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An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us

Welcome to An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us, where you can learn how to market yourself effectively on the web, get into major search engines, learn advanced SEO techniques, and not pay for it! Please support our advertisers and enjoy your new place on the Web! Subscribe to this site by entering your email on the right! Also sign up for the free offers we list. Internet
Saturday, 25 March 2006
The Latest on Microsoft
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Microsoft said Friday that it will dely the latest installation of its Office package until next year, to coincide with the release of its highly awaited [YAWN] Vista OS.

Pardon me, but how about giving us an OS that WORKS, without having to worry about updating it every few months with patches-this, patches-that?

A mini-kvetch for you this fine Saturday morning.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 12:42 PM MNT
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Internet Security Update
Mood:  incredulous
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Welcome to our new subscribers! To join our mailing list, type your email in the subscribe box in the upper right. Our autoresponder, Feedblitz, will never sell your information nor spam you, unlike the company in the following story.

Reuters reported that Thursday, NY Attorney General Spitzer filed suit against Gratis Internet, an online marketer that allegedly sold data from millions of customers in spite of a strict confidentiality pledge.



"This is believed to be the largest deliberate breach of a privacy policy ever discovered by U.S. law enforcement," Spitzer's office said.

FreePay.com and several related sites are operated by Gratis. They also offer free music discs, consumer electronics and retail gift cards to users who participate in advertiser-sponsored trials.

Gratis pledged on its site to "never give out, sell or lend" the names and data of consumers on its Web site, but has sold between 1 million and 7 million user records, according to the allegation.

Once again, I must point out, let the buyer beware. If a site, even one that is giving you freebies, asks for more information than you are comfortable disclosing, don't do it. They have to get enough money to give away freebies somehow. Don't be a victim. Here's a dead giveaway: if a site giving you a "free" service asks for a credit card to "verify" your identity, ex out of it!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 11:56 AM MNT
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Wednesday, 22 March 2006
The Latest in Internet Security
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The latest Internet Security news, courtesy of News.com:

Sun Microsystems'Grid, a computing service for the general public, was assailed by denial-of-service (DNS) attacks today, its opening day.

Dealing with the issue was relatively easy: Sun moved the service to be within the regular Sun Grid, which requires authorization to use. "We had to defend against a bunch. There were too many coming against us, so we moved it inside," she said.



Sun allowed the public to use a text-to-speech translation service for, for example, turning blog entries into podcasts. "It became the focus of a denial of service attack," said Aisling MacRunnels, Sun's senior director of utility computing.

To deal with this, Sun moved the service within the regular Sun Grid, which requires authorization to use. "We had to defend against a bunch. There were too many coming against us, so we moved it inside," she said.



In DNS's, groups of hacked computers, called botnets, simultaneously attack a target on the network. Here, it was the text-to-speech translation service.

Fortunately, regular service for Sun users was unaffected.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 10:25 PM MNT
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Internet Marketing News
Mood:  special
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Good afternoon and welcome to "An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us"! Especially welcome to our new subscribers! Come join the bandwagon and learn how to effectively promote your internet site, make money with your blog, avoid scammers and phishers, and have an occasional laugh when I feel the the need to kvetch about the news (check a few posts ago about Debra LaFave, who was cleared of all charges today and smiled for the camera). Just enter your email in the subscribe box in the upper right. We don't collect your email or sell it - the daily update is powered by Feedblitz, a fine autoresponder.



Also welcome to our renter this week, "Mom's Traffic Tips and Ideas." It is written by Stefani Partin, a mom and online entrpreneur who will help you build multiple streams of income. According to a recent post, she also is affiliated with Mommy Enterprises, which is dedicated to helping moms make and save at home. A recent link she posted is for checking links to your site:
http://www.helpfulinformation.org/seo-tools/anchortext.pl
.



Another helpful piece of advice Stefani offers is on why your site is not being visited:

1) You don't offer something FREE.

2) You don't have original content.

3) You don't have incoming links.

She has plenty of other helpful tips that, combined with the information on this site, will make you an internet marketing powerhouse.

Be sure to visit her by clicking on the box below the "BlogExplosion" marquee.

For the rest of this posting, I would like to address Stefani's second point and request some assistance from my faithful blogophiles.

Not having original content is a serious problem. It is extremely easy for someone to set up a free webpage, get signed up for adsense, run adsense on the site, and copy a bunch of content from any one of the free article directories.

But, the free articles are not memorable, can be obtained by anyone with an interest in the subject, and will not result in return visitors (not to mention the low rankings in the search engines) So, why waste your time creating another dull site?

The answer is, don't. If you want to create a website and try to earn some money from it, think about what your driving passion/hobby is, and write about that.

You have unique perspectives on it that no one else has, and that other people interested in the same thing would want to read. That will result in repeat visitors, getting reviews on other websites, and viral marketing, where those visitors tell their friends what a great site you have, and they'll tell their friends, and so on, and so on.

Lastly, I would like to request your assistance. My wife and I are planning on taking a short-term missions trip this summer to Peru or Guatemala. We need to raise $1800 more. We receive about 1800 visitors a week, so if each visitor could donate just $1 we could meet our fundraising goal. Please click the following to donate $1 thru Paypal:

We have also been raising funds through the Christian book store, Unrapped Ministries. We get a percentage of all bibles and videos sold.

We will post a weekly total on funds raised. Please donate a dollar for missions!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: internet marketing news, internet marketing tutorial, Debra LaFave, feedblitz, Blog Explosion, Stefani Partin, original content, missions, missions support

Posted by Randy at 7:57 PM MNT
Updated: Saturday, 25 March 2006 11:28 AM MNT
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Tuesday, 21 March 2006
Trojan Horse Sent in Bogus Amazon Email
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The latest from Sophos:

The Trojan Horse Clagger-K is being sent in emails claiming to be from Amazon. They resemble the following:

From: Amazon.co.uk
Subject: Your payment done.


Message text:
Dear customer!
We're writing to let you know that we've initiated a transfer from your bank account (Last 4-digits: 0402) for the following amount...
See your statement details in attachment...
Attached file: STATEMENT_#0220873.exe


If you are a long-time reader of this blog, you no doubt realize that this email does not come from Amazon. Amazon will never send you an email like this with an attached file. If you click on the attached file, the Trojan Horse is installed on your computer and hackers can wreak havoc with your machine. Only open attached files from people on your friends list.



CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 12:05 AM MNT
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Saturday, 18 March 2006
Unfair Justice in Perceived Public Opinion
Mood:  irritated
If you don't like my opinions, go write your own blog!!

Granted, I don't normally take a political vein in this blog, usually running with the dual themes of internet marketing/how to make money with your blog or phishing/internet fraud + how to protect yourself (altho I myself did fall prey briefly to the 12 Daily Pro Ponzi scheme - didn't lose any money but more on that later).

But recently here in Florida there has been a lot in the news + on talk radio about a couple of sex offenders and their punishments that I would like to address.



First is Joseph Smith, convicted and sentenced to death for raping and killing 11 year-old Carlie Brucia. While I fully agree with the sentence and wish that it would be carried out immediately rather than going through the lengthy appeals process (in Florida, all death sentences are automatically appealed to the Florida Supreme Court), I would like to focus on the perceived public opinion (PPO) of the crime + the punishment, as displayed variously on the media, such as the MJ Morning Show.

PPO has it that child sex offenders be given 2 chances: after the 1st offense, the more vocal say, chemically sterilize him or remove it. Second time: Death Penalty! Effective Deterrent? Maybe...but what about education? Educating parents about sexual deviants and educating parents on how to teach their children about avoiding sexual deviants and, of course, teaching the youth!



And also ( and this is my point), what about female child sex offenders? I'm thinking here of Debra Lafave, the middle-school teacher who was convicted in 2 different Florida counties of child sexual abuse with a 14-year-old boy. Why weren't her breasts cut off for the first offense?

UNFAIR!!!



And why wasn't she sentenced to death the second time?

UNFAIR!!!



Instead she got house arrest (think Martha Stewart), {sniff} some probation, and CELEBRITY STATUS!!! The top local story on all media a few days ago was Debra Lafave's engagement to her high-school sweetheart...Give me a break! My engagement didn't make headlines...if yours did, be sure to leave me a comment.

UNFAIR!!!



Why don't YOU be fair, leave me a comment, visit my advertisers, let me know if you like my irrreverent politicking. I'm finishing this post in the Hospital ER on St Patty's day, cuz' my wife cut her thumb at work. She's not true Irish, tho, 'cause she didn't bleed green!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 9:30 AM MNT
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Friday, 17 March 2006
Beware of the Nigerian Scam
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
I just received an email from Paul Agbogwu. It was entitled "Obeying God," and came in my regular email. Reading through it, it sounds good, until you realize that the author calls me a "fellow believer" (I don't know him) (Flag 1), states he's from Nigeria (Flag 2) and that he has $6 million US dollars in a Trunk Box (flag 3). I.e., if you contact him, he'll proceed with the next step in the Nigerian scam, asking for a deposit to get access to that money.

This version of the scam particularly disgusts me though, because it is couched in Christian terminology. I am a Christian and make no bones about it, as you can tell from my web site. The author probably figures that if he can pull at your heart strings by convincing you that you are helping out a "Christian brother," that you'll be more likely to reposnd. As I've said before, don't respond to any unasked-for emails from people you do not know. Just delete them.

I am including a copy of the email here so you can see what I am talking about. Don't try to contact him, even if you have received your own copy of this email. I have removed his contact details.

Dear Fellow Believer,
Greetings in the name of our lord Jesus Christ.
To God be the Glory that I received Christ. Having known the truth, I had no choice than to do what is lawful and right in the sight of God for eternal life and in the sight of man for witness of God's mercy and glory upon my life.
I have the pleasure to share my testimony with you; I am Mr. Paul Agbogwu, the Personal Lawyer of late Mr. Protasov Salenko, a Russian that lived in my Country Nigeria for 20 years before he died in the plane crash last year. He was a very good Christian, he is so dedicated to God but he was not married nor had any child till He died, may His soul rest in peace, Amen. Throughout His stay in my country, he acquired a lot of properties like lands, house properties, etc.
As his legal adviser, before his death, Mr. Protasov Salenko, instructed me to write his WILL, because he had no child, he dedicated his wealth to God. According to the WILL, the properties have to be sold and the money be given out to a ministry or individual for the work of God. As his legal adviser, all the documents for the properties were in my care. He gave me the authority to sell the properties and give out the fund to a Ministry or individual for the work of God.
In short, I sold all the properties after His death, as instructed by Mr. Protasov Salenko before he died. And as matter of fact, after I sold all his properties, I realized up to USD$6,000,000.00 (Six million US dollars). The total amount will be invested into God's work as instructed by the original owner. But Instead of giving the fund out for the work of God as instructed to me by the owner before his death, I converted the fund to myself with the intention of investing the fund abroad for my personal use. I was afraid of putting the fund in the Bank, because I have to give account to the bank on how I got the money. I then packaged the fund in two Trunk Boxes and deposited the Trunk Boxes with a security company here in Nigeria. I did not want the management of the Security Company to know the content of the Trunk Boxes; therefore I registered the content of the Trunk Boxes as Family Treasure. Now the security company believes that what I deposited with them was Family Treasure.
I had a turnaround in my life few weeks ago, when I was watching a program on television. The name of the program is HOSSANA HOUR, and the man of God was preaching concerning Ananias and Saphira in Acts 5:1-11. After hearing the word of God, I gave my life to Christ and became a born again Christian. As a born again Christian, I started reading my bible and one day, the Lord opened my eyes to Ezekiel 33: 18 and 19 where the word of God says: "When the righteous truth from his righteousness, and committee iniquity, he shall even die thereby. But if the wicked turn from his wickedness, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall live thereby". From the scripture, I discovered that the only way I could have peace in my life is to do what is lawful and right by giving out the fund as instructed for the work of God by the owner before his death.
I have asked God for forgiveness and I know that God have forgiven me. But I have to do what is lawful and right in the sight of God by giving out the fund to the chosen ministry or individual, for the purpose of God's work as instructed by the owner before his death. After my fasting and prayers, I asked God to make his choice and direct me to a honest Christian or the chosen one that deserves this fund by his Grace. I then came across your address on the Internet as I was browsing through a marvelous site, and as a matter of fact, it is not only you that I picked on the site initially, but after my fervent prayer over it, then you were nominated to me through divine revelation from God, so these are how I received such a divine revelation from the Lord, and I then decided to contact you for the fund to be used wisely for things that will glorify the name of God.
I have notified the Security Company where I deposited the Trunk Boxes that contained the fund, that I am moving the Trunk Boxes abroad, and the security company has since been waiting for my authority for the Trunk Boxes to leave my country.
So if you know that you will use this fund honestly and wisely for God's work, then do contact me back immediately.
Waiting for your response.
Yours Sincerely,
Brother Paul Agbogwu.

- Paul Agbogwu


CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 8:06 AM MNT
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Wednesday, 15 March 2006
What is Article Marketing?
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Article Marketing is currently a popular buzz word on the internet now. According to some, write articles with a link to your page, submit them to popular sites and watch your vistors increase "exponentially."



Maybe, maybe not. The articles may be rejected by the publishers, and the deliberate inclusion of a link to your web site could technically be considered spam.



Thus, you could possibly waste a lot of time creating brilliant articles that no one would see, and your website could potentially be banned from the major search engines. I know this is an extreme view, but I am an extreme person. Let me detail our own approach.

1) Write your own articles on your blog, either free or on your own domain. You can summarize other articles, as long as you include author recognition and a backlink to the original source.

2) Ping the major search engines. We like using the aggregated services, like pingoat.com and pingomatic.com. (Thank you to The Blogateer for confirmation of the success of this approach - check the comments for "Internet Marketing Secrets", below) They're also listed on the right under "The Daily Ping."

3) Do this on a regular basis. Lives do get hectic, but if you want results from either affiliate marketing or Adspace, et al, you need to write at least one article a day.

4) Don't "Joe Friday" your article. Joe Friday was "just the facts." Interject yourself and your own life experiences into the article. It makes for much more interesting reading and a wider audience.

5) Make sure your grammar and spelling is correct before publishing your article to the web. Nothing is harder to read than an article filled with inconsistencies, misspellings, and bad grammar. There are plenty of free services available on the web that could do this for you, as well.

6) It often helps if you develop a theme for the articles you write on your blog. The "everything but the kitchen sink" blogs are frequently quite entertaining, but if I were looking for an article on how to increase the size of text in my email (View - Text Size), I wouldn't necessarily want to read through 6 points on Article Marketing to find that out. See ma point? Readers want answers and you can provide them without sending them on a bunny trail.

Thank you for your comments, and for supporting our advertisers!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: article marketing, comments

Posted by Randy at 8:04 PM MNT
Updated: Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:11 PM MNT
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New Phishing Scam: Chase Manhattan
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
The e-mail reads:

Dear Chase Bank Customer,
Congratulations!
You have been chosen by the Chase Manhattan Bank online department to take part in our quick and easy 5 question survey. In return we will credit $20 to your account...


Sounds good, right? I thought so too until I realized I don't even have an account with Chase Bank. This is a scam (and Sophos.com backs me up on this) resembling the infamous Nigerian letter scam.



After all, who wouldn't mind answering a few questions for $20? Sophos calls it the "419 Advanced Fee Fraud," designed to "fool innocent users into believing that a large amount of money will be transferred into their bank account, but are really designed to steal information about the user's identity and bank account, or demand a 'handling fee' for the money transfer."

In fact, this reminds me, I was in Amscot a few months ago to get a money order. I was there for quite a while, however, because the guy in front of me was trying to cash a fraudulent check received from one of these fraudsters. The police took him away. Bottom line, if it looks too good to be true, it probably is. Especially if you don't have an account with a particular bank, online payment processor (read PAYPAL), or auction service, don't even open the email. The senders have become more sophisticated and are able to bypass many spam filters. Protect yourself and delete anything that even appears "phishy."

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tag:

Posted by Randy at 12:15 AM MNT
Updated: Wednesday, 15 March 2006 11:09 PM MNT
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Monday, 13 March 2006
New Search Marketing Study
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
DoubleClick Inc., a leading provider of marketing solutions, has unveiled a new study that reveals some rather interesting facts about the relationship between online consumers and search marketing. For instance, "while it is widely accepted that searches that lead directly to a purchase are often brand-related search queries, the study shows that brand names of online retailers were in the minority of all the purchase-related searches made during their shopping research."

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Here is a summary of the rest of their findings:

1) Buyers make many related searches prior to purchase

2) Many buyers do their searching 2 or more weeks before purchasing

3) Pre-purchase search usually uses generic search terms

4) Brand searches and clickshappen more frequently closer to the time of purchase

“The findings of this milestone study suggest to marketers that there is an opportunity to attract and engage searchers throughout the buying cycle, and not only with their own branded keywords,” said Stuart Larkins, vice president of partner dervices, Performics, a division of DoubleClick. “Marketers should track search click-throughs for weeks prior to the purchase session to fully account for the longitudinal impact of generic keywords in search. Generic keywords provide greater reach for marketers and contribute to the overall lift in a search program.”

Intriguing, and somewhat counterintuitive, but extremely useful when we try to make money with our blogs.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Posted by Randy at 6:32 PM MNT
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