Why You Should Never Buy Traffic

buy contextual trafficThere are a few things about the online world that are truly maddening. At the top of the list are the con artists who attempt to lead you down the primrose path in an effort to take your money. These people distract you with a lie disguised as a legitimate option.

One such lie comes from those who claim that they can sell you traffic. They dazzle you with stories of hordes of eager buyers swarming to your website. Of course, the method is always claimed to be easy. Some claim that the system works forever and on autopilot too, no less. How stupid do they think we are?

If you have a website, even a new one, you should never, ever, ever have to buy traffic. After all, no one ever comes to you and asks you what you are looking for and then suggests a website where you can find it. You have to search first. Even Siri, the new intelligent assistant on Apple’s iPhone 4S, waits for you to ask first before making a suggestion!

So that means that the only way you can “buy” traffic is through a pay-per-click campaign such as through Google, Microsoft or Yahoo. But this is not easy, it does not work on autopilot, and it is certainly not free.

Getting visitors to your website requires strategy and a good deal of tinkering. Most of all, it requires building a great website full of useful, informative content. This is not easy and certainly not something you can do once and then forget about it. Any successful webmaster or blogger will tell you so.


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How do those who claim to sell traffic fool the gullible masses? After all, you can check your traffic logs to see if it is working. Sometimes, they create an autopilot script. This simply sends a robot to your site that visits for a few seconds, just long enough to register on your tracking logs.

These bots come over and over again to your site, each time with unique tracking codes that make it appear that they are coming from all over. However, notice that not only do they never buy anything, but they never stay for longer than a few seconds. Even if some clever programmer sets them up so that they appear to stay for hours, it will not be real traffic.

You see, every website has what is known as a conversion rate. If you are selling something, then you know that for every X number of visitors, X amount will actually buy something. For example, you may know that for every 200 visitors to your sales page, you will make one sale. This is useful and measurable. If you have a ton of hits and are making no sales, there is either something wrong with your sales page or the traffic is not legitimate.

Yet the hucksters will tell you that the traffic is “qualified.” True qualified traffic is when Joe goes to Google, performs a search, and from there goes to a site that looks relevant.

Because Joe went to your site as a result of a search, he constitutes qualified traffic. A computer program does not. It is merely a way to get money out of your pocket and into someone else’s.

If someone claims that he has a secret to easy traffic, you should run the other way immediately. You would be better off spending the money on voice dictation software for your Mac or PC like Dragon Dictate for Mac 2.5 and creating your own content, or hiring others to do it for you.


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How to Eliminate Blogger’s Block

The Brainstormer iPhone app

Writer’s block—or should I say blogger’s block—is a common complaint. You stare at a blank screen, not seeming to be able to come up with anything decent to write about—not even that first word.

Why did this happen when you were once so good at cranking out the topics? Have you simply run out of things to say? Why can’t you seem to get one word out? Most frustratingly, the more time you spend thinking about blogging, the less time you have to work on your next project.

Is there a cure for blogger’s block? Actually, there are several cures.

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Link Farm and FFA Submissions – What is Wrong With Them?

Before the search engines wised up, site rankings were based on simple keyword match ups. Webmasters would simply load up their pages with keywords, irregardless of the sites’ actual content, and gain an unfair amount of attention.

As a result, Google started focusing instead on site popularity. Page rank was determined largely by how many other sites linked to a particular site, the theory being that if a lot of other sites pointed to a site, it must contain valuable content.

But the cat and mouse game between website promoters and search engines continued. So-called “link farms” and “free-for-all” (FFA) sites started to spring up. These were little more than huge collections of often useless links that were neither described nor categorized. They were simply dumped there in an effort by webmasters to make their sites seem more popular.
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How And Why To Wipe Your Mac’s Hard Drive

Shred Drive Function of DriveGenius 2

As the information age has progressed, data security has become a greater and greater concern. Despite the popularity of mobile devices such as the iPad and iPhone, desktop and laptop computers are still used for the greatest variety of tasks, including business. This is especially true since more and more data that originally existed on paper is being digitized and now exists only in electronic form.

All of this data has caused a greater need for data information and storage systems, and along with larger capacity systems has come the need for increased security as well.

Many Mac software programs come with built-in security options, such as the ability to encrypt a file with a password. And MacOS X comes with FileVault, a way to secure all the files on one’s computer so that unauthorized people cannot access them.

However, low grade security measures will not stand up to expert and diligent extraction techniques.  When it comes time to sell, give away or recycle your Mac, much more extreme data security measures are necessary, especially if it may contain critical information such as email addresses, credit card numbers or other customer data.

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The Whirlwind History Of E-Commerce

SAN FRANCISCO - SEPTEMBER 09:  Apple Senior Vi...E-commerce is not a new thing. In fact, it really began with the first Internet connection, or even before. Strictly speaking, it got its birth in the 1960s, during which the foundation was laid for the e-commerce of today.

One of the first important advancements was the development of the EDI, or Electronic Data Interchange, a set of standards that governs the exchange of business information and electronic transactions.

Even so, doing business electronically was difficult at that time, due to the large number of competing EDI formats. Not until 1984 did the ASC X12, a standard for handling large numbers of transactions, come along, and it was quickly adopted by businesses for conducting electronic transactions.

The next major development was in 1992 with the release of Mosaic, the first point-and-click web browser. This led to Netscape, the first downloadable browser, which was based on Mosaic. It went a long way towards making Internet access universal, an important step in the development of electronic commerce.
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PDF vs. iBooks Author – Choosing a Format For Your Ebook

iBooks Author iconOkay, you’ve written your ebook and gathered up the illustrations for it. Perhaps you’ve even had a designer create a cover for it. But having your material in a Microsoft Word file is not enough. You need to actually put together your book in a format that people can read.

The process of doing so is called compiling and a piece of software that does this is called a compiler. There are many options to choose from, but first, what exactly does a compiler do?

In the old days, a compiler would convert HTML files or text pages into an ebook. The ebook was basically an executable file, or a self running software program that displayed the contents of the book. Generally, it was readable on Windows only.

Today, the options of narrowed considerably. Because of the popularity of the Mac, tablets, mobile phones and other devices, ebooks that will run only on the Windows operating system just won’t cut it.

There used to be a large number of ebook compilers from which to choose, each with glowing sales copy and incompatible formats. However, the popularity and universality of the PDF format has rendered most of these products obsolete.

Recently, Apple introduced Its iBooks Author, a software program for the Mac that creates ebooks exclusively in the iPad format. While aimed primarily at textbook authors, the software can be used for a wide variety of educational and instructional materials. Best of all is the price: free!

Is iBooks Author for you? There are a few things to consider:
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Goal Management for Home Business Owners

Life Goals by Kintarla Pty Ltd. As a home business owner, setting  goals is crucial. After all, you must have something to aim for if you ever hope to achieve it. Effective goalsetting will greatly aid you in making your business enterprise a success.

Some people start a home business with an overly simplistic goal, such as to “become rich.” Earning a decent income is certainly a worthy goal, but you have to be more specific if you wish to succeed.

Your goals need to be detailed. You should know what you want, when you want it, and how you intend to get it. Break your specific goals down into action steps. Keep your main goals in mind with the full faith and belief that you will succeed.

The most important thing is to know what you want. Too many people fail because they have no clear picture of what they want out of life, so they settle for whatever comes along.

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Article Marketing and How It Works

Article marketing is a form of advertising that utilizes articles written by the marketer himself or by a hired writer in order to promote a business. This type of marketing originated in the print world but has rapidly gained dominance online.

The marketing aspect enters into the articles through the use of what is known as the “bio” or “resource box.” For marketing purposes, this is usually not used to describe the author but rather to describe his or her website and what it has to offer the reader. Assuming the reader was impressed by the article, he or she will be likely to visit the website.

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Marketing – It’s A Web 2.0 World

web 2.0 technologyOne of the fundamentals of marketing is to market to your target audience, and that depends on what product you are promoting. People, especially the young, are spending more and more of their lives online. The advertising and marketing media knows this, and is pushing more and more of their content online as well. This means that the line between the online and off-line world are becoming increasingly blurred.

The online world offers a vast array of marketing opportunities, and you can partake of these without being spammy. Just provide useful content to your readers. Here are some online venues you may want to consider:
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Affiliate Marketing – How To Choose The Best Programs

When considering affiliate programs with which to monetize your website or blog, it is well to keep in mind that some will be better suited to you than others. Choosing the right program is important; in fact, experts tell us that 80% of all affiliate programs will not bring you any income as an affiliate.

This is not to say that such programs will not work for anybody. What is not right for one site or blog may be perfect for another. It just means that you need to apply a little care and diligence in choosing affiliate programs, as well as testing to see which ones work best for you.

There are many affiliate programs that are free to join. Such programs tend to be just as good as those that require a registration fee, so you might as well choose those that demand no capital investment on your part.

Another thing to keep in mind when choosing an affiliate program is the amount of commissions they offer. After all, the whole point of affiliate marketing is to make an income, so you might as well go with those programs that offer better commission schemes. This could mean higher potential income for you.

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