Hello from Rosalind

Thanks again for all your good wishes last week.

I'm pretty much up from under now - and to make sure I stay that way, I'm going on a completely work-free, 5-day vacation at the end of this week to celebrate Canada Day in Toronto, as it needs to be celebrated... at Rib-Fest.

There's no cholesterol in ribs, right? :-)

Today's article about keeping your affiliate marketing business organized has been pre-empted by more important Internet marketing matters, but will be published next week.

What's more important than staying on top of your business?

Well, HAVING a business to stay on top of... for starters.

Here are a couple of problems I've heard about lately.

One webmaster wanted to know why his site wasn't generating revenue.

I looked at the Christian-themed site and discovered scores and scores of irrelevant articles posted.

Hmm... does someone who searched for "Bible study" stay long on a site where home business, women's health, sports and gardening articles are interspersed with Jesus, Mary and Joseph?

Probably not.

Lack of relevance chases visitors away and does nothing for your search engine rankings.

This webmaster had obviously used Article Equalizer or Article Automator to pepper his site with content, but forgot to make sure the content was related to his site's theme.

Here's another content-related problem sent to me this week.

"I have added some things to my old page and was really seeing some good financial results."

"I was receiving about 2000+ unique visits per day to the site. Making good money with google adsense and CJ commissions. Day before yesterday my numbers fell from 2000 unique to 850 unique and then yesterday it fell to 375 unique."

"What is going on???"

The webmaster also reported adding "about 170 articles using Article Equalizer" in April.

Eeee-yikes!

Did you know that EzineArticles.com permits only 25 article downloads per webmaster, per year?

Chrisopher Knight of EzinesArticles.com told me that "We ban both publishers and authors on a daily basis who scrape us out of web server self-defense."

One good reason to use Article Equalizer with discretion.

Another is that using Article Equalizer to create an explosion of Adsense pages which increases your Adsense clicks suddenly is a red flag to Google.

So, do I use Article Equalizer or Article Automator?

Sure, I do!

I download relevant articles, then upload them to my sites in increments of 5 - 10 at a time - not hundreds!

Another possibility for a listing downslide is that one of Google's human site raters came by and determined that the site was a 'thin affiliate', which is a site with not-so-useful content displayed solely for the purpose of sending traffic to affiliate programs. Alan Gardyne discussed this issue in his latest newsletter and referenced Google's "Spam Recognition Guide for Raters".

After reading Alan's newsletter, a webmaster friend wrote to me, saying "Make sure you check this out!!! Its amazing, it totally reinforces your model as the way forward."

So, what's my model?

I write an article and/or newsletter every week and upload them to my site(s) and my blog.

Ergo, my sites grow 'naturally' - i.e. nice and slow.

Too, none of my sites has ever been delisted or penalized... knock on wood.

On this subject, I've included "Google is Watching You" written by Jason Potash, whom you may remember as the host of the teleconference that John Reese, Stephen Pierce and I did together late last October.

Information about that teleconference is available here: Affiliate Marketing Teleseminar

Jason's message is timely and important and I highly recommend you read it through.

'Til next time, promote and prosper!

Cheers,