Monday, October 30, 2006

Learn HTML and Other Basics

I found a terrific site just bursting with useful information for beginners.
It's called www.virtuallyignorant.com and it has info on topics ranging from choosing a domain name, hosting, building your site, affiliate marketing, advertising, autoresponders etc. etc.
Go check out this site. You won't be sorry.

Next, I found a nice site with an html tutorial. It teaches you the basics. I know that I would like to start understanding the code I see on my blogger template and my website templates which I'm working on. This is the place to learn it.
http://pagetutor.com/html_tutor/lesson01.html.

And don't say I never gave you good advice LOL.

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Sunday, October 29, 2006

More on Membership Sites

Ok, so everyone is talking about how membership sites are the way of the future (ho hum). So, everyone and his brother/sister is creating one. It's a great way to achieve monthly income.
Now, I, being the sucker that I am for anything FREE - sign up for almost every single internet marketing membership site that comes my way. But, I always sign up for the freebie and the chances are infintisimal (spelling??) that I will upgrade. If I were to upgrade on each site I wouldn't have money left for food each month!!!!!
What do you guys think? Does anybody actually pay membership at these sites?
Would you?
If you're also a sucker for freebies, here is the latest membership site I found advertised in my inbox. It's all about making "Net Infomercials".
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Thursday, October 26, 2006

Adsense Templates

I don't remember if I mentioned it but I bought Joel Comm's latest set of Adsense Templates (150 of them). I am about to put up my first site and I figured I would use one of his templates. That way, alot of the technical work would be done for me and I could concentrate on content.
Well, it appears that it's not so simple because Google isn't crazy about templates.
Today, I got a very interesting email from Michael Campbell, and because I think that the information is very valuable I am going to post the mail in its entirety here. Anyone interested in templates should read this:

Internet Marketing Secrets Newsletter
Issue #104 Thursday October 26 2006

How to Modify Your Templates

In issue 101 "Modify Your Templates or Suffer the
Consequences" we learned that HTML website templates,
especially the AdSense ones, must be modified before you
use them. They leave giant footprints that are easily detected
and penalized by Google's engineers.

The most frequently asked question (FAQ) after issue 101
was, how to modify the templates, or what to modify, to
prevent getting penalized. Here are your answers:

(Get issue #101 and the follow-up discussions on the IMS
blog, or download it from the IMS archives page.)

IMS Blog & Discussions ==> http://homepage.mac.com/dmcorp/

Archives ==> http://www.InternetMarketingSecrets.com/backissues.html

Or if you prefer the condensed "single paragraph" version of
what we discussed...

Google employees went through the process of looking at,
and evaluating, sites that had AdSense ads on them. Based on
what the humans did, they created an automated computerized
version, a Quality Control Robot to do the same thing.

This QualityBot now visits all your AdSense sites to ensure
they are not auto generated, scraped content, or low quality
templates. If it finds "off the rack" template sites, they are
given a low quality score, meaning that you get a lot less
money, every time someone clicks on one of the AdSense
ads that are displayed on your site.

So here's what you can do, to keep your revenues up.

= = = = =

IMS #104 - How to Modify Your AdSense Templates

The way that the "Template Filter" works, is based on the
"travel time" between elements. Or in other words, the
interval, or the measure of the distance between elements,
and how long each element occurs.

Perhaps a better way to understand the concept is with a
musical analogy.

All Western music is based on the 12 notes of the piano.
Yet there's millions of original songs... how can that be?
It's the intervals and durations of the notes that let you
recognize patterns. The Template Filter - that my geeky
buddies to as K1 - is similar.

If I walk up to any piano in the world - it doesn't matter
if I play in the Key of C, G, or F - and I go "1 1 5 5 6 6 5"
you'd instantly recognize Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
It's the same way that the K1 filter can recognize any
template in its database.

Even if your template has perfect HTML. Even if it complies
to W3.org standards with a valid Doctype and an ISO
statement, it still doesn't matter. That's just like saying
your piano is tuned and doesn't have any sour notes.

So what can we do, to make the Template Filter think our
template is playing an original tune? First off we have to
look at the obvious basics.

Take a look at your template. Is the background green?
Make it yellow. Is there a masthead at the top? Resize it.
Is your column width 700 pixels? Make it 720. Is your artwork
in a folder called art? Give it a new name. And for heavens
sakes, rename all the photos and include ALT text.

These are just a few things we can do to reduce the
footprint of the template. But these alone are not enough.
These are just the surface items and the real work remains
to be done. Afterall, we're looking for intervals here, the
measure of the distance, or travel time between elements.

The elements that make up a web page are things like
graphics and photos, hypertext links, headline tags like H2
& H3, paragraphs of text, anchors, bold, italic, bullets and
other types of lists, rules, tables and ad blocks. What we
need to do is change the order in which the elements appear.

So if you look at your template and you see the following
items... masthead, ad block, photo block, ad block,
paragraph, paragraph. You are singing Twinkle Twinkle
Little Star to the search engine's Template Filter.

To make the song of the template your own, do something
drastic like deleting the masthead. Start with H2 headline
text containing your keywords. Move the photo block up and
put an ad block underneath. Then move up the paragraph,
and add a second ad block under the first paragraph.

Remember that it's not just the notes or elements on the
page, its the intervals between the elements, and how long
each element lasts. Just by moving the elements around,
you've created your own original symphony. One that the
search engine has never heard before.

To be successful, you must vary your templates. Modify
them, until each one can stand on its own merit.

Remember, the goal is to convert customers for the
AdWords advertiser. If you do that, they'll keep advertising
on your AdSense site, and you'll earn way more per click.
Then everyone will be signing a happy tune.


That's it for this issue my friend. Thank you for reading.
We'll chat again soon. Until then, here's wishing you all
the best for online success.


Michael Campbell

P. S.

If you want to read more content just like this, click
to the IMS Blog for important news, reader comments
and answers to FAQs. I'll be posting them all there.

Recent posts to the IMS Blog include:

* Yes... AdSense is Alive... But Hold Your Horses!
* When in a Quandary... Where Do You Start?
* All Templates are Subject to "Quality Control" Filters.
* Getting Started with Affiliate Programs & Terminology.
* Clickin' it Rich Student Makes 1,000,000 in a Single Year!
* Are Mininets Still Effective? What About the Future?

IMS Blog ==> http://homepage.mac.com/dmcorp/

WebLink ==> Click



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Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Membership Sites

I don't know about you but I'm getting a little tired of all the "fantastic" offers in my inbox.
Yes, I'm guilty of opting in to various mailing lists and "newsletters" in order to receive a freebie. Subsequently I wind up with this jam packed inbox with so many offers, many of which are identical!! Especially when there is a big launch happening. Then, I get the same offer (almost) from many different people, each one offering his own bonuses. No surprise, by the way, when you see the prizes offered to the affiliates that bring in the most business. The most unique bonus I've seen so far is an electric scooter, delivered to any country in the world!

This week there were a few launches, one of which was the info blueprint program by Ken McCarthur. It actually LOOKS like a good program. He sounds very sincere in his sales copy and his bonuses alone are worth a fortune. The price, on the other hand is a bit steep. It's $1,497. Wow. Way out of my ballpark!

I have been fairly careful to stick with the very low priced items and the freebies. It's amazing how much information is available for free on the web!

Yesterday I joined a membership site all about PLR (Private Label Rebranding), which is the latest "rage" on the net. This site is run by Edmund Loh and Aurelius Tijn. The reason I joined is that I'm interested in learning all about PLR - what it is, what it's good for and how I can make money with it. I have so many PLR items gathering "dust" on my hard drive. Might as well find out what I can actually do with them.

If you are interested in a free membership you can join PLR Secrets Exposed.
You can listen to an interesting audio (or read it on a pdf file) which explains the whole concept. They also have a bunch of tutorial videos available (also for free).

The idea behind these membership sites is to get people to sign up for free and offer them value which will encourage them to upgrade their membership, thereby guaranteeing the site owner ongoing monthly income. This is the latest rage and you'll notice that everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. You also get the chance to earn money, of course, because each membership site offers you the opportunity to become and affiliate and then when someone you refer upgrades their membership - you can earn commissions.

Sunday, October 22, 2006

Product Launches Exposed - Free Report!

Check out this free report on Product Launches Exposed
Find out what big mistakes the gurus and the newbies made and
learn from them!!

Negative Product Reviews

Today I wanted to talk about honest reviews of products.
Everything is great when the review you want to write is a positive one. That way, you can write alot of positive stuff and stick in a few negative points, if there are any. That looks pretty sincere.
But what happens when you really don't like the product?
Do you just keep your mouth shut?
Do you just say what you feel if someone asks you directly?
Is it doing other people a favor by telling it like it is and possibly saving them money?

The other day I wrote something negative on this blog about a certain audio that was mailed to me by an internet "guru" as a promotion for a big launch.
I listened to the audio and I hated it.
I posted about it here on the blog and also in the Warrior Forum in a thread about the program.
Subsequently (that night) I felt very bad about posting it because in the post/thread I criticized the person who made the audio. Someone else on the thread gave a much more professional and all encompassing review of the actual product which he had checked out. I felt that maybe I had hurt the feelings of the person who made the audio and I apologized in a private mail and later on - publicly on the forum.

I also erased the post from this blog.

It seems that there is a fine line. On one hand, I want to voice my opinion and my disappointment in the product I received. On the other hand, just because this is the internet and I can't see the person I'm talking about doesn't give me license to say what I want. The internet is kind of like one big meeting room. If I say negative about someone in the "community" it's as though I attacked someone in the same big meeting room. Do you understand what I'm getting at?

So what's the answer? Just to keep quiet? Someone on the forum suggested that negative reviews can be sent to people in our list instead of broadcasting them on forums.
I dunno. Alot of people (including me) really appreciate reading honest and unbiased reviews.
In this world of internet marketing everyone seems busy washing each other's backs because we are all selling to each other and JV'ing with each other. It's downright incestuous...
What do YOU think?

Saturday, October 21, 2006

Feedblitz and New Picture

Hi All.
Please notice that in the righthand vertical bar there is a place to enter your email address. This is a service provided by Feedblitz which will enable you to get updates to your email whenever this blog is updated. Don't worry. I would never give your email away to anyone!!

Secondly, please notice that I put a new picture in my profile.

Thirdly, I'm too tired to write anymore. Tomorrow....

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

Domains and Hosting

Please congratulate me.
Today I registered my first domain name www.denagottlieb.com.
Watch out world!!!!

I'm not totally sure yet what I will do with the site with my own name, but one of the reasons I got it (besides "branding") is that it is a good idea to "cloak links". If you use your affiliate link people can steal your profits by replacing your affiliate code with their own. Also, sometimes when someone sees an affiliate link they would prefer that you not get your commission and will go access the site without using your link. It also just looks a heck of a lot nicer and more aesthetic to have a short, professional looking link.

Here is an example of an ugly affiliate link:
http://www.myinstantatm.com?aff=14232

Here is an example of a nice short link:
http://denagottlieb.com/recommends.

Isn't that so much nicer?

If you are interested in a whole article and audio about the importance of link cloaking leave me a comment and I'll send it to you.


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Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Michael Rasmussen's "Email Promos Exposed" Video Series: How to Write Killer Email Promos That Get Results!

As you may know by now, I am a sucker for freebies. The latest one is a set of 8 videos about email promotion.

Have you ever been faced with the task of having
to write an email promotion to your list, and
then realized that you didn't know what to say or
how to say it?

Michael Rasmussen's new video course "Email
Promos Exposed" promises to solve that problem
for you by walking you through the actual process
of creating killer email promos step-by-step.

*************************************************
If you're in a hurry, just go ahead visit here to get instant free access to these videos. I decided to see if Michael's videos live up to
their promise by trying them out myself. Here's
what I found:

*************************************************
Overall Quality
*************************************************

The first thing I noticed when I opened up the
first video was the stunning production quality.
He used Camtasia Studio for the production, which
is now the industry standard for creating
high-quality screen capture video products. The
audio is near studio quality, and the graphics
are very professional. These videos were made by
someone who KNOWS what he's doing. Well done!

I also liked how Michael divided the videos up by
section, and then again by sub-section. For
example, one video is all about the subject line,
and then there are different parts of that video
that each cover a certain area of crafting a
killer subject line.

Now let's move onto...

*************************************************
THE ACTUAL VIDEOS
*************************************************

Here's a brief summary of each video. Obviously
it's impossible to list every single thing here,
but I want you to get a feel for what each one
covered, and how well it covered it.

*************************************************
If you want, just go ahead visit here to get instant free access to these videos:

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

VIDEO 1 - INTRODUCTION

This video served as an introduction to the whole
course. You get to see a picture of Michael in
his every day life, and he establishes his
credibility right up front by talking about some
of his massive successes online. He even provides
proof of credibility by displaying two checks in
the amount of $50,000 and $25,000 which prove
that, when it comes to the subject of making
money with email promos, he knows his stuff.

This is a good lesson for anyone to get. Whenever
you're teaching people how to do something, it's
good to establish your credibility up front, so
that there's no doubt about whether or not you're
qualified to talk about the subject. Most product
developers either skip or minimize this step.

VIDEO 2 - BEFORE YOU WRITE THE PROMO

This video talks about some things that no other
marketer has bothered to mention. You'll learn
things like:

* The mindset you need in order to write a killer
promo

* The different tools you need before you get
started

* How to keep your emails laser-focused

* How to create an outline that practically
writes the email for you.

This was a fantastic video, and did a good job of
kicking things off.

VIDEO 3 - THE SUBJECT LINE

The subject line is a confusing topic, because nobody's 100%
sure what the best tactics are.

Michael breaks it down, and reveals:

* The biggest secret for writing a subject line
that makes people insanely curious.

* Techniques for personalizing the subject line.

* Mistakes to avoid when using personalization.

VIDEO 4 - THE OPENING

This is where a lot of people slack off when
writing their emails. Michael talks about how
important it is to create an opening that is
conversational, and then reveals techniques and
examples on how to do that.

He also reveals:

* How to get people to keep reading your email
once they've opened it.

* How to make your opening interesting.

* Mistakes to avoid when creating your first few
paragraphs.

VIDEO 5 - THE BODY COPY

This is one of the "meatiest" portions of the
course, because it reveals techniques that are
not widely discussed on the forums, blogs, and in
most eBooks. He talks about the importance of
keeping your body copy tight and relevant, and
then reveals how you can do that. You'll also
learn:

* How to write powerful bullets that make people
curious and want to find out more.

* Simple formatting tricks for making your body
copy easy to read.

* The secret of "bucket brigade copy" and how to
use it in your email promos to force people to
keep reading.

VIDEO 6 - THE CALL TO ACTION

This is where a lot of people wimp out in their
email promos. They start out strong, but when it
comes time to ask the reader to click the link
and take action, they don't know what to say.
Michael talks about some of his favorite
techniques for making that happen, and also
reveals:

* The "magic question" to ask yourself that will
make your close much more powerful.

* The secret of the "unanswered question" and why
handling this is a surefire way to get people to
act right away.

* The structure of a powerful close.

* Mistakes people make when creating their close.

VIDEO 7 - CREATING AN EFFECTIVE P.S.

Some people say that the P.S. is one of the most
important parts of the email, because it is often
the one thing that gets people to click the link
at the end. In this video, Michael talks about:

* Why you should including a P.S. at the end of
your email.

* The 4 different kinds of P.S.'s you can use
(this section was a real eye-opener for me).

VIDEO 8 - COMMON MISTAKES PEOPLE MAKE

Unless you're a seasoned pro, you're
probably guilty of some of the things that
Michael talks about in this video as well, and
that's why it's so valuable. I've shaved years
off my learning curve, because now I can avoid
some of the costly mistakes that I was bound to
make in the learning process.

VIDEO 9 - HOW TO CREATE FOLLOW-UP EMAIL PROMOTIONS

This video alone is going to make me a lot of
money. Why? Michael showed me in this video how
important it is to send a follow-up promotion,
and he showed me exactly how to do it. He covered
things like:

* The psychology of follow-up email promo's.

* The 2 main types of follow-up promos that make
the most money.

* How to overcome readers' objections in your
follow up emails.

* The 2 most common mistakes people make when
writing follow-ups and how to avoid them.

VIDEO 10 - HOW TO WRITE BACK END EMAIL PROMOTIONS

Every marketing guru out there says that the REAL
money is on the back end. I'd have to agree with
them, but the problem is... most people have no
idea how to set up a back end system that makes
money. This video will teach you how to set up an
automated back end that's loaded with killer
promos that make you lots of cash on autopilot.
He reveals things like:

* The big difference between regular and back end
email promos.

* How to prepare a back end promotion sequence.

* Common mistakes people make when creating back
end email promos.

VIDEO 11 - CREATING AFFILIATE EMAIL PROMOTIONS

This could be the most important video of the
entire package for a lot of people, because most
people email their list to promote other people's
products as an affiliate. Let's face it, if you
only have 3 products, can you really afford to
only email your list 3 times a year? They'll get
bored hearing about the same old products over
and over again. This video sheds some light on
how to create killer affiliate promos. Michael
reveals things like:

* The two main types of affiliate promos.

* What makes affiliate promos different than
regular promos (and why ignoring this huge secret
could cost you big money).

* Michael's favorite tactics for creating
affiliate promos that no one else is doing.

* 3 different ways to add scarcity to your
affiliate promos (this is the most important
section of the video, so make sure you watch it
over and over again).

*************************************************
CONCLUSION
*************************************************

As you can see, Email Promos Exposed really packs
a lot of punch! Most of the courses out there
offer only watered down, weak content. Not this
one! These videos are going on my "A-list" for a
long time.

I plan on reviewing them every couple months
to make sure that I have the principals, techniques and
tactics burned into my mind.

If email marketing is an important part of your
business (and in my opinion, it's the most
important part of ANY online business), then you
owe it to yourself to check out Michael's
exciting new videos, Email Promos Exposed.

Get instant free access to the videos right now.


Monday, October 16, 2006

Listbuilding

I received a very nice (isn't "nice" a great word?) about list building. I really liked the content of the video. It's about 12 minutes long a worth a watch/listen. List Building video.
I listen to stuff before I send it out!!!! Admittedly, there is a splash page after the video which tries to sell you software which helps build your opt in boxes. It looks good to me and I would like to purchase it but I'm not ready for it yet.

Saturday, October 14, 2006

Free Advertising Report

Check out this Free Advertising Report. I'm a sucker for anything that's free (and that I can make money from).

Joel Comm's Adsense Templates

Boy, it's been a busy week for me. Not on the internet!
It's been the holiday of Sukkot and I have been busy with my kids for the whole week.
That's why I haven't posted.
But, I'm back and with a vengeance.

One thing I did do this week is make my first BIG purchase. I went and bought Joel Comm's
New Adsense Templates.
With all the talk going on about whether Adsense is dead or not, I came to the conclusion that any guy who makes almost $24,000 a month from Adsense must know something about the topic. His product had so many glowing reports that I decided to go for it.

What I will be getting (he sent it in the mail because it's too big to download) is 150 templates, each one in 5 different formats: HTML, HyperVRE, Wordpress, XsitePro and phpBB (forums). I plan to take one template and go "all the way" with it. This forces me to choose a niche from the 150.

Most of the technical work is done for me and I will be able to concentrate on content and driving traffic to the site.

By the way, there were a zillion bonuses that came along with the package, one of which is his book that sells for $97. He included 400 PLR (Private Label Rights) articles, a book on creating content, 10 "squeeze pages" for the niche sites (to help build a list), a squeeze page success guide, a web traffic suite of e-books, a Clickbank text ads generator and other stuff that I can't be bothered to add here. It's a huge package it'll be hard to get a handle on it all. But I'm sure that if I focus I will do good work with it and start seeing profits from Adsense.

By the way, to date, after 2 months (without Joel Comm) I have made a big $14 from Adsense on this blog.....

In case you're curious to know if Adsense is really alive(and you should be) here is a list of the top Adsense earners. It boggles the mind...

Thursday, October 05, 2006

Flash: Adsense is Alive!!!

Ok. So Scott Boulch did an amazing marketing trick and said something really controversial in order to get zillions of people to sign in to his list. Now he has this HUGE list of subscribers that he can sell to. Pretty clever.

Joel Comm, a real Adsense guru, just released this report which is a complete rebuttal of the Adsense is Dead report. He does a darn good job of explaining it too.
It's free and I recommend that you read it.
Here is the link: Adsense is Alive .
Joel makes about $26,000 a month from Adsense. Wow. Hard to fathom. I would tend to go with HIS version...

By the way, if you download the free Adsense is Alive report Joel will also give you a free report on generating traffic. Grab it!

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

Stompernet - Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon

Well, well, well, the wait is over. Stompernet has finally been launched.
The price is over $800 A MONTH. How do you like that?
Some people look at it as $26 a day and therefore - worth it.
That price is a biiiiiiiiiiit steep for me and I'll have to take a pass on it.

Of course, I was right about The Rich Jerk. All his nonsense and cursing
at "Brandy" were just a marketing ploy to draw attention to Stompernet.
He was the first guy I got emails from, promoting the program. He offered
a whacky bonus to whomever bought the program through his affiliate link.
He offered a free "ticket" to participate in his next infomercial. Whatever
floats your boat, I guess...

All the "big" gurus were trying to get me to buy in through their link.
Mike Filsaime, John Reese, Cody Moya and many more. It's a little hard to
trust a guru's opinion of a program when it's clear that they have a vested
interest in you buying through their link.

Which, is the problem with the whole affiliate marketing thing. There is so
much "incest" going on between all the different marketers. They all sell to
each other and promote each other's products. You don't really know who to
trust anymore!!! I wish I knew the answer. There really isn't one.

I actually do believe that Stompernet is a good program. Not quite sure if it's
worth all that money though... What do YOU think?

Tuesday, October 03, 2006

More on Search Engine Optimization

It's crucial to learn good methods to get your site to the top of the search engines. If someone does a search on a keyword and your site comes up on the 100th or 1000th page, what's the point? Who is going to scroll so far? The trick is to come up on the first page, people. And, apparently, it's possible!!

A while back I gave you a link to those free videos on SEO by Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins.
Now you can find them and more at www.stomperblog.com.
These two very busy bees are now busy getting ready for their big launch today (I think). They have been doing so much pre-selling and already have a HUUUUGE mailing list of people like me that signed up for the free videos. No doubt it will cost a small fortune to join after they launch their offering....

On a side note, I don't know if you have been following their pre-launch marketing, but the Rich Jerk has been sending out some really obnoxious emails about this. He claims they stole his ideas etc. etc. and does alot of "badmouthing" about them. At the same time, he keeps sticking their links in his emails. From which I (oh so cleverly...) deduce that he is their affiliate and he is just doing a very clever job of marketing. His shtick is being obnoxious and using lots and lots of profanity. I guess it works from him.

Back to SEO, I found some nice marketing videos on the subject. They are done by Mike Pollock and he is very clear and concise on the videos. No "uhms". He also offers some samples of freebies on his site. So, you may want to check out the free ones before you spend money. I watched the free one about SEO and it was excellent. I haven't dished out yet for the ones that cost money! Even if you don't buy them now, you can bookmark them for a later date when you are ready to optimize your site. They look really good.

Brad Callen's free course on Search Engine Optimization
If you haven't done so yet please go HERE and sign up for your free 7 day course on SEO with Brad Callen. He really knows his stuff and he's giving it away for free. This is one of the best resources on the internet.