Now the site which I devote the majority of my time to is a blog and website which is mostly devoted to canine advocacy.  Not a subject that most people are into.  It’s what you would definitely call a highly specialized niche but it’s where my heart and passion lie so it’s east for me to be diligent and devote time to that every day.  The reason I bring this up is two-fold, one, when you do something that is important to you, it’s easy to stick with it and two, when you do something important to you and you put your time and effort into it, it show.

I started that site, Pet Lovers Tip - For the Love of the Dog, short of two years ago and it has steadily grown.  It’s not huge, it’s not fancy and it is quite specialized but I get almost 50K unique visitors a month.  That’s not a lot by some standards but for what it is, it’s pretty good.

There are over 2000 posts and more than 6600 comments since March of 2007.

I admit it, I’m very proud of what I’ve done there because it’s something I care about.

The thing is, anyone can do something like that if they just devote the time and effort to it.  What do you want to do?  What are you interested in?  What is the bottom line for you?

I’ve read and researched just about every facet on Internet Marketing and continue to do because, as a topic itself, it interests me.  Depending on who and what you read, you will find divergent opinions on what to do online.  Some say follow your passion, others say follow the money.  I say that you can do both.  It may be a little more difficult depending on what your “passion” is but you will seldom get bored with it.

I admit, I have a bunch of websites and blogs out there on “money” topics, niches that everyone says “that’s where the money is” but it didn’t take long for me to get bored and abandon them.  The interest and passion wasn’t there.  So of course I didn’t make any money on them… LOL  In someone elses hand they might do great.  Sure, some people can do it but I think the people who can do something they don’t care about day in and day are are actually far and few between.

So my advice is this, find something you love, something you really care about abd have a passion for and just do it!  Put every ounce of your dedication and determination and perseverence into it and you will be rewarded for your efforts, with traffic, devoted readers and followers and much more!

Just because I haven’t been working this blog doesn’t mean I haven’t been working online.  I have numerous projects in the works and of course me main site, which is a ‘little’ niche blog and website to which I actually devote the majority of my time.

So if you’ve visited before and wondered where I went and what happened, well, nothing, just too much to do and too many directions, the bane of many internet marketers. So let’s just pick up and move on from here…..

When you search for a particular keyword or a phrase, most of the search engines return a list of page in order of the number of times the keyword or phrase appears on the website. Google web search technology involves the use of its indigenously designed Page Rank Technology and hypertext-matching analysis which makes several instantaneous calculations undertaken without any human intervention. Google’s structural design also expands simultaneously as the internet expands.

Page Rank technology involves the use of an equation which comprises of millions of variables and terms and determines a factual measurement of the significance of web pages and is calculated by solving an equation of 500 million variables and more than 3 billion terms. Unlike some other search engines, Google does not calculate links, but utilizes the extensive link structure of the web as an organizational tool. When the link to a Page, let’s say Page B is clicked from a Page A, then that click is attributed as a vote towards Page B on behalf of Page A.

It is the power to act effectively using existing knowledge, money or something else in a manner that results in a chain reaction of greater success. For example, using the same effort to find joint venture partners and affiliates could end up in multiple sales rather than one sale at a time.

You first need to determine the tasks that you need to concentrate on to build your own business and determine what actions are needed to achieve these tasks.

Then think of ways that you can incorporate leverage into these tasks to make sure your actions are as effective as possible.

If you look at the reality of things, you are never going to get anywhere very fast if you decide to take on every business task yourself, in fact you are likely to get bogged down very fast, so the way to leverage this is to outsource.

You can only manage so many actions a day - you must decide what you are best at and outsource the rest.

Now to begin with, you may not be able to afford to pay other people to do things for you. To deal with this, see if you can get your friends, family or neighbors to help you, you can return the favor at a later date when you are rolling in it!

If you don’t know anyone who can help, then you are going to have to, excuse the phrase, network your ass off!

You can do this by networking on forums, searching on the Internet for people owning related websites, browsing social networking sites and emailing your favorite marketers for advice. Get to know people, build relationships with them; you never know what the outcome will be unless you try.

The art of leverage can also be used to build your traffic, as mentioned earlier finding joint ventures and affiliates are ways of getting more traffic to your site with the same effort as going for one sale. Continuing to contact people on a daily basis, offering your assistance, support and friendship will build mutually satisfying relationships that alone could help multiply your income ten-fold!

Remember you can leverage actions to get good results but leveraging excuses isn’t going to get you anywhere.

For more ways you can leverage your actions to get your own six figure salary, visit Post Launch Profits for a free ebook that both expands your mind and profits.

Do the the past influx of unsolicited email from unscrupulous marketers, we now have to deal with CAN-SPAM legalities and spam filters which will quickly trash the email we send if we don’t do it just right and there’s also the problem of serious legal problems as well.

Here’s a bit on the CAN-Spam act of 2003 from Wikipedia:

The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 (15 U.S.C. 7701, et seq., Public Law No. 108-187, was S.877 of the 108th Congress), signed into law by President Bush on December 16, 2003, establishes the United States’ first national standards for the sending of commercial e-mail and requires the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to enforce its provisions. The acronym CAN-SPAM derives from the bill’s full name: Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003. This is also a play on the usual term for unsolicited email of this type, spam. The bill was sponsored in Congress by Senators Conrad Burns and Ron Wyden.

Basically the bill permits e-mail marketers to send unsolicited commercial e-mail as long as it adheres to 3 basic types of compliance defined in the CAN-SPAM Act: unsubscribe, content and sending behavior compliance:

Unsubscribe Compliance:

• A visible and operable unsubscribe mechanism is present in all emails.
• Consumer opt-out requests are honored within 10 days.
• Opt-out lists also known as suppression lists are only used for compliance purposes.

Content Compliance:

• Accurate from lines (including “friendly froms”)
• Relevant subject lines (relative to offer in body content and not deceptive)
• A legitimate physical address of the publisher and/or advertiser is present.
• A label is present if the content is adult.

Sending Behavior Compliance:

• A message can not be sent through an open relay
• A message can not be sent to a harvested email address
• A message can not contain a false header

Note that falsifying header information is a serious violation of the CAN-SPAM Act and generally is an indicator of criminal or malicious intent which can bring the attention of other law enforcement agencies besides the FTC, including but not limited to the FBI, DOJ and US Postal Inspectors.

The content is exempt if it consists of:

• religious messages;
• political messages;
• content that broadly complies with the marketing mechanisms specified in the law; or
• national security messages.

There are no restrictions against a company emailing its existing customers or anyone who has inquired about its products or services, as this constitutes a “prior relationship” under CAN-SPAM.

If a user opts out, a sender has ten days to cease sending and can only use that email address for compliance purposes. The legislation also prohibits the sale or other transfer of an e-mail address after an opt-out request. The law also requires that the unsubscribe mechanism “must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days”.

There’s more and you can read it at the FTC.

Now that we’ve covered that basic of the CAN-SPAM Act which really isn’t a problem for ethical marketers, we also run against the problem of ’spam filters.’ Spam filters watch for certain words, symbols and the combination thereof and decide whether your email is spam or legitimate.

The following list I came across among my notes and it lists problem words, characters and combinations that you need to be especially concerned with. (can’t remember where the list came from, sorry… if anyone knows, please drop me a line and let me know so that I can attribute it)

• First 8 characters of the From address are digits
• Subject contains “advertisement” or “adv”
• Body contains “money back”
• Body contains “cards accepted”
• Body contains “spam removal instructions”
• Body contains “extra income”
• Subject contains “!” AND Subject contains “$”
• Subject contains “!” AND Subject contains “free”
• Body contains “,000″ AND Body contains “!!” AND Body contains “$”
• Body contains “Dear friend”
• Body contains “for free?”
• Body contains “for free!”
• Body contains “Guarantee” AND Body contains “satisfaction” OR “absolute”
• Body contains “more info” AND Body contains “visit ” AND Body contains “$”
• Body contains “SPECIAL PROMOTION”
• Body contains “one-time mail”
• Subject contains “$$”
• Body contains “$$$”
• Body contains “order today”
• Body contains “order now!”
• Body contains “money-back guarantee”
• Body contains “100% satisfied”
• To address contains “friend@”
• To address contains “public@”
• To address contains “success@”
• From address contains “sales@”
• From address contains “success.”
• From address contains “success@”
• From address contains “mail@”
• From address contains “@public”
• From address contains “@savvy”
• From address contains “profits@”
• From address contains “hello@”
• Body address contains “m-l-m”
• Body address contains “@m-l-m”
• Body address contains “///////////////”
• Body contains “check or money order”
• Body contains “click here” or “click below” (try using “visit here” instead)

No doubt this is not a complete list.  I know that you can add ‘no cost’ and ‘no charge’ as triggers too.

I’m on quite a number of email lists and of course have my own lists and I have seen some creative ways around using some of the ‘key’ words, especially ‘free’. 

One of the best things that you can do is to make sure that when your subscribers sign up, you tell them to ‘whitelist’ your email address.  Most of the time this takes care of any problems.

Another thing is to use an autoresponder service that will automatically ’spam check’ you email.  I know that Aweber does this because this is the service I use.  Everytime I write an email is gives me a numerical score to let me know where I am sitting in relation to possibly spam problems.  It points out the specific problem areas so that I can fix them.

Anyway, this was your little info lesson on some of the hazards of email marketing problems you need to be aware.  Bottom line, just follow the rules, watch your wording and you’ll do fine.

One more thing, something that many online marketers have gone to is publishing their ezines or newsletters online rather than sending via email.  They will just send an email and say the latest issue has been published with a link to it.  This works great and is something I have used in the past so that’s a quick and easy way around everything.  The biggest drawback I have found with this is that sometimes people want their info now and don’t feel like clicking on links to go get it so often the click thru rates may not be optimal.

Good luck emailing!

What’s the catch? Actually there really is no catch at all.  They’re releasing a new version so they’re giving away the older version of Camtasia, Camtasia 3, for FREE and offering the upgrade at half price for the upsell.

Personally I didn’t get the upgrade, although $149 for a $299 software is a helluva deal!!

Anyway, here’s the links… no affiliate codes, just the links to download the software and a link to sign up for the key to set it up.

1. Download the free trial version of Camtasia Studio 3
at:

http://download.techsmith.com/camtasiastudio/enu/312/camtasiaf.exe

(That’s not an affiliate link)

2. Go to this promotion page, complete your name, country
and e-mail address and Techsmith will send you the software
key to unlock the program almost instantly.

http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/pcpls.asp (no affil.)

3. Just install the program you downloaded from step 1 above
and then enter the software key you receive from Techsmith
and you’ll have a fully working version of Camtasia Studio 3
on your PC.

I have no clue if this is time limited or not but if I were you, I’d grab it ASAP!!!

Thanks for the tip Paul!!!

I put it on one of my blogs about an hour ago and have already gotten four sign-ups from it WoooHoooo!!

You may have seen it when you popped in and if you want it, check it out here - MaxBlogPress Unblockable Popup

It’s fully configurable from an admin panel. You can add images, HTML, subscriber boxes, anything you want. Just install, activate and configure… it’s WYSIWYG so it can’t be easier!

There’s other great plugins too… check out the DealDotCom widget on my sidebar… if you want that one just click on the bottom where it asks you if you want to add it to your site.

Check out MaxBlogPress and see what else they have. There’s also a Ping Optimizer which is a real must, unless you want to get banned.

Ok, gotta go add these to some of my other blogs!! HappyBlogging!!!

Check this out; Mark Hendricks introduces The Internet Success System - the ultimate step-by-step apprenticeship home study program and live master mind conference ever conceived.

Now you can listen to these Internet Success System Monthly Master Mind Teleconferences for free.

I’d tell you more about it but there’s way too much to list and since you can just go and grab it right now, why waste your time?

So go sign up early for the 12 Days of Christmas and get a head start on success!!

PS. Did you check out the 117 Work at Home Giveaway yet? Don’t miss it!!

They’re easy to set up, get indexed quicker than a website and are wonderfully interactive, which people love.

Now I had heard of Alex Syseof before and wanted to check out more. To say that many marketers speak highly of him would be an understatement!

Anyway, finally tracked him down the other day when I had a few minutes and checked him out and I can see why everyone is raving about the guy! He knows blogging!

I downloaded the FREE Report - Easy Steps to Bloggin Stardom - and picked up so many great tips and such information that I wouldn’t believe he wasn’t charging for it! (you can download the report right here for FREE too - no sign ups or anything!)

He goes over how to set up a blog, where to find templates, the best plugins to use and more!

Check out the Some of the Contents Page:

• Build Your Own Sizzling WordPress Blog – Web 2.0 ready
• Step 1: Install Wordpress Blog Software
• Step 2: Download and Install Wordpress Theme That Is Web 2.0 Ready Step
• 3: Get Your Wordpress Blog Optimized For Search Engines
• Step 4: Make Your WordPress Blog Ready For Social Networks Bookmarking
• Step 5: Make Subscription To Your Content And Comments Easy And Trackable
• Step 6: Improve Commenting System On Your Blog And Protect Yourself From Spam
• Step 7: Add Interactivity To Your Wordpress Blog And Improve Visitors Experience
• Step 8: Simplify Administration And Add Statistics
• Step 9: Monetize Your Wordpress Web 2.0 Portal
• Step 10: Customize Your Blog Via Text Widgets
• Some Tips To Maximize Your Blog Visibility
• Some Blog Basics
• Starting a Blog
• Writing Your Blog
• Promoting Your Blog
• Resource Box
• Blog Marketing Ideas That Sell
• Make Your Blog a Customer Draw
• Make Your Blog a Company Pusher – Without Being Pushy
• Give Your Readers What They Want
• Get More Readers for Your Blog, Get More Customers
• And much much more!

Now you tell me, why would anyone just give ALL this information away?

If you blog or plan to blog and really want to know what you are doing, you NEED to read this! You can download it right here… nothing to sign up for, just click and it’s yours!

Easy Steps to Bloggin Stardom

PS. Gotta tell ya, one thing I was really pleased to find out was that I was already using much of what he advises but it took me a long time to put it all together, you can get it all together in a snap! Lucky you!

There are a lot of link cloakers out there, some are easy to use, some more complicated but now there’s a site that makes cloaking your Affiliate links a snap!! And not only that, you can also build your list!  Can’t get much better or easier than that, can you?

Check it out - ViralURL 

This is what one of their links looks like - http://ViralURL.com/IMR - and it takes you right to ViralURL!

They’ve even just added Video Tutorials to help you get started.

The only drawback I’ve seen so far is that the site is slow but just got an email from Colin, one of the site owners, that they’re adding an additional server to speed things up.  Guess the response had been pretty excellent so far.  So get your place now!