Do you know your credit score?

Last year true credit did a survey and less than 10% of the people surveyed could answer the questions. Read the full story here.


Did you know that by checking your credit report regularly you not only keep a great record of the "big picture" on how much you owe and how much more you can borrow but you also protect yourself from Identity Theft and fradulent charges.

You may think, "I can't be a victim of Identity theft, I shred my junk mail, file all my bills in a locked filling cabinet and my wallet/purse has never been stolen. I am very carefull who I give my personal information to."

Well, did you know that most Identity thieves are someone you know; your kids, your spouse, your parents, your employer or employees. Its true. It is much more likely that you will have your identity stolen by someone you know and love than by a total stranger. Wouldn't you rather find out it had happened sooner than later?

I've been using MyFico and Suze Orman products for about 5 years to regularly monitor my credit score and report. Not only have I been able to correct errors that I found on my report but just seeing the full picture the way that lenders see me has helped me to reduce my debt and raise my credit score over 120 points in the past 3 years.

MyFico also provides you with simulators to show you how certain actions can effect your credit score. Curious what would happen to your credit score if you paid off a portion of your debt? Or what if you missed a couple of payments? The score simulator can help you see the "what ifs" so you know what's a good idea and what's not.

Shopping News Day 1

Well guys (and gals) I've decided to do an experiement in off-line advertising vs on-line advertising.

Shopping News is a local classified paper that servers Dickson Tn and all its surrounding counties except Davidson Co. (That's where Nashville is, its only 10 mins away yet they have so many of their own newspapers they don't usually accept tiny outsiders)

For this experiement I placed a 2x4 (8") ad. No color no frills. I wanted the ad to be as cheap as possible. I had to choose one of the larger sizes to accomodate the amount of information I had and the larger text font I choose. The reason I choose a larger font was not for attention but due to the fact that the product I am selling appeals more to elderly people and people with health problems. Although I think its great for anyone and I personally use the product.

Price tag: $52.80 My son weaseled the larger text font out of the lady for free. He is so dang cute. He drew a picture of a sunflower and wrote her name on it. Awwww.

The ad text is as follows:

Save 10-60% on Dental, Vision and RX services
For as little as $23.95 your whole family can save at over 20 local providers.
***This is not Insurance***
There are no forms to fill out and no limits on yearly use.
For more information:
My phone number
My email.

(I left out my personal information to protect myself from Internet Sales Sharks)

I am also placing a splash page containing the same information but with a different email contact on a couple of traffic generators. I will give it a week and let you guys know which method proved to be more successful.

Internet Etiquette

The Internet is a great big and sometimes very anonymous place. If you, like me, are involved with Internet Marketing you may be tempted to just leave your mark any where and every where. Here are some tips for getting the best responses for your advertising when posting comments on blogs or on message boards.

#1 Be a part of the community! If you want the biggest bang for your buck (so to say) when posting comments that advertise your particular affiliate program or product, you should start by advertising YOURSELF!

What do I mean? I'm going to use Valerie Underhill as an example on this one. Valerie doesn't go around dropping affiliate links willy nilly all over the Internet. I have come across Valerie in several different settings on-line. She always and I mean ALWAYS has something useful to say. She never makes a post that says "Here is a product, here is its link, click me" That's rude and that isn't her style!

Valerie creates a name for herself. She SELLS herself and not any one specific product or program. This is why she is successful. She will tell you WHY a program will work for you. She tells you HOW the program will work for you. She even warns people when she finds a scam, sham or overall bad deal. Her posts are meaningful and productive. Heck, she'll even make you laugh with her country speak and made up Southern words. The point is, you can't not know Valerie, she is personal and friendly and when she promotes a program or product, you can't wait to try it. Because if Valerie says so, it must be so! (Note I'm not saying you will ALWAYS agree with her but at least if you don't she is fun to argue with!)

The point is....Sell yourself. Start conversations. If it's a message board you are visiting you have the ability to let your personality shine! I have heard it over and over again in Private Messages on various forums "I read a couple of your posts and you seem to really know a lot about "X" can you please tell me more about "X" I joined up under you"

#2 "Chaining" a program Chaining a program is where one person advertises an affiliate program. You sign up and post your link right under theirs, the next person signs up under you and so on and so on. Chaining a program can be a GREAT idea, WHEN the first person who posts says its a great idea!
As a general rule, unless you are invited to do so, it is quite rude to leave a comment unders someone Else's post blatantly containing your own affiliate link to the same program.

I'm going to use AGLOCO as an example. Let's say I have written a fairly lengthy post about AGLOCO. I've listed all its ups and downs, all the benefits and downfalls and have really taken my time to be as descriptive about the program as possible. Lets say my post is really compelling and every one who reads it wants to sign up right away. Naturally they are going to go ahead and read some of the comments to see what others have to say about the program. But instead of finding comments they find sign up link after sign up link. Wingo, Bingo BAM! I just spent my time compelling someone to sign up for a program under YOU! Would you want someone to do that to you?

#3 Signature lines and Blog back links In case you are brand new to Internet Marketing and don't usually leave comments on message board or blogs I will explain to you what these are and how they work.

A signature line is just what it sounds like. It is a line of text that automatically shows up at the bottom of any of your posts on a message board or forum. A signature line can contain just about anything as long as it is allowed by the sites admin or moderators. Most of them are usually a picture, a quote or a link to a product or program. Signature line advertising is one of the most effecive and cheapest forms of advertising online. But there are rules of etiquette concerning this as well. Making the same or even various one line posts all over a forum just to get your signature line read is spamming.

Now a bit about Blog back links. I really didn't know what else to call this. A blog back link is a link back to YOUR blog when you post a comment on a blog belonging to someone else. For example lets say I went over to Steve's Blog about Dogs and left a comment. Since I have my own blog my name will now become a link to my own blog. Let's say I leave a beautiful well written compliment to Steve in the comments on his post about Puppies. When someone reads the comment they might decide to hop on over to check out my blog as well.

Lastly I thought I would make a list of things that are in my opinion JUST PLAIN WRONG! Some of them I have already mentioned.

#1 Leaving a comment anywhere that is only a link to an affiliate program. Just as wrong as putting your own affiliate link under someone Else's is completely changing the subject and posting a random affiliate link to a thread that is getting a lot of traffic.

#2 Leaving a comment on someones blog that is just a link to your own blog. You wouldn't want someone to do this to you!

#3 Spamming in any form. If you don't have anything usefull to say pertaining to a forums given topic and all you want to do is advertise your affiliate link, I recommend investing in Ad Words. I don't care IF you are only posting once a week AND you are doing it in the appropriate threads, unless the whole forums theme is "Advertise Here" in my opinion, you are WRONG!

#4 Having a blog that is nothing more than links to affiliate programs with no other content and having it fed to a message board. Yes I realize this is a great easy way to get your message out to multiple forums by only creating one post. Again, if you don't have anything usefull to say go ahead and shell out some bucks for Ad Words.

#5 And yes I feel VERY strongly about this one...... And this really requires a sneaky creature with a lot of time on his or her hands..... if you visit a message board or blog on a regular basis and make a name for yourself and you then create your own competing message board or blog and you publicly encourage people to use this new one over the one you are posting in... yes my brother or sister....

YOU ARE WRONG!

Now let's get out there and play nice!

Leaving Comments on Blogs

I normally wouldn't post a rant on my otherwise positive blog but there is just this one little thing that has been bothering me lately.

If you are using your blog to make money or to promote your own affiliate programs the last thing you want to see is a comment on your blog promoting SOMEONE ELSE'S affiliate link.

Here is an example (This didn't actually happen)

My Post: "Hey Guys! I just found this great program called AGLOCO. Its free to join and you can make money just by using the internet as usual."

Then the comment: "Yes I agree... AGLOCO is great you should sign up! Here is my referral link http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBH6540. Please sign up using my link I really really need referrals and I will be your best friend for ever."

Then the next comment: " here is the link to sign up for agloco http://www.agloco.com/r/BBBH6540"

(obviously I used my own link all 3 times!)

I've only had this happen to me one time. And you can call it rude and against my normal good nature but... yup, I deleted it! It wasn't for AGLOCO. In fact, the comment didn't even go with the post. Someone put a link to an affiliate program that promotes ON-LINE ads on one of my OFF-LINE advertisings posts.
The reason I got mad about the comment was because I am actually a member of that particular affiliate program already and have been writing a post about it over the past few weeks. (I like to test a program out for a while before I recommend it to others) In other words, this person stole my thunder.

****Now back to my nice, normal, polite self****

Keep in mind if you want me to try out an affiliate program and join under you, you can suggest it to me and I will most likely join right up and test it out if I haven't already. Just PLEASE, instead of leaving your affiliate link, contact me in a different way or leave me a way to contact you!

Now back to our regularly scheduled up-beat friendly programming.

Free Dinner for 2 at Red Lobster, Chilli's or TGIF

Off-line promotion that anyone can use and every one will appreciate.

How much would you pay for a list of Names, Phone numbers, and email addresses?
Let's say 1000. $1 per name? $o.50 per name? How would you like to get a list like this for only $50 and a little bit of your time.

Marketers have been doing this for ages. I'm sure you have been to a restaurant and seen a fish bowl or a cleverly decorated cardboard box with a sign that says "Dinner for two at your favorite restaurant. Drawing next Tuesday. Sign up here!" Well it isn't there just because someone just wanted to give away some food. Someone is making a list of names, addresses and phone numbers to promote their business or product.

Here are step by step instructions for how to set up your own drawing and create your own list.

First you will want to contact some local businesses to get permission to place your box or bowl in their establishment. You might want to place your box or bowls in a couple of different places. Not only will you get more names but you will get a bigger variety of people. It is important to get the establishments permission before you do this, otherwise they may just throw you things away.

Next you will need slips of paper for people to sign up on. There are several different ways you can go about this. The cheapest way that I have found to do it is to use blank business cards. You can buy these at an office supply store or even at wal-mart. You would then use your own computer to print them at home. You can also buy pre-printed drawing slips at most office supply stores. You just have to make sure that they have all the information that you want pre-printed on them.

This is an important step. No matter where you place your box or bowl, no matter how you go about creating your slips YOU MUST place this information somewhere where it can easily be read either on your box or bowl OR on the sign up slips themselves: "By entering this drawing you agree to receive ONE (phone call, email, letter; whatever way you plan to contact this person)from (Your name of the name of your business)"

After you have collected your list if you plan to call the people make sure that you scrub their numbers against the Do Not Call Registry.

Here are somethings to consider when contacting people. Remember you only get to contact them ONE TIME! If you call and leave a message, that is your one time! Remember that most people have caller ID and choose not to answer calls from unknown numbers. Any call counts as a call! Not everyone will have an email address. For those who do and you choose to email them for your one contact you might want to try using an auto-responder. Sure its a gamble but you could use your "one time" contact to get them to sign up for a newsletter or a whole series of advertisements. Of course Postal mail would be the most expensive manner of contact. 200 stamps from the post office costs $70 and you can't guarantee that they will even open your letter. If you are advertising for a business and you have more than $50 to invest you might consider mailing out magnetic calendars. That's a whole years worth of advertising for the cost of one magnet!

These are just a couple of ideas on how you can pull this plan off. There are many other ways to do this. Just use this example as a jumping point and then customize the plan to suit your needs.

Remember people have been doing this FOREVER! It must work.

What goes around comes back around Part 2

The comparison of two Traffic Exchanges

You can't have a comparison with out at least 2 products! The second Traffic Exchange I want to talk about is ClixSense. ClixSense isn't actually a Traffic Exchange. I just didn't know what else to call it.

When I first found ClixSense it was presented to me as a way to make extra money. I was told that you could make $25 a day looking at various websites for 30 secs. I have found this is not true. I'm not saying its impossible or that the person who told me that way lying, let's just say if it is possible it certainly isn't as easy as what I was told.

Here is how it works. You sign up for free and create your account. I recommend when you are creating your profile that you click that you are interested in EVERYTHING and that you have a gazillion kids (ok maybe not a gazillion but at least one in each age range they offer) and that you make over 100K a year. This is the best way to get offered the most ads. Ok so that's lying just a little bit but all businesses are unethical in one way or another and I will permit this one little indiscretion. (I can't be perfect 24 hours a day!)

When you log on you will choose the browse ads section and you will be offered a list of ads to click on. Each one will be assigned a dollar value. Most will be between $0.01 and $0.03. The rumor is that some of the ads can be valued as much as $3 and I guess if you got a lot of those that it would be possible to get $25 a day. However I have only seen 2 that were valued at $1 and when I clicked it I was told that link had expired. You have to be fast because each of these ads can only be offered to a certain number of people. If they click before you, you loose.

I manage to make about $3-4 a week. This is by clicking on ads for between 1 and 2 cents. These are the ones you will get most often. I have set clixsense as my start page so I always remember to check the "Browse Ads" section. I usually find 5 or 6 ads to look at a couple of times a day. I don't get online as much as I used to so if you are working at your computer all day I'm sure that you could log on and find more opportunities to click.

Upgrading in ClixSense is also very affordable. It's only $10 and is good for one year. When you upgrade in ClixSense you will be able to view more ads. This is when the higher paying clicks will come in. Most advertisers limit their high paying ads to those who have purchased an upgrade because it shows a willingness to purchase online.

They also have an affiliate program where you receive 50% of the profits when any one signs up under you and upgrades. If you really want to try to make money with this program I recommend upgrading and then taking advantage of the affiliate program. You won't get rich but every little bit counts.

Personally this is how I am taking advantage of ClixSense. I use the money that I make clicking on ads to turn around and purchase ads of my own. Since ClixSense is relatively new you can be the first one to advertise virtually any program. The downside to their being new is that there aren't that many people viewing ads. I purchased 1000 views and it has taken me nearly 3 weeks for all of them to be used.

Purchasing ads is very easy also. They offer paypal and Google Checkout so if you don't have a paypal account (or won't have one like me) you can use any ol' credit card you like. The ads are very affordable as well. Depending on how much you want to pay per click (I chose $0.01) you multiply that amount times the number of views you want to purchase (I chose 1000) they then ad a small percentage to it in order to make a profit. I got 1000 $0.01 ads for $12. Not to bad!

On my imaginary star scale I also give ClixSense 4 out of 5 stars. They are lacking a star based on their user base which is still quite small but still affects its advertising effectiveness.

What goes around comes back around

The comparison of two traffic exchanges.

No doubt if you are involved with Internet marketing you have tried a traffic exchange. Using the best traffic exchange is important because using the wrong one can be a waste of time and money.

For those of us on tiny budgets I recommend you look for that is free or very inexpensive. If you pay for your traffic exchange make sure that they offer you something in return like some kind of benefit such as an affiliate program where you can make money by referring others, (If you pay money to join you should expect money from the affiliate program if it is free to join its ok if they only offer hit credits) or they should offer you a certain number of free hit credits each month for being an upgraded member.

The first traffic exchange I recommend is TopSurfer. I like TopSurfer because its fun. Instead of just sitting there looking at ads you have the option to play games or chat while you surf. You can even surf for prizes. I like to play bingo while I surf. Not only can I randomly win between 1 and 5 hit credits while I surf but I can win as many as 25 hit credits for winning the Bingo game. OH and I can't forget that if you surf to 100 you earn an extra 10 hits. The timer is only 15 secs long so it goes pretty quickly. I also like that you can sit there and do it for as long as you like. There is no limit to the amount of page views you can have in one day. I often sit and click while I watch Disney Shows with my son. Its like a mindless activity with benefits. You can upgrade for one month for as little as $10 and for that you receive 4000 hit credits and 2 newsletter ads. The more months you upgrade at a time the more value you receive. With your hit credits you can buy newsletter ads (2000 hit credits buys you four lines 75 characters each that will be seen by all top surfer members) You can use your hit credits to auto surf which is good if you don't enjoy playing games while you surf. You can also use your hit credits to purchase text ads. The text ads are one line and blue and show up just under the main toolbar at the top. The rest of your hit credits will be randomly assigned to whatever URLS you decide to ad. TopSurfer is kind of particular about the kinds of sites they will allow you to advertise. In addition to not allowing you to advertise anything illegal or porn they also disallow the promotion of any kind of "Pay for Information" links like you find on click bank. (An example would be they won't allow you to promote a "Data Entry Job")

If I had a star system I would give TopSurfer 4 out of 5 stars. The reason I don't give it five is because I don't really like the way the upgrade system works. You will just have to go to the site and check that part out for yourself. I'm not going to take the time to explain it because its difficult for some to understand and I don't want to mislead any one.