Ryan's online business blog

What is your experience with Traffic Exchanges?

2011-04-15T22:50:00.000-07:00

Traffic Taxis is one of the many different traffic exchanges out there that one can join and earn page views by "surfing" (or viewing other peoples' sites). By the way, while most traffic exchanges are free to join, they usually come with upgrade options, usually offering extra benefits (such as better surf ratios, free referrals, etc). Also, people can also buy credits if they choose (which can be a bit useful for people who don't have time to "surf").

Hey guys. Here is another hot topic for you all: traffic exchanges. If you've been in the Internet Marketing business or web promotion business for a while, you have probably heard about them and there are many different traffic exchanges out there (if you are looking for a good sized list of traffic exchanges out there you can join, just go to a downline builder such as Traffic Tornado, and you will find that there are tons of traffic exchanges you can join and those are not the only traffic exchanges out there). Anyways, traffic exchanges are those programs out there where (and serve as alternatives to the traditional PPC methods) you basically surf other peoples' ads and websites in exchange for them visiting yours. Some exchanges have a 1:1 surf ratio (where you get page views for every fellow member's site you visit), while others may have say a 1/3 surf ratio, where every 3 sites you surf counts as 1 credit (or page view). Anyways, in this post, I am hoping ot get your take on the traffic exchanges. For me, I find promoting on traffic exchanges to be challenging. I usually promote some of the downline systems I use, such as GDI (using downline builders like GDI Coop) as well as splash pages I have set up for some of my sites, though I rarely get sign ups on my links, and that is even when using splash pages. How are traffic exchanges going for you all? Are you able to generate income with them? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Looking for some tips on using traffic exchanges? Here is some advice of mine based on experience:

be careful about joining too many of them as they can become very time consuming (as you do have to spend at least an hour or two per sitting to get extra credits). I recommend you limit 5 at the most initially and work with those. Once your conversion rate builds and your income goes up, you could join more over time. By the way, some traffic exchanges will suspend or terminate your account if you are inactive for too long (which can be easy to do if you have too many of them)
Never promote a website if you have adsense ads on them (per google's TOS). If you must do so, I recommend you get some splash pages and promote them that way. This way, the only people that visit your site are the people who are actually interested in it and not just some random surfers. One good resource I recommend for making splash pages is Instant Splash. It is cheap to join and is pretty easy to use and you can make some pretty quick and easy to make splash pages. More advanced users could probably opt for sites like TE Toolbox and/or Instant Squeeze page generator. Also, Easy Hits4u comes with a built in splash page maker that you can use as well.
While traffic exchanges are usually free to join, most do offer paid memberships as well for more features. You can do so if you want, but be aware that most of them will offer paid memberships too. My advice to you is to choose one or 2 traffic exchanges to upgrade at (those can be your primary traffic exchanges) and stay with a free membership at the others until your conversion rate climbs. Upgrading at too many of them can get expensive of course. Plus as a free member you can get a feel for the ones you use and see which ones give you best results. BTW, you can refer new members to them as well and earn both credits when they surf as well as generous commissions whenever they upgrade their membership (in my experience, most people will probably remain free members, but there is always a chance that some fo them will upgrade).
Expect a low conversion rate with traffic exchanges, even at the manual ones (there are automatic exchanges too, but most veteran marketers will say that manual exchanges yield better results than the other ones). I tend to find myself surfing for hours on end and get little or no response for my programs, so you will 1) want to get as many credits as you can in a given session and 2) diversify the ads you post). By the way, there are rotator services out there you can join (such as Instant Splash and TE Toolbox) where you can list multiple ads and post them on participating traffic exchanges (not all of them allow rotators, but most do).
Always try to use a catchy splash page when using traffic exchanges. I find that replicated websites don't work too well (especially when promoting opportunities). Also they say that you are supposed to create an email sign up feature so that you can build your email list if you have one.

Got rid of my squidoo account today

2011-04-15T21:21:00.000-07:00

I don't know if you ever get this problem here at blogspot or not, but don't you just hate it when you join an article submission diretory, blog host, or similar service where you can post articles, share articles, rant about, create minisites/blog, and then create a fabulous site, article, or whatever it is on your mind only to have have it rejected for some odd reason, such as "spam" or some other violation? For example, maybe you have taken up network marketing and decide to offer detailed information about the network marketing firm you are a part of (such as Global Domains International) and post it say on your blog, and then several months later, some jerk decides to flag your post as spam. Well, I've been having that problem at Squidoo lately. Squidoo is a article submission/blog host directory similar to hub pages, where you can create your own minisites called Squidoo Lenses (which functions almost like a websit within a website). Anyways, I created several lenses myself, including several lenses reviewing some of the Xbox 360 games I've played, one lens offering information about my internet marketing stuff (such as a lens offering a detailed review about GDI, one of the network marketing firms I use), as well as an "about me page". Well, today, the moderators at squidoo decided to get rid of my lens and claimed I violated their terms of service. That was really frustrating. Ironically, that lens was up for over two years now and it never reieved any complaints or anything (by the way, some of the information on the lens is out of date as I've been so busy with other stuff, such as adding more content to this blog and several other blogs i have) and yet 2 years later, they send me this message about the lens:

"Dear Squidoo Lensmaster: This is a notification that the following Squidoo lenses are in violation of our Terms of Service and have been unpublished. http://www.squidoo.com/ryansintroduction ==WHY WERE THESE LENSES UNPUBLISHED?== We run regular and periodic reviews of lenses to enforce our policies, including (but not limited to) acting against spam content, locking lenses on topics we can't support, lenses that exist solely to promote an affiliate program, and most recently we have also increased our systematic intolerance of aggressively duplicated (unoriginal) content and plagiarism. Here are 4 resources you should read about our content policies on Squidoo. These links go into detail about several reasons that lenses get unpublished. 1. The Squidoo Originality Pact: http://www.squidoo.com/originalitypact2. What Is Unoriginal, Duplicated Content? http://www.squidoo.com/original-vs-duplicate-content3. SquidDon't topics we don't allow on Squidoo: http://www.squidoo.com/squiddont4. Overly promotional lenses: http://www.squidoo.com/outboundlinklimit ==NOW WHAT?== The above lenses have been unpublished in order to give you a chance to review the content and save it to take elsewhere. An unpublished lens is no longer live or viewable on the web, and will be removed from search engine indexes. The lens Workshop is still available to you for 30 days so that you can login and access the content and export it to your own computer. Any unpaid royalties the lenses might have earned before today will be donated to charity. You can read more about your unpublished lenses here: http://www.squidoo.com/locked We'd love to help you avoid the frustration of publishing a lens that gets unpublished, and hope the above guidelines help you make decisions about what kinds of lenses are worth your time in the future. Here are examples of good, original lenses that satisfy our content guidelines:å http://blogs.squidoo.com/lensoftheday Please note that repeated violations going forward will result in the suspension of your entire Squidoo account. We encourage you to refamiliarize yourself with the policies posted above before creating a new lens. Thanks for reading. The Squidoo Content TeamSquidoo.com This email was sent from a notification-only, official Squidoo email address that does not accept reply emails. Please do not reply to this message."

That message had me scratching my head. By the way, you can view a cached version of the lens that was unpublished at http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:MXsgVVqOXHgJ:www.squidoo.com/ryansintroduction+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&source=encrypted.google.com (though that might update after a while) and tell me what you think about the lens and why they might have unpublished it (though I suppose it might have something to do with the part where I was ranting about marketing related stuff). By the way, some of the info on the lens are out of date. First off, the website I talked about (http://www.ryansjones.com/) is no more and in its place, I have an ebook store website at http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/ as well as an Xbox 360 fan site at http://www.xboxfreak.ws/. Also I am actually 28 years old now (not 25). Anyways, the lens was locked and unpublished (the version above is a cached version on google). By the way, this was not the first time that happened to me. First it happened to a lens I made that offered a detailed review about GDI (a network marketing firm / web hosting service I use) and about a year later, apparently they did not like it and took it down (I tried to appeal it too unsuccessfully), and later on I had another lens that offered a general profile about my online stuff.

Anyways, after today, it became obvious to me that squidoo is not going to be compatible with my internet marketing efforts (especially if they are just going to delete my lenses without any warning or anything about a year or so down the road), and so I terminated my account there. In Squidoo's place, most articles I write will go either on my blogs or I will post them on Hub Pages. A nice thing about hub pages is that they are much more straight forward about their policies and I've haven't had any problems with the articles I have posted there as I have with Squidoo. I am sorry if I am sounding harsh towards Squidoo, but you know, it's their loss and I rather post articles at sites that are going to help my cause instead of hindering it.

Here are some advice for Squiddo if you don't want other people deleting their accounts:

1) Make your policies more straight forward. For example in the Squid Don't folder, make detailed list on topics you are not supposed to write about. For example, if you don't want lenses about internet marketing related stuff, you should make that clear.

2) Warn lensmasters if their lenses are violating your policies (especially ones that have been around for a while). You realise that one can violate a rule or policy unknowingly (especially if there are lot of rules to follow and whenever there are grey areas). For example, if my lens was deleted because of a link you don't like (such as a referral link), you could have asked me to get rid of it and I would have. If you just take down one's lens or suspend one's account with no explanation, they will just go to another service (such as Instant Blog Subscribers).

3) Making high quality articles and lenses can be tricky, especially for newbies like myself, so helping people to improve their suff can help.

4) Where people can flag articles, there should be a way for one to challenge the flags (especially in an age where there are internet trolls and other types of flaggers lurking around looking for things to flag). Craigslist is an example of this, where you try to post a catchy ad about your business or services and a few hours later, some jerks decide to flag your ad (last time it happened to me, I posted an ad asking for video submissions for my husky videos blog).

Anyways, that is the update and I will start looking for a new article submission directory to submit my articles too, but I think I am going to take a break from Squidoo for now.

By the way, have any of you had problems with Squidoo? If so, feel free to share them here.

Short video about Viral Networks

2011-01-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

Here is a unique social networking opportunity I thought that I would present to you all: viral networks. Here is a short video I found that talks about the opportunity in detail:

Commentary about Viral networks:

Viral Networks is basically a social networking site for webmasters, network marketers, ebay sellers, affiliate marketers, and other business minded people alike. It is similar to sites like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, with some obvious differences, such as the fact it is geared more towards business minded feature. Personally, I think it is a good place to get to know other people in the internet marketing business (going at it alone can be extremely difficult by the way, especially if you are new to the industry as there are plenty of veteran people at Viral networks that would be happy to help you to succeed in the business). BTW, like many business social networks, they do offer an ad revenue sharing program, and currently there are at least 3 ways you can earn from viral networks alone: 1) building up your downline (note: downline members need to upgrade to "contributing" or "gold" for the sign up to credit, though you do earn some of the credits they earn from their activities on the network), 2) racking up credits from logging in, reading emails from other members, as well as being active (ideally you will want to be in the top 25 credit earners for best results), and 3) posting google adsense ads on your profile page (you will have to upgrade to either "contributing" or "gold" for that feature to work, but can be useful if you are struggling to get extra credits and building up your downline, as well as if your profile is getting extra hits each month). Also, they do offer downline builders for Sokule member (similar to twitter).

My stats so far at viral networks:
- 16 downline members
- at least 3 of them are upgrade (btw, most referrals will likely be free members at first, so you would have to offer them incentives to upgrade for best results).
- I've made $92 so far in commissions
- I am a contributing member by the way.

By the way, you can check out my profile at Viral Networks at http://viralnetworks.com/profile/uid/5787/Ryan_Jones.html

That is all for now, and feel free to share your thoughts about Viral Networks.

Official niches of mine

2011-01-07T13:51:00.000-08:00

The Xbox 360 is one of my official niches, and this is a picture of my Xbox 360 fan site. BTW, this website is hosted at Global Domains International. One perk with GDI is that you can actually build websites similar to this one for a mere $10/month, which is cheap in comparison to many other web hosting firms out there, (such as $19/month you would pay if you had a similar website hosted at Intuit, based on personal experience, just fyi).

Here is an update from one of my previous posts on deciding on what niches to follow, and I have picked a few out and they are based on my interests.:

1. The Xbox 360. I have been a gamer for almost all my life and I do happen to have an Xbox 360, and so I decided to make a fan site about the Xbox 360, which you can see at http://www.xboxfreak.ws/. While there are more elements to add to the site, it does come with a detailed review about the Xbox 360, a custom store I have through Amazon.com, called the Seattle Gamer's Pimp Store and has a collection of video games related stuff, such as Xbox 360 games and hardware, as well as stuff fo the Nintendo Wii, PS 3, as well as even other game systems. Affiliates of mine for that site includes: amazon.com, ebay, walmart, compusa, shockwave, as well as some of the ebooks on the Xbox 360. By the way, if you happen to be an Xbox 360 fan, I am looking for people to help support it (such as linking to it from your webiste, facebook page, etc).

2. Ebooks. I do have an ebook store website (http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/), which is devoted to ebooks, and has a huge collection of them, with my storefront hosted by cbproads, which is a site that offers custom storefronts for people selling Clickbank products. It is pretty useful to have if you are promoting multiple ebooks. The only downside to this niche is that it is more of a broad niche, and plus I have been neglecting the site lately as I have some new websites and blogs to promote and are more up my alley, and so I am thinking about leasing it out somebody (they can have full control over the website, though I would have it so that I keep some of the profits it makes, say up to 30% of the commissions earned at clickbank). Note: this move is not official yet, but if any of you are interested in taking over the site, I'd be happy to lease it out to you (I would have to set up some terms of course). PM me if you are interested.

3. Animal Videos - I now have a blog about animal-related videos at http://rjanimalvideos.blogspot.com/. It is a relatively new blog I have and features a variety of viral videos featuring dogs, cats and other animals. BTW, if you have any animal-related videos you want to share, I'd be happy to host them. PM me if interested.

4. Husky Videos. Over the last year or so, I have become a sucker for siberian huskies and alaskan malamutes (probably after seeing some videos of them), and am hoping to get one some day. Of course, I thought that it would be cool to make a blog all about them, with videos and commentaries about the dogs, news articles about them, and other cool content. Originally, I have posted a bunch of videos about the two breeds in my animal videos blog, but have since decided to create a seperate blog about huskies and malamutes to avoid oversaturating my other animal videos blog (which is more general). You can see my new blog at http://instantblogsubscribers.com/?w=huskies. BTW, I am trying out a new blog host (namely instant blog subscribers), which is a blog host that aims to help you to get extra blog traffic and ad revenue. My only criticism about the blog host so far is that monetizing the blog is not as easy as they claim (they say you can start earning revenue within a day or two, but it is not as easy as it looks of course).

That is all of now, and feel free to comment. Also, if you like any of the niches described above, feel free to support me and share my new websites and blogs with others. Also, if any of you feel like you are up to owning an ebook store website, feel free to let me know and I would be willing to lease it out to you. BTW, the ebook website is recommended for experienced affiliate marketers, and here are some requirements for owning the site:

I will charge $30/month for the website (covers hosting fees, the ebook storefront, as well as my aweber account, though if you have aweber, you can wave that part of the fees).
You will need to be experienced with affiliate programs and have a good conversion rate
must have a high traffic website to promote with (say a PR 5 or more for best results), with at least 1000 hits per day minimum.
Must have a good size of subscribers
Must be good at branding yourself as well as SEO.
I have joined the newsletters of some of the authors, and I would be willing to forward their emails to you.
I keep 30% of the commissions at clickbank, since it is under my account (of course, you can wave that by getting your own storefront at cbproads at http://www.cbproads.com/refer.asp?id=46107, and note that you will need to get a "pro" account for the links to work properly, otherwise you only get 50% of the commissions the site generates).
Must be experienced with affiliate and/or network marketing programs

That is all for now

GDI Training System - Explode Your GDI Downline

2010-03-11T22:28:00.001-08:00

here is a video i found about GDI training. Btw, you are welcome to join my network at GDI at www.website.ws/ryansjones

One nice thing about Global Domains International

2009-09-19T01:03:00.000-07:00

Despite the fact that Global Domains International is a MLM company (where you earn commissions by referring new people to them who purchase one or more web hosting plans through them), there is one thing you might like about GDI: the $10/month web hosting plans.

If you are looking to take up the affiliate marketing business (like I did such as the new xbox360 fan site I am making at www.xboxfreak.ws) the $10/month web hosting plans (which includes a domain name, Site builder 4.1 and other cool tools) can be a pretty invualable resource for any of you looking to build a website for less. Even if you don't take advantage of the 5 level affiliate program that GDI has to offer, you can always monetize your website with say google adsense ads and build a content rich website. Then as people visit your site, and people start clicking on those ads, you can earn extra income (besides that at GDI). Also, you can alo take advantage of affiliate networks like Commission Junction and Linkshare, and promote various affiliates from there (such as the Microsoft Store or Yahoo) and earn commissions whenever people either become leads or buyers for those companies. Of course, you still have to be able to sell the stuff and give people reason to click on the links and buy, but it does give you a few extra streams of income if utilized properly. I have started building a new niche based website (see link above), and I am already getting quite a bit of hits and occasional clicks with my google adsense ads. Of course, you don't want to over do it as people may get turned off by that. Thought htat I would point that out.

Paid to Click Sites

2009-07-09T15:55:00.000-07:00

Clixsense is just one of several popular paid to click sites out there.

If you are looking for an easy way to make some income online, for little or no risk or costs, you might consider checking out some of the paid to click or paid to read programs. Paid to click programs are similar to traffic exchanges where you can view other peoples' ads and sites and earn credits so that the same members can view your sites. With paid to click programs, other webmasters are usually offering you some cash simply to view their ads (usually not much, but if you surf ads often, refer others to the sites, etc, earning could add up after a while). In addition, many paid to click programs also have upgrade options for more features (such as earning more from each ad you click on, free referrals, along with free credits if you want to advertise your own programs). They also have referral systems, where you can refer people to those site and earn additional cash whenever your referrals view ads as well, upgrade their membership, or buy advertising credits.

Pros about Paid to Click programs:

- no experience needed for these
- you are not required to have a website with these as you can simply advertise your ptc programs either on traffic exchanges that allow them, other paid to click sites, referral builder sites like simple refs, getor program refs, as well as special trader forums like Earn money Space (which specializes in trading referral links to the different ptc programs)
- while the earnings rates are low, highly active members can reap extra cash with these programs (more if they refer others).
- the main task is to view other peoples' ads for credits and you can either keep the cash you earn for your self of use to fund your own programs
- can be an easy way to suppliment your income if you do other forms of web marketing.
- If you happen to be an advertiser, "bribing" people to visit your site can be an easy way to get hits.
- One can join multiple PTC programs for 2x or more the earnings potiential. For example if you joined 10 of them and earn $10 a week with each of them, you would be making up to $100 a week total. Also, some sites do pay more than others.

Negative aspects about PTC programs
- don't expect to get rich with these programs. Typically ads are worth anywhere between $.005 and $1.00 each (varies by site). Also some sites have more ads you can view than others. In addition, free members will usually earn less than paid members. For example, at freebirdbux, typically, there are up to 5 ads that free members can click on, whereas paid mambers can click on up to 13 ads per day on average.
- Referrals are the key to success with these programs. If you click on ads alone, it will take a while to break $1 or more each month (let alone the minimum pay out threshold). So, naturally some people will earn more with these than others (depending on how many referrals they have and how active they are).
- you will be expected to be active at most of them. If you go too long without logging on and surfing, some times you can find that your account will get suspended and you can lose your earnings as a result.
- Joining too many programs can get overwhelming after a while too. For example, I've joined at least 10 of them since doing web marketing and it takes up to 4 hours a day to get through them all.
- If you are an advertisers, the conversion rate may be a little low with these as most people will likely visit your site for the money (after all, it is advertised that people can make money by viewing ads). Of course, there are ways to get more for your money, such as gettign as many clicks as possible for each dollar you spend, taking advenatage of the guaranteed sign up offers (where you can "bribe" people to sign up for your programs). I did that with Global Domains International and got some easy leads that way. Also, with the guaranteed sign up offers programs you can actually set your own terms for crediting peoples' accounts to weed out posers (people pretending to be interested in what you have to offer) from people actually interested in signing up (I did that with GDI, expecting people to sign up for the 7 day free trial before crediting their account and denying credit to people who fell short of that). With traffic exchanges and ptc sites, you could also expect them to be somewhat active for credit, such as requiring them to surf at least once day a week, or the like).

- While most ptc sites are legit, there are going to be some scam ones out there, and so you will have to be on your guard (if you join earn money space, the admins have compiled a list of sites that are considered scammy).

Partial List of ptc programs I use (subscribe to my newsletter at www.snohomish-ebook-store.net for a full list of ptc sites I use):
- Free Bird Bux
- Neobux
- Bux-Matrix , note that if you plan to take advantage of their matrix program (with spillover referrals and all, you will need to get an upgraded membership there, otherwise it will be more like a traditional ptc site).
- matrix mails - they actually have a 6 tier affiliate program for up to 6x the earnings potiential just for your info
- Click or Sign Up this site has 3 programs: paid to click, guaranteed sign up offers, and paid to sign up. They also have a forum where you can interact with other members.
- Bux Wiz - getting referrals can be easy
-
It's worth the boast. One cool thing about Rich PTC is that they actually pay you $1 for each ad you view, $10 for each paid to sign up offer you take advantage of, $10 per referral (plus commission if they upgrade), along with a percentage on what they click. The only downside is that the minimum payout ammount is $1000, which means that you will need to view at least 1000 ads to get paid (less if you get referrals, upgrade, etc).

There are plenty of other ones I use, but I will only give out a full list of the ones I use per request (pm me at ryansjones@hotmail.com for more info).

Resources you can use for ptc sites:

Traffic Tornado - this is a very useful downline builder site that lists most of the well known traffic exchanges out there, along with classified ads directories and other advertising venues.

Classified ads sites. You can use craigslist at http://www.craigslist.org/, but you will find that affiliates are frowned upon there (see tos), and so you would have to mask your promotional efforts there. You can also use Us Free ads , which is more affiliate friendly, though for best results, you will probably want to upgrade your membership. More advanced webmasters can also host their own classified ads directory at Business Free Ads if they want .

Global Domains International - GDI is a one of a kind multilevel marketing firmsthat sells affordable web hosting packages to its members. This can be handy for 2 reasons: 1) if you want to build your own website to host the ptc programs and other programs, you can do so for as low as $10 per month with GDI (which is cheap when compared to many other web hosting firms), and it comes with basic hosting, site builder 4.1 (unless if you have your own sitebuilding tool), up to 10 email boxes you can use, etc. Also 2) they actually pay you to promote their services on a 5 tiered affiliate program (you can get more details about that by clicking on the link above) for at least 2 potiential streams of income (I've actually built a review page about GDI at http://instantsqueezepagegenerator.com/displaysp.php?m=48334&s=39468 along with a squidoo lens that talks about the opporunity at http://www.squidoo.com/gdicommentary and so, there really is no point to going into all of the details about GDI. Of course, if you don't like GDI, I also happen to be an affiliate at Yahoo, Site Build It (which is geared almost exclusively towards novice affiliate marketers(, Go Daddy and Lunar Pages, and so feel free to shoot me an email at ryansjones@hotmail.com. If you need help putting together a niche specific website, two sites I recommend are daily niche idea (which gives you ideas on niches to build your site around) at http://www.dailynicheidea.com/?rid=7081 and http://www.hypervre.com/?affiliate=158202 (which aims to help you to build a nifty website around a profitable niche) .

Earn money space at http://www.earnmoneyspace.com/forum/index.php?referredby=2558

Earn Money space is a unique trader forum that specializes in paid to click and related sites.

Benefits of Earn Money space:

- referral links are allowed in your signature (gives you easy hits for your affiliates if you are active), unlike many other forums.

- there is a downline builder thread you can take advantage of

- you can also exchange referral links with others for easy sign ups for your program. The only downside is that you will be expected to be active at the programs you join and so you will probably not want to overwhelm yourself with PTC programs (unless if you plan to earn solely on those).

Well that is all for now, and hope you found this post useful.

Frank Bauer's New Ad Tracking & Split Testing System

2009-06-17T14:41:00.001-07:00

Listen, I just wanted to let you quickly know about my friend, Frank Bauer’s, latest service site... when I saw it, I snatched it up right away. Have you done so too?
Frank calls it the Add2it Go-To System... the one-stop ads, visitors, clicks, actions & sales conversion tracking & split testing solution.
All the top marketers use this to double, triple and quardruple their results... a must have service!
I am sure you will agree once you get your hands on it yourself...
http://GoTo-Pro.com/silver/8563
Why Should You Take Advantage Of The Add2it Go-To System?
Here's what makes the Add2it Go-To System such a smart choice...
- This system protects all of your affiliate links from commission hijackers!
- This system lets you see how well your website or squeeze page converts visitors to sales!
- This system lets you easily track, manage and edit hundreds of your promotions!
- This system tracks your Return On Investment (ROI) from online as well as offline promotions!
- This system doubles, triples and quadruples your conversion rate thanks to the built-in split testing system!
And this is just the beginning! Learn all by clicking below!
http://GoTo-Pro.com/silver/8563

Need fellow downline members to join my GDI team and help promote their services

2009-06-10T17:48:00.001-07:00

Here is one thing worth sharing with you all: if any of you are looking for work and want to earn money online, I thought that I would offer three cool internet marketing opportunities to you all: GDI, The Spider Web System, Yuwie, and Zenzuu. All for of them are network marketing opporunities, and if any of you are comfortable with doing mlm, these just might be right up your alley. Here is an overview of each of them:

Global Domains International

Video about GDI:

Global Domains International is essentially one of the few legitimate multilevel marketing opportunities out there, and if any of you have at least $10 to invest each month and want to get your feet wet with mlm, I highly recommend GDI for you. Here are some tidbits about GDI:

- they offer $10/month web hosting packages for all of its members, which includes a domain name, site building tools, domain parking services, basic hosting, and all (which can be handy if someone is looking to build a website without having to invest a lot of money). In fact, the website I just finished, http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/, is hosted by GDI. By the way, GDI does offer a 7 day free trial to all new members so that they can try out the system to see if is the right fit for them or not.

- they offer a 5 tier affiliate program, where you can get people to sign up under you and get 10% monthly commissions if they buy into their services. Also, the customers you refer become downline members, and so whenever they refer new customers as well, additional commissions are available, spanning at least 5 levels deep. For example, in the ideal sense, if you referred 20 customers to GDI, and they did the same, all of the sudden, you would be making at least $400 a month in commissions, and that figure can go up significantly for each levels worth of customers you or your downline refers (going back to the 20 customers you refer, who also refer 20 customers each as well, and that spans the full 5 levels, by the time you get to the 5th level worth of customers, then the $400 per month in commissions would turn into about $3,200,000 per month in commissions. Of course, naturally some downline members will be more active than others, and big bucks usually do not come overnight with systems like this one.

- $100 bonuses are available to high performing affiliates who refer 5 or more customers in a given week, which can be handy if you have a good conversion rate with this system.

- also, the websites you build can be monetized with other programs and the like (such as google adsense).

You can join my GDI team at www.website.ws/ryansjones

The Snohomish Ebook Store Website is now fully complete

2009-06-02T13:11:00.000-07:00

Over the last several months, I have been putting together my websites and as of today, my main website, http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/, is now officially up live and open for business. The website a collection of more than 6000 different ebooks up for sale and are being promoted on behalf of a variety of authors and similar merchants, just waiting to be purchased and downloaded. They are geared towerds a huge variety of audiences, whether it is body builders, people needing advice on relationship issues, or even people needing help when it comes to web marketing (along with many other niches). Besides ebooks, the website also hosts an associate store from amazon.com (which has plenty of related content to the site), as well as related affiliates like ebay, ebooks.com, and other sites. In addition, the website also has an affiliate program that you are welcome to check out an take advantage of if you are looking to make extra cash. All you have to do is to come to my website, use the tell a friend wiget (creates a log whenever someone emails a friend my website) to refer people you know or your subscribers to my website, and if they buy from at least one of my advertisers, I will give you a 30% cut off of those commissions. Feel free to come to my website, check out the advertisers presented, support my site if you see offers that interest you, and if you know people that might be interested in what my site has to offer, please feel free to refer people to my site, and I will split my commissions with you at 30% off of what I make.

You can visit the Snohomish Ebook Store at http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/

Added some new pages to my website at www.snohomish-ebook-store.net

2009-05-20T01:48:00.000-07:00

In case if you haven't noticed, I have made a few new changes at my other website, www.snohomish-ebook-store.net. First, I started to make and alternate version of the web pages at my other site, www.ryansjones.com, but ended up scrapping that idea and created a "from my other website" page that features those pages (i.e., dog training, building muscle, etc). However, I have created some new pages, including 2 resource pages that features all of my affiliates through linkshare and commission junction, and created 2 new web pages on 2 new ebook related niches: ghosts and golf. More web pages are on their way too. I hope you enjoy.

What sucks about affiliate programs: trying to get a conversion rate

2009-04-17T22:19:00.000-07:00

Here is an interesting challenge that I though that I would bring before all of you when it comes to just about form of web marketing: getting a conversion rate (or the rate of people that buy from you or your advertisers). I have been doing what is called affiliate marketing since July, and boy I tell you that earning commissions is a pain in the arse. I am starting to get hits at my websites, but have yet to get buyers, and 9 months have gone buy and I have yet to make a single sale (I am trying of course). Here are some challenges I am facing:

1. getting the most out of traffic exchanges and safelists
2. getting the most out of downline builders.
3. getting people to sign up under me at GDI. I've gotten a bunch of leads, but actually getting people to sign up under you is proving to be a challenge for me. Usually, I will get an email saying that someone has become a lead, but when I try following up with the person, I never hear back from him/her. I also tried auctioning off the income for life DVDs on ebay, and did not have any luck with them. I tried writing a review about GDI on ezine articles as well as my solutions spot, but both rejected it because they thought that it was a blatant advertisement (I tried to make sure it was not an ad copy).
4. Classified ad directories: personally, I think they suck when it comes to marketing. If you make an ad look too catchy, people flag you as a spammer, whereas if you keep the ad toned down, you don't get very many results, and often attract people trying to sell you stuff as well.

5. Forums- forums are okay when you are active in them, but when you don't have much to say, they can get useless.

6. Blogging- they say blogging is a good way to get traffic and conversions to your website, but then you have to get traffic to your blog, and that too can be difficult.

7. Optimizing your website for search engines- personally, I find SEO extra challenging, especially when you have a website that covers several niches instead of one. In fact, I have 3 websites to put together and optimize.

8. Getting people to like your website- you almost have to write the perfect website these days if you hope to get high page views and popularity.

9. Moving up in page rank- this is another challenging thing: trying to get a high page rank, especially with more competitive niches.

10. Going from "impressions" and clicks to actually getting sales and leads. That is perhaps the biggest challenge I am facing, getting visitors to my site to actually buy from my advertisers. A

As you could see, I find affiliate marketing extremely difficult and could use some help to improve.

The New Snohomish Emall Website is taking shape

2009-02-27T19:11:00.000-08:00

In case if you haven't noticed, I have been quite busy lately building my two new websites that are in the works: Snohomish Emall at http://www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com/ and the http://www.snohomish-ebook-store.net/, which is a whole new verizon of http://www.ryansjones.com/ and should be complete within the next month or so. At the Snohomish Emall, I have changed the look of the home page, added a terms of service page, a page where my visitors can share their own affiliate links for a small royalty fee, a web page on video games that I just completed today, and plenty of other features. In addition, I also happen to be an affiliate of both Amazon.com and Ebay and have been featuring the latest deals from the two on my sites, and feel free to check them out often, especially if you see offers you may like. In addition, I have also started posting an "offer of the day" widget that is hosted by Clickbooth and features the latest special offers (such as free trials) that are promoted by various advertisers (it is on a rotator, and so the offer is randomized and picked by Clickbooth).

At my other site, the New Snohomish Ebook Store, I have added quite a few pages featuring ebooks, a web page that talks about the Global Domains International opportunity (which is a web hosting firm that offers a 5 tier affiliate program to all of its members, which you can join at www.website.ws/ryansjones), and have also added a page that talks about traffic exchanges.

More updates will be added over time.

Need extra money in this recession? Here are a few internet marketing opportunities for you to consider part 1

2009-01-29T11:39:00.000-08:00

Need extra money in this recession? Have experience at marketing and sales? Do you have experience at making websites? Here are a few internet marketing opportunities for you to check out:

1. Become an affiliate at Global Domains International-
Company's banner advertiement:

Global Domains International is essentially a web hosting firm that sells $10/month web hosting packages to its members, comlete with a domain name, up to 10 email boxes, a nifty site builder, and all. In addition to the web hosting package that members get, all GDI members automatically enroll in the company's affiliate program (which can be nice, since some other web hosting companies require you to appy to join their affiliate program through commission junction, such as go daddy, network solutions, and web.com). With the affiliate program that GDI offers, whenever you refer customers to GDI that get a web hosting package (provided that they keep it beyond the initial 7 day FREE trial), you will earn $1 monthly commissions for each of those members that you refer to GDI. By the way, GDI does have a downline system, and so the customers you refer will essentially become your downline member(s), and if they turn around and refer customers as well, you will earn additional monthly commissions for those sales, and that goes 5 levels deep. So for example, if you refer 10 customers to GDI who get a web hosting package, you would mak $10 per month for those referrals and if they turn around and refer 10 more customers to GDI each, you would be making at least $100/month for those customers. By the way, this should not be confused with a pyramid scheme since at GDI, commissions come from members who actually get a web hosting package (so essentially you are selling $10/month web hosting packages to new members). Also, GDI does offer generous bonuses for high performers, including $100 bonus whenever you refr 5 or more customers to GDI in a given week, and a $5000 bonus whenever you refer 1000 or more customer to GDI in a given month. By the way, you can actually increase your earnings potiential if you monetize your website with other affiliate programs (such as joining Linkshare, Commission Junction, or other affilaite networks).
Want to become an affilaite of GDI? Just go to www.website.ws/ryansjones and register for the 7 FREE trial membership. You can also watch a movie that explains the opportunity in detail. By the way, contrary to the gimmick that you can make $1000's with this system as the sign up page implies, DO NOT EXPECT TO GET RICH QUICK with this system. Like all web marketing opportunities, being an affiliate is essenially like a commission sales job, where you get paid for what you sell. If you are good at referring customers to GDI, you should make lots of money over time, otherwise, you will certainly be in for a challenge. By the way, I don't recommend this opportunity to people who are inexperienced at web marketing, who do not have at least $10/month they are willing to invest (which is pretty cheap to many other network marketing opportunities out there), do not have at least 10 hours a week to spare, and have no marketing or web design skills. Also, once you do get customers (or downline members), you will need to be able to encourage them to promote as well, since commissions come from both what you sell and what your downline sales. Of course, if you are good at promoting, you should be able to make $100 or more in your first month or so (and maybe $1000 or more per month over time as your downline grows and more people like what is offered). If you are inexperienced, consider getting ebooks like Average Joe Marketer's The Money Is in the Niche, James J Jones's Micro Niche Finder , and/or Rosalind Gardner's Super Affiliate Hand Book. They aren't free to get, but can be worth the extra money if you don't know what you are doing and need to learn the ropes of affiliate marketing. If you can't afford those, there are plenty of videos on youtube about affiliate and network marketing that you are welcome to check out.

2. Become a spider web system marketer -

the Spider Web System is actually more of a fancy downline builder that offers over 12 different streams of income (22 for "upgraded" members). Sign up is free (unless if you decide to get the Black Widow spider upgrade), and there are over 12 different entities you can join and/or promote with it (includes: global domains international, commission junction, google adwords, direct matches, self bank mobile, yuwie, and several others). Also, like GDI the spider web system also has a downline system, where you will earn $1 whenever you get new downline members, plus additional income whenever they join the 12 or 22 networks you are with. By the way, some networks are free to join, while others will require you to invest some money. You might consider starting with the free or cheap ones, and move to the ones that require you to invest more as you get more sales and spending power (my advice). You can join the spider web system FREE (no strings attached) at www.snohomishaffiliatemarketing.com/spiderweb. Of course, the only catchs to the FREE sign up is that 1) not all of the programs you can join through the spider web system are free to join (some are free, while others will cost some money to join) and 2) depending on how you promote the Spider Web system, not all advertising methods are free (for example, PPC advertising is going to be anything but free). If you are new, consider joining traffic exchanges, since they are free to join, and you will have other web marketers and prospective web marketers browsing through your advertisement, and if you get enough page views, sooner or later, you should get leads and/or sign ups.

3 Join affiliate networks and promote various merchants through those programs. You can join clickbank at clickbank.com, linkshare by clicking on the banner below. , clickbooth at www.clickbooth.com, and commission junction at www.cj.com. You can also become an affiliate of amazon.com and ebay.com as well. At amazon.com, all affiliates get their own web store (or the amazon.com astore). Mine is at: http://astore.amazon.com/rjsavjoma-20

4. Help me to promote my websites and I will give you a 15% cut off of the commissions I make for the customers your bring me (who buy from my sponsors). So, if you refer a customer to my website and they buy a $1000 computer from Toshiba direct through my referral link(s), I would get a $100 commission, and you would get a $15 commission for that sale. That may seem low, but if you refer lots of customers to my website that buys, and those earnings will add up over time. I can only do so much to promote my website on my own, but ultimately it is up to viewers like you to encourage others to visit my site(s) as well and boost its' popularity. Of course, I will need to verify the transactions you bring me before setting aside your cut off of my commissions.
Rules:
1. your referral must buy from at least one of my affiliates through my affiliate link(s).
2. I must be able to verify those transactions (this should keep scammers away)
3. referrals must visit my sponsors' website(s) through my affiliate links. Affilite links are how companies know who refers who to their website and that is how records show up on my account at each affiliate network I am with, and if your referrals buy from my affiliates properly through my affiliate link(s), those transactions will show up on my records. If the referral buys through someone else's referral link or goes to the site(s) directly, those transactions will not show up on my records and will not count.
4. I will pay you your commission as soon as my commission check comes in (and I do have a $100 threshold for each network, and so checks will come in as soon as those thresholds are reach). Also, at clickbank, it appears that I need to get at least 5 sales in a given month for checks to come in, so bring me 5 sales in a given month, and I will pay you 5 fold for the sales you bring me.
5. If the person you refer to my website decides to get a refund for the product(s) that he/she buys, those refunds will come out of my commissions and yours too. So, if your referral gets a $50 ebook, and I get a $20 commission off of that sale, and you would normally get a $5 commission for that sale, I would lose that $20 commission due to the refund and you would lose your $5 commission.
6. You are free to use any methods necessary to promote, but be careful not to spam people or scam people as well. At social networks, be sure to respect the anti-commercial use policies they have (which prohibit free advertising). At forums, respect the admin's policies on what is permissable and what is permissable (by the way, you may want to avoid forums and social networks where you are not even allowed to post links to your own website or someone else's web sites, as you would be wasting your time with those). You are welcome to use PPC advertising for my website, but that will come out of your own money and I can't reimburse on that at this time (perhaps when I get the extra spending power, I will reimburse you on that).
7. Be sure to write reviews, press releases, blogs about my site (that will make it easier for you to refer people ot my sites). Of course, be careful not to "bash" my websites or affiliates, otherwise people will not want to come to my website(s) and that will cost you referrals as well.
8. This incentive program will be at an at-will basis, meaning that I can terminate this program at any time with or without cause, and you have the right to discontinue promoting my sites.
9. For high performers, I might be willing to raise your commission rate up to 50% of what I earn over time. Say for every 10 customers you refer to my site, I will raise your commission rate 5% up to 50%.

Want to promote my websites, email me at ryansjones@hotmail.com with your intentions to promote my sites, and I will know who are promoting my sites. Also, email me whenever you refer to someone to my site, and then if I can verify your referral's transaction(s), I will credit your account accordingly.
My websites are as follows:

1. The Snohomish Ebook store 1 - www.ryansjones.com
2. The Snohomish ebook store 2 - www.snohomish-ebook-store.net
3. The Snohomish emall (currently under construction) at www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com

good luck on your efforts

more opportunities will be posted in another post (including project payday, dating gold, ken evoy's sitebuilder/sitesell) and others.

Flickr

2009-01-11T00:44:00.001-08:00

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Evaluation of Popular Money Making opportunities 2

2009-01-02T15:59:00.000-08:00

Hiya Folks, it's me again. On my last post, I talked about selling stuff on ebay, amazon.com marketing, and affiliate marketing. In this post, I will talk about multilevel marketing, which is another hot money making opportunity around. Most mlms do charge a fee to join, and are quite similar to affiliate marketing, but have some obvious differences.

Part 1- Multilevel Marketing
Ads from to mlms I am with:
The Spider Web System (it's actually more of a downline builder than a mlm serving 22 different mlms out there and similar opportunities)

Global Domains International (it is also a web hosting service that sells $10/month web hosting packages, with a domain name, up to 10 email boxes, complimentary forum and chat room memberships, and all, and has a simple site builder aimed at helping people to make easy to make professional websites)

Overview- First there was traditional affiliate marketing (where you promote products on behalf of others via your website and/or blog) and now there is multilevel marketing (or network marketing), and there are also non-legit varieties, such as pyramid schemes. Multilevel marketing is quite similar to affiliate marketing because you are not only recruiting others for commissions, but you are also promoting products that are offered by service. Unlike affiliate marketing where you can promote multiple products as you please, mlms usually have you promote one or 2 products. Also, you do not really have to have a website to promote mlms, since you do get your own sign up page that you can promote via the referral link you are given, and can simply promote that link via traffic exchanges, downline builders (only ones that support the one you are with), forums that allow you to post affiliate links in signatures, blogs, and paid advertising services). Also, some have invite features that allow you to send an invitation email to friends, family, coworkers, and others that may be interested in joining. In addition, you can actually promote an mlm offline as well, and not just have a website using promotional materials you are given, such as sales kits, dvds, business cards, setting up booths at fairs, and even by word of mouth. Now with a recession going on here in America, mlms can be quite popular as one can join a mlm, recruit friends and essentially start their own business and make money by helping each other to sell products and recruit others for extra commissions (hence the idea that you can make lots of money via mlms. Now, one may confuse multilevel marketing with affiliate marketing, but here are some differences that I am aware of:

Traditional Affiliate Marketing

you usually work solo
you can promote multiple products, programs, etc
most affiliate programs are free to join (though you do have to have a website, which is not free, as well as spend some money on advertising)
makeing money is a process, since first you need a website that sells, build audiences that are interested in your stuff, gain rankings via search engines, and giving your audiences reasons to buy from you as opposed to your sponsors.
you do need your own website for promotion
web masters with sales backgrounds will have an advantage over others
most affiliate programs are only "1 tiered" and so you get paid for what you sell and may or not offer "residual" income (or commissions coming from monthly fees)

Multilevel Marketing

usually you will not have to work alone, as you will have upline members that should be willing and able to help you to get started as needed (especially if they are serious about making extra money, considering that you are their representatives), and over time, you should get downline members as well, who you will want to work with, since you will earn commissions for not only what you sell, but from what they sell as well, going down x number of levels.
Team work is emphasised, because when you recruit others and/or sell stuff, not only do you make commissions for your self, but for your upline as well, and the same can also be true as people join your downline as well. If you work as a team, you shoud make more than you would if you just go solo on this.
most mlms (if not all) charge a fee to join and take advantage of the services offered (and fees do vary by company). Currently, the cheapest ones I am aware of that you can join are global domains international, which only charges $10/month for a membership package, which does include the entire web hosting package you get (note that the $10/per month is also per domain name, and so if you get more than one, you will need to invest more money, of course), and the spiderweb system, which is 100% free to join (of course it is actually more of a fancy downline builder that serves over 22 different participating networks, some of which are free to join, and others will charge a fee to use). Some other popular opportunities that are circulating around as I am aware of includes: Lawn Chair Millionaire, Carbon Copy Pro, Xango, Vemma Builder, Herbal Life/Online Business Sytems, My Power Mall, and Xocai.
With many mlm firms, you can earn residual income, for each downline member that remains a member for more than one month, because part of the money you make comes from the monthly fee that you and your downline pays.
There is usually only one or 2 products for you to promote
You do not have to be a webmaster to promote, as there are plenty of ways you can get sign ups, and sell what is given to you, such as taking advantage of traffic exchanges and downline builders, joining forums that allow you to post your recruitment link in your signature, offline promoting, etc.

So, basically Multilevel Marketing is similar to Affiliate Marketing, but there is usally one or 2 products and/or programs for you to promote, there is a downline system, which means the money you make will come not only from what you sell, but what the people in your downline sells as well (and will take team work, of course if you are serious about earning money this way), does not require you to have your own website (though it can be useful, of course), and can be a good way for someone to start their own company, since they can join the multilevel marketing firm of their choice, recruit people to join their downline, and work together to make maximum money in commissions. In fact, considering that we live in a recession and there is a good unemployment rate going on, this might be a good way for people to get back on their feet (provided that they have some decent skill as marketing, of course), as they can join a mlm that is cheap to join, recruit others, and make extra money (and yes, they will need to work at it, since the more sales they make, the more money they make). Of course, mlms are not without their flaws and are not for everybody, naturally.

Cons about multilevel marketing

Not all mlms are legitimate, unforuntately. Even legit ones may seem scammy to some people (probably because either they suck at promoting what is given to promote, their downlines are sucky, and/or there is a lack of interest in the products are offered). And there are sites out there that talk about different opportunites out there.
Some mlms can be confused for pyramid schemes (which are not only scams, but are illegal). Pyramid schemes are somewhat similar to multilevel marketing firms, but the emphasis is more on referring others than promoting a product, only the people at the top will actually make significant money, and may collapse if the people at the top quit. There are plenty of sites out there that talk about the various mlm opportunities out there and known pyramid schemes out there. Whenever you get an mlm opportunity, it helps to do a google search on it to see if there are known issues.
the emphasis is on team work, of course, and so if you go solo on multilevel marketing, then you will be lucky if you get past 1st level commissions.
like affiliate marketing, you should consider multilevel marketing as a traditional commission sales job. And it does help to have decent marketing skills. Obviously, people who are good at promoting what is offered will have an advantage over those who do not know how to promote.
If you do a mlm, you should be comfortable about sponsoring others an having people above you as well. I don't know everything about every mlm, but I know at both the Spider Web System and Global Domains, whenever you get a referral, you officially become a sponsor of that person, and will need to encourage that person to join, and help that person get started if you hope to help him/her to make money, since part of the commissions you make comes from what your downline sells in addition to what you sell.
Some mlms are cheaper to join than others and vice versa (typically the bigger the investment, the bigger commissions you can expect to make, though). Also, some may require huge investments that may have not been mentioned at the recruitment page (carbon copy pro, for example, charges an application fee, and a $1000 or more investment fee, though the bigger investment fee, the higher commissions you make, where as a cheaper one like Global Domains International, which only charges $10 per month for its' services, is cheaper to join, but offers smaller commissions).
Some products that you are given to promote will be easier to market than others, of course. Also, the more expensive the product/program, the harder it will be to sell.
mlms are not recommended for people who do not know how to market stuff, and you should have a strong markeing background if you hope to get rich with multilevel marketing.
anyone hoping to join a multilevel marketing firm will need to be comfortable about soliciting people. Upon joining firms, you may have an opportunity to invite people you know, for example. Also, whenever you get a lead, the mlm you are with will expect to send a follow up email and/or call that person that just visited your referral link and for whatever reason did not sign up. Also, sometimes, you many need to send several follow up emails to your lead to get a response from him or her. Of course, you will want to be aware of posers out there that may pretend to want to join, but are not really interested. Now, if you are uncomfortable about sending follow up emails to people, there are some downline builders that can do that job for you with automated emails. If you are a spider web system member (not a spider web system member? You are welcome to join at www.theSpiderWebSystem/ryansjones), you probably know about the automated emails that are sent out to leads, which is nice (though you are encouraged to send a personal email to that person), and serves over 22 different participating companies, including global domains, yuwie, commission junction, the black widow upgrade, self bank, and others (some are free to join, while others will charge a monthly investment). Another downline builder that you might consider if you are a Global Domains, My Power Mall or Xocai member is Hits2u. Hits2U is a downline builder network that allows new members to post one free advertisement, and offers a duplication system (under the duplication system, if someone you refer to hits2u that becomes lead at one of the 5 participating companies, that person will be automatically enrolled in the duplication system that sends out automated emails that aim to entice that person to join unless he/she either joins or unsubscribes, and can be quite useful) for members who are a member of global domains international, xocai, and my power mall (hits 2 u also has a duplication system for Top Level Marketing and My Daily Times members under the pro membership). BTW, you are welcome to join the hits2u community at http://tinyurl.com/8u34hz and take advantage of the services. BTW, you can actually get the most out of hits 2 u if you get an "pro membership" there, since there are extra features available to pro members, such as being able to list multiple advertisements, offers duplication systems for Top Level Marketing and My Daily Times Members, and you can contact referrals under a pro membership. Of course, that is just a suggestion.

Does multilevel marketing sound it like be for you? Feel free to check it out. Currently, the only mlms I am a part of are Global Domains International, Ken Evoy's Site Buildit/Site Sell, and the spider web system, plus hits2u, and so I will post links to those (for other ones, you are welcome to search for them, join them through other blogs, etc). If you are interested in joining carbon copy pro, you might consider joining business forums at http://www.businessforms.com/. There are plenty of members there that would be happy to hook you up with carbon copy pro and help you to get started.

You can join global domains international at http://tinyurl.com/6sl5b9, the spider web system at http://www.snohomishaffiliatemarketing.com/, Ken Evoy's Site Build it/Site Sell at http://viralurl.com/affiliate-marketing/Ken-Evoy-Site-Sell, and hits2u at: http://tinyurl.com/8u34hz

Here are some popular traffic exchanges you can take advantage of for promoting your mlm if you are interested:

Max Traffic Pro at http://maxtrafficpro.com/index.php?referrer=ryansjones

Traffic taxis: http://www.traffictaxis.com/?rid=1966

Hits Safari: http://www.hitsafari.com/?rid=24297

Rain Forest clicks: http://www.rainforestclicks.com/?rid=4748

Traffic Splash: http://www.traffic-splash.com/index.php?referer=ryansjones

(I am a member at others, but this list would be too long, but feel free to email me at ryansjones@hotmail.com for more, also I am in the process of making a complete list of traffic exchanges, downline builders, etc I am a part of at http://www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com/ and will have a full list of them, info, and all when fully complete).

Well, that is all for now, and stay tuned for the next post: get paid to... sites

Online Business Opportunities Comparisons Part 1 of 2

2009-01-01T02:06:00.001-08:00

Here are some images from some popular internet marketing opportunities and similar stuff. In addition, I showed off some of my affiliates and websites, etc.

Introduction:
Ah, with the rise of the internet during the last decade (back in the 1990's), many different money making opportunities have appeared. Some are legit, while others are scams. Also, there are many different types of careers one can start, using a computer, the internet, high speed internet connection, some money, etc. Some opportunities are provided in the work place such as marketing firms, computer companies like Microsoft and Google, universities, etc, while there are also plenty of independent contractor opportunities as well. Perhaps the most popular form of money making opportunity out there online is none other than internet marketing. Internet marketing comes in a wide variety of forms, whether it is auctioning stuff on ebay, selling books and other hot products at http://www.amazon.com/, promoting other peoples' products (also known as affiliate marketing), taking part in a multilevel marketing firm (similar to affiliate marketing, but you are working as a team instead of alone), completing and trading offers for money through incentivized freebie networks, or whatever. I have tried several of them and have decided to offer my take on them.
Auctioning things via ebay at http://www.ebay.com/ - ebay is perhaps one of the most popular forms of ecommerce known out there (besides http://www.amazon.com/). There are plenty of items that you can bid on, and there are plenty of items you can either sell or auction off and make money with as well. Also, if you do not have anything to sell, there are plenty of wholesalers that would be happy to hook you up with items to resell on ebay, such as Online Supplier at http://viralurl.com/affiliate-marketing/OnlineSupplier and Dollar Days at http://viralurl.com/affiliate-marketing/Dollar-Days.
How ebay works:
It is easy to list stuff to sell on ebay, and of course, some items are more sellable than others. To sell things on ebay, you will need to get an ebay seller account (you can sign up at ebay's website), and after you do that, you will be able to start listing items to auction off. If you have lots of items to sell, you can always get your own ebay store for relatively low costs (I was an affiliate of ebay's ebay store program, but it got deactivated due to lack of interest), and sell bulk items that way. To sell an item, you will need to use the listing wizard, describe the item you want to sell, list the starting bid, shipping and handling costs, and other information about the products you want to sell, and once you are done, your item will get listed, and if you are lucky, you will be people bidding on your product. Of course, if you are active at selling, you should increase your chances of getting bids. Auctions usually run for 7 days, and if you get bids before it ends, you will be able to sell it to the highest bidder, and if you do not get bids, you will hve to get the item relisted if you still want to sell it.
Pros about ebay
- easy to use
- monetize items you do not need that are value
- companies sometimes use it to sell stuff
- getting leads should not be too difficult (depending on what you are selling) as there are usually other members browsing through items that are listed and if they see your item, they may get interested and place a bid.
- if you have hot items to sell, they can prove to be good assets to making lots of money. For example, if you are selling game systems, you should be able to earn much more money by selling say a Nintendo WII or Xbox 360 as opposed to a Sega Genesis. You can check out the what's hot section on ebay to sell what items are selling and what are not.
Cons about ebay
- there are listing fees, and the more services you have to sell your item (such as having it featured in the gallery, showcased, etc), the more expensive it will be to sell.
- naturally, some items will be easier to sell than others. Also, there will probably be some auctions where you never get a bid, especially if you are new.
- Ebay does have an extensive list of items that are not allowed to be sold on ebay, and so you will need to consult the TOS before selling something (and it is possible to inadvertantly break one of their rules unintentionally).
- You can't really use ebay for affiliate marketing (or selling items you are promoting by listing them on ebay) since ebay does not allow you to link to their competitors, and limits the commissons that ebay takes otu of successful sales.
- mlms can't be promoted either
- beware of scammers, as there are scammers that lurk ebay and may try to dupe you, send phony checks, etc.
Note: I just happen to be an affiliate of ebay, and here is a convenient search provide by ebay in case if you want to see what is hot on ebay, deals, etc:

Opportunity 2: Selling Via Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/ is another popular affiliate marketing website. It is similar to ebay, but there is no auction system, and tends to be popular among internet marketers (especially people who sell new items or hot used items). I actually haven't used this yet, and so I can't adequately review http://www.amazon.com/ (note to reader, feel free to share your own experiences with http://www.amazon.com/ and http://www.ebay.com/ in comments).
Like ebay, I actually happen to be an affiliate of http://www.amazon.com/ as well.

As an http://www.amazon.com/ associate, I have my own affiliate store that you can find at: http://astore.amazon.com/rjsavjoma-20. It operates much like a traditional web store at http://www.amazon.com/, but it is hosted by the company, offers some of the latest featured products, covering various niches, and is maintained by the company itself (which means that my main job is to share what is available to the world, but someone else processes orders and handles, shipping, returns, etc.). Feel free to check it out if you want.
I posted blogs from http://www.amazon.com/ on the side bar.
Some hot products that are on sale at amazon.com now:

There are many different ecommerce sites that are not listed here as well, but feel free to share other popular ecommerce sites as well, with your experience, etc.
Popular money making opportunity 3: Affiliate Marketing
Do not have products you want to sell? Would you rather promote someone elses' products instead? Why not try affiliate marketing. By now, you have probably seen many of those commercials, infomercials, work at home opportunities (sometimes scams), etc, that claim that you can make millions simply by promoting other peoples' stuff.
Here is an infomercial I have seen often late at night, short cut to millions (as an example of these):

Now, I apologize that if that ad may seem a little spammy, but that is a popular infomercial that is floating around that promotes one of the many different affiliate marketing opportunities out there. I am actually not part of that program (I have other ones such as with linkshare, clickbank, yourbizwebsites, commission junction, clickbank, ebay, amazon.com, global domains, and several others), but currently as a side career of mine (when I am not working my day job), I have taken up affiliate marketing. Affiliate marketing is another increasingly popular form of web marketing where instead of promoting your own products, services, etc, you promote some one else's. Typically, affiliate marketing is much like a traditional commission sales job (where you mainly earn a percentage of money for each sale you make, whether it is clothes, ebooks, sporting goods, web hosting services, you name it), however, it is all done on line. Unlike selling stuff on ebay and amazon.com, there are no wizards available and you will need to provide either your own website or blog. Now, while there are many affiliate marketers out there, I actually recommend that you should get your own website as opposed to a blog, article marketing, posting your affiliate link on forums, or promoting them on social network sites like myspace (which actually prohibit free advertising). If you must go without a website, you might consider starting with traffic exchanges (if you email me, at ryanjones@snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com, I would be happy to hook you up with some of the traffic exchanges I am a part of). Now, I will be frank with you, despite the claims that you can get rich quick with affiliate marketing (as the infomercial I showed you above wants you to believe), chances are that unless if you are a natural at promoting products, programs, etc online, have advanced marketing skills, and are just plain lucky, you will probably not make much money at least at first. Personally, I am not really a natural when it comes to selling stuff, and so I have yet to make more than $100 per month in commissions (there are factors too, such competing tasks, such as my day job, trying to build and promote 3 different websites, skill level, and other obvious things I don't have uch control of). On the plus side though, I do often get people checking out my site, what is offered, and do often get impressions and clicks, and so hopefully it will not be long for me before I start making money. In fact, I do often get spammers trying to get me to buy tools, ebooks, and other resources to help with my affiliate marketing efforts for a price, and since I do not have all of the extra money in the world to give to all of them, I have been toying with the idea of requring them to help me to make a decent ammount of commissions by either visiting some of my sponsors and/or encouraging their clients to visit them as well as a condition for me buying their stuff. For example if someone wants me to buy a $50 ebook that offers "techniques" on affiliate marketing, I may start requiring him or her to help me to make at least $100 in commissions before i agree to buy it, this way, not only would I have the extra spending power to buy what is offered, but also to make a little profit as well (since I would still keep about $50 of that money). Anyways, affiliate marketing can be a little more challenging than just selling products your self, as you have to supply a website or ad-enabled blog, get traffc to that website (note that you will need to be mindful about what you want to promote and what kind of site to make since there is lots of competition out there in the affiliate marketing industry, and typically the more competitive niche you choose to make your website about, the tougher it will be to make lots of money, and vice versa).
Of course, affiliate marketing can be extra rewarding if you are good at recommending products to people (hence the idea that you can make $10,000 a week or more with affiliate programs). In fact, here is an example of how you can make extra money with affiliate programs if you are successful at it. Take Cafe Britt Coffee, for example (which is one of my affiliates via Linkshare, and one of my oldest ones at that). Cafe britt is a premium South American Coffee company that sells exotic premium wholesale coffee beens all over the globe, and has its own affiliate program (and I am an affiliate of well over 100 different merhcants, companies, etc). Here is a break down on what one can earn if they are good at it (by the way, the commission rate, pay structure, and other program details will vary by network and company, and naturally some will offer bigger commissions than others, and there are companies that may pay on a per lead or per click/mile basis instead of a per sale basis):

Cafe Britt offers a 8% commission per sale rate

The average product price ranges any where bettween $8 (for single packets) and $200 for a pack, and at 8% commission, you would make anywhere between $.64 and $16 per sale (depnding on what is bought).

Sell 10 packages: you would make anywhere beween $6.40 and $160 and that is just for tht company alone. Partner up with multiple companies and you could earn significantly more if you are successful.

Of course, before you rush into the affiliate marketing business, you do have to realize that like just about any career, it will come more natural to some than others, and is not for everyone. Here are some things that you might want to consider before taking up affiliate marketing:

what you want to promote

choosing a profitable niche (you can do variety though, as I am doing and see which ones sell better than others).

Next, you will need to have a way to promote the links you get. You can use a blog to post ads, but I have noticed that due to the increased anti-spam sentiment out there, affiliate links are not always welcome in the blogosphere and other social networking sites, and some blog submission directories can be more picky about what goes on a blog than others. I remember when I first joined blogger, by the way, the anti-spam features was a bit wiered as it did not take much to set it off (though I learned that the feature may have been a little buggy around the time I joined, back in August). At word press, it appears, that commercial content may be restricted and there are restrictions on what kinds of affiliate links you promote (and you will must refer people through your affiliate links for you to get paid). Also, myspace has a strict anti-commercial use policy and free advertising is not allowed (if you get flagged, you do take a chance of getting a $50 or more fine if you violate their anti-commercial use policiy. You can do article marketing, but it appears that many of them article submission directories do not allow you make sales pitches about items you want to promote and affiliate links are not always welcome, even in the resource box you are given. Even on forums, posting referral links (even in your signature file) is not allowed. Of course, if you must go without a website (perhaps you can't afford to get one), there are some good places to promote them, including via squidoo lens (the company is not nearly as strict about what goes on your profile as opposed to other social networking sites, and referal links, product reviews, etc are allowed), paid advertising services if you have the money to do so, and/or via traffic exchanges (they tend to be extra effective for email captures, promoting multilevel marketing programs (such a global domains, the spider web system, carbon copy pro, lawn chair millionaire, and others). Of course, the best route to go if possible would be to have a website, as you have full control what goes on it (as long as you do not spam the search engines or violate the TOS of the companies you are promoting).

Now, there are 2 ways you can go about building a website, each with their own pros and cons. You can get a prebuilt website (yourbizwebsites is a good place to go for that, and currently, they do have a deal where if you signup, the first site you get is free (after that, the fee is $150 for 10 premium and prebuilt websites each targeting their own unique audience as their names imply). If you join the clickbank affiliate network, some of the ebook authors offer premade review websites to help publishers promote their products. Also, if you happend to do the "Short Cut to Millions" affiliate program, it appears that the sites you get are pre-built. On the plus side about premade websites, you certainly do not have to have html skills, as you would if you made the site from scratch (though if you get a site through yourbizwebsites, and you can do that through my squeeze page at www.ryansjones.com/Videos), you can add to the site as needed, and all you really have to do is to promote the products, and sites you are given to promote. BTW, you will need to be a member of the affiliate networks that are being promoted (if you get a site through yourbizwebsites, for example, you will be required to join the clickbank affiliate network for the links to work properly and for you to get credit for each sale you make). Of course, there are going to be come cons to that route: including the fact that you will have almost identical websites to compete with (I know with yourbizwebsites, for example, I've seen sites that are almost identical to mine to users with other domain names), highly competitive niches (a classic one is on how to make money on the internet, even though you probably don't really know how, which is commented on at http://www.associate-programs.com/). In additions, it appears that search engines tend to dislike "mirror" websites or sites that have almost identical content, and so you may be penalized in search engine rankings unless if you add extra content. Of course, you can also build a website from scratch if you want as well (will require some creativity on your part, but you can make original content that way, which earns more kudos from search engines than premade ones and have more flexibility on what goes on your site). Also, there are many different web hosting services out there that you can use. The cheapest one I am aware of is at global domains international (you can go there at www.website.ws/ryansjones and click on "register" to get a site with them), as they only charge $10 per month for a complete web hosting package, with a domain name, easy to use site builder, domain forwarding, up to 10 email boxes and all. Also, if you like what is offered at global domains, the company does offer a 5+ tier affiliate program where you can refer active members for extra commissions. By the way, if you are not the creative type, you might consider checking out Ken Evoy's Site Builder/Site-Sell at http://www.sitesell.com/snohomishnichemarket.html (see previous post with the videos about it for the links), since it has some nifty tools for newbie affiliate marketers, such as a niche selection tool (that helps newbies find the perfect niche to build a website around). It is not the cheapest web hosting service out there, but could be worth the extra money if you really want to make money on the internet in a decent amount of time as there are plenty of services offered to newbie affiliate marketers that are aimed at helping them to be extra successful. Of course, other popular web hosting services I am aware of includes godaddy, yahoo! small business, web.com, and network solutions (you can find the links to them at my website at http://www.snohmishpromotionnichemarketing.com/ and go to the sponsor list via my menu bar). Anyways, how you promote your affiliate programs is up to you.

Ideally, you should have a good knowledge of web design skills, though many web hosting services offer easy to use site builders that do not require you to posess lots of knowledge when making sites, as you can mainly use the text editor to draft web pages, and only use the html portion for adding copy and pasted codes (like banner ads). Of course, there are plenty of web hosting services that are aimed more towards advanced users that make sites from scratch, such as go daddy (which charges extra for a site builder)

You should also have some successful marketing skills (preferrably in a commission based or quota environment) for at least one year. And this will certainly be a MUST if you take up a more competitive marketing area (if you make a website that offers resources on internet marketing, for example, you will need to be prepared and able to compete with millions of other affiliate marketers that offer similar stuff and are more experienced than you at it). Same goes if you get a pre-built website since you will need to make your site stand out of the crowd when you see many identical websites out there from the same web hosting company. After all, if you are a natural at selling things, you will probably make more than someone that doesn't.
unless if you are an expert, you might consider recruiting friends, family, coworkers, etc to help you with your efforts. I know that you are encouraged to work alone, but two heads can literally be better than one at this. You can split the commissions you make with the people you recruit. There is a lot of work involved with affiliate marketing, which includes, but not limited to: building a website/blog that sells (regardless of your audience), writing blogs, promoting, writing acceptable articles (most ezine directories evaluate articles you submit before posting, though one article submission directory that you might consider starting out on is at www.amazines.com, and while it is not as prestigeous as www.ezinearticles.com, the rules are much looser on what you can write about, you can post rebrandable articles without any problems, and it is 100% free to use), posting press releases as needed (when your site makes a milestone, for example), making promotion videos to post on youtube, promoting your stuff via social networks like myspace without violating the TOS (which can be tricky if you are new), budgeting, answering emails, "surfing" through ads on traffic exchanges, joining and checking affiliate programs, removing links from advertisers who drop you on their program (tends to be a common place on link share and commission junction for newbies), and other typical tasks. Also, having multiple people helping you can speed up the process of getting stuff done and making sales.

If possible, you should have some knowledge or tried out some of the products you want to promote to effectively market them. Perhaps the easist way to do that is promote products that you have tried whenever possible. For example, one of my affiliates is Microsoft, and I have lots of Microsoft products at home, including Microsoft Internet Explorer, Windows Vista, Xbox 360, and similar microsoft stuff (plus my father has been an employee there since 1994), and so it would be easier for me to promote Microsoft's products as opposed to other products.

The best affiliate networks to join if you are a newbie would be ebay, http://www.amazon.com/, clickbank (which tends to be extra popular among new affiliate marketers), and click booth (at click booth, most programs pay on a per lead basis instead of per sale basis (which means that you need to simply give your affiliate leads to earn money as opposed to actual sales). All three of them are free and easy to join, and just about all of the affiliate programs are easy to join (on ebay, some advertisers can accept or decline applicants, though). You can join link share and commission junction if you would like, but they are actually geared more towards advanced affiliate marketers, and you will need to apply for programs you want to promote. Also, many advertisers favor websites with high conversion rates and/or traffic over the newer and lower converting sites (and I have noticed from my experience that some of the advertisers tend to get impatient if you do not generate sales for them soon enough and may decide to discontinue their affiliate program with you, and you will get a message saying that "so and so" decided to suspend their affiliation with you and you will no longer be able to promote what that company offers unless if your website, traffic, and conversion rates improve). One last thing that you may want to be aware of about commission junction, is that it appears that there is a 6 month time limit for you to make at least one or 2 sales before you get booted from the network, and so if you have a low traffic or converting website, you may want to establish your web presense before joining cj and linkshare. Lastly, many affiliates at clickbank actually offer cool tools and services that you can take advantage of to help you to attract traffic, leads and sales, such as successful PayPer Click techniques, rebrandable ebooks, articles that you can share on blogs, participating ezine directories (of course, you can publish your own ezine article directory, and have full control about what goes on it, including affiliate links embedded in the articles), freebies (such as sample chapters in the ebooks and other goods offered), and author bios, etc.
You should try to set aside at least 20 hours a week into working on affiliate marketing, as you will need a functional website that converts, time to promote the site, post blogs, visit traffic exchanges, do budgeting, responding to emails, following up with prospects, making email newsletters (if you plan to do email marketing) and other typical office-related duties.

Pros about affiliate marketing

You can be your own boss

you do not need your own product to promote (though sometimes you can earn extra money by promoting your own stuff as well)

if you are good at it, you should make good sized commissions in no time (hence the $10,000 or more hype)

you never have to worry about processing orders, handle shipping, give refunds (though refunds do often come out of your commissions), or work directly with the company or merchant you are promoting.

networking can be a powerful key to success

some merchants offer valuable tools for success that you should take advantage of

Cons about affiliate marketing:

Success usually does not come right way (in other words do not expect to make million "over night" as advertisers often want you to believe).

you will need to supply your own website or adsense enabled blogs

it does cost money to market stuff, and typical costs includes: website maintanence, web hosting, advertising (especially paid advertising), posting press releases, ebooks, etc.

You will likely find yourself as a target of spammers offering you services, products, tools, etc for extra fees (somtimes hefty ones). Also, telemarketers may contact you as well and offer expensive services. Also, beware of scammers, as they might try to get a piece of your money as well by offering useless or overpriced stuff.

you are pretty much a salesman, and so you are the type of person that will need to be able to get people to buy from the companies, products, etc you are promoting. The easiest way to promote stuff are via paid advertising services (though they tend to cost the most). However, that route can be pricy, especially if you are new. A cheaper alternative to that is via traffic exchanges, but you will need to be able to invest lots of time into those by browsing ads for credits (each credit is equal to one page view from other members of that traffic exchange, and the more ads your browse in a day, the more credits you get and the more visitors you get). Also, if you decide to invest time into free advertising techniques, whether it is via social networks, youtube, article submission directories, press release services, forums, etc, you will find that the terms of use (or TOS) can be a nuissance when it comes to promoting. At myspace, for example, advertising in general is frowned upon, at forums, you can only provide advertisements, links, etc via your signature file, and many forums do prohibit posting referral links even in your signature file, and you can only trade them through private messaging and/or your website. Some article submission directories will be more picky about you post on them than others (especially if there is any perception of promotion or self promotion). Self promotion can be restricted on some site, which can make it difficult to share your links with viewsers (or at least limit what you can share). Also, you can do email marketing, but there is a big anti-spam sentiment now days, you will need to have your own email capturing page and double opt in people who sign up for your mailing list to avoid spamming people. You can post ads via craigslist, but it appears that some of the users on there are wiered about flagging peoples' posts and may flag your post with or without cause (especially if there is any percieved terms of use violations, such as posting affiliate links, since "affiliate marketing" is restricted on craigs list). Obviously, there are ways to use these networking sites to promote your site, but the TOS at many of these social networking sites can be make it difficult to adequately promote stuff as you have to be able to indirectly promote something in a way that it does not get flagged.

Some affiliate programs will be easier to join than others, and some companies may get impatient if you do not get sales soon enough and drop you from their affiliate program, this tends to be a common thing at commission junction, and so you may want to be aware of that if you go that route.

It helps to have adequate web design skills and sales skills

Some marketing areas will be more competitive than others, and typically, the more competitive the field is, the harder it will be to get traffic and sales. This can be especially the case when it comes to search engine optimization (or SEO), as you will need to be able to build your web page useful key words that are not as crowded as others. Typically, the more broad your field is, the more competiton you can expect, and the more narrow and specific your field is, the less competition you should get, plus more targeted audiences. For example, if you are doing a website on golf, you will probably want to do a site on a more specific area in golf (such as talking about a particular golf course, drivers, special techniques, etc)
if you don't have much skill at promoting stuff, you will probably not make a whole lot of money with this.

On the next post, I will talk about mlms (or multilevel marketig) and paid to... sites (such as project pay day, paid to try, and others).

Web hosting firm Comparisons (part 3)

2008-11-21T10:37:00.001-08:00

this is my global domains hosted website: www.snohomishaffiliatemarketing.com

Ah yes, Global Domains international can be considered Multilevel Marketing meets web hosting. Global Domains International is a multilevel marketing opportunity that you can join for only $10 per month, and with the membership package, you get access to a good web hosting service, with easy to use web builder tools, being able to share your web pages with other users through forums and chatrooms, network with members of your up and downlines, and work together to promote your site as well as the global domains international opportunity. Also, if you are new at internet marketing, you might considr joining this firm and use their web hosting service, since you do get a bargain for $10 per month, can make professional looking websites, can share the site with other GDI members and non GDI members alike, giving you free visitors to your sites, and if like the service, you are automatically enrolled in the company's affiliate program, which runs on a downline system, where you will get paid $1 for each person you refer, plus additional commissions for each person your downline members refer as well, going at least 5 tiers. If you are good at referring people and your downline members are good at referring people, the money you make can add up quickly (hence the idea you can make $1000's with global domains international).

What you get:

- you can either get your own domain name or park one on the company's server

- automatic enrollment in the firm's affiliate program, which runs on a downline system

- you can open up to 10 different email boxes you can use, particularly for interacting with leads you get, downline members, etc.

- the web editor you use is Site Builder 3.0, which is a user friendly web editor tool you can use and make web pages.

- access to forums and chat rooms where you can interact with other members

- search engine tools

- you can use the traffic builder tool for an additional fee

- a squeeze page (which is your referral link, usually www.website.ws/[yourname]). My referral link, by the way is www.website.ws/ryansjones. You would use that link when promoting the serivce, and each time someone visits your link, enters their email, and watches the flash presentation enclosed in the link, you will get an email message from global domains saying that someone viewed yoru link, and that you will want to follow up with that person either via email or by phone. BTW, you will also get an alert whenever you get a sign up as well.

- traffic exchanges and downline builders tend to give global domains users free hits, and occasional leads and sign ups when used often and properly.

pros about global domains international:

- it is cheap to use, and you can make a fancy website through the site builder

- while the commission rate for referrals is low, if you are good at referring people and your downline members are good at referring people, you can make lots of money over time (and you earn money for each month your downline members remain with global domains international)

- the ability to share your website with other members, giving you some free traffic to your website and possible customers

- it is not hard to get leads, especially if you post your referral link on traffic exchanges and downline builders

- team work is encouraged, especially if you plan to make lots of money with this.

- if you join someone's downline, they can offer you support an advice as needed.

cons about global domains international:

- the emphasis is on a ".ws" domain, which can be a turn off for people preferring a ".com" or ".net" domain.

- there are mixed reviews about the company if you do a google search on them

- the fact that the company is a multilevel marketing firm will likely turn off some. Also on social networking websites like Myspace, promoting multilevel marketing firms do tend to be frowned upon, due to the many scam mlms floating around online.

- obviously, downline systems are not going to be for everyone. If you suck at referring people or have a sucky downline, you will probably not make much money with this opporunity.

-It will take multiple leads to get a sign up.

- most forums do not allow you to post referral links, even in your signature file, and so you will need to post your website instead

- the web builder tool does not have a whole lot of advanced features and is more for making short and easy to make web pages.

- there are plenty of legitimate mlms that pay more than global domains international (though they do tend to have a higher sign up fee)

Comparisons of Web hosting companies part 2

2008-11-21T10:05:00.001-08:00

website: www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com (soon to become known as the Snohomish Emall with links to over 100 different online retailers, internet marketing opportunities, etc).

If you are looking to make a professional looking website from scratch, with an easy to use web editor, Network Solutions just might be for you. With a even the basic package, you get a domain name, can post up to 1000 different web pages, get access to search engine tools, a built in stats page (where you can monitor visitors who visit your site) for an additional fee, a search engine submission tool, where you can submit your website to participating search engines through network solutions, and other features. In addition, networks solutions has a whois where you can list your business info and website information for other network solutions users to view and see when checking out your website, as well as access to a few social networks that are hosted by network solutions where you can share your website with other web masters with Network Solutions, exchange links and ideas, etc. One nifty feature about net solutions is that the pages you get come with frames and has a scrollable menu bar where you can post web pages in it and whenever people move their mouse over that bar, the menu bar opens and shows links to your other web pages. In addition, Network Solutions offers a wide variety of services aimed at helping you to get maximum visitors to your site, search engine optimization services, and domain name forwarding and transferring services, additional privacy and security for additional fees.

Pros about network solutions:

you can make a website from scratch using the web editor tools you are given
The search engine tools and submission tools can take some of the work out for you when it comes to submitting your site to search engines.
when coming up with a domain name for your site, network solutions offers a domain name wizard tool to help you find the best possible domain name for your site.
whenever you refer a friend, you get $50
The web editor tool you get is Image Cafe, which is a fancy web editor that allows you to post up to 1000 different web pages, has a wide varitey of design templates you can use, prebuilt widgets (such as a premade counter tool), forms you can post (such as submit a comment forms), prebuilt building block you can add to your site, as well as a menu bar you can build and post links on.
It is quite user friendly and one does not really have to know html to use it (unless if you plan to post banners, scripts, etc).

Cons about networks solutions

If you use the image cafe tool, you will notice that you do not have access to a header tag, and so it would be impossible to add your own content to the header tag (i.e., scripts, verification codes, etc)
if you prefer to make a website completely from scratch, using only html, this service is probably not for you.
1000 web pages are a lot of web pages, and most people will probably not use them all unless if they have lots of pages to post.
The company does have an affilite program (besides the tell a friend feature), but you do have to apply for it at commission junction, at www.cj.com and unless if you site has a lot of traffic or a good conversion rate (or the rate of visitors to your site that buy from your sponsors), it can be difficult to join. I tried to join their affiliate program but got declined probably because my site gets low traffic and has a low conversion rate.
You can only choose 25 keywords for your key word meta tag, and so you will need to choose your key words carefully.
There are plenty of services you can get to help maximize the performance of your website and get maximum visitors, but they can be pricey and may or may not help you. Also, the company actually tries to encourage you to register multiple domains with them, though you probably only really need one.

Cost of their services: $9 per month (plus a $19 start up fee).

Web Hosting Firm Comparisons (part 1)

2008-11-21T08:26:00.000-08:00

So, you want to make your own website eh? Maybe you want to make a website that talks about an orgainization you are in, maybe you plan to use a website for business purposes, such as advertising your products or services, or maybe you even want to use a website for affiliate marketing (or promoting products on behalf of others), or whatever. Of course, if you want to get a website, you will need to get a web hosting serivce, and as a fellow user with 3 websites on the internet: http://www.ryansjones.com/, http://www.snohomishaffiliatemarketing.com/, and http://www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com/, there are 3 different web hosting firms I am with, though I am also an affiliate of several other ones (including http://www.web.com/, http://www.yahoo.com/, and search daddy). In this web blog, I will share with you the three hosting firms what I am with, talk about my affiliated ones (it would not be fair for them if I don't share their services with you). Note that to avoid making the posts longer than they should, I will have to post the comparisons into seperate posts.

Common Characteristics of web hosting services:
- you get your own website
- you get a domain name
- some hosting firms allow you to make a website from scratch, while others have tools you use to create a site, as well as a few that are actually templated (or you get a pre-built website from them).
- If you like the web hosting firm you are with, most of them do have affiliate programs you can join and you can actually earn extra money by referring others to the web hosting firm you are with. Some firms require you to apply to join their affiliate program, while with others, you are autuomatically enrolled in their affiliate propgrams upon joining.

Web hosting firm 1: http://www.yourbizwebsites.com/

When I first got into the affiliate marketing business, I actually got my first website through them. You get one free website that has prebuilt content in it, though you can also get up to 10 more for an annual fee. The web pages you get are pre-made, which means that there is usually content already on it, though you can actually add to them, modify them, add your own pages, etc if you want to add to them. The service comes with a web editor, but you can add extra files, use html format, etc and the web editors you get actually has tools you can use to create your own description, title, keywords, etc metatag.

What you get with yourbizwebsites:

1 free web page (though you canget over 10 more for a yearly fee)
prebuilt web pages with links to a variety of ebooks covering 1 to 10 niches (depending on whether you settle with the 1 page or the 10 page package).
you automatically enroll in the company's affiliate program, where you will get $50 for every person you refer to yourbizwebsites (even if they only get the 1 free web page)
You will get your own control panel and ftp server, as well as one email box, where you can upload files, make your own html files, and store up to 100 mb of information.
you will be required to enroll on the clickbank affiliate network to monetize your website (since most of the pre-built content comes from clickbank associated merchants (i.e. Average Joe Marketer's The Money is in the Niche, Duvet Dollars, No nonsense body building, etc).
if you do the fast track package, you may get an opportunity to get a squeeze page for an addional cost (mine is at www.ryansjones.com/Videos), which is basically a sales pitch page that aims to entice your visitors to get their own website through yourbizwebsites, and also acts as an email address capture page, where you can get peoples' email addresses that you can email newsletters, and information on how to get their own web page through yourbizwebsites.
Although the services aren't cheap, there are representatives from yourbizwebsites that will call you, offering 1 on 1 coaching services if you need help with your site. The only downside to that is that most of the coaches charge a hefty investment to take advantage of their services (around $2000).

Pros about yourbizwebsites

the prebuilt content can be extra handy if you have thought about the affiliate marketing business and do not know what kind of website to make or what items to promote.
if you have the extra money, you might find the coaching services useful, otherwise if you are tight on money, one of the affiliate links you get is one for Average Joe Marketer's The Money is in the Niche, which is a nice ebook packages that pretty much asts as a tutorial guide for newbie internet marketers that I would recommend to just about any new internet marketer (it only costs $40 to get the ebook, by the way). You can get a copy at my website at www.ryansjones.com/business.html.
you can either promote the sites as they are or add your own content to them.
some of the niches you are given can be right up your alley. For example, are you an expert on dating and relationships? 3 of the sites you get via the fast track packages are all about dating and relationships. Or maybe you specialize in dogs/cats, 2 of the sites you can get viat the fast track package are on dog and cat training, where you can add your own content for selling dog and cat training supplies, books, and equipment.
there are free training guides that come with the package that you might find useful, including ideas on how you can promote your site, additional sources of income you can look into, ideas on how you can optimize your website for search engines, as well as idea on how you can get the most out of paid advertising sources like Google Adwords.

Cons about yourbizwebsites: (most web hosting firms are going to have their pros and cons by the way)

the niches you are given tend to be quite competitive and I would not recommend using yourbizwebsites if you are new, unless if you are familiar with what you are given to promote. For example, if you just go with the free package (where you only get one page), you will likely get one on internet marketing, which is perhaps one of the most competitive niches (a niche is the subject your website covers, by the way) out there in the online world, and unless if you are an expert at internet marketing, you may want to be careful about getting a page with them. Obviously, there are unexplored subniches in internet marketing, such as posting ebooks that have little or not publicity (typically ebooks at clickbank that have higher gravity tend to be more competitive to sell than te ebooks with lower gravity, where gravety refers to the number of affiliates that are promoting that particular ebook). I actually did the fast track package, and here are the niches I was given: internet marketing, building muscle, cat training, dog training, dating tips, get your ex back (or a page that aims to help broken up couples to reunite with each other), Save Marriage (aimed at married couples, whose marriage is in danger of failing), learning spanish, a site for realtors looking to profit from foreclosed homes, a page on weight loss, as well as a site on skin care. As you can imagine, lots of those subjects tend to be on the more competitive side. If you are an expert in these fields, then yourbizwebsites may be for you, otherwise, you will probably want to add your own niches to be successful with yourbizwebsites (which means that the fast track package will be a must for you since you will have access to all of the web hosting features available).
I have noticed that many websites through yourbizwebsites are almost identical to each other, and so if you want your site to get noticed, you will probably want to add extra content tot them to get them noticed and stand out from there rest of the crowd.
While on the sites you are given praise the products you are given to promote, some of them have mixed reviews and are viewed as scammy by some. For example, one product I was given to promote was for Google Snatch (comes with the internet marketing page), which is an ebook package that aims to make it possible it possible to use the google adwords paid advertising service for for "free". Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that you can really use adwords for free (and if you do, you will likely take a chance of getting banned by google sooner or later). Also, if you do a google search on google snatch, you will find that while there are some people that like the product, there are many others that hate it and say it is scammy. I doubt that all of the products are scammy, but there are two good ways around this: offer more variety of ebooks to promote (btw, I actually added several more ebooks to the dog training page, including 2 ebooks on golden retrievers, 1 ebook on bichon-frises, 1 ebook that talks about dog foood, and one one on the basics of dog training). Another advice for you is that you may want to put up disclaimers about products that either seem to be too good to be true or those that have mixed reviews. This way, if a person you refer to that site hates the product he/she is given, having a good disclaimer should reduce the chances of getting sued since with the disclaimer, you can warn your visitors about possible pitfalls of the product you promote and can say ("don't say I did not warn you about this") if they do. Also, if you add extra content from clickbank merchants, you will probably want to do some research on the products you are planning to promote because while you can host just about any merchant on clickbank (which is a nice thing about clickbank in comparison to say Linkshare and CJ, being able to become an affiliate of ANY ebook, company, etc as opposed to having to apply for the companies and product you want to promote via Linkshare or CJ), while most of the merchants have good intentions and sell marketable products, there are going to be some bad apples in the bunch, and so you will want to be careful about that.

Cost of the web hosting service: free if you just get the one web page, $150 per year (charged annually) if you get the "fast track" package.

New Affiliate Program Started

2008-11-18T01:44:00.000-08:00

I have been lagging in traffic lately with my website, and so, I have decided to try out a new method: to start a new affiliate program on my site.
Here is how it works:
I posted a tell a friend widge on my site, and it is a convenient tool for people to refer others.

In addition, effective today, I have decided to add an incentive for people to refer others to my website: www.ryansjones.com. In this affiliate program, each time a visitor refers a converting visitor to my website (or a visitor that buys from at least one of my sponsors), I will give that referrer a cut of the commissions I make. Initially, I will set the commission rate at 10%, but for high performing associates, I will raise the commission rate 5% for every 15 converting visitors they refer, up to 50% maximum. So, at 10% commission, if someone refers a person to my website and they buy say a $1000 at Toshiba Direct. I would get up to a $100 commission, but I would give $10 to the referrer via pay pal, which wil accumulate and pay out at least once a month. This will encourage people to refer others. Of course, here are some ground rules I have decided to impliment, as this should ward of scammers and the like
1. I will need to verify transactions
2. you will need to email me at ryansjones@hotmail.com with your name, email, website, etc so that I know who is a part of my affiliate program.
3. You will need to supply a website or ad enabled blog if you plan to do it that way. If you need a cheap web hosting service, you might consider joining Global Domains International (my referral link is www.website.ws/ryansjones). There it only costs $10 per month to have a website with them, and you automatically enroll in their affiliate program, which runs on a multilevel plan, where you get paid for each person you refer, plus additional commissions for each member your downline refers as well, boosting your earnings potiental further.
4. my trademarks are: "snohomish online ebook store and more" (for www.ryansjones.com) and snohomish emall for www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com. Please don't use those words in your meta tags or bid on them on google adsense (most affiliate programs have similar policies by the way).
5. The people you refer will need to buy from my sponsors through my affiliate link(s), otherwise it would be impossible to tell if you bought from my sponsors, and I would not be able to pay you.
6. Minimum pay out will be $10, which will be done via pay pal at the end of each month. By the way, I will need your pay pal email address to pay you, of course.
7. I will reserve the right to modify or terminate the program at any time (I will give you heads up on changes)
8. the affiliate term is at-will, and so you are free to terminate your affiliation with me at any time, with or without cause, and I have the right to terminate this program at any time as well with or without cause.
9. Please no spamming or scamming your referrals. That will save both of us unneccessary trouble.

Joined a few new affiliate programs today

2008-11-12T20:14:00.000-08:00

For now on, whenever I join a new affiliate program, I will post it in my blog just fyi, in case if any of you are interested in checking out (btw, you can find most of my affiliate programs an links at my websites: www.ryansjones.com, www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com, and www.snohomishaffiliatemarketing.com). Here are all of the programs I joined today:

1. Linkshare programs:
a. Microsoft's Window Market Place- yes, Microsoft does have an affiliate program that you can apply to join at www.linkshare.com (they actually have a similar program at commission junction as well, though they declined my application to that one unfortunately). Although currently I haven't posted my affiliate link to Microsoft's Window Market Place yet, I will probably add it to the internet marketing resources page I am creating at www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com, and one highlighted product that Microsoft is promoting at the Windows Market Place is Microsoft Office 2007. BTW, my father actually works at Microsoft as a support manager. He helps set up meetings, conferences, etc. If you want to check out what microsoft has to offer, you can visit my referral link for Microsoft Here.
(I applied for a few other affiliate programs at Linkshare today, but Microsoft was the only one I got accepted into for today, though I would be happy to post the other ones when approved).
Commission Juntion programs
1. http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-3238493-9458143 (http://www.biggerbooks.com/)
- bigger books is basically a web store that sells a huge variety of books to people on a variety of subjects. Currently, I haven't decided where to put their link and advertisement yet on my websites, though I might give it a home at http://www.ryansjones.com/ since it mainly promotes ebooks and similar stuff.
2. http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-3238493-10525157 (http://www.snagajob.com/)
- this will likely go in my internet marketing opportunities page. Snag a job is a popular job placement firm that aims to help people find jobs (which can be extra handy for people who are currently victims of the recession we are living in now and have been laid off or think they may get laid off soon). By the way, if you are an employer looking for more workers, Snagajob does have services that you can use to hire new workers.
3. Virility Health (http://www.virilityhealth.com/)- this is an online pharmacy that has a good sized catalogue of medication, vitamins, enhancers, etc that you can get. Virality is based in the United Kingdom, and also has affiliate and franchise opportunities available for people who want to invest in that business. I will probably put this link on my fitness and health page at http://www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com/. Note that if you decide to check out their pharmacy as an American, you may want to check with the US Border Patrol before ordering items, since they may have laws and policies about what you can have shipped to the US. I am not responsible for lost or confiscated items that you order. Also, shipping may be a little more expensive, since the goods would have to be shipped over seas. The referral for them is: http://www.tkqlhce.com/click-3238493-59202
4. Nature's Inventory- this is another online pharmacy, that sells special oils, minerals, and skin care products. If you have questions about what the company has to offer, there is a sales representative that will contact you va instant messenging, and will be glad to answer any questions you have about what they have to offer. I will post a link to this site at the fitness and health page at http://www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com/ My referral link to them is: http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-3238493-10566421
5. Wrecking Balm Tattoo Removal- this site will likely go in my fitnss and health page. If you have a tattoo you do not want, wrecking balm is a marketing firm that sells specialized products that aims to help you to remove a tattoo painlessly. Personally, I don't have any tattoos, and I don't need to try any of their products, but if you buy from them, I would be happy to get comments and testimonials from you to get an idea on how this product works, pros, cons, etc. My referral link to them is: http://www.kqzyfj.com/click-3238493-10525467
6. Entertainment Consumers Association (or ECA)- ECA is geared towards passionate gamers and is essentially a club you can join and share games with other members, write reviews, get advocacy when needed, interact with other gamers that have similar interests, etc. I don't really know too much about that group, but I do play video games, and will make a site with a link to them there. My referral link is: http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-3238493-10519388.
7. http://www.gogamer.com/ - go gamer is basically a web store that is quite similar to gamestop (who has an affiliate program at linkshare), ebgames, and others. There is a good sized catalogue of games, accessories, etc that that gamers can buy. I am actually a gamer myself, and might buy from them as the need arises. BTW, I also applied to EBGames today at linkshare, but they have not approved my application yet. I will be happy to post their link if they approve it. This site will likely go on a web page I make on video games. My referral link to them is: http://www.dpbolvw.net/click-3238493-171950.

8. Popcap games- pop cap games is quite similar to newgrounds, flashplayer, shockwave, and other online gaming networks. Like shockwave and real arcade, they have premium services for "upgraded" members, such as playing full versions of various games, and other perks. I will post there link on a gaming web page I make. Their referral link is: http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-3238493-10530353
9. http://www.gamefly.com/ - game fly is a well known online game rental web store where you can rent games and have them shipped right to your door. Online rental stores can be handy for renting games that might be hard to find at normal video stores. I will probably post this on a web page I use that is on video games. By the way, if you are a member at project payday, and want to look for a popular offer to complete, you can actually get a free trial with them. One of the freebie networks I am aware of where you can get a game fly free trial is at: the wiizipnadazilch freebie site (where you can get a "free" Nintendo WII by completing several offers and referring at least 6 friends to complete offers for them as well. You can do that at: http://wii.zipnadazilch.com/?referral=20160 (this is limited to 6 people, and so once the quota is met, I will remove this link). Note: when completing these "freebie" offers, you will need to adjust your internet settings to delete all cookies, accept all cookies and to turn off pop up blockers to get credit for completing offers. Thought I would warn you about that (since it may not work if you do so otherwise). Also, you will want to read the fine print on the offers you decide to complete, as most of them are going to have their catches to them (free trials, for example will require you to pay a fee to keep their services after x number of days, dating services usually require you to get an upgraded membership for credit, etc), if you know what I mean. Also, it appears that to get credit for referrals, you will need to keep the offers you complete (or staying "green") and encourage your referrals to "stay green" as well at least until after the quota is met, otherwise you may not get credit for the person you refer. Of course, if that sounds too complicated to you, you can check out game fly directly here:

10. Yahoo! Affiliate Program - this has a wide variety of of services for various kinds of people. They have many different ads (which I will probably post in different forms on a wide variety of my web pages), but here is one they have for Yahoo Personals, which is a dating network hosted by yahoo.

11. http://www.godaddy.com/ - this is one of several popular web hosting services by the way, and tends to be one of the hotter web hosting services for internet marketers. A few other webhosting services that I am an affiliate of are at: yourbizwebsites (you automatically join their affiliate program upon getting a website with them) at www.ryansjones.com/Videos, http://www.web.com/ and Global Domains International (my referall link for that is www.website.ws/ryansjones). I haven't used godaddy myself, personally, but if you want to check them out, you can get an account with them at: http://www.jdoqocy.com/click-3238493-10379064
12. Electronic Credit Card processing with with Electronic Transfer, inc - this is one of several payment processing firms for internet marketers who sell stuff. Another firm I am with that handles payment processing is http://www.1shoppingcart.com/. Service like this one can be handy if you are planning to be a merchant or start your own web store from scratch. I will likely post this link in the internet marketing resources page at www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com. Their referral link is: http://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-3238493-10409235

I hope that you liked these new affiliate programs, and will post more as I join new ones, though I will mainly post noteworthy to avoid making the post look long and to avoid making my blog look spammy.

Site Sell/Site Build it videos

2008-10-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

For any of you interested, here are some videos of the Site Build it / Site Sell program:

My mydollarshop store to close down at the end of November unless if there is more interest in it

2008-10-28T21:14:00.001-07:00

As you may know, I have a mydollarshop store at http://ryajone.mydollarshop.com/ and although I have had it since September 2008 and have had over 1400 visitors since it first started, I have yet to get shoppers coming through that are actually interested in what they have to offer. And so, I have decided that I will be shutting that store down at the end of next month (November) unless if more people start getting interested in it has to offer. I would love to keep it up and running indefinitely, but it does cost about $40 per month to run it, and if nobody is interested in shopping there, there really is no point in keeping it up and running. Of course, if more people get interested in what is offered there, I would happy to keep it up and running indefinitely.

Here is a picture of my store:

To start a new niche or not to start a new niche, that is the question.

2008-10-21T00:14:00.001-07:00

(one of the websites I got through yourbizwebsites)

I have been in the affiliate marketing business since towards the end of July, but although I have gotten lots of page views, impressions, and the occasional click or two, I have yet to start "converting" customers into buyers, and so it is starting to seem obvious that I will need to start looking into changing tactics on attracting visitors and referring them to various sponsors. I have been reading a quite of variety of internet marketing training guides, such as http://www.associatesprogram.com/, Average Joe Marketer's The Money is in the Niche (which is a nifty "getting started" guide that I would recommend to you new internet marketers out there (I posted a link to it at my websites at www.ryansjones.com/business.html), as it has lots of useful information on how to start and run a successful internet business, and other cool suff. One of the things I have learned from both is that I will need to find a profitable niche that I can effectively promoted and market. When I joined in the affiliate marketing business, I got an account with http://www.yourbizwebsites.com/ and took the fast track route and got 11 websites, all in hotly contested areas (such as dating tips, dog training, cat training, real estate, internet marketing, etc). Obviously, I don't know everything about dating and relationships, internet marketing, etc. but while I am adding my own spin to these websites at my other site at: http://www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com/ (such as a links page for internet marketers, links to online retailers for people into fitness and health, etc), I recently got another website through global domains international (the service there is actually cheaper than the ones at networksolutions and yourbizwebsites, at only $10 per month, with automatic enrollment in the company's affiliate program, which you can check out at www.website.ws/ryansjones), and when fully complete, that site will have all new material, including one on travel, and at least one or two whole new niches that would be interesting to a variety of audiences, etc. Of course, I haven't decided on a niche yet, but plan to come up with some ideas for the end of this week.

(Global Domains International hosted website under construction: www.snohomishaffiliatemarketing.com)

Of course some areas I am considering:

church related stuff
seattle area related stuff
video games
online retailers
sports
others

(stay tuned for my decision)

Pros and Cons about internet marketing

2008-10-14T13:16:00.000-07:00

Are you new at internet marketing? Here are some pros and cons for you to consider:

Pros about internet marketing

you can set your own hours
if successful, you can make a buttload of money (more than a traditional job)
put internet skills to use
network with other internet marketers
get marketing skills.

Cons:

it is more for experienced sales people - since you usually only get paid in commissions or paid leads
does cost money to start and maintain
best when supplimenting income with your "day job"
advertising can be tricky, especially at sites with strict antispam policies
not for everyone

New pages added to www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com

2008-10-10T16:12:00.000-07:00

Hey everybody, it is me again. I thought that I would let you know that I have just added a few more pages to my website. Hope you enjoy them. One of them talks about popular internet marketing resources out there, and another has useful links for fitness and health related stuff. While they are not yet fully complete, they do have content that may be of interest to you.

First press release made

2008-10-06T00:20:00.000-07:00

Tonight, I just made my first press release about my websites and hopefully, this will help spurn some interest. The link is at Press Release: New Online Business at your disposal, and more press releases will be made about this topic over time. Hope you enjoy it.

Changed the name of my business

2008-10-04T02:17:00.000-07:00

Originally, I named my website business, "Snohomish Niche Market", but after thouroughly reviewing my website and what it is promoting, I have decided to change the name to "Snohomish Online Ebook Store and more". Each of my websites have ebook packages that have good reviews from users, testimonials, links where people can get their own ebook, and get ideas on a varietyh of topics, including starting and running an internet business, getting advice on relationships, and many other subjects. In addition, my websites have links to a variety of online retailers, clubs, affiliate programs people can join to help better suppliment their internet marketing website business. Of course, there are ebooks and resources on building muscle, how to get an ex back, resources for realtors, etc. Currently, I changed the name at my networksolutions hosted website, www.snohomishpromotionnichemarketing.com and will change name at my other website at www.ryansjones.com later this week. I hope you all like that new name more, and hope that you enjoy it. Also, if you have products you want to review and promote on my website, I would happy to post them.

Criticism about anti spam policies

2008-09-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

Here is a scenario that many new internet marketers face:

-Sue decides to start an internet business where she sells cookies to customers
-Sue creates her web site and an order form at her website to process orders for shipping
-Sue needs traffic to her web site and does not have the extra money to spend on premium advertising services, such as pay-per-click ads, preferential treatment at search engines, etc. And so she writes a catchy classified advertisement about her website at craigslist
- The next day, Sue finds out that her advertisement was flagged and removed as spam

As you can see, one of the major issues that plague internet marketing is that anti-spam policies can make it difficult for people to advertise their online business effectively. One crowd that antispam policies can really be hurdle for are affiliate marketers (like myself) who promote products and services for others by creating a website, getting referral links at various affilitat programs and networks, and encouraging people to click on the links which refer the visitors to their sponsors' websites, as many networks prohibit stuff like affiliate marketing, trading referral links, and other essential advertising tools. I remember the other day, I am a member at a business forum website, and found out one of my sponsors (toshiba direct) was conducting a special promotion sellign laptops. I decided to create a thread to get word out about toshiba's promotion (which is still going on through the end of October by the way) so that if someone wants to take advantage of that promotion, I can give them the referral link to it (though I did not post it in the thread). About an hour later, I found out that thread was deleted.

Although there are some nice things about antispam policies and legislation, such as protection from garbage email, viruses, etc, they are not without their flaws, such as making it difficult for small business owners and internet marketers to effectively advertise their websites and services on various social networks and other services without getting themselves in trouble. And this is an issue that is created by many people who hate solicitations and advertisements. Here is an advice to those of you who hate solicitors, go to the companies that hired them and sue them so that they can't hire people to promote there products. In just about any marketing firms out there, employees are hired specifically to promote products, services and programs that firms have to offer, and if people just stop promoting their stuff just because a few people told them not to, then they would not be doing their job, would not make any money or meet their quota (if they are under either a quota or commision system), and could get fired sooner or later. At my job at Kohls, one of the aspects of my job description is that I am required to try and get at least one person to sign up for a Kohl's charge card (credit cards) per day, and so I have to go around and solicit people on that. In another job I have, I work as sales demonstrator for various qfc stores in the Seattle Area, and have to promote special products not only to earn extra money, but for the sake of job security. In fact, at one store I did, I wasn't really up for promoting cereal bars, and was asked to leave (though luckily it did not hurt my job security) because I wasn't actively promoting their products. Also, if you work as an affiliate marketer, companies are paying you to post ads on your websites or blogs, get traffic to your website or blog, and redirect traffic to their websites, and most companies with affiliate programs pay solely in either commission or lead basis (in other words, you only get paid for successful sales and leads). As an affiliate marketer myself, I would not be doing my job if I just sat around and waited for people to some how find my website and visit my sponsor links. I have to be actively promoting the site and the companies' products not only to earn extra money, but also to boost my standings with the companies I am trying to promote. Unfortunately, because of spam policies at many networks out there, it can be extra difficult to actively promote my sponsors' products and services or even to get visitors to my website(s) because you want to post an ad or spread the word about it, but when you try to spread the word about it online, not only can you get your ad removed, you also take a chance of losing your account privelages. Email marketing can have similar problems. You want to send email about your website, blog, online store, etc to friends and people who sign up for a mailing list, but take a chance of losing you account due to antispam stuff. And there are service providers that can blacklist you for spam if you are not careful enough (and some are stricter than others about that stuff).

Another area for criticism when it comes to spam policies is that search engines consider it spam when you list excessive keywords and lengthy descriptions about your websites in meta tags. However, if you are in charge of a search engine, you should know that competition is quite fierce these days when you try to make your website visible to various crowd. If you are running a business website selling resources to people needing help with business or internet marketing needs, for example, if you type in internet marketing or business resources in the search engines, you will likely go through countless search engine pages before you can find yours. And so for maximum exposure, one almost has to list lots of keywords in their meta tags to maximize chances of gettin seen out there these days.

With that said, there are some remedies to this problem:
1. there should be social networks out there that are aimed at internet marketers and advertising friendly.
2. Big social networks like facebook and myspace should create areas where people can exchange referral links and services without having to worry about the spam policies (myspace, for example strictly prohibits any sort of advertising, for example, which makes it extremely difficult if not impossible to get word out about your websites and what you or your sponsors have to offer). There is no excuse for big networking sites not to provide free services for small business owners or internet marketers where they can share their stuff with others or exchange links (unless if what they have to offer directly competes with what the networking sites have to offer or are actually scams)
3. Companies with affiliate programs and affiliate networks should be doing more to give their affiliates help and resources for advertising (such as creating links to their websites, talking about good and cheap resources for advertising)

4. Blogging networks should at least be more lenient about people posting links to their websites. Even here on blogger, I found out that the spam detection software tends to be fuzzy and can flag even the smallest form of spam, which can make it difficult to effectively talk about a business website and stuff, if there could be some leeway for people to talk about their website and what they are promoting, that would be nice.
5. Video services such as youtube should allow users to make one or two commercials about their websites and services.
6. There should be social networks out there specifically for exchanging referral links
7. Craigslist should be a little more marketing friendly, such as creating areas where internet marketers can share links and write catchy ads about their sites, affiliate links, etc.

In conclusion, while there are some pros to anti-spam policies, they can create extra burdens for even legitimate people trying to promote their websites and services and could be made a little more lenient. Search engines should allow people to at least list up to 100 key words in a meta tag to boost exposure, networking website should have free services where people can exchange links, products and services without fear of spam and anti-advertising policies. You know, here in america, we live in a capitalistic society, which allows people to run businesses without lots of restrictions, earn lots of money without having to pay excessive taxes, and being able to avertise stuff without having to worry about unecessary restrictions, and if we start adding excessive and unnecessary restrictions and stuff, then we might as well embrace a more restrictive system, such as socialism or communism. That is all I have to say for now.

About this blog

2008-09-27T12:16:00.000-07:00

Global Domains International is an example of one of the popular biz opportunities going around online these days. GDI is a network marketing firm that pays you to promote their web hosting services, as well as give you a do it yourself website to do as you please with it (can be useful if you are a webmaster looking to build a website on a low budget).

Hello and welcome. My name is Ryan Jones and I am a webmaster and am a part of a few affiliate programs as well as a few network marketing programes (such as Global Domains International). In this blog, I will talk about my career as an affiliate marketer/network marketer, show case hot videos in this niche, post honest and detailed reviews about some of the hot opportunities online, and educate you. As you are probably aware, despite the weak economy we live in today and the tight job market, there are plenty of ways one can make extra money, and the internet is full of real and legit opportunities to do so (besides all of the scams out there), and with this blog, I will talk about some of these opportunities.

There are plenty of hot opportunities out there and some ways you can make money online includes (but is not limited to):
- selling stuff on ebay
- promoting other peoples' products and services (affiliate marketing)
- join a network marketing firm and sell products and services you are givin to promote. You can also recruit sub affiliates and work as a team to promote one comany's producs and earn commissions off of both what you sell and what they sell.
- Joining a freelance network and doing odd jobs for people, such as commenting on an article, posting an ad on craigslist, etc. (such as Microworkers)
- Building a fan website about something you like (for example, the Xbox 360), write favorable reviews about products you like (for example, a book you like), posting a ref link to your favorite retailer(s), such as amazon.com and earning extra cash whenever people buy that product.
- Selling ebooks and similar products through clickbank. For example, if you were a body builder offering expert advice to people on how to build up their muscles, you read and review ebooks you might like (such as Vince Del Monte's No Nonsense Muscle Building) and earn hefty commissions whenever your readers buy it (with commission rates ranging anywhere between 10% and 75% of the sale, depending on the advertiser and waht is being offered).
- Browsing advertisements at paid to click sites and similar sites.
- Taking advantage of special offers (or gpt) sites.
- Selling your own produts on sites like craigslist, ebay, and amazon.
Or whatever.

Of course, making money on the internet is certainly not going to be for everyone, since it does take time, skill and even money if you want to succeed. You also have to be self motivated (such as taking the initiative to get things done), patient (you probably know that by now, making millions of dollars "overnight" when you join that MLM opportunity you have heard about on TV last night is definitely easier said than done), be willing to work with others (if you are the shy type, working online might not be for you), as well as being willing to take risks (especially given the politically correct world that exists online, such as writing a good ad on craigslist promoting your website/blog only to have it "flagged" as spam by overzealous members). Anyways, I look forward to sharing with you my thoughts and hope to get your input on these programs. BTW, have opportunities you want to rant about? Feel free to let me know.

Disclaimer about this blog and the opportunities presented in this blog

Per the new FTC guidelines, here are the disclaimers about this blog.

Obviously, web marketing opportunities are not going to be for everyone
You should research the company/opportunity you want to join. BTW, one resource I recommend for you is IM Report Card. IM report card is basically a business social network and has a huge library and database about many of the different income opportunities out there online and offers detailed information about them. Tells you what you are getting yourself into when you join a particular opportunity (for example, you want to join Herbalife, it helps to know what you are getting yourself into when joining).
Naturally, some people will make more money from these opportunities than others. Several factors that dictate your success rate includes: promotional methods (some will be more effective than others), traffic to your website/links (if you are promoting something online, and typically the more traffic you get the more money you can expect to make), what your conversion rate is (for example, if you are promoting a particular ebook ebook, are people buying it? Or are they just checking it out and leaving?), competitions (naturally, the more saturated the field you want to get into, the tougher it will be to earn), your budget, how committed you are, as well as other factors.
Also, make sure you check out the terms of service and policies, both about the opportunity you want to join as well as the sites you plan to promote on. For example, if you join google adsense, you agree to their policies (such as not encouraging people to click on the ads), or if you join a forum you want to promote on, make sure they allow links in your signature file (since many forums do not).
Also, I am not responsible on how you use the opportunities. For example, if you join a paid to click site and choose not to view ads, you can't expect to earn anything there (and no I can't click on the ads for you).