I Need Di$cipline

Affiliate Marketing for Facebook

2012-05-16T19:18:08Z

Affiliate marketing, which involves the participation of a publisher or “affiliate” in marketing a particular product, service or campaign, is undeniably one of the oldest and most effective online marketing models today, and most probably even of tomorrow.

It is advantageous for businesses or advertisers, since they would be able to promote their products better for less cost, only having to pay when there is actual conversion into sales, clicks or client participation (signing up, completion of survey, etc.). It is also beneficial for publishers, since it can generate more income in addition to cost per impression or cost per click ads and other online money-making sources. For both parties, it is very convenient and cost efficient, since with effective use of strategies and tactics, there would be little need for supervision and management while willing buyers, clients or respondents come in. The list of affiliate marketing advantages can go on for miles, even more so when social media are involved.

Social Media Affiliate Marketing

The social media affiliate model, one of the five most commonly used affiliate marketing models, incorporates the use of social bookmarking, forum marketing, social media networks, social search, groups, communities and other tools provided by social networking sites into the campaign. Other affiliate business models include:

PPC (Pay Per Click) Affiliate Model, which makes use of PPC to generate traffic;
Email Affiliate Model, which uses email marketing to several lists in many different niches;
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) Affiliate Model, which employs SEO (with the aid of keyword research) to generate more organic traffic from search engines like Google and Yahoo; and
Content Affiliate Model, which utilizes blogging and the distribution of various media content such as articles, images and videos on the web to get site traffic and higher search engine rankings.

Unlike the other four models, the social media affiliate model makes use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter for more outreach and conversion. It combines content affiliate marketing methods with social media capabilities, maximizing the potential of the enormous and continuously growing social media nations.

Affiliate Marketing for Facebook

Of the social networking sites currently dominating the cyber scene, Facebook is definitely one of the best received, if not the most popular. With over 845 million monthly active users by the end of 2011, Facebook is undeniably one of the best venues to do social media affiliate marketing in. Facebook also ranks first in time spent by Internet users and in advertisement impressions. Furthermore, it is second only to Google sites in terms of total page or site visits.

Despite this, only about 1% of transactions happen on Facebook. While page and status likes could go up to several millions, sales have not reached even a tenth of the numbers.

Advantages of Affiliate Marketing in Facebook

As earlier mentioned, Facebook, with its incessantly ballooning user base and continuous enhancements, offers countless opportunities for businesses or advertisers, affiliates, and even consumers. The continuously growing community provides businesses and affiliates with an easier and faster means to reach out to more consumers or clients, which could also lead to better sales and popularity.

However, as of press time, Facebook is a tad too conservative when it comes to accepting ads and marketing campaigns within its platform. Offers are only made available to Facebook-managed advertising clients. Posts on offers are sent to “fans” through the news feed; and calls to action (such as “buy me” or “shop now”), product prices and brand images are prohibited. However, there is no telling on what more are in store for the Internet’s fastest growing and evolving social networking site.

Facebook Affiliate Marketing Tips for the Future

In a presentation on Affiliate Marketing for Facebook by Marc Phillips of Skumatic, he said that social commerce and affiliate marketing could grow about 10 times over in the next few years, expanding from $3 billion to $30 billion. Most of which, he said, would be because of affiliate marketing efforts. If Facebook pushed through with integrating affiliate marketing-friendly tools, apps, features and options into its platform and interface, this would not be virtually impossible.

According to Phillips, with plans of Product or Ad Tickers and Wishlists on Facebook, Facebook users could go beyond “likes” and move on to “want”, “own” and “love”. Thus, taking the future of Facebook and affiliate marketing into consideration, here are some tips that could get businesses the best out of what the combination of the two could offer:

Make sure to let your business’ Facebook page scream of your branding. Make full use of your timeline cover photo to serve as your company or product banner, and of your profile picture to reinforce identity.
Create a commerce platform straight on your Facebook page and put purchase options on the main page, as well as on product pages, images or videos. Should there be a “shop now” button in the future, don’t forget to append them to every product or service.
Feed your visitors’ visual hunger: provide them with high quality images and videos that they easily get attracted to.
Choose to market products that are relatively easy to sell. Usually, these are the things that people would use everyday be it at home, at work, in school, or simply in everyday situations.
When it comes to “marketing” other things such as surveys and memberships, make sure to choose those that are practical and won’t take too much time and effort for users to accomplish.
According to Phillips, 85% of visitors look above the wall. While 12 applications can be placed on top, only four apps will be prominent, so make it a point to choose your top four apps well.

Fortunately for affiliate marketers, Facebook Timeline has already moved ads from the right side bar to the middle section where the news feeds of status updates, posts and user comments used to be. Facebook is also targeting news feeds as a landing point of ads and other marketing campaigns. With these and more possible marketing-friendly Facebook changes in mind, affiliate marketing’s growth is almost inevitable. And so is the income growth of advertisers and marketers alike.

Kyle Kam is marketing consultant for Affilorama, an affiliate marketing portal. Affilorama provides affiliate marketing lessons and advanced affiliate marketing tools for beginning and advance affiliates.

Debt affiliate program – Affiliate marketing to earn money from home If you want sit at home and earn money, then affiliate marketing is a good option for you. This is increasingly becoming popular as it is a convenient way of earning money online. Affiliate marketing is basically a form of internet marketing where you have to advertise the products or services of a merchant on your website or blog. Debt affiliate program is a form of affiliate marketing. In such affiliate programs you advertise the debt relief services of a particular company which is the merchant and you get paid depending upon the kind of affiliate program that you sign ...
Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing This is a guest post by Claire Jarrett. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. The social networking websites Facebook and Twitter can be used for both personal and professional purposes. For professional purposes, specifically marketing, it is possible to reach many people through the use of these websites. With Facebook there are a variety of ways that marketing can be done for anything from products to services. Many companies have created Facebook accounts primarily to exhibit their businesses in which users can become "fans" or "like" the particular company. For each user who "likes" ...
Using Facebook And Twitter To Reach Your Customers Is Fine But Don’t Forget Traditional Advertising To Really Drive Sales This is a guest post by Dan Cash. If you want to guest post on this blog, check out the guidelines here. While Facebook, twitter and all other social media platforms are free, successfully using it as a marketing platform does bear a cost, both in finance and time. Using social networking as a marketing tool still requires all the same old techniques you needed for traditional marketing strategies plus a few new ones. The key behind a good social media marketing campaign is networking. Not in a modern way where you attend meetings and swap business cards but in the old ...
Social Spark Pay Social Spark is owned and operated by the company Izea - the same people who are also behind PayPerPost, the giants of the blog review network. Just like PayPerPost Social Spark has been launched amongst much fanfare and criticism. They offer affiliate marketing opportunities, pay per click offers, blog review posts and also straight link swaps. I've not yet used the affiliate marketing, link swap or the blog review posts but I have used the pay per click offers and today I received my first payment from them. It was not for a lot but it at least proves that they pay ...
Top 10 Ways to Get People to Like Your Facebook Page Facebook is a crucial aspect to a successful social media marketing strategy. Without it, business owners would find it much harder to gain new clients and customers. Moreover, social media marketing is one of the most powerful ways to market yourself on the internet. However, without people liking your Facebook business page, you will have a hard time building an authoritative presence in the social media community. Here are the 10 effective ways to get people to like your Facebook page. 1. Exposure You should include your Facebook business page URL on anything that potential customers will see, including company vehicles, banners, flyers, ...

BackLink Genius Dropping PayPal for Moneybookers

2012-05-16T17:49:51Z

I received an email this morning from Backlink Genius, one of the many websites that I do business with, with the email header Change of payout method in BackLinks Genius. I don’t like it when I receive emails from companies I work with mentioning a change in pay-out in the email header because it is ALWAYS bad news.

I took a deep breath and clicked the email open…

I’m not sure if it is good news or bad news but it certainly puts my nose out of joint slightly.

The email was informing me that as of this morning Backlink Genius would no longer be paying out using PayPal and would only pay-out using Moneybookers. They did not give a reason for this sudden change.

This is something that has been happening quite a few times this month, I think this is the FIFTH company, that I am involved with, this month that has taken this exact same approach.

The reason it put my nose out of joint is because I had so much trouble and strife trying to set up my PayPal account that I’m not looking forward to having to go through it all again with Moneybookers.

Plus I know absolutely nothing about Moneybookers, are they a reliable company to trust with my money and bank account details? Do any of my readers use Moneybooker? I live in the United Kingdom and would appreciate some feedback on them.

Earn When Other People Download How many of you upload files and pictures to share with your friends and family members on a regular basis? Have you ever wondered how wonderful it would be if you could actually earn some money out of this everytime someone downloaded you file? Well now there is a new website called Ziddu
I’ve Been Accused Of Posting Duplicate Content About two months ago I discovered that I had become banned by a review network called Blogitive from logging in and taking review opportunities. I was baffled because I had received no prior warning or email notification telling me I had been banned. I fired off a very polite email, then another, then another and another. In total I must have sent about half a dozen emails and each time I received no reply at all, not even an automated message. It was just by chance that I saw a tweet on Twitter from the company and sent a reply saying “I ...
Earn Money By Writing Reviews I received an email about two weeks or so ago from a young lady called Manali asking me if I could teach her how to make some money online by writing blog reviews on her blog. Although a lot of blogs, that offer you articles about how to make money online, will happily publish posts about how to monetize your blog with adverts from networks such as Adsense, WidgetBucks, etc, but not many of them show you other legitimate ways. Well there are other ways and today I shall explore one way that I have been using to earn money for the ...
Blogvertise Might Not Be My First Option Blogvertise works in a slightly different manner from how the other blog review networks are run. For starters you are not required to login and bid on the offers, they will contact you, via email, when an offer fits your specifications. This is a feature that I actually like because with the other networks you have to keep logging in and checking multiple times a day if you want any chance of grabbing an opportunity. With Blogvertise they will reserve the opportunity for you and then send you an email with all the information you will need to complete the review. I ...
Secrets to Writing a Perfect Email Email copy writing can be a very difficult thing to master, but with these tips I'm going to lay out for you today, email copy has never been easier. There's really only 5 components I follow when I write my email copy. These components will help you: Write better copy. Get more of your emails opened. Increase CTR (click through rate) Establish a relationship, bond, and trust These 5 components are designed to help you write as close to a perfect email as possible. With that said, let's begin. 5: Short vs Long Emails - This is a topic that has been debated by email marketing experts for a ...

Are You Ready for Google’s Over Optimization Penalty?

2012-05-16T18:13:33Z

If you go out to an expensive restaurant and sum up your gastronomical experience as “over the top” that’s a good thing.

However, if Google looks at your webpages and determines that your search engine optimization (SEO) is “over the top” that’s a bad thing…a very bad thing. In other words, if you have been employing specific SEO strategies just for the sake of SEO, it’s likely you’re loosing valuable search engine ranking status.

But, what should you looking for? How can you change? Let’s examine the main things you need to do to make sure that you’re ready for Google’s over optimization penalty.

Content

Let me start you out with a solid first principle: Your site should be written by real people for real people. Authentic “authorship” is critical to avoiding the over optimization penalty. Look at your pages from top to bottom and make sure that every element looks like it was legitimately written to convey information and not just pack in some keywords.

This applies to the title of your page, the headlines, the footer, every copy block and any sidebar. Over the years many SEO specialists have tried to game all of these areas on webpages. I’ve seen footers that contain something like this: “Important Searches: Where to buy cell phones? What’s the best place to buy cell phones? Sites for cheap cellphones…”

You get the idea. Avoid copy blocks inserted anywhere on your pages that are only there to hit a keyword home run with Google.

This is of course why programs like the Google +1 are important. They help identify web content that appeals to real people.

Linking Habits

In a similar way, both internal and external links need to be legitimate. SEO “professionals” have designed sites where certain pages are linked to repeatedly for really no reason at all except to create links. Google recognizes the manipulation game that’s going on here and if this has been a tactic of yours, you’re going to pay an over optimization penalty.

The same thing is true with external links. We’ve all received the emails promising boatloads of backlinks to our websites and blogs. These backlinks are placed in networks that Google has identified as having little or no real value to Internet users.

Google is also sensitive to comment span. Much of this is generated through automated software. With all the computer power Google as at its disposal, it can recognize repeated signature links and figure out that the comments to which they are attached are illegitimate.

Maybe you haven’t gone the comment spam route, but you’ve been posting with article marketing sites. These sites are basically worthless in terms of elevating your search engine placement. If the only “pay” you’re getting for submitting an article is a link, Google knows exactly the value of your content: zip.

Now, if you already have copious amounts of scurrilous backlinks out on the web, there’s probably not much you can do. But at least don’t go down that path any further.

Quality is Everything!

Finally, you need a site that is deep in content, but it has to be good content. If your site has several pages built around the same keywords and you’http://ineeddiscipline.com/wp-admin/post-new.phpre really just spinning the same information over and over again, you’re going to pay a Google over optimization penalty. Feel free, no feel compelled to add content, but make sure it is solid content written for real human beings.

With these principles in mind, take a long, hard and honest look at your site. Determine if it’s written, organized and built for users or for what you used to think Google was looking for, then dig in and make the necessary changes. In the long run, you’ll be far better off.

Google Plans Penalty for Over-Optimized Sites For years search engine optimization (SEO) experts and other Web professionals have scoured Google updates in an effort to craft content that will put Web pages at the top of search engine results pages (SERPs), but now Google is set to penalize SEO perfection. The plan to penalize the ranking results for “over-optimized” websites is the search giant’s attempt to impart more fairness in search results by putting websites with good content and bad optimization on par with those that simply have good optimization. The move was announced in early March during a conference at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas, ...
The Top 5 Reasons You Should Switch Internet Providers Are you trying to attain a high Google ranking for your website? Improving your Google ranking is key to getting more traffic to your website. A top Google-ranking website lets you reach prospective customers and pre-sells your product or service. What is Google Ranking? Google Ranking is your score on Google using a rating of your site’s relevance. It is mainly a combination of placing a value on links and content of a website. It also takes into consideration the volume of other Internet sites that link to your page. Google is probably the most well-known internet search engine currently available. Before you ...
6 SEO Post-Panda Tips That Actually Work If you are looking to get your site ranked in the search engines, you are obviously not alone. However, many webmasters fail in their SEO attempts, largely because of faulty information. If you are looking to get in the top 10 of Google for your keywords, here are 6 tips you must follow: Target Long Tail Keywords Long tail keywords are any term with 3-4 words in them. They usually have lower amounts of searches than shorter keywords, and also less competition. It is generally not wise to go after super competitive keywords. There are a couple reasons for this. The main one ...
Is SEO Still Important? Search engine optimized (SEO) is getting long-in-the-tooth. No longer is SEO the newcomer to the party; SEO has been around the block by now. The concept and practices are almost as old as the web itself, though it took a few years before the phrase was coined and then a few more before it became common knowledge for website owners that it was necessary if you wanted your Website to rank well in the search engines. Virtually every website owner has subjected their site to some level of SEO, which begs the question, if everyone is doing it, is it ...
Billions Paid Out by AdSense per Year – Be a Part of It! The roads to revenue in affiliate marketing vary. Google’s AdSense is one of those roads, more like a 6-lane highway though, to profits. Some have said that it’s merely a pay-per-click (PPC) model, and it could require multiple ‘clicks’ to make up for one sale on your site. Yes, that might be true. However, not every site is created with the same vision and with the same intent. Some sites are created for a purpose other than selling a cell phone, computer software, or a service of some sort. There are sites that are developed for the sole purpose of informing their ...

Google May PR Update

2012-05-10T22:05:35Z

This week Google gave us a treat and updated their PageRank system. It is something that a lot of people who make their money online look forward to because for some of us a higher PR means more money.

This latest update has been considered by many to be a major update so you should check ALL your domains that you have under your belt.

How Did I Need Discipline Do?

I wasn’t expecting this blog to remain as a PR5 for long and this update did exactly what I thought and I saw my PR drop from PR5 to PR4, I attribute this to the high amount of guest posts that I have been accepting lately.

I have been looking at reducing the amount of guest posts I publish so maybe this will be the catalyst to make me do it, after all I really don’t want to drop anymore PR levels.

It’s Not All Doom & Gloom

While this blog dropped PR my other blogs ALL increased in PR, most of them increased by a single PR level but they still count.

So how did you do? Did you see an increase? Or did Google take all your PR away like an internet-type Grinch?

WordPress 3.1.2 Available for Download This evening the WordPress team have released version 3.1.2 for immediate download. This is a security update so you are advised to update to it as soon as possible to keep you blog safe and secure. Here is the announcement from the official WordPress site: WordPress 3.1.2 is now available and is a security release for all previous WordPress versions. This release addresses a vulnerability that allowed Contributor-level users to improperly publish posts. The issue was discovered by a member of our security team, wordpress developer Andrew Nacin, with Benjamin Balter. We suggest you update to 3.1.2 promptly, especially if you allow users to register ...
Spammers Beware, The Penguin Is Here Remember that over-optimization penalty that Google was cooking since last month? Yes, it is now live. Rather than calling it over-optimization penalty, however, Google named its algorithmic update after another cute animal – Penguin. What's with the Penguin? The Penguin update was actually launched last April 24, and the announcement came from Google's distinguished head spam fighter, Mark Cutts. According to Cutts, the update was aimed at better identifying websites that utilize aggressive spamming tactics in order to make their way on top of Google's rankings, which has long been known to be against their quality guidelines. Cutts and his team already pointed ...
WordPress 3.0.5: Another Security Update WordPress have released another security update of their WordPress blogging platform. Titled 3.05, it is a security update (yeah, another one) that will hopefully keep our blogs nice and secure until they finally release 3.1. The upgrade looks at patching several security problems: 1. Two security issues that would have allowed a author or contributor-level user to gain greater access to the site. 2. Another security issue that would have allowed an author-level user to read information they weren’t supposed to access, such as drafts or private posts. 3. Two additional security issues that help secure plugins, especially those that don’t use ...
May 2008 Blog Income Report This is one Monthly Blog Report that I was not looking forward to writing and posting on the blog. I had many problems this month, a number of my avenues did not offer me any work until very late into the month, so late in fact that I could not add them to this month's total. My dad has come out of hospital and is now at home and has been demanding that I tend to his every single need and I have a new puppy that needs a lot of care and attention. But anyway on we go. I started this as ...
Understanding Panda And Your Traffic For anyone who has been publishing content on the net may have seen some drastic drops in their traffic with Google. Many know that Google has introduced a system called Panda to sort through spam or Trojan sites on the internet that have claimed front page ratings. The problem with this is that some of the legit sites have been affected; horribly. Many bloggers and websites use Google’s Adsense program to earn money; and due to the “Panda” epidemic they have lost traffic and a considerable amount of money as well. What is Panda? In 2011, Google introduced Panda in efforts to ...

SEO Copywriting FAQs – Everything You Need To Know About SEO

2012-05-10T11:12:13Z

Personally, I prefer reading things in FAQ format. I find long pieces of text tedious and I get annoyed because I may spend ages and ages reading stuff that I already knew in the hopes of getting to the one little thing I didn’t know yet and needed to find out. Give me FAQs any day of the week, since it lets me just skim the questions and only read what I want to read. So, because the only way to manage is managing by example, here is my very own FAQ with questions that took me ages to answer myself.

Can I Be An SEO Copywriter With No Experience?

Everybody needs to start somewhere. You won’t be particularly good to start with, but you deserve a chance to gain the experience you need to be one of the best. Make sure you reply to jobs that are suitable to your experience so that you can build up your experience. There are lots of sites that require inexperienced writers or even volunteers. Even working for free is a good idea if it allows you to build up that experience.

Do I Need Formal Education For SEO Copywriting?

No, you don’t. You either have it, or you don’t. Sure, you can go on some creative writing courses (and end up with people telling you they can really tell you studied English, not because it’s so good but because you stick to hugely obvious grammatical rules), or you can do some IT courses, but really you need to just practice, practice and practice some more. Read books, read every internet article you can come across, and maybe even rewrite those articles. One way to get some experience is to contact websites and tell them that you have rewritten one of their pages, would they be interested in buying that off you (or having it for free, but under the agreement that they contact you for further work). There are also some regular SEO seminars but be weary of these. If someone has the time to walk around telling people how great their job is, they are actually not writing themselves anymore. They may be completely out of touch with the reality – at best – or be a complete con artist – at worst.

How Do I Talk Money?

Money is very important. It doesn’t grow on trees (such a shame) and we don’t live in stable economic times. You can’t be expected to work for peanuts for very long, I certainly didn’t. But, don’t be afraid to take on some jobs that seem badly paid. Once people are happy with your work, your pay rates will start to go up. Then, when you start to feel more comfortable, you can start aiming higher and higher yourself, earning more and more. When I first started, I was on a very low amount of money per 100 words. However, that small amount quickly increased and for some articles, I am now making around ten times as much as I was for that first article. I’m very happy I didn’t stick my nose up at the small amount, because it is that what got me to where I am today.

There are lots of questions you may have about SEO copywriting. Hopefully, some of these questions have been answered here. Most of all, enjoy what you do, learn from the experts, know how to take criticism and don’t get ahead of yourself. You are never indispensible and you will get told that if you make a small mistake.

Why You Should Never Write for Free It’s a scary world out there for aspiring writers. Even though there are millions of blogs and websites out there that need content, it seems like legitimate, paid paying writing jobs are few and far between. If you can’t find work, you might be tempted to build your portfolio by writing for free. If you’re thinking this way, stop immediately. You should never write for free, and here a few important reasons why. It Devalues Your Work When you write for free, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Do you really think you don’t deserve to get paid for your work? If you ...
Why Copywriting Services Are Best For SEO If you’re an expert at writing, you don’t need to worry about your content – you’ll be able to create compelling, sparkling content that is SEO compliant and creates the perfect impression every time. But – if you’re not the kind of business owner that can handle their own copywriting services in house, maybe you should outsource. Outsourcing for SEO purposes It's critical to understand that for SEO purposes are vital for companies. I think it's something that's often overlooked, which can create problems for most of your business, without anyone realising it until things are too late – and damage done by ...
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Blog Distributor Should Be Avoided Like The Plague

2012-05-09T23:35:31Z

I like to give everybody the benefit of the doubt so when I received an email a couple of years ago from a guy informing me about a new sponsored post network I decided to give it a try and see how it panned out.

It took me ages to get one of my small blogs accepted because they kept nit-picking about certain things on the blog but after weeks of trying I was finally accepted. A couple of months later I received my first assignment and submitted it and had it approved quickly.

That was in July 2011 and I am still waiting for them to pay me. Every month they keep pushing the date back by a month despite stating on their site that they pay every week.

I have fired off FIVE emails to them, three via their contact form and two via an email address on their site, and they have not replied to ANY of them. I have searched Google to see if anyone else has not been paid and have seen no bad things being reported about them.

Has anyone had any dealings with this site?

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Smorty Is Dead

2012-05-09T22:53:43Z

If you have ever tried to make money in the sponsored posts market then you will have heard of Smorty. At the beginning of the year they did a disappearing act and didn’t let on to anybody what was going on, leaving a lot of their members high and dry.

Closing up shop, and doing a runner in the middle of the night without alerting their clients, is nothing new on the internet, it’s been happening since the early 90s, but I think Smorty was one that really took people by surprise for some reason.

In fact when they were gone for a month people were still regularly checking to see if the site had made a return.

Although four months on there is still no announcement from the people who run the network; I think it is time for everyone to realise that Smorty are dead and gone and are not coming back anytime soon.

Thankfully I stopped using them back in 2009 when they stopped offering me tasks, but unfortunately I am one of the few lucky ones as apparently when Smorty disappeared it did so without paying its members for quite a few months.

This is just another example of why you should never put all your eggs into one basket, if you check out my Make Money page (just under Sponsored Posts) then you will find a lot of networks to use so you can spread your bets.

Is Smorty The Next Sponsored Post Network To Fall? Smorty were the first sponsored post network that I joined back in November 2007, I still remember the sheer joy as I received an email from PayPal informing me that Smorty had paid me $6 for writing my very first review. Because they were my first sponsored post network I have always stuck with them through the years and would even turn work away from other networks if I already had something to write with Smorty. Sadly Smorty seems to be dying a slow and very painful death. Their message board is full of spam and pleas from members wanting review opps, ...
5 Sponsored Post Networks I Earn The Most With Where would I be without the opportunity of making an income by writing paid blog review posts on my blogs? A hell of a lot poorer is the answer to that question. For it totals up about 95% of my monthly earnings. Some people look down on them but I think they are a fantastic way of generating income and, if written in the correct way, they also help advise people when buying products and expose people to events. I get lots of emails about this kind of income method so I thought today I would list the five networks that have ...
19 Blog Review Networks Update: 24/11/11 Updated amounts earned & cleared up networks. Please note that due to me cleaning out the dead networks there may now not be 19. I received a couple of emails recently asking me to go into more details with the blog review networks that I have been part of. Well, not only am I going to post them again today but I am going to give a little bit of information about each one. I will eventually make a single post about each of them in the future, with a huge review for each one, but for now you will have ...
Earn Money By Writing Reviews I received an email about two weeks or so ago from a young lady called Manali asking me if I could teach her how to make some money online by writing blog reviews on her blog. Although a lot of blogs, that offer you articles about how to make money online, will happily publish posts about how to monetize your blog with adverts from networks such as Adsense, WidgetBucks, etc, but not many of them show you other legitimate ways. Well there are other ways and today I shall explore one way that I have been using to earn money for the ...
SkyCPM Dead & Buried? I joined Sky CPM about two months ago and I must admit that when I first joined this network I was feeling very pleased at the kind of results I was getting. OK, they were not making huge sums of money for me but they were easily out performing Adsdaq, Smowtion and Underdog combined. Sadly, as with many such networks, this did not last. I soon noticed that my income was not going up at all, not even a cent. I did not worry about it and continued to serve their ads but then I was checking one day and saw the ...

To do SEO by Yourself or to Hire it Out to a Pro?

2012-05-09T15:13:27Z

Perhaps you were conversing with a colleague, reading a website about how your own business website can succeed or you caught the end of a news clip on television. no matter how you realized, you’re now aware that your website could be working harder for you, if only it incorporated search engine optimization, or SEO. Maybe the reason your website hasn’t been an asset up until this point is precisely because it isn’t optimized, but even if you made your own website, do you do SEO yourself or hire it out to a pro?

Show Me The Money

As you can guess, money will play an important role in your decision to hire out the work or to do it yourself. Not only must you consider how much money you have for company expenses such as adding SEO to your website, but you should also consider how much return you can expect by optimizing your pages for search engines. Like many investments, hiring an SEO pro or firm to do the work for you can pay off over the long haul, much more than you invested in the first place. Some SEO companies will even work with you, for a nominal fee, to determine how much their SEO services will return on the investment, and this can help you to determine whether to proceed with help or go it alone.

Time

Like money, time is another important factor, because you might simply not have enough time to take on the responsibilities of optimizing your site, in addition to the duties that you and your employees already perform to get your business running smoothly. Whether you have time can also help you determine whether the financial investment is worth bringing in an outside team to work on your website. If you can’t spare the time, then you should spare the money.

Knowledge

If one or more of your employees already knows something about search engine optimization, you might be in luck. Even if your employees don’t have the knowledge, you might be able to hire someone to train a staff member, allowing you to always have someone on hand who is knowledgeable about the subject. That sure beats having to contact another company when time is limited!

Prior SEO Experience

Knowledge may be one thing, but experience is a power that will help your website incorporate SEO more quickly and smoothly than someone who hasn’t had to deal with any of the issues that can arise when undertaking a project like optimizing a website. If you can’t find an SEO pro who is more experience than your own employees, you might as well save some money by keeping the work in-house. On the other hand, if you talk to an SEO firm that has experience and customer recommendations, it might be a mistake not to use their services.

Ultimately, the decision to hire out SEO work, will depend upon your company. As a larger companies, you may be able to afford to hire an SEO firm, especially when you consider the return on investment over time. Larger firms may also be in a position to train one or two individuals to form an in-house team. However, smaller companies may not be able to afford outside help and might be better off relying on the existing skills to do it yourself. If you can squeeze an SEO freelancer into the budget, consider that option, instead. As an individual with little financial room or a start-up, learning as you go might provide you with SEO right now and valuable skills in the future.

Citations:

Photo with CC license. Taken from Flickr. Author: Matt Searles

Benjamin “Ben” Sawyer is an Internet marketing consultant. He often writes about Social Media and SEO, because he likes to share his knowledge with others. Currently, he is a content writer for newyorkstatedivorce.com law company from Long Island.

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4 Reasons Why You Should Hire A Freelance SEO

2012-05-09T15:18:35Z

If you are a business or website owner and you haven’t heard of SEO then you really ought to but just in case it stands for search engine optimisation and it is a marketing strategy which aims to increase the visibility of your website in search engines like Google, generate more relevant traffic to it and ultimately increase your online sales or sign ups. Now that the description is out of the way let’s take a look at why a freelance SEO professional is the best choice for you to increase your online presence and of course, your profits.

1. Think Of The Time You’ll Save

SEO is a long term marketing strategy that requires continuous work on a daily basis and so if you are planning on performing your own SEO campaign you just might find that all of your time is taken up by it and you don’t have time to actually run your business. Not only does SEO require continuous work but you also need to be extremely knowledgeable on the industry which again takes up a lot of time. If you are not a SEO expert then you could end up doing your website a lot more harm than good by employing the wrong tactic and techniques and that will be a lot of time wasted.

2. Freelancers Are Usually Cheaper

When you hire a freelance SEO professional you will usually find that they are a lot cheaper than agencies or hiring someone to do it internally. Freelancers don’t have large overheads to meet and so they can afford to offer their clients much lower prices for their work. Once again if you are considering saving money buy performing your own SEO then you should consider that you will have to pay subscriptions and fees for a number of tools that are required to do it effectively so calling a freelancer to do it for you will save you some cash.

3. They Are More Motivated

A point that is often overlooked when businesses are trying to choose between whether they should hire a SEO agency or a freelancer is that freelance professionals have more motivation to succeed. Think about it, if you are relying on yourself to make a success of your business then you are going to be much more willing to go that extra mile to succeed than if you are just another employee in a company. When it’s clocking off time for an employee they walk out the door and forget all about the project they were working on but a freelancer can’t afford to think like that, they are the company and so they will often work long into the night to ensure that you get the best results.

4. They Know Their Stuff

Anyone who has gone out on their own to provide any kind of service needs to be an expert in that field as they must cover every aspect of the job. This means that most freelance SEOs are highly regarded experts within the industry and people that are sought after by the agencies they are competing against for clients. When you hire an agency you can never really be sure if you will have the most experienced member of the team working on your campaign on the newbie who has been there for a month. There is no such problem when you hire a freelance SEO professional as you can be certain of getting a hands-on service from the very person you have been dealing with from the beginning of your enquiry.

Can you think of anymore reasons why a freelancer trumps an agency?

Stuart Cooke is a freelance SEO professional whose company Pinnacle SEO offers tailored SEO services.

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Social Media Basics For Small Businesses

2012-05-09T14:57:11Z

Hundreds of Social Media Sites Available

There are hundreds sites on the Internet that offer social media basics for small businesses. This makes it possible for anyone in business (no matter what business that may be) to market themselves and what they offer through these venues. Some of the more widely publicized ones are listed here: Buzznet, CafeMom, Delicious, Diaspora, Facebook, Flixster, Flickr, Gather.com, Google+, LinkedIn, MySpace, MyYearbook, Pingsta, Pinterest, Qapacity, Ryze, SocialVibe, StumbleUpon and Twitter.

No matter what your business is about you can find the venue that will serve your needs in reaching out to others who don’t know what you have but may want what you have. On Wikipedia there is a list of all these sites with an explanation of what each one is comprised of, what the interest of that particular site is geared toward.

Pinterest Is Hot

Take Pinterest for example, this site is for those who like to do scrap-booking. It’s intended for each individual to create a page using photos of things they like. Others can view this and see what interests people. Someone in business may then have something of interest to offer certain individuals. It’s an online sharing community.

Twitter Is A Must

Twitter is another network that is based on followers and following people that share like interests. People post their websites or articles or businesses and just share tweets everyday based on their lives. People generally follow others who share the same thoughts and ideas they have making it possible to share their services as well. It seems everybody who’s anybody uses Twitter and you can find daily new happenings on the discover tab within this network. Using what’s called hashtags in Twitter allows you to view those things of particular interest only. Like this for example, if you want to know everything that’s being said about diets you type in #diets and everything everyone has said about diets surfaces. This is helpful when you have a particular area of interest you want to communicate to others or receive from others.

LinkedIn Is Great For Business

LinkedIn is a business and professional networking site for those who have the same types of businesses or professional degrees and Gather.com is good for writers who want to share articles, photographers who want to share pictures and videographers who want to share videos. Such a vast sea of opportunities are out there to market a small business.

Know Your Strategy

It’s important to start with one first though. Pick one that you feel will have the greatest potential for what it is you want to share. Get to know how it operates. Read everything there is to know about it within the sites rules and guidelines and then get started. It’s a good idea to not just throw your stuff out there without being sociable with others on the site. This begins to look like your spamming and interested in only selling your wares. Be friendly and sociable and really take time to read what others are sharing and what they are about, develop friendships and you’ll do better in drawing others to what you have to share.

After you have successfully mastered one of these networking sites move on to another. Find out all there is to know about it and continue this process. Before long you will have many people who know you and what you have to offer them. It’s important to make your presence known everyday on these sites because as the old saying goes ‘out of sight, out of mind’ and so it is with this online world as well. Always have something to say or something to offer people everyday. There’s a lot out there competing with you so be up front and center daily. But remember listen to others and check out what they are sharing don’t just think of your own goals.

Inform Yourself Regarding Each Social Media Site

Check out Wikipedia to see the list of all these sites and take the time to view each one for specifics to figure out the best one to start with. Don’t go gun-ho and start with several all at once because this will become confusing, aggravating and it will be difficult for you to know what you are doing. You’ll end up doing yourself more harm than good taking this route so just take your time, start slowly and build on it. Remember, Rome was not built in a day and neither will a large following of people if you try to take on too much at one time.

Social media basics for small businesses is a pretty simple process it will however require a great amount of patience and time to learn all there is to know about what to do to become successful using these types of services on the Internet. But the time and effort you put out will definitely be worth it and will yield many followers if you use integrity and compassion for others when interacting in this way.

About The Author

Online Clock are the creators of the world’s most popular online alarm clock website. True to the words in this article, they are very active in building up communities on a wide range of social media websites including Twitter.

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Using Social Networking within the Small Business Environment Small businesses in general tend to deter against employees using social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter during the company’s time in order to keep the office as productive as possible. Websites like Facebook, Twitter, Bebo and mySpace to name a few of the most popular social networking destinations on the web are often banned by the business, to an extremes even added to a black list within the Internet gateway.Why can’t social networking sites like Facebook be used for positive purposes?Trends in Internet, communication and technology have led us to where we stand today; we have a medium ...
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