Make Money Online

Can Article Marketing Improve Search Engine Ranking

Jimd53 — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 12:46:22 +0000

Successful Internet Marketers know that in order to Improve Search Engine Ranking you’ve got to get a lot of targeted anchored backlinks to your site. Everyone will agree that this is probably the most difficult task you will do for website promotion.

Article Marketing is obviously a great way to accomplish getting links to your site without having to email thousands of webmasters or site owners asking for links. It’s also a great way to get recognized in your niche as a person with expertise.

One of the main concepts to recognize with article marketing is the intended purpose of the article directories where you are submitting your piece. Article Directories exist as a resource for webmasters and bloggers to find relevant content which they can use on their own sites.

Article Directories like Ezinearticles.com exist so you can Submit Your Original Article to a directory which has great authority and is trusted by the search engines.

The benefit is that you, as the author of the article, with get an opportunity for the widest distribution, or syndication if you like, of your article. Your article will have an attribution in the resource box linking back to you which acknowledges your contribution and expertise.

This hyperlink will hopefully drive traffic to your linked page and will also count as an incoming link which should help your search engine ranking.

Of course the quality of your article plays a big role. If your content is compelling, original, and has a unique perspective to offer, you’ll find that many people will use it and leave the links intact.

You may say this just fills up the web with duplicate content which the search engines penalize. This may be true to a degree but if you look at the way news is syndicated you’ll see that search engines participate in the same behaviour. I think the benefits far outweigh the risks.

How well this model works depends on the people reusing your articles and the policy enforcement of the article directories themselves. If website owners copy your article for use on their site and change the links or delete them they are not playing fair and you can do something about it. It can however take up your time which you may view as a waste.

When you do publish an article, you should choose a directory which has a good reputation. It will be up to you to check the Publishers Terms of Service for Reprints. Most people will abide by these terms.

So how do you put your article marketing on hyper-glide without spending every waking hour writing articles and submitting them to various article directories?

There are many Article Directories that receive articles from syndicated article services. Bloggers, website owners, and web publishers sign-up to receive articles and use them as content. So if you’ve written a great article, chances are it will receive wide distribution over a wide and varies range of domains.

There is a debate on whether or not this is spam so you should proceed with caution. Using these services can be a legitimate way to distribute your articles to as wide an audience as possible if you choose the best article marketing service and write unique content that offers readers and publishers alike real value.

Article Directories

Here’s a list of Article Directories you may want to check out.

I hope you use this information wisely and if you know of any other directories, let me know in the comments and I’ll update this post.

Stay Tuned
Jim

SEO Software | Scribe SEO | WordPress Plugins for SEO

Jimd53 — Wed, 03 Mar 2010 15:07:43 +0000

Search Engine Optimization is about making choices and taking actions that increase a sites visibility to search engines. I use several different types of SEO Software and WordPress Plugins to help me in my quest to dominate my chosen niches.

I just love using WordPress, it truly rocks as content management system and it’s open source to boot. It’s great that there are so many themes that you can choose to use and if you have sites in a lot of different niches, you can explore the many options available.

I also use Thesis Theme for WordPress which offers a great dashboard tailored to make On-Page SEO a breeze. I do however realize that it’s not all I have to do to optimize my sites.

On-Page Optimization only goes so far and there are many other factors you should be considering to increase search engine ranking. Your SEO tasks don’t end on your site and is only a part of the SEO puzzle.

A little while ago I got an email from one of the founders of Thesis Theme alerting me to a new WordPress Plugin – Scribe SEO. Because I think Thesis is the Best WordPress Theme I naturally wanted to check out Scribe SEO.

As it turns out, Scribe SEO is not a free plugin even though it’s free to evaluate. As I have mentioned many times before, I like to own SEO Software and not pay monthly fees for SEO Services, so for me, paying monthly for a wordpress plugin is out-of-the-question.

It also got me thinking about why anyone would want to pay a monthly fee on a plugin for wordpress, especially when there are free plugins available to help do the job of on-page SEO not to mention many different SEO Tools that are currently on the market. And in regard to Thesis, it made zero sense to me as the backend is sitting there ready to use.

Just so there is no doubt, I didn’t even sign-up to do the trial because I am never going to pay for this type of overpriced SEO Tool. Even though I didn’t try it out, I do have a few points to make on the pricing.

Scribe SEO – Is It Worth The Cash?

So lets do a little comparison between Scribe SEO and Website Auditor. Just to be totally transparent here, I am an affiliate of Website Auditor and I use it as well. The reason I am comparing it is – each of these tools are supposed to be used for On-Page Optimization. If you want to know more about Website Auditor you can use it free for as long as you want.

The Cost to own Website Auditor and Scribe SEO is shown in the graphics below:

Website Auditor

The only additional costs with Website Auditor is the Live Plan which updates your software to adjust for changing search engine algorithms. When you buy the software, you get a 6 month subscription free. Here’s the cost to extend the Live Plan Subscription:

Scribe SEO

I am not going to get into the different features or in the case of Scribe SEO Lack of Features here because the price alone is a show stopper for me but I will say this: Evaluations – They must be joking!

With Website Auditor there is an upfront cost depending on the version. There is also a fee for the Live Plan which can be less than the cost of 2 coffees a month, again, depending on the subscription length. You can use the tool as many times as you want on as many pages you desire. And believe me, It’s Real SEO Software and not a wordpress plugin.

With Scribe SEO you’ll be paying a monthly fee which, as you can see, could be quite costly if you have many blogs and the features are limited when compared to a real SEO Tool.

If you are interested in getting another opinion on what Scribe SEO is all about, here is what Lis has to say about Scribe SEO and here is what Patrick Daly has to say in his Scribe SEO Review.

The bottom line of all this is Scribe SEO is overpriced in my opinion. I have no doubt in my mind that it will help remind you to pay more attention to On-Page Optimization but is a reminder really worth that kind of money?

I would hope that as more people decide to sign-up for this plug-in/SEO Service, the price will come down.

I think any price point above what it would cost for an unlimited shared hosting like Host Gator and many more, is unreasonable for this plug-in – no more than $7 per month.

The escalating price for evaluations is, in my humble opinion, the major reason not to use Scribe SEO. There was an offer for people who signed up early to get the Advanced Package for the price of the Starter Package locked in. I don’t know if it’s still the case but $27.00 per month is still too expensive.

I won’t even get into the kind of high-quality SEO Software and Services you can get for $97.00 per month or just shy of $1200.00 that it would cost for a year.

I believe there is a much more Effective SEO Software Solution available to you.

Stay Tuned
Jim

SEO | Meta Tags | Title and Description Tags

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:21:31 +0000

The subject of Search Engine Optimization is often shrouded in mystery and secrecy and if you talk to ten different SEOs, you’ll get about ten differing opinions on the importance of various techniques for optimizing a website, article, or blog.

Confusing advice only contributes to more confusion and does nothing to help you make concrete decisions about the actions necessary to start optimizing your presence on the web. Building backlinks is always great advice and should be one of your main efforts but what about on page optimization.

One of the most misunderstood and underestimated of SEO factors revolves around the importance of Meta Tags, and in particular Title and Description Meta Tags. I’m going to explain just why your Title and Description Tags are important and why you should be very careful when creating them.

Search Engine Marketing

When you preform a search in any search engine, the listings are displayed on a results page. The search term is evaluated according to a search engines algorithm which is always being second-guessed, nothing new there.

The algorithm is a moving target and determines the relevance of each page in the search engines index to any query. The search engine then returns and lists the results in a hierarchy, in other words – The Search Engine Ranks Each Listing.

Each party involved in this process has a vested interest in the results and they don’t always align, to some degree they are competing interests. Search Engines and Webmasters have each employ a different Marketing Strategy to accomplish their goals.

Searchers

Searchers are the customers. People searching online want to find whatever product, service, or information they want quickly and easily. If I am trying to find something on the internet, I don’t care about the algorithm when I’m preforming a search, I care about the results displayed and I’m going to scan those listings to determine, for myself, which pages more closely satisfy my interest.

Website Owners

If you own a webpage, in any form, you want searchers to find your listing for purposes of monetization, ego, or to impart crucial information. As a webmaster, I care about how I can rank higher in the SERPs so I can get as much targeted traffic as possible so I can Make Money.

Search Engines

Search Engines and Directories want users so they can sell those users to advertisers. The better they are at attracting happy users, the easier it will be to attract and keep happy advertisers. They care about providing the most relevant list of webpages to the user so they will keep coming back. The more users that use my search engine, the more eyeballs and clicks I can sell to advertisers, so I can make more money.

The marketing each stakeholder uses to accomplish these goals is varied and the whole process has spawned a massive SEO Industry.

So that is basically the dynamic of the game being played online.

As I mentioned earlier, Link Popularity is a major factor in a search engines algorithm. If incoming links to your website mostly determine your rank, why then is the Title and Description Tag important.

They are important because:

They are Displayed On The Search Engines Results Pages,
They are the first information consumed when your page is crawled,
They are the first information consumed when your page is viewed by a human,
They are the Anchor Link in a listing, bookmark, blog roll link, etc…

Title and Description Meta Tags

I sometimes wonder about whether or not webmasters or even SEOs actually understand the full importance of the Title and Description Meta Tags. It appears to me that it’s just something many webmasters fill in to get out of the way!

So what should be the main considerations when building a your Meta Tags? Let’s deconstruct it and look at the listings returned for a broad search of – Make Money Online – above the fold .

Every SEO will tell you your Title and Description Tags should contain your main keyword and it should but that’s for the search engine. However, if you look at the listings above you’ll see that the keyword phrase “Make Money Online” is bolded in the Title and throughout the Description. That’s because it matches the search term.

If you want to be found for several search terms, keep this in mind as you build your Title and Description because the matches will be bolded. It’s no fluke that the search engine does this, and they do the same thing in the sponsored listings you see to the right and above the organic listings.

Bolding exact search terms will draw a persons eye to the listing.

You can and should plan to be found for more keyword phrases in your Title Tag and Description Tag, the more the better. Now I’m not suggesting your Title should be miles long to get in every long tail keyword phrase.

Your Description Meta Tag is going to max out around 150 characters so you have lots more room to get in the terms you want. If you know you’ve got 150 characters, say what you want to say before you run out of characters. The Description Tag is an awesome opportunity to seduce searchers.

In the example above there are some key search terms that are missed by some webmasters which could have made a big difference. Starting with a relevant long tail search term that includes many keywords on your page is the best way to accomplish this goal.

Have a look and try to identify which listing gets in more relevant search terms. I’d tell you but that would be cheating…

Your Title and Description is the Advertising for your page in the search engines results page. Make no mistake about this. It is the MOST IMPORTANT attribute of your whole effort and shouldn’t be just an afterthought when you’ve finished your pages content.

Ask yourself – Would you pay close attention to the Title and Description if it was an ad in the sponsored section? You know you would. Just because you don’t pay for it on a pay per click basis to Yahoo or Google doesn’t mean it’s not the same, it is the exact same dynamic except you have more room to promote.

A human searcher is going to decide on every click they make and they are going to do it quickly so your ad better be good or the best it can be.

In any ad campaign you set up in Google Adwords or Yahoo Search Marketing, you will be trying to get clicks and you will tweak your ad to get more all the time. It’s called Split Testing and it’s an ongoing process that usually determines your success. Your Title and Description Tags are the same.

If you think of your Title and Description Meta Tags as advertising, you’ll be on the right track and you will get better results. Remember – when your page is listed in the SERPs, it’s the first impression a human gets of your page, it determines whether you get the click or not! Be sure to give it your best effort.

Stay Tuned

Jim

UPDATE

Since I posted on the topic of Meta Title Tags and Meta Description Tags I’ve been watching some of the keyword phrases used by people that end up here.

It might be a useful exercise to actually try to answer some of the questions that are apparent from the queries which I will list below. As more come in I’ll add them.

The questions are in no particular order.

seo can the page title and description be the same?

Yes! But why would you want them to be the same?

You can think of it like this – The meta title tag is the headline for the meta description tag but they are also 2 distinct categories of meta information.

You really want the title to be a headline for your topic which includes your main keyword or a long tail keyword phrase including several target keywords.

The meta description is an opportunity to add related target keywords which inform humans and search engines about the content of your post.

So… they can be the same but they shouldn’t be.

how does “yahoo” look at “meta description”

I don’t believe there is much of a difference in the way any search engine evaluates metadata with the exception of meta keywords – Google doesn’t place any weight to them and Yahoo has just announced they will no longer place importance on them either.

Yahoo says:

Metadata (including title and description) that accurately describes the contents of a web page.

And: How to Improve the Position of Your Website in Yahoo! Search Results

How Not to Sell Online

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:15:49 +0000

If you want to really learn anything about How To Sell Online and make money, be very careful whose advice you follow.

I read a guest post the other day at copyblogger.com entitled How To Get Past No which was written by Nathan Hangen. I have to say I’m sure he is well intentioned and he’s probably giving advice outside his area of expertise!

Here’s an excerpt:

Years ago, I worked for a direct marketing company that sold cutlery.

Although I saw many salespeople come and go during my 2+ years working there, most of whom didn’t make any money, I was able to find a way to be successful in this odd niche. I sold nearly $25,000 worth of the stuff.

Here are some simple tips for getting past no online:

Break the ice with a cheaper version of your product as a lower-risk purchase. They’ll get to know a little bit more about you and will feel better about buying more in the future. Even making a tiny purchase, say a $7 special report, makes it much more likely for that customer to buy from you again.

Wow Nathan!

I really think you are out of your depth talking about selling which is evident in this point.

I’d love for you to explain the strategy in the cheap-knife-first routine.

It goes against every sales technique in the book!

The truth of the matter is this: If you show your prospect the most-beautiful, highest-quality, and most-expensive product you’ve got, it’s usually way easier to sell the middle priced product. But here’s the payoff – You will sell the expensive product as well!

There is only poverty for the salesperson in the cheap knife. Think about it.

If you try to sell the junk first, where are you going to go when they say no thanks. Up in price? I think not. Ok! You might get one in a thousand!

You mentioned it was Cutco so I checked them out.

They range from $38 – $179 per single knife. I am also assuming you didn’t sell any Gift Sets which go for as high as $579.(I’ll give you a break on that one as it goes against your sales philosophy!)

You say you were there 2+ years, we’ll keep it at two and that’s approximately $1040 per month in sales.

So, using a little math, if you averaged about $108.50 per sale (MidRange) you needed about 230 deals which is around 10 knives per month.

But you sold the cheap knife at $38 so you needed to sell 658 for a total of 27 per month. That is 3 times the work for the same money.

$25,000 in sales for 2+ years hardly spells sales success. If you were getting %50 commission, it’s only $500 per month. I hope you were getting a base salary!

Overcoming objections is a big part of sales but great salespeople don’t sell based on price! You are so much better off selling the knife. Get it!

When it comes to value, there is more in play than price.

So folks, if you really want to know how to make money, the bottom line is this – You are what you eat, in this case what you read.

If you want to learn how to sell online, or anywhere else, seek out the pros. Mediocrity breeds mediocrity!

The whole reason I am even posting about this is the fact that when I tried to comment in copyblogger with a keyword, it kicked out my comment. Nice one!

Maybe I’ll continue to make my comments here!

Stay Tuned
Jim

eBooks for Bloggers

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:10:03 +0000

How often have you bought an ebook and never read it?

Why on earth would anyone in their right mind do such a thing?

Not only is it a total waste of money, it’s an indication that you’ve got way too much time on your hands or you’re lacking focus.

It’s more common than you might think and if you have, you are not alone…

Duh!

I recently did it again!
Not once but… TWICE.

Talk about grasping at straws, curiosity killing the cat, or some other lame excuse. The truism – A fool and his money, is ringing loudly in my head!

I actually tried to read both, but one was uninspiring and it’s now sitting in a folder on my hard drive called “Pdfs” for lack of a better description.

The first ebook was a book called “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” by Darren Rowse of Problogger fame. I actually bought this digital manual on June 11, 2009 because I was wondering if I could build a better blog. I really didn’t care how long it was gonna take.

The reason I am even recounting this momentary lapse of reason is – Grizzly recently posted a critique of How To Be a Better Blogger on his blog – How To Make Money For Beginners which, after reading, I took another look at Darrens’ ebook to see why I stopped reading it.

When I opened the pdf file to get ready to read the whole thing, it struck me immediately why I didn’t read it before!

Nowhere in the Index are the words – Linking, Anchored Back Links, Rank etc… I’m sure you get my drift here. I want to know how to Rank Better. That is a Better Blog!

“31 Days to Build a Better Blog” is organized as a workbook with certain tasks to complete at the end of each section or day. The very first thing that Darren suggests you do is – WRITE AN ELEVATOR PITCH FOR YOUR BLOG. The next item is – WRITE A LIST POST.

Maybe I’m wrong, but, how is this gonna help me Rank in the SERPs? A list post? Really! I wondered if he mentioned keywords, it might be relevant – so I checked, and he did – 1 time!

While you’re on Digg and Delicious, do a search for keywords related to your blog and see what others have written that has performed well. This could give you some inspiration.
“31 Days to Build a Better Blog” by Darren Rowse

I hope you’re as inspired as I was! I won’t get into anymore of the List Post issue nor am I going to review the rest of this ebook, Grizz already covered the gist of it more than adequately. Why would I?

But like Steve Jobs would say -BTW There’s Just One More Thing!

WRITE AN ELEVATOR PITCH FOR YOUR BLOG

Writing an Elevator Pitch is not a bad thing but I am trying to Make Money Online, not Offline, I’ve already got that covered. I’m not trying to figure out how to promote my blogs offline or use my blog to promote my offline business.

In any event, the purpose of an Elevator Pitch is to convince someone to do something for you – it’s a HARD SELL. You use this type of pitch because the person doesn’t have any time for you at that moment but make no mistake, the purpose of the pitch is to convince someone to DO SOMETHING FOR YOU.

It could be calling you on Friday, setting up a future meeting, or reading a proposal you’ve given them. A successful Elevator Pitch results in someone taking the action you’ve asked them to take.

The whole Elevator Pitch concept was kind-of bastardized by Venture Capitalists in Silicon Valley during the Dot Com era. Facilitators would get a group of VCs and Web Entrepreneurs together and the VCs would listen to all the 2 minute pitches and approach who they felt had the next Amazon.com. No wonder the whole thing went bust!

The term “Elevator Pitch” was coined in Hollywood by Producers, Screenwriters, or anyone with a project requiring funding from a Motion Picture Studio. These pitchmen were constantly trying to meet with studio executives so they could convince them to invest in the next great movie.

It was a very difficult process to get a meeting with a Studio Executive. As a result, when anyone managed to corner said Studio Executive in an elevator, they only had precious few seconds to pitch them! Voila! Elevator Pitch!

An Elevator Pitch is a Call to Action on Steroids and should take no more than 30 seconds:

- This is What I Got
– This is Why it’s Great
– This is What it Will Do For You
– Will you do __________ For Me?

Useless for my blog but great in an elevator.

Don’t get me wrong, developing a succinct goal for your blog is a great idea and I can see why Darren suggests this approach right from the start. I would have thought asking; What Do You want to Accomplish with Your Blog? would be just as good. I would think the answer to that question would be all over the map too!

A How-To should TELL YOU WHAT TO DO and this does, but it’s the wrong How-To for me.

The only thing that counts for me, is getting Targeted Traffic to convert to cold hard cash!

But just to satisfy my ego I figure an Elevator pitch is in order… Ready for it?

Hi! My Name is Jim and my blog is called Make Money Online.
I explore what is going on in the MMO Niche, and comment on what I think is good and what I think is not.
Reading my blog might help people save money because I advise them how to recognize garbage and not buy it.
I also promote products that I believe are really really good for bloggers and web masters in their pursuit of making money online.
When you come here please click on my affiliate ads cause when you do – it will help me quit my day job and keep my blog going.

But seriously folks… The purpose of this blog is to experiment and have a bit of fun. I’ll save the serious money-making stuff for elsewhere. I won’t hold my breath waiting to make money from a site in the MMO niche.

Anyway, “31 Days to Build a Better Blog” is one ebook I spent money on that I find hard to fully read. Considering I spent $22.62 CAD on it, it didn”t break the bank, but, I am going to go through the whole book to really see what it’s all about. After all, when you buy this eBook there is a fourm that goes with it. That’s a cool feature for the price. Maybe I’ll exchange Elevator Pitches!

The other eBook I bought is “SEO School” by Naomi Dunford from ittybiz.com and I am going to read it from cover to cover. I’ll let you know what my take is on the flip side!

Stay Tuned
Jim

Email Marketing

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 15:04:36 +0000

Do you have an email marketing strategy. Of course you know every Internet Marketing Guru says your money is “In the List”.

As you can see in the left sidebar, you can opt-in to my email list. I am building a list of subscribers!

I have opted-in to many Internet Marketers email list and I get to see, first-hand, how they go about subscription marketing. I usually sign-up with marketers I think can offer me information which will help me be more successful. I believe education is an ongoing journey which will never end.

I gotta’ tell you, some of these subscriptions are excellent and provide me with thought-provoking content every time I receive an email. As a matter of fact, I look forward to receiving most of the emails.

On the other hand, I have unsubscribed to quite a few of these so-called Gurus and it’s due, in large part, to the consistent abuse they send my way! For some reason these people seem to believe I have opted-in to their email-list for the sole purpose of getting new sales pitches every day.

These Sales Pitches are usually wrapped in a free offer of some sort. I don’t necessarily have a problem with a pitch, because I believe selling is a good thing. But there are limits to my patience.

I do have a problem with Internet Marketers who think I’m just another sucker in their auto-responder.

There are lots of them out there and as soon as you opt-in you’ll get a thinly worded email with a link to a 6000 word squeeze-page requiring another opt-in to a different marketers list. Joint Venture Hell!

Have you gotten a dozen or more emails about the exact same product launch? If so, you know what I mean.

If a marketer occasionally sends me to a sales page, I don’t mind if it’s something they truly recommend. I actually appreciate it. Sometimes I buy, sometimes I don’t.

Because I monitor this type of marketing activity, I sign-up with anyone offering something free, just to see how they build a relationship with me. As a result, I am constantly adding and cutting subscriptions – separating the wheat from the chaff!

So How do I know the email subscription is junk!

The initial offer is not really free!
Every email tries to sell me something!
An email doesn’t “exactly explain” the truth of an offer!
The email treats me like an idiot or a sucker!
I receive many emails offering no-value without charge!
The subscription demonstrates its only purpose is to manipulate me into a sale!

I am not suggesting an email marketing campaign should never try to sell you something, it should. However, the first sale made is the credibility of the author. It’s also a process of building trust with content! Screw it up and it’s over!

As far as I am concerned, the primary goal of an opt-in subscription list should be to build a relationship with people who have an interest in your topic. This is how you learn what your customer wants! This is where the rubber hits the road! I have dumped every subscription which fails this test.

I recently got an email from a very well-known Internet Marketer. In the auto-responder message there was a free offer which included a code to enter in the sign-up page. The offer sounded good to me, so I checked it out!

After filling out the form and hitting the continue button I ended up at my PayPal page. I expected this.

I then found out the offer was actually for 1 free month in a membership site with recurring billing of $97 per month after the 30 days. What did I do? I closed the window. I was not impressed!

This marketer had never mentioned a recurring monthly payment schedule. He didn’t mention it in his email and he also suggested in the email – I should just scroll to the bottom of the sales page, hit the buy button, and insert my code in the sign-up form. This was obviously done so I wouldn’t know it was a membership site until the absolute last moment.

When this happened I went back to his last email and hit the unsubscribe link quicker than a raindrop falling!

I am wondering if this is happening to him a lot! Who knows?

I don’t know if other bloggers are having this type of thing happen to them, but it amazes me how some marketers think they can get away with it. Email Marketing can be a great way to make a passive income, but only if it’s done the correct way.

I would rather starve than employ these tactics. How about you?

Have you had similar experiences? If you have, I’d love to hear about it.

Email Marketing should focus on providing value. If it doesn’t, it’s junk. Marketers need to remember how easy it is to unsubscribe!

Stay Tuned
Jim

Keywords and Niche Marketing

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:53:57 +0000

Making Money Online can be a very difficult endeavor if you don’t understand how to use keywords effectively. It’s even more important if you are trying to dominate a keyword or keyword phrase in your niche marketing efforts.

Keywords and Niche Marketing go together like fingers and a hand go together.

Every market online attracts buyers through effective use of keywords so getting ranked for the correct search terms is paramount. You must know how profitable each keyword is and how to build traffic to your site.

The value of a search term can be easily exposed if you know what you’re doing, but if you don’t, you don’t stand a chance. What you need is an education from people who have experience making money online with a system that works.

This can be a problem because sometimes people with experience want a lot of money for their system, even if they are willing to share their successful methods with you. Most Internet Marketers are not willing to share their methods unless you pay thousands.

I joined a program about a month ago which teaches you everything you need to know about setting up a system that builds traffic to niche websites. It’s called The Keyword Academy and is run buy Courtney Tuttle and Mark Butler. These guys have lots of experience and really know what they’re doing.

The course teaches you how to create an income on the internet that, eventually, almost runs on its own. They call it a very low maintenance system but don’t be confused into thinking it’s an effortless proposition.

There is real work involved in setting up the system in the beginning, but once you get good at it, you can replicate it over and over again in any niche you choose. It’s like building residual income except it’s actually building many residual incomes. I like it!

They cover all of the basics and lots of advanced techniques but it will only work if you apply the methods they teach. A few of the items covered in this great course are:

Keyword Research

Where you start. How to pick a niche. Understanding keyword value.

Creating Content

How to structure your content using keywords, phrases, and search terms that drive the correct target audience to your website or blog.

Building Links

How to build the correct internal linking structure. Techniques for getting inbound links to your site.

Article Marketing

How to structure and write articles so they increase your traffic.

Configuring The Stuff You Need

WordPress, Adsense, Statcounter, and more.

And the coolest thing is that they only charge you one dollar to try it for a month.

Now, how can you go wrong with a buck? You can’t!

If you are trying to figure out Internet Marketing and you are spinning your wheels, try out The Keyword Academy.

Stay Tuned
Jim

SEO Software

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:11:31 +0000

Do you use SEO Software to help in your day to day online business? If you don’t, you may be missing out on a way to help you get better rankings in the search engines. Using the effective SEO Software is your best strategy for ongoing Website Promotion.

I am constantly on the lookout for cool software to help me analyze everything I do online. One of my biggest frustrations about SEO, is finding the right software to help me do a better job of optimizing the pages on all of my sites. I have run into problems for many reasons, but mostly because a lot of the products are either too expensive, or they are total junk.

I mostly use a Macbook Pro and finding suitable software that runs on OS X is not difficult, but your options are limited. Even though I do have an IBM Thinkpad and there is a wide variety of SEO Software available for Windows, I would much prefer to use the Mac, so I hardly ever boot-up the Thinkpad.

One of my requirements is that my SEO Software must be an application that resides on my hard drive and that I own it. It is also important that it is constantly being updated and supported by the vendor. At this point in time I don’t want to use the Software As A Service (SAAS) option and pay a monthly subscription fee although there are some really good services available.

This blog is about anything that relates to making money online, so if I am going to buy software for SEO, there also needs to be an affiliate program that I can join. Sometimes this isn’t the case with some vendors. We all know the best way to sell something to people is to have used the product yourself.

When I started this blog I went on the search for the best SEO package I could find. I started using 2 separate tools from a company called Link-Assistant and they have 4 tools that are amazing for SEO but I’ve been mainly using Website Auditor and SEO SpyGlass. The other tools are called Rank Tracker and Link-Assistant.

Yesterday the company introduced a package with all of these tools bundled into what they call SEO PowerSuite. They have also made it available to try for Free for as long as you want! How’s that for confidence in your product.

Aside from the fact that these 4 tools are absolutely amazing and cover the gamut when it comes to SEO Practice, now they are more affordable for a blogger or webmaster to use. Free. That’s right. Free!

How can they do it? When you see how valuable this suite of SEO Software is you’ll know. I know that when you use it, it won’t be long till you upgrade and get the paid version for the advanced features. So go ahead and try SEO PowerSuite Software, You’ll love it! I believe it’s the Best SEO Software.

Stay Tuned
Jim

How To Find Success With Affiliate Marketing

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 14:03:37 +0000

One of the biggest challenges for any New Internet Marketer is How to Find Success With Affiliate Marketing. If you have been struggling to find a roadmap for success, you are like a lot of others who are trying to make money online for the first time.

Unless you have your own products or services, Affiliate Marketing is one of the most common monetization models on the internet. I would say most people are trying to promote affiliate offers, products, and services and this is their sole way to make money.

When you’re researching a specific niche market, it is essential to see if there are opportunities to sell products in that niche. Just ask yourself if you find a market niche first or an affiliate offer. You probably do a combination of these things but even if you are using other methods to make money, affiliate sales can be a huge source of cash for you.

Obviously for anyone to make money the starting point is to build traffic to your website or blog. Although you don’t actually need a website or blog and you can promote offers through email, most companies that have affiliate programs look for a web address and judge you by that online presence.

There are so many affiliate networks and programs available today that it can be a total nightmare trying to figure what to promote and how to keep track of it all. Boot up the spreadsheet software and get ready to spend countless hours keeping track of it or you’ll be flying blind.

I am in at least a dozen different affiliate networks and they all have different products and services that they manage for different companies. Each network has its pros and cons and some follow different models for joining an affiliate program for a specific company.

I have also become an affiliate with some organizations that offer their own affiliate program like the one I am promoting to you today.

Last week a new website launched which is designed from the ground up by John Reeses’ organization.

The website is called Opportunity.com and the promo was quite amazing, so I signed up immediately.

I wasn’t disappointed. The website is chocked full of materials and even an experienced marketer can learn techniques to help grow their business. The program is setup as a membership site and when you sign-up you can take advantage of a great special offer.

Once you get inside, you’ll find a very focused set of topics covering everything that will steer you in the right direction. If you’ve been buying ebooks or any other internet marketing materials, you probably won’t need to anymore. As the advert says… you can Save Your Money!

If you are new to making money online and you are trying to figure out how to go about doing it the right way, Opportunity.com is perfect for you. It’s also great if you are trying to hone-in on a roadmap for success to follow.

I’ve looked through some of the training materials provided and believe me, it’s a fabulous way for anyone who wants to find success with Affiliate Marketing, Building Traffic, Email Marketing, Google Adwords, Trend Analysis, and many other facets of Internet Marketing.

All the bases are covered so you’ll understand how to do things right, right from the start. This is probably the best service offered online to anyone that is trying, for the first time, to make money.

You’ll learn the basics of how to do everything to get a successful business going and you won’t spend a fortune chasing rabbits down holes that lead to nowhere.

One of the most important things to remember when you are trying to start up an online business is that you shouldn’t try to reinvent the wheel. John Reese is one of the Smartest Internet Marketing Professionals online and he lays-out everything you need to know about How To Find Success With Affiliate Marketing.

I am an affiliate and a member, so I recommend that you take a step in the right direction and sign up for Opportunity.com now, You’ll be happy you did. I am!

Stay Tuned
Jim

What is Internet Marketing

Jimd53 — Sun, 06 Dec 2009 13:48:03 +0000

So what is Marketing and more to the point, what is Internet Marketing?

If you do a search for Marketing, you’ll find more definitions than you can shake a stick at! Convoluted to say the least. You’ll get all the classical definitions that they’ve been teaching in the business schools for decades, and some new ones aimed at keeping in step with the times or adapted to specific areas.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll get the feeling that the whole idea of Marketing means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. I really don’t believe it’s difficult to answer the question at all. As with a lot of things in life, some concepts have been over-analyzed, and this is one of them.

There have been many brilliant minds that have focused on the question. They’ve all tried to come up with one definitive all-encompassing sentence. So I may as well make a stab at it. This is what I believe is a concise definition of Marketing:

Marketing is a process, ignited by observation, involved with the identification, creation, and execution of solutions that create and/or satisfy a demand.

Is that a broad enough definition? I think so. Did you notice any of the words business, profit, product, or market in my definition? No. They’re irrelevant.

Marketing is everything you do. Period! Business or not. Marketing is a requirement of existence!

When you are a baby you cry. You cry because you’re hungry and need to draw attention to yourself. Why? So someone will notice there is a demand which requires a solution. This is not selling, it’s Marketing!

In the study of biological systems, scientists acquire knowledge by learning how organisms “make a living”. Again, its marketing, satisfying a demand. Evolution is totally concerned with marketing. Every system in the universe evolves as a response to pressures which require complex solutions to maintain and promote proliferation.

You’re very existence requires marketing at every level. One could almost interchange the word living with the word marketing.

You may be asking what this has to do with Internet Marketing. My definition leads me to the conclusion that if you have a presence on the internet, you are Internet Marketing! There is no escaping it! It doesn’t matter if you are searching or providing results for searches. It’s all Internet Marketing. Everyone online is trying to Satisfy a Demand, theirs or someone else.

It makes no difference where, why, when, or how, it’s all Marketing. It’s not just about Sales Techniques or How to Make Money with Google Adwords. Everything we do to sustain and promote our existence is Marketing!

If you don’t profit from your activities, you have still been marketing, just not successfully. The outcome doesn’t make the process meaningless. Existence necessitates marketing, successful or not. If you are continually unsuccessful, you will cease to exist.

So why am I even bringing any of this generic argument up?

I have been reading and watching the types of activities that have been going on within the Make Money Online Niche and the blogosphere in general and I am seeing a disturbing pattern.

I see comments all the time suggesting that it’s not right to be flogging affiliate programs, or that it’s nice to see a blogger not flog products. Give me a break! If you don’t want to buy something, don’t. I understand that lots of bloggers or site owners are selling stuff they’ve never tried and saying it’s great. The opposite is also true. It is up to you to buy the product or not. No one forces you to buy anything. Just be careful. One product may be great for an individual but not appropriate for another.

I’ve also seen one of the most successful Internet Marketers of ALL TIME, John Reese, being referred to as a “prolific e-book salesman” by Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins of Mashable fame. Poor Mark is worried that Twitter will be abused by insincere marketers. He then goes on to say he’s a fan of Marketing in a follow-up post. Yet this guy IS ONLINE drawing attention to himself. Marketing HIMSELF. What the hell is twitter anyway if not a social marketing platform? Duh! Unbelievable!

Internet Marketing is not the horrible thing that many make it out to be. Either is any other marketing. It is what it is – satisfying the demands of you’re existence. Sure I could get into the nuts and bolts of every subset and ferret out the best practices. I could also go on about ethics, logic, or even fairness, but these constructs are not germane to the discussion.

There are millions of blogs and websites online that are devoted to making money. There are also websites and blogs that are not trying to make money online. You can call them Internet Marketers if you want, but they are all trying to satisfy some kind of demand, either self-imposed or not.

To vilify marketers of any variety is as stupid as denying the essential efforts you go through to insure your own existence. Every single person online can choose their direction and market themselves according to their needs.

Some bloggers just want to be socially popular and don’t care about money. That’s their marketing strategy! Some people are motivated by making large amounts of money and are trying to find ways to fill that need. They are both marketers and they are both marketing.

Complaining about how an individual monetizes their site is just sour grapes and if a person finds it that disturbing, they should just move on to something else without leaving behind their venom. However, everyone is entitled to their opinion, and making it known is also marketing.

The Internet is the great leveler in my opinion. Almost anyone can be part of it. No longer is it just the rich, wealthy, or well-connected that can have their views and/or endeavors widely distributed in the public domain, anyone can. This is truly profound and unique in the history of the world. But make no mistake about it, in one way or another it is all Marketing and because it exists on the web, it’s Internet Marketing.

Stay Tuned
Jim