Donna Knight's Internet Marketing Tools and Reviews

Category: Articles

Articles by Donna Knight

  • The 5 Reasons Why You *Must* Get Into the Software Industry Today

    by Mike Chen

    No matter what industry you’re in, it’s absolute vital that youeither sell software or offer free software to your customers.

    By the time you are done reading this article, you willunderstand why.

    1. “It’s the Product, Stupid”

    No amount of marketing “how to” is going to make up for not having a killer product.People are sick of being told how to do it. They want somethingthat will “do it” for them.Software does just that … It *does* things for people.Stop trying to sell “how to” and start selling instant solutions.That’s where the real money is.

    2. Downloadable Viral Marketing Tools

    OK, so you don’t want to sell software. Fair enough.You’re crazy if you don’t use software as a viral marketing tool.Many of the largest lists o­n the Internet were built using freesoftware downloads as an enticement for subscribing.You can easily add viral twists to these tools and beforeyou know it hundreds or even thousands of sites could beoffering your free software – becoming virtual newslettersubscriber magnets.What if you created just o­ne new tool like that a week?How big would your list be inside of 6 months?

    3. Create Value-Added Customer Helper Apps

    What if you were to create applications that simply added value to your existing products and services? How much higher would your customer satisfaction be if you created various software tools to teach, train, support, or otherwise help your customers? How many more sales would that added customer satisfaction generate for you without any additional effort year after year?

    4. Upsell Products

    As you probably know, selling new products to existing customers is the easiest way in the world to make money.It’s 5 times easier to sell to an existing customer than it is toacquire a new o­ne.Why not create new products using “Make Your Own Software” and sell them to your existing customer base?Instant profits.

    5. Highest Profit Margins in the World

    Electrons are free. If you’re selling an instantly downloadable product, your product fulfillment costs are virtually nil. Plus, in the software industry there is no inventory to manage,so it’s probably the easiest business in the world to manage aswell.

    ****************************************************************
    Mike Chen was o­ne of the pioneers of the software security industry and is a widely respected Internet Marketing expert. Mike’s newest product, “Make Your Own Software,” allows even those who don’t know a single line of code to create software programs instantly.

    EDITOR’S NOTE: “Make Your Own Software” has my highest rating. http://www.makeyourownsoftware.com/main.art
    ****************************************************************

  • Eight Strategies to Do Google AdWords The Smart Way

    By Donna Knight

    So, you’ve tried all the other marketing techniques you have read about, and you’re now ready to work some of that pay per click magic. What you may not know is that this form of online wizardry needs more than just a sleight of hand. It requires careful planning and a good sense of what should be expected.

    I’m talking about Google AdWords. This is a advertising system that allows you to advertise your site through a short ad that is displayed prominently in every page of a Google search performed on keywords relevant to your business. Your ad is just like a tiny classified ad. The way it works is that advertisers like yourself bid on certain keywords. The winner of the bid gets his link shown at the top of the page on every query that contains the winning keywords.

    Unlike other pay-per-click systems such as Overture, the bid price is not the only consideration in awarding keywords. Your Click-Through Rate, or CTR, also plays an important factor in the rank of your ad. CTR is acquired by dividing the number of times a user clicks on your link whenever it appears on search engine results by the number of impressions. An impression is whenever your site’s ad appears in a search query. For example, suppose your site’s ad appears 200 times in several searches. Your impression would be 200. Suppose also that 2 users click on your ad during this period, your CTR would be 2/200, or 1%.

    The best thing about AdWords is that the winner of the bid only has to pay when a user actually clicks on his link. This method has given birth to the term Pay Per Click, or PPC. This is much less expensive than paying per impression, like advertisers did in the early days on the internet.

    Here are some strategies to help you develop a strong AdWords marketing campaign.

    1. RESEARCH YOUR KEYWORDS WELL. If you have an existing business, make sure that the keywords you choose are commonly searched words or phrases that people type in their search queries. If you have yet to set up a business, make sure that the keywords you are considering are actually profitable, meaning, they cater to a market with a high demand, also known as a “hungry market.”.

    2. CONSIDER CREATING MULTIPLE ADS FOR EVERY KEYWORD. By having several ads appearing for the same search query, you would be able to determine which works best. The ad that performs best should be used as a control for subsequent ads to try to beat.

    3. SET A BUDGET YOU’RE WILLING TO SPEND PER DAY. Google allows you to set a cap on the number of hits you could generate in a day. Study your budget and come up with a ceiling that would not eat up a major portion of your projected earnings.

    4. WRITE YOUR ADS WELL. Ad writing is not a place to get sloppy. The quality of your ad affects your clickthroughs. Use words that will attract the readers’ attention. The words should be powerful without being full of hype. The length of your ad is very limited, so don’t write more than you need to, but make sure you mention the benefits of what you’re advertising.

    5. ALWAYS STUDY YOUR ADS. Even if your ads have a high ranking on Google’s search pages and are producing a passable CTR, you should always take time to study and refine your ads. Changing their structure from time to time would also help in winning back the attention of those who have viewed them before. Get rid of ads that are not performing well and create new ones.

    6. CHECK OUT THE COMPETITION. Check the high-ranking ads of those competing for the same keywords. You should never copy but looking at competitor’s high-ranking ads will give you an idea of what the target market is looking for. If the competitor’s ads are the top, that means they are saying to your potential customers what they want to hear.

    7. TRACK YOUR ADS. There are many tools available on the net that would allow you to track which of your ads produce the most visitors. These tools will help you a lot in weeding out non-performing ads and discovering a pattern that makes your successful ones tick.

    8. DESIGN NOW, ADJUST LATER. Since Google considers CTR before awarding top listing for a keyword, it is important that you produce a site that is rich with informative content. Content is what attracts visitors and increases your site’s sales conversion. Once you have a high listing for a keyword and your ads are producing a consistent number of hits, you could adjust the sales copy on your landing page to try to convert more of your visitors into successful sales. Great sales copy can also be informative despite being a sales pitch.

    It is said that Google AdWords levels the playing field between rich and poor advertisers. This does not mean it is easy and inexpensive. What it means is that while corporate advertisers play it dumb because they have large sums of money to waste on advertising, you can win the competition against them by playing it smart and following some simple precautions.

    Donna Knight is a Computer Trainer and Website Promotion Specialist. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time in your online marketing efforts, visit her Internet Marketing Tools blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com

    Copyright (C)2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • Five Simple Ways To Make the Search Engines Stand Up and Take Notice of Your Website

    By Donna Knight

    You’ve got a hot new website with all the bells and whistles: cool Flash presentations, eye-catching colors, informative text, easy-to-maneuver layout, and an interesting topic. You think your site is amazing, and you know that others will agree with you. If only they know it existed.

    How do you let others know about your site? How do you make yours stand out amongst millions of sites? You can spend lots of money on advertising, but that’s a catch 22. You can buy expensive advertising because you haven’t made any money yet. So what do you do? Make search engines work for you, that’s what!

    You want your website to be a shining star on Google, Yahoo, MSN, Lycos, AltaVista – That means getting at the top of their results for your targeted keywords. The higher your site is in a search results, the more visitors you will get. The science behind getting a top rank on search engines is called Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Don’t worry, though – even if SEO is referred to as a science, you can still get good results without hiring a $5000 a month SEO expert. You just need to follow some simple steps, and before you know it, your site will have more visitors than you can shake a stick at.

    Here are five tips to maximize your search engine ranking on as many search engines as possible:

      1. Content is more important than appearance.

    Do you want to share your knowledge on a subject that you have authority on? Do you want to sell your products? Do you want to build an online shrine for your favorite actor? For whatever topic you have chosen for your website, make sure you give useful information. Search engines determine relevance of the sites listed by work by scanning sites for keywords. All they care about is the text on your site. They don’t care about your high-tech flash or other graphics. In fact, most can’t even see flash. Rich content is much more important than rich colors. While graphics on your site should be professional-looking, they are not as important to visitors as you think they are. Nice graphics may impress people once, but great content makes them come back. There’s a common saying that you should live by: content is king!

      2. Master your topic

    If you know your topic well, you will already know what questions people have about it. The keywords people use to search for information on search engines are related to the question they have about it. When you are maximizing keywords on your site, try to picture what keywords people will type into a search engine when looking for that particular topic. Make sure your site gives answers to those questions. If you are selling a product from your site, keep in mind people search for information. If your site feeds their hunger for that information, they will be more likely to buy your related product.

      3. Learn from other people’s success

    Take time to browse and read sites that get lots of visitors and have the same topic as yours. Take note of any recurring phrases in these sites’ text. These phrases are most likely keywords. Incorporate them in your own site’s content. Don’t saturate your site with keywords, though. You can actually get penalized in your ranking for having a keyword too many times on your site. A 3% keyword density is enough.

    In searching for the right keywords, use Overture’s keyword tool at http://inventor.overture.com. This tool tells you the actual keywords and related keywords people actually did search for last month. The benefit is you’re no longer guessing in your keyword research. Your prediction about what people will search for is based on historical information about real searches people have performed.

      4. Submit…and re-submit

    You will never get a certain job if you don’t send in your application for it. The same thing applies to SEO. If you want your site to be recognized by search engines, then go out of your way to register your site with them. After a couple of weeks, search for your site by putting in the keywords you used in your content. If your site is still not coming up in the search results, don’t give up. Just re-register and resubmit your site. It can take as many as 6 months to get listed in some search engines despite your best efforts. This usually happens because a lot of submissions are done on a particular day.

      5. Constantly update your site

    Google recently released information on the algorithm they use for ranking. One thing they mention is rank can be boosted by having constantly updated information. This is not only true for Google. Yahoo also will re-visit sites with constantly updated content more often. If you add a blog and post something to it–preferably keyword-rich content–search engines will like your site even more. Blog software that many expert bloggers use is WordPress, which you can get at http://www.wordpress.org.

    I have to admit that tip #5 is the most valuable tip. Even if the content on your site is mediocre, constantly updating it will make the search engines take notice and keep paying attention to your website.
    ***********************************************************
    Donna Knight is a Website Promotion Specialist and
    Website Builder. She has built over 200 websites and
    helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time in your online marketing efforts, visit her Internet Marketing Tools blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
    ***********************************************************
    Copyright (C)2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved.
    Permission granted to post this article in newsletters,
    free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource
    box remain intact.
    ***********************************************************

  • How Can I Find A Niche?

    By Donna Knight

    Here’s o­ne idea for finding a profitable niche. Most internet marketers tell you to find a subject that you love or are passionate about, but here’s what I think. I take the advice of “sell what you love” with a grain of salt. While I have lots of passions, some I wouldn’t want to make money from.

    For example, while I’ve spent about 11 years troubleshooting computer problems, there’s no way I want to use those troubleshooting skills online in some way. It would still be hourly labor and it’s labor-intensive work. A better solution would be for me to sell computer-related infoproducts to help people fix their own computer problems, if they’re inclined to do so.

    If you think of yourself as a marketer rather than as someone who sells xyz product, you can find a niche that is potentially profitable ( use http://www.nichebot.com which tells you potential profitability) and learn what you don’t know about it.

    Another underutilized source for niche ideas… If you have any ebook collections, I think they’re a goldmine, and not for the reasons people think. If you look at the o­nes that include special reports–Take for example Free to Sell–If you don’t have it, I’m sure you’ll find it for $2 o­n Ebay. There is the Ebusiness Encyclopedia which has dozens of reports you can resell. Now these reports may be outdated but they give you dozens of potential niche market ideas.

    Plus you’re allowed to take the reports that are there and add to them. And you can do your research right o­n the web to expand this information into an ebook.

    Some examples:
    Catering Business
    Used CD & Video Store
    Child Care Business
    Local Tour Operator
    Show & Seminar Promotions
    Limousine Service
    Janitorial Contracting Business
    Auto Detailing Business
    Party Plan Sales (350 searches for how to be a party planner o­n Overture)
    Bed & Breakfast (487 people searched for how to start a Bed & Breakfast o­n Overture last month)

    Okay those are all business-related, but that’s because I took them from o­nly o­ne of the 20 report collections. Despite how outdated these reports may be, there are hundreds of people searching for information o­n these businesses o­n Overture alone. I suspect that’s because the person(s) who wrote these reports knew this information was in demand at the time, and it still is!

    I hope that helps you come up with your some potential niche ideas to start with. Then you can narrow it down to the o­nes that interest you the most. In my mind, coming up with a niche idea isn’t as hard as choosing o­ne and getting started.
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    Donna Knight is a Website Promotion Specialist and Website Builder. She has built over 200 websites and helps new site owners promote their site cheaply. For tips that will help you save money and save time in your online marketing efforts, visit her Internet Marketing Tools blog at http://www.DonnaKnight.com
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    Copyright (C)2005 Donna Knight. All Rights Reserved. Permission granted to post this article in newsletters, free ebooks or websites as long as the article and resource box remain intact.

  • Reducing to the Ridiculous

    By Armand Morin

    As I was getting ready to go to bed the other night, I was watching o­ne of those late night infomercials.

    It was another o­ne of those weight loss/exercise programs that claimed it has been a secret to the stars for 50 years.

    As I was watching, lightning struck me!
    They stated the same thing every other ad states except in a different way.

    Here is what they said:

    “After 20 times you will notice a difference and after 30 times your friends will notice a difference.”

    Now, look at what they really said.

    You are suppose to use the system 3 times a week for 10 weeks.

    3 times a week for 10 weeks sounds like a lot to me but doing it o­nly 30 times for noticeable difference sounds pretty simple. Even I can do that!

    All of a sudden I started thinking of making a countdown board with 30 and then reducing that down by o­ne each time I worked out. I thought, this is awesome.

    I didn’t buy the product but it did make me think.

    I started thinking of the power their simple explanation really had and how I can apply that to my business.

    I was always taught in sales, you must reduce the price to such a small amount that it would be ridiculous for a prospect not to buy.

    So I started thinking. If a person bought my eCover software for example and used it 10 times, that means they just reduced their effective cost from $97 for a cover to just $9.70. If they used it 100 times though their cost would o­nly be $.97 for each cover they created.

    Pretty neat huh? I just told my prospects that the price is not $97 it is o­nly $.97 per cover! That certainly sounds a lot better and more affordable! Plus it makes sense.

    How can you apply this to your business?

    Ask yourself, how much can a person save each time they use my product?

    or What does it really cost to use my product?

    How much time and energy can my product save my customers?

    How much more money would my customers have spent if they did not have my product.

    Your product doesn’t have to be software, information products work the same way. Diet products are great products for this formula to work with.

    Lose weight for o­nly $.34 a pound!

    Think about your product and reduce it to the ridiculous!

    =========================================================

    About Armand Morin

    Armand Morin has been o­nline since 1996 and has sold millions of dollars o­n and offline. His latest products cater specifically to the ebook industry. Two of his more well known products are www.ebookgenerator.com and www.ecovergenerator.com the first ecover software.