Web Marketing is a broad field. On this page, we gather free Web Marketing articles from many of the leading authorities and practitioners in the field.
Title
Author
Web Marketing: Advertising
Internet Advertising FAQ Shelley Lowery
x
Web Marketing: Branding
Mona Lisa Your Branding Sean D'Souza
Santa's Marketing Works Better Than Yours Sean D'Souza
x
Web Marketing: Copywriting
12-Step Foolproof Sales Letter Template David Frey
How To Get Personal, And Sell Even More Joe Robson
Top 10 Tips On Sales Letter Writing Larry Chase
It's Not Just What You Say, It's How You Say It Michel Fortin
How To Write Invisible Sales Copy Joe Robson
Writing Effective Google Adwords Select Ads Michael Wong
To Increase Sales, Use Up Words Michael Fortin
How To Create An Irresistible Offer David Frey
Write Your Sales Copy for Scanners Joe Robson
How To Write A Sexy Article Teaser Debbie Weil
Writing Copy: Use The Right Words Michel Fortin
What Video Games Can Teach Us Joe Valente
Email Marketing
7 Key Email Marketing Tactics Dan Thies
Email Marketing How-To Jim Daniels
Email Marketing Fundamentals Pt 1. Marketing Find
Email Marketing Fundamentals Pt. 2. Marketing Find
x
Web Marketing: Ezines and Newsletters
Create Loyal and Responsive Subscribers Paul Myers
x
Web Marketing Interviews:
An Interview With Corey Rudl
x
Web Marketing: Local Business
Promote Your Local Business Online 7 ways Sharon Fling
Internet Marketing For Offline Businesses Rick Beneteau
8 reasons To Get Your Local Business Online Sharon Fling
Internet Marketing For Local Small Business David Frey
Relationship Marketing For Small Local Business Sharon Fling
Has The Web Gone Local? Jim Daniels
x
Web Marketing: Strategy and Tactics
Web Marketing Strategy Bob Serling
The Secret To Effective Lead Generation Bob Serling
Marlon Sanders' Amazing Formula Robert Gardner
The Marketing Strategy Blueprint Bob Serling
x
Personal Growth And Self Improvement:
And Who Might You Be? Charles Burke
x
Polls, Surveys and Feedback:
The Power Of Questions Paul Myers
x
Web Marketing: Pricing
Price Your Product For Maximum Profit David Frey
x
Publicity and Public Relations:
Free Publicity: The Media's Hot Buttons George McKenzie
Position Yourself As An Expert George McKenzie
Get Free Publicity by 'Talking The Talk' George McKenzie
x
Referrals and Testimonials:
Referrals Bob Serling
x
Revenue:
Tactics To Increase Your Site's Ad Sales Kamau Austin
Validating Credit Card Numbers On-The-Fly Will Bontrager
ClickBank Affiliates; Link Directly To Product Will Bontrager
x
Web Marketing: Spam
Spam-Proof Your Website Dan Thies
What If You Accidentally Spam The Engines Paul J. Bruemmer
x
Scripts, Javascript CGI
Dealing With CGI Installation Jitters Will Bontrager
x
Website Marketing:
The Greatest Pop-Up Ad Tactic Ryan Deiss
We hope you enjoyed this collection of free Web Marketing articles. If you have any favorites you think belong here, let us know! Web Marketing Articles
Friday, December 31, 2010
Thursday, December 30, 2010
Opt in e-mail
Opt in e-mail is a term used when someone is given the option to receive "bulk" e-mail, that is, e-mail that is sent to many people at the same time. Typically, this is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Obtaining permission before sending e-mail is critical because without it, the e-mail is Unsolicited Bulk Email, better known as spam.
There are several common forms of opt-in e-mail:
Unconfirmed opt-in
A new subscriber first gives his or her address to the list software (for instance, on a Web page), but no steps are taken to make sure that this address actually belongs to the person. This can cause e-mail from the mailing list to be considered spam because simple typos of the email address can cause the email to be sent to someone else. Malicious subscriptions are also possible, as are subscriptions that are due to spammers forging email addresses that are sent to the e-mail address used to subscribe to the mailing list.
Confirmed opt-in (COI)
A new subscriber asks to be subscribed to the mailing list, but unlike unconfirmed opt-in, a confirmation e-mail is sent to verify it was really them. Many believe the person must not be added to the mailing list unless an explicit step is taken, such as clicking a special web link or sending back a reply e-mail. This ensures that no person can subscribe someone else out of malice or error. Mail system administrators and non-spam mailing list operators refer to this as confirmed subscription or closed-loop opt-in.
Some marketers call closed loop opt-in "double opt-in."
The term double opt-in was coined by marketers in the late 90s to differentiate it from what they call single opt-in, where a new subscriber to an e-mail list gets a confirmation e-mail telling them they will begin to receive e-mails if they take no action. This is compared to double opt-in where the new subscriber must respond to the confirmation e-mail to be added to the list.
Some marketers contend that double opt-in is like asking for permission twice and that it constitutes unnecessary interference with someone who has already said they want to hear from the marketer.
The term double opt-in has also been co-opted by spammers, diluting its value. [1]
Opt-out
Instead of giving people the option to be put in the list, they are automatically put in and have the option to be taken out.
Address Authentication
E-mail address authentication is a technique for validating that a person claiming to possess a particular email address actually does so. This is normally done by sending an email containing a token to the address, and requiring that the party being authenticated supply that token before the authentication proceeds. The email containing the token is usually worded so as to explain the situation to the recipient and discourage them from supplying the nonce (often via visiting a URL) unless they in fact were attempting to authenticate.
For example, suppose that one party, Alice, operates a website on which visitors can make accounts to participate or gain access to content. Another party, Bob, comes to that website and creates an account. Bob supplies an email address at which he can be contacted, but Alice does not yet know that Bob is being truthful (consciously or not) about the address. Alice sends a token to Bob's email address for an authentication request, asking Bob to click on a particular URL if and only if the recipient of the mail was making an account on Alice's website. Bob receives the mail and clicks the URL, demonstrating to Alice that he controls the email address he claimed to have. If instead a hostile party, Chuck, were to visit Alice's website attempting to masquerade as Bob, he would be unable to complete the account registration process because the confirmation would be sent to Bob's email address, to which Chuck does not have access.
This degree of email authentication is considered by many anti-spam advocates to be the minimum degree necessary for any opt-in email advertising or other ongoing email communication.
more article read en.wikipedia
There are several common forms of opt-in e-mail:
Unconfirmed opt-in
A new subscriber first gives his or her address to the list software (for instance, on a Web page), but no steps are taken to make sure that this address actually belongs to the person. This can cause e-mail from the mailing list to be considered spam because simple typos of the email address can cause the email to be sent to someone else. Malicious subscriptions are also possible, as are subscriptions that are due to spammers forging email addresses that are sent to the e-mail address used to subscribe to the mailing list.
Confirmed opt-in (COI)
A new subscriber asks to be subscribed to the mailing list, but unlike unconfirmed opt-in, a confirmation e-mail is sent to verify it was really them. Many believe the person must not be added to the mailing list unless an explicit step is taken, such as clicking a special web link or sending back a reply e-mail. This ensures that no person can subscribe someone else out of malice or error. Mail system administrators and non-spam mailing list operators refer to this as confirmed subscription or closed-loop opt-in.
Some marketers call closed loop opt-in "double opt-in."
The term double opt-in was coined by marketers in the late 90s to differentiate it from what they call single opt-in, where a new subscriber to an e-mail list gets a confirmation e-mail telling them they will begin to receive e-mails if they take no action. This is compared to double opt-in where the new subscriber must respond to the confirmation e-mail to be added to the list.
Some marketers contend that double opt-in is like asking for permission twice and that it constitutes unnecessary interference with someone who has already said they want to hear from the marketer.
The term double opt-in has also been co-opted by spammers, diluting its value. [1]
Opt-out
Instead of giving people the option to be put in the list, they are automatically put in and have the option to be taken out.
Address Authentication
E-mail address authentication is a technique for validating that a person claiming to possess a particular email address actually does so. This is normally done by sending an email containing a token to the address, and requiring that the party being authenticated supply that token before the authentication proceeds. The email containing the token is usually worded so as to explain the situation to the recipient and discourage them from supplying the nonce (often via visiting a URL) unless they in fact were attempting to authenticate.
For example, suppose that one party, Alice, operates a website on which visitors can make accounts to participate or gain access to content. Another party, Bob, comes to that website and creates an account. Bob supplies an email address at which he can be contacted, but Alice does not yet know that Bob is being truthful (consciously or not) about the address. Alice sends a token to Bob's email address for an authentication request, asking Bob to click on a particular URL if and only if the recipient of the mail was making an account on Alice's website. Bob receives the mail and clicks the URL, demonstrating to Alice that he controls the email address he claimed to have. If instead a hostile party, Chuck, were to visit Alice's website attempting to masquerade as Bob, he would be unable to complete the account registration process because the confirmation would be sent to Bob's email address, to which Chuck does not have access.
This degree of email authentication is considered by many anti-spam advocates to be the minimum degree necessary for any opt-in email advertising or other ongoing email communication.
more article read en.wikipedia
Affiliate marketing
Affiliate marketing is a marketing practice in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought about by the affiliate's own marketing efforts. Examples include rewards sites, where users are rewarded with cash or gifts, for the completion of an offer, and the referral of others to the site. The industry has four core players: the merchant (also known as 'retailer' or 'brand'), the network, the publisher (also known as 'the affiliate'), and the customer. The market has grown in complexity to warrant a secondary tier of players, including affiliate management agencies, super-affiliates and specialized third parties vendors.
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.[1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.
Origin
The concept of revenue sharing—paying commission for referred business—predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened almost four years after the origination of the World Wide Web in November 1994.[citation needed]
The concepts of affiliate marketing on the Internet was conceived of, put into practice and patented by William J. Tobin, the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million dollars per year on the Prodigy service. In 1989, PC Flowers and Gifts developed the business model of paying a commission on sales to The Prodigy network (Reference-Chicago Tribune-Oct, 4, 1995) (Ref The Sunsentinal 1991 and www.dankawaski.com). Mr. Tobin applied for a patent on tracking and affiliate marketing on January 22, 1996 and was issued U.S. Patent number 6,141,666 on Oct 31, 2000. Mr. Tobin also received Japanese Patent number 4021941 on Oct 5, 2007 and U.S. Patent number 7,505,913 on Mar 17, 2009 for affiliate marketing and tracking (Reference-Business Wire-Jan, 24, 2000).
Cybererotica was among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost per click program.[3]
During November 1994, CDNOW launched its BuyWeb program. CDNOW had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors may be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNOW to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website, but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen asked CDNOW if it could design a program where CDNOW would handle the order fulfillment. Geffen realized that CDNOW could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNOW home page and going directly to an artist's music page.[4]
Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996: Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page.[citation needed]
When visitors clicked from the associate's website through to Amazon and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely known and serve as a model for subsequent programs.[5][6]
In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent[7] on components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others.[3]
[edit] Historic development
Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.[8] MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs.[9]
Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, retail industries and file-sharing services.[10] The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.[10] Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.[10]
[edit] Web 2.0
Websites and services based on Web 2.0 concepts—blogging and interactive online communities, for example—have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media allowed merchants to become closer to their affiliates and improved the communication between them.
Types of affiliate websites
Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e., advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.
* Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers' offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
* Comparison shopping websites and directories
* Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back
* CRM sites that offer charitable donations
* Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales promotions
* Content and niche market websites, including product review sites
* Personal websites
* Weblogs and website syndication feeds
* E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in -mail lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing) and newsletter list affiliates, which are typically more content-heavy
* Registration path or co-registration affiliates who include offers from other merchants during the registration process on their own website
* Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparisons, or other features based on information that changes frequently, thus requiring continual updates
* Cost per action networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates) that expose offers from the advertiser with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
* Websites using adbars (e.g. Adsense) to display context-sensitive, highly relevant ads for products on the site
* Virtual Currency: a new type of publisher that utilizes the social media space to couple an advertiser's offer with a handout of "virtual currency" in a game or virtual platform.
* Video Blog: Video content which allows viewers to click on and purchase products related to the video's subject.
* File-Sharing: Web sites that host directories of music, movies, games and other software. Users upload content (usually in violation of copyright) to file-hosting sites, and then post descriptions of the material and their download links on directory sites. Uploaders are paid by the file-hosting sites based on the number of times their files are downloaded. The file-hosting sites sell premium download access to the files to the general public. The web sites that host the directory services sell advertising and do not host the files themselves.
more History here en.wikipedia
Affiliate marketing overlaps with other Internet marketing methods to some degree, because affiliates often use regular advertising methods. Those methods include organic search engine optimization, paid search engine marketing, e-mail marketing, and in some sense display advertising. On the other hand, affiliates sometimes use less orthodox techniques, such as publishing reviews of products or services offered by a partner.
Affiliate marketing—using one website to drive traffic to another—is a form of online marketing, which is frequently overlooked by advertisers.[1] While search engines, e-mail, and website syndication capture much of the attention of online retailers, affiliate marketing carries a much lower profile. Still, affiliates continue to play a significant role in e-retailers' marketing strategies.
Origin
The concept of revenue sharing—paying commission for referred business—predates affiliate marketing and the Internet. The translation of the revenue share principles to mainstream e-commerce happened almost four years after the origination of the World Wide Web in November 1994.[citation needed]
The concepts of affiliate marketing on the Internet was conceived of, put into practice and patented by William J. Tobin, the founder of PC Flowers & Gifts. Launched on the Prodigy Network in 1989, PC Flowers & Gifts remained on the service until 1996. By 1993, PC Flowers & Gifts generated sales in excess of $6 million dollars per year on the Prodigy service. In 1989, PC Flowers and Gifts developed the business model of paying a commission on sales to The Prodigy network (Reference-Chicago Tribune-Oct, 4, 1995) (Ref The Sunsentinal 1991 and www.dankawaski.com). Mr. Tobin applied for a patent on tracking and affiliate marketing on January 22, 1996 and was issued U.S. Patent number 6,141,666 on Oct 31, 2000. Mr. Tobin also received Japanese Patent number 4021941 on Oct 5, 2007 and U.S. Patent number 7,505,913 on Mar 17, 2009 for affiliate marketing and tracking (Reference-Business Wire-Jan, 24, 2000).
Cybererotica was among the early innovators in affiliate marketing with a cost per click program.[3]
During November 1994, CDNOW launched its BuyWeb program. CDNOW had the idea that music-oriented websites could review or list albums on their pages that their visitors may be interested in purchasing. These websites could also offer a link that would take the visitor directly to CDNOW to purchase the albums. The idea for remote purchasing originally arose because of conversations with music label Geffen Records in the fall of 1994. The management at Geffen wanted to sell its artists' CDs directly from its website, but did not want to implement this capability itself. Geffen asked CDNOW if it could design a program where CDNOW would handle the order fulfillment. Geffen realized that CDNOW could link directly from the artist on its website to Geffen's website, bypassing the CDNOW home page and going directly to an artist's music page.[4]
Amazon.com (Amazon) launched its associate program in July 1996: Amazon associates could place banner or text links on their site for individual books, or link directly to the Amazon home page.[citation needed]
When visitors clicked from the associate's website through to Amazon and purchased a book, the associate received a commission. Amazon was not the first merchant to offer an affiliate program, but its program was the first to become widely known and serve as a model for subsequent programs.[5][6]
In February 2000, Amazon announced that it had been granted a patent[7] on components of an affiliate program. The patent application was submitted in June 1997, which predates most affiliate programs, but not PC Flowers & Gifts.com (October 1994), AutoWeb.com (October 1995), Kbkids.com/BrainPlay.com (January 1996), EPage (April 1996), and several others.[3]
[edit] Historic development
Affiliate marketing has grown quickly since its inception. The e-commerce website, viewed as a marketing toy in the early days of the Internet, became an integrated part of the overall business plan and in some cases grew to a bigger business than the existing offline business. According to one report, the total sales amount generated through affiliate networks in 2006 was £2.16 billion in the United Kingdom alone. The estimates were £1.35 billion in sales in 2005.[8] MarketingSherpa's research team estimated that, in 2006, affiliates worldwide earned US$6.5 billion in bounty and commissions from a variety of sources in retail, personal finance, gaming and gambling, travel, telecom, education, publishing, and forms of lead generation other than contextual advertising programs.[9]
Currently the most active sectors for affiliate marketing are the adult, gambling, retail industries and file-sharing services.[10] The three sectors expected to experience the greatest growth are the mobile phone, finance, and travel sectors.[10] Soon after these sectors came the entertainment (particularly gaming) and Internet-related services (particularly broadband) sectors. Also several of the affiliate solution providers expect to see increased interest from business-to-business marketers and advertisers in using affiliate marketing as part of their mix.[10]
[edit] Web 2.0
Websites and services based on Web 2.0 concepts—blogging and interactive online communities, for example—have impacted the affiliate marketing world as well. The new media allowed merchants to become closer to their affiliates and improved the communication between them.
Types of affiliate websites
Affiliate websites are often categorized by merchants (i.e., advertisers) and affiliate networks. There are currently no industry-wide accepted standards for the categorization. The following types of websites are generic, yet are commonly understood and used by affiliate marketers.
* Search affiliates that utilize pay per click search engines to promote the advertisers' offers (i.e., search arbitrage)
* Comparison shopping websites and directories
* Loyalty websites, typically characterized by providing a reward system for purchases via points back, cash back
* CRM sites that offer charitable donations
* Coupon and rebate websites that focus on sales promotions
* Content and niche market websites, including product review sites
* Personal websites
* Weblogs and website syndication feeds
* E-mail list affiliates (i.e., owners of large opt-in -mail lists that typically employ e-mail drip marketing) and newsletter list affiliates, which are typically more content-heavy
* Registration path or co-registration affiliates who include offers from other merchants during the registration process on their own website
* Shopping directories that list merchants by categories without providing coupons, price comparisons, or other features based on information that changes frequently, thus requiring continual updates
* Cost per action networks (i.e., top-tier affiliates) that expose offers from the advertiser with which they are affiliated to their own network of affiliates
* Websites using adbars (e.g. Adsense) to display context-sensitive, highly relevant ads for products on the site
* Virtual Currency: a new type of publisher that utilizes the social media space to couple an advertiser's offer with a handout of "virtual currency" in a game or virtual platform.
* Video Blog: Video content which allows viewers to click on and purchase products related to the video's subject.
* File-Sharing: Web sites that host directories of music, movies, games and other software. Users upload content (usually in violation of copyright) to file-hosting sites, and then post descriptions of the material and their download links on directory sites. Uploaders are paid by the file-hosting sites based on the number of times their files are downloaded. The file-hosting sites sell premium download access to the files to the general public. The web sites that host the directory services sell advertising and do not host the files themselves.
more History here en.wikipedia
Friday, September 3, 2010
Why 2010 was the best year for web designing field
A website visitor might actually not be fully knowledgeable of the design and functional nuances although it is usually the experience that in fact leads the visitors all the way through the Internet site. For a designer layout, colors, font and additionally useful things might be matters however they might actually be unimportant for a website visitor for them its usually all about whether the site is naturally worthy of note otherwise not precisely. They tend to be not concerned in relation to technical, functional and look and feel aspects.
Any business website Online is in all good terms judged by it presents itself actually to the web designer audience, unless and additionally until they are more certainly convinced of the fact that the site for sure seems to have lived up to the expectations and additionally has normally fulfilled their key needs the audience are most expected to have their options open.
And in these days intense competition Internet its generally simply few seconds obligatory to judge the merit and credibility of the site. It usually feels even the website audience these days are naturally complete awareness about the needs and are completely informed about sites that fulfill their kind of requirements.
Web designing is almost certainly more and more becoming a most important part of the life, this is simply quite visible from the fact that there are literally already millions of websites and the explanation to the success of a website lies in its very designing. Every website is as a natural consequence designed with a purpose and its correct presentation adds the missing charm to the website. A unqualified understanding of the Online visitor expectations might make a website more valuable.
A best website design can woo Online visitors and attract considerable web traffic to the websites. We greatly talk about Online marketing solutions through the web site development that could best maximize ROI through diversion of Online traffic. Thinking big we overlook at certain simple things.
How much ever one makes an attempt to popularize the web design site, the basic thing that should be borne in the mind is that the main purpose for which the website is made should be fulfilled. If that is not provided the very purpose of making a website will be defeated
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