But take a look at this chart I took a few moments ago:

The chart above is a one-year graph showing my search engine referrals from Google.

Now before October 13th, all was great. As you see, the graph was steadily marching higher and higher – gradually. I like that…

… But then out of nowhere Google slapped me (for the first time ever). And for the last month or so, traffic averaged about 30% normal levels. (The good news is it's rising back to normal levels).

A lot of my subscribers are upset about this…

… But for me, it really doesn't matter much, because I get my traffic from a wide VARIETY of sources. I actually get my biggest competitors sending me free internet traffic. Yep, it's true… and I have a guy half my age across the pond in the UK who showed me how to do it.

I featured him back in February. Here's what I said about him earlier this year in my email alert to my subscribers:

Does this guru suck?

If you've subscribed to my email alerts since
November of 1997, you know I throw just
about every "guru" and "expert" under the bus.

They suck. Seriously. They blow
and offer awful money-making advice -
no matter what the price tag.

But yesterday, I stumbled upon a life-changing discovery.
And I don't hype.

His name is James A. Penn. And everyone
marketing their online business should
get to know this guy.

What's remarkable is he's just 21 years old…
a university student from "across the pond".
And he already earns a full-time income
using part-time techniques.

Penn just released a new ebook that's sick…

… Sick as it's the most comprehensive
guide to online profits I've ever read.

I'm embarrassed to say it's even better
than the information I publish to you.

And it's also sick because it's less than $10.

You must order this right now… right here… without delay:
http://www.fetch123.com/attractbuyers

You must pay attention to this because
you're going to pick up 2 major takeaways:

#1: How to setup a funnel to attract
precisely-qualified buyers to visit your website.

If you only buy this ebook to see how he
choreographs you through the buying experience,
it's worth 10 times the asking price for this alone.

No joke. It's brilliant. The sales funnel is just AMAZING.

And unless you really pay attention, you have no
idea how Penn cleverly guides you to
BEG to pay him more money.

I'm stealing many of these new techniques. And I'm going to use
these strategies starting next week (stay tuned).

#2: 50 pages of an endless parade of gold nuggets.
Actually, the ebook is 53 pages, but I can't recommend
Strategy #3. Yes, you'll do okay using this tactic,
but the liability is not worth the gain…

… But other than that, this ebook is just phenomenal.

I'd like to think I know a lot about internet marketing,
but this 21-year old college student was schooling me.
I'm taking tons of notes so I can put these strategies
into action right away.

Seriously. Skip that $10 crappy lunch today and
buy this ebook instead.

You'll thank me for this recommendation.

Click here to get this instantly:
http://www.fetch123.com/attractbuyers

- markus

What's interesting is I've been even more impressed with James since earlier this year. In fact two weeks ago he revealed a genius strategy that's going to help some of my clients make 6-figure incomes starting in about 3 weeks. (I'm not kidding.) He revealed how to get any competitor to literally BEG to send us their most profitable customers. It works the same day it's put into action. It costs NOTHING to do it (except a few hours of our time). It's VERY profitable…

… But the best part is Google could go out of business and this strategy is going to work day after day – for life!

Bottom line: You don't have to let Google mess around with your livelihood. It's best to have many different methods and strategies that get you traffic free to your website…

… If you're a writer (freelance, book author, blogger or online entrepreneur), click here to get my FREE tutorials on how to turn your writing into cash using free traffic methods.

If you're not a writer, but you're a marketing junkie (like me), you might be interested in joining my private club.

Finally, if you're a paid member, today's Stump Markus is going to be all about finding alternative ways to get free traffic (that doesn't solely rely on Google).

Backlinks are like votes. And the search engines rely heavily on these votes to determine what position you show up in a web search.

We're all guilty of listening to all of the wrong "gurus" and "experts" and make classic backlinking mistakes… everything from using automated tools to using link wheels with "footprints" — even backlinking too much, too fast.

Yes it's true. Getting too many backlinks too quickly actually works against you. Let me prove it to you below…

… Here's a snapshot of my webstats. Here we see my how-to tutorial on writing a personal biography example gets me a lot of traffic – 67,232 visitors in just 90 days:

This webpage has been on my site for years. And while I currently average more than 700 visitors a day to this webpage, it wasn't always so bountiful…

… I too listened to the wrong people and made all of the backlinking mistakes one could make. It even got me banned from showing up in Google's search results for years.

So back in the Spring of 2009, I reversed engineered some sites and figured out how to make Google happy and get a steady parade of traffic to my webpages. To my surprise, I found that working too hard and too fast actually worked against me. Instead, I invest just 15 minutes a day on building links.

As a result, I'm getting this:

See how the graph continues to steadily grow in numbers month after month?

The best way to build backlinks is to "prime the pump". Go slow. I avoid automated backlinking tools – they leave "footprints" and "signals" that you're trying to game the system. Instead, I shoot for less than a dozen backlinks to get my webpage on the first page of Google – take a look:

When you look at the top, you see I have SEOQuake installed… and it shows the PR:0 (I have a PageRank of zero… yes that's a 0) and Y!:8 (yes, just 8 incoming links to my webpage). So once again the "gurus" and "experts" are all wrong – you don't need to have hundreds or even thousands of backlinks to show up tops in the search results to get 700 visitors to your site each day. In almost every case, my most visited webpages have less than a dozen inbound links.

Just 8 incoming links to my site gets Google to send me this:

See how I'm getting hundreds (even thousands) of free organic traffic referrals from Google? If I were to pay just 10 cents a click using Google AdWords' pay per click advertising program, this would set me back thousands and thousands of dollars. Instead, I get this traffic 100% FREE!

Most of the keywords are a result of showing up on the first page in Google. (And I got a bunch from Yahoo! and Bing, too.)

So what's my secret? How in the world am I able to get just 8 backlinks to my site and get 66,182 visits in just the last 90 days?

Here it is – the tactic that made the BIG difference:

One of my secrets is to post a "nofollow" link. Yep, while all of the "gurus" and "experts" tell us to avoid "nofollow" backlinks, it was this link above that made all of the difference. I know it because I track this stuff… and as soon as I posted that link (shown above), my visits more than doubled the very next week. And since then, traffic to this webpage of mine has gone up more than 11 times.

Later today I'm holding a teleseminar about this. I'm going to reveal my #1 backlinking secret location that no one is talking about…

Update: I just completed this seminar about backlinking. And this email from John Patten just arrived shortly after:

… This teleseminar is FREE when you join my Marketing Junkies Club. And dont' fret if you can't make the call… I record everything and make the replay available the very next day. To access this call, look for the 7/7/2011 teleconference replay.

But the VAST majority of site owners I speak with are frustrated with trying to attract free website traffic…

… They're tired of creating the best content, spending hours on link building but have nothing to show for it.

They're on the verge of giving up their internet marketing efforts because of Google's ever-changing rules to get organic traffic.

These same website owners try to rank first in Google – but don't because millions of other websites show up ahead of their search result's listing.

It's true. Getting free web traffic is harder than ever.

But I have great news for you… this blog post is the world's largest collection of FREE internet traffic secrets ever compiled.

The following tips, techniques and methods are surefire ways to get eyeballs to your blog or webpage. Just put these strategies into action and soon you're going to show up first in Google – along with Yahoo! and Bing.

(By the way, If you've got a a free website promotion strategy that you'd like to share here, that's great! If your traffic secret makes the cut, I'll post it here with a link back to your website. Click here to post your traffic secret now…)

Let's skip the fluff and get right to the stuff… attract buyers and subscribers to your blog or website with all of these FREE traffic secrets:

Marketing on CraigsList – How to attract free web traffic with tiny classified ads

My #1 best-kept secret to get 100% free blog traffic is to post a tiny classified ad to CraigsList.

It's true… CraigsList is beyond amazing. I wished I posted there years ago.

With that said, most people I know tried CraigsList marketing and failed miserably… they posted an ad and got banned almost instantly. It's true – CraigsList is REALLY cracking down on spammers. But that's good news for us legitimate marketers.

Here's why I love CraigsList (and think you should, too). I posted several 59-word classified ad posts and so far registered a whopping 3,207 visits to my blog over the course of just 60 days:

And that number continues to grow day after day without any additional effort on my end.

Now take a look at this – see how many different search queries Google, Yahoo! and Bing sends traffic to my Trump blog post:

That's just the tip of the iceberg… CraigsList helped me get the following search queries ranked tops in the major search engines almost overnight:

These days, Google, Yahoo! and Bing sends me steady traffic to my not-so-flattering blog post about Donald Trump. That's awesome because normally I'd half to invest a ton of time doing link building, blog commenting and message board posting. But with CraigsList, I literally invest about 15 minutes a day for 14 days. That's it!

You see, CraigsList is one of the most popular sites on the Internet. Think of it as a gigantic classified ad service, but instead of it showing up in your Sunday paper, it's available in just a click of your computer mouse over the Internet.

CraigsList is divided geographically into regions… you're able to place your ads in CraigsList San Francisco to CraigsList Morocco. And when you post an ad in the right section of CraigsList, you get instant visits back to your blog or webpage.

But the best part is it's totally FREE. Post ads all day long… weekends and holidays, too.

Here's why I love CraigsList marketing and know you should, too:

You get instant traffic – When you format your CraigsList classified ad the right way, CraigsList approves your listing almost instantly.

It's almost too good to be true because just moments after posting, you see FREE website traffic arrive on the webpage you choose.

And surprisingly, this traffic is responsive. Unlike other free traffic sources, CraigsList referrals take action… they're willing to click on my webpage ads… passionate about subscribing to my email list… and they're buying my stuff at a nice clip.

While instant traffic is good, I prefer:

Almost-instant traffic – The most fascinating aspect of CraigsList is who scans their classified ads.

Apparently, a lot of influential types (like bloggers and social media mavens) swing by for a looksy… because just a day or so after I post an ad, a bunch of different websites link to me. And when this kicks in, I'm seeing a lot of traffic come to my site from all different directions.

So while I dig instant traffic and almost-instant traffic, my absolute FAVORITE benefit of posting classified ads to CraigsList is:

Set-it-and-forget-it, long-term traffic – Out of all of the link building methods I've tested, nothing comes even comes close to link building with CraigsList.

Nothing.

I wish I knew about this method years ago.

Even though CraigsList ads only stay active 7 to 30 days (depending on the city), the link juice you earn never runs dry.

Long-term, steady traffic starts to kick in about 75 days after posting. Take a look:

About a week ago, I hit the low point of the curve… but in another week or so, I FULLY expect my referral traffic from Google, Yahoo! and Bing to jump. I'm expecting at least 750 visits a day to this Donald Trump page – every day.

Not bad for a few free posts to CraigsList, eh?

Here are some tips I use to make CraigsList marketing pay off:

Best time to post – When you post too soon, you ad "moves off the main page" and doesn't get seen. And when you post too late, everyone is asleep.

I find the "sweet spot" is between 5 p.m. and 7 p.m. local time. And skip posting on weekends or holidays – you're likely to waste your time.

Get your ad approved – Years ago, CraigsList was a spammers paradise. You could upload blatant ads without worry.

Today, half the battle is getting your ads to "stick" (i.e. to be approved and not deleted).

The best way to get your ads to "stick" is to avoid any hint of selling. Instead, redirect your visitors to a blog post or webpage on your site.

Go naked – Even though CraigsList gives you the option to place ads in HTML code, I recommend plain text.

And never ever format a link with SEO anchor text (like this). This is a surefire way to get your post deleted every time.

Instead, use a naked link format like this:

http://www.truthin7minutes.com

Write a killer ad title – Make sure to include a your optimized keyword phrase in the title of your ad. Just about every major search engine takes notice and sends link juice to your webpage as your reward.

Bottom line: Posting tiny classified ads to CraigsList is a surefire way to put your traffic generation on autopilot…

… But it is tricky if you don't know what you're doing. That's why I created a step-by-step tutorial to help guide you and navigate you through the trickiest parts of posting classified ads to CraigsList (available for members of my private Marketing Junkies' Club) -

Click here to access my CraigsList tutorial.

Understand this… I'm a cheapskate. And I hated the idea of paying an email hosting service when I could instead push a few buttons on my own email marketing software and do virtually the same for free.

Or so I thought. Boy was I wrong. And I've been wrong for a long long time (13 years to be exact).

The reality is in-house email is FAR from free. Sending out my own emails has easily cost me tens of thousands of dollars in profit because my emails have a hard time getting delivered. And it's getting worse week by week.

The good news is having the pros do it all for you might be cheaper than doing all of the work of sending bulk email out yourself.

Here are my top 5 reasons for switching from in-house email to sending business email via a bulk email service provider:

Higher delivery rates – When you send out your own business emails, you have 0% chance of getting all of your emails delivered. In fact, you have almost 0% chance of having just half of your emails delivered. That's how bad it is nowadays.

Why?

The big reason is spam. Your recipients are setup to be super aggressive in their spam-fighting efforts… making it hard for legitimate business emails to get delivered.

But some bulk email service providers have entire teams who's only job is to "negotiate" with Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to get your emails delivered. It's like having a team of full-time "mediators" working for you (silently behind the scenes) for less than the price of a small coffee. You just can't beat it.

I've seen this first hand… I help several internet marketers. And I get to peek over their shoulder and see their email reports. And many of these IMers see near 100% open rates when using a quality email service provider.

This benefit alone is worth switching to a professional email hosting service… but there are many more advantages:

Higher response – I'm a big fan of testing.

And my new email service provider gives me the fast and easy option to split test different email messages and report back to me which one generated higher response.

I KNOW I've missed out on higher response because I wasn't split testing my email messages in the past. Never again.

With split testing, I can test two different subject lines and see which one gets higher response.

Even better, my new email service provider offers me AMAZING reports that tell me in a glance which emails are most responsive (and most important, which ones are not). Armed with this information, I can make quick tweaks and boost response… take a look at this one example:

In a glance, I see which tested email put more money in my pocket. Armed with this data, I take the winning email design and put it into my followup autoresponder for the highest response – it's the ultimate "set it and forget it" tactic.

And take a look at this report:

This report is GOLD… because in just a glance, I can see when most of subscribers open their emails… and with my new bulk email service, I can schedule followup emails to be sent at the best day and time of the week.

My new ESP has dozens and dozens of reports just like this… ultimately helping me tweak my bulk emails to make more money.

Your web hosting company HATES spam – There's nothing worse than getting an email from your web hosting provider with this bad news…

"You're about to have your website shut down because of spam complaints."

That happened to me. And I don't spam. (In fact I hate spam more than anyone.)

Here's the issue. I send out emails to thousands of passionate marketing junkies each and every week. These same marketing junkies doubled opted into registering for my FREE weekly marketing updates and alerts. And these emails are right to the point – often just a few sentences in length pointing to a new blog post…

… But every so often, one of these subscribers clicks on the wrong button and tags my email as spam (instead of unsubscribing). And just one single spam complaint (no matter how many emails are sent out) freak out our hosting providers. And when hosting providers freak out, they turn off our entire website (often without notice).

Even if you spend hundreds (or even thousands) of dollars per month on web hosting, web-hosting techies have been trained to "shoot first and ask questions later" in order to thwart spammers. They know a click on a "this is spam" link doesn't necessarily mean your email is spam. But the truth is your web hosting company would prefer you outsource your business emails. That's the real truth. Dealing with spam issues is a huge thorn in the side for web hosting providers.

Hand's-free email cleaning – If you want to get your bulk emails delivered, you MUST keep on top of bad email addresses. If you fail to maintain a clean email list, you'll ultimately pay the price…

… When you send emails that do not get delivered, these "bounce" and return back to you undelivered.

There are a variety of reasons for a bounce… everything from a misspelled email address to a subscriber who changed their email address (and didn't alert you about it). It's just like snail mail, except when you continually send bounced emails, you actually run the risk of being having your email account tagged (and put on a worldwide blacklist).

Handling bounced email is a HUGE chore. It's worse than root canal. I just spent the last two days removing 250 bounced email addresses from my email system by hand… one by one. I'll NEVER do this again.

Good email service providers automatically keep your emails up to date and bounce free. And a clean list helps helps get a high percentage of your emails delivered.

Filter out tire kickers – Now that I'm sending bulk email though a paid email service provider (and being a self-confessed cheapskate), I want to eliminate those who don't read my email.

Sure, it's great to boast that I've got a big list. This is great for the ego. But the reality is over 90% of these subscribers won't ever buy my stuff. Even worse, most of these tire kickers won't even open my emails.

But get this… my new email hosting service gives me the option to delete subscribers who never look at my emails. This is an AMAZING cost-cutting advantage that takes seconds to pull off. In just three mouseclicks, I'm able to eliminate anyone on my email list who doesn't open my emails… there's no reason for me to pay to have my "pearls of wisdom" delivered to la la land.

The bottom line is I'm actually excited to pay to have my emails delivered for the first time since I ventured online in 1997.  For about a penny per subscriber per month, I'm able to email just like the pros do… boosting my response… seeing higher delivery rates… and not having to manually handle bounced emails.

Click here to see which email service provider I made the switch to (and I highly recommend)…

Kern has quickly become an internet marketing legend. And he's got millions of reasons why you should pay close attention to him (as he has millions in the bank).

There are many tactics you can pickup when you study Frank Kern's marketing:

Frank Kern is a character – he's created a persona (i.e. a marketing character) giving us the impressions he's a slacker surfer dude who makes money almost by accident.  Don't be fooled by this. Kern admit "it's ninja psychological trickery" on the masses as he actually works quite hard and is sharp as a diamond.

Here's a before and after shot of Frank Kern during his "engineered paradigm shift."

"Move-the-free-line" magic - he borrows from the Dan Kennedy mantra of "telling people what to do, not how to do it." Whether it's fair or not, moving the free line down (while giving the impression you're moving it up) is a surefire tactic to sell more stuff. It's crucial to tell 'em the "what" and sell them the "how to do it" behind a pay wall.

The Gary Halbert of internet marketing – Kern and Halbert (the self-proclaimed copywriting great and "Prince of Print") fully understands the perceived desires and wants that motivate his followers to buy from them… so much so that all they often had to do was "show up", ask for the sale and cash the check.

"Magic shiny silver bullets" – who doesn't want to push a button now and make millions by this weekend? Each Kern product alludes to the ease and speed of success when you buy his stuff.

Look over Frank's shoulder – through surveying his prospects, Kern realized his targets really wanted to peak over his shoulder and see how he makes money. And that's exactly what Kern delivers… a peak into his life via video. This is an excellent way to help build trust with your prospects.

Industry speak – Kern communicates in the same language as his marketplace by using industry jargon to develop rapport with his prospects. For example, Kern's prospects are often internet marketers, so he uses industry words and phrases in his videos such as "Google Slap" or "lead gen" or "CPM"… "autoresponders"… "landing pages", etc.

Step-up funnel – this is the crux of Kern's success. Frank's sales funnel move his 170,000 prospect email list into a low-cost product (just $1)… then he moves these buyers into ordering his Mass Control… then into his Mass Control Monthly (his continuity product)… then into even more expensive products. Business guru Jay Abraham calls this "The System"… you offer a low-priced "loss leader" product, get the customer hooked, move 'em up to more expensive products — rinse and repeat. This is the magic formula used by just about every internet millionaire.

I invited "Doberman" Dan Gallapoo to join me and record a blow-by-blow analysis of Frank Kern's marketing strategies and tactics. I also invited Tim Adams to join us as well… he paid $97.00 to beta test a new Frank Kern product — and he took EXTENSIVE notes…

… … We recorded over 3 hours of audio… reverse engineering Frank Kern's marketing tactics – take a peak over Frank Kern's shoulder with us here (this is one of the best reports I've ever offered for sale)…

This advice is sure to piss off a lot of marketers as there's a lot of profit in these additional buys. Markeing "gurus" like Dan Kennedy and Jay Abraham tout one-time offer upsells as the fast path to easy cash. And this is absolutely true. Some buyers are in "heat" and are going to gobble up anything you offer just after they've taken the plunge to buy your original offer…

… And that's the big problem here — emotion. Most people buy irrationally. They get sucked into a purchase without properly analyzing it.

There are 3 super-simple reason why buying OTO upsells is are colossal burden on you:

You're throwing money down the drain – Surprisingly, most people who buy info products let their new-found purchase sit on their computer hard drive. It's even worse for the upsell product as almost no one even opens it (because they still haven't opened their original purchase).

The quality is poor – Most infoproduct owners invest most of their time creating a great introductory product. That's because the low-cost lost leaders are meant to impress (and also help pay those hefty affiliate commission… anywhere from 50% to 100% of the purchase price). Unfortunately, these "gold nuggets" don't carry through to the upsells… usually these are thrown together at the last minute (and it shows).

You're being manipulated – Marketers are using heavy-handed psychologically shenanigans to trick you into buying something that's always available at the exact same price. Through the use of the principle of scarcity, a one-time offer IMPLIES a superior deal you'll only get access to once… nothing can be further from the truth as you can ask for the "one-time" deal in the future and almost 100% of the publishers will honor it.

Just say no to one-time upsells.

Logically, you'd think there would be lots of people screaming about these scams, but the reality is virtually no one is.

Many weeks ago, Ryan Healy emailed me a rough draft of his just-released post about Jeff Walker and his lame attempt of damage control. The post is amazing. It's dead on. You'd think the world would be buzzing about it (because Ryan has earned a reputation of being very fair and level minded)…

… Yet my prediction is his post is going to raise a bit of a firestorm over the next week, then go silently into the abyss of the internets (typo intended).

I've been screaming about these frauds for almost 10 years and admittedly it hurt my bank account. I thought I was doing the right thing and the angry mob would follow. They didn't. Even to this day, the angry mob is still silent (relatively speaking).

Because let's be totally honest, shall we… being a whistleblower is virtual suicide (especially when you do it alone).

When you call out these criminals, they use the Delphi Technique to destroy you… to make fun of you… to tag you as a kook or a loon or a conspiracy theorist. Yet at the end of the day, the evidence shows that these criminals are just that — criminals. Just about everything they've been accused of turns out to be true.

Sure, I've seen a few dozen people who were angry enough to blog and "tweet" about these pied pipers (those who lead us to failure), but that's not enough to scare these criminals into delivering real stuff. If you notice, they've been virtually left unscathed. These "cockroaches" just reengineer their roles… pretend to retire… then reappear behind the scenes (like Mark Joyner and Perry Belcher and John Reese).

I just came back from speaking at "Doberman" Dan's Orlando seminar. The room was packed, and I asked how many followed the SaltyDroid… more than 3 out of every 4 people raised their hand. That was both awesome and sad at the same time as I'd bet some of those are still going to purchase blatantly obvious fraudulent crap. That is so unbelievable to me, but it is what it is. How in the world can you even entertain buying from these criminals when the fraud is on video… on tape… and even on now-publicly-released court documents?

The "guru of all gurus" Dan Kennedy even ADMITTED the con on YouTube… it was SO disgusting to me I had it transcribed:

"The truth of the matter is… as uncomfortable as it may be for some people… we're really in the psychological manipulation business. That's really what we're doin'."

And he goes on by saying:

"But now having said that, really this is all about manipulating the psychology of the customer. We manipulate his fears, we manipulate his anxieties, we manipulate his resentments, we manipulate his secret desires, we manipulate all sorts of inner things in order to overcome his complacency… inertia… skepticism… unwillingness to spend money… on and on and on… in order to get him to give us money in exchange for goods or services."

Hey Dan… pound sand you overrated piece of filth. And there you have it folks, your "guru" is giving us all a bad name.

I don't need to manipulate my prospect to get them to buy my bottled water when they're thirsty. I just have to show up with a cold bottle at a fair price.

I don't need to manipulate my prospect to get a homeowner to hire me to install a new deck. I just have to show up with a stack full of testimonial letters (and again have a fair price).

I don't need to manipulate my prospect to get them to buy gas for their car… I just have to show up with a smile and do things just a little bit better than the guy across the street… even a couple of pennies per gallon cheaper.

I could go on and on. But when you're a psychopath, you need to resort to Dan Kennedy-style nonsense to fleece the public. That's giving our industry a bad name. And by bowing at the feet of Dan Kennedy, you're enabling him to fool you into thinking he's some marketing god. Trust me, he's not as marketing savvy as he'd like you to think. (I understand his bank account isn't as bloated as he'd like you to think.)

The bottom line is if people don't care about themselves enough to see the obvious fraud in our industry (internet marketing), why should I care about them? Seriously. (Note to self: insanity is doing the same thing over and over again expecting different results.)

Most of the influencers in our industry are SILENT on this issue. The Warrior Forum continues to delete any reference to these crimes. Alphabet agencies have bigger fish to fry. The Better Business Bureau is a scam in disguise and actually covers up these criminal's actions as long as they show the "dough ray me."

It's the Delphi Technique, folks. Never forget it. We've been had by a clique of criminals.

I officially give up… let the masses continue to buy overpriced magic bullets in a box. Let the profane continue to pay a "stupid tax" on instant internet dreams and the idea of early retirement. After all, buyers of this junk need to also take responsibility, too. There's an "endless parade" of evidence showing the vast majority of infoproducts are rehashed nonsense that doesn't work (and never ever worked). But if the "sheeple" want to continue to have faith in the scams, then I say let them have it.

I'm done. The "syndicate" is winning. It's time to move on. The criminals continue to win. My white flag is out. Back to helping my members get more customers.

… In most cases, purchasing a domain name is a fantastic waste of your time and money. Even worse, it's a surefire way to add stress to your life

Sure, every online business needs to have a domain name. And that's great. Try to find a short, memorable and keyword-rich web address to acquire.  But if you're one of those addicted to the idea of owning virtual real estate and gobbling up every web address you can (since it's so cheap these days), I recommend you put an end to your buying spree RIGHT NOW!

Is it worth going after good website names?

Let me walk you through the typical scenario:

You rent a domain (yes, I said rent… because you technically don't own a domain name) and you have to wait for the stars to align (i.e. get your host to setup the technical stuff and get your domain name registrar to point DNS to your new hosting company). While you wait, a bunch of business issues come up and you get distracted. Hours turn into days as you put out one fire after another. Weeks go by and your things to do lists grows exponentially. Soon months go by and you've totally lost interest in creating content for your new virtual real estate "empire."

Fast forward a few months and you get one pitch after another in your snail mail to renew your domain (even though it's many many months before the domain actually expires). But you don't know this because your memory is like Swiss cheese, and you panic a bit. Now you're totally distracted and waste your time worrying about renewing your domain (even though it's been sitting empty for months now). You get further distracted rethinking what content to add to the site that you never got around to the first time you dreamed of owning your "virtual internet empire."

And all of this stress is for just one domain name. Imagine the headaches you're going to experience once you have multiple website names in your "portfolio."

Purchasing a domain name as an investment is a sucker's game. In the vast majority of cases, a purchased domain name sits "parked" and idle. Hardly anyone sees it, let alone clicks on your AdSense ad or buys from your recommendation with your affiliate link.

I had an old friend who purchased thousands of domains as an investment (and this is when they were $70.00 each). He got distracted and never did anything with them. He even tried to sell them, but since there was no traffic, he couldn't find any buyers. He wasted many many weeks on this (instead of growing his already successful business) and in the end just let the domains expire.

With that said, there is just one major exception to the rule… investing in domain registration for SEO.

If you've discovered a popular search phrase that would double as a good website name to register, you might consider renting it. The top search engines seem to give these websites a big boost in rankings. In fact, it's not unusual to rank first in Google with a three-word domain name and a webpage title that includes the same three words. This is a powerful (and cheap) SEO strategy. And it works. I had one domain like this. I was number one in Google just 4 days after registration… beating my competition that was first in Google for many, many years.

But other than that, if you're looking to invest in domain names, you're better off flying to Vegas and betting it all on number 37 (and there's no such number on the Roulette wheel). Because unless you're a professional "domainer", investing in website names is a surefire way to get distracted and lose a lot of money — year after year.

So what if you've already made the mistake of investing in a bunch of website names that are sitting "parked" and not generating cash?

You could certainly try to sell these domains. But you're only going to make back any real money if your site is either profitable or attracting visitors via search engine referrals. (And if you're making money or getting a steady stream of visitors coming to your website, you probably don't want to sell… unless you're retiring). But the VAST majority of domain renters have their website name parked… sitting idle… not generating much in the way of profits or many visitors.

So how do you get rid of idle domain names in your "portfolio?"

My solution is simple (yet slightly painful to your ego). Just let these website names expire and forget about it. Write it off as a loss.

I know, I know… it's going to kill you to lose that big investment of $9 or $10 per domain (sarcasm intended), but it's the best and least painful business loss you're ever going to take. I know business owners who lost their good credit standing, their homes and even their favorite cars making a bad investment on their business. I've seen lives ruined investing in the Great American Dream.

But at worst in this case, you'll lose less money than it takes to buy a Big Mac Value Meal for you and a friend.

The bottom line is this:  registering web names is almost always a bad investment. Even professional "domainers" struggle to acquire domain names that pay off as an investment. And quite frankly, writing a 975-word blog post wrapped in Google AdSense ads (just like this) is a FAR more profitable venture than playing the domain name game.

So I reversed engineered some of his article marketing techniques and was quite surprised (in a good way). Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about well-known gurus and experts (until now)…

… Listen in to my under 10-minute review of Jeff Herring here…

VPS stands for Virtual Private Server. VPS hosting gives you the advantages of a dedicated host at the price of shared webhosting.

I recently switch from semi-dedicated hosting to VPS hosting on the recommendation of my coder. My old host shut down some of my custom-written online software (how rude) because my members were using it so much. Plus my old host had a lot of downtime. I made the switch last week and so far so good. My site loads faster than ever and I've yet to experience a single glitch. The best part is my "server load" is barely noticeable (a reading of .01 — just checked)… sweet!

Many of my clients and subscribers make the mistake of going with shared hosting from companies like GoDaddy. That's great if you're running a hobby website that gets little traffic. But if you're running a real online business, shared hosting is a HUGE mistake…

… For example if one careless site owner runs a script that crashes the server, your site goes down too (even if you had nothing to do with it). Also, if a fellow site owner leaves some security holes open, your site might get hacked too – because with shared hosting, you're sharing the same hardware and software.

Whether your current web hosting setup is dedicated or shared, you might think about making the switch to VPS. By upgrading from shared hosting to VPS, you're going to see a significant speedup of your webpages (which is important for both SEO and a great visitor experience).

If you pay for dedicated hosting, you might reconsider that option, too. You might be paying way too much for your needs. It's kind of like getting an 8-cylinder turbo when 4 cylinders might fit the bill… and the bill is going to be significantly less each month. Dedicated hosting sets you back at least $120 monthly (and that's super cheap… it's more like $200+ each and every month). Reliable VPS hosting starts at $49.

Side-by-side comparisons of shared hosting vs. VPS hosting are typically biased. With shared hosting, you're "told" you get to store 50 or 100 gigabytes worth of data storage, where as VPS hosting currently offers you 20 to 30 gigabytes of web hosting space. Shared hosts offer this because they know most of their customers won't use even one gigabyte worth of space. On the other hand, a VPS actually allocates 20 to 30 gigabytes worth of space (depending on the plan you choose) whether you use it or not. It's always there for you. It allows you to grow without paying for dedicated hosting.

Here are the top 5 advantages of VPS server hosting vs. the lower-cost shared hosting:

Higher Security
VPS accounts are insulated from each other, minimizing the risk of unauthorized access from hackers as well as other customers. The isolation of your account also minimizes the risk of being impacted by a DoS attack that was intended for someone else.

Better performance
All resources are regulated in the VPS environment… so one customer can't "hijack" a large share of the resources. As a result, your service runs reliably and predictably.

"Bulletproof" email
Each VPS account has its own private mail server. This eliminates the risk that your mail service will be blacklisted due to abuses of others sharing the same mail service.

Install your own web software
WithVPS, you have your own partition and root access… this gives you the ability to install applications not offered as standard by your web host. Everything from forums to blogs to custom scripts are easy to install.

Easy to customize
Some applications require that certain ports and/or protocols be opened or closed in the firewall. With shared hosting, custom firewall configurations are not advisable for security reasons. But with VPS hosting, custom firewall configurations are allowed because each website is separated by a software partition.

Grow without hassle
Your entire website environment can be restored from backup to any physical server with no changes to your configuration. You can also easily downgrade or upgrade your service with no downtime.

With virtual private server web hosting, you get your own secure hosting environment… complete with root access (SSH) and the ability to install and configure whatever you desire within your environment. Although there is more than one virtual server on each machine, there is no way for other users to see your VPS (or even know that you’re there).

Think of hosting like an apartment building. If you have dedicated hosting, you own the entire building. With VPS server hosting, you rent a single apartment within the building. Each "unit" (Virtual Private Server) is identical in size, but they all share resources. It's like a co-op… everyone sharing electricity, RAM memory and disk space. Even the maintenance is done sharing a "superintendent" (like a maintenance man).

VPS hosting is really no different than semi-dedicated hosting. (In fact I have no idea what the difference is – it sounds like semantics to me quite frankly.) Popular programs such as mySQL and PHP is preloaded and ready to go.

Update: There is one negative about VPS hosting… say goodbye to catchall emails. You have to setup an email account for each email you have. At first, this annoyed me as I track my subscriptions to stuff… for example, if I registered with Amazon.com, I supplied amazon [at] marketing-ideas.org as my email… and the catchall would redirect to my main email address. But now that this feature isn't available with VPS, all of those worthless marketing pitches never reach me anymore — freeing up a boatload of time scanning my emails each morning.

If you're looking for a recommendation for a VPS host, I currently use InMotion Hosting in Marina Del Ray, California. They were rated the #1 host by HostJury and I'm so far impressed with them… my calls into tech support were amazingly fast… even the sales rep are technically savvy (I'm not used to this). I say "so far" because if things go downhill, I'll revoke my recommendation here.

Feel free to call my contact there (his name is Matt) – the call is free at 888-321-4678. Once you call, press the number 9, followed by Matt's direct extension of 859. Mention my name (Markus Allen) and Matt upgrades extra memory to your VPS free. By the way, I don't make a single penny endorsing InMotion.