Changing to a new ISP or broadband provider seems to be an incredible hassle in the UK. From our own personal experience, we can certainly attest to this problem.

Having a reliable and uninterrupted broadband connection is essential for anyone in the Internet marketing or affiliate marketing business. Therefore, before we decided to move from British Telecom, we did a great deal of research into the marketplace, and combed the forums to find out who had good reviews and of course who had bad reviews.

Armed with this information, we signed up lock stock and barrel to a company called Toucan or as we call them Toucannot. I think you know what’s coming! Not only were we persuaded into signing up for one year of broadband service, but were also persuaded into letting them handle our telephone calls and line rental as well. A bold move! One which we have lived to regret as time has gone on.

The telephone service in itself seems to be okay. You do get reasonable rates for national calls and international calls, but sometimes the the line quality to places such as Ukraine can be appalling. Not the first time have we found ourselves dialing an 0871 number to obtain a cheaper rate per minute and also a better line. One point in their favour though is that the line rental each month is substantially cheaper than British Telecom.

Now as far as the broadband is concerned, when we signed up, we had our own router, manufactured by a company called Zoom, which functioned perfectly for about three weeks and then suddenly gave up the ghost one day. This forced us into taking emergency measures by installing the modem provided by Toucan. And this is where the problems began. First of all, the modem had to be installed twice, which was strange by itself. Then the modem decided to switch itself off at any time of the day or night. This interrupted all programs that we had going on each occasion. Very frustrating indeed.

We know a bit about modems and routers, so of course we went through the usual remedial procedures of switching the modem off, disconnecting it, reconnecting it — you know the drill. Of course we were convinced that the modem itself was at fault and we were later proven to be correct. However, we were then forced to call the broadband technical support of Toucan.

Rather frustratingly, Toucan have outsourced their technical support to a third party company and they charge 30p a minute for any kind of technical support. Now this particular call centre is located in India. Frequently the lines can be bad and hearing each other can be difficult. So this adds to the delays and expense. To make matters worse, it seems as though these agents who answer the telephones are trained to prolong the conversation as long as possible. They seem to ask you a bunch of unnecessary questions and then eventually get down to business. They then go through the same old questions and answers that you have already addressed yourself and that is that.

One agent put down the phone on me because I had hinted that he was taking far too long to get to the root of the problem. When I called back, I was of course made to answer the usual questions and repeat myself once again. After waiting three minutes at 30p a minute, with the agent having left me on hold, I decided that enough was enough. I had already spent six pounds on the telephone without any kind of resolution. I have to say that I find it intensely irritating and extremely unfair that I should have to pay Toucan 30p per minute, so that they can establish that there is a fault in the modem that they have supplied to me as part of my contract. Suffice to say I was not going to let the matter rest and escalated the problem within the organisation.

After several phone calls and much protestation, I eventually received a call back from two managers within the organisation. One manager agreed to give me a refund of £10 against the charges I had incurred and in addition to this, another manager agreed to pay £40 towards the new router, which I had to buy because the modem did not work properly. I have to say that I was extremely pleasantly surprised by the latter gesture. After all, if I choose to buy an expensive £99 rooter and according to the contract, Toucan only have to provide me with a functional modem, this was indeed a decent gesture.

There is no question about it, you really need to choose your broadband provider very carefully and read all the small print that may go with your contract. I wonder who else has had similar experience to us? Please feel free to send us your comments on your favourite broadband provider!

I’m sure that anyone writing a blog has heard of the brand new blog referral system - for want of a better phrase -from John Reese. Anyone who knows anything about Internet marketing or is indeed in any way associated to Internet marketing, will know the almost legendary status of John Reese.

Amongst his incredibly successful products was the groundbreaking training course called Traffic Secrets, which made John Reese $1 million in a day (on launch day)! It was a lesson for everyone in how to launch a product properly and not only this, but to provide an excellent product offering superb value for money.

So it goes without saying that any new product from John Reese is liable to get most Internet marketers’ immediate attention. The new release I’m talking about is BlogRush. The whole concept seems to have caught on like wildfire throughout the blogging community. Indeed we ourselves have applied to go on the network.

But something caught our surprise the other day! Now it’s not usual to see any Internet marketing guru challenge another guru, in particular when it comes down to the efficacy of his particular product - least of all, in public. After all, when it comes to product launches, they all seem to need each other to maximise their profits and convince their lists that the product they are promoting carries their endorsement.

It’s a practice which I personally do not like.

And we touched on this matter in other postings. It’s really quite irritating to get several e-mails about the same product from several different people, but written in the same words. You know full well that the person concerned has no idea if the product is any good or not and yet just to make money, he’s quite prepared to endorse a product sight unseen. I have long ago learned to discard such e-mails immediately. Anyway I digress.

I was shocked to read that uber tester and multi talented Internet marketer, Jonathan Leger had actually come out completely against BlogRush and stated quite categorically that the program did not deliver the results that he had expected.

Of course, Jonathan being a tester that he is, produced the results to prove his point and the results were crystal clear. He was clearly giving more than he was receiving in terms of credits within the system and as a result he has removed BlogRush from his blog. It should be said, that the article was written in a very constructive way and I’m sure that John Reese, being a talented individual that he is, will no doubt make the necessary improvements in the system to make it work more effectively.

But I must say, it was quite refreshing to see a Guru such as Jonathan Leger take such an open and constructively critical view of another top internet marketers product.

As a long-term Adsense publisher, we have of course witnessed many of the changes which have taken place in the Adsense program. As we all know, the heady days of making huge amounts of cash through the Adsense program have largely disappeared. Although of course, there are several ways still available, through which excellent returns can be made.

But it does seem over the years that things have been getting more difficult for publisher. Most long-term Adsense publishers will remember the days when there was no such thing as a separate content bid. There was once a time when we were allowed to use pictures next to our adverts to enhance click through rates and then this policy changed.

Suddenly out of the blue, something else has changed and I have to say that it is extremely subtle. If you take any normal Adsense block is an example, much of it used to be a hot area where if a surfer held his mouse pointer over much of the Adsense block, this area became clickable.

However, this has now changed! If you check your own Adsense blocks, you will find that the only two areas that are now clickable, are the link itself and the URL. What this means is that presumably most publishers click through rate will go down as of course will their revenue, because now the casual surfer has too be far more purposeful and accurate in his or her desire to click on a particular advert or link.

A subtle change I am sure we will agree, but nevertheless one which will adversely affect the revenues of most if not all Adsense publishers.

Having said/written that, the new system is probably fairer to the surfer and the buyer and that’s what counts.

If you are doing any form of affiliate or Internet marketing, you will at some stage need to outsource either frequently or on a regular basis.

With the rapid expansion of the Internet, there are now more and more opportunities for good freelancers in web design, copywriting, translation, programming and data entry — to name a few — to make a great deal of money from their skills.

However, in spite of this we have noticed an alarming downturn in the quality and reliability of some freelancers.  We are lucky enough to have a small group of freelancers with whom we have worked for years and they have proved to be incredibly reliable and indeed the rock of the business.  However frequently, because of the demands of the business, we have had to outsource to get articles written or programs done.

Without exception, we have always had problems, irrespective of whether the freelancer has good feedback or no feedback at all.  We have found an alarming tendency for many freelancers to go sick shortly after they have taken on a project.  This in itself can be enormously inconvenient if you are working on deadlines like we always are. 

It seems to me that many of them bid for work and then either take on too much, or only do the work which carries the highest bid.  I’m not quite sure what the reason really is.  All I do know is that it causes a great deal of inconvenience to the buyers.

It seems to me that there is a case for all these freelance sites to ask people to provide some form of credentials to prove that they can do what they claim to be able to do.  Of course in some cases, this is difficult to do, in particular with copywriting, where people learn this trade as they go along.  But surely in the case of web design, programming or indeed translation some form of credentials could be asked for.

Alternatively, perhaps the service providers can in some way be limited to the amount of projects that they can take on at one time.

To illustrate the point, recently I had five out of six freelancers go sick or develop some kind of a problem after taking on the work.  According to the rules on the freelancer site concerned, one has to wait three business days without hearing from the service provider, before you can start the project cancellation process.  Then of course the site owners have to cancel the project and they usually do this within two to three business days.  By then, 10 days have been wasted and you start all over again.

Another case in point was when a freelancer “translated” - I use that term loosely - a web site for us. The German was so bad, the job had to be done completely from scratch by another person.

So if you are doing freelance work, do it well and produce it on time and you can be sure that you will have more clients than you can handle!

You have to to hand it to Michael Green.  The concept is brilliant as is the title.  But does the concept really work?  I guess you’ll have to ask Michael Green whether it does or doesn’t.  I’m sure it works for Michael, because he is regarded as one of the Internet’s top marketing gurus. 

Anyway let’s get straight to the point of this article.  During the lead up to the launch of this particular product, I received a couple of sales emails from one or two other marketing gurus, using copy which I later found out was written by Michael Green himself, to extol the virtues of this new product.  On top of this, one of the gurus in particular, told us that we must buy now during the pre-launch period as the price would definitely go up — indeed it would double — after launch day.

I thought that this was just another ruse, so I wrote to the guru concerned to inquire whether this was just marketing hype or whether it was the truth, that the price would double after launch day.  He assured me that he knew Michael Green very well and that he was a man of his word and that the price would go up after launch. 

Well you know what’s coming don’t you? 

Of course the price never did go up after launch!  In fact weeks after the launch, the price still remains at $247.00.  Now I wouldn’t mind so much, if someone had told me the truth, but this is a blatant lie just to get my money three or four weeks before the product is actually launched.  Not only this, but the money was extracted from a lot of innocent people on the basis that the price definitely would go up — indeed it might actually double — on the launch day itself.

Now for many people, $247.00 is a lot of money in particular when our inboxes are stacked full of tempting offers for various software and e-books, which according to the vendors, we simply “must have” to be successful in Internet marketing. 

So the bottom line is that many people forked out $247.00 several weeks before they had to and what makes it worse is that they also did this under alleged false pretences.  Personally, I find this totally unacceptable.  It’s the worst side of Internet marketing.  After all, it’s not as if Michael Green needs the money!

I myself signed up for the course (after the launch date) and I have to say that the course is probably worth the money.  Not because you will make 20 grand in 20 days, but because the concept itself is sound.  You’ll probably make far less than 20 grand, but you will make money in the long run and you will certainly recover the cost of the course. 

Interestingly enough, and rather amusingly, Michael Green revealed in the course the super affiliate to whom we wrote and also revealed how many thousands of dollars this super affiliate had made as a result of endorsing the program in the first place.

I was further irritated by the fact that Michael Green had even written the copy for these super affiliates as well and not only this but those concerned had no idea what the content of the course actually was before they endorsed it! 

Now how can anyone endorse a course if they don’t know what’s in it?  In addition to this, instead of following the 2020 challenge along with the rest of the people to whom they had recommended it, one super affiliate spent the time out of the country, instead of in the trenches where everyone else was! 

If the 2020 challenge was so achievable, then surely all people who had recommended a course in the first place should be leading from the front, proving that can be done! After all, who else is going to turn their noses up at making 20 grand in 20 days, if it can so easily be done?

This is why whenever a super affiliate endorses ANY product or service, we say buyer beware.  In most cases it is highly unlikely that the person who is recommending it to you as either seen or tried the product which he or she is recommending and that surely is no basis for any kind of recommendation. Super affiliates know this, so they dress up their recommendations with (in some cases) ridiculous and (in some cases) useless uber bonuses.

Just to close on this matter, to rub salt into the wound, the same super affiliate who had blindly endorsed the 2020 challenge in the first place to his mailing list, using copy written by Michael Green, recently wrote another follow-up urging people who had not joined up, to do so now! 

Bear in mind this is weeks after the launch and one of his reasons was that the price had remained the same because the promotion had been incredibly successful!  Now correct me if I’m wrong, but usually when something is so successful, the price goes up and does not stay the same.

Quite frankly, if I’d been one of the people who had parted with my money three or four weeks before the launch of the product itself, I would be writing a very strong letter to the guru who recommended it in the first place and of course to Michael Green as well.

To be fair, not all super affiliates operate like this. Many, rarely if ever endorse anything and when they do, you can be sure it’s something good. However there are others - many others - who have an offer of some kind in every newletter.

Our advice is wherever possible, wait until the launch is over or hang around the internet marketing forums to get real opinions about products or services, before you part with your hard earned cash.

Well we finally succumbed to starting a blog! Long overdue as many would say. So what are we about at Internet marketing 247? Well we have been doing web site development, search engine optimisation, copywriting, Internet marketing and of course affiliate marketing since 1997.

It’s been fascinating to see over all these years how the Internet has evolved and developed at warp speed! Making money on the Internet many years ago used to be a breeze. How this has changed so quickly and so radically over the last few years. No doubt a lot of this is due to the fact that the search engines have become more savvy, but in addition to this there are many, many more people online who are trying to make money using the same or similar methods.

In the early years of course, moneymaking on the Internet used to be the preserve of Americans and Canadians. Following them, where the British, the Australians and Singaporeans. So much has changed since then and making money on the Internet has become a truly global phenomenon, which has presented many more challenges to seasoned Internet marketers such as ourselves.

As anyone who is in this market will know, the subject of making money on the Internet has become truly saturated and as a result we have all been forced to look at other avenues of making money, of which there are many — and that is the beauty of the Internet! There are just so many ways to make money through this amazing medium.

So we intend to use this blog to write about general Internet marketing and other related subjects. If we find a piece of software that we like, we will let you know. If we find an affiliate program or an e-book which we particularly like, we will of course let you know. However, we do intend to express opinions about other matters as well — some of which might be somewhat controversial.

As much as there are many positive things about this amazing industry, there are several negative things as well. People who are veterans of this industry will know very well what we are writing about, but people who are new to the industry may well be unaware and we intend to help them wherever possible. In fact, for our second article we discuss the merits of the 2020 challenge by Michael Green and the role of certain super affiliates in the promotion of it.

We certainly hope that you will enjoy reading out blog and please feel free to send us your comments and suggestions! To your success!