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Does it get tiresome to you to go from blog to blog only to read that they’re giving away 1,000 Entrecard credits or having a big contest if only you will subscribe to their feed, post the contest everywhere, Stumble Upon them, Technorati, Digg, Reddit and del.icio.us them.

Yeah, I know contests are a great way to drive some traffic and get subscribers and all that, but it just seems that when a blogosphere idea gets a foothold, everyone does it nearly simultaneously. It lacks originality and gets boring to read one contest hype after another. I think if I ever do decide to have a contest, I’ll give away something interesting … instead of Entrecard credits, maybe a blind date with Johnny Depp or Jessica Alba, depending on your preferences. But until I get that lined up ….

I promise you that I am not going to bribe you with anything to read my blog.

Nothing up my sleeves, no snake oil promises … just content. I am going to provide quality content. I will put a piece of myself into what I write and write openly and honestly. Hopefully, you’ll learn something or get some value from my words. That is my promise.

Photo Credit           Read my latest post, Liars, Thieves and Scoundrels at Dot Com Mogul.

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One thing you don’t hear talked about very often in affiliate marketing is ethics. There is a sleazy underbelly in the affiliate marketing industry. For every good thing said about affiliate marketing, there are many more negative things said. Affiliate marketing is an enormous business. Most prominent businesses on the internet use some form of affiliate program today. So how can it have such a bad reputation?

Affiliate marketing is a highly competitive business and many affiliate marketers resort to cut throat methods of making sales. In addition, some of the companies are frauds. You’ve heard it before, I’m sure … “get rich overnight with little or no work on your part.” Using trickery and deceptive promises isn’t a good way to build your reputation or a sustainable online business. Every business owner knows you have to work hard and invest time to gain real results.

In addition, some affiliate marketers use such methods as cookie stuffing and, as in the example screenshot of Blackmaskmarketing (now taken down), outright theft of commissions that were rightfully earned by another marketer. Little wonder that affiliate marketing is a dirty word to some, with landing pages like that one available. This was being sold with resell rights and already Google had tons of scammers hawking it.

Just because you’re on the Internet and can often work anonymously, doesn’t mean you give up your moral compass. Build your relationships as if you were face to face. Sell products that give value to your customers. Lies, deceit and trickery are not the way to build a good reputation or a sustainable business. It might be good for a fast buck and I know that is all some affiliate marketers are looking for, but if you’re building something more, hard work and honesty will go farther to achieving your long term goals. Set a good example and mentor others to help them achieve their goals, and in return you will be successful yourself.

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Promote your business, service or website on iMoondo.com with your own live webcam show for free.

iMoondo.com: Free video classifieds — if you have a service or business to promote, you can have your own online channel, and since you are one of the first participants, the service will be free.

* What’s in it for you? Enhance your online presence free of cost
* Ability to interact with customers directly who are not able to be at your location.
* Free step-by-step assistance that will help you set everything up in a matter of minutes.
* All you will need to get started is your own webcam, and we will show you how to get started.
* Turn your low foot-traffic hours into high internet-traffic hours.

Who is iMoondo.com? The most highly trafficked video classified site on the web that has been featured in The Boston Globe, BBC NEWS, The Wall Street Journal and The L.A Times.

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One of the top ways of monetizing websites is lead generation. Here’s how it works. Becoming a CPA affiliate is fairly simple. You sign up with numerous CPA Networks, drive traffic to the custom landing pages they provide or make your own landing pages, and get paid whenever a site visitor fills out and submits a form. One of the best ways to drive traffic to your CPA Offers is through PPC program like Adwords or Yahoo.CPA networks are clearinghouses bringing advertisers and publishers together. The advertisers provide custom landing pages and forms, pays the network commission for making it available to affiliates, and affiliates are paid for driving traffic and generating signups.

CPA stands for “cost per action.” The action is the site visitor filling out the form. Compared to traditional affiliate marketing, it is often a much easier and more lucrative way to monetize a website.

Traditional affiliates have a tougher job. They have to get the traffic, presell the product, and send visitors to the vendor through an affiliate link, hoping to generate something like 1% to 5% sales. Conversions are highly dependent on the vendor’s sales letter and product. If the vendor does a poor job of selling, or has an overpriced or poorly received product, the affiliate has spent a lot of time, and perhaps money, for very little return. Read the rest of this entry »

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FROM: JOHNCHOW.COM: Misleading Credit Pricing
Something that Entrecard needs to work on is its pricing system. For the longest time, I was the most expensive blog in the network. Now I’m not even on page one. This is because of members mass dropping cards in order to inflate their price and build up their credits. The current number one site cost 466 credits per day but has only 72 RSS readers (he wisely removed the FeedBurner count from his blog).This gaming of the system is making it hard to tell which sites will deliver traffic and which sites won’t send anything. I wouldn’t spend 466 credit to advertise on a blog with only 72 RSS readers but all his spots are sold. People think high price equal quality but for many Entrecard member sites, that is not the case. Until Entrecard figures out a way to prevent gaming of their system, you should check out the site more to prevent having your hard earned credits wasted.Get 200 Entrecard Credits

Entrecard allows me to send any credit amount I want to another Entrecard user. So, the first 35 Entrecard users who writes a recommendation for me will each get 200 credit add to his account. That’s still not enough to buy a spot on this blog but it’ll get you a lot closer. You don’t have to use the credit to advertise on my blog - feel free to use it to buy space on any of the 2,500 blogs in the Entrecard system. In order to write a recommendation and get the 200 credits, you need to be an Entrecard member.

John Chow, of all people to complain about gaming the system, is doing exactly that. While bribing people with a measly 200 Entrecard credits to give him an Entrecard review, he bemoans the fact that he is no longer on the front page of Entrecard for his category. He belittles the higher priced blogs that are on the front page by speculating that they are just worthless mass card droppers and that your points are better spent on a “quality” splog like his. I recently read one blogger who paid for an ad on Chow and received a whopping 43 visitors from the ad. Whoooop didooooo … 43 visitors.

In reality, the leaders of the category “Making Money Online” are some hard working dedicated bloggers who post quality content and work hard to drive traffic to their blogs as opposed to such banal content as what they had to eat today or bribes for Entrecard recommendations. In the top 3 listings are the likes of Problogger, one of the top blogs on the Net, famous for it’s quality content.

Of course, John is no stranger to gaming the system. Bitch Slapped by Google, banned by Digg and Technorati, John is a Master Gamer. Gaming the system only seems to bother him when the tables are turned and someone else is on top. See also: John Chow Buys Comments | Evil Blog Promotion Ideas | Evil Blog Contest | John Chow Stuffs Cookies — Pretty obvious that Chow’s evil gaming methods have made his blog popular rather than quality content.

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Main Entry: mogul
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: owner
Synonyms: VIP*, baron, beef, big cheese, big gun, big shot, big wheel, czar, executive, key player*, king, kingpin, lord, magnate, merchant, prince, notable, personage, potentate, prince, royalty, sachem, top brass*, tycoon
Source: Roget’s New Millennium™ Thesaurus, First Edition (v 1.3.1)

I have participated in a lot of “make money online” forums and one thing I’ve noticed is that when the newbies come in, some fresh from reading a “get rich quick” type of ebook such as the Rich Jerk ebook or others, they are still completely clueless as to what it is they want to accomplish and how they will get there. They’ve been sold a bill of goods … the “make money online while you’re sleeping” bill of goods, and they’ve swallowed it hook, line and sinker.

You can see the amateurish looking little splogs they throw together and release into cyberspace, and then they sit and wait for the dollars to start rolling in. After as little as a few days after their “big launch,” they begin to ask questions in the forum like …. “my site is up, where’s the money?” They’ve fallen into the trap of putting yet another review splog together, thrown a few banners onto it and they’re ready to be the next Dot Dom Mogul.

Perhaps some of these are just really lazy people who are looking to make money without putting much effort into it, but a lot of them have been sold this dream of “easy money” and honestly believe it. Just look at the title and domain of the blog I created when I first got into Internet Marketing and I fell for the same crap. Now I’m stuck with the domain. I’ve got a pagerank 3 and my Alexa rating is on the rise, so I don’t want to just abandon all that.

These Get Rich Quick gurus are gaming you. If you are a newbie and anxious to achieve Dot Com Mogul status or at least just make a ton of money, the hard reality of it is that like any other job, blogging for bucks or Internet Marketing is work and it takes time to build a successful online business. So … who am I anyway? Am I a Dot Com Mogul that carries authority and someone you should believe? Read the rest of this entry »

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The latest buzz word in marketing is “Conversation Marketing.” Without ever hearing about conversation marketing until recently, this is the way that I prefer to get a message out about something that I’m endorsing or yes … if you want to hear the dirty word … selling. The phrase that really stood out in my mind was “All marketing is a conversation.”

“The awful truth about marketing is that it broadcasts messages to people who don’t want to listen…. much of business communication is written in contrived and artificial language, supposedly designed to impress, but actually signaling just how impersonal the firm and its professionals are.”

I see so many of the long, hypey big red lettered sales letters and still wonder how that type of marketing can be successful. I know that many “gurus” use them and make money, but in my opinion, you aren’t reaching a large part of the market through this method of communication. Basically, you’re reaching an audience who is looking for a “dream in a box” solution and willing to believe anything that promises that.

To me … and maybe it’s just me, I find those type of sales letters to be more annoying than persuasive. It’s packaged marketing, spoken in a fake voice and often uses scare tactics and unfounded promises to reel their customers in. Many marketers see marketing as a one-sided dialogue … nothing more than a propaganda campaign. This type of marketing rarely answers any questions I might have about the product.

The marketer that is able to reach his market in a real voice and engage his audience in a two-way dialogue is the marketer who is going to be able to build trust and relationships that convert into sales. In the offline world of marketing, where you meet your prospective clients, you have a greater opportunity to employ Conversational Marketing. Instead of giving yet another boring presentation, you can have a question and answer session. In a personal one-on-one presentation, you can give your prospects a handout and then instead of launching into a one-way dialogue of your capabilities and contract issues, see if you can engage your prospect in a conversation to determine what his problems and needs are. Read the rest of this entry »

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I’m a bit disappointed in the services that are available to help bloggers sell their “real estate.” When I first began blogging, I ran across all the paid review services and applied to them. In the beginning, I was promptly told that my blog did not meet their rigorous quality criteria. Well, now it does and I’ve been accepted into all of them. However, the problem I am now finding is that their advertisers don’t meet my rigorous quality criteria … with my main gripe being … they are cheapos.

Going to PayPerPost to the available opportunities for a blog that hasn’t acquired A-list status yet, I find review after review for $5-$10. The graphic to the left is today’s “Featured” opportunities. The $35 one requires that your blog be at least a pagerank 5 — ha ha ha —. Are they not aware of the Google slap that stripped some of the top blogs of a lot of their pagerank? And do they think that an A-list blog will review them for $35? Not likely. Quite simply, I’m not going to do an in-depth review of someone else’s product or website for 5 bucks. That isn’t the way I want to position this blog. I spend a lot of time writing content and a paid review is not exception. My last paid review was 450 words with two graphics and numerous backlinks to pages within the site. It is well written and I had to research the site and company before writing about it. It’s on another blog I write, but I was paid $25 for it and that is acceptable to me. I can live with that at this time, but if these companies think they’ll get that level of attention for a measly 5 bucks, it won’t be here. You also cannot list more than one blog until you’ve accepted and completed 10 reviews. I’m also limited to 10 reviews per month …. hahahahahahahahahahahah … I seriously doubt that I’ll find ten reviews a month that I’m interested in. Read the rest of this entry »

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The secret’s out!

What would you say if I told you how to get free publicity, targeted traffic and more sales for your online endeavors? It’s instant, easy and affordable.

How? With well-written articles, distributed to content-hungry web publishers for reprint. Your article’s “About the Author” box builds your expertise in the field, and builds backlinks to your website.

The viral effect of distrituting your content across cyberspace is unparalleled in the field of internet marketing.

An Adaptive Marketing Plan

The advantage of article marketing is that a marketing campaign can be implemented on the fly. It’s as simple as writing a new article. And with an unlimited subscription to an article distribution service such as Article Marketer, there is no further cost. Let me repeat that — no further cost to target an entirely new market niche.

By going with the flow of the market, a affiliate is in a better position to exploit these unexpected marketing opportunities. Identify a trend, write an article, and capture that moment of perfect relevance. This kind of “in real time” marketing can enhance your current article marketing plans perfectly. Experts recommend submitting two articles per category per week for the most impact and greatest benefit. Keep a close ear to the heartbeat of popular trends in your specific industry, and be able to spot trends and identify potential changes at a moment’s notice. My article on Cashing in Google’s Hot Trends is perfect example of “going with the flow” of market trends.

If you see a new niche for your business, begin a new article marketing campaign. Always keep an open mind when it comes to your article marketing plan. The market can be volatile, constantly changing, and full of surprises. This is what makes affiliate marketing so exciting! And, it’s what makes article marketing such an efficient, and affordable, way to keep on top of the market.

I just launched a new Article Directory … Article Buzz … specializing in high quality free content for your website, ezine or newsletter.

Writers

WE NEED ARTICLES! Brand new and just opened the doors today.

Share your knowledge and expertise and promote yourself, products or services at the same time. Simply register and then submit your articles. We’ll promote your free articles to all of our Publishers and Webmasters.

Publishers

Do you need quality free content for your ezines and blogs. You’ll find it here. All free articles are reviewed and approved by our Quality Control Editors before you ever see it. You can be sure that the free content and articles you get will meet your high standards of acceptance. All free articles are available in Text or HTML format.

Webmasters

Need good quality free articles to build or add on to your website? No problem at all. We off quality free articles and Free Article RSS Feeds so you can do less work and still provide great free content for your visitors. Visit Article Buzz today.

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