eComm Tips

I’m not normally one to use movie quotes as a way to improve attitude, but I felt that this was a good one. In fact, you can get brownie points if you can name the movie that this came from. Here’s the quote to think about for today:

Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It is a very mean and nasty place and it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t how hard you hit; it’s about how hard you can get hit, and keep moving forward. How much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done. Now, if you know what you’re worth, then go out and get what you’re worth. But you gotta be willing to take the hit, and not pointing fingers saying you ain’t where you are because of him, or her, or anybody. Cowards do that and that ain’t you. You’re better than that!

Life hits, and its true that when it hits it tends to hit pretty hard. But if you’re going to make your business succeed, you’ve got to be willing to take those hits and then get back up and keep going. You’re better than that!

Keep that in mind the next time you feel like you can’t do it. Others have done it, so why not you? Maybe you have circumstances; everyone does. Maybe you have other things going on; everyone does. It’s a matter of deciding what you want to have happen and working for it. Maybe it will take you a little bit longer, but you can get there.

This applies to everything in life. Whether you’re trying to lose weight, build a business, or whatever. You have to stick with it.

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A long time ago on this blog I did a few posts about how to use the Google Webmaster Tools to see where your links are coming from and also what anchor text is being used.  I have also talked about how to use the Yahoo! Site Explorer to spy on where your competition is getting their links from.

Well, now you can do both of these things from Yahoo! with the SEO Link Analysis plugin by Joost de Valk.  One of the problems with the Google Webmaster Tools is that you can’t find out a lot about your competition.  But with Yahoo! Site Explorer you could see at least where the links were coming from for anybody.  Now with this cool little plugin you can see not only where the links are coming from but also what is the anchor text of the links your competition has.  There are multiple uses for this, so use your creativity.

Here’s the link to the plugin: SEO Link Analysis

One heads up.  Sometimes when you go to install it, you’ll find that it doesn’t do anything.  If this happens to you, do a right click and choose ‘Save Link As…’ and save the file to your desktop.  Then open the file using FireFox and it will install the plugin.

I hope that helps!

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For those of you that don’t know what open source is, it is basically where any programmer can have access to the program and as a community the program is developed and improved. These programs are also FREE which ads to their appeal. Again, in some situations I think you’re much better going with the proprietary program.

For the last couple days I’ve been having discussions with various people about different open source programs that are available to use for web design. My feeling on open source programs is that some of them are really good, but there are other ones that the proprietary version of the program is so much better (like DreamWeaver vs. Nvu). But when you’re just bootstrapping your online business, investing $300 in a good photo editor may not be an option. In situations like this you may just have to go with an open source program.

So here is a short list of some open source programs you can get for free that can help you improve your online business endeavor and my opinion on each.

FireFox – Internet Browser

FireFox is a web browser, like Internet Explorer, but in my opinion it is way better. FireFox is rapidly gaining more and more users, so if you haven’t used it you should. It’s also a good idea to make sure you website looks essentially the same in both FireFox and Internet Explorer. You can also customize a lot of things on it which makes it extra fun!

Nvu – HTML Editor

I stand by my belief that the best HTML editor out there is DreamWeaver. But if you need a program that can at least do the job, check out Nvu. You could very easily build a whole site using Nvu, and if you’re using some builder programs you can use it to spice up your site a little bit by learning HTML code.

GIMP – Image Software

Admittedly I’m not a big fan of GIMP, I find it a little clumsy to use. But if you don’t have a photo editor, you need to get something. So spend some time learning to use GIMP and you can get the hang of it. But once you have the funds I’d recommend you upgrade to Adobe FireWorks or Photoshop. I feel they give a much better atmosphere and usability.

FileZilla – FTP Client

I love FileZilla! This one is only for those of you that can upload and download from your site using FTP. FileZilla is a great free FTP client.

OpenOffice.org – Office Suite

If you don’t have an office suite, you need to get one. OpenOffice.org is a good alternative to the proprietary programs which include Microsoft Office (Excel, Word, etc.) and WordPerfect. And it’s free too!

You can also get open source programs that would be your whole shopping cart program, blogging software, etc. But those are out of the scope of this article.

There are many more open source programs that you can check out, but I hope this list is enough to help you out. Check these tools out and make use of them as you need to. Who knows, maybe you’ll like them just fine and never have to get the proprietary programs! Some people like these programs better than others, it’s really a matter of personal preference.

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For those of you that are just getting involved with HTML and CSS, or even for those of you that have been doing it for some time, here is a really cool little cheat sheet that you can use to remind you of the basic codes to use when setting up your CSS files.

Liquidicity CSS Help Sheet

I have this pinned on my wall and refer to it all the time when I need to remember the exact wording to use in my CSS files.  They also have an HTML sheet that you may find useful as well.  Here’s the link to it:

Liquidicity HTML Help Sheet

Check them out!

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I received a newsletter from Perry Marshall today (author of the Definitive Guide to Google AdWords) and he shared some really good insights that I thought I’d pass on.

“You can’t learn to ride a bicycle at a seminar.”

It really doesn’t matter what aspect of life we’re talking about, there’s an enormous difference between learning from a guru and actually doing it yourself. The bottom-line truth about really talented marketers comes down to one word.

Just one.

That word is: TESTING.

If you don’t test - if you don’t develop an idea, run it up the flagpole and see who salutes, with hard numbers and percentages - you really don’t know anything.

If you DO test - then you know what you know. And nobody can argue with you. That’s all there is to it.

Does long copy work or is short copy better? Should I have a sales letter website or a traditional one? Should I price this at $500 or $1000? Should I use a soft-sell approach or is hard-sell better?

The answer to every question is: test and find out.

The point is that you can read and learn and read and learn and never really know what you should be doing. It all comes down to action. It comes down to being willing to try something even if there is a possibility of it failing.

Have you ever been held back because you thought that something might not work? Have you ever been afraid to put $100 into a marketing campaign because there was a chance that you might make the money back, but there was also a chance that you might not?

I think all of us (myself included) have been in any of these situations before. The lesson that we have to learn at some point or another is that at times you have to be willing to take the step, even though it might fail. And even then, you can still learn from what happened and do better on the next step you take!

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When it comes to website or blog monetization, its always a good idea to diversify. For example, if the only thing you do is AdSense, then you only have one source of potential income from that blog. I mention AdSense specifically because it seems to be the most common.

Another way is by selling text ads on your website, and a great way to do this is through programs like TNX.net. Rather than summarizing it, I’m going to quote from their site what they do:

TNX.net allows publishers to sell links from each page on their website, and for advertisers it allows to buy millions of links from other sites in few clicks. TNX is a convenient tool that allows publishers and advertisers to save time, efforts and money: in just a few minutes you can have thousands of links from hundreds of high quality relevant sites linking to yours.

All links are direct, they are located on main pages and inside pages that are also very important. Ads are displayed mostly on well-noticeable spots so they can attract visitors. The system can be used to promote main page of the advertiser’s site as well as inside pages.

Site publishers can not only use TNX.net to earn money, they can also use it to promote own websites by taking advantage of our system as an advertiser (balance in the system is unified).

So basically what you are doing is placing some code on your site or blog to display free text link ads, and other site owners will buy that space through the TNX System. The more people buy space on your site or blog, the more you can make from a system like TNX. They also have an affiliate program so you can promote them directly as an affiliate as well.

Think about it: people don’t have to click on your ads or anything like that, you just have to have people inside the system buy that space. This is a great way to add to your different revenue streams for your site.

My thoughts on it:
I think its worth a shot. I haven’t personally used this particular system before but I’m going to give them a try over the next couple of weeks and see what happens.

One thing to understand about this system is that it’s all based on points. As you display ads on your site you earn points. Then you have several different options of what to do with those points:

• Transfer points to another user
• Use points to advertise your own site
• Cash in points for money

The points system will probably take a little getting used to. According to TNX the current exchange rate is $.73 for every 1000 points. So I’ll have to see how quickly the points add up. I’ll probably give an update on this in about a month, but for now its looking like a pretty good program!

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