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In the world of Internet marketing, there are a lot of unethical money-hungry scam artists preying on those who are ignorant about the industry. They know you're new, and they know you won't realize you've been suckered until it's too late.
So how does a newcomer to Internet marketing safeguard his or her pockets from the greedy, self-indulgent scams of an unscrupulous marketer? First, you want to do a bit of background research.
If you land on a page where someone has recommended a course or tool that you feel will help accelerate your Internet marketing earnings, don't buy on impulse. You might regret it later and have to ask for a refund, or suck up the cost if no guarantee is offered.
Google can be your friend here. Type that marketer's name into the search engines and see if there are any scam details. But beware! One of the most common affiliate pre-pitches is to promote a product by using the scam approach initially and then building the product up with the detailed review.
You may see about 5 page's worth of links if you type in [marketer's name] and scam, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're real scam accounts. Always read the pages with care.
You also need to know that practically every marketer has a disgruntled customer. Some people get angry if their download link doesn't work and they don't get a response within 30 minutes. Others intentionally try to sabotage the competition by posting poor reviews online.
You should be able to find as much positive information (in the form of praise) as you do bad reviews. If not, it might be best to steer clear of that marketer since no one credible can endorse him (or her).
Never rely on their own claims (even screenshots of earnings can be manipulated). And if you find them in a forum, don't think that just because they have the highest post count, it means they're the best marketer.
Get personal recommendations from other marketers. If you want to find out who has the best affiliate marketing guide, ask in a forum and find out. Or, take the recommendation of a marketer you already trust, because if they provide you with a poor product recommendation, it tarnishes their own reputation, too.
Filed under Internet Marketing by 
Most visitors pass through one of two types of links. Text links are when you string together a word, phrase or sentence that's hyperlinked to another domain. Image ads are things like banners, button, and pictures – graphical images that are hyperlinked with a URL.
Both types of links have their benefits and drawbacks. Which type you use will be based on your site and your traffic – and you should ideally test both types to see which performs best with your particular demographic.
In general, text ads tend to pull a lot more clicks than image ads, because people have become "banner blind." That means people have learned to ignore banners, because they know they're ads.
Text ads are a part of every website, so they're harder to ignore. This is one reason why AdSense is so successful. Of course, some sites could benefit from a few image ads. If your site is primarily text, you might be able to make it look more appealing through the use of a few graphical banners.
Choose attractive banners with a clear call-to-action, such as banners that clearly state, "Click here for ____!" New Internet users may not realize they can click graphics, so it's important for banners to have this kind of call-to-action.
Just be careful not to overdo the ads on your site. Two or three graphics per page is plenty. If you put more than this, you risk your site looking like a banner farm, and visitors may leave before they even have time to read any of your content.
Text links are generally more effective than banners. They can be blended in with your content and can look more like recommendations than ads. For some reason, people prefer to buy through recommendations rather than blatant ads, so text links can help you get a higher click-through ratio than you might get with banner ads.
Coding a text link is very simple. To create a text link on your site, you need to use the "a href" code. A simple text link code might look something like this:
Here's where the text you want hyperlinked will go.
Coding a banner link is only slightly more complex. You still use the "a href" code, but you also have to use the "img src" code along with it. It should look something like this:
So the first URL in that piece of code is the URL where you want your traffic to go. The second one is the URL where the image is being hosted on your server. This will make the image show up and when the user hovers his or her mouse over it, they'll see that it's clickable.
Make sure you test your links to be sure they're going to the right place. If you accidentally link to the wrong place, you could end up losing a lot of money in commissions or sales, so it's very important to make sure your links are in working order.
Filed under Advertising and Promotion by
So exactly what is blogging anyway? And is it possible to actually make money doing it?
Blogging is hot right now. In fact, it has been hot for the last several years. It seems you can't go anywhere online without hearing about one blog or another. And blogger success stories, in which people have turned blogging into a career and manage to make a good living doing it, are almost as common.
Maybe you are new to the Internet and, having heard so much about blogs, want to know more about it. Or maybe you have been online for a long time, but that's just not an area you have investigated much before now. Either way, it is possible for someone with absolutely no blogging experience to start a blog today, and have a successful blog up and running in just a few weeks. Or even days.
What Is a Blog?
The word "blog" is actually short for "web log." From the beginning, the idea behind them was that they would be like online journals. They would be a place where you could record, or "log," your thoughts, ideas, opinions, or anything else you could think of.
Of course, the major difference between a blog and the leather bound journal you keep in your nightstand drawer is that the online version can be shared with others. And, for many, the prospect of sharing their thoughts, opinions and interests with others can be very appealing.
You can create a blog about anything that interests you. Your hobbies, your interests, your dieting experiences, or even the movies you like. There are no limits when it comes to blogging.
Can You Really Make Money Blogging?
Many people dream of being able to make a decent living doing something they really like and enjoy. For them, being able to make money just writing about a topic they love a few times a week would be a dream come true.
But you might be wondering how your blog about gardening or recipes could actually turn a profit.
The simplest way is by putting ads on your site for affiliate products, products at Amazon.com, and so on. For example, say you put an affiliate link to a new gardening book on your gardening blog. If one of your site's visitors click on that link and end up buying the book, you would get a commission. And, depending on the type of affiliate program you belong to, you can earn as much as 75% of the books sales price.
So, what is blogging? It's a way to make money while having fun writing about the things you love.
Filed under Blog Marketing by
