Over the last several months I’ve been talking a lot about video, and how I think it has real potential for small businesses trying to eke out a living on the Net. We know people love videos – heck, eMarketer is reporting 144 million online video viewers in the U.S. ALONE this year. And even better, Google really seems to like them, featuring them prominently in their search results.

One of the issues I’ve been wrestling with is figuring out how to use video efficiently; the videos I’ve created to date (see the “5-7 Day Free Scam” video and the “hCG” video) have been fairly time intensive. Since I wear “many hats” over at UltimateFatBurner.com, I can’t devote huge blocks of time to creating long and fairly complex videos.

Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t heard, Google has been working on a serious revamping of its search infrastructure (it may have officially launched by the time you read this) which it is calling Caffeine. In webmaster’s circles, this has upcoming revision has caused some major consternation and hand wringing; what happens if Google significantly changes its algorithym and rankings fall? What if they begin to penalize in-pointing links? What if this, and what if that?

Yawn.

Read the rest of this entry »

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

A few months back, I started messing around a little more seriously with Chitika’s Premium Ad service (which displays targeted advertising to visitors arriving directly from a Search Engine – visitors navigating through your site will not see the ads) on UltimateFatBurner.com to see how it would perform (if you’re not “up to speed” on the great Chitika discussion, I recommend reviewing the original post, and my follow up post).

Initially, I placed a small (468 X 60) ad directly below the H1 heading on 10 top-performing pages on UltimateFatBurner.com and tracked the data for a month. The results were uninspiring (no difference in CTR or eCPM) although not entirely surprising. The Chitika representatives I have communicated with have always emphasized the importance of using a larger sized ad format – in a prominent position – if one is to expect a dramatic increase in ad metrics.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today, the time on the clock has run out. I’m out of patience. Done. Had it. Finito.

Yep, today I’m unsubscribing from a ream of newsletters of various Internet Marketing gurus of one form or another.

Why?

Read the rest of this entry »

A few weeks ago, I put together a post on the growing popularity of online video. In it, I discuss how online video is exploding in popularity and why this surge of popularity has got me so excited. However, the majority of this article covers the logistics of video creation; what you need in the way of software and tools, and so on.

It doesn’t really address some of the really cool ways you can use video to leverage your web site, and its existing content. Since this discussion of video is near and dear to my own heart (I’m eager to find the best – and most efficient – ways to use it on my own site – UltimateFatBurner.com and Real-Customer-Comments.com), I’d like to share with you some of the more exciting avenues I’ve investigated, or am currently investigating.

Read the rest of this entry »

Less than 10 years ago, it was “on-page” elements that were the major contributing factor to top Search Engine (SE) rankings. These included keyword density (how often did your keywords appear in the page’s text, anchor text and critical <TITLE> and <META> tags, etc) as well as keyword prominence (i.e., where on the page your keywords appears), and numerous other factors.

Read the rest of this entry »

Today I’m planning to download two Internet-Marketing related products and do some reading (Neil Shearing’s Top Linking Secrets and Kevin Riley’s Recipe for Creating Live Video Infomercials). No matter how much work you do online, or how “plugged in” you are into things, it’s always a good idea – from time to time – to invest a few bucks and some “learning” time into fresh manuals and publications from reputable online marketers. Over the years, I’ve spent thousands of dollars doing just that.

Read the rest of this entry »

The other day, Elissa and I spent some time discussing what we considered to be one of the many reasons why people fail to attain their weight loss goals (Elissa is UltimateFatBurner.com’s scientific and technical adviser and contributing author).

Any guesses as to what that might be?

Read the rest of this entry »

A month ago, I introduced my newest test tube article on the Chitika Premium ad service. You can review the original post for the complete details but basically, I tested the Chitika Premium ads (they deliver extremely targeted ads and appear only to visitors arriving directly from a Search Engine (SE) query) to see what sort of results they would deliver. I placed the 468 X 60 ad at the top of my pages, just below the <H1> heading, as recommended by my Chitika account representative.

The results?

Read the rest of this entry »