Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting Review

By Gary on April 29, 2008

If you’re looking for a good web host for your website and you’re considering Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting, I’ve got some advice for you – don’t do it!

I’ve had my own website since 2002 and I have to say that this has been my most disappointing hosting experience in that time.

Here are my top 5 reasons to avoid Yahoo Web Hosting.

1) Overpriced

Let’s start at the beginning for why I didn’t enjoy their service. First, I felt it was overpriced. There are a lot better deals out there for faster web hosts at better prices. Yahoo can get away with charging more because of their name, but really you’re not getting anything but that name when you pay extra for it.

2) Poor Customer Support

A few weeks ago I had a question that I needed an answer to quickly. With other web hosts I’ve done business with, I typically get a response in about an hour – for the web hosts that weren’t great, I’d get a response within 24hrs. How long do you think it took Yahoo to reply to my email? Well, I’m sitting at 6 weeks and counting – they never bothered to reply despite saying they replied within 1 business day.

Then today I called them up because I was having an issue and didn’t want to wait indefinitely for a support response and was told they didn’t allow me to do what I needed to do on my website (see reason #3) so I told the guy I needed a refund on my hosting – he transferred me to billing because he couldn’t do it. After an hour of waiting, I decided I wasn’t going to waste anymore of my valuable time waiting around for Yahoo. Web hosting customers are pretty valuable to a company yet Yahoo didn’t feel the need to answer my phone call to talk to them within 60 minutes – that’s just unacceptable.

So I hung up, and canceled online and told them about the ill will they’ve earned from me.

3) No Htaccess

If you’ve never worked on websites yourself, them you may have no idea what this is or why it’s important, but to me it’s a huge deal that I be able to add a custom .htaccess file to my sites. Yahoo in its infinite wisdom simply doesn’t allow this. I’ve never had this happen with any other host I’ve ever worked with… ever! This was the reason why I called up Yahoo Customer Service this morning and why I decided to cancel – I’m not going to pay for overpriced hosting when I can get a better deal with someone who will actually allow me to customize my site like a “real” web hosting provider would.

4) Not Easy To Usefurniture Elhovo

You would think that since it’s more expensive than most hosting, it must be easy to use to make up for it. Nope. They do have a built in online site builder but no serious website owner would be proud of what that thing can build. Then there’s their Yahoo Site Builder – that thing is just a pain to work with and guess what – I wasn’t able to get it to work properly.

I hired a professional to design a content management system to put on the site and he found working with their Yahoo system a complete nightmare… and he’s a professional – I can only imagine how frustrated novices must get.

I prepaid for 3 months of service in advance. I only used one – you’d think that’d I’d get a refund for the two months I didn’t use because that just makes sense, right? You shouldn’t have to pay for what you didn’t use. Nope – Yahoo won’t refund any money you’ve paid them – it’s buried deep within their convoluted terms of service agreement. To be honest, this just astounded me. I can’t think of any other web host that would be in business with practices like these but since Yahoo gets so much traffic and has their name to rely on, they can get by with offering really crappy service and people put up with it because they don’t know what else to do.

Alternatives To Yahoo Web Hosting

So if you’re looking for alternatives, here are two that I’ve personally used and can recommend to you.

Hostgator.com – I’ve been a customer with Hostgator for years. Their customer support is superb. I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than an hour for an email response from them and they offer toll free phone support too (and trust me, you won’t be waiting an hour to talk to them on the phone). Their hosting prices start out at $4.95/month.

Liquidweb.com – My personal favorite web host. Honestly, I’ve only ever purchased dedicated servers from this company, but I have to tell you their service is great, their servers are reliable, and their prices for managed dedicated hosting are great. And although it is rare for me to have to contact customer support, I get directed to a live person almost immediately after I call them (I’ve never waited more than a minute to talk to a person), and their email response is always extremely fast. If you’re new to web hosting, you won’t need Liquidweb right away, but when your website is big enough to justify going with them, I’d recommend looking them up.

So if you’re looking for web hosting, I hope you found this post helpful. I didn’t mean to go on such a long tirade but I really hate getting treated like crap by companies and wanted to let you know about my bad experience with Yahoo so you can avoid it.

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7 Ways To Create Your First Information Product

By Gary on March 31, 2008

Today I want to spend a little time talking about how to create your first information product.

I’m not going to spend any time convincing you on why you’d want to create an information product – I’ll save that for another post.

Once you’ve got your idea picked out for what you’re going to do your product about, it’s time to go ahead and create an outline for everything you want to cover. You can do this by sitting down and just writing everything down on a piece of paper or using any word processing program on your computer. I’m also a fan of using notecards for this task. You can also use mindmapping software like Bubbl.us (completely free online) Mindjet Mindmanager (PC), or NovaMind (Mac).

No matter what you’re going to do, you’re going to want to do this outline or mindmapping first. Basically, get all your ideas written down somewhere.

Next, it’s time to start creating your product. So let’s cover the 7 ways to do that:

1) Sit down and write a book or ebook
If you like to write then this is the easiest way to get started. Just open up your favorite Word Processor and start working from the outline you created. You could actually create an entire ebook in just one day if you were really dedicated to it.

2) Outsource the writing
I have a full time writer that works for me now and I’m thinking about getting another – I just have so much content I want created that I don’t have the time or inclination to do myself. Of course, I don’t recommend getting a full time writer right away. It’s easy to outsource the project to a writer on sites like Elance.com, Guru.com, and Rentacoder.com. I usually try to stick to writers with high ratings and those whose first language is English. I find that it needs less corrections and proofreading if I stick to American writers – it costs a little more, but you can have them write an entire eBook for you for as little $200 and even really good eBook writers rarely cost more than $1500-$2000. You’re more likely to get exactly what you want it you give them your outline and even tell them the writing style you’d like them to use, but if you don’t want to go through the trouble, just give them the topic and tell them about how many pages you want and they’ll do all the research and create the product for you.

3) Interview an expert

Have a topic picked out, but not an expert in the area yourself? No problem. There are plenty of experts out there that you can interview. For example, there are probably plenty of authors out there looking for more exposure. Find one of them that you can interview in exchange for letting them plug their book at the end. It’s a win win and you get your product created without having to become an expert on the topic yourself.

4) Host a teleseminar

Here’s another great way to create a product. Ask your potential customers exactly what their top questions are on a certain topic, then host a teleseminar for those people and answer all those questions. Then sell the recording of the teleseminar to other people. This type of content is extremely valuable to people because you’re answering the exact questions they have on their mind.

5) Record a video

Just take a look at Youtube’s meteoric rise over the past 3 years to come out of nowhere to become the #2 most popular site on the Internet and you’ll get an idea of how popular videos are.

And the great thing is that people value video content higher than they do ebooks so if your topic lends itself to being an intstructional video, then do it.

6) License what you need

Here’s an easy way to get a product without having to do any work yourself. Just get it from someone else. There are plenty of products out there where you can purchase resell rights, private label rights, or purchase a license to sell the product. Just type in the topic of the product you want to create, and add “resell rights”, “private label rights” or “license” into your favorite search engine and the odds are good you’ll find a product already written about the product where the author is willing to sell your a license where can sell the product.

7) Get the content from other experts
I’ve purchased several products that were created just like this. Essentially you go out and find several experts on a topic and have them contribute their expertise to your upcoming product. This can be done as a series of interviews, as short chapters to a book, and on and on.

All you do is compile the content and *presto* instant product with very little work on your end.

So there you have it – 7 easy ways to start creating an information product. Remember, the most important thing to do is to take action. Follow the Nike motto – “just do it.”

Let me know what you think by posting in the comments below.

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Best Bonuses Being Offered For Frank Kern’s Mass Control Product

By Gary on February 1, 2008

This post is probably going to have the shortest useful life of any blog post I’ve ever made.

The product is being released in less than two hours, and I expect it to sell out in less than 30 minutes.

Anyway, believe it or not, I’m not one of the gazillions of people promoting Mass Control. I haven’t seen a preview copy of it anyway, but I’m like you, I want it!

So there’s no affiliate link from me here. Rather, I’m going to let you know who’s giving away the best bonuses for this product. While the product itself is awesome, you may as well get something extra out of it, right?

Anyway, here are some of the best I’ve found so far:

Russell Brunson
Bonus: Commission Bump DVD – 3 product launch case studies, with resale rights, sales letters included – 2 tickets to the IM myth workshop – click here for Russell’s link.

Jeff Dedrick
Bonus: An interview where you get to ask any question you like on how to create your own product – A live webinar on how they used Mass Control to generate $20,000 in 4 days – Mass Control Plan for 2008 with videos – How to use mass control for affiliate promotions – Private coaching membership – a bunch more stuff, they may be giving away a kitchen sink, not sure. www.frankkernmasscontrolbonus.com

Carl Galletti:
Bonus: tickets to this year’s internet marketing superconference – videos and audios of superconference 8 & 9. Transcripts of superconference 8 – traffic mastery audios – copywriter protege audios – power copywriting – the ultimate entrepreneur – resale rights to a bunch of stuff – and a lot of other stuff that i don’t have time to type here or I wouldn’t even finish this post before the launch http://www.carlgalletti.com/mcbonuses/

John Reese:
Bonus: A copy of his much anticipated Traffic Secrets 2.0 – www.income.com/masscontrol.html

Those are the best one’s I’ve seen. I don’t get anything for referring you to them, just thought I’d let you know which ones are best.

If you want to get Mass Control, then you’ll want to be sitting on the website when it officially launches at 12:00 or you honestly do risk missing out. I’ll update this post with how long it took to sell out later today.

Update:
Well, I was wrong about it’d sell out. It actually took 53 minutes – likely due to the fact that they were having major server issues. I had early ordering access and it still took me 20 minutes to get my order to go through so that’s probably why it took so long. Anyway, congrats to those of you who did get your order in. If you use it, you’re almost certain to make a bunch of money this year.

If you missed out, well, I think Frank is planning on sticking around the Internet marketing niche this time so hopefully it would be another 3 1/2 years before he releases his next product.

~Gary

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The Lazy Marketer Review – An Honest Review Of Confesssions of a Lazy Super Affiliate

By Gary on January 31, 2008

It’s not too often that an affiliate manual comes along that I’ll actually buy, much less implement.

Most of the products are simply a bunch of “me too” products.

Affiliate manuals tend to come in two flavors. The first group says something about building lists, then marketing the crap out of that list. The second group says let’s build sites and send pay per click traffic to them.

I have nothing against either one of them. Both work. The problem is that both require substantial testing and knowledge to use effectively.

However, in Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate, author Chris Rempel puts a whole new twist on things. In fact, he actually uses a system that is similar to what I’ve been using over the past year and a half.

He teaches you how to build sites that get really targeted traffic designed to convert well – i.e. desperate keywords. While you’re not gonna get millions of visitors per day by using this system, you will get people who are in need of a solution. It’s your job to provide them that solution in the form of an affiliate offer.

That’s the jist of it. The trick is actually getting that traffic, and as someone who understands search engine optimization, I have to admit that Chris really knows what he’s talking about in his ebook, “The Lazy Marketer.”

I think that’s the part that surprised me the most. He not only understood affiliate marketing – he understood search engine optimization and has combined the two beautifully.

However, while revealing that particular system was somewhat innovative, I wouldn’t call it earth shattering. It’s really just an advanced combination of Bum Marketing and Affiliate Project X (but it is darn effective).

The part of the system that made me decide I actually need to own it was what he calls viral software marketing. He revealed to me a traffic generation strategy I’d never even heard of! I’ll be honest, that doesn’t happen too often anymore. Basically what you do in this part of the system is create simple yet useful programs (or outsource it, which is what I’m doing since I’m not a programmer), then you distribute them to the top software directories.

The results can be impressive – thousands of extra visitors per day.

So would I recommend that you buy Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate? I would. In fact, I’m recommending it as my top pick if you want to start making money online in 2008.

I actually am actually budgeting several thousand dollars for the development of these type of sites myself despite having plenty of other projects on my plate. That’s how confident I am in this system, I’m sticking a lot of my own money into using it – something I rarely do especially for cheap little eBooks like this one.

Click here to learn more about Chris Rempel’s Confessions of a Lazy Super-Affiliate.

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Why Would Anyone Reveal Their Moneymaking Secrets In An eBook?

By Gary on January 30, 2008

Why Would Anyone Reveal Their Money Making Secrets In An eBook?

A couple days ago I sent out an email to a list of eBay sellers promoting a product on how to import products from overseas.

If you want to read the entire email, you can do so here. You’ll notice that I actually kept it fairly hype free since that’s not really my style.

I didn’t get a lot of response from it, however, I did get one reply from a man I’ll call “David.”

Here’s what he said, “Hi Gary,

Why would someone that is making $20,000.00 to $30,000.00 be selling how to e-books.

I know they got tired of counting the cash.”

Obviously, he’s pretty skeptical that some making over $200,000 a year would sell a $40 eBook.

So why would someone who is making over $200,000 a year in the importing business start selling eBooks that reveal all their secrets for a mere $40?

Here’s the simple answer: To make more money!

I know that most people out there would be thrilled to be making $200,000/year, heck most people would be thrilled to just be making $100,000/year. However, that’s not how high achievers think. Once they are making good money they start to think, “Okay, this is great. Now what can I do to make even MORE money? And how can I make that money for less work?”

While it’s hard to get rich just selling one eBook to people, there are plenty of good reasons to have one.

1) It establishes you as an expert in the industry which can lead to speaking and consulting engagements – which pay quite well.
2) Selling information is less work than selling physical products. When the information is digital, there’s no fulfillment process. Once the system is setup, you just answer support questions and the rest takes care of itself on autopilot.
3) No inventory. When you sell an eBook, there’s no inventory to stock. You can make money without needing a lot of space to stock and store your inventory.
4) Backend. It’s well known that people trying to make money online are voracious buyers. They buy and buy and buy. So while he may only make a little bit of money on his $40 ebook after paying affiliates and other fees, he now has a list of proven buyers. He can offer other higher priced services (like personal coaching) and products (like home study courses) to his list later.

So next time you wonder why someone would reveal their money making secrets, keep in mind that it’s not for altruistic reasons. The bottom line is that they’re looking to make money, and by telling you’re their best stuff, word gets around that they’re materials really work, and they make even more sales.

Sure, you get a warm fuzzy feeling when somebody sends you an email or gives you a call and thanks you for helping them out. However, if there wasn’t some profit motivation in there somewhere, people wouldn’t reveal their secrets.

Since I like to practice what I preach, the profit motivation of this blog post is to have you take a look at this cool course on how to create your own information products. I’ve already told you why they rock, and I’ve actually got 9 products slated for release in 2008 myself. While there are plenty of products out there on this topic, I like this one best because of how it’s setup. Everyday it gives you one step to do. And it covers all the little details that people typically get hung up on, a big plus, and the reason why I purchased it myself.

Take a look at it – it’s called Info-Product Dashboard – I’m highly recommending this product to you if you’d like to make some more money this year.

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Mark Joyner’s New Blogging Product

By Gary on December 30, 2007

When it comes to teaching people how to blog, it’s starting to become a pretty crowded market.

So when Mark Joyner decided to come out with his own blogging product from Simpleology, I was quite surprised.

Why?

Because Mark Joyner certainly isn’t someone known for his blogging knowledge. He has a blog, but has publicly mentioned many times he doesn’t know a heck of a lot about it the whole blogging thing.

I’m in the process of reviewing it simply because he has several other oustanding products, so it’s quite possible that this product is quite good, but I’ll let you know in a few days the rest of my thoughts on this product.

In the meantime, feel free to check it out for yourself.

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

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Blogging To The Bank 2.0 Review

By Gary on August 29, 2007

Is Rob Benwell’s Blogging To The Bank 2.0 really a book that can teach you how to create highly profitable blogs that suck in thousands of targeted visitors everyday?

That’s what I wanted to find out.

blogging to the bank 2.0

I’ve read lots of information from people on how to make money with blogs. I’ve even recorded my own 1hr and 42min video on the topic myself, so I know a little bit about how to get traffic to blogs and how to make money from it. I was curious if this product was going to be a system that anybody could take and make a blog a profitable one or if it was just about of vanilla information that was outdated and useless.

So I bit the bullet, downloaded the product and read it. Afterall, he does make over $30,000/month using this system so I figured it was at least worth a read.

Blogging to the Bank 2.0 started out with some very important information – his five blogging commandments. They’re pretty basic, nothing earth shattering, but then again if you screw them up, you won’t have high traffic, profitable blogs – so be sure to read them and commit them to memory.

Then he gets to the fun stuff, his step by step blueprint for highly profitable long term niche blog. He teaches you how to research profitable niches for your blog (very important) and shows several how to do this research for free.

Then he moves on to setting up a blog, which is a section I didn’t read since I already know how to do that.

The most important section he talks about is the content section. He talks about creating content, getting content created for you, and provides a guide for outsourcing this part of your blogging (which you’ll need to know if you intend to have a lot of blogs)

He then covers some info on optimizing your blog, and some tips on how to use Web 2.0 to drive traffic to your blog.

Despite all the great step by step info covered in the book, there were some major points about getting traffic and links with blogs that were completely glossed over or were out of date. That part disappointed me a little. Overall, however, the product is a great system for someone who wants to make great money online to start with.

One thing to keep in mind is that when you’re building up high quality blogs, you’re building up a valuable asset that you could decide to sell down the road unlike some other systems where you’re simply flooding the Internet with garbage.

If you decide to invest in Blogging to the Bank 2.0 (which I’d recommend despite a couple of small deficiencies) one thing you’re going to want to learn more about is how to build links to your blog and how to drive massive traffic to it, and Blogging to the Bank 2.0 doesn’t do a great job in explaining that so what I’m going to do if you get Blogging to the Bank through the link on this site is include two videos that I’ve recorded on building links and traffic to blogs. The first video is called “The Power of Blogs” – it’s 1hr 42min of tips on how to properly optimize, build links, and generate “buzz” using blogs.

The second video you’ll get takes this generating “buzz” concept to the next level – it’s my “Complete Guide To Linkbait.” If you want to learn the real secrets to getting thousands of links in a very short time and getting 10,000 visitors in a single day, then the Complete Guide to Linkbait is a must watch video.

I’m going to include them as a free bonus to anyone who buys Blogging to the Bank from this site since I feel it’s an excellent product for someone who wants to be a great full time living online.

Instructions to Claim Your Two Bonuses

1) To get your two bonus videos that will help you dramatically increase the traffic your blog gets – The Power Of Blogs and the Complete Guide To Linkbait – order Blogging to the Bank 2.0 by clicking this link.

2) Email me at mfxbonus@marketingeffects.com and send me a copy of your Clickbank order receipt

3) Enter “Blogging To The Bank” as the subject of the email

4) Upon verification of your purchase, I’ll send you “The Power of blogs” and “The Complete Guide To Linkbait” for FREE.

NOTE: You must order Blogging to the Bank through my link on this website in order to get the bonuses.

If you have any questions, as always be sure to post them in the comments for me below.

Update: This post has gotten a little old so you can check out my new how to make money with a blog reviews at bloggingprofiteer.com.
Gary

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The One Element Your Website Can’t Be Without

By Gary on August 7, 2007

When it comes to having a profitable website, there’s one critical element you need – without it, you can’t make money.

And that’s traffic.

Specifically, you need high quality targeted traffic if you want your site to be profitable.

So let’s cover some ways to get that traffic.

Email
If you have a list of people who’ve signed up for your newsletter or if you have a list of people who’ve purchased from you in the past, then to get them to come back, just send them an offer via email.
This can be a highly effective way to create revenue on demand, the only problem is that if you have a new website or a small list, then this tactic probably won’t be all that effective for you.
email list, which brings me to my next way to get traffic…

Joint Venture
You may not have a list or people yet but you can be sure that somebody out there does. Team up with them, and offer them a cut of the sales for recommending your product. Most people overlook this method, but it’s extremely effective so if you’re serious about making money, learn how to use joint ventures.

PPC
This is a favorite method of many people since you have so much control over the traffic. The one problem with pay per click advertising is that it’s becoming expensive as more and more competition enters the arena, but if you can make it work, you’re set.

Banner Ads
Here’s another classic way of advertising your website. A lot of people claim that banner ads simply aren’t effective, and if they’re not targeted to the right audience, they’re not. However, getting banner ads on niche sites can work like gangbusters, and they’re cheap so don’t overlook this method.

Search Engines
One of my favorite methods is to get traffic from the search engines. Probably because it’s free, these people are seeking you out so you know they’re targeted, and because they buy.

When it comes to getting free traffic from the search engines, there’s a couple things you need to keep in mind.
1) You need to update your site frequently, and add new content on a regular basics.
2) You need links. You absolutely, positively, have to have links pointing to your website, and they need to be the right kind of links.

I could go on and on about this for hours, but instead, I’m going to point you to this new video series that will guide you through the process of building links and getting free traffic from the search engines.

It’s called Mission Unlinkable, and I’d highly recommend you consider these videos if getting more traffic to your website is something you want to do.

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My Review of Project Black Mask – Don’t Waste Your Money

By Gary on June 26, 2007

This review isn’t going to be like all of the other reviews you’re going to read for Project Black Mask.

project black mask

First of all, there isn’t a single affiliate link in this review. (Not even to good products like Affiliate Project X)

Second, this is NOT one of those supposed “reviews” pretending to be an independent third party that just wants you to buy the product. I’ll be honest. I don’t want you to buy the product – it’s crap.

I purchased this product because I purchased Chris’ previous products, Affiliate Project X and Day Job Killer. I was pleased with both

However, I have to say that Project Black Mask is one of the biggest piles of crap I’ve ever purchased, and this is one of a handful of times where I’ve actually felt it necessary to ask for my money back.

So if you’re sick of reading promotions for this product by newbies claiming all this stuff really works or it’s new, then read on.

One thing I do need to mention is that I spent a good two years doing black hat SEO and building scraper sites so I feel that I know this whole “blackhat” traffic game better than most, and one thing I can tell you is that these supposed Google “loopholes” have been closed… since 2005! Yahoo and MSN were slower to come around but by 2006 their figured most of this stuff out. It’s 2007 now – who the heck are you trying to fool?

You see, if you follow the strategies in Project Black mask you’ll be building hundreds of worthless websites trying to generate Adsense revenue from the traffic. You’ll be spamming to get your links, and your sites will quickly get banned from the search engines.

You might see a short spike in traffic for a little while, but search engines like Google are exceptional at spotting these garbage sites and throwing them out of their index quickly. Think about it – when’s the last time you saw what was clearly a scraper site ranking in the top 10 for anything? I know I haven’t seen a single one in quite some time.

This supposed “loophole” you’re exploiting is simply marketing hype to sell excellent blackhat strategies from 2004 in 2007. Simply put – you’re too late.

Now the theory behind building all these sites is that you work hard the first months building your websites up, and then they just sit there and make money for you and you don’t have to do anything with them. The problem is, like I already mentioned, the search engines will throw you out of their index quickly, so the sites you built two months ago will be banned and will not generate any money for you.

These blackhat strategies can make you money as long as you’re willing to work 60 hours a week indefinitely. You won’t be building up any long term revenue, lists, customers, or anything that will be worth something down the road. You’re simply giving yourself a job and an annoying job at that.

I compare what you’re being taught to do in Project Black Mask to being a weed. You’re not wanted and you’re an annoyance. Sure, a gardener (the search engines) might let the weeds grow a little bit but as soon as they start to take hold, they’re going to be gotten rid of.

Is that how you want to spend your time building your online “business’? Do you really want to be building websites whose only purpose is to annoy people just to extract a few cents out of them?

Probably the thing promoted in this manual that annoyed me the most was the promotion of using automated forum spam software. This is where you use a program that will automatically register you and post to hundreds or thousands of forums at once. First of all, as a forum owner myself, if everyone using this software found a nice high cliff and jumped, I would throw a party.

And I know that some people will defend it by saying that they only post to forums that have been abandoned. Well, in that case, almost every single one of those that I’ve run across has been removed from Google (never checked Yahoo or MSN) because they’re full of spam links and Google *hates* that. So even if you’re not annoying forum owners, you’re still wasting your time because those links simply won’t count towards anything. You’ll find your site listed alongside Russian porn sites and pharmacy sites which can get you banned just by association. (You’re building black hat sites, so one way or another you’ll get banned anyway.)

This type of software has also caused many a good forum to call it quits because handling the spam was just too much of a hassle. Do you really want to do that to someone – destroy their forum just so you can get a link?

So that’s what I think about Project Black Mask. If you want to make money online, this is not the way to do it. I wouldn’t touch this thing with a 10 foot pole if I were you, and if you did get suckered into buying this product, ask for your money back.

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How To Get Your Visitors To Opt-in – Reverse Squeeze Pages

By Gary on May 20, 2007

So you’ve got your website up and running and you’ve got your newsletter up and running. You’ve just got one problem – you don’t have anybody subscribing to your newsletter.

[google 8619449963490002174]

So how do you go about getting your visitors to go from just visiting your site to opting into your newsletter?

Well, it used to be as simple as putting little box on your website that said, sign up for our free newsletter, and if you did that, people would sign up. Unfortunately, those days are long gone. People used to think it was cool to get email, but now we’re all bombarded with so much spam that we’re not going to part with our email address so easily.

So the next logical step after just asking people to opt-in stopped working was to bribe them. Perhaps with a free report, free chapters from your ebook, videos and tutorials, or even podcasts – essentially, you give them something of value in exchange for them giving you their valuable email address.

But are you ready for some more bad news? Yeah – people are so skeptical now that even if you promise to give them something of value for their email address, they’re still reluctant to give it to you. They’ve likely been given crappy reports that were thrown together in a few minutes before from some marketer who was just trying to get their email address and didn’t actually care about providing value.

So since just asking them to opt-in doesn’t work very well, are we just supposed to give up on building an email list?

Heck no – what you need to do is prove yourself first. Give people some valuable content BEFORE you ask them to give you their email address. That can be as simple as writing great articles or blog posts or recording videos that really do provide value to the visitor even if they don’t opt-in.

Essentially, what you’re doing is what famous Internet Marketer, John Reese, calls a reverse squeeze page.

I’ll admit that I’ve been using these for a couple years now even though I didn’t know that they had a name. I just thought it was a good way to get people to opt-in, and as long as you’re providing quality content – it is.

Keep in mind, however, if your site is crap, then people are unlikely to opt-in because they just think you’re going to send them more crap or even worse, spam them. Reverse squeeze pages will not work on sites with crappy content. If you want to see an example of a reverse squeeze page in action, you can visit my snake site, boatips.com and see how I provide content before I ask for the subscriber to opt-in on all my article pages.

One of my favorite methods for implementing reverse squeeze pages is to offer a free report at the bottom of an article or blog post. So yes, they’re getting free content on my site, then they’re getting a free report from me, so there’s a whole lot of free stuff being given away before I ever ask for money.

And you know what, even the first few emails I send them are likely to contain just content, or maybe a very soft sell for a product included with a lot of valuable content, so that even if they don’t buy the product, they got value by reading the newsletter.

If your subscribers know that every email you send them is going to be a promotion for something, they’re going to start deleting your emails before ever reading. On the other hand, if you’re providing valuable content in every email you send, then people will actually look forward to seeing your emails, and won’t mind if you take a few moments to recommend a product to them.

And that covers getting people to opt-in to your site – give reverse squeeze pages a try and see how it works for yourself.

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