Grumpy Old Man » Internet marketing

Facebook advertising. Some useful tips

admin — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:14:39 +0000

There is no doubt that a good advert on Facebook can make you a lot of money.

Here are some good tips.

Spamming Fools

admin — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:15:03 +0000

For my sins, I moderate in certain forums. On the whole, i really enjoy the work. Most people are really appreciative. However, one category of person is not, the spammer.

For me, a forum spammer is anybody who comes to a forum with the intention of making money from it. Ten years ago, we all did it. We would make a post and include an affiliate link in it. I never once made a penny from such a link. We all posted the links but nobody clicked on them.

These days things tend to be a lot more subtle. The affiliate link might still be there but everything is done to stop the moderator spotting it. Lots of ‘shortened’ links and misleadingly phrased ones.

A common tactic these days is to send people off to a mock “review page”, often a video page, where you read nothing but wonderful comments about a product and the affiliate link is prominent. Not seen any of those? Then I’m doing my job

Goodbye, Bev

admin — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 13:26:51 +0000

Internet marketing is in mourning today. Bev Clement had finally lost a long and brave fight with cancer. Bev campaigned long and hard to raise standards on the Internet. No liar, cheat or charlatan was safe from her. When I became a moderator on the Warrior Forum, she encouraged me to go after the dodgy characters and, with a few others, we cleaned the place up.

Miss you, Bev.

Long time, no see – almost literally

admin — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 14:58:12 +0000

Sorry for the long gap in posting. I have various problems with my eyes and I had to give up most online work for a while. That’s the great thing about Adsense sites – it really can be passive income. Of course, your sites do gradually fall back over a period – but not as quickly as you might expect.

I’m now beginning an experiment in renting sites to artisans in the Redditch area. This is based on ideas by Mark Vurnum. You can see my initial attempt at http://redditchwebhelp.co.uk Do you recognize how I did the sales page? It’s made with an add-on for WordPress. Look at the bottom of the page if you can’t guess what it is

Don’t market to me – I’m a marketer

admin — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 14:46:28 +0000

I used to train teachers for a living. One thing I noticed was that they hated doing pair activities and small group work as part of their training. Yet these were the same techniques that they used a lot in their own classrooms because they knew they worked.

Today on the Warrior Forum, there is another example of this. So-called marketers are complaining because the Chief Warrior made them read an advert beofre they could access the forum. They’re going on as if their ‘rights’ had been infringed. Howver, I’m looking at the huge number of sign ups that the owner achieved by forcing people to read the ad and noting how well this technique has worked. As always in marketing, it’s not what people say but what they do that counts.

A great way of syndicating your articles

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:17:16 +0000

I’ve been fed up for some time with the return I get on articles I syndicate. One problem is that you can usually only put your link into a box at the bottom of the post and not onto good text within the post. A related problem is that far too many people just delete your box from the article so that your link disappears. Finally, you have to rely on other marketers making the effort to find your articles.

That’s why I’m so keen on Article Marketing Automation. Firstly, you can place your link twice within an article on any text you wish. Secondly, it actively suggests your article to relevant sites within its system. I’ve never built up so many links so quickly.

Highly recommended.

The Economy IS Doing Badly – Whatever They Might Say

admin — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 16:33:25 +0000

I keep reading comments and getting emails stating that the economy is not in a bad state. Guess what breed of low-lifes are publishing this message – Internet Marketers. Now I’m prepared to admit that the rocky times ahead will be good for the ‘gurus’ . More and more desperate people are going to come online, looking for that ‘pot of gold’ to get them out of their financial mess. In their desperation, they’re going to fall for some of the ridiculous claims made by certain people. (I’ll exclude Michael Green from that – his products more or less live up to the excessive bullshit in his sales letters.)

But those of us who sell REAL products online, telephones or beauty products, know that people will be buying less often, and probably cheaper products. I was in a shopping mall in the UK today and the shop doing the business was Primark, the store with a low-price policy.

So while a small group of people might do well out of the recession, most online people will not. Don’t let them sucker you into laying out another thousand dollars before you find out.

Fight the Good Fight?

admin — Wed, 24 Sep 2008 07:56:49 +0000

Last year I stupidly signed up for one of those instant site-making tools. (I was at a conference and all my friends were buying it – you get the picture.) I agreed to pay several hundred dollars up-front and 99 dollars a month fee. When I got home and started to use the program, it didn’t work properly. Anoyingly, it would work for a while and then sudenly break down. I’ve used a couple of similar programs in the past with no problems. This one seemed to be having difficulty because it was written in Flash and because the server was underpowered.

So I asked for my money back. But then a person I know well and trust moved into the company to sort out their problems. He wrote me a note asking me to ‘hang on in there’ so I did. But nothing changed on the technical level so I again asked for my money back. Not only didn’t I get it but they insisted upon charging me a further $99 before I could leave.

My friend has now left the company. I have no confidence that the company will ever have a decent product but they are still running a very effective marketing campaign. Do I start a campaign warning others against them or do I let sleeping dogs lie?

Automatic Social Bookmarkers

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 10:09:30 +0000

I’ve been tempted to stray on the dark side recently.

It’s hard work writing articles all the time though the benefits in terms of visitors to your site is excellent. That’s why any ‘automatic’ system which can give your rankings as big a push as article marketing seems so worthwhile. Pay 97 dollars a month, press a button and go play a round of golf sounds “a great strategy”.

But we all know it’s only a matter of weeks now before Google gets on top of all the people manipulating social bookmark sites. And when that happens, all those people doing that are going to lose their top spots in the search engines. And us article writers are going to replace them. Original content rules.

Bah Humbug

admin — Tue, 02 Sep 2008 16:10:31 +0000

I’ve just spent the whole day trying to set up all the recent tools I’ve bought for my sites. I’m sure I’ve missed some. Memo to self – stop buying WSOs.