The Agile Marketer

Taxes, Spending and Earning More Money Online

2010-02-07T19:15:00.008-06:00

There's nothing like starting a post with the word taxes to drive you away from reading this faster than a rattlesnake right by your foot. Nonetheless, I had to start this post with something that came to mind as I was preparing my taxes this week (well, not really preparing - just hunting and gathering for the tax guy).

If you're like me you've probably found yourself spread across multiple marketing fronts online - from products, articles, affiliate work, blogs, seo, etc. As much fun as this can be (plus some work) you may have either forgotten or abandoned some of your work done in the past. This can get pretty easy when you get focused making money online with a new endeavor while giving in to some others that really didn't pan out.

What this comes down to in many ways is that you are probably spending too much money and could tighten you belt a little in 2010. Let's look at some of the core expenses and see where you might be able increase your profits with just a little effort.

1. Domains - ok, admit it - how many domains do you own? How many are actually realized with profits coming in? How many are old, fading and not doing anything more for you? In my case I currently have between 15-20 domains registered (over a 7 year time span). Now, not all are used - some have been parked for the future while others are old, and, pretty stale now. This is costing me about $275 / year in domain registration fees - of which I would say 4 or 5 are something I can part with. A simple savings of $50-60 a year - not to mention some future potential profits form domains that could be put up for sale due to their long history.

2. Hosting - I've mentioned this before but I'll say it again - hosting centers will eventually become a thing of the past with Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon building out their processing clouds. However, I do still use some hosting centers (which I will be talking about in my next article) for my more complex sites. Typically, hosting costs you anywhere from $4 to $40 a month depending on so many different factors primarily due to the options you need. In the past I had been using 3 different hosting centers and consolidated down to 2 a couple of years ago. Given that there are a couple of options available - a) find cheaper hosting plans or b) consolidate down to a single hosting company. Either way that could be a savings of about $100 a year.

3. Email List and Article Management - Always an arsenal for any internet marketer, email and article management typically costs about $150 to $250 a year. Usually, when people sign up they feel a bit tentative about the service and pick a monthly plan for about $15-$20/month. But, if they had picked the yearly plan they would have saved about 20% - or a savings around $40 a year. Doing both can net you about $80 extra a year.

So, let's add up the saving - $50/yr domains + $100/yr hosting plans + $80/yr for email and article marketing = $230 per year savings.

Like any budget sometimes just going back to your expense sheet is the best way to learn how to make money online. Saving can be earning too - don't forget that.

Making Money Online with Daily Work

2009-12-16T21:58:00.008-06:00

Continuing from yesterday I wanted to talk more about how the site, 'Make Money Online' was able to dominate that very same keyword phrase. If you felt the urge to examine Alan's site in detail you might have noticed one interesting feature - virtually daily posts centered around his core keyword phrases. What's even more amazing is that he used completely free methods to reach his goal! Astonishing!

Let's do some simple math on what he might be making right now from that site. Twelve medium ad spaces for $120 a month = $1440, two large banners for $300 a month, and text link for $180 a month = $1920 / month just in advertising alone. Using those numbers alone you can see that day to day focus can really pay off in a high performing niche. Plus, it shows that you don't have to have an expensive, fancy site to do this.

Also, you have to remember to keep your core keyword phrase stable across all back link channels you use - from articles to simple forum posts. If you examine his backlinks you'll see most post back to the keyword phrase 'make money online'. Who knows what specific product or service he used to get those links - but they all show the same thing. This is a key learning for you - but sure to keep the core keywords stable over time so you get rewarded by the search engines.

Let's face it- we all want to learn how to make money online with little effort - you know, that one strategy sold as the secret model to success that anyone can implement. The real secret here is that with daily work, good content, and valuable information you can make a very good living online.

Build it Right to Learn How to Make Money Online

2009-12-15T20:42:00.010-06:00

Ok, listen, don't make the same mistake that I did not that long ago. I built a fairly successful site a couple of years ago that was moving up in the Google rankings - I can't say it was one of my more carefully thought out sites, but, had a fair amount of content nonetheless.

You see, about a year ago I started to get very excited about keyword optimization by focusing more on my blog titles, headers and highlighted information. Thinking that I was helping my other site, I went in and altered all of the headers, meta tags, main page title, etc. Guess what? Google dropped my site like a rock out of their top listings. Ouch - that's one tough way to learn how to make money online!

After sitting back and pondering this a bit I realized that I had shot myself in the foot by over optimizing (and, really over thinking) the problem at hand. Google got it as well - my site had changed too much - thus the search king had to re-index it. Lesson learned (or, as the oddly say in England 'lesson learnt').

Today's web marketing lesson is all about building it right the first time - why keyword optimization must be a priority when you plan and prototype. Yes, you can change core keyword phrases along the way but, you must do it very gradually. That's really beside the point here.

What I want to stress to you is the need to start with good keyword research first - targeting your core keyword phrase and then all relevant variations on it. Let's take a great example that, I think, will show you how to approach this problem with some powerful ammunition for your own work.

If you've done some research online for sites devoted to earning money online - you may have noticed a site appear about 1-2 years ago for the search term 'make money online'. Go ahead and type it into Google without the quotes.

The #1 site is Alan Liew's Blogger site (yes, a Blogger site!) - here's a screenshot:

Now, if you pay special attention to his site you'll see that the keyword phrase 'make money online' is the predominate term on his site - from the main page and throughout his post titles and links. What's not quite so apparent is that all inbound links to his site are also titled 'Make Money Online' from forum posts to articles.

What Alan did right was focus immediately on the keyword phrase he desired to dominate and did it in about two years! Kudos to him and his perseverance - his example is a complete success in a massively competitive market (157,000,000 results).

This shows that staying the course with your keyword phrase is one of the most important steps to building your site. Be sure to use one of the keyword tools out there to find a phrase you want to market to and stick to it! If you keep diligent - you will succeed.

You're Not Making Any Money Online without Authority

2009-09-15T21:44:00.008-05:00

Made you wonder, didn't I?? If you read my post from a couple of days ago you saw that I assigned you to do some research by typing in an example keyword phrase 'How to Make Money Online'. If you did what I asked you, you probably wondered what you should really be looking for that defines their site's success in the search engines. I bet you felt that slight pang of jealousy that your website isn't in that top 10 list (heck, I know I did).

Many of you have probably dropped some real dollars on some ebooks and read a thing or two about search engine optimization to guess that these sites have high quality backlinks from other sites that also rank well in the search engines. And, as we all know TRAFFIC = MONEY - so, everyone's goal is to get traffic. However, (and this is a BIG however) that is not necessarily the answer to getting top rankings in Google or Yahoo (and most recently - Bing). Bada Bing! Read that last line again.

Ok, hold all of your preconceptions about SEO because you're probably submitting articles, adding entries to link directories, creating profiles in social sites, etc. etc. - i.e. - wasting valuable time! There is one secret I'm going to spill - and that is your site's authority!

By authority I mean that the content you've provided in your site or blog has relevant meaning and important to human eyes based on your key topic. Guess what? Google is trying to view your site the same way with human glasses - and, guess what - they're not rose colored.

What you might be thinking is that Google is judging your site based on the number and popularity of sites linking back to you. True, somewhat - but, there are a boatload of PhDs at Google trying to make it read your site like a human - yes, a human. That means reading from top to bottom, left to right, scanning and determining if the content has relevance (remember that term - it is important) and authority to the topic at hand - that is, your web page.

So what does that really mean? If you think about this it is about the perception the search engines have of your content demonstrating that you have the appropriate knowledge of the topic or niche. That is why you'll see sites with a significant amount of detailed content focused on specific keywords ranking high.

Recently, however, I have discovered sites that rank in page 1 of Google that do not have many backlinks, and, those backlinks are not highly ranked. I was literally floored when I found this. Why would these sites get high rank for the search term?

In one example I found a site ranked #4 of 1.4M results that had 6 pages with 717, 755, 519, 211, 373 and 12 words in each page respectively. The pages spoke directly to the main topic (page 1) and associated topics in pages 2-5 with page 6 being a contact page. It had 28 backlinks with all being simple web directories, whois and alexa rank. Pretty simple - but, it was authoritative. It reads well, has the main topic as the page title and subtopics / subheadings with content.

What this demonstrates is that getting ranked high in Google may not be as hard as you think - just as long as you build your pages in a human readable, authoritative manner. Want a great example? Just take a look at how Wikipedia is structured and you'll get a clue on what you need to do (more on this later). There's no telling how long it will take Google to get you to a high position - be patient - you should be able to build niche sites that capitalize on this and make money easier than before.

Do you Really Want to Learn How to Make Money Online?

2009-09-10T21:38:00.007-05:00

Well, an interesting start to this blog entry, huh? How to make money online? Yes, yes - everyone is out there pitching money making ideas. But, I have to start this with my noticable absence from blogging - why no posts - what's happening in 2009?

The real secret here is that I've gone deep into research and education . What do I mean by that? Over the last 8 months I made a pact with myself - walk away, dust off all of those internet marketing ebooks I've purchased over the last 4 years, go heads down and hunt for every possible tip I can find - add to that some serious online research specifically on successful SEO and Email list techniques.

Well, I can honestly say that I've picked up even more from the online research of successful sites than the library of ebooks (most have the same information) that I now own (at my current count, 27)- but, both have convinced me of some certain rules of success. Frankly, the basic rules of online success are easier than you think.

But the first rule I want to stress to you, the reader, is that making money online comes down to your mindset - yes, you! One of the biggest scams out there today is the mass of top marketers selling products to beginner marketers over and over until they walk away with millions. You say 'Hey! I want to do that!'. Well, I've got news for you - they've got a huge advantage - they've got money to repackage and sell you again using top copywriters and product packaging. Not to mention they have your psychology in mind - the hungry beginner; ready to conquer the world of online marketing and make millions!

Where they have the advantage is that only a very small percentage of the population will buy something, and, an even smaller percentage will have the ongoing motivation to keep doing it. So, back to that first rule - you have to change yourself first! You have to prove that you can do the day to day work (yes, I'm going to say it is work!) to succeed. Writing little tweets on Twitter is easy, creating a Blog is a bit harder, building a decent website is even more work, and writing a successful ebook or valuable, deep content is very hard!

So, I ask you - 'do you really want to make money online?' Or, from the seasoned internet marketer's viewpoint - 'do you really want to invest yourself into an industry that takes hard work, dedication, education and long term commitment?' Notice that the marketers don't ask you this question - because most of you will run to the hills!

Look, I don't want to scare you - but to be truthful. My best success online has come for daily commitment - that's where I've earned big dollars. My worst examples online have been quick-hit profits that promised immediate gratification and success.

Don't stop reading! Here's my motivational side - what's really missing is that anyone can do this! Yes, even the most inexperience newbie can be successful. Patience and daily work is the key - it is going to take some time. But, if you stay motivated, stay focused, set long term goals (say, over the next 12 months) you will start to see some dollars coming in.

With that said, I have an assignment for you. I want you to type this phrase into Google - "How to Make Money Online" (192M results without quotes and 2.1M with quotes) and specifically look at the top 10 results. If you haven't noticed - about 2 or 3 of the results are blogs. Go to those blogs and look at their archive history - how long have they been blogging? Take a look at their content - what is unique? Note down why you think they're successful -based on content, keywords, dialog, even subtle psychology. I guarantee this will be a better education for you than any ebook.

Google Cash Detective 2 - A Review

2009-07-10T20:17:00.010-05:00

Every once in a while I receive an offer that I'm so sure is going to work that I jump in immediately to get in early and test the waters. Recently, I did just that with Chris Carpenter's 'Google Cash Detective 2'.

I really should back up a bit before talking about my results. For some reason Google Adwords and I don't get along. I'm not sure why but for whatever reason I've spent way more than I've ever earned using Adwords. You can name the campaign type - I've done it - literally losing thousands of dollars over the last 6 years (thankfully I've made much more without Adwords).

Given that, when the email came to try out 'Google Cash Detective 2' I decide to take the leap again. After reviewing how it worked I was convinced that this was going to be my blitzkrieg to profits on Adwords once and for all!

So what is 'Google Cash Detective 2'? Basically, Chris has found a way to measure/score the top Adwords ads and their corresponding keywords by time duration. In other words, if an Adwords ad has been in a top position on Google for many months, then it must imply that the advertiser was willing to keep paying for that position - the assumption here is that he or she is making a profit on those ads.

Now add into that the keyword phrases used - you now know what ads and keywords are doing the best (at least that is the theory). Chris creates a scoring system that shows you specifically the ad you should clone for any affiliate products (most likely, Clickbank ebooks).

A great idea in my mind, GCD2 really seemed to be something to look at. So, I signed up and immediately found 2 profitable niches to try out that were targeting high gravity Clickbank books. I jumped in creating Adwords ads for both using the top keyword phrases shown in GCD2.

Well, long story short - I *FAILED* again with Adwords. My cloned ads ran for a number of days with many hits but absolutely no sales at all. Yes, nothing! Ouch - that cost me hundreds of dollars yet again.

I'm sorry to say that if you really want to learn how to make money online, then, I can't recommend this product unless you have a lot of cash to spare - hundreds of dollars. Maybe you'll find the right niche and ad clone to turn a profit - but, as always, if you're playing with Google Adwords - BEWARE! You can lose a lot of money.

You Know the Economy is Bad When...

2009-04-13T22:00:00.007-05:00

Yes, I am alive and kicking. These have been some of the strangest times for any profession including Internet Marketers. Back in January when I was finishing up Step 7 of building an affiliate site I took a step back. It wasn't because I didn't want to keep writing - but, that I started to notice something unusual about the lists of core marketers that I follow closely.

When opening my personal email I started to see more and more quick hit messages from marketers both big and small. At first I thought it was an anomaly but started seeing a pattern emerging. Marketers were starting to get desperate. How so? Every email was shifting to quick hit affiliate links for products - 'hey, take a look at....', 'I don't know if you've seen this yet...', 'he's just lowered his amazing product to only...'

You get the picture - the market is bad - people are scrambling. I've noticed it myself - product sales are down, ad revenue is WAY down, etc. The goal of promoting quick hit affiliate products is to sell your email list as fast as possible to generate revenue. Hopefully, this side income can supplement any downturn in their own products. But, it is coming too often to the point that every email now is a cross-sell and I'm tired of that.

Now, I'm not a fan of pushing more and more products to my list unless I'm truly excited about what I see out there. With the downturn I started looking for something new and different that might make what you and I do a bit easier. Sometime in the beginning of Feb. I found it - a simple, new idea that I can work into an easy side product and tool.

So, making a long story short - I've been working on my idea for a couple of months now and will talk about it soon. Meanwhile, I've also been working hard on a new guru's set of tutorials that have helped me immensely. More to come on that.

My advice for this time right now is to focus completely on a single product - your own. Write lots of content, get that email list going - and push yourself every day! Don't dawdle on affiliate sites, ads, and other experiments. To make money online in this time requires deep dedication to your idea.

IM101 Step 7: Using Blogger to Build Your Affiliate Site

2009-01-11T11:36:00.007-06:00

I've talked about Blogger many times before on The Agile Marketer. It is, in my mind, the easiest way to get a site online that can generate revenue for you quickly. With built-in RSS feeds, Adsense and the ability to customize using Javascript or HTML additions you can actually build a fully functional website.

However, your goal is not to get too wrapped up in site design - remember, the key to your success is getting content out there quickly and to notify blog search engines that content is being updated.

I'm not going to go into the details of how to sign into Blogger and set up your account - you can find many tutorials out there on how to do this - here's a great one if you need it: Vance's Blogger Tutorial

Make sure you choose a more vanilla, or sparse template. The reason for this is that you can make things stand out much better - the colors of a header or inline page photos really stand out when the template is mostly white. In case you haven't noticed, The Agile Marketer is a Blogger blog (highly customized, though).

I realize it has been a while since my last tutorial - but, part of the reason was to show you how this Blogger affiliate site I was building, namely, The Diet Solution Program, is doing in Google!!

Take a look at: Natural Weight Loss with The Diet Solution Program

I completed the first part of the blog in October and submitted only some free press releases and one, single article. Over time I added some more blog posts, submitted my site to a few social sites such as Spicypage and Blogcatalog, submitted the single article to some more directories and pinged some blog search services. Actually, not much work overall - I didn't do some of the standard traffic building techniques such as YouTube or a load of article submissions.

So, in two and half months - how are we doing with our keywords?
1. 'The Diet Solution Program' - now ranked 42nd in Google (534,000 results)
2. 'Isabel De Los Rios' - now ranked 22nd in Google (361,000 results)
3. 'healthy diet plan' and 'natural weight loss' - (524,000 and 2,640,000 Google results) no ranking yet for those specific phrases (but indexed by Google if the search is refined)

I haven't spent any time on optimizing the keyword phrases in #3 yet - just letting organic growth work with these. However, my future approach will be to add keyword density in my Blogger posts as well as articles that focus on these.

Not bad for the small amount of work I've put into the site - I would guess I've put in about 8-16 hours of work. With only a single article, six submissions to article sites, three press releases, about seven social site networks I'm generating some traffic, getting Adsense revenue and a few Clickbank sales.

The key with Blogger was getting my content posts out there so that they will be searched by Google right away. Keywords make the difference - you can see how just a little work can get a site moving up the organic search result ladder. Just image if you have 5 to 10 of these Blogger affiliate sites working over time....

IM101 Step 6: Tuning Your Affiliate Product Keywords

2008-11-17T22:52:00.008-06:00

Finding the best keywords for your affiliate site is not too difficult but essential to learn how to make money online. The key is finding the right terms that will have the highest density on your page with hopefully the additional benefit of a low competition in the search engines. This also works for your own product or informational sites as well.

Since I had picked a dieting product this is not as easy as something with a smaller niche such as a hobby or an aspect of a professional skill. The basic strategy for a high competition keyword subject area is to narrow it down to smaller segments by using longer keyword phrases. From my last article using the keyword tools provided can give me a very good indication of what keyword phrase is going to a) have less competition, b) ranked faster and c) visible in the first ten results of a Google search. It is important to try and analyze this before you kick into gear building your sites.

For example, the word 'diet' alone has a Google page return of 163 millions results - that is, 163 million references to external web sites. Getting to the top ten results in Google for just the word 'diet' would be a very, very tough task.

You may have noticed that I waited some time before continuing this article to work on my own articles and my ebook. But, I was also waiting for my affiliate sample site to start gaining rank in Google. Part of this plan was to focus on my core keyword phrases within the affiliate site's content.

For my example I knew that a couple of key phrases had to be part of my solution. Since I was focusing on a diet guide I had to use both the guide's title and author as keyword phrases. This is an important step for the future since I knew the guide was going to gain in popularity over time. In this case - 'The Diet Solution Program' and 'Isabel De Los Rios'. It is key to use these for future keyword phrase searches as the product gains popularity.

But, I also wanted to find a keyword phrase that has a more general health and diet search with a smaller Google result. After a couple of hours on the tools using the words 'diet', 'dieting', 'health', 'nutrition', 'diet plan', 'healthy diet' I finally hit the phrase I wanted - 'healthy diet plan' which I found to have a decent set of results in search but low enough to get ranked quickly. (Remember, to use these tools just type in the core one or two word phrases and see what results come back. Then, go to Google and see how many results come back from your phrases. The lower the number of results the easier it is for you to get ranked in the top ten.)

I typically look for keyword phrase results in Google with near one million results. Here's an example that is close:

If you focus on key phrases with results under 100,000 but greater than about 25,000 then you can get ranked very quickly in Google. The downside is that the daily search volume for your phrase may be too low so this would only generate 10-20 hits a day.

I was able to get a keyword site ranked in the top ten of Google for a result of over 25 million in the search return. However this took about six months and a lot of work. Be sure you pick one keyword phrase that has about one million results - but, don't focus on it first. Let it become a natural part of your site as you build it.

So, now I'm ready to start building a site. I'm now armed with my keyword phrases 'The Diet Solution Program', 'Isabel De Los Rios', 'healthy diet plan' and 'natural weight loss'. Enter these into Google as full search phrase enclosed in both quotes and not enclosed and you'll be able to see for yourself how many results are returned for each.

Next up, using Blogger as a simple, free way to build your site.

Your Best Weapon to Make Money Online During These Times

2008-11-16T20:04:00.008-06:00

Writing. Ah, that word that makes me cringe in an avoidance panic! Yet, I know I have to get back to it again and again. Writing is something that I just can't seem to do naturally yet it is such an integral part of my online work.

If you're new or haven't noticed, I haven't posted my next marketing steps in quite a while. Why? Well, there are many reasons but the main one was all about writing - my ebook, articles and other older material that needed refreshing.

You see, this is NaNoWriMo month (if you haven't heard of it - National Novel Writing Month). NaNoWriMo was started as an online community event to get budding writers to write more and think less (that's my addition - but, mainly true. Writers worry too much about structure and plot.) The goal is to write 50,000 words in the month of November - which, is a pretty daunting - 1666 words a day. Translate that into internet marketing work; that's three 560 word articles a day!

But, when you think about it - if you just keep writing and start to ignore the wandering mind a bit your productivity soars. Can this be translated from novel writing to content writing? Probably not at 50,000 words. Nevertheless, the concept is still the same - just doing it!

Back to my story - I've been using the NaNoWriMo concept to write my next ebook which has left much of my other work shelved for a bit. This is something I think any budding online marketer should do. It helps you get past the block and into a flow. Try it - you may see a big payoff!

This has been beneficial for another reason as well - my test affiliate marketing site that I'm using right now in the Marketing 101 steps has seen a great upswing in traffic as well as a rise in Google rankings due mainly to articles I wrote just before the end of October. If you're going to learn how to make money online - this is it.

If you go back a couple of posts you'll see that I had picked the affiliate product called 'The Diet Solution Program' to use as that educational example. Well, now my example site is ranked well in Google and rising fast. The real key to this is simple - writing original content and submitting it to article directories, forums, blogs - you name it.

It's hard and takes time - but believe me - if you do it you will see the real payback in no time which is the most exciting . So, do it! Create your own NaNoWriMo month in December and keep writing.

What is the Best Method to Make Some Money Online?

2008-10-20T21:50:00.008-05:00

Recently, I was scanning around Yahoo Answers and found this particular question. Since I spent the time answering it for that person I thought it might be useful for any of the Agile Marketer readers. Enjoy!

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This is a difficult question to answer because most of your answers are going to be pitches for products or services that claim to make you money.

I'll say right up front that even though I have made some good money online most of the money making systems are really a bad mix of techniques and promises that typically burn people out right away because of one of the following:

1. You have to pay too much money to learn or get into this business

2. You don't have the computer skills to work online

3. You are trying to make money on something you know nothing about or care about (this is my pet peave!)

4. You don't have the diligence to do the day to day work

5. You are not thinking like a small business

6. You are desperate for money and will do anything

These statements are what typically splits those who make little or nothing to those who make millions online.

I started out like you wondering what to do and how to do it and was left with a lot of frustrated mistakes. But, if there is anything I've learned online in the last 5 years is that if you don't pursue something you love (your interest, hobbies, life dreams, etc) you probably won't make much.

My advice to you is to:

1. Start with a business mindset first - what is your plan? what will you sell? do you have knowledge that is marketable? (Don't worry - many things are marketable - I've seen successful online businesses just on simple home ice dam removal because the person doing it loved construction - and saw another make a mint on care of pet fish - yes, pet fish!!!).

2. Be sure to really start your business - as a sole propietor or LLC. You get huge tax breaks for anything you buy for your business - books, computers, software, desks, phones, etc. Don't buy anything until you do this!!!! It will save you a ton of money.

3. List every thing that you love to do or know about and write them down. Then, pick what you think you could market online as a product, service or knowledge (such as a blog)- stick to it!! Don't go online trying to sell diet plans if you know nothing about nutrition or dieting. If you know something about specific pets, legal forms, cameras, - the sky is the limit! Use that knowledge to your advantage and build on it.

4. Not give into desperation - let things work out over time. You can't build a business in a day. Making big money online takes time - you have to prove yourself and have the motivation to work on it every day.

5. Invest in your education. Learn as much as you can on how to do this - buy a few online business guides. I'm constantly amazed that people are not willing to spend a couple hundred dollars to learn how to make money online when they are willing to pay thousands for a MBA or even an online college degree.

6. Don't get distracted - probably the #1 killer of online hopes and dreams. Once you start learning this business you will definitely see more opportunities - hold off!! You will spread yourself too thin. Be focused.

I hope this helps you. I've lived it and think that anyone can do this.

IM101 Step 5: Focusing on Keywords

2008-09-03T20:37:00.004-05:00

One of the very first mistakes I made when building my first marketing site was not paying attention to the main keyword search terms I was trying to focus on. At that time I didn't understand how keyword density worked nor did I get the benefits of keyword rich backlinks to my site.

So, to help you with this I'm going to take a very specific example from Clickbank and build out a low cost, ebook marketing site for you. You're welcome to follow along with the same Clickbank product, or, just find one you're really interested in. My focus for this article is validating the product and getting the keyword search terms in place.

After spending a couple of hours scanning through both Clickbank.com and CBEngine.com I found the product I wanted to market - it's called The Diet Solutio Program by Isabel De Los Rios.

My key criteria were a) the product is relatively new on the market, b) it is starting to see some gravity, c) the payout per sale is reasonable (see my last article), and d) it is something I have some knowledge and passion for (my grandmother and mother were both wellness and nutrition fanatics).

One additional thing that I typically do is search Google for product reviews to make sure that the response is positive - I don't want to market something people think is a waste of money. If all looks good I go ahead and purchase the product for my last validation - making sure the final product is something I truly want to promote. From everything I could see, Isabel's Diet Solution Program looks like a great candidate.

Finding Good Affiliate Product Keywords

Next, I spent a couple of hours determining my core keyword phrases that will be the main driver to this site and get it ranked in Google. My favorite free keyword tools are Google Adwords Keyword Tool and Trellian's Keyword Discovery. At a high level these tools give me enough information to build my phrases. (I suggest that you download the Free Ebook SEO Made Easy to learn more).

Generally I like to focus on three to four key terms that give me search exposure on Google in a way that will be in the top ten results for each. Typically, one is the main term and the other two are lower volume search returns.

The first thing you want to do is identify the key terms associate with the product you're promoting - in my example it is The Diet Solution Program which was definitely a keyword challenge due to the shear number of diet and nutrition products on the market today. I had to dig down the keyword list to find just the magic phrase.

Coming next - how I identified the right keywords for my affiliate product.

IM101 Step 4: Finding Your First Product to Market

2008-08-19T20:48:00.008-05:00

I've spent some time in my earlier tutorials discussing how to make money online by pre-marketing your website. Now that you understand the basics let's get started building something easily and quickly.

There's probably no easier way to start than to market an existing electronic product. I prefer starting with Clickbank only because the products are affiliate ready - that is, they are structured in a way that every product Clickbank promotes must allow the same affilite linking, terms of service, disclaimers, refund policy, etc. Plus, they are all electronic downloads which makes your profits that much less stressful. This means you only have to pick a product that matches something you are interested in (remember, focusing on your passions will make this much easier - see Passions to Profits for more information).

The other part of Clickbank that I like is the easy way to see what products are the most popular and their gravity (a term meaning the products are accelerating in sales). I prefer picking a fairly new product that shows some gravity but is not yet in the top sellers. Here's an example from their Marketplace tab:

As you can see - I searched by highest gravity in the Fitness section of Health and Fitness. The stats underneath give you an idea about the amount you make per sale and how popular the ebook is.

Researching the Clickbank History

If you want more data on the specific product from Clickbank then I like to use another site called CBEngine.com. They have more data you can use to see how a product has been doing over time. CBEngine has both a free service and a paid service if you want more than just data (you can get specific recommendations).

Another aspect you should pay attention to before picking your product is to see how much that author is willing to pay you, the affiliate marketer, for selling their product. The payout to you for a product can range from $5 to $80 per sale which is a pretty wide spread.

When I first started I focused on the highest paying products only to find that there seems to be a price threashold for many buyers won't cross. A $99 Clickbank product is a much harder sell than a $30 one. Keep in mind that you would have to sell three to six times as many products to match a high priced one. My rule of thumb is to focus on products for less than $50 with at least a 50% affiliate payout (meaning you get at least $25 of a $50 sale).

Signing up with Clickbank is a simple task - just be sure that you have your online business ready to go (see Business Before Web) and that your TaxID is setup so you can start.

Clickbank is a very easy way to start your internet marketing business. All you need is an affiliate site, some traffic tricks (more to come!), and the perseverence I'm mentioned so many times before. Remember, the product is only a small part of the bigger picture. Getting your site ranked with traffic will be the winning formula. Imagine now that your site is #1 in Google for the keywords tied to your product - that's the real goal. I've done it and made thousands on Clickbank products - so can you.

Next up - getting your product keywords ready (before you doing anything else!) to dominate a Google search result.

IM101 Step 3: Ten Easy Power Methods to Promote Your Site Early

2008-06-18T22:06:00.003-05:00

Someone recently asked me why you would ever want to promote a site before finishing it? If you happened to read my article Get Listed in the Search Engines Early you would have some of that answer. However, would I promote a site before it is started? No, I wouldn't - but I would as soon as I had the very basic structure and content ready.

One thing to remember is that promotion does not have to be a direct link - it can be indirect such as an author account, profile or configuration setting that points back to your site. This has become even more important with Web 2.0 sites because of their high popularity and page rank.

So, where would you begin with something like this? First and foremost you must have a Yahoo ID. Yahoo is important because there are some very highly ranked tools within Yahoo you can use as indirect ( and some direct ) promotion. Other than that you'll need to use individual IDs for the other sites (be sure to read my previous entry on the proper use of IDs before you begin).

Here we go - the ten power methods:

1. Twitter - I hope everyone has figured out the power of Twitter. But, if you haven't be sure to sign up and start tweeting! You can set a backlink in your profile as well as talk about what you're doing on your site. Start very early with this - you can tweet about your site, news, ideas, etc! Don't worry, someone will start following you.

2. StumbleUpon - This is a powerful way to track interesting websites either randomly or related to your marketing topic. Better yet, you can follow others picks, start groups and link back with your profile. Again, this is one you can start very early with a profile and links similar to your site - just be sure not to add your own site for stumbling too soon.

3. YouTube - If you're adept at creating videos this is an extremely powerful way to get backlinks to your site. However, you don't even have to do that - just create your own YouTube group with a backlink to your site. Then, add videos to that group of quality, related content. Over time people will join your group if you pick your videos well!

4. Zoho and Zoho Planner - Zoho is a provided of online productivity software - spreadsheet, word processor, database, etc. One very easy idea is to use Zoho Planning while your building your project. Why? Planner allows you to publish your plan publicly as you go - which you can use to track your own progress, create backlinks, and even stir up some ideas going forward. I use it just as a simple tracking mechanism.

5. Digg - Most of you are probably pretty familiar with this. Much like StumbleUpon you can track and vote for you favorite articles that tie to your site concept. You can enter your site in the profile.

6. Propeller - very much the same as StumbleUpon or Digg you can use Propeller to find and rate similar articles to your own.

7. MyBlogLog - this is a blog tracking and rating site (uses a Yahoo ID). Many blogs place a MyBlogLog widget on their site showing who has visited. This will show what users have stopped by - which you can map back to your Yahoo ID.

8. Flickr - most of you already know what this is (uses a Yahoo ID). However, you should seriously consider using it to indirectly or directly promote your site depending on the topic. For example, in my last article I mentioned the sample Travel Photo Tips site. Well, of course you would want to have photos on Flickr. But, if your site is informational only - you can get creative and find themes that fit your market!

9. Yahoo Answers - since you are promoting something that you love you should be able to answer questions about it. At some point your own site can become a reference to those answers - just be careful not to spam your site, that is, use answers to only try to get a link back. Be honest to those looking for answers and include many different references

10. Spicypage - finally, use this community site ranking tool to add your own site, rate others and collaborate with other, similar users.

There you have it! Ten simple power methods to boost your own site early. Just be consistent to work with two or three of each every day so you can build your successful ranking early to make money online.

IM101 Step 2: Establish Your Differentiating Email IDs

2008-06-11T21:07:00.006-05:00

Ok, it's summer and you've just setup your business to make money online as a Sole Proprietor or LLC called Howe Productions (since your name is Sarah Howe - note: that I just made this up - any relation is purely coincidental.). You're really excited to get started with the two ideas that you've finally decided are worth pursuing with a passion to earn some online income. You've created your main business domain called howe-productions.com with a main contact ID of sarah@howe-productions.com.

Meanwhile you've decided that your two marketing ideas are going to be built on a primary business idea (travel photography - eztravelpics.com) and a secondary personal project (yoga hot spots). However the secondary idea is going to be a blog only and not its own domain (yogahotspots.blogspot.com). Once setup, you now have two more email contact IDs - sarah@eztravelpics.com and yogahotspots@yahoo.com. Everything looks good, right?

Now the first problem. You want to submit some articles, Flickr pictures, and use some forums to start promoting your sites. Which email ID do you use when you register? Also, you want to setup some Adsense ads, plus some site analysis tools. Which email ID do you use now?

The core problem here is the use of your specific taglines for promotional links vs. general tools to manage the marketing strategy. Do you want all of your travel promotions to show sarah@howe-productions.com or sarah@eztravelpics.com? What if you write some yoga articles?

The solutions to this is pretty easy to do but also easy to miss. Just remember to use your parent email ID (in this case sarah@howe-productions.com ) for any online tool that manages mutiple sites - things like Google Adense and Adwords, Sitemeter, Feedburner, etc. Use your specific email for promotional sites such as articles and article taglines, blog comments, Web 2.0 community sites, etc. Promotional sites should always point to the specific site you are try to monetize thus the need for a specific email Id tuned to that site.

Case in point: I started using an article submission service that required a tagline for every article (such as 'Don is an Internet Strategist and ... you can reach him at don@agilemarketer.com'). However, I wanted to submit to wholly different categories. I switched the email and tagline only to discover that my previous marketing articles now had taglines and email ids completely in the wrong category!

So, here are my strategies for IDs :
1. For a single online strategy - use a single domain email id (makes sense)
2. For a parent company strategy - create a parent domain email id and individual ids for each site you create.

Note: If you plan a Blog with no domain for either 1 or 2, I strongly suggest using Yahoo mail as your primary id (this is because of the promotional tools that Yahoo has). You're going to have to have a Yahoo id anyway (more on that in future posts).

This may not make a lot of sense to you now, but it will in the future.

Next up, using the Web 2.0 community to promote your site before you're even close to finishing it.

IM101 Step 1: Start Internet Marketing with EPIC Steps

2008-06-09T21:47:00.010-05:00

I've spent most of the spring working on providing you the free advice necessary to get started online. You'll be seeing a combination of blog entries, articles and emails (for those who have subscribed) that tell you exactly step by step what you need when promoting and monetizing your online business.

My goal is not to provide all of the deep details of each step - you can learn these from any of the ebooks I promote. I'm going to focus on the action steps with a brief explanation. My only assumption is that you understand how to use some of the basic internet tools, services and strategies (again, any of these can be found in Newbie Cash Machine or Honest Riches).

So, let's get started!

I hope you've spent some time reading and reviewing my free ebook, Passions to Profits. This should have solidified your basic online idea - your first starting point. Remember, this idea is based on my EPIC principle: basic Education, Passion, your key Idea, and focused Control. I'm telling you right now that if you follow this principle you will succeed! Just by getting one simple education guide (E - Education), understanding what you love to do (P - Passion), going online with one idea (I - Idea) and staying focused for a duration (C - Control) the dollars should start to appear.

Next, be sure to review my previous Agile Marketer posts:

Business Before Web
Website Hosting
Get Listed in Search Engines Early
Use the 80-20 Rule to Make Money Online
Where to Focus Your Marketing Dollars

Read, review and get ready! Part 2 is coming soon - differentiating your online email IDs.

Finally - Replace the Blog Title with Post Title in Blogger

2008-05-18T20:52:00.004-05:00

They finally did it! Blogger now has the 'pageName' tag that allows you to add the post title as the page title instead of the blog title: post title. This has been a bane with Blogger for quite a long time.

Just add this code after the Blogger [head] tag (note: gt and lt signs are replaced with [])

[b:include data='blog' name='all-head-content'/]
[b:if cond='data:blog.url == data:blog.homepageUrl']
[title][data:blog.pageTitle/][/title]
[b:else/]
[title][data:blog.pageName/][/title]
[/b:if]

Note that this is only for the new Blogger template - not the old template.

Internet Marketing 101: Business Before Web

2008-04-27T15:47:00.007-05:00

I wanted to start this essay on the positive benefits of defining your business first before building any online sites, blogs or special projects. (Note: this article is primarily focused of those living in the US - but, you may find some benefits in other countries as well).

What many people tend to forget is that there is a significant tax incentive in this country if you define your online work as a business. This is much easier than you think and should be your primary focus before doing anything else. If you haven't started this activity I would strongly suggest taking a look at the rest of this article!

By no means am I a lawyer or an accountant - but, I can give you the basics from what I have learned. The core lesson I want you to get out this is that by declaring yourself as a business, any purchases, costs, fees, etc. can potentially be deductions on your taxes if your business is at a loss for the first year or more. This includes any equipment you may purchase dedicated to your online work. Granted, if you make a lot of money then you will be taxed - however, the expenses you have for your business will reduce that profits such that the tax impact won't be as great.

How does this work? First, there are three basic forms of a business you can setup in order to do this - Sole Proprietor, LLC, or Corporation. I'm going to focus on the Sole Proprietor for now because it is the easiest and cheapest way to get started - you can do the research online for more information regarding LLCs and Corporations.

A Sole Proprietor simply means a business entity that has no separation from you, the individual. However, it is still a business - thus, even though the business debts and profits flow through to you, the accounting and tax advantages are still separate. It is a simple way to have a trade name for yourself while using basic accounting expenses and profits.

Setting up a SP is typically very easy in any state. Although the rules tend to differ slightly state to state the basic steps are:

1. Find a name for your business - I recommend a generic end expression such as Enterprises, Services, Systems, Productions, Adventures, etc. For example, you might pick Smith Enterprises. I like to recommend this only because your primary business focus may change.

2. Register your new name with your state - this is defined as running your business under an assumed name. There typically is a small registration fee of $10-$35 and a very easy form to fill out. Check your state's Secretary of State website to find out what you need to do.

3. Publish your assumed name - Some states require you to publish your assumed name in a local city newspaper showing your intent to do business under that name. This will only cost you $10-$20 (this only has to be in your small suburban paper - not, a major city paper.)

4. Get a Federal Tax ID - Once your name is approved by the state, get a Federal Tax ID so you don't have to use your SSN for receiving income (this is free).

5. Get a checking account and a credit card under your business name. It will have both your assumed name and your own name on the accounts. You should use these from now on for any business transactions.

That's it!! Now you can do business under your new business name, purchase equipment, supplies and training all as part of that name. For example, once my business was setup I specifically purchased a laptop devoted only to my online work. I never install or use personal software on this laptop - business only. That capital expense was not only deductible on my taxes, it is also something that depreciates in value over time which may be deductible in the future as well.

Any general expenses can be deducted against your profits as well such as printer paper, fees, training, traveling, disks for backups, advertising, etc. Using a tax accountant is advisable to understand the additional forms you must complete at tax time.

To keep track simply pick up a copy of Quicken and create three accounts for each year:

1. Cash Expense Account - for general expenses
2. Capital Expense Account - for office equipment, computers, peripherals, etc.
3. Income Account - for any income from your affiliate accounts, ebooks, special offers, etc. - all the ways you make money online.

Just keep track of everything in those accounts for each year. Use these to help you categorize your finances at tax time.

One final note of warning - as a sole proprietor you are still personally liable for any legal actions. It does not protect you or your income as a corporation would. Always consult a lawyer to find out more about your own liabilities. Nevertheless, becoming a sole proprietor is much better than just using your own name and SSN!

Passions to Profits - New Free Ebook

2008-03-08T13:49:00.007-06:00

Just wanted to let you know I just finished up my new free ebook called:

Passions to Profits: Using Your Own Interests and Skills to Make Money Online

This ebook is focused primarily at newbies who are looking for ways to generate ideas to make money online. I think most people struggle with this issue of where to start.

What was most interesting about writing this ebook was the free tools I was able to use to create it completely from scratch - including the writing, layout, pdf generation, e-cover image, 3d ebook generation and image editing. Yes, all free!!!

I would guess this book took me about 10 hours to write, 3 hours to edit, and about 2 hours to package. It shows that you can do this pretty easily now.

If you're interested in what I used - just download the ebook and look for the Bonus Chapter. It has links to all of the tools.

Enjoy! You can get it here: Passions to Profits

Internet Marketing 101: Website Hosting

2008-02-26T21:40:00.008-06:00

This is a first in a series of Internet Marketing entries that, I hope, help you with your online businesses to make better choices. I plan to write more of these over time to eventually end up in an internet marketing how-to section of this site.

Ok class, here it is up front - I've got to tell you that I hate website hosting and hosting centers. Frankly it has been the bain of my online existence. Exasperating, frustrating, and downright mad, the website hosting world is a morass of insanity these days.

Costing anywhere from $1.99/month to hundreds of dollars a month, picking a hosting center can be a daunting quest. But, the good news is that I think we're reaching the end of this era soon.

So let me step back a bit to tell you my own experiences with hosting. I've currently used five different hosting centers since I started online. I've paid anywhere from about $6 to $20 a month depending on features. Over that time I've had system failures, outages, lost files, 85% uptime in one case, virtually no support, and slow page response.

Now I can't really say that everything has been negative. There have been moments of stability, support and good feelings. But, really not that often. And, so far in my book no one has stood out for me. And when I'm trying to make money online this is a huge impact!

What are the basic steps for hosting? Let's start with that. Let's say you've purchased a great new marketing package that consists of .php files and a MySQL database. Sounds simple, you're excited to run it - all you have to do is find hosting that supports this. Easy!!

Almost all hosting centers support PHP scripting, MySQL and a bunch of other utilities on their Linux servers. All you have to do is sign up with your credit card, create an account, use a utility to create your database instance, upload your files and launch! (Ok, easier said than done!)

Now comes the real trouble. The files you uploaded don't work, the database connection is failing and you're getting security setting issues for the file system. You try to contact support but they're offline - now what?

What is the problem here? Well, there are multiple reasons but the top ones, I think, are:

Many hosting centers are not very good at managing many sites on single servers. I think that many don't even care for the price you are paying.
A lot of these centers are fronts for a larger, offshore company that sells virtual centers. These are divied out to buyers to act as virtual hosting centers. (Funny story, I happened to use a center like this only to find another center that had copied the pages from the first one that still had the old company names and copyright dates.)
Your price is mostly a direct reflection of the support you'll receive. Paying $3/month doesn't pay the salaries of a large support staff.

I could go on here but my point is this: if you are going to use a hosting center then I would suggest the following:

Make sure the hosting center is located in your own country.
Find a center that offers 24x7 support preferably by phone - but a quick response ticketing support system will work too.
Try to talk to the sales people first - ask them about support, features, how many people work at the center, uptime - even ask them where they are located (do they work for the center directly?)
Make every attempt to use a month by month plan rather than a 6 or 12 month plan if you need to back out. If it is bad - get out!!
Use the internet for hosting reviews to see how other's experiences have been. Choose a center with a high rating.
Choose a host that seems large, well established with an extensive infrastructure. This helps assure your site's uptime.
Don't forget to check that your site supports your website files - php, asp.net, cold fusion, etc.

The good news that I refered to earlier is that this model is dying out. Small hosting centers will start to dissappear. The reason? The big guys are moving in and they're cheap; real cheap.

Amazon, Google, Yahoo, EBay and Microsoft are starting to see the value of a massive, shared, flexible infrastructure that can be extended to you, the user. Their own huge computing network can be partitioned in small chunks as virtual hosts allowing customers to deploy websites for pennies. Things like the Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud is an example of what is coming. Even Blogger from Google is a kind of free host.

Get ready for the future, but for now - use my advice above. And, hopefully, you won't quite a jaded as I am with hosting.

Top 10 Mistakes of Internet Marketing

2008-02-24T16:57:00.007-06:00

Many of us have tried to learn how to make money online using all kinds of inputs: ebooks, forums, videos, audios, trial and error, etc. If you're like me you find yourself constantly second guessing or just being frustrated when you see an Internet Marketing guru use a new bag of tricks to make yet another five million dollars in days.

Recently I polled a list of internet marketers on what they felt were their biggest mistakes made in their own online careers. I seeded the question with my own mistakes with the intent to get a discussion started.

What was revealed was extremely interesting coming from many who are very experienced. I decided to collate the list and rank them in what I thought is the best order based on the number of responses I received.

So, here we go - enjoy the list, and, use this to power your own online business!

Top 10 Mistakes of Internet Marketing

1. No Autoresponder - I think almost everyone responded to this one. Not having an autoresponder means no email list to work with. No list means re-marketing for every new product or service. The gurus make the BIG bucks here because their lists are huge!

2. Product Pricing Too Low - If you have been following Frank Kern's latest endeavor you'll see this is one of his emphasized points. Many are afraid to see the price point high thinking you'll lose customers whereas the opposite may be true. The psychology may be that something expensive is valued whereas something cheap is not.

3. Not Using Your List - Much like #1 even if you have a list you may not be marketing to it. Your list is your lifeline according to most. Use it!

4. Too Many Projects at Once - Ah, the age old story. I'm completely a victim to this - losing focus on a single project to start another. Yes, it is good to have ideas but keep them on a pad of paper by your side and leave them for later! There was a lot of noise from everyone on this one.

5. Test Marketing Before Jumping In - Well, there isn't much more to say about this other than do your research and plan carefully.

6. Offers to Never Seen Products - Whatever you do, don't do this. You must either buy or barter the product you are going to sell. If it is bad you definitely want to stay away and keep your customers away as well.

7. No Affiliates for Your Product - One marketer responded that he estimates he lost over one million dollars just from this simple mistake. Use your affiliate network to help sell your own product - it is like an exponential web, that, if good will grow your income at a massive rate.

8. Bad Sales Copy - Borrow, beg or just pay for this unless you are a great copywriter. This can sink a great product faster than anything.

9. Knowing a Niche is Profitable - Again, much like #5 this mistake is very common. You're excited, build a site, promote only to find out that those hours and hours of work went to waste. Ouch!

10. Not Outsourcing Faster - This is truly the power of many vs. the power of one. Outsourcing means getting help to build your site using such services as Elance.com or Amazon's Mechanical Turk. It is inexpensive and can accelerate your effort.

Some of the runners up were:

11. Bad Adwords Ads
12. Not Using Freebie Lists
13. Poor AdSense Testing

There you have it. If you can take away some of these lessons to use in your own work you should be better off and be able to make money online. Enjoy!

Time to watch the Oscars.

Are You Ready to Make Money Online in 2008?

2008-01-20T23:10:00.000-06:00

You were probably wondering what happen to me over the last month. As with the usual holiday craziness, part of my problem was dealing with the death of my father two months ago. Trying to keep the family going, manage my business dealings, (lose weight, ha!), and all of the other tasks were really quite daunting.

However, over the last two weeks I made my New Year's resolutions to get my products out the door and add more value to you, the readers. If you are like me you spend too much time thinking and spinning over so many ideas that just getting one done seems like it takes forever. I spent almost every day this year going back over my entire library of ebooks on Internet Marketing and how to make money online. This has been a challenge but also extremely enlightening.

If you have as many ebooks as I do then I bet you haven't gone back to read them again. It's a good idea since it generates similar thoughts from all the authors. When you look at it there are about ten common rules to making a living online. No doubt the single most important rule is having your own product. I would suggest you go dust off your old ebooks if you have the time - it might get you going in 2008.

So, who will be the in the class of 2008 for new Internet Marketers? Remember to dream big - hopefully it will be you!

Use the 80-20 Rule to Make Money Online

2007-12-13T20:55:00.000-06:00

I don't know how many of you have worked in a Fortune 50 company before. But, if you have you know how much large companies focus on squeezing the greatest benefit from every dollar spent.

This type of value can come in many ways - reduced expenses, more sales, faster delivery, etc. Any way you look at it, large corporations understand the need to keep the financial statement friendly to their stock owners.

A common theme running in many companies is the idea that the first 80% of any work is easier than the last 20%, and, it is that last 20% that usually doubles the total cost of the effort. Plus, it is usually the first 80% that provides a majority of the need. When you apply this to a large effort or a combination of efforts the savings is staggering! Companies will work on 10, 50 or 100 million dollar projects and can realize 32 million in savings plus get the benefit sooner just using those three examples

How can you apply this to your own online marketing endeavors? You have probably invested quite a bit of time and effort to make money online, and, if you're like me, want to perfect all of your work. This includes articles, websites, blogs, ebooks, graphics, lists, etc. Are you burning the midnight oil on fine details?

If you took a step back and analyzed your own work would you be able to strip away some of the most difficult and time consuming steps but still get most of the benefit? In my own work I have found that trying to complete a site down to the finest details probably did nothing for any additional revenue. If I had worked on only the core 80% I could have spent the rest of the time on traffic building.

Take a look at it a different way. Perhaps you are writing your first ebook and have 12 chapters on your specific topic. Do you really need all 12 chapters? Will some of those chapters make the difference in the overall quality or sales? What if you cut it down to 9 or 10 chapters - maybe the other chapters can wait for the next ebook.

By no means am I trying to suggest that you not complete anything to the point of it being non-functional, poor quality or simply useless. You still have to do the majority of the work that gets you to that threshold. The balance is benefit vs. effort and cost with your goal to still have quality products, services and information.

The bottom line is every hour you spend working on fine tuning your own online marketing process could be taking away potential profits from other endeavors. The more revenue generating projects you have, the higher the potential is to make money online.

You can always use your first earned dollars to hire talent later to tune, modify and perfect your past work. This gives you even more productivity with business acceleration!

Top Internet Sites by Time Spent Online

2007-12-02T20:48:00.000-06:00

Recently, I stumbled onto a page by a site analytics firm that measures how long users spend on a site rather than pure hits. They wanted to understand which sites generate long sessions with users. When you look at their results you see some pretty interesting patterns - all which revolve around content.

Before you look at this list take a moment to think of the sites where you spend the most time online. I'm not referring to how often you visit a site but one where you actually keep your attention and spend a duration of time browsing, reading, purchasing, socializing, etc.

Are you ready? You might be surprised. Here are the top 10 sites with longest attention share:

1. Myspace.com 11.9%
2. Yahoo.com 8.5%
3. Msn.com 3.7%
4. eBay.com 3.7%
5. Google.com 2.1%
6. Aol.com 1.7%
7. Pogo.com 1.6%
8. Facebook.com 1.0%
9. Amazon.com 0.7%
10. Craigslist.com 0.6%

Interesting list - I would say I spend most of my attention share on eBay, Google and Amazon as well as Youtube (which is number 12). I have never even looked at Pogo.com and hardly ever look at Msn.com. Some surprises in the top 20 - Adultfriendfinder.com and Neopets.com.

Looks like I need to spend some more time researching avenues on how to make money online with Myspace and Yahoo. More information on this list can be found at:
Compete.com Attention List

Tracking Heat Maps

2007-11-27T21:33:00.000-06:00

As you probably noted in my last entries, my focus lately has been on high volume keyword phrases. The more I have worked with this concept the more I want to research it. As with any site optimizing its performance should always be on your checklist. Part of optimizing my high volume sites to make money online was to take a look at how people were navigating around them. What were they seeing and clicking on?

Recently I came across a wonderful site called CrazyEgg.com that has an excellent interface for tracking clicks and click density over a period of time. I could easily see if my AdSense ads were being ignored, what articles were being read, if any promotions were focused on and what part of my pages were generating real interest.

CrazyEgg.com is a very cool web 2.0 application that basically creates a simulated overlay on top of any web page. This overlay is triggered by a simple javascript line embedded on the page you want to measure. Basically it is keeping track of clicks, click location, and density. What I really like about it is the ability to adjust as the page adjusts. So, if you have a blog you don't have to worry about the content locations changing (although I'm sure a drastic change would probably affect it.)

This tool is particularly helpful with Adsense ads allowing you to visually understand if you ad positioning is working. I was easily able to optimize my placements by viewing the heat maps and rearranging the ad positions. For my high volume sites this has been extremely beneficial. In fact, there were ad placements I definitely thought were in the correct position that turned out to have no clicks at all! I was floored! It seems that users are tuning out ads in various locations that I had no idea were poor screen real estate.

If you have any page that gets some traffic you should try it out for a test drive. A possible option would be to use a very low bid Adwords campaign to get clicks before the page has been promoted so you can tune the layout sooner rather than later. Whatever way you want to test, tune and monetize your site, I strongly suggest that you try this tool out soon.