They Did It Again!

Recently I was asked by one of my JV partners -
"Why are you always pushing PushButtonPublishing?"

Needless to say he got an earful that I won't repeat
here. Instead I'll just rely his comment when I finished
answering his question -

"Wow, what a glowing testimonial. Now I understand
why you're always recommending it."

Today I re-discovered why I am so impressed with
PushButtonPublishing when I checked out a resource
recommended in another ezine.

The article I was reading was titled "Content is Critical."
Believing this to be true, I thought I might pick up a few
pointers on how to stress this to my own readers.

Imagine my surprise when I clicked on a resouce link in the
article and saw a very well-designed sales page for something
I already have, the "Viral Article Toolkit."

Now what's interesting about this product is that:

1. The product owner's own site sells this toolkit for $49.
2. The product owner has ClickBank affiliate sites that sell
   the product for $37.
3. I got this product as one of my PushButtonPublishing
   benefits where the monthly fee is only $27.

Now I didn't get the resale rights to this product and neither
will you if you buy it because the owner is only allowing ClickBank
affiliates to sell it. The only requirement I have that is different
from those who purchase the product is that I must include
a pre-written resource box with my PBP affiliate link. But
no where does it say that I can't add my own name and
signature file which I would do to promote my newsletter.

Imagine getting products like this that are worth more
than the monthly membership fee in addition to other
quality services like 500 megs of hosting space, unlimited
autoresponders, the ability to track up to 1,000
different links, resale rights products and ....

OK, I promised I wouldn't give you an earful so I'll
stop.

All I'll say is PBP is a quality program that deserves
a 5 star rating.

To Your Success,
Susan Carroll
http://www.friendswhocare.us/thisweek.htm

Start Page Exchanges - I am Through Testing

As you may or may not know, I have been a user of
traffic exchange programs since I first started my
online business. In fact, one of the first e-books
I created was a list of 30 really good start page
exchange programs because they were an easy, free
way to get some exposure for your site.

Now, however, I am re-thinking my position on the
use of them and recently stated that I would be
testing some of the ones I have been using. I was
going to run this test because I had noticed that
after surfing for credit I was usually infected with
some obnoxious spy/adware. Now I don't think the
infectious software was coming from the exchange
programs directly but rather from some of the other
members who were using the service to get traffic
to their sites.

Well, the testing has stopped with only 2 of the
traffic exchange programs really tested because I am
tired of fighting a losing battle.

After surfing on the exchanges I normally use for
about 45 minutes this morning, I spent the next 4
hours trying to delete all the spy/adware that had
been downloaded onto my machine. And I know that
my machine is still not clean. But at least the
pop-ups only come up every few minutes now rather
than every few seconds.( I was getting more than
25 pop-ups in less that 5 minutes before I started
cleaning my machine.) So I guess I'll be reloading my
operating system to get everything cleaned off soon.

Bottom line - I will be much more cautious in my
use of traffic exchange programs. As of today, I
will continue to use Instant Buzz and MDT because
when tested they caused minimal damage.

As for the 30 exchange programs that were listed in
the ebook I wrote 3 years ago, I will not list them
all because I've only been using 5 of them on a regular
basis this last year.

As for the 5 ...

TrafficSwarm - They showed my site and do review sites
before allowing them to be displayed to others. This
unfortunately is not enough since sites can be altered
and I know that at least one of the sites I displayed
while earning credit tried to infect my machine with 2
Trojan viruses.

WebBizInsider - They also showed my site and reviewed
sites before allowing them to be displayed. I don't
know if any of their sites tried anything funny but
I'm a little gun shy right now.

FastFreeway - They showed my site and they do not
review the sites except to see if it will breakframes.

TopSurfer - They also showed my site and do not
review the pages displayed. Also, they don't have
any safeguards in affect to ensure that others are
really viewing your site. They did however implement
one thing that should be available at more traffic
exchange programs - a way to report sites that take
you away from your surfing page. (Before all the
downloaded ad/spyware and trojans that used to be one
of the big surfing for credit problems.)

123Clicks - They don't review the sites shown and
it would have taken months before all the credits
I've already earned to get used. However, since I
won't be surfing the minimum, I'll be losing my
credits.

So today, these are my thoughts on the traffic
exchange programs I have been using. If you have
any information about these or other programs
please post a comment so that we may all learn
from your experiences as well.

To Your Success,
Susan
FriendsWhoCare Newsletter

Earn Free Advertising With Your Personal Email

Not too long ago I mentioned Instant Buzz in my newsletter and offered to send an invitation to any one who requested one. Now, those people are getting free advertising every time they are on the web just like I do.

Now I want to mention the launch of Instant Buzz version 2.0 because it takes getting free advertising to an whole new level. Read on to discover the one feature in 2.0 that will prove to be a paradigm shift in Internet advertising.

If you blinked, you missed the launch of Instant Buzz because it was only done so to a very limited group and then grew by invitation-only. Quietly, while no one else was looking, this tool has developed a massive following of extremely loyal users. The loyalty is based on one thing and one thing only: it's free and it works like crazy.

The 1.0 version of Instant Buzz was simple, but extremely effective. You simply downloaded the Instant Buzz bar on to your Internet Explorer and then as you surfed two things happened:

1. Instant Buzz Ads Appeared on the Bar
   They are quiet, attractive, and unobtrusive, but amazingly people click on them like crazy.
2. You Earned Ad Credits

That's right. All you have to do is surf like you normally do and you earn credits.

That was 1.0. 2.0 has all of that and more.

With 2.0, Instant Buzz has introduced the patent-pending MailSpace Ad and it is the first and only Email Ad Exchange system.

What is MailSpace Ad?

1. It's Mass Email Advertising Minus all the "Bad"
   MailSpace Ads are only allowed in personal one-to-one email communications so you can always be sure your traffic credits are being spent on ads that are likely to be seen.
   This is mass email advertising without all of the problems normally associated with it. The recipient is willing. He's likely to see it. And because it rides along with an email from a friend, it's unlikely to cause any problems.
2. Built-In Viral Growth
   Because each MailSpace Ad is not only an ad exchange but an ad for Instant Buzz itself, over the people who "sign up" for Instant Buzz under you will grow, and thus you'll earn more and more traffic.

Normally Instant Buzz is by invitation-only, but for the next four days they are opening up sign ups to the general public to showcase version 2.0.
Click here to sign up now.

NOTE: If when you click on the above link you get a notice saying "Instant Buzz is available by invitation only" it means that the open enrollment period for Instant Buzz has expired.
I'm more than happy to send you an invitation, though, if I have any available. Please send me an email to: susancarroll@friendswhocare.us

To Your Success,
Susan Carroll

PS Most other free traffic systems are based on either tricking or coercing people to click on links. Instant Buzz is totally voluntary so all of the clicks you get are generally of very high quality.

Further, the voluntary clicking means that the traffic you get from Instant Buzz is in fact targetted (even though the ads are seen by an untargetted pool of people).