The Affiliate Review 1-17 03/22/08

March 22nd, 2008 Len Thurmond Posted in The Affiliate Review Archives |

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IN THIS WEEK’S REVIEW

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• Just Something to Think About

• This Week’s Editorial: Sandy’s Blurbs on Blogs

• Now That’s Funny!

• Food For Thought:What’s With This Original Content Crap?

• The Androgynous Stone: Chapter 6

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JUST SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT

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An amazing thing, the human brain. Capable of understanding incredibly complex and intricate concepts. Yet at times unable to recognize the obvious and simple.

Jay Abraham
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THIS WEEK’S EDITORIAL: SANDY’S BLURBS ON BLOGS

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Hi Gang,

As you have probably guessed, I am a very big fan of blogs. I not only am the editor of THIS blog, I keep several others as well. I write one to let my family know what is going on in my busy life. I have a fitness one where I document what I eat, what I weigh, and how many steps I have taken on my pedometer. (Yesterday I took 6,798 steps!) I read blogs to catch up with my extended family, to get traveling tips and reviews, to keep up on the latest by my favorite Macinstosh computer tech writer, and of course the myriad of internet marketing blogs.

If there is a topic you can think of, there is a blog about it. Blogs are FUN! They are interesting, conversational, and if you know how to monetize them, very profitable. I have had websites that made money at first but then got de-indexed from the search engines later because there wasn’t enough good quality, constantly updating content on them to keep the search engines interested in them.

Blogs, because by their very nature, ARE constantly changing and updating. Instead of doing a re-design of your website, you just add another post and POOF the page is different. Pretty cool and also really easy to maintain. I’m not saying that every blog is guaranteed to be successful (a blog CAN crash and burn just like any site). However the difference is that the methods for success with blogging are extremely simple.

First, pick a niche topic for your blog that is very popular, yet not too broad of a subject. I would recommend starting off with something you have knowledge about, or at least have a passion to LEARN a lot about. You never know what you will find out. That is part of why I love affiliate marketing so much. Anything that I have an interest for, I can turn into a money generating activity. How cool is that?

Next, get set up with some blogging software. I like to use WordPress for a couple of reasons. First, it gives me a lot of flexibility to customize it exactly how I want. Also, it runs on my very own server so I have a lot more freedom for what I want to put on it than if I was using someone else’s service with their rules and regulations. (For example, Blogger.com is owned by Google. If they decided they don’t like your blog for any reason…ZAP.)

I’m VERY excited about a new feature of Len’s new Article Innovator software because there is a way to install a WordPress blog on your server (complete with creating the database and all that back end techie stuff) with the click of a button! You will flip out when you see this! Here is a video I made about it:

http://www.articleinnovator.com/AIVideos/04_wpblogs

So now you make “posts” to your brand new blog that is centered around your area of interest. You can talk about some of the research you have done, or point out something that was just in the news, or just write whatever comes in to your head. Your objective is to write something that is interesting to your target audience. If you keep it entertaining and interesting, they will keep coming back, bookmark it, and tell their friends. I’ll write next week about ways to get your blog noticed by other blogs.

So now it is up to you to find ways to monetize a popular blog. You can put Google Adsense ads on the pages for people to click on, use banner ads (making sure that they are of interest to your audience) and you can use the blog to promote just about anything you are involved in. Make recommendations for products and services using your own affiliate links. Talk about one of your other web sites and encourage people to visit. Some blogs even have a “donation box” where your readers can donate money just to show that they like your blog and want to support you. (This is usually done with blogs for non-profits but I have seen it for everything from a beer money to raising money for a new boob job!

Anyway, if you like it, then why not BLOG ABOUT IT!

Until the next ‘review,
Sandy Swain

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NOW THAT’S FUNNY!

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Easter Dinner

There was this fellow who worked in a post office whose job
it was to process all mail that had illegible addresses. One day
a letter came to his desk, addressed in a shaky handwriting to
God. He thought, “Oh boy, better open this one and see what
it’s all about.” So he opened it and read, “Dear God, I am an
83 year old widow living on a very small pension. Yesterday
someone stole my purse. It had a hundred dollars in it which
was all the money I had until my next pension check. Next
Sunday is Easter, and I had invited two of my friends over
for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food
with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope.
Can you please help me?”

The postal worker was touched, and went around showing
the letter to all the others. Each of them dug into his wallet
and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the
rounds, he had collected 96 dollars, which they put into an
envelope and sent over to her. The rest of the day, all the
workers felt a warm glow, thinking of the nice thing they
had done.

Easter came and went, and a few days later came another
letter from the old lady to God. All the workers gathered
around while the letter was opened. It read, “Dear God,
How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me?

Because of your generosity, I was able to fix a lovely dinner
for my friends. We had a very nice day, and I told my friends
of your wonderful gift. By the way, there was 4 dollars
missing. It was no doubt those thieving wackos at the
post office.”

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FOOD FOR THOUGHT: WHAT’S WITH ALL THIS ORIGINAL ARTICLE CRAP?

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By Len Thurmond

WHAT IS THE DEAL WITH ALL THIS ORIGINAL ARTICLE CRAP?

Everywhere you turn, all you hear about is “Duplicate Content this, or Original Content that!”

So What’s the Big Deal?

The big deal is that the search engines will no longer give you credit for using old worn out articles, and are insisting that if you want to reap the benefits of their “FREE” traffic, you will have to provide content that NO ONE else has!

(Actually, that is not EXACTLY True. They grade on a sliding scale, and although you will get great results with content that is only in one place, on YOUR site, you will still get credit to a lesser and lesser degree, according to how MANY instances of duplication there are of your material elsewhere on the net.

For example, if your article is only posted in one or two other places, it will still be considered towards the originality of your site. Just not as highly as it would be if it were not found anywhere else)

We have talked about the “WHY” of this in past articles so I don’t feel the need to go into it again here. Suffice it to say that if you take the time to make your content “ORIGINAL” you WILL reap the benefits.

And the MORE original content you have on your site, the more benefit you will reap!

So that’s the why. But what about the how!

There are many obvious ways to come up with original content.

The MOST obvious is to … WRITE IT YOURSELF! Which is why I am constantly advising my students that if you are not professional writers with the “Gift of Gab” and can write about ANYTHING easily, they should choose niches that they are at least somewhat interested in.

(There is NOTHING more boring than having to research, learn about, and then write about a subject you have no interest in!)

So if you’re interested in a subject, you can probably write a pretty good article about it, if you just try.

Writing is NOT hard folks. If you can talk, you can write! The best writers write as if they were explaining something to a friend over a beer. You just write what you know.

Try talking out loud to yourself as you type! It sounds silly, but it helps. I myself almost always ’speak’ my articles as I type. And what I say, magically comes out my fingers.

My Kids think I’m nuts, but hey … it works!

Just talk and type! And above all, do NOT look at the monitor as you type! If you have a separate monitor, turn it off! If you have a laptop, dim the screen till you can’t see it!

If you look at the monitor you WILL get distracted by your typos and punctuation. And the key to this exercise is to let it FLOW!

That’s why you ‘Speak’ it as you type! To let your subconscious do it’s thing without interruption from what’s going on around you.

And … You should always try to be yourself when you write, and NEVER, EVER try to impress anyone. Just be natural and talk as you would normally to a friend … just on paper!

try it! I guarantee you’ll surprise yourself!

The second obvious way to get original content is to find someone who DOES have that “Gift of Gab”, and pay them to write your articles for you.

There are a lot of professional writers that make their living doing just that, and you can find them in places like RentaCoder.com, thewritersforhire.com, and Scriptlance.com. And the cool part is they’re usually not that expensive.

Just do a search for Writers for Hire in Google and you’ll come up with a long list of writers just begging for your work.

In the case of sites like RentACoder and ScriptLance, you’ll be in a reverse bid situation, where the writers will all be “Down Bidding” against each other, so they keep the price down by bidding against each other, since they can see what the others are bidding.

(A word of advice … NEVER Take the High or the low bid. Always take the ones in the middle. And always ask for examples of their work before you chose one.)

But if you can’t afford to hire it out, and you’re convinced you just can’t do it yourself from scratch, there is another alternative that more and more people are turning to…

You can FIND public domain articles, and REWRITE them in your own words!

Yea I know what you’re thinking … “THAT’S CHEATING! In fact, isn’t that Plagiarism?”

And the answer to BOTH those questions is a resounding NO!

It’s NOT Plagiarism, it’s .. RESEARCH!

How do you think most of the articles you’ll find online came about in the first place? People just like you searched for articles on their topic, read them, and then rewrote what they learned in their own words.

So why shouldn’t you?

And you know what?

The search engines don’t care, they see it as original content.

And you know what?

Your readers don’t care, because MOST of them won’t have read the ones you read anyway, so they will see it as original content.

And you know what?

The Article Directories you submit your newly re-written articles to won’t care, they’ll see them as original content too.

And you know what?

The people who go to the article directories to find articles on your particular topic won’t care, they will see it as content they can either use for their purposes or content they can read and then … “REWRITE THEMSELVES”!

So you see, Original content is NOT that hard to come by after all! And it’s guaranteed to boost your traffic, if you put in your blogs, your content sites, and even related articles on your product pages. Anywhere you can think of that useful information might build trust with your visitors.

The Internet is all about content. It’s the information highway!

And if you spend a little extra time on making the information on YOUR sites ‘Original’ you WILL get the rankings and Generic traffic that you’re after, while the “Lazy” guys sit around scratching their heads and wondering why THEY can’t get the search engines to send the traffic to THEIR sites.

Course that’s just MY opinion…I could be wrong ;o)

Len

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THE ANDROGYNOUS STONE: CHAPTER SIX

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After narrowly escaping with their lives, Sam and Sara await the beginning of what promises to be a grand adventure. Can Sam really save the earth and what is so familiar about the beautiful sword and dagger with the strange writing on them?

Go here to read the sixth chapter of The Androgynous Stone, a novel written by Len Thurmond.

The Androgynous Stone
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A FINAL WORD

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A Few Last Notes…

The Affiliate Review presents opinions of many of the thousands of online programs available on the net today. We emphasize the word opinion for obvious legal reasons. And that is just what the content of The Affiliate Review is…Our Opinion. Nothing More…Nothing Less !

If you have comments or suggestions, Please feel free to post them here on our blog

Here’s To Your Success,

Len Thurmond, Founder of The Affiliate Review
Len@TheAffiliateReview.com

and

Sandy Swain, Editor of The Affiliate Review
Sandy@TheAffiliateReview.com

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