Easy Make

Your head hurts.

Your eyes are burning.

You feel a little sick to your stomach.

Yep. That's right. You just spent the last two hours searching for 'free myspace layouts' and you came up with bumpkiss, nada, zilch, zip, nothing. You may even be a little astonished that such a burgeoning scene can be so bereft of a truly valuable contribution. One would think that the arena would be overrun with opportunists trying to take the internet by storm producing whole collections --not just one or two here and there-- but whole collections of quality premade MySpace layouts.

One would think.

Well after engaging in some serious clanging of swords on the front lines of the MySpace layout battlefield for the past year, let me tell you where it's at.

Free MySpace layout makers generally fall into one of three categories:

The Good
Although these are few and far between, a small (and I mean very small) group of web designers will actually put some major effort into producing a collection of attractive and truly original MySpace layouts. The backgrounds are worked up from scratch and they are customized to fit well with MySpace profiles. On top of this, great care is taken to make sure the colors selected for the fonts are properly coordinated with the background image to make the text easy to read (a big problem on MySpace).

The Bad
A much larger group of web designers (and I use this term loosely here) will scour the net and download any and every image they can lay their mouse finger on. They focus heavily on celebrity and product photos (cars, motorcycles, beer, etc) and all of them, of course, are copyright protected. So what this essentially amounts to is theft, plain and simple. These images are then used in conjunction with some boilerplate CSS code which converts them into MySpace backgrounds. In some cases, these layout makers will even use the original web address of the 'found' image in their layout codes. So in effect they are not only stealing the image itself but they are also stealing the bandwidth of the website they found the image on. All of the above takes absolutely no artistic talent whatsoever so touting the finished pieces as 'original' or 'handmade' MySpace layouts is an utter sham.

The Ugly
This group of MySpace layout makers use the same tactics as 'The Bad' but will go one step further and use any and every black hat search engine optimization (SEO) trick in the book in an attempt to 'game' their MySpace resource sites to the top of search engine results pages. And unfortunately, many of them succeed. Search engines like Google and Yahoo still have a ways to go when it comes to weeding out websites that employ unscrupulous methods like keyword stuffing and multiple site networking.

HOPE

On the bright side, search volume for the keywords 'free myspace layouts' is actually declining while searches for other related keywords is on the rise. This means that MySpace users are finally starting to realize that using the word 'free' is a waste of a good search term since 99.9% of MySpace layouts are free anway (assuming you don't count all the time you spent trying to find a good one). MySpacers are now starting to become much more descriptive with the adjectives they tack on to the keywords 'myspace layouts' in an attempt to find something that will truly adorn their profiles with an original, classy or professional look.

Hopefully this trend will continue and eventually make it a lot easier to separate the wheat from the chaff.

Robert Darrell is the webmaster of ironspider.ca where he provides tutorials covering all aspects of web design. He also provides a fine collection of MySpace layouts which are 100% original (no copyright violations).

You can find his collection of MySpace layouts here: http://www.ironspider.ca/adv/myspace/

# posted by top-10-internet-businesses38494 : 7:43 PM  0 comments

It is my opinion that the best AFFILIATE PROGRAM everis still the AFFILIATE PROGRAM YOU own.

BUT

For those who are content in promoting other peoples programsI will share with you a few of my strategies for FREE!

But before I do that, lets see why most affiliates FAIL in just about any given affiliate program.

Like food products, affiliates have a use by date or expiry date. An average affiliate will expire 30 days after commencing 30 days or less to see if the program is any good and then they move on to the next affiliate program of the month.

If the affiliate doesnt see a return on there investment in the first two weeks then they will not stay around.

DONT BECOME A 30 DAY WONDER.

It is time to make an informed decision (in choosing your affiliate program) and sticking with it. If you are one of those netpreneurs who changes affiliate programs often, and not making money from it, you now know why it isnt working.

So before you go any further, make an informed decision (research) on the program you want to promote.

Now back to those STRATEGIES TWO STRATEGIES TO BE EXACT.

Strategy One

Very simple and straight forward, KNOW YOUR PRODUCT!

To know your product you need to USE IT, and know EVERYTHING there is to know about it. Its like going to watch a movie that you really, really enjoyed, you get this sense of excitement to share your great experience with others, well you need to get that same excitement about your product that only comes about by KNOWING YOUR PRODUCT.

Strategy Two

The Golden Question for all affiliates is How can I create an advantage for me?

The Answer: Incentive marketing

If you have never heard of Incentive marketing, you are sure to have been a victim of it in your every day life.

Think about it have you ever Up sized your meal at McDonalds, have you ever brought anything because of the Free Gift or Discount.

Incentive marketing, Incentive marketing, Incentive marketing

It doesnt matter that there are potentially thousands of other affiliates promoting the same program because from today onwards you are going to create an unfair advantage. Start thinking about what you could possibly use to create an unfair advantage and in PART TWO, I will give you the strategies you would need to become an SUPER INCENTIVE MARKETER.

To Your Online Success!

About the Author:
Gillian Tarawhiti, is Founder and CEO of Community Training Centre, an internet marketing firm providing Online Training and Support to the new and not so new netpreneurs. Gillian is also the author of eBay Billion Dollar Goldmine and the creator of the Multiple Ripple Effect System 2004.
Permission is granted to reprint this article in print or on your web site so long as the paragraph above is included and contact information is provided to http://www.ezy-money.com

# posted by top-10-internet-businesses38494 : 2:08 AM  0 comments