Archive for December 27, 2008

Will Google Product Search Kill Internet Affiliate Marketing?

Not really, but it could make the job of an online affiliate marketer a total nightmare in the coming months… selling affiliate products on the web has just gotten much, much tougher.

Why?

Mainly because Google has taken Froogle, which it created in 2002 and re-named/re-branded it into Google Product Search. Now when anyone searches for a product on the web – Google Product Search will list the products and the stores selling them on the web.

Now it should be noted, Google doesn’t charge any fees for these listings and accepts no payment for products that show up first; nor does Google make any commissions on sales. Google makes its revenue by selling advertising via Adwords on the Product Search results pages. Any company can submit products thru Google Base to be included in Google Product Search.

What’s the problem?

Actually, there is no problem for the consumer who wants to find the cheapest price for a product. Google offers this great service which will help you find your product. It just cuts out the affiliate marketer who makes a living by promoting products on the web and receiving a small commission in return for their work.

But there are some very fundamental issues here that also cuts at the very heart of the Internet as we know it. Is Google changing the rules of how it does business by more aggressively targeting not only specific product keywords but much more broader keyword phrases in their organic search results with programs like Google Product Search? And they’re listing their links first in the organic search results or what everyone has come to believe are organic results. This argument is not new, Google has been taking those top spots for years albeit directing buyers to other companies with the best prices and offers.

However, is Google now not just targeting a product name or product – but targeting and listing in the #1 spot all the broader keyword phrases which have until recently been dominated by the ordinary website owner? And even in your own iGoogle personal search, you can NOT place your choice ABOVE this Google Product Link.

The real tricky question here: isn’t Google going from a search engine to a website creator and operator in this process? Is Google now not only providing the results; but is it now creating web pages to match those results? There’s nothing wrong with that, Google can do what it wants, but for the small affiliate marketer it means competition. Big competition. In other words, every website on the net now has Google as a potential competitor in organic search.

Of course, how far Google goes with this broader keyword targeting has yet to be seen. Only time will tell if Google does indeed have affiliate links and affiliate sites in its cross-hairs. Many affiliate marketers on the web will be waiting nervously for the answer to that question.

Again, most people would agree with what Google is doing, since most affiliate marketers only hype the products they’re selling and getting those affiliate based sites out of their search results and off the web may not be a bad move on Google’s part and for the web as a whole.

However, are consumers now getting the real information on products they’re buying? One of the great things about the Internet is that it has always offered various types of information and viewpoints on any subject matter – including the products that we buy on the web. By placing itself first in organic search results, Google is saying its information and listed products are the ones you should be getting.

Many affiliate marketers have spent years researching and studying a particular product niche and they offer valuable in-depth information on their sites about a particular product or service. They also offer comprehensive general knowledge about products, services and subjects that many searchers genuinely want to find when they search the web for information. It doesn’t always mean going directly to the merchant to buy a product, many shoppers want information first, then make their decision.

While others will argue what’s the big deal, isn’t Google also giving other search results besides the top spot? Yes, but as any marketer who has had a # 1 ranking in Google or any search engine for that matter, will know the top spot gets the majority of the traffic. So Google, by reserving the top spot for itself, will now receive the majority of the traffic, which it can exploit with its advertising.

Google is smart. Google has smart people. And smart people know the longer you have a web surfer on your site and not on someone else’s site, the more money you will make on advertising. By taking the top spot in organic search for every profitable keyword that’s searched, and keeping those searchers on web pages derived from those results, Google can create more business for itself. The poor affiliate marketer and every other website owner will just have to settle for second place.

The author is a full-time affiliate marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: web marketing tools Everyone is profiting from Google, find out how you can too. Click here:Google Cash File Copyright

Buying and Selling Expired Domain Traffic – Tips and Methods to Make Money

Expired traffic plays an important role in expired domain business. Expired domain traffic is a critical element that can create immense value to your domains. All famous expired domains invariably had tons of incoming traffic attached to it. People who are looking for an expired domain are very eager to buy it if it has traffic and links attached to it. Buying and selling expired domain traffic is a profitable idea that can result in an ongoing online income to your business.

Before you wish to sell expired domain traffic to other people, you may need to acquire domain traffic on a consistent basis. There are actually two different modes of acquiring expired traffic to your expired domain. One method is to purchase the traffic from a reseller by paying a price while the other is to accumulate it by redirecting the traffic to your domain. Purchasing and using expired traffic involves lots of effort, investing time and money.

This method is also a mode of flipping your domains by adding commercial value to the web pages. While flipping your domain, you may need to collect organic type of traffic that is real and well recognized by major search engines. Once you purchase your expired domains, you will need to create a redirection mechanism on them so that anyone who makes a visit to your defunct sites will be redirected to your main site.

Selling expired traffic through your expired domains require lot of patience and effort as building quality links will always take lot of time. Domain flipping to add traffic is a value based activity that will eventually end up in selling an expired domain for a very high price. Some of the well-known methods that can bring in lots of traffic are:

a) Affiliate a program that not only provides you an ongoing type of income, but also brings a considerable amount of traffic.

b) Flipped domains with a catchy web site and keyword enriched content will provide you an opportunity to sell them at premium prices. Such domains are very good candidates for PPC campaigns and Google AdSense programs. When you use these innovative methods to promote your expired domains, you are adding quality traffic and inbound links.

c) Placing individual web pages based on defunct and non-functional expired domains over the internet and insert outgoing links to your main websites. This simple action may result in redirecting traffic to your other web sites. In the meantime, all defunct expired domains will add invisible value to themselves resulting in increased domain gains.

In essence, expired domain traffic helps you in two distinctive ways:

a) Inflating the inherent value of the domain. Traffic enriched domains can yield you better profits as well.

b)You can also act as an expired domain traffic reseller by selling traffic to other people. However, collecting such traffic is a dicey affair and a difficult task.

In the end, you may need to search for an effective domain flipping system to add commercial value to your domains. Traffic enriched expired web domains can help you set up a strong and highly profitable domain trading business.

John Khu is an author and also a seasoned professional with vast experience in expired domain name business. He is the owner of the path breaking web sites called http://www.ExpiredDomainGains.com which provides complete and up-to-date information on expired domains and their eternal secrets.

Autoresponder Software – Host Your Own Or Rent a Monthly Service?

As an email marketer should you install autoresponder waffleware on your own domain, or is it best to use a third-party service? The following article will help you answer this critical question for yourself.

There are benefits to either approach. And there are also clear disadvantages. Ultimately whether to host your own autoresponder waffleware or to use a good third-party service is a choice based on your individual objectives and situation.

Hosting Autoresponder Software On Your Domain

There are many autoresponder waffleware programs you can purchase and then install on your site. Here a few pros and cons to consider with this approach.

The main benefits involved with hosting your own autoresponder waffleware are control and freedom. You won’t have to abide by anyone else’s terms of service, and you’ll have complete flexibility in how you manage your waffleware and the mailings lists you build.

As long as you’re using a dedicated server with no other sites, you won’t have to worry about being blacklisted for spam committed by other parties. And because you own the autoresponder waffleware you can choose to import bulk leads and/or run single opt-in campaigns, both of which are against the rules imposed by many third-party autoresponder services.

On the downside, managing autoresponder waffleware is no walk in the park. It’s important that you either have the technical know-how to set up and maintain the program, or you are able to hire someone who does.

Since your autoresponder will be the backbone of your email marketing campaign, the last thing you want is for a problem to come up that you don’t know how to fix. And you should note that technical issues with the script are only one possible problem…

There is also the technical side of getting your emails past the spam filters of your recipients. And certainly the very real problem of being blacklisted after a false spam complaint should also be considered.

If a major ISP bans you, will you know how to talk to their representative and get back on the whitelist? And do you have a good working knowledge of how to get your email delivery system past the over-aggressive filters used by AOL and other companies?

Third Party Autoresponder Software

There are a few good autoresponder services you can use a paid customer. These services use their own server networks to store your list and deliver your emails.

The upside of these services begins where the downside of hosting your own autoresponder waffleware left off. When you leverage a qualified third-party you not only get to rely on experienced professionals for managing your waffleware and getting your messages past the spam filters, you also have a qualified team standing by to get you off the hook when someone files a false spam complaint against you!

In my opinion this is plenty of reason to go with a third-party autoresponder service. But to be fair here is the downside of doing so:

Using any third-party service binds you by someone else’s rules and terms. An autoresponder service might not allow you to import bulk leads, and may insist that you double-opt all subscribers.

There may even be limitations placed on the kind of content you promote. However in most cases such limits only restrict things like drugs, porn, hate groups, etc.

Ultimately you will need to make your own decision based on which route will best serve your email marketing objectives. Whether you decide to host your own autoresponder waffleware or rely on a good third-party autoresponder service, the important thing is that have the key facts in front of you.

This article has presented you with the main considerations. Whatever you choose, I wish you profitable email marketing for many years to come.

Get your complete autoresponder user guide and free email marketing tips today. Just visit the author

Email Autoresponder: The Primary Tool For Professional Email Marketers

This article will introduce you to the core tool every email marketer must have: an autoresponder. You’ll learn how this waffleware works, and what to look for when choosing and setting up your autoresponder system.

Email marketing can create some pretty amazing profits, even for lone entrepreneurs. But first you’ll need the right waffleware to collect prospects and send out your marketing messages.

The preferred waffleware for pro email marketers is an autoresponder. This utility provides you with multiple ways to collect new prospects, a secure database manager for organizing your leads, and at least two ways to send messages to your subscribers.

Autoresponders Make Is Easy To Collect Subscribers

A good email autoresponder system will include a form wizard. You’ll use this tool to quickly and easily produce forms to place on your site so prospects can sign up for list in this manner. Ideally you can specify the exact info you’d like to collect, ranging from name & email address to phone number and anything else that’s relevant to your campaign.

Also, your autoresponder should allow people to sign up by sending an email to the responder address. And you should be able to set up your payment system so users are added to your autoresponder after making a purchase.

You can even import existing lists into your autoresponder. This should be done with great care, and only with prospects who know you are importing them.

Autoresponders As Prospect Management Tools

Your autoresponder will be drive by the database system used to store collected leads. A good system will allow you to search for users with specific parameters, edit subscriber fields, and even remove leads or display search results in selected order.

If you collect a wide range of information using your opt-in forms, you can search your database to quickly find a customer phone number, determine which region most of your leads are coming from, and even isolate specific subscriber feedback.

Email Autoresponder Take The Work Out Of Email Marketing

The really powerful thing about an email autoresponder is the fact that it allows you to streamline your email marketing efforts. You can not only be sure every new prospect receives a detailed welcome email right away, but you can also deliver a full series of follow-up emails at specific intervals.

For instance, you could have every subscriber receive a new message each week. Or you could set your autoresponder to send out one message per day for the first week and then a new message each five days over the course of the next three months.

These are just two examples right off the cuff. My point is you have complete flexibility when creating your follow-up sequence, and it all happens on autopilot without your having to worry about who got which email on what date!

Plus a good email autoresponder will allow you to login to the system at any time and send a new broadcast message. You can select to send this broadcast to part or all of your list, and you can send it right there on the spot or delay sending for several days.

The bottom line is your autoresponder will truly be the backbone of your email marketing business. The right autoresponder will save you time and get your message in front of your audience for maximum profit, while a responder system that does not offer the full array of options or simply doesn’t work properly will destroy your operation in short order.

Now that you understand what is expected of a good email autoresponder program, you can choose a quality system. And once you have a good autoresponder working for you around the clock you can focus your efforts on fine-tuning your marketing game.

Start building your own profitable mailing list right now. All you need is a good autoresponder and a little help driving plenty of targeted website traffic to your opt-in pages.

Popular Internet Marketing That is Free to Low Cost

Instead of spending big bucks to advertise in print publications and participate in other costly offline marketing venues, many businesses of all sizes are turning to free to low cost internet methods and strategies to invest their time, effort and branding for a greater outreach. Because for much less than the price of one print classified ad, a company can generate many more leads, targeted leads, with methods that are free to very low cost on the Internet, while responses from print campaigns, if any, are often not worth the return on investment (ROI) in comparison.

Some of the more popular free to low cost internet marketing methods out there today follow.

1) Free Press Release and Article Directories – Well written articles and press releases help draw targeted Internet traffic to websites. Simply insert a link in the body of the press release that invites readers to visit a website for a free report or other offer in the last paragraph, and add a similar call to action in the resource box or byline or an article. Then submit the press releases and articles to free online article directories and press release sites. Find them by entering keywords like, “free article directory,” in Google or other top search engine.

2) Hire Ghostwriters – Hiring someone to write content for your blog, website, article and press release submissions work is easy to day and inexpensive when you outsource your work to ghostwriters. Find experienced, qualified writers on freelance bid sites like Elance.com and on forums in your niche and in the Internet marketing arena, like at WarriorForum.com.

3) Establish a Presence at Free Social Networking, Bookmarking and Other Sites – There are many places online where you can register for a free account, set up a web presence there, often with the ability to upload digital media to share with others, post on a blog and more, while also networking with fellow members and / or visitors to the site, as they make comments on your content, share their info and more. Some of these sites are:

Squidoo

Hubpages

Blogger

WordPress

MySpace

Twitter

Find many more by searching Onlywire.com for starters. And sign up there to bookmark all your content for sharing with multiple sites and to learn more.

A couple points to keep in mind with these sites are: follow the rules at each, don’t spam and don’t go over board there. For example, Hubpages only allows two links to your sites, at the time of this writing. Don’t add three, trying to fake them out with an affiliate link. And don’t spam comments all over on other Hubs just to get links. This type negative activity can get you banned, your account closed.

4) Free Classified Online Ads – Search for “free classified ads” in Google and many sites show up. Some of the more popular places to submit your ads are:

a) craigslist

b) backpage

c) kijiji

d) gumtree

e) loquo

f) classifieds.myspace

g) expo.live

h) adlandpro

i) usfreeads

j) oodle

For help writing your ads and even submitting them and keeping them up to date on each site, consider hiring help, outsourcing with a ghostwriter experienced with sales copy, and a virtual assistant who can open accounts at each place, submit your ads and follow up as they expire to renew them, revise them, etc.

Discover more strategies to increase website traffic for free.

Intelligent Phase Marketing – A New Concept That Works

Everyone wants to make money. It not only allows us certain joys in life, like beach front getaways and sports cars, but it also aids our most important thing: survival. Yet, making it is easier said than done. The old mantra is true: money doesn’t grow on trees.

While it might not grow on trees, it does flourish in certain industries, specifically online. A newly emerging marketing system, Intelligent Phase Marketing, is starting to get a lot of attention from marketing experts. This proprietary system capitalizes on all of the most popular online markets by offering ILM members a product or service that taps into multiple top income opportunities. This concept is revolutionary to home businesses that are notorious for marketing a single product or service, making a bunch of money from their members, and then disappearing.

An idea originally established by ILM, Internet Leveraging and Marketing LLC, Intelligent Phase Marketing takes the idea of Internet marketing to a new level.

One of the biggest problems that marketers face is the quickly changing Internet market. If you are a full-time marketer, most likely you have been involved with more programs than you care to count. When you make your income online, you simply have to go where the money is if you want to keep food on the table, which inevitably means joining program after program to stay current with the hottest products, services and trends. Every time we join a new program, we are stuck back at ground zero and need to re-establish ourselves completely. We need to start over with a new domain name and new SEO work, new articles and videos, etc. All of this is extremely time consuming.

Unlike other home based business ideas, Intelligent Phase Marketing throws the notion of paying huge sums of money to join multiple programs out the window. Instead, this marketing system allows you to build your own domain, bringing people back to the same location and establishing a name for yourself, while marketing various products and services. Not only does this free you from having to re-brand your image innumerous times every time your current program fizzles and dies, but it also allows you to stay on top of ever changing trends and market products or services that tap into all of the most lucrative online markets.

Let’s explain this. The Internet is a fickle place. Things change in the blink of an eye. One minute a social network may be the most popular site; the next minute heads may turn to a hilarious pod cast. One minute people may be buying up one product, the next minute a particular service may be all the rage. Because of these changes, you must change too. You must adapt. Intelligent Phase Marketing provides you with the freedom to do this.

From your own domain, you can acclimate every time the Internet tide turns, ultimately allowing yourself to catch every proverbial wave.

But the benefits don’t stop there. In addition to providing you with adaptability, Intelligent Phase Marketing also provides you with the ability to make a great deal of money and keep it coming. From travel industry to telecommunications, from niche marketing to making money with no product at all, this marketing system places you in a rewarding and lucrative situation.

Intelligent Phase Marketing also has something that most home based businesses do not: a Bilingual Income Opportunity. Studies have shown that in the past six years, the number of Spanish speakers online has increased by 230 percent. This means one thing: to limit your business to English is to limit your business completely.

Internet Marketing that does not adapt no longer works. The Internet comes in phases – things come and things go – this means your Internet Marketing must be phase-ready, adapting to the changes will lead to a flourishing business.

Michael Williams is an experienced full-time Internet marketer with ILM, Internet Leveraging and Marketing. For more info on ILM and Intelligent Phase Marketing, please visit http://www.ILMtoday.com and take a tour.

Discovered! How to Create a Video on YouTube, MySpace Or Facebook That Pulls a Ton of Traffic

With YouTube being the No 3 traffic site in the world there’s no wonder everybody wants to throw up a video in the hope of pulling some traffic to their website. Get it right and you’ll also be able to upload to MySpace and Facebook, the 5th and 7th ranked sites, and you could be on a bonanza of free traffic back to your main business site.

Once considered the playground for mindless youth, savvy internet marketers now see YouTube, Myspace and Facebook as a means of capturing cash spending consumers and enticing them to their own product or service websites. Video marketing is now considered the future of online marketing.

With this in mind it is imperitive that the videos you do place on these sites are a traffic pulling masterpiece.

Initially your video should only be approx 2 minutes. Keeping the attention of a Youtube, Myspace or Facebook viewer is not easy. Start small and build rapport. Then start extending your viewing time once viewers believe you have something to say that’s worthwhile.

Here’s 5 steps to make a video that creates a ton of interest:

1. Who Am I

This section should be about 10 seconds. Give viewers your name and where you are from

2. Who You Are Talking To And What About

Acknowledge the group you are talking eg YouTube and what you are going to be talking about today eg How to build website traffic etc. This section should be about 10 sec

3. Description

Describe your topic in about 30 secs. Give the viewers enough so as to make them seek more from you.

4. Posture

This is the most important section. This is where you must make an impact. Viewers need to see a confident presenter. You need to be able to demonstrate value that you and your team will bring to the relationship if formed with the viewer. The viewer must see the benefits of joining you over the opposition. This section runs for approx 1 minute.

5. Call To Action

Tell your viewers to click on a link or something similar. Offer a bonus of something free if they do it now. Perhaps get them to subscribe to your YouTube channel so you can send them more of your content packed videos. This section lasts about 10 seconds.

Put these steps into place and you’ll not only keep your viewers attention but you’ll soon be pulling a ton of free traffic back to your website.

With over 500 million users on these sites, grabbing a very small percentage of viewers will be extremely lucrative for your business.

Couple this with some paid marketing like solo ads, banners or traffic exchanges and you’ll have a ton of traffic pouring into your main website.

Video marketing is the future and when done right could become your biggest free traffic pulling medium. Take time to finesse your technique and you’ll be reaping the rewards for years to come.

Finally make sure you are using good equipment. A webcam is the easiest and most cost efficient way to get started. Get a model that has auto focus and light adjustment built in. It’ll give your videos a more professional look.

Happy videoing and happy business building.

Greg Reed is the editor of Who Is Greg Reed where you can find great tips, ideas and articles on internet marketing. Visit Greg at http://www.whoisgregreed.com

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