"The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance - and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning."

Oprah Winfrey

Be a specialist

At school you had been taught that you needed to know as much as you could about all kinds of topics that you were probably not even interested in (e.g. for me the horrors were math and physics…). It would not have made sense to have been focused on just one of these subjects because if you had done that, you would not have made it to the next grade.

In Internet marketing it all is a little different. Here, you should NOT try to be the 'Mr. or Mrs. Knowitall' but the specialist, the go to guy/gal, in ONE area of Internet marketing. This can be e.g. an SEO expert, the software developer, a Google Adwords specialist or a copywriter or more recently, the Web 2.0 guy/gal.

Personally, I would brand myself as the software developer since that is where my expertise is. But more recently, I have also become very experienced in creating VRE (virtual real estate) websites using Wordpress so I can also say that I am a blogging specialist.

Whatever it is that you do, make sure you learn as much as you can about your area of expertise. Strive to become the best you can be. Just like a doctor or a lawyer learns everything he can about his medicine or laws, you need to do the same in your area.

And it never stops. If you have a passion for something, you will like it to learn more and more about it in order to become the best.

Give me crap and I’ll let others know…

Personally, I love to educate myself about all the new ways of making money online (this is a treat of all the top Internet marketers – they never stop educating themselves!). I am the kind of guy people want to have on their lists because I am constantly buying their stuff – presupposed it’s not just rehashed material (and if it is, I'll get myself a refund).

As long as I am getting at least one good idea from a product which can make me more money when implementing it in my own business, I won’t be asking for a refund. But give me crap and not only will I be asking for my money back but I’ll let my list know about it as well so they can avoid it and not waste their hard earned money…!

Focus on one project at a time

When I was attending the Internet Millionaire’s Bootcamp in London in October of 2006, Mike Filsaime said something on stage that I’ll never forget: “You need to focus on one project at a time”. Even though it sounds so simple, most people do completely the opposite.

Focusing on one project at a time will bring you income much quicker than trying to get multiple projects finished at the same time – something which can almost never be achieved. So the key to success is just to focus on the one project that will be bringing you the greatest revenue within the shortest amount of time.

You know, even I, as a very experienced Internet marketer, sometimes made the mistake of wanting to achieve too much at the same time. Instead of working on one project until it was finished, I was trying to handle 3-4 projects at a time. And the result was that nothing got finished in time and my income was suffering from it. Because not being able to finish a project means less income.

In Internet marketing, you better come up with new products quickly because you will soon be forgotten if you don’t. You must be the innovator, the one who is coming up with new, helpful products that your subscribers and customers want to buy from you.

(For example, that's why I relaunched my Niche Content Websites - membership site because I saw that my business wasn't different enough from the businesses of others who were selling the same kind of products. I wanted to get a better USP - a unique selling proposition which was better than most of my competitors by selling UNIQUE websites to people who are interested in making a living from niche type of VRE websites. This has become the solution for people who can't design their own websites or don't know how to implement monetization modules - now everything's done for them…!)

If you don’t know what they want, ask them! Your products must become the solutions for their problems.

Outsource everything you don't want to do yourself

And you don’t even have to create these products yourself. That’s what outsourcing is for. No one is expecting from you, if you e.g. have a great idea for a software tool, that you need to create it yourself. Just hire someone on Elance.com or ScripLance.com, tell him or her what you want to have done, and they’ll do it for you – at a very reasonable price.

For example, I had my AffiliateTurbo software programmed by a programmer which I found on ScriptLance. I paid about $400 for it and I made more than $10,000 from this tiny investment. And the same was the case with my Blog Promoter software. (in the meantime, I’ve sold both businesses for several thousands of $$… they simply were too work intensive as they required a lot of updates on an almost daily basis).

By knowing what you want to achieve and what your goals are, you'll actually get there much quicker. You simply need to be the one who plans it all - it's not necessary that you are doing everything yourself. And all the steps which are needed to get there, will fall into place almost automatically.

———————————

(This article is an excerpt from my Revenue Blueprint ebook. If you liked the article, then why not get yourself a copy of the complete works at http://www.revenueblueprint.com/ ?)

Tags: adsense, adwords, affiliate, ebook, google adwords, internet marketing, mike filsaime, seo, seo expert, vre websites, web 2.0, websites

Poooh,…..I finally got your video about social bookmarking finished. It feels like it took forever.

My original plan was to have it released… yesterday…! But I soon had to confess to myself that this was absolutely impossible .

Not just because it took me almost half of the day to shoot the video. That was not the real problem.

The video consists of 3 individual parts which I had to combine into 1 big AVI file (the final file was 584 MB to give you an impression of the size). It took my PC hours and hours and I don't have a particular slow one.

I own an Intel PC with 3.2 Ghz and 2 GB RAM (maybe the 2 GB weren't enough - who knows…). And when I had combined all the 3 parts, I needed to convert the avi into a Flash file in order to make it smaller and to have it display on a web page… Baaaaammm…. it took my PC another 2 hours again.

D**n…!

Of course, I'm not Steven Spielberg or an actor so maybe you find it a bit boring…

The video consists of:

a.) A personal introduction done with my Camcorder which I bought last year when I went to Mauritius to do the personal IM coaching

b.) Explanation what Social Bookmarking is all about and why you need it (with Powerpoint Slides)

c.) Practical examples of how to bookmark and "tag" a web page + a free service which can help you to save time when bookmarking your site

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Let me tell you that I've put in a lot of sweat and time into the creation of this video. If you like the video, I hope, you'll at least leave a nice comment on my blog

It would really be appreciated…

In case you haven't yet understood what all this talk about "social bookmarking" is about then this video is for you (click either on the picture or the link below):

17:47 mins. playing time

==> http://hopurl.com/42238

(The video is still quite large - please be patient)

And yes, I had to read most of the stuff from my powerpoint slides because I'm neither an actor nor good at doing free public speeches so please bear with me…

I'm just a regular guy, not a professional movie producer.

With that said, I hope, you'll find the video useful. And if you want to receive more of them then I want to let you know that the other parts will go right into the members' area of my Niche Content Websites membership area (paid members only, though…).

Because what I am about to show in these different parts are exactly the steps you absolutely need to take to PROMOTE your Adsense sites in order to be successful and have them make money for you.

Whether you are getting these kind of pre-made Adsense sites from me or someone else doesn't matter. If you're not doing the required promotion (==> think ONE-WAY BACKLINKS!) then you won't be getting free traffic from the mentioned resources, nor from the search engines!!

That's just a fact which newbies often tend to ignore…

I'll do another update on my NCW site and the change will be huge (you've just learned that there will be some new educational videos in it but there's still more to come). You've personally voted for this so stay tuned… I've blocked the signup of new members for now since I will be introducing completely new membership levels in April.

Tags: adsense, free traffic, search engines, social bookmarking, tagging, traffic, websites

I balance the two. SEO is more of a long term strategy for me, PPC a short term… among other marketing strategies like JVs (although I have seriously cut back on them).

Sometimes PPC is actually a good way to get traffic until the Search Engine traffic does finally barrel in…

AND you don't always have to wait 3 months. With the proper niche research and some luck, you can draw traffic in days… Once your site is crawled regularly, you can put a page up and be indexed within a day.

I don't think SEO is a waste of time unless you don't plan on being in this game for a long time. I plan on being here in 5-10 years. So I'll be patient.

SEO is a tough game no matter how you look at it. You can be at the top of the SERPs one month and drop out the next… I've seen people who have held number one positions for years and suddenly disappear all together.

It's a dangerous thing having 100% of your efforts in one area and depending on one form of advertising… diversification is a good thing.

SEO and PPC aren't even the only way to market online… some people do neither and make a ton of money.

Really… There is no predicting Search Engine's… they will always mess with your head. Sandbox or no sandbox. The algos always changing… Their index is updated frequently. Google's PR is always in flux…

After the last major update there was a lot of talk if there is even a randomization factor involved now… maybe even certain industries being treated differently… Outbound links becoming a factor also.

What I experienced could have easily been something I did… It's the closest thing to a Sandbox I've had. One day I have 50 keywords ranked high the next day they disappear. 2 months later I see visitors from those keywords back in my logs and sure enough they came back…

SEO has changed a lot since the beginning of last year. It is not as predictable as it once was. A webmaster would be a fool to rely on Google for 100% of their revenue. I've seen it happen… huge revenue generating websites dropping out of the SERPs completely… what a rush that has to be!

LET ME be honest. Like I said. The sandbox could have been something I did or some random shift in the index… who knows… I can't explain it so I call it a sandbox… but I'm always tweaking my sites… and most importantly:

I'm always trying to get new one way links pointing to my sites. Either by means of article submissions, directory submissions, social bookmarking, blog comments, article/content submission to sites like Digg.com and lots of other things… Links are still an important factor in your rankings.

Some new webmasters think if they follow the book they should find themselves at the top of the SERPs… when they don't, they automatically call it a "sandbox" if they can't figure it out…

Reality is… it might be that there are 10,000 websites that were there first with more inbound links and experience. You have to earn your spot…

Bottom line. Sandbox seems to occur, but it will only occur for crowded markets… you need to work much harder than in a niche market with no competition… If there is no competition and your site is relevant, it will certainly rank well… That's why keyword selection is so important. Choose the wrong keywords and you will get ranked nowhere, choose the right keywords and you'll find your site on top of the SERPs a few weeks later…

Until recently, if a new IM eBook came out, and I placed it on my website… you simply had to do a search for the title and there I had been… but I am not focusing on ebooks and courses anymore. I want to help you to get your first websites up and running - that's where I personally find more satisfaction in.

I've been on page one or two for e.g. the phrase "Automated Cash Formula" ever since I placed a review on my site about it (5 months ago…)… It was instant because my site is being crawled daily and in the beginning, there was hardly any competition for that phrase…

PPC? Sound familiar…

SEO? (Search Engine Optimization) not to discourage…

It's not my intention to discourage anyone from practicing SEO - I probably made it sound very difficult. It's not as long as you're staying away from the hyper competitive niches. Choose a niche in which your site could really help other people and where not all the SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) hang out and you'll rank well quickly because other people will be linking to your great content.

SEO is certainly an incredible way to get free traffic - and lots of it. Any free traffic is good traffic…

I make money with the traffic. Absolutely… it's interesting to see a commission show up for something odd… then look at your logs and see someone had landed on a page you weren't promoting with anything.

… Someone just did a search on Google.

You just have to be smart and spread your risk by using other traffic generation strategies as well… just in case your SEO efforts are NOT paying off.

Tags: adsense, digg.com, ebook, free traffic, search engine optimization, seo, social bookmarking, traffic, websites

First of all, Google Pagerank has nothing to do with Adwords… although indirectly I suppose it does. One of the reasons Adwords is so valuable is because you can go around this important factor that Google has… And it also might be a good thing if the website you are promoting has a high PR, because the visitor might see that website as being more important and more of an authority website… etc.

This is related to Search Engine Optimization and Organic Results…

Google uses PageRank to measure how important a website is. It's based on a few factors, but the main factor is how many inbound links (and the quality of those links) you have pointing to your website.

PR is combined with Google's Algorithm (other factors like the quality of your content and the number of times your keyword appears in the visible text etc.) to determine your position in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)… if you notice the sites at the top of your search results they usually have more inbound links than the ones below them.

Sometimes, it's close because the quality of links are important also. If you have a PR8 website pointing to you, you are in better shape than if you had a PR3 website pointing to you… in essence, it makes your website more important…

If you install Google's toolbar… or if you visit:

http://www.pagerank.net/pagerank-checker/

…you will see a bar that says "PageRank". That bar ranks a site from 1 to 10…

9 or 10 are very difficult to get. Google.com has a PR10… W3.org has a PR10… DMOZ has a PR9…

Those are websites that have a lot of links pointing to them. W3.org is considered an authority website…

It takes some effort to get to a PR5… generally, I think PR5 and up is really good. A lot of people when they are out looking for people to trade links with, like to focus on websites with a good PageRank…

Check this out… One of the biggest things PR is used for these days is determining the value of a web page and selling ad space based on the PR:

http://www.linkadage.com

There is a lot of controversy as far as the true importance of PR goes. I've noticed most people that are against it are people that can't seem to get it right.

In the beginning, PR was designed to be an indication of the importance and popularity of a website, but in true Webmaster fashion, a lot of community members were looking for different ways to get Inbound Links in order to manipulate Google. And from there the Link industry got a start… link exchanges, renting links, selling text links etc, etc….

I just saw a guy last week that spent over $650 to get PR3 or better links from 50 different websites…

One of the problems with it is that PR alone does not provide you with traffic…

You still need to have a well optimized website, have done your keyword research and considered the other 100+ factors (some known, some unknown) that Google uses to rank a site in the SERPs… PR might be an important factor, but it isn't the only factor and it certainly hasn't the weight anymore which it used to have.

AND ON top of that, getting 100s or 1000s of UNnatural links doesn't give PR a good name AND can get your sites penalized quickly (PR bar will be greyed out or reset to 0!).

Some more info:

http://www.google.com/technology/

Tags: adsense, adwords, search engine optimization, traffic, websites

Hi,

How are you doing? I hope, everything's okay with you. I have come to realize that you don't want to see the same stuff from me which you are seeing in other ezine publishers' newsletters… again and again.

As I said in one of my previous newsletters, I'm simply getting tired of it, too. The same ebooks and courses week after week - just in different words and designs… especially when PLR products are costing next to nothing anymore.

That's why I personally want to go a different route:

Most people whom I've asked what their difficulties were in getting started online told me, they didn't have the skills to get a complete website up and running.

They either didn't know HOW to get started or were even afraid to do anything at all in fear of doing something wrong and fail or putting up designs that are plain ugly.

That would mean to them to give up the dream of being able to make money from the comfort of your own home.

I want to help you if you belong into this category as well or if you simply don't want to invest that much time in creating your websites. Maybe, you have much better skills in promoting websites…

Then I have something for you that can help you to get started quickly. And it's not like the hundreds of websites out there which are offering the same websites to hundreds or even thousands of people.

I know that you want and deserve something special…:)

That's why, for the second time ever, I've created another exclusive package of turnkey websites for you.

Only you, Detlev, and 9 other people will have them. Not hundreds, not thousands - only 9!

These websites are completely set up with Adsense ads integrated, CB Image Ads, RSS Feeds and rotating images.

You can see what's included here:

==> http://hopurl.com/41888

(This kind of package sold out in less than 48 hours last time I offered this and this message goes out to nearly 10,000 subscribers…)

From now on, my focus will be on creating websites for you which you can put to immediate use.

That's it for now. If you're interested in these turnkey niche websites, don't hesitate too long or they will be gone forever.

SORRY - SOLD OUT!

To YOUR Success,

Detlev Reimer

Pssssttttt…, Need Hosting For The Turnkey Websites?
——————————————————

P.S.: In case you are investing in one of the packages and you still need hosting: I can set you up on my reseller account for just $5/month (Cpanel, AWStats, MySQL, 250 MB space and 5 GB Transfer) and you can host BOTH websites there.

Contact me via my helpdesk after your purchase:

==> http://www.ethicalinternetmarketer.com/helpdesk

P.P.S.: Watch out for my next email. Next time, I'll be offering 5 UNIQUE blogs… incl. designs, content, domain name & hosting - and all Google optimized!!

Tags: adsense, ebook, websites

Sometimes things are not what they seem…

While I had the intention of giving great value to my subscribers with the free CD offer I made on Saturday, it turns out that it wasn't as good as I thought… in fact, it's another nightmare for me because of the way this offer was set up.

Even though the content of the CD itself seems to be very good, their business practices are not. I mean, I knew there was some kind of additional charge involved because this was a CPA based offer. (CPA means Cost Per Action).

But I didn't know that they have the additional charge in their fine print and not just as a one time fee but set up as a monthly subscription at a rate of $49.95 but even worse:

The trial already ends after 24 hours. I now feel really bad to have endorsed this kind of offer!

It certainly does not comply with my understanding of ethical Internet marketing practices :< (

There was no way that I could have foreseen this, though.

Of course, I'm still expecting that my subscribers do their own due dilligence with that kind of offers in the way like several of my subscribers have done, too, and who notified me of the situation (Thanks to William, Hoss & Graham!).

Let me tell you how I found out about this offer: I stumbled upon this offer while doing research on CPA offers for my niches on Primaryads.com and it looked like a good fit for my subscribers - there are not too many courses on making money from Google's services suitable for beginners.

I really can't understand why Primaryads is supporting this kind of dubious business practices, though. But what's even worse: Why don't these guys just sell the CD at $49,95 instead of using camouflage tactics with a "free" CD?

As I said, the content itself seems to be good - I've heard this from several subscribers who already signed up to this offer.

Here's my suggestion if you signed up for this offer and you don't want more CD's/ additional charges:

Cancel your subscription by phone. In case that you already have a charge on your credit card for this "free" offer - do a chargeback on your credit card if you don't agree on this.

There also is phone number where you can call them and have the trials cancelled.

The number to call is the following:

888-362-6221 and talk to them or leave a voice mail. They will email you back that they have canceled your trial after doing this.

Again: I am really sorry to have brought some of you into this situation! I had the best intentions with this offer, though.
Note: In the meantime, Primaryads.com has taken the offer offline after I contacted them and had let them know about what these crooks were doing…!!

Tags: adsense, internet marketing

Hi there,

I've just stumbled across an offer which could be quite interesting for newbies or if you are not yet familiar with the possibilities Google offers you to make money online.

It's a CD with several video explanations which they are shipping to your home - but only if you live in the US/UK or Canada. This means, I couldn't test it out myself, first, like I usually do.

It looks like a good and genuine offer, though. They only require you to pay for shipping: $0.99

Here are some of the benefits:

- How to pick the right keywords

- How to promote your business

- How to get listed in Google fast

and more.

I HAVE REMOVED THIS OFFER. AS I SAID IN MY EMAIL, I COULDN'T CHECK OUT THE FULL OFFER BECAUSE I'M NOT LIVING IN ONE OF THE ACCEPTED COUNTRIES.

IT SEEMS THAT THIS OFFER IS NOT AS GOOD AS IT SOUNDED - I WILL BE SENDING MORE DETAILS TOMORROW. I'M REALLY TIRED NOW…

(I've been at the CeBit in Hannover all weekend and just returned from there. More about that -incl. some photos- tomorrow, too…!)

Detlev

Tags: adsense

As you probably might have noticed, I have been taking part in quite a lot of Giveaways recently. That's because I have set myself a goal. And that goal is to reach the 10,000 subscriber mark before the end of March…

And I am really getting very close. I now have 9208 subscribers on my main Internet marketing list. One of the Giveaways I am putting a lot of trust into is the "Free PLR Giveaway" by my buddy Xavier Nelson and Doug Champigny.

But I also realize there will be a lot of "takers" from these giveaways. Meaning, these are the ones who take whatever is being given away without the slightest interest for the newsletters and messages the author / developer has put together.

This is really a shame and one of the reasons why I am getting tired of the Internet marketing "niche"…

FREE PLR ROUND 4 - DOWNLOAD GIFTS WITH FULL AND UNRESTRICTED PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS

Anyway, week 2 of the Free PLR (Private Label Rights) Giveaway has just started. It includes a lot of new gifts which have gone live on Sunday - incl. my own gift. Grab your gifts here and put your name on them:

==> http://viralurl.com/visitus/61711885

(If you want my own gift, you'll need to subscribe there, too)

ANNOUNCEMENT: MY BUSINESS WILL CHANGE DIRECTION

I also have an announcement to make… As I've already mentioned above: I am simply getting tired of the Internet marketing "game" or "niche".

The same old crap gets republished and rehashed and people, especially newbies still don't know which of the many ebooks and courses will lead them to success.( I will introduce a highly recommended resource to you tomorrow - it's called Mafioso Marketing. You can download some preview chapters from here ).

The problem is: Most people don't want to try and apply the knowledge to niches but to Internet marketing itself which makes tens of thousands of people flock to Internet marketing - instead of the niches where the easy money is…

While IM might be an option if you have years of personal experience in this area under your belt, it is usually a way which leads newbies to nowhere land as you can only make it there with very innovative ideas and products and not by publishing and selling the same stuff as thousands of others.

I have written an ebook which does not make empty promises but tells you what you need to do in order to make money online - step by step and up to $9,183.21 in one month.

People have been thanking me for having written like it is:

==> http://hopurl.com/41142

Personally, I will be going a different route, too. I will continue to serve my subscribers and customers but mainly with complete, turnkey niche businesses and niche products.

BONUS FOR NEW NICHE CONTENT WEBSITES MEMBERS - PLR TO IM PRODUCT BUDDY!! PUT YOUR NAME ON ONE OF MY TOP LEAD GENERATORS…

I think, the real money is in: NICHE MARKETING.

My Niche Content Websites membership website is a perfect example of what is needed in niche markets: Products (e.g. ebooks and audios) and content websites.

If you're dreaming about multiple streams of income and you want to go the easy way by not having to create your own products in these niches then look no further than here:

==> http://hopurl.com/41143

Sign up for free and if you like what you are seeing then get yourself a full membership - this allows you to tackle up to 13 different niches (you'll get 13 UNIQUE content websites with income streams like Adsense and Clickbank ads for up to 75% commissions have already been integrated).

The next 30 members who are getting a paid membership at Niche Content Websites will receive THE FULL PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS TO MY "IM PRODUCT BUDDY" SOFTWARE. This means, you'll be able to put your own name on it and start giving it away as your personal lead generator/list building tool! I'll even add my personal squeeze page to the mix (which you can see at http://www.viraldatabases.com/ …).

NOt only that but the PLR gives you the source code, the Filemaker Pro files which allows you to change the whole look and feel of the software.

You can even "nichify" the whole software and create e.g. a "Golf Product Buddy" or a "Bass Fishing Product Buddy" where people within these niches can save the details about products they have purchased. Even in those niches, you'll be able to use it as a lead generator…

You'll receive the complete package after you've made your second (2nd) monthly payment for NCW. And then you simply go to:

==> http://www.ethicalinternetmarketer.com/helpdesk

and enter your subscription ID so I can verify your payments. I'll send you the download link directly after this.

That's it for today… Have a great week!

Tags: adsense, clickbank, ebook, internet marketing, websites

Are you decisive? If you're not, it's going to be a long, disappointing road.

I have been in this online business for a long time now. You know what? I've made a lot of decisions along the way. Some of those were the right ones, but many were the wrong ones. The decisions we make define us.

There are a lot of opportunities out there that will promise you riches beyond your wildest imaginations.

That's great! Except it's not that simple. I don't care what it is, it will take hard work, commitment and decisions… there you have it again.

As an example, let's say you decide your opportunity is to set up a website to sell tennis rackets for lefties. How would you approach this? Would you just set up a site and boom the checks will start rolling in…?

No! First, you have to decide how the website is going to be set up. Are you going to build it yourself? If so, what's best for your website? Do you want it set it up in PHP or do you want to use HTML/CSS? What editor will you use? Front Page (please don't…)? Will everything be based on a Wordpress platform?

Or are you going to decide to hire someone to build it for you?

How will you lay it out? Do you have a logo? Do you need one? What color scheme are you going to use? Do you know the effect of color on your visitors? How do you decide?

What e-Commerce solution is best for you? Consider your monthly volume. If it is going to be over $1,000, a merchant account is usually a good choice. You may consider Paypal in conjunction with a merchant account. If you do consider a merchant account, you also need to look into electronic payment gateways.

Then you have to market the products… Are you going to use pop-ups? Are you going to advertise with Adwords, Banners, E-zines, Article Marketing - and what about Joint Ventures…?

What's my point…? You are going to have to make the right decisions for YOUR business. There are a lot of steps from getting an idea to building the proper platform for the idea and executing it.

Your decisions will ultimately lead to an end result… Did it work? Are you making money?… or is it a do over?

When you decide to pursue an opportunity, it's your decisions that will make your site a success or not.

You must learn to decide. Indecision paired with inaction will find you broke and discouraged…

Tags: adsense, adwords

You're a blogger and most likely, you are constantly hearing about pinging or blog and ping. The thing is, you don't know what it is and what it can do for your blog. Well, that's fine because a lot of bloggers don't quite understand pinging. In this article, I will explain what pinging is, how it helps your blog, and what the best pinging services are.

What is pinging?

When a blog is pinged, it essentially tells a web blog tracking system that the blog has been updated. Thus, pinging is the process of telling tracking services that a site has been updated.

So how does pinging work? Well, a ping service scans blogs for updates on a regular basis. Whenever there is a new update for a particular blog, it is reported back to the pinging service’s site. You can almost think of ping services being just like search engine spiders - both scan sites looking for information, and both report that information back to their specific site. The difference is, a ping service only reports back new blog posts.

Why is pinging useful for your blog?

Pinging, in effect, tells people that there is a new blog posting available. Those who are loyal followers of your blog will see the ping and want to visit your blog. Those who haven’t read your blog before will also see the ping and perhaps think “Hey, there’s a new blog I haven’t been to before, I think I’ll check it out”.

Pinging helps to increase your traffic because it tells people when your blog is updated. Those who visit sites with pinging services will see this information in the form of a ticker on the left or right side, or top of the page. The ticker is usually in XML format and typically includes the title and URL of your blog, as well as the date and time of the update.

OK, so now you know what pinging is. But which websites offer pinging…?

The answer is, there are several pinging services available which you can use to have your blog pinged. We’ll go over some of them right now.

Pingomatic.com

This one is usually the standard ping service which is listed in your blog interface. It pings several ping services at once like e.g. Blogstreet, IceRocket, Moreover and Weblogalot.

Weblogs.com

Weblogs.com is probably the most well-known pinging service. Weblogs.com monitors sites for updates and then pings whenever there is an update to report. Virtually every blog software is available to use Weblogs.

Yahoo’s Blo.gs

Another popular pinging service. This one is offered by Yahoo and has a built-in integration with movable type and other tools. One cool thing about this service is that it offers the ability to give out updates via Instant Messenging services like AOL and ICQ. It is a direct pinging service, so those who sign up for subscriptions to your blog will be sent an email anytime your blog is updated.

Blogrolling.com

Blogrolling allows its bloggers to manage their blogrolls (updates) through a web-based interface. Recently
updated blogs are also highlighted on Blogrolling’s web site. Data is automatically retrieved from other sites like blogger.com and weblogs.com every 5 minutes. Often times your blog is already being pinged by Blogrolling, so you might not have to sign up for it. Search on the site first for your URL before signing it up.

Technorati

Available at http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping, Technorati is another service that pings blogs. It gets its data from a variety of places and is definitely a site you should go to for blog pinging. If you're adding Technorati tags to your posts, it will also give you multiple backlinks which can have a very high pagerank and thus will improve your site ranking in the search engines.

These are just 5 of the many different blog pinging services available. A quick search on Yahoo or Google will reveal many other possible blog pinging services to use for your blog. It is best to ping/sign up for as many as you possibly can to ensure that your blog is well-pinged.

A well-pinged blog will definitely help your blog attract more visitors because not only will you get direct visitors from these services but also valuable backlinks. And since these sites have a high authority with the search engines (meaning, most of them have high Google Pagerank), you can get easy and automatic backlinks from authority sites.

This is especially true when your links can be found on popular so called "TAG" pages. A tag is similar to a keyword. So ping as many many of these services as possible and watch your blog traffic increase.

P.S. You can enter a list of websites to ping e.g. within your Wordpress interface. You can find it listed under "options/writing"!

Tags: adsense, search engines, tags, technorati, traffic, websites

Since there are lots of people getting into affiliate marketing every day, it is no wonder that the competition is getting fierce. The challenge is to try and beat the tactics other affiliates are using and think of smart ways on how to achieve this. Affiliate Video Brander is a tool that allows affiliates to act smarter than others. More on that later in this article.

Let's first talk about why using online video presentations work so well with regards to selling products on the Internet…

What better way could there be to wow your prospects and customers than to record and publish top notch, full motion and streaming screen-capture videos? For you as a seller, it's a great feeling to be able to offer a product that gets subscribers and customers excited in great anticipation to buy your product right on the spot.

This is Camtasia in action. It is a proven fact that giving your customers something they can actually see can explode your online sales instantly.

You do not need to have training and a lot of education to be able to know how this system can improve your sales or sales for programs that you're an affiliate of. Anyone can create stunning videos as there are hundreds of multimedia tutorials and step-by-step presentations available online.

The process is like having your customers seated next to you while looking at your desktop, as you show them the things they need to see and hear. All this is done in a step by step manner.

For those of you who don't not know it, yet - what does Camtasia do…?

1. It can record your desktop activity - not only the actions which are taken but also the sound, the explanations which you are speaking into a microphone while recording.

2. In the next step, Camtasia can easily convert your videos into web pages (using flash). Once the videos have been converted from formats like AVI or MPG to Flash, you can have your customers visit the web page which you have produced.

Videos are easier to understand because of the visual aspects. This is unlike reading texts which is not always as comprehensible as seeing and hearing a complete process on your PC.

3. Upload your web pages to your server using FTP. Publish these videos on blogs, within RSS feeds or podcasts. You may want to use your Camtasia videos to reach potential customers. This can be done by uploading your master pieces to video directories like YouTube or Google Video. By doing this, you are actively making use of Web 2.0 techniques.

Video sites and Web 2.0 are all the rage these days and if you are uploading them to places where they can easily be found, you're setting yourself up for free advertising and you can finally get your message across without having to invest thousands of dollars in PPC costs.

There are other things you can do using Camtasia. You can…

- Create stunning multimedia presentations which e.g. show how a certain piece of software works or how certain promotion techniques are being used which are described in the latest ebook you want to promote as an affiliate. This also has the tendency to reduce skepticism among hard-to-please customers.

- Reduce refunds and other customer issues by visually demonstrating how to use your product and how to do it properly. Complaints will be minimized because all the facts can be seen in the visual presentations.

- Promote affiliate products and services using these visual presentations. This is an effective way of pre-selling and redirecting your viewers straight to your affiliate website after they have finished watching the video. Make the most of the presentation by adding your site to the end of the video and make them go there directly if they want more information.

This can easily be put into action using a tool called Affiliate Video Brander. In order to use this tool, you don't even have to create your own videos. All you need to do is use the videos which the merchant has available on his site and you download them to your PC (with the merchant's permission). Videos have proven to increase conversions by a very high percentage.

You simply use Affiliate Video Brander to create a new web page which has a link to the merchant's website included (usually above and below the video). This link is YOUR affiliate link. Moreover, when the video ends, the viewer will be automatically redirected to the merchant's site using your affiliate link. Here's how the interface looks like:

These are just some of the things you can do with Camtasia and Affiliate Video Brander which can be very helpful in promoting your chosen affiliate program. If you're an affiliate and you're not yet using Affiliate Video Brander, you'll be leaving a lot of money on the table since videos can increase your conversions from visitors to buyers by at least 400%!

Tags: adsense, affiliate, affiliate marketing, affiliate program, affiliates, ebook, web 2.0

Let's say we've just signed up as an affiliate for a popular product. Now what?

How you approach this is going to depend on where you are coming from.

1) You might have an existing website and you've just discovered affiliate marketing and would like to implement this on your website. You already have your market and traffic. Maybe… Unless you're just starting out. Then you need to find traffic…

2) You may have a site or several different websites and you want to start fresh and build a new website just for affiliate marketing…

3) You want to do affiliate marketing, but you don't want to build a site… YES, that can be done!

4) You're just starting out and you want to do affiliate marketing and build a website or landing pages to promote the programs… OR you want to build 10 or more websites.

Those are just 4 scenarios… One thing you have to be careful with online is that many people will try to sell you on ONE way of doing things. They will convince you to drop everything and go in their direction.

STOP, you don't need to do what the herd is doing!

Everyone is unique and has a different set up and background… you can build from where you are. It's not what you got or want that will make you a success, it's taking massive action! So take what you have and go from there… you don't have to start over; you don't necessarily change directions… just add another dimension.

Unless of course you realize that you are in a hopeless situation… then just follow your gut. If you think the time and money would be better spent in another direction, then end it…

Again, this is all dependent on YOUR situation. This is not a one size fits all internet. And therefore every "guru" can only give you a plan on what has worked for HIM. It's bad advice to do exactly the same if that's not a market you like or are knowledgeable in!

THE BEST PLACE to be in is where your passion is… working in markets that you are passionate about will give your campaigns and efforts more energy… and you will most likely find it easier and have better results!
OF COURSE learn and emulate what the successful people are doing, but don't get consumed with the "you gotta do this" hype… once you've decided what to do, focus.

The traffic that you get to your pages with affiliate programs need to be as targeted as possible to your content and your content should match your affiliate programs or vice versa.

So you should NOT have people looking for televisions coming to your computer store…

How successful you are really depends on the market you are in and how you are doing compared to your competition. If you have a competitive market like mortgages or school loans (OR Internet marketing for that matter!!), then you need to buckle down because it will be a battle and you are probably going to have to spend a lot of money to make money…

ON THE OTHER HAND… the best thing to do is to start from scratch and research markets to find niches that you can tap into. A niche is simply a market that is maybe unique or on the outer fringe… You can often break down a large market into smaller markets fairly easily.

These niche markets will probably get less traffic, but you will also have less competition.

This is where keyword research comes in. An excellent tool to research with and one I highly recommend is NicheBot…

When we're talking about niches, normally the best niches are those that have little competition in Search Engines or in Pay Per Click Advertising… People search using keywords and keyword phrases. Find the right keywords that people are searching for and you will find a lot of traffic hitting your website… For search engines, that is FREE traffic!

So you use the tool above to find those niches. You plug in a keyword and it will bring up all kinds of results for people that have searched for that word or words in the last month AND it will also give you results for related or similar words and phrases AND it will show you how much competition there is!… cool stuff; check it out…

One last thing before I go… YOU can do well without a website. Many people are still doing this… there were recent changes to a policy at Google that put a damper on things a bit, but it's still alive and well… it's called Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) and allows you to drive people to a landing page or sometimes (in niches where you don't want to build a list) to a merchant straight away.

Well, I gotta go… I am currently working on several products for the German market. Yes, I finally got started doing things in german - most importantly building a list. It's something I've been preaching for a long time…

People everywhere around the world are looking for a way to generate an income from home - so if your first language is not english, why not create an info product in your native language?

Stay tuned for some more great info to come! And remember… "Action is key!"

If you want to know more about getting focused, taking the right actions and simply getting the key concepts of Internet marketing right, then get a copy of my Revenue Blueprint. It will help you to take the RIGHT actions so you'll not waste months of your time…!!

Tags: adsense, affiliate, affiliate marketing, affiliate program, affiliate programs, free traffic, internet marketing, search engines, traffic, websites

Do you even HAVE a strategy for your business?

From my observations, I see a lot of people online that are moving forward without much of a strategy. Or they are stuck using other peoples strategies and don't develop their own based on their needs and abilities.

It is very important to understand that those that are teaching you things online, are doing what they know or have been successful with themselves. It is not necessarily the path for YOU or the only path you should take…

You need to know what YOU want:

• What market do you want to be in?
• What business do you want to be in (e.g. selling physical products, info products or just publishing content)?
• Where will your income come from (what's your frontend/upsell/backend/recurring product)?
• Who will be your target customers and where do they hang out?
• Which methods will you be using to build your list (you ARE building your list, right…?)?

Key strategy: Diversify your traffic sources I use a combination of strategies but the most important one is to focus on list building - this way, you'll never get stuck for traffic… and I strongly use the old saying, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

I just saw a guy the other day freaking out because Google was wiping out his business… He fell by around 400 visitors to his website per day which crushed his income.

Why? Because he had all his eggs in the Google basket! Google is the type of animal that can make changes that don't make sense, have no ryme or reason, and simply just happen. You may think you have control, but you don't.

That's why you must diversify. Have a strategy that takes into account these type of things… Don't do just one thing… Let me rephrase that… You can do one thing, but make sure that you are covered within that one thing.

For instance if you depend on Google Adwords for 100% of your income, that's fine. Just make sure that you are not doing just one thing within that. Make sure you are not in one market or are driving traffic one way.

Things are changing rapidly

Things are in a continuous state of change online. You must brace yourself for that change. Make sure you have a strategy and you aren't just mesmerized by some opportunity and you lose sight of the big picture.

This is a business not just a way to make some quick cash… it can be, but generally I think most of us want to have long term results and not live on the edge…

So have some sort of strategy in place for your business that insulates you from the environment. You should have a short term, medium and long term strategy and goals. Where do you see yourself in 1 month, 6 months, 5 years?

How are you going to get there - what are your personal/business goals?

There are things I do to make money now, but there are also things that I am building now that will blossom in the future or offer long term stability.

Just sit down for a few minutes and write down some of your goals and what you want out of this business. After you know what you want and have taken into consideration the environment, map out how your are going to get there… every single detail.

If you do this, you will not only find financial stability over the long term, but you will find peace of mind.

===================================================

Let me know what you think by making a comment on this post.

Tags: adsense, adwords, google adwords, traffic

Christmas is only days away. The new year is around the corner…

It's time for me to decide where my business will be heading to in 2008. I want to do my best to bring you products and services which you really want and need.

I can only do this with your feedback…

Therefore, I've created a little survey with mainly multiple choice answers which won't take you very long to complete (maybe 5-8 minutes).

Please, you will help me enormously if you're taking it and it will benefit yourself as well:

http://viralurl.com/visitus/2008-Business-Survey

And just in case you aren't in the right Christmas mood yet, I want to give you links to 2 videos which feature my all time favorite Christmas pop songs:

Do they know it's Christmas? - Band Aid:
——————————————-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jEnTSQStGE

Last Christmas - Wham:
————————–

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5dDI7xMVZw

This is my last email to you before Christmas…

I wish you: "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!"

Wanna have a good laugh…? Let's ROCK IT:

==> http://www.myvideo.de/watch/2932532

All the best for 2008,

Detlev Reimer

P.S.: Rich Schefren just released his "Business Acceleration" Home Study Course. If you've put aside some money for business investments then now is the time to spend it (it's tax deductible for 2007!).

Rich simply is the master of Business and Internet marketing strategies and his results speak for themselves.

Get prepared to compete with the "big guys" in Internet marketing in 2008 - Get a copy of Rich Schefren's Business Acceleration Program:

==> http://viralurl.com/visitus/BAP

I highly recommend his course.

=============================================

P.P.S.: Dirk's "Crazy Christmas Event" will be closing its' doors on Monday. If you haven't picked up your personal best deals of 2007, it's your last chance to do so here:

==> http://viralurl.com/visitus/Crazy-Christmas-Deal

=============================================

Last but not least, the Niche Video Site Builder is selling like hot cakes… Will you miss out or have you gotten your copy already? It's available here:

==> http://hopurl.com/38905

It will make a good Christmas gift for yourself )

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Tags: adsense, internet marketing

This is something I struggled with and it's something that a lot of newbies are still struggling with…

When you first come online, you struggle to find that one thing… that one idea to pursue.

BUT! And this is a big "but"… Once you hang around for a while, it seems like ideas and opportunities are everywhere. It simply can become completely overwhelming. And then it gets difficult to decide what to do and what not to do.

Once you do decide on the things you are going to do, you then hav