Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Social bookmarking first started innocently as a tool quite similar to our browser’s “Save favourite” feature.
The original intention of social bookmarking our favourite webpages was to make these pages available wherever we go. In the past, when we see a website we like or frequently visit, we will save it. But we can only access that using the same computer.
With social bookmarking, you can bookmark any favourite website and still be able to locate it anywhere as long as you have an internet access.
So what has this got to do with internet marketing or making money online?
Let me share a bit more with you.
1. Get Top 10 Ranking in Google for Long-tail Keywords
A simple experiment I did revealed that social bookmarking can boost your search engine rankings! Subsequently, I have used the same method to obtain high rankings for many other keywords. Social bookmarking sites typically have high PRs and placing your links there will give your websites a boost.
Basically, what I did was to social bookmark a blog I own http://articlesubmissionservice.wise-tips.com using the keyword “article submission service review”.
After a few weeks, it is now ranked No.1 in Google for the search term “article submission service review” out of close to 7 million search results.
2. Fast Indexing
Submitting your sites to Web 2.0 authority sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Propeller can get your webpages indexed quickly. People often complain of slow indexing especially for internal pages.
This is the surest and quickest way to get instant indexing. It takes as fast as a few hours.
3. Selling Without a Website
I personally have seen how people have social bookmarked direct affiliate links. Though I have not done it, but by virtue of seeing it happen so many times, they must be doing something correctly. Since you determine what tag to use, it is easier for you to rank well in the search results of each social bookmarking site than seeing zero hope in ranking in the search engines for an affiliate link, for example a Clickbank hop link.
The whole idea is that Social Bookmarking sites are seeing more traffic from targeted searchers. While my feel is that such traffic are not of the highest quality and many are simply window shoppers or information browsers, it can still add up especially if you manage to get people to vote for your bookmarks.
Digg has a voting system and those sites that manage to get a good number of votes within 24 to 48 hours stand a good chance to stay on top of the category. This can mean 1000s of free visitors.
At the same time, I have also seen MSN ranking hop links in their search engine. Could this be the doing of social bookmarking? Quite likely.
A suggestion here though I have not tried it is to take a newly launched product’s hop link and social bookmark it to 100s of sites. Observe for a while and see if it ranks. Who knows someone who is searching for it will find your link in Del.icio.us?
The exact steps to do social bookmarking properly:
1. Decide a page you want to rank for. It can be the home page of your site or internal page.
2. Create an appropriate title. Research on the keyword you are trying to rank the page for. Make sure that the keyword is also the target keyword of your content. Do not even attempt to try to rank a webpage on the topic of list building for the keyword “making money with surveys”. It just won’t work.
3. Research on the tags. One clue is to look at the tag cloud at each social bookmarking site to get an idea of the most popular tags. If it is relevant to your webpage, use it. Tagging your bookmark with popular tags will get you some good traffic.
4. Social bookmark at as many social bookmarking sites as possible.
I personally have found 2 free automatic social bookmarking tools that are very useful. Each can post your bookmark to over 15 social bookmarking sites, so in total, you get your social bookmarks listed on over 30 top high PR bookmarking websites.
They are Onlywire.com and GetBookmark.com. GetBookmark.com is somewhat new but works fine. You can just drag and drop it into your browser and go to each of your webpage and bookmark conveniently.
5. Be Creative
Create attractive titles and descriptions, but do not forget to use the target keywords.
Alternate your titles and descriptions for different social bookmarking sites to avoid looking spammy to the search engines.
Go ahead and social bookmark your websites for more traffic, sales and subscribers.
Posted in Buzz Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
By now, you would have heard of Ewen Chia or for that matter his latest Working from Home Secret Report. He is my fellow countryman, friend and someone whom I do respect a lot. Why?
Partly because I have known how hard he worked his way to today’s status as the Secret Weapon of Super Affiliates. But largely because he often over deliver on his products. Do not expect B.S from this guy.
This is the man behind successful products like AutoPilot Profits and Secret Affiliate Weapon. These reports continue to sell well on ClickBank. But I am still curious to know how this new system works and whether he can live up to my expectations.
But what exactly is Ewen Chia’s Working from Home System about? 15th April is the first day of the pre-launch to announce the arrival of this new income system.
Well, I downloaded his free report titled “HOW TO GET RICH FROM HOME IN JUST 5 SIMPLE STEPS!” or you can watch his video here:
Watch the video at Ewen Chia’s Working from Home website now!
After watching the video and reading through the 5 simple steps to get rich from home on the internet, I must say that it is still refreshing as ever. You can download the report for free without opting in to any list. So go ahead and do so.
In his 5 steps report, he covers the essential 5 steps to start making real money online fast.
1. Finding a Rabid Marketing With Huge Growing Demand
This is good old wisdom but most affiliates miss this out completely. Ewen Chia advocates in his free report that any online marketer should find a market that has ready buyers and a continuous need to consume.
The golfing and the “work from home” niches fit in the bill nicely. Rather than to sell to a market that will only buy from you once, for example, how to get rid of cockroaches, why not sell golf balls, golf equipment, golf memberships in the golf market or sell “traffic building”, “Google Adwords”, “make money online” reports and memberships to the “working from home” market?
Of course, this step involves doing some keyword research.
2. Finding an Excellent Product as a Solution to People’s Problems
In the free report, he points out the need to focus on 1 product rather than 100 of products. Just 1 excellent product is good enough. Quite frankly, I do not fully agree with him. The reason is simple – never put all your eggs in one basket no matter how good the product is.
But he does point out in this report at Workingfromhome.com that it is important for the affiliate program to pay the affiliates well. At least 50% commissions are reasonable for a digital product. This point, I fully agree.
Another gold nugget of advice which I always tell my subscribers is this, make sure the affiliate program comes with a complete set of affiliate tools such as emails, banner ads, PPC keywords, classified ads etc. I am so glad Ewen did that in his report from Working from Home.
3. Complete Sales Funnel
Kudos to him on this point about complete sales funnel. This is something that I often find missing in most make money online books I buy. A complete sales funnel does not only sell the prospect on the upfront, but it has an up-sell and a backend.
Simply put, earning a $25 per sale from a $50 product should never be your end in mind.
A complete sales funnel will allow you the affiliate earn on the upfront, up-sell and backend. Sad to say, many affiliate marketing programs perform poorly in this.
On the contrary, any product that does provide the complete sales funnel to its affiliates is likely to be a winner for a long time to come.
4. Focus on Money Making Activities
This is a practical thinking tip and I like that because I am a firm believer in this. In the report on “5 simple steps to get rich from home on the internet”, he talks about focusing on money making activities, ie those things that will get you more sales.
Well he does not explicitly mention about what are the money making activities, I can translate that to activities like website promotion ie article marketing, PPC, comment posting, forum marketing, etc and website/blog creation activities or even getting JV partners.
His Mini-Day tips is simple but trust me, many people do not really implement that. It took me some time to convince my online marketing student to do that.
5. Be Proactive
Wow! This is such a SIMPLE step but the trouble is, many folks are just too bogged down by distractions.
Remember, knowledge has no value until it is acted upon.
So, even taking a little action on what you have learnt will put you in a better income position. Massive action will really let you quit your day job, work from home and get rich from home on the internet.
This free report is a good read. Do watch the video and download it to read up the details.
By the way, Ewen Chia’s Working from Home Secret Report will be launched on the 21st April. You will read about it here!
This 50-page no-fluff report will probably be the key to make real money online fast, quit the rat race and replacing your income with the internet in 30 days or lesser.
Within the Working from Home Secret Report, you will discover 3 proven and easy ways to earn cash within 30 days.
Within the report, expect to:
See proof of how Ewen Chia went from $0 to 5 figure with a Brand New Website In 30 Days
Learn the 4 simple stages of all successful online businesses
Discover how to pick a profitable market to sell your products within minutes with free tools only. Also, you will be able to find rapid markets with ready cash to spend.
Learn how to leverage one top website to start your business without any website of your own and start earning in a week.
Master the art of spying on the hot sellers and “stealing” the profits for yourself.
See Ewen show you how he made his first million bucks and how you can copy him and let somebody do all the grunt work for you!
Discover how to create simple ONE-page websites that outsell the super gurus. You will also receive some examples so that you can copy for your own success.
Learn 4 easy methods to get hot buyers ready to buy whatever you are selling to them. And 3 of these methods are totally free of charge.
Learn the exact step by step method of creating and selling your own product within 7 days.
Discover the technique of pricing your product. Yes, you will learn the psychological reason for why certain price points will automatically click within the buyers.
Know the fastest and simplest way to accept credit cards online without paying a single cent until someone buys a product from you. No sales, no need to pay!
What is the price of Ewen Chia’s Working from Home Secret Report?
$9.97!
I will let out a little secret here:
On top of the report, the Work from Home Secret Report all comes with bonuses like:
Bonus 1:
The “Instant Income System” which is an income system with a complete sales funnel that lets you earn up to $156.77.
Bonus 2:
“How To ‘Steal’ Other People’s Work And Get Rich”(Retail Value: $67). Within this report, you will:
Find out how the Web 2.0 phenomenon can help you ramp up your earnings quickly.
Discover 4 killer “pre-sell” page secrets that will beat out the competition
Learn How to Find Excellent Affiliate Programs to Promote
Sounds like a lot to me. Before he takes down the report and video from the Working from Home website, go check it out.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Buzz Marketing, Forum Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Web Traffic | 51 Comments »
Saturday, April 12th, 2008
I like to be on gurus’ list to get updates about the latest products in the market.
But to be very frank, the emails used to be so much better. Gone were the days when marketing experts would genuinely share with you real money making tips so that you can make some real money online.
I mean, perhaps having attained guru status, many have forgotten how they too were once struggling newbies. These guys have cleanly forgotten about newbies or marketers who genuinely want to learn some new killer marketing stuff.
Nowadays, all the emails you get are recommendations for ebooks, software and memberships. I mean there is nothing wrong with that but sending your list of loyal subscribers offers all the time without any useful content at all does not really go too well for me.
Do you agree with me?
But one thing I do learn from these guys and am seeing more and more happening are gurus and all the mid-level experts offering bonuses for you to buy from them.
I can only explain the phenomenon in the following reasons.
1. Affiliate marketers are getting really savvy nowadays. If the product is a Clickbank product, affiliate marketers will go to Clickbank, generate their own affiliate link and buy through these links. So the gurus are losing their commissions.
How do I know? Did you know that the affiliate gravities for some of the top ClickBank products are so high because affiliates are buying using their affiliate link?
2. Competition is getting very stiff and they need to offer something better than others. Some are even offering their very own products that normally sell for $97 or more as a bonus if you were to buy through their affiliate links. Others offer valuable bonuses in the form of free reports and even memberships.
Now, this in the end is beneficial to both the affiliate and buyer. For the price of one, you get a bonus that matches or exceeds the value of the product you are buying. For the affiliate, he has nothing to lose as it is zero cost to him or her. After all, it is a digital download and unlike offline businesses, there is nothing to ship or physical product to deduct from the inventory.
This is pretty! An excellent win-win strategy!
I am definitely going to use it to bribe my prospects.
As a start, l want you to tell me exactly what kind of bonus you hope to get the most that will make it attractive enough for you to buy through someone else’s affiliate link. Please be specific, like you would want a free detailed step-by-step ebook on traffic building using FaceBook or other social media, or you want to learn how to build a list and so on. You can get greedy and even ask for bonuses worth $1000!
Post your comment here with your desired bonus. To spice it up, I want to bribe you with a bonus gift. Yes, how about the latest book “Facebook Social Ads”?
Facebook Social Ads worth $37
Facebook is a resource that will only continue to grow in the coming months and years. Facebook’s expansion is predicted to eventually surpass MySpace’s and when that happens, you already want to have your monetization in place. For developers and business people alike, Facebook is an opportunity that is well worth exploring.
Don’t overlook this tremendous untapped opportunity. If you’d like to succeed where so many others have failed, this is your chance.
Sounds good? Now, it is time to hear from you.
All you have to do for me to bribe you with this bonus gift is:
1. Make a comment here and tell me what bonus you want to buy stuff through someone’s affiliate link
2. Enter your name and email address below for me to send you the gift.
That’s it!
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 5 Comments »
Saturday, April 5th, 2008
In the latest news on 04 April, it was reported: Washington (AP) that employers have slashed a total of 80,000 jobs in Mar 2008 alone. This figure is the highest in 5 years and the third straight month of losses. National unemployment rate in USA rose from 4.8 percent to 5.1 percent sending a strong and obvious signal that the economy is entering recession.
You may be wondering what this has got to do with Affiliate Marketing.
Firstly, a shrinking US economy means that people are tightening their belts. If the consumers do not consume as much, it can mean slower sales for you. Bad News!
Secondly, if you are a non-US resident affiliate marketer like me, then the weak economy will mean a weaker US currency against your country’s dollar. This means that you get lesser commissions in dollar value.
So how can you protect yourself and make your affiliate marketing efforts recession-proof?
1. Target the Recession-relevant Niches
The Chinese has a saying: “Every crisis presents an opportunity” How true it is! While the economy is slowing down, services and products like mortgage refinancing, debt consolidation, auctions, etc are booming and seeing a lot more business.
Build more Adsense sites targeting these topics! A case in point: I own a debt consolidation website that pulls in about $300 to $500 a day in Adsense income these days. Before the recession hits, it was earning about $50 to $70 on average daily. The jump in profits is a whopping 600%!
You can also find relevant affiliate products at ClickBank, CJ or other affiliate networks and set up niche affiliate sites to corner these niches. Your prospects tend to be desperate, and desperation can drive you more sales!
2. Find Affiliate Programs that Pay You in Your Local Currency
Perhaps it is time to start scouting around for affiliate programs that pay you commissions in your local currency.
3. Expand Your Virtual Real Estate
People tend to cut down on spending during an economic downturn. This is where the opportunists often strike in one clean sweep. In the offline world, property slumps and a bearish stock market often offer great bargains. Those with deep pockets will take the chance to keep buying stocks and properties with inherent value. When the market turns around, they will make a killing!
The same applies in the online world. Now is the time to grow your virtual real estate, ie grow your network of websites, blogs and so on. When the economy recovers, you are well positioned to capitalize on surge in spending. You can either start building my niche websites to promote affiliate programs, or create your very own products. It takes time to create products and websites so no time is better than now to start working on it.
Alternatively, head over to SitePoint or DP Forum and do some bargain hunting for quality websites that webmasters are giving up.
4. Change Your Attention from Selling Products to Pay Per Action
People may not be spending as much money as possible to buy stuff but that does not mean that they have stopped searching for services or stopped spending at all. There are tons of people seeking for help on how to refinance their home, how to manage their debt, how to pay less taxes, how to find cheaper insurances, how to find a job and so on.
Look for affiliate programs offered by merchants at CJ or other affiliate networks that pay per lead. Getting a person to sign up to request for more information is way easier than getting someone to buy something. You will realize that this is a great way to recession-proof your affiliate marketing.
5. Improve Conversions & Drive More Traffic
I noticed that conversions for products nowadays have gone down generally. This means that you need to promote your products to more prospects before you make a single sale.
Instead of lamenting on that, work on 2 things: improve your conversions and drive more traffic. Remember: Affiliate marketing is a numbers game.
You can improve the look of your websites by adding nice high impact graphics to attract your prospects or set up a series of auto-responder messages. These are 2 simple tricks to increase the conversion rates.
Spend more time writing and submitting articles for traffic, participate in forums, blog commenting, and other traffic driving techniques to ramp up the traffic volumes.
Building more websites to target different sub-niches will also help to increase your earnings. For example, all along, you may have been targeting the dog training market. Why not also target healthy dog food and other related products?
Why not pick up a copy of my ebook “Secrets of Affiliate Marketing” and pick up some tips to grow your income systematically?
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 3 Comments »
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
iContent Robot is the latest content writing software to appear on the market. If you have gone to take a look at the sales page of iContentRobot.com, you will see some interesting videos.
I have been using all kinds of article writing, rewriting and spinning software. Instant Article Wizard 2.0 (and Version 1.0), Content Assistant, JetSpinner, Unique Article Wizard, Content Spooler and what have you. Every one of these is good but none comes close enough to the speed, ease of use and uniqueness of content created using iContent Robot.
For one moment, I would consider Instant Article Wizard 2.0 as King of Article Writing Software. But it seems that it has met a strong contender in iContent Robot.
What does the article creation robot do for you?
It generates unique versions of a topic based on a keyword. For example, you can key in “Make Money Online”, and click on the “Regenerate Content” button for a new version to appear. All well within 3 seconds.
As an illustration, I am going to show you 3 unique versions of an article on “Acne Skin Care” I just created. Do not let your jaw drop. In case you begin to suspect I did some master touch-up, my reply is NO. These are taken straight from the software.
Remember, click, regenerate, copy and paste. That’s all I did. Don’t blink your eyes.
3 Sample Unique Articles Created by iContent Robot
Version No.1
If you are one of the people who suffer with acne (Zits) then you are well aware of the distress and problems it causes; but there are now many treatments available which can help the condition so it is more bearable. A great deal of money is being spent researching the condition; now, some of these skin conditions are gradually being conquered. We can classify acne skin care products into 3 broad categories: Internet or Drugstore: Treatment that helps prevents condition Over-the-counter, Prescription only: Requires visit to doctor
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Many people use products similar to this every day as part of their skin care regime irrespective of whether or not they have the condition.
Other acne skin care products like skin cleansers are more specific about their job, they ensure the facial pores (and other areas) remain free of oil. Excess oil needs to be stopped from clogging the pores as this oil make it easier for bacteria to grow, exacerbating the condition.
Exfoliation skin peels have proved quite effective as a skin care treatment and at controlling the problem. There are now more and more of these types of products available over the counter. Dead skin cells and other atmospheric pollutants are removed cleaning the pores which reduce the chance of any bacterial growth.
There are specialized acne skin care products available over-the-counter, they do not require the need of a prescription. Products that contain the chemical benzoyl peroxide and the naturally occurring salicylic acid are used in vanishing creams. They work by removing the excess oil from the skin and halt the growth of acne.
Although benzoyl peroxide works well, it is possible you may have a reaction, it is suggested that any benzoyl peroxide skin care product should not contain the active ingredient at more than 5.5 percent. You might have to try a few different creams or lotions before you find the acne skin care product that is effective for you’re skin. If nothing you try seems to work, you should contact a dermatologist.
There are benefits of seeing your doctor or dermatologist; they can prescribe you with a prescription for treatments not available over the counter, for example a course of antibiotics. In some case your doctor may suggest the pustules are drained of harmful contents under local anesthetic, this is a minor procedure which if carried out by yourself could result in skin damage.
Your doctor could prescribe a hormone-based treatment to treat your skin problem. Hormonal changes are known to cause acne and such skin care treatments are sometimes known to be effective. Constant research has paid off, and whilst they cannot cure the condition, it is becoming easier to treat.
Version No.2
The psychological harm acne or Zits causes it’s many sufferers should not be underestimated; fortunately treatments are improving all the time. It is not surprising then that a great deal of money has been spent on skin care treatment development; as a result there are a variety of new products available to help prevent and treat skin conditions. We can classify acne skin care products into 3 broad categories: Preventative: Creams, lotions etc. to help cleanse and tone the skin. Over-the-counter and Prescription only: Requires visit to doctor
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Whilst many sufferers use these products there are even more people who just want to keep their skin clean and conditioned.
More specialized cleaners are designed in the same way as acne skin care products; they clean out the pores to help stop sebum or oil which clogs up the pores. These products prevent the oil from getting trapped in pores and can hamper the growth of bacteria, this can lead to the bad skin condition.
This type of skin care treatment also includes those which exfoliate such as skin peels. These can be bought over the counter or on the internet. They work by reducing oil plus other contaminants from the skin and in the pores; this can reduce harmful bacteria and stop their chance of growth.
There are specialized acne skin care products available over-the-counter, they do not require the need of a prescription. Skin care products have been formulated to extract the excess oil that bacteria need to promote the development of acne. These products have benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid as ingredients which the bacterium reacts badly too.
It is preferable when you first start using this type of product to keep the concentration of it low, around 5.5 percent is best. You can always try a cleaner or cream containing alpha hydroxy acid if this doesn’t work. You might have to try a few different creams or lotions before you find the acne skin care product that is effective for you’re skin. If nothing you try seems to work, you should contact a dermatologist.
Only doctors or skin care specialists can prescribe some medications, including the use of antibiotics and certain ointments. Under certain circumstances, having the infected material removed from the pores under a local anesthetic may be suggested by your dermatologist. This is something you should never attempt yourself.
Your doctor may even suggest a course of hormone therapy as a skin care treatment. Hormone changes are sometimes responsible for acne and can be very effective when used under prescription. With all the treatments available, tackling acne is not that difficult as there are many new products available to help.
Version No.3
If you are one of the people who suffer with acne (Zits) then you are well aware of the distress and problems it causes; Fortunately, skin care treatments are plentiful. Research into the causes, and possible treatments, for the condition is ongoing; as a consequence, many of these new treatments are very affective. Despite the number of acne skin care products currently available on the market, they are broadly categorized into three distinctly separate groups: Internet or Drugstore: Treatment that helps prevents condition; Those available at a drugstore or over-the-counter and Prescription: Issued for specialized medication from a doctor etc.
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Whilst many sufferers use these products there are even more people who just want to keep their skin clean and conditioned.
Some of these products are designed to act like an acne skin care product and act against the causes of this complaint. They work by limiting the production of sebum/oil and prevent clogging of skin pores. These products prevent the oil from getting trapped in pores and can hamper the growth of bacteria, this can lead to the bad skin condition.
General skin care treatments also include special exfoliation products like skin peels. This type of peel helps reduce the chance of oil clogging up the pores as well as removing other skin impurities; this can reduce the bacterium growth on your skin.
There is a huge market for these types of acne skin care products as they don’t require a consultation with a dermatologist. These include products like vanishing creams which extract the excess oil from the skin. Most of these are based on benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid, both of which are the enemies of bacteria (and hence acne).
You should start with a product that has lower concentration of benzoyl peroxide (e.g. 5%) and see how your skin responds. Alpha-hydroxy-acid based moisturizers are also popular as a skin care regime. Because we all have different types of skin, more than one type of acne skin care product may need to be tried. This is quite normal, however, if it is proving to be a problem then consult with your doctor, or skin care specialist.
On-prescription treatments are prescribed by a dermatologist and can include ointments that can be applied on the affected area or oral antibiotics or just any topical ointment. In some case your doctor may suggest the pustules are drained of harmful contents under local anaesthetics, this is a minor procedure which if carried out by yourself could result in skin damage.
An alternative that has been shown to work well is hormone therapy. Studies have shown that hormones can cause acne and skin care treatments that are hormone based have proved to be effective in many cases. With all the treatments available, tackling acne is not that difficult as there are many new products available to help.
Are you impressed? I am! Normally, it would cost me about $5 per article if I outsource my writing. It can cost even more depending on the quality and length of article. A simple rewrite from the original would have easily cost about $3.
With iContent Robot, you can create unlimited versions without costing you a single dime!
Some Advantages of iContentRobot.com Over Other Article Creation Software & Content Sources like PLR or Ghostwriters:
1. Super Fast – It takes only 3 seconds to create a completely unique version.
2. Unlimited Versions – You can create unlimited articles and they all look different and unique. No one else will have the same content as what you created with iContent Robot.
3. No Preparation Required – Most article spinning software requires some form of preparation such as creating several seed articles.
4. Latent Semantic Index Friendly – Content created is LSI friendly. If you understand about Google’s new rules about LSI content relevance, then you will see that the content is created following Google’s rules.
5. SEO Optimized – Each unique article is created with SEO in mind for ranking in the search engines.
6. Non-Spammy – A lot of poor quality article creation software produce spammy articles that are an eye-sore to human beings. This is quite unlike the quality content created by iContent Robot.
7. Economical – I wanted to call the tool cheap but that sounds very devaluing for a cool tool like this. For $67, it is not even enough for me to buy more than 13 hand-written articles by a cheap writer. It is also much cheaper than most PLR membership sites I use or come across (most offer a fixed number of articles each month shared by hundreds of people…hardly unique at all).
What I Do Not Like About iContent Robot:
While the unique versions are highly readable, what I do not like is the topics listed for this first month. iContent Robot’s creater Mo Latif pointed out that users are allowed to choose what topic they want their service to write about for the next month.
This part is not clear. I wonder how the arrangement will be like.
Members vote for what topic they want?
Or they will create articles based on the topics requested by individual member?
Or they have a point system where everyone can make a fixed number of requests on choice of topic each month?
This is important to me personally because I do not own websites on all these topics. Those who own and build lots of Adsense websites are the first ones to gain from this software. You can create tons of content to attract traffic from the search engines and with 50 topics to choose from, that is a lot of websites you can build for Adsense income!
The possibilities of using iContent Robot is great. You can use the content to post it on your websites/blogs or submit the articles to article directories or any site that accepts your content for traffic.
Or, you can create a full report on the topic and sell it. You can even consider reselling the articles.
Of course, using the service iContent Robot itself does cost you some money. For a start, the doors are just open not long ago for the first 500 exclusive members at $67. After that, the price will increase. At the time of this writing, over 400 memberships have been sold.
Make a sale or two with the articles created and it would have paid fully for the fee.
Take a look at iContentRobot and see how it works.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Buzz Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Web Traffic | 3 Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
How do you create unique content that the search engines love? And do so quickly in 15 minutes flat?
These are some simple ways to create unique content fast and good. You can use it for your article submission or publish the content on your website.
Notice that I did not say, “write” here. Because you really do not have to write your own content if you find it challenging to do so.
1. Google for Results and Rewrite the Content. (Plus a Sneaky Trick!)
Before you shoot me down with such an obvious method, read on for the twist.
Google the main target keyword.
Browse through the top 10 search results. Copy the appropriate and relevant content onto a notepad or Word document.
Pick out the 4 or 5 key points. Using these key points, start writing an article.
Okay, I may sound a bit exaggerative here about the 15 minutes. But with practice, it is achievable for a 300 word article.
There is a sneaky trick here which you may want to use.
You can copy a few pages of content on your Microsoft Word, then go to your toolbar, click the “Tools” section, and activate the “AutoSummarize” function.
This will squeeze your article down to a nice length according to your needs. Then simply rewrite it or rephrase the content. There you have a ready piece of excellent unique content.
2. Use an Article Writing Software
In the market, there are different article writing software that helps writers to create unique content. I have used quite a number of them like Instant Article Wizard and Content Assistant.
Instant Article Wizard is hands-down the best so far. Basically, what it does is it goes scrapping for actual sentences containing your target keywords. You can do that for several keywords at one go.
From there, you just compile all the sentences that you deem as useful and rewrite it. You can whip up an article easily within 8 minutes.
Others are pretty crappy and basically scrap off some irrelevant advertisement content. Hardly readable and trashy stuff.
3. Buying & Rewriting Private Label Rights (PLR) Articles
You can use PLR articles. But rule of thumb is to modify the content at least 30%. I tend to be a bit careful and will rewrite up to at least 50%. Work on the introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
There are dozens of PLR sites that offer PLR articles at $1 per article like
1. Great Niche Content - less than $1 per article
2. Fresh Niche Content
3. Easy PLR
4. PLR Mini Mart
Or you can sign up with those PLR sites that offer monthly batches of articles. That will solve your problem of creating excellent unique content.
4. Research at the Library/Buy a Second-Hand Book
Go to the library to pick up a book or grab a second-hand book on the topic you are writing about. Summarize the content and rewrite it in your own words.
When you do so, you can actually churn out a few articles at the same time within an hour.
This is particularly helpful when you are targeting age-old topics like health, remedies, dog training and stuff that have existed for a long, long time.
I recently grabbed a cheap book on home remedies for over 100 ailments for about $5. This is enough to create unique content for an entire website!
5. Hire a GhostWriter
I have personally tried hiring writers at a few free lance sites like Elance, ScriptLance and GetaFreeLancer.
GetaFreeLancer is my favorite. There are many good writers there willing to write an excellent unique article for $5 - 7. In case you think that these are low quality articles, then you are grossly mistaken. For that price, you can get articles of high quality.
Another place where you can find good article writers is DP Forums. Under the “Buy, Sell or Trade” section, you will be able to start a thread to buy content. Or you can browse around and send a private message to the more popular writers there. NicheRockets also have a section where you can buy limited PLR packages or hire some good writers for low rates.
6. Use Voice Recognition Software
Nowadays, voice recognition software can do wonders! If you find it too slow to write, you can simply just talk and let the software convert your voice into text.
For topics which you are familiar, getting an article created takes no more than 5 - 10 minutes.
Well, for topics that you are not so familiar, you can always research online, paraphrase what you read and let the voice recognition software do the writing. One of the most powerful tools is Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software V9.0. According to users, accuracy is up to 99%. No script reading or “voice training” is required. You can start dictating straightaway.
I checked out the prices of this tool. Surprisingly, buying at the developer Nuance.com is not the cheapest. Nuance is selling at $99.99, while Buy.com is offering at $82.30. The cheapest is at …..Amazon.com, $59.99!
If you are keen on buying this nifty tool, you can always check out the links:
7. Invite Article Writers
This method involves you inviting article writers to write unique content for you. For this to work, you have to offer a “bribe”.
You can use a product such as an ebook or software where you own the rights to give away. Or offer to provide a backlink the next time you post on your website or blog, or whatever.
Post the invitation on your blog or forum.
These 7 tips should get you a constant stream of quality unique content for your publishing and article submissions. Begin to create unique content of excellent quality now!
Feel free to leave your comments here.
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
As promised, I mentioned I will share more article writing tips about creating a killer article that pull in traffic, bring in more subscribers and make more sales.
What is the Perfect article?
Personally, an article is “perfect” if it achieves what I wrote it for. Whether it is for more traffic, or to build up my credibility as a subject expert, or for bum marketing, as long as it can hit the target, it is. Over time, I do come to realize that there are a few key ingredients that are essential to write a winning article for article marketing.
In writing for article marketing, you need to pay attention to the following in order to see your articles rank well for the targeted keywords, get publishers to publish your content for more traffic and to pre-sell your readers.
1. A Powerful & Attention-Grabbing Title
You need to create a great looking article. Your article title is the first thing readers see, not your content. It determines if it is interesting enough for your prospect to click on it to read. So pay attention to it!
Use words like “How to”, “Tips”, “What”, “Where”, “Who” etc. Use numbers. Call them to action. Example “10 Tips to Approach the Girl of Your Dreams”.
Always remember to include the target keyword in the title. Miss this and you lose the chance of ranking well.
2. Keyword Density
I mentioned in my earlier post that an ideal keyword density is between 1 to 2%. This is applicable for most article directories. Stay within this and you should be safe from being banned for keyword spamming/abuse.
This appropriate density is also ideal for SEO. Remember to use the target keyword in the introduction, article body and conclusion.
3. Article Body
The ideal format of a well-written article is to have an introduction that summarizes what the reader is getting from the entire article, a body with the various points elaborated, and a conclusion that calls them to click on your resource link for more information.
So in short, an article should have an introduction, point 1 to 4 (or more) and conclusion. Stay within 400 to 600 words.
When writing your content, make it informative. Give them facts, details and anything that you feel will be useful for them.
There are different types of article content or format of writing.
a. List of resources or places
You can either write your article as a list, such as listing the top 10 places to get free links or 10 free tools to do something.
b. Review
You can write a review of a product or service, explaining each feature, pros and cons, and give your honest comments.
c. FAQ format
I seldom see people doing that but this is a good suggestion for you. Think of some relevant and commonly questions people ask about the topic you are writing about. Then offer the answers.
When writing an article, always leave the readers with a good impression and wanting to find out more. Bait them, make them curious enough to look at your author resource box!
4. Author Resource Box
This is the most important part of your article. Why? This is where your “sales pitch” or any form of promotion can take place without getting banned by the article directory. Once again, be creative and make your author resource intriguing and attractive enough for your prospects to click to your website.
Compare these 2:
Dave is an online entrepreneur. Visit his site at XXXX to find out how to market with articles.
Dave makes well over $10,000 monthly from article marketing alone. You can too! See how he converts a piece of plain content into a traffic-sucking and sales converting article at XXXX.
Which One is Better?
Remember to use the target keyword as anchor text for backlinking purposes.
These are the real ingredients that make up an excellent article that can pull in more readers, subscribers and sales for you. Make full use of these powerful article writing tips.
Read this secret report that can propel your article marketing efforts and supercharge your profits!
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | No Comments »
Monday, February 18th, 2008
Before you even start writing your article, keyword research is a must. It is so critical that it can determine whether your article marketing effort is a flop or success.
Keyword Research for Long Tails – Your Key to Fast Traffic
Long tail keywords or long tails are worth gold to every article marketer. Using long tail keywords for article writing is smart because they are easier to rank than normal keyword phrases.
What is a long tail?
A 4 or 5 keyword phrase is a long tail version of the root keyword. For example, “make money online with PPC” is a long tail. Or “buy red Toyota Prius” is another example of a long tail.
Why using long tail keywords for article writing is beneficial?
They are targeted and specific and much easier to rank. Hence, the conversion is better. Those who search “article submission software review” probably have some knowledge about article submission software. So if your article is targeting the keyword “article submission software review”, isn’t it very specific and targeted?
Compare this with targeting the keyword “article submission”. Yes, it gets a lot more searches from Google, Yahoo and MSN. But ranking for this keyword is much, much tougher than “article submission software review”. Also, when people search for “article submission”, they may be looking for article submission services, or how effective is article submission, or so on. Very untargeted!
What is a good long tail?
a. Use a keyword research tool like Keyword Elite or WordTracker.
b. From there, look for keywords that have lower than 1000 search counts. Normally, the actual search counts in Google are at least 3 times higher than this.
c. Go to Google the keyword. See if the search results is lower than 2 million results. The lower this figure, the lower the competition, the better for you.
d. Use the “allintitle:keyword” search at Google to see how many web pages are optimized for the keyword you are targeting. Anything lower than 3000 is good.
e. Repeat the whole process until you have 10 to 20 keywords.
Once you have gathered 10 to 20 keywords, write 10 to 20 articles around these keywords and submit them to EzineArticles.
Sit and wait for the traffic to start pouring in…
See the following screenshot of an article I wrote and submitted to EzineArticles that has thus far received over 30,000 views or about 30,000 unique visitors over a year. Today, it is still ranked No.3 in Google.
All the views are from the search engines. That works out to about 2200 visitors per month. Assuming the click through to my site is 30 to 50% which works out to about 660 – 1100 visitors per month from 1 article.
What if you can convert at 1%? That will be 6 to 10 sales! By the way, the conversion of this article is about 1%.
Now, what if you have 10 or 20 of such articles? You do the math. Using long tail keywords for article writing rocks!
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 3 Comments »
Saturday, February 16th, 2008
Writing articles for the web is not the same as writing a school essay.
I have realized something very important. You need to write both for your readers as well as the search engine spiders. This is where many online writers fail miserably.
The truth is there are a lot of good writers with a flair for writing and profound knowledge about the topic they write. But the trouble is, they often think in terms of the human readers and not the search engine spiders. Therefore, they write in such a manner that attracts the reader’s attention, but score poorly in the eyes of the search engines.
Online publishing is different from normal offline literature. You can use bombastic words and write an article with all that creative juices but it will still receive low readership. I have seen many articles of high quality receiving low page views. What a waste!
Article marketing cannot depart from good SEO practices. By that, you need to take note of a couple of factors when writing your articles or web content:
1. Keyword Density, both in the title and the content
2. Latent Semantic Indexing
Article marketing basically is targeted at the search engines. If you cannot rank your article in the top 10 search engine results, you can be sure that your readership will not be outstanding. Conversely, any article that is ranked well gets tons of targeted traffic from the search engines.
So how do you rank them in Top 10?
Treat your article as a web page. In all web pages, the meta-tags and content are optimized for the target keywords. In the same manner, the meta-tags are synonymous with the article title, and the web content with the article body.
Did you realize that the article titles of all articles that are indexed in the search engines are showing up like the meta-title? Likewise, the content is showing up like the meta-description?
Latent Semantic Indexing (LSI) in layman terms simply means that you have to pay attention to the keywords and topic you use. On top of keeping an appropriate keyword density of the target keyword at about 1% to 2%, you need to associate your content with related keywords. Also, do not go overboard in targeting your main keyword. Never spam your content!
In the past, simply littering the content with the targeted keywords is good enough. Today, rules have changed. For example, if you are writing an article on “article marketing”, instead of just repeating “article marketing” as the only keyword, you probably would think of “online authors”, “EzineArticles”, “article title”, “bum marketing”, “web traffic”, “article submission” and so on.
Likewise, when writing an article on “buying a used Toyota”, you will associate it with “car dealers”, “auto insurance”, “Toyota Prius”, “Toyota Rav4” and so on.
The whole idea is to stay relevant.
So how do you come up with the associated keywords to use in your article content?
1. Use the “~” search feature in Google. Say you want to find a synonym for “car”, simply go to Google ~car and you will see some possible synonyms.
2. Go to https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal and search for related keywords and phrases. Remember to check the “Use synonyms” box. This free keyword tool will churn out keywords that Google deems as related to your target keyword.
3. Ask your family and friends. Sometimes, they can tell you some interesting words you may not have thought of.
4. Google the main keyword, and find the top few websites. Take each url and place it in the https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal. Remember to check the “Website Content” box.
If you will pay attention to the above 2 factors, your article stands to rank well. This strategy will work very well with EzineArticles.
Of course, other than these 2, there are other key factors such as creating unique content, picking long tails and more. I shall talk more about this topic in my next post. We will also discuss later on what makes a “Perfect” article.
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 2 Comments »
Monday, February 4th, 2008
Online marketing forums are excellent places to participate in for a few reasons:
1. Knowledge and Information Sharing
This is a place where online marketers gather to talk about what is going on in the internet marketing world.
When you are there, you can read about the latest product launches, ie what new ebook, membership service or online marketing software have been launched.
A lot of marketers also love to share the tricks they have learnt. Whether it is about affiliate marketing in general or specifically about web design, SEO, website promotion strategies, article marketing or pay per click advertising, you get to learn almost anything and everything.
2. Uncover Under-Served Niches
You will also be able to discover what the commonly asked questions are and what topics are hot. This is important for you to uncover niche markets or guesstimate what products will be sellable.
It is worthwhile to check out those threads that are popular. Read the forum members’ comments. Figure out what problems they are facing. See if you can find a product in the market to meet their needs. Or even create your own product if there isn’t any ready ones in the market.
3. Drive Traffic to Your Websites
Your signature link is powerful. This is where you can be creative and craft an attention-seeking signature that makes people want to click through your link. Rather than going for a signature link that reads as:
“Come to my site and read about how to drive traffic”, come up with something like:
“Discover How I Pulled In 10,000 Visitors Within 1 Week For FREE!”
The second signature will do better to attract visitors, isn’t it?
I also make use of forums to promote my blogs. Here is a trick you might want to learn.
Each time you post to your blog, go to the forum, start a thread and get people talking about your blog post. People will visit your site out of curiosity, and even if they do not, you just earned yourself a backlink with your desired anchor text.
This will help you in your search engine rankings as well as drive direct interested visitors. Expect more traffic and sales.
4. Hire Web Designers, Article Writers, Programmers & General Help
Online marketing forums do have a section dedicated for buying and selling of products and services. These can be excellent places to find affordable website designers, article writers, programmers and just about any kind of help you need.
Forums that are related to online marketing and make money online:
1. Niche Rockets
Niche Rockets is an active online marketing forum that provides tons of powerful tools and eBooks, and has a large database of educational material for online marketers.
This is a paid forum so you will not see worthless posts or comments. Members are all serious marketers who are friendly and helpful and there are nuggets of gold that can be found here. Ask any question concerning affiliate marketing or other methods of internet marketing and you are likely to be greeted with tons of effective, workable answers by the successful marketers.
2. Digital Point Forum
This is one of the oldest and largest online marketing forums around. At any point of time, there are hundreds to thousands of members posting and commenting. This is a great place for newbies to hang around and pick up some tips. Since it is free, you will be deluged also with content that is totally crappy!
3. Warrior Forum
A favorite haunt of many famous online marketing gurus. The Warrior Forum offers a great place to learn and discover more about online marketing. Many of the members are successful marketers. You can also get some great deals WSO for eBooks, software etc.
Other forums related to online marketing and making money online are:
www.im4newbies.com/forum/
www.v7n.com
A quick way to find a list of forums to participate in is to Google the search term “online marketing + forum”, “affiliate marketing + forum” or “internet marketing + forum”
Posted in Forum Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning | 2 Comments »
