Over the past couple years, information marketers have come under greater scrutiny by the United States Federal Trade Commission. The FTC has taken several companies and individuals to task for deceptive Internet marketing practices. As the largest seller of information products online, Clickbank.com is now issuing clearer guidelines for the types of products and/or marketing practices that will be more closely scrutinized going forward. In other words, they are going to be working harder to... Continue Reading

My name is Garrett. I live in a fantasy world that is a cross between a Victorian society and the Middle Ages, with a dose of Steampunk technology tossed in for good measure. You don't see me because I operate out of the shadows. I stealthily make my way in and out of places and across the rooftops of the city, making off with treasure and whatever goods I can find. The only evidence you... Continue Reading

The holiday season can be pretty intense -- presents to buy, social events to go to, cookies to eat, and through it all you are still running your online business. But don't forget to take some time out to sit down and reflect on the year that's passed and the one coming up. Doing so can bring your business and your efforts into sharper focus and help you know what you want to shoot for... Continue Reading

To someone who's never built a website, never tried to run a blog, never done more than leave a comment at the bottom of an article, becoming an online entrepreneur can look a little scary. It continues to look scary right up until they try it. Continue Reading

There are certain aspects of web design that you should make absolutely sure you are getting right. Here is a short list of the most important ones: Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Joel Ownby) In the early days of the Internet, commercialism had not made its entrance and no one was thinking about tracking traffic, much less analyzing it. Nearly a decade later, we had progressed to tracking visitors in the form of "hits," which did not tell you effectively even how many individual people actually visited your site. Now after nearly another decade, we find ourselves in a virtual analytical paradise comprised... Continue Reading

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me to explain the secret of success, I'd be able to tell them, "It's easy. Just demand a dollar every time someone asks you the secret of success." Continue Reading

(Written by guest contributor Sarah Beek) It's no secret that Twitter and Facebook can be huge time sinks. Tweeting, keeping up with the tweets of others, keeping an eye on what people are saying about you, it goes on all day (and night, depending on your market). So how do you actually get any work done? And if you are using social media to promote a cause or a business, how do you make sure... Continue Reading

I meet two kinds of entrepreneurs at conferences. The first are the people hoping to get rich quick. They listen to the speakers and they make notes but what they're really hoping is that someone will let slip a giant secret that will enable them to make a huge sack of cash. Their aim is to retire within a year and spend the rest of their life on the beach. Those are the people who... Continue Reading

When you hear a KaChing in a store, it can only mean one thing. The store's made money. Someone's bought something. They've given money to the store's owner and they've walked away with a product they're going to enjoy. But before that KaChing, there were a number of smaller rings. You won't have heard them but you can be sure the store's owner did. Continue Reading

A lot of online affiliates use ClickBank to promote, buy and sell digital products. It's an easy way to sellebooks, audio and member sites, and earn commissions. We have just released a free iPhone app that all ClickBank users with iPhones will want to download right away. It's called Check CB. Continue Reading

Creating a successful Internet business is all about bringing in users and turning them into cash. The more of those users you can convert, the more money you'll make. Your clickthrough rate - the percentage of users who click on an ad - is a measure of your ability to convert your users. A good website will have a clickthrough rate (or CTR) of around 3 percent. Or to put it another way, even a... Continue Reading

People create Internet businesses for all sorts of reasons. Some of them are looking to give up their J.O.B.s. Some dream of being of being their own boss. And others can't wait to make tons of cash, retire to their private island and leave the work of traffic generation, content production and ad monitoring to their staff. That's all fine. I don't have a problem with any of those reasons. Provided they're all accompanied by... Continue Reading

What do users really want? It's a question that publishers ask themselves all the time. We look at the comments our articles receive. We review our stats. We check the popularity of keywords. We ask for ideas on Twitter. And we do all sorts of other things that try to second-guess what's going through our users' minds so that we can deliver content that interests them most. But maybe we're asking the wrong question. Continue Reading