Yesterday I attended an Internet Marketing workshop. The main theme of the workshop was Drop-Shipping, but also included other necessary techniques such as Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), and how to use Pay Per Click (PPC) search engines without going bust.
The information I picked up from the workshop was worth much more than the measly £20 I paid (which included a reasonable lunch).
I'd heard about drop-shipping before. Basically the marketer sets up a website to sell products from a drop-shipping wholesaler. Customers buy from that website, and then the website owner places the order with the drop-shipper at the wholesale price, thus making a profit.
The drop-shipper fulfils the order and ships it to the customer.
So in a nutshell, the only thing that the website owner has to do is market the website and pass on orders to the supplier. In some cases, the ordering could be automated, depending on how the drop-shipper prefers to receive the orders.
If that's the case, the business becomes self-running. All that's required is a little maintenance - changing the items on sale, ensuring that orders are getting through etc.
Everything else is handled by the drop-shipper.
At the workshop, we were shown examples of successful and not so successful drop-ship websites. The least successful one was making about a few hundred dollars a month. Not very good, but not bad for very little effort. And consider this; if a self-running site can earn $300 per month, think what 10 or more of those sites would do.
I'm now looking at drop-ship suppliers in the UK, although they don't have to be UK based of course. Any drop-shipper that will post internationally is a potential supplier.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Widen the scope
Once people start getting into Internet Marketing (IM), they discover the merits of putting Adsense units on their pages. After all, if they can earn some money just by giving up a small amount of space on their pages, why not?
A recurring, passive income. Add the code once and leave it.
What these people often fail to consider is that Adsense is not the only scheme out there. Yahoo! can supply similar context-sensitive ads in some areas.
There's also Amazon. See the left-hand column for an example of a context-sensitive Amazon ad.
Personally I have made more money from my Amazon Associates links than from Google Adsense.
I have Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk Associate IDs, so I can target a wider market.
A recurring, passive income. Add the code once and leave it.
What these people often fail to consider is that Adsense is not the only scheme out there. Yahoo! can supply similar context-sensitive ads in some areas.
There's also Amazon. See the left-hand column for an example of a context-sensitive Amazon ad.
Personally I have made more money from my Amazon Associates links than from Google Adsense.
I have Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk Associate IDs, so I can target a wider market.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
Forget Alexa - Concentrate on Google
After some 2 weeks of no updates in Alexa ranks of the sites that I monitor, I'm now seeing some very strange things happening.
The ranks of many of the sites have plummetted by around 1 million places. One has fallen 3.5 million places, and another has dropped off the face of the earth as far as Alexa is concerned and has gone from a rank of 4.4 million to No Data, which is a fall of at least 5.6 million places.
And as on a few occasions before, one of my sites gets a different rank depending upon which page you visit.
I guess it's possible that these positions are a result of my robot visiting he sites every day, but it's unlikely.
Anyway, after a short discussion about Alexa on a forum, I've decided it's not really worth bothering about, and I shall be uninstalling the Alexa toolbar.
A week or so ago, I saw the August 2007 results for search engine popularity. Google wins hands down. Of 61 billion searches worldwide, 37 billion were handled by Google. That's more than the other search engines put together.
From today, I'm just going to concentrate on getting my sites highly ranked in Google.
The ranks of many of the sites have plummetted by around 1 million places. One has fallen 3.5 million places, and another has dropped off the face of the earth as far as Alexa is concerned and has gone from a rank of 4.4 million to No Data, which is a fall of at least 5.6 million places.
And as on a few occasions before, one of my sites gets a different rank depending upon which page you visit.
I guess it's possible that these positions are a result of my robot visiting he sites every day, but it's unlikely.
Anyway, after a short discussion about Alexa on a forum, I've decided it's not really worth bothering about, and I shall be uninstalling the Alexa toolbar.
A week or so ago, I saw the August 2007 results for search engine popularity. Google wins hands down. Of 61 billion searches worldwide, 37 billion were handled by Google. That's more than the other search engines put together.
From today, I'm just going to concentrate on getting my sites highly ranked in Google.
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Internet Marketing Workshop
Last night I attended an Internet Marketing seminar. In actual fact, it wasn't so much of a seminar as an introduction to Internet Marketing (IM) and a commercial for a 1-day IM Workshop.
That wasn't so bad - the seminar was free, they fed us, and the workshop is only £20 for two people. The reason it's so cheap is that they make money out of hosting and providing programming and eCommerce solutions, which they try to sell as part of the workshop.
I already have eCommerce solutions in place and I'm a programmer by profession, so I'm just going for the tuition.
It takes place in about 2 weeks time. It's going to be interesting to hear what they say.
They claim that using their techniques, you can get a top spot in Google within 3 days of launching a site.
I suspect that there's a trick involved - it probably only works if you choose their hosting package (maybe your site ends up as a sub-domain of their site, which already has a good Google Page Rank.
We shall see.
During the seminar, they did give me a tip which might help improve my site Google ranking. The answer is "Give something away for free".
If you're competing against others for the same market, give the customers something free. On my eBooks and software sites that's easy. I have several little utility programs that would not command a high price. They would make excellent giveaways.
I think I need to do a bit of redesign on The Cafetorium. It could really use an intro on the front page, with news of special offers etc.
Have to dig deep into that PHP code and see what I can do.
That wasn't so bad - the seminar was free, they fed us, and the workshop is only £20 for two people. The reason it's so cheap is that they make money out of hosting and providing programming and eCommerce solutions, which they try to sell as part of the workshop.
I already have eCommerce solutions in place and I'm a programmer by profession, so I'm just going for the tuition.
It takes place in about 2 weeks time. It's going to be interesting to hear what they say.
They claim that using their techniques, you can get a top spot in Google within 3 days of launching a site.
I suspect that there's a trick involved - it probably only works if you choose their hosting package (maybe your site ends up as a sub-domain of their site, which already has a good Google Page Rank.
We shall see.
During the seminar, they did give me a tip which might help improve my site Google ranking. The answer is "Give something away for free".
If you're competing against others for the same market, give the customers something free. On my eBooks and software sites that's easy. I have several little utility programs that would not command a high price. They would make excellent giveaways.
I think I need to do a bit of redesign on The Cafetorium. It could really use an intro on the front page, with news of special offers etc.
Have to dig deep into that PHP code and see what I can do.
Monday, October 15, 2007
New domains now online
My new host has managed to fix the problems I was experiencing and my new domains are now online.
The first domain, The Articles pages, is a kind of Article Site Directory.
The next domain will be a Blog which will be related to the Directory site. This is because it is much easier to promote blogs and get them in the search engines than any other type of website.
The third domain, will be an article site. These are becoming well known as a medium for making a fair bit of money. I'm all for that!
PS. It's now 13 days since the Alexa ranks changed on any of my sites.
The first domain, The Articles pages, is a kind of Article Site Directory.
The next domain will be a Blog which will be related to the Directory site. This is because it is much easier to promote blogs and get them in the search engines than any other type of website.
The third domain, will be an article site. These are becoming well known as a medium for making a fair bit of money. I'm all for that!
PS. It's now 13 days since the Alexa ranks changed on any of my sites.
Friday, October 12, 2007
Alexa is still driving me crazy
It is now 11 days since there was any change in the Alexa ranks of any of the sites I monitor. (Several of those sites do not belong to me - I monitor them as a sort of control against which to compare my own sites)
I guess as the number of sites in the Alexa database increases, the longer it will take to recalculate the stats, so this could actually get worse. let's hope that Alexa introduce some more processing power to cope with it.
The project I'm currently working on is designed to rise through the Google ranks as quickly as possible. It will be interesting to see whether this is reflected in the Alexa ranks. However, as Alexa is based only on visits by Alexa toolbar users, there might not be any correlation between them.
I guess as the number of sites in the Alexa database increases, the longer it will take to recalculate the stats, so this could actually get worse. let's hope that Alexa introduce some more processing power to cope with it.
The project I'm currently working on is designed to rise through the Google ranks as quickly as possible. It will be interesting to see whether this is reflected in the Alexa ranks. However, as Alexa is based only on visits by Alexa toolbar users, there might not be any correlation between them.
Yet another false start
Well I set off with all good intentions to get my latest project off the ground.
I planned how I was going to do it, and was going to work through it methodically.
The first task was to register some domains, which I did with no problems. It's something I've done numerous times before, and it's very straightforward.
The next task was to find a new host for some of these domains. The reason for this is part of SEO (search engine optimisation). I want to link various domains together, but the search engines see this as a blatant attempt to exploit external links if both linked sites have the same C Class IP address. (See the end of this post for a quick description of IP address classes)
So, I found a new host and my account was created. Then I set my new domain's DNS to point to that host's servers and waited for it all to come online.
Still no sign of it. Even before all the DNS are updated, the account Control Panel should work, but it's not letting me log in.
The hosting reseller is aware of the problem and doing everything he can to sort out the problem, but it is a little frustrating.
I can not proceed with the rest of my plan until those domains are online.
If it doesn't happen soon, I may have to cancel this hosting account and move elsewhere.
I planned how I was going to do it, and was going to work through it methodically.
The first task was to register some domains, which I did with no problems. It's something I've done numerous times before, and it's very straightforward.
The next task was to find a new host for some of these domains. The reason for this is part of SEO (search engine optimisation). I want to link various domains together, but the search engines see this as a blatant attempt to exploit external links if both linked sites have the same C Class IP address. (See the end of this post for a quick description of IP address classes)
So, I found a new host and my account was created. Then I set my new domain's DNS to point to that host's servers and waited for it all to come online.
Still no sign of it. Even before all the DNS are updated, the account Control Panel should work, but it's not letting me log in.
The hosting reseller is aware of the problem and doing everything he can to sort out the problem, but it is a little frustrating.
I can not proceed with the rest of my plan until those domains are online.
If it doesn't happen soon, I may have to cancel this hosting account and move elsewhere.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Getting down to business
Over the past few months I've had a few false starts to various online business ideas. This has usually been due to pressures of work and family, and the fact that I'm also trying to renovate a house.
I have now decided to knuckle down and get one of my ideas implemented, working through it methodically from beginning to end.
A while back, I noticed a huge increase in article sites. It wasn't until I set one up myself that I realised that they can be big money-spinners with Google AdSense.
However, my site was all static HTML pages, so it was a real chore to maintain. Consequently, my article site has stalled and its popularity has dwindled.
Over the last few weeks I've been getting into PHP which can make website maintenance so much easier. So, I am now going to set up a new article site at The Articles Site, using PHP and a mySQL database.
I'm not going to rush into this - I believe that's another reason why I've had only a little success with my past efforts.
So, visit The Articles Site regularly to see it evolve.
(By the way, for anyone who's been following this blog, you will have spotted the fact that I've deliberately put the URL of the new site in this post in a blatent attempt to get it into Google as fast as possible. This is despite the fact that there is currently no content on the site. Google will simply log the URL at this time, but as the content increases, should begin to love it)
I have now decided to knuckle down and get one of my ideas implemented, working through it methodically from beginning to end.
A while back, I noticed a huge increase in article sites. It wasn't until I set one up myself that I realised that they can be big money-spinners with Google AdSense.
However, my site was all static HTML pages, so it was a real chore to maintain. Consequently, my article site has stalled and its popularity has dwindled.
Over the last few weeks I've been getting into PHP which can make website maintenance so much easier. So, I am now going to set up a new article site at The Articles Site, using PHP and a mySQL database.
I'm not going to rush into this - I believe that's another reason why I've had only a little success with my past efforts.
So, visit The Articles Site regularly to see it evolve.
(By the way, for anyone who's been following this blog, you will have spotted the fact that I've deliberately put the URL of the new site in this post in a blatent attempt to get it into Google as fast as possible. This is despite the fact that there is currently no content on the site. Google will simply log the URL at this time, but as the content increases, should begin to love it)
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