IMOAB

Dog Food Toxins

2007-09-29T05:04:00.000-07:00

If you are a dog owner you're probably aware of the recent pet food scandal that has rocked the nation, resulted in several pet deaths, hundreds of animals falling mysteriously ill and the nationwide recall of 60 million packages of dog food products (and counting) as well as other pet foods! The Culprit Melamine: This is the substance at the center of the pet food poison scandal. Pure melamine is used to make plastics and fertilizer so how the heck could it make the transition into dog food? Well the story begins in China...kind of.

Animal feed producers in China have apparently for some time routinely supplemented their feed with melamine to artificially boost the protein content (which translates into more profit). Protein readings are done by assessing the nitrogen levels of the feed and guess what? Melamine has a high nitrogen content! Unfortunately this sordid tale gets worse. As if adding poisonous melamine to your dog's food was not bad enough another toxic ingredient is routinely added to Chinese animal feed products.

This substance is known as cyanuric acid. In the United States this stuff is commonly used to disinfect swimming pools! Investigators looking into the hundreds of pet food poison related deaths now believe that the combination of those two ingredients in commercial dog food and other pet food synergistically elevated the toxins to the point where they became lethal to pets.

The Dirty Secret Close To Home

Although American food safety regulators are pinning the blame on pet food contaminated with Chinese animal feed products, the alarming truth is that dog food manufactured in the USA is also toxic to your pet! Commercial dog food manufactured in the US contains no less than 6 deadly chemicals that have been banned as unfit for human consumption because they cause: Hair Loss (fur loss); Kidney Disease; Liver dysfunction; Stomach cancer; Blindness; Leukemia; and Skin cancer, to name but a few! The substances that cause these problems are found in preservatives...

Are You Killing Your Dog?Commercial Dog Food Is Full Of Poisons And Dead Pets!
Dog TrainingLearn The Dog Training Secrets Professionals Use In No Time!
Healthy Dog Meals!245 Tasty Dog Recipes! Avoid Poisons In Commercial Dog Foods!
Cut Your Vet Bills!Vet Reveals Simple Secrets That Keep Your Dog Healthy!

Oh But I Always Use Preservative Free Dog Food!

You may think that your dog is safe and healthy because you only insist on buying preservative free dog food. Well dog manufacturers have found a legit way around that too! Many dog foods labeled as preservative free in fact contain preservatives because the manufacturers exploit a loophole whereby they do not have to list any preservative that they themselves did not add.

And unfortunately many preservatives are added to pet foods at the rendering plant well before the meat is ever sent to the manufacturer. One of the most widely used and most powerful preservatives also happens to be one of the most toxic! It is called ethoxyquin (EQ) and you aren't going to see it listed on your dog food label anytime soon (even though it is in that "preservative free" dry pet food you love to buy) because the manufacturer has no legal obligation to list it.

Although ethoxyquin is permitted in pet food, workers exposed to this substance showed symptoms similar to those of people exposed to agent orange (poisonous herbicide used by the US government in Vietnam War that caused cancer and other diseases).

Your Dog Is Eating Dead Dogs And Dead Cats!

Perhaps the sickest part of this sick tale is that euthanized (put down) dogs and cats are recycled as chow for your pet! The city of angels (Los Angeles) is known for the devilish practice of recycling approximately 200 tons of dead cats and dogs each month into pet food!

Arrrgghh...disgusting huh?

Still it gets worse; poisonous disinfectants and denaturing chemicals are used to treat those recycled dead animals and "render them safe" for your dog's consumption, not to mention the fact that the toxin used to kill those animals (sodium pentobarbital) can withstand the heat used in the denaturing process.

Bottom line: If you love your dog and want to see him/her live to a ripe healthy old age, perhaps it is time you considered alternative means of nutrition!

Click here for more on how to feed you dog healthily and safely!

Dog Breeds

Boost Your Link Campaign By Understanding How Google Evaluates Links!

2007-09-03T21:31:00.000-07:00

Once you know how Google measures or evaluates your links then you will be in a better position to conduct a more effective link campaign. Before I explain the current pattern of link evaluation let’s take a stroll down memory lane to see how far things have come.

In The Beginning A link Was The Equivalent Of A Thumbs Up Vote!

The original premise of the internet was to have a bunch of related resources (websites) linking to one another in a natural pattern of progression. Thus someone on a website focusing on gorillas for example would then naturally migrate from that site to one that listed gorilla safaris. Thus quite soon links became (and still are) the standard with which to measure a website’s relevance.

The thinking behind this was that the more popular a website was the greater the likelihood that people would link to it; and since people would only tend to link to sites that offered useful information then it naturally followed a large number of links signified quality...at least that was the idea.

The Birth of Link Spam!

Soon enough wily webmasters realized that they could manipulate the linking concept to their own advantage and make a handsome profit while they were at it. Instead of waiting for people to link to their new sites (a process that could take forever) why not form link directories whereby one, for a certain fee, could amass a large number of links in next to no time at all!

Booming Link market

Getting a new website indexed by Google used to be a task of Herculean proportions. Quite often new websites would languish in obscurity for ages, but those in the know realized that the process could be accelerated. By linking a new website to an established website or webpage with a high page rank (typically page rank (PR) 7 and above) that new website could be indexed by Google within days or a matter of hours depending on the PR value of the webpage on which the link was located. However getting a link from a high PR webpage did not come cheap and it was not uncommon for webmasters to fork over $800 for a one month link on a PR8 webpage!

Debut of The Link Farm

The link market trade flourished for a while, making a mockery of Google’s system of assessing the importance of any given website or webpage. However, a lot of webmasters in a hurry to see their websites scramble up the search engine indexes could not afford the hefty price commanded by a link from a high PR webpage and thus link farms came into being.

Link farms were the poor man’s solution to the hefty priced, high value links typical of high PR webpages. The premise of the link farm was as follows: instead of paying an outrageous sum of money for one link from a high page rank website why not pay a small fee for thousands of low PR links? In essence the link farms abided along the principle of the sum amounting to greater than its individual parts!

The Obsession With The PR Band!

Google thoughtful as ever, made it possible for anyone to determine the relative importance of a website at a glance. This they did by the introduction of the PR band, a small line atop one’s browser fittingly entitled with the word “PageRank.” The pagerank band scaled from a low of zero (PR0) to a high of ten (PR10). The greater the value that Google attributed to a given webpage the higher its designated page rank. In little to no time at that little green slash (PR band) became the highly effective unofficial publicist for the flourishing link market trade.

Webmasters obsessed over the PR band even though in truth the page rank value of a webpage plays little to no part in determining the position any webpage will attain on the SERPs (search engine index results pages). However savvy marketers used the PR obsession of the day to great advantage...using it as a tool to establish credibility and ultimately sell their wares to the less savvy.

However somewhat on par with the abuse of the linking system, the page rank concept soon became equally defunct. In no time at all the Google index was awash with spam sites topping its front page! Something had to give; and it did!

Fast Forward To Today...New Link Evaluation Parameters!

Oh how times have changed!

The search engine algorithms have gotten so much smarter that even blackhat SEO (shady search engine optimization techniques) these days is more trouble than its worth. With the continued abuse and manipulation of the system Google furiously tackled the issue of how to maintain website relevance and quality in its index in an increasingly spammy world.

Since its embracement by the public, the internet has seen its fair share of SEO manipulation from blackhat techniques such as multiple-blog-creation software following the debut of blogs (principle behind this system was that one could create thousands of instant one-way backlinks through the instant generation of thousands of blogs) to whitehat techniques such as the widespread dissemination of articles through article distribution software or services.

Some of these techniques still have value today while others have been effectively nullified such as the mass generation of backlinks through the creation of instant blogs.

How Google Currently Evaluates Links.

It used to be that if the PR band of your website/webpage was gray then this signified that said webpage had been banned. That is no longer the case. All new websites/webpages start off with a grayed out PR band. This band will remain that color depending on a number of factors before it turns white (indicating that the probationary period is over) and eventually transforms to green with establishment of page rank above zero.

Link Aging Filter / Link Probation Period.

To counter the widespread habit of acquiring links for a short-term period, say a month, so as to get a website indexed or attain page rank quickly, Google now subjects every link to a probationary period in which time the link is identified by Google but not accorded any value. Although such a link is recognized by Google, typically it will not be registered as a link associated with the website to which the link points for a subjective period; for that to happen the link needs to mature, and the rate at which a link matures is dependent on a number of factors.

Factors That Hasten Link Maturity Or Reduce Link Probationary Period.

1. Keywords: The keyword incorporated in any given link is going to determine how long that link will be under probation. The more competitive the keyword the longer will be the link's probationary period. In reality this link probationary system has superseded the Google Sandbox, which was/is Google’s technique of ensuring that super-optimized new sites do not zoom uncontrollably up the SERPs, quickly overshadowing long established websites. With respect to the Google Sandbox concept, if a new website was/is targeting a very competitive market already saturated with millions of sites, then that new website would spend a longer period cooling its heels in the Google Sandbox.

2. Volume of Traffic Across A Link: The more trafficked a link is, the quicker it will attain full SEO-value recognition by Google. This is a relatively new system in play and basically what it means is that a heavily trafficked low PR link will bestow far more SEO influence to the webpage it points to than a little trafficked high page rank link. In essence Google has pretty much nullified the system whereby webmasters could purchase links from high PR webpages in hopes of improving the SEO status of their own site. The application of this system explains why some newer webpages attain PR before older more established webpages on the very same website.

3. Links From Topically Related Sites: A links that comes from a website or webpage that has a comprehensively topical relationship to the destination webpage will have greater value than a link that does not. For example, say your website is about internet marketing, getting a link from another website that focuses on online marketing software would definitely fall under the category of topically related sites.

4. Utilizing Different Keywords In Links: Having the same keyword incorporated within all the links pointing to your site will tend to set off red flag alerts, which means that those links are not going to attain full SEO-value recognition by Google for a longer duration. Another link strategy you should employ is to have your links pointing to some of your inner pages as opposed to all your links pointing to your home page. Having links spread across multiple webpages registers as a more natural link strategy to the Google algorithm and the premise of this algorithm tweak was to nullify the system where webmasters would purchase links from link directories.

Remember anything that appears suspicious to the Googlebot is ultimately going to decrease the effectiveness of your SEO campaign. There’re many more factors that play a role in determining how high and how fast your website will make it up the SERPs (Google of course doesn’t spill all the beans) but if you conduct your link campaign with these few tips in mind you won’t go far wrong.

For More Online Business Tips Click Link Below

Make Money Online

Online Home Based Business Tips

2007-08-22T03:26:00.000-07:00

The idea of having your own online home based business is very appealing for self-evident reasons which I will not go into here. However let me add though that perhaps the biggest appeal of an online home based business is that once set up such a system is fully automated!

In other words once you've properly set up your online business you can sit back relax and listen to the sound of ka-ching as the money pours in every month…well at nay rate that's the theory. The reality is somewhat different!

Perhaps you've heard the phrase that Internet Traffic Is the Lifeblood of Any Online Business…well it's true and the bad news is that getting targeted internet traffic is the hardest aspect about having an internet business. Note I said it is the hardest aspect not the impossible aspect.

But that's not where the bad news ends with respect to having your own online home based business.

A lot of people who started internet marketing a while ago have made a tremendous amount of money but as more and more people flocked to get their own piece of those internet riches so did it get that much harder for any one individual to make the amazing sums of money the early internet marketing pioneers had been amassing.

Those early marketing pioneers quickly realized though that they could still make the substantial sums of money they'd been making before the rest of the public caught on, by selling digital (downloadable) data of How-To eBooks for exorbitant sums on the premise that people would buy!

And why would people buy? Because…

Those early pioneers who quickly embraced the moniker Marketing Guru knew that all they had to do to get people to fork over as much as $100 for a 50 page eBook (PDF) was to show their prospects the amounts the guru had been making. However there was a catch…

Those How-To eBooks and courses for the most part were totally bogus! Many a newbie marketer who bought such an eBook met with failure despite faithfully following the instructions of the eBook exactly!

In fact misinformation and manipulation of tools of social evidence (testimonials and screenshots) have ensured that while 5% of internet marketers thrived (heck they more than thrived) the other 95% failed!

This went on until the publication of the free eBook entitled Best Kept Marketing Secret which blew the lid right off internet marketing's dirtiest and most secret of secrets!

If you want to have a successful online home based business then you owe it to your self to grab a copy of this free ebook.

Click link below to get your copy of Best kept Marketing Secret!

Home Based Business

Google's Claims Of Impartiality Are Bogus

2007-08-17T19:11:00.000-07:00

Home Business Tips
I'm strongly beginning to believe that Google may be one big fat liar! And why, you may well ask dare I a mere mortal make such a presumptuous assertion?

The Truth Shall Set You Free!

2007-06-27T02:19:00.000-07:00

Google Slapped Me Silly Coz I Spoke The Truth!

It's been about a week or so now since my website has crashed, somersaulted, rolled and burned from various Page 1s on Google. It all started with a little innocuous data changed that I indulged in on my home page. Perhaps this is a classic case of being TOO SMART FOR MY OWN GOOD!

Refreshing Text On Your Homepage Demotes Your Site!

2007-06-20T01:41:00.000-07:00

SERP Games

You'd think that changing the text on the homepage of your website would be a good thing...

well think again!

I've noticed every time I change the text on my homepage my website falls several positions on the SERPs (search engine rank position); even when I have altered only a couple of words.

Okay, perhaps it's because the change involved incorporating obviously competitive keywords but even so it really doesn't make sense. Which makes one appreciate the real beauty of blogging; the search engines don't penalize your blog when you continually add fresh text! In fact they reward you for it with increased search engine exposure.

The most recent occurrence of such a demotion that threw my site from page 10 on Google for one of my premier targeted keywords (the keyword in question is very competitive) to page 74.

WOW! Some drop huh?

This particular occurrence is not the first time this has happened to my site, but I have to say that it has never dropped this far before. Sigh! Google! Google! Why do you try me so?

Anyway when your site drops several positions it really can be quite disconcerting and discouraging if you have no idea what's going on. I know the first time I experienced this phenomenon I really felt like giving up, since I'd put so much sweat in to the search engine optimization of my website.

This sudden-drop-in-serp-position phenomenon also affects sites that have been static for a while. Every now and then I'd log into my Google account to check the position of a much neglected website to be pleasantly surprised to find it has clawed it's way up the search engine index pages.

Funny thing though, anytime I start adding fresh info as new web pages to such a site (note in this case the homepage is untouched) it drops several positions on Google!

I guess it really is a case of THANK GOD FOR WEB 2.0 and Social Media Optimization, because truth be told, much as I have praised Google over time (commingled with the occasional Dis) the bottom line is that it is very difficult to best this finicky search engine.

Another strange occurrence I have noticed concerning Google is that every time there's an update or refresh my website which is usually numero uno for the keyphrase "cheap internet marketing" disappears altogether from the Google results index for several days. In fact in the case for this particular keyword many of the usual suspects (i.e., websites) are usually displaced by spammy looking craiglist webpages for several days!

Internet Home Based Business

The Online Abuse Of Social Evidence

2007-06-19T11:56:00.000-07:00

What is social evidence? At it's most basic social evidence is the act of observing what other people are doing or saying and using that knowledge to determine our own actions. For example...

The easiest way to find out whether a product is any good and does what it promises, is to see what other people are saying about it. And guess what? Luckily this form of proof conveniently comes in a tried and proven formula called a testimonial. The bad news is that testimonials unfortunately aren’t the irrefutable tools of proof they once used to be.

Here’s why:

TESTIMONIALS

Once-upon-a-more-innocent-time testimonials used to be authentic reviews written by genuine customers to convey their satisfaction and appreciation to anyone willing to know about it? But alas that no longer holds true.

Okay sure...it can’t be denied, a lot of testimonials are genuine, but in a competitive field like internet marketing you can bet a good number of them are going to be manipulated...

...manipulated and tweaked just so to give you that teeeny eeeny extra bit of reassurance needed to make you reach into your wallet.

You see these days...

Testimonials Are Simply Another Internet Marketing Tool

Let me explain:

Let’s say you’ve developed some software that you wish to market, only problem is you lack the know-how or capability to promote your product.

I on the other hand have excellent promotional skills and most importantly have a large subscriber list of customers to my newsletter or ezine (online newsletter). For a percentage of the profits I agree to write a glowing testimonial for your product and even go as far as to recommend it to my extensive list of subscribers. (This by the way is an example of a JV (joint venture) partnership…a classic case of you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours). And guess what…

Eureka! You’ve got yourself a “genuine no-questions-asked” testimonial!

But there are even easier ways to get testimonials and here’s a method currently much in use that I like to refer to as cross-testimonialization.

Here’s how it works:

You write a glowing testimonial for me and in return I’ll write one for you! Once again, a case of you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. In fact it seems to me there’s a whole lotta back-scratching taking place in online marketing circles these days.

And of course let’s not forget the very low-tech method of getting testimonials by writing them yourself (yes…yes…it’s against FTC regulations, but most people know, that particular watchdog can’t police the entire web all the time let alone a fraction of the time!).

SCREENSHOTS

Ahhhh...Screenshots! They can be very persuasive can’t they? Those mind-tingling amounts...Wow! A good screenshot could be just the thing to ultimately persuade skeptical-ole-you to fork over the cash!

However they too aren’t foolproof. Here’s why:

What The Screenshot Doesn’t Tell You Is As Important As What It Does…if not more so!

The only thing that screenshot tells you with certainty is that Mr. Joe Internet Marketer (the person giving you the pitch) may indeed have made those awesome amounts of money.

But what you can’t tell is:

How long has he been internet marketing? You see his course or the words on his site are written in such a way as to give you the impression that in a few months you’ll be raking it in...but how long did it really take him to get where he is?

How many people subscribe to his newsletter list? Does he tell you that over the years he has built up a long list of subscribers? No way! After all, he is selling you the image that with effortless ease you’ll be making thousands—literally overnight! So it certainly isn’t in his interest to say anything that might suggest you’re actually going to have to do some work to make money (perish the thought).

How many sites contribute to that amount so proudly displayed on his screenshot? Do you know how many sites and other online ventures actually contribute to those tantalizing screenshot amounts?

The trick here is to make it appear as if all that revenue is from only one site (or whatever venture he is selling you)...that way it will seem all the more do-able to you!

What volume of traffic does he get? Do you think that Joe Marketer is really going to tell you the truth about how much online traffic he’s actually getting to generate that revenue? Or for that matter, do you honestly think he’s going to tell you how long it took him to develop such an impressive volume of traffic?

Remember—Joe Marketer’s game plan is to sell you the image of just how easily you can make money online...as long as you follow his advice!

Are you beginning to get the picture? Screenshots only tell you half the story! In fact giving you half the story—if that—is the ploy many in the internet marketing industry use to capitalize on your lack of knowledge. They bait you with just enough juicy details and evidence to get you salivating...but leave out the real techniques that actually make them money!

A final note about screenshots—you should also be aware that these days some sneaky marketers also photoshop their screenshots (to photoshop means to adjust/edit the image…the term comes from the popular image editing software Adobe Photoshop

Eventually with the help of those convincing marketing tools you are finally good and ready to take the plunge to buy the item. Then what?

Nine times out of ten you’re going to be disappointed. In spite of following the instructions exactly (let’s assume what you bought was a how-to marketing eCourse or eBook) you just can’t seem to make any money…let alone duplicate the amounts the author claimed to make and by proxy insinuated you would make (now you know the purpose of disclaimer notices…after all Joe Marketer certainly doesn’t want some pesky affiliate ingrate suing just because they couldn’t duplicate his earnings).

At this stage one of two things will probably happen.

Like a lot of affiliates you’ll either count your losses and give up internet marketing for good or you’ll reluctantly conclude that that particular course was full-of-it, accept the fact that your money is gone, then promptly roll up your sleeves to try again, but this time with a different how-to eBook.

After you’ve done this dance enough times it will gradually dawn on you that this is the real way that most internet marketers make their money—duping unsuspecting newbies like yourself into buying their bogus eBooks or eCourses.

Now get this…check out what most affiliates who stay the course do next.

Have you ever heard the expression if you can’t beat them join them?

That’s right! Those marketers who feel they’ve invested way too much to call it quits figure that—everybody else is duping newbies and making money off them why not me? And so that’s how yet another frustrated affiliate joins the rat race and becomes part of the problem.

Home Business Success

The Huge Little-Known Ugly Secret Of FFA Sites

2007-06-17T01:09:00.000-07:00

Ugly Truth About FFA Sites

There are thousands upon thousands of classified ad and FFA (free for all) sites plastered across the internet, which on the face of it isn't all that surprising; after all FFA sites are an advertising platform and advertising is the backbone of ecommerce. Besides classified ad sites are merely the online derivatives of their real world counterparts commonly found in newspapers and magazines, right? WRONG!

In the real world people have to pay to post their ads in the classified section of a newspaper or magazine but that doesn't hold true for online classified sites which allow anyone who so wishes to post their ad for free. All told this doesn't make sense; why would anyone in the business of making money bother host a website that allows other people to advertise their own business for free? Well that is exactly the biggest yet little-known dark secret of FFA and classified ad sites. Read on to find out this ugly little secret of FFA sites!

FFA stands for "Free For All" and that is precisely what FFA sites are; online advertising platforms for all and sundry who wish to post a free ad. Let me add here that Classified Ad sites are basically the same thing as FFA sites save for the fact that on a classified ad site you can actually incorporate a bit more text in your ad.

But here's the sad truth about posting to an FFA site: NOBODY IS GOING TO SEE THAT AD!

Have you ever seen one of those FFA sites? They are peppered with thousands of ads all struggling to be seen! There are literally all kinds of ads, of all shapes, sizes and colors; ads that wink at you and ads that glitter so bright they'd make a supernova blush with shame!

The bottom line is that posting to an FFA site is an exercise in futility. Out of all those countless ads residing on that site what are the chances that yours is going to be singled out and reviewed? And as if that wasn't bad enough, did you know that when you post an ad to a classified ad site or an FFA site, your ad is only going to be displayed for one hour before it is displaced by the next batch of ads in that particular category!

Let me repeat that in case it didn't properly sink in. Ads posted to an FFA site are generally only on display for an hour or less! Talk about a waste of time and effort!

Which only begs the question, if nobody is going to see those ads where the heck do they all come from and who are all those people so intent on wasting their time by posting such ads?

Evidently the people who post ads to FFA sites have no idea that they are wasting their time. Thus following a path of logical deduction one can only surmise that the folks who fall in this category include newbie internet marketers and other clueless individuals who are desperate for traffic but have no idea how to get it (I should know...BEEN THERE, DONE THAT!)

As I said earlier, added to the fact that any ad posted to an FFA site is going to be one amidst thousands (talk about the proverbial drop in the ocean), compounding this already futile situation, is the fact that a single ad only gets displayed for about an hour before being displaced.

However for a fee it is possible to get premium placement of your ad. In other words your ad will be given the VIP treatment which either means it rotates with a few other premium ads at the top of the list and is constantly displayed unlike most of the other ads that are rotated off display after an hour or so.

Still as one talking from experience let me just say that even with premium placement of your ads (i.e., having paid a fee) the traffic generated from that premium ad is negligible to none!

THE MONEY IS IN HOSTING NOT POSTING

Okay, this entire scheme seems somewhat illogical. I mean NOBODY IS GETTING ANY WORTHWHILE TRAFFIC and on top of that 90% of those ads are posted for free. So what does the owner of the site get out of hosting such a website? I mean HELLO! Most of the people posting aren't paying a dime!

LEAD CAPTURE SYSTEM GALORE

The only reason why anybody creates an FFA site is to capture leads, period! Lead capturing is the sole purpose of Free For All sites which explains why the webmasters are more than willing to let you or anyone else for that matter post their ads for free!

So how exactly does the webmaster go about the business of capturing those leads? The system is quite ingenious really and basically operates according to the following guidelines:

In order for someone to post to an FFA site they have to agree to receive a confirmatory email. The confirmatory email is very important for a couple of reasons: 1) it proves that the email supplied is real and valid and not some bogus made-up one; 2) it acts as a safety net for the owner of the website in the sense that it proves that the email was so requested by the recipient and thus absolves the FFA site webmaster of any future accusations of spam.

More often than not the FFA site owner also incorporates an advert within that confirmatory email. But this isn't where the magic ends because, other than any ad integrated within the initial confirmatory email, another mandatory requirement that people wishing to post to FFA sites must adhere to, is to allow the site owner to send them an advertisement.

Finally, but certainly not least of all is the last requirement; which is that anyone intent on posting a free ad must reconfirm their wish to post by entering a special confirmatory code in a special link encased within the original confirmation email. In essence what has just happened is that the site owner has just collected a Double Opt-In Lead!

In case you don't know what kind of big deal Double Opt-In Leads are, suffice it to say that marketers are willing to pay a medium-sized fortune to get hold of them. However using this bogus traffic-generating system the FFA site owner gets to collect those Double Opt-In Leads for free!

BOTTOM LINE: If you are spending a lot of time posting to these sites in hopes of increasing your internet traffic, it is time to re-evaluate your marketing strategy, because all you are doing is pursuing an exercise in futility!

Home Based Business Tips

Simple Tricks To Flush Out Internet Scams

2007-06-14T20:25:00.000-07:00

Internet Scams

Like any other environment that offers the average individual the opportunity to amass a substantial amount of wealth fairly quickly, the internet not surprisingly is rampant with scams. No doubt the situation today is far better than it was a few years back but that still does not negate the fact that the potential for you to get scammed is relatively high.

Sir Joshua Reynolds once remarked, "there's no expedient to which a man will not resort to avoid the real labor of thinking" an observation which has since proved to be the cornerstone of many a marketer's success as well as that of the average scammer.

How so?

Because people are very willing to part with their hard-earned cash just as long as you furnish them with a short-cut solution that solves their problem. That is why people flock to buy downloadable courses, be they on internet marketing or any other subject!

Meanwhile as things stand, the world of today is one of instant gratification which means that people want what they want right now, not tomorrow, not in several hours, but now!

This current trend of instant gratification is largely driven by the internet which has popularized the concept of instant delivery. It would not be wrong to say that the internet, in essence, has basically revolutionized the way with which we interact with one another and the world at large.

Another reality that the internet has spawned is a bumper crop of internet marketing millionaires; a reality that has proved to be a veritable magnet to a constantly-refreshing harvest of starry-eyed, gonna-be-rich-soon newbie marketers.

But what most of those gonna-be-rich-soon marketing hopefuls are not aware of is that a lot of that online-generated wealth (at least in internet marketing circles) came about through long-established and convincing scams!

COMMON TOOLS USED IN INTERNET MARKETING SCAMS

In the real world, more often than not, before you invest a significant sum of money purchasing anything, you most likely scout around to see whether that item is any good. And the way most of us go about establishing the credentials of an item we're interested in, is to see what other people have to say about it.

If the vast majority of people have only good things to say about the item then that fact alone is generally more than enough to convince the average person that it indeed is worthwhile to make the purchase.

This pattern of noting what other people are doing/saying before we subscribe to a particular activity or purchase any item is what is known as social evidence (in other words mimicking what others are doing or basing our behavior on theirs).

This principle of social evidence has particular importance on the internet.

This is so because of the fact that the internet is a virtual reality which means that we're restricted to only a few of the senses we regularly use in the real world; which is of particular significance because it is that much harder for us to evaluate and assess anything being sold online.

That does not mean we have to take a complete stranger's online claims as the gospel truth though. Don't forget we still have the principal of social evidence to fall back on; which is where the ubiquitous testimonial and screenshot come into play.

Testimonials are a time-tested and proven method of conveying customer appreciation for an item. Screenshots too are regularly used in marketing circles to persuade otherwise skeptical or ambivalent prospects that purchasing the advertised item will undoubtedly improve their financial situation or whatever it is they need.

Unfortunately like many seemingly-genuine product reviews plastered across the internet, far too many testimonials and screenshots are fake! This obviously is done with the intention to convince prospective buyers that they are making the right choice when they buy the item. Such activity is known as manipulating social evidence and is widespread across the web.

To surmise, other than using your common sense, there are some very simple tricks you can readily utilize to determine whether a testimonial/screenshot (and thereby by proxy the item being advertised) is genuine:

1. Check to see if the testimonial has an accompanying URL (the URL does not have to be activated; you can always paste the URL into your browser and get to the site via that means). If none of the testimonials have accompanying URLs pass on the item (such testimonials reek of scam!)

2. If there is an accompanying URL, click through to the web site and evaluate it. If the web site is nothing more than an adsense-template site or looks as if it was slapped together in haste, once again it's probably best to pass.

3. Google the name of the individual supposedly supplying that glowing review (testimonial) and peruse through the resultant listings; quite often if the individual(s) is associated with scams or fraud at least one listing pertaining to that damaging aspect will show up!

Online Home Business Tips

Death Croak Of Black Hat SEO

2007-06-13T19:21:00.000-07:00

Black Hat SEO

Looks like the party is really over for black hat seo! Ultra smart search engine algorithms have wreaked havoc on the black hat business so much so that it really does not make much sense anymore to pursue this kind of search engine optimization. In fact I've heard tale of black hatters whipping up to 20 disposable sites a day just to try and make ends meet! Phew! Talk about a labor of love...

I mean that just doesn't make sense! Why not spend all that energy pursuing legitimate white hat seo methods huh?

Okay, enough let's get down to business; just in case you don't know what the term black hat seo means, here's a brief explanation:

Black hat seo methods are search engine optimization techniques and strategies that fall outside the guidelines and purview of the major search engines with the intent of manipulating the position of one's website to a far more strategic location on those search engines' results index.

The objective of black hat seo is to game the search engines in order to attract a ton of internet traffic in as short a time frame as possible. The opposite of black hat seo is known as white hat seo. Most cream-of-the-crop black hat seo practitioners have cloaking, coding and programming skills and employ(ed) self-designed software to game the search engines.

Black hat seo techniques by their very nature are short-lived and the black hatters are well aware of this. You see black hat seo techniques involve (or at any rate used to) capitalizing on a weakness or loophole in the search engine algorithms or manufacturing such a weakness and then aggressively exploiting that flaw before the search engines caught on. In other words black hat seo has always been a race against the search engines, with the black hat webmasters ever trying to stay one step ahead!

Old School Black Hat SEO Techniques

Being a step ahead of the search engines used to be relatively simple for the sole reason that the search engine algorithms of the day really were rather basic and crude compared to the situation of today. Some of the more pervasive and better known black hat seo techniques were keyword stuffing which quite often went hand in hand with the application of invisible text.

Invisible text is merely text that is the same color as the background color of the web page on which that text is located, thus being invisible to the human eye, but readily accessible to a search engine robot. People who used such techniques would stuff their website homepage (or any page whose position on the SERPs they wished to manipulate) with their most sought after keyword, in some cases inserting that keyword hundreds of times as invisible text.

Of course the search engines got smarter, caught on and quickly fixed such loopholes.

Generally, as a rule, black hat seo webmasters never used their main sites to pursue their shady techniques because they were well aware that the penalty if caught was death; death in the sense that any website found employing such black hat seo methods, was banned and forever removed from the universe of know search! So as mentioned previously, the black hatters never adopted such shady techniques on their main websites but instead used disposable websites with multiple back-links pointing back to their main sites.

Which naturally begs the question, since the search engines were quite capable of crawling those back links, why didn't they then penalize the destination website huh?

Good question indeed, and here is the answer; because then it would be very simple for a competitor to get rid of their competition by getting that competitors website banned by setting up such a black-hat seo operation with the destination URL being that of the competition and not that of the black hatter's website!

With that comforting piece of knowledge in mind the black hat seo webmasters were able to conduct their business, traipsing a step ahead of the search engines and making a killing. Besides when the search engines caught on the black hatters didn't have to close shop right away for that particular black hat op; there was still plenty of money to be made from gullible marketers who believed in overnight success and riches.

All the black hat seo webmaster had to do was provide evidence (screenshots and testimonials) of how much money they were making from their black hat seo system, and before you could say ka-ching, more money was rolling in from that defunct system through sales from people eager to duplicate the black hatter's success.

The Biggest Names In Black Hat SEO Resigned To White Hat SEO Techniques!

Alas for the black hat seo brethren, soon enough the search engines had closed the one-step-ahead gap to a half-step ahead! Fast forward to today and there is no step-ahead gap! The search engines are way too smart and getting even smarter still, so much so that there really is no profit to be had anymore from black hat seo techniques. Perhaps that explains why so many cream-of-the-crop black hatters have finally conceded to pursuing white hat seo techniques.

But remember what I said about extra-monetization of defunct black hat seo techniques; there are plenty of gullibles out there who are willing to shell out hefty sums in hopes of fast-tracking their internet marketing campaign. And make no mistake black hat seo software usually commands a hefty price sticker on the premise that it is going to make the purchaser a bucket load of money in next to no time at all. But you and I of course know that such will not happen!

Remember to be forewarned is to be forearmed!

So if you stumble upon some advert that makes obviously outrageous claims yet still seems seductively appealing like the following example: "Internet Marketer Gets $67 Million In Google Pay-Per-Click Ads Free" just rein in that raging beast of temptation deep inside you that can barely restrain itself and recite the following: "A Fool And His/Her Money Are Easily Parted!"

Home Based Business Strategies

Keep Your Site On Google's Good Side

2007-06-11T03:37:00.000-07:00

KEEPING COZY WITH GOOGLE

Despite the grumblings and sour-grape exclamations of loss of market share and diminishing public confidence in search returns, the truth is that Google is forging ever more powerfully ahead! I mean you're probably aware that they are the King of the search engine business but what you may not know however, is to what extent they are the kings of Search! Recent surveys and polls list Google as hogging more than a whopping 60% of global search market share.

In order to best understand how to keep your website in Google's good graces you first need to know what their ultimate goal is, or that of any search engine for that matter.

SEARCH IS BIG BUSINESS

Search is a huge money-generating business and not merely a 20th century tool that enables you to conduct research while you slouch on your couch. So how big is the search industry really? Well let's put it this way; in the year of 2006, online advertising racked up revenue in excess of $16.7 billion dollars and is expected to reach $45 billion in the next five years. Impressive huh?

Anyway these figures should give you some idea of the stakes involved in the search engine industry.

Further, more than 97% of Google's not inconsiderable fortune is derived from online advertising. Remember as noted earlier, Google commands more than a 60% share of the global search market; which makes for one very good and big reason you should ensure that your website is googlicious (google extra-friendly).

GOOGLE'S OBJECTIVES AS A COMPANY DETERMINE ITS ONLINE BEHAVIOR

We've already established that search engines are dedicated to more than simply returning pertinent results to yours or any number of the various billion queries conducted each day; they are dedicated revenue generators.

Google is by far the largest search engine and derives more than 97% of its revenue from online advertising. And let's not forget that Google is a publicly held company, meaning that it has an obligation to its investors to maximize yearly profits.

This then clues us in to what Google's main objectives are:

1. Maximize Profits; by

2. Hosting the Largest Number of Advertisers; by

3. Retaining the largest number of conducted online searches; by

4. Supplying the most accurate results per query; which

5. Ensures that more people will use Google as their search engine of choice.

GOOGLE 2007 SHAKEUP

The year 2007 launched with considerable anticipation as well as turbulence for the SEO community. A Google algorithm change or modification that SEO analysts cannot yet as one agree to term either an update or data refresh was the cause of such unrest.

However whether it was an update or data refresh, what is not in contention is that it certainly shook up the SEO horizon and left quite a number of webmasters upset and disgruntled because their websites suddenly lost significant position for targeted keywords. The flip side of this particular coin had a good number of webmasters ecstatic over the realization that that their websites were suddenly ranking very well for their most coveted and targeted keywords.

The ripples of this Google shakeup had authoritative sites (which for time immemorial had been ranking well for particular keywords) suddenly drop several positions on the SERPs and in the worst scenarios disappear completely off the grid! (Most have been reinstated to their former glory.)

This shakeup now also meant that wizened old websites could no longer rely on the age factor alone to guarantee their index listings or page rank. In order to maintain their long coveted positions such sites need to be refreshing data or adding new content regularly.

Disconcerting as these new rules may be there actually is a lot of sense to this approach. Perhaps you may recall that in 2006 Google experienced a server overload super-crisis. There simply were not enough servers to accommodate the burgeoning number of web pages of the ever-expanding internet.

So to alleviate the situation Google adopted a number of modifications of which perhaps the most notable was the one which restricted the Google spider to crawl only those web pages that were accessible via external links. The rationale behind this was that pending the acquisition of new servers only such web pages that were considered of the utmost relevance would make it into the Google index.

Thus it is not too far of a stretch to consider the 2007 Google shakeup as a reinforced strategy on their part to avoid the server debacle of 2006 and by proxy also sharpen the accuracy of their indexed data.

HOW TO KEEP YOUR SITE GOOGLICIOUS IN A WORLD OF UPDATES!

1. KEEP IT FRESH To maintain or elevate the page rank of your website or its listing on the SERPs, you need to add new content or at least refresh it on a regular basis. In the past it was possible for fairly old websites to remain static yet maintain their high page rank and SERP listing purely based on the age factor. Due to algorithm tweaks following the 2007 Google shakeup that is no longer possible.

2. KEEP THOSE LINKS GROWING Using inbound links as the premier tool of measure for evaluating the importance of a website is not going to change any time soon. If you consider that an inbound link is an approximate thumbs-up vote for the linked-to site then you easily understand why this measure of evaluation is not about to disappear quite yet.

Certainly not all links are created equal such that links from topically relevant and related web pages are more highly rated than those from topically unrelated web pages. However it is not always possible to get such topically related links but the bottom line: your website is not going to mature on the SERPs or graduate page rank-wise without external inbound links.

There's also a new twist in the way links are evaluated. Beforehand a high page rank link was the most valuable kind of link, but now that search engines are more sophisticated there's a new system in play. The strength of a link will be determined by the number of clicks that link garners. In other words a very active PR3 link characterized by a high click-through-rate will score much higher from an SEO point of view than a PR8 link that has next to no clicks! This is just one of the latest ways in which the search engine algorithms are combating artificial link acquirement.

When all is said and done however--keep those links growing!

3. MAINTAIN WEB INTERCONNECTIVITY From the outset the ideal vision of the internet was one where a mass of data would connect together through a natural progression of topical relevance via links. Well as you're probably aware, ideal and paradise tend to exist more in the hypothetical realm than the real world.

Anyway back on this theme of interconnectivity, for the longest time it was considered good SEO practice to hoard your page rank as much as possible by having as few outbound links as possible. That has changed and now having next to no outbound links could even result in a minor penalty. It would appear that as the algorithms have smartened up the search engines are now finally reaching for the sky--aiming for that elusive web paradise!

4. KEEP IT STICKY In the same manner that you can tell how long people are spending on your website from your web stats so can the search engines. The longer visitors spend on your site the stickier your site is said to be. Suffice it to say that the more sticky your site the better as far as search engine optimization goes. A stickier site will improve your page rank and SERP listings. The best way to make your site sticky is to have interesting, valuable and stimulating content!

Home Business Tips

Scaling Mt. Google Gets Even Harder!

2007-06-10T19:10:00.000-07:00

Online Home Based Business Advice

It has never been easy scaling the search engines and unfortunately it has gotten even harder than ever before, especially if your targeting Google as the search engine to conquer and plaster your website on its summit top!

Recently, with respect to information quality, Google raised the bar even higher with another algorithm tweak that effectively reshuffled (and in some cases evaporated) page rank across thousands of web pages.

Thus if your website's PR (or that of its inner pages) recently stole quietly away in the middle of the night with nary a goodbye take consolation in the knowledge that you are not alone; this calamity has befallen countless others.

The latest Google algorithm tweak/update has been pretty widespread and non-discriminatory in nature, targeting both new sites and well established veteran sites too.

In the good ole days it used to be that a gray page-rank bar was indicative of a website/web page that had been banned from the Google index but that seems to no longer be the case. Lately it would appear that being grayed-out merely reflects a webpage/website that is under probation (of course in certain cases a gray PR band could actually reflect a banned website/web page).

So what does this all really mean?

Google Web Paradise

Understanding Google's goals and objectives is fundamental to search-engine optimizing your website effectively and correctly within their guidelines. The first thing you need to appreciate is that online search is a business. Google is Top Dog in the search engine business for two very simple reasons:

1. Google returns the most accurate results for any given search query.

2. Of all the search engines, Google has the fastest retrieval rate for almost all queries.

Being number one for both the above listed parameters obviously has major advantages; it ensures that more people flock to use your search engine and, as has been proven time and time again, where the crowds gather the advertisers hover not far behind.

Advertisers want to get the best bang for their buck so they will naturally tend to spend their dollars where they can get the greatest percentage of targeted and relevant eyeballs; which means advertising on the major search engines (of which surprise, surprise) Google is the leader!

Google's domination of online search is a tangential derivation of the saying "The Richer Get Richer," because as Google gets better and leaves the other search engines floundering in their dust, more and more people (and advertisers) will naturally tend to gravitate to them!

The New SEO Horizon

The first thing that should be understood is that the debate about the existence of the Google Sandbox has been laid to rest once and for all. It exists and has become even more expansive as well as having gotten more rigid!

As of January 2005, Google had over 100,000 servers with which to store data in its cache index. The cache index is where Google stores a copy of every page that the googlebot crawls on the internet.

Those web pages that eventually make it into the Google Primary Index (the index that displays the resulting listings in response to a query) are the pages that have been evaluated as most relevant and qualified for that particular query.

Web pages or websites that Google evaluates to be comprised of largely duplicate material that is already in its index are relegated to the supplemental index (the backburner). The supplemental index contains web pages and/or websites that Google considers, for all intents and purposes, to be irrelevant.

In other words you do not want your website to end up in the supplemental index because nobody will ever get to see it!

In 2006 Google suffered a very major server-overload crisis. Since then they have acquired several more servers, but this new algorithm tweak/update tends to suggest that they are leaning much more towards the principle of efficiency-and-quality versus volume-and-quantity.

In essence it appears that Google is adopting an approach geared towards maximizing efficiency of storage and organization of data. This by its very nature means restricting the amount of content that gets crawled, cached and eventually indexed (i.e., saves server space) as opposed to trying to accommodate every single piece of data that is drifting across the internet.

This certainly may go some distance explaining the zeal and passion with which they executed operation "gray band" that affected thousands of websites and web pages.

Recovering From Being G-Slapped

If your website/web pages have recently been demoted (loss of page rank) or now shamefully display a grayed-out PR bar where once a shimmering green existed, then your website has indeed been Google slapped!

So where do you go from there?

There's a saying that states "understanding the nature of the beast is the first step in divining its true intent" (which is just a fancy way of saying: if you know what makes something tick then you'll be better able to predict its future actions."

Keeping that in mind, it is possible to deduce the following aspects from the May 2007 Google update:

1. A gray PR band will be the norm for all new websites and web pages; in other words think "probation period." The length of time the PR bar remains grayed-out for any particular website/web page is dependent upon a number of factors which include:

a) How unique the content on a web page is. Pages that boast highly original and unique content will tend to be released from the gray zone quicker.

b) A web page that has a lot of unique traffic will have a shorter probation period (note that the origin of that traffic is something the search engines factor in to rule out sneaky play by individuals attempting to game the search engines).

c) Links! Links! Links! Yes, when it comes to SEO it is impossible to ignore the link factor. A page that "naturally" acquires a good number of topically related links will experience a shorter probation period.

d) Greater link activity will increase the importance of the destination page whereby such a web page will tend to attain higher PR quicker. This makes sense because a hyperactive links denotes popularity (websites that are popular are so because people find them useful).

e) The amount of time people spend on your site is also an important parameter that the search engines take into account. People tend to spend more time on websites that they find useful and the search engines can determine that fact through the use of sophisticated tracking scripts.

Bottom line: It is becoming increasingly difficult to game the search engines (the use of blackhat techniques) as their algorithms get smarter and more sophisticated.

The May 2007 Google update amply illustrates that Google is aggressively gunning for its vision of Web Paradise which by necessity means smacking down hard on websites that offer little useful function to that vision!

Simply put, if you wish your website to advance up the SERPs you need to make it user oriented. Visitor use and appreciation of a website appears to be the single strongest factor in determining that website's eventual position on the SERPs in Google's brave new Web Paradise!

More Home Based Business Tips

Little-Known Secret To Getting The Best Tracking Software For Free!

2007-06-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

For the longest time one of my biggest frustrations as an online marketer is the fact that I couldn't afford the top-of-the-line tracking software that I'm sure most of the heavy-hitter marketing gurus use as a matter of course. I understood the benefits derived from using such software but what can I say, the mind was willing but the pocket was unable! Well until Google came to the rescue...

Google Analytics...Tracking Software For The Masses!

Most individuals who are serious about their profession employ some aid or other to enhance their capabilities of executing their job better and easier. For example:

Professional snipers (and well equipped soldiers for that matter) use night goggles or night scopes to sight their targets.

When driving at night people flick on their headlights (unless of course you're Paris Hilton) so that they can see where they are going.

Veteran online marketers use sophisticated tracking software and scripts to analyze and evaluate the results of their marketing campaigns and promotions.

The average everyday internet marketer effects their marketing strategy on hearsay, hope, trial and error! You don't have to be a genius to figure out what's wrong with that picture.
However, in defense of the average struggling marketer, until fairly recently, having access to top-of-the-line tracking software meant shelling out a hefty monthly or yearly fee. In other words it was only well established marketers with bottomless deep pockets who could afford to use such software.

But that has all changed! Now anybody and everybody who so wishes has access to such software; for free no less!

The THINGS THAT TRACKING SOFTWARE CAN DO FOR YOUR MARKETING CAMPAIGN

VISITOR ORIGIN

Wouldn't it be great if you could tell how your visitors got to your website; in other words whether they got there via a search engine, another website referral or from a forum. How about if you knew their country of origin or even the city from which they hailed? You could then concentrate your promotional efforts in those areas that readily maximize your profit.

In the same vein, once you know which search engines are sending you traffic and which ones aren't, then you can better focus your SEO efforts on the ones that are generating revenue rather than waste time blindly attempting to optimize for all at the same time.

KEYWORD OPTIMIZATION

Ever heard of the term "Long-tail Keyword"?

Long-tail keywords are the various word combinations that people use naturally and unconsciously everyday to query search engines. These are word combinations that are rarely listed by keyword research software, and if such word combinations are ever listed they tend to be way down at the bottom of the list and jumbled up into unnatural incomprehensible arrangements that only a machine would ever consider.

Those long-tail keywords tend to have fantastic conversion rates however, but you'd never know it unless you had excellent tracking software to apprise you of the fact.

These days the search engine algorithms are really smart critters! They have matured to the point that they can identify and combine separate far-apart-spaced words on any webpage to comprise long-tail keywords that people actually type in as search engine queries. The search engine algorithms then qualify that webpage as optimized for that combination of words (long-tail keyword).

The real bonus here is that most times you'd never even think up such keywords let alone optimize for them, even when using keyword research software!

VISITOR DURATION ON YOUR SITE

The best tracking software avails you of stats illustrating how long people spend on your website (individual time frame stats for each page no less) so that you can easily know whether changes you've made to your site have improved conversion performance or conversely decreased it. In this manner you can readily determine which version of your sales copy or web page content has a higher conversion ratio.

To summarize, without statistics compiled from sophisticated tracking software, much of your promotional efforts would hinge upon trial and error which basically is tantamount to aiming blind.

How I Have Used Google Analytics To Improve My Marketing Strategy

Internet Marketers who started crafting their trade way back and have since been perfecting it, up until now, had a distinct advantage over the rest of us who were late to the party.

What do I mean by that?

I mean that they had access to funds that the rest of us could only dream of or hope to one day duplicate which fact meant that these guys could afford the best! "The Best" as you've probably discovered somewhere along the line, rarely if ever comes cheap!
But that has all changed!

The Best Things In Life Are Free

Many a crooner has...well...crooned that the best things in life are free and most times that is nothing more than wishful thinking! But for once that statement happens to be true!

For the longest time now tracking software and scripts with which to determine the effectiveness of your marketing promotions has been largely confined to deep-pocket internet marketers, because only they could afford the hefty price and benefits characteristic of such software.

But that was then and this is now. Now even a penniless newbie marketer can access such software and...drumroll please...it is free!

How come? Two words is how come...

Google Analytics

In the most modest of explanations (I'm not going to bother going into an indepth description here), Google analytics does what web stats do but a hell-u-va lot more!

Everything is amply and best explained on Google's own web page so I'm just going to give you a brief talk-about here illustrating how Google analytics has helped me thus far, so you can get a better understanding of how it can possibly help you. Google recently unveiled its new version of analytics which it is still classifying as the beta version. That said this is a brilliant invaluable too for any marketer, especially newbies.

How Google Analytics Can Help Your Marketing Promotions:

Traffic Sources

SEARCH ENGINES: Using google analytics (yeah I can't be bothered to capitalize the "G" in google anymore)I can easily tell where my traffic is from. With respect to search engine traffic for example I know that I am getting most of my traffic from Google and a lot less from Yahoo, as well as very-little-to-non-existent from MSN. This tells me a couple of important things which are: I basically shouldn't waste too much time concentrating on getting traffic from any other search engine other than google for the time being.

ARTICLE DIRECTORIES: A quick glance at my google analytic stats shows me that I am getting significantly more traffic from my articles than from MSN and Yahoo combined! I can also tell which article directories are responsible for sending me all that traffic.

OTHER SOURCES: I can also tell which websites are sending me traffic.

Fairly recently I started posting to forums and I'm getting a fair bit of traffic from several of them. Every now and then a good bit of traffic comes inexplicably from a very unusual source. What I'll do then is check out the website and find out how come I am getting that amount of traffic from that particular source.

In this manner it is possible to stumble upon a little-known secret new technique for attracting highly qualified traffic; a method which you might have never otherwise thought up!

Country of Origin

This parameter has been surprisingly useful for me; you can find it under the heading of Map Overlay (Geolocation visualization). So how precisely has it been of use to me? Geolocation visualization can tell you right down to the city where your traffic is coming from. I was particularly interested in the country of origin and not so much with the city. In conjuction with another important google analytic parameter(s) which will be discussed a bit further down (the parameters are "average time spent on site" and "bounce rate".

I found those two parameters of particular interest with respect to country of origin because I noticed the folks who spent the most time on my site originated from N. America, most specifically the United States.

The content of my home page practically screams how most newbie marketers are being duped by promises of overnight riches and very long tales of how they'll be making thousands of dollars in next to no time. As mentioned previously I know that the people who spend the most time on my website (average time is 8.67 minutes) come from the U.S. Now the other visitors who hail from all parts of the world such as: Asia, Europe, Africa, Australia etc tend to spend far less time.

Here's how I interpret such data: The folks from North America are more aware of scams and have probably been scammed or burned by useless internet marketing products. What that means is that in essence they have already experienced the frenzied period of o-mi-gosh-I-gonna-be-rolling-in-cash-soon!

Now the people hailing from other parts of the world who breeze straight-on-thru they are the best candidates to fall prey to internet scams or are the most likely to buy a marketing eBook that promises them that they'll be pulling in $5,000 in a weeks time (these are the suckers who make online marketing very profitable for the few who know how to game the game of internet marketing).

So how can I profit from this knowledge? Well as my website trudges further up the search engines I'm going to change the content of my home page (and nooooo I'm not going to promise prospects landing on my home page that they are going to be overnight millionaires) such that I retain more of those gonna-be-rich-soon misled folks; after all I'd be doing them a favor by saving them from spending their hard earned cash on worthless promises.

Bounce Rate & Average Time Spent On Site

In the paragraphs above I have illustrated the usefulness of these two parameters; but their usefulness extends much deeper. Google analytics tells you the average time spent on each webpage as well as the bounce rate (bounce rate refers to the number of visitors who land on your home page and exit right away). Obviously once you know such information it makes it that much easier to optimize your content to keep your visitors on your site.

Google also kindly furnishes increase/decrease percentages for all its parameters so you can easily tell whether the tweaks you have made improve your visitor retention rate or not.

By the way the longer people spend on your site the "stickier" it is said to be. In fact site stickiness is going to be one of the most important seo parameters in determining how far up the search engines a website will get! In other words stickiness is good (which is why I'm going to make the navigation of my site better and more accessible).

READ ABOUT NEW SEO PARAMETERS HERE

Keywords

I've actually been a bit more wordy than I intended but I think it would be downright irresponsible of me not to mention anything at all on how Google analytics can really help you concentrate on the right keywords.

Okay, so there is plenty of free software sprinkled liberally across the internet that helps you to research your market before making a financial investment; the point being that it is far better to determine the viability of an idea by determining whether there's really a large enough interested audience to warrant it as being a profitable market. (I mentioned various sites that supply these free tools in my free ebook Best Kept Marketing Secret).Click the title if you don't have it yet.

Problem with such keyword research software is that it may tell you how many times that keyword is looked up per month but it gives you no idea of the conversion rate of that keyword. When I say conversion rate I mean how many people that get to your site via that particular keyword actually perform your most desired goal or stick around to check out your site.

Okay here's an example that I determined from my Google analytics stats. The number of times that the two keyword terms "internet marketing online" and "internet marketing strategy" are queried each month fluctuates; sometimes the one is more popular than the other.

But as far as my website is concerned what I discovered was that "internet marketing online" is a far more effective term. In what way do I mean more effective? Well people who get to my site through that keyword on average visit 8 pages (compared to 2 for the keyword "internet marketing strategy") and also spend a whopping nine minutes more!

From such data I can tell that the keyword "internet marketing online" is far more profitable to me with respect to the current content of my homepage. Oh! Did I mention that the bounce rate for internet marketing online is 35% less than that of internet marketing strategy for this website?

But perhaps one of the best aspects about Google analytics with respect to keywords is that you get to be aware of longtail keywords that you'd probably never even think up let alone optimize for. For example I never specifically targeted the keyword "free internet eBooks" (the new search engine algorithms are smart enough to pick out keyphrases from text nowadays) but people who come to my site via that word spend a whopping 23.38 minutes on my site and the bounce rate is zero!

Now before you rush off to optimize your website around that longtail keyword you should understand not many people search for it per month and the only reason why I'm even getting traffic from it is because for most of the Google datacenters Internet Business Mart is on page 1!
Okay 'nuff said. If you cannot see how Google analytics can help your marketing strategy well I'll be decorus enough to keep my comments to myself. But if you can...then what are you waiting for? Go to google right now and introduce yourself and get acquainted!

Oh one last thing you need to sign up for a google account which will then incorporate your-everything-google such as Adwords, Adsense, Blogger (if you use it) and Gmail to mention but a few!

GET GOOGLE ANALYTICS HERE

Home Based Business Tips

Adsense Arbitrage's Final Farewell!

2007-06-08T19:04:00.000-07:00

IT'S JUST AIN'T RIGHT GOO! IT AIN'T FAIR GOO!

Those were the parting words of hysterical screaming and outta-control Adsense arbitragers as sheriff Google led them away shackled and chained to serve a lifetime banishment sentence!

Death of Adsense Arbitrage

Ever since Google finally booted Adsense Arbitragers from their Adsense publisher accounts revenue from this pay-per-click advertising model has shot up for the average webmaster who hosts adsense ads on their site...so long as their site boasts real content!

Of course as soon as the writing was on the wall that Google was going to close down all Adsense publisher accounts associated with adsense arbitrage by June 1, 2007 there has been a sudden flood of How-To-Make-Money offers from adsense arbitrage! I mean cummon now...

...isn't it a wee bit too coincidental that every time Google clamps down on Adsense/Adwords arbitrage a flurry of fantastic and irresistible (for newbie marketers that is) arbitrage offers suddenly flood the internet? However let me deal with that further down the line, for now let me explain what Adsense arbitrage is just in case you don't know.

Google runs the largest and most popular pay-per-click advertising model on the internet. You may have heard of it, it known as Google Adwords. The attraction of Google Adwords and other pay-per-click models is that you can draw almost instantaneous traffic to your website or blog.

This is extremely convenient especially if your website is new because (assuming you are just starting out at internet marketing you'll soon know that) getting relevant traffic to your internet real estate is perhaps the biggest challenge for most newbie marketers.

Such pay-per-click advertising models like Google Adwords require the advertiser to bid a certain amount on a particular keyword in order to get their ad strategically located on the SERPs (search engine results pages).

For a better/higher placement of your ad on the SERPs you need to bid more for whatever keyword you're targeting. Every time someone clicks on an advertiser's ad, they are immediately transferred to the desired destination url that the advertiser designated when setting up that ad.

Also every time someone clicks on an ad, the advertiser is billed the amount they bid or sometimes less; hence the name pay-per-click advertising. The drawback to pay-per-click advertising is that if you are not careful you can rack up some pretty substantial fees with little profit to show for it.

The flip side of Google Adwords is Google Adsense. In actual fact Google Adsense ads are really Google Adwords, save for the fact they are located on individual websites and blogs as opposed to the search engine results index page (same thing as SERPs).

Google Adsense is an extra-monetization system for webmasters who display such ads (Adsense ads are what are known as Adwords For Content) on their sites. Webmasters (Publishers) get paid the amount the advertiser bid to have that ad displayed minus Google's cut of course, which is 50%!

PLAYING THE ARBITRAGE GAME

As you can see there's a strong correlation between Google Adwords and Google Adsense which so happens to be the basis of the whole Adsense arbitrage technique. Wily marketers realized that if they could bid on cheap Adwords and send a lot of traffic from there to MFAs (Made-For-Adsense sites), which traditionally had little else on them except high paying Adsense ads, then those marketers could make a killing! And many of them did!

GOOGLE YELLS: ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!

But soon enough, because of abuse of the Adwords/Adsense system, many advertisers jumped ship and took their business elsewhere. Of course Google was not happy with this turn of events because this resulted in a substantial loss of revenue for them, thus by incremental degrees they clamped down on those sites that were abusing the system. But it seemed that every check they put in place was countered by the wily Adsense profiteers.

For example a while back Google implemented the Adwords quality-landing-page algorithm, which basically was aimed at Google Adsense templates and MFAs, as well as nullifying the system of buying wholesale cheap (irrelevant) traffic with the sole purpose of getting said traffic to click on the Adsense ads that-more-or-less constituted the destination website in its entirety!

The way in which the Google Adwords quality-landing-page algorithm worked was as follows: if Google determined that a website offered little useful content (in other words was nothing more than an MFA); or if the content on the destination website widely varied from the description of the targeted keyword of the Adword ad from whence the traffic originated, then Google made sure that the webmasters of such offending websites had to bid much more for their Adwords keywords than the amount they made as Adsense revenue when someone clicked on the ads on their sites.

The Adsense profiteers countered this move by abandoning Google Adwords altogether in favor of other pay-per-click models such as Yahoo Publisher Network, Kanoodle and Miva (to mention but a few) where they could still bid cheaply for keywords with which to direct traffic to their MFAs and Adsense Template sites!

Inevitably, Google has finally reached the point of zero tolerance! Where beforehand they'd been treating Adsense profiteers with something akin to kids gloves, now they've adopted the big stick approach and ripped off those glove! As of June 1, 2007 Google has indefinitely suspended (interpret as forever) all Adsense Publisher accounts that it deemed guilty of the crime of conduct unbecoming; in other words those accounts that largely catered to MFAs and Adsense Template sites!

ARBITRAGER'S DESPERATE LAST GAMBLE

The Adsense arbitragers know that the game is up, but that does not mean they are going out meekly or quietly! Remember how I remarked at the beginning that isn't it strange how any time Google shuts down or modifies a system-under-abuse, those responsible for that abuse suddenly litter the internet with a proliferation of outrageous money-generating offers based on that shut down system. Case-in-point is the get-google-adwords-free call to arms! Me thinks the sole reason for this call-to-arms is that the webmaster concerned has been shut out of his/her lucrative money-generating source and is looking for a final payday from the unwary.

My advice to you if you are tempted to fall for this evident scam is: Think carefully! Do you really think that Google got where they are (Number 1 in the search engine business) by allowing marketers to profiteer from a supposed loophole to the tune of 87 million dollars?

You can also bet that a lot of Adsense arbitrage marketers are going to migrate to other pay-per-click systems, such as Yahoo Publisher Network and other lesser pay-per-click alternatives! But it is my belief that they will find little fortune there too, because common sense tends to dictate that those businesses won't encourage such activity either. I mean let's get real, if marketers on those other networks feel that their dollars are being wasted as they were on the Adsense network, they'll jump ship once again!

Google has made a bold and long overdue overhaul to its pay-per-click system, and with any luck advertisers will start migrating back to Adsense which should benefit those Adsense publishers with genuine content sites as well as Google.

Internet Home Business

Fresh Twist In SEO

2007-05-10T23:33:00.000-07:00

New SEO Strategy Needed?

It has never been easy lugging your site all the way to the top of Google and unfortunately it just got a lot harder! Google has raised the bar! All across the internet thousands of sites have been demoted page-rank wise with the latest Google algorithm tweak. I have noticed websites that until quite recently boasted a page rank 6 demoted to page rank 4 and countless others have suffered a similar fate. Most of the demoted websites are long established sites and more than a few of them boast thousands of pages. In fact a lot of the Google-slapped websites are article directories traditional safe havens as far as seo was concerned.

Another new feature that this new Google algorithm tweak has ushered in is a changed page rank status bar. It used to be that banned web pages had a grayed-out page rank bar and Google-centric web pages were characterized with green bands of if there was non-existent ranking for that particular page (i.e., page rank 0) the page rank bar/band was plain/white.

Well that has all changed. The new algorithm tweak not only stripped thousands of previously page-ranked web pages of their page rank, the page rank bar is now grayed out for those pages. The first time I noticed this on some of my previously ranked pages I almost freaked. But as I surfed the net I noticed that web pages from other sites that used to be ranked had also been stripped of their PR and grayed out. This gave me a certain amount of comfort and relief because I knew that this was way bigger than me or rather my site.

The grayed out PR band also applies to new/fresh web pages. If you ever doubted the existence of the Google Sandbox what can I say but...Doubt No More! With the aplomb, finesse and broad stroke reminiscent of a street-savvy dictator Google has laid down the law!

Sorry did I say laid down...what I meant was that Google has Smacked Down the law!

So what can you do to stay on this notoriously whimsical search engines good graces?

Well the thing not to do is to try and beat them at their own game because you are going to lose.

Forget using fancy software that apparently promises to rocket charge you up the SERPs (search engine results pages) because such software traditionally leaves footprints which are readily traceable by the search engines; and more likely than not will get your website penalized or banned.

To cut a long story short you have to approximate your website as much as possible to fit into Google Web Paradise! That means that you should try and offer useful new content that is user friendly and oriented and not search engine targeted. In the long run that is the approach that will benefit your website the most!

More Internet Marketing Strategy Tips

Halo-Effective Internet Marketing

2007-01-18T23:20:00.000-08:00

Halo-Effective Internet Marketing

Did you know that good-looking people are better off in contemporary society in the sense that they are much more likely to succeed than their less attractive counterparts. Which explains why better looking actors are more likely to become superstars whether or not their acting abilities warrant such status. This phenomenon is called the Halo Effect and actually has far reaching significance throughout every day life. So what has the halo effect got to do with internet marketing?

Well I like to call its influence halo-effective internet marketing because when you adhere to the basics of the halo effect in internet marketing it will actually boost your sales and profit margin. So what is halo-effective internet marketing ? Well basically this type of internet marketing is sound marketing that appeals to factors that will boost your sales.

Now if you consider that the halo effect describes our natural tendency to be much more trusting, tolerant and compliant towards good-looking individuals in contrast to the not-so-attractive...or in other words, to be positively biased towards good-looking people.

The ramifications of the halo effect are truly far reaching.
For example it is now known that people automatically ascribe positive traits such as honesty, kindness, intelligence and talent to better-looking individuals irrespective of whether such traits actually exist!

Once you understand this principle of the halo-effective marketing it should make perfect sense to you why visitors to your site are far more likely to make a purchase if your website is well designed and visually appealing.

Of what significance is halo-effective marketing to any online business for that matter?

Well the first thing you have to appreciate is that people are only going to buy from a website they feel comfortable with. The reason is simple. That feeling of comfort they experience subconsciously translates into trust.

Naturally, if you happen to be the owner of a well-established brand-name site such as Amazon.com, this issue of trust is a non-issue.

However if you are one of the faceless millions of netpreneurs scattered across the globe you are precisely that…Faceless! You are working from a position of weakness in that you don’t have brand-name recognition behind you and that you're an unknown entity.

Being unknown means that the onus is on you to cultivate trust, but first you have to overcome the particular challenges that conducting business online poses.

What are these particular challenges I speak of? Well the fact that the internet is a virtual reality as opposed to a true reality means that all the rules of real life do not and cannot apply online. Point in case, it is impossible to employ all our senses online in the same manner that we do offline.

This is important because we humans are guided and driven by our senses. And the only tool of measure we have at our disposal for online shopping is a visual assessment. And that is precisely what most of us use to assess a product's quality prior to purchasing it...vision!

Bearing this in mind, it makes sense to have the best visual presentation for your visitors. Because traffic to your site is much more likely to stick around and comply with your directives so long as they believe and trust you. And the only way you are going to convince a perfect stranger to trust you online is through the appearance of your site.

Halo-Effective Marketing Tips

Internet Marketing Strategy--Information Overload

2006-12-06T04:15:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing Strategy--Overdosing In Details

You've probably heard of information overload and may in fact have been a victim yourself. The problem of being inundated with details is that very often you lose sight of the big picture...after all there is only so much information that your brain can handle at any one time.

Think about your approach to tackling a novel. There's a good chance that given a choice you will probably shy away from that oversized 1000 page tome...right?

So what am I leading upto and what has this got to do with your internet marketing endeavors?

okay here's the point I'm trying to make. When you intend to buy an internet marketing course don't always go for the one that has the most pages and is the most voluminous. How come? How about the fact that a lot of the information within that oversized course is irrelevant and is more likely to confuse you especially if you are pressed for time.

In fact that is a well established gambit that several internet marketers use to attract potential buyers away from their competitors...by offering oversized internet marketing tomes largely filled with fluff!

And it works! Most people seem to equate size with quality.

By and large I am of the school of thought that the best size for an internet marketing eBook or eCourse should be no more than 80 pages (assuming the lines aren't double spaced). This may necessitate more effort and rewriting on the authors part but the plus side is that you'll end up with a better quality books.

On a final note ask yourself this...when was the last time you finished a 500 page novel or tome; unless of course you are of the scholarly disposition.

Home Based Business Insights

Internet Marketing Strategy--How to Find a Profitable Market

2006-12-05T03:27:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing Strategies

Before you even consider getting your web presence you have to do
some research. You need a viable internet marketing strategy if you are going to succeed. S9o first things first, make sure that you can make money from the marketing idea you have in mind.

How do you do that?

You find out whether people are searching for the word/phrase/term
(keyword) that is best associated with the market you have in mind.
The following tools will show you how to search for potentially
profitable markets:

1. Good Keywords: This tool is downloadable to your desktop.

2. Digital Point Keyword Tool: This tool shows results from both the
Wordtracker and Overture (Yahoo Search Marketing) tool.

3. Keyword Discovery: You get access to plenty of marketing related
software including their keyword research tool. When you get to their
website type in the word “trial” in the search box then scroll through
the list of available trial software and choose whichever you want.

4. Overture (Yahoo Search Marketing) Keywords and Overture/Yahoo Bid
This tool also shows you maximum bid amounts for any keyword
(useful when you are doing pay-per-click advertising).

Start Your Online Home Based Business Today

Internet Marketing Strategy--Affiliate Program Essentials You Should Know

2006-12-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing Strategy

Your concern here is whether you'll be paid on time and if at all. Obviously if the company in question is an eBay or Amazon, you don't have to worry.

However if the merchant in question is unknown, that's when you may have some concerns about fly-by-night scenarios or dishonesty.
Solution:

Join well established affiliate networks such as Commission Junction or ClickBank that host thousands of merchant affiliate programs and oversee the commission payout to affiliates.

ClickBank deals with digital products such as downloadable eBooks and software.

Commission Junction on the other hand deals more with tangible material products that require shipping by the merchant. It also deals with digital items too.

Another great affiliate network is Clixgalore.com

What You Should Know Before Joining An Affiliate Program

Any Contact Information?

If you can't find any contact information...MOVE ON!

How Long Before They Respond To Your Request To Join?

If you don't get a response within 72 hours (3 business days) pass on that particular program. Their tardiness probably extends across board and who's to say they'll be more responsive about your payments or when you have a real problem.

Where's The Affiliate Agreement?

If the program in question doesn't have an agreement...MOVE ON.
No agreement leaves you exposed to being cheated out of your hard earned commissions.

What Does The Agreement Say?

Okay, nobody likes reading those long-winded go-on-forever agreements; however, in this case make a point of doing so!
If you don't, you could be in for a rather nasty surprise later on. Let's say for example you invest several hundred dollars promoting a particular product and your returns from that effort are a couple of thousand dollars.
Most likely, you'd want to get paid as soon as possible. But if you didn't read the agreement which stated that the company pays quarterly, your money would be tied up and you'd have nobody but yourself to blame.

Agreement Termination Terms.

Most agreements have a termination clause detailing the terms under which you or the company can end the affiliation. It is ill-advised for you to sign up for a program that binds you to a particular company for a specific period of time. Also be wary of programs that demand exclusivity; such programs generally prohibit you from promoting similar products (from a competitor merchant) on the same site, thereby effectively cutting into your bottom line.

Does The Affiliate Program Require A Fee To Join?

Affiliate programs are free to join; after all, you're in effect advertising for the merchant.
If a program requires you to pay a fee to join, it's not an affiliate program but rather a Multi-Level Marketing scheme ( MLM).

What Type Of Affiliate Program Is It?

There're basically three types of affiliate programs: pay-per-sale, pay-per-lead and pay-per-click.
Pay-Per-Sale: Such programs pay either a fixed cash amount or a fixed percentage for sales generated by your promotional efforts.

Pay-Per-Lead: Here you earn a set amount whenever a customer sent by you fills out a survey, requests a quote or obtains some information.

Pay-Per-Click: These are similar to pay-per-lead programs and you are paid each time one of your visitors clicks on a link through to the merchant's site.

Pay-Per-Lead and Pay-Per-Click: affiliate programs require large volumes of traffic to generate any substantial revenue so it's probably better for you to opt for the Pay-Per-Sale type of program. This type is performance based and gives you a much better chance of making serious money!

What Is The Commission Rate?

The commission rate and structure will determine how much money you make. Generally the best paying programs pay you a commission of 50% for every sale. But you have to dig a little deeper to make sure you really understand what you have to do before you get that 50% commission.

For example some pay-per-lead programs promise a 50% commission payout per application (let's say credit card applications), but you only get that commission after said applicant has been approved.

Do You Get Recurring Sales?

The best kind of affiliate program entitles you to recurring sales.
What this means is that as long as the customer you referred keeps ordering the product (such as a website hosting plan), you keep getting paid every month!

This is what is known as residual sales. So be on the lookout for affiliate programs offering residual commissions. It's a great way to make effortless, automated monthly cash!

Does The Program Pay Lifetime Commissions?

A program that pays lifetime commissions pays you (the affiliate) a commission for each and every product that your referred customer buys from that merchant.
This includes any applicable residual commissions. This kind of commission structure is the best there is.

Does the Program Use Cookies to Track Sales And How Long Do The Cookies Last?

So what are cookies? Simply put, a cookie is a harmless piece of computer code or script that captures harmless information (such as identifying a computer through current and subsequent visits, websites visited and date of visit).

This is of importance to you because this is how a merchant can tell that a particular customer was referred by you, thus ensuring you get your commission. The importance of cookies does not stop there. There're cookies and there are cookies! Cookies are coded to expire after a set period of time. So if a merchant supplies you (the affiliate) with cookies programmed to expire after 120 days, this means that if one of your referrals makes a purchase anytime within those 120 days, you'll get credited for that sale and get paid your commission.

Remember, it takes at least 7 exposures to a product before a person is ready to buy! So the longer lasting the cookie, the better...at least from your point of view as an affiliate.

Do You Get To See Your Sales Statistics In Real Time?

Make sure any affiliate program you sign up for offers real-time sales tracking (within seconds to one hour) or almost real-time sales tracking. This is important because you need to be able to assess the success of a particular promotion campaign.

Does The Affiliate Program Offer sales Tools?

A well-organized and professional affiliate program offers their affiliates advertising copy, banner ads and/or item-specific links. Sales tools such as these make your job easier. If a program does not offer these it's probably best for you to look at other affiliate programs.

When Do You Get Paid? How Do You Get Paid?

Make sure you know how often the affiliate program pays: weekly, bi-weekly, monthly or quarterly. Also consider what currency you're going to get paid in. The big plus here is, if you're located outside of the United States, you're still going to be paid in U.S. Dollars as most internet companies transact in U.S. Dollars.

What Kind Of Billing Mechanism Is In Place?

To avoid payment issues, it's better to join programs that are part of a bigger affiliate network (such as Commission Junction or ClickBank). Such affiliate networks make sure that each and every merchant who is part of their network has sufficient funds in its account to pay its affiliates on time. When you sign up for a program that handles payment and everything else itself, you lack this kind of security. Though having said that, you should also be aware that there’re plenty of excellent independent affiliate programs you can join without any concerns.
If you have your doubts do some research and see what other people have to say about the program.

Minimum Payout Amount?

Most programs require you to earn a set minimum amount before they'll issue you a check or deposit earnings directly into your bank account. (Note: These days most affiliate programs offer you the option to be paid via PayPal and all you need is a working email account and your current bank account.

Choose Quality Products

It’s extremely important to ensure that the products you choose to promote do what they claim to do and aren’t duds.

Why?

Because if you promote useless products not only are you going to get a lot of returns but more importantly you are going to lose customer credibility and trust. And that by the way is the quickest way to kill your fledgling business! So how do you determine that a product is of good quality?

Well the most credible way is to try it out yourself but at the beginning this really isn’t practicable since you probably don’t have that kind of money to throw around.
The other option is to see which programs are being extensively promoted and getting good reviews.

Note though, that just because a program is getting heavily promoted doesn’t necessarily mean it’s of good quality. I personally have bought a few products through ClickBank on the strength of their “best-seller” reputation only to return them because they were useless.

So why would so many affiliate marketers promote such products?

Because they are expensive and thereby have high commission payouts to the affiliates promoting them!

Does The Affiliate Program Have A Quality Landing Page?

The layout of the landing page for the product which you’re promoting will determine how much of the traffic you send ultimately become buyers.
The important things to consider are:

1. Does the landing page have compelling and motivational content (text)?
2. Does the landing page look attractive and professional?
3. Does the sales copy move you…if it makes you want to buy the product then there’s a good chance that the people you’re sending will have the same reaction.

Does The Affiliate Program Offer Excellent Promotional Tools?

The best affiliate programs offer superb marketing tools to help you promote their products. And so they should…after all it's in their interest to see you succeed. When you do well—they (the merchants) do well. It's a win-win situation for everybody.
Great promotional tools are intuitive and easy to set up (in other words we aren't talking about some steep learning curve here) and consist of inspiring copy (text to help sell the product) and/or attractive graphics or banners.

I think it is prudent for me to add here that the most successful affiliates do not rely on the generic promotional tools supplied by the merchant. They know that thousands of other affiliates are promoting the same product and so if they wish to standout they require unique copy (words) and imagery to inspire the jaded multitude surfing the web! Remember the next time you start questioning why you are struggling to churn out your own original inspiring copy.

Useful Home Based Business Tips

Simplest Internet Marketing System

2006-12-02T01:06:00.000-08:00

Affiliate Internet Marketing Strategy

So what really is the easiest internet marketing method possible? Well for me that's a no-brainer...it has to be affiliate internet marketing! Dunno what that is? Okay...let me explain:

WHAT IS AFFILIATE MARKETING?

Affiliate Marketing is the Promotion of Someone Else’s Product.

Affiliate marketing is a partnership between an affiliate and a merchant (the merchant being the owner of the product). Affiliate marketing may also be referred to as affiliate programs, referral programs and associate programs.

Here’s how affiliate marketing works…You (the affiliate) promote or advertise a product on your site that belongs to somebody else (the merchant).

Basically, the merchant supplies you with a variety of text links, banners or graphics embedded with your own affiliate code. You then strategically insert any number of those coded links or graphics onto your website with the purpose of referring your visitors to the merchant’s site.
When one of your site’s visitors clicks on any one of those code-imbedded links they are transferred to the merchant’s site.

If that visitor then purchases something from that merchant…ka-ching you get paid!
So in essence you are being paid to advertise.

The amount you’re paid is what is known as a commission and varies from merchant to merchant, and in the best case scenarios may be as high as 75% of the price of the item being sold.

(Some affiliate programs such as Amazon.com require huge sale volumes for you to make any tangible income. This is so because they offer low commission percentages (approx 5%) because they do not have sole proprietorship rights to the products they sell: bottom line don't think you are going to get rich any time soon affiliating only with Amazon.com…I learnt this lesson the hard way).
So how does the merchant know that you were responsible for the referral and ultimately the sale?

That's where your affiliate code comes in. Every affiliate is given a unique and distinct code which gets imbedded into whatever promotional tool they are using, be it text links, banners or graphics.

When a visitor who originated from your site buys something from a given merchant, that merchant can tell that you were responsible for the referral.

Great isn't it—Getting paid to promote somebody else's merchandise!

You never have to deal with:

• Shipping and handling;

• Processing credit cards;

• Customer support; or

• Stocking inventory

This really is the very best type of business to be involved with.

However you should be aware that not all affiliate programs are created equal so to help ensure that you only join the best programs I have written a guide-list of important factors you should consider before signing up.

Home Based Business Solutions

Internet Marketing From A Developing Country

2006-12-01T03:36:00.000-08:00

Third World Internet Marketing Strategy

If you're based in a developing or third world country, right from the get-go you are going to be faced with hurdles and obstacles that your internet marketing counterparts hailing from developed nations do not have to contend with.

What hurdles am I talking about?

How about the simple aspect of getting online. In most developed countries generally you pay a flat monthly fee to your internet service provider. But quite frequently that is not the case with developing countries; more often than not you are going to be saddled with having to shell out by the hour.

So it's quite easy to rack up some pretty substantial expenses even before you've started your internet marketing adventure you already have to budget for substantial connection fees.

However if you persevere or find some way round this obstacle and you start to achieve internet marketing success here is the upside of marketing from a developing nation. Once you have built up enough steam and your internet marketing business is humming along nicely you can begin delegating certain chores to hired hands or employees.

In a developed nation like America to do this you'd have to be making a significant income from your internet marketing business but if you are based in a third world country or so-called developing nation your expenses are going to be that much less, thus you can start outsourcing tasks that much sooner.

An added bonus to all this is that you are actually contributing to bettering the employment rate in your country!

More Internet Marketing Tips

Internet Marketing Strategy--Future Hike In Domain Names?

2006-11-30T00:13:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing Woes

Is there a pending fee hike in domain name registration? I recently read an article that VeriSign the company that is responsible for solely handling the back-end system for .com names, which by the way constitute the greater percentage of the 105 or so million websites registered worldwide, is arguing agressively for a hike in the fee that domain registrars should pay them in the future.

At the moment registrar services are charged $6 per year for each name and added to that registrars have to pay ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) are non-profit organization 25 cents per name.

So the question is if this price hike is approved will the consumer ultimately have to pick up the tab?

So in essence there really isn't much money to be made from basic registration services. Most register companies then have to find their profits from backend sales and other wily tactics.

Go Daddy for example has struck a deal with Google whereby it can sprinkle Ads on registered .com names that are not yet developed or published. Well I suppose with such tiny profit margins from basic registration services one has to do what they can to get the ka-ching!

More Internet Marketing Tidbits

Internet Marketing Strategy

2006-10-13T23:16:00.000-07:00

Internet Marketing Linking Tips

Back in the day I used to advice (based on what I used to do myself)that when executing a linking campaign based from a dynamic website directory you should only link to high page rank sites.

Well I'm only human...which means I am bound to err; so it isn't too surprising that since that time I have chnaged my tune. These days I preach almost the exact opposite. Here's why:

If you are linking to dynamic script based web directories (we aren't talking linking farms here...such a directory must provide websites with unique urls and different IP addressses otherwise your linking campaign proffers no SEO (search engine) advantage)then it is actually better to link to both high PR (Page Rank) sites and low PR sites.

Why?

Because when you link to high PR sites from such a link directory chances are extremely high that the link to your site is going to be embedded several pages deep. This means--in most cases--it is going to be extremely difficult for search engine crawlers to find your link. IN OTHER WORDS THAT LINK IS USELESS!

Now if you link to newly hatched sites you aren't going to have this problem because most of then won't have a ton of links. So in this case you'll probably find your links embedded on the first few pages as opposed to being deeply embedded on say page 100!

More Internet Marketing Strategies