I have been mulling this over and have come to a decision regarding the future of this blog. I have decided that to continue maintaing two sites under this domain is rather pointless and rather than try to go through the longwinded process of changing platforms, which is fraught with potential disasters for the less techy, like myself, the best solution for me is going to be to merge all my content into the one site.

This will be accompanied by a complete overhaul of the design of the existing site at TheCaymanHost.com and the eventual demise of the pages currently residing here at the blog.

This is not going to happen overnight as it is still going to involve a lot of work, but it will probably mean the loss of the bulk of the comments on these posts. However the content, or at least most of it, will still be available. I say most because I am also going to prune some of the older archives and irrelevant or outdated material, of which there is probably a fair amount.

If you currently subscribe to this feed, I apologize and hope that you will head over to thecaymanhost.com and subscribe to the feed there. Obviously once the move is accomplished there will be no new content appearing under the current feed of this blog and I will gradually be moving all the content that I feel is still relevant and useful to the main site. So, if you notice posts disapperaing from here, you will likely find them over there, unless they don't make the cut!

Once I have imported all my posts to the main site, I will implement a permanent redirect to take care of all old links.

I apologize to my readers for this, but the time has come to reorganize TheCaymanHost and make things more manageable and hopefully logical.

My time with Nucleus has been a very educational few years and whilst I have been impressed with the software, it has fallen far behind Wordpress in terms of customization options and SEO to the point where short of paying a lot of money to a designer for a complete overhaul, I cannot improve the look and functionality of the site to how I feel it should be in 2010. The dated appearance and limited number of themes, plugins and other functionality available has certainly played a big part in my decision to move away from the platform.  Despite constant tweaking over the years, the design is simply not appealing and looks dated and irrelevant on the modern day web.

So far it seems that there is no reliable way to import the posts to Wordpress, so this is going to be a long and tedious process. This will probably therefore be the last post I make on this blog and also that a lot more of my archived posts will probably be abandoned to the mists of time than originally planned because it's going to be done manually, post by post!

If you currently subscribe to this feed please consider subscribing to the feed at the CaymanHost either in your RSS reader or via email. I would hate to lose you!

TCH

I've been testing many of the tools available through Skadoogle and although it's too early to say how effective they have been on the sites I'm using some of them on, the signs are encouraging in several areas.

All I would say is that when adding various codes to your sites, check to make sure there are no conflicts arising with other plugins etc. because certain tools did cause a few minor issues on certain sites of mine. Having said that, Skadoogle respond very quickly to support tickets even if you are a free member, so if you want to give them a try you'll have access to fast and easy help.

Once inside the members area you will find a lot of useful affiliate tools and it's all pretty simple to use, having said that it's also worth watching the instructional videos to make sure you understand the full range of options available to you.

If your sites are not making you the money you hoped for, try something new - Skadoogle is just one option you may find useful.

If you haven't yet joined the newsletter, you'll now find a convenient opt-in box top right of this page and you'll get a copy of CamStudio if you decide to opt-in - it's not Camtasia but it does a similar job without all the bells and whistles and without the $300 odd price tag.

Seller: Dan Feildman

"Turn Your Photos Into Cash" is a home study course about making money online through digital photography. Written for anyone who can use a digital camera, the course focuses on selling digital photography through stock photo sites on the Internet. The text and video formats allow different types of learners to make the most of the course.

Product Details:

"Turn Your Photos Into Cash" - The main course is a 129-page Ebook with the following chapters:

- Introduction

- Jumpstart Your Career

- Before You Begin

- Four Ways to Make Money with Your Digital Photos

- Five Secrets to Making More Money with Your Stock Photos

- Tips and Tricks for Taking Better Photos

- Tips and Tricks for Enhancing Your Photos

The product also comes with the following bonuses:

1. "Offline Opportunities Report" - A 34-page special report about offline ways to make money with digital photography

2. "Slash Your Learning Curve Using These Five Checklists" - Detailed checklists or cheat sheets guide the user through the essential points of the course.

The checklists are:

- What You Need to Make Money Online with Your Digital Photos

- The Legalities of Digital Photography

- How to Protect Your Photography

- How to Take Better Photos

- How to Improve Your Image Editing

3. "Five Action Steps Guides" - Step-by-step guide to make money through specific websites. The guides are:

- How to Make Money with iStockphoto

- How to Make Money with Stockxpert

- How to Make Money with CafePress

- How to Find Freelance Projects with Elance

- How to Make Money with Break.com

4. "Turn Your Photos Into Cash Mind Maps" - Excellent for visual learners, the mind maps allow the user to grasp the strategies at a glance. The mind maps offer an excellent overview of the course, and can be used to refresh the lessons in the user's mind. The 8 mind maps are:

- Complete Mind Map

- Introduction

- Jump Start Your Career

- Before You Begin

- Four Ways to Make Money

- Five Secrets to Making More Money

- Tips for Enhancing Photos

- Tips for Taking Better Photos

5. "Turn Your Photos Into Cash" Video - This is the complete home study course in either video or audio-only formats.

Format: The main course and first four bonuses are digital text files in the form of PDF. The videos are in digital Flash format. These can be either viewed online or downloaded into the user's hard drive. The audio version of the course is in mp3 format, which can be loaded into any mp3 player.

"Turn Your Photos Into Cash" was created for anybody who knows how to use a digital camera and has access to a computer with Internet connection. One does not have to be a professional photographer to understand and benefit from the course.

While it briefly discusses the technical issues of digital photography, the course really isn't about how to take digital photographs. It is about how to sell those photographs online and make money.

The course presents these marketing strategies in easy to understand language. Even complete newbies or amateur digital photographers will not be overwhelmed or intimidated. The strategies don't take a lot of time or energy to implement. The bonus cheat sheets, step-by-step guides and mindmaps make it even easier to actually take action and simply jump into making money with digital photography.

The video and audio formats will appeal to visual and auditory learners. That you can load the lessons into your mp3 player and listen to them on the go is a definite plus. Digital photography is a little-known work at home business model, particularly among those who are not professional photographers.

With "Turn Your Photos Into Cash," however, even amateur photographers with a little time and motivation can soon be making money with their photographs.

Where to Learn More: Turn Your Photos Into Cash

TCH

I signed up and was pleased with the simplicity of set up although targeting ads using keywords was sometimes a bit hit and miss. During the course of the year I tweaked a few things as I went along but the click through rate was always rather disappointing.

In addition to the text ads placed on this site there were plenty of other tools including your own storefront which, as a pro member was reasonably customizable and looked half way decent as well, unlike many more expensive CB stores.

When my renewal came up a month or so ago I decided against paying for another year of CBProAds membership. It's not that it's abad service but now that Clickbank are offering their own contextual ads it seemed less worth the investment than it did a year ago. It means the loss of my storefront and the loss of any future referral commissions but I didn't feel right about continuing to promote something that all Clickbank users can now get for free (at least the contextual text ads aspect).

I will say that the folks at CBProAds were some of the fastest when it came to paying affiliate commissions and never once did I have a problem. My earnings from the affiliate program outweighed the Clickbank sales I made with the system and in terms of ROI it was a real winner, netting me several hundred dollars over the course of the year without too much effort. I just think that with Clickbank's own advertising script now available for publishers, there does not seem much point in continuing with CBProAds, at least not based on the click through rates achieved on this blog and a couple of other sites on which I had it installed.

Overall however, a positive experience and a profitable little venture while it lasted. If you are looking for an easy to use system or really want a clickbank Storefront then they may well be worth a look although only really as an upgraded member and in terms of value, it's looking less attractive than it did 14 months ago.

If all you want are some text ads similar to Google Adsense on your pages you might be better advised to use Clickbank's HopAd Builder from within your membership area. Success rates with this will depend greatly on the content of your blog or website but for niche focused sites they can do reasonably well.

I can no longer keep up with deleting the number of stupid spam comments from so many people who are either using posting software or misguidedly paying for comments to be posted on their behalf in an attempt to gain backlinks. I have a life and better things to do.

As soon as I get around to it this blog will revert to nofollow on all comments with no exceptions. The people who try to game the system once again triumph in destroying a good thing for good people.

It's goodbye to DoFollow and that's a real shame. To those who continue to abuse the idea, all you will eventually achieve is the total disappearance of all dofollow sites, effectively destroying everything you have done. Clever or stupid? You decide.

TCH

The hosting directory was the target and the Wordpress site was down all over the weekend while frantic messages travelled between myself and my host. Finally this morning we got most areas up and running again but there was some damage done in the process and I'm still trying to restore some areas of functionality to various sites.

Why we were targeted in this way I have no idea, but the attack was swift and came with no warning whatsoever. I wasted a lot of time thinking that it was something to do with my Wordpress installation and to be honest the tech support guys were rather slow off the mark. 

I was completely baffled and only after downloading and checking my raw access logs did I see what was causing my domain to crash the server the minute it was enabled. Thousands upon thousands of calls every second from thousands of different IP addresses. Even after notifying my host of what I had found they seemed very slow to respond or even take any notice of what I was telling them, stubbornly sticking to the belief that it was a script on my site causing the heavy server load. 

This is the first time I have had cause to be disappointed in the response from their support system. Not only were they rather slow but they didn't seem to be very knowledgable either. Eventually my message obviously got through and someone considered the possibility that it was indeed an outside attack on the server and they looked at the box and confirmed what I had been asking them to check for. This was a full on and nasty DDOS attack that found a vulnerability somewhere and caused a lot of downtime for my domain.

Finally this morning my index file was unlocked and so far, things have been OK. However, I continue to find areas of my site that seem to have been affected by the whole thing and I'm not sure how or why.

A whole day has been spent checking and reactivating WP plugins and having a good spring clean. Many of the widgets have had to be re-installed and the site is slowly returning to the way it was before the attack. For some reason there were also some strange effects on this blog but hopefully I have now resolved them. If you do notice any strange behavior or non functioning areas please let me know.

As a result of this however, I did do some housekeeping and cleared up a lot of obsolete junk lying around in various places. I have also installed Bad Behavior on both the WP site and this blog. I made sure that every password was changed and beefed up in all admin areas just as a precaution.

My understanding is that there is little that can be done to prevent such attacks but I am sure my host will be looking at ways to prevent this from happening at their end and I will be having a conference with them tomorrow online to see what can be learned from the experience.

I always believed that such attacks were reserved for high profile and high traffic sites, but have learned the hard way that it can and does happen to anyone. What can you do as a site owner to prevent it? Well, it seems you cannot protect yourself completely but  I will say this - the security on my WP installation is probably far more comprehensive than the majority of blogs out there and it made no difference. Whether Bad Behavior would have stopped the attack I don't know but it certainly persuaded me to give the plugin a try, something I have always deemed unnecessary until now. I recommend you consider using it too, if you don't already. Anything you do to make things harder from these internet vandals has got to be a good thing.

It's been a four day nightmare that I can only hope is now behind me.

TCH

If you are or have been involved in internet marketing for any length of time, or even if you haven't, you've probably at least seen examples of what I'm going to write about today.

I'm going to cover several points in this post

1) Marketers who speak with forked tongues

2) Marketers who patronize their so called "valued" subscribers

3) Marketers who forget that credibiilty is easily shattered

4) Marketers who believe that to mislead or outright lie in pursuit of a dollar is the acceptable norm and is actually fiendishly clever.

The email I recieved was one in a familiar vein, that went something like this:

"If you missed the launch of product blah blah....."

"It sold out in fifteen minutes so don't bother visiting the link because they've all been disabled...."

"BUT, I am going to do you a huge favor! I'm going to give you a copy entirely free, all you have to do is...."

OK, at this point I'm going to say that this kind of ridiculous pop psychology approach to marketing really annoys me although I concede that it probably works on a proportion of the people out there or they wouldn't do it.

Sold out? Really? A digital video information product that is sold out?  So they have no more copies of these videos, they destroyed the files themselves or did someone break into their homes and steal their hard drives, raid their hosting company and carry of the servers in the dead of night?

Maybe that is what happened but surely they could contact one of the mugs, sorry, customers, who bought it and ask them for a copy, or am I being naive here? Where is my free copy going to come from? It's all very worrying.

OK, so they've taken down the links on the salespage temporarily. Let's be honest here folks, we all know it will be back up and running in the near future, if it's such a great seller why would you stop selling it? It's not a membership site or a software product, it's just a bunch of videos.

So, I think we can say that heroic email marketer is guilty of sins one through four above already, but not satisfied with this he makes it worse with his special offer to me, his "valued subscriber".

Now remember, although it is sold out, he is going to give me a copy for free. Lucky me, I can't wait, it's too much excitement for a hot and muggy Sunday afternoon in the Caribbean. He tells me that ALL I have to do is take a trial of another Clickbank product for just $4.95. As it's a product I'm very familiar with, I already know that after taking that trial period I will have to hand over a monthly membership fee of $67.00 should I want to keep using it. I also know that the product in question pays a healthy recurring monthly commission to affiliates.

Now, lest we forget, he is doing me a favor, not the other way around, so of course the email neglects to mention any of these pertinent facts.

This is marketing at its lowest level. I don't care what labels the promoter might put on it - bonuses, deals, never to be repeated, you'll thank me forever etc. etc. The truth of the matter is that it is good old fashioned bullshit designed to trick the unwary or inexperienced. The product he is trying to sell, in order for you to get something for "free", is not for the inexperienced either, something I also know for a fact. It's not a bad product, but as usual the sales copy skims over a lot of the facts with a lot of these $$$$$$$! Besides, doesn't something stop being free the moment you hand over money?

My point is this - if you are new to the whole internet marketing hooplah, don't be taken in by people like this who are the reason that marketing online is so damned hard a lot of the time, and please, whatever you do, don't think these kinds of tactics are the only way to succeed and are something you should be emulating.

Find some decent and helpful people to learn from and help others by passing on your knowledge and experience.

For this subscriber, it was a very quick bye bye to that list and I hope I'm not the only one either. Why build a list and completely destroy your credibility with emails like this? (For information on how to use email marketing in an ethical and non-scummy way I recommend you read the New Age Email Marketing Report)

If you genuinely feel that life is too short to live it honestly and don't believe that there is more to life than easy money on the internet, or anywhere else, then you won't care what I think. The "nice guys finish last" philosophy might help people like this guy sleep at night, but do you really want someone like that to get their grubby hands on your hard earned money?

Think about it. That's all I'm saying.

PHOTO CREDIT: ATENCION

No, I'm not going to retract what I have said previously, I still believe Twitter is a kind of love/hate thing for me, but I have learned a lot more since last writing and much of it is worth sharing. This is not a "do it my way" "do it this or that way" type of offering, just a few more things to share and disseminate to those struggling to find their Twitter comfort zone.

So many people are talking about Twitter that it is fairly easy to find answers to most of the questions you may have, and it seems there is always something new to learn.

My use of Twitter on a daily basis has seen my network grow steadily and there have been no real secrets to this happening. If you participate and seeek out like minded people it is almost inevitable. Yes, there are ways to accelerate the size of your network and I've tried a few of them. Like most new users my choices were not always wise when I first started out, but I have since discovered some very useful and powerful tools.

Hint, many of the scripts that require you to Tweet a message advertising the service are not well received by many but it's up to you regarding the use of individual programs.

However' learning as you go has always been my preferred method online and it will be the same for most new Tweeters. So, let's get onto a few gripes first...mostly everyday things on Twitter.

(These things irritate a lot of people but if you think they are things that will work for you I'm not going to stop you - the Twitterverse is a land of free speech to my mind).

I have come to agree with the overriding philosophy that Twitter is first and foremost about getting involved and interracting with your network. I have struck up some really cool conversations and met a lot of people by participating actively so as far as I'm concerned it was time well spent. By the same token, the mistakes that so many make, seem so blatant and obvious (and we're talking strictly marketing here).

An experienced eye can soon tell the people using services like TweetLater that queue messages and post them on a schedule set by the user who will doubtless be off doing other things with no intention of ever spending time on "social" Tweeting. For them it's just an advertising medium. The fact that their Tweets are monotonously uniformly spaced and are always the same sales messages every day is, I would suggest, guaranteed to turn people off. It's the good old scattergun approach, probably delivering the same old carnage in terms of results.

It's a sloppy tactic and it's probably doomed to failure.

Then we have the "liars". Yes there are lots of them, so let's be frank shall we? There are many examples of this type flowing through the stream of Twitter.

Affiliate links blatantly posted with accompanying false claims "I'm making XYZ a week with this crap and you can too...."usually followed by a hoplink. Alternatively, "I've suffered from XYZ infirmity for years but this cured me....(another hoplink).

Now, if you want people to trust you and buy something on your recommendation, lying is not a good start. Speaking in the first person when it is obvious you have never done anything more than troll your way through the Clickbank marketplace and grab a hoplink is marketing ineptitude at full throttle. And let's face it people, who believes someone who has made a fortune last month, reversed his balding, lost 500 pounds, given up smoking and perfected his golf swing all at once? That's some dude.

Then we have those promoting Twitter tools to explode your following. If you have only a small following yourself how do you think this looks? Be very careful with your reputation, because online, it's often all you have.  I know people are looking for simpler ways to build their accounts, but if you behave naturally and talk to others, your following will grow "organically". Be patient or spend lots of money on a pro tool like Hummingbird (see resources below).

Along the same lines are those who brag about success but forget that it is easy for someone to do five minutes of research and blow them out of the water. Prime example was a young lad (if his avatar is to be believed) pushing several sites promising marketing riches and the like. On inspection, each site was an early 90's cookie cutter template with a few PPC ads slapped on and content written by someone probably more accustomed to eating Farley's Rusks and peeing in their Huggies. What's more, the sites were receiving zero traffic, or as close to zero as you can get.

More disturbing however was the individual's fawning and retweeting of a so called "guru" by whom he has obviously been conned into parting with money probably better spent on a college fund, for information worth absolutely nothing. Said guru/marketer was also busy making claims for another of his devotees sites regarding levels of success, totally debunked by looking at the site's statistics.

Now, as I've said before, far be it from anyone to tell anyone that there is a correct way to behave on Twitter, that annoys me just as much, but there are right and wrong ways to behave in life and those should really carry through to what you do on the internet. Yeah, some hope I know but it's worth saying.

On the upside, I have also met some cool people on Twitter and have found some great uses for it. It can be fun, if time consuming, and from a marketing perspective it is certainly worth incorporating into your efforts.

Yesterday I posted a tweet that was picked up by SEO master AndyBeard and the resulting response by way of sales was quite remarkable. Not many high profile users will give you the time of day like Andy, but, if someone with a large and relevant following knows you and decides to press the right buttons, the benefits can be delivered very quickly on Twitter.

I've posted some interesting but by no means extensive, resource links below for further reading. Ultimately Twitter is rising in my list of priorities and I'm now suggesting that maybe it should in yours too.

Oh, and don't forget to follow me @Caymanhost and get to meet some other cool marketing Tweople

Useful Twitter Links

Creating Multiple Twitter Accounts With One Email Address

Learning Twitter (Hashtags, Whales etc)

HummingBird Pro Twitter Tool (expensive but powerful) Best For Those Wanting To Build Networks Fast

Brute Force Twitter - Another network building tool (untested)

Twitter Salvation - Twitter For Small Business Users

Tweeting Too Hard - Tweets and Tweople Lampooned 

Qwitter - Monitoring Twitter Unfollowers On Your Behalf

Exit Tweet Generator (For Webmasters Wishing To Promote A Specific Site)

MrTweet - recommend your friends to others

Twitter Business Cards

File Twitter - Easily Share Files With Twitter Friends and Followers

Twitter Grader - Find Out How You and Others Rank

Tweet Backup - If You Really Want To Backup Your Twittering

Twitter Graphics - Excellent Selection Of Free Twitter Buttons and Badges

Keeping Up With All Your Friends & Followers Try Seesmic Desktop or TweetDeck

Having used Twitter for the past few months, I have plenty of observations, some of which will doubtless ruffle a few feathers and cause argument, but these are my honest opinions and conclusions as a Twitter user.

On Twitter you will find a large number of idiots, as well as a large number of insecure and opinionated people. Of all the social networking sites I have ever used, Twitter definitely takes the prize for having some of the most obnoxious internet policemen types. What makes me say this? It is the Twitter Horn Tooters, of which there seem to be an endless supply. The one thing that most of them have in common is an ulterior motive or an axe to grind.

By way of a few examples, here are some of the things that I find most unsavoury about some Tweeters.

The Rule Makers - these are the kind of people who feel they have a right to tell everybody else what they can or cannot do with Twitter. What is often noticeable about these types is their blatant "do as I say, not as I do" ethos. The world is full of them and so, alas, is Twitter. It is sorely tempting to tell them simply to **** off, something you would more than likely do in the real world.

These are the people who somehow believe that you can apply the word "spam" to anything and everything that they don't agree with. Newsflash, no Tweet can be considered spam, because you elected to "follow" the person who sent it. In effect you opted in and if you don't like it, you can opt-out just as quickly. On Twitter it's called "unfollow".

Another favorite pastime of the Rule Makers, is to belittle anyone whose follower numbers are less than theirs, somehow making the leap that they are superior in almost every way to whoever they are attacking based on this idiotic premise. Additionally of course, they will attack those who are not building their Twitter following the "right way" and throw out the tried and tested spam arguments, the holier than thou protestations against anyone who has the audacity to try and use Twitter for any kind of commercial or personal financial gain.

Of course, most of them have no intention of trying to open anyone's wallet, they are the picture perfect example of altruism and will often go as far as to tell you how they "value" their followers and dream of only good things for them, whilst extolling the virtues of their latest products and services, naturally, because they genuinely care about the thirty thousand people who follow them. You have to ask, why would anyone want a list of thousands of followers if it was not for business or commercial purposes? Have you ever known a person who had thousands of friends? Didn't think so.

While on that subject, do you really believe that someone with thousands and thousands of followers is even remotely interested in you and what you have to say? Do you think they are ever going to see one of your Tweets, let alone enter into any sort of dialogue with you? In short, are you their friend, their equal? Not in their eyes, which brings up an interesting point in the chosen terminology of Twitter.

"Followers", was the word chosen to describe your network of names on Twitter. Followers, think about that. You can see why it appeals to a certain type of person, and you could draw some pretty ugly comparisons had you a mind to. Those who obsess about the size of their following, those who believe that this somehow bestows upon them some kind of status and importance not enjoyed by the mere mortals who follow them (like sheep?).

Let's move on to another class of Twitter user, usually a bit cleverer than the rule makers, these are the kind who are selling the idea that Twitter is the next big marketing holy grail. Unfortunately, this is usually in an attempt to sell you the latest greatest Twitter fad, guaranteeing to "explode your following and therefore make you rich overnight.

Come on! This is obviously blatant hype and untruths - let me qualify however. I'm not saying that Twitter is useless as a marketing tool because there are plenty of people who have integrated it into their marketing and been very successful. My guess is that if you are in the right niche and target the right people it can work very well. I also think that just like any form of marketing you need to establish yourself with your audience and if they like and trust you they may eventually buy some of the things you recommend to them. However, if you think that just adding countless numbers to your follower count is going to make you a huge online success I'd think again.

People will lie to you online, particularly to try and sell you the latest, greatest guarantee of wealth and success. Think before opening your wallet.

Twitter also has some major flaws as far as I can see. Trying to keep up with even a few hundred people is virtually impossible. Using a service like TweetDeck or other third party applications will soon see you exceeding the flow of tweets allowed. These people with thousands of followers are extremely unlikely to be paying attention to what you are twittering about because it's not humanly possible to keep up with everything. I can fire up Tweetdeck and within a minute I've exceeded the API's allowable traffic and that means I see no new Tweets until an hour has passed.

I follow one or two people whose mailing lists I have been on or am still on, or bloggers whose prose I continue to read. Those kind of Twitter users, i.e. those with an already established base of customers/readers can continue with those relationships via Twitter and in that way it is another useful communication tool.

If you're starting from scratch though, don't expect miracles, that's all I'm saying.  

Image Credit:  Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten

It's not often that you find yourself thanking a pathetic spammer but on this occasion one such individual did do me a favor.

He or she has been posting countless spam comments using the same IP and email addresses despite my attempts to block all comments from said IP. Today I log on to find a slew of offensive and identical comments the person had tried to post to my web hosting directory. The individual in question, and I hope you are reading this post, is obviously a moron and has not yet figured out that spamming blogs is a fruitless and damaging exercise, particularly on blogs that have comment moderation turned on.

I am glad that they decided to post on one of my Wordpress sites, giving me the opportunity to send all of them to Akismet, which, unfortunately I cannot do on this NucleusCMS blog.

Again, if you are reading, pea brain, you are now officially a spammer and Akismet will send your nonsense straight to the spam filter of any Wordpress blogs you decide to comment on in future. Way to go eh? You dummy.

However, I do need to thank you for pointing out that the comments on this blog had somehow reverted to nofollow, something I was unaware of until your vitriol landed in my inbox. It turns out that the plugin for Nucleus had ceased to work after updating my installation of the platform. It has now been fixed with a bit of manual coding, so thanks for bringing it to my attention. 

A polite email via my contact form would have been preferrable but you are obviously ignorant as well as stupid.

Anyway, apologies to my genuine commenters, your link love has been restored and I apologize for the error.

For the idiot spammer may I refer you to the following posts on this blog. Maybe you will learn something. If a blog has a comment policy, try reading it and if you want to participate here rather than try to use it as a link directory to your low rent sites, all you have to do is follow the suggestions right above the comment box. It ain't rocket science.

Blog Comment and Trackback Spam Part 1

Blog Comment and Trackback Spam Part 2

Blog Comment and Trackback Spam Part 3

I should start by saying that the world of currency trading is a complex one and it takes time and study if you are to have a chance of becoming successful. Having said that, there is a lot of information out there for beginners designed to make things easier - so much in fact that it can often have the opposite effect and leave potential traders mired in doubt and confusion. I'll give a couple of recommendations a bit later of the places I have found most beneficial in the learning experience.

I should also add that I am in no way shape or form an experienced Forex trader, but I have been doing my homework with a view to taking it up seriously at some point in the future. At the moment it is not a core business of mine, but a venture I have embarked upon in a limited way. More of that in a bit.

In my studies I have noticed several things about Forex, the people it attracts, and some of the many pitfalls encountered by the inexperienced.

Forex is often touted as a way to quick riches, an easy way to make large amounts of money online and a panacea for all financial ills. If you believe this, then you are probably going to be one of the many who get burned in their eagerness to turn your fortunes around in a short space of time.

So, what is currency trading and how do you get into it? In very simplistic terms, Forex (Foreign Exchange) involves the buying and selling of currency "pairs", for example the US Dollar and the British Pound, or the Euro and the Japanese Yen etc. in a variety of combinations. Traders buy or sell these pairs, effectively speculating in a rise or fall in the price of one or the other with the aim of profiting from the trade. For more detailed explanations see the recommended sites at the foot of this post. 

The currency exchange is open 24/7 and unlike the stock market there is no physical "currency exchange". Money is traded electronically by banks, companies and individuals all around the world, the market opening on Sunday night and not closing again until Friday afternoon. Obviously there are busier times than others, in particular when the three main markets are open, those being in New York, London and Tokyo.

Currency trading was once the province only of those with millions of dollars available to them but with the advent of the internet the market opened up to a whole new range of speculators in the 1990's.

So, there is a very brief background. For individuals wanting to try their hand at currency trading, all you need nowadays is a high speed internet connection, some money to invest and the services of a broker. Don't be alarmed, there are a huge number of brokers available online today and signing up is made very simple, because all of them are competing for your business, no matter how small a fish you might be. You can sign up with a broker online and literally be trading in a few minutes.

OK, let's stop there for a minute. Yes, it is very easy to get started, but rushing into Forex is a recipe for disaster for the inexperienced. Many online brokerage services now offer new account holders the ability to trade with virtual money. This is a major step forward because now, beginners can start learning about fundamental and technical analysis, place trades, understand trends, and do it all in real time without risking any of their own money. There are plenty of people out there who have no desire to risk any of their own cash and just "play" in these virtual trading arenas for fun and even occasionally profit by winning competitions and the like. Nothing wrong with that, and for the online brokers, every single "player" is a potential trader of the future so they don't mind the players either.

At this point I should explain that there are no commissions as such payable on trades. The brokers earn their money through something called the "bid-ask spread". Basically each time you make a trade, there will be a cost to you called the spread which will vary dependent upon several factors including the amount of your trade, the leverage you apply and the currencies being traded. Just remember that the spread will be deducted from your eventual profit or added to your loss. Sounds like a commission but "you say tomato and I say tomahto" etc. so just be aware that every trade you make will cost you the spread amount and your profit is gross of this fee.

You can open an account with a broker for less than a hundred dollars nowadays but here are a few few basic cautions to keep you rooted in reality.

1) Opening an account and trying to trade with $50 is not going to make you rich. It can be done, but it certainly won't make you gazillions of dollars and it really can disappear in a few horrible seconds if things go against you. Most people will tell you that starting with less than $1000 is a waste of time but like many things, it's a matter of opinion.

The fact that you can open an account for a minimal sum is really only because they want your money :-) 

2) Whatever you deposit into your trading account, it must be money you can afford to lose. Seriously. Don't trade with your household budget.

3) Trading without any kind of plan is nothing more than gambling and this approach will see you get burned with Forex. You need to spend time learning how it all works and then planning your moves.

4) Leverage - this is basically what allows you to control much larger amounts of money than you actually have, in order to benefit from the relatively small moves in currency values. An example: You decide to trade a pair and put up $25 and the broker allows you to leverage this amount by X100 X200 or X400 for example. This means that you can multiply your money by up to 400 times i.e. $10,000 and trade with this inflated capital.

Before you get too excited at all those zeros though here is the reality again. Although you can never lose more than your investment ($25 in this case) and there is no limit on your profit, trading with such a miniscule amount is not very wise. Currency prices fluctuate constantly, going up and down often countless times a minute. This is a huge problem if you are only putting down very small amounts, because even if a currency price is generally trending in your favor, any small dip or rise against you will very quickly "bust" your investment.

If you go for high leverage/higher risk, the cost on the spread will likely be a fair chunk of your margin. Let's say in our example the spread is $9.50 - that effectively reduces your $25 to only $15.50 and if the pair you are trading takes a sudden dip, your trade can be over in seconds, as soon as you are down by $15.50 the trade will close out and you lost all your money.

The fact that the trend picks back up and continues as you had cleverly predicted matters not, because you are out of the game and watching the trade go back to its nice upward trend that would have resulted in a profit for you will be downright depressing. If you go and play with a practice account somewhere and try it, you will see exactly what I mean - you can be watching your profit, sipping your coffee, feeling smug and bam! The price dips drastically for a few seconds and it's over for you before you even have a chance to swallow.

So, trading with very small amounts will not make you rich, and it is doubtful you will make any real gains. Just because it's available does not make make it advisable - remember, the broker gets paid whether you win or lose.

As with most things, the greater the risks you take the higher the potential gains, but also the higher the potential losses and it is said that over 90% of people who trade Forex do not make any money and, in actual fact, lose money

Approached with the right mindset, a willingness to study and some patience and thought, there is no reason why you should not start trading Forex though. If all of the above makes you think that it's all bad news, it isn't and you can make money with a relatively small amout of capital if you are careful.

I know because I've done it myself, so let's end on a cheerful note. One morning last week I got up, turned on my PC, checked my various accounts and headed over to my trading site. I was waiting on the London market to open and felt that I had spotted a good potential trade. I placed a trade using $100 and leveraged it to the maximum allowed and within fifteen minutes I had made a profit of almost 200 dollars. Needless to say I closed the deal and took my money.

When looked at in these terms, it is hard to believe that earning $200 a day in any job I could get nowadays would involve a lot of work, but that one little trade earned me a day at the beach and a six pack to celebrate. Could I do that every day? Well, I dont try to be honest and the truthful answer is "probably not", because you are never going to win every trade you make, even if you're the very best. I think one of the biggest secrets of not losing too much is to never be too greedy.

Big time investors will probably chuckle at this point but if you're playing with a small chunk of capital, just don't expect to give up the day job after a few weeks.  If you're content to make some useful extra money though it can be done.

Reality check - the next day, I got up all full of confidence and placed a careless trade to see $100 of my capital gone in a matter of 2 or 3 minutes. Yes, it happens very quickly on the Forex and fortunately I pulled out before too much damage was done. But the fall on that occasion was so fast that between clicking my mouse a couple of times the loss had become even greater than the point I decided to quit. Too small an investment, and too hasty a trade with no real planning or research. Bad idea.  

If you're making $100 plus a day on Adsense I'd stick with that (zero risk) but if you're loooking for alternative ways to generate income online Forex might be another avenue to pursue. Just be realistic in your expectations, visit the places I recommend below and you stand a good chance of doing it right and realizing some profit from the Forex.

The last "real" job I had paid me a lousy fifty pounds a day on average in the UK - less than seven pounds an hour and I worked a lot of hours, often six days a week. For me, to be able to make a couple of quick and profitable trades that net me up to $100 in a day, I'm happy enough, even if I can't do it every day. I decide when I'll take my money if I'm in profit - if in the space of an hour I've made $20 or $50 on the deal and had promised myself that's where I'll quit, then I do, even if the price looks set to go even further in my favor. I believe in quitting while I'm ahead and a good day's pay is all relative after all.

Longer term trading is for those with generous capital and a lot of skills and they can earn/lose big money. That may sound such small time to more experienced traders, but in these hard times every penny counts. For most of us, taking the "slow and steady wins the race" is a necessary part of learning to win far more often than you lose. If you have the luxury of being able to sit at your computer and monitor your trades for every second that they are open it is possible to close them the moment things are looking good or turning for the worst.

OK. don't get the idea that trading currency is easy - it isn't but it is possible and it can be a lot of fun, especially if you have an analytical mind. Some people will tell you it's gambling, and for many people it is and that's why they lose money.

If you are interested in finding out more, probably the very best resource on the internet for beginners to Forex trading can be found at Babypips.com. I learned a huge amount from spending time at their site, all at my own pace in their "Forex School".

Then, if you would like to try your hand at trading with virtual money, I have found this site to be the easiest to use and learn as a currency trading beginner. The biggest problem with it is reliability and it can sometimes be unavailable due to server and software issues, but fortunately this doesn't extend to people with real accounts trading real money as the real accounts run on different servers. You can register for your free Forex practice account here. If you eventually decide to go for live trading it is simple to fund your account and you can even use Paypal for deposits and withdrawals. However, I recommend if you are serious you do your homework and find a good broker and trade using the excellent MetaTrader4 platform

The downside of the Etoro platform is that the charting features are not much use, and it won't appeal to a serious trader because of it's cutesy animations and interface. You can find excellent free forex charting at various places including:-

Live Forex Charts at Forex Capital Markets

Free Forex Charts at XE.com

FreeForexCharts.com

DailyFX.com Free Live Forex Charts

However, if you decide to take up trading seriously, with your own money, you would be better off finding a more serious platform and a broker recommended by more experienced traders. You can find plenty of feedback on how to find a broker and all the trading platforms available at Babypips.com and I recommend reading through their forums if you are a beginner. Personally I think Oanda.com is one of the best for your first account and the free demo is very user friendly.

You will also find daily Forex news at DailyFX.com and ForexTV.com which are both good places on the web when you start trading and need up to the minute economic and financial news that affects the currency markets.

One last tip, when or if you open a practice account, trade as if it were your own money and keep in mind how any losses or gains would really affect you. Just because you are given $50,000 to play with doesn't mean you should use it as it will skew your perception of what your chances and results will be if you start trading for real. If you are thinking of investing $1000 or even just a couple of hundred, play with those parameters and learn what you can realistically expect. Make sure you understand margins and leverage too, because they can bite you very hard.

You can also find a large range of Forex tools, training material and software here

So that's your very basic introdution to tr,ding currencies online, I hope that you have found this post informative and a refreshing difference from my regular menu. There is a lot to learn before you should consider trading for real so don't ever believe that it is something you should jump into overnight. Your comments and thoughts are always welcomed.

Footnote: I have had a few emails asking me for recommendations and what I use etc etc. I'm afraid that it's not something I like to get into because Forex is not for everyone and I don't wish to be held accountable when someone loses all their money! All I will say is that I use MetaTrader4 as a platform and yes, I do use an Expert Advisor, but I steer well clear of auto trading robots, most of which I don't trust at all.

With the launch of Easy Video Producer, the answer is a resounding YES! Joel Therien, president and CEO of the hugely successful Kiosk.ws, has released a state-of-the-art software package that online marketers are going to love. The program automates the process of recording and embedding video into affiliate marketing web pages with opt-in form templates and built-in backend auto-responders. What is uniques about this is that the software package is being given away for free.

Easy Video Producer is a feature-rich software package that not only records video from your computer's web cam and automatically encodes the file for insertion into any web page, it will also allow you to insert the captured video files into a selection of stylish video templates which are also included for free in the giveaway package. The beauty is in its simplicity as it is very user friendly, requires no technical knowledge and makes video sharing available to everyone.

You can also import video files from other sources to embed into the templates with a couple of mouse clicks.

The look and feel is crisp and it has a very user-friendly interface. All in all, the program is quite impressive and definitely something that most people would be more than willing to pay for.There are some similar and very popular products on the market that are currently selling (and selling well) that cost between $300-$500 on the low end. The introduction of this free option is certain to create a bit of a stir among the competition.

The concept behind Easy Video Producer is to provide a tool for those who sign up and download the free software to be able to generate a massive viral wave of opt in subscribers to grow their own mailing list. Most online marketers will understand the power and importance of this and EVP's free software may be the best tool that most online marketers will have to build their own massive opt in subscriber lists. You don't even need a website or autoresponder of your own to use the system as it is all included in your back office.

Easy Video Producer is poised to be a huge success for anyone who downloads and uses this free software. By giving this away to others, not only are you helping them and giving them a great tool to use, you are also helping yourself. Classic viral marketing at its very best and using something that appeals to a huge online audience, not just the make money and internet marketing crowd.

The official "launch" is today, right now, and the sooner you get in line, the more successful you're going to be in using the power of this new program. Go and take a look inside your own EVP members area, it is free and will always be free, and start using the service to create and share your videos privately or publicly. This is one program that you will want to share with everyone you know or work with and you are getting the chance to join at the public "prelaunch" phase.

Easy Video Producer Free Account - Sign Up Here

You can also read about some more useful video tools for webmasters in our free PDF report Video Scripts That Sell.

TCH

In other words, just because you have found a platform on which to broadcast your thoughts to the world, you cannot expect everyone else to agree with what you have to say. Dynamic websites have made it possible for all of us with an internet connection to have our say - forums, blogs, social networking sites, article directories, wikis and more.

So, where is this post leading?

Well, I run a review site for hosting companies and the site has two aims. The first is to provide a useful resource for visitors and the second is to earn an income. It is a review site and I feel I owe it to visitors to give them as much information as I can about the companies listed, even if I am an affiliate for the majority of them.

This means publishing negative feedback about those companies as well as positive. Unlike many review sites there are no "top ten" lists that companies have paid to be on. To my mind that kind of thing would do my site and my visitors and subscribers a disservice (even if it might be very profitable). Nobody can tell anybody else, at least not with any authority, that there is a "best" company for their needs, as every webmaster and blogger has a distinctly specific set of requirements. People come to my site for information, often during the course of their purchase deliberations and I believe they are entitled to have access to balanced opinions about anyone they might be thinking of doing business with. I may draw the line at rants which might have legal implications for the poster, but I will always email them to explain my editorial decision.

With that in mind, let's return to the subject of the post. Most people who have blogged or used social networks will have come across people with whom they disagree. Sometimes such disagreements can get quite unpleasant as many people are emboldened by what they see as the anonymity granted by the internet (grin). Others are just downright rude and seem to have few qualms about social conventions or niceties and with that group there is little point engaging with them. However, if you publish anything online, there will be times when you will have to engage in debate and how you go about it on a public forum will say a lot about you to the people who read said debate.

When people resort to name calling and cussing, it suggests to me that their social skills are lacking and that their maturity and intelligence levels are perhaps not what they should be, but that's just me.

The point is this - you cannot expect everybody to agree with you and if you do, you are probably not cut out for blogging. If you blog for commercial reasons or with a view to making money from your efforts, you need to be prepared to accept occasional criticism. It's a fact of life and how you deal with it will say a lot about you to those who are standing on the sidelines.

Moving along, if you are going to run a "review" type site, you have to learn the difference between "review" and "opinion" and be open to those of others. The other day I commented on a blog where a writer had written a review of a company of whom I have been a customer for many years. The review was more "opinion" as the reviewer seemed to have no direct experience but, despite that, it was well written and some of the criticisms were fair. Overall, his opinion was negative. The post had one comment, from someone who went further and made several complaints about his experiences of said company. As a satisfied customer myself, I added my own comments to the thread detailing my own experiences. Rather than publish the comment and answer it, the owner of the site decided to nuke it.

I don't know about you, but this suggests an ulterior motive, an axe to grind or a hidden agenda and is a disservice to people who read this guy's blog. How can such a blogger be expected to be taken seriously? I don't dispute anyone's right to write about what they wish but to engage in outright censorship of anyone who posts a contrary view I find quite annoying. Ultimately it is any blogger's right to publish or decline to publish whatever he or she wants, but it is still something I think you need to think about if you want to engage your readers and visitors and have any kind of credibility, regardless of what you blog about.

Ultimately I believe that anyone who believes they are always right, who is not prepared to engage in discussion or who is not big enough to stand behind their own claims is not worth talking to, or about. Anonymous blog comments that attack or criticize others have to be taken with a pinch of salt too as far as I'm concerned. If you have an opinion you should have the cojones to put your name to it and be prepared to defend your mouth.

In my opinion, if you are not, maybe you are not cut out to be a blogger.

So what do you think? Have you ever found yourself being censored by another blogger (this excludes anyone who engages in spamming and the like) or forum owner for example? Have you ever been frustrated or annoyed by someone who prefers to delete your considered input than publish it and enter into discussion? How do you feel is the best way to deal with people you don't agree with?

Photo Credit Marco Wehe

However, did you know that around 90% of Clickbank affiliate accounts are inactive? Quite shocking huh? Well, it's true, and the main reason for this is something that few people talk about, tucked away in Clickbank's terms of service and it proves to be a killer for many hopeful Clickbank affiliates.

Before getting paid you need to need to meet the Clickbank Customer Distribution Requirement. Here's what that means...

"In compliance with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria
is met:
* Sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers and
* Sales made with two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal). Note: PayPal
purchases do not count toward the minimum 5 different credit card numbers".

OK, so maybe that's not so bad but it gets worse because of the way Clickbank treats "dormant accounts". Basically here is what they say...

"Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for an extended period of time are considered dormant. Dormant accounts are subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after 90 days of inactivity, $5 per pay period after 180 days of inactivity, and $15 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity"

Ouch! This is the major cause of Clickbank affiliates losing heart and giving up. Harvey Segal, the author of many Clickbank ebooks and owner of the CBGuide has come up with an ingenious answer to anyone facing this problem and it's free for anyone who wants to read it. You don't even need to opt-in to a list to get your copy.

This is another piece of essential reading for anyone working as a Clickbank affiliate and I recommend you go and get your copy now. As with all of Harvey's offerings, it's a very well thought out and executed product that will genuinely help people to succeed with Clickbank.

Download Your Copy of Clickbank For Newbies here.

If you are thinking of selling your own products in the Clickbank marketplace you might also like to read the Clickbank Results report which will give you an excellent grounding in how to get affiliates promoting your products rightout of the gate.

TCH

The software is basically a keyword research tool and claims that it enables users to spy on the keywords that Adwords advertisers are bidding on and using in real time. After installing the software, users will see some additional information on their screens when conducting a search on Google - the most noticeable being a green button under each sponsored result entitled "view keywords". Clicking on the button allows you to see a selection of the keywords being used by the advertiser in question including the cost per click, the amount of clicks they are getting for each and the position they hold in the sponsored listings for each keyword.

The website for PPC Web Spy contains a full demo video so you can see it in action for yourself.

Now, I've seen one reviewer blast the software as a useless piece of junk, claiming that it does nothing that you cannot do for yourself and although that is true, to a degree, a lot depends on your knowledge levels. For those experienced with Adwords and PPC who can confidently navigate their way around Google's webmaster tools, it could be said that PPC Web Spy is a bit of a white elephant but to my mind it does offer some very useful shortcuts and makes some interesting data far more easily accessible.

Whether you are a PPC advertiser or not, the software can give some useful insights into the keywords you need to be targeting and offers a quick route to alternative suggestions. In short, it's a helpful tool and as it costs nothing there is nothing to lose by giving it a try.

As with a lot of free tools there is an upgrade option available and this is where the aforementioned reviewer got a little hot under the collar. Those who upgrade the software are able to view a lot more keywords than with the free version and I would say that in itself that is not really worth the upgrade cost. The second benefit for those who upgrade is an interesting viral element that is explained in the video. Basically, any upgraded member who refer others to the free version will be able to get their Clickbank, PayDotCom and Amazon affiliate links appearing at the top of the results when those free users conduct a search on Google. This depends on them having PPC Web Spy installed and activated on their computers and will extend not only to direct referrals but also free users who they give the software away to.

The real problem with this is that most of the users are going to be marketing focused and it's debatable how likely they might be to click on your affiliate links and buy through them. That can certainly be called into question. All I can say is that it doesn't do any harm to spread your affiliate links in any way you can.

PPC Web Spy works only with Firefox too. Would I recommend it? I think on the face of it, my answer is yes - I've found it pretty useful when looking at search results and as a free tool there's nothing to lose for potential users. Would I recommend the upgrade? That's a trickier question and will depend a lot on how much benefit you think the viral aspect might deliver for you. I upgraded myself, partly so that I could write this review having used the software. I've recouped my investment several times over, so obviously others feel that the upgrade was desirable. Don't think that PPC Web Spy will lead to internet milllions overnight but use it for keyword research and you should be reasonably happy with it.

TCH

Why?

Because I am going to show you, (with the help of a couple of other bloggers who turned me onto this method) how you can make an unlimited amount of money with Clickbank, Adsense and Paypal in as little as a few seconds. If you are skeptical I guarantee you will be laughing on the other side of your face a few minutes from now.

What's even better is that this information will not cost you anything at all - I'm giving it away for free. You are about to see how some online marketers have burst onto the scene to make millions overnight with no special skills, just a little known and rarely seen method of filling up your PayPal, Adsense and Cickbank account with thousands or even millions of dollars with a few secret keystrokes.

I guarantee, 100 per cent that this is for real and you will want to share this with every blogger and internet marketer you know. In a few moments you will be able to pass this knowledge on to all of your friends and online contacts and you should. Please share your new found knowledge in every way you know how - please promote this post as widely as you possibly can because it is truly an eye opener!

OK, before I tell you the secret I have to thank The Marketing Mouse who first directed me to this video and of course to the video's creator, Patrick Chan at the You Chan Do It Internet Success Blog.

Enough fanfare - watch this video now - it might well be the most powerful information you read this year about marketing online and how easy it can be to put millions into any online account you choose.

See How Some Marketers Are Making Millions With A Few Top Secret Key Strokes (Opens In A New Window)

Below is a screenshot to prove that even I can do this.....let's just say it's not something I'm going to publicize but it took me all of a few minutes to find out. THIS SCREEN SHOT IS NOT GENUINE. Click on the image to enlarge. If it's something you're already wise to all well and good - please don't post the method in the comments field because it won't get published. It may be simple but why give the dishonest marketers any help? 

The moral is of course - do not believe everything you see. If you doubt the veracity of a screenshot, check with the company concerned. Just because it's dishonest and stupid does not mean that people won't do it and if they are reported I'm sure action will be taken against them by the companies they misrepresent with their deception.

For those of you who don't know much about Google, or any major search engine, and keywords, let me first say that I'm no expert but I know a little about the subject, much of which I've learned from those more experienced than I.

The ad I received went something like this......

"Suppose you want to make money generating leads for credit card companies. Discover, for example, pays 40 bucks for every new card member you send their way.Sounds good, until you do a Google search for "credit card" and realize there are 56 MILLION sites in the results. Kind of hard to compete, wouldn't you say? But Discover gives a 5% cashback bonus on gas purchases. And when you do a search for "credit card gas rewards" you get 56 results. Now you can not only compete, you can make money. No matter what kind of marketing you do, it stands to reason that if you target overlooked, under-the-radar keyword phrases, you'll divert more traffic and convert more of that traffic into profits".

Now, none of that sounds unreasonable and if someone promises to sell you something based on these words of advice, you might well be tempted right?

Well, here's the reality check. There is nothing untrue about what this marketer is saying, it actually makes perfect sense. Let's give him/her the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just picked a bad example. Why is it bad?

Well, do your own keyword research and you will soon see the flaws in the reasoning. A search for "credit card" actually returns 213M results and without the quotes 30.6M. OK, these numbers are always fluid, the point is still that these are huge numbers.

So let's look at the example given "credit card gas rewards" and sure enough, the numbers follow the pattern with only 5000 or 259,000 without the quotes. Certainly better odds though still not great. BUT, and it is a big but, and I keep trying to tell people this, ranking for a keyword is all well and good if people are searching for the term or phrase in the first place.

The estimated search total for the term "credit card"  is around 1200 per day on Google, rising to around 2400 for "credit cards".

Want to guess how many searches there are for the keywords you are going to make all that money on? The answer is....zero! (Go to the front of the class if you got the answer right) Yep, nobody seems to be searching for that exact phrase - even if you mix the words around a little Google estimates that there are around 3 or 4 searches per day.

So.....now that product is perhaps not looking so promising. All I'm saying is, don't believe all the hype about front page Google rankings either. Here's an example of how easy it is to get on the first page of Google - I know of lots of little methods that work.

Here's just one little experiment to reinforce my point. I recently launched a free toolbar for those interested in hosting and marketing. Obviously I wanted to get the word out and get some organic rankings in Google and elsewhere. Since the launch I've checked a few of the keywords I would expect and hope to be ranking for so let's take a look at a few of them:

Marketing Toolbar - Position 9 on the front page out of 11.9M results returned.

Hosting Toolbar - Position 13 on second page out of 7.1M results returned

Free Hosting Toolbar - Position 3 and 7 on first page out of 548,00 results returned.

Hosting and Marketing Toolbar - All but two of the front page results on Google including the number one spot out of 253,000 results returned.

I should also add that the same searches on Google video will see me on the front page every time. But I also know that searches for these phrases are probably very thin on the ground. Virtually zero in actual fact. That's why it's a good example of what I'm talking about. If all this is new to you, before you read this post you might have thought I was some kind of Google genius but as you now know, you have to read between the lines when dealing with many marketers or those who would relieve you of cash! 

Now obviously, the tighter the focus, the better the results as you can see when our search becomes more specific. Long tail keywords is a term you have probably heard before. What annoys me is that so many "experts" will try to feed you this fluff as proof of their SEO prowess and potency of their software or ebook and so much of it is just BS.

I will also go on to say that being on the front page of Google does not guarantee you anything at all, and certainly not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just being there does not mean that people are going to buy whatever it is you are selling. That involves so many variables it would take me all night to even think of some of them. Let's just say that even if I'm on the front page for some s*** hot product that everyone wants - they just read my page, look at the price, and head off to shop around and soon find someone selling it for less or offering a better deal in other ways. No sale for me, but hey, I'm on the front page of Google so whoopee doo for me, I can expect to be a millionaire tomorrow perhaps or at least by the end of the week ;-)

Here's the deal - I bet that you can rank on the first page of Google within 24 hours whenever you feel like it. Don't believe me? I know of a top secret keyword for which there is zero, yep, zero competition just waiting for someone to grab it. As you've read this far I'm going to give it to you for FREE! Just write your blog post on "Hoofaloofadoofa" and be amazed! I guarantee results or your money back.

Finishing on a serious note though, I will talk about how to increase your chances of a high SERPS result as the year goes on. I'm not going to be selling any secrets, just passing on some methods that I have found to work during my efforts online. Do your own keyword research. Use SEO Book's Free Keyword Tool and Keyword Buzz Elite (free download from the toolbar with no opt-in if you prefer) use Google's keyword tools here and their search based keyword tool here and you won't go far wrong and you won't have wasted any money. You can also download and use the excellent SEOQuake Firefox plugin and free tools like PPCWebSpy and SpyFu to further enhance your keyword research and targeting.

Since writing this I came across an excellent article entitled Celebrating Useless Keyword Victories which is well worth reading too.

TCH

Looking forward to 2009 I decided to answer a few points that I see time and time again online in both the "make money online" and internet marketing arenas. There is a constant stream of people joining the mass ranks of those trying to make some money from the internet and, as people keep reminding you, many of those people will fail. If you believe the statistics at least 95% of them!

I'm no internet millionaire or guru, but my experience has shown that it takes a lot of work and dedication to make any money at all online. For a few, massive success on the internet has been quick in coming but I would suggest that for the vast majority, it's going to be a lot more difficult. Most honest people will tell you that it took them some time to find a successful venture and that it certainly didn't happen overnight.

To kick off 2009, here are a few suggestions to both the new hopefuls just taking their first steps, to the frustrated and hard working hopefuls who have yet to make a dent. This is the most basic of advice, but it is truly important:

1) Decide on a business model and plan of action at the outset and try to stick to both.

2) Learning is vital and time consuming but learning is only half the battle. After you learn - do.

3) Be prepared to invest in your dream of making money online. At some point you will have to pay for the things you are going to need, whether it be information, software, advertising, the expertise of others, web hosting etc. Whatever your budget, try to invest wisely in the things you really need.

4) Leading on from number 3. Many things are available for free including information and advice and some of these things can be very good. However, if you have expectations of making tons of cash without spending any you will be disappointed. When you do find something for free, expect to have to put in some good old fashioned hard work to see results from it. Joining free "programs" and systems will only ever work if you follow the instructions and take action. Many people write off good systems and tools as a waste of time because they do not do anything after filling out their details on an opt-in form for example.

5) If you are new to the whole idea of making money online, please do not be taken in by the thousands of websites making fantastical claims of wealth, no matter how alluring the sales pitch or the slick graphics. Mostly, any money you give them will just disappear into a black hole and you will be left feeling cheated, let down and foolish. Move on and.......

6) Don't ever be tempted to send money to complete strangers in return for nothing more than the promise of loads of money arriving in your bank account or at your front door via UPS, Fedex or anyone else. Things like this are doomed to failure and are often illegal to boot. Don't be fooled by slick videos or websites - look underneath the gloss and glitz and tempting claims. Always ask yourself this - what am I getting for my money? If the answer is nothing but promises, remember that "a promise is a comfort for a fool". If, as they claim, you are going to earn a lot of money, ask yourself where it is coming from. If it is just from more people like yourself being persuaded to hand over money for nothing, walk away. You really will be doing yourself a favor. Most of these types of "programs" are variations of the Ponzi or pyramids your great, great grandmother would have warned you about had she been alive to do so.

I always suggest that you think of any of these things by taking the internet out of the equation.

Has anybody given or posted or deposited thousands or even hundreds of dollars to you or your bank account in the past? Did they do this without knowing who you were and solely on the basis that another complete stranger told them to do it? If it did happen wouldn't you be the tiniest bit surprised and perhaps think that they were a little crazy? If I met you in a bar, struck up a conversation and suggested that you send a certain amount of money to half a dozen people whose names I handed to you on a piece of paper and claimed that performing this action would guarantee to make you rich wouldn't you be inclined, just slightly, to laugh in my face? Thought so.

Have you ever made a mistake that you are embarrassed or more than a little reluctant to admit for fear of being seen as a fool? Sure, haven't we all? Remember that if you made a mistake that cost you a fair wedge of money, you'd more than likely be reluctant to talk about it or, perhaps to try and recover what you'd lost, be outright untruthful and pass the promise on to others until you managed to balance the scale again, telling yourself: "well I fell for it and I know that others will too". You see the pattern here I'm sure. So please,do not think that these scams will make you any money - if it were as easy as these people claim, we'd all be wealthy already :-)

7) Think. Whatever you decide to try and profit from, you are going to need visitors to your websites, blogs, ecommerce pages, affiliate links, opt-in forms etc. Without quality visitors and potential buyers you will not make much money. This is probably the hardest thing to achieve for any small online business. 

8) Whatever you decide to try in 2009, be it blogging, niche marketing, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, list building, product creation.....my last little slice of wisdom is the good old standby "Do not give up". You will experience lows and failures and sometimes pressure from others to just throw in the towel, but keep going. When you fail, dust yourself off, look again at what you've been doing and if you can think of improvements, try them. Eventually you may have to concede that certain things do not work for you and sacrifice them for other untried methods or entirely different business plans.

If you're hoping to start making money online in 2009 but have yet to decide on what you are going to do, my first suggestion would be to get yourself a relevant domain name and a web hosting account and start building some form of online presence. The possibilities really are so varied and numerous that it's impossible to give you a blueprint or guarantee of success but it is, as far as I'm concerned, a very good place to start. There is no magic bullet and if it were easy the conventional capitalist society as we know it would not even exist :-)

As for me I have a lot of things planned for my own online efforts and I hope you will all continue reading - we'll see how they turn out by this time next year!

Have a great 2009. I wish you prosperity and success, but more than this I wish you health and happiness.

TCH

I kicked off the year with a guest post about article marketing that gave some good insights into common mistakes made by authors. These all still hold true and I can testify to the fact that as an article directory owner the vast majority of articles submitted to me over the past twelve months have ended up on the cutting room floor. If you are thinking of running an article directory yourself, I would say a couple of things - it is very labor intensive if you are serious about maintaining a quality resource. It is not easy to get a directory off the ground, nor to maintain good rankings. Google reduced my own directory's page rank from 2 to zero some time ago and it has never recovered. Adsense income has been patchy, and probably not nearly enough to cover the work put in. Having said that, I intend to continue with the free article directory so if you have prose to submit, please do so.

In the Spring I kicked off with a rant about the state of a popular internet marketing forum and having read some recent posts elsewhere it seems I am not alone in my disillusionment. On a more positive note I released the free ebook  "The Absolute Beginner's Guide To Web Hosting" which has gone on to be a very successful little book and has helped a number of people with their first steps online. This has been very gratifying for me and has also helped me to introduce more customers and affiliates to my team at Kiosk.ws.

In April I announced a free ebook that has turned out to be its own minor success story this past year and I still recommend it very highly to everyone from raw beginner to more established marketers. The return on the Ultimate Supertip has been extremely good and if you have never made any money online before, it's a good way to start. You won't become a millionaire but for an injection of extra income and profits into the 1000's per cent it's hard to beat. You should at least read the book as it's entirely free to download.

In the same month I also released "Article Marketing Expert" another free ebook which has once again proved popular. It is already in need of an update but unfortunately until I return home I am unable to access the PDF for alteration. It will be done sometime in 2009.

During May, blissfully unaware of the events that were about to take over our lives so suddenly, I wrote at length about choosing an autoresponder service and dipped my toe into the world of micro blogging with Twitter.

After that, things became rather sporadic when Nikki, my wife, was airlifted to Miami in a critical condition having gone into very premature labor with our first child. Fortunately the medical professionals got her to hospital in time (just) to save both her and the baby, but for a husband standing on the sidelines it was a frightening and sobering time. Our son was delivered into this world on May 31 at around 10.30pm and weighed just one pound and four ounces. This of course was just the beginning, and after over seven months away from home, many of them spent in the NICU sitting beside an incubator, the help, kindness, prayers and skills of so many people, we hope to return to Cayman with "T.J." before the end of January. He is, for the record, a chubby little eleven pounds as I write this and doing remarkably well.

Despite all this work did carry on, albeit at a slower a pace and the later months in 2008 saw me working from the hospital thanks to their guest internet connection. The delayed launch of Viral Clickbank Footprints was lower profile than hoped but the free report has gone on to prove fairly popular and downloads continue to grow. the report is free and can be rebranded with your own links, making it an excellent viral Clickbank tool that will help you to make more money. I consider it another successful release that has paid good dividends for me and many others.

The year's end also saw the release of our RSS widgets and the hosting and marketing toolbar which we hope all visitors will find useful. Every download of the toolbar goes a little way to helping us with the costs of our enforced exile in the States so if you find it useful please do share it with as many people as you can.

Elsewhere from the blog, the CaymanHost web hosting directory has seen many changes including the implementation of a proper review and rating system for hosting companies where you can read and submit honest hosting reviews by customers. As a dofollow site, your reviews will earn you a little link love too. You will also find hosting coupons and offers, links to all the top forums, and many interesting articles on the world of web hosting as well as details on how to set up your own Wordpress blog for free and all the Wordpress plugins you will need to optimize your blog for traffic and rankings.

Furthermore, you can now buy advertising on the hosting directory at very reasonable rates and we have also introduced a hosting link exchange for other webmasters and bloggers involved in the world of domain names and hosting.

I also launched another blog by way of example dealing with the Cayman Islands, home sweet home. This is just in its experimental stage and I shall monitor things closely during 2009.

The year has been a tough one, and I hope that despite all the glitches you will continue to read and hopefully learn some new tricks during the course of 2009. I am pleased to say that The CaymanHost has staged a recovery in terms of Alexa and Google rankings and traffic hes returned to the levels before the slump midway throught the year.

For me, online earnings have been less than my intended goals, but the strongest performance has come from affiliate marketing, including Clickbank and my core business at Kiosk.ws Sales of my own products have been slower than hoped for too, but have contributed a reasonable amount to the bottom line. After all the upheaval, I have to be content with what has been achieved in a very difficult year.

All that remains is to wish you all a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.

TCH

I came across this site recently that rekindled my interest in widgets and thought I should share it here. It's probably a little early for me to post about the site, as I've barely scratched the surface of what it can do, but here's a brief outline of what you can accomplish with Widgetbox.com

Create Your Own Widgets using your RSS feeds

Download hundreds of different widgets for hundreds of applications and incorporate them into your blogs/websites

Turn your own widgets into Facebook and Meebo Applications

Join Topic Specific Communities To Promote Your Widgets and drive traffic

Create Widgets specifically for other bloggers and cross promote with them

Add your widgets to places like Facebook, MySpace, Hi5, Orkut, Netlog, IGoogle and Friendster (coming soon)

It occurred to me whilst exploring the site that as far as bloggers go, this has a lot of potential and some great applications. When you create a widget, using your blog's RSS feed for example, you can then promote it to the world at large in a variety of ways. Widgetbox has a number of communities so, let's say you have a travel related blog and you create a feed widget. You then join the Travel community, and add the community widget to your blog in order to get traffic and visitors from other sites in the same niche. In theory that's great and I've implemented it on one of my non marketing related blogs so I'll report back on its effectiveness. The widgets, both the community ones and the ones you create are pretty customizable so people can make them fit the look of their own blogs pretty well.

I would say that bloggers who know each other however and feel like doing some cross promotion could always put their heads together and use the service to build each other widgets and display them on each other's sites. You could of course just grab another blogger's feed and do it yourself. Cross promotion is a good way to build blog traffic as evidenced by things like guest posting so if you want to work with other bloggers, exchanging feeds in a good looking widget might work for you and the ability to be very selective is more appealing than just showing links over which your control is limited.

The ability to share your widgets in a number of social networking sites is also a great tool and gives you the chance at some huge exposure. If you decide to make things like Facebook apps the potential traffic is of course quite staggering.

I've only just begun experimenting with Widgetbox, but I recommend you pop over and take a look to see what it can do for you and what you can do with it.

The site is a little confusing at first (although I may just be a bit dense) and when I first landed on their page I thought it was just a place to download widgets. Sign up is free and it looked to me as though there were plenty of cool widgets to grab so I signed up and started looking around. Once I'd got the navigation sorted out it all started to fall into place and it took just a few minutes to cobble together three RSS feed widgets for three of my blogs. Here's a screenshot of one of them below

As you can see the widget includes post titles and images - you can choose to display just titles, excerpts of your posts etc and also set the look with various color options and size choices. Customization is pure point and click and should a visitor wish to download and display your feed widget they can change the colors to suit their own pages as you can see from the menu on the right of the widget image. You can easily incorporate the widget code into your own blogs with either Flash or Javascript code and all major platforms are supported so you don't really need any technical knowledge. I think bloggers are going to love this site and can see it growing quite rapidly, so it could be good for your traffic in the future.

The internet marketing community is very under represented at present as far as I can see, but if you have niche blogs it could be another good way to promote yourself. Even without the traffic aspect which may or may not prove to be effective, it's a really simple way to get some neat widgets for Wordpress or any other sites you may be running and makes it very easy to include them on your sites.

Explore WidgetBox Here