It is simply amazing how people will get ideas in their head and no matter what you tell them, they can’t rid of those ideas…no matter how ridiculous they are. One of these, and probably one of the biggest myths in all of Internet marketing, is the one about duplicate content and so called “penalties.” 97% of the marketers online are convinced that if you put your content on more than one site, you’re screwed. So it’s time to set the record straight once and for all, because this is ridiculous.

For starters, let’s take a look at the article directory model. How do these people make their money? They make it by providing content to web site publishers who are looking for content on specific topics. Now, do you really think that web site A, who takes an article from say, Ezine Articles on acne is the ONLY web site to use that article? Of course not. Some articles get picked up by web site B all the way through Z and beyond…especially if it’s good. Do you NOT think that these articles ALSO get indexed? If they didn’t, then the article directories would go out of business from providing a service that was WORTHLESS.

I mean come on folks…use a little common sense. Ezine Articles probably makes millions each year in Adsense revenue. But if that isn’t enough to convince you, go to Google and look up my friend Steven Wagenheim. You will notice thousands of pages on him. You will also notice quite a few of his Ezine Articles on OTHER sites…also indexed. If there was such a thing as duplicate content OR a penalty, don’t you think that there would only be ONE copy of that article indexed? Again, another reason why this myth is so ridiculous.

But if all that isn’t good enough for you, try this on for size. Google itself, has come out and said, “There is no such thing as duplicate content or a penalty for it.”  Essentially, the only thing that will happen is this. If you have an article and put it on two separate pages on the same domain, it will ONLY be indexed on ONE of those pages. However, you will NOT receive any kind of a penalty because you had the article on two pages. Now, is it smart to put the same article on two separate pages on the same domain? Of course not. Why would you even do it anyway?

Point is, this whole thing about duplicate content has been blown WAY out of proportion, mostly by people who want to sell you some worthless article spinner that you DON’T need.

Okay, hopefully, this article will have put this issue to bed…once and for all.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

Well, with all the crap hitting the fan these days, mostly thanks to the FTC and Google, it is getting harder and harder to get a product into the Clickbank marketplace as a vendor. It seems that they are rejecting more and more products each day with no end in site. So what’s the solution? Well, if you are a product creator and still want to get affiliates, and Clickbank has said NO to your latest gem, your only other option is either to find another affiliate marketplace that will accept your product and pay affiliates for you (good luck) or run an in house affiliate program. This article is going to go over the pros and cons of running your own affiliate program.

Let’s start with the obvious pros. For starters, you’re not at the mercy of an affiliate marketplace like Clickbank. They don’t like your product? No problem. Pick up a script like Rapid Action Profits and not only sell anything you like, as long as your payment processor has no problem with it, but even set it up so that your affiliates get paid directly to their accounts. This is a no muss, no fuss solution.

Another advantage is that you can set your own commission rates. You don’t have to abide by anybody’s minimums and maximums. For example, with Clickbank, the most you can give an affiliate is 75%. With your own in house affiliate program, you can give 100% commissions if you like. The figure is totally up to you.

Okay, but what about the disadvantages of running your own in house affiliate program? Well, probably the biggest one is that you don’t have the advantage of having your product listed in a huge marketplace like the one at Clickbank so that affiliates can easily find you. So in order to get affiliates, you are really on your own.

This means that you have to do two things. For starters, you need to find independent listings where you can list your affiliate program. Problem is, most of these, especially the free ones, are pretty poor and very few people, if anybody, are going to find you.

In addition to that, you are going to have to actively look for affiliates. That means, in addition to promoting your actual product itself, you’re going to have to send out ads that actually look for affiliates. In essence, this splits up your marketing resources, which is never a good thing.

Another big con, if you don’t have something like Rapid Action Profits, where affiliates get paid right away, is that you have to manually pay them yourself. If you have a lot of affiliates, this can turn into a ton of work. And then of course there is the issue of 1099s at the end of the year.

So there you have it, the pros and cons of running an in house affiliate program.

As they say…choose your poison.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

This article is targeted to people who are looking to maybe get their hands a little dirty and play with the big boys. I am warning you up front. If you decide to play this game, you are playing with fire and just might get burned. If you play it right, it can be VERY lucrative. However, if you play it wrong, it can come back to haunt you in a BIG way. This article covers the pros and cons of negative review sites.

For those who don’t know, a negative review site is one that ONLY reviews products that it doesn’t like. In other words, you will find nothing positive about any of the products being reviews. Okay, so what are the advantages of having a site like this?

Well, for starters, like it or not, the buying public is very skeptical. It is just looking for a reason NOT to buy something because it has been burned so often. That’s why sites like scam dot com are so big. People want to know what to avoid. So one advantage of having a site like this is that, with proper promotion, you can get a ton of traffic.

Another advantage of these sites is that you’re not selling anything, so you don’t have to worry about people coming back to you and bitching that you recommended a product that didn’t work for them. Hey, if they buy something that you flat out said sucked goose eggs, then they have nobody to blame but the person in the mirror.

Now, if you’re wondering about monetization for these sites, I have one word…Adsense. These sites, if they are promoted properly, are an Adsense gold mine. Why? The answer is simple. These people are looking for solutions and those Adsense ads JUST might be the solutions they’re looking for. At the very least, they’re going to check them out. It costs them nothing and earns you an income.

What about the cons? Ah, this is where you really have to have a strong stomach. See, you’re going to be bashing other people’s products, which hopefully, you’ve tried out first or know a great deal about. These people are NOT going to take this lying down. They’re going to come after you…sometimes with lawyers, if they’re big enough. Others will send you hate email. You may get threats. In short, it will be anything BUT a peaceful business. If you can handle the heat, go for it.

Also, you are limiting your immediate income to Adsense. Sure, you could try putting opt in forms on the page to build a list and then pitch them products you DO like in your newsletters, but for the most part, you’re relying on Adsense for your revenue.

There you have it…the pros and cons of negative review sites.

They can be a great money maker or a royal pain in the buns.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

One of the biggest reasons why article marketers fail is because the resource box at the end of their article doesn’t take the prospect to the landing page that they expect to see. When there is that disconnect, the prospect gets confused and ultimately ends up navigating away from your page and to somewhere else. Okay, so how can we keep this from happening? Well, this article is going to cover resource box to landing page match. I have no doubt that you will find this VERY helpful.

Let’s first go over what makes a good resource box, because without that, it doesn’t matter how good your landing page is…you won’t get people to your site.

I have found that the perfect resource box consists of three parts. The first part is to remind the prospect of the pain and suffering that they’re going through. You want them to REALLY feel the pain. This is what will induce them to move onto the next part of the box.

After the pain, you present them with the URL to their solution. You can do this in the form of a straight URL or anchor text. Quite honestly, either way can work very well. The downside of anchor text is that EZA now limits you to just three words. That’s not a lot to work with if you’re using long tail keywords. With a URL, the only restriction is that it points to a site that YOU own.

Finally, you have the benefit. This is where you tell the prospect what they can expect to have happen if they go to the site and get whatever information is there.

So, as an example, let’s take the following resource box.

“Tired of suffering from chronic acne and being ashamed to go out in public? Visit my site at acne dot com and cure your acne in just 3 days NATURALLY.”

Okay, there is your resource box. Now, the only thing that is missing is the landing page matchup. This is where you lose people. So, imagine if they get to a squeeze or sale page with the following header.

“Cure Your Acne In Just 3 Days NATURALLY.”

Do you think, if this is the very first thing that they see above the fold, that there will be ANY chance that they’ll think they’re in the wrong place? This header, and it can be text or graphical, is a perfect match to the last part of the resource box. There can be NO mistake that they’re in the right place.

If you construct your resource box, keeping in mind the page you’re sending people to, your bounce rate should be close to zero.

Try it sometime. You might be surprised at the results.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

Well, it’s about time to answer this question because many article writers and marketers are totally puzzled over some of the rejections that they’re getting lately. So, it’s time that we cleared up some of the confusion and explained some of these rejections. Some are simple to explain and some, not so simple. Keep reading and you’ll understand what I’m talking about.

For starters, I’m not talking about the usual reasons why you would have an article rejected, such as poor grammar or submitting blatantly obvious PLR material. I’m talking about articles that you’ve been submitting all along that were always approved and suddenly are not approved. There are essentially three reasons for these rejections.

Reason number one is that, while the official Ezine Articles site still says “minimum 250 words” for each submitted article, they have finally raised their standards, unofficially, to about 400 words minimum. Now, that doesn’t mean that you can’t submit a 250 word article and get away with it. You might. But the seasoned editors have been instructed to require longer articles. The news ones have been instructed to do the same, but you know how it is when you’re new. You don’t always do what you’re supposed to.

Reason number two is that, because of the FTC crackdown and all the scams out there, some topics are no longer allowed at Ezine Articles. While these aren’t specifically spelled out in their TOS, if you submit an article on a topic like Satellite TVs or Acai Berry, there is a good chance that an editor who is on top of these things will reject your article, where at one time, it would have been accepted. Unfortunately, there is no way to know what these topics are until they are publicly posted. So you’re just going to have to submit and take your chances.

Reason number three has to do with the general error that has no valid reason. In most of these cases, like it or not, the reason for rejection is because the editor made a mistake. Many times, what will happen is that you will get a response to a ticket you sent in on the matter saying that the article was rejected in error and they will then approve if. I know it’s annoying, but people make mistakes. Don’t get bent out of shape over it. Eventually, your article will be approved if it doesn’t violate any of their guidelines.

There you have it…the three main reasons why articles that used to be approved are suddenly getting rejected. If you keep these things in mind, it will go a long way to preserving your sanity when submitting to Ezine Articles.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

Well, it was only a matter of time before Google said “Enough is enough!” In case you haven’t heard, quality scores for Adwords accounts have been plummeting. Some people have actually had their accounts banned because their landing pages were so bad. And of course, a lot of this has to do with the FTC cracking down on scam infested niches. So Google has had no choice but to put the kibosh on the whole operation. How does this affect you if you use Adwords? What steps do you need to take? This article will address the two main issues.

At the top of the list is the landing page quality itself. Google now wants you to direct prospects to a full blown web site in order to get the best quality score. What are we talking about? We’re talking about a site that has a home page, a products page, an FAQ section, maybe a contact page and as much RELEVANT content as you can put on it. These one page opt in forms that look like a third grader did them are now going to get hit hard in the QS department. If you think I am kidding, try putting one of those suckers up and see how good YOUR quality scores is.

An even bigger issue is the actual product you’re selling or niche you’re in. Mega corporations spending over $1 million a month on Adwords have lost their accounts because Google does not approve of what they’re promoting. For the most part, these are your scam infested CPA offers with the hidden forced continuity. Because of the number of complaints AND because the FTC has had its fill of this crap as well, if you run such a site, you are in great danger of getting your Adwords account pulled from under you.

So what’s the solution? No, I don’t have any magic wand for you to wave. There is only one way to get around these problems and that’s to comply with them. In other words, that means putting up a web site that you wouldn’t be ashamed to let your five year old daughter see. It also means promoting a business that you wouldn’t be ashamed to tell your family about. And don’t tell me you don’t know what I’m talking about. We’re all aware of the crap that’s out there that’s getting shut down and why.

If you can manage to do these two things (yeah, I know…why should you have to) then you stand a good chance of not getting your Adwords account sent into orbit.

Or you can just roll the dice and take your chances.

The choice is YOURS.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

It was bound to happen sooner or later. And now, the big name copywriters are going to certainly have their work cut out for them. In case you haven’t heard, copywriting has taken a big hit thanks to the new FTC regulations. If you haven’t heard what they are yet, I’m going to briefly go over them before I show you what you’re going to have to do in order to comply. There is no easy way around this one folks. The free ride is over.

Okay, so what’s the whole FTC thing about as it applies to copywriters? In a nutshell, it has to do with testimonials. In the old days, you could have a testimonial with some guy making millions of dollars from your product and then at the bottom of the page have a disclaimer that says “Results not typical”. Well, no more. This disclaimer no longer cuts the mustard. Today, you have to do one of two things. The first is that you show WHAT the typical results are. The other option is to have a detailed case study breakdown of EXACTLY what this person did to earn all that money. Let’s go over the first option.

This one is almost impossible to do, especially if you’ve already sold hundreds or thousands of copies of your product. Think about it. Of all the copies you’ve sold, how many people have gotten back to you with any results at all? Very few. So you have no way of knowing what the typical results are. If you’re going to use this option, then you will have no choice but to say that the typical results are that the person gets no results, simply because by deferring to the lowest common denominator, you rule out any chance that you will be overstating something. Now, how you word this can mean the difference between a successful sales page and one that bombs out. I will explain at the end of this article.

If you go with the second option, doing a case study, then you have to make sure that the customer documents everything that they did to make your product work including how much money they spent, what steps they took, how many hours they worked and how long it took to see the results. If you can get somebody to do this for you, THEN you can use their results based testimonial.

Here are your easy solutions to this problem. For the first option simply say something like this.

“The typical person gets no results because they don’t use the product. They just let it sit around and collect dust. But you’re not the typical person, right?”

This placates the FTC and at the same time, puts the prospect on the spot. They’re not going to want to be labeled as a failure, so they’re more likely to buy the product just to show they’re not typical.

If you use the second option, simply include a link at the end of the testimonial to the page with the detailed results. Most people won’t bother reading them. Why? As it is, the sales page is too damn long anyway. Last thing they want to do is read more boring text. Still, you’ve appeased the FTC and have really done nothing to hurt your sales letter.

If you do these two simple things, you won’t have to worry about the FTC coming after your sales page OR losing any sales.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto

Affiliate marketers are in an absolute panic because of the latest FTC regulations. In case you’re not aware of them, I will go over them briefly, how they apply to affiliates, before I explain to you how to get around them so that you’re not hit with an outrageous fine. Failure to follow this advice can land you in more trouble than you even want to know. Take that warning for what it’s worth to you.

Okay, so what exactly IS the FTC deal as it applies to affiliates? In a nutshell, affiliates now have to disclose on their site, whether it be a review blog or whatever, that the product they are reviewing is one that IF the prospect purchases from their review link, they DO get compensated for the sale. In other words, it’s full disclosure my friends. The gravy train has come to a grinding halt. That’s the bad news.

Here’s the good news. This regulation in NO way means the end of affiliate marketing. It just means that affiliate marketers have to be smarter than everybody else when promoting their products. Well, I’ve come up with a near fool proof way to get around these regulations. In fact, by following the tips I’m about to share with you, you can literally tell people right up front that you’re an affiliate for the product, beg them to buy from you, and they still will. How? Glad you asked.

It’s really very simple. No product, no matter how complete, has everything…especially if it’s an info product. It’s just impossible to include everything. So what you do is simple. Get a hold of the product, read it and figure out what YOU can add to the product to make it better. THEN…what you do is put together a little bonus with this missing information and offer it to anybody who buys the product from YOU. If the info is good enough, you’ll have people tearing down your doors to get it.

If you don’t have a product, offer your time. How many people looking for help with a certain problem wouldn’t love to have somebody personally help them in putting the solution together? Offering your personal time is one bonus that nobody else can duplicate exactly.

Point is…if you’re worried about the FTC…don’t. This is an easy way of using full disclosure and still getting the sale…maybe even more sales than you would have gotten.

To YOUR Success,

Kevin Hutto