Online Business For Your Success

Affiliate Marketing In 3 Steps

Affiliate marketing is a process where the merchant will pay a portion of their sales revenue to an affiliate if the sale is result of the affiliate's promotion to the products and services offered by the merchant.

Now days, it's one of the fastest growing industries because it's cost efficient and quantifiable for both the affiliate and the merchant. Other players can profit as well, such as the affiliate network or the affiliate solutions provider.

The best benefit for the merchant is the fact that he will gain opportunities to advertise his products to a much larger market, therefore increasing his chances to earn. The more affiliates the merchant obtains, the more sales he can expect.

With the merchant having affiliates market his products and services, he will save himself time, effort, and money in looking for markets as well as customers. The affiliate marketer will benefit from each customer that clinks on the link in his website and who actually purchases a product from the merchant.

If you have wanted to join the growing legion of affiliate marketers and have an unlimited potential for income, simply follow these 3 steps to start an effective affiliate marketing program.

1. Identify something that interests you or you feel very passionate about. Then, focus on a specific area you know a lot about, as this will help you bring out your best and give your visitors who are possible buyers a demonstration of your expert in this field. This way, you'll gain their trust and encourage them to buy the products that you endorse.

2. Search for merchants and products or services that are related to your interest then creat a web site with top level domain names and very reliable hosting. When you choose the products for your web site, you need to consider the commission structure and the conversion rate.

There are many different affiliate networks and affiliate solution providers where you can obtain the information on most profitable products and which merchants pay the best. Take your time -and be sure you choose the right one.

3. Now, you are ready to promote. You've chosen everything you need and even created your very own website. You'll need to be creative, flexible, and willing to embrace new ideas. By this stage, you'll be well on your way to making more money than you ever imagined - and enjoying every minute of it.

Affiliate Marketing - The New Age of Business by Martin Salter

Affiliate Marketing - The Business Model for Start Ups?

Getting started online can be VERY Confusing! With so many different ways to get started and so many "opportunities" bombarding your inbox each and every day, it can become daunting to some.

Affiliate marketing is a wonderful way to get started for many reasons!

1) You don't have to invent the product 2) You don't have to worry about customer service and delivery 3) You don't have to be concerned with technical support if appropriate to the product 4) The market research has been done in part for you already (more on that soon) 5) Some tools are already provided, like graphics, text, and even content in come cases

There are many other good reasons too, but we are focused on these right now!

The simple fact that you do not have to create the product in the first instance saves you time and money. This already puts you ahead of the typical starting your own business model...

Typically in the regular business environment, you need, stock, fixtures and fittings if in a shop or office, you need to spend money on product design, creation, marketing, shipping, the list goes on.

With affiliate marketing, even with physical shipped goods, none of that is your concern in terms of effort, cost etc.

The Priority advice I can give here is that if you are promoting physical goods, you actually order from the company you will be promoting for a couple of reasons.

A) You know the quality of the goods yourself BEFORE you recommend them! B) You get to see how good customer service is, delivery times and condition etc. C) You learn something about the company that you can use in your "review of their services"

This makes the business start up costs for you as low as they possibly could be! And with the many FREE traffic sources openly available these days, you could actually launch your online business for as little as $100 to cover hosting and email account set up etc.

In the history of business, no other opportunity has been so openly available to the massesacross such a broad marketplace as with affiliate marketing.

You can sell virtually anything as an affiliate. Just enter the product arena you wish to work within along with the words affiliate program tagged on the end into your favourite search engine, and you will be likely to find a relevant program to promote.

But getting started with Learn4Profit , we recommend you focus on Digital Delivery to start if you can, simply as this will increase your earning potential, and your ease of promotion!

Are you the right kind of person to work online in your own business as an Affiliate Marketer?

Do you have the commitment, the drive, the passion to work for yourself, the edge to keep going when it gets tough (and it pretty much always does at some point)..

Being an affiliate marketer, is the perfect starting point, in other articles, we look at how you find your first product market, the importance of passion and knowledge, but the simplicity of getting started.

What are the Steps to Making Affiliate Income? by Cyndie King

Many Internet marketers suggest that affiliate marketing is a great way to make money online. I believe that it is best to have a roadmap to learn how to do something. There are several steps that if you follow them will help you to make money online through affiliate marketing and making affiliate money. This article will show you six steps to making money online the affiliate way.

The first step in making money online the affiliate way is to choose a product to market. I always suggest that you start out selecting a product that you are interested in or that you have some knowledge or expertise in. This just makes it easier to get started and easier to stick with. I am interested in Internet marketing and making money online, so I started looking for courses that taught something about making money online. Maybe you are interested in dogs. You might look for products about dogs to market.

The second step is to setup and create a website. Now I do present this as the second step, but I want to make it clear that you can be an affiliate and not have your own website. However, I believe that to be the most successful, you are going to want to have a website. By having a website, you can get traffic, presell you customers, and then send the customers to the affiliate site. When you create your website, you will have a domain name, and a hosting company that will hold your webpages, email autoresponder and have high speed access to the Internet so that your customer will be able to access this site.

The third step to making money online the affiliate way is to get traffic to your website. Now it is important to make note that we don't just want traffic for the sake of getting traffic, but we want traffic coming to our site that are interested in what we have to promote. This type of traffic is called targeted traffic. If I am interested in dog products, I certainly won't be visiting a horse product site.

The fourth step is to create an email list of customers. You will be able to use this list to offer other products to. This list will have an email address for the different people that have come to your site and actually given you their name and address.

The fifth step will be to assess your conversions. There are different types of conversions, with the main one being the percentage of people that visit your site divided by the number of sales. Another article will be devoted the understanding conversions.

The sixth step is a step that you will spend a lot of time doing after the initial set-up. This will be tracking your results. The main measurement that I want to know is how much did I make and was it a loss or did I make a profit. I want to know how many people came to my site. I also want to know where the visitors came from. That way, I will be able to determine which sources I should continue to use. The next measurement that I want to check on is how many people did I add to my list. For those that I added to my list, I also want to find what percentage of those people purchased a product. Finally I want to take a look at my money. I need to find out how much did I spend in advertising and then how much money did I actually take in.

These are the steps to make money online the affiliate way. Further articles will be written surrounding each of these steps. Each of these steps will be used in the process of making money online the affiliate way.

Work At Home Online Business Tips by Cynthia Minnaar

Sometimes it can be a bit of a juggle finding enough hours in the day around your day job to successfully start and build a work at home online business, so herewith some tips to make your online home business building process smoother.

When starting a work at home online business and going through the training there always appears to be so much to do and of course we want to get everything set up as quickly as possible in order to start making money online.

However, you may find that a lot of the information that you are provided with is totally new to you and so before being able to implement the tasks you may need to learn some additional skills and so you need to try and avoid suffering from information overload.

By trying to get as much done as possible in the few hours available without having a total understanding of what you are doing will only lead to confusion and frustration. It can become overwhelming, so you need to focus on one task at a time and try and stay organized and work as efficiently as possible. Making use of To-Do Lists helps - you could have an urgent list, important list, daily, weekly and monthly lists.

It is highly likely that you will want to implement some changes to your website but at this stage your knowledge of html is really minimal, so you first may need to spend some time learning html before you move on to the stage of being able to successfully make changes to your website.

You will also be eager to start driving traffic to your work at home online business website and may want to implement a pay-per-click advertising campaign but your experience in this area of advertising is also lacking. Again you would need to spend time learning the ins and outs of pay-per-click before starting a campaign otherwise it could end up costing you dearly.

There are many internet marketing methods that you would no doubt be introduced to during your work at home online business training, such as article marketing, email marketing, forum marketing, blogging, traffic exchanges, safelists, pay per click, classified ads, ezine advertising, social bookmarking, etc. Avoid trying to implement them all at once. Choose one and focus on it until you are having success then move on until you have 2 or 3 methods that you are skilled at.

You may like to initially focus on building your list by getting subscribers to sign up for your work at home online business ideas newsletter. You can do this by buying leads, placing classified ads with your autoresponder email address in it rather than your website address, put an exit pop up on your home page, put a newsletter sign up form on all of your web pages, etc. Each new subscriber you get to your newsletter means that you are making progress.

You could for example then move on to learning how to write and distribute articles which is a great way to drive targeted traffic to your website as you will be building back links to your website which will result in higher positions in the search engine results.

Building a work at home online business is a step-by-step process and takes time. It is rather like building a house, you cannot put the roof on until the walls are built and you cannot build the walls until the foundations are laid and so building an online home business needs to follow a similar logical process.

Don't rush, take your time and get to grips with the information provided in order to build a solid foundation to your online home business. Choose the internet marketing methods that are most effective for you and build your work at home online business one step at a time instead of trying to implement everything all at once.

Deciding To Start Your Own Business


What a scary thought! Who would want to make that leap of faith and start their own business? Do you really have the self confidence to do it? Take a deep breath and think about it.

If you are contemplating starting your own business, I know these thoughts are running through your head. They certainly raced through my mind when I was thinking about it. This is a decision that needs thorough thought. Don’t jump into it without thinking.

Have you thought about opening a store? The investment for an “on the street” business is great – thousands and thousands of dollars. That excludes most of us. A workable alternative is a “work at home” business. The increasing popularity of the internet has really opened up that field. The instability of so many businesses has created a need for many people to work for themselves.

It is very possible to start an “at home business” with very little investment. This allows the “little guy” (you and me) to be self-employed. If you search the web for online businesses, you will find many that do require a large initial outlay of cash. That wasn’t for me. I wanted an opportunity to start with little or no cash output and then I could determine expenditures on advertising and other things. This would allow me to control my budget. Not having a lot to spend, I was aware that it is possible to find free methods of advertising which would require more time than money.

Some people will quit their “day job” and jump into a business. I do not advise this unless you are very financially secure. I continue my full time job, devoting all the hours I can in the evenings and weekends to my new business. This takes a lot of determination! You really need a lot of self confidence to believe that this business will succeed and you will be able to do it full time in the future. You really have to want to change your lifestyle. The thought of being in control of my destiny fuels me. I am determined to succeed.

Work at home businesses are also perfect for part time work. Those of you who just want to supplement your family’s income for vacation money, Christmas money, money to pay the bills would do well with an online business. You can control how much you earn and how much time you spend.

In this day of corporations constantly downsizing, no job is secure. Wouldn’t you rather be the one in charge? Wouldn’t you rather not have a long commute each day? Make the move! Start working for yourself.

Running an Internet Home Business for Profit


Everyone has different reasons for wanting to work from home. Some would like to stay home with their kids, while others can’t work outside the home for health reasons. Whatever your reasons are, an Internet home business can provide an income.

Usually, any Internet home business is not going to make any money right away. It will take time and effort to build up your new business before it will be at all profitable. Regardless of what internet marketers may tell you, you will not be making thousands a week with any Internet home business. Usually those marketers are trying to lure you into their program, that’s why they promise so much.

A Solution to Stay at Home?

There are several options for working at home, and an Internet home business is one of them. The first step will be to decide if you are even capable of working at home on your own. Are you able to set a work schedule for yourself and more importantly, are you able to stick to that schedule? If you need someone telling you what to do and handing you projects throughout the day, working with your own Internet home business may not be the best answer for you.

Deciding what exactly you want to do with an Internet home business is your next step. Do you want to start your own business? Or would you rather sell something and be a distributor for that product? There are so many options available on the internet that it can feel overwhelming just trying to sort out the junk from the real opportunities. If you decide to work for someone else in an Internet home business, make sure you understand exactly what you are getting into.

Some will require money up front, while others will provide support and help you to get started. If you feel at all uncomfortable with anything they are asking you to provide or do, step back and slow down. If it just doesn’t feel right, don’t do it. Or better yet, check them out online. If they are trouble, someone will have posted their experiences with the company online.

If you plan on an Internet home business of your own, what do you plan to do? Transcription is one job that can easily turn into a good Internet home business. It is something that can be sent through e-mail, and when it is done, you can return it to the customer. An Internet home business of your own will require a lot of groundwork especially since you are laying out the ground floor for yourself and probably won’t have anyone helping you.

An Internet home business is a definite possibility. However, it does take quite a bit of time and effort to find one that fits with what you can and want to do. Take your time, explore all of your options, and then the real work will start. It is doable, so don’t give up if it takes a little longer than you expected!

Getting the Best Links from Authority Sites by Bruce Swedal


We all know back links are a big factor in ranking higher in search engines. It used to be simple to get links by submitting to every directory and your rankings would climb. It is quickly becoming more difficult to move up in search rankings. Directories are still important, but it is becoming more important to be discriminating when evaluating which ones to submit to. You need to be selective and in some cases willing to pay review fees.

The first source for an authority link is DMOZ. It is a free directory, but most that submit there do not get accepted. DMOZ is very strict on evaluating websites for submissions. They look for established sites with unique content and completely unique offerings when there are millions of competing websites is difficult to accomplish. Submit here and forget about it. It will be months before your site is evaluated and they will not inform you when it is.

The next best source for authority links would be a few web directories with authority. There are a few in this category that I would recommend. Those being JoeAnt.com, AuthorityDirectory.com, Abilogic.com and dir.yahoo.com. Quality paid directories such as these are wonderful resources, because they are kept updated, well categorized and promoted. The fees incurred are for the time involved in reviewing your site for admission. They can keep the spam out because with quality directories there is no guarantee of admission. So follow the guidelines when submitting.

I have always thought that one of the best place to look for links are by searching for the sites that link to your competition. If these hub sites are willing to link to your competitor, they are more than likely willing to link to you. It is a good idea to try getting links from these resources that have shown the willingness to link to sites like yours in the past.

The next place to look for authority links may be from authority blog sites. These can be a great source of excellent links. It can also backfire on you so be careful. Authority blog sites get a great deal of traffic so if you make comments that are considered off topic or spam just to get a link, many visitors will see it. This could get you a bad reputation and hurt your credibility, especially if the blog covers a related topic. Do not spam authority blogs and keep comments on topic.

Perhaps the last quality place to look for authority links would be school or government sites. Getting a link from these sources is not an easy task and generally requires that you know a friend or relative working there. Other ways to get these links are by offering a freebie to them in return, by volunteering as a speaker or making a donation.

If you try some of the tips outlined here you are assured of getting at least one authority link to your website which will help your website rank higher in the search engine results. Some of the tips are definitely more difficult than others so reflect on this. Are you a webmaster that gives up easily or one that will work to get your website ranked higher?

Online Time Clock Saves Lots Of Paper by Frank Vanderlugt


Every year, countless person-hours and numerous sheets of paper are wasted by human resource managers or administrative support keeping track of time cards, project schedules, W2s, vacation time, sick days, and payroll. Freelancers or people who work for a company from home may run into trouble if they work at an hourly rate and no one's there to confirm the hours they have spent working.

What's a business or freelancer to do? Try throwing time cards out the window and start using an online time clock to keep track of hours worked at your company or on your freelance projects!

TimeClockOnline.com is one such online time clock Web site that can serve as the "punch card" system for both employees at a business or freelance employees and employees who work from home. For a fee, Time Clock Online can store as few as five or as many as 200 employees' data for a year, with special pricing available to companies with more than two hundred employees on request.

Time Clock Online keeps records of all of your employees' hours spent on individual projects and makes it easy to export the data to accounting programs such as Excel, Quickbooks, and ADP Payroll for easy, one-click payroll. You can even put a login screen directly on your company's Web site to make using your online time clock even more convenient for your employees.

Time Clock Online provides features to keep track of overtime, vacation, sick days, benefits, and more. Businesses are welcome to try a free 10-day trial before purchasing the online time clock system.

If you want to go one step further with your online time clock, try iEmployee.com. iEmployee has a complete online time clock system like Time Clock Online in addition to other human resources and workforce management services. Run your payroll and calculate benefits and expenses with iEmployee or continue to use the payroll system you already have. Keep track of employees' W2s, making tax time even easier.

If you're part of a larger corporation, you might want to look into iEmployee, which has served businesses with between 100 and 10,000 employees. The price for a complete online time clock and payroll system through iEmployee is likely more than Time Clock Online, but its online time clock services are more extensive. Sign up for a free 30-day trial or contact iEmployee to inquire about the monthly or annual cost for your business.

What if you don't need quite an extensive online time clock system? What if your business is extremely small, perhaps even Internet-based, and you only hire a few freelancers? What if you yourself are a freelancer and you'd like an official online time clock to keep track of your hours spent on a project for a client?

There are free online time clock systems that any business or freelancer can use, like the one at MrKent.com/timeclock or the ones you can download at FreeDownloadsCenter.com. These are very basic online time clocks that basically serve as an official "stopwatch" for your employees or employer to use when calculating hourly pay, but they're free and useful for any small business or freelancer.

Online time clocks are an easy, convenient way for everyone from individual freelancers to large corporations to keep track of the hours spent working. Free up your employees' time for more productive uses and let an online time clock do the time-keeping for them!

Marketing Tools For The Internet Trade



For every business and tech-savvy entrepreneur, learning about all the possible tricks in the Internet marketing trade is really an absolute must. Currently, with the abundance of online merchants and their various affiliates, a lot of technology experts have tapped this opportunity to help you make some more money – at a price of course. Well, not all the time though since there are some marketing tools that you can avail free of charge. You just have to be resourceful and extremely patient in order for you to get the right type of marketing tool that you’ll need for your website. This is perfect for home-based businesses as well as work-at-home aficionados who want to make the most out of the various money-making internet based ventures that are available to just about anyone who’s willing.

Some of the current popular marketing tools nowadays are:

Adwords Software: if you’re already aware of what Adwords are and what they can do to help you earn lots of money with just a few clicks from other internet users, then this marketing tool software promises, actually, it guarantees to at least double the amount of clicks that your Adwords receive per day.

AdBlaster: this however, also promises to increase traffic in your website but this marketing tool’s main function is to help link your website to various other websites, a surefire way for people to notice your links more, it’ll provide you with better visibility among potential clients.

Banners: well, we’ve probably seen one or two or who knows how many of these so-called banners that advertises various products and services, for affiliates, these provide extra income since compared to Adwords these provide to more of an eye candy to internet users because of it’s colorful displays and sometimes, entertaining animation, if you’re more tech-savvy than the average online entrepreneur, here’s one marketing tool that’s surely worth a try.

SiteByter, SEO and Positioning Software: this here promises to give you full optimization of your search engine ranking. This marketing tool will help you get better leverage when it comes to search results, thus helping increase the traffic in your website and more incentives for you.

Keyword Investigator Software: this marketing tool is best suited for work-at-home enthusiasts who are trying to build up their respective businesses, with this software you’re bound to get a wide and varied choice of keywords to help your website become more noticeable to internet users. Marketing tools such as this one will provide you with effective and most-used keywords to help set-up your online business and pay per click ads/links. It surely is a cost-efficient marketing tool.

There’s really a lot of options and available to willing entrepreneurs nowadays that it really doesn’t take much for them to achieve their ultimate goal of earning cash by the bulk while having the luxury of time at their hands. It really is just a matter of how you learn to manage your time and your business. Always be up to date when it comes to the internet trade, marketing tools abound, there may be some that are too technical for your liking but it’s impossible for you to not find one that suits your needs and wants. All you have to do is be a bit patient when trying to learn about these marketing tools, just research, research, research, there really is no harm in doing so, you get to have a cost-efficient business while being an internet marketing pro, there really are no losers in this game – well, just the ones who are too chicken to try.

Data Backups - Why Bother?


For many people, computers have become a daily necessity. We use them for work, for correspondence and for entertainment. Many of the files are important documents and losing them would cost us time and money. Backups are the best way to prevent their permanent loss.

Don't make the mistake of believing that backups are only for computer geeks or large corporations, or a task that can be performed 'when I get around to it'. On the contrary, backups are a necessity for everyone. Even if your computer has been running reliably for years, it will fail one day - either through virus attack, user error or just age.

On that day, one of two things will happen. You'll either suffer the grief that comes with losing financial information, passwords, music collections, personal photographs and all the software you've purchased. Or, you can repair or replace the computer and restore from the backups you've been making regularly. The latter is an annoyance, the first a disaster.

There are, unfortunately, an infinite variety of ways to lose data. Besides hardware failure, computers can be destroyed in fires or floods. Hard drives can be damaged by power surges caused by lightning strikes or data lost by a child randomly hitting the keyboard. Viruses can infect systems and erase hard drives.

But there's only one way to get it back - by having it available to be restored.

What to Backup?

For the average user, it's usually not necessary to backup every file on the computer, which would require large storage space. But at bare minimum home users should backup personal files and irreplaceable software. Spreadsheets with financial records not easily available from other sources, legal documents, work-in-progress... the list is large.

But backups needn't be.

The easiest way to do backups is to use the backup software that comes with the operating system. Windows has a free, usable backup program while similar ones are available for Mac, Linux and others. The software is easy to use and backing up is a simple matter of selecting which folders to backup. It even has a scheduler so backups can be automated to occur at convenient times.

For a modest sum backup software can be purchased that will only backup files changed since a certain date, or since the last backup. Alternatively, new files could be copied daily to a backup folder where they can be backed-up by your backup program. To ease the task of identifying which, use the Search option to list files 'newer than X'. Once the list is complete, copy them into the backup folder and run the program for just that folder.

Some data, such as e-mails are only slightly more difficult to protect. Some e-mail clients can be configured to keep copies of received and sent e-mails on the e-mail server. When that's not an option, most can export messages to a file, which can then be backed up.

Backups can be done to any kind of removable media - writeable CD's/DVD's, removable hard drives or even the newer 'keychain' devices that plug into a USB port. Even floppy disks can still be used in many cases. Documents often take a small amount of space. Just set aside 7 disks and rotate them from week to week.

Daily backups are one more thing to do in a busy schedule. But the day you lose that file you need and can't restore, you're going to be a whole lot busier.

Do You Need A File Encryption Program?


As the worlds becomes more advanced each day, it also seems to grow less and less secure. The creation of new virtual venues has also paved the way to the emergence of places where people can be victims of criminal activity such as fraud and identity theft. In the real world, people of high stature get the service of body guards and security forces. Would such protective measures also be beneficial for the world of data?

Most people think that data security is something that only large business entities would have to be concerned about. However, the internet is an open channel can be accessed by anyone. And now that people are doing more personal matters through the internet, such banking shopping, sending confidential male and personal letters, it is probably just right for people to take more steps to keep their privacy and security.

The answer to this situation is file encryption, which is basically a more sophisticated and powerful manifestation of the age-old art of ciphering that has been used by humans throughout history. Do you actually need to take advantage of such programs that make your files secure through complicated encryption? Perhaps knowing more about file encryption would help you decide the right answer to this question.

What exactly is a File Encryption Program?

A file encryption program basically uses complex algorithms to create codes for file contents so that they cannot easily be read by people other than their intended recipients. File encryption programs write messages, files, and other content into codes that can only be deciphered by persons who would have a decoder. It is somewhat similar to the way students write secret messages in class, they use different ways to manipulate messages in such a way that other people would not be able to understand them.

The big difference between the codes that people make and file encryption programs write is the complexity of the encryption being made. While the codes people normally make could take just a few analytical hours or minutes to decipher, the ones made by computers are so complex that they cannot be able to be unraveled by practically anyone even for a lifetime. In fact, even other computers who would not be able to decipher the codes without the right decoder.

The function of file encryption go beyond the field of information technology – computer files and electronic messages, it is also used by other industries such as in the entertainment business. For instance, DVD movies are encrypted so that digital video could not easily be converted into VHS format by consumers. Encryption is also used in to scramble videos of pay-per-view channels and only those who would pay would be given the codes to unscramble the reception.

Perhaps the most important application for file encryption programs is for privacy protection of people and organizations. The most commonly known example is this would be the message encryption being done for confidential electronic messages and projects being sent via the internet. Another example would be the decryption used for telephone conversations and satellite transmissions that help protect the security of concerned parties.

Do you actually need to get a file encryption program?

As mentioned, file encryption has many functions and the need for such security measures depends on the way you use your data and the way you go about your activities in open channels such as the internet. You have to carefully check what exactly you do when you are online.

Do you do banking transactions through the internet, or do you just view websites of your favorite stars? Do you send business messages and projects to your clients and colleagues through email, or do you just send jokes and funny quotes to your friends? Do you shop online and give out your credit card information, or do you just window shop and check out what you can buy in real stores?

When deciding whether you would need file encryption or not, you have to ask yourself if the things you do online actually require you to be secure. If you normally give vital personal information such as your credit card, social security number, addresses, and the like, then you might benefit from buying a file encryption program. But if you do not really do things that could compromise your security then, perhaps getting file encryption would just be a waste of your money.

But still, it never hurts to be safe. If you have extra cash and would like to be sure that you do not fall prey to the many dangers that lurk in technology, then by all means go and get a file encryption program. In these days where the world is becoming more and more complex, one can never be certain of what could happen.

What Is A Computer Virus, Anyway?


Combating infections and removing viruses is now big business. Lesson one is 'knowing the enemy'.

THE ENEMY - Crackers and Hackers

Geeks make a distinction between crackers, who break into systems to do damage, and hackers who enjoy taking programs apart just to see how they tick. We'll stick with the more common, though less accurate, term of hacker. (The term 'hacker' originally meant 'someone who makes furniture' with an axe. Crude, but effective - like most computer viruses.)

Viruses are actually a particular type of computer 'malware' - a general term covering all types of malicious software. The most common types are viruses, worms and Trojan horses.

VIRUSES

A virus is usually hidden inside another program such as an installation program delivered via e-mail attachment. (Biological viruses require a host organism to live and reproduce, hence the name.) When the 'host' program is run, the virus program also runs. Once it's in memory the virus is able to do its dirty work, which usually includes infecting other programs.

After the infection stage of the virus, there's a destructive stage. The virus waits for a pre-determined trigger (such as a specific date or a certain number of times the virus has replicated itself) before delivering its 'payload'. Payloads range from simple messages to file deletion commands to destruction of the core operating system.

When first developed, computer viruses were commonly distributed on floppy disks. With the growth of the Internet downloaded files and e-mail are the preferred delivery mechanisms. E-mail can contain attachments which can be any kind of computer file. Any executable file can be infected with a virus, and shouldn't be run unless you're confident they're virus free.

WORMS

Worms are similar to viruses in that they're self-replicating. They reproduce themselves across networks without human assistance, such as e-mail sending. A worm, though, doesn't need another executable program to be distributed.

Worms usually affect networks more than individual computers on the network. Their self-replicating behavior can overload network resources, causing slowdowns in data transmission by consuming massive bandwidth normally used to forward normal traffic. Network systems that route Internet traffic are just specialized computer hardware and software. They, too, can be affected by malware.

Worms can also be designed to carry a payload, using a 'backdoor' installation program. A backdoor is a hidden access point to a computer that bypasses the normal login procedure. They're commonly used by spammers to distribute junk e-mail, for example.

TROJAN HORSES

Trojan horses are the third common type of malware. A 'trojan' is a program that pretends to do one thing but actually does something different. (The term comes from the story of the Greeks who built a large wooden horse in which to hide. Their enemies, the Trojans persuaded they'd receive a gift, took the horse inside their compound giving the Greeks easy access to wreak havoc.) Unlike viruses or worms, a Trojan doesn't replicate itself.

Trojans may be hidden in otherwise useful software. Once started they can do almost anything including erasing data, corrupting files, installing backdoors and logging keystrokes so that hackers can steal information such as credit card numbers and passwords.

FIGHTING MALWARE

Elsewhere in the series, we'll discuss what is and can be done to combat the spread of malware. In the interim, just remember not to be passive and expect the problem to be solved by others. Fighting viruses requires active participation from vendors, webmasters AND users. Click here for our anti-virus software reviews.

Who Wants To Make Money With Adsense? by Jason Isakson


Fact number 1: Kids in high school are making thousands of dollars every month with Adsense.

Fact number 2: Housewives, retirees, mom and dads, who are just staying at home and have never made a dime on the internet have created full-time incomes by simply placing Adsense ads on their web site or blog.

These are just some of the "super Adsense earners". You may have already heard about their story for they are among the few who are on their way to making millions worth of cash just by promoting Adsense sites.

Anyone, any age and gender can become money generating Adsense publishers as long as they what it takes. How does one go about this Internet advertising?

Writing articles for Adsense is the way to do it. Using the right keywords in your articles and having Google ads on a certain site has become the most profitable way of marketing that anybody can get into. No experience and level of education needed. If you are not using this strategy, or may not be aware of it in the first place, chances are you may be losing thousands of dollars worth of extra income and still do not know it yet.

This is one of the many reasons why writing original quality content articles is now the latest in marketing buzz. Content and links. When combined together becomes a really powerful tool to a successful web site and richer individuals. Many internet marketing professionals are already aware of the value of an original quality content and how using keywords can drive targeted traffic into their sites from the search engines.

So why don't all these web site owners write and submit their own articles if that is what is important?

The simple and understandable answer is that it takes time to write articles, submit them and get targeted traffic to their websites. That is why they get the services of those who can spares sometime to write the articles that would cater to their site purpose but still turn out as a good quality and unique piece of work.

To get into the Adsense marketing business and start earning some good cash, ask yourself. Did you enjoy writing when you were in school? If you answer yes to this question, you already have an initial advantage over most internet marketing business owners that wants to make money online and doing it at home.

With the boom in the Adsense market comes the need for sites to want fresh, quality and original keyword rich content. This way, web site owners can have a steady supply of articles with the proper keywords that they relate to their site contents. The result of this is seen in the sites page rank when indexed by the search engines. Which, in turn, gets moreAdsense ads to show above, below or next to the article on their website with targeted traffic.

What do people have to do?

Write quality and original content, keyword or phrase rich articles with links to your website in the resource box. Then build a website or web page with targeted keyword or phrase rich original content for the targeted traffic that originates from the articles you wrote. Finally, you will have a Google Adsense ads that are targeted to your keyword or phrase rich original content site where visitors will get to visit when they come looking for information.

A win-win situation if you think more about it. A favor for persons looking for quality content and information. For the persons writing the original content articles. And the person with the quality original content rich website. Of course, the search engines and its advertisers are getting targeted traffic and sales but so what? As long as you are getting something in your favor, it does not really matter what the others are getting for themselves.

So who else wants to start earning money with Adsense. You. Everyone. Anybody. Internet marketing has many opportunities wide open for this people. Writing articles and using Adsense for your kind of internet marketing strategy is one sure way of getting a piece of that action and cash.

Better not be left behind the many making millions already.

Adsense: Google Searcher Psychology For The Adsense Publisher by Rudy Dhondt


Have you ever thought of the fact that the visitors to your website are always looking for a solution to solve a problem? Or maybe they are looking for the opposite, which could mean that they seek pleasure and try to find information about a topic they are very passionate about.

No matter what the Internet surfer searches for, Google will always try to find the website with the most relevant information to what the surfer typed in the search bar. The website at the top of the search results will be the best search engine optimized website with the most relevant information.

This means that Google has indexed that website for that specific search term or keyword phrase.

What does this mean for you as a Adsense publisher?

1. You will have to optimize your website for a specific topic, and use specific keywords that are relevant to that topic in the articles you publish on your website.

2. If you want to keep the visitor on your website you will have to provide good quality content, preferably original self written articles. Google will find that content and provide relevant ads.

3. If you optimize your website for Adsense ads well enough, then visitors that still do not find what they search for, will hopefully leave your website by clicking on one of the Adsense ads.

Optimizing your website for the search engines and the visitor, will be easier if you always keep the searcher in mind and if you ask yourself the following questions:

* If I want to optimize my website for a specific topic, what does Google want me to provide for the visitor?

* If I want to optimize my website for a specific topic, what information does the visitor want to find?

* In case the visitor does not find the information. Can I use this to my advantage by optimizing the layout of my website?

The above described can only be achieved by doing thorough research prior to the creation of the website. Google will reward you for delivering quality information and will give your website a high rank in the search results.

Always remember that if you keep the visitor in mind, creating quality Adsense websites will be so much easier.

Implementing Adsense on your website by Rajeev Guglani

Adsense is vital part of Google marketing. This allows webmasters to put content relevant advertisements on their websites. If a visitor clicks one of the adsense ads served to the website, the owner is credited for referral. There are certain guidelines that should be followed white creating adsense on a webpage.

Through adsense you can place ad blocks on your webpage. Threre are different opinions about where these adblocks should be placed. Well, the correct placement is to make them blend with the rest of website so that visitors can could find it as useful as content. Mixing these ad blocks with the content should create a natural flow throughout the page. It requires a proper positioning with great care. Generally three ad blocs can be created on web page. The basic aim is to get the visitors click, so position the ads accordingly. The question that arises is where the user clicks. Well it's said that the most user clicks on the top left of the page.

You can add borders, colors and links etc to ads to make it pop out on the page, the main consideration is what your visitors are searching for when they come to your site. When visitors are looking for some information or solution to a problem, they would go through the content and click on the link assisting in providing them the information. If they visit site for product shopping then its better to have your ads stand out. So when you are building your web pages, you should always keep the visitors in mind.

It's generally believed that horizontal ads receive more clicks than the vertical ads. As person is used to read horizontally, so they are more likely to get attracted in this layout. So large rectangular ads that read more horizontally have been proved to get more clicks. Ads which are placed above the page footer, below the navigation at the top of the page and on the top left hand side of the page generally get the great click through than the others. The place which is near the middle and above the main content is also considered as good to put your ad blocks.

In case you have created three ad blocs on your page and you want to create more without breaking any adsense rule, you can add Google link units in this case. They are great way to place ads that look like as if they are natural part of site navigation menu but when they are clicked on they take you to a page or targeted ads that are related to your website topic. So you need a lot of thinking while designing the layout of your webpage. Look at other sites and see where they have placed the ads. You can get some ides surfing other sites.