You try to do everything right. You try to make nice with all the other bloggers. Then a jerk has-been like John Chow has to cut you down and hack your website. Seriously John… can’t you pick on someone your own size?!

Today is April Fool’s Day, and bloggers around the world unite on this day to try to make the best gag around. I know you guys don’t want this garbage to be laid on to thick… the typical “I’m selling my website,” “I’ve been hacked” or just annoying redirects… its all very overdone in my mind.

Because of the fact that pretty much anything serious posted on April 1st is completely disregarded by the reading public, there’s no real point in putting out an article in my mind. But hey, I hope you liked the changes made to my header… I gotta tell you, it’s a kick defacing your own artwork!

Regardless, I am going to make a list here of some of the web’s best April Fool’s jokes that I have come across. Please comment below to let me know of any websites that you saw & think I should add to the list.

• JohnChow.com - New “John Chow Cola” drink in the Coca Cola pipeline
• JohnCow.com - I’m Selling My Website & Rick Roll Trick
• ProBlogger.net - Launching PayPerTweet Service
• AriaSink.com - You Need To Navigate a PDA to Get In
• ShowMoney.com - Make $100,000 in an Hour With Social Networking
• WinningTheWeb.com - Hummer H2 Added to Prize Pool
• UberAffiliate.com - Blog Closing Down
• GospelRhys.com - WordPress 2.3.3 Admin Panel Exploited
• Gmail.com - New “Google Custom Time” Service Released
• YouTube.com - All Featured Videos Redirect To Rick Roll
• AdesBlog.com - Accessible Through RSS Only From Now On
• TechCrunch.com - Suing Facebook for $25 million
• BloggingFingers.com - Broke 23,000 RSS Subscribers
• DailyBlogTips.com - Blog Acquired for $168,000
• GarryConn.com - Banned From Google Adsense

- The Net Fool

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I get a lot of comments on how I use images in all of my blog posts. True, I have a good amount of experience with Adobe Photoshop and use it every time I post… but you can get the same aesthetically pleasing effect by placing images in your posts effectively. I have seen blogs with too many images and too few images.

It is essential that every post has at least one image inside of it in my opinion. Using pictures that don’t clash with your design make things easier to read, and more enjoyable. I stand by my belief that using dynamic images in your blog posts will increase your traffic drastically in the long run. Lets figure out how to do it correctly and effectively!

Put an Eye-Catching Image on the Top of Each Post
If you look back on some of the best-looking posts I have put out as of late, you will notice a common theme: there is a “fun” graphic at the top that holds your interest and encourages reading (example, example, example). I am amazed that more people do not do this, as I have found it one of the most fool-proof methods to increase your readership. After experimenting with the placement of images in my posts, I settled on the rule of thumb, picture-at-the-top method, because it really draws readers to your content and makes the entire post more enjoyable.

Give Your Images Their “Personal Space”
WordPress has a nifty feature on the “insert image” function that allows you to put a horizontal and/or vertical spacing between your images and your article’s content. People that don’t use this are foolish. Take a look at the images in this post, see how the text is buffered around it? I usually tack on a 10-to-12 pixel horizontal spacing around each image to ensure that things don’t clash with my text. If you have your images running up and almost touching your content… you are missing out.

Match Your Background Colors
If you have an image, make sure that it either has a border or has a matching background color. This is where Adobe Photoshop or another similar photo-editing software comes in great handy. What I typically do, if the backgrounds to not match, is simply cut out the entire background area and fill it with the color white. It’s really that simple, and it makes things look so much better.

Use Images That Rock
This is the most often asked question of all. “Where do you get your images Jim?” Well, I’m not telling! Okay, fine I’ll tell . There are a large number of websites that you can use, but I would first off recommend a stock image website like iStockphoto and Stock.Xchng. iStockphoto is my most frequented website, and the images do cost money… but boy are they worth it! If you want to be thrifty, use images from Stock.Xchng… the largest free stock photo website on the internet. Finally, if those don’t provide good results, I occasionally use Google Images to pull up some good looking publicly available pictures.

Stock images are great, but I recommend using more of your own images than anything else. Whenever I review a website, I always take a screenshot and offer my readers a look into their websites. If you don’t want to go through this trouble, Alexa.com has screenshots of every site it tracks. Take screenshots of things you like, get permission to use them, and fire away!

Optimize Your Pictures For Speed
Finally, it is important for all of your images to load quickly. This does not mean that you need to destroy the quality of your pictures! If you use some editing software like Photoshop, you can effectively lower your “quality” without making it appear any different. I prefer the .jpg extension, but .gif images can be optimized as well. If people are waiting more than two seconds to see all of the images in your post, they are going to lose interest. Make sure that everything is streamlined and efficient, and always sacrifice quality for speed!

Here’s the bottom line: Images are a necessary part of every blog post. Unless your blog is strictly business professional, you need to spice things up with some flavorful pictures in order to hold the interest of your readers. Using images effectively will increase the amount of time people spend on your website, increase returning visits and increase your traffic flow.

-The Net Fool

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In a shaky stock market environment, there is no better place to turn than the defense contractors. Leading the S&P index by about 20% in 2008 (the 8th straight year of better relative performance), the so-called “big five” have their work cut out for them in 2008 and beyond. It is pretty much a foregone conclusion that defense spending will increase this year.

With high global threat levels, the United States defense budget has historically increased regardless of the presidential party in power. Don’t listen to the fools that tell you a democrat president will cut the defense budget, that is simply not true. The funding put into homeland security as well as our defense budget is set to increase (President Bush recently introduced a $3.1 trillion dollar budget) regardless of the War on Terror’s outcome, and the big five defense firms are set to benefit.

There are pros and cons to each of the main defense contractors, but I want to defend the notion that they are all winners in this environment. Which companies? I am talking about United Technologies, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Raytheon and Northrop-Grumman.

United Technologies (NYSE: UTX)
UTX is the largest of the Defense companies, and offers a favorable mix of risk-reward at this point. A widely expected healthy first quarter could be a huge catalyst for the rest of the year. United Technologies does everything from industrial turbine engines to elevators, and it is this diversity that really makes them the General Electric of defense contractors. The weak dollar actually bolsters a potential earnings beat (+15%) for 2008, despite a rocky economy, because European sales account for about 25% of United Technologies’ total.

Many investors have voiced concern over the recent announcement to acquire Diebold. I believe that speculation since the bid isn’t likely to be hostile and the relative size of the expense is small on UTX’s books. Other potential risks include a weakening in commercial construction markets and a slowing residential construction recovery, but I think that a strong aerospace backlog along with a geographic diversity balances their resume enough to ensure a strong year under even the worst conditions.

Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT)
Lockheed Martin is the kind of company that never gives you the value you want, but always performs with off the charts fundamentals and margins. I think a lot of analysts with HOLD ratings on the firm are underestimating LMT’s ability to drive profit out of even the bleakest of market conditions. This company has the most risk behind a 2009 administration changeover, but the threat posed is hyped beyond what will actually happen in my honest opinion.

Truth be told, I’d rather have you in a different defense contractor in the short term, but LMT’s performance is truly remarkable and I still have a BUY on these perennial EPS outperformers. They were up 32.8% during the last 2001 recession, and are poised to outperform the market again in 2008. What’s more, their 10-year annualized return is up at 7.3%. What I am trying to say is, Lockheed Martin is historically one of the top performers in a recession, and this go-round shouldn’t be any different.

General Dynamics (NYSE: GD)
General Dynamics is poised to be the largest holding in the Nittany Lion Fund, LLC., and I am generally stoked about their prospects for the year. GD has a leading market position in the areas essential to the U.S. military and has a strong track record of generating capital under every market condition imaginable.

The new Gulfstream G650 aircraft, from the leading unit of GD Aerospace, has really improved on fuel efficiency and speed (among other things) and I feel like the long-awaited release could really benefit sales. This is pretty much the world to GD, and offers a huge amount of visibility with low risk. Other than this, I continue to recommend General Dynamics because of their “no surprises” business model that continues to perform well, offering beatable 2008 EPS guidance and great long term prospects, that guarantees a safe investment.

Raytheon (NYSE: RTN)
RTN is really a conviction buy in the fact that they have an increasing foreign exposure, above average cash flow and a recession-proof portfolio. A lot of investors have Raytheon as the #1 defense company stock for 2008, and I really can’t argue with them. I do not like the fact that this company is overly tied to the Bush Administration, and would be effected slightly by a reduced US presence in Iraq or a more pro-China President (because of arms supplies to Taiwan). However, you need to consider that the defense budget is relatively stable.

Raytheon is set to benefit from some big contracts in homeland and border security, such as a $5+ billion Saudi middle east border contract and the ability to capitalize on cyber security after acquiring Oakley. Strong foreign orders and redeployment of cash should drive Raytheon into a profitable 2008/2009, and I stand by the hype.

Northrop-Grumman (NYSE: NOC)
All the buzz over Northrop-Grumman has been the contract win over Boeing to supply a new tanker worth a potential $35 billion. Despite Boeing’s dispute, NOC will more than likely come out with the win on this one. Regardless, I feel that the bigger development is Northrop’s “Guardian System,” a missile-jamming “pod” that can be attached to aircraft to prevent them from getting shot down in hostile flight areas. Before this system was released on March 26th, it was widely expected to favor Raytheon and BAE Systems… I think this can be a huge driver for NOC that has really gone unnoticed in the market.

Northrop is a steady performer at an attractive price. With a PEG at 0.88 and a Beta at just 0.38, they seem to be ripe for investment. Not only are the valued well, but they have that low debt that we love (debt/equity is just 0.23). The numbers are good, they are getting contracts nobody thought they would get, and they carry low risk in a poor market environment. NOC is good.

The power behind defense in a down market is the ability to lock in contracts, backed by a rising national defense budget, for the long term. The big five all have their advantages, and I would expect most of them to capitalize regardless of what twists and turns are in store for the rest of the market. Sometimes, the best offense is a good defense!

-The Net Fool

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If you are running a blog or website and are trying to get some added profit by advertising a service, you may be missing out on huge amounts of added profit! Why? Well first of all, when you sign up as an “affiliate” for a service or product, you will typically be given a link that looks like “http://www.website.com/?ref=29458″ to send to friends. This is basically a link that a website can use to track who is sending them new subscribers and reward them for their efforts. But if you are actually using that link… you are a bigger fool than me!

Put yourself in the eyes of a reader. If you come across a link in their website that looks as shifty as “http://www.demoproduct.com/?ref=3994d&d=229″ you are going to say hey, forget him, I’ll just go to “demoproduct.com” directly! I know what you are saying, “oh, they won’t do that… my readers want to help me!”… WRONG! It’s human nature, sorry. If they click on the link at all, which they probably won’t, you will lose a lot of income from those people that just take the ID# out altogether. So let’s guard against this, and I’ll show you how I currently have tons of active referrals earning me money while I sleep!

What you DON’T need
First things first, don’t fall for trap products that claim to do all of the work for you. I had the misfortune of buying “WP-Affiliate Pro” myself, and it was basically just throwing away $100, it stunk. All this software did was instead of making a referral for “http://www.demoproduct.com/?refID=3949″ it changed it to a link on my site that now looked like “http://www.thenetfool.com/?refID=23″. Well that was helpful… I think not! People see these referral id numbers and warning lights go off.

Also, don’t try to be sneaky and use a different link text than your link url (e.g. http://www.example.com), you need to realize your readers are smarter than that. We need to get away from numbers & letters and do it for ourselves completely free!

Learn The Net Fool’s Masking Method!
I’ve tricked you guys long enough . The fact of the matter is that you need a better way to display links than what these affiliate websites give you as a default. Notice when you click on my link to sign up for SWATcash, it looks like it is a normal page on my website (”http://www.thenetfool.com/go/page.php”)! Convincing, eh?

Here’s a little secret: all it is, is a redirecting script…. and that’s all you need!

Here’s what you do. First, make a new folder (I called mine “go”) to put all of your links inside. Then, just make a new .php, .html or .htm file for each website you want to advertise and use the following code:

 <html>
 <head>
 <title>WebSite Name</title>
 <meta name="robots" content="noindex,nofollow">
 <script>
 window.location="http://website-referral-link.com/ref=you";
 </script>
 <meta http-equiv="refresh" content="1;
 url=http://website-referral-link.com/ref=you">
 </head>
 <body>
 <p align="center">You are being taken to the correct page.
 <br>If the page doesn't load after 5 seconds,
 <a href="http://website-referral-link.com/ref=you">
 click here</a>.</p>
 </body>
 </html>

Not bad eh? Just switch out the link they give you into the three URL’s and put in the name of your website. Whenever someone clicks on your disguised link (http://www.yoursite.com/go/website.php), they are going to be redirected to your real referral link… and you have your first sale!

The Power of Masking Affiliate Links
Does this really work? Absolutely. Since changing up all of my links to this “stealth” method, I have had great success getting referrals that earn money for me. Using SWATcash as an example, I currently have $15.78 earned from 36 referrals this month alone, and I am getting a new referral active about once every two days!

By using this new method of redirecting affiliate links, you will make more money from your readers, guaranteed. People are much more likely to click on a friendly link pointing to your website, than a sketchy link with the dreaded question marks and numbers tacked onto the end.

People complain sometimes that this is essentially “tricking” your users. I say, why not? If you make the sale, you deserve to have your piece of the pie. Bottom Line: Mask your links to get the most revenue out of all your readers!

-The Net Fool

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Hey there Net Fools. This is Jim, the author/administrator/founder of The Net Fool Dot Com. Not to be a shameless self-promoter here, but a lot of you have wanted to see an “about” page for some time now… I feel like it’s about that time to let you know who the face behind the website is. Allow me to take some of your time this morning to put you on a more personal level with myself. This post will appear permanently as a page on the navigation bar.

The Blog In Brief

I’m an 18 year old student of Finance at Penn State University, and started blogging when I first arrived at school in October of 2007. Initially, the blog was set to be more of a resume-filler than anything else… but after seeing some solid feedback, I have decided to set my aim upwards. I currently try to post every day, and am an active recruiter of RSS subscribers.

The Face Behind TheNetFool.com
Here is a picture taken of me with one of my two favorite stock investors (other being Warren Buffett), personal role model, and all around great guy Jim Cramer. I don’t carry a digital camera, so be thankful I finally got a picture, haha.

Why The Stock Market?

A lot of people wonder why and how I am so interested in the stock market and making money online. First of all, I was fortunate enough to get elected into the Penn State Nittany Lion Fund LLC. manager’s board as the current Associate Analyst of the Industrials Sector of the stock market. I have been an active student since arriving at college, and have taken the opportunity to read the Wall Street Journal daily, study stock research reports, research various methods of valuing companies and make quite a few stock pitch presentations.

In this sense, I feel that I come from a very different background than most of my “make money online” colleagues. My eyes are turned to Wall Street, and whether I can land an internship at a great investment banking firm (such as Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Merril Lynch) is yet to be seen, but I will continue to study and fine-tune my skill set to be in the best position possible.

So What About Making Money Online?

On the “work at home” / “make money online” front, I have always been a bit of an entrepreneur. I actually intended to just make this a stock market blog, but I then realized that I just loved money too much to pass up the opportunity to help other people get rich. Knowing this, I have owned a web hosting and design company, and am active in several more general endeavors to turn profit through the internet. I believe that the field of making money online is cluttered with people that don’t know what they are doing. So let the stock investor show you how markets really work!

In my spare time, I run long-distance (former cross country runner), lift weights and participate in intramural sports. I am a guitarist, though intermediate and nothing to hold your breath about :D. Of course, I am in several student organizations as well that I think have helped developed a lot of skills and dedication in my studies.

Make no mistake about it, I’m here to make money and make you rich. You should be able to learn a lot by following along, and hopefully we can all grow in knowledge together. If you have any questions or comments, please drop me a line through the contact page. I typically respond within 1-4 hours since I check my email often.

Stay bullish on the net!
-The Net Fool

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