See You in Atlanta in August for NAMS!

I’m ready to be a full time affiliate marketer this year. Ready! I am headed for NAMS (stands for Niche Affiliate Marketing Systems) in August, an affiliate marketing workshop designed to get you turning profit online and doing it the right way! I am so excited, words cannot describe how totally thrilled I am with this.

Check out this lineup of marketers that will be providing presentations and hands on training!

* Mark Hendricks
* Jeff Herring
* Kathleen Gage
* Lynn Terry
* David Preston
* Chris Lockwood
* Alan R. Bechtold
* Cathy Perkins
* Aileen Bennett
* Rob Anderson
* Joe Marsh
* Cindi Dawson
* Willie Crawford
* David Perdew…

I can’t wait! If you’ll be in Atlanta for NAMS or just in the area August 14 – 16 I’d love to meet you and hang out if we get the chance!

I’ll probably blog about this more later, I just had to let you know I was going! I hope to meet a few of you and share some ideas.

Social Bookmarking For Online Business

Have you ever visited a site and thought you might like to come back to it, so in order to find it again, you saved it to your browser’s “favorites” or “bookmarks” category? “Social bookmarking” is a term that describes a method in which Internet users can store, classify and share their Internet bookmarks.

There are many sites that allow users to share the sites they feel are useful and want others to know about. Other users can view these sites by category, topic or randomly, if they choose.

While this concept actually began in 1996, it started to get very popular in 2005 and 2006 when sites such as http://del.icio.us, http://simpy.com and http://furl.net started to take off.

As more and more of these websites pop up, new features such as allowing users to rate and comment upon the bookmarks, add notes, receive RSS feeds and even create social networks have popped up. The RSS feeds in particular allow users to receive up to the minute information on certain tags that they “subscribe” to. They are able to receive up to the minute information and resources on any given topic.

Since the information is being ranked by humans who are reading the information, the web pages with the most helpful content are receiving higher rankings. This is in comparison to a search engine’s spider that crawls the Internet and has its own way of measuring what pops up in the search engine results.

If you were searching for information on planting soil in a social bookmarking site, you may have very different results than which would come up in a general search engine search.

What does all of this have to do with your business? Basically, social bookmarking is the new “word of mouth” advertising. The more people that bookmark content on your site increases the chance of new users finding your site as they search through various users’ bookmarks.

If a site provides quality content that users find helpful and a little time is spent networking within these social bookmarking sites’, a site could have a much higher ranking within the social bookmarking site than it does in general search engine traffic.

Social bookmarking is another avenue of receiving web traffic. With many people taking hits from the search engines, this is another way to receive traffic. This doesn’t mean to ignore search engines or discontinue any search engine optimization efforts. This is simply another method that can increase traffic flow.

How Using CSS Makes Life Easier

Cascading Style Sheets, also known as CSS, is a computer language that describes how the website should be presented. It shows what the background color is, what size of font is displayed and so forth.

CSS is designed in a manner that makes it easier to define how text should look. If you are familiar with HTML, you will know that it was designed as a structural language. When the web was in it’s early development stages, websites were not “pretty”. In fact, HTML didn’t contain bold or italics tags until the mid 1990’s.

When someone uses CSS to build their website, they do not have to include a bunch of opening and closing tags, as would be needed with HTML. With CSS, not only can the website designer have the ability to set the colors, text and the background of any element, they can also create borders around images and define how much space these borders contain.

Another advantage of using CSS is that it centralizes all the commands for a specified visual effect. If a web designer wanted all of the headers on a website to be blue, they can simply create one rule in CSS that defines what each of the headers will look like.

If that same web designer were using HTML, they would have to add font tags around each header. If the website contained 40 pages, the designer would need to add 40 font tags around each header. As you can see in that example, creating one simple rule in CSS was a lot simpler and less time consuming. If the web designer wants to change the heading color from blue to red all they would need to do is change that one CSS rule, versus changing each font tag again.

The “cascading” part of CSS comes into pay when a web designer wants to add a specific style to a web page. To maintain a common theme throughout a site, the designer could save the style sheet to it’s own document and import it on any page they want to carry the theme to. If the web designer wants one page to stand out against the others, they can create another style sheet on that page. The two style sheets would cascade, and the web browser will display the style sheet that is specific for that page.

Some browsers allow the reader of the website to change the CSS of a page. This is called Reader Style Sheets. The reader could set all links to a special, pre-defined color. This is a great tool for color-blind web surfers.

Another bonus to CSS is that, when implemented, it creates smaller file sizes. Your pages won’t take as long to load as those written in HTML.

A good way to practice working with CSS is through a blog. It doesn’t matter if you use Blogger, WordPress or TypePad because they are all written with CSS. These sites also have CSS tutorials to help along the way.

Hiveminder tracks all your daily tasks

Hiveminder is a web-based service that tracks all your daily tasks through email. It is full of tools that will help you remember, assign and create tasks all in one convinent place. It even allows you to share your tasks with family, friends and co-workers.

Do all those to-do lists seem to get you down? Find it hard to keep track of all the things you have to do each day? Hiveminder helps keep everything in order and makes life less complicated.

My life is full of these little sticky notes. No matter where I look there’s a note reminding me to do this and don’t forget that. The bad part is I do forget! I forget to look at the notes or they get lost in this pile of papers on what was once my desk.

Not anymore. With Hiveminder all I have to do is bring up my account, add the task to a list, check email and be on my way. No more missed appointments or deadline.

I love the braindump feature. Braindump is exactly what I need to do too. With braindump I just enter a task as soon as I think of it that way I don’t forget about it. I can then go back later and organize all my dumped tasks into categories.

The number system used for tasks works great too. As soon as I create a task it’s assigned a number. No two tasks have the same number so if it’s something I need to assign to someone else, I don’t have to worry that it will get mixed up with other tasks.

Hiveminder also include tabs. These tabs help you set out your tasks in different categories. I simply assign various tabs for items like phone calls, Dr. appointments, grocery shopping, laundry pickup, client projects and deadlines and so on. This saves me so much time because I don’t have to go through every single task I have in order to find just one. I just hit the tab, look at the tasks and find the right one in a blink of an eye.

In today’s world of go-go-go anything that can make my life simple has got to be good. From my standpoint Hiveminder is great. Sure helps keep me from running around in circles all the time!

Adsense Alternatives

Many people have started using Google’s AdSense program, but there are some who find it a bit too uncertain or simply not suiting their own requirements from an ad program.

But thankfully for such people, there are many alternatives to AdSense which attempt to alleviate some of its shortcomings. Here is a list of the most noteworthy ones from the lot with a description concerning each one. All of the links in this post are straight links, there are no affiliate or referral links.

AllFeeds (http://www.allfeeds.com/?action=publishers)
AllFeeds has a great pool of online advertisers to choose from. It also features many display formats that you can choose from. These include banners, buttons, XML feeds, DHTML pop-ups and so on. It also features real time reporting of your ad status. The site will mail a check every month, provided that you earn more then $25.00, while rolling over earnings for the next month if you don’t. Another interesting thing about AllFeeds is that it integrates with Google AdSense, maximizing your earnings with AdSense.

MarketBanker (http://www.marketbanker.com/mb/sell.php)
MarketBanker allows you the unique possiblity to set the pricing for your site. It also allows you to allow or reject any link that appears on your site (although AdSense itself does a very good job of this as well, with URL filters) There’s also a statistics section which will allow you to see how well your site is doing. The ads are small just like AdSense’s and they’re just as easy to set up. Also, registration for MarketBanker is free.

BidClix (http://www.bidclix.com/PubTop.html BidClix is different because it has advertisers compete for clicks on your site, which in turn is meant to generate the highest possible profits for your page. It also has a very large pool of advertisers which ensure there are plenty of people to choose your site. However, it does require more polish on site contents then AdSense. As most sites, real time statistics are available and its very easy to get started with this service, but it's also very flexible.

Chitika (http://www.realcontext.com/index.php?option=RealContext:+Contextual+Targeting+Engine)
RealContext uses Artificial intelligence to retrieve the most relevant ads for your page. And there’s an extra feature which makes RealContext unique as well. Keywords are selected based upon which previous selections payed off and which didn’t. That means there’s a constant feedback process that ensures you gain better revenue from your ads. It also supports blocking certain adds and child-safe filtering and many more options.

AdHearus (http://adhearus.com/webmaster.php)
AdHearus is a very feature-packed contextual ad provider. As with AdSense, advertisements are targeted but it doesn’t stop here at all. The ads are very flexible, you can select from text-ads, banners, rectangles, pop-ups, pop-unders or skyscrapers. You can also display your own ads, through rotation, both on your site and on other affiliate sites, which makes AdHearus a hybrid with conventional advertising technologies. There’s a very comprehensive on-line real time reporting feature and, as usual with such services, starting out is free and it’s a breeze.

AffiliateSensor (http://www.affiliatesensor.com/)
AffiliateSensor has highly customizable ad blocks, which you can make for yourself with an easy to use on-line interface. You also get realtime reporting with clicks-by-domain, page and refferer. There’s integration with Google AdSense as well, through the google_alternate_ad_url so AffiliateSensor can be used as a substitute for Google PSA’s (Public Service Ads).

Kanoodle Bright Ads (http://www.kanoodle.com/about/brightads.cool)
Kanoodle’s offering allows publishers to get ads related to topics or segments, and not the traditional keyword oriented ads. The site also groups publisher sites with advertisers by hand to ensure high-revenue generating ads. And speaking of revenue, the amount of money you receive is a clear 50% share of the amount of money Kanoodle recieves for an advertiser.

TargetPoint (http://publisher.targetpoint.com)
TargetPoint is oriented more towards content publishers. It offers full control over the look the ads, statistics over your site’s overall performance and better revenue. It’s free to register and you earn a guaranteed 60% of the total revenue. You can get payed with Paypal of Bank checks and (most times) wire transfers as well.

Clicksor (http://www.clicksor.com)
Clicksor will earn you as much as 60% from the amount of money your website produces. What you get is about the same as AdSense, there are targeted text ads, you can view the revenues from your website in real time. You can receive money via PayPal or through a check every two weeks, provided that you have earned more then $50. If you haven’t made that much, your earning roll over to the next period

Bidvertiser (http://www.bidvertiser.com/)
Like AdSense, Bidvertiser displays text ads in your page. But the difference lies in the fact that advertisers bid over your advertising space, ensuring you earn as much revenue as you possibly can. This also means that bids will increase over time, earning you even more cash. You also get a great way to customize your ads with a very easy to use tool and detailed reports on your site’s status.

Quigo AdSonar (http://www.quigo.com/adsonarpublishers.htm)
Quigo AdSonar achieves relevancy by placing a filter according to your site’s categories. It also offers you on-line reports of your site’s status and the possibility to add your own custom ads replacing ads that don’t gain you any revenue. The setup is very simple, in a similar fashion to AdSense’s and quite customizable as well.

Vibrant Media IntelliTXT (http://www.vibrantmedia.com/vibrantvideo/index.asp?referrer=Intellitxt.com)
Vibrant Media IntelliTXT offers user-activated ads, highlighting certain words within the content of the page and presenting relevant ads when a user hovers his mouse over them. It uses a pay-for-performance pricing scheme and can easily be used along with other advertising methods, because it is unobtrusive. It places you in full control, allowing you to easily integrate it within your site with some simple JavaScript.

Nixie (http://www.nixxie.com/display.php?section=Partners)
Nixie claims to hold a technology that can read and understand your site, enabling it to display the most relevant content to your site. Besides text ads, Nixie also features price comparison listings as well as live auction advertising. It’s very easy to implement and has a good payment policy as well.

MIVA AdRevenue Xpress (http://www.miva.com/us/content/partners/arx.asp)
MIVA AdRevenue Xpress is targeted towards small and mid-sized publishers. It implements Search Box functionality and also features things like a Category Directory as well as the handling of 404 error pages. It can be integrated with your page using a simple on-line wizard.

Value Click Media (formerly FastClick) (http://www.valueclickmedia.com/)
Valueclick offers you an impressive 65 percent of what it makes from a click on your website. Payments are done monthly, via PayPal or through checks. The ads can be formatted as you wish, and Valueclick even offers a free support serice for its members and no fees are required to register with the service.

contextWeb ContextAd (http://www.contextweb.com/Corporate/publisher/publisher.shtml)
ContextAd offers the possibility of contextual ads for dynamic pages, meaning ads will change as soon as your page does. It’s very easy to use and free to sing up for and offers a transparent payment policy. The ads are fully customizable and real-time reports are available 24/7.

AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/)
AdBrite offers publishers the possibility of integrating text ads in their pages. These are done on your own rates, with the websites you approve by hand so it bares some similarities with a classic advertising scheme. You also have the option of adding a “Your Add Here” button that buyers can immediately click to ad space on your page. It can also be used in conjunction with Google AdSense, maximizing your CTR and offering advertisers the possibility of showing their links in your Google AdSense space. You have full control over the look and feel of your adds and finally, you get an incredible 75% of what the advertiser pays for on every click.

So, as you can see there are many offers for this kind of advertising, and many hybrids based on AdSense like advertising. Also, a lot of services can work together with AdSense to earn you an even greater amount of revenue for your ad space.