Google has a new search-based keyword tool (sktool) out. It gives you ideas for new keywords relevant to your site, which you might not have in your adwords campaigns. Its best feature by far is the ability to browse keywords by category (only top 800, though). This basically means that you can see the top 800 keywords people search for .. say, baked goods. This makes finding a niche almost too easy. It's also going to really bring on competition in some really hush/obscure niches. Search-based Keyword Tool: http://www.google.com/sktool/ Help center: http://www.google.com/support/sktool/bin/topic.py?topic=16779 Announcement: http://adwords.blogspot.com/2008/11/announcing-search-based-keyword-tool.html

You can bid on keywords to have your videos appear as 'sponsored videos' on YouTube's search results page. More at Mashable (where I stole the image from) I can think of a number of ways to profit off of this, but I'd need to try it out before I have anything conclusive. Off the top of my head I can see that this will be much more work and money than creating text ads.. I need to hire actors. Vince Offer or Billy Mays?

Lately I noticed spam coming in as Y! Cal event invitations. This results in the email bypassing the spam folder *and* getting a special icon making it prominent (the CSS class of the icon is icons invelopicon [sic]). The subject doesn't matter - you can probably get away with "Cheap Viagra Convention" as the subject. Not only that, but the email body is wrapped in a pretty (and legitimate, not just legitimate-looking) Yahoo! Calendar frame. Here's an example of a message body: You're invited to: $14,000,000 MILLION.BUSINESS PROPOSAL IF YOU ARE INTRESTED REPLY ME IMMEDIATELY. By your host: Asita Ali Date: Tuesday November 4, 2008 Time: 9:15 am - 10:15 am (GMT +00:00) Street: My name is Dr Asita Ali audit director bank of Africa Burkina Faso . I discovered an abandoned fund of $14,000,000 million’s I need a honest foreign partner that we can both do this transaction together and immediately I receive your respond I will give you full details on how the business will be executed and also, please contact me through this e-mail: asita_ali@voila.fr Will you attend? RSVP to this invitation I don't care much for spam, ...

SaveASale is an ingenious marketing ploy by the people at Intellichat. You've probably encountered it, especially if you promote Clickbank stuff. It's basically a popup that gets invoked when the user tries to leave the site/landing page. It looks like a one-to-one chat window with a customer service rep (which is actually just AI). The idea is brilliant (not sure if Intellichat pioneered it?), and in some cases it works pretty well to increase sales, but sometimes it violates the TOS of the network you're trying to promote on. Facebook, for example, which doesn't allow pop-ups on entering or leaving a page (ad guidelines 2, 16 or 17 IIRC), will disapprove any ads that have this on. Publishers should be given an option between the same LP with or without SaveASale enabled. I actually didn't know the page I was promoting had it because I had it disabled locally.. argh:

I used to always shoot down ideas that my friends - so enthusiastically - decided to share with me. What happened afterwards? The enthusiasm dies, and most of the time I don't even think they bothered getting other opinions before moving on to something else. Am I mean? No. To me, everybody else's ideas are lame, and won't work. And to anybody else, my ideas suck and nobody will hesitate to tell me otherwise, and if they do, I can tell they're just being encouraging. Keeping ideas to yourself is important, especially in the beginning, when you haven't thought everything through, and when you can't explain or present the idea in a detailed, persuasive manner that will "sell" to your audience. You want the initial hype/excitement/enthusiasm to remain high, because starting is the hardest task to any new project, and the fastest way to kill it is getting a lecture about why the idea wouldn't work, from somebody who doesn't see the same image and potential as you - because you haven't explained it right, because they didn't do as much research, or because they don't have an interest in that niche. Nowadays, when somebody is talking to me about a ...

One of the biggest obstacles when starting a new site is the initial grunt work. Registering for services, uploading files, installing, configuring, tweaking, and testing. Creating niche sites requires a system. If you're unorganized, you're far more likely to procrastinate. Here's a basic idea of how creating a niche site usually went for me: I would get an idea for a site. Illusion of grandeur and all; How can the idea fail? Then I sit down to implement it, and I visualize the whole procedure. I have to sign up for this, wait for this to load, upload these files, find a theme, edit CSS, download and install a dozen plugins, create an .htaccess file, etc. Usually the worst case scenario being exaggerated, even though in reality the entire procedure doesn't take long. I was able to release maybe one site every six months, and after that never made the effort to update them because I was too lazy to find the login/password. This problem is the result of irresponsibility, procrastination, and primarily lack of organization. Here is the system I designed that seems to be working for me. It's pretty much common sense, but powerful when actually put into practice.

.. that there is no secret. Those looking to strike it rich with PPC and affiliate marketing or SEO-niche sites are going to be gravely disappointed because ultimately, there aren't many viable shortcuts. You see it on every money making forum. People just starting out, who have high hopes that by choosing the right niche, adding the appropriate meta tags and a few fancy Wordpress plugins, they can create a system that brings in $100/day. Some even go to the length of using post submitting software and outsourcing writers. Ironically, attempting to ditch the 9 to 5 results in a repetitive, passionless, stressful endeavor that requires 60 hours a week, with the only thing showing for it is a dollar a month in your Adsense account - if that.

Very basically, affiliate marketing involves you getting leads or sales in exchange for money. Think of a lead as you leading a potential customer to a sale or service. For example, having them enter their zip code or cell phone number can be considered a lead. In a very basic sense, this is how it works. You sign up with an affiliate marketing network and then login to your account. You can then browse the available offers. You get information about the offer, such as how much you will be paid per lead, the landing page and available banners and text-link ads. Follow along with this example. Later below, I will explain how you can do this if you don't have a site. You have a site where you review different Internet service providers (ISP). Your site is getting popular and you are looking to make some money. You browse your affiliate network website for an offer that will appeal to your demographic group. You stumble upon one offer for 6 months of free Internet. This seems perfect for your audience; People coming to your site for information on ISPs are likely to be interested in this offer than in ringtones ...