Google Phone Review: 5 Things Wrong (for Internet Marketers)

September 23rd, 2008

First, understand that I haven’t even seen it yet. But plenty of other people are piping up about it, so I will, too. Here is my Google phone review featuring 5 things wrong: (Note that I have no basis in fact for any of this, but most reviewers have no facts yet either.)

1. Changes all cookies from rightful affiliate to someone named “moneybrin”

2. 3G coverage should enable quicker downloads of poorly translated sales pages for get rich quick schemes.

3. Google captures all phone conversations, converts to text, publishes on the web and inserts AdSense ads. Problem? No revenue share.

4. Hidden Google App finds unsecured WiFi connections and immediately logs into online bank and investment accounts of nearby homes, downloads net worth, and sells this to insurance companies, credit card companies and enhancement companies.

5. AdSensitivity “feature” automatically clicks 2-3 AdSense ads at the same time, which customer blames on their own fat fingers. Instant tripling of Google AdWords revenue.

Have you found anything I missed?

Warning: this mistake floods you with spam

August 28th, 2008

Stop Spam If you own a web site or you are planning on having one, watch this five minute video.

It shows an extremely simple and free technique to eliminate a major source of spam. Plus, this page has the tool you need, and it only takes a few seconds to use it.

How to stop spam

I developed this tool to help all webmasters and marketers in the battle against spam. There is no charge and no opt-in required.

Just a good tool for you.

P.S. If you find it helpful, please share it with anyone you want, link to it from your site, or “Stumble” it. The more people know about this and use it, the less spam in the world.

This is a new low…

August 15th, 2008

I just came back from the Affiliate Summit in Boston. The show floor was full of merchants looking for affiliates, and networks looking for both publishers and affiliates.

At one point during the day, a pretty young lady approached me, said “Hi”, and put a flyer into my goodie bag as she asked me to take a look at it.

“Sure”. And she walked away.

When I got home I was going through the bag and found the flyer she had given me.

It was for an affiliate program I’m not going to mention.

What is so bad about it?

It’s a dating service for married people. Their slogan is, and I’m not making this up, “Thou shall make money from adultery.”

Now I suppose there is a market for this. And it pays very well at $249/sale. But I’ll be damn if I’m going to promote the concept of adultery.

How many marriages does this thing wreck? Who would put a giant “Blackmail Me” bulls eye on their head by joining this?

How much pain and anguish are created for the sake of a commission. Talk about blood money!

Who would mail their list promoting something with such a low morality quotient?

Disgusting. And I just had to vent about it.

Is Your Niche A Stadium or a Parade?

July 21st, 2008

Is your market a stadium or a parade?

Is your niche a stadium or a parade? The answer should have a lot to do with how you market your product.

What do I mean by this question?

When most marketers think of their niche market, they unconsciously think of a stadium metaphor: a huge crowd of people they can potentially sell to.

But in fact, most niche markets are more similar to a parade metaphor. This means a constant stream of potential customers vs the one-shot deal of a stadium.

Parade marketing should be built for the long haul, whereas stadium marketing is typically limited by time or circumstances. You can do well with either, but there are some important differences.

>>Read more

Using StumbleUpon for Blog content ideas

June 4th, 2008

I just posted a quick video that gives some ideas for using StumbleUpon to generate ideas for blog posts. StumbleUpon’s users do a great job of ferreting out interesting news and ideas, and the sites and resources you see are typically current, as opposed to those found in search engines.

How to use StumbleUpon for Blog Content

Ridiculously High Priced Products

May 29th, 2008

Lately there has been a wave of internet marketing
products costing over $1,000.

Product Launch Formula 2
Mass Control
StomperNet
GuruMastermind
and several more upcoming.

I have promoted some of these products because I know
the content well and also know and respect the authors.

Whenever I do send out an email about a product in
this price range, I get irate emails from people
complaining about the “ridiculous” prices these
products cost.

On one hand, I can sympathize because these prices are
out of reach of many people.

On the other hand, I don’t understand the hostility.

Do these same people get angry at Lexus? Or Harvard?

The best always costs more, and in the case of these
products (and I’m not speaking for all $1,000+
products because I have seen some that are junky - and
I won’t promote those) the quality is high and the
content is excellent.

Personally, I’d like to own an expensive and exotic
sports car like a Ferrari or Aston Martin some day -
but I’m not mad that they cost more than I want to pay.

It’s important to realize that there are many people
out there who can afford these programs and want the
type of content they contain.

Yes, they pay great commissions.

But they also serve a need for a segment of the
population.

Further, anyone who is creating their own products
would do well to realize that they should have
products at many different price levels so they can
fulfill the desires of people who want the best.

A few months ago I promoted Yanik Silver’s Underground
Online Seminar because I have been to all of them and
I know it is a great event. It is expensive, but I
feel it is worth it.

Yesterday, I had a phone call with a customer who
attended that seminar because of my recommendation. He
thanked me several times for introducing him to the
seminar because of the value he received and the
contacts he made.

The point is, there is a market for different products
at different prices. As an affiliate marketer, our ob
is to let our subscribers and blog readers know about
resources we think can help them.

If we’re smart, we tell them only about good products
that we personally endorse; and if we are smarter we
tell them about products in different price ranges
from freebies to the $1,000+ products.

You never know how much money your subscribers have or
what level of information they want.

Free traffic software

April 14th, 2008

I just found out about (and tried) some new software that helps you build traffic to your site. It automates a normally boring task - actually makes it fun.

If you have read about Search Engine Optimization at all, you know that building backlinks to your site is vital. And a great way to do that is by commenting on blogs that fit your niche. (Not to get too detailed, but they have to have nofollow tags to really count.) Finding targeted blogs with nofollow tags is a pain, or at least it was until I found this software.

http://www.commentkahuna.com/hightech

You can go and download the software for free. Watch the video if you want an explanation.

I know it is helping me now - I hope it will help you.

FTC regs on Testimonials

March 14th, 2008

I’ve been doing some research lately on U.S. legal requirements for using testimonials in your marketing.

Everyone should be familiar with these FTC guidelines.

There are some important requirements for testimonials that I see violated all the time.

Read the relevant info, especially DotCom Disclosures, found here:


FTC Information Page.

Also read this document specific to testimonials/endorsements:


FTC Testimonial Page.

And this overall FTC Guideline on Rules of the Road for Advertising and Marketing on the Internet


FTC Rules of the Road.

Remember that ignorance of the law is no excuse. It is your duty to know these laws and follow them. You don’t want trouble with the FTC.

TrafficJam.com - The Blog Post AllStars

February 20th, 2008

TrafficJam.com has just started serving up an allstar lineup of blog posts.

Based on the BlogRush widget (you can see an example of that on the right side of this page), TrafficJam provides a great way for bloggers and marketers to monitor popular blog posts in their specific niches.

It uses some unique technology to analyze millions of blog post title impressions, average click-rates, session times, and more to come up with it’s live ‘ranking’ system.

This is almost like a live headline testing lab. You see what blog headlines pull the most traffic.

You’ll discover new blogs, find resources to link to, and get ideas for content in your own blogs.

As TrafficJam gains popularity (and I think it will) getting a post to show up there can be worth huge traffic to your blog. After all, those are very specific and interested readers looking for posts in your niche.

To get ranked well, you need to be using the BlogRush network and you need to write good headlines that get clicked on by other BlogRush viewers. This is a very “natural” way to determine good blog posts.

New income stream for niche web sites

February 19th, 2008

I created this video with detailed instructions on using the power of eBay dynamic auctions to create autopilot income streams for virtually any niche. With dynamic auctions, you aren’t selling anything, but you make commissions when your visitors buy something from eBay.

Visit http://QuickieProfits.com - No charge.