Gene Minor's Blog

Copyright © 2009 Titus Hoskins

Next year may just prove to be one of the most challenging times for pursuing online or Internet marketing on the web. It may just be a watershed moment for many marketers struggling to keep abreast of all the different factors which have come into play in recent months. Most of these changes will stem from two main sources for potential upheaval: the first being the New FTC (Federal Trade Commission) Guidelines regarding Testimonials and Endorsements and the second being “ALL” the recent changes within Google.

Actually, we already have the new FTC Guidelines which came into effect on Dec. 1st of 2009, but how these new rules are enforced will play out in the coming year as test-cases are brought to court. Basically, these new rules call for absolute disclosure and full transparency regarding Testimonials and Endorsements when a product or service is being offered for sale. Any business (monetary) relationship between the endorser and the company must be made known to the potential buyer. Obviously for those in online or affiliate marketing this could have a great impact if these new rules are strictly enforced. Just imagine all the website owners and bloggers who slap a few banners or affiliate links on their sites to cover hosting or operating costs… will they now have to disclose all these business arrangements?

For professional affiliate marketers and the companies/products they’re promoting, these new guidelines could cause potential headaches and/or legal ramifications since a general blanket disclaimer on their sites will no longer be suffice. To help solve this problem, many of the major companies are now placing an “affiliate” tag on all their banners and making it obvious a business relationship exists with its affiliates. In addition, many online marketers are placing additional disclaimers, affiliate seals and in other ways making it known certain links are indeed affiliate links and a relationship does exist with the product and/or services being promoted.

With these new guidelines, another big issue is email marketing, one of the major marketing techniques of most online marketers. Will a full disclosure be necessary for every email sales pitch? Savvy web marketers know the key to increased sales is in the “follow-up” and the “cookie-ing” of potential buyers; how will the new Guidelines affect this very effective marketing practice? How all these new rules or guidelines play out will make next year a very interesting one for marketing on the web.

Despite this, perhaps the greatest cause for upheaval in the coming year will be Google. There are countless reasons why Google will be a major game changer in 2010 for online marketing. Ever since Bing and more recently the potential Bing/Yahoo competition, Google has gone into complete overdrive, implementing new changes and debuting new programs like there was no tomorrow.

First, we have Google Caffeine which Google is introducing (full force) early in the new year. Google Caffeine, which is a major overhaul of its search engine, will no doubt cause many a marketer some sleepless nights as the total fall-out becomes evident. Other Google updates in the past (Florida Update comes readily to mind) have wrecked havoc on many top ranking sites, but this time Google is doing things a little different and have even given webmasters a beta version of the new search engine. Still, rightly or wrongly, many online marketers are bracing themselves for the full impact of Caffeine, will it mean smooth sailing or a stomach sickening roller-coaster ride for marketers and webmasters?

Second, we have the introduction of “Real Time” search which will be featured in Google’s SERPs. This will make the social media sites like Twitter, FaceBook, MySpace… much more important. Again, the implications for online marketers could be enormous since many can now reach the first page through a different route. Will it also mean more “Real Time” spam? But more importantly, will it mean a greater marketing opportunity for the online marketer who exploits it?

Third, we are seeing Google moving more and more towards “Visual Search” with the introduction of Google Goggles for mobile phones. Just take a picture and you get the Google results instantly – no typing, just point and click. Just envision countless clueless teenagers or more importantly helpless shoppers suddenly being empowered with knowledge and wisdom. Could do more for education since the invention of the printed word and the info-commercial combined. Talk about scary! But will the implications for web marketing be just as revolutionary and enlightening?

Fourth, Google has made it known through its spokesperson Matt Cutts, that site-loading times will be a ranking factor in the new improved Google. Also, proper and correct page coding will also be more important if you want your site to be at full advantage. Broken links will be a big “No-No”, while linking out to important related sites a big plus. All this is only logical, Google’s main product is and has always been its search results, anything which improves those results and provides a more pleasing experience for the Google user should be front and center. Obviously, one way for Google to stay on top, is to provide the best search results to its users.

Fifth<, in order to please the end-user, Google is also moving more towards "Personalized Search" which will make SEO and ranking in the top spot for your chosen keywords a total nightmare for many professional SEOs and online marketers. If everyone can choose their own top results, isn't SEO more or less, a lame duck? Again, the ramifications of personalized search will further play out in 2010, but will professional marketers like what they see?

Finally, while no one would argue Google is King of the Hill when it comes to online search, will all these new changes strengthen or weaken Google’s grip? Will the combined Bing/Yahoo be able to give this giant some much needed competition? Or will Google’s main competition come from an unlikely source, such as big name multi-national corporations who are moving their operations online. Can these big-name keyworded domains start directly pulling in the majority of the web’s traffic, making all search engines secondary? As people become more web savvy, will they go directly to what they’re looking for on the web, bypassing the search engines altogether – including the mighty Google? Such a scenario could have greater consequences for the affiliate marketer since a direct line to a company’s site or product will obviously mean less sales for the online marketer, who really works in coordination with the search engines, either through organic search or PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising in these same search engines.

Overall, the new FTC Guidelines and recent changes to Google, will make next year one of the most interesting times to be pitching anything online. Throw into this the full effect what a combined Bing/Yahoo might bring to the table, and you have the recipe for a tumultuous white knuckle ride, until the dust finally settles and marketers make adjustments like they always do. Until then, hold on because things will probably get a little hectic for many web marketers before we see the light at the end of the tunnel.

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The author is a full time online affiliate marketer. His livelihood is derived from & depended upon search engine marketing & daily monitoring of targeted keywords, mainly within Google. He runs numerous sites, including: Internet Marketing & Internet Marketing Tools Titus Hoskins 2009. This article may be freely distributed with box.

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Copyright © 2009 Riley West

Affiliate marketers need to have certain things. I consider it important to have a web page where you can put your offers and content.

Then you can just get down to driving traffic to your site, making sales, and earning money.

Still, the beginning affiliate marketer and perhaps even some intermediates, would like it to be low priced and more straightforward than the typical setup.

Take as an example the mass of web pages called Squidoo.

It’s really just another website except for it’s size and variety of content. It’s VERY well known at Google.

Last I heard there were about 900,000 individual pages on this huge website and those pages are called “lenses” by the “Squids.”

Here are 5 good reasons to use Squidoo as an affiliate marketer.

The first reason is your cost for the hosting space. It’s zero.

The second reason is the cost of registering a domain name. It’s zero too!

Squidoo loks good because it’s practically effortless, AND it’s very low cost, especially when compared to the typical cost of hosting and domain at about $100 to $130 per year.

That doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t if your site is making money or if you just have plenty of it. But for affiliates who are just starting and a lot of intermediates too, it’s just perfect.

The third reason, and one of big importance to affiliates, is that it is relatively easy to get indexed by Google for your lens. Really it’s a web page. But Google seems to like them.

If you pick your domain name with a keyword relevant to your sites content, that you can easily rank for, and you put it at the beginning of your domain name, you will be started off really well.

Doing a good job optimizing your page (lens) for your relevant keyword, is the best way to get your site to come up on the search results page in Google. Google page one for almost ANY keyword will result in some kind of traffic.

The fourth reason to go with Squidoo is that you are not alone. There is lots of assistance.

This would have really helped me when I was getting started because it seemed like, for me, everything new wasn’t just new…it seemed wierd…alien even. I didn’t “get it.”

Squdoo helps you in a dozen ways and you can see for yourself by just going there and looking around.

In addition, there is a forum where you can go and ask questions and get answers. Maybe later you can even answer some questions.

The fifth reason to use these pages (lenses) is because they work!

By work I mean that you can make them look like a great web page. You can also get them to have a good bit of traffic. And you can engage in direct sales right there.

If you’d like a landing page, this is it!

And that’s not all. You will learn a lot!

Many of the stumbling blocks a typical newcomer or even intermediate affiliate marketer will run into are completely eliminated by this alternative. The first reason that comes to mind is the FREE domain name and hosting.

Go there, join up and start your first lens. Start fooling around with it. Learn how to do a few of the things you need to get a halfway decent site up. There’s going to be plenty of assistance if you get stuck.

In a week to two weeks you could have an affiliate site up, indexed, and getting traffic.

Watch out because IF you do this, the next thing that will happen is that you will get a sale. A sale that didn’t cost you anything but your time and effort.

Only now you’ll know how to repeat it and increase your income.

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Riley West has been spreading the idea of Simplified Affiliate Marketing for a couple of years. The formula is Webpage + Offer + Traffic = Sales. See this explained simply at Targeted Traffic and, while you are there, don’t miss out on the demonstration of a sure-fire, simplified affiliate marketing plan at One Week Marketing.

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There are thousands of affiliate marketers in every country in the world. The reason for this is because of the number of affiliate programs available to join.

Not all affiliate programs are very good however. Here are my three top affiliate programs and the reasons I like them.

1. Submit Your Article. I like to join programs that are a little different than the others and ones that attack a need or solve a problem.

This is why I like SYA. They are an article submission company with a different twist.

They provide a system using a unique technology known as Article Leverage. This allows you to create hundreds of unique versions of your articles before they are submitted to various article directories.

Not only should you be using the service, you can also make money referring their affiliate program. This is a good residual income program because you get paid every month the people you refer keep their membership intact.

2. Cash Crate. This is a very good affiliate program for paid surveys that is very easy to earn money referring people. I always like to sell tools and resources as opposed to actually doing the work.

This means I make my money with Cash Crate referring new members as opposed to actually taking surveys. However this is also a two-tier affiliate program so you can earn money when people take surveys and on the new members they recruit as well.

It’s free to join, they have great promotion materials, they have a free list of companies to take surveys from, run contests, and have a discussion forum for members to hang out in. They also pay consistently on the first of the month and offer direct deposit.

3. The Affiliate Power Group. Not everyone knows how to do affiliate marketing correctly.

You will learn how to do affiliate marketing and build your own online business at the same time. The private forum they have offers direct contact with mentors who do affiliate marketing full time. This is different than many membership programs where the owners are not active.

They also have a residual income payment plan where you get paid every month that members you sign up are active. This is a good way to build an ongoing income and provide a much needed service to affiliate marketers.

I understand there are numerous affiliate programs in various niches. Whether you join the ones I am in or not there are a couple things keep in mind.

Try and find affiliate programs that are unique and provide a different twist than all their competitors. Go for programs that pay you over and over whenever possible. Residual income allows you to continue to get paid if you ever decide to stop working.

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Jeff Schuman invites you to visit his make money online website to check out his popular Hands Off Article Marketing program, the top network marketing business with vertical acceleration, and paid survey training with a free survey list to join and take your first survey in 5 minutes or less.

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People use Google SEO Company as a search term but in actual fact there is no such type of company in the way that there are Google Adwords Certified Companies who have passed Google Exams. However it is a very popular search term and that is the foundations of a good SEO campaign. The mindset of the people searching is more than likely that they wish to find a company who can get great results for them on Google with it being the biggest and most important search engine for the moment.

The subject of SEO is highly documented on the web and contains plenty of good information but also plenty of mis-information. This leads to it being more difficult to understand for some business owners who let’s face it are busy running their business!

To understand SEO the first step is to think like a search engine. Search engines are continually refining their processes in order to give their customers a better experience. This means that SEO which has been done to try to fool the search engines will sooner or later be no use. For example Google’s evaluation of links has become stricter and will continue to do so.

Think about times when you have searched for something and some of the results were not what you were looking for then you were not as satisfied a search engine customer as you could have been. As a search engine customer you want to find a selection of the most highly relevant websites on your first search without trawling down lots of pages. This is what the search engines want to deliver also.

From an SEO point of view this means that websites should deliver to both search engines customers’ expectations and also to the technical necessities of the search engines. To achieve this requires good old fashioned hard work, technical knowledge and creativity. For websites who wish to achieve important Google SEO rankings a combination of specialist, excellent content on their website and evidence of other good websites giving votes of confidence (links) is what works over time.

Google has no way to check out your shop/website except for the technical messages you give to it and then other reputable websites feeling it is important enough to link to it. Before the internet if someone was to recommend a business they would have physically met the people involved and seen the office or shop. Google and the search engines have to evaluate your business on the votes of others from their websites.

So Google is checking out the company you keep. They won’t penalize you if someone links to your website if they feel they are not reputable, they could however if you link to a website which becomes blacklisted by them. It is important not to get over excited with promises of thousands of links as there is a good chance that they may not translate into much quality.

Another way to look at Google SEO is like a new TV series. See your website as a TV Series that you will release and wish it to be popular. Naturally you will make sure that the production is as good as possible and that you have a cast of talented actors. This is like the onsite optimisation.

Plan your website like a new TV series, you have the big plot and the sub plots. You will want the information to be expert and ideally have something different to offer, but ideas also for future episodes. This means at the beginning of the website you must have all your products/services/keywords covered and plenty of information for a good customer experience. Yet you should have areas of expertise that you can drill down into and expand out into really specific specialist pages.

You know the kind of buzz that has been created by some new TV Series, so if a buzz can be created by your website to some extent on the internet some of the most important SEO work is in place for good Google SEO rankings. If this work is done especially well links will come naturally over time, however building links is one of the most important parts of SEO and a creative, clever link building campaign should go hand in hand with the onsite optimisation.

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Jackie de Burca is co-owner of CWA Europe which is a search marketing agency. CWA Europe specialise in being this type of creative Google SEO company and are also a Google Adwords Certified company.

http://www.cwa-europe.com/search-engine-optimisation/google-seo-company/80-10.html

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There have been complete books written about ways to be successful with marketing on the internet. In this article we will cover a few tips that can possibly make a difference for you.

Since being successful with internet marketing is such a numbers game you will need to ensure your voice is being heard by as many people as possible, you must be consistently driving traffic to your site. If 100 viewers per day nets you $30, what can 1000 people net you?

- To do this correctly you need to take advantage of the social networks available.

Utilize the many and varied free internet resources to drive traffic to your site. Facebook and Twitter, Blogger and YouTube, Yahoo Answers and MySpace are all good options to post content to. These have gotten huge and many people now have thousands of followers.

However your content must contain some value and interest to the reader. If all you’re doing on these social networking sites is sending out links to products and are only trying to sell stuff you’re using them incorrectly and losing readers quickly.

To properly use them (and still sell stuff) do this. Attempt to share some important information that is intriguing to your followers. Perhaps it’s a hot news story or a tip that can be useful to others. Include a little about yourself.

Make sure you’re providing value and interest before promoting your products which can be done at the end. You can add to that by following up with people’s problems and questions.

By following this model, you will gain and maintain quite a following and people will still see the potential of your affiliates and marketing programs without feeling beat over the head.

As for promoting your products here are some tips:

- Your content must be good in order for potential customers to see that your products are worth it to them.

- The timing on when to release certain mnarketing promotions can be vital to your success. Study the successful marketers and see what they’re doing.

- Offering variety in your strategies keeps things interesting and unique. Include things like backlinking and viral marketing.

A final tip: understand your competition. This can be somewhat of a shortcut to internet marketing success. Think “Coke vs. Pepsi” or “Burger King vs. McDonalds.” It is critical you know what your competition is up to and what’s working for them.

Check out their websites. Which ones do you like? If you like them others probably will to. Can you duplicate them in certain ways to make yours better?

What products are they soon launching and which ones are selling well for them? There is nothing wrong from learning from the competition and doing the same that’s working for them. You can use their ideas to help you create your own.

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Cynthia Minnaar invites you to generate income online with legitimate online business ideas and opportunities she will share with you. Her website offers free useful Internet marketing training that can work for you.

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People looking to make money online can find a lot of opportunities on the Internet. Making money online is for all sorts of people – young professionals, students, retirees, even moms.

There are plenty of opportunities online that will enable you to make money fast. There are some simple and a few very specific methods for you to make money online. Many Internet Marketing Gurus are using these methods to make money online.

First off, you have to know your niche. It is absolutely vital that you pick your target audience with care because this will significantly impact how much and how fast you make money. If you pick a broad audience, there will be too much competition for you. You should consider a niche you’re familiar and comfortable with.

Choose your product well. If you want to make money online, start by selling other peoples products. This is called affiliate marketing and allows you to make money fast.

Later on, after you’ve prepared everything and know the dos and don’ts, you can continue developing your own product. Be present online. Have a blog site or website created. You need one if you want to make money online.

Establishing an online presence will make you more credible. Blog sites are easier to set up but if you’re thinking long term results, I suggest having a website instead.

Build an audience, Add people to your mailing list, start a forum online and enable interaction. Building an interactive relationship with your target audience is how you will eventually begin to make money online. If you’re selling affiliate products, you’ll want to develop value and trust. You can do this by offering free original and significant content. This will also get search engines to notice you and draw more visitors to your website and email list.

You really should provide an opportunity to your visitor that will entice them to give you their email address. You can then establish a relationship with them by providing relevant and worthwhile content.

This is a powerful tool that you can use to consistently make money online. Aside from offering free and highly relevant content, your automated emails can sell your products. You should set up an Auto responder series that automatically keeps you in contact with your visitors. You don’t want to abuse your visitors by spamming them but you do want to gain their trust. Your audience will be more likely to trust your suggestions if you have been providing them with valuable information.

Practice these methods on affiliate products and once you’ve mastered them, you can develop and sell your own product. Perfecting these guidelines will allow you to make money online.

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Read more about the possibilities to make money online by visiting my free information website http://www.easycash4life.com/ Arthor: Annette Lode Marketing Advisor

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Better known as “Media FLAIR”, audio and video adds an impressive touch of professionalism to your business that makes all other attempts to increase conversions pale by comparison.

We’ll delve into more of the proper implementation of “FLAIR”. This is of paramount importance because even though adding flair can potentially improve the performance of your website more than any other change, if done poorly or incorrectly it can significantly hurt your conversions.

Have you ever been to a website that looked great and offered a useful product then… all of a sudden a crackly and static filled recording of the site creator’s voice blasts through your speakers and startles the daylights out of you? It’s not a fun experience is it? When this happens, the visitor gets a negative taste in his/her mouth about the entire experience and that clearly will not encourage them to make a purchase.

The same goes with video. A video should compliment the site by adding an engaging and multidimensional aspect to an otherwise one dimensional website. The video should set off buying triggers in the prospect and create positive emotions. The video should be fun and informative. It should be easy on the ears and the eyes. Videos that are hard to see, hear or understand will only defeat the purpose of increasing conversions. In many cases you’re better off not putting up a video at all if the quality is poor.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel! You do not have to be a professional broadcaster with a state of the art recording studio or millionaire budget to create effective flair that captivates and engages your audience. As a matter of fact there are lots of effective shortcuts that can drastically improve the production quality of your flair and they don’t cost much money to put in place at all. Here are some production tips to get you going:

Tip #1 – Plan – Prepare – Predict For some situations, unrehearsed media can be very effective, however when it comes to sales videos and website audio this is seldom the case. You should always plan what you are going to say and HOW you are going to say it. What points will you stress? etc. You should prepare some bullet points before you begin perhaps write them on a white board directly behind your camera or print them on a sticky note right beside the lens. Predict your audience’s emotion and apprehensions and address them in your delivery.

Tip #2 – Control The Environment (Audio) The sounds of your environment will be captured by your microphone just as the sound of your voice will. I recommend that you sit still for a minute and take note of ambient noises that may be recorded along with you. Things like family members in other rooms, baby’s crying, lawn mowers and outside vehicle traffic. The idea is to keep the audiences attention on YOU and not on things going on around you.

Tip #3 – Control The Environment (Video) One of the biggest challenges when creating the proper video environment is lighting. Lighting is HUGE. Always pay close attention to the lighting in your videos. Is it clear and well lit or is id dark and gloomy? When lighting the recording area use 2 or three lamps and angle the lamp shades so that they cancel out shadows.

Tip #4 – Consider Outsourcing Segments Regardless of the type of flair you are producing, there are always segments that you can outsource to professionals. For example, you may want to consider outsourcing the creation of a “Title Segment” to a professional. This will be a unique 3-5 second video segment with your name and logo “swooshing in” and some sound effects. You will add a much more professional appearance to your work with this type of intro/outtro.

Also consider a voice over artist to narrate your video. Powerpoint presentations and slideshow videos are an excellent example of this. A professional V.O. will skyrocket the effectiveness of your presentation. You can even edit/splice together professional clips to create your own custom narration. You can use a product like VoxFlair.com to show you how.

Tip #5 – Use Various Elements Be creative. Always seek to keep the viewer or listener engaged by combining multiple elements of media flair. For example, you can splice a “Tittle Segment” with some “on camera” footage and perhaps insert photo stills or even screen capture shots into your sequence. This keeps the production flowing and engages the audience far more than just a redundant and/or monotone recording.

Video flair should always have accompanying audio but in many cases audio alone can add the flair you need. Audio can work on its own but silent video is seldom an effective way to enhance a website. Keep that in mind when creating a recording. Since you’ll be creating your flair in stages, you may be unhappy with the early phases of your production (especially if you’re a perfectionist like me!) But once all the segments are spliced (edited) together and you have added audio and visual accents, you’ll feel alot better about the production.

Accenting is an important part of flair. Accenting breaks up the monotony of continuous media. For example, if you are recording a 15 minute presentation of yourself on camera reading a sales script, the viewer may begin to loose interest after a few minutes. Adding simple accents can solve this challenge.

You may consider switching to a new camera angle once in a while or cutting to a zoomed in version of the same angle. Another effective video accent is cutting to a black and white video clip that coincides with the story line. For example, if you mention in your video that you enjoy playing basketball, that would be a great spot to insert a few seconds of you shooting a basket in black and white. These small accents go a long way to keep the viewer engaged.

With audio only this is a bit harder to do but you can still get the same effect by using sound effects. So if I was only using an MP3 audio as my sales presentation and there was a part that I mentioned my love of basketball I can insert a few seconds of audio recorded at a basketball court, i.e. the sneakers squeaking on the hard wood floor the ball bouncing as players talk to one another and the swish of the net as I score a basket. Then fade back into my narration. You can also use a music bed as a low level background to keep the listener engaged.

The most important thing to consider when using audio alone as a form of flair is your VOICE FLUCTUATION. Speak like you are talking to a friend not like you are reading a book. In general everyday conversation we accentuate certain words, we stress certain points by controlling the pitch of our voices and we even create emotion by bringing down the level to a near whisper then raising it again. Always remember to smile! Yes SMILE. Even if you are not on camera a smile can show through a microphone and convey a positive vibe to the listener.

Overall, the key is to be creative and dynamic when you are producing flair. Be mindful of the recording quality as well as your content and these things will improve your conversions rather than hurt them. In next months issue I’ll reveal the actual software and services that I personally use to produce and serve Flair on my websites.

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Omar Martin is Mike Filsaime’s partner & co-owner of Higher Level Strategies, LLC. Based in Florida USA. Omar has built a successful internet business over the past 3 years & now earns over 25k per month online using these tactics. You can learn more about 1 on 1 coaching and mentorship at http://www.HigherLevelStrategies.com and you can get more useful information on producing media flair at http://www.VoxFlair.com

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There are many emerging online classified sites on the internet today where you can advertise your business for free. All it takes is your own personal computer and an internet connection for you to be able to search for these sites. One of the most popular of these is the Backpage.com.

Backpage is an online classifieds distribution site which anyone can place their ads for free. Also known as Craigslist’s cousin, Backpage is perceived to be much easier to navigate your way through. They are also not so strict on the placement of business opportunity ads and they are not as strict in monitoring “sales” type ads on the site.

Backpage and any other online classified ad sites site are of no use if you will not apply the right online marketing strategies. If you have any plans of promoting your business, you should invest a some time examining the categories, and advertisements your competitors are running. Investing time in researching your competitors activities will give you a good indication how you can immediately capitalize in your niche, by copying their actions. Look at how often they post, where they post, and the text of each adverts. You should always know your competitors actions. Persistence is also a must in the process so you can achieve success in this line of business.

With Backpage, you have to make a plan of placing a minimum of a hundred ads per day which would just take at least two to three hours of your time. When you get to place a good number of relevant ads, this would help a lot in your online business gaining more recognition around the online community. Hence, it is important that you allot sufficient time and dedication in monitoring your ads daily since this is your free tool to make publicity for your business. Once you get inquiries from potential customers, you can answer them back fast through the forums and online communities that Backpage renders to its users.

Through all this process, you must be persistent and diligent on taking advantage of how to avail low cost advertisements. You would be amazed that there are lots of free online publications and classified sites like Backpage which you can utilize along with the application of proper internet strategies to make everything a huge success. Backpage can effectively help you develop massive amounts of leads.

To generate good and effective leads with Backpage, you have to place good relevant adcopy. That means the inclusion of high impact words of action that would move potential clients to a desire to purchase what you are offering. Also, it would help a lot if you would use a system that will track the performance of your placed ad so that you will know which ones are acting effective for the benefit of your business.

Using Backpage in your online marketing strategy, watch your business generate leads with just one hit of the button, all from the being in front of your computer.

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Duncan Wierman is an Ex Software company CEO turned Real Estate Investor and Marketer. Discover how to outsmart your competitor, ethically dominate the search engines,and legally siphon off tons of cash in hand buyers from your website! Get a customized FREE report on what is wrong with your website! http://internetmarketingconsultinggroup.com/outsourcing/

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Copyright © 2009 Riley West

With the economic climate the way it is there is even more interest in making money online than there ever was! It doesn’t surprise me, I saw it coming.

Unemployed persons are definitely interested in earning money and people with jobs are interested in something better for themselves. There are a million reasons and, it seems, more every day.

What is it that’s so good about the idea of making money online? Well, several things come to mind. There’s the idea that you can sleep in and get up when you want. You can dress the way you want. There’s a LOT of freedom.

And you can choose your own way of making money because there are many ways to go. And…when you start making money online, it’s fun!

It’s incredible, really, if you have a computer and an internet connection, you have the equipment that you need to potentially make thousands of dollars. There’s really never been anything remotely like it.

Making money online this way is possible for almost anyone willing to put out the effort, stick with a good plan, and stay on task.

But that isn’t the only thing necessary to make it in internet marketing. You need a plan, a proven plan. Fortunately, these plans are easy to find. There’s thousands of them!

Unfortunately, it seems that many of these “plans” are missing some important ingredients. It’s sort of looks like the originators of the plan don’t want to actually reveal their methods!

Is it possible they don’t really have a complete plan? Maybe it’s just an easily marketed plan but not a plan anyone could actually bring forward all the way to earnings.

Let’s take a look at what determines your success in Internet Marketing and also have a look at what you can do to succeed yourself.

The reason for most failures at online marketing is that the person just isn’t doing things the right way. They hear about the possible riches and giddily pursue one angle after another, thinking there must be an easier, faster way.

The faster, easier way is the way YOU already know! Not somebody else’s internet marketing plan that you don’t know!

Just putting in the time isn’t all you need. Buying this earnings plan and that marketing plan isn’t enough.

An awful lot of time can be wasted away doing this. But time put in diligently pursuing a proven plan and getting things done will get you there.

A proven internet marketing plan of ACTION is what makes the difference between successful internet marketers and the legions of unsuccessful people who aren’t really “marketing” at all.

That’s the “secret” to making money online. You have to have a proven plan of action.

Now, we know that there are many so called “plans” for making money out there. But the plan I like the best is a plan that will show you…

1. How and where to start.

2. How to get going.

3. How to get up and running.

4. How to earn some money.

5. Plus… how to fine tune that for better results.

See….that’s what I mean when I think of learning to market online!

How would you like to see a simple plan that has worked for many people over and over?

Here is the “essence” of ALL Internet Marketing.

All you need to do is present an offer to a person who might be interested in that offer.

There it is. The “secret” is really just common sense.

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Riley West has been telling folks about the idea of simplified affiliate marketing for some time now. The formula is Web Page with Offer + Traffic = Sales. But you need a place to put your offer! This is explained at Affiliate Marketing With Squidoo and don’t miss out on the unique description of a simplified affiliate marketing plan at One Week Marketing.

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com

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I know how the affiliate marketing game goes because that is what I do full-time. I know the ins and outs of the whole process, and the excitement of a well thought out and perfectly executed affiliate campaign, which results in a steady stream of affiliate commissions. I also know what it is like to watch those same successful campaigns dry up suddenly for no logical reason at all. Sometimes they never even get off the ground when all the indicators are there that they should be profitable.

If this has happened to you before here is what I think the main problem is and a solution to deal with it.

If you are an affiliate marketer it is highly likely that you take the following steps when building a successful campaign:

1) You build a landing page to suck in as many leads as possible

2) You follow-up with these leads via a targeted email autoresponder campaign

3) You drive traffic to this new campaign

In a nutshell, you build a highly successful sales funnel, meant to sell a product or several related products, and you drive traffic to that funnel in a number of ways.

After building this successful sales funnel what happens if you don’t seem to be getting any sales? You get plenty of leads coming in, which means your traffic is converting, but the sales seem non-existent. Why is this?

Well, the first thing I would do is check my email follow-up series. There must be something wrong with my email sales copy, or my links, or the way I am pre-selling the offer.

But what if you are getting a ton of clicks to your products but no sales? Is it the product itself that is the issue? This could be. You really cannot be 100% sure of the problem at this point, and you may never know. The product itself could be a dud.

Well, I have had many campaigns like this over the years and I usually would just let them go and move on. That was until I experienced a very successful campaign, which had a consistent sales conversion rate and everything working properly, just stop working. Not a little bit either. The sales went to ZERO, overnight.

I spent some time asking other affiliates about this and found out it was a pretty common problem. I also found out what that problem was and how to combat it too. It is unfortunate that many affiliates do not understand what is really going on with their commissions.

I’ll try to explain a little of what could be happening to your sales in this article.

The most frustrating thing of all is that it is highly possible your sales funnels could be making a ton of sales and that you are just not getting credited with those sales. In other words, you are doing all of the work and someone else is getting your commissions. That doesn’t sit well with me and should not sit well with you either.

The Problem: Affiliate Link Theft

Without getting too technical, here is what is happening.

Your affiliate ID is being changed to someone else’s at the point of sale, either manually by the user, or via spyware on your computer which was placed there at some point while you were online. You could also be a victim of “cookie stuffing” which many affiliates do to try and protect their own commissions from link thieves.

The problem is that this “cookie stuffing” sometimes steals sales from others as well. These “cookie stuffing” affiliates are just trying to protect their own commissions but they don’t realize they are becoming part of the problem.

Any of these things can stop you from receiving credit for the sale even though you’re the one who should have made it. You cannot stop ALL commission thievery online, but to stop any of it at all you must implement affiliate cloaking into your campaigns.

Link cloaking is when you create a redirect, or a hidden frame redirect on your website that hides your affiliate ID’s and makes it nearly impossible for spyware programs to tinker with your affiliate links at the point of sale.

If you start incorporating affiliate cloaking into your business today you can make a huge difference in your bottom line. It is very possible that you are losing 30-50% of the sales that should be yours. I certainly was.

So now that you know you need affiliate cloaking, lets look at the right and wrong ways to do it.

Choosing A Link Cloaking Service

There are tons of programs and software packages online claiming to be able to help you cloak your links. Many of them are offered for free even. I would not suggest that you go with the first one you find for many reasons. You need to make sure that the link cloaker you use has been created specifically for affiliate marketing and not for some “black hat” seo tricks.

There are not as many affiliate cloaking systems as their are seo cloaking and regular link cloaking software programs so you need to be careful what you choose.

Do NOT Use Free Cloaking Services

I understand that everyone is looking for a bargain these days, but when it comes to your affiliate commissions be willing to do what is best for your business. The most notable free link redirection and cloaking services online are those provided by companies like tinyurl.com, bit.ly, budurl.com and others.

These services started out as a way to shorten long URL’s but have recenly been taking steps to supply affiliates with link cloaking too.

The problem with many of these services is that they don’t work with every kind of affiliate link or program, and many times will actually hinder your ability to get visitors to your site!

The horror stories are too numerous of people who used redirection services such as TinyURL and Bit.ly and lost commissions. Many spammers use these services to try and cloak their links too, which results in many of these links not being accepted as viable URL’s by spam filters and other email services.

It is in your best interest to not use these services at all.

The Best Link Cloaking Service

The best link cloaker is one that you can upload to your own servers so you don’t have to worry about anything breaking down or not working properly.

This means you could create a separate website to house ALL of your cloaked links, or upload the cloaking script to each individual website you are promoting and create site specific links.

Depending on which way you want to go (I actually use both methods) it can be difficult to accomplish any of it if you are not a web programmer, or don’t want to outsource the project to someone you are not sure you can trust.

With all of the different options available out there in regards to link cloaking it is very important to spend some time learning about the concept from an affiliate marketing standpoint. Once I got hooked up with the right cloaking systems my commissions doubled practically overnight for many of the products I was originally having trouble selling.

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And now I would like to invite you to receive Instant Free Access to my affiliate cloaking report! In this report you will learn how to properly use affiliate link cloaking to generate more sales, bigger commissions, and repeat customers. You can also visit my blog at http://www.FreeInternetMarketingReports.com to get more free reports, tips and tricks to help you affiliate marketing business.

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