This month guest is Dave Collins from SharewarePromotions.com. Dave is specialised in Google AdWords Management, Search Engine Optimisation, Server Log Analysis and General Online Marketing and he had the pleasure of sharing some of his job little secrets. As usual, enjoy reading!

1. "The main purpose of a software company's website should be to sell the product. Make sure that your website looks good and does a good job of selling.
2. Make your demo sell. Make sure the trial user realises what your software can do for them, but don't overwhelm them.
3. Never stop marketing. Marketing equals sales. Press releases, SEO, Google AdWords, website optimisation, mailing lists, specials, partnering, bundles and more. Proactively reaching new users is vital."

Please share your tips and tricks, experiences or observations by posting your comments on this interview.

Read the full interview

Yes, having the back-up CD option can increase your sales but certainly not over night. The impact is rather indirect: the money comes not from selling the back-up CD itself, but from generating trust and convincing your customers to push the "buy now" button, plus from some other marketing tricks you can find out about bellow.

First, who would want to buy a back-up CD?

1. All those who, at least once, had to reinstall their software and could not find anymore the activation code. The easiest way to find its key is to get it from the CD in your library (the key is printed there, on the CD label) - and that's easier than remembering where is the email you registered with.
2. All those who like to buy tangible versus digital products and need to feel the package. They want to put their hand on what they've bought and then it's always nice to receive a colorful, professionally printed (vs. home made) cover, personalized with your name and the activation key right at hand on the label.

Here is the guideline.

Today, I propose 2 articles that were thought separately but do better together. The first one says that it is a good idea to have affiliates and emphasizes how easy it is to make affiliate marketing through affiliate networks. The second revolves around the differences between having resellers and having affiliates.

So, what affiliate marketing can do for you? After meeting Bob Walsh (author of the Micro-ISV: From Vision to Reality) and a lot of other shareware authors at the SIC conference in Denver, I decided to write something for the software vendors that don't trust or have the know-how to sell through affiliates. And I got to do it as a guest post on the Bob Walsh's blog. Here is the "One (extra) hat you might not need to wear".

Every once in a while I get a vendor asking: "What's the difference between affiliates and resellers?". I couldn't find a reliable internet resource to support my usual answer about it, so I thought why not make an article of my own and see how well it goes in Google. This article could serve as the starting point in getting both models up and running.

As you know, I usually recommend two cool places to hang out, but in this number I offer you a so-called bonus: we started Avangate white paper series with "How can you design your links" written by our colleague Bogdan Popescu. The main focus of this paper is to provide web masters or web creators with useful advice about link design and also to prevent mistakes that are to be encountered on many sites on the internet.

Download white paper and enjoy reading about how to make your site more accessible and easier to navigate for visitors.

Successful Software

I first found out about Andy Brice when my colleague Adriana Iordan decided to interview him. After reading the excellent interview, I started digging on the Internet to find out more about him. The first site about him was successfulsoftware.net and after 5 minutes, I just couldn't leave. In his blog, he covers various topics from: mISV, software, ecommerce, Microsoft, Google related issues. His last debate was digg vs reddit vs slashdot vs stumbleupon - who's the daddy?, a post which demonstrates the impact the social media websites have on site traffic.

Software CEO

It's difficult to stay up to date with all the changes and challenges in the software industry but it is more difficult to find a person willing to share experience, problems, how to overcome different hurdles he / she encountered during his/her activity, from which you would have a lot to learn. Software CEO Forum is a place where people talk about: Pricing and Licensing, Sales and Distribution, Strategy and Leadership, R&D and Quality, Jobs and Partners Board. They discuss, they argue, they sometimes have heated debates; you have the chance to find out the hidden secrets of the software industry.

ISDEF Autumn - October 19-21, Moscow, Russia

ISDEF is a key host of discussions revolving around software market developments and trends, an important event for software developers and vendors in Russia and surrounding countries. People are attending this conference not only for the quality of presentations delivered but also for networking, meetings with their partners or possible clients.

SWRUS - September 28, Kiev, Ukraine

A one day conference debating issues related to software development and software business in general. The purpose of the conference is to help develop relationships between shareware authors, companies distributing shareware products and companies that provide services to developers.

A two-day conference will be held October 2-3 in Santa Clara, California discussing issues such as organizing marketing channels, software promotion, current strategic business, financial and technical issues as wll as development opportunities that software companies executives and managers face. In this sixth conference, six main topics will be offered: Executive Strategy, Financing, Sales, Marketing, Product Development, and SaaS.

I bet you will find at least one new idea from the articles below.

Do You Still Have to Avoid Supplemental Results?

"Supplemental Results were introduced by Google as a filter to generate relevant search results by indexing more pages. Lately, some changes have been made in order to improve the users' search experience. Are there any supplemental results? Do they still count? Read the answers in this article..." [Read more]

How Important Is Alexa Ranking?

"Alexa Traffic Rankings may prove useful for sites with very good traffic that attract highly targeted leads, since it focuses more on the traffic that Web sites receive rather than on links to it. As a Web site monetization strategy, we can safely say that Alexa ranking might be the right solution. What do you think?..." [Read more]

How to Prevent Affiliate Fraud

"Affiliate fraud is any type of illegal activity designed with the intention of cheating merchants, other affiliates or buyers. The merchants are at a loss by fraud affiliates that mislead them into paying commissions that they shouldn't be paying. Here are some symptoms specific to affiliate fraud..."
[Read more]

Difference between affiliates and resellers

"Learn more about the difference between the affiliates and resellers. The biggest issue doesn't come from choosing between resellers and affiliates but mostly from vendors that are questioning the channel conflict that might happen between their resellers/distributors and the affiliates..." [Read more]