Part Three

The Naming Game
Our Internet Marketing blog is called "eSource Development" and the domain is at esourcedevelopment.com. We thought long and hard regarding a name - We were trying to think of something relating to making money
online but couldn't think of anything that didn't sound cheesy so we took our store name, eSource, and made it a development site since a majority of our business was web and software.

Topic Selection
When we first started our development / marketing blog we were already a successful web and software development company operating under the name eSource, and that's what we initially blogged about. However as the months passed we found ourselves learning and blogging about topics I didn't know about at the start, like niche marketing, social media, javascript, list building and so on.

Whether you are starting a blog from scratch or you have an existing one, use what you thought about in the previous lesson to think about what direction you are going to take your blog and sketch out some of the specific topics you can cover.

When it comes to writing your posts you will be able to organize them into categories which makes it much easier for new readers to find your posts and its easy for them to see at a glance what your blog is about. When you just post a mish-mash of posts on all sorts of topics that are not really related then it can be more difficult to turn a one-off visitor into a regular subscriber.

Posting Schedule
Many people advise you to blog every day when launching a new blog with the theory being that the more you post the more people will come to your blog, and the more often Google will index your site. However as a blog reader I find that blogs that post every day or even multiple times a day are simply too much - I can't keep up with them. We try to post about 2 times a week which seems to be the right balance for our type of site.

When we say "schedule", we don't really mean that literally. As long as you post at least twice a week, the exact day and time of the postings do not matter. Sometimes, we'll write 2 posts and schedule the second one to post the next day so there is a gap between postings. Most popular blog sites will have this feature.

I know your anxious, but starting out with an every day posting blog then settling in to a twice a week blog might look bad to some. It is much better to start out with a gentler blog schedule and see how it goes for a few months rather than over-commit yourself at the beginning and then burn out a few months down the line.

Posting Style
Some people suggest that you alter your blogging style to fit your target audience but in our experience we find that it never works to try to blog in a style that is not uniquely you. Your blog is a reflection of you - your thoughts, your findings, your interests and passions.

I used to teach at the University of Phoenix... Not so much by choice but by necessity. I had written a course for them on Data Communications and Protocols. I was then told there were no teachers for it, so I signed the contract to teach the 10 week course. I had never taught before so I read a couple of books real quick and tried to find a "style." Guess what? It was a complete waste of time! Do you know why? Because the best teaching style is your own style, not someone else's. As soon as I did that the teaching was easy. I was comfortable and coherent because I was talking and acting like me!

The moral of the story is simply to blog in your own style, whatever that means! Some people are very conservative, some people use very colorful language, others like to be controversial, others are very dry and matter-of-fact. Whatever you are, simply be who you are and write as yourself.

Similarly, I see people asking questions such as, how long should my posts be? This again is down to personal style. I find that when you are blogging about something you are passionate or knowledgeable about, the words just flow. Some of my posts here (and my other blogs) can get a little wordy, but hey, that's my style!

It really doesn't matter what your style is because the readers who like your style will stick around and subscribe and the ones who don't, wont! Simple as that really! There is no way that any single style is going to appeal to everybody so don't try! No matter what your posting style is, there will be people who like it and some who don't, but it never pays to try and be something that you are not.

It’s finally here! After months of testing and development, our eMail Scraper product is ready for release! It’s a fantastic way for internet marketers to focus their email campaigns to specific target audiences rather than just blasting emails to tens of thousands of random people who may have little or no interest in your product.

Here’s How It Works

Say you have a reseller product or clickbank™ eBook that deals with health foods and diet. Open email Scraper, select the search provider (Google or Yahoo), enter a search term like "diet clinic retail in Seattle WA email contact" and click the "Create Site List" button.

Now review the results and click "Scrape." It's that simple. email Scraper then scans the search results for inner pages and begins scraping the email addresses off the pages. It even captures most hidden, embedded, and coded address links.

When the process is complete, you can export the results of the scrape to a text file for easy loading and / or importing. Addresses are written in a CR/LF formatted file for easy importing to your email blast program.

You can read more about this amazing product HERE!

Don't pay hundreds of dollars a month on some generic opt-in mailing list whose members probably don't have anything to do with your product or service. Why not create specific and detailed emailing lists that cater directly to your niche market? email Scraper is the definitive automatic email address generator! Get detailed email lists covering any and all combinations. The only real limitation is your imagination.

So what are you waiting for? Get started creating specific lists containing quality email leads with just  few clicks of the mouse. Focus your email strategy to get quality leads and start Making Money! email scraper is the fast track success marketing tool that will turbo-charge your conversion rates!

Part Two

What type of Blog should I start?

Before starting a new blog it helps to define what your goals are for it as that will guide you in every aspect of its development. Somebody who wants to build a blog to promote an existing business will do things differently than somebody who is blogging for a political cause for example. Whether you have already got a blog or are about to start one, take a moment to think about the following factors and as you work your way through these steps have your answers in mind.

Target Audience
Think about who your target audience is for your blog. Are they male / female? What is their income? Are they married? Have children? Are they tech-savvy? A young tech-savvy male is far more likely to Digg your posts than
a mom who doesn't even know what RSS is for instance. Your audience will respond differently to monetization also. The same tech-savvy male is much less likely to click an ad than the mom. Is your target audience somebody who is likely to carefully read through your posts in detail trying to glean as much information as possible (older crowd for instance) or are they a "give-it-to-me-quick" kind of person? These factors will affect your content and writing style. The former may respond well to in-depth how-to posts whereas the latter will likely prefer quick, easily-scannable lists. If any of the things I've mentioned here don't make sense to you, don't worry as we will get to those in future posts! We’re just trying to give you examples so that as you progress through these posts you'll better understand what aspects will be more applicable to your particular blog.

Monetization
From the outset you should try to have a clear idea of how you want to monetize your blog. For example, if you are planning on selling private advertising then you'll need to make sure that your blog theme is designed to support the sizes and shapes of ads that you want to run. If you are promoting something that is already in existence such as
your services, or an existing business then you will want to make sure that you prominently work your promotional content into your blog seamlessly.

For example, look at the top of this page. There is a large header section split into two parts and each one of those heavily promotes something that we are a licensed reseller for (or something we produced). Now over to the right in the sidebar you'll see a handful of small banner ads for select vendors and products we promote or use ourselves.  As you can see, these are not as prominent as the products in the header section but they fit nicely.

Other monetization options such as AdSense are usually easier to slot into just about any theme as there are many shapes and sizes of ads that you can use but then you need to ask yourself the question, do I place ads straight away or should I incorporate them later?

The answer is fairly simple… If you are blogging in order to earn an income then incorporate some ads on your blog straight away. The details don't matter at first as you'll have no traffic anyway but there is a good reason for doing it up-front: As you begin to build your blog readership they will come to expect that you are blogging for money
and expect to see your ads. If you suddenly introduce them some time later some of your readers will complain, accuse you of being a sellout and so on!

Another benefit to placing ads straight away is that the audience that you build will often contain your future advertisers but they won't think to advertise with you if you're not in the habit of having ads on your blog. This goes part and parcel with a reseller strategy. Some of the ‘upper crust’ advertisers will need to approve you as a reseller prior to allowing you to place ads for their product or service. It’s a good idea to have some ads already in place when they check out your page to see if it is worthy.

Notice how we throw in the occasional ad now and then to get the word out?

Branding
In future posts we will be talking quite a lot about social media which is one of the ways in which I have brought in hundreds of people to my blog and established myself in the niche. One very important thing about branding is that it is very difficult to change later on. You can’t go from running a gardening blog to a new car review blog.

Right from the start think about what image you are trying to project. Are you promoting yourself like we are in our blog or are you promoting your blog name as a brand within itself (think Lifehacker, TechCrunch, BoingBoing)? If you are promoting yourself then think about graphics - do you have a standard avatar for yourself that you can use? Make sure you do because when you get social media right that avatar gets everywhere!

Changing Direction?
We have had quite a few blogs over the years. If you have an already established blog think about where it stands currently on the points mentioned above. What kind of audience does it currently attract? Is that the audience you want? What monetization are you using and are you happy with it? Is your audience responding well to it? Finally, what image are you projecting, if any?

 
If you need to change anything that is ok, just think about the direction in which you would like to take your blog and bear that in mind as you work through the rest of these lessons.

Here’s a little presentation we recently did regarding everything you need to know to run a successful Blog site. It gives some general information about setting up, running, maintaining, and updating a Blog of your own. We will present these lessons in several parts.

Remember, to learn ALL of our SEO Secrets, be sure and sign up for eSource Development’s SEO Launch Secrets, coming out later this month! This video and tutorial training will get your website and products noticed, and most importantly… MORE SALES!

Part One

What Can You Expect From Your Blog?

Income
First of all, blogs have the power to earn money and there is so much more to earning an income through blogging than just slapping up a few ads! I'll be talking about lots of different ways to monetize your blog. 99% of the revenue that I have generated in the last year (many thousands of dollars) has come either directly from the blog or from a product that was launched via the blog. Make no mistake - blogs can earn you a decent income! And don't think you have to have a gigantic readership either. My Internet marketing blog has a few hundred readers which is good but nowhere near the numbers of some of the mega-bloggers out there yet it still makes me a very good income.

Branding
When you combine blogging with social media you develop the power of branding. Whether you simply want to brand yourself as a person or you're branding a product or company name, blogs built with social media in mind can put you 'out there' like no other medium. People begin to see you everywhere, recognize your face, they begin searching for you in search engines. In short, blogs can make you quite famous in your little corner of the Internet and if you
happen to be promoting your products or services, this can become quite profitable.

Authority
In order to build a successful blog you will need to learn how to drive traffic to it and make it popular as a blog with no traffic is not going to make you much money. However there is another side effect of building a popular blog... as your blog begins to gain authority in the eyes of Google it becomes a powerful asset in itself and can then be used to launch other websites with a helping hand. Once you've built your first big blog it becomes easier to develop other Internet properties.

Want to set up your blog using your OWN domain name? Get great deals at GoDaddy!

Sometimes we forget that there are some readers that are not as proficient in the SEO world as some of the contributors to this blog. We get emails asking “What does CPA mean?” Well, here’s a little glossary that may help with that:

Broad match. This is the default option. When you include keyword phrases – such as tennis shoes – in your keyword list, your ads will appear when users search for tennis and shoes, in any order – and possibly along with other terms.

Call to action. Ad copy that encourages users to take a defined action. Examples range from "Click here" or "Buy now" to "Enter now to win a free trip to Hawaii" or "Click to download a free white paper."

Conversion. A defined action in response to your ad's call to action. A conversion may be a sale, or it could be a registration, download, or entry into your lead database, depending on the goal of your campaign.
Conversion rate. The number of visitors who respond to your ad's call to action divided by the number of impressions, multiplied by 100 and expressed as a percentage. For example, your conversion rate is one percent if 100 people are shown your ad, five people click through to your site, and one person makes a purchase.

Cost-per-1000-impressions (CPM). Pricing based on number of impressions served over a period of time. A $50 CPM means you pay $50 for every 1000 times your ad appears. ("M" is the Roman numeral for 1000.) Also known as pay-per-impression.
Cost-per-action (CPA). Pricing based on the number of actions in response to your ad. An action may be defined as a sales transaction, a customer acquisition, or simply a click. Also known as cost-per-transaction. CPA may also
refer to cost-per-acquisition.
Cost-per-click (CPC). Pricing based on the number of clicks your ad receives. A typical range is 5 cents to $1 per click. Also known as pay-per-click. CPC may also refer to cost-per-customer.
Cost-per-lead (CPL). Pricing based on the number of new leads generated by your ad. For example, you might pay for every visitor that clicks on your ad and successfully completes a form on your site.
Cost-per-order (CPO). Pricing based on the number of orders received as a result of your ad placement. Also known as cost-per-transaction.
Cost-per-sale (CPS). Pricing based on the number of sales transactions your ad generates. Since users may visit your site several times before making a purchase, you can use cookies to track their visits from your landing page to the actual online sale. Also known as cost-per-acquisition or pay-per-sale.

Geo-targeting. The distribution of ads to a particular geographical area. For example, you can use a place name in your keyword, such as "Minnesota multimedia" or "Sacramento farm equipment." Some search engines allow you to
target specific countries – and languages – without using keyword relevance.

Keyword. A specific word, or combination of words, entered into a search engine that results in a list of pages related to the keyword. A keyword is the content of a search engine query.

Keyword matching. Methods of selecting and organizing your keywords to match the user's query.
Landing page. An active web page where Internet users will "land" when they click your online ad. Your landing page doesn't need to be your home page. In fact, ROI usually improves if your landing page directly relates to your ad and immediately presents a conversion opportunity — whether that means signing up for a newsletter, downloading a software demo, or buying a product. Also known as a destination URL or clickthrough URL.

Negative keyword. Negative keywords allow you to eliminate searches that you know are not related to your message. If you add the negative keyword "–table" to your keyword "tennis shoes," your ad will not appear when a user searches on "table tennis shoes." Negative keywords should be used with caution, as they can eliminate a large portion of a desired audience if applied incorrectly.
Paid placement. Guaranteed listing with high ranking among search results, usually in relation to specified keywords. In response to recent FTC guidelines, many search engines clearly identify paid placements as "sponsored links," listing them separately from the editorial portion of the results page. Paid placement programs are typically based on CPC or CPM pricing, with higher overall costs than paid inclusion. Also known as pay-for-placement.
Paid inclusion. Guaranteed inclusion on a search engine's results in exchange for payment, without any guarantee of how high the listing will appear. A paid inclusion appears to the user as an editorial listing rather than as a sponsored link. Paid inclusion pricing is typically based on a flat fee or index fee.

Relevance. A measure of how closely a search result – or a search ad – matches the user's query. Relevance is key to harnessing the power of search advertising. The more relevant your ad, the more likely the audience will be motivated to respond to your call-to-action. At the same time, the relevance of your ad and your ad's landing page can enhance the user's search experience, while irrelevant ads can cause users to ignore advertising altogether.
Return on investment (ROI). The benefit gained in return for the cost of your ad campaign. Although exact measurement is nearly impossible, your clickthrough rate and your conversion rate combined with your advertising costs, can help you assess the ROI of your campaign.

That’s right! eSource Development has been working on our first training series for several weeks now. Finally, we are ready to announce that

SEO Launch Secrets will hit the market on May 11th, 2010.

What’s in SEO Launch Secrets:

• Over 90 minutes of video instruction
• Comprehensive workbook with all video screen shots
• Downloadable forms and worksheets (.PDF)
• 24/7 access to our Training Videos

And as an added bonus, you will receive $50 off your copy of SEO Launch Secrets by filling out the coupon request here!

This series will teach you how to drive quality traffic to your site by using tried and true Internet marketing methods without resorting to ‘Black Hat’ tactics. Even if you do not have a website or a product, SEO Launch Secrets will show you, step by step, how to get the word out and become a search engine powerhouse site. The videos and workbooks detail everything you need to know to make your online business a success.

Visit our Training page for more information

What you will learn!

The number one mistake most website owners make when trying to improve search engine rankings, preventing them from ever showing up on the first page of Google. This mistake is made by more than 99% of all website owners.

How to boost your rankings by simply changing just one optimization factor. Applying this simple technique is like using steroids to enhance the visibility of your website, drastically improving your Google rankings. This secret revealed to you in this SEO Launch Secrets.

The proper way to develop in-bound links to your website. If you know the importance of link building, but currently do not apply this simple technique to every inbound link, then they are virtually USELESS from Google's perspective.

On-page optimization factors that really matter when you're looking to improve search engine rankings. If you're still hung up on the concept of keyword density, then this method will change your thinking forever!

The most important factor for improving Google rankings. This secret is known by all the top webmasters and is the reason why they're websites are outranking 99.9% of all other websites on the Google search engine.

The difference between on-page optimization and off-page optimization and how you can leverage this knowledge to optimize for Google. Using these techniques in combination are like a 1, 2, punch that can literally skyrocket you to the front of search engine lists.

How to determine the best keywords for generating traffic to your website. See exactly how leading Webmasters find popular keywords with little or no competition, generating tons of traffic quickly and easily.

The best way to find link partners. When searching out link partners, top Webmasters know exactly who to ask. Generating links can be beneficial to your website but only if you're targeting the right websites! This guide shows you a quick and easy way to instantly determine the best link partners for your website.

The secret technique you can apply today that will instantly improve search engine rankings and propel your website towards the first page of Google for selected keywords. This method has a viral effect that continues to work while you sleep!

A powerful 'off-page optimization' method that can generate hundreds of links to your website in less than 48 hours! These links provide the right kind of "votes" that Google looks for when ranking your website - instantly improving search engine rankings.

Plus much more!

I’ve been involved in Internet marketing, to varying degrees, since 1995. Although that sounds like a lot of experience, it pales in comparison to the throngs of true Internet marketing professionals who make their living based on placement, clicks, and keywords. Not to say I don’t know what I’m doing, but as with any profession, there are always tips and tricks that are passed down and learned and subsequently shared with others. In my case, AdWords is something that I have avoided until recently and thought I would share some of the things I found out during my trials and tribulations.

Let’s start with a couple of basic introductions. AdWords is a Google tool that allows advertisers to pick key words or phrases that will trigger their ads to appear. There are many tools that assist with generating effective keywords, and those will be covered in another posting. Once you choose your trigger words and write a small ad or banner, you then place bids on those words and phrases which indicate the maximum amount you are willing to pay a display medium (website, Google search results) per click on that ad. The more popular the word or phrase, the more expensive it is. Your ads are displayed on Google search results and websites that subscribe to Google AdSense placement. “What is that?” you ask. Well, look at the websites you visit, even esourcedevelopment. AdSense ads are a great way for website owners to make a few cents every time someone clicks on the ads displayed on their page. It also fills the page with relevant information which makes your site more professional and attractive to site visitors.

In our example, let’s say we have a product that is a credit card protective sleeves. I know, it’s a BS product, but it will work for purposes of this demonstration. We create a landing page for people to order our product from and have registered the name creditcardprotector.com (if that site really exists, I better get a little some-some on the back-end). Then you must go to google.com/adwords. If you already have a Google ID, like for Google checkout, you can use that. Setting up your account means that you provide a credit card for billing and have access to the keyword placement tools.  After that, we got our product, we got our site page, we got our Google AdWords account, now all we need is visitors!

First thing, let’s think up some keywords to use in our AdWords campaign. Don’t get all excited and start throwing out every word that is even remotely associated with your product because you will go broke. Your daily AdWords budget limit will be met immediately with no quality clicks to show for it. “But, gee, Al,” you may be thinking to yourself, “Isn’t the goal to get people to click?” Yes, it is, but we want quality clicks, not quantity. There are 5 basic keywords and variations you want to use:

”PRODUCT NAME”
“PRODUCTNAME”
”PRDUCTNAME COM”
”PRODUCT NAME REVIEW”
”PRODUCT NAME SCAM”

And that’s about it! Using our example product, we might create keyword phrases like:

”credit card protector”
“creditcardprotector”
“creditcardprotector com”
“credit card protector review”
“credit card protector scam”

Notice the quotes around the phrases? They aren’t just for this example, you want to place quotes around all of your keyword phrases. Why? Again, because without them you will go broke. Without the quotes your ad will show (and be clicked on) by any schlep searching for “credit card,” “review,” or “scam.” I can hear it again… “But Al, as long as people are clicking, isn’t that good?” NO. Bad dog. No biscuit. Remember, our goal is quality, not quantity. Some guy looking for a low interest credit card may see your ad and think “What the heck is a card protector,” only to click off your site after seeing what it is and thinking “Oh…OK.” Sure, you may get an occasional sale, but wouldn’t you rather have a click-through from a guy that is actually searching for “credit card protector?”

In part 2, we will actually set up these words in our Google AdWords account and set daily limits and bids for each phrase.

There are times when I tell someone much younger than me about some of the trials and tribulations of early Internet life.  You know… before DSL and cable modems, before Wi-Fi, before DVD’s. Sometimes they look at me like I was making all of it up just to amuse myself.

Let me start with a little background. I have been a Software Engineer for almost 25 years. I have had many titles and worked for all sized companies, from fortune 100 to mom-and-pop. I was around when the Internet ‘happened’. When this weird, wonderful technological gift was bestowed upon humanity. I’m also old enough to know, for a FACT, that Al Gore did NOT invent the Internet. Ah, those glorious days of my youth, watching as computers progressed from 286 to 386 to Pentium… Watching as hard drives fell in price from a $695 10MB drive to a $60 1TB drive. But I digress.

Such was my early involvement with the Internet that I hold the dubious distinction of building and installing the first Internet accessible dial-in server at the University of Phoenix for student communication. Prior to that they had to use a dial in Bulletin Board system called ALEx (Apollo Learning Exchange). I left there in ‘95 to dedicate my efforts to Internet related activities and joined up with a man who wanted to start his own dial-up ISP. It reached it’s limit at about 1000 subscribers and was giving Primenet (our biggest local competitor) a run for their money. So, with that said, I believe I am pretty well qualified to speak on the historical events and their significance / relevance, peppered with a little humor, sarcasm, and embellishment.

Thus was born the thread Hacking it: Old Skool. Here I will chronicle some of the pitfalls, surprises, achievements, and flat out failures of various Internet activities. So gather around the campfire and I, the eSource tribal elder, will mesmerize you with tales passed down from Sysadmin to Sysadmin. These are the tales of the life force we call Internet spoken by those who were there to experience it many moons ago… (cue howling wolf).

This first article deals with early attempts at email blast marketing and how the perpetrators would hide their tracks. Remember that in the early days of the Internet, our email programs were barely GUI. They had none of the features you kids enjoy today like spam filters (at least ones that worked) or embedded HTML. They were TEXT with simple links and limited styling. Pornography was a budding business back then and people were looking for ways to get people to click to their site thinking they were clicking on something else. Hopefully the person who clicked was A) A guy, B) Looking for porn anyway, and C) Too unfamiliar with the early browsers to release themselves from the shackles of the endless redirect!

Knowing their dial-up ISP would delete their account if they got complaints against them sending such material, they looked for ingenious ways to send emails, make them look like they are from someone else, and completely wash their hands of them. One such technique was called “The Gullible Server.”

In those early days, ISP’s were generally small shops that, as a group, looked out for each other and tried to help out as needed. There were many servers that had security holes, either by choice or incompetence, that left the door wide open to those looking to take advantage of their kindness.

The Gullible Server involved finding an ISP whose SMTP server had lax security / checking. The email marketer would then create their email with fraudulent or unreliable links and create an email list of recipients. Then the following would occur:

1) The FROM address would be the actual address of the intended recipient

2) The TO address would be a bogus address at the domain server they were spamming through (say Fake_Address@nowhere.com)

3) When the email reached the Gullible Server, it tried to deliver it to the bogus address on their server. It would not be found

4) Trying to be nice, the Gullible Server would send the email back to the FROM address to let them know it was undeliverable

5) The user listed in the FROM address receives the email and the nefarious email scammer’s plan is put in action

6) Some angry users call nowhere.com and complain about receiving offensive unsolicited emails

7) Clueless admin scratches his head trying to find the user Fake_Address@nowhere.com… No luck

If the admin waited more than a couple of days to check the logs and see what user actually sent the email, they were most likely gone or simply did not exist (the logs, not the user). Remember that drive space was at a premium, so keeping long term records on small capacity HD’s was not a priority or a necessity for small, independent ISP’s.

The scam had several variations as different filters and methods were developed for the email servers to combat this sort of thing. For those early hacking pioneers it netted them some benefit and riches. As the popularity of the Internet grew and ISP’s began having to fight and claw to hold on to their customers, the locks got even tighter and eventually this type of email spamming became a thing of the past.

Now, off to bed you little scamps! I’ll regale you with further tales of Internet past some other time! 

How often are you beat about the head and shoulders with some web marketing gimmick? I don’t much care for those pages (called squeeze pages) that trap you on that page, unable to click out of the trap without spawning pop-ups and redirects and slide in windows.

The technique has been around forever and in just about every industry, not just the Internet. There was a car dealership in Phoenix that got in trouble for locking customers in the salesman’s office so they were unable to leave when the salesman went out of the room to talk to the ‘manager’. If you’ve ever bought or read any Internet Marketing get-rich-quick schemes, you know that the focus is to get people to a certain page and keep them there until they buy! Then they make you feel like an idiot for passing up the offer (don’t you want to join the exclusive club that makes thousands a day?).

People nowadays are a little more Internet savvy. They steer clear of the Google ads that are obvious gimmicks and look for sites that truly have what they’re looking for. I never understood that sort of black-hat marketing where you click on something because the search engine told you it was what you searched for only to find it’s something completely different. Do these guys really think that someone searching for “Garden supplies” is going to buy car insurance on a whim from their trap ad?

BTW: A lot of those get-rich-quick Internet Marketing courses that promise overnight wealth simply give you the material to start your own get-rich-quick marketing campaign selling the same course you just bought (or similar).

Anyway, let me get to the point (finally!). There is an unlimited number of ways to get people to visit your site without tricking them or resorting to shady tactics. It just takes one original idea that is popularized by Internet users, not Google ads or pop-ups. People that visit, promote, and frequent those sites generate more real and loyal traffic than any search engine ad placement.

Case in point, shitmydadsays. What is it? It’s a twitter / facebook account written by a young man who lives with his elderly father. When his father speaks pearls of wisdom, he posts them on Twitter (Example: "Son, no one gives a shit about all the things your cell phone does. You didn't invent it, you just bought it. Anybody can do that."). It’s very addictive. We all have relatives that have reached that age where they no longer care about what they say or who hears it, but this guy took it to the next level. The concept is so insanely simple that the genius of it escapes many who are still trying the unfriendly blast and trap methods. The Twitter account has over 1.2 million… that’s right, million, subscribers. The facebook page has almost half a million fans.

Justin does not have any ads for his site other than the facebook ones. However, if he put these ramblings on a website and posted just a few simple relevant ad links, he would make bank! The traffic to that site just to check out the quotes would be phenomenal, and thanks to word of mouth the site would continue to grow like the Twitter / facebook pages have.

Want proof that this is an Internet marketing goldmine? Check out the posers on facebook and other sites that are trying to horn in on this guys popularity. Again, do these people really think that someone is going to buy a diet pill because they landed on a site they thought was shitmydadsays? I think not.

The last bit of proof that this honest, niche Internet entertainment source is explosively popular is this: They have a book deal and now CBS is in talks to make a show based on this guys postings! I have no idea how they are going to accomplish this because the beauty of the postings is in the colorful language. Congratulations to him and his family. Y’know why, because he did the right way, he built a simple mechanism to get the word out about his dad’s humor without resorting to the dishonest and slimy tactics of Internet marketers.

My point is this… If you want to drive people to your site, give them some actual substance. Drudgereport is a free site that I visit multiple times a day because it lists headlines from dozens of news sources and doesn’t constantly beat me over the head with ‘buy this product now’ BS, pop-ups, or pop-unders. They rely on a few simple ad links that I click on to send a few nickels their way as a thank you for their website’s service. And if you find a site that provides decent content without those tactics, throw ‘em a bone and click their ads just to say ‘Thanks’.

If you’ve been a web developer for more than 5 minutes you know that you can’t create any type of website without getting a user to enter their email address. Sometimes this is done for marketing purposes or to add them to an email list for subscriptions, but whatever the reason the need is there on almost any website to prompt, validate, and record a visitors email address.

An easy way to do this is with a JavaScript chunk of code that will look at the value the user entered and ensure it adheres to certain rules regarding how a standard email address is formatted. This will not validate that the email is a working account at the domain specified (that’s another post), but it will at least catch user input errors they might not be aware of when entering the address in the field.

Test the code out on our email Format Test Page!

Download the ASP and Javascript code used on the test page here: emailFormatExample.zip (2.48 kb)

This file, emailTools.js, contains several functions that take a passed parameter and check the syntax to ensure it is formatted properly.

   1: function checkValidation(emailAddr) {

   2:     var message = 'OK';

   3:     if (stringEmpty(emailAddr)) {

   4:         message = "Error! There is no input value entered.";

   5:     } else if (noAtSign( emailAddr )) {

   6:         message = "Error! The address \"" + emailAddr + "\" does not contain an '@' character.";

   7:     } else if (nothingBeforeAt(emailAddr)) {

   8:         message = "Error! The address \"" + emailAddre;

   9:         message += "\" must contain at least one character before the '@' character";

  10:     } else if (noLeftBracket(emailAddr)) {

  11:         message = "Error! The address \"" + emailAddr;

  12:         message += "\" contains a right square bracket ']',\nbut no corresponding left square bracket '['.";

  13:     } else if (noRightBracket(emailAddr)) {

  14:         message = "Error! The address \"" + emailAddr;

  15:         message += "\" contains a left square bracket '[',\nbut no corresponding right square bracket ']'.";

  16:     } else if (noValidPeriod(emailAddr)) {

  17:         message = "Error! The address \"" + emailAddr + "\" must contain a period ('.') character.";

  18:     } else if (noValidSuffix(emailAddr)) {

  19:         message = "Error! The address \"" + emailAddr;

  20:         message += "\" must contain a two, three or four character suffix.";

  21:     }

  22:     return (message);

  23: }

  24:  

  25: function checkEmailValid (formField) {

  26:     if( checkValidation(formField) == 'OK')

  27:         return true;

  28:     return false;

  29: }

  30:  

  31: function stringEmpty (formField) {

  32:     // CHECK THAT THE STRING IS NOT EMPTY

  33:     if ( formField.length < 1 ) {

  34:         return ( true );

  35:     } else {

  36:         return ( false );

  37:     }

  38: }

  39:  

  40: function noAtSign (formField) {

  41:     // CHECK THAT THERE IS AN '@' CHARACTER IN THE STRING

  42:     if (formField.indexOf ('@', 0) == -1) {

  43:         return ( true )

  44:     } else {

  45:         return ( false );

  46:     }

  47: }

  48:  

  49: function nothingBeforeAt (formField) {

  50:     // CHECK THERE IS AT LEAST ONE CHARACTER BEFORE THE '@' CHARACTER

  51:     if ( formField.indexOf ( '@', 0 ) < 1 ) {

  52:         return ( true )

  53:     } else {

  54:         return ( false );

  55:     }

  56: }

  57:  

  58: function noLeftBracket (formField) {

  59:     // IF EMAIL ADDRESS IN FORM 'user@[255,255,255,0]', THEN CHECK FOR LEFT BRACKET

  60:     if ( formField.indexOf ( '[', 0 ) == -1 && formField.charAt (formField.length - 1) == ']') {

  61:         return ( true )

  62:     } else {

  63:         return ( false );

  64:     }

  65: }

  66:  

  67: function noRightBracket (formField) {

  68:     // IF EMAIL ADDRESS IN FORM 'user@[255,255,255,0]', THEN CHECK FOR RIGHT BRACKET

  69:     if (formField.indexOf ( '[', 0 ) > -1 && formField.charAt (formField.length - 1) != ']') {

  70:         return ( true );

  71:     } else {

  72:         return ( false );

  73:     }

  74: }

  75:  

  76: function noValidPeriod (formField) {

  77:     // IF EMAIL ADDRESS IN FORM 'user@[255,255,255,0]', THEN WE ARE NOT INTERESTED

  78:     if (formField.indexOf ( '@', 0 ) > 1 && formField.charAt (formField.length - 1 ) == ']')

  79:         return ( false );

  80:  

  81:     // CHECK THAT THERE IS AT LEAST ONE PERIOD IN THE STRING

  82:     if (formField.indexOf ( '.', 0 ) == -1)

  83:         return ( true );

  84:  

  85:     return ( false );

  86: }

  87:  

  88: function noValidSuffix(formField) {

  89:     // IF EMAIL ADDRESS IN FORM 'user@[255,255,255,0]', THEN WE ARE NOT INTERESTED

  90:     if (formField.indexOf('@', 0) > 1 && formField.charAt(formField.length - 1) == ']') {

  91:         return ( false );

  92:     }

  93:  

  94:     // CHECK THAT THERE IS A TWO OR THREE CHARACTER SUFFIX AFTER THE LAST PERIOD

  95:     var len = formField.length;

  96:     var pos = formField.lastIndexOf ( '.', len - 1 ) + 1;

  97:     if ( ( len - pos ) < 2 || ( len - pos ) > 4 ) {

  98:         return ( true );

  99:     } else {

 100:         return ( false );

 101:     }

 102: }

Create a file called emailTools.js ( or download the sample .ZIP file above ) and place it in your sites root directory.

In your .ASPX file, include a reference to the script file by adding the following line of code, preferably toward the bottom with other parts of your scripts.

   1: <script type="text/javascript" src="emailTools.js"></script>

Next, add the textbox control to your page that will hold the email address the user enters

   1: <asp:TextBox ID="emailaddr" runat="server" MaxLength="50" Style="vertical-align: middle"

   2:     TabIndex="1" Width="300px" CausesValidation="True"></asp:TextBox>

After the textbox control code that will contain the email address the visitor enters, you need to add a custom validator. Place it on the form so that if the user enters an address that is invalid, the message shows up on top of or below the email address textbox. This way the user can easily see the text when it pops up and make the necessary corrections. The first validator simply reminds the user that they need to enter an email address in order to continue. The second custom validator is what checks to see if the address is formatted correctly.

   1: <asp:RequiredFieldValidator ID="rfvFullname" runat="server" ControlToValidate="emailaddr"

   2:     ErrorMessage="Please enter your email address" Font-Bold="True" Font-Size="12pt" />

   3: <asp:CustomValidator ID="cvEmail" runat="server" Font-Bold="True" Font-Size="12pt"

   4:     ClientValidationFunction="checkEmailAddr" ControlToValidate="emailaddr" ErrorMessage="Email address is not formatted properly. Please correct." />

Change the ControlToValidate value to the name of your email address textbox control on the form.

Place a button on your form for the user to press when they are done.

   1: <asp:Button ID="Button1" runat="server" Text="Click to continue" OnClick="OnAddEmail" />

Notice how the button has an OnClick variable that tells it to run our C# code block called OnAddEmail() and not our validation script? That's because the control will never fire the OnClick event until the validation specified in the CustomValidator and RequiredFieldValidator occurs and everything checks out. In our code behind, we have two functions. One to take care of the PageLoad and set our previous page variable, the second is the actual OnAddEmail function that records the users email and returns them to the page that sent them here. I have placed the code within the ASPX file and not in a separate file, but you can do it either way.

   1: <script runat="server">

   2:     public static string sPrevPage = "";

   3:     protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

   4:     {

   5:         // Save the originating page so we can send the user back whe done

   6:         if (!IsPostBack)

   7:         {

   8:             if (Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_referer"] != null)

   9:                 sPrevPage = Request.ServerVariables["HTTP_referer"].ToString();

  10:             else

  11:                 sPrevPage = "~/Default.aspx";

  12:         }

  13:     }

  14:  

  15:     protected void OnAddEmail(object sender, EventArgs e)

  16:     {

  17:         // Use this function to write the email address to a file

  18:         try

  19:         {

  20:             string sFilePath = Request.MapPath("~/emails/") + "visitor.log";

  21:             using (System.IO.StreamWriter sw = new System.IO.StreamWriter(sFilePath, true))

  22:             {

  23:                 sw.WriteLine(emailaddr.Text);

  24:             }

  25:         }

  26:         catch { }

  27:         Response.Redirect(sPrevPage);

  28:     }

  29: </script>

Now comes the fun part… Insert the code at the bottom of the ASPX file to call the function(s) in our emailtools.js file that will tell us whether or not the email address is at least formatted OK.

   1: <script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

   2:     var alreadyChecked = false;

   3:     function checkEmailAddr(sender, args) {

   4:         var retVal = checkEmailValid(document.getElementById('<%=emailaddr.ClientID%>').value);

   5:         if (retVal == true && alreadyChecked == false) {

   6:             alert("Your address appears valid. You will now be taken back to the previous page...");

   7:             alreadyChecked = true;

   8:         }

   9:         args.IsValid = retVal;

  10:     }

  11: </script>

Now, when the user presses Enter or the submit button, the validation scripts fire. If they fail, they warn the user and lets them fix the errors on the form. Once a valid email is supplied, the name is recorded in the Visitors.log file, and they are returned to the previous screen or you can change the code to take them to a “Thank you” type page.

You may be wondering about the variable alreadyChecked. It is needed because the checkEmailAddr function actually fires twice when the user enters a valid email address… Once for the validation and again for the form submission. This variable ensures our textbox message only gets displayed once.

I hope this example helps and / or makes sense enough to help you with validating some of the user input.