One of the really cool things that happens at the Niche Affiliate Marketing Seminar is how “hands on” that it is.  As a demonstration, the NAMS instructors actually create a product during the seminar, set up a sales page, and help people promote the product during seminar.

This is an excellent teaching tool.  It shows people just how easy it is to create an information product and put it out there.  It’s the best example that I have seen when you want to teach people to take massive action in conjunction with fundamentals of information product creation and marketing.

Excellent Social Media Product

The product that was created today was a panel discussion about Social Media Marketing Strategy.  Panelists included Willie Crawford, Mark Riley, Joey Smith, Jeff Herring, and Maritza Parra.  They attacked 5 questions for about an hour:

• Is Social Media for real?  How is it changing Internet Marketing?
• How do you drive traffic using Social Media
• Do you still need a list?  How do I use Social Media with my list?
• Why would I want to build an online presence using Social Media?
• Do conversion tactics still work on Social Media?

In addition to that, the moderator, David Perdue asked a simple question:  tell me one of your secret strategies for making money with social media.  That was probably the most exciting part of the panel discussion.

This is a pretty cool product.  When you check out the sales page, realize that the whole thing was created in just a few hours – you’ll be amazed at the quality of the content that can be generated in just a couple of hours. 

Check it out now.

One more thing:  While I was here, I learned about another really cool product called Twitter Glitch.  If you are using twitter in your marketing, you really should have a twitter disaster recovery plan.  I recommend you check that out as well.

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.

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

Jon Leger just moved his 1WayLinks tool from beta to full production.  As most people know, back links are incredibly important in Google (the Google search engine was initially called "back rub" for this reason).   In fact, you may recall a post I recently made about a site that I accidentally got to Page Rank 2 without content using only really weak back links.

Jon's 1WayLinks product promises to give subscribers hundreds of back links per month (750 or more) for a monthly fee.  As a subscriber, you can choose the anchor text and the URL.  It's a very cool service, and like all of Jon's products, superbly run.  I am a member, and if you are looking for back links, I recommend it.   It works great in conjunction with his 3WayLinks product.

However, it this OK?  Is it OK to buy back links like this?

Google Is Not The Law

OK -- so first things first.  There is nothing illegal about 1WayLinks. It is probably true, however, that if Google had a good way to identify the kind of links generated by programs like 1WayLinks, they would discount their weight and probably "slap" the site using them.  Why?

Google is all about money. Period.  End of statement.  Google has a board of directors that answers to shareholders.  Those shareholders invested in Google to make money.  Google's managers report to the Board, and the Board directs those managers to make money for shareholders.  Simple.  Google needs to make money on their search engine.

Luckily for users, Google management believes that the best way to make money on the search engine is to provide the best possible user experience.  The better the user experience, the more users come to the Google search engine and click on ads.

So, Google fights things like 1WayLinks because they know that people (people like me and you) are also trying to make money just like Google will try to use these tools to beat competition in their niche.  In some cases, tools like 1WayLinks can be used to cause inferior content to rank above superior content, degrading the "user experience."   As an aside, what you should realize is that having great content that users value is a good defense against actions by search engines like Google.

In any case, Google is not the law.  These are just two competing business practices

Is 1WayLinks Ethical To Use?

So, the big question (in my mind at least) is -- is 1WayLinks ethical to use?

Let's start with an assumption that Article Marketing is a valid and ethical marketing strategy.  After all, eZineArticles.com is a respected business, and content on that site is highly favored by Google.  You will recall the when you submit an article to eZineArticles.com, you are afforded 2 backlinks in the footer that must be maintained by people that syndicate (copy) your content across the web.

To my knowledge, no few people complain about the ethics of article marketing

So, how is 1WayLinks like article marketing?

• User created content. Both article marketing and 1WayLinks accept user generated content.
• Back links. Both article marketing and 1WayLinks allow back links
• Syndication. Both article marketing and 1WayLinks articles get syndicated.  In the case of 1WayLinks, the syndication is automatic.
• Human review. At both eZineArtices.com and 1WayLinks.net human review is required.

I am sure there are other ways to compare the two services, but for now I'll leave it at that.  From a web surfer's experience, the two are substantially the same.

My conclusion is that 1WayLinks.net is not that much different than article marketing.  Since article marketing is a commonly accepted business practice, I conclude that 1WayLinks is OK and should be accepted by people (and Google) in the same way as article marketing.

Have you checked out the 1WayLinks tool?  Read the sales page and tell me what you think.

Thanks,
Mark

Phew.  Yesterday's launch of First eBook Now was crazy.

Now, it's time for another weekly Internet Business Fortune Cookie. Last night I celebrated the launch of my latest eBook with Hot and Sour Soup from a new place. I had never eaten there before. The soup was good, and it struck me that sometimes you have to try something new to find something good.

The Cookie Speaks The Truth

As you know, everything you need to know about running an internet business can be learned from fortune cookies. Luckily the Cookie knows that this week we are talking about the importance of mailing lists to your online business, and was kind enough to serve up an appropriate lesson. This week's cookie actually hits right at the heart of getting started online:

"Reach for your dreams. Start with the Spring Rolls"

Of course, the fortune cookie is obviously referring to the fact that many people who are trying to make money online fail because they are overwhelmed by their own goals -- completely paralyzed by the seemingly enormous nature of the task before them.

Many people have lofty goals like replacing their entire income or "escaping the 9 to 5 routine" of their day job or making $15,000 per month on line. Those are both great goals, and it is important to have the big picture. But at some point you have to get started.

It reminds me of the answer to an old question: "How do you eat an elephant?"

Of course, the answer is "One bite at a time."

The Cookie Speaks About Lists -- Follow The Cookie

Let's say that you have decided that you need to make $5000 per month on the internet, and you plan to do that with a email list. How big does the list need to be?

Well, let's say that you have been careful to cultivate trust with your list, and that every time you send out an email to them, an amazing 10% of your readers click the link to go see what it is that you are talking about. And, let's say that the members of your list really trust you, and that an equally amazing 10% actually buy. This seems possible since you only promote products that you actually believe in to your list. That means for every message that you send out, 1% (1 of every hundred) of the people you send to will buy.

Now, let's say you are really smart and you follow Spaulding's New Age eMail Marketing strategy. This means that you value your list and you only email an offer to them about once a month. The rest of the time, you are emailing your list helpful information.

Since you need to make $5000 per month with only one offer, you need to make $5000 every time you send out an email. Sounds scary, doesn't it?

Remember, 1 of every 100 people you mail to will buy. Let's say you are promoting $100 products, and that the commission is 50%. That means that for every 100 people you mail to, you make $50. Since you need to make $5000, you need to mail to 10,000 people. You need a list of 10,000 people.

Question: How in the world are you going to do that?
Answer: One subscriber at a time (Start with the Spring Rolls).

The Cookie Knows Best

Build trust and give people something in exchange for their email. There are 365 days in a year. That means that you only need 30 subscribers a day to hit 10,000 in a year. This is exactly the kind of thing that can be accomplished with viral eBooks using Leger's $7 Secrets formula. Actually, it can be done much faster than that if you can ad some real value and do something viral (but that is for another post).

So, listen to the cookie. Don't focus on the 10,000 subscribers -- you will freak out and give up. Focus on the the next several dozen subscribers instead. Set some goals for this week, or for this month. And focus on keeping the subscribers that you have. Keep adding value. The subscribers will come.

Take some action like writing a report that people will value. Use some cool technology like $7 Secrets to get people to help you build your list. You can do it -- just Start with the Spring Rolls.

Planning on taking some action as a result of this post? Let me know what it is by dropping a comment. Publicly declaring your intention to make progress is a great way to hold yourself accountable.

Have a great day.
Mark

Photo credit: Uploaded on July 17, 2006 by headcase

OK -- here is the coolest marketing creative material I have seen in a while.  The below flash game allows you to "shoot the guru" in an arcade-style game format.  Sorry about the violence.

At the end of the game, you get a link to a sales page.  I don't know anything about the product (I'd love to hear about it if you know something about it).  However, I think this is an amazingly cool marketing strategy.

Note that there is an affiliate program behind it. If you buy the product, the person who displayed the game gets a commission. I don't know anything about the product, and I do not endorse it. I do endorse the viral marketing approach. (If you are interested in the affiliate program, the link is at the bottom of the sales page.)

What do you think about this clever approach? Any idea what something like this costs to develop?

Regards,
Mark

I'm writing this in the United Airlines Red Carpet lounge in Narita airport near Tokyo.  It's 2AM Dallas time, but it is the middle of the day here in Japan.  I am waiting on my connection to another Asian country.  That will be my third airplane today and I have a bus ride to follow that.  I left my house in Dallas 20 hours ago and I have another 8 to go before I reach my hotel.  I am officially declaring that a long day (phew).

It's A Small, Small World

All is not lost, however.  I am chatting with Garry Conn via GTalk as I write this.  He is still up in the middle of the night generating content about how to make money online as usual.  It's funny, because with the internet, he has no reason to suspect that I am in Tokyo aside from the fact that I told him.  The technology is simply amazing.  The first thing I did when I got off the plane was to check on Michael Phelps.  Looks like he won his eighth Olympic Gold Medal while I was somewhere over the Pacific Ocean.  Well, on this day, swimming meant something very good for him -- for me, not so much.  Needing to swim during a scheduled international flight over the pacific is never a good thing.  Luckily, no swimming for me today.

Working On The Road

I did spend time on the plane catching up on course material from the Internet Business Mastery Academy (check out my review of the Internet Business Mastery Academy if you missed it).  The courses in the Academy are targeted at designing an "Internet Lifestyle."  Many people in the Internet Academy have left or wish to leave their day jobs to pursue a career on the Internet.  As I have stated many times, I love my day job and have no intention of leaving it.  Still, it would be cool to have a low maintenance part-time Internet business that generated enough cash to pay off the house and support early retirement on my terms.

So, this has gotten me to thinking about my own goals for MasonWorld.com specifically, and my internet business in general.  I know I want to continue to grow this blog, and I want to develop multiple streams of passive internet income (not necessarily from this blog).  In the very beginning, I thought my passive income was going to come from building armies of AdSense and eBay sites.  Sure, I have a few of those, but they are not very fulfilling.  The thing that I love is helping people be successful.  For example, I was happy the other day because someone was able to implement my free link cloaking solution successfully on their blog with my help.  It was not a big deal, really -- but I was glad I was able to help someone (even just a little).

Time To Update The Roadmap

What all this really means is that I need to update the MasonWorld RoadMap with an eye toward 2009.  I will have accomplished everything I set out to accomplish in 2008 by December.  I will have some AdSense sites, a blog I like, some eBay sites, a my first product.  So, what is next?  What do I really want from all of this?  That is what I am working through using some of the methods taught over at the Internet Business Mastery Academy.  When I figure it all out, you will be the first to know.

What Do You Want (Leave a comment below)?

One thing I would like to know is who are you, why do you read my blog, and what would you like to hear about?  That will help me set the direction.  I will also use your feedback to put together a reader survey.  So, let me know what you are thinking.  Leave a comment below, send me email, or drop me a note on the MasonWorld contact form.

Best regards,
Mark

In the past few months, I have written about the value of article marketing.  One of the questions that always comes up is "what article directories should I submit to."  As you know, I follow the article marketing strategy outlined in Article Marketing Domination, and I use Article Post Robot to post my articles.  Still, the question remains, "what are the best article directories."

See, the problem is that you can find excellent article directory lists, but they are out of date as soon as they are published.  After some discussions with my buddy, Article Marketing guru Josh Spaulding, I decided that what was needed was a site that ranks article directories on an on-going basis.  So, I fired up the text editor and wrote a simple Perl script to do just that.

Introducing the MasonWorld Article Directory List

I have created a script that looks at various stats for the major article directories and ranks them.  The script runs every Sunday night, providing you with a weekly ranking of the best article directories.  Currently, ranking is based on Google Page Rank and Alexa score.  However, I have lots of additional features planned, including additional ranking criteria.

Your suggestions, comments and ideas are appreciated.

Hey, It's Free Stuff Friday time again.  This Friday I am adding an eBook about Resale Rights to the arsenal for free goodies that you can download just by signing up for the MasonWorld Internet Marketing newsletter.

You may remember several months ago when I got really excited about a new site by Mike Filsame called ButterFly Reports.  The ButterFly Reports concept is a viral marketing strategy.  In the strategy, a report author writes a report (eBook) on some topic.  The report contains affiliate links.  Users of the site are able to rebrand some (but not all) of the affiliate links in report and distribute it.  This gives people an incentive to promote your reports.

I really felt this concept would explode and be incredibly popular.  As far as I can tell, it has not exploded, but it is growing steadily.  And, as a result, there are some pretty decent reports on the site.

So, for Free Stuff Friday, I am adding a pretty decent report from Mike's site -- How To Make Money with Resale Rights Products.  To get the report, and all my other Friday Freebies, all you need to do is join my email list below. I'll send you download instructions immediately (even if it is 2AM).

Sign up now! I hate spam as much as you do!

Mark

photo credit: moonrat42

Well, it has been about two weeks since I did a trial launch of my first product, Niche Adsense Themes for WordPress.  As you may know from reading my about page, I started working on internet marketing in November of 2007 as a part time hobby.  The goal of this blog is to tell people about my experience.  So, I think that it is important to let you know what I learned launching this first product, and how it went.

There is a lot to say, so this will be delivered in several parts.  This is Part 1.

Where Digital Products Fit In MY Plan

The first important question to address is why I am interested in digital products.  So far, my internet-marketing strategy has been to work on four things:

• Passive AdSense mini-sites following Josh Spaulding's $5 Formula
• Affiliate mini-sites using phpBay and other affiliate offers through CJ and Pepperjam, etc
• Building email lists for direct marketing
• Creation of digital products.

As a part time internet entrepreneur, I am very interested in creating streams of income where I can scale revenue without significantly increasing the time needed to support that income.  That why passive income streams like AdSense sites and think affiliate site are so attractive.

Once the sites are set up and marketed, the only remaining issue is traffic and some low-touch maintainence.  For traffic, long-term strategies like SEO and article marketing can be used in combination to drive traffic over the long haul relatively easily.

If you work hard at AdSense sites, for example, you can earn high four (even five) figures per month just like Tim Gorman.  It is reasonable to expect to make a few dollars per day from a passive AdSense site - so you can do the math.

Why Sell Digital Products

Digtal products are different, and a lot more exciting.  If you can create something digital that someone might want (an eBook or software for example), you can then create a sales page and sells that product and start taking orders.   In some sense, this is similar to AdSense sites and thin affiliate sites:  you are converting traffic to dollars.  However, there are some critical differences:

• Revenue per action can be very high with digital products.  While an AdSense click might get you a dollar, the price of digital products can range from free to thousands of dollars.  A typical price for an ebook might be $27.
• You can have an army of affiliates.  This is not actually unique to digital products, but it is different from AdSense and affiliate sites.  With those business models, you are the affiliate.  When you own your own digital products, you can have affiliates working for you.
• You can upsell.  There is no better time to sell someone something than when they already have their credit card out and have decided to trust you with it.
• You can capture email addresses and sell on the "back end".  This is perhaps the most powerful idea.  Once someone has purchased from you once (and has given you permission to contact them), you can sell to them again.  In this case, they already know that you provide quality products, so trust as high.  This relationship can last a very long time.

Most of the truly rich internet entrepreneurs have digital products as a central part of their business strategy.

Selecting The Product

There are lots of things to consider when selecting a digital product.  Most guru's will tell you identify a market first, and then build a product.  You need to do market research and lots of other things prior to launch.  Honestly, I was much more random about my product selection.

During my work on AdSense sites I heard a lot of people say that WordPress was not a good choice for AdSense mini-sites because of two issues:

• The resulting sites looked like blogs and not "information sites"
• It was hard to control the placement of AdSense ads

I wanted to use WordPress, however, for lots of good reasons

• Speed of deployment (easy to crank up a new WordPress mini-site
• Lots of good plugins for things like sitemaps, SEO, analytics, etc.
• Easy to update with fresh content
• Support for pinging, etc.

So, I did the obvious thing -- I worked with an AdSense min-site guru to understand a perfect site, and I built a WordPress theme that copied the layout of that exactly.  In fact, I actually hired out some of the theme code and the graphics.   More on this later this week.

Then, I put myself in the place of the customer.  What would I want in a package if I was trying to get started with AdSense and WordPress?  I settled on the following five things

• Several themes -- not just one -- with good generic graphics that could apply to lots of different niches.  For example, a medical graphic could apply to any mini-site on any medical topic.  I thought that these "specific" graphical templates look more authoratative than generic templates like ProSense, for example (I love ProSense, by the way -- I just think my stuff is better).
• The same templates in HTML. I wanted to get past the "what if I don't like WordPress" objection that people might have.  Many gurus recommended static sites.  I think WordPress is a better answer.  Including a static HTML version of the templates reduces the risk of trying WordPress for the customer.  If they don't like WordPress, they could still use the HTML templates.
• Some free reports about how to make money with AdSense.  For the complete new person, I wanted to include instructions on how to use the themes to make money.
• Some free content. Again, for someone getting started, having some PLR content that they could "slap" into their site allowed them to get going quickly.

So, I now had a digital product.  I needed a mini-site to promote it, a price, affiliates, a way to take money, a way to handle support, etc.  More on all this later this week.

Best regards,
Mark

I just spent $27 of my own money.

Those of you that have been following me know at least one thing about me: it is not very often that I will promote something sight-unseen on my blog.

This is one of those times - I am excited about this product.

The Community Magnet Teleseminar

You see, I have listened to almost every Internet Marketing podcast on the planet (well it feels like it anyway). As part of that journey, I have come to know Jason Van Orden -- one half of the Internet Business Mastery (IBM) Team of Jay and Sterling.

Jason is also the brains behind the best Podcast about Podcasting: The Podcasting Underground.

I have gotten to know Jason through his podcasts, and his blog -- and more recently through private conversations on email and twitter. (Note that I am currently the undisputed world-record holder for IBM Podcast Rate of Consumption (PRC) at over 20 podcasts per day).

I've been on the inside. Before the Teleseminar, (when Jason started writing his Community Magnet eBook,) he asked me to review an advanced copy, and I was stunned.

Now, Jason says this Teleseminar is the most important content that he has ever created -- and I agree.

I hope this blog post reaches you in time because I just made a special arrangement to get you a $70 discount on a special teleseminar. Jason's teleseminar reveals how to magnetically attract a following of loyal customers with an easy and inexpensive marketing strategy...podcasting.

Because I'm a partner in this teleseminar, you can attend as an insider guest for $27 rather than the normal $97 list price. But you have to hurry because the call takes place this Wednesday, June 4th.

I think most of you are probably aware of the contest that Garry Conn is running against John Cow. Basically, the two of them are in a death match to build and sell the best blog in one month. The winner is the site that sells for the most on SitePoint.com.  Participation in this contest is a great way to learn about internet marketing strategy.

As it turns out, some heavy hitters are in Garry's corner.  Joel Comm has contributed a copy of his highly acclaimed Secret Classroom course.  You can win a copy of the course (so read on below).

And now, a message from the Cow Slayer, Garry Conn

Hey everyone, this is Garry Conn here and you have probably heard the news that John Cow and I are going head to head in a make money online competition to see who can build a blog and sell it for the most money in SitePoint after 30 days. I just unveiled my niche blog titled, Debt Consolidation Book and I want to briefly tell you about the blog and how you can win some really amazing prizes by contributing and telling people about it.

Debt Consolidation Book is a web site where you can read articles written by people who provide their opinions and tips on how to get out of debt. Additionally, you can get 13 high quality debt consolidation books for free. These 13 free debt consolidation books will teach you some amazing debt consolidation, debt elimination and debt reduction strategies. Many people have all kinds of debts and one of the most common is credit card debt. Debt Consolidation Book is geared towards helping people who have credit card debt as well as most all forms of debt.

In this competition against John Cow, you have a huge opportunity to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm. This is an educational make money online study course worth over $520 dollars.

How Do I Win Secret Classroom

Winning Joel Comm's Secret Classroom worth over $520 dollars is very simple. As you probably already know, I am not a very complicated individual. When I run contests, participating in them are very easy to do and take very little amount of your time. Your time is one of many things I respect and I don't want to take up a lot of it. It will literally take you all of five minutes to participate in the contest. Simple, quick and easy.

If you would like to have a chance to win the Secret Classroom DVD Box Set from Joel Comm here is what you need to do. It's very simple.

1. Download a copy of this article that you are reading here and then publish it on your blog. This is a Zip File. Simply extract it and copy and paste the HTML code into your blog post.
2. Join the Debt Consolidation Book mailing list and score your free copies of the 13 free eBooks! You will get over 275 pages of high quality material for free!
3. Subscribe to the Debt Consolidation Book RSS Feed by Email.
4. Drop a comment on this post to let me know that you have entered the contest by doing the above three steps.

Optionally, I would really appreciate it if I could get some votes:

1. Click Here to vote on Digg.com.
2. Click Here to add to StumbleUpon.
3. Click Here to add to your Google Bookmarks.
4. Click Here to add to your Technorati Faves.
5. Click Here to add to FaceBook.
6. Click Here to add to Del.icio.us.
7. Click Here to add to your Yahoo Bookmarks.
8. Click Here to add to Propeller.
9. Click Here to add to Mixx.

Remember the first four steps above are not optional and you have to complete step four by dropping a comment on my post which will let me know that you have officially entered the contest to win Secret Classroom. The second steps 1 thru 9 are totally optional but will literally take you less than a minute to complete.

Join My Make Money Online Newsletter

I invite you to join my make money online mailing list and you'll receive a free copy of the AFFAdMax WordPress theme. This is the same high quality and professionally designed WordPress theme I designed from scratch that I am using on Debt Consolidation Book! You'll be the first to score a copy as soon as I release it in the next week or two.

Good Luck Winning Joel Comm's Secret Classroom

Good luck with winning Secret Classroom. I will be assigning each participant in the contest a number and on Monday June 2nd, I will use Randomizer to generate the winning number. It's a very simple random draw contest that could potentially win you a prize worth over $520 dollars. Also be sure to join my free make money online classroom so that you can learn more about how to make money online and stay in the loop with future events in the competition against John Cow.

Well, it's early morning in Singapore. What a beautiful city. I woke up this morning to one of those confusing moments where you are not sure what city you are in, but you are positive you are not home. I hate that.

Last night as I was leaving Hong Kong, I got a message from Josh Spaulding that he had just released his new eBook called $5 Mini-Site Formula. At 17 pages, it's an easy read. That's one of the great things about Josh -- he gets straight to the point. In the book, he makes a couple of critical points about how to build a niche site that will generate at least $5 per day in Adsense revenue:

• Pick a niche that has high pay per click revenue
• Pick long tail keywords that you can rank for
• Build a simple site
• Market with article marketing.

This is great timing. Of course, I have been working on my series about Elvis and Niche Super-Sites. My site violates Josh's premise about high-paying Adsense ads, but it's spot-on with the rest of his book. Actually, the Elvis niche was picked at random, but I do hope to generate some affiliate revenue one I can get traffic there. I have hired a writer to write articles for that site -- and I need to post about that process too.

Most of the marketing strategy Josh describes is a condensed version of his Article Marketing Domination eBook (which I recommend).  I'm using that method to promote the Elvis site. One thing that Josh does a good job of in the $5 eBook is describe how to select a niche using free tools.  "Free" is a really important issue for people who are getting started -- you can waste a lot of money buying stuff you don't need. I personally have been using Micro Niche Finder to accomplish what Josh describes, but the free tools he mentions to find long tail keywords work great too.

So, Josh's report has motivated me to start start another niche project and report on it here. I am thinking about the credit card niche. Stay tuned.

Best regards,
Mark