The NetProfit Report

I've moved my personal rantings to a new home. You can now find my personal blog at MarcQuarles.com. Hope to see you there!

Marc

I live in Slidell, Louisiana. Check that - I *used* to live in Slidell, Louisiana. Slidell is now really nothing more than a collection of abandoned and flooded buildings that over 35,000 people used to call home.

With all the media attention on New Orleans, it's easy to forget about the smaller, more rural areas that have also been destroyed, and will most likely never fully recover… areas like my town of Slidell.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, it became very apparent to me that my decision to work online full-time thirteen months ago has saved at least my sanity, and most likely my future. People who live in the suburbs of New Orleans generally fall into three categories.

Commuters: Folks that live in Slidell, and commute to New Orleans to work. These poor people most likely no longer have a house or a job. Sure, the ones that work for big corporations will most likely be able to get a transfer to a new location, but the ones working for small business are no going to be so lucky. The bridge from Slidell to New Orleans is gone, so even after all the cleanup is completed, and *assuming* that the small business they worked for still exists, how are they going to get to work each day? There is another bridge from Mandeville to New Orleans, but that's going to add 20 or 30 miles to their commute each way… A good majority of these people will simply not be returning, because they live paycheck-to-paycheck, and cannot afford to wait 2 or 3 months for the infrastructure to be restored.

Business Owners: There are quite a few people living in Slidell who own a business either in Slidell, or in New Orleans. Chances are, these people are not living paycheck to paycheck, but their source of income is now gone. The ones whose businesses are downtown can't even get there to try and salvage what they can. The ones whose businesses are in Slidell are not much better off - if their business survived the storm and flooding, there is no electricity or water, so they are going to have to wait for the infrastructure to be rebuilt before they can open for business again… however, because a majority of the commuters are simply not going to return, will there be enough of a customer base for their businesses to survive? These folks have thousands, or hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in their businesses, and although insurance will cover their direct losses, the loss of potential customers will most likely force these business owners to close their businesses forever.

Locals: People that live and work in Slidell. With no infrastructure, living and working in Slidell is currently impossible. The mayor of Slidell announced on CNN that it will most likely be 12 weeks before the electricity comes back on… who can sit around for 12 weeks without an income?? I don't expect there to be many of these people left when the lights come back on, either.

Now, consider the overall financial devestation that is about to take place for all of these middle-class, working Americans. You have no power or water for 12 weeks. Your job no longer exists (nor any job, for that matter). The bridge to where most of the jobs are is destroyed. Consider the mass exodus that is about to take place among the middle class from the New Orleans region, as they look for new jobs and homes.

Tell me - what is that going to do to real estate values in this area - even the real estate that was not damaged by the storm? Houses that were worth $150,000 two weeks ago may be worth $30,000 when the lights come back on. With no jobs, no easy way to commute to the jobs that may exist, and few businesses able to remain open, who is going to want to live anywhere near there? Remember, real estate is a supply and demand market - there is not going to be any demand… but there is going to be a TON of supply as people who have moved to new locations try to sell off their houses… because they can't afford two mortgages.

In 6 to 12 months, you're going to see a huge rash of bankruptcies and foreclosures because these people can't pay two mortgages, and can't sell their houses for anything near what they owe on them. I haven't seen anyone talking about this… but it is going to happen.

Now, let me explain exactly how Internet Marketing saved my life. I work online. I create software and other products, I run multiple money-generating websites, and I assist other people who are attempting to do the same. I quit my job thirteen months ago, still $80,000 in debt. Today, I'm debt free (with the exception of a mortgage), and make a decent amount of money each month. I'm not physically dependent upon anything but a laptop and an internet connection.

In fact, after evacuating for the storm, my entire business was back up and running 100% within 8 days - and that 8 days was spent finding a house in Texas to rent and getting a broadband connection installed. Because of the nature of online business, I made a few thousand dollars in income during this 8 days while not being able to actively work.

Now contrast that with the vast majority of folks who will be out of work, and possibly homeless, for quite some time - depending on government, or family, or charities for their very survival for many months.

My house was not destroyed… in fact, it was hardly even damaged. But with the upcoming exodus that I see happening, I fully expect that house to be practically worthless for quite some time. However, because I laid the groudwork for the past couple of years, I'm in a position where I am able to keep paying on my mortgage, while renting another house, as I wait for normalcy to return to the Greater New Orleans area.

When things are "pretty much back to normal" in Slidell, I'll be able to return to my house, without having to worry about trying to find a job, or commuting to the city… I'll have the choice to either return to Slidell, or stay in my new town… many. many people will not have such a choice.

Please don't take this as me "tooting my horn" or anything of the sort. No one was expecting anything like this to happen, least of all me. I'm trying to point out that, if you have been trying to establish an online business of any sort, keep at it! It's not easy, and it can't be done overnight - but it definately can be done. If you've thought about starting an online business, but haven't yet gotten started, do so! If a massive disaster hits your area, you may just find that internet marketing has saved your life as well.

I've always been fascinated by "anti-marketing", and how powerful its effect can be if done properly, so when I stumbled upon The Rich Jerk salesletter, I was immediately intrigued.

I'll admit, I'm one of those people who *never* reads a salesletter when I am considering buying something (I do read them when researching techniques, but that's another story), but from the moment I read The Rich Jerk's headline, I couldn't keep from reading the entire thing. Sure, in the back of my brain, I was telling myself that I was only reading it from a research perspective, and that I had no intention of actually purchasing the book. However, by the time I was halfway through the salesletter, I absolutely HAD to buy the ebook. Even if it was just the same rehashed old stuff, this guy deserved my money just for the education (and entertainment!) I got from his salesletter. My point here is that anti-marketing works very well if done right, and The Rich Jerk has done it extremely right

However, after reading the book, I'm pleasantly suprised! The Rich Jerk does indeed contain information that WILL assist you in making more money online…

His writing style is easy to follow, and perfectly understandable if you've been around the internet for a short time, but it is definately not for complete newbies (he does not, for example, take you step by step through registering a domain name or obtaining web hosting) - if you feel like you need any amount of hand-holding, this ebook is not for you.

In the first chaper, entitled "Creating an Affiliate Website that Sells Like Crazy", he covers building affiliate websites to earn commissions from the sales of other people's products. He starts by listing 13 affiliate sites and ranks them as "must join", "maybe join", and "join if [you are] bored". Once you've selected a product to sell, he goes through six specific writing strategies to use on your affiliate site to hook the reader and get them to click through on your affiliate link. He then gives you a complete sample "sales letter" (it's more like an article) with all of his strategies at work.

The third section in chaper one discusses offering rebates to your customers, but it's not just the same old "buy from me and I'll give you part of my affiliate fee back". Rich Jerk delves into specific ways to do refunds that will increase your bottom line as opposed to simply offering a rebate.

In the final section of chaper one, Rich Jerk writes about setting up pay-per-lead sites, where you get paid $10 or so for each person who provides you with his or her information (which you then pass on to a company which pays you for the lead.) I found this section to be a bit light on content, although there is enough there to get his point across. I think this is a technique that has not been explored very deeply by any of the mainstream internet marketing channels, and one that warrants further research.

Chapter Two of The Rich Jerk goes into being a traffic middleman, and he reveals just how much money can be made by doing this. I have to be honest with you, this chapter alone is well worth the price of the ebook - you can easily use this chapter to make well more than the price of the ebook in just a few days - all it takes is a little time and action on your part. The funny thing is that it's one of those things that, when you read it, you're going to smack yourself on the forehead and think to yourself "Duh! I'm an idiot!"… at least that's the reaction I had.

The Rich Jerk also discusses unique ways to use PPC ads to drive more traffic from them - more of his Anti-marketing at work here. Using the writing techniques he discusses in Chapter One, you can create anti-marketing PPC ads that I'd say will get quite a few clicks. He even gives specific examples of his techniques at work, with Before and After examples (his after examples are sometimes funny, and sometimes just plain silly, but you'll understand exactly why they pull so well as soon as you read them.) To finish up the section on PPC advertising, he reminds you that popups are not allowed on landing pages, but that you can use DHTML popups, and he even gives you the code to make them.

Chapter Three of The Rich Jerk is all about Search Engine Optimization. He starts the chapter off by showing us one of his websites that has multiple number one rankings in Google for very competetive keywords - proof that his strategies work. The first section is called "Inbound Links", and goes into detail where and how to get inbound links to your website(s). Included is a list of 40 free and paid directories with significant PageRank, and a discussion on buying inbound links, including exactly how to set up your inbound links (hint: don't use the same text for every link!) Other inbound linking strategies he covers are using signature lines in forum posts, setting up blogs, and submitting articles to article directories. He doesn't go into much detail on these three techniques, but he does cover enough to explain why you'll want to take advantage of them.

After covering inbound links, The Rich Jerk discusses on-page factors that will assist your SEO efforts. These are really just the basics, and anyone who has ever researched even basic SEO will be instantly familiar with them. There is nothing ground-breaking revealed here, but it definately needs to be in the book.

The third section of this chaper discusses miscellaneous SEO techniques, a couple of which I was unfamiliar with. The Rich Jerk covers HOW to do internal site linking, and how to set up 301 redirects. He even provides the .htaccess instructions needed to accomplish this. One thing absent from this section, however, is WHY to do 301 redirects. Throughout the rest of the book, he does a very good job explaining the basic reasons for doing particular things, but in this section, he does not. I'm sure a Google search would quickly reveal the reasons why, but I think he could have covered it in just a sentence or two.

The final section of Chapter Three discusses (insert ominous music) cloaking. When I first came into the online marketing world, I noticed people talked about cloaking in hushed tones, and only in back rooms and alleys. "Don't do it!", they'd say. "You'll get banned!", others would warn. Well, the fact of the matter is that lots and lots of people who are making lots and lots of money online are cloaking. It's one of those things that everyone pretends that they don't do. The Rich Jerk gives it to us straight: "Cloaking is frowned upon by most webmasters, except for the ones who do it and make a lot of money like me." and "…the easiest way for a lazy person to get good rankings is by cloaking."

The Rich Jerk explains what cloaking is, how to do it, and how to not get caught. He also provides links to two cloaking tools - one very expensive, and one rather reasonable.

Now that The Rich Jerk has discussed the specfic strategies he uses for building websites and getting traffic to them, chapters four and five discuss selling your own products (as opposed to selling as an affiliate, which was covered in Chapter One.) Chapter Four details creating your own informational products to sell using The Rich Jerk's website building and traffic pulling techniques. Chapter Five discusses buying wholesale goods and reselling them. He warns us of the scams in the market and how not to get burned, and also gives us a list of 11 excellent wholesale sources.

Chapter Six of The Rich Jerk is "Websites you can Make Profitable Right Now", and seems to be a "what to do to get started" section. He details how to find the best products to sell at Clickbank, and then urges us to put the information in chapters one through three to work. He wraps up the chapter with a listing of websites that have made him over a million dollars (although he does not specify whether the websites themselves made him over a million dollars, or whether selling the sites, as he eventually did, made him over a million dollars.)

Chapter Seven lists some ways to invest your newly acquired wealth in some not-so-traditional ways. Specifically, he details currency exchange brokering and High Yield Investment Programs (HYIPs). He gives the basics about how to do these, and only lightly touches on the risks involved, but he does provide some good external resources for anyone who is interested in looking into these further.

Chapter Eight is "Quality Products/Services I Highly Recommend", where he rehashes his affiliate links from throughout the ebook.

Overall, The Rich Jerk is an excellent ebook, chock full of strategies to make money online. The book covers a wide variety of techniques, without bogging the reader down with too many details. All of the advice is sound, from the standpoint of making money, but some of his suggestions may make some people uncomfortable (he warns of this at the beginning of the book.)

People new to internet marketing should not buy it until they have mastered the basics. Intermediate marketers will find tons of excellent ideas for maximizing their income, and even advanced marketers will find a gem or two in here. As I mentioned earlier, I believe just the traffic middleman strategies are worth more than the price of admission, so I'd have to give this ebook my highest recommendation.

You may purchase The Rich Jerk here: The Rich Jerk Ebook

I know you've heard them - the "come to www.whatever.com and get your FREE credit report!" ads on the radio and television.

I've been there, and I've gotten my free credit report(s). I also noticed that I had to provide a credit card number in order to get my free credit report. The reason? Because after 30 days, unless I cancelled, I'd be automatically subscribed to a credit report monitoring service for around $80 per year. It sounded like a great service - you get an email anytime anyone accesses your credit report, so that you'll know if someone is trying to open accounts under your name, or if that rip-off credit card company just bounced your introductory 3.9% interest rate up to 29.99%.

However, I didn't want it, so five minutes after I got my credit report, I cancelled the subscription… no problem.

Now it looks like the FTC doesn't like this type of marketing - Site Settles Deceptive Credit Report Claims

In fact, they liken this "get something for free, and unless you cancel within 30 days, we're going to charge your credit card for something additional" marketing to "deceptive practices", and one of those free credit report companies has agreed to pay just under a million dollars in fines.

Give me a freaking break! If you enter your credit card number into a site that is offering something for free, your little "WTF" radar should be pinging like crazy. "OK, they want my CC info - what are they going to charge me for later?" Find it, cancel it, no problem… but I guess the FTC has decided that stupid people who just willy-nilly enter their credit card numbers into websites need to be protected from their own stupidity. Never mind the fact that these poor abused people could simply request a refund or, if need be, a chargeback. Never mind that a site that is asking you for your credit card number in exchange for something FREE is obviously going to charge you for something else. And, with the exception of those few scam sites out there, I'd be willing to bet that WHY they want your credit card and WHAT it is going to be charged for is CLEARLY stated on the website (God forbid someone actually READ a page they are putting their credit card number into!)

So, what are the ramifications of this moronic fine? What about all those Time-Life books and records out there? You know the ones - "Get the Obscure 50's Classics CD set for only $9.95 plus shipping and handling. Then, you'll receive a new Obscure 50's Classics CD every month - keep the ones you want, cancel anytime!". Those poor people just wanted a CD with Enis Thatcher's number 56 song from 1952 on it - they didn't *understand* that they'd keep getting more CDs every month until they *gasp* cancelled! Oh, the humanity!

But my guess is that this really only applies to the Internet - you know, that lawless "wild west" place where slick salesletters are waiting to take granny's Social Security check. I wonder if this would apply to any of those "one month free" offers I've been seeing lately - get the first month of a membership site free, and, unless you cancel, you'll be charged $X per month for your continued membership… "Oh, Mr. FTC agent! I just wanted my free month! It's not fair that they started charging my credit card just because I didn't cancel! They're using deceptive practices!"

Ok, end of rant - if you're offering something "free" and, for whatever reason, you're getting a credit card number up front to be billed later (unless they cancel), you might want to watch your back

Marc

Well, it only took them two years to catch up to Yahoo

As of today, Google's news pages now display RSS and ATOM links for its news stories. These feeds are keyword based, and so can be used with tools like RSS Equalizer.

The feeds are much more than just a bland Title and Description - many of the feeds include pictures, which really enhance the general appearance of your feeds. You'll also notice "similar stories" attached to the feeds - more content, but also more outbound links, so be careful if you are trying to minimize the outbound links…

Be sure to read Google's TOS - it's a bit more in-depth than just "for non-commercial use".