Jun 30, 2007

How to gain your traffic besides Google



* Intro to substitution to Google (0:00 - 0:17)

* What inspired me to talk about it (0:18 - 1:30)

* PR & SEO (1:31 - 2:04)

* Problem and reliance (2:05 - 2:58)

* Opportunities in Yahoo, Msn, Mybloglog (2:59 - 3:48)

* Last minute recommendations & wrap up (3:49 - 4:22)

I care a lot about who I recommend on this blog. I have always read extensively before jumping into recommending someone besides my blog. One of the bloggers that I have recommended, John Chow has recently gotten the hammer from Google. Google has dropped his site from being listed number one in one of the hottest area of online searches, "making money online." As one of the most popular blog on the internet, this is definitely a heavy blow. To achieve the number one spot with Google in the first place is definitely not easy in competition with huge companies out there who are also fighting for that one spot. Just imagine all the news media, stock firms, investment first, all competing for that special spot up with Google the list just goes on and on. What Google has done has definitely given him a temporary set back in his blog which you can read more about his experiences in his own words here.

Through reading that particular post, it has drawn more attention to me on the importance to address the subject of where to gather your audience besides Google. You can see it from my opinion with today's video. It's no surprised to many webmasters that Google is the golden spot to be if you would like your web site to be recognized by the internet world. Including myself, I have always strongly encouraged my readers to optimize their sites with Google. However, what if one day the same thing were to happen to you where you are no longer in that magic spot in the top 10 search results with Google on the words you have optimized? Or worse yet, you were banned from Google? Now what?

It's always good to spread yourself throughout the web world even in search engines like Yahoo and MSN as well which both are recommended from my video to optimize. Sure the market of people doing a search in their search engines are in no where comparable to Google, however if you are strongly rooted in such search engines you would be a lot likely to be minimize your impact with Google due to your strong presence on top keywords on these other search engines. Let's not also forget the fact that since these search engines are less looked at by most webmasters, that can really translate to where the MONEY is really at! Less competition in your specific keywords, less competition to grab the top spot, the lists goes on and on and the perks are endless. I do have to be honest, I haven't optimized MSN as much as I would like to be but with Yahoo I have definitely done my homework and this site's currently got over 8k of pages indexed which is huge for a blog with only 3 months moving onto its 4th month in its real history. How do I get indexed in so many pages? Well, what I've found to work for me lies on meta tagging your site. Meta tagging is mostly abandoned by most search engines nowadays, however I have found that it is still being regularly used by Yahoo in their indexing method so for those of you who are thinking optimizing with Yahoo that should not be something you want to miss.

Besides the big three search engines, where else should you go and grab your audiences? I will recommend one of my favorite social book marketing sites, Mybloglog. It's fun, enjoyable, and in a way gives you a mini "Myspace" feel which I like. With it being ranked as one of the top four bookmarking sites in existence, it's definitely not one you would like to miss. Although not auto pilot like the search engines, it requires you to log in and connect with others. However if properly implemented, it can definitely bring a good amount of traffic towards your site. In case you are banned from Google, it's not the end of the world yet. If you are well situated and have grounded your blog in good contents, the visitors will come and that's really the fundamentals that you do not want to throw away. What you write surprisingly is more important then how search engines view you and this is how you can make money smart or own a blog make money machine! -Swapw



Jun 28, 2007

Mail and e-mail scams



* Intro to scams (0:00 - 0:30)

* Details of this scam (0:31 - 1:30)

* My criticism of this type of advertising (1:31 - 2:42)

* How these scams function (2:43 - 4:10)

* Similar tactics online (4:11 - 5:15)

* Wrap up (5:16 - 5:29)

Today I have received a scam letter. Have you guys received it recently? It is from an advertising agency called N.M.E. The nature of it goes on and talk about you have won a jackpot of $2,100,000 and that you have to contact them. This scam is all so familiar to me because I remember receiving something similar when I was a child and I actually thought I won! LOL. Since I haven't gotten scams like these for some time I thought it be a good idea and make and video today about this incident. I know the majority of us will probably not fall into such schemes, however for those of you that are not aware of it this may shed you some light into your thinking.

When I got the scam letter, I was curious as to what relations does N.M.E has to do with a world report U.S. News, an obvious news publishing company which what this letter advertises. Guess what? NOTHING! While that is in no surprise, what's funny about this letter is that the deadline is to enter the Sweepstakes before 12:01 AM on 10/15/2005. That's like what? A year and a half ago? N.M.E obviously doesn't seem very professional if at all and a world report U.S. News seems to be a horrible company as well. Although the news company's web site seems legitimate, anyone who receives this letter would loose all respects for this company. If you ask me if there's tips to avoid such scams, I would simply advise that if it's too good to be true...well it probably is.



That's definitely not a way to make money smart. It is the oldest trick in the book and I certainly hope you don't fall prey to it. There is always this "one" sucker to everyone of these schemes that's why they will always be around. However, don't let it be you! -Swapw



Jun 26, 2007

Site linking explained



* Intro to the types of links (0:00 - 0:59)

* The differences explained (1:00 - 3:26)

* Where are the links placed? (3:37 - 5:17)

* My recommendations and wrap up (5:18 - 5:50)

Site linking is something that is very common today, it is almost a must if you want your blog exposed to the rest of the world. Due to the growing number of bloggers, it has became almost a requirement for bloggers to stay above the water versus the rest of the community. Unless the topic is so unique and uncultivated, chances of succeeding with a great amount of readership is almost minimal.

Since my last video which I have criticized about link love or link trains, I had a chance to talk to someone who actually started one of them. Cool isn't it? Throughout the communication, a few things that were brought up which I thought I do a video to explain the meanings behind each one of them for you through today's video.

There are three types of links out there that are relevant for bloggers. There are link trains, link exchanges, and paid links. I will explain them one by one below:

1. Link trains - This is a technique that is usually started by one individual who has somewhat credible background in blogging or an experienced blogger who has just started a new blog who uses it to cultivate numerous links in a short period of time. What the blogger writes about in a blog post is usually about their link train idea, usually pointing towards a tendency to call it an experiment. The idea behind it is to link as much people as possible therefore generating a tremendous amount of links into their blog. In case you missed my prior post, you can visit it here.

2. Link exchanges - This is a technique when a blogger likes another blog that he or she initiates a proposal to "trade" links. What happens here usually revolves around two bloggers who will provide each other with a link, linking their blogs together. Most of the time it appears on either the front page IE: blogroll or a specific link page within the blog.

3. Paid links - This technique revolves around a blogger, usually with either a small amount of readership or a "low" PR asking a blog with a higher PR to place their link onto their blog. Once the blog with a "higher" PR places the link onto their blog in terms, the blog with a lower PR then provides a monetary favor to the blogger with a higher PR. This practice however is not recommended by "G", and those who does it should keep quiet in their actions for obvious reasons.

Now, which one of the three do you think is more relevant to your blogs? You would have to be the one to decide, however I personally would not recommend going with link trains as I have mentioned before. No one likes link spams and anyone who visits such page would deem it as an irrelevant post. However, link exchanges and paid links would be something I would recommend a bit more although paying links is obviously cheating in someway. As we all know, the reason for effective linking is to bring traffic and traffic is the gold of internet.

Linking is definitely crucial for any web site or blogs. Although some may argue that linking each other is overly rated, however it is clear that links produce good PR results and a good PR would then result in an opportunity for you to "sell" your links and make additional money. -Swapw



Jun 24, 2007

Liar game, a soap that I recommend


Online Videos by Veoh.com

Over the weekend, I have been watching some Japanese soap operas with English subs. Do you guys watch this kinda stuff? I find it highly addictive as I am totally sucked into it. Although I don't understand a word of what they're saying since the entire soap is based in Japanese, however I have really enjoyed it even just by watching the sub title.

For those of you that had jumped straight into the soap opera, what do you guys think about it? For those of you who hasn't watch it, it's a great one trust me. Just to give you guys a little bit more information about the famous Swapw, I'm not the type of guy that goes around and just watch soap operas all day, but boy I love this soap opera. This soap opera is still relatively new in Japan and obviously I've only placed its first episode here, so if you want to watch more just check them out under the guy name Luigi something he's got all the episodes up to 11 subbed. I hope you guys had a great weekend and I look forward into talking more money making techniques tomorrow. -Swapw

Jun 23, 2007

Adbrite Invideo



* Intro to video ads in general (0:00 - 0:32)

* The concept of Adbrite Invideos (0:33 - 0:54)

* Details of Adbrite Invideos (0:55 - 2:41)

* Why others fail (2:42 - 3:07)

* Wrap up (3:08 - 3:49)

You guys remember that I talked before that I'm not a huge fan of Google's video ads? Well, out of all places I found a great video ad concept for those of you who either upload videos or do video blogs and that is the concept of Adbrite Invideo. Like I have mentioned before, nowadays we want things fast, we want them NOW and no one has the patience to wait! This is the very reason why Google's video ads are not going to work. They take up user's time just to watch a video and who really knows what it is advertising about until perhaps 15 seconds of your time? Just in case that you have missed my prior review on it, you can read it here.

Adbrite Invideo delivers exactly that and I talk about it through my video today. How do they do it? Adbrite Invideo ads essentially are ads that are embedded in your videos like text ads. These smart ads only take a small portion of the video on the very top portion and it does not in anyway interfere with the video. What's more is that they offer very friendly interface which those text ads will enlarge when your cursor is on top of it and when clicked, rather then disrupting the video it opens another window instead. That's good and dandy but what really gets into me is that it provides the essential idea of user branding within the video itself. What do I mean by branding is that the video that you upload is structured in a way where it enables you to really place your logo at the bottom right corner of the video itself.

Although I am not a big fan of Adbrite text ads itself but in terms of their concept of Invideo, I really think they have really hit it home for me. If you upload videos to the web or video blog like myself, why don't you check them out at Adbrite? I think you'll love the concept like I do to make some big bucks!

Jun 22, 2007

A review on JaKelDaily.com



* Intro to blogs that I recommend (0:00 - 0:48)

* Jakeldaily.com (0:49 - 1:38)

* Good reads from this blog (1:39 - 2:40)

* Advantages of this blog (2:41 - 4:10)

* Wrap up (4:11 - 4:44)

Over time, I have realized how fun it has been for myself to step into the world of blog. It is also because of how much I've enjoyed blogging, I've spent the last few days doing some serious upgrading in this blog site. The complex tasks ranged from consulting a designer all the way into selecting the type of color in the background. It has been a fun and tiring process at the same time, and I'm proud to say that it was completed today.

Overtime, I have many people ask me as to what types of pages or additional resources do I recommend checking out and moving forth I have decided to do a review on different blogs that I've encountered or have enjoyed reading every now and then and hopefully you will find it just as resourceful as my blog in helping you make money over the net.

Today the blog that I have decided to review is called JaKelDaily.com and you can find out about how I feel through my video. From its first looks I will have to say that it has a very close resembelence to a blog which I have reviewed in the past and it would have to be the blog by John Chow. The outline, template, all the way to some of the tactics in making money are all quite similar. Because of its close similarities, I did not find myself a big fan of it. However, when you examine the blog in deeper depth you would realize the amount in the difference of style that it was written in. Besides its unique content that Jason writes, it has also became one of the fast rising stars in the blogosphere due to the amount of links that Jason has received making him the top 5k blog within Technorati.

Some of my favorite reads in his web site included the concept of PEO and his idea of selling links in his web site which I have find it to be profound. I have seen people advertise their web site for "advertisers" in the "advertise here" page. However, I have never seen a blogger advertise to other bloggers on making them more popular within their blog? I find this concept to be quite original and if Jason keeps it up, JaKelDaily.com would definitely rise to become a very strong blog heading toward success.






Jun 18, 2007

Link trains, does it work?




* Intro to link trains or link love (0:00 - 0:16)

* What is the concept behind it? (0:17 - 1:33)

* What is the purpose of links besides PR (1:34 - 1:44)

* What happens to its creditability when abused? (1:45 - 2:51)

* What's the purpose PR or links and my views (2:52 - 4:05)

* Wrap up (4:06 - 4:39)


Link love, link trains, Technorati trains, Alexa trains, viral link trains these are just common self promotion techniques that people use to promote themselves. What does it entail? Well, basically one person usually a blogger that is somewhat reputable says "guys, I'm doing an experiment" to see if linking with one another is going to increase the ranking of a certain field. This field usually varies depending on whatever "spam" they are promoting.

Yes, I said it. It is spam and I don't like it. I'm just surprised on how much suckers are sucked into doing just the same. Their slogan is usually something about increasing traffic, page rank, etc. Honestly, do you really think that this would bring the benefits into your blog? Let's say that your page rank hops high, with crappy content do you honestly think that it's gonna be a cash generating machine? Not only does it abuse the blogosphere of its reputations of organic rankings, it's just another way to cheat the system. My video today talks specifically about this and addressing it to my readers. Whether you agree with me or not, let's put our differences aside and examine whether these type of tactics work or not?

Unless you are a reputable blogger with somewhat of a consistent readership, this is not going to be working for you. Why? Well, almost 99% of these type of linking posts revolves around posting the links in the blog during an entry. After a few days, what happens is that the date of the blog entry gets pushed back and these so called links are no where to be seen unless others who read about the blog navigates and read older posts.

There are always readers in any posts of a blogger but the majority of the audience would focus on the more recent post hence decreases the original concept of linking with one another as time goes to past. Let's also examine another factor about these link trains. By the time you are the 20th person posting all 19 links before you, do you think that this post draws any relevancy to others as you spam the page with links? Do you really think that others would check all 20 links? That's just say that you do post your link onto the train and continues, what makes others want to visit your blog when there's clearly too many clicks to choose from? For those of you that are thinking of hopping in such type of fab, just remember if anyone's gonna be significant in these type of exchanges or benefit it is ONLY the person who started it. Not second place, and definitely not the last one either.

-Swapw
"Making money smart"





Jun 17, 2007

The basics on how to purchase a web site




* Intro to how to purchase a web site (0:00 - 0:18)

* Experiences from myself (0:19 - 0:58)

* What to look for (0:59 - 2:35)

* My personal advise (2:36 - 4:00)

* Asking questions (4:01 - 4:27)

* Wrap up (4:28 - 4:44)

I have been thinking about a possible purchase of another web site for sometime now and after an extensive research on my own I have realized that there are not just a small market but a tremendous amount of scams out there. The ironic thing about it was that people were rushing into it and purchasing it like flies without knowing the basics of the "how to's" in diagnosing from a bargain into a scam. Therefore I thought I put up a video on the how to's on purchasing a web site through my video.

There are many reasons why someone like you and I would want to purchase a web site. Whether it is to dissect the web site, investment, or a possible venture, it is very important to look at several crucial areas about the web site before making a move. If you are too lazy to watch the video, here's kind of my take on purchasing a web site and where to really watch out when you are considering a purchase.

1. Examine the amount of visitors - Ask for screen shots, proof, do a Alexa check on the web site, and check the inbound links into the web site. Is it a few? A lot? Mixed?

2. Ownership - Is this web site owned by the seller? Is it constructed and coded by the seller? Does the web site have reseller rights? Was this web site transacted from another person beforehand and if so, who?

3. Coding - How is the web site being coded? Is this code being given to you? Does the owner own or coded itself?

4. Server requirements - What is the bandwith, storage space that is needed for the web site? Is there a specific amount of ram, storage space that is required for optimization?

5. SEO - Has this web site been optimized beforehand? Is the web site ranked? What type of optimization has it been done? White hat? Black hat? etc.

6. Revenue - How is the web site raking its profits? What type of source and what would be the 1-2-3 to maintain it at that level? What is the general requirement in time to invest into maintaining it? Are there any screen shots on the revenue? Is the revenue consistent or does it seem fishy?

7. Chargebacks -If you decided to give the web site back to the original owner within a few days after the purchase, how willing is the original seller help amend the transaction? How much would the fee cost?

8. The reasons for selling - Always ask for the reason behind the sell of the web site. Is it because it is a product going obsolete? Is it because that the traffic is going down to the tubes? Etc.

9. Support - How would the after service be and the amount of time afterwards? A week? A month? Etc.

10. Additional questions - Ask as many questions as you like and don't be shy. Remember, anything that looks fishy should always signal a red flag and proceed it with caution.

-Swapw
"Making money smart"






Jun 16, 2007

Pop-up ads, does it work?


Instead of doing a video today I thought I take a different approach. Let's examine some videos that I have found through Youtube about pop-up ads. Do you guys think that it'll make you tens of thousands of dollars through it? Watch it and tell me what you think. My personal opinion is that this technique will NOT work and I will explain to you why I believe this technique will not succeed. Here are the videos:

Here's the first video:


Second video:


Last video:


Now after watching this video, do you think that it will make you tons of cash? :) Honestly I can't really say that this technique is going to work if at all. Let's examine the videos a little bit. There are a few critical areas that I think is good to take a look at. On his first video, he has mentioned about creating a web site that has a general public interest to it IE: jokes, videos, pics, and things of this area. Do you think a good old pop-up ad is a great venue to add additional value to your web site? Any successful web site in this realm will most likely NOT have these type of pop-up ads. Why? Because it simply kills traffic. Let's just take my blog site for example, if my blog is filled with splash pages, pop-up ads everywhere before you can even navigate into the main content of my posts how would you feel about it?

Chances are that you would most likely shy away from the page because we all hate pop-up ads and that includes those of us that know nothing about the net! Besides the fact that more and more people are afraid of encountering pop-up ads due to the increase of trojan variants and now robots let's talk about the effectiveness of these pop-up ads.

There is an assumption of one thousand visitors a day to the web site from the author of this video. How would the person building the web site achieve that? Unless there are incentives, the visitors of the web site will most likely NOT come back due to the bombardment of ads. Let's assume that the owner of the web site spends some money in advertisement to gain visitors interested in his or her site. For what it is worth, a $0.03 gain per customer will simply not recoup the cost of advertisement even if every single of of your traffic clicks on an assumption of three ads.

From the looks of the author, he does seem to be a pretty credible source prior as a blogger or a big myspace guy beforehand. Unfortunately for many of these popular giants that have gained an immense amount of popularity, a very big trap that they almost all fall in is with the problem of over monetizing through techniques that they've discovered or learned. Their loyal reader would eventually abandon their web site and it is most likely that newbies will fall into the traps of what these guys are selling into. What usually happens like most scams is if properly marketed, they almost always make a lot of money. However, this always bottoms after these types of scheme is being figured out and earnings essentially bottoms.

Instead of jumping toward the result, had they continue with a continuous effort to enhance their web site or techniques they would continued their readership increase and this would go with the profit and benefits that comes with it. It's easy to say then done, if I was in their shoe I really don't know if I would be tempted for all the cash that is out there. From my view this is just a more recent case of a potential red flag over the internet and I would recommend readers be watchful of these advertisement or techniques. If it is being advertised to be a huge successes for common people like you and I, it is almost always screaming trouble.

-Swapw
Making money smart





Jun 15, 2007

CREAMaid





* Intro to CREAMaid (0:00 - 0:23)
http://www.creamaid.com

* The CREAMaid difference (0:24 - 1:24)

* Advantages of CREAMaid (1:25 - 3:55)

* Wrap up (3:56 - 4:09)

For many of us, we join forums to discuss our interests our hobbies, etc. However, have you really thought about communications that is being done directly through your widgets? I don't know about you but I haven't. I found a cool web site today called CREAMaid and I really believe it's got something special to offer to many bloggers. Through today's video I will address exactly that and you will be able to see the potential CREAMaid brings into the table.

Besides makeing money through your having your posts syndicated throughout the CREAMaid network, you are also indirectly seen by other bloggers in your field. Just think of it as "free" advertisementing. I can kinda see it being a potential spam for some internet marketers, however if you join the right types of conversations it can be proven useful for tutorials or live exchange in knowledge. Let's not also forget the possibilities of raking in more traffic through these indirect communications with others if you demonstrate sufficient knowledge in the field of your expertise.

The payment method is pretty interesting to the fact that whenever others participate in your conversation, you get a "referral" fee. What that is being defined by CREAMaid is unknown because it is not specifically specified over the web site. However, I wouldn't feel that there's any downside to it. Afterall, to make this type of cash seems to be a bit easy from my first look of it. I will have to take a deeper look and play around with it to provide my secondary view, but for now I give it a go. Beneath is one of the widget in what it looks like if you are interested!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"








Jun 13, 2007

Reviewback




* Intro to Reviews (0:00 - 1:24)

* Reviewing each other through Reviewback (1:25 - 1:50)

* Reviewback explained (1:51 - 3:16)

* Wrap up (3:17 - 3:32)



Okay, for those of you that have been following my blog you would understand that a lot of times I stress on the importance of writing reviews and content to make money. If you have missed it, here are some links of my previous posts: Blogitive, Payperpost, Blogsvertise, etc.

Now, reviewing advertisers are fun and easy but have you had a chance to really think about possibilities of reviewing one another as bloggers? I believe it's an area that has yet to be tapped and I believe there are plenty of areas for growth both for an increase in traffic as well as exposures specifically in the blogosphere. Through my video today you will find out about Reviewback and my take on its ideas as very unique and possibly something huge.

For those of you that have already watched the video, you will know that this idea is huge. Not only will you get the "blogger" of whom you are doing the review to look at your blog, you would also get some of their readers to come visit you. This is NOT to even mention a free link exchange as you link each other. This could be something big and since I don't want to miss any of the big opportunities I would recommend the same for you to use readers and rake in some good Adsense, Affiliate, cash!

In case you have missed the link, here's the link to Reviewback: Here!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"








Jun 12, 2007

Affiliate Marketing explained




* Intro to affiliate marketing (0:00 - 0:27)

* Affiliate marketing explained (0:28 - 1:50)

* How and what to start with affiliate marketing (1:51 - 3:15)

* How does the payout work (3:16 - 3:43)

* What makes half.com good? (3:44 - 4:53)

* Wrap up (4:54 - 5:13)


Half.com: buy/sell used books, music, movies,games


Affiliate Marketing is something that many of us may or may not be familiar with and quite frankly many of us shy away from it simply because we don't really understand it. It was also the same reason why I have not been posting as I have done so on a daily basis because I have been testing and trying out different techniques which I have learned.

To really talk about the term of affiliate marketing, we need to undertand what affiliate marketing is. Is it marketing? If you think it's just another way of marketing, then you're completely wrong! It is really a simple salesman's job and you're the salesman that is either trying to sale your own product or product of others to people and the platform you are doing so is over the internet. Each sale or a person interested in the product ended up signing up, you get a cut of the profit.

Now if properly applied, affiliate marketing can become quite profitable and a very steady source of passive income. Many "bad" businessmen uses very grey practices with it and many of us may have already seen these type of banners or advertisements. These type of businesses have really tainted the world of affiliate marketing and it's sad how it is being perceived today.

What I have personally discovered is the fact that if you actually provide your customers things they they ACTUALLY need, it'll go very well. Sounds funny and basic but believe me you will be surprised on how many people that can actually grasp this very same concept. Today's video I explain what affiliate marketing and the basic steps into it. Please feel free to contact me if you have questions, and as I have mentioned if it is properly implemented it can really generate a very generous amount of reward or income!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"

PS: I am not really liking my new system with Vista right now, it's gotten a lot of bugs in it. So if you are using your Windows XP, it's probably a good idea to wait until later to upgrade after these type of problems are being hammered out.





Jun 9, 2007

Google Adwords






* Intro to keywords (0:00 - 0:19)

* Keyword defined (0:20 - 1:10)

* Keyword optimzation (1:11 - 2:53)

* Google Adwords (2:54 - 4:38) Here's the magic link!

* Wrap up (4:39 - 5:04)

We've all heard about Google Adsense, but have you heard about Google Adwords before? You may or may not have heard about it but do you know howto truly use it? I don't like to pay money for it and I know you don't too and therefore I will show you a link where you can use "free" of charge from Google directly which directly help you to define which keyword or topic to talk or optimize about through today's video. As you know, it's important to optimize your site. First and foremost visitors, why? Because these visitors are the "gold" of any web site!! Without visitors, having Adsense is useless, having any type of advertisement is useless. To make money smart, you must understand the importance of how a web site works. Once you understand it, you have to "correctly" direct your traffic there so you can make some serious cash with your blog or web site. Obviously I have posted many posts about that, but back onto the topic of Google Adwords here's the link below. I'm a bit lazy today so I'll just drop the link and stop talking, be sure to watch the video. Have a great weekend, friends. :)

Google Adword external tool link - here!

-Swapw
"Making money smart"