If I had to name the top 5 Internet Marketing Guru's, Corey Rudl would be one of them. The internet marketing world is mourning the death of one of the greatest Internet Marketers today. Corey Rudl died in a car accident at the age of 34, along with Benjamin Keaton. Corey had just gotten married in the past year.
It's very easy to get depressed about death especially when someone dies so young and successful. I've already had to deal with my only brother's death in the past year. He was only 39. But I believe that in the end we should celebrate something about the person who passes on instead of wallowing in misery. I did meet Corey in person and when I thought about what happened in that encounter it made me smile...
I had the pleasure of going to Corey's Wedding Reception & Seminar this past year. I won a DVD player in the drawing for prizes, and when I walked up to Corey to get the DVD player, he had taken the DVD player out of the box to check it out. He smiled at me and said "Sorry I opened it." I grinned back and said "That's okay." How could I be annoyed with Corey Rudl??? :) I can't claim to have known him but in person he seemed like a genuine and sweet person. My heart goes out to Corey's and Benjamin's family and friends...
Corey, I will never forget that smile of yours. You will be missed. :)
Donna Knight
Friday, June 03, 2005
Thursday, March 24, 2005
Amazon's New Book Search Feature
Search and Read over 100,000 Books on Amazon
Amazon.com's new book search feature now lets you search the text of most books they sell.
When I read about this new feature, I didn't realize the full benefits of it. Not only can you search the page, but you can read the full page and keep reading the next few pages of the book. Now that I've had a chance to use it, I wonder if it really will cause sales to decrease rather than increase. Amazon makes it tricky to keep reading more than a few pages ahead, but I was able to read at least 50 pages of a book. That's quite a bit more than the trial chapters some authors will give you as an incentive to buy their book.
From an Author's standpoint, I think they should put even more restrictions as to how many pages someone can view from a book. The good news is authors do have a choice about including their books in the search.
But cheapskate tactics aside, it will help you narrow down your choices if you know you want a book on a specific subject and you can't tell the difference between the books available.
Benefits: A try-before-you-buy feature for books on Amazon. Makes it a lot more appealing to buy books online.
Disadvantages: You can only read a few pages at a time. Come on! You didn't think they'd let you read the whole thing for free, did you?!
Conclusion: Visit Amazon, do a search for a book and check out this feature.
For a live demonstration, do a search, then browse one of the results. Visit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=search08-20&keyword=copywriting&mode=books
Amazon.com's new book search feature now lets you search the text of most books they sell.
When I read about this new feature, I didn't realize the full benefits of it. Not only can you search the page, but you can read the full page and keep reading the next few pages of the book. Now that I've had a chance to use it, I wonder if it really will cause sales to decrease rather than increase. Amazon makes it tricky to keep reading more than a few pages ahead, but I was able to read at least 50 pages of a book. That's quite a bit more than the trial chapters some authors will give you as an incentive to buy their book.
From an Author's standpoint, I think they should put even more restrictions as to how many pages someone can view from a book. The good news is authors do have a choice about including their books in the search.
But cheapskate tactics aside, it will help you narrow down your choices if you know you want a book on a specific subject and you can't tell the difference between the books available.
Benefits: A try-before-you-buy feature for books on Amazon. Makes it a lot more appealing to buy books online.
Disadvantages: You can only read a few pages at a time. Come on! You didn't think they'd let you read the whole thing for free, did you?!
Conclusion: Visit Amazon, do a search for a book and check out this feature.
For a live demonstration, do a search, then browse one of the results. Visit:
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/external-search?tag=search08-20&keyword=copywriting&mode=books
A Domain for your Blog
Hey! Want people to find your blog easier without memorizing some long URL?
Well, here's the solution...Buy a domain that includes free domain forwarding (if it's frame forwarding, it's even better). Frame forwarding allows you to make your domain redirect to another site, but your domain name stays in the address window of the web browser. With traditional domain forwarding, once the domain name redirects to its destination site, the URL in the address is the URL of the page it gets forwarded to. Make sure e-mail forwarding is included too.
Here's a simple solution for under $9:
DomainSaints.com - free domain and e-mail forwarding included, plus lots of other cool features. Check it out!
Well, here's the solution...Buy a domain that includes free domain forwarding (if it's frame forwarding, it's even better). Frame forwarding allows you to make your domain redirect to another site, but your domain name stays in the address window of the web browser. With traditional domain forwarding, once the domain name redirects to its destination site, the URL in the address is the URL of the page it gets forwarded to. Make sure e-mail forwarding is included too.
Here's a simple solution for under $9:
DomainSaints.com - free domain and e-mail forwarding included, plus lots of other cool features. Check it out!
Wednesday, March 23, 2005
Anti-spam filtering the Bayesian Way
Anti-spam filtering the Bayesian Way
I don't know about you, but I get hundreds of spam emails per day. I even get spam to my domain names that don't even have a website up yet. I'm Sooo Fed up with spam, I just want to strangle somebody! I've got dozens of Outlook rules set up to no avail. To top it off, every once in a while Outlook loses its mind and completely ignores my filters and spills all the junkola right into my inbox. Arrgh!
Filters help some but, filtering by rules doesn't work when the spamsters use a different email address every time, a fake email address, or a randomly generated subject.
I just love all those naive people whose best anti-spam advice is "What's the big deal about spam? Just use the delete key." It makes me wonder if these guys are spammers themselves. That would explain their nonchalant attitude about the whole subject while the rest of us are pulling our hair out, killing our productivity, spending as much as an hour a day just deleting spam. I need an intelligent anti-spam solution but one that won't delete my important business emails.
I recently tried out SpamBayes which is free (those SourceForge guys, you just gotta love'em!). It only works with Outlook, not Outlook Express. Installation is easy enough. When you re-open Outlook after installing the program, the configuration wizard starts. You can either let it do it's thing and learn as it goes along, or if you want faster results you can take a proactive approach and separate your spam from your non-spam or "ham" as they put it.
SpamBayes learns to detect Spam based on training that you provide. You filter your good emails into one folder and filter bad emails into a different folder. You point it towards your spam emails as if it were a drug-sniffing dog. And then you show it your good emails. The more emails you show it, the more effective it is. The learning process is ongoing. SpamBayes doesn't delete the spam. It puts it into a special folder. It puts the suspected spam into another folder. That's the part I like. I can't afford to lose even one business email so I can't use a program that automatically deletes emails.
If a suspected spam email turns out to be legit, then you just click on that email and click on a button that lets SpamBayes know it isn't spam. And this trains the program to recognize it as legitimate email in the future. Likewise if a spam email gets past the filters, click on it, then choose "Delete as Spam" and Voila! you just helped the program get even smarter the next time it sees a similar spam e-mail.
Nosy techie that I am, after some snooping around the program, I found that the way this program works isn't all mystery. You can actually see the man behind the curtain pulling the strings. When you click on an e-mail in the suspected junk mail folder, then click on "Show spam clues for current message", you can actually see which words in the e-mail are causing the email to be considered spam, and the spam probability percentage. This is great information because it also helps you to reduce the spam factor of your own e-mails that you send out. It also lets you know which of your anti-spam tricks (such as using the word "freee") ain't foolin' the spam filters one bit.
Disadvantages: I would like to be able to tell it which e-mails are definitely spam. For example, e-mails sent to specific email addresses that I've never used are always spam. But guess what? So far I don't have to tell it. It knows already. I'm so used to using filters that you have to hold it's hand and tell it what to do that it's hard to get used to letting the program figure it out on its own.
And the results...Wow! I'm actually waiting for the spam e-mails in anticipation just to see what this baby does with it. I'm blown away by this program so far after using it a couple of hours. I'll let you know how it's working after I've used it a bit longer.
Get SpamBayes yourself at:
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html
I don't know about you, but I get hundreds of spam emails per day. I even get spam to my domain names that don't even have a website up yet. I'm Sooo Fed up with spam, I just want to strangle somebody! I've got dozens of Outlook rules set up to no avail. To top it off, every once in a while Outlook loses its mind and completely ignores my filters and spills all the junkola right into my inbox. Arrgh!
Filters help some but, filtering by rules doesn't work when the spamsters use a different email address every time, a fake email address, or a randomly generated subject.
I just love all those naive people whose best anti-spam advice is "What's the big deal about spam? Just use the delete key." It makes me wonder if these guys are spammers themselves. That would explain their nonchalant attitude about the whole subject while the rest of us are pulling our hair out, killing our productivity, spending as much as an hour a day just deleting spam. I need an intelligent anti-spam solution but one that won't delete my important business emails.
I recently tried out SpamBayes which is free (those SourceForge guys, you just gotta love'em!). It only works with Outlook, not Outlook Express. Installation is easy enough. When you re-open Outlook after installing the program, the configuration wizard starts. You can either let it do it's thing and learn as it goes along, or if you want faster results you can take a proactive approach and separate your spam from your non-spam or "ham" as they put it.
SpamBayes learns to detect Spam based on training that you provide. You filter your good emails into one folder and filter bad emails into a different folder. You point it towards your spam emails as if it were a drug-sniffing dog. And then you show it your good emails. The more emails you show it, the more effective it is. The learning process is ongoing. SpamBayes doesn't delete the spam. It puts it into a special folder. It puts the suspected spam into another folder. That's the part I like. I can't afford to lose even one business email so I can't use a program that automatically deletes emails.
If a suspected spam email turns out to be legit, then you just click on that email and click on a button that lets SpamBayes know it isn't spam. And this trains the program to recognize it as legitimate email in the future. Likewise if a spam email gets past the filters, click on it, then choose "Delete as Spam" and Voila! you just helped the program get even smarter the next time it sees a similar spam e-mail.
Nosy techie that I am, after some snooping around the program, I found that the way this program works isn't all mystery. You can actually see the man behind the curtain pulling the strings. When you click on an e-mail in the suspected junk mail folder, then click on "Show spam clues for current message", you can actually see which words in the e-mail are causing the email to be considered spam, and the spam probability percentage. This is great information because it also helps you to reduce the spam factor of your own e-mails that you send out. It also lets you know which of your anti-spam tricks (such as using the word "freee") ain't foolin' the spam filters one bit.
Disadvantages: I would like to be able to tell it which e-mails are definitely spam. For example, e-mails sent to specific email addresses that I've never used are always spam. But guess what? So far I don't have to tell it. It knows already. I'm so used to using filters that you have to hold it's hand and tell it what to do that it's hard to get used to letting the program figure it out on its own.
And the results...Wow! I'm actually waiting for the spam e-mails in anticipation just to see what this baby does with it. I'm blown away by this program so far after using it a couple of hours. I'll let you know how it's working after I've used it a bit longer.
Get SpamBayes yourself at:
http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/windows.html
CBClicks - Earn Clickbank commissions via this New Viral AdNetwork
If you haven't heard about Armand Morin's new site, CBClicks, you're about to be flooded. CBclicks is a new Viral Internet AdNetwork. This will be to Clickbank what Google Adwords does for advertisers who use it. Those who join right away stand the chance of getting their Clickbank ID on 1000s of sites, so don't wait. Join now.
Directory Generator by Armand Morin
Directory Generator is a software product that can generate hundreds of
keyword-targeted web pages. The purpose is to help you get targeted traffic
to your website so you can make more sales or earn commissions.
I was one of the earliest users of Directory Generator before it launched
publicly August 26, 2004, so I've had a little head start in testing it.
Let me give you a little background info first: In late 2003, new traffic
generating software appeared called Traffic Equalizer. I have to admit I knew
nothing about it until recently. My guess as to why is that it is talked about
mostly among big marketers, and probably mostly at seminars.
It's just like Armand Morin to ride the traffic software wave and even try to
make a better surfboard. And that's what Directory Generator is.
It is supposed to be equivalent to software such as Ranking Power, Traffic
Equalizer, and Traffic Hurricane, which allows you to get targeted traffic by
generating pages that get high search engine rankings. The difference is, like
most of what Armand does, the results are classier and more professional
looking.
Of the previously mentioned programs, Traffic Hurricane is the only one that
is free. Why pay for this other software if you can get it free? Because
your Traffic Hurricane pages will have
someone else's Google AdSense ads on your pages, earning them money off your
traffic. Now that I have Directory Generator, I don't
need someone else earning money from my traffic unless they're going to pay me
part of it. Selfish, aren't I? ;) One other thing: I'm surprised no one noticed
this but Google doesn't allow Adsense code to be placed on pages not owned by
you, so the way this is set up might get someone into trouble.
I know what you're thinking...Yeah, that's nice but can Directory Generator
really generate targeted traffic? Absolutely! The first website I created with
Directory Generator is steadily earning Google AdWords income every single day without
me doing a thing. It took 30 days for traffic and commissions to really start
kicking in. I don't want this to sound like hype but this is the easiest money
I've made so far. Nevertheless the second website I made isn't getting an doing squat. But
that just tells me: There's no such thing as a sure thing. The domain name you
choose and/or what keywords you target can make a difference. But the second
website also hasn't been up as long, so we'll see what happens...
Am I going to get rich off the money it's generating? No, nor could someone quit
their job with it, but at the rate it's
working I would earn the $250 price back fairly quickly. My goal was to first
earn the domain fee back and I did. The site is listed in Google, but gets no
traffic from there. Most of the traffic comes from other search engines. If it
had multiple pages spidered by Google, lookout!
I've heard through the grapevine of multiple people earning 4-figure monthly
incomes from sites created with traffic-generating software. And I've heard of one person earning a six-figure income. For now, this test tells me that this software really does
work.
Here's a little secret: No one who uses traffic generating software will
tell you their website URL. That's because they don't want people ripping off their
profitable website. So you have to buy the software to see the sites it
produces. At $250 a pop, that's an expensive trial.
What do you do with the traffic it generates?
1. You earn Google Adsense commissions (this feature is built into the software).
2. You can add SearchFeed (you can't add both. Google doesn't allow it).
3. You can add a Linkshare ad to earn additional commissions.
4. The newest version lets you earn Amazon commissions.
Benefits: Easily generate 100s of keyword targeted pages for a niche
directory.
Disadvantage: You still have to choose your keywords which will be your
site theme. You have to know how to FTP the pages to your web host. Unlike
Traffic Equalizer, the program won't do it for you.
Conclusion: Highly recommended. Thank goodness Armand didn't price this
software too cheaply. If you only try one traffic-generating software program, I
recommend Directory Generator.
Rank: 5/5
For more information, visit
http://www.directorygenerator.com .
Thursday, October 23, 2003
Headline Creator Pro
Product: Software program
This software uses a lot of headlines that have worked offline in the distant past. I have not doubt that variations of those old headlines can work for your website. It's not the only resource I use for coming up with headlines but it does make it a little easier than trying to come up with headlines from a long list of winning headlines.
Rating: 4/5.
Writer's Tool
Product: Software program
Underrated database in which you can store winning quotes, headlines, and cliches to be used in your copywriting. Useful but somewhat outdated. Most traditional copywriters store their swipe file on paper, but a digital swipe file gives you added benefits such as :
- a backup (without having to photocopy everything you have)
- the ability to store it remotely without having to photocopy everything you have
- a portable swipe file so you can have one on your home pc and one on your laptop
Pro: The only program I know of its kind.
Con: Can't add additional categories, such as closes, P.S., money-back guarantees, calls to action, etc.
Rating: 3.5/5
If your website doesn't have a headline, you're losing visitors AND sales. If people have to figure out what your website is all about by reading through it, many won't. They'll just leave. A Headline is a must-have if you're trying sell anything...even if it's free.
I have to give Headline Creator Pro a higher rating but I still use Writer's Tool because HCP's headline database isn't customizable. I definitely recommend them both if you're stuck while coming up with a headline for your website.
This software uses a lot of headlines that have worked offline in the distant past. I have not doubt that variations of those old headlines can work for your website. It's not the only resource I use for coming up with headlines but it does make it a little easier than trying to come up with headlines from a long list of winning headlines.
Rating: 4/5.
Writer's Tool
Product: Software program
Underrated database in which you can store winning quotes, headlines, and cliches to be used in your copywriting. Useful but somewhat outdated. Most traditional copywriters store their swipe file on paper, but a digital swipe file gives you added benefits such as :
- a backup (without having to photocopy everything you have)
- the ability to store it remotely without having to photocopy everything you have
- a portable swipe file so you can have one on your home pc and one on your laptop
Pro: The only program I know of its kind.
Con: Can't add additional categories, such as closes, P.S., money-back guarantees, calls to action, etc.
Rating: 3.5/5
If your website doesn't have a headline, you're losing visitors AND sales. If people have to figure out what your website is all about by reading through it, many won't. They'll just leave. A Headline is a must-have if you're trying sell anything...even if it's free.
I have to give Headline Creator Pro a higher rating but I still use Writer's Tool because HCP's headline database isn't customizable. I definitely recommend them both if you're stuck while coming up with a headline for your website.
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