Sublime Products » Making money

Do Google obey TOS?

Amin — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 15:32:55 +0000

Spy on Google’s advertisers!

Find out what they’re doing and beat them at their own game. All you need to do is spy on your competitors, learn about their keywords, see what they’re spending and discover the profitable ad campaigns – and all the keywords used in them!

Sounds great, right?

Well, maybe, maybe not, but there is one thing I find very interesting. In my Gmail account today Google themselves put an advert about a keyword spying service. Seems funny to me, when Google are so secretive about everything they do, that they’ll allow an advert to appear on their email service – an advert that promotes using other people’s activities so you can make more money.

Ah, wait. When you do that, Google make more money because you’ll be placing Adwords ads to copy successful campaigns. I wonder if that has something to do with this particular advert being prominently placed inside Gmail?

Click to see larger image

What do you think?

Personally, I don’t have too much trouble with learning from others – it’s what makes the world go round. Outright copying is not so good though. As you can see in the image, I’ve left the URL of the advertised site displayed (not an affiliate link). The service looks good enough. I have no problems with what they’re doing.

What really prompted me to write this post (apart from Google’s ironically placed ad) is a question I got from someone who wanted to know if a particular service would cause their site to fall foul of Google’s terms of service. Google can do what they like with their own websites, but they cannot tell you what to do with yours – there are no terms of service imposed on you just because they’d like you to think there are.

Unless you contract with them for something, they have no right to impose any terms. They don’t own the internet, despite what they’ve managed to make people think to the contrary.

Yes, they can de-index your site if they don’t like it. They can do what they want with their own websites and services. So it pays to be smart if you want good rankings in Google. You have to play the game to win. Google do – that’s why they’re showing an advert inside Gmail for a ‘spying’ service.

Yahoo even agree – here’s a quote on the ‘spy’ service website from one of their heads of SEO: “Best Tool By Far For Anyone.”

So I’d have to say that Google seem to be tacitly agreeing that doing what works…works.

Next time you’re worrying if everything you do meets Google’s ‘approval’, ask yourself this: does an ad that links you to a tool to copy other people’s keywords and ad campaigns really meet the approval of the webmasters whose site campaigns are going to be copied?

In other words, did Google meet the terms of service of those sites? No? How strange. For a company that unilaterally imposes terms of service on the entire internet, it’s not really what you’d expect – is it?

Oh, quick tip: want some top rankings in Google? Just pay them some money and they’ll push your results ahead of everyone else. Take a look at this picture to see what I mean:

Google take money to put adverts in a place where web searchers will see them. But if you do that (with paid links), you may find yourself in trouble. That’s the general understanding most webmasters have.

NOTE: I’m not bashing Google. They help to make a lot of people a lot of money. What I do find objectionable is the implicit assumption that it’s up to Google how we should all behave. It isn’t.

Please let me know what you think about it. Is Google two-faced?

Earn How Much A Day?

Amin — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 15:13:04 +0000

We’ve all seen those really awful, cheesy emails (sometimes from big-name marketers) about how we can earn $1,793.34 a day, or even $12,492.96 in a day as I saw recently.

Does anyone really ever believe it?
Do you really think you can earn that?
What do you need to earn to make a huge difference to your life?

It’s question 3 that I want to explore here. I’ve done some research and in the UK the average salary is apparently nearly £21,000, which is $31,491.55

That equates to £57.53 a day, or $86.28 a day.

Those are hardly staggering numbers, when it comes to internet marketing. At least, not if you believe the hype in all the emails you get. Yet those relatively small daily amounts have the power to transform someone’s life. That amount means an average worker could leave his job and not have to be a wage slave again. OR the average worker could double his income, pay off his mortgage sooner, treat his family to more/better holidays, get better health insurance cover – the list goes on and on.

Yet many people struggle to make anything like that amount online. Could it be that in aiming for a $1,793.34 a day target, they are bound to miss the much closer, easier target of $86.28 a day?

I’d like your input on this question. You don’t have to give your personal details if you don’t want to.

What I’d like you to do is make a comment and answer the following 2 questions:

How much money would you like to make every day, if it were possible?
How much money do you actually need to make every day, to change your life for the better.

I just thought of a supplementary question.

How much work are you willing to do to get the amount of money you answered in question 2, above?

Let me tell you why I want to know. I’m convinced that most people need less than $100/£65 a day to make a real difference in their lives. And I’m absolutely sure most people can earn that much if they do the right things and keep doing them.

I’m not saying don’t dream big – you absolutely should. But while you’re awake don’t be day-dreaming. Focus on reality and what you can achieve today, because you can always build on that tomorrow. A house is built one brick at a time, but you still have to start with the foundations.

What I’m planning to do is create a brand new course for people who really need to earn up to $100 a day and so far have not been able to achieve it. And because I love to make things simple I intend to make it just about foolproof. I won’t hype it – you’ll never make millionaire status following it, but you just might earn enough to make a difference in your life. Sometimes, that takes less money than you think.

Quick personal story: I remember a time my wife and I had both been laid off work at the same time (different firms) and we were poor! Unemployment benefit doesn’t give you much slack, certainly not back in those days. I got back into work first, but there was going to be a full month before any pay so we were struggling. It was hard even to afford to get to work. So we both took a weekend job cleaning a huge office complex – the pay was peanuts. But it was paid the Monday following the weekend work.

The £100/$149.89 we got that first Monday felt like a fortune. We could afford my travel to work and a simple meal out and food shopping for the rest of the month. Believe me, I know just how little it takes sometimes to make a big difference in your life.

So, please, make a comment and I’ll tally the answers to see what people really need - because we all know it’s not a million dollars, even if that would be very nice to have.

Affiliate Marketing Business

Why Money Making Niches Didn’t Make Me Any Money

Amin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 15:35:03 +0000

I’ve recently been experimenting with a technique for making money as an affiliate.

It’s a relatively simple technique and in my first month I made a few hundred dollars. By increasing the number of sites I expected to make even more the following month. What happened turned out to be very different from what I expected.

I made virtually no sales. I’d calculated that I should have made many hundreds, possibly into the thousands. The amount of money I made was about $60.

Ok, these sites are set it and forget it sites. You don’t need to keep going back after they’re made, which is always an attractive proposition because passive income like that is easy to multiply over time. That’s where my first mistake came in. I did set them and forget them. I didn’t check them as I know now that I should have done.

Traffic has been going down – along with my search engine results positions – and since this was a new technique I was testing I was disappointed. Maybe the technique doesn’t work longer term? I should have known better and trusted my instincts.

What’s happened is that someone has hacked those sites. They diverted any search engine bot traffic to a page of links of their own choosing. That made my sites look like a real spammer’s paradise. It’s no wonder they’ve gone from first page of Google (I had position 3 for many of them!) to completely off the map. Here’s the thing though. When I checked the sites in a browser they looked fine. It was only the search engines who got the spammy page that had been put on my sites. Of course the search engines are the very ones I’m relying on for organic traffic, so going from #3 page 1 to invisibility was guaranteed to cost me money and lose me traffic.

It’s fixed now and I know what to check for. That’s one mistake I shan’t make again, but in the meantime it’s cost me the affiliate sales I should have made plus the cost of the domains that are now effectively trashed because they’re off the chart as far as Google are concerned.

I should have been getting about 50-60 unique visitors a day on each of those sites. I’ve been getting 1. Even with 1 visitor I made about $30 so far this month. Just by the law of averages if I’d have 50 times the visitor count there’s a fair chance I’d have made over $1,000 this month. It’s been an expensive lesson to learn, but I’ve learned it. I hope you can learn it without the need to suffer it.

Just because a site is said to be set it and forget it, that does not mean you should forget it! Check it regularly, look for foreign files that you didn’t upload. Changed your passwords regularly and don’t use the same one on all your sites (I never use the same passwords and my sites still got hacked – I have my own theory as to why, but let’s say I’ve cancelled that hosting plan).

If you find a decent niche and start making some money on it, keep an eye open for any changes. Even a sudden spike in traffic can be a problem because it might indicate someone is spamming – that can happen if you have an affiliate program on the site. I learned that lesson the hard way too, when I got shut down because someone decided to spam a great offer I was making…

Summary: keep an eye on your sites. They’re your lifeblood and their value can be destroyed by other people. Don’t let them put their hand in your pocket and rob your family of what you’ve worked for.

Protected: Bum Marketing Part 2

Amin — Fri, 04 Jul 2008 11:58:39 +0000

Protected: Bum Marketing Part 1

Amin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 17:21:05 +0000

You ARE Losing Money

Amin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 19:51:56 +0000

I can tell you right now that if you’re an internet marketer of any kind you are losing money. It’s probably even worse if you’ve been round the block a few times.

The reason is simple: You’re doing something wrong. Now, I don’t know what it is that you’re doing wrong. You’ll have to find that out for yourself. But I can safely say that you are doing at least one thing wrong.

This was brought home to me today by something totally unrelated to internet marketing. Let me explain.

I’ve been able to swim for about 40 years. I’m not a very good swimmer, but I can swim. Thanks largely to the internet lifestyle I now have a pool at my home and I have the time to use it whenever I want. Trouble is I don’t really want to use it much because I’m not that good a swimmer.

But today we had guests over so we all took a splash. My brother asked me how to do the breast stroke. I gave him an answer.

“Wrong answer”, came the voice next to me – my wife. Turns out that the way I swim the breast stroke is wrong, ineffecient and just plain hard work. After a very, very short explanation on the right way I tried it. Now I’ve never been told this before, even after 20 years of marriage and 40 years of swimming. And I never went looking for the answer, either.

Ok, so this isn’t life-changing, but my swimming speed went up about 70%, maybe more, and the ease of swimming definitely improved immediately. I was pretty astonished. For 40 years I’ve been doing it wrong and because I could swim I thought I was doing it right. I hadn’t considered that just being able to do something doesn’t mean you’ve found the best way to do it.

So here’s how it impacts on internet marketing. You learn a technique and you apply it. Does it still work today? Does it need a change? Are you doing it right?

These are questions you can only answer if you bother to ask them in the first place. And once you do ask them you have to commit to acting on the answers. You see nothing stands still. So whatever you’re doing, especially if you’ve been doing it for a while, might be less than optimal. At the very least you should ask the question.

If you find that you’re already doing it the best way, keep doing it!

But, if you find there is room for improvement, will you make that improvement and reap the benefits?

Nobody learns something once in this industry and then never has to learn again. Change is a given and I’m afraid the effort of constant learning is the price you must expect to pay to keep up. That effort will reward you many times over.

What process do you take for granted in your internet marketing business?

Will you take a close look at it to see where you can improve?

Me? I’ve spent 4 hours in my pool today (try doing that with a J.O.B.) and I’ve now got sunburn – but that’s another story!

Right or Rich?

Amin — Wed, 21 May 2008 10:08:24 +0000

Do you want to be rich?

Or would you rather be right?

Of course you can be both, that’s not really the point of the question. Given a choice, which would you rather be?

Some of you will have heard really successful marketers talk about the right mindset. In truth there are several components to the right mindset, but one of the most important parts is your need for approval from other people.

That single need that so many of us have, is a real obstacle to your success. Keith Matthew has an interesting discussion about it on his blog. I wont reprint what he said here because you can read it at his blog, but there is one sentence that I believe deserves singling out.

I bet that Bill Gates, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey and Michael Bloomberg are all more concerned with getting things done than they are with social consensus.

It’s often said that the quickest way to success is to model someone who’s already successful. Do you think the names mentioned above qualify as successful? I certainly do.

That one sentence above probably gives you 90% of what you need to know to succeed and get rich.

Let’s break it down.

Get things done – nothing beats taking some kind of action. Not even great planning. Now, great planning and action together – wow!
Don’t sweat everybody else’s opinion of you. Hey, your parents, your kids, your spouse all have a big place in your life (or they should). But don’t worry too much about what the rest of the world think of your latest plan. They’re not the ones doing it. So when that ‘friend’ laughs at you as you discuss your new idea for creating a successful business, remember who laughed at Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and all the others like them. Not laughing now, are they?

Take action, above all else take action. Just make sure you learn from the results!

Prosperity Affirmations

Make More Money Doing What?

Amin — Tue, 20 May 2008 09:51:14 +0000

John Reese has just posted an interesting blog post. He asks the question if you can make more money by marketing to fewer people. He goes on to answer it in the affirmative.

The logic behind what he says is inescapable, really. And it’s ancient wisdom, but something that a lot of us forget, with the consequence we may not make as much money as we could – and should.

I won’t repeat his full post here because you can read it at his blog. But I will mention one small part of what he says that is very valuable.

So start thinking how you can at least start doing some test marketing to a smaller targeted audience. Set up a separate web site and special offers if you have to.

Excellent advice. You’ll never know whether you can make more money by focusing on a smaller group of customers, until you try it. Setting up a test site sounds like a sensible precaution to me.

Work At Home Moms Tips

Amin — Wed, 07 May 2008 20:01:52 +0000

I’ve just come across a fairly new blog that will be of interest to anyone who wants to work at home. It’s called Work At Home Moms Tips and I think it’s shaping up to be a pretty good resource.

Of course I am biased – the blogger is my wife!

7 Dollar Secrets – A New Chapter

Amin — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 23:05:52 +0000

If you’ve been involved with the $7 Secrets at all, you may know that Jon Leger has sold the product to another developer.

Don, the developer who’s bought it, has plans to fix the current bugs and release an updated version in the next week or so. It will be well worth downloading once it’s released.

He’s also told me he has several other plans to extend the product and increase its shelf life. It’s already quite a capable script, but over time it should have a few nice features added to it.

One thing I’ve seen over the last 6 or 7 months is just how few people take the time to read the manual. Don’s pushing for customers to look at the existing wealth of information that should solve most problems. Seems like a sensible idea to me.

For anyone who doesn’t want to learn how to install, get in touch and I can install it for you.

I have a similar product myself which I haven’t yet started to promote, but it will be relaunched in the next few weeks. I’m undecided whether to stick with the original name of Profit Twister, or change it. We’ll see.

If anyone’s interested in promoting it as an affiliate when I launch, just get in touch and I’ll give you more details of the commission structure.

Tags: 7dollar secrets, Jon Leger, Profit Twister, digital download delivery

We interrupt this broadcast

Amin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 22:34:45 +0000

This is a little different. I’m running a case study on a news and video feed site so I thought I’d run a test posting here. You can read the article below.

Coventry Convention

Amin — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 16:16:28 +0000

I was lucky enough recently to win a free ticket to Robert Puddy’s seminar in October here in the UK.

It’s running over three days and it’s a chance to mix with successful marketers and beginners and learn a great deal about this business. Robert himself says this: “Inside Skinny – You’ll get the diabolical and covert techniques of the Internet Marketing elite. This isn’t the kind of info you snag out of a hyped up eBook…no this is actionable and strategic information that you will be able to use immediately to stuff cash in your pockets.”

For anyone in the UK who’s free 5th-7th October and has an interest in learning more about internet marketing – from people who’ve made money over and over again doing it, it’s well worth the trip. The chance to network with other professionals could be worth hundreds of thousands of extra income. That alone makes it a worthwhile event.

Have a look for yourself:

P.S. If anyone does sign up to attend through my affiliate link please let me know and I’ll buy you dinner. Who knows, we may even end up doing business together!

P.P.S (Ok, I’ve always wanted to do a PPS! The number of seats left is very limited so if you have any interest you should sign up quickly)

Sounds good to me

Amin — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 16:24:20 +0000

I was talking with my friend Kevin Koop the other day – we did a long call on Google Adwords – and he was telling me about the equipment he uses to get high quality audio in the marketing videos he produces.

There’s a world of choice out there – confusingly so – and it’s always good to get advice from someone who’s been through the selection process. We all tend to ‘sell’ to our friends and family and because trust is already established (see my earlier post about Julia Roberts) it’s easier to persuade someone to our point of view.

Kevin uses an audio interface called the Edirol UA-25.

Edirol UA-25EX

It’s a USB Windows and Mac device and it has drivers for Vista – quite a rarity! I’ve heard the quality of the recordings he makes with it (he uses a Sennheiser microphone) and they’re really very high quality. That gives the impression of professionalism, which is so important in establishing credibility.

I listened to some audio on a particular website some time ago. The content of the site was excellent and the free training videos were packed with information. However, the audio quality was pretty low, quite honestly. I saw a ton of comments on marketing forums about the quality of the audio. Interestingly, not one person commented on the quality of the ‘product’.

The site owner did a good job of preparing valuable content. But poor quality sound caused his visitors to turn away. I haven’t seen that site, or had an email from the guy for quite some time so I’m guessing he’s maybe given up.

They do say you can’t judge a book by it’s cover – but people do. And as far as audio is concerned we’re even more critical. A fuzzy, hissy, low quality recording will inevitably suggest that the product behind it is low quality too.

For anyone thinking of getting into audio, ditching the built-in mike on your computer and getting a quality mike is the first step to overcome that. The second is to get a quality audio interface that transfers a clean audio image into the computer. Once you’ve got those basics your content won’t be let down by the packaging and you’ve got a better chance of making a sale, or getting a sign-up.

Now, how does that sound?

20 words to adwords success

Amin — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 15:50:14 +0000

I’ve never really done much with Adwords. Although I have an account I don’t do anything with it. Like many people I’m not keen on the idea of losing a fortune through lack of knowledge. So I challenged my friend Kevin Koop to teach me about Adwords in 20 words.

He’s been running successful Adwords campaigns for about 18 months and he’s completed tons of training on it – including from the legendary Simon Leung, who used to work for Google and was instrumental in setting up the Adwords division. So I know Kevin knows his stuff.

Because not every internet marketer can possibly know everything about everything, it pays to learn from a real expert if you want to do something new, or improve on what you’re already doing.

I told Kevin that a real expert could always teach a subject in 20 words. Of course, I was joking about 20 words, but he took my challenge seriously and – amazingly – he did it!

Now after that I couldn’t resist pressing him for more, so I set up a tele-seminar call with him where I grilled him for some real meat to putting on a successful and profitable Adwords campaign.

The result is a product we’ll be selling pretty soon, consisting of the audio tele-seminar and a special report. What I’m doing here, for those who sign up now, is offering a free copy. I’m limiting it to the first 100 people to sign up. In return, all I would ask is that you give me your honest feedback when you’ve been through the audio and read the report. If you love it, please tell all your friends and me. If you hate it please just tell me!

Kidding aside, I will welcome all feedback.

Reserve your free copy now:

Internet Marketing and an orange

Amin — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 10:30:56 +0000

I had an orange the other day, while I was waiting outside school to collect my daughter.

It was delicious, too. Sweet and juicy and it quenched my thirst beautifully.

So what does that have to do with internet marketing? Let me explain…

The end result, eating the orange, was very satisfying and delicious. But the process I had to take to get there was a little messy and definitely required some effort. I was sitting in a car and had to peel the orange. I had no knife with me, so I had to use my fingers and just dig in.

Little drops of juice squirted out as I applied pressure and the skin did not peel of in one go. There were several sections that I had to take care of before I could get to the good stuff.

It’s the same with internet marketing: there’s a lot of stuff to wade through and learn before you can get to the sweet and delicious good stuff.

But if you take the time to peel away the layers and tidy them away you will be rewarded with an end result.

I’ve seen too many people give up because instructions were a little hard to follow, or something was a little difficult to do – the first time. That’s a sure recipe for failure on a consistent basis. But just like the steady progression of peeling an orange, you will arrive at your destination if you just keep at it.

That’s when the good stuff happens.

So if you have a PLR product sitting on your hard disk and you took a look at the instructions and felt overwhelmed, why not try again? Only this time take it one step at a time and keep going until you get it. Not only will you have wonderful sense of achievement, but you’ll also have your product online to sell.

You’ll even find your marketing muscles are stronger for the next time you need to do something.

Now, where did I put my apple?

Work is work

Amin — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 09:42:43 +0000

It never ceases to amaze me how few people will actually take some action toward attaining a goal. Makes no difference whether that goal is financial, or something else.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been speaking to a number of people about various activities designed to provide a living. Some of them have gone on to make some money and a few in particular stand out in my mind for the fact they are still where they are weeks ago.

See, they haven’t taken any action. Not because they don’t know how, but because they can’t be bothered. I see that a lot: people who want it all to come to them with no effort. I don’t really believe life works quite that way – do you?

Anthony Robbins has made many, many millions, essentially by telling and teaching people how to take massive action. It’s amazing what you can achieve when you put your mind to it, for sure, but it also helps to put your effort into it too!

There have been a rash of internet marketing products lately and most of them sell some aspect of ‘do nothing and make money’. It’s such a compelling dream for so many people. Yet the ones I see making the money are the ones who work hard, or have a team working hard for them.

Perhaps after a few years of working hard you can sit back and do nothing and watch the money roll in, but I very much doubt that the top marketers actually do two hours a day and then go sit on the beach. I know of one famous marketer and the guy never seems to stop. His income doesn’t seem to stop, either. I wonder whether those two things are related: what do you think?

So for anyone who’s just thinking of breaking into internet marketing I would say expect to work and work hard. It won’t be like a day job for the man, but it will be like a job, until you crack it and things start falling into place.

And if you don’t know how you’ll manage to do all the things you’re going to need to do, join the very large club of people who feel the same way as you do. It’s a common experience and it will pass – if you keep plugging away and doing the work.

Remember, the fact that there is work involved is to your benefit. The vast majority of people who take this up will fall by the wayside and present you with no competition, because they can’t be bothered. That’s good for you since there’s more room left for those who will work. And just as a small illustration of how little people will do to secure a living for themselves, I’ve lost count of the times that I’ve come across people who won’t even read an instruction manual.

Let me ask you this: if those people don’t even know how stuff works in their own business, what makes them think they will understand the business enough to make it work? There’s nothing wrong with getting someone to install products and software for you – in fact it’s often a very good idea. But at the very least you need to have some idea of what your systems can do and that takes some effort on your part, or an expensive lesson from someone else whose time you have to buy.

There really are plenty of opportunities out there for everyone, but the truth is that most of them involve some kind of effort.

Give It Away

Amin — Thu, 31 May 2007 09:25:33 +0000

Can you make money by giving your products away?

Seems a strange thing, to suggest that you can make a ton of money by giving away what you’re selling. But we’re already familiar with trial-size bottles of shampoo, scent, toothpaste. And think about the food court in some shopping malls: as you walk around you’re often confronted with the invitation to try a free sample of the food.

The food thing is a good example. You try one of the tasty snacks on offer and if you like the taste of it there’s a pretty good chance you’ll either get something then, or remember for next time that you liked the taste. That’s a clear example of giving something away and actually gaining paying customers.

But in that example, notice that you only get a taste – not the full dish. It leaves you wanting more.

Computer magazines are very hot on giving free software away these days too. You usually get an earlier version of software, or a time limited demo, and you get the chance to put the application through its paces and see if it’s for you. If it is and you’re tempted by the upgrade offer, voila!, you become a new customer.

Well, the same thing is becoming big business in the online world too. But up until now managing a giveaway promotion has been pretty hard to do. What with co-ordinating all the partners who get involved and listing the products available.

I just bought some software to automate it all for me. I’ll be doing a JV giveaway event in the near future and it makes no sense to have to do everything manually. Why re-invent the wheel, right?

So I bought Giveaway Manager from Brad Smith. It’s currently on offer and the price is due to go up in the next day, so if you want to save a chunk of change and get a product that could cause your business to go viral, now’s the time to jump right in.

And watch this space for my own Giveaway event!

Does Article Marketing Really Work?

Amin — Tue, 08 May 2007 10:11:29 +0000

It’s a provocative question: does article marketing really work?

Based on my own results with article marketing, my answer is a resounding yes and I’ll tell you why .

But before I do, let me say that the results I’m about to share with you are for another of my websites, www.easiest-weight-loss-ever.com

That’s a pretty new domain, been live about 3 months now.

I’ve done some article marketing and it’s now a Google page rank 3 with an Alexa rating of 465,74 at the time of posting this.

What’s really pleasing is that I only started the first articles about two months ago and in total I’ve only written 9 articles linking back to that site.

The usual advice for anyone contemplating using articles to gain exposure is to write at least one article a day. If I’d done that I would have had about 60 articles out there. Imagine the results I would have had from that. I currently have well over 300 backlinks pointing to my weight loss site. If I’d had 6 times as many articles out there there’s a fair chance I would now have thousands of backlinks.

And that number will continue to grow over time.

So for me article marketing is a clear success. There’s no money involved and it does work.

The catch is that you have to make an effort. And I’ve lost count of the number of beginners I’ve seen who view the idea of doing some work as utterly repulsive. They’re usually the ones who don’t make any money.

My friend and occasional business partner Kevin Koop has written an excellent report on the benefits of article marketing and I’ve learned a great deal from it. He even tells you how to get some useful statistics about your site’s backlinks, for free.

The Article Domination Method is available online here.

Stress, Simpleology and Jame Brausch.

Amin — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 23:36:12 +0000

James Brausch just posted about Simpleology by Mark Joyner.

He’s read it and liked it so much he’s giving it away. Now I don’t know whether I’ll qualify, and that really isn’t the point.

But trackbacks are a valuable source of traffic. And James knows that.

With all the best internet marketers you can see what they do. Following their example isn’t a bad thing to do!

He also wrote a really interesting article about stress, which you can read here.

UPDATE 3 July 2008: Hmmm, I was just checking my referrer logs for this site and I decided to have a look at James page. For reasons which are entirely mysterious to me, the link I gave to his blog no longer works. It is, in fact, redirected to another site which appears to have nothing to do with him at all. The content I was pointing people to is not there, so I’ve now removed this link.

I don’t know if James has sold his site on, or what. But since the content I wanted to show you is no longer there, there’s no point in linking to that url anymore.

Use Your Blog Content In Multiple Places

Achieve It Now

Amin — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 11:01:52 +0000

I just finished installing a site for a new client.

After installation, as I usually do, I see whether the site is something I would like to recommend to my other clients. In this case it was.

Brad has a site which overlaps with one of my own, but fortunately it’s a co-operative overlap rather than a directly competitive one, so I don’t mind sharing his site with you!

It seems Brad is on a quest to help as many people as possible achieve their goals and he’s written software to help them do just that. It’s a specialised goal setting and tracking application. I’m going to post a full review as soon as I’ve put it through its paces, but the screenshots look excellent and when you read his blog it’s obvious this is a chap who thinks deeply about the elements that go to make up success.

Much like myself, in fact!

My own software for helping you achieve takes a slightly different approach and is for use by people who spend a lot of time working at their computer.

If you’d like a software program that can pump success into your head while you’re doing the rest of your work, Achieve-It-Now may be just what you’re looking for.

Right or Rich?

When the time’s right, the opportunities will come knocking…

Amin — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 12:39:58 +0000

I know for some of you that you’ll already be on-line, making money and enjoying a good life. But for some, you’re just at the beginning of your journey in the internet marketing field.

It’s to the beginners that I address this post especially.

Don’t despair.

It can seem like there’s so much to do and so little time to do it. You must wonder how the big guys get to be that way. Well everyone started out small, just like you. With no help and late nights. And lots to do!

But there seems to be something at work that I wanted to share with you. My experience is that as soon as you get clear about what you want to do and get committed to it, then providence will find ways to hook you up with the right resources.

Seriously. There are people out there who can help you. People who can do the things you can’t. There are even people who may help you out for free, or in return for things you can do. Cash doesn’t always have to be involved.

But here’s a little secret: you have to go looking for them because they probably don’t know where you are. And even if they did they may not know your needs.

It’s so easy to get isolated in the internet marketing world, because it’s all online. So I recommend you join some good forums and start interacting with the members. You’ll hit it off with some and not with others. Just like real life. But you will find some people who will end up becoming part of your personal mentoring group.

From my own experience I know this to be true. I’ve helped a lot of people with things like script installations, graphics work, web design, general advice. And a few of them have turned out to be just as helpful back to me.

I recently had someone come to me with an excellent idea for a new report. I’m working on it right now. And it will make me a lot of money, but better yet, it will help others to make money too. But I might never have thought of the particular angle for the report unless my on-line friend had mentioned it to me.

And he wouldn’t have been my on-line friend and mentor if I hadn’t got chatting to him in a forum and helped him out. I got chance to prove myself and build trust into the relationship. He’s done the same back for me. So we both win from the exchange of ideas and a lot of people will benefit when the report comes out. In fact, thousands of people will benefit.

I can’t mention the name of the report here, or even what it’s about. It’s not finished yet. I could have made it a 20 page quick fix, but I’m spending the time to make sure it’s a report that delivers 10,20, 50 times the price sticker value. And in doing that and offering great value I know my customers will come back for more.

Interesting concept, isn’t it? Give your customer more than he paid for and you’ll make more money.

Like I said in the title, when the time’s right opportunity will come knocking. Just make sure you’re at home and listening out, ready to answer the door and welcome it in. And make sure you’re willing to do your part because opportunity has a habit of running from the lazy, the idle and the cheating.

Don’t lose the opportunities coming your way because you can’t be bothered to take the next step.

If you’d like to be on the pre-release list for my special report (due out May 1st 2007) you can sign up below

Tips for Article Marketing Success – Part 2

Amin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 11:31:57 +0000

Seems now I’ve put the first article on the site I should really go and put them all on .

Remember, this article was available at Kevin’s site for free. He also offers you banners and emails to use too.

Article Marketing: Tips For Article Marketing Success -
Part 2 of 5

In part one of this Article Marketing series; I discussed the importance of three things to consider when writing articles… Your articles must be loved by the Article Directory Editors, the Search Engines and your Target Audience.

We also covered five tips to help improve each of these fundamental areas.

In part two, we’ll pick up where we left off and offer more tips designed to improve your Article Marketing efforts. Today’s tips will focus on the do’s and don’ts of writing “killer” Titles.

Quality title-writing is of the utmost importance and completely blundered by many article writers. That said, here are 5 tips to make sure you stand “head and shoulders” above the crowd:

1. The Title of your article should be in upper/lower case. It’s best to capitalize the first letter of each word, although you can choose not to capitalize “minor” words like”to,” “and,” “for,” etc. but that’s entirely up to you. Do not, however, put your Title in “all-caps” as this is not appreciated (or accepted) by most Article Directory Editors.

2. Don’t put quotes around your Title. This is great for a headline on your own website, but the Editors don’t want to see them in your Article’s Title.
3. No HTML coding is generally allowed in your Title so don’t use it. Remember, we’re trying to give the Editors what they want. They’re under no obligation to accept and publish our articles.

4. Don’t put a period at the end of your Title. If you do use any punctuation at all, say an exclamation point or question mark, use only one. The Editors don’t want… “Check This Out!!!!”

5. In order to get lots of traffic to your article, make sure you put keywords into your Titles that are actually being searched upon. Your most important keywords should be placed within the first 3-4 words of your title.

In summary, make sure your Titles comply with the regulations set forth by the Article Directory Editors, and are “keyword-rich.”

If your Title contains keywords that are actually being searched upon, and if it’s written in a way that invokes curiosity, your articles will be read.

Stay tuned, as we’ll be covering more proven Article Marketing Tips in part three of this five-part series.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kevin Koop is a Custom Cabinetmaker turned Internet Marketer. He is the creator of the Article Domination Method and the Article Writer’s Cheat Sheet. If you’d like to find huge success through Article Marketing, be sure to visit Kevin’s site for more information

Just a quick note about Kevin. I’ve been talking with him a lot recently and I’ve found him to be one of those rare individuals you meet on the net sometimes; someone genuine. I recommend his product because it’s been helpful to me. I believe you can benefit from it too.

Check out his site now, while his article is still fresh in your mind.

Kevin sent me some articles

Amin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 11:20:38 +0000

I posted about an installation I did the other day for someone whose product is an excellent resource if you’re thinking of trying to generate some web traffic by submitting articles.

Well, Kevin practises what he preaches and he’s just offered three great articles which anyone can use and – get this – earn some money off. I’ve included the first article below, so you can see what kind of article writer he is.

And think about this too: articles are a great source of content for your blog or site. If you’re a newcomer to the world of internet marketing and article submission you can get up and running very quickly. Everybody will tell you that search engines love content. If you haven’t got much content well now’s your chance to change that – at no cost!

Article Marketing: Tips For Article Marketing Success -
Part 1 of 5

Article Marketing is certainly nothing new, but in order for it to be wildly successful; you must remember three things…

(a) Your articles have to be loved by the Article Directory Editors or they won’t be accepted. Take some time to familiarize yourself with each directories terms, you’ll be glad you did.

(b) Your articles have to be loved by the Search Engines in order for your articles to be found. Articles which are “keyword-rich” will be found much more often.

(c) Your articles have to be loved by the Audience you are targeting, (i.e. your readers). Providing useful, enjoyable content will increase your readership and the number of Publishers that will make your articles available on their sites.

If your articles meet the criteria, above, your articles will be accepted, found, read, enjoyed and most importantly…Will bring targeted Website Traffic to the site(s) you list in your Resource Box.

While it’s not difficult, there are a number of things you must know (and do) to ensure your success with Article Marketing. In this article, I will give you five tips to improve the effectiveness of every article you write. Here are 5 tips; more will follow in parts 2 through 5.

1. Make sure you’re submitting original content. Nothing will upset an Article Directory Editor faster than if you submit some Private Label Rights article found on thousands of sites.

2. Write your articles in the preferred formats. Editors like informative articles that share your expertise. Articles that include tips, strategies, how-to’s, case-studies, reviews, opinions and commentaries are well-received.

3. Write articles that give valuable benefit to your readers. Articles which are considered “hypey,” i.e. excessive self-promotion, a sales letter or even a press release won’t be accepted.

4. You must use decent English. It doesn’t have to be Shakespeare, but be sure to use proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, etc.

5. Articles must not contain information the editors deem illegal, immoral or promoting hate or violence.

In summary, if you’re writing articles that are loved by Article Directory Editors, Search Engines and your Targeted Audience, you’ll find a whole lot of success with your Article Marketing efforts.

Stay tuned, as we’ll be covering more proven Article Marketing Tips in part two of this five-part series.

=================================================
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Kevin Koop is a Custom Cabinetmaker turned Internet Marketer. He is the creator of the Article Domination Method and the Article Writer’s Cheat Sheet. If you’d like to find huge success through Article Marketing, be sure to visit Kevin’s site for more information

Dominate your market with the “Article Domination Method”

Amin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 08:27:56 +0000

I’ve read a bunch of reports on how to use article writing to help you get backlinks, make sales, increase your knowledge.

Just a ton of them. And most of them are ok.

But I recently finished reading a report called the “Article Domination Method”. It was created by a client I installed some scripts for.

I liked the report so much I gave him a glowing testimonial. It really helped turn on the lightbulb inside my head when it came to using article writing to make money.

For newcomers, it might seem odd that writing tons of articles and giving them away could actually make you money. But Kevin’s got it covered in his great report.

Check out the “Article Domination Method” and I’m sure you’ll agree.

Looking to make money from Adsense?

Amin — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 07:29:19 +0000

If you’re looking to make money from Adsense then you should certainly consider the video series from Michael Cheney.

Jon Leger’s Adsense Gold is an interesting product too, although that’s more for people who are already making some money and want to be as efficient as possible at it.

The following article is one of those Jon includes with his product.

Google Adsense Best Practices

by: John Gall

When selecting the size of your Google Adsense code the 300×250 is by far the best performer. This square box works best when placed in the middle of the content towards the top. I commonly place the 300×250 ad block under my title and on top of my first paragraph. Sometimes I put the 300×250 ad block under the first paragraph if it is short but never below the second paragraph. Banners and skyscrapers may look better on your page but will perform much worse than the 300×250. Remember why you’re publishing your content; you want to make money not look pretty.

When selecting colors for your Google Adsense ad block you want to blend the ad into your page. The best practice is to make the ads look like content so users will be interested in clicking the ad. I’ve had great success using a basic white background and black color text on my pages. I then use the default blue for my Adsense text and use “White” for the border of the ad block. This causes your square to look like it has no border thus blending it into your content. If done right your Google Adsense block should look like you put links on your page your visitors might be interested in.

Google allows you to assign a “Channel” to your ad block so you can track the success. Be sure to assign each new site or subject a unique channel so you can tell what subjects are popular and pay well. Using channels is also a good way to test various ad colors and sizes but if you use the 300×250 you can generally be assured that you’re using the most successful size.

When starting out with Google Adsense it will be very tempting to click your own ads, some do this because they are interested in the ad but some are cheating. In both cases you will likely get kicked out of the Google Adsense program if you click your own ads.

About The Author

John Gall is a web publisher who uses among others Google Adsense as a revenue source. Creating informative websites is a hobby funded by ad revenue.

http://www.whoinventedmotorcycle.com

http://www.km-in-marathon.com

http://www.carbsinpizza.com

——

Now, personally, I don’t know that I agree with everything that John Gall says, but at least it’s food for thought.

And the channels he talks about are just ways for you to understand where the money is coming from so you can do more of whatever it is that works.

Jon Leger’s Adsense Gold gives you much more information and it does it immediately. I bought the package last night and installed it this morning. It only took about 5 minutes to install. It’s pretty simple to use, too.

It will collect the stats quietly in the background and once a week I see where the money’s been coming from. One thing you’ll hear from all the top marketing guys is that you must test. The difference between one advert and another could double your income.

25,000 Articles

Amin — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 10:23:41 +0000

So I posted in the early hours of the morning that I’d bought Adsense Gold from Jon Leger.

One of the bonuses was a bank of 25,000 articles that would give you enough content to make literally hundreds of websites. And imagine if you were making just $100 per week on each website?

Well, one thing I didn’t count on was how long it would take to unzip 25,000 articles! It’s an absolutely huge article bank and the fact it takes so long to unzip gives you a clue to how big the articles are.

You’ll probably see a few of the articles on here over the coming weeks.

Adsense Gold

Amin — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 00:57:44 +0000

It seems these days that no sooner have you bought one thing that you need another.

Now, normally, I would be the first to be upset if I had to buy extra stuff, but after watching Michael Cheney’s videos on Adsense I realised that one of the tools he used was written by my friend Jon Leger. As a forum moderator on one of Jon’s sites I know first hand what kind of guy he is and his products all get the thumbs up from me.

So I’ve been along and bought it. Now, it’s probably not for the faint of heart because you have to install it onto your server. Or get someone like me to install it for you for a few dollars.

Once it’s on there it tells you what’s working and what isn’t. Now once you start getting visitors to your site you’ll want to optimise it so they start clicking like crazy. If you know that a particular page works well you’ll want to make the most of it and maybe add some extra content to it.

And that’s just one of the areas where Adsense Gold comes in.

Jon actually gives you 25,000 articles – yes, 25,000 – to get you started. That’s amazing content for any website and it could get you started with virtually nothing else.

It’s late here in the UK, but I’m so excited about this piece of software that I’m going to install it before going to sleep. Some things are just too important to leave until the next morning!

For anyone who doesn’t know what Adsense is, it’s a great way to make some revenue by displaying Google’s ads and every time someone clicks on one you get paid.

Jon gives some advice on how to choose the ads that pay the most. After all, if someone’s going to click an ad on your site you might as well have it be a high paying one.

Jon’s product is here.

For the current discounted price the software is excellent value. And best of all the bonuses that come with it could help you triple your current revenue from Adsense.

As more and more people realise what can be done with Adsense, products like Jon’s and Michael’s will contribute ever more to a higher standard of living for ordinary people.

I’m rather pleased with my night’s work. These two products should make a significant difference to my business over the coming months.

Adsense makes sense

Amin — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 21:13:16 +0000

I’ve wondered for a while how other people manage to make money by running adsense on their site. It’s one of those things that seems like a black art sometimes. There are so many ‘gurus’ out there, each with something to sell, that you never really know what to do for the best.

Over the last week I’ve been swamped with emails promoting one product. That very fact alone – a surfeit of emails – was enough to put me off even looking.

But then I saw an advert, subtle but clear, on a website I was surfing. It was for the same product and because the ad wasn’t stuck in my face I checked it out. And I’m so glad I did.

After reading the sales page – and ignoring a lot of it, which I usually do, I decided to buy. After all Michael Cheney offers a full 100% money-back guarantee so I can’t go wrong even if the product is useless.

Now, I’m no Adsense expert so I approached this with an open mind.

The first thing I would say is that Michael has added a lot to his offer and it will take the average user some time to work his way through the entire package. But it doesn’t take too long to get started with the online videos that take you from the very earliest step of signing up to Adsense, to actually making some money.

I have to say I give a lot of credit to Michael’s experience. He clearly knows what he’s talking about and he teaches it well. I don’t like his voice much, but that’s just me. It certainly doesn’t detract from the Adsense common sense he talks.

As Victor Kiam used to say, I liked it so much I bought it. Well, he said something like that.

And I thought I’d share this interview with Michael with you.

Interview
with Michael Cheney from AdSense-Videos.com

Q. So what made you get started with AdSense?

A. I was looking for a way to monetize some of my websites. AdSense is such an easy thing to get started with the eye for it would be a great way to start earning more money without actually putting into much more effort. I think as soon as you see the first earnings coming into your account you get addicted to AdSense. I know is
what happened to me and since then I’ve just spent time working out how to earn more and more each day.

(I know what Michael means. Seeing a sale come in is really quite exciting, even if you’ve been making money online for ages)

Q. How much do you make with AdSense?

A. Some days I can earn close to $1000 and others it’s less than that. But it all comes down to how much time and effort you devote to creating a quality site that people like visiting. AdSense is not what my business is based on by any means – but it is a great way to earn revenue almost on autopilot.

(Can you imagine earning $1,000 per day? What would you do with that money? The internet is probably one of the few places where you can actually make money like that if you’re of average intelligence.)

Q. What is the biggest mistake people making with AdSense?

A. Probably the biggest mistake people make is thinking the AdSense earnings
are easy to achieve. It is very easy to get started but as I learned it takes a lot of effort to increase your earnings. I got really downhearted whenever I would log in to my account to see that I had only made a few dollars. And that’s when I decided to spend months and months of my time learning everything I could about AdSense.

I basically buried myself away and devoured every single piece of AdSense information I could find. I ran thousands of AdSense tests and started to see a dramatic effect on my click through ratio and therefore on my earnings.

This is why I’d decided to record the videos – because I knew that it would help people who were in my position to also increase their earnings. I’ve read an absolute ton of AdSense e-book’s but they take so long to go through and always seem to keep information back.

With AdSense Videos I knew that I had to tell the story exactly as it is and actually show people and lead them by the hand through the exact techniques that I use to generate large earnings from AdSense.

(I’ve always felt learning from others is a great way to reach success sooner.)

Q. In your videos you show people how to increase their AdSense earnings – can you
give us a taster of this advice?

A. I don’t want to give away my biggest secrets as you can understand!
But some of the more basic things that you can do to increase your revenues include using ads that blend in rather than stand out from your content. Flat out the worst thing you can do with an AdSense ad is make it look like the standard Google ad.

What you need to realise is that you will get more clicks if your ad actually appears part of your site rather than something that’s just been dropped into the page.

Q. What would you recommend that someone do right now to increase their AdSense
earnings?

A. I’ve created a totally free AdSense minicourse that people can go through to learn some of my techniques. It takes you through the four cornerstone principles that I’ve used to build up my AdSense empire. You can check it out, as well as all the AdSense Videos, here:

“>Michael Cheney’s AdSense Videos<”

I’ve checked out Michael’s course and I’ve bought it. That speaks for itself. And so does the course. He gives a lot of information and he keeps pushing you to take action. Frankly, if you’re not the kind of person to take action you’d be wasting your time even looking at his page, because if you want to earn some money he’ll show you the way. But it’s still up to you to get up and do it!

Free Adsense Sites

Amin — Fri, 23 Mar 2007 14:21:11 +0000

I’m giving away a free Adsense site every month.

It’s available around the 25th of the month, every month, and it’s my way of giving something back to the internet marketing community.

If you already have some Adsense Virtual Real Estate, you’ll probably know that it’s very much a numbers game. A single Adsense site probably isn’t going to make you a ton of money these days. It might, but let’s be realistic: for the vast majority of people you need multiple sites.

Now a single site every month is not going to increase your portfolio massively. But it will show you the quality of my ready made, well researched sites. And since you can configure and upload the sites in about 10 minutes, there’s no reason you can’t put up 10 or 12 new niche Adsense sites – every single month.

Start by trying out the free Adsense site. When you’ve seen how easy it is to add another revenue stream you’ll be back for more -I promise.

Get your free Adsense sites here.


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