ShoeMoney gives you ‘skills to pay the bills.’ According to AdAge, ShoeMoney is now the 5^th highest trafficked web marketing site. Since its launch in 2004, it has grown into a multi-million dollar business. 35,000 daily readers, named Best Affiliate Marketing Blog and ranked in Technorati’s top 50 blogs for three years running. It topped $1million in 2009 and will better this in 2010 thanks to the phenomenally successful Shoe Money System And remember, this digital empire is based in Lincoln, Nebraska, not from Silicon Valley or New York.

Who is Jeremy Schoemaker?

Jeremy Schoemaker is ShoeMoney. Let’s look at his background first and then drill down into how he developed this multi-million dollar empire. Jeremy Schoemaker, 36, grew up in Moline, Illinois. As a child he struggled with poor health, most notably weight issues – he was 300+ pounds at age 14 – something he addressed in many blog posts. His solution to constant teasing and the flak that comes with this was typical Schoemaker/ShoeMoney: ‘work that much harder to be that much better than my competition’.

ShoeMoney Timeline on Google News

ShoeMoney Timeline

Before we look at his business philosophy and marketing strategy, let’s look at how he’s developed his business in this timeline.

• 2003 – Started ShoeMoney.com and expanded his ringtone community company, Next Pimp. The site was originally called googleninja.com. This is where he shares information on his life, web marketing, and new projects, such as The Shoe Money System.
  ShoeMoney.com has a very distinct design, especially the logo which is featured on all ShoeMoney products, marketing and TShirts. The site is 100% free to read. Advertisements were added in 2007.
• 2003 – Discovered Google Adsense. One check for $130,000 (one-month earnings from Google AdSense) is the most linked to pages on his blog. His became ‘famous’ in web terms anyway after this check showed his Google AdSense earnings. This photo launched ShoeMoney into the greater public domain and established him as an authority on affiliate marketing and online subscriptions business models. Detractors argued that the photo was digitally altered (e.g. in PhotoShop) and have went to great lengths to prove that he could not have earning this amount from his site. And they’re right, well, up to a point.
  It seems that ShoeMoney runs multiple sites (e.g. networks of automated sites) which have been fine-tuned for Google Adsense. The sum total of these earnings I assume explains the figure. Personally, I don’t care. Even if he didn’t make that amount, kudos for having the marketing smarts to get it out there.
• 2006 – ShoeMoney, with Aaron Wall, Lee Dodd, and Dave Taylor, started a conference called the Elite Retreat. Limited to 30 people and costs $5,000 per person. In 5 events over 4 years (20 events) it has sold out every event. That’s $100k for twenty days work.
• 2007 – With business partner, David Dellanave, launched AuctionAds, an eBay affiliate marketing service that serves eBay auction ads on contextually relevant sites. It won multiple awards and within four months, marketing company Media Whiz purchased a majority stake in it. ShoeMoney says that it made a lot of people a lot of money and “I risked a ton of my own money to start this network and never made a dime off of it until we sold it to Media Whiz.” When sold, it had 25,000 active publishers generating over $2,000,000 a month in revenue. That’s $24 million per year.
• 2008 Launched ShoeMoney Tools – An advanced suite of PPC (Pay Per Click) and SEO tools. Clients include Intel, Microsoft, MTV and Google
• 2008 Launched Shoemoneyx.com — Free 12 week course on internet marketing. This is excellent and I recommend you try it out.
• 2009 Launched The ShoeMoney System — Step by step guide on making money every which way on the internet. This site is targeted at those who want to make money online, not from low-paying blogging activities, but using their site as a platform to run a real web business. There is some overlap with Yaro Starak blog Mastermind system.
• 2009-2010 – ShoeMoney.com generated $1 million dollars from multiple income streams.

How ShoeMoney Really Got Started

Let’s step back a minute and see how he went from a small town in Nebraska to top of the pile.

In 1987, his mother bought him an Apple computer. That was it. From there on he was hooked. Fast forward to 1995 and he landed his first IT job at a local Internet Service Provider. He made one dollar more than he had made in Sears. The pay was irrelevant. This was a chance to work – every day & all day – with all types of technologies.

At the ISP he was thrown in at the deep-end and soon learnt how to use servers, program systems, and built websites. Then, while returning to college, he started to get calls from companies wanting to advertise on his sites. The penny dropped! He could make money doing when he loved.

What ‘s important to note here is that like many successful IT entrepreneurs, for example, Bill Gates, Schoemaker knows how things work ‘under the hood’. John Chow, a business associate of Schoemaker, is similar. Instead of getting other people to teach them, they make the deep dives into the technology, figure out how it works and then get people to teach them how it works. Essentially, that’s it.

‘But many people use AdSense and don’t make a penny’

That’s right, but reading through their sites and you’ll see that their knowledge of PPC, AdSense, Banner Advertising and other monetization strategies is backed up with deep technical knowledge. Web marketers looking for the latest hack, trick, or insight to squeeze the most from AdSense (as an example) read ShoeMoney, John Chow and Neil Patel as they show how they do it.

And, of course, when you see how they do it, you come back for more. This article, for example, shows how to increase AdSense/Adwords click throughs rates with a very clever trick.

Look at the comments under this article and you’ll see why ShoeMoney is so highly-valued. These readers are all experienced web marketers and developers but this Google Adwords trick was totally new to them. High impact articles like this generate incredible traffic, backlinks, live long on the web, and drive subscription rates through the roof.

‘How does this help me?’

#1 Takeaway: instead of writing content that has been discussed 1000 times elsewhere (in some shape or form) create something that really makes your readers go WOW!

This will have a huge impact on your subscription rates and drive repeat traffic to your site, especially if you network on DIGG, StumbleUpon or Facebook. Follow Seth Godin’s suggestion: develop content that is remarkable – something that others can remark on. If it’s not worth remarking on, well…

Ok, back to ShoeMoney…

The dotcom crash in 2002-2003 hit his business very hard wiping out most of his savings. At 28, he was 420 lbs, $50k in debt, and struggling for direction. Luckily, he met his future wife, who, in his own words, ‘showed me that you can get whatever you want if you are willing to work for it.’

#2 Takeaway: ShoeMoney’s business model at this point was based on Google Adwords and other types of advertising. While these business models can be lucrative in boom times, when the economy takes a hit, advertising budgets get cut almost immediately. My reading of this is that when ShoeMoney saw how fragile the advertising business model was, he started to look at other revenue streams. This has come to fruition in the runaway success that is The Shoe Money System

ShoeMoney’s Philosophy & The Coke Theory

His business philosophy centers on three key areas:

1. Embrace New Trends & Exploit Opportunities

His ‘Coke Theory’ best sums up his approach. He gives this example, ‘SMG entered the ring tone market early, captured traffic and has monetized it. Finding angles and exploiting them for profit is a key aspect of SMG. Maximum and diverse revenue streams are built on fairly narrow marketing concepts that are then diversified.’

With the ‘The Coke Theory’, you take an existing product, give it a new twist and then find ways to leverage its position to generate parallel, non-competitive income streams. It’s the same approach Coke use with Diet Coke, Cherry Coke, Coke Zero – at the end of the day, it’s just Coke.

How you position the product – and create insatiable demand for its new features – is what matters.

2. Focus On Core Strengths

ShoeMoney’s focus is on product development, marketing and site design in that order. Unlike others who’ve invested in expensive site designs (and re-designs) first, he ‘built his sites on those natural marketing principles while running the backend. Web design was a secondary skill, so he focused on the marketing of the sites, which then built revenue.’

Once these were running successfully, he invested in a professional looking web design.

Since then he has launched other sites all of whom ‘expand their income potential by building a network of sites centered on a central theme.’

3. Small Changes Create Big Revenue

ShoeMoney loves to experiment and this comes through in many articles. The purpose here is to look for ways to fine-tune small areas which, when optimized, generate higher returns.

‘Once the traffic is there, small changes in design and structure can make big changes in revenue. Ad placement, recurring subscriptions and affiliate marketing can add value to a site without disrupting the base of revenue.’

What he’s doing here is classic process improvement. He (and his team) look at areas of the site, make adjustments, perform split tests, and then compare the results. Most of us don’t reach our goals as we don’t do the comparisons, testing and analysis. So, for example, while your AdSense campaigns may be ‘successful’, the hard data isn’t there to refine the campaigns. If you’re interested into this type of in depth analysis, get his free newsletter. And, if that impresses you (and it will!) try out the ShoeMoney system.

Remember the ‘Coke Theory’

He’s not shy about discussing his turkeys (i.e. sites that bombed). See My Top 10 Worst Ideas To Make Money

which, of course, makes him (and his business) more human. After all, most of us have up and downs, so seeing his failures helps us relate to him.

#3 Takeaway: Why ShoeMoney talks about his business failures

He does this for several reasons.

1. You can see his progression over the years. He’s not a flight-by-night operator. He’s here for the long haul. Knowing this, you feel that bit more comfortable and more likely to sign up. Compare this to sites where the About Us page is not about anyone, just generic marketing guff.
2. You empathize with him. Why? Because you’ve been there too. Maybe you’re from a place like Nebraska, have been over-weight, had health issues, or some other disadvantage. Some of this is psychological. If you had a choice between buying from someone you can relate to or some slick perma-tanned type with an achingly perfect lifestyle…
3. We all root for the under-dog.
4. We root for the under-dog because, at some point in your life, you’ve been the under-dog and know what it takes to overcome these obstacles. Maybe you also feel that if he can overcome these obstacles (e.g. poor health), then you can and it encourages you to frame your own efforts.

Why You Should Write The Story of Your Life

Before I forget. Yaro Starak suggests that you write a very detailed life story (his is 5 very long pages) so your readers (and prospective customers) can enter into your world and really connect with you. You can read his life story here.

• John Chow’s life story
• Neil Patel’s (Quick Sprout) life story
• Yaro Starak’s life story

I was skeptical about this until I wrote my own. It’s a very liberating thing to do – and remember, you don’t have to publish it — and based on the emails I’ve received, it does make a difference. Try it.

Target Audience

From a marketing perspective, ShoeMoney.com is an interesting mix. Scanning through the comments on his blog/forum, his followers are made up of newbies (asking how do I type questions) and experienced web marketers looking for very detailed tactics, seo hacks and marketing strategies. While he caters to both, the long-term fans are the hard core marketers & developers than he offers that most value to. These offer detailed information on Pay Per Click (PPC), Click Through Rates (CTR), advertising strategies, and Split Testing.

What You Can Learn From The ShoeMoney Brand

If you’ve seen the T Shirt, you’ll recognize the brand. ShoeMoney has invested in developed a strong brand, great logo with nice clean artwork, and some very sharp packaging. Look at the polished quality you see in his videos here and compare it to most other blog sites that comes to mind. Don’t be fooled by the ‘Home Grown in Lincoln, NE’ folksy feel. ShoeMoney and his team work hard to make this look easy.

Next Steps

The The Shoe Money System should keep him busy for this year. Reading this article on why he chose Clickbank, it’s clear that this was a major investment of his time and the focus this year will be in developing this further.

New Product Launches – Brian Clark (CopyBlogger) released the very successful Thesis Theme last year. Part of the success was due to the select band of A List Blogger recommending this very slick WordPress Theme and pushing it in their marketing campaigns. Chris Brogan has had it on his home page since it started. Others have drip-fed the recommendations to readers since launch.

For ShoeMoney, linking up with fellow web marketers in his space, for example, John Chow, may be on the cards. Both of these are high-trafficked sites with similar audience profiles and demographics. John Chow’s revenue streams are mostly based on advertising (which he’s very successful at) so there may be tools that compliment his and ShoeMoney’s readers.

Books – I don’t see why he won’t publish a book as he has the traffic and following. Most of his peers, such as Chris Brogan, Brian Solis and Darren Rowse have done so with great success. I’d assume this is in the pipeline.

However, one reason he may not do this (for now) is that it could cannabilize his ShoeMoney site and distract prospect customers from signing up. ‘Well, I just get the book and then see…’ Saying that, specialist book, such as ‘Facebook Advertising Models’ might find an audience as this micro-niche has very little quality books or blog on it to date.

If you know of some, please add them below.

Conclusion

That’s how he does it.

What are the key points for you to note about ShoeMoney’s site? If you’re considering developing a real web business, something more than just a blog with AdSense, then consider the following points:

• Product Development – make this central to your business strategy. Developing a suite of tools insulates you from the ever-changing fortunes (and budgets) that undermine advertising-based models.
• Brand Development – invest X percentage in creating a memorable brand that works both online and offline. The T Shirts are a good example of how you can cross the divide between off and online. They work on pretty girls, geeks and cute puppies. ShoeMoney has developed a cult following of sorts; his site is slightly counter-culture, geeky (see his Theme Song competition) and not trying to please the mainstream.
• Engagement – ShoeMoney writes most of the articles on his site. But, unlike other high profile bloggers, he engages with his readers most every day on the blog and in the forum. He’s posted over 4000 comments in the forums. The rewards are obvious. He has developed a rabid fan-base (not actually rabid, of course) who follow him across all Social Media networks. His YouTube page has 745,583 views and 10,000 subscribers.
• Business v Blog – ShoeMoney runs a web business. It’s not a blog. And he’s been at it for 6 years. I need to stress this as you could be forgiven for thinking this is a successful blog with a few cute tools thrown in. It’s not a blog. This is a real business, with real employees, offices, and a defined business strategy. The blog is the axis around which the business is built – but it’s important to see the difference.
• Your Story – Share your story. Everyone’s story is interesting. Read mine. Yours is just as interesting. It’s the one thing people can’t take away from you. AND it’s your one true USP. Add a link to your story below. I promise to read it!

What I’ve learnt.

I didn’t ‘get’ ShoeMoney until I stopped thinking of myself as a part-time blogger and decided that I wanted to run my own web business. That was the turning point. I wanted to run my business, reap the rewards of my own efforts and enjoy my life. Something I knew I would never feel working 9-5 for someone else.

Sound familiar? Do you feel the same way?  If you do, then look at his site from a business perspective.

Ask yourself:

• Why did he build these products?
• What pricing strategy has he adopted? Why does he charge X for his tools but X for his courses?
• Could I develop elite conferences? For example, get ten people in a room at 5k per head and discuss advanced Facebook advertising techniques. 5k is peanuts for Fortune 500s. They just want the proof you can deliver.
• How did he build these products?
• Why does he focus on four main products… and not more?
• Who helped him get to this place? Tip: connect with like-minded folks and work together.
• Where did he get this information? Look at the conferences he attended and go there.
• Why is he so successful? Ask him. Visit the site every week, contribute, and then ask a few questions. He’s a people person. He’ll get back to you.
• How can I catch up? Immerse yourself in one technology or Social Media platform. Don’t be a jack of all trades. Make yourself the absolute authority on one subject. Then, you’ll have a guaranteed following.

Go over to ShoeMoney now, bookmark it, get the newsletter and hang out in the forum. You won’t regret it. I hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I did writing it. Please let me know what you thought below.

PS – Remember to sign up for our free newsletter and give us a tweet.

The Guardian newspaper has this article on the role between online gaming and virtual currencies.

The Guardian highlight that the World of Warcraft represent the next phase in human social evolution.

‘I recently described the auction website eBay as an example of the new governance structures that have emerged with the world wide web. But I knew I was stretching the argument: online game environments such as World of Warcraft are better fits for that kind of mental exercise. Although eBay has its own sovereign communication system (Skype) and currency (PayPal), the game worlds have an additional element that makes them far more powerful: community. They have people who gather and form new social orders.’

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/gamesblog/2009/aug/05/world-warcraft-game-theory

Scott Morrison reports in the WSJ.com that EBay unveiled a series of changes to its core marketplaces business, which should help large vendors sell new goods in greater volumes.

It said sellers that provide the highest level of customer service will earn a new “top-rated seller” status, receive a 20% discount on fees and be elevated in search results.

In a nod to alienated small sellers, the company will give top-rated status to merchants who have very little negative feedback from buyers, even those who don’t rank among the largest sellers on its online marketplace.

Scot Wingo, chief executive of ChannelAdvisor, which makes software that helps sellers ply their goods on eBay, said the bulk of the changes will help underpin eBay’s ongoing shift away from auction sales toward bulk sales of fixed-price goods.

EBay expects to immediately qualify 150,000 eBay Top-Rated Sellers in the U.S. when the program goes live in October 2009. Sellers with 100 transactions a year and $3,000 in annual sales volume can qualify based on buyer feedback.

In a bid to reverse the trend, eBay CEO John Donahoe told investors earlier this year that eBay will focus on establishing itself in the “secondary market” by serving as a platform for sellers offering fixed-price out-of-season and overstock items in bulk.

Read why ebay is changing it market strategy.

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

Posted via web from ivanwalsh’s posterous

Yesterday we looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength. What I’d like to cover today are the type of mistakes people make when creating passwords and how to avoid this. If you’re planning on opening a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this.

How to avoid weak, easy-to-guess passwords:

1. Avoid sequences or word or repeated characters.

Examples of these are “12345678,” “778899″ “abcdefg,”

2. Letters on your keyboard that sit next to each other are also a mistake. For example, qwertqwert.  These are very weak passwords.

3. Avoid using look-alike substitutions of numbers and symbols.

This means that you don’t replace an ‘i’ with a ’1′ or an ‘a’ with ‘@’ as in “M1cr0$0ft” or “P@ssw0rd. These are too easy to guess.

However, these substitutions can be effective when combined with other measures, such as length, misspellings, or variations in upper and lowercase, to improve the strength of your password.

4. Avoid your login name.

5. Don’t use any part of your name, birthday, social security number.

6. Avoid words taken out of the dictionary.

7. Tools can guess passwords based on words in multiple dictionaries, including words spelled backwards, common misspellings, and substitutions.

8. Use multiple passwords

If any one of the computers or websites using your password is compromised, then all of your other information protected by that password will be compromised as well.

So, try to use different passwords for different systems.

9. Don’t store your password online.

I know this sounds obvious but, if others find your passwords stored online (or on a networked computer), they have access to all your information.

Takeaway tips:

• Long passwords are stronger than short ones.
• The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.
• Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.
• Strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.
• Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’ key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.
• Choose symbols unique to your language.
• Use the space bar in passwords.
• Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.
• The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

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PayPal Donations is a very nice way to let people donate a small amount of your site, usually as a thank you for providing quality information, tips or advice.

You can use this to collect donations from a PayPal Donation button on your website, or even using it as a link in your email. PayPal won’t automatically place the button code on your website, but it’s very easy to copy and paste the code into your blog or website’s code. The PayPal Create Button designer screen also lets you customize the look and field of the button, set-up  donation amounts, currency types, and other options. You can also create a library of buttons and re-use these rather than starting from scratch every time.

Benefits

• Easy to implement – no programming experience necessary. Jus copy and paste the code.
• No up-front costs – same low fee schedule as other PayPal payments
• No hidden charges – PayPal don’t charge for this service. There are no
  hidden costs
• Reports – PayPal maintains detailed transaction records so you can track your donations
• Flexibility – your donors can choose to give an amount of their choice
  (recommended) or you can set a fixed amount

To add PayPal Donations to your website, follow these steps:

The webpage you use to design the buttons has three sections. You only need
to use the first one: the others are optional.

1. Choose the button type and enter the payment details

2. Save your button (an optional step)

3. Customize the advanced features (also optional)

Let’s get started.

1. Log in to PayPal or setup a new account.

2. Click the Profile tab.

The Profile Summary page opens.

3. Under Selling Preferences, click the My Saved Buttons link.

The My Saved Buttons page opens.

4. Click Create New Button.

The Create Payment Button page opens. This is where you will create the
actual button.

How to Choose the button type and enter payment details

Let’s get started and choose the button type we want to use.

1. In the Accept payments for dropdown menu, select Donations.

2. In Organization name/service, enter the name of your organization

3. In Donation ID (optional), enter a unique number if you want to track the donation.

The next step is to customize the button. In other words, do you want a
simple image with only the word ’Donation’ or do you want to add credit cards to it?

You can also upload your own image, which can be useful if you want to blend
it into your site’s color scheme.

4. Click the blue triangle next to Customize appearance.

5. Click the PayPal button box.

You now have two options:

• Customize the PayPal button or
• Upload your own.

6. If you want to customize the PayPal button:

6.1 Click Use smaller button – if you want a Donate button without any
branding or credit card logos.

6.2 Click Display credit card logos – if you want display credit card logos
such as Visa and MasterCard.

6.3 Select the Country and language for button.

FYI: I recommend United States – US – English.

When you change the settings, a preview of your image appears in the Buyer’s
View pane.

7 If you want use your own image.

7.1 Click Use your own button image.

7.2 Enter the URL of where your image is located on the web. At the moment, you can’t upload an image to PayPal directly.

Note: PayPal will not show your image onscreen when you use this option. But, when you create the code later on, it works fine. You can always go back and change it, by the way.

Next you’re going to select the currency.

8. Choose a Currency from one of these:

USD AUD GBP CAD CZK DKK EUR HKD HUF ILS JPY MXN NZD NOK PLN SGD SEK CHF.

Again, most of you will select USD (US Dollars but you can choose what you
want).

Tip: If you choose a currency other than USD you run the risk of people not
making a donation. People don’t want to get tricked into paying with a currency they don’t understand. If you make them go check the currency rate, they might have second thoughts on paying.

Keep it simple. Use the USD option.

Next up is the contribution amount.

9. In Contribution amount, select one of the options:

9.1. Click Donors enter their own contribution amount.

Let people choose to donate 1 dollar of 1 million. It’s their choice. Never under-estimate how generous people can be if you provide really
useful content (like this!)

9.2. Click Donors contribute a fixed amount.

I’d avoid this. It’s a bit ham-fisted and forces people to pay when you think
they should, under-mining the principle of making a donation. To me, this looks more like a pseudo-payment. I’d suggest you avoid it. But, hey, it’s your site. Don’t let me stop you.

10. Next, enter the email address where the donations are sent to. Usually you’re PayPal account email address.

Step 2 and 3 are optional, so you can ignore these for now. Take a peek if
you want or you can skip ahead and create the button.

The final step is to get the code for the button.

11. Click Create Button at the end of the screen.

This opens the Button Code page.

12. Click Select Code to select the HTML code.

13 Copy the code (CTRL+C for Windows and CMD+C for Mac)

14. Paste the code into your blog or webpage (Ctrl + V)

We’re not finished yet!

15. PayPal also gives you the option to add the button to emails. Fantastic
if you’re selling things via email or are big into good ol’ web marketing.

Just copy and paste the link into your email. Send a few tests to yourself to
check that it works. Also try the link in Yahoo, Gmail and Hotmail to check that everything works fine with these.

Now you’re finished!

Other things you can do on this page

• Click Create Similar button if you want to use the button you just
  create as a template for your next button. Nice time-saver as you can use the same configuration settings.
• Click Create a new button to create a new button from scratch.
• Click Create Similar button if you want to create another button, withall the same/similar configuration settings as this button

I hope you enjoyed this article and that is made the whole process of
creating PayPal buttons a little easier.

Next week, I’ll show you how to use more advanced features in PayPal, like
setting up a Thank You page or sending customers to a download page
automatically.

To setup a new PayPal account, please go here.

Yesterday we looked at different ways to protect your PayPal account. We looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength.

There are a few other things I wanted to add to the last article so I’m adding them here. If you’re going to open a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this. There is no point making a successful online business if others can highjack your account.

How to create a strong password:

1. Write down a sentence that will form the basis of strong password. For example, “My son Ivan was born on May 7 1998.”

2. Check if your computer supports pass phrases.

If you can use a pass phrase (i.e. spaces between characters) on your computer, then use this approach.

3. If the computer does not support pass phrases, convert it to a password.

For example, take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you’ve created to create a new password.

Using the example above, you’d get: “mstwbom71998″.

4. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers to add an extra level of complexity.

You can further strengthen this by adding letter swapping and misspellings.

For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Ivan’s name (e.g. Evan), or substituting the word “seven” for the number 7.

Remember: the longer the sentence, the more complex your password will be.

Your pass phrase might become “My sOn evan waS bORn on MAy 7 1998″

5. Add special characters.

Use symbols that look like letters, combine words, remove spaces between words to make the password more complex.

Using these tricks, we create a pass phrase of “MysOn ev@n waS b#Rn o% M*y 7 1998″ or a password (using the first letter of each word) “MsewaSbMAy71998”

6. Test your password with Microsoft’s Password Checker

This is a non-recording password checking site that helps determine your password’s strength.

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx

Test the strength of your passwords: Enter a password in the text box to have Password Checker help determine its strength as you type.

Note: Password Checker can help you to gauge the strength of your password. It is for personal reference only. Password Checker does not guarantee the security of the password itself.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com / Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Yesterday we looked at different ways to protect your PayPal account. We looked at how to setup a strong password and how to test its strength.

There are a few other things I wanted to add to the last article so I’m adding them here. If you’re going to open a PayPal account or use eBay to buy and sell, then I think you should read this. There is no point making a successful online business if others can highjack your account.

How to create a strong password:

1. Write down a sentence that will form the basis of strong password. For example, “My son Ivan was born on May 7 1998.”

2. Check if your computer supports pass phrases.

If you can use a pass phrase (i.e. spaces between characters) on your computer, then use this approach.

3. If the computer does not support pass phrases, convert it to a password.

For example, take the first letter of each word of the sentence that you’ve created to create a new password.

Using the example above, you’d get: “mstwbom71998″.

4. Combine uppercase and lowercase letters and numbers to add an extra level of complexity.

You can further strengthen this by adding letter swapping and misspellings.

For instance, in the pass phrase above, consider misspelling Ivan’s name (e.g. Evan), or substituting the word “seven” for the number 7.

Remember: the longer the sentence, the more complex your password will be.

Your pass phrase might become “My sOn evan waS bORn on MAy 7 1998″

5. Add special characters.

Use symbols that look like letters, combine words, remove spaces between words to make the password more complex.

Using these tricks, we create a pass phrase of “MysOn ev@n waS b#Rn o% M*y 7 1998″ or a password (using the first letter of each word) “MsewaSbMAy71998”

6. Test your password with Microsoft’s Password Checker

This is a non-recording password checking site that helps determine your password’s strength.

http://www.microsoft.com/protect/yourself/password/checker.mspx

Test the strength of your passwords: Enter a password in the text box to have Password Checker help determine its strength as you type.

Note: Password Checker can help you to gauge the strength of your password. It is for personal reference only. Password Checker does not guarantee the security of the password itself.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com / Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Personally, I don’t use PayPal Buy Now or Donations when sending out emails. There are a couple of reasons for this.
1) it’s too hard sell – selling directly through email rarely works.

2) spam filters will pick it out and send your lovely email to the spam filter, adding your email address to the ISPs blacklist in the process (which you can’t undo) and

3) many people (myself included) turn off images in their email.

In other words, I never see any images when I use Yahoo or Hotmail. This means that my emails download faster (less bandwidth required) without images and most are just eye candy with no value add.

To quote Ken Brockman – Just my 2 cents.

Can I use Wordles for...

May I make money off of Wordle images?

You must first display your Wordle at the desired size, then take a “screen shot” or “screen capture”. Here’s a link to a web site that gives instructions for creating screen shots on various kinds of computer. By linking to this external site, I do not endorse it: take-a-screenshot.org.

How is Wordle licensed? May I embed your applet?

Creating a strong password helps in protecting your account information and, if you run an online business, access to your financial data. For example, if you decide to open a PayPal account and want to buy and sell stuff online, then you need to think carefully about the type of password you’ll need to use. So, here are some tips and guidelines on setting up a super strong password. We’ll also show you how to test the strength of your password.

What makes a strong password?

A strong password must use a random string of characters.

In other words, using the following string – LiVerP8%%L- is better than Liverpool. You can see straightaway how complex the password is
and the effort it would take to open.

Use the following as when creating your passwords:

1. Long passwords are stronger than short ones.

2. The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.

3. Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.

4. A 15-character password – made up of random letters and numbers – is 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard.

5. If you cannot create a password that contains symbols, make it very long to get the same degree of protection.

Symbols are characters such as @,#,$,%,^,&,*,),_,+, and |.

6. The strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.

7. Use the top keys on your keyboard (@,#,$,%,^), not just letters.

8. Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’
key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.

9. Choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row (top) of the keyboard,

10. Choose symbols unique to your language.

11. Many IT systems now support use of the space bar in passwords. This means you can create a phrase made of many words (a ”pass phrase”).

12. Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.

The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com

Creating a strong password helps in protecting your account information and, if you run an online business, access to your financial data. For example, if you decide to open a PayPal account and want to buy and sell stuff online, then you need to think carefully about the type of password you’ll need to use. So, here are some tips and guidelines on setting up a super strong password. We’ll also show you how to test the strength of your password.

What makes a strong password?

A strong password must use a random string of characters.

In other words, using the following string – LiVerP8%%L- is better than Liverpool. You can see straightaway how complex the password is
and the effort it would take to open.

Use the following as when creating your passwords:

1. Long passwords are stronger than short ones.

2. The more characters you add to your password, the more you increase its level of protection.

3. Passwords should be 8 or more characters in length; 14 characters or more is ideal.

4. A 15-character password – made up of random letters and numbers – is 33,000 times stronger than an 8-character password composed of characters from the entire keyboard.

5. If you cannot create a password that contains symbols, make it very long to get the same degree of protection.

Symbols are characters such as @,#,$,%,^,&,*,),_,+, and |.

6. The strongest passwords combine both length and different types of symbols.

7. Use the top keys on your keyboard (@,#,$,%,^), not just letters.

8. Use symbols by holding down the ‘Shift’
key and typing a number are very useful in developing strong passwords.

9. Choose from all the symbols on the keyboard, including punctuation marks not on the upper row (top) of the keyboard,

10. Choose symbols unique to your language.

11. Many IT systems now support use of the space bar in passwords. This means you can create a phrase made of many words (a ”pass phrase”).

12. Combine letters, numbers, and symbols.

The greater the combination you use in your password, the harder it is to guess.

PS – If you’ve found this article useful, please consider giving us a Digg or StumbleUpon.

Regards,

Ivan

Twitter: @ivanwalsh

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ivanwalsh

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ivanwalsh

Templates: http://www.klariti.com

Tips:  http://www.ivanwalsh.com