AGLOCO Little Guy

Do you know your credit score?

2007-04-10T21:49:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-10T07:51:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-09T09:36:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-07T20:32:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-04T09:55:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-03T08:41:00.000-07:00

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

2007-04-03T08:21:00.000-07:00

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.

To Everyone who read my blog anyway

2007-04-01T22:59:00.000-07:00

Wow So its been almost exactly one month since I posted anything in my blog yet even with out fresh content I have had readers. To all of you who kept coming back just incase (if you happen to still come back) a big thank you! For those first time visitors... you didn't miss anything.

So what have I done with my time for the past month. The truth is, I got burnt out with on-line marketing. I'm sure I'm not the first person that this has happened to.

I started this "on-line" adventure in December with big hopes and a lot of dreams. I started out as an affiliate with one company. To be completely honest (with out bragging) I did GREAT. I knew nothing about on-line marketing or advertising, just a little about web design. I created a few web pages, did some free advertising and before I knew it I had a downline so big that I could barely keep up with the communications. It was awesome.

I had heard so many things about how hard on-line marketing was and how it took people an average of 6 months and thousands of dollars before they started seeing any success. Here I was with a couple of thrown together web pages and a couple of free ads and I was pulling in an average of 200 new affiliates a month!

In the middle of this whole process the company I was working with changed their whole "Commission Tree" so payments were behind. I didn't mind since I am quite a patient person. I was willing to wait 2 or 3 months to see the thousands I was sure I was earning. In the mean time I learned more and tried a few different things. Some I was good at, others I wasn't. Luckily for me the one thing I didn't do was spend a lot of money on advertising or joining programs.

Anyone curious to find out what happened at the end of the two or three months?!?!?! Did I get paid? Am I now in the process of retiring to a beach community. Ummm.... hmmm... well I got paid! A whopping $39 from the company that I was sure was going to make me rich and another $15 from one I signed up for just to buy the product at a discount.

$54 for a whole months worth of work. Hmmmph. I guess that was enough to take a month off! (If only you could see me roll my eyes!)

The moral of the story is.... You aren't going to get rich over night with any program you find that promises you that you are going to get rich over night. You won't even get rich over 3 months time. You litterally get out what you put in and we can all see that $54 is the result of a $0 investment. Am I saying it is impossible... nah, I'm sure someone can make it happen... it just isn't me.

Have I given up completely? Nope... Not yet. I'll give it a few more rounds hopeing to learn a little more each time. BUT I'm still not going to invest any money into it.. I think I would probably be better off buying lottery tickets.

As for the 200+ affiliates I was raking in each month... it turns out that I am in the direct downline of one of the biggest affiliate marketing teams that Im sure you have all seen advertising in various places (especially those of you who haunt the work at home mom circuit) The reason Im actually recieving all of those affiliates is because of some sort of co-op and someone somewhere in my upline is funneling off all their "unresponsive" affiliates.

Ehhh, you live and you learn but ya gotta keep moving foward!

Where are my referrals going?

2007-03-03T06:15:00.000-08:00

There are a lot of debates going on in the AGLOCO Community about the loss of referrals. People are stateting that they know someone signed up under them (because they know the direct referral) and the referral is not showing up in their numbers.
Here are just a few of the things that could be happening.

#1 They may not really be signing up! Everyday I have at least a dozen requests to sign up for this or that. Sometimes someone will outright beg me. At times these requests can be overwhelming and I don't remember what I have and haven't signed up for. So I might tell you yes when the answer is really no. Even worse, I could tell you yes just to get you to leave me alone!

#2 Maybe they haven't verified their email address. Have you seen my inbox today? Sometimes these verification emails get lost. If someone is not "Internet Savvy" they may not know to check their "junk" or "bulk" folders. They may not even know what a folder is. (Imagine your grandmother searching her whole desk for an imaginary folder... I've seen it happen) Even if it is stated in the instructions it could still be overlooked... how often do YOU read all the instructions that come after you sign up for something.

#3 Maybe they typed in the wrong verification code on the sign up form. If you type in the wrong verification code at the end of the sign up form, the form will reset and your member ID will be lost. Now that it isn't automatically embedded in the form you could loose your referral. Make sure to include your member number (BBBH6540) in all your requests for sign ups. This will increase the likely hood of your getting credit for your sign ups.

The only way to ensure you get credit for the people you refer to AGLOCO would be to take you computer and set it up in a public place and sign the people up right then and there. If you have time to do that, by all means.. have a great time! As for me... the answer is in the numbers. If Im not happy with the number of referrals I have, I'll just have to try harder to find more!

~~~~ Didn't you take statistics in college?~~~~~

Google Adwords tips part 2

2007-03-02T14:29:00.000-08:00

I have decided to break this article up into parts... No I do not get paid to post. That is one thing I have yet to look into. I just decided it would be easier to read this way... Here comes Item 3 and 4

Irrelevant Keywords

When you really and I mean REALLY want your site or blog to be seen it might sometimes be tempting to say it is about something it isn't. Lets say your site sells pin cushions. Not that many people get on-line to purchase pin cushions and you might not be getting much traffic. It may be tempting at times to create an ad about something more popular and then direct it to your site. You will be wasting your money! You are paying per click, think like a buyer. If you went online to do a search about something popular for example "Nascar" and you click on an ad and up pops a site dedicated to the sale of pin cushions, you probably aren't going to stay. But guess what, if you are the owner of this ad, you pay for the click regaurless of whether they buy your pin cushions or not! TOTAL waste of money. I know it sounds tempting but, don't do it.

Boring Content

So you've made your ad and you've got a click. Congrats! So the reader is now at your site... now what. Now you want to be sure that the content on this page is exciting, compelling and creates sales. Keep this page short and sweet. Hit key points. What made you want to buy or sell this product or service? Remember your readers are researching so you have at most 30 secs to draw them in and get their attention before they decide to search on. If the content of your landing page just drones on and on, your reader will leave. Keep the content on your landing page simple but exciting. If you have more to say provide links to other pages with more information.

More to come: Key word in ad text and Why not to use a home page.

Tips for using Google Adwords

2007-03-02T12:53:00.000-08:00

Google adwords can be a very effective way to bring readers to your blog or website. This is especially useful if you have a program to promote or a product to sell. There are lots of books available on-line to teach you how to get the most out of a Google Adwords campaign. Most of these books will cost you any where from a few books to as much as $200. I have been lucky enough to have made some "Friends in high places", who have decided to give this information to me free of charge. If you are looking to start a Google Adwords campaign my recommendation would be to first try and find some people you know who have done this successfully and ask them for tips and tricks. I would stay away from buying these Google Adwords books unless you know for sure that they have re-sell rights and that you are willing to work to make your initial money back.

Here are 13 tips that I have learned from friends and my own Google Adwords experiences:

Bidding on Keywords Most people assume that the best thing to do is bid the highest possible amount in order to receive the number one position on the search page. While this is a great idea if your only goal is to be seen, but if you are looking for REAL clicks it is probably better to be in the number 3 or number 4 position. Internet users are used to having to LOOK for their information. Most will probably click on a few ads before making their decision. Now is the time to think like a buyer... Let say you were looking for a book on Puppy training and "Puppy training" was the key word you used. You click on the first link and it is an ad for "How to train your puppy in 10 days". Sounds good but you want to do some more research. You click on another ad and again its "How to train your puppy in 10 days". Determined to see what else is out there you click one more... this time you will click one of the remaining 3 or 4 ads on the page. Again you find "How to train your puppy in 10 days." Wow this must be a really popular book! You are curious and ready to buy. What are you going to do...are you going to go back and click the first ad out of fairness since this was the first person who introduced you to the book OR are you going to go ahead and buy it from the page you are on? Ah Ha! You now understand why it is better to be in the 3rd or 4th position.

Geo-Targeting

For this subject I am going to use the example of sports. How many of you root for a football or baseball team just because they are from your home town? It starts as early as High School and continues to college and straight through life, people are drawn to that home town spirit! This is where Geo-targeting your Google Adwords campaign becomes helpful. You can target your ad to be viewed only by people in a certain region. I am from Nashville TN. So lets say I wanted to create a Google Adwords campaign to find new affiliates for my SFI team. I geo-target my ad to the TN area and when someone searches for the key word affiliate program and they are from TN my ad will come up in their results. Now they click on the ad and the firs thing they see is "Hello my name is Amy Holman and I am from Nashville Tn......"
They will now be more likely to join this program under me as opposed to someone else because they now feel like they have something in common with me.

Another time that this is extremely important is when advertising for an off-line business. Say for example I wanted to advertise for my husbands window cleaning business on-line. It wouldn't do me any good to target the whole world or even the whole country because we will NOT be driving that far to do a job. It just doesn't make any sense, yet if you do not Geo-target the ad it will be available all over and every time someone clicks the ad you will still be charged.

These are two of the most important tips I can give you for a Google Adwords campaign. Keep your eyes open... coming next: Irrelevant Keywords and Boring Content.

Do you AGLOCO?

2007-03-02T11:11:00.000-08:00

Hey Guys! A friend of mine is having an AGLOCO referral contest designed especially for us "ALGOCO Little Guys!" I think this is a great idea because it gives us little guys and AGLOCO newbies a chance to get into a little friendly competition but on an even playing feild. Here are the details:

Eligibility:
1) Contests must have 100 or less total referrals as of February 28, 2007
2) Half way winner will be based on all emails received before March 15, 2007 11:59 P.M Eastern Standard Time
3) Final winners will be based on all email received before March 31, 2007 11:59 P.M Eastern Standard TIme

Prizes:
Half way winner Most Overall - $20

Most Overall referrals:
1) $40 + 10% of my first Agloco check
2) $25 + 5% of my first Agloco check
3) $15 + 5% of my first Agloco check

Most Direct Referrals:
1) 5% of my first Agloco check

It sounds pretty cool to me! So the first thing you will need to do is Join AGLOCO. Next pop on over to http://doyouagloco.blogspot.com for information on how to join the contest. It really is easy.

I was winning with my 1 little referral for a while but as of this moment the top referer has 11. I have a lot of work to do!

It's March! Do you know where your referrals are?

2007-03-01T07:51:00.000-08:00

Ahhh Spring. The cold chill in the air soon fades and the air becomes crsip and clean. Grass begins to take on its greener shades and starts growing again. The sounds of birds begins to fill the air.... ahhhhhh.

As Internet Marketers we have been chained to our computers day in and day out. Too cold to go outside. Time spent on-line equalled lots of time to advertise, lots of time to build blogs and websites and lots of time to chat with other marketers. The start of Spring is also the start of less time to be on-line.

If you are a mom like me Spring also means the start of Softball and Soccer season. Two practices a week games all day on Saturday and tournaments on Sunday. Mom meetings, fund raisers, team nights and sleep overs. All these thing detract from MY time on-line. Unfortunately this applies to potential referrals too.

So what are we gonna do? Well we take our promoting outside of course! Here are some great ideas for off-line Spring promotions:

Get some business cards and keep them in your pocket. Idle chatter at sporting events usually gets around to "So what do you do for a living?" You can proudly tell these others "Well I work at home" The usually response I get from this is... "I wish I could work at home..." Simply hand them a card, curiosity will take care of the rest.

Sponsor an event. Sure it will cost you a little money but it could be well worth it in the end. Most local events allow local business to sponsor the events. Have some nice posters printed including an easy to remember domain name.

Is your child's team or club having a fundraiser this spring? What about a bake sale. Donate baked goods wrapped in plastic and sealed with an AGLOCO sticker.

Are you a runner, like to walk? There are lots of marathons and 10k races coming up. Have a T-shirt printed with your dot com and get out there and race! The people behind you will have nothing to do but stare at the back of your shirt.

Kids LOVE Balloons...have balloons printed with your dot com and give them to kids at festivals and fairs. Its like paying a kid to promote for you!

If this list has inspired you and you now have great ideas of your own, PLEASE post them in the comments section and I will make sure they get seen.

Need a Domain name?

Copy Cat Blogs

2007-03-01T07:33:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a favorite blog that you just loved to visit? You loved the layout, the colors, great content and everything else about it.

Well.... Copy it!

"What what what?!?!?!!?" you say! I certainly don't mean create a blog and set it up to look JUST like someone elses and then copy their posts, that is wrong. Again I use my site as an example.

Before I started my own blog, I browsed other blogs on blogger.com. I loved the format of one, the color scheme of another, the template of a few...
You get the idea and the end result was my blog. My blog isn't a direct "Copy" of any ONE blog but I have copied others.

Sometimes when I suffer from "writters block" I visit a few other AGLOCO blogs and see what they are writing about. For example I love AGLOCO Hype. (see connected sites if you want to see WHY I love it) Many of the things I have learned about SEO I have learned from the author. So when I learn something, like how to add Technorati Tags, I share it with my viewers. I DO NOT However go in and directly copy his posts on the same subject, not only is that morally wrong its also illegal!
I want you all to also notice how if I learn something from someone or get an idea from another blog I give them credit and provide a link back to that particular blog.

The internet is huge and we are all going to overlap in one way or another. Just be sure to give credit where credit is due!

Coming soon... Abundance vs. Saturation

Affiliate Programs and Products for your Blog

2007-03-01T06:24:00.000-08:00

Ok so now you have decided what you want to blog about and you have created your first blog. That alone is not going to make you any money. Now we have to monetize your blog.

One great way to monetize your blog is to promote affiliate programs or products associated to your content.

Again we will use my blog as an example. Since my blog is primarily designed to help people promote AGLOCO I can promote products and programs that benifit; website promotion,traffic exchanges and on-line advertising. I could even go as far as to promote ANYTHING having to do with being on-line such as; website hosting, domain names and even Internet Service Providers. If you aren't already into affiliate programs a quick search on GOOGLE will help you find some that relate to your audience OR you can join programs under people you know. Your joining will help then and I'm sure they would be willing to help you in return.

Another option would be to sell Click-Bank products, assuming they are associated with your blog content. I guess you COULD sell books on "Horse Betting" on your "Pet Care" blog, you just wouldn't see very good results.

Just don't make the same mistake I have seen many others make, turning your blog into one big advertisement. If you have found a great product that you think would benifit your readers write a review of the product or service. Tell others WHY it is so great and give examples of the wonderful things it has done for you. If your blog is simply one ad after another with no content readers won't come back. And if the readers aren't coming back you won't ever make sales. Gain the readers trust first and they will follow.

Speaking of trust and follow coming next: Copy Cat Blogs.

Making Money with your Blog

2007-03-01T06:04:00.000-08:00

Did you know there are people out there who are making thousands of dollars each month just by blogging? It's true! If you are interested in blogging for money the following should help you get started.

The first step is, if you haven't already, create a blogger account.

Next you will have to name your blog. Be carefull when naming your blog because this will be the first thing that people will see and will be part of what drives people to you. Be creative when picking your name but be sure that your name represents what your blog is about. I will use my blog name for example.

I chose the name AGLOCO Little Guy because... I designed my blog primarily to bring new users to AGLOCO. Hence "AGLOCO" being part of my title. I choose "Little Guy" because this isn't just another AD for AGLOCO, it contains information that is helpful to people who are new to internet marketing and provides resources for people who might consider themselves "Internet Illiterate" or even just a newbie.

Now your blog will need a template. If you are new to blogging I recommend choosing one of the templates provided by Blogger. Once you choose a template you are in complete control of the layout and colors, customize and make it your own.

*****Please Note *********

Over use of color or use of colors that are too bright might turn people away from your blog. If you are using a light colored background try and stick with black text and if you are using a dark colored background stick to white. Other text colors can just be too hard to read. ALSO, I know most of you will figure out a way to put music on your blog. DON'T, your taste in music is not neccessarily the same as that of others.

Take the time to complete your profile and make your blog personal. This will keep people coming back. However, try to stay away from mundane posts about your everyday life unless your blog is about yourself and yourself alone. If someone has come to visit your blog to get information on "Getting out of Debt" they don't want to read about what you had for breakfast.

One last tip on the creation of your new money making blog, and you might want to think about this first; what's your niche? Try to make your blog about one thing and target it towards a specific audience. If you are a big fan of "American Idol" but you are also really passionate about foreign cars, consider making two blogs. You want the information on your blog to flow and be easy to find and read. If I came looking for your opinion or advice on trading stocks I don't want to wade through multiple posts about your rubber band collection...

Next time we will cover products and affiliate programs for your blog.

CBClicks

2007-02-27T08:02:00.000-08:00

"CBClicks Internet Viral Ad Network
Imagine... Your Clickbank Affiliate ID on Thousands of Pages All Over The World Making You Big Money 24 Hours A Day 7Days A Week - 100% Absolutely FREE!
Build A Monster Ad Network of People Ready, Willing and Waiting To Advertise Your ID on Their Websites"

Eh, what the heck right? I decided to give it a try. I already have a click bank ID so signing up litterally took about 5 seconds. I like that they let you customize the colors of the ads to match your page. I like a tidy page! I'll give it a couple of weeks and report back as to whether or not I made any money.

Want to experiment yourself? If you have a lot of traffic to your blog or site and don't mind running ads its worth a try. It doesn't cost anything and like I said, it litterally took me a couple of seconds to sign up, create the ad and add the code to my blog. Check it out.

Join CBClicks Here!

Free List Building Software

2007-02-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

I've read over and over again, "The money is in the list!" The list? What list?

Your List, a list of names and addresses of people who are willing to recieve information from you...now what you USE "your list" for is up to you. Most people use them to send out newsletters. Hopefully most of you already know about and use newsletters, but for those of you who don't watch for a future post.

Now, there are lots of ways to go about creating a list. Some people are lazy and they just buy leads. I've bought leads before and I can tell you they are un-reliable.

OR you can use a list builder. Some people will charge you as much as $197 for a list builder. How much would you pay for a good list builder?

Viral Friend Dominator just came out with a list builder and guess what... They are giving it away for FREE!

You can get your own copy of Viral Friend Dominator here for free. It also comes with some pretty sweet bonuses. You get a free E-book called The Autopsy.

Download your Free copy of Viral Friend Dominator today and let me know what you think.

Tags:
List Builder, Viral Friend Dominator

Creating Tags for your Blog

2007-02-26T20:23:00.000-08:00

Ok I have recently learned how to had Tecnorati Tags to my blog. Why would you want to do that? Very simple, for Traffic! Whether you are promotting a business opportunity, blogging for money, or you just want to be poplular, you can't accomplish your goal with out Traffic!

Here is an example of a Technorati Tag I have used [ and ] in the place of <> otherwise you wouldn't be able to read the code.

[a href=http://technorati.com/tag/blog" rel="tag"]blog[/a]

For my example I also bolded the word "blog" this is the word that you want tagged, you will change this for each word you want to use as a tag but the rest of the code would stay the same.

Some keywords are actually phrases and not just words. Let's say you wanted to tag "agloco blogs" you would do this by adding a "+" between the two words like this:

[a href=http://technorati.com/tag/agloco+blog" rel="tag"]agloco blogs[/a]

You can also go to http://www.technorati.com and look at the top rated tags by both Top 100 and Top hourly searched. This is important if you want to know what keywords are being searched for and what tags are being used most by other bloggers. Afterall, you want traffic right.

Have Fun!

P.S. Special Thanks to Adam of AGLOCO HYPE for teaching this tip to me.

Tags: Technorati,
Blog Optimization

How I introduced my family to AGLOCO

2007-02-26T14:23:00.000-08:00

Happy Monday everyone! While most of you were scurrying off to your day jobs I was in bed sleeping! JK. I have spent today doing something I have not wanted to do.... Tell my friends and family about AGLOCO.

Why was it scary to me? Well ... My family views me as some what of a slacker at the moment. For the past 3 months I have been working very hard on starting my own Marketing Company, but I didn't tell them that... they think I don't do ANYTHING. In fact my mother has bought me more PC games and soduku books than I know what to do with. Up until today I have been scared to tell them because, its one thing to be viewed as a slacker and another to be viewed as a failure. I didn't want to tell them what I was doing because; if I didn't do well... it wouldn't just be my secret. So I came up with a really clever way to break it to them. I wrote myself an email!

I know what you are thinking......
"What, what, WHAT?!?!?!?! You wrote yourself an email to tell your family about AGLOCO?"

Ok on the surface it doesn't seem to make much sense... BUT I then fwd that email to all my other email accounts and to a couple of people who are in my downline in other business. NOW here comes the part that makes sense.... Once it was all finally emailed to the email address my family is familiar with I fwd it to them with this message.....

"Hey! This seems pretty cool you should try it! Pass it on!"

Hopefully my family will do what they always do with these chain mails and pass them on.

Creating your own screen shot images.

2007-02-24T23:22:00.000-08:00

Wondering how others are making all these great screen shot images of their referral results. This is how you do it.

When you are viewing your referral results page hold down ctrl+ print screen

Then open Paint, this is a free program that comes with most computers

use the tool that is a box with dashed lines and in the picture area you can either;

Hit ctrl+v to paste your screen shot OR Right click with your mouse and choose Paste

This will post the entire screen

Using the same dashed box tool outline the referral results box and again

either hit ctrl+C to copy or right click and choose Copy

Now on your paint menu choose New, save No and a new document will open

You can now paste the image you cut from the full screen shot and this will be all that shows on this page. Now save this image and you can now paste it or post it wherever you would like.

I would like to point out that yes, My verbage for this explination is quite simple and I may not have used the proper "technical" terms as I should have but I did it this way to show that you don't have to have extensive computer knowledge to complete this task.

2007-02-24T23:15:00.000-08:00

How AGLOCO works:

If you haven't joined yet now is the time to do it. The viewbar is scheduled to be released in March.

Once you join you will want to get started promoting AGLOCO as soon as you can.

If you sign up under me make sure you let me know. I will make sure that you have a blog and a website of your own. I started with out them but once I had my website up and promoted it a little, this is when I really started getting sign ups.

I made it to the Top 10%

2007-02-24T18:41:00.000-08:00

My AGLOCO

2007-02-24T14:58:00.000-08:00

How I originally came upon AGLOCO is a mystery even to me. I first started taking Internet Marketing seriously in December of 2006. At first it was mostly research, I clicked on every link on every page and spent hours every day just reading. I signed up for every free program known to man just hoping that one of them would provide me some sort of mentor. Some where along the way I ended up signing up with AGLOCO. Just like most of the other "free to join" programs I signed up for ... it went in the bookmarks section of my browser window.

It wasn't until Feb 12th that something about AGLOCO clicked with me and I actually started promoting it seriously. I started Feb 12th with 4 direct sign ups and 0 indirect. Today I have 17 direct and 2 indirect, not bad for less than 2 weeks worth of work.

My advice to you is, if you haven't signed up for AGLOCO yet you should do so now!

AGLOCO is going to get huge and its gonna happen soon. Your best bet would be to get started as soon as possible. I'm averaging 1 sign up a day, that's not bad considering I'm still wobbly with my promoting techniques BUT I have big plans!

My First Blog

2007-02-24T14:35:00.000-08:00

Well here it is... My first blog. I thought it would come with great excitement, much like the birth of a new baby or the purchase of my first home. Sadly it is still just me, my thoughts and my computer.

I hope to eventually have a Super Blog. I've read that there are some people out there who are making as much as $4000 a month with their blog/blogs. While I would LOVE to be up there with those lucky few, right now I just want to concentrate on getting some of these random thoughts out of my head in order to increase my productivity in other areas of my life.

So what else is going on besides the fabulous blog? Well right now I am hard at work promoting AGLOCO. Being new with the whole "network marketing" gig I have made a few mistakes and had quite a slow start, but things are starting to pick up.

I don't have what one would consider a "real" job, although it is real enough for me. I am a SAHM to one wonderful 5 year old boy. I quit my previous job in the marketing field due to illness. You see, it appears as though I have some kind of severe allergy to stress. I try to keep my life as stress free as possible, the key word here being TRY.

In addition to trying to create my own source of income I also help my husband with his business. I do most of his advertising as well any other small things that come up that he has no time to tend to.

I must warn you all, my dedicated first readers.... I write as I speak. I assure you I am quite well educated and I am aware of proper grammar, spelling and formating but I feel that in order to properly portray myself (as this is MY blog) I will write as I speak. If I get to hard to follow, just let me know.

Until Next time..... Good Day!