"The key to realizing a dream is to focus not on success but significance - and then even the small steps and little victories along your path will take on greater meaning."

Oprah Winfrey

Be a specialist

At school you had been taught that you needed to know as much as you could about all kinds of topics that you were probably not even interested in (e.g. for me the horrors were math and physics…). It would not have made sense to have been focused on just one of these subjects because if you had done that, you would not have made it to the next grade.

In Internet marketing it all is a little different. Here, you should NOT try to be the 'Mr. or Mrs. Knowitall' but the specialist, the go to guy/gal, in ONE area of Internet marketing. This can be e.g. an SEO expert, the software developer, a Google Adwords specialist or a copywriter or more recently, the Web 2.0 guy/gal.

Personally, I would brand myself as the software developer since that is where my expertise is. But more recently, I have also become very experienced in creating VRE (virtual real estate) websites using Wordpress so I can also say that I am a blogging specialist.

Whatever it is that you do, make sure you learn as much as you can about your area of expertise. Strive to become the best you can be. Just like a doctor or a lawyer learns everything he can about his medicine or laws, you need to do the same in your area.

And it never stops. If you have a passion for something, you will like it to learn more and more about it in order to become the best.

Give me crap and I’ll let others know…

Personally, I love to educate myself about all the new ways of making money online (this is a treat of all the top Internet marketers – they never stop educating themselves!). I am the kind of guy people want to have on their lists because I am constantly buying their stuff – presupposed it’s not just rehashed material (and if it is, I'll get myself a refund).

As long as I am getting at least one good idea from a product which can make me more money when implementing it in my own business, I won’t be asking for a refund. But give me crap and not only will I be asking for my money back but I’ll let my list know about it as well so they can avoid it and not waste their hard earned money…!

Focus on one project at a time

When I was attending the Internet Millionaire’s Bootcamp in London in October of 2006, Mike Filsaime said something on stage that I’ll never forget: “You need to focus on one project at a time”. Even though it sounds so simple, most people do completely the opposite.

Focusing on one project at a time will bring you income much quicker than trying to get multiple projects finished at the same time – something which can almost never be achieved. So the key to success is just to focus on the one project that will be bringing you the greatest revenue within the shortest amount of time.

You know, even I, as a very experienced Internet marketer, sometimes made the mistake of wanting to achieve too much at the same time. Instead of working on one project until it was finished, I was trying to handle 3-4 projects at a time. And the result was that nothing got finished in time and my income was suffering from it. Because not being able to finish a project means less income.

In Internet marketing, you better come up with new products quickly because you will soon be forgotten if you don’t. You must be the innovator, the one who is coming up with new, helpful products that your subscribers and customers want to buy from you.

(For example, that's why I relaunched my Niche Content Websites - membership site because I saw that my business wasn't different enough from the businesses of others who were selling the same kind of products. I wanted to get a better USP - a unique selling proposition which was better than most of my competitors by selling UNIQUE websites to people who are interested in making a living from niche type of VRE websites. This has become the solution for people who can't design their own websites or don't know how to implement monetization modules - now everything's done for them…!)

If you don’t know what they want, ask them! Your products must become the solutions for their problems.

Outsource everything you don't want to do yourself

And you don’t even have to create these products yourself. That’s what outsourcing is for. No one is expecting from you, if you e.g. have a great idea for a software tool, that you need to create it yourself. Just hire someone on Elance.com or ScripLance.com, tell him or her what you want to have done, and they’ll do it for you – at a very reasonable price.

For example, I had my AffiliateTurbo software programmed by a programmer which I found on ScriptLance. I paid about $400 for it and I made more than $10,000 from this tiny investment. And the same was the case with my Blog Promoter software. (in the meantime, I’ve sold both businesses for several thousands of $$… they simply were too work intensive as they required a lot of updates on an almost daily basis).

By knowing what you want to achieve and what your goals are, you'll actually get there much quicker. You simply need to be the one who plans it all - it's not necessary that you are doing everything yourself. And all the steps which are needed to get there, will fall into place almost automatically.

———————————

(This article is an excerpt from my Revenue Blueprint ebook. If you liked the article, then why not get yourself a copy of the complete works at http://www.revenueblueprint.com/ ?)

Tags: adsense, adwords, affiliate, ebook, google adwords, internet marketing, mike filsaime, seo, seo expert, vre websites, web 2.0, websites

If you are good at developing products, may it be E-books or software, selling Private Label Rights to these products can be suitable for you. Private Label Rights have a high perceived value because it allows your buyers to put their name on a product which they haven't created themselves. It can save them a lot of time.

In case you already have an existing digital product which you have created and sold in the past and you are looking for additional sources of income, you can consider selling the Private Label Rights to other Internet Marketers.

Why other Internet marketers? Because they are constantly on the lookout for new products to sell. There are only so many products they can create themselves in a month so buying the rights to products they can start selling as their own seems to be very attractive to most of them.

Making Money from Selling Private Label Rights products

The following are ways you can make money from selling Private Label Rights products:

• Upfront Sales. This is the most attractive part of selling Private Label Rights. Private Label Rights can range from a few dollars to even thousands of dollars, depending on the quality of the product, its demand and how proven it is (aka how many sales you've made for the personal use version…).

• Selling Basic/Master Resell Rights to the Private Label Rights product. You can sell the Basic/Master Resell Rights to the editable, raw format of the product separately. If your buyer wishes to resell the Private Label Rights, you can charge him 4-5 times the normal price of the product and up 10 times if the buyer wants to have the Master Resell Rights, allowing him and his customers to resell the Private Label Rights to the product, as you are doing.

Pros

• You can make a lot of money from selling Private Label Rights, as these are some of the most expensive rights you can buy in the Internet Marketing field.
• Your customers will mainly be Internet Marketers, and savvy Internet Marketers are usually busy people and they prefer to focus their efforts more on marketing than product creation and setting them up. Thus, they do not have any problems with making purchases on Private Label Rights products, as long as you give them good reasons to buy from you and presupposed you help them to save their time from having to create their own quality products from scratch.

Cons

• There is often no residual income in selling Private Label Rights products. This is because your customers, who are mainly Internet Marketers, will edit your product and use their own affiliate links in it. Unless you start a Private Label Rights membership site, you'll make your money solely from upfront sales.
• Selling Private Label Rights products means that you cannot take the credit of authorship. One of the main benefits that make Internet Marketers buy from you is because they want to have the privilege to put their name on the product as the author. You remain anonymous.
• Creating your own Private Label Rights product demands a high degree of expertise, talent, thorough research, programming (for software) and writing skills on your part. If you do not have any of these traits, creating your own Private Label Content can be a difficult challenge.
• Creating your own Private Label Rights product is effort and time consuming. Unless you are using the product yourself, it may not be worth your time and effort in the long run even though there is a lot of potential income to be made from selling Private Label Rights.

What You Need Before Getting Started

You will need the following before getting started on creating and selling a new Private Label Rights product (if you don't have an existing one):

1. Word Program

If you are going to create a Private Label Information Product (E-book), you will need a Word program to create your Information Product in .doc format. If you are using MS Office, the Microsoft Word program should already be installed on your PC.

Alternatively, you can use your free NotePad program to create your Information Product in its raw format, though Microsoft Word is preferable, since you'll be able to add different formattings to the text.

2. PDF Converter

You need a PDF Converter program which will convert your finished Word document to PDF format (the PDF format is the best format out there because it allows you to offer your product to MS Windows users AND Mac users - .exe files can only be opened by Windows users…). If you do not have any PDF Converter program installed on your PC, you can get a free PDF Converter software here.

3. Graphics Program

You'll need a program to design your product’s E-cover. I use Adobe Photoshop to design my E-covers (in combination with some nice plugins). Adobe offers a free trial version (30 day usage) here.

4. Good Salesletter

This is a very important element of your Private Label Rights sales success. If you cannot convince your prospects to buy from you, you cannot make any sale - no matter how good your product is. If you don't know how to write a good salesletter yourself, then outsource that part to places like Elance.com or Scriptlance.com. They have a feedback system there which is similar to Ebay's system so you can choose the freelancer with the best feedback/price ratio.

5. Web Hosting and Domain Name

You'll need to register a domain name for your product (at e.g. Namecheap.com) AND you'll need web hosting for it. These are not the same things. Registering a domain name simply means that you have a www.yoursite.com address registered in your name.

In order to let other people come to your new website, you'll still need to rent web space on the Internet so you can store the files for the salesletter, Thank You page and your digital Private Label Rights product (the PDF file). Basically, you rent this space from a web hosting company which specializes in making servers available with a direct connection to the Internet.

6. Auto Responder

You need an Auto Responder to:

• Follow up with your prospects who do not buy from you for the first time, and

• Build your mailing list. By having your own mailing list, you can make your money from your customers within a short period of time.

Personally, I'm recommending Aweber as it has the best delivery rates for emails on the Internet. It's the one I'm using to send out my own newsletters and it's a service which comes highly recommended by all the top Internet marketers.

7. Credit Card Payment Processor

You will need this to collect the payments from your customers. If you don't expect a too high sales volume, you could go with Paypal since most Internet marketers who are going to buy from you will expect this payment solution. You can use it in combination with some script so you can automate the payment and delivery process and protect your downloads.

Alternatives are Clickbank (one time fee to register as a merchant - it has Paypal integrated now), 2Checkout (one time fee to regsiter as a merchant, too - Paypal has been integrated, too) or 1Shoppingcart (monthly fee).

Conclusion:

Once you have all of these things in place, you can start driving traffic to your salesletter. If you already have a list, this can be as easy as sending an email to your list. If you don't have such a list of prospects and customers, you'll need to contact other list owners who have potential customers on their lists (also known as JV). But this also means that you'll make less per sale as you need to pay them a commission for each sale (usually between 50-100%).

Yes, some people even give away 100% commissions just to get customers on their own list. Later down the road, they can start selling their own stuff to them and they get to keep everything - which is the whole purpose of giving away the full commissions. The other reason is that they might have a One Time Offer behind it, on which they make 50% so they can still profit from a high number of sales when giving away 100% commissions…

Tags: adsense, affiliate, clickbank, internet marketing, traffic

I balance the two. SEO is more of a long term strategy for me, PPC a short term… among other marketing strategies like JVs (although I have seriously cut back on them).

Sometimes PPC is actually a good way to get traffic until the Search Engine traffic does finally barrel in…

AND you don't always have to wait 3 months. With the proper niche research and some luck, you can draw traffic in days… Once your site is crawled regularly, you can put a page up and be indexed within a day.

I don't think SEO is a waste of time unless you don't plan on being in this game for a long time. I plan on being here in 5-10 years. So I'll be patient.

SEO is a tough game no matter how you look at it. You can be at the top of the SERPs one month and drop out the next… I've seen people who have held number one positions for years and suddenly disappear all together.

It's a dangerous thing having 100% of your efforts in one area and depending on one form of advertising… diversification is a good thing.

SEO and PPC aren't even the only way to market online… some people do neither and make a ton of money.

Really… There is no predicting Search Engine's… they will always mess with your head. Sandbox or no sandbox. The algos always changing… Their index is updated frequently. Google's PR is always in flux…

After the last major update there was a lot of talk if there is even a randomization factor involved now… maybe even certain industries being treated differently… Outbound links becoming a factor also.

What I experienced could have easily been something I did… It's the closest thing to a Sandbox I've had. One day I have 50 keywords ranked high the next day they disappear. 2 months later I see visitors from those keywords back in my logs and sure enough they came back…

SEO has changed a lot since the beginning of last year. It is not as predictable as it once was. A webmaster would be a fool to rely on Google for 100% of their revenue. I've seen it happen… huge revenue generating websites dropping out of the SERPs completely… what a rush that has to be!

LET ME be honest. Like I said. The sandbox could have been something I did or some random shift in the index… who knows… I can't explain it so I call it a sandbox… but I'm always tweaking my sites… and most importantly:

I'm always trying to get new one way links pointing to my sites. Either by means of article submissions, directory submissions, social bookmarking, blog comments, article/content submission to sites like Digg.com and lots of other things… Links are still an important factor in your rankings.

Some new webmasters think if they follow the book they should find themselves at the top of the SERPs… when they don't, they automatically call it a "sandbox" if they can't figure it out…

Reality is… it might be that there are 10,000 websites that were there first with more inbound links and experience. You have to earn your spot…

Bottom line. Sandbox seems to occur, but it will only occur for crowded markets… you need to work much harder than in a niche market with no competition… If there is no competition and your site is relevant, it will certainly rank well… That's why keyword selection is so important. Choose the wrong keywords and you will get ranked nowhere, choose the right keywords and you'll find your site on top of the SERPs a few weeks later…

Until recently, if a new IM eBook came out, and I placed it on my website… you simply had to do a search for the title and there I had been… but I am not focusing on ebooks and courses anymore. I want to help you to get your first websites up and running - that's where I personally find more satisfaction in.

I've been on page one or two for e.g. the phrase "Automated Cash Formula" ever since I placed a review on my site about it (5 months ago…)… It was instant because my site is being crawled daily and in the beginning, there was hardly any competition for that phrase…

PPC? Sound familiar…

SEO? (Search Engine Optimization) not to discourage…

It's not my intention to discourage anyone from practicing SEO - I probably made it sound very difficult. It's not as long as you're staying away from the hyper competitive niches. Choose a niche in which your site could really help other people and where not all the SEOs (Search Engine Optimizers) hang out and you'll rank well quickly because other people will be linking to your great content.

SEO is certainly an incredible way to get free traffic - and lots of it. Any free traffic is good traffic…

I make money with the traffic. Absolutely… it's interesting to see a commission show up for something odd… then look at your logs and see someone had landed on a page you weren't promoting with anything.

… Someone just did a search on Google.

You just have to be smart and spread your risk by using other traffic generation strategies as well… just in case your SEO efforts are NOT paying off.

Tags: adsense, digg.com, ebook, free traffic, search engine optimization, seo, social bookmarking, traffic, websites

First of all, Google Pagerank has nothing to do with Adwords… although indirectly I suppose it does. One of the reasons Adwords is so valuable is because you can go around this important factor that Google has… And it also might be a good thing if the website you are promoting has a high PR, because the visitor might see that website as being more important and more of an authority website… etc.

This is related to Search Engine Optimization and Organic Results…

Google uses PageRank to measure how important a website is. It's based on a few factors, but the main factor is how many inbound links (and the quality of those links) you have pointing to your website.

PR is combined with Google's Algorithm (other factors like the quality of your content and the number of times your keyword appears in the visible text etc.) to determine your position in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs)… if you notice the sites at the top of your search results they usually have more inbound links than the ones below them.

Sometimes, it's close because the quality of links are important also. If you have a PR8 website pointing to you, you are in better shape than if you had a PR3 website pointing to you… in essence, it makes your website more important…

If you install Google's toolbar… or if you visit:

http://www.pagerank.net/pagerank-checker/

…you will see a bar that says "PageRank". That bar ranks a site from 1 to 10…

9 or 10 are very difficult to get. Google.com has a PR10… W3.org has a PR10… DMOZ has a PR9…

Those are websites that have a lot of links pointing to them. W3.org is considered an authority website…

It takes some effort to get to a PR5… generally, I think PR5 and up is really good. A lot of people when they are out looking for people to trade links with, like to focus on websites with a good PageRank…

Check this out… One of the biggest things PR is used for these days is determining the value of a web page and selling ad space based on the PR:

http://www.linkadage.com

There is a lot of controversy as far as the true importance of PR goes. I've noticed most people that are against it are people that can't seem to get it right.

In the beginning, PR was designed to be an indication of the importance and popularity of a website, but in true Webmaster fashion, a lot of community members were looking for different ways to get Inbound Links in order to manipulate Google. And from there the Link industry got a start… link exchanges, renting links, selling text links etc, etc….

I just saw a guy last week that spent over $650 to get PR3 or better links from 50 different websites…

One of the problems with it is that PR alone does not provide you with traffic…

You still need to have a well optimized website, have done your keyword research and considered the other 100+ factors (some known, some unknown) that Google uses to rank a site in the SERPs… PR might be an important factor, but it isn't the only factor and it certainly hasn't the weight anymore which it used to have.

AND ON top of that, getting 100s or 1000s of UNnatural links doesn't give PR a good name AND can get your sites penalized quickly (PR bar will be greyed out or reset to 0!).

Some more info:

http://www.google.com/technology/

Tags: adsense, adwords, search engine optimization, traffic, websites

I often do get asked how illegal "business opportunities" can be recognized. Well, I am now trying to answer this question and make it a bit clearer with the following article…

So called "Pyramid schemes" have been around since about the time the actual pyramids in Egypt were built. You'd think that in the last few thousand years people would have been able to easily recognize a pyramid scheme when they come across one. They don't…!

The people who dream these things up, however, are pretty slick characters. A pyramid scheme never, ever, comes labeled as a "pyramid scheme".

It is really easy to get sucked into one of these schemes. You need to understand how they work and be able to spot them for what they are. There are a few "buzz" words that can tip you off:

1. Recruit: "to engage in finding and attracting employees, new members, students, athletes, etc." That’s one of the definitions of the word according to the dictionary.

The use of the word, ‘recruit’ (or any variation) should be a major tip off that the program that is being promoted to you is most likely a pyramid scheme. Some of these schemes can be easily spotted while others are a little harder to identify. Just beware when you see the word, "recruit". There was a scheme that went around awhile back that was sent by unsolicited email that offered an "exclusive opportunity" to earn a boat load of money by recruiting people to sell a device that would provide access to the Internet by television. No, I’m not kidding. This happened and people fell for it.

2. Buy the secret and sell… This is a typical pyramid scheme that you will often see. This is another "offer" that arrives in your inbox that you have not solicited. You are offered an "exclusive" opportunity to buy a secret that will allow you to make a hundred thousand dollars a month (no work required) and then you can sell this secret to others for a substantial profit and they will make money for you. These gullible folks will just fill your bank account with beautiful green-backs. Wait! You are the gullible folk they are targeting.

You can believe me when I tell you that there really aren’t a lot of people out there in this world that are eagerly awaiting the opportunity to send you money.

You can also believe that there is no legitimate Internet business that is going to immediately make you hundreds of thousands of dollars a month. You might someday make that kind of money but if you do, it will be after you have put in an incredible amount of time and effort into it and not because you bought a "secret"… - there isn’t one.

Creating an online business still means hard work and if you're not willing to accept this and are still looking for shortcuts, then an internet business isn't for you! Better get back to your J.O.B.!

3. Let "others" do the work: This little phrase has pyramid scheme written all over it. The "pitch" is usually for a non-existent product or for a product that is being sold for much more than it is actually worth. You will often be sent information by bulk email that gives you instructions for getting others to promote this "product" (…which product?) and all you will have to do is count your millions.

Right… - Don’t fall for that one!

Disguised MLM

If you are really new to the world of internet business or work-at-home job opportunities, you may not know what MLM means. It means Multi-Level-Marketing. MLM is similar to a pyramid scheme but it isn’t exactly the same.

True pyramid schemes don't involve the selling of an actual product but real MLM is ALL about selling an actual product.

According to a glossary of Internet terms, "Multilevel Marketing is selling products by using independent distributors and allowing these distributors to build and manage their own sales force by recruiting, motivating, supplying, and training others to sell products. The distributors' compensation includes their own sales and a percentage of the sales of their sales group (downline)."

"So," you say, "that just sounds like a good idea for making money." Well, it IS a good way for making money. The problem is that it is illegal when there is no real product involved, where only the opportunity gets marketed as a way to riches and where they are talking about the money making potential only. This is what I mean by "disguised" MLM. In this case, there would be no product involved - only a business opportunity which promises people to make money without having to do anything apart from promoting the "opportunity".

Do you see that tip-off word again: "recruiting"? The other tip-off that this is a MLM scheme is the phrase, "percentage of sales".

There is nothing illegal about setting up an affiliate program and PAYING a percentage of sales to those who sell your products or services to others. There is nothing illegal about COLLECTING the percentages that are offered by the producers of the products or services. That is simply good business and more than just common practice in the Internet business world.

The problem arises when you start COLLECTING percentages of sales from people whom you have recruited to sell the product. Then another level is added and it becomes multi-level marketing.

Even with just one additional level, it could be identified as MLM even though completely legitimate affiliate programs often have 2 levels as well (that’s why you can’t use Paypal to pay for products which involve more than 1 affiliate level - they see almost everything as MLM even though in many cases it's not! They probably want to be on the safe side and not get associated with ANY MLMs.) but there are MLM schemes that will have many, MANY layers.

The main Internet banking and money exchange on the Internet is Paypal. Paypal employs full-time personnel to search for and identify MLM schemes. When these schemes are uncovered, the accounts (and all attached accounts and credit cards) are frozen.

Yes, it is true that sometimes Paypal does misidentify a perfectly legitimate business as a MLM scheme but it doesn’t happen very often and the problem can usually be resolved in just two or three business days. This very thing happened to a friend of mine not long ago. It was resolved but not without him being able to prove that his business was not a MLM scheme.

This does point out the fact, however, that there are those who are looking for illegal MLM schemes. You may think that you are very anonymous on the Internet but when you do business on the Internet, you are no longer anonymous.

Beware of Lions

There are a lot of big hungry lions in the Internet jungle. They are looking for easy marks… they love "newbies" best of all… You have been warned!

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Let me know what you think about these illegal opportunities and what your personal experiences are by making a comment on this post - I'd love to hear from you!

Tags: adsense, affiliate, affiliate program, affiliate programs

As you probably might have noticed, I have been taking part in quite a lot of Giveaways recently. That's because I have set myself a goal. And that goal is to reach the 10,000 subscriber mark before the end of March…

And I am really getting very close. I now have 9208 subscribers on my main Internet marketing list. One of the Giveaways I am putting a lot of trust into is the "Free PLR Giveaway" by my buddy Xavier Nelson and Doug Champigny.

But I also realize there will be a lot of "takers" from these giveaways. Meaning, these are the ones who take whatever is being given away without the slightest interest for the newsletters and messages the author / developer has put together.

This is really a shame and one of the reasons why I am getting tired of the Internet marketing "niche"…

FREE PLR ROUND 4 - DOWNLOAD GIFTS WITH FULL AND UNRESTRICTED PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS

Anyway, week 2 of the Free PLR (Private Label Rights) Giveaway has just started. It includes a lot of new gifts which have gone live on Sunday - incl. my own gift. Grab your gifts here and put your name on them:

==> http://viralurl.com/visitus/61711885

(If you want my own gift, you'll need to subscribe there, too)

ANNOUNCEMENT: MY BUSINESS WILL CHANGE DIRECTION

I also have an announcement to make… As I've already mentioned above: I am simply getting tired of the Internet marketing "game" or "niche".

The same old crap gets republished and rehashed and people, especially newbies still don't know which of the many ebooks and courses will lead them to success.( I will introduce a highly recommended resource to you tomorrow - it's called Mafioso Marketing. You can download some preview chapters from here ).

The problem is: Most people don't want to try and apply the knowledge to niches but to Internet marketing itself which makes tens of thousands of people flock to Internet marketing - instead of the niches where the easy money is…

While IM might be an option if you have years of personal experience in this area under your belt, it is usually a way which leads newbies to nowhere land as you can only make it there with very innovative ideas and products and not by publishing and selling the same stuff as thousands of others.

I have written an ebook which does not make empty promises but tells you what you need to do in order to make money online - step by step and up to $9,183.21 in one month.

People have been thanking me for having written like it is:

==> http://hopurl.com/41142

Personally, I will be going a different route, too. I will continue to serve my subscribers and customers but mainly with complete, turnkey niche businesses and niche products.

BONUS FOR NEW NICHE CONTENT WEBSITES MEMBERS - PLR TO IM PRODUCT BUDDY!! PUT YOUR NAME ON ONE OF MY TOP LEAD GENERATORS…

I think, the real money is in: NICHE MARKETING.

My Niche Content Websites membership website is a perfect example of what is needed in niche markets: Products (e.g. ebooks and audios) and content websites.

If you're dreaming about multiple streams of income and you want to go the easy way by not having to create your own products in these niches then look no further than here:

==> http://hopurl.com/41143

Sign up for free and if you like what you are seeing then get yourself a full membership - this allows you to tackle up to 13 different niches (you'll get 13 UNIQUE content websites with income streams like Adsense and Clickbank ads for up to 75% commissions have already been integrated).

The next 30 members who are getting a paid membership at Niche Content Websites will receive THE FULL PRIVATE LABEL RIGHTS TO MY "IM PRODUCT BUDDY" SOFTWARE. This means, you'll be able to put your own name on it and start giving it away as your personal lead generator/list building tool! I'll even add my personal squeeze page to the mix (which you can see at http://www.viraldatabases.com/ …).

NOt only that but the PLR gives you the source code, the Filemaker Pro files which allows you to change the whole look and feel of the software.

You can even "nichify" the whole software and create e.g. a "Golf Product Buddy" or a "Bass Fishing Product Buddy" where people within these niches can save the details about products they have purchased. Even in those niches, you'll be able to use it as a lead generator…

You'll receive the complete package after you've made your second (2nd) monthly payment for NCW. And then you simply go to:

==> http://www.ethicalinternetmarketer.com/helpdesk

and enter your subscription ID so I can verify your payments. I'll send you the download link directly after this.

That's it for today… Have a great week!

Tags: adsense, clickbank, ebook, internet marketing, websites

Are you decisive? If you're not, it's going to be a long, disappointing road.

I have been in this online business for a long time now. You know what? I've made a lot of decisions along the way. Some of those were the right ones, but many were the wrong ones. The decisions we make define us.

There are a lot of opportunities out there that will promise you riches beyond your wildest imaginations.

That's great! Except it's not that simple. I don't care what it is, it will take hard work, commitment and decisions… there you have it again.

As an example, let's say you decide your opportunity is to set up a website to sell tennis rackets for lefties. How would you approach this? Would you just set up a site and boom the checks will start rolling in…?

No! First, you have to decide how the website is going to be set up. Are you going to build it yourself? If so, what's best for your website? Do you want it set it up in PHP or do you want to use HTML/CSS? What editor will you use? Front Page (please don't…)? Will everything be based on a Wordpress platform?

Or are you going to decide to hire someone to build it for you?

How will you lay it out? Do you have a logo? Do you need one? What color scheme are you going to use? Do you know the effect of color on your visitors? How do you decide?

What e-Commerce solution is best for you? Consider your monthly volume. If it is going to be over $1,000, a merchant account is usually a good choice. You may consider Paypal in conjunction with a merchant account. If you do consider a merchant account, you also need to look into electronic payment gateways.

Then you have to market the products… Are you going to use pop-ups? Are you going to advertise with Adwords, Banners, E-zines, Article Marketing - and what about Joint Ventures…?

What's my point…? You are going to have to make the right decisions for YOUR business. There are a lot of steps from getting an idea to building the proper platform for the idea and executing it.

Your decisions will ultimately lead to an end result… Did it work? Are you making money?… or is it a do over?

When you decide to pursue an opportunity, it's your decisions that will make your site a success or not.

You must learn to decide. Indecision paired with inaction will find you broke and discouraged…

Tags: adsense, adwords

As a newbie online marketer, there are really only two things standing between you and your website making massive amounts of profits - or going bankrupt right before your eyes.

The first of these two things is how much drive and effort you have to sell your products and work for yourself. You will never get anywhere if you do not have the motivation or the 'know-how-to-run-your-own Internet-marketing-business'. Without either of those two characteristics, your business is doomed to failure.

The second thing that all fledgling Internet marketers must learn if they are to compete with the big boys for potential profits is to write excellent web copy. Your sales copy needs to be fluid, compelling, and totally logical to everyone who reads it. It should sound conversational - but not to the point where a client would rather want to be your friend than buy your product.

It should tell everything there is to know about what you are selling without making false claims or hyping your goods to the point where people do not really believe in your product. And your copy shuld not contain errors of any kind, whatsoever.

But why is web copy so important to an Internet marketer? Because it is the only thing that can really make or break a sale. Your Internet business is not like a brick and mortar store. Your customers cannot eyeball the digital items you are offering. They cannot touch them and feel them or examine the product's box.

A customer who is visiting your website will not be able to call over a store manager to talk about whether or not the product is right for them. Anyone who visits your website has to continue reading in order to get to know more about the product and the willingness to do so depends on how well your web copy is written.

If the copy is good - you will get the sale. If the copy is poorly drafted - chances are you could have month upon month go by without even the slightest tug at your line.

Why Is Tweaking So Important?

Now that you know exactly how important web copy is to the success of your online business, you need to get to work on the basic format that your sales copy needs to take.

As mentioned earlier, your sales copy should sound relatively conversational while still keeping the ability to persuade your customers that your product is the one which can give them the solution to their problems. In order to make your sales copy as good as it can possibly be, you need to start by thinking about what the things are which make your product different from the rest.

Say you are selling an E-Book which you have written about how to get the best and most amazing deals on all kinds of computer programs, just as an example. You want to sell that E-Book for as much as you possibly can - but first you need to convince those who visit your website that they should pay you for your E-Book. This is where your sales copy skills will come into play.

You need to start out your sales copy composition endeavor by making a list of all of the great points about your E-Book (bullet points). Be sure to highlight points that separate your product from the rest of the pack, as there will probably be other people out there who are selling roughly the same product as you.

Once you have compiled a list of the top reasons why a person would want your product, start to write around that list and eventually turn it into a full-fledged sales copy document. If you need inspiration, all you have to do is browse around to other E-Book marketing websites and see how their sales copy looks.

Be sure that your tone is relatively conversational, you are not using any big words or sales jargon, you are using plenty of bulleted lists and colors that will stand out to the customers, and above all else - make sure that your sentences and paragraphs are pretty short for an easy read.

Writing and Tweaking Your Sales Copy

Once you have your sales copy nested comfortably on your website, you may be tempted to think that your work is done and you can move on to a new project.

But, for the Internet marketer, your work is never done - and if you want to be truly successful, you always have to be on top of things on your website.

Therefore, testing and tweaking your sales copy is a tactic that more and more marketers are utilizing so that they can boost sales and maximize their profits.

Just because you may think that your sales copy sounds good to you, does not mean that it sounds equally as good to the rest of the public. Continuously tweaking your copy can make all the difference in the world in terms of getting your message across to the masses.

If you have recently posted your copy to its website, keep it as it is for now and wait until you start getting some traffic flowing to your web servers. After a few weeks, whether or not you are getting any sales, it is a good time to update your copy.

Start by adding any recent testimonials that you may have received from satisfied customers. Testimonials can really help you boost your sales because they give your copy an extra shot of trustworthiness.

Apart from adding testimonials to your copy, you should just tweak a few of the ways that you have worded your sentences and maybe add or remove a few bulleted lists and longer paragraphs.

Post everything back to your website and see if your sales change. If sales change for the better, then keep your copy in its new form.

On the other hand, if sales start to drop, change your copy back and then start from the original again the next time you make some tweaks. By tweaking your copy, you can squeeze more and more cash out of your customers without having to raise or lower your prices.

Tags: adsense, traffic, websites

This weekend, I've been taking some time off and went skiing in Austria (Hochzillertal) together with Joerg, a buddy of mine (he has nothing to do with Internet marketing, though). It was a great trip and we had excellent weather over there. I had to take the easier slopes because Joerg isn't that experienced in skiing and I didn't want to let him ski all on his own all the time:

But I took one of the more difficult slopes at least twice so I could get a little more speed and have some more fun since I really love skiing.

You can see some more pictures here.

It had really been time to take another vacation even it was just for a weekend. It's of no use to keep working and working and sitting in front of your PC all day long. Besides that, I'm really getting overweight because of not being active enough. But I am working on melting some of my pounds again but that's another story…

The point I'm trying to make is: Don't lose sight of why you are building your business. You're certainly not building your business in order to slave away like if you're an employee again. Have something to look forward to - something that helps you to break away from your business. And I don't mean watching TV or playing video games. Get active and cultivate some hobbies of yours. Make entries into your calendar for private things you're looking forward to.

If you have a wife/husband and children, don't neglect them because you are trying to build your online business. Most of the times, working 18 hours non-stop won't get you anywhere near success. You need to work smarter, not harder! Only spend most of your time on revenue generating activities instead of reading dozens of salesletters for the latest "must have" products or lurking into forums without posting anything.

You need to know WHY you are building an online business. Is it because you want to be financially independent or because you want to be able to spend more time with your family or on activities you love? Whatever it is, don't lose sight of it and for every 20 days you work, take at least 1-2 days off without any distractions. Do not get in front of a PC at all during that time. If you have a business which is flourishing and you think you can't leave your business for even 1 day, then you're doing something wrong.

Hire someone to take care of your customer support. Don't be the person who is responsible for everything. Outsource everything that can be done by others so you can be stress free again or at least reduce your stress. One of the great advantages of a web based business is that these kind of online jobs can be done by anyone with a computer so the person you're hiring doesn't even have to live in your own city…

Simply have fun again and enjoy life. It is too short to just waste it in front of a computer!

Let me know what your opinion on this issue is…

Tags: adsense, internet marketing

You're a blogger and most likely, you are constantly hearing about pinging or blog and ping. The thing is, you don't know what it is and what it can do for your blog. Well, that's fine because a lot of bloggers don't quite understand pinging. In this article, I will explain what pinging is, how it helps your blog, and what the best pinging services are.

What is pinging?

When a blog is pinged, it essentially tells a web blog tracking system that the blog has been updated. Thus, pinging is the process of telling tracking services that a site has been updated.

So how does pinging work? Well, a ping service scans blogs for updates on a regular basis. Whenever there is a new update for a particular blog, it is reported back to the pinging service’s site. You can almost think of ping services being just like search engine spiders - both scan sites looking for information, and both report that information back to their specific site. The difference is, a ping service only reports back new blog posts.

Why is pinging useful for your blog?

Pinging, in effect, tells people that there is a new blog posting available. Those who are loyal followers of your blog will see the ping and want to visit your blog. Those who haven’t read your blog before will also see the ping and perhaps think “Hey, there’s a new blog I haven’t been to before, I think I’ll check it out”.

Pinging helps to increase your traffic because it tells people when your blog is updated. Those who visit sites with pinging services will see this information in the form of a ticker on the left or right side, or top of the page. The ticker is usually in XML format and typically includes the title and URL of your blog, as well as the date and time of the update.

OK, so now you know what pinging is. But which websites offer pinging…?

The answer is, there are several pinging services available which you can use to have your blog pinged. We’ll go over some of them right now.

Pingomatic.com

This one is usually the standard ping service which is listed in your blog interface. It pings several ping services at once like e.g. Blogstreet, IceRocket, Moreover and Weblogalot.

Weblogs.com

Weblogs.com is probably the most well-known pinging service. Weblogs.com monitors sites for updates and then pings whenever there is an update to report. Virtually every blog software is available to use Weblogs.

Yahoo’s Blo.gs

Another popular pinging service. This one is offered by Yahoo and has a built-in integration with movable type and other tools. One cool thing about this service is that it offers the ability to give out updates via Instant Messenging services like AOL and ICQ. It is a direct pinging service, so those who sign up for subscriptions to your blog will be sent an email anytime your blog is updated.

Blogrolling.com

Blogrolling allows its bloggers to manage their blogrolls (updates) through a web-based interface. Recently
updated blogs are also highlighted on Blogrolling’s web site. Data is automatically retrieved from other sites like blogger.com and weblogs.com every 5 minutes. Often times your blog is already being pinged by Blogrolling, so you might not have to sign up for it. Search on the site first for your URL before signing it up.

Technorati

Available at http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping, Technorati is another service that pings blogs. It gets its data from a variety of places and is definitely a site you should go to for blog pinging. If you're adding Technorati tags to your posts, it will also give you multiple backlinks which can have a very high pagerank and thus will improve your site ranking in the search engines.

These are just 5 of the many different blog pinging services available. A quick search on Yahoo or Google will reveal many other possible blog pinging services to use for your blog. It is best to ping/sign up for as many as you possibly can to ensure that your blog is well-pinged.

A well-pinged blog will definitely help your blog attract more visitors because not only will you get direct visitors from these services but also valuable backlinks. And since these sites have a high authority with the search engines (meaning, most of them have high Google Pagerank), you can get easy and automatic backlinks from authority sites.

This is especially true when your links can be found on popular so called "TAG" pages. A tag is similar to a keyword. So ping as many many of these services as possible and watch your blog traffic increase.

P.S. You can enter a list of websites to ping e.g. within your Wordpress interface. You can find it listed under "options/writing"!

Tags: adsense, search engines, tags, technorati, traffic, websites

Everyone with a website wants to be listed on Google. After all, it is the most popular search engine in the world, used by millions of people every day. It's the doorway between you and thousands and thousands of visitors who will flock to your website once they spot you, and isn’t that the main purpose of putting up a website?

Although getting listed isn’t the only thing required for you to get visitors, you also want to achieve a good rating, a high ranking (preferably in the top 10 results for your chosen keyword) which will put you in the spotlight and which will give you the opportunity to get noticed. But perhaps your site is brand new on the block and maybe you think it’s too small to be picked up by Google. Relax - that isn’t even an issue, just sit back and look at all the options you have.

First of all, let us clear out a fundamental point: There are, as you probably know, two ways of doing things, namely the right way and the wrong way. Now, although the wrong way is clearly wrong, it is of some importance that you know it thoroughly so as to avoid it completely.

Following is, to put it mildly, the avoidable way of trying to get listed on Google:

Google provides its users with a way to put their URLs in queue for crawling at http://www.google.com/addurl.html. Now the utter failure of this method probably has a little to do with the mechanics of the process. You see, once you have typed your website’s address into the space available there, it is simply put in a queue (behind oodles and oodles of other pages) for the GoogleBot (a software program designed to follow links on websites) to, well, crawl.

Anything can happen after this. For one, your site might not get crawled at all, or suppose it does get crawled (which in itself is about a million in one possibility) it might take weeks and it probably won't even be indexed by Google (!). So ultimately there’s no telling where that URL of yours will end up going. But I am guessing wherever it goes, it won’t go anywhere near the first few pages of search results… So in other words, this way is a complete waste of time! No one has really ever benefited from it and if you ask me, no one ever will.

And now the more likely way to get listed by Google and the other major search engines.

If you want to climb up to that coveted spot on the Google search engine then simply "piggyback" on the popularity of another site. Once you add your URL to some other (popular) site, it might get a chance to be spotted by the GoogleBot and followed upon.

That chance of getting the links followed will be your golden ticket into Google. And the better the site that your link is on (e.g. high Pagerank and/or lots of high quality content), the quicker it will be followed. Nowadays, to get indexed quickly and ranked well, it's all about having backlinks from other sites…

Backlinks from Web 2.0 Sites

So, here’s what you can do, you can either put up your URL in a queue together with something like a million different sites or you can use a little sense and put it up on a few popular sites which will provide you with the sort of traffic even a couple of a dozen others won’t. Pick a few popular sites like Digg.com, Reddit.com or Propeller.com (solid Web 2.0 sites) to plant your flag into, and soon you’ll sink your teeth right in to Google itself…

I know what you are thinking: You are probably wondering just how you will manage to get these larger sites to list you on their sites and in the course grudging me for putting you on the same chase yet again. But don’t worry - I promise it’s not as hard as it sounds. Just write some newsworthy article and submit it to these sites.

Or use a different type of Web 2.0 sites altogether: The social bookmarking sites. You can easily list your URL together with a description on sites like Del.icio.us or Blinklist, Furl, Del.irio.us and dozens more. Just create an account with these sites and you're ready to submit your URL. Most of these sites have a high Google Pagerank and are crawled on a daily basis. This will get you into the search engines quickly. And not just into Google but into all the other popular search engines, too.

Backlinks from popular Forums

A different way to get backlinks is to join a few discussion sites and forums and get involved in discussions about topics related to your website theme. When making a post, you can put up your hyperlink along with your signature line which is a completely legitimate way of getting traffic to your site. That is to say as long as you are contributing something useful to those discussions.

Warning: Don’t try and get prompt results by pulling smart tricks like typing in your hyperlink and adding a spammy GO HERE! caption. That won’t help you earn anything apart from a good whack from the moderators of the sites. Think of a good headline for your site and use that as the description for your signature line along with your URL.

Invest some time in this and really participate in the discussions. Once you're doing that, you will earn the liberty of sharing your URL with others. Try to use your main keywords for your link text as it will improve your search engine positions for these keywords (e.g. like this: Car Repair Guide - do not click it - it's just an example!)

If you have a certain feel for writing and you are proficient with words then you have an advantage over others like yourself. Believe it or not, you can put this talent in line to work on your behalf.

Backlinks from Article Submissions

Write a few well researched, well planned out articles about topics which might appeal to your target market (do some keyword research first to see which keyword phrases have the least competition in the search engines). As in the previous method, there are no shortcuts here and nothing, absolutely nothing, besides quality content will do you any good. Try and act smart, don't simply copy & paste text from elsewhere or simply try to get away with a badly done job and you will be at the receiving end of a royal brush-off from readers and editors.

Writing an article is really not as hard as it sounds. Since it’s about your main interest, a little research wouldn’t really cost you much time or labor. Record your results, go ahead and experiment with a few situations, come up with hypothetical situations to explain particular problems and provide your analysis or solutions for them. Once you have done a good job (and believe me when I say you will know when you have done a good job), proudly provide your own name and hyperlink of your site at the end of the article.

Then submit your article to the big 3 in article marketing:

EzineArticles.com

GoArticles.com

ArticleDashboard.com

By having a backlink from one of these sites, not only will you get indexed quickly, it will also help you to get ranked better. You can submit the article to more sites, but not always is more better. If you're doing too many submissions too quickly, your site could land in the "Google Sandbox". This means that you won't get listed for at least 6-8 months and then Google will re-evalulate your site and see if it's one of the "good" sites or rather a spam site.

Conclusion:

If you want your site to get listed in the search engines quickly, you need to get backlinks from popular websites. These links can be from Web 2.0 sites (incl. blogs), forums or article directories.

What about reciprocal linking? Well, the times for making use of that kind of 2-way linking strategies are almost over. The backlinks still count to some extent but reciprocal linking is seen as a "scheme" by Google which is used to manipulate the pagerank of the participating websites.

Therefore, if you want to get backlinks from directly related sites, it should be done as a 3-way linking. Meaning, site A links to site B. And site B in turn links to site C which is also owned by A. This way, the search engines can't see this direct relation between the participants. And better than doing this on a separate page would be if the link would come from within the content of an article.

The higher the number of sites you are added to, the better your chance of getting your website link known. But be careful: You need to spread out your submissions over time. Doing too much too quickly can get your site banned aka getting hundreds of backlinks over night are signs of a spam site (especially if these links are all using the same link text for the URL).

As your popularity increases, so will your chances of getting high search engine positions in Google. Good Luck!

Tags: adsense, digg.com, major search engines, search engines, social bookmarking, social bookmarking sites, traffic, web 2.0, websites

Since there are lots of people getting into affiliate marketing every day, it is no wonder that the competition is getting fierce. The challenge is to try and beat the tactics other affiliates are using and think of smart ways on how to achieve this. Affiliate Video Brander is a tool that allows affiliates to act smarter than others. More on that later in this article.

Let's first talk about why using online video presentations work so well with regards to selling products on the Internet…

What better way could there be to wow your prospects and customers than to record and publish top notch, full motion and streaming screen-capture videos? For you as a seller, it's a great feeling to be able to offer a product that gets subscribers and customers excited in great anticipation to buy your product right on the spot.

This is Camtasia in action. It is a proven fact that giving your customers something they can actually see can explode your online sales instantly.

You do not need to have training and a lot of education to be able to know how this system can improve your sales or sales for programs that you're an affiliate of. Anyone can create stunning videos as there are hundreds of multimedia tutorials and step-by-step presentations available online.

The process is like having your customers seated next to you while looking at your desktop, as you show them the things they need to see and hear. All this is done in a step by step manner.

For those of you who don't not know it, yet - what does Camtasia do…?

1. It can record your desktop activity - not only the actions which are taken but also the sound, the explanations which you are speaking into a microphone while recording.

2. In the next step, Camtasia can easily convert your videos into web pages (using flash). Once the videos have been converted from formats like AVI or MPG to Flash, you can have your customers visit the web page which you have produced.

Videos are easier to understand because of the visual aspects. This is unlike reading texts which is not always as comprehensible as seeing and hearing a complete process on your PC.

3. Upload your web pages to your server using FTP. Publish these videos on blogs, within RSS feeds or podcasts. You may want to use your Camtasia videos to reach potential customers. This can be done by uploading your master pieces to video directories like YouTube or Google Video. By doing this, you are actively making use of Web 2.0 techniques.

Video sites and Web 2.0 are all the rage these days and if you are uploading them to places where they can easily be found, you're setting yourself up for free advertising and you can finally get your message across without having to invest thousands of dollars in PPC costs.

There are other things you can do using Camtasia. You can…

- Create stunning multimedia presentations which e.g. show how a certain piece of software works or how certain promotion techniques are being used which are described in the latest ebook you want to promote as an affiliate. This also has the tendency to reduce skepticism among hard-to-please customers.

- Reduce refunds and other customer issues by visually demonstrating how to use your product and how to do it properly. Complaints will be minimized because all the facts can be seen in the visual presentations.

- Promote affiliate products and services using these visual presentations. This is an effective way of pre-selling and redirecting your viewers straight to your affiliate website after they have finished watching the video. Make the most of the presentation by adding your site to the end of the video and make them go there directly if they want more information.

This can easily be put into action using a tool called Affiliate Video Brander. In order to use this tool, you don't even have to create your own videos. All you need to do is use the videos which the merchant has available on his site and you download them to your PC (with the merchant's permission). Videos have proven to increase conversions by a very high percentage.

You simply use Affiliate Video Brander to create a new web page which has a link to the merchant's website included (usually above and below the video). This link is YOUR affiliate link. Moreover, when the video ends, the viewer will be automatically redirected to the merchant's site using your affiliate link. Here's how the interface looks like:

These are just some of the things you can do with Camtasia and Affiliate Video Brander which can be very helpful in promoting your chosen affiliate program. If you're an affiliate and you're not yet using Affiliate Video Brander, you'll be leaving a lot of money on the table since videos can increase your conversions from visitors to buyers by at least 400%!

Tags: adsense, affiliate, affiliate marketing, affiliate program, affiliates, ebook, web 2.0

Do you even HAVE a strategy for your business?

From my observations, I see a lot of people online that are moving forward without much of a strategy. Or they are stuck using other peoples strategies and don't develop their own based on their needs and abilities.

It is very important to understand that those that are teaching you things online, are doing what they know or have been successful with themselves. It is not necessarily the path for YOU or the only path you should take…

You need to know what YOU want:

• What market do you want to be in?
• What business do you want to be in (e.g. selling physical products, info products or just publishing content)?
• Where will your income come from (what's your frontend/upsell/backend/recurring product)?
• Who will be your target customers and where do they hang out?
• Which methods will you be using to build your list (you ARE building your list, right…?)?

Key strategy: Diversify your traffic sources I use a combination of strategies but the most important one is to focus on list building - this way, you'll never get stuck for traffic… and I strongly use the old saying, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket."

I just saw a guy the other day freaking out because Google was wiping out his business… He fell by around 400 visitors to his website per day which crushed his income.

Why? Because he had all his eggs in the Google basket! Google is the type of animal that can make changes that don't make sense, have no ryme or reason, and simply just happen. You may think you have control, but you don't.

That's why you must diversify. Have a strategy that takes into account these type of things… Don't do just one thing… Let me rephrase that… You can do one thing, but make sure that you are covered within that one thing.

For instance if you depend on Google Adwords for 100% of your income, that's fine. Just make sure that you are not doing just one thing within that. Make sure you are not in one market or are driving traffic one way.

Things are changing rapidly

Things are in a continuous state of change online. You must brace yourself for that change. Make sure you have a strategy and you aren't just mesmerized by some opportunity and you lose sight of the big picture.

This is a business not just a way to make some quick cash… it can be, but generally I think most of us want to have long term results and not live on the edge…

So have some sort of strategy in place for your business that insulates you from the environment. You should have a short term, medium and long term strategy and goals. Where do you see yourself in 1 month, 6 months, 5 years?

How are you going to get there - what are your personal/business goals?

There are things I do to make money now, but there are also things that I am building now that will blossom in the future or offer long term stability.

Just sit down for a few minutes and write down some of your goals and what you want out of this business. After you know what you want and have taken into consideration the environment, map out how your are going to get there… every single detail.

If you do this, you will not only find financial stability over the long term, but you will find peace of mind.

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Let me know what you think by making a comment on this post.

Tags: adsense, adwords, google adwords, traffic