Free Javascript Downloads

Ever heard of javascript?

Well if you haven't you should.

You see, javascript is the easy way to do many things on your web site. Things like showing the current date, keeping your copyright date current, showing alert messages and a whole lot more.

Now I'll freely admit that I'm not a javascript expert however I have learned a few things about it since there's so many free javascript downloads available. And today I'd like to share 4 of them with you.

1. Until recently search engines couldn't read javascript so they didn't like it. However, some search engine spiders like Google's can now read some javascript code and pick up links. I say some because some search engines still can't read javascript and of those that can, they still can't always read the links contained in the code. That means if you're using javascript for your site's menu only some or none of the search engines will see the links to your other pages.
   
   
2. Unencrypted javascript code contained in your web page's html code will not hide a link or email address from hijacking bots (automatic software that looks for download links and email addresses).
   
   
3. When you put javascript code into your web page's html code you can get some neat effects however you are not using 1 of the best benefits of javascript. Using an external javascript file and calling it from your html code makes it easy to use that script on as many of your web pages as you want. And if you ever need to make a change you have only 1 file to change.
   
   
4. Many times the javascript contained in the html code can be easily modified and made into an external javascript file.
   

Here is an example of how easy it can be to put a free javascript download into an external javascript file.

Below is a free javascript download from http://javascript.internet.com/page-details/email-protector.html. (Please pick it up from their site since Blogger doesn't always display html type code correctly.) This code is to help you protect your email address and the instructions say to place the code where you want your email address inside the body tags of your html file.

< !-- ONE STEP TO INSTALL EMAIL ADDRESS PROTECTOR:

< BODY>

< SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">

< !-- Original: CDR Software --> < !--
Web Site: http://www.cdrsoft.com/ -->

< !-- This script and many more are available free online at --> < !-- The JavaScript Source!! http://javascript.internet.com/ -->

< !-- Begin
user = "username";
site = "yoursite.com";

document.write('< a href=\"mailto:' + user + '@' + site + '\"> ');
document.write(user + '@' + site + '< /a> ');
// End -->
< /SCRIPT>

< p> < center>
< font face="arial, helvetica" size="-2"> Free JavaScripts provided< br> by < a href="http://javascriptsource.com"> The JavaScript Source< /a> < /font> < /center> < p>

< !-- Script Size: 0.68 KB -->

Here's what it looks like on your web page.

username@yoursite.com

Free JavaScripts provided
by The JavaScript Source

Now don't run away because it looks like a bunch of gibberish.

You only part of the code you need is after the <!--Begin and before the //End -->

user = "username";
site = "yoursite.com";

document.write('< href="\"> ');
document.write(user + '@' + site + '< /a> ');

Now put those 4 lines of code in a file with a .js extension like sendme.js. Then put this code where you want to have your email address shown inside your html code.

<script language="javascript" type='text/javascript'
src='http://www.yourdomain.com/sendme.js'></script>

Everything between <script ... js'> is in a single line of code. It looks like 2 lines because of the width of this page. Also be sure to replace 'yourdomain.com/sendme.js' with your domain name and the path to your file.

That wasn't too difficult was it? Now not all of the free javascript downloads are that easy to change but a lot of them are.

Oh, in case you're wondering why you would want to place this javascript in it's own .js file there are 2 very good reasons.

1. If you ever need to change your email address you have 1 file to change instead of changing it on each individual web page.
   
2. Having a little ad for a free script site right next to your email address doesn't look very professional unless you're the script site owner. And while you should acknowledge that you are using someone else's script on your web page, you can place the acknowledgement where you want it.

Other examples of how easy it is to take a free javascript download and put it in its own .js file include the code for:

• put the current date on your page
  http://javascript.internet.com/time-date/current-date.html
  
• automatically update your copyright date
  http://javascript.internet.com/page-details/automatic-copyright-update.html

And again, all you need to put in the external .js file is the code between the and then you place the 2 lines of code to call the javascript file in your html file where you want the information to appear. And while it's doubtful you'll ever need to change these .js files, you may not want that free ad right next to these dates.

There are a lot of things you can do using free javascript downloads. Simply go to you favorite search engine and search for free javascript and you'll find many sites like TheJavaScriptSource where you can get and use thousands of free pre-written javascripts.

To Your Success,
Susan

Tags: javascript, free javascript download, java script, free java script download, web page design, javascript tutorial

Those Nifty Special Email Notification Sounds

If you've been doing business online for awhile like I have then you probably receive hundreds of emails every day. And hopefully you're using email software that will automatically move some of your email straight into the special folders you created to hold the ones that are important to you. Creating the folders and writing rules for incoming email is a great time saver.

Unfortunately, after a lot of your email is tucked safely into the proper folder you still have to sift through everything else and then check all your folders to see if anything new and important has come in.

But what if there was a way to tell you which folders needed to be checked?

Oh, you only check these folders when you have time? That's great! Except, what if it's an email from a family member or a special friend? Don't you want to know about those when you receive them so you can read them right away? Or how about those specially marked messages from your customers and subscribers? Don't you want to read and respond to them quickly? Or maybe you've made a sale and received a payment? Wouldn't you like to know you've just made some money.

If you're like me then you want to know when someone near and dear to you has sent you an email. Also, knowing when you've just made a sale is a great motivator to keep you moving forward in your business.

So how can you know when you've received a "special" email?

Simple, use those nifty email notification sounds.

As you set up your rules for putting your important email into the proper folders, simply include playing a sound as part of what is to be done when the message is received.

Now you won't want to play a sound for messages going into every folder since both you and your computer may get overwhelmed with all the noise. However, for the really important ones like family, customer problems and money received, you may want to have your computer let you know.

Since I use Outlook I'm including the link to the Microsoft page that tells you how to set up email notification sounds for individual messages that come into your inbox. I don't know how it's done for other email programs however I'm sure it's possible for many of them.

When you go to set up or modify a rule to play an special email notification sound you can use the .wav files that came on your machine. You can find free sound files online and download them. Or you can even make your own for free.

Here's a video showing how to make your own short sound file for a Windows PC.

Just think how nice it would be to hear your special person telling you they've sent you a message. And you can with email notification sounds.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. In case you or someone you know doesn't get much email and they would like to hear an email notification sound when they've received new email I've included 2 videos. The first one shows how to set up email notification sounds for new email on Windows machines before Vista and the second shows how it's done for Vista.

Before Vista:

Vista:

If you found this tip useful please let me know by leaving a comment.

Tags: email notification sounds, special email, important email, know when I've got mail

What's Wrong With HTML Font Tags?

In case you haven't heard, the HTML FONT tags have been depreciated (See Section 15.2.2). That means the FONT tags are no longer part of the HTML specification. And although browsers still support them and probably will for a long time, all of us who create our own web pages need to keep up with the changes and learn a new way to define the font face, font size, and font color of our web page content.

So what do you use instead of the HTML FONT tags?

You can use CSS styles.

Now when it comes to writing CSS styles there are 3 types:

• External style sheet (.css files linked to .html files) - make it easy to make formatting changes across your web site


• Internal style sheet (inside the <head> tag) - make it easy to make formatting changes on a single web page


• Inline style (inside an HTML element) - has priority over the above 2 and is used to make something on your page different from the defined styles

Now I'm not a expert at writing CSS styles. And because we don't have to be if we're using a WYSIWYG HTML editor I'm only going to talk about inline styles since those are the styles we may have to write ourselves.

Inline CSS Styles Equivalent To
HTML Font Tags

Font Size

HTML - <font size="4">Font Size</font>
CSS - <span style="font-size : 14pt;">Font Size</span>

Font Color

HTML - <font color="#9933ff">Font Color</font>
CSS - <span style="color : #9933ff;">Font Color</span>

Font Type

HTML - <font face="Arial">Font Type</font>
CSS - <span style="font-family : arial;">Font Type</span>

Font Underline

HTML - <u><font size="2">Font Underline</font></u>
CSS - <span style="text-decoration: underline;">Font Underline</span>

***Note***
The </span> does not turn off text-decoration as it does for other CSS inline styles. To turn off the text-decoration in an inline style you'll need to include:

<span style="text-decoration: none">Your text</span>
***End Note***

Font Strickthrough

HTML - <strike><font size="2">Font Strickthrough</font></strike>
CSS - <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">Font Strickthrough</span>

See Note Above.

Bold

HTML - <b><font size="4">Bold</font></b>
CSS - <span style="font-weight: bold;">Bold</span>

Highlight

HTML - uses the CSS inline style
CSS - <span style="background-color: #ffff00;">highlight in yellow</span>

Multiple Characteristics

HTML - <u><b><font size="4" face="Garamond" color="#9933FF">Multiple Characteristics</font></b></u>
CSS - <span style="text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold; ">Multiple Characteristics</span>

See Note Above.

As you can see, writing CSS inline styles is not more difficult than writing HTML FONT tags. It's just different. And since most WYSIWYG HTML editors will write external and internal styles for you, you don't have to learn a lot of CSS. However, just like HTML, you should learn a little because if you want to use inline styles to do something different you'll do have to write them yourself.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. BTW, I've checked FrontPage 2002 (my HTML editor) and Nvu (a free HTML editor) and found they both will create external and internal CSS styles. FrontPage does it through the Format menu and Nvu does it through the Tools menu. To find out if your WYSIWYG editor creates CSS styles, simply go to the help menu and search for terms like; style, css style, inline style, etc.

Let me know if you found this tip useful by leaving a comment.

Tags: html font tags, incline css styles, html font tags depreciated, how to replace html font tags, css styles, how to create css styles

What's so great about Twitter?

Well, to be totally honest, I really don't know?

I've read a couple of ebooks about it. I've read several articles about it. I've spent hours reading blog posts about it. And I've gone to quite a few tweeter pages to see what people are tweeting about.

Now in case you're not familiar with Twitter it's a micro-blogging service. And for those who don't know what micro-blogging here's how it's defined on http://en.wikipedia.org

"Micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allows users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. These messages can be submitted by a variety of means, including text messaging, instant messaging, email, MP3 or the web."

Tweeter is the most popular of the micro-blogging sites and hosts pages for people like Mike Filsaime, Doug Champigny, BobTheTeacher, Brad Fallon and Joel Comm.

And after looking at the latest tweets from these guys I now know:

• Doug's e-mail list-build product is selling well and he doesn't know why article marketer is running a week behind.


• Mike was sitting in a seminar on May 3.


• Bob was going to exercise and who he hopes will win in the presidential primary.


• Brad's posted a couple of new entries on his blog.


• Joel's got a new blog post and he is in New Jersey.

Did I need to know any of this stuff? NO! Did I want to know? Again, NO!

So does Tweeter have a place? Sure it does. If you've got a group who needs to be in contact like a work-group, affiliates or your family and friends then you may have a use for these short notes.

But what about online marketers? Well, if they're working together on a project then yes, it could be useful. But if you're not part of the group then do you really care to get a bunch of "instant messages" about something that doesn't concern you?

Now Twitter pages do seem to rank well in Google so some online marketers say that if it's done right it's a good way to get a little traffic through the search engines. However others think most won't do it correctly and it's just another way to waste your valuable time.

So after spending several hours searching for information about micro-blogging and in particular, how to use sites like Tweeter effectively I still don't know if it's a useful social networking tool for most online marketers.

What do you think? Do you want to try micro-blogging because you have time to read and reply to comments? Or do you think it's just another way to waste time?

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. if you'd like to read some information on how to use Tweeter as a social networking tool here's the best place I've found for getting some information:
http://www.problogger.net/archives/2008/03/25/how-i-use-twitter-to-promote-my-blog/
At the end of that article there are links to 4 other articles about Twitter.

Tags: micro-blogging, tweeter, marketing tool, waste of time, social networking

"Current Email Scams"

It seems I write a tip about email scams (i.e. phishing) every year and this year is no exception.

Usually the warning about the current email scams being sent are for Paypal and banks. This year however I am writing about the most recent US email scam supposedly being sent by the Internal Revenue Service.

Now you may have heard on the news that people are trying to steal the current US tax rebates by making phone calls and sending fake emails. Let me tell you it's TRUE. Yesterday I received in my personal email inbox a message with an official IRS logo at the top and it said,

"Over 130 million Americans will receive refunds as part of President Bush program to jumpstart the economy.

Our records indicate that you are qualified to receive the 2008 Economic Stimulus Refund.

The fastest and easiest way to receive your refund is by direct deposit to your checking/savings account.

Please click on the link and fill out the form and submit before May 01th, 2008 to ensure that your refund will be processed as soon as possible.

Submitting your form on May 01th, 2008 or later means that your refund will be delayed due to the volume of requests we anticipate for the Economic Stimulus Refund.

To access Economic Stimulus Refund, please click here. http://newsar.us/edcart/prodgfx/help.php

© Copyright 2008, Internal Revenue Service U.S.A. All rights reserved."

Did I click that link? NO! And neither should you.

Because you're a savvy internet marketer you're probably already aware of these types of scams. You already know not to click the links in emails that say your Paypal account needs to be updated or verified. You never click email from banks and credit card companies saying they need you to re-enter your personal information for some reason. If you want to check and make sure your accounts are up to date you always go to your account's site by typing in the url you always use to login.

However just because you already know how to avoid being a victim of the current email scams doesn't mean everyone does. So today I'm asking you to spread the word to your not so computer savvy friends, relatives, and readers. These scams only work on those who are less knowledgeable and less experienced than you.

The victims of these scams are usually those who can afford it the least. They are trusting individuals who believe that every email they get has been personally written to them. They are people who use a computer for email, shopping and maybe online games. And of course, the elderly make up the largest percentage of this group.

So let's make this year the last year I have to write a tip about the current email scams by spreading the word to everyone.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: current email scams, tax rebate scam, phishing

How To Convert Your Blog To Email

If you look at the right sidebar of the blog you'll notice that I've just added a subscribe form. Now this is not just any old subscribe form because it does something special. You see, when I add a new blog entry those who've signed up via this form will automatically get an email telling them of the new article without me doing anything. In other words, the subscribe form on my blog works much like an RSS feed.

Now you're probably wondering why I've added this type of form to my blog since people can get blog update notices via the RSS feeds already available. The answer is - because a lot of people don't use RSS readers.

So how can you add a special form like this to your blog?

There are 2 ways:

1. You can use a free service like feedburner.com


2. You can use a paid service like aweber.com

Now I won't go into the details of setting up a form via a free service since I used my aweber account to generate my form. However I will tell you why I went with aweber rather than a free service.

• As a respected online responder service I know aweber will make the mailings can-spam compliant. The others may also be can-spam compliant but I don't know that as a fact.


• I have control of the subscriber list. I can email them, delete them, move them, etc. With a free service I may have access to the list so I can move it but I can't do anything else with it.

Now if you choose to add a blog to email form to your blog aweber has a video to help you get it set up. Unfortunately blogger.com has changed since the video was made so here are the 2 important things you'll need to know when you set up your form.

1. If you're using the new blogger you won't see a site feed as shown in the video. You'll need to get a site feed and I used feedburner.com to get mine. You can then enter your feed address created by feedburner.
   


2. To add your form you no longer have to edit the blogger html template. You can simply use the add page element feature to add the code to your sidebar.

To learn how to automatically send email updates about your new blogger posts to your blog subscribers watch this video.

And for those of you hosting your own WordPress blogs, you can read the instructions for setting up the broadcast feature for your blog here.

To Your Success,
Susan

Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip here.

Tags: blog, email, broadcast blog updates, convert rss to email

"Are You Boring?"

If you're writing classified ads, articles, blog posts and emails and still not making any sales or getting anyone to join your list the reason could be ...

You're boring! Well, not you personally but rather your writing.

I know you don't want to use a lot of hype or make false claims but still ...

You do want to get your stuff read.

In last week's tip item #6 said, "Focus on your headline because your headline is…an ad for your ad. It's your headline that convinces people to read your advertising or not."

Let's expand that item to include things like articles, blog posts and email. In other words, when writing an article or blog entry, focus on your title. Likewise, when sending an email, focus on your subject line. Titles and subject lines are what gets people to read your articles and open your email.

Let's look at a couple of examples to see what I mean.

Say you write an article about the importance of sleep while trying to lose weight. You could write a title like:

"The Importance of Sleep To Weight Loss"

Now if someone is looking specifically for the importance of sleep to weight loss and yours is the only article they find then you've got a reader. But what about all those who are just looking for a good article on weight loss and they come across an article titled:

"Lose Weight Sleeping More"

Don't you think more people will stop to read the article?

Now what if you're sending out an email about a new product you're hoping your readers will buy. You and 10,000 other online marketers are flooding everyone's inbox and you're all using the same subject line:

"Would You Turn Down 10,000 Subscribers?"

How many of these emails do you think are going to get opened and read?

So why not shake things up a little and use a different subject line like:

"Have Your Own Giveaway Next Month" or
"Why The Big Boys Hate Giveaway Manager 2"

Think more people will open those emails?

And when they do, don't disappoint them by offering the same pre-written sales letter.

The important thing to remember when you're writing titles for your articles and blog entries and the subject line for your email is to think like a marketer and not like an author. You've got to grab the attention of your potential reader. If you don't then you won't make any sales.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Leave a comment and let me know what you thought of this tip.

Tags: article writing, blog post, email, get people to read your article, get people to read your blog, get people to read your email

"What You Should Know About Advertising"

According to wikipedia.com, "Advertising is a form of communication whose purpose is to inform potential customers about products and services and how to obtain and use them. ..." And while this is a good definition there's a shorter one every online business person should have etched into their minds ...

"Advertising is salesmanship. ... The only purpose of advertising is to make sales."
Claude Hopkins, Scientific Advertising

When you write an ad, you're not writing to win an award or to create a work of art. Your ad won't be judged on how good your grammar is or how clever and amusing it is.

Your ad has 1 purpose ... to sell. And it's only good if it does.

When you try to sell a product, a service, a membership or you're trying to get people to join your mailing list, you're advertising.

Over the years there has been a lot of advertising copy written and tested. Here's a list of:

10 Basic Techniques Proven To Make Effective Ad Copy

1. Focus on your reader - not yourself. Those reading your ad want to know "What's in it for me?" A good ad tells your readers why they should try your product, service, etc.
   


2. Emphasize benefits, not features. The difference between a benefit and a feature is - a feature describes a quality of what you're selling while a benefit tells what a feature means to them. In other words, don't say things like, "XXX autoresponder service has a 96% delivery rate" say something like "Get more of your email delivered to improve your sales. XXX leads the industry in delivering your messages and the more email delivered means more sales for you."
   


3. Push your readers "Emotional Hot Buttons. "Remember, people don't like to be sold but they do like to buy and they buy things based on their emotions. To know their "Emotional Hot Buttons" you must know your readers and even more importantly, you must know what they really want even if they don't. In other words, if your selling a service you know your ad readers are looking for don't just promote the standard benefits. Drive the sale by emphasizing how this service is less expensive or more dependable or easier to use, etc. because saving money, being reliable or easy to use are the real reasons they'll chose 1 service over another.
   


4. Incorporate proof and believability in your ad. You must make sure your readers will believe your ad because if they don't they won't buy. Things that make an ad believable are:
   
   Honest and truthful statements
   Testimonials of satisfied customers
   Facts and research findings that support your claims
   A picture of yourself
   Awards and good third-party reviews
   A refund policy
   Celebrity endorsements
   


5. Have a Unique Selling Proposition (USP). Your USP is what separates you from the rest of those selling the same thing. While price, quality, service and bonuses are 4 of the most stressed USP's there are others. In fact, your USP could be something all your competitors have but don't mention. For instance, say you're advertising aWeber and your competition is promoting the standard benefits of unlimited campaigns, reliability, templates, ease of creating forms, training videos and customer support so you point out that aWeber allows you to mail to multiple lists or to track your click-thru rate with with the click of a button. The fact that aWeber provides these things no matter who sells the service isn't important. The fact that they didn't point it out and you did is.
   


6. Focus on your headline because your headline is…an ad for your ad. It's your headline that convinces people to read your advertising or not.
   


7. The more you tell, the more you sell. While most newcomers to marketing think long sales copy is boring and won't sell, the fact is long sales copy outsells short ads. However, the long sales copy must not be long and boring or long and untargeted. Long sales copy must be relevant and targeted. A long ad written for a targeted market of experts won't be read by novices and vice versa.
   


8. Write To Be Scanned. This goes with the last tip because most will scan your ad before reading to see if it's of interest. If you've got some white space, nice margins, short sentences, short paragraphs, sub-headings, a benefit list and emphasized words or phrases with bold, italics or color you make your ad more inviting to read plus it will be easier to catch the interest of your targeted market. And while some may decide not to read the ad and leave, others will go back to read the ad and others may order after they've only scanned the ad.
   


9. Follow the structure of AIDA. AIDA stands for:
   
   Attention - Grab their attention with your headline
   Interest - Keep their interest with compelling sales copy
   Desire - Capitalize on your customers' desire
   Action - Tell your customer what to do with your call to action
   


10. Use takeaway selling to increase the urgency. People tend to buy faster when they know the offer is limited. Limiting the quantity, imposing a deadline for orders and putting a limit on parts of the offer like the bonuses, guarantee or price tell people they need to act now rather than later.
    
    When you use takeaway selling there are 2 important things you should do:
    
    1. Tell them why the offer is being restricted.
    2. Enforce the restriction.

Remember, good advertising is written to do 1 thing - sell. It isn't always grammatically correct, it talks about benefits, not features and sells on emotion. It paints a compelling picture and irresistible offer that forces your prospect to act and act now! If it doesn't, then you drop that ad like a hot potato and go with one that does.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Please feel free to leave a comment about this tip.

Tags: advertising, how to write good advertising, writing good advertising, writing good ad copy, effective ad copy

The World is in your Hands.

Welcome To Your WiFi Internet!
"Those who fully grasp how this technology is going to forever change the Internet, as well as the entire world, will realize that there is nothing to stop them from generating a monthly pay check well into the multi-millions of dollars!"

Ken Stewart, CEO ItsYourNet, LLC.

ItsYourNet has aligned itself with a WiFi (Wireless Fidelity) InternetService Corporation.
After more than five years of coding and field testing, this Corporation has developed a Wireless Internet technology so dynamic that we believe it is destined to become the sole surviving:

Internet Service Provider (ISP) worldwide.


Here's why...With opening as a publicly traded company, the ability to broadcast the Internet connection signal via repeater towers from one central NOC (Network Operations Center), broadcast to distances of 30-miles without degradation of the signal, transmit through buildings, forests, and up to 20 feet underground, maintain a T-1 connection both UP and DOWN without degradation from the amount of simultaneous users connecting, and having managed to secure the signal with better than 256-bit SSL encryption where no firewall hardware is required, we believe this WiFi Corp. will quickly become one of the fastest growing Corporations in the history of the Internet, and quite literally, will be able to make the statement;


"There are two types of people in the world...Those who are connected to the Internet through our network...And those who have still yet to connect to the Internet for the very first time.

Investment capital was secured in 2003 with seven USA-based Investment Bankers*

Testing of T-1 service (Flat Terrain Testing) has been 100% successfully completed. Competitors can't develop comparable technology without 3+years and billions invested.

Service is expected to go live in Texas, California, Washington state in 2008**
Mountainous terrain signal testing soon to be scheduled for WA, OR, CO, & B.C. The WiFi Corporation plans blanketed WiFi coverage of Canada & USA Within 12-months of North American opening, plans for worldwide WiFi service begin. Asia is slated for opening 2009.

We hope you're grasping the big picture here!


To be ready for when connectivity reaches your area, Join our 2-TierFree Affiliate Program now, and start building your list of subscribers TODAY! Imagine Having An Always On Wireless T-1 to T-3 Internet Connection...In Your Home Or Office...While Walking Down A Street... While Driving Down A Road...While Camping, Golfing, Hiking... Or Crossing Country In A Plane...Whether you're interests are the ground floor purchase of stock or you plan to build an empire that pays you every month, you will not find any opportunity that has as much to offer as The Future Of The WiFi /Wireless Internet does. ItsYourNet, LLC's strategic alignment with this WiFi Corporation anticipates providing up to $4.00 of the anticipated monthly fee paid back to the Independent Members of our Free Affiliate Program, thus giving you the ability TODAY to introduce this to the masses, positioning you with the ability to create a dynamic monthly residual income for yourself, and even better, enabling you to create a database of subscribers that you will be able to introduce to the WiFi era.
Dennis Lambdin
http://livneasy.net/

**********

Submit your site to be featured here.

"Don't Put All Your Eggs In One Basket"

You've probably heard this old idiom, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket" and know what it means - don’t concentrate all your assets or resources in one thing or place because you risk losing everything all at one time.

For internet marketing the more popular way of stating this idiom is to say, "Diversify." In other words, after you've mastered 1 form of advertising, go on to another or when you've started making money with 1 product or service add another. And the reason behind these types of statements is simple. If you concentrate all your efforts into 1 form of advertising or on 1 product or service then you risk losing all your income if that form of advertising or product is removed.

Now I'm sure my parents told me these words of wisdom at 1 time or another but the first time I heard the words and actually understood what they meant and how they should be applied was when an investment advisor said them to me. His advice was about how not to invest the money for my employee 401K. He said, "If you invest your 401K in the company you work for then your gambling 100% of your income and retirement income in that company because they pay your wages, manage your retirement program and all your 401K investment earning will come from their profits. Do you really want to put all your eggs in 1 basket and have 1 company responsible for everything? If something happens to them, you lose everything."

At the time these words were said I was working for the oldest and largest phone company in the world. It had been in business since the 1800's and had always been a growing and profitable business. However I am a very cautious gambler and since investing is a form of gambling to me, I decided to take his advice and invest in other things. As it turned out, this proved to be a wise decision since the phone company was later broken into smaller companies and the 401K investment stocks turned into stock for whatever company the employee then worked for. The smaller company I worked for started going through some very rough times and I saw the stock value go from over $40 a share to around $1 a share in a matter of days. Since many employees had put their eggs in one basket, you can only imagine the deep depression and anxiety that filled the workplace.

After the experience above, I am now a staunch believer in that old idiom and have used it to make many business decisions. Not only do I diversify my advertising methods and sources of online income but I also use it when choosing my online services.

As you know there are many places online that offer package deals like; domain registration and hosting, hosting plus products to sell and complete business packages with hosting, products and autoresponder services. I've joined a few of these memberships and used them because they're usually a good deal. However I've never used only the services from a single membership site for my entire online business because that would make my entire business dependent on one membership site.

And not being totally dependent on one source of services has saved my business several times. The last time was just this year when I had to move my list from a membership site autoresponder service to another.

In this particular case the membership site offered complete business packages with hosting, products, autoresponders and several other things. When I joined I couldn't afford to pay a lot for everything I needed to start my business so this membership seemed like a great way to get started. And it was!

However, I still followed the idiom's advice and used the services that cost the most (products and autoresponder) from the membership site and bought the less expensive service (hosting) elsewhere. Then when I started to make some money I invested some of it by finding other suppliers for my products. This turned out to be a good decision since the products from the membership site recently changed and I could no longer use them the way I had designed my business.

Now losing my autoresponder service was a big blow to my business however it didn't bring my entire business down. I still had my site and my products and could still make sales. I moved my list and put new forms on my sign up pages and had my business back on track in a couple of days. Imagine how long it would have taken had I needed to move my site and find new product suppliers!

When you're first starting your online business it's easy to fall into the trap of relying on one service or membership site to take care of your business. They have it all, provide good service and offer a great savings. And using them to get started is fine. However, as soon as you can, start diversifying where you get your services. When you're making money online don't risk losing it all by being totally dependent on one provider.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Please leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: don't put all your eggs in one basket, idiom, risk, risk losing it all, diversify

April 2008

This month we have Kathryn's site at http://www.heresthemoney.com/. Kathryn is 1 of our newest friends and she said she would appreciate any and all constructive comments. So let's welcome Kathryn into our Circle of Friends by giving her a helping hand with her site.

FriendsWhoCare subscribers can have their constructive comments along with a link to their site added to this blog entry by submitting your comments here. (You must log in). If your not a FriendsWhoCare subscriber you may add your comments by using the comment link below.

Tags: site review

********************
Review Comments

Hi,

My thoughts about Kathryn's (heresthemoney.com) site:

I would like to have known more about her (even a picture) and probably some testimonials. Maybe if I had something leading me into the site. I know this is a squeeze page, but in the back of my mind even though it says it's free. I felt pressured, seemed to much like a sales page; maybe I've become skeptical over time from reading too many hyped up pages. I think the best squeeze pages offer some valuable information, and are in someway related to the product or service you are trying to promote. It shouldn't be trying to sell but instead capturing the name and email address. Kathryn's page does create some curiosity and it may very well do what she designed it to do; it just didn't grab me. I want to feel like I know someone and have some confidence I'm not giving my email address to just anyone.

Darell
DJ's Fast Start Marketing
http://www.ebooklisting.net/

********************

This sales page is probably a good example of the many sites offering to make us a lot of money for free, but the main heading reminded me immediately of a Chris Rock Live (for TV) gig in which he went on at length about the difficulty black people have, amassing WEALTH in the United States. The main point of his attack was the vast difference between getting rich, and being in a position to be regarded as wealthy.

The biggest problem of this sales page will be getting anybody to believe that there is an EASY system that pays a LOT, FAST and for FREE, so even if this is an affiliate site, it should be discarded immediately for a well written Splash Page which would find interested people who could then be sent the relevant information.

Secondary problem is that clicking on the JOIN HERE link takes you to the relevant page, which includes a link to read their Terms and Conditions, and that page includes a link to PROGRAMS! Unsurprisingly the first program listed Profit Track #1, says it's the only one you will need to PAY for.....till you see that the second one, ProfitTrak #2 also says the same thing! Kathryn, I think you would be better off joining and promoting Marketing Pond!

Syd
When was the last time you listenedto a good book?
http://29812.leisureaudiosales.com/

********************

While we've received only 4 review comments for Kathryn's site they have all been good ones. I agree that the size of the font is small and hard to read and would suggest also making the headline in a bigger font. Also, adding some information about who you are, your contact information and some testimonials from current members would add credibility. It was also pointed out that the Disclaimer link at the bottom opened in the same window and there was no easy way to get back to the Home page. This is true for all the links at the bottom of the Home page so I suggest you either provide a link to your home page on each of them or have those pages open in a new window.

In addition, I noticed that your site has a powered by ... link at the bottom. I clicked the link and went to a different site. Although the link was an affiliate link and you could make some commission from a purchase, I suggest you open that link in a new window also.

This page reminds me of many of the landing pages for MLMs and downline builders in that it doesn't give any specific information. Unlike those pages, yours has a join button rather than a "request more information" type button. Since some many may not join because they don't know what you're offering you may want to set up an autoresponder series giving a little information about your program and highlighting the benefits. You could offer that on your page as an alternative if someone doesn't what to join or in a exit pop-up when their leaving.

While I like the clean design of the site, the words didn't make me either believe you or curious enough to want to join. Again, like other MLM and downline landing pages you may want to add some audio or video to your site to peak the visitor's interest. If you don't want to use audio or video then some compelling sales copy that your visitors can relate to may be enough. The thing is, while your want to be short and to the point you still need to invoke some type of emotion in your site visitor (curiosity, greed, trust, etc.)

Hope the comments help.

To Your Success,
Susan

Rules To Have Your Site Reviewed

All FriendsWhoCare subscribers are invited to submit their site to be reviewed here however their are a few rules.

To have your site reviewed:

1. You must be a FriendsWhoCare Newsletter subscriber. All subscibers are allowed to submit as many of their sites - 1 at a time - to be reviewed here plus they get to submit a free classified ad every week for our classifieds and a free access to our Circle of Friends area where they find many free ebooks, videos and online resouces. If you aren't a FriendsWhoCare subscriber and would like to become one you can join us here.
   
   
2. No affiliate or network marketing links - you must own and be able to change the content of the site. Sites and blogs hosted on free hosting services and free social networking sites are allowed.
   
   
3. No adult content sites, no sites that download malicious software and no sites promoting hate or anything illegal are allowed. All sites are reviewed before they are posted.
   
   
4. If a site is reported that it is no longer available or it violates the above rule I will re-review the site and if necessary remove it.
   
   
5. Review sites are posted in the order received and no more than 1 will be posted each month. Because I can not control how many sites are submitted during a month that means sometimes a site may be posted the month after it was submitted while other times it may take longer. When you submit your site I will send a response that it has been received and give you an approximate date for when it will be posted.

To submit your site to be reviewed go here and login.

To Your Success,
Susan

The Rules To Be A Featured Site

All FriendsWhoCare subscribers are invited to submit their site to be featured here however their are a few rules.

To have a site featured:

1. You must be a FriendsWhoCare Newsletter subscriber. All subscibers are allowed to submit as many of their sites - 1 at a time - to be featured here plus they get to submit a free classified ad every week for our classifieds and a free access to our Circle of Friends area where they find many free ebooks, videos and online resouces. If you aren't a FriendsWhoCare subscriber and would like to become one you can join us here.
   
   
2. No affiliate or network marketing links - you must own and be able to change the content of the site. Sites and blogs hosted on free hosting services and free social networking sites are allowed.
   
   
3. No adult content sites, no sites that download malicious software and no sites promoting hate or anything illegal are allowed. All sites are reviewed before they are posted.
   
   
4. If a site is reported that it is no longer available or it violates the above rule I will re-review the site and if necessary remove it.
   
   
5. Featured sites are posted in the order received and no more than 1 will be posted each week. Because I can not control how many sites are submitted during a week that means sometimes a site may be posted within a few days while other times it may take longer. When you submit your site I will send a response that it has been received and give you an approximate date for when it will be posted.

To submit your site to be featured go here and login.

To Your Success,
Susan

"Do Yourself A Favicon"

No, I didn't misspell favorite. I meant favicon.

"A favicon (short for 'favorites icon'), also known as a website icon, page icon or urlicon, is an icon associated with a particular website or webpage." (From Wikipedia)

In other words, a favicon is that little image you see in the address bar and your bookmark list next to the websites address or title. Having a favicon for your site makes it possible for your site visitors to associate a special logo or other small graphic with your web page.

And favicons aren't hard to add to you site. If you've already got a picture or logo you would like to use as your favicon you can easily turn it into one here. It's a free service that not only turns your pictures into favicons, they also give you the 1 line of code you have to add to your web page. In addition, if you've already got a favicon you can check the favicon and the favicon link tags on your web page using their Favicon Validator.

Don't have a picture to use for your favicon? Well, creating a picture is slightly more difficult than creating the favicon. If you've got a graphics package like photoshop you can use it to create your image. If you don't have a graphics package you can use other software packages like PowerPoint or FrontPage. I usually use PowerPoint to create mine.

So do yourself a favicon. They're not a necessity however they are a great way to personalize and brand your web sites.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Favicons are not visible to everyone in the address bar because of the differences in browsers. I hope you can see Blogger's on this blog and mine on my other sites at:

FriendsWhoCare Newsletter
SusanCarrollHome

DollarSaverDeals

And if you'd like to put a favicon on your WordPress blog with a plugin, you can get a free favicon plugin here.

Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: favicon, free favicon, make free favicon, personalize your web site, logo

"Better Safe Than Sorry!"

Since about half of my online income comes from my list, losing my list would be a serious blow to my business. And that's exactly what happened to me last week.

For 5 years I used the same autoresponder system and although there was an occasional problem, those problems were always fixed quickly. So even with occasional problems and only getting basic features, I was happily building my list and my business.

Then last week the 1 thing that everyone who has a list dreads happened to me. I went to my autoresponder to send out a broadcast that the newsletter was ready and discovered ...

All My Current Subscribers Were Gone!

Now unless you've experienced something like this I can't describe how it makes you feel. There's shock, there's bewilderment and there's depression all rolled up together in that first instant you see what's happened. It's a feeling much like the 1 you get when you discover ...

My Site Has Been Hacked!
(Yes, this has happened to me too.)

So what do you do when something like this happens? Do you give up? Do you start over? Or do you fix the problem and move on?

The correct answer is ...

Fix The Problem And Move On!

And how do you fix the problem? Well, first you must decide if you want to stay with the service where the problem occurred and this decision is based on how happy you've been in the past with the service and how well they respond to the current problem. Then you restore your list or your site either using the same service or a new one.

And how do you restore your list and your site? With your backups of course. You are making backup copies of all the important things for your business aren't you? If you aren't then you should be because having backup copies of your list and your site are extremely important.

Now incase you're not familiar with the term "backup" it means saving a copy of a program or file and storing it separately from the original. In other words, having a copy of your list members and site files stored somewhere other than where they are in use, usually on your own PC.

In this particular instance I decided to change services since my previous autoresponder system is still looking for my subscribers and a new service was very responsive to my problem and allowed me to import my list since I could show them that all my subscribers actually do have to request my newsletter mailings. Yes, my subscribers were caught without warning and had to re-confirm and I've lost some. But those who actually read my mailings are back with me.

So even though I "lost" all my subscribers last Wednesday, I had many of them back in less than 2 days.

And it's the same for restoring your site if it gets hacked. Yes, it may take a day or 2 to get your pages uploaded again but better 2 days than the weeks it took you to create those pages originally.

Oh, in case you're thinking these things won't happen to you. Please, please think again because things like this happen every day to lots of people. It doesn't matter how big or small your site, list or business is. It doesn't matter what service you're using or how long they've been in business.

Losing things and getting hacked are a fact of life
for online businesses!

So be prepared for the worst and give yourself some peace of mind by making periodic backups of your important business files. As they say ...

"Better Safe Than Sorry!"

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. I've now moved my subscriber list to 1 of the oldest, largest and most reliable autoresponder systems available. And even though I trust them to be responsive and dependable, I still plan to make periodic backups of my subscriber list because this is how I feel about you ...

Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: email marketing, subscriber list, backup online business files, backup subscriber list, lost subscriber list

"4 Reasons Not To Blog"

As someone pointed out in a recent poll, the internet is about connecting with people. And if you're trying to make money online then blogging is 1 of the best ways to start connecting with lots of people.

So what is a blog and what is the meaning of blogging?

A blog is simply a web log and a web log is like an online journal. Blogging is the activity of writing entries in your blog.

So who blogs and what do they blog about?

Hundreds of thousands of people blog and they blog about just about everything. Just go to Yahoo, Google or your favorite search engine and type in your favorite topic along with the word blog. Chances are you'll find quite a few blogs about that subject.

Now if you're trying to start an online business or get traffic to your existing online business, blogging is a great tool because blogging can be free and it's easy to start a blog.

The 2 biggest free places to host a free blog are Wordpress and Blogger. Both not only host your blog for no cost but they also provide wizards so you can easily set up your blog in a few minutes.

Now you're probably asking, "Can anyone make money from a free blog hosted on either of these site?"

The short answer is - yes. I give this answer speaking from my own experience since I've been making sales from some entries on 1 of my free blogs hosted at Blogger. And the best part of this is - I posted those entries last year and have been making a few sales every month since!

Now the sad thing is that while blogging can be free and easy many online entrepreneurs don't do. And the biggest reasons many don't blog are:

• They worry that the blog won't be perfect.
  
  Hey, there's no such thing as a perfect blog. If you're not blogging because you don't know how to create your own perfect template or use the perfect widget then you're just procrastinating. Forget about all the fancy stuff, keep your blog simple and just get started.
  


• They don't think they have the time to blog.
  
  True, blogging at least once a day is a good idea however it's not mandatory. The fact is, the more frequent you blog the faster you'll be discovered however, even if you only blog once or twice a month you'll eventually be found. When I stated how I was making some monthly income from some blog posts I neglected to say that these entries are on a blog where I rarely write a new entry. So while having fresh content posted frequently is a good way to have your blog discovered by the search engines, using the right key words and keyword density are also extremely important.
  


• They are afraid people won't agree with what they have to say.
  
  Worrying that someone may not agree with you is an irrational fear because it will eventually happen and there's nothing you can do about it. Sure, you could block all comments but that stops the community interaction and hurts the blog. Or, you could delete the comment like it was spam however this can hurt your credibility with the person making the comment and anyone else who saw it before you deleted it.
  
  The best course of action for negative comments is to maintain your professionalism and post a kind and insightful reply. By doing this you show your readers you care and helps build a better relationship with them.
  
  In addition to building a better relationship, a negative comment may actually help you get traffic to your blog. An example of how a negative comment actually drove traffic to a blog was given in the second audio of "How Can I Get Visitors to My Website: Traffic Generation Techniques Explained." And while I won't go into the details of what happened I will pass on this bit of information:
  
  When someone likes something they tell 3 people about it and when someone doesn't like something they tell 20.
  
  This doesn't mean go post things everyone will hate. It does mean that a little controversy once in awhile can be a good thing.
  


• They think they can't make money with a free blog.
  
  While a free blog is not as powerful a marketing tool as a blog on your own hosted site, you can make money with a free blog. I've done it and so have a lot of others! And while where your blog is hosted is important, what's on your blog is more important.
  
  Will you make money or start driving traffic to your web site the day you set up your blog? Probably not. But as you learn more about blogging, write more entries and improve your blogging technique and style you may start seeing some sales and traffic.

Blogging is a powerful way to communicate with your targeted niche market. Blogs are easy to create, can be changed easily and allow 2-way interaction between you and those in your target community. And while not everyone who tries blogging has a successful blog, if you don't try then you never will.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Today's tip contains some of the information in the blogging discussion from "How Can I Get Visitors to My Website: Traffic Generation Techniques Explained."

Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: blog, blogging, reasons not to blog, marketing, blog marketing

"The Power of Article Marketing

The power of article marketing is that it is 1 of the best free traffic generating methods to get people to visit your web site. Yet many don't use the power of article marketing because they think they can't write. And many of those who do write articles don't write them correctly.

To use the power of article marketing correctly you need to do these 3 things:

1. Pick a topic

Since you've picked a niche for your web site you should be writing articles that pertain to that niche. Writing an article about how to improve your golf swing for a cooking site just doesn't make any sense. Even if the article is really good and does drive traffic to your site, it's very doubtful that the reader will be interested in what your site has to offer so they will just move on.

When you pick a topic make sure it's something that people are looking for information about. Article marketing is about providing information people want. If you write an article that doesn't provide any useful information then those who read it probably won't visit your site.

2. Write a "good" article

Most people who don't use the power of article marketing are people who think they can't write. If you're one of those people let me ask you a question?

Can you talk?

If you can talk and you can talk about your niche then you can write!

Article marketing isn't about writing a paper for school. It's about having a conversation with someone. When you write, write like you talk. Sure you don't want to make a lot of glaring spelling and grammar errors but the internet is much more forgiving than your English teacher. (Hint: Some people use a mini-recorder to record what they want to say and then write what they've recorded.)

When using article marketing you must also provide useful information however you don't have to write a book. You only have to write a short 250 to 600 word article and that isn't long enough to tell your reader everything you know. So don't try to prove you're an expert and tell them everything. Just show them you're a credible resource and tell them a little.

The real power of article marketing comes when you write your article correctly and this doesn't mean good spelling and grammar. It means you've written an article that has good keyword density. Keywords are those words people are searching for and density means you've used those keywords enough times in the article to make the search engines think your article is relevant. Just be careful about the number of times you use your keywords because if you over use them your article could be considered spam and ignored. For optimum keyword performance and to get the most from the power of article marketing, keep your keyword density around 4% for the total number of words in your article.

Having a conversation with your reader about something in your niche, providing useful information and having your search engine keywords sprinkled throughout is what makes a good article. (Hint: A catchy title containing your keywords will also help.)

3. Use your resource box

Your resource box is the key to driving traffic to your site with article marketing because it's where you put your link and the compelling reason to click it. You should state your name, a statement with some of your business/personal information along with an offer containing your link.

In other words, say who you are, why they should care about what you have to say, where to go to get more information and your link to get there.

The power of article marketing is under-used and misused by most online marketers. Yet it's one of the best free traffic resources online. Article marketing is a free way to:

• Get your article (with your link) a good search engine ranking


• Get backlinks to your site (when others put your article on their site they have to include your resource box)


• Get your name branded as a credible resource

By using the power of article marketing correctly and often you'll be able to drive traffic to your web site.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Today's tip contains some of the information in the article marketing discussion from "How Can I Get Visitors to My Website: Traffic Generation Techniques Explained." Feel free to leave a comment and share your thoughts about this tip.

Tags: the power of article marketing, article marketing, free traffic, backlinks, branding, keywords, keyword density, free traffic, get traffic with article marketing, get free traffic with article marketing

"Shutting Down This Affiliate Program"

If you've read anything about how to do affiliate marketing you have already been told that you should be cloaking your affiliate links. So today I'm not going to give you the standard reasons for cloaking your link. Instead I'm going to share a true story about what happened this morning and tell you when to use the different options available for cloaking your link.

Here's the story:

While reading my email I saw the title of today's tip in the subject line. It was an announcement from 1 of the affiliate programs I'm in and it seems they are changing their affiliate manager software. After the end of this month our old affiliate links won't work.

Because I make money every month from selling their affiliate products through blog postings and comments, I immediately rejoined their affiliate program so I could get my new affiliate links.

Now most would think I would then have edited all the blog articles to change my affiliate links and write off all the links in comments because they would no longer work. But I didn't. You see, I didn't use my affiliate link when I posted or made a comment to the blogs. I had cloaked my affiliate links with redirect files. So all I had to do was change the redirect files and now all those blog articles and comments can still make me money.

This story shows 1 of the under-stated but good reasons to cloak your affiliate links. By having your links in redirect files you can easily change them and keep those links working wherever you've placed them.

But what if you don't have your own web site? Should you still take the time to cloak your affiliate links?

Yes!!! Every affiliate link should be hidden somehow.

Here are 4 options for hiding your affiliate link and how to choose the 1 to use:

1. Tracking URL - These are the urls created by tracking services and many autoresponder services. They not only cloak your affiliate link but they also count the number of times the link was clicked and are used primarily in emails for testing and tracking. I guess you could post these urls anywhere you wanted however they are usually very long and ugly so putting them in a blog or forum comment or in your author bio for an article isn't recommended.


2. Redirect file on your web site. This is the best way to go if you have a web site and you are placing your link in blog comments, forum signatures, in article bios, on other sites where you can not access the link to change it and to send in your email to your list.


3. Redirect services like linkbrander and viralurl. When you are placing your link in all the kinds of places listed in item 2 and you don't have a web site this type of service works well because you still have only 1 thing to change to keep your affiliate link working.


4. For affiliate links that you are only advertising in places that change frequently (like our classifieds) you can use services like tinyurl and snipurl. If your affiliate link changes you can create a new url to post when the place gets updated.

While hiding your affiliate link is important, keeping your affiliate link working is just as important. So don't waste your time posting and emailing your naked affiliate links. Be prepared. Changes happen and it could be your affiliate links that are affected next time.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Please leave a comment and tell me what you thought of this tip.

Tags: affiliate link, affiliate marketing, redirect, cloaking, affiliate program

"A Quick And Easy Way To Save Time"

I've written several articles about spam and how it wastes our time. I even wrote about a mistake I once made that caused me to waste several days.

Well today I want to share something I discovered, tested and found that it really does cut down on the amount of spam you have to delete in your site's email inbox. But before I tell you what it is I must tell you that all the hosting services I use use cPanel for site administration. So if your host uses something else you'll have to look around and see if your host allows you to do what I did.

Most hosting services give you a default email address for your domain when you create your account. And in an earlier tip I recommended that you create your own email address for those emails from your site visitors that you really want to read. By creating your own email address you were then able to separate the valid emails from most of the spam since most spam will end up in your default email inbox. (Your default email inbox will contain all the email sent to your domain except those sent to the email addresses you've created.)

Having most of your spam in an inbox that you know you don't need to read does save some time however you must still go into that inbox and delete them unless you want to re-live my mistake.

Recently I discovered a way to save the time I was wasting deleting all the email in my default inbox and here's how I did it:

1. Create your valid email addresses. (Hopefully you've already done this but I'll list it again just-in-case.) If you don't know how to do this you can watch the free video provided by DiscoverCPanel.
   


2. After you have your email addresses created, go back to your Mail Manager Menu. Below the link for "Add/Remove/Manage Accounts" you'll see a link for "Default Address." Click "Default Address."
   


3. You now see the address where all the email that isn't going to the email addresses you've created will go. Below that information is a link "Set Default Address" and you need to click it.
   


4. You now see where you can define the name for your default email address but before you do read the "Hint." I've included the important part of the hint here:
   
   "Hint: You can enter :blackhole: to discard all incoming unrouted mail or :fail: no such address here to bounce it."
   


5. Enter this bolded text in the "to" box
   :fail:no such address here
   and click change. (Be sure to include the colons.)

After you've made this change you will no longer receive any emails that are not sent to the email addresses you've created and you will no longer have to go into your default email inbox to delete unwanted email.

Before I made this change I was receiving between 300 - 2300 spam emails every week for 1 of my hosted accounts and removing them took several minutes. It was so bad I was considering hiring someone just to delete the email in the default inboxes for my hosted accounts since I have several! But now I don't have to :-)

So if you're wasting time deleting spam from your domain's email accounts try doing what I did. Then let us know if it worked for you too by leaving a comment here.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. BTW, I have 1 hosted account where I never received any spam to my default email address. At HostGator they have turned the default email address feature off because...

"The Default E-Mail/Catch-All feature has been disabled by default due to it contributing large amounts of e-mail flooding from Spam."

So if you're using HostGator you don't need today's tip because you're using a great service that works hard to provide the services you need and to protect you from the things you don't want.

Tags: spam, delete spam, save time, default email address, how to stop spam

Adware Can Steal Your Sales!

It seems there is always something new to be learned when you're doing internet marketing and today I want to share some things I learned just this week. (Actually I want to rant about it but instead I'll just give you the facts.)

Now you should already know about affiliate commission hijackers and how they can steal your affiliate commissions by replacing your affiliate link with their own when they buy something. And of course you already know that you should be using an affiliate link cloaker when you post or email your affiliate link.

Recently I received some information from DiscovercPanel.com that I want to share with you because:

1. This is something all affiliates need to know.
   
2. I know 1 way it's done.

First - The Information

Subject: before you install those cute smileys I was just on the Warrior Forum browsing through all the posts that I'd missed and I came across one that really struck my eye. The title was about how your Clickbank commissions get stolen. Now I know probably 90% of the tricks that are used but something made me click through to see what all the fuss was about and I soon realized that this was not your typical person bypassing an affiliate link or replacing their affiliate id with yours. Instead, it was something that is NEVER talked about and is very common yet no one, not even Clickbank is able to stop it. It's adware. Commonly known as spyware, but adware is cleverly disguised as your cute little avatars, smileys, and even free games. I can go on and on. It's estimated 30-50 million computers in the US are silently infected with adware. Watch this video, it's not my video but I had to show you exactly how this stuff works, watch the video below http://www.keywordthinktank.com/public/adware/clickbank_adware.html

Although the video is not the best quality, I hope you took the time to watch it because it shows how some use adware to rob honest and hard working affiliates by stealing their traffic and sales.

Second - How It's Done

Before I give you some information on how it's done let me stress that this is a method that I find totally dishonest and recommend that you never, ever do it.

As you know there are many sites that offer free downloads for things like greeting cards, music, games, smilies, etc. Some, not all, some of these sites embed adware in the code you must download to use the freebies they offer on their site. This adware may cause popups to appear for no reason, change your homepage, change your search engine default, etc.

And while most would think it is always the user of the infected PC who is the 1 to suffer from the ill affects of the adware, that is not always the case.

I recently bought a product from a site with this headline ...

LEGALLY ROB YOUR COMPETITORS BLIND!

STEAL THEIR SURFERS & TRAFFIC WHILE PUTTING THEIR MONEY IN YOUR BANK ACCOUNT

And I must admit I was very curious about how one could legally steal surfers and traffic.

My first clue that this method of getting sales was not totally legal came from the disclaimer as shown below...

And what was contained in this product? It contained the instructions for setting up advertising campaigns on a site that offers free downloads, has adware embedded in the downloads and uses that adware to do what was shown in the video. You can read all about this site on Wikipedia.

Now I am not going to tell you how to set up an advertising campaign on this site nor will I tell you the name of the product I bought because I don't think this type of information is of any real value except to know that it does exist and that it currently affects those affiliates selling big name ClickBank items, those buying Pay Per Click search engine traffic for popular terms and possibly many others. And according to the product I bought, there is no way to know if you're losing traffic or sales to adware users and there is currently no good way to protect yourself.

So what can we do about these affiliate commission hijackers?

1. Use some good anti-spyware, adware and virus software to keep your machine clean.


2. Avoid downloads except from trusted sites and if you notice your machine performing strangely after a download - clean your machine immediately.


3. Do not support this type of unethical business conduct by putting adware on site visitors machines or by supporting a company that does.

Remember. even though the number of people who have downloaded this type of affiliate commission hijacking adware is in the millions, they still account for very little of the total internet traffic. And while you may be losing some of your traffic and sales to these hijackers, you must keep going forward and not spend your time stressing about things you can't control.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Please leave a comment and let us know what you think about affiliate commission hijackers or this form of stealing.

Tags: affiliate commission hijacking, adware