An Internet Marketing Tutorial for the rest of us

What is Social Bookmarking?
Mood:  chatty
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
For my next post, I'm drawing heavily on the Tlog, which has an awesome tutorial on social bookmarking. I'm just going to quote from the intro:

People talk about it a lot these days, but what, exactly, is social bookmarking? In short, it is an online, public bookmarks system (bookmarks are also known as "favorites", by the way).

If you browse the Web, surely you have some bookmarks saved in your browser (Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, etc.), with addresses which you visit regularly, or which you save so you can check them out in more detail, when you have the time. These bookmarks have some faults, however:

1) the bookmarks in your home computer aren't available at your office, or at a friend's place, or at a cybercafe
2) above a certain number of bookmarks, it becomes hard to find what you need among so many, even when using folders to separate them.

Social bookmarking solves both of these problems. Bookmarks are now online, and, therefore, available to you wherever you are. Furthermore, when adding a new bookmark, you can classify it using tags, which are nothing but one or more words which describe the bookmark, such as "music" or "jobs". After, it's easy to see, for instance, just the bookmarks with a particular tag.

But what about the "social" part? That comes from the following: bookmarks are public. You can browse the bookmarks from anyone who uses the same social bookmarking service. It's also possible to see the newest added bookmarks, or the currently more popular ones (that is, those which are being added by a large number of people). You can also "give" (that is, suggest) any bookmarks to friends.

Great way to direct readers to your blog as well!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Is NOTHING Sacred?
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
And if the last post wasn't bad enough, Stars and Stripes reports that "a portable drive with personal information on more than 207,750 Marines was lost earlier this month, possibly jeopardizing those troops’ credit records and privacy."

Allegedly, the information is encoded, and thus of no use to anyone, but is nothing sacred? Now we've got the few, the proud, the compromised identity, the Marines. Glad I'm a civilian!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Fried PHISH
Mood:  hungry
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
Yummy! Kinda reminds me of the sushi I had last night...getting a little off track, sorry. Castlecops and Sunbelt Software have teamed up with a project known as Fried Phish. No Kidding!

It's a community-based anti-phishing squad. If you receive a phishing email, just go to their PIRT page (Phishing Incident Reporting and Termination), enter the information, and when the submission is verified, reports will be generated and emails sent out to the appropriate authorities.

Quite a laudable effort! Please check 'em out, subscribe to ma newsletter, and support ma sponsors!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Your Blog and Viral Marketing
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
I was in the gas station getting a cappuccino this morning + for some ungodly reason my wife started talking about her prolonged, disjointed, ill-formed uterus (I forget the exact terminology - I'm not a doctor, I only play one on TV), so, naturally, I had to mention a recent post on Fuggetaboutit and his wife's "incompetent angry" uterus. Well, some lady standing nearby overheard our conversation and started laughing so hard she was pratically in tears! I told her about Fuggetaboutit, but couldn't remember how to spell it (Damn-it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a spelling bee!). Anyway, she said she'd do a search for the blog.

This is just how viral marketing (also known as network marketing or word-of-mouth) works, and it is the absolute BEST way to promote your site.

In connection with this you could also try putting your website on T-shirts, or, if you have a catchy blog title, on hats. People will then ask about it and you can have viral traffic. This works very well in large public gatherings such as parades or football games.

If you have a really good site, they'll tell their friends, and so on, and so, on, Hallelujah, Hallelujah. You'll get a lot of traffic if you're consistent and have something of value for them on your website.

Lastly, if this information has been helpful, please tell YOUR friends and relatives about this site, and subscribe to our newsletter! Our official domain is http://internetmarketing4.us, which has a link to this blog.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Attack of the Killer Metas
Mood:  surprised
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
I was rudely awoken last night by nightmares of Killer Metas attacking me! No, this isn't some sort of joke. Let me explain.

I suddenly realized early this morning that when I gave my analysis of instapundit.com yesterday, I forgot to check his meta tags to see what I could learn.

So, in brief, here is Part Deux, Part Deux.

Meta tags give information to search engine spiders and, hence, can increase your search engine rankings, visitors, and, therefore, customers.
To see the meta tags on Instapundit.com (or this web site), click on View - Source. That will give you the HTML code for the page in question.

Here is the first 8 lines of HTML for instapundit.com:

1) < html>
2) < head>
3) < meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; char set=iso-1859-1" />
4) < title>Instapundit.com< /title>
5) < meta name="description" content="instapundit.com" />
6) < meta name="keywords" content="law, current affairs" />
7) < meta name="author" content="Glenn Reynolds" />
8) < meta name="designer" content="Sekimori Design - http://sekimori.com" />

A few words about the above. For your own blog, there is an advanced option in your blog software that will allow you to edit the HTML. Then type the tags (line 3 can be copied as is), changing the content to match your blog or website.

The description tag is widely used, although I recommend using a 1-sentence description, as opposed to what instapundit.com does.

Some of my sources say to use the keywords tag, others say it's superfluous and only used by a few search engines. My recommendation is to go ahead and put it in, along with the author and designer (if you have one). Even if only a few obscure search engines use these tags, Google may spider those search engines and find your site.

CIAO for now,
Randy

How to Make Money with Your Blog - Part Deux
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: Make Money with Your Blog
As I was waiting in the doctor's office this afternoon, I happened upon an old Reader's Digest, from April '05, I think. It was an article about how to make money using the simple equation you + computer = $$. Interesting...

The article delved briefly into a number of different scenarios, such as E-Bay/Auction sites, but then it had a blurb about blogging. My ears perked up instantly. The blurb mainly reviewed instapundit.com, a "hobby" of a university law professor.

The author said instapundit.com received 50,000 hits daily, and made $3,000 a month. Not bad for a "hobby." That's more than double what I earn a month at my job!

So I decided for the benefit of my faithful readers and myself, I would investigate a bit further to see just how he does it, and relay that info to you in a strait-forward manner.

1) First off, he has his own domain for his blog. Search engines can find that easier than http://www.mywebsite_title.com/is_way/too_long.html. (JK) But you get what I mean? Plus readers can remember a short domain title easier.

2) Second, his writing style is entertaining, a bit caustic at times, and leaves you wanting more.

3) Third, he sells a few books off Amazon. Signing up for Amazon is quick, easy, and painless. Just go to http://www.amazon.com, sign up for an account, activate it with the link in the email, then sign in, if you don't already have an account. Then click on the help button, click on Business Opportunities, and sign up for their Associates program. After supplying some basic info, you'll be provided with HTML for whatever item you wish to promote that you can just copy and paste to your page. I have just done the same if you check the sidebar.

4) And fourth, he provided a PayPal donation box and an Amazon Honor System donation box. The Amazon Honor Sysytem requires a credit card, which I do not have, hence I have just put the paypal donation box on the sidebar, below the Amazon book.

Try these suggestions out, check out instapundit.com for yourself to see if you can glean any additional insight, visit my renter (he's a real hoot!), and check out my Amazon and Yahoo sponsors, and drop me a comment on how it went!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: instapundit.com, Amazon.com, domain, PayPal

Baghdad Burning
Mood:  on fire
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
No, this isn't anti-war, anti-Bush posting. I just wanted to congratulate Baghdad Burning, a blog hosted, incidentally, by Google, for being nominated to the British Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Riverbend, the unidentified female author from Iraq, throws in humor, despair and biting political commentary, much like we do here sometimes.



A recent post discusses from a first-hand perspective the class division between Shia and Sunni erupting from the conflict. I know we read about such things in the papers, but there is really nothing like getting the information first-hand. Once again, please check out Baghdad Burning.

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: baghdad burning, Samuel Johnson Prize, riverbend, Iraq

VoIP Becomes Simpler
Mood:  energetic
A start-up company called Jajah says that it is poised to make cheap internet calls as easy as using a search engine. Service is currently available in 60 Europ[ean countries, who can call anywhere is the world, using the internet to route most of the call, with the last mile being routed by the local phone carrier and charged a per-minute rate.



For those of us in the US, another service will be available sooner. I'm talking about Voitel, a broadband internet phone service available from Market America to its distributors in April, and to cunsumers by years' end. Also included in the basic service are voice mail, caller ID, and three-way calling. The best part is if you and the person you are calling both have Voitel service, the call is free, no matter where in the world you might be!

CIAO for now,
Randy

Tags: Voitel, voip, Jajah

For a Good Laugh...
Mood:  happy
Topic: Create + Promote Blogs
For a good laugh, check out my latest renter, rhandoko.com! Please click the link under BlogExplosion on the right for a good laugh!

CIAO for now,
Randy

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