Wanna Free Yourself? Then Work From Home
We all have different preferences when it comes to several things, from choice of food to favorite shows, from our sexuality to the way we manage our homes. Even with work, we still have our own preferences. There are others who enjoy the so-called 9-to-5 job while some think that spending eight hours in the office is like living in prison and the only escape is to work from home or establish an online career.
For some, in order to free yourself from what they consider as the “jail” of your career is to start searching for opportunities online. Many people who work from home were former company employees who grew tired of putting up with their annoying bosses, nosy colleagues and earning so little while working so damn hard every day.
If you feel the same way and you want to turn things around, a lot of Internet marketers will tell you to
consider working from home. Why not? Internet marketing is a lucrative career as long as you are up for it and you know what you are doing. The biggest benefit that home-based businesses offer and the number one reason why more and more individuals are pursuing that kind of opportunity is freedom.
The Shackles
Most people are working hard so that they can live a successful life and that includes financial success. Given the things that are happening in our world today, from the struggling economy down to the fast unemployment rate, the quest and hunger for financial freedom keeps on growing. It seems that office work and jobs of that sort are becoming shackles that are slowing us down as we struggle to tread on the path to success. Breaking those chains and freeing us from our financial worries are the promises that online job opportunities bring.
The Handcuffs
They say time is gold. That’s why most workers endure long hours of labor so they can earn more. But in the world of Internet marketing, that’s not the case. You can even earn a lot while doing so little work. It’s what they call working smart rather than working hard. Compared to your regular job, you will have a flexible time if you work from home and you get to set your own schedule. That’s almost like freeing your hands from being cuffed which made you unable to do the things you wanted, whenever you wanted.
The Blindfold
According to some, working in a traditional day job is similar to walking in a street with a blindfold. You don’t know where you are going and if you are following the right path. It’s like there’s no direction at all. But when they discovered Internet marketing and ventured into work from home, it’s like the blindfold was taken off and their eyes were wide open to the truth. That’s another level of freedom on their part, one that involves having peace of mind.
Many of us know the benefits and the good stuff that comes with having to work from home or putting up an online business. We also know that it also comes with certain risks and challenges. There is also that fact that Internet marketing is not for everybody and not everyone is cut out for it. Whatever career you choose, whether it’s a regular office work or an online job, you will succeed if you are passionate about it, you work hard to achieve your goals and you love what you are doing.
Useful Preparations For Your Ebook Pages Plus Other Tips
Not everyone possesses the skills needed to be a web designer or has the passion and heart for understanding web scripting languages like HTML, Perl, ASP, PHP, etc. But most of us, in one way or the other, have tried creating our own website. It may just be a school project or random computer activity or whatever. For people who work from home, it may have to do with a client’s task or something else in their online business.
Creating an ebook can be almost the same as creating a website even in the so-called preparation stage. In website creation, it’s recommended to ready your files and have them arranged in your hard disk in a way that will make it easier for you to access or use them while you build up your site. You can use the same technique when you are creating an ebook by preparing your ebook pages.
Just like a website, your ebook will surely contain more than just a bundle of text, unless if you want it to look that dull and uninteresting. You know that you can include there some images, charts, links, videos, audio clips and others but only if it’s necessary. But those other stuff should be added in moderation to avoid making the ebook pages look overcrowded.
So what you have to do is round up everything you need (pages, images, etc.) and place them in one folder or directory in your computer’s hard disk. It would be best if you name that folder with the proposed title of your ebook and then back those up by copying them into a storage disc or a memory stick, in case something unexpected happens to your PC. It will be very frustrating if you lost your files and don’t have a back up copy because that can really affect your work from home.
After preparing what’s needed in creating your ebook pages, it’s time to start gelling them together. However, it’s not just a simple “I’ll place this here and leave that there” kind of thing. Take note that ebooks should be well-made and of great quality. So aside from the usual spelling and grammar check, here are added pointers as you create those ebook pages of yours:
–Your customers or readers will be thankful if you include navigation links within your ebook pages especially if it’s quite long. This will help them in discovering information as they read on through those pages. But you have to check carefully that all navigation links work and that they point to where they are supposed to be pointing.
–Ebooks shouldn’t be very lengthy or too short, just the right amount of pages to get your message across. Also, ebooks shouldn’t be too large in terms of size, specially if those digital products will be downloaded from your site or server. Just like what has been mentioned earlier, limit the extra stuff like images or videos to what’s necessary.
–If possible, minimize distractions like colorful text or buttons, large images and overbearing banners and templates. For those banners, especially ad banners, they will be far safer and less attention-grabbing if they are placed below every page.
You may think these preparations and tips are not that big a deal but they pretty much help you come up with a product reflective of you as a professional. That is why you have to take into consideration every single detail if you can. So that you can make sure you are on the right path that leads to work from home success.
Why Many Merchants Are Hiring Services From Affiliates
Affiliate marketing is known to be part of Internet marketing’s line up of profitable job opportunities. If you would like to think of these work from home as several food items on the menu, you will find affiliate marketing to be one of the house’s specials. Most folks venture into the world of online business as affiliate marketers because of those many reasons, aside from it being a lucrative means to earn cash over the Internet.
The benefits that the said opportunity brings are the popular factors that drive aspiring (and some veteran) Internet marketers to become affiliates. Those interesting perks include being able to make money online through commissions, getting freebies or samples to check out, having a chance to practice your selling and advertising skills and being able to sell products without the hassle of going door-to-door or traveling all around the place.
But affiliate marketing does not stop at being advantageous to affiliates. It provides merchants some nice perks as well. This is why a lot of merchants are always in search of the best affiliate marketers to sell their products or services and promote their work from home. So what are these quirky little benefits that our merchant friends have to enjoy?
Basically, if you are one of those merchants hiring services from affiliates, your sales will enjoy a significant hike in a short period of time compared to when you are doing all the selling and marketing by yourself. So when you have increased number of sales, what else do you have? Right. Increased profits. Just make sure you have dedicated and hardworking affiliate marketers advertising your products because if you do, you will really gain a whole lot more, especially in terms of traffic, sales and income.
Beyond those clear financial advantages, there are really some good albeit less stunning spots in a merchant’s work that this whole affiliate marketing bandwagon was able to fill in, particularly on how he or she can strive to make improvements on his or her products, services or work from home as a whole. Most of the time, these merchants or businessmen are so busy advertising their goods to the world that even though they want to spend time enhancing their stuff, they are finding it hard to do so. With the help of a number of affiliates, they can at least shift their focus for a while from the whole marketing task to their actual products.
So you not only upped your income status but you also get the chance to improve the items you are offering by dedicating a significant amount of time and attention to those things. That would be reason enough for merchants to strike a deal with some affiliates. This shows how affiliate marketing can be beneficial to both merchants and affiliate marketers.
Random Thoughts On Writing And Distributing Ebooks
Some folks think that ebook writing is far different from article writing. Other than the numerous pages and chapters, there really is no big difference when writing is concerned. You somehow just expanded your views and ideas on a particular subject. But of course, there are different approaches and strategies that come along with writing ebooks compared to writing articles.
If your work from home revolves around writing, selling and distributing ebooks, then you have by now took into mind every single important detail in terms of how to write and distribute those ebooks of yours productively. But human as we are, we sometimes tend to forget some thoughts and tidbits. So help yourself with a few reminders below:
Write naturally. Remember that you are writing an ebook for your work from home not a novel or script. You don’t have to go so metaphorical, melodramatic or technical in what you write. Just write like you are just speaking and having conversations with your readers. It should be simple, straightforward and understandable.
Avoid including hifalutin words or terminologies. Like what has been mentioned earlier, just keep your words simple and easy to understand. If you are writing ebooks like they are vocabulary or reading comprehension quizzes, you are totally doing it the wrong way. Don’t make your readers or customers consult their dictionaries every now and then. Save that approach with term papers and legal documents.
Determining your target audience. You can do this by simply asking yourself, “Who will read this ebook?” or “Who will be interested in this particular topic?” Do that before you even start writing so that you will know if it’s really worth it. The subject that your ebook focuses on should be related to your chosen niche and work from home and it should be able to draw in readers that are willing to buy and download it. If you think nobody’s going to be interested, find a new topic.
Going for original and fresh content. Every content writer has his or her own unique style of writing and that’s one contributing factor that will help sell your ebooks like hotcakes. It would be best if you can transform your products into “signature items” wherein when someone reads it, he or she will right away recognize that it’s yours. One way to do that is if you interject your personality, character, humor, mood, etc. into your writing. But it’s not just about the original style of writing we’re talking about here. It should also be about fresh topics, not the ones that are copied from other authors. But something that you yourself came up with.
Adding flavor to your ebook writing. You can definitely spice up your ebooks if you try adding images, illustrations and certain graphics, even banners and logos. Just make sure that they don’t feel overcrowded. One or two pictures in every 5 pages will do or include only graphics if they are really that important. Also, your pictures must relate to the text or chapter it represents, not something that looks like it was randomly posted there.
Distributing ebooks through different ways. Selling and distribution of ebooks is not that hard considering the technology we have today and it’s not very costly either. Two known effective ways of distributing ebooks are putting it on your web server to be available for downloads and setting up an affiliate program of some sort that will help sell and distribute those digital products.
Writing ebooks, then making it available for purchase online, is one of the most lucrative Internet marketing opportunities that one can have. But like any other online jobs, ebook writing still requires the same passion, focus, hard work and determination from you in order for the experience to be really effective and successful.
Why You Should Avoid Cheating The Search Engines
No one, especially those who involve themselves in Internet marketing, can deny how important it is for an online business and website to rank high on search engine results. It’s also not a secret anymore what the benefits of succeeding in SEO and topping the search engines are. Those perks can be summed up pretty much into one word – traffic. And who doesn’t want traffic to flow to their sites?
As the importance of search engine optimization become more and more evident, different folks who work from home have been increasing their efforts to optimize their online presence, which is their official website or blog. Though it is not that hard as a Calculus equation, search engine marketing is not that simple either and it actually takes a huge toll out of you.
That alone is the reason why most people tend to cheat the search engines and eventually do some black hat SEO. If you are not familiar with the term, black hat SEO is known as unethical search engine marketing ways, strategies or techniques done for the sole purpose of ranking higher in today’s top search engines easily and quickly. Simply put, it’s an act of tricking those search engines (and the general public as well) so that you will end up on top of search engine results faster and easier.
Sad to say, many are resorting into this “alternative” solution and you can’t really blame them since it’s really that tempting. However, these are some short reminders why you should avoid cheating the search engines:
Shortcuts Are No Good
You are clearly taking a shortcut if you are planning to do some wild tricks with the search engines. Sometimes, shortcuts can be helpful and great but there are those you shouldn’t take like this one. Not only that it’s unethical, it’s also short-lived. Yes, your website may jump straight to the top of the search engine results in a matter of hours or days but don’t expect it to sit there forever because those search engines are becoming smarter every now and then. Sooner or later, you will get busted and that will be the end of your work from home.
Forever Banned
Knowing that it’s not that simple to put up a site and domain, are you willing to take that huge risk of getting banned forever? Once your site is banned by the search engines, you might as well start over and that’s not good news. So if you want your site and your online business to last long, try to avoid cheating the search engines because they are not the type that gets outsmarted easily. What’s worse is that you won’t get any warning once they take your site down. You will just be surprised one day that your site is nowhere to be found.
Competitors Are On The Watch
When you are planning to do some hocus-pocus with the search engines, remember that there are people who are keeping eye on you and everything you do in your work from home. These are your competition. They watch your every move not only to track your recent developments but also to get something to use against you. If you resort to unethical ways and don’t avoid cheating the search engines, you are only feeding your competitors and giving them a chance to inflict damage on you. You know that anytime, they can report you to the search engines once they got hold some evidence.
Negative Impact On Readers
Because you are too busy cheating the search engines, you tend to sacrifice your website’s content and chances are your readers and clients will see and notice it. For example, keyword stuffing, which is a known black hat SEO technique, will bring forth twice the damage because you won’t just lose visitors for your site, you will also get penalized once the search engines have discovered your mischief. Never underestimate the
capacity of readers to know which content is genuine and which is created only for the purpose of doing unethical SEO.
There are tons of reasons why you should avoid cheating the search engines, why you should not involve yourself with such activities. But the bottom line is that those wrong ways will bring nothing but chaos and destruction to your work from home. So if you can’t risk that much, you’d better stay away from those unethical SEO strategies.
How To Manage Your Work From Home Time
As an Internet marketer, you should know how to manage your time well so there will be no such delay and hassle working on stuff that need to be completed. Keep in mind that time management is just one of the major keys to a successful work from home and Internet marketing experience. Just like in any job or activity, your discipline especially in handling time will prove to be very useful and, of course, rewarding in the end.
Acting as proofs to this fact are the various online tips and articles concerning time management that have been popping out like mushrooms all over the web. It has been known that not everyone can handle time productively and there are still other people out there who are struggling. That’s why they turn to these details and information for a little help and reminder. The following are the most common tips to manage your work from home time:
Setting your priorities straight and setting up a schedule. There are a lot of things to do with your home-based business and at times, it gets a little overwhelming. If you don’t know what your priorities are and if you don’t set those priorities straight, you’ll most likely end up scrambling and confused as to where to start with your work. Worst thing to happen is you performing poorly because you are too busy figuring out what to do first and what to do next.
So you need to put some far more important things first before anything else. Most folks who work from
home start their day by checking their emails for new messages, updates and others. There are those who do a series of things first like updating their website, sorting out comments, checking subscriptions, etc. before communicating with some of their clients, creating marketing campaigns and writing content or newsletters. You can have that same approach.
While you are at it, why don’t you set up your preferred schedule as well? You are now working from home and you don’t have to follow any schedule but your own. Create one and be sure to stick to it. Schedules are effective tools for time management and as long as you have enough self-discipline to follow yours, then you will be able to finish things on time.
Having a list of things to do will go perfectly well with your schedule. If you have a so-called to-do list, you can keep track of what things need to be done and what have been completed already. It’s quite that simple but keep in mind that this list can only help you if you take action and start doing what has been listed there. Otherwise, it’s just a piece of paper with scribbles on it.
Developing goals may also help manage your work from home time. For instance, if you set a deadline for a particular task, there will be enough reason for you to up your performance and eventually deliver desired results on time. Your long-term goals can serve as your motivation to work hard and manage your time efficiently.
Focusing your time to your work from home and dedicating the rest after you have done your job will get things done accordingly. Many Internet marketers struggle because of those stuff that are getting in the way of their work. These include household chores, unexpected errands, surprise visits from other people and distracting calls. If there is really no emergency, you must prioritize your job and start doing other stuff only if you are finished with your work.
All of these are great ways to promote time management and are beneficial as you continue on with your Internet marketing experience. However, the most essential ingredient for these tips to work is discipline. If you lack that, then everything else will be useless.
Work From Home Tips: Picking Your Targeted Niche
Probably one of the many reasons why some people can’t get started working online or have been discouraged to do so is that they are not able to find the right niche for them. Some are still doubtful and half-hearted about their choice and they are just too afraid to risk it. So they stop and turn their attention to opportunities other than work from home. This should not be your way of thinking and more so that nowadays, there have been several tips circulating the Internet on how to choose your niche effectively.
There are quite many considerations that you should take into account as you go on with your niche selection. One important thing to consider is the fact that this will eat up a bunch of your time. Researching for a targeted niche for your work from home requires a certain level of understanding and learning that can’t be done overnight. You know you can’t just rush into things and go signing up for affiliate programs or creating blogs when you don’t have enough knowledge to support your move.
Another tip is to make your personal interests the basis of your search. It’s always been recommended to choose a niche similar to your interests for several reasons. One, there’s a great chance that a person may have background knowledge about that niche. Two, if you like your niche, you would also want to learn more about it. Hence, there’s a natural desire for knowledge and that will eventually lead to fast learning. Three, you won’t get easily bored with what you do since the interest and passion are there. That’s what most of the work from home tips will tell you too.
You can also find the perfect niche by researching current and popular keywords. Doing keyword research will give you an idea about what people are looking for and what they want. If you think you have what it takes to provide them the information, the services, the products, etc. that they are hungry for, then you might as well go for it and start your work from home or online business. You can do keyword research using Google, Yahoo, Wordtracker and others. It’s up to you.
The right choice of niche is something where your interests lie and what’s hot and current today. It’s a great feeling that you are doing your work because you love it and at the same time, it generates income for you. That is how most Internet marketers find their niche. Other work from home tips regarding niche selection can be found online.
Researching Tips For Your Work From Home And Article Writing
Most Internet marketers have to do some content writing every now and then so they pretty much know how article writing and article marketing works. You find a topic, something that should be related to your chosen niche, of course. Then, once you have read, learned and understood the necessary details, you start writing about it. Afterwards, you will have to review and check your written material for errors. Then, it’s either you submit it to several article directories and publishers or post it as a content in your website or blog.
There are so many topics to be covered in Internet marketing and work from home even if you narrow it all down to the specific niche you have chosen. You simply can’t know all of those facts so what you need to do is to research often, mostly when you are writing about a particular subject you have little or no knowledge of. But it’s recommended as well to go scour for information even if you are not tasked to write anything.
Not a lot of folks who work from home are doing research effectively. This is why you will stumble upon several researching tips online and articles or discussions aiming to help individuals perform a good research and identify great sources for topics. Why don’t you start with popular searches, keywords and trends? Finding out what’s hot today and what people are searching for can help your article writing task or work from home in ways more than one.
Let’s say that you have created another random blog that have links to your official website or blog. That other blog can be about almost anything. In there, you can just write and post stuff that are currently popular and getting headlines. You can then expect a significant amount of traffic coming in, which is good, because there is a huge chance someone will click through and end up in your official site. So why don’t you head out to Google and check what makes up their list of hot trends or use their keyword tools? How about Yahoo’s top searches for the day? You can also have a look at various trending topics on Twitter or what’s cooking up in social networks and bookmarking sites. There are numerous sources out there for topics that you can research in line with your article writing.
However, if you want to go old-school and hit the library, you may do so. Sure enough, there will be books, magazines and other publications regarding your online business or your chosen niche. You may even find stuff and information there that you won’t find online or anywhere else. So if you have enough time to sit down and flip those pages, then go for it. It’s recommended as well to have a conversation with other folks, especially those who know Internet marketing and work from home. You may have some friends or relatives that are into home-based business too. You can share thoughts with each other and you may be able to get some more researching tips or ideas for your article writing from them.
Speaking of conversations, it will also be a good move to go online and have a chat or discussion with someone, perhaps a fellow Internet marketer within the same niche as you are, or better yet, an Internet marketing expert. You may also be able to get topic ideas to write about from bloggers. Other researching tips that are likewise useful include watching TV, listening to the radio, attending a seminar or convention, etc.
Researching can be quite as hard as or even harder than content or article writing. But it doesn’t follow that it can’t be fun. When you do your research, you are given the opportunity to learn something new or widen your knowledge about things. That is what makes it very much important.
Work From Home Guide: The New FTC Rules On Endorsements By Bloggers, Celebrities, Experts And Organizations
If you are one of those Internet marketers or active bloggers or those folks who work from home, you may have heard about the new guides of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) concerning the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising. One of the biggest twists found on those revised guidelines is the inclusion of the “new media” specifically the Internet and blogs as modern advertising venues that will be possibly covered by the new Guides. Endorsements and testimonials made through these “consumer-generated media,” as referred by the Guides, will join those found in traditional ones like radio, television, newspapers and magazines and will also be regulated by the Commission.
The announcement of this new ruling a few days ago have created quite a buzz in the online community and have poked numerous bloggers, affiliates, online reviewers, people in the Internet commerce and others who work from home. But the new FTC Guides doesn’t concern endorsements by bloggers alone, it also states regulations regarding endorsements made by celebrities, experts and organizations.
Bloggers
Ask someone what he or she thinks is one of the most effective ways to advertise a certain product and you may get answers like “through the use of Internet” or “through blogs.” Indeed, blogging helps online businesses – huge and small alike – spread the word about their deals and offers. What most advertisers do is they give away free samples of their products to those bloggers who are willing to endorse and review the said products or freebie items. There are also some advertisers who employ bloggers to write about their products and services. In other words, the blogger or endorser has a material connection with the advertiser. Prior to the new guidelines, disclosure of the said material connection is just optional or unnecessary. However, with the latest FTC rules, every blogger should be able to disclose this information regarding material connection and the advertiser should find means to monitor and make sure that the blogger complies with that disclosure rule.
[When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.]
Celebrities
We all know that celebrities are hired to endorse products and services by various companies, businesses and advertisers. In the new FTC guidelines, it states there that celebrities are liable for what they say in the endorsements even if those statements are just being read from a script since the public or the consumers are likely to believe that what celebrities say corresponds their own beliefs and views on the said product. Furthermore, any material connection that exists between the celebrity and the advertiser should also be disclosed whenever possible, say, in interviews and talk shows.
Experts
Just like celebrities, experts are also hired for product endorsements. Their statements and reviews are even regarded by most consumers to have more weight than those of celebrities because of their expertise. Thus, people are likely to believe more on what they say and endorse. However, advertisers should keep in mind from now on certain FTC rules regarding expert endorsements just like this one:
[Although the expert may, in endorsing a product, take into account factors not within his or her expertise (e.g., matters of taste or price), the endorsement must be supported by an actual exercise of that expertise in evaluating product features or characteristics with respect to which he or she is expert and which are relevant to an ordinary consumer’s use of or experience with the product and are available to the ordinary consumer. This evaluation must have included an examination or testing of the product at least as extensive as someone with the same degree of expertise would normally need to conduct in order to support the conclusions presented in the endorsement. To the extent that the advertisement implies that the endorsement was based upon a comparison, such comparison must have been included in the expert’s evaluation; and as a result of such comparison, the expert must have concluded that, with respect to those features on which he or she is expert and which are relevant and available to an ordinary consumer, the endorsed product is at least equal overall to the competitors’ products. Moreover, where the net impression created by the endorsement is that the advertised product is superior to other products with respect to any such feature or features, then the expert must in fact have found such superiority.]
Organizations
When you talk about endorsements by organizations, you are referring to the joint or shared views, opinions or beliefs of a group of individuals or, according to the Guides, the “collective judgment of the organization.” In this case, the new FTC ruling specifies that [an organization’s endorsement must be reached by a process sufficient to ensure that the endorsement fairly reflects the collective judgment of the organization. Moreover, if an organization is represented as being expert, then, in conjunction with a proper exercise of its expertise in evaluating the product under § 255.3 (expert endorsements), it must utilize an expert or experts recognized as such by the organization or standards previously adopted by the organization and suitable for judging the relevant merits of such products.]
Keep in mind that these new regulations take effect starting December 1st of this year and the fines per violations are reported to run up to $11,000. You can read the whole 81 pages of the Guides here.
Work From Home Guide: Exploring The New FTC Rules On Testimonials And Endorsements
More than a week ago, the Federal Trade Commission have announced that they have adopted the revised guidelines regarding the use of endorsements and testimonials in advertising which will be effective come December 1st of this year. It has become a major topic in the blogosphere since then because of the fact that endorsements and testimonials from blogs, sites, online forums, message boards and others of the same sort are now potentially covered by the new Guides.
This issue has caused a stir in the blogging community and several bloggers have given their own takes on the subject. Some say that this new FTC Guides is actually good because it’s going to be a huge step in eliminating misleading testimonials and fake claims that are very much rampant in the Internet today specifically in E-commerce like businesses concerning weight loss and health medicines. Others point out that although they understand that these revised FTC guidelines mostly aim to bring out truthful claims, reviews, testimonials and endorsements from bloggers and advertisers, the guidelines are quite vague and have some possible chilling effect on the blogging community. Some bloggers are even doubtful on how the said Commission will implement these regulations and if it’s going to be a successful one.
If you haven’t read the new Guides, you can find it here. But since it’s an 81-page document, you might not have enough time to go through it at the moment. Just read on to learn some basic facts found on those Guides concerning testimonials and endorsements made through blogs and other similar types of media.
Endorsements are one effective way for businesses and advertisers to promote their products and services. These endorsements are not just limited to those commercials you see on television and print media or hear on the radio. The new FTC ruling now covers possible endorsements made through “consumer-generated media”. These “new media” include those blogs, websites, network marketing campaigns, online pages and forums where bloggers and affiliates publish their so-called reviews and recommendations.
When a blogger receives a freebie from a certain Internet marketer and blogs about it, that will be considered as an endorsement under the Guides and that should be disclosed to the public. The new FTC rule clearly states that, “When there exists a connection between the endorser and the seller of the advertised product that might materially affect the weight or credibility of the endorsement (i.e., the connection is not reasonably expected by the audience), such connection must be fully disclosed.”
Therefore, if you are someone whose work from home include getting free products from advertisers and writing reviews about those products, or if you are being paid to write those reviews in your blog, you should clearly and conspicuously disclosed that information. But what if you just bought a certain item and you blogged about it out of sheer joy and satisfaction and you just want to share how great that particular item was? Will that be considered as an endorsement too? According to the following example from the revised Guides, it won’t be: “Example 8: A consumer who regularly purchases a particular brand of dog food decides one day to purchase a new, more expensive brand made by the same manufacturer. She writes in her personal blog that the change in diet has made her dog’s fur noticeably softer and shinier, and that in her opinion, the new food definitely is worth the extra money. This posting would not be deemed an endorsement under the Guides.”
For the testimonials part, bloggers, Internet marketers, people who work from home or own businesses online, will have to be very careful in using testimonials and results claims of consumers regarding their products or services because those statements should conform first with what is found in the guidelines just like the following:
“An advertisement containing an endorsement relating the experience of one or more consumers on a central or key attribute of the product or service also will likely be interpreted as representing that the endorser’s experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve with the advertised product or service in actual, albeit variable, conditions of use. Therefore, an advertiser should possess and rely upon adequate substantiation for this representation. If the advertiser does not have substantiation that the endorser’s experience is representative of what consumers will generally achieve, the advertisement should clearly and conspicuously disclose the generally expected performance in the depicted circumstances, and the advertiser must possess and rely on adequate substantiation for that representation.”
Simply put, if you are not sure that the testimonials you use are showing results that consumers are generally expecting to achieve, the new FTC Guides suggest that you should disclose or state what the typical results are. Using the disclosure, “Results not typical” is also not enough according to the Guides. This goes out to results or performance claims as well wherein any claims should be “verified and substantiated.”
Those are just some of the things that gained attention from the online community and have been a hot discussion across sites, blogs and forums among online marketers and folks doing work from home. In addition to that, it has been reported that fines per violation will run up to $11,000.
