An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us

Rob in China!
Mood:  caffeinated
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Welcome to our latest blog tenant, couresy of Blog Explosion, Rob in China!



Rob in China is a business blog for China. Rob has an MBA and some business sense and he invites you to join him on his money-making journey to the Far East. He's an American entrepreneur "on the ground in China," looking to either make or fortune or go broke!

He updates his site every day with some of the lesser-known business news. He also has a rather tongue-in-cheek approach that I for one find quite refreshing. For example, in a recent story about a robot used to battle forest fires in Shanghai, he appended a picture of "Dick Cheney is a Robot" from the Weekly World News. So Please visit my tenant on the right!

CIAO for now,
Randy

4 Basic Steps in SEO
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Today much is being shouted about about search engine optimization, or SEO. Some people think they can trick the search engines into giving them higher rankings or can purchase their way into a high search ranking. Others think SEO is so complex you'd have to have a PhD in engineering to even begin to understand it. Neither is correst, as SEO is an art to making web pages that are both user- and search engine friendly. Here are four basic steps everyone should take.

1) More text, less graphics.
Search engines look for important text, regardless of how beautiful the jpeg you picked out for your site. Search engines will read text, not gif images of your keywords. Likewise all flash pages are overlooked as well.

2) Links to interior pages should be easily found by search engines
Again, text links are best, despite how much you like javascript.

3) Build pages around specific keywords
This helps not only the search engines but, if you are trying to make an income off Adsense, et al., the Adsense engine will be able to deliver appropriate ads for your pages.

4) Keywords should appear in strategic places
a) In file name or URL
b) In the Title tag
c) In the Description tag
d) In the headlines { "[H1], [H2], etc."}

CIAO for now,
Randy

8 Ways to Improve Communications
Mood:  bright
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
The focus of the original article I drew these from was church communications, but I figure that even the smallest entepreneurships would benefit from improved communications. And, since for internet-preneurs communications usually equals money, I have filed this post under Make Money with Your Blog. Furthermore, these eight ways require no money, just a little bit of exertion on your part, and we'll all benefit!

1) Have conversations. Lots of them.
2) Create a style guide.
3) Identify your specific audience.
4) Document your communication values.
5) Outline a strategy.
6) Reduce emotional overload.
7) Implement an official proofing team and process.
8) Assemble a group of consumer advocates (or secret shoppers).

The full article is at http://kemmeyer.typepad.com/less_clutter_noise/2006/03/where_do_i_star.html. I received these through a communication from ourchurch.com. Please check out my site that ourchurch.com hosts, http://www.ourchurch.com/member/u/Unrapped/. Please check out my bookstore there too, Unrapped Bookstore.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Fraud Prevention Month
Mood:  cool
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The FTC and the Canadian consumer fraud agencies met this past Wednesday to declare March Fraud Prevention Month.



C. Steven Baker, Director of the FTC's Midwest division. explained the importance of the cross-border partnership. "The U.S. and Canada are leading the world in showing that we can work together and protect consumers on both sides of the border."

The biggest result of the meeting is the creation of OnGuardOnline. This site offers information on numerous safety topics, such as common scams and how to avoid them, such as the Nigerian scams or lottery scams. The FTC will display the Fraud Prevention Month Web banner on its cross-border website and on www.consumer.gov, and continue to distribute its adapted version of "Fraud: Recognize it. Report it. Stop it." in print and online.

CIAO for now,
Randy

An End to Phishing in Tennessee??
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The Tenneseean just reported that rhe General Assembly in Tenessee is working at record speed to pass a bill that outlaws phishing and related activities.

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For new readers, phishers send out fake emails that look like real ones, from a reputable business or bank. If you click the link in the email, it takes you to another site that looks authentic. Then it asks for your personal information, like user name, password, SS#, or bank information. The phisher then uses rhis info to empty your account, purchase items off Ebay, apply for a loan, or buy expensive items.



The tennessee legislation sets up civil and criminal penalties for phishing. Sounds good, right? But we must be realistic. Phishers often move onto another scam once they have won one, and they are often in other states or countries, which makes the bill good on paper, but that is as far as it goes. Hopefully it at least will raise public awareness of the dangers of phishing and internet fraud.

CIAO for now,
Randy

10 Ways to get Web Site Traffic
Mood:  lucky
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Courtesy of Joe McVoy and SEO news, here are ten untapped ways of driving website traffic to your site.

1) Use Pay-Per-Click - Get traffic in under an hour with Google and Yahoo. Don't bother with others until you can get these two to work. Know "your visitor value, bid on hundreds of key words and phrases and split test your ads and track each keyword, phrase or ad separately."


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From: International Bible Society

2) Distribute your Content - Pen articles that are valuable to your target market. Allow webmasters to use that content on their site(s) as long as they have a trackback link. Distribute through article directories, ezines, and other distribution services. Always remember to have valuable content.

3) Submit Press Releases - Frequently send out electronic press releases with news of interest to the media and your target market. If your press release gets picked up, it will be quickly and you may get hundreds of links back to your site this way. Write 300 - 500 word releases, include a link back to you, and have them written and distributed by experts who know how to optimize each release for key words (not typical PR firms).

4) Set Up a Blog with RSS - Effective blogs must have frequently updated content. Base yours on information helpful to your customers, not sales pitches. Don't start a blog unless you can commit some ongoing time to it. The keys to a successful blog are: Candor, Urgency, Timeliness, Pithiness (short & to the point), and Controversy. Make the blog interesting to your visitors, submit it to blog directories, ping the search engines when you post and distribute your content with RSS.



5) Get One-Way Incoming Links - The previous tips will create incoming, one-way links but you can also buy links from other sites from text link brokers. No reciprocal linking, it's passee. Get links from pages with a Google Page Rank higher than "0". A site Google rates as "0" may be because they are penalizing it for some reason. If you link to it, you'll get penalized too.

The links should have your keywords in the anchor text and should be text, not graphics. They should also be from other relevant sites, not link farms or FFA (Free-for-All) sites. "The ideal is links from relevant pages without many other links."

6) Give Other Sites Your Testimonial - And allow the other site publish it on their web site just as long as they link back to you. You can get you a one-way link from a site that would otherwise not give it to you. Keep it short and to the point.

7) Email Promotions - Advertise in Ezines, place ads in someone else's email newsletters that reach your target market. Make sure you track everything carefully.

8) Joint Ventures - Get promoted to your JV partner's customer database by your JV partner. John Reese sold over $1 Million of his information product in 24 hours exclusively by using joint venture promotions from his partners sending his offer to their customer lists. He paid his partners commissions on sales. Know your visitor value and have a tested and proven sales page that converts well BEFORE you contact JV prospects.


NIV Hope for the Highway Paperback New Testament/Psalms&Proverbs - $ 2.99
From: International Bible Society

9) Get Affiliates - If you have a product for sale, give affiliates a commission to sell for you. "Each affiliate's link to your sales letter conversion page will bring you traffic and a better search engine rank too." Make this arrangement financially attractive to your affiliates and give them everything they need to promote your product or service.

10) Buy Other Web Sites - Find web sites that already rank high on your keywords and verify their traffic. Make sure you own the domain - "you can let them still use their content elsewhere." Visit deleteddomains.com to see what domains you can register for a few dollars that their owners have let expire. Check Google page rank, Alexa rank and the number of back links for any site before you buy a web site.

"One marketer I know challenged some SEO experts to see who could get ranked highest on a given term in 24 hours. He won, the techies did a lot of slick things, but the marketer just bought the site that was already # 1."


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From: International Bible Society

CIAO for now,
Randy

Marketing on MySpace

Mood:  celebratory
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
As I'm sure you've heard, MySpace is one of the top sites on the Internet today. The latest figures I could find were from August 2005, when MySpace generated 9.4 billion page views, more than Google.



Now wouldn't it be nice to tap into this market? MySpace is where today's 14-30 year-old manages their digital and/or social life. You can post photos of yourself and your friends, create a blog, list your favorite bands, look at and share videos, list things to do and post a set of people they consider "friends." This "friends list" is a prime spot for marketing opportunities.



Suppose you made a MySpace account to discuss your product or service. You can blog about it and search for people that share your interests.



Then invite them to be your friend. When they are your friend you start “soft sell” pitching your product to them.



They will start appreciating it, blogging about it and sharing it. You could get hundreds or even thousand of people talking about you and your product or service.



Here's a good example of this in real life: several bands have posted their music on MySpace and have developed a loyal following. Before long, these same bands have secured record deals.



Finally, some other services you may wish to consider besides MySpace, if that doesn't quite fit your needs, are Linkedin, Yahoo's MyWeb, Flickr, and del.icio.us . Give one or all a shot, and let me know how it goes! Also, please check out all oour free affers today!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Source: Rob Sullivan, Site Reference

AOL catches some BIG Phish!
Mood:  cheeky
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
America Online (AOL) filed suit in federal court in Alexandrai, Virginia, against three international groups who allegedly stole information from AOL users by sending "badmail" disguised as an official email from AOL.

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Three separate suits were filed, asking for $18 million in damages. Thirty phishermen allegedly broke Virginia's 2005 anti-phishing laws. Since AOL is based in Virginia, they were able to file under this new law. They also cited the Lanham Act protecting trademarks and the Federal Computer Fraud & Abuse Act, an anti-spam law.



The three phishing networks are in the US, Germany and Romania. They stole financial information as well as screen names and passwords.



This isn't the first time AOL has gone after phishers and spammers. They have been involved in about 3 dozen cases and have won tens of millions of dollars in judgements.

Thank you to John Stith of SecurityProNews for this insightful information.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: AOL, phishing, Virginia, lawsuits

The Holiday is over for Mac
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
As a follow-up to the newly found flaws discovered in Macs that we recently reported on, here are some comments from leading security experts, courtesy of TechWorld.com.



"In Apple's case, you can credit the media and all those folks who said the [OS X] platform was inherently secure" for drawing attention to it, Pete Lindstrom, an analyst at Spire Security, said. This added publicity made the OS X a more appealing target for hackers. The publicity surrounding Apple's recent decision to move to Intel's microprocessors did not decrease the hackers' efforts, either.



Ken Dunham, director of the rapid response team at iDefense, said that these threats "show[] increased activity and viability for future Macintosh-based threats on the Mac OS X platform." He also mentioned that the last real threat to Macintosh computers was the Autostart worm in 1998. "As a result, many Macintosh users are more likely to be complacent toward computer security and therefore are more likely to be vulnerable to any future threats that emerge against the Macintosh operating system," he said.



On the bright side, Vincent Weafer, senior director of security response at Symantec, said, "You are no more at risk than a week ago, but it is a good time to go back and take a look at your security practices."

So please follow safe surfing practices, don't open emails from people you don't know, keep your anti-virus updated, and keep coming back here for the latest updates. You can syndicate us through MyYahoo or any of the other syndication partners at the top of the page.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Newfie Girl!
Mood:  happy
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Greetings to our newest blog tenant, Newfie Girl! Check her out in the link on the top right below the BlogExplosion tag! She is self-described as a "Writer. decorator. photographer. comic book villian. Newfoundland. Canada. Wife. Mommy to furbabies. geek."



Now really, she's not that bad. She actually has some pretty cool things to say and is currently showing a really awesome cheescake recipe, complete with pictures and a link to a video of her cooking it.



So go ahead and visit Newfie Girl. You'll be glad you did!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: blogs, cooking