This may seem like the most obvious to some, but other Entrecard users might be “surprised” at this twist to visiting other people’s blogs and dropping cards.

Log into your own Entrecard account.

Using either the cards shown across the top or even starting with a current advertiser, right click on the card and open that site’s information in a new window (you could even just visit your own blog and start there, but logging into Entrecard is fastest).

Then (remember you are in a “new window” at this point), click on the link out to that particular blog. Find the Entrecard widget and drop your card.

NOTE: LEAVE THAT CURRENT BLOG OPEN IN YOUR BROWSER! Later you can revisit it to comment, but at a minimum you will allow the window to be open long enough to help NOT penalize the blog owner (read up on “bounce rates” to learn what I mean). Be kind

Leave the window OPEN and RIGHT click on the current advertiser who’s card is showing on that widget.

(Highly suggested: Use Firefox and make sure your newly visited sites will open in a new TABBED window or use the RIGHT CLICK method above.)

Drop your card on this next site and click on the advertiser doing his or her thing on this new widget.

Once you get a rhythm going, it’s easy to go from blog to blog to blog. If you “get stuck” (and you will every now and then), just start the process over with a new choice from your dashboard or under CAMPAIGN.

This way you don’t keep visiting the same ones over and over (unless you really want to), and get to add numerous visits quickly and easily.

Here’s another suggestion that really is well worth your time and (no) trouble:

As you close the Tabbed Windows one by one, take a look around and see if there isn’t something you’d like to put your two cents in about… in other words leave a comment!

It’s sort of amazing how few people are really using Entrecard to its greatest advantage. A quick, simple, super easy way to FIND WAYS TO COMMENT on other people’s blogs. You won’t always get a “follow” link, but you’ll be doing yourself and your blog/website a huge favor in terms of word of mouth advertising about YOU.

So let’s recap:

1. Drop Entrecards efficiently
2. Comment for personal name branding
3. Comment for backlinking

Do this each day for 5-10 minutes and you’ll have 100s if not 1000s of backlinks for yourself in a very, very short amount of time!

Enjoy!

Reported Sunday, March 30 in the Washington Post, writer Juan Carlos Perez of the IDG News Service sites a second straight month of declining paid search for Google.

Perez’s referenced source is a comScore report that suggests, “Google’s revenue engine is slowing down, highlighting again the perils of the company’s overwhelming dependence on a single type of online advertising to fuel its business.”

Unless you are a comScore client, the possibilities of you getting your hands on this report are nil. However, Citigroup analysts Mark Mahaney and James Samford appear to back up this report, too.

Citigroup reports only a 3.1 percent year-on-year search using Google’s paid search ads. They also indicate that a 0.3 percent year-on-year decline in January presents an emerging trend that Google’s PPC ad business “may be losing steam, after powering the search giant mindblowing levels of revenue and profit growth for years.”

Investors in Google may be the ones most concerned over this development. But Google executives say they are aware of this situation and they are promising “concrete results this year and in 2009 in display advertising, such as banners, now that the DoubleClick acquisition has been finalized.”

What does this mean for the average marketer? It might well explain the phone calls and emails we’ve been getting about poor PPC results and excessive amounts of money being spent to sustain these types of marketing campaigns. The bottom line to these inquiries, what else can a marketer do to promote their website online?

While PPC may hold a spot in an online website owner’s business, diversifying your marketing methods has always been, and will continue to be, your best bet.

Resources to check out:

Molten Marketing
and
My Wizard Ads’ Numerous Advertising and Marketing Bundles

Remember… diversify!

Tonight doing my Entrecard thing (gotta keep up with our dropping), I came across the coolest blog with the best information to make your Firefox browser experience killer! Turns out that it not always your connection speed that’s the culprit. Could be your settings. I also learned parts of Firefox I did not even know existed lol!

8 Easy Firefox Tweaks For Super Fast Web Browsing

The best thing is madWAHM gives you step by step instructions PLUS screen shots so you cannot get this wrong. After making these 8 tiny tweaks, and closing and reopening your browser the speed increase for me was totally noticeable!

[Special Note: After making the tweaks, I ended up going back and turned the very first tweak from true back to false. Still works like a charm!]

If you load lots of pages, or heck even if you want to speed things up just for the sake of going faster, head to madWAHM now. This is worth the trip

Enjoy!

If you missed our mailing yesterday, then you won’t want to miss reading this post. Qassia is an up and coming social community that awards you with backlinks in exchange for your “wiki-like” writeups.

Read about Qassia social community here

[NOTE: Qassia does send you a "validate yourself" type email to create your account. Be sure to give a real inbox or you will have wasted your time. Validate and return to the site to continue setting up. Your DASHBOARD gives you access to all the different aspects of how to setup your Qassia and what's what on how to write.]

After signing up, you’ll want to do a few things before you start posting. Always, in any community, fill out your profile and upload a picture or your avatar. This particular social media community is not that indepth (nothing at all like Facebook or Myspace), but letting others know who you are and what you do is always critical. Make your information fun and informative, they like that

Then you use the “Add Intel” links to begin adding your tidbits to their wiki-type setup. You need to have a bit of backbone when publishing since 10 other people will read what you’ve written and “grade your work.” We note that not everyone plays fair, and while some questionable entries get okay marks, other pieces of information that would be of use to all don’t always get the proper marks. We think the members of Qassia just don’t “get it” yet, but hopefully do over time.

The great thing is reading is subjective. So don’t be disappointed (or even elated) about your marks. That’s not the point

Gaining valuable backlinks in the search engines for your tags and “reports” is the point. Quassia promises great things in the search engines, so why not be a part of it.

As with all new programs or websites, we are suspending judgment until it’s been around long enough to receive some sort of grade itself. However, if they stay on track with their goals, why not be in at the start of something new that has the potential to really boost your website, blog, etc., into the search engines.

Qassia, after joining or even if you don’t join, please take the time to tell us about your experience here on this blog.

Never pass up the chance to branding yourself!

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Our own Qassia url is already in Google! We only started yesterday…! Now to see if and/or how long before our tagged stuff appears.

In the last post, we explored the argument of the chicken and the egg with a discussion about which comes first - keywords or market research. As pointed out, the two do go hand in hand. Miss out on either at your peril.

While yesterday’s post (below) talks about finding what people buy first, let’s also give credit to the fact that more often than not, people come to the net to search for information (yes I’ll add it…) first. And, where do they head? Most likely a major search engine if they don’t have a favorite store in mind.

Keyword research is a must - that should go without saying. Obviously with well-researched keywords your website exponentially increases its chances of being ranked higher in the search engines. However, more often than not, we find that many people do not know where to start or even how to start.

The key is to find the right keywords. Our good friend, Vrecc, over at our most favorite Hubpages, has written his unique perspective on keyword research and given you a great tool (free!) to do it right.

Vrecc’s informational article, SEO Optimization and Keyword Research, implements SEOQuake (don’t worry he’s got the download link marked for you). But he doesn’t just leave it at that… you’ll also learn how to use it properly before the end of his article.

Here’s a quick exerpt to wet your appetite though we encourage you to read the entire article (never put the cart before the horse because this is not the “final” part of his article):

“The final step is to actually make a decision on whether or not a keyword or phrase is worth deliberately targeting. The answer depends on your ability to build incoming links into that page. The main way I build links is to write articles and post them to directories. The articles contain a link back to the page I’m targeting. I can get as many links as I can write articles. If I’m willing to write 20 articles then I can get 20 links. It doesn’t really count if someone syndicates my article and puts it on their website with my link in it. Google is likely only to count the link from the article directory. Another great way to get backlinks is social bookmarking. I’ve seen several hubs on this topic. You will find them with a quick search.”

Enjoy!

If you found this post and our “pointers” to great information useful, please take the time to leave your comments below. We appreciate your time and effort!

A recent post on the Nichebot Keyword Research blog makes the assumption that too many people rely strictly on keyword research to begin figuring out what niche they would like to develop to make money online.

We agree with the overall presentation that one should not use keywords as the starting point to building an online business. Instead, your keyword research is conducted to further enhance search-ability for that particular segment or niche after you’ve determined your market. While keyword research is a mainstay for developing tags, metas, titles, and content on your website, as stated, it is a tool used to uncover what people are searching for.

On the other hand, to reveal what people are buying online, you need to use “market research” tools. The article goes on to give you some solid starting points which include:

To Uncover Hot Selling Products

Head to eBay and click on their BUY tab. You’ll know in a flash what people are purchasing. The “Popular Products” is another link resource to ferret out even more information.

Amazon is, of course, another place to go to see who’s buying what. The idea, keep in mind, is you are trying to figure out what niche you could likely corner based on what people are physically buying.

Where to Find Popular Digital Products

A good solid source for information about popular digital products is Clickbank’s Marketplace. You’ll be able to set specific criteria and pull up what’s popular based on criteria you set.

In fact, Clickbank suggests the following:

“How do I identify the most successful products to promote?”

“Some affiliates prefer to promote very popular products that attract lots of affiliates (high affiliate gravity), while others prefer to promote products with less advertising exposure (lower affiliate gravity). The Marketplace can be sorted, within each category and sub-category, by item gravity. Either way, your best bet is to promote products that are well presented and likely to appeal to the people who visit your website, or view your advertisements.”

Competition

The final section of their post discusses the dreaded word “competition!” Many people fear competition and so never make a choice of what to plunge into online. If you read the article, you will discover that:

“There is NO reason to feel that way. In fact, you should get excited when there is a lot of competition. Here’s why…

“If there is no competition whatsoever in a marketplace, there may be no marketplace (or people to market to) at all. You should actually be worried if you don’t find any competitors for a market you wish to enter.

“The more competition there is in a marketplace, the more commerce is being moved. The more commerce that is being moved, you’ll have a chance at grabbing a bigger piece of the pie.”

We give this informational article a thumbs up for clarifying a business builder’s first steps, and again we have only presented an outline of the full post.

You can read it for yourself here:

“Market Research (or finding a profitable niche market) has Nothing to do with Keyword Research”

Enjoy!

Writing a press release just may be right up there with having all your teeth extracted in one go. We’re often asked if we write them, or conversely, if someone else is going to do their own, how to go about it.

Our upfront advice? Do not try doing this yourself, unless you are the rare exception and know the whole ins and outs of releasing information to the media.

That said, there also is nothing like going straight to the #1 source, in our book. So, if you’re interested in seeing if a press release is right for you, here are some quick links to all the information you need to know. By reading first you’ll help ensure your press release hits the airwaves with a bang (or decide this is not right for you):

Press Release Best Practices

Formatting Your Press Release

Press Release Template

Quick Tips for Effective News Releases

Editorial Guidelines

Yes, you’ll recognize the site when you get there we’re sure. And it would be safe to assume that the guidelines, tips, and tricks above for writing and releasing Press Releases would apply to any distribution source you might choose.

Again, it’s not easy writing one, and often spending the extra cash to have one professionally written for you is probably your best option. One thing to definitely remember is that a press release in and of itself must be “newsworthy.” This is not the place to try to pawn off some sleasy advertising (most likely it would not be approved anyway).

We would suggest when it comes time to submit your press release for distribution that you pay the extra bucks and have them (in this case PRWeb) distribute it immediately to Google and Yahoo! news feeds.

Should everyone do a press release? Our answer is no. Just because its out there doesn’t make it perfect for all occasions. Save press releases for grand openings, new product launches, new websites with unique twists.

Just our two cents.

To continue our discussion of Hubpages, this morning while wandering the halls of Hubs, I came across this excellent How I got my hub to be on Google’s first page by Hubber Mark Knowles.

Now before you rush off and think this is going to be a walk in the park, it’s not. But, it’s also completely do-able if you’re willing to dedicate a good chunk of your time … this week even … to making it happen.

Mark’s hub goes into details on why someone would dedicate themselves to the task of creating not just a hubpage, but a flagship hub. Good insights as to why and how this will work for you.

You might also check out another favorite hubber of mine, Lissie. Lissie has created a “how to” flagship hub. Also, since this one is a “flagship” you’ll also benefit by visualizing what your own end result will look like. You can read her indepth information here: How To Write a Flagship Hub.

Just keep in mind that sometimes (not always but most times) it’s best to “start small” and build. You will be participating in a social media site that prides itself on community. Taking the time to hobnob and get to know others is always your best first approach. Grab the Hubpages Guide, read it, and put it into practice.

Remember most likely you’ve got plans to be around online for a long time to come, and most strategies take time. Social media is an excellent avenue to pursue, if you do it wisely.

Today, surprisingly (or not so), in my inbox was a question from one of our brand new clients. While this individual was interested in getting involved in various internet marketing strategy “pieces,” it was evident on a visit to the website itself (and view sourcing the code), that starting at the beginning was where he needs to be - title tag inappropriate, no metas, etc. After replying in detail and giving him specific directions to begin, I headed out to the internet to chase down a video someone had asked me to take a look at.

To make a long story short (because the video had nothing to do with marketing strategies [or did it??]), somehow I ended up at eMediaWire. Which lead to a press release, which lead to this free pdf you can get right here, without all the rigmarole… Funny how things work sometimes…

So… here’s my take on this free internet marketing strategy resource:

Online Equalizer appears to be one of those “pieces of gold” in pdf format. It is written in such a way that everyone, novice to pro, will benefit from the information it contains.

One hundred and sixty six pages (which I have only skimmed for the moment but will be returning to after this post because several things have already caught my eye) bears all the hallmarks of being one of those “keeper” downloads you infrequently stumble upon.

Brandon Cornett begins his presentation with:

and that’s just the first 40 pages!

I’m not going to spoil this and tell you the end of the movie (so to speak), but on page 42 there’s an interesting way of looking at your writing and search engines. It actually goes against the grain of what many tell you and has to do with article writing. But again I won’t spoil it for you

Actually while typing I’m skimming through this free pdf, and am confident that while some of you reading may feel you are beyond this point, never, ever look a gift horse in the mouth. Since it is free, and you can

DOWNLOAD IT RIGHT NOW

see what areas you may be personally missing - or check it out for ways to glamorize what you currently have… you just never know when that “oh!” moment will arrive - this pdf could be one of those moments.

Again, I’m heading back into reading. Should, for some strange reason, I change my mind about Online Equalizer, I will be sure to let you know. But from what I’m seeing, and because of those we interact with daily, I truly believe you’ll find immense value inside. Hey, and remember, it’s FREE lol!

P.S. When you’re done, would you please remember to come back and leave your comments and input on this material? We would love to hear what you think!