I had the funniest phone conversation with Nicole Dean yesterday.   Nicole is the "mostly sane marketer" -- at least that is her claim.  I'm seriously not sure about the "mostly sane" part.  On days like yesterday, she calls that whole sane thing into question.

You see, our conversation was about owl vomit.  Well, not owl vomit, exactly.  We were talking about owl pellets.

Nicole does a series on her blog called "Weird Niche Wednesday" -- and today her weird niche is owl pellets.  In case you don't know, owl pellets are little balls of bones and feathers that owls cannot digest after eating their prey.

I've had two fourth graders, so I knew that kids all over America dissect these little gems each and every year.  What I did not know was that there is a niche market for these pellets on the internet.

Don't believe me?   Check this out....

People Are Looking For Owl Pellets On The Internet

So, I'm sitting on the phone with Nicole laughing about owl vomit (trying to decide just how sane she really is) and I decided to take a look at the market for "owl pellets".

I was surprised when I typed "owl pellets" into Google (without the quotes), I saw 11 paid AdWords ads (these are the "sponsored links" on the top and right side of the Google search results.) Whenever I see that many ads and searches, I know that chances are people are making money in this niche.

I also saw that there were shopping listings in the Google search result-- a clue that there may be affiliate marketing opportunities in this space.

I know personally how quickly AdWords can suck money out of your bank account, so when there are ads running (particularly if they are running for a long time), it means that people are making a profit.

One measure of the competition is the price of those AdWords ads.  If the ads are cheap, it usually means no one is bidding on the phrase.  Sometimes that can mean that there is not much money to be made, so people cannot afford to bid much.  We already know there are 11 ads - but what are people paying for them.

A quick trip over to SpyFu.com show me a nice little surprise.  It turns out that people are paying as much as a couple of dollars per click for ads.  So, there 11 ads on Google and some of them are costing $2 per click.

Hmmm.   I smell money.

As you know, internet marketing is about matching offers with buyers.  To be successful, you need buyers.  Lots of them.

So, I decided to look at the search volume.  According to the Google Adwords Keyword tool, there are 9900 exact match searches per month for "owl pellets".  On top of that, some keywords are showing a cost per click of over $5.

That got my attention.

Next Stop Micro Niche Finder

At this point I had seen enough to make me want to fire up a keyword tool.  I have several tools in my toolbox, but for quick stuff I love to use Micro Niche Finder.  I find it easy to use.

I put owl pellets in Micro Niche Finder, and it told me some interesting things.   Since it get's data from the AdWords keyword tool also (most tools do), it confirmed my finding of 9900 exact match results for Owl Pellets.  It also showed me results for about 100 other owl-pellet-related keywords.

Of the keywords that it found, 28 of them contained the word pellet (or pellets).

I asked Micro Niche Finder to show me all the domain names (.com, .org and .net) that were exact matches for keywords.  It turns out that owlpellets.com (and .org and .net) were already taken.  However, the second most popular keyword, owl pellet dissection, was available.

Micro Niche Finder also told me that the competition was pretty weak.  In fact, there are 1000 searches per month for "owl pellet dissection" and there is only one strong site competing for the term.

So, on a whim, I registered OwlPelletDissection.com (that is why it is shown as unavailable above) and I am in the process of throwing up an owl pellet site at OwlPelletDissection.com for experimental purposes.

Get it?  Throwing up an owl pellet site? I crack myself up.

Sorry.   I put up the site last night.  So, it is a work in progress (kind of like my jokes).

An Interesting Case Study

Anyway, it will be interesting to see if I can rank for "owl pellet dissection" and or "owl pellets" over the next few months.  I don't plan to work too hard at it (which makes it even more interesting), since I have lots of other things going on.  But I will work at it some.

I'll keep you posted.  Maybe this would make a nice case study for us to discuss on the blog.  We can talk about the how and why of this project.

I'd love to hear what you think about this -- or answer any questions that you might have.  Let me know your thoughts.

This is the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, Episode 7.

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, and welcome back to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. I’m your host, Mark Mason. It’s really great to talk to you again. I hope you’ve had a fantastic couple of weeks since the last time we spoke.

As usual, I’ve been crazy busy running my day job and playing with internet marketing late at night. That’s why we call it late night internet marketing, because I do it late at night and I really enjoy it.

This is the seventh episode, and in the first six episodes we’ve talked about the various methods for making money online. What we’re trying to do is set the foundation for building an internet business by first understanding the different ways that you can start an internet business. Of course, we don’t cover them all, but basically what we’re doing is we’re going through Yanik Silver’s outstanding book called Moonlighting on the Internet, and we’re talking about Jimmy Brown’s outstanding ebook, which is called 10 Ways to Make 10,000 Dollars a Month Online. Both of those are available on MasonWorld.com. The Silver book is available at MasonWorld.com/silver and the Jimmy Brown white paper is available at MasonWorld.com/10ways.

So, I’ve been working on a number of things over the last couple weeks. I’ve been getting some sites ready for Christmas, I’ve been participating in Lynn Terry’s outstanding forum, and doing some live case studies over there in the private area of her forum. You can find that over at MasonWorld.com/lynn. I’ve been reading up on all the stuff going on with the FTC.

The FTC has come down with some new regulations that have a significant impact, or could have a significant impact on affiliate marketers and bloggers. So, what I thought I’d do today is we’ll go ahead and we’ll cover as planned the next internet business model, and the topic for today of course will be blogging.

We’ll talk about how people make money online blogging, talk about that works into the other models. Instead of doing our normal interview with a guru, I wanted to spend some time in the second segment of the show talking about my opinions on this FTC thing, what it means, what it should mean to you, whether or not you need to worry about it based on my opinion.

I say that because it is my opinion. I’m not an attorney, I don’t work for the FTC, I’m not a government official, I’m not any kind of expert. I have spent some time reading the relatively plain language that the FTC has put out, and I think we can talk about it. I can tell you what I’m going to do on my various affiliate blogs over the next couple of months trying to bring them up to the standard that the FTC has set.

With that, if you’re ready let’s get into the feature segment and talk about making money blogging.

It’s time for the feature segment.

The interesting thing about blogging is that you can be famous without needing to have an agent or any other kind of traditional media support. That’s the really amazing thing. You can see examples of how blogging is starting to equalize the playing field. Once upon a time, media was in control of information and that’s just simply no longer the case.

Everybody is a reporter, everyone can start up a blog, and everyone can start writing about whatever they want to write about. The fact of the matter is if you are popular as a blogger, you can actually make money doing it. A lot of people wonder about this. How can you do that?

We’ll talk about it. A lot of it will involved things that we’ve talked about before, ways to monetize traffic, because after all in internet marketing what we’re trying to do is get traffic however we can get it, however we choose to get it, make that traffic take some action that we want them to take, and have that action be monetizable.

In the case of blogging, we want to create great content on a blog that people care about, get them to read it, and in general take some action that is profitable for us. There are lots of actions that they could possibly take. They could make a donation to support the ongoing maintenance of your blog, they could see an ad that someone paid for, they could click on an affiliate link. We talked about affiliate marketing a couple episodes ago.

The bottom line is we want to get traffic, we want to convert that traffic into some kind of monetizable return. What better way to create traffic than to get a loyal base of readers that care about what you have to say and turn to you to keep up with things.

Of course, the most famous of all the bloggers probably is Perez Hilton, everybody knows about Perez. I don’t actually read that blog, but I know about it because I’m in internet marketing. The most famous blog that I know about that I actually read would be blogs like Yaro Starak, who runs a fantastic blogging course, or Problogger, or Copyblogger.

These blogs have enormous numbers of readers. You can look at them and see how they’re monetized. They’re monetized by advertisements, they’re monetized by affiliate sales, and if you look at the latter two blogs, Problogger and Copyblogger, and Yaro’s blog as well, they’re also monetized by the sale of their own products, by referring people into their own products.

I actually think this is the best use for a blog. When we get to talking about how to use a blog in your business in future episodes, we’re going to be talking about a blog as a way to identify prospects for your other products. We really won’t talk too much about a blog in and of itself.

But, if you’re a prolific writer and you love to write, there’s a topic that you’re very passionate about, it is certainly possible for you to create a blog, start an online business around that blog, get traffic, and monetize that traffic with current monetization methods that are out there available to you.

Before we start with too much information about how to build a blog, I guess we first ought to touch on what a blog is. That’s a question I get a lot of times from people who aren’t familiar with the internet, particularly people like my mom. I’ll talk about a blog and she’ll ask a question, “I’ve heard of these blogs. What are they exactly?”

You probably already know blog is short for web log, which implies this is sort of a journal, an online journal. I’d say the most interesting part of a blog, or the thing that makes a blog a blog is the fact that the content in the blog is organized primarily in chronological order.

Posts come in one at a time, articles are called posts in the blogging world. They come in one at a time and the newest one is always on top. They can be organized in other ways as well, you can usually search these blogs and a lot of times the posts are tagged so that common themes are put together. You can have categories for posts and so forth.

The primary thing that you’ll notice about most blogs is that when you arrive on the first page of a blog, what you’re going to see on the home page is what the author has written first. Now, there are lots of other formats for blogs. You can have magazine style blogs where multiple stories are on the home page.

You can go to MasonWorld.com, that’s an example of a blog that was designed by Garry Conn over at GarryConn.com. You can see my latest post right there on the blog. In fact, if you go to the blog immediately after the release of this podcast, you’ll see that the release of this podcast is the latest story on the front of the blog. That’s what makes a blog a blog.

The question is, if you want to blog, what do you need? First thing you need is you need to decide exactly what it is that you’re going to write about. I recommend personally that you write about something that you care about.

If you’re going to be a blogger and you’re going to make money blogging, and you’re not using this blog for niche marketing or some of the other things affiliate marketing that we’ve talked about, but you really want to become a well known author on a subject, you really need to think about whether it’s in your personality to blog about something day in and day out that you don’t care about.

I know I personally can’t do that. I’ve tried to do some blogging on topics that I don’t care about, and quite frankly I can’t get it done. That’s my first piece of advice to you.

My second piece of advice to you is to write about something that at least some people are going to care about. Maybe you care about one particular kind of koala bear that’s only found in some jungle in Southeast Asia, and you are some kind of biologist and you’re the world’s leading expert in that.

That might just be fine for you to write about that, but I’m going to tell you as cute as koala bears are, there’s just not going to be that many people that care about your koala bear blog. Especially if it’s specific to one variety of koala bear in Southeast Asia.

On the other hand, if what you really care about is the Dallas Cowboys or some other kind of broad topic like cars, racing, weight loss, how to have a happy life, how to fix relationships, how to manage debt, one of these topics that’s very important and big in the news, you have a real opportunity to get a lot of readers.

The flip side of that is some of those areas are very competitive and like choosing any niche in internet marketing you’re going to want to narrow that done. But, the fundamental thing is that you need to write about something that you care about and some number of other people are going to care about as well.

Then once you’ve decided that you’ve got a topic and you are going to have a blog that people are going to care about, you need to register a domain name. My recommendation on the registration of domain names for blogs, where blogging is your ideal target market, that’s really what you’re going after you’re trying to be a blogger is to register a name that people can remember.

You want a name that rolls off of people’s tongue, like Problogger, Copyblogger, or something that people can remember and just type in at the command line, because you want that word of mouth opportunity. Do you want search engine traffic? Absolutely. But, the domain name doesn’t weigh that heavily on the search engine traffic. I know we haven’t talked about search engines a lot, but we will in future episodes. For now, if you’re going to be a blogger, I definitely recommend that you register a catchy domain name to call your blog.

The next thing you’re going to need is some blogging software. Of course, there isn’t any option here that I would recommend over WordPress. There are two versions of WordPress. There’s WordPress.org and WordPress.com. There’s actually a third thing called WordPress MU, we’re not going to worry about that today. That’s multiuser version of WordPress.

WordPress.com is software that allows you to host a blog on the WordPress site itself. So, you might end up with something like redsocks.wordpress.com for your blog on red socks. WordPress.org is the same software, very similar software, that you host on your own domain. I’m strongly recommending that option.

You definitely want to host the blog on your own domain. You need to be in control of your own destiny. WordPress.com is going to limit some of the things that they’re going to allow you to do some of the kinds of advertising that you can have on your blog and so forth. So, you definitely want to focus on a WordPress.org installed on your own domain.

Now, if you need hosting currently I am recommend a special host that has a one penny first month and easy set up of WordPress. You can find that recommendation at MasonWorld.com/host. But, the bottom line is your website needs a place to live, that’s going to cost you a few dollars a month. I recommend that you check that host out at MasonWorld.com/host. That’s my latest and best current recommendation for where to host your website.

Once you’ve got your blog up and running really what you need to do is write. We can talk in some more detail at a later date about how to choose things to write about, how to pick posts that will capture your reader’s attention, how to write pillar content that you can rank for in the search engines that people will come back to and link to, and drive traffic to your site. But, the bottom line is you need to write and you need to write a lot.

You need to create a posting schedule, you need to write regularly. One of the things, just like with this podcast that your readers are going to want to see is the regular creation of content on a predictable schedule. So, you need to write early, write often, but most importantly you want to write on the same schedule all the time. Maybe for you that’s once a week, maybe it’s once a day. Whatever your schedule is you need to kind of fall into it and stick with it.

One thing that you’ll find is that a lot of people start a blog, they find out that it’s not for them, then they fade out and the blog just dies because they never spend time on it. So, really get committed to your schedule in the beginning and get your blog going.

Once you’ve got your blog up and going, you have several options for monetizing that blog. You’ve got what could be described as direct monetization options and indirect monetization options. Now, direct options are the kind of things that you might think of automatically, like advertising.

You can put contextual ads on your blog, like Adsense, where the words that you write on the page effect which ads actually show up. You can put on different kinds of blogging ads and textual ads. There are all kinds of ad systems, and a lot of these are covered in the Silver book. That chapter on blogging is actually written by Darren Rowse, he’s a very famous blogger with lots of good things to say about blogging. Definitely recommend you check out that section in the Silver book.

You can also get your blog sponsored. Let’s say that you have a BMW fan blog where you talk about BMWs and all the things that are great about them. Maybe BMW wants to sponsor your blog.

You can also make money on your blog just by having a donation button. Maybe you’re providing helpful information to people. There aren’t really products to sell, but you’re helping people with relationships, or helping them fix their computer, or whatever it might be. They’re so thrilled that they might want to leave you a buck or two, the sort of “buy me a beer” click button that you can have with Paypal or other service to leave a donation.

There’s other direct methods. You can have merchandise, like CafePress t-shirts. You can even sell subscriptions to premium content on your blog. If you’ve got a blog where you talk in general about most stuff, but then you’ve got a premium side to the blog where people can get even more content if they pay you a monthly fee, that can work as well.

Now, one thing that you can use your blog for is for indirect methods of monetization. Let’s say that you’re blogging, but really your goal is to drive traffic to your consulting business or to get other types of indirect monetization, like other writing gigs or photography gigs if you have a photography blog. That’s an indirect way you can monetize your blog.

That’s kind of interesting, because if you’re already doing something, like you have some sort of business, a real brick and mortar business and you want to enhance that business, you can start a blog in your area of expertise, become an expert, drive traffic to your business and also leverage the information and knowledge that you already have in your online business against your offline business and vice versa.

Nothing says that just because you’re an expert offline in a local market that you can’t become an expert online in a national market, or maybe even in a world market. In fact, the fact that you are already an expert offline can make you a very good blogger online.

That should give you an idea about blogging. If you’re interested in blogging, I recommend that you go to get some hosting. One place is MasonWorld.com/host. You can find out all about that and be up and running with a blog this afternoon. That takes care of bloggings, that’s our next method for making money on the internet. Now, let’s talk a little bit about the FTC.

Let’s talk about the FTC . So, the FTC on the 5^th of October released some final guides governing endorsements and testimonials. You can find a link to this on FTC.gov. I’ll put the link in the show notes. Basically, the guidance is pretty short.

Before we talk about it, let me reiterate the disclaimer just so we’re really clear. I am just a regular person reading the output from the FTC. I am not an FTC expert, I am not an attorney, I do not play an attorney on TV. So, I am not qualified expert to advise you on what you need to do.

If you can’t deal with that, you need to turn off your iPod right now, because I’m not responsible for what impact my advice has on your business, you are. as long as you understand that, we’re cool. I’m going to tell what I think and what I’m going to do. You need to make your own decisions about what you’re going to do. Enough of the disclaimer.

Basically, this guideline really it only had about seven or eight paragraphs. I think eight paragraphs. The first paragraph really just deals with the fact that they indicate that they’re making an announcement. Now, what they’re announcing is guidance to advertisers. This isn’t law that they’ve put out, basically it’s the FTC’s guidance on how to deal with existing FTC regulations.

What they say in the second paragraph is that there are several changes incorporated into the guides for advertisers. Those guides were last updated in 1980. So, that’s a pretty striking thing right there. The amount of stuff that’s happened on the internet since 1980 is enormous, so it’s no surprise that it’s time to update some of this stuff.

Really they only cover three things that impact advertising in this announcement, and only two of them impact internet marketers, in my opinion. One thing that they’ve said is that any time there’s an endorsement by a consumer, an expert, an organization, or a celebrity that indicates that they’re a consumer of a product, any kind of endorsement, “I used this product and I got a result.”

We all use testimonials in our internet marketing products. Any time you use a testimonial that claims a result you are required to clearly state what the user can actually expect. So, let’s say I use a weight loss product and I give a testimonial that I lost 105 pounds. But, my results are not typical. It used to be good enough to say, “These results are not typical.” Your mileage may vary, that’s what the car people say.

Well, that’s no longer acceptable according to this FTC guidance. What must be done now is that you must state what the average user would expect. To me that means that very simply if 1,000 people take a weight loss pill, and one of them loses 80 pounds, but most of them don’t lose any weight, you’ve got to report the average of what those other people are doing.

In some cases it’s not even clear to me how you’re going to ever know that. How are you going to know the average results of what your customers are doing? But, that’s what the FTC is claiming.

Now the question is what is Mark Mason going to do? Well, I’ll give you a concrete example that I’m concerned about. I have a product called Niche Adsense Themes, it’s over at NicheAdsenseThemes.com. I am aware of the fact recently that someone using my themes, they’re themes for Adsense, someone using my themes was able to use those themes to generate some ridiculous amount of money per month. I think 1,000 dollars per month using article marketing and my themes in a mortgage site they were able to generate a site relatively quickly that made them something on the order of 1,000 dollars per month.

This is well documented over at Site Point. You can go look over at Site Point and find this thing. I was going to get that guy to offer me a testimonial that says, “Using your themes I was able to make 1,000 dollars a month.” Well, guess what folks? Those results aren’t typical. I’ve never had a customer come to me, besides this guy and say that they were able to make 1,000 dollars a month using my themes.

So, that’s not a typical result. For me to use that testimonial like I was planning to, I’m going to have to now say, “These results are not typical. The average user that uses my themes never makes any money at all.” Why? Because like with most internet products people don’t use them. They download them, throw them on their hard drive.

You might be able to say the average user who actually does what is recommended in the product and follows the program has a certain results. Quite frankly, I don’t know that result. So, my plan is to not mess with using testimonials that guarantee results or that talk about results at all. I will use testimonials like I have typically used where people talk about how they liked the product, they think it’s wonderful, but I won’t use any testimonials that talk about specific results.

That just opens me up to too much uncertainty. I don’t know other people’s results, I don’t have any way to verify, so I’m not going to use those. That’s my simple answer to that.

The second thing that’s covered in the FTC bulletin has to do with disclosing material relationships. That’s the next paragraph. Basically, what they say is something that should make sense to you. If you’re recommending a product to someone and you make money if they buy it, you need to tell people that, because if you have a financial incentive to recommend a product that can bias your recommendation and people deserve to know that.

Guess what folks? I know a lot of people aren’t doing this and I am not rigorous about doing it on my own blog, although I do have a very clear disclosure page. I’m not sure that’s enough in this case, but we need to be doing this. If I recommend to you, XYZ product, like I have even earlier in this podcast and you buy that product based on my recommendation I make money and you deserve to know that.

So, what am I going to do? Well, I’m going to do a couple of things. One thing that I’m going to do is make sure that every blog that I have that recommends a product has a disclosure page prominently displayed for the users to look at that says something along the lines of products recommended on this blog result in the generation of commissions. If you buy a recommended product, it’s likely that I’m going to get a commission.

You can see something like that on the MasonWorld.com blog, I have a disclosure page. I’ll also link to it in the notes. It’s not great. I plan to update it. it was my previous attempt of being transparent, and I plan to put that on all my blogs.

My personal opinion is that that’s not really going to be enough. Just having that disclosure page buried somewhere on your site is not going to be enough. We’re going to have to be more up front. I plan on actually adding something in my signature at the bottom of every post, or something that discloses the fact that I am using affiliate links when I recommend products.

I plan to be completely transparent. I’m going to take any chances on this one, because not only do I think that’s what the FTC is trying to get at, I also believe that they’re on the right track. I think it’s really important for some person who doesn’t really understand internet marketing, doesn’t understand the idea of affiliate links to know that when I recommend a product like FirePow, for example, which I’ve recommend many times, that I get a commission if you buy FirePow. That’s really what I think the right thing to do is.

The next paragraph in the FTC statement talks about celebrity endorsements. I don’t have that problem. Of course, I did have Lynn Terry on here a couple weeks ago, so she’s kind of a celebrity. But, seriously, I think celebrity endorsements are not a problem that most of us are going to face, but it’s covered in there as well.

That’s pretty much, from my perspective at least, all that’s covered in that announcement. You will see some gibberish at the bottom about how this is not actual law, about how this is the FTC’s guidelines on how to comply with existing law. There’s a burden for the FTC to prove that you’re breaking the law.

But, the bottom line is that thing really talks about three issues and those are celebrity endorsements, material connections between authors and the products that they recommend, and the first thing that we talked about, which was the fact that if you have testimonials you need to disclose average results.

Now, let me reiterate that I am not an attorney and I am not giving you advice here. I’ve just told you what I’m going to do. You need to do whatever you’re going to do.

Here’s another thing that I think is true. If you are trying to deceive people or you doing something that is going to cause people to be upset, if you misrepresent a product or you do something that causes people to be dissatisfied with the product that they bought, what are they going to do? Well, they are going to potentially file a complaint with the FTC.

What’s the FTC going to do? One thing that they can do is they’re going to look at your websites and see whether or not you’re in compliance. So, what’s the best way to keep the FTC out of your business? The best way to keep the FTC out of your business is not to do things on your websites that mislead or take advantage of your customers. Who are your customers? Even if you’re an affiliate marketer your customers are the people who come by your websites.

So, that’s the right way to think about this stuff. If you do things that respect the value of your readers or the people that are clicking around your blog you’re a lot less likely to have trouble with the FTC. That’s really the bottom line on this whole mess. You need to look out for the customers of the products that you’re recommending and endorsing.

That wraps it up for today. I am actually getting on a plane and heading out to Asia in a few hours. I’ll be going to Taiwan and to Korea on this trip. I’m glad to have this in the can and out on the website prior to take off on that long trip. I’ll be back in two weeks with another episode. Until then, I hope you have a fantastic day and a great week. Take care.

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.

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

It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie. Last night I had Jalapeno Chicken and fried rice. Basically, I call this "Texas Chinese Food." It was really spicy hot, and that explains this week's cookie that talks about a hot new blog from Garry Conn.

The Cookie Speaks The Truth

As you know, everything you need to know about running an internet business can be learned from fortune cookies. This week The Cookie has obviously been surfing the Internet.

Hear The Cookie:
"Big things come in small packages."

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that I got a small little email from Niche Blog and AdSense Guru Garry Conn last weekend announcing his Next Big Thing -- a new blog!

Garry has launched BloggingQuestions.com, a blog where you can go to get your questions about blogging answered by the blogging community.  Here's how it works (in Garrys' words):

How the blog works is very simple:

People can follow or subscribe to the blog and read newly asked questions or even archived ones. Because these questions have been asked by readers such as yourself, it is very likely that you will have a personal interest in the questions being asked and the answers that go with them.

The part that makes BloggingQuestions.com "one of a kind" and totally unique is the fact your questions are welcomed! There is no such thing as a stupid question on BloggingQuestions.com. You are invited to ask your own questions! Simply create a free account and post your question LIVE on the blog. From there people who read the blog (including myself) can provide you with answers by using the comment form.

Besides being the coolest domain name that I have seen in a long time, this promises to be a great resource for bloggers.  Truly, a big thing in a small package.

The Cookie Speaks About Value -- Follow The Cookie

One of the things that I like about Garry is that he really tries to help people.  Sometimes, he does this to a fault, and people take advantage of him (you know who you are).

When I was just starting out working on MasonWorld.com, Garry took tons of his own time to help me.  This new BloggingQuestions.com blog is another great example of Garry's willingness to lend a hand.  Pay attention -- Garry builds trust and gives people something in exchange for their participation in his business.

As a side note -- I think Garry has a cousin or someone like that who works at GoDaddy.  That is the only way I can explain how he gets these killer domain names.

So, listen to the cookie.   Watch out for the small packages.  There may be something big in there.  Check out BloggingQuestions.com today.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

For those of you that are interested in building niche sites for AdSense revenue, I wanted to let you know that I will be moving my focus back to niche site creation for the month of October.  My goal in October will be to end the month with 30 niche AdSense sites up and running and promoted.

I got motivated to do this after finally getting a look inside FirePow.  This is a really cool tool that should make it possible to create and promote niche blogs quickly.

I'll be doing lots of the following in October:

• Niche keyword research
• Buying domain names
• Setting up niche blogs
• Creating content
• Outsourcing content creation
• Article Marketing
• Social media promotion
• etc.

Some of the 30 blogs will be brand new, and some will be brought back to life (like the Elvis Blog).  My old readers will remember that one.  Others will live on domains that I have already purchased that are currently idle.

I'll try to report my progress as I move along.

My plan is to get to 30 blogs up and generating AdSense revenue and stay there for a while, touching 1 blog a day each month for about an hour.  On Monday, I'll post some additional information on my October Blog Blitz.

Let me know if you have any questions about niche blogging and I will try to answer them in October.

Thanks,
Mark

I have been working on the release of a new eBook using Jonathan Legers $7 Secrets approach, and in doing that work, I ran across this checklist for eBook creation.  I am publishing it here.  I hope you enjoy it.

Checklist: How to Create & Sell your Own eBooks

Is the thought of selling your own product intriguing but also overwhelming at the same time? Here is a checklist to get you started.

1. Research your target market & come up with an idea for your product.

I could go into great detail on this step, but I’ll make it short and sweet. The following three criteria must be met. Choose a topic where…

• People are looking for information.
• They are willing to spend money on that information.
• You, personally, are at least moderately interested and knowledgeable about this topic.

Although the third point is optional, I recommend it if you are going to stay interested and motivated to promote your ebooks for months and years to come. You have the option of choosing something you love or something that is popular. Make work fun by choosing a market that you enjoy.

Here are some ideas for you…

• Weight Loss and Dieting
• Health (or fixing health problems)
• Fitness and Exercise (lifting things that are drooping and tightening things that are sagging)
• Looking good (reversing aging, removing hair, keeping hair, etc.)
• Relationships (finding then, keeping them, getting over them)
• Making Money (online or offline, small business, finding jobs, etc)
• Saving Money
• Parenting problems/concerns

2. Purchase a Domain name.

Important things to keep in mind when choosing a URL are:

• Make it memorable.
• Make it short.
• No numbers or dashes.
• Easy to spell.
• Descriptive of your product.
• It should end in a .com (not a .net, .org, or .biz – unless you have a darned good reason to do so)

Also, if this is going to be your main site, be sure to buy any similar domains to protect your branding.

You can buy your domain names anywhere, but I recommend: www.GoDaddy.com or www.NameCheap.com.

3. Purchase Hosting.

I recommend ServInt for many reasons, including:

• Excellent customer service.
• Reliable uptime.

4. Load autoresponder/set up squeeze page while developing product.

The best autoresponder, in my opinion, is this one.

This autoresponder will manage multiple ecourses and lists, including your customers and affiliates. It will grow with your business.

If you don’t have a squeeze page, you can start with one at www.MostlySanePLR.com

By setting up your squeeze page first, you can start to develop a list of people interested in your topic. That will help you later when you launch – you'll have an instant boost for your new product.

5. Develop product.

Don’t know how? Here are some options…

If you can write 7-15 pages on your topic, I recommend that you grab the free report on this page - www.SmallReportsFortune.com

Take a shortcut by buying Resale Rights products. You can find some here:

www.srzone.com/rights.html

www.FullTimeWAHM.com (includes resale rights)

www.BeginnerCoach.com (also includes resale rights)

http://easyplr.com/resale.htm (great reports with rights)

OR

Start with PLR content. Here are some places to look…

www.EasyPLR.com

www.JustPLRcontent.com

www.easyplr.com/bestplr.htm

OR

Record an interview with an expert, have it transcribed and sell it. It's really easy if you use www.audioacrobat.com

OR

Hire a ghostwriter to create a custom product for you.

6. Order graphics or create them yourself.

You’ll need, at the bare minimum, an ecover for your product and at least one banner and button to promote it. A professional header or mini-site design can also convey a professional image.

7. Create sales page.

This is a highly important piece.

For best results, unless you have studied copywriting, I recommend that you hire a skilled writer to draft it for you.

You can find skilled writers at elance.com or www.Shelancers.com

8. Create thank you/download page.

Your download page should contain a few basic pieces:

• Who you are
• How to contact you
• Download instructions
• Download links (of course)
• What company name will show up on their paypal statement or credit card statement.
• Any bonuses they were promised and how to claim them.

9. Load the sales page, thank you page, & product to site.

If you’ve never done this before, you can either outsource the task or use a free program like www.smartftp.com

10. Decide on payment processor. (Figure out how you’re getting paid.)

Here are some popular options to choose from:

• Clickbank - click here for info (Very easy to use and popular for that reason.)
• Paydotcom - click here for info
• E-junkies - click here for info
• 1ShoppingCart - click here for info (Much more control & room for growth. More hands-on.)
• WAHMCart - click here for info (Similar to 1ShoppingCart, but more affordable.)

If all of those options sound overwhelming right now, then a simple paypal button will work just fine for now.

11. Once the pages are loaded, notify your lists. (Tell your friends.)
Contact the following people about the product:

• Your leads lists.
• Your customer lists.
• Your JV partners

If you don’t have lists, don’t panic. Just move ahead to the next step. Although... I do recommend that you read the free report at www.ListProfitSystem.com to learn more about list marketing.

12. Create affiliate tools and notify your affiliates. (Get your Sales Army on the March.)

If you have affiliates, TELL them about your new product and let them promote it for you. Why not have your team of affiliates promoting it for you?

Recommendation: Sign up for the free ecourse at www.SalesArmySecrets.com right away if your affiliate program needs serious help.

The very basic tools that you’ll need are…

1. Banners & buttons
2. Articles
3. Solo ads
4. Text ads

But, of course, there are many more tools that you’ll wish to offer. Just get started with these.

13. Continue promoting your new product. (Market the heck out of it.)

Don’t forget to promote the report like you would any of your other products.

• article marketing
• pay per click
• ezine ads
• forum marketing
• SEO
• web 2.0/social networking

And anything else that you’d normally do to sell your products.

You can certainly outsource many of these activities and/or train your affiliates to do them for you!

14. Start researching your next product. (Rinse and Repeat.)

Go back to #1 and do it all over again.

Does this sound like an insurmountable task? Don’t panic. I recommend that you check out www.OutsourceWeekly.com for a step-by-step course that will show you how to easily and effectively outsource many of these tasks – and increase your income in the process.

So far on our journey to build the Niche Super-Site we have discussed:

• Definition of the Niche Super-Site case study
• List of Niche Super-Site design goals
• How to select your niche
• Choosing your keywords.

Remember, our overall goal is to build a niche site that returns $2/day in residual income.

Today, we pick a domain name.

I think that domain names are of limited importance for SEO. Why do I feel that way? Search for "California Surfing" in Google. What do you see? You see none of the page 1 results contains both california and surfing in the domain name. Some have surf or surfing, though. So, while it can be helpful to get some keywords in the domain name, it does not seem to be critical to get them all.

I think that Dosh Dosh has this about right. To select a domain name, you need to:

• Determine what kind of blog you will have (we did that)
• Research keywords (we did that too)
• Brainstorm for domain names
• Check availability
• Register an available name

You will recall that our keyword search showed that people want to know about history of Elvis -- they are searching for elvis presley "history, born, death, funeral, etc.". Some quick brainstorming get you stuff like historyofelvispresley.com. As expected, a quick domain name search reveals that "historyofelvispresley.com" is not available.   Like Dosh Dosh, I tend to use either AjaxWhois or DomainBot to check name availability.  I tend to buy my domains from ServInt (they host this blog), and you can also check domain name availability there.   More on hosting tomorrow.

For now, we need to check some other names.  And, as if by magic, historyofelvis.com is available. Or, it was available. I own it now.So, based on our results, we have spent about the right amount of time selecting a niche domain name: http://www.historyofelvis.com. It has two of our keywords (history and elvis). In a few days, that will be up and running with our new niche site.

See you tomorrow, when we can talk about registering our domain name and choosing a web host for our site.  For that, we're going to rely heavily on Caroline Middlebrook's excellent eBook on building niche sites.

Welcome to a page in the MasonWorld Internet Marketing Dictionary.

Want to add to one of the definitions below? Or perhaps something you were looking for was not here? Just leave a comment below. I hope you find this resource useful.

Regards,
Mark

Decide and Act

Many Internet marketers have a tendency to inflate the importance of certain decisions. Don’t fall into this trap. Instead, get into the habit of making decisions quickly; and then acting.

Detach Yourself Emotionally from Your Plans

As with any business venture, it is important that you detach yourself emotionally from your plans. If you decide to do something and it doesn’t pan out as you had expected, then let go of it and move on. Don’t let your emotional attachment to bad plans ruin your chance at success.

Do What Gurus Do—Not What They Say

Instead of doing what gurus tell you to do, pay attention to what they do. Think about how it is that they’ve captured such a large audience. Also, consider how it is that they’ve become so successful in their niche. And then emulate these features in your own business.

Don’t Be Afraid to Differentiate Your Business

Often, new Internet marketers are afraid to differentiate themselves and their businesses from competitors. As a result, they create a lifeless, boring business that proves to be entirely unmemorable to visitors. Don’t make this mistake. Give your business a personality that attracts people; and allows them to remember you.

Don’t Burn Bridges Unnecessarily

As a general rule of thumb, burning bridges is bad when it comes to business. Unless you have a very good reason for doing so, you should never burn a bridge with a joint venture partner. Instead, try to end the partnership amicably to avoid backlash and negative word-of-mouth feedback.

Don’t Burn Yourself Out

When it comes to running your own business, it is all too easy to put in long hours and burn yourself out. Don’t do this. When your work is done for the night, go to bed, get some sleep, and then come back the following day well-rested.

Don’t Buy Everything

Many new Internet marketers end up going on a buying frenzy at some point. They buy ebooks, software, private label products, membership site subscriptions, and a wide variety of marketing tools. Unfortunately, they also frequently do not use most of what they buy. Don’t go bankrupt for such a foolish reason. Spend wisely; and use what you buy.

Don’t Follow the Crowd

If you read a marketing forum at any point in time, you’ll notice that a large flock of people are repeatedly posting about similar subjects. They’ve latched onto a fad; and they’ve decided that it is the only way to make money. Don’t fall into this trap. These fads often aren’t profitable—and, even if they were, they won’t be when everyone is doing it. So, unless there’s a good reason to do so, don’t follow the crowd.

Don’t Listen to Everyone

In Internet marketing, many offer advice who haven’t experienced success through the plans they suggest. For this reason, be careful who you accept advice from.

Don’t Ruin Your Credibility on Forums

When it comes to using forums to market your products, your credibility is vital. If forum readers perceive you as credible, they’ll follow your links, read your posts carefully, and consider your offers. If you squander credibility my making stupid posts to increase your post count or by spamming the forum, people will quickly lose interest in you and your business.

Don’t Spam Your Email Lists

Internet marketers often mistake the mistake of spamming their email lists. That is—as soon as they acquire an email address, they send it a deluge of emails (both “informative ones” and ones that sell products). The end result is that leads get turned off and unsubscribe or stop paying attention. Make sure you don’t do this to your list.

Don’t Waste Time

If you find yourself spending hours each day surfing the Internet when you’re technically “working on your business,” then it’s time to re-evaluate your priorities. If you truly want to spend that time surfing the net, then continue to do so. But if not, then you may want to keeping work and leisure separate. When you’re at work, do work only. But if you get burnt out, then take a break and do something you enjoy, rather than wasting time doing something you don’t enjoy and counting it as “work.”