It seems like everyone is talking about RSS Feeds. They’ve been around for years but the buzz is up about them as the technology continues to go mainstream. Some people are reportedly abandoning their browsers and viewing the web through their readers - but they hardly represent the general public yet.

So does your site need one?

This question is somewhat like asking if your site needs a newsletter. Sure, the sky won’t fall tomorrow if you don’t get one today, but once you realize the benefits of having a news feed for your site, and try it for yourself, you may become an addict like the rest of us.

Reason #1: More free traffic to your site

I’m not exaggerating when I say that a frequently updated feed can bring you massive amounts of traffic in a short time period. This won’t be true forever.

Here’s a snapshot in PDF format, of just the feed-originating traffic to a new page of my site for the first 24 hours it opened. www.freetrafficdirectory.com/2-rss-marketing/screenshot.pdf

Not exactly a stampede, but here’s the good part. On the fourth day, the feed traffic doubled, and all other traffic continued to rise at the same rate. That’s my fifth active feed of the twenty I have spread out over four sites, and I get similar results each time. In thirty days, that would be at least 5,000 new targeted visitors - again, this is not counting my present traffic, or those who try my feed and stay subscribed, nor does it factor in what happens when the traffic doubles again.

I can’t promise you the exact same results, no one can. But you should know that my feed is targeted towards a crowed market - if you know how to set up your feed properly and correctly apply your keyword research, you could have better results.

Those visitors, from the first hour of traffic to today, resulted just from submitting my feed to the list of directories I compiled from many sources and studied. Some bring great free traffic to new feeds, some are better for once your feed has matured.

You can often get better placement in feed directories and in Yahoo’s RSS Directory than you could from your results in a regular search engine, and often, inclusion is instant.

Reason #2: It’s a hands-off way to update your audience

What if you could run your newsletter without the hassles of maintaining your list, removing bounced addresses, finding new subscribers, formatting the content you find, altering your content to keep from being blacklisted, and after all that, wondering if all the various blockers mistakenly kept your message from getting through?

If that sounds like heaven, you can be one of the angels as soon as an hour from now.

When you supplement your current newsletter with more frequent updates via feed, you will be able to push out updates to subscribers to your news channel or feed more frequently and more efficiently.

With all the new free tools available, even if you’re all thumbs when it comes to making a web page, if you can fill out a form, you can create a feed.

Reason #3: Get visitors to click through to your site whenever you update

If you haven’t used a feed reader before, you might be confused about the connection between the feed and your site and why it can result in an increase in traffic. I’ll attempt to explain this to you in words, but I suggest downloading a news aggregator (also known as a feed reader), and looking at the results of your favorite site’s feed through a reader after you read this for the full effect..

You can use my main feed here if you don’t have one to view: feeds.feedburner.com/FreeTrafficTips

If you don’t want to have another application up while you’re surfing, you can try Pluck , a free application you can use for more than just feeds that integrates with Internet Explorer - get it at freetrafficdirectory.com/pluck - it will take you right to the downloads page.

You can also do this from My Yahoo!, by changing your page to include their RSS Headlines console, still in Beta testing at my.yahoo.com .

To summarize, a visitor sees the headlines they want to read, view the summary, and click through to your site to read the rest of the news, either in a new window, or without having to leave the application they are in.

And when you update again, the reader will notify them that you have new headlines, and/or populate the list of items you have available. This can keep your audience coming back.

If you had trouble following that, come to this page for a one minute tutorial: www.freetrafficdirectory.com/members/postt95.html Reason

Reason #4: Recycle old content.

If you have a list of your older articles, some older product reviews, site suggestions, or archived newsletters, you can use those to build content to populate your feed with information. As long as this news is still relevant, you can recycle this content to attract new visitors

Reason #5: Its so easy it’s crazy not to do it.

Before the last few months, there weren’t as many free tools online that made the process of starting and publicizing a feed so effective and user-friendly. The bottom line is, now that you can get all those benefits from filling out a form, saving the file, uploading to your server, promoting it once, and updating it from time to time, it’s insane not to do so. You already have to update your site from time to time. You might as well get all the benefits of having a news feed too.

About the Author:
Tinu Abayomi-Paul is currently wanted by Secret Hoarders of America for spilling free traffic tips: www.freetrafficdirectory.com/blog

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It shouldn’t too hard to increase your eBay backend sales - because the chances are you currently aren’t making any! Backend sales are sales to customers who have already bought an item, also known as ‘up-selling’. These are usually easier sales to make than normal sales: in sales-speak, your existing customers are ‘warm leads’.

It’s a technique you’ve probably noticed being used on you in shops: you buy something, and you’re offered a $5 piece of equipment to keep it clean, or make it easier to use. The usual human response is to say to yourself “heck, what’s another five dollars - it might be useful”. It’s just another five dollars to them, but they might have just added 20% to your profit margin.

Figure Out What Goes Together.

Out of the things you stock, which cheaper things are there that could be useful to someone who now owns one of the more expensive ones? For example, if you sell digital cameras, the backend product is digital camera memory - they never come with enough out of the box. The backend products for a printer would be ink and paper. Try to think laterally!

If you can’t think of anything, take a look around at the cheaper ‘extra’ items that your competitors offer, and see if you can find a supplier for them. There are very few product areas where this technique doesn’t apply.

Include Letters in Packages.

When you send items out in the post, include a brief sales letter with products you think might be of interest to the customer. It’s like sending out a personalised, targeted catalogue to your customers with every purchase. Again, you’ll find that a significant percentage of people won’t have bothered to look at what else you were selling, and will go back to buy a few more things.

To stop people from just putting such a letter aside and thinking they won’t do anything about it right now, you might like to include some kind of limited time offer - 10% off if you order within the next month, for example.

Email Your Customers.

Each time you sell something to a customer, you get valuable market information about them, and they get to see that they can trust you as a seller. That’s why backend sales are so powerful. Keep your customers updated in your newsletter, making sure you list any new products there that you might have in stock. The chances are that these customers will be far more eager to buy from you.

Consumable Products.

If the product that the customer bought from you to begin with is consumable (it will run out), then this is a special case. You shouldn’t try to make the backend sale straight away, but should instead wait long enough that the average customer would have just run out of the product. That’s the time to strike.

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Jason James is a 10 year Internet marketing veteran and an eBay Power Seller of 4 years. His website “The Auction Resource Network” reveals his inside secrets, tips, and sources that help him pocket over $10,000 per month on eBay. His proven step-by-step system shows even users with little or no business experience how they too can make huge profits selling products at online auctions.

Claim your FREE 14 Day “Learn How to Sell on eBay” e-Course Here:
http://www.auctionresourcenetwork.com

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It’s not true that everything that has been said has already been written. Since that unfortunate axiom came into use, the whole universe has changed. Technology has changed, ideas have changed, and the mindsets of entire nations have changed.

The fact is that this is the perfect time to write an ebook. What the publishing industry needs are people who can tap into the world as it is today - innovative thinkers who can make the leap into the new millennium and figure out how to solve old problems in a new way. Ebooks are a new and powerful tool for original thinkers with fresh ideas to disseminate information to the millions of people who are struggling to figure out how to do a plethora of different things.

Let’s say you already have a brilliant idea, and the knowledge to back it up that will enable you to write an exceptional ebook. You may be sitting at your computer staring at a blank screen wondering, “Why? Why should I go through all the trouble of writing my ebook when it’s so impossible to get anything published these days?

Well, let me assure you that publishing an ebook is entirely different than publishing a book in print. Let’s look at the specifics of how the print and cyber publishing industry differ, and the many reasons why you should take the plunge and get your fingers tapping across those keyboards!

Submitting a print book to conventional publishing houses or to agents is similar to wearing a hair shirt 24/7. No matter how good your book actually is, or how many critique services and mentor writers have told you that “you’ve got what it takes,” your submitted manuscript keeps coming back to you as if it is a boomerang instead of a valuable mine of information.

Perhaps, in desperation, you’ve checked out self-publishing and found out just how expensive a venture it can be. Most “vanity presses” require minimal print runs of at least 500 copies, and even that amount will cost you thousands of dollars. Some presses’ minimal run starts at 1,000 to 2,000 copies. And that’s just for the printing and binding. Add in distribution, shipping, and promotional costs and - well, you do the math. Even if you wanted to go this route, you may not have that kind of money to risk.

Let’s say you already have an Internet business with a quality website and a quality product. An ebook is one of the most powerful ways to promote your business while educating people with the knowledge you already possess as a business owner of a specific product or service.

For example, let’s say that you’ve spent the last twenty-five years growing and training bonsai trees, and now you’re ready to share your knowledge and experience. An ebook is the perfect way to reach the largest audience of bonsai enthusiasts.

Ebooks will not only promote your business - they will help you make a name for yourself and your company, and establish you as an expert in your field. You may even find that you have enough to say to warrant a series of ebooks. Specific businesses are complicated and often require the different aspects to be divided in order for the reader to get the full story.

Perhaps your goals are more finely tuned in terms of the ebook scene. You may want to build a whole business around writing and publishing ebooks. Essentially, you want to start an e-business. You are thinking of setting up a website to promote and market your ebooks. Maybe you’re even thinking of producing an ezine.

One of the most prevalent reasons people read ebooks is to find information about how to turn their Internet businesses into a profit-making machine. And these people are looking to the writers of ebooks to provide them with new ideas and strategies because writers of ebooks are usually people who understand the new cyberspace world we now live in. Ebook writers are experts in Internet marketing campaigns and the strategies of promoting and distributing ebooks. The cyberspace community needs its ebooks to be successful so that more and more ebooks will be written.

You may want to create affiliate programs that will also market your ebook. Affiliates can be people or businesses worldwide that will all be working to sell your ebooks. Think about this? Do you see a formula for success here?

Figure out what your subject matter is, and then narrow it down. Your goal is to aim for specificity. Research what’s out there already, and try to find a void that your ebook might fill.

What about an ebook about a wedding cake business? Or an ebook about caring for elderly pets? How about the fine points of collecting ancient pottery?

You don’t have to have three masters degrees to write about your subject. People need advice that is easy to read and easily understood. Parents need advice for dealing with their teenagers. College students need to learn good study skills - quickly. The possibilities are endless.

After you’ve writtten your ebook

Getting your ebook out is going to be your focus once you’ve finished writing it, just as it is with print books. People will hesitate to buy any book from an author they’ve never heard of. Wouldn’t you?

The answer is simple: give it away! You will see profits in the form of promoting your own business and getting your name out. You will find affiliates who will ask you to place their links within your ebook, and these affiliates will in turn go out and make your name known. Almost every single famous ebook author has started out this way.

Another powerful tool to attract people to your ebook is to make it interactive. Invent something for them to do within the book rather than just producing pages that contain static text. Let your readers fill out questionnaires, forms, even crossword puzzles geared to testing their knowledge on a particular subject. Have your readers hit a link that will allow them to recommend your book to their friends and associates. Or include an actual order form so at the end of their reading journey, they can eagerly buy your product.

When people interact with books, they become a part of the world of that book. The fact is just as true for books in print as it is for ebooks.

That’s why ebooks are so essential. Not only do they provide a forum for people to learn and make sense of their own thoughts, but they can also serve to promote your business at the same time.

Peace.

Joe Lavery

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