Internet banking is becoming more popular with each passing day. Fewer and fewer people are ever going to their banks, preferring instead to use the Internet to manage their money, check how much they have and pay bills. You can even pay in cheques by post, removing the reason most people go to banks. More and more banks are being established as 'Internet banks', working entirely online with no physical branches and customer service by email and telephone only, and many people report good experiences with these banks.

So why has Internet banking taken off in such a big way? Most of the answer is to do with the adoption of broadband. Back in the days of dial-up, few people wanted to their banking on the Internet, feeling that if they had to dial then it was easier to just call the bank and not have to go through so many security checks. Since broadband came on the scene, though, more and more people have been able to check their bank account any time, both at home and at work, and have started to find the Internet to be the most convenient way of dealing with their bank account.
As Internet banking saves the banks money on branches and staff, they have been keen to get as many people signed up for it as possible, sending out regular letters and trying to get people to sign up for it in the branch. They see it as a win-win situation: they make more profits, and the customers are happier at having quicker access to their accounts. Internet banks, even if they have few customers, are very profitable indeed, which allows them to offer higher interest rates to their customers than high street banks, enticing gradually more people to move away from 'real world' banking altogether.

John Gibb is the owner of


Top Outsourcing Tricks
Top 5 Outsourcing Secrets
Marketing Gurus have learned how to produce great selling products and fantastic looking websites. How? They have learned some easy outsourcing tricks. With Elance and RentaCoder, anyone with a few bucks can post projects ranging from building software to writing eBooks to developing websites.
Here are some secrets that will save you time and money:
1) Where to go? You can go to rentacoder.com and hire programmers to do ANYTHING and everything. If you have an idea about software, then go here now and have programmers bid on the project. You pick the best programmer and they do all the work.
2) Step by Step Instructions - When you rent a coder, he/she will need step by step by step directions telling them what to do. One time, I told my coder, "You will need to integrate scripts in my webpage." The coder came back and told me that I didn't tell them to build the scripts. They thought that I had the scripts and they were going to integrate them easily. They need specific, detailed instructions.
3) Samples - Make sure that your coder is giving you samples of their work as time goes by. Remember, if it's a two week project, you can't wait two weeks later to review it. If you don't like their work, you have to know immediately. I have fired people on the spot for sending me crap.
4) Outsourcing Scam – There are TONS of people out there who will accept your project for $100 and then hire it back out for $50. They do no work and profit an easy $50. This looks good on paper, but through experience, the communication is lost between parties and deadlines pass and projects go incomplete. Beware!
5) Rating System - If someone does a great job, rate them a TEN. If they don't communicate to you, give them a ONE. They don't get a chance to view your feedback until they've given yours. So you can be HONEST! Help other buyers out by letting them know!
6) Stick with the Best - Find good workers and STICK with them. Build relationships with them, and I promise they will produce quality work. If you want someone to do ABOVE and BEYOND work, offer them incentives like bonuses or actual joint venture deals.


The 10 Most Important Things a Webmaster Needs to Know When Picking a Retail Merchant Affiliate Prog
I write a lot about what I look for in an affiliate when managing programs for various merchants. It always amazes me how many signups I get from sites with no affinity to my sites and also who never ask me a question about the performance of my merchant's site. If you don't know some of these basic facts about an affiliate program you are going to place advertising for on your site, then you are really not doing your job well.
So here are the 10 most important things you need to know about a retail merchant's site:
1. Make sure the site is the site professionally designed. First impressions are important. Nothing will turn off the visitors you refer to a site than to have them see an ugly site on the end of a link you have asked them to go to. You lose credibility with your visitor, something you never want to do.
2. Make sure the ecommerce shopping cart is easy to use. We still have lots of clunky shopping carts in the marketplace. These hinder conversions and mean you won't do well with the offer. How do you tell? Go buy something and see if you think it's easy to use. You've seen more than most people, use your experience.
3. Make sure your site has a close affinity to the merchant site. Don't sign up for an affiliate program just because they have a large payout. If your site is all about "cats and dogs" and you refer someone to a residential lending site, what do you think your chances of conversion are? Low, low, low… so don't do it. Refer visitors to sites that match your site in content and voice. You'll get higher conversions making up for someone else's supposedly higher payout.
4. Check to see if they are selling any brand name products. Having brand names does make it easier to sell online. Having a branded category name is even easier. Does that mean you have to have a brand name to be successful… no. It just makes it easier.
5. Ask them what the conversion rate of visitors to sales is. Depending on the conversion rate and the average sale price I can give the retailer a pretty good idea if he is going to be successful in attracting affiliates. A 1% conversion rate can be good depending on what you sell, and I have some customers that run at 4% as well. Likewise, an affiliate must look at the affiliate conversion rate to determine which program will do the best for him. How do you find out… ask. Good affiliate managers will tell you and you will learn which ones to trust very quickly.
6. Ask them what the average price per sale is on the site. Low priced items are not affiliate favorites as they have to drive lots of traffic to earn any money. A retailer with at least a $60 average sale is a bare minimum. Many times it may be a packaging issue, but if the retailer hasn't figured it out by the time you show up… don't expect them to get them to package their products correctly.

7. Check if they are selling a unique product. This goes to the competition. When I hear the phrase: "Well… there's really nothing quite like it on the Internet", you should I know that the merchant has not done any online research. There is competition in virtually every segment of every product type on the web. Sometimes unique is good, sometimes it is a little too "niche-y". If your site has affinity to a niche product you should be fine, if not don't stretch too much out of your comfort zone.
8. Make sure the merchant is able to offer a competitively priced retail product. He doesn't have to be the cheapest for sure. But if the competition is less expensive and they don't have a value proposition to support the pricing model, you will have trouble getting sales.
9. Similar to #7: Make sure the merchant isn't allowing others to sell the same product less expensively than you are able to sell if for. Some retailers are actually the manufacturer, so he may have lots of margin in his products. This is okay as long as he doesn't offer favored deals to other affiliates.
10. Work with merchants who offer an aggressive affiliate payout. I've got this last because if any of the first parts are not in order, high payouts won't do you any good. Also, brand names many times prescribe low payouts to affiliates, since they are… so well known. You might be better off with an aggressive competitor that really values you.
11. Bonus Answer: Find Affiliate Managers you trust. Find affiliate managers that promptly answer your questions and respond to your needs… such as getting you paid promptly. Building these relationships will enable you to more quickly determine if the program fits you.
And now once you are loaded with all of this data, your site will have appropriate highly converting product links from good retail merchants with management in place to make your life easier.
Durk Price is a professional affiliate manager. He has managed large retailers like LimitedToo.com, BeautyTrends.com, WeShipBabyGifts.com and others. He has launched affiliate programs and had affiliate sales account for 27% of total online sales within 90 days of launch. His primary focus is managing affiliate programs for retail companies. To learn more about his services of putting top level affiliates together with top quality merchants visit http://www.affgoo.com or email him at stick@affgoo.com.

Thursday, January 10, 2008