Myspace Apps.. who knew?

Yes ladies and gentlemen, Myspace is trying to claw back at Facebook, with none other than their own version of applications in which you can soup up your profile with even more knick-knacks and paddy-wacks. This comes as great news for anyone (??) who still uses Myspace.

Now would be a good time to think about creating/outsourcing the development of your very own Myspace App(s) and take advantage of these viral applications.

Check out the Myspace Developer Platform & you might want to take a peek into Google’s OpenSocial API Specifications.

Also be sure to check out the current Myspace Apps that are being pumped out as we speak…dont miss this opportunity to create and monetize a Myspace App, we all have seen the viral power of Facebook Apps, and a lot of people (for some wierd reason) still use Myspace…prime real estate, so go get your own street sign.

Obviously you should be using firefox, and if your not, you most likely are a microsoft fanboy, or have simply been living under a rock the past 5 years.

The vast majority of extensions are available at Mozilla’s website but there are many hidden gems among their database, and sifting through it can become a daunting task, hence “The 5 Best Damn Firefox Extensions, Period!”

Yeah, I dont like those long stupid lists…so without further delay

Download Statusbar

Instead of that annoying downloads window that consistantly pops up everytime you begin a new download, the download statusbar will replace it with a neat bar in the statusbar of the browser which shows your downloads conveniently. I’ve been personally using this one since I first learned about firefox extensions, and you should too.

Web Developer

Provides for on the fly dynamic CSS editing, html validation and resizing. A must have for any web developer to work out kinks in your sites.

Google Toolbar

No affiliate link, but if you would like to click the Google for Firefox banner on the right. This is a must have to anyone who is a fan of google. You can easily search from your toolbar menu as well as check the pagerank on the go.

Adsense Notifier

Will display your adsense earnings in the statusbar, useful if you are using google adsense across your network.

Firebug

Useful for showing load times of your website along with session variables and other misc. information.

So there is my top 5 as of right now, but I will most likely come across even more useful extensions, at which point I will refer back to this post.. Enjoy!

Often I get asked what the best way is to find the best expiring domains, and what are the best sites to look for them on. Up until recently I didn’t really have much info for anyone asking me about domains. But all of that has changed. Namejet is a what many may call a domainer’s dream, with some of the best domain auctions, expired domains and available aftermarket domains.

For any of you who are new to domaining, when you dont pay your domain renewal fee, your domain will expire. When your domain drops it enters a dead time in which the original owner still had an opportunity to revive the domain. If the owner of the domain fails to do so, then there is a number of “drop services” that usually pickup the domain for themselves or prospective clientel. Some of these include Snapnames, Pool, and NameWinner.

So the domain aftermarket, which is comprised of drop catching services and/or backorder services whatever you wanna call it, is primarily used by domainers to catch profitable domains that may be dropping. But these services can also be useful for someone looking to startup and needing a decent domain name to start from.

So why should I use NameJet?

Well first of all NameJet is backed by eNom and Network Solutions one of the biggest domain registrars on the net. Snapnames used to have a monopoly on this market because of private contracts with Register.com, Godaddy and Network Solutions. However the times have changed, and we are no longer in this type of monopolistic rule, and as a result, with their clean interface, NameJet has instantly become a force to be reckoned with.

Best Features of NameJet

• Currently there are over 100 dot com domains at auction which mostly all have zero or few bids. Since NameJet is a new name that is not yet well known, this allows for newcomers a great opportunity to get in there and grab some domains before even some of the most successful domainers.
• You are able to add domains to a “watch list” with no need to outright bid on them, which means you can monitor an auction right up until the close and get it for a near steal of a price.

Overall I think NameJet is a definitive up and comer in the domain game. I was able to test them out the past several days and picked up two domains (jokebang.com & pokergrit.com) which I think are killer domains and have great opportunity to make money. So go ahead an check em out, just be sure to stay away from registering domains with them, because at $30 a pop it can get quite pricey.

So you want to be the next super affiliate and make uber amounts of cash online… great… grand.. fantastic. There’s no magic formula that is going to get you rich quick, so if thats what your looking you need to go beg your boss to give you your job back. What you need to do is understand exactly what your getting into, and what affiliate marketing really is. I get asked on a daily basis what it is I do, and how I can help other people make money online, so I figured I would help you all out a little bit.

What is Affiliate Marketing?

First of all to get into affiliate marketing you need to break down exactly what it is. The first thing is obviously the affiliate, a company in which you will promote their offers for cold hard cash. Depending on the offer you will either get paid per click, per lead (signup), or per impression. There is undoubtedly greater detail for each but we will keep it simple here. Next there is the marketing aspect in which you will need to market those affiliates’ offers and try to get other people to do one of those aforementioned things. (click/lead/impression)

Which Affiliate Companies are Best?

Now you are probably wondering what to look for when you go to signup for an affiliate company. One of the most important things to look for is the quality of the customer service and of course the reputation of the company. I would suggest reading around some affiliate related forums to give you some insight. There are literally tons of affiliates out there depending on what you are trying to sell. If it takes longer than a week to approve you for their program or there has been no contact from an AM (affiliate manager) then its more than likely not the best bet. If however when you signup you are greeted by a friendly email and are given numerous methods of contact, then you may be on the right track.

The Marketing Aspect

So great you’ve decided upon one of the numerous affiliate companies out there, now what? Well you need to start pushing those offers and try to get some leads. What is the best way to do this you may ask? SPAM! No just kidding, the truth is the vast majority of affiliate marketers don’t really make that much money. Around 10% make 90% of the money, and thats just the way it is. They’ve built monopolies on certain market segments and it is extremely hard to topple some of those strangleholds. However don’t give up all hope yet!

The secret to affiliate marketing lies within the niche you choose to market. If you look through your affiliate companies campaign listing, you will see there is pretty much an offer for any type of product you can think of. And if its not there, then you can bet there is another affiliate company or program somewhere out there to cater to your specific needs. An example of this is a hip hop forum that I was running and wasn’t getting that many leads for the offers my affiliate company was offering. I switched over to an affiliate program for the clothing supplier DrJays.com and started to make some nice dough off of actual sales. Affiliate marketing is all about tweaking and testing your offers until you hit a home run, and then once you find that golden gem, you need to drive it into the ground until the wheels fall off.

Putting it all together

There are other ways to earn money through affiliate marketing without the need for a website, although you will need a landing page. But Lorne I am slow, what the hell is a landing page?! A landing page is the page that appears when a potential customer clicks on an advertisement or a search-engine result link, taking them to your offer and hopefully getting them to signup, and getting you a conversion. An example of this would be facebook ads, where you can simply setup an offer through their developer network and pay per click. The premise here being that if you pay for example .20 cents a click, and your offer pays out $1 per lead then you would need 1 signup for every 5 clicks to break even. Obviously no one wants to break even, you want a positive return on your investment (ROI).

So on a very basic level I hope I have given you some insight as to exactly what affiliate marketing is, so that next time when one of you donkeys goes to ask me exactly what it is, I can simply direct you to this article

Earlier today a friend recommended I check out SEO Digger which is a totally free to use competitive analysis tool, which displays keywords your website ranks for. With a massive database of 44 million unique keywords and keyphrases you can see where you rank for your most popular keyphrases in an instant.

I had been using SEO Elite for all my keyword analysis but I feel that SEO Digger deserves a chance, seeing as their interface allows you to conduct analysis from any internet browser, without the need for an external program.

In terms of tracking SEODigger uses Overture and Wordtracker to show keyword popularity, alongside with google to show your current ranking. Other similar sites that achieve this are SpyFu (AdWords & Organic), KeyCompete (AdWords), and URL Trends (Organic).

I often get sidetracked with the multitude of projects I undertake and forget about the real earners that made me most of my money so im going to take a second to reflect on blackhat SEO.

Simplified, Blackhat is valid usable content generation, usually automated.

There are generally two methods you can go about doing blackhat seo, first is spamming other sites with links or generated content… And the second is to generate content, and tons of it. Autoblog’s, comment spam, email marketing, message boards, and social networks (myspace, facebook, youtube etc.)

However if you spam sites with your chosen keywords in order to rank higher in google, you will see a short term jump in rankings, but this will be gone in less than a month due to google’s algorithm picking up on those spammish links you’ve been dropping or automating… which leaves you back at square one. Your not gonna keep buying the bitch drinks if she aint going to put out. So the best method for doing this, which has been tried and tested, is to generate comedy/humor websites based off of feeds and databases that have several entries so that the output is relevant to the keywords for titles and meta tags. I setup a site similar to this and spent less than $50 and in about 2 month’s time I had earned almost $2000, blackhat at its finest.

Personally I don’t think people should sell SEO, but practice it on their own and learn. SEO is an ever developing realm, with the algorithms constantly being updated and changed.. The top blackhats stay ahead of the algorithm either by getting the code or by guessing which methods would go undetected. There are many outdated methods (keyword stuffing, invisible text, doorway pages etc.) that used to make a lot of money, and in order to stay ahead you have to constantly be on top of what works.

While blackhat SEO is unethical, if used properly in moderation (key word here) you can make a pretty penny, and at the same time not get penalized by the search engines as long as you stay within some very specific boundaries, and dont get greedy.