Skype is an amazing tool!

If you have friends or family far away and the cost of phoning them is getting too much, why not connect via Skype?

Skype uses your broadband connection to connect to landlines, mobile phones and other computers.

If the person you want to call also has a broadband connection then you can connect for free. All you need is a microphone and headphones and you can talk and/or online chat for as long as you like. If you both have a webcam it’s even more fun because you can see the other person talking. What a great way to connect with grandkids far away!

But that’s not all. For very low rates you can connect with landlines and mobile phones and even send text messages. Or, if you’re not online, you can get your Skype calls forwarded to another phone.

If you use the paid services you can do this either by pay-as-you-go, which means you only pay when you use the service, or a monthly subscription. Either way, the service is amazing value compared to conventional telephony.

There are a lot of options to play around with to get connected with your friends, family or business contacts.  Installing Skype is easy and free. And if you don’t already have headphones, microphone or web camera, then Skype can supply all the compatible equipment you need.

Why not give it a try? It’s great fun and getting set up is a breeze.

Click on this banner to find out more about Skype:

WebWatcher doesn’t really have anything to do with affiliate marketing but I’m mentioning it here because I’ve just found it very useful.

A client of mine approached me because he was having a problem with one of his employees. He suspected that he was spending too much time during the working day using the firm’s computer for private purposes rather than doing his job. My client wanted to know if I could suggest any way of finding out what was going on.

I explained that I didn’t have any real experience of this type of work but I offered to do some research. One of the options I found was WebWatcher which is software that claims to track computer use by monitoring keystrokes. I showed him the website and he agreed to try it. We installed it on the employee’s computer.

Well, without getting into too many personal details, the trial revealed a very serious situation. Not only was the employee using his employer’s computer to conduct private email and access inappropriate websites, but he had also copied some of my client’s confidential business documents. Needless to say, he was dealt with very swiftly. My client was very pleased that his suspicions had been confirmed.

I was very impressed by how easy it was to install and use. And I realised how useful it could be in a number of situations.

For example, one of the uses which WebWatcher advertises is the ability to track what your kids are up to on their computers. We all want to believe that children use their computers only for schoolwork and having online fun with their friends but sometimes the reality is very different. Children can all too innocently put themselves (and their friends) in real danger. Discreetly tracking their online activities can, at the very least, help put parents’ minds at rest.

And there are quite a number of other uses for an application like this. How about monitoring who uses your own computer while you’re away? And catching a cheating spouse? You can probably think of more.

Having found this software so useful I’m happy to recommend it. Check it out here >> WebWatcher

What’s an ‘autoresponder’?

Autoresponders are an automatic way to follow up with contacts who visit your website or blog and request more information. You present a little box that invites them to enter their name and email address and the autoresponder automatically replies and sends them back some promotional guff valuable information(!) that you hope will persuade them to buy from you.

Attempting to send autoresponders manually is a real pain. It’s time-consuming and boring and inefficient. So why not get a computer to do it for you?

Aweber is the premium brand for this type of service. They are the market leaders simply because they have everything sewn up.  Aweber knows how to get email delivered, even to the fussiest inboxes.

You may have heard of the CAN-SPAM Act of 2003. This is a total pain for we honest, hard-working website owners because it imposes all sorts of requirements on how to use email to deliver sales messages. The presumption is that you are a porn-spreading, hate-inciting, privacy-invading spammer and so you have to follow a load of strict and detailed requirements before you are allowed to send e-commerce mailshots. This is actually US law but it applies to everyone, wherever they are in the world, if they want to send emails to US citizens.  You can’t fight it, so you might as well comply.

Aweber helps, indeed forces you to, comply. But it makes it easy for you by taking most of the pain away.

I use Aweber myself and I am very impressed by their service. It’s not expensive and it helps me appear professional to my clients. They can see what a good girl I am because I don’t behave like a spammer. Click on the link below and get a free test drive of Aweber:

Do you love AWeber, too?

Would you like to find out how they work? Click on the image to see what they can do!

Basically, this is an example of an ‘Instant Popover’ image that you can use to attract your visitor’s attention. It can contain an attention-getting message and you would typically use it to encourage your visitor to sign up to your email list.

There are a lot of popup and popover tools for sale to webmasters. Each of them works slightly differently. Most are now a bit out of date and don’t work like they used to.

If you haven’t heard of ‘Instant Popover‘, it’s software that creates personalized unblockable popups that pop into your page, including some very attractive styles such as the peeling ads, floating popovers, post-it note designs, exit popups, and more.

I use Instant Popovers and I can confirm that these eye-catching little graphics increase opt-in and click-through rates dramatically.  Check out Instant Popovers and look at the video there to see examples of what you can do.

This particular software allows you to create thousands of different styles to your liking. It also has over 20 different post-it note images included in the software, peeling ads, floating ads and web 2.0 styles that will work with any website, not to mention that you can add any personalized, custom image of your own. There’s really no limit to what you can do with your popovers!

In my opinion this popover software is by far and away the best one on the market, and the good news is that the cost is extremely reasonable.

Find out more here>> Instant Popover

To me, John Reese walks on water. I’ve been a follower of his since the early days of the Reese Report and, following his advice, I now make my living online.

Traffic Secrets 2.0 is the successor to John’s original Traffic Secrets course which has now been updated.

There is no point in having a website or a blog if no-one visits it. If you have an online business, you have to have traffic. And John Reese knows how to get traffic.

The course is very comprehensive, covering everything from finding a market, keyword research, competitive research, SEO, social networking, video marketing and a whole raft of strategies to attract more visitors to your websites.

If this list sounds intimidating, don’t worry. John is a very effective presenter and the background material is very thorough. The course ends with a ‘Master Plan’ which is, in effect, an action plan to get from where you are to where you want to be. There are blueprints for each stage of the plan so that you can progress from one task to another. There’s a forum and a big list of online resources.

Taking this course is a major commitment, but if you are serious about building an online business, in my honest opinion, you simply cannot afford to be without it.  If you implement only a fraction of the methods outlined in the course you’ll be ahead of 95% of your competition.

Get it. NOW!

Find out more about Traffic Secrets 2.0 here.

Now, before I say anything at all about this product, I want to tell you what I think about the Rich Jerk. He is an obnoxious, arrogant, offensive, sexist slob! Now, remember I told you that, if you are a sensitive soul, because you’ll have to get used to being insulted.

That having been said, there is quite a bit of useful information in this book. I wouldn’t take it all as genuine but, if you’re just starting out, there are a few eye-opening tips and tricks in here that you might as well get to know about. And there’s some scheme where he offers you a free website but I haven’t taken him up on that so I don’t know how ‘free’ it really is.

And if you stray into his forum, take care.

Have a look at The Rich Jerk here.

Rosalind keeps the book up to date and she has added masses of resources over the years to make this an essential grounding to making money online.

Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earned $436,797+ in 2002 and now earns MUCH MORE than that … just by selling other people’s stuff online!

In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the Internet.

Frequently revised and updated to reflect industry changes, the Super Affiliate Handbook now consists of 236 pages and 124 screenshots that will show you step-by-step how to become a Super Affiliate. You’ll learn how to pick the best affiliate programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting.

Highly recommended for newbies!

To learn exactly how she does it, Click Here.

Squidoo is one of those Web 2.0 innovations that has really taken off. What is Squidoo?

Well, it’s a way to get yourself on the web without having a website or blog. What you get is a ‘lens’ which is sort of like a blog, but not actually.

Squidoo is free to join and and you can create as many lenses as you like on different topics. You can also earn money. You can advertise your own (or other people’s) stuff and you get a share of the Adsense revenue that Squidoo makes. Here’s what they say about this:

‘Squidoo makes money from ads and affiliate links.

We give 5% of what we earn, right off the top, to charity. We keep 45% to cover our overhead and stuff.

That leaves 50%. That goes to charity or to the people who build the pages. And we leave it up to you to choose one or the other.

It’s that simple. You can earn a dollar, a nickel or a dime at a time for your favorite cause or for you.

Did we mention that Squidoo is free? Always has been’.

Squidoo lenses are also a great way to get inbound links to your blog or website because apparently the search engines love Squidoo. And Squidoo is actually quite good fun.

Ron Passfield has written a great ‘Squidoo Marketing Strategy’ ebook that explains how you can use Squidoo to get more traffic. This costs $7 but it’s well worth it >> Click here

Site Build It is Ken Evoy’s answer to a ‘business in a box’. What you are signing up to is a complete package of hosting, web design, training, business building, support, marketing etc.

You build your own website but you do it by clicking buttons, not by typing HTML code. Website templates are provided and you just build your site, page by page.

SBI provides masses of supporting documentation on various business models and you can choose which path to take depending on what type of business you are in. Possible options are small business, service business, network marketing, ebay selling, work at home moms, retirement ventures, affiliate marketing and a lot more.

The book on the left is one of their freebies – just click on it and you can download it – no squeeze page, no email – it’s all yours!

This free ebook is about affiliate marketing, but this is only one option. When you sign up to SBI you get access to them all.

SBI is worth it if you are tech-phobic and want a quick route to a web presence. You’ll learn a lot in the process.

Find out more about Site Build It here.

Google Massacre, despite its lurid language, it actually quite a good product. I found it most useful as a primer in how to use Google Adwords.

Google Adwords changes fast and many of the guides you can buy are now, sadly, out of date. And succeeding at Adwords becomes more difficult as Google continually add subtle enhancements to its service but don’t tell you much about how to implement them.

Google Massacre goes through everything, starting with how to set up an account, through all the essential things you need to know (but which Google doesn’t tell you) to some pretty advanced techniques. There are three volumes of text, some of it pretty fast-paced.

The assumption in Google Massacre is that you are an affiliate marketer and there is a fair bit of guff in there about how to sell as an affiliate (which I’ve seen done better), but the lessons in it about Adwords are worth it whatever your business.

This product is fine for beginners. Just don’t get too irritated by all the macho references to massacres, violence, scalping and slaughter!

See Google Massacre here.