I’ve recently been waving a banner for the reconciliation of ethical Internet Marketing principles with successful online business practices.  At the start of my adventure into Internet Marketing, I was attracted to the easy automation of the ‘set and forget’ business model, the whole remote management of making money online had me hooked.

When I fully grasped the structure and underlying psychology of some aspects of certain Internet Marketing techniques, my feelings changed about wanting to be involved. I wouldn’t feel comfortable in my own skin, and it would be quite bizarre to start my own business, and end up loathing the boss!

If you have ever subscribed to an Internet marketer’s mailing list, you’re familiar with the relentless stream of promotional emails promising to teach you the latest tricks, cheats and underhand Internet Marketing tactics.

One of my least favourite business models is ‘forced continuity’, which works by offering you, say, the first month’s subscription free of charge, and accompanied by fabulous bonuses.  All you pay is $1 Shipping & Handling (S&H).  Only $1? What a bargain, eh?

That S&H elicits your credit card details, and in a month’s time you’ll notice an unfamiliar charge on your card for a relatively small amount, say, $9.99 and you make a mental note to check it out.  People don’t tend to get over-concerned about little charges and may never get around to cancelling it.

Where did this monthly charge arise?  When you requested your free first month’s subscription and free bonuses for the one payment of $1 for S&H, you didn’t notice the tiny additional text informing you that in one month’s time, your card will be charged the full monthly subscription fee of $9.99.  By signing up, you’ve signed up forever… unless you take action to CANCEL it.

What an abhorrent principle on which to build your future online business reputation. This brand of Internet Marketing is neither attractive nor desirable, and yet it’s a much-copied business model.  If you’re as disenchanted by underhand practices as I am, be sure to distance yourself from strategies designed solely to trick your customers into parting with their hard-earned cash.

If you’re serious about your long-term future involvement with Internet Marketing, and building a successful Online Business, give careful consideration to how you wish to be perceived by prospective customers in your target market, and by other marketers - the latter may be potential Joint Venture partners in the future. Making a profit isn’t the be all and end all, how you make that profit is also important.

In the beginning, your personal ethical stance is pretty much all you have, so be groomed to present yourself in the best possible light.

Layne | Reward Rebel

When I gain a new Follower, usually I Follow them in return, but I do not Follow people who never Tweet, nor anyone who has only ever posted one update. There are Twitter accounts that NEVER Tweet, or that post an initial update directing you to an affiliate link, and I don’t reciprocate this type of Follower.

I created my Twitter Profile last year, but didn’t become regularly involved until a few weeks ago, at which time I had 134 Followers.  In the next 21 days, I increased my Follower count by more than 2,000.  You can view my Twitter stats below or check them out live at Twitter Counter.

I notice the same basic mistakes being made by new Twitter users, and this prompted me to write an article outlining the methods I’ve used to re-invent my own Twitter Profile.  While I’ve been enjoying my role in a friendly global community, I’ve also been building my list of Followers and driving additional traffic to my website!

Here’s a shot of my Twitter profile - the background is a work in progress - I’m undecided about which information to include and what to omit, but the pattern is all Photoshop’s own work!

Here are the basic steps to provide you with a firm foundation to start Tweeting.  Take time to consider your Username and Bio, because together with your picture, these form the holy trinity of Twitter magnetism.

1.    Choosing Your Twitter Username
Choose your username carefully and bear in mind that Twitter is a social network, not overtly ‘business to business’. It’s preferable to use your name or nickname rather than a business title plus, of course, this helps people locate you.

If you use any abbreviations in the text of your Username or Bio, bear in mind that ‘the ampersand’ [&] doesn’t display as ‘an ampersand’ [&].  It displays as ‘&’ [&] so I use ‘the plus symbol’ [+] to abbreviate ‘and’.

2.    Attract Followers With Your Twitter Photograph
Do NOT retain the default Twitter avatar, the picture you display at the head of your profile page equates to that first glance across a room… make it count. Your avatar is an opportunity to tell people about yourself with a friendly smile or cheeky grin, infuse the picture with your personality.

Alternatively, you could use your business logo, or a clever graphic representation of your username or company mission. Again, bear in mind that Twitter is a social network.

3.    Twitter Bio
Twitter gives you 160 characters to describe yourself, don’t waste them. Identify keywords to return your profile in a Twitter search, and use these to concisely describe your aims - don’t forget to include a mention of where you’re from.

Try capitalising the primary keywords in your Bio. Use Word to check your word count [>>Tools >>Word Count].

4.    Twitter Background
Your Twitter Profile background is one of the first things to be seen as your page loads, and it should reflect your unique personality and/or company branding.

Customising your background is the opportunity to expand on the information you can fit in your Bio. Many Tweeters include their business details in a left-hand sidebar tablet of information on their background.

There are plenty of sources of free Twitter backgrounds, many of which can be customised with personal details and graphics.

Free Twitter Designer
Twit Backs
Free Twitter Image
My Tweet Space
Twitter Gallery

Other free options include:

Photoshop Tutorial for Twitter background, including a template.
PowerPoint Tutorial for Twitter background, including a template.

A simple Google search will bring you a massive selection of designers offering economical deals to design a customised Twitter background for you.

5.    Your Website Or Personal Web Page URL
This spot isn’t necessarily appropriate for a commercial website, if you have one.  You may find it more constructive to promote a FaceBook or MySpace page, or Squidoo lens – share your information, don’t try to sell anything here.

6.    Tweet Every Day
You need to keep your username and avatar in your Followers’ field of vision.  Do NOT protect your updates, remember, this is a social network.

7.    Twitter Automation
There are Twitter Tools (Twools) that you can use to automate Twitter account management.  Many Twitter users send their new Followers an automated Direct Message of welcome, via a service like TweetLater.

You should never include affiliate links or blatant self-promotion in this first message. Its purpose is to welcome the new Follower and give them an idea of how your tweets will enhance their life.  Not to steam in with the hard-sell the moment their boots touch the ground.

For the record, I do NOT send automatic Direct Messages of welcome.

8.    The Support
Tweets are restricted to 140 characters, so abbreviations are common, including shortening web links.  Use Bitly.com or Tr.im to shorten your web links, and you can track the click-through rates in real time.

9.    Who To Follow
Find people with similar interests by searching Twitter users

In addition to targeting Followers within my preferred range of specialties, I aimed for Twitter users with a minimum of 2,500 Followers.  If the number of Followers is higher than the number they are Following, I will NOT follow them.  I’m looking for people who will follow me in return.  (When I’ve built my profile, then I can follow those people I admire, without concern about whether or not they follow me in return.)

An additional bonus from people with lists being actively ‘grown’ is that other people will also be looking for fresh prospects in these Follower lists, and you have a good chance of being picked-up too.

10.    Hang Tough
Aim to increase your Followers by 50+ each day, however, Twitter discourages aggressive following, and may freeze you from Following anyone new once you’ve reached 2,000 and won’t unfreeze until your number of Followers is nearer the number you are Following.

Of course, you can UNFollow people, and I was brutal and UNFollowed anyone who didn’t reciprocate pretty damn fast.

This article has grown and grown, and eventually I have had to draw a line under it!  I’ve started to draft a new post outlining how easily you can automate your Twitter account management — without losing the personal touch — so, stay tuned.

Can’t wait?  Want to explore Twitter account automation for yourself? Here’s a range of Twitter Tools you’ll find helpful, and if you’ve discovered any useful new Twitter Tools, we’d love to hear about them — a comment box awaits!

Layne | Reward Rebel

What goes up, must come down.  What bursts forth at breakneck speed and burns brightest, rarely sustains such a meteoric performance.

Twitter still represents a valuable repository of information, advice, opinion, inspiration and motivation, all of which we can access simply by being sociable!  Of course, the good stuff is awash in a sea of mediocrity and spam, but plenty of Twitter Tools exist to simplify filtering.

Twitter conversations allow us the opportunity to communicate with some major players, and enables us to establish relationships that may develop along the trail, and hold all kinds of potential. Just how involved you become is your choice.

Whether you’d like to meet a new tennis opponent, potential joint venture associate, or discover there’s a knockout little sushi bar 5 minutes from home, Twitter can introduce you to prospective candidates.

The popularity of social networking has inspired the development of a seemingly infinite array of Twitter Tools and gadgets that optimise both functionality and efficiency, as well as eliminate many of the time-consuming repetitive steps involved in building a sizeable list of followers.

It is possible to automate finding targeted followers, identifying the latest hot topics, and even creating fresh content to tweet.  Oh, I almost forgot, you can even automate the actual tweeting.  Hey, look Ma! No hands!

In short, Twitter offers the opportunity to enjoy participation in a professional and out-of-hours pick ‘n’ mix, with the potential to enrich both social activities and bank balances.

So, if you don’t already have an active Twitter account, go create one – it only takes a moment – or risk being left behind in the dusty cloud of late-comers and left-overs!

Layne | Reward Rebel

To quote Sandy Denny (Fairport Convention), “Who Knows Where The Time Goes?”.  Sometimes, I’m buggered if I do.

Talking of time, it’s 5.37am and if I start philosophising now, you’ll never shut me up, so I’ll just re-engage my laser-targeted grey matter and get back to business… internet marketing business.

Today’s gloomy economic climate has many people anxious about future financial security for themselves and their families.  The depressing daily news about increasing job losses, unemployment and repossessed homes offers no crumbs of hope regarding the immediate future.

The inescapable bottom line is that things will get worse before they get better, and no-one can afford to hide his or her head in the sand, because we each need to consider alternative methods to generate income.

Are you taking advantage of the new business opportunities spawned by the economic downturn?

There is an increasing number of aspiring internet entrepreneurs scouring the search engines for the holy grail of online money making opportunities.

Have you positioned your online business to profit from this additional web traffic?

Do I sound ruthless?  Are you uncomfortable with the concept of chasing the ambulance to the bank?

In the present recession, there will be plenty of unscrupulous online marketers attempting to profit from the exploitation of people’s misfortunes.  If ethical marketers shy away from chasing the ambulance to the bank, poor quality knock-off information products will dominate the market.

In fact, by providing a quality product that’s fairly priced, the ethical internet marketer is helping to protect the unwary prospect from succumbing to the impossible promises of the online charlatan.

Will you chase the ambulance to the bank? What will you do to ensure your family is recession-proof?

Layne | Reward Rebel

By introducing an Entrecard page, Reward Rebel plans to thank its Entrecard droppers and advertisers by spreading the link love as widely and generously as time and professionalism allow!

November’s Entrecard Hotties are:

• Technically Easy
• Computer Aid
• Earn Blogger
• Authority Directory
• My Gypsy Goods
• Altered Events
• Worldwide Travel Blog
• BMW F1 Blog
• Avoid Money Scams
• Turnip of Power is no longer a member of Entrecard

Ode to the Turnip
Oh, Turnip,
the caress of your cursor
will be sorely missed
by my widget.

I’ve created the new Entrecard page, although it’s in its infancy, and will take a little while to list all the sites to be included.

Layne | Reward Rebel

Recently, one of my commenters introduced me to the Firefox Addon, SEO Quake, and now I’m a massive fan of this phenomenal web tool!

The above screenshot shows SEO Quake’s settings options’ drop-down menu, from which you can clearly see the data you can access for at-a-glance viewing.  The simplest thing to do is select all the options that are ticked in the screenshot.

To make it super easy to identify a DoFollow blog, you just need to select ‘Line through nofollow and noindex’ then every link that displays on your browser that is NOT DoFollow will have a line through it.  Not very visually appealing, but you can always toggle it on and off as and when you are selecting sites for commenting or not.

SEO Quake also allows you to see the following data about any blog or website that you open in Firefox:

• Internal and external links
• nofollow or DoFollow
• Google Page Rank
• Alexa Traffic Rank
• Keyword density
• Yahoo links and rank
• Publisher ID of Adsense et al
• Age of website
• IP address

Even more valuable is that the keyword density tool allows you to load Google keyword data for Adwords Pay Per Click advertising.

This is one of the most valuable free web tools I’ve encountered and it has to be a ‘must have’ for all webmasters or bloggers. So, go and download SEO Quake and be amongst those who benefit from the vital data by utilising the docked toolbar and/or what’s called SEObar and floats at the head of each web page. I use the toolbar because I find the floating SEObar obstructs the presentation of the website being viewed.

SEO Quake will definitely help your Internet Marketing ambitions!

Layne | Reward Rebel

Ensure that your target blog:

• is Do Follow, that is, it removes the ‘nofollow’ links attribute
• has a Google Page Rank – the higher, the better
• is in the same niche market as the website you’re back linking to.

A less well known approach when you comment on a blog that includes the above attributes is to:

• comment on a specific web page that has, in its own right, acquired a Google Page Rank, because rumour has it that Google values such individual page rank more highly than the PR of the site as a whole or the site’s home page.

Don’t feel guilty about approaching comments so cold-bloodedly.  Remember to bear in mind that this method of link building benefits both sides of the equation, one gains a comment and the other gains a back link.

Quid pro quo.

Layne | Reward Rebel