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An Easy, Free Way to Get Your Link on InternetMarketingSucks.com

Sick of all those blogs that offer backlinks if you review their blog? That’s a pain in the ass - you have to read their blog and then actually write something about it. And all you get in return is a link to your review from one of their blog posts, which is full of other links to other people’s reviews!

I actually took some time to review John Chow’s blog, and I only got a few visitors from his link, so I can’t imagine how useless it would be to review some smaller blog.

So instead of doing that, I’m using the WhoLinked widget to display incoming links in my blog’s sidebar.

All you have to do is link to this blog. That’s it. Once that link gets picked up by WhoLinked, it will display in the sidebar under the “Who Links Here?” heading. Easy, fast, and free!

So bring on the links :)

[9/8/07 update: I have removed the WhoLinked widget as it was rarely updated to account for new links.]

The Secret To Getting Into DMOZ in 2007

greedy dmoz editor

DMOZ doesn’t get the attention it deserves these days. People are going after Wikipedia and the front page of Digg instead. They might have better luck there, but paying people to Digg you gets expensive, and those over-protective nerds editing Wikipedia every second of the day won’t let your link slip past.

But at DMOZ, the editors are corrupt. In 2005 it might have just been one corrupt editor, but now, if anyone is still editing, they’re corrupt beyond relief.

It’s not a bad thing, just a change you have to make in your style ;)

And that change involves greasing some palms (figuratively speaking.) And to help you out, here are the instructions to get it done.

Free Adsense Backgrounds!

green adsense background from adclustr

These days, since Adsense no longer allows images beside ads, you have to innovate and put the images behind the ads! (I mentioned this before, but this is the real deal.)

Better do it now though, because you never know when Adsense will change their terms.

If you’re looking for free Adsense backgrounds, there is only one place to go - AdClustr. I almost hesitate to mention the site, just because I’d rather keep their advice all to myself!

I think AdClustr is the perfect example of Web 2.0 + Useful Information. One of the first times I’ve seen the two combined. The best part is obviously the free Adsense backgrounds. They give you the image, the XHTML and CSS code for your site, and the Adsense color scheme!

Want some examples? Try these:

http://adclustr.com/example/?i=29
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=298
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=251
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=226
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=289
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=292
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=192
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=194
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=196
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=210
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=187
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=180
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=179
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=161
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=163
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=169
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=116
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=92
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=71
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=81
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=106
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=112
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=45
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=35
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=43
http://adclustr.com/example/?i=14

Pretty nice, huh?

They even have some great posts, too, like Adsense placement reviews. My favorites were Ad Integration by CSSIMPORT.com and Ad Integration by GOODWIDGETS.com. And of course, Why Pay for Adsense Backgrounds?

Normally I wouldn’t give such a glowing review even if I got paid for it, but I just love this site! Take a look, you won’t regret it. :)

Just Upload This and Watermark All Your Images Instantly

free but it still sucks

While not a get rich quick scheme, the statement above sure sounds nice. Not quite “too good to be true” status, I believed it when I was checking out a free PHP script that just required me to upload a file and then watermark my images.

Since I was totally sick of people ripping off my images, I tried it out. Turns out there were a few files to upload (not just one,) and not all of them were included in the download, but I stuck with it.

The script in question is called Active Watermark. The premise is that you upload this script along with a watermark image to your site’s image directory and it will automatically add the watermark to your images. Anyone viewing your images will get the watermarked version, but the script won’t actually change your picture, which is great. However, this thing sucked all along.

First, once I downloaded the unzipped the folder, the README and other files didn’t have extensions. So I had to add a .txt on each, which left the files unformatted and hard to understand. Even worse, only the PHP file was there. The .htaccess file that you need to edit and include was nowhere to be seen! I had to surf the web to get an idea of what to put in there.

I finally had it figured out, and tried various combinations of file placement and folder structure, but to no avail.

Before giving up completely, I found another very similar script out there. This one had fewer options, but it did include all the necessary files, so I liked it… until it didn’t work either.

Oh well. I guess people will keep stealing my images. (That’s still better, or at least easier, than watermarking thousands of images by hand in Photoshop.)

There are two lessons here:

1) Don’t expect free scripts to be amazing.

2) Don’t risk your reputation on a non-working script.

Let me explain number two. ActiveUnit looks like a big-time web services company that does good work. But after seeing this free script, and its level of quality (or lack thereof,) I will probably never to do business with them. They could be a great company, but the lack of attention to detail on this script doesn’t help their image.

If anyone knows of a working script that easily adds watermarks, please let me know. And if anyone got this ActiveWatermark script to work, please share!

Dramatically Increase Your Traffic While Possibly Saving Hours Of Time

web 2.0 submitter software box

Catchy title, huh? Everyone wants to possibly save time and increase traffic ;)

What we’re looking at is a new piece of software called Web2Submitter, and it helps automate the process of submitting your web pages to social bookmarking services. It’s common knowledge to most webmasters that they can get traffic by submitting their sites to these sites like Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit.

I didn’t think it took very long to do so, but maybe it takes a long time for some people, and that’s why this software came out. I can only poke fun at it in a few ways, as it might be a handy tool for some people. And unfortunately, the sales page doesn’t make totally outrageous claims that you’ll get rich overnight by using this software!

However, I picked out a few good tidbits from the sales page audio!

The first one was that this software is “not a spam tool.” It’s not a spam tool just like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, or another email client is not a spam tool. Unfortunately, unscrupulous people can easily use it to spam! This might not be the worst form of spamming, but it’s a nuisance. It will just lead to more spam on all the bookmarking sites, like I mentioned when I wrote about the crap that is submitted on StumbleUpon.

Next they say that “not many internet marketers are using these methods.” I beg to differ! Almost every blog i read these days has rows upon rows of social bookmarking buttons. There are Wordpress plugins that do this easily, along with a “Digg This” plugin for Digg submissions. All you have to do is click those buttons for easy submission to each bookmarking site. Or better yet, just let your readers submit for you!

I don’t have much else to complain about though. I guess the good thing is, it’s not some get rich quick scheme. It could be used legitimately, like one of those semi-automated tools for article submission. So it might save you some time. If that’s worth $47, then go for it.

It doesn’t make any real claims other than saving time and getting some links to your site. It’s assuming you’re taking the long way to submit your sites to these Web 2.0 places by logging-in and all that. I just use the buttons that i already have on my websites, so for me, it wouldn’t save that much time. I don’t spend 7-8 hours per week doing this already, but if you do, you have two options:

1) add the buttons to your site and submit via those (or just wait for your visitors to do it for you, which is what i prefer to do - and it takes no time on my part!)

2) buy this software and try it out; hopefully it saves you time.

If it sounds like the tool for you, here’s the link: Web2Submitter

If not, no big deal. I’m happy I read the sales letter because I learned about Only Wire, a free social bookmark submission service. It submits your page to 19 social bookmarking sites at once, saving you plenty of time.

Note: The Web2submitter link is an affiliate link. Why? Because I figured it’s possible to use this without spamming, and it’s only a time-saving software tool to help automate something you should do anyway. I don’t use this personally, so I don’t know if it’s any good or not, so it’s not actually a recommendation to purchase. But, the sales page gives you a demo so it’s no secret what you’re getting. And if you’re not satisfied, you can ask for a refund. If they don’t give you one, go straight to ClickBank and they’ll get the refund for you. And c’mon, I’d like to make a little extra spending money for myself! Wouldn’t you do the same thing?

P.S. Don’t forget to bookmark this post using the buttons below! :)

Possibly The Best Way to Use Site-Targeted Adwords Campaigns

Boring Adsense ads can be seen on almost every site out there. It’s nowhere near as bad as those talking smiley face banners, but a lot of Adsense ads are mundane. Not all of them though…

Every so often you come across a really cool site-targeted Adwords campaign, sparking your interest and making you laugh. One of the ones I saw was from Advolcano, which is an advertising network similar to AdBrite and AdEngage, and the ad was on JohnChow.com.

See, John Chow had recently started displaying AdVolcano ads as a publisher, and AdVolcano took full advantage of that. If you’ve had any marketing classes, they tell you that a prospect must get your advertising message seven times before taking action. So Advolcano went to work! John Chow had blogged about the new ads, and you could clearly see the “Ads by AdVolcano” message on his site. But still, AdVolcano bought some ads to be displayed on JohnChow.com! (See the pic below.)

advolcano ad on johnchow dot com

(Click the picture for a larger version.)

The ad just enhanced the powers of “celebrity endorsement” and “social proof,” the concept that if someone popular is doing something, you should do it too.

It may have worked well, but these days I don’t see any AdVolcano ads there. Perhaps AdVolcano got a good enough boost from that, but it could have backfired. One might wonder if John used the ads and ended up hating them, hence they are no longer on his site?

(Note: No worries, there are still plenty of good publishers listed at AdVolcano.com, including JohnChow.com, so it’s definitely worth a look if you’re ready to pay for big traffic.)

Display Your Email Address Without Getting Spammed

no spam sign

It is nearly impossible to stop your email address from getting spammed. Even if no one knows it, it will probably get spammed some day.

For emails that are made public, the amount of spam can be devastating. So if you’re going to display your email address, do it the smart way!

For me, the smart way is to use a little JavaScript to mask the email address. That link will take you to a site telling you how to do it, too.

That script is great because it displays a clickable email address to your site visitors, but it just displays some words and code to spam bots.

Why bother?

Well, writing your email address on a web page is just asking for spam. You could put your email in an image and display that, but it’s inconvenient for your visitors and these days, spam bots can decipher the image.

Writing your email like person AT yahoo DOT com can work, but again, it can be a pain for your visitors. Spam bots will surely pick up on that tactic too.

So do yourself a favor and use this JS method. Most people will have JavaScript enabled so you shouldn’t have a big problem with that.

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