I just received an email from Nate Whitehill that they are launching a new theme store called Theme Wars. Theme Wars will feature a wide variety of WordPress themes available for purchase. You can visit the site at ThemeWars.com.

As you can probably tell by the name, Theme Wars is not just a theme store – there is a little bit of a twist.

Here is how it works:

1. Eack week, any blogger can submit into this weekly theme wars.
2. The theme war will then be a contest to design a particular type of theme (e.g. magazine, business, etc.) as voted on by the community (via poll) the week before.
3. The best two designs which the community votes for will be sold in the Theme Store. The winning designers will receive 25% and 10%, respectively, each time their winning design sells. Simply wonderful ideas.

This launch is one of the most anticipated theme store launches EVER and one that will surely generate a lot of buzz.

I must say that this is an opportunity for designers to earn money by submitting their designs into the Weekly War. They not only will be receiving a percentage of each sale, they will also earn a spot in the “Featured Designers” page, that actually gave them the exposure for their branding and also additional marketing.

Then for blogger like myself, it simply gave me access to a wide range of themes from a wide range of different designers.

Pricing wise, themes are be priced at $69 for a multi-use license to $149 for a developer license (includes Photoshop documents). Monthly membership is also available to get access to all of the themes available and this is a great package for blogger who wish to try out a variety of themes or for bloggers with multiple blogs and wish to give each one a unique look.

Standard pass to Theme Wars cost $20 per month plus a one-time payment of $147 which you could access to all past, present and future themes, as well as unlimited access to the support forum, documentation, video tutorials and theme updates, etc..

Developer pass cost $27 per month plus a one-time payment for $177 and this monthly membership gives you access to all past, present and future themes, as well as unlimited access to the support forum, documentation, video tutorials, theme updates and Photoshop files, etc..

The first war at Theme Wars features the war of the magazine themes.  Go to Theme Wars and cast your vote now!

Theme Wars – From The Maker Of Unique Blog Designs

Popularity: 3% [?]

If you are an internet marketer and still trying to get used to the trends of online businesses, most likely you’ve faced all kinds of new ideas and suggestions in forums, blogs, and other online sources related to internet marketing.  And in these sources, you will notice that most professional internet marketers would discuss about different strategies and internet marketing tools that they would use to increase web traffic, conversions, and eventually actual sales of their own products online. 

For this article, we will be talking about one of the most interesting tools being used, especially for the content of sales pages, blogs, and websites, which are the article spinners.  If you’ve never heard of an article spinner before, then continue reading because this might be your ticket to increasing sales and bursting traffic.

An article spinner is basically a writing software that rewrites and modifies the wording and structure of sentences in order to produce different and unique copies of an original article. 

Not only that, it is able to retain the message of the original article in all of the copies it can produce, which makes it a productive tool when trying to post several articles in different blogs and websites.  Internet marketers who do not have the time and the energy to reproduce, rewrite, and post numerous articles in their blogs and websites would simply use article spinners to do the job.  It’s not only convenient but affordable as well as compared to hiring ghost writers to do the job. 

So why do internet marketers need to create so much content?  Writing good articles and blog posts is usually the key to earning a lot of money through internet marketing.  By being able to come up with wonderful content, you are discreetly yet at the same time effectively advertising your products to customers who can only read about the products being sold online. 

But as mentioned before, writing and rewriting can take a lot of time and effort on the marketer’s part, so they use article spinner software instead.  Another reason why they use article spinners is because submitting one original article to numerous directories can be detected by search engines like Google, surfacing the possibility of only one of your articles being linked to the entered keyword and leaving out all the rest in the next three to four pages.  This lowers down your chances of gaining more traffic, and of course, more sales as well.

But take note that not all article spinner software being sold online produce well-rounded rewritten articles.  There are those that do not function well or are actually fake software being sold by scammers in order to earn money out of you. 

Just remember that with the right tools and the right way of using this kind of software, you’ll be able to produce high quality rewrites of your own articles and have them submitted and posted in all of your websites and blogs without each one falling behind in the search result pages.

Popularity: 1% [?]

When you hear the word “internet marketing”, you would normally assume that everything from transactions to communication, payments to refunds, and the like, all take place in the World Wide Web and nowhere else.

This kind of trend has been going on for years now and to such extent that people from all over the world are actively buying and selling through internet marketing and all of its fields and categories in order to make a stable passive income online.

But lately, especially with the use of outsource services and automation these days, there have been cases where people are able to make money offline but provide a particular kind of service that they would be interested in online.

The offline factor points to the customers themselves, in which actual advertisements are being used to attract them to the sales page or website for more information. This idea is not only a great way to save up on costs for online services but can actually expand one’s business in both ways: offline and online.

If you’re wondering how to make use of offline method to promote online business, it’s actually very possible and is even slowly becoming the hottest internet marketing trend today.

How so ?

Let’s look at it through an example: Because of the financial crisis plaguing the country, a lot of business owners (those who own actual establishments like restaurants and stores) are having a difficult time keeping their businesses running and are spending a lot of money on advertisements and agency services.

They are especially aiming for a website to promote their businesses online but are hindered in finishing the transaction by the expensive charges most web designers are imposing on them. So you can just imagine how valuable you can actually be to these people if you provide them with all their needs for just a few hundred dollars a month.

You just need a few important tools to make use of offline method to promote online business: knowledge on internet marketing (PPC, SEO, etc), outsource services, and good communication skills. If you’re able to pull all of these things off, you can already earn as much as $10,000 per month and not have to sweat too much on the hard work.

So what actually happens when the website is finished? The advertisements are still in place, but with the new website posted as well. Once customers see that there is a website and a few contact numbers, they would visit the website and read what the business is actually about.

If interested, the customer can sign up in the mailing list and will receive email updates such as events and promos going on in the business, breaking open the opportunity of earning hundreds of dollars through a few emails alone.

It is actually a very simple process and very possible to expand and grow, but it also takes good people skills and the ability to assure clients that they are being offered a greater deal than what the advertising companies and web designers are actually offering to them.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The World Wide Web has become the ultimate and most convenient source of information for people all over the world, which explains why a lot of internet marketers are striving hard to earn a stable income through their online businesses. 

Trends of all kinds have evolved, been adopted by hundreds of online businessmen and women, and are constantly being used to make sales and break quotas for many years. 

But there is a new trend that enables internet marketers to actually expand their businesses and services even more, and that’s through offline internet marketing.  The term sounds like an oxymoron, but it is possible and has proven to be very lucrative to many internet marketers already.

Internet marketers all over the world are now learning how to making of internet marketing skills to make money offline.  They do this with the help of outsourcing services and automation in terms of advertising their businesses to offline customers.  This enables them to save time and effort on the actual work with regards to the website and at the same time can appeal personally to their clients the services and benefits they are going to get through their internet marketing skills. 

For example, an internet marketer can set up ads about his or her business all over his or her area in order to get the potential customers’ attention.  They place the website of their business, contact numbers, email addresses, and wait for the calls and emails to start coming in.  They then hold meetings, rendezvous, and all kinds of get-togethers to be able to explain how the system will go, how the website will bring in the benefits and profits, and how much they are going to be spending every month.

Your clients will probably be wondering what they are going to get from the websites, which is your cue in letting them in on the possibilities that internet marketing can provide.  For instance, if the website you are building is for a restaurant, customers who are interested can easily access the official website, read through the content, and if they are interested can sign up in the mailing list to be able to get updates such as events, promos, new menus, etc. 

Not only is traffic going to build up but sales will be booming through several well-written emails alone.  This scenario is internet marketing working at its best already. 

When it comes to making of internet marketing skills to make money offline, personality and communication skills are also very important.  This is so because you will be dealing with clients who more or less do not have an idea of how much they will be spending for internet marketing services, how much they are going to earn from the websites to be built, and the like. 

By offering them a price that they cannot refuse and are very affordable as compared to the expenses on actual advertisements, you can easily get your clients hooked on to you like never before.  What’s more, you don’t have to be the one working day and night in creating websites and hosting them up online since there are very trusted outsourcing companies all over the world who can do that for you.  All it takes is a few hours per day monitoring the system and progress of your clients’ websites and you’ll be earning over $10,000 per month.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Some Basic Elements of a Successful YouTube Marketing Campaign

YouTube has taken off as one of the premier places to market goods and services. As different people have developed or adapted methods to get the most out of a YouTube marketing campaign, a few essentials have come to be recognized as important to any successful attempt to harness the power of YouTube for buying and selling.

Here are a few examples.

YouTube is a visual media event. This means that one of the main elements in a campaign using the site will have to include visual aspects that will be sure to catch the eye. While these may vary depending on the products that are being sold, there is no doubt that choosing subjects with visual impact can make or break the success of the presentation.

Many people make a decision within three seconds of whether to view the video all the way through, so capturing interest immediately is crucial.

Along with visuals, there should be some interesting audio elements to the YouTube marketing campaign. Often, this is done with music.  In fact, a number of recording artists make good use of YouTube as a medium for promoting new releases or to publicize upcoming concerts. Even products that rely on other forms of audio, such as comedy routines, have to include dialogue that is catchy and will hold the viewer’s attention.

One last vital element of any successful YouTube marketing campaign is that it has to reach resolution within a reasonable amount of time. Consumers do not have the attention span they once had. This means the campaign must capture the attention, deliver the point, and direct the consumer to the sale in a very short period of time.

Presentations that are too long run the risk of losing the viewer before the presentation gets around to asking for the business, thus defeating the whole purpose.

Popularity: 1% [?]

PPC stands for Pay Per Click – a popular advertising technique on the Internet. Found on websites, advertising networks, and especially on search engines, PPC advertising involves sponsored links that are typically in the form of text ads. These are usually placed close to search results, where an advertiser pays a particular amount to visitors who click on these links or banners and land on the advertiser’s web page.

In essence, PPC advertising is all about bidding for the top or leading position on search engine results and listings. Advertisers do this by buying or bidding on keyword phrases that are relevant to their products or services – the higher the bid, the higher the spot on the search results, the more the people will find the ad (and click on it) to go to their websites (this is why some people call it “keyword auctioning”). Advertisers would then pay the bidding price every time a visitor clicks through the website.

PPC advertising is also known under the following names/variations:

· Pay per placement
· Pay per performance
· Pay per ranking
· Pay per position
· Cost per click (CPC)

PPC advertising is usually done with the following standard procedures:

1. Setting up an account and/or deposit funds.

2. Creating a keyword list.

3. Choosing (and setting up) an account with a PPC search engine.

4. Bidding on the ad placement, including the search result words or phrases.

5. Writing out an ad copy.

6. Setting up the ‘landing pages’ for your ads.

7. Placing the advertisement in the search engine.

There are many benefits to Pay Per Click advertising, making it an effective way of promoting a business ‘online’. Some of them are listed below:

· Get launched immediately. PPC advertisements are implemented very quickly – they can go ‘online’ within an hour after winning the bid and paying for it.

· Obtain specific, pre-qualified, and quality traffic. PPC provides you with a quality or a well-targeted traffic. Visitors are narrowed down into ‘qualified’ people who are actually looking for specific products and/or services that you offer – those who are more likely to become a ‘lead’ (a convert) and complete a transaction (either by buying your product or subscribing to the service that you are offering.

· Widen your reach. PPC advertising provides additional traffic to your site, aside from the natural or “organic” search engines.

· Track your investment. PPC advertising makes use of a tracking system that will determine exactly who comes to the website and what they do once they arrive – the length of their stay on the site and the number of pages (including the actual pages) that they view. These are valuable tools in determining statistics such as return on investment (ROI), acquisition cost-per-visitor, and conversion rates (the percentage of visitors who are converted into customers or leads).

Below are some important things to consider when planning on a pay per click campaign:

1. Know your product. Take an inventory of the product and/or services that you have to offer (before anything else).

2. Stay within the budget. Determine your daily or monthly budget; and stay with it. This means keeping your budget in mind, avoiding bidding wars if possible.

3. Bid just right. Know how to bid right – a bid that is too high can exhaust all of your money, while a bid that is too low can make you lose that spot.

4. Watch the bottom line. Measure your profit margin against your spending or expenses. Know when to stop and terminate your PPC program – if you spend more on advertising but have little or no sales at all.

5. Find the right keywords. Decide which keyword phrases to opt and bid for. Do some keyword research, either by actually looking at existing search terms or with the use of online keyword suggestion tools, to know which terms are mostly used when searching for items that are related to your business. Focus on specific keywords, not on general ones.

6. Write effective ads. A good PPC ad is that which can persuade and move a searcher. There are several approaches to this:

· Discount offers
· Testimonials
· Celebrity/famous endorsers
· Money-back guarantees
· Free trials or sample offers
· Freebies
· Reverse psychology
· Major benefits (“Lose weight”)
· Direct instructions (“Click here”)

7. Maintain a professional-looking site. Your web content should be regularly updated and checked for spelling and grammatical errors. There should be no broken links or images. The website should be simple – designed in such a way that it will be easy for visitors to navigate and load. Include contact details to create a good impression among potential customers.

Done properly, PPC advertising can be an effective marketing tool that will maximize the return on your investment

Popularity: 15% [?]

Any MLM business opportunity worth considering will either have a track record that you can investigate and evaluate or it will have a clear statement of the plan, the potential, and the up-front costs.

Before investing any time or money in a specific MLM business opportunity, there are some questions you should consider first.

How long has the business opportunity been in business? Before investing time and money in marketing an MLM business opportunity, it is important to determine how long it has been operating.

If it is a new concept that has not been proven in the marketplace, you have no assurance that it will even work.

Does the company have a fixed address and phone number? This may seem obvious to you, but the fact is, thousands of companies operate with nothing more than a website and an email address.

Many of them are here today and gone tomorrow. Make sure the business you intend to deal with has a fixed address, physical location, and established phone number.

Does the MLM business opportunity have some successful members you can talk to? Most business opportunities will show you testimonials. But these are often untrustworthy.

They could even be completely fabricated. Ask the owner of the business for names of real people you can talk to. Call them on the telephone and ask them to share their experiences with the program.

This will not only provide you with valuable first-hand information about the program, but it will give you a list of advisors who might be willing to help you along the way.

How much initial investment is required? In many cases a proven MLM business opportunity with a successful track record will involve some kind of initial investment.

You should not assume that a business opportunity that is free to join is a better investment. Usually a free-to-join business will involve other costs such as marketing and advertising fees. Just keep in mind that nobody gives away “opportunities” for free.

What you have to determine is whether a specific MLM business opportunity has a successful track record, is managed by honest people and offers you a realistic chance of actually making some money.These are the things you must weigh against the entry costs.

What is the realistic income potential of the business? Have a careful look at the numbers and projections provided by the business opportunity. Then talk with actual members who are using the program to determine if they have been able to turn those numbers into reality.

Are there extra fees such as yearly or monthly subscription fees, shipping costs, or minimum purchase requirements? Make sure to get a detailed list of all the fees involved in operating the new business. These things may not seem significant now, but they can easily eat into your profits later.

How much control of your new business will you have? Be clear on who owns the business, and who controls the way it is developed and marketed. You may want to diversify your product offerings in order to avoid being at the mercy of a “head office.

The MLM business opportunity should require low initial investment and have high profit potential both in the short term and in the long term. It should allow you to build a profitable business of your own that will be a source of income far into the future.

Popularity: 8% [?]

Is it possible to enter into a home-based MLM business opportunity over the Internet? Why not? The “yes” will answer you right in front of your face. Everything is possible with the participation of Internet especially in the modern business transactions.

But is home-based MLM business opportunity feasible and profitable? How can one succeed in this kind of business?

Are you ready to take a ride into the four-step procedures toward a successful home-based MLM business?

Here they are:

Step number 1. Recruit First

Why do you have to recruit first instead of doing other things?

Home-based MLM business opportunities are network marketing. It is composed of uplines and downlines.

Uplines are independent representatives who recruit another independent representative which they will use in the direct selling of goods and services to customers. Put simply, the recruiter is the upline. They get their commission on the sales of the other independent representatives.
 
On the other hand, the recruited independent representatives are the downlines. Home-based MLM business opportunity is a commission-based joint effort of uplines and downlines.
 
That is the main reason why both uplines and downlines must work together. Without the other, the whole business force will be paralyzed. It will not function.

What does this mean? Both parties share the same level of importance or significance to the group. Try to imagine a home-based MLM business opportunity without uplines and downlines? It does not seem right, isn’t it? You’re going to have these four (4) “NO”:

If you do not have recruited independent representatives or if they are not working effectively, there will be no income, no consumption of products and services, no one to market the products and services and no one will cater the customers.

Step number 2. Maintain the minimum sales required.

Home-based MLM business opportunities are so simple yet requires careful analysis of the sales income. You have to be a mathematician on this part to be able to tally your expenses and revenues.

Everyday, independent representatives market the products and services. So make it a habit to tally the income entering everyday and the expenses leaving every hour.

Step number 3. Monitor the consumption of products and services.

Check your inventory. There is no further explanation needed as it is stated clearly enough. This simply means maintaining the minimum stock of products available to avoid having an empty or void stock.

Step number 4. Train your downlines regularly.

In every field, learning is always a requirement. Even if you are a teacher, you still need to study and learn.

The thing here is to have a constant training schedule for the downlines. Study shows that a well-instructed downline creates a big difference than the downline with stagnant information in mind.

Constant study really pays at the end. Some of the recommended topics are proper customer treatment, how to communicate effectively, business ethics, and everything that is needed to help them as well as your home-based MLM business.

If you have already taken into account all the procedures needed to have a successful home-based MLM business opportunity, you are now ready towards establishing that career path.

The formulas are already in your hands. All that is needed now is to get it into effect. The only thing missing to complete the home-based MLM business opportunity is you.

Popularity: 7% [?]

If you are looking for a business opportunity to start your own home based business, you should consider starting an Internet business. An Internet business is much easier to start and run than a traditional home based business, and the profit potential is far greater.

Don’t believe it? Consider the following…

Internet businesses, when done right, require very little startup capital. You can get away with a shoe-string budget in many cases. Web hosting is cheap and you can cut costs if you’ve the technical skill to build a site on your own.

 If you’ve got several hundred to a thousand to lay out, you can get in business online on an even grander scale with all the flashy graphics and technology you want, and even hire someone to set it all up for you.

No matter which approach you take, your monthly expenses center primarily around Internet access, web hosting, advertising and inventory. That’s it. You can go even cheaper than that, though, by cutting out inventory.

“What? Cut out inventory?”, I hear you ask. Yes, you can run an Internet business with no inventory. You can make a killing online with no product of your own.

How?

There is a type of Internet marketing called “affiliate marketing,” and it involves promoting other people’s products in exchange for a commission on the sales you generate.

Imagine this: you go into business as an affiliate for one of your favorite products. This could be anything from fishing lures, to DVDs to books. The retailer of these products handles all of the inventory, payment processing and shipping and customer service issues.

You simply collect your checks for referring paying customers to the retailer’s site. This may sound too good to be true, but it is a fact of life for may affiliate business owners.

Affiliate marketing is the absolute easiest type of Internet business for the average person to get started in, and it can pay off big time if you take it seriously. It’s a lot of fun, too, because you aren’t limited in the kinds of products you can promote. There are affiliate programs for virtually every kind of product and service under the sun, so you’re bound to find something you can both profit from and feel passionate about.

If this idea grabs your interest in the slightest, I highly recommend that you investigate the idea affiliate marketing further, and find yourself a good training program to get you started on the right foot.

Do your due diligence, and then take action. I guarantee you’ll like what you see, and you’ll find yourself the proud owner of a successful, home based Internet business sooner than you ever thought possible!

Popularity: 5% [?]

There are probably ten million people online, looking for downloads at any given time. Of course, a lot of them could be looking for pornography or free software but still, reaching a minimum on a million people on any given day does offer some rather intriguing possibilities.

People like using file services to download music for two simple reasons, they’re free, and there is an incredible selection. The fact is Pandora’s Box has been opened. In Napster’s wake, other quasi-legal services quickly emerged… a lot of them. Even if they are closed, others will succeed them.

Major record companies would like to thing otherwise but they are never going to stop file sharing. Net users are file sharers…plain and simple. Long before the Internet came into being, people made cassette tapes of their favorite music for their friends…cd burners are so much easier and faster.

So how can you use this to help your viral marketing campaign along? Think about this. Once someone downloads your MP3 files and those files are available on that listener’s hard drive, viral marketing begins.

After two users start sharing your files, suddenly, your music is on the hard drive of a second computer…then a third… and on and on. When users are searching and they find your music on a lot of different computers, they are more likely to download the files. It’s just a matter of time before you’ll find your files showing up in more and more places.

No matter what genre music you play…Rock and Roll, Country, Tejano, Mozart sonatas, Heavy Metal, of Brazilian Jazz, there is an audience for it somewhere.

In this new paradigm, you aren’t hawking a product, you are offering free music via a medium that lets you be directly connected with your audience.

Popularity: 6% [?]