Today I want to discuss online shopping malls with all their good points and their not so good points. I’m sure anybody who has an active interest in making some money online has at one time thought about having their own online shopping mall, and for those of you who already have an online shopping mall, well! how are you doing with it? Doubtless there are countless online turnkey shopping malls on the web some of which are better consigned to the dustbin and some which are let’s say a bit more professional looking. So I have been busy checking out the ins and outs of online shopping malls and all that it entails.

In my view you get what you pay for, unless you are technically gifted or you have money to throw at it, then believe me you will struggle. Type in “online shopping malls” at Google, and at the time of writing this article it returned over 5,000,000 hits. So you now know that you have some serious competition. My own experience with online shopping malls is fairly short and not to successful, I opted to sign up to DSD which is a US based Dropshiping company, they supply your products and also set up your online shopping mall with limited work on your own part. (Or so I thought)

Once you have signed up and handed over your dosh, you think to yourself well that’s it then, just sit back and watch the money roll in, oh dear! Well okay you probably guessed that there is a bit more work involved and your right there is. The thing is you get the impression from the sales pitch that just about everything is taken care of, NOT THE CASE, for a start you will need to promote and advertise your shopping mall. This is hard work if you want to be successful.

Here is a comprehensive list of possible tactics you can try to generate traffic to your site. Not all these will be suitable for everyone some will depend on your budget and business plan. You need to pick and choose the right options for your store from this list.
·    Pay per click
·    Article marketing
·    Newsletter
·   Auto responders
·    Word of mouth
·   Joint ventures / strategic partnerships
·    Talks to groups
·    Participation in online forums / discussion groups
·    SEO (Search Engine Optimisation)
·    Free for all link pages?
·    Pay per click advertising
·    Banner advertising and banner exchange programs
·   Reciprocal linking
·    Shopping comparison sites
·   Bundled products
·    Free gift with purchase
·    Regular newsletter
·    Helpful content on your website
·    Companion blog for your website
·    Offline advertising and promotion

Quite a few options to think about, this is why I have just about given up, there is so much promotion work involved and I simply do not have the time to do it justice. So I am open to any offers to take on my shopping mall @ www.tip-topshop.com, bear in mind this shop only delivers to the UK if you want to sell to the US you will have to upgrade(£29 approx) in my view it’s a must, the US market is huge!
The site has its own control panel where you can configure all the ads and change the template and loads more besides.

The total cost to myself at the time of purchase was £100, and costs around £25 a year for hosting. So you could make yourself a nice little saving, as I say I am open to offers, the current hosting is still good for about 5 months.

If you are interested then contact me through maxhomebits.com Leave a comment and let me know about your experiences and any help or advice, before i consign my store to the great cyberspace in the sky!

If you’re looking for some inspiration for a new Domain Name then check out My Top 10 tools Domain Search suggestions.

Domain Search Finding a domain name.

Domain Search allows you to use wildcard search of all current, deleted, and expired domain names for over 8 years worth of history. …Good choice of tool options available with easy tab navigation for suggestions, Directory, Domain Parking, Typo Generator and many more.

Name Boy

Find domain names, creative domain names and domain names search. Nameboy has been called the ultimate domain name maker, domain name picker, domain name chooser, domain name search, website name generator and the best way to find domain name and register domain names. It presents results for .com, .net, .org, .info, .biz, and .tv extensions. And of course they make it easy to buy the domain names that you want.

Instant Domain Search

This is a pretty cool tool that shows you domain name availability as you type. As you type each letter it shows if the name you are entering is available. Again, you can purchase domain names easily. Just start typing. Your results will appear instantly. Once you hit enter you will be redirected to GoDaddy where you can purchase your domain name.

DomainsBot

Is a the domain name search engine. Enter a word or phrase and it will quickly find available domains for you. It also lists domain names that are currently registered but for sale, in case you want to bid. You can also install Domains Bot search to your FireFox Browser.

Domain Hacks

Domain Hacks is a resource for using an alternative method to finding a domain name. Can’t find the right domain name with the keywords you want? Domain Hacks will come up with some creative options. Handy for those Blank day’s

Bust A Name

lets you enter any number of words, select a few settings, and produces results of available domains. You can choose 2 or 3 word combinations, different extensions, suffixes, and prefixes. Bust A Name also produces results pretty quickly.BustAName is a tool to help find domain names. Watch the Video Tutorial to learn how to use it.

Domain Check

Nothing fancy here it does what it say’s on the label (-: just a check for availability and information about who owns the domain name if it is registered. Useful for business leads perhaps!

Domain Surfer

Enter a few keywords and it very quickly provides a pretty large list of results. Finding the right domain name can be a challenge. Describe your website or business in a few words and we’ll find you some great domain names that match your interests.

Just Dropped

Provides a search for domain names that have recently become available after being dropped by their owners. I’m sure this function may provide possible alternatives where you can pursue your own Idea’s; you have to create a login to use the search. Receive a daily list of all deleted domains twenty four hours before they drop! Lists include .com, .net, .org, info and idn domain names.

DomainZaar

Domain Finder allows you to search in multiple ways for available domains from a simple desktop software application. Find expired domain names by browsing the internet, searching yahoo/google, and much more. Expired Domain Finder is really lots of programs in one! Many other software sellers have separated these functions into different programs, but our Expired Domain Finder combines them all into one program! It installs in seconds! Spyware Free: This software does not contain any Adware, Spyware or third party programs.

If you use iGoogle then you can create a new page called webmaster and add a search for domain names gadget to add to all your other Webmaster Gadgets.

Now I think I will Start doing some research myself for my next masterpiece (-:

Thanks’ for reading, Leave a comment if your up to it!

Related Categories:Lists Tools

Here’s a few tips to Build your Page Impressions and build your traffic.

Traffic is your aim so try these optimization Power Tips.

Any true internet marketer will tell you this, and this has even more weight if you’re enrolled with the AdSense program. The success or failure of your campaign will greatly depend on how many visitors you’ll be able to get to your web pages.

There are numerous ways by which you can generate traffic for your website. Here are just 9 of them.

1. Off page SEO, refers to techniques you can employ outside of your web pages, after they have gone live. This practice is generally to do with increasing your l.ink popularity. If you have high link popularity you have a high page rank. And with a high page rank comes a better chance of landing on the first page of relevant search engine results.

2. On page SEO Search engine optimization refers to the tactics used to make your web site friendlier to the search engine spiders. With good SEO practices, you will better position yourself higher in the search engines. On page SEO refers to the tactics you can employ on your web pages themselves. This is focused on a selection and use of the right keywords.

3. Forum marketing. Hooking up to online forums relevant to your niche is also a great way to get traffic. With your account, you are allowed a signature box where you can include your website’s URL. This signature box will appear in every post you will make.

4. Article marketing. Submitting articles to key or popular article directories is considered by many as the bees knees of internet marketing strategy. Every article you submit, you include a resource box. This resource box should introduce yourself as the author and will include a link to your website. Articles are picked up by many websites and even print publications, making you reach a wider audience fast. Not only that, it will also work wonders for your link popularity.

5. Blog reguarly. Maintaining a blog and updating it regularly is a great way to add some direct and indirect traffic to your main website. Blogs have their own communities, and because they have excellent and simplified content management systems, they place highly in search engine results. Having your URL appear on the entries will give a boost to your link popularity as well as your page rank.

6. Press releases. Writing a press release and submitting the same to the many press wires online, such as www.prweb.com , is another great strategy to use. Submit a press release announcing the publication of your website or any other campaigns you may start and you will be able to gather traffic from both the Web and the real world!

7. Offline marketing. This strategy is one to ponder on too, and can be one of the most efficient. You can advertise your website in newspapers, magazines, bumper stickers, t-shirts all sorts of merchandise. This will increase awareness for your website brand and result in a lot of interest for your website.

8. Joint Ventures are a much underestimated tactic that you can use to not just bring awareness to your website or blog, but also significantly build your email list.
It’s not as hard as you may think to get started, check out this previous post for more information.

9. Extend your Domain name by adding sub-domains; if you add relevant content to these sub-domains and submit these to the search engines you are extending your reach for your primary domain name. You can see plenty of examples right here on my blog sitemap.

If you need some insperation then checkout the Unique Adsense Template Generator

Please let me know what tips you use to optimize your Domain ,  Thanks’ for reading

What plugins do you use?

In this post I want to discuss WordPress plugins and narrow down which ones are essential and which of them are useful in other ways. As any self Hosted WordPress user will tell you, plugins are essential for many important parts of your blog from SEO to Statistics and a myriad of other uses. This list includes my top 20 plugins that i use regularly, at the time of writing this list I have 42 plugins and I dare say other WordPress users have a lot more; so I would love to hear about your plugins and how you rate this list.

So let’s kick off with what I use on my blog; I will start with the Essential plugins and list them in order of importance to me. Since this blog is in its infancy my recommendations may not suit everyone but I hope will help you decide which is more important to your particular blog. My goal is to stick with 20 Plugins that give me the best performance, tough job. Along the way i will toss out the dross and replace with them with the next best thing that comes along. Give me your suggestions, love to here from you.

1st All in one SEO I think most would agree without doubt the most important of all the plugins, once set up it is a powerful tool that sends your posts throughout the web. You can customise this plugin in various ways to fine tune your SEO campaign. (Update your keywords and phrases frequently and always check in with Google analytics to find out the latest trends)

2nd. Google XML Sitemaps — another essential element automatically generates your sitemap and notifies Google MSN and Ask.com. Set up just once and leave.

3rd. SEO Smart Links — Very useful plugin for linking your posts up throughout your blog by category or tags, great for SEO. Can be modified and tailored to suit your theme or subject. This also gives the reader more information on your blog without them having to go searching somewhere else.

4th. Psychic Search – Definitely useful for yourself and your visitor, this plugin gathers information on the top or most popular searches which are done on your blog and you have the choice to put these results in your sidebar for visibility. This is handy for gathering information which you can use to write more articles on or tighten up your SEO. *Requires Registration*

5th. W.P Thread Comment — Very useful for visitor interaction, simply put it lets commentators to your post speak to each other and reply specifically to any particular discussion.

6th. W.P Automatic Upgrade — Save yourself a lot of time and effort with this indispensable plugin, remember to always check in and upgrade all your plugins regularly. Very simple to use, it walks you through the whole upgrade process and backs up data.

7th. W.P Super Cache — A must for high traffic blogs (not quite there yet <;) and it keeps your blog running smoothly, check in to clear your cache every now and again depending on your traffic.

8th. W.P Stats — Must have an API Key to activate, great for snapshots and highlighting most read posts and pages visited on your blog.

9th. Subscribe to comments — Another great comments plugin that gives your visitor the ability to subscribe either by RSS or email and to be notified by email of follow up comments.

10. Commentluv – Parses the commentators last blog post, I think this is a must and would recommend this plugin to anybody who wants to grow their blog. Users are more likely to come back and comment more often.

11th. Akismet — Perhaps I should have put this plugin further up the list, never the less a very important spam management system. You can even call it Dusty Bin if you like <;

12th. BlogRush Click Maximizer — Increases your click through rate if you have a BlogRush widget on your blog, this might not be for everybody but is another source of traffic. (Early days for me) Needs to be Registered. ***RIP***

12. Max Banner Ads. Very handy plugin that places ads pretty much anywhere on your blog, I have decided to use it for the side bar widget. This is very handy if you have limited space, you can rotate 3 ads at a time which cuts down on ad blindness.

13th. DoFollow Give some link juice back to your visitors who leave comments, very simple to set up.

14. FeedBurner FeedSmith — Absolutly essential, I don’t think i need to explain much about this plugin, If your new to RSS Feeds then checkout FeedBurner.com. There are far too many options to mention in this post; check out this previous article.

15. MBP Stripe Ad — You can see this plugin in action at Pure SEO. It has many options including an ad rotator with up to 10 ads at a time; you can also change the font couler or size to blend in with your WordPress theme. *Registration Required*

16th. Add to Any Subscribe Button — Lots of these available always handy and you never know somebody might actually use it (Hint_<;)

17th. Twit This adds a small twitter icon after each post, This social network micro platform is gaining huge popularity, so that’s why I have included it on my blog. ***Sticking with the Add to one for all button***

17. RSS FOOTER ,, You can place a custom message at the foot of your RSS feed, so it’s a good idea to give some thought as to which message you want to promote about your blog, perhaps a notice about your newsletter ect.

18th. Top Commentators Widget — Involving your visitors and encouraging them to post comments regularly to your articles gives them that stickiness, and hopefully brings them back to your blog more often. I am a great believer in connecting with likeminded people and like to reward input as much as I can.

19th. WWSGD (What would Seth Godin Do) Good for welcoming your visitors with your own custom message with a gentle reminder to subscribe to your RSS feed. Just started using this plugin, so I will see if I like it in the coming months, I suppose it comes down to personal preferences. **Replaced with Referrer Detector**

19. WP Super Edit is a WordPress plugin designed to give some control over the visual / wysiwyg editor and add some functionality without modifying the WordPress source code.

20th. Template WordPress Widget — This is just a shameless plug for a great affiliate program that I am part of at the moment, you can find out more on Template Buzz. This plugin can be set to show snapshots horizontally or vertically and with or without prices. ***no longer in use*** 01/12/08

20th.From Daily Blog Tips
Many bloggers and website owners like to greet visitors coming from specific websites with a tailored message. There are many plugins that will make this for you on WordPress, but a cool one that I came across recently is called Referrer Detector.

“I agree this is a niffty little plugin and i have started using it in place of (WSGS) Thanks for the Tip”

So that’s my top 20 WordPress Plugins; I dare say I have missed one or two so let me know which ones you would include. This list will undoubtedly change in the coming months as I streamline and configure my blog. Although this list is primarily for WordPress Plugins I also make use of other applications like Zementa and Kaalga which I am beginning to see more and more value from. Any application that helps you to be more productive is alright in my books. Here is another great list from Quick onine tips

One for another list; Need a Favicon for your blog? Click here to get your own identity.

Update 30/10/2008 : Amazon Rocks My Boat

A Truly useful way to build your list

Do you want to cut yourself a slice of the traffic that is generated by other marketers in order to build your list in a short period of time? Then you can, even if you are just starting out in your Internet marketing efforts, it is still possible for you to send traffic to the site of your choice. How do you do this? There are a lot of different marketing methods that you can use in order to drive traffic to a website fairly quickly.

These methods can include video marketing, article submission and viral marketing. Make use of other services like Squido or a blog to get ranked quickly for some keyword phrases to drive traffic to your website. The harder you work the more benefit you will see from the traffic that the JV giveaway event receives.

It stands to reason that everybody wants a freebie, something for nothing or at least for your first name and your email address which isn’t a lot considering the free ebooks or software that you can get. So if you are starting off for the first time in the online marketing circuit then JVs (Joint Ventures) are a great place to start.

GiveAway Events

What you will find here is a willingness of all those guru marketers to entice you by offering up to date materials on all sorts of marketing goodies. So this is the ideal time to stock up on all those PLR packages or MRR and brandable eBooks and reports.

If you are a newbie or even if you are more knowledgeable you will learn a great deal from these GiveAway events because this is marketing up close and personal. If the JV is well organised and by that I mean does it have good affiliate tools and with offers you can’t refuse, does it have a lot of marketing contributors; if so then you can profit greatly.

Using GiveAway Events constructively

The biggest incentive to really using the power of the GiveAway Event is to participate and become a contributor yourself. By offering to give a visitor marketing goods in exchange for their email you can build a substantial mailing list. A gift can be an eBook, software or any other kind of digitally delivered product. You can always checkout what the other contributors are offering. It must be a downloadable product and you must have the rights to give it away for free.

Gifts to look out for

On your first visit to a GiveawAy Event it might be a bit overwhelming, sort of like an Aladdin’s cave, so you need to pick out offers that give real value. Also it’s a good idea to upgrade your membership because invariably you get more value by adding a bigger range of advertisements. Refer other contributors to the system to earn free points and if they upgrade or purchase special offers you also earn cash.

Finding digital products to give away is not that hard, if you sign up to a couple of good programs that offer PLR or master sales rights products then that’s a start. You can also purchase a lot of materials for only a few dollars just do a little bit of research.

So give it a try, what have you got to loose in fact you can only gain free gifts; and gain a useful insight of how today’s marketers operate. Related; Profit Work From Home

Technorati Tags: Giveaway events,marketing,contributors,free gifts,list building,PLR,JVs,offers

I found this post the other day about designing and producing your own WordPress themes, this definitely appeals to my sense of uniqueness. The template I have at the moment is okay but I would love to expand the design and layout. My biggest problem of course is my limited technical knowledge and with so many other daily tasks I’m afraid design takes a back seat. So I began to search and research this popular and lucrative subject. Below you will find the beginning of a very comprehensive list to get your teeth into. To see the complete list please click through to >>ThemeTation.com

How to Create a WordPress Theme From Scratch
Good walk through list which details the creation of WordPress themes and templates, Top list literally takes you through every stage from start to finish.
http://designreviver.com/inspiration/how-i-learned-to-build-wordpress-themes/
http://themetation.com/how-to-create-wordpress-themes-from-scratch-part-1/

The 5 Minute Theme
The simple process of creating a basic WordPress theme, great for beginners.

Turn any Template into a theme
Flash tutorial; Just a bit on the blurry side and too fast to keep up for non designers, but with pausing and starting you can begin to get an insight of how to use any template and change it to a WordPress theme.

Mocking Up a Theme in Photoshop
This is an excellent step by step tutorial which is well laid out and easy to follow showing diagrams at each stage.

So you want create a WordPress theme
“Creating a WordPress theme from scratch is not hard. I’ll hold your hand through it”

From Header to Footer this guy is awesome; he takes the uninitiated in the intro right through to the comments templates, in all 16 lessons.
Tutorials on this topic have been written before and the WordPress website also has guides for you to follow. But are those tutorials and guides really helpful to you when you don’t understand the lingo? Even I got lost while reading the WordPress guides.
Tools - Before we get started tomorrow, you’ll need:

WordPress installed on your computer. If you can’t install WordPress on your computer for whatever reason, no worries, just make a dummy WordPress install on your website.

Notepad or other text editors. I use Notepad.
SmartFTP - If you’ll be testing your theme online, I’d suggest that you download and install SmartFTP or another FTP program to upload your theme files.

Bookmark XHTML Validator and CSS Validator. You’ll need those tools to validate your theme. They also come in handy when you need to spot and fix errors.

I think I will look into WordPress Plugins next, apparently there are resources out there somewhere, do you know where?

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• Info: How to Create Custom Write Panels in WordPress
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I was recently asked what a “safelist” is.

The easiest way to explain a safelist is that people allow you to send them emails about related offers! In other words lists that they have signed up to in order to receive relevant information that they are looking for.  (Optin List)

Let me elaborate a little on this.

Many people get confused and think a safelist is about building your own mailing list but it’s not! It’s about accessing a mailing list that’s already been built for you. ($ Premium $ or free).

A mailing list that already has people signed up and waiting to receive your emails.

If you imagine for a moment, that you have your own product for sale online…or not! it doesn’t matter (You do not have to have your own product!)

This method can easily be used to promote your affiliate links too (somebody else’s product!) Right, so let’s imagine you have your own unique product, but no matter how hard you try, you just cannot get people to visit your site.

You know your product is great but with no one ever seeing it, you will obviously find it pretty difficult and won’t make a single sale.

If only there was a way you could get REAL people to see your product, you know the sales would come pouring in (depends on your level of subscription to the SAFE LIST).

So you have zero traffic visiting your site, how are you going to get traffic, as fast as possible, with the least effort? It’s simple; you are going to enlist the help of a safelist.

The safelist will allow you to send your offer to a mailing list and instantly send traffic to your site / pitch page. All you have to do is create your ad or email (take a look any ad in Craig’s List for inspiration).

The safelist owner will do the rest for you (Pick a reputable company). You don’t need to build a mailing list because you use the safelist owner’s mailing list. (That doesn’t mean giving up on your own onsite efforts; this tactic merely compliments your overall strategy)

Remember, this mailing list has already been built up! (These people actually want your email) You are not sending spam emails because the people on the safelist have agreed they wish to receive future offers related to a certain topic.

So the next step, you type up your ad and it gets sent to all the safelist members for you. The people receive the email with your advert, and then they visit your site, simple enough!

I am sure you can see the benefits of using Safelists.

If you think that using a safelist could help you with traffic generation and online sales then I suggest you visit this page before you get started:

If you are already using Safelists to increase sales and traffic and would like to add another one to your campaigns then I suggest you try out this one:

I hope you found this information useful in your quest to online success.

Let me know of your own experiences and leave a comment or share this post and twitt me!

The mailing list is the lifeblood of your online business. That old saying “the money is in the list” is definitely true enough — if you had a targeted list of prospects to contact each time you have a new product, you will be able to save a lot of effort by marketing it to your existing list of targeted prospects.

You can actually build up a targeted list of prospects that are interested in your products by offering a relevant download on your website. For example, let’s take a look at a very good example — apple.com. When you download the free iTunes and QuickTime software from their site, they will ask you to fill in an optional name and email form so that they can send you offers on songs that you can purchase via — guess where — iTunes!

In reality, you do not need to offer a high profile download such as fully featured software like iTunes. You can attract prospects equally well with some quality freebies such as a simple report, a free wallpaper or gadget. The important thing is that your download offers enough value for the prospect to be willing to give away his/her own email address to get it.

However, throwing together a simple download and putting a link on your website won’t be enough to attract qualified leads. You will have to do some homework in order for your lead-generating mechanism to work well for you.

First of all, you must place your download form prominently on your website. Preferably; dedicate a page to it and link to that page from every other page of your website. That way, there is no way your visitors cannot find the download page, and when they do, you’ll get some of them converted into your prospects!

Also, you have to put a little effort into promoting your download. Explain and elaborate on the values of the download, and why your visitors should download it. You might think why would anyone want to pass on a freebie, but most of your visitors might be too lazy to take the effort to download it. Because a lot of downloads just sit on the hard disk collecting virtual dust. So it is therefore important to show your visitors why they should download your freebie.

Where in the world can you start a High Paying Home Business..

Free - Create Your Own Branded Viral EBooks

For maximum Links @ Leads Leap