Editorial: "But they said I would be rich! What happened?"
By Derek Gehl

You've heard the saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."

Well, if you follow this principle when deciding how you'll make money on the Internet, you could save yourself a significant amount of grief in the future.

It seems like every day there's a new "get rich quick" scam popping up on the Internet promising, "If you have a pulse you will be rich before you know it!!!"

Unfortunately, the only ones who ever make a penny are the scammers! And they'll be gone long before you ever figure that out.

At every seminar we hold, we meet smart people who were duped by scammers like this -- and in many cases, taken for a small fortune. These are great people who have a genuine desire to succeed. They simply made one bad decision. Now they'll be paying for it, for months or even years.

So what's the best way to fight these scammers? The answer is simple: EDUCATION.

Today I'm going to educate you on how to filter the REAL money-making opportunities from all the B.S. out there, with my "Scam Detector Check List"!

Whenever you come across a possible business opportunity, simply consult this handy checklist. It'll help you discover if it really is a genuine opportunity -- or a genuine waste of money.

1. If they can't prove a successful track record -- it might be a scam

If you've never heard of them before -- and they can't offer solid proof they've got a successful track record -- then how can you trust them to help YOU make money?

Be skeptical. Ask questions. Search for the URL in Google... are they listed?

If you can't find any positive consumer reviews about them -- or if the only reviews you find are negative -- you should definitely think twice about doing business with them.

2. If they can't show you legitimate testimonials -- it might be a scam

If you are making a significant investment in a business opportunity, the company you are purchasing from should be willing to put you in contact with other successful students. We get this request all of the time, and have numerous successful students who are happy to give us a personal reference at a moment's notice.

To take a look at how we use those testimonials on our salesletters, please visit: www.marketingtips.com/tipsltr.

As you'll see, we provide names, photographs, and URLs for every testimonial we use, so you can easily see that they're all coming from real people.

In fact, we even use video testimonials on our sites. What better way to confirm testimonials are real than to get them straight from the source -- and watch people actually say them in their own words?

3. If they give you a product to sell, as well as the web site to sell it -- it might be a scam

If someone's offering to give you a product to sell, AND the website to sell it on, beware! Chances are hundreds -- if not thousands -- of other people are selling the exact same product with the exact same website. With so much competition, only a small percentage of sellers will ever make any money.

That's why at IMC, we're so adamant about teaching our students how to find their own niche market and develop or find their own products to sell. It's the philosophy our entire course is founded on.

I truly believe niche marketing is the only GUARANTEED way to start a successful business on the Internet. Not using the same website to sell the exact same product that thousands of other people are selling!

4. If the company is charging you money to sell their products -- it might be a scam

If a company says you can sell their product and they will pay you a commission from each sale -- but you need to pay them for the opportunity to do so -- chances are it's a scam.

The truth is, companies like this KNOW their "affiliates" aren't going to generate any sales. That's why they need to get your money up front!

Take it from someone who's running a highly successful affiliate program. If someone wants to become an IMC affiliate and sell my products for me, I'd never make them pay! Why should they? They're doing me a favor!

5. If you cannot talk to them in person -- it might be a scam

Before you make a significant investment in a business opportunity, give the vendors a call. Talk to them in person. Ask them hard questions. If you cannot talk to them in person then don't do business with them!

And finally, use common sense. If you apply the points above and ask lots of questions, chances are you will make the right decisions and pursue the right opportunities.

Just remember: When it comes to online success, there is no magic pill. If you want to start a real business on the Internet you need to be prepared to put in the time and effort to get there.

I can give you all of the strategies you need to make that happen. And I can break them down into easy-to-follow instructions. But the rest is up to you!

Until next time...

Derek Gehl

Have you shared your challenges with me yet?
By Derek Gehl

Over the weekend, you've been telling me about the biggest challenges you're currently facing with your online business.

(To read what people have been saying, visit my blog at: http://blog.marketingtips.com.)

A lot of you are struggling with some pretty major problems...

• You've got no idea where to get started.
• You don't know why your site isn't getting any visitors.
• Your site is getting visitors --- but it's not making any sales.

Maybe your pay-per-click campaigns aren't making any money... Or Google is a mystery to you... Or someone sold you a site full of promises but it's not making any money.

Whatever your challenge, I just wanted to say: MESSAGE RECEIVED. You need my help -- and I'm going to give it to you.

That's why I've got my team working hard to put together a great proposal I'm excited to share with you later this week.

I won't tell you about it now because all the details aren't finalized yet...

But here's a hint: If you say yes to my proposal, you're going to get ALL the information you need to solve your biggest challenges and get back on the fast track to success...

... Plus at least 40 hours a week of FREE one-on-one support from my expert team of online business builders -- for a pocketful of loose change!

I'll be mailing out my proposal to you sometime in the next few days. So keep an eye out for it!

In the meantime, if you haven't shared your biggest challenge with me yet, I'd still love to hear about it. Like I said last week, if you want me to help solve your problems then you've got to TELL me about them!

Just go to http://blog.marketingtips.com

... And join the conversation.

How to make sure those "links for sale" offers are worth it?
By Nicole Ephgrave

[Ed note: Nicole Ephgrave is our in-house SEO "wizard." You can meet up with her in our exclusive "members-only" Search Marketing Lab forum.]

You probably know that high-quality inbound links are the foundation of effective search engine marketing.

(Reciprocal links aren't working any more. The search engines are on to them. Having a few on your site won't get you penalized, but having only reciprocal links will definitely send up a red flag.)

However, it takes a lot of time to build an effective structure of one-way inbound links. So to get the ball rolling, you may want to consider buying some.

But there are good links to buy... and bad links to buy. Today I'm going to tell you how to identify the good ones, and use them to build a solid link network the search engines will LOVE.

Rule #1: Build a content-rich site people actually WANT to link to. That's your core of your long-term strategy. After all, if your content is useless who's going to want to send their visitors there?

Rule #2: Make sure the linking site has content that's relevant to your website. If your site is about dog training, don't buy a link from a site that teaches people how to play the piano.

Rule #3: Make sure the site has a high Google PageRank and a regular flow of incoming traffic. A site with a PageRank with 4 or higher is considered good. And there's a free tool called Alexa you can use to see how much traffic a site gets. (Check it out at http://www.alexa.com.) If the site gets only a trickle of traffic, a link from it isn't going to help you very much.

Rule #4: Include your best keywords in the anchor text. And remember to vary your anchor text from link to link. If people were naturally linking to your website, they wouldn't use the exact same anchor text.

Rule #5: Make sure your link gets put in a high-traffic spot on the other site. The best place is at the top of the homepage, usually on the right.

Rule #6: Get links from as many different kinds of sites as you can. Get them from logs and online PDF documents, as well as e-zines and newsletters. Look for sites that get a lot of visitors and newsletters with a high readership.

Rule #7 (And here's the kicker): Don't buy a whole bunch of links all at once! Why? Because if your brand-new site suddenly has hundreds -- or even thousands -- of links pointing to it, Google's going to penalize you!

Google is very good at identifying links that aren't "organic." If a site gets a whole bunch of links all at once, it looks suspicious.

On top of that, Google tracks links from well-known link sellers and brokers. It doesn't count them as "natural" links, so having them won't help you. In fact, having too many of them will actually harm you.

So definitely beware of sites that advertise an offer like this:

Links For Sale

$20 Monthly
96, 458 backlinks, Sitewide, 6PR

$200 Monthly Entertainment
9,792,006 backlinks, Sitewide, 9PR

$40 Monthly Computer and Internet
124,310 backlinks, Sitewide, 7PR

$200 Yearly Computers and Internet
1,524 backlinks, Sitewide, 7PR

$20 Monthly Health and Fitness
97,218 backlinks, Sitewide, 6PR

View all links for sale

... Yikes. Offers like that'll get you booted off of Google in no time flat!

You've got to plan your link purchases carefully. If you stagger them out, it'll look as if you acquired them naturally over time.

Try to buy links from sites that aren't regularly in the business of selling links. You may even have to explain once or twice why you want a link from them. But the time you put into getting these links will be worth it.

Google, Yahoo, and MSN will all LOVE you -- and you'll never have to worry about being dropped from their listings because of bad links.

Term of the week: Reciprocal links
By Derek Gehl

Reciprocal links are ones you get from sites that you link to on YOUR site.

In the past, sites exchanged links all the time, to each other's mutual benefit. But in the last year or so, Google has started to ignore reciprocal links, seeing them as canceling each other out.

In some cases, where sites have had nothing but reciprocal links on their pages, they've been dropped from Google's listings altogether!

Remember, the search engines love natural, unsolicited links best of all. And to get them, you've got to have lots of original, high-quality content on your site.

(Of course, some strategic search marketing certainly helps, as well!)