Hey there;

If you have not heard, Andrew released Firepow 2.o.  It is really awesome -- but I have talked about the greatness of Firepow before, so I will not bore you with that again here.

Firepow Discount Coupon

If you are considering ordering Firepow 2.0, use this link and coupon code to get a $10/month discount.  As far as I know, this is the cheapest price available on the internet as of this writing.

Link:  http://www.masonworld.com/recommends/firepow

Code:  mason

Enjoy Firepow.  It totally rocks.

Thanks,
Mark

"Tired Of Having Tools But No System...

Or

A Great System But Terrible Tools?

Have I Got A Deal For You."

Look, I am going to make this really simple with no fluff.  I get very excited when I am able to talk about products that I believe in.

Today I am going to put two tools together just for you that work better together than a lever and a fulcrum.  With these two tools, you will literally be able to move the world.

Firepow -- The Tool

As you know, I believe in Firepow, and that is why I began by offering a Firepow discount coupon in October. Just last week I spoke with Andrew by email and negotiated an even better $360 Firepow discount for MasonWorld readers.  That is really a great deal all by itself, because Firepow is an amazing tool.

But at the end of the day, it is just a tool.  It's an amazing tool, but it is just a tool.  If you do nothing with it, it makes you no money.

You need a system.

The challenge is, Firepow is not cheap.  I did not want to recommend it to you unless I could be sure that you could use it to make money online.  While I have checked it out thoroughly and used it and have been very impressed with it, I have not used it enough to show you hard evidence of the profit potential.

Until now.  Until I met Colleen.

Blog Inferno -- The System

Then the other day, Colleen Slater hit me with Blog Inferno.  It is basically the ultimate success manual for Firepow.  The main product is a 140 page eBook - a step-by-step guide.  I read it from cover to cover and could not put it down.

Colleen is making $140,000 a year using Firepow, and she describes everything in her system in one eBook.  Not only that, she gives you everything you need to be successful in the form of  12 (count 'em twelve) bonuses.  You even get task lists and mind maps.  Everything you need to duplicate her success.

It took me 20 minutes just to download all the stuff she includes with the package.

If ever there was a system to follow to make money online, this is the one.  It's all there.

The cool thing about Colleen's Blog Inferno system is that Firepow is not required.  In fact, Colleen was already making money online without Firepow.  Using Firepow improved her profits dramatically.

That was the proof I needed.   Now for the deal that I have set up for you.

The Ultimate Firepow Blog Inferno Deal

OK -- here is the deal.  It is really simple.  I really believe that if you want to make money online with niche marketing, you can do it with Firepow and Blog Inferno together.  And, to prove it to you, I am willing to put my money where my mouth is.

If you buy these products through my affiliate link according to the terms below, I will reimburse you for your copy of Blog Inferno subject to the terms below.

That's right, I will pay for your copy of  Blog Inferno.

Here is the deal:

1.  You read and understand the Firepow sales page, especially the 60 day guarantee offered by Andrew.

2.  You sign up for Firepow under my affiliate link (required) and get the $360 discount (coupon code mason).  I recommend that you clear your cookies first and then confirm this with me by email after your purchase.  You must purchase through my affiliate link to qualify.

3.  You buy Blog Inferno through my affiliate link (required).  I recommend that you confirm this with me by email after your purchase.  You must purchase through my affiliate link to qualify.

4.  I will email you confirming your eligibility for this offer based on confirming your purchases.

5.  61 Days later, if you have not refunded either of the 2 products, I will send you $47 rebate via Paypal payment to cover the cost of Blog Inferno.

Of course, if you are not completely satisfied with either product, you can exercise your right to a refund.  If you do that, of course our deal is off (makes sense).

The Bottom Line:

If you buy Firepow though my affiliate link, I make a little money (you knew that).  It's really that simple.  If you make money with Firepow, you stay subscribed, and I make a little more money.  Not rocket science.

So, it is in both of our best interests for you to make money with Firepow.  The best way to do that is with Collene's Blog Inferno -- so I am giving that to you as described above.

Steven Covey calls this "Win-Win."

So, What In The World Are You Wating For?

Holler if you have questions.

Regards,

Mark

This offer is currently available (last updated 12/15/08).

This offer may expire any time without notice.

Disclaimer:  Just like with any business, whether or not you make money depends on many factors, including your work ethic and skill.  Because of that, I cannot guarentee that you will make money with Firepow or any other online tool.  If you accept this offer, you agree not to hold Mark Mason or MasonWorld.com responsible for any outcomes or consequences of your decisions.

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.

For the last few weeks we have been taking a look inside of Firepow.   Today we are going to sneak a peak at the options and features in the Firepow blogging software by browsing the Firepow menus.

Don't forget, if you are interested in Firepow, I have arranged for a $300 Firepow Discount for Masonworld.com readers.

This is the second video in the series.  The first Firepow video is an overview of the Firepow home page, and describes what major features are available in the Firepow system.  In this video, I log into Firepow and take you through the menu items so that you can get a detailed idea of the features.

The more I work with Firepow, the more I like it.

I hope you enjoy the video.

Regards,
Mark

Several weeks ago, I promised you a look inside of Firepow.  Well, I have finally gotten caught up enough to make that happen.  So, over the next couple of weeks (between now and the end of the month), I will be posting some video about Firepow so you can get a better idea what it is all about.

Don't forget, if you are interested in Firepow, I have arranged for a $300 Firepow Discount for Masonworld.com readers.

This first video is an overview of the Firepow home page, and describes what major features are available in the Firepow system.

Enjoy, and don't forget to leave me some feedback.

Thanks,
Mark

Hey -- hope you are having a great day, and are enjoying my daily post frenzy that I started on Thursday with my post on the importance of lists.    I'll be posting daily for the next few days (possibly longer) and then it will be back to my normal 3 posts per week (Monday, Wed Friday).  We'll see how that goes in November.  So much to do, and so little time.

October Was A Crazy Month

If you have been following my over the last month, you know I am working on three main projects at the moment.  It can be a bit confusing at times, so I wanted to update you on the status:

1. Build 30 quality "AdSense sites" in a variety of niches. This whole thing was motivated by my post about how to make $5000/month on line.  Now, I am calling these AdSense sites, but, in reality I have decided to add a variety of monetization options including eBay links (using the phpBay bay plugin), some ads through the PepperJam affiliate network and other affiliate offers.  Instead of 30 "AdSense sites," this will result in 30 "mini-authority" sites.    I call them "mini-Authority" because they will not have high frequency original content.  Rather, there will be a mix of content from a variety of sources presented in a useful way.  Status:  all 30 domains are purchased and up and running.  About 15 sites are actually running and some are generating a little revenue. I think I sould be able to "finish" them and drip back to 1 hour of work per site per month by December.  We'll see.
2. Full evaluation of Firepow. In building these sites, I realized that Firepow might be just the tool that I need to make this happen.  I have been helping Andrew's team beta-test Blog Import into Firepow (which is working for me in most cases).   Now that that is complete, I plan to get back to blogging about Firepow late next week.  Don't forget that I have arranged for a $300 Firepow discount for you if you cannot wait for my complete review and recommendation.
3. Build my email list using $7 Secrets. This is the big distraction for me at the moment.  I was so impressed with Josh Spaulding's New Age Email Marketing report, that I decided to move the management of my email lists to his "formula."  Part of that experiment involves growing the list, and that means I needed to write a great ebook to offer for sale for $7 as recommended in $7 Secrets.  That eBook is complete, and will launch Tuesday here on MasonWorld.com. If you have not read Josh's report, I recommend it (it is only $7, as you might expect).

So, that is what is going on at the moment.

Hope that clears things up a bit.

By the way, things are likely to get worse before they get better.

I have learned a lot of tricks building these 30 sites (and others before them), and before the end of the year, I will be launching a new Niche Site Building service. If you are interested, you can see the current sales copy at http://www.nichesitenow.com.

Also, am hoping to do a PPC experiment with one of my internet marketing buddies before the end of the year.  As you may remember, I purchased Commission Blueprint, and I am itching to try out PPC.

So, hang in there -- lots of stuff to come before the end of the year.

Thanks,
Mark

One thing I know for sure about Google search engine rankings is that it is just about impossible to know anything for sure about Google search engine rankings.   Sometimes, it's good to know what you don't know.

How Google decides what websites appear on the front page for any particular search term is like the formula for Coke or the recipe for Kentucky Fried Chicken -- it's a secret.  We know Coke has caramel in it, but the exact recipe is classified.  The difference between Coke and Google is that the formula for Coke never changes (they tried that once -- what a disaster).  In fact, the formula for Google SERPs is changing periodically as Google works to improve the experience for end users.

Of course, what you hear all the time on blogs just like this one are "stories" about what people did on their web site for their keywords that resulted in page one rankings.  I call this anecdotal evidence. It's usually very interesting, but it is almost never conclusive.  Just because someone got a page one ranking by including their keywords in the footer of their pages in flashing pink with a blue background, does not mean that you will get the same result.

So, let me tell you an anecdote about Google page rank.

Backlinks Do Seem To Be Important

However, some themes keep coming out.  For example, we are pretty sure that Google pays attention to backlinks when determining ranking.  We believe this for at least four reasons:

• The Google search engine was originally called "BackRub" (a reference to the use of backlinks in their algorithm).
• Google Page Rank patents discuss backlinks
• Matt Cutts talks about certain backlinks being important in various blog posts and forums
• We see anecdotal evidence of the importance of backlinks

So it's that last point that I want to talk about today.  I have some anecdotal evidence I want to share.

My PR2 Website

Last January I created a site for my wife called PalsLoft.com.  My wife was going to blog about our new baby and review various baby products.  I got the site up with some bad graphics and posted two sample affilaite landing pages complete with eBay affiliate links and some text.  The home page (where the weekly blog posts were going to live) was basically empty.

Note -- I plan to work on this site some soon, so by the time you read this, it may have changed.  Here is a screen shot of what the site looked line for about nine months between February and October 2008.

To get the site going, I submitted the URL to a directory link submission service.  This particular service submitted links to "brand new directories" as they were announced in Digital Point Forums.   So the backlinks that were created from this service were pretty crummy.  They came from link directories (bad) that had no authority (worse) and were brand spankin' new (terrible).  Basically, they were junk links.

After about a month of that, I forgot about the site.  I ended up with about 70 backlinks.  I literally never touched the site after January of 2008.   Earlier this month, I checked the site and found that the empty home page was PR2 (toolbar PR), and both of the two pages linked from the home page are PR1.  Go figure.  Here is a site that has little real content and Google is ranking it as PR2.  So much for content is King.

So What?  Who Cares About A Toolbar PR2 Ranking

So, what is that worth?  Who cares about a toolbar PR2 site with no content?  Well, as I stated before, it is only anecdotal evidence.  But, it suggests that tools like Firepow, 1WayLinks and 3WayLinks that provide quality links might be worth the investment -- at least in terms of getting page rank.  The problem is, page rank does not convert directly to sales.  Traffic converts to sales.  Is this page rank converting?

Well, I am embarrassed to say that I never finished adding Google Analytics to the site, or properly set up the Commission Junction ID to track clicks and sales.  But, the AWStats seem to suggest that there is some traffic there, and that it has been growing over time.

The Bottom Line on Backlinks

The bottom line -- Build Backlinks.  But you knew that already.  If you are working on sites, your promotion strategy needs to include a backlink plan.   Based on this traffic data, I conclude that tools like Firepow, 1WayLinks and 3WayLinks that provide backlinks links might be worth the investment -- but you need to evaluate this for yourself on your own site.  As I mentioned before, the above evidence is anecdotal, and your mileage may vary.

I am a little behind on my commitment to blog all week about Firepow, but don't worry.  I will get all of the information out there and answer all of your questions -- even if it stretches into the weekend.

To be completely honest with you, the first time that I saw Firepow, I wondered what in the world could be worth $100/month or more a month.  I had a hard time getting throught the long sales letter.  And, I don't like to buy software with recurring cost, and I really don't like to spend $100/month.   So my initial reaction was "Yikes."

Just to be clear, at the time of this writing, Firepow costs $147/month for the Premium membership and $117/month for the basic membership.  I have arranged a Firepow discount with Andrew for my readers that saves you $25/month.  So, when I say "$100/month or more, know the cost depends on the discount and what offer you pick.

Whether or not Firepow is worth the cost is a personal question. Anyone who tells you differently is just trying to sell you something.  It's all about return on investment (ROI).  If you invest $100/month in Firepow, will you get back more than $100 in savings or profit?   It really is that simple.  Don't be confused by all of the other crap out there.  You should only buy Firepow if you think it will make you money (good ROI).

In order to understand the ROI, you need to first understand what Firepow is.

From my point of view, Firepow is a tool targeted at people that want to create and manage "lots" of niche websites.  Whether "lots" is 5 or 50 or 500 is a question we will explore later.  It is certainly possible to make use of Firepow on a single authority site, but my feeling is that the best use of Firepow is across multiple niche blogs.

To make Firepow worth the money, you need to create 5 blogs that make at least $20 a month.  Or, ten blogs that make $10/month.  Or, 20 blogs that make $5/month.  You get the idea.  The cool thing is that creating 20 blogs with Firepow that actually get traffic looks amazingly easy.

Firepow Is Three Things (at Least)

From my point of view, Firepow is web-based software for creating and managing blogs, creating content, and promoting those blogs.

• Creating and managing blogs: The first thing that you do when you log into Firepow is create a blog.  Firepow is based on WordPress.   Enter some key information (URL, FTP information, Blog title, and some keywords), pick a theme, pick some plugins, and click "create".  A new blog is created instantly.  It takes me hours to set up a blog, download the software for themes and plugins and get everything up and running (including AdSense) for a new blog.   Firepow does this in 5 minutes (or less).  This is the ultimate in "one click setup" because it includes far more than just the initial install of WordPress.  There are tons of plugins (some unique to Firepow) and lots of cool options.  But suffice it to say that you can get a fully featured blog up and running in minutes.
• Creating content: One of the critical items that a new blog owner faces is getting some initial content out there.  For this problem, Firepow offers several unique and creative solutions.  You can "automatically" republish content from Article Directories, you can get content from RSS, and you can create your own blog posts using "cut and paste tools" from various sources.  Pretty slick.  You can create your posts right in the Firepow interface without ever logging into WordPress."
• Promotion: Ranking in the search engines is the key to organic traffic, and backlinks are a key to ranking.  The Firepow premium network includes access to the Firepow "blog network."  I will be covering this in a future post, but know for now that this provides backlinks in a way that is "similar" to article marketing (but you have much more control over the content and links).  You can also automatically promote your blogs via RSS and social networks.  This all looks really powerful to me.

There are some other really cool features like task plans that help you organize and manage your blogs and an amazing support forum.   More on those things in a later post.

The Bottom Line On Firepow

So, that is my personal opinion on what Firepow is.  To summarize, Firepow is software that allows you to rapidly create, manage, populate and promote niche WordPress blogs.

Over the next few days I will be getting more into what Firepow can do and why I think it is cool.

What are your questions about Firepow?  Let's make sure that we get all of them answered.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have been looking at FirePow as I work on building out my niche sites.

One of the things that I immediately started hearing from people was concern about the price of the FirePow subscription.

I talked to Andrew Hanson about the cost, and he immediately reminded me that it was about return on investment (ROI).  His argument is, quite simply, that you can make your money back many times over by using the tools in FirePow to create a blog empire.

"I get that," I said.  "But money is money." It's fine to say that in the near future, FirePow will pay for itself, but it is still expensive.  It still costs money RIGHT NOW.

So, Andrew responded by offering a discount coupon for MasonWorld.com readers.  For now, if you sign up for FirePow using my link, you can get a whopping $25/month off of your bill.  That's right -- I am offering you a $300/year discount on Firepow.

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 evaluation -- but I did not want to wait.  If you were considering FirePow anyway, I wanted you to have the discount now.

Regards,
Mark

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