org.
• Network providers use the Dot Net.
• The government owned websites go with Dot Gov.
• Television channels have the Dot Tv.

Leaving these aside there are more extensions for various countries and continents such as Dot uk for the sites in UK, Dot in for the Indian sites, etc.

Study the steps to follow while registering the domain name:
1. log on to the site of the online domain name registrar
2. Type in the name of the phrase for the domain name which you want to register in the box that has been assigned. Follow the rules as per the name format and the length of the word. Then you can choose the necessary extension.
3. It does not take a lot of time to search. The registrar then informs you about the availability of the domain name.

In case it has been already taken:
(a) Try using some other extension like, like in place of Dot Com use Dot Net, Dot Biz or Dot au etc
(b) Choose another name
(c) If you really want to have the same name try getting in touch with the one who already owns it and buy it from him at a reasonable price.

4. Get yourself registered when you actually are happy with the name.
5. You can pay the registration fees which may vary but is around 10$ for one year, online or by mail.

The domain name now belongs to you. By default you get the domain name for two years. Here’s an advice: Do not go in for the common names as they are already taken, try the uncommon names.

By Pinaki Ghosh 

Who is a ghostwriter and why are they hired?

People who pen down the articles on behalf of any other person are known as Ghostwriters. He generally does not get his name published in those writings. Most of the time, the celebrities get their autobiographies done from these Ghostwriters. The rich people too, hire these ghostwriters for the same. To name a few, Hillary Clinton, JF Kennedy and also the pop diva Madonna have hired their writers for the books. As these celebrities cannot find time to write themselves, but have the money to hire a ghost writer, they go in for one. The politicians too have their own Ghostwriters who are the people who write the speeches and the other correspondences.  As the Ghostwriters do not get any name or recognition for the service, they take heavy one time fees.

Recognition
Not always do the ghostwriters go unnoticed. Most of the times, the names of these writers are given on the acknowledgements page or sometimes as the co- writers. Thus, here they aren’t called the Ghostwriters, but collaborators.

Varieties of Ghostwriters
Not always do the people who hire these Ghostwriters lack the talent of writing. Sometimes established professional writers hire ghostwriters due to their lack of time, and also for refinement of their work. Just like, the Star Wars Novel, which was mainly a ghostwriter’s work, anmd also the Hardy Boys series that had the main author as Franklin W Dixon.

Why do you need a Ghostwriter?
It is definitely a good idea to get professional writers, especially a Ghostwriter for your articles. The best reasons are:

• They can give you the best content for your site
• They can write a blog everyday according to your requirement
• They can prepare you tailor-made, refined and good e-books

You can get some good writers and ghostwriters from the following sites:
• www.writerpinaki.com.com (bestseller ghostwriter hire)

• www.writer4me.com (affordable ghostwriter hire)

• www.123writer.com

These sites charge you somewhere in between $ 9.99 to $20 for every web-content piece/page that you order. For e-books the rate is about $400 to $1000 for every 100 pages.

Okay, now for some laugh… here are some common office phrases compiled by us, with what these phrases mean. Whether you agree is up to you. Cheers!

1.”We will do it” means “You will do it.”

2.”You have done a great job” means “More work to be given to you.”

3.”We are working on it” means “We have not yet started working on the same.”

4.”Tomorrow first thing in the morning” means “Its not getting done “At least not tomorrow!”

5.”After discussion we will decide-I am very open to views” means “I have already decided, I will tell you what to do.”

6.”There was a slight miscommunication” means “We had actually lied.”

7.”Lets call a meeting and discuss” means “I have no time now, will talk later.”

8.”We can always do it” means “We actually cannot do the same on time.”

9.”We are on the right track but there needs to be a slight extension of the deadline” means “The project is screwed up, we cannot deliver on time.”

10.”We had slight differences of opinion “means “We had actually fought.”

11.”Make a list of the work that you do and let’s see how I can help you” means “Anyway you have to find a way out… no help from me.”

12.”You should have told me earlier” means “Well even if you told me earlier that would have made hardly any difference!”

13.”We need to find out the real reason” means “Well I will tell you where your fault is.”

14.”Well Family is important; your leave is always granted. Just ensure that the work is not affected,” means, “Well you know…”

15.”We are a team,” means, “I am not the only one to be blamed.”

16.”That’s actually a good question” means “I do not know anything about it.”

17.”All the Best” means “You are in trouble”

By Pinaki Ghosh

The content and the websites actually are much related to each other, and the popularity is much based on the quality especially that of the content. No site can make it up to the top in case they have a site put up on the net.
You may taste the difference between the recipes made by you and the ones made by a professional chef, or maybe between the paintings which is painted by you or the one by any other professional painter. There is a lot of difference in the articles that you would pen down and the ones by a writer who is professional. There are a few advantages of actually hiring a content writer, reasons to hire them:
The experience of a professional has weight
When someone wants to hire a content writer, the best reason would be as the writer has a value. A person with experience can actually be trusted without hesitation. Years of experience has developed his/her skill to an extent that makes him/her a specialist of the job.
Improved language
The conversational skills of every person differ from the writing skills. When it comes to the creative content writers, the writing becomes a lot creative and also professional. Most of the time, the writers do not commit any mistakes in the language. Not everyone can be as fluent as the professionals.
Content attracts or repels visitors and search engines
This content attracts the humans and the search engine robots from any of the sites. The site has more chances of being popular if the site has good and informative content.  When the site has bad content, instantly people are less attracted towards to it. The content matters, and thus, people must not actually take a risk regarding that.
Time Saver
You can save your time at a cost…the choice is yours! Once you hire a good creative content writer, you instantly become free. It also helps keep some time for you. You will have to pay the writer for his/her time, and skill, enabling you to save yours’.

Search Engine Optimization
When you get a professional content writer for you, you instantly get a higher rating for your site, as the professionals are experts in the same. Their style of writing with high keyword density helps in high search engine ranking.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Why search engines love unique content?
In the world of internet, there goes a famous saying ‘Content is king’. But for an internet user or anyone who plans to set up their own one soon, you sure must be updated with the fact that the search engines usually catch the unique content.  The content on the sites must be edited and updated all the time so that the search engine ranking is maintained high. What actually decides the ranks of search-engine listings? Good and original content is one main deciding factor. The content should be entirely different and unique compared to the other sites.
“The content on the sites must be edited
and updated all the time so that the search engine
ranking is maintained high.”
Just like the human visitors, the wants and the similarities of the search engines are the same. Search Engines usually have search engine spiders which are actually the robots that walk through the net. The robots cannot enter poorly coded pages which have poor html, or JavaScript and Flash. During this, the robots aren’t patient enough. If the page content is not detected, it is directly rejected by the robot. Robots act the same way with poorly colored pages, whose background and letter colors are close to each other. Even if the robot tries to find his way in, the poor resolution of the pages might restrict them. That also means it’s a poor site map.
Not only search-engine robots, but also human visitors get confused and reject a website if the site map is complicated. The search engine robot will not be able to discover many deeply underlying pages with poor site planning.
The content along with the site must be quick in loading. If there is an excessive usage of graphics and Flash, the site takes a lot of time to load which in turn can make the search engine robot leave it. The website must take less than 5 seconds to load so as to let the robot find it. Even the new visitors would not want to wait too long and then go on to leave the site in case it’s too slow.
You may think that it would be alright if the search engine robot would leave you site. But this means that your site will not make it in the search engine listings and hence, the people who do not know the name of your site will not be able to visit your site ever.

By Pinaki Ghosh.

A. Finding a hot product
Once you make your decision about the e business, you would want to think about the product that you would want to sell. Therefore the questions that would pester you would be the questions like WHAT and also as to WHO the customers would be. The most common mistake which the entrepreneurs commit is when they cater to everyone in making the most profits, but at the end make absolutely no profits. Instead of taking the plunge in the bigger e-business focus on the smaller but the more powerful market. Do not try to capture the entire market at once. The niche for you is the smaller market. Like, while trying to sell off the electronic goods, try to aim at one like the personal stereo. When the audience knows that your site deals with the personal stereos, the people who want to know or purchase the personal stereo would be the first to check out your site. To find your niche or the most wanted products is the most important take in your e-business.
B. Places to look
How can one actually look out for the hot products? How and from whom can one actually know about the products that are in demand? You really can’t rely on the mere guess work. What you can do is relax and look out for the pros and the cons. You can look out for some of the keywords on the places mentioned below:

Ebay: (www.ebay.com).
You can go through the pages of e-bay to get a random idea of the items and the products that are available on the net. The other PDF resource of some of the eBay hottest products they may be of some use:
http://pages.ebay.com/sellercentral/hotitems.pdf

Clickbank:
You can browse through the following site to get an update on the 100 top Clickbank products.
http://www.cbengine.com/res/cb_movers.cfm
You can also log on to the following site to get the best top clickbank selling products under numerous categories:
http://www.clickbank.com/buy_products.htm
The other sites that can provide you with such information are listed below:

• Commission Junction
• Linkshare.com
• Modernclick.com
• Aazoogle.com
• Cpaempire.com
•  Maxbounty.com

C. How to choose your product
You must choose the product that you want to sell. If you make a mistake here, that means your efforts go into vain. All the hard earned money and the enthusiasm which is invested in the business goes in vain. Here are some points you must keep in mind while making the ultimate choice of the product:

1. Do not be where the crowd is; stay away from the crowd
It is a tiring and a difficult job to sell shoes in a place wherein you have another 20 stores. You must avoid the kind of products that almost everyone would opt for. This may be on a higher demand due to the competition in the market. The prices vary and thus it is very difficult to get all the attention. As one would want it, better to be a very important person in a very small town than to be a small guy in a large town!

2. Prefer products that are digital and easily downloadable
The products which have digital downloads on the net have a high selling rate as they are easily available to the customer as soon as they complete the payment procedure. People are extremely impatient in taking over the product that is purchased. They are doubtful about the not so known business’s which ‘ship’ them the product. The items that are digital include:

• E-books
• Software products
• Music
• Videos

3. Keep it easy to ship
You must take care that the item is not very difficult to ship. You must try and keep it easy to port, small and light.
4. Not fragile, neither perishable
Make sure that your item is not really delicate or easily breakable. It gets really difficult to ship such items. Very big organizations have the advanced technologies and can easily transport perishable or fragile items. If you do not posses such transportation and the kind of infrastructure, then do not even think of such an initiative.
5. Niche must be small, yet it must be in demand
Niche marketing means narrowing down to a smaller market rather than the general market, is true enough; yet the market shouldn’t be so tiny that you hardly come across any buyers. The niche you are choosing should be in high demand. You can check the demand of these items from the various sites like eBay, Dmoz and Amazon. If you browse through the sites, you can look out in the different categories for the items that are in demand. To know more or see an example simply log on to the following site:
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
6. Submit your niche to directories
After your ecommerce site is ready, submit the site to a number of directories so that there are enough back-links pointing towards your niche.
You can refer to http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php and http://www.seocompany.ca/directory/web-directories.html for the most popular web directories that you can use.

By Pinaki Ghosh

You can see a lot of products flooding the internet sites and also the ecommerce sites. But as one may see, not all products get to do the equal business. Some rules go in without consideration and need to be known by the people. The following are a few rules that you may have to follow develop if in case you want to sell your product and in turn earn profits.
1. Go for high profit margin products
The maximum number of people that went on to become millionaires was due to the internet business. Online business is the only business wherein one can expect around 100% profit. The margin of the profit that one can get during the other business is merely 20% to 33%. The original cost price of the product is around 67% - 80% is covered by the cost price. But if the product is a virtual one, there isn’t much of a cost-price or production cost (except the early investments), and as such you can expect to make a 100% profit from every sale. You can take the example of the software giants who gain 100% profit from every sale that they make. It is just the same for e-books.
2. Target niche market rather than the general market
Whenever we experience a heart pain, we take the initiative to visit the cardiologist rather than the normal physician. The same way, it’s a not a bad idea to select a position a niche market than targeting the general market, which is often over-saturated. As you go into the niche market, which deals with just a specific range of products, the chances of you getting noticed are much higher. You must try and develop the product which is aimed at specific interest groups.
3.  High quality
While selling your product, one thing that is utmost necessary is that you never compromise on the quality of the product. Remember, the old or the existing customers and clients are your best clients. Keeping them happy with the quality would compel them to remain satisfied with the product that they receive from you. If you have around 300 customers who are satisfied with the service and the quality, you will get a steady sale from them all the year round. Therefore keep them updated with the newsletters especially while announcing your new products.
“
Remember, the old or the existing customers and clients are your best clients… If you have around 300 customers who
are satisfied with the service and the quality, you will get a steady sale from them all the year round.
”
4. Quick delivery
One might observe that the humans are highly impatient. They would want quick service. Thus, your products must be easily accessible and auto downloadable, preferably quickly downloadable…something that the customers would be able to get their hands on immediately after payment.
5. Trial version
When you deliver a trail version of the product which is absolutely of no cost to access, sometimes, there are 40 % chances that the people who get to access this, would want to purchase the original full version. Therefore, in such cases, the trial version that is, when the product has a time limit, the item needs to be downloadable then may it be a software, e-book or a mere courseware.
6. Research
Look out and find more about the products that you need to sell online. Better if you can get the copies of the product and study them. If they sell well, then you can be assured of the plan and the product. You must try and do something related to the subject or may be the same in a different fashion. To start with, your product must be better than that product and at the same time, at a lower price than that product.

7. Keep upgrading
If the item that you are promoting and dealing with is the one related to the software field like the e-books, constant up gradations and improvements are necessary. At any level when you stop you tend to stall your business which is the untimely death. Thus, you must upgrade the same at least every 6 months. Even a minor up gradation would work.
As you may notice, the 7 tips are neither costly nor very difficult to keep in mind. The lower versions of the software’s and the games or even the e-books can be rated around $30 for every time that one downloads.  If you have around 200 visitors every day, one can expect 3% - 5% conversions which may increase later on after the trail versions have been tried and used, which also means approximately $250 of the daily sales which sums upto about $7500 every month. If you go on at this rate, this figure would be achieved along the 4th month. Therefore, why wait, put along your best foot forward!

By Pinaki Ghosh

If you are planning to start up with your own ecommerce site or already own one, you must get your updates and facts revised. Here are 7 main strategies which would help you instantly to gain profits. These policies are tested and confirmed.
1. Solid product description
While advertising your product online you must be able to make some good descriptions about the product which can create an interest among your customers. The products (in case of 50 plus articles) must be described in around 125 -150 words in length. For quality sake, getting the articles done from a professional person is imperative.  In case you are on the look out for professionals or freelancers, you may log on to sites like Writer4me (www.writer4me.com), 123writer (www.123writer.com), Guru (www.guru.com) and Elance (www.elance.com) to hire copywriters/content-writers who will work on your descriptions and give an amazing outcome or even help sell a refrigerator to an Eskimo.  In the case that you are selling an e-book or some course through your site, you can get the sales copy made, which may comprise of 3000-5000 words in length. Also, you can add in the feedbacks from your clients.
2. Accompanied by picture
Sometimes pictures provide the best explanations ever. Until and unless you put pictures on the products for the net, you really would not be able to create the interest on the customers. People like to see the products that they would want to buy, as said by Mark Luetke the marketing guru. But messy images are not really appealing. In case of really small products you can give them the satin background or maybe give it a cropped look and can even replace it with maybe a plain background. When the products such as car and bikes are promoted, you may get the shots outdoors. The cover pages of the e-books must be of high quality, cost of which is $30 upwards. You can visit the sites such as Writer4me (www.writer4me.com), if your budget is around $50, to get the best and the most professional e-book covers in the market.
3. Cross selling
Chain your other items just below the description of the products of each item so that people who want to purchase the product can also look out for other related products.  This way you can increase your sales upto 30%.
4. Free gifts to visitors to get their email address
Give out free gifts like ebooks from your squeeze page to any visitor who gives his/her email address. This way you can create your own database of your visitors whom you can keep updated with your newsletters.
5. Newsletters
Spam mails differ from newsletters. I would be surprised if anyone says he/she likes spam mails. They are advertisement-mails that go directly to the folder that has been assigned in your email account for ‘spam’. But newsletters give some really useful information to the customers and thus, most people mark the mails as ‘not spam’. This may be one of the powerful tools in keeping the update on the new products and schemes. Newsletters are far better than spam mails as promotional tools.
6. Discount
Giving various discounts throughout the year such as ‘winter bonanza: 25% off’ or maybe the ‘Spring Festival-up to 50% discount’ can boost up your sales. Keeping a track of your old customers and the ones that rely on you and then complementing them by giving some additional benefits can help.
7. Show professionalism with your affiliates
In case you are heading an affiliate program, you must act professionally. Clearing off the payment of your affiliates on time, and giving them codes for your banners can help in keeping good relations with them. Do not keep the affiliates hanging for a lot of time to get their commission.
Also, you can work on increasing your sources of getting some extra income by tying with the other service providers as an affiliate (and get commission) and also Google YPN (contextual pay per click). You can earn several hundred or even thousands of dollars every month from this.

By Pinaki Ghosh

So, are you all set to put your best foot ahead in the internet business field? Greetings to the internet marketing field of the world! The success stories such as those like Yahoo and Google are true, especially with the internet based business, it’s also true that a website which does not have any marketing plan is more or less like a store about which one would not know, and thus would not see a bad happening. Merely setting up your site is not important but how to gain the popularity is what is important. What would actually make your website popular and work is what one should be stressing on. Ultimately your site is your own money minting factory in just 6 months?
1. Writing articles
Content is often crowned as the king. Your site visitors are often attracted to the content more than anything. A good-looking site without good content is like food that looks yummy but does not have any taste, and hence finds no takers. Not many master the art of writing good articles.
“
A good-looking site without good content
is like food that looks yummy but does not have any taste, and hence finds no takers.
”
The articles should be keyword rich (repeated use of the keywords), so that they are found quickly during keyword search. Informative articles are extremely helpful and thus these articles must be posted in the various blogs and article banks, directories and ezines. And they should in turn be linked to your site. If you are very busy, hiring a copy writer is a good idea.
2. Pay per Click Marketing
One of the most expensive but the best ways of drawing the traffic is pay-par-click marketing. If you do not lie in the lower budgets but are keen on the profits, you should without hesitation try PPC. Mostly, success comes guaranteed.
Some of the popular Pay per Click schemes is:

•   Google Ad Words
•   Yahoo Search Marketing
•   Microsoft AdCenter

When you go for PPC advertisements, you must pay beforehand. Every time someone clicks on your ad, your pre-paid balance instantly gets debited. The advertisements also appear in the websites which have similar content such as your own site; as well as Google, Yahoo and MSN search engine listings. Sponsored results appear over natural search results. There have been however reports of click fraud, which may result in your loss of money.
3. Traffic purchase
Some of the sites offer visitor packages for fixed prices. The ultimate decision maker is you, who can make your decision and choose from the various packages that are available. Example: you can choose from a package of 1000 guaranteed visitors per month for a payment of $50 or 5000 visitors for $180 so on. You can choose the one that fits in your pocket and can get the traffic diverted to your site according to your requirement. But you must also keep away from the frauds.
4. Buying expired domains
Supposing someone hands over the keys of a new car which has been purchased by someone else, and then says, “Have fun! It’s for you!”  Would you instantly take it? Most possibly you would take it. Well, most of us would in such cases. In the world of internet too, sometimes websites that are owned by one, are often handled by people who get to manage it. To talk in clear terms, if I have my own website, I work hard to build up a traffic that can be beneficial to me, but gradually, maybe my other commitments and busy schedule and forgetfulness or maybe my carelessness to renew the website adds up, and after a time, the website expires. People are on constant vigil. As soon as the site expires they start up their own with the same domain name, and thus get a ready made traffic flow.
5. Viral marketing
One of the cheapest and the affordable ways of internet marketing is Viral Marketing. It works on the concept of chain mails, just the way hotmail used it for its popularity. Pictures, videos and e-books which are free are mostly loved by people. Especially when these items are placed on your site, people love to use them and forward them to their loved ones. Thus, by personalizing them and giving your name somewhere on the items, you end up marketing your site. Also, in case your product is liked by people they would end up forwarding it and thus, the number of viewers of your site goes only higher. The popularity of your site increases.

By Pinaki Ghosh

Keeping a track of your emails isn’t a big problem when you’re receiving a mere ten or less than ten mails a day. As your business grows the picture will change. As you end up sending approximately hundred mails a day, you too will receive as many mails. Thus, planning out a mail management system is advisable than to find yourself in a pretty nasty soup. The following tips may prove to be of great help:
1. Do not open your mails every time they arrive
One of the worst time killers, which often goes unrealized are incoming emails. Most of the email programs, have the email notifications like, when one receives a mail, you have little pop ups or some beeps and some shiny icons which act like mail alerts. But immediate reactions can end up as a distraction for those who work. While working, you must continue to work and not react to these mails. Time yourself to read the mails too. Set aside 2 or 3 fixed time in the day when you will read and answer mails…rather than reading them the moment they arrive. This is one of the most accepted and the best remedy overall.
2. Managing storage space 
Nowadays, one can see a lot many email programs which have a highly large space to offer. For example, Yahoo Mail got its Yahoo Mail Beta into market and offered a total 1 GB storage email space which was in turn a huge up gradation factor. Thus, the end result is such that if one is a light user of the emails, he would never have to delete mails. The same was the case when Microsoft launched its Windows Live Mail and the storage space was twice the space that Yahoo offered.

2 GB mail storage space was astonishing! This also meant that one would never have to delete mails and can also keep the attachments!
For those who have opted for the other programs or sites, they should keep in mind the 2 basic principles: (a) you must try and shift or go in for some mail program which would offer you a better space to store your mails (b) you may erase most of the mails as you receive them especially those which aren’t necessary. Once the attachment has been downloaded, you could delete the mails or just if you want to save them, you can do so in one of your separate folders. Adding any of the advertisements and the junk mails could be named as ‘spam’ and eventually you spam folder can be cleaned after a period of time.
3. Sending heavy attachments with your mails
Winzip can condense attachments of your mail to some extent. Most of the people who excel in this field know that this is not really sufficient, mainly when one has to send in the mails with heavy attachments and content with large graphics. Leave aside the others, MS Word documents which have graphs and graphics are not really lucky enough to be delivered as attachments if they are heavy files exceeding 10 MB. Thus, people have to find a solution for the same. Programs like http://rapidshare.com, http://megaupload.com, or http://4shared.com to upload the most important and heavy files are helpful. Once you are done with the uploading, you would receive a downloading link. All you have to do is mail the link to solve the entire problem. The main receiver must click on the link to download.

4. Keep a copy of sent items
Saving the mails that have been sent is another good option. To keep the sent items folder enabled always would help you keep a record and not lose any important information ever.
5. Spell Checking
It’s really sad that most of the email sites and programs do not offer the spell check facility like Microsoft Windows Live Mail. Thus, it’s advisable that you are a little cautious about your spellings when one is sending the mails to the big companies. A lot of the typos may change their attitude about you.
6. Use filters for better email management
One must make proper use of filters or even better known as folders. If you receive a lot of mails from many organizations, you may sort them according to your preferences in different folders. Naming the folders by different names would help you locate faster. When all the mails accumulate in one place it gives your inbox a messy look.
7. How to find email addresses
It gets annoying when you cannot find the email addresses of the person you are wanting to mail while sending an email. A Gmail or the Yahoo Mail Beta user would find that easy as the contacts appear when you happen to type in the first or the first two letters of the person you intend to mail, which is extremely convenient. Even Windows Live Mail happens to give you the freedom to check the email address of the person from the icons given next to compose and send column. If the email program that you are using does not help you out here, you may use the sites such as www.four11.com, www.switchboard.com and www.whowhere.com.
Once you follow these seven simple steps, it will help you in the management of your emails which is otherwise a nightmare, especially when have your business at the peak.

by Chitralekha Chakraborty

Customers are left disappointed by the lack of basic knowledge of the goods on sale, lack of initiative and a general failure to ascertain their needs by the customer service providers. Customer satisfaction levels will make or break retailers in the UAE’s new service economy. “The retail sector is fiercely competitive now and will become more so, and it will be service that decides the winners” said Spicer.

Good customer service and retailing need to anticipate customer demands in line with the modern consumer science. “Today’s consumer is more aware than the consumer of five years before, which creates immediate need for staff training and a stronger infrastructure in customer services, which the GCC market really lacks” — Lootah told Gulf News.

Salim Kalsekar Rasasi, perfumes managing director said businesses tend to neglect the fact that they need to maintain “uniform quality across every level of customer service” amid pressures posed by expansion in the retail sector.

“The expansion of the retail sector has put immense pressures on quality of personnel and their attitude management. While it is good to have a fast growing brand, it is equally important to maintain uniform quality across every level of customer service. I think businesses tend to neglect this which undermines their performance in the long run” — Kalsekar said.

Product knowledge and pro-activity levels of staff were relatively low, as 41.0 percent of them did not ask supplementary questions to establish customer needs; 41 percent did not recommend or guide shoppers to a relevant product and 46.2 percent did not check if the customer had the product or information required.

Shoppers reported mixed impressions of staff attitudes, saying 38.1 per cent of the staff did not smile and 22.4 percent were considered unfriendly.

On the bright side, 93.3 percent of the shoppers reported a clean environment and 85.2 percent found the outlet they visited to be clutter-free.

Response times were found to be good, as 71.4 percent of the customers said they were assisted within three minutes of entering an outlet, and 51 percent of those purchasing products were served in less than one minute.

No wonder when you fly on a Chinese airline you will be pampered by flight attendants who look eerily alike. They are young, beautiful and practically the same height. This is not a coffee-tea-or-me stereotype but the result of a rigorous selection process that is more beauty pageant than equal-opportunity job interview.

—    If you are older than 24 don’t bother to apply.
—    If your legs are similar to tree trunks don’t call. Sounds like a throwback to the dark ages of workplace discrimination?
—    In China, the world’s fastest-growing aviation market, entry barriers for flight attendants are not only tolerated – they are flaunted as symbols of excellence.

“A lot of Chinese passengers judge the quality of airlines based on the quality of their flight attendants, meaning, are they pretty or not pretty” Luo Man said, a media director at China Southern, the country’s largest carrier.

Chinese airline officials say their industry is young and that it will take time for the public to move beyond the superficial. Until recently traveling by air was a privilege reserved for government officials and very rich people.

The first flight attendants were picked not so much for their looks as for their political reliability.

But that is changing fast.

As the Chinese get richer, domestic air traffic could soar nearly fivefold in two decades, analysts said. To meet the demand, China will have to buy about 3,400 new aircraft, quadrupling the present fleet and making the nation the second-largest aviation market in the World after the US.

Demand for new flight attendants is so great that a cottage industry of academies promising to produce star-quality cabin crews has emerged. The courses can range from etiquette and psychology to Basic English and geography. Once flight attendants are hired by the airlines, they typically receive additional safety and emergency training.

By Chitralekha Chakraborty

The world is full of slogans, seminars and books that focus on customer service. We understand that excellent customer service increases customer loyalty, which in turn boosts profitability and drives growth. Then why is customer service so often still so poor? It’s a question of moving from attitude to action. This introductory note stresses some hard facts which probe why customer service is still mediocre at best in so many organizations.

What was your latest customer service mantra?
– “The customer is always right.”
– “The customer comes first.”
– “This is the year of the customer.”

Have you had a recent customer appreciation week, given all employees lapel buttons stating “Yes, I can” to reflect their empowered attitude? Most organizations have involved their employees in a slogan or a customer service seminar. Everyone in management has bought and perhaps read the latest books on service. Most of those books, slogans and seminars seem to create the right attitude, yet no meaningful action follows. Words, including these in this piece, don’t create improvements. Informed action does.

The best people and companies know this. They have come to understand the links, connecting excellent customer service, customer loyalty, organizational growth and profitability. They know that the key to their long-term success is changing the organization’s culture to one that prizes customer loyalty.

Although it’s true that service by itself does not guarantee loyalty, without it you greatly reduce your chances of retaining customers — the basis for building and sustaining growth and prosperity of organizations.

In the United States I see three levels of service being delivered. Those three are rude, indifferent and exceptional. Of these three, which do you mostly receive? “Indifferent” gets my vote.

Here’s one of my recent encounters with indifference. While I was renting a car, the customer service agent folded the rental contract, told me how to find my car and in which space, and then said “Thank you, Ms. Ford?” The misstatement indicated robotic, indifferent service. It also told me that this company does not have a culture that values me (and perhaps you) as its customer.

Most organizations are great in processing customers. Very few excel at serving and satisfying customers. We get processed all the time. Go to the bank and make a deposit. In most cases you get exactly what you expect — a correct receipt for your deposit and the amount of money you requested. Had anything occurred to leave you with a positive impression of the bank that would keep you loyal? It may be most unlikely . Perhaps your teller did not acknowledge you by name or thank you. May be the employees talked among themselves.

Exceptional service and satisfaction are required to create loyal customers. The process of being served is what’s memorable. That personalized transaction is the key to customer retention.

Customer service is not enough. Customer satisfaction that leads to loyalty is the goal. “Loyalty” means you retain a customer and increase the business you do with that customer, developing a relationship so this customer will not be lured away to the competition with the promise of a lower price.

Almost everyone knows the research and statistics, a few take the numbers to heart. Research done some years ago tells us it costs five or six times more to attract a new customer than to keep a current one. Experts estimate the cost today as being closer to eight to ten times. Bain & Company reports that if a company retains 5% of its current customer base, its profits will increase between 25% and 125%! Have you noticed how many companies spend their time, money and energy to attract new customers, while doing very little to keep their current customers? Although it’s a fairly common practice, it’s very short-sighted.

Here’s a scenario that has probably happened with you last year. Let’s say it’s 7 o’clock in the evening and you have just sat down to dinner. The telephone rings. You answer and discover it’s just one of the long-distance telephone carriers offering a great deal with plenty of incentives to entice you to become a new customer. You stop the representative and say “Time out! You already are my long-distance carrier.” The rep responds “Oops!!” Then you asked “Well, can I have that deal as an existing customer?” And the answer is “No”. The offer is only for a new customer, and not for you, an established customer.

It’s amazing how few organizations have figured out that marketing to current customers is good business. What about your organization? Does it work as hard to build the loyalty and business of current customers as it does to attract new ones? Write your experiences as a customer or rep — help me to reach closer to customer service in depth.

By Chitralekha Chakraborty

I want to share a little known secret about the value of delivering good service to customers. Yes, it’s good for business and the organization. Yes, you may derive a lot of satisfaction by doing a customer service job well. No question. But what’s the most compelling reason to learn about, and deliver good customer service? It’s this. When you deliver good customer service to your customers, you experience less stress, and less hassle and grief from customers. They argue less. They’re much less likely to insult, and they’re less demanding. They don’t threaten you when they get upset (I’ll have your job!”).

You can save huge amounts of time. One disappointed customer may take up to ten or twenty times more of your time than a satisfied one. And the time spent with the displeased customer is usually not all that much fun. Customer service skills help you keep your happy customers happy, help prevent customers from becoming unhappy and taking out their frustrations on you, and help you deal effectively and quickly with customers who are upset and unhappy.

Every Tuesday I will write about the tools to interact with customers more effectively, so that the company, the customer, and you, the person dealing with the customer, all benefit. PowerIdeaz.com will provide us the space to discuss all those; and here will continue worlds first “Tuesday is the Customer Service Day” Blog. Hence, we will not restrict our discussion only on the principles or platitudes, or handy customer service slogans; rather our focus will also be on ‘doing’.
• What should you do with a customer who is swearing at you?
• What do you do to prevent customers who have waited a long time from getting really angry?
• What do you do to provide advice to customers so it will be heard and appreciated?
We’ll deal with these questions along with solutions.

Next week I’ll cover some basics of customer service; so customer service newbies can increase their understanding of what customers want, and the things that cause customers to hit the roof. We’ll also talk about various types of customers (internal, external, paying and non-paying), and we’ll explain how you can best use customer service techniques.

Far too much customer service training and far too many customer service books tell you only what you already know. Do you really need to be told again that you should smile? Or shake hands? No. But you might find it useful to know when it’s a bad idea to smile at a customer.

So, here’s the bottom line about this “Tuesday is the Customer Service Day” blog: you may come across a few things you already know. But you’ll also come across a number of techniques you probably haven’t thought about. Please do leave comments here with any unique, off the wall, follow-up tactics that have worked for you; and along the way, save yourself a lot of hassle and a lot of grief.