We hope you enjoy and benefit from a recounting of our gaffs
and newbie styled mistakes made during our struggle to
put our footprint on some virtual real estate.
As THREE DOG NIGHT observed some 40 years ago...
It ain't easy.


Our tips will be added every so often to our list below, but if you would like to have them sent directly to your inbox just enter your info in the form below. We never share your information with anyone and you will only receive at most a few emails per month.

Are you infected? 

Don't get caught in the wrong place without protection

like our friend caught in a squeeze below.

To start the series off we begin with some generic information about infections your computer may come down with and how to recognize if you are infected.

Here's some of what we know.

As most computer users are aware there are literally millions of malware programs circulating, and new ones are popping up daily.  Most all antivirus or anti-spyware software can miss some infections in your computer, e.g. one possibly residing in your unopened email, so how do you know if you are affected?

Here are some clues:

1) If your system slows down drastically you may have a virus

2) If you seem to have browser problems like your browser shuts down or slows down drastically you are probably infected

3) If you notice things look "strange" when you open something you could be infected.  If you didn't install something or change your system in some way there would be no reason for any changes since computers don't change things without someone or something like a virus telling them to.

4) If you get an error message at startup you may be infected.  Most malware programs launch at startup and can cause these error messages.

5) Some of the sneakiest viruses are spread through e-mail.  They sometimes infest your client or contact list and could actually start sending spam mail to everyone.  If you begin receiving "message undeliverable" or "Mail Demon" notices, a virus may be sending e-mails out using your addresses.

These are a few of the most common signs of infection.  Remember that seeing a symptom doesn't always mean you have an infection, but it's a good reason to run a scan.

If you are new to the net and eager to make your first buck online...

A word of caution.

You are among masters of the Internet universe. We are talking about people who could sell webbing to spiders, venom to vipers, lumber to lumberjacks and oil to the sheiks.

You will be exposed to people who spend tens of thousands of dollars to perfect a single ad. The squeeze pages are constructed to suck you in, wet your appetite, and drain your wallet.

The information you are purchasing almost always gets forgotten among the bonuses, instant discounts, never to be seen again one-time offers and bundled packages.

(Remind me again, what was I originally after and what am I purchasing now?)

Consider what it costs to develop an e-book. The only actual cost is the opportunity cost which the author puts on his time.

As a marketer you don't pay for ink, paper, postage, or product storage. So the difference between an e-book selling for $97 instead of seven dollars is pure profit. The difference in the price is your "perceived value" which is the value created in your mind by the marker for his product. Timing is critical. Successful marketers realize they have only seconds to set the hook before you and your wallet are off to the next ad. So they promise you the moon and usually deliver cheese.

Most honest marketers will tell you that the "content" of their book is less important than the package. Of course the book must have some value. But, (big drum roll) regardless of how unwholesome the refried beans they are selling, you probably won't request a refund. Most people just park the info on their hard drive and move on.

The marker's mission is accomplished while your mission, to make money, goes a few bucks backwards.

What marketers won't tell you is that virtually everything they are selling you is available for free. Yeah buddy. With a little "googling" and the right search phrase you can gain access to the best advice online, often from the very same authors you are considering purchasing your ebook from!

So here's the tip.

Write down the key words or phrases which attracted you to the ad in the first place. If you really don't want to leave the one-time offer a page, minimize it. Use your favorite search engine to investigate the product, author, or keyword phrase. Put free in the front of the phrase and then run the search. Once you have those results, run a search with the same parameters and put scam at the end of the keyword. At least you will know a great deal more about the product after performing this five minute drill. And it is always a good idea to know what others who have already purchased the product think. At best you will have avoided spending money on worn-out rehashed refried beans.

Pure Rookie

This tip is for Internet advertisers.

If you're not one of those you may want to tune out.

If you have been using text advertising for a number of years you're probably aware that most text ads need to be written in plain text format. More and more sites, especially newer sites, now have HTMLeditors, at least for upgrades, but this tip should be your first step in creating an ad always.

For the first few months online I was using Microsoft Word to write my ads, primarily because I liked the toolbar. When I first began writing ads I was always using Word wrap instead of what used to be called a hard carriage return.

I would do a bang up job on the appearance, aligning margins etc., and maybe I would underline or bold a word or two. If the text editor I was dropping the ad into didn't like my bold or italicized words, it just dropped that formating, so I thought I was okay. I forgot about Word wrap.

So I wrote my first ad, blasted it out to a few thousand people and eagerly awaited my results. Long story short... nothing. After my second complete flop I wrote the site owner thinking maybe he may have just shuffled my ads off to the trash can or something.

He wrote me back and not so politely told me my ads look like s**t. Since they looked perfect to me I couldn't figure out what he was talking about. To solve the mystery I joined this site with another username and email address (a very useful tactic for all sorts of reasons) since that was the only way I could get a look at my own ad after it was published. Soon enough I caught one of my own ads and sure enough, it looked like crap.

I was doing several things wrong. First, I forgot about word wrap. As soon as the ad opened in my mailbox it spread across the entire page. My perfectly aligned 5" formating was gone and I was now required to scroll back and forth from side to side of the page to see my entire ad.

I wouldn't read an ad like that and obviously nobody else would either.

So now, although it is a pain in my ad, I transfer every correction back into Wordpad and every time I make a change in the text box I, again, transfer the ad back to Wordpad to make sure my changes don't break any frames.

And guess what? My response rate soared. So if you aren't already using Notepad or Wordpad to double check your ads you should be. If you are taking the time to send your ads in HTML you should still start by writing your ad in a plain text editor and copy that text into the HTML editor on the ad site. Not all editors work the same. Then do your HTML magic. Your readership will appreciate the extra effort.

As previously mentioned, if you want to be absolutely sure your ads are displaying correctly you should rejoin your ad sites as a free member with a different email address. The idea that you don't want to waste one ad on yourself pales when compared to the possibility of an error sneaking into your ad. Besides, I personally like the assurance that comes with proving to myself my ads are circulating.

From time to time we run across interesting links.

Cute animals, beautiful gardens, high tech gadgets, jokes (family style), or pictures of the most amazing places on or off the Earth are comming here. Our first link is to the latest generation toy helicopter equipped with GPS tracking. This toy can carry a payload of over 2 pounds. Imagine that! Check back frequently as we will be adding links daily. To see this video just click the hot link below but give the vid a moment to load. It is windy!

                                   The focus factor

Have you been online long enough to be thoroughly confused?

After a few months or a year online most marketing people develop the paralysis by analysis syndrome. This means you have probably joined 15 or 20 advertising sites and maybe several "how to" and "marketing" e-mail courses, and possibly a few business building programs.

You have swamped yourself with free information on traffic and tactics and eBay and adwords and adsense until nothing makes any sense anymore.

Information overload has set in.  Unless you were born a bookkeeper and are extremely well organized to boot you’re probably beginning to loose track of your logins and passwords.  Your inbox is consuming a ridiculous amount of time to clear each day.

You start out each day with a clear set of goals to accomplish but within a few hours you have been sidetracked enough times to have lost your focus. Your plan of attack for the day is shot to pieces.

When you get to this point you need to step way back!

Refocus not just on your daily tasks but on the big picture.  When I find I get easily distracted or browse off course it means I am bored stiff one or lost interest in what I'm doing.  Now it is time to examine what I'm doing and why.

Here's an example.  When I first started online I really didn't have much of a game plan.  I decided to take the shot at affiliate marketing.  I joined clickbank and picked up a book I liked, set up an ad program based on clicking for credits, and went to work.  I clicked on one site until I could place an ad, and then the next site, and another etc. ad nauseam.  By the end of the week I had mailed out 1000 ads for my “book of the century”.  Nothing.  So it went during week 2, 3, 4, and 5.

By now I had propositioned over 5000 people and still no sales.

So I took a look around, googled some statistics, and found out something interesting. Conversion rates for the type of ad I was running typically ran in the low single digits per 10,000 emails delivered. So, it turns out, with the small number of ads I was running, I was doomed to failure before I started; I just didn't know it yet.

So if things aren't working out within a month or two for you, you need to re-examine what you are doing.  Focus on the big picture when all the little details aren't working out for you.