Several days ago while combing through a few of my favorite blogs for fresh ideas I might implement on my own, I noticed more of my favorite bloggers using OIO Publisher. I made a mental note to look back into OIO once I had a moment to actually think, research and make an informed decision before making my purchase. Lucky for me, I have friends who did their homework and helped me get right to the decision to purchase the service.

Lara Kulpa, a name I know and trust in real and virtual life mentioned OIO to me earlier this week. Given that I am watching my finances so carefully these days, I wanted to know what the return on investment is/was and how quickly that return takes place – in an average case of course.

After discussing the program briefly, I decided to make the investment and enrolled in OIO.

I’ve been getting the program up and running on my blogs today. What I can tell you right off the bat is it installs very easily, is super easy to customize and get up and running. I just happened to take my time so I could pick it apart bit-by-bit. I will be reporting back to my readers, the progress and profit I make with this minor change.

Based on what I’ve read from other bloggers who use OIO, the investment is well worth it as many have already begun to generate a revenue.

Selling Points That Caught My Eye:

• Works as a WordPress plugin. If you run WP, this is a effective and convenient way to run direct advertising on your blog.
• Works as a standalone application. If you don’t have WP, you can still install it on your own server and run it on other servers such as Blogger or any other system.
• It’s somewhat inexpensive. Just $47 for a license. However, with the coupon code TERRA-OCT09GB for an additional $10 off.
• You are free to use OIO Publisher on as many sites or blogs as you wish with a single license. No need to invest in several license fees.
• Offers a variety of ad solutions – banners, text links, and in-text ads. You can also choose to sell reviews and run your own affiliate programs.
• Has a central ad marketplace that’s easy to set-up.
• Offers automated features including auto payments via Paypal, Entrecard along with a few other less popular options.
• Available email templates to send.
• Statistics & tracking options. I particularly like that I can serve ads to a particular demographic if I like while being able to check , clickthrough rates, and more.

Click here to enroll in OIO Publisher

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My Comment Commitment: If you leave an approved comment on any of my posts, I will visit your blog and “share it” in some way whether on StumbleUpon, Twitter or Facebook depending on if I can find a nice fit.

Originally posted 2009-09-30 17:46:06.

When I first began working from home, I spent hundreds of dollars on hard sell sites for those amazing packages that would teach me everything I needed to know to start making 10k in a month.

Boy was I stupid!

All I ever seemed to open was a package that told me how to sell the same exact product I was sucker enough to buy, in much the same way.

In case you don’t know what I mean by hard sell sites, I’m talking about sites that look like this:

Or this:

The thing that gets me is:

1. The look of the site — If they’re making so much money, why not pay for a quality site that isn’t cut from the same pattern as every other cookie cutter hard sell site out there?

Though I suppose it’s good that they look like they do, it does make them much easier to spot.

2. The automation — The automation that is set up to make it seem as if the special promotional price will end the minute the visitor clicks away from the site. I’ve taken a couple of screen shots below to show what I mean.

Notice the date on this hard sell site? Where it says “One-Time” Offer?

Now take a look at it from a web designers perspective (view source):

You can clearly see the “One-Time” Offer at the top. Go further down the code and you’ll see how it’s set up to show the date specific to the visitors arrival to their website.

I don’t condemn a person for trying to make money. I do, however, think there is a great deal to be said for the initial appearance of a website that lets a person know it most likely can be trusted.

For me? When I happen on one of these websites that is nothing more than an obvious hard sell internet infomercial, I keep on moving on!

When I happen on websites that are trying to teach me how to make more money online and the author has affiliate links to these sites, I find myself not wanting to trust the author so much, because I know they are trying to regain the money they lost on the hard sell investment.

Most times I experience a moment of pity for them and then move on!

In all fairness, I’m sure there are valid sites out there.  I just wish they’d take some of that 10k they’re earning each month and invest in a web design that’s a bit softer and more believable.

Have you fallen prey to the hard sell tactics? What was your experience? What would you tell others who are looking at the hard sell sites or looking for the best ways to make money online?

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My Comment Commitment: If you leave an approved comment on any of my posts, I will visit your blog and “share it” in some way whether on StumbleUpon, Twitter or Facebook depending on if I can find a nice fit.

Originally posted 2009-10-13 11:00:00.

Getting high rankings in search engines might seem like a completely impossible task. In fact, you might ask how you—a person with relatively little money and few resources—can outcompete large, well-funded corporations when it comes to search engine ranking.

Is it indeed possible at all? Or is it simply bait that shovel-sellers use to trick you into purchasing a product? “Yes, you too could rank #1 on Google in 24 hours!” We’ve all heard this line and similar ones.

I have good news for you: obtaining top rankings on Google isn’t really something you could do overnight. And that’s a good thing. Otherwise, other marketers could use the same trick to get ahead of you easily. Instead, getting top rankings on search engines is a slow, but rational, process. And the whole process starts with the creation of your affiliate site.

You might not realize this initially, but creating an affiliate site—as opposed to selling all of your own content—gives you a number of distinct advantages over people who are selling their own products. First, it allows you to quickly create an entire site around a much focused topic. Why is this important?

For one simple reason: the more narrowly focused your website is around a particular topic, the better it will rank on search engines. If, for instance, your site is a conglomeration of 35 different sales pages on totally unrelated topics, you will not rank well. If, on the other hand, your site only contains information about cranberry sauce, then you are likely to rank very well on keywords related to cranberry sauce.

Now, in addition to affirming the above (that affiliate sites can rank well in search engines), it is also important to emphasize that you should limit the scope of your site insofar as it is practical. Additionally, while you might sell products you created yourself, you should use content that you created (or hired someone else to create).

Articles scraped from directories and copied-and-pasted salesletters are duplicate content and are unlikely to help you perform better on the search engines.

However, with that said, there are a number of ways in which you can quickly generate information about affiliate products that you couldn’t do otherwise. One popular way to create content for affiliate sites is to create a “top 10 product” section, where you can include reviews on the best CB products for that particular niche.

If you haven’t actually used the products, you don’t have to claim that you did. All you have to do is summarize points in the sales letters (and explain that this is what you are doing) and paraphrase testimonials. This will allow you to give visitors the short version of the sales letter, which will count as unique content for your site.

Other ways to improve your search engine rankings include things such purchasing massive amounts of unique, focused, relevant content (i.e. articles, reports, etc.) and uploading them to your site.

For instance, you could do keyword research on your topic, find keywords that receive a lot of queries (but do not have a lot of sites returned on Google), and hire a ghostwriter at http://www.elance.com to create an article optimized for each.

However you decide to generate traffic for your site, keep this in mind: you cannot get a top ranking in Google overnight. It simply doesn’t happen. You can do it, but it will require work. And when you finally do get that spot—and the traffic starts rolling in—you’ll be happy that those 24-hour tricks are myth, rather than reality.

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My Comment Commitment: If you leave an approved comment on any of my posts, I will visit your blog and “share it” in some way whether on StumbleUpon, Twitter or Facebook depending on if I can find a nice fit.