Affiliate Marking.  There is a lot of money to be made from affiliate marketing simply because of the scale of the marketplace.  There are hundreds of millions of computer users, perhaps upwards of a billion plus, and these are all potential customers.  The marketplace is so vast that just tapping into a small percentage of customers can help anyone who knows how, to attain considerable wealth in some measure. 

 

Affiliate Marketing, of course is a business arrangement in which a web site owner becomes associated or “affiliated” with a specific company to promote its products on the affiliate’s web site.  It doesn’t cost the web site owner anything.  The investment has already been made in setting up the web site and in taking time to set up ads on the web site to promote a company’s product.  The web site owner who displays a company’s ads, however, will profit by earning a commission every time a visitor/customer to the web site clicks through the ad and purchases the product.  With enough traffic and thousands of potential customers searching for thousands of products, you can see how the numbers quickly add up.

 

There are, as I have suggested, thousands of products to choose from when you become an affiliate marketer.  Click Bank is a well known affiliate network company and lists countless products to appeal to nearly every conceivable popular interest.  Commission Junction is another company, more specialized in providing tangible products rather than the digital downloads favored by Click bank.  There are a number of other companies large and small who offer affiliate opportunities.

 

Other than the usual networking companies that are well-exposed all over the Internet, you can also search for smaller companies which provide good opportunities for affiliates.  Sometimes these smaller companies offer very popular products that have a broad appeal among the market segment to which they are selling.  I have recently discovered such a company which offers an affiliate opportunity and promises to be very profitable based on the proven popularity of its products and the solid reputation of its owner.  I’ve decided to talk about this here because if you can become an affiliate of this company, you will earn 50% in commissions for each product sold through your web site. 

 

    The name of this company is Online Future and I like it because 1)  I know the owner and I know that he knows what he is doing  2) the owner is very successful 3) the owner of Online Future is successful because he has zeroed in on specific, high demand  products  4) The products are high quality and popular. 

 

These products fall into the category of Health and Beauty and include such things as stress reducing supplements, male virility supplements, breast enhancement formulations for natural breast augmention without surgery,  weight loss supplements and more.  Here are a few of the most popular products offered by Online Future:

 

 http://www.onlinefutureinc.com/cgi-bin/cmd.cgi?af=1159892&u=zoftmenopausegum.com

 

 http://www.onlinefutureinc.com/cgi-bin/cmd.cgi?af=1159892&u=gethoodiagum.com

 

 

 http://www.onlinefutureinc.com/cgi-bin/cmd.cgi?af=1159892&u=enlargementgum.com

 

I like Online future’s product line because the products appeal to people everywhere.  The owner of Online Future and the originator of Zoft chewing gum, that offers a totally new way to enjoy the benefits of nutritional supplements, has created a unique and distinctive product that has been getting a lot of attention.  The Zoft products are designed to bring specific health and beauty benefits and there are many more kinds in development.

 

If you would like to promote these and other great products from Online Future, on your web site as an Affiliate, you can sign up without delay here:

 

 http://www.onlinefutureinc.com/cgi-bin/cmd.cgi?af=1159892&u=onlinefuturecash.com

 

Give this a try because it can bring you substantial extra income with little extra effort other than signing on as an affiliate and placing some ads on your site.  Whatever you decide to do, good luck with your present and future projects .

 

–Wil

 Recently a co-worker of mine approached me with a number of questions about the year 2012 and the “end of the world.” Apparently he saw a movie and then read a number of versions on various Internet sites, of what is supposed to happen then . He was genuinely worried; troubled by all the things he has seen and read about this upcoming, mysterious date and the unknown events it is supposed to usher in.

 

We discussed all the “end-of-the-world scenarios” including a pole-shift, the destabilization of the Earth’s orbit and gravitational field by “Planet X” (Nibiru, the 10th planet,) allignment of Earth with the center of our galaxy, asteroids, comets, planetary allignment with Earth and every sort of cataclysmic destructive event imaginable. The consensus is that there are many ways the end of the world could happen and that, while the planet would likely not disappear, civilization would.

 

To be honest, I was never really convinced about this controversial interpretation of the abrupt ending of the Mayan’s calendar on December 21, 2012. I always dismissed the archaeological discovery of this ancient South American Indian culture’s finite “calendar of doom” as commercial hype and I used to joke about it saying that the Mayan’s stopped calculating because they were tired and realized that they were not going to be around anyway, so “why bother?” Recently, however, I have come across some information, new to me, that caused me to stop smiling, “snap to attention,” and seriously re-examine this topic with an open mind.

 

The first adjustment to my attitude and beliefs came after hearing a radio interview with a researcher named John Moore on a radio show about conspiracy theories. Some people might roll their eyes and smile indulgently because of the theme of this radio program, but If what Mr. Moore is saying in his interview is true, it is understandable why some highly placed political forces might want to do their best to marginalize this researcher. In fact, it is likely that this is the only radio program wherein he could have an opportunity to share his research. What made me listen to this man instead of automatically pre-judging him as a wild-eye fanatic or “crackpot” visionary, was his astonishing resume. It is exceedingly impressive. This man served in the US military for many years and has a very distinguished service record characterized by fearlessness in extremely perilous combat situations. He served in special forces and in a number of sensitive Intelligence positions requiring secrecy and tremendous personal responsibilty. The list of highly specialized and significant positions held by Mr. Moore during his career is so long, I don’t have adequate space to review it without making this post much longer. Finally, in civilian life, Mr. Moore is a homocide investigator and now a researcher. His researches into “global warming” long before it became the political “football” it has become, enabled him to discover some absolutely shocking information, so secret, it has been kept from the public for 30 years. John Moore’s resume shows him to be a man of great pragmatism, courage, honor and professionalism and for this reason, I listened to him when he spoke about his findings .

 

When John Moore turned his investigative acumen to the subject of global warming, he concluded that global warming is a hoax, intentionally perpetrated by many governments, as a cover to obscure the real geophysical events that have been scientifically predicted to occur on December 21, 2012. Mr. Moore presented his evidence and I could not refute his arguments which were disturbingly compelling.

 

You can listen to John moore speak about his research on this link (unless some government officials decide to remove it):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drRMw_e9pN4 

 

Coincidentally, one day after I heard the John Moore interview and was finally beginning to recover my sense of comfortable complacency, I received an E-book called

”2012: Secrets Unlocked.”

The author,James Paul Wagner, has done an excellent job of explaining what this year 2012 hysteria is all about. He has reviewed every significant end of world prophesy from ancient to modern times, and has masterfully tied them together, meaningfully, to make a convincing case that they are all talking about the same events. His conclusion? The world is about to change in some unimaginable way on December 21, 2012, because of some, as yet undefined, geophysical upheaval caused by astronomical events.

 

Well? That’s it? Someone is going to explain in great detail how ancient and modern seers have predicted the end of civilization? No. Not exactly. Mr. Wagner is convinced that his research is confirmation of facts about our solar system and what is about to unfold.

 

The most valuable part of this information however, is part 2, about how to prepare to survive whatever happens and part 3, financial survival. You can read more about this here: 

Click Here! 

The will to live; to survive, is strongly compelling, don’t you agree? ( I already purchased my copy.) In your relentless pursuit of Truth, be sure to consider an alternative to the above cosmic catastrophe, do check out:

 

http://www.exitmundi.nl/Planet-X.htm 

  

Earth in Upheaval

   

Immanuel Velikovsky (Paperback)  

 As cited by John Moore-Global Warming Researcher…

 

But: ”Don’t worry…Be Happy”

” Enjoy life as if there is no tomorrow and you will never have to lament your lost yesterdays.”

–Wil

Take Care and stay well!

                                                                                                                                             

  

 

 

     

　As I mentioned in the previous post about recycling spam, you can use selected spam comments as regular comments for your posts. The results are often interesting and sometime entertaining. Here are some of the more interesting comments I extracted from my spam filter and reinvented as regular comments for some of the posts on Bloggasaurus:

 

Commenter:

Hi there, I found your blog via Google while searching for first aid for a heart attack and your post looks very interesting for me.

Bloggasaurus:

Well, first, let me say that I hope you are feeling better. Your comment underscores the importance of having a High-Speed Internet Connection. I appreciate that you have looked at this post. Actually, I hope you were able to read it, although you were probably a bit preoccupied at the time. You are always invited to return.

 

 

Commenter: 

Hey, Chris here. This was great information on Cardio Exercise. I tend to do cardio 3x per week and it is really helping me lose weight and get in shape. Anyway, good info. – Chris 

Bloggasaurus:

  Oh. Hi Chris! Thanks for your comment. I am glad you are keeping fit. You may be surpised to learn that I found your comment in my spam filter. Yes Chris, Your comment is actually spam (Sorry,) however, I will still use it anyway. I do think that, perhaps you sent it to the wrong web site, and certainly, it seems you responded to the wrong post: This Post is entitled 6 Ways to Evaluate products…etc., or, perhaps you did not notice, while reading it enthusiastically, that it is not about Cardio Excercise. Don’t worry, it is apparently easy to confuse cardio excercise with product marketing, if you lose focus for a minute. I was wondering, Chris: Do you have any advice for my roofing company friend (Carrington Roofing) in the comment above?
–Wil

 

 Commenter:

What youre saying is completely true. I know that everybody must say the same thing, but I just think that you put it in a way that everyone can understand. I also love the images you put in here. They fit so well with what youre trying to say. Im sure youll reach so many people with what youve got to say. 

 [ This is a perfectly good comment without the embedded link that caused it to be trapped in the spam filter, so the embedded link has been edited out and the comment retained.]

Bloggasaurus:

Thank you guest for the comment. I’m glad you enjoyed reading the post, and its illustration. Actually, everybody does not say the same thing. Please read through the other comments and you will be surprised by totally different comments. I can’t believe it myself.

 

 

Commenter: [to "In Appreciation of Doorknobs"]

I don’t agree with every thing with this posting, but you do make some very excellent details. Im incredibly fascinated in this particular matter and I myself do alot of analysis too. Either way it was a nicely thoughtout and good read so I figured I would leave you a comment. Really feel totally free to verify out my site sometime and let me know what you feel.

Bloggasaurus:

Thank you guest, for your comment to the post entitled: “In Appreciation of Doorknobs,” which I admit, is a spam comment that I extricated from my spam filter, but it is an interesting comment. As I understand it, you do not agree “…with every thing with this posting…” That is what I find so intriguing. What is it, I wonder that you do not agree with? Don’t you like doorknobs? Did you find the illustrations of doorknobs to be artistically offensive in some way? Do you object to doorknobs on the basis of some religious, cultural or philosophical creed? Do you think, for example, that the world would be better off if there were no doorknobs? Have you ever been on the wrong side of a locked door, perhaps, having accidentally locked yourself in a closet and had the doorknob in your hand come off suddenly? A situation like this can give one a whole new appreciation of doorknobs. Even with your disagreement, I notice that you are still “incredibly fascinated in this particular matter.” Really? Do you have a door knob collection too? I also notice that you do a lot of analysis; I would love to read your further analysis of doorknobs. In any case, thanks for the visit and BTW I did visit your site. I cannot find any connection with doorknobs but it is a site which promotes smokeless cigarettes and I think this is good public service so, Good Luck–Wil

  

Commenter:

 I Love You. I really do. I would even buy you flowers and dinner for what you have shared with us! Thanks to you I now have a working blog.

Bloggasaurus:

A simple “thank you” would be quite sufficient . –Wil

  

 

Commenter:

I want this post has been up top, up top! Top up to everyone to see!

Bloggasaurus: uh……well……Thank you for your exuberance and boundless zeal. With enthusiastic readers like yourself, I think this blog will quickly arrive….you know…..up top and stuff. Cheers.

-Wil

 

 Commenter: [ commenting to "Apologies, Farewell and Welcome"]

hey, I am agree with your posting about that but i found something strange that i felt you didnt know the news before you posting this. i want to ask :where do you know about this friend ?

  

Bloggasaurus:

Thank you for your perspicacious comment but I am a bit unnerved because, you say there is something strange—- in my blog?; …and I didn’t know the news before posting this? Oh No. I believe you are exactly right! I still don’t know this news; and honestly, I do not know where or even who this friend is, of which you speak. I am very confused. Hmmmm. There is something very strange going on here. Please keep me posted as to the results of your ongoing investigation and hopefully, we will “get to the bottom of this.” BTW thanks for your fascinating comment (which I rescued from the spam filter.)

 

 Commenter:  Pourquoi ces faisez-vous?

La Bloggasaurus:

Le question est: Pourqoi ces faisez-vous? ( Why do you do this)
La reponse est simplement: Il me donne une satisfaction grande ( I enjoy it )

Pour une reponse plus complete, s’il vous plait, refere a` mon poste avec la titre: ( please refer to my post….)
Pourquoi Quelqun Se Blog? [Why Blog? (And Why Try to Make Money With Your Blog?)

Pourquoi faisez-vous ce me demander? ( Why do you ask ?)

Guil
–Wil

 

 

Commenter:    

  I don’t mean to be too rude with this, and I know it’s completely irrelevant but I will just say it anyway! Whhhhhaat the heck has Obama been smoking these days? There, I got it off my chest!

 

Bloggasaurus: 

Greetings Hoodia (Gadlin586): Thank you for your exemplary comment. I do not want to be rude either and I hope it will not be too much of a shock to you when I point out that your comment is a perfect example of SPAM and as such is useful as an illustration for others to see what kind of comments they can expect to get sometimes. [ I received this exact comment a few months ago in the spam filter of my original blog.]

Do not be worried that the comment is too rude; it is just about the right level of rudeness. I must also compliment you on your sharp intuition and sense of what is appropriate concerning the relevance of your comment. You are exactly right: It is completely irrelevant.

Now, I will answer your completely irrelevant question: Mr. Obama smokes Marlboro Reds. I would recommend that you switch to these as an alternative to whatever you are smoking; just a friendly suggestion ; )

–Wil 

 

 

Commenter: 

 I was searching for Lithuanian translator, and found your website. Great blog. Very inspirational! This blog have such a nice information. Links are very helpful and and impressive too.

 

Bloggasaurus: 

Thank you for your highly original comment, retrieved, of course , from my spam filter. It is one of those remarkable mysteries, how you managed to search for a Lithuanian Translator and then, somehow, found my blog and decided to read it before moving on to continue your search. Well, I do not want your search to be in vain so allow me to say this in response to your comment:

Dėkojame už labai kūrybingas komentarą. Negalima daryti dar kartą, jei ji yra teisėtas komentarą, o ne “spam”

Thank You,

–wil

 

 

Commenter: [commenting to "Understanding Stupidity]

You lost me, buddy. I mean, I suppose I get what youre saying. I get where youre coming from. But you just seem to have forgotten that there are people out there who can see this issue for what it really is and may not agree with you. You seem to alienate a whole bunch of people who might have been fans of your blog.

Bloggasaurus:

[I have retrieved this comment from my spam filter simply because I wanted to embrace the challenge of giving a response, so here it is:]

It is, I think, more accurate to say that you lost yourself without my help. It probably happened when you stopped paying attention to where I was going. Since you are admittedly “lost” the least I can do is to tell you where to go, but instead let me get to my other points: Since this is my blog and by definition, a blog is where the blogger writes from his or her own perspective, I do not mind that there are some who “disagree” with me. Disagreement is healthy and can lead to interesting dialogues. I was ever mindful when writing this post that it was possible I would alienate idiots, morons, schmucks and the entire assortment of distinctive personalities defined in the “Lexicon….,” but I decided that:

1) this was a chance I had to take and
2) these types would not be reading this post.

Your comment suggests that I may have been wrong about number 2). Thanks for your candor. My final thought on this is that if some people are so easily alienated by what they freely choose to read in my blog, I would cheerfully and wholeheartedly recommend to them that they read your blog.

–Wil

 

 So that is my current installment of spam comments, recycled as regular comments in posts.Can you see the possibilities of treating spam in this way?  Can you find a way to recycle spam comments on your site?  Why not try it.  It can be a lot of fun and you will be pleased to find that you have an abundance of material for comments.  Try it. Enjoy it.  Share it with your readers.

 

–Wil

 

 

 

 

 

Spam wastes time.  Spam, itself, is waste.  It serves no good purpose for anyone but the spammer.  I began to think about this one day when I realized I had a great many spam comments and, some of them, actually sounded like genuine comments.  In our time, when we are more and more conscious of reducing waste, recycling and re-using material,  I wondered if this philosophy of resourcefulness could be applied to spam.

 

So, I read through the contents of my spam filter and thought: ” Some of these comments are actually quite good and some, although a bit silly, are very entertaining. ”  I needed more comments for Bloggasaurus, and as other bloggers have discovered, legitimate comments are often in short supply, so, I reasoned that, perhaps, I could find a way to use these rather than delete them. 

 

A few months before, a blogger left a comment on my original blog, in which he suggested to me that, perhaps, I should not be too rigid in  not approving comments which had commercial links or addresses attached.  Until that e-mail, it was my policy to ban, outright, anything remotely ressembling spam that ended up in my spam filter.  He reasonably made the case that there was no harm in allowing some selected spam comments to be used as valid comments as long as there were no embedded, “no-follow” links in the text.  I thought about that and decided that he was right.  I do not remember his name because his comment along with all the data in my database was erased in a host company debacle early in the year ( see “Apologies, Farewell and Welcome.”) and I owe him my thanks because he taught me that flexibility can often bring rewards in more creative choices.

 

After this “Aha!” moment, I began to look at comment spam in a different way and realized that many of the comments that had been filtered out by my spam filter could be reconstituted for use as valid comments, as long as I would permit a commercial URL or link.  That is when I decided to start using selected comment spam as regular comments in my posts if they have some merit, in my opinion ( although, I still tag them as “spam” to let readers know that these were not ordinary comments-necessary since my responses to these are not ordinary responses.)

 

The advantage for me (and for any blogger that also decides to try this) is that, while valid comments are still rare, I still can use a large number of comments culled from my spam filter  that more than compensate for the lack of ordinary, valid comments.  Some of these comments are, frankly, quite amusing, although they were probably not intended to be, and, I thought, it would be a shame to waste them without sharing them with interested readers.  A few of these comments from my spam filter are a bit sarcastic and a little arrogant too and  some writers seem to feel that I need to be lectured.  I like these.   I enjoy them because it gives me the opportunity to have a little fun (admittedly, at the expense of the spammer, though with no malice on my part) and to dust off my rarely used dry sarcasm which is reserved for spammers only.

 

So, although I do not like spam and think it would be better if we didn’t have to deal with it, I have found a way to use it and enjoy it.  In my next post, I will share the best of these reconstituted spam comments with you and my responses to them.  The comments are often a bit bizarre, but so are my answers and I hope some of my readers, especially new bloggers or ”about-to-be new bloggers” will enjoy seeing what a blogger has to deal with sometimes.

 

Converting selected comment spam into valid comments is only one way to make practical use of spam.  There is another use.   When you select the comment that you will approve and respond to, you allow a commercial link and this is a link that you can click on to visit your spammers site.  It is only fair that you should be able to leave a comment of your own on his or her website, along with the url to your web site.  You should always check out the site of the  spam commenter to ensure that it is appropriate and acceptable to your professional standards and to the sensabilities of your readers if any of them should decide to follow that link.  In some cases their are pornographic urls or other objectionable sites attached to the comment spam and it is not always obvious until you click on the link.  Always check out the links.

 

When you realize that comment spam can be of some practical use as raw material for valid comments , you will be able to greatly expand the comments attached to your posts and by using the spammer’s URL and link, you can go to their site, leave a real comment and forge a potentially valuable backlink.

 

To examine some of these comments and see examples of how to use them in a , hopefully, engaging and entertaining way, please have a look at the next post which consists of the best examples I have rescued from my spam filter and used in various posts as  bona fide comments.

 

Take care and “see you next time.”

 

–Wil

 

 

Ok.  Spam.  no one who has a website really wants spam.  Spam, of course is unsolicited, gratuitous comments to which are attached advertisements or links to promote the spammer’s web site by using yours to display it- free and without permission.  Whatever title you give yourself: Webmaster, Web Site Owner, Blogger or whatever it is, for you, SPAM is a four letter word.

 

     Spam is a problem because it quickly fills your spam filter or otherwise accumulates on your web site like the detritus in a roadside gutter after a flashflood.  OK.  maybe that’s a little dramatic, but the more traffic you have the more spam you will get and you have to manage it.  It requires extra time  to cull and sort and delete and empty from your filter.  This is time you could spend more productively to write posts, search for interesting products to promote or answer legitimate comments.  It is not just the overwhelming volume of spam on your web site that is annoying.  It is the unprofessional disrespect and inconsiderateness of the spammers who send out their spam to your site without, apparently, any thought about how they are impacting your site; the “host” site, to use a term from parisitology.  Their sole aim is to promote their site and they are not interested in any mutual agreements with the spammed sites to promote each others’ sites.  They are self-serving .

 

     There are several ways in which spam may display on your site and there are distinctive identifying hallmarks to indicate that a comment is, in fact, a spam comment:

 

 1. It is in your spam filter.    (Spam filters are quite advanced and are very good at screening out  spam comments.)

  

 

2.  A characteristic of these comments is that the urls have one or more subdomains attached and usually bring you to a commercial site.

    

 

3.  If you click on the link, it will bring you to a third party site which is not owned by the spammer.

       

4.  There are imbedded “no follow” links within the comment.  Here is an axample:

      Hello dudes , this is a great forum! if yas dont mind, im trying to improve my forum, can you guys give me some feedback please : privateserver (link de-activated) also is it possible to donate to the owner of this website? its great

 

5.  The comment is totally irrelevant to your post. Example:

      This is really good news today……  (In response to the post about “…Doorknobs.”)

 

6.  The comment is so general, it could apply to any post.  Example:

      That’s a very interesting information. I didn’t know about it. Keep developing your site!

 

7.  The comment has been cobbled together by an automatic article writing softwar device or something similar and it is, mostly, “gibberish.” Here is an example:

Lemons. a abigail of the most authentic alkalinizing foods, are pattern to tropical Asia, where cultivation dates spring endorse from at least 2,500 years. In the twelfth century the Arabs brought lemons to Spain and Africa. It was Christopher Columbus, who brought the seeds of lemons with him from the Canary Islands on his damaged voyage. In the Redone Men, lemons were introduced at calligraphy control means of the Spanish adventurers in Haiti, then known as Hispaniola. In the Appraisal States, Florida was the in the principal stock lemon-producing limit, and this awe-inspiring led in origination of lemons until a mournfulness integrate in 1895 killed the lemon groves. They were not in a million years replanted. In the mount circumstances, to 95 percent of the lemons against in the Pooled States and Canada are produced in southern California. The other 5 percent are grown in Italy. Italy and California together postulate in return all reasonable purposes the bund’s make whoopee equipping of lemons

 

8.  If you try to contact the sender, you get an “failure” notice because the e-mail address is not real.

     

 9.  The comment is gushing and effusive with fulsome praise and excessive flattery out of all proportion to your humble accomplishments and, of course, has links attached to promote the spammers’web sites. Example;

I want this post has been up top, up top! Top up to everyone to see!

 and you already saw this one above:

Hello dudes , this is a great forum! if yas dont mind, im trying to improve my forum, can you guys give me some feedback please : privateserver (link de-activated) also is it possible to donate to the owner of this website? its great

 

10. The comment is attached to an illustration on your site and not to a post.  You cannot publish this kind of comment.  It will not appear in the comments of a post.  Here is a comment that was attached to a picture of a doorknob:

Great points…I would note that as someone who really doesn’t comment to blogs much (in fact, this may be my first post), I don’t think the term “lurker” is very becoming to a non-posting reader. It’s not your fault really , but perhaps the blogosphere could come up with a better, non-creepy name for the 90% of us that enjoy reading the content .

 

By the way, this would have been a good comment if the sender had commented in a legitimate way.  I wanted to post it but was unable to put in it the correct comment group. ( so I show it here as an example.)  I actually answered this post and, I might as well include my answer here as I was unable to link my answer and the comment to a post:

Thank You for your comment and I do appreciate that you were able to overcome your natural resistance to commenting. I happen to agree with you that the term “lurker” is both creepy and unflattering. It makes non-commenting readers sound like fiends crounching down in some dark corner ready to spring upon an unsuspecting blogger. I did not really like using the term but the geeksters that came before us bequeathed this terminology to us and I use it because it is widely accepted and in common use. I don’t like “lurker” but it is better than say, “Blogvoyeur” – Incidentally, I am a frequent non-commenting visitor of several blogs. Thanks for your comment.

 

 

11.  Comment spam may also be identified by the frequency of its occurance.  “Same Spam Different Day” would aptly describe this tactic.  I have received two or three comments from    from different IP addresses.  The duplicate comments are exactly the same, ostensibly from      different individuals, sometimes from the same people. They can reoccur weeks apart or  appear after a month or more.                                        

  

     Spam is here to stay.  It is a part of the Internet Scene.  so far, no one has been able to eliminate spam completely, but there are ways to control it.  The most obvious way to do this is to have a good spam filter.  There are many but one of the most powerful and effective filters is Aksimet from Wordpress.  If you want to save time you really need a spam filter.  

 

 Spam comments, especially those generated by “bots” can be foiled with the use of CAPTCHA codes.  This prevents anyone from simply pressing a button to send spam to your site, because the spam device cannot “read” the code ( sometimes I cannot read the code either ).  The person has to manually send his comment  This is time-consuming and not favored by those spammers who want things to be easy. 

 

Some sites ”build” all kinds of virtual barriers to keep spam at bay.  They will use CAPTCHA codes, make you register and sign in every time you want to leave a comment and so on.  I don’t use this simply because many readers do not want to “jump through hoops” just to leave a comment.  I believe, and this is my personal opinion, that readers who do take the time to leave you a comment are contributing to the interest of your blog and I don’t like to put obstacles between them and my site, which might discourage them from commenting.  One of the most common complaints of bloggers is ” I am not getting enough comments.  How do I get people to comment more?”  The answer is very simple.  Encourage readers to leave comments and make it as easy as possible for them.  

 

    Spam is a problem, but, believe it or not, I have found some spam to be really useful.  I actually have discovered that spam can be interesting and entertaining and I look forward to checking my spam filter for potentially “useful” spam.  I will tell you all about it in my next post:  “Recycling Spam.”

 

 

Take Care and “Blog-On”

–Wil

     

 

“Rapid Income Creator” by John Carter is one of those money making internet products that comes along only every once in a while that makes you say, “Wow, why didn’t I think of that?”
 
Mr. Carter has done his homework here and has created what seems to be an automatic PPV affiliate marketing system.  Rapid Income Creator combines professionally and PRE-BUILT created landing pages, specifically designed for PPV traffic, plus “copy and paste” demographic  research so members don’t have to guess or spend time doing the work to build campaigns.  Better yet, the way the program is set up, there’s no need for you to even have a website of your own, as the landing pages are fully hosted.

If that wasn’t enough, Mr. Carter went ahead and added  simplified PDF reports on PPV and advertising so anyone can understand it, meaning people of all experience levels.  Additionally, Rapid Income Creator also offers a traffic resources section that even makes many veteran online marketers envious.   There are a ton of new money-making traffic networks and advertising venues I haven’t even heard of.

  This is not very difficult.  You may be surprised at how easy this system is to use because every step of the way the program is laid out in a way that anyone can come in and understand it.  It isn’t heavy with tons of stuff to read and absorb.  The content John Carter gives in Rapid Income Creator is integrated into the program into easily do-able steps.
  
Every step of the way, you are learning by doing.  Taking specific actions and getting a result.  I have to admit that John does throw in a few documents to read ,  but they’re short and easy to understand.  The “control center user interface” inside Rapid Income Creator is  designed to be  a fool- proof system.  If you can count, then you can use it;  no guesswork involved.

On a scale of 1 to 5, 5 being the best , we can give Income Creator a 4.9 for quality.  It doesn’t get  a  5 because every product can be improved slightly.  There are other improvements planned that make Rapid Income Creator even more valuable.
 
Rapid Income Creator is, so far, appears to have great potential, which is a good thing, considering all the ineffective, heavily-hyped programs and systems in the marketplace.

 This program also rates a  4.5 for its money making potential,  because John does not go into how to make a large income with it, but does teach how to make a few hundred a day with it.( would you turn that down?)  It gets a  4.9 once again for content because not only are the campaigns set up for you,  you also have top shelf resources that I wish I knew about before.  Rapid Income Creator does not shrink from describing itself as a “surefire”  program that is going to do very well online for a lot of people.  How long will these methods work?  Well Mr. Carter has plans on making that indefinitely-as long as possible.

 This is system can move you closer to your wealth attaining objectives.  Rapid Income Creator is an exciting product that can help you achieve your financial objectives. 
Check out Rapid Income Creator Here:

http://wil126.youmatter.hop.clickbank.net

 

This is a product that you can use yourself to explore different ways to make money online, or, you can promote this product on your website and it will do the same thing for you in a different way.  This is a product worth trying.

 

–Wil

A blog is wonderfully flexible and can be “tweaked,” adjusted and managed in different ways to accomplish different objectives.  There is a way you can greatly expand the number of products you promote without changing or competing with the central purpose of your web site (your blog.) I am referring to more products, in addition to those you may have on a separate page.

 

Keep in mind that “more” is not necessarily “better,” and fewer, well selected products may accomplish your goals just as satisfactorily as if you offered many products.  Some bloggers, however, may prefer to offer a number of products, because they believe that a wider the range of products will result in more sales.  If you are not sure which strategy is the right one for you, you will need to experiment. Irrespective of whichever approach you use, you can offer a product review from time to time, as a post about a product or products that you are spotlighting.  If you have a separate page of products, you can review one or more products from this page, or you can introduce a new product not mentioned anywhere else on your site.

 

The products you will review are products which you believe in, (based on your research) and which you think will appeal to your visitors;  including other bloggers and non-bloggers alike.  Everyone who visits your site is a potentional buyer.  Even bloggers, who may simply be searching for interesting products to sell,  and may want to read about the products you are promoting to decide if they want to promote them too, may decide to buy something to evaluate it for themselves.  There is no better way to write authoritatively about something then by experiencing it first hand.  A product review is especially useful to other bloggers who may not have been aware of the product(s) you are promoting.

 

So, how do you review a product?  A review can be simply a discussion, either formal or casual, depending on your writing style, of what the product is, who it is for, what are its benefits and any other information or comments about cost, ease of use, how and where to purchase it and so on.  Think about whatever you would want to know before you purchased this product and that is what you should discuss.  That is really all there is to it.  You can review 5 or 6 products at a time or just one, giving that product a thorough and favorable review. 

 

You can provide a banner in your post or a link to the product landing page ( which will promote the product more aggressively) and readers can click on this banner or link and be brought to a place where they can buy the product.  Be sure that, in the case of an Affiliate Network source for this product, that your I.D. code is embedded in the link or associated with the banner so that if a reader actually clicks through and purchases the product you are promoting, you get credit for that sale and you get paid.    

 

 

You are promoting only products that you believe are high quality products ( not just high profit products.)  Since you hope to make a sale, you want products which will result in customer satisfaction.  If you want, as a public service, you can, from time to time, also do a review of products you would never recommend that people purchase.  This will not result in any commercial activity for you directly, but it will make your site more valuable as a source of useful and trusted information.  Visitors will return to such a site and may eventually purchase something as well. 

 

My opinion is that a blogger should not over do it with product review posts.  I believe review posts are best used as one would use seasoning to enhance a meal.  You can space these posts out with other kinds of posts in between for variety.  I mention this because there are some blogs which consist almost entirely of a discussion of products.  How you use the product review depends on the purpose of your blog.  However you use it, the product review is a useful service to your readers and provides some interesting material for posts, as well. 

 

So, start your search for the best products available and tell the world about them . The sooner you use this approach to monetizing your blog, the sooner you will make money with your blog.

 

Good Luck and Good Success,

 

–Wil

 

 

In previous posts, I wrote about how to find products to sell, how to choose the “right” products and how to evaluate them.  Essentially, all this requires you to do is to research to learn which products offer the best value to your visitors/shoppers.  “Best value” means high quality at reasonable cost that delivers the benefits and satisfaction promised.

 

The research and evaluation you do, when it is understood by the public which you serve with your blog, gives assurance to people who purchase from your site and enhances your reputation as an honest, responsible entrepreneur.  When you inspire trust, people are more likely to feel comfortable when purchasing something that you are promoting.  You want buyers to be satisfied with their purchases so they will return to your site another day and so they will remember your site and tell their friends.  Your sterling reputation pays dividends in future sales so pay attention to the reputation you are building.

 

With this in mind, what happens when a product that you are promoting (even after your diligent efforts suggest that it is a good product), turns out not to be the good product  you thought it was?  This can happen, although, with thorough research, it is less likely to happen to you.  You can tell if a product is not what it purports to be when it doesn’t work as described, or it doesn’t deliver the implied benefits enumerated in the promotional ad.  Sometimes you may not be aware that there is a problem with a product until a visitor/buyer makes a complaint about something to you.  In that case you need to contact that person immediately and find out the details so you can try to help the individual resolve the problem, if you can.

 

There is another way you can discover that there is a problem with a product you promote favorably;  that occurs when you are researching another product, and you happen to read, in a forum or in another blog,  something very distressing  about a product you have been advertising.  What should you do?  I’ll tell you what you should do because this post was inspired by just such an experience that happened to me.  In my case, the person who was using the product and complained about it was………me.   ( more about this later.)

 

However you discover that a product you promote is not a good product, there are three things you must do and they should be done immediately as soon as you find out about a product negative;  here are the three actions you should perform together:

 

1)   You should alert your readers and inform them that there is a problem, and describe the   nature of the problem.

 

 

2)  You should apologize.  Although it is not your fault and product provider is responsible, You advertised a defective or problem-riddled product and someone may have purchased this because of your promotional activities or ads.

     

 3)  Without delay, immediately “pull” the product ad from your site.

 

From the inception of “Bloggasurus” I advertised two products on my site that I, in fact, used myself.  One was Rob Benwell’s “Blogging to the Bank” and the other was a hosting company called “Hostazar” which was my hosting company.  In early January 2010, Hostazar’s servers went down—for about two weeks!  When you are trying to promote a web site, build traffic volume and improve your page-ranking on search engines,  this is the “kiss-of-death.”  When your readers are becoming accustomed to visiting your site on a regular basis and then can’t find your site anywhere on the Internet for weeks, they conclude that you gave up and so, they give up on your blog and move on to something else.

 

I was exceedingly frustrated and completely exasperated.  Not only could I not find my site on the Internet, but I couldn’t access it to  rescue my data and I couldn’t even get in touch with the web masters at Hostazar who were incommunicado (I later learned, this was because they were not even in attendance at their headquarters to maintain the servers.)  My site was still very new and this problem was also new to me so after two weeks when the staff returned from a holiday absence, and the servers were back online, I breathed a sigh of relief and immediately got busy writing new posts, correcting display anomalies from “validation errors” and making such improvements as I could—on March 26, without warning the servers were down again.  My website vanished and, although I did not know it at the time, It was gone permanently.  I sent a total of 14 support tickets in a desperate attempt to find out what was going on.  more than ten weeks later I started to get replies from these requests and I pieced together this scenario:

 

 1) Hostazar had been sold at auction without announcement to the hosted clients and had a new owner.

 

2) No one had been available to respond to questions during the transition.

 

3) Data on the servers was apparently erased.

 

4) Rob Benwell was the previous owner and now,  unfortunately, has a tarnished reputation because of questionable business practices (not including the auctioning off of his hosting company without consideration of his 4000 clients.)

 

  For the complete narrative about this disaster ( if you like disaster stories) please refer to my previous post:

 

                         http://bloggasaurus.com/uncategorized/apologies-farewell-and-welcome/

                                    

 So, the hard lesson from this is that you should do the best you can to find good quality products to promote and research them as best as you can.  If something goes wrong, then, you must address it immediately by alerting your readers to the problem; apologize ( you should do this to disassociate yourself from the product) and then remove the advertisement(s) ASAP.

 

Handling  product-quality problems in this way will allow you to make the necessary corrections quickly so that you can get back to writing for your blog and communicating with your readers. 

 

Do your research; sell your products confidently and make money, honorably.  You will really enjoy yourself and your success will be well deserved.

 

Take Care and Good Success,

 

–Wil

 

 

 

 

How many products? This is an entirely subjective decision. The simple answer is: “Enough to enable you to make a profit” (i.e., more money than you started out with.) For some bloggers, 5-10 products will be enough. For others, two or three pages of products will suffice. It all depends on the profitability of the products you have selected.

 

“Profitability” is the final consideration which you should factor into your decision-making process about which products to advertise. When you have finalized your product list, have evaluated them and found them to be satisfactory, you need to check the information provided by the supplier to determine what will be the percentage of your commission, earned on each sale. Practically speaking, given a choice between two excellent products, you might as well choose the product offering the highest commission. If you have allocated enough space for several advertisements on your site, of course, you can offer as many products as you have room for, even those with a lower commission, however, if you think of your website page as a sort of “virtual shelf” like a shelf in a store, you may want to consider the concept of

 

Product Rent

 

Supermarkets, department stores and other large businesses use “product rent” when calculating the cost and profitability of merchandising specific products on their shelves. The purpose, of course, is to utilize shelf space most efficiently and to maximize profits. Businesses will promote the best-selling, higher profit items, by giving these products the most prominent locations on the shelf in the most actively shopped sections of the aisle, as determined by marketing research. Vendors who stock the shelves will compete aggressively to have the best position on the shelf ( perhaps eye-level and near the front of the store.) This is not something which is critical for you, although, you may want to put your most profitable products where they will be seen first. In some cases, in larger stores, low-profit items or those which do not sell well will be phased out and eliminated. The exception to this practice would be low-profit items which are popular with customers. Ultimately, as with blog content, you want to keep the public which patronizes your business, happy, so they will return.

 

I have mentioned this product rent concept here because, although, as a website owner, you will probably not have the same constraints and costs of doing business as the large supermarkets or department stores, you are limited in the time you have to manage your site. Writing posts, reviewing comments, replying to e-mails and performing whatever additional management tasks are necessary to keep your site functioning smoothly, will take some time and effort. You may, for practical reasons, want to limit your product offerings to a few of the most popular products with the highest profit margins. In this way you will earn the biggest profit from the smallest investment of time and effort. If you have an abundance of time, then you can do whatever you want. Consider, though, that a smaller number of really great products with a high profit margin may accomplish the same profit objectives as pages of products and may get more attention from online shoppers who have fewer choices to check out.

 

The analogy I would use to clarify the point I wanted to make above, is this: Modern day gold mines process 10 tons of gold-bearing matrix to get 1 oz. of pure gold. With the high price of gold, it is ,apparently, feasible to do this. Consider, however, how much more profitable it would be, especially factoring in time and effort, if a mine processed a rich, gold-bearing quartz vein that yielded 100 oz. of pure gold per ton. The point here is that if your time is limited and you do not want to have 10 pages of products, then one page of high profit products can serve your purpose quite satisfactorily.

 

The product selection and evaluation process I have outlined is a suggested procedure. It is not “written in stone.” However, if you are new to online marketing, or have a website to which you have not yet added products to sell, these suggestions offer a workable guideline that will provide you with a starting point to help you accomplish your commercial objectives for your site.

However you decide to find, select, and evaluate products for your site and however you promote and sell these products, I hope you have great success. Yes. It takes some time and effort to do this but it is part of the fun” After all, you are stocking the “shelves” of your own business. If you have a blog–this is the essence of How to Make Money With Your Blog.

 

Good Luck and please feel free to visit again,

–wil

 

 

Once you have chosen the product or products you want to advertise, you will need to do an evaluation, excercising “due diligence” (meaning: Do research”) to make sure that whatever products you have selected are safe, reliable, authentic and of high quality. Why? Because, whatever you sell will be associated with your website and, hence, with your name, and your website and name, with the product. You cannot completely avoid being affiliated or associated with the products you sell.

 

From the moment you launch your blog, you are building a professional reputation and earning respect. You will want to constantly protect your reputation and your good name. Choose high quality products that people like.  Once you have selected your products from the six categories mentioned in the previous post, you will need to perform some online searches to evaluate each product you have selected using criteria such as quality, merit, popularity, etc.. If you have other criteria, use these as well.

 

Here are 6 Ways to Evaluate Products for your website

 

1. You can contact the author or product creator to ask questions.

2. You can do an online search to find articles about the product you want to evaluate.

3. You can go to forums and, if necessary, start a new thread asking if anyone has had experience using the product.

4. You can purchase the product and evaluate it yourself.

5. If you are selling products as an affiliate, you can go to the Affiliate Networks’ websites and find the product which, usually, offers detailed information about each product. Clickbank, to mention one example, has a statistic called “gravity” which is, basically, a measure of how well a product is selling, at present.

6. You can ask friends, fellow bloggers and affiliate marketers who may be familiar with the product(s) you want to advertise, about their experience with a particular product.

 

Some of the above, if used selectively, or altogther (recommended), will provide you with a powerful combination of tools to help you choose good quality, popular, profitable products for your website, based on research, not on guesswork.

 

You may have found several exciting products to sell and you may have evaluated them, finding them to be all good, reputable products. There is, however, one more consideration that will determine, finally, which products will appear on your page:

 

Profitability

 

I will discuss this factor in the next post.

 

Until then,

Take Care and Be Well

 –Wil