“Tiger Woods apologizes for cheating during his sponsored press conference. Youtube at 11.” If you missed it live via UStream the first time around, don’t fret. You can watch Tiger Woods’ performance on Youtube, on Hulu, on Livestream, on Metacafe, on a myriad of other online video sites. And if that isn’t enough, you can read about it on 7,930,000 blogs. Simply Google “tiger woods press conference” to see the latest search results.

It’s no wonder why Tiger Woods took 80 days before breaking his silence. With the Internet, celebrities need the time to properly plan an online reputation management campaign. Whatever you have to say spreads very fast online.

Ten years ago, we had another high profile cheating scandal. I’m referring to President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky. “I did not have sex with that women,” he said in a press conference while wagging his finger at the camera. That was far from the truth, of course. But hey, he only had to deal with 3 channels back then: print, TV, and radio.

Remember those days? Remember the days pre-Google search dominance, pre-Youtube, pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, pre-IM, pre-texting in the US, pre-24×7 instant info?

How did we get by back then? … Not being able to Tweet, leave comments, Digg, Bump, Stumble, hyperlink, Flame, and repost?

I wonder if President Clinton would have delivered a different message if Web 2.0 had been around back then?

We live in an age of social media dependence. While human nature remains the same — we all like to rubberneck and stare at the car crashes of other people — we want acceptance from our tribe as to whether our gawking is justified. With Web 2.0, this is easy to do. The online reputation management teams that top celebrities employ, recognize this fact.

The online reputation management game plan goes something like this:

* What is the story that we can sell?
* What does the brand represent?
* Can we reposition brand?
* Who are the key influencers online?
* Can they be bought off?
* Can we go viral with our new story?
* What is the execution window?

Having worked with celebrities, I can tell you that the right story if properly told and through the right influencers can do wonders in terms of diffusing a hot one.

So Tiger Woods may be all right after all … not despite of Web 2.0 but because of Web 2.0. Watch out world, this is the year of the Tiger.

When I started working on the Internet in the mid 1990’s, the mantra was … Content is King. The Web was much slower back then, so content equals articles. If you wanted to do website marketing, you had to write lots of articles.

Fast forward 15 years: Today the Web is bulging with content. Some argue that we have too much content. Video has taken hold online big time. Witness the Youtube phenomena. So the question for 2010 is … Does articles marketing work anymore?

I get this question from clients often. So let me just jump to the answer. Articles marketing still works online.

…but to get the true implication of this answer requires that I write some more content.

Article Marketing to Build Authority

People still believe what they read in print. What you say, how you say it, and how you support what you said, make indelible impressions on your reader’s psyche. Somehow, what is written carries more weight than what is said verbally. Perhaps this is because writing something down is still harder for most people than simply just saying it.

Sure, people do get skeptical about what they read, but if the content is well crafted with the proper headline, people will allow you to make your argument in print.

Repetition also helps. If you write about a given topic enough times, you eventually become the “authority” on the topic. Whether you deserve the authority status or not is debatable. You wrote down your arguments … And that by itself is is a fact. Write enough arguments and people will quote you to support their arguments. Weird how this works.

So using articles to market your idea still works in 2010. Write enough about that idea and you will build authority.

Article Marketing to Build Links

Believe it or not, search engine spiders are still dumb. We are well into the 21st century and search engine spiders still can’t make out the content in videos, audio, and graphics, including pictures and Flash.

What they can decipher is text content. And boy have they feasted on articles over the past 15 years. I wonder how many articles Google, Yahoo, and Bing can ultimately index?

I will cover this in another, ahem, article. But for now, just know that if you want to manipulate the spiders, simply feed them written content.

Use article marketing to build links: Link to your blog. Link to your videos. Link to your audio. Link to your pictures. Link to your Flash. Link to your articles. Link to your links.

Article Directories that People Read

Time is precious. The Web is a time suck. So if you want to use article marketing to build authority, publish your articles where people will actually read them.

As far as my testing goes, there are only two places where people actually read articles online. They are

• EzineArticles.com
• Docstoc.com

Some people have also found real readers on ScribD.com. So you may try your luck there. Just be sure to track.

As for the other 10,387 other article directories online, use them for link building.

So that’s it folks… My first post in 2010. Article marketing still works in 2010. It’s true because I wrote it down.

Many people shop online for convenience and savings. The trend of online shopping has been steadily rising for the last decade. Seasoned online shoppers also know how to stack on their savings by looking for a promotional coupon code before they check-out. I do this a lot.

Today, for example, I was renewing some of my domains at Godaddy. Normally, they send you a reminder that your domains are about to be automatically renewed. Rather than letting that process happen automatically, I decided to renew it manually so that I could enter a Godaddy promotional coupon code. This saved me an extra $10 at checkout.

Entering the Godaddy promotional coupon code was easy. All I had to do was to cut and paste the code into the promotional code box in my cart and the discount was applied to my order. It took 10 seconds.

Where did I find my coupon code? My favorite place to search for any kind of promotional coupon code is

http://alextran.com/onlinecodes

It’s a site where members help each other out by contributing coupons. Try doing that in the offline world.

As the holiday season is upon us, it only makes sense to use these coupon sites to save a few bucks.

Facebook is huge. Email is even more huge. Online, any place where there are a lot of people is a ripe target for scammers.

The latest to hit many email inboxes is the Facebook email scam. At first glance, it looks very official. The sender’s address looks like it could have come from Facebook…

“The Facebook Team” confirmation@facebook.com

The subject line is compelling…

Facebook Password Reset Confirmation! Please Attention!

The footer looks official with the correct Facebook address…

This message was intended for info@yourdomain.com.
Facebook’s offices are located at 1601 S. California Ave., Palo Alto, CA 94304.

The email usually says…

Dear Facebook user,

The Facebook Team

There is a “click here” button to change your password and/or a file attachment … And that is where they get you.

Here is how to defend yourself from this latest email scam.

1) Never open any attached files. These emails often come with an attachment that contains the computer virus.

2) Never click on the “click here” button. That sets off the script that takes you to a page that looks like a real Facebook page.

3) Never hit the “unsubscribe” link. That helps the spammers verify that they have hit a real email.

The bottom line is that you cannot prevent email spam. This is in spite of all the fancy email spam filters created by the email providers. The fact is spammers are smarter than any computer algorithm designed to catch them. The email spammers are also relentless.

The best that you can hope to do is to not get your email onto a spammer’s list in the first place.

This leads me to my last tip:

>> Never put your email on your website.

Spammers use programs to harvest emails from websites.

Instead, use an email address like info[ AT ] yourdomain.com.

This method is not fail-safe, but it can fool the majority of the email harvesting robots out there.

If you want to incorporate a business online, it’s easier and more convenient now than ever. The only thing you need to do is to choose the best legal entity for your business. Your basic choices are sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, and limited liability corporation (LLC). Each of these legal entities has their own pros and cons. But once you decide what’s best for your business, it is straightforward to incorporate your business online.

When I start a business, the two things that I consider in terms of legal entity selection are personal asset protection and tax treatment. I am not a lawyer or an accountant. So take what I say from a businessman’s perspective. You should always consult with your own professional advisers.

There are some key differences between the basic legal entities. A sole proprietorship, for example, offers the advantage of being quick and easy to setup. In terms of taxes, you as the owner would report your profit and loss on your personal tax return. The downside to this entity is that you as the owner are personally liable for business debts.

Another type of legal entity that I consider is an LLC. In an LLC, the owners have limited liability for business debts. Profits and loss can be allocated independently of business ownership interests. And you can choose being taxed as a partnership or a corporation. The downside is that LLCs are relatively new so there aren’t that many precedents.

The type of entity that most people are familiar with is a Corporation. There are two flavors S Corporation or C Corporation. For both entities, the owners have limited personal liability for business debts. In an S-Corp, owners report profit or loss on their personal tax returns. In a C-Corp, owners can split corporate profit among the owners of the corporation. The main downside is the complexity of maintaining the paperwork.

This website contains a lot more detail to help you learn more about the various legal entities.

You can also use them to incorporate a business online. I have used them for many years and they work well with very reasonable rates.

It’s tough to run an honest business these days. On the customer side, you have the late payers, the non-payers, and the outright cheaters that suck away your profits. On the supplier side, you have the offline scammers, the online scammers like the Nigerian internet scam, and the outright hackers who consume your attention and resources. You have to deal with your competition. And now there is a new impediment to running an honest business — the FTC.

Wait a minute, isn’t the FTC supposed to protect honest consumers and businesses from unscrupulous scammers? Before 10/5/09, that would be true. As of 10/5/09, I’m not so sure. You see, the FTC released a new guideline on Monday that affects how businesses can use endorsements whether online or offline.

The document is here:

http://ftc.gov/os/2009/10/091005endorsementguidesfnnotice.pdf

I’m not a lawyer and I don’t play one online so I can’t provide any legal advice. What I am is a marketing specialist. As a marketer, I know that in order to sell products via copy, you need a good headline, a description of the problem or pain, your solution, your benefits, social-proof via endorsements or testimonials, and a call to action thrown-in with some scarcity. If you miss any element of that marketing chain, your sales argument becomes weaker. In other words, the prospect is less likely to buy from you.

From what I’m reading about the new FTC ruling, sellers who use endorsements no longer have a “safe harbor.” In other words, I will need to go to great lengths to add disclaimers about the testimonials and endorsements. The worst part is that this also applies to my affiliates who may not be as diligent. As I understand it, even if my affiliate breaks an FTC rule, I will be liable. Ouch!

Yes, I know that there are real scammers out there online and offline. Yes, I understand the argument that this type of regulation was designed to catch the bad guys. But on balance, the FTC has thrown the baby out with the dirty bath water. Besides, consumers should also be responsible for their own behavior. Come-on, who in their right mind believes that an acai berry – a blue berry cousin – for goodness sake, can make you lose 30 pounds in 2 weeks? Do we need the FTC to protect us from being gullible?

What is an honest business to do? I suggest you consult with your attorney today regarding this new FTC guideline. I’m not a lawyer. I don’t give legal advice. And if there are links on my site, they are likely affiliate links where I get compensated in some way if you buy through my links. Any testimonials on my site are for informational purposes only. Your results will likely vary because you are a totally different person than the one giving the testimonial. In fact, just don’t even read the testimonials. The same is true for any endorsements. Who cares what others say anyway, right? “If you were a sheep and noticed that the sheep in front of you just jumped off a cliff, would you jump too?” Anything else that I need to disclaim in case the FTC is watching?

Cute blog title — Alex Tran. Other than that, why would anyone want to put their name as the title of their blog post? Bad form aside, I am using this as an illustration of how to rank for a keyword phrase like your name.

A while ago, I wrote that the two things that a website needs in order to survive in the wild are content and links. It is still as true today as it was when I wrote that article. Since search engine spiders are nothing but fancy “if-then-else” programs, you need to feed them what they expect to “see” according to their knowledge base. For your content to count and get ranked highly in the search engine results, it needs to 1) contain your chosen keyword, and 2) have links with your keyword as the anchor text.

Most people think that these links need to come from external websites. This is true from my observation. Ideally, externally links from reputable sites count a lot to the search engine spiders. But I have also observed that links from within your own website count too.

For example, if I wanted to rank for the keyword Alex Tran, and didn’t have an external source where I could link from, I could use my own website for links. By putting my keyword as anchor text and pointing them to my homepage, I could alert the spiders that my homepage is about my keyword.

This article, in fact, is a working example of this technique. I used the keyword in the title, the description, and twice in this body of the content. I have one link with my keyword pointed back to my homepage.

Keep in mind that this technique may not stick. In other words, for long standing listing on the first page of Google, you will also need external links. But for short-term effect, this technique does the trick.