This requirement changed today when RAP Bank revealed RAP Bank List ‘n’ Earn.

Using RAP Bank List ‘n’ Earn is simply a matter of uploading a small script to your website and adapting your sales page and your download page.  Another option is using a WP plugin provided by RAP Bank to handle both the sales and download page.

The cost of using List ‘n’ Earn is a $20 listing fee plus a small percentage of your sales, so it’s a very low cost way of getting your products listed in an affiliate network.

It’s a site where you can list your own products for sale or you can sell other people’s products.

So in a sense it’s just like ClickBank, but Gary didn’t just want to make a new ClickBank.

He added something in that ClickBank really is missing – instant payment.

Yep, make a sale and get paid instantly in your PayPal account.

No more waiting for ClickBank to tally up your earnings before you get paid.

And no more waiting for the checks to arrive if you live in a country like me where Direct Deposit isn’t an option yet.

So far there’s only 37 products listed for sale, but that’s ok given the site has only been operational for 2 weeks, and that Gary didn’t promote it via a traditional “Big Launch” launch.

With a Free account you can only list one of your own products, but with a Premium account you don’t have that limitation.

Maybe it’s time to dust off some of those master resell rights products we all have scattered across our harddrives and figure out if it’s possible to list them on Gary’s new site.

You automatically become an affiliate when you sign up for an account, so obviously I’m an affiliate – and this is an affiliate link

Well, there really is no need to be confused because behind all the hype and technical jargon viral traffic tools are really simple.

You refer somebody who in turn refer other people who in turn refer other people – that’s all there really is to it.

Everybody of those people are referred to as your Downline.

And each time someone in your downline makes a certain action such as displaying a banner you earn “credits” which are then used to get your own banner shown.

The more people in your downline the more exposure you get.

But it doesn’t have to be a banner – in a tool I just learned about a few minutes ago your Tweets are shown on other people’s websites.

The free version is of course limited compared to the paid option, but if you’re just going to try out some viral traffic building then the free version is all you really need.

When you sign up you’ll be given the option to upgrade from free to paid version on the spot for $97 (this is a one time offer – the regular price is $197) – the biggest difference between the free and the paid version is that you can connect the paid account to 10 different Twitter accounts with the free version only allowing you one Twitter account.

If you just have one Twitter account then the free version is in my opinion all you need.

Once inside the system you enter your Twitter account details and then you’re almost ready to go.

From here on you have two different ways of making this work for you.

The first is by placing a piece of code on your site that will help you earn credits for getting your Tweets shown on other people’s websites and blogs.

This is by far the slowest way of getting your Tweets seen since it requires plenty of initial traffic on your website to produce any noticeable traffic increase to your Twitter page.

The second way is to start referring other people to this viral tool – because it’s the viral side of things that really has the potential to get your Tweets shown a lot.

Inside the system you’ll find the code to put on your pages – including to short videos on how to add the code to your Blogger or WordPress blog.

And you’ll also find the referral link which you’ll need to start referring people.

Ready to try this free viral Twitter tool? – sign up using my referral link and you’ll end up in my downline.

FTC disclaimer: There is of course also an affiliate program associated with this tool, which means that should you, despite my recommendations, decide to sign up for the paid version, then I’ll earn a bit of money.

Most IM products these days are typically “secrets”, “loopholes” or “blueprints” and if that wasn’t enough to sell them, then they also “annihilate”, “explode” or “dominate” something or somebody – the secrets are usually “discovered” by truckdrivers, gardeners or sales clerks who all come from bankrupcy or homelessness – and it’s getting a bit tiresome imo.

So it was refreshing to read through the salescopy for Wendy’s product.

You see, Wendy’s product which is a 6 week course is not about secrets or loopholes, it’s not aiming at annihilating anything and you don’t have to have been homeless to use it.

If you’re anything like me then you have a harddrive filled with IM information products, you have your fair share of marketing and/or self-help books and a few cd or dvd courses on your shelfs.

And you have started multiple projects over the years, abandoned most of them, half-heartedly maintained some of them and only been consistent or successful with a few of these projects – at the most.

You’ve let the latest fads push your busines in one direction so many times that it’s unclear to you which way you’re heading at the moment.

If this sounds familiar, then you might want to take a look at what Wendy has to offer.

IM Cleanup is all about taking inventory of all the things you have going on with your online businesses, sorting them out, optimizing how you do things and then – once you’re back on track – creating the long term plans for your business.

I’m an affiliate of Wendy’s products, so I’ll earn a commission should you decide to buy IM Cleanup because you think it will be useful to you.

Another thing I like my systems to have is transparency; I like to know upfront what I’m getting into so I can evaluate the potential of the system before handing over my money.

Today I got an email about an article link building system that just immediately clicked with me.

I could see what it did, and the priciples of how my articles and links would be distributed within this article directory network made sense to me.

I’ve yet to put it to the test because I wanted to let you know about it as fast as I could since there’s a chance of getting some nice launch discounts.

Personally I’ve gone for the free version, but they also have a paid version that have some nice features compared to the free version.

I know that I’m not likely to take full advantage of the paid version, but if you’re currently doing a lot of article marketing either through your own writing or through rewritten PLR content, then the paid version might be suitable for you.

I’m currently launching a new niche site, so what better way to test the potential of this linkbuilding / article marketing system.

The only backlinks I have at the moment are from a dozen domain stats pages, and none of them are indexed by Google yet, and only one link is indexed by Yahoo.

So I’m really starting from scratch with my linkbuilding.

The success of an article linkbuilding network lies in its ability to distribute the articles to a wide variety of IP addresses, and doing it gradually so the linkbuilding appears to be normal.

This is especially important for a fresh domain where hundred or thousands of inbound links in a very short time is almost certain to get your site sandboxed.

It’s the perfect scenario to set up a controlled test, so remember to check back later for progress reports.

The link I provided is an affiliate link, but it’s not just like any other affiliate program.

Normally you’ll only benefit if people you refer go for the paid version, but here you also earn link credits from people you refer and people they in turn refer when they post an article.

This is a brilliant twist from a system point of view since this encourages people to spread the word and this in turn helps create the much needed IP diversity.

What’s worth testing and what’s not worth bothering with?

Which pages on your site to test first vs last.

The personal favorite test Anne ran on a site

Will probably be very interesting, but I’ll personally have to give it a pass since it’ll be 2AM for me.

By now every internet marketer should know about the FTC rules that recently became active that require us all to be upfront about our relationships with people we’re linking to.

Was I paid to write this review?

Do I get a commission if you purchase through my links?

Did I buy the product I just reviewed or was it a review copy given to me?

Add to that the bits about “typical results” and you might think that you’re home free.

But, apparently not – you can have all these new FTC rules covered and still mess up so bad that you could lose your merchant account.

Ouch.

Turns out that pre-checked checkboxes could get you in trouble when it comes to up-sells, cross-sells and a lot of other billing practices.

I’m not an expert on FTC regulations, so I suggest you head over to Mike’s site to read the full article. There’s also a list of additional resources that you might want to take a look at.

For “only” $497 plus $39.97 S/H I get 8 DVD’s with footage from one of Lee’s seminars + I’ll have to fill in a questionaire after I’ve watched all 8 DVD’s.

Imo Lee doesn’t need to engage 60000+ of his email subscribers to get the 29 beta testers he’s looking for. All he needs to do is turn to the original attendees of his seminar and ask them which additional tools and reports they found lacking when they started implementing what he taught them on the seminar.

After creating the tools they could then be offered to the original seminar attendees at a great bargain price.

And once they confirm through feedback to Lee that the tools and reports are just what they needed he can then put together a nice big Profit Max package and launch it at the full $1,997 he has planned.

There really is no need to let me watch a 13 minute video expecting to find a software developer needing beta testers for a piece of almost-launch-ready software – only to find that there is no software at all.

Lee is in essence looking for people willing to pay $497 (plus S/H) to take a survey.

But as much as I hate being manipulated into thinking that there’s a piece of software I can help someone get ready for launch, then I think Lee has put together a good deal.

Those taking him on on the offer will get the 8 DVD’s plus they’ll get all the tools and reports for free once Lee creates them as well as access to the footage from Lee’s upcoming “Continuity LIVE” workshop.

A good deal? – yep, but still doesn’t have anything to do with beta testing.

FTC disclaimer: Nobody paid me to write this, and I’m not earning any commissions should you choose to sign up as “beta tester” since it’s not an affiliate link.

Just noticed that in How to Increase Blog Traffic – Fast! that Lynn Terry had picked up a copy of Guest Posting for Quality Inbound Links and Targeted Traffic by Chriss Garret for only $10.

There’s a lot of talk these days about guest blogging, and when it’s hard to decide which products to invest in and which ones to stay away from because they are nothing but just pure regurgitated hearsay, then it’s always a wise decision to give Lynn’s Clicknewz blog or her Internet Marketing forum a visit.

Backlinks are still a very important critical part of getting your pages ranked well, but it’s not always easy to get the number of backlinks needed of the right quality and of the best type (DoFollow).

Guest blogging solves 2/3 of that equation, but makes up for the missing 1/3 (number of backlinks) by getting you targeted visitors.

Lynn also has a few other recommendations that you might want to check out.

Regardless of what you do you might also want to check out Chriss Garret’s The Business of Blogging and New Media blog.

Well, here’s a list of some of the most popular blog posts there

• 10 Reasons Commenting is Good For Bloggers
• Aweber Versus FeedBurner For Bloggers With Email Newsletters
• Better Blog Branding: What’s In a Name?
• Blog Profits Blueprint Review
• Blog SEO: Get Your Blog out of the Supplemental Index

FTC disclaimer: I wasn’t paid to recommend either Lynn’s or Chris’ sites, but I do get a commission should you choose to buy his guest blogging ebook through my link

Now, I like to keep myself secure through the use of firewalls, anti-virus scanners and adware/malware scanners, and I always make sure that they are kept up to date, but there’s always that tiny risk of something nasty slipping through my defenses.

So any newsletter that starts with “VIRUS ALERT” naturally gets my attention.

(btw, Michael sent me two emails a few hour apart – the other email had a title that started with “EXTREMELY DANGEROUS VIRUS ALERT “)

Inside Michael continues his use of capital letters with this:

EXTREMELY DANGEROUS VIRUS ALERT!

HUGE VIRUS COMING!

PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG YOUR FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS

Then he continues to talk about how he heard about this virus from a fellow marketer, that it has been verified by Norton Anti-Virus as a real threat and seals the deal with information that it’s been classified by Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever.

Now, you don’t have to have been online for very long to smell a hoax or an urban legend when you see one – and this had all the bells and whistles of a hoax, so I made a quick visit on Google searching for “postcard from hallmark virus” and confirmed my suspicion – it’s all a hoax.

It’s an urban legend, and it’s been around for at least 2 years now.

Hoaxes as such don’t piss me off, but unprofessional or dishonest marketers do.

Michael Holder is imo either extremely unprofessional by relaying information of that kind without doing any due dilligence at all – twice. It’s not even a new hoax, where current information on the subject might not have been conclusive – it’s so old that it’s been a confirmed hoax for 2 years.

The other alternative I listed, a dishonest marketer, would be if Michael knew that the “postcard from Hallmark” virus warning was a hoax, but deliberately sent it out to his newsletter subscribers so they could get scared and forward his promo mail to all their friends.

It is after all one page with the hoax followed by 10 pages advertising various products, so promo mail rather than newsletter is imo an appropriate term.

(one of the advertised products is even a 5 day crash course in “proper business etiquette”…)

I unsubscribed on the spot.

And I’m not going near anything with Michael Holders name on it again because I simply don’t trust him after he pulled this stunt on me.

It really saddens me when I feel that some marketer has deliberately tried to scare me into sending his promo material to all my friends, family and contacts by stuffing a false virus warning down my throat.

The really “funny” thing about it all is that it’s less than a month ago that Michael Holder sent me a mail with a title that started with “False Advertising Or Ignorance” where he pounded an unnamed marketer for marketing something as “new” when in fact it had been around for a long time