Smart Solutions in Running a Membership Website.

When you are running a membership site, you will be continually running up against the same problems. You need to remember that they are easy to deal with, and that you will figure out a way to deal with them. If you can remember that, the other problems will take care of themselves.

You are going to face three basic problems when operating a membership site: Setting up, advertising, content. Setting your site up will always be the biggest problem, especially as not everyone has the skills needed to set up the site, and it can be especially hard to get the site to be exactly the way you want it to because of the communication issue.

The best solution is to talk with your designer as much as you can and to discuss every option in advance; this way, you are prepared for anything that happens, and the fewer the surprises the better. Being forewarned is always the smartest way to go. When it comes to building a site that, you are going to base a business on, the more forewarning the better so that you have as few surprises as possible.

Advertising is its own animal. You will need to devise your own smart solutions, as the advertising needs to be designed to fit your site. Ergo, the smartest solution is to point out that you may need to ignore some of the best advice in the business in order to properly advertise your site. You need to judge if the advice you are, being given is too generic or if it fits your solution, and to react accordingly.

The needs of your site may be different from someone else's, and not all solutions work for everyone. Some people like country, some like classical; Toby Keith won't work for classical, and Bach won't work for country and it's important to know if you are country or classical, a bit of both, or neither. Of course always listen accordingly. One site may do well with banner ads, and another will do well with discussion boards; it all depends on the nature of the site.

Content is something that you need to have some fun with, and will be the hardest part. Keep in mind that content can be anything, but that you need it. The smartest thing you can do is to at least debate hiring someone to do it for you. It will ensure that your membership site will have the best content that it can have, and that content will help bring members to your site, in turn helping your site to grow. If you're not sure of your ability to provide content or you lack the skills or patience, then finding someone to create it for you is the smartest thing that you can do.

However, you need to remember that you will solve the problem. If you go into the situation with that in mind, it will be so much easier to solve the problem than if you go into it not sure of whether you will solve it or not. A positive attitude will always be more successful than a doubting or negative one, and so it will always be the cornerstone of good business. Ergo, go into every situation with a positive attitude and you will be a success.

Take Control of the Email Deliverability Problem.

There is something fundamentally wrong about email deliverability being able to get in between your customers and you.  Under the old model of internet marketing where online businesses basically did mass mailings to anyone who had an email account, the deliverability problem had a huge impact on the payback you got from using a mass mailing service to send your marketing email out to 10,000 or 100,000 random potential customers.

But that old model was never that good in the first place.  For one thing, even though the mass mailing services told you they had access to thousands of "valid email addresses", who knows if they really did?  But even if they had a low "bounce rate", this scattershot method has never been the most effective form of marketing on or off the internet.  Even before internet marketing became a big part of how you do business, a  better business model was to build a relationship with a niche market, market to that niche by capitalizing on the relationship and then see a greater return on your marketing investment because the you are working with a client base that has an identifiable need that your product or service addresses.

This new model works just as well online.  You build your relationships with your client base on your web site using interactive techniques.  You establish relationship and trust through the sales and support process.  Then with that mailing list of established and "real" customers, you launch your email marketing plan on much firmer footing.

But email deliverability continues to be a fly in the ointment because working through public ISPs, you have to jump through the hoops that are there to trap old model spammers just to talk to customers you already know.  And if you don't, you will see spam traps and other controls stop you from having access to your established customer community.  This kind of restraint of trade, even if unintentional, is unacceptable. So there is good reason to take control of the email deliverability problem.

You have the resources to take that control through your mailing list and your online registration of web site members.  In that you have a domain, you also have the ability to give your customers an email account on your domain.  This is a bold step but by using some technical wizardry, you an automatically give your customers a private email account on your domain with your business domain name that becomes part of their identity.  Your customers will love it because it is an email account they can use for anything and you and sweeten the pot by running contests and give aways exclusively through your own private email network.

The next step is just to let your customers collect their private emails through their local copy of Microsoft Outlook or whatever email client they use.  Your internet technical gurus can come up with a script that can automatically set up the Outlook parameters so the customer can have that up and running in a matter of moments.

Presto Chango, your private email network now goes directly to the customers desktop email server.  There is no spam because its private.  You have 24/7 access to that email account for marketing and because you control that domain completely, email deliverability problems are a thing of the past.  So stop jumping through ISP hoops and fighting the mass mailing spam filter wars.  Take control by building your niche market and then equipping your niche market to communicate directly with you.  Its smart use of technology and you can kiss email delivery problems goodbye.

THE ADVANTAGES OF "RSS WEBSITES"

RSS - or what is now known as "Really Simple Syndication" - is a file format that is incorporated by Internet users in their websites to allow for 'web syndication', making their web content available in a format that can be universally understood by other people.

In essence, RSS is a 'mini database' that contains headlines and descriptions (a summary or a line or two of the full article) of your web content, including hyperlinks that enable users to link back to the full article of their choice.

RSS websites - that is, websites that contain RSS 'feeds' (articles or postings) - typically have colorful graphics to indicate to users that the specific web content is available through RSS feeds. These graphics are usually depicted by orange rectangles that are usually marked with 'RSS' or 'XML'.

With its increased popularity, RSS is now being adopted and used by more website owners or publishers. Today, numerous resources are now available that aid Internet surfers (and even beginners as well) on how to set up and use RSS.

Setting up RSS feeds and adding them to your website can be a simple process that does not involve a lot of time or any money. Listed below are some simple and basic steps that you might want to follow:

1. Have your web content and/or news in an RSS feed format, such as XML (appropriate and 'ready-made' feeds are also available from other sources).

2. Click the orange graphic - this is the RSS feed icon. Take note of the URL of the RSS feed; this will be displayed in the address bar (for Internet Explorer).

3. Input the feed URL on your RSS feed creation program.

4. Click on the "Generate Feed" button. This will generate the RSS code for your web content.

5. Enter the RSS code in the appropriate place on your own website.

Having created an RSS feed for your website, next comes the task of publishing your web content and news and having them displayed on other sites and headline viewers. This is made possible with the use of RSS readers or aggregators.

RSS readers or news aggregators are used to view particular web contents. RSS readers contain the collection of 'feeds' or RSS files from content providers, and they are generally classified into 3 types:

· Desktop RSS readers - also known as standalone desktop application, they generally 'run' in the background and are similar to an e-mail client, collecting the feeds and refreshing items automatically as they are updated.

· Web-based aggregators - these are online services that enable users to personalize web pages, refreshing them each time the page is accessed or each time a person logs in to the service.

· Plug-in aggregators/readers - these make use of either web browsers or e-mail clients, which allow users to view RSS feeds while inside an existing program.

Having an RSS-enabled website provides Internet users (especially those who are website owners) with the following benefits:

· Allows users to generate up-to-date news and postings, as information and content in the RSS readers or aggregators are automatically updated each time the RSS feed is 'refreshed'.

· Allows users to have control over the information that they wish to view or receive, as they can remove a feed of their choosing any time they want to.

Aside from these benefits, RSS websites are also useful for people who conduct their business in the Internet, particularly in Internet or Online Marketing. RSS can be an effective marketing tool for your website, especially in the following fields:

· E-mail marketing and publishing
· Search engine marketing and optimization
· Business blogging
· Internet advertising
· Digital public relations
· Branding and e-commerce

In addition, RSS can 'power' your website, providing you with the following:

· Valuable, updated, and relevant resources for site visitors and potential clients - RSS is ideal for websites that contain (and syndicate) a lot of information that has to be changed or updated regularly.

· Search engine optimization for the website.

· Increased traffic for the website - your website can 'harvest' and display information from other sites, driving more traffic to your own website.

· A wide selection of 'channels' for content distribution, such as PDA's, cellular phones, voice mails, and email ticklers.

· A reliable way to have your web content delivered to Internet users and potential clients - RSS ensures that your site is viewed by the people who are interested in them, without having them blocked and 'cleaned' by ISPs or Spam filters.

These are just some of the advantages that RSS can give your website (and your business). The possibilities are endless, as more and more comes up almost everyday. Do not be left behind - take the advantage of the marketing and publishing power of RSS.

A GUIDE ON RSS TOOL

RSS is an abbreviation that has evolved into the following, depending on their versions:

· RDF Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.9; the first version of RSS)

· Rich Site Summary (also known as RSS 0.91; a prototype)

· Really Simple Syndication (also known as RSS 2.0)

Today, RSS stands for 'Really Simple Syndication', and it has the following 7 existing formats or versions:

· 0.90
· 0.91
· 0.92
· 0.93
· 0.94
· 1.0
· 2.0

RSS tools refer to a group of file formats that are designed to share headlines and other web content (this may be a summary or simply 1 to 2 lines of the article), links to the full versions of the content (the full article or post), and even file attachments such as multimedia files. All of these data is delivered in the form of an XML file (XML stands for eXtensible Markup Language), which has the following common names:

· RSS feed
· Webfeed
· RSS stream
· RSS channel


They are typically shown on web pages as an orange rectangle that usually has the letters XML or RSS in it.

RSS feeds can be used to deliver any kind of information. Some of these 'feeds' include:

· Blogs feed - each blog entry is summarized as a feed item. This makes blog posts easier to scan, enabling 'visitors' to zoom in on their items of interest.

· Article feed - this alerts readers whenever there are new articles and web contents available.

· Forum feed - this allows users to receive forum posts and latest discussion topics.

· Schedule feed - this allows users (such as schools, clubs, and other organizations) to broadcast events and announce schedule changes or meeting agendas.

· Discounts or Special feed - this is used to enable users (such as retail and online stores) to 'deliver' latest specials and discounted offers.

· Ego or News Monitoring - this enables users to receive 'filtered' headlines or news that are based on a specific phrase or keyword.

· Industry-specific feed - used by technical professionals in order to market, promote, or communicate with current (and prospective) customers and clients within their specific industries.

RSS feeds enable people to track numerous blogs and news sources at the same time. To produce an RSS feed, all you need is the content or the article that you want to publicize and a validated RSS text file. Once your text file is registered at various aggregators (or 'news readers'), any external site can then capture and display your RSS feed, automatically updating them whenever you update your RSS file.

RSS tools are useful for sites that add or modify their contents on a regular basis. They are especially used for 'web syndication' or activities that involve regular updates and/or publications, such as the following:

· News websites - as used by major news organizations such as Reuters, CNN, and the BBC.
· Marketing
· Bug reports
· Personal weblogs

There are many benefits to using RSS feeds. Aside from being a great supplemental communication method that streamlines the communication needs of various sectors, RSS tools and feeds can also have tremendous benefits in your business, particularly in the field of internet marketing.

RSS tools and feeds provide Internet users with a free (or cheap) and easy advertising or online marketing opportunity for their businesses. Below are some of the RSS features that can help make your internet marketing strategies more effective.

1. Ease in content distribution services. With RSS, your business can be captured and displayed by virtually any external site, giving you an easy way to 'spread out' and advertise them.

2. Ease in regular content updates. With RSS, web contents concerning your business can now be automatically updated on a daily (and even hourly) basis. Internet users will be able to experience 'real time' updates as information in your own file (such as new products and other business-related releases) is changed and modified simultaneously with that of the RSS feeds that people are subscribed to.

3. Custom-made content services. With RSS, visitors can have personalized content services, allowing them total control of the flow and type of information that they receive. Depending on their interests and needs, visitors can subscribe to only those contents that they are looking for (such as real estate or job listings).

4. Increase in (and targeted) traffic. With RSS, traffic will be directed to your site as readers of your content summary (or 1 to 2 lines of your article) who find them interesting are 'forced' to click on a link back to your site.

These are just several of the many things that you can do with RSS. The possibilities are endless, and they are all aimed at providing you with an effective internet marketing strategy for your business.

10 ideas that you can use to get some pocket money easily.

Realistic Ways To Make Quick Money Online

Recently someone gave me feedback about one of the ads on my blog. The feedback was very pertinent, saying that the ad looked "scammish" and gave a bad impression of my blog. The ad was about some easy way to make online $2000-$3000 a week.

Unfortunately we all know that there is no magic bullet to make this kind of money. However, I believe that there are a lot of real opportunities online to make a few bucks here and there. Again no shortcuts to becoming a millionaire, but realistic ways to make a bit of cash quickly.

So here are 10 ideas that you can use to get some pocket money easily.

Amazon Mechanical Turk
Amazon's version of a "marketplace for work." Find tasks such as testing sites, writing articles, taking surveys, complete them and earn money.

Conduit
Conduit allows you to create custom toolbars. Every time someone downloads your toolbar, you get paid. Get people to download the toolbar and you'll receive a few dollars each time.

eBay
Rummage through you're stuff, find anything of value that you don't need sell it on eBay, Amazon or Craigslist. If you're interested in going further than that start selling your family and friend's items for a commission.

Paid Articles
Content sites are always looking to pay for quality content. Check out eHow, BrightHub, Constant-Content and cash in on you're expertise.

Experts Exchange
Are you a techie? If you are, join Experts Exchange and answer people's questions on hardware, software, programming and more, to receive rewards.

Microworkers
Make "micromoney" doing "microjobs" on Microworkers. Make money by completing tiny tasks online for people such as signing up for sites, Digging articles or linking to sites.

Student Of Fortune
Student of Fortune is an online tutoring and homework help platform. Students who need help post questions with cash rewards and depending on how well you answer it, you receive the cash.  The top tutor has earned over $127,000!

99Designs
If you've alway been good at Photoshop, 99Designs is the perfect place to cash in on your skills. Enter logo, tshirt, icon, website, print design contests.

Fiverr
Fiverr is a marketplace for $5 odd jobs. People offer jobs such as installing Wordpress plugins, computer programming, translations, designing business cards and much more.

ChaCha
This search engine is powered by real people. Each time you respond to someone's search you will be paid a small amount.

If you have any other ideas or suggestions please let us know below.

This post originally appeared at EpicLaunch. Check out Ben Lang's website here.