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	<title>Niche Adventures.Biz</title>
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		<title>Niche Adventures.Biz</title>
		<link>http://barabash.wordpress.com</link>
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		<item>
		<title>Instabuzz</title>
		<link>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/instabuzz/</link>
		<comments>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/instabuzz/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2007 20:28:07 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>sbl3</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/05/18/instabuzz/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[RE: Want Free Targeted Website Traffic? http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?sbl If you are looking for a great way to get some free traffic to your website, well look no further. Instant Buzz allows you to drive free targeted traffic to your website just by doing what you do anyway; surfing the web.  Visit below: http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?sbl Within minutes, this [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=barabash.wordpress.com&amp;blog=917007&amp;post=10&amp;subd=barabash&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>RE: Want Free Targeted Website Traffic?<br />
<a href="http://www.instantbuzz.com/r/?sbl">http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?sbl</a><br />
If you are looking for a great way to get some<br />
free traffic to your website, well look no further.</p>
<p>Instant Buzz allows you to drive free targeted<br />
traffic to your website just by doing what you do<br />
anyway; surfing the web.  Visit below:<br />
<a href="http://www.instantbuzz.com/r/?sbl">http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?sbl</a><br />
Within minutes, this breakthrough patent pending<br />
technology will be sending quality visitors to your<br />
site just because you installed the software onto<br />
your computer.</p>
<p>Download this awesome tool now:<br />
<a href="http://www.instantbuzz.com/r/?sbl">http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?sbl</a><br />
Thanks,<br />
Robert</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Analyzing web traffic</title>
		<link>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/analyzing-web-traffic/</link>
		<comments>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/analyzing-web-traffic/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 11 Apr 2007 02:33:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>sbl3</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/11/analyzing-web-traffic/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[=================================================== Analyzing Website Traffic =================================================== Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to interpret the data. Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web traffic information that you then [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=barabash.wordpress.com&amp;blog=917007&amp;post=8&amp;subd=barabash&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>===================================================<br />
Analyzing Website Traffic<br />
===================================================</p>
<p>Analyzing your web traffic statistics can be an invaluable<br />
tool for a number of different reasons. But before you can<br />
make full use of this tool, you need to understand how to<br />
interpret the data.</p>
<p>Most web hosting companies will provide you with basic web<br />
traffic information that you then have to interpret and<br />
make pertinent use of. However, the data you receive from<br />
your host company can be overwhelming if you don&#8217;t<br />
understand how to apply it to your particular business and<br />
website. Let&#8217;s start by examining the most basic data &#8211; the<br />
average visitors to your site on a daily, weekly, and<br />
monthly basis.</p>
<p>These figures are the most accurate measure of your<br />
website&#8217;s activity. It would appear on the surface that the<br />
more traffic you see recorded, the better you can assume<br />
your website is doing, but this is an inaccurate<br />
perception. You must also look at the behavior of your<br />
visitors once they come to your website to accurately gauge<br />
the effectiveness of your site.</p>
<p>There is often a great misconception about what is commonly<br />
known as &#8220;hits&#8221; and what is really effective, quality<br />
traffic to your site. Hits simply means the number of<br />
information requests received by the server. If you think<br />
about the fact that a hit can simply equate to the number<br />
of graphics per page, you will get an idea of how overblown<br />
the concept of hits can be. For example, if your homepage<br />
has 15 graphics on it, the server records this as 15 hits,<br />
when in reality we are talking about a single visitor<br />
checking out a single page on your site. As you can see,<br />
hits are not useful in analyzing your website traffic.</p>
<p>The more visitors that come to your website, the more<br />
accurate your interpretation will become. The greater the<br />
traffic is to your website, the more precise your analysis<br />
will be of overall trends in visitor behavior. The smaller<br />
the number of visitors, the more a few anomalous visitors<br />
can distort the analysis.</p>
<p>The aim is to use the web traffic statistics to figure out<br />
how well or how poorly your site is working for your<br />
visitors. One way to determine this is to find out how long<br />
on average your visitors spend on your site. If the time<br />
spent is relatively brief, it usually indicates an<br />
underlying problem. Then the challenge is to figure out<br />
what that problem is.</p>
<p>It could be that your keywords are directing the wrong type<br />
of visitors to your website, or that your graphics are<br />
confusing or intimidating, causing the visitor to exit<br />
rapidly. Use the knowledge of how much time visitors are<br />
spending on your site to pinpoint specific problems, and<br />
after you fix those problems, continue to use time spent as<br />
a gauge of how effective your fix has been.</p>
<p>Additionally, web traffic stats can help you determine<br />
effective and ineffective areas of your website. If you<br />
have a page that you believe is important, but visitors are<br />
exiting it rapidly, that page needs attention. You could,<br />
for example, consider improving the link to this page by<br />
making the link more noticeable and enticing, or you could<br />
improve the look of the page or the ease that your visitors<br />
can access the necessary information on that page.</p>
<p>If, on the other hand, you notice that visitors are<br />
spending a lot of time on pages that you think are less<br />
important, you might consider moving some of your sales<br />
copy and marketing focus to that particular page.</p>
<p>As you can see, these statistics will reveal vital<br />
information about the effectiveness of individual pages,<br />
and visitor habits and motivation. This is essential<br />
information to any successful Internet marketing campaign.</p>
<p>Your website undoubtedly has exit pages, such as a final<br />
order or contact form. This is a page you can expect your<br />
visitor to exit rapidly. However, not every visitor to your<br />
site is going to find exactly what he or she is looking<br />
for, so statistics may show you a number of different exit<br />
pages. This is normal unless you notice a exit trend on a<br />
particular page that is not intended as an exit page. In<br />
the case that a significant percentage of visitors are<br />
exiting your website on a page not designed for that<br />
purpose, you must closely examine that particular page to<br />
discern what the problem is. Once you pinpoint potential<br />
weaknesses on that page, minor modifications in content or<br />
graphic may have a significant impact on the keeping<br />
visitors moving through your site instead of exiting at the<br />
wrong page.</p>
<p>After you have analyzed your visitor statistics, it&#8217;s time<br />
to turn to your keywords and phrases. Notice if particular<br />
keywords are directing a specific type of visitor to your<br />
site. The more targeted the visitor &#8211; meaning that they<br />
find what they are looking for on your site, and even<br />
better, fill out your contact form or make a purchase &#8211; the<br />
more valuable that keyword is.</p>
<p>However, if you find a large number of visitors are being<br />
directed &#8211; or should I say misdirected &#8211; to your site by a<br />
particular keyword or phrase, that keyword demands<br />
adjustment. Keywords are vital to bringing quality visitors<br />
to your site who are ready to do business with you. Close<br />
analysis of the keywords your visitors are using to find<br />
your site will give you a vital understanding of your<br />
visitor&#8217;s needs and motivations.</p>
<p>Finally, if you notice that users are finding your website<br />
by typing in your company name, break open the champagne!<br />
It means you have achieved a significant level of brand<br />
recognition, and this is a sure sign of burgeoning success.</p>
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		<title>MORE ON AUTORESPONDERS</title>
		<link>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/08/more-on-autoresponders/</link>
		<comments>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/08/more-on-autoresponders/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 08 Apr 2007 04:32:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>sbl3</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/08/more-on-autoresponders/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[=================================================== Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Autoreponders =================================================== An interested visitor who has been strolling through your site has finally come to just what she is looking for and is about to make a purchase. It&#8217;s a sunny afternoon, and her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the visitor&#8217;s large [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=barabash.wordpress.com&amp;blog=917007&amp;post=7&amp;subd=barabash&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>===================================================<br />
Creative and Profitable Ways to Use Autoreponders<br />
===================================================</p>
<p>An interested visitor who has been strolling through your<br />
site has finally come to just what she is looking for and<br />
is about to make a purchase. It&#8217;s a sunny afternoon, and<br />
her cat, who happens to be sitting on the moss under the<br />
visitor&#8217;s large fifty-year-old snow-rose bonsai tree,<br />
suddenly jumps down, and the priceless tree topples over.</p>
<p>In the blink of an eye, your visitor exits your site, and<br />
your sale is dust &#8211; unless you have had the foresight to<br />
utilize an autoresponder that has captured her email<br />
address. If you have installed an autoresponder, you can<br />
then follow-up with her, and in all probability, make the<br />
sale when the poor woman has finished repotting her<br />
precious bonsai.</p>
<p>Autoresponders are remarkable, versatile programs that do<br />
so much more than just automatically answer your email.<br />
Here are a few ideas that will help you to creatively and<br />
productively use your autoresponder to transform the casual<br />
visitor into a profitable customer. Use your autoresponder<br />
to:</p>
<p>1. Publish a newsletter. Certain quality autoresponders<br />
will manage subscriptions and follow-up with interested<br />
prospects. Your newsletter can keep your visitors informed<br />
about your services or products, while building your<br />
reputation as a credible expert in your particular<br />
business.</p>
<p>2. Publish a newsletter only for your affiliates. Inform<br />
them of current sales you are running and of promotional<br />
material that your affiliates can use themselves to<br />
increase their commissions. Include tips, advice, and<br />
techniques that your affiliates can use to successfully go<br />
out and promote your business.</p>
<p>3. Write reviews. Cover books, software, music, e-books,<br />
movies, etc., and put each review in an autoresponder.<br />
Review your affiliate programs, using a link to your<br />
affiliate&#8217;s page in your autoresponder.</p>
<p>4. Distribute your articles. Writing and distributing<br />
targeted articles is a powerful tool to build your business<br />
credibility, bring traffic to your site, and increase your<br />
sales potential. If your articles contain valuable<br />
information, many editors will print what is known as a<br />
resource box for you. A resource box contains your bio and<br />
a brief description of your service or product. It can also<br />
contain your autoresponder address. Let&#8217;s say you&#8217;ve<br />
written fifty articles. Put them on separate autoresponder<br />
accounts and create a master list that contains the titles<br />
of each article, the autoresponder address, and a brief<br />
abstract. Then promote your master list. Additionally,<br />
include your publishing guidelines so your affiliates can<br />
add their articles to your list, increasing the number of<br />
writers who are represented in your article list.</p>
<p>5. Create mailing lists. Inform subscribers to your<br />
articles when you&#8217;ve written new ones that they may want to<br />
publish in their own newsletter or website.</p>
<p>6. Automate your sales process. Use an ad to insure<br />
repeated exposure of your message, which has been proven to<br />
effectively increase sales. In your ad, put your<br />
autoresponder address where a visitor will be exposed to<br />
numerous marketing materials. This multiplies the chances<br />
of converting visitors into customers. For example, if<br />
you&#8217;re selling a particular product, put testimonials about<br />
how spectacular it is on your autoresponder, and add a<br />
detailed, enticing description of your product.</p>
<p>7. Distribute advertising. Let&#8217;s say you sell advertising<br />
on your website or in your newsletter or e-zine. Set your<br />
autoresponder to send the information about rates and how<br />
to place an ad automatically to all prospects&#8217; email<br />
addresses. Then have your autoresponder follow-up. It can<br />
also send notification of any special deals you are<br />
currently offering.</p>
<p>8. Distribute an email course. Each day, have your<br />
autoresponder send out another lesson. Just be sure that<br />
each lesson has quality content &#8211; not a sales pitch. Your<br />
content will do the selling for you, and will do it much<br />
more effectively. You can include tips centered on a<br />
different topic for each lesson, illustrating how your<br />
product will benefit the reader. Include the tangible<br />
benefits the visitor will reap by purchasing your product.<br />
Make sure to include a paragraph or two at the end of each<br />
lesson enticing your prospect to consider making a<br />
purchase.</p>
<p>9. Automate a reminder about your service or product after<br />
a visitor has completed your course. This will increase the<br />
possibility of sales from visitors who have taken your<br />
course but are dragging their feet about actually making a<br />
purchase. You can also use these reminders to promote new<br />
products or services, and the products and services of your<br />
affiliate programs.</p>
<p>10. Distribute free reports. This gives your visitor an<br />
idea of the type of information you can provide and the<br />
quality of your product or service. Make sure these reports<br />
are not sales letters or you will more than likely lose a<br />
potential customer than gain a sale.</p>
<p>11. Create trivia quizzes on your site and place the<br />
answers in an autoresponder. Your visitor will then be<br />
motivated to request your autoresponder, and you will have<br />
a record of the visitors&#8217; email addresses who took your<br />
quiz. Or create a contest and have any visitors that enter<br />
send their responses to your autoresponder. Your<br />
autoresponder can be set-up to send them a confirmation of<br />
their entry.</p>
<p>12. Offer a trial version of your product. Give your<br />
prospects a sample of your ebook, course, software,<br />
membership, etc. People who are exposed to a little taste<br />
often end up wanting the whole pie. You can also capture<br />
their email addresses when you offer them a free trial from<br />
your website. Set up your autoresponder to give<br />
instructions on how to obtain their free trial, and then<br />
make sure to follow-up to try and close the sale.</p>
<p>13. Link to hidden pages on your autoresponder. For<br />
example, a hidden page could be your affiliate page that<br />
contains graphics, promotional articles, and text links<br />
that interested affiliates can make use of. Inform visitors<br />
that they may have free access to your affiliate page by<br />
simply requesting your autoresponder. You will then gather<br />
a list of visitors who may be interested in becoming your<br />
affiliates.</p>
<p>14. Use an autoresponder on your order page. Post a request<br />
form for visitors to be notified of special offers or<br />
discounts in the future. This creates a very effective<br />
mailing list that contains the names of people who are<br />
already your customers.</p>
<p>15. Put your links page on your autoresponder. It should<br />
contain up to fifty links that would be of particular<br />
interest to your visitors. Make sure to add your own<br />
promotional copy at the top or bottom of this page.</p>
<p>Now that you have proof that autoresponders can be used<br />
creatively, see if you can come up with some brilliant<br />
ideas of your own!</p>
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		<title>Autoresponders</title>
		<link>http://barabash.wordpress.com/2007/04/07/autoresponders/</link>
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		<pubDate>Sat, 07 Apr 2007 06:20:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>sbl3</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[marketing]]></category>

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		<description><![CDATA[=================================================== Introduction to Autoresponders =================================================== If you&#8217;ve reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to bury you alive every single day, you&#8217;re ready to learn about autoresponders. The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their email inquiries. However, unless you can figure [...]<img alt="" border="0" src="http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=barabash.wordpress.com&amp;blog=917007&amp;post=6&amp;subd=barabash&amp;ref=&amp;feed=1" width="1" height="1" />]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>===================================================<br />
Introduction to Autoresponders<br />
===================================================</p>
<p>If you&#8217;ve reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep up<br />
with answering the mountain of emails that threatens to<br />
bury you alive every single day, you&#8217;re ready to learn<br />
about autoresponders.</p>
<p>The bad news is that people expect prompt replies to their<br />
email inquiries. However, unless you can figure out how to<br />
work continual twenty-four hour shifts, or hire enough<br />
people to constantly monitor incoming emails (while they&#8217;re<br />
eating up your revenue), you have a problem. The good news<br />
is an autoresponder is an inexpensive &#8211; or even free -<br />
method of quickly responding to emails. What these programs<br />
do is automatically respond to incoming emails as soon as<br />
they are received.</p>
<p>Emails are essential to your business for many different<br />
reasons. Most importantly, these invisible email voices<br />
give you their feedback about your website &#8211; for free!<br />
However, if you spend all your working hours answering<br />
these emails, how are you supposed to run your business?<br />
The answer is simple: use autoresponders. Autoresponders<br />
are programs that automatically respond to your emails<br />
without you so much as having to click on your mouse.</p>
<p>There are a number of good reasons why you need an<br />
autoresponder besides just answering your email. For<br />
example, autoresponders can be used if you need a way to<br />
send information about your services or products, price<br />
lists, or if there are repeated questions asked across<br />
large numbers of emails. Maybe you want to offer your site<br />
visitors a special bonus of some kind, such as advice or<br />
relevant articles. All of this can be handled by an<br />
autoresponder. Additionally, you can advertise your<br />
business and then build stable relationships with your<br />
customers by using autoresponders.</p>
<p>Autoresponder programs vary from software that runs with<br />
your email program to a specialized script that runs on<br />
your web hosting company&#8217;s server. This kind of script may<br />
use a web page form or simply operate with your email<br />
account. This kind of script is programmed to send out a<br />
standardized message whenever an email is received. The<br />
message is sent to a particular script or email address.</p>
<p>Some autoresponders can do more than simply send out<br />
standardized messages. They can send out an unlimited<br />
number of follow-up messages sent at predetermined interval<br />
of time. For example, you can set your autoresponder to<br />
send out a new message every day for as long a period as<br />
you desire.</p>
<p>There are numerous companies who offer autoresponders free<br />
of charge. Your website hosting company often provides<br />
autoresponders as a free service. If this is not the case<br />
with your web hosting company, there are numerous companies<br />
who offer this service for a small fee, or free of charge,<br />
providing you attach an advertisement for their company to<br />
your emails.</p>
<p>To personalize your autoresponder messages, you can attach<br />
a signature. Signatures in this case are much like business<br />
cards. You can include your name, company, all your contact<br />
numbers and addresses, and a brief message.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s a good idea to attach a signature to every email that<br />
is sent out. This works as a repeated reminder of your<br />
business identity every time a customer sees it. The more<br />
they look at your signature, the more likely your company<br />
will spring to mind when your particular service or product<br />
is needed.</p>
<p>You can create a standardized signature that every employee<br />
in your business uses, or you can go wild, and let every<br />
staff member create their own personal signature. Of<br />
course, like everything in life, there are some rules and<br />
guidelines to creating a personal signature.</p>
<p>Keep the length of your signature between four to six lines<br />
of text, with no more than 70 characters in a single line.<br />
Make sure that your email program does not cut off your<br />
text! The content should include your name, your company<br />
name, your email address, fax number, and any other contact<br />
details, such as 800 numbers. Lastly, always include a<br />
short personal message about your company. It should be a<br />
subtle sell of your services or your products, and possibly<br />
your company&#8217;s reliability and longevity.</p>
<p>Another specialized use of autoresponders is to create<br />
courses that you can then offer your site visitors for<br />
free. You must choose a topic in which you are an expert<br />
and that precisely targets your potential customers.</p>
<p>Once you have carefully chosen your subject, divide it into<br />
a number of different sub-topics. Then offer your site<br />
visitor a free 10 or 15 day course, each day offering a<br />
different sub-topic. The first topic should always be a<br />
welcome message to your site visitor and an explanation<br />
about what is to follow. Your explanation should be<br />
enticing, getting the point across that you are offering<br />
free, quality information that your target audience will<br />
find of great value.</p>
<p>With every lesson, include the number of the lesson, the<br />
topic title, information about your company and its<br />
services or products. At the end, include a few blurbs<br />
about the next lesson to entice the subscriber to continue<br />
on.</p>
<p>Make sure each topic is packed with essential and valuable<br />
information, and leaves the visitor lusting to know more.<br />
Otherwise, you may lose them in the very beginning.</p>
<p>Of course, you have to write up your course before you can<br />
offer it. Once you have done this, and gone over the<br />
material carefully, employing a professional writer or<br />
editor if necessary, you must transfer your text to your<br />
autoresponder.</p>
<p>There are a number of free autoresponders you can use. Try<br />
http:/www.getresponse.com, or http://www.fastfacts.net. Or<br />
go onto Google and you will find a long list of free<br />
autoresponder companies. Then sign-up for your chosen<br />
autoresponder. Once you do, you will receive instructions<br />
as to how to set it up and transfer your text.</p>
<p>Email is an excellent marketing tool; it is inexpensive and<br />
it is fast. Use it to advertise your business by choosing<br />
your email address carefully. Your website should contain<br />
different email addresses for different contact requests.<br />
For example, use info@yourdomain.com for information<br />
requests, or sales@yourdomain.com for questions about<br />
sales. It&#8217;s a good idea to set up one for the owner, such<br />
as president@yourdomain.com. This presents your company in<br />
a personal, approachable light and insures that direct<br />
contact is provided.</p>
<p>Autoresponders are an effective and powerful marketing<br />
tool, allowing you to make contact with thousands of<br />
potential customers. This is an invaluable asset<br />
considering how many potential customers you usually have<br />
contact with before you make an actual sale. Essentially,<br />
an autoresponser allows you to automate part of your<br />
marketing campaign.</p>
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