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Get ready to pull off the saddle and take a break from your busy schedule. When you head out to the lake you’re going to want to take the August issue of Affiliate Classroom magazine with you.

Whether you favor Black Hat or White Hat, or something in between, find out how to keep your site safe and ranking high. We’ve got a full review of the latest techniques and show you how to keep your website from getting penalized and keeping it up on the SERPs.

We tell you the difference between White Hat and Black Hat, weighing the pros and cons of each.

Evelyn Grazini explains what Black Hat SEO is all about, and shows you how to keep from getting banned.

Brad Callen, a master of the subject, gives 5 Tips for SEO success. (And five from Brad is worth fifty from just about anyone else!)

And, as a special treat, read the highlights of the Affiliate Summit East, 2006. If you didn’t go, you’ll want to next time after finding out who was there and what they said. (Lots of links to video of the conference!)

So, hang up your spurs. You’ve got some readin’ ahead.

Over the last weeks I have been getting more and more tired of long sales copies. As a matter of fact, all the products that Affiliate Classroom sells are planned for a complete site re-do that involve no long sales copy.

Since I started online, I have seen nothing but long sales copies and so that is just what I started doing as well. Then, a few months back I sat down and thought about the things I buy and when I really read the sales letters…

I realized that I almost NEVER read the sales letter, as a matter of fact - it’s gotten so bad that when I want to find the price of what I’m buying I have to do a “CTRL + F” on my keyboard and SEARCH for the $ symbol.

But then that doesn’t work that great either! Why? Cuz of all those crazy “bonus value ‘oober goober’ stuff…”

I was so happy to see this posting by James D. Brausch titled “Long Copy Sucks And Other Heresies”

James makes mentions of various tests he did to prove that he is right - he even used the top selling products on Clickbank (the god of having products with long sales letters) - guess what he found?

The top selling products, a huge majority of them had SHORT sales letters!

I immediately went to check it out. I used the Money & Employment category first since it is also the most profitable category in the Clickbank marketplace. I went to each of the first 10 sites and did a “Print Preview” and shoved the page count into a spreadsheet. At the end, I graphed those 10 data points and then superimposed a linear line on the graph.

The original study data was confirmed. As we went down the list in order of receding profitability, we also increased in number of pages of sales copy on average.

I’m sorry big timer copywriters - I’m officially starting to move to the other side slowly

I was on the Entrepreneur Magazine eBiz Show recently with hosts Chris Malta & Rob Cowie to discuss Internet video marketing.

Our discussion centered around how I am utilizing video on YouTube and Google Video to promote the next Affiliate Summit.

Listen to the Entrepreneur Radio eBiz Show archives at wsradio.com.

The affiliate marketing archives for the Entrepreneur Radio also have interviews with David Delisle, COO of The Partner Maker; Anik Singal, CEO of Affiliate Classroom Inc. and…

Even if you’ve only been in Internet Marketing for a short time, you’ve heard that it’s important to build an email list. It’s so important, that the Affiliate Classroom Step Program teaches you all about list building in Step 9.

However, with ISPs/ESPs now doing more spam blocking, some people have given up on list building. They are fearful or frustrated that their message is not going out, and that they are wasting their valuable time.

If you’re one of these people, stop being afraid and keep building! Email technology is getting better, and this problem is gradually being addressed. If you are building a list the reputable way, using a double opt-in system, you have a lot less to worry about.

In the meantime, here are some things you can do to up the odds of getting your messages delivered. At the same time, you can increase the traffic to your site.

Make sure to send your list a message at least once every two weeks so they remember who you are. They’ll be more likely to open your email. And, make it a short message. People tend to scan emails for material they are interested in, so give them very little to scan.

Write a short line of teaser copy or give a sentence or two of your content, and then make the reader click to your site to read the rest. At your site you will provide the full Monty: contextual advertising, affiliate links, etc.

When I go through my email, I quickly scan the messages. If it is a sales pitch, and I’m not in the buying mood, I will go on to the next message and look for something more interesting.

However, if there is a small bit of copy that intrigues me, I will click on the link and read the article. Also, if I’m just quickly scanning my emails for cleanup, I am more likely to flag these emails and go back to them when I have more time.

I’m not sure why, but I feel more comfortable and less hurried when I get to a web site. Maybe because it’s easier to read, or more colorful, or whatever.

Whatever the reason, I’m more likely to stay there longer, which means the person who sent the email has been successful in his or her mission.

I went to their web site ? which means their traffic count just went up. I visited with the intention of reading the content, which means their “stickiness” rate went up.

If all goes well, I’ll buy something while I’m there, or click on an AdSense ad on my way out.

Either way, the list owner will get what they want, by giving me what I want. That’s called a win-win situation.

Even if you’ve only been in Internet Marketing for a short time, you’ve heard that it’s important to build an email list. It’s so important, that the Affiliate Classroom Step Program teaches you all about list building in Step 9.

However, with ISPs/ESPs now doing more spam blocking, some people have given up on list building. They are fearful or frustrated that their message is not going out, and that they are wasting their valuable time.

If you’re one of these people, stop being afraid and keep building! Email technology is getting better, and this problem is gradually being addressed. If you are building a list the reputable way, using a double opt-in system, you have a lot less to worry about.

In the meantime, here are some things you can do to up the odds of getting your messages delivered. At the same time, you can increase the traffic to your site.

Make sure to send your list a message at least once every two weeks so they remember who you are. They’ll be more likely to open your email. And, make it a short message. People tend to scan emails for material they are interested in, so give them very little to scan.

Write a short line of teaser copy or give a sentence or two of your content, and then make the reader click to your site to read the rest. At your site you will provide the full Monty: contextual advertising, affiliate links, etc.

When I go through my email, I quickly scan the messages. If it is a sales pitch, and I’m not in the buying mood, I will go on to the next message and look for something more interesting.

However, if there is a small bit of copy that intrigues me, I will click on the link and read the article. Also, if I’m just quickly scanning my emails for cleanup, I am more likely to flag these emails and go back to them when I have more time.

I’m not sure why, but I feel more comfortable and less hurried when I get to a web site. Maybe because it’s easier to read, or more colorful, or whatever.

Whatever the reason, I’m more likely to stay there longer, which means the person who sent the email has been successful in his or her mission.

I went to their web site – which means their traffic count just went up. I visited with the intention of reading the content, which means their “stickiness” rate went up.

If all goes well, I’ll buy something while I’m there, or click on an AdSense ad on my way out.

Either way, the list owner will get what they want, by giving me what I want. That’s called a win-win situation.

Yes, you read that right - Affiliate Summit is Really Awesome. There is even a Web site to prove it.

The site is called Awesome Million and it’s the latest in the gimmicky, scarcity kitsch sites. The concept is that you can get your own site to proclaim that you, your dog, company, or whatever is awesome.

The cost is $1 to get a custom page - a limit of one million of these pages will be sold.

This project is from Jim Kukral (ReveNews) and his business partner, Dave Potokar.

Check out…

AffiliateFairPlay.com presented it’s first Fair Practice Award to Brian Littleton, Founder and CEO of ShareASale.com.

According to the AffiliateFairPlay blog, the “Fair Practice Award is a unique award within Affiliate Marketing recognizing a company or individual who has consistently engaged in activities which embody the principles of fair trade and competitive practices in affiliate marketing.”

Brian Littleton started up ShareASale in 2000 and his leadership and vision have helped shape…

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Google “slap” at affiliates. I receive several Internet Marketing newsletters and all they can talk about are the new Google rules.

It’s all very scary to me because, even though I’ve been doing Internet Marketing for over five years, I still feel like a newbie when it comes to the search engines and how they rank pages.

I search for my URL and my name every now and then to see how many times I’m listed in the results. I mostly do this to see where my articles are ending up, and to make sure no one is stealing my web pages. (And, yes, I still get a kick out of seeing my name in print!)

I recently discovered a few easy ways to tell if a site has been penalized or banned by Google that I want to share with you.

(Note: YouTypedThis.com refers to the URL you typed in to do your search)

1. Do a search for your exact URL on Google. If you get the following response: “Sorry, no information is available for the URL YouTypedThis.com.”, then you’ve been penalized. This is Google’s kiss of death ? it means you’ve been banned!
2. Another message you might see is “Find web pages that contain the term YouTypedThis.com.” This is a little better, you haven’t been dropped from the index, but your rank has probably been lowered.
3. This one: “If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking the following link: YouTypedThis.com” means that your site is not in the index, but it hasn’t been dropped or banned.

There is also a way to find out if you have suffered a duplicate content penalty. You will get an “omitted results” message when you search. To find out if this happened do the following:

Copy an exact and unique phrase from your page, without punctuation. Place quotes around it, and then insert it into a Google search box.

After you do the search, if your page doesn’t show in the results, check the bottom for a phrase similar to this “Repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

If your page shows up somewhere in the “omitted results,” then you’ve received a duplicate content penalty (which is still better than getting banned).

Hopefully you will not see any of the above, but at least now you are armed with the knowledge to fight back if you do.

There’s been a lot of talk lately about the Google “slap” at affiliates. I receive several Internet Marketing newsletters and all they can talk about are the new Google rules.

It’s all very scary to me because, even though I’ve been doing Internet Marketing for over five years, I still feel like a newbie when it comes to the search engines and how they rank pages.

I search for my URL and my name every now and then to see how many times I’m listed in the results. I mostly do this to see where my articles are ending up, and to make sure no one is stealing my web pages. (And, yes, I still get a kick out of seeing my name in print!)

I recently discovered a few easy ways to tell if a site has been penalized or banned by Google that I want to share with you.

(Note: YouTypedThis.com refers to the URL you typed in to do your search)

1. Do a search for your exact URL on Google. If you get the following response: “Sorry, no information is available for the URL YouTypedThis.com.”, then you’ve been penalized. This is Google’s kiss of death – it means you’ve been banned!
2. Another message you might see is “Find web pages that contain the term YouTypedThis.com.” This is a little better, you haven’t been dropped from the index, but your rank has probably been lowered.
3. This one: “If the URL is valid, try visiting that web page by clicking the following link: YouTypedThis.com” means that your site is not in the index, but it hasn’t been dropped or banned.

There is also a way to find out if you have suffered a duplicate content penalty. You will get an “omitted results” message when you search. To find out if this happened do the following:

Copy an exact and unique phrase from your page, without punctuation. Place quotes around it, and then insert it into a Google search box.

After you do the search, if your page doesn’t show in the results, check the bottom for a phrase similar to this “Repeat the search with the omitted results included.”

If your page shows up somewhere in the “omitted results,” then you’ve received a duplicate content penalty (which is still better than getting banned).

Hopefully you will not see any of the above, but at least now you are armed with the knowledge to fight back if you do.

I recently joined a program that supplied me with three Web sites with affiliate links. What is the best strategy to start promoting traffic to these sites?

The key to driving targeted traffic to your sites is to diversify the sources of your traffic.

In general, I’d say to start off with SEO, but that’s not an option in your case, since the affiliate program is providing you with the pages.

So let’s move on to other methods to help you drive traffic. If you have some money to invest in…