This morning, while talking with Janet Giacoma, we discussed the value of guest posting, or more precisely, pursuing the idea of guest posting on other people’s blogs.

So after a lengthy conversation about marketing strategies for the upcoming New Year (and of course once I was off the phone), I started doing a bit of digging. (Guest posting is not something new to us, but it never hurts to do a bit of background research to bring yourself up to speed.)

Guest Posting Secrets (How to Get Published on An A-List Blog), posted a little over a year ago, provides the information anyone considering adding such a marketing strategy to their business should take the time to read… first!

“In this post, I want to share the strategies I used to secure guest-posting spots at three Technorati Top 100 blogs (ProBlogger, Copyblogger and Zen Habits) without any prior contact with the owner. I don’t include that information to boast – I simply want to show you that these methods work. If they worked for me, they can work for you.”

This informational post provides specific guest post directions such as:

o  Why guest post on popular blogs?
o   Choosing where to guest post
o   Coming up with the perfect idea
o   Pitching your post (includes email template)
o   Opportunities to look out for
o   And important things to remember

Not surprising, it also appears that the post about guest posting may itself BE a guest post. How clever is that?

Our suggestion? Make the time to study up on, and implement, this social media marketing concept as soon as possible, and reap the benefits.

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With two major holidays behind us, and the New Year festivities upcoming, many will be making those often un-lived-up-to resolutions.

If you spend a lot of time sitting in your chair at your computer, and you’ve found your bottom (and various other body parts) spreading due to a lack of exercise, your options to get into shape for the New Year (and thus continue marketing in the best of health!) are many.

However, some people will be tempted to turn to quick solutions, and this post is a warning I found this morning in our home town Las Vegas Review Journal:

FDA warns against using 28 weight-loss products

“If you’re looking for a little help shedding extra pounds after the holidays, the government is warning you to stay away from nearly 30 weight-loss products that contain unlisted and possibly dangerous ingredients.

The pills are advertised as “natural” fat busters and have intriquing names such as Imelda Perfect Slim and Zhen de Shou. Some are touted as new versions of “ancient remedies” from Asia.”

Now while I cannot and do not advocate that the FDA gets everything right, the article goes on to explain that the FDA lab tested 28 dietary supplements “that could land unsuspecting users in the emergency room.”

Not where you want to be to start out your New Year, right?!

The problem appears to be that many of these products contain sibutramine, a chemical cousin and powerful appetite suppressant along the lines of amphetamines. Heart attacks, strokes, and heart palpitations are just some of the reported “side effects.”

Sibutramine is used to treat the extremely obese. However, these tested products were reported to have as much as three (3) times the prescribed dosage… 3 times!

We’re all for making solid, common sense, New Year’s resolutions. And more often than not, weight loss tops the list.

However, if you’d like to live through the coming new year as a healthy and active internet marketer, our advice is to take a look at this website FDA Warns Consumers About Tainted Weight Loss Pills.

Sad to say, a vast majority of these products are coming out of China. China seems to be having huge problems lately exporting healthy and safe items – from food, supplements, candy, toys, etc. – and now we can add this information to that growing list.

Start your New Year off right! And stay healthy! Scott and I want to see you returning again and again for many years to come; we’ve got tons of social media and internet marketing to share with you!

Happy New Year!

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Throughout the year, and typically always around holiday seasons, your inbox (like ours) fills up with true and utter junk. However, recently I had a conversation with a client who did not know it was possible to check the origins of any given email before opening it up.

So this post is intended to help anyone unfamiliar with safeguarding their privacy and their computer. I want to be sure that anyone receiving any email from any source (whether you think you know them or not) knows how to check that email before opening it.

We have a current situation that makes this post even more important… a few of our own emails from several of our own domains are currently circulating the net AS IF we were emailing people. We’re not of course. The only time you’d hear from us would be via either Getresponse or Aweber – both double opt in email programs.

However, of late, we’re getting the following notorious-type emails – each appearing as if we are stupid enough to mail something from us to ourselves. We then thought a, “Let’s cover some basics” post was in order.

Many times we get suspicious looking emails. If you’re running a great anti-virus detection program (our preference is Kaspersky), it catches a lot of spam and suspicious emails.

But what about those emails that don’t trigger alerts, the ones that look like they are coming from someone you know. Only when you open it up do you get a clue that hey this might not be from who you thought it was. It’s either crass material, a link to a questionable website, or is filled with gibberish.

Has your friend or business associate suddenly gone mad?

The answer most likely is no. And there is a way to tell:

1. First, highlight (one click) but do NOT open the email

2. If you are using Outlook Express choose Properties, then Details and look in the box labeled Internet headers for the underlying code of the message that isp servers read.

a. The ReturnPath may give you a clue as to who really sent this

b. If X-Original-To and Delivered-To are the same, the chances are very good that this is not from the person you thought was emailing you. The odds of it being legitimate would be minuscule.

3. If you use Outlook, choose Options – look in the box labeled Internet Headers

a. Deeper into the code, [SPF failed… is a sure sign someone has hijacked the email address and is using it without permission and/or the owner’s knowledge.

b. Here’s a little something I found upon close investigation down near the bottom of this Internet Header: “Delivered to trusted network by a host with no rDNS” – another tip off. The domain (in this case one of ours) is legitimate, but the mailing itself originated from a “no rDNS.” A sure indication it’s not from who you think it’s from…

Both #2 and #3 will show you much more information, much of it meaningless to the average internet user, but close observation should be enough to decide whether #6 (below) is in order without opening and reading it.

4. Any email you receive that is using YOUR own domain name, where the From and To are the same address, means that your email account has been hijacked by some idiot. They collect these email addresses from forms on your site or exposed email addresses you kindly provide as clickable links to your visitors. (We get some really weird ones… Sigh).

Chances are you’ll never be able to trace them, but you should report these to your domain hosting support team since they involve your own website domain. Let them know someone is using your email address for spam purposes. Better safe than sorry. When you report it, make it clear this is not you doing it but someone else using your domain. Don’t overlook this step, it could mean the difference between them allowing you to continue hosting or them closing your access (sometimes without notice).

5. Along with a bit of private eye work of your own, we also feel the need to state the obvious; never click on a link in a suspect email. We even go so far as to highly advocate that if you really want to know what the url is (if you’ve chosen to open the email), then copy and paste said url into our browser versus clicking out from the email itself.

6. When in doubt, it’s just better and safer to delete the suspect email regardless.

If you’re thinking of protecting your website’s precious email information, numerous scripts have been invented to try to thwart these criminals, however, very little time passes before these same criminals find a way around them. A good suggestion would be to eliminate the email altogether. Create an image with your email address embedded as a picture and do not make it click-able.

For those using forms, etc., unfortunately you might have to just bite the bullet and keep a close eye on your accounts. The only way to know is when you receive one of this infamous emails from yourself to yourself.

For those just receiving email, do use the steps above if anything looks suspect.

For those with the same troubles above AND you are the domain owner being abused, be sure to follow all the steps, too, and report the issue immediately.

We cannot stress the importance of not believing or opening every piece of mail that comes your way. This past year alone, we know of at least four individuals whose identity was stolen because they really believed the email they received was legitimate.

Here’s to a safe and Happy Holiday season, and awareness as we start a brand New Year.

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Last night while posting about a free PDF creator, I also noticed something unusual about some (not all) of our links here at Online Internet Marketing Strategies. What I noticed was while we have the “dofollow” and “commentluv” plugins on this WordPress blog, they don’t always work properly.

So I went searching for a surefire cure to what we perceive as a problem (we want to give everyone who does comment the benefit of commenting!).

I found… (more…)