Hey there.  It's 5AM here and I am just about to head off to my day job.  I am running behind in assigning tasks to my VA for the Niche Site Duel.  In fact, we have done very little to work on the site since we put it up.  The one exception is that one VA is still rewriting the articles on the site (a few every day).  There is no real strategy there -- just trying not to spend too much money on the site all at once.

Most of the traffic on the site is probably coming from people like you who are reading about the duel and then directly typing in the URL.  So, don't be too impressed by the traffic stats below.  However, I will show the traffic so you can get a sense of what is going on.

What is interesting is that I am starting to see some traffic from organic search (but just a trickle).

And finally, I am seeing one or two clicks on affiliate links.  That is really interesting since I have not even set up the affiliate IDs correctly yet.  Man, I need to get busy here.  Of course I have no idea if these clicks are coming from real visitors.   I suspect that the visitor that was searching for Silverhill Guitar Knobs was a real visitor, however.  That is pretty neat - and it a natural effect of organic search.  You always end up ranking for stuff that you had no idea you would rank for.

That's all for now -- I really need to get on the road to work.  More on this later.

Happy to answer any and all questions about the site, the data, or the strategy.  Just leave your questions below.

Boy, that is a mouth full.

As an affiliate marketer, one of the things that you need to be able to do is write good pre-sales copy with great SEO properties.  This is hard to do sometimes, but it can make or break your affiliate campaigns when you are counting on search engine traffic.  It's so important (and so misunderstood -- especially by beginners), I felt like we should talk about it here.

I was discussing this with my friend Karon Thackston, and she could not agree more.  Now make no mistake, Karon is a famous SEO copywriter.    If you know anything about Karon, you understand that she's been writing high-ranking and converting copy for clients including Gorton's Seafood and the American Boating Association for over 25 years.    I talked Karon into offering a free hour-long teleclass on SEO copywriting exclusively for you (people on my list).

Free SEO Copywriting Teleseminar

Teleclass: The Simple SEO Copywriting Framework
Signup Link: Just click here! Format:  Audio (via teleconference bridge)
Date:   August 26, 2010
Time: 2:00pm Eastern Time   Length:  Approx. 1 hour

What you'll learn:  In this one-hour teleclass, Karon Thackston presents a simple framework for writing SEO copy including:

• Which keyphrases to use
• How to use them without ruining the flow of your copy
• Precisely where to place keyphrases for maximum impact with Google and other engines
• Which popular advice is a useless, outdated myth you should avoid
• How to organize/outline each page for SEO copy so you don't miss a thing
• And more!

In the mean time, I wanted to share with you the following tips from Karon.  You'll get a lot more stuff like this on the call.

Thanks,
Mark

7 Don'ts for SEO Copywriting

By Karon Thackston © 2010, All Rights Reserved

There is no shortage of don'ts when it comes to SEO copywriting.  It seems this niche got off to a rough start many years ago when early comers somehow misconstrued the core principles of the trade.  Allow me to elaborate on how not to write SEO copy.

1. Don't shove as many keyphrases into the copy as humanly possible.  It's not about the sheer volume of search terms you include.  Yes, Google and other engines should be able to follow what the page is about.  Yes, engines are looking to match a searcher's query with search engine optimized content on your web pages, but which pages land at the top is decided through a series of calculations far more complex than any simple ratio.  When you overload copy with keyphrases you sacrifice quality and user experience.

2.  Don't lose site of balance.  If SEO copywriting isn't about the percentage of keywords within the copy, then what is it about?  Balance.  You have two audiences with SEO copywriting: the search engines and your site visitors.  But surprisingly, the balance doesn't come with serving both masters well.  The balance comes in how much you cater to the engines.  You see, your site visitors always come first.  However, if you write with too little focus on the engines, you won't see good rankings.  If you put too much focus on the engines, you'll start to lose your target audience.  Balance… always balance.

3.  Don't let someone else choose the keywords.  If keyword research isn't a service you offer, an SEO firm, keyword specialist or some other professional that your client hires will have to conduct the research.  Don't just accept keyphrases these folks toss your way.  Ask to see the entire list with recommendations as to which terms would be best strategically.  Then you, as the professional writer, can decide which will also work best within the copy.

4.  Don't sacrifice flow for numbers.  This is a follow-up to number three and is a major issue with bad SEO copywriting.  SEOs or clients sometimes insist on using hacked-up search phrases that simply don't work in a normal sentence. An example?  "Candies samples free."  Many copywriters will just grin and bear it, sacrificing quality and flow for the sake of competitive values or other numbers.  The result is often some obnoxious sentence like, "If you're looking for candies samples free, you've come to the right place!"  Forcing a phrase into the copy at all costs never turns out well.

5.  Don't use keyphrases that don't apply to the page.  If you operate a site about wedding receptions, don't try to force a search term about wedding dresses into the copy just because it pulls a lot of traffic.  (A) Unless you sell, alter or design wedding dresses, it won't be applicable.  (B) Even if you manage to get the page ranked well for the phrase [wedding dresses], once the visitor clicks to your site and realizes you have nothing to do with wedding dresses, they will leave. It's a waste of time and effort and it creates a poor user experience.

6.  Don't use misspellings and correct spellings on the same page.  I fully understand that the misspellings of keyphrases can be valuable search terms.  However, to mix correct spellings and misspellings within the same page of copy looks like you've got a bunch of typos in the content. It's just not professional.  Some writers will go for the old, "We rent limousines (sometimes spelled limosenes) for the most affordable prices in town."  I don't care for that approach. It's just not natural.  Would you ever see brochure or newspaper copy that reads that way?  I think not.

7.  Don't use keyphrases the exact same way every time.  This is how we end up with horrible SEO copy that sounds like a 4th grader wrote it.  (See #4.)  There are lots of ways to use keywords in copy, not just one.  In order to sound natural, you have to get creative with your keyphrase use.  One way is to break up phrases using punctuation.  Since search engines don't pay attention to basic punctuation marks, you can easily write something using the search term [real estate Hawaii] that reads like this: "Currently there is an impressive selection of available real estate.  Hawaii listings can be…"  See?  "Real estate" is at the end of the first sentence and "Hawaii" is at the beginning of the second sentence. The engines ignore the period so there's no problem.

And Here Are Three More Bonus Mistakes To Avoid

8. Don't use all types of search phrases for every situation.  There are many ways in which this "don't" applies.  One quick example is that of an ecommerce site.  It wouldn't be advisable to use specific, long-tail keyphrases on the home page of your site.  They are much too specific in most cases and are better suited for individual product pages.  Broader terms are typically best for an ecommerce home page.  If you don't understand the best applications for the various types of keywords, you're likely to have lackluster results.

9. Don't neglect ALT tags/image attributes.  These tags are the ones associated with images on your pages and they carry a good deal of weight especially if the image is used as a link.  The ALT text counts the same as anchor text in a text-based link.  Depending on a few different factors, ALT text may be a good place for those misspellings mentioned in #6.

10. Don't forget the chain of protocol.  There's a method to the SEO copywriting madness.  The idea is not to get as many different keyphrases onto a page as possible.  Just the opposite, in fact.  Rather than having 12 different search terms used only one time each, you need to use two to four keyphrases (depending on the length of your copy) per page.  The title, META tags, ALT tags, other coding elements and on-page copy need to support each other as far as keyphrase use goes.  Your goal is to let the engines know that you have original, relevant content about a narrow topic.

Unless you have an exceptional number of back links built up, just mentioning [dark chocolate], [chocolate strawberries], [chocolate chip cookies], [chocolate cake], [chocolate desserts], [organic chocolate] and [chocolate cheesecake] once each on a web page isn't likely to do a lot of good.  Instead, pick two or three terms which are closely related and use them several times each along with mentioning them in your tags.

When you avoid making common mistakes, you'll find your SEO copywriting flows much better, is more natural-sounding and ranks higher, too.

Did you get a lot out of this article? Then you'll want to join Karon as my guest during a FREE SEO copywriting teleclass August 26, 2010 at 2:00pm Eastern time. This call - exclusively for MasonWorld readers - will give you a simple framework for writing great SEO copy.  Register today at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/mason-registration.html.

Today I have asked affiliate marketer Jason Acidre, a Marketing Consultant for Affilorama, to come and talk about how to promote ClickBank products.  In his post,   Jason describes three ways to go about promoting products successfully.

Remember, when using these promotion techniques, you should keep new FTC rules about disclosure and testimonials in mind.  Promote products that you really believe will help people.  Be honest in your promotions and act with integrity - you will love the results in the long run.

Here is the post from Jason....

Effective Ways to Promote ClickBank Products

Ready to learn the most effective ways to promote ClickBank products? It’s much easier than you think and anyone can get started earning in virtually no time. There’s no better way to earn online than getting started with a good affiliate network like ClickBank so read on to learn more.

When it comes to earning income as an affiliate, using a popular affiliate network like ClickBank is the best way to gain access to top selling products and services. ClickBank has become the gold standard of affiliate networks and is often the first thing newbies to affiliate marketing learn about. There are many sites similar to this network but very few are as reputable or have as many affiliates promoting the available products. That being said, what are the most effective ways to promote ClickBank products for the best results? Read on to find out.

Method #1 – Blog with a pen name and “alter ego.”

In recent years this has become even more popular. While some people argue the ethics behind it the plain and simple fact is that it works. Many people set up free blogs at sites like Blogger or WordPress and blog from the point of view of someone else about how useful a ClickBank product is for solving problem X –whatever that may be. This is quite popular amongst people promoting weight loss related products and male enhancement products. Since the visitors read the blog and assume it’s a real evaluation of the product by someone who’s similar to them and their situation they go through with the purchase through your affiliate link.

Method #2 – Make YouTube videos

Make YouTube videos and make passive commissions.  Depending on how saturated a niche is or how many people are currently doing this with the product you’re trying to promote you can have varying results. The way it works is simple. Make a video (either of yourself on camera or a slide show in Power Point) and talk about the product you’re promoting and why it’s great, how it helped you or could help the viewer and then tell them where to get it. The best way to do this is to purchase a domain name and redirect it to your affiliate link. Throughout the video recommend visitors go there to learn more and purchase the product.

Method #3 – Go Offline.

One of the most effective ways to promote ClickBank products is to go offline altogether. While this requires significantly more work and can be harder to monitor results it can work very well in certain areas. For example if you pick a weight loss product you want to promote you can purchase a domain like “KarensWeightLoss.com” and then print that on flyers along with a short message about how well it worked for you or what the benefits are. Then simply post the flyers in different areas around town like gyms, grocery stores or health food stores.

Depending on which methods you choose try to stick with it until you see results. Don’t immediately skip from one to the other if it doesn’t immediately work. Check to see what you could change and improve next time and try it again. Do this repeatedly until you get something that starts to make sales for you. Once you’ve identified what works simple scale it up and begin outsourcing the majority of work to others.

This guest post was written by Jason Acidre, a Marketing Consultant for Affilorama, an affiliate marketing portal. They provide affiliate marketing education and advanced affiliate marketing tools for beginning and advance affiliates. 

Last night at the Niche Affiliate Marketing System Seminar in Atlanta, GA, Lynn Terry finally opened that MacBook Pro that she ordered for video editing. She swears up and down that she is not switching to Mac, but we all know that "once you go mac, you never go back."

In the video, Lynn opens Her MacBook Pro to applause.

Paul Colligan believe it?

Will Ed Dale fly to Tennessee to confirm personally?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lZ8cLW17AY

Lynn Terry Opens Her MacBook Pro

Let me know your predictions.  Will Lynn GO MAC, or will she GO BACK?

This is the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, Episode 5.

You want to build a business that you can call your own, but you can’t imagine abandoning the security of your day job. You are confident that you can find a few hours a week to pursue your dreams of creating a business on the internet, but you don’t know where to start. You’re looking for a plan.

Congratulations! You just found one. You are listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, with your host Mark Mason, building internet businesses one night at a time.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. I’m your host Mark Mason. It’s great to be back on the microphone. I hope you’ve had a fantastic couple of weeks since I talked to you last. I hope they were very productive for you.

I know I’ve been incredibly productive over the last couple weeks. In fact, in some ways a little too productive. I tend to get too many tasks going all at the same time. I don’t know if you have that problem. That’s a huge problem for a lot of internet marketers.

I was talking to Lynn Terry about this over in her Elite forum the other day. Her theory, she had a post in that forum about this, is that you really need to focus on something, one thing extensively until that thing is finished to really get the maximum productivity. I’m really going to need to look at that a little more carefully.

I’ve really been enjoying Lynn’s forum. I spend a lot of time over there. I’ve been getting to know Lynn, she’s great. Some of you saw the video on my blog of Lynn opening up the Elvis bobble head that I sent her. That was kind of fun.

If you get a chance to check out Lynn, I recommend that you do that. You can check out the information about her Elite Membership Forum at MasonWorld.com/recommends/lynn. If you just want to kind of get a taste of what that’s like, you don’t need to pay any money at all. You can go over to her blog at ClickNewz.com and check it out.

There are links to the forum over there, and she’s got a free side to the forum too and that’s really excellent. I’ve been having fun over there with Lynn. She’s got lots of cool peeps that hang out with her over there in the Elite Forum, it’s really good stuff.

The other thing that I’ve been working on this week is a site with my nephew. We’re going to talk about that a little bit in the interview. My nephew and I have been working on an affiliate marketing site for the last couple of weeks. I’ve actually got him on the podcast today as the featured interview as a new internet marketer.

He’s going to tell us the three things that he learned from me this summer working on an affiliate site. He actually cleared over 100 dollars on that site in the month of August, which was only one month after we really started working on it. So, he’s pretty pleased with that.

We’re using the phpBay plugin to work through eBay to sell some comic books online. We’ll talk about all of that in the feature interview.

Before we get into that, let’s take a look at the feature segment and see what we’ve got going on today.

It’s time for the feature segment.

It’s time for the feature segment today, and we’re continuing our discussion about all the different possible internet business models. We’ve talked about affiliate marketing, last week we talked about eBay, we’ve talked about information marketing.

One thing I wanted to talk about today, because it’s timely, is the idea of creating residual recurring income through membership sites. In order to understand why membership sites are important, you really need to sort of understand the idea of a sales funnel. So, we’ll talk a little bit about sales funnels, and we’ll talk about membership sites.

This, again, points to one of the resources that I’ve provided you for this discussion, and that’s Jimmy Brown’s excellent report, which is called 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 Dollars Every Month. In Jimmy Brown’s report, item three in that report is tap into the back end automatically.

Jimmy basically talks about the idea that most marketers really are concerning themselves with the creation of the sales funnel. If you’re not familiar with a sales funnel, I can sort of explain it to you like this. When you have an initial contact with a perspective client, you bring that person in to your range of influence and you essentially get their permission to receive your message.

Now, if you’re a person who’s being effected by TV marketing, sometimes you barely even have permission, you just happen to be watching the channel and you see a commercial and that’s sort of your first contact into the sales funnel for whoever is selling something to you on television. In the context of internet marketing, this sort of thing usually happens when you sign up to an email list.

You’re at the top of someone’s funnel, they’ve gotten your permission to market to you, basically. So, you’re at the top of their funnel. Then you might at some point buy an inexpensive product from them. That moves you a little further down the funnel.

You’ll find that a lot of internet marketers spend a lot of time creating more and more products at higher and higher price points to move you further and further down the funnel. You see, there’s a big difference between someone you’ve never talked to before, at the top of your funnel or just entering your funnel, and someone who’s bought two or three products from you over a period of time, who trusts you and understands the quality of your product.

So, that sales funnel should be architected to move you further and further towards purchasing higher and higher end products. That’s a classic marketing strategy. It’s not unique to internet marketing, but it’s used very well in internet marketing in a variety of product lines.

One sort of special version of that, that can replace the sales funnel to some extent, is the idea of continuity programs. One way to implement a continuity program is through a membership site. Now, a continuity program simply means, you can think of it as monthly billing.

Continuity programs have gotten a bad rap over the years, because of various problems, usually having to do with them being deployed in a sneaky manner. You’ll recall that Joel Comm had a problem where he had a continuity program attached to one of his Adsense books, I believe it was, and it wasn’t clearly indicated on the order form. A lot of people were upset with Joel, because he didn’t make it clear that in addition to buying the ebook for 9.95, you were also signing up for his 27 dollar continuity program.

Now, I happen to know Joel, Joel Comm is a really good guy. I really personally don’t think that was something that he did maliciously, but he upset a lot of people. So, continuity programs in general have gotten a bad rap.

Russell Brunson and others, particularly Jimmy Brown, have been talking about several ideas around continuity that make a lot more sense. One of the things that they talk about is micro-continuity through membership sites. Jimmy has an excellent course on this that he calls Membernaire. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Membernaire is an opportunity to create what Russell Brunson calls a micro-continuity program. The way Jimmy does it is he creates courses that are finite duration. It’s one thing if you tell somebody that they’re going to need to pay 27 dollars, or 67 dollars a month for their rest of their lives.

But, what Jimmy says is, “Hey, we’re going to have a continuity program with a finite term. It’s going to be 6 months long, or a year long, it’s going to be 27 dollars a month.” You know the cost up front. It’s spread out over time.

Jimmy actually implements all of his stuff completely automatically, which is really neat. So, if you’re the product creator for a Jimmy Brown style membership site. Then what you can do is you can create these sites one time, market them, and then they run on autopilot all by themselves. It’s pretty interesting.

Now, there really are sort of three kinds of membership sites that Jimmy points out. Maybe four, I would say, Jimmy points out three. The first site that Jimmy points out, or sites that offer a service, if there’s something that you need over and over again rather than paying for it piecemeal you can create a membership site that offers that service over and over again or on a monthly basis. Web hosting is a really good example of that, that Jimmy offers.

There are other kinds of membership sites you can imagine. Help with homework would be an excellent example, or tutoring. Those kind of things you can offer in the form of a membership site. Related to that can be a site that offers lessons on a topic.

You could have 6 month, 12 month, or 3 month courses on how to get an online business up and running. That’s the example that Jimmy offers. How to start a restaurant, how to do home repairs, or how to do whatever it is that you know how to do.

That’s one of the exciting things about the idea of a membership site. If you’re an expert in something, and you can break it up into 48 or 50 or 100 easy lessons, then you can easily create a membership site that just drips those lessons out to your customers at a fixed rate. You just tell them up front, “You’re going to get one lesson a week, and here they come. As long as you keep paying, you keep getting lessons.”

The other kind of membership site that you hear about a lot is a site that offers a new product each month. So, each month you get a new PLR product or each month you get a new something that you need, new templates for a website, new content, new something, new cross stitch patterns, whatever it might be. People subscribe because they want that new fix of whatever it is that they need.

The other kind of membership that I think Jimmy didn’t mention, but he certainly knows all about this, because he does these sorts of things, are coaching programs. I think those are a special kind. They’re sort of like offering a service, but basically you’re paying to have some person on retainer to help you with whatever your problem. Usually those are implemented as a forum.

That’s just a few ideas that Jimmy covers in his book. He says, basically, you need to choose a niche, find out what they’re buying, and what they want, and then go build a membership site around that. I think that’s a really good idea.

The reason that I bring that up in this podcast is two fold. One is these are very, very important. In fact, I had a graphics guy tell me today that I was talking to by email, he’s over in Europe and is the guy who does most of my graphics for my sites, he told me there are four weeks out on graphics because of all these micro-continuity sites they’ve been doing based on Russell Brunson and Jimmy Brown’s sort of programs. So, they’re just swamped with work over all these membership sites that are being created. That’s one reason why I bring this up to you.

The second reason that I bring this up to you is if you’re interested at all in this, Jimmy is offering a webinar, and I’m going to give you the details on that at MasonWorld.com/jimmywebinar. That webinar is currently airing this Thursday. If you’re listening to this in a time shifted manner, go ahead and go to the link, it will give you the current next time for the webinar.

Basically, it’s an hour long tutorial from Jimmy on webinars. I’m going to see it for the first time tomorrow. I can tell you that I can recommend it without seeing it, because Jimmy is just a fantastic guy. If you don’t know Jimmy, it’s worth going over to the webinar just so you can get a sense of what he’s all about.

He’s really a fantastic marketer and somebody that I’ve really enjoyed getting to know over the last year or two. His stuff is top notch. He knows what he’s doing. He has personally created, I know for sure of two, but maybe it’s six of these sites, where he has over 1,000 members in each site. You go do the math. If you had 1,000 members in a membership site, each paying you 27 dollars a month. I think you might like that result.

That’s the main segment for today. I just wanted to tell you about that other income model, which is membership sites. The bottom line is if you know how to do something that people want to learn how to do, and you can figure out how to bust that up into courses, kind of like a Dummies Guide to Tennis, or a Dummies Guide to Fitness, or a Dummies Guide to whatever it is that you’re interested in, you can make that into a membership course.

You can recruit people into that course and have a recurring stream of income. You can set the whole thing up automatically, and Jimmy Brown is the guy to teach you how to do that. So, that’s another way you can make money online, and that’s well covered in the 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 Dollars Every Month. That’s Jimmy Brown’s ebook, and that’s available at MasonWorld.com/10ways.

Thanks. That concludes the feature segment.

And now the feature interview.

Okay. Now it’s time for the standing interview segment that we’ve been having for the last couple of weeks. What I’ve been promising you is that I’d interview successful internet marketers and ask them the three most important things that they wished they had known about internet marketing when they first started.

This has been very exciting. But, recently I’ve been working with my nephew on his first website. He has an affiliate marketing site based around comic books, which is something that he is interested in. He’s a sophomore in high school, very intelligent young man, highly motivated, but didn’t really know anything about how money was made on the internet. Kind of like a lot of us when we first started.

So, I thought, “Wow. Here’s a guy who just learned how to make money on the internet.” He’s made his first 100 dollars, I think his site made 136 dollars in the month of August. He’s very excited about that. We’ve got big plans for the site, because we made that 136 dollars and we’re not even ranking on the first page of Google for our search term yet. So, we’re real excited.

I thought the interesting was 2 months ago he didn’t know anything about internet marketing. He’s done all the work himself. I’ve sort of led him through it, and helped him and coached him, but he’s done all the hard work, and he’s got a result to show for it.

So, I wanted to ask him what were the three things that he knows now that he didn’t know 2 months ago. The things that really stuck out for him. I got a very, very interesting answer from him and I wanted to share that with you.

Now, he’s a minor under the age of 18. Like I said, he’s a sophomore in high school. So, I’m not using his real name. we’re calling him Bob here for the purpose of this interview, which is really hilarious, because that’s not his name at all. So, you may hear us giggling a little bit in the interview about that.

The other thing I’ll tell you, I want to apologize in advance, this interview we did in my study. We had to move the microphone around, and I forgot to put the p-pop filer on. So, I’ve edited the interview to try and cut out the pops from articulating the letter P, which is the world’s most annoying sound.

I don’t quite have them all out of the interview, but I did the very best I could. I enjoyed the interview so much, I didn’t want to do another take. Here it is live, raw, and with the pops, my nephew Bob and our discussion about his internet marketing experience.

…

Mark Mason: Hey, this is Mark Mason. I’m actually in studio with my nephew today. A lot of you who have been following me over on Lynn Terry’s forum know that I built with my nephew a website about something that he was interested in, actually the website is about comic books. We built that website and in the first month were able to generate some revenue with eBay’s affiliate program. That was a very interesting process.

So, what I thought I would do is get some insights from my nephew, who is a sophomore in high school about what he’s learned from his experience making money online. I’ve been telling people, “If my nephew who is a sophomore in high school can make money online, you can make money online too.” I think that’s a pretty straight forward kind of way to think about things.

Now, I’ve agreed since my nephew is a minor under the age of 18, I’m not going to use his name. So, I’ve agreed to call him Bob for the purpose of this interview. Hi, Bob, how are you doing today?

Bob: Hi. Good. How are you?

Mark Mason: I’m doing great. Bob came over, he lives nearby. How long have we been working on this website together, Bob?

Bob: We’ve probably been working on it maybe since the beginning of last school year.

Mark Mason: Yeah, something like that. So, we worked on it for a couple of weeks, then we kind of dropped it, but then we hit it really hard this summer. Right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: So, my recollection was we didn’t make any money or really generate much of any content last year at all. We really started working on it about in July.

Bob: That’s right.

Mark Mason: We started making money on the website in August, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: Okay, great. So, the website sat idle for awhile, and after about a month we started seeing a little revenue. That’s been really exciting. I guess it’s been exciting for me, has it been exciting for you?

Bob: Yes. It’s very exciting.

Mark Mason: Okay. So, you’re actually in a very prestigious position. I’ve been interviewing internet marketers from all over the world on this podcast and asking them the three things that they wish they had known when they started internet marketing.

I thought I’d turn things around today and ask you what are the three things that you’ve learned over the summer with your first experience in internet marketing that you just didn’t know before, that you’d want to tell someone about your internet marketing experience?

Can you think of one thing that just occurs to you just right off the top of your head, Bob? That’s not your real name, I know, but it’s kind of funny. Something that you learned over the summer, that you didn’t know before.

Bob: Yes. First, is how easy it is to get a website going. If you use a website like WordPress you just pick a theme you like, get it going, and put it up. It’s just easy to make one.

Mark Mason: That’s right. So, basically, what we did was we just simply found a theme that worked well with our topic of comic books. We actually found sort of a play on Superman theme, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: We just used that on top of WordPress to create our little kind of ecommerce site. That worked out pretty well. It looked pretty cool?

Bob: It looks really cool, yes. A lot of neat features.

Mark Mason: I think, if I remember right, we asked a virtual assistant to make some small modifications to the site.

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: Right. So, we started with a theme that was pretty close to what we wanted, and we had a virtual assistant make some changes. Just a few dollars, literally a few hours work, someone offshore. It’s pretty much exactly the way you want it right now, right?

Bob: It’s perfect. Yes.

Mark Mason: Great. That’s the first thing. So, that point is a really good one. That is that basically anybody without a lot of technical savvy can have a website up and running very quickly by using WordPress. Is that pretty much what you’re saying?

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: Okay, great. That’s thing one. That’s an excellent point. What’s your second thing that you kind of picked up this summer working on your WordPress website?

Bob: Probably number two is if you want to get your website going, something very important to use is keywords through Google. Pick out a keyword phrase, get backlinks to your website to get viewers to come to your site.

Mark Mason: Now, before this summer, did you have any idea, you’ve always used Google, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: But, did you have any idea why pages came up on the first page of Google? Did you understand any of that before this summer?

Bob: I had no clue. I just thought it was random.

Mark Mason: So, we basically spent. I don’t know, about an hour? So, we got you started with the Easy SEO report from Josh Spaulding,that was really cool. Then we picked a keyword with some traffic. Where are we now with that keyword?

Bob: Just by using that one keyword we’re almost to the first page of Google. We’re kind of floating back and forth between page one and page two.

Mark Mason: So, we’re down kind of at the top of page two. We’ve got some tricks up our sleeve, maybe we’ll talk about that at the end of this, where we think that’s going to get us to page one.

Basically, pick a keyword that people are searching for and get backlinks to the website. That’s the offpage SEO part, getting the backlinks, but we also optimized the homepage for the keyword. Right? We’ve got it in there.

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: Kind of in a natural amount of time. So, that’s just kind of common sense SEO, and you were able to pick that up pretty quickly, right?

Bob: Yes, sir, I was.

Mark Mason: Okay. So, the first thing that you learned this summer was that you can easily build a site with Wordpres.

The second thing that you learned is that once you build a site with WordPress, you can optimize it, both on the website and off the website, so that you’ll get listed in Google for a keyword that’s getting some traffic.

What’s a third thing that you learned this summer?

Bob: The third important thing I learned was if you can get traffic to your website, you can send them to other websites and earn commission off their views.

Mark Mason: Yes. We talked about that quite a bit this summer. That’s affiliate marketing. Of course, for our website, because we’re dealing with comic books, that’s just a perfect fit for eBay, right, because that’s where comic books are being sold.

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: And you knew that already. You’d already been buying comic books on eBay. That’s in fact, how we got the idea.

Bob: Yes, I had.

Mark Mason: So, Bob is into comic books a little bit, and knew that there were transactions going on at eBay. All it took was for me to explain to you that you could build a website that drove traffic to eBay and get commissions, and we’re off to the races, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: What we really want is to be on the first page of Google. So, why don’t you tell everybody what you have planned for, I guess we’re hoping to get the first draft of it done this weekend, you’re doing all the work. What do you have planned for this weekend?

Bob: We’re planning to write a press release to put out there to get our website on the first page.

Mark Mason: Yes. We’re following the Google First Page Formula, that’s the ebook that I’ve shared with Bob. He’s going to write a press release according to the Google First Page Formula, and we’re going to see if we can get the same results.

I’ve actually got a special link for that ebook, where I’ve got a discount available for the listeners in honor of Bob, since he’s going to be doing that this weekend. You can pick that ebook up for a 20 or 30 percent discount. I’ll be sure and put that link in the show notes. In fact, that will be at MasonWorld.com/press.

That’s great. Bob, I really appreciate you being on the show tonight. Tell me what you’re thinking about doing next. Are we going to build some more sites? How many more are we going to build or what are you thinking?

Bob: We’re just going to keep going until there’s nothing left to do. For all those people that are doing websites, don’t give up. It takes time, but it pays off.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent advice. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming over. Have a great day.

Bob: Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. For more information about this program, and to get the show notes, be sure to visit our website at MasonWorld.com/podcast. Follow @MasonWorld on Twitter.

Have you got a question or comment for Mark? Let us know by leaving us a voicemail on our digital recording line at 214-444-8655. We may use your message on a future episode of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

Did you like our podcast? Help us out by telling your friends and leaving your review on iTunes by going to MasonWorld.com/iTunes.

Finally, always remember that all business involves risk. Internet business is no exception. Your ability to make money with the concepts discussed in this program and on MasonWorld.com depends on many things, including your effort and capability. Since these factors according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level, and we are not responsible for any of your actions.

Thanks again for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, building internet businesses one night at a time. Have a great day.

This is the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, Episode 4.

You want to build a business that you can call your own, but you can’t imagine abandoning the security of your day job. You are confident that you can find a few hours a week to pursue your dreams of creating a business on the internet, but you don’t know where to start. You’re looking for a plan.

Congratulations! You just found one. You are listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, with your host Mark Mason, building internet businesses one night at a time.

Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 4 of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. Of course, I’m your host Mark Mason. It’s really great to be back on the mic. I’ve had a couple weeks of vacation with some light duty internet marketing activity, as well as some frenzied activity getting kids ready to go back to school.

It’s that time again in Texas, where we’re getting everybody ready to go back to school. That can be very exciting, because that generates a long list of things to go do. Everything from school clothes shopping to school supplies, physicals, band gear, and all of that. We’ve been pretty busy around the Mason World household the last couple of weeks.

I’ve also been busy, because I’ve been spending some time hanging out with guru affiliate marketer Lynn Terry in her private forum, she calls it the Elite forum. That’s really a fantastic investment that I’ve made. A small investment of money, and an investment of time over the last several weeks getting to know Lynn. I tell you, she is really fantastic. I had always heard great things about Lynn, and what level of integrity and customer focus she brings to her business.

Let me tell you, my time with her has exceeded all my expectations. She’s really fantastic. I encourage you to check her out over at MasonWorld.com/lynn, where I’ve a got a link over to her new Elite Membership forum over there. You can also find her on her blog at Clicknewz.com. I’ll provide both of those links in the show notes, you can check her out. She is really fantastic, and I really enjoyed spending time with her.

One of the best ways to learn about internet marketing is pick people and business models that you really believe in, follow them and watch what they do, ask them questions about what makes them successful and try to duplicate those results.

There’s absolutely no reason for you to reinvent anything in internet marketing. The best way to get started is to find somebody who you like what they’re doing, you believe in what they’re doing, and who will be honest with you and help you succeed.

Having said that, it’s time for the feature segment, where we’ll talk about our next internet monetization model. That’s making money on eBay.

It’s time for the feature segment.

In the feature segment today, we’ll be talking about our next internet business model. You’ll recall that we’ve already talked about affiliate marketing, which is when you essentially get paid for driving traffic to other people’s products, when that traffic converts to sales. Information marketing, where you can create information products, not too unlike this podcast, to be honest with you, and find ways to monetize those, usually by selling them as direct downloads.

Today we’re going to be talking about our third internet monetization method. That’s creating a business on eBay. Now, what we’ve been doing to kind of support this discussion that we’ve been having is following along in two publications.

One is the outstanding book by Yanik Silver, Moonlighting on the Internet. Yanik’s book can be found at MasonWorld.com/silver. We’ve also been following the great report from Jimmy Brown, I love Jimmy D. Brown, he’s really a great guy, his report is called 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 a Month. That’s a 30 page free report that Jimmy offers, where he outlines 10 different things you can do to really crank up your internet income.

Those are both excellent texts for people who are getting started online, or trying to expand their online business. I recommend them both highly.

Today we’re going to be talking about eBay businesses and what you need to think about in terms of eBay. Now, most people when they think about eBay, think about going online and buying some used something, or some antique something that they go and buy and get a good deal. So, the two things that you usually have associated with eBay are used items, that’s what people think of when they think of eBay, or items that they can get for really cheap.

That’s kind of problematic if you want to start up a business on eBay, because you’re starting off in a situation where people who are looking for premium products, eBay may not necessarily the first thing that comes to your mind. Let me tell you, that is the wrong mindset to have if you’re an internet marketer.

The right thing to recognize about eBay, if you’re an internet marketer, is that there is a massive and enormous amount of traffic available to you on eBay. Millions of items are sold on eBay every year. It is a giant company that you can leverage to make money on the internet.

Before I go much further, let me tell you, I am not an eBay guru. I do not have a viable eBay business. Sure, I’ve sold stuff on eBay. In fact, I’ve got a couple of eBay auctions right now. But, that’s not my mainline business. I do understand, however, the fundamentals of marketing that are in play on eBay and I’m going to go over them for you a little bit.

The first one is there are a lot of people there. The fundamentals of internet marketing are find traffic, stand in front of it, and convert a certain percentage of that traffic into some monetized stream. So, you find people and you convert those people into something that translates into dollars. eBay meets the first criteria, which is lots of traffic.

Now, you might imagine sort of a fundamental eBay business, and you can setup sort of a traditional business on eBay by finding products and reselling them on eBay. The things that you usually hear about are people that go around to auctions and buy lots of items, and then warehouse them and sell them on eBay. Or people that setup things where they sell items on eBay, then they have them drop shipped so they’re not actually warehousing anything.

Both of those can be made to be viable internet businesses and that can work just fine. I am not super excited about those, because as I mentioned before, there’s a lot of price pressure on things that are for sale in eBay. I know people are making that work, and you can make it work too probably, but that’s not what gets me excited about eBay.

What gets me excited about eBay is the idea that Jimmy Brown mentions when he talks about eBay, and that is that you can use eBay as a lead generator. Now, if you go through the listings, as Jimmy points out, you’ll see a lot of people that seem to be losing money making sales on eBay. What I’ll tell you is that there are a lot of things that are called loss leaders sold on eBay.

It means that someone sells something, not so much really to make profit on the sale, but actually to get the customer. They know that once they get someone to buy something they’ve got a customer contact with a credit card in their hand, that’s actually willing to use it, and they can sell things to that person again. Essentially, they’re prequalifying the prospect and able to sell to them again. That’s the big thing that Jimmy points out is that you can use eBay as a lead generator.

You can also use eBay to get people into your direct sales funnel. If you’ve got multiple products, let’s say you’ve got a 1 dollar widget that you sell for 79 cents on eBay, and you know that people that buy 1 dollar widgets are going to need the 50 dollar widget cleaner. You can also get them directly in your sales funnel by selling your cheap product on eBay, and selling the more expensive back end to them later directly. Once you’ve got their contact information, of course, you’re able to contact them directly.

Those are sort of the business models that you should think about in terms of eBay. There’s the real eBay store, eBay auction, eBay selling physical products sort of eBay that you’ve thought about. But, then there’s this other thing, the marketing side of eBay where you can use eBay for lead generation or to get people into your funnel. Those are the two ways to think about eBay.

The important thing in eBay, just like in all good marketing, is the copy. That’s one of the things that’s really often ignored on eBay. When you go to write a listing on eBay, you really need to pay attention to your headline, you need to make sure your listing is personalized, you need to decide whether or not you’re going to specialize and feature it, and buy it now.

I’m not going to cover all those things, but there are a lot of marketing options, some of which are very sophisticated, that you can test and try to maximize your response on eBay. Particularly when you’re selling things over and over again. eBay is a great environment in which to split test, because there are so many different options, whether to use pictures or not, whether to use video or not, and so forth. That is a the main thing that you need to think about in eBay.

Don’t just do what all of these garage sale minded people are doing and throw up some sales copy in your auction. Actually approach it like a professional copywriter and think about what you’re writing. Hit people’s hot points, offer a unique selling proposition in your auction, offer risk reduction, make sure they know that there’s no risk for them to purchase through you. Use basic sales copy principles and you’ll be a lot more successful on eBay.

The last thing I want to mention about eBay is that you can combine what we talked about last week, that being affiliate marketing, with the things that you can do on eBay, because eBay has an affiliate program. A lot of people have made a lot of money putting up websites that actually don’t do anything but advertise products that are for sale on eBay.

You might be thinking, “That sounds like a lot of work, because something that’s for sale on eBay today won’t be there in 7 days.” That’s absolutely true. So, what these people do is they set up websites that read the eBay auctions, and when a visitor comes to their website it lists the current eBay auctions for very narrow subjects.

So, for example, maybe somebody might have a website selling coffee mugs, maybe antique coffee mugs that are for sale on eBay. They present themselves as an antique coffee mug site, with maybe some information and an antique coffee mug store. But, the links on the store really go to eBay auctions, so they’re able to sell these things that normally you wouldn’t be able to drop ship or otherwise find affiliate programs for on the internet.

You can check that out. My preferred source for the eBay affiliate program is Pepperjam. I’ll have a link to the Pepperjam Network in the show notes there for you so you can find that. That’s about it on eBay. Couple of business models there for you with eBay, a couple of things to think about when you’re listing your auctions, and finally affiliate marketing. You can mix all these things together. That about wraps it up for eBay today.

And now the feature interview.

I have a really special interview for you today. You know, I’ve been interviewing top internet marketers, asking them what are the three things they want to tell new internet marketers that will help them get started. What are the three things they wish they had known when they were getting started.

Today I have for you the guru of Firepow, the Niche Marketing on Crack author, Andrew Hansen. Andrew is an enormously successful marketer over at AndrewHansen.name. He’s a top choice of mine for integrity and paying attention to what people really need, rather than just be out to try and make a quick buck. His products are fantastic.

I’ve got him on the phone. Here’s what Andrew had to say.

Before we get started with Andrew, just one editorial note. I want to let you know that the recording of Andrew’s voice is a little echoed. It looks like we had a little equipment difficulty on my end. I did some work to clean it up, but it’s still not a fantastic audio recording. But, the information is so great, I didn’t want to re-record it with Andrew, because I didn’t want to miss that first pass raw nature of it. So, here it is in it’s entirety and I hope you enjoy it. Thanks.

Mark Mason: Outstanding. We’re on the phone now, and it’s Late Night Internet Marketing. That works for us, because it’s 1:00 in the morning. I am privileged to have on the phone Andrew Hansen. Andrew is famous for a number of outstanding products in the internet marketing space.

Of course, he is probably most famous for his viral ebook, Niche Marketing on Crack, one of the first internet marketing products that I ever purchased. He’s also got an outstanding free ebook that’s been making the rounds lately called Crap Cutter Marketing.

But, the flagship product of Andrew’s, and the one that I really love, is the Firepow product. That’s an outstanding product for affiliate and niche marketers. Maybe we’ll get to talk about that a little bit with Andrew today.

Andrew, how are you this morning at 1:00 AM in the morning?

Andrew Hansen: I’m really well. I think it’s closer to 2:00 AM now actually, where I am anyway. But, really well. Thank you for having me.

Mark Mason: Thank you very much for taking the call. It’s 2:00 in the morning on the east coast, 1:00 in the morning in Texas. This is the Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, so I guess that’s appropriate.

Andrew Hansen: It’s all good. It’s fine by me.

Mark Mason: I have been interviewing outstanding internet marketers. I put you very high on that list. I’ve been reading your blog for a long time. I have been asking them the question, what would you tell a new internet marketer if you were going to tell them three things that they needed to know, or of you had it to do all over again, what are the three things that you would want to know?

But, before I ask you that question, Andrew, I’ve got to ask you another really important question that’s been on my mind for a long time. Can you handle one extra question?

Andrew Hansen: Yes, I think so.

Mark Mason: Your from Australia, right?

Andrew Hansen: Right.

Mark Mason: What in the heck is vegemite? Because in Texas we don’t know about vegemite. Can you just tell me what that is exactly?

Andrew Hansen: You don’t have vegemite?

Mark Mason: No. We don’t have vegemite and I don’t know what vegemite is.

Andrew Hansen: You don’t know what vegemite is?

Mark Mason: I’ve never seen it. I don’t know what it is and I figured now is my chance.

Andrew Hansen: Here you go. Are you ready? If I give you this description it will sound disgusting, but in fact it’s delicious. It is yeast extract. Now, how that is obtained, I have no idea. But, it’s like a black paste.

You can imagine like peanut butter, but black. So, it looks disgusting as well. But, it’s mega-salty. It’s a very sharp taste, sharp on your tongue, very salty. But, it’s a spread that you put on bread, toasts, and everything like that. It’s actually really tasty.

I didn’t know until I moved that it was really only in Australia and New Zealand, and a southern world thing. We haven’t had any since we left Australia, and we often regret that. So, that’s what vegemite is.

Mark Mason: Very good. Well, now I can rest easy. I appreciate that. So, you’re in Canada now, is that correct? And you can’t find it there?

Andrew Hansen: Canada, yes. Funny story, actually. My mum had sent me a birthday present earlier in the year, and she somehow had researched some things that we wouldn’t have had for a long time having been over here. She sent me in the mail these little vials of vegemite.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent. Very good. I’m glad to know that. You know, I’m a scuba diver, and I’ve wanted to dive The Great Barrier Reef, so now I can add vegemite and diving to that trip. That will be good.

Andrew Hansen: Just not at the same time. That might be weird.

Mark Mason: That’s true. So, the question for you, sir, is if you were talking to a new internet marketer, which I guess actually you do all the time, or if you had it to do all over again, what are the three things that you think somebody needs to know about internet marketing to be successful, or shorten the amount of time that it takes to be successful, or to avoid traps, or whatever. What are the three things you want to tell new people that are new to internet marketing?

Andrew Hansen: It’s actually a really difficult question, but it’s a good one, a very important. I don’t know whether I’ll have three things, or whether we’ll just kind of talk about a bunch of things in this time, but I can give you some of my thoughts.

The first thing that I think new people really need to know about is before they get into strategies and specific questions about you actually make the money, I think it’s important to just have an understanding of the industry that you’re getting into. I mean if you’re a new person starting out, and I’m sure you started out and I started out this way as well, you start looking into the different ways to make money online.

One of the first things that you realize is that there are so many of them. There’s as many ways to make money online as there is people trying to make money online, or at least people selling how to make money online.

So, that in itself poses, not a problem, but it’s like an initial barrier to people who are trying to get started, because one of the first things that you have to do is try to sift the enormous amount of information and try to find something that makes sense to you and something that seems like you can implement it.

Not only that, not only the amount of information, but the nature of the information that trains people how to make money on the internet is, as I know and you know, of varying levels of quality and varying levels of clarity in terms of how well they lay out the steps that you need to take. It’s so easy to waste your money, and it’s so easy to fail purely for that reason alone.

To have an understanding, like if you could somehow have foresight at that point starting out, the things that you’re looking at, the sales letters that you’re looking at and the products you’re buying are part of such an enormous, for lack of a better word, pile of information, strategies, tools, and offers trying to get you to spend more money and more money.

It’s a crazy world. That may be the first thing that I would talk about.

Mark Mason: It is a crazy world, there are 1,000 or hundreds of thousands of sales letters out there of different things you can buy. You’re right, some of them are just not very good quality. They’re well intentioned, but not good quality.

Andrew Hansen: Some of them aren’t well intentioned.

Mark Mason: Right. They’re not well intentioned, they’re actually kind of scam type things. What do you advise someone to do about this? Do you advise them to pick someone to follow, or focus their efforts, or do you just warn them?

Andrew Hansen: Yes, a bit of all of the above perhaps. I think one thing [inaudible] to the way I got started that was very helpful, and I know you did the same, was to start out when you start the search for information is to rather than jumping from kind of sales letter to sales letter and learning through the things that you read there, is to become involved in a community.

The Warrior Forum is a great one for people getting started, where you see a little more of the content and a little less of the offers, at least slightly. It’s the kind of place where there’s a bunch of people that are on the same mission that you are, and they’re looking at the same products that you are, and they can advise for or against a particular product, depending on your skill level.

They’re a group of people who definitely have been at the game longer than you have, so they will have made some of the mistakes that you are likely to make. So, you can learn from their experience. Learning from other people’s experience in that way is often a lot better than learning from your own experience, because when you have to go out and make every single mistake yourself, it becomes extremely disheartening.

It’s hard, you need a lot of will to carry on if you’re taking that way. Learning from other people’s experience cuts down the amount of time that you have to spend on everything. So, yes, joining a community is one excellent way to kind of fast track the process.

Mark Mason: Very good. That sounds like outstanding advice to me. How about thing two? What’s the second thing that you might advise someone that was new to internet marketing?

Andrew Hansen: The second thing that I had in mind when you first asked me, and some people listening may find it frustrating to hear, but it’s another sort of a mindset issue. Again, this is really difficult to do, and it’s very rare that people just getting started are able, even if they want to, to take on this mindset.

That is to just approach online business in two ways. Both as a long term venture, and something that you are building gradually and slowly, and that you want to have making you money, not just in the next 3 months, but in the next 3 years.

Then starting from that frame of mind, again is difficult, because all of the offers and all of the material that you read is always promising you that you’re going to be able to make X amount of money, “In the next 3 days you’ll have this stream of income coming next week, and then it will skyrocket from there and suddenly you’ll have an ocean front mansion and a Ferrari just like in the picture.”

It doesn’t take long for most people to realize that it doesn’t really work that way. Nor should you want it to work that way, because a general rule that I have is that the faster money comes to you, the faster it can leave you. You might be able to make 1,000 dollars by next week, but whatever may have brought you that money is almost always such that it can disappear just as fast as it came.

So, approaching it from the mindset of wanting to setup a real business is maybe the smartest thing that you can do. Again, it’s difficult, but if you do it you’ll beat many people.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent advice. I sometimes get these heartbreaking emails from readers of my blog, or people that stumble through my blog telling me how their credit cards are maxed out and they’re about to lose their house and they need to make 10,000 dollars tomorrow. There’s just not a lot you can tell those people, really.

Andrew Hansen: I know what you mean. I have the same emails. You’re right, what do you say to them? The truest thing to say to them is that you don’t need internet marketing right now, you need a loan or you need a job or something. If someone was in that situation, would you advise them to start a real business? Would you tell them to start up a Subway franchise and see if you can make money that way? Of course not. They shouldn’t be looking for a business. They should be looking to secure their financial situation first.

Mark Mason: That’s right. Okay. That’s excellent advise, number two. So, do you have a third one for me tonight?

Andrew Hansen: Yes. It’s hard to select a third one actually.

Mark Mason: Well, you’re allowed four. If it’s really coming down to that kind of thing, we’ll give you a fourth one.

Andrew Hansen: Sure. All right. The next thing, and this one is kind of related to your approach also in the pre-strategy stage, I would say. That is because like we’ve been saying, there are so many different methods to being able to make money, the thing is that actually there is also so many working methods.

There’s many ways to skin the cat. There’s a lot of ways that in the midst of all the ones that don’t work, there’s still a lot of ways that do work. What makes one method right for one person doesn’t depend on the method, but it depends on the individual.

For example, if you pick any given person off the street, that person would have preexisting knowledge, and preexisting skills, preexisting likes and dislikes. So, they would be better suited to one business model rather than another.

For example, you might really like writing, like me, I’m someone who really likes to write. So, writing comes easy to me. It’s never a rigorous process, I never begrudgingly start to write an article, because I enjoy it. So, I use that to my advantage by focusing on business models that utilize the skills and the things that I enjoy, and that I already have.

That’s how I got started out. I got started first just writing for other people. That allowed me to be able to make money from home. It wasn’t really a business, but I was able to make money from that. Then slowly as I learned more about actually making money with a proper business online, I was able to use those writing skills to leverage into content for blogs and for mini sites. Then to use the traffic generated from those to promote affiliate programs, and earn commissions and things like that.

The point after that discussion was try to find the method, and firstly, try to stick to one method, because the worst thing that you can do is get started with one method, see another method or offer tomorrow in passing and kind of hop over to that method and do a little bit of work there, and realize that it’s not really for you, so hop onto another method, and then maybe later come back to that first method, because you realized it might be more profitable after all.

That’s the worst thing you can do. That’s opportunity hopping, like I call it, and it’s almost always going to lead to failure. So, the first thing is to stick to one method at least until you get to the point that you realize you can’t do it, because it’s just not fitting with you, you’re not good at doing things that way, you don’t have the resources or the time, or whatever else to perform that particular method.

The second thing is when you are sticking to one method, make it one method that fits with the skills and the things that you like that you already have. So, if you like writing, blogging should be easy for you. You might find it easier to maintain a blog than to sell products. You could blog and to sell advertising on that blog, as opposed to doing all the research and the analytics and tracking and testing that comes with say making money with PPC.

That would be the third thing, stick to one method, and try to stick one method that fits with the things that you already are good at and enjoy doing.

Mark Mason: That’s a great tip. You know, I hear a lot of people, and I’m one of them, tell people to beware of getting distracted by what I call bright shiny objects. Every new email that comes into your inbox is trying to sell you a new method, you need to watch out for that.

But, I think you may be the first person I’ve heard who has really expressed this in this way, where you should take advantage of the skills that you have and try to get a match between what you’re good at and what the method teaches, so that you can leverage the assets you already have. That’s an excellent tip. I appreciate that.

Andrew Hansen: Absolutely. Part of it is that you only, and this is kind of unfortunate, but inevitable, that you will only really start to find what you really enjoy doing online and what you are really good at after a little bit of messing around. So, maybe one of the other side note points of the three is just be willing to kind of experiment a little bit with it, and be willing to lose a little bit of money if you absolutely have to.

Take your time and find out what it is you’re good at, because even if you take that little bit of time at the start and you start focusing on a method that you are really good at and that you do really enjoy, the dividends of that will pay down the track, both in terms of how much time it will save you and how much money it will make you, will be well worth the amount of time that you may waste in the beginning.

Mark Mason: Excellent. Did you have one more that you wanted to throw in here, because I’ve got time for you if you’d like one more?

Andrew Hansen: I think I will, actually, because we didn’t really get to talk much about strategy. So, I thought I might throw one little strategy point in there. It’s really hard to pick one strategy point out of everything that you could possibly say that would cover every kind of method and every kind of person who would be looking to start to make money online.

But, the thing that I thought of, and it’s such a recurring theme, and such a recurring thing that I see as the reason for people not achieving the results that they want to with their online business. That is firstly, whatever method or many methods that you will start to make money online with begin with finding a market. Whether it’s a market being an interest group to which you want to write a blog for, or whether it’s a market that you’re going to sell a product to, or it’s a market that you’re going to sell advertising to, whatever it is, many methods start with a niche or finding a market.

Different people have different definitions of what a market or what a niche on the internet really is. If you’re listening to this call, you probably will have already, or will in the future, come across the methods for locating markets on the internet. Like using the search analytics tools to see how many people are searching for a particular term.

A lot of people think, and it’s easy to fall into this trap of thinking, that things like somebody searching for a term is a market or is a profitable market. But, there’s a big difference between searches and buyers. If you want to make money from your online business, if you’re not just doing it for fun or because you enjoy it, you want to make money from it, you need to be in a niche where people are spending money. You need to be in a niche not just where you think people might spend money, but where people are already spending money.

Seeing the term, I don’t know whatever it is, Dragon Ball Z cards, for example, gets searched for 100,000 times, that doesn’t mean you’ve got 100,000 people who could potentially buy from you in that group, because that’s such a niche of kids and people who aren’t necessarily spending a ton of money. It doesn’t mean you’ve got 100,000 buyers. You might only have 1,000 buyers, if you’re lucky, maybe 100 buyers more likely.

Conversely, there’s markets where if you look at something like weight loss. People are spending money in that market. It’s an enormous market, not just on the internet, but offline as well. It’s a market where you know people are spending money. I’m not necessarily advocating that you get into the weight loss market, it’s extremely competitive, but I’m providing that as an example of a market where you are certain that people are already spending money.

So, your goal then, almost regardless of what method it is that you’re using, is to try to access and try to put yourself between the transactions that are already taking place and put yourself in the midst of the transactions that are already taking place. By doing that, you’re giving yourself a really increased percentage chance of being able to actually claim some of that cash that’s already changing hands.

Starting with a niche of buyers is my fourth, final, and only strategy tip.

Mark Mason: I know it’s amazing to me that people miss this, but I think you cover it pretty well in some of the materials that you’ve published over the years. There’s a lot of really simple things you can think about. One of the things that you teach is just the keyword modifier, “buy.”

There’s a hell of a lot of difference between the keyword “buy dog food recipes” and “dog food recipes.” One person is looking for a free recipe for dog food, and the other person is looking for a dog food recipe cookbook.

Andrew Hansen: Absolutely.

Mark Mason: There’s just a huge difference.

Andrew Hansen: One person has got their wallet in their hand as they type. They’ve got their credit card there and they’re looking to make sure they know all the different numbers so they’re ready to type it in when they find what it is that they want.

Whereas the other group, you can’t tell what they want. Some of them may be looking to buy, but some of them might be looking for a freebie, some of them might be looking for something they can print off and give to their friends. You don’t know. So, the group that’s got their credit card ready, and it’s a no brainer about which one you want to target.

Mark Mason: Very good. This has been incredibly helpful. There are a couple of other questions I wanted to ask you.

Andrew Hansen: Sure.

Mark Mason: I know that you’ve been very gracious and not actually talking about your own products, but they’re so good I want to talk about them. The first thing I want to talk about and want to point people to is one of my favorite ebooks that you’ve released, and it’s free, that’s really great, and I’ve actually sent my readers to it, because I really like it. That’s your Crap Cutter Marketing ebook. Can you give people kind of the 30 second lowdown about what they can expect in that ebook, and let them where to find it, and I’ll also put the URL in the show notes.

Andrew Hansen: Sure. Some of the things that I wrote about in Crap Cutter Marketing is the same as what we’ve talked about on this call. In part it’s about locating niche markets of buyers, locating groups of people that are looking to spend money and talking about strategies for putting yourself, your content, your website, or your offers in front of those people.

It’s talking about how to do that in a way that creates as little work for you as possible. There’s obviously work involved, but it’s try to make that as easy as possible for you. It also tries to do that without you having to spend a ton of money. So, it focuses on free traffic strategies. It looks at then leveraging that free traffic by promoting offers as an affiliate and using advertising revenue and using content, or things that you write, as the platform for selling stuff online.

There’s a ton of stuff in that report. A lot on mindset things, to finding niches, to monetizing your content, to generating traffic. It’s a really good free report, and it’s had a lot of good feedback. You can’t argue with free. There’s no cheesy up sell and you don’t have to spend any money in the process. It’s a good one to check out.

Mark Mason: Tell me the URL again.

Andrew Hansen: That’s CrapCutterMarketing.com.

Mark Mason: Have you gotten any negative feedback from people who are offended by the use of the word crap?

Andrew Hansen: No, I haven’t actually. Not as much as people offended by the use of the word crack in a previous report.

Mark Mason: Niche Marketing on Crack was another great one. I told you, that’s one of the first things I bought, so that’s good stuff.

The other thing I wanted to talk about briefly, because it’s your premiere product and I’ve written a lot about it on my blog, is Firepow. I was wondering if you could just give us the 30 second summary of what the Firepow system is, and give us some look into the future about Firepow and give me some breaking news here? Tell me what you’ve got planned over there.

Andrew Hansen: Sure. Firepow is kind of like a combination of all the intelligent things I’ve learned about making money online in the 5 or 6 years that I’ve been doing this. It’s a piece of software primarily, but it’s also kind of a suite of software tools, as well as a lot of training materials, like PDFs and videos, that focus on how to create blogs and use those blogs for the purposes of making money as an affiliate.

There’s other forms of monetization as well. The blog is for the purpose of generating really high quality, target, buying traffic that then you can push towards affiliate offers to earn commissions or to advertising on your site to earn Adsense clicks, or to your own products if you sell something somewhere else on the internet.

It’s a suite of tools that helps you to automate as much as possible that entire process. It helps you set up a blog in a matter of 10 clicks or something like that. There’s no HTML to write, there’s FTP programs to fiddle around with, there’s no uploading or downloading. You just fill in the forms and follow the instructions and it will spit you out a nice looking blog that’s not just a normal blog, but a blog that’s optimized to generate traffic for you from the search engines. So, it’s targeted to the right keywords that you’re looking to rank for.

It’s got proper permalinks. It’s got all the plugins and all the little settings that normally you have to learn how to set yourself or the add-ons that you have to work out. It’s got them all set in there for you, so you just click the buttons and you spits you out the blog.

It takes you right from that part of the process, creating your blog, to the generation of your content, which is the next thing that’s enormously important for anyone looking to generate free traffic. You need content. You need stuff to attract visitors that you can then monetize.

It helps you generate content both with ideas and with physically finding content for you on the internet that’s already out there that’s not being utilized as well as it might be that’s targeted to the terms that you’re looking to rank for. So, it helps you leverage other people’s content. Not in any illegal way, of course, just by grabbing content from syndicated sources from elsewhere on the internet.

Right through to the process of actually promoting your blog and being able to generate traffic to it, both through search engines and through social bookmarking sites, through directories, through other people’s private blogs, and building backlinks and generating exposure in as many places as possible to your blogs.

It’s kind of the whole enchilada from the creation of your blog to the cashing of your checks is what I always say. It’s automating that process as much as possible.

In terms of future plans, we’re really just trying to add new features or new tools all the time to optimize that and to automate it more for you. For example, we’ve got a feature coming out next week that’s for people who want to make Adsense sites.

We don’t have time to discuss that model, obviously, but it’s just creating content that gets ranked in the search engines that you position Adsense ads in, when people click those ads you make money. With this new tool, it will be in addition to something that we already have, but that lets you basically create a full Adsense blog that gets updated every couple days, however often you select, with content that’s targeted to the right keywords, that’s relevant and unique as much as possible, and automatically monetizing that for you.

So, you can create Adsense within, again, a number of clicks. You could create an Adsense site on any niche that you choose as long as you’ve got a keyword list that you’ve already researched within 5 minutes or so. So, that’s something we’re working on at the moment.

Mark Mason: Now, where can people find out more information about Firepow?

Andrew Hansen: You can checkout GetFirepow.com.

Mark Mason: That is excellent, sir. I appreciate all the tips, and I’m excited to give people an opportunity to hear about your products, because in both cases those two products are products that I’ve personally endorsed and have done so based on just the raw quality of both of them. I’m happy to give you that time to talk about that.

I do have one last question for you. I know you’re an accomplished affiliate marketer, you’ve sold all kinds of crazy things, which we don’t have time to go through them all here today, but now the question I have for you is, are you aware of any affiliate programs for vegemite?

Andrew Hansen: A vegemite affiliate program. You know, I’m sure there probably is one. You might have to sign up to some kind of online store, some Australian grocery store online. I don’t think it will pay out very high, because it’s a physical glass bottle with stuff in it.

After they ship it to you it will cost you 3.75, you might earn a 10 cent commission per jar of vegemite sold. I don’t know too many people that order it in quantities large enough to generate a huge commission. But, if you pioneer it, I’ll stand behind you.

Mark Mason: Okay, very good. Listen, Andrew, I really appreciate your time. The last question I have for you is, if people just want to follow the teachings of Andrew Hansen, where is the best place to follow you online?

Andrew Hansen: Sure. You can check out my blog, that’s at AndrewHansen.name, or you can follow me on Twitter as well, and that’s @AndrewHansen1.

Mark Mason: Very good. I’ll have both of those in the show notes. Andrew, thank you very much. I’m going to get some sleep. It’s creeping up on 2:00 in the morning here in Dallas, and it’s 3:00 in the morning there. I appreciate your time, and I hope you have a fantastic day.

Andrew Hansen: My please, sir. Thank you for having me.

Mark Mason: Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. For more information about this program, and to get the show notes, be sure to visit our website at MasonWorld.com/podcast. Follow @MasonWorld on Twitter.

Have you got a question or comment for Mark? Let us know by leaving us a voicemail on our digital recording line at 214-444-8655. We may use your message on a future episode of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

Did you like our podcast? Help us out by telling your friends and leaving your review on iTunes by going to MasonWorld.com/iTunes.

Finally, always remember that all business involves risk. Internet business is no exception. Your ability to make money with the concepts discussed in this program and on MasonWorld.com depends on many things, including your effort and capability. Since these factors according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level, and we are not responsible for any of your actions.

Thanks again for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, building internet businesses one night at a time. Have a great day.

I saw the following question in one of the internet marketing forums that I moderate (Coaching With Josh) today.  It was interesting, so I thought I would pass it along to you.

Question:  Should I mix affiliate links on my AdSense site.

Of course, the answer is like most things in Internet Marketing -- it depends on stuff, and you need to test.

But that is a boring answer, so I thought I would take a crack at the extreme cases -- AdSense vesus Links.

As you may know, most PPC programs teach that you should look for affiliate sites promoting the product that you want to promote and find the sites that are running AdSense.  They want you to put your AdWords ads on those sites.

So, I have always thought that you should not mix the two.  Because obviously these people believe that on average traffic that leaks off of a site through AdSense is worth more than what you have to pay for it.  And these people have big boats and fast cars, so they must be right (hey, I saw the pictures on the sales page for the PPC course).

Having said that, I do have sites where I have mixed them -- but they are crummy sites anyway, so it is hard for me to tell.

As my buddy "Coach Josh" says, you need to test.

Here is the way to think about it. Let's say you have 1000 visitors to a site in a month, and that your AdSense CTR is 10%. That means that you are getting 100 clicks per month. Let's say the clicks are worth $0.50. That is $50 per month.  Sounds cool.

Now, lets say that your copy is good and lest say that converting that same site to an affiliate banner/links gets you the same 10% CTR on your affilaite links and banners. You are now sending 100 visitors to the merchant site.

Now the question is, what is the conversion rate at the merchant site and what is the commission. Just to keep things simple, lets say that 5% of the people that reach the merchant site buy. This rate could be way high, and will depend on the quality your copy and their copy. If the commission per sale is at least $10 in this simple example -- it is a tie.  Of the 100 people that reach the site, only 5 will buy and you will make $50.

So, the bottom line is know your numbers and test.

But here is something to think about. In an affiliate site, you want visitors to trust you and then click through. You are preselling. In AdSense sites, you are usually wanting a high bounce rate, and many people argue that ugly sites do better.

So, before you switch monetization methods, you might want to think about the look and feel of your site.

Just some thoughts.

Best regards,

Mark

PS - check out my free video about making money with AdSense for more info about that topic.

In this episode of the MasonWorld Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, we continue with our series introducing the different ways that you can make money online. Specifically, we take a look at information products or information marketing.

We have a special interview with Internet Marketing Guru Jon Leger (pronounced Lay-Jay) and he reveals what he considers the three most important things that a new Internet Marketer needs to know.

Information Marketing has made millionaires out of a lot of people.  In fact, my buddy Josh Spaulding has just release an excellent (and very affordable eBook on the topic of Information Products.)

Advantages of an Information Products Business includes:

• Incredibly low overhead -- create content and publish electronically
• Sell it over and over again
• Sell it 24 hours per day, 365 days per year
• Fully automated sales and order delivery product
• Works well with affiliate marketing
• Location independence (work anywhere)
• No employees required

Some links mentioned in the podcast

• Moonlighting On The Internet
• Ten Ways To Make $10K On The Internet
• Information Product Success Formula from Josh Spaulding
• ClickBank.com

Possible information product topics

• How-To guides
• Self-help products
• Financial eBooks
• Make Money On The Internet
• Fitness/Diet/Health
• Skills Improvement Or Training
  • PM PodCast
  • iPhone Programming
• Lifestyle Design

Interview with Jon Leger included in this episode.

• Tip 1:  Look for a mentor running a real business; it takes real work.  Watch out for sharks and false claims.  Cannot get something for nothing.
• Tip 2:  Find a great niche or product that sells well.  Have some passion.
• Tip 3:  Get targeted traffic.  Not all traffic is equal.

Jon has an awesome product for beginners in internet marketing:

GeekFreeProfits.com

Be sure to leave us some feedback and subscribe in iTunes!

Podcast Alley is another option:
My Podcast Alley feed!

Here is the Raw RSS Feed.

I'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. Drop me a line here on the blog on on the digital recorder at 214-444-8655. Ask a question or leave a comment and we may use it on the show.

In this epidose of the MasonWorld Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, we continue with our series introducing the different ways that you can make money online.  Specifically, we take a look at affiliate marketing.

We have a special interview with Internet Marketing Guru Josh Spaulding and he reveals what he considers the three most important things that a new Internet Marketer needs to know.

Some links mentioned in the podcast

• Moonlighting On The Internet
• Ten Ways To Make $10K On The Internet
• Commission Junction
• PepperJam Network
• Josh Spaulding's Free $5 Formula eBook

Be sure to leave us some feedback and subscribe in iTunes!

Podcast Alley is another option:
My Podcast Alley feed!

Here is the Raw RSS Feed.

I'd love to hear what you think about the podcast.  Drop me a line here on the blog on on the digital recorder at 214-444-8655.  Ask a question or leave a comment and we may use it on the show.

Most of you probably saw an email from me this morning regarding ClickBank Cash Secrets.  If you missed it, you can find it here through the magic of Aweber.

Just want to give you some additional comments about the product and upload some screen shots from the download area.

My Quick Notes About ClickBank Cash Secrets

• Bottom line -- I really went through it and there is a massive amount
  of stuff.  I read through a lot of the content and it is solid.
• BTW -- I never promote products without doing at least that much (just
  so you know).
• It is a great resource for someone getting started in affiliate
  marketing.  If you already have affiliate marketing experience, it is
  "OK" but not earthshaking get rich quick for free and with ease stuff.
• There is an action plan -- that will help lots of folks.

Below are 2 screen shots of the DL area, and one of an included presell template.  The HTML presell template that is included is pretty darn good.  Maybe worth the money just for that if you are not good with that sort of thing.

Like every other product out there, whether or not ClickBank Cash Secretsis right for you depends on where you are personally in your IM education/journey.

Hope this help,

Mark

Several months ago I posted that I would be working on my sales letter for Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress.  You probably remember that this was one of my very first products, and that I am always learning by doing.  Man, that first product seems like a lifetime ago.

Edit -- See my special guest post invitation to real copy writers in the post comments.

Since I was "learning" on that product I did a "toss" rather than a launch.  What I mean by a "toss" is that I did not do a full court press trying to get anyone and everyone to promote the themes.  Rather, I worked with a few friends to do an initial promotion:

• Josh Spaulding and Garry Conn promoted the themes to their lists and blogs.
• Josh featured the themes in his excellent eBook $5 Formula.
• Caroline Middlebrook featured the themes in her excellent Niche Site Video
• James Jones sent my Micro Niche Finder Video to his list

The Results Of My First Attempt

Well, I learned a lot about having a product.  I thought that you might be able to learn some stuff too.  I actually made lots of sales.  From my perspective, it was a huge success (and continues to sell).

But, as usual, there were lots of opportunities to improve.  Here are some highlights (and opportunities to improve):

• Highly targeted traffic from a list that was expected to convert at 5% or more only converted at 3.5%.  What's worse,  less targeted list traffic converted very poorly.
• Less targeted traffic from blogs in the make money online niche converted at much less than 1%
• Traffic from ClickBank affiliates was converting at a very low rate.

Increasing Sales Page Conversions

So, I decided that based on that information, that I needed to look at the sales page.  Since I am a glutton for punishment, I posted a request for feedback on and criticism of my sales page on both the Warrior Forum and Digital Point Forums.  Well, as you can imagine, I got some.  You need flame-retardant undies to withstand the comments I got.

Note to new Internet Marketers out there -- don't get your self-esteem wrapped up in your sales copy if you are going to ask for feedback on a forum.  And, be prepared to hear from people that have no idea what they are talking about.

I also got some very helpful feedback from of my very own readers.  That was awesome, and I really appreciate it when readers take the time to comment.  Here are some feedback highlights:

• Work on the headline and sub-headline. It was described by one guy on the Warrior Forum as a "confusing wreck." The great thing was that he offered me a couple of much better alternative headlines that really illustrated his point.
• Work on the copy -- let it breath. Again, a member of the Warrior Forum supplied new copy to illustrate the point.  I got similar feedback from a reader of the blog.
• Make the site look more professional. The one comment from Digital Point pointed out the fact that a website that was selling wordpress themes needed to be "very professional looking."   I agreed.  Josh actually made fun of my graphics (several times).

Taking Action

So, based on all that feedback, I changed the sales template to something more professional, I changed the headline, and I re-did the copy.  Conversions are up considerably.  You can see the new Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress sales page here and you can compare it to the old sales page.

What do you think?  Did I make it better or worse?  Time and split testing will tell (I will be making a post on how to implement split testing next week).

Let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Mark

You guys know I am a big Jimmy Brown fan. I really like his style, and the quality of his stuff. I have given his material away on my blog before because the quality is so high.

Today, I got an email from Jimmy. I was shocked to learn that his new Affiliatenaire program only has about 30 of 1000 slots left. If you don't know Jimmy, I should tell you that he does not play marketing games.

Now Sold Out (as of 3/11/09)

I am stunned that he has sold so many memberships so fast. I was actually planning on promoting it for him. As you know if you are subscribed to my list, I promote very few things. I just could not squeeze it in, and I refuse to bombard my readers with offers. Oh well -- you snooze, you lose. This fast sales pace is really a clear indication of how great his reputation is -- because the sales page is "zero hype".

For those of you that are just starting out with affiliate marketing, this looks like a great program to me. I reviewed the first lesson and the quality is really high (21 fluff-free pages). Additionally, Jimmy is making a special offer today -- if you join his program today and are not generating sales by the end of your second month by following his instructions, then he'll personally help you one-on-one until you do.

OK -- that sounds crazy to me, but that is what he said.

Check out the refund policy too -- very generous. You have 60 days to get your money back (and you don't even talk to Jimmy to do it).

No hard sell here -- if you are interested in getting on track in affiliate marketing, check out his program. I recommend Jimmy highly.

Thanks.
Mark

As I have mentioned before, I get my graphics from one of the greatest graphics outfits on the net.  Recently, these guys came out with a product that I was really excited about, PL Secrets.   As is my normal approach, I did not want to promote it without a review.

I liked the product so much that I decided to promote it on my blog, send it to my mailing list, negotiate some special pricing for my readers, and add a bonus if you buy through my affiliate link.   The bottom line is that I love it, and I think you will love it too.

If you just cannot wait, go check it out now (time to take advantage of the deep discount is limited -- for real).  This is not a marketing thing -- I really negotiated a special 48-hour deal for you.   More on this later.

Two Internet Marketing Truths

There are about seven or eight things that I think are fundamentally true in Internet Marketing -- but for now, let me tell you about two of them.

1.  You need your own products. Why?  The reason is simple.  You can multiply your earnings by putting your products up on ClickBank or PayDotCom and leverage the power of affiliates.   Affiliates drive traffic for you, and with a good product, you can have hundreds of affiliates that are thrilled to promote for you.

When I say this, I always hear the same objection:  But Mark, I don't know how to create a product.  I don't have anything to say.  I'm not worthy.  You know the drill.   PL Secrets solves this problem for you by providing you with excellent PLR products each month.

2.  Landing page quality is critical. You need great landing pages with great copy for your products.  Professional graphics are a must.

To this, I usually here the refrain -- but Mark, great graphics are expensive.  That is actually true -- I have paid a lot of money for graphics.  But the results always pay for themselves.  PL Secrets solves this problem for you by providing you the most incredibly excellent PLR landing pages that I have ever seen.  You must see these graphics to believe them.

The Bottom Line

PL Secrets provides you with excellent products each and every month.  You can modify them, put your name on them, sell them, and keep the profits.  All the profits.

I personally reviewed the products from Month 1 and Month 2, and I was blown away. The month one products are already gone (the limited distribution protects their value for members), but there are some killer bonuses in month 2). What you see now on the site are the month 2 products. Those are the products that you get if you sign up today. And then of course, you get the bonus for month two and then products for the following months. Every month, you can deploy new products.

Here is the deal

1. Until about Midnight on Saturday (about 48 hours from now), you can join PL Secrets at the Earlybird Pricing.  As far as I know, this is one of the very few places you can find that price.  I know one other guy that was able to get this deal for his readers, and he is almost sold out of his 25 copies. And, after about midnight EST or so on Saturday, my special price will be gone.
2. There are only 25 slots at the Earlybird Pricing for my readers.  No kidding.  I was lucky to get this deal for you at all, and I was only able to negotiate 25 spots.  Again, they are trying to limit the numbers to protect the value. They are only letting me have 25 (dang it).
3. Two killer bonuses inside. Be sure to check out the bottom of the sale page.  My favorite (especially for new people) is the training center.  This is one of the things that I insisted on on prior to promoting.
4. One killer MRR Bonus direct from me. The 1st month's products are no longer available, but I have gotten special permission to give away Master Resale Rights to AdWords Cash Mountain - complete with everything you need for your website.  This bonus is worth the first month's price alone. Just sign up through my link and email me your receipt and I will send you a link.

That is about it.

On thing that makes me feel good about this sort of promotion is the 100% absolute money back guarantee.  Be sure and check that out at the bottom of the PL Secrets sales letter. There is no risk.

This is one of the best products that I have seen this year.  If you have ever wanted to sell your own products -- this is the way to get started.

Do not hesitate to drop me a line if you have any questions.
Thanks,
Mark

• Bacon and eggs! Need I say more? #
• @bestreflections No problem. I totally stole it from @Josh_Spaulding -- It helps a lot. #
• @bestreflections Not OK -- and I state in my comment policy that I will remove affiliate links. http://tinyurl.com/anjqux #
• @bcnola I have in the past -- but I am wanting to try out something new this time. #
• @potpiegirl I thought your spent your days on the phone with high-rollers like Seth -- So cool that he called you. #
• Caught myself humming the campy @imtw theme song this morning. Ugh. It's a sickness. #
• I need some quick feedback on my new twitter background. What do you think? http://twitter.com/masonworld Too wide maybe? #
• - see my contest-winning video! http://aweber.com/b/1NJ5t #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

OK -- I got the most interesting email request yesterday.

There is a new application on Facebook called TextToChat.  What is does is allow people that can see your Facebook profile the ability to "chat" with you via cell phone text messaging.  The person contacting you from Facebook sees a web-based chat application, and you communicate with them via text message.

Curious about the app, I installed it.  Now, let me tell you up front that it costs $6/month -- more on that later.  I tested it briefly.  Unfortunately, it did not work for me.  I could receive texts, but not reply to them from my phone.  Bummer -- because it was actually pretty neat.  I think it is a pretty cool idea for an application.

Because of the fact that it did not work for me, I am not promoting the application.  In fact, I canceled it.  Of course, the application is new, and I am sure that the problem is either on my end, or it will be fixed soon.

But, you might like it.  If you do, you can join through the guy that referred me.

Here Is The Rub

There is a multi-level affiliate program attached to the program.  Each person that you refer gets you $2 of the $6 fee.  On top of that, you get $0.25 for each referral they make -- all the way down to level 8!.

The application is being marketed as a way to make money -- not really as a cool application that improves Facebook.  It is very interesting, and you can see the video here.  (Careful - if you join, I the guy I mentioned above gets $2). Note that I know that guy (he seems like a nice guy and often comments here), but I am not affiliated with him or TextToChat in any way.

Now this MLM approach has some people pretty upset.  I am not really weighing in on the appropriateness of this here, but some people are.

I'd like to hear what you think?  Is this sort of promotion good or bad for Facebook?

Well, you know I like to talk about SEO and back links.  Back links are a critical part of SEO.   You also know that I am a big fan of Jon Leger and his products, incuding his 1WayLinks product.  So I had an idea -- how about some free backlinks for MasonWorld.com readers?

Basically, I thought people might like to take 1WayLinks for a test drive for free.

Update: 2/2/09:  This offer is now closed.  See Jon Leger's site to sign up for the real deal.

21 30 Free Back Links From 1WayLinks

Here is how you can get 21 free do-follow back links to any 3 URLs that you choose (7 links to each of 3 URLs).

1. Link to this post from somewhere using some great anchor text like  "free backlinks".  This gets me some much needed link love.  Thanks!  If you don't have an easy way to generate a link (like a blog), they you can digg this post instead.
2. Twitter the link to this post and tell about this offer.  This gets some traffic to this promotion.  Thanks!
3. Stumble this post. More traffic.  Thanks!
4. Leave me a comment on this post indicating that you intend to participate.  I will confirm that you are "in".
5. Write a good article that includes 3 links to 3 pages of your choice.  Use whatever anchor text that you like.   Use PLR content if you like, but do not violate copyright or plagiarize.
6. Use plain text HTML only. Use anchor tags in your plain text.  No fonts, no paragraph markers, etc.  Just plain text, carriage returns, and anchor tags.  Here is a tutorial on anchor tags if you need it.
7. Email me at links@masonworld.com proving that you have done 1-3 and include the post text.  Use "free links" in the subject line.
8. I will post your article to 7 blogs in the 1WayLinks Network.  This will result in 7 live posts on the net, each containing 3 links for a total of 21 backlinks for you.
9. Be patient. Every post on the 1WayLinks network is approved by an actual human.  Network security is the top priority.  It will take a few days for your posts to go live.
10. I will email you with the list of backlinks.  This list is confidential.  You may not share the URLs with anyone ever.
11. Buy 1WayLinks (if you want). If you like 1WayLinks, I respectfully request that you buy it through my affiliate link.

That's it -- you get to "try" 1WayLinks for "free" and you get some backlinks.  I get some traffic, backlinks and some sales commissions if you like it.

Simple.  Transparent.  No B.S.

Rules for this (can change without notice).

1. This offer can expire without notice.  I will stop offering this at some point.
2. One offer per customer.
3. First come, first served.
4. Whatever I decide goes.  I am a fair guy, so don't worry.  But if I cannot post your content for some reason, the deal is off.  I will explain why.
5. I can change the rules whenever I want (in case I am forgetting something).
6. Post, sites and links must be 100% completely non-religious and family friendly.  No exceptions.  1WayLinks has very strict rules on this.  No profanity, porn, religion (includes Christmas, St. Valentines Day, etc), hate, etc.  They control this, not me.  If you are worried about that, ask me first.
7. Feel free to use PLR for your content if you like.
8. Posts on legal, accounting or health topics must include a disclaimer.
9. Do not put all three of your links at the bottom of the post.  Mix them throughout the content naturally.
10. Again, you may not reveal the location of your posts.  That information is confidential.  I will tell you, but you cannot tell anyone, ever.

That's all I can think of right now.  Let me know if there are any questions.

I really like Colleen Slater.  As many of you know, Colleen is the author of an eBook that I recommend called Blog Inferno.  Colleen is a "super affiliate,"  and her eBook is a step-by-step guide building a affiliate empire part time.  One of the things that I like about Colleen is that she builds her internet business part time.  She has a serious day job (like me), so I really identify with her.  I also like the fact that she is a big fan of Firepow, which is another product that I believe in.

Really Weird Promotion

Colleen's list is one of the few lists that I subscribe to.  Well, actually, I subscribe to many lists, but her emails are some of the few that I actually look at.   Anyway, the other day she sent me this weird email promotion about a $5 eBook.  The email was from Colleen, so honestly, I just bought it sight unseen.

It Was The Weirdest Sales Page I Had Ever Seen

The eBook is called Secret Associated Wealth, and it is all about how this guy is making $10,000/month using sales pages that tie in his products to big Hollywood media things like Star Wars and Indiana Jones, etc.  It is by far the strangest sales page that I have ever seen.  You need to check out the video on the sales page. Totally weird.

Whether or not you need this product is up to you and where you are in your business.  If you are writing some sales letters or landing pages, then you may want to take a look.

The case studies are actually quite good, and the product is well worth the $5.  Of course, $5 is not a very high hurdle, and the low price really confuses me.  Especially since the product comes with the 4 case study videos and the eBook content is solid.

On thing that is interesting is that this guy went from zero dollars in April of 2007 to $10,000 per month in just over a year.

The bottom line of the eBook is that presentation graphics are really important in marketing materials, and there are really cool ways you can leverage mainstream mind share that already exists around HollyWood products like Star Wars.

Even if you don't purchase the eBook, I'd love to know what you think about that weird sales page.  Leave me a comment and let me know what you think.

Internet Marketing Fortune Cookie #14

Choosing An Autoresponder

It's way past Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

Hear the cookie speak:

Write an old friend. Your words bring joy.

Obviously, the cookie was referring to email marketing. Everyone always says that the money is in the list, but people usually don't say much about how to get your list service up and running, or what service providers to choose.

Part of the problem is that email marketing services, also known as autoresponder services, are a dime a dozen. There are an abundance of providers and products available and each one is pitched as the next best thing.  There are even some free ones that you can install on your own host.

Worse, most people reviewing and promoting autoresponders are affiliates and they have a bias that comes with their commission. This includes me. I use Aweber and I love them.  So, if you hear me recommending Aweber, you should also know that I get paid if you buy their service through my link, and that I have never used another service.

Bottom line:  comparing autoresponder products can be a time consuming process.

Here’s my quick thoughts on how to pick the right email marketing service for your internet marketing business.

Decide if you want a full service software package with a number of features or simple, straight forward email marketing?  Some products come with autoresponders, shopping cart software, and product delivery tools.  1ShoppingCart is an example.  I have never used their autoresponder, but when I hear people talking about it, the things I hear people say are never good.  My recommendation is stay away from fully integrated services for autoresponders.

Do you want HTML templates or are you going to send your email messages in text format? There are benefits to both. Graphics and embedded links are great for creating captivating and converting messages however many people have their HTML turned off.  I recommend making sure your autoresponder supports HTML email and had good free templates that you can use.

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Much of the jargon on a particular product’s website can be vague. Here’s what you want to look for:

- How many messages can you send each month?
- Can you send personal messages to individual members on your list?
- Is there a size or length limit to your messages?
- How many subscribers or contacts can you have on your list?
- Do they offer technical support 24/7?
- Do they at least have telephone support during regular business hours or is it all email/ticket based?
- How long have they been in business? (Having your email provider go out of business can leave you high and dry)
- Do they offer a free trial?
- Do you have to commit to a year contract or can you go month by month?
- Do they provide room for you, and your list, to grow?

Many email marketing products offer tiered programs. Each tier offers you a certain number of subscribers and a limit to the number of messages you can send each month. However, some email providers allow you to build customized plans to meet the needs of your specific business. This is a great way to get exactly what you need.

Email marketing is a critical component for any internet based businesses marketing strategy. Finding the right email provider can save you valuable time, help you market and represent your business in a professional manner, and result in a bigger bottom line. It pays to do your research, try a few programs, and don’t settle for the marketing product of the moment. Your business is too important.

Again, my personal recommendation is Aweber.  But, I get paid if you take my recommendation and I have never used any other service (I am thrilled with them) -- so know that.

As the cookie says, Write an old friend. Your words bring joy.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

As I have mentioned before, I am a forum moderator at Coaching With Josh.  That program is set up to help a wide range of people, including beginners.  Today, I got the below question, and I thought many people might be interested in the answer.

Of course, I have changed the names and some of the details to protect the innocent:

For the last couple of days I've been checking out XYZ product on ClickBank and I think it's a great product to promote as an affiliate, due to the fact that commissions are paid through ClickBank and the sales letter is really good.

I've been considering promoting it on specialized forums and on EZA.

I'm a newbie with no previous marketing experience.

The thing that really makes my head spin is keyword research. I don't know what tool I should use and how to tell which keywords are profitable and which ones are not worth it.

Also, my idea is to start generating not only keywords related to "xxx xxxx xxxx", but also to the "yyy yyyy yyyyy" term.

Since I've never designed a website in my life, I would like to know if starting with a blogger blog is a better option.

So, should I use the wordpress blog or start fresh with a blogger blog?

Now, I should say that entire $2000 courses are built around the above question.  So, it is hard to answer this kind of question in a single blog post.  I am not pretending to give all the answers here.

Additionally, I don't know much about the product that was mentioned.   I did check out the sales letter and  I agree the sales letter looks good.  The problem is that it is hard to judge how they will convert without testing.  I recommend always asking the publisher for conversion stats, and asking them what support they have for tracking your own conversions.

To promote a product like this, you have many options.  I am not a PPC guy.  I like organic traffic.  For organic search traffic, you can put up a site with a URL like http://TheProductURLReview.com using wordpress.

To get organic traffic to that URL, one option is to create pages that rank for keywords that are related to the product that you are trying to sell.  For each keyword that you want to target, you can write a short article talking about the product and linking to it with an affiliate link.

You can see one new site that I have like this here:

http://www.1waylinksreview.com

It's so new that I have not done much with that site, but you get the idea.

You can also take this approach with article marketing or a blogger blog.  But, I always think it is better to have a specific domain that you own.

Fundamentally, it boils down to conversions.  Get visitors to your site, presell them, get them to click through to the sales page, and a certain percentage will convert to sales.

Photo: photo credit: Dina Middin

Wow. I just finished looking at a couple of amazing videos from Brad Callen. This is going to cause a firestorm of controversy.

Brad has constructed a viral tool that manipulates Google rankings on computers on which it is installed.

That's right, this is basically a viral trojan horse turned into a legitimate product. Unfortunately, you have to sign up to see the controversial part.

I am not even sure what I think about this tool. I'll have a followup post soon with my thoughts.

If you check out the videos, let me know what you think.

Regards,
Mark

(Note that the above link was an affiliate link for a few minutes, but I pulled it). I am not sure that I want to support a product like this. Still thinking about it.

I have written previously about my support of Josh Spaulding's Internet Marketing coaching program called Coaching With Josh.  Sometimes the hardest part of getting started on something is knowing where to start.  Josh is a real live Internet Marketing success story.  He is a real guy who feeds his family working on line.

Not only that, but Josh is an honest guy.  He is all about ethics in Internet Marketing, and I really like that.  I like it so much, in fact, that I am a forum moderator at Coaching With Josh. I do it because I like the atmosphere over there. I like helping people. It's cool.

All of that got me to thinking...

Coaching With Josh Bonus -- Coaching With Mark

Josh really likes helping people, and so do I.  Josh has already had members quit their day jobs and start working full time on line.  It is all very exciting.

I feel strongly enough about what Josh is doing at Coaching With Josh that I have arranged for a "special deal" for MasonWorld readers.

If you are trying to make progress in Internet Marketing and decide that Coaching With Josh is worth a try for you, then you can chose to enroll in his coaching program through my affiliate link.  If you do that, and you notify me that you have joined, I will put you on my "watch list."

Any time you post a question in the Coaching With Josh forums, I will be notified.  I'll do my best to track you in the CWJ forums, and will answer any private messages that you send me.  The average response time in the forums will be much less than 24 hours, and if your post is answered by someone else I may not respond (no need to repeat the same information) unless I have something to add.  Response time for me will be less than 24 hours (usually much less).  So, basically you will be getting all of the benefits of Coaching With Josh plus you'll get Bonus Coaching With Mark at no extra charge for as long as you are a member.

Just so we are completely clear -- when you sign up, you be a regular Coaching With Josh member.  You'll have the full access and excellent support that Josh normally provides.  Josh is the guru, and it is Josh's forum.  No change there.  However, I'll be following your progress directly and helping you along the way as a thank-you for using my affiliate link to join his program.

Act Now!  Limited Time Offer.  While Supplies Last...

OK -- whatever.  No pressure here.  Just want you to know that I will only take as many "students" as I can handle well.  I probably cannot handle 100 people, so I will have to cut this offer off at some point in the future.

Check out Coaching With Josh today.  You'll be glad you did.

Regards,
Mark

photo credit: D3 San Francisco

Internet Marketing Fortune Cookie #12

Staying Out Of eBay Jail

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

This week's Internet Business Fortune Cookie made me stop and look at something that has been bugging me in the back of my mind for a long time.  When I cracked open the cookie this week, I knew right away what it meant.

Hear the cookie speak:

"Be Willing To Admit That You May Be Wrong"

So what did I think I might be wrong about?

Terms And Conditions For eBay Niche Stores

As you know, I have several eBay niche stores powered by the incredibly cool phpBay software.  That software allows you to create an eBay store in any WordPress blog or other PHP-based site almost effortlessly, and it has killer SEO features not found in other tools.  In fact, I just released a video a couple of weeks ago on how I use keyword tools like Micro Niche Finder to build eBay niche stores in minutes.

But something has been bothering me.  When I did that video, I used the trademark term BMW in the URL.   Now, this may not be a great idea for several reasons, but one reason bothered me particularly.

I have been told (and believed) that the eBay terms of service (TOS) does not allow you to use a trademark name in URL before the third slash.  So, if you want to set up a BMW site using eBay tools, BMW cannot appear before the third slash.

OK: http: //www.mycarshop.com/bmw

Not OK: http://www.myBMWcarshop.com

I believed this was true -- but I don't any longer.

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer and I do not offer legal advice. What follows should not be considered legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should consult an attorney. You have been warned.

My Research on the eBay TOS

I researched this "third slash" thing. I think I had it wrong.  I think it is OK from eBay's point of view to have trademarks in the URL of eBay niche stores.

Here is the TOS from eBay on PepperJam's site:

You will not adopt or use any company name, trademark, trade name. brand, shop sign, domain name, or URL (specifically, any term before the third "/" of your URL) that incorporates as a part thereof any of eBay Inc.'s, or its corporate affiliates', (a) trademarks, tradenames, company names, brands, shop signs, domain names or URLs (including the translations and transliterations), or any variations thereof; or (b) any term that consists of a generic or descriptive word, followed by the term BAY. Further, you will not display your company name, branding or trademark in an uneven, staggered, multi-color format that, in ePN's sole discretion, invokes the distinctiveness of the famous multi-color eBay logo.

I believe that this says (paraphrasing) that You will not have a store name or URL that uses any reference to eBay or it's affiliates.

I do not believe this says that You cannot use brand names in the URL. Now, using the term BMW may aggravate someone in Germany, but eBay does not care.

Let's break it down:

You will not adopt or use any company name, trademark, trade name. brand, shop sign, domain name, or URL (specifically, any term before the third "/" of your URL)

Above means you cannot use anything in your store name or URL

...that incorporates as a part thereof any of eBay Inc.'s, or its corporate affiliates', (a) trademarks, tradenames, company names, brands, shop signs, domain names or URLs (including the translations and transliterations), or any variations thereof; or (b) any term that consists of a generic or descriptive word, followed by the term BAY.

Above means that uses any eBay trademark names (or those of eBay corporate affiliates)

Further, you will not display your company name, branding or trademark in an uneven, staggered, multi-color format that, in ePN's sole discretion, invokes the distinctiveness of the famous multi-color eBay logo.

Above means you cannot rip off or parody the eBay logo.

Now one open question is what are "corporate affiliates"? I think they mean other eBay companies like PayPal, but I am still researching that.

I spoke with an anonymous "legal professional" with experience in Internet Marketing. He did not offer me legal advice, and he is not offering you legal advice (neither am I). He recommends that you and I both consult our attorneys. He also said the following:

I interpret this to say that you may not use any ebay trademark in the space between the second and third slash of your URL.

I do not read it to say anything about what comes after the third slash.

I do not read it to say anything about the use of a NON-affiliated company's info between the second and third slash.

Determining what companies are "affiliates" is the art.

Again, BMW may care, but I do not think eBay does.

Remember, I am not a lawyer and I do not offer legal advice. The above should not be considered legal advice. If you need legal advice, you should consult an attorney. You have been warned twice (maybe three times).

As the cookie says, Be Willing To Admit That You May Be Wrong.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

Internet Marketing Fortune Cookie #11

The Truth About Internet Marketing

It's Wednesday (well, in China anyway), and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie.

This week has been crazy busy (Christmas is tomorrow in case you missed the memo).  With three kids and lots of extended family, I have been happily toiling away at holiday tasks.

So, in a shocking twist of events, I have had no Chinese food for more than a week.  Lucky for you, I have a stash of old fortune cookie fortunes in a wooden box on my desk.   Seriously, I save them.  I pulled this one out at random.  Hear the cookie speak:

"Honesty Is The Best Policy."

Clearly the cookie speaks about the brand new internet marketing blog by Michelle Adams (www.michelle-adams.com).   I ran across Michelle's blog today when I was checking out the action at CoachingWithJosh.com (I am a moderator there).

Michelle is a "student" there.  I say "student" in quotes because she has over 500 posts and helps a lot more people there than I do in my role as an absentee moderator.

Welcome To Michelle-Adams.com - Pay Attention

Anyway, Michelle-Adams.com is a brand-spanking new internet marketing blog with a grand total of 2 posts.  The shrink-wrap is not even off of the WordPress box yet, and the site still has that "new-blog smell" just like a shiny new BMW.

Before you scoff and wonder why I am talking about a newbie blog with 2 posts, note that Michelle is paying attention -- her autoresponder is already up, and she has a killer USP (unique selling proposition) that made me opt-in.  Here is what she has to say:

How I Saved $2,000 Overnight

If you want to find out how being treated like dirt saved me $2,000 then just pop in your email below and I’ll send you the report. Included in this report is a no BS way of making money online that has no fluff, almost no cost except time and a domain name and is a proven method. You can’t lose. Enjoy!

That is one of the more creative opt-ins I have ever seen (and I have seen many).  In fact, I was starting to think I had seen all of them.

Raw Truth In A PDF

When you opt in to her list, you get access to a PDF report.   I am not going to spoil it for you.  Let's just say she puts herself out there and tells it like it is.  It's fresh, and raw and valuable.  Everyone just starting in Internet Marketing should read this report.  I thought it was great.

Best thing, I could not find one affiliate link in the whole report.  She does point to an excellent free resource in her report (one that I strongly endorse on the blog in other places).

Obey The Cookie - Be Honest In Your Marketing.

Go check out Michelle's report.  You'll be glad you did.

As the cookie says, Honesty is the best policy.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

I'm not done for the year yet, but I thought I might share my thoughts on progress at MasonWorld for 2008 with you now (before I get stuffed with egg nog and fudge.)

It's hard for me to believe that it was just over a year ago that I really got serious about Internet Marketing as a night-time hobby, prompted by a love for computer technology and a 5 minute segment on NBC's Today Show.  A lot of water has gone under the bridge since November of 2007, and I am proud to count myself as one of the small percentage of Internet Marketer that have not tried, failed, and quit.

In Internet Marketing, Failure Is Progress

Now, don't get me wrong.  I have failed over and over again.  I have lost money toying with PPC (that is a rite of passage, I think), I have posted blog posts that I later decided to take down, I have launched products that did not do very well, and I have spent time on lots of things that did not pan out.  I even launched MasonWorld.com on the "wrong blogging platform" and had to migrate to WordPress.

But learning and progress require a certain amount of failure (ask Edison).  So, one thing that I plan to do in 2009 is actually "fail faster."  Get out there, try stuff, and move on (keeping the stuff that works).

I also spent lots of time and money reading Internet Marketing stuff.  I have a sub-directory on my hard drive in my "Internet Marketing" directory that is titled "Courses and eBooks."  As of this writing, that folder has 474 files (91 folders) containing 4.96 GB of Internet Marketing eBooks, audio and video that I have downloaded for free or purchased.  Amazing.

With Failure Comes Success

Most important to me, I have learned a ton about Internet Marketing.  I am really not interested in working on things that don't allow me to learn.  The cool thing about Internet Marketing is that it is a nice mix of technology, marketing, small business, and people skills.  Lots of varitey.

Of course, I have had more than my fair share of successes.  I also have some profitable niche AdSesne sites, MasonWorld.com is growing, I have some affiliate products that are making money, I released a couple of profitable products, and I have a nice start on an email list.

My tip for you in 2009:  Take action and don't be afraid to fail.  The only path to success is through action.  With action comes risk.  So, take some risk in 2009 -- you'll like the results.

So, The Bottom Line Is Thanks!

Most of all, I have been able to make some great friends on line (you know who you are), who have helped me get up to speed.   And, I have a great following of MasonWorld.com regular readers.  I really appreciate those relationships -- so thanks to all of you.

I hope you have a great Holiday Season and get everything that you wish for in life in 2009.

Best regards,

Mark

Just a quick note to let you know that I talked to Andrew Hansen of Firepow today.  You'll recall that Andrew previously authorized a $300 Firepow discount coupon for MasonWorld subscribers.  Yesterday, I asked him if I could offer you an even better and more special discount, and today has agreed!

So, now the special discount for MasonWorld readers is $30/month ($360/year).  As far as I know, this is the best discount available (let me know if you see a better offer).

EDIT -- Since this was first posted, Andrew has reduced the price of Firepow. The discount has changed, but as far as I can tell my coupon code still gets the lowest price available.

I have a special Firepow bonus announcement planed for Monday (and it is sweet) -- but if you buy Firepow before then using my affiliate link, you will still be eligible to get the bonus (I promise).  That will allow you to get started this weekend!

For now, if you sign up for FirePow using my link, you can get a whopping $30/month off of your bill.

Use FirePow discount coupon code "mason".

Andrew did not say how long he would be able to offer that deal, and I have not finished my promotion materials for Monday -- but I did not want to wait to offer you the discount.  If you were considering FirePow anyway, I wanted you to have the discount now.

Be sure to check out the no-risk guarantee Andrew is offering.  There really is no risk to giving Firepow a try today.  In fact I am told that lots of people actually sign up with the intention of cancelling the service, only to find out that the Firepow system is worth way more than the cost.  They happily keep it, laughing all the way to the bank.  Pretty cool.

Regards,
Mark

P.S.  I am still very impressed with FirePow so far.  If you have questions about FirePow, feel free to ask them here.