My computer recently stopped working and I had to use my laptop instead for about a week.  I really didn’t think this would bother me too much and I would be able to do everything that I normally do without too much extra work.

Oh Boy, was I wrong!

Here is the software that I was lost without:-

RoboForm

Although I had backed up all of my login details from RoboForm, it was not the same as clicking a button in my browser toolbar.  Everytime I needed a password, I had to open a file and search for the relevant details.  This must have added a few extra minutes every time I logged in somewhere.

Smart Type Assistant

As an ezine publisher, every time I receive an ad from one of the ezine ad coops, I have to send the advertiser an email asking them to subscribe to my ezine.  Doing this by hand added about 30 minutes to the process.

With Smart Type Assistant, you add the email text once and then you can type a trigger word and the email text is entered for you.

HTML Editor

I thought that I would be happy using any html editor but this was not the case.  I currently use DreamWeaver, but I have used other ones in the past that I liked just as much.  The problem comes when you try to use one that you are not used to using.  This cost me a lot of time over the week.

TextPad

This program allows you to format articles and other text to a certain character width and is great for formating ezines and articles that have to be a certain width for email.

Without these tools, everything took me longer to do and was less enjoyable to do.

What tool/software/program would you be lost without?

Let me know!

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Technorati Tags: time management, time saving tools

Affiliate marketing doesn’t require you to have your own website, deal with customers, refunds, product development and maintenance. So as an affiliate, your only job is to get people to the merchants website.

Assuming you are already an affiliate, what would be the one thing you would would like to do? Double, or even triple, your commissions, right? How do you do that?

Here are some powerful tips on how to supercharge your affiliate program commissions overnight.

1. Recognise the best program and products to promote.

Obviously, you would want to promote a program that will enable you to achieve the greatest profits in the shortest possible time.

There are several factors to consider in selecting such a program. Choose the ones that have a generous commission structure, have products that fit in with your target audience, and that have a solid track record of paying their affiliates on time.

There are thousands of affiliate programs online so you don’t have to join the first one you come accross. You may want to take your time to find the right one.

2. Write reports or short ebooks that you can give away from your site.

You will be competing with other affiliates that are promoting the same program. If you write a short report related to the product you are promoting and give it away to your visitors you will become more memorable to your visitors as someone who gives them value, instead of just another affiliate trying to sell them something.

In your report, you could outline a problem that you overcame and how the product you are promoting helped you to do that.

As part of the process to download your report, have a page  with a form for your visitors to give you their email address in return for the report.

Once they have given you their email address they will be redirected to the download page and will receive your free report.

Your visitor will have a useful report and you will have  their email address and be able to send follow-ups to  remind them about the product you are promoting and other future products.

Publish an online newsletter or Ezine.
If you are in regular contact with someone and offer them usefull information, they are more likely to follow your recommendations than someone who comes accross your ad.

This strategy is a delicate balance between providing useful information with a sales pitch. If you continue to write informative editorials you will be able to build a sense of reciprocity in your readers that may lead them to support you by buying your products.

3. Ask for higher than normal commission from merchants.

If  you are already successful with a particular promotion, you should try and approach the merchant and negotiate a percentage commission for your sales.

If the merchant is smart, he or she will likely grant your request rather than lose a valuable asset in you. Keep in mind that you are a zero-risk investment to your merchant; so do not be shy about requesting for addition in your commissions. Just try to be reasonable about it.

Try out these strategies and see the difference it can make to your commission checks in the shortest of time.

Technorati Tags: affiliate earnings, Affiliate Marketing, increase commission, increase earnings

I found myself in need of two twitter accounts. One for my Internet Marketing sites and one for my Craft blog. After trying a couple of them, here are my thoughts and the conclusion I have come to:-

Digsby

Digsby allows you to manage not only multiple Twitter accounts, but you can also add email and IM accounts as well as FaceBook, MySpace and LinkedIn.

If you use desktop apps for all of these programs seperatly, this is a great program that allows you to have them all in one place, and if you take the time to get to know the program, I think it would save you loads of time and energy, not to mention all the desktop apps that you could remove from your computer.

I didn’t like the fact that there were several other programs installed on your computer at the same time.  You would really need to take notice when installing this program so that you don’t install something that you don’t want.

Although I do use a lot of the programs that are included in this app, I feel that it became quite complicated the more you added to it.

SplitTweet

No download for this one.

You login to your SplitTweet account and you are presented with a webpage similar to Twitters.  The only difference is that your separate Twitter accounts are colour coded.

The page seems to refresh, but not very often, so you have to do it manually, and I found that I was missing a lot of tweets.

Out of the two programs, I think that SplitTweet is the better one if you just want to manage multiple Twitter accounts. There is no download, so you are not clogging up your computer and you can watch both accounts or just one at a time.

TweetDeck

Despite this, I have decided that I am going to stick to using TweetDeck for my IM Twitter account and I will login to use my Crafting one.

TweetDeck is an app that is installed on your computer and updates every minute.  You can filter tweets and you can veiw tweets, replys and Direct Messages.  You can also veiw profiles, follow and unfollow people and much more.

So, after all my downloading and testing, I still haven’t found the program that will work for me and I will keep looking.

If you have found an app that manages multiple Twitter accounts, that is easy to use and isn’t a massive download, let me know by leaving a comment.

Technorati Tags: manage twitter, multiple twitter accounts, Twitter, twitter tools

Simple explanation of Adsense and why you should use it on your site.

You can get more info about how to use Adsense by getting my Free Report.

Adsense Profits Exposed

Technorati Tags: Adsense, adsense ads, adsense revenue, free report

Let others use your articles, along with your byline which will tell visitors who wrote it and how they can contact you, on their website. This will help to promote your own website and bring you in traffic through the search engine optimization and promotional efforts of others. For you this means absolutely free marketing just for writing a quick article about a subject that you are already familiar with. The more people who use your article as content as their website, the more potential traffic you will receive.

These webmasters will probably be using SEO techniques, banner exchanges, and possibly even a Pay-Per-Click campaign to get visitors to their affiliate site. These are advertising methods that either take a lot of time or a lot of money and they will be absolutely free for you just because you placed your articles where others could use them.

There are many places on the Internet that offer to post your article so that others may view and/or use it. My advice is to place your articles on every single one of these sites so that you can reach as many webmasters as possible.

To find our more Super Profitable Email And Article Writing ideas click here to see our full report!!

Technorati Tags: article marketing, articles

Twitter is a fantastic social networking tool that can explode your business.  That being said, Twitter can be a little overwhelming and confusing to someone who is just starting with it.

So here are 5 basic tips for you if you are just starting with Twitter:

1.  Figure out what you want from Twitter.  Do you want it for personal reasons (such as keeping in touch with friends and family)?  Do you want it to help increase traffic to your blog?  Do you want to find local customers?  Getting your purpose straight will help you focus.

2.  Start following people.  (All this means is that you sign up to receive their messages ["tweets"] and you can message them back.)  If you follow them, they will most likely follow you.  Thank people when they follow you.

You can use the search feature (www.search.twitter.com) and find the people you want – just put in the search terms you are looking for.  If you want to find hamster owners in Chattanooga, go for it.  If you want to find local people to network with, that’s fine, too.  Just search.

3. Be interactive and send messages (tweets) out to people.  Make sure you ask and answer questions and give value to the community.  You don’t have to say anything profound – just relevant.

4.  Start “tweeting” right away.  The best way to get followers is to say something – your tweets will come up in searches, so make sure you say things that reflect you well.  Say things that are relevant and not just sending out sales pitches.  Don’t be afraid to give a word of encouragement or a suggestion to someone.

5.  Do not send “spammy” messages!  Let me repeat:  Do NOT send spammy messages!  If all you do is send out tweets that scream, “Buy from me!  Buy from me!” you will quickly lose followers.  Just don’t do it!

Don’t get discouraged.  Learning Twitter is just like anything else – it takes time.  Soon you will be twittering and tweeting with the best of them.  Just jump in and take action.

Follow me on Twitter

Technorati Tags: twiiter, twitter tips

Article directories are websites that house free articles. These articles are usually put there by whoever owns the copyright to them as a promotion method.

Each article has the owners byline placed under it so that those who eventually read the article will know who wrote it (or at least who owns it) and will be able to get in contact with or visit their website for further information.

Articles directories are a great place to put your articles so that they will make you money. By using this method, people who are interested in your product or service will see your article, view you as an expert in the subject, and will visit your website. Even if you cannot write or do not have any knowledge on the subject on which you are promoting (for example for you run an affiliate website), you can always hire a writer to do the work for you. Getting quality articles written will be expensive up front, but they will pay for themselves in no time, either through affiliate sales or selling your own services, and everything from then on is pure profit.

Let’s take a real life example. Imagine that you are an accountant working from home. You write an article on an accounting topic and place it on various article directories. Those who are looking for the subject you wrote about will read your article, see that you have the knowledge and skill that is needed to do a job for them, and visit your website or contact you via e-mail. Your article just gained you a new client who may use your services regularly, but will definitely give you a nice profit at least once.

Furthermore, since you have posted it on a free article directory, others who have affiliate websites about accounting will inevitably use your article for their website. Since they must attach your byline to it, this will bring you even more exposure for every website that re-posts your article. This because you will be benefiting of off the traffic that they get to their website.

There are numerous article directories out there for you to utilize. Your bet best is to put a copy of each of your articles on every one for maximum exposure. It will eventually help to bring more traffic and customers to your website, which will lead to new orders and more profit.

To find our more Super Profitable Email And Article Writing ideas click here to see our full report!!

Technorati Tags: article directories, article marketing, articles