For instance Ezinearticles is quite happy for marketers to take their articles and put them on your blogs as long as you keep all the links intact and don’t change them to nofollow links etc. BUT and it a J Lo size but, you are only allowed to post 25 articles from ezinearticles on any one blog in any one year AND you are only allowed to post 250 of their articles in any one year anywhere per person. If you bother to read their TOS it quite clearly states these terms AND part 7 is a real doozy and basically says break the rules and we’ll send our lawyers after you. (link to the tos is at the bottom)

That clear enough for you? This is one of the biggest problems I have with the autoblogging software that uses Ezine articles. They never tell you this rule and breaking it might end up with you being sued. Think it won’t happen to you? Well it has happened to several marketers I know who basically ended up having to remove all the ezine content from their site which basically killed it stone dead in the SE’s. A brand new piece of software has just had a massive launch and it uses ezine so if you use that software to post more than 25 articles you could be in serious trouble.

This is one of the biggest problems I have with blackhat and spam autoblogs, they don’t care if this happens and they lose their blogs because their attitude is what the heck we can just build some more. This is just plain dumb! Why not just do it right, it doesn’t take much more effort and you can have autoblogs like mine that last forever.

Since the article I wrote last year my autoblog collection has grown to over 1500 blogs, and they have all been built by my outsource team. Now these blogs are bringing in serious money in their own right but in addition I have found tons of “Goldmine” keywords that I have used to build some seriously profitable blogs. This is the almost unspoken secret, that professional autobloggers keep to themselves.

Forget relying on what keyword stats google wants to give you or any keyword tools for that matter the only way you can be sure of a keyword is to ACTUALLY see the results it produces, and having hundreds of blogs creating keyword rich articles is the best way to find them, no question. Some of these keywords show up in google search with about 50-100 searches and in REALITY are getting 500+. Lets face it, we’ve all seen ot the other way around right, massive searches in google then we get on page 1 and see 5 a month, well it works in reverse too.

Ezine Terms Of Service – http://ezinearticles.com/terms-of-service.html

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Autoblogging The Right Way

When I say autoblogs are not dead it is very dependent on how you set them up, how you provide the content and how you promote them. In addition what you are actually expecting from them is also very important. For instance if you are expecting to make $15-20 a day from them, then you are likely to be disappointed.

I have over 1500 blogs that are autoblogs. I set them up and then forget about them. Obviously I monitor the incomes and traffic and for the most part I actually use adsense for that. Why spend money on a traffic tracker when adsense does a perfectly good job for you and earns you some money to. The majority of the income does not come from adsense though, CPA and other affiliate products make up the majority of the earnings.

I am pretty happy if my blogs make 50c a day. Now I don’t mean 50c every day, I mean averaging 50c a day so $15 a month. Now if you consider that most of the cpa offers and affiliate products I use have a commission of $20 plus then one sale a month does it. How hard do you think that is? If you do it right it is not difficult at all.

But the real bonus for me is not just the income they provide but more importantly the information they produce. The niche I make the most money from in my "Normal" marketing I discovered purely from my autoblogs. I noticed several similar blogs getting decent traffic and earnings and immediately set about building £real" blogs and sites to make money in that niche.

A classic example occured yesterday. I saw a massive traffic spike for a blog in my adsense account and when I had a closer look it was an article from an article directory that was autoposted to my blog about a specific event. I leave all the links in these articles as it is only fair. You are getting free content from these directories so sticking to their publishing requirements is a must.

Anyway following the link in the article took me to a product and I joined the affiliate program, wrote a new post with the same keywords and my affiliate links and chucked some bookmarking links at it. By the end of the day I had already made $500. As of this morning there is another $180 in commissions. How is that for writing one article????

But the really exciting thing is I would never have considered this niche in a million years and although this was based on a specific event there are 3 or 4 similar events every month so the possibilities are huge. And all this came from an autoblog. So please don’t try and tell me autoblogging is dead, far from it!

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Autoblogging Is Not Dead

Everything in Internet marketing has a strategy attached to it. Whether you’re talking about graphics or joint ventures or an article marketing strategy, you want to have a plan of attack in place before you embark on a campaign that could cost you time, money or both.

With article marketing, two primary factors are involved – quality and quantity. You can’t neglect either one if you want to have success as an article marketer. If yo churn out a high volume of crappy articles, then they won’t convert and your time will have been wasted.

Likewise, if you take too long working on individual articles, you won’t see the kind of traffic you’d hoped for that will help you generate a nice steady flow of profits. So how do you come up with an article marketing strategy that works for you?

When you’re just starting out, you can take the do it yourself route to keep costs low. But there are so many tasks you have to deal with each day, it may seem hard to get article marketing tasks finished.

Article Marketing Tips

Start out slow. Plan to write 1 article per week that’s 400 words total. At the most, this should take you about an hour. If you find that it takes you three or four hours to write an article, then you may need to shelve your article marketing efforts until you’ve completed a course on writing for an online audience.

Once you have the time, increase your quantity to three articles per week, until you’re finally working on one article each day. That’s 365 articles a year out there working for you to pull in targeted prospects.

Rotate the type of article that you use. For instance, on day 1 write a question and answer article. On day 2, write a story article. On day 3 write a list article, and so on. Each week, check the stats on your articles and see which ones are converting better for you.

Each month rotate the directories that you’re using for your article marketing campaigns. On month 1, try EzineArticles.com. Then in month 2, use Xomba.com, and so on. Your niche may convert better in one directory over another, so again, track the results.

At the end of year one, analyze all of your articles to see which directory and type of article you’re ranking high in Google for – and which resource box is converting into click throughs for you, too.

The best article marketing strategy is one that provides the right balance between writing enough content and writing the right kind of content for your target audience. What works best for you may not be an exact duplicate of what works for another marketer.

Article Marketing Tips

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Article Marketing Tips

The year 2009 was the year of slaps, smack and strict rules in the world of web 2.0. Social networking sites saw a mammoth rise in membership by marketers, followed by a surge of spammers and eventually got punished by Google for their leniency.

So their slap by the search engines is being passed down to you. Everyone has tightened their belts, restricted certain content, lessened the number of links you can use – and implemented any other rule to prevent Google from doling out the same harsh punishment in the future.

Social networking was once a way for peers to share information and opinions – it’s so much more than that now. It paved the way for marketers to immerse themselves in communities where targeted consumers were lurking, converting peer traffic into click-throughs and sales.

It probably would have been smooth sailing if everyone had done his or her part to provide great content and keep topics above the board. But it’s inevitable that when a good thing surfaces (like web 2.0), spammers and seedy characters will suck it dry of any opportunity it possesses.

Certain social networking sites such as Squidoo, Ezine Articles, Google Knol and Hub Pages have already learned their lesson when it comes to cracking down on spammers and unsavory marketing tactics.

The year 2010 promises the evolution of more niche-specific social networks for people – along with some broad web 2.0 creations that cater to many niche groups. It will be your job to infiltrate these membership areas in a way that helps the community with true value so that you’re branded as trustworthy and not a leech of their online society.

It’s estimated that blatant advertising on social networking sites (like Facebook for example) will reach a whopping $2 billion in the year 2010. So marketers may not have to be as stealth in their promotions as they once were, if they’re willing to pay for the right to be there.

Social networking will also play an important role in on-the-go advertising. Mobile Messaging will evolve into a new sort of social marketing. You’ll be able to designate ad groups that are shown to people while they’re away from, their computer, reaching them on their cell phones.

People are already social networking from their cells – logging into Facebook, Tweeting about their everyday actions. You’ll become part of the common mass marketing strategy already being tested in many markets today.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Social Networking 2010

There are always certain topics that remain the same in nature and some that evolve from year to year (even faster in many instances). If you enter a niche where trend spotting is important, then that’s a skill you need to learn how to master.

For example, if you were to write an eBook about the grieving process when a loved one dies, you could get away with writing an eBook that pretty much didn’t change from year to year (unless there was some new mind-blowing process someone came out with). Dog training is another similar niche – dogs aren’t changing, so training them pretty much remains consistent over the years.

But if you are in a niche about fashion, Internet marketing, finances, or technology, then you’d better stay abreast of several things – consumer needs, wants and demands and marketplace developments that create selling opportunities for you.

Let’s take finances as an example first. Consumers are going through a disastrous economical crunch right now. They need, want and demand money savers. Your info product could teach a wide variety of things.

When gas prices hit the roof, a ton of eBooks about saving on gas were flooded into the marketplace, but what else happened? Technology developers created tools to help convert water into gas and stretch the gas out. Those who were early on this trend made a lot of money with it.

In 2010, consumers will continue to need cost cutting advice. We’re not out of the recession yet. They’ll also need advice on how to find or keep a job, since unemployment is very high going into the New Year. Work at home topics will be highly sought after for those who want to save on daycare and commuting costs, or those who weren’t able to find a job the traditional way.

Mobile networks will become even more popular in 2010. Cell phones, social networking from your mobile gadget – all are on the horizon of becoming mainstream, where grandma has a Motorola Droid and she’s Tweeting at her grandchildren’s recital. Even your gadgets will have gadgets developed for them. Cell phones are going to have boosters – if you only get 1 bar in a certain area, you can use a gadget that boosts you by 3 more bars.

In the gaming niche, video games will almost make handheld clunky controllers a thing of the past – developers are coming out with games that are controlled more by the movements of your own body.

You’ll need to determine if your own niche has trending possibilities and create a forecast based on some market research that you conduct with keywords and a little investigative spying on what manufacturers or experts are predicting.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

2010 Trends For Info Products

Expect more competition both as a product creator and an affiliate marketer on ClickBank. While this prediction might make you squirm a bit, consider it a beneficial forecast. A thriving marketplace attracts more consumers.

ClickBank just introduced three tutorial videos to help bring on German, French and Spanish speaking sellers and affiliates. This will help widen the global audience and your potential for sales.

They will be doing more handholding for the masses, training product creators to stay above the board and not spam or do unethical things, and training affiliates to utilize tools to make more sales.

For example, in a recent ClickBank blog post, they even advised affiliates to use PLR to help promote ClickBank products. That’s a positive thing for marketers, because many online companies frown on PLR, not understanding its ability in the marketplace.

ClickBank is going to continue cracking down on vendors. Many topics are already being declined from the list in 2009, and you can expect them to continue weeding out topics in the coming year.

They’ve recently shut down topics such as credit repair, marketing through social networks, multi level marketing memberships, and more. You’re unable to submit topics in these categories at all and they will not review your product for you.

ClickBank plans to ensure its vendors are in compliance with the FTC regulations – especially if you’re using the Vendor Spotlight feature. They don’t tell you what’s wrong, just that you’re not in compliance – and they direct you to the FTC’s website so you can investigate the rules yourself.

The site has also begun expending its marketplace categories, and probably will widen it more as the number of vendors and affiliates grow. You may have noticed, if you already have a product there, that when you log into your account, you’re told of your new category and subcategory – and given a chance to dispute it if you wish to do so.

Some people complain about the ClickBank marketplace, preferring instead to use another form of affiliate marketing like PayDotCom. But for those who want to cover all bases and have their products promoted by a large number of affiliates (or want to have a large number of products to promote as an affiliate), it’s best to just stay abreast of the ClickBank rules as they’re announced, which means staying tuned into their blog.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Changes At Clickbank 2010

Internet marketers have been buzzing about their plans for 2010. What did they need to learn? What tools did they want to invest in? Video marketing was the top topic for so many people hoping to edge out the competition, and with good reason. It conveys professionalism and personalization all in one.

There are a lot of tasks you have to learn in this industry and it can get overwhelming trying to decide which to focus on and which to ignore. You need to know how to conduct niche and keyword research, how to set up an email marketing campaign, how to cash in on social networking.

Video marketing is just one more important component of your online strategy. It’s powerful. But to date, only top marketers who had the money for tools and the technical savvy to master them had been riding this wave of success.

In 2010, every marketer will be searching for video marketing methods that help them dominate in their niche. Because of increased demand, developers have been working on tools that help the average consumer.

Video marketing will help you brand your company in a positive and professional (not to mention cutting edge) slant. It helps you highlight the benefits of your products and services. It increases the stickiness of your site, which is how long your visitors stay on your domain. And it also help you connect to your audience for sales conversions and instructional tutorials.

Some marketers have yet to invest in their copy of Camtasia. Editing video was deemed too hard. But there are free tools like Camtasia Studio that can help you get started and get comfortable before immersing yourself into more complex recordings.

You can even invest in simple point and click technology where you aim, click the button to record and stop, and upload it online via your USB port. You can do this with a Flip Video Camera.

In 2010, there will be more tools dedicated to helping marketers use video marketing as an SEO support system. Video advertising will be one of the increasingly used media formats in the social networking world, too.

Not only will your target audience be seeing a video played automatically on sites like Facebook, but there will be mobile video advertising, too. It’s not too late, but you want to educate yourself ASAP about this form of marketing so you won’t be behind the times when it comes to capturing the attention of your consumer base.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Video Marketing 2010

The FTC (Federal Trade Commission) passed new regulations that will affect Internet Marketers in regards to the Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising section.

The changes they’ve made affect bloggers and website owners who use testimonials or those with celebrities. If you’re an affiliate marketer, it affects you, too. While most of the buzz was about celebrities who fail to disclose they’re being paid or receiving freebies when touting a certain product, it’s smaller entrepreneurs we’re concerned about.

You’ll want to do ample investigating on your own before you start promoting anything for a paid commission. This article isn’t meant as legal advice for you – it’s simply an observation about the new rules and how we might feel their impact.

The point of the changes is to connect the dots for consumers between advertisers and endorsers. Not everyone has an Internet marketing background and can spot an affiliate review compared to an unbiased, unpaid one.

This will affect marketers who make up their testimonials. Some of them have written up their own testimonials and bought a stock picture of the “testimonial giver” – falsely making the consumer believe people have gotten good results with the product, when it fact not a single person had tried or purchased it yet.

Traditionally, advertisers could simply put an asterisk next to a real testimonial with the words “results not typical” in fine print. This was still shady because it wasn’t blatantly exposed on the site.

Now, if you get paid a commission, or if you got a freebie in exchange for recommending a product, then you’d better openly disclose that connection to your readers or you could face an FTC fine.

There’s no broad laws governing bloggers and marketers, though – the FTC says each case will be investigated individually. Aside from the payment being disclosed, you also have to be honest. You can’t say something helped you make $10,000 in revenue if it didn’t – and if you get caught, you could be forced to pay up.

Now if you’re caught, the burden is on the FTC to prove their case and how it violates the FTC Act. You can order a copy of the FTC’s updated Act here: FTC’s Consumer Response Center, Room 130, 600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC 20580. The bottom line for 2010 is – don’t cheat your readers out of an honest review, even if that means you admit you’re getting paid for your opinion!

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

How Will The FTC Affect Internet Marketing in 2010?

With an ever-growing base of Internet users and shoppers, internet marketing has acquired a position of utmost importance in the world of marketing. It is an extremely powerful tool for online marketers but its effectiveness depends upon the kind of approach taken towards it by a marketer. Most newcomers and even the very experienced ones make similar mistakes while approaching online marketing.

Let’s take a look at a few common marketing mistakes and sure ways to avoid them.

Waiting Time: Customers shop online for two important reasons, i.e. speed and convenience. If you are using a slow server or own a website that uses graphics which take ages to download, then it may be difficult to retain customers. You need to have web pages that load quickly. Customers do not like to wait. Remember, first impressions are really the ones that last.

Technical Issues: First and foremost, try and design websites that are user friendly. Not every one has the latest software that they may need to view your website so remember to include the basic html and web pages for customers working on computers with outdated hardware or software.

Offline Marketing: Online marketing is effective, but to a certain extent. You would also need to market your product offline in order to be really effective.

Search Engine Listings: A lot of internet marketers constantly use search engines but often conveniently forget to list their sites on those very search engines. Search Engine listings are important and should be done manually. Different search engines work in different ways and you need find out ways to move up in their rankings.

Staying Current: There are many commercial websites that are not updated regularly. Customers can be attracted and retained only if the website is up to date. You can’t afford to be found selling stuff from Christmas last year, this June.

Being Customer Friendly: Make it easy for your customers to surf your website. Do not hound them with unreasonable questions while they fill up a form to make a purchase. They may make a purchase just this once but may not come back for more if they find the transaction process too tedious. Allowing your customers to market your products with word of mouth or viral marketing is a good practice so include columns to obtain e-mail addresses of friends and family members whom they may like to refer.

Long Term Planning: You need to plan long term and not look for swift and easy profits. Many web marketers have really intelligent plans. Some of them risk losing money in the beginning to lure customers and make a loyal customer base because they know that losses in such situations can be recovered in a very short span of time. Though it’s not a rule to lose money in the beginning but you need to realise the long-term value of a customer.

Advertising: Advertising is indispensable. Besides free classifieds, links, banner ads, you need to make use of press releases that will help your product reach target sales in no time.

Don’t give up even if you lose some money in the beginning. Avoid making the above-mentioned mistakes and you will do just fine in your internet marketing efforts.

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Internet Marketing Mistakes

I have been expecting this for quite a while as squidoo has been consistently losing authority with google and it was only a matter of time.

Look at it from Seth Godins point of view. His brainchild ruled the world then along came hubpages. For a time they still ruled the roost but then hubpages decided to make spammer sacrifices to apease the angry God google and low and behold, they completely hammered Squidoo in google.

Just try to find high ranking sub pages in squidoo like tag pages they have been disappearing at a colossal rate.

I for one am overjoyed these changes are coming and lets face it they are overdue. Will this affect you? Probably….Possibly.

As i said I am overjoyed but it still measn I am going to have to start checking my 300+ lenses to make sure they are more “squidoo 2009″ friendly. Time to remove the overstuffed links to the same domain for one! That said they say you can have 9 outbound links so unless you have a colossus type lens you should be ok

The one issue I would have is when they talk about overly promotional lenses and yet they continue to find more and more ways to stuff as many ads as they can onto “OUR” lenses!

Anyway if for some reason you have not seen the email here it is.

1. No Spam. This one’s not new, but it’s worth saying again.

It’s simple: given our pedigree, our point of view and our dyed-in-the-wool, we-will-never-change-our-mind conviction on this issue, spam is not okay at Squidoo. For a few years now we have had a very strict and enforced stance against spam. That’s staying the same, and if anything, getting even more rigorous. If you actively spam people with your Squidoo lenses (by email, in blog comments, by stalking and harassing people on Twitter, by tricking people with the content in your lenses, and more) we’ll lock your entire account.
2. No more X-rated or Porn lenses

If you came to Squidoo to create X-rated or pornographic content, the time has come to say farewell. We’re not discontinuing these lenses because we’ve suddenly grown shy, or because we no longer believe in the freedom to publish what you want. We do. Practically though, supporting X-rated pages no longer makes sense, and it invites more spam and empty traffic and wasted overhead than anything. Find out more about why we’re making this very hard decision, and what it means for your X-rated lenses. (Don’t panic! You can export your content and take it with you).
3. No Junk Topics from our “SquidDon’t” List

Lenses on free movie downloads. Toenail fungus cures. LoseBellyFatNow promotions. Reverse Phone Lookup 4U. You know junk when you see it. And lots more examples.

Unforunately, topics like these are overwhelmingly conditioned and proven to attract spammers. If a topic has displayed enough trickery and spam and bad activity, we choose not to support it. If we find a lens on a SquidDon’t topic or something very similar to it, we’ll lock it. For good. Our best recommendation: Don’t bother with topics like these. There’s plenty of incredible stuff to write about and recommend online without having to go near the edges of what we’re got going here.
4. A new limit on overly promotional lenses

Making a lens to promote or recommend something is a terrific endeavor. It’s a big part of why a lot of our people are here. But: Less is more! Sales lenses far too often turn into junk lenses, as described by the relentless number of outbound links to the same exact domain. Being overly promotional rarely works. “Buy here buy here buy here!” never does.

So to help you focus your lenses, and sell even better–and to help surfers find our pages more useful overall–we’re introducing a limit to the number of outbound links to the same domain that you can have on a lens. If you have more than 9 links to the SAME domain on a single lens, your lens will get locked for review. Of course we’ll have domains that are whitelisted out of this (meaning, you can have as many outbound links to them as you like), as well as sites that are blacklisted (meaning, even a single link to that domain will get your lens locked).

Please read all the important details on how this works.
What now? First, take a deep breath.

We won’t be flipping the switch on these new policies until July 20, 2009 or later. So you’ve got more than a month to review your lenses to make sure they’re playing by the rules.

In the meantime, here are 4 things you can do to get ready for these changes.

http://www.squidoo.com/squidoo-policy-update#module37726512

Thanks, guys.

Thanks for reading this far. And thanks for caring about the quality, community and infinite possibility that is Squidoo.

Live long and prosper.

–The SquidTeam
Squidoo.com
***

P.S. Every Squidoo lensmaster is getting a note just like this. We rarely send huge updates like this because we know you’re busy. If you’d rather not get email from us ever again, you can login and delete your Squidoo account under ‘Account Status’. No hard feelings. No tears. Well, maybe a little.

I actually think this is only the beginning, call it a sacrificial lamb, before they sacrifice the entire sheep pop of Australia!

Post from: Internet Marketing Blog

Squidoo Deathray Is Coming, Be Afraid….. Be Very Afraid!