Guide to free advertising

When I first started my internet home business, I realized that in order to make money I would have to bring visitors to my website. I didn't have a lot of extra cash laying around, and my mentality at the time was "Why would I pay for it, when I can get it for free"? So, I starting searching the internet for places that would accept an ad for my product for free. I was very happy to find literally thousands of sites willing to accept my ad.

As the weeks went by I worked hard and learned a lot. The phrase that comes to mind when I think back is, "you get what you pay for". I was placing ads on the internet every free moment I got and was getting very little results. Not being one to quite, I figured I would move on to another form of advertising or figure out what I was doing wrong with the free advertising.

As soon as I placed my ad, I would go back and look at it. I expected my ad to be at the top of the list since I had just placed it. Much to my surprise, my ad was listed down the list a little way. I realized that at the very moment that I was placing my ad, others were doing the same. And as each person placed an ad, mine moved further down the list. In my infinite wisdom... I realized that potential visitors would probably not search past the first page before choosing a product.

So then I decided that I would go into that site and place my ad every few hours. This way I knew it would always stay close to the top of the page, and hopefully be viewed by a potential customer. How right I was!!! Eventually, I had my first customer and had made my first sale on the internet! What a feeling! I was ready to take the internet by storm...

The week ran into the weekend, and I continued in the same way with my free ad campaign...and no luck. Several weeks went by were I was getting visitors and making sales through the week, and none on the weekend. Are you seeing a pattern here? I sure did. I soon discovered through statistical data that I pulled up from a search engine that the internet traffic on the weekend is super low compared to the weekdays. I also learned that the internet traffic is at its peak around the noon hour in the US.

From that day forward, I didn't waste my time advertising on the weekends. Instead, I would sit down around 11:00 a.m. every morning and run as many free ads as was humanly possible. I could just about plan each day at noon that I could get a potential customer, affiliate, sale.

I'm also a firm believer in the phrase "work smarter, not harder". It didn't take me long to figure out that I could utilize copy and paste and run the same ad in every category that it applied. I also used the back button on my browser a lot. Most of the time by using the back button, all my information was still there and I could just choose a different category.

It wasn't long before I had several paying customers and was bringing in a small monthly income from my small internet business. I often try to teach this method to my members who cannot to pay for advertising to start out with...without much luck unfortunately. Many will not sacrifice their time to this extent, or they will run one ad on the internet and expect to get up the next morning and be a millionaire.

For those of you who don't have the money to invest, you will HAVE to invest your TIME. How much is your time worth? Many are drawing 6-figure incomes from the internet within 2-5 years. The internet has made more millionaires from the average Joe than any other vessel in history. Is 2-5 years a hard pill to swallow? It shouldn't be. How many of you are going to work your nine to five job for 40-50 years and have nothing to show for it? 

Am I still running free ads? No, I'm not. I took my very first paycheck that I earned from free advertising and put it back into paid advertising. I can reach a vast number of customers with paid ads with no effort on my part at all. Instead, my time has been filled with teaching others to do as I have done, and building my own business day by day.

Not a day has gone by in the last year and a half where I have not built onto my business. I started out running free ads, then I moved on to paid ads, ppc's, email lists, enzine ads, then I built and optimized my own website, got link partners, got listed with the search engines, etc...

If you want to turn your life around and live without any financial constraints, then the internet is the place to be. All it will take is patience, persistence and the will to succeed on your part.

Best Wishes for your future success and prosperity!

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Online Sales Tax Law

Members of the U.S. Senate are joining with big business to impose billions of dollars in sales taxes on people who buy goods over the Internet. This annual ritual to hammer companies who do business online has a fair chance of approval this year as local and state governments make their case that they need more money to spend on government. 

The Marketplace Fairness Act would bind online companies to act as tax collectors for 45 states that collect taxes on sales. That means that many consumers who have enjoyed a tax holiday by shopping online will now be taxed on goods purchased. 

Most state tax laws were passed before the advent of computers, smartphones and online stores. Because states never foresaw the creation of the Internet, online sales allow customers to dodge the sales tax imposed by states on businesses. 

Supporters of the online tax claim that online businesses have an advantage over physical retailers that are required to collect taxes for governments. The shopper can simply buy the same item online and avoid the sales tax. The brick and mortar store then misses out on the sale. That's not fair, advocates of the online tax argue. The National Governors Association is also desperate for the estimated $23 billion in tax revenue that the online tax collection scheme would shovel into state coffers. 

Proponents argue that online sales cross state lines, and they are therefore subject to the Interstate Commerce clause. That means that Congress can wave its magic Commerce Clause wand and decree that online merchants must collect the tax that would be equivalent to what a state would collect. 

Opponents fire back that keeping track of thousands of different sales tax schemes would be an unfair burden on their operations. For example, would chocolate bunnies be taxed as a good or be allowed to escape the sales tax because it's technically food? These kinds of tax conundrums have kept the online sales tax monster caged for decades. 

Congress is trying to overcome these objections by hitting businesses with the tax collection scheme only if their sales exceeded $1 million annually. The small online mom and pop operators would be exempt from collecting the online tax. Congress may also require states to simplify their sales tax collection schemes before entering the online sales tax lottery. Trying to get 50 states to agree on standardized tax sales legislation should only take about 1,000 years. It's also possible that some sharp guy or gal might work up an app that would make figuring out 10,000 different tax schemes a snap. 

Leftist cheerleaders for this tax scheme, including most Democrat governors, are calling opponents cranky, old libertarians who oppose all taxes. Those opponents, including most Republican governors, are characterizing the pro-sales tax forces as big government and big business taxers who want to stick it to the little guy. 

Sales tax cheerleaders are scolding online businesses, telling them to grow up and take their tax medicine. “You are big boys now and e-commerce sales are a major part of the U.S. economy,” proponents say. E-commerce sales now make up 5 percent of the economy with $186 billion in retail sales in 2012. 

The pro-sales tax forces are trying to push through the Internet measure in the U.S. Senate before the anti-tax opponents can muster their base. Senator Harry Reed, majority leader in the Senate, rushed the online tax act onto the Senate floor before hearings could be held in committee. It was only a few days ago that senators were allowed to read what was in the legislation. 

Opponents quickly went on the attack, voicing concerns that online businesses would be burdened with collecting taxes for about 10,000 different local and state taxing authorities. The anti-sales tax forces complained that businesses would be strong-armed into collecting taxes for far-away governments where they had no representation. 

Walmart and other giant retailers, including Amazon, are boosters of the tax because they can easily absorb the financial cost of government-decreed tax collection, while smaller businesses will be hit with another unaffordable government dictate. 

Opponents also argue that this sales tax scheme is an attack on a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court decision. In Quill v North Dakota, the court ruled that remitting and collecting taxes where they had no presence was an unnecessary burden. The decision set an important legal precedence concerning cross-state taxation. ( addme.com )

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Tips for Writing Title Tags

A required element of HTML/XHTML documents, title or meta tags can be the most memorable part of your website. They appear in the top browser bar and show up in search results, linking to your website. Suffice to say, they get a lot of eye traffic. Getting your title tags right is a big way to increase your search viability and gain clicks. Title tags can make a quick and noticeable improvement to your SEO rankings--and to your bottom line. Five tips will help you improve title tags, for increased traffic.

1. Choose your first word wisely.

Search engines weigh heavier on the first word in the title. Try to make it your most relevant word. If you have a cupcake bakery, "Cupcakes" makes sense as the first word. If you put the name of your business, it will not rank as high in searches for local cupcake shops. Chances are, unless you're very well-known, people aren't searching directly for you or your business. If you prioritize your keyword--"cupcakes" in this instance--you increase your chances of visibility. Likewise, if you write "Fresh, seasonal cupcakes," you risk a lower SEO ranking--and reduced website traffic--because there are two words blocking your keyword.

2. Don't stuff keywords into the title. Try to use the keyword once.

Google will only display the first 63 to 70 characters of your title. If you stuff the title with keywords, you won't have the character real estate needed to personalize your site. Make your characters count by being straightforward and to the point.

3. Say something important about your offering. An award, service, something that stands out.

You know that you've got to catch user attention to get a click. Well, selling your service can grab user interest long enough to get them away from Google and onto your website. Your title tag is not the place to be shy! If you've won a service award, or if you have a hot product, tout it here. "Apartments for Rent - Boston" gets your location in, but it's vague. Your listing won't stand out from 20 others just like it. One word can make a big difference, though. "Apartments for Rent - Downtown Boston" communicates what's important about your offering, and it makes you stand out from your competition.

4. Say something specific. Avoid generic text.

With 63 characters, you've got room geo-location and branding in the meta tags. If you're a realtor, you know how important location is to your services. Likewise, other small business owners can boost marketing and awareness by adding geo-specific detail to title tags. "Real Estate - Colorado Springs," "Bikram Yoga Studio, San Diego," or "Beginners Web Design" are more likely to capture the attention of those most likely to use your services--your core audience. Don't waste time or real estate with a vague title that might not pique users' interest in your website.

5. Use keywords in the title tag.

Search engines automatically bold keywords in title tags in user search results. While you don't want to stuff your title with keywords, you still need mileage from your major keyword. For a title reading "Bikram Yoga Studios, San Diego," bikram, yoga and San Diego will be bolded. For "Apartments for Rent - Downtown Boston," apartments, Boston and rent will all appear in bold. Again, the bold draws the eye, putting attention right where you want it.

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Were you prepared for the update? Was it “Mobilegeddon” for your site?

Impacted By Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update? - On April 21, Google began rolling out its mobile-friendly update, which makes the mobile-friendliness of a site a ranking signal. It has largely become known as “Mobilegeddon” by publications with a flare for the dramatic, as this name was given to it before it even launched or its effects were even felt. 

Were you prepared for the update? Was it “Mobilegeddon” for your site? Have you noticed any change (positive or negative) so far? Let us know in the comments. 

As expected, Searchmetrics has released a list of winners and losers from the update. Given that the update likely hasn’t finished rolling out yet, even Searchmetrics itself cautions that these are only preliminary results.

Following are the lists, which were first posted on Saturday. 

• The preliminary losers here
• The Preliminary winners here
• You can see SearchMetrics’ findings in a PDF here. They’re also updating data as the roll-out continues, so you can see the latest here. 

The effects of “Mobilegeddon” do have the potential to be felt by many sites who haven’t paid attention to Google’s warning. The update was officially announced in February, and was hinted at for months before that. Google has given webmasters time to prepare. 

Small businesses who don’t have the time or resources to dedicate to making their sites mobile-friendly, or even pay attention to the latest happenings in SEO, are likely to be hurt by the update the most. All of that said, this is still just one of over 200 signals Google is taking into account when ranking search results on mobile devices. It’s not everything. It’s also on a URL-by-URL basis, and is supposed to update in near real time, so webmasters can fix pages over time, and potentially increase their rankings without waiting months for Google to recognize these fixes, as they have with some other updates. 

Last week, Lawyer.com, a site which helps people find law firms, announced that it had analyzed the law sites in its database, and found that many of them will likely be affected negatively by Google’s update. 46% of solo firms failed Google's requirements, it said, while larger firms did a little better with a 33% failure rate. 

The reality is that the update shouldn’t affect any particular vertical more than the next. It’s not like Panda where it is specifically looking at the type of content. It’s strictly looking at technical elements that enable the content to be consumed on a mobile device with ease. Even if your content completely sucks, it can pass Google’s mobile-friendly test. It may not help you with other signals, but that’s a different story. 

Last week, Google put its latest round of guidance related to the update. This included an FAQ. The important takeaways from that included: 

• The update does not affect searches on tablets or desktops, and it's a page-level change. Only mobile-friendly pages will be able to get a boost as a direct result of the change.
• Google determines whether or not a page is mobile-friendly every time it's crawled, so webmasters won't have to wait for another update after they fix a page for it to get the advantage of the signal. This also means that if you weren't quite ready for the update today, it shouldn't be that big a deal as long as you can still fix what need's fixing.
• Google is saying now that the roll-out should take "a week or so". You can't determine whether or not you've been impacted on April 22.
• If your pages are designed to work well on mobile devices, but aren't passing Google's mobile-friendly test, it's probably because you're blocking Googlebot for smartphones from crawling resources like JavaScript and CSS. This is the most common reason that happens.
• You can still link to sites that Google doesn't consider mobile-friendly without fear of repercussions.
• "It's not the best experience for mobile visitors to go from a mobile-friendly page to a desktop-only page, but hopefully as more sites become mobile-friendly, this will become less of a problem," says Google's Maile Ohye.
• Mobile-friendliness is assessed the same regardless of whether a site is using responsive design, separate mobile URLs, or dynamic serving.
• It's naive to think you don't need to worry about the signal because you think your audience is desktop-only. More and more people are using mobile devices more as time goes on. Even if they're mostly desktop-only now, that doesn't mean it will stay that way.
• Pages with the old style of object YouTube embeds may register as not mobile-friendly. Make sure pages are using the newer iframe embeds.
• For tap target size, Google suggests a minimum of 7mm width/height for primary targets and a minimum margin of 5mm between secondary ones.

What do you think of Google’s update? Has it made search results better?

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Are you blogging less because of Facebook and Twitter?

"Blogs were once the outlet of choice for people who wanted to express themselves online. But with the rise of sites like Facebook and Twitter," writes Verne G. Kopytoff. "They are losing their allure for many people — particularly the younger generation." 

This idea that blogs are dying has been around practically as long as either Facebook or Twitter, and it almost always gets dismissed as a ridiculous notion. 

Wordpress founding developer Matt Mullenweg took some issue with the piece: "The title was probably written by an editor, not the author, because as soon as the article gets past the two token teenagers who tumble and Facebook instead of blogging, the stats show all the major blogging services growing — even Blogger whose global 'unique visitors rose 9 percent, to 323 million,' meaning it grew about 6 Foursquares last year alone. (In the same timeframe WordPress.com grew about 80 million uniques according to Quantcast.)" 

In fact, in 2010, Wordpress had over 6 million new blogs created in 2010, and pageviews were up by 53%. 

The New York Times itself even has a whole directory of blogs: 

"Blogging has legs — it's been growing now for more than a decade, but it's not a 'new thing' anymore," says Mullenweg. "Underneath the data in the article there's an interesting super-trend that the Times misses: people of all ages are becoming more and more comfortable publishing online." 

Major web content forces like AOL and Demand Media recognize the power of blogs. AOL is buying them, and Demand recently launched a blog syndication program. 

As is established every time this debate comes up, blogging and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter complement one another. End of story. Without blogs, people would have less interesting content to share on Facebook and Twitter. Without Facebook and Twitter, bloggers would have a harder time getting the readers. 

Kopytoff does make a critical point, however. The lines aren't always crystal clear about what is truly "blogging" and what isn't. Even Twitter use is often called "microblogging". 

"The blurring of lines is readily apparent among users of Tumblr," says Kopytoff. "Although Tumblr calls itself a blogging service, many of its users are unaware of the description and do not consider themselves bloggers — raising the possibility that the decline in blogging by the younger generation is merely a semantic issue." 

People blog on Facebook all the time too. They call them "notes". No matter where it's happening, blogging is not going away. You can call it what you want, but people will continue to put their thoughts into words and publish them online. Sometimes, they'll even do it in more than 140 characters. Some people even think Twitter should expand their character limit.

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How Bloggers Can Find Journalistic Credibility

The Writing Should Speak for Itself 

What is the difference between a blogger and a journalist? Is the guy labeled a journalist automatically more credible because of that label? How can a blogger attain that kind of credibility? 

WebProNews recently sat down with freelance journalist Greg Ferenstein, probably best known for his articles at Mashable. He talked about how to stick out in the crowd of bloggers and the fine line between blogging and journalism. 

Coming Up With Original Content

As you know, if you want readers, you have to have good content, and if you don't produce really original content, you may have a hard time finding that audience. 

"At least in my case, I found a lot more people read my stuff when I did original investigations, so I was conducting interviews, looking at academic research, talking to people late at night about their new projects, so I could be the source of information all the other bloggers were talking about," Ferenstein told us. 

"As far as finding original sources, the thing that always helped me the most was first just being a networker - going to conferences, meeting people, developing personal relations... because ultimately, bloggers aren't legacy media," he added. "They don't have a big name behind them. So all of the people that they ask for things (interviews [and] stuff like that), they have to have a personal relationship with because they can't guarantee the person who's doing the interview that they're going to get a lot of foot traffic." 

Accounting for Short Attention Spans

Content is one thing, but it also helps to consider the audience themselves. Sometimes your good content may be lost to poor formatting or just lack of readability. 

"I always assume my reader has acute attention deficit disorder," Ferenstein tells us. "Everyone on the Internet is skimmers. They're looking at Twitter feeds, Facebook, RSS, and a million different sites plus the 25 odd tabs they have going that they haven't looked [at] in the past week. So I format my blogs with italics, bolds, pictures...to force the reader into what I think is most important for them. Because your reader is going to skim. They can skim in the way you want or they can skim the way they want. I choose to have the power over that." 

Overcoming Skepticism

The problem with blogging is that there is a lot of skepticism tied to it. There is a good reason for this. Anyone can blog, so you have to earn the trust of the audience. 

"I always like to imagine that my reader doesn't like me and doesn't want to believe anything I'm saying," say Ferenstein. "So I have to uncover an enormous amount of evidence to convince anyone I possibly could...you can't really attain that, but so long as you're shooting for that, you're going to develop and use a lot more evidence, and that will build your credibility."

Of course personal bias is always creeping through the blogging shadows. "Psychologically, people have a proclivity for seeing what they want to see, so you'll see a bunch of facts, but depending on what your ideology is, you're going to interpret that unknowingly and with the best of intentions, in the way you want to see it," Ferenstein explained. "And because bloggers don't have editors, they are both judge and jury, so they're more likely to pick up on the extreme interpretations of fact, and fulfill this heated kind of rhetoric that we see coming out of the online world." 

"As bloggers, without an editor, you have to be extremely diligent in not doing that or you're just going to be a part of the problem," he added. 

Blogger? Journalist? What's the difference?

That's not to say there isn't such a problem in traditional media, despite the presence of editors. 

"I think bloggers are the future," said Ferenstein. "I don't really like the distinction between a blogger and a journalist. There are some horrible journalists, and there are some great bloggers, and they could probably swap positions and we wouldn't know much of a difference. Good writing is good writing, and as more people come into the space, there's going to be more opportunity for people outside the people with journalism degrees or with the typical pedigree or connections that used to get them into the legacy media organizations." 

Because the landscape is so much broader, there's going to be a lot more noise, he notes, so "You're going to have to do something really unique to distinguish yourself."

What's the difference between a blogger and journalist to you?

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