Volume 2 Issue 3 4-27-07

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I3_042707.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.

Please pass Boomer Video eZine on to a friend. They will thank you for it.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments
2. Q & A, Suggestions and Comments
3. google.com/support
4. google.com/support/webmasters (Video)
5. Video by Matt Cutts of Google (Video)
6. Google as a Brand Name
7. A Great Retirement Job – Consultant

Author's Comments

As we promised last week, this week’s focus will be on Google Webmaster Tools. Since Google is the big dog on the Internet, it is advantageous to know what Google has available to help you improve your website in order to make it rank high for your keywords.

We welcome any feedback on other tools that you have used to help you in this area. We will share the feedback with everyone. Please use the suggestion form listed in the Q&A section.

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

We received several emails commenting on the results of the Merrill Lynch survey on desired Boomer retirement jobs. (Read the survey at http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com/#Begin Track Two).

Some readers could not understand the popularity of customer greeter or retail sales clerk. We are not going to comment on the merits of any of these jobs since this is what the survey reported.

We received an email from Don at www.profitpuzzle.com commenting on the survey. Don sent the results of another survey he read:

John,

Been a while. Here's some more "Retirement Jobs Top Ten" from the "Dream Book" put out by Ameriprise Financial. Their source: Too Young to Retire: 101 Ways to Start the Rest of Your Life (Plume 2004):

Top 10 retirement careers

1. Antique/collectible restoration
2. Bakery artisan
3. Coach (life, executive, transtion, career)
4. Dog groomer
5. Freelanced commercial writer
6. LIfestyle magazine entrepreneur (mystery shopper, survey taker, car tester)
7. Minister
8. Motivational speaker
9. Professional organizer
10. Virtual assistant (administrative support and other specialized services vai fax, phone, Internet)

These careers captialize on your life work experience, offer flexibiity and have low overhead.

Don

Our thanks to Don for his contribution to our eZine.

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input. With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.


www.google.com/support

The first level of support on Google is located at http://www.google.com/support. This has links to the various services in Google that you might need. It has a link to “webmasters” and that is where we will spend our time in this issue. You do not need a Google account to access most of this information.

www.google.com/support/webmasters

Go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I3_042707.htm#GSW to see the graphic of the Webmaster Help Center. There is a tremendous amount of information that is available using the links on this page.

Go there and we will explore a few of these that I think are the most important. Watch the 13:45 minute video on Google Webmaster Tools.

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I3_042707.htm#GSW

Video by Matt Cutts of Google

Check out this video by Matt Cutts about the change of Google Sitemaps to Google Webmaster Central which includes new Google webmaster tools.

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I3_042707.htm#VMC

Google as a Brand Name

I just read an article on CNET News.com (April 23, 2007) that Google is the world’s number one brand name. Microsoft held this distinction last year. The first ten brand names are:

1. Google-- $66.4 billion
2. General Electric-- $61.9 billion
3. Microsoft-- $55 billion
4. Coca-Cola-- $44.1 billion
5. China Mobile-- $41.2 billion
6. Marlboro-- $39.2 billion
7. Wal-Mart-- $36.9 billion
8. Citigroup-- $33.7 billion
9. IBM-- $33.6 billion
10. Toyota Motor-- $33.4 billion

This is truly amazing when you consider how much older many of the brand names are than Google (founded 1998).

A Great Retirement Job – Consultant

Authors Note: I created this article from the information that I published in the consultant web page on retirement-jobs-online.com. I decided to modify the information slightly and publish the article on ezinearticles.com. This is an example of leveraging your effort by using the same information more than one time. Now I will send this article to the article listing service that I use in Pakistan and the service will publish it on over 100 business article websites. That is getting the most mileage out of one article that started as web page content.

Read the article at

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I3_042707.htm#GRJC

That wraps up our issue for this week. Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe

www.boomer-ezine.com
http://www.entrepreneur-ezine.com
www.boomer-guru.com
www.boomer-entrepreneur.com
www.boomer-marketplace.com
Boomer’s Amazon Store
(http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Amazon_Page.htm)

Administrative Details …………….

If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2007 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 2 Issue 2 4-20-07

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I2_042007.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.

Please pass Boomer Video eZine on to a friend. They will thank you for it.

Table of Contents for this issue.....
1. Authors Comments
2. Q & A, Suggestions and Comments
3. Let Google's Algorithm Show You The Traffíc
4. SEOMOZ.org
5. New Term – Link Rot
6. Google Webmaster Tools

Author's Comments

I am working on upgrading the Retirement Jobs Online site to expand its appeal. It is getting about 100 visitors per day, but I feel that it should have a lot more.

Right now the site is number seven on the Google search engine results page for the keyword “retirement jobs”. This is below the fold. I am working to improve the content to try to move up in the results so that Retirement Jobs Online is above the fold. This should substantially increase the visitors to the site.

I am expanding it to include help for retirees who do not want a totally online job. Instead, they want to use the Internet to promote and assist their offline jobs.

I found an interesting survey by Merrill Lynch that showed the jobs that Boomers desired after they retired. The top pick was consultant at 27%. Teacher / Professor / Teaching Assistant was in second place at 20%.

The website transition is not complete, but if you want to check out the survey you can see it at http://www.retirement-jobs-online.com/#Begin Track Two.

We are still working on the transition from Boomer eZine to Entrepreneur eZine, but corollary three of Murphy’s Law (Everything takes longer than you expect) is what we are experiencing.

We will make the transition, but we are not in a hurry and the old Boomer eZine is doing fine right now.

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

Nothing to report this week.

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input. With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.

Guest Author – Titus Hoskins

I have written several articles about how to write web pages to make them rank high on the search engine results pages. I admit that I learned most of these techniques from Site Build It (SBI).

SBI has a program called “Analyze It” that reviews each of your web pages before you publish them. It tells you what to change to make the page an ideal search engine web page. You make the suggested changes and resubmit the page until “Analyze It’ tells you he page is ready to publish.

Read more about “Analyze It” and how to write web pages that rank high on with the search engines and bring home the traffic .....

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I2_042007.htm#GA

SEOMOZ.org

Notice that the “About the Author” in the previous article referenced the website, SEOMOZ.org, where you can read all the ranking factors. Let’s take a closer look at it.

This site has some really useful free tools that will help you analyze key word for competition. I used the tools in the past and they are helpful and informative.

Read more about SEOMOZ.org .......

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I2_042007.htm#SEOMOZ

New Term – Link Rot

I read a new term this week, “Link Rot”. I share this with you since it is very descriptive for a broken link. I have found that as we have written the eZine, some of the external links are now broken since the sites that we referenced are shut down or the pages were dropped.

Maintaining links is a continuous job on your site. If you have broken links, it counts against you in your search engine ranking. Make it a habit to check and maintain your links.

If a link is no longer valid, take it out and clean up the text around it. You might have to add a note explaining that the link was removed.

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I2_042007.htm#NT

Google Webmaster Tools

Google has an entire webmaster help section at http://www.google.com/support/webmasters.
This is a heads up for you since we will focus on this topic as the theme for next week’s eZine.

That wraps up our issue for this week. Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe

www.boomer-ezine.com
http://www.entrepreneur-ezine.com
www.boomer-guru.com
www.boomer-entrepreneur.com
www.boomer-marketplace.com
Boomer’s Amazon Store
(http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Amazon_Page.htm)

Administrative Details …………….

If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2007 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 2 Issue 1 4-13-0

Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V2I1_041307.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.

Please pass Boomer Video eZine on to a friend. They will thank you for it.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1.

Authors Comments
2. Q & A, Suggestions and Comments
3. Values We Live By
4. CRON – Set a Timer on Your Site
5. How to Quit Your Day Job - Ebook
6. Announcement by Yahoo Search Marketing

Author's Comments

Another fast paced week. I wrote the first part of the eZine in my hotel room in Florida. I will finish it on Wednesday and publish it on Thursday so I will have it finished before the weekend.

On Friday, Linda and I are flying to Dallas where I have a business meeting early in the afternoon. Then we are spending the weekend with our son, Travis and his wife, Linda Lee.

We are printing “Values We Live By” in the first issue of our second year so our readers will know the standards by which we conduct our business. If you ever feel that we are not conducting ourselves by these standards, we want to hear from you about it.

You will also notice a change in the format of the eZine. Each of the topics in the Table of Contents is a link to the article. Also, the email version of the eZine is in summary format with links back to the main website. I am certain that you will find the web site version much more enjoyable reading than the old text email format. This will enable you to see the presentation with some color and some pictures.

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

One of our readers wrote and asked a question about Site Build It that I could not answer immediately. Here is our exchange.
____________________________________________
Sun 4/8/2007 7:01 PM

John, I really enjoy your editions; they are great especially for someone who is not a super computer guru! I reviewed SBI as you suggested and I have

a question--I want to sell my own E Reports in PDF format--not HTML. can I do this with SBI. The software I will probably use is PDF995. What do you think? thanks in advance for the info, best Jack

______________________________________________________
Sun 4/8/2007 9:25 PM

Jack,

Thanks for being a subscriber. Thanks for the complement.

Good question. I believe that you can post PDF files for download, but I am not certain. Tomorrow I am off to Florida for three days. I will take my laptop with me and I will research your question when I am on the road. I will get you an answer during the week.
_______________________________________________________
Tue 4/10/2007 6:25 AM

Jack,

I was 99% certain that SBI allowed PDF files, but I wanted to verify that it did.

Yes, you can upload PDF files to SBI so your readers can download them. One of the moderators on SBI has written a VERY detailed step by step sequence on how to do this. I was amazed at the detail of the procedure. This will help anyone who is not too technical be able to upload a PDF.

There are many PDF writers that do a good job. I am not familiar with PDF995, but it will probably do just fine. If not, there are others from which to choose.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

John Howe

_______________________________________
Tue 4/10/2007 6:46 AM

Jack,

I'm back. I checked PDF995 and it puts a logo on the free converted document. The unmarked version costs $9.95.

Take a look at CutePDF at

http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/Writer.asp

This is what I use for my PDF creation. It is free and does not mark up your converted document.

When you install it, it acts like a printer. You have the document up that you want to convert and tell the system to print the document. You then select the CutePDF printer and click print. This will create a PDF file in the location you specify instead of printing the document.

It is easy and works well for me.

John Howe
________________________________________________
Tue 4/10/2007 8:46 AM

John, I can't tell you how grateful I am for the information. I'm redoing my website and hope to have everything ready to go by the end of this week---I already have a couple EReports to sell. The information on your Ezine is invaluable to me--Thanks!! Jack
________________________________________________

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input. With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.

Values We Live By

I want to make it a habit to post this at least once per year in the eZine so our readers will know how we strive to conduct our lives and our business.

This was first published in Volume 1 Issue 2 4-15-06 at

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I2_041506.htm.

VALUES WE LIVE BY:

1) We are professed Christians, and we believe in and try to live the "Golden Rule"
2) John is a Rotarian, and we believe that the Four-Way Test of Rotary is the correct way to conduct business:
a) Is it the truth?
b) Is it fair to all concerned?
c) Will it build good will and better friendships?
d) Will it be beneficial to all concerned?

We have a saying. “Truth before Profit”, which is something that many Internet marketers should heed.

All business on our sites will be conducted using these values as our guide.

FOR PROFIT

The work that we are doing on this site is for profit. Our income derives from recommending carefully selected resources to help you learn and become a better entrepreneur. If this site makes a recommendation for you to buy a product, it will be carefully researched and will not be "fluff" just to take your money.

Our income will be from fees and commissions paid to us as an affiliate of the product that we are recommending. Our fee is included in the price that you pay for the product and does not add to your cost. The links we give you to purchase the product enable us to receive the commission. Please use our link when you buy the product so we can be fairly compensated. You are also an entrepreneur. You can appreciate that people should be fairly compensated for their hard work. You would want the same for yourself.

CRON – Set a Timer on Your Site

CRON is a function in Unix and Linux operating systems which allows you to schedule a job and the job will run at the date and time scheduled until you delete the CRON statement.

You may consider this to be too technical for you, but not so if you will carefully read what it is and how it works. It is a function of which you should be aware. Even if you do not need it now, remember it for the day you will need it.

Apache server includes this and it is easy to use with the graphical interface.

The format for CRON is “* * * * * “Command to execute”

Each asterisk represents a field in the command and can contain the following values. If you do not want to specify a value for that particular field, leave the asterisk in that position in the CRON statement line.

Here are the values that each field (left to right) can have other than the asterisk:

Field Value Description
minute 00-59 exact minute the cron executes
hour 00-23 hour of the day the cron executes(0 =midnight)
day 01-31 day of the month the cron executes
month 01-12 month of the year the cron executes

weekday 00-06 day of the week the cron executes

(Sunday = 0, Monday = 1, Tuesday = 2, etc)
command varies sequence of commands to execute

What prompted the need for the CRON on our site was our use of the software package, CB Ad Box Pro. This requires that we copy the ClickBank master file into a file on the Boomer-eZine website periodically so our copy is kept current with the ClickBank master.

Since we get busy and forget to do this weekly, a method to have our website do this automatically was the answer.

The CRON function is very flexible and can be set to run on almost any time frequency you can imagine.

If you specify a minute in the first field and an hour (24 hour clock) in the second field and leave all the other fields as asterisks, the specified program will run on that hour and minute every day. If you want the program to run twice a day at 10 and 11 AM, you can write the CRON as:

0 10,11 * * * Command to execute

With the proper combinations, you can set up a job to run automatically on almost any schedule that you can imagine.

Let’s try a few. Write a CRON to execute on every Sunday at midnight.

If you got “0 0 * * 0 Command to execute”, then you are right. The zero in the first position is on the hour. The zero in the second position is midnight. The zero in the fifth position (day of the week) is Sunday. This is what we used for our CRON settings for the CD AD Box update.

Set up a CRON to run once per year on the last day of the year at midnight.

0 0 31 12 * Command to execute

If you have a graphical interface, it is easy to enter the CRON information. Here is the Hostexcellence interface for the CRON.

Just enter the correct information in the fields and click “Submit Query” and you have set up your schedule.

As I said earlier, you may not need this right now, but remember it for when it will come in handy for you.

“How to Quit Your Day Job - High Performance Affiliate Marketing”

Last week I told you about an offer from Jeremy Palmer to our Boomer eZine readers to view his free video tutorial about Adcenter. He also included a $50 bonus on Microsoft Adcenter to try what he explained in the video.

If you missed that offer from last week it can still be accessed at

http://snipurl.com/Adcenter50dol

After my communication with Jeremy, I was curious about his book, but I was not motivated to buy it at $49.95 since I have already read several great books about affiliate marketing. One of the best I have previously read is Chris Chandler’s Google Cash which I have reviewed previously in http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I45_021607.htm. Google Cash is primarily about pay per click (PPC) marketing. Using PPC marketing, you make your money by promoting products and services using affiliate relationships.

As a member of Jim Cockrum’s “Silent Team” site, I received an email this week that Jeremy Palmer had posted his book, “How to Quit Your Day Job”, on the Silent Team site so all members could download it free. That was a no brainer. I downloaded it to my laptop and read it on the flight back from Florida on Wednesday.

Jeremy has written an outstanding book on affiliate marketing in his “How to Quit Your Day Job - High Performance Affiliate Marketing”. If you are interested in PPC advertising and affiliate marketing, I highly recommend it.

His information is easy to understand. He has many descriptive screenshots to demonstrate his narrative, which certainly makes it easier to follow.

Jeremy covers some new tools that have come online that “Google Cash” does not mention. Also, the Yahoo Search Marketing keyword tool is being phased out. Jeremy does not depend on it in his book except to say it is on borrowed time. (Many books still use the Yahoo Search Marketing [old Overture] tool as a foundation of the book, which is dishonest, in my opinion) since the tool will be discontinued soon.

One thing that Jeremy discusses is the sales season of various products. Google has a feature that I did not know about that shows the sales of a particular keyword by month for the year. That in itself is enough to justify my buying the book (and I got it free). You do not want to be focusing on an advertising campaign when your market is historically not buying.

If you want to buy Jeremy’s “How to Quit Your Day Job - High Performance Affiliate Marketing” for $24.95, here is the link to the sales page:

http://snipurl.com/QuitDayJob

HOWEVER, I have a better offer for you. The cost for the initial membership for Jim’s site is $49.95 and the cost of Jeremy’s book is $49.95. (I just discovered that Jeremy has cut the cost of the book on ClickBank to $24.95 through 4/30/07). Now, throw in the all the other bonus downloads on the Silent Team site and you come out way ahead.

Just as one example – Expert, John Thornhill, has compiled a collection of eBay books worth (by my calculator) $957.07. Yes, some of these may not be applicable to what you are doing on eBay, but go ahead and discount it 50% and you still get $478.53.

If you want to really get a deal, sign up for Jim’s site and get all the bonuses. The initial fee ($49.95) covers the first two months of membership. When the renewal for the third month comes along ($19.95), you can decide if the value on the site justifies your keeping your membership or dropping it.

If the experts continue to post their ebooks as free downloads, the $19.95 per month is a bargain. I predict that you will continue your membership for the value that you receive once you have tried it.

A little more info about Jim’s site: The site is approaching 800 members and there have only been three requests for refunds. That is a very high level of customer satisfaction (99.625%).

You say, “This sounds like a sales pitch”, and yes, I admit that it is. It is a sales pitch since I am convinced that the value is there. Where else can you get the continuing value of direct access to an outstanding panel of experts, download books for much more than the initial cost of the membership, and participate on a forum with people who are dedicated to being successful on the Internet. The members of Jim’s site are people who recognize the value of membership and the success it brings (if you work hard and smart).

Go to www.silent-team.com and evaluate the offer yourself. It is an outstanding resource.

Do it now so procrastination does not keep you from moving forward.

Announcement by Yahoo Search Marketing (YSM)

We discussed writing ads for Google and Yahoo Search Marketing in http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I51_033007.htm. I received this email from YSM this last week. YSM is working hard to upgrade its model to try to compete better with Google. I am posting it here in case you missed it.

1. Short descriptions will be required when you create or modify an ad, beginning in May 2007.Long descriptions will be optional. Currently, you have two options for your ad descriptions: long (up to 190 characters) and short (70 characters or fewer).

2. Yahoo! Search results will only show short descriptions beginning in June 2007.If you only use long descriptions, your ad will be automatically cut off to fit within the 70-character limit, which may impact your ability to communicate valuable information to users and your results. We recommend that you create a short description for any existing ad to guarantee that your most important information is included.

That wraps up our issue for this week. Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
www.boomer-ezine.com
www.boomer-guru.com
www.boomer-entrepreneur.com
www.boomer-marketplace.com
eBay Boomer Retirement Store
(http:/stores.ebay.com/BOOMER-RETIREMENT-STORE)
Boomer’s Amazon Store
(http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Amazon_Page.htm)

Administrative Details …………….

If you are changing email addresses in the future, put a note on your calendar to send us a blank email after you have changed your address. Send the blank email to: boomerezine001@aweber.com. We want to remain in contact with you!

It is OK to go ahead and join our subscriber list with more than one email address. You never know when an email will be blocked by those tough SPAM filters. They are getting tighter and tighter and are blocking many legitimate emails.

If a friend sent you this newsletter and you would like to receive your own issue next time, send a blank email to boomerezine001@aweber.com and we will send you your own copy on the next issue.

Copyright 2007 John Howe, Inc.

Volume 1 - Issue 52 4-6-07

For those who would like to read this in HTML format, this issue of Boomer eZine is posted on the Boomer eZine website at http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I52_040607.htm and on the Boomer eZine Blog at http://boomer-ezine.blogspot.com.

Please pass Boomer Video eZine on to a friend. They will thank you for it.

Table of Contents for this issue.....

1. Authors Comments
2. Q & A, Suggestions and Comments
3. Cookie Cutter Websites
4. Making and Posting Videos
5. SnipURL.com
6. Microsoft Adcenter

Author's Comments

This will be a short issue since the week has been compressed, and we are leaving at noon today to baby sit Allison, our grand daughter, in San Antonio tonight. If all the technical components function correctly, I will finish and publish this remotely from Justin’s computer. Justin, our son, and Mary will host us for Easter.

Just look at the title – Issue 52. That means that this is the last issue of the first year for Boomer eZine. As we said previously, we are going to make some changes to the eZine, but they might have to wait a while. Things are moving so fast with my company that I do not have much after work time.

In fact, I will be in Florida for the first three days of next week. Then on Friday Linda and I fly to Dallas. I have some business there and then we are staying with Travis, our son, and Linda Lee to celebrate her birthday. If I haven’t told you, Linda Lee, Travis’ wife, is expecting our second grandchild. By this time next week, we may know if we are expecting a boy or girl.

Happy Easter to all of you who are Christians. If you are not, we wish you the best of the springtime season. It is a wonderful time to be alive.

For those of you in the southern hemisphere, fall is a wonderful time of year too.

Q & A, Suggestions and Comments

We received several emails recently, but I am going to save them for future issues. However, one of them did trigger the article “Cookie Cutter Websites”. Read on.

If you have anything for this section or you have a suggestion for a topic for an article, please go to http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Suggestion_Form1.htm and give us your input. With your input, we can improve the Boomer Video eZine.

Cookie Cutter Websites

One of the best services that I could do for mankind on the Internet is to shout from the mountain top, “Do not buy ready made, “cookie cutter” websites”. These usually only make the seller any money.

A “cookie cutter” site is one that the builder creates so the title of the site can be easily changed to your domain name and the sites can be stamped out like using a “cookie cutter”. The site is sold under the pretense that all you have to do to make LOTS of money is buy the site and pay to have it hosted on the Internet. The site has ready made links to products and services from which you are told will make a commission each time a person clicks a link. Usually the products and services are sold by the company that developed the website so they make most of the money if you do get a sale. They keep telling you, “Just think how much money you will make by having a site like this on the Internet”.

For those of you who have “cookie cutter” sites, it’s time for true confessions. When I first started on the Internet I did not know the magic word “traffic”. I was naïve and thought that all you did was set up a website and the world beat a path to it to click on your offerings. I read an ad that said, “My little website made me $11,000 in a week”. I thought, “Wow, if that site made him that much money, just a small percentage of that will be fine with me”. Little did I know that the marketer who sold this “cookie cutter” site had a list of over 40,000 to which to promote the web site.

There were several testimonials in his sales letter about how people who had bought the site were raking in the money. When I later researched the testimonials, I found that these were from other Internet marketers who had large lists and could drive traffic to their “cookie cutter” sites. Beware of the fraternity of Internet marketers. They scratch each other’s backs.

I bought the site and guess what. The only benefit I received from it was from some really good bonuses that were attached to the deal. It was a “live and learn” experience. I have justified it to myself that the bonuses were worth the amount I paid, but they really weren’t.

Since then I have seen many of these sites on the Net, and I really think it is a shame that people do this to other people.

The time and money spent trying to promote someone else’s “cookie cutter” site could be better spent creating your own site with your own personality.

So much of what is sold on the Internet should require the seller to tell “the rest of the story” to quote Paul Harvey. The untold part of the truth is really a lie.

I keep coming back to Site Build It for creating your own site. It is the method that comes closest to being the answer for someone who wants an Internet business and is not an Internet expert.

It does have some basic templates to use for the look of your site that could be criticized as “cookie cutter”, but that is where the likeness stops. And you are not limited to the basic templates. You can create your own if you want to. Retirement Jobs Oline.com is a Site Build It site using an SBI template for the look and feel.

The content on the site is all created by YOU and the site becomes YOU. The content of the site is what is IMPORTANT.

I have posted a video player on the Boomer eZine website for you to view a video about SBI.

You owe it to yourself to take a look at this video so you can see how Site Build It works and how it can make a difference in your life. The video is broken down into six different segments.

“Tour It”, the video that takes you through the SBI process so you will really understand how SBI works is 30 minutes long.

You say to yourself, “I don’t have time to watch it”. I say to you, “You don’t have time NOT TO WATCH it”. This is the only way for you to see what I have been preaching about ever since I discovered SBI.

If you do not have time right now, reserve time to view this video. It will make a difference in your Internet life.

If you are reading the email version of Boomer eZine, click the following link to go to the Boomer eZine website to watch the video:

Link to SBI Video

If you have any questions about SBI, I will be happy to answer them.

Send me an email to john (at) boomer-ezine.com. Replace the "at" with "@" and remove the spaces.

Making and Posting Videos

A couple of weeks ago, I told you about posting a video on YouTube. Since then, I have posted the video on Google Video and Yahoo Video.

Video is the really “hot” medium on the Internet now. YouTube has led the way and the others are scrambling to catch up.

You can view the videos at the following locations:

YouTube - http://snipurl.com/1fek4

Yahoo - http://snipurl.com/1fek2

Google - http://snipurl.com/1fejl

Making videos is fairly easy. I recommend that you start learning how to make a video and post it on the major sites. Even if your first video does not get a lot of clicks, the experience will be invaluable. Just keep it up.

If you have a camcorder, you can record and publish a video using Microsoft Windows Movie Maker which comes with MS Windows XP. I expect that MS Vista contains it also. Look for it on your computer, open it up, and see what it will do for you.

If you want to make videos of your screen as you explain an event on your computer, we recommend Camtasia Studio. That is what we use and it is truly remarkable what you can do with it. All the videos that we have posted on the Boomer eZine are made with Camtasia. And there will be many more to come.

SnipURL.com

You probably noticed that the links to the videos in the previous article are redirects using SnipURL. This is a new redirect site that I read about on Jim Cockrum’s new site www.silent-team.com.

SnipURL does the same job that TinyURL does and much more. See article about TinyURL in

http://www.boomer-ezine.com/V1I43_020207.htm.

TinyURL will convert a long URL into a short one and redirect for you. SnipURL also shortens the URL and redirects. In addition, it gives you a user area on its website where you can keep track of your snipped URL’s, edit them, and give them names for remembering what they are. The best feature – it counts the times that the link is clicked. Now how cool is that???

You don’t know the number of times that I have asked myself, “I wonder how many times this link is followed”. Well, enter SnipURL to give the answer.

It is easy to set up and use. The key feature is the click count for the link. Check it out at http://www.snipurl.com/.

Microsoft Adcenter

I told you in my mid-week follow up that I was checking out an offer from an unidentified expert concerning MS Adcenter. I have investigated the offer, and it is legitimate.

The offer is from Jeremy Palmer, the author of “Quit Your Day Job”. Jeremy is an expert in pay per click (PPC) advertising. He has made this exceptional offer.

He will give you the download to a video about how to use MS Adcenter for a free and you can get a $50 free credit to use to learn how Adcenter works. This seems too good to be true. And it is almost too good to be true.

Let me qualify the offer:

The offer is only valid for customers in the United States.

The $50 credit only extends to new Microsoft AdCenter accounts.

While the offer is only good for new US-based customers, everybody will benefit from the free training presented in the video.

Creating a new Adcenter account costs you $5.00 so get the credit card out.

Jeremy will request for your email address and first name.

Bottom line. This is a good deal. You pay $5.00 for $50 credit toward Adcenter advertising. (Pretty equitable in my opinion). You get great instruction in the video (I viewed it and it is well done). You can use the $50 credit to apply the knowledge that you get from the video in a live advertising campaign.

When you go to Adcenter to sign up, note the promotion code for the $50 credit is AFF07. Make certain that you enter this in the promotion code box on the sign up form.

Click the following link to go to Jeremy’s site. He will ask for your first name and email address. From there follow the instructions to download the instructional video and to open a new account on Adcenter with a $50 credit to start.

If you already have an Adcenter account, you can open another one to take advantage of this offer since it only applies to new acconts,

Click this link to accept the offer -

http://snipurl.com/Adcenter50dol

This is an excellent opportunity to learn about PPC advertising by spending $5.00 to join Adcenter. My recommendation is that you get the video and sign up for Adcenter so you can learn how PPC works. You just might make some money in the process.

Good Luck.

That wraps up our issue for this week. Until next week, stay tuned.

John and Linda Howe
www.boomer-ezine.com
www.boomer-guru.com
www.boomer-entrepreneur.com
www.boomer-marketplace.com
eBay Boomer Retirement Store
(http:/stores.ebay.com/BOOMER-RETIREMENT-STORE)
Boomer’s Amazon Store
(http://www.boomer-ezine.com/Amazon_Page.htm)

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Copyright 2007 John Howe, Inc.