Contents

1. Introduction
2. Fr33bies
3. Marketing and Tech Tips
4. Business Programs
5. Paid Email/Survey/Surf

Introduction

The final version of the February newsletter is now here. The first half of the month was the exciting leadup to the KioskLeads launch, which eventually happened on the 22nd Feb.

Fr33bies

Here is the most useful article I read this month: a Phil Wiley newsletter. Phil Wiley is one of the guys I hope to emulate on the web. And he has been quiet lately - just busy making money. I should take the hint from him, and concentrate on the things that actually make money.

If you've ever wanted to produce Flash animations, but didn't want to buy the full versions, here is some brilliant free software that produces Flash Output - PowerBullet. It's a simple, excellent tool to create Flash slideshows and lots of fun things. Expect to spend a lot of time playing with this one.

Marketing and Tech Tips

Aah the never-ending battle for search engine positioning. I received a recommendation for buying a link in the Linkopedia directory, which for a one-time $10 fee, resulted in Google picking up their new sites within a week or two. That's a lower price than most paid inclusion directories. If you're into paying for stuff.

But the big news on 18/2 was Yahoo's rollout of a new search engine, with it's own index and ranking algorithm, no longer reliant on Google for input. I was pretty happy with the results it gave - finally I got #1 for "Get Paid To Read Email", despite being nowhere near that on Google. It proves I was doing it right all along - good content site, and good link exchanges, and frequent updates. I think I'll celebrate. Although I was put in my place by a subsequent SitePro article that basically said, the people use Google, so unless it's on Google, you're wasting your time. Oh well.

I think I've finalised my email handling on websites now. I have chosen non-standard names, for example NOT webmaster@sitename.com, so it can't be guessed, removed any default redirection of addresses to bounce any guessed addresses, encrypted the address on my site using the free siteup.com, and funnelled them all to my PC using Incredimail. I flirted briefly with mailwasher, but as the new version of Incredimail also allows bouncing of unwanted mail, and has fantastic folder management, I'm sticking with Incredimail, even though it does waste bandwidth by downloading your mail to your PC. So I can spend some decent time on link exchanges for the first time in months. And my multiple yahoo accounts go to eprompter. But I will warn you that only inboxes are downloaded, so any mails incorrectly classified as bulk/spam, will not be seen. So I do periodically log on to check that only junk goes to bulk mail folders.

I've really been enjoying the emails from the partners of Project Mousetrap. These two guys have burst onto the internet marketing scene with tremendous success, appealing to everybody's valid concerns about the security of their websites. Excellent work, guys.

I was gearing up to advertise KioskLeads, and went to update my rotator. It refused to refresh, even when I changed PCs, and tested it with my startpages. So I am finally writing it off. I went to MPAM and discovered (oops) they have their own rotator, but for free members, the first few slots are reserved for promoting MPAM programs. So I went and experimented with Pageswirl. Definitely a good one - and with a recommendation from the owner of TrafficRoundup on the front page, I think I'll trust it. so I updated all my startpages to point to Pageswirl from now on. A very good move.

I've also been wallowing in programming land lately. I wanted to learn more about SQL and PHP, but all the manuals had been telling me to upload each PHP page to test it. So I was pretty happy to learn about WEMP , which with one click, installs Apache server software, PHP and SQL development environment on your PC for FREE. Outstanding. It works!

Business Programs

I have KioskLeads in my Pageswirl rotator, and will see how that progresses. The guy in charge is such an honest guy that the advertising page is a little quiet - it has his personal photo, without the usual hype. So I may end up writing a specific page for advertising it on traffic exchanges, where anything different and colourful tends to stand out. Hehe. This is always a good idea, as you can personalise your page, and make it different to the current stuff being advertised. As a rotten copywriter, I am taking advantage of the automated features, simply loading the 500 leads into the pre-written autoresponder. When the premium targetted leads are available, I will personally contact the leads with my own business offers. But that's in the future.

I'm getting tempted to spend some more time on SFI. The best thing is the easy signup method - free and automated. If only my number one business was more like SFI in not requiring phone calls and signatures, it would be perfect.

Paid Email/Survey/Surf

Mail-Down-Under continues to be a nice little program. Colourful email ads, with increased volume as people realise how nice it is, make it a pleasure. Still doesn't earn a lot, but this is a nice one to advertise in.

In case you didn't notice, Annie's has a new owner, but it is Dana, from CashRoyal, who has a good business head, so most people are happy. She has been sending lots of emails, so it is getting back to normal.

I got tired of cheap search ads, so have quit QuickerClickers and Eagle-mails, as they really do have too many searches, and were clogging up my zwallet account.

AYS and AprilGolds are still doing well, and I use the onsite inbox exclusively for those programs, which does work well.

My Lotto page on A Get Paid Site has had an unexpected bonus. It has the official Australian lotto, which is managed through Commission Monster. I logged on to Commission Monster yesterday, and found that someone had spent a fair bit of money on lotto, and earnt me a nice commission. A very pleasant surprise. Plus somebody was advertising it yesterda through mail-down-under, so it is getting more exposure. Definitely worth spending a little more time on.I'm adding the link to my main Best-Australian shopping site.