Darren Chow Personal Blog

Before going into the details of the new video type, here is a quick update on our article submission service.

We have successfully added Searchwarp.com (a Page Rank 5 website) to our premium submissions.

The premium credits already include many high profile sites like Ezinearticles, ArticleAlley, AmericanChronicle, etc. So adding SearchWarp to our distribution list will provide you with additional exposure and give you more links.

Here are some sample articles:

http://searchwarp.com/swa611066-The-Naked-Truth-About-Wicker-Furniture.htm

http://searchwarp.com/swa610646-How-To-Start-An-Import-Export-Business.htm

http://searchwarp.com/swa608790-Article-Writing-Guide-Promoting-A-Website-With-Great-Content.htm

New Video Production Type -- Video Articles

A couple of months ago, we released the video production and distribution service. We will produce the video for you and distribute (upload) the video to high profile sites such as YouTube, Yahoo Video, Daily Motion, and more (there are in total 6 sites in the distribution list).

We are providing this service because our tests show that the videos can bring you additional traffic.

1) Direct search on video sites.

2) Your videos show up next to other related videos.

3) Videos get embedded and shared.

4) Videos are indexed and included in Google’s main search index.

One of our clients took up our bonus offer and created 4 videos. He is already raking up close to a thousand views from those 4 videos, and the videos will continue to provide exposure for this website.

The initial launch price to produce and upload the videos was $250. We’ve received feedback from our clients, expressing that although they’d like to use this service, the $250 price tag put the service out of their reach.

So here is the first piece of good news -- We have decided to maintain the bonus pricing so that clients can enjoy the use of this service at $100 off the initial price.

In other words, you can get us to produce and upload videos for you at $150 per vid (with script writing) or $100 per vid (you provide script).

Realizing the potential to provide additional exposure using videos, we did additional testing on our own and converted an estimated 100+ of our articles to video articles.

We then uploaded these vids into Youtube alone and here are the stats:

We produced and uploaded close to 100 video articles and managed to rake up over 300+ videos within the space of 1 month.

Now that we have stopped uploading videos, we are STILL receiving video views on a daily basis.

You must be wondering, how did we manage to upload so many vids in such a short time frame?

First, take a look at this sample video:

To produce so many videos in such a short time, all we did was TRIM ALL THE FAT so that the bare essentials remain.

1) We include minimal texts. No fading texts.

2) We include our URL in the vid as a background for promotional purposes.

3) We use digital voiceovers.

4) We use the same audio file for both Start/End.

5) We use content that has already been completed -- our own articles.

By doing this, we are able to work in a very efficient manner.

And we thought that if we are able to produce these videos in a cost effective manner, we will also be able to pass on these saving to our clients.

Hence, we have decided to launch a new video type, known as Article Videos.

So what are the features of Article Vids?

1) We upload to our own accounts, saving you registration time.

2) We promote your URL in the background of each video, for consistent branding.

3) We create the video based on an article that you send to us.

4) We include your URL in the video description. For some sites, like Youtube, this URL is clickable.

5) Create and upload video to 6 high profile video sites.

6) Vids can be downloaded and stored in your local hard drive.

7) Very competitive pricing -- only $40 to create and upload one Article Video!

If $40 sounds like a viable price point for you, please do not hesitate to place your orders on the video production website.

If you have further questions, send me an email at support[at]darrenchow.com or use this contact form.

Thanks for the support that you have given us in the past!

The last couple of weeks have been really busy. I’ve managed to soft launch 2 information products and 1 website within the space of 14 days.

First, I’d like to take the chance to thank all those who have shown your support. I want you to know that I greatly appreciate the support that you have given to me over the past 2 years.

Every time I see a sale come in, I tell myself it’s not just about the numbers. Sure, making sales is cool. But it’s also an indication that someone out there could really use some assistance.

Of course, it’s not all a bed of roses. Some things go right (sales coming in), and other things go wrong. As a business owner, it’s not wise to only embrace matters that have gone our way. We should embrace both.

Why? – There are valuable lessons to be learned.

1) Be careful who you are dealing with.

I believe this would make an interesting story. During the week of the launch, I went to a popular webmaster forum and started asking for solo mailings. For those who are not sure what solo mailing is, it’s a single Ad that is mailed to the entire mailing list.

I got a few private messages from list owners, offering me to do an email blast for X amount of money. I looked through the offers, and finally decided on a few. But out of the handful, one deal caught my eye. It was an offer to mail out a solo ad to 50k double opt in subscribers.

I was promised the sky…good click through rates, hungry buyers, mailings for reputable marketers, etc. I was curious how the list would respond to my offer. So I paid for the solo ad in full, and then wait to see what would happen.

As it turned out, the mailing was a disaster. I got thousands of clicks, but the visitors were mostly from India and other non-English speaking countries.

Final sales figure?

I made zero sales.

So I emailed the list owner, and asked her what happened to the hungry buyers?

I was shocked when the reply came in – she quickly said that she didn’t guarantee sales, and pressed to verify how I came to the conclusion that the visitors were non-English speaking visitors.

Obviously, she knew what was coming and was prepared for it. I wasn’t.

It was really a dishonest offer because I was under the impression that there are some buying customers on the list. Zero sales from a 50k mailing is NOT acceptable.

If the list owner had come to me and be upfront with me, mentioning that the subscribers were mostly JOB SEEKERS instead of “hungry customers”, I would have let it go.

I acted on wrong information and became a victim. The only way out, is to contact Paypal and see if there is anything that can be done. Here is where I learn another important lesson.

2) Paypal dispute.

I quickly filed a Paypal dispute, but to my horror, the dispute was closed before I even had time to upload supporting documents (incredible, but 100% TRUE).

Reason? – The buyer protection program doesn’t cover intangible products.

That means if you’re the victim of a fraud or con scheme, there is no way you are going to recover your money…or at least you can’t depend on Paypal to investigate on your behalf.

Somehow, I get the sense that a disgruntled employee was behind the desk…probably dealing with too many disputes.

Whatever.

So, I’m out of $XXX, and back at my computer, working hard to get the other products out.

I’m really happy that the article writing guide did so well. Till today, I’m still getting sales…perhaps from the momentum of the soft launches.

If you take a look at the sales later, you are probably wondering, “What happened to the SUPER LARGE HEADERS, highlights, exclamation marks, and extra bonuses?”

I’m the first to admit that it’s one of the most mundane sales letter on the Internet. And yet, it was working like magic.

Why?

3) Ability to deliver results works.

I think it’s because I have personally gone through the entire process, and I know for SURE, that the process works!

Sales copy writing is really no rocket science. As long as you can show the reader that you have something that truly works, even the ugliest looking web page will make sales.

So if you know nothing about copy writing, but you want to write your own sales page, just remember one thing – do whatever you can to let your customers know that your information WORKS!

But no matter how well your solutions work, you are bound to encounter some refunds.

4) Handling refunds.

Refunds is just part and parcel of doing business. A customer buys something, and then come back to you and say, “hey, I don’t think this is for me. Can I have my money back?”

These are legitimate refunds.

My reply, “Sure, thanks for making a purchase. Here is your refund: [paypal txn ID]”

I received only 2 such refunds.

Then, there are those who are out to take advantage. How do you know if someone is trying to take advantage?

1) They ignore the sales letter and head straight to the sales button. (Who cares what is written on the sales page? I’m claiming a refund.)

2) The refund request came very quickly – right after they have grabbed the product.

3) This is the most telling – they go way out to how your product su*ks, just to justify their refund request. (Really, you can almost smell their guilt…)

How do I handle such requests?

I refunded the money promptly.

…

Waiting for something more?

Well, there isn’t more.

I just refund. No email replies, no anger, no nothing.

Reason?

Well, it’s professional – we should all honor refund requests. But more importantly, I feel that my duty is NOT towards these people. My time and attention should be given to those who GENUINELY want to learn from me.

These are people I care about. They bought products and when they have doubts, they email me. I then gladly offer my assistance.

I like to think that the dialogue is a never-ending one. To really help others, it’s best to be in tune with them…

5) Getting in tune with your clients.

From just a few tiny launches, I learned so much about the subscribers on my list. What they are interested in…what they want to learn…how they want to improve their businesses, etc.

I think product launches work a lot better than surveys because when you conduct a survey, there is no real investment involved. It’s just a bunch of questions.

Subscribers click on what they believe they will do. But ACTUALLY DOING what they say they will do is a completely different thing altogether.

I’m not saying that you shouldn’t conduct surveys. Surveys are convenient tools to have, and they can be useful when done correctly.

But survey results will never come close to actual product launch figures.

You did a launch, and these people paid you REAL MONEY to learn what you know. That speaks volumes of their desire to learn.

So, even if you have a very small customer list, that doesn’t mean you can’t use product launches to stay in tune with your customers.

Do some tiny tiny launches every now and then (like what I’m doing) and you’ll find that you’ll learn a whole lot more about your customers. Don’t worry too much about sales figures.

If you’re not making sales from your product launches, you need to take a closer look at the stats and figures. What are the click through rates? How many sales did you make? Who is buying? I guarantee you, the solution is right WITHIN those numbers.

And when you finally understand how you can help your customers achieve their goals, making sales and achieving success is just INEVITABLE.

Thank you for your continued support.

I’ve been asked to offer blog writing service for a while now, but just haven’t got the time to look into this. Well, I’m glad to finally announce that the service is now officially released!

Here is how the service works:

1) Sign up for a monthly plan. There are 3 packages available – 10 posts per month, 20 posts per month, 30 posts per month. Blog credits will be added automatically for each payment received.

2) Add your WordPress blog to our system for automated posting.

3) Send us info required for blog writing from your dashboard. If you have used our article distribution service, you would be familiar with this.

4) We will submit articles into your account, and you can review, approve, and schedule them for posting.

That’s it!

To mark the launch, I’m offering a special deal to the first 5 customers. If you are one of five to place orders on the site, you will also receive:

1) Blog Writing Guide – How to Grow a Web Business Without a Sales Force (just launched last week, valued at $19.95)

2) Internet Marketing Dream Package For Beginners – All the WordPress templates and information products included in this package that I’ve been selling for $97.

If you have already bought the above products, I’ll refund you the money for the purchase, so you get them for free.

I will contact you to send you the above bonuses once your order has been confirmed.

Darren Chow

I’ve been receiving emails about how to choose the right keywords when performing article marketing. From my experience, keyword selection is more of an art than a science.

It’s easy to say “go perform a keyword search using Google’s famous keyword tool”. But the tool just throws up estimated traffic volume. The reality can be very different from what you see in the keyword research tool. That makes it all the more confusing.

Does it mean the higher the traffic volume, the better the keyword?

Well, not exactly.

If you know something about SEO, you know there is such a thing known as keyword competitiveness. Keyword competitiveness can be determined by making a quick search in Google’s main index. Some Internet marketers go around teaching others that the less search results you see, the less competitive the keyword – which is a good thing if you are trying to target that keyword. But that’s only part of the story.

The other part of the story consists of looking closely at the search results. From the top 10 results, you will be able to tell if you have a good chance of getting your keywords to rank. So how can you tell? You can tell by observing what the top 10 guys are doing. In other words, you are assessing their SEO capabilities.

For example,

1) Are the primary keywords in the domain?

2) What are they using for anchor texts?

3) How many backlinks do they have? And where are their links coming from?

4) How are they acquiring their back links?

5) Are they using the keywords in the page titles?

6) Are the URLs search engine friendly?

7) How many related pages do they have within the same domain?

If your competitors are doing all of the above well, you know that you are in for some stiff competition. Obviously, these guys know their SEO stuff pretty well. So if you encounter such a niche, you have to decide whether to go in and fight like a wild cat, or target some other keywords.

As you do your research, you will start to notice that some of the top guys are spending lots of money on links. Do you have similar amount of resources to compete with them? If not, you better get creative.

Let’s take a look at a concrete example – the “make money online” niche.

For this niche, it is notoriously difficult to get relevant keywords to rank. That’s because there are so many money making opportunities on the Internet and many of them overlap!

Just off the top of my head, we have…

1) MLM opportunities.

2) eCommerce – online shopping.

3) Adsense.

4) Data entry or work at home opps.

5) Surveys.

6) Affiliate marketing.

7) Traffic brokering.

Selling information.

9) Home business opportunities.

So if you are targeting the keywords “make money online”, which are you referring to? Does that mean you can’t target this market?

Well, there is a way to do this, and this method is known as long tail keywords targeting.

Long tail keywords are essentially phrases with 3 to 5 keywords. They are extremely targeted because usually such phrases are very specific.

For example, instead of targeting “Affiliate marketing” (which I think you have little chance of succeeding), you can target long tail keywords like “Clickbank affiliate marketing”, or “how to sell on clickbank”. You get way less traffic for these keywords, but they are very, very targeted. It’s also much easier to convert such traffic.

The same goes for ecommerce websites that are selling physical products. Let’s say you sell furniture on the Internet. Instead of targeting “home furniture”, you can target keywords like “cedar wood furniture”, or “mesh office chairs”.

Be creative when it comes to generating long tail keywords. As long as there is a chance of the visitor being in your target market, you should target those keywords.

To continue from the example above, let’s say you have chosen “mesh office chairs” as your target keywords. Now think a little harder. What does your target market use the chair for? Very likely, they needed some comfortable office chairs for work. And back pains are very common for those who work long hours in the office. A light bulb immediately comes on.

How about…

* “ergonomic office chairs”

* “mesh chairs that reduce back pain”

* “ergo office chairs”

* “clinically tested office chairs”

The list goes on…

This approach works extremely well because you face less competition, and you get highly targeted traffic. It’s important to remember that if you don’t rank in the first page of Google, your website or web page doesn’t exist. No traffic means no sales. So if you’re serious about SEO, and you want to make more money with SEO, you MUST rank.

From the article marketing perspective, you are leveraging on other people’s website for search traffic. The only reason you are writing and submitting articles is to drive traffic to your website. So if you choose the wrong keywords, and your articles don’t rank, then you are just getting some link juice. Isn’t it better to get some link juice and some search traffic at the same time?

Also, forget about posting the same content on your own website. If you are writing articles for distribution, use them solely for distribution only. Keep the content on your own site unique. That way you have a good chance of having 2 articles rank in Google instead of just 1. If you post the same content, chances are Google will just choose 1 article to include in the search results. It’s going to be a waste of your time.

How many articles you wish to write and where you wish to publish the articles depend on the model you adopt. Here are some recommended traffic generation models – they ALL WORK, but each has its own pros and cons.

Model 1: Drive traffic purely from other people’s website.

You are focused on driving traffic using article marketing. For this model, it’s important to INCLUDE your primary keywords in the article title. You must try to get as many articles as you can out there to acquire more traffic. Of the three models, this model gives you the quickest results.

Model 2: Drive traffic using articles from your own website.

In this case, you must build internal backlinks. Use your article to link to your internal articles, and remember to use the right anchor texts. DO NOT use the same keywords in the articles you are distributing so that the article directories will not compete with your own articles. This model takes a little longer because you need to build up the authority of your website.

Model 3: Drive traffic using other people’s website and your own website.

This is an interesting model to adopt, and I highly recommend adopting this model. Here is what you do.

Stage 1: Write and submit articles with back links to your own website to build up the authority level of your own site.

Stage 2: After 6 months or so, start posting articles to your own site. Remember, articles MUST be unique. Do not publish the articles that you have submitted to the article directories on your own website. Build back links to your internal pages and create links between your own pages on your website.

The third model is the slowest, since it requires you to write articles for distribution and for your own website. But you have more control over the traffic in the long run since you own the website. Alternatively, you can just focus on Model 1 in the initial stages so that you get traffic quickly, and then publish articles on your website much later.

I hope you have learned a lot about SEO and keyword research from the content I’ve given you above.

Here is a mistake that you would want to avoid.

Big Mistake: Overemphasis on page rank when building links.

It’s a common myth that only websites with high page rank gets all the traffic from Google. That’s not true! I own many mini-websites and most of them have page rank 0 or 1, and I get thousands of unique visitors for my sites.

Screenshot of traffic stats from one of my mini-site.

Here is the big secret: Unique and valuable content gets you traffic (wow, some secret…). If a keyword is under-served, you have a very good chance of ranking well. Yes, even the page rank toolbar shows a big fat zero. So there you have it – page rank doesn’t equal traffic.

The reason why I’ve brought this up is because I keep receiving emails saying that the blogs in my Blog Posting Service network has got Page Rank zero, and that they can get much better deals from other networks with more blogs that come with higher page rank.

Obviously, they have somehow missed the value of our blog networks, and I hope to set the record straight.

Client: Why are most of the blogs page rank zero?

We use our article submission service to promote these blogs on a regular basis. If the articles acquire page rank, and the page rank passed on to our blogs, that’s fine. But we are not too concerned here. What’s important here is that we adhere to good SEO practices and so far, that has worked pretty well. The links from the blog posts are showing up in our webmaster account. This is a clear indication that the blogs are in good standing from Google’s perspective. I welcome you to post a blog entry and see for yourself.

The best part is, our websites have gotten better rankings in Google. The results were captured in an SEO case study that was published on one of our blogs.

Client: Why are there only 10 blogs in each network? Other networks offer hundreds of blogs.

First of all, other networks offer hundreds of blogs because all those blogs are general blogs. They may not be relevant to the website you are trying to promote. Your articles may be next to many irrelevant articles in those blogs. By offering less blogs, we are in a better position to promote the blogs and your articles will appear next to highly relevant articles. Even the primary domain names are relevant to your market. Sometimes, less is more.

Here is how you can get the most out of our blog posting service.

1) Adopt any one of the traffic generation models above.

2) Write and post unique articles in our blog networks. Don’t post these articles anywhere else.

3) Embed up to 2 links in each article.

4) After 2 weeks, check to see if the links show up in your Google Webmaster account.

If you are doing everything right, you will be enjoying higher rankings and getting more traffic in no time.

Happy SEO-ing! – Not sure if there is such a word. Just felt right

Darren Chow.

I’ve been working hard on upgrading the article submission service, and most of the changes are happening in the backend.

Even though the upgrades are invisible to the clients in the front-end, they all translate to some form of benefits for everyone.  More specifically, the upgrades will lead to some form of efficiency (which means faster article writing and submission) or improvements in service quality. You’ll see what I mean.

Upgrade #1: Writer’s dashboard.

All regular writers have a writer’s dashboard to work in now. The dashboard has a submission form that behaves very much like the client submission form. It checks for errors before the article is allowed to be submitted. Having the dashboard adds a more systematic process to article writing. All requests for articles are assigned to the writers in a systematic manner. Writers are then expected to meet the 24 hour turnaround time. This is why our clients have been experiencing a consistent turnaround time for their orders. Our writers are well trained and know exactly what to do.

Upgrade #2: Keyword stuffing check.

Some writers have the tendency to repeat the same keywords unconsciously. The search engines may see this as keyword stuffing and filter the article. We want to make sure that your articles rank well in the search engines. Hence, we have put in a check for repeated keywords. If the article contains keyword phrases with more than 2% density, the submission cannot go through. This little feature greatly improves the quality of the articles. No more worries about keyword stuffing.

Upgrade #3: Problem status article.

Sometimes, for D or P submissions (orders without article writing), clients submit articles that are substandard. Or there may be some issues that need to be fixed. We used to just email the clients about the issues and give suggestions on how to fix the issues. Articles remain in the PENDING status until issues are fixed.

However, this is less than ideal because sometimes clients don’t let us know when they have fixed the issues. So the articles remained in the PENDING queue for longer than necessary. To avoid this problem, we now create a new status for articles with issues  -- the PROBLEM status.

Articles with issues will be labeled as problem articles. Clients can see all the problem articles in the dashboard. If they click on it, they will be able to see what caused the article to be placed in the PROBLEM category. Of course, clients will also receive an email regarding the problem articles.

Once the issues have been corrected, the articles will automatically join the approval queue again.

Video Marketing Update

I also want to take this opportunity to provide a quick update on the video production and uploading service. We have tested this service with a client, and smoothed out the clinks. The service is ready to go live now.

Here is more proof that the video marketing service works.

I created a video about long tail keyword research, and uploaded it to YouTube and other popular video sites.

It successfully appeared in the Google Search results on page 2.

But since I’m interested in getting more exposure, I wanted to know if the video will lead to more views. More views => more eyeballs => more traffic => more sales!

And I finally got the proof that I was looking for.

From the above screenshot, you see that the video is getting traffic from 3 primary sources:

1) Direct from YouTube search

2) Related videos (this can only mean targeted traffic)

3) Google search engine

I will continue to receive traffic for this video as long as people are searching for it, and the video continues to rank in YouTube and Google.

One time effort in exchange for a long term result -- a worthy investment.

I’ve decided to extend the special pricing ($100) off the usual price for 1 more week, as we’re having so much fun with this new service that we’d like to work with more clients. After that, the price reverts back to normal.

So please email me if you have the intention of getting your videos out there.

Here is a list of joint venture partners that I’ve worked with previously and have obtained good results. As I continue to work with more partners, this list will be updated on a regular basis. So do check back to see if you can find new partners to work with!

Sean Mize

Sean Mize is a professional article marketer and he is making a six-figure income with his Internet business. Mind you, that doesn’t come easy. The Internet can be a big and confusing space for most people – but not for Sean. With a sharp acumen for opportunities, Sean knows the specific steps to achieve success on the Internet. In fact, he is so successful that his clients are paying him thousands of dollars just to learn from him. He gets his fees from the consultancy services that he offers. But his services have become so sought after that despite raising prices again and again, he is still getting clients! The last I checked, he charges $2,000 per hour for his time. Even then, people are still knocking on this door…to the point that he had to turn them away. Now Sean only services his existing clients and he is no longer taking on new clients for his consultancy business.

Fortunately, if you would like to learn from a true article marketing expert, you can still purchase premium products from him. You can download some of his audio recordings and free guides and see for yourself the quality of his materials. Learn more about article writing and article marketing by joining his list.

For those looking for joint venture partners, don’t bother emailing Sean if you don’t have a list. You can try to contact him if you have at least a thousand subscribers. Otherwise, you can ask Sean to do a mailing to his GIGANTIC list for a fee.

Janet Cole

Janet Cole is one of the most generous article marketer I’ve ever met! Like Sean, she has achieved success in the article marketing space. I’ve heard some of her recordings before and they are definitely awesome stuff. She teaches in a very clear and concise manner, and I truly believe that her clients benefited greatly from what she teaches.

I did a couple of joint ventures with her and she generated hundreds of leads for me! So do contact Janet cole and do a swap!

Ben Brooks

One of the most hardworking Internet marketers I’ve worked with. Like everybody else, he started with very little but with pure grit and determination, he is now the proud owner of a profitable list with thousands of leads. I was surprised at the results that Ben managed to deliver. He generated over 250 clicks from just one mailing, which resulted in over a hundred sign ups. I believe his list should be bigger now.

Here is where you can get access to Ben Brooks – he set this up for me when we did a swap.

Welly Mulia

A very well known Internet marketer in the Warrior Forums. One of the top performers when I was aggressively swapping with partners. Contact Welly Mulia by entering your name and email address.

Vince Craine

Very friendly and pleasant to work with. I had no issues at all when arranging for an adswap. Even had a few laughs when I misinterpreted his email message. Check out Vince Craine.

John Vincent

Another top performer. John provided previous stats for his adswaps, and I must say, the numbers are impressive. He was generous enough to swap with me when I had a much smaller list. Certainly someone to go to if you want some high quality traffic – John Vincent. But make sure you have a good list in hand for a swap!

Dave Baker

Dave has a big list with thousands of subscribers. He has a very interesting offer with many free (and useful) scripts to give away. Managed to do 1 swap with him, but didn’t hear from him again. You can check out his offer here – Dave Baker.

James Sorelly

James found me in Warrior forum and emailed me for a swap. Everything went as planned without a glitch. At that time, he had 3.5k leads. I believe he will have a larger list by now. If you’re in the affiliate marketing niche, you can always approach him for an adswap or a joint venture.

Important!!!

The above are some of my best partners. I hope you’re able to work out win-win joint ventures with some of them. Also, if you have worked with me but can’t see your name above, don’t get offended. Just email me and I’ll see what I can do!

For adswaps and joint venture enquiries, please send an email to support{at}darrenchow.com, or you can use the contact form here.

Finally, it’s my intention to make this into a BIG LIST of joint venture partners. So if you have anyone in mind, please don’t hesitate to refer them to me. Thank you.

Before going into the details for the brand new video production and uploading service, I’d like to take a quick moment to inform you about adding your author name in Ezinearticles.

Update 1: Adding of author name in Ezinearticles.

If you would like your name to appear as the author for your articles in Ezinearticles, then I have good news for you. We initially started the article submission service with my own Ezinearticles Platinum account.

When you add your name in the author resource box (premium articles only), you’ll notice that those articles will automatically be submitted under your own name in Ezinearticles. That is because we are allowed to create alternate author names from our account. Ezinearticles require all articles to have matching names – i.e. the name in the author resource box must match the author’s name.

However, due to the growing popularity of the service, we have hit the limit that was set by Ezinearticles for creating alternate author names. Each account allows only 50 or so alternate names.

To overcome this problem, we have created another account with Ezinearticles, and we’re happy to announce that the new account has recently been granted Platinum status as well. That means we are allowed to add additional author names.

So if you wish to have the articles under your name, now is the time to claim it.

But since there is a limit to the number of author names in each account, we would like to ensure that only those who submit Premium articles on a regular basis gets an author name in Ezinearticles.

To qualify, you must have purchased at least 10 Premium articles. If you don’t have 10 premium articles yet, you can purchase 10 premium credits to qualify.

To claim your author name, please use the contact form to submit the following info.

* Your login email address. (We will check your account to see if you qualify.)

* Your desired author name. E.g. “Thomas T Smith”

Once we ascertain that you submit premium articles on a regular basis, we will add your name to our Platinum Ezinearticles account. Any future articles that you submit will now be under your own author name. Be sure to add the name in the author resource box for all Premium articles.

Update 2: Video Production and Uploading Service – Launch Details.

In the recent post on video marketing, I mentioned that the video production and uploading service will be released this week. I also mentioned that the first 5 clients who sign up for this service will enjoy special benefits. Here are the details.

1) There are 2 types of credits that is available for purchase.

* Without script creation (VD Credits) – Cost $200

* With script creation (VS Credits) – Cost $250

2) Special pricing for the launch.

* Without script creation (VD Credits) – Cost $100 (Save $100!)

* With script creation (VS Credits) – Cost $150 (Save $100!)

3) Only the first 5 customers will enjoy this special pricing.

(Note: 1 is already reserved, so only 4 left).

If you need more info, you can visit the website: Video Uploading Service.

To book your spot, use this contact form and send us the following info:

1) Subject header: Special video pricing.

2) Desired login email and password.

We will then create an account for you and send you payment details. Once payment has been made, we’ll guide you through the video production process.

Thank you for your support.

Last month, I mentioned in my blog post that a video creation + uploading service is coming along. After testing the service on our own, it’s now time to release the service to the public. Of course, like all other services, the first launch will be a soft launch -- that is, we’re looking to test the service some more. Those who would like to support us will get a very good discount. More details will be released next week. Do look out for the email as the offer is time sensitive and we can only take on so many test orders. I’m thinking more along the lines of accepting 5 test orders at the discounted rate. Yes, only 5 -- no more, no less.

But first, let’s take a look at why we should foray into video marketing. The most important thing we need to establish here is this -- Can video marketing drive traffic to my website?

The best way to answer that question is to look at some concrete examples.

Here’s a video that I’ve selected that’s related to marketing. We didn’t create the video. It’s quite short and will be ideal as an example. Here it is.

(Warning: Foul language used. Watch only if you are above 18)

Had a good laugh?

At this time, the video has over 1.6 million views. This short little video that is slightly over 2 mins long has over 1.6 million views!

It was first uploaded in 2006, and traffic continue to climb (see graph below). Obviously, this video has gone viral.

I’m sure you’re asking yourself these 2 questions right now:

1) Why is this video so popular?

2) How did it manage to go viral?

Here is a screenshot of the referral stats.

What do all those figures mean? Well, allow me to summarize the above for you. Here are the top 4 traffic sources.

Rank 1) YouTube Search

Rank 2) Google Search

Rank 3) Embedded Views

Rank 4) YouTube Related Videos

The bulk of the traffic comes from YouTube Search, from the keywords “bill hicks”. So that’s how the viral process starts. The process goes something like this…

Step 1) Upload a video -- Be sure to use targeted keywords used in video title, tags, and description.

Step 2) A trigger needs to be present. I.e. the keywords must be words or phrases that you know visitors will use to search for videos. In this example, the trigger is “bill hicks”. Obviously, many people already know who Bill Hicks is. They just go to YouTube to search for more of his videos.

Step 3) If the visitors like the video, they then decide to share it with their family and friends. They post the video in their own blogs, in social bookmarking sites, social networking sites, related forums, etc. If the first wave of viewers start spreading the word, it’s likely that the second wave of viewers will do the same. That’s how the video continues to spread like wildfire. And remember, it cost the video owner nothing for the viral traffic.

Of course, not all videos will experience the same results. There are certain characteristics that are required to be present before a video can go viral.

1) Content should ideally appeal to a wide enough audience.

In this example, the content is comedy based. Everyone can understand and enjoy the content. That makes it more likely for viewers to share. If the content is too technical, or difficult to understand, it’s unlikely that the viral effect will take off.

2) There must be some kind of value.

Expecting crappy videos to take off will be unrealistic. Viewers must be able to derive some kind of value out of the content. For comedy videos, it’s entertainment value. For how-to videos, it’s the usefulness of the content that matters. The higher the value, the more likely the videos will be shared. Note that video length doesn’t really come into the picture here. This video is just slightly more than 2 mins long, and yet it had acquired over 1.6 million views.

The lesson here? (You’ll find this familiar) -- Quality content attracts targeted and profitable traffic.

3) Presence of strong trigger.

Obviously, the strong the trigger, the higher the chances of the video going viral. When you have a strong trigger, the viral effect just takes off at a much faster rate. More people discover the video because of the strong trigger, and depending on the factors mentioned above, the video is shared.

Most of us don’t have the privilege of using a trigger such as “Bill Hicks”. Not everyone is famous So we have to choose something else. A set of targeted keywords will serve this purpose.

Just like articles, even if the video doesn’t go viral, you still enjoy the benefits of additional exposure.

Not convinced that video marketing can benefit you?

Then take a look at some of the results that we’ve gotten from our test videos.

A month ago, we created and uploaded a video that contains only text and digital audio. Here is the video.

It’s a how-to video that shows article marketers how to format their articles correctly to get higher approval rates.

The trigger is the keywords “article submission format”. Our primary goal for this test is simple -- get the video to rank in the search engines for our target keywords. If it ranks, there is a chance that the video will be seen by targeted visitors. Our URL is in the video, and in the video description as well. So anyone interested in article marketing can type in the URL directly in their browser if they want more information. For some video sites (YouTube does this), the URL is converted into a clickable link. So visitors can click on that link if they want to.

This aspect is not too dissimilar from article marketing.

In article marketing, you are going after profitable keywords -- keywords that will drive targeted traffic to your website and boost your sales revenue. Every article that you write and submit gives you an average of 10 visitors each month. The more articles you have out there that ranks well in the search engines, the more traffic that you are going to get.

Our tests show that it’s relatively easy to get the videos to rank in the search engines if you choose the right keywords. This is because many of the video sites are authority sites with high page rank. We’re talking about YouTube, Viddler, BlipTV, etc. These sites not only have high page rank, they also have high Alexa rankings.

In our tests, we used 1 premium article and 1 blog post to promote the video and we have achieved amazing results. If you make a search in Google using the keywords “Article Submission Format” (without quotes), you will see that 4 out of the first 10 results belong to us -- 1 video ranking, 2 article directories ranking, and 1 blog post ranking. There are more on the second page.

You know what this means?

This means that you can actually use our services and dominate the search engines. Here is a highly recommended approach.

Step 1) Use article marketing to test out the traffic volume that a set of keywords can bring you.

Step 2) From your own web stats, pick out keywords that bring you the most number of customers. (Refer to your conversion rates. You must do your own tracking for this.)

Step 3) Once you have determined that the keywords will bring you profitable traffic, expand on those keywords by using video marketing or press releases.

Remember, profitable keywords are very valuable. Once you have identified these keywords, do whatever you can to profit from them!

Of course, don’t expect the results to be like the “Bill Hicks” video. But what you get will be closer to what you see from your article marketing efforts. If you’re already familiar with article marketing, you’d know what to expect.

As for the video creation and uploading service, I can promise you that the process is quick and simple.

Here is how it works.

Step 1: Decide whether you will create the video script, or have us write the script on your behalf.

Step 2: We recommend that you create the script yourself, as the process is very short and simple. It will only take 5 to 10 minutes of your time. We have created easy to use Wizards to guide you along. So it’s just a matter of following through with the online Wizards and you are done.

The above screenshot gives you a preview of how the dashboard looks like. If you’re familiar with the dashboard of our article submission service, you will have no problems using this one.

You have already seen how a text video looks like. The Wizard will prompt you for the required information. In each text video, you are allowed to add up to 5 Steps in the video. That will make up a video length of approximately 2 mins. Note that all videos cannot be longer than 2 mins. Facebook has problems accepting videos that are longer than 2 mins. In any case, we have already established that length is not the primary goal here -- quality content is.

But we also understand that there are limits to texts. So if words fail, we can use images in the video.

Here is an example of an image video:

Image videos can be used to showcase physical products and other useful images. Sometimes, a picture does say a thousand words. In each Image video, you are allowed to add up to 5 images (captions allowed). Quality of the video will depend on the quality of the Images that are submitted to us.

Step 3: We will then create the video based on the script you have created. Note that no changes will be allowed once the video has been completed. All changes must be made during the script writing stage. In other words, don’t approve or submit the script until you’re sure that it’s what you want.

Step 4: The video will be uploaded to 9 top video sites -- YouTube, BlipTv, DailyMotion, Facebook, Viddler, Veoh, PhotoBucket, Yahoo Video, and MetaCafe. The Page Rank for each video site is as follows:

• YouTube -- Page Rank 9
• BlipTv -- Page Rank 7
• DailyMotion -- Page Rank 7
• Facebook -- Page Rank 9
• Viddler -- Page Rank 7
• Veoh -- Page Rank 7
• PhotoBucket -- Page Rank 7
• Yahoo Video -- Page Rank 8
• Meta Cafe -- Page Rank 7

All videos will be uploaded to your own accounts. If you don’t have accounts with the video sites, we will guide you along with the registration process. You only need to register once, and then send us the login details through the dashboard.

Again, be reminded that the video service will be launched for public testing next week. Most likely you will receive the email in mid week. Do look out for the email if you are interested in taking advantage of the steep discounts.

Only 5 orders will be accepted for trial. If you think that you may be interested in placing some orders, please reserve your spot by sending us an email with the subject header “Reserve video spot“.

I’m excited about this new service and I hope you share this excitement with me.

Here are some other ways you may wish to consider using the video marketing service:

1. Training videos. Create simple training videos for your own in-house staff. When there is staff turnover, these videos can be a real time saver.
2. Marketing videos. Use them as marketing videos on your own website. Once the videos have been uploaded, you can embed the videos on your own corporate website.
3. Internet Marketing Combo. Embed the videos in your press releases (PRO credits only) or blog posts (using our blog posting service). Once the PRs and blog posts rank in the search engines, you will get more views for your videos!

Also, feel free to email me if you have any questions.

Have a great week ahead!

It’s rare that I start a blog post with a blog title that contains zero keywords about article submission and Internet marketing.

You may not be familiar with the “red packet” that you see in the title. Well, let me explain.

Tomorrow is the New Year of the Lunar Calendar. In other words, according to the Chinese Calendar, tomorrow is the first day of the New Year. And all Chinese around the world celebrate this special occasion. If you happen to find yourself in a Chinese setting in the next 2 days, I’m sure you will enjoy the festive cheer -- it’s infectious!

During the New Year, it is Chinese custom to give away red packets. The red packets (also known as “ang bao” in Chinese) are meant to symbolize wealth and prosperity. Married couples are supposed to give away red packets to those who are still single -- mostly children, teenagers, and young adults.

When someone receives a red packet, he or she is usually delighted. There are two reasons for this. Of course, anyone would be happy to be blessed with wealth and prosperity by someone else. But there is another reason -- the red packets contain cash!

The amount of cash in each red packet is not as significant as the thought and intention that goes behind giving the giver. If you are in the privileged position to give away red packets, the amount of cash in the packet may range from $2 to $100. Obviously, you want to give larger amounts to those who are special to you.

For those who are in financial hardship, any amount will do.

Actually, I think that the recipient of the red packet shouldn’t focus too much on how much cash is in the packet. Reason being, all “ang baos” contain an infinite amount of money.

How can that possibly be true?

Well, I’m going to show you.

Today, regardless of whether you are Chinese or not, or whether you are from the States, the UK, Canada, India, etc…I’m going to give you a big virtual “ang bao”. Wealth and prosperity is for everyone.

Here it is.

Okay, this red packet looks a little small. But don’t underestimate the size of the packet. Do you know how much cash this red packet contains?

Infinite.

Yes, it’s true. I’m going to show you why this is true in a moment.

But before we get to the good stuff, let’s get some quick updates out of the way.

A few weeks ago, I invited a few people to try out the blog commenting service that I was developing. Everything turned out well, and here are some of the results.

Niche: Health/Medical -- Approval Rate: 2 / 18 (11.11%)

Niche: Travel -- Approval Rate: 7 / 18 (38.89%)

Niche: Home Improvement -- Approval Rate: 8 / 21 (38.10%)

Niche: Travel (accommodation) -- Approval Rate: 7 / 18 (38.89%)

Niche: Home Improvement -- Approval Rate: 5 / 18 (27.78%)

The results are pretty encouraging. So I’m going to declare the service to be officially launched. If you are interested to learn more about how this works, you can check out the previous blog commenting test results, or visit the commenting service website directly.

Okay, I’m glad that we got that out of the way. Now, for the fun stuff.

As mentioned, I’m going to show you why this virtual “ang bao” that I gave to you contains infinite wealth.

First, you must understand how wealth creation works.

Take a look around you. Everything physical item that you see is a form of product. So how did these products come about? They didn’t just drop from the sky.

All physical items that you see around you right now, began as an idea in someone’s head. I’m sure you’ll agree with me on that. And this idea, when carried out, was turned into a physical product, which you bought, and that’s how the item landed right next to you.

Now what had that got to do with you getting rich? Well, in the process that I just described above, somebody did get rich. But that person is not you. You bought the product, which meant that you handed money to someone else. So the money landed somewhere, with someone else. Somebody did receive money for executing (I’ll discuss more about execution later on) in the process. This person (and those who took part in the various business transactions) all received money for their effort. They got richer.

I hope you are still paying attention here. The process that I’ve described sounded very simple. In fact, it sounded so simple that most people would dismiss it immediately as some “self improvement” or “get rich quick” mambo jumbo. If that happens, then I must say it’s rather unfortunate. You see, the process of wealth creation is supposed to be simple. Human beings make it complicated.

The process is so important, that I think I’m going to repeat it here.

Inspiration => Ideas => Execution => Physical manifestation of ideas => Wealth

If you understand this concept, then you will begin to see that wealth eluded many people because they get stuck somewhere along the process. Where? From my own observations, they get stuck in the IDEA stage.

I’m sure you yourself have been the recipient of tons of ideas, or you have met people with many ideas, but wealth still eluded them. How did that happen?

The fault doesn’t lie with ideas. It’s always a good thing to have ideas. Most people get stuck at the “execution” (the doing) phase. Or worse, some people never get to the execution phase. They have waves and waves of ideas coming to them and they do nothing about them.

Their favorite excuse? “Nah, it’s not going to work.”

That is another way of saying that they don’t believe their ideas will work. Somehow, they have managed to convince themselves that their ideas will fail,  even before they try. Sadly, they have indeed failed -- they have failed themselves by not doing anything with their ideas.

Then there are those who dismiss ideas because they judge the ideas. When an idea comes to them, they tell themselves that it’s a bad idea, so that justifies not doing anything about the ideas.

For these people, the road to infinite wealth lies in transforming their current perspective of ideas. What they think they know about ideas have to change. How do we achieve that?

First, realize that there is no such thing as “good” and “bad” ideas. Good and bad are relative -- they mean different things to different people. The assumption that the idea is bad can be erroneous in the first place. And that’s like giving an idea the death sentence.

So don’t go telling yourself an idea is good or an idea is bad. Ever encountered good ideas that turned out to be a not-so-good idea? Or ever experienced a bad idea that turned out to be a blessing in disguise? I’m sure that happened to everyone at some point. And it’s happening because we label ideas as “good” and “bad”.

To avoid this trap, we must first stop labeling our ideas as “good” or “bad”. Instead of thinking of whether ideas are good or bad, start thinking of whether the ideas work or don’t work.

In other words…

There are no good and bad ideas. There are only ideas that work and don’t work.

- Darren Chow

If you have given some thought about evolution, you know this to be true. Evolution just create, and the creations that work well in the environment continue to thrive. Evolution doesn’t “think” whether something is good or bad before creating. Only human beings do that.

As a human being, how do we know whether an idea will work or not work?

This depends on many factors. Knowledge, life experience, reasoning ability, analysis ability, all plays a part in arriving at the right conclusion.

The problem is, many people are having trouble identifying ideas that work! Why is that so? The answer is simple.

Very often, we don’t identify ideas that work because we place most (if not all) of our attention on ideas that don’t work.

- Darren Chow

How many times have you attended a meeting to discuss about things that don’t work? Then everyone is just trying to fix this and fix that.

My recommendation? Instead of running back and forth trying to fix everything, just focus on the things that do work, and then do it better!

You find that the more you execute, the more experience you have. The more experience you have, the better you become at identifying ideas that do work. Do you know what that means?

That means even if you have no clue about whether an idea is going to work or not, go DO SOMETHING about it!

Of course, you have to be smart about execution. For example, if you are unsure whether an idea will take off or not, it’s wiser to test small first instead of plonking down thousands of investment dollars in the project. Only those with an insatiable ego will do that. That’s the work of a fool, not an entrepreneur. So be wise about how you use your resources.

You can make an infinite amount of money just by focusing on what works. Amazing isn’t it?

Talking about infinite, do you now understand why you are born infinitely rich?

If you don’t, let me explain further. From the above, I hope you can now see that wealth comes from ideas. Then I pose you this question -- Are ideas finite?

You know, within you, that you have an infinite number of ideas. The only resource that is finite is time. So the worse sin you can ever commit, is to waste your most valuable resource -- TIME.

Want more money? Sure, no problem. Just complete the cycle by executing the ideas you have, and then focusing on what works.

Sounds simple? In words, everything is simple. But be mindful that you will encounter formidable challenges along the way. In fact, I guarantee you that the moment you start doing something about your ideas, some problem will come up to stop you.

Now what are you going to do about the problems you face?

At the most basic level, every challenge you face is a test of your faith. Do you waver under tough situations? Or do you steel your will and forge ahead? I certainly wish you choose to be the latter, for those with strong faith will have a higher chance of success.

Let me say this again -- the road to wealth is not supposed to be that easy. If it is, then there is nothing separating the successful from the unsuccessful.

Do you realize what I have just given to you?

I have just given to you the key to unlock the riches that have been lying dormant within you. Yes, infinite wealth.

The “ang bao” that I had just given had to be a virtual one, for no physical red packet can hold the amount of wealth that you already own.

I hope you like this virtual “ang bao” that I had just given to you -- nobody had ever done that before

After the lunar New Year, I have another new and exciting service that will help grow your business -- video marketing. (Yes, it’s finally coming!)

I thought about developing this service for ages, but haven’t figured out how to overcome some of the challenges that stood in the way. Now I think I’ve got it. It’s going to be a 100% original service that is simple to use.

I’ve already done some tests during the past few weeks, and here is a video that I’ve created and posted on numerous popular video sites. It’s about how to format articles properly for higher approval rates. I’ve leave you to enjoy the video….

And of course, let me know what you think by leaving your feedback below. Eh, and no spam please…it’s Chinese New Year you know…

Thanks for all the feedback that was given regarding this post (blog commenting feedback request).

As the feedback was favorable, I’ve decided to go ahead and develop the blog commenting service. The front end and back end has already been developed. And I’ve taken the time to perform some internal tests. Basically, I’ve used it to promote some of the sites that I own in various niches. And I’ve gotten some pretty interesting results.

But before going further, let’s take a moment to recap what the blog commenting service is all about.

• The service is a manual commenting service.
• For each order, we will post to 15 blogs based on selected keywords. Therefore, all URLs are different for every order.
• Since all comments are posted by human commenters, the comments are intelligent and relevant.
• After comments are posted, clients can login to their account to view the comments that had been posted, and they can also visit the exact blog URL to see where the comments have been posted.

And here are the test results. Note that we posted more than 15 comments when testing.

Test 1:

Niche: Shopping

Results: Approval Rate: 10 / 18 (55.56%)

Test 2:

Niche: Sports

Results: Approval Rate: 6 / 18 (33.33%)

Test 3:

Niche: Gambling

Results: Approval Rate: 2 / 14 (14.29%)

Test 4:

Niche: Gaming

Results: Approval Rate: 11 / 16 (68.75%)

Test 5:

Niche:Internet Marketing

Results: Approval Rate: 5 / 16 (31.25%)

Test 6:

Niche: Home Improvement

Results: Approval Rate: 4 / 16 (25.00%)

As you can see, the approval rates can range from a mere 14% to as high as 68%. We adopt the same policies when posting comments. There is no difference in the way we approach the commenting. The difference in the approval rate lies in the selection of URLs.

Here are is the approach that we have adopted. Perhaps you may find it useful.

• Select URLs that are ranked on the first page of Google. Most of these sites have high page rank and are authority sites.
• Post in blog entries with approved comments in them. This means that the blog owner is active and approves comments regularly.
• The comment is either relevant to the blog post, or an attempt to join in the existing discussion.
• Whenever possible, we choose URLs that have been posted recently. – Blogs have to be active to have a higher chance of approval!
• Post in a more personalized style. This means that we actually read the post and the comments that are posted before writing our own comments.
• Comments are no longer than 2 to 3 sentences.

When we adopt this approach, we find that the commenting is effective.

From our tests, we have acquired many links from blog entries with page rank 1 to 3, and many of these entries are from blogs with homepage page rank 3, 4 and 5.

So are we happy with the test results?

Sure we are

The reason why we post blog comments is that we want to have a chance to acquire some links in authority blogs that are relevant to our own sites. And we have achieved that goal.

But I believe this question is coming up soon, so I better address it now.

Q: Is there more value in the links when compared to other link building methods like article marketing?

Here’s my answer.

You use different methods for different reasons.

Article submission service – You get the most number of links with this method. If you are looking to increase the number of back links for your site in terms of sheer volume, use article marketing.

Press release distribution – You get instant exposure due to indexing by Google News. You also get all the benefits of article marketing. Also, you are allowed to promote yourself directly with a PR.

Blog posting service – Instead of general article directories, your links will come from relevant blogs. You can also promote your own sites directly, just like a press release. And instead of having links in the author resource box, you can have links directly embedded in the blog posts.

Blog commenting service – The chance to get links from high profile blogs!

From the above, you see that all the methods are different in some way. There is no best method. My recommendation is to do a bit of everything. That way, your links appear natural to the search engines and for those concerned about IPs (I’m not), you get links from a wide range of IP addresses.

Request for Testers

So far, all the testing has been done internally. I think it’s now ready to open the door to a few clients for more testing.

If you are willing to test drive this brand new service at a price of $30 per URL, send me an email.

I’ll then send the details over to you, and guide you along throughout the process. It’s a very simple process. You do it once, and you never forget.

To make sure that the testing is 100% risk free, if you get zero links approved in 3 weeks time, I’ll refund your money.

I look forward to promoting your sites for you.

Chat later!

Darren