Preview: Money Secrets
Money SecretsThe money secrets you need to make money on the Internet, Get the right knowledge and tools and earn money online.Updated: 2012-02-10T07:53:56Z
Affiliate Marketing VS Product Creation As A Way of Earning Money 2011-03-18T11:37:11Z When newbies first set out to earn money online, the usual focus is to use content as a means of selling something else. You’re either trying to sell some affiliate product, or maybe your own business/service. And so, off you go, writing articles, setting up blogs, creating Squidoo lenses…all designed to lead as many folks as possible back to whatever it is you’re selling. Now there is nothing wrong with this route. Personally, I use article marketing all the time to drive traffic and sales, (admittedly, not in the usual way espoused by most of the so called ‘experts’ ) Trouble is, unless you’re committed to creating a lot of content, and you know how to get that content seen by potential customers, it can take a helluva lot of effort to make any sales. If you’re after a quicker (and much easier) way of earning money, then why not just sell the content itself? Now admittedly, if you want to earn any serious money with this, you’re still going to have to write a lot of content. But I’ve never said you could earn money without putting in any effort. Unfortunately, the vast majority of folks don’t want to put in that effort. They want the “get rich quick with zero work” route to fortune and fame. Anyone with half a brain knows that route is a dead end, but it gives those of us with a fully functional, working brain, the perfect opportunity to capitalise on their short sightedness. All you have to do is to do the work for them - at a price. :>> Which work you choose to do is up to you. Design their website, (this could literally be just installing a blog on their site along with a pre-designed template), researching niches and keywords, or creating content around those chosen keywords… And selling content is one of the easiest ways to earn money I’ve come across. If you’re looking to get a little extra cash coming in, this is a great way to get it, for relatively little effort, though like I said, if you want to earn serious money with this method, then you are going to have to scale up your efforts considerably. You also have to understand you’re giving up a few perks usually associated with writing content such as the ability to get backlinks to your own sites. But if you don’t have your own site, or you don’t have anything you’re interested in selling, then why not get paid just for creating content itself? I use Constant Content. I don’t sell much, mainly because I’m selling the ‘other things’, and I’m not afraid of putting in the work needed to do that. But it’s always nice to have a little extra coming in. If you do decide to opt for making money this way, then remember the same rules apply to writing content for sale as writing content that sells - do the research up front and make sure the articles you write are good quality and original. You won’t earn a penny if you try to sell regurgitated, copied or spun crap. In fact, Constant Content won’t even accept it in the first place so don’t bother trying. [...]
Keyword Analysis Tells Me What You Want 2010-08-26T08:24:01Z Admittedly, there’s a lot about you I don’t know dear reader. But when I analyse the keywords bringing visitors to this site, the one thing I know for sure is that when you visit Money Secrets, you’re pretty much looking for one thing - how to make money. The keywords used to find me are very limited. Take a look below. I also know you prefer Google as your search engine of choice, given that I very rarely receive search engine visitors from Yahoo or Bing. In fact, the two of those account for less than 1% of all my search engine traffic! (I might have to start looking into that) Of course, I also know a few other things about you, but all that really counts are those keywords you’re using to find me. Some folks might tell you to find out as much as possible about your site’s visitors but honestly, do you really need to bother with all that analysis? The only thing I focus on right now are the keywords, and that applies to every site I currently own and operate. How many people are searching for particular keywords? Can I rank for those keywords? It took me a long time to figure out the importance of keyword research and keyword analysis. Mainly because in the beginning I was too easily swayed by all the money making gurus out there who tried (and succeeded ) to convince me that I didn’t need actually need to know or do anything other than hand over my money to them. The keyword ‘money secrets‘ gets over 2000 searches every month (exact match) and there are over 88,000,000 results (without quotes). Yet, this little ole blog is right there on the first page. Sweet [...]
Just How Dumb Do You Think We Are? 2010-08-13T12:41:48Z Okay, I know how badly you might want to be rich. You work hard every month and barely make enough money to pay the bills let alone enjoy a night out on the town. And the chances of you ever being able to afford an exotic holiday are about as good as a snowflake’s in hell. But does the fact you want those things mean you are stupid beyond belief? I’ve seen some hyped up BS in my time online, but the latest one really does take some beating. Pretty much, you pay your money, sign up, sit back and watch the cash come rolling in. And hey, it obviously works! Crikey. How easy is that? Don’t you want some? I do!!! Till we notice the little links at the bottom. You know the ones that aren’t quite as obvious! Funnily enough, when I click on the Disclaimer link and read through it, I see the following: Examples in these materials are not to be taken as a promise or guarantee of earnings. Earning potential is entirely dependent on the person using our product, ideas, techniques and the effort put forth. We do not purport this as a “get rich scheme", and nor should you view it as such. Your level of success in attaining the results claimed in our materials depends on the time you devote to the software, knowledge and various skills. Since these factors differ according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level. Any and all forward looking statements here or on any of our sales material are intended to express our opinion of earnings potential. Many factors will be important in determining your actual results and no guarantees are made that you will achieve results similar to ours or anybody else’s, in fact no guarantees are made that you will achieve any results from our software. So I’m not supposed to take their examples as a guarantee? Oh, ok. My earnings potential depends on using the product, my ideas, techniques, and effort? Damn, how much effort do I need to put forth? What ideas do I need? They just told me to sign up, sign in, and hit submit. I can do that. My level of success depends on the time I devote to it? Duh! I reckon it might take about 3 seconds. Oh, it also depends on my knowledge and skills? I know how to log in to websites. Heck, I even know how to build websites, tweak code, build backlinks… of course, I dont’ see why I need to know any of that stuff. After all, they definitely said I just had to sign up, sign in, and hit ’submit’. No guarantees are made about my results? So what is this saying? That looks like a guarantee to me. But hey, I’m old. So, is there a guarantee or is there not? Actually, it’s being sold through Clickbank, so you can get your money back. Which is just as well really. After all: It sure is. Perhaps they should change that to read ‘dumb people’ because that’s obviously what they think we are. Unfortunately, I remember the days when I would have jumped at that sort of rubbish. Now I tend not to see it too much. I actually thought it had all but disappeared but it seems there are always some folks just too greedy and too lazy to bother building a real business, so they prefer to just prey on those who don’t know any better. And as for the crap about only releasing 200 lots of this software? Puleeeaaasssseeee! Did you see the list of affiliates promoting this? Maybe he meant 200 per day! And btw, I already unsubscribed from one guy who was dumb enough to send me the link as a way to ’solve my problems’. Anyone who is recommending this type of garbage is not someone I want to deal with. If you’ve got any sense, do the same. People who think you’re this dumb don’t deserve your time or your money. [...]
Where Is The Money Again? 2010-08-02T11:36:56Z I’m getting a little p****d with all the products that tell me “the money is in…(insert the name of whatever product is being promoted here)". Usually the statement is reserved for listbuilding, but lately it’s being applied to just about everything. In truth, if you want to earn money online, then you need to consider a whole host of things. Because money is just about everywhere. But let’s keep it simple for now. 1. The Money is In Choosing the Right Niche Do you really think you’re going to earn enough money to retire if you’re selling headache pills? Trust me, folks aren’t going to buy their painkillers from a website when they can just put them in their shopping basket while doing their weekly shopping. You need to get into a niche selling something that can’t easily be picked up at the local store. Coming up with niche ideas isn’t as hard as you think. I used to think it was, but I’ve learned there are way more niches than you could ever target in your lifetime. The key is just to look around you but put on your ‘marketing’ hat while you’re doing it. What’s being advertised in your local newspaper, on the TV, on shop windows, on the front covers of magazines… Niches are everywhere. All you have to do is find the right ones and you can be earning money hand over fist. So how do you decide which is the ‘right niche‘? Good question. And it comes down to one thing. 2. The Money is In Choosing the Right Keywords Are people willing to spend money on it? Are people looking for it online? Are other people making money from it? Can you outrank the competition? A quick check using Google’s keyword tool will tell you the answers to the first 3. Look at the number of searches and the advertising competition, as well as the CPC those advertisers are paying. The higher the numbers in those areas, the more chance there is that money is being made in that particular niche. Outranking the competition means yet more research. And this is where a lot of folks will fall down. Because they think they’ve found a great niche and are going to make a whole shed load of money, they just dive right in. However, once you’ve found a good niche, you need to find the right keywords to target that niche. Keywords will make or break any chance you have of making money. What keywords are people using to find the product? What keywords are most likely to result in a sale as opposed to just finding information? Can you outrank the competition? Damn, we’re back to that ‘outranking the competition‘ thing again. Still, at least we’ve already established the competition for keywords so now all that’s left is figuring out whether we can beat them. To do that you need to look at how strong that competition is. How many backlinks do they have, PR, domain age, etc. Here, you’re looking for numbers that are as low as possible. Just the opposite of the previous step really. The lower the numbers the more chance you have of being able to rank on that first page. 3. The Money is In The List Again, not true. I don’t ever recall signing up to Amazon’s list and they seem to be making pretty decent money. Ok, so we’re not Amazon. And yes, there is some truth to the whole list building thing. So having established you can make money in a particular niche, and you can rank for a profitable keyword or two on the first page, should you go for the sale or the signup? This really depends on the niche. Some will respond better to being sold to over time, some won’t. If you’re targeting washing machines, what the heck are you going to write about in your autoresponder series? On the other hand, if you’re into the health and fitness niche, you can talk to the folks on your list all day long about eating right, exercise, supplements̷[...]
San Coils.com is Live 2010-07-11T10:54:59Z http://www.sancoils.comYep, I finally got round to putting up a site on the domain instead of just redirecting it here. If you’re worried that launching San Coils.com will mean I won’t be keeping up with Money Secrets, then don’t. Obviously, that’s going to be a whole different kind of site. After all, I do have a life outside of the Internet. And believe it or not, I have interests outside of internet marketing and the whole make money online thing. So San Coils.com will be more of a personal blog, aimed at my mates more than anyone else. It’s where I won’t have to worry about pleasing anyone other than myself. And that includes Google! It’s pretty liberating when you don’t have to worry about SEO and backlinking and ranking for keywords and all that extra stuff you have to do with sites you want to earn money from. Initially there will be a knock on effect on my other sites. Quite simply, San Coils.com is personal so I’m taking a bit more time to set it up and because I’m no techie, and because I want it to be good, it requires more brain power, which isn’t exactly something I’m blessed with in abundance. Luckily, I’ve made friends with some very clever people since I started working online and the great thing about having mates is the fact they help each other out when needed. While it’s very easy to get caught up in the ‘how to make money’ mindset, you should never overlook the value of building and cultivating relationships with others. Actually that doesn’t sound right. It’s not about looking to make friends with folks who you think might have something to offer you further down the line. That just happens to be a bonus of making friends with folks you can help in the beginning. Sometimes it really is about being personal. I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that once you quit focusing on the money and start focusing on just helping out other folks then the money starts coming in anyway. I still don’t know how or why it works this way, I just know that it does. Anyway, this post is really just to let you know that I might be missing in action for a while but for those of you who are interested in reading the ramblings of a mad woman, you know where to find me. :>> [...]
The Secret of Magnetic Sponsoring Can't Be Found In A Book 2010-07-04T07:48:06Z You know, when I got together with some of the most successful Magnetic Sponsoring ‘Insiders’ and asked them to reveal their secrets on what they got from the Magnetic Sponsoring training manual, I rightly used the term ‘secret of magnetic sponsoring’. The ‘Insider Report’ was meant to show people who were labelling Magnetic Sponsoring a scam that anyone (including yours truly) could take that information and use it to build a successful home business. But for those of you who’ve read either Mike’s training manual or my report, you know that the secret isn’t in there. The secret is in taking the information in the book and then applying it to your business. And unfortunately, if you can’t get round to taking action then no book or training course, or seminar, or webinar, or software or anything else can help you. Admittedly I’m one of the laziest people around. But thankfully, I understood enough from Mike’s book to realise that if I wanted to be successful online (and btw, there’s no reason why Magnetic Sponsoring can’t be applied to an offline business), then I had to give people a reason to trust me and to come to me instead of someone else. I’ve spoken so many times about building a reputation and how important it is to your success if you want to build a successful business. But some people are convinced that just buying the book or shelling out for some software is what’s going to make them rich. It isn’t! So of course, when they’ve shelled out their money and they’re still not raking in the cash hand over fist, they immediately cry ‘scam‘. Heck, they cry scam even when they haven’t shelled out any cash. If that’s you then please quit reading this right now and leave my site. It’s not my job to make you rich. It’s yours. The only thing you will find in a book is information. The secret to making that information work for you can only be found by looking inside yourself. [...]
Great Content Or Fresh Content - The Truth About Blog Posting Frequency 2010-06-27T08:10:49Z Finally, I can relax. The fact I’m not posting to Money Secrets every day, (or even every week/month in most cases) isn’t hurting me in Google’s eyes. The trouble is, when you’re blogging, you want to please both the search engines and the visitors. It’s ok for Matt Cutts to say Google is more bothered about great content than they are about whether you post every day, but wouldn’t your visitors want great content? That’s kind of like saying as long as you post something every day your visitors won’t mind if it’s not up to par as long as it means they’re not reading the same thing they read yesterday. And really that all depends on what sort of blog you’re crafting. Fresh Content If you’re running a news site, you’re going to have to post every day. But what about something like Money Secrets? I’m not really interested in writing about every single fad related to the different ways you can make money online. Over 90% of my readers come from the Search Engines (usually Google and Yahoo). And they’re landing on particular pages that relate to whatever it is they’re looking for. For them, the content is fresh even if I posted it weeks, months or years ago. If they like it, they’ll come back and read some more. ( I hope )and this is where I might lose them because I don’t post all that often. In which case all I can really do is hope they subscribe to the RSS feed and only come back when I do have something new up. Great Content You can’t post great content every single day. You just can’t. You might be able to manage it for a month or so if you’re really organised and have it all set up on a schedule. But otherwise, great content on a blog only happens once in a while. Besides, your definition of ‘great’ most likely doesn’t fit with mine. Search engines might define great content similarly because they’re robots, but people aren’t robots. So you can forget about trying to write something everyone is going to think is great. Blogging Secret When I started out with Money Secrets, I didn’t really have a clue about much of anything. Certainly no idea of what went into creating a really great blog. (still haven’t got that figured out actually, ) But over time, more by good luck than good judgement, this blog has increased it’s traffic and it’s income. Blogging is a long term strategy. If you want to make money from it, you need to stick at it. I get emails from folks asking why their blog isn’t making them any money, why they’re on the first page one day and nowhere to be found the next, why they’re not getting hundreds of vistors every day…. and their blog has been up maybe a month or two at most. If you’re looking to make money fast, blogging isn’t the way to do it. Whether you opt for posting every day or every week is entirely up to you and what sort of blog it is you’re trying to create. But in the end, committment is what will make the difference. [...]
Money Secrets - To Earn Money or Save Money? 2010-06-16T11:47:00Z It suddenly struck me the other day (yeah, ok, yet more proof that I’m not the quickest tool in the box), that for some folks, looking for the ‘money secret‘ isn’t about making more money, but just as much about making more use of the money they have. I’ve never been so far down or so much in debt that my home was at risk, or I didn’t know how I was going to manage to pay my bills. You know, all those ‘rags to riches’ stories that are used in all the ‘best’ sales letters. (maybe that’s why my sales letters are so rubbish ) Frankly, if you’re looking for the millionaire lifestyle and you’re putting your family or your home at risk in order to find it, you need to quit worrying about the ‘money secret’ and start focusing on getting your priorities right! Earning extra money is great but given the choice between feeding my appetite for the ‘make money’ secret, or using the little money I’ve already got for putting food on the table for my kids? No contest. Have you read, The Money Secret by Rob Parsons? (affiliate link btw, ) It’s all about debt and how to get out of it. Brilliant book. And one which a lot of folks wanting to get into the world of Internet Marketing and this whole ‘make money online’ thing would do well to read. You see, the so called experts and gurus would have you believe that it’s ok to just charge the cost of their latest software or training course onto your credit card. After all, you’ll be making so much money in such a short time that you’ll easily be able to pay it all off and then some, right? Wrong! If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it. If they try to tell you, ‘heck it’s only the cost of a night out at the movies’, ask yourself would you be going to the movies anyway? If not, then it doesn’t matter whether it’s the same price. It’s money you’re spending that you could have saved. If you were planning a trip to the movies, don’t go. Save that money, put it in a separate account and then use it to buy whatever it is if you really think it will help you out. Don’t spend it until you’ve saved it first. Listen, there is no course or software that is worth going into debt for. There just isn’t. Most of it you can find for free. Ok, it might not be as fancy as the paid version, but if you’re just starting out, it’ll be enough to get you going and once you have some of that ‘extra’ money coming in, then you can pay for the advanced version with your profits. So you pay with your time instead of your money. You might not like the idea of paying with your time. After all, that’s time that could be spent with your family right? Sure it is. And for most folks the dream of making money online comes from wanting to have that freedom to spend more time with their families. Or at least it was for me. But no matter what you buy, you still have to devote the time to reading it, learning it, setting it up, putting it into action, etc. So there’s still a time investment required, regardless of whether you use a paid or free version. There really isn’t an easy answer. But here’s the thing. Whichever way you look at it, money is just bits of paper and metal. It’s how you think about it that’s important. And if you don’t understand the value of it in the first place, then it won’t matter how much of it you earn, you’ll never have any, because you’ll just keep spending more than you’re earning. It’s a mindset thing. You need to become a money master (or mistress) and until you get that right, the rest of it doesn’t really count for much. [...]
Keyword Analysis Software - Why You Need to Invest In It 2010-06-12T17:24:50Z Ah yet again, we’re back to the subject of keyword analysis and which of the zillion or so keyword tools is the best. I’m biased of course, so I guess this post will hardly be classed as an objective review of all the available keyword tools out there. In fact, I’m not going to offer a review of any of them. You all know what they are already. If you’d asked me a few years ago, I’d have gone with the Google Adwords keyword tool. It’s free, it works and what more could you want. Fast forward to just a couple of years ago, and I’d have told you to rush out and buy Keyword Elite. Actually, Keyword Elite is still a very good piece of software. Awesome in fact. But hands down, for researching keywords, niche markets, competition… the best tool on the market today is Market Samurai. And it does so much more than research keywords that you have to see it to believe it. (sounds a bit like one of those infomercials on the shopping channels, lol) But the truth is that, regardless of which particular tool you go for, as long as you make sure to actually analyse and research the keywords related to your market, niche, domain, articles…, etc, then you’ll be way ahead of the competition anyway. You can always elect to just use Google’s own keyword tool. It’s free, and you’re getting your information straight from the horse’s mouth so to speak. After all, any keyword software out there is going to pull its results from Google’s tool anyway so just cut out the middle man right? That’s fine.If all you want to do is research keywords at the basic level. And you have the time to check out the results Google throws at you. Because researching keywords isn’t just about finding ‘key’ words or phrases that relate to what you’re writing about or what you’re trying to sell. It’s about knowing whether you can rank for those keywords. How strong is the competition; how long will it take you to get to the front page of the search engines; will you ever be ableto get to the front page of the results; are the people typing in those keywords looking to buy something or just surfing for information… That means checking out the SEO of each of your competitors websites. Are they using the keywords in their meta tags? Is the keyword in the url? How many backlinks do they have? What sort of backlinks do they have? Anchor text, LSI, keyword density… the list just goes on and on. This is why you end up looking for software that will do the keyword analysis for you. Because otherwise, you spend all your time researching keywords and there’s no time left over to put the results of that research to use. And before you start researching keywords, you need to have first researched the actual niche market where you’re going to use them! Can you rank in a particular niche; what’s the competition like, what are the potential niche customers like for spending money; are you looking to sell products or get Adsense clicks… Market Samurai works by focusing on the 3 rules of ranking in the search engines. Find the right keywords. Target the people looking to spend money. Beat the competition - quickly. That’s it. If you can do it, (and you can :>>, then the investment made in buying the right keyword software is a pittance compared to what you’ll earn back from it. Like I said, I’m biased. Being an IM super sleuth () I could no more imagine being without Market Samurai than I could imagine being without Google. [...]
Keyword Research With The New Google Keywords Tool 2010-05-25T06:00:06Z Have you noticed the buzz around the new Google keywords tool? Been trying to figure it out for yourself? Or have you just given up and gone back to using the old keyword tool instead? Let’s face it, Google’s keyword tool (or should I say keyword ‘tools‘ since they don’t just have the one), is the first stop for anyone trying to do keyword research. You might have access to any number of paid keyword tools, and they may all be totally brilliant, but chances are you’ll still go back and check with Google’s. Now from what I’ve been reading it seems a number of folks have reverted back to the old style keyword tool. Finding the information in the new one is too difficult apparently. You have got to be kidding me right? The folks using keyword tools are folks looking to make money online. These are the self same folks who know how to create websites, set up sales funnels, reverse engineer serps results, create software…. and you are trying to tell me you can’t figure out how to use a simple keyword tool! Ok, so some of the information now needs two clicks instead of one. And you might need to scroll down a little to change the match from broad to phrase/exact. But spend 10 minutes playing around and you’ll have it cracked. We all know I’m not the brightest button in the box, but I managed it. Keywords are important. In fact, I’d go so far as to say keywords are the most important part of your online business. If you get them wrong everything else goes down the toilet. Doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, doesn’t matter how great your sales page is, go after the wrong keyword and you end up with 50,000 visitors a day landing on a site dedicated to vegan recipes, when they were really looking for the best place to buy steak. The coolest thing for me about the new keyword tool is the inclusion (under the advanced options) of ‘mobile search’) Funny how I just start figuring out how to search the Internet on a computer and now I have to start figuring out how to search on my mobile. Maybe Google’s new keywords tool is just part of an overall conspiracy plan to stop me making any money. But hey, nothing to stop the rest of you moving forward with it. [...]
Social Networking - Are You A 'Pretend' Friend? 2010-05-10T17:10:40Z You know when I think of ‘social networking‘, I think of mixing business with pleasure for sure. But I tend to think it’s more ’social’ than it is ‘networking’. And until every man and his dog started trying to use the social media sites to grow their online business, that’s the way it was. You went on Facebook to keep up with your friends, not to pitch them on your latest business opportunity. You ‘dug’ a site or video because you found it interesting and entertaining, not because you wanted to generate a load of traffic back to your sales page. You signed up to (and participated!) in forums that were related to your interests, as a way of meeting, helping, and being helped by other folks who were into the same things as you, not as a way of getting a backlink to your blog so you could fool the search engines into thinking you were more popular than you really were. Now, it seems like the social aspect has been totally removed. Of course, all the experts say to make sure you don’t come across as too salesy, but in the end all they’re really saying is to ‘pretend‘ to do all the things you used to do quite naturally. And hands up, I confess, I’ve even been guilty of it myself. My only excuse (and it’s a very poor one) is that prior to coming online to try and earn a living, I hadn’t ever bothered coming online to socialise. (it’s an age thing ) So it was kind of easy for me to think that all these sites were really there for the purpose I was being told they were there for - a way of getting more people to buy stuff from me and make me rich! Fast forward to today and after having gained a little bit more knowledge and more than a few more grey hairs along the way, let me tell you for sure that you’ll do a whole lot better if you stop pretending to be a social butterfly and just get on and be one. I’ve talked before about the power of using social media to build your reputation and your business. But in all honesty, looking back, I was thinking exactly what I’m talking about not doing now! Yes, the key is to be social first. You most definitely want to look at social networking as a way of increasing your friendships. You should absolutely consider what you can do to help those friends with their problems. But (and here’s the important bit, so pay attention), if the only ‘friends’ you mix with are potential customers, then you’re just pretending. You’re really just networking and touting for business. And you know how annoying it is when you see all those ‘pretend’ marketers? The ones who kid you they’re making a fortune while sitting on their backsides, sipping Martini’s? Well the only thing worse than being a ‘pretend’ marketer is being a ‘pretend’ friend! [...]
Talking About Articles and Keywords | Article Marketing Explosion [del.icio.us] 2010-05-08T07:50:55-07:00 I've already talked about keyword analysis and how to determine the true competition for your keywords. But once you've decided on your keyword and you're ready(image)
How Many Money Secrets Do You Need Before You Actually Get Round to Earning Money? 2010-04-20T21:25:38Z And by the way, I’m asking the question, not answering it? Truth is, I haven’t got a clue because I don’t believe there are any money secrets. Money has been around since long before I was a kid,(nice to know there are some things even older than I am), and I grew up learning that if I wanted money I could either earn it or… well, I could do without if I didn’t want to work for it, because I sure as hell wasn’t prepared to go to jail for it! But sometimes you have to wonder if some folks just aren’t more interested in trying to uncover the secrets of making money online, than they are in actually making the money in the first place. It’s like they’ll put all their effort, time and money into looking for the easy, magic bullet that will make them rich. If they put half the amount into just doing what they’ve already been told, they’d probably be rich by now. And if not rich, at least they’d be a helluva lot better off than they are at the minute. Now don’t get me wrong. I know what it’s like to suffer from SMS syndrome, (secret money system). I suffered for months and to be honest, I almost thought it was incurable. In fact, I still have occasional relapses, so maybe it is! But there aren’t any secret money systems out there. Not unless you count the secrets the gurus keep telling you about anyway. (is it a secret when it’s splattered all over everyone’s inbox?) What there is are lots of systems that, (if applied) will help you earn money. It’s up to you which one you care to use. But the only way to get to the money is to actually ‘use’ the system. Heck, it might not even be a system as such. Maybe it’s just information and you have to come up with your own system of putting it all together? Maybe you want to use blogs; or maybe you’d prefer building niche websites, or you might prefer network marketing… or any one of a zillion other ways there are for earning money online. Whichever route you decide to go, there’s more than information out there for you to use already. You don’t need to waste any more time looking for the latest ’secret system’. Personally, I decided a long time ago that the ’secret system’ I was going to use was article marketing. Now yes, I’ve developed my method of article marketing to be somewhat different to what most article marketers do. But it’s still not anything like what could possibly be described as ’secret’. Do I know everything there is to know about article marketing? Hell no. Do I know anything that isn’t freely available to everyone else about article marketing? Hell no. So how come I can use it to send traffic to my sites and increase my rankings while others can’t? Because instead of looking for the ’secrets’ that will let me do article marketing without actually doing article marketing, I just actually get on and do it! And there goes my secret. Now you all know what it is, . It doesn’t matter which system you decide on. The choice is entirely yours. But if you just channel half your energy into doing it instead of looking for ways to get out of doing it, you’ll be a whole lot better off a whole lot quicker. And by the way, if you do decide you want to go the article marketing route, (or even if you don’t), head on over to the PhantomWriters.com I recently went through Bill’s book on using article marketing to impact your SEO efforts and I have to say it’s one of the most awesome books I’ve ever read. Not just on article[...]
Videos Fit for The SuperBowl - Google's Search Stories Now Available 2010-04-13T18:40:02Z So no doubt you all remember the now famous video Google aired during the SuperBowl. Heck, I’m neither a SuperBowl fan or a US national and I heard about it! It recieved rave reviews and inspired a whole lot of buzz around the net. Now you can do exactly the same. Yep, it really is as simple as heading over to YouTube’s Search Stories , and creating your own action packed video fit for displaying just about anywhere. You don’t need screen capture, you don’t need a video camera, you don’t need anything other than access to the Internet in fact. And of course, a story to tell. (image) Video is a huge marketing tactic and I know for a lot of folks it’s a bit imtimidating to say the least. Yours truly doesn’t make nearly as much effort with videos as I know I should! But this really is a no brainer. Sure it has it’s drawbacks, you don’t get to control which part of the page it zooms in on for a start. But, you can set each search to show results not just from the web, but from images, news, blogs… Now admittedly, you might not be creating a video to show at the Superbowl, but there are thousands of YouTubers out there just waiting to see the story of your product, your service, your company. Go tell em. (image)
Why Would You Do This? 2010-04-01T06:42:42Z So, I’ve had to create a ‘general’ category to put this post into because, quite frankly, it doesn’t fit anywhere else. And today, I have a question for you as well as some bad news for those of you who want to sign up to my ‘money secrets’ newsletter. Lately, an awful lot of idiots or ‘bots’ would perhaps be a better description have been signing up to the newsletter and to be honest, I’m tired of having to go in and delete these spammers from my list. So with immediate effect, if you want to get on my list, you’ll have to confirm your opt in! Personally, I’m not a huge fan of double opt in, though I can understand the reasoning behind it. Just seems like an extra step that, if you’re like me, you don’t want to have to jump through. However, that’s where we are folks so make sure when you sign up you use your best email address and look for the confirmation email or you won’t get in. Now, to my question. Why would you sign up to a list using keywords as your user name? I mean, what sort of a relationship can I build with you if you’re called ’singles’, ‘online dating’.. or one of a hundred others that I’ve been bombarded with lately? I don’t want any idiots on my list. The purpose of signing up is so we can get to know each other and I can share tips with you to making money on the Internet. If you’re that dumb that you’re putting in a keyword as your name go sign up to someone’s list who doesn’t give a damn about you and just wants to brag about the size of their list. Leave ‘MoneySecrets’ out of it! (image)
The Biggest Lie People Tell About Keywords and Keyword Research 2010-03-26T09:05:02Z Yes, believe it or not people are still telling you lies about keywords and keyword research. More importantly, there’s a helluva lot of you who are still falling for them! Now you need to listen up because to be honest, I’m getting a little sick of having to keep repeating myself. And if you don’t get your keyword research right, then you’re going to find yourself - well actually, you’re not going to find yourself anywhere so you best just get it right. Of all the lies that are being promoted, the one that really gets up my nose is the idea that you should research your competition by putting quotes around the keyword you’re researching. This is supposedly to help you discover how much competition there is for that keyword. But first you need to understand and define what you mean by competition. If you want to know how many other folks are competing for that keyword, then go ahead and put quotes around it when you’re searching. These are competitors in the sense that they’re targeting the keyword. But really that’s only telling you the keyword popularity amongst other folks in your niche. If you want to know whether you can actually compete for that keyword on the first page of results, then leave out the quotes! Seriously, the only people who search with quotes are other marketers doing keyword research. Your target audience sure as hell aren’t putting quotes in there. Heck, they probably don’t even know that they can use quotes when searching. I sure as heck didn’t before I started this whole ‘making money on the internet’ malarkey. Listen, the reason you’re doing keyword research is to figure out if you can get found on the search engines right? If you aren’t bothered whether people are going to find your content or your website then you wouldn’t be bothering. In order to get found by the searchers, you have to think like a searcher. And they don’t search with quotes. You can use as many keyword tools as you like, you can even pay for a keyword research service if you think it will help you. But your competition for any given keyword is listed right there on the first page of the search engines when you type it in without quotes. I don’t care if those results aren’t targeting that particular keyword. I don’t give a flying pig’s ear what the gurus are telling you to do. I listened to them for far too long and got absolutely nowhere. But hey, I got there pretty quick if that counts for anything. As long as there’s money to be made from telling lies about keyword research, and as long as they can sell you their latest, must have, keyword research tool based on the back of those lies, folks are going to keep failing and failing fast. Just make sure you’re not one of them! [...]
The Most Important Blog Post You’ll Probably Never Read [del.icio.us] 2010-03-25T13:52:11-07:00 (image)
What You Need to Think About Before You Learn How to Set Up A Blog 2010-02-27T17:05:42Z If you’ve been inspired by Daniel’s book on blogging and are thinking that maybe you’d like to set up your own blog, you’re probably busy scouring the Internet to find the best way to set one up. And of course, your reason for doing this is so that you can start seeing some money rolling into your bank account. The problem is that you will find too much information and end up getting lost in the maze of ‘Blogging Secrets of the Rich and Famous’. Forget it. There are no blogging secrets, apart from the obvious ones. Keep it simple. Don’t go thinking you have to come up with a perfect blog right out of the box. Choose something you know you can actually be bothered to write about - make sure it’s also something that other folks are going to be interested in. Be prepared to make a committment to it. Don’t choose blogging as your method of making money if you don’t want to keep putting in the effort on a regular basis. It’s not a set and forget means to making money online. Unless of course, you want to just create a spam blog full of other folks content that you’ve scraped using one of the myriad ‘autoblogging’ software products out there. If you’re sure you’re ready to go down the blogging route, then you have some decisions to make. Domain - make sure you choose a domain for your blog that is related to what you’re actually going to write about. Sounds like common sense, but have you seen some of the blogs out there? For those more experienced who know how to drive traffic in droves, you can get away with dumb names that aren’t related at all, but if you’re just starting out, stick with keeping it related. It’ll pay dividends in helping the search engines put you in front of the folks most interested in what you’re posting. Hosting - probably the biggest question when it comes to blogging is whether you should choose to host it yourself or use one of the free hosted options like Wordpress or Blogger. The biggest advantage to using your own hosting is that you have total control. Do you really want to risk losing everything if Blogger or Wordpress decide they don’t like what you’ve written and take down your blog? Monetization - unless you’re planning on setting up a blog as a hobby then presumably you’re looking at it as a way to make money. Whether you want to make lots of it or just a little extra to help out with the bills every month, you’re better off deciding on your money making options before you just jump in and start throwing all sorts of different ads all over the place. So let’s look at them in turn. Domain As far as you can, you want the domain (address) of your blog to match it’s title. And that title should be based on the main keyword you want the blog to rank for. Now, unfortunately, it’s not always possible to get the domain you want. So you might have to think out of the box, or get one as closely related as possible. If you’re setting up a pretty generic blog then the domain and title aren’t quite as important for SEO purposes as they are for being catchy and easy to remember. It’s amazing how, if you post entertaining, informative, useful content, the blog will catch on. And then, as long as your name is easy to remember a few readers will pass it along, and before you know it you’ve got a huge following. Host[...]
OMG, Not Another Make Money Blogging E-Book 2010-03-05T06:39:40Z I know, I know. Just how many books can be written on one subject? You’d think there wasn’t any other way to make money besides blogging given the number of books that have been written on this one particular method. And every single book that I’ve read is just more of the same. Or I should say, every one of them until now. Yes, folks, I’ve actually found a ‘Blogging for Money’ book, that is different from all the others. Well, different from all the blogging books I’ve read anyway. First off, who the hell is Daniel Scocco? Well, apart from being the author of a pretty crazy book on monetizing your blogging efforts, he’s the owner of ‘Daily Blog Tips‘. I’m on his list, and have been for a while, which should tell you something about him right off. I tend to be very picky about whose lists I’m on. Sure, I dont’ mind signing up to get whatever’s on offer, if it’s something I’m interested in. And as long as they continue to treat me with respect, I’ll hang around. But if they suddenly start clogging my inbox with a pile of junk and ‘buy this’ or ‘I’ve persuaded my best mate to let you have this’, then I’m out of there quicker than a cat out of an open window. Obviously, Daniel hasn’t learned the art of spamming because I haven’t unsubscribed from him yet. However, what he has learned is the art of blogging. Which is just as well considering that’s what his book is all about. So what’s in his book that makes it so different? It’s real is the difference. And I know that might sound kind of strange, but there’s no fancy hype, no talk about making loads of money, no mention of instant traffic. It’s just not about anything that you would expect to be in a book about making money with a blog. For a start, Daniel talks about building relationships? I mean, why would you want to build a relationship with people just because they happen to give you the honour of spending their time, reading your content? The only relationship you want with them is their wallet right? He also mentions the unthinkable - actually linking out to other blogs and sending them your hard earned traffic. Can a guy get any nuttier? Why the hell would you fight tooth and nail to get someone to visit your blog only to tell them to go visit someone else’s? Obviously, he’s a total idiot who doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And, if that isn’t enough to convince you this guy’s a real nutcase, wait till you read what he has to say about the type of content you should put up on your blog. Needless to say, yours truly would never stoop to this level. The guy goes on with yet more nutty ideas on how to make money from your blogging efforts. Actually, that’s a lie. The book isn’t really about making money with blogging. It’s more about building great blogs that just happen to make money thanks to the fact that they’re great blogs! Okay, enough already. In case you haven’t guessed it by now, the book is actually damn good, and even considering the price (your email address), I don’t have a problem recommending you go out and read it. (Note that I actually value my email address a lot more than a few pieces of silver so I consider giving it up to be a high price to pay) Of course, that’[...]
Video Boss? Never In A Million Years 2010-02-17T14:48:21Z Oh, I’ve seen the videos from Andy, ‘The Video Boss‘ Jenkins. And yes, they are awesome. No doubt about it, the guy knows his stuff. But for yours truly? No way. If Andy Jenkins was to come to my home and spend a week trying to teach me this stuff I still wouldn’t get it. And to be honest, I wouldn’t want to. Even with all that knowledge it would still take far longer than I’m prepared to spend on creating a video. Did you notice they took him a few days to pull together? And he ‘breathes’ this stuff. (his words,not mine). How long is it going to take you? Nope, yours truly will stick with the simple stuff. They might not be as fancy, or as technically perfect, but they usually do the job just as well. After all, I’m not out to impress the gurus. And by the way, just because you think you can create a video that good, don’t think you’ll be inundated with traffic because of it. The video doesn’t get the traffic. It’s the hype that gets the traffic. When you’ve got big dogs like Frank Kern telling the world to go watch your video, it can be the worst video in the world and still get you a huge onslaught of visitors. I’m not knocking these videos. There’s some amazing content in the free ones he put out in preparation for the launch. But 99% of us don’t need the level of skill and dedication that Andy puts into his videos. Which is just as well, or yours truly would be long gone, lol. Anyway, using nothing more than the power and awesomeness of Powerpoint and Windows Movie Maker, I present my very own Fancy Video showing you how to do the same as Andy, but with less time and a helluva lot less money. And no, I’m not in competition since you are obviously so impressed with my video making skills, lol. Seriously though people. I have no doubt Andy’s course will be ultra awesome. But don’t get it thinking that just because you’ll be able to create amazing videos you’ll be able to make more money online. The videos won’t make you rich, no matter how good they are. Video is just another marketing tool, nothing more and nothing less. Like I said, if you can get your stuff promoted by the likes of Andy’s mates, then you’d make a fortune regardless of whether that stuff was good, bad or indifferent. And unfortunately, that’s the truth of it. [...]
The Changing Face of SEO 2010-02-04T18:33:51Z You know, just when you think you have something all figured out, they go and move the goalposts. Not that I would ever be dumb enough to think I actually had SEO figured out, but I did kind of think I had enough of the basics under my belt to be able to get my websites ranked for chosen keywords. After all, Google herself kindly provides webmasters with a basic guide to SEO. And it’s pretty damn hard to fail at it when you have it all laid out in front of your very eyes. Even more so when none of it requires any great technical or intellectual skills. KISS is definitely the way to go when it comes to anything remotely related to SEO. But now, it seems there’s yet another SEO revolution on the way. And all the work we webmasters have done in relation to on and off site optimization can be undone in the twinkling of an eye. Yes, that quickly. Because Googl’es new algorithm includes the ‘load’ time of your site. And if you’re a ’slowcoach’, you can expect to see a dramatic drop in your rankings. Actually, it’s nothing to do with how quick you are. More to do with how quick your site is. Load times are all part of Google’s “caffeine” and if you haven’t paid much heed to how quickly your site loads before, then you’d better start getting a handle on it. Of course, any visitor expects to not have to wait around for a website to complete loading. But how quick is quick? How do you cut down the load times? Especially, if you’re a non techie webmaster, the simple idea of having to mess around in the coding of your site to make sure it loads as quickly as possible can be pretty scary. Certainly is for yours truly. I’ve tested out a few of my sites, and luckily, they seem to be on the right side of the speed curve, though they could still do with some tweaking. Unfortunately, I have no idea at all how to tweak them! If you’re in the same position, I suggest you gather in some favours from your more techie friends, talk to your webhost, start studying…. in essence, you need to figure it out. Because SEO is now not just about the basics, it’s not just about how many backlinks you can get, it’s not just about the structure of your site and which pages link to which other pages… SEO is moving into the fast lane. And if your competitor’s site loads up a second quicker than yours, then all else being equal, guess who’s going to get the ranking? Hmm, somehow I never figured on being a racing driver when I got into this IM malarkey! [...]
How About 'Domain Flipping' to Earn Money? 2010-01-26T19:12:44Z So, domain flipping wasn’t something I’d ever given any real consideration to. Until today. Now, I have to ask myself if this isn’t one of the easiest and quickest ways to earn money online. Of course, I’m pretty certain, that just like everything else to do with making money on the Internet, there will be a learning curve and there will be work involved. Nothing worth having ever comes totally free. For those of you who still think it does, probably best not to bother reading the rest of this post. I managed to get my hands on a very interesting report today, called quite simply the “10 Step Action Plan". It wasn’t very long, mainly because it was missing a lot of the usual fluff filler content that goes into these type of reports. And it basically revolved around a very simple method of flipping domain names. Now, like I say, I hadn’t given much thought to domain flipping as a business idea simply because I fail to see why someone would pay over the odds for a domain name they could buy themselves for between $8 - $10. But that’s because I forgot all about those folks who had ‘real’ businesses and had no idea how valuable it would be to take those offline businesses and have them show up online. And just because someone is able to run a very successful business online, doesn’t mean they have a clue when it comes to getting found on the Internet. At best they think if they pay to be featured in an online directory that’ll cover them. Or maybe they want to use Adwords and they’re happily paying for click after click, when in fact, for a small one off payment, they could have all the traffic they want. Now, I’m not going to go into all the details here. To be honest, the book is so simple and it’s such a quick read that you’d be mad not to check it out for yourself. I’m not too sure if I want to go in for this business model myself. Given where I live, these steps just wouldn’t work for me. However, I’ve put a little twist on it and set it up so that the location doesn’t matter. Hopefully, it’ll still work. If not, I may need to tweak it a bit more. If it still doesn’ t work, then what the hell? Check out the book and see what you think. [...]
Are You As Sick of All The Internet Marketing BS As Me? 2010-01-23T13:11:20Z Seriously, is my BS meter just getting a little too sensitive perhaps? Or have the Internet Marketing crowd gone seriously nuts lately? Either way, I’m beginning to think something is very wrong with the whole lot of it. Look, I may not be the savviest marketer out there, but even I know that the whole point of this ‘online’ stuff is to make money. And because of that, it stands to reason that in order to make money you have to sell stuff. And in order to sell something you have to have someone to sell it to. See, I get it, I really do. I also know that one of the best ways to sell stuff to people is to get their permission so you can do just that. But, (and here’s where my problem lies), I don’t see how you can expect to sell anything if you can’t be bothered to earn that sale. If all you can do is copy and paste the blurb from a sales page, of a product you’ve never tried, or even worse, you just write, “get this, it’s great, you can’t live without it"… then how the hell do you expect anyone to believe you and just go out and buy it. I’ve had a number of mails lately all using the exact same message to tell me about the exact same product. Now you might think that when a lot of marketers are promoting a product, then it must be a good product right? Well, if all those marketers can tell you something specific about it that has helped them, or the difference it’s made to their results, then you might want to go check it out for yourself. But when nobody can be bothered to come up with anything unique, there’s a problem. That’s not proof of a good product. In fact, it’s more likely to be proof of an extremely bad product. See, if they haven’t used it or if they have and can’t come up with anything worthwhile of their own to say, then the product can’t have much going for it can it? The hope is that because you’re on their list, you’ll just blindly buy whatever they tell you to buy. Their buddy gets hailed as some super hero and they make some commissions. Meanwhile, you find yourself with more money going out of your pocket and still nothing coming in. >:XX Take a tip from me. Run a mile from regurgitated product recommendations. I don’t care who sends them. Well actually I do. Cos if I’m on their list I need to get off it. There’s enough crap to be found if you’re searching the Internet looking for ways to make money. You don’t need to have it sent to your inbox. The secret to making money online is work. Sure there are ways and tools to make that work easier and quicker. But how many article spinners / submitters do you need? How many keyword tools? How many training courses? …. Sooner or later, you have to accept that no matter how many tools you have in your arsenal, the only way to make money is by putting them to work, not by buying more of them. Lol, it’s like the never ending battle I have with losing weight. I’ve lost track of how much money I’ve wasted on exercise equipment, DVD’s etc. But you know what? I buy them, use them a couple of times and then figure they’re no good cos I haven’t managed to get the body I want so I go looking for a better, quicker alternative. (no wonder the weight loss niche is so damn lucrat[...]
Keyword Research - Who is Your True Competition? 2010-01-03T10:32:25Z Let’s start the new year with a new look at keyword research. And let’s admit that we’ve all been led down the garden path by the so called experts when it comes down to checking out your true competition for any given keyword. It’s this simple when it comes to keyword research people.
My reasoning is simple. The people on the first page have already beat those that are targeting the keyword. Whether those first page results are targeting the keyword or not, doesn’t matter one iota. They are ranking for it. If you want to be on the first page, they are the ones you have to beat. Why? Because your audience isn’t searching with quotes. I know we’ve all been told to check out the competition and you absolutely should. But you need to know who your competition is. And it’s not the people targeting your keywords. It’s the people who are ranking for it. (object) (image)
How to Start An Internet Business 2009-12-22T08:28:09Z So many folks start an Internet business with absolutely no idea of how to do it, how much it will cost, how much time it will take, what they’ll need… It’s no wonder that so many wannabe internet marketers fail. Take it from one who knows; if you’re considering starting an internet business, it’s worth putting in a little background planning first. Don’t think it’s as simple as all the adverts make it out to be. Honestly, 99% of them are out to make money, not to help you start your own internet company. What Type of Internet Business Dig around on the Internet to find out what sort of business you want to get into. Maybe you’re after running a network marketing business where you’re selling a particular product or service and recruiting other people to do the same. You earn money,not only on the sales you make yourself, but also on the sales made by folks you recruited under you. Maybe you prefer the affiliate marketing business idea? You simply sell other people’s products or services and earn a commission for every sale you make. Commissions can range anywhere from a few dollars into the thousands, depending on the price of the product and the percentage of commission given to affiliates. Or maybe you want to set up an Internet business based on your own products or services? If you already have a service that you offer in the offline world, bringing it to the masses of the world wide web can make a massive difference to your income. Instead of just dealing with your local population, you now have a worldwide potential customer base. How about starting a blogging business? Blogging has really taken off over the last few years and as long as you’re blogging about something that people want to read, there’s a good chance you can earn money simply by placing advertising on your blog site. To be honest, there are way too many internet business ideas to list. Just do a little research over on Google and find a model that suits you. Internet Business Tools No matter which business idea you decide to run with, there are certain tools you must have if you’re going to end up with a successful internet business. A domain name is your first stop. This is basically the ‘name’ of your business. It’s that www.mybusinessname.com that when typed into a web browser brings up your new internet business for the world to see. And if you’re thinking that you can get away without a domain name, think again. Besides, you can buy one for less than $10 so why wouldn’t you invest in one? Once you’ve bought your domain name, you’ll need to invest in some internet real estate,i.e. web hosting. This is where your internet business is going to live and just like in the real world, location is everything. Be sure you invest in a good webhosting service. If you don’t, you’ll struggle with having a reliable site that is always available, and God help you if something goes wrong and you find out too late that their customer service stinks! Regardless of which type of internet business you opt to start, you’ll want a way to follow up with your po[...]
Too Many Money Making Secrets on The Internet 2009-12-05T17:58:42Z It’s true. The internet is overloaded with so called “money making secrets". Does anyone ever search for anything else? Try doing some keyword research over on Google and you’ll see what I mean. There are thousands and thousands of searches every single month for information related to making money online. I considered (but only for a split second), adding up just how many searches are carried out. But I’m waaaaayyyy too lazy for that. And besides, math was never my strong point. Now maybe it’s because we live in this crazy, make money, world of internet marketing that we see things that others don’t. But having recently delved into niche marketing, I can promise you that the ‘make money’ niche is the most searched out there. Of course, it’s also the most over subscribed! Far too many internet marketers, and all of them looking to get a slice of the action from all those searchers. What better way to grab them than by promising to reveal the latest ’secret’? It’s amazing how many ‘underground’ marketers appear every day, all proclaiming to have been ’secretly’ earning vast amounts of money for years. And now, (presumably because they’re sick of making all this money), they’re ready to sell you their own, special, never before heard of, secret to getting rich quick. Someone call for Phoebe, “Stop the Madness". (gotta love those friends). The only money making secret that isn’t revealed, is the one that works. And that’s because it’s not a secret. It’s not glamorous, it’s not fancy, it’s not going to make you an internet millionaire in the next 24hrs. It’s WORK. No, I am not using foul language for the hell of it. I am not trying to offend your senses. I am not out to upset anyone. But if you want to make money on the internet, do the same as you would if you wanted to make money in the real world. Do some bloody work. Learn about keywords. Learn about marketing. Learn about selling. Learn how to put up a website. Once you’ve learned that stuff, go put it to use. Find a market that you can break into and make money from. Find the right keywords that you can rank for and that will bring in money. Find the right product that you can sell to your visitors. Put together a website, targeted around those keywords and your product. Drive traffic. Rinse and repeat. [...]
Hype and Bullshit Are NOT The Way to Make Money 2009-11-28T13:51:29Z You’d have thought that as folks got more savvy, the amount of hype and bullshit that surrounds the ‘make money online’ niche would have lessened somewhat. Yet it only seems to get worse and even more hypey, if that’s possible. Admittedly, I’ve only been online for a few years so I have no idea how much bullshit was spouted before that time. But I honestly thought the majority of folks searcheing the internet for ways to make money had wised up and so naturally the marketing crowd would have to stand up and take notice by promoting less crap and more solid content. But alas, it seems I was wrong. Instead, the outrageous claims just get worse. Hands up if you’ve seen the latest offering that will create a fully functioning, highly optimised, money raking website in less than 30 seconds? (Note, I’m not going to give you the address because there is no way I’m taking the risk of you getting suckered into buying it). You have to hand it to these guys. The sales page is awesome, complete with videos, testimonials, proof… everything in there to guarantee high conversion rates. And a really low price for what it claims to provide. But of course,the low price is just the starting point. As usual there’s the forced continuity, the upsell, the cross sell, etc. Before you know it, you’re shelling out more money for yet more hype and bullshit. There are simple, quick, effective ways to make money online. But they all involve the one ingredient that nobody wants to admit to doing - WORK. I don’t give a flying pig’s ear what the guru’s tell you, they are working their business, same as you, me, and every other wannabe internet entrepreneur out there. Guru’s might be able to pay someone to do the grunt work. But they still have to check that grunt work is being done and being done right. If you buy into something because of the hype and bullshit, you are heading down a deep dark tunnel that is very hard to get back out of. If you let every online trickster and scam artist convince you that “this time” or “this product” will be different, you are on your way to bankruptcy my friend. Of course, then you’ll be able to come up with your own hyped up, rags to riches, story that you can use to scam someone else out of their hard earned cash. And hey, I’m not saying this latest product is a scam. It’s just not what it claims to be. And that’s the thing with hype, it blinds you to what’s real. So, all you have to do is come up with a single keyword? Great, what chance of you picking one that you can actually rank for? One keyword and an instant website appears targeted around it? No - one keyword and a crappy, automated, full of scraped content, wesite appears. Search engine friendly? Social media friendly? Bullshit! No major search engine is going to bother with your site when they already have all the information available from the original sources. And nobody is going to bother sharing your stuff because it’s already been seen a thousand times before. If you want to l[...]
The Right Keywords Will Earn You More Money With Less Work 2009-11-05T21:45:29Z There’s absolutely no doubt, that if you target the right keywords in your online marketing efforts, you will make a damn site more money with a damn site less work. It really is that simple. Whether you’re looking for keywords to use in your articles, on your blog, as anchor text in your backlinking efforts, finding the right ones will enable you to rank higher, easier and quicker than using the wrong ones. And let’s be honest, if you want to earn money online, you need to be ranking in the search engines. Unless of course, you’re willing to spend money on advertising and even then that’s assuming you’ve got the money to spend in the first place. Usually when you’re just starting out, money isn’t something you’ve got a whole lot of, which is why you’re trying to make it online right? If that’s the case, let me point you to one of the best posts I’ve ever read on making money on the internet. You’ll notice that the very first tip on that post is to start now. In case you missed it, let me tell you again: Start now! I don’t care what you’ve been reading, or what the latest, greatest, get rich quick scheme is telling you to do. Forget it, and concentrate on the only thing that matters, Keywords. Ideally, you want keywords that get a decent amount of search volume, don’t have too much in the way of competition, (note - if there’s no competition at all, there’s probably a good reason for it), and have the ability to allow you to sell either a product or a click. If you’re looking to sell a product you want to go for keywords where the searcher is ready to buy. Look for specific product names, or keywords attached to other terms such as ‘cheap’; ‘buy’; ‘in stock’; ‘available’, you get the picture. On the other hand if you’re looking to make money with Adsense or any other PPC programme, then you want to target your keywords on folks who are searching for information. If they’re in the research phase, they’re more likely to click your ads and earn you some money. Whatever it is you’re trying to do to earn money, give yourself a break and start researching keywords fully. There are some great tools available to help you, but if you can’t afford to automate your research, then go ahead and use Google’s very own free keyword tool. Just don’t put it off. Don’t keep falling for the bright, shiny stuff. Even if you end up buying it, you’ll still have to do keyword research. Get it right, and you can rank with only a few bits of content and a couple of backlinks. Get it wrong and you could spend the next several months trying to get on the first page of Google and still end up failing miserably. [...]
Good SEO Has Nothing to Do With Spamming 2009-10-18T09:19:45Z I figure it’s time to address an issue that a lot of folks seem to be having with SEO. Actually, it’s p*****g me off big time. You may have to forgive the following rant, but it needs to be said. Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of folks wasting their time by leaving crappy comments on Money Secrets. And trust me, when I say crappy, I mean CRAPPY! Leaving spammy comments on a blog in the hope of getting backlinks to your own crappy site isn’t going to work. Well, it may work on other crappy sites that don’t give a shit about their own linking strategies, but it certainly isn’t going to work here on Money Secrets. Good SEO certainly involves links to and from other sites. And leaving comments is a great way to get those links. But trust me, if all you can write is some pathetic quote that has nothing to do with the post you’re commenting on, or worse still, leave a comment that just says, ‘great post’, then you’ve as much chance of getting it approved as a snowflake in hell. If you’re going to use commenting as a part of your SEO strategy, (and I highly recommend that you do), then at least take the time to read the damn posts that you’re going to be commenting on. It’s just as easy to add a valuable, related comment that contributes to the post, as it is to write something totally gibberish. Of course, that’s assuming you’re actually bothering to write the comments in the first place. Which of course, you’re probably not, because you’ve been sold down the river and bought some piece of crappy, automated, commenting software that promised you zillions of backlinks with it’s super shiny, set it and forget it hype. Lord save me from the ‘easy way to riches‘ crowd. Ok, maybe I shouldn’t be so harsh. I was once one of those people myself. I know how hard it is to make money on the Internet and I know how frustrating it can be when you’re trying your damned hardest and nothing seems to be working. But you need to get over it people. I had to. And so did every other successful Internet Marketer. Take the time to learn your craft. Go read all the blogs, grab the information, learn from someone who’s already made all the mistakes you’re now making. In the long run, it’s actually quicker because you don’t have to repeat the same mistakes. SEO isn’t hard. Some of the experts who charge a fortune for their services may try and tell you it’s really technical stuff, but I promise you they’re lying. How else are they going to stay in business? Actually, Griz puts it so much better than me: So my view has always been that everything else is just fluff or the owners of SEO sites are trying to make money providing services to people who don’t know any better. I’ve said this before - if I charge you $10,000 to get your site ranked well in the search engines I have to convince you that what I do is “complicated” and involves “lots of work” [...]
What Are The "Best Ways to Earn Money Immediately"? 2009-08-26T08:58:18Z It’s always about the money. People will kid themselves they’re trying to build a business but in reality all they’re looking for are the best ways to earn money immediately, if not sooner. My inbox is usually stuffed with questions on how to get money NOW. Yeah, they’ll tell me they’re prepared to put in the work, that they’re willing to ‘earn’ it. But what that usually means, is that they’re prepared to put up a link somewhere in a really crappy article that they’ve swiped from somewhere else, and then do the same thing next week with something different because their first crappy attempt hasn’t made them rich. The trouble is that the best ways to earn money immediately aren’t the best ways to build a long term, secure, online home business. So you have to make a choice. Do you want money now, knowing that in a few weeks or possibly months, you will have to go out and find another method/product that will earn you some more money? Or do you want to put in some effort to building You.inc so that you can earn money effortlessly and not have to keep starting from scratch? I tried the first choice. And yeah, I made some money. But never enough, and never consistently. So I always had to go out and find another way or another bright, shiny, money making opportunity. And honestly folks, the reward for the amount of effort and energy and time that it takes to go down that route just isn’t worth it. As soon as I shifted the focus away from ‘how to earn money’, and concentrated instead on how to provide value to myself and others, the money just started coming in. Was I earning it? I guess that depends on your definition of ‘earning’. I wasn’t spending my time sending a zillion spammy emails anymore. I quit with trying to convince everyone how great XYZ was. But I was putting in a hell of a lot more time trying to figure out how the hell to create a capture page, how to set up an autoresponder, how to write a good article, how to create good videos, how to automate my marketing, how to build real relationships with folks I’d never met… As weird as it sounds, once you quit looking for the ‘best ways to earn money immediately’, and start looking for the ‘best ways to learn the real skills’ that you need, then you’ll actually be quite surprised by just how much money you can earn immediately. It doesn’t take long to learn the skills if you put in the effort. And because so few folks bother to learn anything, you’re streets ahead of most of the competition. Ok, I will now stand down off my soapbox, but if you’re looking for the best ways to earn money immediately, go learn some skills that will let you earn some money next week. Once you’ve learned those, go learn some more that will allow you to earn more money the following week. Keep repeating these steps until you can earn money whenever you feel like it. [...]
Will Social Networking Kill You? 2009-08-03T01:50:57Z I don’t often read the news, it’s too full of doom and gloom for my liking. But when I read that the Archbishop of Westminster was linking social networking sites such as Facebook with teenage suicides, I was kind of intrigued to know why. You can read the full story here, but let’s get something straight. If the only friendships your kids have are those taking place online in whatever social network they’re associated with, then regardless of whether they are more likely to commit suicide or not, they have a real problem, and as a parent, you should be taking some action. Now of course, the news service has over dramatised the whole thing. And if you read what he’s really saying, you’ll probably agree. Social Networking sites place too much emphasis on the number of ‘friends’ you have rather than the quality of those frienships. If you’re using these sites almost exclusively you risk losing the social skills of human interaction. He’s not wrong. Nobody should be living their life based solely on interacting online. Do you really want to live your life tied to a computer? Crikey, what will you do if your Internet connection goes down? But there’s a real lesson here for those in the marketing game who also think that the life of their business is linked to the number of ‘friends’ they can add to their social networking profiles. The number of your so called ‘friends’ doesn’t count for diddly squat! Go check out some Social Networking Advice if you think that it does. I’m not convinced that socialising online is going to lead to an increase in teenage suicides, but I’m pretty damn certain it will lead to the demise of more home businesses if you think it comes down to the number of folks on your ‘friend list’. [...]
Concentrated Niche Marketing Training 2009-07-26T10:23:51Z I was very fortunate the other day to actually be able to listen in ‘live’ to a niche marketing training webinar. Usually, because of the time differences I miss out on so many great training webinars and have to wait for recordings to be put up. What was especially great about this particular training was that it was held by the guys from Niche Profit Classroom. I’ve never yet found anyone who breaks it down as easily as Alan and Adam. For those who aren’t too sure what Niche Marketing is, I strongly suggest you go check out their free video training. The basic premise is simple. With Niche Marketing, you are concentrating your efforts at a very focused group of people. So instead of going after everyone who wants to train their dog, you simply go for the folks who are looking to train their Labrador, or their Poodle, or their Collie… you get the idea. The trouble of course is trying to figure out which markets are worth going after, and then figuring out which keywords to target for that particular market. Then you have to create the sites, set up autoresponders, and get the traffic there so you can convert it to sales and money. Whew! For the lazy-bones among us that seems like a heck of a lot of work. But having watched how Adam and Alan break it down, and with the training they give, it actually isn’t as hard as it sounds. Even for the ‘technically challenged’ folks such as yours truly. The real beauty of niche marketing however, is that you can simply repeat the process as many times as you want. So you don’t need to worry about earning a fortune from any one niche or website. If each niche site only brings in $100 a month, it doesn’t matter. You can easily build 10, 20 30 or more sites and when each of those sites are also bringing in $100 on a monthly basis, you can see the profit potential is only limited by how many niche websites you want to create. Right now the guys are getting ready to release Niche Marketing 2.0 and yours truly is waiting patiently (ok, so ‘patiently’ is a lie, but seeing as how it doesn’t open till 28th of this month, my options are pretty limited )to get started. [...]
SEO Tips From SEO Experts 2009-07-05T12:19:10Z While I don’t profess to be an SEO expert, I do have some very close friends who happen to be in the SEO expert category. Which makes life much easier for me when trying to figure out how to do stuff like optimising blog posts, ranking for certain keywords, getting free traffic from the search engines… A lot of times, being successful online comes down to who you know. With the best will in the world, you can’t keep your eye on everything that goes on in the world of Internet Marketing. So having friends with different skills, and who are willing to share those skills with you makes life a whole lot easier. All of the SEO Tips I pass on here at Money Secrets comes from the SEO experts I am priveleged to count as my friends. So naturally when one of those SEO experts releases more free training, you can guarantee I’m going to share it with you. As a result of taking over the search engine listings for someone else’s name my fellow Insider, Ferny Ceballos not only proved his SEO expert knowledge, but has now gone on to show that same person exactly how he did it. The great thing about this of course, is that you also get to benefit because you can watch the free training video that came about as a result. Head on over and see how you can take over Google using nothing more complicated than a little bit of easy peasy SEO. [...]
The Law of Attraction and Money 2009-06-25T20:39:30Z Actually, I guess I could call this post, “The Law of Attraction and Anything Else” because if it’s to be believed, money isn’t the only thing you can attract into your life. Seemingly this Universal law is touted as being your ticket to manifesting any desire you may have, using nothing more than the power of your thoughts. Somehow, I doubt very much that simply by believing I have wings and I can fly, that I will one day accomplish it. And ok, I’m taking it to the extreme. But no more so than anyone else who believes money / love / happiness… will appear into their lives simply by sending a message out to the Universe that you want it. And if you’re one of the folks waiting for it to happen, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee. Neither the Universe, nor anyone else (other than perhaps your mother ), is going to grant you your hearts desire simply because you asked for it. No matter how well mannered you are, or how much you flutter your lashes, or even how loud you can stamp your feet. Does that mean I don’t believe in the Law of Attraction? Hell no. I’m living proof that it works. I just don’t call it “The Law of Attraction“. I prefer to think of it in terms of getting back what you deserve, based on what you put out there. If you live your life in a constant state of negativity, there’s a high probability you don’t really do anything to try and change it. Waste of time. Won’t work. What’s the point? Result? Nothing. Which is exactly what you’re asking the Universe for because what you’re really saying is there’s nothing out there that’s worth even considering. However, when you put the Law of Attraction to work, your whole thought process changes. What if I did this? I wonder if that would work? If ‘Joe Bloggs’ can do that, there’s no reason I can’t do it too. It doesn’t matter if I invest my money in this training / business because I’m going to earn it back tenfold. Suddenly there’s a whole world of possibilities open to you. And your natural instinct is to start taking the actions that will get you the result you’re looking for. That’s what makes the Law of Attraction so powerful. It changes your behaviour by changing the way you think. And while your thoughts may be the root cause of your change in behaviour, it’s the change in your behaviour that gives you the results. Once you understand that, then you realise you really can manifest anything you want into your life. [...]
Free Capture Page Creator to Add to Your Marketing Tools Arsenal 2010-06-11T22:42:41Z I just created a video for readers of my ‘Magnetic Sponsoring‘ blog about an awesome free tool that you should really have in your marketing tools. And I figured that even though you’re not technically part of the Insider crowd, it’s about time you were granted the same priveleges as those who are. Now before you take offence, let me point out that Inside Magnetic Sponsoring is geared solely towards those who are interested in delving deeper into the secrets of Magnetic Sponsoring given in the Insider Report. Usually, most of the stuff I post on there is related to the other contributors, and of course, Mike’s training. But after I made the video about Jim’s software it suddenly dawned on me that this isn’t just restricted to folks who want to apply Magnetic Sponsoring techniques. This little tool is for absolutely anyone who wants to add to their marketing arsenal and start pulling in leads, prospects, and customers. I know it’s hard creating a capture page. And even once you’ve created one, you still have to test and tweak it to see what works best, which converts better… The cool thing about Jim’s free capture page generator is that you can now create a professional looking page in minutes. And you don’t need anything other than an idea of what it is you want to say. Check it out. [...]
Try Walking Before You Run if You Want to Be Successful With Internet Marketing 2009-06-11T19:38:29Z If only it was as easy as throwing some money at some self confessed guru who promises to make you rich, the world of Internet Marketing would be a whole lot simpler. But alas, good things rarely come that easily. So why do folks think they can come online and suddenly start earning huge amounts of cash, with no experience, no knowledge, and most of all, no time. It never ceases to amaze me. Nowhere else would you expect to start at the top. Yet for a heck of a lot of folks, they somehow think Internet Marketing is different. That you really can start out at the top of the heap and give up your day job within a few weeks. Nowhere else would you expect to be able to start a job one day and be fully competent without being given any training or instruction on what to do and how to do it. Internet Marketing really isn’t that much different. You have to learn to walk before you can run. In essence, you have to ‘learn before you can earn’. Admittedly, you don’t have to learn much to get started. Picking up some pretty basic skills is enough to see you through and start earning some money while you continue to learn more advanced methods and tactics that will ultimately take you to the next level. And it doesn’t cost you a fortune to learn the basics. Dumb Little Man (what a cool title ) posted a great article showcasing 15 of the best tutorial websites that you can use. As you start earning money then you can get into the advanced stuff. This will almost inevitably come with a price tag, but given the recent trend of folks following Eban Pagan’s advice of ‘Moving The Free Line’, those price tags are getting smaller by the day. In many cases you can get some of this stuff for the price of post and packing. Go check out Dumb Little Man’s list. Learn how to walk. Then build up speed till you’re running full steam ahead towards your goal. [...]
Building Your Reputation with Social Networking and SEO 2009-06-08T08:42:29Z So you all know how important it is to build your reputation on the Internet if you want to be really successful. And I’m guessing you also know the power of social networking as a very successful strategy for helping you do just that. In a world full of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours", he who scratches first is more likely to get their own itch scratched in return. But now, the Certified God of combining social networking with SEO has recently released a very powerful video showing you not only how it helps you build your own reputation, but also how it can gain you the attention of some of the Internet’s most powerful and successful gurus. And let’s face it folks. A lot of the time, getting on in business isn’t so much about ‘what’ you know as ‘who’ you know. I was extremely blessed to gain the friendship of very successful people early on in my online endeavours. And their help and support has been key critical in getting me where I am today. I simply couldn’t have done it without them. And neither can you. Remember, no man is an island! So when one of those very same friends (he of the ‘certified God’ status ) released this video setting it all out I had to share it. Because I know it works. Back Scratching Social SEO at it’s finest. Enjoy and implement. [...]
Traffic Formula 2 - The Total Home Business Training Course 2009-05-29T08:51:51Z So, Mike Dillard is ready to release the Traffic Formula 2 training course to home business owners. Given that I’m such a huge fan of Mike Dillard and his Magnetic Sponsoring manual, it shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise that I’m eagerly awaiting the release. The original Traffic Formula blew me away but since then I’ve bought more of Mike’s stuff and honestly can’t think of anyone else who over delivers as much he does. And I know that every testimonial on every guru’s sales page says the same thing, but how often do you find it to be true after you’ve actually bought the product? The answer is probably ‘not very often, if ever’. My only concern with the release of TF2 is that Mike is giving away the formula before you’ve even bought the course. I’m sure there’s method in his madness but I can’t help thinking that a lot of home business owners are going to watch the free training DVD and then put their business into overdrive without actually buying the course. And have you seen the capture page? Have to admit it’s one very cool looking page. But enough gushing from me. Why am I calling it The Total Home Business Training Course? Because as much as Mike calls it Traffic Formula, he is sooooooo wrong. See, that title conjures up thoughts of how to get traffic. Nothing else. Just traffic. How to get it, where to get it, etc. But this course isn’t just about getting traffic. It really is a blueprint for home business owners to start, build and explode their business dealings online. And yes, of course that includes getting traffic. You’d be pretty stumped to try and build a business without it. But it isn’t just the traffic. It’s about you, your business, your reputation, your list, your relationships, your business blueprint. If more home business owners invested in this type of training instead of chasing the holy grail of the next shiny ‘get rich quick’ scam, there’d be a whole lot more successful business out there. And yes, I’m biased. I freely admit it. If it wasn’t for Mike’s teachings and his continued advice I wouldn’t be here writing this and you wouldn’t be reading it. I wouldn’t be waking up to money mysteriously appearing in my bank account while I slept. I wouldn’t know the people who’ve signed up to my list and gone on to become not just customers, but friends and business partners. So do yourself a favour and get this course. Read it, study it, apply it. I’ll see you at the top. [...]
Home Business Training - 5 Tips for Avoiding Information Overload 2009-05-23T07:57:25Z One of the biggest frustrations for home business owners just setting up is the problem of information overload. There’s just too much on offer, and the time spent on searching for training on your specific learning needs is time spent away from actually growing your business. Which is why so many folks are tempted by the ‘ready made’ offers. Maybe you know how to create a website, but you don’t know how to optimise it for the search engines. Maybe you need to know how to create articles, how to create videos, how to split test your capture pages, how to increase your traffic, how to start a blog, how to use social marketing to your best advantage, how to get more backlinks to your site… the list goes on. And if you actually find what you’re looking for, it turns out that you can’t understand it because they’ve assumed you know certain other things that you don’t have a clue about! So off you go, looking for more training. Home business training is a huge market in it’s own right. A very profitable ‘niche’ for those who’ve learned the skills already and are able to pass it on. And yet, instead of increasing the success of home business owners, the sheer abundance of training available usually results in paralysis and failure because it perpetuates the myth that you need to know everything before you can start earning money. So how do you avoid it? Well, I don’t know your personality and how you approach things so what worked for me may not work for you. But the best tips below will go a long way if not in helping you avoid information overload, to at least showing you where to start. Consider how you learn best - if you prefer to watch a video, don’t buy an e-book. Decide one thing you want to learn and don’t try to learn anything else until you’ve learned it. Set up a folder on your computer with sub-folders for different training needs. Spending 5 minutes getting organised in the beginning can save hours of frustration later down the line. Set aside 1 hour each day to go through and study the training materials you’ve found. Spend the rest of the day actually implementing it. It’s easy to think you’ve understood something only to realise you haven’t when you come to actually do it. Rinse and repeat until you’ve learned all you need to know. Which, by the way, is never going to happen. There is always something new to learn. So setting aside an hour a day for just that purpose is a habit you should start asap. These steps may not work for everyone, but if you’re wanting to be a successful home business owner instead of a frustrated one, you need to figure out a way to avoid the information o[...]
Capture Page Versus Sales Page. Which is Better for Earning Money? 2012-01-29T08:54:59Z So you’re looking to earn money working online. You have something to sell, or you’re looking to sign up distributors into your MLM opportunity. Do you show your potential customers a capture page, get their details and build up to the sale over time? Or do you take them immediately to the sales page where you persuade them that they need to act fast or risk missing out big time? The only reason for having a capture page is to get folks onto your list of prospective customers/partners, so that you can earn money from them. Either you want them to buy your products, sign up for your services, or join you in your Network Marketing opportunity. You don’t put up a capture page to get more friends. It’s not a friend finder. It’s a sales tool. But if it’s a sales tool, why not just go straight to the sales pitch and miss out the capture page altogether? In truth, you should be using both capture and sales pages in your business. But you should always take your prospects through your capture page first. And here’s why: Building trust - one of the biggest hurdles to earning money online is the fact that the customer doesn’t know you from Adam. It’s not like they’re popping to their local store, where they know the owner and the owner knows them. Business on the Internet is often faceless. Getting someone to trust you is a big factor in whether they will buy from you. Timing - people use the Internet to search for stuff all the time. That doesn’t mean they are searching with their credit card beside them just waiting to spend their money. So in order to buy from a sales page, they would need to put down their laptop, or get up from their desktop PC, go get their credit card, and go through the sales process. You can bet they’ve changed their mind before they’ve even got the credit card out! After all, they don’t know you so there’s no trust. Risk - in this day and age, everyone is keenly aware of the risks involved with identity theft, online scams, etc. Offering something that is related to what they’re looking for, but doesn’t require them to take the risk of inputting their credit card details onto an unknown website is much more likely to get a response. Relationships - by using a capture page you can build a relationship with potential customers/prospects and in so doing you discover whether what you’re selling is actually right for them. If it isn’t, that doesn’t mean you’ve lost money. If you’ve built up a relationship with them and established trust and credibility in their eyes, there’s every chance they’ll recommed you and/or your product or opportunity to anyone who the[...]
Creating Ebooks or Physical Products - Which is Best ? 2009-05-05T21:11:37Z Creating Ebooks seems to have been the money maker of choice in Internet Marketing for so long that you have to wonder if it’s still a worthwhile option for earning money online. Now it seems if someone is going to hand over their hard earned cash, they expect their ebook to come with audio, video, webinars, community forums, training calls… and surprisingly enough, to include an actual physical copy on top. You’d have thought the Internet would have done away with the need for a physical product. And indeed it has, but lately I’m witnessing the top Internet Marketers are supplying customers with an actual physical book/DVD as opposed to it’s digital counterpart. So you have to wonder with all the heavy hitters opting to send you physical products, if it marks the end of the Ebook. Are your prospective customers less likely to buy a digital download than an actual physical copy that they will have to wait for? Wasn’t the Internet supposed to supply us with instant gratification? And how’s the little guy supposed to get started if not by creating ebooks? Producing a physical product takes money. Lots of it. Sure you can charge more, but if you don’t have the money upfront you can’t get started so what you’re going to charge for the finished product isn’t even an issue. Creating and selling an ebook can be done for practically zero cost. A domain and hosting and you’re good to go. Create your sales page, upload the ebook to your server, set up a Paypal account, and send visitors to the sales page. Then it’s just a matter of testing and tweaking to maximise your conversions. So why is everything suddenly being turned out as a physical product instead of in digital format? Like I said, you can charge more for a physical product. But you need to. The cost of production is so much higher. And no matter how much you charge, your profit margin will not be as much as with a digital product. Branding? Maybe there’s something in a hard copy book that stands out as more authoritative and professional than a digitally downloadable ebook. So the fact that these guys are shipping out actual products raises their reputation and status as well as the perceived value of the content. Fewer returns? Personally, I reckon this is probably the biggest reason for creating and selling a physical product as opposed to a digital ebook that can be instantly downloaded. In order to get your money back if you’ve paid for a physical product to be shipped to your door, you have to send it back the same way. Which means packing it back up, taking a trip to the post office, paying the costs and then waiting for them to recieve it before you[...]
Setting Up Your Automated Marketing System 2009-08-03T07:24:16Z The dream is to earn money without doing any work. But, the only way to do that is to set up an automated marketing system. And that will require some work in the beginning. Whether you like it or not, you have to be willing to take some action to set it up, or you have to shell out a whole bunch of money to pay someone else to do it for you. The problem with the second option is that: Usually, the reason yo’re looking to earn money online is because you don’t have much to start with. You don’t know where to go or who to trust to set up the system for you. Even assuming you can afford to outsource the setup, and you can find someone to actually do it, you’re still left with the problem of not knowing what to do if something goes wrong. And even the most well put together of machines breaks down. Which leaves you with setting up your system yourself. Now, before you go running off thinking that setting up an automated marketing system is going to be too hard, or take too long, read on. Depending on your skill level and your access to different resources, you can set up a system in a matter of hours. If you’re as dumb as I was when I first started out, it may take a few days, or even a few weeks. But isn’t it worth sacrificing the initial time required if it means you can then sit back and continue to earn money without doing any work? Tools Needed A domain name - if you want to be taken seriously you will need your own domain. I use NameCheap.com. But there are a zillion others you can use if you prefer. Hosting - somewhere for your domain to ‘live’. A homeless domain isn’t worth much. Again, there are a zillion hosting services available. But be warned. Not all hosting services are created equal. Depending on how much you know about HTML, FTP, PHP, CPanels, Bandwidth,… you may struggle to actually get your site moved in to it’s new address and open for visitors. I speak from experience having uploaded the first site I created to a ‘private’ folder that couldn’t be accessed by anyone! Hopefully, you’re not that dumb. But if you are, check out my hosting provider. Gotta love Bj for his patience with me in the early days. An autoresponder. Absolutely essential because even the best copywriters and web designers in the world can’t give you a 100% conversion rate. So you need to capture your visitor’s e-mail address in order to follow up with them. My autoresponder of choice is iContact as many of you already know, having subscribed to my Money Secret Tips. Once you’ve got those sorted it’s time to set it all up. And this is where it [...]
Earn Money with John Reese's New Opportunity.Com 2009-04-22T06:43:08Z So John Reese, the first guy to have a million dollar day has released his new programme, Opportunity.com There seems to be a ton of offers floating around at the moment related to affiliate marketing, setting up little, automated, money making websites that you can all but set and forget. I guess the best thing about affiliate marketing is the fact that you can always find something that will earn you money, regardless of what market you are in. The pleasing trend though (at least to me) is that at last the big guys are no longer telling you that all you have to do is promote an affiliate link. Finally, they’re coming out and admitting that the best way to earn money from affiliate marketing is to set up your own websites. The cool thing is that with all the free tools and resources out there, setting up a website is no longer that hard. Pretty much anyone can do it and do it relatively quickly. Decide your market, set up a website, complete with opt in form, have your autoresponder send out the messages for you. And yes, there’s a lot more to it than that. But in all honesty, choosing the right market is probably the biggest hurdle you’ll face. You can find freee website templates just about anywhere. Just ask Google. Autoresponders are not expensive and if you’re not sure how to write good e-mails, try swiping some ideas from all those lists you’re on. Will Opportunity.com give you the chance to have a million dollar day? I doubt it. But the free video will give you a great heads up on how to put it all together to start raking in some pretty good money. And we all have to start somewhere. [...]
Susan Boyle's Talent Has Inspired The Rest of The World. How About You? 2009-04-18T08:27:06Z It’s no wonder that Susan Boyle has taken the world by storm. This lady has certainly taught the rest of us a few lessons. Having dreamed for years of being a professional singer, she put herself out there for the world to see by appearing on ‘Britain’s Got Talent’. Not enough that she would also be risking the cutting edge of Simeon Cowell’s tongue!!! Was it worth it? Most definitely. And not just for Susan Boyle. I wonder how many folks have been inspired by this lady’s courage to finally quit with the dreaming and take the steps necessary to achieve their own dreams. If this doesn’t inspire you to get out there and do what you have to do, without worrying about whether you’re going to be laughed at, then I don’t know what will. Only you can know whether you’ve got what it takes. So have you? [...]
Your SEO Strategy - Does It Include Reducing Your Bounce Rate? 2009-04-13T20:27:10Z Hands up if you include your site’s ‘bounce rate’ as part of your overall SEO strategy? I have to own up here to not previously giving it much thought. And for those who don’t know what ‘bounce rate’ is, it’s basically the percentage of visitors who leave your site from the same page they entered it, (single page visit). And of course blogs are different anyway. New visitors may search through the site to see what’s in store, but those who return regularly (like you, ) probably only come to read the latest post and then move on. Would the search engines take account of this for blogs? Or would they still see it as negative black mark against your site? Hmmm. Personally I look at it like this. If you’re looking at optimising your site to improve your rankings then there’s no doubt that one of the easiest ways to do it is to improve your content. Search engines love content. But they especially love new, relevant, useful content. (Well, they don’t, they’re robots and I’m not too sure if robots have the ability to love as yet!) But their customers do and they like to please their customers. If the visitor to your site doesn’t like your content they’ll leave without bothering to look any further. The more of them that leave, the higher your bounce rate. Now as to whether the search engines include that bounce rate in their little algorithms and whether it affects your rankings I have no idea. Hopefully, you SEO geeks out there will point me in the right direction. But whether the search engines consider it or not, you as a site owner certainly should. Because it comes down to giving your visitors what they want. If you don’t, they’re gone. And there’s a good chance they’re going to end up on your competition’s site instead. Tweak your meta tags all you want. Get all the inbound links you can get. But if your visitor doesn’t like what they see when they arrive, what good has it done you? [...]
Earn (More) Money With A Bad Reputation 2009-07-05T10:59:58Z I’m seriously considering changing my stance on maintaining a good reputation. Following the recent s**t storm over my article on how Prosper Learning dealt with one of their customers, my traffic has gone through the roof, and so have my earnings. Go figure. Or maybe it’s the fact I’ve been on holiday that has caused the upsurge? Anyway, I somehow doubt that those of you claiming my reputation is damaged expected this little consequence. I certainly didn’t. So thanks. Alas, all good things must come to an end. And now it’s time to get back to work. So I’ve closed the comments and following this post won’t be discussing the matter any further, though I’ve no doubt the rest of you will continue to do so whether I’m there or not. As for the allegations about me scamming and spamming - believe them if you wish. I know, as do my subscribers, that they are totally unfounded. In the meantime, please don’t take the title of this post as good advice. It seems some folks don’t bother reading posts fully and have a tendency to take what is written out of context. No doubt it will be the subject of the next complaint about me. However, you really will earn more money with a good reputation than a bad one. And even if you don’t, your reputation is worth more than money in the bank. Oh and just for the record Angela, I didn’t attack Cockeyed.com - you may want to go back and read the post properly. [...]
Repairing the Damage When A Complaint About You Hits The Marketing News 2009-07-05T10:58:27Z And so it seems that Susan Coils has finally arrived folks. I’ve made it to the level of being rated (badly ) over at the Complaints Board. Seems someone didn’t like my exposing Prosper Learning! Go figure. Today I recieve an email from SEOTeamUSA offering to “repair my reputation” following such a “very damaging complaint". Hmmm. Are these guys for real? Sure, the complaint is now showing up on Google and no doubt some folks will believe it. Heck, I’ve helped it up the rankings myself! And it may seem strange that I would actually draw attention to it. So here’s why. My reputation is extremely important to me. I’ve rattled on about how much so ever since I started out. I have begged and implored you all to do the same. Guard it like the crown jewels, it’s worth more than they are. So bearing that in mind, how come some guy says I ‘took advantage’ of him? Well, that would be easier to answer had he actually said how I’d done it. But that’s the great thing about ComplaintsBoard.com You don’t have to give any details. They just let you publish anything you want. Easy since they have a disclaimer at the bottom of the site admitting that they are not responsible for the content published there! Anyway, I made my own complaint about ‘complaintsboard’. And no doubt it will be the cause of yet another s**t storm. But I’m kind of too old to play games. Especially when folks want to damage my reputation in the news. Of course, I’m flattered that someone thinks I’m dangerous enough to be worthy of damaging in the first place. You have a couple of options if a smear campaign is started against you. Ignore it - chances are it’ll die it’s own death. Spend your time on your business. It’s more productive and ultimately more rewarding. Fight back - doesn’t have to be dirty. In fact, I strongly recommend you keep it from being so. I admit I’m finding it a bit of a rollercoaster having opted for this particular choice but imo, I feel it justified. Complaints, allegations, lies… should someone be allowed to publicly damage your reputation without providing evidence to back it up? Only you can decide. [...] |
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