RosalindGardner.com

Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner

Rosalind Gardner

Super affiliate, blogger, and speaker, Rosalind is best known for her affiliate marketing training in the Super Affiliate Handbook: How I made $436,797 in One Year Selling Other Peoples' Stuff Online. You can connect with her on Facebook.

NPT Weekly Recap from Huntsville, Ontario

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Girl on Dock with LaptopGreetings from just outside beautiful Huntsville, Ontario.

And no, that's not me working hard at my laptop down at the town dock – but I did appreciate the girl's spirit to have biked to such a beautiful spot to do her work. 🙂

I've been ‘busy' this past week checking out various Muskoka chairs, and all the while my blog has been busy delivering all the messages I queued up for you prior to my departure.

Just in case you've been checking out lounge chairs too, the following posts have been made since the last newsletter went out on the 20th:

‘Til next time, Blog and Prosper!

Cheers,
Ros

Feedburner FeedCount: Be Patient

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The first time I installed Feedburner's FeedCount* on this blog (after integrating the Feedburner feed with Aweber) I uninstalled it almost immediately after seeing that it showed only a few hundred subscribers.

Ugh!

How embarrassing!

Especially considering that there are places on the site where I tout the fact that NPT has tens of thousands of readers.

I mentioned this ‘problem' to Anik Singal (my partner in BlogClassroom) and he simply told me to “give it a day to resolve“.

So, although the FeedCount chiclet showed ZERO subscribers when I installed it at Sage-Hearts (see screen capture above left), I was a little more patient and left it alone until the next day.

Sure enough, when I checked it the next morning, FeedCount was showing 100K subscribers (see graphic below).

Woohoo!

*FeedCount is a dynamic graphic that displays your feed's current circulation, as calculated by FeedBurner. You may customize its color scheme to match your site and choose between either an animated or static appearance.

To put the Feedburner FeedCount on your blog, log in to your Feedburner account, go to ‘My Feeds' and choose the feed that you want to Publicize. Then activate the FeedCount service (found in the left-side navigation), choose your colors, then copy and paste the code where you want the graphic to appear on your blog.

The primary benefit to using the FeedCount chiclet on your blog is to increase visitor awareness of the popularity of your blog (social proof) and thereby increase the likelihood that they will also subscribe to your feed.

Then wait for it!!

Where Did You Get those Images?

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Shortly after posting a call for guest bloggers, I received an article proposal from someone I'll call Betty. I thought Betty's proposal for a topic was great, so I checked out her site.

“Hmmm…” thinks I when I saw the site. “This has a very familiar look and feel”.

“Hmmm…” I thought again as I saw Betty's list of blog categories in the first navigation bar along the right side of the page. OK, so it's not unusual for category names to be similar across same-topic sites. For instance, almost every Internet dating blog is going to have relatively generic categories named Dating Tips and Internet Dating.

However, one not-so-generic category name that Betty's blog shared with mine struck me as way beyond coincidental.

Sure enough, when I searched the wording on Google, my site showed up second in the natural listings (after a site that included the phrase within the body text of an article) and Betty's showed up in 9th place for the same term.

“Hmmm… I best investigate a little more” I concluded and wouldn't you know it… smack dab in the middle of her newsletter signup form there was a graphic image that I created.

Sheesh.

I responded to Betty and explained that because NPT guest bloggers link out to their own sites, I couldn't possibly link out to hers what with there being STOLEN CONTENT on her site. (OK, I didn't say STOLEN CONTENT in my response to her… and although she didn't respond to my email, she has changed her site considerably since then — so, message obviously received.)

Folks, copyright infringement is a serious matter and many webmasters and companies aren't quite as forgiving when they find their work displayed without approval on other sites. You could easily get slapped with a fine or lawsuit and, if the aggrieved party is angry enough, they could easily run a campaign that damages your reputation to the extent that it's not worth promoting your site anymore.

Using someone else's work without their permission or purchasing the rights is just not worth the risk.

So, as far as graphic images go, I …

  • Make my own graphics using Paint Shop Pro – available through Corel and which is considerably less expensive than PhotoShop.
  • Use photo images taken with my Sony digital camera .
  • Use images of products supplied by merchants (eBags example here on RosalindGardner.com).
  • Buy graphics from stock agencies like iStock, BigStock, Crestock or PhotoDune on the Evato Market.

In summary, there are so many good options available for getting graphic images on the cheap, that there is no need to ever risk your online business reputation – or your chances of becoming a guest blogger for me. 🙂

Spam: SOMEONE YOU CALL YOUR FRIEND, WANTS YOU DEAD.

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Boy oh boy, these spammer folks ARE getting creative. Posted below is perhaps the sickest one I've seen yet and I just pray that there aren't good people out there who are feeling scared or responding to this nonsensical garbage – because it is just that, complete and utter nonsense. If you read it through, it actually seems quite hilarious.

Subject [Suspected Spam] SOMEONE YOU CALL YOUR FRIEND, WANTS YOU DEAD.
From ANTHONIO BENITO
Date Saturday, May 24, 2008 1:34 pm

SOMEONE YOU CALL YOUR FRIEND, WANTS YOU DEAD.

I felt very sorry and bad for you, that your life is going to end like this if you don't comply, i was paid to eliminate you and I have to do it within10 days. Someone you call your friend wants you dead by all means, and the person havespent a lot of money on this, the person also came to us and told us that he wants you dead and he provided us your names, photograph and other necessary information we needed about you.

If you are in doubt with this I will send you your name and where you are residing in my next mail. Meanwhile, I have sent my boys to track you down and they have carried out the necessary investigation needed for the operation, but I ordered them to stop for a while and not to strike immediately because I just felt something goodand sympathetic about you. I decided to contact you first and know why somebody will want you dead by all means. Right now my men are monitoring you, their eyesare on you, and even the place you think is safer for you to hide might not be. Now do you want to LIVE OR DIE? It is up to you. Get back to me now if you areready to enter deal with me, I mean life trade, who knows, and I might just spear your life, $12,000 is all you need to spend.

You will first of all pay $4,000 then I will send the tape of the person that want you dead to you and when the tape gets to you, you will pay the remaining $8,000. If you are not ready for my help, then I will have no choice but to carry on the assignment after all I have already being paid before now.

Warning: Do not think of contacting the police or even tell anyone because Iwill extend it to any member of your family since you are aware that somebodywant you dead, and the person knows some members of your family as well. For your own good I will advise you not to go out once is 7pm until I make out time to see you and give you the tape of my discussion with the person who want you dead then you can use it to take any legal action.

Good luck as I await your reply to this e-mail contact: final.bulletpointservice@gmail.com

Mr.Anthonio Benito.

Ros Tells All in PepperJam Interview

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OK, that ‘tells all' subject line is a little hyped up – I haven't written my autobiography yet. 🙂

But if you want to learn a little more about who I am and what I do, check out the “Pepperjam Network “Meet the Affiliates” Interview #3: Introducing Rosalind Gardner” blog today where I've answered the following questions posed by PJN's CEO Kris Jones:

  1. Where do you live? Are you married? Any children? Animals?
  2. When and how did you first get involved in affiliate marketing. Please share your story…
  3. What are some of your favorite online resources for learning more about affiliate marketing?
  4. What are your top two (2) favorite books of all time and top three (3) favorite musical groups?
  5. What is a day-in-the-life of Rosalind Gardner like?
  6. Among other regular contributions to the affiliate marketing industry, you are a regular columnist for Revenue Magazine (BTW – I always look forward to reading your piece every issue!). Can you share with our readers what you feel is the best advice you’ve ever given as part of your column in Revenue Magazine?
  7. You authored the book “Make a Fortune Promoting Other People’s Stuff Online.” Can you share with us a few tips from that book? Wait…you’re not done yet. You’ve also authored one of the best-selling and successful e-books of all time called “The Super Affiliate Handbook: How I Made $436797 in One Year Selling Other People’s Stuff Online.” Is there an additional tip or two from that book that you can share?
  8. My guess is that as an accomplished author, international speaker, and uber successful affiliate marketer you’ve traveled the world many times. Tell us about the most amazing place you’ve ever been to around the world. Tell us about your experience there…
  9. Name one person in the affiliate industry you admire and tell us why?

And just in case you haven't yet signed for Pepperjam, check out “Pepperjam Network Review: Real Change or Just Hype?” here on the NPT blog.

WordPress Plugins: Author Exposed

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Author Exposed PluginColor Light Studio's Igor Penjivrag first entry into the WordPress plugin world is called Author Exposed.

When one of your blog readers clicks on a post author's name, rather than sending them the to the author's site or showing their WordPress profile information, Author Exposed pops a mini window that includes the author's name, email address, linked site address, a short profile, a link to an archive of their posts and their gravatar.

The screen capture above shows Igor's author profile from his site.

The only change that I made to the plugin was to remove the code that showed the author's email address from showing up. (There's enough spam in the world already).

Great work, Igor! Thanks for the plugin!

Stupid New York Tax Law Gets Affiliates Axed

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How's this for stupid? New York state brings in a new tax law that makes out-of-state businesses with New York based-affiliates collect sales tax on Internet purchases made by New York State residents, if the company's affiliate sales in the state exceed $10,000.

By result, merchants that don't want to deal with additional tax collection are dumping their New York-based affiliates.

Overtstock has notified it's 3400 New York based affiliates that they've been dumped effective June 1st, 2008. One New York-based affiliate on Shawn Collin's blog commented that he'd already been dropped by 4 Linkshare merchants.

Amazon, on the other hand, will collect the tax but it is also suing New York state for introducing a law that it deems unconstitutional. Bravo, Amazon!

Brian Littleton of ShareaSale reports on his blog that he is reluctant to give merchants access to information normally considered private and that he'll warn merchants that “that terminating NY is a bad plan – and one that needs rethinking.”

Brook Schaaf of MediaTrust has put out a call to all affiliates proposing a new industry association.

Appears to me to be a lose-lose-lose situation.

Consumers won't be keen to pay the additional tax, so they'll buy less. Merchants that terminate affiliates will earn less. And in a state where more than 1.86 million residents (about 1 in 10) are already food stamp recipients; New York's affiliates will earn less, thereby reducing tax inflow and increasing the size of the breadlines.

This ploy to weasel $50 million bucks more out of New York taxpayers' pockets is especially heinous considering how ordinary citizens are already having a hard time making ends meet with high prices for food, fuel and escalating unemployment.

What a great contribution to an economy already in shambles… not.

Are you an affiliate living and working in New York state? Has your association with some merchants been terminated recently due to this new law? How do you think that will affect your bottom line? Please share your thoughts by leaving a comment below.

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