Most people these days use a link cloaker or redirect script or service of some kind. I use several self-hosted redirect scripts, as well as some commonly-used hosted services. Someone asked me why recently, and I thought it would be a useful topic to share with you. It’s a topic that isn’t well understood and is largely under-appreciated.

CLOAKING VS. SHRINKING VS. REDIRECTS

In my mind, all of these scripts and services do the SAME THING: they let you set up one URL to REDIRECT people to another. I call them ALL “redirects”. Most offer different features and benefits, so I use several.
continue reading "Link Cloaking, Redirects, and QR-Codes"

Whether you’ve heard of the Product Launch Formula or not, it’s definitely something to take a look at.

Jeff Walker is releasing the third iteration of his Product Launch Formula shortly, and he’s in the pre-launch phase.

WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT PRODUCT LAUNCH FORMULA?

The amazing thing that most people don’t realize about Jeff’s Product Launch Formula is that it’s kind of like basic math — the same principles apply regardless of what market niche you’re going after.
continue reading "Product Launch Formula 3 Goes (Ever)Green!"

I just came across something that I think is pretty cool …

Traffic Dashboard, from Kim Roach.

Kim has been doing internet marketing for several years, and put together a bunch of videos — 20 to be exact — where she highlights a different traffic source in each one. They’re quite good.

But one of the best things about them is that Kim’s voice is very easy to listen to. She always sounds happy and excited.

I’ve tried listening to John Reese’s Traffic Secrets, and it puts me to sleep. Kim’s videos are much easier to listen to, and I actually learned several helpful tips from them.

There’s also a transcript of each video that you can download as well as a “cheat sheet” with notes on each traffic source that goes with each video.

Check it out: Traffic Dashboard

Let me know what you think.

Easy Video Player 2

I just found this AMAZING new tool called Easy Video Player 2, and it’s da BOMB!

You know, when you put up a video somewhere, you usually just grab an embed code from somewhere and paste it into the page.

The problem with that approach is, there aren’t a whole lot of options. You can spiff up the page, add some links and whatnot, but that’s about it.

Easy Video Player 2.0 is a really amazing piece of software.  Actually, it’s a script you host on your own server/domain (unlimited) that lets you create awesome pages with it that can be used for a multitude of purposes.

Here is a summary of the new features of Easy Video Player 2.0:

• The Easy Video Player 2 interface has been radically overhauled since EVP 1.0
• Multiple file uploading has been enabled, which is a huge time saver.
• Full iPhone and iPad Support. Your videos will now play on these devices.  (I’m not sure about other mobile platforms)
• Clickable events that work during video overlays. You can put them wherever you want in the video; eg., an opt-in box that’s attached to the video rather than the web page, meaning that when people embed your video on their site, your opt-in box follow!
• Elements can come up while viewers are watching the video
• More in-depth analytics: track referrals, when people stop watching, what they clicked on, and much more.
• You can now split test videos; give Easy Video Player two different videos and it will automatically split test them and track the stats for you.
• Affiliate Branding buttons. Your affiliates can rebrand your links and use the video with their links in it.
• Full Social Sharing. Track it, see where it is shared on a wide variety of different sites. eg Facebook, Digg, Twitter and more.
• Video Pages with comments and sharing so page can be shared, commented on etc. Making the ability to tap into the power of social media.

I’m trying to figure out how to leverage it to work well with RAP; I’m thinking it can be used as the sales page, but it’s not clear what all is needed yet.  I’ll post an update when I’ve figured out some cool ways to use it.

Easy Video Player 2.0 has a Commercial License option available!

One thing to note is that there’s an OTO where you can purchase a “commercial” license of Easy Video Player 2 that lets you hide the brand and watermark, and use it to build and host pages with videos for your clients. Without this, you’d have to purchase a license for every client.

This may not be terribly relevant for RAP sites, but it can be really beneficial for anybody working with offline clients.

Take a look at the promo for Easy Video Player 2.0 and grab a copy to play with. There’s a generous refund period, but they say their refund rates are under 2%, so it’s hard to see where you can go wrong.

Check out Easy Video Player 2 and post a comment with your thoughts.  Click the image below to learn more!

Easy Video Player rocks!

So this is the final part of the story about how my dad became an”accidental millionaire”.

To recap briefly, my parents were both self-employed, and while my mom never managed to create an asset of value when she retired, my dad did. The thing is, he never really saw it that way, nor did he set out to accomplish that.

See, my dad was really only interested in not having to deal with employees.  So when other real estate agents wanted to hang their licenses under him, he let someone else deal with it all.  They had nearly 50 agents before they even started charging a monthly fee and formalized the 100% commission structure for agents.

They had a small office in central Phoenix, and I’d hang out there periodically.  Agents would come from all over the valley, and would wait around to use the few computers to access MLS and other services.

I never understood why the office was so small and why they never expanded.  One day I started rambling on about all the great stuff they could do to help the agents by getting better computers, adding on more internet services, and so on.

After several minutes, Duane interrupted me and said, “David,do you know who our BEST AGENTS are?”

continue reading "The Accidental Millionaire, Pt. 3"

How are your online sales going lately?

Mine aren’t too good.  Nor are the folks I’m helping with their websites.

Why?

Nobody seems to be spending money right now.

What If I could point you at a market segment that’s not only spending money, but is DYING to spend it MORE EFFECTIVELY?

continue reading "Marketing To Main Street"

If you haven’t heard about it, a new site has been set up that is designed to compete with Clickbank as a focal point of “instant commission” products for sellers. It’s called RAPBank.

This place is amazing if you’re an affiliate marketer.  All of the products there will pay you commissions instantly.  No more waiting for weeks or months to get paid!

It has been up for less than a week and there are already over 1000 registered users (affiliates) and more than 250 products.

continue reading "A New Instant Commission Marketplace Is Born!"

A thread was posted on the RAP Forum recently addressing some guy who blogged about RAP, saying it’s a good sales platform but that it’s “easy to spoof”.

Actually, that’s not accurate.  The vast majority of patches issued for RAP have been designed to fix security holes, and are frequently issued less than a week after they’re discovered.

However, there are a number of things that people do, or rather, fail to do, that result in both “leaks” and upset customers.

Here are several things you MUST DO when setting up your RAP site to avoid problems:

continue reading "Tips for Rapid Action Profits (RAP) Users"

Rapid Action Profits (RAP) is a terrific platform for building simple ecommerce sites when you only have one product to sell at a time.  It’s not a general “shopping cart” in that sense, but it does have all the features of a shopping cart — except it’s limited to only one product purchase at a time.

Someone in the RAP forum posted  a review by a guy who said this:

“What sucks: This software is extremely easy to spoof…”

In a way, this guy is right.

A better way to put it is:

continue reading "Is Your RAP Installation Easy To Spoof?"

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