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This is a new video training package, aimed at “newbies”.

I put that in quotes because I’m not sure this mythical newbie that an awful lot of products are aimed at actually exists - but I still like the package, and I’m sure it will benefit a whole load of people.

Refreshingly, these videos are quick and to-the-point. They each target a specific task, and show you how to accomplish it. Some are awfuly basic - but then, that’s the idea here. These are videos for the kind of task that perhaps we take for granted. Things like opening a clickbank account, setting up a PayPal button, and more.

There are however some more advanced techniques covered. Videos are there for using Camtasia, creating e-covers, and using Facebook and PayDotCom among others.

All in all, a great idea. Not a hour or two bore-a-thon, but 50 short and concise videos over two volumes.

Rating: 8 / 10

For the marketers among you, this is a great package to promote. You can get it from the Wacky Wednesday sale as I did for $14 and promote for comissions, or grab the resell rights. If you have visitors, readers, or subscribers who you could call…. “newbies” then this is a very attractive offer for them.

Super Quick Videos

Technorati Tags: affiliates, commissions, internet marketing, marketing videos

Tags: affiliates, commissions, internet marketing, marketing videos

Since this Blog is more or less about making money, I should make some comment on the current economic crisis, and how it can effect you. I’m by no means an expert on this, but from my own research from those who know better I have made a few conclusions. This is mainly advice on the UK market - but the “credit crunch” and the problems it is bringing are global.

Please use the comments on this post if you have advice.

1. If you hold investments, perhaps in shares and funds, you should remember these are long term investments. Don’t panic: for one, these funds are now buying shares at a lower price. The market always moves in cycles and there are not many fund managers who are making a profit in these times.

If you have your money in one of the collapsed banks I sympathise. I don’t know the US market, but in the UK your investments are guaranteed up to £35,000 per bank by the government. If you have more than this it’s advised you split them between a few institutions.

2. Your mortgage: House prices are in general falling. It depends when you bought yours and how much you paid as to how much it concerns you - prices were rising rapidly until relatively recently.. If you are looking to buy a home, perhaps it’s worth waiting longer as the downturn is expected to last a little longer. If you are looking to sell, be aware prices are unlikely to rise for at least 2 years or so according to the experts. And, of course, there are far fewer buyers who can arrange mortgages!

In the long term, house prices are always a reflection of supply vs demand, and land is a finite resource.

3. Spending power: Since this blog covers Internet Marketing, which mainly concerns selling, it’s worth noting that peoples spending power has taken a blow. This could mean a reduced income for you as people cut back, even if your primary income stream is from running advertising. However, it also means there are a lot of people out there who are looking to start earning a second income of their own… And who knows, now be the time to launch that new Surviving The Credit Crunch book

So what can we read from this?

A. Don’t Panic. Things will get better, one day, but it makes sense to ensure your savings are in the safest place. Basically this downturn won’t last. Those who claim this is the end of capitalism as we know it and the death of big banking are jumping the gun.

B. Look for opportunities! Even in a market thats in a downturn, opportunities exist. One mans crisis is anothers chance to capitalise. For example, share prices are lower so those willing to take a risk can source some real bargains, and certain credit and finance related products are in demand.

Technorati Tags: credit crunch, economics, economy

Tags: credit crunch, economics, economy

I don’t usually post about the general “Make Money” methods that are prevalent on the web today - my subject is Internet Marketing, which takes a longer business-building view to creating an income.

However I understand that many people find the subject too technical and long-term for their needs and just wish a simple way they can earn money, and soon. Perhaps with some cash behind them they can then graduate to building websites and mailing lists, creating products and services, and generally aim for the big money

These usually trade your time for money. You won’t get rich doing this, but you will earn a few bucks you can perhaps invest in your future…

Offline Marketing

Just after I completed this list I came across this program, “Easy Offline Riches”. I’ll cover it in a little more detail in the future but it looks very promising.

The idea here is you contact businesses in your area, or further afield, and offer to get them a web presence. Many companies small and large would like a website, but have no idea how to go about it. Everyone from your local florist to the big car dealer around the corner is a potential lead for you. All the marketing is covered for you, giving you cards and ads you can use locally. You don’t even need to speak to the prospect yourself if you don’t want to…

The best part is you don’t have to create the business site yourself. You outsource it through this program, and earn up to $400 per sale! Take a look at this - and I’ll tell you more once I’ve researched it fully.

1. Ebay

Nothing beats ebay for it’s simplicity and it’s massive army of eager buyers. You can build a business here, specialising in whatever you want, or you can simply sell odds and ends you have that you no longer need. It’s both a glorified garage sale and a shopping mall.

Once you’ve sold your old ornaments, tools, clothes, CD’s, furniture and vehicles you can look into buying wholesale. There are many places that will sell you both new and second hand goods by the palette or container load. If you know your market, you can make a lot of money here - and fast!

If you want to make Ebay a full-time business (many do!) try SaleHoo for information on Wholesale Suppliers and selling direct.

2. Paid Surveys

There are many companies that will pay you to take surveys. Anything up to $40 per survey! You simply register with the correct sites and complete surveys as they are sent to you.

There’s a full guide to making $10-$40 per survey right here.

3. Writing For Cash

You can earn money writing anything from reviews, to blog posts. If you own a blog you can write posts to advertise certain companies, and they will pay you for the promotion.

At various consumer sites you can submit reviews, and earn that way. Some will connect authors to publishers, and other kinds of sites will pay you per page view of your article, and accept a wide range of articles. The idea is they get traffic from your content and make their money from affiliate programs or ads.

The pay will vary, a lot, but if you enjoy writing this maybe something you can do part time at least.

You can even reach for the big money by writing, if you can write technical manuals, ghost write for others, enter writing competitions, or even get the next best-seller. Let’s face it, it’s unlikely, but there’s nothing wrong with a little ambition.

4. Helping Others

If you have a skill, you can trade that for cash. Whether it’s a technical skill or an interpersonal one you can market yourself online. Good with graphics, web design, programming, copywriting, promotion ? Or can you help people use their computers, get a web presence, or even search for information ?

If you have spare time you can even trade that. There are many busy marketers who pay for tasks such as submitting to directories, writing articles, post to blogs and forums, write transcriptions, do translations or other such tasks.

The best places to look for work are forums such as the Warrior Forum or DigitalPoint and then there are freelance sites such as eLance and Rent-A-Coder. You can even get basic work from Amazon’s Manual Turk service.

The pay won’t be great… but it IS pay. So if you’re a stay at home mom or a broke student perhaps this is one way you can earn some pocket (or beer!) money from your skills.

5. Get Paid To…

These sites usually make their money from advertising, and so pass on a little of that to their users.

Get Paid To read e-mail. Very little, perhaps $0.02 per e-mail, but like anything it can add up. It depends on the network as to how many e-mails you receive and you usually have to total a minimum before you get paid.

Get Paid To complete offers. These companies earn from their affiliate income, so you will be asked to join various sites such as gambling sites, free trials at DVD rentals, etc in exchange for a cut of that income. An offshoot of this are the companies that promise free iPods, Playstations etc for completing similar offers.

Get Paid To network. There are some social networks, notably Yuwie.com, that will pay you to make friends, create content, etc. Essentially the income stream here is again the traffic you generate from that, but it is something you could try.

6. Internet Marketing

I’ve already said this is the way to make real money. It’s not a straightforward “work for cash” as in the methods above, but it’s far better for a long term strategy.

The two important points here are (1) A website with an offer/sale of some kind, and (2) Traffic to that website. It’s setting all that up that can get people unstuck. This entire site is about that subject, so explore and enjoy

Technorati Tags: freelance, get paid surveys, get paid to write, internet marketing, make money

Tags: freelance, get paid surveys, get paid to write, internet marketing, make money

Here’s more quick links to websites and blogs you may want to visit. Remember, feel free to add your own in the comments. As long as they are relevant, they will stay.

Rich Schefren– “The Uncertainty Syndrome”

Johnny’s Training Blog

List of “DoFollow” Forums - get some one-way links

Charles Heflin - Social Media Blog

299 Steps… To Website Heaven

Web Tools - For Marketers

SEOBook Blog

Tip: Stumbleupon is great for finding popular sites in any niche - including this. Use your toolbar as a search (click Search in the Channels area) and open multiple tabs, clicking “Stumble” in each one

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, marketing links

Tags: internet marketing, marketing links

This is the big promotion of the moment, by Mike Filsaime, so I feel I ought to say something about it.

First - I don’t have a copy, or intend to buy a copy. Neither am I promoting it.

Traffic Fusion is a very expensive product. Well, actually two products. Traffic Fusion and something called “Hyper Java”. The cost is… wait for it! … $1500 AND a monthly fee of $39. That’s why you’re seeing so many ads at the moment. There’s a hefty commission for those promoting it!

Ignore all the bumph about Integration Marketing etc - they are just buzzwords put to something that’s been done for years -the basic idea is this: You get to place your ads on other peoples “Thank You” pages.

Maybe I’m missing something here, but apart from some spit-and-polish where you can create, track, tweak your ads etc this is nothing new. In fact an underused service called “Thank You Ads” did more or less the same thing, but it run as a basic traffic exchange. And interesting fact #2, I remember Mike himself used this on at least one of his sites, listdotcom.com

Sure, you could strike it lucky and get to meet some good JV partners and get your own product on some big sellers page - but let’s face it, it’s unlikely. The idea is sound in that Thank You pages are in some ways prime real estate, and the visitor there already has/her credit card out,  but that’s not a new idea.

I’m actually thinking the big launches are not as interesting as they used to be. Are the guru’s running out of ideas (lol) ? Are they getting lazy ? Are they just repackaging and rebranding ?

This is the second big launch in the last few weeks after “Stomping The Search Engines”, but that was more or less free so I was happy to promote. I’m having trouble figuring out the benefits to this one.

There are some great bonus offers around, and there’s a lot of “stuff” thrown in to sweeten the deal with Traffic Fusion, but the core benefit of this just doesn’t seem worth the outlay.

Now Mike is a successful marketer, so I’m sure he knows what he’s doing with Traffic Fusion, but my gut feeling here is style over substance. If you feel you can get some benefit from this then go ahead - here’s the non-affiliated link - but please tread carefully.

This is not a scam, you know what you’re getting, but you have to decide for yourself whether or not you can make use of it. I have nothing against high priced products - because one persons “expensive” is anothers “reasonable”.  As for me? , I’ll pass.

Technorati Tags: internet marketing, traffic fusion

Tags: internet marketing, traffic fusion

A Full Review, Details and How To Get It - For Free! Bonus Included.

Stomping The Search Engines 2 is the follow up to the product that first turned the Stompernet guys (Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon) into megastars. This time around, they’ve moved on from the originals CD format and now present a full DVD - and the launch of a brand new magazine.

Four years ago Stomping 1 was perhaps the biggest selling SEO product - ever. Now, Stomping The Search Engines 2 is destined to make even more online millionaires than the original.

As the title suggests, this is about SEO - Search Engine Optimization. STSE2 details the current methods used to get your site a good ranking. After all, if you are the top result for a good keyphrase in the natural-search listings at sites like Google you can literally write your own cheque.

The DVD

There are actually two DVDs because you also get a copy of the original STSE. Remember, that sold thousands of copies at $300 a time !

Once you put the DVD into your PC it will launch into a videoplayer, giving you access to all the videos in the product. It starts with an overview of the pros and cons of SEO.

There are 7 modules, 36 videos in all. The introduction section kicks off short-term tactics you can use, and a look at what they call “agressive white hat” SEO. Then it moves on to discussions of the actual technology behind the major the major search engines, before it gets to the really juicy stuff.

For example, the videos on keywords and content structure will really open your eyes to how to properly design a website destined for high rankings, as will the shows about optimizing your site content, and your site structure.

Don’t worry if all this sounds a bit techy. The presentation is easy to follow!

By the time we’ve passed through the all important linking and promotion section, we’re well on our way to become search engine guru’s ourselves

The final section may be the most important: measuring results, and tweaking your site(s) to improve them. After all, we can’t remain stationary - someone else may make a play for our enviable top ranks…

This is only an overview of the video content. If you’ve ever seen any of the Stompernet videos that have circulated online, you’ll understand how professional the presentation is, and how informative. It’s information you want - so feel free to take notes, pause or rewind where neccessary, or (as I did) jot down the times of interesting sections in the videos so you can revisit.

And once you’ve watched all the videos (first time around, anyway - I’m sure you’ll revisit them) be sure to check out the resources on the DVD. You’ll find the Stompernet Directory List (an invaluable links collection) and the Keyword Strategy Guide!

Whatever your current level of expertise STSE2 will help you aim for, and achieve, those high front-page Google listings…

Stomping The Search Engines 2

Other things I’ve picked up from these videos - in no particular order:

How to avoid accidental duplicate content
What you can get penalized on by the Search Engines
“Canonicalization” of your content
Don’t use - or trust - Google’s inbound link count
Some “competitiors” may acually be good partners
Target the head - but mine the “long tail”

I could go on, I’m only dipping into a few videos to give you an overview, but you should get the idea.

The Magazine

The new publication, called The Net Effect, is included with STSE2. Remember, this is a physical product, so it’s a hardcopy, printed out professionally for you to read anywhere.

It’s an Internet Marketing magazine that goes above and beyond anything you’ve seen before. You can read it all in one go, or dip in and out - and probably be buzzing with ideas to implement.

In this first issue you’ll find a great article on the “Keyword Heist” technique, 26 Things To Test, Twittering Your Way To Traffic, and much more.

I especially enjoyed reading the Social Media Survival Guide!

This is - again - just an overview of the magazine, there’s a lot more included (”armour-piercing e-mail” anyone?) and you may find the Monthly Action Plan at the end very useful, as it brings everything you’ve learned so far together into a single-page plan to follow. My advice? Photocopy it or cut it out and stick it near your PC.

The Net Effect is designed to keep you up-to-date in the fast moving marketing and SEO world. Let’s face it, how many ebooks or websites do you actually read? Nothing beats a real “hold it in your hand” product. You’ll be looking forward to your snail mail each month This is an ongoing monthly journal for high-end SEO and Internet Marketing. A serious trade publication. It’s your business, your livelihood - so make sure you’ve got all the latest information to hand. Insider information from the Stompernet pro’s.

All in all Stomping The Search Engines 2 is an excellent product that is sure to benefit anyone working in the IM field today, whether they are a bedroom dabbler, or head of a company.

You already know the best part - it’s hardly a secret.

STSE2 is FREE.

And not just the “free” you see bandied about a lot in marketing campaigns. STSE2 is a very real $497 product, and “The Net Effect” magazine is worth $39 monthly…

The cat is now out of the proverbial bag. Get over to the website and claim your copy, before the Stompernet guys come to their senses!

Stomping The Search Engines 2

The page above is a good example of the professionalism of these guys. Look at the video, read the details, and get stoked up with what you could achieve. This is not some $7 screen-capture video product. This is not some re-hashed ebook. This is a very real SEO course especially designed for Internet Marketers, the people who really know how to make their livings online.

Once you decide to order at the above link, drop me a note via the support desk and I’ll send you a free bonus — even though STSE2 is free in itself…

P.S. Because the launch was delayed slightly due to demand the Stompernet guys have promised some special bonuses themselves as a “sorry” so be sure to check the link above to see what extras you get - above and beyond the review copy I’ve looked at here!

Technorati Tags: advertising, affiliates, internet marketing, make money, marketing, promotion, rankings, search engine optimisation, seo, stompernet, stomping the search engines 2, Traffic

Tags: advertising, affiliates, internet marketing, make money, marketing, promotion, rankings, search engine optimisation, seo, stompernet, stomping the search engines 2, Traffic

They say marketing is a numbers game, or perhaps a percentages game. And to a certain extent, that’s true.

It’s all about making a profit. That is, getting more money out than you put in.

There are two figures that are important: Conversion Rate and Return On Investment.

Google’s Adwords is an ideal practice ground for trying out these ideas. And after that it’s endless tweaking to try and improve the figures, until you reach that magical realization that you’re basically paying, say, .50c for every $1 you make.

And if I said I’d give you two dollars for every dollar you gave me, wouldn’t you give me every dollar you could possibly could?

Here’s how a simplified process works, and the steps involved:

1. You have a website, that sells a product.
2. You have traffic coming to that website from ads you buy on Google.

Now you need those magical figures I mentioned earlier.

Conversion Rate

By tracking the visitors to your site, you discover that for every 100 people who visit you make 4 sales. That means you have a 4% conversion rate.

You know this from your sites stats. You see 100 hits to your site, and you see 4 hits to the order page. Or, perhaps you see 4 clicks to the order button - whatever works for you.

Because you are selling an eBook for $10, you know essentially your profit is $40 for every 100 visitors. So if you can get 100 visitors for less than $40, you’re in profit.

If you’re running an affiliate program the same principles apply. Instead of sending them to your own site, you can send them to the affiliate site, via your link. And because they pay a percentage per sale, you know you will make 50% of each $20 sale = $10. In effect, the same figures for our demonstration..

So now you need those visitors. Enter Google Adwords.

At Adwords, you discover various keywords for your product. To keep things simple, if unrealistic, we’re going to use one keyword. This keyword costs you $1 per click.

That means you can buy 40 clicks for your $40. Since you need 100 clicks to make $40, that’s obviously not good enough.

So we try another keyword. This one costs us 20c per click. That means you can get 200 clicks for $40. Good! By our calculations, that’s $80 worth of sales for 200 clicks. We have a four percent conversion rate, so 200 clicks = 8 sales = $80.

However, there’s another point we have to take account. Impressions vs Clicks. That’s the conversion rate for your ads themselves. Luckily Adwords only charge per click, NOT by impression. If you were using another method, for example paid advertising on Blogs where you pay per impression, you’d need to know those figures too.

As an example, an ad company charges $40 for 1000 impressions. If you were sending an e-mail ad, it may be to 1000 subscribers. You discover that for every 1000 times your ad is shown, you get 50 clicks to your site (or affiliate site). That’s a 5% conversion rate. Because our site converts at 4% (remember?) that means we get 2 sales: 1000 impressions = 50 clicks = 2 sales. So in the end it’s costing you $40 to make $20 - not good enough.

Time to tweak! If you can increase your ad coversion, by using better ads, you can get more clicks. If you can increase your sites conversion, by a better sales page, you can get more sales. If you can increase your product price or your affiliate percentage, you get more profit. That’s the numbers game.

And that, my friends, is marketing in a nutshell. Not as difficult as some make out!

Return On Investment

This is a catch all term that describes how much you make or lose for how much you put in.

For example, in our simple one man, one site demonstration we make a 100% ROI. We make $80 for every $40 we invest.

This term is also used for more general investments, for example, say you pay a copywriter to overhaul your sales copy, and it costs you $200.

This work means your site is now converting at 6% instead of 4%, so you are now making 12 sales per 200 clicks instead of 8. It means you make $120 per $40 you put in, instead of $80. Over a specific period of time, say a year, that’s many more sales. A high ROI for the $200 you paid that copywriter!

For more information on the subject of conversion rates please read Claud Hopkins seminal “Scientific Advertising” - available freely in our Instant Marketing Library and in our Members Site.

Technorati Tags: advertising, adwords, conversion rates, copywriting, home business, internet marketing, marketing, promotion, return on investment, roi

Tags: advertising, adwords, conversion rates, copywriting, home business, internet marketing, marketing, promotion, return on investment, roi

As you may have noticed, I’ve been experimenting with various third-party services on this blog. Most are to help increase it’s traffic and visibility.

The best places to find these services are actually on other blogs, and you’ve probably seen a few as you’ve surfed. In the interest of completeness, I’m listing the ones I currently use here.

So if you want more traffic to your blog, you might want to try some of these:

My Blog Log

This is a service from Yahoo and it’s designed as a networking system for bloggers.

Once you add your profile you can join various communities, add contacts, and follow other people and their blogs.

You’ll also get to add the cool widget you can see in the side menu, which tracks your visitors and adds their avatars to your site.

(There is another big blog social network, called Blog Catalog, that seems to have similar features to My Blog Log. I’m not too familiar with that, but I have registered, so time will tell which is most useful. Reading discussions around the web it seems My Blog Log can be spammy, so I may yet change…)

Twitter

This is not a blog service per se and I’m very much a newbie at it, but Twitter is a kind of micro-blogging system designed with text-messaging mobile phone users in mind.

However, with the pretty cool Twitter Tools plugin for Wordpress you can add your Twitter “Tweets” to your blog, automatically create a tweet whenever you post to your blog, and do the opposite - create a post for each tweet or a digest of the days tweets.

At present, I’m really using this as a quick headline system where I can post instant updates, but if you’re serious about it you can create contacts, follow people, run conversations, and use it from your mobile phone.

Blogupp

This is a straight traffic exchange, that uses screenshots of your blog to advertise it. Show their ads (it’s the double-height ad to the right) and yours will get shown on others sites.

Blog Top List

If you’re familiar with toplists you’ll know how they work. They were all the rage a few years back

You earn credits every time you are voted for, and you can also earn credits every time you get a pageview.

Go ahead, click the “vote” button to the right. I’ll appreciate it!

There’s another blog/voting site that is pretty popular called FuelMyBlog.com.

Blog Showoff

This is a very, very (very) simple idea. Post your blog, and it goes to the top of the list. Eventually it will get pushed down the list as new blogs are added, but you can post again.

Told you it was simple…

Blog Explosion

This is really a traffic exchange, a “manual surf” site where you earn credits by viewing sites. The worth of sites like this is debatable, but it does generate a hit to your site, but not really a reader.

However this kind of traffic has it’s uses, especially if you’re running other counted ads on the same site

Zimbio

This works with your feed and posts articles you write to the Zimbio database. For your best articles, you can also post them to the relevant “wikizine”.

Zimbio also has a few other neat features, such as run polls, give and receive “kudos”, and even create your own magazine cover!

Entrecard

Entrecard had a big launch, and it bills itself as an electronic version of the business card. Basically - in reality it’s a 125×125 banner exchange with a twist

Add your card, and when you visit sites that are entrecard enabled, you can “drop” your card there. Doing so earns you credits, and with credits you can buy advertising space on other blogs. There are some extremely popular blogs involved in this, and of course the credit cost is higher with those.

You can also do things like send credits, buy services with your credits, review sites, etc.

To start you off, feel free to drop your card at this blog. The entrecard is to the left You’ll also get a link to your site from the widget below.

Tip: Join the Entrecard Dropsurf and you’ll be able to surf entrecard blogs and drop yours with ease! As a bonus the sites listed here will also link to yours via the recent drops widget.

Tip 2: If you want to create a quick banner, try free125cards.com

Tip 3: Use the Entrecard toolbar to surf 10 sites at once and to place ads on others.

BlogRush

This uses a widget that displays headlines from your feed, along with headlines from other partner blogs. You earn credits from displaying the widget, and in return your headlines are shown across other sites.

So yes, it’s another exchange, but it looks clean and tidy and can even add useful content to your site.,

Don’t forget the big social networks - Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and the new Yahoo Buzz. They’re not blog services as such, but they can generate insane amounts of traffic.

And finally, even though this post is detailing blog traffic services, general traffic tips also apply: Write in forums, comment on blogs, but above all create useful content for your own blog. Google will like that, and you’ll even find yourself getting “long tail” traffic from keywords you haven’t even intentionally targetted.

Do you know of any more, or use any other services? If so, please add them to the comments.

Technorati Tags: blog advertising, blog promotion, blog traffic, blogrush, blogupp, entrecard, internet marketing, mybloglog, promotion, Traffic, twitter

Tags: blog advertising, blog promotion, blog traffic, blogrush, blogupp, entrecard, internet marketing, mybloglog, promotion, Traffic, twitter