Dan Kaminski, of Web Video University fame has announced his “end of year” special and it’s a doozy; 3 of his most popular courses (Web Video ABC’s, Green Screen Secrets and Mobile Video Made Simple) for a mere $99.

Normally these courses retail for just over $300, but until Dec 31, you can get them for a third of the cost.

I haven’t done a full review of Dave’s Web Video University (I plan to in the New Year) but I can tell you this; I maintain a membership to it because it is a fantastic resource. If you’ve spent any time on this site you’ll know I have no hesitations about calling things as they are; I never candy-coat things. Dave’s course is simply superb. He’s put a ton of work into his products and it shows.

So if any these courses appeal to you, grab ‘em up now and save!

One of the biggest detriments to online success I have seen over the years is an unwillingness to invest in your business.

This is especially true for newbie marketers, many of whom want to see if the whole “online business” thing is going to pan out for them before they put any of their money on the line.

I can tell you from experience that this simply does not work.

When I started out online in the late nineties, I knew absolutely nothing about the Internet, and even less about marketing, advertising, or any of the net-specific skills required for earning a living online. I figured I could sort of “learn as I earned.”

Not so.

Without any practical background in fields that have “carry over” to the ‘net (like the aforementioned advertising, marketing, or business), I simply floundered around for a couple of years, wasted hundreds of hours of my time, and never made a penny.

Until I got my hands on Ken Evoy’s “Make Your Site Sell” in ’98 or ’99 (the book hasn’t been updated since 2002, but it’s still a great resource and it’s available for free here!).

When I read it, lights went on, bells rang and sirens wailed!

Now I know what to do! And how to do it!

And I have never looked back since.

And yet, reflecting on it now, I kick myself for being so darn stupid.

What the heck was I thinking?

If I would have just handed over $30 or $40 two years earlier on a similar product (MYSS wouldn’t have existed then), I would have saved myself years of aggravation.

The point is, until you make an investment in your business, you are just wasting your time floundering. Playing around.

Your investment is both your “skin in the game.” Without it, you don’t have any real reason to put in the sort of effort you need to succeed, because you’re not really out anything but your time if you don’t (another big mistake; not allotting a value to your time).

It’s also your short cut to the knowledge you will absolutely have to acquire should you wish to ever become successful.

Imagine starting a brick and mortar business; do you think your landlord would allow you to stay rent free until you determined whether or not the business was going to be profitable? Until you “learn the business?”

Do you think your suppliers will let you borrow their products until you generate some business?

Making an investment qualifies you as being committed and serious.

It also means you have a reason to get serious.

Don’t agree?

Think you can learn it all on your own without spending a penny?

I’m sure you can, but how long will that take?

Not only do you have to learn every aspect of building an online business, you have to determine who knows what they are talking about, and who does not. Pick the wrong guru to follow, and it may cost you years of wasted time.

So you have to ask yourself…

Do I have the determination to stick it out through this entire process until I develop some system that works?

Or do I fork out a few dollars, skip the two-year learning curve, and start immediately down the road to internet riches?

Your choice; continue playing, or get serious!

For those who are serious, I recommend SiteSell’s Site Build It! For $29.95 per month, you have access to a complete business building system, plus all the tools you’ll ever need. Check out the site, review the proof, and make whatever decision you deem appropriate.

By now, you’ve probably heard of IMReportCard.com, a site that provides reviews of popular internet marketing related products and then encourages visitors to share their own experiences with them.

On the surface, IMReportCard.com seems like it fills a pretty good niche. Who doesn’t want a impartial resource to check in with when you’re considering purchasing a new Internet Marketing related product? Who doesn’t want to read feedback and comments from everyday folks who have purchased and used the products?

The thing is, I’m a skeptical S.O.B.

That, and my main online businesses are in the body building and weight loss supplement industry, where it’s common for both retailers and affiliates to create “unbiased review sites” (which are nothing of the sort, of course) as a means to generate sales or referral income.

These affiliates frequently gloss over inconvenient truths and fail to question or investigate the retailer’s claims, instead parroting them and passing them on as “gospel” truth. I’ve made a good living over the past decade doing the opposite, because it’s both the ethical thing to do, and the only way to build long term business success.

So when I encountered IMReportCard.com, red flags started going up almost immediately…

Red Flag #1: Who is behind the site?

Anytime I come upon a review site, there are a few things I want to know before I read anything…

a) Who is running the site – names, faces and so on.

b) What are their credentials?

c) Why are they in a position to talk authoritatively about the products upon which they claim to be performing, in-depth, unbiased reviews?

d) Are they ethical and credible? For example…

• Is there any chance they could be glossing over various products’ deficiencies in order to increase the likelihood of earning a commission on a referred sale?
• Is there any chance they could be cherry picking the reviews they are posting to create an artificially positive or negative view of products which they may or may not be affiliated with?

On IMReportCard.com, we are not told any of this. There’s a lot of “we’re this” and “we’re that”, but not a single specific detail is revealed as to who is running this site and whether those people are credible or not.

Although I don’t have any proof of this happening here, in the supplement industry this is ALWAYS done to shield the indentity of the owners and the very obvious financial conflict of interest that always exists. It’s hard, for example, to maintain the illusion of being independent and unbiased in your reviews, when you manufacture the product that receives the highest ratings on your site. And in the weight loss product world, that happens ALL the time.

Red Flag #2: Where’s the FTC mandated affiliate earnings disclaimer?

In 2009, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission issued a directive requiring that web sites that promote products for a commission reveal the nature of their relationship with the retailer. In other words, if you earn an affiliate commission from any of the products discussed on your web site (and every link I investigated on IMReportCard.com appears tobe an affiliate link), you need to ensure your visitors are aware of the possible conflict of interest.

Yes, if you dig deep enough into the FAQs, you’ll see there is mention of “some” income being earned via affiliate programs (again, I haven’t found a product that was not linked to via an affiliate link), but the full FTC disclaimer does not appear to be present on the site… or if it is, it isn’t anywhere I can find.

Red Flag #3: Are the reviews REALLY unbiased, and are they performed by people with an intimate knowledge of the product?

To answer that question, I checked out IMReportCard.com’s reviews on three products I am intimately familiar with; Article Video Robot, Adam Short’s Niche Profit Classroom, and SiteSell’s Site Build It! (I purchased the first two, and was the Site Build It! Product Manager until 2006).

a) Article Video Robot: There’s nothing in this review that indicates the writer did anything more than read the product’s sales copy and watch the promotional video. This isn’t a review, it’s an overview of the product based on the sales letter. There’s no value added in this review at all.

What would constitute value added in a review like this? And what would be indicative of a review written in the best interest of a visitor? Well, you’d outline the product’s strengths AND faults, thereby demonstrating both your intimate knowledge of the product as well as your commitment to the best interests of your visitors.

In the case of Article Video Robot, I can tell you this; it does exactly what it says it does. It’s not all “roses”, however; large articles are tedious to convert, due to the small text fields you have to copy and paste your headers and paragraphs into. It also takes a lot more time than you’d expect; since you have to leave some breathing room on the screen, you’re constantly editing and modifying your material so it displays “just right.”

Yes, you can choose different voices to read your article, but most of them sound exactly like what they are; a computer. To get the video’s audio tracks sounding natural, you really need to read the text yourself. That takes time, plus the investment in a decent USB microphone.

And the videos you create aren’t exactly riveting. Sure, people like to watch videos, but this is more of a slideshow than a real video. And when it comes to video, folks have an extremely short attention span and expect to be entertained. After all, there is plenty of high-budget educational material available online, so you can bet your a** they’re not going to stick around to watch a bunch of words on a screen, read by a computer.

On the plus side, this tool makes it relatively easy to establish an online video presence – you can create a ton of videos, post them on YouTube, and reap the benefits of *some* additional referred traffic to your main site. And it’s low tech, relatively quick and requires no software like the stuff I ended up buying; Camtasia and PowerPoint for screencasts and Sony Vegas for video (at the same time, the monthly fee to use this product will add up pretty quickly!).

Anyhow, you see my point; when you read the above, you know that I AM intimately familiar with the product and I also know enough about IM and video marketing in general to be able to clearly outline the product’s shortcomings. If this was a review, at this point you’d be making a decision on whether to purchase based on a thorough assessment of the product – an assessment that can only be presented if you are intimately knowledgeable of the product.

Since the IMReportCard.com review does not present a thorough assessment, it can only mean one of two things; first, that the reviewer has not used the product his/herself, and is simply using available sales copy to write the review (very likely the case here), or second, the product’s less than favorable attributes are not discussed, because doing so would reduce the likelihood of earning a commission on a referred sale.

Very often on review sites, it’s not what is being said, but what is being left out of the discussion that is the main issue.

2) Niche Profit Classroom: Again, what’s the value added provided in the review here? Any visitor can glean 99% of the information provided in the review by reading the sales copy, or by signing up to become an affiliate and reviewing the affiliate promotional material. I’ve read several reviews of Niche Profit Classroom on the Net, and have been less than pleased by them. And like the other reviews I have read, the author conveniently leaves two fundamental detriments of this product out of the discussion…

a) That delivering the course information in video format only is extremely unwieldy, and time consuming. It’s also next to impossible to return to a specific video segment to re-review critical material unless you make detailed notes as you proceed; there’s simply no way to know which video contains what material. A PDF course outline would be an invaluable addition to this product.

b) That if you follow the course to its ideal conclusion, you will have to outsource and pay for the creation of an ebook for each niche you identify; that means a $300-$700 outlay for each project. That you are also encouraged to investigate and create products for multiple niches, since not all will be wildly successful.

Not so good if you’re short of cash.

And if you’re relatively new to Internet Marketing, and unsure whether you can pick and develop profitable niches successfully, you’ll want to investigate the IM money making opportunity without having to fork out a fairly significant amount of cash for each “experiment.”

3) Site Build It!: By now you’re aware that IMReportCard’s unbiased reviews aren’t really reviews at all; they’re a top level overview done by a writer who’s done little more than glean over the sales copy, glance at the affiliate material and perhaps watch the promotional video.

I include SBI! in this discussion, therefore, not to further emphasize this point (the review barely discusses the product at all), but to demonstrate something I call “journalistic integrity”, or lack thereof.

To me, part of “journalistic integrity” means you have to substantiate the comments and assertions you make in print with evidence, and cannot pass off hearsay and urban myths without addressing them accordingly.

In the sake of full disclosure, I have to tell you I was Site Build It!’s Product Manager until 2006, when a serious illness prevented me from continuing. I am therefore both intimately familiar with the product and the people behind the company – and never have I met a more passionate and dedicated group, all focused on delivering the best online business building platform possible.

You see, in the SBI! review posted on IMReportCard.com, the author says…

“Google the keywords, “Site Build It Scam”, and you are bound to find numerous listings both pro and con regarding SBI!.”

Yeah? So what?

The same can be said for ANY product in the whole freakin’ world.

If you’re an affiliate of any product sold online, you’ve quickly learned  to target “the name of the product” + “scam” as one of your keywords. Surfers have figured out long ago that “the name of the product” + “review” usually gets them a bunch of promotional hype, and very little in the way of substance. Add the word “scam” into the keyword phrase, and you’ll bring up genuine complaints and concerns, should they exist.

That’s what they assume, anyway.

In this case, the author references the complaints of Liz Sowerbutts, a woman who  has had nothing but terrible things to say about SBI! in the past. But as detailed in my full discussion here, Liz’s comments aren’t those of a disgruntled SBI! user; she and some unethical gurus orchestrated a link bombing campaign against SBI! to target this keyword (SBI! scam) and promote an alternative product.

All her arguments against SBI! are easily refutable (as you’ll see if you want to read my article on the whole sordid affair).

And who the heck is Liz Sowerbutts anyway? She ain’t Marlon Sanders,  and she obviously has ZERO ethics and credibility, so why would you provide her with a soap box on which to stand?

Anyway, let’s get back to the journalistic integrity thing.

If there were some truth to Liz’s comments (and there is not) and Liz was some sort of recognized and credible authority (she is not), and she was an SBI! user (again, no) then it might make sense to include her comments in an “unbiased review.”

Since it’s not the case, however,  including these comments serves no real purpose other than to raise doubt in the reader’s mind.

And by doing that, the author is very definitely displaying a bias against SBI! (remember, IMReportCard.com claims to be delivering unbiased reviews) as well as a complete lack of journalistic integrity.

The only way this treatment could not be considered biased is if the author’s asked the same question of every product; “is it a scam?” Yet I”ve never seen this addressed on any other review.

Red Flag #4: Where is the testimonials caveat?

Anyone hosting a site that posts user reviews has an ethical duty to inform visitors that none of the reviews can be authenticated, and that the results may be fabricated, exaggerated, and that financial conflicts of interests may be tainting the comments.

To be fair, there is a caveat in the Online Content section of the Terms of Use policy which states…

Opinions, advice, statements, offers, or other information or content made available through IMRC are those of their respective authors and not of IMRC, and should not necessarily be relied upon. Such authors are solely responsible for the accuracy of such content.

IMRC does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information on IMRC and neither adopts nor endorses nor is responsible for the accuracy or reliability of any opinion, advice or statement made.

In my opinion, this sort of material needs to be translated into everyday English and placed prominently on every single review page so people have this first and foremost in their minds as they review the material presented there.

How many people read through a Terms Of Use document?

How many realize that retailers can use services like MicroWorkers.com to hire people to post reviews on their services?

How many realize that none of the testimonials can be authenticated?

Speaking from experience, I can tell you that most do not.

So at the end of the day, where do I stand with this service?

I will admit I did find the feedback useful on a couple of products I considered purchasing. However, to really gain my trust, and YOURS, IMReportCard.com needs to address my very reasonable and straightforward questions starting with the BIG one…

WHO is behind the site, and why should I trust you with your reviews and recommendations?

Otherwise, it needs to be recognized as a plain affiliate site, and approached with the appropriate amount of skepticism.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about Google’s newest algorithym update (now called Panda or Farmer) and my reaction to all the hullabaloo surrounding it.

Which was, of course, a resounding yawn.

Without sounding like a gray-bearded Internet marketing Gandalf, I’ve weathered zillions of algorithym updates over the years (as has any marketer who’s been online for over a decade). And I can’t think of one major upgrade – from any of the major Search Engines (SEs) – that has not provoked a reaction from webmasters. This reaction, of course, is always the same…

Outrage. Anger. Hand wringing.

Especially from those webmasters who strayed over into Black Hat territory, actively using deceptive tactics to manipulate Search Engine results for financial gain.

Of course, a decade ago Google wasn’t even a player in the game; that was when Inktomi, HotBot, Lycos, FAST and AltaVista ruled the day.

Regardless, my reaction to any database update has always been the same…

Yawn.

Why the complacency?

I have always slept soundly at night, secure in the belief that if you play by the rules, and work with the Search Engines by developing unique, high-quality content that adds real value to their databases, they will reward you with traffic. Over the years, I’ve never had any reason to feel anything but complacent. Sure, I’ve had sites “hit” by updates, but they always bounced back immediately, completely validating what I felt to be true.

It really is – or has been – that simple. It’s the perfect symbiotic relationship…

I need Google and the other SEs for my business to survive.

Google and the others need me in order to develop the highest quality database that will deliver targeted, relevant results to their respective search audiences.

Win-win, right?

And everybody’s happy.

But all is not well in Oz, circa March/April 2011.

After the dust settled on the Panda update (designed to cull spammy, low quality sites from the Google database and improve the relevancy of their results) some unsettling revelations have come to light…

• A disproportionate amount of extremely credible, high quality sites saw traffic levels drop dramatically.
• Google has actively reversed the fortunes of sites that have the contacts, clout or resources to stir up negative publicity.
• Google has admitted the use of both a white and blacklist, something they have long denied.

In other words, Google seems to be actively and selectively meddling with its database – a tacit admission the “update” did not go quite as well as planned” – when there are consequences for their actions.

And when there are not?

You’re collateral damage.

If you happen to have been hit hard by this latest update, what do you do?

My old boss, Ken Evoy of SiteSell.com, sums it up nicely in a recent blog post…

“A careful analysis of Google’s history of communications (my next post) reveals that Google corrects injustices only when under public pressure. Otherwise, it hides behind “the algorithm.”

Bingo.

The only thing that will convince Google its Farmer update is fundamentally flawed is bad publicity and lots and lots of noise.

So make lots of “noise.” And read Ken’s blog post.

And cross your fingers.

All the fundamentals that have always allowed me to sleep soundly at night remain true; it’s possible that Google has fallen into the “BIG COMPANY” mentality. But for Search Engines, not delivering the best, most relevant, highest quality results is a dangerous game. Stray from this at your peril. As we saw in the past (with Alta Vista, Hot Bot, etc) if you don’t deliver, someone else will.

Argh.

I got a promotional e-mail this morning from a marketer advertising a “Secret FaceBook Loophole” that “accidentally” made its discoverer $35,000 in one month.

Yeah, I get it. Marketers have to push the envelope in order to make their offers stand out. After all, their messages are battling it out with every other message in your inbox for your attention.

But this… well, it’s plain dumb.

First of all, if there is a “secret Facebook loophole” that hands the key to instant riches to those lucky enough to stumble over it, you can bet it isn’t a “secret” anymore.

After all, it’s being aggressively promoted on the Internet.

Now let’s consider the word “loophole” for a minute.

Used in this context, Dictionary.com defines it as such: A means of escape or evasion; a means or opportunity of evading a rule, law, etc.

From Facebook’s perspective then, a loophole is definitely something that falls outside the accepted use of their service and is likely to be curtailed if they learn of it.

Given that this product is being aggressively promoted in the public realm, how long do you think that will take? Do I really want to buy a product based on a loophole that could be closed tomorrow? In 10 minutes? Or is it already closed?

And last, if there really was a “secret Facebook loophole” that made its discoverer $35,000 in a month, why on earth would he go public with it? Why not just keep the secret to himself, and bank the money while he can?

Having done business online for over 10 years, I can tell you this; no strategy works forever. If I discovered a way to make money online that no one else had stumbled upon, and I was making this sort of money, I wouldn’t tell a living soul.

I wouldn’t breathe a word to anyone. I’d just bank the money while I could.

Compared to $35,000 per month, the amount of money to be earned promoting a digital product pales in comparison, especially when these products have a relatively short sales cycle.

So yeah, I get it. You’ve got to push the envelope. And no, I haven’t bought the product so I can’t comments on its effectiveness (the e-mail I received was from an affiliate), so this article is neither an endorsement or a condemnation of it.

But do me a favor, will ya? If you want to market to me, don’t take me for a fool!

The Internet “Traffic Myth” is probably the one most capitalized on by less-than-scrupulous “gurus” looking to pad their bank accounts.

Think about it for a minute.

How many times have you been pitched  a product, technique, or software tool that will – according to the guru in question – drive huge volumes of traffic to your web site and send sales through the roof?

I can’t even begin to count them.

In fact, I was pitched one this morning.

This was for a piece of software that apparently “hijacks” reams of targeted traffic from some unnamed “shopping” site and diverts these hoards of visitors to your affiliate offerings (or your own products, should you have any), where these eager buyers fall over themselves in their eagerness to buy, buy, buy.

And since the reason why you aren’t making money online is because you don’t have any traffic, this products provides the solution. All you need to do is “buy it now”, fire it up on your own computer, and go for a walk while the profits roll in.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

And on the surface it makes sense; you’re not making money because you don’t have any traffic. It’s a perfectly reasonable assumption. After all, it’s pretty hard to argue that you can make money online if none of your ventures get any traffic.

But guess what?

If you don’t have, or have never owned a web site that receives any significant traffic, then you won’t necessarily be aware of the next fundamental truth of doing business online. Yes, even if we assume the product “works” as advertised (and I doubt it)…

More traffic does not necessarily mean more profits.

Or any profits for that matter.

Most of the time it does not, especially if you are relatively new to doing business online. And no, it doesn’t matter whether these prospective customers are “targeted” (which means they’ve demonstrated interest in products/services related to what you are offering) or not.

Here’s why…

The key to actually getting people to heed your recommendations and press the “Buy” button isn’t reams of traffic. Nope. It’s trust. T… R… U… S… T. The key to making BIG money online is having LOTS of traffic and LOTS of trust.

You see,  most products being advertised to fill your bank or ClickBank account with reams of cash don’t say so, but they are asking you to make a major assumption…

That referred customers aren’t thinking rational human beings, but automatons with credit cards.

If you accept this unstated yet implied assertion, it’s easy to fall for the guru’s  sales pitch and press the “Buy” button yourself.

But it’s not true; the vast majority of people think carefully about making a purchase online, especially in times of economic hardship. This isn’t 1999 anymore either, and many are aware that people making referrals for products they aren’t selling themselves (i.e., affiliate products) may have a financial conflict of interest.

In other words, they are not necessarily making the referral because the product is the one best suited to the needs of the customer, but because of the high commission payout a sale generates.

Since I’ve been talking about sales of either your own products or ones you recommend for a commission, let’s continue on this discussion with the promotion of affiliate products, since that pertains to the majority of folks trying to make a dollar online…

You might have a bit more luck earning commissions by referring people to well-established, recognized online stores (like Amazon.com, etc) where the prospective customer knows that the shopping experience will be a good one, but most people don’t do that. Online stores selling hard goods pay meager commissions that can take ages to amount to anything.

So many people make referrals for digital products (often ones that they find in the ClickBank marketplace). These products have zero incremental cost for the retailer, who can therefore pay out fantastic commissions. In most cases however, these products aren’t written or created by people who are established in the offline world.

And that’s a problem.

Consider this from the perspective of the referred visitor…

She doesn’t recognize the author / developer of the product she has been referred to, so she has no established benchmark of quality to rely on.

She has no established relationship with the person making the referral (YOU), so that referral carries ZERO weight.

So she moves on. She does not press the ” Buy” button. And you don’t earn a commission.

Again.

And it really doesn’t matter whether you send 1, 10, or 10,000 visitors to a sales page, this is exactly what is going to happen 99.99% of the time unless you do something about it (think about it… when was the last time you acted like an automaton with a credit card?).

So no… more traffic doesn’t necessarily equal more profits.

Yes, there are plenty of gurus selling traffic generating solutions that can post very impressive screen shots of ClickBank tallies on their sales pages as “proof”  of success. Even if these shots are genuine, I can guarantee you these numbers aren’t generated by “cold” visitors (i.e., visitors with whom one has no established relationship). Instead, they very likely illustrate the sales of their own products (or of products they recommend) generated by joint venture partners, who leverage their own established relationships (i.e. “trust”) to generate referral sales.

Again, making money online is about establishing a bond of trust with your visitor who, upon understanding that you truly do have their best interests at heart, will happily buy a product on your recommendation. But if you don’t have any trust, you won’t have sales, regardless of how much traffic you get.

Unfortunately, building trust takes time, effort – and occasionally some money – which is precisely why products like the one I was pitched this morning continue to sell. Why work for hours and hours and hours when you can buy a product, press a button and get rich quick?

It’s appealing, but it’s nonsense.

One more thing; I don’t know about you, but if a piece of software were “hijacking” my targeted prospects and diverting them elsewhere, I wouldn’t be too happy about it. Ethics and legalities aside, I wouldn’t expect this “solution” to work for very long…

You’ve got to be freaking kidding me.

This morning, as I perused my e-mail over the first java of the day, I reviewed the notifications of visitor posts to my various WordPress-powered sites and sub-domains. As usual, there was a blend of both genuine comments and crap – spam comments that may have been posted manually, but were likely generated by some spammy software.

Normally, I just delete these outright, but occasionally, perhaps because of some bizarre mental defect, I actually check out the linked sites. I figure it may provide some insight into the type of marketer who considers posting spam on a moderated blog to be both an effective marketing strategy, and a good use of their time.

Anyhow, back to the case in point. Some genius going as “Jan”, posted this comment in response to my “Lis Sowerbutts’ BOGUS SBI! Scam Review” post…

“Remarkable post on the blog man, I absolutely like the look and also the feel of this excellent blog page. You write realistically well, you have got to be a aware guy. Will surely come back. Btw if you’re serious about your weight, here are good tips to follow.”

(I’ve removed the link from the post. No point in giving this bonehead what he (or she) wants).

This post, of course, is nothing particularly special as far as spam goes. I get dozens of similar comments every day – “what a great site”, “what WordPress template are you using?”, “I’ve bookmarked your site”, yada, yada, yada. And then the obligatory link to some low-quality, unrelated site. Click. DELETE.

This site, however, was after two links – one to an affiliate product (that was the link I removed from the post), and a second one to a blog called “Dee’s Weight Loss Tips” (this was the site entered in the URL field of the WordPress submission form).

What was astounding – at least to me, and perhaps I don’t get out enough – was why ANYONE would waste two seconds promoting a site that was almost entirely composed of scraped and auto-composed material. Here’s a sampling from an article called “Weight Loss Tips: 5 Ways To Keep Slim”…

Follow these five tricks, you safely and scaling remains put:

If you receive a pound, lose it! People who are successful in maintaining weight loss weigh at least twice per week. Select regular times of the day and weigh by regular weekday and save a chart. If you think you are a pound or two, follow a structured and healthy diet plan up to an additional weight closes.

Expected snack instead of pasture. To combat the rampant and spontaneous snack plan, a couple of balanced each day can be selected, and snacks. Make sure you include some protein and complex carbohydrates in your snack. If you even a bit more often feed, it is less likely that nonsense be pastures.

Uh-huh. This is a real post.

Yes, it is obviously NOT written by a real human – as I scrolled through the posts, a pattern emerged; the “author” was posting new material at the same time, every single day; 1:04 PM, 5:04 AM, 9:04 PM, over and over and over again. That’s a sure sign – the posts are generated by automated software.

But here’s the rub…

A site like this offers NO value to anyone. No site of value is ever going to link to it. So why on earth devote resources to building up its link popularity? There is not even an effective monetization model in place to generate revenue from disgruntled,  soon-to-be-leaving visitors.

Yet, someone obviously went to the trouble of setting up the blog, and then, the automated software to both create the posts, and generate automated WordPress comments on other sites.

What a total waste of time!

Dude, I think Subway is hiring. Not sure, what they pay, but I`m sure you`ll make WAAAAYYY more money there…

It was with a great deal of annoyance that I read through Lis Sowerbutts’ “review” of the “SBI! (Site Build It!) scam.” For someone who maintains to be interested in presenting her visitors with balanced, fair and informative material, her argument is, in non-politically correct parlance, retarded.

Case in point; if you want to talk authoritatively about a product or system, it helps to have some first hand experience with it. If you do not – and to my knowledge Lis Sowerbutts is not, nor has even been a Site Build It! owner, it’s a bit difficult to allot a ton of credibility to anything the author says.

It’s also a little annoying for marketers like myself who go out of their way to be informed before opening a discussion with an audience about a certain product or service (I recently reviewed Adam Short’s Niche Profit Classroom; I paid the $67/month subscription fee, learned the system and wrote about its Pros and Cons. It took many hours of work to do so).

It’s too bad Lis couldn’t be bothered to conduct a real review of SBI!. She’d have a lot more credibility if she did. Because as things stand, she appears to be little more than an ill-informed, lazy, malicious twit with a “bone to pick.”

Nonetheless, targeting the word “scam” along with “SBI!” and “Site Build It!” is a smart keyword targeting strategy, no doubt about it. If you are researching a product or service and are tired of reading glowing testimonials, nothing brings the comments of the disgruntled to the surface faster than a trip to your local search engine and a search for the “name of relevant product/service” plus the word “scam”.

But marketers aren’t shy about targeting these keywords either. In this case, a search for SBI! scam isn’t bringing up the genuine comments of unhappy customers,  but a seriously unflattering discussion of SBI!, written by an individual who knows next to nothing about it.

Before I continue with this discussion, let me digress for a moment…

First, unlike Lis, I consider myself well-qualified to discuss SBI! in detail. I worked full time for SiteSell.com in numerous capacities for 6 years, finishing up as Site Build It! Product Manager in December 2006 (a cancer diagnosis ended my term at SiteSell, and I work for them only in a very limited capacity now). I’m also a well-established, successful Internet Marketer who makes his living online and has done so for many years (see more about me).

I know what you’re thinking…

… here comes a PRO-SBI! rant from someone who’s as biased as Lis.

Not so.

Obviously I feel strongly about SBI!, but I’ve always been honest about who is best suited for this tool.

In my opinion, not everybody needs it.

Advanced marketers may not, especially if their requirements are minimal. You’ll notice that this site, for example, is not an SBI! site. It’s based on the Word Press Platform. As a marketer, I have an innate curiousity about everything web-based. Thus, I thought I’d give Word Press a try. No biggie.

Don’t make the mistake of assuming that because this site isn’t based on the SBI! platform, its value is diminished in some way.  I simply do not need the advanced functionality afforded by this tool here. For those who do however (my girlfriend Marilyn uses SBI! for her flower arrangement and information site, as does my friend and bandmate from The Big Bang, Ian Kurz, with his Everything About Camping site), it is invaluable.

Anyhow, let’s get back to the “SBI! Scam.”

Before I begin debunking some of Lis’ comments, let’s define the word “scam.”

Scam: A fraudulent business scheme; a swindle.

If you are familiar with SBI!, you’ll know a couple of things…

• It is taught at over 30 colleges and universities, including Penn State and the University of Arizona.
• Potential customers are clearly informed that SBI! is not a “get rich quick” (GRQ) scheme. In other words, don’t buy Site Build It! expecting to get rich quick. It ain’t gonna happen.
• Potential customers are informed – on the order page no less – that they need to bring BAM (brain, attitude, and motivation) to the table to succeed. Or, to put it another way… don’t expect a push-button solution to generating revenue. The system works, but YOU have to work it, and you will need to do plenty of  THINKING along the way.

I don’t know about you, but to me, this message isn’t consistent with a “scam” of any sort.  To me, it sounds a lot like a warning: if you think you can sleepwalk through this process, pressing a few buttons here and there and then expect to be living on a beachfront somewhere within a few weeks, sipping daiquiris while your chauffeur polishes the Bentley, you’re very much mistaken.

And it’s inconceivable to think that the SiteSell brass managed to hoodwink the administrators of 30 respected education institutions into using SBI! as a teaching tool.

Obviously then, SBI! is no scam.

So let’s address some of Lis’ arguments against SBI!…

1) You don’t own your domain: Initially, Lis insisted that you don’t own your own SBI! domain, based on the fact that Anguilla-Beaches.com was registered in Ken Evoy’s name (I’ll explain why it is in a moment). Then she updated her comments with the truth (that you do), but then insisted that this is still “disingenuous marketing.”

Interesting. You see, there’s nothing “disingenuous” about owning a domain name. You either own it, or you do not. Since you do own your SBI! domain name, as advertised, Lis’ inability to offer a full retraction on this statement is evidence of a strong anti-SBI! bias.

Posting this in the first place is also evidence of something I said earlier; Lis is too lazy to do any real investigating into SBI!. If she would have spent 5 minutes on Anguilla-Beaches.com, she would have realized the site belongs to Nori Evoy (Ken’s daughter). Since Nori started the site when she was 13, it makes sense to be registered in Ken’s name.

Then she could have performed a Better-Whois on any of the zillion sites featured on the SiteSell results pages to discover that yes, you do own your own domain name.

But she didn’t.

What does that tell you?

2) You can’t move your site to cheaper hosting.

Again, Lis has to retract this statement, indicating is that is IS possible, but apparently “quite difficult.”

Once again, a little research done beforehand would have prevented Lis from putting her “foot in it” once again.

Worse, there’s absolutely no context provided here either, which means you’re getting an artificially “negative” view of the transferring process.

For instance…

As I indicated earlier, this site is based on the Word Press platform. And while I could easily transfer it to another hosting service that supported the Word Press platform, it would be a serious P-I-T-A to move it to a hosting platform that supported a different format, like Movable Type, Blogger or straight HTML.

And that’s why this argument is flawed; you’re not switching hosting – you’re looking to move material provided in a specialized format to another different specialized format – either HTML, a blogging platform, CMS platform, or whatever. And that’s a P-I-T-A no matter what you are using. In other words…

… this is an issue not exclusive to SBI!.

In other words, while its unfair to call SBI! a website building platform (because it’s so much more than that) you must do your due diligence before picking a specific platform for your web business because you do not want to have to change it later.

3) Using Alexa to validate SBI!’s traffic-driving ability is deceitful because…

“Alexa ranks just proves that you have a bunch of internet marketers visiting your site - probably because of the link from the sales page - as they are the only people who use the Alexa tool bar. Internet marketers are unlikely to buy your homemade chocolates or rent your condo in Puerto Rico.”

This is another perfect example of how lazy Lis is; once again she has made a series of unsubstantiated statements which, like the ones she’s already had to retract, are easily demonstrated to be inaccurate.

In her rather rambling statement above she has indicated…

• The SiteSell “results” page (a page that illustrates the effectiveness of the SBI! process by featuring select sites and their corresponding Alexa ranking) is worthless, since the only reason why the site in question HAS an Alexa ranking is because it is featured on this page, and is visited by internet marketers who have the Alexa toolbar installed.
• Only Internet Marketers use the toolbar, which infers that all Alexa data is incredibly skewed and offers no value at all.

To demolish these arguments, let’s first see what Alexa says about how it obtains its data…

“Alexa’s traffic rankings are based on the usage patterns of Alexa Toolbar users and data collected from other, diverse sources over a rolling 3 month period.”

So by its own admission, Alexa compiles its data from numerous sources. This makes sense, since only a tiny percentage of surfers browse with the toolbar. If it only used this data to compile rankings, most web sites would receive no Alexa at all. Yet relatively few do, which is indicative of much more diverse sources of data.

Secondly, if Alexa compiles data over a 3 month period, there will be a 3-month lag before any site’s information is updated. In other words, the sites appearing on SiteSell’s “results” page – especially the non-internet marketing sites that according to Lis only have an Alexa ranking because they are on the “results” page – would have to be included with no Alexa ranking at all. This would mean that for a period up to 90 days, prospective SBI! customers would see tons of poorly performing sites as a “testament” to the effectiveness of SBI!.

Hardly good for business.

Obviously then, any site included on the “results” page must obtain a decent Alexa ranking on its own, or it makes ZERO sense to feature it on an SBI! PREselling page.

Two last things to think about…

If it were SO easy to manipulate Alexa rankings for your own financial benefit, why is SiteSell the only one to be doing so? Why wouldn’t any of the zillion other website building services use it to demonstrate proof of their own traffic-building systems?

And if SiteSell is manipulating the data, why aren’t they being sued by Alexa?

4. The SBI! Search Engine (SE) Tool submits your site to the SEs, including Google. According to Lis, you should never submit your site to Google.

Really?

According to Google’s own Webmaster guidelines, you should.

I don’t know about you, but I know who I will choose to believe.

5. SBI! advocates the use of PPC (pay-per-click search engines) which…

“…is as about as risky as say foreign exchange dealing as it is not something any new on-line marketer should be doing.”

Uh-huh. Now it’s just getting silly.

A couple things here (and I hate to beat a dead horse, but Lis would have known this had she any real experience with SBI!)…

• Pay-per-click (PPC) advertising is NOT risky. As the owner of an offline business, I can tell you I would love to have more advertising opportunities like PPC, where I can easily select my audience, determine the maximum I will pay per visitor, and measure my conversion rate. In the offline world, I pay a ton of money for advertising and have almost no idea how well it fares for me. Online, you determine what you will pay per visitor, and who those visitors will be. PPC is only risky if you don’t do any research or elementary math, and throw a pile of money at poorly performing keywords and pages.
• The Site Build It! documentation does address PPC advertising in detail, but it does not “advocate” it. PPC is an essential element of online marketing, and depending on the nature of your business, may or may not make sense for you. This is completely addressed in the SBI! Action Guide. Obviously, advertising only makes sense if you can obtain a decent ROI, which usually means you need to be selling your own product or service. But if you can make $50 for every $10 spent on PPC, why on earth wouldn’t you do it? At the very least, you need to be educated about the opportunity.
• For brand new sites that do sell products/services, PPC brings traffic, customers and newsletter subscribers immediately, so your business can start being profitable.

6) “You don’t need a newsletter or autoresponder unless you are selling crap.”

In over 10 years of doing business online, this is the first time I have heard ANYONE say this (having made it this far through her “review” it really shouldn’t surprise me to hear something this dumb).

It doesn’t matter which marketing gurus you worship at the feet of, they all say the same thing; having a newsletter or autoresponder sequence is paramount to ANY online business.

Yes, regardless if you are selling anything or not. It is the only way to stay in touch with your visitors, build trust and rapport with them, and to encourage return visits. If you are actually building a business online – regardless of how you monetize it – you need visitors. More importantly, you need repeat visitors who trust you. The easiest way to accomplish this is with a newsletter and/or autoresponder series.

7) At $300/year, Site Build It! is expensive. All you need to spend is $10 on a domain name, $5/month for hosting, and supplement that with some free tools used in conjunction with WordPress.

Sigh. Let’s go through the reasons why this is yet another ridiculous statement…

1. SBI! is not expensive. The minimum investment for ANY successful online business will be…
   $10/month hosting (I would not recommend paying any less for hosting, regardless of what Lis says. As with everything, you get what you pay for. Cheap hosting is often inferior hosting).
   $10/year for your domain name
   $19.95/month for your autoresponder which you MUST have if you are serious about succeeding online.
   That’s a grand total of $370/year, $70 more than SBI!, which offers all the above, plus tons of other features as well.
2. Compared to other online business building services, SBI! is cheap. For instance, a base level subscription to Adam Short’s Niche Proft Classroom (which I recently reviewed) costs $67/month.  What about tools that offer similar functionality to those already present in SBI!? I recently played with a keyword research tool (Cash Keywords Pro), and it also costs $67/month. SBI! contains a ton of cutting edge keyword research tools already… no need to pay anything extra.
3. SBI! is a LOT more than a series of tools and simple web hosting. It’s the process outlined in the Action Guide that is so invaluable. One thing Lis says is that her suggested bundle of tools is not an “all the tools in one place” solution, and “you’ll have to learn some stuff along the way.” Once again, Lis has FAILED. This time, to account for your time being worth anything. Learning how to build a successful web business from scratch can literally take you years of trial and error. Who do you ”listen” to? Whose ideas are credible? Every guru seems to have a different idea… and product to sell you. What are the best options for your business? Is your business even viable? From keyword targeting to SEO, from web copy to autoresponders and newsletters, from monetization to link building, from social media marketing and Twitter, there’s a ton to know and learn. In short, budding newbie marketers do not need a recommendation for a bunch of free stuff  and an invitation to “go build your business as you see fit.”  What they need is a proven, concise, step-by-step process how to build an online business. And THAT is what SBI offers. And THAT is its biggest value.

8. SBI! is a scary cult.

Which sounds more reasonable to you…

1) The SEO of SiteSell.com, Dr. Ken Evoy, is a diabolical mind control expert. From his bunker in the Caribbean, he controls numerous satellites and operates sophisticated “world-hypnosis” machines which turn innocent surfers into slathering, raving pro-SBI! fanatics.

2) SBI! works (if you work it). This leads to an ecstatic group of individuals who cannot believe their good fortune; the “stay-at-home-mom” doesn’t have to go back to work, but can enjoy raising her daughter. The retired couple are happily supplementing their income and can now follow up on the plans they had before the credit crunch.

Is it any wonder folks like these are both excited by SBI! and eager to share the good news?

I can relate myself; I remember back when the Internet first started earning me a living. I scarcely dared breathe for fear of killing the “goose that laid the golden egg.” It’s an exhilarating feeling - while you sleep, affiliate commissions pile up. As does Adsense and Chitika revenue. Feel like taking a day off? Go for it… the money keeps on coming in.

When it happens, it’s amazing. Unbelievable, in fact. And the way your life opens up? The freedom you now have is incredible.

So I understand the enthusiasm.

But it makes me wonder if Lis actually makes any money online. If she did, she would not mistake genuine enthusiasm for the “evidence of a cult.”

Oh yeah… and I have been in Dr. Evoy’s office several times, and never once did I see any mind control devices.

So there you have it. A complete breakdown of Lis’ BOGUS SBI! review.

What’s the moral of the story?

Always do your own due diligence.

Question those who talk with authority, but have no practical experience with what they deem to be an expert on. Be wary of those who have to retract statements that have been proven inaccurate, especially when rudimentary research would have established the facts beforehand. And watch for statements that are completely at odds with readily established facts (i.e. “you don’t need a newsletter unless you are selling something”).

Of course, always, always, always look for evidence of an ulterior motive. Lis’ article is packed with them.

As for me, well… SBI! may be for you, or it may not be for you. Regardless, it is an amazing tool and you deserve to know the truth.

Oh yes, and one more thing; SiteSell has prepared a response to Lis’ article. You may wish to read the official response to the whole “SBI! scam.”

Argh.

This morning I received yet another e-mail from some “marketer” or another, promising me the secrets of the guru’s for an unbelievably low price.

Uh-huh.

Amazing how such a large majority of marketers – even some of the most successful ones apparently – can’t seem to spell. Yep, they can dominate the search engines, suck ooodles of cash out of the pockets of hapless surfers, and effortlessly deliver truckloads of back-links to their web sites, without having mastered the basics of grammar.

Guru’s.

With an “apostrophe.”

The apostrophe in this case, denotes possession. As in… “this is the guru’s pen.” The apostrophe “shows” us that “this is the pen belonging to the guru.”

The thing is, these are the people who are supposed to know better. It’s a well-established fact that online, spelling and grammar mistakes severely undermine your credibility. After all, a new visitor does not have a whole heck of a lot upon which to judge whether or not you are a credible authority in your field.

How many really successful business people or companies are you aware of that have blatant spelling mistakes in their promotional copy?

I know that as soon as I see something like “guru’s”, my respect level immediately drops a notch or two. Rightly or wrongly my first thought is…

“How much can you REALLY know about marketing if you can’t master basic English?”

Now I have to be honest here; I’m famous for my thoughts getting ahead of my typing. This will occasionally result in some interesting “word stew.” And everyone makes honest mistakes. But if you’re doing business online in any capacity, you cannot afford to do so. That’s why in addition to using a spell-checker, I have someone review ALL my material (even this is not foolproof, but it does eliminate 99% of errors).

You need to do the same.

If you run a large business, you can delegate the appropriate person to the task. If not, get your spouse / friend / daughter / son to do it. The bottom line is this – get another pair of eyeballs on your material.

You can’t afford to make credibility-demolishing mistakes and expect to become successful with your online business.

Like “guru’s.”

As you may have noticed, it’s been about three weeks since I last made a post here on No-BS-Marketing. Although my main “dot-com” businesses (UltimateFatBurner.com & Real-Customer-Comments.com) are always my #1 priority, I really hoped I would be more consistent posting material to this site. But sometimes, running a successful Internet business gets in the way.

And that’s the topic of today’s ramblings.

If you’ve just begun your Internet business in the quest to make money online, you’ll understand what I say when I tell you that as an Internet marketer, you have to wear many hats. At least, you have to wear many hats until you’re profitable enough to start outsourcing some of your tasks. For example, you need to…

• Create reams and reams of well researched, authoritative content.
• Perform basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tasks, such as on-page optimizing and link building.
• Investigate monetization options like ads from Chitika or Adsense, and relevant affiliate programs.
• Set up and write a bi-monthly/weekly informative newsletter (and a series of autoresponder messages).
• Investigate and evaluate new marketing options as they arise (i.e., video marketing).
• Seek out and approach joint venture partners.
• Daily tasks; moderating comments, updating RSS feeds, etc, etc.

And so on and so on and so on.

That’s a LOT of hats.

And there are two major problems with this.

First, it’s not uncommon to get paralyzed by the magnitude and sheer number of jobs in front of you. It’s easy to find yourself dividing your time up between umpteen different, yet equally important tasks on a daily basis. In the end, you make very little progress on anything.

The solution to this is simple; prioritize your tasks on a daily basis, and do not focus your energies on any more than one or two tasks per work session.

For example, on one day you may decide to focus only on content creation. On the next, some on-page optimization and link building. And the day after, a newsletter and a new message for your autoresponder. The key is to have your tasks set out the night before, so you know exactly what you are doing the following day.

A word about prioritizing your tasks; obviously, your priorities will vary according to the state of your online business. For example, if your site is new, you are wasting your time if you’re investigating monetization options, affiliate programs or linking opportunities. All your efforts need to be focused on creating enough quality content to…

• Address the needs of your visitors
• Drive “organic” traffic from the Search Engines
• Warrant a link from a quality directory or resource

Until this is done, everything else you do is a waste of your time (if you have no traffic, for instance, then the investigating of monetization options is pointless, since you have no visitors to monetize).

Once your online business is established, you can take a breather from creating content and focus more on marketing-related tasks. As an example…

For me, the creation of new content becomes a major priority every two weeks prior to the mailing of a newsletter (the newsletter provides updates on new material – without new material, there’s no point in sending it!). In the time between newsletters, I can focus on other tasks.

The other problem with wearing too many hats is that there will come a time when no amount of prioritizing of tasks and efficient work management strategies will help you grow your business at a timely manner.

And that’s where I am at the moment.

My main site, UltimateFatBurner.com, contains a thousand pages of content or more. It receives 5-figure traffic numbers daily. It continues to grow day by day, week by week, year by year. But it is growing s… l… o… w… l…y (there are, after all, only two of us whose main priority is the site). And, the larger a web site becomes, the more difficult it is to make dramatic changes to traffic numbers, in-pointing links, etc.

It’s certainly no longer possible for me to wear all my hats, work efficiently and move the site forward. I can’t research and write content, moderate comments, investigate JVs, create videos and pod/blogcasts, obtain in-pointing links, plus the 8 zillion other things on my “to do”.

The only way to continue to move forward is for me to take off some of my hats, by outsourcing some of my jobs to third parties. The question for me then becomes…

What tasks CAN I outsource to third parties?

Obviously, I am not willing to compromise the quality and integrity of UltimateFatBurner.com. And, since the foundation of those things lie with the high quality, well-researched content found on the site, clearly that is something I will need to continue to do myself. But things like video creation, blog/podcast creation, SEO… these are things I can outsource. After all, this is simply a re-packaging and leveraging of existing content.

I am going to talk about the outsourcing process more a little later – the point of this discussion is recognizing the number of hats you must wear as an Internet Marketer, and how that can seriously affect your productivity. What drew my attention to this over the last few weeks was the fact that I never seemed to be able to “deliver on my deliverables.” When I really did some hard thinking on this, it was easy to see the problem.

To address the issue, I spent some time clearly defining my role – specifically listing all the tasks I do week by week. Then I divided those tasks into those I could outsource, and those I could not. It’s been an illuminating experience, and one I hope will vastly improve my efficiency and the growth of my web sites.

Sometimes, you need to take off one or more of your hats in order to grow.

For those of you not ready to outsource yet, clearly defining your tasks on a day to day basis – according to the state of your web site – is a priority.

Give it a try. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.