Show me the money...

It is becoming more and more apparent posting a blog on Saturday “ain’t gonna happen”. If time allows I will double post on Friday. Sunday will be the beginning of a new week. I will try to focus on just a couple of topics each week.

I am kind of all over the board with postings due to the fact that is how I am becoming exposed to different marketing tools and techniques. It is hard to separate the “wheat from the chaff” most of the time. So, when I do stumble upon useful information I try to digest it and then share it with you in a timely fashion.

One of the problems with getting “free” information on the web is the price you eventually pay for it. I recently down loaded a great PDF document offered by a website. It was full of really good useful information. But, once you got past the first couple of pages they started to pitch their product. The further you go into the document the more prevalent the sales pitch. The price for the free material requires having to sit through their sales pitch.

If you want good free information, visit your local library. There are rows and rows of books related to internet marketing. Free to use, no sales pitch. 

Try not to forget, just because someone on the web claims it to be true, does not mean it is the truth.

One of the main issues with Wikipedia is the lack of fact checking that goes along with it. You have to do your homework when dealing on the web.

The first thing I do when looking at any opportunity, is seeing just how long it takes to arrive at the actual offer. Of the dozens of emails I receive each day, I have only received one or two that actually went to the site making the offer. Everything else is page after page of hype and double-talk before actually arriving at the opportunity.

That tells me a couple of things. One- there are, way too many people trying to make a quick buck. Two- They are wasting everybody’s time. There’s and mine.

Having to wade through multiple splash pages and videos tells me right away they are trying to take focus away from the product they are selling. They want you to buy the system not the product.

So, my next question is “Where is the money coming from?” Like I said before I was involved in Amway. I learned early on people are very hesitant to buy over-priced product. They also very rarely buy “miracle drugs” like all-natural vitamins. Consumers can buy name brand vitamins from Walmart or Target for a couple of bucks a bottle. They don’t have a need for the same thing at 10 times the price.

If the money doesn’t come from sales of a product, where is it coming from? 

With most of these scams there really is no money for you. The few bucks they send you (less than $100) to keep you in the game for a month or two comes from other sources. ZNZ sends you to a survey company to make money. Guess what, you don’t need them to do that for you. Most site offering surveys are free to join.

My guess (and this is a just an educated guess) is they (not you), make most of the money selling your information. I read that an average working email address can be worth up to $988 in revenue. Not only can your email be sold it may be sold multiple times. With or without your authority.

The balance of the money comes from those who join a program and then drop off after a month of wasted effort. 

Here is a scenario. You decide to start an online business. You now develop a MLM type program to recruit people into the program without you doing any recruiting yourself. 

You don’t even need to invent one you can use someone else’s and claim it as unique and your own idea. No one is going to take time to check it out. 

You now take a little bit of money and time to create a website and a webinar about this revolutionary system. As you have seen this can be done for free.

 

You then find some sort of product you can buy cheap and sell high (This is really secondary. You want people to buy the system and then drop out). The system costs you only pennies or less per person to sell.

 You come up with a price for membership. Remember keep it within the reach of the average person. Ours will be $52.00. You then blast it all over the web.

No matter how shoddy the web site is you will invariably find people who want in. At just $52 a piece the money adds up quickly. And here is the beauty of it. You can do this time and time again. The web offers a huge amount of anonymity and almost zero accountability. 

Buyer, beware. If you look at a program and it looks anything like this or you are already involved in a program like this, look for something else. 

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR forum to post questions or request a review of a site. You can also email me directly at ewahr2011@yahoo.com

 

Peace.

Let's go Article Marketing!

Now that you have a basic understanding of article marketing we can discuss its value as an internet marketing tool.

As I said yesterday I posted an article at two different article directories. The first one I selected was Ezine@rticles.com.They are rated number one by Alexa.  

Alexa is a company that rates article directories among other web related items.

I figured if I was going to try to get an article published I might as well shoot for the top. They accepted my submission and today they sent me an email. The email stated I had some errors in the text and the content was too biased and my hyperlinks went nowhere. They claimed the article was a promotion for a product or service.

The email was worded very kindly and even offered solutions to help repair the article.

I am not quite sure how I stepped outside their guidelines. Since I was still not sure what they didn’t like, (I didn’t add any hyperlinks) I was not able to correct the issue. I then sent another article in its place. I am waiting for the acceptance or rejection of that article.

I submitted the same article to GoArticles.com. My article was approved the same day needing no corrections. This is something you may want to keep in mind. GoArticles.com is also ranked highly by Alexa, but they apparently have differing submission requirements.

With that being said let’s look at the article directory itself.

Article directories allow users to search their sight for articles of a specific topic or niche. You then search for a keyword and they give you a list of results like any search engine. If you notice my article came up in the first page of results. Here’s where I missed the boat.

In my arrogance, I enjoy giving my daily blogs cute names. It’s fun for me and hopefully you enjoy it as well. So, when I decided to compose an article on the merits of blogging (To blog or not to blog) I decided to be cute and title the article; “To be or not to be…” an obvious play on words.

Cute, yes. But it doesn’t help people searching for information on blogging find my article. Instead it ends up with literary results. Live and learn I guess. 

Note to self: Use a title that conveys the content of the article. 

When you post an article to an article directory, you are giving permission for anyone who visits the site to; view, copy and/or re-post the article at another web site. 

I have seen postings from my blog copied to other sites. I was performing a Google search to see where my web site was listed. Searching for Eric’s Work at Home Reviews I got these results. I then opened the first few links, to my surprise this was one of the results.

So, it is not uncommon for someone to “borrow” your content. In the case of article marketing, that is the purpose. You want people to post your work at their site thus creating a back -link to your site.

I have read the more back-linking you have from site to site, makes it easier to receive a higher search engine ranking.  Again this is what we are trying to achieve.

In my case, since I blog daily I am not sure I need or have time to drive traffic from article directories. 

As I had reported I am now working part-time from my home setting appointments for an Independent Life Insurance agent. This coupled with commitments at church, my family, yard work, and two other web sites (yes, two others more on that tomorrow) writing an extra quality article every day and posting it at multiply sites may not be in the “time budget” for me.

Now If I blogged at my site once week or once a month, I would then write a short article daily and post it at as many article directories as I could. I could even use an edited version of my blog, but people are not going to visit your website to read what they just read. Not more than once anyway.

And keep in mind; at a site like mine I want people visiting daily and hanging around to click the banners. Fresh content helps keep that a reality. Regardless of what the “experts” say, I get a lot of traffic to my affiliate marketing partners every day from my banner advertising.

In summation, I see the advantage of article marketing. I can see how this would drive traffic to a site. If my site was simply put in place to market a product or service, article marketing makes perfect sense. It gives you the blogging platform without the need for a blog taking up space at your site.

At this point time to get it done will be the issue. Even if I was paying a service to post the articles daily, I would still have to find time to write them. Your case may be different. If I had more time or things change I may pursue the article marketing further, it does make good business sense.

Like always, join and follow the blog, click the banners and text links to start making money. You can use the EWAHR forum to post questions or request a review of a site. You can also email me directly at ewahr2011@yahoo.com

 

Peace.