Credit card fraud has become pervasive on the Internet. According to MasterCard International, account takeover fraud has increased by 369% since 1995. It has become one of the fastest growing types of fraud, and one of the more difficult to combat. More than $700 million in online sales were lost to fraud in 2001, representing 1.14 percent of total annual online sales of $61.8 billion, according to GartnerG2. Even if the credit card company has given the authorization as to the validity of the card, there are several ways fraudulent cards can be used on your site. The card may have been lost or stolen, but the card owner is yet to report its loss. Or the number on the card (and not the card itself) may have been lifted without the knowledge of the owner. There is also a scam called identity theft, where the card has been issued under false pretenses using someone else's identity and data.

As an online merchant, you need to have a system to check the authenticity of orders placed to safeguard your business. While the effort may require additional time and money, it can save you the cost and stress caused by charge-backs for fraudulent orders. You lost your physical products; you lose the sale price; you lose another business opportunity; and you will be fined an additional $15-$50 charge-back fee. If you have a high percentage of charge-backs, your card services company can even blacklist you and cancel your merchant account. You will also spend time looking up the order and provide the requested information to your card services company. All of these hassles are things you can surely do without.

How can you protect your business from credit card frauds? Here are a few steps that can be taken to ensure that the transaction is being requested by the real cardholder.

Suspect shipping address.
According to ClearCommerce Corporation, a provider of payment processing and fraud protection software for e-commerce, orders from Ukraine, Indonesia, Yugoslavia, Lithuania, Egypt, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey, Russia and Pakistan have a very high incidence of fraud, and often have unverifiable addresses.

Untraceable email address.
In many fraudulent orders, the customer's email address is often at one of the free email services, like hotmail.com and yahoo.com, which are relatively untraceable.

Expensive items.
Be wary of expensive orders, especially for expensive brand-name items.

Multiple items.
It can be a bad sign, for example, if someone orders three X-Box or three DVD players at once, especially where the items have a high resale value.

Express shipping.
Most fraudulent orders specify overnight or 1-day shipping without hesitation.

Shipping address differs from billing address.
Receiving point and billing address are different in fraud orders. If you are selling valuable items, it can be a good policy only to ship to the billing address of the card's holder.

Suspicious billing address.
The address looks too simple or invalid. If the billing address is 123 Main St, New York, the order is probably fraud. You can use or online location tool to see if the address can be verified.

Leave at door or post office box.
If the courier service cannot guarantee delivery of goods, the risk of fraud is very high.

The advancement of geo-targeting in the Internet allows us to pinpoint the geographical region for an order. The information can be used to reduce the fraud by verifying it with the billing address and delivery address. This method can identify the scenario where someone from country X has stolen the credit card data from country Y. The IP address lookup service will reveal the real country instead of relying on the country filled in the order form.

IP2Location™ provides technology to translate IP address to country origin. The lookup table is available in several formats such as database and COM. It is the perfect solution to automate the fraud detection using client side programming languages like C++ & Visual Basic; or service side programming languages like ASP, PHP, JSP and CFML.

For example, company XYZ received a credit-card order from IP address 161.139.12.3. The order details are as following:

Name: John Ma

Address: 123 Main St

City: New York

ZIP Code: 11111

Country: United States

Tel: (503) 111-1111

Credit Card No: 1234 5678 9012 3456

Expired Date: December 2010

Credit card merchant processor will authorize this order if the billing address matches the order details. Unluckily, the credit card data has been stolen earlier by Mr. ABC from another country through the Internet. Later, he made a purchase of digital products from company XYZ using the information. His order approved by the merchant because all the details matched John's record in the bank's database. IP2Location™ technology can filter the difference between order's country and record's country upfront to protect your business. You can classify this kind of order for manual inspection before delivering the goods. You will be surprise how much this method will help in identifying fraud orders.

In this tutorial, we use the IP2Location™ IP-Country database to lookup country of origin from the visitor's IP address. Instead of loading the full database with 50000+ records, we could simplify this tutorial with assumption only two different IP address ranges in the world. IP addresses 0.0.0.0 - 126.255.255.255 originate from United States. Meanwhile, IP addresses 127.0.0.0 - 255.255.255.255 originate from Japan. Here we are creating a database "IP2Location" with table "IPCountry" that consists of two IP address range records.

Step 1: Create and connect to 'IP2Location' database

mysql> CREATE DATABASE IP2Location

mysql> CONNECT IP2Location

Step 2: Create 'IPCountry' table

mysql> CREATE TABLE IPCountry

--> (

--> ipFROM DOUBLE NOT NULL,

--> ipTO DOUBLE NOT NULL,

--> countrySHORT VARCHAR(2) NOT NULL,

--> countryLONG VARCHAR(100) NOT NULL,

--> PRIMARY KEY(ipFROM, ipTO)

--> );

Step 3. Import the 'ipcountry.csv' database into table 'IPCountry'

mysql> INSERT INTO IPCountry VALUES (0, 2130706431,'US','UNITED STATES');

mysql> INSERT INTO IPCountry VALUES (2130706432, 4294967295,'JP','JAPAN');

The full version of IP-Country database is available for subscription at $49/year from http://ip2location.com. If you have the full version of IP2Location™ IP-Country database, the import process is much easier by using the LOAD DATA feature available in MYSQL.

mysql> LOAD DATA INFILE "/IPCountry.csv" INTO TABLE IPCountry FIELDS TERMINATED BY ',' ENCLOSED BY '"' LINES TERMINATED BY 'r';

We create a script to compare the lookup country and data given in the order authorization flow. It serves as a filter to reduce fraud. All rejected orders will be manual verify by merchants.

verify.asp

// country in billing address, in this example, we assigned "US" for United States.

$billingCountrySHORT = "US";

// Replace this MYSQL server variables with actual configuration

$mysql_server = "mysql_server.com";

$mysql_user_name = "UserName";

$mysql_user_pass = "Password";

// Retrieve visitor IP address from server variable REMOTE_ADDR

$ipaddress = getenv(REMOTE_ADDR);

// Convert IP address to IP number for querying database

$ipno = Dot2LongIP($ipaddress);

// Connect to the database server

$link = mysql_connect($mysql_server, $mysql_user_name, $mysql_user_pass)

or die("Could not connect to MySQL database");

// Connect to the IP2Location database

mysql_select_db("IP2Location") or die("Could not select database");

// SQL query string to match the recordset that

// the IP number fall between the valid range

$query = "SELECT * FROM IPCountry WHERE $ipno <= ipTO AND $ipno>=ipFROM";

// Execute SQL query

$result = mysql_query($query) or die("IP2Location Query Failed");

// Retrieve the recordset (only one)

$row = mysql_fetch_object($result);

// Keep the country information into two different variables

$countrySHORT = $row->countrySHORT;

$countryLONG = $row->countryLONG;

// Free recordset and close database connection

mysql_free_result($result);

mysql_close($link);

if ($countrySHORT == $billingCountrySHORT) {

// IP address same as country in billing address

// Low Fraud Risk

} else {

// IP address different from country in billing address

// High Fraud Risk

}

// Function to convert IP address (xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx) to IP number (0 to 256^4-1)

function Dot2LongIP ($IPaddr)

{

if ($IPaddr == "") {

return 0;

} else {

$ips = split (".", "$IPaddr");

return ($ips[3] + $ips[2] * 256 + $ips[1] * 256 * 256 + $ips[0] * 256 * 256 * 256);

}

} ?>

As you read this article over the next minute you will discover a centuries old sales tactic you can use to close more sales online.

It’s not something you’ve heard before.

It will make you a TON of extra cash.

But before I can tell you this astounding secret to more sales, I need to give you some background. Don’t worry, it’s a good story and you’ll find it entertaining.

Back in 1979 I was looking for a summer job to help me save up for college. Construction jobs were the best—they paid $5 and sometimes more an hour—but it was back-breaking labor. McDonald’s was always looking for burger jockeys, but that meant working evenings and weekends, the times I wanted to be out playing.

A friend of mine called and told me he had gotten a job selling vacuum cleaners door-to-door, and that he had made $100 his very first day.

Let’s see…no back breaking labor, no hair net, my time is my own and $100 per day instead of $100 per week. I thought I’d give selling a try.

I went down to Electrolux and signed up. By that afternoon I had my VW Rabbit Hatchback loaded down with everything from spare bags to the floor scrubber attachment and I was tooling down US 41 to Bicknell, Indiana poised to earn my first $100.

My sales manager, Al, had told me it was virtually impossible to demonstrate the vacuum three times without selling at least one, and I made $100 in commission for each one sold.

I just knew this was going to be a piece of cake.

Day one: 3 demonstrations, no sales.
Day two: 3 demonstrations, no sales.
Day Three: 4 demonstrations, no sales.

At this point I was discouraged. I hadn’t made ANY sales, but I had spent $20 on 98 cent gas (it was ’79), and another $15 at McDonald’s on lunches.

I decided to quit and went to turn in my equipment. Obviously I was no salesman.

That was the moment that changed everything…

Instead of simply letting me quit, Al asked me to do a demonstration for him, right in his office. I went through my spiel and started my first “trial close.” That’s when he stopped me.

“You’re selling Hoovers.”

“No,” I strongly replied, “I am trying to sell an Electrolux.”

“But after your demonstration they’re going to go out and buy a Hoover.”

Al went on to explain that when someone feels and sees a pressing need they figure out the fastest, easiest and cheapest way to meet that need. An Electrolux cost about $650.00, a Hoover cost about $50.

He knew that when a presentation isn’t done properly the prospect simply thanks the salesman for his time then promptly goes to Sears and picks up an el-cheapo.

Man, Hoover must have loved me.

“You have to destroy the old method” Al went on.

He explained that as a part of your presentation you have to make sure to show the prospect that any solution other than the one you are offering won’t solve his problem. You do this by looking at his current solution—his own vacuum—and showing why it wasn’t doing the job. Then you demonstrate that none of his other options will work either—they are too expensive, too ineffective or both.

Did this help? All I can say is I never went more than two demonstrations again without a sale.

Here’s how you can apply this to an online sales letter.

Once you have demonstrated the need, take a paragraph or two to demonstrate why the current solution won’t work. Take another paragraph to demonstrate why your competitor’s solutions won’t work.

In just one or two paragraphs you can double your closing percentage. And stop selling Hoovers.

Have you been prospecting for months on end, only to end up with no one? Or have you been trying to sell a product or service that has not been selling? Or you just kind of depressed about your current employment? There are many reasons to get down and start to get depressed about your situation. When you are down, do you know how to get back up and heading in the right direction? When learning some techniques in your personal development growth, I believe there are four good principles that you can use to get you headed back in the right direction.

I am going to get these four principles from two passages in the Bible, Psalms 42-43. In the passages, the Psalmist is in a depression. He is searching the depths of his soul looking for God. He talks about how to get one’s self out of a depression. I am going to take these teachings and apply them to feelings of giving up because nothing is happening in your home based MLM business opportunity, your online sales, your job, and etc. We all get down for one reason or another. The trick is to not give up, but get up and go forward in the face of adversity.

The first principle to remember is to talk to yourself instead of letting yourself talk to you. In chapter 42:5, the psalmist says, "Why are you downcast, O my soul? Why so disturbed within me?" Have you tried everything that you knew possible and see others becoming successful, but doing the same thing is not working for you? In the back of your mind, you start telling yourself that you will never be successful. When those thoughts start cross your mind, you need to stop, take a deep breath and say to yourself, "I am going to be successful". Think outside the box. Don't let your conscious get the best of you. If you have a mentor, talk to them. If you do not have a mentor, set up a small support group that will raise you up when you are down or vise versa. Remember this quote when dwelling on the past, "Success comes in cans, failure in can't"

The second principle is to quit dwelling on things that are in the past and start dwelling on the present. In chapter 42:4, the psalmist says "This things I remember..." He also says in chapter 42:6 "my Savior and my God. My soul is downcast within me; therefore I will remember you from the land of the Jordan, the heights of Hermon-from Mount Mizar." Plainly said, "What is done, is done" Quit worry about things that did not work for you. Do not beat yourself up for things that you cannot change. Only think of ways to not make the same mistakes. Try new things! Again, think outside of the box. A famous quote from Ben Sweetland states "Success is a journey, not a destination." You have to continually think about the present and your journey to success.

The third principle is though there are many reasons to fail, there are far more reasons to succeed. The psalmist states in chapter 42:5, "Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him" This mean to not be bogged down in negativity. You may fail at one of your goals, get up, dust yourself off and try again. Always be focused on the big picture. Visualize yourself succeeding. One of my favorite quotes is by Dorothea Brande who states "To guarantee success, act as if it we impossible to fail"

And the last principle is the affirmation of success must be repeated again and again in spite of failure. Within passage 42 and 43, the psalmist repeats the verse "Why are you downcast, O my soul?" three times. Three times he asks himself why he feels down. The psalmist is affirming that he has blessings to be thankful for. Think positively. Have you ever heard the expression to "will" something done? You have to do just that. You have to visualize your success. You have to see yourself in the new house, the new cars, money in the bank, running a successful business, etc. And you do this repeatedly, visualizing yourself succeeding no matter of the setbacks. Willie Davis says, "The road to success is uphill." To succeed, you will constantly need to tell yourself that you are going to be successful.

By reading the passages, you see a man downcast and downtrodden. He is question himself. But we see that he talk himself out of depression. We also see him quit dwelling on the past and concern himself with the present. Even though he has reasons to burden himself with failures, he expatiates on the success. And last, and probably the most important, he affirmed his belief several times. When you get down, you need to do the same things. And one other important thing, you should only surround yourself with people who are positive and like-minded. You do not need any negativity in your life beating you down. "Will" yourself to success!

Whether you're looking for a spectacular gift or the perfect accessory for your favourite black dress, you'll find exactly what you want when you shop online - and you'll find it for less. Online discount shopping has come of age. Buyers across the UK have learned to take advantage of the convenience and savings of shopping for designer clothes, jewellery, watches and women's shoes online.

Nearly anything you can find at the shops, you can find online - and at a discount. It used to be a bit harder to find just the right thing - the online sales were mostly through obscure little web sites that offered big discounts on last year's designer clothes lines and women's shoes, but that's no longer the case. Online discount shopping is not only more popular than ever, it's now chic to buy your name brand and designer clothes through the internet.

Even the High Street retailers have become wise to the discounting possibilities of online shopping. Many of them, like Tesco, offer special internet only discount deals on some of their most popular items. The strategy has paid off for Tesco, which sold to over one million online customers in November and December of 2005, and John Lewis, which posted over £100 million in online and catalogue sales last year.

Many people may be hesitant to buy clothing and jewellery online - especially at cheap, discount prices. The fear of being cheated or buying fake or inferior merchandise isn't an idle one when you're shopping without actually seeing what you're buying. There are some common sense precautions that you can take to be sure that you're getting what you're paying (at a discount) for.

1. Shop at trusted sites. That doesn't mean that you're confined to shopping just the big name catalogue stores, though. There are some wonderful internet shopping directories that let you search and compare prices of designer clothes, electronics equipment, jewellery and women's shoes. However, there are some really great comparison sites that only list legitimate shopping sites where you won't be cheated.

2. Shop using a credit card. When you make a purchase via a credit card rather than paying with a cheque, you have the option of disputing your charges if the item is not delivered, or proves to be less than hoped for.

3. If you have the option when shopping for designer clothes online, try on the item at a local shop first to be sure you get the right size. If that's not possibly, most internet shopping sites have a sizing page so that you can check measurements and be certain that your purchases will fit.

4. Be sure to check the return policy of the web site you're shopping just in case. You may have to return the item at your own expense, though some online shops make it easy on you.

5. If you're shopping for women's shoes, take the time to have your feet properly sized before ordering. It's better to try on shoes in a similar style first to be sure that they'll be a comfortable fit.

6. Do beware when buying expensive watches and jewellery online. Check the contact info of the web site from which you're making the purchase if it's not a business that you've used before, and do a quick internet search of the company name to turn up any complaints against them.

You can get incredible bargains on women's apparel, including hard to find designer clothes and shoes by shopping online. Make the internet your first stop when shopping, and be sure that you're getting the best possible price from a trusted source.

There are as many ways to do business online as there are entrepreneurs, it seems. Different strategies are embraced by different people. Though all of them have one thing in common--the goal of producing a financial windfall--not all of them are used by all people.

One of the most commonly used models for online sales is affiliate marketing. Here, a product is sold by a collection of affiliates who are, in essence, self-employed and self-directed commissioned salespeople. They delivery customers and receive a percentage of each sale made to those they brought to the virtual cash register.

It's a deceptively easy system, but it works. In many cases it works very well. In many situations, affiliate marketing is clearly the preferred choice of sales strategy by the product's creator.

Affiliate marketing can work in a variety of situations. Consider some of these possibilities demonstrating the value of affiliate marketing.

The Producer Can't or Won't Sell

In some cases, a product's producer lacks sales skills or an interest in handling marketing endeavors on his or her own. He or she may simply not have the time to effectively the market the product. In these cases, affiliate marketing is a perfect solution. The affiliates take care of finding prospects and converting them. In exchange for their effort, the product creator/owner pays them. Producers who don't want to spend their time finding ways to sell can let the affiliates do the work.

The Product is Time Sensitive

Affiliate marketing can be a great way to get the word out fast. Solid affiliates can relay a new product opportunity to the list quickly and the rate at which sales can be logged is far faster than via a traditional website model. If one has a product that needs to hit the market big and fast due to its temporality, affiliate marketing is a great solution.

There are Many Potential Buyers

If one has produced a product with potential widespread appeal, it may be worth paying commissions to affiliate marketers to get the word out to as many people as possible. Affiliates will often be able to reach population segments who may otherwise never hear about a particular product. If one has a lot of people to reach, affiliate marketing is a great way to do it. The high volume allows one to readily stomach the commission costs.

There are, of course, other reasons to embrace an affiliate marketing model, but these three instances are particular examples of circumstances where that approach makes perfect sense. Some will argue that affiliate marketing is almost always a winning strategy for a product owner/producer, and they may be right. However, the attractiveness of affiliate marketing is clearly evidenced in some certain situations. Using a commission-based cadre of salespeople is often an ideal way to maximize profit potential.

If you’re like most savvy businesses, then you are probably always seeking ways to increase online sales. However, as the Internet has attracted new buyers to the online marketplace, competition has forced corporations to continually employ new strategies in hope to capture more sales.

Enter The Paradox
Most companies continually seek how to increase online traffic with the fundamental belief that it will directly increase their amount of Internet sales. What seems logical is really a paradox that couldn’t be father from the truth. The fact of the matter is that companies seek increased sales and not traffic. In short, all the traffic from search engines, banners, e-mail, etc. won’t help unless you have a solid strategy for converting your visitors to buyers.

Increasing Internet Sales
There are literally thousands of journals and articles written on how to add to your bottom line, however few tell you how to really get the job done. I do not claim there is one strategy that “fits all”, however some fundamentals will aid your search for finding the buyers. In part one of this series, I will describe some basic strategies to identify the best Web strategy for increasing online sales. Part two will discuss website navigation, ease of use, web design reinforcement, and how it can significantly impact the sales funnel.

From Visits to Sales
Question: “what is it that you really want your visitors to do?” Do you want them to order online? Come to your store? Call you on the phone? Or a combination of the above? This important question is crucial in determining where to focus your Web strategy.

Ordering Online
One of the most sought after Web strategies is to get more sales to occur online. When properly executed, sales generated online are rewarded with lowered order costs, detailed visitor information (great for CRM), and measurable results.

Typically, Web-based strategies that work best for increased online sales are well branded, exhibit high demand, and carry less perceived risk. Pricing also plays an essential role, however is not the single attribute visitors will use to evaluate your product or service offering. When optimizing for more online sales you may consider the following:

Shortening the amount of steps required to purchase online Be highly descriptive and identify emotional buying motives (EBM) Widening selection of products (we suggest a minimum 25/product category) Price competitively- especially if the product can be found locally Business/Website has unique selling proposition Closely mirror landing pages with online advertising

Getting Online Visitors to Your Doorstep
Believe it or not, not all online strategies focus on getting visitors to purchase online. For example, Best Buy focuses its efforts to get you in the store. Why? Studies suggest that many so-called Web related conversion occur offline. In addition, the more expensive and non impulsive the purchase, the more consumers want to touch, demo, and see the product in person. Moreover, when was the last time you bought a TV sight unseen?

Strategies that require more in-store contact have several options:

Publish detailed information on products or services Prominently display phone number and address on all pages Present online coupons for in-store redemption Offer “holding” of merchandise for in-store pick-up

The Power of Phone Calls
Phone calls are no doubt important to any successful online business strategy. For some businesses (especially regionalized or local companies) phone calls can outweigh online sales in excess of 10 to 1. However, getting the phone to ring with motivated buyers can be a challenge. In addition to the above bulleted items one can increase phone calls by:

Using a 1-800#
Presenting a “call to action” with a time constraint such as “Call today, offer ends soon!” Require visitors to call for pricing or more details (Requires special attention to execution)

Summary
The above tactics are not only designed increase your Internet sales, but also identify some good strategies to leverage your website’s conversion strengths. When combined with a strong compelling offer, attractive website, and quality visitor traffic, don’t be surprised when sales soar!

There are no dead giveaways, but there are some signs that will let you know that a business is a good candidate for IT consulting. In this article, you'll learn some of these signs.

Is the Company Expanding?

When a business opens another office, they need PCs, other servers, and telecommunications lines. That presents you with a great IT consulting opportunity if they don’t already have someone in place.

What Communications Technology Do They Have?

Does the company have a phone system like a PBX system? You can build relationships with local phone retailers and that can lead to referrals and partnering in IT consulting.

Does the company have an email domain? If they are looking at retrieving emails between spam, filtering and firewalls, there is a huge opportunity for IT consulting. Does the company have a dedicated server, and dedicated internet?

Do Your Clients Depend on Online Sales?

Once they move beyond the micro small business and start to add the real server, then they start to have more sophisticated IT needs that make them a sweet spot IT consulting candidate. Is the company required to do things online with their vendors, with their customers, with their regulators?

If their systems are down, they’re losing a heck of a lot of money. You want clients like that - clients that are in the position where if their systems are down for a day they stand to lose tens of thousands of dollars.

When they are big enough and have that kind of critical importance on IT, they're going to recognize the importance of what you do and follow what you recommend. In companies like that, IT is as critical a need as an accountant on April 14th.

What Industries are Good Matches for IT Consulting?

Healthcare, financial services and natural services are very dependent on IT consulting. That doesn’t mean you should exclude other industries. But that can tip the scale in terms of making them a stronger sweet spot candidate for IT consulting.

Do They Have More than One Location?

Do they have a branch office or any remote locations? The more offices and the more people they have working remotely, the more sophisticated setups they need like VPNs or remote access. That's where your IT consulting practice will come in

Is the Company Used to Paying for IT?

Has the company used technology providers or professional consulting firms in the past? Have they worked with Bars, solution providers, or integrators that shows they were willing to pay money for IT services? If so, that's good. If they spent money once, they are probably willing to spend money again.

The phenomenal growth of pay-per-click advertisement amid uncertainties

Today pay-per-click advertising, by and large, is assumed to be one of the quickest and effective ways of promoting one’s business online. To many it is still an effective medium to get listed in the top of the search engines without having to undertake strenuous preparatory works for search engine optimization.

But the beginning was not the same as it is now. Rather this concept encountered bleeding teething problems in its progressive strides. The idea was not well-received; some critics even went to the extent of prophesying that it is definitely headed for a doom.

People questioned the rationale of paying any penny for getting web site in prominent positions where the search is exclusively keyword driven. They justified their proposition by saying that as against the banner ad, pay-per-click is relatively minor advertising stunt, and that too is not there all the time.

As of now, situations have taken a positive turn. The success saga of pay-per-click advertising is known to one and all. Now advertisers promptly bid on keywords, promising to pay certain amount of money every time someone clicks on their ad, which pops up when a search exercise is performed by any surfer.

Pay-per-click advertisement is in eye of the storm

Pay-per-click advertisement has grown over the years, but it has also become susceptible to what is referred to as “Click Fraud.” There are an increasing number of people, who have mastered the art of tampering with pay-per-click advertisement, and have posed a real threat to the prospects of pay-per-click advertisement for online advertisers and the companies offering them.

Click fraud comes into picture when a user -- accidentally or deliberately -- or a competitor with malafide intention, clicks on a business’ ad and subsequently disappears into the thin air. No actual use of the advertisement – mere clicking through. Such instances tend to inflate the earmarked advertising budget of the company which has chosen this medium for online sales and marketing. On the other side of the fence, it adds to earning potential of an affiliate web site which hosts pay-per-click advertisement campaign on behalf of select companies opting for this genre online advertising. Statistics from the industry reveal that click frauds account for as high as 20 per cent for certain keywords. Further, estimate suggests that one out every five dollars spend on pay-per-click advertisement goes down the drain.

What led to the present messy situations?

Definitely the present state of pay-per-click advertisements has given its doom pundits a reason to rejoice, and they may be basking in their proud moments. Many companies have turned to the advantages of such kind of web promotion, while small and mid-sized firms have realized that pay-per-click- advertisement is particularly beneficial for them because they don’t have to put in much investment.

This was until click fraud did not begin to spread its ugly wings. Now it is a roller-coaster ride for companies, and they are wishing to have some way for plugging in the loopholes existing in the system.

Let’s understand the reasons for such messy state of affairs.

The “gold rush” can be blamed on more than one count. This fact is deplorable that it is excessively easy to publish pay-per-click advertising links from Google and Yahoo. What suffices for the purpose is joining Google AdSense or corresponding Yahoo program. Your business gets a fillip, and you do not have to spare even a penny.

It is highly inexpensive to purchase a domain name, and this is another major reason for the predicament pay-per-click advertisement is faced with. VeriSign, which runs the .com and .net domain names, offers domain names for as little as $6 to $7 per year. Hence, a web site hosting pay-per-click ads doesn't’t need to get many people clicking through its ads in order to turn a profit. To make it worse, there is five-day “Add Grace Period,” during which new registrations can be deleted for a full refund.

Is the time ripe for switching over to other online advertising model, if any?

Bill Gross was the force behind GoTo.com’s “pay-per-click” advertising model which heralded an era of pop-ups advertisement. GoTo.com was subsequently purchased by Yahoo in 2003, and later on Google also adopted a similar online advertising medium called AdWords. But click fraud inflicted them all.

Bill Gross’ new advertising model called cost-per-action holds answer to challenge posed by click fraud. The model aptly called cost-per-action is based on the premise that companies do not have to pay every time a user clicks on an ad and enter their web sites. Payment becomes obligatory only when clicking through an ad leads to a desired action, for instance, a purchase, filling out a firm, downloading some stuff and so forth. The bottom line in this model is that this is mutually beneficial this time around on an equitable basis.

This model is inherently and fundamentally strong not to give click fraud a chance. Click fraud occurs when someone visits an advertiser’s web site with malicious intention for securing pecuniary advantage or harming the interest of other partner. Since the advertiser is no longer under obligation to pay for damn mindless clicks, click fraud can’t happen.

Snap.com is leading from the front

This online advertising model, better described as “a next-generation search engine for broadband users.” was characteristic feature of Snap.com, which launched it for the first time. Snap.com has some other enabling technology going for it. It joins algorithmic search results together with human click stream data, and calls it “behavioral ranking.” The cardinal principle here is that sites which give people more value will rank higher than others who do not. Snap.com holds the reason that values are measurable in terms of quality of content and number of transactions completed. The higher the qualities of content, the longer surfers are likely to be engrossed is what Snap.com believes in.

Cost-per-action model seems to be all set to grow manifold. Sooner than the later, it will influence other search engines to adopt their own versions of its model and become more customer-centric. The possibility is not far off that this time around Bill Gross’s innovative approach is deservedly purchased by Google.

How do you achieve success on the Internet? True enough, your website concept and its design, the content you provide and the quality of your product, service or opportunity are all essential elements. But ultimately the success of any online business relies on getting the traffic it needs. Make no mistake though: highly targeted traffic is what we are talking about here, and the best way to achieve this nirvana of the internet world is to learn and implement the right marketing strategies from the start. In other words, if you want to make money online, you must use traffic building methods which create targeted traffic to your website This is where using the right tools make all the difference. The InterNetwork Marketing Success Toolbox will help online marketers and web entrepreneurs attract quality prospects to their online sales or lead capture pages. Probably one of the most significant and effective tools available today is Google AdWords.

So how does Google AdWords work? With more than 40% market share and over 2.7 billion search queries performed in the US alone, Google currently dominates the Internet search engine market. That is why webmasters and online marketers from all over the world are so eager to have their sites rank high in the Google results pages. Achieving a high ranking usually means high traffic and more opportunities to monetize it. On the other hand, those search engine results pages also provide InterNetwork Marketers another great way to advertise their products, services or business programs through well-crafted ads and links. As a result, Google launched the AdWords service, which not only enables online businesses to promote their products and services to a very targeted audience, but also virtually guarantees instant traffic. What Google AdWords does is display relevant text based ads within its search engine results pages termed as "Sponsored Links". So, whenever someone searches for a particular keyword, these relevant "sponsored" links appear in a separate section thus giving excellent exposure to the sites listed.

Stay tuned for Part 2 where we go into the specifics of creating your first Google AdWords campaign...

E-commerce websites have different requirements than a personal website or standard product or business information site. On e-commerce sites you need the capability to display your products for online sales, as well as a few customized features. That is why companies offer separate e-commerce web hosting packages.

Let’s say you have a selection of products you would like to sell over the Internet. Your website will need to display the product and a description. Users will need to be able to select the product to add to their shopping cart. Your site will need a way to store customer information and accept credit cards. Specialized e-commerce web hosting packages will make all these tasks simpler and easier to manage.

Prices between the different e-commerce hosting companies can vary, as can their services and features. Take a while to shop around and research the different options. Try to locate current customers who are willing to answer your questions. You can probably find them on business forums or web development forums. Most people are generally willing to help out and answer some questions.

You may also need to find an e-commerce web hosting package that will also include the design. Getting the two tasks finished at once can save you a lot of time and money. You may also want a company to manage your new web site. That is where research is essential. It may be more cost effective to have one web hosting company perform all these tasks, but you may not be paying for the best quality.

So, in order to get the most out of your online presence, you may need to consider different e-commerce web hosting packages to find one that best fits your needs and budget. Prices, fees and services vary from one company to the other but the research will be well worth it.

Why is your online sales copy--your 24/7 salesman—not doing his job? Does this scenario ring a bell? You worked hard to get your traffic. You have watched your visitor rate climb higher and higher. But your visitors are leaving empty-handed. They are virtually leaving without buying.

Many service business owners, infopreneurs and writes fail to sell online. In fact researchers say only 3% of online retailers actually sell anything to speak of. You may be making the same top mistakes in web sales copy that 97% of online etailers make. Correct these top mistakes and prosper:

1) No Regular Content.

If your website is static (non-changing) then it will not entice your audience to visit again. Unless your site's purpose is to get a direct response, it should have regular content changes. Create a target newsletter for your audience. Send it out regularly to build trust with your visitors. Consistency builds trust. People like to know what to expect.

2) No Compelling Reason to Keep Reading.

You may have been just awarded for the most beautiful site. Congratulations! But if your copy is weak it may not translate to sales. Check your copy for dud phrases, deadwood and driftwood. Are you using trite phrases like Welcome to the official site of _____, to find out about ME, MY Company, My Achievements click here, or Sign-up for my FREE ezine. Use wording that will convince your prospects to keep reading, trust you and take action. Insert benefit loaded headlines, bullets and even links.

3) Too Hard to Buy.

Believe it or not people are still reluctant to buy online. A Boston Consulting Group Consumer Survey found that 70% of respondents worry about making purchases online. Seek to help calm the fears of your prospects. Make your ordering process easy and straightforward. Limit the amount of forms they have to fill out. Insert a paragraph of explanation of your credit card processing system in your sales letter. There still are a lot of people that are not computer savvy. Offer all of the options you can make available: mail, fax, 800 number, and of course credit card. Remember to test your process.

4) No Heading to Lead the Way.

Develop the skill of writing headlines. Provocative titles will stir interest. Provocative statements capture our attention like a fish on a hook. They throw out the baited hook and reel a captive audience in every time. The shocking statement 'Wives Who Don't Want Sex' even if they don't have this problem will get the attention of the curious. Rewrite your headlines. Make sure they lead your prospects to your sales page.

5) No Evident Benefits.

Promote with benefits instead of your bio, your credentials and even the features of your product/service. Don't get me wrong; put them in their proper place on your site. But your audience will most want to know the value of your product to them. You must answer questions like, "Will it solve my particular problem?" "What will I gain?" "What will I lose if I don't use your service?" Some universal benefits answer the how tos of: getting more passion, more energy, less fatigue, more money, good relationships, more time, less trouble, less stress, less drama and trauma.

6) No Help Visualizing Outcome.

Be specific. List specific benefits. Describe how your customer will feel after buying your product. For example, after you buy my service of teeth whitening, you'll look and feel 10 years younger without plastic surgery. Then post a picture of what your client looks like before and after the teeth whitening service. Let them see how happier and more confident they look with whiter teeth. Make your page magnetic with specific benefits.

7) No Compelling Call to Action.

Many website owners lose countless opportunities to make a sale or capture a lead because they fail to ask something of their visitors. Call your visitors to a specific action. At the end of every page use the power of the direct command whether it's simply directing them to contact you for further information or a directive to browse further into your site. For example, instead of "If you would like this beautiful travel brochure, we will be happy to send it" use "Sit down right now and fill out this form to start planning your vacation.' Or instead of "Call us to purchase your widget" use "Dial this number 877-846-9908 to purchase your widget today."

If you are serious about making your website a more effective marketing tool or converting more visitors in customers, begin by correcting the top seven mistakes above. Even one or all of the principles in place will help make your website one that your visitors will buy from, proudly refer, and come back to over and over again. Write compelling copy and prosper.

Here is just a quick story about one guy I know - it's not me, no, really, it is not...

Anyway, this guy - let's call him Mark - err, I mean Bob. Well, Bob decided one day that he was going to explode his online sales with the use of Google AdWords.

He had a nice, relatively inexpensive Home Business Opportunity to market and while sales were moving nicely he figured that AdWords was worth the investment of time and money. Now, Bob being a pretty smart guy didn't think he needed much in the way of AdWords training. Let's face it, it's not rocket science and one can get plenty of ideas for advert style from looking in one's niche market, and there are plenty of keyword tools so building a list is a 10 minute job.

Anyway, Bob set up his first campaign, ad group, ad copy and keywords. He chose $0.30 a click, as he was competing with some well used keywords, and a daily budget of $50.00. His landing page was simply asking for people to opt-in to his newsletter, for which he would tell them to get $800 if free pay-per-click advertising.

Things looked to be going nicely. The ads were being clicked, the click-through rate was high and the cost per click was falling nicely over time - all while maitaing a nice page 2 or 3 ad postition.

People were signing up to the news letter and as we all know, the more people in the list the more money we will make.

All was good in the world of Bob. So good, in fact, that Bob decided that a family vacation was in order - one where computers couldn't infringe. The business was on auto-pilot and a new batch of hungry buers were beating a path to Bob's door.

Two weeks later Bob comes back from a great vactaion and immediatly wants to see his sales figures for the last month and assure himeself that the $1500 AdWords expense was justified by sales dollars.

Shock. Horror. Sales are the same. A quick check of the logs shows that exactly two people who sign-up for newsletter actualy went forward a bought his product. A measly 2. How can that be thought Bob. Maybe there were lots of people with questions who needed something clarified before handing over their hard-earned cash. So, off Bob goes to check his email.

Yes, as expected, there were lots of emails. But, the contents of the email were not people asking a simple question before buying Bobs product. The questions were mainly:-

• Did Bob need a larger pe%$#, well, you know what I mean
• Could Bob depoit the $800 in theor PayPal accout
• Could they sign-up to Bob's opportunity for free
• Could Bob get them a credit card
• Would Bob sign-up for their MLM opportunity

Bob was perplexed.

Time to go a take a closer look at the people who sign-up to the newsletter thought Bob.

Well, things became clear very quickly. I told you Bob is smart.

Over 90% of the people signing-up for Bob's Newsletter were people from far-far away in both time and economic resources - people with names like Adimoorthy Lakshmi Narasimhan - who do not possess a credit card and do not have the purchasing power to start and run Bob's opportunity.

Bob, had forgotten to target specific countries in his ad campaign. Bod had forgotten to remove "free" from his list of keywords. All of Bob's daily clicks were being used up in low income markets looking for freebies. Bob lost a bunch of money. Bob's wife was not very happy. Bob spent a very uncomfortable night sleeping in the dog house with Bruno the 150lb, drooling, slobbering rotweiler. Bob will never make the same mistake again.