INTERNET INCOME: Lesson #88—Lasting Principles -- Part 4

Internet Income

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

To avoid the inherent obsolescence that preys upon any attempt to capture the workings of the Internet, the Internet Income Course has attempted to deal with lasting concepts. In this final section of the course, we continue to remind you of some of the most important of those lasting principles that have been highlighted and explained during this course.

LASTING PRINICIPLES OF AN EVERCHANGING INTERNET

Constantly Add New Content
Recall from our discussion of Network Science that continuous growth is necessary for survival. This is true for networks and for nodes in the network. As the Internet becomes more competitive, it is important to add new information to your site often. With a properly organized Website or blog, you can constantly add new content to your Website in a very organized and effective way. Make sure that you create an RSS feed to allow access to your new content through email programs and feed readers. Your RSS feed promotes your new page to everyone who has subscribed to your RSS Feed. Create social media profiles (ex. Facebook and Twitter) and post a link to your new content there also. This way, you can effectively drive new traffic to your Website and, by the constant addition of new content to your Website, you can effectively promote your Website's status with other Webmasters and the Search Engines.
Buy From Your Own Store--Use What You Sell
The natural first step upon becoming involved in a marketing organization is to buy and try the products yourself. Unscrupulous organizations have blemished network marketing by requiring their representatives to purchase poor quality, overpriced products in order to qualify in the opportunity. The key difference between these illegitimate organizations and the legitimate ones is the quality and price of the available products. TripleClicks.com offers many high quality, reasonably priced products. The numerous affiliates who maintain their own storefronts through TripleClicks' ECA program also offer many reasonably priced quality items as well. To succeed, you must, at some point, find the thing that feels right to you and commit to it. You have to act on it. In a marketing organization, your first action, logically, is to purchase and try the products and services yourself. Buy and try until you find the ones that really excite you--then promote based on that excitement.
Feel The Excitement
Allowing yourself to feel the excitement is important to your success. Give yourself a reason to smile. Find what excites you. Let yourself feel the excitement that comes from undertaking your Internet Marketing venture with SFI. The excited and the passionate are the ones who become successful. The excited and the passionate are the ones who truly enjoy life. All of us have great passions and great energy within us just waiting to engage in the right opportunity. Don't hold them back. From passion and excitement comes action--enjoyable, fulfilling action. From that action comes success.
PPC Marketing
With the success of Google Ads and the emergence of Facebook and Twitter advertising, the importance of paid marketing is increasing progressively. With the proper knowledge and skills, you will be able to obtain traffic to your site that will result in conversions. When your skills are honed, you will be able to do so while spending less to obtain the traffic than you make on the conversions resulting from the traffic. That is, you will be making profit!
The skills needed are:

Keyword Generation
Writing Effective Titles and Descriptions
Designing Effective Landing Pages
Bidding Strategies
Tracking Strategies
Guideline Compliance

This set of skills will allow you to engage in effective Campaign Management, resulting in a profitable online business.
Before jumping into a PPC Search Engine Marketing campaign, you should define the conversion that you are seeking. You should also determine the value of that conversion to you in monetary terms. Then, starting out, you should only bid or agree to pay an amount that will likely result in profit. When you start, follow your results and, if they are not profitable, experiment by changing the individual bids on your keywords. If you cannot achieve the results you desire by changing your bids on your existing keywords, you can ad new keywords. Studying the results you have already obtained (by sorting the results for the different values in turn), gives you insight into what adjustments you should make to your keywords and bids.
One strategy is to search for keywords that have been overlooked by your competition. Finding keywords that produce traffic but are not being heavily bid upon by others is an inexpensive means of gaining traffic to your landing page. Another effective strategy is to increase the value you obtain from popular keywords. You can do this in two ways. One is by increasing your profit on your product. The other is by refining your ad and your landing page to increase the ratio of conversions. If you can produce more value from the traffic, you can be more effective in the bidding war.
Keywords have economic value. This economic value correlates to the amount you have to bid to place your ad in the desired spot. Because there is much competition for these ad placements, they are awarded to the bidder whose combination of bid amount and ad popularity will generate the most revenue per impression for the search engines or social media site. There is little you can do to change the market price that has been set for a popular keyword by this bidding process. There are strategies that make you more effective, however.
The procedures discussed in Lessons 18 and 19 can be employed to develop and expand your list of keywords.
To understand how to test your keywords, you must understand the importance of positioning. The position in which your ad appears in the search engine results for a particular keyword is crucial to the results you will obtain from your ad. The value of a keyword, both to you and your competitors, is dependent upon the positioning in the search results for the keyword. Your Keyword Strategy, thus, needs to take into account each possible position for each keyword and evaluate your keywords relative to each position. From this evaluation, you can determine the best position for each keyword. Once this is done, the keyword can be evaluated against other keywords in your list based on its best possible performance. With this knowledge, you can determine which keywords to bid and which to discard.
To determine the best position for a given keyword, you first collect data for the cost per click (CPC) and the conversion rate (CR). From these you can calculate the conversion cost (CC). Then you collect data for the click through rate (CTR). Your conversion value (CV) should have been determined at the start of the campaign. You can then place all of these values in a table and determine the profitability (P) for each possible position for the keyword. The position with the highest P value is the best position for that keyword.
You can also use the P value for the best position of a keyword to compare that keyword against other keywords on your list.
PPC Search Marketing also involves the use of "Ads" and "Landing Pages." The Ads are short and usually restricted to words only. The Landing Pages are under your control and can be as media rich as you can make them. To obtain the desired CTR and CR, you must balance your Ads against your Landing Pages. To avoid a low CR, limit the appeal of your Ads to just those likely to convert. Thus, use logical persuasion in your Ads to limit your Ads to only those truly interested in your product or service. Then, use subconscious advertising on your Landing Page to ensure a good CR.
We discussed paid advertising in detail in Lessons...Much of the information there is still very helpful today. It is worth your time to review those lessons before you venture into paid advertising.
Social Media
Online Social Networking is the latest trend on the Internet and one that is not only here to stay, but destined to dominate the Internet for the foreseeable future. Internet users have taken to Online Social Networking because it better approximates how people naturally make connections and form associations in the offline world. A peek at some of the sociological theories on social networking is helpful to understand how and why the process works, both offline and online. Online Social Networking (Social Media) is important to Internet Marketers because making connections and forming trusted relationships is at the heart of successful marketing.
Social Media sites should not be thought of as advertising sites--and should not be approached as such. Social Media sites should be thought of as 'branding' sites. As such, they can be very useful to building your business, if used properly. Take your time and try to create an interesting profile. Post often with interesting and informative or entertaining posts. Use 'in-context placement' when you do promote products or services.
There are close to one hundred popular social media sites. Due to the number of these sites and the difficulty of choosing between them or trying to keep up with all of them, we can anticipate each including much openness and interaction with the others, allowing you to create universal modules that can interface with most of the social networking sites simultaneously. Online social networking is big business, with all of the popular sites being valued highly in the market. Twitter seems to have won the distinction of being the most lasting and most important of the social networking sites for now. Facebook has been extraordinarily popular as well, but Facebook is expected to lose popularity somewhat over the coming years. Internet entrepreneurs would do well to stay fully abreast of the developments and trends in online social networking and use them to their advantage.

CONCLUSION

In this lesson, the fourth in the final section on lasting principles, we have revisited the importance of adding new content, buying from your own store, feeling the excitement of your venture, PPC Marketing, and Social Media. While the details may change, the principles should remain the same.

Internet Income. Lesson #87 - Lasting Principle - Part 3.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN

To avoid the inherent obsolescence that preys upon any attempt to capture the workings of the Internet, the Internet Income Course has attempted to deal with lasting concepts. In this final section of the course, we continue to remind you of some of the most important of those lasting principles highlighted and explained during this course. In this Lesson, we start with a high-level concept: Everything you do should be useful for your readers and the search engines. We look specifically at Reciprocal Linking and Syndicated Content, examining how they are useful for your readers and the search engines. Then, we step back for a moment and look at how lasting principles are determined and how you, the reader, can recognize them yourself.

LASTING PRINICIPLES OF AN EVERCHANGING INTERNET

Everything you do should be useful for your readers and the search engines
Reciprocal Linking
Traditionally, the more links you had to your site the better, regardless from where they came. Today, however, Google claims to detect 'bad links' to your site and impose penalties for them. Google refers to 'bad links' as links that are "paid links or other link schemes that violate our quality guidelines." In its quality guidelines, Google advises you to avoid "tricks" intended to improve search engine rankings. Google goes on to suggest a rule of thumb that involves three questions: Would you be comfortable explaining what you have done to a competing website? Would you be comfortable explaining what you have done to a Google employee? Would you have done it if search engines did not exist? Google concludes by saying that everything you do should be guided by what is best for your users and what will make the search results useful for them. That everything you do should be guided by what is best for your users and what will make the search results useful for them has been an often stated principle in this Internet Income course.
On the other side of the coin, people are suspicious. If there are tricks, they don't want their competitors using them while they take the high road with their website going unnoticed. Many self-proclaimed "Search Engine Experts," both good intentioned and just plain sleazy, have professed to know the rules and know how to get the best results for your site. This became so prevalent that Google decided to take drastic action to stop the practice. When the folks at Google started penalizing what they determined to be "bad links" around 2012, the results were so drastic that some commentators suggested that if your site was effected, it would be better to just abandoned it and start over. That suggest some pretty serious penalties had been brought to bear.
Google's official pronouncement is that in-bound links (often called 'backlinks') are only a part of PageRank...and PageRank is only one of over 200 methods that it uses to determine the relevancy of a site. That suggests that in-bound links are a very small factor in the ranking of your site. Add to that the fact that you can be penalized for bad links and it becomes clear that Google is doing everything it can to discourage paid links and link exchanges.
Still, it is just common sense that a site with no links will never be noticed. A site with no links to it will never rank high in the search engines. You, indeed, want links, but you want those links to be what Google considers to be positive links. There is so much activity on the Internet now, it is difficult to get anyone to link to your site unless you pay them or exchange links with them. What's an Internet marketer to do?
The number and quality of in-bound links are crucial to the effectiveness of your Website. While there are many ways to obtain links to your site, Reciprocal Linking traditionally has been the one most often used. Now that this method is in question, it is back to the drawing board. There are many factors that you should keep in mind while building links to your site. Control over these factors is important not only to the optimization of your site for your particular keywords or key-phrases, but also to the survival of your site.
You can take a "do-it-yourself" approach to building links to your site or you can use linking services. As discussed above, the search engines now penalize reciprocal linking if they detect it. Recognizing that this issue would arise, ProfitPropulsion.com created MILES a few years back. MILES is a multi-party, indirect link exchange. It was design to prevent the search engines from detecting reciprocal links--and, thus, avoid the penalties. It does this by allowing one credit for linking to any site and then that credit is used to obtain a link from a third-party site (i.e. not the one to which one linked). It does not, however, completely solve the problem of the 'quality' assessment of in-bound links. While it does allow you to reject the credit to a linking site if you are not satisfied with the link, it cannot provide ultimate control, of course, over the link that was made. If that webmaster is not paying attention and does not remove the link when you reject the credit, the link will remain and may cause a penalty to your site.
In 2014, the point to keep in mind is that Search Engines judge websites in part by the number of in-bound links to the site--but, not all links are helpful--some hurt your sites ranking. What you want is quality links from quality sites that are on-subject with the subject matter of your site. You want these links to be in-context so that the flow of information from the source site to your site is smooth and logical. There are ways to obtain such links. You can offer articles, photos, awards, testimonials, or other similar content to quality sites in exchange for a link back. You can attract links simply by designing and maintaining your site to be helpful and valuable to others with quality sites on the same subject matter. Of equal importance, you should establish a presence on discussion boards and blogs dealing with the subject matter of your site. Earn the respect and trust of the Webmasters of quality sites through such networking and links to your site should result.
Syndicated Content (RSS)
Another lasting principle of Internet marketing is the importance of syndicated content. Syndicated Content, in one form or another, is here to stay. RSS remains the most important vehicle for syndicated content, although it is now more and more behind the scenes. It is still there and being used by many services, including Twitter and Facebook, but its role is not as obvious now.
Traditionally, you can use RSS technology to read the news, create and promote your own content, and publish content from a variety of sources on your own Website. You can use RSS feeds to stay informed of current information of interest to you. Most e-mail programs today can read RSS. Syndicated Content via RSS is a far reaching and powerful Internet Resource that can empower you and your business in a variety of ways.
While the best available means of utilizing RSS feeds and similar technology changes, understanding the underlying technology can be very useful. We covered RSS feeds in Lessons 36 through 39. Some of that information is now outdated, but much is still viable. Understanding the history of the technology can be helpful. Placing your content in RSS feeds, either by doing so yourself or using a service that does it for you such as a social media site, creates a good opportunity for your content to be shared...and thus seen more often.
Recognizing Lasting Principles
Let us pause for a moment from our review of the lasting principles of Internet Marketing already identified, take a step back, and think for a moment about how you, the reader, can learn to recognize for yourself these lasting principles. In Lesson 40, written several years ago, we paused and determined the lasting principles that could be seen at that time. Generalizing to the highest level we could reach, what we came up with then was these four:

1. Efficient communication of useful content;
   
2. Voice to the masses;
   
3. Distributed publishing of packaged information units; and
   
4. Fluid content guided traffic flow.

We said then that, even if you are not capable of creating useful original content, you can serve a role in the Internet's culling and sorting of information; and, thus, place yourself in the flow of Internet traffic. Properly integrating in-context links to your products and services into the flow of information across your site, you can profit from that traffic and succeed in Internet Marketing.
We also said then that the Website of the future would have a tightly designed organizational structure that allows for extensibility as countless additional working pages can be added to the site. This type of website would be seen favorably by the search engines, directories, and webmasters of similar sites because its working pages fit easily into larger information trails on the Internet. This is brought about with quality information that each page adds to the mix. It is also brought about by quality outbound links (to complimentary information on other websites) contained on these pages. We said the website of the future would be an effective selling tool through the use of appropriately placed in-context payoff links. Every new working page could be promoted separately.
We think we were on to something then. Although we may not have seen precisely how it would play out, we came pretty close. What we can see now is that Social Media came along (as an alternative to the RSS feeds we discussed then) to provide a very easy way for ordinary people to do many of these things without a great deal of technical knowledge. RSS feeds are still definitely involved, as we predicted, just in a much more invisible way than we had anticipated. They are largely invisible behind blogs and behind social media feeds.
The combination of a blog and some social media pages now easily allows one to play a role in the aggregation and distribution of information across the Internet. Successfully playing that role allows one to promote products and services and achieve success as an Internet Marketer, even though one may not be good at creating original content--much as we predicted.
As we continue in the next few lessons to review the lasting principles identified in the Internet Income Course through the years, we encourage you to try your hand at indentifying lasting principles for yourself. Our categorization scheme used in Lesson 40, creating four top level concepts, worked for us then. Were we to seek a small number of top-level concepts again today, we might have a different number of them and we might word them somewhat differently...to take into account the changes that have occurred since then. Take some time and think about how the Internet has evolved. Try to identify those things that have always been present in some form or fashion. Try to identify the things that came and went--the trends that didn't last. Of those things that have always been present in some form or fashion, try to anticipate the form they will take in the future. Knowing what will work in the near future ensures your continued success!

CONCLUSION

In this lesson, the third in the final section on lasting principles, we have revisited the importance of links and syndicated content. We have taken a step back and looked at the importance of identifying lasting principles and predicting the strategies that will be successful in the near future. We have encourage you to begin this process for yourself. Determining strategies that have always been, and will always be, important is the key to success. While the details may change, the principles should remain the same.

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Re-qualifying as an Executive Affiliate with ease.

The benefits derivable from becoming and EA2 in SFI is heart warming. Maintaining this status unbroken at any giving time and therefore ensuring your continuous share from the Executive Pool cannot be overemphasized. As you may have observed, your earned VersaPoints for the immediate past month have been added to the ones you earned in the months before for the records and you are require to re-qualify for the EA again.
The foregoing requirement in SFI is a way of ensuring that the Affiliate does not go to sleep when there is so much to be done to keep the business going. It also encourages the Affiliate to be up and doing. You have so much to gain by being up and doing. However there are easier ways to re-qualify i.e becoming and Executive Affiliate 2:
1.  The easiest way is to place a Standing Order for a product - (preferably 125 packs TCredits) and earn 1,500 VersaPoints immedeately. You also earn additional 100VP for placing a Standing Order. Using these TCredits to bid in auctions or buying items from TripleClicks stores will earn you more VersaPoints and Members Reward Points (MRP). Please do this as we enter this new month and let's settle down to business. Feel free to always contact me for help at any time. Visit my blog: http://www.ope-currentaffairs.blogspot.com for useful tips. Your success is my success.

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1. Log in at TripleClicks.com and click the Products tab.

2. Click a department from the list of departments located on the left side of the page.

3. On the top of the right sidebar, you'll see a option to filter for locally available products. Click the box for local pickups and enter a radius of 10, 25, 50, 100, or 500 miles, then click the "Submit" button.

4. You'll see all member listings offering a local pickup option, as well as ECA listings offering "will-call" pickup.

IMPORTANT! Some affiliates and customers may not see a significant number of local pick-up search results. YOU CAN HELP expand these results! Spread the word among your team members and your favorite ECAs that they can select local pick ups or will calls for their listings at TripleClicks.com.

Example A: With just a single TCredit on account, you, TC members, and your affiliates can list a product for sale at the store. If you wish, you can choose local pickups ONLY and bypass setting up ANY shipping options. This works great for selling hard-to-ship items, such as bikes, farm equipment, motorcycles, cars, etc. Prospective buyers in your area will see your listings, and if interested, they'll contact you using a contact form located on the details page of your listing. When you receive the message (includes the person's name, email, phone number, best time to call, etc), you can respond to the person by e-mail or phone to answer questions and/or to set up a showing/meeting. Should the person choose to buy your item, they pay you directly. You keep 100% of the sale price.

To list an item for sale at TripleClicks.com, start HERE.

Special Note: Other than your city, no other contact or address information of yours is revealed to the prospective buyer. It is completely up to you to provide this information, if you choose to, when responding to the prospective buyer.

Example B: If you already have member listings, just edit them to include the local pickup option. To do so, simply go HERE and check the "Item is available for local pickup" box.

Example C: Let our ECAs know--especially those in your country--that you'd like them to offer will-call (i.e. local pickup service). They can easily and quickly adjust their listings at any time to include this option. You can contact an ECA using the contact information on their TConnect page or by posting a message on their TConnect page.

By working on examples A, B, and C, we can make the TripleClicks "LOCALife" searches teem with listings in no time!