Google Search Suggest Get Ads, Links & Answers

Earlier this year, Google Suggest finally made it to the Google home page. The feature suggests queries as you begin typing in the search box. Now Google is testing providing links to web sites, direct answers and even ads that appear within the Google Suggest list.

Not everyone will see these changes. Google’s showing them to a small, randomly selected group of people in the US. The experiment might end at any time and not necessarily become a permanent feature.
Below, you can see how when typing in the beginning letters of New York Times (new york t…), “regular” Google Suggest offers some suggestions to complete your query:

Now consider a change that some are seeing, where a link that leads directly to the New York Times appears:


It might also appear like this:

In the example below, a search for [space shu...] suggest actual news results related to the space shuttle recently being flown from California to Florida right in the drop-down:

I don’t have an example of an actual answer being provided in results, but that’s something Google says will come.
The most dramatic change is the inclusion of AdWords ads in this box. Here are some of the ones I’ve spotted:


In the one above, I started typing the characters [new...] and got an ad for Newsweek. When I continued on, doing [new york t...], rather than seeing a link to the New York Times as with the example shown earlier, I got this ad from the New York Times itself:

And here’s yet another ad I got when I started typing [up...]:

I’m somewhat concerned about the ads appearing at the top of the list. For one thing, I think it’s way too easy for people to click on an ad to reach a web site where Google should be sending them to for free (consider the New York Times example, where one case shows a “free” navigational link while the other is a New York Times ad).
Fortunately, Google said it’s also testing an implementation where the ads appear at the bottom of the list, like this screenshot they sent me:


I prefer this much more.

The ad test is yet the latest way Google is expanding where ads might appear in its services. Just some of the others in recent weeks are covered in the articles from us below:

Google Expands AdSense For Domains

Google Ads For Hard Alcohol & Liqueurs Now Allowed

Drill, Baby, Drill: Google Finance Gets Ads; Google News Testing Them

YouTube Formally Introduces ‘Sponsored Videos’

Google AdWords: Now With Images

Google Puts New AdSense Ads Under Maps

Google Now Allowing Ads For Beer

Google AdWords Allowing Gambling Ads In UK

Why change Search Suggest in this manner?
“This is another example of search becoming more dynamic and Google getting users to the correct results as fast as possible,” said Johanna Wright, director of product management at Google.

Overall, the links seem like a good idea. In many cases, they might save people even more time to find what they want than having to wait (even though it’s a tiny time) for the search results page to load. I just hope that if the ads stay, they move to the bottom of the list.
By by Danny Sullivan From Search Engine Land

Ebay Top Ten Ways to Bring you holiday traffic!

We want you to ring in this holiday season with more sales and higher profits. So we're making big investments to bring shoppers your way, with hard cash reasons to buy on eBay. Massive coupon campaigns are hitting millions of eBay buyers, wherever they're searching--watch for our "pull-out-all-the-stops" Cyber Monday blitz. Up to 30% cashback deals reward buyers who get to your listings through a search on Microsoft Live. Irresistible "Daily Deals" on hot holiday items and a special holiday deals hub will keep shoppers coming back. Find out how you can cash in on all these great holiday programs.

(1) Get more exposure and a free subtitle

Offer your buyers free shipping

to help generate new sales. How? Until December 31, items listed with free shipping get a free subtitle. Plus, free shipping gives you a boost in search results. Most of all, buyers love it. And now, when buyers leave Feedback, they get a reminder you offered free shipping--a not-so-subtle hint that you deserve a perfect 5 for shipping cost.

(2) Buyer and Seller Protection

Just in time for the holidays: PayPal Buyer Protection now covers buyers' purchase price and original shipping costs with no coverage limit. See eligibility. PayPal Seller Protection for all US PayPal accounts is also improved. You're now better protected against claims, chargebacks and reversals for unauthorized payments, and items not received. Every eligible claim is covered at no additional cost. Coverage is extended to eBay purchases made by buyers in 190 countries including items shipped to unconfirmed addresses. See eligibility.

(3) Grab more buyers: 2 proven ways to boost holiday sales
This year more than ever, holiday shoppers want a deal. Two big ways to grab their attention and make the sale:
1) Entice buyers into action with Best Offer listings. Buyers can make you an offer. You can set your listings to auto-reject low-ball offers and auto-accept those above the price you want. Adding Best Offer to your listings is free.
2) Highlight savings by applying Markdown Manager to your listings. Strike-through pricing emphasizes savings and value to move your inventory fast. Markdown Manager is free with your Stores subscription.

(4) Make Best Match work for you
Best Match helps shoppers find just what they're looking for from sellers they trust. Bottom line, delivering great value and service to your buyers is key to getting a top position in Best Match search results.

Remember, Auction-style and Fixed Price listings are now sorted differently and then intermingled to give buyers a good mix of both. Auction-style gets a boost when the listing's about to end (time ending soonest). Fixed Price gets a boost based on recent sales--the more items that sell in a listing, the better position it can get in search results.

Number one tip to build recent sales: combine multiple identical items into one 30-day Fixed Price listing. See the top six ways to improve the position of your Fixed Price and Auction-style listings.

(5) Your listing "Featured First"
Give your Auction-style and Fixed Price listings a chance to appear in the featured spot at the top of the first page of search results with the new Featured First listing upgrade. It's an especially good way to jump start recent sales for new Fixed Price listings.



(6) Stand out on new product pages
We've made shopping for many hot holiday items faster and easier with new product pages--one for books, movies, music and video games and one for other categories such as cell phones and digital cameras. To make sure interested buyers find your items on these new pages, just list with pre-filled item information.

(7) 5 cent fees and a free subtitle
From now until the end of the year, when you list books, music, movies and video games in Fixed Price with pre-filled item information, Insertion Fees are just 5¢. And, when you list with pre-filled item information in either Fixed Price or Auction-style, you get a free subtitle--even if you don't offer free shipping.

(8) Turn negative Feedback into positive
Great news for sellers: now you can submit a request for a buyer to change a Feedback rating, Feedback comment, or detailed seller ratings when negative Feedback is left in error or when you've been able to resolve an issue with your buyer.

(9) More tips to get high shipping DSRs
Good communication goes a long way to get high shipping DSRs from happy holiday shoppers. Here are a few more proven strategies:

Clearly state shipping costs, service and handling time in
your listing.
Notify buyers when you receive payment, and inform them of
any delays such as waiting for their payments to clear.
Ship within 24 hours of receiving payment.
Stock up on packaging supplies before the holiday season.
Order free U.S. Postal Service shipping supplies.
Pack properly, and make sure the box can handle the item's
weight. Use recycled packaging that's in good condition.
Package fragile items well.
Include colored packing slip. It's a great opportunity to recap
your return policy, show your appreciation for their business
and encourage buyers to leave positive feedback.
Resolve any problems quickly and professionally.

Get more tips for getting top DSRs.

(10) Get exact shipping costs in no time The eBay Shipping Calculator is a great way to accurately calculate shipping costs. When using the calculator, it is important to specify the right package size. The size and weight of the package will determine the shipping cost, so have an idea of what packaging you're going to use before you list. It'll often speed up your fulfillment once you make the sale.

BONUS: Need more time to update your listings? You got it! To help you focus squarely on holiday selling, we're holding off on requiring a return policy and handling time until early 2009. And we'll give you at least 30 days notice before the requirement takes effect. Note, including a return policy and handling time is still a best practice so we encourage you to start listing with both now. Check the seller checklist to stay on top of the latest timelines and best practices. Take advantage of eBay's bulk editing tools to make all your required updates at once.

All Tips are thanks of Ebay.com

Resolution

After our blog "Above the Fold," we received some very intelligent questions.

"Wouldn't 'the fold' be different depending on what type of computer you're using? Can't it be different for different people?"

The answer? Yes, absolutely it can. But it's not based on your type of computer. It's based on your resolution settings. Resolution is a little bit tricky to explain without starting to speak "tech talk," but we'll give it a shot nonetheless.

Every picture, program, website, etc., that you have on your computer, has a size. Now, while in real life we measure size in inches (or centimeters, for you crazy metric addicts out there), on the internet, and with computers in general, we measure things in "pixels."

So, let's say we have an image. Let's say, in fact, that we have this image:



This specific image is 600 pixels wide and 315 pixels tall. Now, don't go trying to measure this in inches, because pixels and inches aren't really mutually compatible.

The reason for this is your resolution settings. When you choose your screen resolution, you're choosing how many pixels to show on your screen. This setting might be anywhere from 640 x 480 up to 1680 x 1050, or even more. If you change your resolution, images will seem to be different sizes. In reality, they're the exact same size as they were (in pixels), but since you're showing more pixels at once, they're comparitively smaller.

The higher your resolution (meaning the bigger the numbers -- like the 1680 x 1050 number), the higher the quality and smaller t he size of items on your screen (whether that's websites, images, or whatever else).

So, hopefully that give you a general idea of what resolution is, and what resolution means. But what does resolution mean for your website? How will it impact your online business?

Well, with different people viewing your site at different sizes, it's going to look different to people who are using different resolutions. People with higher resolution are going to see more of your site. Your "fold" will change depending on your customer's resolution.

So when you're trying to decide where to put things on your website, what resolution should you be using? What should you be basing these decisions on.

Here's a basic chart that gives an idea of the most common resolutions:

Date	Higher	1024x768	800x600	640x480	Unknown
January 2008	38%	48%	8%	0%	6%

In brief, 1024 wide by 768 high is what you should be judging on. Many of the "higher resolution" settings are actually 1280 wide by 768 high. Since the "fold" is determined by the height of the website, you should make sure your resolution is set to 768 high when you make decisions about placement. This is what we can call the most common "fold" for your website.

I know, I know! It's incredibly technical sounding, and a little difficult to explain. But here are a couple general hints about how the different resolution settings should affect your work.

• Never make your banner (the top section of your website, which contains your logo, etc.) more than 800 pixels wide. If you do, 8%-14% of your visitors will have to scroll left and right to be able to see your entire website, which we want to avoid.
• When making decisions on placement, make sure you're using either a 1024 x 768 or a 1280 x 768 resolution.
• Don't freak out about exactly how your text looks on your site. Some people spend a lot of time changing their wording, just so certain words stay on the same line together. This isn't going to be very effective, though, since the different resolutions are going to make the text look different anyway.

And the end point, of course, is that understanding this will help you make smart decisions about where to place content. Smarter placement means more sales. More sales means having a successful online business.

To learn more about how a quality coaching company can help you in gaining the knowledge you need to run an online business, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

How frequently should I update my site?

Whether you have a blog or a website, you will want to update it semi-frequently. The main reasons for this are that Google and other search engines will declare a website "dead" once it has been unchanged for too long.

There are different schools of thought on exactly how often you should update your site, but research has shown that updating your site once per week in some way helps to increase your search engine ranking.

However, they have also found that updating your website once every three weeks is almost as effective in helping your search engine optimization.

So, what is the best thing to do? Well, opinions differ, but generally speaking, as long as you're making some minor updates about once every three weeks, you should be fine. This can mean adding or removing an image, changing text slightly, or anything similar. Don't change your site too drastically! Remember, you want to be able to keep track of your successes and failures, and know how you're progressing. We'll discuss that more in a future entry.

To learn more about how a quality coaching company can help your business succeed, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

A Rule for Writing Content for Your Website:

Be Brief:

You should always remember to be concise in your writing. It should be clear and easy to understand, and easy to skim. It should not be so long that people dread reading it. If they do, they will just move on to the next website.

• Short sentences help.
• Bulleted lists help.
• Italicized or bold text help.
  

By being brief, you are making what you do say more memorable for visitors, and often more clear for the search engines.

For more on how quality coaching companies can help you build your website, visit www.thriveli.com.

AdWords: Google is Your Friend!

Google is the creator of dozens of useful tools, especially when it comes to the realms of internet marketing. Of these tools, one in particular stands out -- Google AdWords.

In short summary, Google AdWords allows you to get your website "sponsored," and placed in the first few entries on Google. You only pay Google when someone clicks on your Ad (thus, visiting your website), so it's relatively easy to make sure that this form of marketing is profitable.

While this is highly beneficial, you should only consider this service strongly if you are selling a product or service that has a real profit margin. Since you will be paying anywhere from 5 to 50 cents per click, you want to be sure that each "conversion" covers the cost of your marketing, and leaves you with a decent profit for your effort.

For example, if your online business is an affiliate website, and you gain profit only off of the Ads on your site, and you get an average of a dollar per Ad Click on your site, you probably don't want to spend a lot of money to get the clicking traffic to your website.

However, in e-commerce sites, Google AdWords provides an amazing marketing tool for your company. With appropriate keyword research and Ad writing, you may end up paying as little as a few cents per click. Since "target conversion rate" for an online business should be around 3%, that means that for every 33 clicks, you should have a sale. Imagine, for example, that you're paying 10 cents per click for traffic that is already searching for your product. With a 3% conversion rate, that means you're only paying $3.30 per sale. Depending on your profit margin, this may be an incredible boost in overall sales and profit.

AdWords requires a lot of research and a fair amount of maitenance to run effectively. To find out how a coaching company can help you in setting up an effective Google AdWords Campaign, help you market your website, and help you increase profit in your small online business, visit www.thriveli.com.

Passive Income: The Truth

If you have been looking around at work-from-home styled jobs, you have undoubtably seen ads that try to convince you that you can "work from home, making hundreds every day while only working two hours per week!" Once again, we have to ask the question -- is this legitimate?

The truth is, this kind of pitch is an oversell of something that is very plausible. Affiliate websites, using Google Adsense or direct banner ads, can give a very fair amount of revenue. But what can you realistically make off of an AdSense website?

Many "non-experts" find that they can create an affiliate website that generates between $1 and $3 per day. This is, of course, after their website has been found by Google, and is being viewed by a fair amount of people. So, this ranges from $30 per month to $90 per month. And how much work does a website or blog like this take? Well, you should generally post about once per week to keep your ranking up and your followers happy -- so often under 1 hour of real work per week. So, for between 2 and 4 hours of work you can get between $30 and $90. That means you're paying yourself anywhere from $7.50 per hour to $45.00 per hour. Not bad, by any means!

However, I know very few people who can pay the bills off of $90 per month. So there are a few directions to go to increase this amount of revenue. Option 1 -- you can focus on making one or two websites very successful. Option 2 -- you can build a hundred different websites and increase your $90 to $9000 per month. Option 3 -- you can go somewhere in-between, focusing on a few websites (generally under 20) which all receive a higher income than your typical AdSense site.

There are downfalls with each of these methods.

Option 1, it is very difficult to find a single category or subject that will pay you enough to support you off of one website. It's possible -- that's where these people claiming their hundreds of dollars a day are coming from. It is also very difficult to do search engine optimization for a website well enough that you can make this kind of income. Sites like this will take a lot more care and attention, and will have to be a great "discovery" of a niche market that is not yet saturated.

In addition, if Google changes its search parameters and you're pushed down a page, your income may fall through the floor! You are far more susceptible to the whims of the internet, and most of us don't like our income to be based on something that risky.

Option 2 has very different problems. First, you will have to find 100 websites that can generate income. Though you can spout off a lot of gibberish without much effort, it won't make you much money. You have to find profitable keywords. No one is going to pay to have their farm animals sold online, for example, so you probably don't want to blog or make a website about farm animals. So you have to do the research to find 100 different websites. You have to then build 100 websites. Even if these are pre-made blogs, this is going to be difficult to do, and highly time consuming.

Also, to make even the $1 to $5 per blog, you will have to do some basic marketing for the websites, posting your link on directories, forums, etc. So the setup time for Option 2 is pretty massive. To set up 100 effective, money-making blogs, and market them, may well takes months of hard work. If you decide this is what you want to do, don't expect any less than a few hundred hours of work before your website are making you the money you want. In addition, you have to maintain these websites for them to be profitable! Even if you know your subjects, and can post quickly and effectively, you can expect to be working 50 hour work weeks.

Then again -- $9000 a month is nothing to scoff at, and if your objective is earning a lot of money, and you don't mind putting in the effort, this may be a viable solution for you.

Option 3 tends to be the most effective and successful. Setting up a dozen blogs or websites is far easier than setting up a hundred, and your general "labor" after setup will probably be somewhere between 6 and 24 hours per week, meaning that your schedule will be very flexible. However, you should still expect to invest the equivalent of 3-4 full time work weeks to get these blogs/websites up and running.

With effective online marketing and updating, which takes time, patience, study, and experience, you may well see each website generating $5 to $15 per day (this is a reasonable goal -- you will likely be frustrated if you aim too far above this). Just to make the numbers here more clear, with a dozen sites, that may be anywhere from $60 to $180 per day, or between $1800 and $5400 per month. This is the equivalent of somewhere between a $75 per hour to a $900 per hour income, for the time you are actually investing.


Of course, knowing the general outline of making money through blogs, or affiliate marketing websites, is one thing. Knowing the details of how to do is successfully is something entirely different.

For more information on how a coaching company can help you in building your own affiliate website empire, and generate great money online with a reasonable time investment, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

Business Blogs

Since you're here, on our blog, I think I can assume that you know something about what a blog is. However, for those who just happen to have stumbled across this Blog, allow me to go back to basics.

The word "blog" is a shortening of "Web Log," and thanks to Blogger, terms like "blogging" and "bloggers" have become more a part of our cultural phenomena over the last few years. This is because it's now very easy to set up a blog.

And "blogging?" Well, blogging can be anything. If I tell the world my grandma is sick on a blog, that's blogging. If I talk about my new girlfriend, that's blogging. If I talk about my political beliefs, that's blogging. If I talk about religion, that's blogging. If I talk about how vanilla is the best ice cream, that's blogging.

And most importantly, if I talk about my company, my products, and my company's quality, that's most definitely blogging! This is where blogs come in as a part of your business. Is it mandatory to have a blog for your online business? No, not mandatory. But it does help you with the search engines.

The more people link to your website, the more popular that site will become. The more relevant the pages that links are on happen to be, the more powerful that link will be. So by creating a blog, you can link to your website through a highly, highly relevant website. In short, you will start to get a better page rank, your search engine ranking and SEO will improve, and you may generate some independent leads through your blog.

So what should you include in the blog to make it most effective? Should you have just one, or multiple? How much does it really impact your ranking? How can you make sure your blog is visible?

Even after explaining a lot of the details, there are always going to be more questions. To find out more about how a coaching company can help answer your questions, and introduce you to many more ways to market your website, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

The Power of a Logo

One thing that commonly comes up during the creation of a business is building a Logo. Many people feel that having a company logo is unimportant, or at least not something that should be a preliminary concern for their business. Others (often those trying to sell you the logo) argue that a logo is the single most important thing you can do to help your business. As usual, the truth lies somewhere in-between the two extremes.

So, what is a logo? What is the real power of a logo? What does it do for you? Why is it important? What's a good amount to pay for one? What should you keep in mind in designing your logo? These are just a few of the common questions regarding logo design, and I'll go into each of them briefly.

What is a logo?
A logo is an image or stylized text (or a combination of the two) which identifies your business. It is not a photograph, it is not a picture of your product, and it is not a description of your business.

This logo should definitely be located on your website. It should also be located on all printed marketing materials, banner ads, business cards, etc. People should come to associate your logo with your company, so using it repeatedly will help ingrain the image into the minds of your clients.

Here are a few famous logos to help give you the idea of what a logo is:




What is the real power of a logo?

There are two major points to mention with a logo. The first major power of a logo is professionalism. Having your own logo gives a clear sense that your company has invested into itself. This makes your company feel more legitimate to your buyers. This is the primary way a logo will pay for itself. People are far more likely to buy from an online business that looks and feels professional.

The second major power of a logo is memorability. It is easier to remember your company when you are using a logo. You may know McDonalds without its logo, but when you see the golden arches, you instantly recognize "This is McDonalds." And what does this mean for you and your business? First, it makes marketing more effective by making your website and company more memorable. Second, it makes your website itself more memorable. Customer loyalty is one of the major keys to success, and having a solid logo can strongly help with this.

These are, of course, the reasons why a logo is important as well. No, a logo will not double your sales! No, it will not make your business miraculously appear on the first page of the google search engines. But it will increase your conversion rate, and it will increase your return customers.

What's a good amount to pay for a logo?

This is a difficult question to answer, but mostly because there are a lot of details that go into a logo. How complex is the logo? Is it just stylized text, or does it include a custom image or graphic? How many versions of the logo will you receive? How many revisions are you allowed to make?

A good price may be anywhere from about $99 to $999 for a solid logo for a start-up company. What we recommend is that you find a company that will give you at least 1 set of revisions (in other words, doesn't hand you a logo and refuse to do extra work on it), and preferably will give you two sets of revisions or more. We also recommend that you either find a logo creation company that will give you multiple logo concepts up front, or will give additional logo concepts if you are not satisfied with the first version. We also recommend that you find a company that will provide more than simply stylized text.

A good cost to pay for this type of logo is between $300 and $400. As an example of a good company, Clover Logos is the primary logo design company we recommend at Thrive. They have assisted dozens of our clients in creating an excellent, professional logo to help their business succeed.

What should I keep in mind when designing my logo?

You should keep in mind about 80 different things while designing your logo. However, there are a couple of basic principles to follow.

First -- make sure it reflects the tone of your business. Don't have a black and gray corporate logo for your children's toys business, and don't have a pink, yellow, green and orange bubble text logo for your office supplies business.

Second -- keep it simple. You should be able to shrink or expand this logo to the size of a business card or the size of a billboard, and it should still be recognizable.


In short summary, a logo is important for every business that wants to come across as authentic and legitimate. It is important to increase return customers. Don't kill yourself over the cost, but put it pretty high on your priority list (probably just below setting up your legal entity, website, and getting your products or dropshipper).

For more information on how a coaching company can help you with the creation and branding of your business, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

The "Buying Mood"

Though many people searching the web are interested in buying a product immediately, certainly not all people are. They may be looking to see how much a product costs, they may be comparing online products, or they may simply be daydreaming. "Wouldn't it be nice if I could buy this."

So, what can you do to turn these browsers and daydreamers into buyers on your online business? Well, there are dozens of tactics, but pretty much all of them full under the category of "setting the buying mood." Creating an atmosphere that encourages buying your product, providing incentives, and more, can help set this buying mood.

Here are just a couple of quick tips to help you in creating that atmosphere for your clients:

• Use emotion evoking images. If you're selling baby products, then you should definitely have some happy, laughing, smiling babies. If you're selling television sets, you should have a family or couple gathered around the TV, perfectly happy and content. Most people want to purchase these items because they have a specific fantasy of what the product is going to do for them. Help build that fantasy through emotion evoking images.
  
  
• Provide clearly visible incentives. And make sure you're providing something! Even if you have the same products at the same final prices, your competitor who has a visible "20% Off!" sale is going to close more than you do. Sales are a great way to do this. With many products, free shipping is another excellent way. Free gifts, buy one get one half off, and many other possible incentives will serve to increase your overall profit.
  
  
• Make sure navigation is clear and simple. Nothing discourages customers more than not being able to find the product they want on your site. If you have images of a product on your home page, make sure that image links directly to that specific product. Make sure all your categories are clearly visible on your site, immediately. People should never struggle to find what they're looking for, because if they do, they're likely to move on to the next website.
  

These are just a few of the things you can do to to increase your number of buyers by turning the casual browsers into your clients. When it comes to e-commerce, your conversion rate (the percentage of people that come to your website who actually purchase your product) can vastly alter your profit. Remember, the difference between a 2% and a 3% conversion rate could mean the difference between $50,000 and $75,000 a year.

To learn more about how a coaching company can help you build your website in a way that increases your conversion rate, and helps set that buying mood, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

"Above the Fold"

One of the fun things about "high technology" industries nowadays (like e-commerce, online marketing, website design, etc.) is that we develop our own languages.

When I say "Placing products and incentives above the fold can help increase your conversion rate," it may well sound like gibberish to many of you. So let me go into this specific piece of advise, and let you know exactly what it means.

Let's make this as simple as possible. Ignore everything else you know about what each part of the website is. When I say "above the fold" I mean "everything that is immediately visible to the naked eye on your website without scrolling down or clicking on any links." To complicate this just a little, I also mean "visible to the naked eye when your search engine browser (Firefox, IE, Safari, etc.) is maximized, and you're running in a normal screen resolution."
For visual learners, here's an image of the thriveli.com site that may help.



Everything you see on the image above is "above the fold." Now, if you've been to the Thrive Website (you can click on the image above to go there now), then you know that this isn't everything on the Thrive LI home page. There's plenty more information when you scroll down. So what you see above is "above the fold." Anything else is "below the fold."

So, why is this important? Well, there have been a lot of major studies researching how long people stay on any given website when they're trying to find something. The results have all been pretty similar -- your potential buyers will stay on your website between 4 and 8 seconds. If they haven't found something that interests them by then, they're leaving for the next Google result.

4 to 8 seconds! That's all your e-commerce website has to catch someone's attention. They're probably not going to scroll down and see what else you're saying before deciding whether to stay or not. So everything that is going to grab the attention of your potential buyers should be above the fold. If what you have above the fold doesn't win the customer, chances are they will never even scroll down to see the rest of your website.

So, let's look at the phrase I said above. "Placing products and incentives above the fold can help increase your conversion rate." So place your products and sales, discounts, offers for free shipping, gorgeous images, etc., in a place where they are immediately visible when visitors come to the website. Doing so can increase the percentage of people who decide to stay on your website.

Conversion rate is incredibly important to any website. The difference between 2% and a 3% conversion rate can mean the difference between $70,000 and $100,000 per year. In addition, a lower conversion rate means you're wasting your online marketing investments and losing potential return customers.

When it comes right down to it, there are literally hundreds of things to keep in mind in order to keep your conversion rate up. For more information on how a quality coaching company can help you achieve better results for your online business, or how we can help you start a successful online business, simply visit www.thriveli.com.

Go Away No Follow Links!

As we all know link building is still one of the most valuable ways to increase your rankings on the search engines. Throughout the past few years link building has continued to be an effective form of search engine optimization as well as internet marketing. Now even though link building has continued to be an effective form of optimizing your site the methods have changed through the first few years.
A few years ago link trading was all the rage so people creating link trading programs, webrings etc.. which search engines considered abuse and now those aren't as effective. The next thing that started to work was getting listed in directories and then everyone and their dog started creating free directories so that method doesn't work as well anymore. The main pattern to see here is the fact that methods for link building have changed in recent years but the principle has remained consistent and has always worked.
With the advent of the "nofollow" link link building techniques are dropping like flies because more and more links are getting nailed with the "nofollow" tag. Now the no follow tag itself made sense orgingally it was a way to get rid of blog comment spamming but since then it has started to get abused in my opinion, now Wikipedia links, Youtube links, most forum links are all getting tagged with the nofollow link which makes one start to think, "What link building techniques are left?"

When it comes to link building Thrive Learning Institute has the answers, for tips on the future of link building contact us at our site www.thriveli.com.

Resources for Entrepreneurs

Link Market - Free Link Exchange, Link Swap and Link Trade Directory
Have you ever tried to exchange links, swap links, or trade links? Was it hard? Use link market instead; - it is easy to use, free and very smart. It will save you hours of work.

Yellow Pages
A comprehensive guide to the united states of america.

The Water Fountains Company
Retailer of water fountains & ponds. Link partner for home improvement, construction, online, jobs, legal, lawyer, blogs, jewelry, web design & hosting, real estate, finance, financial, travel, business, shopping, gambling, insurance & mortgage site

The Crystal Company
Retailer of crystal gifts. Link partner for home improvement, construction, online, jobs, legal, lawyer, blogs, jewelry, web design & hosting, real estate, finance, financial, travel, business, shopping, gambling, insurance & mortgage, house sites.

World Class Online Education Financial Wealth Solutions.
A world class global group of wealth advisors in orlando, fl. Specializing in childhood curriculum online education personal wealth solutions. Financial planning. And home residual income.

Online Degrees | Online Colleges | Online Universities
Online degree programs and distance learning from accredited online colleges and universities, including business, law, engineering, and nursing degrees. Covers online bachelor, graduate, master, and doctoral degrees.

Top Universities, Top Colleges, Top Schools, Top Graduate Schools
Listings of top schools in the united states. Subjects cover arts, business, law, science, etc.

Oxy-genie Natural Green Carpet Cleaning Calgary Aberta
Full of choices, oxy-genie natural carpet cleaning calgary is for those in need of upholstery cleaning calgary, carpet cleaners calgary, tile cleaning calgary, carpet cleaning calgary, safe and eco-friendly cleaning in calgary alberta.

Dating
Bestkiss. Co. Uk is the right place for you to meet people and make friends anywhere in the uk.

Article Search Directory - Article-knowledge-base.com
A huge article directory to improve your knowledge. Submit articles to increase your back links. Search and find free ezine and website content.

Lejnemt.dk Party Rental, Festudlejning
Party rental of slush ice, jukebox, weber grill, popcorn, light show, karaoke and much more and we are cheap. In danish:
festudlejning af slush ice, jukeboks, weber grill, popcorn, lysshow, karaoke og meget mere og vi er billige.

Singapore Varicose Veins
The vein clinic is the leading clinic dedicated to varicose veins, spider veins & evlt treatments

Mba Business Schools
The day has finally arrived when you are ready to move out of school and enter college and you have decided to go in for a business school.

Shop Fittings
Bethel shop fittings provide solutions for shop fitting, shopfitters, industrial shelving, storage shelving, steel shelving, display rack showcases in australia wide at factory direct prices.

Sediment Erosion Control
Deltalok is a leading company specializing in sediment erosion control, soil erosion control solutions.

Contact Manufacturers

Find Manufacturers- Now we have talked about finding products to sell on eBay by finding local manufacturers but you will also want to keep in mind that you can contact manufacturers nation or worldwide. There are several ways for you to be able to contact manufacturers, if they are a well known manufacturer you should be able to just type in the name of the manufacturer in Google and look for the official site. Sometimes you will know a product that you would like to sell but you don't know the name of the manufacturer, in this case the easiest way to find the name of the manufacturer is find one of your potential competitors sites and see if they have the manufacturers name somewhere on the site, if they don't have the name listed try another site or send the company an email asking them who makes the product. Once you have found the name of the supplier you can just type it into Google and again look for the official site. Searching for and contacting manufacturers online is by far the easiest but there are also other ways to find manufacturers including contacting various Chamber of Commerce, City Licensing Departments etc..

For more tips on how to find products for eBay go to www.thriveli.com

The best way to start making money on eBay!

Find Items Around The House- If you are just getting started with selling on eBay the last thing you want to worry about is making sure that your auction is going to sell enough for you to make a profit. We recommend getting started with selling on eBay by finding something around the house that you no longer need, baseball cards, old golf clubs, books that are taking up room on the shelf etc.. and listing them on eBay.

For more information on how you can work from home visit the Thrive Learning Institute website.

How To Find The Average Selling Price (ASP) with Thrive Learning Institute

Once you have used the completed listings to confirm that there is a demand for the product that you are wanting to sell the next step is confirming that the product will be profitable. To find the average selling price of the product that you are thinking of selling you will want to go into the completed listings section and type in the name of the product. Once the results come up you will want to look at the prices that appear in green indicating that those auctions were successful. Next you will want to add all of the prices in green for the past few days and divide them by the total number. For example if you saw that an item sold successful 6 times for 140, 160, 175, 199, 215 and 145. You would divide the total price of $1034 by the number of auctions 6 and your average selling price would be $172.33. By figuring out the ASP you will be able to see how profitable an item will be for you.

For more information on how to make money on ebay visit www.thriveli.com

eBay Research Steps with Thrive Learning Institute

Here at Thrive Learning Institute we recommend for those starting their online business to get started with selling on eBay to make some quick money and then to start building their ecommerce website. The completed listings section of eBay is a valuable asset that will not only show you what to put in your listing to make it rank well in eBay but it will also show you what to do to make it so that people will want to buy from you such as what time your auction should close, what price you should start the auction at etc. Most sellers on eBay don't know that this tool exists and those who do know that it exists don't really know what they should be looking at when they use this tool. To access the completed listings section you will follow these steps:

1. In the Enter keyword or item number box, type your keywords.
2. Select any additional search options, as needed.
3. Select the Completed listings only check box.
4. Click the Search button.

For more information on making money from home on eBay go to www.thriveli.com

Where to Find Affiliate Programs

How To Sign Up For Affiliate Programs as an Affiliate: There are a number of ways to sign up for affiliate programs, some of which are more effective than others. The main ways to sign up for affiliate programs are:

• Join Affiliate Networks- This is by far the most effective way to sign up with affiliate programs. Affiliate networks allow you to sign up for several affiliate programs at once instead of having to go to several individual sites and sign up for them one at a time. The majority of larger companies are running their affiliate programs through affiliate networks because it allows them to not have to worry about keeping track of sales and sending out checks to all of their affiliates each month. Some examples of affiliate networks are www.cj.com, www.linkshare.com, www.clickxchange.com
  
• Sign Up On Individual Sites- If you find a company whose products you would like to sell but they aren't in any of the affiliate networks that you are a member of you can go to their site to get setup with them. To see if a company has an affiliate program you will want to go to their site and look for a link that says something like "join our affiliate program" or "become an affiliate". If you don't see it on the home page the next best place to look is on their sitemap. If you still can't find it you can email them to see if they have an affiliate program.
  
• Affiliate Product Networks- There are several affiliate networks that focus more on digital products (such as ebooks), software, and services. The profit can tend to be considerably higher on these products due to the small product cost but can sometimes be harder to sell. Some examples of these affiliate product networks are www.clickbank.com and www.paydotcom.com.
  
• Go To The Search Engine- If you are wanting to join a pay-per-click affiliate program like Google Adsense or the Yahoo Publisher network it is best to go directly to those search engines to get signed up. Again the addresses for those are (adsense.google.com) and (publisher.yahoo.com).
  

For more information on starting affiliate marketing contact Thrive Learning Institute Today

Type of Affiliate Marketing

Types of Affiliate Programs:
Pay Per Click- Pay-per-click or PPC affiliate programs are where you as the affiliate will get paid each time an ad that you have placed gets clicked on. The ad can be either text or an image such as a banner ad, it can be on your own site or you can place it on another site but the key is to get it clicked on. Each time that ad gets clicked on, you will get paid. Some examples of Pay-Per-Click affiliate programs are Google Adsense (adsense.google.com) and the Yahoo Publisher Network (publisher.yahoo.com). These are programs where you can place Google and Yahoos sponsored results on your own site and get paid each time they get clicked on.

Pay Per Sale- With pay-per-sale affiliate programs you will get paid when a customer that you have referred from your site makes a purchase on the site that you linked to from your site. Some of the benefits of Pay Per Sale affiliate programs are that you can still offer products but you wont have to worry about shipping, returns, customer service etc.. Also, they allow you to offer products that you probably wouldn't be able to get dropshipped such as brand name electronics. An example of a Pay-Per-Sale affiliate program would be if you were to sign up for Wal Marts affiliate program and either refer people to their site by listing their product on your site or by having a banner that linked from your site to their site.

Pay Per Lead- With pay-per-lead affiliate programs you will get paid for each lead that you create. A lead is someone that a business can contact at a later date. Pay-per-lead affiliate programs are very popular with Insurance and Credit Card companies because they only have to pay out when they get someones contact information and some information about that person. A good example of a pay per lead affiliate program is with an insurance company like Geico. If you were to join Geico's affiliate program you would put a banner to their site on your site and then if someone clicked on that banner ad and went through to fill in their information for a free insurance quote you would get paid because you had generated a lead for Geico.

For more information on affiliate marketing contact Thrive Learning Institute

Who is Thrive Learning Institute and What Does Thrive Learning Institute Do?

From time to time we get people asking, "What does Thrive Learning Institute Do?" we thought we would make a post so that people who find our blog can be more informed as to what exactly it is that we do.
Thrive Learning Institute empowers individuals, organizations and businesses to create, buy and sell merchandise online using the company's unique e-commerce services. Today, Thrive Learning Institute is a growing network of members who have unleashed their creativity to transform their time and ideas into new revenue streams. Powering individuals, independently-run businesses, as well as syndicated and corporate stores, we teach every aspect of doing business online. Including storefront development, online marketing, search engine optimization, and selling on eBay. Enabling anyone to open a website and market the site online.
Our Mission
Thrive Learning Institute is the leading provider of online training in the world. We provide executive-level training for individuals and businesses. By understanding our business and by becoming sensitive to our world, we position ourselves to help others become leaders in an ever-changing marketplace. There are a number of things we do to make sure this vision is a daily occurrence and not just a meaningless sentence in a strategic plan. Some of these are:

• Provide quality, accessible and innovative training
• Build strong international networks with consultants
• Base our products and services on proven principles

We are an innovative, fast moving company. We are also a virtual company. This means that we are able to identify emerging trends in the online training industry and act quickly. Our motivation is to help other people achieve the goals and the success they desire by assisting in online business ventures.

The customer is always right... When it comes to conversion.

A lot of times people will argue about what changes should be made to a site to help improve it's conversion rate. When it comes right down to it the only changes that you should be making to your site are those that the visitor likes. How do you know which changes the visitors like? The answer to that questions is simple, if visitors to your site like the changes that you have made, more are going to buy and they will become customers instead of just being visitors. It will be a bit of a guessing game but most of the time you will be able to see what changes need to be made just by looking at your stats.

What Should My Conversion Rate Be?

Now most of the time when conversion rates are talked about the number 2% is thrown out a lot.  Now even though 2% is the average conversion rate of online retailers there are some industries that are higher and some that are lower.  Thanks to a study done by  Fireclick Index we know what your conversion rate is based off the industry you are in:

Vertical	Conversion Rate (%)
Catalog	6.1
Specialty stores	3.9
Fashion/apparel	2.2
Travel	2.1
Home and furnishing	2.0
Sport/outdoors	1.4
Electronics	1.1
All verticals	2.3
Source: Fireclick Index

See what works for others...And Copy It

Copy what works for others (within limits). In particular, copy companies that appear at the top of the search results both in the organic results and pay per click results. You will learn different things by looking at each of these. Typically, sites that rank well have focused more on optimizing their sites for the search engines so look to them for ways to help your site rank better (i.e. keyword phrases they have focused on and where they placed them). Websites that are paying for their traffic on the otherhand are usually a lot more interested in testing their site for conversion because each one of their visitors is costing them money so you will want to look to them for better ways to increase your conversion rate (i.e. website hierarchy etc..) By paying attention to what the competition is doing you will be able to have a site that not only ranks well but converts well too.

Where to Look With Web Analytics

There are thousands of types of statistics that you can look at when it comes to tracking your website analytics. When your site is first starting out there are only a few that you will want to be sure to look at and those are:

• Where your visitors come from (Referrals)
  
• How long the visitors stay on your site (Duration)
  
• Where they go while they are on your site
• Which pages they land on (Entry Pages)
  
• What page they were on when they left your site (Exit Pages)

By just looking at these key stats you will be able to run an effective test market and then move onto a more in depth analysis of your site with other analytic information.

Conversion Rate Tip #1

Web analytics – The most important thing to keep in mind is that without web analytics there is no test market. Luckily you will have web analytics through the lightwave builder as well as in google analytics. There are numerous areas that you will want to pay attention to in your lightwave builder analytics including total number of visitors and their duration. Within Google analytics, the 'site overlay' feature tells you where people click, where they don't click and where they leave your site. Some people say "there are piles of gold waiting for you in your log files" and they are right. We definitely recommend spending some time watching your test market and web analytics videos.

Effective Test Markets

    After you have applied the link building techniques that we have discussed you should have a pretty good flow of traffic coming to your site.  If you are like most online retailers you will find that having a successful ecommerce website isn't just about getting traffic but successfully pointing that traffic in the right direction once they get to your site.  

    Once you have about 100-150 visitors a day coming to your site it will be time to run a test market.  Your test market will be the time during the first couple months after going live with your site that you will test new things on your site such as fonts, images, calls to action etc.. to help improve your conversion rate.  

    Test markets are used in every industry whether it's movies, video games and even chips.  The theory behind test markets is to try something new whether it's a product or website with a smaller group of people and making changes based off of their feedback before releasing it to the masses.  You will want to do the same thing with the test market on your website.   Over the next several posts we will cover the changes that you will want to pay attention to during your test market.

Link Baiting - Link Building Made Easy

Out of all the ways to get inbound links pointing at your site link baiting is one of the easiest. Link baiting is essentially a viral marketing technique where you publish something on your site or in your blog that will get people talking and cause them to link back to your site.

The beauty of link baiting is that the only work that you have to do is make something worth talking about. From there the rest of the work is done by visitors to your site or blog. If they see something worth talking about they are going to go to other forums, blogs, video sites, social bookmarking sites etc.. and tell everyone they know about this great information or tool that they just found at this site and they will link to your site.

Over the next few blog posts we will talk about some different things you can do to start link baiting on your own sites.

What's Your Page Rank?

You must keep track of your own Page Rank, and it is illuminating to watch what Google's Page Rank Score is for various websites, there are two ways of determining this, listed in order of preference.
1. Download and Install Google's Toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. Once this is installed, you will be able to determine the page rank of every website you visit, including your own. The page rank is displayed with a green rank bar roughly in the middle of the Google Toolbar. The more green you see, the higher the rank. By mousing over the green rank bar, you can see the actual numerical designation, for example 5/10.
2. Go to Google's Live Directory (which is a mirror of the Open Directory Project) at http://directory.google.com. All websites listed in this directory display Google's Page Rank, as the green bar to the left of each listing. The more green you see, the higher the page rank. Keep in mind that only a small percentage of websites on the Internet are listed here.

Link Building and Page Rank

Google does not rank links from all websites equally! Google gives more weight to links from some websites than from others. Google calls this score "Page Rank", and Google assigns every website on the Internet their own Page Rank. The PR score is from 0 to 10. Google reserves the highest ranks for what they deem the most important sites on the Web. For example Yahoo has a PR of 10, and the Open Directory Project has a PR of 9. Most other web directories on the web have ranks of 7 and higher. Google considers these links among the most highly valued when calculating your link popularity, and thus these websites have the highest "Page Rank". Getting other websites with high PR to link to you is critical to improving your own site's PR. Ultimately for a commercial website a PR of 6 is about as good as you could ever hope to get, with a PR of at least 5 being your minimum goal. When you achieve a PR of 5 you will find that many other websites begin to request link trades from you more often, because they value a link from you. The bottom line is that your own PR affects a lot of your overall marketing and site promotion. If and when you achieve a PR of 5 or 6, your search engine rankings will go up and you will be able to more easily trade links.
Other websites vary widely in terms of how much Google values them with respect to link popularity. Vertical portals are typically more highly valued than other simple websites. Free hosted sites, are ranked lower than paid hosted sites. Free-For-All link pages receive zero credit. Link Farms (like www.linkstoyou.com, and www.linkme.com) who link to you will actually penalize your link popularity, because they are a blatant attempt to hijack Google's link popularity algorithms.

Emailing Link Trade Partners

Subject: Link Trade Request
"Greetings, my name is_________, and I'm the webmaster for (name your web site). I came across your (name their web site) whatever.com while surfing and I think we could both benefit by trading links. I have found that trading links is one of the best sources for increasing qualified traffic to my site.
If you have any interest in exchanging links with me here is my information:
URL: www.mywebsite.com
Title: The Title of Your Website (no more 4-8 words)
Description: The total description of your website. (no more than 25 words)

Just email me back with your info, and let's make it happen. I look forward to hearing from you.
Your name
Webmaster
you@emailaddress.com

Finding Link Partners

There are countless other who are interested in trading links. Finding them is not hard, but does take some time and effort. Below are several techniques for finding good link trade partners.

Surf- this is very straight forward. Go to Yahoo or your favorite directory, and start looking for relevant sites.

Competitor Link Pages- Go to the link pages of your competitors and look at the sites they are trading links with. If they are linking with your competitors, they are probably willing to trade links with you.

Do a competitor "link" check on Google- if you type in "link: yourcompetitor.com" in Google (remember the space between the colon and the url) and do a search, it will give you a list of websites that link with your competitor. If they will trade with a competitor, they are likely to trade with you too.

Use Link Trade Directories- There are a handful of directories of websites willing to trade links on the Internet. (Read Link Trade Vertical Portals). These include: www.links4trade.com, www.reciprocallink.com.

Advertise- Use some leverage strategies to promote your desire to trade links with other relevant websites. Advertise your link trade request in the Usenet and free classifieds. Use your permission marketing mailings to mention that you would like to trade links with other relevant websites. Trade newsletter ads with other relevant newsletters and use that space to mention link trading. There are lots of possibilities here.

Link Building, a Continual Process

This is a continual ongoing promotion program. With literally millions and millions of web sites on the Internet, the possibilities for reciprocal link exchanges are endless. Never be content to stop after sending an initial batch of link exchange proposals. The more links you trade the more traffic you get, and the higher your link popularity goes.

Creating an Effective Links Page

The link page for your commercial web site should be an automatic extension of the design of the entire electronic storefront, and should contain the following elements:
1. Header- The "header" of the link page should be designed as a headline / title for the section. Use strong advertising copy and create emotion and a desire for other merchants to participate.
2. Reciprocal Link Invitation- Near the top of your link page, you should invite other relevant websites to trade links with you. You should provide instructions to execute this, including which types of sites are eligible, what your link should look like on their page (URL, Title / Headline, Opening Statement / Description), and a contact email address where you can be reached regarding link trade requests.
3. Style- The style of the link exchange page should be clear and easy-to-understand. Consider using a standard directory style where website links are listed by (relevant) topics and subtopics.

Local Market Linking

Remember that the secret to making link-trading work, is to trade links with other websites that share your target market. So as a dentist in Dubuque Iowa, who should you trade links with? Other dentist websites all over the Web? No. You should trade with any and every local website, regardless of what the content of the website is, as long as it is of interest to local residents. Trade with local carpet cleaning websites, trade with local accountant websites, and especially trade with local candy store websites! These websites don't have anything to do with dentistry. But they share your target market of local people, most of whom probably have teeth.

Link Trade Partners

Before you begin, you should consider your strategy with respect to the websites to which you plan to link. The key here is to trade links ONLY with relevant websites. A relevant website is a website that shares your target audience. If the website would be of interest to visitors to your site, and vice-versa. Then it is a good prospective link trade partner. Trading links with irrelevant websites is a waste of time, mainly because irrelevant sites that link to you don't share your target audience. As such the chances of getting qualified traffic from them is slim indeed. Your time is much better spent linking with relevant sites.
You should be trading links with relevant websites all over the Internet. Not just other commercial websites, or other SOL websites. The entire Internet is open for link trades, regardless of the type of site, or where they are hosted.
Give careful consideration to whether or not you want to trade links with direct competitors. In many cases, you may not want to do that, though there are other times when this might be appropriate. For the most part you want to trade links with other websites that share your target audience, but are not your direct competitor. For example, if you sell office supplies, you might want to trade a link with a graphic design website, but not with another office supply website. Remember that people who buy office supplies (businesses) also buy graphic design services. The possibilities are virtually limitless.

Link Trading Slang

Throughout the next few posts we will cover several different link building techniques. Link building is still one of the best ways to get your site ranking higher in the search results. We will kick it off by listing some of the Slang terms associated with Link Trading:

• Surf-n-Swap- This is a term that summarizes the overall process of basic link trading, in that you surf the net looking for partners, and swap links with them by sending an email request.

• Link Poaching- A strategy for finding link trade partners. Link Poaching involves using a variety of techniques (listed below) for finding which websites are trading with your competitors and requesting link trades with them. The theory here is that since they are already trading links with your competitor they are probably very likely to be willing to trade with you too.

• Dead Link- A term for a link that points to nowhere. Occasionally when you trade links, a particular site with whom you have traded a link will cease to exist for a variety of reasons, but the link on your website is still there. Clicking on it now generates an error. You should check for dead links periodically-maybe once or twice a year.

Trade Magazines

Use a Trade Magazine- Some small suppliers are unwilling to pay the high expense to be listed in the Thomas Register. These smaller suppliers often advertise in different ways such as in Trade Magazines. Trade Magazines, or Trade Journals, are magazines that are subscribed to by companies and people in a particular industry. Typically, there are at least one or more trade magazines for each industry. These magazines usually have news and articles of interest to business owners in a particular industry. These types of magazines are usually jam packed with advertisements from suppliers in the industry from huge major suppliers, down to the smallest mom-and-pop suppliers, who don't advertise in the Thomas Family of Web Directories. Most good trade journals also have an online website that complements their print magazine. These companion websites would typically be classified as "Vertical Portals". Here are a few examples of industry trade magazines, and their websites:
a. C-Store News: Convenience Store Trade Journal- www.csnews.com
b. Equipment World: Heavy Equipment Trade Journal www.equipmentworld.com
c. Scrapbook Retailer Magazine: Scrapbook Trade Journal- www.scrapbookretailermagazine.com
Finding Trade Magazines is pretty easy, but it sometimes takes a bit of footwork. There are two pretty good techniques that will allow you to find any trade journals you might be looking for:
1. Do a Google search for the broadest industry keywords you can find, with the words "trade magazine" or "trade journal" in the phrase.
a. "craft trade magazine"
b. "dvd rental trade magazine"
c. "scuba trade journal"
d. "etc…"

Possible Joint Ventures

Use a Company You Already Know- You may already know a small "Mom-and-Pop" type shop that sells products of their own manufacture. This might be anything from Jerky to Tie-Dyed Clothing. Approach them for a drop shipping arrangement.

Blind Dropshipping

Does Your Supplier Offer Blind Drop Shipping?
Drop Shipping allows you to become a "virtual warehouse" or a "virtual company." When you get an order from your customer you forward that order information to your supplier (by email typically). Your supplier then ships the order directly from his warehouse to your customer. Your customer pays you the retail price, you pay your supplier the wholesale price, and you pocket the difference.

Suppliers From Trade Shows

Trade Show/Convention Strategy- This strategy can really work well in finding products and services to add to your existing website, as well as finding drop shippers. Call your local Chamber of Commerce or Local Convention/Event Bureau (or the same organizations for nearby cities) and ask for a calendar of local trade shows. Attend these shows and browse the booths. Talk to the sales people at the booths, and tell them you are looking for suppliers for your Internet Website. You should have little trouble identifying one or more good suppliers.

www.Tsnn.com - this is a directory of tradeshows across the globe. You can browse to tsnn.com and chose an industry and find any upcoming tradeshows in your area or close by.

Finding Suppliers Online

Finding suppliers is often the most difficult part of getting your online business started. Over the next several blog posts we will cover several options when it comes to finding a supplier.

Use the ThomasNet.com- Go online to www.thomasNet.com. There you can do a search by "product or service", "brand name" or "company name". The Thomas Register is a gigantic index that lists tens of thousands of suppliers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors. These companies pay the Thomas Register for a listing. This means they want you to find them! The Thomas Register is FREE for you to use and search. You should have no trouble finding several potential suppliers that carry what you want to add and sell in you business. Typically you will get basic contact information from the Thomas Register like address, phone number, email, fax, web address, etc…

A Word To The Wise From Thrive Learning Institute

We welcome you to the new blog for Thrive Learning Institute. Our former blog was hosted www.wordpress.com but as of yesterday they deleted it without any warning. So if you are just starting a blog or looking to make money with blogging our recommendation is to either host your blog with www.blogger.com or host it on your own server. If you have any further questions contact your team.

Welcome To Thrive Learning Institute

Thrive Learning Institute takes traditional education to a new level by focusing on results. We combine new wave products, innovative technology, and state of the art tools to help our students learn and apply the necessary information for them to operate a successful business. Our personal training is based on proven principles that, when applied, produce positive results in the lives of individuals and families.