Latest News About Forex Trading

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2010-05-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

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Forex Market Information Easily Accessible

2009-04-30T05:01:00.000-07:00

Information about stocks is abundant, but so are the stocks. Finding a trade opportunity in the equities markets may mean sifting through data on thousands of stocks, while the forex trader has only six major currencies to research. Additionally, the vital information that moves equity markets, such as revenues and profits, is proprietary and private. In contrast, virtually all of the news that bears on the forex market is in publicly disseminated reports from governments or research institutions, and released to everybody at the same time.
We feel that the knowledge you've gained in analyzing stocks can easily be transferred to the forex market. Many of the economic indicators familiar to equity traders, such as payroll data and interest rates, affect the currency markets. And many technical traders have found the forex market to be particularly attractive, since currencies respond well to many of the common technical indicators, such as MACD, RSI, and Candlestick charting.
To learn more about transitioning from trading equity markets to trading in the Forex market, contact the FXCM staff today at 888-503-6739. *FXCM is compensated for its services through the bid ask spread. -->
High Risk Investment
Trading foreign exchange on margin carries a high level of risk, and may not be suitable for all investors. The high degree of leverage can work against you as well as for you. Before deciding to trade foreign exchange you should carefully consider your investment objectives, level of experience, and risk appetite. The possibility exists that you could sustain a loss of some or all of your initial investment and therefore you should not invest money that you cannot afford to lose. You should be aware of all the risks associated with foreign exchange trading, and seek advice from an independent financial advisor if you have any doubts.

Forex Market Comparison

2009-04-30T04:46:00.000-07:00

Trade Around the Clock
The forex market is a near-seamless 24-hour market. Subject to available liquidity, FXCM offers trading from Sunday, starting after 5:15 PM EST, until Friday, 4PM, EST (FXCM Client Service is available 24/7). With the ability to trade around the clock, currency traders have the advantage of customizing their own trading schedule; they can usually get in or out of the market at any time without waiting for an opening bell or encountering a market gap. While trading stocks after usual market hours is possible, very often that possibility is negated by a lack of order flow or a drastic widening of the bid-ask spread.

Pay No Commissions*
In the forex market costs are confined to the bid-ask spread. FXCM charges no commission or additional transaction fees, and its customers trade on spreads provided to FXCM by some of the world's largest banks via the FX Trading Station. In the stock market, “no-fee” programs are frequently offered only with provisos mandating minimum account balances or minimum trades per month.
* FXCM is compensated through the bid/ask spread except where otherwise noted. Please note commission charges apply for certain classes of non-standard accounts such as Active Trader. For additional information click here.
No Uptick Rule
Unlike the equity market, there is no restriction on short selling in the forex currency market, no matter which way the market is moving. Since currency trading involves buying one currency and selling another, a trader has the same ability to trade in a rising market as in a falling one.

Education DailyFX Course Free Forex Seminars

2009-04-30T04:35:00.001-07:00

Monday
Getting Started in Forex
2:00 pm EST (19:00 GMT) and 9:00 pm EST (02:00 GMT)
An introductory seminar that teaches you common methods for beginners to start trading forex, presented in real time. Personal consultations are available upon request.
Current market themes. Educational opportunities. Transitioning from demo to live trading.
Tuesday
Range Trading From Charts
2:00 pm EST (19:00 GMT) and 9:00 pm EST (02:00 GMT)
See how you can use powerful Marketscope charts to place trades in this introduction to range-trading strategy.
Learn how to range trade: pick tops and bottoms. Use entry orders to range trade strategically. Discuss today's range-trading opportunities.
DailyFX+ Live
12:00 pm EST (17:00 GMT) and 7:00 pm EST (00:00 GMT)
Experience the power of DailyFX+ in a live video walkthrough!
Discuss current market movements. Discuss the day's price action. Identify signals for immediate trading. How to use DailyFX+ to find trades.
Wednesday
Building Your Portfolio
2:00 pm EST (19:00 GMT) and 9:00 pm EST (2:00 GMT)
Follow five simple steps to help you build your portfolio with the Forex System Selector.
Learn how to pick a system. Pick systems that match your needs and risk appetite. Mix and match from over 40 different systems to create your optimum portfolio. Set parameters for each system to automatically manage your portfolio.
Thursday
Euro Trading Tips
9:00 pm EST (02:00 GMT)
Learn to identify trends and trading opportunities with the euro. See and discuss important chart patterns and current events with a euro trader.
Learn the best time to trade the euro. Learn how to anticipate movements and confirm trends in the euro. Discuss what’s happening in the euro today with a Power Course instructor.
DailyFX+ Live
12:00 pm EST (17:00 GMT) and 7:00 pm EST (00:00 GMT)
Experience the power of DailyFX+ in a live video walkthrough!
Discuss current market movements. Discuss the day's price action. Identify signals for immediate trading. How to use DailyFX+ to find trades.
Friday
Euro Trading Tips
2:00 pm EST (19:00 GMT)
Learn to identify trends and trading opportunities with the euro. See and discuss important chart patterns and current events with a euro trader.
Learn the best time to trade the euro. Learn how to anticipate movements and confirm trends in the euro. Discuss what’s happening in the euro today with a Power Course instructor.

Education

2009-04-30T04:35:00.000-07:00

Euro Weighed By Rising German Unemployment, Will ECB Initiate QE Measures?

2009-04-30T04:19:00.000-07:00

The euro reached as high as 1.3388 before the German unemployment report showed the country lost another 58,000 jobs and saw its unemployment rate rise to 8.3% which is the highest since December, 2007. The CPI-estimate holding at 0.6% also added to bearish sentiment as the forecast were for a rise in inflation to 0.7%.
Talking Points• Japanese Yen: BoJ Leaves Rates Unchanged At 0.10%• Pound: Consumer Confidence Rises To Highest In a Year • Euro: German Unemployment Rises To 8.3%• US Dollar: Personal Income and Spending On Tap
Euro Weighed By Rising German Unemployment, Will ECB Initiate QE Measures?
The euro reached as high as 1.3388 before the German unemployment report showed the country lost another 58,000 jobs and saw its unemployment rate rise to 8.3% which is the highest since December, 2007. The CPI-estimate holding at 0.6% also added to bearish sentiment as the forecast were for a rise in inflation to 0.7%. Although, prices holding steady will help ease some deflation concerns, markets were ready to eliminate the concern if it saw price pressures increasing. Therefore, expectations will remain that he ECB could initiate non-standard measures as soon as their policy meeting next week.
Indeed, we have seen a pick up in rhetoric from the ECB heading into the May 7th decision which has provided conflicting views and led markets to believe that there is division amongst members on the future course of action. Yesterday, Juergen Stark may have cleared up the picture when he stated “we will make a decision about additional non- standard measures, which we will implement when the lower interest-rate limit is reached.” If we examine all the recent rhetoric we come away with a few consistencies in that, many feel that interest rates should not approach zero and that non-standard measure shouldn’t be implemented until the traditional measures have been exhausted. Therefore, we expect the central bank to cut rates by 0.25% next week and leave decisions on quantitative easing efforts until the next meeting as they continue with their measured approach and take stock of past efforts. We could see the Euro find support on such a scenario if the committee signals an end to their accommodative monetary policy. However, if markets believe that the ECB is remaining behind the curve the declining outlook for the region’s economy could lead to euro weakness.
The pound has also seen a reversal of fortunes as it has fallen 100 pips after reaching a two week high of 1.4949. We could be seeing profit taking here as the imminent bankruptcy of Chrysler and the “swine flu” pandemic alert level being raised to the second highest at 5. Regardless, equity markets are still higher on the day ion Europe and U.S> futures are pointing toward a higher open which could continue to provide sterling support. Positive fundamental releases could also add to a bullish case as the Gfk consumer confidence reading rose to -27 which was the highest in a year. Additionally, the 0.4% decrease in the Nationwide house price gauge was les s than forecasts of -1.2% and follows a 0.9% increase the month prior. Stabilization in the housing market will go along way in helping the economy find a bottom which could be a catalyst for increasing support for the pound.
A full economic docket today will provide further insight into the economy and may add to increasing optimism that has been built on the improvements in consumer confidence and personal consumption adding to dollar weakness. However, inline prints of personal income and spending in March which is forecasted to have fallen by 0.2% and 0.1% respectively, would contradict with the 2.2% jump in personal consumption component in the GDP report. Additionally, initial jobless claims are expected to remain at 640,000 as the labor market continues to be negatively impacted by the recession which could weigh on consumer spending going forward, and may extend the current downturn. Conversely, forecasts are for the Chicago PMI reading to improve to 35.0 from 31.4 adding to signs that activity is beginning to pick up as credit markets loosen which could help stem future job losses. This would support the FOMC’s contention that the economy is seeing a slower pace of contraction which led them to refrain from adding additional measures to their current quantitative easing efforts.
Will The EUR/USD Break 1.3000? Join us in Forum
Related Articles:
Dollar Finds Strength in Fed's Outlook, but is it Enough?
To discuss this report contact John Rivera Currency Analyst: jrivera@fxcm.com

Latest Movies of 2009

2009-04-21T21:36:00.000-07:00

Category
Age
Torrent Tags, Name
Size
S
L
Video/Movies
2.7w
+14 27 XMEN.Origins.2009.XviD
1.38 GB
758
684
Video/Movies
5.8d
-1 1 Knowing [2009][DivX][TS]
719.81 MB
4304
99
Video/Movies
3.6d
-2 4 Knowing [Eng 2009 TS]
715.81 MB
4528
128
Video/Movies
2.1w
+15 13 Knowing-2009-ArmyStrong-NOSUBS-April-7-2009.avi
730.25 MB
903
895
Video/Movies
13.1w
+14 13 HorrorAmusement.2009.WS.DvDRip-FxM
700 MB
402
354
Video/Movies
2w
-1 2 Watchmen.2009
671.31 MB
13
1395
Video/Movies
2.9w
0 Watchmen.2009
704.96 MB
6
1180
Apps
32.3w
+9 22 WindowsQuicken Deluxe 2009
71.73 MB
89
2
Video/Movies
2.9d
+1 1 Grey Gardens (2009)
1.04 GB
678
679
Video/Movies
2w
0 UP.(2009)
525.4 MB
12
3
Video/Movies
2.9w
1 Watchmen 2009
671.31 MB
6
7
Video/Movies
2.9w
2 Knowing 2009
707.31 MB
7
7
Video/Movies
1.8w
-1 1 Watchmen.2009
671.31 MB
3
3
Video/Movies
3w
0 Watchmen.2009
704.96 MB
4
1161
Video/Movies
3.6w
1 UP (2009)
525.4 MB
1
9
Video/Movies
4.1w
1 Watchmen 2009
671.31 MB
7
7
Video/Movies
4.4w
0 Doubt.2009
574.04 MB
18
12
Video/Movies
4.4w
0 Push 2009
704.39 MB
6
2
Video/Movies
4.4w
0 Doubt.2009
574.04 MB
0
7
Video/Movies
2.9w
-1 1 Push 2009
704.39 MB
2
3

The Game Plan for Payday Loans

2009-04-20T05:01:00.001-07:00

I don't want to recap the whole concept of "latent semantic indexing' suffice to say that it is a method used by Google to determine relevance. In brief LSI can take your posts and determine what the subject matter is and how much of your post relates to the subject at hand. It also compares each post with your blog as a whole and can tell if the post is relevant to the rest of your site. My apologies if this is overly simplistic but it gets the main point across. This goes to the whole concept of why content is now king and not just backlinks when it comes to getting listed in Google.

To dominate the search engines you have to do four things.

1) Know what your blog is about. What are the handful of words that you can use to describe your blog most accurately? These words are your main keywords.

2) Each and every post that you write must contain some or all of these keywords regardless of the specific topic.

3) Each topic you write about should relate to your blogs overall theme or purpose. Each topic should ideally cover a "long tail" keyword related to your main keywords.

4) Know how to backlink.

I know most of you are aware of these factors but very few bloggers actually follow through on the specifics. If you comb through my blog you will find that just about every post has all my main keywords in it and each topic relates to a long tail.

My method is as simple and formulaic as it gets. Here it is,

My main goal is to rank number 1 on Google for "make money online". If you use a keyword search tool and query this term you will find a huge list of related terms as well. The related terms are my long tails. I target every relevant long tail I can find and try and dominate it in the listings - at least page 1 but ideally top spot. I am now on the first page in the serps for several dozen of these long tails and as each goal has been reached I keep getting closer to the first page of my prime keyword "make money online". I am currently 21 out of 150 million pages. I was 45 two weeks ago. (results will vary depending on your search region)

The point is this, Google also uses it's own results to determine how it ranks your blog. If you rank well for a hundred different but related terms then you will also rank well for the common denominator - the term that they are all related to.

I want to show you an example of this and it happens to be in my own niche.

In most regions a free blogspot blog sits atop the "make money online" search listings. This blog is called moneymakerinfo.blogspot.com and is remarkably only a PR3. How has this blog managed to do this considering most people have never heard of it or know anything about the author Alan Liew. If he is well known I don't see him mentioned much in my travels. You can't get through a day without someone mentioning John Chow or Darren Rowse. So what gives.

The fact is that this blog is ranked on the first page and usually in the top 3 spots for just about every long tail keyword related to making money online. You probably think so what - all the big names are. Well actually they aren't. Problogger and Dosh Dosh do show up fairly frequently in the top listings but that's about it for the A-listers. Carl Ocab's blog does show up everywhere and has gained him a front page listing for the main term.

Targeting one or two keywords may get you results for those keywords but they won't get you listed for related terms. Getting listed for lots of related terms will get you listed for the main term even if you didn't target it. The biggest mistake people make with SEO is to focus almost soley on a few main keywords and neglect the supporting cast. Wait - I know you have heard this before - long tails, long tails, and you are going to tell me you have written lots of posts related to long tails but you still don't rank well. If you have done all these things then all that is missing is knowing how to backlink.

Payday Loans, Adsense and a Money Making Strategy

2009-04-20T05:00:00.000-07:00

When it comes to making money with Adsense I don't tell Google what I'm relevant for in terms of content - I let Google tell me. If this is confusing then hear me out.

A week or two ago I wrote a couple of posts on the topic of payday loans. Now most of you would agree that a make money online blog has little relevance to Payday Loan sites. For the most part, this is true. I am in the midst of an experiment to see if I can't make the two relevant. Why I would want to do this and how it is done is the key for making money with Adsense.

A search engine isn't smart. It simply gathers as much information as it can and then presents it's findings in the order stipulated by the human brains that programmed it. It can't tell you who the greatest author in the English language is but it can tell you who others think the greatest author is. Most people who know what a dangling participle is would say Shakespeare. What does Google say?

Close but no cigar.

If Google was smart it would have got this right and it almost did but the fact that it was wrong highlights the priorities of the programmers and the limitations on how far you can tweak an algorithm.

You can learn much from this query.

Of all the keywords presented it chose "author" as the prime search term. Not "greatest" or "English".

It ranked the sites according to who has the most relevance to "Author" and then by which site has the most authority on the subject.

It chose time.com over the correct answer because it is more relevant to the term "author" and the time article covers authors from 1923 to present. Google defaults to a "most current" status when indexing pages and since I didn't specify "of all time" it decided that a list of authors from 1923 to present would be the more likely choice of what I wanted. Wrong - see it's dumb. You knew that I wanted to know who the all time greatest author was without specifying "all time". In fact "all time" is a given - if I was asking a person this question I would only specify a time period if I didn't want an "all time" answer. A brain can intuit a meaning from an incomplete array of words - a search engine can only sort words and attach a value to each one.

So what happens if I add "of all time" to the query?

The results are now worse as old Willy got knocked down a couple of pegs. Google has now decided that the prime keyword is "All Time Greatest" and presents a list of authors, novels, films and so on. Boy is it stupid.

But... this is good.

If you understand this then you can use it to rank well in the search engines - let me clarify that - you will rank well in Google. When I refer to search engines understand that I am only concerned with Google as that's where the money is.

There is a correlation between high page rankings and Adsense optimization. If you have one you have the other. To put it another way - if your pages are optimized for the best Adsense ads then you are also optimized for high search results and failure to capture them rests with the quality of your backlinks. I mention this for those of you who aren't interested in Adsense but do want to know how to target search engine traffic. For the most part the tweaks used to optimize your blog for Adsense also optimize your blog for the serp's so follow along if you will.

I said earlier that I let Google tell me what I am relevant to. I do this by writing huge rambling posts covering everything I can think of for a topic. In the process I use my prime keyword and as many related terms as I can while still keeping the post readable. Am I stuffing keywords - yes but not in a spammy way and always within limits.

If you go back and read my opening sentence and the first paragraph below it you will find I mention "making money", "Payday Loan" and "Adsense" twice each. I didn't force their use and the writing isn't dismal to read. ( It might be but that is only due to my deficiencies as a writer and not on purpose.)

Moreover I actually used the term "making money with Adsense" twice and I even got my blogs numero uno keyword "make money online" into the mix.

and...

I used all three of todays keywords in my post Title and they will be in the tags (labels on blogger) at the end. I have also just used all the terms again in the preceding paragraph and I will probably fit them in again a few times before I am done with this post.

A human reading this post knows what it is about. Some guy is telling you how to optimize your blog for Adsense and search engine rankings. Google's little bot will know that this post has something to do with Adsense, Payday loans, SEO, Google, relevancy, search engines and a bunch of stuff I haven't thought of. By later today or tomorrow Google will tell me what it thinks this page is relevant to. I'll check my stats and see which keywords are used to bring visitors to my blog. Those keywords are what Google has pegged this page for.

After completing the first two "payday loan" posts I waited for the hit results to start showing up. Using notepad I keep track of what terms are used to find my loan posts. They were all long tail searches which I have listed below;

payday loan industry competition - rank is 20

cashadvancelinkdirectory.com - rank is 3

make money online with payday loans - rank is 4 and 5

make money with payday loans - rank is 3

emergency cash - loan - rank is 110

pay day loan reviews - rank is 16

loan money online - rank is 26

how much does payday loans make - rank is 4

Each term above was used at least twice by searchers and originated from different IP's. Terms that are really obscure are rarely used more than once and I ignore them when making my short list.

This list tells me that Google thinks my post(s) is relevant to these terms or it wouldn't have listed me for them. It only lists my post pages and not my home page. This tells me that Google hasn't listed my blog as relevant (or it has and it is so far down in the serps that I won't see it.) just a couple of pages are and only for some minor long tails. The one exception is the term "Emergency Cash Loans" which is one of the money making prime keywords related to Payday Loans. This is good as it gives me something to work with and serves as a barometer for how well I succeed. I will work at getting on page 1 from a starting position of page 11. As I see movement downward I will know my strategies are working.

2009-04-20T04:59:00.003-07:00

You will also notice that I went from a rank of over 200 for Payday Loans and I have climbed 49 spots in a few days without doing anything more than using the term in my post titles and content - a practice I am repeating in this post. I have not chased down any backlinks yet.

This increase in ranking tells me that I should have a legitimate shot at success.

You will also notice that I am slowly getting more traffic for more terms. This is directly related to the fact that as Google accepts your relevancy for one term it in effect boosts your relevancy for all the nearest related terms which in turn means ranking for more terms. It becomes a snowball rolling down hill. The more terms you rank for - the more terms you will get to rank for.

I said the chart was helpful for tracking my rankings and it is but the real story is that it shows me exactly how Google has me pigeon holed at the minute. If you look at the terms I have been ranked for you will notice 3 distinct levels of relevancy.

The terms that Google has ranked me high for are all quite relevant to my blog. I am telling people how to market and make money off of payday loans or at least the term.

The terms Google has ranked me 2 - 4 pages deep are terms that Google hasn't quite decided if I am totally relevant for yet. And they are right. I have used the term "Payday Loan Review" in my posts but I haven't really done a review of any payday loan companies or systems. I shouldn't rank on the front page for this and Google is able to figure this out. The algorithm is really quite amazing in a lot of ways.

Google is also accurate about the terms in which I rank out in the netherworld - "emergency cash loan", "I need a loan to make money" and "payday loans". I don't give out loans and Google knows it. My task will be to convince Google to put me on the front page for my term in spite of this. I will have to convince Google that a review or informational post deserves top billing along with the actual payday loan companies.

A note about Red Flag Keywords

I mentioned earlier that I would normally start a new blog if I wanted to target a new niche or keyword not related to any of my existing sites. If you are following along then I suggest you start a new blog and target a niche of your choice. The main reason I am experimenting with this niche on this blog is because it is increasingly difficult to target Red Flag keywords on sites devoted to the terms. If you want to target legal/law related keywords you had better be a law office. If you go after mortgage and loan traffic then you had better be a financial institution. If it's insurance related then you had better be selling insurance. If you can't show instant relevancy to Google then you won't get out of the water.

If you are picking a niche please stay away from all the spam keywords. Not because I don't want the competition but because you need to learn how to do this with a niche you can dominate before tackling one that I know will lead most of you to failure. I have no assurance that I will succeed so don't waste your time on keywords that will be almost impossible to succeed with. This doesn't mean you shouldn't go after highly competitive keywords - I always do as that is where the money is. Competition doesn't scare me and if you take my advice to heart and do what I do it won't scare you either. The more competitive the keyword the better just stay away from the spam keywords - you don't want to lose your Adsense account.

To reinforce this point I want to show you something which will also explain why I am going slow in my campaign for Payday Loans.

The moment you get involved with spam keywords you attract all the spammers. I mentioned in a recent post that one of the current methods that spammers are using to game Google is to scrape content off of legitimate sites and post links back to the source - they do this in order to get a trackback link returned to them. They are taking advantage of the fact that most bogs have yet to add the no-follow to trackbacks. In effect they are stealing PR from high ranking blogs.

No sooner did I post my first article on Payday Loans than I started receiving links from spammers. To date I have had 28 links to my first post. See the screenshot below.

2009-04-20T04:59:00.001-07:00

Most of these terms will never bring me much traffic but that's not what I am after. I simply want to make my site relevant for Payday loans in general and I do this by adding as much relevant content as possible. Normally I would be doing this on a blog set up for the target and would be posting lengthy articles covering every aspect of loans that I could think of. Because I am trying to incorporate payday loan relevancy into an existing non-related blog I will have to move slower and I do this by simply building up long tail phrases over a longer period of time.

The chart above is important not so much for showing me my rankings but for showing me how Google is ranking me. I will explain the difference in a minute but first the initial chart readings.

The first thing to notice is that I am not ranked at all for "Loans" and "Cash Loans Online". I added these to the list as one is the parent keyword of my prime keyword - "Loans" and the other is a highly searched related term - "Cash Loans Online". If I succeed with payday loans then I should begin to rank for these two terms as well and they will be future targets if I do. Just planning ahead.

The next thing of interest is that I am being ranked for my prime keyword - "Payday Loans". This is good news so soon in my quest. It tells me that Google has accepted my blog as being at least somewhat relevant to the term. Keep in mind that the keyword I have chosen is commonly referred to as one of the red flag keywords - terms that set off spam filters far and wide. It is a high paying adsense keyword and as such it attracts spammers trying to cash in on it. Usually Google will flag you instantly and never index your posts if it suspects that you are a spam site. Google has decided that I am not and I now have a huge lead on the spammers.

Payday Loans - Adsense Update

2009-04-20T04:58:00.001-07:00

If you are just joining me I have been demonstrating how to optimize blogs for certain keywords in order to drive search engine traffic. I use this type of traffic primarily for adsense revenue but my techniques will also work if you are selling affiliate products or advertising on your pages. The goal is to target the type of traffic that will respond to what you offer on your page.

I have chosen the term Payday Loans for a number of reasons.

It is a heavily searched term in the search engines which means that it could be profitable using Adsense or by selling ad space to payday loan companies who want to take advantage of the targeted traffic.

It is also a term that is not particularly relevant to my blog and while this is a no no in as far as Adsense is concerned I am experimenting to see if I can successfully pull off introducing an off topic niche into this blog. It may not work but if it does then the field is wide open for future keyword cherry picking.

Lastly it allows me to show my readers the step by step process I use to make money with my blogs. If you want to catch up you can read my previous posts on this topic;

Payday Loans

Payday Loans Review

Make Money with Payday Loans

Several readers have asked me about other marketer's techniques and I want to set something straight at the outset. My way of doing things is not the only way - there are other SEO methods out there and lot's of ebooks regarding Adsense. I am a trial and error type of person and while I have read other methods I find that most aren't kept up to date and in large part concentrate on short cuts. Short cuts are fine for short term projects and I will discuss this type of marketing in the future but for now I am interested in showing you how to create a steady long term income that works in the current search engine climate. Because I am always experimenting I find that my methods are always being tweaked and updated which keeps my blogs moving in the right direction without fear of running afoul of Google. Having said that, this current experiment could get me into trouble but I am a firm believer in taking things slow and being cautious - which is what todays post is about.

Knowing how to plan ahead and gauge your progress.

I'm just guessing but I bet 90% of all the blogs on the net are unplanned "off the top of the head" creations.

Most are not focused on any defined goal. The URL has nothing to do with the content, the blog title is usually a name or a general phrase ie. "My Lonely Life" and it has nothing to do with the content either. The content changes day to day and covers topics from one end of the spectrum to the other. The post titles don't reflect the post content and the content itself is not optimized for any particular keyword or topic. Did I miss anything?

I am aware that a lot of bloggers - certainly the majority are busy creating content that they think will interest people and they use lot's of snappy titles and tricks to lure traffic to the site - the Web 2.0 crowd. This has become the new dominant blogging scene and it is all geared to drawing traffic from the social networks in order to eventually become an A - Lister. Every day I read blogs that talk about which is better; Stumble Upon or Digg. Every day someone has a new way to gather hordes of traffic using these sites. When I read these blogs I always wait for someone to ask one important question. "What did you do with all that traffic?"

Appealing to the stumblers and diggers it seems most bloggers don't realize that they are only after traffic for traffic's sake. They don't have a plan on what to do with the visitors they do get. Visitors who usually just click in, click out and are never seen again. The general theory seems to be that this will lead to becoming recognized which in turn will lead to becoming an A-Lister. Why do they want to be an A-lister? I presume they think this will make them a lot of money or maybe they just want to be an A-lister for the sake of being an A-lister. If I had to guess I would say that most bloggers have at least considered the possibility of making money with their blog and true bloggers blogging only for the fun of it are a minority.

Here is the million dollar question - has anyone become an A-lister just from social traffic? All the ones I know of draw most of their traffic from search engines or at least they did until achieving enough notoriety to attract social traffic. What's more, they still need search engine traffic to make money from their sites. Someone has to click the ads they sell or no one will buy ads. Social network users don't click the ads - when was the last time you bought something on one of the A-listers sites? Did you even click an ad?

The point I am making is simple and all the Google haters out there will have to realize this sooner or later - you will not be successful online either as a marketer or as an A-lister without Google's traffic. Period.

If you know of anybody that makes money online who doesn't rely on search engine traffic to do it - please let me know.

I am not trying to dash your A-List dreams, just trying to outline the basic concepts of SEO that you can and should incorporate into your blog. To this end I have been explaining how to target the term "Payday Loan" using, so far, the most basic techniques that all optimized pages must have to rank well in the serp's.

These are;

Select a prime keyword or phrase as your ultimate target. Use that phrase or keyword in every post title that you can. Use it 2 to 3 times per hundred words of content. Always highlight it in the first paragraph a few times. Use it in the last paragraph as well.

Select a list of long tail keywords (related terms and phrases of the prime keyword) and use these terms liberally in your content.

Target each new post to a long tail and work at raising these related keywords towards the top of the serp's first. The more related keywords you target the higher your prime keyword will rank.

Use keywords and only keywords in your tags - prime and long tails.

This is basic SEO and has the effect of telling Google exactly what your pages are about.

Once you have posted your articles pay attention to your stats - specifically tracking the keywords people use to find your site. Keep a list of these keywords and use them in future posts or even go back and include them in prior ones. This will increase your index ranking for each of the terms.

This has confused a few people so I will show you what I am talking about using my Payday Loan posts.

The first Payday Loan post was a fishing expedition. I wrote a long rambling post that used all the main keywords for my target. I then sat back and waited for the first visitor to find my site using a payday loan related keyword. It wasn't long before Google sent me someone who had typed in the term "cashadvancelinkdirectory.com" and I quickly checked Google to find where I ranked for this term. It was 3 and still is. As each day passed a few more visitors showed up and I noted the keywords used and the ranking of each. I then wrote a new post and included all of the terms Google had sent me traffic for. The point of doing this is to reinforce those terms as relevant to my site and as this relevancy increases Google sends me even more long tail relevant keywords. Slowly and steadily I will incorporate all of the newest terms into my posts as well which will lead to getting more terms and so on...

This is the initial list of related keywords for Payday Loan that visitors had entered into Google's search box and where my blog ranked for each term in the result's pages.

payday loan industry competition - rank was 20

cashadvancelinkdirectory.com - rank was 3

make money online with payday loans - rank was 4 and 5

make money with payday loans - rank was 3

emergency cash - loan - rank was 110

pay day loan reviews - rank was 16

loan money online - rank was 26

how much does payday loans make - rank was 4

Since then I have added the following;

payday loan traffic ranked 8

payday loans + marketing ranked 17

marketing for payday loans ranked 5

make money payday loans ranked 5

i need a loan to make money ranked 10

how to make money with payday loans ranked 4 (first Yahoo visitor)

how to create your own online payday loan business ranked 2

keyword ideas payday loan ranked 1

reviews on payday day loans ranked 26

I have since entered all these terms into SEO Elite in order to track the rankings. In the chart below you can see each term and how the rankings move - up or down according to Google. (Click image to enlarge)

2009-04-20T04:57:00.003-07:00

In essence I know exactly who my visitors are and what they are looking for - and so does Google.

Because I have optimized all my posts for specific keywords Google sends me highly targeted traffic and then puts highly targeted (the best converting) ads on my blog for the visitors to click on. I am not smart priced and get the better paying clicks. This is the reason that page optimization is so important - your content and how you optimize it determines how targeted your traffic is. If you can't provide targeted traffic then you can't make money either with Adsense or with Affiliate sales. Selling ads is also hard if your traffic while large, is diffuse. To make money online you have to provide the people paying you what they want - converting traffic.

To summarize the "Payday Loan" campaign I have been tracking my index rankings for all the keywords I have collected and have made good progress in climbing the serp's but my main keyword has stalled out at a rank of 36. This appears to be as high as content and my PR5 can take me. From here on in I will be adding backlinks with highly targeted anchor text to boost my rankings.

It is at this point that many of you can't do what I do. I have access to a lot of sites that I can use to link to my pages. If you are just starting out then you will find getting backlinks more of a challenge and you won't have enough PR to target the competitive niches. This is why I have recommended starting out by targeting niches that you can overcome with content and a few backlinks that you can get using articles and services like Yahoo Answers and Squidoo. As your PR and content increases you will be able to target better keywords and build a successful Adsense site over time.

At some point you will be faced with the "ethical" dilemma of whether you should or would cheat. By cheating I am referring to the practice of buying links. I am not advocating anything but I will tell you that every successful niche marketer buys links - they have to. If you want to make any serious money online then you will be faced with this decision at some point. Just thought I would mention it now.

Before I leave you I want to address an comment I received recently. The writer mentioned that she had read that it wasn't a good idea to rely on Adsense for all your income online as Google can take it all away in an instant. This is true and I should mention that this is not the only way I earn an income online - it is just one of the ways. I have found that some niches are ideal for Adsense and others are better suited to affiliate sales. Lead generation has become my main focus lately and I have found learning how to make money with Adsense is a great way to hone the skills needed in generating leads. At the moment lead generation is dominated by the Black Hatters and you may find the article below illuminating if you are wondering just how far you can take a niche like "Payday Loans" and make money from it.

This article will give you a good idea of the kinds of people you are competing with online and the tactics experienced marketers use to make money. I have not used hypertext as I don't want to link to this site - black hats don't make good link partners.

http://oooff.com/php-affiliate-seo-blog/affiliate-marketing/
making-big-easy-money-with-google-local-search/

(I have broken the URL to fit the page - cut and paste both lines as one long URL)

Thanks to Paul for bringing this article to my attention unfortunately he didn't leave a link. The only thing missing in the article is how the lead generation sites managed to rank high for the Payday Loan terms they targeted. The answer is using the same optimization techniques that are used for Adsense.

Now that I know there are profitable clicks in this niche I will continue to add links over time - slowly - and work my way up the "Payday Loan" serp pages. I am already adding income to my bottom line and I'm not even ranking that well yet. I will update you when I get enough payday loan traffic to have a significant effect on my daily bottom line. At the moment my daily earnings on this blog fluctuate between $10 and $15 - when I start seeing higher earnings I will know that the payday loan clicks have started to accumulate.

Cheers,

Grizzly

Update Below

Follow along with me step by step as I show you how I pick a target and then optimize my blog in order to make money with Adsense.

I outline my "Payday Loans" experiment in sequential order below.

Payday Loans

Payday Loans Review

Payday Loans and Adsense

Payday Loans - Adsense Update

Payday Loans Update

2009-04-20T04:57:00.001-07:00

Now it is possible that the targeted traffic didn't click the ads and someone else did but not likely. To get better paying clicks you have to meet a few Google guidlines which are best understood by explaining how Adwords works.

An advertiser using Adwords allows Google to manage what sites it displays the advertisers ads on. An advertiser wants conversions and doesn't want an ad appearing and getting clicked on a bunch of sites that aren't likely to convert. To increase the advertisers ROI Google instituted smart pricing which basically states that they will charge less for clicks that are less likely to convert and more for highly targeted clicks.

A crude and simplified example of how this works.

If someone queries Google and finds my site using the term "make money online" and then clicks a Payday Loan ad, is this targeted? From Googles point of view this click would be considered less likely to convert as there is no connection between what the visitor was searching for and what they chose. In short if one of my "make money" searchers had clicked the payday loan ad I wouldn't have received the high payouts. Conversely you can see direct relevancy and how a searcher looking for "payday loans" would be more likely to convert for the advertiser. In this case Google charges the advertiser full price and I get top CPC by providing a highly targeted visitor to the advertisers site.

If this is confusing just think in terms of a relevancy trail. If everything is relevant then you get paid more and if you have people dropping in from stumbleupon and clicking the odd ad you will get paid pennies because that type of traffic is not targeted and is not relevant to the ads clicked. Large amounts of social traffic also bugger up your CTR and invariably if you draw social traffic you will be "smart priced" by Google and only paid pennies for all the Adsense ads. This is the reason most web 2.0 or A-List style blogs don't make any money with Adsense - they don't draw the right type of traffic and draw lots of the wrong type of traffic (from a money making standpoint only).

To make money with Adsense you only want large amounts of "targeted" traffic and basically nothing else.

The shot below lists the latest keywords or queries used to find my blog on the search engines. 90% of my total traffic comes from Google and these are the typical terms used to find me.

Payday Loans Update

2009-04-20T04:56:00.000-07:00

How to Make Money Using Targeted Traffic - Payday Loans

I have been targeting the term Payday Loans for the past few weeks. If you are just joining me you can catch up by reading the "Adsense lessons" posted in my sidebar. The purpose of this experiment is to make page one on Google's index results for the keyword "Payday Loans". This is a high paying keyword for Adwords users and as an Adsense publisher I want to attract people who will click the Adsense ads.

I started out with a single optimized post and then sat back and waited for visitors to show up. I collected the keywords used by each visitor and then added these terms to updated posts. Since the last post I have collected several more terms listed below with search engine rank after the term;

payday loans work from home 10

payday loan business opportunity 38

how payday companies loans work? 4

payday loan no need to work 4

roi payday loans 15

payday loans seo 6

how does pay day loans work 6

payday loan content 10

payday loans (AOL) 84

make money payday loan 2 and 3

tips for marketing loan companies 13

payday loans canada 41

no faxing payday loan 22

does google loan money 10

make money online selling insurance 1

~no faxing payday loan 20

links+payday loans 10

I have now added more related keywords to the ever growing list of "Long Tails" that searchers have used to find my blog on Google. I have gone from 1-2 visitors a day in the beginning to 10-15 a day presently. Not large numbers but enough to confirm whether this campaign is worth pursuing. I have been able to confirm a few clicks from the "Payday Loan" crowd and was pleased with the results.

I won't go into all the gymnastics of figuring out what page my ads were clicked on (I don't use Google Analytics - another story) but I will say that you can never be sure exactly which ad has been clicked so the best you can do is ad up the circumstantial evidence and make an educated guess. I happened to be up on two occasions when Google rolled past the witching hour and I was able to isolate the stats on my first clicks of the new day.

The screenshots below told me that someone had clicked a $0.95 ad. I was able to track down both clicks shown to my Payday Loan page which displayed Loan ads in the sidebar Adsense block and regular "Make Money" ads in the Lead or Top block. The "Make Money Online" ads typically pay $0.30 - $0.40 per click but have fetched over a dollar at times. Using my statcounter stats I was able to determine that I had a visitor to my payday loan page at the time the click occurred and coupled with smart pricing guidelines I am pretty sure that the click came from the targeted traffic.

(Click images to enlarge)

This is the query used to find my payday loan page.

This is the $0.95 click recorded on my Adsense account.

These are the ads I was displaying on my page at the time.

On a second occasion I matched this query...

... with this result. A $1.80 click. Bingo! - this is definitely worth pursuing.

2009-04-20T04:55:00.000-07:00

There are a couple of things I want to point out as you look at these and the following screenshots. A week ago there were about 170 million competing sites in Google's index. Today there are only about a 10th of this amount.

Google has just quietly cleaned house once again and eliminated millions of sites that are deemed irrelevant. Not just in this niche either - I have noticed this across all my niches. While this will have little effect on most of you, I point it out for interest sake as it is just one more step Google has taken recently to clean up its rankings. For those of us making money online this just means less competition and that's always welcome.

The other thing you should notice is the frequency of Blogspot.com blogs listed on the top search pages. People love bashing Blogger for all sorts of reasons but primarily because it doesn't look as professional or as nice as a self hosted wordpress blog or it is limited in many ways that wordpress blogs aren't. This is all true but when it comes to making money online all those nice looking Web 2.0 blogs aren't in the same ballpark.

Making money online and producing a reader friendly A-list style blog are not the same thing. Every time I hear a Web 2.0 blogger put down Blogger I cringe. People who haven't made a dime online are busy telling other people who haven't made a dime how to make money online by creating fancy looking social network friendly blogs. That is not how you make money online - that is how you try and make a name for yourself. Making a name doesn't mean you make any money. Ranking on top of the search pages does.

Keyword: "how to earn money online"

3 Blogspot blogs in top 10

Keyword: "how to make money"

3 Blogspot blogs in top 10

Keyword: "how to make money online"

4 Blogspot blogs in top 10

Keyword: "making money online"

2 Blogspot blogs in top 10

(BTW - how many A-List blogs did you see in the top ten?)

And...

What has making the first page meant in terms of earnings? Until last Saturday I was receiving 10-20 visitors a day each from Google for most of these terms. I was on page 2. Since Sunday I have seen up to 10 times the traffic for some of these keywords.

See my Feedburner search engine keyword stats up until mid afternoon today.

What's in a Keyword?

2009-04-20T04:54:00.000-07:00

If you are a first time visitor you probably won't even read this - what on Earth would a cheesy looking blog like this know about making money online. Most first timers take a quick look and then hit the back button and are gone. A percentage leave by clicking a link somewhere on the page. If you are still reading this then chances are you are one of my readers that has got past the cheese and knows that I actually have real content on these pages - the vast majority of it really does explain how I make money with this free no frills Blogspot blog.

In a nutshell I make money with this blog by explaining the SEO techniques I use to target terms like "make money online". I make money by simply ranking high in the serps for terms related to making money. That's it. I don't even need a single person to read a single word of a single post on this blog and I still make money. Good money too.

This blog will be a year old on December 23.

I have spent the past year writing posts that optimize various keywords that I have chosen based on the amount of traffic those keywords generate on the search engines. I built this blog without ever expecting or caring if I ever had a real audience of readers. My goal was simple - generate large amounts of search engine traffic and convert that traffic into Adsense clicks and affiliate sales.

I have had to modify my tactics somewhat from my initial plan due to the fact that I seem to have built up a small but growing readership and in deference to them I have had to shelve my affiliate sales pitches - you won't appreciate me hawking products designed to entice the unwary blogging newcomer. I haven't totally given up on this revenue stream yet it's just I haven't figured out a "Reader Alert" system to warn my regular readers when they should simply ignore a post logged for the purpose of affiliate sales. I will work it back into the mix at some point as there is just too much money sitting on the table with affiliate sales for me to ignore. I know because the first six months I made a decent buck from affiliate sales by optimizing this blog for those types of keywords.

The loss of affiliate sales has been mediated by the sharp increase in Adsense revenue as my main keywords have slowly climbed Google's search engine rankings.

For all of you that think Adsense is crap and doesn't pay much I have news for you... it is still the single easiest and best source of long term income online. If you haven't made money from Adsense it's because you don't know how - not because it doesn't work.

I now rank in the top 1-2 pages on Google for all the main "Make Money" keywords. This past week I finally hit page 1 for several highly searched terms and before I show you what this has meant I want to show you a few of those rankings.

I have yet to reach page 1 for my Prime keyword - "make money online" - but I am on page 2 of Google.com (The US region)
(click images to enlarge)

I have however hit page 1 for "make money online" in most of the smaller Google regions like this serp from a query originating in the Netherlands.

American Idol

2009-04-20T02:24:00.000-07:00

When I created the blogs I did not ad any form of monetization to them. Wait until you are indexed before doing this. Once the traffic started showing up I added Adsense to the Asia'h blog. Needless to say - the Adsense bot gave me nothing but crap as the blog was optimized for Asia'h Epperson only and there are no ads tailored to such a term. No problem. I then went back and edited the original blog and posts. I added a number of keywords for the benefit of the Adsense bot in order for it to give me ads that I know will produce clicks. I added terms like "American Idol", Models", "photos", "Celebrity Gossip" and so on. These terms do have existing ads and by using the keywords in the Blog description and in the posts I was able to get Google to send me the right kind of ads. This can be done with any site at any time. If your Adsense ads suck on your pages just keep re-editing using various terms until you get the ads that produce. (Remember that all of you who get crappy paying ads.)

Note: I am still getting some crappy ads mixed in with the good ads and this is simply because I have yet to add enough content to the site to satisfy the Adsense bot - it is still not exactly positive as to what the site is about. I have not yet monetized the Amy Davis site but will later today.

I always start out with Adsense but will add other monetization as things progress - I need to get a feel for who the searchers are and what they are looking for first.

You will notice in the traffic stats that there were far more searches done on the two days following the airing of last weeks American Idol. You may not think that the little traffic I received means much but I am very optimistic. Asia'h has only received about 5 minutes of air time so far on the show - basically her interview regarding her dad's death and her short audition song. We have not seen her sing anything else. Amy Davis has had no air time at all yet save for a two second clip naming her as a top 24 finalist. Given this lack of exposure I am quite impressed with the number of searches I have seen so far. I assure you that after the shows air this week I will see a surge in visitors. I will of course let you know how that turns out.

Ok - that's enough for today. If you have questions fire away and remember there are 24 contestants at the moment that can be targeted as well as the show "American Idol" itself.

ps.For those waiting for my post on Adsense tips I will be doing it soon but note that I just gave you a few above.

Amy Davis' Traffic Stats.

2009-04-20T02:22:00.000-07:00

The traffic shown in the chart above is almost all referral traffic from other sites. Google only began sending search traffic two days ago. The stats below outline the keyword traffic from Google and the Referral traffic.

Google Traffic for Amy Davis Below - notice the keywords used to find the blog.

Referral Traffic for Amy Davis Below - notice that Technorati has been sending traffic. I have received as much traffic from Technorati in past years as Google. (Note: Blogger Labels are Technorati Tags - Wordpress Tags also serve as Technorati Tags.)

A few pointers before I discuss monetization.

Below is a screenshot of the Technorati account I set up for Asia'h. You will notice that I currently have 8 backlinks pointing at the new blog. This is how to get indexed. Do not submit your blogs to Google - you will sit in limbo for ages. The best way to get indexed quickly is to point some links to your new site from an established site that Google crawls regularly. Note: Technorati only lists links from blogs - not websites. I have more links that aren't shown here. One comes from a Radio station website in Asia'h's hometown of Joplin MO. They incorrectly linked to my blog thinking it is Asia'h's own blog - hehe - how did they get that idea? (See screenshot below Technorati listing)

Of these 8 links on Technorati I am responsible for 7 of them and my new friend Christopher Hedges was kind enough to provide the last one. As a reward for a job well done I will give him a link back using another American Idol finalist that he is targeting - Joanne Borgella.

If you are interested all the Technorati links are from PR3 and PR4 sites and they all use the keyword "Asia'h Epperson" (the links are in bold on Technorati) in the anchor text of the link. This is imortant as that is the term I want to rank well in the serp's. Should I drop in rankings I will muster up some more links like these and also target some of the other keywords that have shown up in the searches. Most notably "Asia'h Epperson Photo Gallery", "Asia'h Epperson Photos", "Asia Epperson Pics" etc. As I said - past experience has told me that these will be the terms most of the teenage boys will be looking for.

Asia'H Epperson Ranks 6th on Yahoo

2009-04-20T02:21:00.000-07:00

Asia Epperson Ranks 5th in Google. (Notice the misspelled Asia - there will be lot's of searches with her name spelled incorrectly so it doesn't hurt to rank for it as well.)

Now the Amy Davis blog stats shown below tell a different story. It did not get indexed by Google until Feb 16 at 9:57 am. Yahoo has not sent any traffic so it either hasn't indexed it or it's so far back that nobody has found it yet. I don't care about Yahoo so I won't pursue ranking on it. (Requires Meta Tags and a few other tweaks but doing so can have an adverse effect on Google rankings - Google will send far more traffic so I will stick with them.)

Asia'h Epperson

2009-04-20T02:17:00.000-07:00

Make Money with American Idol - Part Two

Last week I started rolling out my Celebrity blogs for another season of American Idol. I also created several new blogs optimized for the final 24 contestants to make it through the Hollywood auditions. I showed you two of these blogs - Asia'h Epperson and Amy Davis so that you could see exactly how I set them up and now I want to show you what has happened since then.

I am trying to teach my readers how to properly optimize their blogs for the search engines in order to obtain traffic and then how to monetize the site once the traffic begins showing up. These two new blogs are meant to be short term money makers but could be long term if I chose to make them that way. I haven't as I simply want to cash in on the burst traffic that American Idol produces each season. The only real difference between short term and long term is that I would hold off monetizing a long term blog until it was firmly established on Google and the content on these short term sites can best be described as crap. A long term blog requires good original content with the hopes of becoming an authority blog in the niche selected.

It has been a week since I created the Asia'h Epperson and Amy Davis blogs.

The screenshots below tell the tale of what has happened as far as traffic to them is concerned. (Click on all images to enlarge them)

This screenshot (above) lists a number of my blogs in my statcounter account. The highlighted blogs show that Asia'h has received 786 page views since last week and Amy Davis has received 231 page views. I left in a few of last years Antonella Barba blogs so you could see that even they are starting to get a dribble of traffic again since American Idol is back on air. I have blacked out several sites that I am working again this year but you can see the kind of traffic that can be had from this. Antonella Ipod Photos? What's that about? I was using Antonella to draw traffic for iPod sales as well as dozens of other products and of course Adsense.

I have mentioned in the past that I create dozens of blogs for this niche and combined they can make a lot of money in a short period of time.

Now let's take a closer look at the kind of traffic Asia'h and Amy have been getting since last week.

The stats above show Asia'h Epperson's traffic. The table below shows what search queries were used on the search engines to find the blog. I should point out that Yahoo indexed me immediately and most of the traffic you see came from Yahoo. Google did not index me until yesterday - at 8:45 in the morning to be precise. The statcounter page below tells me this and it also shows me what search terms (keywords) are being used to find the blog. This is important as it tells me what terms I should be optimizing my future posts for in order to rank high in the serp's. Past experience has told me that the bulk of my visitors are going to be teenage boys - and what are teenage boys interested in... Photos! If I showed you all the keyword stats you would see that most of the keyword searches have contained the Idol's name along with "Pics", "Photos", "Gallery", "Myspace", "Joplin MO", "Father Killed", American Idol" and so on. I have of course sprinkled these terms in my posts which has led me to rank well for them.

Note: I have mentioned writing long rambling posts full of related keywords and this is the reason why. If you only concentrate on one or two keywords in each post you will only get traffic for those terms. The more keywords you sprinkle your posts with the more stuff you have to get indexed with.

Keyword Traffic for Asia'h Epperson

Referral Traffic for Asia'h Epperson

Asia'H Epperson Ranks 6th on Yahoo

What can be learned from these stats?

2009-04-20T02:14:00.001-07:00

I haven't created blogs for all 24 contestants but I have targeted them all one way or another with either new blogs or using some of my older existing blogs that cater to this niche. The results vary from decent to crappy at this stage of the competition and the two blogs I have shown you fall into the "just alright" and "crappy" categories.

The Asia'h blog had an okay bump after the show and is still getting traffic today - not huge traffic but enough to work with as far as monetization goes. The Amy Davis blog isn't getting much for traffic at all and hasn't generated a single click yet.

Using all of my sites as a barometer, Asia'h is the fifth most popular Idol. Amy sits near the bottom of the pack along with, Joanne Borgella, Garrett Haley, Colton Berry and Chikezie Eze.

Note: I wrote everything above before the elimination last night - I didn't finish the post as I figured I would wait and see who got sent home. Needless to say, I wasn't surprised to see who was eliminated - 4 of the 5 with the worst search results.

It's now Friday morning and you can see that Asia'h is still pulling in a steady stream of visitors.

There is a slight problem with the Asia'h blog though - in spite of the traffic I have only received 2 clicks since Thursday morning. The reason has to do with her name. The Adsense bot keeps changing the ads on the blog - one minute I get related American Idol ads and the next I get ads for everything from Asian Airlines to a fertilizer spreader. My attempts to fix this have been stymied and here s why..

A Tale of Two Bots

The main Google Bot is responsible for catagorizing my blog and ranking it in the serp's. I have targeted the keyword "Asia'h Epperson" and the bot has me ranking number two in the serp's for this term. see below...

This is good as the only site that outranks me is American Idol's own website. The problem is that to achieve this I have had to use Asia'h's name in all the prominent locations - URL, page title, post titles, H tags etc. The downside is that the Adsense bot uses these same markers to determine the ads it gives me and because her name is Asia'h the bot keeps thinking that it must be a misspelling of the largest landmass on Earth and I keep getting "Asia" related ads. To fix this I need to change all the markers to "American Idol" keywords but by doing so I risk losing my position with the main Google bot. If I eliminate the keyword "Asia'h" I will get relevant ads for the show but I may lose my ranking for "Asia'h" in the process - most annoying.

Another problem is that the people searching for Asia'h aren't looking for "Photos", "Pics" or "Celebrity" stuff in their keywords - notice the terms people used to find Amy Davis - few though they were I could zone in on what they were after just by looking at the search query keywords they used. In Asia'h's case the people are simply looking for general info as they are only using her name in the searches. This makes it hard to monetize the site - if people are looking for something in particular you can optimize your content to get the Adsense Bot to give you ads related to it.

The most popular contestant is a guy - and the people searching for him are quite interested in his "photos", "does he have a girl friend", his "birthday", his "myspace page" etc. The point being you can learn a lot by what keywords are used to find your site and then optimize your monetization accordingly. I have no doubt that the people searching for the "GUY" are a young girls - my own 6 year old daughter has mentioned how "cute" he is several times... lol. I know this contestants audience and need to find ads that young girls will click on - something I readily admit I have had problems with in the past. If any of my female readers can suggest what 12 year old girls would be interested in please let me know. I am after all just a "Guy" and am clueless to the inner workings of half the planets population in spite of living with three of them...

Ok, some quick pointers.

All my sites combined have produced just over $100 in Adsense revenue in the last two days - Asia'h's blog started out well but has crashed and burned re: Adsense as mentioned above. None of the contestants are pulling in great numbers - nothing even close to what Antonella Barba, Kelly Pickler, Sanjiya Malakar or Chris Daughtry did in past years but the season is still young and anything can happen.

I have received approx. 6500 visitors in two days to all my "American Idol" related sites. $100 sucks for this amount of traffic. My Kelly Pickler site still makes $20 - $30 a day and it only gets about 200 visitors daily.

So far I have shown you how to get quick, free traffic from Google. The Asia'h blog is not making money yet although it does point out the advantage of using Blogger - I spent maybe an hour total creating it and adding content - it was free - it allowed me to get the perfect URL asiahepperson.blogspot dot com - it has made $26 for the effort and I have 600 or so people visiting it all in 12 days. How many of your 12 day old sites have 600 visitors - remember I have not submitted this to any social networks. 80% of the visitors are from search engines - 20% are from other sites linking in.

BTW - I have mentioned the importance of trying to get the perfect URL in the past. Aside from it helping you get Top Spot in the serp's when all other factor's are equal between two sites, it also has some "Link Capturing" benefits. In this case my URL has led people to assume the site is either Asia'h's own blog or that it is an official fan blog. Check out this radio station - http://www.kissin925.com/pages/694105.php Kissin925 dot com - website (I don't want tolink to it or the jig will be up if they read this) or better yet the LA Times Link to my Blog Pretty cool I think for a free, 12 day old blog. Okay - that sounds like braggin' - I'm not, pure horseshit luck is all but still pretty cool. Oh - having a link optimized for my keyword from the LA Times does wonders for my keyword authority - did you notice I now outrank youtube dot com in the search listings? I was ranked just below them until the LA Times link. Pretty damn cool...

Note: I hope you are getting my point with these lessons. Everything I have shown you with this short term blog can be done in any niche with any blog at any time. If any of you doubt my system of making money online just think of what I have just done with this 12 day old blog - I can't fake the results - you can check the serp's yourselves. I have a handful of links, how many does youtube have? It all comes down to SEO. I outrank youtube because I have the most keyword authority - not PR - not quality content - not because my blog is prettier or is reader friendly - or is popular with Digg and the social crowd. I attack every niche the same as this but in the case of long term blogs I write much better content.

This post will be enormous if I don't stop now. I will pick up with Adsense and other ways to monetize these blogs in the next post. What I have to show you won't just apply to these kinds of blogs but for everyone that has a niche blog already set up. In fact a friend has a blog that is in the "entertainment" niche like American Idol and since he has asked me what I would do with his site to make money I thought I would use it as an example. You can see Mike's new blog "PoP Critics" or "A Mike Life" - a Movie Review blog by clicking the link. I will show you what I would do with his sites and how to turn a buck on the traffic I am getting from Asia'h's blog.

American Idol - The Aftermath

2009-04-20T02:13:00.001-07:00

If you have just joined us I have been demonstrating how you can take a brand new blogspot blog and make money quickly by creating short term niche blogs. You can catch up by reading American Idol - Season Seven and Asia'h Epperson. Todays post will look at the results of the two blogs I have used to demonstrate my techniques as well as discuss some more adsense tips in relation to these sites.

The two blogs are Asia'h Epperson and Amy Davis.

The 12 women finalists appeared wednesday night so let's take a look at the traffic stats for our two examples and see how they faired after the show.

Asia'h Epperson

Adsense Earnings

Amy Davis

2009-04-20T02:12:00.003-07:00

Note: I didn't buy Joel Comm's Adsense Secrets book but I did check out some of his blogs that have Adsense on them. I don't know what his book is about but it only took a few minutes to realize that his sites were poorly optimized and smart priced so I assume if he makes money with Adsense then he is a practitioner of quantity over quality. His sites had little content - lots of Adsense (typical made for adsense sites) and the blocks were showing ads for Bowel Cleanser and Family Vacations in the same ad block. (A sure sign of smart pricing) I, however don't recommend this as you have to do a lot more work and run the risk of losing your adsense account. It may work but not as well as my system and it is a lot more risky.

I have less sites using Adsense but they are all highly optimized for my keywords, they all have a lot of useful content, they all get the best performing ads and they all get the bulk of their traffic from Google's search engine for the keywords they are optimized for. This is a system that is both safe and effective and it will continue to work for as long as Adsense exists.

An optimized blog plus targeted traffic equals a healthy Adsense paycheck.

That's all there is to it.

2009-04-20T02:12:00.001-07:00

The only way to guarantee that your traffic will convert is by ranking well for the keyword the advertiser is chasing. My best advertiser is looking for people looking to "make money online". The ad says "Make Easy Money Online". Most of my traffic - about 75% find my blog searching on Google for the term "make money online" or a long tail version of that term. If one of my visitors clicks on the ad they are most likely looking for what the advertiser has to offer and even if they don't buy, Google can charge the advertiser full price because the visitor left a "make money online" trail. They found me using the term and they found the advertiser because of the term. That is as targeted as traffic can get and Google can charge the advertiser full price. If all my traffic came from stumble upon and clicked the ads then the advertiser wont get many conversions and Google can see where the traffic originated, knows it isn't targeted and will penalize me and give the advertiser a rebate.

That folks is how Adsense works.

In Summary.

To make money with Adsense;

You have to target a specific keyword - not a general one.

You have to optimize your entire blog for the keyword - not just a page for this and a page for that. (This can be done but until you know how - don't!)

Only ONE post per page - yes I mean the home page too. Most people will get sent to your homepage and if you have a bunch of snippets for different keywords you will have a bunch of different ads showing. This means the person who found you for the "blue widget" keyword may click on the "green widget" ad. This isn't targeted. You will never get the best performing ads if your blog is not perfectly optimized for the ad. You can't be perfectly optimized if you blog about different topics.

If your site is about widgets then you had better only get widget ads. If you are about blue widgets then you only want blue widget ads.

The only traffic you want to your site is targeted. This means search engine. You never want social traffic. You can target specific forum traffic if it is centered around your keyword but be aware that the CTR will be low.

This in a nutshell is my system. Yes there is a different method you can use and quite frankly it is the more common form. Many practitioners choose to go with quantity over quality - they basically create hundreds or thousands of pages on many sites all poorly optimized and smart priced but still make a decent buck just because of the volume of clicks. The danger is that they use Adsense tricks to get people to click ads and the sites are clearly built for Adsense and contain little useful info. This is a violation of the Adsense TOS and if caught they risk getting banned.

How to tell if you are doing things right.

2009-04-20T02:11:00.004-07:00

For the most part, the first visitors I get to my site each day come from Asia and Australia. This is because they get up first. Then later Europeans and Africans start showing up and finally North and South Americans. The sad fact is that most advertisers using Adsense are North Americans and as such they basically only want traffic from North Americans. (Most only have products available in the US or Canada) The best paying ads and highest converting products tend to be by and for Americans and Canadians. This isn't fair, it sucks and in the end comes down to the reality that European and Asian businesses have yet to take advantage of the internet to the same degree as North American businesses. If your traffic comes from mostly US and Canadian visitors then you will get better Adsense Ads. If your traffic is mostly from elsewhere you will get poorer paying ads and also run the risk of getting smart priced.

The first clicks I get each day are from Asia and Australia - my CPC always starts off low. Later in the day my CPC increases, sometimes quite dramatically. This is because the clicks are now coming from the US and Canada - the people my best ads are targeting.

If you see the same trend then you are doing things right. If you start off with higher CPC and see your CPC drop over the course of the day then you are not doing things right. It means you are getting more less desirable traffic than desirable.

This happens when the bulk of your traffic comes from countries other than the US and Canada. This also happens when the bulk of your traffic comes from sources other than the search engines. In both cases you are getting the wrong traffic. If this is the case remove the Adsense ads from your site and start optimizing it for the search engines.

It all comes down to conversions for the advertiser. The only way you will get good converting traffic for the advertiser is by providing them with people looking for what they are selling.

Targeted Traffic.

2009-04-20T02:11:00.003-07:00

I said at the beginning of this post that you only had to do two things to make good money with adsense; perfectly optimize your blog for a single keyword and then drive targeted traffic to it.

If we go back to the widget example let's look at what happens when the two blogs don't get the right type of traffic. As they currently stand I said both were ranking well in the serp's and neither would be smart priced. Blog A will do OK with adsense but not great. Blog B will do much better as the blog is better optimized for the traffic from the serp's.

Now imagine that neither blog gets serp traffic for their respective keywords or very little compared to other types of traffic.

If you are a proponent of using social media to get traffic to your blog then pay attention. Let's say most of your traffic comes from stumblers and entrecard and RSS subscribers and Digg etc. If you have Adsense on your blog you run the risk of being smart priced. Most of these social visitors will never click an ad - and that's a good thing. Unfortunately a few will click an ad from time to time. When they do Google knows where they came from and knows that they aren't targeted traffic looking for widgets. They are just casual browsers and if you get too many of these casual browsers clicking your ads then Google will discount the hell out of the CPC in order to compensate the advertiser who is getting really crappy traffic from your site. Google will smart price you until you provide quality traffic.

Social traffic is not quality traffic and if you get a lot of it then you had best not have Adsense on your site. Period.

Because you have a lot of social traffic that rarely clicks ads you will have a very low CTR - hence the misconception that low CTR means you are smart priced. You aren't smart priced because you have a low CTR, you are smart priced because your traffic is crappy and not targeted for the ads. You get a low CTR just because most of your traffic doesn't click ads.

My sidebar ads are all low CTR - under 1% and yet they bring in up to $5 a click. They aren't smart priced - they just don't get a lot of clicks. The top ad block gets the bulk of the clicks.

2009-04-20T02:11:00.001-07:00

This ad appears on my site day after day and it converts well. I banned it from my blog a week ago in order to see how well it performed. The ads that replaced it paid just as much or more per click as this ad but I received 60% less clicks. Meaning I made much less money by not having this ad on my blog. In case you are interested the ads on my sidebar pay more per click than the top ad but don't get a fraction of the clicks. When I banned this ad it was replaced with an ad block containing multiple ads.

Out of curiosity I checked the Adsense ads on my main competitors sites just to see what kind of ads they were getting. They all show multiple ads in their ad blocks. My ad blocks are usually only a single ad. Guess which gets a better conversion? The ads my competitors get are the ads I got when I banned the Gerber Ad. They don't produce anywhere near the same income.

Needless to say - I unbanned the Gerber ad and my revenue returned to normal.

So what does this mean?

It means that Google will give the best performing ads to the best performing publishers. The advertiser gets charged less and gets his ad placed on the best blogs for the keyword. The publisher gets less CPC but gets a lot more clicks. It's a win/win for both parties.

2009-04-20T02:10:00.001-07:00

Advertiser A on the other hand gets rewarded by Google for its high quality score (its keyword and landing page are perfectly optimized - this equals a high quality score) and besides being charged less Google will only put the ad on the "best performing" blogs.

The best performing blogs are those that, like the advertisers landing page, are the best optimized for the keyword and have the most targeted traffic for the keyword.

This is a bit confusing so lets look at an example.

The blog you are reading is extremely well optimized for the term "make money online". The easiest way to know this is by looking at this blogs serp rankings. It ranks highly for most of the "make money" keywords. Now, even if it wasn't ranking well for the keywords the blog and posts are still optimized for the keywords. If the majority of your pages get the same ads regardless of the individual post topics then you have successfully optimized your entire blog for a certain keyword. If every page on your blog gets different ads then your blog isn't optimized for one topic. If you want the best performing ads for your main keyword then you have to optimize your entire blog for them and not just a few pages.

As a publisher you want Google to place the best performing ads on your site. To get the best performing ads you have to be just as optimized as the advertiser.

If you are reading this and you live in Canada or the United States then you see the best performing "make money online" adsense ad up top (above the fold) on this blog. If you live anywhere else then you see different ads - probably a block of four ads. This is because the advertiser has picked the location he wishes to advertise to. Only people with Canadian or American ISP's will see the ad. The advertiser does not want anyone else clicking the ad.

Give the advertiser the most bang for their buck!

2009-04-20T02:09:00.002-07:00

That simple statement is the key to making good money with Adsense.

People have assumed that a low CTR is responsible for smart pricing. It isn't responsible for smart pricing but rather it can be a symptom of a poorly optimized page or poorly optimized traffic. Poor conversions are responsible for smart pricing - low CTR is just a side effect. There are many times though that a low CTR is just a matter of ad placement - your sidebar will have a poor CTR but your main ad block will have a high CTR. Both ad blocks still pay out a decent CPC regardless of number of clicks.

Let me use an example to explain this.

Let's compare two blogs writing about the same topic. Both use the same keywords.

Blog A is called everythingaboutwidgetsdotcom and Blog B is called bluewidgetsdotcom.

Blog A has several posts on the home page each with a snippet of text and a "more" tag - the "click here for further reading" link that will take the reader to the page with the full text.

Blog A has several snippet headers on the front page. Each snippet header is about a different widget.

"All about Blue Widgets"

"All about Green Widgets"

"All about Red Widgets"

The Adsense bot will read the page and conclude (correctly) that the page is about 1) Widgets in general, 2)Blue, Green and Red Widgets.

It will call for ads about widgets in general and ads for blue, green and red widgets.

Now Blog B only has 1 post on the home page. It is about Blue Widgets. In fact every post on the blog is about Blue widgets and nothing else.

The Adsense bot will give Blog B ads about Blue widgets.

On the face of it both blogs are optimized fairly well. Blog A is definitely optimized for widgets in general and Blog B is optimized for Blue widgets.

Now let's assume they know how to SEO and both blogs get ranked high in the serp's.

Blog A gets ranked for "Widgets".

Blog B gets ranked for "Blue widgets".

Google sends both blogs traffic. The traffic for Blog A is looking for "widgets" and some of the visitors are likely to click an Adsense ad. Some will click on the "widget" ad, some will click on "blue widgets", some on "green" and some on "red".

The Blog will get paid decent for those clicking on "widget" ads but not very well for the colored widget ads. Why? Because the traffic was looking for widgets and not "blue widgets" and will be less likely to convert for the advertisers of the colored widgets. Will the blog be smart priced? No - not likely, as the traffic will still convert OK - just not great. The blog will just make less than it could if it were better optimized. The blog will not get the best Adsense ads. It will get the cheaper CPC (cost per click) ads and the poorer performing ads.

Blog B on the other hand only gets Google traffic from people searching for "Blue Widgets" and all of its Adsense ads will be for "Blue Widgets" and everyone who clicks the ad will be more likely to convert and the blog will get the best payouts. The Blog will also get the best performing ads.

What are "The best performing ads"?

The best performing ads are not necessarily the highest paying ads.

Huh?

Very few people understand this so let me use another example. Would you prefer to get an ad that pays you $1 per click but only gets 10 clicks a day or would you rather have an ad that pays you $0.40 per click but gets 100 clicks a day?

Note: Google knows which ads get the most clicks - regardless of cost - some ads are just better written and draw people in better.

If you did the math then you will realize that the $0.40 per click ad is more desirable and is the "best performing ad".

If you are using Adsense then you need to understand how Adwords works.

The advertiser bids on keywords. If the advertiser's keyword is perfectly optimized for their landing page then Google will charge the Advertiser less for both the serp listing and for the content ad placements. If the advertiser's landing page is not well optimized for the keyword then they will have to pay more for the ads - sometimes a lot more. Let's use the term "make money online". If Advertiser A bids on this term and the landing page is perfectly optimized for "making money online" then they will be charged less than Advertiser B who's landing page is about "Forex" but he wants traffic looking for the term "make money online".

Google will charge the "Forex" advertiser a lot more money for the ad and place the ad on lots of crappy "make money online" blogs. Crappy in the sense that these blogs will not be perfectly optimized for "make money online" or "Forex" - most likely on blogs that have an affiliate page about Forex. The publisher won't convert much because the traffic clicked a make money ad and landed on a Forex page and the advertiser will pay a lot for this worthless click. The publisher will however get a good CPC out of the deal - just not many clicks because they have little traffic.

Optimization Tips for Adsense

2009-04-20T02:09:00.001-07:00

My regular readers know I am a big fan of ignoring prevailing wisdom and choose to experiment constantly in order to find my own answers. If there is one area where this approach has paid off nicely it's with Adsense. I have read numerous articles and comments from others who offer advice on this topic and quite frankly most of what you read is either wrong or misunderstood. To make money with Adsense you have to do two things; optimize your blog and each page on your site for a single keyword and then drive targeted traffic to that page. That second requirement would be better stated as "ONLY" drive targeted traffic to that page.

I want to take care of an Adsense myth right from the start.

"If you have a low CTR (click through rate) then you are probably smart priced."

This is absolutely wrong.

For those who don't understand smart pricing here is the basic gist.

If your Adsense ads don't convert well for the advertiser then the advertiser is only charged a fraction of the amount he or she bid for the ad placement. We are only talking about content ads here - the ads that show up on publisher's blogs and websites.

If you are running ads on your blog that an advertiser has bid $0.50 per click on and your traffic clicks the ads and doesn't convert well for the advertiser then Google will not pay you the usual $0.25 per click. They will likely give you $0.01 to $0.05 per click. This means you have been smart priced. This will also mean that you will receive lower payouts on every site you have Adsense on - not just the poorly converting site. This is a penalty because you are not optimizing your Adsense pages in order to give the advertiser the most bang for his or her buck.

Adsense for Feeds

2009-04-20T02:00:00.000-07:00

Ever since Google bought Feedburner they have been working towards placing Adsense on the Feedburner feeds. No surprise there as G needs to keep growing and Adsense/Adwords is what feeds the beast. A few months back Feedburner made Adsense available and I attempted to try it but for what ever reason it didn't work. No doubt I screwed things up - not a surprise either as most of you know I am not technically gifted and spent about 5 seconds trying to figure out what went wrong before ditching the whole works.

Long story short - a few days ago I noticed a new link on my Adsense Overview page (see image below) which is entitled Adsense for Feeds. Of course it may have been there for a while and I just didn't notice it until now.

Click Image to enlarge

Needless to say I clicked the "Get Started" button. I was taken to the following page.

Click Image

Naturally it told me that I had no feeds in my account and gave me a link to "View our Account Migration Guide". Apparently you will have to have Google migrate all your feeds from Feedburner to Adsense. Turns out this isn't complicated.

Click Image

In fact Google will do it for you. This is right up my alley - anytime I can get someone else to do the tech stuff suits me just fine. Just ask my good friend Terry! Just give Google your Feedburner username and provide your Adsense email address and they will do the necessary steps for you.

So I did and am waiting to see what happens next.

Now I'm telling all you folks this because should things work out all of my feed subscribers will be snarling and nashing their teeth as soon as the Adsense ads start appearing on my feeds. Before you all hit the unsubscribe button please hear me out.

This whole Adsense on Feeds thing has me more than curious as it just doesn't fit in with Google's current policies. How are they going to assure quality clicks for the Advertisers? At present they frown on too many clicks coming from the same IP. One of the things you have to be careful of is that some of your readers may try and help you by clicking your ads repeatedly. This doesn't help at all and can get your account banned. Clicks have to be natural and repeated clicks from the same IP is not natural.

However, if I have Adsense on my Feeds then I am only going to get clicks from my readers. Search traffic will not see these ads. Presumably G wants my readers to click the ads - if not then why offer the service. So does this mean that they won't mind the same people clicking ads on a more frequent basis? They can hardly penalize me for repeated clicks when my pool of readers is limited. This, in a nutshell, is what I want to find out. In one sense my readers are highly targeted for my keywords and Google likes that. I suppose they feel this will benefit the Advertisers - maybe it will. On the other hand this just seems ripe for abuse and I am curious as to how G plans on counting clicks. Which will they consider valid and which will be considered suspect?

I am asking you dear readers not to get all un-subscribe on my ass when the ads appear as I simply want to see how this program is going to be monitored by Google. I will certainly keep you abreast of my findings. I should also say that this is not a call to entice you to click those ads. Please, please, please... don't unless it is something you really are interested in. I have no wish to game Adsense in any way and you shouldn't either. I suspect that my readers will ignore them in the same way they ignore the ads on my blog - just background noise that bloggers tend not to notice. I understand why search traffic clicks ads - I don't understand why targeted feed subscribers ever would though. And I don't understand why Google thinks they would either.

In any event you now know up front what I'm up too and I hope you will not get offended when you see the ads. Just another little experiment and I'll fill you in when I get some results.

Earn Online Cash with a Niche Blog

2009-04-20T01:56:00.002-07:00

One way to earn cash online is with Google Adsense. Yes, everybody and their brother’s sister’s cousin is using it on their website and they’ll probably telling you that they consider themselves lucky to be making $8 and change in a month. Why is it that they’re earnings are so low? Well, there are some reasons for that and they should become obvious to you as we work through this article.
More ...

You can read more Reader Reviews in the Archives

or check out some of this weeks memorable posts...

Wendy - 10 Steps to Start a Blog the Right Way

Jackie - Internet Marketing and Inspiration

Project Payday - A Legit Method to Make Money at Home

I have included Project Payday on my blog for all of my readers who write in asking if there are any legit online programs that they can use to make some quick money. Project Payday is not a get rich quick scheme - it is more like a work at home job. You don't need a blog or website as it involves getting paid to try out trial offers from online advertisers. There is work to this but you can realistically earn a couple of hundred dollars a day if you want to put in the effort.

I have written several posts about this and suggest you start with this one. Project Payday

Unfortunately Project Payday is only available to American and Canadian users at this time. Oh and it is free.

2009-04-20T01:56:00.001-07:00

It is still too early to give any conclusive feedback on how successful Internet Based Ads are but early results seem to be positive. Unfortunately March was a bit rocky for publishers as all the new changes to Adsense caused a number of glitches - several days saw CTR under-reported which Google admitted was an error on their part as they were not showing relevant ads. They maintained that it was only for a few hours but it lasted several days. You may have also experienced higher than normal pageviews for a few days.

Personally I have seen and am still experiencing strange CPC highs and lows as recently as yesterday. I'm not too concerned as I think it will take a little while to iron out all the bugs and caution everyone to just wait things out for the month of April before making any major changes to your Adsense sites. (ie. Don't concern yourself with smart price tweaking for the time being)

If anyone has seen definitive results either good or bad regarding Internet Based Ads please feel free to leave a comment.

FYI - I am on holidays with the kids at the moment (spring break here) so have been neglecting my comments but should be back to work next monday.

Privacy Policy Update

2009-04-20T01:49:00.000-07:00

You can see my Privacy Policy Update by following the link.

(note - this site (MMOFB) is not associated with Google.com or Google Adsense and you are encouraged to visit Google directly for more information.)

If you are using Adsense on your site then you must update your privacy policy by April 8, 2009. This update is in relation to the new changes enacted on Adsense in March of 2009. The new changes effect how Google collects information on your surfing habits using third party advertising vendors who leave cookies on your browsers - notably the Doubleclick DART Cookie.

The basic changes to Adsense revolve around the addition of Interest Based Advertising as opposed to the previous Placement Targeted Advertising. You can visit Google for a description of what Interest Based Advertising entails.

Your updated Privacy Policy should inform your users about the use of third party cookies on your sites and provide them with information regarding their opt out options should they wish to not have cookies placed on their browsers. See Opt Out of Behavioral Advertising

As an Adsense publisher you also have the option not to use Internet Based Advertising and may Opt out by following the instructions posted in Google Adsense Help. I do not recommend that you opt out but the choice is yours. These changes should help increase your CTR and CPC in the long run as you will become less susceptable to being smart priced. (ie. Conversions should increase as users are presented more advertisements based on their interests)

Update: I have discussed why I think Interest Based Ads should be tested before opting out in the following post on my other blog; Google's Interest Based Advertising.

Money Making Ideas

2009-04-20T01:45:00.000-07:00

The Idea Frenzy Is Coming...Beware

So let me introduce to you "The Idea Frenzy". From time to time, I will have an idea frenzy. What does this mean? Well, I will be updating my blog a lot with cool money making ideas for you to try. During the idea frenzy, I won't be going into great detail about each method, but rather try to put out as many money making ideas out there as possible. My goal is to get your "Idea" motor going.

What Is The Best Way To Monetize My Site?

So, you started a website or blog, and now you want to make money with it. Since you have no idea which method of monetization is the best, you go to the trusted google search engine and look for "Experts". You are trying to find something that isn't there, so how are you going to find it? You won't, you will end up listening to some noob, who calls himself an expert.

Where You Made Your First Mistake...

Right from the beginning you made a mistake, you made a blog with out any plans for it. You can't simply start a blog without having any sort of plan for it, and expect to make money with it somehow down the road. Every good internet marketer knows from the start, how he will make money with each particular site.

You Will End Up Using The Wrong Monetization...

Every niche is different. Since you did not have a plan from the start, chances are you won't be able to pick the right type of monetization. The reason I say this is simple: you did not do any research in your niche, so you won't know what works and what doesn't. Sure, you might get lucky, but do you really want to run a business model on luck alone?

Should I Use Adsense Or Affiliates To Make Money?

I might have to make a few blog posts just dedicated to this topic, but let me try to summarize it in a few sentences. You should use adsense only if you get around 80% of your total traffic from google. Not just any traffic, targeted traffic. Usually you should use adsense only if your blog is devoted to only covering one main topic.

Use affilates, when the niche you are working does not have to high of a CPC. Even if you want to work affilates, you will still need to get targeted visitors form google who want to buy the product which you are promoting.

Can You Make Money By Starting Your Own Article Directory?

I see more and more people wanting to start there own article directory. They think they can become the next ezinearticles or goarticles. While it might seem as a great money making idea the truth is that it's not.

Why Is It a bad idea?

First off, you are a little to late. If you really wanted to make money with article directories you should of started a couple of year ago. Now, it is simply to saturated.

You Don't Have Enough Authority...

When you start an article directory you will have no authority at all. It will take you a very long time to build solid authority. The reason you see (ezinearticles) articles ranking high in the serps is because of the domain authority, and not because of the content. Currently ezinearticles has a Page Rank 6, how long will it take you to get a PR6?

The content is not going to be unique...

When you start an article directory most articles being submitting are usually also submitted in varies other directories. The directory with the most authority will achieve the highest ranking, which is not your.

Do you have a lots of money to invest?

This is a way around the unique content issue. Since you can't afford to have duplicate content on your site until you gain solid authority, you will need fresh content. Really, the only way to do this is to hire some writers. Hire some writers to write about 200-300 articles for you. This will give your site unique content. In the meantime work on your authority. So, do you have enough money for 200-300 articles?

Are you sure you want to use adsense to make money?

This is a very common mistake I see noobs do all the time. They just start an article directory and a couple of days later throw adsense on it. When you do something like that you will surely get smart priced. To make money with google adsense you need visitors from Google who type the right keyword to find your article. Without auhtortiy you won't get much SE traffic, and without SE traffic you won't make any money witg Google Adsense.

Article Writing Strategies to Make Money Online

2009-04-20T01:44:00.000-07:00

With the rising number of lucrative opportunities littering the web, it is no longer a question of how to make money online. The real question now is how to increase profits from various online activities, from buying and selling, affiliate marketing, directory management and of course, article writing.

Article writing has taken the craft of writing several notches up as profitable venture that writers can conveniently enjoy at home. The demand for writing services varies from informative articles, to product reviews, to blogs, to press releases and to directory list taglines. The subjects covered by online writers and marketers are encompassing, ranging from health, entertainment, finance, travel, to name a few.

Article writing as a tool to make money online requires more than tinkering on your keyboard to craft a collection of words that attribute to one general idea. Certain strategies have to be observed by serious online writers to ensure the quality and efficiency of each article made and published online. Here are some pointers.

Incorporate search engine optimization or SEO features in your article. Use keywords that have been calculated to be among the widely searched keywords by internet users. SEO is a marketing tool that you can employ to improve the status of your article or blog in search engine result listings. Successfully incorporating SEO will take your page closer to potential viewers, thus increasing the traffic of your site.

Blend in SEO keywords as naturally as possible. Writing for articles online entail efficiency and quality that should not compromise either the profit-generating and informative objective of the article. Proper keyword placement is not only beneficial to the look of your site and the quality of your article, but also in the relevance rate of your content. Including too many keywords will send your site and your article to the base line along with other spam-labeled pieces.

Bank on building links with other sites and blogs. Readers check the credibility of web content by the depth of its discussion. If you are writing on a sizeable topic, insert links that readers can follow to understand the subject better. Advertising links are portals to make money online while enhancing the scope of your article.

Organize and manage your site or blog using tools and plug-ins that you can get for free. These online features will do the publication of your work more justice by creating a pleasant and inviting background to pair a well-written work.

Making Money Online - Its All About Exposure

2009-04-20T01:43:00.000-07:00

Exposure, exposure, exposure. This is the name of the game on marketing on the internet. I don't care what anyone else will tell you. Exposure equals traffic and traffic equals sales. Marketing on the internet is really not that difficult once you have a strategic plan of action in place. Now lets break this down even further for a second so that you can have a better understanding of what marketing is. The first you must do is, find a niche or something of interest to you that you would like to market and make money online. It doesn't necessarily have to be your passion but at the same time, if your very passionate about something, in my experience, ideas comes to you better and more often.

The second thing to do is find places such as websites, blogs or anything of similar niches so that you all can network and share ideas. This will be like, "killing two birds with one stone" because it will not only boost your credibility, but it gives you backlinks to your site/blogs, thus producing the end result which is exposure. Always network with people, companies, webmasters, internet business owners that are in your industry. You never
know who can help you or where your next "big break" will come from.

Marketing on the internet is like "independent marketing" because you make it what it is. Whatever you put in it is what your going to get out of it. If you really think about it, its not your product, service, or brand that you are marketing online, its really "yourself" (especially if no one knows you). This website is a prime example of what exposure actually is. As you all know, this is another website owners site but since we share the same niche, I've been blessed to have this article on this site as a guest post. This is some of the techniques that will definitely help you in your journey to make money online. You see, by networking with people online that are in your niche, is one of the best ways to build exposure.

How To Improve SERPS by Increasing One-Way Links

2009-04-20T01:05:00.000-07:00

As we know, strong and quality one-way link is the factor that improves our SERPS for our blog, of course optimize backlinks for keyword that you would like rank well. In order to make money online using AdSense, higher SERPS is the only way to achieve your goal. So, build more quality one-way link by doing the following steps, it's not 100% works but at least you gain something (link juice) :

1) Directory submission
Directory submission is one of the easiest ways to get one way links to a website. It's difficult to gain traffic but you can get one-way link by submitting your blog to blog directories.

2) Forums posting
It's better if you can find some forums that allow you insert your link in your signature, it's the best if the links are do-follow. You can gain traffics, at the mean time you gain some quality backlinks too.

3) Dofollow blogs
In blogosphere, not every blog give do-follow attribute to your comment, you won't gain any link juice by commenting but you can gain some referral traffics too. I've gone through the net and found this list.

4) Guest posting
Guest post is one of the great and awesome way in getting strong one-way link and traffics. I've been submitting a guest post to Liew and gain some traffics as well. It takes times, but it's good. You can consider to submit a guest post to my Make Money Online blog too. So far, I found that this is the most effectiveness way in building long term one-way link to blogs and websites.

5) Pinging sites
After you've posting your article, use pinging services to get more visibility and links for your blog.

6) Article submission
You can use article websites like ezinearticles, americanchronicle, findarticles, goarticles, articlecity etc kind of top article submission websites to get quality links and visitors for your sites.

7) Social media marketing
Create strong profile on social media sites like Digg, propeller, Reddit, Newsvine and submit your favorite stories there.

By following the tips, you can see the improvement on your SERPS and traffics. I found these useful because I've tried them personally. Kindly drop a comment and add in the rest if you have more tips.

So You Want to Make Money Online

2009-04-20T00:51:00.000-07:00

Who doesn’t want to make more money, right? I get pumped every time I find a new way to make money on the internet. The possibilities for online money making really are endless. The important thing to do when starting out looking for the opportunity that is right for you is to stop and think of what you know and what your passions are. In this post I will cover two of the most basic ways to get started making money online.

The first of these is the most obvious and common way – Paid Surveys. It is simple to start and you set the limit on your earnings depending on the time you have to put toward them. I am sure you have heard of websites that offer lists of companies lining up to pay your for your opinion. What you probably don’t realize is that not all of these sites are the same. Some sites offer these lists for free and some require a membership fee to gain access. So what is the difference and why pay for a list? Well, it can be the difference between getting $.50 per survey and getting $10.00 per survey. The sites that require a membership fee include surveys that on average pay more per survey than the free survey sites. Most of the paid survey sites also offer a list of focus groups you can participate in as well as other ways to make money. Focus group pay by the hour and have the potential for making a lot of cash.

The second way is to start a blog. The important thing to know when starting a blog site is to pick a topic you have some knowledge about. If you don’t you will find very quickly it is hard to write about something you have no experience with and no passion for doing. It is extremely important to keep your blog updated, daily if possible, with fresh content that people will be interested in and will continue visit your site or subscribe to your feed. When you get your blog started and some posts up you can start to focus on getting traffic through social networking sites like twitter, Facebook, and Myspace. Join them, get some followers, and recommend your blog. You will want to set up a Google Adsense account to monetize your blog and you can also sell advertising or promote affiliate products as well to make money. Just as is the case with paid surveys, there are programs you can purchase which step you through setting up, monetizing, and optimizing your blogs to maximize you potential to make money online.

I hope I have given you some helpful tips about how you can get started today making money online. Working from home and making a living online full time is a great feeling but like everything in life worth working for, it takes dedication and there is a learning curve. However, if you work hard and consistently, you will make money online.

My Plan to Write 333 eHow Articles in 3 Months

2009-04-20T00:46:00.000-07:00

Guest post by Michael-John Wolfe, Owner of the Residuals & Royalties blog

A few months ago I found the Brainy Money Blog, written by a guy named Josh who detailed an interesting account of his pursuit of making money on eHow. Josh set a goal to write two eHow articles per day for 8 weeks - equaling 112 total articles, after the eight weeks were over Josh had earned $146.22 from these articles. That may seem like a low number for 56 hours of work. (One hour a day spent writing two articles.) But here's the kicker, Josh's numbers will only increase each month from now on! Josh will earn at least $146.22 every month exponentially. So while his hourly wage might be $2.61 per hour this past month, this wage will increase each month.

Josh showed me an ebook written by WriterGig - one of the top earners on eHow. (Simply search “writergig” under members on eHow and you will see the massive amount of articles she has completed.) WriterGig earns at least $1,000 per month on eHow and her ebook is an remarkable tool to help eHow writers who are just starting out. This book gives you crucial tips for optimizing your articles for eHow and getting the most earnings out of them. Writergig - aka "Maria" tells us that you should be able to average at least $3 per month, per article. Obviously this is a variable and some articles might earn $10 a month and some might earn $1. But if you buy her ebook – you will learn the secrets of producing articles that make the most money.

I have decided to personally challenge myself to have 333 articles completed by July 1st, 2009. (Essentially in 3 months.) Yesterday I wrote 14 articles and my total number of articles is 29, I have 304 more to go. By Writergig's calculations - 333 articles X $3 per article should net me $1,000 per month in residual income. Even if I am way off target and my articles only earn $1 per month, at the very least I will wind up with $333 per month in residual income. If anyone else out there wants to participate in this challenge with me – just let me know and we can track our progress and our earnings.

If you plan on writing your own eHow articles, WriterGig's ebook is a MUST have, you can buy it for only $25 and it will literally triple the earnings your articles will make: Click here to view more details

Trace Any Cell Phone Call In The World

2009-03-15T02:29:00.000-07:00

New advances in technology have made it possible for anybody to trace a cell phone location.
These advances in technology designed to trace a cell phone location came about as a result of a number of recent events, including the events of September 11, 2001. Technological breakthroughs which have occurred since then include the inclusion of GPS technology in most mobile phones, and an improved ability to detect a phone's location based on signals from local transmission towers.
There are number services on the Internet which allow you to trace the location of a cell phone. They may differ in therms of interface and appearance, butthey are using the same data from the telecom companies.
In the past the only way to gain access to the technology to trace a cell phone location was to buy equipment, and the use of this equipment was largely regulated to official organisations such as the police.
The way these services work is by gathering information from the telecom company that provides the cell phone service. this information includes the location of the cell phone as calculated by a combination of factors including the GPS as previously mentioned, and the distance to each of the nearest cellphone transmission masts. This is the same information which the police get.
There are wide range of reasons why you might want to trace a cell phone location, such as trying to find out where a friend or relative rates while you're out and about, keeping track of the location of a child, meeting up with friends, and trying to find shops and restaurants near you. Companies make use of these services in order to track their employees location, and also to provide security for employees when they are working in a remote location on their own. In the end, there are probably as many reasons as there are users.
The way GPS technology works in modern cell phones varies between the different cellphone networks, and with some operators it does not continuously transmit location. This means that when you want to trace a cell phone location, the information that you will be gathering is most likely collected from transmission tower locations.
The location of the phone will be tracked using triangulation - by taking 2 or more readings, it is possible to calculate where the signal is comming from by working out the triangle that fits the signal strengths. The 3rd point is the location of the phone.
However, when the person who has the phone has made an emergency call, this GPS transmission will always be sent. This is designed to ensure that the police can always track a cell phone location, in order to get help to people who need it.
The result of this design that the accuracy of the location which is provided by the service will be greater in areas which are more populated, and have more radio transmission masts, and will be lower in areas where there are very few radio masts, such is the wastelands, deserts, or un-populated areas of countryside. So, it is easier to track a cell phone location with a high level of accuracy in built up areas.
Nonetheless, most times you trace a cell phone location the information from the cell phone masts should be fine. After all, you do not need to know the person's location with a very great deal of accuracy for most purposes.
Matthew Burns is the author of Internet Guider. He has published a guide to cell phone search resources to help you locate cell phone numbers on the Internet.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Matthew_Burns

Bernanke says regulatory overhaul needed

2009-03-13T06:58:00.001-07:00

WASHINGTON – The nation's financial regulatory system must be overhauled to strengthen oversight of banks, mutual funds and large financial institutions whose collapse would put the entire economy in peril, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Tuesday.

"We must have a strategy that regulates the financial system as a whole, in a holistic way, not just its individual components," Bernanke said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations.

In his most extensive remarks on the subject, Bernanke built upon previous suggestions to bolster mutual funds and a program that insures bank deposits — and repeated his call for Congress to create a system to cushion fallout from the failure of a big financial institution.

The Fed chief's remarks come as the Obama administration and Congress are starting to crafting their overhaul strategies. For the administration, critical work on that front will be carried out among global finance officials this weekend in London. That will help set the stage for a meeting of leaders from the world's 20 major economic powers in April.

Revamping the U.S. financial rule book — a patchwork that dates to the Civil War — is a complex task. Congress, the administration and the Fed are involved because they want to strengthen the system to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis — the worst since the 1930s_ that has plunged the U.S. and many other countries' economies into recession.

Bernanke said the U.S. recession could end this year only if the government is successful in getting financial markets to operate more normally again. The recession, now in its second year and already the longest in a quarter-century, has turned out to be more severe than the Fed had anticipated, he acknowledged in fielding questions after his speech.

To guide the regulatory overhaul, Bernanke laid out four key elements. One is for Congress to enact legislation so the failure of a huge financial institution can be handled in an orderly way — similar to how bank failures are handled by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. — to minimize fallout to the financial system and to the national economy.

Moreover, such "too big to fail" companies must be subject to more rigorous supervision to prevent them from taking excessive risk, Bernanke said. The Fed is trying to identify "best practices" that can help companies detect trouble spots and best manage their risks.

The government over the past year has been forced to rescue major financial companies so interwoven with other players and the global financial system that their collapse would put the entire economy in danger. The bailouts of insurance giant American International Group Inc., Citigroup Inc., Bank of America Corp., and mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have put billions of taxpayers' dollars at risk and angered the American public.

"Government rescues of too-big-to fail firms can be costly to taxpayers, as we have seen recently," Bernanke said. "Indeed in the present crisis, the too-big-to-fail issue has emerged as an enormous problem."

Bernanke also said the nation's financial plumbing — the infrastructure and policies that govern financial transactions_ must be strengthened to ensure that it will perform under stress.

Policymakers should consider ways to bolster money market mutual funds that are susceptible to runs by investors, he said. One approach would be to impose tighter restrictions on the financial instruments that money markets can invest in. Another idea is to develop a limited system of insurance for funds that seek to maintain a stable net asset value.

In addition, Bernanke called for a review of regulatory policies and accounting rules to make sure they don't "overly magnify the ups and downs in the financial system and the economy." For instance, he suggested that a larger financial buffer to support the FDIC's insurance program for bank deposits be built up during good economic times so that it could be drawn down when conditions worsen.

Finally, the government should consider creating an authority specifically responsible for monitoring financial risks and protecting the country from crises like the current one. Some in Congress — and the previous Bush administration — have proposed that the Fed take on this role of super financial cop.

As a lender of last resort to troubled financial companies, the Fed already has a major role in trying to put out financial fires.

"Effectively identifying and addressing systemic risks would seem to require the involvement of the Federal Reserve in some capacity, even if not in the lead role," Bernanke said.

The coming ‘Great Recession’

2009-03-13T06:57:00.000-07:00

Comment by WONG CHUN WAI

The Government has thrown a RM60bil lifeline for the country to try and prevent it from slipping into a recession. But with the world economic climate looking more gloomy than ever, there are concerns that it may not be able to halt the downward trend.

IT was already 9.30pm when Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak walked into his home.

He had missed dinner with the editors he had invited for the briefing on the RM60bil mini-budget to stimulate the economy.

The Deputy Prime Minister appeared drained. His wife, Datin Seri Rosmah Mansor, asked if he had eaten.

Just some noodles, he said, adding that he had been with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi since 3pm to go through the economic package.

As he began giving the editors a scenario of the doom-laden global economy, some of his listeners looked stunned. As he picked on the keropok on the table, it became obvious that some of those at the table had failed to see the dark clouds before the financial tsunami that is now approaching Malaysian shores.

There is no escaping the storm in an inter-connected globalised economy.

With many countries going bankrupt and their financial institutions collapsed, American billionaire Warren Buffet gave the most appropriate description — the American economy has fallen off a cliff. The US economy will eventually recover although a rebound could rekindle inflation worse than that experienced in the late 70s, he said.

He regarded the US economy as close to the worst-case scenario and added that the economy can’t turn around on a dime.

In short, it is already in free-fall and no one is sure when it will hit the ground but the US has certainly dragged the rest of the world down with it.

The grim fact is that the Malaysian exports would slump drastically with lower prices for key commodities, including palm oil and crude oil and a sharp drop in demand for electronic and electrical products.

Our foreign direct investments would be reduced by at least 50% while our stock market has already taken a beating, even before the financial crisis.

Manufacturing, particularly in the electronics sector, has already been badly affected and retrenchments have begun.

As the World Bank revised the global growth rate to 0.5%, Malaysia, like the rest of the world, has made changes to its own forecasts, expecting growth this year, even with the stimulus package, to be between -1% and +1%.

The fall has become faster than what has been expected. If we avoid the recession this year, it will be only narrowly.

Now, the International Monetary Fund expects that the global economy will contract this year, with its managing director Dominique Strauss-Kahn calling the crisis a “Great Recession”.

The fact is that a recession would have been inevitable had this economic package not come into place. The RM60bil is to stop the slide but even with the money, many see the situation as touch and go.

Singapore, for example, has already declared itself in a recession with possibly a 10% contraction. That’s how bad it could be.

But unlike the Singaporeans, Thais, Japanese, Chinese and South Koreans, we have taken a rather complacent attitude towards the economic crisis. It has not helped that some leaders kept giving assurances that Malaysia would be spared, which only provided false hope.

This is not about politics. Many European leaders have come clean by declaring they have no idea how to respond to the problem because this is unprecedented, with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declaring that this is the most difficult year of the century.

Besides calling their people to be resilient and to face up to the challenges, many European leaders have said that their stimulus package would at best buy them time and ease the difficulties.

Najib must be saluted for being honest about the prospects ahead. It will be gloom and doom.

But the bright side, whatever little there is, in Malaysia is that liquidity is still strong in Malaysia with excess funds of over RM250bil in circulation.

The savings by Malaysians have been good and the prudent practices inculcated have helped. The highly regulated practices in our banking industry, which had been frowned upon in the past, have turned out to be of help.

The immediate concern will be on how fast the funds are disbursed to the relevant sectors so jobs can be created and the spillover effects felt by Malaysians.

There is no room for wastage and leakage. There will be little patience for any act of impropriety and incompetency with the financial tsunami fast approaching.

AUTOMATIC TRADING

2009-03-13T06:55:00.002-07:00

This is one thing that I hate most. A lot of people asking for my trading system. I know what they are going to do with it. They will take the hard work of many years, code it into an expert advisor and let it run on automatic trade.

For those of you who already has a succesfull system, you may share similliar view. Unfortunately for those who are still looking for a profitable way to trade, this is one of their easiest option. I dont blame them, creating a profitable system is not an easy task. It takes years to develop and test a system with no guarantee of success.

For those of you still looking for a way to be profitable in forex, there are system available on the internet. One of them is Zulutrade. Zulutrade is a place where signal providers (like me) test out their trade system with thousands of traders. It like a competition for traders. Good news is people can open an account and pick which signal providers they want to auto trade their account. Best thing is, its free. Yes, its free. You dont have to pay 30% of your profit to your account manager.

I personally never have used their system but am trying to register as a signal provider. Those of you can try it out if you want. All you have to do is open an account with them. Fund the account and pick which signal providers you want. Dont take my word for it. You have to go to Zulutrade and investigate yourself. Remember its your money.

FREE FOREX SIGNAL - NOT REALLY

2009-03-13T06:55:00.001-07:00

When people say free forex signal, it refer to an instruction to trade specific currency pair at a certain price. Normally this signal is based on the trader study and experience. It is more of a personal view of things to come.

In certain cases the signal does work. In a different situation, it fails. This is because the person giving that signal is also a small trader. His study is based on either technical or fundamental with no real money to back it up.

If that person is good, he will have enough followers and the total money traded towards his signal will back him up and make the currency move. If that person have very few followers, then he is swimming alone in a sea full of sharks.

That is what most of us do. We do not coordinate and we work alone in forex. Thats why the sharks are taking their time and making easy picking of us, swallowing one at a time. It doesnt sounds good but its the truth. Now you dont have to wonder why most people fails and why banks keep on making huge profit.

If you want to take forex signal, take it from someone who you can trust from inside the banks. They have a lot more info and study on forex. The amount of info, knowlegde, manpower and money is impossible for any of us to compete.

For some people who manage to find a method to be profitable in forex, its a good thing. You have found a way to take advantage of the system. The system after all is developed by human and human by itself is full of weaknesses.

For those of you who is losing, its time to think about swimming alone is a sea of sharks. Time to find friends and help each other out in terms of knowledge and money power.

Dont get me wrong, I am in profit today. I have found a way to take advantage of the system though its like a mouse, stealing food one little bit at a time. Better to profit a little than losing all the time but for how long are you willing to be the small fish. Always jumping in and out of trade. Hoping for the trend to hold long enough for you to gain a little profit.

In order for me to grow in forex, I need to team up. It has long been in my mind, just looking for the right opportunity and people. Anyone here think the same?

UPDATE

2009-03-13T06:54:00.004-07:00

This blog has not been regularly updated. This is due to internet connection problem. It has been months now and my internet connection is still not up to 100% fitness level. I can post text but I cannot upload pictures or any attachment. I even opted to use my office internet during the day for my uploads.

As for forex I am playing the short term game. 5 minute TF to be exact. It is much safer since my internet is not stable. Its a intraday system trading the 30 minute trend with a 5 minute signal for entry and exit. So far so good.

Actually the system is simple. It is based on MA and RSI only. Even trading is simple for me nowadays. It seems that experience changes me. I am no longer sitting in front of the PC hoping for miracle. There is no miracle in Forex. It is just knowledge and study so that the direction can be expected.

The longer I trade the more I understand. After all I am still learning with every trade. Now I understand how people can trade from candlestick alone. This is because the best indicator is not on the screen but in your head. Use your brain, the best indicator of all.

By the way just wanted to invite you to my flickr page. Just an old hobby given new life with a new DSLR A350. Now I have 3 camera, each one with its own unique features. Do check out my flicr page and tell me if you like my photography style. Just needed to find a model for my portrait shot.

Back to Forex its in ranging mode now but the daily chart is showing a weakness is trend. EU is a downtrend but is weakening at the moment. 30m chart is still showing a downtrend at the moment with 5m chart is supporting it. So for today the best bet is to short EU but watch out for the long term trade.

A DIFFICULT MARKET CONDITION

2009-03-13T06:54:00.003-07:00

It is not looking particularly well for GBPUSD. In the other hand, EURUSD and AUDUSD is looking good for a long term trade. I am taking the long position. It may take a very long time to profit but looking at the chart from a technical view, EURUSD and AUDUSD is in a good position for a long term trading.

I dont exactly know the entry point but I do know the direction. It is time to monitor the shorter time frame in order to find the best possible entry and to minimize stop loss.

It may take sometime but I dont care. I have been waiting for this moment almost 2 months. Look at the charts and see the formation of daily, 4 hour, 30 minute and 5 minute. You may see something that took me over 2 years to see.

Only time can tell if my calculation is correct. At the moment I am still waiting for the 5 minute chart to give and entry signal.

Good luck to us all.

ITS NOT THE SYSTEM

2009-03-13T06:47:00.002-07:00

After more than 2 years of trading, I can tell you a story about forex system. Forex system is a way to trade to have higher chances of profit. Unfortunately not all forex system works. This is because its not the system that is not working. It is you.

What if I tell you that I have a system that consist of Moving Average only. The system can make profit and will minimize you loses or even give you a chance to break even during hard times.

You would be thirll to test it out only to find out that in the end you are losing money and you say the system is crap. The truth is if one person is making money using the exact same system yet you are losing money. So where do you think the fault is? Is it with the system or is it with yourself?

You can never gain profit in Forex until you figure out what is wrong with you. Most of the time when you are losing money you would blame it on the market, news, system etc but never on yourself. Until you figure out what you did wrong, any system no matter how good will fail in your hands. After you realize what you did wrong, then you can make money, seriously.

When you know what not to do, you can trade without any indicator. I myself is trading using only MA now. Took me a while to understand but once you see it, you no longer depending on any indicator. It is your judgement that counts.

I never know what I would learn the further I go in this world or Forex. Right now I am starting to understand why some traders trade without any indicator. The best indicator is in your brain. You just need to develope it. It will take some time. No hurry.

Find Bars Within 300 Metres

2009-03-13T06:47:00.001-07:00

Comilus

This Spanish language Google Map allows anyone to locate bars, restaurants, hotels, cinemas, clubs and theatres within a defined distance. The map is very simple to use; you just drag the map marker to your current position, choose a radius you wish to search within (300m, 600m 1km) and check the kind of establishment you want to find.

This service of course comes into its own when you are out and about and need to quickly find somewhere nearby to eat or drink. What is needed therefore is a mobile version of this application. Luckily Comilus have thought of that and they provide a version for the iPhone that uses Google Statics Maps.

Of course when you find your bar or restaurant you are going to want to tell the rest of the world where you are. Comilus has a feature that allows you to do that as well. When you click on one of the mapped markers the information window contains a link to Twitter. When you press the link you are taken to Twitter and the update box is already filled in with a message saying where you are with a link to the establishment's map and review on 11870.com.

Although this website is in Spanish it is so intuitive to use that it really doesn't matter if you can't speak the language.

Google Map of New York Nachos

2009-03-13T06:46:00.001-07:00

Nachos NY

Nachos NY is a blog devoted to the fine subject of New York Nachos. The site visits and reviews restaurants in New York that serve Nachos. To give the blog a little extra jalapeño they have also produced a map of New York Nacho restaurants.

If you click on one of the mapped restaurants you are taken to the review of the restaurant on Nacho NY. The blog has also organised a Nacho Crawl for Saturday March 14th. So if you want to dine with some Nacho connoisseurs get yourself along.

The Ultimate 2009 UK Music Festival Google Map

2009-03-13T06:45:00.000-07:00

The Times UK Festival Map

For anyone in the UK who is currently green with envy about those at SXSW may I recommend The Times UK Festival Map for 2009.

The Times has produced this Google Map to show the locations of this summer's UK festivals, from the big-name festivals like Glastonbury and Isle of Wight, to the more intimate affairs of Wychwood and The Green Man, right through to the summer's opera season at Glyndebourne.

It is possible to search the map by location or use the colour-coded map markers to search for the music genres that most interest you.

Google Maps Adds User Content

2009-03-13T06:44:00.000-07:00

Google have today announced that higher quality user generated content in Google My Maps and in kml's will be added to Google search results in Google Maps.

This is good news for map developers. If your content shows up in Google Maps search results it will obviously drive significant traffic to your maps. This page tells you how you can submit your kml's to Google.

Via: Google LatLong: Will It Blend? Yes!

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Labels: My Maps

San Francisco Transit Time Map

Transit Time Map

WalkScore have produced a Google Map mashup that can show you how far you can travel in San Francisco, Portland or Seattle on public transport in 15, 30 and 45 minutes. The map can show you how far you can travel on public transit from a given location and at any time of day.

The map was created using the Graphserver trip planner, which in turn uses data from OpenStreetMap.

Where Can I Live? does something similar in London. Where Can I Live? mashes up London tube journey times with properties for sale. The map therefore allows you to find properties within a set commute time from your work.

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Labels: transit

Using Google Maps to Produce Heat Maps

HeatMapAPI

Heat maps are a graphical representation of data on a map through the use of colors to indicate the density of something. For example a heat map could be used to show the level of unemployment in different states.

The HeatMapAPI is an API that enables anyone to create their own heat maps. If you wish to use the HeatMapAPI the GeoChalkboard blog has a good tutorial on how to create a heat map with the API and Google Maps called Density Mapping in Google Maps with HeatMapAPI.

The GeoChalkboard tutorial shows you how to create a heat map using data showing Starbucks closure of 600 stores.

One alternative to the HeatMapsAPI is using Google's Visualization API with Google Spreadsheets. Ouseful has a good example of a heat map of Olympics medal winners created using Google Spreadsheets.

The Google Maps creation website Maker! also has an option to create coloured heat maps (Choropleth Maps).

Another Cannabis Google Map

2009-03-13T06:43:00.000-07:00

WeedMaps

Earlier this week we featured the Medical Marijuana Map, which attempts to explain the current legality of the medical use of cannabis in each US state. Now WeedMaps has emerged, a website where medical marijuana patients can connect with other patients in their area, to freely discuss and review local cannabis co-operatives and dispensaries.

WeedMaps is built on top of the Google Maps API to show the closest dispensaries to your location. Registered users of the map are able to review the dispensaries and each dispensary reviewed comes with an average rating.

Via: TechCrunch

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Labels: USA

Google Maps Friday Fun

Starting With the Good News
The Google Maps API is now out of 'beta'. The API has been around for more than three years now and I'm sure the developers of the 1,638 Google Maps mashups listed at Programmable Web will be delighted that Google Maps is no longer an experimental application ;).

Via: Google Geo Developers Blog: Good, beta, best

360Cities.net Coral Reef Panorama

Amadee Coral Reef New Caledonia in New Caledonia
Interactive panoramic image website 360.Cities.net has mapped some outstanding interactive images but this one has to be one of the most jaw droppingly beautiful.

Via: boing-boing

Giant Baby Found on Google Maps

The Sun newspaper may have claimed to have found Atlantis on Google Maps but Google Sightseeing have found what is clearly the baby of a giant in Google Street View (OK it's more fuzzy than clear).

3D London Tube Map
Digital Urban have created this sumptuous 3D London Tube Map with tube lines laid out according to their geographic location.

2009-03-11T02:47:00.001-07:00

Get a free stat counter here.

Eight dead in attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan: police

2009-03-08T07:38:00.000-07:00

Eight dead in attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan: police

Photo: AFP

LAHORE, Pakistan (AFP) - Masked gunmen launched a brazen attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the Pakistani city of Lahore Tuesday, killing at least eight people and wounding seven team members, police said. Up to 12 gunmen attacked the team's convoy near the Gaddafi stadium with rockets, hand grenades and automatic weapons, triggering a 25-minute gunbattle with security forces, said Lahore police chief Habib-ur Rehman. "They appeared to be well-trained terrorists," said Rehman. The gunmen fled after the ambush, triggering a giant manhunt. It was the first deadly attack targeting a sports team in nuclear-armed Pakistan, where more than 1,600 people have died in a wave of Islamist attacks in less than two years, and Al-Qaeda and Taliban shelter in its northwest. Witnesses said the upmarket district around Liberty Square, home to many designer boutiques, was turned into a battlefield as gunmen hidden behind trees opened fire in a sophisticated, coordinated attack. "There was a blast first, then we heard firing. A rocket launcher was also fired at the bus which narrowly missed," a Sri Lankan player told AFP on condition of anonymity. Australian freelance cameraman Tony Bennett said people inside the stadium heard explosions followed by bursts of machine gun fire. "Next thing we knew, the Sri Lankan team bus rolls up being sprayed by bullets. Players were getting carried into the dressing room." Sri Lanka said it would rush its foreign minister to Pakistan after the shooting, which Sri Lanka President Mahinda Rajapakse condemned as a "cowardly terrorist attack" against the country's "ambassadors of goodwill." Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani strongly condemned the "terrorist" attack and ordered an immediate inquiry. Two air force helicopters evacuated the Sri Lankan team from the stadium to an air base, from where they would be flown home immediately. Security experts defused two car bombs and recovered a stash of weapons including grenades, three kilograms (6.6 pounds) of explosives, a pistol and a detonating cable after the deadly ambush. A police official said two civilians and six policemen who were guarding the players were killed in the attack, which happened as the team was heading for the third day's play in the second Test against Pakistan. Television footage showed several gunmen creeping through trees, crouching to aim their weapons and then running onto the next target. Broken glass littered the road next to a gun cartridge and an empty rocket-propelled grenade launcher. A police motorbike had crashed sideways. Blood stained the front seats of a vehicle used by Pakistan's elite force, the van raked with gunfire with its wheels shot up and radio system disabled. There was no immediate claim of responsibility but fears of attacks by Islamic militants linked to Al-Qaeda have caused many cricket teams to cancel tours to Pakistan in recent years. The shooting also came as the Sri Lankan army pushed its final offensive against ethnic Tamil rebels in the north of the country in a civil war that has claimed tens of thousands of lives. Pakistani officials said the attack bore all the hallmarks of the November 2008 assault on the Indian city of Mumbai which was blamed on Pakistan-based Islamic militants. India's immediate reaction was to say Pakistan needed to dismantle its "infrastructure of terrorism." Sri Lankan officials said seven team players and a coach were wounded. Star batsman Thilan Samaraweera and Tharanga Paranavithana remained in hospital but were out of danger. Skipper Mahela Jayawardene, vice-captain Kumar Sangakkara, Ajantha Mendis, Thilina Thushara and Suranga Lokumal were treated for minor injuries. The team's assistant coach Paul Farbrace, a British national, was also hurt. Samaraweera is one of Sri Lanka's leading players and earlier this week became only the seventh batsmen in Test cricket to notch a double hundred in consecutive matches. The attack sent shockwaves through the world of cricket and raised doubts about the 2011 World Cup which is due to take place in Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. "We note with dismay and regret the events of this morning in Lahore and we condemn this attack without reservation," International Cricket Council chief executive Haroon Lorgat said. The attack cast yet another cloud over cricket in Pakistan. Australia earlier this month forced Pakistan to change the venue of a one-day series to the neutral venues of Dubai and Abu Dhabi when the two sides meet in April-May this over security fears. India also refused to send its team across the border amid heightened tensions in the wake of the Mumbai attacks and a spate of bombings in Pakistan over the past year. Last month, security concerns raised by other teams forced the ICC to move the 2009 Champions Trophy out of Pakistan.

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2009-03-08T00:11:00.000-08:00

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2009-02-06T23:34:00.001-08:00

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2009-02-06T23:33:00.001-08:00

Places To Get a Great Forex Trading System

It’s very important that if you’re exploring forex trading or already trading that you have a trading system. One aspect of that trading system are the actual setup rules which usually contain entry and exit techniques. Traders put a lot of time and effort in developing these setup rules too often neglecting other aspects such as position sizing or relative size of your profits compared to losses. Therefore it’s important to find a comprehensive forex trading system.
Where can you find a comprehensive forex trading system? Throughout the last three years, I’ve been through many trading systems obtained mostly from books, forums, or other websites. I’ve found that almost every time, I’ll mold that system into something totally different than the original incarnation, something that fits my personality and style of trading. Many times, the original system will also need to be expanded to include things that were neglected or forgotten. Those of you searching for the perfect system may find this method of modifying existing forex trading systems desirable. There are places where you can find the whole package without any need for modification.
This brings me to the question, "where did you get your forex trading system?" I think there are four main ways of getting a trading system.
Buy it. There are tons for sale out there on the net but heed caution. Many were just copied from forums, books, or other websites. Sometimes when you buy forex education, part of the package will include a trading system. For instance, Rob Booker provides his Arizona rules as part of his mentoring program.
Get a free one. There are many free systems that can be found in books, forums, or other websites. I guess one can question whether a system found is a book is free since you paid for the book.
Create an original system yourself. My main trading system is an original creation. There may be other systems out there that are similar to it since it’s a culmination of years of exposure to other systems and experiences.
Modify someone else’s system and make it your own. As I stated above, I have done this many times.
I’ve created a poll that asks you this question here.

2009-02-06T23:31:00.002-08:00

The Bad News About Forex Automated Trading

I’ve read a lot about how automated forex trading systems just don’t work in the long run but I can’t conclude this from personal experience. I’ve never seriously traded forex using automation. The following is an email from a trader who can conclude this from his experience. I found it totally worth sharing.
I came across your blog this afternoon whilst casually surfing the various forums in lieu of watching rubbish on TV.
I find your search for trading success an interesting one as in many respects it mirrors my own experience in many ways.
I spent well over two years, pretty much full time, searching for automated solutions to trading, having been in the process automation business for 25 years. To summarise, I have concluded it is a futile exercise with the technologies currently open to the average retail trader. I have yet to find any expert that is reliable enough to be left trading on its own and have pretty much concluded that most are really curve fitting solutions. I have seen no strategies posted anywhere that are consistent or reliable and capable of being automated without significant risk. I see some that pertain to be profitable (Artemis would be an example) but it needs constant adjustment and tuning which makes it akin to semi automation, not full automation.
However, there are manual strategies that are available that are profitable; they just do not lend themselves to automation due to the ability of the human braoin to make decisons based on proce movement that are pretty much impossible for any expert to make. So I abandoned my search for full automation solutions a year ago and concluded semi - automation was probably the right route. I trade manually today, with a few automated aids.
Linked with that, money management and certainly trading psychology are massive keys to success, the first to ensure you are alive to trade tomorrow and the latter because it takes time to get your mental state right to be able to trade at all, and that is what takes the time Rich. Sure, you need to understand the basics of trading, but without the right mental state, you’ll never be consistently profitable.

2009-02-06T23:31:00.001-08:00

Forex Rate

About Forex RateAt Forex Rate our aim is to provide as much free Currency trading information as possible on one site. Our pages are geared towards active currency daytraders and include our Forex Forum currency message boards, Online Forex Trading recomendations and information, live forex charts, live forex quotes for most currency cross pairs,daily currency trading news and forex forecasts with our free RSS news feed. We also provide intraday and end of day forex historical data - free for downloading. Forex Rate provides live information for currency trading.Forex Rate - Currency Trading News, contact us at info at forex rate.co.ukForex Rate - Currency News FX Fundamentals By DailyFX - US Dollar - Is the sell-off in the US dollar over? Probably not over the long term, but in the... Nov 03 2006 08:45AM GMT FX Cross Market Reaction By DailyFX - Wednesdays economic releases provided another bearish shade for the worlds biggest economy. A number of indicators covering various sectors of the... Nov 02 2006 08:41AM GMT FX Fundamentals By DailyFX - US Dollar - Disappointing US data has sent the dollar tumbling to a fresh monthly low. Although the University of... Nov 01 2006 08:31AM GMT FX Fundamentals By DailyFX - US Dollar - The market has been very quiet today but traders should not lose sight of the fact that last week... Oct 31 2006 08:34AM GMT Japan overtaken, U.S.A. next ? Chinese growth! Since the entry of the U.S.A into World War II the U.S. has been the most powerful nation on earth. But how long will this

2009-02-06T23:30:00.001-08:00

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2009-02-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

Fed surprises with .75 point interest rate cut

The Fed shocked Wall Street Tuesday (December 16) afternoon when it announced a .75 point cut in the Fed funds... ... rate bringing the rate the government charges lenders to a record low of .25 per cent. The discount rate was cut to .5 per cent. This means that it should be cheaper than ever for consumers and businesses to borrow money for spending, though analysts expect a bounce higher in mortgage rates.Most analysts had predicted a half-point cut from the Fed while some more conservatively expected a ¼-point cut or no cut at all. No one really expected the Fed would be so aggressive. However, Fed Chief Ben Bernanke stated that with inflation under control, the Central Bank is empowered to do whatever is in its control to encourage borrowing and economic expansion. Bernanke indicated that he expected rates to stay low for sometime until there is no question the economy is stabilized and heading back to where it belongs.Many financial and consumer markets are impacted by today’s move. The Fed funds rate had already been a very low one per cent and many bears still believe consumers are too scared to borrow and spend in the current climate. However, already low credit card and personal loan rates should now be at a point where it is hard for middle class Americans to avoid the temptation to buy now and pay later. Many excellent credit borrowers are seeing credit card rates and other revolving loan rates as low as 5-6 per cent.Mortgages have been as cheap as ever this week. According to bankrate.com, the current national average for mortgage rates is 5.64 per cent. In some parts of the country, consumers are seeing rates posted as low as 4.875 per cent with discounts and other fees applicable. Some analysts believe the cut in the funds rate may actually see mortgage rates go back up a bit. Mortgage rates tend to operate more as speculative markets do with trends based more on expectation than actual events, meaning after a rate cut, mortgage rates may go back up. Mortgage-backed security investments have much to do with mortgage rates. Home equity loans and other secured loans are more likely to stay in synch with rate moves and dip lower.The hope of the Fed is that consumers will feel more comfortable opening up their wallets and that businesses will be more comfortable expanding and maintaining jobs that might otherwise be cut. Rate cuts alone cannot fix everything currently wrong with the US economy, but the Fed appealed more to investor and American interest with the conviction of its move and its willingness to take the steps necessary to help turn things around.The dollar suffered more after the rate cut. Most currency speculators had made bets on dollar movement expecting a .25-.5 rate cut. The .75 point cut sent the dollar flailing against the likes of the yen and the Euro. Surprisingly strong rate cuts are negative for a currency becomes it makes carrying the currency less beneficial. Currencies that have higher interest yields are more enticing for conservative currency speculators because even if the currency moves counter to their investment, there is still a chance to earn some interesting against a lower rate currency.Consumers and businesses have been reluctant to take action after many of the other government interventions late this year. However, at some point, people are going to realize that loan rates may never be so low again, and a great opportunity lies before them.

Forex

2009-02-06T23:26:00.000-08:00

Saturday, February 07, 2009

Gold Slips on Dollar Bounce

THE PRICE OF GOLD fell further in London on Tuesday morning, sliding 2.2% from Monday's US close to hit $840... ... an ounce – its lowest Dollar-level since Christmas Eve.European stock markets rallied, while government bonds also retreated, pushing 10-year US Treasury yields up to 2.51%.Crude oil rose above $50 per barrel as Israel expanded its ground offensive in Gaza, and European states including Austria, Bulgaria, Greece, Macedonia and Turkey said their supplies of natural gas have been cut since Russia halted flows to Ukraine in its dispute over a long-term pricing deal."The pressure remains on Gold Prices," says today's note from Mitsui, the London precious metals dealer, "and our $845 support has now been taken out."UK gold investors also saw the price dip to a two-week low on Tuesday morning. The Gold Price in Euros, however, held little changed as the single currency fell hard on the forex market – down 10¢ from this time last week to $1.3340."Seems the [New Year] reallocation of funds in commodity indexes is adding supply to the gold market," Mitsui continues. "With a lack of Indian physical demand due to an inauspicious period [on the Hindu calendar], one has to wonder where the support will come from?"Western Gold Investment demand continues to grow, however, with the New York-listed SPDR Gold ETF continuing to keep a record volume of gold in trust – up by almost one-quarter from the start of 2007 to vault 780 tonnes in bank-owned facilities.As a proportion of all speculative betting on Comex futures and options, new US data for last week showed the number of bullish trades at 90% – considerably above the 5-year average of 81%.The total outstanding volume of Gold Futures contracts held by hedge funds and other "large speculators", however, stands almost one-half below the record peak of January last year.The commercial traders of refineries, mints, wholesalers and bullion banks, meantime, closed 2008 right in line with their bullish ratio's 5-year average of 30.8%."People [actually] want real gold," says Peter Hambro, chairman of the eponymous (and highly leveraged) Russian gold miner, interviewed today by the Financial Times."It is the physical market driving the price."Looking ahead to Gold in 2009, "The amount of [government] money being pumped into the system is vast," Hambro goes on. "Interest rates get lower and lower, and the government is practically buying bus tickets to put more money in."At some stage, that money will start chasing real assets, and the deflation you see now will be followed by amazing inflation across the board."For now, and "while safe-haven buying of Gold Coins and bars continues," says John Reade – commodity strategist for Swiss bank UBS in London – "this may not be enough to drive gold higher."Certainly, we are seeing no jewelry demand at the moment."The Bombay Bullion Association yesterday reported a 47% drop in India's gold imports for last year from 2007's record level.But that said, "Gold's move in the last couple of days is almost entirely due to the strength of the Dollar," says Reade. And for anyone considering Gold vs. Other Investment Asset Classes in 2009, "the worst-case scenario for [all other investment] markets would be caused by a run on the Dollar," warns Tim Bond – head of global asset allocation at Barclays Capital, also speaking to the FT.A fresh panic out of the world's No.1 reserve currency following its sharp bounce in the second-half of 2007 would "terminate the Fed's attempts to Quantitatively Ease and reduce credit spreads," says Bond."The effect on global markets would be catastrophic, with most asset values other than Gold collapsing."International money market data, released late last night, showed net positioning against the US Dollar rose on the forex market last week, up to a net-short position of $942 million from the previous week's $559m.That compares with a record short-Dollar position of almost $34 billion hit in late 2007, and the long-Dollar position of $15bn reached in Oct. '08.For every bet on the Dollar falling, of course, traders have to bet that another currency will rise – but "as a result of the global scope of the recession," writes the head of David Hale Global Economics for the FT today, "there is no country that wants its exchange rate to appreciate.As central banks everywhere slash interest rates and increase the money supply to devalue their currencies, "The clear alternative [therefore] to the Dollar in 2009 is that ancient form of money, gold," Hale goes on."Precious metals could emerge as a hedge for private investors suspicious of central banks and fearful of inflation."Looking at the mechanics of Buying Gold in 2009, "Interest rates are very, very low right now, so that reduces the holding cost," notes Imtiaz Ahmed of Macquarie First South, speaking to Johannesburg's SAfm and comparing the cost of owning gold against holding official government currencies."I think the wind is starting to come to [gold's] back, especially with all this money being thrown around. It's going to be inflationary. I suspect that should be good for gold."Gold remains for me a long-term asset play."Adrian AshBullionVaultFormerly City correspondent for The Daily Reckoning in London and head of editorial at the UK's leading financial advisory for private investors, Adrian Ash is the editor of Gold News and head of research at BullionVault – where you can Buy Gold Today vaulted in Zurich on $3 spreads and 0.8% dealing fees.(c) BullionVault 2009Please Note: This article is to inform your thinking, not lead it. Only you can decide the best place for your money, and any decision you make will put your money at risk. Information or data included here may have already been overtaken by events – and must be verified elsewhere – should you choose to act on it.

International Market

2009-02-05T02:49:00.000-08:00

International Market Research Center

The International Market Research Center offers extensive resources for conducting international business transactions.

FITA's Really Useful Links - an Index of more than 8000 International Trade Web Resources
Annotated, indexed and fully searchable database of more than 8000 International Trade Web Resources. "The FITA index of Web resources is just amazing." ENTERweb

International Market Research Resources
Links to major international market research pages on the Internet.

FITA/Europages Directory
The FITA/Europages Directory of European Business lists more than 600,000 European businesses in 35 countries in 25 languages. Click here to search it for free.

Global Sources China Sourcing Reports
Benefit from in-depth profiles of major China manufacturers in over 30 industry-specific sourcing reports. Get details of production capabilities, export capacities, R&D competencies, QC procedures and suppliers’ future plans. Profit from analyses based on personal factory visits and intensive interviews with senior managers that are not available anywhere else. Also get comprehensive China supply-industry overviews for your selected industry. Receive full details of supply, demand, price and output trends, with forecasts for the next 12-18 months, from China’s main production centers. Choose the reports you need from over 30 best-selling titles.

U.S. Department of Commerce's Trade Information Center
The U.S. Department of Commerce's Trade Information Center serves as a comprehensive resource for information on all federal government export assistance programs. The Center also provides general counseling on export licenses and controls, sources of financing and market research, links to trade missions and other trade events, tax and tariff information and other country-specific assistance. Click here or call the Center's trade specialists toll-free at 1-800-USA-TRADE.

Export Navigator
An international trade search engine of more than 10.000 free international market market reports from the most reputable market research websites.

Export.gov Market Research
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WISERTRADE Foreign Trade Database
Extensive databases of international trade data compiled by the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Massachusetts.

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US state exports by HS, NAICS, SIC, PORT
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FITA/Globalspeak Webcasts
Video broadcasts on international trade topics from leaders in international trade.

Foreign Affairs

2009-02-04T11:10:00.000-08:00

Obama's Middle East Agenda

by Haass & Indyk

To be successful in the Middle East, the Obama administration will need to move beyond Iraq, find ways to deal constructively with Iran, and forge a final-status Israeli-Palestinian agreement.

How to Reprogram the Pentagon

by Robert M. Gates

The Pentagon has to do more than modernize its conventional forces; it must also focus on today's unconventional conflicts — and tomorrow's.

• How the Financial Crisis Will Weaken the West

by Roger C. Altman

The financial crisis has called into serious question the credibility of western governments and may precipitate an eastward shift of power.

Listen to this essay on CFR.org »

• A New Trade Agenda

by Mattoo & Subramanian

Trade problems are an underlying cause of the financial crisis. To truly revive the world economy, a new trade consensus is necessary.

• Who Broke Global Finance?

by Harold James

The current economic crisis may have one winner: the Chinese financial model, which — together with the IMF — holds the keys to fixing the problem.

Recently in Foreign Affairs: Barack Obama's 2007 essay outlining his foreign policy agenda.

Renewing American Leadership

by Barack Obama

"Afer Iraq, we may be tempted to turn inward. That would be a mistake. The American moment is not over, but it must be seized anew. We must bring the war to a responsible end and then renew our leadership — military, diplomatic, moral — to confront new threats and capitalize on new opportunities. America cannot meet this century's challenges alone; the world cannot meet them without America."