Project 2 Blogging

Gmail Power Usage: Total Mail Management

Aug. 25th, 2008 at 12:46 PM

Gmail Power Usage: Total Mail Management
Email is one of those things that has the ability to really zap away much of the precious ‘work’ time that you have during the day...

Gmail Power User

Email is one of those things that has the ability to really zap away much of the precious ‘work’ time that you have during the day. If you’re a compulsive ‘email checker’ then perhaps this tutorial isn’t for you, but if you have to manage a large number of email accounts & addresses all at once then this tutorial will save you so much time & hassle that you’ll never, ever look back.

Since I have a load of different websites with their own mailboxes it’s safe to say that I have a lot of ‘accounts’ in my Thunderbird that send & receive mail from each of the sites. Recently this method was becoming very cumbersome, I was getting increased amounts of spam & I was really finding it difficult to check mail on the go (via squirrelmail).

This called for action, I realised that somehow I:

wanted to consolidate all of my mail into one account, but still be able to utilise all the addresses
be able to read all my mail from the web from one login
eliminate the insane amount of spam I was receiving
still be able to download all my mail via pop to thunderbird

I’ve long used Gmail for my personal email, but never anything website related. But it just so happens that all of the things I’m looking for it handles, not only that but Gmail has perhaps the best spam filter going, you you can say goodbye to spam email forever.

So here’s what we’re going to do:

Forward all existing email addresses to Gmail
Download all the mail from our Existing Inboxes
Delete all of our existing Email Accounts from Thunderbird
Set up Thunderbird to Download all mail from Gmail POP
Set up Outgoing mail in Thunderbird
Set up Outgoing Email Addresses in Gmail
Set up Rules in Gmail
Set up Rules in Thunderbird

By following these steps we’ll now be able to read mail sent to any of our accounts on the web via gmail, reply to any emails from the address it was sent to, download all of the email via pop to our own email client at home (whilst still keeping a copy on gmail) & filter out all the nasty spam in the process.

Step by Step how it’s done:

Forward Existing Email Addresses to Gmail

If you use Cpanel you can do this via the email settings, or if you use squirrelmail the option is there too:

Email Forwarding Options

Just set your current address to forward to your new (or existing) gmail address:

Email Forwarding Address

You’ll need to do this for all of the email accounts that you use. If you don’t use Cpanel, please refer to your Web Hosting Email admin panel for this feature.

Download Mail from Existing Inboxes

You’ll want to catch all the mail that was sent to your inboxes before you initiated the forwarding. Simply download your mail from your mail client as normal.

I use thunderbird for my POP mail client, but it all depends on personal preference, you may prefer Outlook or Eudora.

Delete Existing Email Accounts from Thunderbird

Since we’ll be downloading all of our mail through Gmail you’ll not need those other POP accounts. You can do this in the account settings area of thunderbird:

Remove Account from Thunderbird

Setup Thunderbird to Download all Mail from Gmail via POP

In doing so we can not only read all of our mail online via Gmail but we can also download a hard copy to our Email Client. Log into Gmail & click on setting in the top right hand corner of the screen, next click on the Forwarding and POP/IMAP Tab.

Gmail POP

Ignore the sections about forwarding & IMAP, instead you can choose to either enable POP for all mail you’ve ever received or just for mail from this point onwards. You can also choose whether to keep a copy in Gmail or not. Choose the setting that suits your needs.

Now we need to set up thunderbird with the Gmail settings.

Incoming Mail

Add a new account in Thunderbird with the following credentials:

Your Name
Your Gmail Email Address
Choose POP
Incoming server is pop.googlemail.com
Incoming username is your Google Email Address
When done select Port Settings
Port 995
Under Security Settings choose SSL

Thunderbird Gmail Setup

Outgoing Mail

To send outgoing mail through your gmail in Thunderbird use the following settings:

Server Name: smtp.googlemail.com
Port: 25
Username: Your Google Email Address
Use Secure Connection: Choose TLS

Set up Outgoing Mail Addresses in Gmail

One of the unique features in Gmail is that you can respond to all mail from your own personal email addresses. Since we’ve already forwarded our addresses this part will be a cinch.

Gmail Account Settings

Goto settings in Gmail again & click on Accounts. Click on add another email address & add all of your personal email addresses. Gmail will send a mail to those addresses to verify you own them. Since they’ve all been forwarded you’ll get the verification emails to your Gmail Account. Verify them all then choose whether you want to always reply from the email address that a mail as been sent to, or you default Gmail Address.

Set up Filters in Gmail & Rules in Thunderbird

You can now set up your rules & filter to organise your mail as you see fit. Naturally you may not want to organise your mail like I do but here some tips:

Gmail

Create Labels to file mail by Website in Gmail
Use filters to delete unwanted mail & report spam/mail you don’t want as you see it
Auto Archive mail that you get frequently (i.e. signup emails etc)

Thunderbird

Create Folders to file mail by website
Use Sub Folders to categorise mail even further
Use the filters to delete unwanted mail (this shouldn’t happen though since you’ve set this up in Gmail already)

Now you can sit back, whether it’s at home on or on move & never worry about spam again.

Spam Mail

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On the move

Aug. 25th, 2008 at 12:01 PM

On the move
YIM CHOON HING: Appointed Millennium & Copthorne Hotels' chief operating officer (COO) for Asia.

Speak English, Mandarin? It's not enough
IT IS not enough for Singaporeans to be able to speak both English and Mandarin, says labour chief Lim Swee Say.

Lunches to go to work for
YOU'VE arrived at work promptly at 9am, yawned through a meeting, gulped down coffee and cleared your e-mail.

Pregnancy is tougher in certain jobs
WITH so many new incentives for working women to have babies, one would expect it to be standing room only for mums-to-be in offices across Singapore.

22 paid review networks for bloggers to earn money online

Aug. 25th, 2008 at 9:16 AM

22 paid review networks for bloggers to earn money online

What Google thinks about paid reviews (almost similar to selling links) is a different issue but this is one of the best ways to monetize your blog. There is no doubt about that.

What does it have for the advertisers?

You can create a buzz easily around your product in the blogosphere.
Buzz helps you in brand development.
You create the buzz within a very short period (just think about how some of the renowned bloggers are promoting a premium WordPress Theme recently - don’t know if those are paid promotions or not but as soon as they started talking about the theme - it moved beyond any ordinary row of WP themes).
You get great quality and content based one way links (targeted) to your website

What does Bloggers get?

Easy money by writing a review

Some Problem Areas:

In most of such paid review networks, advertisers restrict the bloggers to write only good things (positive review) about their product or website. Thus, the website owners miss out valuable comments from a blogger that could help to improve the product. I understand that there is a chance of negative marketing but if you directly communicate with a niche blogger, he or she may guide you before publishing the actual post. There comments are worth more than the link or buzz you get.
Advertisers usually ask not to disclose that it is a paid review. They often say that, their competitors would be aware of their marketing tactics if the blogger disclosed it as a paid review. In addition, relatively smaller bloggers cannot argue with the advertisers and eventually deceive their readers by not disclosing the nature of the post.
Advertisers often want a certain number of links (normally 3 links with targeted anchor text) from the blog post. However, in most of the cases all these three links point to the same URL with different or similar anchor texts. This is simply wastage of opportunities. I would recommend the advertiser to ask for one targeted link and two general links to other pages of the website along with three or four other links to trusted and non-profit sites like Wikipedia. This would make things more natural from Search Engine’s perspective.
Allow the bloggers enough space to talk. Ask them to write freely - if necessary preview the post that the blogger is planning to publish. This would help you a lot to develop the product.

Here are 22 paid blog review networks to check out: (this is simply a list and we do not endorse anyone)

What Google thinks about paid reviews (almost similar to selling links) is a different issue but this is one of the best ways to monetize your blog. There is no doubt about that.

What does it have for the advertisers?

You can create a buzz easily around your product in the blogosphere.
Buzz helps you in brand development.
You create the buzz within a very short period (just think about how some of the renowned bloggers are promoting a premium WordPress Theme recently - don’t know if those are paid promotions or not but as soon as they started talking about the theme - it moved beyond any ordinary row of WP themes).
You get great quality and content based one way links (targeted) to your website

What does Bloggers get?

Easy money by writing a review

Some Problem Areas:

In most of such paid review networks, advertisers restrict the bloggers to write only good things (positive review) about their product or website. Thus, the website owners miss out valuable comments from a blogger that could help to improve the product. I understand that there is a chance of negative marketing but if you directly communicate with a niche blogger, he or she may guide you before publishing the actual post. There comments are worth more than the link or buzz you get.
Advertisers usually ask not to disclose that it is a paid review. They often say that, their competitors would be aware of their marketing tactics if the blogger disclosed it as a paid review. In addition, relatively smaller bloggers cannot argue with the advertisers and eventually deceive their readers by not disclosing the nature of the post.
Advertisers often want a certain number of links (normally 3 links with targeted anchor text) from the blog post. However, in most of the cases all these three links point to the same URL with different or similar anchor texts. This is simply wastage of opportunities. I would recommend the advertiser to ask for one targeted link and two general links to other pages of the website along with three or four other links to trusted and non-profit sites like Wikipedia. This would make things more natural from Search Engine’s perspective.
Allow the bloggers enough space to talk. Ask them to write freely - if necessary preview the post that the blogger is planning to publish. This would help you a lot to develop the product.

Here are 22 paid blog review networks to check out: (this is simply a list and we do not endorse anyone)

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Earnosphere: Week Ending 24/11/07
Welcome to another edition of the Earnosphere, bringing you the best in Affiliate Tactics & Earning ideas...

Welcome to another edition of the Earnosphere, bringing you the best in Affiliate Tactics & Earning ideas. Hope all the American readers enjoyed thanksgiving, if you’ve been reading for a while I noted Thanksgiving as an important date for Affiliate Marketers so I hope yours was as profitable as mine was.

Benjamin’s Affiliate Marketing Journal on AffEarners - This is a superb Journal by an ASP Programmer & his journey into Affiliate Marketing, you’ll notice the logical progression that Ben is having from learning from his own mistakes (Mistakes are good, f they don’t happen you don’t know what you did wrong). You’ll learn everything from Keyword Researching Tips to keeping targeted adgroups for Specific Keywords.
A while ago I wrote some tips for Increasing Views on your Youtube Videos, check out this post on Techcrunch showing some Viral Video Secrets. This post actually caused quite a bit of controversy in the comments, however I think this is a classic example of how Affiliate Marketers can learn to think outside the box.
UberAffiliate posts about an interesting glitch with Adwords & International Traffic. This personally isn’t something I’ve ever experienced but as he mentions, it really does pay to check your logs & analyse your traffic as you may be wasting money. If you use Adwords you can auto append the gclid tracking to the URL which will allow you to further analyse your PPC Traffic & visitor behaviour in Google Analytics.
I’m generally not a fan of many posts you find on Digital Point but I quite enjoyed this post on alternative Traffic Tips. Some of them are perfect for your niche Affiliate Marketing websites. Some are also the kind of things you only learn by making mistakes, such as redirecting your 404 pages.
I found this post on Wickedfire quite disturbing. Let it be a lesson to anyone who is using keywords or traffic sources as subids, I’ll probably write a more detailed post on this at some point.

And if this list wasn’t enough to wet your Thanksgiving appetite then check out The Mad Hat who gives great Weekly roundups with a comical twist.

In my Adsense eCPM poll a whopping 57% of you have seen a significant drop in earnings over the past month. No doubt you’ll all be coming over to the Dark Side of Affiliate Marketing where rewards are sweeter? Don’t forget to subscribe to my feed.

How many Hours per Day do you spend Reading Blogs & Forums?

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Link Building Guide Part 2 - Social Profile Bumping
Yesterday’s technique was just the beginning, once this tutorial is over you should have all the link building information you need to really make your sites kick some Google ass...

Yesterday’s technique was just the beginning, once this tutorial is over you should have all the link building information you need to really make your sites kick some Google ass. The reason I mentioned using yahoo for link building first is that it forces you to think outside the box & it also means you’re not using the same technique or looking at the same backlink profile as everyone else.

This technique is an old favourite of mine. Don’t be fooled though, you need to put some dedication & keep solid records of everything here. Otherwise you’ll end up getting lost.

Technique 2 - Social Profile Bumping

To do this properly you’ll either need a copy of Excel or Notepad. Or whatever notekeeping program you like to use. I can’t stress enough how important it is to keep a record of what we’re doing here.

Most Social Sites, Forums & Bookmarking Websites give you a public profile. In your profile it’ll either list your Homepage or a list of your recently bookmarked sites. The aim of this technique is to build up 100+ profiles & interlink them with one another, thus creating a network of 100 sites that we can easily utilise to link to our Affiliate Websites which whatever Anchor Text we like.

Eventually this will build up the backlink for each individual profile & give them decent authority & link influence. Given that these profiles can have upwards of 100 links pointing to each (including internal links too) they can pass a good bit of weight in the engines. Interlinking the profiles will also help each stick better in the search engines, which, in turn will keep your backlinks pumping, instead of the page going supplemental or not even getting indexed in the first place.

Once you have this network built up you can now use each profile to help rank new projects or throw some solid links at existing sites. Pretty simple really.

To those of you that are worried about quality over quantity imo & Matt Cutts recently said it himself:

A Link is a Link, no matter where it comes from.

So, let’s get some links?

Laying out your Excel Spreadsheet

You need to make a record of the profile page for each network that you sign up to. It’s worth doing this in something like Excel. I have tabs for each type of linking network I’m highlighting in these guides. You’d put these under the “Social Bookmarking” Tab.

Below I’ve highlighted a few examples of the pages we’ll be bookmarking.

Digg: digg.com/users/username
Flickr flickr.com/photos/username
Myspace: myspace.com/username
Sphinn: sphinn.com/user/view/profile/username

These are the URL’s you want to be keeping track of, because these are the URL’s you’re going to be bookmarking/building links to. You can include these all in a single column.

Other variables you may want to consider keeping a record of:

Keeping track of the usernames & passwords for each of the sites (I often sign up to all the sites with the same login & password details to avoid this, but you can mix it up if you want).
Keeping track of whether the page is indexed in Google.
Which sites/pages you’ve submitted to each site & anchor text you’ve used.

List of 20 Sites to get Started

Below is a list of 20 sites that you can use to start creating your network. They’re all dofollow & I’ve highlighed which pages you should be bookmarking once you’ve created a profile.

Any Vbulletin Forum: forumname.com/member.php?u=userid
Technorati.com: technorati.com/people/technorati/username
Searchles.com: searchles.com/people/show/username
Digg.com: digg.com/users/username
Backflip.com: backflip.com/members/username/
Bibsonomy.org: bibsonomy.org/user/username
Faves.com: faves.com/users/username
Wink.com: wink.com/p/username
Simpy.com: simpy.com/user/username/links
Markaboo.com: .markaboo.com/people/username
Rawsugar.com: rawsugar.com/user_account/user_profile?username=username
ma.gnolia.com: ma.gnolia.com/people/username
Furl.net: furl.net/member/username
Propeller.com: propeller.com/member/username/
Indianpad.com: indianpad.com/user/username/bookmarks
Care2.com: care2.com/news/member/userid
Plugim.com: plugim.com/user/username/history/
Blogmarks.net: blogmarks.net/user/username
Spotback.com: spotback.com/users/leosatter
Socialogs.com: socialogs.com/profile.php?id=userid&cmd=submitted

A few important things to remember is that you can get banned from these networks for spamming, so be careful what types of sites you link to & which pages.

You can check to see if the page is in the main index of Google by pasting the URL (without the http://) into the search box i.e. www.propeller.com/member/username/

You can check to see how many inbound links the profile page has with the SEO for Firefox Tool I spoke about in my last post that technique always helps me find new Social Sites to add to my list as well.

Always try to mix up your Anchor Text & which pages you’re linking to on your sites. Don’t just point all your links at the homepage, it’s unnatural. Also don’t point 100 links to your sites at once.

Remember that once you’ve created all your accounts you need to start bookmarking them or submitting them. This can mean that you’re submitting 50+ profiles at a time into each website (which can get quite boring). From personal experience I try not to submit too many at once otherwise you risk detection.

Happy bumping!

This post is part of the One Way Link Building 2008 Series.

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In the know

Aug. 25th, 2008 at 5:16 AM

In the know
MR ZHANG Qing Hai, a director of subsidiary companies of Cosco Shipyard Group, lowered his deemed stake in Cosco Corp recently.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Eng Wah's asset sale: Calls for more transparency
ANGRY minority shareholders of Eng Wah Organisation have raised concerns over a lack of transparency concerning the sale of the cinema group's assets.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Company briefs
COAL miner Straits Asia Resources has applied for a secondary listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, it announced yesterday.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

CapitaLand's 4 new properties in China fund
SOUTH-EAST Asia's biggest real-estate player, CapitaLand, is injecting four properties into the recently launched US$1 billion ($1.41 billion) Raffles City China Fund.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Asean may ink 2 FTAs soon
IMPORTANT trade pacts between Asean and three regional trading partners - India, Australia and New Zealand - could be sealed as early as next week, at the 40th annual Asean Economic Ministers Meeting in Singapore.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

GuocoLand's gains fall 43% on lower property sales
COOLING regional property markets have taken a hefty chunk out of GuocoLand's bottom line.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Retailers hit by soaring rentals
FOR a retailer, it is a nightmare scenario - getting stuck in a shop with expensive rent that attracts no shoppers.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

What's online most read and most commented

Source: www.straitstimes.com

Explode your PPC Campaigns in 6 easy Steps

Aug. 25th, 2008 at 3:16 AM

Is your PPC campaign dull & lacking that oomph? Good, today is the day to take action & turn things around. Follow these simple steps & explode your PPC Campaign: 1...

Explode PPC

Is your PPC campaign dull & lacking that oomph? Good, today is the day to take action & turn things around. Follow these simple steps & explode your PPC Campaign:

1. Try to avoid Phrases with less than 3 Words

There’s a huge difference between “affiliate marketing” & “affiliate marketing blog.” The more words contained within a keyphrase the more targeted your keyphrase is likely to be for that query. Put yourself in the shoes of the searcher, people looking for information will type “affiliate marketing” people who specifically want to read an affiliate marketing blog will type the latter.

The same works with all industries. Bidding on “doctor” is very different than bidding on “doctor in melbourne.” Start to think more about what phrases you’re bidding on rather than being lazy.

2. Don’t waste money - Lose the Broad Match

Whilst Broad Match generally generates more traffic you’ll often find that due to Adwords “Extended Broad Matching” that heaps of unrelated terms will sneak in. Unless your researching for more terms (by utilising the Search Query Report) you should not be throwing money away on keywords that you don’t pre-qualify. Don’t be lazy & do thorough keyword research before embarking on any Adwords campaign. My rule of thumb is always go phrase (with negatives) or exact. That way you know what you’re getting for your money.

3. Catch people in the late stages of the buying process

As I mentioned in point 1, there’s certain phrases that people will use when they’re in different stages of searching. Identifying these can mean the difference between paying $15/conversion or $5/conversion.

Helpful bidding ideas:

Bid on Brand Names of Products & Items
Bid on Company Names & Manufacturers
Use buy, compare & purchase keywords
Leverage product reviews

4. Watch the Search & Content Networks

Check your Campaign Settings to see if the Search Network & Content Network are switched on. I always switch off both initially as I don’t trust where the traffic is coming from. Once I get the campaign to a solid CTR, Position & Return I’ll then test the Search Network to see if it adds or removes value.

If you want to run a Content Campaign, I suggest that you run it within its own campaign. Alone.

5. Create Highly Targeted Adgroups

Theme your adgroups around a particular keyword. If that keyword is affiliate marketing blog then the adgroup may contain:

“affiliate marketing blog”

[affiliate marketing blog]

[affiliate marketing blogs]

Doing this allows you to write a highly targeted creative which relates specifically to the keywords that you’re bidding on. Keeping things highly related like this will increase your CTR, reducing your cost in the long run.

6. Use Highly Targeted Creatives

As explained in the previous point you can now write highly targeted creatives based around a small group of keywords.

Using the above ad group example your creative might look like this:

Affiliate Marketing Blog
Become an Affiliate Marketing Gun
with Earners Blog Affiliate Marketing Blog
Earnersblog.com/AffiliateMarketingBlog

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[Continue...]

I wrote a while ago how to use RSS to get links to your blog...

I wrote a while ago how to use RSS to get links to your blog. If you’re a blogger you’ve no doubt noticed there’s quite a few blogs that scrape your RSS feed & republish the content.

We all know that Duplicate content is a bad thing, however I’ve never seen any negative effects from Scraper blogs republishing my original content. I’d normally get about 2-3 blogs trackbacking me everyday republishing my articles.

If you use Wordpress it’s very easy to take full advantage of these sites linking to you, all you need to do is create links back to your content within your feed.

What you’ll need for this:

These plugins simply show your entire post in your feed & also add some related posts in your feed only (which will also increase the amount of people in your feed reading more than 1 post).
Now, everytime anyone scrapes your blog via your RSS feed & republishes it they’ll be deep linking to 5 or more of your existing posts. Bingo.

I always make sure to try & deep link to old posts from within the body text of my posts using varying Anchor Text too.

Never underestimate the power of good internal linking & natural anchor text.

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[Continue...]

If you’ve ever been on eBay you’ll no doubt have seen this: or this: Or the thousands of other Digital Products that are being sold every day...

If you’ve ever been on eBay you’ll no doubt have seen this:

Ebay Digital Products

or this:

Ebay Ebooks

Or the thousands of other Digital Products that are being sold every day.

eBay has introduced new guidelines that from the 31st March 2008 ban the sale of any Digital Products from normal listings that can be downloaded right away, they must now be advertised under the Classified Ad format (which is useless imo).

Using the Classified Ads format, sellers receive a 30-day ad at a fixed price. This solution enables sellers to continue to market their digital goods on eBay; however, because Classified Ad listings are a lead generation tool and do not result in transactions that go through eBay, Feedback cannot be exchanged between buyer and seller.

This change will include anything that can be downloaded or transferred electronically, i.e.

eBooks
MP3’s
Digital Videos
Websites
Domain Names
Graphic Design Services
Photo Services
And any other service that can be delivered electronically

This change is going to put a lot of people who depend on selling digital products on eBay for a solid income in serious trouble. Naturally there’s probably ways around this change, like physically shipping products, but that’s a pain if you’re used to everything being automated.

However I also think that the change is a good thing for eBay. I’ve seen too many people get ripped off with Domain Names & Website packages just because they didn’t know any better.

No doubt we’re going to see a large influx of people into the Affiliate Marketing & CPA realm, there’s plenty of reading on this blog

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[Continue...]

Eng Wah's asset sale: Calls for more transparency

Aug. 25th, 2008 at 12:16 AM

Eng Wah's asset sale: Calls for more transparency
ANGRY minority shareholders of Eng Wah Organisation have raised concerns over a lack of transparency concerning the sale of the cinema group's assets.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Rights issues falter in weak market
IF ONLY the rights issues of local companies could take off as successfully as Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Retailers hit by soaring rentals
FOR a retailer, it is a nightmare scenario - getting stuck in a shop with expensive rent that attracts no shoppers.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

S'pore to run out of workers 'in 5 to 8 years'
IMAGINE calling the SingTel help desk only to find that the person answering your call is an American in Nebraska.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

In the know
MR ZHANG Qing Hai, a director of subsidiary companies of Cosco Shipyard Group, lowered his deemed stake in Cosco Corp recently.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Telstra not in mood for broadband 'lovey dovey'
SYDNEY: The Optus-led consortium that is pitching for control of Australia's national broadband network has flagged that it will offer its main rival a stake in the business, if it wins.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

British economic growth at a standstill
LONDON: Britain's economy unexpectedly ground to a halt in the second quarter, its weakest performance since the recession of the early 1990s, revised official data showed yesterday.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

$20m boost to LEAD the competition
INDUSTRY associations can now tap into $20 million more in government funds to develop initiatives that will enhance the sectors they represent.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

STI inches higher
LIKE a motherless child, the local market was lost and directionless yesterday, with the thinnest trading volume seen in Singapore since December 2005.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

$20m boost to LEAD the competition

Aug. 24th, 2008 at 8:01 PM

$20m boost to LEAD the competition
INDUSTRY associations can now tap into $20 million more in government funds to develop initiatives that will enhance the sectors they represent.

British economic growth at a standstill
LONDON: Britain's economy unexpectedly ground to a halt in the second quarter, its weakest performance since the recession of the early 1990s, revised official data showed yesterday.

STI inches higher
LIKE a motherless child, the local market was lost and directionless yesterday, with the thinnest trading volume seen in Singapore since December 2005.

Asean may ink 2 FTAs soon
IMPORTANT trade pacts between Asean and three regional trading partners - India, Australia and New Zealand - could be sealed as early as next week, at the 40th annual Asean Economic Ministers Meeting in Singapore.

Ebay ditches Commission Junction

Aug. 24th, 2008 at 4:01 PM

Ebay ditches Commission Junction
If you’re familiar with the eBay affiliate program you’ll also be very familiar with Commission Junction...

Ebay Partner Network

If you’re familiar with the eBay affiliate program you’ll also be very familiar with Commission Junction. These two have gone hand in hand with each other like Strawberry’s & Cream for as long as I can remember. The program has also been a very very consistent earner for me over the years.

But in a move that really didn’t take me by surprise, eBay have decided now to take the Affiliate Management & Reporting in house with the creation of the eBay Partner Network, a global affiliate management network encompassing all of the eBay sites into one manageable interface:

Easy global registration to multiple countries simultaneously
New, targeted banners and rich media creatives
New landing page optimization and geo-targeting capabilities
More detailed reporting capabilities for eBay’s programs

Now you’ll be able to promote every eBay localisation without having to go through the sign up process for each, which will allow for much more diversification in who you target & also allow you to Geo Target regions you may not have been able to before. The network also takes out the middleman when it comes to support & affiliate issues.

I’m keen to see the new reporting features, as the current ones provided over at CJ are extremely limited, unless you download the daily report via .csv. I’m also interested to see if they provide Geo Targeted ad blocks (similar to what Auctionads was doing).

My heart goes out to Commission Junction, I can’t imagine how much of a hit losing eBay will have on their bottom line, but the move makes sense. eBay’s Tradera AB, ProStores, Inc, Reseller Marketplace, Media Marketplace, eBay Stores & StubHub will however continue with CJ as normal so all is not lost.

The network opens on April 1st 2008 & all links must be migrated over by May 1st 2008. If you migrate over in April you’ll get a 5% bonus to all traffic for that month only.I’ll report more info when I get it & expect a full review of the new interface & reporting when I get access.

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Link Building Guide Part 5 - Wordpress MU
I’m not entirely sure when I’ll be back to my normal posting schedule (i.e. earnosphere etc), probably whenever I finish this Link Building Guide...

I’m not entirely sure when I’ll be back to my normal posting schedule (i.e. earnosphere etc), probably whenever I finish this Link Building Guide. That way all the posts are in a complete series.

This technique takes a bit of work (no-one ever said link building was easy), but if you put some real time & effort in here it really help you achieve some superb rankings for your deep pages.

Wordpress MU is a multi-user version of Wordpress. When installed on your server you can create an unlimited number of blogs or even let public users create blogs. Each blog is hosted on a subdomain (i.e. yourblogname.domain.com).

The beauty of Wordpress MU is that thousands of people have installed it on their own server, meaning there’s hundreds of potential places to create blogs on varying C-Class IP addresses. You can create a blog about whatever you want & you can easily create a nice powerful link network without having to do any of your own setup or even have your own server. Pretty sweet.

I’ve seen sites singlehandedly dominate the SERPS for specific keyword phrases using this technique alone. I’m guessing it’s due to a number of factors:

The links appear naturally over time
The links are deep within content which also appears to be natural
The links are coming from multiple sources

A simple query in google allows you to find about 1600+ Wordpress MU hosts to ~~exploit~~ set up your own blogs in:

inurl:wp-signup.php "fill out this one step form and you"

Now all you need to do is create 25 blogs (I recommend checking out Roboform to autofill the forms if you’re doing this manually, I also use this program to save time with Directory Submissions & Forum Signups.) or more & start populating them with content. This can be achieved with a piece of news from Google News or a Press Release (as these are the types of content that’s syndicated the most).

Interlink the blogs together & use some of the 4 previous techniques I mentioned to get them indexed & spidered.

Now you can start using these blogs to Deeplink into your affiliate websites.

But what if I was to tell you that there’s a way to automate this entire process?

A way for you to automatically:

Create the blogs
Post the Content
Interlink the Blogs
Insert keywords of your specified anchor text into the articles
Socially bookmark each individual post
Track if any blogs/posts have been deleted
And much more…..

Stay tuned, all will be revealed very soon. If you’re not signed up to my mailing list I suggest that you sign up, as those readers will get first preference.

This post is part of the Mass Link Building 2008 Series.

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Related Articles at Earn Money | Internet, PPC & Affiliate Marketing Blog:

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How to Upgrade to an Adwords My Client Center
Thanks for your emails & concern, yes I am still alive I’ve been taking a bit of a break recently, focusing on work & getting stuck into some of my own projects including finalising my Australian Residency...

Thanks for your emails & concern, yes I am still alive I’ve been taking a bit of a break recently, focusing on work & getting stuck into some of my own projects including finalising my Australian Residency. I try to answer all emails so just shoot me one if you have any questions.

Here’s a question from Jared:

Do you use an Adwords My Client Center? & if so what are the advantages?

If you’re managing multiple Adwords Accounts upgrading to a Google MCC Account makes perfect sense. You don’t have to log in & out to switch between them & also creating new accounts is a breeze.

I highly recommend making the jump across regardless of whether you have 1 account or several & also especially if you’re spending more than $500 a month.

There’s a few perks to having an Adwords MCC Account:

You can manage multiple accounts from 1 interface
You can split things up much better & assign budgets
You can bill each account seperately
If you spend more than $500 consistently you can take the Adwords Professional Exam
Get your own dedicated Adwords Professional Page
You can qualify for vouchers (only once you’ve completed the Professional Exam)
If you decide to take on clients you’re already set up

If you decide to take the GAP exam (which is valid for 2 years) you’ll be able to show it off on your sites. Not only that but I guarantee it’ll get you a much larger foot in the door if you apply for any SEM related jobs.

GAP Exam

Upgrading your account is pretty simple:

Join as a Google Advertising Professional
Input one of your existing Adwords Account
Create a new Google Account to use for the login & you’re done

Now just log in & link any other existing accounts.

As a rule of thumb I normally create 1 account per website that I’m working with, I normally find that this helps me manage spends & budgets much easier.

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Related Articles at Earn Money | Internet, PPC & Affiliate Marketing Blog:

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Review: T3 Leads – Financial Product Affiliate Network

Do you run an affiliate website or blog on financial products like payday loan, debt, insurance etc? T3 Leads can be another good option for you to earn more money from your business. Especially if your visitors are based in USA or UK, you are sitting on a gold mine.

Why are you sitting on a gold mine?

The simple reason is that financial products like payday loan, debt (fresh loan or debt management or debt settlement), insurance etc. often refer to immediate needs. Someone can postpone his or her decision to buy a laptop or a book on how to improve something but he or she is often mad about finding a solution to his or her financial problems. Just look at this graph from Google Trends on Payday loan and things would clearer to you. Thus, lead generation for financial products is continuously growing into a bigger industry.

What is T3 Leads?

It is a ‘Pay per Lead’ affiliate network for financial products. In addition, like any other pay per lead program the visitor you send to the affiliate sites do not need to buy anything to qualify you for the affiliate fees. They only need to sign up for the product as a prospective customer. Thus, there are always high chances that you get a better conversion rate from it.

With T3 Leads, you can earn up to $45.45 for each qualified lead. You can find a concise list of lead prices here to make up your mind on which way to go.

They have different affiliate ads like simple banners, js, iframe and popup banners to install in your website.

By the way, they have some special gifts if you are a super affiliate (that means you are sending them quality leads for a good period of time). You can also get free ePassporte card when you have earned at least $300 as affiliate commission.

Do you run an affiliate website or blog on financial products like payday loan, debt, insurance etc? T3 Leads can be another good option for you to earn more money from your business. Especially if your visitors are based in USA or UK, you are sitting on a gold mine.

Why are you sitting on a gold mine?

The simple reason is that financial products like payday loan, debt (fresh loan or debt management or debt settlement), insurance etc. often refer to immediate needs. Someone can postpone his or her decision to buy a laptop or a book on how to improve something but he or she is often mad about finding a solution to his or her financial problems. Just look at this graph from Google Trends on Payday loan and things would clearer to you. Thus, lead generation for financial products is continuously growing into a bigger industry.

What is T3 Leads?

It is a ‘Pay per Lead’ affiliate network for financial products. In addition, like any other pay per lead program the visitor you send to the affiliate sites do not need to buy anything to qualify you for the affiliate fees. They only need to sign up for the product as a prospective customer. Thus, there are always high chances that you get a better conversion rate from it.

With T3 Leads, you can earn up to $45.45 for each qualified lead. You can find a concise list of lead prices here to make up your mind on which way to go.

They have different affiliate ads like simple banners, js, iframe and popup banners to install in your website.

By the way, they have some special gifts if you are a super affiliate (that means you are sending them quality leads for a good period of time). You can also get free ePassporte card when you have earned at least $300 as affiliate commission.

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Company briefs

Aug. 24th, 2008 at 12:16 PM

Company briefs
COAL miner Straits Asia Resources has applied for a secondary listing on the Australian Securities Exchange, it announced yesterday.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

S'pore to run out of workers 'in 5 to 8 years'
IMAGINE calling the SingTel help desk only to find that the person answering your call is an American in Nebraska.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Telstra not in mood for broadband 'lovey dovey'
SYDNEY: The Optus-led consortium that is pitching for control of Australia's national broadband network has flagged that it will offer its main rival a stake in the business, if it wins.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Retailers hit by soaring rentals
FOR a retailer, it is a nightmare scenario - getting stuck in a shop with expensive rent that attracts no shoppers.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

Economic storm 'not yet subsided'
WASHINGTON: US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke said yesterday the financial storm that began last year 'has not yet subsided', creating 'one of the most challenging' economic environments in memory.
Source: www.straitstimes.com

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