Friday night is nearly here, so I’d like to put out an invitation to join us at Live Marketing Chat this Friday at 8:00 pm Eastern (7:00 Central, 6:00 Mountain, and 5:00 Pacific). If you miss us on Friday, the chat also runs on Saturday night (same start time). These chats last until late into the night, and really get going later in the evening. Feel free to drop in at anytime.

Why should you join a marketing chat? Well…

The idea of making your living online can be exciting and seductive, but there are pitfalls. And there’s a lot of misinformation available, some free and some for sale, that can get your business off on the wrong foot.

If you’re new to online marketing, how do you know what is solid information, and what is outdated or black hat tactics that can go so far as to get your site banned from the search engine results? By taking advantage of the experience of successful marketers.

And you’ll find plenty of experienced marketers at LMC, so come and join us.

  • Have some fun.
  • Make new friends.
  • Learn something new.
  • Get some fresh ideas.

Live Marketing Chat strives to be a family-friendly environment, so there is a Code of Conduct to follow… Nothing a professional would balk at–but there’s always the “class clown”, so we wrote down the rules.

The main thing to remember is to log in using your First and Last name, as a courtesy to the other folks in the room.  (You don’t need a password.)  We may try to coax you into telling us a bit about yourself, but there won’t be any pressure. You can just hang out and listen if that is more comfortable for you.

I hope to see you there!

Internet Marketing Chat Rooms

Author: Anita Cross

Thanks to TV and movies, many of us have a lopsided view of what an online chat room is. At it’s most basic, a chat room is an online conference whose features are limited by the software and host providing the service. In spite of the potential for abuse, an online chat can be an excellent way for people with a common interest to share information.

I’ve recently been introduced to the world of Internet Marketing Chat Rooms, meeting a number of fellow marketers who are willing to share their successes and their failures for the benefit of the overall community. While no one solution is right for every product or situation, hanging out at a marketing chat room can give you many ideas to test with your site.

But like most things in life, not all marketing chat rooms are created equal.

When A Good Idea Goes Bad

Leaving the details for another time, perhaps, I’d like to share my first experience with a marketing chat room, where I had been invited by a regular member to come in and talk about a project I was working on.

This particular chat was run by two men, let’s call them Pro and Con. After taking the mic and explaining my project and posting the URL, the various members went to the project site, and came back with ideas and suggestions.

Unfortunately, Con owns this particular chat, and monopolized the mic for the most part. While other marketers used the chat window to type in their comments, Con was busy finding fault with everything, from the header graphic (created from a NASA photo… “cheap clip art”) to the background colors, and everything in between. He even “dissed” my professionally created logo, saying I needed to have my logo professionally created!

Pro, on the other hand, when he was able to take the mic, made a number of useful recommendations. It was obvious to me Pro, and the rest of the marketers present, only wanted to help me improve the site.

It turns out that Con had been drinking a lot that night, and once he realized he had chased me away, he told those who were still there that he was “only yanking her chain” to see how I would react. Not very professional of him at all.

All’s Well That Ends Well

It also turns out that my experience was not an isolated incident. At some point, well after my experience, Pro decided he did not want to be associated with the chat owned by Con, so he started his own. I was invited to this new chat and I took a chance.

I’m glad I did. Now you’ll find me there nearly every Friday and Saturday night.

It can be fun, with good-natured banter going back and forth; it can be serious, with site critiques or mastermind quality conversations. While sometimes the moderators need to rein in a participant or two, the overall atmosphere is positive and there is a lot of good marketing information to be found.

Equally important, there is the opportunity to make new friends who understand what you are doing, what you are attempting to create, and what you are going through to reach your goals. Family and friends, while well meaning, can often undermine your efforts with their comments. It’s really helpful to have a place to go that counteracts the negative with positive reinforcement that making an income online is achievable, not only for everyone else, but for you as well.

Where Have All The Flowers Gone?

Author: Anita Cross

Or more accurately, where has all the time gone? It is so easy to get caught up in the day to day details of running a business, and just as easy to put off adding something to a blog. Any blog.

Well, I had to switch my Blogger blog over to something else if I wanted to continue to host it on my own website. I chose WordPress, as many of my colleagues use it, and swear by it. I chose a free template that didn’t seem to represent anything in particular, and then I converted everything over. One of these days, I’ll work on creating my own template, something less abstract.

Once I put up the new WordPress version of the blog, I started getting automated comments. Oh My!

I moderate all comments, so none of the junk went live, but it was annoying to get two or three a day. No one even pretended to be on topic!

So I spent more time, instead of actually blogging, setting up an add-on that prevents most automated comments without being a deterrent to humans. I still moderate, but now the comments come in sporadically. Sadly, I’m now getting humans that seem to think they can say anything and it will go live. Tsk, tsk.

So here’s a quick run-down of my comment policy: I’m not going to put up comments about pharmacy sites. Or gambling sites. Or… you get the idea. And I won’t link to any site that Google would deem a bad neighborhood. Nor will I put up any links to an affiliate product. Not that it would particularly help anyone any way. The links will all be “nofollow”!

On the other hand, add value to my blog by commenting on the topic of the post: present your opinion, whether you agree or disagree; include URLs to other discussions on the same topic, whether it’s a wiki, blog, or even static page; Keep it clean and family friendly. Do that, and I’ll probably approve your comment.

Simply put, I reserve the right to approve, or decline, any comment on this site for any reason. :)

I have an official Comment Policy here, about half-way down the page. If any one is interested.

‘Til next time.

Have you heard of Simpleology? Maybe you’ve heard of Mark Joyner?

Well, if you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. Mark has been involved in Marketing via the internet as long as, if not longer than, any other Internet Marketer worth his/her salt. Mark is small on hype, and big on value. So…

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

Then meet me here, if you’d like, for an honest discussion of what’s right–and what’s wrong–with Simpleology’s foray into blogger training.

"Build It And They Will Come"

Author: Anita Cross

A line straight out of the delightful Kevin Costner film, “Field of Dreams”, just doesn’t apply in the online world. Or does it?

I can’t begin to count the number of times I have seen the line quoted, by experts and novices alike, as they point out such a thing only happens in the movies. Having built and marketed web sites since the mid-1990′s, I tend to agree.

So imagine my surprise when I found a site I had yet to develop had received five orders over the summer!

Let’s back up a bit. Nearly two years ago, I decided to sell a product I loved, but couldn’t seem to find from anyone but the manufacturer (who was only selling the product wholesale at the time.) I purchase several cases of the product wholesale, created business card magnets at VistaPrint, and set up an osCommerce install on the new domain. I put up a splash page saying “future home of…” and then started to work on developing my new site.

Shortly after that, I found out I had to have cataract surgery in both eyes.

I had the surgeries, about two weeks apart, and found I was unable to complete any web site work during the recovery period. Staring at the computer monitor was downright painful, especially between surgeries! By the time I was able to work again, I was behind on my obligations. My new web site had to go on the back burner.

Fast-forward to September this year. After having issues with my dedicated server, I upgraded my host managing software to the latest version. While cleaning up the inevitable loose ends, I discovered several emails for this web site I had never finished developing, including the five orders.

I built it. They came. They bought the product.

Does that prove we’ve been wrong all this time? I don’t think so. What I believe this does prove is the right product, with limited availability, will sell itself. With no page rank and only one IBL, (that I know of,) I’m getting traffic from organic search results. And sales.

What is it? Simply Silk™, an organic silk plant cleaner. Simply Silk is superior to any other brand I’ve ever tried, and apparently a lot of other folks feel the same way. (The product description for the 32 oz. bottle was “yada”, I kid you not.) Needless to say, I went in and fixed up the site.

If you want to get an idea of what it looked like “before”, check out the demo of osCommerce. The “after” is a much abbreviated site that only sells Simply Silk, Silk Plant Cleaner.

Money Back Guarantee…

Author: Anita Cross

…No questions asked. The authors of Membership Superstars were true to their word.

There was a little glitch, however. I had to ask twice!

I had received a welcome letter, so to request my refund I simply hit the “reply” button in my email program. That request was returned with the failure notice “Sorry, no mailbox here by that name.”

I’d like to think it was an oversight, and the email address now exists. Still, it did leave me wondering if I’d made a big mistake trusting these guys in the first place.

Not to worry. I found another address with the email payment receipt. I re-sent my original request to the new address and within 24 hours I received a Refund Confirmation from ClickBank.

The product may not be right for me, but it appears the guys behind it are trustworthy.

I am so disappointed!

I just pulled out my credit card for a $97 set of videos called Membership Superstars. (There’s a limited time offer of $50 off, so I only paid $47, but it may be full price by the time you read this post.) The promise is to give you the nitty-gritty details of how to do membership sites right, and make lots of money at it.

I’ve been wanting to do a membership site for 2-3 years, but haven’t had the time to develop it using a CMS (content management system) product. I figured these videos would have a specific software program in mind, but I wasn’t expecting what I got.

These videos are essentially a tutorial for using a specific product. A product which is only available if you sign up for a monthly service. A monthly service from the guy selling the videos, (of course.)

The real problem with this is the membership software is not available as a standalone product. It’s bundled into a high end package consisting of a collection of software products designed to help you with your ecommerce site.

There are three packages available, but the least expensive package doesn’t include the membership software. In order to access the membership software the tutorial is for, it will cost a minimum of $99.95 each and every month! That’s more than I pay for my dedicated server!

I guess my age is showing. I still think of $100 as being a healthy chunk of change. But then, I can remember when a candy bar cost a nickel and a popsicle was 7 cents. My first minimum wage job paid $1.80 an hour…

Anyway, if you are interested in doing membership sites and you don’t have a problem with paying for the tutorial plus $100 a month for the suite of services, over and above your hosting fees, this may be the program for you. If so, you can access the sales page here: Membership Superstars. (This is not an affiliate link.) On the other hand, if you’re not up for the additional monthly charges, don’t waste your time and money buying the videos.

My next step? I’m going to take them up on their “100% Risk Free On My Dime Guarantee” and ask for my money back.

I’ll let you know how that turns out.

Last night, members of BlogRush received the following letter from John Reese, the brains behind this great new service. He gave his permission to post the complete letter on member blogs, so here it is.

I think once you see how committed John is to building a reputable, useful, traffic generating service, you will be convinced to sign up for BlogRush too.


TO: All BlogRush Members
FROM: John Reese, Founder of BlogRush

ARE YOU READY? Because *everything* is about to change. Forget everything else up until now…

PREPARE FOR *BIG* CHANGES! (TWO MAJOR CHANGES ARE NOW LIVE.)

BlogRush CAN’T EXIST if we’re not sending you a lot of ongoing, targeted traffic. We fully recognize this and that’s why this is our ONLY FOCUS.

The BlogRush team has been hard at work making major improvements for you and we won’t rest until BlogRush is running 100% smoothly and sending you tons of targeted traffic! This is OUR MISSION. Please know that our entire team is working around-the-clock to make improvements and fix any problems AS FAST AS HUMANLY POSSIBLE.

(We sincerely appreciate your patience.)

We’ve encountered some problems since our historic launch just over a week ago, and we fully recognize that we’ve made some real ‘goofs’ with the system for our Public Beta release…

For example, our data center provider (one of the largest in the world) had a short, temporary outage (they had to replace a network switch) two days after our launch. We had no control over this outage but want to SINCERELY APOLOGIZE to those that saw this message on their blogs (where the widget should have been):

“We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site will be back online shortly. Please come back in a few minutes.”

We were completely *EMBARRASSED* when we realized this happened. That simple message was part of our application code and was meant to appear only on *OUR* WEB SITE PAGES if we ever experienced an outage. This was accidentally ‘marked’ to be a global error message for ANY outage — including if our widget ever had a problem loading. This was a major GOOF and we’re willing to admit it. Our code was planned so that in the case of a problem with our widget, NOTHING WOULD LOAD in its place. So a visitor to your blog doesn’t see an error or anything wrong should the widget ever have any technical issues.

This was quickly corrected and is now working properly. Should the widget ever have any problem loading in the future, your blog will be served a transparent space (which will show whatever background your blog design has) and your blog readers won’t really notice anything.

Again, our sincere apologies for our major goof. It was quite embarrassing.

NOW ONTO SOME SERIOUS ISSUES…

We also realize that we completely underestimated the number of unethical people that would sign up and proceed to CHEAT and try to ‘game’ the BlogRush system. These cheaters ruined the click-rates of many of our members (and burned through a lot of their credits using automated ‘exploit’ methods) and hurt BlogRush’s ability to send maximum traffic to our honest members’ blogs.

BUT ALL OF THAT IS ABOUT TO BE ERASED… LIKE IT NEVER HAPPENED.

In the next several days to come, we’re going to be rolling out MAJOR changes to BlogRush. BIG changes. And these changes (again) have just ONE primary purpose — to drive more ongoing, targeted traffic to your blog.

We’ve listened to your valued feedback and constructive criticism and we have been working in TURBO MODE to make the changes you want ASAP…

—– HERE’S WHAT’S COMING IN THE NEXT 48 HOURS —–

100% MANUAL BLOG REVIEW.

Our team is going to be manually reviewing every single new blog that registers to participate in the BlogRush Network.

We’ll be applying some quality guidelines and criteria to our decision-making process. (We’ll be publishing these guidelines very soon.) If a blog does not meet our guidelines and criteria, THEY WILL BE REJECTED from the network and not allowed to join — i.e. they won’t be able to serve our widget, refer other users, or have their blog posts distributed across our network. They will have no access to any BlogRush services.

Our members, like YOU, made it LOUD AND CLEAR to us… BlogRush needs to only have members that have quality blog content — not blogs filled primarily with ads and other spammy looking JUNK.

The only accurate way we’re going to keep these junk blogs out of our network is to REVIEW EVERY SINGLE ONE BY HAND. And we’re willing to do it to protect the integrity of our network. I don’t care what it costs us to hire more people (if we need them) to review 100% of any blog trying to join our network. We will be reviewing ALL OF THEM from here on out.

* We realize that several non-English language blogs blatantly ignored our “ENGLISH BLOGS ONLY” warning on our Registration page. Rest assured, though, they’ll all be PURGED from the network when we do our QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT over the next several days (you’ll read about it in a moment).

As I’ve said several times before, BlogRush isn’t some passing “fad” or short-term service. We’re dedicated to building an incredibly valuable resources for bloggers FOR MANY YEARS TO COME.

We’ll also be doing a QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT of all of our existing member blogs. We’ll be reviewing every single blog that’s currently in our network (or that registers before the Manual Review Process becomes active.) And we’ll be completely *REMOVING* any blogs in our network that don’t meet our quality guidelines and criteria.

As you can probably tell by now, we’re not messing around. We have put a lot of hard work into the development of this service and we will continue to bust our butts to make it one of the best Internet services in the world. COUNT ON IT.

We’re also deploying several new Anti-Cheat measures to SHUTDOWN AND WIPEOUT the cheaters and unethical users that have abused our network. Sorry, crooks, but THE FREE RIDE IS OVER.

We’ll be dedicating an entire department to stay on top of any abusive behavior in our network. We believe that our new measures are going to instantly eliminate most, if not all, of our system abuse. It’s going to take us a few more days to roll-out all of these measures (and to complete our entire QUALITY CONTROL AUDIT) but rest assured, BlogRush is about to go through a major TRANSFORMATION.

And a quick word to any ‘cheats’ that might be reading this letter… it’s very possible that you may come up with something extremely creative that temporarily gets by us, but you should know something… IT’S NOT GOING TO BE WORTH YOUR TIME. And I’m not just talking about the tiny amount of traffic that you’ll receive before we shut you off.

You see, we have other plans in the works…

If you attempt to cheat or abuse our network in anyway, shape, or form, we will not hesitate to come after you. Our company is well funded and has plenty of resources. And we WILL use them to punish you to the fullest extent of the law (and civil court process). Oh, you think you can just hide behind some anonymous proxy IPs? Sorry, it’s not that easy. ANY reason you’d have to try and cheat the BlogRush network for traffic and any attempt you make to monetize that traffic will lead directly to your front door — whether it’s AdSense, any affiliate program in the world, any online pharmacy, porn site, casino… ANYTHING. We will follow the trail and it WILL eventually lead to you.

Our hard-working company provides the income for MANY families. As the CEO of our company, I take this very seriously. I HAVE TO. People that attempt to abuse or cheat BlogRush are affecting the livelihood of all my employees and their families. And I will do everything in my power to protect them — it’s MY DUTY.

So for all you cheaters that joined BlogRush and had your fun trying to siphon off some traffic, hopefully it was fun. And I’ll go ahead and make this statement right now… IF you were one of the people that has been cheating our network I’m going to give you ONE opportunity… quit now and we’ll pretend it never happened. I think that’s more than fair.

BUT… if you continue after this point, all bets are off. We WILL eventually discover what you’re doing, where you’re trying to send traffic, and we will prosecute you. I GUARANTEE IT. Sorry, but WE HAVE NO CHOICE NOW.

* If you’re one of our valued, HONEST users, I’m very sorry you even have to read stuff like that. I know it’s a waste of your time. Unfortunately, there are unethical people in this world that attempt to abuse and take advantage of others.

MOVING ON…

—- ALSO COMING SOON! —-

**** A LOT MORE CATEGORIES! ****

You asked for it, and you’re getting it!

We’re going to be greatly expanding our directory of categories to increase the relevancy of post links appearing in the widget on your blog — this will also increase click-rates (and traffic) for all members.

* Stay tuned over the next several days for more news about the addition of new categories.

AND…

**** IMPROVED REPORTING! ****

The current Dashboard stats are being under-reported for all users right now. This is the reason that users show discrepancies when looking at Google Analytics data (or other stats packages). We’re currently sending more traffic to our users than we’re reporting in the Dashboard because we are giving all users bonus credits everyday. We’ll soon be reporting all bonus credit activity so all the numbers will be accurate.

SPECIAL NOTE TO ALL LOW-TRAFFIC MEMBERS: In the near future we’ll be giving our low-traffic members (those that need more traffic the most) the BULK of our bonus credit allocations. You’ll get a ton more bonus credits than high-traffic members because you really need it. It’s only FAIR!

* Also we apologize to anyone that has seen a “negative” credit balance for their account. This is a minor bug that we’re taking care of. It doesn’t mean anything and you can just ignore it for now. We apologize for any confusion.

**** IMPROVED NETWORK DISTRIBUTION ****

A few of our users have noticed that they’re building up credits faster than the system is using them. This will eventually balance itself out as the network continues to “adjust” to the growth levels and traffic patterns of each category — because our network provides syndication distribution based on daily average “cycles” and then adjusts moving into the future; so it’s able to accurately predict how fast to use a certain user’s credits, etc. — as compared to just using them all “as fast as possible.”

—- AND HERE ARE *TWO* BRAND-NEW ADDITIONS THAT JUST WENT LIVE!!!! —-

**** BLOGRUSH “FLAVORS” ARE NOW ACTIVE!

You can go login to your account, click the “Settings” tab and then select “Flavors.”

You can choose from (13) different widget colors. You no longer have to only use our original “black” widget design that many users thought was ugly! (Hey, just don’t let our lead designer hear that… he thought his black design was “really cool.”)

Now you can select a color that more closely matches the look of your blog. Our users have been asking for this since we launched our Public Beta, and we’ve taken action to offer these new options.

* We have future plans for further widget customization but we’re working on one “stage” of improvement at a time! Please bare with us. We’re fully aware of the request for a more narrow widget as our current one doesn’t fit on some blogs. We’re trying to produce a solution and should have some news soon.

HERE’S THE BEST PART…

You don’t have to copy and paste new code to your blog. Just go to that “Flavors” section for your account, select the flavor you want, then hit the “APPLY FLAVOR” button. That’s it! Reload your blog in another browser window and take a look.

And if you want to see what a different flavor might look like, just pick another one, hit the “APPLY FLAVOR” button and reload your blog. PRESTO! :-)

AND LAST BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST…

***** BLOG POST CONTROLS *****

Under the “Settings” tab you’ll also find a new option called, “My Post Control.” Here’s what this awesome new feature does…

You can create POST FILTERS for your blog posts…

For example, you can add a keyword or phrase and create a new post filter. If you ever create a post on your blog (while you have that filter active — and you can add/delete them at anytime) that contains one of those keywords in the TITLE of your blog post, that post…

WILL *NOT* BE SHOWN ACROSS THE NETWORK. And you won’t use any of your syndication credits!

All bloggers post “off-topic” stuff from time to time, or short posts that don’t have a ton of great content. Well, now you can easily keep any of those types of posts from using your valuable syndication credits and from being shown across the network!

This is GREAT for you because now you can control exactly which posts of yours will be syndicated. This can help you maximize your CLICK-RATES and, ultimately, the traffic you receive from the BlogRush network. AND it can help retain NEW READERS for your blog (your ultimate goal that can grow your blog’s traffic on a day-to-day basis.)

Here’s Why…

By selecting which posts get syndicated (by simply adding filters right BEFORE you publish a post on your blog that you don’t want to be used; or having setup one well in advance) you can make sure that you’re only syndicating your BEST POSTS. The ones with top-quality content. Your posts that a new visitor to your blog will enjoy and be much more likely to make a “YES!” decision to become a regular reader for you!

AND OH YEAH, ONE MORE THING…

This is only the very beginning for BlogRush. We have so much great stuff in store for you! As I said at the beginning of this letter… we will continue to work VERY HARD to make improvements and add-ons with ONE PRIMARY FOCUS…

To drive more ongoing targeted traffic to your blog.

I want to personally THANK YOU on behalf of our entire company for your interest in BlogRush. We’ve received a lot of criticism from many bloggers on the Internet, and we’ll be the first to admit we’re not perfect and a lot of it was WELL-DESERVED.

But please know, we’re busy working around the clock FOR YOU. You have our word on it.

Now go login to your account and try out some of the new “Flavors” for your blog! And also start setting up some Post Control Filters so you can start maximizing your content syndication.

I’ll be in touch when I have more “news” to share. Thanks for reading this long letter. I had a lot to tell you about. :-)

Best Regards,

John Reese, Founder of BlogRush


Wow! What a guy! I’ve always like John, but I’m just blown away by his total commitment to creating a great service that will stand the test of time.

Thanks John.

Want to join now? Click here to sign up for BlogRush.

BlogRush has taken the blogging community by storm. Still in beta release, it looks like John Reese has taken a page straight from Google’s own play book: Make it available in it’s infancy as a beta, then let the users’ feedback shape the direction the service evolves.

There is a lot of “press” on this service. Folks who’ve already signed up are reviewing the service, and encouraging their readers to sign up.

I did a Google search for “blogrush” and “cutts” and found a post by Googler Matt Cutts (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/lots-o-news/) where in the comments Matt is asked “Do you have any thoughts on BlogRush?”

Matt’s answer? “I haven’t had a chance to dig into it yet. It sounds like the widget uses JavaScript, so it wouldn’t flow PageRank. That sounded pretty good to me.”

But there are nay-sayers as well. Over at blog.webmasterforumph.com, teejay posted “BlogRush Against Adsense Terms of Service“.

Teejay points out that some bloggers are wary of using BlogRush for fear it is against the Google AdSense TOS, and then quotes the Inside AdSense blog post on Traffic Exchanges, where Google makes it clear their policies “strictly prohibit any means of artificially generating ad impressions or clicks, including third-party services such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, auto-surf, and click-exchange programs.”

The Google AdSense Program Policies state: “Clicks on Google ads must result from genuine user interest. Any method that artificially generates clicks or impressions on your Google ads is strictly prohibited. These prohibited methods include but are not limited to repeated manual clicks or impressions, using robots, automated click and impression generating tools, third-party services that generate clicks or impressions such as paid-to-click, paid-to-surf, autosurf, and click-exchange programs, or any deceptive software.” (Emphasis is mine.)

The AdSense blog post explains the reason behind the prohibition: “These programs offer incentives for users to view web pages or click on ads, resulting in activity that is harmful to our advertisers.”

This clearly states it’s the offered “incentives” of the prohibited services that lead to invalid clicks or page impressions. And that would imply a traffic exchange service without any such incentives would not artificially generate ad clicks or page impressions.

Based on what I’ve read, published by Google, it is my opinion that BlogRush–in and of itself–will not hurt your standings as an AdSense Publisher. BlogRush provides a real service to your site visitor by offering a few topically related links to other blog posts. So, if your blog doesn’t violate the Google AdSense Program Policies without the BlogRush widget, it shouldn’t violate them with it.

Go to the BlogRush site now for more information, or to sign up for this free service.

Get Clear.

Author: Anita Cross

Designing, building and maintaining a website is a lot of work. And there are expenses involved.

At the very least, you must pay registration fees for you domain name. Free hosting is available, but not viable for a serious commercial website.

If you can’t do the work yourself, due to lack of ability or lack of time, there is the added expense of paying someone else to do the work for you.

Be it time or money, the more your site costs you, the more important it is the site provides a Return On Investment (ROI).

No matter what ROI means to you it should translate into increased profits, sooner or later, directly or indirectly.

To do that, you must determine two things:

  1. What you want from your website and to that end
  2. What you need your visitors to do.

You must “get clear” on what you expect from your site in order to present a clear call to action that will benefit both you and your visitor.

This weblog is not affiliated with or endorsed by Google, nor does the author claim any inside information regarding Google Search. Opinions expressed by the weblog's author, Anita Cross, are based on years of experience researching and marketing websites, along with a dose of common sense. Opinions expressed in resulting comments are those of the respective authors.

We reserve the right to remove comments that we deem to be offensive, or a blatant attempt to advertise a website or product.