United Business Services

Archive for October, 2009

This is the follow up to our previous post “not really guru bashing“. By far the most common question we receive is “how do I get ranked” and “how can it happen quickly?”

For the average person it can happen quickly if done correctly. Of course what you need to realize is the more competitive your market is, the harder it will be to rank for your keywords.

This is why we recommend that if you are just starting out you stay away from the “make money online” market. This niche is arguably the most cut throat and competitive niche online. If you do not bring your “A” game to this market you will get your butt kicked, lose money, and most likely quit altogether.

I know you probably get bombed with emails from the “gurus” all telling you that they have the answers to how you make money. Just spend whatever the cost is for their program, usually somewhere between $197 and $1997, plus maybe an ongoing monthly coaching program, and you are all set. Get ready to run to the bank

Good luck with that!

We say, start small and learn how to tread water before you decide to swim with the sharks. You need to make your first dollar online before you can make your millions.

With that said, we want to get into the most basic ways for you to get traffic quickly. Without traffic you will never sell anything, so it all starts here.

The five basic methods are as follows:

* Pay Per Click Advertising
* Using Press Release Services
* Blog Commenting and Advertising
* Forum Commenting and Advertising
* Article Marketing

There are of course other ways to get traffic but we feel these are the most effective and likely quickest way to get the hits rolling for you.

Pay per click is the fastest way to start getting traffic as you can post an ad on AdWords, Yahoo or Bing and begin receiving traffic literally within minutes in some cases. The downside to PPC is of course the cost associated with this method. You can spend a bunch of money before you really know if your site or offer is even going to convert. Also with Google cracking down on affiliates, PPC is getting more and more difficult unless you really know what you are doing. You need to have a landing page, you need to know how to optimize your landing page and you really need to know your competition.

Press release services can be very effective if you are a decent writer. Some press services are free and some will charge a fee. We have used both in the past and the free services take a bit longer to get your release posted but the end result is both are about equally effective. The catch here is that your release will be human edited and it really needs to be well written. If this is not a strength of yours you can go to Elance and hire a ghost writer for $25-$50 to write a 400-500 word release for you.

Blog commenting is just what it sounds like. You can search for blogs that are similar to whatever product it is that you will be promoting and start commenting on them. Be careful not to spam. You should take a moment to actually read through the posts and make an intelligent, thought out contribution to the blog. In many cases you will be able to add a link back to your site with anchor text which is even better.

Many sites now run plug ins called keyword luv and comment luv. We run that on our site. You can check it out here to see how it works. Again, do not just do a “drive by” and say something idiotic like “nice post”. Add value to the conversation and it will be much more likely that your post and links get approved.

Forum commenting is similar to blog commenting. The difference here is that you want to get involved in forums that are in the same niche as what you want to promote but you also want to be able to provide help and advice in your posts. Many people in forums will be there to ask questions. If you can help with an answer many times you can create a signature files that would include your URL and be permitted to sign any of your posts with that signature which would of course be a link back to your site.

But, our favorite way to get links out there quickly is with article marketing.

Article Marketing is quick and very effective. With the proper software you can literally get your site linked to dozens and dozens of times with the submission of just one article. There are many article sites out there that you can publish to, and in most cases you will be able to use an anchor text link at the bottom of your article in a resource box that will have information on the author of the article. The author of course would be you.

Many people are scared that they will not be able to write articles for themselves. This is not nearly as difficult as many people think. For a few dollars you can search PLR article sites looking for PLR (private label rights) articles about your chosen subject. You would then take those articles and use them as a basis for your articles. You can do this by using the PLR articles as a template.

We suggest you rewrite the article in your own words as you never know how many other people will have that same article. You want to make yourself as unique as possible. Using PLR articles as templates is one of the easiest ways to do that. But we do stress – do NOT just copy the PLR articles without re-writing them in your own words. You need to be unique, and using articles in this way will save you boat loads of time as opposed to writing totally from scratch.

You then have a few choices. I am a big fan of automation myself and prefer to pay a few dollars upfront to save a boatload of time and effort but still get the same results. Basically you can sign up for dozens and dozens of article submission sites and go through the process of submitting your articles one by one. If you have hours of extra time on your hands this may work for you.

The other option is to get a little piece of software known as an article spinner and article submission software. This type of software will save you tons of time and effort by automatically spinning and submitting your articles to HUNDREDS of article directories.

However not all spinners and submitters are equal.

We have actually bought 4 different pieces of software that claim to do this work for you. I am only going to name the one we still use as it is head and shoulders above the rest of the field. One of the submitters we bought just plain sucked. Two others were barely OK but were very limited in what they could do. One cost over $100 but limited the number of sites that they submitted to, to about 20 directories. Both of the two that were just barely OK still made you go out and sign up for and verify each individual directory account. Ouch!

With that being said, we stumbled upon a piece of software, two pieces actually, one was the article spinner itself and the other was the mass article submitter. The spinner is just awesome as it lets you create dozens of different versions of your article. This is critical to prevent the duplicate content penalty. The other submits the spun article to up to 700 different article directories.

The truly awesome part of that is the fact that the software not only auto submits the articles in about 5 minutes it also goes out and signs you up for the 700 directories automatically. This would take you days to do individually. All you need to supply is a gmail account that you will sign up for for free. This is the account you will use to verify all of your directory sign ups. Don’t worry though, through an IMAP connection in gmail, the software does that automatically also.

The long and the short of it is we can write an article and submit it to a few hundred sites (each submission with 2 anchor text backlinks) and have a couple of hundred backlinks to our site with just an hour or so of work. Pretty sweet indeed.

If you are at all serious about getting your site ranked quickly you should check out the software that can make it happen for you.

In our next post we will talk a little about social bookmarking and how that improves rankings if done correctly.

Permit me to go on a bit of a rant here. I am sure this will resonate with anyone who has spent any time online trying to make money.

Back in the day it was pretty easy. My first bit of success online was with ebay in 2000 through early 2002. Ebay started to get a bit saturated at that point and making money began to get more and more difficult. I stopped doing Ebay completely towards the end of 2003.

There began my odyssey for the next wave in making money online. This led to the early years of affiliate marketing and Google AdWords. Again, back in the old days (2004 and 2005) AdWords was simple. Kind of like taking candy from a baby. All you had to do was throw up an ad group with a bunch of keywords and boom, you were making money.

Alas, this too came to an end. The easy money disappeared sometime around 2005 give or take. Some niches lasted longer than others of course, but fast forward to today, and playing with AdWords is like swimming in a shark tank.

That is not to say you can’t make money anymore this way, but you really need to know what you are doing. To say competition is fierce is quite the understatement. We would recommend newbies that insist on trying pay per click start with Yahoo or the MSN ad platforms as they are not quite as saturated yet and seem to be a bit more forgiving.

Which leads us to our rant. Over the years we have followed pretty much all of the top gun gurus. We are on all of the big dog email marketing lists. We do this for a couple of reasons. One is that we feel it is the least expensive learning experience you can get online. Some of the top line copy these guys write (or pay to have written) is priceless. You can learn much just by reading the emails. Another reason is to keep a finger on the pulse of “what is currently hot”.

The theme we see today is that there seems to be an “inner circle” of these guys who promote the crap out of each others lists in a kind of “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine” sort of way. They do this through sales incentives, contests and joint ventures with special deals to each other among other things.

Of course there is nothing wrong with this per se. We just feel that it is not always done in the best interest of the people who end up buying these big expensive courses.

So where are we today? You hear much about PPC which is pay per click advertising. You also hear a lot about CPA which is cost per action. You can build websites and sell your own products or other peoples through affiliate marketing. You can attempt to monetize traffic through Adsense or Yahoo publishing. You can blog, you can flog. You can create and sell software. I could go on and on here of course, as there are limitless ways to make money online.

But it all still comes back to one thing. Traffic. How do you put eyeballs on your website or online offer? The great irony here is that it seems like things are regressing back to what originally worked.

Links and content. Build quality incoming links to your site and provide unique quality content and you will get traffic. It’s that simple. It’s always been that simple. The trouble is people abused this with automated content generating software that produced nothing but keyword rich gibberish.

That worked for a while but the search engines are a lot smarter today and getting smarter all the time. What worked then no longer works today. But the theory is still the same.

Quality Incoming Links + Unique Quality Content = Traffic.

Check out our next post. We will discuss one of the fastest and easiest ways to generate those links and content and get your site to rank quickly.

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The number of online job opportunities is growing exponentially. Some people, in fact, get a great chunk of their income from doing online jobs. However, not all online jobs can deliver their promise of big salaries and rewards. Worse, many are scams. But there are more online opportunities aside from online jobs. Starting an online business is one. Working for an online business—yours of course—is a good way to earn money while enjoying your independence.

The Advantages

Starting your online business means you work for yourself. And because you are your own boss, you set your own work schedule, you don’t answer to anyone, and you most likely determine your own success. Your promotion and raise are not in someone else’s hands, but in yours. In other words, you control your own pace.

An online business is also the easiest avenue for you to start the business venture you have been brewing in your mind, as it is much easier to fund than to put up say a brick and mortar business. You don’t have to rent a space, hire regular staff, or pay for utility bills; you only need to have a decent computer and Internet connection. So if, for instance, the business you are interested in requires huge start-up capital, you can first try it out as an online business and expand it once you have established its presence and credibility.

Because an online business can be run anytime and anywhere, it gives you much flexibility. You can respond to queries from pretty much anywhere with an internet connection. You can control your time, work any time you want to, and take a vacation if you see fit.

Create The Heart Of The Business

Setting up an online business, however, is not as easy as many people think. You see a lot of opportunities that say you do not need a website. I say, bull. You will need a website and you will need to learn some basic technical stuff like FTP and HTML. You also need to do comprehensive research, careful planning, and critical decision-making. And the first thing you have to decide on is the type of business you want to put up and the product or service you are going to offer. Only then can you create the heart of your online business – your website.

Following are the things you need to consider when building a website. Study them well and see how you can work them out.

1. Domain name. A good domain name is one that is strongly associated to the offered product or service. It should be short, have good recall, and be easy to read. Though it should be unique, the domain name shouldn’t have complicated spelling. It’s also important to make as many versions as you can in case your first choice has already been taken. For about $10 a year you can have your domain name registered.

2. Web host. Having a web host costs only a few dollars a month. Though you have the option to host your website using free blog sites, paying for a web host gives your business a professional and credible appeal. Make sure to get a first-rate web host to ensure that your website is always functional.

3. Web design and layout. The overall web design and layout should reflect the nature of your business and your product or service. It should be easy to browse and easy on the eyes. Since the general look of your website can also draw or fend off visitors, you have to be very meticulous with the design and layout. Remember that without visitors, working your online business isn’t possible.

Some people may not be ready for their own business and would instead prefer to work for someone from home first. If this is the case just be careful of the many scams that prey on people who are trying to work from home.

Here are some of the warning signs of online job scams. If you spot any of them in your potential job, trash it. You might be looking at a scam.

1. Asks for money. If a potential employer charges fees for more job and company information, start-up kit, training, software, or hiring you, it is most likely a scam.

2. Describes itself as legitimate. If what is said about a job is more on its legitimacy but less on the company, pay, nature, and other important details, beware. This is probably just one of the marketing strategies.

3. Promises big and quick cash. Forget jobs that say, “Get rich quick. Earn $1000 weekly.” Or anything of that nature. The truth is, no job can promise you fast financial success. It takes time. It takes hard work. Such claims are typical of scams.

4. Requires no experience or skill at all. A real job needs to be done by qualified individuals. If an employer says there is little effort needed on your part, forget it. A legitimate employer wouldn’t entrust an important job to unreliable people. It would be a waste of their time and money.

5. Comes from an unsolicited email. A job posting you know you haven’t applied to and which appears in an unsolicited email message is most often a scam. Coming from an unsolicited email message, in itself, is quite suspicious.

6. Has a questionable website. A legitimate company normally provides complete contact details on its website. The absence of which might be an indicative it is a scam. If it also tells less about the company history, nature, and what it stands for, be careful.

What To Do

The rule of thumb when looking for legitimate online jobs is to do thorough research. If you find a company rather dubious, look it up on the web by typing the company name and the word “scam” in the search box. The search results can give you a good indication of whether a company is reputable.

You can also contact the employer. Ask for important details about the job such as the salary, mode of payment, and other job details not mentioned in the ad post. If the response is somewhat shady, you may want to skip that job altogether. An employer will tell all the job details upfront if it is legitimate.

Ask for a list of references. It should include the company’s employees and contractors. Not all companies will provide this but it never hurts to ask. Remember, you need to be very careful and decisive when taking on a potential job, as working online scams are growing in number.

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