Ping.fm Review: Stay Connected

As many may know, social networks are a powerful weapon in the Internet Marketing realm. Not to mention, it offers free publicity. Who would pass out on free publicity right? But many have been troubled with the fact that it can be real time consuming trying to reach out to multiple social networks at once. Fortunately with Ping.fm, their service simplifies that task and lets you reach out to multiple channels of social networks at once.

How Ping.fm works

Ping.fm is a free to use online service that lets you be able to post to all of your favorite services. Whether it be Tumblr, Blogger, WordPress, Delicious, Twitter, or even Facebook, Ping.fm allows you to post to all your favorite services with a click of a button. Ping.fm supports over 34 well known social networking platforms. Now there should be no reason why your site shouldn’t have a Facebook page, a Twitter page, and… you get the idea. Although this may sound a bit difficult to set up, it is not. Once you input your account information into Ping.fm for the services you want to reach out to, it is set and forget. If you don’t have an account for the platforms that Ping.fm supports, this may be the opportunity to do that because this is as automated as you can get. Once you set up your accounts, you have access to posting onto all of your social networks at once from Ping.fm’s advanced interface.

Why I am recommending this?

Everyone should have a Ping.fm simply because it is free, easy to use, and allows you to communicate to a broader audience. Although having the profile set up is only half of the battle, it allows many loyal subscribers be able to access your content through their favorite social networking site. What this does is make it more convenient for your readers to access your content and allows you to gain access to readers from a number of social networking sites. Staying connected with social networking sites couldn’t be easier with Ping.fm. There is simply nothing to lose here but all to gain.

Recommended practices

There are several practices I recommend already associated websites to use to ensure you get the most out of your social networking profiles set up in Ping.fm.

1. Use the same user name when setting up your social networking profiles. This ensures you don’t have any “lost” subscribers looking for you and allows new subscribers to easily subscribe.
2. Setting up your profile is only half the battle. Make friends and spend time on the social networking sites to make your reach that much bigger.
3. If you have a blog, assign your blog’s RSS feed to Ping.fm for it to publish new content to all your social networking profiles connected to Ping.fm.
4. Don’t abuse posting to all your social networking profiles or it may come back to bite you.
5. Stay connected with all the platforms that Ping.fm supports.

Ping.fm brings social networking marketing to the next level by allowing you to reach out to a bigger broader audience with just a click of a button. Socializing with multiple channels of social networking sites couldn’t be more easier, quicker, and effective. Not to mention, more free.

Why You Should Become an Amazon Affiliate

Besides the fact that Amazon is one of the biggest online retail site on the web, it has grown a lot since it’s earlier years when it was considered no match to eBay. Boy were people wrong. Amazon became an enormous online market place and has been rapidly growing each year with soaring profit margins. Fortunately, Amazon has opened it’s doors to marketers which allows them to become affiliates and make money off, as well as become part of their huge organization.

Did you know that the conversion rate on Amazon is 15.9%? According to Nielson Online’s May 2009 report, it is true. That is simply insane. What this means is that about 1 in every 7 people that visits Amazon.com, at least 1 is bound to purchase something. Although this statistic doesn’t mean every affiliate that sends visitors to Amazon will have a 15.9% conversion rate, it is quite an accomplishment considering that Amazon provides a huge variety of products at retail prices. (FYI: Conversion rates are totally independent. The more your content relates to the products on Amazon, the more likely your conversions will be higher.)

Amazon has been testing their pages for ages and have been optimizing them to ensure affiliates get maximum conversions. Simply put, Amazon strives to deliver the products buyers want, and at the same time, this process helps the affiliates. It is an ongoing mutual partnership. Not to mention, Amazon is a globally recognized brand.

Now you may be asking, how much will I make by becoming an affiliate of Amazon?

Although this may not sound like much and you may have been part of other affiliate programs that have offered more commission, realize that Amazon is an ecommerce website and that by linking to their site, anything your visitors buy from Amazon credits towards your affiliate account. Let’s say you are running a book review site and a visitor clicks on a link that directs to a book being sold on Amazon, and happens to purchase a Kindle in addition to the book you linked to from your website. Believe it or not, you will get a percentage of the revenue for both items sold.

Personally, I don’t make much from being an Amazon affiliate. Most likely because I don’t promote the products on Amazon as much. However, it has made me enough to make me post about being an affiliate of Amazon considering how little I promoted Amazon on my blog.

When finding new ways to monetize your website, becoming an affiliate of Amazon can be a great contribution to your arsenal of advertising programs to choose from. I have found that using a mixture of advertising solutions works best in terms of maximizing profits. For example, promoting Google Adsense ads + Amazon products together.

The huge selection of items and it’s trusted wide known brand, alone, did it for me. There is really nothing to lose when joining any affiliate program, but all to gain. I tend to advise marketers to find and test solutions because you will never know that it may be the next breakthrough until you try right?

Anywho…, if you are interested in becoming an affiliate of Amazon, you can join here.

Amazon Product Ads: Free $75

There is no doubt about it that about everyone has heard of Amazon before. Amazon Product Ads is similar to Google Adwords, except the catch is, their target audience is more directed to online shoppers. Nonetheless, this promotion creates a great opportunity for those who operate their own online business that sell actual merchandise. And for those who operate their own bricks and motor business, this may be the opportunity for you to finally test the waters of selling online.

As you may know, for a business to function, you need customers. Simply what this free $75 advertising credit does for your business, is simply attract more customers to your online storefront. If you are a new and coming business owner, this may all sound new to you. However, fear not. The process is essentially the same and instead, customers look for their favorite products by navigating through your online storefront. You can think of this promotion from Amazon as their Thanksgiving gift to you, because essentially, they are giving you free customers if you take advantage of this free offer.

Amazon Product Ads is a PPC (pay per click) company meaning that essentially every click they direct to your webpage, you are getting a brand new customer. For more details on their pricing for advertising, you can view that here.

Requirements to get free credit

1. This promotional offer (“Offer”) is limited to Amazon Product Ads sellers who receive their first Amazon Product Ads click (as measured by Amazon Services) between 7/19/10-12/31/10. Sellers that receive a first click after the promotional period are not eligible.
2. You must provide a valid credit card number to receive the promotional credit.
3. Participants must register and maintain an Amazon Product Ads account in good standing with Amazon Services LLC.
4. Participants must be located within the United States and are subject to the Product Ads Agreement.
5. Offer may not be used in conjunction with any other promotional or incentive offer from Amazon Services or Amazon.com, Inc., or their affiliates.
6. Offer is not for resale and is not redeemable for cash.
7. Offer is void in the event of fraud, mistake, or any failure to satisfy any terms of the Offer.
8. Amazon Services reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to terminate or modify this Offer at any time.

The credits will be applied to your Amazon Product Ads account within 10 business days after the first click on one of your Product Ads.

My First Time Selling on Amazon

I’ve always wanted to associate myself with the ecommerce industry and really test the waters because it was always an unknown territory to me. So in the end, I decided to go ahead and make a purchase of an item I felt had a solid chance of making a profit, and plan on selling it on Amazon for my first time.

Meanwhile, this post will be dedicated to explain what preparations I made in the process and explain why I believe my item will sell to make possibly my first profit from selling on Amazon. The techniques that I use can easily be replicated and are means to help an individual determine if an item may be worth selling or not to make a noteworthy profit. Also, it is to give those new to online business, more insight as to which items are worth the hassle selling.

My Observations

Some similarities I have found is that it still takes proper research to really determine whether or not an item is worth selling or not. The main difference I saw between being a Internet marketer from being a person who runs an ecommerce business was that there were a lot more calculations to be made because of the numerous fees that would be in the equation. Some examples would be the shipping and handling fee, the amazon referral fee, and the closing fee. Although on print the fees don’t sound like much, when summed up, the fees alone can cut a huge portion of a seller’s profit. I found this to be true when testing the Amazon calculator from Ryan Olbe, with a few products I found on the web that were considered hot bargains. In contrast, starting an ecommerce business sounded a bit more riskier for me because from my Internet marketing perspective, there was really nothing to lose but all to gain. There would be no such things as fees other than having to sign a Tax Agreement form with the affiliate companies I worked with. In the ecommerce business, it may also require some capital investment to get started. Despite all the risks, like I said, I am here just to test the waters so I am not discouraged.. yet.

My preparations

For me, finding my first prospect to sell on Amazon required a lot of research. For items I felt had a good chance of being my first item to sell on Amazon, I would try to figure out the general price range for that particular item on the web by cross examining them through the Ebay and Amazon marketplace. This basically gave me a general idea of what the item was worth and how much I could potentially sell it for. Bottom line, this gave me an idea of what the market was like for that particular product.

Now you may be saying, Albert, that doesn’t sound like it took much to find out if an item is worth selling or not. That is true, however, what makes this time consuming is not finding out how much a product is worth, it is searching for the perfect product to sell. Truth be told, most of the items you will encounter will make you either nothing, or cause you to lose profits. This process is what makes searching for the perfect product so time consuming.

Deciding what to sell

There were several things that I took into consideration before I chose what I wanted to sell, and those things were the fees, the item’s popularity, and of course, the profit margin. If you didn’t know, Amazon charges a different fee depending on what type of product you are selling. For example, if you are selling an electronic, Amazon will deduct 8% + the closing fee. However, if you were to sell books, 15% + the closing fee will be deducted from your sale. Also, don’t forget about the weight of the product you are selling because it will definitely influence the cost of shipping. Fortunately, with Ryan Olbe’s Amazon Calculator, it will save you the headache of calculating how much you will make. Why I bring this up? The main reason why is because it will definitely be a factor that will influence what a new seller will be selling. Everyone is looking for that golden market that is able to make them profits. Whether it be in the form of selling merchandise in quantity to make a bold profit, or in low numbers to make a profit, any market that is high in demand would be considered a gem.

Summary of what I did

For those who are curious, I will tell you exactly what I did. The first thing I did to find my first prospect was look on Fat Wallet’s Best Deals section. What I was doing was looking for items that were considered a steal to measure how much the item would be worth on both Amazon and Ebay. If an item was $7-10 cheaper than on Amazon and on Ebay, I considered the item to be a potential seller. However, it really depends on the product you are looking at. From here on, if an item was a potential seller, I jotted them down on a notebook and continued my search for more potential sellers until I achieved around 10 potential sellers. After having jotted down 10 potential sellers, I then began researching which items were more likely to sell by looking at how many customer reviews a product had. After finally organizing which items were potentially more likely to sell, the first item on my list then became my first prospect to be sold online.

Obviously, you are not confined to only looking for bargains on Fatwallet. There are many other resources where you can find items on sale that could be potential sellers. Although there could be many more things that can be added to improve the accuracy of determining which item is more likely to sell, this guide was meant for educational purposes and for demonstrating how I underwent the process in a nutshell.

Source: http://www.mooladays.com/2010/11/02/my-first-time-selling-on-amazon/

20 CPM Alternatives to Adsense

Although Google Adsense is one of the more well known networks out there among publishers, it may not exactly be the best solution for every type of site. For instance, entertainment and sports type websites may experience a lower click through ratio. Not because people hate those types of websites, but because there are many things that constitute to this fact. For the most part, entertainment type websites generally have a visitor base that doesn’t have an urgency, or a desire to click on links opposed to, let’s say, someone looking for solutions to living a healthy lifestyle or someone looking for a job. Another reason is because advertisers pay pennies worth for entertainment visitor based clicks, which can really scare away entertainment type publishers into dealing with a totally new solution like cost per thousand (CPM).

Where does the term CPM come from?

CPM stands for cost per thousand. But you may be wondering, why there is a letter “M” in the abbreviation if it means thousands? The letter “M” in the abbreviation is the Roman numeral for one thousand. Meaning, if you are with a CPM based network, clicks no longer determine your pay like Google Adsense does, but instead, counts every single page view your website delivers to their network. So to speak, you are getting paid for every visit your website receives, regardless if they click on the ads or not.

Why is it more oriented for entertainment type publishers?

The idea that you are able to be paid regardless if a visitor clicks on your ad or not, is what makes CPM based networks more profitable for entertainment typed sites because you are getting paid a fixed amount. An amount, you are guaranteed to have if you have deliver X amount of page views. You get the idea…

If Adsense didn’t work out for your site, fear not. Here, I have collected over 20 CPM alternatives to Adsense, which you can try. Realize that you can use both solutions, similar to how I use Amazon and Google Adsense together at the same time.

1. ContextWeb – Provides text/image banners. Allows you to dictate how much you get paid eCPM wise and to provide a backup tag.
2. ValueClickMedia – Provides banners, pop unders, and many other ad solutions.
3. Smowtion – Supports pop unders, text/image banners that comes in various sizes.
4. Clicksor – Support multiple avenues of CPM based ads to ensure maximum earnings.
5. Tribal Fusion – A reputable CPM company that is known to dealing with large volume publishers.
6. Casale Media – One of the more unique networks out there that supports video ads, image ads, and more.
7. Videoegg – A CPM based company, which focuses only on placing ads on videos.
8. Advertising – One of the heavy hitters of online ad publishing. Their high pageview entry point means only well-established sites can apply.
9. Adpepper – Offers various ad solutions to webmasters looking for a reliable CPM company.
10. Adtegrity – A network known for providing solid customer service in optimizing campaigns to reaching their maximum potential.
11. CPX Interactive – Have heard that they were a solid network to be in that paid good.
12. Brightroll – Provides online video advertising services to their publishers.
13. BurstMedia – Provides online video advertising services.
14. Morning Falls – It’s low relatively low traffic requirement makes this a possibly good solution to start out with if you are just beginning.
15. Right Media – A CPM based company operated by Yahoo, ensuring you will be working with one of the most trusted companies out there.
16. InterClick – A reputable CPM company known for giving solid payments to their publishers.
17. AdSmart – AdSmart offers a wide range of ad solutions for visitors on your website and even for mobile visitors.
18. Technorati Media – If you own a blog that has a large fan base, partnering with Technorati can be a wise choice.
19. Gorilla Nation – A CPM based company founded in 2001.
20. Six Apart - A network where bloggers can earn from providing solid content.

Keep note that if the pay per click (PPC) solution is working out for your blog, it is advised to stay with that solution, if not, it is recommended to try a different approach like CPM. Another way to figuring out if the PPC solution is right for your type of website, or not is to check the PPC rates at Spyfu.com. Otherwise, get busy experimenting to figure out which advertising solution is best for your site and rejoice once you find a perfect fit.

Sounrce: http://www.mooladays.com/2010/11/28/20-cpm-alternatives-to-adsense/