Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
I have titled this blog post as “Quitting the Rat Race In An Economic Downturn” because of 2 reasons.
The first reason is that I have resigned from my organization after working for close to 7 years now. My last day of corporate work life is on 09 June 2008. Come next week, I will be starting my leave for an entire month.
The second reason for such a title is I am quitting at a time when the US economy is still rather slow. A lot of my income comes from the US.
Yet, what are the motivations for me to do so?
In life, there are always Pull and Push factors for every decision you make. Push factors are the ones that force you to move out of your status quo, ie where you are in your current situation. Pull factors are what drives and attracts you on the other side.
In the equation, when the Pull and the Push work hand in hand together, there is no reason for staying in status quo.
That brings me the point of preparing the Pull factors. Push factors in most circumstances are not really within our control but the Pull factors can be influenced by our choices.
3 years ago, I started to grow tired of my work. I was doing well in my career being one of the youngest in my organization (huge one with a few thousand staff) to move up the ladder to middle management and I am barely 30 years of age. Thank God for the favor. I was ahead of many of my peers. But something inside me always challenges me to do something different.
For 3 years, I went around hunting for answers and finally chanced upon internet marketing or for that matter affiliate marketing. After some hard knocks here and there, I finally figured certain things out, crafted a vision and made plans. I worked towards it and I am glad that things worked out well enough for me to quit my job and work full time on my online business.
The excitement of being able to do what I truly enjoy is immense though I do have some apprehension. The “What If”s are real. I do not deny it but my promise to myself and my wife-to-be is that I will work hard and smart and by God’s grace, I will make it!
Here are some tips for all my dear readers who are working hard to make ends meet or working for long hours but always wishing in your heart to one day quit the rat race and be your own boss:
1. Develop a Vision
A vision is bigger than a goal. Making that “1 million dollars” is not a vision but a goal. Because I have seen folks who made their first million but are still not happy. In fact, they became very lost after achieving that success and needed another goal to be injected into their lives.
A vision is bigger than yourself. Yes, a vision will challenge you to where you now cannot imagine. So what is your vision? Set up a trust fund to support the orphans in a third world nation or be the most successful Internet Marketer in the world?
2. Craft Out Your Plans
What are your plans? You need a plan to meet your vision. Plan out your strategy. It is highly important to set tangible targets and goals that are measurable with a timeline.
If your goal is to quit your job at 40 years old, you need to know how much money you will need then. Then work backwards to where you are now. Do some reality checks.
3. Take Baby Steps
I am now mentoring one of my friends in making money online. One thing I always teach him is to make plans but take baby steps.
If your goal is to make $1000 in a month from now, break that down into 30 days and all it takes to meet the target is to make $30 a day. That does not sound as daunting, isn’t it?
Be accountable to someone who can constantly remind you to stick to your plans.
4. Make Adjustments To Your Lifestyle
I know this is painful but if you truly desire to quit the rat race and no longer have to report to work each day, then this is a pain you have to endure.
If you have to stop surfing the net to watch a movie or chat with your friends on MSN, do so. Some adjustments will go a long way in shaping good habits.
5. Learn From People
You do not have to be the best. Just second best will do. Richard Branson of Virgin is known for his uncanny abilities to mimic the success of others. In affiliate marketing, you really do not need to reinvent the wheels.
Just find someone or some strategies and techniques that work and do it. You will not know until you try.
This is why I make it a point to learn from people who have done it successfully. There is always a lesson to learn.
Well, I am done with my ramblings. Wanted to share something that I thought might be good food for thought for you.
Do share your thoughts with me. For friends who have successfully quitted the rat race, do also share your opinions and tips here. See you!
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 6 Comments »
Sunday, April 27th, 2008
Have you heard of GistWeb? If not, this is the latest free tool developed by Jonathan Leger. Jon has been pumping out many free and paid software that are useful for marketers especially affiliate marketers. This online tool is intended for people who find content research a chore.
Any affiliate marketer alive would know that writing good quality unique content is the lifeline of content publishing. Your blogs and websites need content to improve readership. Your article marketing efforts need unique content to capture the attention of the search engines to achieve good rankings.
But the trouble is, to create unique content, there are only 2 main ways. Either you write it yourself which takes tons of time and a lot of brain juice and creativity or you pay for your content.
Writing everything yourself can be time-consuming. It takes time to conduct research for the information and organize them properly before you can write a good blog post or article.
Another way is to hire someone to write for you. This may help you to get away from writing your own content, but getting somebody to write unique content for you can cost a lot of money. This is especially so if you own a lot of websites and blogs, monetized for Adsense or affiliate programs.
GistWeb.com is able to overcome both sets of problems – cost and time. Firstly, it is a free service anyone can use. Secondly, it takes only a minute for it to work.
What can GistWeb do for you?
It pulls out the gist of search results, organize them nicely into summaries of different lengths. You simply input the keyword you are interested to research on and it will go searching the web for related information. You can use the short, medium or long summary as you wish.
While it takes a little time to organize the content a bit, you will realize that it is a really cool tool to conduct online research for useful information.
Try out GistWeb today to conduct your content research and start churning out unique content as fast as lightning!
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, General, Online Marketing Learning | 2 Comments »
Saturday, April 26th, 2008
I have compiled a huge list of social bookmarking sites, about 200 sites in total that you can bookmark at. There are some niche ones. I have decided to be nice to you by sharing it here. Majority do have a PR, while the newer ones do not have any PR at all, but that is just a small handful.
In my previous post, I have explained the beauty of social bookmarking in getting free high PR links to your websites. It is also one of the best and FREE way of ranking the deep pages of your websites.
If you search around online, there are not really too many effective ways to get quality high PR links for internal webpages.
Social bookmarking your blog posts, individual web pages and so on only takes a minute. If you are like me who is too lazy to do it manually, hire someone to do so. It can be a school going kid who just wants to earn some pocket allowance.
Or head over to Scriptlance, GetaFreeLancer or money making forums like SitePoint, DP Forums, Wicked Fire etc to hire. It probably will cost you about $0.10 to $0.20 per post. Multiply that by 200 posts at all the social bookmarking websites will only cost you about $20 to $40.
That kind of money will probably just buy you a good link from a PR 3 or 4 site at best. But remember to alternate your titles and descriptions so that they are not spammy looking.
1. http://www.furl.net - PR 8
2. http://www.backflip.com - PR 7
3. http://www.blinklist.com - PR 5
4. http://www.blogmemes.net - PR 5
5. http://jots.com - PR 6
6. http://www.linkroll.com - PR 6
7. http://www.looklater.com - PR 5
8. http://ma.gnolia.com - PR 5
9. http://www.maple.nu - PR 4
10. http://www.markaboo.com - PR 3
11. http://www.rawsugar.com/search - PR 6
12. http://www.shadows.com - PR 7
13. http://simpy.com - PR 4
14. http://www.spurl.net - PR 6
15. http://wink.com - PR 6
16. http://www.stumbleupon.com - PR 7
17. http://www.kaboodle.com - PR 7
18. http://www.clipmarks.com - PR 4
19. http://www.tagtooga.com/db.tag - PR 5
20. http://bluedot.us/friends/dots - PR 6
21. http://del.icio.us - PR8
22. http://www.fark.com - PR8
23. http://www.furl.net - PR8
24. http://www.kuro5hin.org - PR8
25. http://www.technorati.com - PR8
26. http://www.bloghop.com - PR7
27. http://www.blogpulse.com - PR7
28. http://www.connectedy.com - PR7
29. http://www.digg.com - PR7
30. http://www.google.com/notebook - PR7
31. http://www.icerocket.com - PR7
32. http://kinja.com - PR7
33. http://www.librarything.com - PR7
34. http://www.newsvine.com - PR7
35. http://www.nextaris.com - PR7
36. http://www.shadows.com - PR7
37. http://www.stumbleupon.com - PR7
38. http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com - PR7
39. http://www.backflip.com/login.ihtml - PR6
40. http://www.beanrocket.com - PR6
41. http://www.blinklist.com - PR6
42. http://www.blogmarks.net - PR6
43. http://buddymarks.com - PR6
44. http://www.citeulike.org - PR6
45. http://www.cluebacca.com - PR6
46. http://www.diigo.com - PR6
47. http://www.feedmarker.com - PR6
48. http://frassle.net - PR6
49. http://www.gibeo.net - PR6
50. http://www.hanzoweb.com - PR6
51. http://dev.upian.com/hotlinks - PR6
52. http://www.jots.com - PR6
53. http://www.kaboodle.com - PR6
54. http://linkfilter.net - PR6
55. http://www.linkroll.com - PR6
56. http://listmixer.com - PR6
57. http://maple.nu - PR6
58. http://www.mecanbe.com/temp/default.aspx - PR6
59. http://myprogs.net - PR6
60. http://www.mystickies.com - PR6
61. http://www.netvouz.com - PR6
62. http://www.nowpublic.com - PR6
63. http://www.rollyo.com - PR6
64. http://scuttle.org - PR6
65. http://www.simpy.com - PR6
66. http://www.spurl.net - PR6
67. http://suckingfish.com/welcome.do - PR6
68. http://supr.c.ilio.us - PR6
69. http://www.tailrank.com - PR6
70. http://www.wists.com - PR6
71. http://www.wurldbook.com/info - PR6
72. http://www.yoono.com - PR6
73. http://www.clipfire.com - PR6
74. http://www.30daytags.com/fresh - PR5
75. http://adoppt.com - PR5
76. http://www.ambedo.com - PR5
77. http://www.blogmemes.net - PR5
78. http://www.bookmark-manager.com - PR5
79. http://www.bookmarktracker.com - PR5
80. http://www.browsr.com - PR5
81. https://www.chipmark.com - PR5
82. http://www.connectedy.com - PR5
83. http://www.dinnerbuzz.com - PR5
84. http://www.fantacular.com - PR5
85. http://www.feedalley.com - PR5
86. http://www.filangy.com/index.jsp - PR5
87. http://www.gather.com - PR5
88. http://gnafi.com - PR5
89. http://www.gravee.com - PR5
90. http://www.igooi.com - PR5
91. http://www.jeteye.com - PR5
92. http://www.kmfavorites.com - PR5
93. http://www.lifelogger.com - PR5
94. http://www.linkagogo.com/go/Home - PR5
95. http://www.lookupthis.com/online/signin.asp - PR5
96. http://www.lookmarks.com - PR5
97. http://meneame.net - PR5
98. http://www.millionsofgames.com - PR5
99. http://motor.crispynews.com - PR5
100. http://www.mybookmarkmanager.com - PR5
101. http://www.myhq.com - PR5
102. http://www.mylinkvault.com - PR5
103. http://www.mypip.com/home - PR5
104. http://www.myvmarks.com - PR5
105. http://www.openbm.de - PR5
106. http://tags.library.upenn.edu - PR5
107. http://www.peoplefeeds.com - PR5
108. http://www.phigita.net - PR5
109. http://www.pligg.com - PR5
110. http://www.portachi.com - PR5
111. http://www.rrove.com/home - PR5
112. http://segnalo.alice.it - PR5
113. http://www.shoutwire.com - PR5
114. http://www.sitejot.com - PR5
115. http://www.squidoo.com - PR5
116. http://www.stylehive.com - PR5
117. http://www.tabmarks.com - PR5
118. http://unalog.com - PR5
119. http://yummy.printfu.org - PR5
120. http://www.youtube.com - PR5
121. http://www.zurpy.com - PR5
122. http://aworldofhelp.com/home/index2.htm - PR4
123. http://www.allmyfavorites.net - PR4
124. http://articletag.com/index.php - PR4
125. http://www.blinkbits.com - PR4
126. http://www.bmaccess.net - PR4
127. http://www.bookkit.com - PR4
128. http://www.butterflyproject.nl - PR4
129. http://www.clipclip.org - PR4
130. http://www.clipmarks.com - PR4
131. http://www.esnips.com/signin/index.jsp - PR4
132. http://www.favmark.com - PR4
133. http://3form.com - PR4
134. http://www.Givealink.org - PR4
135. http://www.guicookies.com - PR4
136. http://indiagram.com/index.php - PR4
137. http://www.linkarena.com - PR4
138. http://www.linkologia.pl - PR4
139. http://www.oyax.com - PR4
140. http://www.peoplefeeds.com - PR4
141. http://www.rawsugar.com/index.faces - PR4
142. http://www.stanmx.com/sabrosus - PR4
143. http://www.stylefeeder.com - PR4
144. http://www.taghop.com - PR4
145. http://www.ticklr.net - PR4
146. http://www.urlex.info - PR4
147. http://my.xilinus.com - PR4
148. http://www.de.lirio.us - PR3
149. http://www.eigology.com/dogear - PR3
150. http://dohat.com/dohathome3.html - PR3
151. http://www.favoor.com - PR3
152. http://feedmelinks.com/portalc - PR3
153. http://www.flipskipper.com - PR3
154. http://www.i89.us - PR3
155. http://www.lilisto.com - PR3
156. https://ma.gnolia.com - PR3
157. http://www.meme-stream.com - PR3
158. http://www.onlywire.com - PR3
159. http://tagsy.com - PR3
160. http://6-clicks.com - PR2
161. http://www.bloglot.com - PR2
162. http://www.crispynews.com/global - PR2
163. http://ww2.ikeepbookmarks.com - PR2
164. http://www.indiamarks.com - PR2
165. http://www.listible.com - PR2
166. http://www.sitetagger.com - PR2
167. http://www.smarking.com - PR2
168. http://www.30daytags.com/fresh - PR1
169. http://www.getboo.com - PR1
170. http://www.syncone.net - PR1
171. http://www.blabb.com/user/blabb.php - PR0
172. http://bookmarks.blauerbote.com - PR0
173. http://bluedot.us/friends/dots - PR0
174. http://www.collectfavorites.com - PR0
175. http://www.complore.com - PR0
176. http://www.eggkeg.com - PR0
177. http://www.fatredfish.com - PR0
178. http://www.forumsofindia.com - PR0
179. http://www.fungow.com - PR0
180. http://mybookmark.gokodo.com - PR0
181. http://www.goobtoob.com - PR0
182. http://linkatopia.com - PR0
183. http://www.linklog.nl - PR0
184. http://www.markaboo.com - PR0
185. http://www.minddeposit.com - PR0
186. http://www.pixelmo.com - PR0
187. http://popurls.com - PR0
188. http://recommendit.dehsoftware.com - PR0
189. http://www.reddit.com - PR0
190. http://www.rojo.com - PR0
191. http://say.something-everything.com - PR0
192. http://www.searchles.com - PR0
193. http://www.shoppersbase.com - PR0
194. http://socialbookmarking.org - PR0
195. http://www.taganiche.com - PR0
196. http://www.tagtooga.com/db.tag - PR0
197. http://thumblicio.us - PR0
198. http://www.tutorialism.com - PR0
199. http://www.ticklr.net - PR0
200. http://www.wirefan.com - PR0
Do you know of any other social bookmarking websites? Feel free to list them here.
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
Social bookmarking first started innocently as a tool quite similar to our browser’s “Save favourite” feature.
The original intention of social bookmarking our favourite webpages was to make these pages available wherever we go. In the past, when we see a website we like or frequently visit, we will save it. But we can only access that using the same computer.
With social bookmarking, you can bookmark any favourite website and still be able to locate it anywhere as long as you have an internet access.
So what has this got to do with internet marketing or making money online?
Let me share a bit more with you.
1. Get Top 10 Ranking in Google for Long-tail Keywords
A simple experiment I did revealed that social bookmarking can boost your search engine rankings! Subsequently, I have used the same method to obtain high rankings for many other keywords. Social bookmarking sites typically have high PRs and placing your links there will give your websites a boost.
Basically, what I did was to social bookmark a blog I own http://articlesubmissionservice.wise-tips.com using the keyword “article submission service review”.
After a few weeks, it is now ranked No.1 in Google for the search term “article submission service review” out of close to 7 million search results.
2. Fast Indexing
Submitting your sites to Web 2.0 authority sites like Digg, Stumbleupon and Propeller can get your webpages indexed quickly. People often complain of slow indexing especially for internal pages.
This is the surest and quickest way to get instant indexing. It takes as fast as a few hours.
3. Selling Without a Website
I personally have seen how people have social bookmarked direct affiliate links. Though I have not done it, but by virtue of seeing it happen so many times, they must be doing something correctly. Since you determine what tag to use, it is easier for you to rank well in the search results of each social bookmarking site than seeing zero hope in ranking in the search engines for an affiliate link, for example a Clickbank hop link.
The whole idea is that Social Bookmarking sites are seeing more traffic from targeted searchers. While my feel is that such traffic are not of the highest quality and many are simply window shoppers or information browsers, it can still add up especially if you manage to get people to vote for your bookmarks.
Digg has a voting system and those sites that manage to get a good number of votes within 24 to 48 hours stand a good chance to stay on top of the category. This can mean 1000s of free visitors.
At the same time, I have also seen MSN ranking hop links in their search engine. Could this be the doing of social bookmarking? Quite likely.
A suggestion here though I have not tried it is to take a newly launched product’s hop link and social bookmark it to 100s of sites. Observe for a while and see if it ranks. Who knows someone who is searching for it will find your link in Del.icio.us?
The exact steps to do social bookmarking properly:
1. Decide a page you want to rank for. It can be the home page of your site or internal page.
2. Create an appropriate title. Research on the keyword you are trying to rank the page for. Make sure that the keyword is also the target keyword of your content. Do not even attempt to try to rank a webpage on the topic of list building for the keyword “making money with surveys”. It just won’t work.
3. Research on the tags. One clue is to look at the tag cloud at each social bookmarking site to get an idea of the most popular tags. If it is relevant to your webpage, use it. Tagging your bookmark with popular tags will get you some good traffic.
4. Social bookmark at as many social bookmarking sites as possible.
I personally have found 2 free automatic social bookmarking tools that are very useful. Each can post your bookmark to over 15 social bookmarking sites, so in total, you get your social bookmarks listed on over 30 top high PR bookmarking websites.
They are Onlywire.com and GetBookmark.com. GetBookmark.com is somewhat new but works fine. You can just drag and drop it into your browser and go to each of your webpage and bookmark conveniently.
5. Be Creative
Create attractive titles and descriptions, but do not forget to use the target keywords.
Alternate your titles and descriptions for different social bookmarking sites to avoid looking spammy to the search engines.
Go ahead and social bookmark your websites for more traffic, sales and subscribers.
Posted in Buzz Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, April 16th, 2008
By now, you would have heard of Ewen Chia or for that matter his latest Working from Home Secret Report. He is my fellow countryman, friend and someone whom I do respect a lot. Why?
Partly because I have known how hard he worked his way to today’s status as the Secret Weapon of Super Affiliates. But largely because he often over deliver on his products. Do not expect B.S from this guy.
This is the man behind successful products like AutoPilot Profits and Secret Affiliate Weapon. These reports continue to sell well on ClickBank. But I am still curious to know how this new system works and whether he can live up to my expectations.
But what exactly is Ewen Chia’s Working from Home System about? 15th April is the first day of the pre-launch to announce the arrival of this new income system.
Well, I downloaded his free report titled “HOW TO GET RICH FROM HOME IN JUST 5 SIMPLE STEPS!” or you can watch his video here:
Watch the video at Ewen Chia’s Working from Home website now!
After watching the video and reading through the 5 simple steps to get rich from home on the internet, I must say that it is still refreshing as ever. You can download the report for free without opting in to any list. So go ahead and do so.
In his 5 steps report, he covers the essential 5 steps to start making real money online fast.
1. Finding a Rabid Marketing With Huge Growing Demand
This is good old wisdom but most affiliates miss this out completely. Ewen Chia advocates in his free report that any online marketer should find a market that has ready buyers and a continuous need to consume.
The golfing and the “work from home” niches fit in the bill nicely. Rather than to sell to a market that will only buy from you once, for example, how to get rid of cockroaches, why not sell golf balls, golf equipment, golf memberships in the golf market or sell “traffic building”, “Google Adwords”, “make money online” reports and memberships to the “working from home” market?
Of course, this step involves doing some keyword research.
2. Finding an Excellent Product as a Solution to People’s Problems
In the free report, he points out the need to focus on 1 product rather than 100 of products. Just 1 excellent product is good enough. Quite frankly, I do not fully agree with him. The reason is simple – never put all your eggs in one basket no matter how good the product is.
But he does point out in this report at Workingfromhome.com that it is important for the affiliate program to pay the affiliates well. At least 50% commissions are reasonable for a digital product. This point, I fully agree.
Another gold nugget of advice which I always tell my subscribers is this, make sure the affiliate program comes with a complete set of affiliate tools such as emails, banner ads, PPC keywords, classified ads etc. I am so glad Ewen did that in his report from Working from Home.
3. Complete Sales Funnel
Kudos to him on this point about complete sales funnel. This is something that I often find missing in most make money online books I buy. A complete sales funnel does not only sell the prospect on the upfront, but it has an up-sell and a backend.
Simply put, earning a $25 per sale from a $50 product should never be your end in mind.
A complete sales funnel will allow you the affiliate earn on the upfront, up-sell and backend. Sad to say, many affiliate marketing programs perform poorly in this.
On the contrary, any product that does provide the complete sales funnel to its affiliates is likely to be a winner for a long time to come.
4. Focus on Money Making Activities
This is a practical thinking tip and I like that because I am a firm believer in this. In the report on “5 simple steps to get rich from home on the internet”, he talks about focusing on money making activities, ie those things that will get you more sales.
Well he does not explicitly mention about what are the money making activities, I can translate that to activities like website promotion ie article marketing, PPC, comment posting, forum marketing, etc and website/blog creation activities or even getting JV partners.
His Mini-Day tips is simple but trust me, many people do not really implement that. It took me some time to convince my online marketing student to do that.
5. Be Proactive
Wow! This is such a SIMPLE step but the trouble is, many folks are just too bogged down by distractions.
Remember, knowledge has no value until it is acted upon.
So, even taking a little action on what you have learnt will put you in a better income position. Massive action will really let you quit your day job, work from home and get rich from home on the internet.
This free report is a good read. Do watch the video and download it to read up the details.
By the way, Ewen Chia’s Working from Home Secret Report will be launched on the 21st April. You will read about it here!
This 50-page no-fluff report will probably be the key to make real money online fast, quit the rat race and replacing your income with the internet in 30 days or lesser.
Within the Working from Home Secret Report, you will discover 3 proven and easy ways to earn cash within 30 days.
Within the report, expect to:
See proof of how Ewen Chia went from $0 to 5 figure with a Brand New Website In 30 Days
Learn the 4 simple stages of all successful online businesses
Discover how to pick a profitable market to sell your products within minutes with free tools only. Also, you will be able to find rapid markets with ready cash to spend.
Learn how to leverage one top website to start your business without any website of your own and start earning in a week.
Master the art of spying on the hot sellers and “stealing” the profits for yourself.
See Ewen show you how he made his first million bucks and how you can copy him and let somebody do all the grunt work for you!
Discover how to create simple ONE-page websites that outsell the super gurus. You will also receive some examples so that you can copy for your own success.
Learn 4 easy methods to get hot buyers ready to buy whatever you are selling to them. And 3 of these methods are totally free of charge.
Learn the exact step by step method of creating and selling your own product within 7 days.
Discover the technique of pricing your product. Yes, you will learn the psychological reason for why certain price points will automatically click within the buyers.
Know the fastest and simplest way to accept credit cards online without paying a single cent until someone buys a product from you. No sales, no need to pay!
What is the price of Ewen Chia’s Working from Home Secret Report?
$9.97!
I will let out a little secret here:
On top of the report, the Work from Home Secret Report all comes with bonuses like:
Bonus 1:
The “Instant Income System” which is an income system with a complete sales funnel that lets you earn up to $156.77.
Bonus 2:
“How To ‘Steal’ Other People’s Work And Get Rich”(Retail Value: $67). Within this report, you will:
Find out how the Web 2.0 phenomenon can help you ramp up your earnings quickly.
Discover 4 killer “pre-sell” page secrets that will beat out the competition
Learn How to Find Excellent Affiliate Programs to Promote
Sounds like a lot to me. Before he takes down the report and video from the Working from Home website, go check it out.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Buzz Marketing, Forum Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Social Bookmarking, Web Traffic | 51 Comments »
Saturday, April 12th, 2008
I like to be on gurus’ list to get updates about the latest products in the market.
But to be very frank, the emails used to be so much better. Gone were the days when marketing experts would genuinely share with you real money making tips so that you can make some real money online.
I mean, perhaps having attained guru status, many have forgotten how they too were once struggling newbies. These guys have cleanly forgotten about newbies or marketers who genuinely want to learn some new killer marketing stuff.
Nowadays, all the emails you get are recommendations for ebooks, software and memberships. I mean there is nothing wrong with that but sending your list of loyal subscribers offers all the time without any useful content at all does not really go too well for me.
Do you agree with me?
But one thing I do learn from these guys and am seeing more and more happening are gurus and all the mid-level experts offering bonuses for you to buy from them.
I can only explain the phenomenon in the following reasons.
1. Affiliate marketers are getting really savvy nowadays. If the product is a Clickbank product, affiliate marketers will go to Clickbank, generate their own affiliate link and buy through these links. So the gurus are losing their commissions.
How do I know? Did you know that the affiliate gravities for some of the top ClickBank products are so high because affiliates are buying using their affiliate link?
2. Competition is getting very stiff and they need to offer something better than others. Some are even offering their very own products that normally sell for $97 or more as a bonus if you were to buy through their affiliate links. Others offer valuable bonuses in the form of free reports and even memberships.
Now, this in the end is beneficial to both the affiliate and buyer. For the price of one, you get a bonus that matches or exceeds the value of the product you are buying. For the affiliate, he has nothing to lose as it is zero cost to him or her. After all, it is a digital download and unlike offline businesses, there is nothing to ship or physical product to deduct from the inventory.
This is pretty! An excellent win-win strategy!
I am definitely going to use it to bribe my prospects.
As a start, l want you to tell me exactly what kind of bonus you hope to get the most that will make it attractive enough for you to buy through someone else’s affiliate link. Please be specific, like you would want a free detailed step-by-step ebook on traffic building using FaceBook or other social media, or you want to learn how to build a list and so on. You can get greedy and even ask for bonuses worth $1000!
Post your comment here with your desired bonus. To spice it up, I want to bribe you with a bonus gift. Yes, how about the latest book “Facebook Social Ads”?
Facebook Social Ads worth $37
Facebook is a resource that will only continue to grow in the coming months and years. Facebook’s expansion is predicted to eventually surpass MySpace’s and when that happens, you already want to have your monetization in place. For developers and business people alike, Facebook is an opportunity that is well worth exploring.
Don’t overlook this tremendous untapped opportunity. If you’d like to succeed where so many others have failed, this is your chance.
Sounds good? Now, it is time to hear from you.
All you have to do for me to bribe you with this bonus gift is:
1. Make a comment here and tell me what bonus you want to buy stuff through someone’s affiliate link
2. Enter your name and email address below for me to send you the gift.
That’s it!
Posted in General, Online Marketing Learning | 5 Comments »
Thursday, March 27th, 2008
iContent Robot is the latest content writing software to appear on the market. If you have gone to take a look at the sales page of iContentRobot.com, you will see some interesting videos.
I have been using all kinds of article writing, rewriting and spinning software. Instant Article Wizard 2.0 (and Version 1.0), Content Assistant, JetSpinner, Unique Article Wizard, Content Spooler and what have you. Every one of these is good but none comes close enough to the speed, ease of use and uniqueness of content created using iContent Robot.
For one moment, I would consider Instant Article Wizard 2.0 as King of Article Writing Software. But it seems that it has met a strong contender in iContent Robot.
What does the article creation robot do for you?
It generates unique versions of a topic based on a keyword. For example, you can key in “Make Money Online”, and click on the “Regenerate Content” button for a new version to appear. All well within 3 seconds.
As an illustration, I am going to show you 3 unique versions of an article on “Acne Skin Care” I just created. Do not let your jaw drop. In case you begin to suspect I did some master touch-up, my reply is NO. These are taken straight from the software.
Remember, click, regenerate, copy and paste. That’s all I did. Don’t blink your eyes.
3 Sample Unique Articles Created by iContent Robot
Version No.1
If you are one of the people who suffer with acne (Zits) then you are well aware of the distress and problems it causes; but there are now many treatments available which can help the condition so it is more bearable. A great deal of money is being spent researching the condition; now, some of these skin conditions are gradually being conquered. We can classify acne skin care products into 3 broad categories: Internet or Drugstore: Treatment that helps prevents condition Over-the-counter, Prescription only: Requires visit to doctor
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Many people use products similar to this every day as part of their skin care regime irrespective of whether or not they have the condition.
Other acne skin care products like skin cleansers are more specific about their job, they ensure the facial pores (and other areas) remain free of oil. Excess oil needs to be stopped from clogging the pores as this oil make it easier for bacteria to grow, exacerbating the condition.
Exfoliation skin peels have proved quite effective as a skin care treatment and at controlling the problem. There are now more and more of these types of products available over the counter. Dead skin cells and other atmospheric pollutants are removed cleaning the pores which reduce the chance of any bacterial growth.
There are specialized acne skin care products available over-the-counter, they do not require the need of a prescription. Products that contain the chemical benzoyl peroxide and the naturally occurring salicylic acid are used in vanishing creams. They work by removing the excess oil from the skin and halt the growth of acne.
Although benzoyl peroxide works well, it is possible you may have a reaction, it is suggested that any benzoyl peroxide skin care product should not contain the active ingredient at more than 5.5 percent. You might have to try a few different creams or lotions before you find the acne skin care product that is effective for you’re skin. If nothing you try seems to work, you should contact a dermatologist.
There are benefits of seeing your doctor or dermatologist; they can prescribe you with a prescription for treatments not available over the counter, for example a course of antibiotics. In some case your doctor may suggest the pustules are drained of harmful contents under local anesthetic, this is a minor procedure which if carried out by yourself could result in skin damage.
Your doctor could prescribe a hormone-based treatment to treat your skin problem. Hormonal changes are known to cause acne and such skin care treatments are sometimes known to be effective. Constant research has paid off, and whilst they cannot cure the condition, it is becoming easier to treat.
Version No.2
The psychological harm acne or Zits causes it’s many sufferers should not be underestimated; fortunately treatments are improving all the time. It is not surprising then that a great deal of money has been spent on skin care treatment development; as a result there are a variety of new products available to help prevent and treat skin conditions. We can classify acne skin care products into 3 broad categories: Preventative: Creams, lotions etc. to help cleanse and tone the skin. Over-the-counter and Prescription only: Requires visit to doctor
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Whilst many sufferers use these products there are even more people who just want to keep their skin clean and conditioned.
More specialized cleaners are designed in the same way as acne skin care products; they clean out the pores to help stop sebum or oil which clogs up the pores. These products prevent the oil from getting trapped in pores and can hamper the growth of bacteria, this can lead to the bad skin condition.
This type of skin care treatment also includes those which exfoliate such as skin peels. These can be bought over the counter or on the internet. They work by reducing oil plus other contaminants from the skin and in the pores; this can reduce harmful bacteria and stop their chance of growth.
There are specialized acne skin care products available over-the-counter, they do not require the need of a prescription. Skin care products have been formulated to extract the excess oil that bacteria need to promote the development of acne. These products have benzoyl peroxide or salicylic acid as ingredients which the bacterium reacts badly too.
It is preferable when you first start using this type of product to keep the concentration of it low, around 5.5 percent is best. You can always try a cleaner or cream containing alpha hydroxy acid if this doesn’t work. You might have to try a few different creams or lotions before you find the acne skin care product that is effective for you’re skin. If nothing you try seems to work, you should contact a dermatologist.
Only doctors or skin care specialists can prescribe some medications, including the use of antibiotics and certain ointments. Under certain circumstances, having the infected material removed from the pores under a local anesthetic may be suggested by your dermatologist. This is something you should never attempt yourself.
Your doctor may even suggest a course of hormone therapy as a skin care treatment. Hormone changes are sometimes responsible for acne and can be very effective when used under prescription. With all the treatments available, tackling acne is not that difficult as there are many new products available to help.
Version No.3
If you are one of the people who suffer with acne (Zits) then you are well aware of the distress and problems it causes; Fortunately, skin care treatments are plentiful. Research into the causes, and possible treatments, for the condition is ongoing; as a consequence, many of these new treatments are very affective. Despite the number of acne skin care products currently available on the market, they are broadly categorized into three distinctly separate groups: Internet or Drugstore: Treatment that helps prevents condition; Those available at a drugstore or over-the-counter and Prescription: Issued for specialized medication from a doctor etc.
The preventative products are formulated to treat the skin in an effort to prevent acne from arising like skin cleansers and makeup removers. Whilst many sufferers use these products there are even more people who just want to keep their skin clean and conditioned.
Some of these products are designed to act like an acne skin care product and act against the causes of this complaint. They work by limiting the production of sebum/oil and prevent clogging of skin pores. These products prevent the oil from getting trapped in pores and can hamper the growth of bacteria, this can lead to the bad skin condition.
General skin care treatments also include special exfoliation products like skin peels. This type of peel helps reduce the chance of oil clogging up the pores as well as removing other skin impurities; this can reduce the bacterium growth on your skin.
There is a huge market for these types of acne skin care products as they don’t require a consultation with a dermatologist. These include products like vanishing creams which extract the excess oil from the skin. Most of these are based on benzoyl peroxide and salicylic acid, both of which are the enemies of bacteria (and hence acne).
You should start with a product that has lower concentration of benzoyl peroxide (e.g. 5%) and see how your skin responds. Alpha-hydroxy-acid based moisturizers are also popular as a skin care regime. Because we all have different types of skin, more than one type of acne skin care product may need to be tried. This is quite normal, however, if it is proving to be a problem then consult with your doctor, or skin care specialist.
On-prescription treatments are prescribed by a dermatologist and can include ointments that can be applied on the affected area or oral antibiotics or just any topical ointment. In some case your doctor may suggest the pustules are drained of harmful contents under local anaesthetics, this is a minor procedure which if carried out by yourself could result in skin damage.
An alternative that has been shown to work well is hormone therapy. Studies have shown that hormones can cause acne and skin care treatments that are hormone based have proved to be effective in many cases. With all the treatments available, tackling acne is not that difficult as there are many new products available to help.
Are you impressed? I am! Normally, it would cost me about $5 per article if I outsource my writing. It can cost even more depending on the quality and length of article. A simple rewrite from the original would have easily cost about $3.
With iContent Robot, you can create unlimited versions without costing you a single dime!
Some Advantages of iContentRobot.com Over Other Article Creation Software & Content Sources like PLR or Ghostwriters:
1. Super Fast – It takes only 3 seconds to create a completely unique version.
2. Unlimited Versions – You can create unlimited articles and they all look different and unique. No one else will have the same content as what you created with iContent Robot.
3. No Preparation Required – Most article spinning software requires some form of preparation such as creating several seed articles.
4. Latent Semantic Index Friendly – Content created is LSI friendly. If you understand about Google’s new rules about LSI content relevance, then you will see that the content is created following Google’s rules.
5. SEO Optimized – Each unique article is created with SEO in mind for ranking in the search engines.
6. Non-Spammy – A lot of poor quality article creation software produce spammy articles that are an eye-sore to human beings. This is quite unlike the quality content created by iContent Robot.
7. Economical – I wanted to call the tool cheap but that sounds very devaluing for a cool tool like this. For $67, it is not even enough for me to buy more than 13 hand-written articles by a cheap writer. It is also much cheaper than most PLR membership sites I use or come across (most offer a fixed number of articles each month shared by hundreds of people…hardly unique at all).
What I Do Not Like About iContent Robot:
While the unique versions are highly readable, what I do not like is the topics listed for this first month. iContent Robot’s creater Mo Latif pointed out that users are allowed to choose what topic they want their service to write about for the next month.
This part is not clear. I wonder how the arrangement will be like.
Members vote for what topic they want?
Or they will create articles based on the topics requested by individual member?
Or they have a point system where everyone can make a fixed number of requests on choice of topic each month?
This is important to me personally because I do not own websites on all these topics. Those who own and build lots of Adsense websites are the first ones to gain from this software. You can create tons of content to attract traffic from the search engines and with 50 topics to choose from, that is a lot of websites you can build for Adsense income!
The possibilities of using iContent Robot is great. You can use the content to post it on your websites/blogs or submit the articles to article directories or any site that accepts your content for traffic.
Or, you can create a full report on the topic and sell it. You can even consider reselling the articles.
Of course, using the service iContent Robot itself does cost you some money. For a start, the doors are just open not long ago for the first 500 exclusive members at $67. After that, the price will increase. At the time of this writing, over 400 memberships have been sold.
Make a sale or two with the articles created and it would have paid fully for the fee.
Take a look at iContentRobot and see how it works.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Buzz Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Web Traffic | 3 Comments »
Friday, March 14th, 2008
Every affiliate marketer wants to become the No.1 Most Successful Marketer, but not everybody can do that. Even with top training courses, the best tools and stuff, the most coveted Super Affiliate status still eludes the majority.
But to earn the Most Broke Affiliate Marketer title, all you need is the following 10 step blueprint! I can almost guarantee you that anyone who religiously follows it will make it to the top within 1 year! Surely, no one will be able to beat you.
1. Read all the Ebooks and Reports on Affiliate Marketing and Take Zero Action after that.
Feed yourself with all kinds of information about affiliate marketing, article marketing, website promotion, Web 2.0, social networking, video marketing, PPC with Adwords and so on. After that, tell yourself these are great books but take ZERO action.
Remember, even a bit of action will make you lose the crown!
2. Load your Mind 24/7 with All Kinds of Information from Ebooks, Reports and Videos
The purpose of doing so is to crowd and congest your mind with so much information that you suffer from information constipation. This will help you to lose focus and become totally confused about what to do in affiliate marketing.
Do not just focus on one or two affiliate marketing methods but try out every method that exists on the planet or you will never become broke.
3. Sell All Products that Come Along
Everyday, there are 100s of new products online. Do not bother to research the market or product at all. Sell everything. Spread your time so thin that you do not have time at all. Make sure you only have time to slap an email and send it to the safelist.
If you ever start to select a product to promote based on its market demand and supply as well as competitiveness, you will get sales and soon, you are out of the league of most broke affiliate marketers.
4. Spend at least 12 Hours Everyday Talking Rubbish in Forums
Contribute your opinions but remember to be as negative as you can be. Have everything negative to say about people’s suggestions and ideas. Spend no less than 12 hours. If you can forgo your sleep, do it but stay active in the forums. Please remember not to put any interesting signature link in your profile because people will visit and buy your products. Oh no…this will immediately disqualify you for the Most Broke Affiliate contest!
5. Win the Top Bid in Google Adwords
Set up crappy Adwords advertisement campaigns for crappy products with weak sales pages. Forget about keyword research or split testing for ads. Aim only for the No.1 spot. Losing is not in your blood. If you have to pay $10 to be at the top, do so. Even if the product only sells for $9.99 and your commission is $4.99, do it!
Set your daily budget at $10,000 if you can or use this formula.
(Your Savings + Credit Line + Loans from friends etc) ÷ 365 days = Daily Budget
This formula will help you to lose as much money as you can within 1 year and soon, you will win the crown as the World’s No.1 Most Broke Affiliate Marketer.
6. Spam Blogs with Nice One-Liner Comments
As an affiliate marketer, blog commenting is important. So find blogs which allow you to comment on. Do not exceed 2 words in your post. Use only these comments, “Nice information”, “Good Post” and “Thank you”. Attempting to write more informative content will get visitors to your website and you will make a lot of sales. This is no good for you!
7. Use Ugly Website Templates
All affiliate marketers own websites. You also need one. But you must choose the plainest template you can find. An ugly template is the best! This is because even if the content is good and unique, people will not buy your product. No sales mean good news.
8. Send Your List As Many Promotional Emails As You Can
Spam your list with a promotional email every day. If you can speed this up, send them an email every few minutes or hours. Do it as quick as possible until you lose all your subscribers. Those who stay on must really love you or they do not read their emails at all and do not know you are spamming them.
9. Promote to Safelists which No One Reads
Send your emails using safelists. Use only those where the members are only interested in sending out their emails but not receiving them. These guys normally will register their accounts with a throwaway email address which they will never open and read. Avoid reputable lists like HercuList because people do read their emails there.
10. Repeat Step 1 to 9 Everyday
That’s right, follow this 10 step guide and surely, the No.1 Most Broke Affiliate Marketer will go to you in 2008. Finally, you have a crown you can call your own.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, Forum Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
Wednesday, March 5th, 2008
What are the most important or must-have bum marketing tools in your arsenal?
I talked about the bum marketing method in my previous post. Today, I want to spend some time to talk about the essential bum marketing tools that I use quite often.
1. Brainstorming for Niches and Products
In brainstorming for ideas or niches to target for my bum marketing efforts, there is one place you will love to go to.
CB Engine – it is quite simply one of the best tools to find hot products to promote. I like the feature that lets you filter off the search results according to your preference such as minimum commissions and commission payout percentage and so on. Personally, if the commission payout is lower than $20 per sale, I will ditch it.
From here, you can also get to see which are the market movers and what are the most popular topics. With the pro version, you get a full set of cool tools to use as a ClickBank affiliate.
One word of advice here – the “make money online” market is one where the buyers tend to be very well-informed! It may not be that easy to make money out of them.
While it is also such a huge market where tons of products are sold, it is not recommended for the newbie bum marketer. Target the other niche markets using your bum marketing method.
2. Keyword Research Tools
Once you decide on a market to target, it is time to do proper keyword research. A lot of people get this wrong by focusing on keyword research first before looking at the market’s profitability.
Some tools I use frequently include:
a. Google’s very own keyword research tool
This is a free tool to find long tail keywords. But it is not the best since you cannot figure out what is the exact search count.
b. Keyword Elite
If you have money, invest in Keyword Elite. It is one of the most powerful keyword research software I use to find the right keywords to target for the bum marketing method. This is hands-down one of the best bum marketing tools!
c. NicheBot
NicheBot is a super dynamo when it comes to churning out laser-targeted keywords for your bum marketing articles. I use the paid version which gives me detailed run downs on what are the exact keywords people are searching.
This bum marketing tool also suggests which “Jackpot” keywords you can use to dominate any niche market you are in. These are keywords and keyphrase where there is almost zero competition! This is perfect for my bum marketing method.
It is meant for more elaborate keyword research and ideal for PPC campaigns as well.
3. Writing Content for Bum Marketing Articles
I used to write all my articles for bum marketing traffic. But with a network of 50 over blogs, it can be extremely challenging to write all my content.
There are some tools and services that make things really simple for me.
a. Instant Article Wizard
This is my baby for the bum marketing method. The reason why I say that it is a tool made for bum marketers is because in the whole bum marketing strategy, pumping out articles fast is the key to win the game! And that is what Instant Article Wizard does.
Oh, do not simply slap an article together with the search. Well you can and chances are the article is highly readable, but I expect a lot out of my articles.
So I will normally use it to do my content research. Find all the necessary data and information and then write an original article altogether.
b. Hiring GhostWriters
Ghostwriters are so important if you intend to run a successful business. Outsource your writing to good writers. Pay them well enough and you are never in lack of quality unique content.
$5 for an article is quite reasonable. I often use GetaFreeLancer and DP Forums for my content writing needs.
4. Submitting the Bum Marketing Articles
Article directories are my main battlegrounds to charge up profits from the bum marketing method.
I rely heavily on article submission software and article submission services.
Article Post Robot is the ultimate well-invested tool I found. It has earned me many fold the one-time price I paid for it. With one click, my article is distributed to over 400 article directories including EzineArticles. So far, this is the only tool that can post to the correct article category.
Read this review about Article Post Robot to understand what it can do for you.
The next are the article submission services, Unique Article Wizard and JetSubmitter. Both are hands-free services that distribute my articles to well over hundreds of article directories. Read about these two services at this article submission service review site.
I love UAW more simply because it also posts my articles onto their network of blogs. So far, I have seen quite a number of my articles that are posted on blogs ranking Top 10 in Google. I consider this my secret weapon among the bum marketing tools I own.
I hope I did not miss out on any tool that is useful for bum marketing. Feel free to post your comments about your arsenal of bum marketing tools here.
Posted in Article Marketing, Blogging, General, Online Marketing Learning, Product Reviews, SEO, Web Traffic | 7 Comments »
Thursday, February 21st, 2008
How do you create unique content that the search engines love? And do so quickly in 15 minutes flat?
These are some simple ways to create unique content fast and good. You can use it for your article submission or publish the content on your website.
Notice that I did not say, “write” here. Because you really do not have to write your own content if you find it challenging to do so.
1. Google for Results and Rewrite the Content. (Plus a Sneaky Trick!)
Before you shoot me down with such an obvious method, read on for the twist.
Google the main target keyword.
Browse through the top 10 search results. Copy the appropriate and relevant content onto a notepad or Word document.
Pick out the 4 or 5 key points. Using these key points, start writing an article.
Okay, I may sound a bit exaggerative here about the 15 minutes. But with practice, it is achievable for a 300 word article.
There is a sneaky trick here which you may want to use.
You can copy a few pages of content on your Microsoft Word, then go to your toolbar, click the “Tools” section, and activate the “AutoSummarize” function.
This will squeeze your article down to a nice length according to your needs. Then simply rewrite it or rephrase the content. There you have a ready piece of excellent unique content.
2. Use an Article Writing Software
In the market, there are different article writing software that helps writers to create unique content. I have used quite a number of them like Instant Article Wizard and Content Assistant.
Instant Article Wizard is hands-down the best so far. Basically, what it does is it goes scrapping for actual sentences containing your target keywords. You can do that for several keywords at one go.
From there, you just compile all the sentences that you deem as useful and rewrite it. You can whip up an article easily within 8 minutes.
Others are pretty crappy and basically scrap off some irrelevant advertisement content. Hardly readable and trashy stuff.
3. Buying & Rewriting Private Label Rights (PLR) Articles
You can use PLR articles. But rule of thumb is to modify the content at least 30%. I tend to be a bit careful and will rewrite up to at least 50%. Work on the introduction and conclusion paragraphs.
There are dozens of PLR sites that offer PLR articles at $1 per article like
1. Great Niche Content - less than $1 per article
2. Fresh Niche Content
3. Easy PLR
4. PLR Mini Mart
Or you can sign up with those PLR sites that offer monthly batches of articles. That will solve your problem of creating excellent unique content.
4. Research at the Library/Buy a Second-Hand Book
Go to the library to pick up a book or grab a second-hand book on the topic you are writing about. Summarize the content and rewrite it in your own words.
When you do so, you can actually churn out a few articles at the same time within an hour.
This is particularly helpful when you are targeting age-old topics like health, remedies, dog training and stuff that have existed for a long, long time.
I recently grabbed a cheap book on home remedies for over 100 ailments for about $5. This is enough to create unique content for an entire website!
5. Hire a GhostWriter
I have personally tried hiring writers at a few free lance sites like Elance, ScriptLance and GetaFreeLancer.
GetaFreeLancer is my favorite. There are many good writers there willing to write an excellent unique article for $5 - 7. In case you think that these are low quality articles, then you are grossly mistaken. For that price, you can get articles of high quality.
Another place where you can find good article writers is DP Forums. Under the “Buy, Sell or Trade” section, you will be able to start a thread to buy content. Or you can browse around and send a private message to the more popular writers there. NicheRockets also have a section where you can buy limited PLR packages or hire some good writers for low rates.
6. Use Voice Recognition Software
Nowadays, voice recognition software can do wonders! If you find it too slow to write, you can simply just talk and let the software convert your voice into text.
For topics which you are familiar, getting an article created takes no more than 5 - 10 minutes.
Well, for topics that you are not so familiar, you can always research online, paraphrase what you read and let the voice recognition software do the writing. One of the most powerful tools is Dragon NaturallySpeaking Software V9.0. According to users, accuracy is up to 99%. No script reading or “voice training” is required. You can start dictating straightaway.
I checked out the prices of this tool. Surprisingly, buying at the developer Nuance.com is not the cheapest. Nuance is selling at $99.99, while Buy.com is offering at $82.30. The cheapest is at …..Amazon.com, $59.99!
If you are keen on buying this nifty tool, you can always check out the links:
7. Invite Article Writers
This method involves you inviting article writers to write unique content for you. For this to work, you have to offer a “bribe”.
You can use a product such as an ebook or software where you own the rights to give away. Or offer to provide a backlink the next time you post on your website or blog, or whatever.
Post the invitation on your blog or forum.
These 7 tips should get you a constant stream of quality unique content for your publishing and article submissions. Begin to create unique content of excellent quality now!
Feel free to leave your comments here.
Posted in Article Marketing, General, Online Marketing Learning, SEO, Web Traffic | 5 Comments »
