Those frustrated with osCommerce will usually turn to the osCommerce Community Support Forums for answers, but answers are not always available to the problems they face. In all honesty, there are some pretty decent online stores utilizing osCommerce. After all, it’s open source, and a free e-commerce solution. And for many, free is the only way to go.

There have been several alternatives to osCommerce, such as ZenCart, CRE Loaded, PrestaShop, and Pinnacle Cart. One alternative which many may not be familiar with is Magento. Magento is an open source eCommerce platform developed by Varien, a Los Angeles company founded in 2001. The flexible platform offers up features that store operators require for their business. And the interest in Magento is growing steadily, with over 525,000 downloads.

If you’re looking for an osCommerce alternative, download Magento and give it a whirl. The platform has the ability to attract the attention of the marketing world, offering up essential SEO and product management tools.

Identification…

Remember to get your name of your business out to everyone. It’s important you include your business name in emails, business cards, brochures, receipts, voice messages, etc. It’s a bit difficult for others to spread the word about your business if they can’t identify who you are.

Expecting the Unexpected…

One of the most effective ways to get people talking is to offer the unexpected to your visitors. If you have the ability to offer something for free, go for it! Just make sure that what you are offering is valuable. Everyone loves free stuff, but not everyone loves free junk. If you’re offering something of value for free, your visitors will more than likely spread the word to others. You want to build interest and get people talking.

Spark Interest…

Communicate with your customers. While you’re hoping for others to spread the word about your business, why not start spreading the word yourself? Encourage others to spread the word about what you are offering. It doesn’t hurt to ask others to tell a friend about your business.

Start getting the word out today!

If you are not quite sure what HubPages is, let me help you become a little bit familiar with the site. HubPages allows users of the website to create their own unique page, a Hub as they call it. You can pretty much customize the page any which way you choose, selecting various types of content such as pictures, text, videos, links, etc.

The nice part is that it’s extremely fast and easy for users to begin creating their own Hub. All you have to do is create a free account, pick an appropriate title for your Hub, add a few tags, and you’re well on your way. Pages are created using capsules, and it’s the capsules that contain various types of content. If you have created a Squidoo page, you’ll be able to relate to this type of page creation.

Once you have added the capsules you choose, all you have to do is publish the page. Within minutes you’ll have your own unique Hub being displayed for others to see. This is where all the good stuff comes into play, because you’ll have an audience to market to, and the potential of making some money is quite good.

Your page will not automatically make money for you however, you’ll have to put some thought into it’s creation. You will have to put forth a good amount of effort and spend quality time on your page to take full advantage of the money making opportunities HubPages offers. HubPages has a rating system in place, called a HubScore. The HubScore is a score ranging from 0 to 100, with 100 being the highest quality score. The more original and unique content you have on your Hub the better your score will be. There are a variety of factors which ultimately determine your HubScore, but you’ll receive a higher score if you focus on original and high quality content for your page.

So now that you have somewhat of an idea of what HubPages is, let me share with you a few ways you can make money with HubPages.

• Create A Unique Hub

Like I mentioned a few moments ago, a high quality hub will boost your status on HubPages. You want to reach out and grab the attention of your readers. There is no better way other than creating high quality and original content. You’ll be off to a great start if you have had experience writing good articles. Visitors to your page who enjoy what you have created will often leave comments.

There is excellent potential of building a steady stream of traffic to your page. This is where you want to be sure and link to your own personal website for the products and services you offer. Just remember to link to relevant information. If you have created a Hub about digital camera products, don’t link to your website that’s selling cookbooks. If you are providing useful and informative content, chances are you’ll be able to build traffic to your own site if you add links in the appropriate places. Building traffic is a key to making money on HubPages, and with that said I’ll move on to the next bit of advice…

• Add Tags

Don’t forget to add tags for your Hub. Tags are important because they help catogorize the information that your Hub is offering. Remember that you want to add relevant and high quality tags, because these tags are important keywords for your site.

• Build Traffic

You want to get your Hub noticed by people, so you’ll have to become active and participate in various activities. Comment on other people’s pages, join groups, join fan clubs, and participate in forums. All these types of activities will allow others to discover who you are and the Hubs you have created. Remember, your goal is to be seen. You can create a funnel of traffic from your Hub page to your personal site by simply becoming active and gaining trust from your readers.

• Google AdSense, Amazon Affiliates, and eBay

If you create a good Hub page and build a good amount of traffic, you can make some money through Google AdSense, Amazon, and eBay. Now I have a slightly different opinion that many when it comes to earning money using these methods. If I’m trying to market a specific product or service and am trying to ultimately direct people to my own site, I don’t want people to click away on Google AdSense or Amazon/eBay affiliate links.

Yes, you can make money when people click on these links if you are setup with Adsense, Amazon, and eBay, but use caution and know when and when not to use these methods. If you’re simply creating an informative Hub about a certain niche, by all means use these methods of making money. If you’re marketing your own website, think about it a bit more before sending your readers off in another direction.

Following these tips will most certainly help you create a decent Hub at HubPages. As always, I suggest experimenting different methods and techniques to see what works and what doesn’t. Testing can make a huge difference when it comes to your profits. Oh, and as always, Have Fun!!

Start your promotions early! There’s nothing better than getting a little bit ahead of your competition. More and more people are eager to get things done as quick as possible. So you as a marketing professional must find some creative ways to have your marketing campaign stand out among the rest.

Though it’s good to inform everyone about your sales, use a little bit of caution. Be sure that you don’t spam your customers through email. Sending informative reminders are very effective, but sending similar emails filled with the same promotions will easily annoy your readers. If you are trying to hard too make a sale, potential customers will sense your aggressiveness and might just look elsewhere.

Remember to market to your existing customers, not only new ones. Yes it’s important to attract new buyers, but don’t forget the ones you already have. While you are coming up with new and creative ways to promote to new customers, run some promotions for our current customers. Customers that have already bought from you will appreciate the fact that you have included them in new promotions.

And one thing you most certainly don’t want to forget…spread a little holiday cheer! It’s important that you as a seller get into the holiday spirit while promoting your business to customers.

A very safe and Happy Thanksgiving to you all, and much continued success with your holiday marketing campaigns.

Before you write your next classified ad, remember the following…

• Effective headlines…

It’s extremely important that you put some thought in to your ad. The first thing you’ll want to do is create a catchy headline. Headlines are usually the first thing that will be noticed, so use some extra thoughts and energy here. There are plenty of eye catching keywords you can utilize if you want to grab some attention. The keywords and phrases you choose will depend on what your advertising of course, but examples such as “free”, “limited”, “one time offer”, “secret”, and “must see” will usually do the trick.

• Add some flare…

Adding some flare to the body of your ad will help your ad be a bit more appealing to the reader. Adding things such as bullet points, bold text, highlighted text, and underlined words can draw a little bit more attention.

• Be brief and to the point…

Remember to make your ad brief and to the point. Writing long and boring paragraphs will most certainly lose the attention of your reader. Try and make in impact with a limited amount of words.

• Tell the readers what to do…

It’s true. Most people reading a classified ad eagerly await instructions on what to do next. So many advertisers will write an ad but leave out the action. Telling readers to buy a certain product, call a phone number, sign up for something, or visit a specific location or website will usually be more effective.

Follow these simple steps the next time you create your classified ad, and your ad will be a bit more effective.

Having other writers write your articles can actually save you a lot of time.  If you are working on multiple projects, it can help to have someone else write your articles for you.  Professional writers will usually know what keywords to focus on, and will be knowledgeable when it comes to specific search engine optimization techniques.

If you decide to outsource, there are several good resources you can utilize to get your projects done.  Be sure and do some resource before selecting a freelancer to write your articles.  There are a whole lot of people willing to take on the job, but you have to look for the good ones who will write your articles for a reasonable price.  Excellent places to start are GetAFreelancer.com, Elance, and ScriptLance.  Keep in mind that it sometimes takes a little bit of time to sort the good writers from the bad.  Unfortunately you can’t always rely on the feedback a writer receives.  So if you choose to take this route, think wisely.

There simply are times when you need to focus on a certain part of your project more than another.  The only way you’ll know weather outsourcing your articles is right for you is by experimenting.  See what works better.  You may ultimately decide that having someone write for you is not the way to go.  On the flip side, you may find out that having others write for you provides a boost in both traffic and sales.

Just about everyone wants to implement the most cost effective techniques when promoting their product. Thankfully there are plenty of low cost and even FREE methods of promotion that you can implement. FREE is always good, right? Well, it’s good to some extent. I find that some of the free techniques are easily abused, and this can do more harm to your marketing campaign than good in the long run. Many who see a free advertising opportunity will get carried away and instantly begin to turn their advertisement into SPAM. Two words for you, not good.

I know not everyone has the time and unlimited financial resources available to create the most perfect campaign, but if you want to get the most out of your promotion, you’re going to be required to put a significant amount of effort in to it. Don’t get discouraged if you don’t receive the results you want. There’s times when marketing campaigns go good, and time when campaigns go bad. My advice is to roll with punches and keep trying.

If you are working with a limited budget, the possibility of obtaining good quality targeted traffic to your site through low cost marketing is achievable. You don’t have to spend a huge amount of money to get your promotion in motion. All you need is a little bit of confidence and clever thinking to get the ball rolling. As I have mentioned many times in the past, writing articles is a highly effective method of free advertising. If you aren’t able to write articles, you can outsource this for a very low cost. Article marketing will bring a decent amount of targeted traffic to your site and should not be overlooked.

Once you have some original articles written, you can distribute them to a few article directories. It won’t be long until you see a nice steady stream of traffic flowing to your site. The key to this free method of advertising is high quality and original articles, distributed to high quality article directories. EzineArticles is a good place to start.

Another free method of promotion is through the use of blogs. I know many internet marketing professionals who despise blogs. But the fact of the matter is they are pretty much here to stay, and they work! If you have limited funds and are seeking ways to promote your products or services for free, blogs are the way to go. You can setup a free blog through sites like Wordpress, or Blogger. Keep in mind that if you use a blog, stay professional. Stay on topic with the product or service you are marketing. Always remember to include the link of your own web site on your blog. And also remember to keep your blog posts a bit interesting. The whole idea is to provide high quality content, just like when you are writing your articles.

If you still are convinced that blogs just aren’t for you, try setting up a free Squidoo page, or a page at HubPages. Both these sites are free for you to use, and they offer you a huge audience to market to, right up front. Another advantage of utilizing these sites is that you don’t have to be a web guru to get your page started. They make it extremely simple to get started, and you’ll be able to promote your product within minutes.

And of course you can expand your ideas through the use of social media marketing. This option is completely free, and extremely effective. Use tools and resources such as Twitter, Stumbleupon, Digg, Delicious, etc. Chances are you’ll have positive marketing results if you utilize these tools. Just remember, don’t spam.

There are many more free and low cost methods of promotion, but these are just a few to get your creative thinking process in motion. Remember that you don’t always have to spend your life savings on advertising. Think smart, be creative, utilize resources, and put it all into action!

Now even though I don’t have whole lot of time today, I thought I would post a quick piece of useful information. If you are active in the world of internet marketing, you know how important it is to build a list. List building is your gateway to becoming a successful in this field. There are a variety of options one can use to build a list, but one of the most effective ways is through the use of a opt-in squeeze page, or a landing page.

Anyone can create a simple landing page, but it’s how well you create the page that matters. I know quite a few people who get lost during this process, and it’s quite unfortunate that they do. Someone who has a new and exciting product that thy are eager to market will sometimes forgot or skip using opt-in pages. In my opinion, this is a huge mistake. If you think that creating these pages take up too much of your time, or that they are not effective enough, you might just like what I have to share with you today.

My buddy Jorge Sampson is being kind enough to offer up a FREE opt-in squeeze page generator. It’s like he’s simply handing over a cash producing machine here. If you have always been lost when it comes to creating a decent squeeze page or landing page, look no further. Like I said, Jorge is thrown this extremely valuable piece of software at you for absolutely nothing. It’s a $97 value, for FREE.

If you seriously want to start generating a massive stream of income, using this software will start you off in the right direction. This is a huge time saver and is something that will highly benefit your ways of marketing your products and service in the future. So if you’re ready to think smart, take action, and launch your money making ideas into high profits, download Jorge’s FREE opt-in squeeze page generator today. I’m quite certain you won’t be disappointed with the results.

The Name

So you’re all ready to start brainstorming to pick the appropriate name for your domain. Have you decided on what the name of your website will be? Do you have a specific name for the product or service that you are offering? These are probably questions that you may want to answer before actually picking your domain name. I see many who work this whole process backwards. For example, someone will spend hours working up a name for their domain, even before they have their product developed. They come up with a domain name, and now they are developing a name for their product based on the name of their domain.

This may work for some, but I think it’s a bit more effective if you put more thought into the name of your product rather than the domain name. Once you have your product name picked out, you’ll be able to place that product into the appropriate niche category. Now you’ll have a little bit more to work with when picking the actual name of your site. Does the name of your domain have to match your product? It doesn’t have to, but I suggest that the name you choose is pretty close or highly relavant to what your trying to market. Obviously you don’t want to confuse everyone with a domain name that includes the word “dogs” when you’re actually marketing a product for “cats”.

Remember to be careful when choosing the names however. The primary concern here is that you don’t create a website with a brand name or a name that is trademarked. So many will end up choosing a good sounding name, spend tons of time developing their website, only to find out that their name is trademarked and is in potential danger of being taken away. There can be a lot of legal situations that arise, but that all depends on the names that are involved.

Long or Short?

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to determine which option is better here. The shorter your domain name the better. It’s fantastic if you can narrow your domain name down to one or two words. If you want a one word domain it’s going to cost you, but there are plenty of two word domains that you can obtain for next to nothing.

The question will often arise weather or not you should use a the words like “the” or “my” in the title of your domain. I choose not to use these words, simply because I never seem to find the appropriate time or reason to use them. It’s not necessarily a bad choice, becuase depending on your product or service, it could work out amazing. Ever hear of MySpace? So when it comes down to it, if you find that it’s necessary to use these type of words, go for it! Just remember that you’ll want to attach this word to your product name as well. Otherwise you could potentially be advertising two different things.

Add a little dash?

To hyphen or not to hyphen, that is the question. I’ve never chosen to use hyphens in my domain names. Does this mean it should never be done? Absolutely not. I think that if you have two words that really fit your product, and the original non hyphenated two word name is taken, it’s not a bad choice to take the hyphenated option if it’s available. The only problem is that so many people will hear a name and completely forget the hyphen. And it doesn’t sound as nice to advertise, when you have something like “used cars” for example. It’s much nicer to say “used cars” dot whatever, rather than “used dash cars” dot whatever.

Should I .com, or .net, or .org, .info, or .us, or ….oh my.

This can really be a hard choice for some people. Others, it’s an instant hands down decision to choose the .com over anything else. You have to admit that .com is much easier to remember, simply because it is the standard. I’m one that likes to explore and try all sorts of options that are available. I must say, I’ve had just as much success with a .info or .net as I’ve had with a .com domain. Again, this will all come down to personal preference. You’ll be able to market each of these sites the same way. Just remember to make your domain name look good, and promote it’s full name. If you’re trying to keep cost down, go with .info site if it’s appropriate.

Once you take all the above things into consideration, you’ll be picking incredible domain names like you’ve been doing it for years. Just use a little bit of common sense. Don’t create sentances in your domain name, like “iwenttotheparkyesterday” dot whatever. “dayinthepark” dot whatever sounds a whole lot better for something like that. Remember you’re trying to stay professional most of the time while marketing your message out to others. With all that said, happy domain name hunting!

Quality articles are the key, and they always will be. Before you start distributing what you have written, you’ll want to be sure that you have researched your topic thoroughly. The benefits from delivering quality content to your readers will pretty much outweigh just about everything else. Remember that once you have written and distributed your articles, you’ll be adding more and more incoming links to your site. People will eventually take notice, and be thirsty for more.

Before you begin the actual process of writing your article, take some time and browse through popular article sites, like EzineArticles.com for example. Search through the articles using keywords that pertain to your own website and niche. Take note of which articles are getting the most views. You can do this by simply taking a look at how many page views the article has received. You’ll see this number located towards the bottom of the article. It’ll look like the image that is shown below.

Once you’ve gathered some relevant keywords from some articles with decent page views, you can begin to put those keywords and phrases to use in your own articles. Always remember though, use your own writing style and approach. Never, and I’m serious, NEVER directly copy information. It’s a poor method that many use, and it’s plagiarism. You’re looking to create quality articles in your own words, not someone else’s.

If you take the time to research and think things out a bit, you will produce a pretty good article in the end. Let your ideas flow out naturally, and edit things out later on. Remember not to write your article in a way that it sounds like a blatant sales letter. Yes, you’re selling something, but take one step at a time. The whole reason you are writing your article is to share knowledge and eventually direct the reader to what you yourself are offering.

It’s a good idea to keep your articles around 400 and 600 words. This isn’t something that is really set in stone, but good quality articles will generally contain this amount of words. Some will argue that shorter articles are more effective, but it really depends on what you are trying to convey. A high quality article will be organized and contain a significant amount of information to grab the reader’s attention.

Don’t Forget Your Quality Resource Box

Another highly important step is your resource box at the end of each article. Before you submit your articles to the big directories, be sure your resource box contains a link to your website. Your site should be relevant to your article, as this will help you obtain more leads and build more traffic. Each article directory website will usually have their own rules in place for author resource boxes. So when it comes time to submitting your article, you’ll have to review the rules that are in place.

Once you have your article written you’ll want to thoroughly review it. Have someone else proofread it if necessary. Sometimes someone else will catch something that isn’t quite right, even after you have done your own review. So gather opinions of others if you can.

If you take some of this advice and put it to action, you’ll more than likely have less trouble next time you begin writing your articles.