The Internet Marketers Club

Archive for the ‘General’ Category

Jeff Alderson is the man! He’s created exactly what the market needs again.

I’ve been following Jeff’s incredible tools and products since the good old Traffic Equalizer days (that software basically paid for my first house!). That was almost 5 years ago I think.

You’ll find great support, videos and training to help you along the way as Jeff stands behind all of his products.

It’s vitally important that you increase the number of websites that link to your website.”

Doing this helps you steadily increase traffic and generate more sales. However, if you are to be successful, you must be sure that your website is good enough for someone to link to you.

So, how do you do that?

There is an old cliche that always rings true in the Internet world – “Content is king”. And this is absolutely spot on.

You may be wondering how your content is related to our current topic of building link building, but there is a perfectly sound connection…

It is important that you have quality content on your website or other webmasters will most likely not want to trade links. Your website also needs to be informative and interesting, as this will increase the chance of getting a link from someone else.

Remember, links to your website are the building blocks to success, so it’s worth the effort to acquire them.

Now, let’s go over a small checklist of websites that would be good candidates for good link building:

* Websites with quality, related content.

* Websites that have higher PageRank than you currently have.

* Online directories like Yahoo and other business directories.

* Web 2.0 websites like Squidoo.com and Hubpages.com.

It’s no secret that Google (and other search engines) will list you higher in the search results for having a lot of quality inbound links. So, you should really concentrate on building quality links, which will do more for you than tinkering with Alt tags or any other onsite optimization.

The only downside is that building link popularity is not always easy to do. It tends to be a bit boring and tedious. Plus, it usually takes a big chunk of your time, which is probably why most people don’t like to do it.

Luckily for you, there is a solution!

A brand new search engine optimization tool just came out called SEO Equalizer. Not only is this software super easy to use, but it is also extremely affordable. I do suggest you pop over to the website and read all about it…

You can do so by going here

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In this post we will review some of the free PDF convertors and readers currently available and look at whether they offer any accessibility benefits for users.

While I have recommended PDFCreator in the past, I have now moved to Bullzip PDF Printer as my personal favorite. It has more of the options I need and has worked flawless for me. A problem with Bullzip is that the pdf file created may not be searchable. While it created a searchable pdf from word processing programs it did not from other programs like Excel. All the other candidates produced a searchable document from Excel and other non-word-processing software.

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Key features of Bullzip PDF Printer include:

The ability to password protect your pdf files (only PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability use either 40 or 128 bit encryption on the file (only PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability to add a watermark (PDF Creator had a limited ability to add watermarks)
The ability to append or prepend files (PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)
The ability to choose different levels of output quality (All but CutePDF and TinyPDF had this ability)
The ability to add/change metadata (PrimoPDF and PDFCreator also had this ability)

Visit Bullzip PDF

PDFCreator is still my second choice and has all the features of Bullzip with the exception of a 64 bit version and more limited watermark abilities. The help files are available only in English, French and German. However it does have one unique feature among these products. It comes with both a standalone install and a server install. In a company setting this gives you the ability to install the printer driver on a server and make it available to all the workstations on the network without doing an install on each one of them. This may make it a preferred choice in business situations if you don’t need the other options that products like Bullzip offer. The only item PDF Creator failed at was printing a web page to pdf. I was unable to get consistent output and generally the program produced an error and exited. This can be a major issue for many users.

Visit PDF Creator

More Convertors

A document created using Microsoft? Word, structured using the inbuilt styles and headings and incorporating images (with alternative text) was converted to PDF using each of the convertors below. The resulting document was then checked in Adobe? Reader for a number of the accessibility benefits that the format can offer.

Cute PDF Writer

Downloadable software or web-based service? Download.
Are there any print preferences? No.
Is text recognised as text? Yes.
Are bookmarks transferred? No.
Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? No, blocks of text are merged into one another and images are merged into the main text.
Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes (but affected by reading order).
Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.
Other comments: A commercial version (CutePDF Professional) is also available with additional functionality.

Visit Cute PDF Writer

Pdf995

Downloadable software or web-based service? Download; this is a suite three programmes (Pdf995, PdfEdit995 and Signature995) each offering slightly different functionality.
Are there any print preferences? No.
Is text recognised as text? Yes.
Are bookmarks transferred? No, but bookmarks can be inserted using PdfEdit995.
Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed?No, blocks of text are merged into one another and images are merged into the main text.
Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes (but affected by reading order).
Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.
Other comments: Can upgrade to a commercial version; the free version contains pop up adverts.

Visit Pdf995

PrimoPDF

Downloadable software or web-based service? Both software download and web-based services available.
Are there any print preferences within the downloaded software? Some relating to image properties.
Are there any accessibility options available in the web-based service? No.
Is text recognised as text? Yes.
Are bookmarks transferred? No.
Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? No.
Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes (but affected by reading order).
Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Document colours can be changed.

Visit PrimoPDF

Do PDF

Downloadable software or web-based service? Download.
Are there any print preferences? Yes, scale and resolution can be changed.
Is text recognised as text? Yes.
Are bookmarks transferred? No.
Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? No.
Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? Yes.
Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes.
Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.

Visit DoPDF

Doc2PDF

Downloadable software or web-based service? Web-based.
Are there any accessibility options? No.
Is text recognised as text? Yes.
Are bookmarks transferred? Yes.
Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? Yes.
Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? Yes, but with some of the text merges incorrectly.
Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes.
Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.

Visit Doc2PDF

GoogleDocs

Downloadable software or web-based service? Web-based.
Are there any accessibility options? No.
Is text recognised as text? Yes.
Are bookmarks transferred? Yes (if created in GoogleDocs originally).
Is the document structure (e.g. headings) maintained? Yes but may require some correction.
Is the reading order maintained when the text is reflowed? Yes.
Is the alternative text for images maintained? No.
Can the document be read using the Read Out Loud function? Yes.
Can the accessibility preferences be changed? Yes, document colours can be changed.
Other comments: Some images were missing from the PDF produced.

Visit Google Docs

Well Thats it. Of course you could use Open Office that has the pdf converter already available and is a great alternative to Microsoft Office.

At the moment there is a huge debate in Australian about blocking certain sites on the Internet.

While this seems like a good idea for the average computer user it will not have any effect on the element who access these sites. The reason is that it is only effective on those who do not know how to get around it.

I am all for getting rid of the outer fringe pornography such as bestiality, child porno etc but surley a better system would be to enable households and enterprise to control this themselves. Letting a governments have private unscrutinized lists will only lead to possible political infractions in the future.

What can you do?

One way you can do something is to go to a site called Open DNS and apply its filtering system to your router which will then block any content that you don’t want over your network.

This system will also speedup your Internet Surfing. I prefer to use the router set up as it covers the any computer using our Internet connection.  Click here for instructions

While it is not a perfect system it has been working well in our business and homes.

Go to Open DNS and set up.

Having fun is an important part of running your business. We often talk about all the different tactics and strategies we use to build our business however having fun is often a topic that is over looked.

All work and no play makes owning a computer a little bit dull.  Why shouldn’t you have some fun once in a while?  Take a little time to learn about the recreational side of your indispensable working tool.

Go For It

Consider these questions:

What is your hobby?
What do you enjoy doing?
Have you invented a better way to do something?
Are you passionate about a solution that solves problems?
Is there a product you’ve used yourself and love?
Do you have valuable experience to share?

Build a business on the answers.

It will thrive because you will have the emotional and principled commitment to make things happen. Think about what you have fun doing and think of a way to turn that into a business. Now you’re thinking! Look, you’re having fun already!

The Web is filled with folks trying to make a buck who aren’t having any fun. You can tell by their poor presentations, their lack of decent service levels and questionable commitment to quality. The ones who aren’t having any fun and who are just in it for the bucks cut corners every chance they get and complain about the latest challenge technology offers. Why? Because they don’t enjoy or believe in what they are doing. Just show them the money! Within a short time their site is shutdown and they’ve wasted a lot of time and money.

People who are having fun know what I mean. You’re on the other side of this screen with that smirk on your face because you’ve been there, done that. You know that when you are having fun you are working harder, learning daily and more focused on your goals than anyone you know. You also happened to be happier, more grounded and a more enjoyable person to be around. Your customers love you and your business thrives because you are having fun!

I’m having fun! Actually, after over 10 years I’m still having a blast! How about you?

Here is one of my fun products. I hope you enjoy it.

http://www.msincome.com/books/101cd.pdf

Have you ever been writing a post and wanted to to a bit of research  but had to head off to look for the info – left the post and never returned? No…..

What about writing a post and would like to add a pic or video quickly.

How about doing a little research on the fly.

Well now you can and all inside the posting screen with a great plugin called Insight.

With Insights you can very quickly (in couple of seconds) do the following:

• Search your blog for posts, edit them or insert links to them into the current post
• Insert Flickr Images
• Insert Youtube videos
• Search and link to Wikipedia
• Search Google
• Search News
• Google Blog Search
• Insert a Google Map

Insights allows you to do all this using dynamic AJAX interface which loads the relevant information to your post in just a few seconds.

Interested then head over to their site and read more. Click Here

Just been havng a little fun this weekend with this new program. You know what they say all work and no play lol.

I had some good friends around for dinner the other evening. During the social dinner conversations, one of my friends mentioned the interest on investment accounts on offer with the banks at the moment.

She had $10,000 to invest and was happy with an interest rate of 4.75%. The best “at call” rate she had found after much research with financial institutions. She was after a safe investment during these uncertain times.

The stock market or property investment was not her cup of tea.

Another of my friends responded, “I wish I had the spare $10,000 to invest in the first place!”. He went on to say that how difficult he found it to save any money after paying his bills each week. (Something you hear all the time)

Later that night, I thought about what my friends had said and their financial mindset on money matters.

My friend had put her efforts into ringing around and visiting the many financial institutions in town. She was happy to find that she could get an extra 0.25% on her money!

So instead of getting $450 in interest on her ten grand for the next 12 months, she would now be receiving $475…. Big deal….

An extra $25 for the year!

What a waste of time and energy if you think about it!

Even on a $1,000,000, an extra 0.25% per annum won’t make a huge difference to your lifestyle…. It’s still only $2,500.

My other friend on the other hand would love to have an extra $10,000 to invest. However, his day job does not allow him to save enough to “get ahead”.

But…. He possesses a crucial ingredient that can earn the extra money he desires…. The ingredient is…. His “spare time”.

Without changing or giving up your “day job”, asking for a pay rise, or finding a second part time job….

The average PC literate person can earn a substantial extra income from home just by selling simple information products they create themselves based on what they “already know” and all in their spare time.

Marketing information…. Information people want, in the form of ebooks, ebooklets, special reports, audio tapes, video’s and CD-roms is still the best home based Internet business you can start.

It’s as true today as it was four years ago on the Internet.

Earning an extra $10,000 is not unrealistic for the average part-timer on the Internet today in this business.

People often ask me if it is really possible to earn decent money on the Internet if you only have a few spare hours in a day to devote to your online business. Surely the law of business prohibits you from “gaining a lot for very little”?

Here is the key that many people new to online business MISS….

You might only work 2 spare hours a day on your little Web business BUT your Web business (your website) WORKS FULL TIME 24 hours a day for you!… This is the reason why it does not take much of your time and yet can return far more than an hourly wage for the ACTUAL hours you put in.

Having a well-constructed website that sells for you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year on “autopilot” is like having an “electronic employee or salesman” working for you and presenting your product perfectly every time.

It’s a business that works unmanned… Like a shop that never closes.

You may have heard the cliché… “Make money while you sleep” and thought…. That’s pure BS!

The reason way you can make money while you sleep is “TIME ZONES”. This may seem obvious. But you’d be surprised how many people have not thought of this.

While it’s night in the Southern Hemisphere… It’s daylight up north. And vice-a-versa. The other half of the world are awake and visiting your website while you sleep. Your online business might be small but is on view to the whole global online community for 24 “waking” hours each day.

Nothing is as exciting than waking up in the morning, firing up your PC, logging on and retrieving email notification of credit card orders made during the night!…. 2 years in this business, and it still is a thrilling experience. It’s a great feeling of achievement, knowing that the few hours you spent in the evening before working and marketing your little online enterprise has paid off.

But you know…. It’s not just the money you make, i’ts about establishing something else….A “safety Net” in hard times….

We live in uncertain times… Of war and global economic downturn. Companies are downsizing both large and small. Employees are losing their jobs in the thousands each week….

Could you be next?

How many of your friends or people you know have had the “pink slip” fly their way? Nobody is immune nowadays. Give it some thought.

Learn to look for the danger signs if you work for a large organization. For example if your share price has been falling and remains very low for more than 6 months with little movement. It’s time to re-evaluate your future with the organization.

If you work for a small business, and there are cash flow problems, or no new staff being put on to replace those that have left. These are warning signs that indicate trouble may be ahead for you.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have an additional source of income rolling in should you lose your job tomorrow? Would it help to keep the “wolf from the door”?… A safety net?…

A little online business on the side.

A small insurance policy should the worst happen.

Nobody can retrench you from your own business. A business that can never go broke either…. You can even set up a free website and perform zero cost marketing promotions. Zero overheads. Maximum profits.

That’s how I started and you can do the same.

Even in hard times…. War, Anthrax scares, recession, have not effected my online business. Sales may not have increased, but they have not declined.

You may also think that you need “talent”, writing skills and a certain level of education to succeed in running an online information product business. Not so, the world is full of educated and talented failures. What you do need however is “persistence” and a dogged determination to succeed.

Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated failures.

Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

My father taught me this at an early age. He was a prized boxing champion in the British armed forces in his younger days. He never lost a fight. He retired undefeated after a long career. Yet he was not the best boxer in the regiments.

However he had the one quality other boxers fear….

He would never give up, even when knocked to the mat time after time, he would bounce right back up again. He had determination and persistence and the will to win so badly, which gradually wore his opponents down, round after round until they eventually tossed in the towel in exhaustion.

That my friend is the key to success in anything you set out to do in your life. Too many people give up too quickly, at the first sign of obstacles.

Success often comes after failure…

After being “knocked down”, when you think you’re beat.

Is running an online business easy?

No it’s not. There are more who fail than succeed. That’s the truth. It’s no different to running a business in the real world. Many online marketers won’t tell you the truth.

(That’s why those who know me online call me the “honest” marketer).

It was reported in Bloomberg News, that only 27% of U.S. small businesses with a website use the Internet to sell their products, and of these they average fewer than three online orders per month.

Your online business will be different. You will be selling your own unique information products. Your own creations. You will not be trying to compete with offline businesses all selling the same brands or the large “dot coms” who have failed miserably for very different reasons.

So if you don’t have spare money to invest, like my friend did, don’t worry, 12 months from now you will have much more than my other friend who has invested her money to earn a measly interest of $475!!

You could have the same $10,000 plus interest from investing your “spare time” instead.

So next time you put your feet up in your spare hours, consider investing some of those hours up online!

Quentin Brown has been helping people build online businesses for nearly 10 years and provides a wealth of knowledge and expertise for those who are technically challenged but want to make use of new technology without spending a fortune.  http://theimclub.com

Rather than repeat all the information and tutorials that Skype provides just download and add msincome as your first contact and you will be in contact with us.

Download Skype here

Here is the full users guide: http://www.skype.com/help/guides/[/private]

What can I do with Skype?

Skype is a fantastic program that will allow you to conduct interviews, make calls to friends and family and if you can spare a few dollars you can get skye in and make calls to phones and mobiles if they do not have skype.

The rates are very cheap however because I have skype you will be able to contact us for free.

Please be considerate as yes I do have a life so keep it short and to the point.

You can also add skype to your website so people can call you direct.

Product Ideas:

I have conducted many interviews on skype and created products around them. I have called eBay experts, accountants, video guys etc and interviewed then and saved the mp3 to distrbute on my site.

Once you get going you could also do video interviews using Camtasia. The possabilities are endless.

The Internet and online business especially are becoming more and more popular by the day in todays world simply because people are starting to see the true benefits of the web, consumers are starting to trust the web more, and more importantly, the start up costs for a online business are next to nothing compared to the offline world of business start ups.

The only set back most people run into when wanting to start one of their own online business is How and Where to get started.

I did a search under the keyword term “home based business” and the search results returned 575,000,000 results for that keyword alone.

That’s a pretty intimidating number for someone wanting to start their own home based business on the web wouldn’t you say?

These were the same obstacles I was up against when I first ventured into the online world of business.

But I didn’t let that stop me and I hope that won’t stop you either from wanting to start your own online business.

So, I saved you the hassle and put together 3 of the quickest ways for ANYONE(that’s You) to start their own online business with next to no investment required and can get started in less than 24 hours.

Are you ready? I hope so.

Business Model #1. Affiliate Programs.

Affiliate Programs are simply programs set up by the business owner for others to sign up for and promote for the business owner for a agreed upon commission(usually between 10 – 75%).

The great thing about Affiliate marketing is it doesn’t cost you a single penny to get started, you don’t have to worry about refunds or customer service that come with owning your own product.

All you have to worry about is generating the traffic to your affiliate link and collecting your commission cheques.

This is the quickest way to get started online… Period!

Here’s a few Affiliate Directories to give you a start:

Associate Programs – http://www.associateprograms.com

Refer It - http://www.refer-it.com

Business Model #2. Resell Rights.

Resell Rights are simply products that have already been created and are available to anybody who is willing to pay for the Resell Rights to market them.

The upside to this is you get Ready-To-Go websites with PROVEN sales letters that convert. The best part of all is… you get to keep 100% of the $Profits$.

The draw back is you can’t claim those products as your own. The original creator of the product maintains full rights. You just get to keep all the profits.

Not such a bad trade off wouldn’t you say?

Business Model #3. Private Label Resell Rights.

Private Label Resell Rights are simply products that are ready to be branded with your name to it.

What I mean by that is you get full rights to the product or products and are able to claim them as your own even though you didn’t create them yourself.

This is the fastest way for anyone to start a online business who really doesn’t have any experience or knowledge on how to create their own products.

The other really cool thing about Private Label Resell Rights products is they come with Ready-To-Go websites which then again saves you time and money in having to create them yourself.
Well there you have it, 3 Quick Ways To Start Your Own Online Business In Less Than 24 Hours.

The easiest way to locate any of the above via the search engines is by entering something like this into there search engine web form:

affiliate programs + “what your niche is”

(Note: make sure you use the quotations around what niche you want to target. Very Important!)
This will save you time and target your search much better, where as if you were to just enter ‘affiliate programs’ into the search engine web form you would get a gazillion results, leaving you frustrated.

Now, the only thing left for you to do Right NOW is make a decision on what you would really enjoy doing as a business online.

Once you’ve figured that out the only thing left for you to do is put together a… Plan For $Profit$.

Note: Probably the best model is to have your own products as this will give you 100% of the profits.