Hi,
Welcome to April''s Software Marketing News. An HTML version can be viewed at http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/author-resource-newsletter39.html .

Its been a very busy month. We've discovered a number of great resources!

Free Website Content
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Part of the search engine struggle relates to finding content that is of interest to web visitors. Realizing how difficult it is for developers to create fresh web content for readers we've begun syndicating a number of our articles. The collection can be found at: http://www.small-business-software.net/free-website-content.htm

If you use any of the articles please be sure to retain the "about the author box".

New Forums
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Small Business Software contains a new forum. Registration is not required and we expect this to become a great place to comment on software related issues. The 3 areas likely to be of interest to developers include:

Software Developer Discussions - feel free to post and respond to items related to software development or marketing software.

Software Product Announcements - feel free to post new product announcements, beta test requests or relevant software announcements.

User Group Forum - feel free to post promotional offers available to user groups. User groups have been invited to request speakers, donations and discounts. This forum has been designed as a place for user groups and developers to communicate.

Right now there is an interesting thread about use of trademarked terms and Google Adwords. The forum can be found at http://www.small-business-software.net/forum/

Blog Submissions
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If you have a blog, we've created a list of sites that accept blog submissions. These sites are the "search engines" for blogs and its worth the effort to submit a link to you blog or RSS feed. http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/blog-resources.html

Affiliate Alternative; Google Adsense
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If you've become tired of keeping up to date with all the affiliate link changes, but are looking for away to amortize a content site consider Google Adsense. Google has recently added channel reporting so that ad servers have a better sense of how effective their efforts have been.
Full Article - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/article30.html

Affiliate Communication
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If you have an affiliate program consider reaching out to affiliates and increasing communication. Read why it matters.

When building an affiliate network communicating with affiliates is important for merchants to maintain a good relationship. An affiliate's web site targets visitors, who may not necessarily view a merchant's web site, and therefore expands a merchants market. An affiliate may not be able to actively keep up with the merchants product, it is important for a merchant to keep affiliate's informed about new product information, sales, new releases, links, graphics, promotions and special offers.
Full Article - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com/article29.html

Rank Pulse
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We've discovered a number of really interesting tools over the last month. Rank Pulse tracks the Google search-rankings of 1,000 keywords! http://www.rank-pulse.com

Lycos Launches Toolbar
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Lycos announced the launch of the HotBot Desktop search toolbar. The HotBot Desktop allows users to search the web, giving the results in a browser window. The one distinct feature of the HotBot toolbar is that you can search your local computer, the search functionality can scan local files, mail clients, browser history, and RSS subscriptions.

Affiliate Monster Merger
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BeFree/Commission Junction merged. Since late last year the two have been working towards a common network, it was recently announced that the combined efforts will adopt Commission Junction as the unified brand. As the integration of the networks takes place CJ promises to ensure that all of their current solutions remain fully operational and supported.

SIC
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Shareware Industry Conference - is a must attend event for developers, marketers or those involved in the software industry. This is a three day event, July 15-17, 2004, in Rochester, NY. There are dozens of informative, educational breakout sessions covering a wide variety of topics. And if that's not enough there's three nights jam packed with plenty of time to mingle and network with other attendees, exhibitors, and sponsors. Registration is inexpensive and pays for itself ten times over!
http://www.sic.org

Search Engine Forum
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The search engines that power the majority of referrals on the web. Find out how to market your web site through them.
http://www.ihelpyouservices.com

Shareware Awards
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Registration for the awards is open and will remain open until April 30th. There will be links to the voter registration page from the SIAF Web site at http://www.sic.org.

If you have registered to vote in the past you do NOT need to register again unless you have not participated in two (2) years. All those who are participating will receive an email prior to the start of SIA nominations telling them their unique registration number. Program submission -- Goes live on the SIAF Web site on April 1st also. This is also standardized so it is the same each year. So, April 1st, authors, and others, will be able to submit their program(s) for consideration by those who vote on the Shareware Industry Awards by using a PAD format file.

Kanoodle PPC
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Kanoodle is excited to announce that MSNBC.com has selected Kanoodle's ContextTargetT as its exclusive provider of content-targeted sponsored links. This will give a Google's Adsense a needed content rival!

Game Developers Choice Awards:
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A chance to celebrate your peers and their achievements. A must attend event! http://www.igda.org/awards

Fraud Click Prevention
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I've not evaluatated these tools, but they act as tools to prevent fraudulent click charges.

http://www.keywordmax.com/click_auditor.html - Click Auditor monitors the activity on your ppc accounts and provides you with detailed reports on all suspicious activity. When Click Auditor catches any fraud activity, you will be notified by email.

http://www.whosclickingwho.com/ - collects valid click data the Auditing Tool tracks individual users so you know if any fraudulent activity has occurred.

GoogleAlert
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GoogleAlert announced new features you can now filter out any results that don't match the exact case or punctuation of your search term. In the future a premium (pay) service will be announced for users interested in monitoring a large number of terms. http://www.googlealert.com

New Local Google
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Google has launched a beta version of its new "local" search.
Details at http://local.google.com

Thank you for your continued interest in Software Marketing Resource
Sharon Housley
Software Marketing Resource - http://www.softwaremarketingresource.com
NotePage, Inc. - http://www.notepage.net
Monitoring Software - http://www.monitoring-software.net
Small Business Software - http://www.small-business-software.net