Security Features Of Email Autoresponders

Looking over assets that are essential to operating my online business, I view my email autoresponder software, Aweber, as an essential asset to my internet marketing operation.  Years ago, I use to think that having an email autoresponder was not worth it, and would just be another wasteful expense.  However, with advances in email technology, FTC rules and regulations, and growing support for the concept of the Opt-In. The Opt-In methods for email marketing is today seen more a security feature, vs. an unnecessary evil.

As I was going through my emails one day, I had noticed some really weird emails which looked like it game from an internet marketer.  It had the classic sign of an promotional marketers email for a specific product, however, I noticed a few things that were not quite right.

One issue was the name of who the email was from.  The email name was not one I recognized – not because of the domain extension, but the actual name of the person sending it.  In todays marketing practices, it’s not that essential to have a business email, but it always is a plus.

Additionally, another factor that made this a suspicious email was the promotional link that was embeded in the email.  The url of the link was definitely a link shortned link, but even with a shortened link, it did not look right, nor did the link make sense.  The whole point of the shortened link concept is to reduce the size of a long and wordy link, down to a simple, one or two word phrase that is readable and makes sense.

Lastly, was the bottom of the email which provided the so-called “Opt-Out” area.  This was the major sign that this was a fraudulent email.  The email that was sent stated something to the following message:

Do not delete this message and do not report this message as spam.  You are receiving this message because you signed up for one of my offers online somewhere.  If you want to stop receiving messages, send me an email to:    “xxxx@gmail.com”

Now, this wasn’t the exact message I received, as I already deleted it.  I will most likely receive another one & post an update to this.  But overall, this was the gist of the email.  You see, with an Opt-In email auto-responder service, you are giving your express permission to receive emails from that person.  Why I know this was a spam and fraudulent email was not only because of the first two issues regarding the name, but also, that opting out involves you being sent directly to that company for confirmation of being opted out of that specific email list.  You should not be having to send your email for some sort of manual opt-out process.

I am now definitely a supporter and fan of using a quality email autoresponder service in your business. I see it more as a security feature in receiving emails even in your own personal life.  The reason is that personal emails from friends and family are usually emails that you directly know who they are from, and why.  In regards to emails that you don’t know where they are from, unless that email has a legitimate opt-out link and method that allows for “IMMEDIATE” opt-out, then it’s definitely a spam or email that can cause your computer harm.  You can assess all of this without even looking at the content of the email.  So, understanding the opt-out process is definitely a plus for older people who can easily be tricked into opening emails, and clicking on links, because they may not know these standards and rules to look out for, but also, just may not really look at what is being sent to them with a watchful eye.

So in your business, I definitely recommend the use of an quality Email autoresponder, not only for security purposes, but as there is growing support for people who know how to read emails they respect the ones that are from legitimate companies, where they can easily stop receiving an email or opt-in to receiving one.

Product Development Preparation Checklist

Info Product Development Preparation

Value: What is the value that you aim to provide to consumers? Creating an information product is not as simple as slapping together some outsourced articles, or slapping graphics on PLR content. Are people interested in the specific topic you have chosen? Are people willing to pay for what you aim to provide?

Buyer Profile: What are the characteristics of the potential buyers of your product? Do you have a following? How many current readers are reading what you have now?

My Profile: You have something to say, and your goal is to develop something. However, what research have you done? Have you established a background in the topic? Have you elevated your personal profile through blogging? Created a past course? Done any speaking on the subject?

Broadcast Message: Is this product likely to have others sell for you? Successful marketers in the internet marketing industry have been able to achieve incredible results due to the fact that there are people willing to not only broadcast your message about your subject, but also, people willing to promote your product as an affiliate.

Payment Collection: Payment collection and that particular process is crucial to the product development process. It is often overlooked. Ecommerce is the method of which transactions take place online. The online customers has no patience for missteps in the ordering process.

Pricing: The rule of thumb is that you price what the market willing to bare. However, some marketers have gone with the “Price High” concept, as it will make you the most money. This is why you see a lot of the $1997 type product launches. I do not fully agree with this “price high” concept, whereas, price is a determinate of demand. Demand is determined by price, income, tastes, expectations, and number of buyers.

Solo, Partners, Outsourced Providers: One aspect often overlooked is the amount of work that actually goes into development. Time is a major issue whereas you have a innovative idea, and simply want to get it out there making sales. However, conducting all this work, you may choose to do it alone, whereas, you will be accountable for writing, producing, graphics, payment process, site set up, and a whole host of other issues. Having a partner does reduces the level of work, but also you end up splitting revenues. Utilizing outsourced providers is another option to not only speed up the work, but can also be a substantial expense.

There are definitely other questions you should consider when preparing to develop an information product. These are just a few questions that jump right off the bat. In the next series I aim to explore additional questions further.

It would be interesting to learn more about what experience you have had in your product development efforts. What were your successes in creating your first information product? Are you currently purchasing info products now? What was your reason for purchasing an information product? Let us know your thoughts.

Live Video Streaming Will Be Web Marketing 3.0 For 2011

Live video streaming is a tool that you should be using now in your internet marketing efforts. Streaming video live is growing rapidly and in the Internet Marketing world, is a tool that can be utilized to enhance your credibility, boost your social proof, increase sales, and engage directly with your customers and build relationships. Live video streaming will be the wave of the future in web marketing in 2011, mainly due to emerging technologies such as Facebooks social graph, companies such as Ustream, Justin.tv, YouTube, Livestream, and even online collaboration companies such as GoToWebinar, DimDim, ConnectSolutions and many more.

For Internet Marketers, it will be a very important tool to use so that you can now be more competitive, engage directly with the customer, build your credibility and increase your sales. In the online industry, there are customers with hypersensitive trust issues, due to some unscrupulous marketers. But now, with improved FTC Regulations and advancements in technology such as live video streaming, will not only improve the Internet Marketing industry, but will be a major factor in shaping it.

According to a comScore report, Americans are spending 648% (upward to 1.4 billion minutes) of their time watching live video online; services such as Stickam, LiveVideo, Ustream, Justin.tv and Livestream).  Hulu has increased 75% and YouTube went up 68%.  It goes to show that more viewers are not only seeking out but actively watching live streaming videos.  According to the comScore report:

Live online video sites have not only been successful in building audience, but also in keeping that audience tuned-in. For instance, the average live streamed video view is 7% longer than the average online video view. If you narrow the audience to a specific demographic, though, live video really begins to prove its advertising value to media planners. Live video sites are 72% more likely to deliver the elusive demographic, males age 18-34, than the average online video site. In fact, males age 18-34 comprise almost 30% of the total live video viewing audience in our sample sites. Even without the same brand recognition as other portals and publishers, live video sites are able to retain viewers’ attention and deliver desirable audiences for advertisers.

As an online marketer, today you have your typical marketing methods which utilize a content based landing page to generate leads, or a mini-site that provides some detailed information on your product or service.  A trend this year has been video sales pages, which has pushed out the need for a copywriter and takes on more of the concept of a direct-response pitch to your offerings.  Another trend, which I think is now being a bit overdone, and a bit disingenuous is the use of “live” webinars, or shall I say pre-recorded and repeated Webinars that pretend to be live.

Some really good live webinar software include, WebEx, GoToMeeting. These two web-based softwares are premium and cost a bit.  Free services include DimDim and Join.Me.  In a future post, I’ll get into deeper detail of these and other online webinar platforms you can use in your marketing efforts.  However, webinars are a useful live tool that is used by internet marketers where they can discuss and interact with potential customers in real time by showing an online powerpoint presentation, sharing their screens, have phone conversation and direct chat.  Overzealous marketers tend to do these types of events multiple times per week, as well as sending out replays as part of their email marketing efforts.  The problem ends up being over-saturation whereas, some marketers don’t engage with the potential customers enough, sending out too many replays, not taking enough time to answer all the customers questions in detail, falsifying their event by saying its live when it’s been pre-recorded.  Another issue is that it’s an area where some marketers tend to hide behind their power point slides, and phone conversations, and thereby become a telemarketer rather than a marketer that should be engaging and building relationships with their visitors.

So after the long sales page, we had video sales pages, and then the trend of live webinars.  Now, with live video streaming, marketing efforts will come to the light. In streaming live video, an internet marketer can launch their product or service in real time and potential customers can actually see who they are dealing with, what’s actually happening, whether or not the dreaded “crashing of the website during launch” actually occurs, and get real time data and information directly from the product owner.  Marketers can interact and engage in discussions live during this period in the launch phase.  A recent product launch by  Chris Farrell Mike Filsaime called AffiliateDotCom was an example of a live video streaming launch. They utilize the streaming video service called Ustream, and combined that with a social proof element using the social graph feature provided by Facebook.  That feature allowed only purchasers of their product to be able to provide a Facebook “like” and “comment” which would be featured on the site.  Others who did not purchase, simply would get an error response stating about only purchasers of AffiliateDotCom could make a comment.  This strategy allows for verifiable, and transparent and open social proof of not only sales of the product, but the actual inner workings of an internet marketing product launch.

Note: I personally saw this myself, and at the time there were about 1,500 actual Facebook people who placed a comment, signifying they had purchased the product.  With 1,500 people in the first 6 hours of launch at a $1997 price point, I can attest to at least at $2,995,500 in sales for their product launch on the high end and at least $562,500 in sales on the low end if everyone of the buyers took the payment plan.  Disclosure:  I witnessed this during the beginning of their launch on 8/24/2010, and these figures are based on what was researched, and estimated based off the information provided by AffilaiteDotcom.

So, look out for more live video streaming launches as a marketing tool.  I think this is definitely a way not only to market your products effectively, but when discussing what it really takes to be an Internet Marketer, a person can now really see it and experience themselves in real-time, streamed live right in their own homes.

Google Search Gets Warp Speed With Google Instant

Google now has over 1 billion users on its sites every week.  Today, at the San Francisco MOMA event, Google unveiled a fundamental transformation in their premier search engine.  Google Instant is the next generation of search features, giving Google users a real-time, psychic search experience.  Not everyone will have this feature, and you can download it here. 

Google Instant is an upgrade from Google Suggest, whereas, now when you start typing, Google “Instantly” kicks in search queries, and automatically displays likely results you may be searching for.  Additionally, you don’t even have to finish typing the rest of your search keyword or phrase.  You can use a live demo of Google Instant here.

Features:  Google Instant Goes Into Hyperdrive

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way.

So, how exactly can Google predict what you are instantly searching for?  Well, Google brought this to scale through optimizing the most likely searches.  The search engine also checks users search queries on another server & then caches the results.  The average search query has 20 characters, and now every time a user types in an character, the goal is to show you more search results.  Now instead of just 10 results per page, you can get 20 or more results per page on your search.

One issue I already see is as users get used to searching with one letter and two letter combinations, like “w” or “the”, and suddenly get the search results they want, then what type of effect will this have on SEO optimization, keyword research and phrases.  If Google collects data on keywords that include simply letters of the alphabet, and then people stop filling out full search terms, then how can you actually tell what is actually being searched upon?  Now, obviously, 100% of the users won’t just put in 1 letter of the alphabet & suddenly get their exact search term, but I have tried this & it has happened.  Simply type in “W” and you get over 20 sites for the Weather!  But, if this is the case, what becomes more relevant, the search “term” or the actual click through of the site after the search has taken place.  Will this allow sites who optimize letter by letter rank higher?

What do you think of Google Instant search so far?

Daily Doctrine: Top 10 Official Digg Tools

Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog.

Official Chrome Extension

Boost Search Engine Rankings by Pinging Your Blog

Increase your search engine results with a untapped method of pinging your blog. Pinging your blog is a method that lets the search engines know that there is something new on your blog. When you ping your blog, your site is crawled by various bots and crawlers which then allows your blog post or page to be indexed in the various search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Pinging is usually done automatically if you have WordPress, specifically after a blog post or page is published. Overall, the normal service commonly used is Ping-O-Matic. However, if you want to improve search engine ranking optimization, and take your blog to the next level, then you can always use my secret ping list.
This is a list of the top sites to use to notify updates to your site.

There is basically two ways you can use the Secret Ping List:

1. Copy & paste the list into your “Settings > Writing” area in WordPress & update your ping list.
2. Go To: PingNinja.com:  You can simply cut & paste your list there, and the service will ping the entire thing for you.

Doing this combined with other keyword research and SEO strategies will ensure that you will always be ranking and getting noticed in the search engines.  Again, ensure not to overdo this process, whereas, too many updates on the same posts or in the same period of time can also be a negative.

How To Ping Your Blog and Get Indexed In Google, Bing & Yahoo Fast

When promoting and marketing your blog, getting indexed in the search results is an important factor.  Understanding how to ping your blog is a crucial step in getting your site listed in the top 3 search engines; Google, Yahoo and Bing.

Overall, the best way to get indexed by Google or any of the top 3 search engines is to receive backlinks from other sites.  Receiving backlinks will not only get you indexed quicker, but will increase your page rank authority, and allow your site to become more established amongst search rankings for your particular keyword or phrase.  Additionally, you can submit your site to Google or add code to your site so that the Google Bots have the ability to crawl your site and index it that way. Today, I believe that is the preferred method.  Lastly, you also want to ensure you have quality content that is not only relevant to your site & blog post, but also keyworded in a way that is useful to your readers, and using terms that are actually being searched.  These same methods work if you want to ping yahoo to get your site indexed there, ping Bing or even ping MSN search engine.  It’s always good to have a sitemap on your site that is archived and idexes in a systematic manner the historical relevance of your site.  Google will ping your Google XML sitemap to see the basic structure of your site and provide you a ranking based on the number of pages and types of pages you have in your site.

For internet marketers, you want to get indexed fast, especially if you are conducting a launch or doing affiliate marketing, whereas, you are simply always up against a timeline.  I have created a method where you can quickly ping your blog and get indexed without having to go to an outside service, sign-up and register a bunch of accounts, or even add additional details from your posts or pages.  This method is Post & Click!  You can post and click directly from your browser.  This method uses the Ping-O-Matic framework (note this is also the same framework used by WordPress).

Ping-o-matic is one online service that can get your site indexed by sending your pings to 26 or more sites, all from one site.  Before, you had to go to each site, register, add your email information, set up an account, and your post and page details.  With ping-o-matic, you don’t have to do that.  Now, I have made that process even easier.

I have created a bookmark button that you can simply click right from your browser that will allow you to simply “post and click” and quickly get your blog and website indexed in Bing, Google or Yahoo.  This button reads your URL, which already provides your URL, and even the Title which are the two most important pieces of the pinging your blog.  This is the code used to create your own ping button:

The steps to create your own button are as follows:

1. Go To Your Toolbar section & Right Click
2. Select “New BookMark”:
   1. Type in a Name in the Name Description field
   2. In the “Location Field”, copy & paste the code above.
   3. Click Add

You instantly have a blog pinging machine!  Now remember, do not constantly be pining the same posts over and over.  You only need to do this once, whereas, WordPress already pings your site.  Some people may not know, but WordPress pings your site while you are writing and saving in draft form and directly when you publish your posts.  So, its wise to be prudent of how many times you should actually ping your posts, so you will not get penalized by Google or any other search engine.

Daily Doctrine: 10 USA Technology & Social Media Events

October 1-2, 2010, New York, NY: The Open Video Conference (OVC) is a multi-day summit of thought leaders in business, academia, art and activism to explore the future of video on the web. Join us October 1-2 for two days of learning and inspiration, and stick around for the OVC hack labs, presented in partnership with NYU ITP.

October 1, 2010, New York, NY: Produced by Mediabistro and Social Times, the third annual Social Ad Summit explores best practices for social media marketing and advertising. The rapid growth of social media is providing marketers with larger reach, stronger customer relationships and increased relevance. At this showcase of recent case studies from agencies and brands, you’ll see firsthand what is working and learn how to implement a successful strategy for your organization or client. Social networks, publishers, ad agencies, marketers, PR agencies, service providers delivering social advertising and anyone else interested in the latest trends in social media marketing will unite at Social Ad Summit.

October 2-3, 2010, Philadelphia, PA: PodCamp Philly 2010 is targeted to audio and video podcasters, bloggers, social media enthusiasts, professionals and hobbyists, musicians, marketers, and people who generally want to understand more about the new media space. The power of an unConference is you get open access to ideas, thoughts, best practices, and the true “wisdom of crowds” simply by registering and attending. Find out more at http://www.podcampphilly.com, or sign up at http://podcampphilly2010.eventbrite.com.

October 4-6, 2010, New York, NY: At Search Marketing Expo – SMX East, you’ll learn to maximize ROI from paid search advertising, optimize your website content for superior organic search results, expand your skills with local and mobile advertising expertise, master social media marketing on Twitter, Facebook and other SMM networks, boost conversions… and increase sales.

October 4-8, 2010, Boston, MA: FutureMis the first ever week-long, collaborative, multi-location conference in Boston offering participants the opportunity to tap into the freshest thinkers in marketing, media and technology. Leading innovators will come together to share and explore how the newest technologies and insights are changing the way marketers think, create, engage and measure.

October 5-6, 2010, Prague: EyeforTravel’s Online Marketing & Social Media in Travel Summit brings together top travel brands to share key insights on how to maximize the impact of your online marketing and social media initiatives. The 2 days are packed full of case studies, presentations and networking opportunities. Speakers hail from across Europe and include Lufthansa, Lonely Planet, Expedia, TripAdvisor, P&O Cruises and many more.

October 6-7, 2010, Boston, MA: The Inbound Marketing Summit is where the online marketing community gathers to solve today’s marketing and business communications challenges. This event features the brightest minds in the business, including world-renowned authors and practitioners, as well as leaders from some of the companies already using the new tools and strategies. This fast-paced and information-packed event is your check-up on your existing business communications strategies and your prescription for the coming months.

October 7-8, San Francisco, CA: Every year we bring you our biggest and brightest conference in the Fall in our beautiful hometown of San Francisco. Health 2.0 always features the most comprehensive line-up of technology innovators, as well as leaders in health care, government and finance, and unveils the best new health care technology startups at Launch! You won’t want to miss the Fourth Annual Health 2.0 Conference. With nearly a hundred speakers and plenty of new healthcare demos and technologies on display on stage and in the exhibit hall, you’ll get a sweeping overview of the ways that information technology and the web are changing healthcare.

Oct. 7, 2010, Cheyenne, WY: Last year’s inaugural event was so great, we’re bringing SocialWyo back. And SocialWyo 2.0 will be free! Build on your knowledge of social media for small business and other applications while learning a bit more about keeping your online life in balance with your offline life with Boulder, Colo.’’s Gwen Bell. The only statewide social media conference in Wyoming will be at Laramie County Community College, and once again is sponsored by LCCC and the LCCC Entrepreneurial Program. Space is limited, so register soon at www.socialwyo.com.

October 8-10, 2010, Miami, FL: The Blogalicious Weekend conferences are aimed at celebrating the diversity of women of all ethnicities in social media. Over the course of 3 event-filled days, savvy, influential and talented bloggers will ignite a sense of unity within the multicultural blogging community as well as educate marketers on the importance of our demographic in today’s marketplace, all while networking, building relationships, and promoting inspiration and success for each other. Imagine a getaway that combines all of the things that you love about blogging with the added element of face-to-face interactions and the intimacy of “IRL” relationships. At Blogalicious 2010, You’ll laugh, you’ll learn, you’ll let your hair down. It will be just like blogging…only better!

Note: Some of these events you will have to register and pay a fee.  I am not an affiliate and Profit Doctrine does not represent any of these events.

Create Your Own Yahoo Answers Community Site

An awesome premium WordPress plugin has been released that will basically create you a question and answer community, similar to the functionality and concept of Yahoo Answers.  This premium plugin is unique whereas it actually comes as a wordpress plugin combined with a specific wordpress theme.  With WP-Answers, users can register, submit there questions, get answers, and grow within the community.  For marketers, you can use the plugin & theme combination to increase your backlinks, market your products, automate your content and grow a community.  For Internet Marketers, the opportunities are definitely great with this premium plugin.

Overall, you are basically combining the concept of Yahoo Answers into your own customized version of WordPress, and getting WP-Answers.  One issue I have is that the WP-Answers plugin and theme come as a combination and are best used together.  However, you can actually get the same functionality and create an questions and answers site with your existing WordPress theme, whereas, the plugin will provide those features.  However, you would have to customize your pages, by adding certain pages and possibly customizing your theme a bit so that everything will be configured properly, but it can be done.  Or, another method would be to simply turn your existing site into a WordPress Multisite, and add an “Answers” page to your existing webiste pages, and upload the them there.  I won’t go into too much detail on WordPress Multisite today, but I have outlined the concept for you, whereas, with WP-Multisite, you are essentially creating a network of sites, and an “Answers” site would be that extension.

Another cool feature is that WP-Answers also utilizes features from the Yahoo API, whereas, you can pull content from Yahoo Answers and start your new WP-Answers site off with a good load of content, a good method to use when starting out.

In addition, WP-Answers comes with ability to monetize it as well.  You can add contextual ads and Google Adsense as well.  Since this is a premium plugin, you are more likely to get better service and more updates and future enhancements that will not only improve over time, but make your purchase more valuable.

Not only are there 6 themes to choose from, but also, members receive points for answering questions and lose points for asking questions, a leaderboard is included showing the top users. This encourages members to get be more active within the site.
The points system is fully configurable via the admin panel.  Check out some of the features for yourself.

“Google Suggests” You To Get More Traffic To Your Blog

Every blogger is always looking for new marketing strategies to increase traffic to your blog. Also, bloggers are always looking for new ideas to blog about but also market their blog. One method to increase traffic to your website that goes highly unnoticed is the Google Suggest tool. Google Suggest is a feature of the Google search engine, whereas, when a user fills out their query for search, Google will “suggest” the query based on terms actually being queried by the millions of searches already being queried.

This is a highly effective method for improving your SEO on your blog, as well as providing great topics and ideas for your blog posts, and gives you high quality keywords that can be used on your site. The method I will show you today is a process in which you utilize the Google Suggest tool based upon a topic or idea you seek to write about on your blog.

First, you can select a topic that you want to write or research about. In this case, my chosen keyword was: marketing online. The Google Suggest feature shows 9 other keyword phrases that are being searched on during that time period. So, an effective way to start getting more traffic to your blog would be to write 9 articles based on those keyword phrases. Additionally, you want to use those same keywords in your tags, and even in your title of your post. Now to really ramp it up, you can do two searches, and combine the results of the two, write your articles, ensuring the Google Suggest keywords are in your article.

To go even deeper, you can also use the Google Wonder Wheel. The Wonder Wheel provides “related queries” of what people are actually searching. After creating the 9 articles, click on the Google Wonder Wheel for related ideas of your articles. Now you not only have highly targeted keyword phrases that people are searching, you also have lateral niches and specific topics that people are searching. You are basically capitalizing on search spillover.

Another feature that will be extremely useful is useful is to use the Related Searches that appear at the bottom of your Google Search Results. One way to boost your traffic and keyword rankings is to also take those keyword phrases and utilize them in more articles and blog posts. You can cross-market by creating articles on HubPages based on those search phrases, and backlink those articles to your site. Here is an example of Google Related Searches & Google Wonder Wheel.

It’s also a good measure to tag your images with keywords and with related keywords. These are all basic measure that will lead to boost your page ranking, improve your efforts in marketing online, and allow you to get more traffic to your blog.

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