RINF: Internet Marketing News

What is Lifestyle Design?

tdomf_aaea6 — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:34:53 +0000

The term “Lifestyle Design” has been tossed around a lot lately. But what is it? More importantly, what can it do for you?

A little history

The term “Lifestyle Design” was coined by Timothy Ferriss in his bestselling book “The 4-Hour Work Week.” The concept he presents in his book and on his blog is that anyone can be freed from financial pressures and dependence on a traditional job. Rather than working at a daily grind, he proposes the idea of developing a business that will require less than a day of work, yet will provide financial support, setting you free to pursue dreams and passions.

The concept isn’t a new one, however. The idea has been presented by a surprising number of writers over the years. Richard Nelson Bolles, in his book “What Color is Your Parachute?” presents the idea of finding a profession that brings joy, of finding meaning in life through creative labor.

Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin present a similar concept in “Your Money or Your Life.” The book discusses striving for freedom through financial independence.

Lifestyle design is NOT…

It can be easy to get fixated on the money aspect of the lifestyle design concept; however, the endless pursuit of money for the sake of eventual “freedom” can be deceptive – and ultimately a death trap. Rather than actually allowing you to achieving freedom, the pursuit of money can become an obsession that will take years off your life, trap you in the very grind you want to escape, and very often, end in failure.

Lifestyle design IS…

Lifestyle design encompasses the experiences you want to have in life. Rather than aiming for goals like a fancy car or expensive vacation house, lifestyle design describes how you want to live your life. It means taking all those great dreams that you have planned for retirement – hobbies, volunteering, travel, and more – and making them a reality here and now.

It’s about making choices in life. It’s about breaking out of the preconceived ideas of what you “should” do – go to college, take a specific career path – and taking steps toward what you want to do. Ultimately, you are the only one in control of your life, and only you can make the choices to get where you want to be.

It’s about figuring things out. It’s too easy to live life without ever thinking about what we really want. Lifestyle design means stopping to think about what you want and where you want to be.

It’s about creating the lifestyle that’s right for you. It really doesn’t matter if a typical lifestyle suits others just fine; if it doesn’t suit you, why should you follow it? If you aren’t happy with the way things are in your life, get down to brass tacks and design a lifestyle that puts a smile on your face and a spring in your step.

It starts with a plan

All the great ideas in the world won’t set you free. All the motivational jargon in the world won’t change your life.

When it really comes down to it, lifestyle design means getting serious about where your life is headed. It takes serious thought and planning, and that’s often the very hardest part. Stop and figure out what’s stopping you from living the life you want. Think ahead to what obstacles you might encounter on your way. Plan out how you intend to tackle each potential challenge, and come up with decisive steps to get you to your goal.

It means action

Lifestyle design is still only pretty words until you take action. This is where it can get scary. But if you’re willing to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you will see your dreams start taking shape.

Remember, your lifestyle design doesn’t need to include some extravagant lifestyle. The best ones are often those that are serious and down-to-earth. The point is, lifestyle design means taking control and making more of your life.

One of The Best Resources for Lifestyle Design is The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferris.

Visit The Personal Development Company to Learn More.

What is Lifestyle Design? is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

The Implosion Of Blog Farms: Why Their Loss Is Ethical SEO’s Gain

Mick Meaney — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:38:42 +0000

Raise your hand if, while performing an online search, you have ever found yourself on a webpage that is hosting low quality or regurgitated content that is of dubious origin and surrounded by a ridiculous amount of links. Congratulations, you, along with everyone else who has searched for something on the internet, have encountered a blog farm and, even without an SEO background, can probably articulate why content farms became a primary target of Google’s Panda update.

Unfortunately, whenever the world’s largest search engine makes an algorithm change, bad things can happen to good sites, and sometimes the distinction between a reputable site and a content farm is not always obvious. Even if Google gets it wrong sometimes, the implosion of blog farms is a good thing for everyone, including SEO professionals.

How To Tell When You May Have Landed in a Blog Farm

Before we can fully appreciate why, we need to be able to discriminate between content farms and trustworthy sites that, at first glance, may seem to share some traits. For example, a site that aggregates or syndicates content is not the same as a site that duplicates content by scraping other sites with bots or plagiarizing them with humans. As the internet has evolved, original reporting has diminished in favor of an accelerated and mercurial news cycle. It is not uncommon to see the same information presented by a number of well-respected websites with the distinguishing characteristic being the author’s analysis of the story. Similarly, there are several sites that host legitimate syndicated content, which technically is duplicate content but contrasts starkly with what you would find on a content farm. Ultimately, the difference between the two is quality, but quantifying something so subjective can be a tricky business. While it may be difficult to define, there are also some telltale signs that clarify the matter.

Links are the most conspicuous element of any page. The quantity and the quality of those links will quickly reveal whether or not you are on a reputable site. If a page seems geared towards driving traffic to a high volume of other sites, especially if those destination pages appear to be doing the same thing, you have definitely stumbled upon a content farm.

Some of these sites have 100 or more links embedded, but there is no magic number that signifies you have entered blog farm territory. Truly, it is about proportion, and if the number of links looks excessive at first glance, it probably is. You also need to factor in the quality of these links. Content farms exist to manipulate page rank via short cuts such as link stuffing. If you are being delivered to high quality, valuable content then you may need to rethink your initial evaluation. When content is swarmed by links, however, it is unlikely you will be pleasantly surprised.

The simple mechanics of writing are another excellent tipoff. A page riddled with spelling errors, grammatical mistakes, and typos is a strong indication of a low quality page. Poorly written content that does not engage or inform the reader in a meaningful way is also a hallmark of blog farms. In fact, some pages are so poorly put together that they do not even make sense when you read them.

It is pretty easy to assess a page accurately when the use of language is not compelling and the same keywords are inelegantly crammed into the text repeatedly. Keyword density for a particular word or phrase over 10% is highly suspect. While a clear metric like that is definitely useful, it is hard to miss the needless repetition of words and phrases associated with keyword stuffing.

Unfortunately, stolen or scraped content may not be evident immediately. If you are doing a comprehensive web search, however, it is likely you will come across the original source of the material as well. Legitimate sites will always cite the source or properly attribute quoted material, as well as provide links for their readers. Sadly, the same cannot be said for blog farms. Often, they will repost the content in full without properly crediting it or cannibalize a high quality article into something devastatingly inferior. This blatant disregard for the work of others is truly appalling and should be penalized heavily.

It is difficult to have any sympathy for sites that exist merely to drive traffic to other sites. When a site cannot be bothered to present itself in a professional manner or contribute meaningfully to the conversation, it wastes your time and makes navigating the internet needlessly cumbersome. One the other hand, some excellent sites may suffer some collateral damage initially. As unfortunate as that is, legitimate sites should be able to regain their foothold relatively quickly by improving components that are currently undermining its success. Penalizing blog farms and rewarding unique, high quality content deters unethical SEO tactics. Furthermore, it urges us to heighten the quality of our sites, and that is a win for us all.

When Google targeted the low quality content of blog farms, it did everyone, including SEO professionals a favor by penalizing unethical SEO practices and encouraging the rest of us to do better.

Ryan Farrell

The Implosion Of Blog Farms: Why Their Loss Is Ethical SEO’s Gain is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

Google Moves Ahead With Policy Change Despite Privacy Concerns

Mick Meaney — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 21:32:15 +0000

As Google continues to move ahead with their plans to change their privacy policy more concerns have been raised, this time from members of congress and European data-protection authorities.

Google new privacy policy is set to change on the 1st of March and will consolidate 60 services under a single policy.

Google state “The main change is for users with Google Accounts. Our new Privacy Policy makes clear that, if you’re signed in, we may combine information you’ve provided from one service with information from other services. In short, we’ll treat you as a single user across all our products, which will mean a simpler, more intuitive Google experience”.

On the 2nd of February, U.S. Senators met with Google Deputy General Counsel Mike Yang and Public Policy Director Pablo Chavez to give the search giant a chance to explain the new policy and what the ramifications are for its users, as it plans to track surfers activity across all Google services.

However Google do not appear to be as forthcoming as they could be about their intentions, specifically avoiding details on how it will handle user data in the future.

Rep. Joe Barton said Google “danced around actual details, and instead spoke in generalities, highlighting their efforts to ‘enhance the user experience’ — but at what cost?”.

“Consumers want to know if they hit the delete button, that something truly is deleted,” says Rep. Mary Bono Mack, who arranged the meeting.

She accused Google of not being “very forthcoming necessarily in what this really means for the safety of our families and our children and ourselves.”

She told USA today “It was obvious to me, as I left the room, that this company has established this policy so instead of the consumer being the master of the Internet, Google is the master of the consumer. I think that is just wrong.”

Jacob Kohnstamm, chairman of the Article 29 Working Party said “the French data-protection authority (CNIL) will be conversing with Google about the changes so that there can be no misunderstanding about Google’s commitments to information rights of their users and EU citizens.”

Google responded “We briefed most of the members of the working party in the weeks leading up to our announcement. None of them expressed substantial concerns at the time, but of course we’re happy to speak with any data-protection authority that has questions.”

Over recent months, congress has been investigating the possibility that Google has become too large, and are asking questions about the possibility of the company promoting sites which use Google Adsense and penalizing those that don’t.

What do you think? Has Google become too powerful?

Google Moves Ahead With Policy Change Despite Privacy Concerns is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

Five Myths Debunked Surrounding Internet Providers

Mick Meaney — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:33:37 +0000

Many myths exist in the world of internet providers, and with just a simple search online, you’ll see that many of them have been disproven. Here are five of the most common misconceptions about internet providers.

The Cost of Bandwidth

Many publications claim that it’s the high cost of bandwidth which has resulted in numerous companies imposing usage caps on their customers. But how accurate is that statement? A report released by Plum Consulting in 2011 revealed that the costs of meeting rising customer demand have been grossly overestimated by internet providers. In fact, it was discovered that some broadband companies were actually inflating their prices by a thousand percent or more. The actual cost of internet traffic weighs in at a few pennies per gigabyte, says the report. And yet, customers are paying from twenty cents to over ten dollars per gigabyte with various ISPs.

Usage-Based Billing, Or Double Billing?

Many internet providers offer packages which feature usage-based billing. This makes it easier for customers to choose the exact amount of internet they need so that they don’t pay more for the service than they have to. Or does it? If you have internet, the package you chose was most likely based on speed. And all connection types have inherent limits. But some ISPs are considering either the insertion of new tiers of service or usage limits in order to further increase their revenue. Unfortunately, this would also cause a double billing situation, as the customer would be paying for their usage in addition to having already paid for their service based on speed level.

Internet Speed Test Accuracy

Some customers will lament about their internet provider not providing the speed they promised when they signed up, citing results from one of the many web sites that test the speed of your internet connection for free. But how fast the requested information reaches your computer depends on the route it took to get there. So even if you have the fastest connection available, if there’s a traffic jam on the information highway or a web site is having loading issues, the information will take longer to reach you. Speed tests always use the same path – their web site directly to your computer – in order to measure speed. The other data you request online will not.

A Computer’s Age Will Not Affect Internet Speed

You might think you got that older computer for a steal. After all, you’re only going to use it to surf the net and check your email once in awhile. In reality, the age and speed of your computer will directly affect the performance of your internet connection. And you’ll really notice how much the age of your computer affects your surfing experience when you try and view online video or stream a radio station. Internet content is becoming more sophisticated by the day, and without a computer that can handle that increasing complexity, users with older computers will definitely miss out.

Getting High Speed Internet Without Paying For It

With all of these internet myths being debunked, it’s certainly easy to think that your internet providers have the secret unlimited internet speed, and that you can reveal it. As a result, there are many who say that it’s possible for you to ‘unlock’ your cable modem. While it was once possible to hack into some cable modems to get around usage limits, technology has evolved to the point where this is no longer possible. And when you think about it, it’s not likely that a circumvention of data limits would be invisible to any ISP.

Jesse Schwarz describes himself as a serial entrepreneur dedicated to helping consumers find the best products and services online, especially in the internet providers and related industries.

Five Myths Debunked Surrounding Internet Providers is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

Will Online Education Outgrow Traditional Education?

tdomf_aaea6 — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:39:32 +0000

With the advent of the internet, a new medium for education has gained momentum. Throughout the 1990’s online education has evolved from basic computer-based learning programs to a custom education medium accepted worldwide. As technology continues to advance, so does the nature of online education.

Innumerable surveys have shown that the number of online education institutes have continued to multiply over the years. Research studies and surveys conducted by the U.S Department of Education have revealed that online courses incur better results compared to the traditional classroom. Since the economy has taken a dip, online learning is expected to take a jump because it’s comparatively less expensive.

CNN has reported that the number of people turning towards the internet has increased and the new medium of education has experienced a bump during the recession. With the advent of online education, I considered it a primary subject to conduct a research study. The study revealed interesting aspects about many online universities like Capella Univeristy, Northern Port University, and University of Phoenix etc.

The study revealed a number of aspects that seemed to arch towards web-based learning compared to the traditional class. On an average, students from an internet education performed a lot better than traditional university students since they could experience the practicalities of life along with their course study. An online study experience helps to enamor a complete study experience alongside a genuine experience of the practical world.

It’s a fact that online students get to spend time doing actual tasks in comparison to students attending face-to-face class-based learning. Online learning prepares students in a performance based outcome where the entire process of achieving the final outcome relies on the students themselves. The web-based learning model presents a broad spectrum across various types of studies and learning dimensions that assist in overall development of an individual.

Overall communication with the students has improved with the introduction of social media. Online institutions have begun to use social mediums effectively with time and a number of them have reaped benefits from a carefully designed social media strategy.

Today’s generation of web-based learning will eventually revolutionize education. Online mediums taken on a life on their own that is attracting more and more people across the world.

Online education is not a fad – in fact it’s just started to grow, and it’s definitely here to stay!

Freida Gnomes is an MBA from Panworld University and also a member of the Alumni association at the University. She loves to blog and share experience with students in a quest to support online education.

Will Online Education Outgrow Traditional Education? is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

7 Reasons to Regularly Look at Your Analytics Report

Mick Meaney — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:17:50 +0000

If you were an active investor, wouldn’t you look at your accounts on a daily basis? Of course you would. You have to know which positions are performing well and which are not, and make portfolio adjustments accordingly. The same principle applies to your Google analytics reports. How can you tell which advertising campaigns are doing well and which are not?

Bounce Rate. The bounce rate tells you which people are getting to your site (probably by accident) and then leaving right away. Why are you wasting time, money and resources on a market that is not interested in your product or what you have to say?
Abandonment. Do you have too many people clicking the “buy now” button and then leaving before they have bought? Analytics can help you find out why they are leaving by letting you test various scenarios. Perhaps a buy without setting up an account feature may help. A lot of people don’t want to go through all that trouble for what may be a one time purchase from this vendor. Google’s Paditrack will let you test various scenarios to find out eliminates the most abandonments.
Conversion rates. If you have ads that are not converting, or are converting poorly in comparison to others, you need to analyze those rates. Similarly to the bounce rate, why are you paying for ads that don’t convert well? Perform a conversion rate analysis at least once a week and start to winnow out low performers and move that budget to higher performers.
Assisted Conversions. This Google Analytics feature allows you to identify assets in an Adword campaign that you may not be using to their full value. Using channel groupings (organic searches, paid advertising, direct, referral and email) you can find segments that are the best or worst performing segments, and re-evaluate the way you weight these segments.
Top Conversion Paths. This report allows you to break down your traffic into conversion “paths”, and lets you see which are converting best. It is especially important, since it allows you to segregate which paths are getting less conversion simply because they get less traffic from those which are getting the traffic, but not the conversions.
Time Lag. Using the same Multi channel funnel that serves to analyze assisted conversions, the time lag report tells you how long it takes for conversions to occur. Does a buyer come in once and buy, or the next day, or even days or weeks later?
Path Length. Now that you have analyzed your conversion paths (#5), you can dig down further and learn the exact series of steps (clicks, channel referrals, etc.) that brought them to a final conversion, and how long it took.

With this incredible amount of finely tuned information, you can follow each visitor and understand why they are converting (or not converting) on your site, and follow up with steps for improvement.

This is a guest post from Bail Bonds Nation which explains the process on finding a good bail bondsman for your state.

7 Reasons to Regularly Look at Your Analytics Report is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

Obama Uses Google Plus To Expand Social Media Presence

Mick Meaney — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 23:48:00 +0000

Doing slightly better with social media than McDonalds, tonight President Obama logged on to Google Plus to answer questions in an effort to expand the White House presence on social media networks.

The event was the Oval Office’s first virtual “Hangout”, where Obama appeared for a 45-minute live video chat, answering live and pre-selected questions submitted via Google and Youtube.

Besides answering questions, the President also promised to help one potential voter find a job.

One woman, Jennifer Weddel of Fort Worth, Texas, told the president that her husband had been an unemployed engineer in the semiconductor industry for three years, to which he responded: “ If you send me your husband’s resume I’d be interested in finding out what’s happening right there.”

18 of the 20 most popular questions relate to marijuana policy, the war on drugs and the legalization of marijuana use.

“We always try to take the opportunity to get our message out whenever the White House puts out these public forums. It appears to be one of our only opportunities to engage with policy makers and our nation’s leaders on this issue,” said Tom Angell, media relations director for LEAP, a group that advocates the legalization of marijuana and heavily promoted tonight’s chat through Twitter and Facebook.

It’s not the first time Obama has used social media to his advantage, he has previously answered questions on Facebook and Twitter “townhalls”.

Over 133,000 questions were submitted via Google Plus and received over 1.6 million “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” votes on Youtube.

According to Google, 90 million people now subscribe to Google Plus.

Obama Uses Google Plus To Expand Social Media Presence is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

33% of Small Business Turning to Viral Marketing

Mick Meaney — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 18:25:16 +0000

A new survey conducted by Staples has found that one third of small businesses are moving away from traditional advertising in place of viral and word of mouth marketing.

The study asked the opinions of 500 random businesses that have 20 employees or less.

Staples also found that two thirds of small business owners have a marketing budget for the year ahead, an average of over $2,000 per business.

The survey discovered that 35% of businesses have increased their social media presence in the past year and that seven out of 10 small business owners are optimistic about the future.

“With more than 25 years of experience working with our core small business customers, we know that investing in marketing to grow a small business is essential, yet many do not have the money to do so,” said John Giusti, vice president of small business marketing at Staples.

The survey also indicated that over 50% of small business owners want to do more marketing and advertising, but budgets will not allow it.

“Successfully marketing your small business is the life blood of any company, but with limited budgets, entrepreneurs must be creative and resourceful,” said Rieva Lesonsky, CEO and President, Grow Biz Media/SmallBizDaily.com. “Any marketing boost that they receive from a program such as the Staples ‘Give Your Small Business the Push It Needs” can make all the difference in the world, especially in the current business climate.”

Staples have also reported annual sales of $25 billion and is now ranking second in world eCommerce sales.

33% of Small Business Turning to Viral Marketing is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

More Internet Users Trust Social Media in Emerging Markets

Mick Meaney — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 17:25:39 +0000

A number of studies conducted by eMarketer, PEW and other regional groups have looked into the use of social networks and their trust ratings from all over world. According to these studies, more and more people have been utilizing and, more importantly, been trusting social networks. Just in the United States alone, a whopping 60 percent of internet surfers also make use of various social networks. However, Indonesia and Russia have registered higher numbers with 86 percent of internet users in this development making use of social networks. This means that although social media first gained success in the USA, these websites are also becoming increasingly popular in other emerging markets.

But there is another side to these statistics.

The number of internet users who make use of social media should not automatically be seen as an indication that all of these users trust these websites. Countries like India and Brazil have more internet users which view social media websites as best places to buy products or avail of services with 28.1 and 17.3 trust ratings, respectively. On the other hand, USA and UK have trust ratings of -12.4 and -20.3 respectively despite the fact that these countries have pioneered the use of social media websites. Basically, this means that users from emerging markets like India, Indonesia and Brazil are more likely to be receptive to information broadcasted through social media websites and networks.

What do the statistics really mean?

These figures simply mean that individuals who are peddling their services and goods through the internet should not rely too much on social media just because it’s generating a lot of buzz nowadays. Although there may be countless of Americans that have subscribed to social media websites like Twitter or Facebook, this does not necessarily mean that they use these websites to make purchases.

Best solution:

Individuals putting their services or products for sale, including dentists, shouldn’t put their eggs in one basket. Although a Twitter account or a Facebook account can link dentists to their patients, sales pitches and other marketing pitches are still better off included in their dental websites. Consequently, dentists from other countries which may have been scared to bring their dental practice online through social media websites should try using these various platforms to introduce their services to users of these networking sites. If these dentists do not have any social media strategy yet, now is the right time to come up with one.

I hope you enjoy my post and find it useful. I like to write on the subjects of dental web page design and Dental Office SEO. Thank you for your interest, Elliot Pearson, Dentist Identity.

More Internet Users Trust Social Media in Emerging Markets is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging

Facebook Sues Marketing Firm

Mick Meaney — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:01:51 +0000

Facebook has taken legal action against marketing firm Adscend Media for allegedly conducting a form of spam known as clickjacking, which creates ‘likes’ on users pages without their permission.

The social media giant claims that millions of Facebook users have been exposed to the spam, while Delaware-based Adscend Media released a statement on their website that denies the claims.

“At no time did we engage in the activity alleged in the complaints. Adscend Media will provide a vigorous defense against these false claims,” said the company.

State attorney general, Rob McKenna, estimates that Adscend Media had earned as much $1.2m (£766,000) a month from the practice.

“We don’t ‘like’ schemes that illegally trick Facebook users into giving up personal information or paying for unwanted subscription services through spam,” said McKenna.

Speaking a news conference, Facebook’s general counsel Ted Ullyot, said ”Security is an arms race. “It’s important to stay a step ahead against spammers and scammers.”

“Facebook’s security professionals have made tremendous strides against this particular form of attack and we are intent on eradicating it completely,” said Craig Clark, the firm’s lead litigation counsel.

“We will continue to use all tools at our disposal to ensure that scammers do not profit from misusing Facebook’s services.”

Facebook Sues Marketing Firm is a post from: Internet Marketing News | Webmaster Forum | Make Money Online | Guest Blogging