Web Design - Is Simpler Better?

I was just talking to a college about some design that they were working with and the question came up if the site should be visually appealing with lots of features for users to take advantage of or if the site should remain simple and to the point. This is one of the hardest decisions for webmasters making a new web site, as well as for the powers that be of the largest web properties on the planet. Facebook is a great example of a fairly simple layout that has now become bloated with overly complicated settings, features and widgets that all clog up your screen. This site has tried to keep it simple, but they have unfortunately been forced to complicate the site to offer new features to their huge existing member base. As you may have read online, many of the changes received a warm welcome, while others caused some members to go elsewhere to connect with friends.

Not all webmasters are forced to add features to keep users interested. In most cases the content itself is much more important that most any other aspect of a website. However, feature rich sites do have their place. If your website serves a purpose or offers a service, you may really want to focus on the web app and how it works over the design of site initially, after all have you ever seen how Twitter looked on its launch date?

This site is about as simple as they come. It was created using the free blogger.com platform and my readers come here to learn and find out about new webmaster techniques and tools. I do not fill the screen with spammy ads and crazy offers, just great content and once and a while you will find a product or service listed that I think is great. Producing frequent updates of relevant content has kept up the readership by itself with no flash or flare needed.

Below are a few rules that I think will help a first time blogger and a corporate webmaster on the right track no matter how big or small their goals are. I look forward to any feedback you may have about these thoughts and concepts and enjoy!

Define Yourself With Content First

No matter what, you really want to be known for what you and your website has to offer, not a cool logo, or a widget that lets viewers play with a bouncing ball. As a webmaster part of your duty is to assure the layout of the site allows a viewer to not only find what they are there for, but also to offer an appealing look that will not scare them away. If you keep cranking out killer content, the actual look of the site falls away on the sidelines.

If you are using a C.M.S. you can switch the look and the feel of a website rather easily and instantly with themes or templates. This means, content wins and this should always be your first and foremost focus. Choosing an appealing theme or changing a layout down the road, will rarely if ever scare of existing readers or site members. With this in mind, get to the meat, crank out killer content and then you can fine tune your website's aesthetics later on.

Only Bring On Features That Count

With feature rich content management systems, it can be easy to pop on new plugins and add new features at a minutes notice. However, many people keep adding things that may look cool but never get used by real users. Eventually users start becoming inundated with all the fluff and never get time to get to the meat of your site.  Adding useless features will slowly but surely scare away viewers due to the over-complexity of your presence online. In many cases added features can also slow your site load time and now that it is public knowledge that this is taken into consideration by Google in your ranking, this is a very bad thing.

Ask And You Shall Receive!

It is a good idea to ask your users what they want. Most of the time they are glad to share thoughts and ideas about what they believe would make your web site even more useful to them. You can easily implement this by utilizing a poll or simply requesting comments or social feedback from your followers. This is a instant win, because you really want to be preaching to the choir here and this will help you do just that. Don't be afraid if you can't make everybody happy either. There will certainly be some nonsense and some ridiculous requests because...well people are crazy on the web sometimes. However, that doesn't mean that you will not get some amazing constructive criticism for free.

Borrow But Don't Steal

This can be a tricky rule, but lets admit it the greatest from of flattery is copying others, right? All I mean to get across here is that it is OK to look at other sites that may have similar tribes following them and borrow a good idea here and there. After all, look at Facebook and Google. You never want to totally steal a complete theme, wording or logo. You can get away with borrowing simple concepts or moving in a similar direction as others. If your design needs something and you just can't put your finger on what it is, take a look around see what you like and what you don't, then move forward with a new layout accordingly. This is a great way to get your creative juices flowing and find something that is already proven to work.

If you are interested in professional assistance with your new or existing website design, I would love to help! Just drop me a line on my business site here : NS Technologeis - Web Alchemy and Consulting

Thanks for reading and make sure to find me on Google+

Author : Nick Simpson

What Are Some Good Affiliate Programs To Work With?

As I discussed in a previous post called "So Many Affiliate Programs - How To Choose Wisely", what signifies a "good" affiliate program really depends on you, your business and the market that you specialize in. Deciding which one will truly be profitable for your web site or web presence may take some serious consideration and some testing in many cases too. The programs listed below will give new affiliates some good ideas to get started without needing to perform research. If you would like your affiliate program added to the list just leave us a comment at the bottom of this post.

The list below is by no means the only sites you should look at when gearing up for a new marketing plan utilizing an affiliate network for your method to monetize your efforts. However, if you are new to affiliate marketing these programs will give you some solid insight to what is available and what types of affiliate networks are out there. Many websites offer their own affiliate setup for their own products so if you are looking for something specific to promote that cannot be found on these networks, it can be as easy as searching Google for some products and looking for the word "affiliate" on the web sites you find.

5 Affiliate Programs You Should Check Out

1. Amazon.com - Possible the big daddy of all affiliate programs. This huge online retailer offers any product under the sun, but does not give a big commission until you are really moving quite a bit a product. If variety is what you are looking for and physical products work with your site, this may be the best place to start.
2. CJ.com - Commission Junction has been around for many years and has a huge offering of affiliate products, both tangible goods and digital. Unlike amazon this affiliate program requires you to apply for an become approved before you can start promoting and profiting. Some automatically approve but this extra step can become tedious.
3. ClickBank.com - If you are looking for digital products to promote this may one of the best places to start. ClickBank has a huge marketplace and offers digital goods that cover almost any category or niche that you can imagine. They do offer healthy commissions on many products, but be careful if you are not selling items fast enough you may see your commissions disappear due to their strange payment policy.
4. Digiresults.com - This is a smaller, but quickly growing affiliate network that makes it quick and easy for affiliates to create and offer products and services to others to sell and profit from. This is actually where I started my own affiliate program recently because it seemed to be rather straight forward and it just works. Since my launch less than a week ago my affiliates have already made over $300 on this network with my IM products, so make sure to give them a look too. Learn more about Nick Simpsons Affiliate Program here.
5. Chitika.com - This site has been around for many years and is the preferred affiliate network of many and you will will find the customize-able widget style ads to be fun and easy to setup and if used correctly on a tangible goods blog can be profitable too.

To Success,

Nick Simpson

So Many Affiliate Programs - How To Choose Wisely

Webmasters already know that there are thousands and thousands of affiliate programs available to make an extra stream of income with, but how to choose.

This can be a very difficult situation because it has been proved through science that the human mind hits a certain stage of paralysis when it is confronted with to many choices or two many decisions at once.

This is where many new webmasters simply give up. Much to do with the web as we know it can be a bit overwhelming and choosing a winning affiliate program is just one example. Below you will find some easy steps to pre-approving and then choosing the right affiliate program to promote to give you the best chances of success in the cut throat world of online marketing.

How To Pre-Quality An Affiliate Program

1. Trust is of the utmost importance, so you should make sure that you are only looking at affiliate programs that have been proven by the test of time or that are already in motion. Joining brand new affiliate programs can allow you to ride the wave a new success, but you don't want to get caught in the undertow of a loosing system either.
2. Are others already making money with it. You can always search Google and find everything bad you ever wanted to hear about any program, but going on to marketing forums to ask for real feedback is a better way to learn about a prospective affiliate program.
3. Try to find affiliate programs that have extra promotional material to help you promote the products. This can make a huge difference when it comes time to promote.
4. Only check out programs that offer content, products or services that are in your niche. There is no reason to waste your time looking at sites that will not be able to help you offer your readers what they want.

How To Choose A Profitable Affiliate Program

1. Look for high commission percentages and a high epc. The commission percent shows you how much of each sale you will make while the epc (earnings per click) shows you how much the average person makes per click on the specific affiliate program or product.
2. Narrow your search to products that are very complementary to your niche or market. At the same time you need to make sure it is not competitive to your own product or service if you are offering one.
3. Finding programs that are on large affiliate networks to work with is a great way to find a diamond in the rough, but it is also important that the offers on these huge networks are trusted and have a good backend system to funnel clients through.
4. Residual income is a lot easier if you can find products/service that are subscription based. You can go for the big ticket items, but it is much easier to sell a service that keeps paying you each month, so make sure to look for these services on various affiliate networks before you proceed.
5. Finding out how and when you can get paid is a big factor that you should consider. Many programs make you wait a long time to get your payouts while others may even offer instant payments in some situations.

Using the lists above you can definitely get in the right mindset to start hunting down a high quality and profitable affiliate program to work with. Another thing to keep in mind as you become ready to start promoting and working with affiliate program is the fact that no matter how careful you are, mistakes will be made along the way. So there is no time like the present to get started and start making some extra income, learning while you are earning is much preferred to waiting and waiting just to get started. Don't forget to check out my own affiliate program on my personal blog here, Nick Simpson Launches IM Affiliate Program and start profiting from the same proven products I have been working with. If you have any questions or comments, I look forward to hearing any and all feedback in the comments section of this post.

To your success,

Nick Simpson

Get A New Look With A Free Wordpress Theme

Ready to jazz your website up and not sure where to start? If you are using WordPress as your content management system then changing the look of your whole website can be done in a matter of seconds using the themes option. You can download themes and upload them to install them on your wordpress installation or you can even use the search option in the Appearance >> Themes section to find new ones for free. You can also browse the same set of free WordPress themes on the WP Extend Themes section of the WordPress.org website.

You can have a lot of fun choosing a great new look for your website or blog. However, it is important to choose one that is easy to read and navigate too. After all, you are doing this for your readers right? Learn how to get design tips from your readers in this article we posted a few days ago.

If you want something a little more fancy and something that is not being offered to all the users who are browsing WordPress' site, check out these other sources for free WordPress themes listed below.

Get More Free WordPress Themes Here

Check out all these free beautiful themes for your WordPress site! This list is just a short review of some of great companies and people out there that are sharing their hard work to the WordPress community for free!

1. www.freewpthemes.com - This site offers some themes with very clean layouts and is a great resource for anybody looking for a new look.
2. www.freewpthemesblog.com - You will find some great themes that have huge images in their featured section, if you are looking for one of those magazine layouts, this is a good place to start.
3. www.skinwp.net - This site has some really cool themes that are free, but it seems like their may be some paid ones in the listings to, so make sure to see what is really free and grab some goodies here.
4. wp.smashingmagazine.com - This site has some amazing looking themes, again they sneak in some paid ones, but for the most part this is a great resource and has plenty of pictures to help you search.

Have fun changing your blog look and feel and feel free to share some of your own resources for free WordPress themes in the comments of this blog post.

To Success,

Nick Simpson

Build The Website Your Visitors Want - Reader Layout Tips

For many webmasters finding the right design can take weeks or even months. For others, even though they have a great design, they simply cannot stop tweaking and making changes to the look and layout that they already have. The problem for most designers and web masters is the fact that their tastes change, so there is simply no end to the editing and changes that come.

This is not a good thing, to many the look and feel of a website is part of the brand. Just think, if a visitor comes to your web site one day, reads a couple post and decides to bookmark your page to come back and when they do come back a few days or a month later, the site doesn't even look familiar. This can be very off-putting and can also make it hard for readers to find your site by visual searches which are becoming much more popular. Looking through bookmarks, images of recently visited pages and these visual searches like the new Yahoo Axis make it very important that you can keep things very similar and not make drastic changes often if you can afford not to.

Get Reader Recognition Using Your Design

You want your readers to remember your site and not wander what has happened or if they are even on the same site every time they come to visit. It is also important to understand that not all template changes, but some, will move content use different tags and this can all lead to re-indexing or confusion on the search engine spiders to keep your site ranked consistently.

The question is how to you build the perfect website layout? There is a simple answer and you already know it, because you read the title of this article. You need to focus on what your visitors and readers really want. If you can somehow take their interests into consideration, this is always the best way to build a site that will be memorable, but also one that does not need changed near as often.

Get Free Answers To Your Website Layout Questions From People That Count

Don't listen to that weird guy who lives in the apartment next to you or your 83 year old grandmother. Getting input from the people that count the most (your reader) is much easier than you might think. You can get feedback from your readers in many different ways. You can make example or ask questions about changes in an online poll on FaceBook or your main site. This can be a great way to get some instant feedback. Another great way to get honest input from your user base is by emailing your list or your members and asking for suggestions or feedback on specific things you are considering changing.

Thanks For Reading And Look Forward To Your Comments

This website has a very simple layout that most of my readers enjoy because it is simple and straight to the point. However, my readers are here for one thing and that is rock solid content on how to build a better website and how to drive crazy traffic to their pages. So, you will see no fluff here, just meat and potatoes. However, I am always open to suggestion as I was saying earlier. If you have a design suggestion or some layout changes that you think will make the Free Webmaster Tips website even better, just leave a comment below!

To Success,

Nick Simpson

Get Your Copy Of "5 Ways To Get Instant Free Website Traffic" Today

Hello traffic moguls!

Oh, wait what is that?

You don't get so much traffic that you don't know what to do with it?

OK, well in that case you are going to want to grab this free ebook only available on the Webmaster Business Plan web site. This PDF resource guide was a created a few years ago with one thing in mind and that was how to get traffic. This simple but effective traffic guide will teach you some very easy ways to drive traffic to your website without worry of scaring the delicate Google Penguin.

If you are ready to get more visitors fast, go ahead and click over to this site to get your instant download, no email addy required, just straight content goodness!

Download your copy of  "5 Instant Ways To Get Instant Free Website Traffic" for free right now.

These Old School SEO methods are just as effective today, as they were when this traffic training material was originally put together, so forget about all your gray/black hat software and apps and learn how to make real traffic by doing something that Google loves without the need to try and trick the algorithm.

Great content and big traffic are in your near future or at least that's what the gypsy told me at the circus last night :-)


Enjoy,

Nick Simpson

My Favorite Social Networks

There are hundreds if not thousands of networks for social bliss on the net today. Choosing which one is right for you, can be tricky and the best way to find out what you like and what you don't like is by experiencing as many as possible. After review a small handful of these social sites most people can list what features are most important to them very quickly.  However, in reality most people will end up running back to the big ones like Google+, Facebook and Twitter for the simple reason that these sites have huge user bases, meaning their friends area already there.

It is hard to beat a site that all your friends are already active on, but it can also be a lot of fun showing people you know new ways to be social and to network online. With HTML5 and AJAX there are some pretty slick new social networks popping up on the web and I have been poking around and checking some out myself. I will list a few below and the links go directly to my social profile on the respective site. If you want to jump in and want to have at least one friend, just invite me, I would love to hear from you.

My Favorite Social Networks That You May Have Never Heard Of

Kontain.com - This website is not new, actually I have been hanging out there for a couple years now. I have seen some changes come about since my registration, a killer mobile app, being one. This site is something between a sharing site and social network, but they give you a solid platform to use and I love it!

Chime.in - This site really reminds me of Pinterest with a twitter feed built in, the idea is to chime in on topics, interests, pictures and videos. The fact that chime.in has been around for a while and I have never heard another human being speak of it, blows my mind. Great site, super fast loading, warm community and the ability to share images, videos and even make your own groups. Highly suggested site and I hope to see it thrive for years to come.

Bo.lt - This site is nothing but a Pinterest rip off, but it is a really good on and it is growing very fast. If you like Pinterest, you will like Bolt, so come on over and use this early invite to get in quicker. I love browsing images, so I love this site. I guess I would say this is the Pinterest version for guys, not so much foofoo stuff here and a lot of awesome infographics!

Find Me On The Top 3 Social Networks Here

I will be adding to this list as I run across other great social networks that are not the big 3. However, you can follow me and find me on them below:

Nick Simpson On Facebook

Nick Simpson On Google+

Nick Simpson On Twitter


Please take a second to follow this blog using your Google account or comment, would love to hear some feedback and names of other great up and coming social networks!

To Success,

Nick Simpson

Start Building A Profitable Email List For Free

There are some people who manage huge mailing lists and they require the use of popular email marketing standards. The fact that aWebber, Constant Contact and other email list building pay sites have gotten so huge, has led to some other online products to offer direct integration. This is one of the reasons that these services continue to thrive, this and the fact that they pay their affiliate residual income from the people paying each and every month to use such a service.

There are many different email marketing solutions out there and the rules that build a successful list do not depend on which solution you choose. I have used many different list building apps and programs, but when it comes down to it, you need to get started before you sell yourself on a feature of a specific type of list builder. So, lets get started by learning how to really get the most out of our email marketing.

Did you know that you can run a full featured email list right from your WordPress admin panel for free?

Most people do not know this and that is why many people get frustrated while they continue to pay for list building software while they are still trying to learn how to build a list. If you are ready to start building a money list and don't want to put cash up front assuming that it is going to take off, this free solution may be just what you have been hunting for.

The Free Wordpress Autoresponder allows online marketers to take complete control of their email marketing and you don't have to spend a dime to get started. This software lets you create and manage email lists directly from your WordPress admin panel and this makes creating blog content and the email to draw your subscribers back a very quick process. As your lists grows you can use this process to create "push button" traffic whenever you wish!

5 Tips To Starting Your Own Profitable Email List

1. Don't Start In The Hole - If you are going start off, there is no reason to spend money, not until you are making some at least. If you start building a list and it's gets so outrageously big that you need a more robust solution, you can upgrade to the paid version that runs of off your smtp mail server and allows you to throttle the sending of your message. The good thing is, the pro version of the free wordpress autoresponder is a one time fee of 27 bucks, so it cost about as much as one month of service from most of the other big name email list building tools you see out there.
   
2. Make A Killer Offer - Many people say "oh I have this old ebook sitting on my hard drive, I'll just give it away to build my list" and this may work, but don't forget to spend some serious time setting up your bribe correctly, if you make a great offer, you will get more sign-ups for sure. If you put together your own freebie that is best, then you can add your own affiliate information and links as needed.
   
3. Follow Through With Your Offer - Be a man or woman of your word. when you make a promise you have to deliver or people will unsubscribe so fast you won't know what happened. So, if you want to have a really successful and profitable list, you are going to over deliver! Whatever you offered your subscriber in exchange for their email address, blow their mind with big value when you deliver and you can bet your buns they are going to open and read every message they receive from here on out.
   
4. Don't Hammer Your List - Take it easy, they know who you are and they don't want to see your messages every five minutes. So spread your messages out on your autoresponder once a week or so and only send new messages when you really have something to say that is important, helpful or noteworthy. Weak messages are the second reason people unsubscribe, boredom is not your friend!
   
5. Be Cool - I know it sounds silly, but don't take internet marketing superstar Frank Kern's words for granted, he knows what he is saying. If you can "out cool" other marketers in your niche, you will remain the top dog in your market, period.

These are sure fire ways to building a successful email list that will help you start profiting from your efforts. Make sure you have some great follow up offers, this is where you start banking. However to make your funnel successful, you need to make sure everything from your capture page to your last message are in good shape, so don't be afraid to continually tweak your system until you find the perfect balance.

Thanks for reading,

Nick Simpson

P.S. To learn more about the Free WordPress Autoresponder check out this post on Pam Lawhorn's blog and see how easy it is to setup with her great step by step instructions and screen shots!

Google Authorship Is Big Are You Ready?

Online marketing and web site promotion has become such a large beast, that Google among many other online giants have to keep changing very often to stay ahead of cheaters and those who are constantly trying to game the system.

The fact that most people who are trying to build an online business do not want to spend the time to grow their business like a traditional brick and mortar business.

Most online marketers are looking for a easy way to make money, this has created many problems on the web and many of the biggest web authorities are spending a lot of time and money to make sure that the best websites, products and content are promoted naturally.

Social Gets Big And You Need To Be Using It

The problems that we talked about in the intro, led to Google, Bing and other huge online authorities to start putting more emphasis on content that was generated by people on social networks because this was their only metric that they could use as the "human factor". Now, don't think that this is going away, it has been very successful because even spammers can only get limited reach using these social networks. People are pretty quick to spot B.S. these days and they do not share it!

So, this means a couple of things. Number one, if you are not already using social as part of your marketing machine, you are going to be screwed and number two, if you are already using social media you can't stop. The same concept of link building applies here. If you see a bunch of buzz one day and then its gone, well Google is just going to figure that the herd has moved on. So don't just drop 50 tweets one day and then come back in a month, this is bad form for sure.

If you have been using Twitter and Facebook thinking that it is enough, you are probably right, but there are hundreds of other very popular and pretty big social media sites that you can expand your business by simply creating some new accounts and of course interacting.

Google Authorship, It's Kind Of A Big Deal!

OK, so what is Google Authorship anyhow? Well Google Authorship is a simple way for Google to start actually tracking and then rewarding or penalizing authors. Many people publish content under a bunch of different pen names and the reason for this is that many people are gray hat or black hat marketers and don't know it. In the past people thought that Google really wanted to see content from many different people talking about one subject to get ranked. Well, this may have been true, but in the real world, people who are affiliated with a site or an online project are much more likely to talk about it than others and Google knows this. So, authorship is a simple new method for google to follow you on the web, see what sites you post on and follow what content you are generating across the internet.

This may sound scary if you are using paid tools to blast hundreds of articles out every day, but if you a real content producer, then this is really a very exciting change. Google is glad to reward those who create unique, rich, fresh content often, just make sure that you are really the author of the content that you connect to.

How Do I Get Listed Or Cited As An Author In Google's Eyes?

There are a couple ways that you can force Google to give you author recognition and hopefully reward you big, for your continued effort to share useful and fresh content to the world. You can connect a web site, blog or Web 2.0 property that you are a contributor to on your Google+ profile, this is actually brand new, but the groundwork to make this work has been here since they first implemented Google Profiles way before we had heard about their social network Google+ coming out.

If you want to connect your web sites to your Google+ profile, just follow the link below to learn how:
https://plus.google.com/authorship

You can also use meta tags to send signals to Google about the authors of each post or the whole website. This may be an outdated method now that the above mentioned is in full effect, but there are some cases that  it may be more appropriate (guest blogging and so on) for you to still use this methodology to get credit for your cited work online.

To see how to use meta tags to signify authorship check out this link:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2011/06/authorship-markup-and-web-search.html

Oh, I Almost Forgot The Most Important Thing!

You get your picture in the search results! Yes, part of this system will automatically put your picture and some other juicy details about your followers and so on, in a small snippet that is being called "rich snippets" in the actual search results of google.

To see what I am talking about follow this link for Google's own explanation:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986

I hope you enjoyed the read and make sure to subscribe to this blog by clicking the black hover button at the top right of the page and please, please follow me on my Google+ profile.

To Success,

Nick Simpson

How To Wrestle A Google Penguin And Win!

OK, so here we go. Yes, Google has been making some major changes since December 2011 and through this year as well. You may have heard something about a Panda or a Penguin attacking marketers and their websites and these stories are very true. However, the fact remains that these Google algorithm changes are nothing new, just some of the more recent have been much more visible than the more incremental changes of the past.

These latest changes have been direct "attacks" as some call them on internet marketers. I would not use those words, but I would call these changes more of learning experiences for marketers.

The Real Rules Of SEO Have Never Changed!

If you look back at what Matt Cutts told webmasters to do to rank in Google 2 or even 5 years ago, they still hold true today. The problem is what people have been able to get away with to get ranked in the past (cheating) no longer works as well as it did a year ago. If you build killer content and let your site organically grow, nothing has changed. If you go out there and spend money on the marketing software that blasts crap all over the internet, you may be rethinking your spending habits right now.

So What Happened?

So here is the scratch. The Panda and Penguin updates both focus on one thing and that is low quality content. If you have hundreds or even thousands of low quality content farms links coming into your site, you probably lost some of your rankings recently. This does not mean your website has been sandboxed or black listed by any means. What Google did do, is de-index low quality and questionable content. If this was the type of pages linking to you, you just lost some link juice from the sites and pages that have been de-indexed that is all!

So, the good news is that you can rebuild your link authority even in a "post penguin seo world" without needing to track down all those old crappy quality links, because Google has already done you that favor by removing them from their search index. In essence Google has already given you a perfect chance for a fresh start without penalizing your site for trying to be sneaky.

5 Steps To Winning A Wrestling Match With The Google Penguin

1. Stop Building Junk Links Now! - This can be a big one if you are still throwing up hundreds of low quality links. You need to quit giving low quality score signals to Google now, before you do get a real Google Slap. So step one is, Stop! Now keep reading.
   
2. Start Acquiring New Authority Links To Your Site - OK, so you stopped testing Google by using shifting link building methods, now it is time to turn the tables back to your favor. Get real links on real sites, earn them, ask for them, don't buy them (Google is getting hip to this as well) and you will be rewarded.
   
3. Use Video - Yep, G loves Vids! So get out there and make some videos spread them around and don't forget to use a variety of links, titles and tags and these things stick in the results pages like nothing else.
   
4. Use Social - Social is now probably more important than links and most marketers will figure this out in the months and years to come. So get ahead of the wave and make a huge social impact on your site by making quality profile pages and more importantly interacting with the social communities that you are part of FB, LinkedIn, Twitter or what ever you choose.
   
   Heres a sneaky tools that still works for social Social Bookmarking Magic your content will be submitted by random real users! Best part is if you just keep clicking the no thanks, you can rock this system for free, of course you can update if you are lazy, but well worth a look.
   
5. Build Your Own Network Of Sites - This can take a little time to setup correctly, but you will reap some major rewards for a long time if it is done correctly on keyword specific domain name and on separate hosting accounts to make sure you have a good spread of Class C IP addresses to run your sites on.
   
   Or use these free content networks to start your own blog, these are Penguin Friendly and not overused, so don't tell your friends! >> BusinessConnectPro.com | SubmitFreeArticles.com <<
   
6. Share This Post - Yes, ask for links! That is the last tip, if you enjoyed this article please help us out by sharing it on your favorite social network or your own blog!

Thank you for reading. I really appreciate that you took the time to visit my blog and I would love to hear from you in the comments section.

To success,

Nick Simpson

5 Tips To Becoming An Amazon Super Affiliate

Look, everybody is trying to make a dollar online these days. This means two things, there are plenty of ways to make money online and there is plenty of competition online. So how are you making yourself stand out? Well, if you are not then you may not be doing so well with your commission earnings as an affiliate. Years ago you could get away with slapping up some links or even using scripts to pull content from RSS feeds to make money with affiliate program, but today it just isn't that simple.

Amazon has one of the largest tangible goods affiliate programs on the planet and this makes it prime pickings for those looking to sell real world goods online and profit from it. There are thousands of product review sites on the net today, most of them are crap, but if you take the same theory and put a little elbow grease behind it, these micro-niche review sites, can still make a killing with Amazon products.

5 Tips To Being An Amazon Super Affiliate

1. Choose A Great Product - Yep, this is where the rubber meets the road folks. If you are trying to push a product that sucks, well you may already know what happens. Choosing a winning product or line of product is definitely where you want to start. Doing a little market research, keyword research and checking on the competition before you get in too deep is highly suggested.
   
2. Expensive And Cheap, It's Important - If you really want to explode your amazon profits you should understand how their compensation plan works. You really want to be selling both expensive and cheap Amazon products, because the more items you sell the higher your commission is. This means selling quantity of cheap items gets you more cash from the bigger ticket items. This combination is crucial and is a great way to balance out your affiliate portfolio so to speak.
   
3. Offer Great Reviews - Don't just throw up a short little blurb with the customer reviews. Google doesn't like that and neither do readers. Take time to give a lot of valuable and honest information about your products and promotions and you will get more sales - I promise!
   
4. Videos Sell - Yes, it is no secret, but still so many people do not use this as their medium of choice. Start making short product videos so prospective buyers can see what you have to offer with their own eyes and maybe even see the product in action.
   
5. Use Proven Site Layouts - Not everybody tests the design of their site before they try to start selling, but this really can be a big factor in your overall conversions. Taking the time to split test or opting to purchase tried and true Amazon affiliate themes can be an quick and easy way to instantly boost your profits, providing you already have some traffic to play with.

There are many more things that need to be learned and implemented to become a real success with an affiliate marketing plan. However, these simple rules are the core of what most super affiliates do that regular old affiliates simply do not. 

I hope you enjoyed the read and if you really want to rock your Amazon products make sure to take a look at my own affiliate product below. You can use it on your own Amazon affiliate web site and it is easy to install to any hosted WordPress web site. This template has proven to be a conversion monster for myself and many others, so give it a whirl and if you want to become an affiliate of this product you can earn 60% profit on every sale!

As always To Success and thank you for reading. Please leave any comments and questions you may have about Amazon or selling online below.

Nick Simpson

Get A Free Blog And Build A New Authority Link Property Today

It may sound almost basic to some, while others it sounds logical, but to others it is just what they needed to hear. The fact is that if you are a webmaster or an online marketer, you need to be constantly expanding the link properties that you are building your online links and information stores on. If you keep adding new pages to blogs that you already have an established presence on, this is good. However, to really move the pendulum in your direction you need links from new domains coming in as well as new links from your existing web 2.0 properties and other online resource and social sites.

It may sound like more hard work and it can be depending on where you expand your search for new link building properties and places to build your brand. Below you will find a quick list of some of my favorite new places to share about what is new with all my own web projects.

New Link Building Blog Platforms

The sites listed below are a lot more than an easy way to score an all mighty link for y our website, but they are also great places to frequent to see what is new on the web and share

1. Kontain.com
2. SubmitFreeArticles.com
3. BlogPowr.com
4. Tumblr.com
5. Pinterest.com
6. BusinessConnectPro.com

Post Panda Link Building

There are many different ways to protect your websites from the Panda and even more recent Google search algorithm updates. One of the biggest ways you can do this is avoid low level links in to your web site. The easiest way to do this is by using the silo link architechture. This simply means linking into your main money site from one of these new and not overused link building link resources and then build secondary and third level links coming into them. By doing this you can build links as fast as you want and you don't have to worry about Google raising a brow about your site, because the fast and heavy linking is going to your gateway link page. If you take time to build a few quality doorway link pages you will never have to worry about getting bit by the Panda.

You can also use high ranking sites like YouTube and FaceBook for these link barriers that will protect you from that good old Google slap!

Learn more about Post Panda Link Building by joining the Link Building Ninjas today! It's free so start getting inside link building tips from the real link ninjas and see how easy building authority to your web site can be.

As always I love to hear feedback from my readers, so why not take a minute to leave a comment below?

To Success,

Nick Simpson

Plagiarism And Online Marketing

Well, totally off topic, I think I broke my hand yesterday. So one hand typing is not so much fun and I wanted to add something new to this blog anyhow. So I figured if we were going to be talking about plagiarism, I would have to plagiarize something myself in this very article to see if it gets penalized by Google or not. We all know that using other peoples work that is not sited is morally wrong and in some cases legally wrong as well.


Keep on reading to understand plagiarism and professional online marketing concepts that will help you grow a rock solid business content system that will keep your sites listed higher and ranked longer.

So What Is Plagairism?

Many people think of plagiarism as copying another's work, or borrowing someone else's original ideas. But terms like "copying" and "borrowing" can disguise the seriousness of the offense: According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, to "plagiarize" means to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own,  to use (another's production) without crediting the source,  to commit literary theft to present as new and original an idea or product derived from an existing source. In other words, plagiarism is an act of fraud. It involves both stealing someone else's work and lying about it afterward.


Need content for your site, just outsource content creation, don't plagiarize.

Academic Plagiarism Stance

Research-based writing in American institutions, both educational and corporate, is filled with rules that writers, particularly beginners, aren't aware of or don't know how to follow. Many of these rules have to do with research and proper citation. Gaining a familiarity of these rules, however, is critically important, as inadvertent mistakes can lead to charges of plagiarism, which is the uncredited use (both intentional and unintentional) of somebody else's words or ideas.

While some cultures may not insist so heavily on documenting sources of words, ideas, images, sounds, etc., American culture does. A charge of plagiarism can have severe consequences, including expulsion from a university or loss of a job, not to mention a writer's loss of credibility and professional standing. This resource, which does not reflect any official university policy, is designed to help you develop strategies for knowing how to avoid accidental plagiarism.

Choosing to create your own unique online content will always be worth your while even if you are a slow typist!

Isn't Creating Unique Content A Waste Of Time?

It does take time to write real unique information and if you are not knowledgeable on the topic, purchasing unique content can be expensive. However, if places on high ranking 3rd party sites and used in combination with a powerful link wheel or link magnet, these unique articles can pass on Google juice for years to come and help you strengthen the standings of any site you link into from them. There is a real value from fresh unique content that simply cannot be matched by using the new “SEO Tool” of the week or paying for spun content.

More Anti-Plagiarism Resources Online:

• http://www.copyscape.com (Offers both free and paid services)
• http://www.plagiarisma.net (Offers both free and paid services)
• http://www.dmca.com (Offers only paid services)
• http://www.creativecommmons.org (Offers free licensing services to protect your work)

First $100 Check For Giving Away Free Wordpress Autoresponder!

Yes, there are a lot of cool plugins out there and you will find that there are many that offer an affiliate program. The problem with many of these plugins is that they are not really that valuable. Some internet marketers look for a product that has a big markup and this can be important, but it should not be the only thing you look for when you are choosing a product to promote. Now, as you have already read in the title, I am not getting rich from the product I am talking about, but you will be amazed at how easy it was for me to make that first 100 dollars.

What Is the Plugin?

The plugin that I so exited about is called the Free Wordpress Autoresponder. It is a complete email marketing solution that is as easy as 1-2-3. Simply download the free plugin and then go into your wordpress admin section to upload the zip file and install it. You can use this for mailing lists, free product delivery or simply a one time offer subscription form. It has a built in autoresponder that really makes it easy to setup an automatic marketing plan. You can even import and export your list via a GUI so you don't have to know any code at all, the plugin does all the hard work.

Get The Free Wordpress Autoresponder Plugin Now!
Once you download the free version of this plugin you will be instantly ready to start building your mailing list. It is amazing how much you can get without spending a dime. The free wordpress autoresponder plugin offers a powerful email marketing solution and it is ready for you to test drive it right now.

How To Make Money With This Plugin

So what did I do to get my first $100 from this wordpress plugin. Well it took about a month to really start working. All I did was post what the plugin did and how I was using it on a couple of my personal blogs like this one Nick Simpson Official Blog and people started downloading it for free. The thing is, this plugin really is amazing and the cost of the full blown version that allows you to run multiple email lists and more only cost $20. If you use and like it, why wouldn't you buy it, right?

Well, that is exactly what happened, I just told a few people about it and then of course pinged my blogs rss feed and threw out a couple of automatic bookmarks and the traffic started coming in. The interesting thing is, like I said earlier it took about a month before things really started happening. It seems like most people would take the time to set it up, test it and then they would buy because they knew it was great too.

This is what makes free trial offers so great. People are happy to buy when they have already seen a product in action and this one is a must have for any person selling online or simply trying to build a list without needing to shovel out money every month to aweber or constant contact!

Free Back Link Building System Automatically Build Backlinks

Start automating your link building process today.

This is one way that many webmasters are getting their foot into the seo world without needing to spend endless hours creating links and writing articles on their topics of interest. Do understand that any link building campaign that is to be successful will require more than one type of link, so use this secret weapon sparingly and spread your links far and wide!

Get The Free Link Building System Here!

Watch the video below to see how easy link building really can be.



Get The Free Link Building System Here!

If you are already spreading links to your favorite web site on social networks, bookmarking sites and allowing others to naturally link in to you, this next step is going to blast your web site up in the rankings for sure. If you want to learn even more about cool link building techniques like this on make sure to stop by the Link Building Ninja web site and grab their free tools and link building resources today. If you liked this quick tool tip, make sure to subscribe to the free webmaster tips rss feed to get all of our updates as we post them!

Free Content From Guest Bloggers

For some webmasters keeping fresh content on their web site is one of most difficult hurdles. Keeping new content that is also relevant on your web site or blog is one of the easiest ways to keep Google's eyes on your web site. The search engines love to see new content. If your web site is updated frequently Google is more likely to index you web site more often and thus show your web site more often in their search results.

How To Find A Guest Blogger

Finding a writer for your web site is not hard, if you don't mind paying for content. However, there is a better way. Most content creators are also webmasters themselves. This means that most people who are writing on their own blog or web site are also interested in promoting their site. This is why guest blogging works so seamlessly. You can find other web sites that are complimentary to your niche or topic and ask them to write unique content for your own site in exchange for a back link.

You can use the contact form on many web sites to get in touch with the web site owner or you can look up the domain on a whois search to find the email of the owner of the domain name itself. It really is as simply as sending a few emails out to find your guest blogger. You may also consider putting out the word on webmaster forums to find people who would be interested in guest blogging.

Quality Over Quantity

Having a lot of frequent and fresh posts on your site is very helpful for seo, but you do not want to trade quantity for the quality of the content. You will want to hunt down writers that are already producing the level of quality in their own content that you would like to find on your own web site.

If you find web sites that are high quality and that have many recent posts it should be easy to find some writers who would be more than willing to write for your blog for absolutely free. If you run into an author that you really like, ask them to come back and you may be able to work out some other deal or possible trade posts with their site on an ongoing basis. There are no limits to how much free content you can get when you start applying this method.

Do Your Part

If you get some writers to take your offer you still need to do your part. Help promote their posts even if the post only links out to their site. After all any traffic through your site is beneficial and you should try to show off any and all content on your site. If you are working with inexperienced writers, give them some pointers that will help them make the type of content you want. This will help them learn and help you get some great content for your site. Don't be afraid to mention keyword phrases that you would like used for seo purposes and enjoy your new found free content source!

Your Christmas Gift - Free Wordpress Training Videos

There are a lot of folks out there in the giving spirit this time of the year and here is something any new webmaster not only needs, but also wants. Free training videos on the wordpress blogging platform!

These videos were sent out as a gift to all of the subscribers to the Link Building Ninja mailing list, but you can still take advantage of them even if you are not a member. If you are interested in learning more about webmaster tips, tricks and how to's you may want to get your spot on this membership site while it is still free. The guys who are running this hot seo site are giving away all sorts of great info on how to get your pages ranked and make more money with you blog, so don't forget to return the Christmas gift by grabbing a spot on their powerful members only mailing list!

Merry Christmas,

From Free Webmaster Tips!

eMail Marketing Tools and Steps

eMail marketing is nothing more than offering valuable information to your clients, customers, friends and blog readers in a easy to receive format. Some people think that email marketing is spam and is nothing short of trying to hard sell people on products that they don't want. However, this simply could not be further from the truth. Using the power of email marketing can help you grow your business, find new friends and really make you look like the good guy. If you want to be known as an authority in your market or niche, building a strong list of loyal readers is a great way to get started and it does not have to cost a dime.

If you want to start making more money from your online marketing efforts, choosing to start a powerful eMail marketing campaign can be one of the fastest ways to get a big return from your effort. The problem for many marketers is the high cost of list building tools on the market today. You can use Aweber or Get Response, but really there is no reason to start paying for a service before you have a need for it and that is what these systems perpetuate. You can start building your list today using free WordPress plugins and if you want to upgrade, it only costs $30.00 to get a full version email list building autoresponder plugin that you can use on as many web sites as you want. There are some other follow tools that can really help you build your mailing list faster and below is the email marketing tools that I personally suggest you use to get your marketing campaign started on a budget and you can get started today for free!

Powerful eMail Marketing Tools

1. Free Wordpress Auto-Responder - This is a awesome plugin that lets you use any wordpress blog as an instant and powerful list building back end. You can use the easy form to grab email addresses on your blog or post the same sign up form on any other web site out there!
2. Graphical Opt In Boxes - These cool opt in graphics let you make your opt in form look very attractive and can boost your conversions up to 50% instantly. You must know basic copy and past html and you are ready to power up your email list building power within minutes.
3. Are You Building A Mailing List Or A Spam List? - This is a in depth article that explains all the ins and outs of building a powerful eMail list the right way. Learn to to make your offers irresistible and make your readers eager to open up your messages every time you send one out.

The tools above will give any internet marketer everything they need to start a powerful list building campaign. The opt in boxes are not free, but if you are going to be serious about building a huge list, using these fancy and easy to use graphics can tremendously boost the performance and registration rate. There is not reason to go slow, the faster you build your list the faster you can start profiting from it.

How To Build A Responsive eMail List

1. Under Promise & Over Deliver - You know it, if you you want to start making people say "Wow, this mailing list should be charging for the great information they are sending out!" you may have to put a little elbow grease into it, but there is no reason that you can't make people really surprised to see what all you are just giving away because they signed up for your free info.
   
2. Quality Over Quantity - This is old, but true. You have to cut the clutter and only send out messages when you have something worth saying. People will be glad to open ever message you send if they know that you always have something special for them, not just a new Click Bank offer every day of the week...wink wink.....you guys know who you are!
   
3. Take the time to personalize your messages - Don't just say "hey reader" say "hey John" this really does make people feel special and feel like you are talking just to them, even if you are sending out your messages to thousands of readers at a time. The above mentioned free wordpress autoresponder and list building tool will allow you to automatically add the subscribers name in every message!
   
4. Use Spam Filter Friendly Titles - If you are sending out an email with titles that have Money, Sex, Pills, Lose Weight or other words that you know are junk in them, don't be surprised when these messages do not get any response.
   
5. Give Readers A Reason To Stay Active - It is a proven fact that if readers do not see a direct reason or positive reason to take action, they will not.  In fact you may have the best content, best product or best free stuff, but let them know what it is going to do for them! Sorry, people really are greedy so don't be afraid to let them know what you are going to do to impact them directly, change their life or give them just for watching your video, downloading your ebook or taking the next step in the order process.

Get Even More Action Using Paid Tools That Rock!

Try AWeber's Autoresponders for $1

Don't Stop Now, You Already Have The Ball Rolling!

The problem for most any person who ever fails at internet marketing is the simple fact that they are a starter and not a finisher. This means that they will get the ball rolling, but then stop. You have already been given all the tools you need to start building a huge email list. Yes, the short list of tools above can get you adding hundreds of subscribers a day, but you are still missing one small piece of the puzzle and that is TRAFFIC!

So don't stop now, go get this totally killer content and resource package from the Link Building Ninja and start driving the traffic to your web site offer page, opt in page or any other important part of your business  today.

 The link building ninja team is offering a huge list of tools, resources, ebooks, videos and more. Its All Free so if you really want to see your email marketing and your business explode, take the next step and you can thank me later.

Social Bookmarking Magic

The power of social bookmarking has already been realized by many online marketers and web masters. If you are looking for a way to promote your site that is easy, social and viral social bookmarking is one of the best ways for you to utilize the power of the internet to drive new traffic and of course new customers to any web site of your choosing. Using social bookmarking to promote web sites and drive traffic has been though its hay day and is still as important today as it has been for the past 5 years or more.

The initial power of using these social bookmarking sites lie in their high page rank and the fact that many of them do give a real no follow direct link back to your web site. This means you can use these to get free links! Many people do not understand how important that this is in the overall scheme of things, but trust us this is big. The next thing that happens when you add your web site to these bookmarking sites is that they become instantly exposed to hundreds if not thousands of other people looking for web sites that interest them. The direct traffic from social bookmarking can be huge if your information is of interest to a wide variety of web surfer and it has a catchy title.

Social Bookmarking Equals Good Search Engine Standings

The most important benefit these sites offer is a solid boost in your web sites ranking in most search engines. The most recent releases of Google Caffeine and other search engines own algorithms are using these social sites to help them figure out the human factor in web site popularity, so if your site is not listed on Web 2.0 and Social Bookmarking sites you are definitely missing out big time.

Automate Your Social Bookmarking Tasks For Free

The problem with getting your web site listed on many different social bookmarking sites is that it can become a tedious and time consuming task. If you have many web sites that you promote, this can become a big time killer and a task that you really don't look forward to completing. The good news is that there is an easier way to get your sites listed and you will be amazed at how easy it really is. The tool we are talking about is called SocialAdr and this tool changes the way that you will bookmark your favorite sites forever. Now your social bookmarking daily task time will be about 30 seconds. You can even upgrade the account on this site to have a totally hands free social bookmarking experience if you like.

Using this Social Bookmarking Magic, you will be able to get others to bookmark your web site for you. You will have your content (spun if you want) passed out to up to 18 different social bookmarking sites automatically. The only thing you need to do is return the favor or you can pay a small fee. We have found that the free way is pretty easy to do, you only need to click one button to share other links and if you create new accounts for the bookmarking sites you will never have to worry about filling up your own social bookmark sites with unwanted links.

This is a powerful, automatic and free way to get more traffic to your web site and get more exposure on many social bookmarking sites. Folks it doesn't get much easier than this!

Take Your Social Marketing To The Next Level

Getting plenty of social bookmarks to your website is just not enough any more. If you really want to get the most out of your social marketing efforts, you are going to need to have frequent updates on the biggest and best social networks. The tool I use is the HootSuite.

<< Get Your Free Trial Now

Using this software you can schedule messages, automatically tie in Google Analytics Flags to your short links, manage unlimited accounts and so much more. Using this online software suite you can even manage teams of social media experts, so for small businesses or one man operations, this makes keeping active on multiple social sites a snap.

Best of all you can get started for free right now!

Learn How To Profit From Your Web Site

Every webmaster wants to make a great looking site to serve some purpose. Even if your web site design and content are not geared toward how to make money online, it does not mean that you cannot produce some cash yourself. There are many different ways to make a profit from your existing or a new web sites. It does not make any difference if you know anything about internet marketing and it doesn't make any difference what topic your web site or blog covers. There is gold in them hills!

The one thing that you must understand is that no web site starts making huge amounts of cash overnight. You must put consistent effort in if you really want to see some nice returns. There are some great learning resources for those who want to start profiting from their website that do not cost anything at all. Yes, there are plenty of places to go spend your hard earned money to learn the latest and greatest fast cash scheme, but you could just learn the basics of internet marketing and find out how you can start bringing in a real income in the next couple weeks from your website.

If you wan to really dig into how to make money from your web site, you may want to take a look at the Webmaster Business Plan site and take in all the free information that you can handle. This site offers a huge amount of information and does not charge a penny for it.

What Are Some Ways I Can Profit From My Website?


The Free Webmaster Tips Blog is here to help. So lets discuss some of the most common ways that people are turning profits from their websites and you never know, you may be able to start earning faster than you think.

1. Sell Ad Space - You can do this by solicity ad space on your site, using services that delegate banner ads or you can put up an ad on eBay, it really is easy!
   
2. Use PPC Content - We have all heard about adsense and it really does pay off if you have a high traffic site, but there is no reason not to get it in place early on if your site is new.
   
3. Paid Blogging - Yes, there are some people who really look down on this, but if you are in it for the money, there are many sites that will pay you to blog about their product or their own site and it pays very well!
   
4. Affiliate Products - You can sell just about anything under the sun by becoming an affiliate of Amazon.com, ClickBank.com and CJ.com, so if you have a topic that has related products that you can get paid for referring people to, let your readers know and start telling them about these products.
   
5. Start Your Own Information Product - It sounds strange, but there have been more internet millionaires made from creating their own information product than just about anything else. Just start off with a good plan and lay out the information you want to share in a logical order.

There are plenty of other great resources for more information on these topics, this was only meant to get your creative juices flowing. If you really want to start making profit online, you will need to learn a little something about SEO and Link Building too.