One of our clients, Positive Branding, was recently found in a well-known search engine and then approached by the Producer's of a small British TV show. You might have heard of it… it's called The Apprentice?

Back in October 2010 when they were filming Series 7 of The Apprentice, Positive Branding, a supplier of high quality embroidered clothing, was approached by the producers of the show to manufacturer the branded restaurant uniforms used in the second to last episode of the series, after being found through search engine listings. They received the call at around lunchtime, but it wasn't until 5:45pm that the artwork came through. Once the images had gone through the necessary digitizing, the approval came through at 6:30, and then the end products were completed and collected by 9pm! 

What this shows is that it's important to have a reputation for being able to work to deadlines without compromising quality. No matter what you do, having a reputation for being able to meet tight deadlines with high quality goods is a fantastic reputation to have, and it was just this reputation that won one our client this fantastic business opportunity. Whilst any business can offer a product or service, it takes a special sort of business to go above and beyond the call of duty, and whilst no business can promise service like that on all jobs, in the words of Melody, one of the other contestants from the show... "Don’t tell me the sky’s the limit when there are footprints on the Moon."

We'd also like to congratulate Tom Pellereau on winning The Apprentice series 7, and wish him luck in his future endeavours!

RyanAir have been made the butt of many jokes over the years, but now it appears they're dishing out the fun, and making light of the phone hacking scandal.

"Hacked off with high fares?" The homepage image reads, a picture of Rebecca Brookes sitting below with a speech bubble of "I'm outta here with RyanAir."

Now, while they are poking fun, what they're doing is actually very clever. It's precisely the kind of thing that can go viral, and turf a lot of new visitors into the RyanAir website. A few people will tweet the link to their friends, those people will retweet it also… maybe a handful of people will place the link on their Facebook walls, telling others to check it out. And thus, a viral link is created. It gets people talking, clicking the links, checking out the RyanAir website, and, most importantly, getting the RyanAir offers, promotions and prices in front of the potential customers.

When you've got a bit of time... have a sit down and think about things to do with your business, whether related or not, that you could perhaps do that would be a bit different. Think about 'out of the box' marketing strategies, and get people talking/.

Oh, and whether you're a RyanAir fan or not, it would be interesting to see their site stats...

When thinking about engaging in social networks like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and others. Its best to understand the audience, as it is with all marketing, but more importantly in these online circles, it's vital to understand who is going to be contributing, creating or just spectators to the conversation.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could just plug in an age range, a location, a gender and discover what the percentages of creators, critics, collectors, joiners, spectators and also inactive people there are in that group?

There is obviously more to the pot of strategy, but knowing that only 19% of female 25 to 34 year olds in the UK actually create content in social media sites compared to 38% of 18 to 24 year olds. Have a little play with this created by Forrester's, it's quite interesting and useful, especially if you don’t have the resources to create a full social media strategy.

Understand the different engagement names with this slideshare.

There was once the everyday mantra of the everyman SEO consultant that said your PageRank ("PR") is the most critical metric for tracking the performance of your search engine ranking improvements.

"PageRank?" Most clients would say, "what's that?"

To which the everyman SEO consultant would roll into an explanation of quality inbound links and the value links have to the pages they link to and so on. However today, PageRank is only one in many metrics the everyman SEO consultant should be talking about. Nowadays, Google is more interested in "engaged web pages". Ok, hold the phone once again! "Engaged web pages… what is that now?"

If you imagine a website that is top of the search engine listings and is therefore clicked regularly, however the website simply doesn't deliver the correct message to enough visitors. Would you consider such a site worthy of the top position? No is our guess and this is Google’s feeling also. Google wants to deliver quality content quicker and it gauges quality based on the duration and interaction a visitor has with each website. This is what engagement is and is what you should certainly track within your analytics on a weekly and monthly basis.

However, don't rush off to Google Analytics just yet. There isn't an "Engagement" button or nice pretty graph in Google Analytics, not yet anyway.

You need to keep track of the following statistics and try to get them to improve over time;

Bounce Rate

You want to see the number of people that visit and then move straight away reduce over time. You are always going to have a bounce rate, but you don’t need to be too concerned about it when it hits 25% or less.

Page Views

Page views are the average number of pages each visitor looks at each visit. Again, once this is above 3 you're doing ok, but try to increase this to at least 5. (It's a tall order for most, but worth increasing this).

Clickthrough Rate

This is the number of times your website is displayed in a search engine result compared to the number of clicks it receives. For example, if your website is displayed in search results 100 times but clicked on only once, your click through rate will be 1%. For SEO and organic searches your clickthrough rate should be 50% or more, however if you also run AdWords or PPC campaigns a clickthrough rate of 3% is good.

You can read more about some of Google's recommended actionable metrics here.

Normally when I get woken up by my 5 year old son Zack at some atrocious time in the morning, his needs are very simple! "Can I play with your phone daddy?” he asks, to which I reply “Yes, now shhh son, Daddy’s sleeping".

Yesterday, his hour of alertness was earlier than normal at 04:30, so he got hold of my iPhone 4 and started to play, after, of course, ensuring the volume was turned all the way down. Ok, so now wind forward a few hours and Zack goes off to a party and I settle down to look at my emails and read through a few articles I’ve been meaning to catch up on. As my PC whirls up I remember thinking that perhaps I should have done this on the iPad as it starts so much quicker, but take a sip of my coffee and decide that it is Sunday and there is no need to rush.

So Outlook opens and I have 54 unread messages. This is unheard of, I mean I cleared my inbox on Saturday night so I must be being spammed. Damn that spam filter we purchased, what a load of shhhh…… Then I realise, that these are actual contacts emailing me, all with a very similar subject.

Re: Hey! I need a wingman.

I of course get an instant flashback to 1986 to Goose and Maverick dog fighting, but that’s a whole other story.

It turns out that Zack was playing with some jetfighter game and he must have been prompted to invite others to play. Not knowing what he was doing, my little angel selected “Yes to All” and off went a few hundred emails.

So now I have to send an apology email to my whole contact list explaining why they received the email. Needless to say, I was not happy.

As it turns out, the email was affective in making contact with people that don’t normally respond to our marketing emails. Yesterday and this morning I have heard from people that I haven’t been in contact with for a very long time, so in actual fact Zack was quite an effective viral marketer.

Viral marketing is not about selling a product or service; it’s about engagement and getting people talking. Since these emails went out everyone I have come into contact with today and yesterday afternoon has, in some way, mentioned or alluded to a “wing man”. So if you are thinking of a good viral campaign, don’t think product, think more about capturing peoples imagination or simply giving them something to smile about.

So, if you've been living under a rock for the past few weeks and have emerged, bleary eyed and wondering "What on Earth is this Google +1 button?" Then you've come to the right place.

The Google +1 Button is like… the "Like" button on Facebook, but instead of being for people's posts, updates and photos, it's for the web. Instead of liking a post, you're liking a website, a blog article, someone's profile… anything! To use it, you have to have a Google Account and, in turn, a Google Profile. If you've just got an account, you can still +1 a page, but you'll have to click "Create a Profile" when you first try to use this new feature. Why not try clicking our +1 button at the top to get into the swing of it?

The Importance of the +1 Button

The Google +1 Button is going to be important for many reasons; Google will begin to tailor search results so that if you've got a friend associated with your Google account that has liked a page related to what you're searching for, chances are, Google are going to rank the page they 'Plus-Oned' above the pages that they didn't. The other thing is, even if none of your friends have Plus-Oned a page, chances are the pages that have more will rank better.

It's for this reason, and this reason alone that we deem this new +1 button as very important. People are starting to speculate that if the +1 button kicks off a lot, Google might start to favour the pages using it over the pages that aren’t...

We also know that the +1 button is a surefire way to make sure Google knows about your page. All +1s will be stored, somewhere, in Google's complex database systems, but Google's algorithms will be looking at this list to make sure it is regularly spidering the pages people are 'Plus-Oneing.' (How many of these have we created?!)

If you have any questions, or need any advice, give us a call at 24/7 FastTrack IT on 0845 838 7801.

Learn more on the official Google +1 Page.

Back in the 90’s, a revolution started. A revolution that’s speed and adoption impacted the world quicker and with more long term bearing than any previous transformation of the world’s technical landscape. Of course I’m speaking about the Internet. Yes, I guess we can debate my assertion, I guess we could discuss how the invention of electricity was a bigger and more important an event and that it was needed to facilitate the Internet, but hey, this is just a blog post, so a little poetic license please.

Anyhow, now almost 20 years on the landscape is ever growing but equally changing. Currently there are approximately 1.8 billion desktop based Internet users worldwide, this is compared to a massive 4.6 billion mobile Internet users. More than double the audience is on the move and statistics also show us that mobile users are more engaged.

Mobile phones, smartphones and mobile devices such as iPads are all being embraced by an ever increasingly diverse demographic of individuals. Whether they are waiting for a bus or perhaps a meeting, or just sitting in front of the television at night, these devices have their users more engaged because they are more accessible. They no longer need to wait until they get home to get access to their PC or Mac. Their iPhone, Android handset or tablet is accessible and instantly available. Hence, mobile Internet browsing is normally longer than desktop browsing sessions.

The future doesn’t look like its going to change either. Matt Brittin, Managing Director of Google UK, says that research indicates that in the year 2020, there is going to be an estimated 5 billion desktop based Internet users compared to a huge 10 billion mobile users.

Hence my question: “Shouldn’t we rename the Internet to Mobinet?”

Good job we can build side-by-side websites for Desktop and Mobile users!

Companies are always eager to nose-dive into Social Media.

If you're a small business owner, a Facebook or twitter account seems like a fantastic idea; a free utility in which you can advertise to a seemingly endless number of potential customers and clients. A nice product push here, and a little awareness-raising competition there, there's no end of ways to communicate and engage with your market.

However, as with the majority of free things, there's a downside.

Imagine, if you will, a potential client is in the market looking for a piece of software. There are two small, independent software developers (we'll call them A and B) offering similar software that this new potential client is looking for, and they both use Facebook to interact with their community.

Now, here's the scenario:

• Both websites sell their software at the same sort of price.
• Both are similar pieces of software.
• Both have FAQs, a forum and such on their sites.
• Software Developer A has a bustling Facebook page, over a thousand 'Likes,' comments, pictures, videos and regular comments.
• Software Developer B has a desolate Facebook page, 11 'Likes' and a handful of comments from 8 months ago.

Who would you choose?

I don't know about you, but if I, personally, was looking for a piece of software and presented with this scenario, I'd almost definitely go for the developer who has the active Facebook page. Why? Because it shows commitment, and, more importantly, it presents another useful way for me to get help and network with other users of the software.

The moral of the story is that, in our eyes, no Facebook page is better than a quiet, unattended, old and unused Facebook page. Why? It's the image it presents.

When you're setting out to gain some footing in the social networking community, stop, have a think, and decide whether you do in fact have the time and resources to invest in a social media platform, and treat it as any other project. Invest your time and efforts accordingly, and don't let it fall by the wayside.

It has long been the common phrase of SEO professionals!

"Search engines can't index or understand Flash content!"

But is this statement really true?

For some search engines maybe, but Google has been working with Adobe now for 2 years or so and they now claim that "almost any text a user can see as they interact with a SWF file, can be indexed by Googlebot". Our friends at Google say the same about Urls in Flash files also.

However, is this truly enough to enable quality optimization of websites that are based on Flash?

In terms of quality search engine optimization, we don't just want our content to be indexed, we want it indexed for the right reasons. We want to guide crawlers & bots to the pages, images and other content that we wish to expose. In HTML terms this can be achieved by clever use of words within certain HTML tags. We can control the priority of pages through sitemaps, robots.txt files, meta data and link titles and text. However, influencing even Google to prioritise Flash content is still a challenge.

Furthermore, quality search engine optimization is not just about getting visitors to web pages, there is also a need to analyse and respond to on page events such as which links are being clicked on. Flash once again restricts our ability to truly add value in this area.

When looking at websites and pages that run predominantly through Adobe Flash technology, we must still consider these pitfalls and simply advise our clients accordingly. Just because Google boasts it can index the content, doesn't mean the content can be optimized effectively.

A close look at when and when not to use redirects on your website from a search engine optimization best practice approach.

Yesterday I was asked by one of our International clients to help resolve a pressing matter regarding a redirect that occurs on their websites.

As they are an international company with an emphasis of sales in the US, Canada and Europe they run 2 primary websites. One focuses on their US and Canadian markets and the other is targeted to all other countries. They provide hosted and installable time tracking software and project planning software.

Anyhow, the main issue is to do with infrastructure, if a visitor arrives on the US website and chooses to signup for a Free 30 day trial, but they are resident in the UK, the trial needs to be setup in the UK server farm to ensure the very best performance.

A redirect to the UK website when the visitor clicks "Sign Up" is simply not the right thing to do, Google and other search engines can look quite unfavourably on such redirects, so what's the solution?

It all comes down to rules really, the key here is to understand why you need a redirect and what are the other solutions available. So the first thing we do is try to fit the requirement for the redirect into one of these categories;

1. Removal Of Website Content or Change Of Website Address
2. Provide Different Content Based On Criteria
3. Do Something In The Background Depending On Criteria
4. Deliver Different Content Based On Visitors Credentials

So lets break these categories down a little further;

Removal Of Website Content or Change Of Website Address

In this circumstance a passive or temporary redirect is not the correct way to go at all. In both cases, you should get your webmaster to configure a 301 Permanent Redirect.

If you are deleting a page from your website do the following;

• Add the page(s) to your Robots.txt file and ensure that they are also removed from your Sitemap.
• Setup a 301 Redirect from the deleted content to a live page or website area
  • If this is not possible, ensure the web server delivers a custom 404 (Not Found) page to the user. The need for a custom one will provide the visitor with a branded page rather than a default error page which will result in you loosing the visitor for ever.

If you are moving your website to a different domain do the following;

• Create a secondary web-space and label it with 301 or something indicating that it's the 301 redirect site
• Add the old host name (e.g. www.myoldsite.com) to the 301 redirect web-space and remove it from the original
• Add the new host name (e.g. www.mynewsite.com) to the original web-space
• Setup a 301 Redirect from the new 301 web-space to the new host

This will instruct search engines that your web address has changed for good.

Provide Different Content Based On Criteria

This is probably where most people feel the need to redirect visitors. Sometimes the criteria will be the search that the visitor originally did or perhaps the redirection is to do with geographic information or maybe the type of browser or operating system the visitor is using.

In these cases you should try your best to avoid a redirect. Your alternatives for these circumstances are to;

1. Use Ajax or client side scripting to display the alternative copy. Our Keyword Webware is a great tool for delivery of specific page content based on the search terms visitors used to get to the websites we manage.
2. Localize your website using static pages rather than redirects. If someone searches in their local language, they will end up on a localized page. If they drop in to your standard home page, by just typing it in as an example, you can provide the different language options at the top of the page.
3. Most variations in display performance can be managed using CSS (cascading style sheets) and conditional CSS (speak with your webmaster about CSS). If the websites HTML is correctly planned, it is also easy to deliver alternative CSS based on the target platform/browser rather than creating redirects to alternative pages/sites.

The above suggestions assumes your website is either being developed/designed or is fairly new. If you are running a legacy website using old HTML/CSS, you may need to bite the bullet on these points.

Do Something In The Background Depending On Criteria

If your website needs to alter something in the background, for example in the database, or perhaps needs to configure a service in variable locations, a redirect is not the best solution. Speak with your developers and webmaster about setting up a web service or Ajax enabled REST service to manage the background processing. Let the web pages simply negotiate instructions with the server directly rather than redirecting to alternative sites/locations.

Deliver Different Content Based On Visitors Credentials

If you are going to run redirects only when a visitor is logged in, then redirect away! There is no issue from a search engine perspective as the search engine can't see the protected content anyway.

As always, I have tried to keep this high level and as clear as possible. Please drop in a comment if you have a question or if the comments are closed, use the contact link above.

Included at the bottom of this post is a special discount offer code. More information…

I am asked all the time questions like ;

"How can we get more visitors from search engines like Google™?"

To which I normally exhale and say my normal response of;

"Well, it depends on why you want more visitors! I guess you're really asking for more buyers from Google™ aren't you?"

Most of the time, the person asking the question looks at me kind of funny and says, "I thought you are an Internet Marketing guy, not a shrink!" I guess I have to expect such reactions when answering a question with a question!

Anyhow, there isn't a single, simple answer to the question, because it is about the purpose and function of the online material. Ok, hold the phone, what the hell is Online Material? Well, this can be a commercial website, blog, Facebook page/group, Twitter page, Linked-In profile, YouTube video etc, etc. So for the purposes of this post, let's just call it a website or blog.

So now we want to look at the words "more visitors" a little closer. If you sell Fridge Freezers and other kitchen white goods, I'm guessing having 100% more visitors from the student demographic is not really what you're looking for! What you want are more relevant visitors. So you really want people who are in your marketplace and interested in what you have to sell or discuss.

Funnily enough, this is exactly what search engines like Google™ want to do also! So your both singing from the same hymn sheet, your ships are sailing in the same direction, you're both speaking the same language! Google™ wants to send relevant visitors to you, and you want more relevant visitors. A match made in heaven!

However, communication with Google™ is a little different to explaining something to a customer in person or online. After all, Google™ is software at the end of the day, very smart software, but its computer code and doesn't interpret nuances or inflection in speech or the written word. It certainly doesn't understand images or cool looking animations and definitely doesn't get catchy or friendly titles.

If you are looking for a quick win, e.g. sales straight away, you should be looking in the arena of Pay-Per-Click or affiliate marketing. Having said this, promoting your website and/or blog through the natural organic listings in search engines (the free ones), is and should be the ultimate goal of any and every website owner.

In order to improve your position in the natural listings you need to play the game with Google™ and communicate effectively with it. At the same time, you mustn't forget your real target audience is still human, they want and need to be able to find the information quickly, they also don't want to crawl through pages and pages of text, just to get to the point. Hmmm, maybe I should shorten this post!

So, a few points to consider are below, but if you want more in-depth knowledge and understanding why not take advantage of our 10% discount promotional code available on our Understanding Search Engines DVD. The discount code makes it a steal at just over £35.00 including worldwide shipping. Users of the DVD have found that they received 30% more visitors from Google™ after using the training DVD! More information…

Things to look at and think about on your website;

• Webpage copy includes the keywords people are using in search engines regularly. (Finding the best keywords to use is discussed & demonstrated on the DVD)
• Each webpage has unique meta page titles and descriptions, uses well structured images, links & headings (The DVD explains this fully)
• Each webpage has a unique and specific purpose. If this is not possible each separate section of the webpage is clearly broken up with headings indicating the purpose and information found underneath. (Examples of this are provided for on the DVD)
• You publish your website or blog to search engines regularly through Xml Sitemaps and other publication methods such as directories & postings. (Examples of search engine publishing is both discussed and demonstrated on the DVD)
• You seek out related and relevant websites and blogs to create link partnerships with, in order to make your webpages popular in search engines eyes. (The DVD demonstrates the process of finding possible link partners and also discusses contact and communication strategies)

The list goes on! So if you are looking to improve your position and visibility in the natural listings of search engines, start by using the Understanding Search Engines DVD as a kick start.

Social media is everywhere you look. Not just online but in the papers, yes even the broadsheets, television, radio and mobile phones, it's just everywhere!

The question is how are large national and international businesses engaging in this arena and how are they managing the communication?

Well, there are a few methods, dispersed services and applications available such as KickApps, Sparta, Small World Labs, but move over KickApps, Comment Technologies truly Kicks Ass!

So Comment Technologies is the new kid on the block, but rather than just being a platform, it's a social marketing one stop service.

All of the other platforms are just that, platforms! They are something you need to learn, adapt and manage. This means slow lead times to launch, increased workforce and a very steep executive management learning curve.

Comment removes all of these adoption issues by providing a full end to end service of implementation, data migration and management. Meaning that any company can have there social media solution in place extremely quickly without resource constraints. Furthermore, while executive management and marketing departments are getting up to speed community engagement, growth and moderation can all be managed by the full range of Comment Technologies services.

However, it doesn't stop there! Where other platforms either focus on just building communities and/or selling advertising space, Comment provides a cutting edge back end reporting and analysis service comparable to best of breed Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.

So you want to target a new product launch in the central states of North America, focusing on married women aged 20 to 35, no problem. The information is available at a touch of a button.

Along with such powerful reporting and export features comes enterprise quality slice and dice import facilities. Got your customers in SAP or JDE? Hey no problem, import and synchronisation are a breeze.       

We feel the real value of Comment is not just its top grade, financial services quality, infrastructure but the services that can be bolted on to enable the business to adopt quickly and integrate into its day to day activity gradually.

If you are looking at social media as a marketing strategy and would like to know more, feel free to fire us over an email or connect with us on Linked-In, Twitter or Facebook.

You may have started to find that people you follow on Twitter are appending the hash-tags #in or #li to their tweets.

Basically, what has happened is, Linked-In (www.linkedin.com) has started integration with Twitter allowing its members to make their Twitter feed available to their Linked-In profiles.

Unlike many similar integrations, Linked-In allows you to select all Tweets to display or just the ones with the #in hash-tag appended.

A word of warning, Linked-In say that you can append #in or #li in their newsletter, but in the settings it only mentions #in, so if you want to feed your tweets into Linked-In be safe and stick with #in.

As an example, I just tweeted the following post. You can then see it displayed in our Linked-In status without any copy/paste or other nonsense. Very cool!
Don’t forget, appending the #in hash-tag to your Tweets will save you time as you don’t have to post the same status to Linked-In also.

Feel free to connect with me on Linked-In at http://uk.linkedin.com/in/fasttrackit

So you have created your marketing video and now want to promote it, well, everywhere!

YouTube is an obvious start, perhaps Bebo and the countless other video hosting websites and networks around. Eventually you’ll also add your video to Facebook, but in our view, Facebook should be the first place you go.

Facebook has a powerful tagging feature which allows you to associate your video post with your friends names. When you do this, your video will become visible to those peoples friends also. This means more exposure to people you don’t even know!

However, you can only tag friends of yours, in other words people whom have agreed to share their information with you.

So if video marketing is something your thinking about, try to do the following first;

1. Look for friends that are in a similar profession to you and mix in the circles of your target audience
2. Check out how many friends they have, you’re looking for people whom are active on Facebook and have upwards of 500 friends. 500 friends equates to approximate exposure of around 1,500 other people. This is calculated assuming a minimum of 3 unique friends per connection. (Drop me a comment if you want me to expand on this.)
3. Request to become friends with them, if you don’t know them, you may want to find out something about them first which you can use as an introduction. For example, see if they are on Twitter, mention them in a tweet, follow them there and then send a Facebook friendship request saying that you liked their Twitter page. Compliments get you everywhere!

Now in the production of your video, try to find a way of incorporating these people into the video in some way. If you find it tough, don’t stress, that’s what the credits at the end of the movie are for, simply add a list titled “Thanks to;” to the end of the video.

Don’t abuse it! If someone feels like you are piggybacking too much they may well kick up a stick with Facebook and you could get yourself cut off. Think carefully and strategically, and this system will work well for you.

Last week we launched our new Internet Marketing Affiliate scheme. The program provides Internet & Marketing professional a way of increasing revenue without additional cost or risks. It also provides business people with connections to these groups of companies and professionals with a way of earning revenue through a multi-tiered payments. We have created a short video which describes the scheme and an example of the payment tiers.

With so many different ways to market our companies, services and products online nowadays it's often difficult to know which we should spend the most time on.

It would be nice if we had a framework, a guiding tool, to help us decide which way is best.

A very easy way to start to define your online marketing strategy is to follow our framework guidelines. We call this the Internet Marketing Landscape and at this stage it covers content only. i.e it does not cover advertising such as pay-per-click, banners or search marketing such as SEO etc.

The landscape starts with 4 main dimensions;

1. Conversations
2. Profiles
3. Sales
4. Support

You can think of these dimensions as quadrants of the bigger picture. Our aim is to slot our online marketing activities into 1 or more of these, the more dimensions they hit, the more valuable they are.

Let's take a commercial website as an example. This is certainly part of the sales dimension but it's only a one way communication channel so it doesn't sit in support or conversions, just sales and profile. How about our linked-in account? Well this sits in profile and possibly, a little bit, in conversations but not support or sales.

Our blog crosses all dimensions, it has the ability to sell, support, encourage conversations through comments and also provide profile information. In actual fact blogs, if used well, are one of the strongest components of the landscape. What about Twitter? Well again it's a great conversation platform, it can also be used for support but we aren't using it for this.

Most businesses will use many different online strategies and systems, some may use Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn and others won't use any of these. The ways in which these systems are used are also quite different so it's important that you map your own businesses onto the landscape.

Once you're done, you should look for the items which cross the most dimensions. In our example above, our blog is the strongest. So we should look to publish content to it as frequently as possible, next is our website, so again we should look at updating the content on our website on a regular basis.

However, this is not to say that you should neglect things like eBay or Amazon, which produce sales. The landscape is more about allocation of resource for updates, so that you can divide your online marketing time and budget accordingly.

Earn passive income by promoting and referring new business to us.

This is a free to join affiliate program, promoting our Internet Marketing Training, Tools and Services.

How much can you earn?

This is really down to you, the commission structure is simple. It runs between 15% and 40% for sales directly made which originate from you and, if you would rather a quite life, 5% from sales produced by other partners you introduce to us.

For business generated by you in any given month we will pay the following commission rates;

If you have introduced a partner to us also, they will be paid the commissions above and you will receive 5%. It’s that simple!

It’s not difficult, it won’t take up your time and you can earn from it!

It isn’t difficult nor will it consume your time or detract your attention from your day-to-day activity. Implementing our affiliate scheme can be as simple as adding a link to your website or blog. Or, you can choose to spend a little more time and send out an email to your contacts or even discuss our products and services through your favourite networking sites such as Linked-In, Twitter, Facebook or perhaps you can write a review on your blog or newsletter. It’s entirely up to you!

Our system has a video tutorial, some online “Getting Started” guides and we are always at the end of the phone or email if you want some ideas or guidance.

I’m a people person, how can I get involved?

I guess by this you mean that you generally meet with people all day long and your referrals are normally done in an exchange of telephone numbers. No problem, you can email links to your contacts instead of just reading out our telephone number. Our system will provide you with your unique affiliate link and that’s what you use in your email.

What if my referred visitor doesn’t buy straight away?

You still get paid, this is covered in our frequently asked questions, so I won’t elaborate here. It’s suffice to say that we use a number of techniques to track visitors and once a visitor is recorded as coming from you, you own them and will be paid if and when they should buy anything from us.

So what do I do now?

The first thing you need to do is enrol, but don’t delay, we are offering to credit your account with a welcome £10.00 for a limited time only, so don’t loose out, signup now.

Please remember, don’t delay and make sure you benefit from the £10.00 credit today and also feel free to call or email me if you have any questions.

We are looking forward to paying you oodles!

Signup Link: http://affiliate.beginning-internet-marketing.com/affiliates/signup.php
FAQ Link: http://affiliate.beginning-internet-marketing.com/affiliates/faq.php

Like me, I’m sure you’re tired of seeing the same old junk SPAM online about some get rich quick schemes. This SPAM seams to be everywhere, Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, email, just everywhere. You click a link and up come some guys sitting on a beach and they tell you that they earn $100,000 per month and all they do is sit on their rear ends all day. If only life were that simple?

We all know these are scams, they are just an Internet spin on an old, and in many countries illegal, practise called Pyramid Selling. It’s a real shame that this is happening as the actual channel of affiliate marketing is fast becoming one of the main driving forces behind online commerce.

In fact in 2007 sales generated by affiliates grew by an estimated 45% on the previous year which attributed £3 billion^* to the affiliate marketing channel. The amount of growth slowed in 2008, which we feel is down to the financial situation we have all experienced, but revenue remained the same.

So, if you are thinking of jumping in to a reputable affiliate program, think in terms of an online business which requires work to get yourself on that beach, but there is a pie, currently larger than £3 billion which you can take a slice from!

Today we have launched our own free to join affiliate program, which begins by selling Internet Marketing training material but will extend to Internet marketing tools and services in the very near future. Plus, for a limited time only, we are paying new sign-ups of our affiliate program £10.00 for just signing up.

You can read more about our free affiliate marketing program on our affiliate partner site.

* The eConsultancy Affiliate Marketing Merchants Report 2007

You've probably seen it on the end or beginning of a Twitter tweet, it normally looks something like "#FF @BeginInterMktg", but what does it mean?

Well, #FF stands for Follow Friday and the hashtag (#) is a Twitter search feature which allows users to group information into a category of some kind. Try a search for #FF here. OK, I know that hasn't really answered the question, so what does Follow Friday mean?

People, especially marketers, want to grow their followers. #FF is a way to recommend others to follow them. In doing this, you can also grow your followers because of a kind of mutual gratitude.

Here's how it works:

You identify people you follow and decide to recommend them. You obviously can decide who to recommend yourself, that part's up to you. You may like someone's tweets and find them useful, so you want to share them, they may have previously re-tweeted one of your tweets, or they may have already recommended you, the choice is yours.

Next, pull up Twitter and start an update as follows:

#FF @UserName1 @UserName2

Where you replace @UserName1 and 2 with the users you want to recommend, but don't forget the @ sign in front of their user names.

Hit the 'Update' button and your done. Now make a note of your current follower numbers, you should see it increase over the next few hours.

The reason your followers are likely to increase is because anyone watching the #FF stream may well follow the people your recommending but are also highly likely to follow the people doing the recommending.

It's that simple, so don't delay, get Following on Fridays, and then have a great weekend.

The Google Wave is gathering momentum and the beta testers are having quite a ride. The question is what and how can the Wave be leveraged by business users? Firstly take a look at this superb video which contains strong language but does demonstrate the Waves amazing functionality of the search mega giants embrace of social media.

Wow, the system is a fully integrated media extravaganza, with the ability to pull in images, movies, sound clips, background tracks and multiple format text. The user can start multiple waves (conversations) and select participants by their wave avatar (image or photo) and then start collaborating.

The end result is a single platform which looks like it can be used by business, not only for marketing, but customer support, project management, quick internal and external conversations, the list just goes on.

Many dispersed workforces have been using chat-room technology to connect quickly for quite sometime, but the interactivity is normally limited to some text and a smiley :o). Recently with Facebook and Twitter, some have started to use these slightly richer platforms to perform the same tasks. However, the very real and rich components of The Wave may well be so compelling that business once again migrates to the better platform.

From a marketing perspective, the Wave will need to encourage the same mass buy-in as Facebook and Twitter. Googles Friend Connect hasn't yet hit the big time but we are sure The Wave is going to hit much harder.