Today, December 1, 2009 the new laws that were revised by the Federal Trade Commission regarding endorsements and affiliates go into effect.

In brief, if you are an affiliate for someone else’s products, or create and promote your own products, this is what it means to you.

1. Responsibility. You are responsible for checking out the products that you promote. It really goes without saying that you should purchase any product that you are thinking of promoting. Doing so, you will be able to quickly weed out any weak or inferior products and save your reputation in the process. You will also be able to promote it honestly if you have used the product. This will shine through in your promotion.

2. Disclosure. You must let your readership know that you are getting paid for every sale made. This means that you must include a disclosure statement on your website or blog explaining the relationship you have to the product that you are promoting.

3. Testimonials. You cannot include any claims or testimonials on your site that you cannot substantiate. Again, if you have used the product successfully you can say that. If you have not, you cannot make claims indicating that you have. And you cannot include testimonials of others that you cannot prove.

Through all of this many are talking about the need to hire an attorney to make sure you are in compliance. As I am just getting my business started, this is not an option for me. However, I received an email from Frank Kerns who sent me a link to a video made by HIS attorney. If you do not know Frank Kern’s story, check out his blog post, What It’s Like to Be Sued by the FTC.

Frank’s attorney, Denise Gosnell, has created a product that includes ten strategies to keep your business in compliance with the new FTC rules. These include how to Use the Proper Written Agreements with Contractors and Employees, Trademark Law Pitfalls and Tips, Using Non-Disclosure Agreements to Protect Your Intellectual Property, Following Proper Accounting Principals to Keep Your Business in Good Standing. It also includes agreements such as Professional Services Agreement, Employment Agreement, Interview Release Agreement, Sample Web Site Privacy Policy, Sample Web Site Terms of Use.

My disclaimer — this IS an affiliate link. I believe in this product because it is a fairly affordable way make sure you are compliant with the new FTC regulations without having to retain an attorney. Of course if you are in the IM business long term, as with any business, as soon as you can afford an attorney, it would be in your best interest to find and retain a good attorney. Again my disclaimer — I am not an attorney, this is just my humble opinion.

Check out the video.

Best wishes for a successful and FTC-compliant business!

~Norene

Greetings! Today in the United States is Thanksgiving. It is a wonderful day to spend with family and friends. It is common for families to talk about what they are thankful for as they eat dinner on this day.

What a missed opportunity, however, if they do not do this simple task every day. In even the most dire situations, there is always something to be thankful for.

I have had a very difficult year. In April I was transferred at my place of business and placed with a boss who, to put it kindly and mildly, is very difficult to work with. I had health problems this summer that lead me to wonder if I was going to leave my two young daughters orphaned. This fall I lost my best friend, leaving a huge void in my life and in my heart.

Yet, I have always been a thankful person and I look daily for big and small things to be thankful for. Since this is a blog about my adventures in internet marketing, I wanted to take the time to formally thank all of those people, especially those people I met this year, who have propelled me forward in my internet business.
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Here we are again in the throws of another weekend! I hope you had a productive and fun week!

Today I want to talk about creating quality. There are so many blogs in every possible niche, you may be focusing on how to get traffic to your blog. If that is your focus, you may want to read some of my other blog posts such as, Ten Ways to Promote Your Blog, and Weekly Wrap-Up: Link Building.

But today I want to focus on how to create a following on your blog and how to keep folks on your blog longer, reading what you have worked on so hard to express. Obviously there are many reasons why you want your visitors to visit often and to stay on your site longer. One factor that I have noticed over the past six weeks of testing, is that my Alexa ranking (which is a rough estimate of how popular your blog is) seems to be more directly impacted by how long folks stay on my blog than how many visitors I have. And how do you get visitors to stay on your blog longer? You give them quality; you answer the questions they have come looking for, you entertain. By doing this you create posts of interests, post that others will Digg or Twitter, creating more visitors, more repeat visitors and visitors that stick around longer to see what else you have written.
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Greetings All,
I apologize for missing a weekly wrap-up last weekend. The swine flu finally caught up with my family and we were down and out for the count. But here we are again, with another weekend upon us!

This week I would like to talk about Twitter. I find that most folks on the internet either love or totally dismiss Twitter. I have to admit that I was one to totally dismiss it. I certainly saw the value of it, both personally and in my business, but I felt like I just didn’t have the time to “twitter away” my day. After finally jumping on board, I have found how truly fun and valuable Twitter can be.

One post that I came across that I really loved was Steve Wakefield’s blog article called, “My Top 10 Twitter Tools and Then Some.” If you are new to twitter, or not, you will find his list really compelling.

Of the ten tools that Steve lists, I have to say that I liked Twitter Packs the best. Twitter Packs, according to Steve, is a “useful directory of twitter users sorted into specific categories so that you can find people who are interested in the same things as you. You can also add yourself to the directory so that people can find and follow you.” Take a moment to read Steve’s blog post. If you love twitter, you will be glad that you did.

As happens quite often in the world of the internet, once you find a product that you love, another comes along to rival it. Such was the case with me this week. I literally stumbled upon Sokule (pronounced So Cool).
Sokule is a free product, or you can upgrade to obtain more features. You’ll find all the applications you need to make your business hum in one convenient location. You can even choose the applications you want. Applications like Adding your Bio, Edit Posts, Live Profile Links, Auto Welcome, Scheduled Posts, Video Ads, Autoresponder Messages, ClickBank plugin, Sokwall, and lots more.

One of the things that makes Sokule so cool is that when you post on Sokule, your post will automatically show up on Twitter just like magic. Sokule’s website states that they will soon be adding 40 other social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, Giblink, Friend Feed and many more.

Follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/nbroyton or on sokule at http://www.sokule.com/postit/Norene My sokule page is just beginning to be built — hopefully by the end of this week there will be more to show.

Until next time,

~Norene

One of the biggest misconceptions on the internet is that if you simply post to your blog, you will get visitors. So much has been written about SEO and ranking high in Google in order to get traffic to your site. There are, however, so many additional ways to get highly targeted traffic.

Today I would like to share with you ten traffic generation tactics. I have used some of those listed below and have read about others. In the next few weeks I will be using all of the strategies to test which ones work best for me and will post back about my results. If you would like to try, or have tried, any or all of these strategies yourself, comment below and let me know how they work for you.

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