Kimkins Controversy - Kimkins Scam

A Search Engine Marketing Consultant

I just spent the better part of an hour browsing through the advice that is being doled out by a Search Engine Marketing Consultant. One thing that I noticed right away is that he has a consistent tone in his blog. That is something that I have to work on. I have been researching the positives and negatives of using blogs as a promotional tool quite a bit lately, and this guy seems to be doing it right. Promising weekly tips is a great way to get return readership. A couple of pages back in his blog, Danny DeMichele, the Search Engine Marketing Consultant, talks about Behavioral Targeting. This is something that I have never heard of, although it sounded eerily familiar when it was described. Apparently having a campaign that follows an internet surfer around to more than one site and redundantly assails him with the same message is effective. People mock the redundancy of George Bush all the time, but they tend to forget that the reason he does it is because it works. If you are selling a web application or an eBook, I say go for the BT. If you are selling an unnecessary war, please go back to your advisers and try to come up with a better product. Danny expects that social media outlets will step up the sharing of data to enable more effective behavioral tracking in the near future.

Danny recently mentioned something that was already on my mind and that is the importance of who your neighbors are for a search query. With regard to the Kimkins controversy, I have been checking the Google return for ‘Kimkins’ on a regular basis and occasionally taking action based on what I see. SEO common knowledge says that a user will only check a handful of links before deciding about something. My effort to warn potential customers away from a fraud is not even half as difficult as competing for customers with people who are providing a similar product.

Making Money When You are Dead

You can’t take it with you. You can, however, keep raking it in long after you are dead and gone. Most of us have heard about the revenue that has been continuously generated by Elvis Presley’s estate. It has had its ups and downs, but some recent marketing strategies have kept him at the top of the list. I imagine that John Lennon appeals to a less consumeristic group of people and that the bulk of revenue is from sales of his creative output rather than snow globes and velvet paintings.

Here is a recently published list of the top earning dead celebrities from Forbes…

• Elvis Presley
• John Lennon
• Charles Schulz
• George Harrison
• Albert Einstein
• Andy Warhol
• Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel)

• Tupac Shakur
• Marilyn Monroe
• Steve McQueen
• James Brown
• Bob Marley
• James Dean

A Review Site for Weight Loss Plans

There are more weight loss plans on the internet than you can shake a twinkie at. The promotional material for each one will almost invariably assure you that it is the very best and that none of the other ones will work.

Weight Loss HQ is shaping up to be a useful resource for those of us who are looking for unbiased reviews of weight loss plans. I know of a website or two that have the audacity to call themselves an unbiased review when they are, in fact, an affiliate for a fraudulent site. Weight Loss HQ is not like that. When I was trying to decide what I though of the site, I started by looking at a review of something that I knew a bit about already. There is a review of the South Beach diet that is actually a pretty in depth summary of what that diet is all about. It was a positive review without false promises.

The review of the off label use of Phosphatidylcholine Deoxycholate to ‘dissolve’ fat was not what I would call positive. If I read or heard hype about this quick fix for problem fat deposits and then found this review on Weight Loss HQ, I think I would quickly make up my mind that it was not for me.

Maybe Weight Loss HQ should do an unbiased review of Kimkins.

Standing at the Computer…

I explored the idea of operating a computer while standing rather than sitting sometime last year. I decided that it was not right for me. I think that it is something that everyone should consider. Some workstations are designed in such a way that they can be adjusted for standing or sitting. I used to work at a repetitive task that required me to stand for hours at a time. My coworkers and I eventually made modified task chairs that would allow us to do the task while seated. I tended to go back and forth between sitting and standing.

Making a point of getting up from your computer for short breaks is a smart idea.

Have You Ever Seen a Psychic?

Tana Hoy appears to have some pretty compelling credentials as a Psychic. I’ll be honest, telling a woman over the phone that the guy who broke off an engagement is a loser is a basic people skill and in no way psychic. But telling her that a car dealer hose name starts with T is going to propose to her in 8 months is getting closer to being psychic, assuming he is right.

Tana’s most shocking moment of being right happened a couple of hours before the terrorist bombing in Oklahoma. He predicted the bombing on a live radio show, when he heard the news of the horrible event, he broke down and cried. Tana Hoy conducts classes that help you develop your own psychic potential. there are details on his website.

A Vacation From Weight Loss

Dieting and vacationing are not always a perfect fit. This is especially true when you are a tourist and you want to experience a foreign culture as much as possible. Many cultures are defined by their foods to some degree. My suggestion for vacations is to loosen up the restrictions on our diet and make a point of increasing your activity by doing more walking and less riding in cabs, or whatever conveyance they might have in the exotic locale that you have chosen. You may also find that restaurants that cater to tourists will have a platter that features a selection of local specialties. Consider splitting one platter between two or three people.

If you are counting pennies as well as calories, another tip is to keep your eye out for local housewives with shopping baskets, follow them to find the real sources of affordable food. Local markets selling bulk foods allow for better portion control than restaurants and they will save you money.

Santa Didn’t Bring You a Car?

You have stopped peeking around corners and peering up the chimney and you are now resigning yourself to checking out your options with regard to car loans. Carfinance.Netcars.co.uk has a list of many car finance providers. I do not know if they check it twice. They are the leading car loan broker in the United Kingdom and their site has great tools for assessing the various car credit options at your disposal. They do not specialize in bad credit loans, they have access to finance products for every situation.

You should consider their guaranteed car finance if you have had recent difficulties in obtaining financing. They have loans with interest rates ranging from 6.9% to 36.9% depending on your specific situation. I can’t remember the last time I paid less than 6.9% on any kind of financial product.

I paid cash for the car that I presently own. It does not have a “Don’t Laugh, It’s PAID FOR!” bumper sticker on it…there wasn’t enough money left over. Before that, I had some really awful lease terms on a new Hyundai. Carfinance.Netcars.co.uk has reviews of dealer financing on their site. Makers like Kia and Mazda have quite a competition going to see who can entice entry level buyers with the lowest payments. You have to know the details to decide who to go with.

Weight Loss will Not be an Issue in the 2008 Presidential Election

Oprah, who is involved in the weight loss industry, has weighed in on the issue of who should be President. I do not know if Barrack Obama has ever made public statements about obesity and how public policy can be a force for positive change. Hillary Clinton has and she was mocked for it.

With sugar barons being some of the most generous political campaign contributors in the USA, you will not hear a lot of rhetoric about healthy eating from candidates of either political party. When politicians that have taken money from the sugar companies are elected and begin legislating they do things like change the USDA dietary guidelines to say moderate instead of limit when talking about sugar. Sweet.

DentalPlans.com

Anybody with any amount of knowledge of internet marketing and search engine optimization, would guess that DentalPlans.com is a well established provider of discount dental plans. They have, in fact, been a going concern since 1999. They provide individuals, families and groups with the best value in dental plans.

The DentalPlans.com landing page has an application where you simply type in your Zip code and press go. That triggers the site to come back to you with national and regional plans from 30 or more providers for you to compare. When you click on any plan in the list, you get a very detail description of the plan and the provider. This includes a chart showing the fees and discounts for a comprehensive list of dental procedures. Here is an example of a typical discount an Adult Teeth Cleaning costs about $75 members of a dental discount plan save $35 and end up paying $40. These are average amounts taken from broad surveys. They seem about right from my experience.

I have three teenagers with present and future orthodontic needs. I did not know that discount dental plans are completely different from traditional dental insurance. Compared to traditional dental insurance, discount dental plans are more affordable, more easy-to-use and more hassle free.

A Celebrity Weight Loss Story

This is not a front page Woman’s World kind of item. Celebrity may not even be a term that my readers would apply to Adam Duritz. I like his music. He is the creative force behind Counting Crows and he reportedly spent a few months counting carbs. I am glad to hear the he lost 60 pounds. He did it by eating protein cookies in addition to one balanced meal a day. He also increased his level of daily exercise. Again, I should add that this is a report, second or third hand, in the entertainment websites. The fact that they made no mention of the brand of dietary product makes me doubt the story less than I would otherwise. Adam is famous in some circles for his habit of dating skinny celebrities.