Friday, June 26, 2009

Social Search Engine - Stumpedia

Stumpedia is a social search engine that relies on human participation to index, organize, and review the world wide web. Stumpedia does not depend on bots, algorithms, or company insiders to make decisions on the relevance and ranking of search results.As an incentive and a little economic stimulus to help jump-start the global economy.
Stumpedia is offering free advertising for all of 2009.

Go to Stumpedia
Click About
1) Click on Submit
2) Type your website address & click on submit.A new window will appear for you to log in.
3) Enter your email address & a user name
4) Stumpedia will ask you to verify your account in
your email.Once you have verified your account to Stumpedia and edit your profile. Make sure to add your website in description. Upload a picture
5) Click on Save
How It Works For Advertisers
* Click on Sign Up
* Enter the keywords you want to target and hit submit.
Inquiries will show up in the "Messages" section of your Stumpedia profile. They will also be sent to the email address you used to initially sign up as a Stumpedia member.
As an incentive and a little economic stimulus to help jump-start the global economy, Stumpedia is offering free advertising for all of 2009 ONLY.
Stumpedia Features
• Mobile version available
• SMS support (text messaging)
• Users can post anonymous requests
• Users can limit the number of responses they receive per request (future)
• Users can block advertisers (future)
• Advertisers can block users (future)

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Free ebook for website owners



Download our free ebook: Get step-by-step tips on how to create and market a Web site that will take your e-business to new heights.

Five Bad Marketing Ideas

We have talked about good ways to market your website for free. Now let’s talk about some really bad way you should not market your website(s).

1) #1 on every single search engine

Submit your site to websites that are not on the top 3 directories and pay for it. There are a lot of scam companies out there that will do massive promotions such as Be #1 on every search engine! There are three top search engines (in my opinion). They are (starting with the best)

  • Google
    MSN
    Yahoo

Companies that promise to take you to #1 on every search engine is a BIG red flag. They will charge you up to $1000 to put you on over 200 search engines...maybe even 500. However these 497 other search engines are getting their information from

  • Google
    MSN
    Yahoo

2) Forum & Profile Spam

Three words -- DON'T Do It!

It is so annoying and this is one of the reasons I pick my forums and social networking community "Friends" very carefully. Here is a list of DON'T Do It! things.

List dozens of Web sites in your profile or forum discussions Exclusively post only when you can add links to your sites Become a new member to various forums every day, asking the same question at 20 different forums or groups on the same day.
Send your Friends links to your website without them requesting it

3) Blog Spam As a blogger, this truly annoys me.

Blogs are for information, news, product interest, humor, help / support, events and displaying your artistic talent.
Don't Blog Spam list A blog full of nothing unique or relevant to the posting titles

Leave comments that is nothing but a website link.

Leave a comment that says only "great blog" and a website address -- obvious spam!

Leave a comment with lots of web links and nothing else.
Spam is bad and spammers should be fed a bowl of spam for every spam they send!

4) Walking Spam - Spam People in Person

Go to networking meetings, conferences, parties -- anywhere and talk about nothing but your website(s)/ products and how they should check you out online.

Ask or tell them they should link to your website without knowing them for even an hour.

5) CopyRight - WRONG!

Don't steal content published by anyone else -- copying an article and putting your name on it and blasting it for marketing purposes.

Don't publishing it on your website without giving credit or getting permission to repost it on your website or blog -- it is stealing.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Online Marketing Terms

I thought I would post this as a resource for those who may see or hear these words and have no idea what they may mean. Affiliate Marketing - Revenue earning between online advertisers/merchants and independent online people such as bloggers. Compensation is based on per purchase or per click. However other forms can include per registration or attendees at a offline event.

ALT Text / Tags - HTML code inside a website typically images. Some believe that Alt text / tags can assist in helping search engines find the website.

Banner Ad - a graphic web advertising picture that is also a website link.

Banner Exchange - When two websites agree to exchange banners to be placed on the other's website.

Blog - A frequent, chronological publication of personal thoughts, business related subjects, photographs and or Web links.

Button Ad - a graphical advertising picture, smaller than a banner ad.

Buzzword - a trendy word or phrase that is used more to impress than explain.

Click-Through - the process of clicking through an online advertisement to the advertiser's destination.

Cost-Per-Action (CPA) - online marketing payment system in which payment is based solely on qualifying actions such as sales or registrations.

Cost Per Click (CPC) - the cost paid per click-through.

Description Tag - an HTML tag used to provide a description for search engine listings.

Doorway Page - a page made specifically in hopes of ranking well in search engines for particular keywords.

Marketing - the promotion of products or services via email.

EZine - an electronic magazine, whether delivered via a Web site or an email newsletter.

FFA - free-for-all links list, where there are no qualifications for adding a link.

Forum Marketing - an online community where visitors may read and post topics of common interest. Often people will brand a name for themselves or services through forums.

Guerilla Marketing - unconventional marketing intended to get maximum results from minimal resources.

Incentivized Traffic - visitors who have received some form of compensation for visiting a site.

Keyword Marketing - putting your message in front of people who are searching using particular keywords and keyphrases.

Marketing Plan - the part of the business plan outlining the marketing strategy for a product or service.

Media Kit - a resource created by a publisher to help prospective ad buyers evaluate advertising opportunities.

META Tags - tags to describe various aspects about a Web page.

Permission Marketing - marketing centered around getting customer's consent to receive information from a company.

Pop-Up Ad - an ad that displays in a new browser window.

Reciprocal Links - links between two sites, often based on an agreement by the site owners to exchange links. Also known as Link Exchanging.

Search Engine Optimization - the process of choosing targeted keyword phrases related to a site, and ensuring that the site places well when those keyword phrases are part of a Web search.

Text Ad - advertisement using text-based hyperlinks.

Viral Marketing - marketing phenomenon that facilitates and encourages people to pass along a marketing message.

Monday, June 22, 2009

Affiliate Marketing FAQ

Affiliate Marketing Realities

• You can make a lot of money through affiliate marketing.

o True. Around the globe, affiliates earn billions of dollars each year. Some affiliatestake home millions of dollars a year while others are happy pulling in $50 a month.

This is a sales job with no doortodoorselling.

o True. Although you can promote your sites offline, you will only be credited throughthe sales that can be tracked online.

• I will need to create my own product.

o False. At some point in your Internet marketing career, you may be inspired orencouraged to create your own product. However, developing your own productcomes with its own list of risks and responsibilities, including customer service,packing, shipping and payment processing. An affiliate’s job is simply to sendprospective customers to a particular company or merchant – a less risky task.

• I can put up a site, load it with banners and the cash will start rolling in.

o False. Polluting your site with tons of banners will not work. You’ll lose that visitorforever. Instead you should stick to anywhere between one and three banners thatconvert well – a much better use of space than 20 ads thrown up on the site. You canalso use a banner rotation system to maximize the number of different relevantadvertisements being shown your site. Also, it is important that you plan out whereyour advertisements will go. Don’t create a site and toss up the ads as an afterthought.Isn’t this pretty important seeing as how this will be your means for making money?The contents of your site, however, should always be its main feature and focus.

Monitoring and analyzing your statistics can triple your profits.

o True. Not only should you monitor your site’s affiliate links to make sure they are upto date, but you can also boost your conversion rate (your visitor to sales ratio) bysubtly experimenting with your site’s elements and analyzing the results. For instance,you could change the color of a button, the text in a headline or the placement of yourlinks. After at least 1,000 different visitors have seen the change, and check to seewhether your affiliate commissions have soared or slumped. If 1% of visitorsconverted into sales before, but now 3% of visitors convert – you’ve TRIPLED yourprofits.

I will have to spam people.

o False. There are people out there who develop and launch tons of spammy scams andemails. And unfortunately, they are able to sucker people from time to time. However,this is not a tactic you will need to utilize. Affiliate marketing is a legitimate businessand you can earn great money with an honest, non robotic approach. Instead, you cancreate opt in newsletters where site visitors can choose to receive emails from you. Aquality list of people who actually want your message have high conversion rates.

There are no magic overnight success formulas.

o True. There are successful people in anyindustry, on or offline – but 99% of the timetheir success is attributed to long hours, hardwork, dedication and a commitment tolearning. You need to put in the time tounderstand the basics, expand upon that andimplement the tactics that I show you. You needto learn from your failures and successes andrealize that there is no “system” you canpurchase that will do the work for you.

Affiliate Terms You Should Know

Affiliate Terms You Should Know

AD = Advertisement, Text, Banner, Flash, Video, anything

ASP = Application Service Provider

CPA = Cost per Action

CPC = Cost per Click

CPL = Cost per Lead

CPM = Cost per (Mil) Impression (1000 Impressions)

CPS = Cost per Sale

CR = Conversion Rate

CSS = Cascading Style Sheets

CTR = Click through rate/Click-Through Ratio

DH = Direct Hit

DRM = Dynamic Rich Media (type of Ad, technology)

DRM = Digital Rights Management

EPC = Earnings per Click / Earnings per 100 Clicks

FAQ = Frequently Asked Questions

FFA = Free-For-All Link List

IM = Instant Messaging

MFA = Made For AdSense (Site)

OPM = Outsourced (Affiliate) Program Management

PFI = Pay For Inclusion

PFP = Pay For Performance

PPA = Pay per Action

PPC = Pay per Click

PPCSE = Pay Per Click Search Engine

PPI = Pay Per Impression

PPL = Pay Per Lead

PPS = Pay Per Sale

PV = Page View

ROI = Return on Investment

RON = Run Of Network

ROS = Run Of Site (Display Advertising)

SB = Small Business

SE = Search Engine

SEM = Search Engine Marketing

SEO = Search Engine Optimization

SEP = Search Engine Positioning

SERP = Search Engine Result Page

SID = common (optional) URL Parameter Affiliates can use for their own tracking purposes

SMO = Social Media Optimization

SSI = Server Side Include

USP = Unique Selling Proposition

UV = Unique Visitor

World Wide Brands