Online Marketing From Home

Just read a special report this week by Jimmy D. Brown called “How to Triple Your Opt-In Requests From the Same Amount of Traffic… Without Spending A Penny!”

He starts the report with quite a bold statement: “Make One Small Change To Your Website And See Your Opt-In Requests Skyrocket!” Certainly got my attention!

Now I have to admit that there are many reports and ebooks on the market about list building. Some are good, some are not so good and others, well… terrible.

I would rate this report as “very good”. It is short (only 20 pages), contains to fluff, does not require any special skills and Jimmy’s strategy is very easy to implement.

Best of all, it is absolutely FREE.

You can download this report simply by clicking on the following link:
How To Triple Your Opt-In Requests  

Enjoy!

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

Should you include keywords or a key phrase in your domain name or url? Will including selected keywords or key phrases help you to rank better in the search engines for those terms or doesn’t it make any difference?

The above questions are typical questions that I often see asked on forums, blogs and discussion groups. The answers to these questions often go from the one extreme to the other extreme…

So what is the truth?

I would like to answer this question in two parts.

Part 1

Based on my experience, including your keywords (or keyword phrase) in a domain name or url can help your search engine rankings. However, it will not have a major impact on your search engine rankings.

Before I continue, let’s just get some terminology out of the way so we are all on the same page.

http://subdomain.example.com/subdirectory/
      
In the above example:
The “url” is http://subdomain.example.com/subdirectory/
The “domain name” is example.com

Note: Everything after the slash (/), e.g. after example.com/ is called the “path”.

For a more detailed explanation on terminology, refer to:
Matt Cutts – Seo Glossary  

Let’s start with my own personal experience…

I have noticed in the past that whenever I use a domain name, that does not include highly competitive keywords or key phrases, that it is very easy to rank on the first page of Google, purely based on the domain name.

How do I know it is due to the domain name and nothing else?

That is easy to determine when the domain name appears nowhere else than in the url.

Based on this, I have no doubt in my mind that the domain name plays a role.

However, I am the first to admit that your domain name is not going to help you a lot if you are targeting highly competitive keywords.

For example, assuming you can get OnlineMarketing.com, you are not going to be on the first page of Google for the phrase “Online Marketing” (21 million results) purely based on your domain name! 

According to Matt Cutts of Google:

“Having keywords from the post title in the url also can help search engines judge the quality of a page”

and

“Including the keyword in the url just gives another chance for that keyword to match the user’s query in some way”

Source: Matt Cutts Blog

We all know that Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a minefield. There are so many things that the search engines take into consideration when ranking sites…

Even if keywords in your domain name or url only play a very small part towards your site’s ranking in the search engines, surely it should not be overlooked. It is normally only by having multiple “small parts” that a site achieves a good ranking.

This brings me to Part 2, perhaps the most important reason why you should try to include your keywords or keyword phrase in your domain name…

Part 2

Google is very clear about the fact that one of the ways you can create a Google-friendly site is to “Make sure that other sites link to yours” 

Source: Google Webmaster Help

What most SEO experts agree on is that anchor text plays a very important role.

For example: (Assume the keyword phrase of my site is “Online Marketing”)

If you link to my site the best type of link will look like this:
<a href=http://online-marketing-from-home.com>Online Marketing</a>
It will show as Online Marketing (anchor text) 

However, many sites will only link to you using your domain name. By including your keywords or keyword phrase in your domain name these links will be a lot more valuable than if your domain name is something like MySite.com     

By the way, the above linking method (using anchor text) does not only apply to Site A linking to Site B. It also applies to internal links on your own site. If you link to your home page from another page don’t use “Home Page” as the link, use “Keyword” as the link.

Tip: If you are working on getting many different links I suggest you use a variation of your “keyword” as the anchor text. Google may very well see 1000 links to your site all using the anchor text “Keyword” as unnatural and discount those links or even penalize your site.

It is better to have several different anchor texts such as “Keyword 1”, “Keyword 2”, “Keyword Phrase1”, etc. (related to each other) than only one standard anchor text.

Lastly, as with most things in life, too much of a good thing may not be good. Do things in moderation. A keyword-rich domain name such as home-based-internet-marketing.com is good. It contains your keywords and is user friendly.

A domain name such as home-based-internet-marketing-online-from-home-make-money.com is taking things a bit too far and I certainly won’t visit a site with such a domain name.

Trust you found this post useful. Please feel free to leave your comments.

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

I wrote a short blog post last week, called “Daring To be Different” and would like to share some additional thoughts on this matter, just from a different perspective.

In many ways, people don’t want to be “different”. We are social herd animals. We like to fit in. We like to conform to the norms of society. Those of us that do not conform are often alienated.

Most people like to play it safe by not attracting too much attention to themselves. They love the comfort of the herd. They try to avoid change. They dislike taking risks. They would much rather stick to “proven” recipes and techniques. People are often too lazy to think for themselves or are too afraid of asking the “wrong” questions.

Consider “being different” for a moment from another perspective… Replace the word “different” with “creative” or “innovative”.

In my post “Daring To Be Different” I spoke about people like Robert Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, Rick Jerk, Patrick Pretty and Richard Branson. People that do things differently in order to stand out from the crowd.

What I have noticed a lot in internet marketing is that people like to be told what to do. They want a proven recipe and they want it handed to them on a silver platter. Now there is nothing wrong with this, if you use it as a base on which to build your own business.

There is no need to reinvent the wheel in the information age. Learn from the mistakes of others. Learn from the victories of others. BUT, whatever you do, make it your own! Take ownership, experiment, improve, and expand on successful strategies. Become an expert in your own right but strive towards continuous improvement. You never stop learning in internet marketing!

Most so-called gurus spend thousands of dollars every month buying new ebooks, videos, etc. from unknown marketers just in case they may pick up a small little gold nugget someone else has discovered that they can apply in their own business.

They don’t buy a step-by-step book of “10 Steps to whatever…” and then start at Step 1 and finish at Step 10. No, chances are they already know the steps from A to Z and Z to A but something small (and seemingly insignificant) may just give them a great idea.

I am not saying you have to spend thousands of dollars every month if you want to succeed. No, what I am saying is you should apply what you already know and only work on improving it.

Let’s look at an example…

We all know that many marketers love, adore and cherish article marketing. Yes, I am exaggerating a bit (just having fun). Let’s assume you are an expert in article marketing. Nobody can teach you a thing. Great! Does that mean you have reached the end of the road, passed the finish line and are ready to collect the trophy? No, sorry… Actually it is only just the beginning.

What a really successful marketer will do is say “Ok, I am really good at article marketing. How can I improve?” He may experiment and conclude that links to and from his articles and Squidoo lens can help his rankings. He may discover that linking from certain sites to his articles are actually more valuable than the backlinks he is currently receiving from his articles, etc.

This is what I mean by continuous improvement and being creative.

Information overload only becomes a problem when you are trying to do everything at the same time with the result that nothing actually gets done. You will view the same information in a completely different light if you only use it to strengthen your existing business.

The idea is not to copy marketers but to learn from other marketers, and to apply that knowledge in your own business.

By referring to people like Rich Jerk and Patrick Pretty I am not saying you should copy them. What I am saying is that they are obviously doing something right.

I don’t know about you but I don’t want to be the next Rich Jerk. Many have tried to copy him and have ended up with egg all over them – I always have a good laugh when I get one of his emails starting with “Dear Loser” but if you send me such an email I shall very quickly unsubscribe from your mailing list!

There are many ways to be creative…

Storytelling – Some of the best books I have read (and remembered) were all about storytelling, for example:

“The Goal” by Eliyahu M. Goldratt,
“Rich Dad, Poor Dad” by Robert Kiyosaki,
“Maverick!” and “The Seven-Day Weekend” by Ricardo Semler    

Inventing new words or new meanings for existing words, for example:

“Pluck” by Patrick Pretty,
“Attention Age” by Rich Schefren

In his new book, “The Attention Age Doctrine Volume Two: Web Marketing 2.0” Rich Schefren mentions there are 27,000 pages in Google with the exact phrase “attention age” and that 95% of those pages refer to him or his company. (I actually get 52,000 results when I search for “attention age” in Google!)

There is no need to go overboard in trying to be different. Rich Schefren has made millions of dollars doing things a bit differently. He knows how to differentiate himself from other marketers and how to stand out in a crowd.

“In my own marketing, I always strive to do things a little bit differently than others – and my more unique approach can make quite a difference”

Source: Rich Schefren’s “The Attention Age Doctrine Volume Two: Web Marketing 2.0” (Page 76). 

One last thing, by being different I am not suggesting you should aim to win the first prize for Mr. or Ms. Popularity. Internet marketing is not a popularity contest. Many top marketers like John Reese, Rich Schefren, and Mike Filsaime get severely criticized for just about everything they do.

What is important is to use your creativity to carve your own identity in internet marketing. And, in the words of Donald Trump there is “No Such Thing As Over-Exposure”.

To YOUR Online Marketing Success!

Francois du Toit

What has Robert T. Kiyosaki, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Rich Jerk and Patrick Pretty have in common? In one word - BRANDING!

Robert T. Kiyosaki has just about made “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” a household name all over the world. Do you think he would have achieved the same level of success, was it not for his innovative branding and storytelling skills? I don’t think so.

Donald Trump is probably one of the best known real estate tycoons in the world. Once again, just about everybody has heard of Donald Trump. Is he the best? Wealthiest? No, but he knows how to brand himself using the TRUMP name!   

Richard Branson is known for the VIRGIN brand – Virgin Cola, Virgin Active, Virgin Airlines, etc.

This brings me closer to more familiar territory, internet marketing!

Who has not heard of RICH JERK? He has been a bit quiet lately, but I am not aware of any other internet marketer that has managed to stir up so much controversy as Kelly Felix with his RICH JERK brand… Love him or hate him, this guy knows how to brand himself!

Fact of the matter is that internet marketing is a competitive field and it is becoming more and more difficult to stand out from the crowd. There are many good marketers that I have never heard of simply because they have not done enough to differentiate themselves.

How difficult is it to create a brand? How long does it take before you can stand out from the crowd?

Well, this brings me to Patrick Pretty…

It is possible you have never heard of Patrick Pretty, yet! However, what is important is that several well-known internet marketing gurus have taken notice of him… Why? Because he dared to be different.

Perhaps the most fascinating part of the Patrick Pretty story is how quickly he managed to create a unique brand that made himself stand out almost overnight.

The PATRICK PRETTY brand was created by Patrick Hernan in April 2007. That is only 8 months ago. Within a very short period of time he has already managed to leave some deep footprints…

Note: Some of you may say, Patrick Pretty is not a real person, he is the product of someone’s imagination. If you are thinking this, you are obviously right. However, you are missing the point and not seeing the bigger picture. He did something to make himself stand out from the crowd by daring to be different. And, you know what? It worked!

I recently had the opportunity of reviewing Patrick’s latest book (officially released this week), called:

“My Secret Identity – How Daring To Be Different Can Put You On The Internet Marketing Map And Position You For Online Success”    
        
It is an excellent read and I highly recommend it!

I previously mentioned that, by being different, Patrick Pretty has already caught the attention of several internet marketing gurus. Not an easy accomplishment if you remain hidden in the internet marketing crowd…   

This is an extract of an email message Willie Crawford sent his list this week:

Yesterday, I read an ebook by Patrick Pretty called, “My Secret Identity: How Daring To Be Different Can Put You On The Internet Marketing Map and Position You For Online Success.”

Patrick is a MASTER at branding and explaining, in easy to understand language, how to stand out in the Internet Marketing Niche. If you just blend in, and are a “me to” marketer, you won’t make it in IM. 

That makes Patrick’s ebook essential reading for any serious Internet marketer. Costing less than you’ll probably spend on lunch today, Patrick’s ebook is a no-brainer.

Patric also taught me that you don’t need to use a lot of hype to sell. A good product speaks for itself…

I could not have said it any better…

To pick up your own copy of My Secret Identity, simply click on the following link – My Secret Identity.

To YOUR online marketing success!

Francois du Toit

Niche discovery and niche marketing may be common concepts. However, it is clear that many marketers have a problem with the “niche discovery” concept and are totally confused by it.

Instead of just writing another “bla bla bla post” on niche marketing, I have decided to rather share some of my personal views with you…

You see, there are many books and reports available on the market about how you should go about finding hot niche markets. Most of them are more or less the same…

They give a step-by-step plan on how to find a good niche market but they often fail to address some very important underlying issues. It is a question of telling people what to do but not sharing enough information with them for them to really understand what they are doing.

Allow me to explain…   

What a lot of marketers are told is simply “Do keyword research and find a market with a lot of demand and few competitors”. What they then do is use a keyword research tool such as Wordtracker and start searching like crazy for competitive keywords, not really knowing what they looking for…

They post questions in forums asking things like “This phrase gets 100 searches a day and there are 100,000 competing sites. Is this good?”

People often focus so much on keyword research that they fail to understand the bigger picture…

First of all, you have to understand why people browse the internet. Forget about niche marketing and keyword research for a moment. Just think about why you or your friends and family browse the internet.

In my opinion, there are mainly three reasons.

People search the internet…

a. Looking for information (To solve a “problem”). Emphasis on INFORMATION. Some will be prepared to pay for it, others not (info may be readily available for free).

b. Looking to buy something – Book (Amazon), Music, Lingerie, Software, etc.

c. Looking for entertainment & companionship (lonely) – Games, chat rooms, dating, adult.

They key question is: “Are you dealing with buyers or browsers?” You want to target a market that is full of hungry buyers, not simply people fooling around online.

You need to understand your target market.

Finding a “good” keyword phrase with 1,000 searches per day and hardly any competitors does not mean you struck gold. A key phrase with 100 searches per day and 50,000 competitors may actually turn out a lot more profitable…  
 
You see, the problem with relying too much on a keyword research tool is simply that you may be getting all the cold, hard facts, but you are not given information on the people who are searching those keywords or key phrases. 

Fact of the matter is that the vast majority of people browsing the internet have no intention at all of spending money. This is obviously not something Wordtracker can report on. This is why you need to understand your target market.

Let me share an embarrassing story with you… I once “discovered” a great keyword phrase for a niche I was interested in. High search results, low competition. Sounded great. I spent quite a lot of time building a website, getting graphics, etc.

Eventually I found out that the great keyword phrase I discovered was actually not so great… It was the title of a popular song! Sure, I got some decent traffic but it was only once I found out who was searching for this keyword phrase that I realized my serious blunder…

I made the mistake of selecting a keyword phrase purely based on cold, hard facts. I did not take the time to understand my market. Big mistake!

A more common mistake is to optimize a web page for a specific keyword you have discovered just to find out that people searching that keyword are really browsers and not buyers. Yes, I know… Get them to opt-in for a special offer, send them seven emails… This seldom actually works if you get it wrong from the very beginning.

Tip: The apparent lack of Google Adwords for a specific keyword or keyword phrase is often a strong indication that you are not dealing with buyers.

Niche discovery is first and foremost about really understanding your target market. Who are they? Where do they go looking for information? What do they want? Are they prepared to pay for the right information? Who are your competitors? Are they giving the market what they want? Why would anyone buy from you instead of your competitors? What do you have to offer?   

This is one of the reasons why I always recommend that you should target a market that you have some knowledge of or are very interested in. Becoming an authority in a market that you do not understand or are not really interested in is very difficult.

By the same token, there is no point to focus on a market that you are an expert in but that has very little demand… 

Furthermore, it is also becoming more and more difficult to “discover” a virgin market. You are bound to have competition and even if you don’t you will soon get competition in the unlikely event that you have stumbled on a goldmine. 

Many marketers follow the easy route. They use Wordtracker for keyword research. Since many top keywords are flooded with competition they start using so-called “long-tail-keywords”. These are keywords with some demand and fewer competitors.

They put up a website, blog, squeeze page or Squidoo lens, write some articles to Ezine Articles, buy an ebook with Resell Rights or PLR’s, find some affiliate products on Clickbank to promote, set up a “bonus” and 7-part autoresponder series with Aweber and then forget about it…

Most of the times these marketers make very little money. Sure, they may make a sale here and there but nothing too serious. What these marketers are then told by the so-called “gurus” is that they should build hundreds of these sites! The reasoning is that if you can make $100 per month from one site that you will make $10,000 per month from 100 sites.

It sounds very logical, doesn’t it? It is certainly one way of doing niche marketing and I know a lot of people are earning a relatively good income building these sites.

However, this approach has some serious flaws…

First, of all, you will have to build a significant number of sites in order to earn a decent income. Secondly, it is very time consuming – You will have to spread yourself very thin and will never really be able to become an authority in your niche. Thirdly, and people like me really like this… It is so easy to displace these sites with my own sites.

You see, I don’t only look at the market, I also look at my competitors. Even if a small niche has already been flooded by 50,000 competing web pages, I know that most of those web pages are poorly optimized, give regurgitated information, sales pages are often poorly written, support is just about non-existent, etc.

Getting on the 1st page of Google is often easy. I build a quality website, do my research and bend backwards to deliver real value. 
        
The downside, you may point out, is that I cannot build & maintain hundreds of these sites at the same time. You are obviously correct. However, I make more money per site than most of the wishy-washy sites will. I make more money per customer by putting them in a sales funnel and getting a lot of repeat business. My sites rank better and are less vulnerable to competition.

By building quality sites I am also able to rank higher for more competitive keywords and do not simply have to rely on long-tail keywords with an uncertain future.

You have probably already heard me talk about the shotgun-approach – People firing in any direction hoping to hit something. I see a lot of people throwing websites in all directions hoping some of them will stick. What I have also noticed is that many of these websites that do initially “stick” quickly slide down once someone pours some cold water over them…

In case you are wondering, yes, I also use flimsy squeeze pages, etc. But, with totally different intentions. They are great for advertising and list-building purposes – Banner ads, PPC, ezine ads, etc. But, I do not use them to get organic traffic. They are simply too easy for competitors to displace.

Anyway, these are some of my thoughts on niche discovery and niche marketing. It is not possible to comprehensively cover this topic in a short blog post but I trust I was at least able to illustrate the need for looking beyond simple keyword research techniques.

Thanks for reading!

To your online marketing success!
Francois du Toit

When I first started doing online marketing several years ago I made some serious mistakes concerning duplicate content. Mistakes that cost me a lot of time and money. Mistakes that I still see being made all the time by new marketers…

I new nothing of website design, SEO, keyword research, or niche marketing. I only wanted to make money online and I wanted to make lots of money straight away! I was looking for people that could give me a fully functional and profitable online money making factory.

There was no shortage of people that answered the call of this inexperienced and naïve newbie!

Let me give you one example.

I met a guy on eBay that was building and selling “fully optimized” websites. His sites looked great and he had 100% positive feedback. He would typically build a site about a certain niche (for example weight loss), load it with hundreds of articles, monetize it with Google Adsense and then sell about 5 identical sites per niche for $49.95 each.

Hey, this guy did everything! Uploading my site, inserting Adsense using my own code, hosting. He could even help me find a domain name if I did not already have a suitable one. What a deal, or so I thought…

In his eBay ad he stressed how it is possible to make thousands of dollars every month from people clicking the Adsense ads on your website. (Will save you the rest of the hype)

I think I must have bought about 5 of his “cookie cutter” websites! Needless to say, I made nothing… Well, in all honesty, I probably made about $0.05 a month or something like that.

What really irks me is that I see experienced marketers bamboozling new marketers all the time!    
 
I often come across offers promising new marketers a “free website” or hundreds of PLR articles they can use for website content. What rubbish!

Google is very clear on duplicate content:

“Don’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content” 
Source: Google – Quality Guidelines

Why does Google hate duplicate content?

It is all about “User Experience”. Google understands that in order to remain the top search engine they need to provide visitors with high quality, relevant information.

Imagine searching for information using a phrase like “best way to lose weight” and all of the top 10 listing on the 1st page of Google shows exactly the same content, maybe just with different site graphics and website urls. Would that be a good “user experience”? No.

“Google tries hard to index and show pages with distinct information” 
Source: Google – Duplicate Content
 
What are the consequences of using duplicate content?

Google normally chooses the “best” version to display in their search results. This may be the site they deem to be the originator of the content or even a so-called “authority site”.

For example, if you copy an original article on your website and submit it to an article directory such as Ezine Articles you may find that Ezine Articles may outrank you by a long shot.

I recently read an interesting story about a webmaster that noticed (to his dismay) that one of his client’s websites dropped from the 3rd position in Google for a competitive keyword to the 683rd position. He was baffled to say the least, until he discovered that someone copied a blog article and posted it on the website. Soon after the blog article was removed the website regained it’s 3rd position in Google.

How can you proactively address duplicate content issues?

Google lists 10 different techniques, such as:

• Consider blocking pages from indexing: Rather than letting Google’s algorithms determine the “best” version of a document, you may wish to help guide us to your preferred version. For instance, if you don’t want us to index the printer versions of your site’s articles, disallow those directories or make use of regular expressions in your robots.txt file.

• Minimize similar content: If you have many pages that are similar, consider expanding each page or consolidating the pages into one. For instance, if you have a travel site with separate pages for two cities, but the same information on both pages, you could either merge the pages into one page about both cities or you could expand each page to contain unique content about each city.

Visit Google – Duplicate Content for the full list.

“Similar Content can also be Duplicate Content”

Duplicate content does not mean page A have to be 100% identical to page B. Changing a couple of words here and there does not make it unique!

Matt Cutts from Google once said that if he can put two pages next to each other and determine, just by quickly reading them, that they are more or less duplicates, that you can imagine how much more thorough Google is with their advanced algorithm.

Useful and free tool to detect duplicate content

I like to use CopyScape – They offer a free search function from their website where you simply type in your url and they will return any other sites containing the same content.

This is especially useful if you are concerned that other sites may be plagiarizing your content. It can also come in handy if you have some articles ghostwritten and you want to make sure they are really unique.
 
I am sure the tool has its own shortcomings but it is free, pretty reliable, quick and easy to use.

Trust you have enjoyed this short little post on duplicate content and that it may help you to avoid some of the mistakes I made…

All the best,
Francois du Toit

I recently heard a comment that the new membership site “Super Affiliates” Ewen Chia has launched is nothing but hype. To be honest, reading the sales page (all 33 pages of it!) it is easy to jump to that conclusion!

In fact, opening the sales page I was greeted by an audio message saying “Straight From The World’s Number 1 Affiliate…” I nearly closed the page straight away but must admit my curiosity got the better of me.

Ewen Chia has probably got the biggest ego of any internet marketer I have ever come across. He is the only marketer I can think of that openly refers to himself as a “guru” in many of his sales letters! He is the only marketer that openly states if there is ONE person that can help you to achieve financial freedom through the internet it is him!

Some serious claims! The words “modest” and “humble” were obviously not included in the dictionary the last time Ewen Chia had a look at it…

Funny thing is, Ewen is probably right. I do consider him an “internet marketing guru” and he may very well be the “World’s Number 1 Affiliate”. I am not aware of any other affiliate marketer that has even come close to achieving the same level of success as Ewen Chia. He simply conducts business on a totally different level.

As I am aware of the fact that many of my members are aspiring affiliate marketers (and it is a great way to make money online) I decided to join Ewen Chia’s membership site and post an honest review about it right here on my blog.

I am going to do my best to keep it short… Lol, no 33 page sales letter!

The Facts: (without the hype)

This is what you will receive when you join:

Membership Module 1
 
A 120 page ebook, called “15-Step Top Secret Super Affiliates Blueprint”
 
Note: This is a comprehensive affiliate marketing blueprint with easy to understand step-by-step instructions. (I was really impressed by the quality of this blueprint)

Membership Module 2

A series of 52 Step-by-step video tutorials.

The topics range from basic such as “Choosing a good domain name”, “Registering your domain name”, “HTML and how it works” to more complex topics including “Writing ad copy”, “Installing a customer support desk”, and “Installing a shopping cart, affiliate and ad tracking system all in one”
 
You can either watch the videos online or download them. Additional videos will be added in January. The videos will remain available in the members area so there is no rush to view or download them all at once.

Note: This is an excellent series of videos, catering for the needs of complete newbies to more advanced marketers. I really like this!

Membership Module 3

“Monthly Expert Audio Training”

Every month Ewen will release a new, exclusive and never before available audio message. He will either share some of his own “affiliate marketing secrets” or invite other experts to share their techniques.

Note: The audio can be downloaded as a MP3 and you also get the full audio transcripts that you may print and refer to whenever you like.

Membership Module 4

“Live Video Case Study”

Every month Ewen will do a video case study of, either one of his own promotions, or those of another successful affiliate marketer.

Note: The video can be watched online or can be downloaded and every video will include transcripts that you may print for later reading.

Membership Module 5

“Mystery Instant Business-In-A-Box”

Every month you will receive a complete business-in-a-box focusing on a specific niche. The package will include a product, sales page, download page, etc. In fact, every thing you need!

Note: You will have Private Label Rights to this package meaning you may edit the content to turn it into a truly unique product if you wish to do so.

Additional Bonus:

You get a 80 minute video tutorial (that you can watch online or download) with step-by-step instructions on using the “easiest and fastest affiliate marketing system ever created” (Sorry for the hype…)

Well, there you have it!

Now the big question is: “What is this going to cost me?”

I was pleasantly surprised! I expected Ewen would charge at least between $97 to $197 a month. In fact, I would not have been surprised if he charged a lot more…

He is only charging $47 per month. I couldn’t believe it… If you have bought any internet marketing products before (and I am not even taking about buying a product from a highly respected marketer) you would know that this is an excellent deal.
 
Is there a catch?

Yes, in order to get in at only $47 per month you have to join straight away. Ewen made it clear that he will increase the price to $147 per month in the near future…

Is he bluffing? No, I don’t think so. This membership is clearly worth more than $47 per month. (I have recently unsubscribed from a membership site that charged me $97 per month for a lot less information)

I would go as far as saying that $147 per month is probably the right price Ewen should be charging in the first place. However, by joining now you will keep on paying $47 a month.

The second thing you may notice is that Ewen made it clear that once a member leaves the site he or she will not be allowed back. Why? This is simply to prevent a member from joining, downloading all the information, canceling and rejoining a couple of months later just to repeat the process all over again.

Lastly, once you join you will notice the following ad on your membership download page: “Wait – Before You Continue…” It is basically a promotion by Chris from “Day Job Killer” for $77. Don’t waste your time or money on this…

Trust you have found this review more useful than reading through 33 pages of hype. Fact of the matter is that if you cut the hype away Ewen is actually offering a very nice deal!

To join simply click on the following link: Super Affiliates

P.S. He is offering a full 56 day 100% money back guarantee so you don’t really have anything to lose by joining.

To your affiliate marketing success!
Francois du Toit

Review: The Real Reason For The Failure Of Online Businesses

Several months ago Paul Smithson sent out a survey asking this question: “What is the ONE thing that prevents most online businesses from succeeding?”

Note: In case you are not familiar with who Paul Smithson is, he is the founder of XSitePro. (You have probably seen their slogan “The Internet Marketer’s Alternative To FrontPage And DreamWeaver”)

Anyway, he was absolutely stunned by the survey results and identified five major problems that people seem to encounter, again and again.

After extensive research he has just released the first report in a series of new reports he is working on. I have just finished reading it and must say I was really impressed!

Best part? It is free! No opt-in is required, no one-time offer… In fact, it is 48 pages of great, well- written and thought provoking content.

By the way, there is absolutely no financial benefit in it for me recommending this report. I simply think it is a great report that may really benefit a lot of marketers!

Suggest you download your report straight away from the download page, get yourself a nice glass of wine or a cup of tea, sit back, relax and enjoy the report. It is really worth reading.

To your success!
Francois du Toit

Buying links to artificially boost PageRank has become quite common in recent years, despite obvious disapproval from Google.

During the last Google PageRank update (October / November) many sites got severely penalized by Google for buying or selling links that pass PageRank. (Several of these sites took a big hit, such as dropping from a PR 6 to a PR 3)

Although many webmasters have reported that the drop in PageRank has not adversely affected their rankings in Google (organic traffic), the long-term impact is not yet evident…

Note: I recently posted an article here titled The Truth About The NoFollow Attribute where I explain the significance of Google PageRank as well as the NoFollow attribute. Suggest you refer to this article for a better understanding of what is meant by “PageRank” and “NoFollow”, if you are not familiar with these terms.

Paid Links and Link Schemes
  
Google is very clear about the fact that paid links that pass PageRank is in violation of their webmaster guidelines and can have a negative impact on your site’s ranking in their search results.

“Your site’s ranking in Google search results is partly based on analysis of those sites that link to you. The quantity, quality, and relevance of links count towards your rating”

“Some webmasters engage in link exchange schemes and build partner pages exclusively for the sake of cross-linking, disregarding the quality of the links, the sources, and the long-term impact it will have on their sites. This is in violation of Google’s webmaster guidelines and can negatively impact your site’s ranking in search results”

Google specifically includes “Buying or selling links that pass PageRank” as an example of a link scheme.

Source: Google – Link Schemes

In fact, Google even goes as far as encouraging people to report any site that is buying or selling links that pass PageRank.

Source: Google – Why should I report paid links to Google?

What about paid advertising links?

This is what Google has to say about paid advertising links:

QUOTE

Not all paid links violate our guidelines. Buying and selling links is a normal part of the economy of the web when done for advertising purposes, and not for manipulation of search results. Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as:

• Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the <a> tag
• Redirecting the links to an intermediate page that is blocked from search engines with a robots.txt file

UNQUOTE

Source: Google – Why should I report paid links to Google?

When may it be worth it to buy links that pass PageRank?

In principle, it is not worth it if you are serious about search engine optimization. The fact that many webmasters have gotten away with it for a long time does not mean the risk of being discovered by Google is low.

Google is continuously working on improving their already advanced algorithm and trying to outsmart them for short-term gain is not very smart. I guess the question should be: “Do you feel lucky?”

I can only think of one case scenario where you may not care about the potential negative impact of buying links that pass PageRank, namely if you have no interest in how well your site ranks in Google.

Some webmasters could not care less about Google and PageRank. They are mainly interested in buying links on high traffic sites in order to get traffic. They do not rely on organic traffic. This is often the case when a webmaster is using a squeeze page, simply to build his list or subscriber base.

On the other hand, if you are serious about building a website or blog that will rank well in the search engines then I would strongly advise you against paying for links that pass PageRank. 

All the best,
Francois du Toit