Amazon.com sent me a email message yesterday stating that they are terminating their Associate Program relationship with residents of North Carolina due to the newly imposed tax on affiliate sales.  I’m glad I don’t make money from Amazon Associate Program or I’ll be in trouble.  However, I am fearful that other affiliate programs will take the same approach and do away with North Carolina residents to thwart paying online affiliate sales taxes.

This law make things awkwardly difficult for Internet marketers and businesses to do online sales in North Carolina.  I think NC is making a mistake as this imposed tax will potentially kill small businesses and those who make a living online.

Why is NC so greedy.  I remember when the lottery came into the state it was meant to support the schools and education in North Carolina, it is even called the Education Lottery, however I haven’t seen much educational changes and schools are still struggling and begging for money while the current jackpot is $86,000,000 — nothing makes sense anymore!  Someone is obviously fattening their pockets but the little guy always has to suffer for that to happen.

If you rely on affiliate sales then it may be time to move out of North Carolina, into a surrounding state, but I advise you follow other state laws, because I’m sure others will implement the same.  Amazon has also ended its Associate Programs relationship with NY for the same reason, so I’d expect other states to jump on board with imposing affiliate sales tax.

Here is the letter I received from Amazon:

Important Notice from the Amazon Associates Program

We regret to inform you that the North Carolina state legislature (the General Assembly) appears ready to enact an unconstitutional tax collection scheme that would leave Amazon.com little choice but to end its relationships with North Carolina-based Associates. You are receiving this e-mail because our records indicate that you are an Amazon Associate and resident of North Carolina.

Please note that this is not an immediate termination notice and you are still a valued participant in the Associates Program. All referral fees earned on qualified traffic will continue to be paid as planned.

But because the new law is drafted to go into effect once enacted – which could happen in the next two weeks – we will have to terminate the participation of all North Carolina residents in the Amazon Associates program on or before that same day. After the termination day, we will no longer pay any referral fees for customers referred to Amazon.com or Endless.com nor will we accept new applications for the Associates program from North Carolina residents.

The unfortunate consequences of this legislation on North Carolina residents like you were explained in detail to key senators and representatives in Raleigh, including the leadership of the Senate, House, and both chambers’ finance committees. Other states, including Maryland, Minnesota, and Tennessee, considered nearly identical schemes, but rejected these proposals largely because of the adverse impact on their states’ residents.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s website is http://www.ncleg.net/, and additional information may be obtained from the Performance Marketing Alliance at http://www.performancemarketingalliance.com/.

We thank you for being part of the Amazon Associates program, and we will apprise you of the General Assembly’s action on this matter.
Sincerely,

Amazon.com

I had no clue what was wrong.  I thought it was probably code related, so I first regenerated and reinstalled the Google Analytics code on the site pages.  I then confirmed and verified that the code was on every page of the  website.   After days of more monitoring the problem came back.  I then thought maybe its my server or firewall, so I checked to be sure that was all on point and it was.  So, still no explanation to the ongoing traffic dips, then today I realized what is happneing?

The traffic dips are a result of weekend traffic, the days shown dipping are Saturday and Sunday, with the exception of last weekend which was Memorial Day weekend, so you seen the traffic fall short on Friday and almost die all weekend, including Monday (the holiday) then pick up on Tuesday.  Very understandable.

All of this time I thought my Analytics reports were looking weird when it was just a simple misunderstanding.  I guess the lesson learned is don’t always assume something is broken when things are not going the way you’d expect it — sometimes everything is okay, you just need to know your visitors.

This is valuable data knowing which days are most popular, it can be advantageous data if used correctly.

Word of mouth marketing is one of the best marketing strategies. Getting good referrals is essential to the survival of any business. Of course, you cannot survive on the referral alone, you’ll have to also deliver a great product or service.

Next time a client or customer find you and make a purchase then you should learn how they found you and if it was through a word of mouth referral then pay for that referral. The referrer will praise you from then on out, because the best time to get paid for something is when you didn’t even expect it. You don’t have to get fancy with it — it can be as simple as $5 per referral or 5% — or you can buy the referrer a cup of coffee or tea! A nice gesture can go a long way. Myself, I like to give 15% of the first payment.

Another good reason to pay for your word of mouth referrals is because it can develop a following. Whenever you decide its time to add a affiliate system to your website, you will already be armed with the affiliates you’ll need for your affiliate program to be an overnight success.

Content should be written in a way to make people have a good time and enjoy what they are reading.  I have 3 main reasons why I “truly” believe content is KING!

1. Authority. Content can give you an authoritative status.  Writing how-to guides, helpful, and useful content will most likely increase your website traffic.  Content is one of the best ways to become an industry leader and show authority in the marketplace.
2. Strategy. Using content for strategic positioning is a brilliant way to gain rank.  Content can be used in a number of strategies, including article marketing, press releases, blogs, link building etc.
3. Everlasting. In most cases the content you write will be permanent and everlasting.  I still have articles which rank that I wrote back in 2003-2005.  Content cannot be denied and if it’s quality content then it will most likely stick around for decades.

Tell me why you believe content is KING? Or QUEEN? Let me know what you think, leave a comment!

Copywriting for Search Engines

Many copywriters do not posess the skills to write for search engines.  This is usually due to the lack of training, because most copywriters are taught or learn to write only for humans.  Writing for search engines is fairly a new concept, at least 10 years young!  With this being the case, many copywriters have not caught on to the concept.  However, there are a plentiful of copywriters who do write for search engines and do an effective job.  They primarily promote SEO copywriting services.

Writing for search engines is not difficult, it mainly involves keyword research.  If you target the right keywords then it makes the task at hand much easier.  Using keyword tools to find your keywords will prove to be rewarding.  You should target 1-3 keywords per ad copy.  The trick is to target keywords which have high search volumes with low competition.  If you cannot find such keywords, then I’d suggest to sticking to targeting high search volume keywords.

Copywriting is an ongoing process.  If you want to hire a copywriter then you should seek someone for a long term project, because ad copy should yield results and when the results are not being met then you should modify or tweak your ad copy.  Copywriting is not just writing content, it also involves placement of content, content fonts, content colors, etc.  Each of these elements need to be tested or trialed for effectiveness.  Wherever you decide to place content, it will still need to be keyword rich.  Many times ad copy aligned with an image is more effective.  Your ad copy should enhance your brand or business while highlighting your offerings.

Article Writing for Search Engines

Article writing for search engines invovles a great deal of keyword research just as copywriting.  Keyword research is important for any online writing assignment.  The difference with article writing when compared to copywriting is that articles are sometimes lengthier and does not contain any sales pitches or does not serve as a purpose of generating sales (well not in a direct manner — only indirectly).

Articles are usually written to drive targeted traffic to your website.  It serves the purpose of getting traffic to your website who can potentially turn into consumers or clients.  The best way to write articles is to do research to find out what questions in your industry are being asked or need answers.  To do this you will need to scrub questions & answers repositories such as Yahoo! Answers, JustAnswers, WordTracker Question Tool, AnswerBag, etc.

When writing articles it is important to optimize the article page for search engine appeal.  You should first make certain the article URL path includes the keyword term(i.e. http://www.YourWebsiteURL.com/articles/Keyword-Term.html).  The article page title should match the article title and should include the keyword term.  The article body title should be wrapped in an heading tag, such as H1 or H2 tag.  The article body content should repeat the keyword term every 100-200 words.  The article should include at least one image and the image should be optimized with the keyword term.  The image URL path should include the keyword term (i.e. http://www.YourWebsiteURL.com/images/Keyword-Term.jpg) and the image alternate text should include the keyword term.

This optimization of the article will help your articles rank high in the search engines.  It is important that your articles are original and unique for your website.  Adding articles to directories for syndication is recommended, but syndicated articles should not be used on your website, unless you use the 80/20 rule.  80% of the articles on your website are 100% original and unique while 20% of the articles on your website are syndicated.

What is your thoughts?  Do you have any tips for copywriting or article writing?  Please share your comments.

Not only do you get which keywords competitors are targeting, you also get in-depth information and analysis about the keyword vs. competitor relationship, such as position, bid amount, clicks per day, etc.

Knowing what your competitors are doing is an excellent way to take lead.  Beating your competitors at their own game and ranking for the keywords which their pages target will help your website become more valuable and exceed your competition in no time.

If you manage multiple SEO campaigns, then KeywordSpy cannot be topped, it even top the Google Keyword Tool.  It delivers a complete list of competitor targeted keywords.  As a search industry professional, you cannot go without this SEO tool.  It is one of the best keyword research tools on the market!

Keyword Spy is for anyone wanting to spy on their competitors and understand how their competition rank for those highly searched keywords!

Give it a try for free!  Search your competitors now!  It takes seconds!  Have your credit card handy if you want to bypass the free trial and unlock the true power!

The most likely cause for this is that you are using https:// in your Gmail settings, therefore the Gmail Notifier cannot connect to the mailbox.  Well, luckily there is a fix for this issue — instead of switching to http:// and leaving your mailbox unsecure you can install a registry entry which will resolve the problem for you.


1. Download  http://www.google.com/mail/help/downloads/notifier_https.zip
2. Open up the folder.
3. Double-click on the file called notifier_https.reg to install it.

4. Click ‘yes’ when you’re asked to confirm if you want to add the
information to the registry.
5. Restart the Notifier.

Best of luck!  You are fixed…

If you want to show gratitude for the fix then tell a friend about my services…and tell a friend to tell a friend!

There is always the argument, if you don’t want your content stolen or reused, then don’t publish it publicly.  Well, that somewhat defeats the purpose in writing the content in the first place — because you want to share it with the world, but on your terms.

Stealing copyright material is a big offense, but is even more overlooked and not enforced as often as it should.  You think the courts are overcrowded now, imagine if everyone who had content stolen filed a report or court claim.  If someone steals your content and takes the credit without any accreditation to you or the source, then the robber is benefiting from your work.  Now imagine the stolen content is passed off as the original content and the stolen content is getting the most traffic and benefit from the content, wouldn’t this upset you as being the original creator of the content.  The fact is, this happens on a daily basis, whereas the original content is overlooked while the stolen content reap the rewards.

Anyway, there is  a new handy tool out there, Tynt Tracer, which alerts you when someone is copying content from your website.  Tynt Tracer monitors your web pages and when someone copies content from one of your web pages it creates a report.  The report is to montior and measure the content on your pages which get the most traction and attention from your web visitors.

Knowing what content is being copied can put your website in a better position for creating new content and giving your visitors what they want and are looking for.  Even though Tynt Tracer was not created for finding content thieves it is still a tool that can be used for such things and I expect it to become more popular as more website owners find its uses.  Currently it’s in BETA mode and free to use.  You simply add some javascript lines to your web pages or blog and volia Tynt Tracer is installed and ready to track content copies on your page.  Tynt Tracer is a great solution to stopping content thieves on your website, it has a host of features which will empower you and help you keep credit for your content.

GrandCentral

GrandCentral was acquired by Google in 2007.  During that time Google has done very minimal in regards to changing or intergrating the platform.  Grandcentral was like the red-headed stepchild of Google products, it was stand alone and not integrated into Google like it so many other products.  You had a separate login, the domain wasn’t part of the Google family, and except for the powered by Google you probably wouldn’t know it was a Google application.  Well, those days are going to be far behind us soon as Google pumps life into its forgotten product.

Google has officially announced the new and upcoming Google Voice.  Google Voice is jam-packed with new and old features.  Existing GrandCentral users get first dibbs at the new style of Google Voice.  Although currently Google Voice is only in the pipeline and unavailable for direct access, but in the coming weeks it is expected the floodgates will open.

I have faithfully used and relied on GrandCentral services for a while.  I am inclined to say that overall the service is top-notch and a great benefit.  I honestly have not seen any other brand or company providing such an upscale service for free.  Google is way ahead of the game on this one.  I can only wait and imagine what Google will have instore for us.

The correct syntax for creating these framed redirects is below.  However, I caution that not all affiliate software support framed redirects which mean it may not calculated affiliate sales if you use framed redirects, check the affiliate terms and conditions.

<HTML><HEAD>
<META NAME=”description”
CONTENT=”http://www.mynetmarketingland.com/Recommends/”>
<META NAME=”keywords” CONTENT=”">
</HEAD>
<FRAMESET border=0 rows=”100%,*” frameborder=”no”
marginleft=0 margintop=0 marginright=0 marginbottom=0>
<frame
src=”http://YourAffiliateLinkHere.com”
scrolling=auto frameborder=”no” border=0 noresize>
<frame topmargin=”0″ marginwidth=0 scrolling=no marginheight=0
frameborder=”no” border=0 noresize>
</FRAMESET>
</HTML>