This post is educational, nothing else. I hold no responsibility for any actions you decide to take with this information. I do not do blackhat marketing anymore and do realise that you can get banned from whichever network you are using with the below information.

When I asked people what they wanted to see on TUK I had a few people contact me on instant messenger and say that they’d like to know what blackhat marketing was and whether it was worth looking into.

First off - my opinion is that you should not use blackhat marketing; I’ve done it in the past, but have been ‘clean’ for over a month now. The thing about blackhat marketing is that it generally (note, not always) tends to be short term and there is a decent chance of you getting banned from whatever you promote (unless you clarify with your affiliate network first… some of them allow this type of marketing).

Blackhat marketing is not fraud; let me make that clear - too many people confuse it with such. Blackhat is also not illegal. For a comparision, filling out your own CPA offers with proxies and freshly generated emails would be illegal, as you are cheating advertisers and engaging in fraud (which if they sued you for you could go to jail / be fined) but something like cookie stuffing is an example of blackhat marketing; not fraud, not illegal, but usually against the terms and conditions of most affiliate networks.

In the past, blackhat used to be a term related to search engine optimization - for example, injecting links - basically ways to ‘cheat’ Google into giving you a higher ranking. Nowadays however, shady-ish ways to make money online have also been dubbed blackhat.

As mentioned at the beginning, this post is purely educational and I hold no responsibility towards whatever you do with it; I have done this in the past and know that the tips work, that is all I am going to say.

COOKIE STUFFING

Cookie stuffing is probably the easiest way for anyone looking to get into blackhat affiliate marketing to start out, as it doesn’t require a cent of investment apart from your own domain name and hosting.

The basic way to cookie stuff is by using fake images on forums; every view of your fake image would count as a click (and have your affiliate link embedded in the visitors computer). When someone buys something, you will get the affiliate commission credited to you.

What is done is people create a .htaccess file (or edit their existing one) with code redirecting images to affiliate links. So for example, it would be:

Redirect /1stimage.jpg http://www.hostingaffiliatelink.com

Now, every time you place 1stimage.jpg on a website, and someone views it - it counts as an click. The easiest way is to target niche forums and start threads related to the topic at and (so for example, starting a thread on Hostican asking for opinions and placing your image). Note that this does not hide your referrer link and thus is extremely risky; I am not going to tell you guys how to do this as if a whole range of cookie stuffers start, it will not be my fault

Anywhere that you can place an affiliate link is ripe for cookie stuffing; niche forums, your own websites, blogs etc. For example, if I wanted to (I haven’t) I could cookie stuff all visitors to this blog and they would not know it.

For those worried, cookie stuffing does nothing to you if you view such an image; all it does is embed an affiliate cookie into your computer. So if you are buying something through a friend (or your own, even)’s affiliate link, clear your cookie before you make the purchase.

There are far more advanced blackhat techniques to make money; having spoken with a few marketers I know quite a bit of them and may talk a little about them here depending on the response this post gets.

My opinion is that there is nothing wrong with doing so on larger webmaster forums, as they would buy anyways and all you are doing is netting some (easy) commission; however, it is not me that makes the rules and most affiliate networks do not like this - if you are going to try this out and want to stay safe, ask. I’d love to hear what affiliate networks in particular feel about this; if you know anyone, feel free to redirect them to this post so that we could spark off a debate

Again (it’s better I repeat myself ) I do not do this anymore and do not recommend it to newbies unless you have been told by your affiliate networks that this is allowed. If you do come across one or two (some of the bigger pay per install programs allow types of blackhat marketing) go wild, as it is very, very easy to make some short, investment-less income from this.

Let me know what you think!

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I know a lot of you are involved with Blogging Idol, and I did promise I’d try and get you content that would help. Whether you are involved in Blogging Idol or not, all of you (probably) are interested in boosting your online income, and one of the easiest ways to make some income is by flipping blogs with active visitors. Apart from say… writing a guest post, one of the biggest things a visitor can do to become active is subscribe to your blog - with this, they are opting in to receive your content every single day (or how often you post).

The more subscribers you have, the more valuable your blog is - that is something that is pretty simple. How do you increase subscribers? Below, I’m going to list a few ways - ranked by how useful they have been for me.

My own contests - by far the best way to boost metrics. Some say it is ‘bribing’ your readers to follow you, but I’ve got to disagree - if they do not like your content, they will unsubscribe. A contest is a great way to get people to know about your blog, people that wouldn’t have prior as they see posts on other websites and the best thing is, all you have to do is ask around and you’ll get plenty of sponsored prizes. Don’t forget to promote your contest after you start it!

Great posts - funnily enough, this comes second in the list - the reason for this is that great content alone will not get you subscribers, marketing it will. There are plenty of bigger blogs with content that is to put it lightly… utter rubbish, and the main reason they are big is because of the marketing they have done (which includes weekly, or sometimes even daily contests). As is the common speak in sales, a mediocre product with great marketing will do far better than a great product with mediocre marketing.

Guest posts - guest posts allow you to expose yourself to a whole new audience and they don’t cost you anything except time. Time that plenty of us have too much of - seriously though, it’s one of the best ways to promote a blog and I will be doing a few of these over the next month, so watch out for them - if you’re interested on seeing a guest post on your blog, send me an email

Others contests - sponsoring someone else’s contest is a great way to get the word out, especially the ones that require people linking to a list of sponsors etc. You don’t even have to sponsor much - I’ve sponsored 1,000 copies of an eBook that is about 3,000 words long and took me a couple of hours to write for quite a few contests; in return, it’s built me more than 1,000 backlinks to the blog over the last month or two. How’s that for return on time?

Paid advertising - paid advertising is at the bottom of the pile because it is in my eyes worthless; you should only pay for advertising if you like the blogger and are not doing it for the exposure, as there are plenty of ways to get the word out, free (top commentators, guest posts… etc).

Mini Contest

I’m competing in Blogging Idol and want to boost subscriber count - now, I’m not offering cash as you can’t sponsor your own contest with money, however I am offering links for everyone that subscribes.

Here’s the deal - subscribe to my feed via email, and once you’re done send me an email with the one you used and your link with anchor text. I’ll confirm and add your link to my Links page, which gets a few hundred uniques monthly. This is only applicable to new subscribers, but if you are already subscribed you can always do so again - by email.

Edit: Idea taken from Tom @ Stand Out Blogger. You can subscribe to his blog at his site to help him out too

If you want more exposure, write a post mentioning three reasons people should subscribe to my RSS feed and link to my RSS page and you’ll get a one month link under ‘Blogging Friends‘ in the sidebar, with the best post getting a 125 x 125 ad for one month. You’ll also get an (extra) entry into a sponsored contest I’ll be running later this month with (hopefully) decent prizes. For inspiration, you can check out my ‘Why Subscribe‘ page.

I’ve been making updates to the blog - added the above page and updated my ‘About’ page, will be reworking other things too. I rewrote my about page because there was a bit too much slang used, wanted it to seem more professional; I added my Skype contact as well as a mailing address (I get a couple requests a week for it so why not). If anyone wants to mail me something, feel free

Two bits of news that I have for you guys;

a) I’ll start the article marketing case study soon, thanks for all those that reminded me; I’ve been busy with offline stuff so not really had time for it.

b) The winner of the Creative Vado has been chosen, without me knowing - anyways, you can check out the post on Derek’s website. For all those that ask - I had no input into selecting the winner, nor was i asked - so I do not know how it was chosen. Just had to update as a few people were asking about it.

Over and out!

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I know I promised rock solid content over the next thirty days but this is the reason for the rock solid content so I really thought I should give it a mention.

Daniel at Daily Blog Tips has gotten together a killer contest and cleverly dubbed it ‘Blogging Idol’ … anyways, today is the start of Blogging Idol so I’d appreciate if you guys could help me compete (especially those of you I’ll be competing again - I have one message for you guys - winning isn’t everything, so don’t worry about doing so ).

First things first; if you haven’t, please subscribe.

You can grab posts via a feed reader here.

You can subscribe via email by filling in the below form.

Some examples of the stuff you’ll get by subscribing:

How To Make Websites Sell

Make Money Online By Blog Commenting

Make Money Flipping Websites - Niche Websites

Tips To Succeed As A Freelancer

Of course, if you have any ideas for posts you want to see, you can leave them on this very aptly titled post.

Now that Blogging Idol has started, please tell your friends, family, coworkers, pets, neighbours, the random guy on the street you see every so often and anyone else to subscribe as it’ll help me out greatly.

I’ll be using various strategies - one of which will be a contest. I’ve already worked on getting a sponsor, but rather than asking for something myself would like to know what you guys want - is it pure cash or something tangible like the latest electronics? Let me know via the comments section.

We’ll be working on promoting etc together during Blogging Idol on the coolest blogging forum out there, so join if you haven’t to discuss tips, tricks and strategies if you’ve entered (or even if you haven’t!). I’m off to write more guest posts, so over and out.

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Day one of producing rock solid content begins.

As a few of you guys know, I started out this whole internet thing article writing - grossly underpaid, not much fun and very few clients… although I don’t care jobs these days as I have other things keeping me busy, I still make a decent bit per month outsourcing. A lot of people do run freelancing services such as writing, designing, coding etc and these tips will help you make more money. The best thing about freelancing is that it doesn’t cost you a cent to get started out; all you need is a computer and you’re set. If you do freelance, these tips will make you money.

What can you, the freelancer do to make more money?

Offer discounts. Creating a sense of urgency is great for driving sales, and if people know that tomorrow your price may be different, they’ll order today. You offering a lower price than you normally do to enter the market can get you your first few clients and you’ll find that some of them stick around even if you raise your prices if they like your work.

Offer bonuses. If you’ve ever been to a grocery store, you’ll have noticed that prices tend to decrease when working in bulk; you should use the same principles to get more business. With article writing, for example - offer an eleventh article free with an order of ten or more; offer a 10% discount if people order in bulk - you get the idea.

Don’t always look for the instant income. People tend to look for instant money and not wait through a spell of little activity or do note promote themselves enough because they think that they’d be better off sticking to their current regime.

A great example of not always looking for instant income is Unique Blog Designs, who contacted a few big bloggers and offered to create Wordpress designs for them free… securing a life long footer link, a huge amount of gratitude and a chunk of business. This may not work so well for writing, but for things like design and code - if you see something you think will be the next big thing, or see something already pretty decent, offer your services free in exchange for some exposure. If any brilliant Wordpress designer wants to design me a theme free for some exposure, let me know. Opportunities continually present themselves, and when you see a good one you should definitely take it.

Have samples. You need samples to show people… would you hire someone offline if you didn’t know who they were? Well, not having samples is akin to the same - if you don’t have proof of what you can do, how do people know you’re good enough?

You don’t have to have exact samples, but general ones would be great; if you’re a writer, write up some articles on various topics (you could always use them for your niche websites!); if you’re a designer, create some mockups. You get the idea.

Be easy to deal with. I hate dealing with freelancers - quite often you’ll fine that they’re a pain to work with (myself included ), don’t follow deadlines, are difficult to contact… you get the idea. If you make yourself easy to contact and constantly update your clients on how things are going, you’ll get a lot more business through word of mouth, referrals etc.

Of course, don’t let clients run your life - you do need free time, and if you are busy make it known.

Take some payment upfront. It is easy to get burned online… make sure you take some form of payment up front (usually 50% is a good number, or less for large projects) to have a guarantee of some sort. Taking the money up front not just makes sure that you’re more safe than before, but also makes sure that you’ll work harder - once you have some kind of money in hand, it’s harder to slack off.

Simple tips, but ones that will hopefully help; the idea for the post came from one of the suggestions over here. Over the month I’ll be covering topics suggested from that post as it is what you guys want to hear about, so if you want to know more about something specific feel free to comment on it. Good luck!

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Blogging Idol is starting soon, and I want to destroy it. By destroy it, I mean destroy the competition of course.

Over the next 30-odd days, I’ll be using all the marketing strategies I know to boost traffic and subscribers. I’ve got a lot of knowledge, but haven’t used even a tenth of it for this blog - which is why it’s lagging behind a bit.

You see, I told you guys I’d double my subscribers or else everyone that commented on this post would get a free link back… I don’t feel like writing another review type post, so I’m going to have to step up my game.

A couple of the best ways to get traffic is by having a contest and running guest posts, and I’ll do both. I’m looking for contest sponsors.

I’m sure everyone is tired of seeing $XX,XXX contests where the actual value of the prizes is around $2.56, so I’ll be limiting the amount of sponsored prizes but maximising the value. I’d prefer tangible items be sponsored - the Flip Mino seems to be in hot demand right now, as would an iPod, iPhone or 42″ flatscreen TV…

Seriously though, I’m looking for high value prizes - if you can supply one and want a chunkload of exposure for your company / website, let me know. I’d prefer a less amount of sponsors, and for this I can offer advertising on the blog (maybe even a peel away depending on the prize). At the moment, TUK has 400+ subscribers but this will doubled by the end of the month, minimum - near guaranteed.

Why? Check out the marketing I’ll be doing below. Along with the contest, I’m also preparing for:

- 100 Guest Posts to go out, all pointing back to this blog. If each guest post raised TUK an average of ten subscribers, that’s 1,000 subscribers and far more traffic. I got this idea from the Market Leverage contest frenzy, but I want this strategy to be easily duplicated by anyone, so I’m turning to guest posts.

I’ll be sending out guest posts to some of the biggest blogs around, and any blog with more than 200+ subscribers in this niche will get an email with me if I know of you. If you have a suggestion, feel free to leave a comment. I’m going to try and get guest posts on blogs with a combined amount of XXX,XXX RSS subscribers, so that is a decent chunk of exposure.

- Digg Frontpage. Digg tends to send around 50,000 unique visitors, and I’ll be trying to hit it once a week in July. If I succeed, that’s a tonne of exposure for your brand if you sponsor a contest here. I’ll also look at a few more social networks - again, feel free to suggest. This time, I will be prepared with the necessary plugins to try and prevent a hosting crash

- Sponsor any and every single contest I come across. More links, more exposure.

- Create an info product for this blog to give away. With full resale / giveaway rights so that you guys can make money with it or have a hot product to give to your readers. This will be branded with this blog’s URL of course, which means more exposure.

You’d be a fool if you didn’t sponsor this contest. Remember though, high value prizes only, and I’d prefer they be tangible. I’ve already started writing guest posts and have quite a few done so far.

As for you guys, you benefit too. Of course, there’s the contest; but you also get a month’s full of content. I’m going to dedicate myself to producing top notch stuff this month, and will be covering some of the questions asked in this post (if you have other ideas, drop them on me). Starting July 1st, no guest posts by others on here, no paid reviews about other things on here for a full month. Just content that will help you.

Let me know if you’ve got ideas, want to sponsor or have any questions. You can reach me as always at admin[at]theuniversitykid[dot]com.

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