If you have been involved in internet marketing for any length of time, you have probably experienced some form of content theft. While an exact definition of what constitutes “content theft” may be tricky to pin down, most people sense that something is not right when they feel that something has been stolen from them.

The term “symbiotic marketing” refers to a situation involving two parties where an marketing action taken by at least one party benefits both parties. This can be seen in a blog comment, where the commenter contributes to the discussion and in return receives a link back to his site, in Twitter profiles where marketers promote the content of others as well as their own, or in a host of other forms whether on social networking sites, forums, or elsewhere.

If the above mentioned examples constitute examples of symbiotic marketing what then should we call the unauthorized copying of content for the intention of profit? Perhaps we should call it Parasitic Marketing, since by design it intends to leach value from its host.

Presented in this way the battle between symbiotic marketing and parasitic marketing seems very clear cut, very black and white. This is the way that I have viewed the unauthorized use of content for quite some time. Recently however I have begun to consider that this issue might have more shades of gray then I initially considered.

Is it possible that someone could use your content in an unauthorized manner yet cause you to receive some unintended benefit?

I think that I may have come across at least one such example. Consider blogs that are made up almost exclusively of headlines and excerpts taken from other blogs in a particular niche. The owners of these blogs do little in terms of generating there own content, but instead use the content of others and reap the rewards in terms of SEO traffic.

One unintentional benefit that may occur in such a case is that the content producing blog receives and increase in its Technorati authority due to the link from the content copying blog.

I am not saying that this is a fantastic gain for the content producing blog, or that the unauthorized use of content is a good thing, and I am in no way advocating the unauthorized use of content. Obviously, in studying any possible benefits it is important to remember that there are downsides to the unauthorized use of content.

The motivation behind this post comes from my interest in studying causes, effects, and even side effects in business. Closer examination of these causes and effects give me ideas, and ideas I have learned have value.

I don’t know of many examples of this effect but if you have come across an example where the unauthorized use of content has benefited you, and you would like to share, feel free to let us know by means of email or blog comment.

Tags: Content Theft, Technorati, Internet Marketing, Symbiotic Marketing 

Now-a-days there are several online options that will allow you to make money over the internet without spending any money at all. These include options such as Squidoo Lenses complete with sponsor advertisements, blogger.com blogs with AdSense ads, as well as HubPages.

The great thing about all of the above mentioned options is that they allow you test the waters of online business and get your feet wet without spending any money. With so many “free” monetization methods you may wonder why you should ever fork over your hard earned cash to pay for a domain name and web hosting. 

These are great questions and the answer to these questions is… leverage. Having your own webpage allows you greatly increased control over your sites and this increased control increases your potential for online money making.

For example, let’s start by comparing a Squidoo lens with a domain name of your own choosing where you pay for your own hosting. First lets consider the Squidoo lens. A lens might make money from Google AdSense ads, Amazon’s affiliate program, eBay’s affiliate program, as well as other potential sponsors.

One of the downsides of Squidoo is that all revenue from your lenses are split 50/50 between you the “lensmaster”, and Squidoo.com. Squidoo lenses also contain links from your lens to other parts of the Squidoo.com website. This means that you are not in full control of the outbound links on your lens. If however, you own your own webpage you are in full control of any an all outbound links from your site.

Website traffic is extremely valuable, and as we like to say here at Feedback Secrets, “the lifeblood of any online business is TRAFFIC.” For this reason some website owners are very particular about where they send their outgoing traffic. Some site owners will only send their traffic to other sites in their own network, while others choose to charge for their outbound links.

Let’s say that you maintain a Blogger.com blog which eventually becomes popular. You may well decide that you wish to switch from the Blogger.com platform to your own domain and hosting. At this point you will face the challenge of trying to transfer as many readers as possible from your old blog to your new blog.

We should also consider email newsletters, which are often one of the most profitable attributes of small online businesses. As far as I am aware it is not possible to place an email opt-in form on either a Squidoo lens or a blogger.com blog. An visitor who opts in for your email list may well become a lifelong customer, therefore not having the ability to collect opt-ins can greatly hinder to money making potential of your online business.

There are many more reasons that having your own webpage increases your ability to leverage your online business. The purpose of this post was just to scratch the surface of the advantages of springing for your own hosting and domain.

If you liked this post you may enjoy our post on the monetization of web traffic.

Tags: Advantages of Habing Your Own Webpage

A lot of site owners that have Google AdSense ads on their site debate with themselves whether or not they should put AdSense ads above the fold on their sites. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, “above the fold”, it refers to the portion of your webpage that a user first sees after landing on your site, before scrolling.

This portion of your website is extremely valuable since many first time visitors to your site will take one look at this portion of your site and take one of three actions. Either they will scroll down further, click on a link, or leave the site.

Because of the chance that a new site visitor will never see any of the content below the fold many site owners decide to place AdSense ads in this portion of their site. Taking such action will often have the effect of increasing your site’s click-through rate (the percentage of viewers that click on an ad).

When deciding for yourself where to place your AdSense ads, it is helpful to ask yourself a couple of questions. First, is your site content driven? When I say “content driven” I don’t mean do you have content on your site? If the primary reason that you have content on your site, is so that you can host AdSense ads, then your site is not content driven.

If your site is not content driven, then I would definitely advise placing some of your AdSense ads above the fold.

If your site is content driven then I would suggest asking yourself three more, related questions. Is building an opt-in email list important to you? Are you interested in creating brand recognition for your website? Do you want your website to be viewed as an expert source of knowledge on a particular topic?

If you answered yes to any of these three questions then you may want to think twice before placing any AdSense ads above the fold on your site. One of the best places to place an email list opt-in form on your site is… you guessed it, above the fold. Putting advertisements of any kind in this space causes competition between the ads and your opt-in form.

Visitors who opt-in for your email list have the potential of becoming life long customers. If a new visitor lands on your website and clicks off your website by following an ad, you may have permanently lost a long term customer in exchange for a little money today.

If you are trying to build your website into a brand or to have your website viewed as an expert source of knowledge you should seriously consider not putting AdSense ads at the top of your site. Sites with AdSense above the fold can be perceived as “spamy”, therefore run the risk of visitors taking your site less seriously as either a respectable brand or a valuable source of knowledge.

If you are interested in this subject you may enjoy our post on how web traffic can be monetized.

Tags: AdSense, Email Opt-In, Above the Fold, Internet Marketing, Email Marketing

A lot of people seem to be asking the question, what is a reasonable amount of money to make from an internet marketing campaign? The answer is that it all depends on your leverage. Let’s consider some examples inspired by recent marketing campaigns in the internet marketing community.

Say for instance, that you decide to run a two-day webinar complete with video-conferencing, non-video call in lines, and bonus online resources. If your webinar has a sticker price of $1,999 and you sell 500 seats then your gross revenue is a touch shy of the 1 million dollar amount. Keep in mind with all these gross revenue figures that the profit margins on information products tend to be pretty high.

If you are more of a products-only kind of guy, you might decide to spend a few months producing a take-home study course. You could outsource the development of a book, workbook, and DVD. Pay someone to write a winning sales letter, pay someone else to create a course related website, and pocket the difference. If you had an email list of size 50,000 you might expect 3% or 1,500 sales. If your take home materials cost $299 on average, then you could be looking at around $450,000 gross.

If you prefer you could run a five week online course with weekly teleconferences, online course related materials, and ways to network with other course participants. If you charged $199 for such a course and 200 students signed up by paying tuition, then you would collect near $40,000.  Such a take would obviously not bring anywhere near the amount cash as the two above mentioned examples, however with opportunities to up-sell your students as well as increased exposure for you and your brand, such a venture would definitely be worthwhile.

The examples above tell the story of the kind of money that established players in the internet marketing community are making. When you are just starting out in the field of internet marketing you should expect to make no where near this amount of money.

Factors that can help contribute to the kind of massive leverage that would be required to pull of the kind of numbers mentioned above include a huge opt-in email list, a massive black book of networking connections that can light up online forums with to-the-top threads that never seem to die, or serious connections with dozens of bloggers who can post you offering on a score of blogs and let the viral power of the net take over.

Obviously it is never easy to generate a million dollars in revenue in a two week period, however the important thing to remember is that it can be done, and that the people who are doing it right now are ordinary human beings just like you and me.

Email lists can be built up even if it takes a couple of years of hard work and determination, as can extraordinary networking connections whether they be comprised of social networkers, bloggers, forum members, or a combination of the above.

If you are interested in reading more about the basics of internet marketing check out our post on the essentials of marketing online.

Tags: internet marketing, marketing, marketing camapigns, make money online, webinar, teleconference 

Obviously professional poker players are not the only group in danger of going on tilt while at work. Like a dope dealer without discipline, Internet Marketers are often guilty of using too much of their own product. The resulting condition is known as “information overload”.

As your brain is being drowned in a glut of its own neurotransmitters the victim often feels a host of uncomfortable symptoms. These can include feelings of tension and duress, a cold sweat, as well as light nausea.

The occupational hazard in this industry comes from the fact that the nature of the web makes it extremely hard to stay “on topic”. The temptation to abandon whatever goal you are working on to click one of the random links on your screen is extremely seductive.

Switching gears from one train of thought to another is such a haphazard manner causes a good deal of stress not to mention an inefficient use of time.

The cure for this condition is a technique known as “batch processing”. I first got the idea of using “batch processing” to make my work schedule more efficient while reading Timothy Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Work Week. Ferriss definitely had the right idea when he suggested building a schedule based on clumping together as many similar activities as possible.

There is a clear advantage that comes from grouping activities such as writing blog post, producing email newsletter broadcasts, doing online research,  or reading books. Not only does batch processing make you more efficient but it saves a lot of wear-and-tear on your system.

Tags: internet marketing, information overload, online business, make money online

I think that I am officially on an unorthodox strategy kick! The idea for today’s post comes from the mind of Tommy Vallier. Tommy is looking to obtain a new iMac but he seems to be a little low on funds at the moment. The solution… to make the internet “an offer [it] can’t refuse”. In exchange for the new iMac Tommy will wear the company T-Shirt of whoever buy’s his new computer, for one year. I have simplified the details of this transaction and for the full scoop I suggest you check out Mr. Vallier’s site. I would especially suggest that you check out the question “How will we know you’re wearing it?” on the questions page of his site.

Here is why this is an awesome idea… you may be saying to yourself “that’s a horrible deal, I would never go for that.” And if you have such a view, it’s a very understandable position. But it seems that Vallier understands that the internet is an awfully big place. Let’s say that his conversion rate is 1 in 10,000 people. If he were selling an ebook, that would be awful conversion rate. But he’s not selling an ebook!

With what looks like very little marketing overhead and the viral power of the blogosphere, this proposition should get itself in front of the eyeballs of 10,000 people, easy. You might be tempted to think that there is going to be a lot of follow up work for Vallier after reading his questions page. The answer to that question is an emphatic YES and NO!

If Vallier decides to use social networking sites and blog extensively about the experience then yes on one hand that might entail a lot of work, on the other hand it should be well worthwhile for Mr. Vallier since not only does his sponsor have the potential of gaining lot’s of exposure, but Mr. Vallier himself stands to gain ton’s of exposure.

This story is a great example of the kind of symbiotic marketing that Web 2.0 is becoming known for. Vallier could potentially spin this little idea into a huge opportunity or string of opportunities. As I suggested in my last post, study those who are marketing themselves online that are doing things a little differently, it may well lead you to your own million dollar idea!

Tags: iMac, Apple, Internet Marketing, Viral Marketing, Web 2.0 , T-Shirt

If you want to get rich you should seriously consider studying unconventional business models. Simply put, if everyone is doing it, it is probably not that profitable. By studying those in our field that are not following the crowd we can begin to gain inspiration for our own revolutionary ideas.

I realize some people may not want a “revolutionary idea” because such ideas carry with them a large deal of risk. However as marketing expert Seth Godin puts it in his wildly popular book Purple Cow, “Being safe is risky.” Taking risks whether they be in marketing or designing a business model can result in facial ticks, nervous tremors, sweaty palms and occasionally angina. These risks will not make your life more convenient in any way shape or form, but as we like to say here at Feedback Secrets, “convenience is expensive”.

So since we are a site that is interested in internet marketing, one of the best ways for us to get un-convenient is to study those in our industry who are using unorthodox business models of their own. The inspiration for this post comes from fellow internet marketer Michael Conquest. Michael informed me of a technique for making money with eBay that I had not heard of previously.

The technique revolves around making money as an eBay affiliate. The eBay affiliate network was previously maintained by a site called Commission Junction, however over the last few months eBay has been in the process of switching to its own in-house affiliate network. eBay’s new network is now online and working and you can find it here.

Obviously there’s more than one way to drive traffic as an eBay affiliate, but the method which was suggested to me was to search Craigslist.com for people looking to buy specific items. After compiling a list of potential buyers you could email them with the link to an eBay auction for the item they were looking for in hopes of collecting the affiliate commission. Of course you could also use this method to promote your own eBay auctions.

I am not suggesting that this method is a path to riches, or even that you should try such a method. What I am saying is that this is an excellent example of “thinking outside the box” when it comes to an eBay based business model. That is to say, when people think, “how could I make money on eBay” this strategy is probably not the first thing that comes to mind.

Seek out wacky and unorthodox businesses models and study them, the practice may well lead the creation of your own million dollar idea. For more information on Michael Conquest you can check out his site, ConquestEmpires.com.

Tags: eBay, Internet Marketing, Affiliate Marketing, eBay Affiliate Program, Craigslist, Unorthodox eBay

According to some publications, article marketing expert Timothy Gorman makes 5 figures monthly using the method on his own niche websites, but I haven’t gotten to the interesting part yet. He has been doing so in his spare time while working full time as a Captain in the US ARMY!

Mr. Gorman is not the only one making a killing in article marketing. Many others have reaped similar benefits from this no frills method of online marketing. But don’t be fooled, making big bucks in online marketing requires lot’s of hard work. So if you’re serious and you’re willing to put in the hours there is money to be made.

The web is filled with article submission sites or article directories are they are sometimes called. Some of these directories are bad, some good, and some are AWESOME! The top quality article submission sites have the deadly combination of high PageRank combined with lots of traffic.

These sites provide a two-pronged method of generating traffic to your site. The first and most important comes from there enormous value they provide in terms of search engine optimization. Most article directories allow a single backlink to be included at the end of every article that you post. These backlinks are of high value not only because of their PageRank but due to the fact that the “referring page” (article) contains relevant content. The search engines pay attention to not only the anchor text of the link but also how closely related the referring page is to the landing page.

The second, bonus method of traffic are the unique visitors who come directly to your site by following your links. Please keep in mind that it is not just the links at the bottom of your articles that provide traffic. Many article directories have an author bio-page for each author and this page can be an excellent source of traffic to your site.

Please keep in mind that when it comes to author bio pages, you have to SELL IT. People will click on your bio page based on the quality of your articles. Once they get on the bio page they will decide whether to click through to your webpage based on how tantalizing you can make yourself and your site seem.

If you are interested in the subject of backlinks, check out our article, “Backlink Building”. Your choice in anchor text is extremely important when building backlinks, for more information on this topic be sure to look out for our upcoming post, “The Anatomy of a Text Link”.

As far as figuring out the number one article directory on the planet, the gold star goes to EzineArticles.com If you want to submit to several directories that’s fine, but make sure to focus the bulk of your effort towards Ezine Articles.

Mr. Gorman has a free ebook out that outlines his method of using article marketing to drive website traffic, to check out this free ebook, click here.

Tags: Article Marketing, Article Submission, Article Directories, Online Marketing, Backlink Building

A backlink is a one-way inbound link from another website to your own.  The algorithms that determine the search rankings for the major search engines are in a constant state of change and therefore the value of each attribute of a website as it relates to the rankings is also in flux. In recent history however backlinks have been one of the most important factors to the algorithms and to this day they continue to be an essential part of search engine optimization.

Article Marketing is perhaps one of the potent methods of backlink building available to the online entrepreneur  just starting out. The way this works is that the sight owner either writes his own articles or pays someone to write articles for him. These articles then get posted on Article Directory sites.  The standard practice is for the Article Directory site to allow a single backlink to be included, usually at the bottom of each article. There many Article Directories out there, but I would suggest that you start with EzineArticles.com.

Blog Commenting is another way for you to build backlinks to your site. Most blogs allow comments to be left by readers on a portion of their posts. It’s usually the case that the comment form allows you to submit a URL (web address) with your comment. In addition to a URL the comment form usually also asks for a name. Chances are that whatever you put in for a name will become a hyperlink for the URL that you entered. More…

Let’s start with some facts and figures… According the “Executive Summary” Blog, Facebook.com has been valued at lest as high as 1.6 billion dollars. In August of 2007 Facebook had 69,296,915 unique visitors according to an article by Max Freiert on Compete.com.  Now let’s consider Facebook’s rival MySpace, the article “Was MySpace Sold on the Cheap?” by Olga Kharif from BusinessWeek.com reports that MySpace.com was sold for 560 million in 2005. According to the same Compete.com article mentioned above, MySpace.com had 26,224,486 unique visitors in August of 2007.

We don’t need to restrict ourselves to examining social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace. We can look at companies like Digg.com and YouTube.com. Both of these sites get tons of traffic (YouTube gets more) and both are highly valued.

You might be asking yourself, “What do these juggernauts of online business have to do with me?” Surprisingly the answer might be, a lot. More…