Shoemoney - Skills To Pay The Bills
By Jeremy Schoemaker

I frickin love the office. Found a vid on youtube of every single “thats what she said”. Thanks Andrea!
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(16 votes, average: 3.25 out of 5)

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Traveled to my home town of Moline Illinois this weekend. Its only about a 5 hour drive but with 2 little girls under 2 1/2 took us about 8 hours.

Today we went to the Festival Of Trees which I never really have understood. When I was a kid I sang in a choir and always had to sing at this thing. It was kind of cool taking my little girls to it today. Also my sister Andrea came with us.

At the Festival Of Trees they have tons of home made trees for sale that people made. They must have some sort of a contest cause a lot of them had ribbons and stuff.

My favorite one was this Mt. Dew Tree:

It had a BIN of only $150 but the top bid was $20. I bet it cost $200++ to make this thing in pop costs alone.

Fun trip hanging out with the fam. Here is a pic of me and my sister:

And my daughter Juliet and wife Dr J:

(16 votes, average: 3 out of 5)

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CashHomeBuyers.com is a residential and commercial real estate investment company.  They offer U.S. Customers and Investors a hassle-free way to buy and sell residential and commercial property.  They link interested parties to investors in their member network. 

Thanks for the shirt!

If you would like to see your website or company featured on Free Shirt Friday click here

(19 votes, average: 1.95 out of 5)

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Just debuted the new Keyword Rank Tracking Tool in shoemoney tools:

We also hit a pretty big milestone being we sold the 1,000th domain via the domain marketplace.

Here are some peaks at the documentation for the other tools in the set. We are adding a new tool about every 10 days.

• BackLink Analyzer
• BackLinks Finder
• Domain Marketplace
• Keyword Density Tool
• Keyword Generator Tool
• Keyword Grabber Tool
• Most Linked Tool
• PPC Ad Generator
• PPC Local Brand Tool
• PPC Local Keyword Tool
• Text Optimization Tool
• WordPress Related Posts Tool

(7 votes, average: 2.71 out of 5)

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it would look like SearchMe.

This week searchme launched their iPhone search application which looks pretty sweet. Check out the vid:

If I had a iPhone I would use it

(11 votes, average: 2.82 out of 5)

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Every time paid links is brought up Matt Cutts brings up the FTC’s “suggestions” on bloggers disclosing things they have been compensated for. In no where in these “suggestions” does it talk about paid links. But even if it did they are just suggestions.

They are not law and if Google was following the FTC’s suggestions I doubt Google Adsense/adlinks would be engaging in some of the most deceptive advertising methods I have ever seen on the internet.

Also I am curious then why Google is not requiring Firefox to display that they are paying Firefox billions of dollars to be the default search engine each time you search. The funny thing is not even firefox developers know they are getting paid so much by Google as you can see in my posts about it before. Talk about a lack of disclosure.

And what about all the other properties Google has bought their way into? How many times have you seen Adsense ads not labeled as ads?

What about the spyware/virus bearshare I have BEEN SHOWING IN SLIDES FOR PRESENTATIONS FOR 3+ YEARS that is still ruining Google Adsense. Google CLEARLY has knowledge of these things and they choose to participate in deceptive advertising.

Now in regards to Matt you know why he must do this right? He is a smart guy. And I would guess he HATES ADSENSE with a passion. But as we saw before text links are Google’s achilles heel and remain to be.

Now honestly there is absolutely zero way for them to detect inlink ads if it is done properly and Matt (and maybe former Googler Vanessa Fox who chimed in also) knows that.

If its easy to detect why did they have all the calls for help using the paid links form to rat on people who pay for links and employ the hundreds of people to review all those submissions?

Surely if you can “detect” it so easily that would save a few bucks.

Anyway I personally don’t think Google wants to go down this path with the FTC.

If they want to come out and say they will take you out of their search engine index if you don’t follow their rules then fine. But don’t act like its some Government mandate and everyone is going to go to jail who is selling/buying paid links.

(24 votes, average: 4.29 out of 5)

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MediaWhiz today launched Inlinks. Its basically Text-Link-Ads 2.0.

On the Advertiser’s - sites looking to pickup links to their product can specify keywords and anchor text they are looking for and the Inlinks magic will go through all its publisher base finding matching and give you EDITORIAL CONTROL over which ones you would like to purchase.

On the blogger’s side when they get a new advertiser they are alerted and have EDITORIAL CONTROL if they want to place the link or not.

So the key here is going to be to not make Google look stupid. If your site is about electronics and your accepting ads for stuff not related to electronics clearly trying to manipulate Google search engine placements then your probably going to get dinged. But if you are only approving relevant websites that add to the user experience as a reference then from what I have seen and heard from Google Engineers you should be OK.

I don’t care what others are saying about this the bottom line is unless InLinks has some sort of fingerprint its going to be completely impossible for Google to detect.

Curious to hear your thoughts on this.

(16 votes, average: 2.94 out of 5)

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In the book The Dip Seth talks about how superstars lean into the dip.   They almost use the dip as an advantage.  Also when superstars come out of the dip and master their craft they create a giant barrier for any competitors.

So what are some real world examples of this?  Well look at eBay!  How hard is it to overtake eBay in the online auction space?

What about Google?  Not only does Google have the best search engine but they also pay over 1 billion dollars a year to be the default search engine in Firefox, Safari, AOL, and others.  If anyone even thought about competing with Google they need to bring a TON of money to the table.

Think Microsoft created much of a dip for competitors with its Office Suite and Operating Systems?

Many times reporters have asked me who I think is going to be the next big search engine.  I tell them I think it over.  Search as we know it is owned by Google and only the government will be able to stop them.  The dip to overtake Google is just to much for any company to overcome.

If you can overcome the dip your compeditors have put in front of you then you can be #1.  But what will your post dip strategy be to remain #1?

(9 votes, average: 3.33 out of 5)

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In the book “The Dip” Seth Godin talks about Zipfs Law. In my search for more on this I came across many typos of this as Zifs law, Ziffs law, etc… Anyway Harvard linguistic professor George Kingsley Zipf applied statistical and linguistic theories on human communication. He did all kinds of studys on word stuff… and rankings…

But the biggest thing he showed the world was that it is important to be #1

Zipf’s law states that in a tabulation of the occurrence of all words in a sufficiently comprehensive text, ranged by their frequency, will the product of rang number and frequency make up a constant. In addition will the number of different words in the vocabulary be equal to the frequency of the most common word (rank number 1).

So what does that mean? To be honest I dunno. Sounds like a bunch of mumbo jumbo to me but the one thing I do know is its good to be #1 for whatever you do. Often times I look at what I am doing with a project and ask myself the probability I can be #1. If the answer is absolutely no then its time to quit that project.

Many times businesses get customers simply because they are regarded as #1.

Do you hire the 2nd best person you interview for a job or the #1 ?

With Nextpimp we were #1 for several years and loved it. Then we lost passion and got quickly overtaken by competitors.

ShoeMoney.com is by far #1 as far as a blog that talks about making money from real experience. Sure that sounds cocky but its a fact. Am I lying? Advertisers always will go with #1 and they will pay more for the association with #1

The Elite Retreat is by far #1 for what it does.

AuctionAds despite having 8 compeditors before launching including eBay themselves quickly became #1 for eBay display Ads within only a few short months before we sold the company.

Do I always have #1’s? No. In fact I would say 90% of the time I quit a project or cut it lose because we just do not have the resources to become #1.

Is it possible for you to be #1 in what you do? If so are you willing to put in the time and work its going to take?

If so the rewards are massive!

(9 votes, average: 3.89 out of 5)

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I am pretty excited.  We have never had so much interest so fast in the Elite Retreat.

Someone made a really good comment yesterday and asked why I didn’t link to last years recap.  I dunno I just forgot ;).

http://www.shoemoney.com/2008/04/14/elite-retreat-2008-san-fran-recap/

For those wanting to read reviews from people who attended there are a ton from that url.

A lot of people yesterday in the comments on this blog were complaining about the price and stuff and I totally understand.   This conference is not meant for people looking to “start” making money online.  Its meant for businesses or websites who are already doing pretty good to take their business or website to the next level.    I assemble the best people in the industry I know from all corners to do that.  Between our combined experiences and connections for 2 full days of doing nothing but analyzing companies and coming up with game plans for them its a giant recipe for success.  For the people that attend its a massive tipping point in their business.

We only allow 35 people to come and everyone must sign a non disclosure agreement that they will not reveal what anyone else does or says without their express written permission.

I am super pumped for this years event.    We have some awesome things cooking I will be sharing in the next few months!

There are a few seats left so make sure you sign up today if interested!

(8 votes, average: 1.5 out of 5)

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