How To Start Making Money For Free

Before the days of Web 2.0 and all the free social networking services you used to have your own domain name and web site to have a money making internet business. Today however you can "test the waters" of internet marketing or finding a new targeted niche absolutely free.

8 Steps To Making Money Online For Free

1. Choose your niche - Before you do anything else you need to pick the types of products or services you want to sell and then become an affiliate for these things.
   


2. Build your list of keywords and phrases - Select keywords and phrases related to the types of things your going to be selling. This list contains the actual words and phrases that people are searching for on the major search engines.
   


3. Create you free blog or social networking site - When you name your free site be sure to use 1 or more of your keywords or phrases in the name. Try to keep it fairly short and very easy to remember.
   


4. Build your list of keywords and phrases for the product you're going to write about - Again, this list contains the words and phrases people are searching for when they are looking for information related to your first product.
   


5. Create the title for your article - Your title should contain 1 or more of your keywords or phrases.
   


6. Write your article - When you write your review or summary article about your product write in a conversational style, sprinkle some of your keywords and keyword phrases in the content and be sure to include your affiliate link.
   


7. Post your article - Put your article on your Web 2.0 free site.
   


8. Repeat steps 4 - 7 often.
   

You'll notice I didn't title the steps as quick or easy. The truth is, while they are quick and easy if you know how there is a learning curve to knowing how to do them correctly.

Here are 3 of examples for what I mean about "knowing how":

• When you choose your niche you need to find out if people in that niche actually buy things online and what types of products they buy.
  


• To build your keyword and phrase lists you need to know how to do keyword research.
  


• If you don't like or know how to write content you need to learn some of the techniques for creating content for non-writers.
  

So yes it has never been easier to have a free online presence and it can be absolutely free to start money making online. However, you need to invest your time into learning what to research and how to do it. You need to learn how to set up your free blog or site. You need to learn how to write content to sell. And above all you need to learn patience because making money online for free isn't usually quick and easy.

To Your Success,
Susan

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

Tags: how to start making money for free, absolutely free to start money making online, affiliate marketing model, make money with a blog, make money with social networking

August 22, 2008

Looks like Ronald used the service I told you about not too long ago. You can see what he's done with it at

http://www.blogger.com/www.mailinglistgold.synthasite.com

To Your Success,
Susan

Tags: featured site

What Goes Around Comes Around

Isn't it interesting that when we here the above phrase we usually equate it to "If you do something bad then something bad will happen to you"?

But there is a positive side ...

If you do good things then good things will happen to you.

Now you're probably wondering what this has to do with internet marketing so I'll tell you.

To succeed online you usually have to give and give and give some more before you some positive things start coming back to you.

So today I want to tell you about 1 way you can give something that won't cost you any money and at the same time you can help others and your business.

Ever hear of Yahoo Answers?

If you haven't it's a site where regular people can ask just about anything and anyone with a Yahoo account can post an answer. Oh there are some "community guidelines" like you've got to be at least 13 year old and be courteous and you can't exploit, cheat or break the law.

Now the 3 really neat things about Yahoo Answers are that:

1. There are questions about just about everything so you'll probably find some where you know the answer.


2. When you post your answer you can include a resource link.


3. You can help others with your answers. And by including a resource link pointing to your relevant site or affiliate product you're getting a backlink.

Here's a question I answered last night.

The important things to remember about using Yahoo Answers are:

• Answer open questions. Providing a comment to a resolved question is not nearly as effective.


• Obey the guidelines and provide a good quality answer that has the possibility of being voted "Best Answer."


• Include the keyword you are optimizing for in your answer the best way you can.


• Put your relevant link in the source box.


• Use "Advance Search" to find questions for your target niche.


• Using Yahoo Answers to get backlinks is a long term strategy. Don't think that answering 1 or 2 questions will get you a ton of traffic because it won't. Think of it as part of your long term goal to get quality backlinks and traffic.


• While investing an hour every once in awhile to get some quality backlinks on Yahoo Answers can be good for your business, you should schedule your time. You have a business to run and Yahoo Answers is only 1 part of your strategy so don't spend all your time there.

Check out Yahoo Answers. It's a high traffic site, it's free and it's a place where you can help someone.

To Your Success,
Susan

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

Tags: yahoo answers, backlinks, targeted traffic, backlink strategy, answer question, help others

August 2008

This month we have Harold's site to review.

http://www.EntrepreneursWebcast.com/

Now whether you send in comments or not I highly recommend you take a peek because he offers LIVE business support. I don't know the hours for the live support however when I checked at 8:50 am this morning the site was very active.

Since Harold offers a free service to help others I'm sure he would appreciate your helpful comments about his site.

To Your Success,
Susan

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

Review Comments

My Comments -

OK, I have to admit that I'd never heard of World Profit and didn't recognize the site as an affiliate site when I took a quick look to check it out. After Syd's comments I went back and found all the menu links are pointing to affiliate pages for this program.

Also, the first few times I checked the site there wasn't much activity and I thought they were giving general online business help. This week I checked during 1 of their scheduled meeting times and saw that the site is set up to offer World Profit members some assistance and to do sales pitches for the program to the guests.

As for the site design, no problems.

However, when I did a little research on World Profit I found some "not so good" reviews of the program all listed on the 1st page of a Google search.

http://www.programcritique.com/subcategories/BusinessOpportunities/WorldProfit.html#cust_review

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/150/RipOff0150797.htm

http://www.xomreviews.com/worldprofit.com

And a forum discussion about this program at:

http://www.scam.com/showthread.php?t=15888

Although this is an affiliate site I am leaving it on the blog along with the links pointing to the reviews I found.

My recommendation is not about the site design.

My recommendation is -
Before you join any business opportunity, especially 1 where you have to pay for it, research the business and the founders.Susan

Susan

Tags: site review

IMHO IRL TARFU

(In My Humble Opinion In Real Life Things Are Really Fouled Up)

If you're over 30 you may remember the days when people actually spoke and wrote English. Now, with widespread instant messaging and text messaging, people are learning a new language - acronyms.

Now acronyms aren't new and many of us over the age of 30 were using some of them way back when...

For instance, when I was first learning how to program back in the dark ages before laptops, personal computers and the internet I learned about FIFO, GIGO and EOF. I also learned that file extensions (those are the letters after the period on file names) are also acronyms for the files' type. And while some may have cared about the definition of the acronym used for the file extension, I was only interested in using the file extension to identify which files types I could create and modify and what programming language they were written in.

Now today I'm not going to give you a lesson about the programming languages used on big computers or explain the difference between compilers and interpreters. As online marketers interfacing with the web on a laptop or PC you could care less. Right?

Instead, today I'm going to talk about some of the common file extensions we see and deal with regularly. You see, last week I received an email from a reader who is a beginning online marketer and is still learning about the file types we see, use, upload and download. And since they are having a hard time keeping these file types straight and remembering what software is used to open and edit them I've created the following table. The table doesn't include every type of file possible or list every program you can use to open and edit it. It only lists the common types we see the most and the most common software used. (Where possible I've tried to include the name of free software that can be used.) If I didn't include a file type you think should be on the list please leave a comment telling us the file extension you think should be added and the information about it if you know.

Common File Type Extensions:

Extension	Type	Use
.bmp	Bitmap Image File	Open with an image viewer.Can add text and convert to .gif or .jpg with Irfanview Change size and shape with Irfanview and .html Editors.MS Paint can be used to edit these image files
.cgi	Common Gateway Interface Script	Requires a web server to run and edit with a Text Editor
.css	Cascading Style Sheet	Contains the formatting the contents of a web page. Edit with a Text or html Editor
.doc	MicroSoft Word Document	Microsoft Word or OpenOffice (Writer)
.exe	Windows Executable File	These files run when you open them on PCs with Windows. Can not be edited easily and requires special software.
.gif	Image	Open with an image viewer. Can add text with Irfanview and change size and shape with Irfanview and .html Editors.MS Paint can be used to edit these image files
.html or .htm	Web Page	WYSISWYG* editor like FrontPage, Dreamweaver or Nvu Can use a Text Editor to read and write the html code.
.jpg	Image	Open with an image viewer. Can add text with Irfanview and change size and shape with Irfanview and .html Editors.MS Paint can be used to edit these image files
.js	JavaScript File	A text file with JavaScript code. Edit with a Text Editor.
.midi	MIDI File	Open with Apple QuickTime Player or Microsoft Windows Media Player
.pdf	Portable Document Format File	Read with Adobe Reader Create and modify with Adobe Acrobat or create with OpenOffice (Writer)
.php	Hypertext Preprocessor File	View in a web browser and edit with a Text Editor
.psd	PhotoShop File	Edit with PhotoShop or GIMP
.swf	Macromedia Flash Movie	Can not edit. Open with Adobe Flash Player or with web browser with the Flash plug-in installed
.txt	Text File	Text Editor like NotePad or NoteTab
.wav	WAVE Audio File	Edit with Microsoft Windows Media Player. Can open with any music player.
.wmv	Windows Media Video File	Must usually convert to different file type and use special video software to edit. Open with web browser with the Windows Media Player plugin.
.zip	Zipped File	A file that has been compressed to save space and must be unzipped to edit. All file types may be zipped.

* WYSISWYG - Acronym for What You See Is What You Get

Now the nice thing about using a PC to open and/or edit files is it's point and click operation. If you double click on the icon or file name of the file you want to open your PC will look at the file extension and open the file for viewing with the correct software or ask you what program to use. For instance, if you double click an image file the picture will appear using your image viewing software and if you double click a .txt file the file will be opened with your default text editor. If however you double click a file and your PC doesn't know what software to use for viewing the file like for a .js type file then it will either ask you to select the software to open the file or give you an error.

And if you don't want to just view the file but you want to edit it your PC will help you with that too. Just single click the file icon or name and then do a right-click. You then get a menu of things you can do with the file. The menu is different for different file types. Depending on the software on you PC and the file's extension some menus will allow you to preview, open, open with, edit or edit with.

Now your PC may not know what software to use the first time you try to open or edit a certain type of file and give you an error. However you can fix that easily. Simply highlight the file name, right click and select Open With. Then select the appropriate software from the list of software on your machine like NotePad for .cgi, .js and .php files or Adobe Reader for .pdf files. After you've made your selection from the list and before you click the OK button check the box that says to always use the selected software to open this kind of file. After you've done this your PC will always remember to open .pdf files with Adobe Reader and .php with your text editor so you won't have to.

AISB IRL TARFU but you have to be. You don't have to learn all the definitions for the file extensions you use. You only need to know how to open and edit them. And hopefully now you do.

To Your Success,
Susan

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

Tags: file types, file extensions, common file types, common file extensions

Things To Sell For Really Big Profits

First let me say that I'm not promoting John Reese's Traffic Secrets 2.0 that was released yesterday. I'm just using it as an example for 1 way to make some really big profits. So if you're like John Reese with a giant sized list, a ton of "super" affiliates and a product or service that sells for hundreds of dollars then you too could make thousands of dollars in just a few days.

Unfortunately more online marketers aren't like John Reese. They don't have thousands of people on their mailing list. They don't have "super" affiliates to push their product. And if they have something to sell that costs hundreds of dollars it's not their own product but they're using an affiliate link to sell someone else's.

So how do these online marketers make money?

Well, they don't make a lot of money by competing with people like John Reese or any of his super affiliates.

Yes, it's possible they might make a sale if they send a mailing to their small list however it's doubtful. You see, they can't move fast enough to create a bonus-if-you-buy-from-me page and fill it with gifts worth hundreds or thousands of dollars. So while their sending their ad to their list, their list is receiving tons of other email for the same product and those mailings all lead to pages offering a lot of extras.

Now before you give up because you can't compete with the John Reeses on the web let me tell you that there are other things to sell to make money. You probably won't make hundreds of thousands of dollars in a few days but you can make money.

And 1 of the things to sell for really big profits is small reports. Small digital reports are only a few pages (7 - 15) in length. They don't cost anything to produce but the time it takes to write them unless you hire a writer. And when you sell them you get to keep all the money unless you've got your own affiliate program and must share with your affiliates.

And because I'd like you to at least investigate the possibility of making money through small reports I'm giving you an ebook written by Jimmy D. Brown. If you don't know who he is he's a very successful online marketer who has been giving away free content for more than 7 years.

"5 Steps To A Big-Profit, S.M.A.L.L.™ Report Business" is only 24 pages long so it will only take a few minutes to read. In it you will see that he is promoting a product. But more importantly you will actually get the 5 steps to making money by writing small reports and you don't need to buy his product to use the steps.

So get your free copy of "5 Steps To A Big-Profit, S.M.A.L.L.™ Report Business", read it and then decide if small reports are a way for you to make money online.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. With all the emails about Traffic Secrets 2.0 this week you may have missed those about Russell Brunson's Affiliate Landmine. He's refurbished it and he is now selling licenses that allow you to sell memberships to Affiliate Landmine and keep 100% of the profit. If you sold 500 memberships you could make $19.95 X 500 memberships = $9,975 a month. (The first 100 partners get 500 memberships and then it drops to 300 memberships.)

Membership sites are another thing to sell and make really big money. And with 1 of these licenses you can get 100% of the reoccurring income without creating and maintaining your own.

Warning: This is a super opportunity only for experienced online marketers. If you do not know how to get traffic and write good sales copy then it's not for you. If you do know how to get targeted traffic then check Russell's offer before he sells out.

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

Tags: things to sell to make really big profits, small reports, membership sites, traffic secrets 2.0, John Reese, Russell Brunson, Jimmy D. Brown, affiliate landmine

President EntrepreneursWebcast.com

Harold's site is featured this week. Let's take a look and see what he's upto.

http://www.EntrepreneursWebcast.com/

To Your Success,
Susan

Tags: featured site

How To Format The Current Date In PHP

While you may think that PHP is an acronym for Perverse, Horrific Programs, it's not. It originally stood for Personal Home Pages but is now used as the name (Hypertext Preprocessor) for a web scripting language used to produce dynamic web pages.

Unlike HTML, the PHP web programming language is not interpreted by a web browser to produce what's seen. Rather, PHP runs on a web server to create web pages. That means you have to upload your PHP code to test it.

Now PHP code may seem like a bunch of tech mumbo jumbo, however using some of it's pre-defined commands allows you to add some dynamic effects, like the current date, to you web pages with just a few lines of code .

Yes, you can display the current date using other methods like javascript:

<SCRIPT language='JavaScript'type='text/javascript'>
var mydate=new Date()
var year=mydate.getYear()
if (year < 1000)
year+=1900
var day=mydate.getDay()
var month=mydate.getMonth()
var daym=mydate.getDate()
if (daym<10)
daym="0"+daym
var dayarray=new Array("Sunday","Monday","Tuesday","Wednesday",
"Thursday","Friday","Saturday")
var montharray=new Array("January","February","March","April","May","June","July",
"August","September","October","November","December")
document.write("<font color='000000'
face='arial'>"+dayarray[day]+",
"+montharray[month]+" "+daym+",
"+year+"<\/font>")
</SCRIPT>

But with PHP you can let the server get and format the current date using the PHP date command. Doesn't this look a lot easier?

<?php
$today = date("l, F j, Y");
echo "$today";
?>

Both the javascript and the PHP code given above will display the current date in this format:

Day-of-Week, Month Day, Year
like -
Wednesday, July 2, 2008

And if you want to change how the date appears you don't have to change a lot of code. Instead you can just change, add or remove the parameters (the letters inside the quotes after the date command) used for the date command and put spaces and punctuation marks where you want them to appear.

Examples:

date("F j, Y"); - July 2, 2008
date("l, g:i a"); - Wednesday, 9:05 am

Now there are 4 important things you need to know before you use PHP to format the date on you site:

1. Like I mentioned above, you'll have to upload the code to test it because your PC and web browser most likely can't run PHP code.
2. The file where you have the PHP code must have the extension of .php. This could be a real negative if you already have your site built in HTML however there is a way around this this rule. (Find out how to use PHP code in a .html file at the end of this article.)
3. The PHP code must be within the tags. If it is not, the PHP engine on the web server will ignore it.
4. Each PHP line must end with a semicolon. If it doesn't, you'll get some cryptic error messages.

If you would like to know all the parameters to format the current day in PHP you can find a complete list of the date command parameters at http://www.php.net/date.

As I mentioned in item 2, normally you must use the .php extension for a file to execute PHP code. But since you may already have your site set up in HTML you need to know how to get around this rule. Fortunately I don't have to try to explain how it's done since you can watch 2 short video tutorials. Just open your copy of "29 Easy and Quick Web Design Tricks - Volume 2" and watch videos 13 and 14. (This video ebook is 1 of those included in the "Ultimate Web Videos" package on the Free eBooks, Tools and Videos page in our members area. If you're not a FriendsWhoCare member you can join us here - it's FREE. )

Learning how to format PHP code allows you to make your web pages more dynamic. And with free PHP scripts you can add things like the current date, countdowns, calendars, your site visitor's country or a news tracker.

So don't think of PHP as Perverse, Horrific Programs. Think of PHP as easy way to make your web pages more dynamic!

To Your Success,Susan

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

Tags: how to format the current date in php, php command, current date in php

July 2008

This month we were suppose to review Tim's site. Unfortunately his site can't be found so we'll move on to Gail's site and save Tim's until next month.

You can see Gail has put in quite a bit of effort to build his site and is asking for our help because as he says, "I'm really not too happy with it but can't see the trees for the forest." So lets help Gail find some of those trees at: http://www.todaystopmoneymakers.com/

Susan

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

My Comments -

When Gail submitted his site I sent him an email and stated"It looks like you've set up a directory of online business resources and products" along withthe following comments:

1. While the size of your menu is very impressive it's also overwhelming. You might want to only list your top choices on your home page and create a resource directory page for your menu.
2. For those pages that lead away from your site have them open in a new browser window. Then when your site visitor closes the page your page will still be available to them. (Some of his links still take visitors away from his site but he mentions that on his home page.)
3. Put a link to your home page and your resource directory page on every page of your site to make it easy for your site visitors to navigate. (Looks like he's done that for his home page.)
4. Check your pages for font consistency. I saw a different site font on your ezine page. (This is still a problem and there are now 2 different size fonts on the main page.)
5. While you don't want to use a lot of hype or make false statements, you do need to be bold in your statements.
6. You need to move the Amazon box up since it's not visible when you read your statement about it and most people won't go looking for it. (Looks like he's done that.)

It wasn't until Antony's comment that I learned this was a ProfitMart site. (If you don't know about ProfitMart you can use Gail's link to find out.)

Now since we've had several sites primarily focused around introducing online money making programs, tools and resources and they've had several banner ads on all the site's pages I'd like to share a little general information about sites that consist primarily of banner ads that may or may not have some content sprinkled throughout.

• When most people arrive at a web page that contains no informational content and displays only ads they seldom click on any of the ads and move away from the site quickly. (If anyone disagrees with me please leave a comment and if you know of a site like this that works please share it with us.)
• If you do have informational content on some of your pages like Gail does then put a heading over your menu like "Articles" or "Get Information About" and list those pages with content under the heading. Putting a heading that tells your visitors that you do have information on other pages may entice some of them to check them out.
• It's extremely difficult to get targeted traffic to a site that consists of banner ads for many products and services. Since your site covers many areas of online money making opportunities, tools, resources, etc. and does not contain any information specific to anything it's extremely doubtful that your main page will ever be indexed high enough in the search engines to get any traffic. This is also true for the other pages on your site even though you may have provided content.
  
  Now Gail has overcome this particular problem because when I did a Google search for "top money makers" (without the quotes) I found Gail's site listed #2 on Google which is very good. I also used Google's keyword tool and found that the average search volume for that term was 1,600 a month which isn't bad. So Gail has done a very good job of getting indexed well in Google and should be getting a good amount of free traffic.
  
  
• Although banner advertising is not dead and it does work it must be used sparingly. A few banner ads sprinkled around on your site may get some clicks however the banner ads on a page where banner ads are the primary content usually won't. The best way to use banner ads is on a page that gives useful information about the problem the product or service will solve, offers a solution and makes a recommendation. If the content is written for search engine optimization then these pages will also get indexed better by the search engines.
• From my experience it is possible to make a few sales with those Amazon, ClickBank and Ebay provided ads however you won't make many. Most people don't even look at those ads and for those that do you have to hope that a product they're interested in shows up while they're on your page. People that shop Amazon and ebay regularly go straight to those sites and only go through an affiliate's page if they've been enticed to it by some other form of advertising.
• As Anthony pointed out, when you make many offers all at once you confuse your site visitor so they usually don't take you up on any of them. The only time multiple offers of similar things work is on a directory site. When someone goes to a directory they expect to see many related things. Now directory type sites have been around for a very long time and some of them have done very well. The trick is to pick a type of directory site where you still have a chance to be found since there's already millions of sites offering directory services for just about everything. This is especially true for anything related to making money online.
  
  Since we know Gail's site has been found and should be getting some traffic his site does have the potential for making money. If the site isn't making money then I would suggest you look at what some of your competition has done with their sites and pick up some ideas on how you could redesign your pages with some content and fewer banner ads.
  
  Currently most of your stiffest competition comes from forums and blogs and both of these types of sites provide information and make recommendations. You could also make comments on the blogs to possibly pick up some of their traffic however you won't get a back link to your site since all the ones I checked use the nofollow tag to prevent search engines from seeing it as a link to your site.
  
  
• One of the hardest things to learn about having a web site is that while you're designing the site to make money, your visitors are coming to your site for useful information and don't usually want to buy anything. In Gail's case, his site visitors are looking for "top money makers" and to most that means making a lot of money quickly and hopefully without much work. If multiple opportunities are going to be presented on a single page I suggest that they be limited to money making opportunities on your home page with the appropriate opportunities on the other pages, they be listed in order of recommended and that you write some information about each of them preferably in your own words and not a pre-written ad. Remember, the sales page for each of the opportunities is selling 1 thing and you're writing a pre-sell description telling why it's so good and some of the benefits to get your visitor to check it out. You can have your link to the opportunity or service within the content and possibly show a big banner ad for the top recommendation at the top or bottom of the content. If you want to use other banner ads for some of the other things on that page then use smaller ads and put them in 1 of the margins possibly with a header like "My Recommendations", "Top 5 Money Makes" or "Other Money Making Opportunities."
  
  If you can't use your ClickBank and ebay ads in the margin then I suggest you create a separate page for them and ad the appropriate link on each of your pages for other money makers, more graphic, ezines , ect. opportunities. In other words give your page viewer 1 choice or just a few choices and then the chance to look at others if they don't like the ones you've recommended.

Susan

Tags: site review

Just Another Spiderweblog

Robert has a brand net spiderweb blog for us to look at today. If you don't know what a spiderweb blog is then read his blog and find out.

http://rgtrueman.ws/blog/

To Your Success,
Susan

Tags: featured site

If It Was Only That Easy

Every year more and more people come to the internet and try to start an online business. They come from all over the world. They come with all types of educational backgrounds. Some are financially well off but most are not. Many of them speak English but many of them don't. Some are children while others are working adults. Others are unemployed or retired. The only thing they all share is the dream of making money online.

Unfortunately the dream of making money online will stay a dream and will not become a reality for most.

You see, almost everyone who tries to start an online business believes the myth that anyone can do it. They believe that all you need is the desire, some positive thinking and a web site. And if it were really that easy we'd all be rich.

The truth is you need a lot more than desire, positive thinking and a web site to have a successful online business. You need to understand that an online business is in fact a business. And because it's a business you need to treat it like one. You must plan, set goals, do research, make hard decisions, work some long hours, learn new things and avoid being scammed.

In addition, you also need to understand that an online business is an internet marketing business. In other words, if you have an online business you're selling something. Whether it's an opportunity, product or service... whether it's yours or someone else's... or whether you've put adsense type ads on a content site ... you're in the marketing business. And since you're in the marketing business you must learn how to market or have the money to hire someone to do it for you.

Another myth believed by most starting an online business is that it's the least expensive and easiest way to have a business. And while it may be the least expensive it's not always the easiest. To have a successful online business you must know about and be comfortable with 3 three things...

• your opportunity, product or service


• your computer and the necessary tools of internet marketing


• how to market

If you don't know about these things you must be willing to learn. Even if you intend to hire someone to do many of the tasks required for an online business, you must know something about what they're doing in order to judge whether they've done a good job.

Another reason so many fail at having a successful online business isn't a myth. It is true that there are many ways to make money online. There are thousands of legitimate opportunities on the internet. Unfortunately, not every legitimate opportunity or business model will work for everyone. You have to find the right one for you.

And not every online opportunity is legitimate. Just like in the physical world there are some online who are out to take advantage of you. They make empty promises, take your time and money and then disappear. And because it's not easy to tell which opportunities are real and which are not almost everyone with an online business will be scammed at least once.

So while I wish I could say that having a successful online business was as easy as having the desire to make money, having positive thoughts and having a web site. The truth is it's not. You must do many of the things required for a brick and mortar business. And you must learn to do many things that are unique to internet marketing.

Whether you have an online business or not please leave a comment and let us know if you agree with what I've said.

To Your Success,
Susan

P.S. Because of all the hype used to promote online business opportunities I've created a free report that tells you about the 10 most commonly used statements and what those statements really mean. You can get a free copy here.

Tags: online business, internet marketing business, online business myth

Google Pagerank and SEM

One of most confusing things to learn about search engine marketing is that Google pagerank and how well a page ranks for a search term are not the same thing.

The fact is, having a high pagerank does not ensure your site will get a good listing in a Google search. You can see what I mean by doing a search at http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/ and then having the results displayed by "Relevance" and then again by "Pagerank."

Why the different results? Because the pagerank of a page is primarily determined by the number of links and the pagerank of the links pointing to it. How well a page ranks in the search engine results is a more complicated algorithm because it includes "the number of times a term appears on a page and examines dozens of aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it)." Copied from Google Technology

Now if you're trying to get your web page a good placement for 1 or more search terms so you can get some free search engine traffic you need to add 1 more seo term to your vocabulary.

"Latent Semantic Indexing" - used by Google and other search engines to help determine the relevance of a site's content to the search term.

And rather than try to explain this complicated method of determining relevance here's a short video that will give you an idea of how it works.

Having good content, using good search terms (keywords), using relevant words and terms and Google pagerank are all important when you're doing sem.

To Your Success,
Susan

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

Tags: google pagerank, page rank, sem, seo, search engine marketing, lsi, latent semantic indexing, search engine traffic, search engine placement

June 2008

Ann says she's new to building a web site and would appreciate getting some tips on how to improve it. Let's take a look at what's she got so far at http://www.500adaypossible.com/ and give her a hand.

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.

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

Hi Susan

Your review site this week has quite a few things that should or could be changed tomake it more user friendly, both in aesthetic terms regarding the way it looks, andin general SALES terms as well.

First thing that jars is the MENU on the top left of the home site, because the arrowsare too big and the text font too small. These should be relatively easy to correct, asthe site is written in CSS mode.

Second thing is the overall presentation which will take the visitor AWAY just aboutevery time they click on a link. That could well put people off, as it then becomes adirectory rather than a web site which will do what it says on the tin, SHOW US HOWTO MAKE $500 A DAY.

Still on that tack, the SUBMIT MY SITE banner needs some attention, because thetext below it should be central, and in fact the banner sometimes comes up on thefar left of the page. (That's on IE7)

Final thought.....have you ever bought something from Amazon.com by clickinga link on somebody's web site instead of logging in to your own account? Didn'tthink so. Best of luck to her, especially as she took the trouble to ask for ourcomments to help her make it an even better site.

Peace and love
Syd Burke
http://adfactory.gti7.com/?4709

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

My Comments -

With the url of 500adaypossible and a page title of $500 A Day Possible most visitors will expect to see some information about how to make $500 a day and will be confused by what they see on your main page. Since I think you're promoting the easymoneyathome site as the way to make $500 a day you should provide some useful information about the program or programs you are promoting. I did a search to see if there were others promoting this program to find you some examples. Unfortunately I found a lot of "junk" pages and "404 Error" pages. 1 affiliate has a video listed on many of the video sites and quite a few "junk" blogs however they did have 1 blog that does show you how to provide content for at least 1 of the money making offers at easymoneyathome - http://internetmoneymakingtools.blogspot.com/2007_05_28_archive.html

In the event you are trying to make a directory site of ways to make money and things internet marketers use in their business, you need to state that and give some content also. I doubt that those who find your site on their own will click your menu since most aren't looking for those things. You need to give your site visitors a reason to want to find out about those items.

You have also mixed font sizes and types on your main page. While mixing these things can be good for visual effect, yours are mixed for your banners. While most won't stick around for a page full of banner ads, the spacing, font size and type should be consistent so they'll look good. Also, while your header is the same on all your pages, the size of your header changes on some of them and the font size of your site title on the header could be larger.

As a beginner to site design and building I think you've gotten some of the basics. So rather that start over I'd suggest you provide some content about your main program on your main page and use text ads rather than banner ads for some of the other programs. I'd also suggest you remove your search since it always takes people to a Google search unless you're getting ppc money for clicks on their ads. If you are getting paid for the ads on those Google searches then I suggest you move the search to 1 of your columns and ad a lead in question or statement like "Learn more about."

Having your signup form on your main page is good but again you must give the visitor a reason to sign up. If you're sending additional information about your main affiliate program you could add statements in your content about how they can get additional information about how to make $500 a day by signing up. If you're sending information about internet marketing topics as your newsletter page states then you should state that as the lead in on your main page also. It doesn't have to be in the same format as on the newsletter page but as content on how to learn about some of the things online marketers must know.

The main thing to remember, Ann, is that web users are looking for useful information in the form of words. So if you're selling something, an idea, an affiliate program, a product, etc. you must write useful content that gives them a reason to want to join, buy or learn more.

Tags: site review

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