All posts by Alan B. Zibluk

Business Building, Markethive

The Amount of Questionable Online Traffic Will Blow Your Mind

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The Amount of Questionable Online Traffic Will Blow Your Mind The World Wide rip-off

Click Fraud Detection PPCSecure

A few weeks ago, Lindsay Buescher, senior manager, analytics at Carat, read an article on Adweek.com about a company called FreeStreams.com that was pumping up its traffic by enticing Web users into accidentally visiting via hidden links on sites that house pirated content. As it happened, one of her agency’s clients, Red Bull, was a FreeStreams advertiser. Buescher was determined to find out what was going on. Her team discovered Red Bull video ads were running on FreeStreams through two different networks, including ValueClick, a publicly traded company. (ValueClick says it has since stopped working with FreeStreams.)

That wasn’t something Buescher had run into much. She kept digging. After about three weeks, Carat was blacklisting 77 more sites for Red Bull beyond FreeStreams. Many of the sites didn’t actually sell pre-roll ads, which was what the client was supposedly paying for. Some were merely gaming sites with interstitials. Some were sites that didn’t even exist or were blocked by her company. Others ran video inventory continuously. Many were simply a case of “fraud,” she found.

In the end, Buescher’s efforts resulted in not only a lot of legwork but also a $150,000 refund for the client. That’s hardly enough to set the industry on a different course, but to Buescher it said something. “Red Bull is spending 90 percent of its online budget direct with publishers,” she says. “Imagine if they weren’t.”

It might not matter either way. That’s because the online ad industry is facing a swelling crisis, one defined by fake traffic, bogus publishers and invisible Web visitors, a trend first investigated by Adweek in an online story, “Meet the Most Suspect Publishers on the Web,” published March 19 of this year. Once thought contained to a handful of rogue players that had figured out how to exploit ad exchanges, bogus ad inventory, as it turns out, is rampant. In fact, according to numerous sources across the ecosystem, fake traffic is essentially systemic to online advertising—it’s part of how the business works. And a slew of top companies are involved in this—whether wittingly or not. “You see it with almost any partner you work with,” as Alan Silverberg, media platforms director at Moxie Interactive, puts it. “From AOL and Yahoo to Facebook, from pure-play partners and the network space to portals. We can’t stop it,” he says, referring to the preponderance of questionable traffic. Though for many publishers, it may be a question of whether they can’t stop it, or won’t. Adds Buescher: “It’s the whole business. We see this even with direct-to-publisher deals. It’s really the media planners’ fault. But when you start seeing partners breaking contracts … no one has time to monitor 3,500 sites when they are just cranking, cranking, cranking out plans.”

Of course, there are plenty of those who think this is being blown out of proportion. Some in the online ad world see bots, fake traffic and the like as a manageable nuisance, hardly a crisis. But the ranks of the alarmed are growing by the day.

During a recent interview, online ad veteran Wenda Millard, president of Medialink, made the bold claim that a quarter of the online ad market is fraudulent. “What we have found is the devaluation of digital media is causing us to lose about 25 percent of the roughly $30 billion that is being spent,” she reported. “It’s stolen [ad revenue].” In defining fraud, Millard lumped together piracy, nonviewable ads, ads stacked on top of one another, inappropriate content and, of course, deliberate malicious behavior, in her analysis. “In most people’s wildest dreams, they wouldn’t imagine how much [questionable traffic] there is,” she says. “People should be very, very worried.”

Let’s start with individual publishers. A group of Web-traffic analysts that did not want to be named for fear of pointing a finger at potential clients has identified a dozen well-known sites that exhibit questionable traffic patterns, including Break, CollegeHumor, Complex, Crackle, Entrepreneur and Totalbeauty. One source of information the group examined was comScore’s cross-visiting reports, which revealed that each site on the list has a high percentage of visitors who also visit sites suspected of living on bot traffic.

For example, Break, CollegeHumor, Complex, Gamespot and Crackle all have a high cross-traffic index with sites like Mommyhotspot, featuring parenting content, as well as Missoandfriends and Dreammining, a gaming hub aimed at young girls, plus a variety of sites frequently blacklisted by ad buyers. According to Augustine Fou, founder of the Marketing Science Consulting Group, Dreammining raises many questions. Using Alexa data, Fou found Dreammining’s top search term to be “mining of selena,” which exhibits zero traffic on Google, he points out. The site also has a high at-work audience that doesn’t match its demo, while the second- and third-largest domains driving traffic to the site are “possible click farms,” he says.

Fou also looked at Mommyhotspot, which had unidentifiable domains driving traffic and barely any inbound links, per his analysis.

The overall pattern Fou and others examined—sites like Dreammining and Mommyhotspot sharing audience with Break and Crackle—does not in itself directly implicate these branded sites in anything scandalous, though it might strike some as unexpected that a group of guys’ websites share traffic with several young girls’ sites, let alone girls’ sites possibly employing click farms.

But a deeper examination is revealing. According to an analysis conducted by a Web-traffic expert who did not want to be identified citing confidentiality agreements, all these sites, whether wittingly or not, have some level of “bogus traffic.” Research companies regularly discount traffic from Web publishers before reporting data like unique users or impressions because such traffic looks questionable. And even they don’t catch everything. In this case, an Internet security expert suspects these sites (Break, College Humor, etc.) might all be purchasing traffic from the same vendor, which is likely employing bots.

Adweek reached out to Ben Edelman, an associate professor of business administration at Harvard, who has done extensive research on Internet architecture, advertising, traffic patterns and fraud detection, and who has built a proprietary Web crawler he uses to detect curious activity. Edelman says via his proprietary tracking tools, he’s gathered evidence that Crackle, College Humor, Break and others regularly employ “invisible traffic”—i.e., these companies deliver their entire sites via iframes or tiny pixels on other sites that no one else can see.

Consider the guy-oriented Break (which last week was reported to be merging with Alloy Digital). Edelman found that Break.com loads invisibly through a variety of complex methods. In one instance, a company called Ptp22 redirects Break traffic through a variety of middlemen before it is loaded invisibly via iframe. (The list of go-betweens includes Marketwithmogul and TooShocking.)

Another company, Deplayer, conducts the same kind of operation. Adweek was unable to find contact information for the company.

Analytics firm SimilarWeb would seem to provide more supporting evidence. Some 25 percent of Break’s traffic comes via referrals, much of it from the adult category. The top referring site isn’t Facebook or Twitter but a firm called ClickSure, which sells Web traffic. In Edelman’s opinion, Break knows it’s buying such traffic. “But [this traffic doesn’t deliver actual] users who can see the site or any ads on the site. But there are indeed ads on the landing page. I saw ads for AT&T,” he says.

“We occasionally use the common practice of trade link sharing, which accounts for a small percentage of traffic,” says a Break representative. “We consistently work in the interests of our partners and have created high standards to vet traffic for quality issues. We have immediately suspended suspicious providers in question for further exploration.”

(UPDATE: Carat's Buescher says her agency has found that a campaign purchased through Break is running on three piracy sites: allmyvideos.net, divxstage.eu, and movreel.com. They admitted to it," she said. Adweek has reached out to Break to respond).

Edelman says he has been tracking Crackle for years. That site, which is owned by Sony and features a series starring Jerry Seinfeld, Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, exhibits signs of invisible traffic, says Edelman. According to SimilarWeb, 18 percent of Crackle’s traffic comes from referrals. Among the site’s top referrers are Inttrax, Lnksdata, Redirect.ad-feeds and Contenko. Some of these companies are known for selling pop unders, adware and the like, per Edelman.

A source close to Crackle says the site cleaned up some of its traffic sources from years past but still occasionally encounters suspect traffic when marketing the site via various ad nets. The problem is described as “minor and the firm takes measures to address it.” Also, per sources, College Humor has noticed suspect traffic patterns from traffic purchased from outside vendors and has taken steps to eliminate it.

“Complex typically shares visitors with quality sites such as GQ.com and Vulture.com,” adds a Complex spokesperson. “In August we conducted a small, one-off traffic vendor test that delivered impressions that fell far below our standards, and we quickly terminated the relationship. We take seriously the matter of bogus traffic and we support any and all industry measures to address the problem.”

Beyond direct publishers with invisible traffic, what about the assessment from Moxie’s Silverberg that the Facebooks, Yahoos and AOLs of the world could be touched by the questionable traffic issue?

In Facebook’s case, the company has wrestled with scammers creating fake profiles and selling artificial likes. It’s a problem that’s mostly under control, according to a Facebook spokesperson: “As part of our ongoing site integrity efforts, we have recently updated our automated systems to remove ‘likes’ on pages that may have been gained by means that violate Facebook’s terms. On average, less than 1 percent of likes on any given page will be removed.”

Facebook is generally a closed environment. But it’s the wide-open, murky world of ad networks, ad exchanges and real-time bidding that experts say is rife with fraudulent activity. That’s because clients continue to look for huge quarterly CPM decreases and expect the Web to deliver cheap, efficient results. Meanwhile, agencies benefit from marking up ad inventory through their trading desks. Every vendor is plugged into every other vendor and platform, and sellers are incented to drive the most clicks at the cheapest rates possible. Thus, this ecosystem is practically begging for scammers.

“A certain set of conditions has led to a proliferation and explosion of this, and everyone will be touched by this problem to different degrees,” says Steve Sullivan, the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s vp, ad technology. “Add in retargeting and audience buying, it really represents a challenge in differentiating quality impressions vs. non quality.”

AOL and Yahoo both operate in the network exchange realm. And experts consider them among the good guys—the companies that have billed themselves as safe havens in this lawless space wouldn’t be vulnerable to bogus traffic. But exchange buyers say that even these companies can be vulnerable to questionable traffic. Take AOL’s Advertising.com, which has long billed itself as a premium exchange. However, ad buyers reveal that AOL campaigns sometimes feature chunks of inventory going to unidentifiable sites, reported back as “dummy publisher” or “house account.” AOL will also deliver major swaths of inventory to companies like Swaave, which will return a 0.0 percent clickthrough rate. CTRs are low these days, but not that low. A look at Advertising.com’s inventory mix includes properties like the live video chat platforms ooVoo and Tinychat, the Web-browsing disguiser AnchorFree, as well as companies like Integri and JCarterMarketing—essentially other ad nets. Meaning that buyers who come to Advertising.com for transparency may not find it, leaving it open to all sorts of deception. “We see these [kinds of] companies selling ads on 20 to 30 ad networks,” says Carat’s Buescher. “The percentage of inventory on our blacklists is astounding.”

“Whenever you buy from someone who won’t tell you where your ads are running, there is a real danger they are ripping you off,” says Zach Coelius, CEO of the ad tech firm Triggit.

According to one ad buyer, Ad.com’s supply currently includes questionable inventory and “copyright-infringing sites.” An executive from a major agency trading desk confirmed that Ad.com runs ads “on suspect sites and reports back traffic from unnamed publishers.”

AOL’s svp publisher services Dave Jacobs declines to discuss specific partners but says the company employs an in-house quality-review team that is constantly monitoring these issues. Jacobs adds that Advertising.com only works with other ad networks on a site-by-site basis—and never buys blindly. He was unable to discuss why some clients receive reports with traffic from the likes of “dummy publisher,” while maintaining that such a practice was not common.

“We think we are at the leading edge of protecting our partners,” he says. “We are very much focused on maintaining blacklists. With Ad.com, our focus is the direct-supply area. There may be instances where we can identify opportunities to deliver subset audiences outside our network. It’s not unusual for any company in our position to evaluate multiple sources of supply … but with our network, we’ve been focused on telling a story that is about premium.”

Similarly, Yahoo’s data-driven targeting platform, Genome, has billed itself as a tool that “allows you to benefit from direct access to Yahoo premium inventory, publisher partners such as MSN and AOL, and comScore top 1,000 through a simple, streamlined transaction point.” Yet Genome campaigns can also include unnamed sites or properties like the file-sharing site MediaFire and the ad networks eHealthcareSolutions and Blackboxmedia. Meaning Genome buyers may be flying blind, while the platform is vulnerable to abuse.

“Yahoo takes supply quality very seriously,” said the company in a statement. “We are committed to maintaining a healthy marketplace with our advertiser and publisher partners, and use technical and procedural safeguards to support that commitment. … Genome uses a combination of internal tools and third-party services to help maintain the quality of the network. Our Genome network purchases inventory on specific sites based on quality and audience, and regularly provides advertisers with site lists before and after a campaign runs for increased transparency.”

“In the spectrum of networks out there from reputable to sketchy, I’d put AOL and Yahoo on the reputable side,” says Chris Paul, gm, svp at VivaKi. “The most common issue is when new sites join the networks without being fully vetted for advertisers’ content standards by the network administrators.”

Agency trading desks also deliver lots of inventory on networks into which buyers don’t have much insight. Often buyers will receive traffic reports listing buckets of inventory from something labeled “microsoftadvertisingexchange,” say insiders.

While the display market has seen dicey practices growing for a while now, the challenge of bad inventory is suddenly escalating in video, where CPMs can be 10 times greater than display. Take the BrightRoll Exchange. Besides housing loads of inventory from the aformentioned Freestreams, the company also delivers large volumes of inventory via sites like Fave.tv and Videoswag.tv. Plus, it delivers lots of ads via "opaque sources" or sites it doesn't report on, as well as a good amount of blacklisted inventory, per buyers. One buyer says his company blocks one in four impressions sold in the exchange.

BrightRoll CEO Tod Sacerdoti says that in the case of Fave.tv, that inventory wasn’t supposed to be available. The site was on a list of unapproved URLs from an Israeli company called HIRO. Sacerdoti notes that BrightRoll does provide an option for buyers called “tier 4,” adding, “We recommend people question it.”

But overall, Sacerdoti says, BrightRoll is an open platform that plugs into nearly everybody selling video, and is not something that the company can be expected to police. It’s not “BrightRoll’s inventory, after all. The BrightRoll exchange is the inventory in the entire industry,” he says. “Is there an inventory problem in the industry? Yes.”

Indeed, the ad exchange space is so fraught with danger that companies like the independent trading desk Digilant run massive reports every week tracking which companies are peddling the same ad inventory on different exchanges—with completely different labels. According to Digilant COO Nate Woodman, the situation is so ungovernable that the agency has found instances where it’s ended up buying impressions from itself. Digilant blocks one vendor, CPX Interactive, for this reason. Woodman says that companies can blacklist sites all they want, but that they are better off creating whitelists—i.e., lists of preapproved sites. “The problem there is, that will kill your performance,” he says. Why? Because when you’re just out for clicks, bot sites perform better.

And the bot guys are slick. “As soon as sites get on blacklists, there is little incentive to maintain them,” explains Kiril Tsemekhman, svp, chief data officer at Integral Ad Science. “Then a new site pops up.”

And so, the problems persist. John Snyder, CEO of the keyword-targeting firm Grapeshot, says he’s lost business because his company won’t sell bad inventory. “We’ll hear, ‘Your competitor got great clicks,’ but all on two sites and it was all fraud. But it’s these optimization algorithms that find those clicks.”

Says Woodman: “When we try to tighten things up, our measured performance goes down. There is an incentive among buyers to let the floodgates open. And publishers need more money, so they ignore.” So the bad traffic persists. “We need to fix this as an industry,” he adds. “Somebody needs to give a shit.”

The IAB seems to. Per Sullivan, the organization is working on devising a standard for publishers akin to the Good Housekeeping Seal. He’d like to see the biggest stakeholders get more aggressive about the problem, including brands and agencies. “If buyers came out and said, ‘I will only buy from certified vendors,’ that would change things,” he says.

Carat’s Buescher thinks bold steps are needed and urges more of her brethren to take big steps. “It’s a sad thing,” she says. “There is no single provider out there that can fix this. Until then, all brands should have a manager that handles brand safety.”

Original Author: Chuck Reynolds

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Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Business Building, Markethive

The Alleged $7.5 Billion Fraud in Online Advertising

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A 'Crisis' in Online Ads: One-Third of Traffic Is Bogus

As Digital Advertising Climbs Toward $50 Billion This Year, Marketers Battle Fraudulent Visitors

Billions of dollars are flowing into online advertising. But marketers also are confronting an uncomfortable reality: rampant fraud.

 

About 36% of all Web traffic is considered fake, the product of computers hijacked by viruses and programmed to visit sites, according to estimates cited recently by the Interactive Advertising Bureau trade group.

 

So-called bot traffic cheats advertisers because marketers typically pay for ads whenever they are loaded in response to users visiting Web pages—regardless of whether the users are actual people.

The fraudsters erect sites with phony traffic and collect payments from advertisers through the middlemen who aggregate space across many sites and resell the space for most Web publishers. The identities of the fraudsters are murky, and they often operate from far-flung places such as Eastern Europe, security experts say.

 

The widespread fraud isn't discouraging most marketers from increasing the portion of their ad budgets spent online. But it is prompting some to become more aggressive in monitoring how their money is spent. The Internet has become so central to consumers, that advertisers can't afford to stay away.

 

Digital "is too important," says Roxanne Barretto, assistant vice president for U.S. digital marketing at L'Oréal SA, which recently uncovered evidence that an online ad purchase was affected by fraud and other problems. "Slowing down spend represents a missed opportunity to connect with our core audience."

 

Spending on digital advertising—which includes social media and mobile devices—is expected to rise nearly 17% to $50 billion in the U.S. this year. That would be about 28% of total U.S. ad spending. Just five years ago, digital accounted for 16%.

 

The big question is whether attitudes will change if signs of fraud increase. Many people in the ad business are worried. Ziff Davis Inc. Chief Executive Vivek Shah, the chairman of the Interactive Advertising Bureau, said at the group's annual conference last month that Internet advertising was facing a "crisis."

 

Several big advertisers—including L'Oréal, General Motors Co. and Verizon Communications Inc. —have found that some of their online ad purchases were affected by fake traffic, people familiar with the situation say. Such examples threaten advertiser confidence in the effectiveness of digital compared with traditional media, such as television.

 

"When you bundle bots, clicks fraud, viewablity and the lack of transparency [in automated ad buying], the total digital-media value equation is being questioned and totally challenged," says Bob Liodice, chief executive of the Association of National Advertisers trade group. Advertisers are beginning to question if they should increase their digital ad budgets, he says.

 

By SUZANNE VRANICA

If you believe that my message is worth spreading, please use the share buttons if they show at the top of the page.

Stephen Hodgkiss
Chief Engineer at MarketHive
markethive.com

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Business Building, Markethive

Markethive, The rise of the Entrepreneur

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Basic Orientation and the Legacy Alpha Founder special.

How are these two related? Well, they are and they are not.  In the orientation as I take you through a new Markethive account, we cannot avoid the Alpha default promotion and subsequent video and disruptions. So let me digress:

As we discover how the system works, how we set up our picture, our profile page, videos, blogging etc and how all that is centralized via our profile page, it becomes important to understand the current Alpha program and how that effects a major benefit the profile page has.

The Alpha program makes the profile page into a powerful advertising platform that connects all subscription registrants into your field of children.

The children: We are using the term “Children” and “Parent” to illustrate the relationships you will build advanced towards becoming an Alpha Voyager up to Alpha Founder.

You the “parent” sponsor a new subscriber “child” via your Alpha-powered profile page. This relationship never breaks. The “child” can de-friend you, go their own way, join different groups than you, basically become lost to ever connecting with you again, or they can remain your friend, become a strategic partner in your agendas, campaigns and strategies and belong to the same groups you do, join your coop programs. Either way, as your “child” and as long as you are an active Alpha Leader, every purchase they make in Markethive (ads, boosts, calendar displays, Blog promotions, Alpha upgrades) pays you up to 50% of their purchase as a direct commission.

Markethive is built upon the foundation of a free social network empowered by the culture adhesiveness of entrepreneurs and a powerful platform of inbound marketing technology and an advanced broadcasting platform not found anywhere else. The platform itself is priceless and would cost over $3000 per month to acquire anything like it.

The orientation part of this video is produced so you understand the basic nature of Markethive, it’s platforms of incredible marketing power, the culture, your engagement within that culture and how your Profile page becomes a serious tool to build a powerful  sphere of influence, a lifelong network and a source of a long term sustainable living income.

And this is at the core of the building of Markethive. Building a social network of entrepreneurs, in a social network system easy to navigate, with a clear to follow program to engage and indoctrinate entrepreneurs into becoming Alpha Entrepreneurs, alpha like the lead Dog in a pack.

Alpha Entrepreneur:
a) ability to protect oneself (rarely senselessly endangering oneself)
b) leading others
c) being a successful speaker that can persuade people with logic
d) not being afraid of confrontations such as arguments
e) high social intelligence
f) very high work ethic and drive to succeed; a strong desire to produce, earn, and excel 
g) a strong desire to shape one's environment rather than be shaped by it.
h) being the exact opposite of a loser (one who justifies quitting and rejects personal responsibility)
 i) promoting survival and inspiring others with good ethics.

Legacy Alpha Founder (Alpha Legacy)

Originally launched as the first version of the affiliate program, the “Legacy” Alpha Founders was designed to raise money to fund the “pending” marketing campaign as 2015 came into play. However, events being as they were, the system was not ready to promote or capable of broadcasting and as of July 2015, new engineering was required and major changes have occurred.  I am pleased to announce Markethive has a brand new Chief Engineer, Stephen Hodgkiss. We have also moved to Amazon servers, have rebuilt 90% of the previous code, have all brand new mail servers which are 100% approved through Amazon which means email delivers over 90% of the recipients.

Which leads us to a whole new level of an affiliate plan called the BeTheAlpha affiliate program. This program has replaced and added a whole new level of titles, rewards and achievements, through single level multi rank; step by step process with a progressive path to achieve top ranks. Those titles and ranks are as follows:

  1. “Free Member” (this is the new signup that has just discovered MarketHive) and will be consistently navigated to the Alpha presentation page until action to join a level occurs
     
  2. “Trail Blazer” is the first step of a series of growing your “business”, getting orientated with “Markethive” and customizing and configuring your “profile” page.  It is this step that prepares you to become a “parent” as well as understand the concept.
     
  3. “Voyager” activates the “profile” page to start gathering the “children” It is at this option another tool appears (Invite Contacts) allowing the member to invite everyone from their Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, AOL, and Lycos accounts to the profile page. The system also begins orientation into advanced functions like the Blog Widgets, Plugins and Leads capture page widgets and broadcasting.
     
  4. “Navigator” orientates and motivates to take leadership in organizing teams with Groups, Skype screen sharing and Web conference rooms. Also continues with tips and techniques using Markethive. This is the first level that also pays commissions from all the “children” the “parent” has gathered to date.
     
  5. “Commander” almost doubles commissions and comes with greater advertising benefits. Also includes weekly seminars with CEO and other company “Founders” regarding the power of and vision of Markethive.
     
  6. “Odyssey” like Commander gives a greater leverage in advertising advantages and greater commissions.
     
  7. “Founder” is the top of the chain of command, advertising credits and commissions plus a profit pool.

Thus being the coming Alpha Affiliate Program in 2016

The new Alpha Founder position @ $5000.00 in the new affiliate program will offer the following:

  1. One time deposit of $10,000 in ad credits
  2. $200 per month ad credits for life
  3. 50% commissions on all financial transactions by your children
  4. 1 share of 5% of the company’s revenue pool shared with unlimited Founder members.

The current 2015 Alpha Founder, now referred as Alpha Legacy @ $1200.00 offers the following:

  1. One time deposit of $3000 in ad credits
  2. $200 per month ad credits for life
  3. 50% commissions on all financial transactions by your children
  4. 1 share of 5% of the company’s pool (limited to 250 shares; members)
  5. Share of new children (customers) from corporate marketing and advertising campaigns
     

Alpha Legacy Year End 50% off sale. There are a limited number left and we are selling the contracts for $600 each. You can use these contracts to apply the terms to any number of Markethive Accounts, yours or someone you transfer the contract to or sell it to.

Our goal is to raise $100,000 to further fund engineering, and empower you to become serious entrepreneurs.  We all own this thing together.

See you at the meetings

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Business Building, Markethive

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

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Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Get at least 10,000 Pageviews and High PR dofollow backlink from Reddit

 

Do you know Reddit is one of the largest and most diverse online community. Reddit is filled with millions of people who have separated themselves into various subreddits based on their interest. As I know there is a subreddit that applies to apply to every kind of business. Now a days most social media marketing is a grind. With Facebook, you always have to spend some bucks to get likes, and this likes are of no value as Facebook is killing organic reach of business pages.

It’s very tough for a small business, blog, marketer to Log on to Facebook, Twitter and drive 10,000+ page views a month from beginning until you have huge cash to spend.

What is Reddit, and Why should you use it ?

Reddit is very different among all other social media, it is quite simple. Reddit is a platform where people share interesting things they find on internet. When something is submitted it will get  “Upvoted” or “Downvoted” As any submission get some upvotes, it will be over the “Hot” Page.

It depends on number of upvotes you get, whether your submission will go to the Hot page of subreddit or across the Hot page of whole site.

NB : In short more upvotes your submission get, more visibility it gets.

Difference between Reddit and other social platforms, is with very few submissions you get insane traffic, immediate access to users. Suppose you have a post and you think it will go viral, when you shared that post on Facebook only few people your friends, fans will have access at first or You can buy ads on Facebook and still a fraction amount of people will have access to it for whom you will pay.

No one else is going to have access to it until, your post get likes, comments and shares. Sames goes with twitter, when you tweet something it will be visible to your followers and out of them only few will see it.

Reddit is different anyone can submit anything from anywhere. There are some rules and regulations which are there but are not applicable until you post something stupid. Every post have to be submitted in subreddits (Sub-Communities), and the front page of reddit gathers the best post among the whole submission from the most popular subreddits. So it means, whenever you post something, you have immediate access to all the users of subreddits, although you need upvotes to have more visibility. This is the reason I say “Reddit is the Best Viral Engine in existence”.

Chuck Reynolds
Contributor

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Choosing an Effective Website Color Combination

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Website Color Combination

Choosing an Effective Website Color Combination

A pleasing color scheme can make or break your website. After all, in advertising, color accounts for 60% of advertisement's acceptance or rejection. Therefore, color plays a pivotal role in determining whether or not a potential customer will choose to conduct business with your firm. A web designer needs to ensure that all of your website’s colors work in harmony, while keeping the client’s identity consistent with other marketing efforts.

Quick Rules of Thumb

  • Stick to 3 to 5 colors when planning a website
  • When in doubt, use white for the background color, and black for the text color

Using Your Company’s Logo colors

If your company already has a logo designed by a professional – great!

This is the best starting point for choosing your website’s color combination. You may choose to use the exact colors found in your logo, or even add some complimentary colors. But, it is important not to stray too far from your logo’s color scheme in order to keep your company’s identity consistent.

Color Defines Mood

The colors of your website are important because they can elicit different emotions from your visitors. Colors can make us happy, excited, angry or sad. Below is a list of colors along with the corresponding moods which they evoke:

Warm Colors

Red: aggressiveness, passion, strength, vitality
Pink: femininity, innocence, softness, health
Orange: fun, cheeriness, warm exuberance
Yellow: positive thinking, sunshine, cowardice

Cool Colors

Green: tranquility, health, freshness
Blue: authority, dignity, security, faithfulness
Purple: sophistication, spirituality, costliness, royalty, mystery

Neutral Colors

Brown: utility, earthiness, woodiness, subtle richness
White: purity, truthfulness, being contemporary and refined
Gray: somberness, authority, corporate mentality
Black: seriousness, distinctiveness, boldness, being classic

Choosing a Color Scheme

Once you understand the colors and their connotations, the next step is to choose a color scheme for your website. Below is list of different types of color combinations:

  • Monochromatic color combinations use a single color. Variations in lightness of the selected color can be used to create the sense of different colors. Monochromatic colors go well together, producing a soothing effect, and are very easy on the eyes. The drawback however, is that, it can be difficult to highlight the most important elements on your website.
  • Analogous color schemes use colors that are related, but not the identical, to create visually attractive combinations. Choosing this type of color scheme is accomplished by picking colors that are close to each other on the color wheel. For example, a selection of blues and purples, or reds and oranges would make a good analogous combination. One color must be picked as the dominant color while the others are used as accents.
  • Complementary (or contrasting) color schemes are comprised of 2 colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. This combination is most appealing when a warm and a cool color are used. For example, red with green or blue work well as contrasting colors. Using one color for your background, and its complementary color to highlight key elements will give you color dominance and color contrast. One word of caution: it is difficult for the human eye to focus on contrasting colors at the same time.

Therefore, it is best to avoid using strong contrasts for background and text colors.

Ida Mae Boyd
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Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Top 5 Most Effective Online Lead Generation Ideas According to Experts

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Top 5 Most Effective Online Lead Generation Ideas According to Experts

lead generation

The 2014 Global Digital Statistics, Stats & Facts report indicate that there are approximately 2.5 billion people online. Just imagine tapping into this incredibly large market. Capturing merely a fraction of such a tremendous source of customers could lead to considerable profits for your brand, products or services.

global digital marketing snapshot 2014 

How can you tap into this very huge global market? The answer to that is Online Lead Generation. This is now the age where cold sales calling and elaborate sales team efforts are slowly ebbing away into the past. What business owners need now to tap into this bountiful market are effective digital marketing tools specifically designed for maximum lead generation results. There are many tools of these kinds available for businesses to use, however it would be best for business owners to select which lead generation technique will cater to their unique business needs and environment.

Digital Marketing Philippines takes you into this journey of exploring lead generation ideas that were specifically tested and proven to deliver results. These ideas were intended to guide you in making your ultimate goal of increasing sales and revenues through effective online lead generation techniques. In no particular order, here are the top 5 most effective online lead generation ideas as recommended by experts in the field of Digital and Internet Marketing.

The infographic (click to zoom):

Top 5 Most Effective Online Lead Generation Ideas According to Experts

 1. Online Lead Generation by Website Optimization

Your website and/or landing page lie at the central hub for conducting an online business and is where most of the sales transactions will like take action. The results of a LinkedIn B2B Technology Community survey conducted among more than 800 B2B marketers indicate that website optimization for better lead acquisition is among the top 3 effective lead generation ideas.

Experts from the Brainrider Knowledge Marketing Group showcase some websites that were already optimized for lead generation. Don’t expect to have good lead generation if your website has not yet been updated or optimized for the last 3 years according to Brainrider who recommends the following best practices for optimizing your websites and landing for better lead generation:

  • Customer-focused website navigation for ease in understanding your content
  • Highly targeted customer-focused content that helps your audience in the purchase decision making process
  • Set multiple calls-to-action that entices your audiences to subscribe, download, contact you or make a purchase – together with good visuals like large action buttons
  • Help your prospects in their budgeting process by making it easy for them to understand your pricing schemes with products clearly categorized according to price ranges
  • Access to lead generation forms should be present in both your main content and sidebars

2. Online Lead Generation by Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization is still the primary lead generation strategy used by top digital marketers according to several reports including the State of Digital Marketing Report from online marketing expert Webmarketing123. This survey included more than 500 online marketers in the US, with SEO garnering the biggest impact on lead generation for both B2B and B2C markets.

lead generation survey b2b and b2c 

 

SEO is ideal for generating leads particularly through organic web searches that consumers use everyday. Good ranking in search results means higher visibility for websites or landing pages, generating a lot of leads in the process. There are several SEO techniques that you can choose from but content marketing should be your primary focus in SEO.

The 2014 B2B Content Marketing Research by the Content Marketing Institute highlighted that 93% of digital marketers will make use of SEO and content marketing as a primary tool for 2014. Running SEO together with content marketing is a good strategy according to these experts in preparation for future changes in search engine algorithms that may occur. For these experts, the link building strategies done in the past won’t cut it anymore and 92% percent believe that creating really good content is the way for generating better leads through SEO in 2014 and beyond.

3. Online Lead Generation through Pay-per-Click (PPC) Advertising

Pay-Per-Click advertising is still alive and strong, helping businesses generate a great deal of highly targeted traffic that has the most probability for lead conversion. If your business is just new in the Digital Marketing arena, then PPC would be your ideal launching point, quickly generating good results and the quickest possible time. The 2013 State of Paid Search Report highlighted that up to 72% of digital marketers find PPC advertising very effective in lead generation and plans to increase their budget in 2014 for PPC ads.

 ppc marketing growth 2014

 PPC spending survey 

Google Adwords still stand at the forefront for PPC advertising as indicated in the diagram above from the 2013 State of Paid Search Report. While many frown on paid advertising as a digital marketing tool, these experts believe that PPC ads is still a very viable and high quality resource for generating valuable leads and will most likely continue on this thread for years to come. New businesses can quickly generate their much needed leads using PPC ads, and veteran digital marketers will continue to make use of this important tool for generating good results that will push them towards their goals.

4. Online Lead Generation through Social Media

Social media is undoubtedly one of the most effective sources for lead generation and the 1.8 billion users of social networks definitely won’t lie, as reported by the 2014 Global Digital Statistics, Stats and Facts. The report also indicated that more than 135 million users of the top social networks were added in 2012, with Facebook jumping to an astounding 1.184 billion active users.

 Activer users by social platform survey

 Social media is a very important channel not only in engaging or connecting with your targeted audiences, but it has evolved into a new digital marketing culture that has a strong influence on consumers’ buying behavior. Studies from industry experts like Forbes indicate that up to two-thirds of the top sales experts in the world categorize social media as an important lead generation and sales channel.

Chadwick Martin Bailey, another expert market research firm, reported that up to 51 percent of Facebook users and 67 percent of Twitter fanatics will most like purchase recommendations from brands they are a fan or a follower of. Such is the impact of Social Media on lead generation and sales that revenues are expected to go up exponentially in the coming years according to experts like eMarketer in their report on the US Social Network Ad Revenues 2012-2015.

us social network ad revenue 

 5. Online Lead Generation by Email Marketing

Email marketing is not dead and is definitely one of the most effective lead generation tool according to Digital Marketing experts. iContact reported that even though email is an old internet marketing tool, many still use email heavily on a daily basis as indicated in the graph below. The report states that email marketing still delivers a good deal for your investments, averaging a $44 ROI for every dollar spent if proper email marketing techniques are used and executed.

 current state of email

The report also indicated that email can still influence consumers’ buying behavior in a world where too many information are flooding every available online channel they can have their hands on. According to the report, up to 83% of consumers will most likely spend more during their shopping or purchases if they get good information about brands, products or services through email. From this list of consumers, order were actually 44% larger while others would make online purchases 28% more often.

 How effective is email marketing

Lead generation is still at the heart and soul of doing business and this fact applies both to online or traditional methods of generating prospects that eventually can be converted into paying customers. There are so many ways available for generating valuable leads online but making use of these time-proven and expert-recommended ways of generating leads online should put your business at the forefront of making headway and generating favorable results from your digital marketing efforts.

Digital Marketing Philippines, in its commitment for providing you with valuable tools for Internet Marketing success, have outlined the Top 5 most effective channels among these myriad ways for online lead generation. It is still up to the business owner or digital marketer to choose, test, and validate which of these tools will fit perfectly well with their business niche or nature. The key here is start using these tools now, generate more leads that you can handle – and reach your Digital Marketing goals for 2014 and beyond.

Thank you to author: Jomer Gregorio

Stephen Hodgkiss
Markethive

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Inbound Marketing: The New Personal Development for Entrepreneurs

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Inbound Marketing: The New Personal Development for Entrepreneurs

The late business philosopher Jim Rohn, famously said, “you get paid for the value you bring to the marketplace and not the time you spend in it”.  In other words, “make yourself more valuable to the marketplace” and you do that by working harder on improving yourself than you do working on the job”.  Working hard on the job is admirable; however, “working a job can make you a living but, working harder on yourself will make you a fortune”. “This is why personal development plays a vital role in your success as indicated by the fact, it is a lifelong process. It's a way for people to assess their skills and qualities, consider their aims in life and set goals in order to realise and maximise their potential”.  In life you are on a timeline to accomplish certain goals and tasks; otherwise, you are guilty of a wasted life.  Clearly, nothing to be proud nor brag about. 

As an entrepreneur/marketer you are constantly working on improving yourself to better your skills and abilities to attract new customers and more importantly, bring value to both them and the marketplace.  This is why Inbound Marketing is the logical extension of the process of becoming a better and improved marketer. Just as it says, “inbound marketing”, which refers to “marketing activities that bring visitors in rather than marketers having to go out to get prospect’s attention”. 

So, you want to become a better and constantly improving marketer then, Inbound Marketing is the perfect solution for you.  Like anything in life success starts with identifying and correcting personal deficits and then, developing, implementing and executing the needed skills and/or abilities to overcome the challenges that lead to your placement as a dead dealer in the MLM Cemetery.  Clearly, you don’t get paid, if your marketing skills are as effective as watching paint dry.  Now, the Free Market determines the value you bring regardless of who you are and based more on what you have become.  In fact, being highly educated as indicated by having a PH.D., doesn't a gaurantee a high paying salary. Remember America and other Westernised nations are capitalists and payment is based on value and not necessarily on the number of certifications you achieved.  Yes, the P.H.D., in English and Bachelors in IT are both examples of education but, which one has greater potential for future business success?  Think like an investor and do your research to determine the best return on your time, money and other resources for your benefit and that of your customers.  This is what inbound marketing is about.  

Now, marketing is basically about promoting and selling the value of product and/or service to a desired target market.  So, different people have different personalities and an effective marketer must constantly master and improve his/her skill set to put money into his/her pocket.  When you think about master marketers like: Mark Victor Hansen, Cory Rudl, Frank Kern, Mary Kay Ash, Steve Jobs and many others, they all worked on themselves incessantly to become the perfect ambassador of their product/service.  It was clear the aforementioned entrepreneurs trusted no one else but, themselves to represent their product.  So, are you the best representative of your product/service? If yes, why and if not, why not?  Want as many eyeballs on your product/service then, earn the right to occupy your customer’s time.

Effective marketers are not one trick pony, today's customers are highly intelligent and have already researched the product/service they desire and closing the deal means being customer-centered.  Just, ask any lady of easy virtue (yeah, I mean a prostitute) because they are masters of inbound marketing and personal development when you consider the skill set needed to draw in customers who are willing to pay for what they perceive to be value.  Consider the fact, “inbound marketing earns the attention of customers, makes the company easy to be found and draws customers to the website by producing interesting content”.  Now, you heard of Bill Gate’s famous quote, Content is King; however, quality content is what sells because it provides a solution to a problem.  How much money will companies spend on content that solves a problem versus content that is interesting but, fails to stop the financial hemorrhaging of compnay funds?  Indeed, personal development is the seed for effective marketing; otherwise, like an outbound marketer who used old school methods (purchasing leads, safelists, buying ads, etc.,) will generate zero leads and income because the methodology is commensurate to a bloody telemarketer, who provides content that isn’t in alignment with the interest nor needs of their target market.  So, much for getting payed, being hired for future jobs and never-mind your professional reputation.

Time to transform your marketing and for today’s current successful marketers the trend began in 2006, when Inbound Marketing, became the proven method most effective for conducting business online.  “By aligning your content with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then, convert, close and delight”.   

Let’s examine the four actions needed to be successful in becoming a master of Inbound Marketing:

 Attract, it’s about traffic and the right kind of traffic that can be drawn to content that creates mutual benefit.

Convert, turning your potential customer into a lead is the goal and offering them something of value will be key to your success.

Close, the process of the sale being achieved in a mutually exclusive manner benefitting all parties involved.

Delight, it’s about being customer-centered regardless of the stage of your users because it’s about providing them quality content.

To better understand and visualize the complete Inbound Marketing methodology please examine Hubspot. 

Content creation or more accurately, quality content is the gospel for effective online marketing because effective communication with today's customers requires engagement with quality not quantity.  If, you want success in this relatively new method marketing then, recognise that "poor thinking habits keep you poor" and you need to "stand guard at the door of your mind".

Lastly, the professionals who engage in creating quality content often share about their favoriate content marketing tools that make their task so much easier and I also, have taken the liberty of sharing that information with my fellow marketers as indciated by the following:

Ubersuggest, a keyword suggestion software program 

Audacity, a free open source multilingual audio editor and recorder software program.

Zemanta, a content creation platform with multiple apps and tools for your blogging enjoyment

SocialMention, is social analysis platform that enables you to learn what others say about a company and it's brand 

Social Search Engine Topsy, this tool indexes every keyword and phrase within the soscial web in real time

Canva, a free image editing priogram that makes manipulation and edting of your images easy

PicMonkey, another image editing program but easier and with more font features

Screen Capture By Google, there are a ton of screen capture tools out there, but I like the simplicity of Google’s Screen Capture plug-in for Chrome… possibly because I’m a Chrome junkie, so it’s always right there when I need it. You can capture selections, visible content, or the entire page and choose JPEG or PNG output.

Another tool I’ve used in the past that worked well is Jing, which allows you to markup your screenshots and also records to video. Snagit is a premium option from the same developers, with far greater capabilities and a pricetag of $49.95 (if you’re looking for a more versatile screen capture tool).

 

 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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The Blogging Power of Markethive

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Markethive.Video.PlayerThe Blogging Power of Markethive

The moment you join Markethive you have instant setup of your own “Viral Blog” ready for you to begin posting content and marketing your business, product, service, or even personal content. You’ll be up and running the moment you set up your account!

1. Multiple BLOG accounts (platforms)

You will have the ability to create many blog accounts (via groups), mix up different contributors and published multiple blog contents for multiple WordPress accounts. That has been specifically created to include powerfully effective sales psychology built into them. This will ensure you convert visitors to your site into PAYING customers at the highest levels.

This multiple blog capability can also create additional unique content to spread further into the Internet. With Groups your reach expands exponentially.

Individual friends and groups can be combined to create unique content that can easily be published to your WordPress, Joomla, blogger.com, etc. blogs with Markethive Widgets and Plug Ins.

With a group of 100 members, aside from the massive shared content, with a Group membership of 100 where we will assume each member has about 5000 social net friends and contacts in their respective Social accounts like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+.

These are huge numbers as we estimate just the Social reach of 500,000 add to that each members back links via their social networks but assuming each member has 2-3 WordPress blogs the legitimate white hat back links occurring also reach astronomical numbers.

Now add to that a small coop to publish a real paid for Press release and you start to understand the startling advantage Markethive has just regarding Markethive’s blog platform and link manifestation.

2. Built in “Viral Broadcasting”

Other members of Markethive have the option to “follow” your blog(s) and options as to how. They can choose to be alerted in the social network alerts in their Markethive Dashboard

They can choose to have your post published to their Markethive News Feed.

They can choose to have your new posts broadcasted to their Facebook news feed(s) both their personal feed or their many Facebook pages.

They can choose to have your posts broadcasted to their Twitter feed.

They can choose to have your post published to their share an update on their LinkedIn account

They can choose to have your post broadcasted to their Markethive Blog (Groups or Personal)

This guarantees you get the most exposure from every post you make, and compels readers to quickly share your content with ease and excitement. This means even MORE traffic to your blog, and MORE potential for sales or exposure.

3. Advanced “Viral Commenting” System

Your blog comments will show up in real time and inspire even more “digital” conversations on your site. Remember, rave reviews, lively comments, and more helpful content are what people crave on your blog. There is NOTHING more powerful than the “social proof” coming from other people commenting on your blog, and we’ll help you to easily get LOTS of it every time you post.

Combined with the commenting system is the broadcasting ability as well. When commenting, you can also choose the option for your comment to push to your Markethive Newsfeed, Facebook, Twitter and LinkediN, includes the link back to your profile page and the blog.

4.SEO Tool

Keyword management for better search engine results.
Research and analysis tracking allows for continuous improvement.

When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns, choosing the right keywords is the most important step. Selecting the wrong keywords will lead to bad results so it pays to learn how to perform a strategic keyword analysis so you pick the right ones. Generally speaking your goal is to identify keywords with:

A) The highest search volume possible.

B) The lowest competition.

C) Those that accurately relate to your business.

High search volumes and high competition often go together (but not always… look for sweet spots!) Typically you're looking for low competition keywords that still have good search volumes. So long as the keyword relates to the content on your website your "bounce rate" will be low and the traffic will stick.

The Keyword Analysis tool is designed to help you keep track of your research results as you perform your strategic analysis. There are a variety of external tools and systems that are helpful in evaluating keywords, however the statistics tracked by this system are found using Alexa and the Google Keyword Planner.

This will multiply how many people actually FIND your blog! (Marketers pay from hundreds, to thousands of dollars every month for this service—you get it for FREE!)

Peace of Mind For You!

You’ll never have to worry about installing anything, setting anything up, or “customizing” anything, unless you want to add your own header and company logo to your blog. We’ll handle all of the rest for you! Our skilled programmers work around the clock to ensure your blog is always viewable and available for your customers.

 

5. WordPress Plugins by Markethive

When we set out to build Markethive, we recognized WordPress to be the world leader in Blogging platforms. We will never dispute that nor attempt to overcome or replace WordPress.

Our goal is to make WordPress better with our blogging platform and CMS enhancements. Case in point is our WordPress (Markethive) plugin(s). We have several but this plugin is designed to import and manage your content you produce on Markethive into your one or multiple WordPress blog(s). Without Markethive, to manage a (blog cloud) portfolio of many WordPress on multiple domains with unique content on each of them for different agendas and markets, especially with a moderate to large team of content producers becomes a literal nightmare.

Why WordPress Is The Best Website Platform

There are many different ways of creating a website, you can purchase industry standard software like Dreamweaver and take courses to understand how to use it, or you can use content management software such as WordPress that allows you to quickly and easily get a website live within minutes. This is one of the many reasons why WordPress is the best website platform for beginners and professionals alike.

With WordPress, you are getting a system that takes minutes to install on your server, and then access to thousands of free and paid themes. Your website will look professional from the moment you start. Furthermore, there’s a wide range of plugins and widgets that can easily be applied to the site to make it more user friendly and interactive.

And the only skills you need are the ability to write, click the mouse button and add this stuff in. It really is easy to add content, it’s just like posting on a forum really, and has a very low learning curve. But, because of its flexibility, you can be as basic or advanced as you feel, and as you grow to learn more about it, so to will your site grow and utilize new concepts and designs being created for WordPress.

Here’s some other great aspects about the WordPress system:

WordPress is Open Source:

This means it is free, other people can easily create themes, plugins and so on for you to use with it, and it is completely flexible.

WordPress is Quick to Setup:

This means you can focus on having several websites and easily be able to maintain them all without having to create them all from scratch. This is particularly useful if you are getting into internet marketing for example. You can have many websites set up for different products you are selling.

WordPress Gives Multi User Functionality:

Are you a small business or organization that requires more than one person to add content to the site? Again, WordPress can help. It enables the site owner to set up users for them to post to the site. What’s more, certain privileges can be applied to these users so they only have access to posting content, and therefore not be able to mess around with the functional side of the site.

Website and Blog All-in-One:

Although WordPress is set up more as a blogging platform, it is still very easy to configure it to be a standalone site, with a blog attached. There are many plugins which make this even easier to do, and so any small business or organization can have a website and blog created in a couple of hours that looks great, and is ready to go.

Backing Up and Security:

WordPress is very easy to back up, and there are many secure plugins to choose from to make it more secure than it already is.

These are just a few of the most important reasons why WordPress is the best website platform, but there are many more. It’s major advantages are the low learning curve, and speed of having a site up and running. If you are a person who needs a website, but has little time and money to set one up, then WordPress is your friend. It’s a fantastic system used by millions of people across the globe.

6. MH Blog Swipe

Markethive blog system allows you to make your content available to the entire public population within Markethive, or Just to your friends or just to members in all the Groups you belong or a selection of them or just one (your choice) or private so no one can Swipe your blog.

Why? There are many sound reasons for this.

  • Curating: Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information. Markethive offers features to it’s groups you create. Groups are platforms for blogging.Simple set up a Curating Group for yourself and Swipe the blogs in Markethive as a collection of content you may want to use in your publications.
  • Proofing: You may have a group of members that want to edit and rewrite your content. Trust me,this is an active phenomena in Markethive. Produce a blog and you will get many critiques so I just offer to them to swipe it, edit and change it as they see fit then let me know. If I like it, I swipe it back. Another option is to actually have a proof reader on staff and do the same procedure.
  • Cocktails: With Markethive’s ability (feature) to create unlimited Groups each with a different cocktail of content curated, aggregated or from multiple Group memberships, the options to produce unique content for unlimited WordPress blogs controlled from within Markethive is unlimited.
  • Then there is the learning curve. I have personally mentored newbie bloggers who just couldn’t or wouldn’t take the first step. In many a live webinar, I would quickly assemble a viable blog article, the instruct the students to Swipe my blog post, then in the webinar they would edit, alter, upload and download images, creating an altered blog result of their own.

    I have witnessed new bloggers after this type of training go from poorly and rarely produced blog posts, to 1-2 dynamic and excellent on topic blog posts daily. In other words, Markethive is now churning out a new breed of excellent and dynamic bloggers.

Website Widget

The widget can appear on your blogs, sites, social networks to promote a simple easy registration into the Markethive via your account, by passing your Profile page. Sets off your selection of autoresponders via the Authorized email of record, totally avoiding spam.

Markethive Blog platform

Markethive’s Inbound Marketing platform delivers a blogging system built for the beginner, sophisticated for the intermediate and an extremely powerful platform that advanced professional bloggers will appreciate. The system is designed for the easy development of a complete blog system, yet advanced and easily set up to be the engine that powers your WordPress blogs. The email system also creates subscribe accounts for your blogs and capture pages and simplifies the email notifications of a new blog publication via email, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Goggle+ and Markethive news feeds.

Easily grow your social reach into the millions! It’s that Powerful, It’s that  Simple, That’s Markethive.

Dominate with Inbound Marketing

Entrepreneurs always work hard to create an innovative product or service, but often count on standard seller marketing for sales. But the reality is that sellers are no longer in charge of the customer buying process. Recent reports suggest that 90% of today’s shoppers skip marketing pitches, to research online before they buy, and over 50% check user reviews before making a decision.

Markethive is the first and only social network integrated with a powerful intuitive inbound marketing (automated marketing) platform. Built for the entrepreneur, small business, and network marketers. Markethive is totally free and generates it's revenue through advertising like Facebook and Linkedin. Markethive even returns up to half the advertising revenue back to the subscribers that join the affiliate program.

If tools like email auto responders (better than Aweber), blog platforms (makes WordPress even better), press release co-ops (Real PR.org professional releases) capture page widgets (plug ins for WordPress, simpleleadcapture.com,etc., plugins and pages, broadcasting tools (like Hootsuit), live conference rooms (like GoToMeeting), traffic portals (like Veretekk had) and additional arrays of powerful tools, workshops and mentoring webinars, interest you, then you need this platform!

This is Inbound Marketing, This is Markethive. Easy! Powerful! Free!

Stephen Hodgkiss
CE Markethive Inc.

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

Uncategorized

The FREEDOM Celebration In LA

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Harold Tells How He Is Working
For The FREEDOM Of Us ALL!

Sunday 17 April 2016

Take Your Place On The Golden Brick Wall

ACHIEVE THE RANK OF GOLD DIRECTOR IN 2016. HELP BUILD A GOLDEN FOUNDATION AND LEAVE A LEGACY!

* As a qualified Gold Director, you will have the option to purchase your own Gold Brick Box. Gold Brick Box includes 2 personalized and autographed Gold Brick cards & frame.

* One card is for you and the second gets donated to the GOLDEN BRICK WALL located at Corporate HQ in Stuttgart GERMANY

* First 1,000 Gold Directors to contribute to the Wall will earn “Legacy Leaders” benefits

* Benefits include: VIP Seating at RST and Freedom Celebration Events, invitation to the 2016 Elite Retreat in Germany, and are named Founding Members of the Karatbars International Foundation ©

The Karatbars Int. Foundation, on behalf of it’s Legacy Leaders will donate the Wall (and 1,000 grams of Gold) to a preferred Charity.

Congratulations to all of The Golden Brick Wall qualifiers. Thank you for leading the charge. There is a place waiting for the rest of us. Now let’s go claim it, and join our brothers and sisters!

 

A Large "GOLD" Angel Seen Over LA…

History was made in Los Angeles on Saturday as Lou Engle, Mike Bickle, Cindy Jacobs, Jack Hayford and other generals of the faith gathered at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for Azusa Now.

Jeff Jansen, founder of Global Fire Ministries, told Charisma News he believes it was one of the most significant events of the past few decades.

"As we were driving on Interstate 5 to the Azusa Now event on April 9, I saw a large gold angel standing over LA," Jansen says. "The Lord said, ’Just as the 1849 gold rush drew people to California…So 4/9 2016 will mark a new gold rush of divine proportion that will once again draw the nations into revival."

Here is what we know. The scripture says,"…For everything there is a sign.." What other sign could the large Gold angel refer to?

Isn’t it interesting that one of the largest spiritual gatherings in LA took place on the same day of the birth of the Founder of The Greatest International Movement to bring GOLD to the Masses?

Also, isn’t it interesting that the spiritual man of God saw a Large Angel standing over LA. And here at the Marriott, a man with the heart of a very large angel was standing, revealing to his helpers, the new developments in his work, to help the unfortunate do better, and for the masses of the human family to be able to acquire Gold.

That large angel that God gave that spiritual man the vision of, was none other than Harold Seiz of Stuttgart Germany.

Please read this Historic article here:

http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/prophecy/26103-jeff-jansen-sees-huge-gold-angel-at-azusa-now

 

HERE IS WHAT WE KNOW..

In 2008, before the financial meltdown, Harold was in the financial services industry. He was in that industry for 16 years. He saw what was coming in the economy, and put all of his client’s portfolios into Gold.

At that time, he had what we call "walk away" money, meaning he could have retired and lived very well for the rest of his life. However he had a Vision. If he helped his clients, why could he not help the world of humanity? That Vision, my friends, became what we know, today, as Karatbars.

Our Own Payment System, WorldWide!

It was almost like a child feels on Christmas day with all of new pieces to our Karatbars portfolio. One by one Harold uncovered the new additions.

*We have our own payment system, with both our grams and our cash gold for change.

We have the roll out of our K-Exchanges here in the U.S.

We even have an app that will allow the transfer of gold from one account to another seamlessly for easy transactions.

And as a Powerful safety precaution we have Karabars facilities in several regions of the world. My friends, we have a leader who has Great VISION.

 

Love Your Skeptics

Doc’s and my business partner, Rashard, is the biggest skeptic I have ever met. When Doc and I presented Karatbars to him and his sweet little wife 2 1/2 years ago, they did not want to hear any kind of karatbars.

His attitude was so bad, that before I walked out of his door, I put my hand on his shoulder, and looked him in his eyes and said," I love you like a brother, but you are WRONG!" And he will tell you, he had trouble sleeping that night.

Love your skeptics. But stand your ground and know what you got. Because you could be talking to Your Rashard, the "biggest champion" of your team. You could, also, be talking to the individual that will, single handed, take your business around the globe. Below is Rashard’s visit at the Kings Palace in Nigeria

http://www.thegoldservants.info

Also, I want to give a big shout out to our team members, who made the long journey from Nigeria & Ireland to join us at this historical event. You made it happen. We love you, and we applaud you. You are Leading by example!

 

"Successful People Do, What Unsuccessful People, Are Not Willing To Do!"

When my friend, and sponsor, Lourens Haasbroek from South Africa, introduced me to Karatbars, July 27, 2013, little did I know that my 41 year search for the business that I could experience some significant success was over. Yes, i have been searching since my first homebased business in 1972. I could have said forget it, and resign myself to just a J.O.B., but thank GOD I didn’t. Because I didn’t give up, I have been blessed with a business that spans around the globe with an organization of 20,000 Plus people. Successful people do, what unsuccessful people, are not willing to do.

This pic was taken at the Top Incentive Winners dinner at the home Harold was hosted in by Jeff Blue, one of the prominent Music Producers here in Beverly Hills. I did not win one of the Top Incentives, but helped Rashard win it. Love your skeptics, because your Biggest Skeptic just might be your team’s Biggest Champion. His mom and I call him OB, which means "Our Baby"…that’s her in the mirror taking my picture, lol.

Karatbars is the Greatest business that I have ever been a part of, and I will work it, to some degree, as long as GOD gives me breath. And Harold keeps making it better and better. I like what Mike Wiersma said Saturday, "…we haven’t even scratched the flee’s butt on the back of an elephant yet!"

And as Ty Best told us, "freedom is everything." And the 4 Steps he shared with us are,

1. You got to decide exactly what it is you want, and decide to be free.

2. Decide to pay the price. It is non-negotiable.

3.You got to change. Personal development. Read books.

4. You got to believe in this business. You got to believe in this company. You got to believe in yourself.

Successful people do, what unsuccessful people, are not willing to do. I wish you much success. Peace Out!

 

L Basheer Hasan
+1515-991-3999
servantsofbaha@gmail.com
http://www.talkfusion.com/1809026

 


    




 

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member

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Viral Marketing

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Viral marketingViral Marketing is the most responsive marketing on the planet.

Think about it…

Most advertising is all about you the advertiser 'tooting your own horn'
•    People don't care.
•    They tune you out.
•    They might even assume you're lying.

You're just another stranger trying to peddle your stuff along with everyone else.
Traditional advertising is like yelling in a stadium full of 50,000 screaming people with no one listening. No one can hear you over the roar of the crowd.
No one cares.

Now imagine if you were in this same roaring stadium, and you showed a handful of people something really cool like a video.
•    Something that connected with them.
•    Maybe something that entertained them.
•    Made them laugh or even offended them.

These people then started sharing your video with the people sitting around them. Those folks then share it with the people around them too. And pretty soon it's like a wave, with your content rippling through the whole stadium…

That's when you realize the crowd isn't just randomly roaring anymore. Now they're positively buzzing about YOUR content.
•    They can't stop talking about it.
•    They're sharing it like crazy.
•    And they're clicking through to your links.

That's what a good viral campaign is like.

Home
Contains the Newsfeed of newsworthy activities in MarketHive.

Friends – Friends of yours who have joined MarketHive.

Groups – Your sales or marketing group arena.

Companies – A Direct Selling Association – The Direct Selling Association (DSA) is the national trade association of the leading firms that manufacture and distribute goods and services sold directly to consumers. Approximately 200 companies are members of the association, including many well-known brand names.

Blogs – A complete blogging system for your posts.

Videos – A video system integrated into YouTube.

Leads – The area where you control your Prospecting Tools, Manage Leads, Manage Lead Groups, setup your Email Auto Responder, Prospecting Assets and Lead Capture Pages.

This is Powerful, flexible, and fully customizable lead generation technology including:

Powerful Pre-Built Lead Capture Pages!

Having a properly designed lead capture page can mean the difference between a big response rate and ZERO sign ups at all. After spending so much time and effort on lead generation… and then actually marketing your message to your prospects… it's critical to drive them to a page that will produce the greatest possible conversion rate.

The components of an effective lead capture page are fairly basic: a strong headline, a compelling video, brief but motivating body copy (text), and a form to capture their information. The whole idea is to provide prospects with just enough information for them to sign up… but nothing more! The entire goal is capturing their data so you can call them up and/or continue marketing to them through future emails, etc. If you spill too much information, then they have no motivation to fill out the form… and you lose them forever.

Lead Capture pages are pre-built based on proven results. However, they are fully customizable so you can configure the content optimally for your particular marketing campaign. After you do so, simply click the button to download the file and you can then place it on your own website and the leads generated will be automatically captured by your system.

Campaigns – Sophisticated marketing management and campaign execution. A Powerfully integrated systems providing streamlined functionality and control.

With access to powerful marketing tools you can execute marketing campaigns that produce real results.

Almost as important as the tools themselves though, is the ability to keep all of your information and activities organized. The features in this area allow you to accomplish everything you need to launch and manage professional level marketing campaigns.

There are different types of campaigns for different purposes and goals. As a result there are a range of tools at your disposal:

•    Manage advertising vendor records.
•    Create advertising co-op's with groups of members.
•    Establish tiny URLs for specialized use.
•    Define sophisticated website rotators to distribute leads.
•    Track websites on your asset map.
•    Monitor and evaluate keyword terms.
•    Manage and verify backlinks to your websites.

Regardless of the type of marketing you wish to engage in, these tools will help you expand the reach and effectiveness of your efforts and ultimately increase results.

MarketHive – A One Stop Shop

Article by:
Brian Walters SEO

Skype: tuneup_bj

Brian Walters MarketHive

Markethive

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http://brian-walters-online.com/

Alan Zibluk – Markethive Founding Member