Google Penguin Update - Duh!

By now tens of 1000's of webmasters all over the internet have noticed their sites getting penalized by the latest Google algorithm change, adorably nicknamed "Penguin". I happen to like penguins, so I wasn't bothered by this one bit. The main target of this change was over-SEO'd sites with too much irrelevant linking (spam) and too many over optimized backlinks.

There is a good analysis of the data right here, but the gist of it is that the majority of sites were hit because more than 60% of the anchor text links to their site was for its main keywords. Well, duh!! I've been saying exactly that about anchor text since way back in 2008!

The lesson to be learned here is, while it IS important to have relevant text backlinks pointing to your site, you shouldn't overdo it. The new rule for 2012 is DO NOT OVER-OPTIMIZE YOUR SITE!!! I actually welcome the change as it helps get rid of sites with poorly written crappy posts that are created solely to manipulate their SEO factors with perfectly placed keywords that make no sense at all.

Let's all hail the Penguin!

Making Money From Free Classified Ads

I know many of you are using free classified ads sites as part of your overall marketing strategy, but have been finding it more difficult lately to produce worthwhile results. The big sites with tons of traffic, like Craigslist, will remove anything that even remotely looks like spam and many internet marketing type ads get flagged and removed in less than 15 minutes, which can be obviously very frustrating.

There are lots of tips on the net about how to avoid getting flagged, or at least keep your ad up longer, such as to word it more naturally, avoid adding links and simply use an autoresponder with your link in the email response. However, as with most things I do online, I'd like to suggest tryng a completely different approach.

What I do instead is post in Backpage with ads selling specific niche products and it works beautifully. Simply grab an affiliate product from Amazon, Clickbank, etc, and write an ad to sell it. Make sure the ad contains the niche product keywords, as an ad page can be SEO'd as well as any webpage, especially if the item is in a microniche with little competition.

Do NOT put an affiliate link in the ad!!! Too many people make this mistake and their ad gets flagged faster than they can count to 10. Instead, link to your own site, either to a product page or review blog post.

The advantage to using Backpage is that they are one of the oldest and largest classified sites online with a lot of traffic, plus they allow a clickable backlink for free AND they allow multiple city listings. Just post your ad as if you had the item physically in front of you, with the description and price, and give the link to your site where it can be purchased (and where your affiliate link is, of course).

If you use the Amazon affiliate program it's easier making money from free classified ads posting than dropshipping and you have a huge inventory of products to choose from. Good luck!

Warning To All Website Traffic Sellers

As anyone who knows me on all the various webmaster forums can attest, I'm a very reasonable person and I'm willing to help out wherever I can. I'm very honest and listed in the top 1% of the largest webmaster forum online, Digital Point, and a top rated seller at Fiverr with close to 1000 transactions there.

I mention this not to brag, but to explain that I do a lot of business online and I work hard to make sure buyers are happy when they purchase anything from me. I process about half a million visitors in traffic sales EVERY MONTH and have only ever had one complaint, and that was from a guy with a splog that just wouldn't have worked well with ANY traffic source.

Well, an hour ago a buyer with the username Printsteals on Fiverr ordered one of my traffic gigs and then cancelled it just 5 minutes after placing the order. Since I hadn't even processed the order yet (I still had 2 other Fiverr ones in my queue that I was working on), I just figured the buyer had changed his mind...nothing wrong with that.

Then I logged in to review the order and he claimed I sent him bot traffic from ip address 184.105.140.157 which seems to be from a company called Hurricane Electric in California. Since the buyer's site, www.printsteals.com , is a business printing company, it just looks to me like a regular visit from a company maybe looking for printing services. However, since according to Alexa, most of Printsteals traffic comes from India, maybe this USA visit confused the buyer.

Anyway, he accused me of sending this bot to his site and that's his reasoning for cancelling the order. I tried to explain to him that I have nothing to do with that visit, bot or not, as I couldn't possibly have even processed his order in the amount of time between his purchase and cancellation. He wouldn't listen to reason and continued to be unreasonable throughout our conversation on Fiverr.

He said he would reorder and I told him not to because I don't need the abuse. Can you imagine what this guy would be like in another order? It would be hell! "I got a visit from Maine. I don't like Maine...its YOUR fault!!" or "That visitor only stayed 37 seconds. It's not my site they didn't like...it's YOU!" Every single thing he doesn't like would be blamed somehow on the traffic, even if it wasn't even from me!

If he feels reasonable to cancel an entire order based on ONE hit from somewhere else that had nothing to do with me, then imagine how bad it would get with an actual processed order! He would be complaining about every single visitor!! It's not worth the hassle to me, and I told him so. I've attached a screenshot of our conversation, as I think it's important to put it in context and to note that he never even apologized for his mistake and somehow still thinks I sent him fake traffic, when I never sent ANY traffic at all...that's how bulb headed he is. I always try my best to please a buyer, but I'm not about to accept being wrongly accused of something I did not do!

I don't usually air my grievances in public, but I'm doing so here because I sincerely want to warn other traffic sellers about this guy, as he plans to buy traffic from someone else and I feel sorry for anyone who accepts his order. Do not sell traffic to, or send visitors to, PRINTSTEALS as it will only cause you aggravation, like it did for me.

If anyone reading this is a seller who has dealt with him, or anyone like him, before then please sound off in the comments so we can warn other honest sellers not to get burned.

Thanks for reading!!

Free Website Traffic Offer

I sometimes give newbies a hard time about not having their own website with an original domain because the reality is that it's MUCH easier to promote something when you have control over your own content, meta tags, ad placement, etc. Promoting ANY program, opportunity, product, affiliate link or whatever is harder when so many other people are doing it. The advantage comes with creating your own site that is well optimized through SEO for your keywords and that contains your own ads placed on it.

It's not nearly as complicated as it might sound at first. You simply buy a $10 .com domain from a registrar like Godaddy (specials can be found through the banner on the right) and then get a basic "unlimited" hosting plan to host your site files (such as the Hostgator "Baby" plan, also on the right). That way you can always expand your online "empire" in the future and the cost won't increase at all, as your hosting provides free scripts to build sites (including forums, blogs, classified sites and more), plus your own personal email addresses so you have that professional edge over your competition.

To get you started I have worked out a deal where you can get free traffic to kick start your shiny new site, once you have it setup on your new hosting plan. You can read the details at the free website traffic offer here. The visits are good for getting a targeted visitor flow going right away, so you don't have to worry about the usual wait time or exhausting promotions to get a fresh website "off the ground".

Good luck!!

Redefining Scams And Learning From Them

I've been reading a lot of forum threads lately about "get rich quick" schemes and other scams that online money seekers fall prey to, so I thought I'd address my thoughts on the subject here.

The biggest problem is that these scams feed into the desperation and lack of knowledge that newbies have when starting out seeking their "fortune" online. The sheer amount of ways to earn money online is overwhelming to anyone just learning the ropes for the first time. Some are legit...most are not. Telling the difference takes knowledge and common sense that amounts to quite a steep learning curve.

It happens to almost everyone. These desperate economic times cause more and more people to search online for ways to earn extra cash, but the first thing they are exposed to is usually some mile long scammy program squeeze page that promises instant riches with headlines like "GUARANTEED INCOME", "RETIRE WITHIN A YEAR" or, my favorite, "TURN YOUR COMPUTER INTO A PERSONAL CASH POURING ATM OVERNIGHT!!".

It may seem ridiculous, but yet 1000's of reasonably sane people every day push all common sense aside and actually BELIEVE the hype and flashy sales pages full of sweet rides and fancy mansions. Smoke and mirrors is all it is. They con people out of their hard earned money by promising MORE in return. It's a bad combination of greed and desperate times.

However, I don't totally blame the scammers. I dislike them and I think they're sleazy, but like most things in life, the path you choose is YOURS to take, so it's ultimately up to you to decide what is right and wrong. Too many people refuse to accept personal responsibilty for their own failures and that needs to change before you have any hope in succeeding in life or online.

We learn from our mistakes, hopefully. Trial and error is how we know what works and what does not. Most of these "get rich" programs involve telling others about it so you get referrals and make money from them joining. That's marketing. The truth is that most people are REALLY BAD at marketing and that's the real problem.

We've all seen testimonials that say in very small print at the bottom: "Results Not Typical". That means most people do NOT acheive those results that the entire testimonial just bragged about and impressed you into believing. It's the same with online money making programs: MOST people will fail (some statistics say around 97% who try to earn online will fail within 4 months)...97%!!!!!!

Does that mean you should give up? No, it means you shouldn't try to climb a mountain using a strand of spaghetti. In other words, realize your strengths and weaknesses and either adapt or prepare to fail. That philosophy can be applied in all aspects of living, whether it be online or offline.

Are you a great marketer? Could you sell ice to an eskimo??? If so, then maybe you'll do well with a money program. Look at a super marketer like Stone Evans (Google him)...the guy is everywhere. He shows up in top lists all over the net for highest selling marketer...he's a marketing genius and there are few people like him out there. We've heard the names of those that are successful...Evans, Shoemoney, Chow, etc. They provide inspiration to others to show it CAN be done, but they are also among that 3% success rate. Are you? Do you have what it takes?

I titled this post "Redefining Scams And Learning From Them", not because I wanted to expose how bad scams are. That should be obvious...use your head!! What I wanted to do is change your way of looking at a scam. Don't look at a money program as a way to realistically make a million dollars overnight...instead, look at it as a learning opportunity. Could you sell that idea to someone else? Are your marketing skills strong enough to make it work for YOU, even if most other people would fail at it? If the answer is "YES!", then you might be able to make a living from online work as part of the successful 3%. Maybe not with a scam, but by using your great skills on a legit opportunity that others couldn't make work for them.

If, however, you expect to get rich by simply flogging a gateway page from a crappy program that 1000's of other people are also promoting by spamming forums, blogs and traffic exchanges, then be prepared to be gone in a few months as part of that other 97% group. CHANGE THE WAY YOU THINK!!!

The reason I'm still earning a living online after several years is not because I'm some marketing genius (I'm not), but because I have the will to succeed and the stubborness to keep at it. Like I said before, it's trial and error when learning. If something doesn't work after a trial period, then I drop it, but when something DOES work then I fine tune it and continue to improve upon it until I am happy with the results.

Be prepared to either succeed or fail, but always be aware that the choice is yours. To your success!!!

Commission Junction CJ Payment Proof

After the postal strike finally ended it took a few weeks for all the backed up mail to catch up, including this Commission Junction (CJ) check from June for $170.50 USD that I have just scanned as my payment proof from them.

The thing I like best about CJ is that they have both physical and digital products that can be promoted and most are from brand name companies that people know and trust. This makes it MUCH easier to make a sale and all you have to do is paste the code they give you right into your website for whatever product you like.

Of course with marketing ANY product, you should make sure you choose wisely and pick something that fits the niche and audience that your own site attracts. DON'T post a banner for furniture on a car site!

The other nice thing is that some of their sponsors have really good payouts. I made $100 just for one lead to a psychic phone line! Sweet!!

I hope everyone is having a great summer. Bye for now!

Instant Passive Profits Reviews

"OMG! HI!!" says the hot girl...lol



Yes, that's how the video starts in the intro to the new Instant Passive Profits money making program by Andy Parker. I know that a beautiful woman showing lots of cleavage could probably sell anything, but this is hilarious! I think she, uh...really expressed what it takes to be an MMO guru...yup. Lovely.



The vid itself is pure genius and will have you watching right until the very end. You can see it right here (there was no way to embed it in this blog post, so I'm just going to link to it). My one word review is "Brilliant!"



Seriously though, are there any Instant Passive Profits reviews out yet? What are your thoughts on the product or marketing strategy? After watching it, do you see this humorous "in your face" approach as being the wave of the future?



I like that there is a mobile form option and I think we'll be seeing more of that. This one will be worth following...