Microsoft adCenter

Your ideal audience is among the millions. PPC helps find them for you.

MSN reaches nearly two out of three Web customers, and Live Search reaches over 40 million a month.¹ Reach the right customers with search ads targeted at the audience you want.

How does search advertising work?

• Pay only when people click your ads.
• Set your own price per click.
• See when your clicks lead to sales.
• Target your ads to the times, places, and customers you want the most.
• Use built-in tools to get keyword ideas, audience information, and detailed reports on your ads.

¹ Nielsen/NetRatings, Competitive Site Reports, November 2004

So what exactly is Pay Per Action (PPA)?

The Google AdWords (for advertisers) and AdSense (for publishers) programs currently charge/pay each time an advert is clicked on and this is open to abuse by fraud publishers clicking on their own adverts or using automated click-bots to gain revenue.

Google is oh so very aware of this and some sites are quoting figures of up to 30% of all clicks could be considered fraudulent.This is a hell of a lot of profit for the fraud-gangsters and a huge cost for advertisers even if only a small percentage of this is undetected.

Despite the click fraud problem the advertising model does work really well and continues to attract both advertisers and publishers. This just shows how effective online ad campaigns really are!

Google Pay Per Action PPA

Google announced recently that they will be offering Pay Per Action (PPA) advertising in addition to their well established Pay Per Click (PPC) program.Currently in beta, and only available to US based subscribers, will this new program make huge waves in the affiliate advertising community?

See the Google website here...

Here's what Google say themselves:

"Increase your advertising reach while paying only for actions that you define. First, you'll create an ad and define the action that you want a user to perform when they visit your site, such as signing up for your newsletter or purchasing a product. Then you'll set the amount that you're willing to pay when this action is completed. Finally, you'll install conversion tracking code on your website so that we can verify when an action has been completed.

Once you've completed these steps, publishers in the Google content network can choose to place your ads on their website. You'll only pay when a user clicks on your ad, visits your site, and completes your desired action.

Pay-per-action ads complement your current campaigns by providing a new pricing model that extends your reach and allows you to pay only when a defined action is completed on your site. This beta feature is currently available to AdWords advertisers in the United States on a limited basis as part of our beta test."

In the next few days I will answer some of the obvious questions in regards to this enw program which holds a lot of promise for the SME Tourism Products out there.

Lead Generation for the Complex Sale: Boost the Quality and Quantity of Leads to Increase Your ROI

With the complex sale emerging as the norm in today’s business-to-business environment, it’s more challenging than ever to keep a consistent stream of qualified leads in your sales pipeline. You’ve probably lost critical hours by relying on outdated methods or spinning your wheels looking for new tactics to push the sales needle forward.

Lead Generation for the Complex Sale arms you with a sophisticated multimodal approach to generating highly profitable leads. Brian Carroll, CEO of InTouch Incorporated and expert in lead generation solutions, reveals key strategies that you can implement immediately to win new customers, accelerate growth, and improve your sales performance.

You'll start by defining your ideal leads and targeting your ideal customer. Then, you'll construct your lead generation plan, a crucial step to staying ahead of your competition long-term. To help you put your plan into action, Carroll guides you step by step to:

* Align sales and marketing efforts to optimize the number of leads
* Use multiple lead generation vehicles, including e-mail, referrals, public relations, speaking events, webinars, and more
* Create value for the prospective customer throughout the buying process
* Manage a large group of leads without feeling overwhelmed
* Identify and prioritize your best prospects
* Increase the percentage of leads who become profitable customers
* Avoid lulls in the sales cycle
* How to increases the percentage of leads who become profitable customers
* Know how to identify and prioritize your best prospects
* Ready yourself for what's next – new and promising tactics

With Lead Generation for the Complex Sale you'll learn how to target prospects early in the buying process and make the most efficient use of sales productivity and marketing resources. Plus, you’ll pursue and capture future opportunities for viable leads.

In a business environment where your competition is growing and your budget is inevitably shrinking, Lead Generation for the Complex Sale gives you the power to drive a fast, optimal return on your investment and keep a steady stream of new customers coming your way.

Google Analytics

Again another tool that you just cannot do without. And it's free!

Google Analytics tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. Focus your marketing resources on campaigns and initiatives that deliver ROI, and improve your site to convert more visitors.

Google Analytics has the enterprise level capabilities you'd expect from a high end web analytics offering and also provides timesaving integration with AdWords. Of course, Google Analytic tracks all of your non-AdWords initiatives as well.

In the next few posts I will try and run through how easy it is to set this up, and how to use the info this tool gives you.

Google Webmaster Tools

I can't recommend looking after your own web real estate enough.

With 84% of all web searches on Google, you'd better check what Google has indexed and how and where.

Google Webmaster Tools

ScubaTravelGuide.com Announces Free Listings for Scuba Resorts

San Francisco, CA: February 2, 2007 (DNW)

Dive Resorts now have free access to the most comprehensive online scuba travel guide Scuba Travel Guide http://www.ScubaTravelGuide.com

ScubaTravelGuide.com is for ANY dive resort looking for additional exposure and high search engine placement. All listings include a picture, overview, and amenities list of your resort. In addition, a gallery of pictures can be added as well as user generated reviews.

Every Monday we will accept submissions for the home page profiles of “Featured Destinations” and “Deals of the Month”. For a limited time, the first 5 resorts to send us their requests for a home page listing in one of these categories will be posted (subject to editorial oversight). Make sure not to miss out on this great opportunity!

Many resorts have already been added by our team. Resort owners are requested to review their information, and “take ownership” of their listing in the system. They will then be able to add, edit, and update information at their leisure. Owners should contact us if they have any questions.

If your resort has not been added, instructions on how to add your resort can be found in our FAQ or by clicking on this link.

Dive resorts are encouraged to have their customers report on their experience at the resort, or add photos of their trip at ScubaTravelGuide.com.

In the near future, additional features will be added by region, including information on specific dive sites, local attractions, and other interesting dive related news. For additional information, contact Mark at mark@ScubaTravelGuide.com.

If you want a feature you don’t see, let us know! We want your feedback.

Google Earth publicity

Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world's geographic information at your fingertips.

• Fly to your house. Just type in an address, press Search, and you’ll zoom right in.
• Search for schools, parks, restaurants, and hotels. Get driving directions.
• Tilt and rotate the view to see 3D terrain and buildings.
• Save and share your searches and favorites.

More than this for tourism operators, it allows us to pinpoint our resorts and activity areas anywhere in the world. Prospective guests can now 'fly' in a virtual world to see where you are.

Combining it with other online programs you can even post photographs of your resort and area to appear.

Give it a go, download Google Earth here... And play to see how powerful this is can be for showing customers what you offer 'live' online.

More later about kmz files that can provide a full fetaured download on your website to fly around your islands and properties. They auto run into Google Earth, and are easy to setup once you get the hang of the online program.

Stay tuned for that tutorial with an example I did for a past client.

Free Download Manager

Okay, with all the downloads and programs that are getting bigger by the day, here is my solution to the drop-out problem. This FDM program is tiny to download by itself and manages downloads wonderfully. Works with my Firefox and my partner's IE7 flawlessly.

Free Download Manager is social software as well so you get an inkling about what you're downloading before you do anything stupid!

This program is invaluable in the small islands as our telephonelines drop out ALL the time and always after you' got 95% thru a download. This way you don't have to start again!

Check it out, and download it here.

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Free Download Manager (FDM) is a full-featured download accelerator and manager. It is absolutely free! Using this software product you can easily download a list of files and whole web sites from any remote server via HTTP, HTTPS and FTP. With FDM the downloading process will be as easy as never before!

FDM is a light-weight, powerful and easy-to-use application. Also this software product is well-known for its intuitive and user-friendly interface. FDM can function as a site manager, accelerator, site explorer and scheduler.

FDM can resume broken downloads. So you needn't start the downloading process from the very beginning after casual interruption. You can resume unfinished download from the moment when it was interrupted. Also this program warns you if resuming isn't supported by the servers. It allows you to make a decision about the downloading. So with FDM you save your time and money.

FDM is an indispensable tool for download acceleration. It splits files into several sections and then downloads them simultaneously allowing you to increase your download speed up to 600%.

This software application can be used in automatic mode. You can schedule the following operations: set or hang up the Internet connection, exit from the program and shutdown the computer. All the operations mentioned above can be set at the specified time.

FDM allows adjusting traffic usage. So it provides you with an opportunity to browse web pages much faster if you use a low connection speed.

NEW! Free Download Manager is not only the perfect downloader, but also social software designed to make surfing and downloading a safer and more rewarding experience. FDM users can now request the opinion of other community members on the file they are going to download right from the download window, and also leave their own opinion about the downloaded file. In this way FDM users will always be warned against useless or malicious files.

Read more about this opportunity on our Community Features page.

Establishing a Web Presence from a Small Island

Even if you choose not to sell online by taking credit cards, a business Web site can be a virtual marketing brochure that you can update on demand with little or no cost. Your presence on the Internet can be a useful marketing tool by providing richer pre-sale information or post-visit contact. This might temporarily differentiate your resort or operation from your competitors'. Emarketing has lessened the disadvantage that small businesses in the outer islands have faced for years when competing with larger businesses with broadband and communications galore.

Ecommerce has redefined the marketplace, altered business strategies, and allowed global competition between local businesses. The term "electronic commerce" has evolved from meaning simply electronic shopping to representing all aspects of business and market processes enabled by the Internet and other digital technologies.

Today's tourism business emphasis is on ecommerce — rapid electronic interactions enabled by the Internet and other connected computer and telephone networks. Rapid business transactions in taking booking deposits and unparallelled access to information is changing consumer behavior and expectations. The ability to "BOOK NOW" is driving more sales.

Many small tourism businesses assume that the Internet has little value to them because they feel that their service cannot be easily sold online due to all sorts of old traditional ideas. But inexpensive information processing and electronic media can help most small tourism businesses provide better, faster customer service and communication.