JB's Ramblings

What a Concept!

2008-02-07T09:02:00.001-05:00

There is a Brand New concept in advertising on the market. If you have ever wanted a sure-fire way to monetize your website that will generate a nice steady income, then you need to get in on this new concept NOW! It's called Pay-Per-Play and it will soon be in full swing.

What is Pay-Per-Play and how does it work? Pay-Per-Play is a concept developed by NetAudioAds. You simply copy and paste a small piece of JavaScript code to your web page you will earn cash every time someone visits your website. Visit NetAudioAds and you can play a sample of the type of ads that your visitors will hear. The best part is, you get paid no matter what your visitors do. There is no link to take your visitor away, no long boring message they must react to in any way! All that happens is they hear a short (5 seconds) ad for some business and that's it!

What kind of business ads will be playing on your website? Ads for places like Taco Bell or Target, or ... who knows, it could be anyone, but the point is, you will get paid every time someone hears an ad on your website! I have personally joined this new program and I can personally vouch for it's potential. You think AdSense® is good? You don't get paid to display AdSense® ads, but you DO get paid for playing NetAudioAds! What could be better?

You owe it to yourself to visit their website and see what all the hoopla is about. You could find yourself making more money than you ever made with any other pay-per-ad program! After all, if all your visitor has to do is visit your website and you get paid... How can you lose?

JBD

Viral Marketing - Not Using It Could Kill Your Business!

2008-01-23T08:39:00.000-05:00

Creativity:

This is one virtue a site must possess to lead the race in the ruthless competition in the Internet based business. With so much competition and rivalry going on, every method of marketing must be employed and utilized.

It doesn’t matter whether you have a great product or a fantastically designed website, if people don’t know that you exist, it doesn’t matter, and you are not going to make it big. Worse of all, your business could just die a slow death.

While there are so many methods and schemes used by so many e-commerce sites today, there are still some of those that can help you with an extra boost in the popularity ratings. One of these is the so called Viral Marketing.

While the term "Viral" easily depicts a virus, a word very much dreaded by all computer owners, it is not what it seems. You do not actually use a computer virus to spread your business; on the contrary it just might kill you. Everyone has had enough of all those pop-up ads and spywares.

Viral Marketing Overview:

Viral Marketing, also known as Viral Advertising, is a marketing technique used to build the public awareness of one’s product or company. They use many forms of media to reach out to the public without actually promoting the product by including it in other forms of an addictive sort that could get a person hooked and feel obliged (or amused) to actually pass it on, with the product or company advertisement along with it.

In a nutshell, companies ride on the idea that if people like the content of a media they will pass it on to their friends and family. They sponsor the certain media, such as a cool flash game, funny video, amusing story and such, which one may pass on to another with the company brand or logo or the products description or any other content to help promote the company or its product.

Viral marketing has become a popular means of advertising and marketing because they are relatively low cost. To avoid being tagged as spam email, viral marketing counts on the eagerness of one person to pass on the product. If a person sees the name of a person they know, as the sender, they won’t block it and are likely to open it as well.

Many companies offer incentives such as discounts and rebates when they help in spreading their viral marketing. They rely on the number of recipients a viral marketing gets from one person in determining the amount or number of incentives with which they can be attributed.

Using Viral Marketing to your advantage:

The main and foremost advantage of viral marketing is that you get a lot of publicity and public awareness about your site and your company. You get to generate a flow of traffic that are potential customers. With a little ingenuity and imagination, plus some incentives or prizes, you can reach out to a great number of people and announce your existence.

Most every site (and companies, too) is catching on to the effectiveness of Viral Marketing and Advertising. Not using it could kill your business. Along with other schemes and methods in promoting your site, like Search Engine Optimization and such, viral marketing could easily push you ahead in the rating games.

Viral Marketing could be a excellent way to get people to know about you and your company. You get them to pass your advertisement along. Viral marketing is available at such a low cost that not investing in it could be business suicide. All it takes is a great idea, a good addicting game, or a funny story. Many great ideas are still out there. Create a gossip or a buzz, many movies are promoted by using scandals and gossips to make them more popular. Remember the movie “The Blair Witch Project”?

Many big companies have tried viral marketing and have had many success stories with it. A classic example is Microsoft’s Hotmail. They were the first known big company to utilize the scheme and it has worked wonders for them.

Now it’s your turn to use viral marketing to work wonders for you. Act now and reap the benefits Viral Marketing will provide for you and your sales figures.

Making Money Secrets Pt. 3

2008-01-12T08:35:00.000-05:00

Okay, here it is... The long awaited Part #3 of my series on Making Money on the Internet.

If you have been doing as I have suggested in the previous parts of this series, you should, by now, have a pretty good opt-in list as well as a hefty list of members. Hopefully, many of them are paying members. You should have a decent (probably not large) residual income from your member-site. So now let's cash in on that membership.

You will, of course, need a new member website of some sort. It doesn't matter what you have to offer as long as you have at least two levels of membership (three would be even better). Let's say you are selling widgets for $14.95 each. You are going to give away a couple of e-books and/or software packages to go with them. Let's just say it's a $99 value. New members get a free website (as before) from which they can sell your widgets. The first time they enter the member's area of your web site they should be presented with a one-time-offer (OTO). This offer could be anything from a discount on upgrading their membership to the purchase of some other software or e-book that will compliment (or assist) them in selling the widgets.

Let's take a minute to talk about the upgrades. One of the best upgrade offers you can make is to give top-level members a percentage of the monthly income from members they recruit who also upgrade. This will build them a nice residual income and encourage many to upgrade. The higher the percentage the better! 20% is a good number to work with. (My website Viral Maxx gives 30%). You could pay 10% for one level and 20% for the top level. But if you have three levels, you MUST make sure you are offering something of value to the second level or no one will upgrade to that level.

How much should you charge for upgrades? That will greatly depend on what you are offering. You could charge any amount but it's best to keep the top level below $25. There is nothing wrong with reproducing what has been successful for someone else. In fact, if you can't re-invent the wheel, then copy it with some interesting changes. Make your wheel better than the other guy's and you will do as well or better than he did!

In summation, I would just like to say that any business you start will take time to build. There are no over-night get rich quick schemes that work. If you are going to run your own member website, you will have to devote a great deal of your time to it. You need to be available to answer questions, give your members support, devise new ways to help them recruit and make sales.

You now have the basics, so go out there and knock'em dead, as they say. And may fortune shine upon you always.

JBD

Drive Millions of Visitors to Your Website

2008-01-03T19:13:00.000-05:00

Holidays! Aren't you glad they're over?

It's been too long since I made an entry here mostly because of those darn holidays. But I just had to write about a brand new website out there because if I wait it will be too late! The first job you have as an Internet business operator is to drive traffic to your website. Viral Maxx will not only do just that, but it will help you do the second part of your job... Selling your particular product or service.

Viral Maxx is not really a new concept. It is based on a very old concept that works! It has a few twists that make it better than anything like it... For one, Viral Maxx will help you build an email list that will make all your competitors jealous. In addition to driving millions (yes I said, "millions") of visitors to your website, Viral Maxx allows you to send email advertisements to everyone you recruit into the system. Beautiful HTML ads that you can create right there on the website. Nothing says "buy me" better than a picture! You can send those in your emails too.

The best part of Viral Maxx is you can get in on the ground floor for FREE! They are currently in a Pre-Launch phase and will soon be announcing their Grand Opening! How soon? Click here to see for yourself. They have a count-down timer. It operates like a safe-list only better... It is constantly growing!

If you choose, you can upgrade to one of the two paid levels, both of which allow you to email, not only your personal recruits, but ALL those in your downline. At the Pro level you can even earn money from those in your downline who choose to upgrade as well.

I have never seen a system quite like Viral Maxx before. It combines the best of traffic generation and opt-in list building into one neat little package. To top it all off, they are offering a bonus package to those who sign up now that contains more than thirty (30) e-books and software packages that you can sell yourself! It's over 50Mb Huge! I highly recommend Viral Maxx for those who want to boost their traffic, email list, and sales!

You'll never have to surf for credits again! Just post your Viral Maxx web page to those same surf-sites and watch the traffic start rolling in! Soon, you'll have more sales than you can shake a stick at...

JBD

Making Money Secrets Pt. 2

2007-12-10T08:23:00.000-05:00

If you have been following my blog, you know that we are in the middle of learning how to make money on the Internet. Last week I told you that you needed to setup a free give away website designed to attract members. This is one way to build a list of people to whom you can send ads for other things.

Okay, you have your free website up and running. As your membership grows you need to encourage your members to help you enlist even more members. After all, some of them may already have their own down-lines from other programs and will be able to bring many of them to you.

The following information applies to those with a member website as well as those who simply have an email list of their own. Send out emails to your members on a regular basis. You don't need to push a lot of sales pitches at them now. You simply want to encourage them to use the service you are offering or to remain on your mailing list. Give them tips on how to make the most from your service or their own programs. This will help your members in their financial endeavors as well as building confidence in you!

You can make an occasional offer of some bonus or other free program. What you are trying to do is simply build your list as large as you can. The larger your list of faithful readers the better your chances of success in your next step. Don't be in too big of a hurry to get to that next step. It takes time to build a good list and you need to be patient. Rushing into things too quickly will only lead to failure. That's what we are trying to avoid.

If your first program has a level component and you are charging members to upgrade, you should not charge too much for these upgrades. Remember, cash is NOT the main goal of this first website. The goal is to build your down-line or mailing list. In the next installment we will be discussing how to turn your list into cash. So for now, be content to build you list.

If you can find someone with a compatible website you yours, that is, something would augment your program, try to work out an agreement in which both programs will benefit by combining resources. This is called a 'Joint Venture'. Even if you don't actually have a joint website, you are working together to build your own memberships.

Again, if want to see a couple of good examples of a first website used simply to build a list of members take a look at these...

Versa-Ads: There are three membership levels but none of them will cost you much.
Fred Mertz' Ad-Coop: Here, there is only one level. You can pay to get your ad exposure or you can just advertise for others. Either way, you can earn cash.
Advertising Know How: This is a free traffic exchange that has paid levels as well.

Next week will discuss creating another website. This one will designed to earn you a good residual income. As before, if you need help developing your website, you can contact me at: Admin (at) jbdweb.net and perhaps I can help you get started.

JBD

The Secret To Internet Millions!

2007-12-05T16:06:00.000-05:00

So you really want the secret to making millions on the Internet... Well who doesn't? I can tell you one sure fire way to do just that, and I will if you will just read this blog!

First of all you have to have an idea that will produce a few members. You need a web page that will make people want to join your program and they must be able to do it for FREE! That's right... Free! Trust me, you will get a whole lot more people to join you if you offer them something more than just and eBook or two. One of the hottest things these days seems to be traffic exchanges. However, you will need some pretty sophisticated software to run it. That would not be my first recommendation. Besides, there are so many of them available the market is being rapidly saturated with them. You should really come up with something else. Something new and different, if you can.

Secondly, you need to offer your members a free web page they can use to make money or to grow their own email list. If you get greedy and try to charge your members for using your web page you will NOT achieve the desired result. If you have an idea but don't know enough about server-based databases or web-based programming to do the job, email me at 'admin at jbdweb.net' and I will be glad to help you. A membership website will give you lots of members and you can back-end them any time you want. (That means sell them other things.)

If you like, you can offer upgraded memberships. This can be in the form of one-time payments or monthly fees. We will discuss that more in a later blog. Don't try to get greedy here either, these upgraded memberships should be inexpensive. you don't want to try to make a fortune with this first venture. The objective here is to build a membership. Here are two examples of programs designed to do exactly what I am telling you here:

Versa-Ads: A text-based ad program that let's you get your ad out there and it's free. You can upgrade your membership, if you like, for a modest fee.

Fred Mertz' Ad-Coop: This coop is not entirely free. To get your ad placed under the corner peel on other member's web pages you will need to fund your account, but you can also earn money with this system so you may end up not spending a dime in the long run.

Next week we will cover what to do next... There is more you know!

JBD

To Splash Or Not To Splash...

2007-11-26T08:15:00.000-05:00

Sometimes that is the question. Whether it is better to suffer the loss of time creating a splash page or to simply post the affiliate page you were given can be a dilemma many will face as they attempt to make that elusive fortune promised by so many.

What is a splash page, anyway? A splash page is a web page with a small advertisement usually designed to load quickly and capture the attention of the reader. Splash pages are ideal for surf-sites that have very short cycle times. I have seen web pages that don't get fully loaded if the surf-site has a ten second (or less) display timer. If you are planning to use such a site to promote your affiliate page (or even your own web site) you should think about using a splash page instead of the main page of the web site you are promoting.

Creating a splash page can be a tricky thing if you don't know what you are doing. No, it's not difficult to create one, but if your splash page is to promote an affiliate web site, you have to be careful not to violate any of the companies policies. You don't want to promise anything that the company does not already promise. The best advice I can give on the subject of content for a splash page is to get quotes from the main page and use them. If you make up your own 'hooks' (as they are called) you could get into trouble.

Splash pages generally (but not necessarily) contain mostly eye-catching graphics. If you cannot create your own splash page graphics there are alternatives. You could buy special splash page generators or you can use 'Instant Squeeze Page Generator' by Robert Puddy. The nice part about Robert's web-based program is that he has things you can give away. You can either create a splash page or a sign-up page if you have an auto-responder for an opt-in list.

If you choose to make your own splash page here are some suggestions on how to go about it. First of all, you don't want to say too much in your ad. Keep it simple. Remember, the objective is to coax the reader into taking some sort of action. Whether it is to fill out a form for your auto-responder, or simply click on a button to visit your main page is up to you. You don't HAVE to use graphics. I have seen some very effective text only splash pages. Try to keep the display within 400-600 pixels wide by about 250-400 pixels in height. Of course these are not hard limits, you can make it bigger, but this is a good size to ensure fast loading and keep everything in the viewing area of the web page.

Finally, if you are using graphics, try not to make them too large. This will slow down the load. Also, .gif files tend to load faster than .jpg files. Unless you are posting a photo and need the quality, try converting your .jpg's to .gif format.

In summation, keep your words to a minimum, keep your graphics simple, and make sure it will fit inside the surf-sites viewing area and encourage action. If you can do all that, you should have a good splash page that will increase the traffic to your web site.

JBD

Social Videos

2007-11-19T06:37:00.000-05:00

If you have the time and the proper equipment, there is a rising star on the Internet that can boost your traffic and reduce your costs for that traffic. It's called (among other things) Video Socializing. Google® runs a sight called "You Tube". What makes You Tube different from the many other video socializing websites is the fact that they now offer a new service to publishers (including bloggers) who want to earn some extra cash.

If you use 'AdSense', then you should already be aware of how this works. Just like the text ads, you place a snippit of code into your web page or blog and Viola! You have a relevant video right there on your page. You get paid when people click the ads that are displayed just like the text ads. Not a bad way to ad some spice to your web page and perhaps earn a little cash at the same time.

Google calls this new service "Video Units". Not very imaginative, but it gets the idea across. You can access this new service through your AdSense account. It's easy to use so give it try. If you want to create your own You Tube video ad just go to You Tube.

JBD

Effective Advertising

2007-11-09T08:58:00.000-05:00

This is something that every Internet Marketer worries about on a daily basis! Am I using the best ad method for my product? Am I reaching the right audience? Is my advertising cost effective? All valid and frequently asked questions.

Recent studies say most people are not advertising effectively. Why? There are several reasons for your advertising to be ineffective. You may be advertising to the wrong people. If you have an opportunity that just can't be beat, why advertise to a general audience of Internet surfers? 99.99% of those people will never read word one of your ad. You need to advertise to other opportunity seekers. Whether you use email or surf-for-credit websites, you need be sure that you have the best email list or surf site to reach the largest audience of opportunity seekers. Choose your list or surf site carefully.

What if you are selling fragrant candles? Surf sites would be the last place you should go. Why? Because they are filled with opportunity seekers NOT candle sniffers. Most of this is really common sense, but you would be surprised at the number of advertisers who use the wrong methods. Let's get down to brass tacks...

Surf-for-credit sites are pretty good for opportunity seekers. Safe list emails might be the only ad method better for these people. If you want to target your advertising to a specific niche, then you might want to invest in something like AdWords® or similar text ad. These ads are placed on web sites that already have visitors interested in what you have to sell. Some of these are more costly than others, but a little research on your part can help you find a service that is inexpensive enough to fit your budget Check out their other advertisers. If there are no candle companies (using the above example) then they are NOT right for you.

If you want to reach a wide audience with general interests, then you need something else. Banner exchanges can be a good method to get the word out about your website, but there is an inherent problem with many of these services. Unless they go to the trouble to make sure their members place the banners in a good place on their websites, your banner will be buried somewhere inside the website and not on the front or entrance page.

What about those great corner peel ads, you ask? Well, they are the least objectionable and least intrusive of all the ads you can use. Here is the problem with corner peel ads... They are all too often mis-used. You can purchase the software to put these ads you your website very cheaply these days. I have seen them as low as $17 for the software. However, if all you want to do is advertise another of your offerings or websites, then they are great. But they will NOT bring you more traffic! That is not what they are designed to do.

Let me give you an example. Suppose you have an opportunity website and you want to promote another opportunity in your corner ad. Think about it... You already have the customer. He/she is looking at your website. Even if they click your corner ad, they are NOT new traffic. Are they? There are better ways to promote your other opportunities than using your own corner ads. Put your information in a space on your main site, rather than sending them to another of your sites without any information. Instead, take a little space on your page to write a good description of your other opportunity and link from there. It will increase the credibility of the other opportunity if you can give the customer enough information to make them want more.

Corner ads are really great. They are the most often clicked on ads. People will pull down the corner just to see what is there even if they are not interested in what it is. That means more people will read your ad more often than they would read a text ad on the same page! That's impressive. But I repeat, if you are not getting new traffic from these ads, you are not using them effectively. It would be better to find a service who will put your ad on other websites in a corner peel. That way, your ad will be seen by a larger group of people and will actually do you much more good. Anyone clicking on your ad now will be new traffic! Not only new, but interested traffic!

There are a few sites that offer this kind of advertising, but only one (that I know of) will put your ad on websites all over the Internet. Most will put your ad on their website, or tell you that you can make a fortune selling such ads on your own website. Bologna! Unless you have several thousand visitors per day you won't be able to find anyone who will pay you to put their ad on your page. But you can make money using Fred's Ad-Coop.

Fred's will give you one line of code to place on your web page that will produce corner peel ads from other people. The best part is, your ad will also be placed on their websites. That's the "coop" part. This is the correct way to use corner peel ads. Your ad will be displayed to a great many people and when one clicks on it, you have a new visitor. That is, after all, the objective of any ad you place anywhere!

Basically, you need to put a little thought into the audience you are reaching with your ads. Not just the number of visitors you will get. The difference can mean selling one in ten visitors versus one in ten-thousand! So think about your objective and put your money into the right kind of ad for you.

JBD

Attn: Advertisers & Publishers

2007-11-08T08:12:00.000-05:00

If you have been following my blog of late, you know that I recently talked about one new advertising site in particular: Fred Mertz' Corner-peel Ad-Coop. They have just opened their doors (officially) and I felt I had to tell you about it. It turns out that it is even better than I first reported.

If you are an advertiser in need of an inexpensive way to get the word out about your product or service, Fred has the answer! At only a nickel per click (that's per visitor) to your website, you won't find a less expensive, more effective, way to advertise! Now most of you know I am a big fan of 'Free', especially when it comes to advertising. So for me to tell you what a good deal this is, you know I must mean it.

At Fred's Ad-Coop you don't pay for impressions. That means you only pay for the actual visitors and every one of those visitors clicked on your ad in order to get to your website. That also means that they are not just people looking to make a buck by viewing your site. No, they are actual potential customers. They came there because they wanted to learn more about your product or service. You couldn't ask for better traffic than that!

We all know that it can easily take a hundred or more impressions to get just one visitor. Impressions are free at Fred's! You will not pay any monthly fees either! What you get is your ad scattered all over the Internet on other people's websites in the form of corner-peel ads. Fred's can even help you design your corner ad to attract the right visitors. They offer several attractive generic ads you can use until you have one of your own.

If you are a Publisher and want to earn some extra income, Fred's Ad-Coop can help with that too! You can earn $2.00 for each advertiser you recruit (when they fund their account) PLUS you get paid each time someone clicks one their ads! You even have a choice of whether to display random corner ads or your own, depending on how you go about it.

Fred has included all the links you could want. You can place any of the links on your own web pages or you can use any of the pre-built web pages and splash pages you like. Fred has made your job as easy as it could possibly be. Adding just one line of code to your web pages will display random ads in a corner peel. What could be easier? Why would you want to do this? Because you get paid each time someone clicks on an ad displayed on your website! That's why.

But you don't have to take my word for it. Check out this blog from Lee Seats. He knows first hand how good Fred's Ad-Coop really is.

If you would like to take a look at Fred's Corner-Peel Ad-Coop I suggest you become a member. It's free and if you don't like it, Fred has even included a 'Close My Account' link on the 'My Account' page. So you really have nothing to lose. Just give them a try. This may be a new service, but I suspect their membership will grow rapidly! Get in while he is still offering to double your first deposit.

Opportunities in Traffic

2007-11-05T11:56:00.000-05:00

In my last post I talked about how many of the surf-for-credit sights listings were for other traffic sites and opportunities. I guess I should have paid closer attention. It seems many of the traffic sites showing up these days are of the pay to view type. In other words, they pay their surfers to read the websites they are sent to. Some actually ask questions about what each site said in order to verify that the page was actually read and not just skipped over.

I suppose there is really nothing wrong with this type of service, but even though you are getting people to actually read what you have to say, it seems a bit odd to me, to pay people to view your website. Isn't that a bit like the surf for credit sites? I mean, even though they may have to read a bit of your page to get paid, still, they are just trying to earn a buck... Not become a customer. Yes, you can make a few bucks this way, and I don't blame anyone for doing just that. I personally would not pay people to look at my website. I would much rather have visitors who are interested in what I have to offer, than people just taking my money because they can. I would rather pay the person who sent me the visitor than pay the visitor!

If you want to pay for visitors (not for traffic) then I suggest you find a company who will give you a good return on your money. Fred's Ad-Coop, for example. You only pay for actual visitors to your website. They don't send traffic that isn't interested in what you have to offer. That means a much higher sales-to-visitors ratio! That means more sales and less bandwidth! After all, you are supplying bandwidth when you have traffic sites send their surfers your way. Think about it... There are better ways to spend your hard earned money!

JDB

Adventure in Email Lists

2007-10-31T10:42:00.000-04:00

The last time I wrote anything pertinent about email lists I talked about building your list. This time I think I need to give a little advice on how to KEEP your subscribers once you have them.

You should set up an auto-responder before you ever put that first name on your list. By 'auto-responder' I am not talking about a simple one time reply to a request for information. I am talking about a full blown auto-response system. There are several on the market that you can buy and set up yourself. You can also pay a service such as AWeber (there are others... Just Google® them.) who can take a great deal of the work off your shoulders. However, they do cost money and those of you who know me know how I feel about that...

Whatever type of auto-responder you end up with is not nearly as important as what you do with it! There are many ways of building a list. You can even buy or rent lists if you have the money. But every time you get a new subscriber, they should go through a series of emails spaced about a week apart. These emails should treat the person like a new customer. That is, don't do a hard sell on them right away. If you do, they will surely opt-out on you and that isn't what you want. These people (assuming you are building your own list) signed up for your newsletter (or what have you) either to get that free gift we talked about, or because they were interested in something you said in your promo. They don't know you from Adam! yYou will have to treat them accordingly.

Don't try to sell them ANYTHING until they have received at least six to eight emails from you. Instead, give them some good information pertinent to the product or service you are going to try to sell them. For example; let's say you have this really great opportunity to offer them (eventually). Talk about things like where to advertise 'their' products or services. If you can, offer them another free gift in the forth or fifth newsletter, no strings attached. What you are doing is building a friendship. You must gain their confidence before they will buy anything from you! Ask yourself this question, "Do I want to buy that new car from a stranger or from someone I know and trust?" Then make yourself that trustworthy car salesman before you try to sell them anything.

BTW, the more freebies you can offer them (remember, no strings) along the way, the more they will want what you try to sell them later! Make sure that when they DO buy into your opportunity (or what have you) that they know you will be there to help them get started and keep helping them as they 'get richer'!

JBD

New Advertising Coop

2007-10-25T14:48:00.000-04:00

I've been talking a great deal about advertising and how to increase your traffic lately. Well I'm gonna do it again today! I just started working on a project for another one of my friends (at least I am getting paid this time). When we sat down to talk about what he wanted I kept asking, "You want what?" because I had never heard of a company running it's business this way. But I must admit, the more I think about it, the better it sounds. The programming is fairly straight forward so I won't bore you with the details of the it, but I just have to tell you something about program itself.

My friend's name is Fred Mertz. He has come up with an advertising idea that just might work. To get truly targeted traffic, you have to get people to want to click the link to your web site. If they are just surfing for credits, chances are, they are not interested in what you are selling. But the more web sites you can get to carry your ad, the better your traffic will be. That is the concept behind all the pay-per-click (PPC) ad companies out there. The problem is, most of them are way too expensive for the average Joe because you have to bid for impressions and there are huge monthly fees to boot. That means if you want the same ad space as say Wal*Mart, you have to bid higher than they do for it. Yeah, sometimes you can get the top spot for as little as 20 or 30 cents. But that's usually because the keywords were not used by very many other web sites. In other words, it's not that good a spot.

What if you could get one of the best spots on any web page? And what if it only cost you a nickel to do it? Wouldn't that be great? Well pretty soon you will be able to do just that! 'Fred's Corner Peel Ad-Coop' will be the answer. A recent study has shown that those peel-down corner ads that have been cropping up all over the place are (statistically speaking) the best place to put your ad! Now the problem is, you can buy these peel-down scripts and put your own ad on your own web site, but think about this... You worked hard, probably spent a good deal of money to get this surfer to your web site. Now you are going to try to sell him something else you have for sale (maybe another opportunity). That's fine, but now you have to go out and find another surfer who is interested in what you have to sell. It gets expensive!

With 'Fred's Corner Peel Ad-Coop' your ad will be placed under that corner on many other web sites! The best part is, it won't cost you a thing until someone actually clicks on your ad!!! Beats paying just to put your ad in front of them when they don't click on it! A coop is a group of people who share with each other. Fred's coop is just that. You get your ad placed under these attractive peel-down corners all over the world, on all sorts of web sites. And you don't have to pay unless your ad gets clicked. Oh yeah, I almost forgot... Fred's program will pay you 20% to display ads on your web site, too! Any way, this will be one heck of a program and I just wanted to give my readers a heads-up about it. You can't join now because the programming (I'm doing) isn't ready yet. But watch this blog and I will tell you when you can!

In the mean time, if you really want some information about this brand new concept in advertising, you can write to Fred and he will answer all your questions. I will be looking forward to seeing this program in action!

JBD

Building Your List

2007-10-23T08:05:00.000-04:00

Email marketing is one of the most powerful methods of generating sales from the Internet. The premise is that you find people who are interested in your product, get them to join your email (or ezine) list, then you can send them periodic newsletters filled with your advertising. There are two things you should do to keep your subscribers from 'opting out' of your list.

Don't send out 'newsletters' every day filled with nothing but sales pitches for your latest venture or product. This only chases potential customers away because they see it as spam and will opt out.
Do put valuable information into your newsletter, something that will be of value or interest to your readers. Place your ads between articles and you will keep your readers, making sales in the process.

Don't have your own list? Well, you can always use a 'Safe List'... But I wouldn't recommend it. Instead, build a list! Safe Lists are made up of people trying to sell their particular "opportunity' and your email will be dumped (deleted) without ever being opened. You will make zero sales! I kid you not. Think about it, when you sign up for a safe list you must agree to receive the companies mailings, thus putting yourself on their list. They recommend opening a new email account to receive all the 'junk' mail you will get as a member. Does anyone ever read these emails? I doubt it.

If you really want to build your own list you need two things... First of all you need an email program that will collect subscribers and manage your lists and newsletters. There are many good ones out there, even free ones. Secondly, you MUST have your own website! No, that affiliate web page does not qualify. You need your own web site! I can't emphasize that enough. Why? Simply because you need a place to display what you sell, and a place to put a link for your newsletter. Besides, you don't want a desk top email newsletter program! You want a more powerful, server based system.

I am trying to be brief here so I will simply say that if you want to build an email list fast, find something related to your product that you can GIVE AWAY FREE! Preferably something that can be downloaded. Let your email system gather new subscribers while giving away an ebook or some other freebie you offer. Once you have at least two names on your list, you need to start sending out your newsletter once (no more than twice) a week.

As I said, make sure you are not just sending out ads... Give your readers something of value to read. Even if you just publish cute little stories, or a list of jokes. Don't make your ads the main thrust of your newsletter. You will do much better if your ads are short and to the point without wasting a great deal of space. One or two lines plus a link to your product is all it takes. You will get a much better response than if you fill your newsletter with one huge ad. I see so many people sending out this type of 'newsletter' that it makes me sad. They lose as many people from their lists and they gain each and every day. Your list should grow, not shrink! Let your web site (or affiliate page) do the selling. That's what it was designed to do. Your newsletter should simply tease the reader and make them want to see more.

In summation, the important thing to put into a newsletter is "News"! Small ads work best. Don't overload your subscriber with ads. He/she won't be a subscriber for long if you do. If you build a good subscriber base you will be able to sell space in your newsletter to other advertisers! More on that in a later blog. For now, just concentrate on building your list and keeping their interest!

JBD

Surf For Credit

2007-10-22T07:34:00.000-04:00

I am guessing that you use at least one 'Surf-for-Credit' website to advertise your website or page. I have done some unofficial investigation on several of these sites and you might (or not) be surprised by my results.

Let me explain what I did to gather these stats. I surfed for credit on five major sites. Then I chose two from those and spent several hours surfing for credit and taking notes as I did. Here is what I have discovered:

A great many of these websites use one of two or three surf engines. You can tell because they all look the same. Many have not spent much time customizing the look of their website and it makes one wonder about the honesty of their stats when they say they have X-number of members. As a programmer, I know just how easy it would be to inflate this number.
Many of the surf-for-credit websites are owned by the same person (or people). In other words, they bought a surf engine and have created several websites using that same surf engine. I suppose that explains why so many of them look just alike...
Finally, the number of credits varies from 0.333 per page view to several credits per page view. By far the best credit-per-view website I found is TrafficSwarm. I averaged between three and four credits per view (I actually got 50 for viewing one page).
Last, but not least, I chose two websites to surf and I kept track of what kind of websites I was viewing (more on this later). But if you are like me, you surf more than one site at a time. Doing this defeats the purpose of the surf engine which is to force you to view a member's web pages. Switching back and forth between browser windows (or tabs as the case may be) means you are only watching the timers and not really reading the ads.

My Findings:
The two sites I chose to surf are the two I consider to be the best out there. They do not use the same surf engine that anyone else uses (as far as I can tell). In other words, they have created their own surf engines. The first is TrafficSwarm who has the largest membership of any surf-for-credit website I have found. They use a twenty (20) second timer, longer than most other surf sites, and require you to return to a list of sites from which you must chose one to view. There are a few minor bugs in their system, but nothing you can't live with.

The second website I chose was Advertising Know How. I chose them because they are still fairly new and have a unique surf engine with only a ten (10) second timer. Again, there are a few bugs in their system, but nothing major. I definitely think this is one surf-for-credit site that will end up becoming a major competitor.

I viewed a grand total of over 1,000 pages while surfing at these two websites. The results are interesting. Of all the pages I viewed, 52% were for "Opportunities" (or get-rich-quick schemes). I am not putting down these kinds of websites, but let's face it, haven't you seen enough of these? There was another 38% that advertised other traffic generation websites. You would not believe how many of those there are out there! And finally, the remaining 10% were actually selling some product. Of these, some also offered affiliate accounts, but the main thrust of their page was to sell their product, whatever that may be. Hats off to these guys and gals!

In summation, I just want to point out that I have not made any judgments concerning the effectiveness of one surf engine over another, only the benefits to the member. However, in my humble opinion, if you want real targeted traffic coming to your web site, you would be better off using a pay-per-click service like Google's AdWords® or a free service like my own Versa-Ads. These two services, while not increasing your traffic in great numbers (unless you pay an arm and a leg to Google) WILL produce a more interested visitor to your website. As I have said a thousand times before, I would much rather have ten interested visitors than ten-thousand surfers! After all, ask yourself, how many times have you found an interesting website while surfing for credits?

Use this information for what it's worth, but I just wanted to give you the facts...

JBD

Affiliate Scams

2007-10-18T11:28:00.000-04:00

If you have spent any time at all surfing the web you know there are thousands upon thousands of affiliate programs out there. About 98% of them are pure garbage! If you have tried some of these scams and discovered for yourself that the money they claim you can make is just NOT there, you know what I am talking about. By the time you buy an eBook complete with all rights, there is almost no one left to sell it to. And it's highly suspect that that eBook you paid $20 to get ever sold for $197 as they claimed in their ad. Right?

So what do you do if you can't write your own program or eBook and sell it to millions of people? You have two choices: 1) You can find a legitimate program where there are NOT 2 million affiliates already or; 2) You continue keep trying each new program that hits the surf-circuit until you either find one that works or you die of old age.

How can you tell a good affiliate program from a bad one? Good question. It isn't easy, but it can be done. For one thing, look at products and services that you would (or know people who would) be interested in even if you were not selling it yourself. In other words, REAL products like some candy company with a unique type of candy, or maybe a widget that can make your car go faster. Anything that is legitimate but (and here's the key) they are not spending half their budget seeking affiliates. Also make sure that they are not in business to sell their product to their affiliates. You should never have to pay to become an affiliate!

There is one such company that raises money for charity by holding raffles. I know they are good because I run the company and I wrote all their programs! It's called 121 Charity Raffle Club. They have only a limited number of affiliates (25) and when they are full that's it! They don't charge you, in fact, they reward you for achieving certain goals. You can check out their Affiliate Program here: http://121charityraffle.com/affiliate.htm. By limiting the number of affiliates they increase your ability to make money. Let's face it, if the market is flooded with affiliate ads from 2 million affiliates, you may never find a customer. But with only a few, you have a much better chance. Besides, you may even get random customers because the company takes no commissions for customers who eliminate the affiliate code from their link. Any one purchasing a raffle ticket without an affiliate code is assigned one at random.

Please, pardon me for making such a blatant plug for one of my own programs. I do that from time to time, but only because my programs are all designed to help the little guy. If they cost you anything, it's because you wanted to add a service or upgrade an account, not because you can't use my programs for free. I never charge for using any of my programs and I don't have pay memberships.

That's it for today, God Bless you.
Until next time,

JBD

Blogging for Dollars

2007-10-16T04:48:00.000-04:00

Hi folks, I've been away and couldn't find time to put up a blog. That happens to everyone, I would imagine, at one time or another. But I'm back, so let's talk...

Blogging is a very good way to promote your business or even yourself, if that's what you want to do. It's very easy to create a blog, a little harder to keep up with the writing, but monetizing it is extremely simple. All you have to do is put a couple of links in your page like this to catch peoples attention. It doesn't even have to be a relevant link. That is, relevant to your blog. You can throw a few links (but not too many) into each blog you write and you will generate some traffic to whatever web site you are promoting.

The really hard part about monetizing your blog is writing about something that people want to read. Believe it or not, people do NOT want to read about your Uncle Jack and his recent skiing accident. Not unless it is relevant to making some point. If you write what people want (or need) to hear, then people will clammer over each other to get to your blog.

Personal experiences are fine if you are just talking with friends, but to create real repeat traffic, you need to have something important to say. It amazes me how many people join 'MySpace' simply to promote whatever business or product they are selling this week, then proceed to fill their pages with dribble about nothing. If they would spend more time talking about how the business works and less about what their friend Susie did at last nights big bash, they would create a whole lot more traffic to their site.

I write Internet programs. I create web sites (not just web pages) for people who can't do it for themselves. If all I talked about in this blog was how I spent my weekend, I would never get any business. So blog away, but if you are blogging for traffic, have something to say.

JBD

Make Money Without Gambling

2007-10-07T22:56:00.000-04:00

There is a new website in town! It's called '121 Charity Raffle Club'. This one is designed to help a very worthy cause (charity) and increase your cash flow. How does it increase your cashflow? That depends on you. Are you a gambler? Do you like buying raffle tickets? This sight not only sells raffle tickets (eTickets actually) and gives a portion of the proceeds to charity, but if you think you can place a few ads around the Internet you can become an affiliate and earn cash (and bonuses) with each raffle.

The 121 Charity Raffle Club has four continuously running raffles with a limit of 121 eTickets in each raffle. As soon as one raffle ends (121 eTickets sold) a new one begins. If they had only 1 winner out of the 121 eTickets that would be great! But 121 Charity Raffle actually has three winners in each raffle! That makes your odds of winning better than 1-in-41.

The price of eTickets ranges from $10 to $100 depending on the raffle you enter. Prizes are all cash and range from $20 to $8,000! Affiliates earn a small commission for each eTicket purchased by someone they sent to the website. An affiliate can actually earn over $800 in just one raffle! And the best part of all, 121 Charity Raffle Club donates a healthy portion of the proceeds of every raffle to charity, as much as $1,000 from just one raffle! Since a $10 raffle can actually fill up in a matter of days (perhaps faster) you don't have to wait forever to find out if you won.

So, take a moment to take a look at the '121 Charity Raffle Club' and see for yourself. I think it's a great idea whose time has come!

Promoting Your Web Site

2007-09-26T14:41:00.000-04:00

Let’s face it, you could have the world’s best product but unless you promote your website properly, no one will ever buy it. There are a few things you must do in order to succeed no matter what you are selling. Advertising is something you can never get enough of! But how can you get your ad in front of the right people? Unless you are selling one of those 'Get-Rich-Quick' schemes, you won't get much quality traffic from those 'surf-for-traffic' sites. You know the ones I mean, where you spend all day surfing through the web pages that belong to all the rest of the advertisers on that site only to earn enough credits to get your ad in front a few other surfers. People doing the same thing they are. Be honest, do you really read those other ads or do you surf several of those sites at once?

Here's something else you need to consider... Is the traffic you are getting 'Quality' traffic? If you are getting traffic from one of the surf-for- traffic web sites, chances are, it's not! If you are able to get lots of traffic from the search engines because your listing is on the first page, then you can quit reading now and send me an email. I want to know how you did it! If you are like the other 99.99% of us out there, you need something more than the search engines to get quality traffic.

Let's face it, you could have the greatest product since sliced bread, but if the traffic you're getting isn't looking for what you have it's worthless! You don't need more traffic, you need Better traffic! Better traffic is traffic that wants what you are selling. It's people who saw your ad and decided to take a look at your web page. Now, try to get that kind of traffic for free! Think you can't? Read on...

One way to promote your website is to use free advertising from Versa-Ads. You don’t even have to be able to edit your website to use them. They have a system to help you promote your website similar to Google’s AdWords except that it doesn’t cost you a dime! There is an ad-set at the bottom of this page from Versa-Ads. Yes, that's right, Versa-Ads are FREE!
You have a choice... Choose Versa-Ads!

Another Manic Tuesday...

2007-09-18T22:20:00.000-04:00

Have you ever gotten to the point when you just wanted to take a day off from life? A day just for you. A day to do anything your heart desires, even... Nothing? If you work at home running your own business, it would seem a simple thing to do. However, if you really do run your own business from home I am sure you know that taking an entire day off is not something that comes easily.

There are a great many people who think that if you run a business out of your home, especially and Internet business, that you can take time off when ever you like. But let's face it. There is never enough time in the day to stop and catch your breath much less spend an entire day doing nothing. At least nothing that has anything to do with business. I often envy those who work those nice nine to five jobs with weekends (at least Sundays) off. I dream about having such a schedule.

If you feel this way, too, then you should pay close attention to what I am about to say! If you want your business to be a success... I mean truly a success. Then you have to take a Tuesday (or some day) off every now and then. If you don't, you will begin to make mistakes. Mistakes that can cost you money. While it's important to get the proper amount of exercise, eat right, and sleep when you can... It's equally (if not more) important to take that occasional day off.

Without it, you will become mentally fatigued, exhausted even. Ask yourself one question: Can your business really afford for you not to be at your best? If the answer (and I think it will be) is "yes", then my advice for the day is... Don't do anything today. It's better to let your business run itself for one day than to make mistakes that can cost you everything. Think about it.

For those days when you absolutely must work, there's one thing that can help... Binaural Beats! You simply must give this a try. After all, it's free to try!

And have a good day...

Binaural Beats

2007-09-16T12:57:00.000-04:00

Hay, I just ran across this really great new product! I was curious about it and what it claimed to do so I tried it... I was simply amazed at the results! You will just have to try it for yourself. You can download a sample here.

Here's a quote from their web page:
"Binaural Beats Alter Your Brain's Operating Frequencies Causing A Shift In Consciousness Within Minutes. The Effects Will Be Felt Both Mentally And Physically Upon First Use. Studies Have Shown That Certain Frequencies Trigger Certain Brain Functions. Now You Can Unleash Your Brain's Potential With Our Binaural Frequency Recordings!"

If you are looking for a product to sell on your own web site, this is an excellent one! A friend of mine said,"I am amazed I actually set record sales on my site". I highly recommend you look into Binaural Beats whether you just want to improve your life or add it to your web pages.

Get in on the Rush!

2007-09-15T18:47:00.001-04:00

I was just looking around at different blog sites when I started noticing something interesting... It's called 'BlogRush' and it's an amazing little widget that can drive traffic to your blog like you have never seen before! Anyone can do it! All you have to do is click the 'BlogRush' logo at the bottom of the widget (in the right column of this blog), sign up, and paste the code into your blog. It's really simple and what a great way to get traffic!

I give a great deal of advice to people concerning marketing and traffic. Well, here's my advice... Get 'BlogRush'! I don't care if you are selling cornflakes or diamonds, coffee or lingerie, YOU NEED THIS! I sell eBooks on the side (and give a lot of them away) and I have to admit, I haven't seen anything in ANY eBook that comes close to what this can do! Go ahead, click the link and watch the little video. If you are not totally amazed at what this widget can do for you, I'll personally refund every penny you spent on it (hehe). Have fun!

Rainy Days

2007-09-14T11:23:00.000-04:00

I know most of you probably hate rainy days, but I just love them. It's the sound of the rain against my roof and windows, it just relaxes me and helps me focus. I suppose I should move to Seattle.

It's days like this that I get my most creative! Writing is a part of my life and I just love helping people help themselves. I'm a firm believer in the old adage, "Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime." I guess that's why I got into the business of helping people earn a living from the Internet. My website (in case you are interested) is: JBD Marketing (Speed-Reading Not Required!). The entire web site is dedicated to guiding folks toward financial freedom. That is, after all, the American Dream! The more people who I can help get started making real money, the happier I am!