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My Money Blog

EverBank Yield Pledge Money Market / FreeNet Checking Review, Part 1: Applica...
by Jonathan
23 Nov 2008 at 3:04am
My wife recently applied for an EverBank Yield Pledge Money Market account for their introductory rate. Currently, the promo rate is 3.93% for 3 months, and the standard rate after that is 3.21% APY. (3.93% guaranteed for 3 months is still better than any 3-month CD out there.) Everbank ?pledges? to [...]
Free Dr. Pepper Coupon on Sunday 11/23
by Jonathan
22 Nov 2008 at 5:34pm
I don’t quite know why Dr. Pepper cares about Guns and Roses, but… Beginning Sunday at 12:01 a.m., coupons for a free 20-ounce soda will be available for 24 hours on Dr Pepper’s Web site. They’ll be honored until Feb. 28. Via AP Article, thanks to readers Kerri and Billy.
S&P 500 at 750: Thoughts From A Market Timer
by Jonathan
21 Nov 2008 at 1:16am
I knew I shouldn’t have turned on CNN in the hotel. I go away for a week and it’s 1997 again! I don’t feel like posting any more articles from the “buy-and-holders“, although I remain one. So how about some commentary from John Hussman, whose fund HSGFX is actually even for the year [...]
eBates Holiday Promotion + $10 Bonus
by Jonathan
20 Nov 2008 at 11:56am
Black Friday 2008 is almost upon us, even in Spain the stores are already in Christmas mode. If you’re doing some early shopping online, don’t forget to try a cashback shopping portal like eBates or FatCash. Both are currently having a holiday promotion where the cashback percentages are higher at many [...]
Entrepreneur Interview: Maury of PennyPortrait.com
by Jonathan
19 Nov 2008 at 12:57am
Today, I wanted to share an interview involving a unique website business thought up, constructed by, and maintained primarily by just one person. Maury is a long-time MMB reader and e-mailed me recently about his new venture - PennyPortrait.com. There, you can purchase a kit that allows you to create [...]
Free $25 FXCM Micro Currency Trading Account
by Jonathan
17 Nov 2008 at 10:35pm
You can apparently get a free currency trading with $25 in it when you sign up for this CNBC Portfolio Challenge, with no upfront money required from you. At first I thought it was play money but they even have a requirement before you can cash out: You must complete five (5) round-turn trades [...]
Vanguard?s New Self-Employed 401(k) Plan - Roth Option Included
by Jonathan
16 Nov 2008 at 10:28pm
Vanguard has recently announced the details of their Individual 401(k) plan - otherwise known as Solo 401k or Self-Employed 401k. Although you can’t apply yet it seems, many of us passive investors have been waiting for Vanguard to offer this for a long time. The Vanguard® Individual 401(k) plan is a retirement plan for [...]
CA Residents: $50 Gift Card For ScholarShare 529 Plan
by Jonathan
15 Nov 2008 at 10:04pm
Here is another 529 account bonus, but only open to California residents. If you open a California ScholarShare 529 College Savings Plan today and sign up for automatic investing of at least $50 per month on the account, and you’ll receive a $50 Target GiftCard. From the fine print: To receive a $50.00 [...]
$25 Referral Bonus: Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Plan
by Jonathan
14 Nov 2008 at 8:20am
The Ohio CollegeAdvantage 529 Savings Plan is currently offering a $25 refer-a-friend bonus if you open an account and deposit at least $25 by December 15, 2008. You can be a resident of any state, and there are no application or annual fees. Is This Ohio Plan Any Good? After doing some research on the [...]
Call Your Credit and ATM Card Issuers Before Traveling Internationally
by Jonathan
14 Nov 2008 at 5:12am
I just finished calling all of the issuers for the credit and ATM cards that I plan on using internationally - Capital One, Citibank, WaMu, and Bank of America - in order to avoid my cards being frozen due to fraud concerns. I remember doing this occasionally before, but not for all of [...]
Good Time To Hedge Against Higher Gasoline Prices?
by Jonathan
13 Nov 2008 at 8:20am
I just filled up my tank for the least amount of money in a long time. When I first wrote about hedging against rising oil costs, the national average was $3.70/gal and headed towards $4/gal. Now it’s around $2.15. Remember when we were all afraid of $5 gas? [...]
Ask The Readers: Skype As Replacement Phone Service?
by Jonathan
12 Nov 2008 at 8:13am
A reader wrote in about using Skype as a replacement phone service. This was good timing because I also wanted to ask about using Skype internationally. Skype While Traveling Internationally? I’m preparing for my trip to Spain, and have the following plan for keeping in touch. All calls are routed to my cell [...]
Shorter Full-Retirement vs. Longer Semi-Retirement?
by Jonathan
11 Nov 2008 at 7:02am
Which would you rather do: A) Work 40 hours/week for 15 years, and then not work at all for the next 15 years, or B) Work 20 hours/week for 30 years? If you were to ask me a few years ago, I would have picked A. Now, I’d much rather have B. Of [...]
MyCorporation Free Corporation/LLC Coupon Code
by Jonathan
10 Nov 2008 at 4:10pm
The coupon code for a free LLC or Inc filing from MyCorporation is FREE149. More information here. Again, this is only valid 11/11/08, 6AM?6PM PST. A reader writes in that there is a “delayed filing” option where you can check out now but have the filing done for 2009.
Coinstar Promo: $40 in Coins = $50 in Gift Certificates
by Jonathan
10 Nov 2008 at 5:36am
Coinstar is running a 2008 Holiday Promotion where you can turn $40 in loose change into $50 of Amazon.com gift certificates (or any gift certificate that they offer). Not a bad way to get rid of some change and pay for some holiday shopping. Via SD. Selected fine print: The $10 holiday bonus [...]
Internet Strategy Blog

How Much Is Your Blog Worth?
by Damien
7 Nov 2007 at 8:17pm

Have you ever wondered how much is your blog worth?

What if one day, some one (hopefully Google) wants to buy your blog and ask for your selling price, what price will you quote?

My blog is worth $11,290.80.

My blog is worth $11,290.80. Not too bad

What’s yours?


10 Interesting Facts About ?Make Money Online?
by Damien
5 Nov 2007 at 1:57am

The phrase ?make money online? is one of the most popular search term online. Here are some interesting facts:

Google returned 123,000,000 results for the phrase make money online. The quoted phrase ?make money online? returned 1,310,000 results. Yahoo returned more results than Google - 373,000,000 results for the unquoted phrase and 9,690000 for the quoted phrase The phrase ?make money online? is searched 44,151 monthly. This means that there is an average of 1471.7 unique search on the phrase daily or 1 search every minute. More than 100 advertisers use this phrase for their Adwords campaign. The average cost per click is $0.76. A search on show over 2300 result for the phase ?make money online? (excluding those that have been buried). Only 1 post manage to receive more than 10 diggs. The average number of diggs per ?make money online? post is 2. (It seems that the phrase is not very digg-worthy after all). The most popular bookmark found on the various social bookmark sites with the phrase ?make money online? is All the “makemoneyonline” domain name (.com, .biz, .net, .us, .mobi, .info, .org, .co.uk etc) are taken up The domain has a PR 6 and Alexa ranking of 308,164, but it is not in the top 20 of Google SERP for the phrase “make money online” The number 1 ranking for the phrase ?make money online? in Google is a belonging to a 14 year old kid. There are 14,482 questions asked on with the term ?make money online?
DealDotCom: Video Blogging Made Easy
by Damien
4 Nov 2007 at 8:08pm

Things have been slow here. I was down with a bad flu, which gives me a constant headache.

Now that I am getting better on a fresh new Monday (did I mention before that I LOVED Monday?), it?s back to blogging again.

videoblogging_cover_s.jpgTo start the week, I would like to recommend the new product featured in DealDotCom.

In case you?ve been living under a rock (or don?t get on the internet ever, but then you wouldn?t be here) and don?t know, Video is in style. In a big way. was bought by Google for a gazillion trillion dollars. I rest my case.

Now you?re thinking, ?That?s great, Copy Slave, but why is that important to me?? Here?s the part where I tell you. You can create your own video blog (aka Vlog) and get it indexed super fast and drive tons of traffic to it! You know what you can do with traffic, right? Make money!

?But I don?t know how to make a vlog, that?s all that technical, complicated stuff!? is what you?re thinking now.

Bullcrap! It?s easy! Cheryl Lester?s Video Blogging Made Easy can show you how to make your own traffic-pumping vlog in an hour. She will show you the exact steps she took to get her site indexed in Google within 24 hours. My mouth is frothing at the possibilities! And perhaps most importantly, she points out the common pitfalls that cause the failure of new vlogs. It is simply the best guide to creating a vlog on the web.

Deal is offered at DealDotCom.com and is only for today $37 $27.


20 Reasons Why I Should Stop Blogging
by Damien
31 Oct 2007 at 12:05am

gives you 11 great reasons why you should blog. I just found 18 20 reasons that I should stop blogging.

I can’t I fail my English in high-school I run out of ideas of what to write, every time and every day I didn’t learn the way to to fellow bloggers from Darren I have no money to famous bloggers. I didn’t invent any new terms, such as No one my site I am not making any profits from blogging No one anyway (or is there?) I suck at social media, because I didn’t heed advice Google hate me, cause I blog about how bad they are I put no in my blog. I have in my blog. I have only Google PageRank 3 My Alexa ranking is only mere 619,760 No one ever review my posts at I have 0 plugs for I have 0 I didn’t take up Atomic Blogging I manage to come up with 20 reasons to stop blogging

On second thought, I think maybe I should continue blogging, because I know YOU are reading it.

For all my readers, Thanks for making my day.


Why You Should Forget About Google And Start To Diversify Your Traffic Sources
by Damien
29 Oct 2007 at 12:39am

Google is throwing tantrum again. Yes…this time, it affected some of the popular blogs. , , , are some of the few that suffered from a pagerank drop. It was rumored that this is the Google way to penalize blogs that sell links. No one has confirmed it.

While InternetStrategyBlog didn’t suffer from any pagerank loss, this issue does set me thinking: “how long do we have to suffer from the tyranny of Google?”

It seems that Google has a part in everything we do online. From Google Search, Gmail, Google Adwords, Adsense, Youtube, Blogger, the fate of our websites seem to lie in the hand of Google, and this is definitely not good.

The fact is, Google don’t care about the survival of Webmasters. They set the rule (and change it anytime they want, without informing you) and either you follow, or you’re out. Google lives in a completely different world from online marketers. They want to provide excellent content free of charge to the mass (Well, that’s how they make money) and expect you to do so, while the marketers want to make tons of money from excellent content. This is a total conflict of interest. Just when marketers found new way of making money while providing free excellent content, Google banned them.

Excerpts from :

“There?s many a “business model” that relies completely on Google?Google Search for traffic and Google AdSense for revenue. And there?s an even larger amount of so-called business models that rely almost completely on Google for traffic, even if the money comes in via other means.

I think you know what happens to the money when the traffic stops.

I use the term “business model” above loosely, because a model that is entirely dependent on an outside company, for either traffic or revenue or both, is not really sound. You?re not in charge and you have very little control, because if Google decides to change the rules, you?re out of luck. Based on that, I would argue that relying on Google is not a business at all.

I?d say you work for Google.

Even though that?s not literally true, you might as well see it that way. When one company can kill your income overnight?without notice or justification?that?s simply not a good business. They can effectively lay you off at any time, with no notice, no severance, and you never had benefits to begin with.”

It’s time we stop the Google tyranny, and the only way to do that is to stop depending on Google for survival.

How?

The answer is: diversify your traffic sources.

If Google accounts for 90% of your current traffic, then it is time you start to find other traffic sources. Here what you can do;

Marketing your website:

Article marketing ? Submit articles to article directories is a surefire way to attract traffic. Not only can you establish your expert status, your articles will also be reprinted in various blogs or ezines, thereby increasing the number of links back to your site. Syndicate content ? Syndicate your content and
increase your traffic with RSS feed Publish a Press Release ? particularly if you have an important announcement Social networking ? Build social communities in the various social networking sites. More details here. Video marketing ? Create a video on anything related to your niche and upload it to , , , etc. Participate in specific forums ? Establish your expert status by providing help and support in forums specific to your niche. Joint Venture ? The best way to generate traffic is to leverage on other people traffic. Create a joint venture with the top marketers in your niche. Create free stuff and give it away ? Serve as a teaser for your product. Everyone just can’t resist free stuff. Classified Ad? put up an classified ad at , , , Submit to directories ? Another place to increase exposure to your site

Marketing your blog

Blog actively, consistently and constructively ? This is really the only way to attract readers. Read other blogs and give comments ? You’ll be surprised how much traffic it will bring you, especially when you leave a good comment on the popular blogs. Link actively to other blogs ? The rule of reciprocal. People tend to link back to you when you link to them. Guest blog - Invite some big names to write a post for your blog and request him to link back to your blog. It always works. MyBlogLog ? Register an account with
and start to visit other blog with the MyBlogLog widget. Your face will start to appear on their blogs. Nice traffic puller. Submit to blog directories ? Just another place to increase the exposure of your blog Interviews other bloggers ? Especially useful when there are newsworthy topic. For example, during this pagerank event, you can interview Darren of Problogger on how he feels about the drop in pagerank and ways he has come up to counter it. It is definitely newsworthy and link-worthy. Accept interview by other bloggers ? This only work when you have established your expert status in the field. Establish good relationship with your reader ? Comment on your reader’s comment and if there is any doubts, go the extra mile and provide the solution for them. Pay per post ? Get people to review your post.

Social Media Marketing

Facebook / MySpace ? Invite friends, start a group, join groups, comment on friends space. Yahoo Answers ? Help others solve their problem and put a link back to your site in the sources field Digg / Netscape / reddit / stumbleupon ? Only submit your best article, do not spam. Helium ? Share your expertise and make money at the same time Youtube ? As mentioned above in video marketing Wiki marketing ? Start a wiki on a topic related to your niche and invite contribution from the public. Include your links in one of the contribution. Flickr ? take a screenshot of your site (with the url fully visible) and upload to Flickr. Squidoo ? Start a Squidoo lens and participate in the Squidoo community. You could easily drive traffic to your site.

Offline marketing

Advertise in local newspaper Publish news in local newspaper Get interviewed in local newspaper Print your website url in namecard Include signature in all outgoing mails Become a sponsor in public events and activities

This is a big list of traffic generation strategy. Please put it to good use. While Google still remains a powerhouse in the Web, it is always wise to diversify your traffic sources and not depend on Google for survival.


reCAPTCHA: Helping the World One Word at a Time
by Damien
25 Oct 2007 at 11:07pm

While I was looking for a spam filter to block off the large number of spam comments every day, I came across this free Wordpress plugin ?

recaptcha screenshotreCAPTCHA works just like any other filter. Readers have to type in the distorted word shown in the generated image before they can have their comments submitted. Since computer program cannot read distorted text as well as a human, a CAPTCHA filter can prevent abuse from “bots”, or automated programs that are written to generate spam.

Helping the World while giving comments

The difference between reCAPTCHA and a normal CAPTCHA filter is that the distorted words generated are taken from old books that were scanned but not recognized by the OCR properly.

These old books are written before computer age. To archive human knowledge and to make information more accessible to the world, these books are being photographically scanned, and then transformed into text using . The transformation into text is useful because scanning a book produces images, which are difficult to store on small devices, expensive to download, and cannot be searched. The problem is that OCR is not perfect.

What reCAPTCHA does is to send words that cannot be read by OCR to the Web in the form of CAPTCHA for humans to decipher. What you see below at the comment form is an instant of the reCAPTCHA at work. When you type words from the generated image, you are actually helping to decipher the words that are not recognised by the OCR.

It also comes with an audio challenge that allows blind people to freely navigate your site.

Try it out and have fun!

reCAPTCHA Wordpress plugin: reCAPTCHA home page:


Are You Becoming The Echo Chamber?
by Damien
24 Oct 2007 at 10:34am

Being a blogger, there is always the challenge of writing original content every single day (at least for me). There is a tendency to “report” what is happening than to “make” thing happens. Just like what said in ,

“There?s nothing wrong with reporting of course and for many people it?s a necessity at first until you build up some expertise. Unfortunately the ratios are pretty skewed when it comes to reporters and experts - there are a lot more reporters than there are experts, hence reporters tend to struggle to gain attention and when they do, they often just enhance the reputation of the expert they are reporting on”

It is really easy to be an since there is no need to crack the brain to come up with new juicy content. For someone who is blogging for leisure and just wanted to share news update with friends, then there is really nothing wrong with being an echo chamber.

Why it is not a wise thing to become an echo chamber

Inability To Attract And Retain Readers: The reason why people like to read blog is because of its fresh, original and interesting content, not because of its ability to announce news. Most bloggers are readers themselves and they can sense a blog that is full of parrot talk in the first 30 seconds. Chances are they are going to click out of the blog, never to return again.

Inability To Attract Incoming Links: If there are so many blogs that are reporting the same news, why would there a need to link to you?

Inability To Achieve Good Search Engine Ranking: Believe it or not, the spider (especially Googlebot) can smell the originality of your content even before it reaches your site. Why? Because of your low traffic count and zero incoming links. It is just like an insect repellent, causing the spider to stay far away from it.

Inability To Attract Advertisers: No readers, no traffic, no incoming links, no search engine ranking and you still wish for people to advertise? Fat hope!

Avoiding The Echo Chamber Trap

Chris Pirillo does have while Darren Rowse added his on the echo chamber.

Lastly, the only way to avoid the echo chamber trap is to change your perspective and look at things from a different angle. While reporting, it is really fine (and recommended) to add in your own point of view. If possible, generate a side topic and blog heavily on it. This will instantly change your status from a reporter to an expert that “make” thing happen.


Recommending Michelle?s ?Social Media Daily? Blueprint
by Damien
24 Oct 2007 at 1:19am

I have just finished reading the ebook, Social Media Daily by and I was truly impressed by it. While there are many Web 2.0 sites out there, no one has actually come out with a definitive guide on how to leverage on the Web 2.0 phenomenon. In this ebook, Michelle created a daily checklist that she used to generate traffic from various Web 2.0 sites such as video sharing, blogging, social bookmarking, classified, social networking etc. I was overwhelmed with information.

You can download here.


Rule For Blogging
by Damien
22 Oct 2007 at 12:27am

Rule 1: Know how to write

Rule 2: Know what to write

Rule 3: Know when to write

Rule 4: If all the above fail, know who you should pay to write for you.

Enough said. Enjoy blogging.


25 Ways To Monetize Your Website And Make Money Online
by Damien
18 Oct 2007 at 11:01pm

Scratching your head over how to monetize your website? Or you simply want to know the various options you have to make money online? Check out this list for a quick reference:

Contextual advertisement such as , , Set up a and sell your products Get started in Sell Advertising Space Auction Write And Sell Your Own Ebooks Write And Sell Software Create Membership Site Get Paid To Blog Get Paid To Sell Your Freelance Freelance Web designer Graphics designer Buy/sell website Sell private label right products such as articles, software, photo etc Be a coach Setting up a shop in Buy/sell Start a web hosting business Participate in paid-to-read email, surveys, discussion groups Create a networking site like

This is only a short checklist and serve as a quick reference for you. For more details, does have .


Search Marketing Insights by Dev Basu

Why Google SearchWiki Will Make Digital Point Outsourcers Rich
by Dev Basu
21 Nov 2008 at 8:52am
A System Ready To Be Gamed for Cheap Lot’s of speculation has been created around Google’s introduction of SearchWiki, which is  their mandate for users to create their own so called ‘private‘ google experience, effectively allowing customization of search results. Now, when you’re logged into your google account and turn on SearchWiki, you can have the [...]
WideCircles Shouldn?t Be Using Outsourced SEO To Spam Other SEOs
by Dev Basu
20 Nov 2008 at 8:46am
Comment Spamming SEO’s is Just Plain Stupid I think we can all agree that Online Reputation Management is important, both for big brands and for up and coming companies. While sifting through my spam comments (I check to see if there’s any legit ones caught by Askimet), I found this archaic comment spam from not, one [...]
Writing For Search Engine Journal
by Dev Basu
19 Nov 2008 at 8:01am
Look Out For Posts Every 2nd Tuesday I’m pleased to announce that I’ll be joining SEJ’s best and the brightest in contributing new and interested search marketing news, every 2nd Tuesday. It’s part of my own personal mandate to get more involved in the search marketing community, especially where more people can benefit from any tips [...]
Alexa Sparky 1.3 Updates Google Search Results
by Dev Basu
14 Nov 2008 at 9:29am
A Worthless Use of SERP Real Estate? I can’t for the life of me figure out why I would want to see Alexa’s blue rating bar in my SERP results. While the usefulness (really, somewhat uselessness) of the Alexa rating has been beaten to death by SEO’s and other internet marketers alike, I did keep it [...]
Big Changes to The StumbleUpon Algorithm
by Dev Basu
2 Nov 2008 at 5:13pm
Prepare for Stumbleupon 3.27 Beta Unknowingly to most social media marketers, Stumbleupon is rolling out a fair number of changes that could affect user profiles, and their ’stumble power’.  The beta has already rolled, and its only time before the finished release becomes available. Prominent changes in this release include: Adds a thumbdown menu featuring the following options: Not-for-me [...]
Content Rich SEO Copywriting Book Review
by Dev Basu
30 Oct 2008 at 11:40pm
Is The Proof in the Writing or The Ranking? Recently, Jon Wuebben sent me a copy of Content Rich (Amazon), a book that he claims to be the ‘bible’ of seo copywriting. As a search marketer who believes in the union of great content, good structure, and worthy inbounds links, Jon’s already preaching to the choir. At [...]
Price is What You Pay, Value is What You Get
by Dev Basu
29 Oct 2008 at 9:53pm
photo credit: emuriel Value Isn’t Counted in Dollars There are lots of stark differences between pitching the value of SEO to big companies versus small businesses. In the former, price is often the last factor discussed, whereas service offerings, support, consultancy and integration into existing infrastructure matters. In short, they understand that you can’t order steak [...]
Search Marketing Insights is Now On AllTop
by Dev Basu
17 Oct 2008 at 5:58pm
photo credit: teamstickergiant Oh Gee, I’m Featured on Seo.Alltop.Com It’s nice to know I kick ass, or atleast that the folks at Alltop think I do. I wonder if there’s some sort of Alltop optimization in the works, and if there’s a better way to rank in what seems to be an ever-growing list. That said, [...]
The Role of an SEO Agency in Enterprise SEO
by Dev Basu
15 Oct 2008 at 5:59pm
photo credit: Larsz Act in Supplement and You Will Succeed  Today, I met a top player in the Canadian insurance industry, and left the pitch fairly impressed with their involvement in search marketing. Not only did they have a well run paid search campaign, run in-house, an seo campaign in the works, but to my surprise, were [...]
How To Deliver The Perfect Client Pitch
by Dev Basu
1 Oct 2008 at 10:59pm
Credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid How To Be on A Roll :Time After Time If you work as a consultant or for an agency, you probably spend a fair amount of time being remarkable, convincing, and irresistable. Of course, not all days turn out that way, and I have had a number of client pitches that [...]
How To Manage the Impossible Client
by Dev Basu
29 Sep 2008 at 7:31pm
photo credit: Marcio Eugenio Dealing with Hard To Please Clients Search marketing, just like any other business, has its peaks and valleys that make it both rewarding and frustrating to be to be an SEO at time. I find it rewarding and motivating to help my clients who have little or no business being generated online [...]
Small Business Link Building Through Event Planning
by Dev Basu
23 Sep 2008 at 9:54pm
photo credit: brokinhrt2 Using Corporate Events & Govenance to Generate Links I’m a big believer in enabling offline marketing and online marketing to work with each other in tandem.  While some small businesses may not have active involvement in scheduling corporate events, mid sized businesses often throw a couple of events every year for ther suppliers, [...]
10 Questions You Should be Asking Your Client But Aren?t
by Dev Basu
22 Sep 2008 at 10:54pm
photo credit: Anyhoo The Questions You Forget to Ask There’s a lot of reasons online marketing is very different in strategy and execution when compared to traditional marketing, but there are some things that remains the same whether you’re doing business development for an SEM agency or a traditional Ad Agency: Identify Client’s Needs Analyzing Gaps in Current [...]
10 Link Bait Tips for Small Business Marketing
by Dev Basu
18 Sep 2008 at 10:47pm
photo credit: robertodevido Small Biz Can be Creative Too Sometimes it can be pretty hard to come up with creative social media link bait ideas for otherwise un-interesting small businesses. After brainstorming for a bit, I think I’ve come up with some ideas that can be applied to almost any SMB regardless of what they do. [...]
The Best Places to Find Cheap Yet Reliable Outsourcing
by Dev Basu
17 Sep 2008 at 9:40pm
photo credit: oooh.oooh Outsourcing SEO For Fun and Profit In my last post on the how to efficiently outsource seo campaigns, I promised I’d cover some of the best places to find cheap yet reliable outsourcing. If you’re an experienced search marketer, you’ve probably used one or more of these services at some point or other. Professional [...]
5 Star Affiliate Blogs

Dangerous Marketing Ahead - How to Survive a Deep Recession Webinar
by Linda Buquet
21 Nov 2008 at 9:48am
Think you can promote, e-mail or SEO your way out of this recession? Survival today requires divorcing yourself of the comfortable myths of "branding", easy answers and digital hocus-pocus that pass for most marketing strategies.
Free Passes for PPC Classroom LIVE 2008 - Disneyland California
by Linda Buquet
21 Nov 2008 at 9:30am
PPC Classroom is sold out however they have a huge LIVE event coming up in in Orange County California - next to Disneyland. I have 10 free passes to give 5 Star Readers so they can learn from Anik, Amit and a few other super affiliates.
New Google Search-Based Keyword Tool - Find the Keywords you Missed
by Linda Buquet
20 Nov 2008 at 12:38pm
Just in time for the Holidays a hot new keyword tool from Google to help you pump up your Adwords campaign. Even if you don't use Adwords and just want to find more KW for SEO this is an awesome tool. Finds your competitors keywords too and a bunch of other features. See screenshots.
Affiliates: Highest Paying Dating Program - Weekly Payments
by Linda Buquet
19 Nov 2008 at 12:07pm
Dating affiliates! Work with the #1 dating site in the US and the highest paying dating publisher program online today. The Singlesnet.com direct program offers publishers the highest commissions PLUS weekly commission payments.
AffiliateBenchmarks Affiliate Research Released
by Linda Buquet
19 Nov 2008 at 11:06am
AffiliateBenchmarks is a research report that was compiled using survey data from over 450 affiliates and will be free til 12/12. Affiliate managers DEFINITELY want to grab this data. Some of the info could be helpful for affiliates as well.
Wordpress Affiliate Datafeeds Made Easy with Datafeedr
by Linda Buquet
17 Nov 2008 at 10:38am
Datafeedr is a powerful push-button store creation system that makes it easy for affiliates to set up and update a complete affiliate store WITHOUT touching any datafeed files, having to learn a programming language or hire a programmer.
Major Santa Barbara Fire - Hope CJ and PartnerCentric are OK
by Linda Buquet
14 Nov 2008 at 2:55pm
So if you need to reach CJ and have a problem, just be aware they are dealing with a severe emergency. People could be off because they lost or are about to lose homes or off helping family spray down their houses. The offices could even be closed, I'm not sure.
The Scoop - Pubcon 2008 Affiliate Sessions
by Linda Buquet
14 Nov 2008 at 10:10am
So far not that many people have blogged about the affiliate sessions that just took place at Pubcon. The 1st 3 posts are pretty in-depth and include play-by-play details of the sessions. Some nuggets are hidden inside if you can make the time to read these.
7 New Affiliate Programs - Holiday Contests - 5 Star News
by Linda Buquet
13 Nov 2008 at 4:00pm
This month we have 7 exciting new revshare programs for your linking pleasure as well as Holiday contests, bonuses and important merchant updates. Find out how you can win an 8 day Expedition to Beautiful Costa Rica in the National Geographic Holiday Contest.
Declan Dunn on Social Media - Affiliate Marketing Insider Podcast
by Linda Buquet
13 Nov 2008 at 11:33am
Declan Dunn joins the podcast this week to discuss the emerging social media marketing landscape and ways in which it resembles affiliate marketing. The two will discuss ways that affiliates and merchants can leverage social media to drive brand awareness, traffic and sales.
New eBay Drag and Drop Holiday Deals and Creatives
by Linda Buquet
12 Nov 2008 at 2:22pm
Affiliates wanting to jazz up their sites with Holiday promos? eBay is offering several special Holiday deals and promotions this year, and has put together some drag-and-drop creatives to help drive traffic to these deals. See a sample deals widget below.
Black Hat Affiliate Marketing is Out ? White Hat is In!
by Linda Buquet
12 Nov 2008 at 1:58pm
If you've been tempted by the dark side of affiliate marketing - the black hat side - read this issue first. Your reputation is at stake, so be sure you know the difference between white and black (and gray), and the consequences.
IAB AM Council Launches Affiliate Coupon Code Guidelines
by Linda Buquet
12 Nov 2008 at 11:17am
I wish the IAB US was as pro-active about affiliate marketing issues the UK. Here's an example of what they are doing to prevent abuse of and set standards for the use of affiliate coupon codes... prevent fake coupon code cookie stuffing and
High Impact Holiday Graphics for Landing Pages and More
by Linda Buquet
11 Nov 2008 at 12:30pm
Need some hot Holiday graphics in a hurry? Want to spruce up that landing page with some Holiday cheer? It's cheaper and easier than you may think. I threw together a collage of Holiday graphics just to show you some variety
Affiliate 2.0 - New Distribution Value Using Search and More
by Linda Buquet
11 Nov 2008 at 11:24am
As SEM evolves, marketers find themselves competing head-on with affiliates who are challenged to diversify tactics and distribution. What does this mean for both of performance marketings top contenders? Retailers are investing less in affiliates and more in search.
ProBlogger Blog Tips

Site Build It - a User Review
by Darren Rowse
22 Nov 2008 at 8:29am
One website building program that I have been consistantly asked about by readers over the last 12 or more months is Site Build It. While not a blogging platform as such it is a way of building a website for money and as a result I guess readers feel I will have an opinion of [...]
Statistical Analysis of a Blog?s Traffic
by Darren Rowse
21 Nov 2008 at 3:26pm
Today blogger and MBA student Eric Rosenberg fromThe Israel Situation and Narrow Bridge Adventures talks us through some statistical analysis of the traffic to his blog. As a hobby blogger trying to increase readers to my Israel blog, The Israel Situation, I have always been glued to my site traffic. What does a spike mean? How [...]
How I added the Twitter ID field to comments on Twitip.com
by Darren Rowse
21 Nov 2008 at 8:06am
A couple of days ago I added the ability for those leaving comments on my TwiTip Twitter Tips blog to add their Twitter ID as well as their URL to comments. Since doing this I’ve been asked time and time again how we did it. In this guest post Sean Walberg (the guy who actually [...]
Tell A Friend Through A Widget
by Jeff Chandler
20 Nov 2008 at 8:09am
In this guest post Jeff Chandler reviews the TellaFriend Widget. In the ever increasing socialness of the web, everything from news to photos to videos are being shared. Outside of  ShareThis, I’m not to familiar with other sites or services that are exclusively centered around sharing items across the web. During the past week, I was [...]
InLinks - TextLinkAds 2.0
by Darren Rowse
19 Nov 2008 at 7:08pm
In the last 24 hours MediaWhiz (disclosure - they are sponsors of this site) have released a new advertising product for those interested in selling text links on their blogs) called InLinks. InLinks is an ad network that allows advertisers to buy text links within the content of your posts. The links pass on Google Juice [...]
How to go about finding a Blogging Buddy: The Power Of Collaboration In Blogg...
by Darren Rowse
19 Nov 2008 at 2:31pm
Yesterday we heard from Eric Hamm from Up-And-Coming-Blogger and “Motivate Thyself” and Sean Platt from Writer Dad who wrote about the power of finding a blogging buddy to work collaborate with in your blogging. Finding that special blogging buddy (or buddies) isn?t anything you can place on Craig?s List. Like any relationship worth developing, only [...]
Sign Up with Me for ?Partnering Profits? and Get Some Great Teaching
by Darren Rowse
19 Nov 2008 at 8:01am
Brian Clark from CopyBlogger has done it again. He’s launched what looks to be an amazing new teaching resource to resource those looking to build successful online businesses. It’s called Partnering Profits - and it’s a simple teaching resource focussing (as the name suggests) on ‘praetorships’. It is made up of two main components: 1. A 150 [...]
What You Need to Know about WordPress 2.7
by Darren Rowse
18 Nov 2008 at 6:18pm
WordPress 2.7 is already released in beta and will go live shortly for all. I was lucky enough to get a demo of it at BlogWorldExpo a couple of months back and I have to say that I’m quite excited by what I saw. It is very different to look at and will take some [...]
The Power Of Collaboration In Today?s Blogging World - 10 Reasons to Find a B...
by Darren Rowse
18 Nov 2008 at 8:05am
Working alone as a blogger can at times be lonely. In this guest post two bloggers, Eric Hamm from Up-And-Coming-Blogger and “Motivate Thyself” and Sean Platt from Writer Dad have together written a post outlining some of the advantages of collaborating as bloggers and finding a ‘blog buddy’. This is the first part in a [...]
Search, Social and Direct Traffic - [TRAFFIC ANALYSIS]
by Darren Rowse
17 Nov 2008 at 8:03am
This morning I spent a little time doing some analysis (using Google Analytics) of the traffic coming into my main blog - Digital Photography School. My analysis was stimulated by a question from a reader who in response to last week’s two posts examining the place of Digg and Social Bookmarkingin a bloggers priorities asked me: What [...]
BuySellAds - [USER REVIEW]
by Darren Rowse
16 Nov 2008 at 8:16am
My name is James, I currently run iLoveMacApps and MacTricksAndTips. I am not a big time blogger by far and my income is quite small in comparison to some of the blogs on the web today. But I have found a service that has managed to triple my monthly income. It is called BuySellAds (BSA). In [...]
What I learned about Blogging from the U.S. Presidential Election
by Darren Rowse
15 Nov 2008 at 8:09am
In today’s guest post Trisha from Ideas for Women shares some lessons that she learned from the US Presidential Election. I followed this year’s U.S. presidential election pretty closely on T.V. and also volunteered for one of the candidates. Over I time I began to notice some parallels between running a successful campaign and a successful [...]
16 Essential PC Applications for Bloggers
by Darren Rowse
14 Nov 2008 at 8:12am
This article was written by Ruchir Chawdhry. PS: Mac users can check out 14 Essential Mac OS X Applications for Bloggers that Darren wrote a while ago. 1. Mozilla Firefox Mozilla Firefox is the king of all browsers. Limitlessly extendable, fast, and lightweight. If you’re still using any other browser (even Google Chrome), then switch to Firefox immediately, [...]
Are RSS Subscribers Worthwhile if they Don?t Visit Your Blog?
by Darren Rowse
13 Nov 2008 at 8:04am
“Why do bloggers put so much focus upon growing RSS subscriber numbers to their blog if most of them only ever read your content in Feed Readers and don’t visit your blog?” This question (or variations of it) hit my inbox 3 times in 24 hours from different people so I thought I’d tackle it as [...]
Why Bloggers Should Consider Social Bookmarking Sites Like Digg
by Darren Rowse
12 Nov 2008 at 8:04am
Earlier in the week I published a post titled Skip Digg: Not All Traffic is Created Equal. In that post I mentioned that I’d follow up the post with some arguements FOR using Digg by a top Digg user. Today social media expert Muhammad Saleem tackles that very topic. You will probably be surprised to read [...]
Entrepreneurs-Journey.com by Yaro Starak

How To Establish Cash Flow When Starting A New Business
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
21 Nov 2008 at 10:15am
If you have not done so already, please read the first part of this two part article series on business outsourcing here - When Is The Right Time To Begin Outsourcing?. In the previous article I discussed the importance of understanding your strategy for outsourcing and how it is important that you comprehend the sequence of [...]
When Is The Right Time To Begin Outsourcing?
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
16 Nov 2008 at 6:24pm
There was an interesting discussion in the Blog Mastermind forums that began with a question about when you should start outsourcing. The impression this particular student had was that outsourcing is the key for success, and it is something that I emphasize over and over again inside Blog Mastermind. The problem in this case was the [...]
JV Partner Invitation For New Become A Blogger Premium Videos Launch
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
13 Nov 2008 at 9:02am
Gideon Shalwick, the creative talent behind the Becomeablogger.com free video training site, and I have been hard at work the past few months planning an upgrade to the video service. We’re calling it Become A Blogger Premium. I’ve been really pleased with the response to the 10 free videos Gideon and I released so far. We’ve [...]
Why Writing A Bad Review Is Sometimes A Good Idea
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
10 Nov 2008 at 3:13pm
You probably saw and read my review of Blogging to the Bank 3.0 by Rob Benwell from just over a week ago. That post sparked quite a bit of discussion, with 106 comments so far as I type this. Many of the comments were the usual, asking questions about the product or thanking me for [...]
How To Travel, Grow a Business AND Take Your Family With You
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
7 Nov 2008 at 3:17pm
Continuing the theme started with my previous article on 7 Pitfalls To Prepare For When Traveling With Your Business, Kathryn Alice has written a guest article that explains how she, with her husband and kids, manage to travel with their business and as a result, lower their overheads. Kathryn with her husband Jon offer a guide [...]
7 Pitfalls To Prepare For When Traveling With Your Business
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
4 Nov 2008 at 4:29am
As many of you know I’ve been traveling for most of 2008, having left my home in Brisbane Australia back in April. As I type this I’m on the European leg of a worldwide journey, sitting in an apartment in Amsterdam. My European travels have really highlighted some of the unique challenges you face when attempting [...]
Blogging To The Bank 3.0 Review - Is It Worth Buying?
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
30 Oct 2008 at 11:19am
A Million Dollars From Blogging Or Just Another E-Book With Big Claims? This is the third installment of Rob Benwell’s Blogging To The Bank book, which teaches his method for making money with blogs. More details about the book are here - www.bloggingtothebank.com What’s compelling about Rob’s story is that he’s made over a million dollars using blogs [...]
How Email Segmentation Made My List Stronger AND $31,940 More Profitable
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
26 Oct 2008 at 7:01pm
This is a somewhat advanced email marketing tactic, although most serious email marketers having been doing it for years. For me though, this is something I’ve only recently been able to test because I haven’t had the technological resources to do so. I recently upgraded my AWeber account to the “new” version. In case you missed [...]
What Works In Internet Marketing Works Even Better In Other Markets
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
23 Oct 2008 at 3:58pm
I just won a 40in Sony LCD TV in an affiliate competition, and that wasn’t even first place. In another competition this month I won a Rolex watch. During this year I won a Apple iTouch and some other prizes. In July when I reopened Blog Mastermind, I ran an affiliate competition for my partners, [...]
Hiring In The New Economy Requires A Proactive Recruitment Process
by http://ReplytoYaro.com (Yaro Starak)
19 Oct 2008 at 5:09pm
How To Create Recruitment Systems To Hire People Before You Need Them I was recently asked how I hired quality editors when running my previous business BetterEdit. As I responded to the question I realized the information provided might well serve others, so I’m going to explain my system for staying on top of the recruitment [...]
Self Made Minds

Personal Supercomputers
by Scott
19 Nov 2008 at 12:42pm
250 times the processing power of a traditional dektop pc the personal supercomputer may not be the work of fiction. With 4Tflops of floating-point maths these are designed for research and science more than gamers at present and at a snip under $10k you won’t be playing Crysis on one anytime soon. Typically when I read [...]
Couple of photo domains for sale
by Scott
19 Nov 2008 at 7:12am
I have a couple of domains for sale. DigitalPictureFrame.co.uk £2500 PhotoFrame.co.uk £4000 Both product based with tens of thousands of exact search traffic, they are not high on my development list so perhaps a project for someone else. Want to advertise in this feed free, check out Trialling a Feed Advert addthis_url = 'http%3A%2F%2Fselfmademinds.com%2F200811%2Fcouple-of-photo-domains-for-sale%2F'; [...]
Eeeawww!
by Scott
19 Nov 2008 at 5:57am
Just so it doesn’t look like I’m painting a one sided picture of my endevours ….. posting yesterday about how I saved £1000 - today I get to post about the complete opposite, sometimes I can be a complete donkey Watching tv there was a bit about how more people are staying in the [...]
Blog Blazers - 40 Top Bloggers Share their Secrets and I have some to give away
by Al
18 Nov 2008 at 12:04pm
Around this time last year I was interviewed by Stephane Grenier for his latest book, I think it took him a bit longer than expected to hit the shelves but it’s now finally available in the shops: Blog Blazers - 40 Top Bloggers share their secrets It’s an interesting book (as far as I’ve read so [...]
Good things sometimes do come to those who wait
by Scott
18 Nov 2008 at 11:29am
When I was looking to buy some furniture domains late last year one on my wanted list was diningroomfurniture.co.uk, the .net was for sale for around £1500 but I prefer the .co.uk so emailed the owner to offer a pretty respectable £1000 for it. 9th November last year I received a reply: Scott, £1000-£1500 is not really [...]
Friday 7th links n things
by Scott
7 Nov 2008 at 4:53am
Off to Edinburgh tomorrow to meet up with some developers & domainers, should be fun. The lawn sign based business is a great article where the author investigated the origin of multiple dating lawn signs, an enjoyable read. Humour: This video is old, unrelated but pretty damn funny. The Pirate Bay has always filled a gap that Hollywood [...]
Mini Site Case Study Update
by Scott
6 Nov 2008 at 2:21am
Last October I made a post: Buy for two years income and repay yourself in one A 2 page website/minisite had been purchased for $7000, based on about 2 years income at the time, the great thing about this site was it could have done with 10 minutes work on the on-page SEO, no major surgery. [...]
Leaving the comfort zone
by Al
4 Nov 2008 at 10:48am
In many things in life there is often an easy option, be it in relationships, business, careers or simply what you’re doing at the weekend. Taking the easy option is what becomes your comfort zone and the longer you stay in it the harder it is to break out, but when you do, you will [...]
New domain leased out with option to buy
by Scott
3 Nov 2008 at 5:41am
The credit crunch may be hitting hard but it can have a positive effect in that businesses work harder to secure their dominance of a niche and are open to new ideas. I have talked before about domain leasing and having some good domains ranked being my preference and for some of those I have been [...]
A few entertaining and useful links this Halloween
by Al
31 Oct 2008 at 12:47pm
It’s been a while since we did a weekly round up and I promised Tim a suitable game so here goes. If you use WordPress you need to sign up for Joost de Valk’s free email newsletter (top right of page) and if you don’t use WordPress you need to download it here. On the subject of [...]

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