CashTheChecks.com is now on Twitter @cashthechecks.com

I have the Twitter Tools plugin installed which updates twitter any time a new post is added, so for now it will be used as an update / notification tool.

For online marketers, getting surfers to click on your ads is crucial. You should do everything within your power to make them click. In the old days, a 468×60 banner worked. Later, text advertisements became king. Now that most people have plenty of web experience, everyone can spot an advertisement a mile away. So to entice them to click, you need to be straight forward in your ad, a simple image, your title and descriptive tag line is all you need. However there’s another ingredient here, the actual link. People like to know where they are going before they click, and affiliate programs have ugly looking links with question marks, ampersands and equal signs (the encrypted ones look even uglier). So what you can do with this nifty wordpress plugin is make those long url’s shorter and prettier. The end result will be a long link like http://www.sponsor.com/?id=abc&page=29889 can become http://www.yourdomain.com/sponsor/

- Ebay: If applicable, add a link to your site from your ebay listings. Ebay allows this only if you link to something relevant tot he product/item you’re selling. I have a product review site so when I sell an item I’ve reviewed, I add a link to the review.

- Reciprocal links: Sure the search engines have greatly devalued them, but this is one of the oldest methods of attracting new visitors that still works.

- Groups: If appropriate you can add links to your comments on yahoo/google group sites, yahoo answers and and forums.

- Social networking: Add a link to your site on all your social network sites and your email signature as well. The more eyes that see your link the better.

- RSS: If you have a site that updates regularly (and you should) publicly display a link to your rss feed because plenty of people add it to their google homepage, mobile phone or get new posts via email.

Often times when releasing a product/site/service you want to wait until it’s perfect. I mean what’s the point of putting something out there that isn’t perfect only to turn away potential customers, thus losing them forever. I disagree. Instead, put it out there immediately, call it a beta, ask for help with bugs and suggestions. The web in 2010 and beyond is different than it was 10 years ago. Now everyone has an email account, a profile on a social networking site or maybe even a blog too. Communication is encouraged and done more now than ever before. So put your product/site/service out there, say what it will be and what it will do, get them to sign up for free and let them know when it’s ready.

Television viewing is a passive activity, in which you sit on the couch and watch. But online, it’s a very active activity. People go online to look for content, ads just get in the way. The most common ad sizes and ad locations get completely ignored most of the time. I know personally I can visit a site and read the content I was looking for without even noticing the site had lots of ads everywhere.

As time passes, websites are becoming a great vehicle for content delivery, but an inferior vehicle for typical advertising methods. So the question is, what do we do? What I’ve chosen to do is to move away from standard or even odd banner sizes and do away with banner ads, do away with text ads too. Instead, integrating ads into the content is what works best. The perfect vehicle for this is review sites and comparison sites. This way, the surfer/visitor gets what they want (the content) while you provide them with links to buy what they’re looking for – but only after you deserve it. The days of placing lots of 468×60 ads and pop-ups and making sales are long gone.

• - Newspapers
• - Travel Agents
• - Music
• - Magazines
• - Greeting Cards
• - Post Office
• - Video Rental
• - Malls
• - Long Distance Phone Companies
• - Record Stores
• - Real Estate Agents
• - Picture Printing Companies

Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Keep that in mind when designing sites. Sure you can make something bold, italic, different font size, all sorts of colors and add scrolling text everywhere. But one must always remember the principle of KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Your customers will buy from you or return back to your site because of your content or product, not because of how flashy you make it. Sure a good design is key, but should never overshadow your product.

YouTube is a treasure trove of bored people surfing around for videos. Millions of videos get seen on a daily basis. So it seems like this would be a good place to market your products. But how? Here are some YouTube marketing tips..

* Create a unique, funny, or weird viral video and “watermark” your URL on the bottom right hand corner of the video.

* Create a ridiculous commercial for your product. You’ve got to make it way out there.

* The final tip is controversial: Add comments to other videos and finish each comment with your URL at the bottom.

Creating a blog isn’t all about content, a good appearance is a must. The first impression you make is the most important one. Whether you make a one-time visitor become a subscriber is dependent on content and appearance too.

The first thing to do is to pick a blogging platform. I personally love WordPress blogs because they’re easy to install and customize. Regardless of which one you choose, there are ways of exporting your current blog posts into a new platform, so you won’t lose your old posts.

The second step after installation is to pick a theme. Pick a theme that makes it easy to place ads on, and emphasizes your content. A simple theme that makes your blog posts easy to read is best. I prefer lighter colored themes with black text. There’s a bunch of themes available here.

The final step is plugins. Plugins enhance your blog by adding extra features for your viewers. Some plugins include: adding polls, adding contact forms, customizing comments, adding tag clouds, listing related posts & recent comments.
I found this useful post that has 101 top wordpress plugins.

While the basic concept of the internet remains unchanged, what has changed is how users get their content.

When you see an ad in a paper or on TV or a banner online, you don’t know if you can trust it, you want reviews from real people. That’s what Web 2.0 can deliver. And marketers will always tell you, the best customers are the ones who came from a personal referral, a word-of-mouth customer. “Spreading the word” is no longer about spending big bucks on a advertising campaign, it’s now all about viral marketing.

Here’s how some common advertising methods have been replaced, courtesy of Web 2.0:
• A press release gets replaced with ‘creating a viral buzz’.
• A TV commercial is replaced with ‘posting a youtube video’.
• A street team of marketers is replaced by ‘using social networking sites’.
• Fake testimonials get replaced by user reviews on an unbiased site.
• Frequently Asked Question sections replaced by wiki’s.
• Bookmark this page replaced with add to del.icio.us, digg, stumble.
• Email newsletters replaced with blogs with feeds.

I remember when MySpace.com was a file storage site. You could upload your files and then get on another computer anywhere else and download your files. It was a great online backup tool. Then it was sold and turned into what we know it today, the most powerful social networking site ever created. A single domain name worth millions, make that billions, of dollars.

How did they do it? How come no one else did it in 1996, 1999, even 2001? It was a matter of not only the right idea but at the right time in history.
There were always chat rooms, AOL and Yahoo had them, it was where you could meet with friends at a certain time to communicate online. Message boards were around too, they were around before chat rooms. Then instant messengers came around like AIM. Music sharing sites were the buzz with Napster making the headlines on a daily basis. Even way back in the day there were “blogs” (not how we define them today though). If you had a little personal website you had a guestbook on it, where visitors can post comments on your site.

The internet was ready for this idea. We had all the tools, we were introduced to sharing sites, it was time to take the next step. MySpace seemed to get all these things together and connect them all into one profile. The key here is a communication hub: forums, IMs, email, picture sharing, comments, all-in-one. You no longer had an email address, an instant messaging name, a yahoo profile, you just had: a myspace.

Al Gore said in a 1999 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet.” While that wasn’t quite true, the internet does have a history. Regardless of how or who created it, it has certainly evolved ever since.

Here’s a short history of the internet..

1. First, the internet was created by nerds for nerds. (Since only nerds were getting online at that time)

Programming, numbers, BBS, email, databases, all that stuff.

2. Then it was nerds creating content for non-nerds. (The nerds were making money off of you)

The internet takes off, web developers create popular sites, advertisers pay big money to get noticed.

3. Now, nerds are creating the ability for non-nerds to create content. (web 2.0)

This is how the internet was always supposed to be. To get noticed for your quality content not because of your advertising dollars.