Lol… Anything to get you to click on a headline, don’t think that even makes sense

This is a general update to let you know that I have been very busy working on some new projects, ViralNetworks and also a couple of new things with Frank Bauer. You can read about them here:

Colin Klinkert Dot Com

That is my new blog, I might start using ViralKing again, but for the moment, only time for the one, so please join that RSS to get news updates and info about posting contests and other prizes you can win. Thank you so much for your support.

This Promo Video for ViralNetworks has my ID built into the bouncing logo when the video loads, you can click this link and it will open my referral id to ViralNetworks in a new window. Thus helping me get referrals:

To celebrate the launch of my new main blog: Colin Klinkert Dot Com

I am running a top commentator contest, this will likely be every month, and also I will be adding in more cool contests and hopefully lots of good content:

Read about the Contest HERE

Or Here: http://www.colinklinkert.com/commentating-contest/

Please Join my RSS feed there too, so that you can stay up to date with new posts.

To all my readers. Whilst ViralKing is a good concept, I feel I can post better on my own domain name as I can share much more related to all niches.

Please Visit and subscribe to my RSS Feed there as that is where I will make most of my posts now: http://www.colinklinkert.com/

Niche Vs Internet Marketing? Which One Is Best For Me?

There is a lot of marketing going on the Internet. With so much going on, it can be extremely difficult to distinguish the differences in the two. I am going to make it a little clearer for you, I will review some of the differences between Internet marketing and niche marketing.

Internet marketing and niche marketing are apples and oranges, they are both fruit, but yet have their unique differences. Internet marketing is the apple, where niche marketing is the orange.

What is Niche Marketing?

Niche marketing is when you are selling a specific product to customers looking for that particular product. There are some niches that are extremely competitive, and some that have little or no competition. You can also take a niche market and create a microniche market. The key is for you to find the niche with little or no competition.

There are so many of the larger niche markets that are open to the latest and greatest marketing strategies, whereas the smaller niches are much easier to break into because they aren’t swamped with all the big-time Internet gurus posing as your competition. By going with your own niche market, you get to promote it yourself, or promote a niche affiliate product.

How To Find A Niche Market?

You can find a niche market for anything! If you can imagine it, you can sell it. All you need is a great idea, great product (whether you create it or not), some advertising, and a strong will and intention to succeed.

What Is The Internet Marketing Niche?

This is where you are promoting your own Internet marketing product. There is a lot of competition in this market and much harder to break into and see quick results.

You are competing with a lot of very wise men and women who are the best of the best when it comes to Internet marketing, also known as Internet Gurus. Does this mean it is impossible? NO…you CAN DO IT!

You are in a world that works with supply and demand, meaning if you have a product that can go up against the big guys, and if you have an iron will to win, then by all means, you will succeed in the big league. Remember however, there are easier ways to get started than jumping right into the ball field with the hard hitters.

There are innumerable niches that are still untouched, just waiting for you to jump in and take over. Go with something that you are familiar with, a hobby, a talent, something you are passionate about. Not only will this give you an edge in the market, but you can have fun with it too.

Niche Marketing Tips

1. Make your niche very appealing for anyone to sell or resell your product. By making your product appealing, you make it easier and more cost effective to advertise in a specialized market.

2. Focus on the specific needs of your target audience and create your product to meet those needs.

3. Maybe you have written an Ebook on beating insomnia, giving proven methods to overcome this safely and easily, and can virtually apply to everyone. You will be sought out by those who suffer insomnia, searching for the information you have to offer.

4. If you have a website, blog or product that focuses on writing the perfect resume’, you will not be attracting the market looking to start an online business. Focus on your market, your targeted audience.

Summary…Remember, Apples and Oranges…

By using your creativity, a little elbow grease, some committed action, and niche marketing will become a very effective and cost efficient way to sell your products and services, advertise to a specific audience, and bring in buyers of your product or service.

WOW – Sorry to everyone who reads my posts here, I guess I need to focus more on the ‘blogging’ side of life!

Just got back from a 2 week cruise around Northen Europe and had a great time, visited many places that I hadn’t been to before and met a few really cool people too, so all in all a trip well worth it.

Before that I was very focused on  my main business and have to give a shout out to Frank Bauer – Superman – for holding down the fort whilst I was done. We have some VERY exciting things planed in the coming months, so stay tuned… Oh, and I promise I will put up a nice, content filled post early next week

Hope you had a great month too… Onward and Upward

What can you do to become a pro-blogger?

Well, you need to get a lot of traffic to your blog.

And now you thinking….’I already know that, but HOW am I going to do it? I have some trade secrets to let you in on. By using these trade secrets, you too, can become a pro blogger.

Today, you are going to learn some great tricks of the trade to grab the attention of StumbleUpon, and use their platform to set your blog on fire. These tips and tricks will get you anywhere from the hundreds up to the thousands of StumbleUpon visitors each day.

StumbleUpon does lean toward some niches more than others, and you need to use this to work for your advantage. You will find that StumbleUpon can be one of the greatest viral marketing tool out there. So here are some tips:

• If you do have a niche that is lacking in the mass appeal, StumbleUpon will be a great boost for you where the others won’t. Digg uses a broad forum which keeps their power from weakening in traffic. StumbleUpon works a bit differently by creating more specific categories, providing a more targeted audience.

• Write posts that appeal to the particular social media, if you go for the general appeal, you are going to lose your followers. For instance, Del.icio.us likes anything that their users prefer, Digg likes the appeal of the masses. You have to have content that is going to get thousands of hits, or you won’t become a pro-blogger.

• When you are writing for StumbleUpon, you don’t need to worry about pleasing the masses, matter of fact, you benefit more by sticking with your niche, yes, even your small ones, and this will bring you some highly targeted traffic.

• So, write your content for your niche, not for the general public. By doing this, you will increase your chances to your post will be submitted to receive more traffic in a more specific category.

In another blog, I will go into the types of posts you should and should not be making. I will go into the types of content and the things you can do to make your blog more appealing to StumbleUpon.

You Know About SEO, But, Do You Know About SMO?

SEO is Search Engine Optimization, which is known to most Internet marketers throughout the world. But there are many who are not totally aware of SMO, which is a new term than SEO. SMO is a branch off the SEO tree, but there are many who are in the Internet marketing business that are not aware of this wonderful tool to increase their popularity in the search engines.

What is SMO? It is Social Media Optimization

As you would use SEO on the search engines, SMO will work on the social media sites. As you may well know, the Social Media sites to not focus on the business aspect of the Internet, but they do focus on social interaction such as the blogs, forums, communities, video websites, music sites, etc…

Search Engine Optimization is great in providing long term ranking to your websites, whereas, SMO’s are great at creating a viral marketing buzz to your business. You can look at this as a great gossip columnist spreading the buzz or news about your site, and watching the buzz take off like fire. You will be creating not only a buzz, but bringing in visitors just out of sheer curiosity.

Are There Any Disadvantages of SMO I Should Be Aware Of?

Yes, there is a drawback and that is the speed of which it takes off then fades. This works like the news, it comes out, hits the papers, then becomes old news. SEO, however, is very effective and permanent, giving it a higher ranking among Internet marketers.

But what happens when you combine the two, SMO and SEO? You then create a great partnership linking your website to some high quality content, while the website is named on the social media sites. You will be creating a win/win situation, using great content which is essential to both the SEO as well as the SMO techniques.

There are a number of websites that are social media sites which include rich content. One of these sites is Yahoo! Answers. This site answers queries while promoting their own websites indirectly.

It is important to have search engine optimization in promoting your website and making it visible to the viewers, however, coupled with social media optimization, you will reap the rewards of higher results than SEO techniques alone.

How To Get SMO Going For You

I am going to recommend you using Google Gadgets, which are tiny bits of code that can be downloaded for free right from Google. You can apply these Google gadgets as your own signature as you post on blogs or forums, attracting interest to your website, all at no cost to you.

Another option is to visit a few of the social media network sites and create your own page. This is simple to do and won’t take up a lot of your time. You may find that there are more people on the Internet that share your same interests. Send them a note with your cute Google gadget in your signature.

Social marketing is an ideal way to get a target market. If you want to direct people to your website, you need only visit some of the different social network sites on the Internet and make a page. This can be done in a matter of minutes. Then find others who share your interests and send them a note with your own personal signature, complete with a cute little Gadget. Gadgets can be customized and make a fun signature at the end of your post. They can be used to link others to your website.

Visit relevant websites and forums, creating your own ‘buzz’ just by using SMO. And as you search out relevant blogs and forums, don’t limit yourself, take a chance on the .org, .gov., .edu and so on…there is more out there than just the dot.coms. As for the .edu sites, these are a great market as they are typically the colleges and Universities.

CONTENT IS KEY!

Create excellent and keyword rich content which will help you with search engine optimization, which will also help you in your brand marketing. You want to use the Google Gadgets, providing ample exposure to your website, creating your own ‘buzz’ and increasing your ranks on the search engines. You will create your Google Gadget for your product or website, use it as your post to the relevant forums and blogs. You will soon be the hot topic on the web.

When do Internet Marketers become Rabid Dogs?

When a high quality product of extreme, real value is created and launched by a very well respected and successful industry figure, who offers great backend prizes and affiliate commissions…. Thats when!

No doubt over the last 12 hours you have got 10 or more emails about a new product offering, heck I guess i’ve got over 15 in that time. but why, that is the question?

Well, for starters, marketers that respect their lists, only want to promote the best to them, in this case, I personally paid a tonne for the information now being given away free.

The next reason is the incentive, in this case, backend OTO’s are shown ranging from lower cost up to $800, these all pay 50% to the affiliate, not to mention the fact that Mike in this case is giving away cool prizes for those ‘big’ enough to get up to the top of the promotional table so to speak (I think top 10 get in there)

Third, Mike can afford to do this, as even though it is a free product, it could well be his most successful and profitable ever. Lets assume 10,000 signup – now forget about the OTO’s (which would bring in a lot of fast cash) it is also a continuity program, meaning that until you cancel, you will be sent a magazine with some quality information each month. Assume a 50% drop out rate, that leaves 5,000 members each netting Mike’s company $15 a month (after expenses)  Thats  $75,000 a month recurring income. Not too bad I wouldn’t have thought but Mike is in a position to do that because of the incredibly awesome information and products he has created and is able to pass on as value.

So the customer gets a 7 figure education dirt cheap, the affilite gets good rewards and the creator is well taken care of, Win-Win-Wins like this tend to turn the industry upside down for the period of the launch.

I know it did for me, I don’t expect to get in the prizes, but I still booked a domain name: http://www.7figuresecrets.org and then went to work building inbound links and getting listings in the search engines. If you search on google for:

7figuresecrets
7figure secrets bonus
7figuresectres review

you will see that my site is up there with many listings in google. I will be releasing through a series of blog posts how you too can do this in the near future.

For Now… If you still haven’t signed up after getting BOMBARDED with emails about it, do so now, trust me, its worth it: 7 Figure Secrets 

Looking For A Match To Create Success?

I am sure you have heard of Eharmony for those that are looking for a companion…but what about those who are looking for the perfect match for business or possibly looking for a mentor? MyMission2 is just the site to assist you in finding the right partner and allowing others to find you. This is a site that can be used for not just dating, but for your profession, work, or education. This is a site for the success oriented type person.

So you sit down at your computer, pull up MyMission2 and start filling out some information regarding your skills, and what your dreams and aspirations are. You have the option of making this information public or private. You may have the expertise that someone else is looking for, and if so, they will be able to contact you, the same goes for you, you will find someone who has the skills and expertise you are seeking. This is great for those who are goal oriented, assisting others in reaching their goals.

How Does It Work?

This is taking an old concept like the dating sites, combining it with services such as Yahoo Answers, bringing together the best of both worlds, creating a dynamic tool now called MyMission2. Another site related to this is TheCommon.org which has just recently launched.

Current favorite categories

* Arts

* Auto & Transport

* Beauty & Style

* Business & Finance

* Charity

* Education

* Entertainment

* Environment

* Food & Drink

* Gadgets

* Government

* Health

* Home & Garden

* Pets

* Relationships

* Sports

* Technology

* Travel

Don’t Be A Square Peg In A Round Hole!

Find associates and matches that are seeking the same thing you are; Success!

Another great service that is set up as a goal setting/achieving web-based community is Goalmigo. The difference between MyMission2 and these other sites are that MyMission2 is still working on their internet tools which will take you through the steps needed for goal achievement.

You get to share links, images, the simpler things, but they have not yet set up tools such as integrated calendars, task lists, or ways to create collaborative documents, however, this is a great, new and upcoming web-based community which will grow quickly, providing you a built-in support system for SEO integration.

Another site worth checking out is Upumpitup. This site is well modified for goal achievement and offers some practical tools for achieving goals on a group basis Upumpitup is a fun place to check out, and endorsed by Mandy Moore, actress/singer. This is a site mainly for women, whereas, MyMission2, is for everyone.

If you are looking for success, want others to join in with you on your journey, then check out MyMission2. Teach others what you know, help them succeed, learn from those who know the ropes. This is a win-win situation, but only for those who want to succeed.

This post is a follow on from the post I made a few days ago, click here to read it first

Get That Business Coming Your Way!

You like the idea of an online newsletter, and you are beginning to see how this will help you bring in more business to your website. But you do have a few concerns, which is perfectly natural. You need to know that everyone who starts something new, has their own concerns and fears.

Some of the most common question are;

1. What if I don’t have anything interesting or relevant to write?
2. Can I keep the quality up over a long period of time?
3. How do I make links from my pictures to my website?

These are just a sample of the questions that are asked…but never fear! This is so much easier than it sounds.

The thing you need to be concerned about IS WHEN you are going to DO IT! Stop with the excuses, just begin and you will realize how simple it really is.

1. You do need to remember that you must always offer something that is of interest or very useful to your reader.
2. Keep your newsletter fairly short. So many these days have more than enough emails to read, and they don’t have time to read a long newsletter. They will like the fact that they can read it quickly and get something from it.
3. You want the best format possible for your follow up emails, so put some thought into this process. You want a model that you can use week after week, which by the way makes your job easier.Below are a few ideas that you can use as your standard format, choose one or combine them, whatever fits your personality.

   I. Tip of the Month

   Here you will come up with some great tips that focus on your main products. Do a bit of brainstorming giving you two or three months of content. If you are focusing on an area that you are familiar with, it should be easy. Some of the topics can be offering and explaining the problem, then offer a tip that will solve the problem.

   II. The Famous “Top Ten” list

   This format is so popular because it works. If you are an expert in Doll Collecting, then write your article about “Top Ten Reasons to start Doll Collecting”. Keep your sentences short.

   III. Three Different Ways to….

   Sometimes it can be difficult to find ten ways to do something, but you can always find three ways to do it. This can be done alternately with your Top Ten newsletters.

   IV. The “Before and After” approach

   You can use this much like you would the “Tip of the Month” format. You will introduce a problem with the solution. This format works best when you can include case studies which is an excellent way if interacting with your customers on a direct level. You may even ask your customers for some examples of their ‘before and after’ and if they will give their permission to share it with your readers. If your format is in text only, you can include a link to show pictures on your website.

   V. What about “Checklists”

   If you want to share something new with your readers, a great way to do this is with checklists. Be sure to include all the steps, and these check lists will help save your readers a lot of time, which they will love. You will begin by writing a short paragraph which introduces your topic, include your list, the end it with some final tips. You can format your entire newsletter on the checklist formula, or present it randomly.

   Now you can see that online newsletters aren’t as difficult as you first thought. Get your list and get started, no excuses.

Bring in Even More Business!

Today I want to talk about online newsletters and how these can bring in even more business for you. This is a very cost-effective way to market and will not eat up all of your time.

Whether you are mailing your newsletters out through the post office, or sending them out via email, this is a great way to increase the recognition of your brand, bringing in repeat business and sharing your experience and story and success with your readers.

1. You are going to first put your list together of your current customers along with any potential customers. Any names that you have collected from inquiries, direct mail response cards, etc…that you have from the beginning of your marketing endeavors, will be the start of your list. If you don’t have a list, and you have some money set aside, you can purchase a list, giving you names of the best potential customers.

1. If you are doing an online newsletter, it is best to include a content manager system. This will make your editing much easier with a newsletter template, your graphics and giving it your own style. You will have a little bit to learn, but you will have a lot of fun doing it. If you need help through the process, call a college student, they will be a great resource. Another option would be to hire somebody at Guru.com at great cheap prices.
2. Next you want to have a feature that allows you to track bounce back emails to help you manage. your list, deleting these names from your list. It is really important to keep your list up to date. Now, your goal is to increase sales, but you need to make this an easy process for your readers because they all have very busy schedules, so you need to show off your products in the very best manner.\Below are some tips to help you do this and achieve greater financial success from your email marketing.

• Include pictures all throughout
• Show details in these pictures
• The pictures need to be bright and cheery
• Make the picture a link to the sales page or product information page.
• Be sure to add a text link which is associated with your product picture which links to the online product page
• Include the ability to order directly from your newsletter with purchase buttons
• When you have a new product, make sure you have direct links in the website, making it easy for them to get there without any extra navigating.If you still have concerns about your new online newsletter, …just know you can do it…I will go over tomorrow some of your biggest questions..such as “What do I say?”, or “How much time will this take?”, or “How do I set up the links?”. Well, we will answer these questions in our next blog. Stay tuned…..

Can Your Photos Make You Money?

As you know by now, I love keeping you in the know on all the new sites that help you in your viral marketing strategies. The name of the latest company that I want to share with you is fOTOGLIF.

What is fOTOGLIF?

This is not your ordinary photo sharing website, this is one that actually gives back. You get to upload and share as many photos as you like, and you are thinking “so what, there are numerous sites that do this”, but what you don’t know is….you get paid to share your photos. They will split their ad revenues with you on a 50/50 basis, depending on the viewer-ship.

FOTOGLIF has a built in photo and content sharing application which enables its users to benefit directly from their own content they have shared. The users of this site is who create the content and when they share, they are creating traffic to the site, therefore, becoming a recipient of the revenues generated.

This site has created a fantastic platform for artists and photographers to benefit from their talents and creations, and to be able to share their work while benefiting financially from the advertising revenues. They have created a Best Of Show utility for sharing these incredible pictures.

This is a new site, just opened this month. This is providing Facebook junkies to produce their own slideshows to share while bringing in some money at the same time. And for those of you who are serious about your photography and wish to promote your work, you can do so on here as you do on Flickr and other photo sites. You may find that fOTOGLIF will be a great tool in brining in some extra income while promoting your art.

Facebook Users

Because this is such a new product, you may encounter a few error messages as you install it on Facebook on the uppermost portion of the dashboard. You will also need to focus on your gift patience as you load your images. This being new, in time it will become better and better as they work out the bugs. This is definitely worth checking out.

Their revenue sharing plan is a great and simple plan. You will supply the required personal data with an email address for PayPal. This will all be done in the “Settings” menu, and then you will be on the receiving end of half of what they make through the advertisements and viewers interactions.

ARE MUSICIANS TAKING ON SOCIAL NETWORKING ON THE WEB?

If You Would Like to Connect With Some of the Top Musicians and create your own Social Network at the same time; Then Read On…

If you are one that loves music, and would love to network with these artists, then you just may have your opportunity. Many of the artists, such as 50 Cent, Ludacris, Kylie Minogue and many more have decided to move away from the vast space of MySpace, to a new alternative site, a site that is destined to be a star on Web 2.0. This site is Ning, a place where you can connect with some of your favorite artists.

How Does Ning Work and Will It Benefit My Viral Marketing Campaign?

Ning was founded by Marc and Gina Bianchini in October 2004 to provide an opportunity for you and me the ability to create our own social networks for anything and everything. Ning is the power behind the largest number of the Internet’s social networks, and social networking is all about viral marketing.

You will have the opportunity to use the latest and greatest in social networking, features that are truly customizable by you to fit your needs. This is a platform that provides all the features you need to be a success in the social networking arena. The only thing you need to bring to the table is your time and determination. With this you will be able to build your own social network. This is not a prefitted site, this is one you create yourself.

What is the Purpose of Ning?

The founders first started Ning on a very simple premise, they wanted to provide a way for anyone to create their own social networking site. They were expecting some amazing results and they got that and so much more! They have artists, athletes, musicians , educators, journalists, students, alumni, hobbyists, and any other group of interests you can imagine. The diversity of these groups is amazing and quite profound.

As you check out the Ning website, you will find a very informative FAQ section, where you can learn about their Network Creators community.

Are you a business or company that wants to promote your private label? If so, check out Ning for Business.

You will find these features on the Ning website as posted there:

# Members can invite new members, meet new people, and make new friends on your network.

# Full message center with address book importing from Gmail, Yahoo Mail, and Hotmail.

# See your network members when they are online now.

# Customizable profile pages just for you.

# Photo slideshows, video players, music players, and network badges, that can be embedded anywhere on the Internet, seamlessly funneling new people to your network.

# Set your own different privacy settings for every photo, video, group, or blog post they contribute.

# RSS feeds of your network’s features, such as members, discussions, photos, videos, music/podcasts, and blog posts.

# Got a logo or brand? Add it to make your network totally unique.

# Choose your own theme from the options provided then customize them to make them your own.

# Public or private, that is totally up to you!

# Choose how your photos, video player, music players, and network badges appear on your site.

# Do you want to ask your members some profile questions before they join? You get to create this, and the questions will be private as well as the answers, for your eyes only.

# Do you juse Facebook? Enable “one-click” Facebook Promotion so your members can add photo slideshows, video players, and music/podcasts from your network seamlessly into Facebook.

# You have the ability to moderate photos and videos before you post them.

# Choose from a set of supported languages (English, Chinese, Dutch, French, Portuguese, Spanish) or translate your social network into any unsupported language by changing one file in the code.

# Member profile questions created by you for your network.

# Member blog posts with photos, files, and widgets.

# Manage blog posts and moderate comments.

# Choose the option to publish in the future.

# Ability to customize the appearance of member profile pages.

# Option to add widgets to profile page.

Take advantage of this great social networking platform and create for yourself an even bigger and better network and keep your viral marketing campaign on fire!

Affiliate Programs and How They Can Boost Your Income

What Do You Know About Affiliate Marketing?

As you already know, Internet marketing uses the Internet to market products as well as their promotion. You can be using this method to promote your own products or the products of others.

This is where we get into the affiliate programs and how they can benefit you financially by earning commission on the quality products you are promoting for others.

There are several avenues of marketing that you can use such as your website and web pages, personal blogs and Email Opt-in lists. You are going to promote the product with a squeeze page or promotional letter, In your letter, you will include an affiliate link which will contain the affiliate identifier.

With your affiliate identifier link, your visitors will click on the link, be sent to the product sales page or website, and with their purchase, you will be given a percentage of the sales price. This is very similar to sales in brick and mortar stores, however with an affiliate program, your part is very simple and self running. All you need to do is do the initial set up and optimize the traffic.

You need to realize though that Not All Affiliate Programs are the same, so choose wisely.

What you need to know and look for in choosing the right affiliate program:

1) Training and Support

Affiliate programs will usually provide training and support, which is crucial for those just starting out on Internet Marketing. This is so important as it will be the only way for you to become effective as well as profitable. You need to look for affiliate which offers sufficient training and the know how in selling their product. There are however, Internet marketers who have experienced great success in affiliates without the training and support, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that training and support?

2) Look for High Commissions

You are going to put in the effort to bring in the traffic to the affiliate product with your sales pitch, then directing the customers to the affiliate sales page, and for your well earned efforts, you will receive a percentage of the sale in form of commissions. As you look at the different Affiliate programs to market, look at the amount of commission they offer, some are hardly worth your effort.

The most popular site to promote affiliate programs is Clickbank. You will soon see that Clickbank is the largest online marketplace on the Internet. Clickbank places hundreds of thousands of products which are sold on a daily basis. There are some that pay up to 75% of the purchase price.

3) Affiliate Referral Programs

There are a few programs that will offer you a chance to recommend their affiliate programs yourself. This sill ultimately award you with a greater percentage of all the sales generated for the program you recommend. This is where your viral marketing techniques will come in effect, the more you recommend, the more money you will make.

4) Triple Combination; Affiliate Training and Support, Referral Commission and Product Commission

You will be happy to know that there are some programs out there that offer the best of all three worlds of affiliate marketing. You can have all of these with training to help you in your marketing efforts. A wonderful example of this is the Internet Marketing Center’s Affiliate program. With this combination, you can reap huge commission benefits.

You can make some good money with Internet marketing bringing you closer and closer to your goal of financial freedom. But remember, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort.

You Ready To Become A Published Writer?

Well, now is your chance to get all those words out of your head and into your own published book. If you have written an Ebook, why not a WEbook?

So Tell Me, What is WEbook?

You are being introduced to a brand new, one of a kind, online book publishing company. This is a revolutionary move for book publishing. This is a groundbreaking era of User Generated Books. Music has become a major part of the web, WEbook will become a major influence in the marketplace for writers to earn revenue from their writings. They will be able to sell their work in markets such as Barnes and Noble and Amazon. WEbook will be working with the mainstream in marketing these books. Along with the marketing, they will also be providing some great give-aways via the web and mobile phones.

What is the Prognosis?

Excellent and bright! This model, who is funded by Greylock Partners along with some other individuals, hopes to be the web’s leader in this type of media industry. If you haven’t noticed, there have many collaborative publications and wiki’s that have been steadily making themselves known. You will begin to see projects like this start showing up in several media forms, the majority being creative writing.

What a great forum for wanna-be writers to begin to use their talents, to fulfill their dreams of becoming a published author. Just imagine, with all the talent we have here on the web, bringing them all together, meeting and communicating with each other, exchanging creative ideas, the possibilities are endless.

It doesn’t matter if you are a fiction writer, or non-fiction, short stories, children’s books, thrillers, and so much more. This is who WEbook will be about, all about YOU!

WEbook is YOU!

WEbook is you, your best friend, your neighbor, your uncle who has been working on that thriller for years. It may be your buddy who thinks he only knows how to blog and that’s it. This is for anyone who has a creative mind and loves to write.

Why WEbook?

Why Not? This is a great chance for a broad community of writers to come together and finally become known for their talents. You may have written several Ebooks, or essays, or even a great article writer, but who knows this besides you? Don’t you think it is time for you to be an author and see your creative works published and be able to earn revenue on it?

How Do I Get Started?

Just start writing, add one sentence to another. If you have an idea, start writing, don’t stop to make corrections, just write, let your creativity flow. Short articles become chapters, chapters become books. Have your family or friends look over your work, do some editing where needed. You will find out tons more information on their website.

Come and and be the first join this great new revolution of online book publishing. You are destined to be a success!

Hey You! Give Me A Hi5

Another Social Networking site to check out!

Hi5 has just announced the birth of its developer platform as a well supported open social network. This is extremely popular in Latin America, and has become a founding member of a non-profit organization “OpenSocial Foundation”, which was announced last week by Google, MySpace, and Yahoo.

Hi5 has a very interesting platform in which this is the first OpenSocial supporting network that offers API messaging.

This means that this site can include invitations, notifications, friend updates, and any other methods that will benefit your viral marketing techniques. This is a function that is not currently being offered on MySpace.

Mark Pincus of Zynga, who is a maker of social gaming, makes this comment to the press, in where he stated: “ “hi5 is taking the right approach to launching their platform. By opening some reasonable viral channels and making the social map available to developers and their users, hi5 is highly likely to become one of the biggest application platforms and see widespread user adoption. This is key for social games, such as Poker and Triumph, which quickly enables users to start and play games with their friends.”

So far, hi5 has announced that almost 8,000 developers have registered to build some great applications on this site. They are able to do this through their canvas pages.

According to Mashables edition on March 31, 2008 — 06:10 AM PDT — by Adam Ostrow — he stated; “One additional stat from hi5 that piqued my interest: despite having a reported 80 million users, hi5 claims that it has only 25% active user overlap with any other top social networks. This isn’t especially surprising given the network is usually cited for being popular outside the US, but highlights the significant reach OpenSocial offers.”

There are several categories and groups to be found on hi5, and according to Adam Ostrows article, they are;

Alumni, Schools and Education (336883)

Automotives (17163)

Business (22215)

Cities and Neighborhoods (70942)

Companies and coworkers (16651)

Computer and Internet (19928)

Countries and Regional (23975)

Cultures and Community (63502)

Entertainment and Arts (72743)

Family & Home (13821)

Fashion and Beauty (31554)

Games (34396)

Government and Politics (16056)

Health and Wellness (9560)

Hobbies and Crafts (29674)

Music (161750)

Pets and Animals (17226)

Religion & Beliefs (36762)

Romance and Relationships (206525)

Science and History (7972)

Sports and Recreations (91579)

Other (194086)

Can I Use RSS FEEDS To Increase Traffic?

Traffic is something we all want when it comes to our websites and blogs. There are a variety of ways to do this, but the one method that is rising to the top is through RSS FEEDS.

I recently wrote an article on ‘what is an RSS feed, and how to Set them up“. Here is the followup article to that. If you haven’t read the first one yet, click here to do so now.

What does RSS stand for? RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication or Remote Site Syndication. They both mean the same thing, so it doesn’t really matter what you call it. No matter the name, it works as a great traffic generating tool. You could go to any popular news website and see the feed options. This is a great way to stay on top of the latest headlines and news all over the world.

How Do You Get RSS Feeds?

You subscribe by clicking on the RSS button, then you will automatically get the news into your reader, or a reminder on your homepage. This is a simple way to stay in touch with your favorite websites and blogs. Are there advantages to RSS over Email Marketing?

Yes, and the main advantage is there are never any spam complaints, you have a 100% deliverability without any of the problems. You can usually count on your message being delivered to the readers.

When you have set up your RSS feed, you should submit it to the RSS FEED directories. Your message will have greater exposure to readers. You can do this in a matter of minutes then gain all the benefits.

A great site to read up on this is rssfeedgenerate.com. Here you will find some great instructions on the “How To’s”.

Another recommendation is to check out Mashables RSS Toolbox.

Does RSS Help Search Engine Rankings?

RSS is a fantastic tool for increasing rankings on the search engines, that is if you have it on your website. You probably already know that search engines love the websites that are continually updating their content, and the RSS Feeds will help your website to accomplish this. You will therefore achieve higher rankings on the search engines as well as increasing your website traffic. This is a win-win situation!

The keys to making money on the Internet is to increase your traffic and build up a mailing list. You can do this by using RSS Feeds, if you don’t take advantage of this great tool, you will be missing out and tons of opportunities.

There are 5 Key Points in using RSS Feeds to help you monetize your website and bring in lots of traffic.

1. Learn how to use RSS Feeds, If you aren’t sure how they work, educate yourself, start using this great tool and become familiar with it.

2. Attach links from other blogs and websites which will increase your your own popularity and traffic to your links.

3. Once you set up your RSS Feed, submit it to the RSS directories. This will increase your search engine ranking and increase the popularity of your link.

4. Keep your RSS Feed up to date which will have your site indexed by the search engines frequently.

5. Take advantage of the RSS Press Release. You will be able to use this instead of email marketing, helping you to spread your information and news to your readers the moment it comes in.

6. This is great for real-time advertising. Let’s say for example that you have a client that wants a particular product that you currently out of. You can use RSS to notify him when it comes available. Your customer will be well served and this will increase their loyalty to you. You will be taking care of your clients which will bring more money to you.

7. It is so important to create your own Brand! You are establishing your own credibility which is huge in this business. You will be putting your name out in front your readers just by using RSS Feeds. You will eventually become a trusted source of information.

You should now have a few ideas on how RSS Feeds can be used to generate traffic which is the key to your success.

We need to welcome our new neighbors in our Internet Community, and their company name is Zloop.

According to Mashable: ZLoop provides nearly unlimited enterprise-like collaboration and social interaction functionality in a free, mass market solution everyone can use.

Who In The Heck Is Zloop?

Zloop is social interaction site that allows an unlimited amount of loops whether they be in your business, friends, family members, any type of group you want to put together. There are many social interaction websites that are fun, like Facebook or Myspace, but they aren’t great for creating real productivity. Ning is a great site for community interaction on a single basis, but for group interaction, it’s not the best solution. This is a new beginning as far as online collaboration tools are concerned.

On Zloop, anyone can join, create their own social network, and allow anyone .to enter. This can be a group that is based totally on business, or just casual family. That is the great feature about Zloop, you can transform it into whatever you want it to become.

You Set The Terms For Membership In Your Loop

Because it will be your site, you set the criteria as far as members and user contribution. You decide what content is shared, including files, notes, images. This is a site that functions on the functionality of the group instead of relying on third party applications or widgets.

You will also find that this site is easy to navigate through, encouraging activity on all levels. This is going to be a great productivity tool over the networks for collaboration. Ning will not be focusing on this aspect, rather keeping it on a simpler level.

This is so easy to use that anyone can do it. Each member will establish own account, then once invited to a group, they can join it. Each member also has the option of starting their own loops. This is really a great interaction tool to help your business grow.

What you will be getting from your loops is more relationships, which in turn creates centralized aggregation with identity management and privacy in your interaction. This provides you a fantastic model for bringing together many through daily interaction.

How Does a Loop Work?

You will create your own loop which will be your own online community. You can use your loop as a folder for interaction with others in your community. You can have a loop as large as 10,000 people and as small as 3. This program is designed to support many hundreds and even thousands throughout the coming years. You may have some that are continually active, and some that may sit inactive for a while, but will keep a record of your past interactions.

How Does Zloop Work for Relationships?

As you and I know, relationships are your communication with another person, and Zloop gives you a place to foster these relationships, keeping tabs on colleagues, staying in contact with friends and acquaintances. You also have the options to interact with one another with multiple content types.

Can you imagine trying to navigate between hundreds of different loops, trying to keep relationships going in every direction? You wouldn’t be able to do it if you had to do this independently, however, Zloop provides an inbox that lets you know about any activities happening in any of your loops. You will be able to respond instantly as well as interact in any of the activities. You will also have the ability to control what information you receive from your loop.

What About Privacy?

You will have the ability to create any identity you choose, and submit your information to each loop according to your wants and desire. Each loop is a single network, and your interaction will remain only in that loop.

From what I can tell, Zloop may be another great way for you to enhance your viral marketing and create your buzz. Zloop is a new beginning of a more enhanced marketing venue.

Time Management For Successful Home Biz

According to StartYourOwnBiz.com they have come up with some great advice on managing your home business.

This is a site that will give you more tips on getting started with the basics.

You cannot expect to get great results unless you are devoting the amount of time needed, you just can’t set it up, then hope that it runs itself.

Are you serious about working at home, making a success out of a home based business? If you are, and really want to make some money in the process, you will need to become a wonderful time manager. It is hard enough to manage the home itself, then you add in the kids, errands, etc…and you can see your time gone, out the window. If you are serious about being a success, making this home business really work, you will not be able to use the Lack of time as an excuse. You are going to have to make a strict routine in order to help you manage your time.

There is an old saying “If there is a will, there is a way”. You will be amazed at the extra time you can create just by organizing your work and home routines.

Here are some things you may want to consider as your design your plan;

1. Take a look at your typical day, where to do you spend your time and is it on things that are necessary? Ask yourself in which areas you can slice off 15 minutes here and there. If you spend a lot of time in preparing meals, how can you make this more time efficient.
2. Plan your errands in advance, giving yourself enough time to complete them instead of feeling rushed.
3. Teach your children to be self-reliant and self-disciplined, which will free up much of your time. You can give your older child the responsibility of helping with the younger children while you are ‘at work’, and reward them for their help as well as their understanding.
4. How much time do you spend watching the TV? You may not be sitting directly in front of it, but how many times does it grab your attention for a few minutes here and few minutes there. Before you know it, you have lost an hour easily
   
   The things listed above are not the only time mongers; there are the chores of gardening, shopping, bill paying, visiting with your friends and relatives, chatting on the phone, and don’t forget, just simply browsing the Internet and reading emails. All of these things can take up a lot of your time throughout the day.

You will find these things a bit difficult to change in the beginning, but you will for sure see the importance and recognize how much time you are losing each day. By implementing a time management regimen, you will find the time you need to make your home business a success.

You Think Message Dance Is Awesome, Check It Out Now!

I recently wrote a blog about MessageDance. Now I have even more information for you and how to take this great tool to a new level.

You now get to take advantage of MessageDance from anywhere and everywhere on your own blog.

What is Message Dance?

MessageDance began as a portable message wall, such as for comments, guest book entries, like your Facebook Wall.

In my first blog about Message Dance, you learned about the many possibilities of this new message aggregator which was used on Facebook and other social networks. You had the ability to use their new portable You Tube playlist which enabled you to share your videos across the social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, and MySpace. You could use your MessageDance widget to share your updates via email or through MessageDance.com.

GREAT NEWS!

Well, the great news is that now they have progressed out of the message widget and moved up into the world of social media with a slew of sharing options which still include your You Tube playlists.

You are now able to join the world of blogging and use your MessageDance widget to display your blog posts.

You have a variety of ways to submit your blog posts; you can use Facebook message tool, Amazon, Iphone, YouTube, Gmail, Hotmail, Outlook, Yahoo, and your Google Reader! Wow, this is exciting!

You may be thinking yeah…this is just a blogging integration platform which uses the submission process, but you are not correct in that assumption. You are able to create a blog post from many media sites as well as email clients. MessageDance, however, can be your existing blog on two of the major platforms which are WordPress and Blogger. You will also be able to use their media attachment tool which will enable you to turn your content into an incredible rich media blog.

We know in this business that blogs are very powerful, which is why you see so many. If you are a social network user, I am sure you have a blog of some sort. Blogs are a conversation, and they keep us informed on the world and what’s going on. But as you know, this is a big job keeping it updated for your readers.

MessageDance has created a huge theme which allows its users to blog content from any social networking site they happen to be on. You get to take advantage of their blog posting capabilities from all the popular social networking sites.

Watch this great video on MessageDance and learn how simple it is to use.

So what you have now is no longer just a message aggregator, but an ever-growing broadcaster which can be used across a variety of networks. You will love the re-publishing tools which are totally automated.

Continue to watch MessageDance evolve and grow and watch your own viral marketing campaign grow right along with it.

It’s April and We Are Nobody’s Fool…

If You Were Browsing the Web On April Fools Day, You May Have Seen These…

April Fools Day is always at great day because you can play all types of pranks on your buddies, but with the Internet, it can be a blast! I did some looking around and I found some great information about one of the largest gaming industries and the pranks they played. This company would be none other than Blizzard, the top gaming industry on the web. According to Shack News, Blizzard Entertainment posted quite a few hilarious pranks on their website. One of the most popular of their spoofs was “PC MMO World of Warcraft will hit Atari 2600 in the form of World of Warcraft: The Molten Core.”…This was a very clever, and yes, extremely funny and entertaining bit of advertising. You feel like you are back in the early days of Pac Man again. If you have not checked it out, you need to do it soon.

Are You A Fan of Guitar Hero?

Another one of my favorites was Blizzards news of bringing you a Guitar Hero type character to the amazing new expansion to World of Warcraft called Wrath of the Lich King, along with its plans to marketing a pinata that can be a bit dangerous for any child, even adults for that matter. This is a Pinata that you would never allow your child to swing at. Remember folks, this was only a joke.

Ever thought of living on Mars?

Here Richard Branson, founder of Virgin along with Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be breaking a new frontier in the greatest adventure of our lifetime, a first for all to witness, The Adventure of Many Lifetimes; the first human colony to ever live off of this planet, the first to live on Mars. This was great; they even had a test you could take to see if you would qualify. Who knows… it could happen!

And finally, the greatest one of all, at least if you are as fed up with the whole political race as I am…the Hillary and Obama Deathmatch as seen here on ESPN’s website. It’s just too bad there wasn’t something that exciting really happening. According to the information on this website, Hillary and Obama would be able to settle the race by winner taking all, the loser heading home with his or her head hanging low, with a good ole deathmatch. There would have been several events which is officiated by Ron Paul, the Libertarian candidate. Check out the website for the cool challenges that could have happened.

Leave it to the Web to make April Fools Day a fun one, and I can only imagine what they will come up with next year.

No More Excuses, Now Anyone Can Convert Your Paper to iPaper

I came across this article as I was browsing some of my favorite blogs, and this immediately caught my attention. This is a site that is perfect for those who do not own a scanner or have convenient access to one.

Scribd now has a program they call Convert Your Paper to Ipaper…

which is a way for you to have all your paper documents scanned and published on the Internet, all at no cost to you..yes..you read that right….Totally FREE! All you need to worry about it getting the documents sent to them, then they take care of the rest.

How Can They Do This For Free?

They are able to offset the expense for scanning by the advertisements that are relevant to your documents.

Can You Have Any Type of Documents Scanned?

Scribd can scan almost any type of written document. They use a highly advanced scanning process which is provided by their partners, giving them the ability to scan about any document in high volumes. If you do have any questions however, they are easy to contact and ready to answer any of your questions.

Who is Scribd?

Scribd is a huge, digital library where you can publish your own original content. The focus of Scribd is to provide a way for those who have tons of documents sitting around their home or office, and to have a place to publish these documents for all to read.

What’s Their Plan?

First and foremost they are looking to save a lot of trees, which I am all for. They are also looking to utilize their space to service those who have some very important documents that were created long before the digital era. There may also be some documents that have been lost, out of print, or printed but now deleted. This provides a new life to documents that can be shared among many re-digitized and accessible to all.

The reason I am all for this and ready to support them is they are providing a great service at no cost to you. You no longer have to take the time scanning paper after paper, or the expense of purchasing a scanner, but just stick your documents in an envelope, send them off in the mail to Scribd, and before you know it, your documents are accessible to you on the Internet, never to be lost or misplaced again, nor taking up all that valuable space in your home or office.

Affiliate Programs and How They Can Boost Your Income

What Do You Know About Affiliate Marketing

As you already know, Internet marketing uses the Internet to market products as well as their promotion. You can be using this method to promote your own products or the products of others.

This is where we get into the affiliate programs and how they can benefit you financially by earning commission on the quality products you are promoting for others.

There are several avenues of marketing that you can use such as your website and web pages, personal blogs and Email Opt-in lists. You are going to promote the product with a squeeze page or promotional letter, In your letter, you will include an affiliate link which will contain the affiliate identifier.

With your affiliate identifier link, your visitors will click on the link, be sent to the product sales page or website, and with their purchase, you will be given a percentage of the sales price. This is very similar to sales in brick and mortar stores, however with an affiliate program, your part is very simple and self running. All you need to do is do the initial set up and optimize the traffic.

You need to realize though that Not All Affiliate Programs are the same, so choose wisely.

What you need to know and look for in choosing the right affiliate program:

1) Training and Support

Affiliate programs will usually provide training and support, which is crucial for those just starting out on Internet Marketing. This is so important as it will be the only way for you to become effective as well as profitable. You need to look for affiliate which offers sufficient training and the know how in selling their product. There are however, Internet marketers who have experienced great success in affiliates without the training and support, but wouldn’t it be nice to have that training and support?

2) Look for High Commissions

You are going to put in the effort to bring in the traffic to the affiliate product with your sales pitch, then directing the customers to the affiliate sales page, and for your well earned efforts, you will receive a percentage of the sale in form of commissions. As you look at the different Affiliate programs to market, look at the amount of commission they offer, some are hardly worth your effort.

The most popular site to promote affiliate programs is Clickbank. You will soon see that Clickbank is the largest online marketplace on the Internet. Clickbank places hundreds of thousands of products which are sold on a daily basis. There are some that pay up to 75% of the purchase price.

3) Affiliate Referral Programs

There are a few programs that will offer you a chance to recommend their affiliate programs yourself. This sill ultimately award you with a greater percentage of all the sales generated for the program you recommend. This is where your viral marketing techniques will come in effect, the more you recommend, the more money you will make.

4) Triple Combination; Affiliate Training and Support, Referral Commission and Product Commission

You will be happy to know that there are some programs out there that offer the best of all three worlds of affiliate marketing. You can have all of these with training to help you in your marketing efforts. A wonderful example of this is the Internet Marketing Center’s Affiliate program. With this combination, you can reap huge commission benefits.

You can make some good money with Internet marketing bringing you closer and closer to your goal of financial freedom. But remember, you need to be willing to put in the time and effort.

What NOT To Do!

I came across some information that I thought was quite interesting that you and I can both benefit from.

We are constantly focusing on all the things we need to be doing to be more successful. We all want to be noticed by our customers, partners, increase our brand awareness, gain more leads and contacts, and of course generate more opportunities for our business to grow.

You and I also know that the best way to do this is through SEO (Search Engine Optimization).

I have talked a bit before the importance on reputation, how important it is to gain the trust of our readers and clients, how our reputation effects viral marketing, whether it be for good or bad. If you are doing some things that will bring about negative publicity, you may find yourself banned from Google as well as facing some legal issues in the future. So, in this blog, I am going to be going over a few Don’t s, the ‘black hat methods’ to stay away from, no matter how innocent you may think they are.

You don’t want to be on the odds with Google or your clients. A good reputation takes a long time to build, but a bad reputation can spread like wildfire in a day.

There are many who debate the ‘black hat vs white hat’ strategies. But in my opinion, it doesn’t matter the name you give it, there are things that are just not a smart idea and need to be avoided.

These methods have a common denominator and that is trying to trick the search engines and changing search results.

If you have any inclination that it may not be ethical, or that if being looked at by the human eye, could be detected, then don’t do it.

Below, I will give you a list of the Don’t s and Avoid if at all possible;

1. Link Farms

We both know the biggest influence on your search rankings is the amount and quality of links coming into your Web page. Link Farms are a group of Web sites that have been created for one purpose and that purpose is to create a high number of links to a website. What’s wrong with this? Well, for one, these links are not “real”, which in turn, changes or distorts the search engine ranking.

2. Generating and Duplicating Content

Content is king. The search engines love great content, and they like it updated on a regular basis. This takes time, money and energy on your part. There are those who try to trigger the search engine spiders from a particular website by taking Web content from other sites or some auto-generated content and publishing it on their own site.

If you are doing this, you are risking your business. If you don’t think Google knows about this, they do, and they have been pretty good at finding out what is computer generated content versus “real” content. And if you are using content from other Websites without their permission, you are in violation of copyright laws as well as it being totally unethical. Again, remember you reputation is on the line.

3. Have You Heard of Keyword Stuffing?

This is just as the name applies, using a given keyword over and over hoping that the search engines *will pick it up. This was made known to Google and other search engines many years ago, so nothing new to them, but yet, it still continues to be popular.

4. What About Cloaking?

Cloaking is when you deliver different Web content to the search engines than what is being delivered to the people searching the web. The reason this is done is to send search engine spider content for SEO ranking on one term, but sending totally different content to the readers.

As you can see, this is a choice that needs to be made as you are marketing your blogs, products, websites, etc…Do the right thing!

Have You Heard of Message Dance?

Another Great Way To Enhance Your Viral Marketing Strategy…

You may have heard of a new message site called MessageDance which was launched a few months ago. At first the site didn’t have a great integration option for multiple users, but they did have a great underlying concept as well as huge potential for its application methods used on a variety of web services.

Now, MessageDance announces some new feature updates that goes great with their added integration with Twitter.

Today, MessageDance is announcing a few more new feature updates to its service that go along nicely with its recently added Twitter integration. For starters, there’s a new portable YouTube Playlist. This lets you share videos with your friends across various networks, like MySpace, Facebook and Twitter. Updates can be displayed in your MessageDance widget, and it can be shared via email, or blasted to everyone, using the ever-handy “friends @ messagedance.com.” Images have been added too, along with documents, all for sharing purposes, through MessageDance’s expanding portal.

Will this approach work, or is this incorporating too many life-streaming tools into an existing third-party service? I imagine that such integration doesn’t hurt. It looks to compete, on varying levels, with social browsing, micro-blogging tools, ShareThis options present on blogs and websites, Box.net, and even Yahoo’s latest Life hub (which has yet to launch).

I think MessageDance is still finding the best way in which it can fit into social media as an accessible tool that makes sharing easy across the web, so the new features, many of which have been requested by users, should further MessageDance on its journey.

What’s the buzz?

As you know, the Internet can be a very fickle place. The news changes, as well as the interests and trends, on a daily basis and it is difficult to keep up with it all. When you are trying to keep up with the interests of your readers, staying on top of the hot topics, you need to be able to find this information easily and quickly.

One of the great sites to visit and catch up on all the gossip, news, trends, etc…is YahooBuzz. Here you will be able to see the most popular searches on Yahoo.

You will be able to find the most popular stories based on votes, searches and many other vital factors. You will them neatly arranged in their own categories for your convenience and ease of search.

If you come across a story you like, vote for it. The more votes a story receives, the farther up it goes on the list.

What are the Internet Marketing Trends?

As with anything else, the Internet market goes in trends as well. I am sure you also know
that these trends are constantly changing. There are three trends that offer you the best opportunities to move ahead in the Internet marketing business.

Even though the Internet has been around for a while now, the market is still pretty new.

You will be surprised to find out that only 18% of our world’s population even has Internet access. This is changing however, mainly in Asia right now.

Any market that has anything to do with technology are at the top, which will include the entrepreneurs or what some may call the ‘Internet geeks’.

Next the market will flow into the mainstream which is the largest portion of our population, and where most of the opportunities are.

Internet marketing seminars are gaining more and more favor with the masses. It used to be the ‘geeks’ and computer ‘gurus’ that only were attending these functions, but not anymore…you will find people of all interests there who are totally new in the Internet marketing business.

According to Michael Fortin, a well-known copywriter on the web, stated that he was amazed at some of the questions being asked at this last years convention. There were people asking how to create simple text files, or wanting to know what an auto responder was.
There are many of us that are in the online marketing business, some of us seasoned, some brand new with very limited Internet skills.

Many of the veterans in our industry, the cream of the crop so to speak, are now retiring, and there is a huge market of newbies on the rise.

One of the trends that you want to keep any eye out for is the new way the ‘gurus’ are advertising to the ‘newbie’ market. The latest trend is actually marketing offline.

You may want to look into offline network marketing and how these campaigns are being conducted with some very impressive results.

The offline trend is really affecting those people in Asia who are coming online in large numbers. Believe me when I say that this is going to be a huge and very lucrative market.

Watch for these 3 Internet Marketing Trends in 2008

1. The Asian market
2. Offline marketing opportunities
3. Newbies to the online business

So, watch for the Buzz in these markets, workout some Internet marketing strategies, stay on top of the current buzz issues like on Yahoo Buzz, and you will reap the rewards.

What’s Going On With Yahoo and Microsoft?

First, I want to let you know that Yahoo has rejected the unsolicited offer from Microsoft, which was a $44.6 billion dollar offer, however, according to the Times of London they report a possibility of Yahoo merging with AOL.

Microsoft’s $31 per share cash and stock deal where AOL merger looks to be more profitable for them. But Yahoo is concerned about convincing their shareholders that a merger with AOL is a good option.

Viral Marketing through Social Networks Still Going Strong!

Tomorrow the stats are to be released by comScore letting us know how the social networking sites are doing as far as traffic in the US, while the time spent on these sites is actually leveling off. MySpace shows a growth of 11.6% growth from year to year in unique visitors, and Facebook has shot up 78.6%, but the average amount of time spent on the site dropped 10.4%. The average amount of time that visitors are spending on Bebo is off 63.6% here in the US. But you need to realize that the US is a very small part of the social network market.

From the statistics gathered, the still seems that MySpace users are spending more time on that site than any of the other social networking sites. As of January, the average visitor was spending an average of 203.9 minutes on MySpace, which is a 13.7 increase when measured month to month, and Facebook visitors are spending 172.1 minutes, an increase of 1.6%, which is down from their high of 199.9 minutes in February ’07.

As you can see, their has been a significant decline on Facebook in the user minutes, which adds to a theory that the interest in these applications is starting to drop. However, there are some new Facebook-like additions like the friend news feed as well as photo galleries which seem to keep people on MySpace, while as Facebook prepares to launch its own platform next month.

More Numbers on the Social Networking Front!

YouTube has more than doubled in their visitor numbers just in the last year. There were 61.3 million viewer just in January ’08, with an increase in page views of 277%.

Flickr was up 88.5% with their number in visitors reaching almost 14 million. They were up 266% in their page views with 340 million in January.

Yahoo 360 is not doing as well, they dropped by 53.4% to 2.2 million. Their page views were also down by 54% to 52 million.

Facebook dropped in unique visitors by 2.3% from December. They have basically been flat in their numbers since August which was 33.7 million and January having 33.8 million.

It is plain to see that YouTube has benefited tremendously since they were bought by Google and have integrated their searches, whereas Flickr continues to grow under Yahoo. As you can tell, Yahoo 360 is not doing so hot, which is not a huge surprise. Yahoo has had an ever-shifting networking strategy which has not seem to find it’s happy place yet.

WETPAINT! Another great Social Networking Site For You To Check Out!

There are more and more social networking sites coming up, better to help you with your viral networking strategies. Wetpaint has some wikis that are becoming a great, fully functional social networking site. They have recently added Feeds, which by the way is a very important feature of any social networking site. This makes these sites communicative which is vital to it’s survival. These feeds include dashboard and friend updates, giving each user their own personal view of the happenings in their particular part of the world.

They offer some great friend invite options who can add to your wiki’s that you have created, making this an integral tool, focusing on the current trends going on in our social media. You have greater personalization with their custom profiles, photo gallery, and place to share media. This is a great tool to get your name and product out there even more. Social networking sites are a great way to build up contacts, friends, along with trust.

Features You Need To Be Focusing On!

This site has a couple of self-promotional features which you need to take advantage of. The first one is the ‘Promote My Site Wizard’, which is a way for users to find better SEO for their wikis.

The next feature is the option to offer Compliments to your friends. This is a great version of ‘poking’, and hopefully will be used as encouragement and support. You can actually collect and display these compliments as awards right on your profile, letting others know that you can be trusted and that others think you are great.

Here are some the features and Why Wetpaint?

• 100% free
• Simple to start
• Easy to build
• Fun to share

What is Wetpaint?

Wetpaint powers wikis, but unlike most wikis, which can be complicated, Wetpaint wikis are as simple as 1-2-3 , making it easy for anyone to start a free wiki that they can share with friends.

Who is using Wetpaint?

A better question might be “Who isn’t using Wetpaint? Wetpaint is perfect for almost anyone! This is for so many different uses and passions. Educators, gamers, technophiles, sports fans, and everyone in between is using Wetpaint.

Now for those of you who don’t know what a Wiki is;

-A wiki is a type of website that anyone can easily edit and help grow through collaboration. You can add text, photos, videos of your own or that you like, add polls, anything that you want to share with others.

-You do not need to be a techy to build a wiki website, Wetpaint makes it totally easy to do. The other great thing about this is other people can contribute to your website, making it grow quickly.

-You will be able to track every change and addition to your wiki page, allowing you to remove any content that you don’t want to keep.

-If you are in a group with a common interest, or would like to form a group, this is a great way to start You can use this as your central headquarters for the group, where everyone can share and add their own ideas, photos, experiences, etc…This will allow all of you to always be on the ‘Same Page’.

How Do I Set Up An RSS Feed?

Have you seen this symbol? If you read blogs, or visit websites, I am sure you have. RSS represents REAL SIMPLE SYNDICATION or Rich Site Summary (they both mean the same thing), which is a way for you, if you have an interest, to get new information, news, and anything else regarding that topic without having to surf through pages and pages on the Internet.

An RSS page is generated in XML which you are not able to see, but can be seen by the RSS Readers or Aggregators.

How Does RSS Work and What are RSS Newsfeeds?

When you find a blog that you enjoy reading, or a website, they offer a “news feed” where you are able to get their information on a regular basis sent directly to your “News Reader”. This is totally free for you and will be displayed right in your web browser, desktop, or homepage.

If you have seen the stock tickers which are giving you information in real time, allowing you to see what the stocks are doing without going to a website for the a information; this is how the RSS Feed works, delivering the information to your computer as it happens.

Do You Need RSS?

Well, let’s look at the advantages of an RSS Feed and then you get to decide if you need it or not.
This saves your email inbox from getting unlimited newsletters,
You never need to go and get the information,
It is being sent to you without taking up valuable email storage space.

How much easier is it for you to have the newspaper delivered to your front door versus going to the store each morning to get it. This is virtually the same thing, you are having the news you are interested in delivered to you instead of you going out to find it.

An Example:

Let’s say you want to get as much information on viral marketing as that is what you are focusing on at the moment, you will take some time, search out some websites, and when you find something you like and want to stay up on, you simply click on the RSS, and this information will be delivered to you as it comes available. The other way would be to bookmark the page, then go to it every day to see if there is anything new you would be interested in. You will have to wade through all the unwanted information to find what you are looking for. Look how much time and energy you save when you use the RSS Feed option.

How Will RSS Work For You?

There are so many ways this can work for you, there is no one answer. I am going to give you a simple answer allowing you to get RSS Feeds the easiest way possible. Remember however, this is not your only option, just a simple one.

The easiest way is to have it sent to your homepage of your browser.

For instance, I use Google’s homepage and I have RSS Feeds sent directly to my homepage that I have set up for that particular genre of information.

Because I am a writer, I have a page dedicated to writing helps, topics, articles, and I have all of these sent to that home page via RSS. Now, if you have an RSS newsreader (aggregator), you can have it sent there as well. I actually use both. I have my Google Reader where I have RSS Feeds sent to that I don’t read on a regular basis. The more crucial information is sent to my homepage.

If you are wondering about whether you have a newsreader or not, I would guess that you do and not even know it. If you have Yahoo, MSN, Google or Hotmail, you have a reader. Let me help you set one up…We will use MSN as our example.

1. Go to My.Msn.com and sign in. If you don’t have an account on one of these browsers I have mentioned, set up an account now. You can do this with Yahoo, Google, or MSN in a matter of minutes.
2. Once you have signed in,you will see information such as weather, news, sports, stocks, local information and ads. This is your selection page, you can move things around, add or delete, making it tailored to your needs and interests. It is simple to move them, just click and drag from the top right of the subject area, moving them, using the minus (-) symbol in the top left area. If you delete one by accident, no worries, you can add them back anytime.
3. Now in the top left area of the screen, you will see “Welcome”. You are going to add this content below your name, with four choices (Tabs) to assist you. The “Search” tab is the default tab, and from that point you will see your four options. If you know the web address (URL) for a sites newsfeed, enter it there. The three tabs remaining let you browse by subjects and names of companies. You just click on the box that you want.
4. With Yahoo, you will notice that there are already some news feeds available listed as “Top Stories” from Reuters, along with “Politics”, “World News”, and “Business”. You will notice a big yellow box in the center above these stories giving you clear instructions on how to”Add Content”.
5. Next you will click on the “Add Content” link bringing up a search box which allows you to “search content” about your subject or topic.
6. Type in your search phrase, search, and you will be presented an array o results. When you see something that you like, click “Add” next to it. Once you have made your selections, click “Finished” up on the top right of the page.

Now you have added RSS Newsfeeds to your MSN or Yahoo homepage.

As you scroll down your “My Yahoo” page, you will see the headlines you have just added. You can rearrange them in the order you want. If you decide you don’t want a particular fee any longer, then simply delete it.

How Do You Customize Your Own RSS?

You may know a particular RSS Feed you would like and don’t need to “find” it. This is very simple to do. On most pages you will see a small orange box that says XML, News Feeds, or RSS Feed. You then click on that button, and a set of instructions will come up on that page. You will be given an option to choose that Feed to appear in your Aggregator or your homepage. There are some that allow you copy and paste the “news feed URL” and paste it into your news reader.

If you are worried about the code, don’t be, you are just looking at the “feed code” which is the specific URL of the news feed.

This is such a great and convenient way to get the news updated and on a regular basis. My favorite reader is Google Reader, it is so simple to use and navigate.

Below are the Top 7 RSS Readers in order
1.RssReader
2.SharpReader
3.Pluck RSS Reader
4.NewsGator
5.FeedDemon
6.FeedBucket
7.NetNewsWire (Mac OS-X only)

Here are the Top 7 Web RSS Feeds/Aggregators (these require a personal account)

1.Google
2.My.Yahoo
3.NewsGator Online
4.Feedster
5.Bloglines
6.My.MSN
7.My.AOL

DO YOU HAVE A KILLER MARKETING STRATEGY?

By WAGH3

What is your wonderful and well thought out marketing strategy, what is your main objective?

The reason I ask this question is due to the amount of small business owners that do NOT have a marketing strategy. So many of us neglect the all important strategy for our business, but we put all our eggs in the basket of tactics.

What does the word Strategy mean? A plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result: a strategy for getting ahead in the world.

You need a strategy to help you obtain your business goals, to obtain the results you are working toward. Your tactics are are your methods, but not a specific plan.

Here are a few reasons why you need to have a plan, a strategy to implement your tactics and reach your business goals.

• Strategy will keep your marketing effort on track
• Strategy will help you define your goals and move you towards your goals end
• Strategy will help you create a budget and help you to abide by it

Why are so many small business owners gun-shy of marketing plans? Do they think that it is a bunch of huge charts with graphs, huge stack of documents, never-ending finances? Maybe so, and it may include that if you are building a strategy for funding your project. But typically, if you are in business for yourself, your marketing strategy is nothing to be afraid of, rather it is something that can be so simple to do.

What should your Marketing Strategy Include?

By AimsInternetMarketing

Here is a list that you need to consider;

• Your objective, how you see your business in its final stages
• Your unique selling and value proposition
• Marketing budget
• List your strengths as well as your weaknesses in regards to the customer side of your business
• Use a marketing calendar to list the steps you will take

Now there are three ways that you can apply to increase your business revenue;

1. Increase amount of transactions
2. Increase customer numbers
3. Increase customer purchase frequency

You can do this with the following ideas and objectives;\

-It is important you not just focus on the customer numbers, but you need to focus on the amount of transactions you incur over a period of time.

-You are not going to be focusing just on PR and advertising, you need to make your strategy include he whole experience that your customer will have with you.

-You may want to change the way you answer the phone, or making more follow-up calls, you may want to offer free bonuses, how to lists, maybe you want to have a customer satisfaction survey.

-Take a look at your product presentation, can this be improved or changed to create more interest? Can you make a new product brochure?

-Have a plan with specific tactics and have a budget for each and every one.

-Plan for the unknown! There are going to be things that are not expected or predicted, plan on it. If you need to change your marketing strategy then be ready and willing to do so, don’t be afraid of revision. Capitalize on any new opportunity that comes your way.

-Be consistent, keep your objectives in focus, by doing this you will be in pass by your competition at a strong and steady pace.

Building a List? Build Trust First!

You want to build a great opt in list, well the first thing you are going to do is build up the trust of your readers. You are going to want to do this quickly so you can get the word out about your site. When you have a broader opt-in list, the more traffic you will bring to your site, therefore, providing greater profits.

So how are you going to do this?

Let’s take a look at a few points of interest.

1. You first do this by having a legitimate business or product, one in which you have some expertise. Your customers are relying on your knowledge and expertise in your niche to answer their questions and help them to improve in that area.
2. Let your readers know that you know your stuff, that you know what you are selling them. They love to get helpful hints and how-to lists, bring up new and fresh ideas and guidelines that relate to the product you are selling. If you have a site selling hand tools, give some ideas and instructions on making a doll house, or maybe birdhouses. You may want to have instructions to making a nice new workbench for their new hand-tools. If you are proving your value and your knowledge in your product area, they will grow to trust you.
3. Be honest and true! If you are going to promote your products and services with the utmost hype and performance, then make sure you provide a guarantee to back up what you say. If you have a satisfied customer, then you will get recommendations and your viral marketing will spread. When someone recommends you to their friends and family, they are more likely to also trust you and visit your site on the referral alone.
4. Be consistent! If someone is given a recommendation for your great service, continue providing that great service.
5. Give them an escape if needed. You do not want your customers to ever feel trapped, you want to keep your list clean, enabling your readers to unsubscribe at any time. On you web form, provide information needed to unsubscribe from your list. Also let them know that they can do this anytime they want, and that their name is not sold to anyone else. No one likes spam, and by letting them know that you don’t like it either and that you will only be sending them letters as long as they want it.

LOL…

I bet that you were expecting a different type of post based on the headline, but the headline is 100% correct, only this post isn’t talking about how to make $100,000 in 4 days, rather, asking for your help to reach that goal for our planet!

http://worldinternetchallenge.com/

All the info is at the site link above

Should You or Shouldn’t You Disclose Your Price

By richie

Price is a big deal to you your customers!

There is a big controversy along with questions around the topic of price and whether it should be disclosed from the very beginning. Have you ever gone to a local gym to inquire about a membership, you ask the price, and they say, “sorry, I can’t disclose that until you have been on the tour of the gym and have met with one of our salespeople”. I don’t know about you, but this is a sudden turn off. If you instead go into a gym, ask the membership price, they give it to you right then and there, I would be ok about joining that gym. I do not like working with businesses that try to be sneaky in their pricing or any other issues regarding their services. The first gym will not

get my business, but the second one will…why?

Because they are missing a couple of very important key points in sales;

1. You want to be ready to sell when a customer is at their peak of their emotional level to buy. If you wait till later, when they are ready now, you are going to lose the sale.
2. If you cannot gain the trust of the customer, then just give up. If your customer wants to know the price, then tell them the price. You do not want to give any reason for them to suspect or distrust you.

If you have done sales in the past, you know that sales can be very complex, especially when it comes to advertising and giving your prices. There will be some that say, “just tell me your price”, and in this case you would give the price, but you also want your client to know the value of your product and why it’s priced that way.

So many times a client will compare products on price alone, when they really don’t know the value or quality of one product versus another. They may look at the price and think that it’s too high and move on.

If you client wants the information, don’t hold back, but don’t try to give them a cheap pitch, instead, have a natural conversation with them, telling them honestly what the benefits are of your product and how the value far outweighs the price.

Find out their questions regarding the prices, help them to feel comfortable in talking with your, develop trust. Carry on a conversation with them, show that you understand their concerns, and ask them to express their concerns. Then you want to take the opportunity to explain your product and the pricing. Keep the dialog going, be able to back up your reasons for a higher price compared to the competition.

By Jeff Holbrook

The same goes for your prices that are less expensive than the competition, have your prices to compare with the higher prices along with the high quality that matches or exceeds that of the competition.

There are some that will look at lower prices and think the value is less, for this reason you need to explain why your prices are lower, and how you are able to do this without sacrificing the quality of your merchandise.

There has been a test where people were given three choices of a similar product, each having a different price. The majority of the test subjects chose the product with the middle ranged price.

Have you ever been to the new shopping store called IKEA? Well, the next time you go, look at their signs. You will see how they explain their lower prices by purchasing their stock in bulk, using self-service, and shipping everything in flat boxes. With their price promotion, they have built a very successful reputation for providing high quality items at a very low price.

Also, be your own customer, take a look from their perspective, would you trust YOU? Would you pay your price for your products? Be honest, develop trust and be open about your price, but back be ready to back it up.

I was watching one of Frank Kern’s videos in ‘Mass Control’ series that I purchased a few weeks ago for $2,000 (It is all sold out now) and there is a video in there filmed at Rich Schefren’s live event that has just finished.

It was Frank’s presentation and I gotta say, I like Frank! Some don’t but most really do, and I am in the masses. His stuff is top quality and he seems like a top quality guy. “Where are you going with this?” I hear you say…

“If There Were NO Limitations or Consequences, what would your perfect average day look like?”
by Frank Kern

Where Would You Live?
What Would You Do?
Who Would You Know?
What Time Would You Wake Up?
What Would The First Thing You Say Be?
What Would You Have For Breakfast?
Who Would You Eat With?
What Would Your Friends Be Like?
What Would You Be Thinking About?
What Would Your Business Be?
What Would You Do at Work?
What Are Your Clients Like?
What Is Your Personal Relationships Like?
What Fun Stuff Do You Do?

There more detailed you become, the clearer ‘who you really are’ becomes. If this is different from who you are today, then there is a big gap and it will reflect in what you do. This is not a 10 min exercise to change, this will take you hours to hash out and ‘self discover’ and potentially months to start aligning your real life currently, with your ideal life!

Profound, but say it back to yourself again… The most important thing with this statement is that is makes you think! Can you think of what your perfect day would be? If so, you will change your life. It will give you focus and a goal to work towards. A goal that will make you happy, make your business successful (if that’s what you want), change the business you are in (if you don’t like what you are doing) will take time and explaining. This is just one small part of Rich’s course

I have also just purchased Rich’s course for almost $1,000 and you have a chance to pre-order now before it increases. Click here to check it out

(No, it is not an affiliate link, just a pure recommendation.)

Self Education

You by now know that I harp on about education and how every day you should try and improve yourself by learning something new that is of value.

I have some cool courses on my make money page, but education can come in all forms. I have made a commitment to read books, lots of them. A little each day is the plan, and this week I am reading ‘reallionaire‘. Once I have finished it I will make a ‘review style’ post on it.

Jason Calacanis

Jason first came onto my radar by being an ‘ass’ towards affiliate marketers at his keynote. I now read his blog! The lesson there is sometimes being a ‘smart ass’ works, no publicity is bad publicity.

Another post he made caused another bit of a stir but is a good read: ‘How to Save Money Running a Startup‘

Facebook Owner = Youngest Billionaire

I read Forbes sometimes, but I read Zac Johnson every day, and as I first read the news at his site, I figure it best to link to his post. This is interesting and inspiring news for anyone that is keen on having a shot at internet success. Sure you have to have the ‘right stuff’ but don’t let people tell you that you don’t…. Have a crack, have a full go, and if you don’t succeed, try again.

Setting Goals

Everyone knows this, but let me say it again. Aim HIGH! Of course you need a business plan and at least a rough outline on how you plan to achieve your aim (goal) but when you do set goals, aim VERY HIGH! If you don’t hit it and fall short, you are bound to have at least some success.

Have a good week!

Farrah Gray is a young motivational speaker who wrote a book in 2004 called: Reallionaire

He was 19 back then and has since written a new book: Get Real, Get Rich

‘So What?’ You ask…

So what is that I am busy reading them, (one at a time of course) starting with ‘Reallionaire’ and it makes the basis for todays post. Farrah has a unique writing style and has written the book based on his life from the age of seven and at the end of each chapter, summarizes what he learned and what we too should learn and take on board.

Reallionaire Affirmation

At the end of each summary, there is an affirmation and here is one that I want to share with you today:

‘opportunities are everywhere. I can rise above any circumstance with hard work, integrity, faith and especially persistence.’

I think the key things to take from that is – No matter where you are at in life right now, you can improve your lifestyle and you should not blame anything or anyone but yourself. Rise above the bad or negatives in your life and make a change… Make it your goal to do it…NOW!

Check Them Out At Amazon:

So What Do You Think About the New Blogged.com ?

This week, Blogged.com launched providing us with a fantastic online directory for every blog in the world. You already know that there are a lot of search tools such as technorati which is great providing you real-time content an any topic you are interested in, but Blogged.com works like a catalog revealing not only only topic content, but the entire blog itself with all of its content.

Here is a list of some blogs you can find:

1. Society (19,363)
2. Entertainment & Recreation (16,717)
3. Personal Blogs (9,115)
4. Technology (7,793)
5. United States (7,192)
6. Business (6,548)
7. Art (6,319)
8. Family & Home (6,285)
9. Culture (6,027)
10. Internet (5,553)
11. North America (5,507)
12. Books & Literature (4,272)
13. Government (4,089)
14. Politics (4,081)
15. Religion and Spirituality (3,890)
16. Sports (3,381)
17. Humor (3,324)
18. Travel (3,302)
19. Computers (3,127)
20. Education (3,087)

Blogged.com has a number of feedback tools and ratings that are found throughout the site. You will find bogs that will discuss a particular topic on a regular basis, which would be to your advantage when you focusing on a particular niche or solution on your blog.

This as mentioned before, works as a Blog Catalog, whereas Technorati works an Internet search engine that competes with Google and Yahoo and which focuses more on image thumbnails more than the blog results. Blogged.com is focused on the web user to find blogs on any topic. Mashable found that this site is a great way to bring the blogs and websites to the typical consumer, allowing them to find even greater amounts of information. This will help the bloggers to become more on the forefront in viral marketing.

In the case of viral marketing, right now this site works well as search and discovery tool. You will find some great tips to help you take advantage of this forum and using this as a self-promotion tool. You need to create a profile, list of blogs that you visit. You are basically becoming a personal recommendation service, which will increase your reader audience and bookmarking. Go to Blogged.com, sign up, get your blog on there and market yourself.

More Great News For Viral Marketers Like You!

Our wonderful friends over at MySpace have sent us an announcement that they are now providing a great feature allowing you to advertise and promote your products or content with your MySpace profile. This is just want you need; that is if you are someone in the business of Internet Marketing. This will be a very helpful feature to promote your content, increasing your opportunities for successful viral marketing.

You want to spread your content and get your brand on the web virally on the coat-tails of MySpace, the largest social network? This is exactly what you will be able to do. You cannot beat the benefits of using the social networks for your viral marketing campaigns, which by the way, is an easy way to get your brand out there. This can be one of your greatest viral marketing tools, but there are some tricks to really making it work.

The very first thing you need to do is to get your content inside the social network of MySpace, and this utility is just now being released, making this an easy task. You will be allowed up to one thousand characters which can be posted directly to your MySpace profile. There will be information you can post on the “About Me” section on your profile, and another space on the Bulletin. These are two excellent places to promote your content, great ad space!

You just watch! This will soon be in the next version of every ShareThis!

Your instructions can be found here. Check this out, start implementing it, and you will be on your way to applying more great viral marketing methods to your business. By now, you can see viral marketing is the most successful method to promote your sites and products.

MySpace is a great place to begin your viral marketing campaign!

Become an active user of MySpace, take advantage of this great opportunity, especially now when this is brand new to MySpace users. You know as well as I do that MySpace is the largest social network on the web. This is why you need to take advantage of this along with the other viral marketing methods we are teaching you here.

There are a few phrases that have been used more than needed on the social marketing networks such as Digg and Reddit. A very smart Redditer decided to do a little research on some of the overly used phrases, and one was “It’s Official” which is too often used in the title. You can see the search results here.

He wanted to show that this phrase is not that fun anymore, because it is used way too much. Using phrases such as “It’s Official”, when it has been used more than it should, actually takes away from your own credibility.

Another overused phrase that has been found on Digg is “Breaking” stories. You know, when you first saw this on a blog post or in an article, it really seemed important, and would draw in a lot of readers, making your news item something of great interest. There was a time on Digg that your story had no chance of getting on the front page if you didn’t have the word “BREAKING’ in its title.

We all want to get our story on the front page, and on the top of the front page. There is a lot of competition, so in order for you to succeed, you need to have your own tricks to get on the front page. But how do you win in this competition, what tactics and tricks do you need to focus on? Do you set your own standards, do you let sensational titles along with poor journalism? What can you do to raise the standards? But for the most part, it seems as if Digg likes the word “Breaking” as you can see in this search.

But Digg is not the only place to go for your news aggregator. You need to check out Newspond. This is a new site that will be in a league of its own. This is a young site, they don’t have the viewers like Digg and Reddit have right now, matter of fact, they are now having their official launching. But just because they are new, does not mean you don’t want to get involved. This is a great looking site and will soon be on their way to the top along with Digg and Reddit.

Within a few months, after the right amount of press and publicity, Newspond will be right up there among the giants of news aggregation. Just keep your eye on them and you will watch it happen right before your eyes. They may be a small fish just being thrown into the pond, but soon, it will be a shark fighting for the top like the rest of the them.

When you take a look at this site, you will see why it will make it to the top quickly. This is a great looking site, with a Mac look to it. So, keep this one on your radar, with the PR efforts, and their great looking image, they are bound to be a success.

Just keep your name out there, keep putting great content on your sites, continue your Viral Marketing campaigns, and you will continue to see your business grow.

Let’s Talk About Outsourcing…

One of the biggest blessings to SEO is the ability to Outsource from doing everything yourself. You may be a one person business or a small company, either way, you can greatly increase the growth of your business. You can obtain many of these services through specialized websites. Some of the tasks you may want to outsource are;

1. Directory submission
2. Link building
3. Search engine Optimization
4. Writing content for websites
5. Article writing
6. Keyword analysis
7. Competitive research
8. Website analysis

You will find that outsourcing will provide many benefits, leaving you more time to work on the things you enjoy and do best. Also, outsourcing allows you to put your focus on the business end of things rather than the many little things that take up so much of your time.

As you know, Time is something that seems to slip away from us so quickly. We as Internet Marketers have had to learn how to budget our time wisely since we are working on our own schedules without having to punch in a time clock.

There are many Internet Marketers who have been able to build great success by focusing on the important tasks of generating income. You will outsource different tasks, hopefully having them completed in a timely manner, making your business run smoothly.

When using SEO Outsourcing, you need to make sure you do it correctly, and there are some limitations, as there are with anything. You will find that you will have certain expectations, but in the real world, not everyone will meet those expectations. Plan for the bumps in the road, give yourself some time for ‘corrections’ or ‘do-overs’.

You will notice that SEO Outsourcing in on the rise which is due to the ongoing growth of Internet Marketing. More and more marketers and companies are outsourcing different jobs, and therefore, there are more specialty companies or persons who are offering their services online.

Once you find a great Outsourcing help, hang on to them, they will help your business grow and let you put your time where it’s really needed.

Someone I use for outsourcing and highly recommend is: Annette Jensen

Other options are: Guru, Elance and oDesk

Another week, another summary post. This week I had Frank Bauer come and visit me for 3 days. He is my business partner in ViralUrl and we have other things on the horizon so it was a very productive time in that sense. The downside was, I didn’t get a chance to do my normal blog surfing to keep track of what’s up in the Blogosphere. I did however get a few minutes to read some bloggers views of ‘Affiliate Summit West’ where keynote speaker, Jason Calacanis, caused some controversy. I had a  chance to watch some footage and agree with some bloggers that he is a ‘Valley VC baby’. Just because he relies on other people’s funding of obscene amounts of money does not mean that is the only way to make an income.

Here is some feedback from Zac on the issue

As Jac says, I too am happy with my 6 figure income doing what I enjoy and from where I want to do it. (Internet Marketing).

Big Income Reported Again

John Chow, just reported his February income month and he is now making over $1,000 a day from his blog. I’m not sure if my blog will ever get there or if I’m even setting it as a goal simply because I don’t run this blog for income only, that is secondary, primary is for Brand creation and awareness, which of course, brings more income for my other projects.

Look Forward to next week

Looking forward to next week, there will, as usual be some great posts on viral marketing, so please be sure to signup to my Rss Feed

Next week some time a New Opt-in form will be added to the blog as well – I am still finalizing the blog design and functions and then will start pushing it

Contests are used by bloggers to get extra exposure. This is proved simply by me making this post:

CarlOCab is running a contest to celebrate his blog turning 1 and to do so he has been very smart. Instead of putting up his own money or prizes, he has contacted lots of people and asked them to submit a gift. I have put up a 1 month 125*125 banner ad spot valued at $50.

He is awarding ‘tickets’ for part taking in actions. I am linking to the post and also chasing package 7 so am linking to Bloginads Website! This is a clever contest as it gets  exposure for the people and blogs that take part as well as huge exposure for Carl’s blog. how much does it cost him? – time… that is all. If you are willing to spend the time to get a contest together, then go for it and start boosting the incoming links and traffic to your blog!

I plan on running a contest in the near future when I am ready for more mass exposure to my new, little blog

Head over to CarlOCab and get your entry in as well

Do you have a lot of blog’s that you are trying to keep track of? Do you take advantage of your Google Reader?

We are all very busy, but yet there are so many things we want to make sure we read…and for me, this is a list of blogs that I don’t want to miss. I have subscribed to their RSS feed and have them sent directly to my Google reader.

Whether it be business blogs, news, hobbies, or family and friends, I want to make sure I know what’s going on. I was showing a family member how to use this great tool, and thought….hey why not write about it just in case there is somebody else who may not know of this great tool.

Tips and tricks

If your phone has a data connection, you can access Google Reader on the go by pointing your mobile phone’s browser to http://www.google.com/reader/m.

When you find a great blog, such as this one, and you want to continue to read each new post, then click on the RSS feed button, and you will have the option of having it go to your Google Reader or to your homepage. I find that the reader works best for me, as I can read each one right after another, and skip past those that hold no interest.

One blog I like to read is from The Underachiever Life by Ed Dale. You can have your own blogs gaining a lot more traffic by posting them on BlogRush. This is a great way to bring more readers to your blog. Register, add the Blogosphere widget to your site and when you blog, it will be posted in the Blogosphere on related blogs.

As you can see, I have just added BlogRush on this blog and Whilst some people say they don’t get any decent results with BlogRush, I say, try it for yourself and track your own results. Be sure to write good, ‘buzz’ headlines!

Note: Firstly, sorry for making you wait 4 days for a new post! I was meeting my business partner and working on a new project… You can watch my first EVER video online HERE …

LinkSpank Spanking?

I have come across another great tool for your viral marketing strategy and it involves a bit of ‘spanking’. No, not the kind you are thinking, this spanking is not the naughty kind, but actually a way to share your content that you like. When you find a page, product, or service that you find interesting, you “spank it”. LinkSpank is a new form of social bookmarking!

This is a fun new way of voting for your favorites or sharing by sending these sites through email. You can also post it to your wall, adding items such as videos, which will all be an additional spank. You will be encouraging users to develop some deep discussions around the items you have submitted and all throughout LinkSpank.

You will make a LinkSpank profile and this profile will be your Inbox where you will be able to receive and send your favorites between your friends. You will be sending these through your email and will be receiving spanks from your friends. If you find that you are getting too many spanks, you can adjust your settings.

There is always the bad with the good, and we have found the kind of bad with LinkSpank is the way they share the content. You can relate it to UPS where all the packages are sent to the central warehouse or hub then sent out from there. Basically, you are collecting your favorite content in LinkSpank and emailing them from there. This is quite different from the way you normally share things such as on Facebook or sending an email directly.

But this is actually what LinkSpank is trying to accomplish by doing it this way:

1. This is a catchall for any content that you want to share
2. It is organized and easily accessed for anytime in the future
3. You can find your content through a simple search
4. Works a lot like your email inbox

This is not a replacement for the other social bookmarking sites, but an additional way to get your products and services known.

There is a buzz word going around now called permission marketing. Permission marketing is a privilege that you have to send messages to to people who actually want to receive them. The best and most effective way to make your viral marketing campaign work is when you first have the permission of the recipient of your marketing material. This is not only sending something to someone who wants it, but you are showing great respect and this is the best way of getting their attention.Attention is another key word that you need to focus on. A permission viral marketer knows that when someone gives you their attention, they are giving you some they cherish and that is their time. You are taking up their time in reading your content, giving them a chance to decide if what they are reading, hearing or watching is worth their time and will add value to their life.

When you have obtained someones email through a website or sales page, you have their permission to send them content. They are expecting to receive some valuable content from you. Now if you want to make sure that your product is marketed, then you need to assure that your content is worth their time. Once they receive it, review it, and find that it was what they were hoping for, or even more than what they were expecting, they will want to pass it on to their friends, their co-workers, and their family.

Once you have their permission, then you need to make sure you follow through on a continuous basis with something of value. Don’t start throwing gimmicks their way, or trying to get them the buy something with each message, give them something, make this be about what you can give, not what you can get.

When someone subscribes to the newspaper, they are expecting content daily, and they are looking forward to it. The newspaper has their full attention, because they have their permission to drop off this content on a daily basis. They have earned the trust of the recipient and therefore, can still drop off a paper daily, and the ads will be read, merchandise will be sold.

So, think of yourself as someone who is willing to gain the trust of your recipients, that you want to have their permission to show up in their email once a week, or however many times you plan on delivering quality content. Once you win their trust, you have them for life, and you will see your viral marketing campaign take off.

I have been talking a lot about viral marketing…and the reason I am doing this is because it works! This a great way to expand the growth of your business without having to pay for advertising and spending the time to do it. You do this simply by offering your product or service for FREE along with your sales copy. Now the plan is that your product will be read and shared with friends and family…and they will share it with clients, prospects, visitors to your sites and those who have your product.

A good way to do this is with a trial or lite version of a software program. Everyone loves something for free, and getting a free software is really fun to get. When they have used it, see the benefits, they are going to want to share it with everyone they know. You want to make sure your customers know to share the software with anyone and everyone. If you need some help in developing some software…you can hire help at Elance.

Next, you should start using discussion boards. Set up a discussion board on your website, and post it up at the top by your banner ad. Then you want to encourage your readers to provide a link to this on their own websites.

What about Ebook’s? This is another great strategy that will make your viral marketing a success. You are going to give away your Ebook with the traffic that comes to your site. You want to advertise your best product line with a captivating full-color ad including your contact information. Remember…tell everyone who gets yourEbook to share it with their visitors and their contacts.

Article writing!

Write articles that coincide with your niche or product. In your byline, you will put your contact information along with your website. Then, give permission to anyone to publish your articles as long as they leave the byline in the article, and without changing it. Your articles will soon be in article directories such asEzine, in newsletters, on websites and anywhere else that can bring you attention to your site.

Another way to do this is through web hosting. Find a small business and make an offer to host their websites on your server for free. In return, you place your banner at the top of their site.

Another great marketing technique is using templates. You can create templates and give them away as a free download, which needs to include your own marketing information. Make them easy to pass along from your recipient to their contacts. You have a few techniques here to try out…see which one works out best for you. When you are using viral marketing techniques, it shouldn’t take long for you to start seeing some successful changes happening.

Check out this article at USA Today regarding Viral Marketing. You will see here why this is such a successful marketing tool. Also another great resource that I have found is the Online Marketing Blog.

Here are some Viral Marketing Tools you need to see and take advantage of!

There are a number of Social Marketing networks and platforms for you to spread your name and get your brand out and known. As you know, we have been giving you some great tips on social marketing and how to use these great tools for your benefit. One to give notice to is Utterz which allows you to use your cell phone to post voice, videos, pictures and text mashups to your blogs at anytime, anywhere right from your cell phone. You can post to one site or all your sitesl at once. Utterz is free to use, does not require any special software for your cell phone, and can be done conveniently whether you are traveling, or just away from your computer.

Another one of the fastest growing communities is CafeMom. This is a site that was launched November, 2006, and has since become the most popular site for women. They have become famous for their photo-sharing, widgets, micro-blogging and more. If you are marketing for the female audience, this is a great place to be.

Here is a site to add to your viral marketing plan, it is coComment. This has been the leader of blog access and comment, aggregation, and tracking technology. They have provided a great hub enabling conversations online, ability to track and share comments anywhere on the Internet.

Get Your Marketing Going Quickly and Effectively!

Another stop on your travels online needs to be FaceySpacey, which is a leading Social Media Marketing and Development Company. They specialize in flash widgets, Facebook Aplications, social networking sites, Rich Internet Applications, YouTube-style sites, and yes, viral marketing! They started sites like OganicIncentive.com, ReelProperties.tv and so many more. FaceySpacey is the shopping mall for Social Media.

Another stop on your Social Media Marketing tour is KickApps and KickDeveloper. This is a great on-demand social media application which enables marketers and web site builders to monetize quickly and easily an online audience. This has a SaaS platform with user generated content, social-networking, viral widgets, and online video players.

There are a few strategies that will bring traffic to your blogs, and one is Controversy. We all love a good argument, and a chance to voice our opinions. Controversy has been used throughout the ages bringing about headlines, discussions, views of opinion, and a lot of gossip.

Give some case studies…bloggers don’t do this enough, but they can be great for reading. A good case study will bring to point “is this for real?”, and will help your reader decide this for himself. By using case studies, your readers are able to see themselves using ‘your’ solution.

Talk to your readers, make them feel less alone. One of the biggest fears of people is actually being alone. By sharing your experiences, or writing about something your reader can associate with, sharing a common concern or fear, maybe talking about something that makes you happy, or ask a question about something you would like to know. In other words, create a connection between you and your reader. Make him or her feel like they are coming home when they come to your blog. Make them feel like you understand them, and that you are no better than they are…and you have your ups and downs too.

If you make any claims, back them up with proof. What kind of business are you in? Give some screen-shots of your work, maybe some photos, or some statistics. Give your reader a reason to believe you, to have faith in what you say. Show that you have integrity, and that you are not trying to push something over on anyone. Earn their trust.

Be honest, if you have a bad day, let them know, if you make a mistake, learning from it and share what you have learned. You want to have your readers care about what you have to say, not to get them to agree with you. You will never have everyone believing what you believe, or agreeing with your views, and that is great, that is where the controversy comes into play. But, be honest! Don’t be tempted to stretch the truth to make things or yourself look better….you will lose your readers doing this. Remember, honest is always the best policy.

Give a place for bragging rights by your readers! Give them a place to share their successes, and you can share in their excitement. You may actually want to turn this into a forum eventually. You want your readers to have a place to come and say, “I did it!” And to receive the praise from you and your other readers. Then you will look good because your readers are succeeding, and benefiting by your site.

Have you readers contribute to your blog with their questions. Encourage conversation, and have your readers become contributors to your blog.

Because it Works! Viral marketing can be done in many different ways, but when you decide to make the leap, it is best to pick on a particular strategy and focus on it. This will be the best way to get the results you are looking for. If you are using an article marketing strategy, you can turn some of your articles into an Ebook or report

Because you have already put the articles together, it won’t take a lot of time to develop them into something that can bring in some traffic and sales for many years to come. You will gather your articles, compile them into a single document, and then maybe do some rebranding, make it look nice and appealing.

The key here is not to focus on the advertisements or the marketing components of your product, but to add value to the reader. This is about them, what they will be looking for. A popular technique used is adding a few products in your niche. You can include them as your own affiliate links, but consider cloaking them to make them less obvious.

When you are ready to distribute it, this can be done in one of many ways. If the publication you have put together is good quality, you may want to sell it. If you want to make it viral, you need to include reprint rights. You will get the sales from the product as well as having it spread around.

Now, if you really want it to go viral, then you should give it away for free and encourage others to do the same thing, with the provisions that nothing is changed in any way whatsoever. This way you can advertise your giveaway in emails and forums. Another place that is often forgotten is on the download page of any similar products that you sell. Everybody loves bonuses, and the unadvertised bonuses are even better, and when it is on the download page, it becomes a part of the actual order, and then most readers will download it.

When it comes to cost, viral marketing is considerably less expensive than traditional advertising. Remember that viral marketing is only one component of your marketing strategy. You need link it with other strategies like your opt-ins and setting up squeeze pages. This will all help to generate traffic to your site, developing a solid customer base and increasing your sales.