The internet is a rogues paradise because it can't be policed effectively so you need to be your own vigilante.

newsletter is signed up and eagerly awaiting update.

I am implementing and re-do my relationship with my clients..

Respect
Cha

I was amused by that paragraph. For the last few days I have been saying all this to one client who could have a google campaign very cheaply. It was strange seeing it written by someone else. I forwarded the paragraph to him and my suspicion is that there will be no more debate.

I find the StomperNet nesletters one of the few that I make a point of at least skimming regularly. Today's was a good example of why.

What you're really describing is Risk Management, something VERY few companies do.

We had a situation a year ago when someone intentionally set out to hurt us. That person sent one of our messages to a spam trap. The result was that Aweber immediately suspended our account. Our site server also balked but backed down.

I assure you that we don’t spam. In fact we go way out of our way to provide quality content in the newsletter series we have set up for each product. That didn’t make ANY difference with Aweber. All they looked at was the fact that we were using only single opt in, and in spite of the fact that their own site recommended this (at the time), they refused to discuss our situation or attempt to resolve it.

The way Aweber dealt with us is really secondary to the point I’m trying to make. And that is that VERY few companies look seriously at “what could go wrong” and “what we’ll do IF that happens”. To be completely honest even our post mortem and subsequent risk analysis and contingency planning left us with a number of issues that are STILL in our “Ignore/Too Hard” basket.

I would also point out that we were caught up in the RegisterFly domain name registry debacle about the same time. That was another “wonderful” experience.

Your article was an excellent example of making and accepting assumptions. We all do it, and sometimes it can be fatal. How many organizations could survive without an autoresponder for several months?

If you haven’t considered it, internet marketing is a cobbling together of disparate services and processes that all have to work together to be effective. If any one of those links in the chain fails then the whole process stops, or is severely restricted at least.

If you think that something as fundamental as your domain name registrar, or your server host, or ClickBank can’t fail, then think again. These are all things that are critical and ALL out of your control.

I urge every organization, no matter how large or small, to take the time to put contingency plans in place. Even acknowledging what facets of your business process can’t be backed up or have an alternate system focuses you on the risks that you are living with.

Thanks again for an insightful and well written article.

Best regards,

John

Particularly your commentary on link building. I have been using my content as "link bait". Well thought out articles with compelling headlines are a proven link building mechanism for my websites.

I encourage readers to follow Jerry's advice and get links that matter when it comes to traffic.

In fact, when it comes to link building the best approach is to pretend Google doesn't exist and then decide if the link is worth pursuing.