Gene Minor's Blog

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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If you’re currently in an MLM business, chances are you’re constantly utilizing various tools to build your success. It might be Facebook, MySpace or other social networking platforms, but meeting new people is one of your main goals. Another great way to do this is utilizing Twitter .

Even though it is considered a social networking platform, it’s a lot different than all of those other places. However, you’re still able to contact people and meet new friends, prospects, and associates.

One of the first benefits you will notice is the ability to “micro-blog.” These are tiny little blurbs that are equivalent to the “what’s on your mind” over at Facebook. It’s no longer than 140 characters, so the idea is to keep short and collective “tweet.”

In the MLM world, tweets are extremely beneficial because you can literally reach thousands of individuals all in about 1 or 2 minutes. Whether you’re letting people in on what you’re doing today, creating curosity, or just thinking out loud, millions of people do it at Twitter. So your first tweet might say something like; “Wow! Great day ahead! I just published a new article to my blog.” After it you would simply add your link.

Basically this is a way to create a positive feeling. When all of your Twitter followers get a glimpse at your message, you’ve created interest, sparked their curosity, and brought a personal branding to yourself. After awhile your followers will start to feel as though you really present information with value. Over time this creates a buzz and several new opportunities for you. In the end, Twitter is a fantastic recruiting tool.

You will also find that it is helpful to follow other MLMers out there. If you start following them they will follow you back and allow each of you to learn from each other. Granted, it’s not a face to face interaction, but with an added photo to your profile it definitely makes it feel like it. Everytime you send out a tweet it will show up on their feed. This means others will be able to see it and eventually come your way as well. It’s a great innovation that allows connections to be made that wouldn’t normally be possible.

Another beneficial area is if you are a proud owner of a blog. When you are set up with Twitter you can connect to your blog directly and every social networking account you own. So everytime you utilize Twitter as your main page, your “tweet” will go out to all the social networks you’re a part of online. This means your MySpace and Facebook friends will all see these updates. In the MLM world its all about contact and utilizing your time. When you use Twitter as a blasting area for the other sites it definitely saves tons of time. However, you can also do this the other way and publish something to your blog that shoots out to Twitter and Facebook.

Even though it sounds simple, you can utilize a few tricks to get you going. We understand that you want to tweet about your MLM business, but don’t let that be the only thing you tweet about there. Bring out a side of you most people haven’t seen. Be friendly, tell jokes, or just personal life everyday stuff. When people get a better feel for you, they will most likely follow you more often.

So just add a few tweets like this: Whew! Ran 2 milles and feeling the fat burning off my body! Then again it might be something like; Just watched V…That show rocks! You get the idea? Don’t just be a business person. The more of a friend you become to everyone else, the easier it will be to get them interested in your business.

Oh, and just because you’re tweeting doesn’t mean you should pass up everyone else’s. Add a little “good morning” or other tweet to something they tweeted about on their page. Then of course you can always utilize the message area if you need to get things going.

If you remember in the beginning, Twitter got a lot of bad press thinking it would never last. Amazingly enough, this social networking platform proved all the “nay-sayers” wrong ten fold. Nowadays you can find your next door neighbor tweeting with music artists, sports figures, and movie stars. It’s just become an unbelievable way to get to know others around the world no matter what type of status they own. In the end just get your name and face out there. Once you start connecting with everyone you will see how beneficial this can be for your MLM business.

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Javier Salces is an experienced network marketer and list building expert. To discover what the Top MLMers are doing online to build a five or six figure a month business from the comfort of home visit MLMTacticsBlog.com

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The Advantages And Disadvantages Of Using Twitter Hashtags

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that was originally launched in March of 2006 and has since grown into a real-time short messaging service that works over multiple networks and devices. Twitter enables users to stay in touch and share information with each other in real time. Users can use a maximum of 140 characters per message or “tweet” as they are called. You can tweet as little or as often as you want, as long as each individual tweet does not exceed 140 characters.

Once you have joined Twitter, you can use their search tool to find specific people, companies, and their tweets. Hashtags are an effective method of allowing users to sort topics into useful categories to revisit later. Hashtags are a community-driven convention for users to provide add additional context and other relevant info to their tweets. The basic structure of a hashtag is simple: it’s the pound sign (#) followed by an acronym or word.

Twitter didn’t itself create hashtags; they were borrowed from IRCs (i.e. Internet Relay Channels such as chat rooms). Rather, the Twitter community adopted them as a means of creating “groupings” on the service without having to alter the basic service itself.

The Twitter community uses a hashtag in front of frequently used terms in order to categorize them for searches and filtering. So, when talking about an iPod for example, people might also reference “#Apple.” If you’re looking for company specific news that’s happened recently or what’s being said about a company’s product, the hashtags can be very helpful.

Using hashtags to search Twitter for specific information is now even easier since the company purchased the search engine Summize in July of 2008. Twitter can now track hashtags itself at search.twitter.com. The engine tracks keywords too, which makes hashtags not quite as necessary for trend tracking as they were in the past. Nonetheless, they still possess unique advantages. For example, you know that anyone tagging their tweet with one of these acronyms means for it to get categorized within that topic. It also serves as a visual indicator to others following their Twitter stream that they’re tweeting about a particular subject.

One of the potential disadvantages of hashtags is their very popularity. Hashtags are so prevalent on Twitter these days that it can be hard to keep track of them all as well as what they mean. However, there is a resource available that can assist with this as well. Tagalus is a service that acts like a dictionary for hashtags. Tagalus enables users vote on definitions for tags if there’s more than one version. The definition with the most votes will be the one that defines the tag. If you invent any new tags or just want to help build the resource, you can send a tweet to @tagalus to suggest a meaning for a tag. The format for doing so is as follows:

@tagalus define mynewtag as a new tag that describes everything about me

You can also use Tagalus to provide you with a meaning for an already existing tag. The format for this is @tagalus define ____ (fill in the tag that you want the definition for).

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Cory Threlfall is the Editor and Publisher of a online web development publication called… The Web Development Central BLOG, where you’ll receive via the Web, Mobile or RSS syndication Expert Articles, Video’s, Product Reviews, HOT Tips, Resources and More on how to Promote and Build your business(es) online. Visit ==> Web Development

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Right now, one of the most highly visited websites is Twitter. It is a social networking site that allows you to share and discover something new in an instant about your friends and family around the world. Basically, a company or an individual can be popularized by twitter followers in Twitter. This implies that the higher your twitter followers, the more likely you will get more popular to people including potential consumers. In twitter, buying twitter followers seems a rational thing to do if you want to gain popularity.

Buying twitter followers is easy as long as you know where to look. Twitter followers can be bought for a few dollars or so. Depending on the number of followers on twitter you buy, the price ranges from 5 dollars to 650 dollars. The price also varies on every company that sells you followers on twitter. For instance, a company will offer you 10,000 followers on twitter for only 372.75 dollars in 45 days. However, you can also buy 100,000 followers on twitter for 3,479 dollars in a year in another company.

Purchasing more followers on twitter is a good form of investment. It can enhance your twitter profile and you can get into the race of the most number of followers on twitter. No one will ever suspect that a person buy followers on twitter from a company that offers this kind of service as the growth of the followers on twitter is gradual without raising suspicion.

Apparently, the best method to boost up your followers on twitter regularly is to buy some followers on twitter. In fact, this is the new form of marketing strategy. Though it comes with a cost, it is still worth every penny you had spent. The purpose of purchasing more followers on twitter is to increase your potential costumers and thus leading to more products sold and services offered. Companies without enough email database can potentially benefit from purchasing followers on Twitter.

The major disadvantage of purchasing followers is that it is not always authentic. You may have thousands of followers on twitter but you may not accumulate quality followers. However, with the right company and quality listing, buying followers is a great idea for big businesses who want to gain more popularity and target more potential consumers. To make everyone notice your products or services, it is wise to buy followers on trusted and reliable company. As an individual with the sole purpose of interaction with friends and family in Twitter, buying followers is never a good idea.

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Purchase twitter followers without spending too much effort while enjoying its benefits. Instead spare your time checking out the latest and trendy designer handbags.

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Did you know that social marketing in different forms can be very effective way to create customers to your online home based business? However, you need to be determined, patient, and willing to learn which the best ways to get most out of this excellent promotion method are. In this article I will give you six ideas to use social marketing and build steady stream of traffic to your online business.

1. Start a blog of your and host it yourself. Even if you choose to join Blogger.com, which is owned by Google, you should host it yourself. You want to be in control in every possible ways with your online business.

If you use a free blogging platform you lose control. That is why it is not wise to use free platforms.

2. After setting up a blog, you should bookmark every blog posts you make to several different social directories such as Digg, Stumbleupon, Technorati, and so on. A good way to do this is to use OnlyWire.com and bookmark to multiple directories with one click.

Social directories are a great way to drive traffic to your blog and can be good search engine bait.

3. Join a couple of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter. This is an excellent way to create contacts and make your business known.

You can update your Facebook page and make Twitter micro blog posts through Onlywire.com as well. One thing you want to avoid is posting useless information. You can have a lot of fun doing social networking but you can also build your home based online business if you use this tool correctly.

4. Add videos to your blog by getting relevant video code from YouTube. You can do that just simply embedding the code straight to your post and give something interesting information to your visitors that way. You can also shoot your own videos which your visitors will find interesting as well.

5. You can do your blog more interactive if you let people to make comments. Actually it is recommended that you ask people to make comments about your blog posts. This is a great way for you to interact with them and to get them coming back to your blog to post additional comments.

6. Offer some kind of contests to your visitors and create excitement on your blog. Give away a prize or something worthwhile a person would want to participate in the contest for.

This is six ways to use social marketing to build your home based online business. Social marketing is a powerful form of building quality traffic.

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Pasi Kaarakainen makes regular posts to his online business blog about internet marketing and ways to make money online. If you have considered of starting a home based online business visit his site today and find the best ideas and opportunities to do that.

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If you’re having trouble deciding on a business, here are a few ideas you might consider.

Affiliate Marketing *

If you’re a teenage boy or middle-aged man, you will enjoy this type of business. Granted there are women as well, but the men definitely flock to this one. The idea revolves around promote various products and businesses without carrying any inventory. You are using other people’s products, and earning commissions. It allows people to deal with their normal obligations throughout the day, and make money even when you’re not online.

Blogging *

Both women and teenagers seem to be drawn to blogging. It allows you to talk about anything, and build an online presence at the same time. Plus, if you know what you’re doing you can monetize the site with affiliate programs, adsense, and various other potential moneymakers. Keep in mind you have to update it regularly so everyone will keep coming back for more. They are also great for building the popularity of a particular website.

Writing Content *

Most of the writers you find around the internet that make sufficient income are housewives and senior persons. It does require time, which is why it caters to these two groups of people. Then again, those who have a simple knack for writing love to do it as well. Others may pick up writing assignment, and then outsource them to others. Many full-fledged home businesses are started this way.

Network Marketing *

Most adults enjoy network marketing. It’s a way to build networks from a website and sell products. Those who are good in the sales world seem to do well here. Keep in mind there is tons of hard work in the beginning, but when the wheels are greased and running smoothly, it starts to become easier.

Website Design & Development *

If you don’t want a technical job online, then this probably won’t be for you. However, if you are internet savvy and can put together various different websites, databases, or simple headers, it can definitely pay you a great deal. The money alone is making people get the education they need to make this a successful industry for them. Plus, since this is an online operated business, most individuals don’t worry about offline promotion.

Even though these are all some of the most common ways to make money, there are many others out there. If you can figure out what interests you, then you can easily make money with it.

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Javier Salces is an experienced network marketer and list building expert. To discover what the Top MLMers are doing online to build a five or six figure a month business from the comfort of home visit
MLMTacticsBlog.com

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Have you ever Google your own name?

How many of the listings on page 1 are about you?

How many are about some other jack ass that just happens to be lucky enough with the exact same name as you?

If a potential client or customers is researching you, the first place they will go to (in most cases) is Google. Of course, your website should be there, but what are some other easy ways to own the 1st page with more content about you?

It’s actually not terribly hard, and it doesn’t require a whole lot of work.

Just create profiles on these social media sites, and be somewhat active, and you will rocket to the top within weeks or even days if your name isn’t too competitive.

Amazon.com – since we all know “poor people have big televisions and rich people have big TV’s” …all of us should have a large collection of books. If you read, why aren’t you ordering all your books Amazon.

Amazon lets you to make a profile that includes all your relevant info…and lets you review books (and anything else they sell…which is just about everything). Each review links back to your profile and once you get enough links you will start to see it pop up in the search results.

Naymz.com – this is probably the only site on the list you haven’t heard of, and I don’t really use it at all…but it’s on the first page of the search engines for my name. All I did on Naymz was set up an account when a friend sent me an invitation, and then sent invites to my contact list. That was it.

I’ve gone in maybe 5 times in the last 2 years to manage invite requests. Don’t expect to make a lot of valuable connections here, this is just super easy to get set up and see fast results.

Facebook.com – if you aren’t highly involved with Facebook already you’re a big marketing chance. The go ahead and establish your account, then, just like with LinkedIn, upload your contact/client/prospect list. However, don’t add more than 500 connections in one day. Once you have enough friends you can set up a vanity url. Then, choose a variation of your name (i.e. facebook.com/brian.horn). If you build a decent sized Friends list, you should see it at the top of the search engines.

Twitter.com – not to beat a dead horse, but Twitter is a must for entrepreneurs.

Side note: I just got back from speaking engagement at a Social Media Summit in Las Vegas very early this morning (this blog post is actually being typed 30,000 feet in the air somewhere over Utah), and had a chance to meet Tony Hseish, who is the CEO of Zappos.com. Very cool guy who is extremely active on Twitter.

You need to be interacting with your clients and potential clients in this new media or another person will, but if you need an another excuse, its quite easy to get your Twitter page to rank of the search engine also. Like the others I mentioned, just create a vanity url with your name, and start getting as many connections as possible.

LinkedIn.com – LinkedIn is more of a tool for people in the corporate world, and I reeally don’t us it at all. But you can still get it to rank on page 1 of Google. Use a vanity url with your name or company name (whatever you are trying to rank for). Fill it out completely and try to get a few recommendations. You can upload your email list and quickly find out which ones are active menbers.

You can also upload your client email addresses, or even your prospect list (I highly recommend connecting with everyone…especially now that Linked In can automatically receive your Twitter updates…you don’t even have to login to LinkedIn to keep fresh content.

Very slick upgrade that came out on Monday. All your contacts within LinkedIn will link back to your profile. The more links back to it, the better. Get enough and your profile will start to rank.

Summary

So there you have it…5 social media sites that allow you to create profile that can rank on page 1 of Google for your name.

I didn’t spend any time trying to make this happen for myself, it was just a pleasant side result of being active in other social media/social networking sites. Although I have been able to replicate it for some of my clients.

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Dan Kennedy is internationally recognized as the ‘Millionaire Maker,’ helping people in just about every category of business turn their ideas into fortunes. Dan’s “No B.S.” approach is refreshing amidst a world of small business marketing hype and enriches those who act on his advice.

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Squidoo and all of its joys made a believer out of me in just six weeks.

Anyone can build their first lens in only minutes. A lens is a cute name for a Squidoo web page. Filling in a lens as you want it can take time but the lens creation is done in minutes.

Of the free websites and blogs I have created none are as easy and fast as a Squidoo lens. Create a lens in just four easy steps once your signup is completed.

1. What is your lens about? This will be your lens title upon creation and can be edited later.

2. What is the goal of your lens? Tick one.

3. Pick your URL! Be sure this cannot be changed!

4. Enter 3 keywords optional. You can add up to 40 later. Click on build my lens. Done! Your lens will open on your computer screen.

The module for the lens title is the first module you will see at the top of your lens. Just click the title edit button and add your best content. This module already contains your entry for what your lens is about. Click save.

The next module is the introduction module. Write a short intro about your lens. Inside the introduction module is a table of contents tab. Click the tab answer a question or two and your table of contents is created. Each time you create a new module it will be auto added to the table of contents. There is also a guest book created down near the bottom automatically.

Scrolling down the text-write is the next module. Click edit add your text click save. You are allowed 10,000 characters in the text write module. Should you require more space add another text-write module. Each text module offers a headline title, subtitle and description before entering your post.

The next modules you see are money modules like eBay, Amazon, Netflix. Click edit on each profit module and pick the options you want displayed on your lens. Instant monetization is accomplished. Each module you add including profit modules are auto added to the table of contents module.

If you wish to delete a module just click the big X beside the edit button on any module. What profit modules you wish to you use or not use are your choice.

Because modules are the basis of Squidoo there are dozens and dozens available. Open every module by clicking the edit button top right of each module. Just add pictures, text, links, anything the module asks for.

Click on add modules at the top or pick from the side bar to see and add additional modules to your lens. Other than the title and introduction modules they can be moved around as you wish. You can drag and drop them in any order on the pages sidebar.

You can pick and add text link modules so you can link to other sites, affiliate programs etc etc.

Add video and picture modules yours or from Youtube, Flickr. The list of possible modules seems endless.

Once the title module, introduction module, text-write module and if memory serves correctly one other module profit or otherwise is filled out you can then publish your page. Click the big orange publish button at the top of the page to do this.

Really by knowing the title and having an intro pre- written along with your first text entry you really can create lens in ten minutes using copy and paste for the intro and text modules. It is exactly that easy.

Another really great feature is the vast majority of S.E.O is done for you. The modules are designed with S.E.O in mind. It works really great.

How well does Squidoo work? My first lens went to number one on Google in slightly over three weeks. With out buying ads or placing ads either. Just a handful of articles. So it works and it works well.

If you’re new at this. Squidoo should be your next stop. If you’re not new its a great and free spot to check out those niche markets before dropping big bucks on a niche campaign. The ways to use and profit from squidoo are as endless as the modules.

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Ryleigh Cantrell has only recently discovered Squidoo. Ryleigh has spent the last two years earning a solid work from home income using only IFW websites. You can learn how to use IFW websites to create a good work from home income of your own.

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If you have doubts this may change your mind: