Social Networking

With all the buzz about "Web 2.0" coming, the social networking sites that are at the hub of this new internet phase are gaining in popularity as a potential marketplace for online entrepreneurs. Facebook now allows you to place ads, similar to the Google Adwords campaigns, and online marketers for years have been leaving comments in forums as a way of getting the word out about their site.

It's a constantly shifting internet landscape and the possibilities are expanding as the potential for profiting from social networking increases. However, as with anything related to the fickle internet, these constant changes mean you have to constantly adapt to stay "in the game".

With Facebook ads, for example, even though you may have had a successful Adwords campaign in the past, you'll find the Facebook audience needs a different approach. I find the click thru rate (CTR) to be higher, but the conversions are lower. Unlike Google, the Facebook clickers haven't already searched for your keywords, but see your ad while logging into the site and click more out of interest even when they're not looking to buy anything. This flurry of clicking can drive up your daily ad budget very quickly.

A much cheaper (free) alternative is posting your links as comments in forums and on blogs and social networking sites. However, while posting in forums on social sites can be of a certain benefit, you shouldn't overdo it. At the webmaster forum for Link Referral, where I post often, I see people every day post comments that have nothing to do with the discussion thread they post in, but they do it just to spam the thread with their link. Some even go as far as copying the posts of others, word for word, because they're too lazy to write something original themselves.

I never spam a forum and I'll only post if I actually have something to add to the discussion. I'm honest and I don't want to send someone in the wrong direction, so I won't post in a thread on a topic I know nothing about. Spamming, while it will get your link seen, has no overall advantage since people will see your post for what it is (spam) and they'll avoid your site entirely.

I'm sure many of you with blogs have had spammers leave comments on your site with links to their insurance or pill sites. Would you buy insurance from a site that spams people? I don't think so! So, don't bother doing any comment spamming yourself.

Just find that balance between getting your site seen without being intrusive about it. Offer helpful advice on forums and in comments without being a pest and surfers will want to visit your site to read more. Draw visitors to your ad links through sincerity over hype and you'll soon find yourself with an audience who will actually want what you have to offer them. Just don't overdo it!

EyeEarn Pays! Eye Earn Paid Me!

Eye Earn Pays! This is actually a funny story, so please read on. Ok, so my title sounds a bit overly excited, but it's because I had made a mistake in my early calculations of the SFI EyeEarn program and I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to find I was wrong.

I joined the EyeEarn community because it seemed like an original, novel idea to make money online and offline that was different from all the other affiliate crap out there, which I'm sure you're familiar with. They all seem to pay pennies, if at all, so I wanted something different. Eye Earn was just what I needed. All I had to do was make an initial investment of just $20 for a great kit with the EyeEarn shirt, car banner, stickers and Eye Earn "X-cards" business cards. I got MORE than I was expecting and it was WELL worth the investment.

Within a month of joining EyeEarn I already had made a few dollars and I never even had to sell anything! How many affiliate programs can you honestly claim that you made anything more than a dollar from a month later? Anyway, here's where the story gets funny.

I thought "Great! I made a few bucks. That's not a bad start!" and then went full force promoting it. However, the following month it looked as if I had only made a couple of dollars from Eye Earn still and I was a bit disappointed. Then the next month came and it was still only a bit more. I thought if I was only making a couple dollars a month that it really wasn't worth it. I figured I may as well drop Eye Earn for a crappy PTC program and be just as well off. I was very wrong.

Figuring that Eye Earn was just another bad investment, I lost interest and didn't bother with it anymore. Then yesterday I got a check from SFI and, before opening the envelope, I thought "How is this possible? I only made a bit over 10 bucks!", but it turns out that I had misunderstood their Eye Earn Earnings chart the entire time! Instead of making just a couple dollars more each month, I was actually DOUBLING the amount each month and ADDING the couple dollars to it!

For example, instead of making $10 one month, then $3 the next, $5 the next and so on, at only a few dollars each month, the REAL amount was $10, then $23, then $48, then $104 etc. Do you see where I went wrong? The amount was actually doubling each month and a few dollars added on to the doubled amount. It adds up really quickly that way!

Their own EyeEarn calculator estimates that I'll be making a couple thousand dollars a month after just over a year of being in the Eye Earn community! I didn't think it was possible. I didn't believe it at first. But now I do, and so should you. Yeah, I know you're tired of seeing the ad with the smiling people wearing the Eye Earn shirts and EyeEarn car banners, but try to look beyond that at the real money potential. You'll be glad you did.

I'm a helpful, friendly EA (executive) Eye Earner now, so if you ask me for advice I won't leave you stranded. Just join my Eye Earn team and start earning today! Does this mean I'm promoting EyeEarn again? You bet! Get Seen. Get Paid.

SEO Working With Images

There is a lot of good SEO advice out there related to using keyword tags as part of your page URL, but not much is said about optimizing your website images for search engines as well. When it comes to pictures most people think of just adding an alt tag to the picture image, which basically describes what the image is about. Yes, this is useful, but there is something else you can do as well.

When saving an image file, you should always choose a name with direct search engine friendly keywords. Make sure the keywords are separated with something like an underscore character. For example, if you have an electronics store with images of each product you sell, then you should call your Sony DVD Player website image "sony_dvd_player.jpg". When a surfer wants to take a look at what DVD player models are out there to buy, your image will come up in the image search results and lead the visitor to your store!

This seems simple and obvious, but many people overlook it, especially when taking pics with their own digital camera, where the images are automatically saved on the camera memory card in numerical order (ie. img_001, img_002, etc). Simply rename the image files when using them on your website to a more search engine friendly name.

If your images have the proper SEO work applied to them, they can be a better search magnet to your site than your optimized text! This, of course, is especially true if you're selling anything visual or graphic in nature. It wouldn't be very helpful for a "work at home" site like this one, but can be very useful for many other types of sites.

Many surfers now are just as likely to do an image search as a web search, so the next time they do an image search for something they want to see first, make sure your optimized images draw them to your site ahead of the competition! You'll be glad you did that extra bit of effort before uploading your pictures.

Spring Cleaning Sales Advice

Hi everyone! It's finally spring time and for most of you with online stores that means preparing things for listing in your store or on an auction site. I was reading an article that said online sales on some sites have gone up by as much as 70%! The economy is getting worse with the high cost of living, gas prices skyrocketing, food prices increasing and many related product costs rising.

The increasing amount of people listing items online has forced the asking price of many of these items to be reduced significantly. Keep this in mind when managing your online listings. With everything going on, this may not be the best time to list too many items on a site like Ebay with the hope of a decent return.

I'd advise using all your marketing logic to decide what works for you this time of year and what won't. During spring cleaning you may uncover some gems that seem worth listing, but will you really get what they're worth? Hang on to the valuables for a later time and only sell what you have to. Resist the temptation for a quick buck and you might be surprised down the road by how much extra you can make at the right time. With online marketing, timing can be everything. Don't lose sight of your goals.

Are Meta Tags Keywords Useful Anymore?

I posted before about the importance of keywords in general for good SEO work, so I guess this could be considered as part 2 of that post. Here I'll discuss the importance of Meta Tags. Are they still useful?

There is some debate recently among SEO specialists as to whether or not you even need meta tags anymore. Apparently, some of the biggest search engines no longer consider them important and will either dismiss them or index them only as a general reference for your site category. I know of at least one person with a site on the the first Google SERP for their keywords of choice without ANY meta tags at all or even a site title!

Gone are the days when keyword stuffing would get you top results. Now, it's all about content, and that's how it should be, really. A site without useful content isn't of much value to anyone, so why should they read it? Search engine results are becoming more about presenting useful content to the searchers and surfers on the internet, and with the implementation of "web 2.0", this can be seen as a step in the right direction. Just make sure your site content is useful and relevant to the keyword results you wish to be found in and you'll be ready for the latest Internet revolution.

Until the search engine algorithms change yet again...