Time and again I see little niche sites using trademark brand names in their url’s. This is a truly reckless and a very stupid thing to do.

Here you are spending valuable time, working hard on your site designing, promoting, link building and your site has high search engine rankings and making you money and then the brand name company notices you and it’s over. At the very least your site will have to come down and at worst the brand name will sue you for copyright infringement.

It is illegal to use any copyrighted brand name trademark within the url or as the name of a site, many people do not even think of this fact and find great keywords that include brand names and use them.

Most of the big companies have a long page of legal terms that list all their trademark names and their variations and they clearly state how they can be used.

When doing keyword research for Internet marketing we inevitably come across tons of great keywords that use trademark names and especially within the electronics and computer niches, Apple ipods, Dell laptops, Sony, Acer laptops, the list is endless and it is really tempting to use them in the url because the ranking power increases greatly when using keywords in the url, but for the long term this is way too risky.

I was reading a blog post the other day, I didn’t save it or I would link to it, but the marketer made the mistake of using Dell in his url and Dell had contacted him and demanded he take his site down. Of course, the site was ranking on page  1 for the keyword, which is how Dell noticed him, and making money and now that’s all over.

Did he have regrets? Of Course! It’s just not worth it.

Can You Rank Without Using Keywords in the URL?

Yes, but it will usually take more keyword anchor text backlinks, how many depends on the competition for those keywords.

So there are two choices:

1. Choose similar non-trademark keywords for the url and do all the on-site optimization for the trademark kw, such as h1 tags, keyword density, title tags etc… and focus your link building to get lots of anchor text links with the trademark keywords.

This is the best option when you come across really highly searched for trademark keywords that have low competition, well worth the effort.

2. Choose completely different keywords within that niche that do not have trademark names.

There is no denying that the United States and many parts of the world are having major financial difficulties. The recession is affecting retail sales across the country, and Internet marketing and the online marketplace will surely feel the effects as well. Some affiliate marketers are seeing significant decreases in sales, and while so far most of my sites are staying steady, some have seen a decline in sales.

This does not mean that this business is over, in fact, I truly believe that the Internet marketplace will become even more significant in these hard financial times because:

1. Its unique ability to provide below retail prices and major savings on products, just look at sites like eBay, Amazon and Overstock.

2. People seeking information on how to get through tough times and make extra or full time income while unemployed.

As always, the key to online success is to look for trends and the opportunities to exploit them and in hard times like these, the opportunities will focus around consumables and information.

Consumables:
Clothes
Pet supplies
Household items
Coupons
Baby items
Toys
Cheap home entertainment
Deal sites
Cheap anything sites
Health
Weight Loss
Free anything
…thousands more.

Valuable Information:
Making money
Work at home opportunities
Jobs and work
Schools and training for new careers
Career guides
Recession news
Saving money
Budgeting
How-to get cheap anything
Decreasing utility bills
Saving on car insurance
Health Care issues
Free anything
…and lots more.

Some of those make money, work at home niches and money blog sites are pretty competitive, but there are still long tail keywords that are viable and you can build a great website and make money. As always, make sure to research keywords for any subject matter you want to get into.

One of the most solid money making venues is still Google Adsense, and in hard financial times, Adsense is on top of the list, because you don’t need to make a sale, you get paid for the click, so information sites sprinkled with Adsense is a sure winner anytime and especially now!

Another solid money making opportunity is flipping websites, still one of the best ways to make money online with a wide open marketplace, here is the best how-to guide for doing this from Jason Pereira, a very successful blogger and website flipper at Flip Noobs.

Problogger wrote a good post about 13 Tips to Recession Proof Your Blog definitely worth a read.

You can peruse any Internet Marketing forum and you will surely find a thread titled Blog or Website? This is a very common question asked by those starting an online business and especially for those looking to get into the business blogging.

Many times in the forums, you get lame answers, such as “a blog is a website” DUH!

But, that does not answer the question as it is intended, and even the newest of newbies know that there is an inherent difference between blogs, blogging and websites beyond the technological.

While there are very sophisticated techie definitions, for the purpose of this discussion I will limit the definitions to the basics of Blogs vs. Static Websites and the unique characteristics of blogging that also apply to business blogging for making money.

Blog is short for weblog, which, simply put is a dynamic website that is constantly updated and provides interactivity between it and its users.

vs.

Static Websites usually display the same information, thus it is static. The content is not updated regularly and while the webmaster may always add pages of content, it is not expected. These sites can also be described as passive.

Blog Charateristics:

1. A blog needs to be updated with fresh content regularly, it is expected and required, or else it will die out.

2. One of the blog’s main purposes is to engage readers and gain subscribers, in fact for many bloggers it is an end goal.

3. A blog is never truly passive, it cannot be slapped up and then left alone, it requires ongoing attention and therefore a lot of interest in and motivation for the subject from the blogger.

4. Blogs have messy navigation, since there is new content added regularly it is more difficult to present it all neatly and visibly, and much if it gets buried as more is added.

5. Blogs are more personal and represent a human behind the site.

Static Website Characteristics:

1. They are built, launched and then marketed. They can be a source of passive income without the expectation of new content. They are safe to leave alone to do “their thing.”

2. The navigation is neat and all pages and content can be displayed prominently to visitors, this includes all your affiliate link pages, store pages and anything else that you want visitors to not miss, therefore static sites allow you to have more control over what is presented to visitors, while blog content easily gets buried over with the new incoming content.

3. The static website is not usually personal, it is detached from a “human behind the site.”

Blog vs. Website

The decision to go with a Blog or Website is really a personal one. However, the problem for newbies is that they lack the experience to make an informed choice and often it is just trial and error.

I for one, do not think blogging is for everyone. Blogging is a bigger time investment and blogs are not the greatest passive income tools. In fact, many Internet marketers say that blog readers and subscribers do not click on Adsense and they do not take you up on your add offers very much. Usually they are there to read your content. The true money comes from search engine traffic, that will not subscribe but will exit with a click on Adsense or by buying an affiliate product.

There are exceptions. Some blogs focus on shopping and product reviews and that is the focus of the posts with the focus of making money, I have no experience with this type of blog and so maybe some of my readers can add their input, like Frank from Money Saving Reviews - Money Saving Guides.

Blogging takes a lot of dedication to the written word, versus the static website that does not. Tons of blogs fail because the blogger loses interest quickly after launch.

With all that it takes to learn and apply the marketing and SEO end of the business, a static website lessens the work load and allows newbies to focus on learning the tools and skills necessary to succeed.

There are many user friendly website builders, such as WYSIWYG, that stands for “What You See is What You Get” website software that allows those without any code or even basic HTML knowledge to build beautiful sites with simple drag and drop simplicity. Once the website is launched then experience can be gained on the Internet marketing end, without the constant stress of updating. Two of the best WYSIWYG softwares are WebEasy 7 Pro and Coffee Cup HTML Editor.

Also, you can use the free Wordpress platform to build niche sites, with an empahis on pages instead of posts, that allow for neater navigation and a focus on making money as opposed to getting readers, but this is not true blogging.

What do you guys think?

I have an affiliate marketing website that I built a few months ago. And the keyword is very popular and I have worked hard to get traffic and SERP rank position. As the months went by, I was getting a good amount of traffic but not one single sale!

I analyzed and performed the requisite tricks, such as landing page, colors, navigation and other reasons that result in high bounce rates and lack of sales and nothing seemed to work. I soon decided to move onto to other projects. A couple of weeks ago I was checking my commissions and noticed that that website had a couple of sales. And in the last week the sales are increasing and averaging a couple a day.

The lesson here is don’t quit till the magic happens.  Affiliate marketing and making money online is hard work and can be a crap shoot with lots of testing and failing. But if you give up then you will never reap the success you seek. Many newbies give up quickly because they are looking for a fast buck, but that is not realistic for affiliate marketing and making money online and if you set your mind that way you are destined to be disappointed.

Remember, not all websites will generate income right away, if ever, any honest affiliate, especially the honest super affiliates will tell you that. They all have failures on their books, but they also have one thing in common, they never gave up. They know that this is a great business with endless potential, but it has its ups and downs, bad months and good months, successful campaigns and some that are just dead. None of that matters, we move on and push harder.

Internet marketing is a lonely business. Most of us sit at home and pluck away at the iceberg, building websites, trying to rank our sites, build links, get traffic and of course make money. It is not easy, but many of us, including myself, love it and would not want to do anything else. Yes? No?

Sometimes, there are hard times and we all need the motivation to keep going. So, I am here to tell you to keep plucking away, new sites, new keywords, trial and error, learning from past mistakes, new opportunities and DO NOT GIVE UP!

Patience, faith and not giving up is key in making money online and affiliate marketing and the reward of the freedom that it provides in working for yourself is unparallel.

By JR,

A friend asked me tonight, how much money do I need to invest in order to start an online business and make some extra income?

This is a pretty regular question, as many of us starting out do not have tons of money to invest for Internet Marketing and we are desperate to break free of the 9-5 and work at home.

In reality an online business is very unique because unlike the usual business models, you can literally start and make money whether it’s full time or extra income, without investing a ton of money or even a single dime.

Eventually, I think you will need to spend some money, at the very least on a web hosting account but you can get started right away without spending a cent. And, you can use the money you make from bum marketing to finance future online campaigns and go on to build your own sites and blogs and bum marketing will teach you a lot about how to make money with Google Adsense, or with affiliate marketing and all for free!

Internet Marketing for Bums

Bum marketing is a nickname for launching online campaigns that are completely free of start up costs, not even hosting that will allow you to make money!

While you can use paid software to create websites, such as BANS, there are venues that allow you to build your own mini-sites that are hosted by someone else, but allow you to create your own piece of Internet real estate and launch your Internet Marketing campaign.

Some Benefits of Using Free Venues to Build Webpages

1. Great way to gain experience and learn the how-to’s of Internet marketing affiliate marketing, creating a web page and more before engaging on a grander scale.

2. These sites allow you to make money online without spending any. They are easily integrated with many affiliate programs, such as eBay, Amazon, Adsense, or you can use whichever you want and these venues share their revenue so you can make some cash directly from them.

3. These venues rank on their own, and so you will piggyback off their rank and your pages can rank in the SERPS (search engine page results) much quicker and with a lot less work than a site launched from scratch giving you that magical search engine traffic.

Free Webpage Venues for Internet Marketing:

Squidoo Lenses - Building free Squidoo lenses to promote the products you choose is one of the best places to get your feet wet in Internet Marketing and start to make money online completely free.

In fact, even those of us who have been in this biz for a while continue to use Squidoo, I have 15 lenses myself, and several of them bring in a regular monthly income.

There are some tricks to build a lens correctly that will rank high in SERPS as well as promotion and easy code resources, learn more at my guide How-To Squidoo Steps to Building the Best Lens that will show everything you need to know to build a lens the right way as well as the important promotion techniques for lens rank to make money.

By the way, for those of you with sites, building Squidoo lenses is a great way to promote those sites and you can give yourself 100% do-follow backlinks from them. Several of my lenses are PR2, 3 and 4 and those are A+ links.

Hub Pages - Hub Pages rank very high in SERPS, depending on how competitive the keywords are. Basically the same concept as Squidoo, except that Hub Pages are more strict and monitored than Squidoo by their admin for quality content and spam. There is less flexibility in placing affiliate links and having the Hub Page be too commercial.

They LOVE fresh content at Hub Pages so focus on that and use your products to support the content. Integrate your Amazon, eBay, Adsense and Kontera affiliate accounts. Just read the TOS, and make sure to follow the rules.

The key to Hub Pages is really networking with other authors. Visit, comment and become a fan of other Hubbers and they will visit you. If you keyword optimize your Hub page properly, same as a Squidoo lens, then you can rank high in SERPS for those keywords.

I recommend Squidoo over Hub Pages, much more flexibility and no one nagging you about what you add to your webpage.

Step-by-Step Internet Marketing for Bums

1. Keyword Research

Do some keyword research to find good keywords for your webpage. Aim for low competition keywords and focus on long tails. These are keyword phrases within a main keyword. Example, main keyword “laptop”, long tail keyword: “Used Cheap Laptops.” Long tails and micro niches can be found with a good amount of searchers and much less competition. Learn more and get tools at Step-by-Step Niche and Keyword Research.

2. Build a Webpage

Use one or more of the free venues to build webpages. As previously mentioned, I recommend Squidoo.

3. Article Marketing

Write a few related articles and link to those webpages from the resource box. Article marketing will bring traffic as well as backlinks.

• Use different keywords so you do not outrank yourself

• Submit to these top article sites:

Ezine Articles
Article Dashboard
Go Articles
Article City
Article Alley
Amazines
Articles Factory

4. Social Bookmarks

Use social sites and submit your content, see 70+ Social Bookmarks Sites.

5. Anchor Text

Make sure to use your keywords in the anchor text for any backlinks to your webpages, while Squidoo and Hub Pages rank on their own, those backlinks will just increase the ranking power. Learn more at: The Importance of Anchor Text in Link Building.

6. US Free Ads

Use US Free Ads classifieds to promote your webpages and drive traffic, traffic that is well targeted as those visitors are looking to buy! Free account gives you 2 adds with unlimited content. $10 a year gives you many more.

7. Internet Forums

You can also use Internet Forums to promote your webpages and get some links. Make sure they are relevant to your topic and then the traffic is very targeted. Use this list of 144 Do-Follow Forums by Niche to find some.

Be patient, keep at it and good luck!!!

As with any Internet Marketing campaign some testing is needed. Not all Bum Internet Marketing campaigns are big successes, as is with any online venture.

Some of my Squid lenses have never made a cent, while others are doing great. But, no matter what, you cannot beat the hands-on free Internet Marketing experience and the extra income potential with these resources.

Happy Holidays everyone! I really wish you guys and your families the very best this holiday season and endless success for all your online endeavors.

I really want to thank you all of you for reading my ramblings and all the support and participation on the blog and I look forward to interacting with you more in the coming year!

Internet Marketing - Link Building Affirmations

Never forget that the cornerstone of Internet Marketing is link building. The main way to Page 1 of SERPS (Search Engine Page Results) is via quality backlinks from other sites with relevant keywords in the anchor text.

Manual Link Building vs. Natural Link Building

Manual link building is basically building links via manual efforts, such as with, articles, reciprocal linking, directories, blog comments etc, as opposed to natural links when other’s link to your content and web pages on their own.

It looks like the scrooges have spoken, and manual link building doesn’t work! HA HA!! Meanwhile I am LMAO all the way to page 1 of SERPS!

Lately I am seeing posts in the blogosphere that manual link building is dead, and those links are worthless, and these links don’t work anymore and that it’s a waste of time to build links manually, blah, blah, blah.

Well, I beg to differ, because several of my niche sites sit high in SERPS, a few on page 1 for their keywords and this blog is on page 2 with over 52,000,000 competition primarily from manual link building.

Now, I do get lots of link luv for this blog and that really helps, and I am not saying those natural links aren’t fantastic and wonderful, but what I am saying is that you can rise to page 1 of SERPS with manual link building only and sometimes manual link building is the only and best option for Internet marketing!

The Difference Between Blogs/Flagships and Niche-Affiliate Sites

Often times, a flagship blog like this one will get a good share of natural backlink link luv from the blog community, since there is a lot of interaction with other bloggers and the blog model usually brings about more opportunities for natural link building overall, but in most cases this alone is not enough to rank page 1 anyway.

And, when it comes to affiliate marketing websites, or small niche sites, natural link building can be elusive, unless your Laptop Mag or CNET. So, you are not left with many other options but manual link building, such as with articles, forums, blog comments and directories.

And, yes those links still work!!!

I have several niche sites that are sitting high in SERPS, with all manual link building and not one natural link. And, yes this includes directories, because depending on the directory, those links do still work, contrary to the hype. And, in reality all I really care about is results as they are always the proof of what works and what doesn’t!

Manual Link Building Time Strategy:

40% - Article Marketing
25% - Reciprocal Link Exchange/Blogroll (home page & within content links)
25% - Social Bookmark Links & Forum Sig links & Blog comment links
10% - Directories - 2 Free Directory Submission Softwares

Plus some random links, such as press releases and Squidoo lenses as listed in 13 Ways to Link Building.

In conclusion, just build links everyday! Use your anchor text and get all the links you can get, including some of those no-follows, that Google ignores but Yahoo, MSN and Live still follow and those search engines do bring website traffic as well.

And, don’t worry about the scrooges of Internet Marketing, they are probably just lazy, and while they are waiting for those natural links, and bitching about what doesn’t work, we’ll be building links and laughing our way to page 1!!