JR's Internet Marketing Strategies » Affiliate Marketing

Internet Marketing Course

JR — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 06:47:04 +0000

Internet marketing is certainly a skill and includes a set of techniques that must be learned and mastered. There is a lot involved with Internet marketing and that is why getting the proper training from an Internet marketing course is essential for success. Honestly, there is a lot of free information about Internet marketing on the web, much of which you can find here, but learning Internet marketing that way versus taking a structured Internet marketing course will take a lot longer because you will have to decipher through a lot of information and learn with a lot of trial and error.

Using an Internet marketing course can provide a structured layout and lessons that are presented in a step by step manner which is really invaluable in saving time, frustration and possibilities of giving up down the road because of confusion and failures and a good Internet marketing course can facilitate taking action at a quicker pace and get on with making money online that much quicker. So, if you have the money to spend on an Internet marketing course that is the best option, especially if you are really serious about making money online.

There are plenty of Internet marketing courses available online, many of which are total crap and a complete waste of money. Here are two Internet marketing courses that I personally recommend and have used myself in the past and they have a lot to offer in learning the skills of Internet marketing and making money online.

The Keyword Academy - This is My #1 Pick

Effective - Comprehensive - Budget Friendly - Newbie Friendly - Step by Step Training

Court Tuttle and Mark Butler, who are seasoned and very successful Internet marketers are teaching the specific skills needed to create, market and promote websites to make money online in their Internet marketing course called the Keyword Academy. I can assure you that if you are new to this business, this is a comprehensive and complete course in teaching all the various facets of Internet marketing.

There is some free information about Internet marketing, a Basic and a Premium membership for this course. There is also a trial membership as well.

You will get immediate access to all courses and several training videos.
New training courses are added regularly.
The video’s will take you step by step and show you how to pick profitable keywords for your niche site.
How-to set up the free WordPress software to build money sites.
How and where to get backlinks.
Backlink resources inside the member area itself.
How to get content for your niche sites.
How to monetize the niche sites.
All videos are step-by step and geared for the beginners to making money online. There are also audio versions as well as written transcripts.

Learn More At The Keyword Academy

Affilorama
This is another premier Internet marketing course that offers endless tutorials and guides for affiliate marketing, PPC, beginner and advanced SEO, website building and all types of guides for Internet marketing. What I like about this site is that it offers a lot of free lessons, as well as the option to sign up for the Affilo BluePrint and a Premium membership option and get access to advanced training, support and a plethora of website tools.

What I really like about this make money online for beginners program is that there are several guides, both free and in the paid membership from experts in various fields, who actually offer valuable and hands-on advice for SEO, blogging income, website promotion and more. Having read through a lot of this stuff I can tell you there is no fluff, only real and usable information in their Internet marketing course.

Copyright © 2012 JR's Internet Marketing Strategies. This content belongs to JR's Internet Marketing, if you are seeing it somewhere else it has been stolen and scraped. Visit us at JR's Internet Marketing Strategies to report it.

47 Link Building Strategies for Premium Link Building in 2012

JR — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 20:47:11 +0000

Before implementing effective link building strategies it's important to make sure that your sites are optimized for the keywords you are targeting and the on-site SEO is properly implemented. There should be a lot of keyword relevant content on your site and the home page should provide a lot of relevance for the keywords you are targeting. In reality, ranking is not just about effective link building strategies, it's also about the relevance of your site to its keywords. Remember that you are dealing with an algorithm in Google, a bot that automatically crawls sites and then decides if the site should rank for the keywords its targeting, it's never enough to just build links with proper anchor text or to have your keywords in the title tag of the page, the on site content must match as well.

The goal of any link building strategy is to become an authority in your niche, that is how Google views the quality links going to your sites, votes for your authority.
But you cannot be an authority if your websites are not loaded with authoritative content and so those high quality links will never come.

Junk Links = Junk Content.... that is how Google sees it!
and in reality that is a fact, high quality sites will not link to junk. So when your content is not top notch you will only be able to get crappy links.

Effective link building strategies in 2011 and beyond are all about Quality over Quantity. For example, while webmasters used to be able to use mass directory links to rank various keywords, those days are gone, and directory links are pretty much useless. Google has gotten really good at detecting and disqualifying links that are manually built, and even penalizing sites that go too far in their link building, so be careful especially with new sites. Premium link building involves more consideration and a more careful process. What worked last year or two years is no longer viable because Google has gotten smarter and is in essence waging a war on crappy links!

Effective Link Building Strategies For Premium Link Building

1. The most effective link building strategy in premium link building is to make sure your link profiles look natural! All webmasters and bloggers with do manual link building, this is just a fact, but there is link building that is efficient and then there is the kind that's reckless and consequently can be destructive, ie: doing 3 guests posts on relevant blogs vs. 5000 profile links via automated software like Sick Submitter.

2. Don't be greedy in link building and don't rush to rank, long term ranking takes time, patience and quality links, NOT 10,000 profile links. The Google algorithm has gotten smarter, build links slowly and look to quality and not quantity.

3. One of the best link building strategies that I can offer you is that it's better to get 2 premium links than 500 crappy links.

4. Write high quality content and promote it to get natural links as much as possible, this is the best of premium link building that has longevity and guarantees long term success. Commenting on related Comment Luv Blogs is a safe and easy way to give your content exposure, which brings traffic, which brings links when other bloggers like what they read.

5. Google has confirmed that they will be using their own social site ratings, Google +1, as part of the ranking algorithm for SERP rankings, so make sure your content lives up to getting a +1 rating. The best WordPress Google +1 plugin is here.

6. Get links for ALL the pages on your site, NOT just the home page. Many people get all their links to the home page only, another red flag. In reality, you can rank the home page without a bunch of links because as you get links to your inner pages it naturally helps with the ranking of all the pages on your site, including the home page.

7. Build links slowly for new sites. Start with just a few and then let it age for a month or so before getting more and keep adding quality content.

8. Avoid crappy low quality links and especially when your site is new. Try to build a solid link profile with strong links, like contextual links from related sites as much as possible before getting crappy links, like a lot of articles, blog comments, irrelevant site links...etc. New sites do not have any trustworthy quality signals, such as quality links and that is that's when low quality links can hurt the most.

9. Do reciprocal links correctly. Reciprocal links happen online and in in of themselves they are not bad, I have many here, posts I have written and linked within my posts to a blogger's content that I loved and then they linked to something I wrote, that's fine and happens naturally online all the time, but having pages of reciprocal links is a link scheme and totally useless and dangerous in 2011 link building.

10. The same as above goes for placing hundreds of reciprocal links on blogrolls, another big red flag that screams low quality, spammy link schemes or paid links for both the linker and the linkee!

11. Some of the most premium links and especially for new sites are Press Releases and since those spread around the Internet, that could bring traffic that will love your content and link to you, check out List of 41 Press Releases and How To Write Press Releases.

12. NEVER EVER use link pages, those are those web pages usually named something really stupidly obvious, like domain.com/links or worse yet domain.com/link-partners and the page is full of nothing but reciprocal links to other sites that have your site on their "links page". This is not only no where near premium link building, it's an obvious link scheme only meant to manipulate search engines into rankings. They are worthless, completely outdated and dangerous because it screams link scheme and can you sent to the Google black hole! If you have a links page, DELETE IT NOW!!!

13. Effective link building strategies include links from a diverse set of IP's.

14. Low quality directories are bad news, and especially those that advertise "Improve Your Rankings" "SEO Friendly", "Paid Link Gets DoFollow and Higher Placement", all bad news, useless links that carry no weight or any valuable link juice and can be especially negative for new sites with no trust rank.

15. Vary your anchor texts, vary, vary vary and vary again. Natural link profiles do not have the same exact keyword phrases for their anchors that site owners are targeting for each link, people do not link out that perfectly naturally. Basically each page, especially home page, should have no more than a 25% occurrence of the same anchor. If every link in your profile has the exact same anchor for each page, then you can be sure to raise red flags and get a quick penalty from Google, like the -50, which lands every singe page of your site on Page 5 or lower, and there they will stay for months and years. Use the URL as the anchor, use click here, this site, add other words to the anchor to go along with the main keywords.

16. Don't do link bombs (yes, 1000 links in one day is a bomb, even 500, even 300).

17. Build links slowly - Quality over Quantity (did I say that all ready?)

18. Make friends with bloggers in your niche and network.

19. One of the best link building strategies is to link out to others. Create "Best Of" "Top 100" type posts referencing other's people work and sites in your niche, when you give other people links you get links back. Linking out is good, contrary to some myths out there, you don't have to hoard your link juice, and worry about losing traffic (if you're worried you probably don't have much anyway), and no linking out to good sites and content won't hurt your rankings, it actually helps, learn more at Linking Out From Your Website.

20. Track rankings to see the effectiveness of your link building strategies. Depending on the competitiveness of your keywords, you can sometimes rank with very few links.

21. Track your link building and anchors over time, Majestic SEO is free and works great.

22. Get both nofollow and dofollow links. Learn more at NoFollow vs Dofollow Links - Why You Need Both.

23. Checking out and duplicating competitor's links is a great link building strategy. Use Open Site Explorer and then try to get the same.

24. Contextual links are best - These are links that are within a related piece of text. Even better when the entire site is in a related niche.

25. Don't waste time on useless links that link directly to your money sites (Forum profile links, ie: Angela's links, directories, crappy article sites, ie: content farms)

26. Use social media. Make friends, connections, reach out to other bloggers and network, this often creates community which results in premium link building opportunities that come naturally. Learn more with Best Social Media Apps To Boost Your Brand.

27. Don't get stuck on getting links only from blogs, try to get links from static sites and various platforms. Learn more at Links From Static Website.

28. Write content that is link worthy, this is the absolute best way to get a natural link profile. Make sure to get that content noticed by using various social sites, Facebook, Twitter, and social sites specific to your niche. Here are 22 Social Sites To Promote Internet Marketing, Blogging, Make Money Online, SEO Related Content.

29. Guest posting is premium link building at its best. You would be surprised how many authority, "high end" blogs and sites accept guest posts, Mashable does, and many others as well. Usually you can find the link in their footer. Check out My Blog Guest, a community for guest blogging. Also, search in Google:

Your Niche Guest Post
Your Niche Write For Us
Your Niche Submit Content
Your Niche Submit Article
Your Niche Submit Blog Post

30. STAY AWAY from Themes sponsorships. This is a link scheme where you pay to get links to your sites placed in WordPress theme footers, and users of those themes cannot remove the links, which can result in thousands of useless and harmful toge links and Google has penalized sites time and time again for doing this, it's an obvious link scheme, useless and harmful to your sites.

31. Getting footer links in general is NOT premium link building. They are old news and scream PAID links!

32. Do not solicit hundreds of blogroll links (unless they are freely given of course).

33. Avoid home page, footer, blogroll, contextual or any kind of links on irrelevant sites. When Google sees a link to Weight Loss on a Laptop site that's a red flag for paid link.

34. Another solid link building strategy is to run a good contest with great prizes. Most readers will link to spread the word.

35. Be careful using link wheels. Link wheel link building strategies can be effective when done properly, which most people don't know how, and so then they become dangerous because they can be easily detected and viewed as link farms, which is against Google TOS.

36. Internal link building within your own site is an essential link building strategy. Placing links to your own content on relevant posts and with relevant anchor text goes a long way for SEO. Learn more at Internal Link Building for On Site SEO.

37. Build Links To Your Links - 2nd and 3rd tier links are very effective for getting a powerful flow of juice to your money or primary sites. Build links to your articles, and social media links, get links for the content that links to you. Example: You get a link on a blog in a post + Write an article on GoArticles and Ezine Articles linking to that post + Submit that article to social media links. This is where many find profile links to be effective, they use them to boost links to their sites, instead of linking directly to their money or primary sites.

38. Retweet other bloggers work, they notice that you notice and that creates networking that can go beyond Twitter.

39. Ask for links! This is not something I spend a lot of time doing, but probably should, it's tedious work, but many top SEO's spend their days doing this type of premium link building. Most emails I get for this, and I get many each day are useless, because theses people send generic crap reciprocal link page requests, but sometimes some good ones come through and usually these emails contain some good content the webmaster has written and feels the a link on my site to that content is useful and relevant to my readers, so if you have linkable content that's one approach. Learn more about using this link building strategy at: Best Ways To Outreach Link Building.

40. Get an interview from someone important in your niche. This will usually earn you a backlink to that interview on their sites and others.

41. If you are going to comment on dofollow blogs make sure and check out the comment section for blogger moderation of comments. If you see a bunch of casino, sex or viagra author comment links that are being followed, don't leave your link there, that's a bad neighborhood!

42. Link baits are still great link building strategies, learn more here.

43. YouTube is a great source of traffic (and the link in the profile is dofollow), but more important than that link is the fact that YouTube and other video submissions sites are loaded with viewers. You can get a lot of exposure, traffic back to your sites and if your content is top notch - backlinks!!!!!!

44. AVOID 3 way link exchanges, and especially with low quality sites. This is another old school link scheme that can cause issues with Google because if you do a lot of these then a link farm schema can be easily detected. I get lots of email requests for these and it's always shady because the webmaster offers some crappy sites for exchange. Usually these are sites created just for this purpose, they have no real value, they are not updated or promoted correctly so the link itself is pretty useless, the last email listed a site that had 215 blogroll links all ready, all irrelevant by the way. What a scam, you give them a link on your high end site and they give you a link on crap?!??!

45. Be careful if you're buying links. It's not worth the penalty, especially avoid buying links at Digital Point Forums, many sites there are so obviously selling links and Google will detect them sooner than later.

46. Convert your best articles to PDF format and submit to the bestPDF directories like Scribd and Docstoc. This let's you show off your work, and can get traffic which can lead to more links.

47. The final link building strategy for premium link building is that link relevance is more important than link quantity! Yes, it's better to get 5 links on relevant sites than 50 links from irrelevant sites.

10 Outside the Box, Unique And Non Spammy Link Generation Tactics

Guest Writer — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:38:28 +0000

Tired of using conventional linking strategies? It seems today everyone is trying to get linked by doing the same things, over and over again. Instead, why not go outside the box to snag links that nobody else it targeting? These 10 unconventional and different link building strategies can help.

#1 – Do a Lot of Reviews

Go on review sites like Epinions and leave feedback for various products and services in your market. Make sure you link back to your website in your profile and/or when it’s relevant for the product you’re reviewing.

#2 – Be a Guest Speaker

Contact educational institutions and organizations near you and explore the possibility of being a guest speaker. If you do a guest speaking gig, there’s a very good chance you’ll get covered by the local media. Image Credits - David Castillo Dominici

You could just get picked up by a small college newspaper, but you could also get picked up by a major local newspaper like the San Francisco Chronicles.

#3 – Do a Backlink Prize Giveaway

Do a mini-contest where people get a gift in exchange for linking back to you. For example, you might give away a $5 iTunes gift card for every blogger that links to you within a specific period of time. Or you could give away a special widget, like a laser pointer, which really costs you about $3 on eBay.

Come up with creative prizes you can give away in exchange for a backlink, then publicize the giveaway.

#4 – Do a Limited Time Coupon

Want people in your industry to link to you? One great way to do it is through a limited time coupon. Release a coupon code that gives a significant discount to products and let people know when it expires.

The coupon code, along with a link to your site will spread, because people want to help their friends get a good deal. Fortunately, even after the coupon code expires, the backlink will still remain.

#5 – Create a Unique iPhone App

Create an iPhone app that’s different than anything else out there and publish it. Then let all the app reviewer type of websites out there know about the app.

Make sure you host the info page about your app on your own website. Then whenever reviewers link to your app’s page, it’ll be on a page on your site. This will result in a whole lot of link juice flowing back to your domain.

#6 – Network in Your Area and Leverage the Power of Organizations

Go to your local chamber of commerce. Go to your local marketing meetup groups. Go to your local university’s business or web groups.

Network with people who have websites in your area and get them to link back to you.

Many organizations, such as Business Networking International or specific trade organizations will link to member sites from their high PR websites. Furthermore, you’ll also get to network with a lot of other website owners.

#7 – Post an Unconventional Job Listing

When Netflix published how they didn’t track hours, time off or holidays and instead let employees “use common sense” about taking time off, the story took off virally. You can do something similar.

Post a job listing that goes against the common grain. It’ll get people talking about get people linking to you. Of course, only do this if you’re actually looking to hire.

#8 – Take Influencers Out to Dinner

Try to meet up with major bloggers and owners of big websites and take them out to dinner. Explore the possibility of doing specific pieces of content with them and other types of partnerships. Ask them what it would take to get a link from them.

#9 – Interview a Well Known Expert

If you can get a well known expert interviewed, a lot of people in your industry will link to you.

If you’re into Chess, try to interview Bobby Fischer. If you’re into direct mail, try to interview Dan Kennedy. If you’re into boxing, try to interview Mike Tyson.

So on and so forth. Just one stellar interview can get you a flood of backlinks.

#10 – Use HARO

Help a Reporter Out (HARO) is a website for reporters to reach out to people when they need sources for stories. Use HARO to find reporters who want to do articles on people like you to get mentioned and get backlinks from major news sources.

Author Bio – This article has been written by Sameer Panjwani, founder of Directory Maximizer, a company specializing in link building through directory submission.

Best Amazon Affiliate Plugins For WordPress

JR — Thu, 27 Oct 2011 20:14:34 +0000

The Amazon affiliate program is one of the best converting programs on the web. People trust Amazon, and they offer truly amazing discounts on thousands upon thousands of products. It really is a pain to set up pages and pages with affiliate links and having to go to Amazon, search products, then create different ads and creatives to place inside posts, and that is why Amazon Affiliate plugins are so handy. In Affiliate Marketing time is always of the essence, we work hard long hours and anything that saves time and is also efficient at making money is welcome in my book.

Here are the two best Amazon Affiliate plugins for Wordress.

WpZon Amazon Affiliate Plugin - This is a great multi purpose plugin.

It creates complete pages or posts by pulling Amazon products, with ratings, descriptions and actual user reviews. The screenshot below is an example of the post. You can edit or add your own content to the product description. The More Information button and all review links take the visitor back to Amazon with your affiliate link.

WpZon Product Post

Insert small blocks anywhere in posts or pages with star user ratings for any products with a link back to Amazon to read reviews

WpZon Product Reviews Insert

Other Features Of The WPZon Affiliate Plugin

Create entire sites very quickly
Fancybox Image Galleries For Products
Add YouTube videos from post editor
Plugin admin interface pulls products by keyword or ASIN; Add Your Choices To Queue; Create Many Posts At Once (choice of pending, draft or publish immediately or a set date to publish)
Has interface in the WordPress Post and Page Editors to create Amazon product posts.
Sidebar Widgets
Click Tracking
SEO Features : Link Cloaking, Auto Integration with All In One SEO plugin, No Follow Amazon links, Auto Bold and more
Commenters on your WordPress site can also leave their own reviews, with star ratings in comments.
Can be used with any countries Amazon affiliate program.
Easily translate product posts to other languages
Integrates with other plugins, like PHPBay for eBay auction listings.
Automatic Product Data Updates With Days To Update Set By User
Excellent support
Much more, see the video and learn more

Learn More, See The Video of WPZon In Action And Buy The Plugin

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EasyAzon Amazon Affiliate Plugin - Another great plugin for Amazon affiliates that has different uses and generates different ads than WPAzon above.

The EasyAzon Amazon affiliate Plugin creates image adds, text links or small ad blocks anywhere you choose inside pages or posts, the screenshot below is an example of an ad block displayed inside a post.

EasyAzon Affiliate Plugin Ad Block

Pulls products right from inside the post editor. Search with keywords or ASIN and the plugin displays various products to choose, then choose the type of add you want, position (none, center, left or right) and the add will be placed right into the post, as the screenshot below shows.

EasyAzon In Post Editor Product Pull

No more having to go to Amazon and search for products, then create ads, it's all inside the WordPress post editor with this plugin so you can quickly ad creatives into posts or pages. This is a really great plugin, very easy to use AND these ad blocks convert great as well.

LEARN MORE AND BUY EASYAZON PLUGIN

Which Amazon Plugin Is Best?

This really depends on what you want to do, both are different because they have different ads, different functions and uses. I use both and both are a huge time saver. I have found that the reviews generated onsite by WPZon Amazon affiliate plugin are great for conversions because people trust user reviews. The EasyAzon Amason plugin offers a quick way to add ads to any post or page for any product, and these ad blocks convert very well too, they show a link to reviews which is great for shoppers.

10 Best Tips and Tools to Boost Productivity for Internet Marketers

JR — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:03:31 +0000

The major role of the internet marketer cannot be overemphasized these days, and is high in demand. Now more than ever, the internet remains to be the best and fastest way to advertise your latest product, business or promotion. From banners, email campaigns and affiliate marketing, there are endless ways for the internet marketer to be successful. So you’re an internet marketer? Wondering how to best represent yourself and be more productive than ever? Here are the 10 best tools out there (both software and advice) to promote, excite and handle your job better than you ever have.

1. Don’t work harder, but smarter. Like many other freelancers, internet marketers need to manage their time extremely well. Forget about that micromanaging boss hanging over your shoulder. If you want to make a higher income, have a ‘work smarter, not harder’ mentality.

2. Invest in a new computer if yours isn’t up to par. Don’t panic about the cost of a new computer. Instead, invest in one that will help you to become as productive as you need to be with the latest equipment available. Make sure to have the right amount of RAM, power, software and disk drive space for you or your clients needs.

3. PPC tools. Discover which keywords your competition is betting on, export your ad campaign straight from Adwords into Adwords Editor or create your own master list of the best keywords for your business.

4. Invest in SEOmoz software. Just as important as the right attitude is SEO software to improve your visibility on the web. Consider investing some time learning about SEOmoz and install it as your top SEO software. It costs $99 a month, but gives any internet marketer valuable tools such as rank tracking, page recommendations and monitors your competition.

5. Focus on client relationships. Do your interpersonal skills need a tune-up? If you work from home and rarely interact in person with clients, you may need to focus on connecting with your clients more often. Don’t disappear in cyber space! Instead, focus on getting to know your clients and how you can best serve their needs. What may result are new leads, and a great recommendation!

6. Have clear expectations. Don’t just assume your new customer understands where you’re coming from, what you can do for them or the results you can produce. Tell them (over and over again!) It’s also important to have a clear understanding of what they want. Then, you can rest assured you’re delivering results by being the most productive internet marketer out there.

7. Multitask. As an internet marketer, you battle with managing and updating your social media platforms all day long, answer phone calls and promote yourself to potential customers. Now that’s multitasking like a true pro! Don’t get sidetracked with the work your staff can do. Delegate where you see fit and stay on top of your most important assignments.

8. Passion. Focus on the passion for what you do. You no doubt became an internet marketer because you love what you do. So, focus on that emotion anytime your productivity feels like it’s at a stand-still. Make a list of what unique skills you have, what makes you so successful and ways to improve your craft.

9. SEO Tools. Invest in learning about some of the best SEO tools on the market and see results. SEO Toolbar for Firefox can help internet marketers track SEO and PPC ads, create backlinks and overall make more money with their websites.

10. Prioritize. Take care of the most pressing tasks first. Afraid to tackle that time sensitive project that’s due tomorrow? Don’t hide from it all day, procrastinating about it during your lunch break and stressing over how behind you are. Instead, wake up early, get it done and have a great rest of your day.

Author Bio: Ethan S. writes for Amazing Domains, a UK-based site offering a wide selection of valuable domains, where you can browse, compare, and buy domain name.

How to Use Branding to Drive Your Online Business

JR — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 18:18:25 +0000

Before any business can get off the ground, there are two keys that need to be established – the overall business plan and the marketing plan. It’s no different for an Internet business; in fact, in some ways it may be even more important, given the proliferation of online businesses.

Setting yourself apart from the competition is critical to success, and there are several ways to do that, starting with the aforementioned business and marketing plans. For each, there are two vital questions to answer.

For the business plan, you must determine what you’re selling and who you want to sell to.
For the marketing plan, you need to figure out what your message is and the best way to share that message.

Once these questions are answered, it’s time to decide how you want customers to remember you and the message that you have developed. It’s this branding of your company that will likely be the way the public – and your potential customers – will remember you.

How To Establish a Brand For Online Business

Logo. This is arguably the most important part of the branding process. Consider some of the world’s most iconic companies – Apple, Coke, and Nike – and the first thing that probably popped into your head is their logos.
Company slogan. This is typically a variation of the overall message, condensed and focused to be memorable. As you can imagine, shortening a firm’s philosophy into 3-5 words isn’t easy. Much like an effective logo, a good catchy slogan can shape buyers’ images of your company.
Social media. Does your product appeal to young people? Then you need a presence on Facebook and YouTube. No matter what the product, or demographic, an Internet business and social media go hand in hand. You need to make sure the company message translates in how social media is handled.

The goal with any of these branding methods is two-fold: You want customers to know who you are, and you want that recognition for something positive. When someone sees your logo or hears your slogan, it should evoke a favorable response.

There are several ways to use branding for that purpose:

Your logo and slogan should be all over your web presence, both on your site and anywhere else you can place them (Facebook page, Twitter, LinkedIn company page). The more people see your name, the more they will recognize it.
Cool promotional items with your logo are an excellent way to have people associate you with something fun. Put your logo on a pen, or a stress ball, or anything that will make people remember you in a positive way.
Make use of community or cause branding. Aligning yourself with a popular community activity is a good way for people to associate you with something positive. The same holds true for a specific cause that means something to your company. This helps create a positive reputation.

More so than many other Internet marketing ventures, branding will likely require some outside help, particularly if your company doesn’t have anyone with a graphics background to develop a sharp, catchy logo.

About The Author: Sunny Popali is SEO Director at http://www.tempocreative.com, Tempo has pioneered a trouble-free process for clients to achieve a high-impact, impressive web site built for maximum ROI. For over a decade Tempo has been Phoenix, Arizona and the USA's favorite web design and digital marketing firm.

Google Will Penalize Over SEO’d Websites

JR — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:03:43 +0000

Google Spam Team leader, Matt Cutts has announced at a search panel discussion with Search Engine Land at SXSW that a new search ranking penalty will begin in the coming weeks for websites that are over optimized with on site SEO in order to level the playing field for webmasters who offer value to searchers and are not so focused on, or maybe do not use the typical on site SEO tactics.

Here is the quote from the audio transcript from Matt Cutts, as posted at searchengineland.com

What about the people optimizing really hard and doing a lot of SEO. We don’t normally pre-announce changes but there is something we are working in the last few months and hope to release it in the next months or few weeks. We are trying to level the playing field a bit. All those people doing, for lack of a better word, over optimization or overly SEO – versus those making great content and great site. We are trying to make GoogleBot smarter, make our relevance better, and we are also looking for those who abuse it, like too many keywords on a page, or exchange way too many links or go well beyond what you normally expect. We have several engineers on my team working on this right now.

SEO Is Changing

While keyword stuffing, link exchanges (like those horrible link pages) and excessive SEO has been bad news for some time, this is the first time that Google has openly announced working on a specific penalty for this when done on legitimate sites.

Once again this is another signal that Google is waging war against SEO schemes, along with the recent deindexing of blog networks (sets of blogs specifically used for link building), most famous of which was Build My Rank that has been completely de indexed last week, the many penalties for spammy link profiles that Google has been giving out, like the -50 penalty, the -950 penalty and others.

Cleaning Up Over SEO'd Websites

Is your site built primarily for search engines? Or for visitors? This is the first thing to analyze, and clean it up.
Blogrolls filled with hundreds of links, while Matt Cutts did not mention this, I can almost guarantee that this will be an issue, over full blogrolls have long been known for link schemes and paid links. Also, consider if you have a bunch of unnatural blogrolls linking to you and maybe get the bloggers to remove them.
Get rid of bolding of keywords all over posts, this is not only useless but can be considered over SEO'd optimization.
Excessive footer links and keywords in footers are bad news.
Check your internal linking, while this is good, when done excessively just for rankings can be considered over SEO'd. Example: A link to the home page on every since post and page with your site's keywords, when you have a lot of pages on your sites this can be especially problematic.
Some plugins out there post "search keywords that were used to find this site" on pages and posts, this is basically a list of related keywords to the post, and this is a classic example of keyword stuffing, yet these plugins are widely used.
Get rid of all links pages, these are so useless and for sure those webmasters that have links pages, some going as many as 4, 5, 8, 9 pages long are going to get hit with this over optimization of SEO penalty.
The Google bot is smart enough to detect the topic and therefore the keywords you are targeting in your posts if you just use natural language, having a keyword density of 2% per page is more than enough. Often I find that just having the title with keywords and then writing naturally about the topic is more than enough to get that post placed correctly in SERPS. If you have keywords in every single sentence, then in H2 tags for every paragraph on every post and page and this reads unnaturally for visitors and the human eye, this can be considered over search engine optimization.

While this penalty sounds like it's going to focus on onsite SEO, link building can still be an issue, and so many make the mistake of using dangerous link schemes, link bombs and spammy links, as I discussed in my post 47 Premium Link building strategies for 2012, getting valuable backlinks and much more high quality link profiles is most important right now.

In general, the best rule of thumb is to ask the question: Does This Help Users? If the answer is no, the it's probably risky business.

The Google bot is getting smarter, and Google is targeting SEO schemes more and more, be smart and be sure that what you are doing is safe, or risk losing those sites in Google.

Unusual Online Business Models

Guest Writer — Sun, 08 Apr 2012 14:09:59 +0000

The internet is a place where anyone across the world can express themselves by designing layouts and images, by writing content, by making code, and then uploading all this for everyone else to see – for free. It's a completely free and incredibly distributed publishing method and as it gives everyone out there a voice.

And so you'd kind of expect to see a little more variation in what people are doing on the net. As it is, unfortunately most people have very similar looking sites (menu at the top, links down the left) and very similar content (how to be not bald, how to be not fat). It's a breath of fresh air when you find something very different and unique, and that applies similarly to the business models and the ways that people are making money online. It doesn't have to be all about static ads, so here are some good examples of sites that make their money a little differently.

Tumblr and WordPress: Tumblr is a blogging tool that allows you to upload picture and animations at the touch of a button like a kind of Twitter for the illiterate. WordPress, similarly, helps people to express themselves on the web by providing a lot of free code and content management software for setting up your own unique blogs and websites. What they have in common is that both is free and neither has compulsory ads. So what's in it for them?

Well cleverly these sites make their money from allowing further levels of customization which they opened up to the user base. On both Tumblr and WordPress it's possible to buy both themes and widgets that give a page more personality. Those are designed by the users and sold through the site, and the owners of the services take a cut in much the same way that Amazon does. A clever little business model, even though Tumblr is currently only making back its server costs.

Jason Rohrer: Jason Rohrer is an entrepreneur/games designer who makes very small games that feature 16 bit graphics, two minute long levels and chip tune soundtracks. They must take him about a day to make at best, but he seems to be doing quite well from it thank you very much. How...?

Well the games are free to download except for a couple which are about $1-$2. The clever bit is that they request an optional donation (like Radiohead) where you pay what you think they're worth. This would be a shoddy way to make money from such a small game, but where Rohrer's work is different is that these games aren't games in the conventional sense. Rather they're 'art games' that contain metaphors for life, gameplay mechanics and graphics that no one has seen before, and a relaxing and trippy atmosphere. They're so different and interesting that even though you don't get much for your money people get curious and want to see more and Rohrer benefits as a result. People have called him a genius – and he may well be a marketing genius as well as an artistic one.

Sonic ROMS: Sonic ROMS is a site that – you guessed it – gives away ROMS featuring everyone's favorite blue hedgehog. There are legal loopholes that make this okay (they're allowed as long as you own the original game, and the onus here is on the user) and the site has been around long enough to be easy to find. Sonic ROMS gives away a heap of stuff for free, but in order to get the very best games free you need a premium membership – which you can either get with a donation or by posting loads on the forum. For that you also get a high badge on your profile and the status that comes with that. So in other words for giving away something that they no doubt downloaded for free Sonic ROMS gets either a helping of cash or tonnes of free content for their site strengthening their position online. It's certainly win-win for the owners.

Vadim Kirichenko believes easiest way to earn online is learning the skill of earning with ppc. Vadim also shares various tips on sem via his blog to help newcomers get good hold about the field.

How To Make Money Online With Adsense

JR — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 18:03:48 +0000

About Google Adsense

Google Adsense is an affiliate model known as CPC or PPC that pays publishers for clicks on ads they run on their sites. This is one of the easier ways to make money online because the visitor does not have to buy anything, they only need to click and that is why Adsense is considered to be one of the most powerful tools in the online business and affiliate arsenal. There are hundreds and thousands of advertisers over at Google in just about every type of niche you can imagine that yields an abundance of affiliate revenue opportunities for webmasters. Adsense allows for very easy monetization of websites and blogs in any topic. When used correctly, it can generate a very nice income.

Apply to the Google Adsense program and don't get anxious if they don't reply right away. Sometimes it can take some time to get approved. The website you submit with your application should be high quality with lots of content.
Once approved, the very first thing you need to do is carefully read, understand and follow the Adsense Terms And Agreement. This is essential to you not getting banned by Google and keeping your account in good standing. They have specific rules and once you are banned you will never be allowed back in. Some rules include acceptable content, ad click behavior that is forbidden, limits to the amounts of add you can place on a page and much more.
Avoid creating mass amounts of MFA's, Made For Adsense sites. Adsense does not like these and even though you can start to make a lot of money with Adsense and MFA sites, many webmasters have reported being banned when a manual review of their account was triggered by the high earnings.

How Adsense Works

Google Adsense is an intuitive add program. When the Adsense add codes are placed on a website, either text or image, or alternating (depending on your preference when setting up the ad) the adds that appear on the page will be relevant to the page's content. This is brilliant and converts very well enabling publishers to make money with Adsense with ease. So, if my website is about laptop computers, the Adsense adds that run on that page will be related to laptops and computers.

Another brilliant aspect of how Adsense works is that it will show adds to the traffic coming to your site, based on the searches that Google has recorded them doing in recent times. Another great way to make money with Adsense by showing truly targeted adds to each and every person that comes to your site based on what their looking for. The amount paid per click of each add will vary by niche, some pay as much as $20 per click and others pay pennies. There are other variables like CTR, click through rates for adds you run, conversions and other factors that are determined within your own account.

How To Make Money With Google Adsense

A lot of money can get left on the table when Adsense is not used properly, just following some simple guidelines you can make more money with Adsense and enjoy a nice income. Of course, it is important to understand a site that is built to attract the search engines, supported by proper link building strategies and therefore, getting traffic will enjoy the most earnings, and in fact, this is an essential part of making money with any program, including Adsense.

Building Quality Sites

Keyword Research
The first step to making money with Adsense is doing proper keyword research for your niche site and adding great content. While Adsense does not disclose, nor do they allow publishers to disclose what they make per click for any niche, you can get some idea how much you might make per click with particular niches by using Micro Niche Finder keyword research tool, that is one of the parameters it displays when doing keyword research. This is a great tool to do keyword research and it really hones in on the micro niches that are known to be very successful in making money with Adsense. Micro niches are also easier to rank for and are a good option for Adsense earnings.

Content
Since the Adsense adds that run on the site are based on the content of the page it is important to make sure that a 3-5% keyword density exists on the pages so that relevant adds are generated. For best results, in terms of ranking and earnings, the site should be filled generously with well written, at least 500+ word articles based on the niche. Most of my sites have articles that are more than 600 words, I find that works best.

How many pages do you need? This is a tough question to answer as it will vary. Overall, since the Google Panda update, thin sites are not ranking too well, so the more content pages you have the better. With Micro Niche finder you can usually find many keyword phrases for any particular niche that can be used to create many pages for the site, and remember the more pages your site has, the more opportunities for traffic, which means you can make more money with Adsense.

Content Resources
It can be overwhelming to write content on a regular basis, especially for several sites. Outsourcing your content is what most of us do, and 99 Cent Articles offers great content options and packages for less.

Positioning of Adds
Positioning of your ads can greatly impact how much money you can make with Adsense. Above the fold is usually best, that is in a place on your website that is readily seen by visitors without having to scroll up or down. Placing ads in a visible place is where the visitors will most likely to click on them.

Most of the world's population reads left to right, so following that logic, ads are best placed on the left side of the content, in fact there have been studies that showed that most of the clicks received on a page were from the top left. The chart below shows the hot zones in red where Adsense ads are known to perform best for most people. But it is critical that you test ad placement on your own sites to be sure of what works best for you.

Below Content: Many people also find it optimal to place Adsense ads after post/page content, giving people something to click on when they are done reading.

Mid Content: When you have a long article mid content ads are also a great idea and can convert really well.

Optimal Adsense Placement

HTML Code To Make Ads Align Left And Right To The Content

Left:

ADD CODE

Right:

ADD CODE

Ad Styles And Colors
It is a fact that Adsense ads do best when they blend in with the general design and colors of the site, so the link colors of the Adsense ads should match the link colors of the site. For me what works best is to the Title of the Ad is colored with the link color at my site and the rest is black.

Testing Placement Of Adsense
Some of those who are just starting in this business may think they are doing pretty well and that their click through rates and CPM figures are optimal. However, there are more techniques and styles to generate more clicks that can allow you to make more money with Adsense. By knowing what works, and testing you can make more, and tweak your sites and create new ones with this knowledge to grow income over time.

Conflicting Adds
One of the issues that can hinder making good money with Adsense is to over monetize a site, too many banners, links and other distractions can decrease Adsense. So, once again test and see what makes you more and stick with it.

Tracking And Testing
Last but not least, Google Adsense offers a few outstanding tracking statistics that allow publishers to track their results on a site by site, page by page, and other parameters. It's a good idea to make the most of this and do the proper testing using the powerful tools that are offered. This way, you can fine tune the ads and use that data to also increase the money you make on other Adsense sites.

Best WordPress Plugins to Make Money With Adsense

There are many free plugins for Adsense, mostly these have to do with ad placement automation. I have used many of these, but I found these most useful:

Quick Adsense - This one, in my opinion is the best. It allows you to easily place Adsense or any other ads for that matter anywhere on your sites. There are options for before, middle and after content, there is even an option to place ads after paragraph 1, 2, 3, etc... you simply place you ad codes into the plugin settings area, then designate where those ads should show up and click save, BAM your done. You can also use shortcode for custom ads, you can choose to NOT show ads on certain pages and posts and many more useful features.

Smart Ads - Similar to the above with various ad placement options, but a bit more limited with only choices of before and after content. But, it has other features for Adsense ad placement parameters:

Choose Minimum Post Word Count
Only show ads on posts older then -
Category Exclusions
Disable Top Ad if Post Begins with an Image
Disable Ads For Registered Members

Alternatives to Adsense

For those that have lost their Adsense accounts, or are having a hard time getting approved, here are some alternatives to Adsense. These are basically the same types of pay per click programs, and intext links advertising programs.

Chitika
Chitika is the next best solution after Adsense and is a premium CPC network.

Displays adds ONLY to search traffic and those relevant to their original search terms, which is the optimal traffic and targeting solution for effective CPC campaigns.
Offers your choice to collapse adds entirely for non search traffic without blank space or to serve ads from other networks, another big perk.
Also the minimum payout is $10 with Paypal or $50 with check payment, which is really nice for those who want to get paid quickly.

In-Text Ads CPC Networks

These are the contextual ad networks that serve content relevant ads that appear when a visitor mouses over a particular keyword in the content.

Infolinks
Kontera
AdBrite
Offers a variety of ad options including and pays on a CPC and CPM model with Text ads, Banner ads, Rich Media ads, Full Page Ads, Inline ads and others. The In-Text ads pay on a cost per click basis and banner and other ads on a CPM basis. Their Full Page ads pay on a CPV ( Cost Per View) model.
Clicksor
Vibrant Media
Admedia
Adengage
Payout 75% of all add revenue, which is a high amount for the industry. Also offer an easy user interface than some of the other networks.

I hope this is helpful for those that want to make money with Adsense and maximize their earning potential online.

How do you guys do with Adsense?

Anybody have any tips to share for making money with Adsense?

Monetization Methods For Websites And Blogs

Guest Writer — Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:43:38 +0000

If you are thinking of making money from your website then what are you waiting for? If you have people actively visiting your website and reading your content then there are many ways that you can generate a great profit from those visitors. You’ll earn money a true passive income even as you sleep.

The only slight obstacle between you and your happy future of passive income is deciding upon which monetization method to use, and deciding how precisely you are going to turn your site into a cash cow. Here we will look at some of the options available to you and their strengths and weaknesses. And for the rest of you who are already running successful money-making websites this still applies to you – as it may just be that you aren’t making the most of your site in that regard and you could stand to learn a thing or two.

Monetization Methods for Your Website

Ad Networks: Every webmaster is familiar with ad networks. The idea here is simply that you sign up as a publisher, and then you place a little snippet of code on your pages. That code then auto generates adverts from participating advertisers based on the content on your pages, and that in turn ensures that you get the most relevant adverts showing up on your sites and that you don’t need to worry about chasing down the advertisers yourself. You will then be paid in most cases per click every time someone clicks on one of your ads.

The most obvious ad network that most people use is Google Adsense which is known for relatively high pay outs and being a reliable and easy to implement system. Some companies make their entire living from Adsense. However Adsense is not the only ad network on the block, and there are some out there with slightly less stringent requirements (for all those of you who own gambling sites) and that are less likely to simply close down your account (as several webmasters have reported Google doing).

At the same time you might choose to combine multiple ad networks. You can do this using Adsense if you are using another similar network, but if the method is sufficiently different then you can double up if you so wish – for instance you can use ‘in text’ ads such as Kontera. However Kontera has a relatively very low CPC and can in some cases distract clicks away from Google rather than doubling your clicks as you might have hoped. It has a high CTR though, so it does have some value for sites with very high volumes of traffic.

Affiliate Products: Selling affiliate products is often more profitable on a per-click basis but you will have a much lower conversion rate as people have to actually put their money where their mouse is and buy something in order for you to get any benefit.

Amazon has one of the most popular affiliate programs to monetize websites and blogs to earn a commission for promoting their vast range of products. Amazon uses a tiered commission system based on a percentage that rises with sales. While 6% starting rate may seem low, in fact a lot can be made when promoting the more expensive products that Amazon has to offer.

One of the best parts of using the Amazon affiliate program is that there are several great plugins for use with Amazon that make it easy to monetize your sites, learn more at best Amazon Affiliate plugins for WordPress, and there is also Blog Cash Cow plugin that intuitively places related Amazon, eBay and other affiliate program ads into blog posts ad pages based on the topic of the page.

Pretty much any and all merchants offer an affiliate program, so whatever your chosen niche you can find a program to get the correct products. Other affiliate programs include, Commission Junction, Linkshare, Share-A-Sale and the Pepperjam Network, all of which have major and small end merchants that offer a percentage commission for promoting their products.

Your Own Products and Services: What you need to recognize in all of these cases however without exception is that you are at the bottom of the pile if you are making money in this way. At the end of the day you are getting paid to send people away from your website, and as those advertisers are willing to do this that tells you that they are worth more than you are getting paid for them.

As such, the most effective way to make money from a visitor is to sell your own products and services. Now you can do this by buying and selling items wholesale and making a small profit on each one, but this will require a lot of time, administration and storage space. Better is to make that money by selling products and services that are free for you to produce en-masse. The best example of this is to sell e-books and even print books (where you use POD services) which requires no work on your part once they have been set up. Likewise you can sell subscriptions to your site, copywriting and web services, or even a ‘course’ which might consist of some regular e-mails, a book and subscription in one package. And people will be willing to pay a lot for that if you market it well.

John Russell after facing difficulty in choosing best web hosting for himself, decided to blog about hosting reviews which would help others and make their life simpler.

The Ultimate and Best Content Spinner Ever

JR — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:23:26 +0000

We have talked previously in other posts about there being a lack of a really useful and easy to use content spinner. Well those days are gone because John Leger, has created the ultimate and best content spinner ever made.

I am not going to go into the particulars of having this kind of tool in your Internet marketing arsenal, as those of us who have been around know quite well how useful and how much of a time saver this can be to properly utilize PLR articles and for other various uses, such as article marketing. In the big picture, this certainly will have multiple benefits.

For best results, always be thorough in the spin and make sure you don't start with crap, because no matter how good the spinner, you will end up with crap. Remember that traffic and users of your sites matter, and not just the Search Engines, so you have to provide content for both.

You can always check out the results in Copyscape to be sure that the content is fresh and unique.

The Best Content Spinner, really is the best! All the other crap spinners that are out there and cost a lot more cannot compare to this useful, easy to use and fast tool!

All I can say is finally, this is the Spinner all us marketer have been waiting!!!!!!!!!

For those who are going to scream at me about their flagship blogs and main sites, this content spinning tool is not meant to spin content on those types of sites.

The Best Spinner Features

1. No need to think up synonyms, it offers a drop down menu with tons of choices to replace words and phrases.

2. No need to insert coding and spin syntax, it does it automatically.

3. There is a replace feature, so you can replace words and phrases when you only need one rewrite of content.

4. The syntax coded version offers unlimited inserts of synonym words and phrases. You can choose one word, or a whole phrase or even a sentence to spin.

5. Produces all spun variations as well as spin syntaxed (coded) copies.

6. One click quick selection of synonyms

7. Unlimited nested spinning

8. You can edit and make changes manually within the spinning console

9. Easy save and exporting to clipboard

10. Word count and uniqueness percentages

11. Support for Spanish, German and other languages

12. A newly added article directory where you can submit articles that other members can post to their sites for backlinks!

AND

13. You can now post articles directly to your WordPress blogs from the spinner, and unique versions of it to several blogs

plus a members forum where the developer is active and offers on going support

and tons more features...

Truly this is the best content spinner I have ever seen and what all marketers have been waiting for and I urge you guys to try it out.

The regular price is $87 per year, but right now you can still try it for $7 for 7 days and take it for a full test run.

Check out the Video of the Spinner in Action, and try it before the price goes back up. Believe me you guys will be just as amazed as I was.

Amazing Article Content Builder – Membership Slots Open…Will Go Fast

JR — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 06:08:48 +0000

Jonathan Leger's Article Builder has some slots open right now, last time it sold out in a couple of hours because this thing is FREAKIN AMAZING!

Create 100% unique articles on many niches with 1 click!!!

NO WRITING REQUIRED!!! MANY POPULAR NICHES AND NEW ONES ADDED ALL THE TIME!

300 words, 500 words, 1000 words, you choose topic, keywords, click and BAM you have an article that is well researched, well written and ready to post on blogs, websites, article directories, use as guests posts, whatever you want.

And More Useful Features...

Like creating articles with spyntax (spinner language) built in to create several versions of the same content and for blog network submissions
Inject extra related content into any article, yours or one from the Article Builder, within paragraphs and/or with sidebar style tips for which you choose formatting and styling to match your site, looks great.
Spin content with synonyms to make them more unique
Create several different articles at once for the same niche
Save to notepad or zip file and more...

But you need to hurry, because this thing will sell out again and fast...

GET THE ARTICLE BUILDER NOW AND LEARN MORE

4 Days Only Save 40% On Jiffy Article Software – Create Unique Content and Articles Fast

JR — Wed, 23 Nov 2011 01:07:37 +0000

The product I reviewed recently, Jiffy Articles to create unique content is now live and the official launch discount of 40% off is good from now to midnight Friday, November 25th! Also, there is an option to pay quarterly, instead of the year in advance so you can pay less upfront.

What Is Jiffy Articles And How It Creates Unique Website Content And Articles

Jiffy Articles is a great tool to create unique content fast, I can write 600 word articles in 5 minutes with it.

Basically it gives you an article template based on the category you select and keywords you may enter, that is filled with snippets that you can then rewrite and add more info to. This is much easier than writing content from scratch because Jiffy Article writers have done a lot of the research and all you have to do is build on it, so easy and much more fun than writing from scratch.

Check out the video of Jiffy Articles in action, it really is amazing and very unique from any other content software on the web

There are thousands of templates in the software so you can create unique content for these niches:
Business

Affiliate Marketing/Article Marketing/Home Business/Internet Marketing/Blogging/Forex
Network Marketing/Search Engine Optimization/Social Media Marketing
Web Hosting/Website Design

Computers And Electronics

Computer Security

Finance

Credit Repair/Insurance/Personal Finance/Real Estate - Buying

Health

Acne/Aging/Beauty/Depression/Diabetes
Fitness/Weight Loss/Nutrition
Panic Attacks/Personal Development/Skin Care
Stop Smoking/Stress/Teeth Whitening/Tinnitus

Home And Family

Cooking/Dog Training/Gardening/Home Improvement/Parenting/Pregnancy/Solar Energy

Recreation

Camping/Golf/Photography/Travel

Shopping

Weddings

Electronics

Appliances/Camera, Photo & Video/Car Electronics & GPS/Cell Phones & Accessories/Desktops & Servers
Home Audio & Theater/Laptops, Tablets & Netbooks/MP3 Players & Accessories/Musical Instruments
Printers & Ink/TV & Video

Create Unique Content For...

Jiffy Articles can be used to create unique content for websites, blogs, promotions, article marketing, blog networks, and all the various places where we need to have unique and original content and articles in Internet Marketing.

Have Articles Written For You

Another cool feature of Jiffy Articles is when you are short on time you can order an article to be written for you.

Just select from one of the thousands of templates (keywords and topic based) and order at 1 cent a word, that means $3 or 300 words, $5 for 500 words..etc. The turn around time is amazing, I ordered a 500 word article and got it back in 3 hours, the quality was excellent, well researched and well written.

CHECK OUT JIFFY ARTICLES AND SAVE 40% NOW!

SERP Changes & Lost Rankings: Panda, Fresh And All Google Algorithm Updates of 2011 Wrap Up

JR — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 22:04:42 +0000

There have been several SERP and Google algorithm updates in the last few months. Panda wiped out some heavy hitters earlier this year, specifically the so called "content farms", like Ezine Articles, and many small websites, including small e commerce sites. Learn more at SEOMoz - How Panda Changed SEO.

Then last month Panda 2 hit, and many have been complaining of lost rankings, huge losses in traffic and especially for long tail searches and brand related content. You can see some threads of many discussing these SERP changes, Google algorithm tweaks and lost rankings and traffic at these forum posts: Webmaster World Google SEO and SERP Updates, Google Fresh Algo Update and Warrior Panda Update 2.

And this month there is another update, being termed Google Fresh. The Google Fresh algorithm update hit the SERPS, where Google is now saying they will favor fresh content over more dated stuff. Learn more about this at: SEOMoz - Google Fresh and 7 Marketing Tactics To Rank Better With Fresh.

Another must read is the Google Search Blog Post On 10 Recent Algorithm Changes.

Aaron Wall, of SEOBook, has posted the illustration shown below about the last few of years of changes and evolution of Google SERPS and how relevancy has slowly evolved into what we see today, brands being favored in the SERPS. This is an interesting analysis of the SERPS and the various algorithm changes in Google.

This is definitely something we should consider in the future of SEO, and when choosing niches, especially in affiliate marketing. If the search engine trend described below continues, it can greatly affect us, the small marketers, that are swimming among the sharks in search.

The information below is being freely shared by Aaron Wall, and you can get the embed code to post on your sites from SEOBook.

What Do You Guys Think? Anyone Lost Rankings? Affected by Panda Or Fresh? Do You See Brands Being Favored For Your Keywords?

Infographic by SEO Book

Best Converting Affiliate Programs

JR — Sat, 29 Jan 2011 17:17:49 +0000

I know it's been a long time since I posted, I have been so busy in the last few months, planning my wedding and swamped with work building lots of new sites for the new year. I wanted to do a quick review of the best converting affiliate programs of 2010 in my online business. 2010 has been a great year for me and my income has more than doubled versus 2009.

First, let me say Happy New Year to everyone and I hope the holidays were wonderful for you and your families.

I always spend some time in the new year reflecting and evaluating my business achievements of the past year and one of the most important facets I focus on is evaluating what affiliate programs I choose to promote and the money making tools I use. This is crucial since time is money and each and every moment that I spend working is precious.

Here is my list of the top 3 converting affiliate programs and the tools I use that have caused my income to more than double in 2010.

Ebay
First on the list is eBay via the Ebay Partner Network. Ebay converts like crazy, for most any kind of niche, and continues to be my best money maker.

I started promoting eBay a few years ago using BANS (Build A Niche Store) software, which is no longer supported by the developers, but my sites are still up and running and making money. While many people had major problems losing rankings with Google for their BANS stores, a fact that they attributed to BANS, I never had that problem, and the main reason is that I had added tons of original and useful content. The rank losses really had nothing to do with BANS, but they actually occurred because people built cookie cutter sites that were thin in original content and no matter what software you might use for affiliate sites, the key is always to have tons of original content and make the site unique and useful. Since BANS is no longer supported I now use the PHPBay plugin for WordPress. This is an amazing plugin that easily adds ebay products and auction listings to WordPress posts, pages and sidebar.

Here are two posts that give some great insight into getting approved for the eBay Partner Network - Understanding EPN Approval Process and 7 Tips For Getting Into EPN.

Amazon

My second best money maker is Amazon, like eBay Amazon converts like crazy, and I have built several sites using the PHPzon plugin that started making money in their first week. Like PHPbay the PHPZon plugin pulls any products that I want to add to posts and pages, it also pulls customer reviews and user comments from Amazon, as well as detailed product descriptions, this is really useful and increases conversions ten fold.

Another great plugin that I recently bought will write more about in another post is Keywords To Websites. This is the fastest and easiest way to build affiliate blogs using a variety of affiliate programs, like Ebay, Amazon and Commission Junction. Just select some settings in the admin interface, put in your keywords and the plugin automatically pulls product listings, along with the option to pull several sources of content from the web, including a spun content module, where you can use the Best Spinner to create an article and then add the spun version into the plugin to create various unique versions to appear on all your WordPress pages along with the affiliate product listings.

Google Adsense

Lastly, my third best converting affiliate program for 2010 is Google Adsense. I add Google Adsense on all my sites, and placement of ads in specific areas of each individual site is really key. Optimal placement really depends on the respective site, but I find that placing adds in visible areas above the fold, after content, making links in the same color as the links on the site, and leaving text black on the adds works best. Adsense makes up a large portion of my monthly online income, and as as with any other online revenue streams, volume really helps, the more pages that I have ranking in SERPS with Adsense the higher the earnings.

Of course along with locating affiliate programs that convert well, one of the key elements to making money online is searching for profitable niches and doing proper keyword research, in my next post I will provide some of my best tips and resources for locating optimal niches and markets for products to promote with affiliate marketing.