If you follow me on Twitter you’re probably aware that I am participating alongside Pat and Tyrone in the Niche Duel that’s being documented over at the Smart Passive Income Blog.

Now, my participation in this contest is a little bit different than Pat and Tyrone. Pat always does an amazing job of documenting everything that he does and goes into an enormous amount of detail. This niche duel is no different for Pat, he’s already done an excellent job of documenting his keyword research and progress that he’s made on his site.

In my case, I’m not able to dedicate that much time to this project, but I do think it’s incredibly valuable. So, I’ve decided to dictate some notes about my progress and have them transcribed by my awesome transcriptionist, that way you can get some information about how I’m approaching the niche site duel, but I won’t have to spend a ton of time documenting it on my blog.

My Approach to the Niche Site Duel

So, because of the fact that I’m trying to minimize the amount of time that I’m spending on the Niche Site Duel, I’ve decided to take the approach of outsourcing every possible element of the competition. And I’ve decided that the best way to document a lot of my progress is by microblogging the event over on my Facebook Fan Page. So, be sure and check the Facebook Fan Page for day to day updates, and I’ll try to post my progress on the blog every week or two so you can get a sense of how things are going in the big picture.

My first job was niche selection. When I select a niche I try to do three things. Number one, I try to find a niche that I actually think will generate some revenue and be profitable. In this case I chose the very popular guitar niche, specifically the learn to play guitar niche. I’ve noticed for some time that there are several successful products in the marketplace, both on Clickbank and elsewhere, regarding learning to play guitar, so I knew this would be an opportunity for me to play around in that niche.

Number Two, I try to pick something that I’m actually interested in. As a busy internet marketer I know that I have a higher probability of actually accomplishing tasks related to the creation of the niche site if I care about the contents. This is not a requirement in general for niche marketers, but for me personally I’ve found that I have a lot higher success rate if I pick things that I’m actually interested in.

Number three, for this particular project I wanted to make sure I chose a niche where there was a wide availability of materials for me to work with, this includes affiliate offers, blog themes, private label right materials, and other things that I would need for a completely outsourced project.

So, for my limited time commitment to this project I’ve decided to select something was easily outsourced, had a wide variety of materials available, looked like it could be profitable, and interested me enough that I could guarantee that I would participate in the project.

Keyword Research for Learn Guitar

Once I had looked around a little bit in the guitar niche and found out that there was a ton of material out there available for affiliate marketers I popped open my favorite fast keyword research tool, Micro Niche Finder. Notice that I’m making the distinction between fast keyword research and deep keyword research.
For deep keyword research once I’ve found a target keyword I prefer Market Samurai, but for fast keyword research where I’m searching across hundreds of keywords looking for a particular keyword to target I strongly prefer Micro Niche Finder. I think the user interface is a lot better for wide area searches.

So, when I put learn guitar into Micro Niche Finder the very first thing I did was ask Micro Niche Finder to find me all of the keywords that had an available dot net,, dot org, or dot com exact match domain. Now, the learn guitar niche is very crowded, so the number of domains available that exactly matched keywords returned by Micro Niche Finder was a relatively small number.

Once I had gotten a list of exact match domains I simply ordered them in decreasing order of search volume. I’m looking for a keyword that I think learn guitar prospects would be using that has a high search volume and low competition. So, starting with the keywords with highest search volume I started analyzing the competition. To make a long story short, Micro Niche Finder suggested to me that learn guitar basics was a decent keyword and it showed me that learn guitar basics dot net was available.

So, I immediately grabbed learn guitar basics dot net and continued my keyword research. In continuing the keyword research I wanted to find some additional keywords that I could target on the website that were also related to learning the guitar. I won’t go into detail about that here, except to say that for these keywords exact matches to domains are not a requirement.

So, I simply went back to Micro Niche Finder, removed the requirement for domains being available and started looking for high volume keywords with low competition. Again, the niche is very crowded, so the number of these keywords is not large. In fact, this looks like this is going to be a very challenging project from a keyword standpoint, but that’s okay, I’m up for the challenge.

Niche Site Traffic Strategy

Now I know that I’m going to be building a blog about learn guitar, and specifically the blog is going to be called Learn Guitar Basics dot net, and I know that my goal is to match offers with buyers. In fact, that’s always the goal of affiliate marketing to find some buyers and match them up to offers on the internet.

In this case I’ve found my buyers. They’re people that are typing in the phrase learn guitar basics. These are new people, maybe they just got a guitar, maybe they’re about to buy a guitar, who are wanting to learn how to play. So, the offer that I want to match them with, obviously, is an offer for online guitar lessons.
I looked around the internet and I found an outstanding affiliate program from a place called Guitar Tricks. Looking at the Guitar Tricks website made me want to sign up for their product, it really looks fantastic. As a guitar player myself I knew immediately that this affiliate offer was a good one because I found myself wanting to take out my own credit card and sign up for the affiliate offer.

As a matter of fact, one really good approach for promoting this offer would be for me to do exactly that and to blog about it. The problem is that approach is not really compatible with the amount of time that I have to spend on this project, so I’m not sure I’ll be able to do that. In any case, I’ve saved that as a note for myself in case I decide to really spend some real effort on this site.

Identifying the affiliate offer at GuitarTricks.com means that I need to consider a couple of additional keywords to target on the website. People who are considering signing up for a membership at GuitarTricks.com might type in at least two guitar tricks related keywords, and those are obviously guitar tricks review and maybe guitar tricks coupon. Additional ones that are sometimes present in the internet marketing niche are guitar tricks bonus and other kinds of things like that, but for normal people who are buying things online review and coupon are the two most sought after keywords.

Now, here’s an important lesson for you. Those keywords do not appear in the Google Adwords Tool. Micro Niche Finder and Market Samurai do not recognize guitar tricks review and guitar tricks coupon as keywords that people are searching. Why is that? The reason is that those tools are based on the Adwords database and it simply means that no one is bidding on those keywords.

However, if you go to Google and type the word guitar tricks into the search box and then hit the space bar several suggestions will pop down. Those suggestions are based on the actual search data that Google is collecting. They’re not based on the Adwords data, they’re based on the search data, and if you look at that list is presented to you when you out in the words guitar tricks, you’ll find guitar tricks coupon and guitar tricks review. That tells me that I need to target those keywords on my site.

Additionally, if you look at that list you’ll find that there are quite a few people that are trying to steal the Guitar Tricks system, because you see things like guitar tricks torrent. That makes me a little sad and reminds that whenever you have electronic products in the marketplace you need to protect the download.

Creating the Niche Website

Again, my goal in this website is to outsource everything that I possibly can. I’ve done my own keyword research, but it’s been a quick and dirty effort using Micro Niche Finder for less than an hour. If you want a really good tutorial about how the keyword research should be done, you should hop on over to Pat’s blog and look at his video about how he used Market Samurai to do keyword research for his Security Guard website. In my case however, I’ve picked quick and dirty keywords and now I need a quick and dirty website.

So, my next task was to put the search term guitar plr into Google. This returned for me a list of PLR products that are available in the guitar space. I knew I wanted three things. One, I’m looking for PLR that I can use for an autoresponder on the website. It will be very important to collect leads on this website and follow up with those leads and try to drive them to the affiliate offer. Number two, I’m looking for a blog theme and sometimes blog themes are available as PLR. Number three, I’m looking for content for the website. Again, this is an outsource project, I’m going to have some original material written, but really I want to consider PLR as the source for blog site content.

A note about PLR. I think PLR is absolutely excellent for autoresponders because there’s no search engine implications to using PLR. As long as the PLR is high quality and is in your voice and is valuable to your readers, I don’t see any problem in using it in an autoresponder. I don’t normally recommend the use of PLR for website content unless it’s completely rewritten. I’m not a big believer in the duplicate content penalty that’s often talked about by Google, but I do think you owe it to your readers to generate decent content on your own. If you do use PLR on your website, make sure it’s excellent quality and that the PLR you use is rewritten to avoid any issues with similar content outranking you for your search terms.

Having said all that, in this case I’m in a huge hurry, so I need to use PLR because I’ve committed to outsourcing as much of this as possible and moving as quickly as possible. So, lucky for me I found a complete and totally awesome guitar website theme complete with PLR content that I could buy with one click of the mouse. It cost 27 dollars and I bought it, it’s up and running at Learn Guitar Basics dot net.

Outsourcing Tasks for the Duel

Once I bought the PLR mentioned above I was able to outsource a series of tasks. The first task I outsourced was taking some of the PLR that I purchased and breaking it up into content for an autoresponder that was appropriate for beginning guitarists. The virtual assistant was able to split up the content, edit it, place a call to action to the affiliate offer at the bottom of every email, and load that content into an autoresponder over at Aweber.

Task two, I asked another one of my virtual assistants to take the PLR website and get it up and running on the domain that I had purchased. I also asked the VA to modify the site header so that it matched the domain name, to edit the footer, to take out references to the PLR and so forth and make the site somewhat visually unique.

Task three, affiliate offers. I asked the VA that works on my websites to integrate creatives from the Guitar Tricks affiliate site into the website. This meant that the virtual assistant needed to change the banner in the header, as well as place a video creative in the sidebar of the website.

Task four, I also asked the virtual assistant to integrate the autoresponder into the website so there would be a signup form in the sidebar. The sidebar will say something like, “For free beginning guitar lessons delivered straight to your inbox leave us your email and we’ll rush you your first lesson,” or something like that.

Task five, I asked my writer to go into the website and edit every PLR article on the site to change the title, very important for changing PLR, the permalink, also very important for PLR, and the text, less important but still important for using PLR on your website. This will help guarantee that my content is more unique, which can help in my search engine rankings.

To be honest with you, I’m not very worried about the impact of PLR on the search engine because I’m not trying to rank the PLR pages. I’ll be trying to rank the home page and some other pages targeted at guitar tricks related keywords, that content will be completely original and unique and will be easier to rank than the PLR content.

Task six, I asked my writer to write 10 articles around keywords that I had found in Micro Niche Finder. Among these included content for the home page around the keyword learn guitar basics and content for the affiliate offer landing pages for guitar tricks review and guitar tricks coupon.

Current Status and Next Steps

Right now I’m waiting for all those outsourced tasks to be completed. Once those tasks are completed I’ll move to some additional site set up tasks that need to be addressed. I’ll need a Twitter ID for this project, I’ll need email addresses and other set up items, I want to add an eBay and Amazon store into this blog, and so forth. We’ll talk about all of these tasks and more in a future blog post.

Once the site has been set up to my satisfaction (in about a week) I’ll need to start promoting it. For promotion I intend to use article marketing and other backlink building techniques that we’ll talk about in subsequent posts.

That’s it for now. I hope you’ve enjoyed this update, sorry it’s a little bit long winded but that’s one of the downsides to dictating posts rather than editing them. Please let me know if you have any comments, I’d be happy to answer them below. Have a great day!

Best Regards,
Mark Mason

Everyone knows that I like Jimmy Brown -- but I was really blown away today by this post (reprinted here with Jimmy's permission).

In this post, Jimmy talks about how you can leverage the hype created by mega-launches like the PLF 3.0 launch this week.  You can do that by serving the people that WANT the mega-guru $2000 product, but cannot afford it.

For example, I am sure that I could sell a $97 product called "Product Toss Forumla" during the PLF launch.  Why?  Because there are tons of people like me that want to know more about product launches but do not have the money (or time) for PLF.

Interesting idea, eh?

Here is Jimmy's post (reprinted with his permission).

Note that Jimmy is using his own technique to buzz his own stuff here.

He sees the buzz, develops a technique to leverage the buzz, creates a buzz about that technique, and ends up getting a guy like me to promote one of his products on short notice on a PR4 Internet Marketing blog.

Pretty slick....(it helps that the product that Jimmy mentions below is very high quality, or I would not have reprinted the post).

Thanks,
Mark

How To "Borrow" Other People's Buzz TODAY (Think Traffic!)
By Jimmy D. Brown

Did you know that other people "warm up" your customers for you with their "big product launches"?

And, did you further know, that a huge opportunity for you to create sales for YOUR product or a product you promote as an affiliate can be the result?

If, that is, you "borrow" the buzz that other people are generating.

Imagine this scenario...

Mr. Marketer creates a new $2,000 product. He "launches" it with his friends. Everyone on the forums is talking about it. Every email sent out within the marketplace has something to say about it. Bloggers are raving. The whole industry is buzzing about the new launch.

The average conversion rate is 2%. And that's not on $2,000 products. But, let's assume that Mr. Marketer is the best in the biz. And he can generate something obscene like 25% conversion rate on a $2,000 offer (which, by the way, ain't likely to happen).

IF that were to happen, the flipside is this: 75% DON'T BUY.

In other words, for every 100 visitors to the "launch" site, 75 of them walk away without buying.

Were they uninterested? If that's the case, they likely wouldn't have visited the site in the first place.

In the majority of the cases, they $2,000 price tag was out of their reach. Not in the budget. Don't have the money. Been there, done that ... didn't have the cash to buy the t-shirt!

So, what can we learn from this?

We can learn...

* These 75 out of every 100 who don't buy are probably interested to some degree.

* These 75 out of every 100 have heard all of the buzz and have been "presold" on the premise of the product.

* These 75 out of every 100 are strong candidates to buy a lower-priced, related alternative.

That's where YOU come into the picture.

You "borrow" the buzz that's been generated for the big product being launched by talked about by everyone as you promote a lower-priced, related alternative!

Here's how you do it...

1. Look for high-dollar launches in your market.

The first step is to keep your eye on the pulse of your market. Whenever a major new product is being launched, get busy. You'll usually know days, if not weeks, in advance because that's how launches work: they do a lot of "pre" build-up work to get people salivating for the eventual launch. Keep your eyes out for anything new in the works.

2. Promote a low-cost alternative.

It doesn't matter if you write a quick 10-15 page report, promote your own existing product that is related or grab an affiliate link to some other existing product or service. It doesn't really matter WHERE you obtain this lower-priced alternative. The important thing is that you find one. It needs to be related to the topic of the big product being launched. It can be related either (a) by teaching a similar concept, or (b) teaching a portion of the big product's concept.

3. Write a mailing that explains the two options.

You'll want to write a mailing to send to your subscribers or to post at your blog. This mailing needs to contain three important elements...

- Content that presells. Share some meaty nuggets related to the offer you are ultimately going to promote to set the table.

- A small blurb about big launch with your link. Mention the "major" launch briefly. Describe it's benefits and use an affiliate link of yours to point to the offer. Mention that it's only drawback is "price". Express that many people can't afford it.

- A stronger promotion for your option. Then, really hit home with this "lower-priced, related alternative". Let them know the benefits are similar at a fraction of the cost. Be sure to point out that it's priced for everyone -- especially those who feel "left out" of the big budget launch because they can't afford it.

Then, it's just a matter of getting that mailing out to your subscribers.

Let's look at what you have in place as a result of this strategy...

* You have two promotions: a minor one for the same "major" launch everyone else is promoting, and a "major" one for the lower-priced, related alternative.

* You have "borrowed buzz". Everyone in the marketplace is warming up prospects with all of their "talk" about the importance of the subject matter of the "big product launch". They are primed and ready to buy ... something!

* You have a spike in sales coming.

This is a wonderful strategy for getting extra sales.

Remember, there are always a whole lot more people who DON'T buy the product being offered in the "launch", than those who do! You've got a huge pool of prospects in the 75-98% of people who don't buy the $2,000 offer. Many of them WILL buy a lower-priced, related alternative.

So, the only thing left for you to do is get started.

And if you've like a shortcut, let me show you a quick way to do it TODAY.

You have almost certainly seen that Product Launch Formula 3.0 (PLF3) has launched this week. Everyone is talking about it. While there are a lot of different strategies and ideas involved in a "launch", the backbone is the same...

*** Other people send you the majority of your traffic.

It's obviously a very *HOT* topic right now. People are scrambling to pay BIG BUCKS for the course.

But...

Do you think everyone can afford it?

What about the tens of thousands of internet marketers who can't afford it, but who ARE INTERESTED in the subject?

What a shame to let them sit by without getting any sales from them!

But, don't worry --- you CAN get sales from them! Here's how...

You offer them something for PENNIES on the dollar that provides the same end result: other people sending them traffic for their products and services!

A few days ago Jimmy D. Brown announced a resale rights offer for his SalesArmySecrets.com course.

All the details are at right here.

There are still licenses available for YOU to grab in order to sell a low-cost alternative to the high-dollar "launch" product that everyone is jabbering about.

***BUT IT GETS BETTER --- FREE PLR to $20 Report! ***

Jimmy wrote a report several months ago which he briefly made available to one of his membership sites. It's entitled "How To Get R.I.C.H. With Your Own Affiliate Program".

(It was pulled after a month and is no longer available anywhere.)

The report is 21 meaty pages in itself, but it also strongly promotes the Sales Army Secrets course at the end.

When you order one of the remaining licenses for Sales Army Secrets, Jimmy is going to give you (no cost!) a free PLR license to the special report!

You can sell the report for $20, give it away, do whatever you want with it (as long as you don't misrepresent it or mention Jimmy in reference to it)...

...while using the endorsement at the close of the report to promote YOUR COPY of Sales Army Secrets!

It's a ready-made marketing report to get people to buy Sales Army Secrets from you! You can sell Sales Army Secrets for $97 per order and keep 100% of every sale!

Here's what you need to do...

1. Order the Sales Army Secrets resale rights license here.

2. Register and open a ticket at Jimmy's support center at http://www.Infoprofitshare.com and provide his staff with a copy of your receipt.

Within 24 hours someone will send you the download information for this special Free PLR offer.

That's it!

Get one while it lasts...

There's only ONE catch...

This special offer is for the next 3 days only. On Friday, July 2nd at 10PM CDT, Jimmy is shutting down the license offer and this Free PLR offer. They will no longer be available. Officially "retired" at that point.

Grab yours now!

Then you can quickly "borrow the buzz" of those promoting PLF3!

I am writing this post using Windows Live Writer 2009.  Normally, I write WordPress posts in Firefox using the admin interface inside of WordPress.  That is not the best environment sometimes – especially since you have to be online to use it.

I looked at these type of desktop-based web publishing tools a couple of years ago and they were not great.  I’m looking again because I noticed that Microsoft released a version of Live Writer for 2009 (I guess I missed it).

First task will be to insert a picture of this window.    I’ll do a screen capture and jam it into the post right here.

Cool – that worked well (at least here in the editor).  I was able to load a GIF, resize it and place it in the text.  There are image editing choices and the like available.  Looks promising.

Spell checker works as expected.

I am able to insert a hyperlink to the download location for Windows Live Writer without any trouble at all (as expected).  One neat thing is that it will allow me to link to previous posts, which is something that you should always try to do.   It even lets me set the link to nofollow.

Surprising, there is a preview tab – and it knows what the post will look like on my blog.  Check out this screen shot:

Wow – for a 5 minute review I am pretty impressed with the ability to create a draft.  Now I will hit the publish button and see what happens….

TaDa!

That just worked.

One thing that I see in here that I like is the ability to insert a table.  Here is a table of projected revenue for the MasonWorld Empire for 2010.

Neat.  Might have a keeper here.

What do you use to write your posts?  Leave me a comment and let me know.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned that I like Nicole Dean's EasyPLR as a source for great quality PLR products.  Since that time, I have published several articles about how to use PLR, where to get blog content, and what the ethical considerations of PLR might be.

Lot's of you responded by trying out Nicole's products using my affiliate link (here).  If you are one of those people -- thanks for checking her stuff out.  As you know, I only recommend products that I use myself, and her PLR is great.

The Retroactive EasyPLR Bonus

OK -- so I know what you are thinking?  Who in the world gives a bonus after the fact.  Marketing 101 says that you use bonuses to get people to buy as part of the pitch.

I say, WHATEVER - I play by my own rules. 

The fact is that if you bought ANY PLR from Nicole using my link, I'd like to offer you a nifty eBook on how to use it.

The eBook is called PLR Cheater -- it is itself a high quality PLR eBook that I am planning on selling for either $27 or $17 (I have not decided yet).   You can check out the sales page for PLRCheater here.  Note that the page is not complete yet - you cannot buy the book there.

Anyway -- if you bought any PLR from Nicole through my link, just submit a ticket at my helpdesk and I will verify your purchase and send you a copy of the eBook with my compliments.  Just to be clear, you will be getting personal use rights to PLR Cheater, not PLR rights.

I figure that if you were kind enough to use my link, you deserve the bonus (even if you did not know about the bonus ahead of time).  Be sure to include proof of purchase with your ticket.

But Wait -- There's More (If You Act Now)

LOL -- I love cheezy marketing lines like "Act Now!"  Supplies are limited! (OK -- they are not limited.  It's an ebook.  How can supplies of an eBook ever be limited?)

Here where the Marketing 101 comes back in.  I want you to buy more!

I know that there will be some people out there that want to buy PLR from Nicole today and get the bonus.  If that is you, know that I will honor the bonus until further notice.  That is to say, if you buy PLR from EasyPLR in the future using my affiliate link, I will send you a copy of the eBook (just submit a ticket with your proof of purchase).

Bottom line - I want you to buy more PLR from Nicole if you need it.

And That Is Not All (Special Bonus)!

I know some of you will be buying PLR from Nicole with the intention of creating sites designed to make money from AdSense as described in the $5 Formula (and also in this video).

If that is you, and you buy $50 or more of PLR from Easy PLR using my affiliate link, I will send you a copy of my newly updated product -- Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress Version 3.   Note that this bonus is also retroactive.

Here is a snapshot of the latest version of Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress

So -- If you need some PLR check out Easy PLR today.

Thanks!

More About PLR Cheater

Here is what's inside PLR Cheater:

So with all this talk about PLR and instructions about ghostwriting in the last few days, I thought it would be interesting to address the topic of whether or not the use of PLR content is ethical.

I mean, after all -- if you are acting like you are the writer (I am actually writing this now in my own voice) and you are not actually doing the writing -- isn't that misleading your readers?

Well, the answer is handled really well in this PLR Ethics video by Nicole Dean (owner of EasyPLR.com).   Now of course, Nicole makes no secret about the fact that she sells PLR -- so she has obviously already decided that she feels the use of PLR is ethical.

As an aside, I know Nicole pretty well, and she is one of the most wonderful, ethical, honest, moral people that I know.  Goofy t0o?  Well, yes goofy.  But goofy in an adorable way.

I would really like to know what you think about the ethics issue -- so leave a comment after you look at the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ysxD6mnibwU

photo credit: A Caveman trapped in the 21st Century

Yesterday, I spent some time sharing one of my favorite article topic tricks -- searching for a topic and the words "how to" -- like "wordpress how to" (without the quotes).

Well, that is great for telling you what to write about.  But sometimes, you need more help than that.  After all, the life of an internet marketer revolves around one thing: Content. You need articles for your blog, more great content for your newsletter or ezine, and even more quality articles if you plan to do article marketing or guest blogging to get free advertising for your website.

Phew.  That is a ton of stuff.

Before you give up and go to your backup business plan of designing and patenting the ultimate yoga mat, let me share a few ideas with you that may help you to actually have time away from your computer.

After all, I have a full time job, so I get the time crunch thing.

When looking for articles, you have several options. I personally use several of these suggestions to add a variety of content to my websites -- and recommend that you do the same.

Grab some Free Reprint Articles at the Directories.

Article directories like EzineArticles.com, LadyPens.com and ArticleBase.com are packed with quality articles that you can reprint on your site. The only requirements are that you do not edit the article in any way and that you include the author's resource box (or bio) at the end including the link or two that the author has included to his/her website.

There is a whole list of great article directories right here on MasonWorld.com

It's a win-win situation. The author gets free advertising. You, the publisher, get free content.

There are potentially three negatives to using this type of article.

• First is the issue of duplicate content.  You're sharing the same exact articles as everyone else that uses that directory. This is not a big deal at all if you're using the article in your ezine, obviously.  Some people claim this is an issue with the search engines.   It's not an issue -- but if you are worried, just write an introduction to the article, and preferably a wrap-up statement or recommendation at the end.
• Second is the very difficult issue of finding quality content. Gone are the days of grabbing any old free reprint article. You want Expert Content only – and many of the article directories have “bleck” articles.  People spam the directories to get backlinks.
• Third is the issue of posting those darn links in the author resource box. You're basically advertising for someone else for free.  Talk about leaking traffic.

Use Extra-Special Free Reprint Articles.

Oftentimes ebook owners and other marketers with affiliate programs offer articles with a twist. You get to replace the link(s) in the author resource box with YOUR affiliate link for that program.

Here you'll find many articles that meet that criteria:  http://freeaffiliatearticles.com

The above site is run by my friend Nicole Dean and covers a variety of topics.   Sometimes articles are available directly from expert product owners that provide them so you can promote their products.  Always as affiliate managers.  You might be surprised what you can get.  The expert  gets free advertising. And, you, the publisher, still get great content. But, you can also benefit by earning affiliate commissions as well.

This model definitely adds an increased level of appeal compared to traditional reprint articles.

Write the Articles Yourself.

Well, of course you can (and should) choose to write some of your web content yourself. I highly recommend that you do write much of your own content, at least on the sites where you're trying to establish yourself as an authority.

I write 99% of the content on MasonWorld.com with some special exceptions that I note at the end of this article.

There are other options, however.  You can have your cake and eat it too -- as there are options that will enable you to post quality content to your website without having to write all of it yourself.  They have the advantage of positioning  YOU as the expert, rather than endorsing someone else as the expert.

Hire a Quality Ghostwriter or Copywriter.

A ghostwriter is a freelancer who writes for you (usually articles or reports), but you take the credit.

A copywriter specializes in writing copy that sells, and you usually take the credit.

There are many sites on the web where you can find writers. Start by asking around, or go to sites like elance.com (a job posting site) or Shelancers.com (a directory of freelancers) to look around. Having a ghostwriter on hand can keep your blog fresh and active.

This works very well for affiliate sites.  But for sites like MasonWorld.com, I have had very little luck with ghost writers.  But, if I need an article about Hoover Vacuums, I never hesitate to hire a ghost writer (in fact, I have one on staff).

PLR articles

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, PLR (Private Label Rights) articles are usually written by a ghostwriter and sold to several website owners. This means that you (and a limited number of other bloggers) can edit the articles and publish them without being required to link back to anyone or give anyone credit for writing them. You become the expert when using PLR articles.

Customize the articles, tweak them for your market, insert examples or photos or case studies and publish them on your website -- or just use them as they are. Either way, you gain a lot of flexibility when working with PLR. Not only that but they are very affordable.

So, How do you Find a Good PLR Service?

Simple. Find a PLR site that's been around for awhile and offers professionally-written and edited content that's sold in limited quantities. That will ensure that you're not getting recycled PLR, but are getting your hands on top-quality content.

My Recommendation for Top Quality PLR, Sold in Very Limited Quantities:

EasyPLR.com has been offering the best niche plr article packs on the web since 2006.

-        Great reputation. Thousands of happy, repeat customers over the years.

-        Great quality. The content is written by Professional Writers on staff and Edited by a Separate staff member.

-        Limited Availability. You're not sharing your articles with thousands of other people.

-        Run by a Respected Internet Marketer. Nicole Dean owns EasyPLR.com and is oftentimes called the marketer with integrity, and runs her business by her gut and her ethics, not strictly by her pocketbook.

-        Excellent customer support. Need any help? They're there for you.

I'm a customer at EasyPLR.com and I highly recommend their content. Check it out here.

Full disclosure -- just to prove a point, parts of this article are from high quality PLR from guess where?

photo credit: Anonymous Account

Back in November, I had Nicole Dean on the blog answering your questions about PLR content.  I had lots of great feedback on that article -- but I did get several shy emails from people asking me "what is PLR exactly."

Now, that is a great question to ask Nicole since she runs one of the best PLR sites on the net (my opinion).  If you have not checked out her site -- I recommend her PLR content highly and use it myself.  (Here is a link - you will love it.)

Note that you need to check her site frequently because all (or almost all) of her PLR products are available in limited quantities (to protect their value).

I think it is a typical mistake in this business to forget what it is like when you are first starting out and you are getting new acronyms thrown at you every day.  I don't want to be guilty of that mistake.

So, just for those new people (and for the record), I am including a video from Nicole that tells you what PLR is and how you can use it.

I hope you enjoy the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=d190qWOCMO0

As you know, I really believe in the power of building relationships with successful people and learning from their success. You also know that I am pretty picky about who those people are.

Today, I've got Nicole Dean here with a quick interview about a hot topic, PLR.  If you don't know Nicole, you should.  If you don't know what PLR is or how it can benefit you, you're about to have your eyes opened to a huge time-saver in your online business.

First of all, let me tell you what PLR is, and why I invited Nicole as our expert today.

PLR stands for “Private Label Rights”. For internet marketers, it usually means something that you can edit, put your name on and use in your online business. Now that “something” can be videos, audios, articles, reports, ebooks, or even software – so, I hope you can see that this can be a huge shortcut as opposed to going to eLance.com or Guru.com and having these things created from scratch. It's a lot cheaper, too.

Why did I invite Nicole here as our expert? Nicole is the voice of common sense, for one. Oftentimes, you'll see people talk about doing all sorts of crazy stuff with PLR that just perpetuates junk on the internet. Nicole strives to make the 'net a better place.

Second, Nicole created and has been running one of the most highly-respected PLR sites on the web since 2006. Honestly, there are very few sites that are in the same ballpark as hers and many that are just selling recycled trash to hungry internet marketers. However, before I talk too much, I'll pass you on to Nicole.

Welcome, Nicole Dean!

Hey Mark!

Thanks so much for asking me here today. I love your motto “Down to Earth Internet Marketing: Know-How without Hype”. You and I see eye-to-eye on that one, as you know.  I definitely appreciate the chance to talk about one of my favorite topics – web content!

You sent me a few questions that you'd like me to answer today, so let's get to it.

Question #1: What are 2 simple ways to use PLR articles?

There are many, many ways to use PLR articles, but I'll try to keep it simple.

The first, and easiest way to use your PLR articles is as blog content. In my opinion, it is much easier to start with a PLR article as your “draft” than to have to come up with ideas for your blog posts on your own week after week. What I recommend is that you copy/paste your PLR content into your blog and save each piece in draft mode. That way, it's all there waiting for you when you log in to post. Of course, if you'd prefer your blogging to be more hands-off, you can also hire a Ghostwriter or Virtual Assistant to log into your blog and work on the blog post drafts to include links and niche-specific examples, select categories and tags, add photos, and even post your blog posts for you.

As for the second, it's so hard to choose. I really love offering valuable free pdfs to my readers and customers. If you purchase a set of PLR articles from somewhere like my site: Easy PLR Articles, then it's really easy to transform those into a report or ebook that you can give away to your lists as a gift. Each set of PLR articles comes in a Word document, so all you have to do is open it in a free program like OpenOffice.org, edit the document, add your photo and some links, and then click on the “save as pdf” button and you're done. Then you'll have a valuable report that you can give away, offer as a bonus to your existing products, offer to competitors to give away to their customers, include in giveaway events or use in 100 other ways.

Yes, I do all of these things and plan to offer training on it soon. So, be sure to swing by my blog www.NicoleontheNet.com and sign up for updates in the right nav so you don't miss it when I do.

Question #2: What are 2 PLR mistakes to avoid?

Only 2 mistakes?

Well, the first big mistake that costs a lot of money is buying PLR from the wrong sources. There are SO many bad PLR sites on the web that it's not even funny. The content is poorly written and sometimes even recycled from other sites. Yes, you can find that you've purchased the exact same thing from two different sources. UG, right? So, be very choosy in who you'll trust with your hard-earned money and invest in quality PLR content.

The second mistake that makes me very frustrated is when customers purchase PLR from my site and then let it sit on their hard drive. Listen to me when I say “It can't make you money, sitting on your hard drive!” Get that PLR content onto your websites so you can recoup your investment and build your passive income.

I really hope that helps to give a better picture of what PLR is and what it can offer you. If you're still confused, I do offer more training at my site: Easy PLR Articles

Thanks again for having me, Mark!

Warmly,

Nicole Dean

If you'd like to learn more from me, check out my: Internet Business Success Podcast & Blog

Do you have some feedback for Nicole or questions about PLR articles?  Leave a comment and Nicole or I will do our best to get you an answer.

babyphoto credit: dr. hanz

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.

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

The MasonWorld Internet Marketing Dictionary

This week I am introducing my brand new and heavily under construction Internet Marketing Dictionary. What is that, you say? Well, thanks for asking. Let me tell you...

When I started this blog, the stated purpose was to document my Internet Marketing journey, and to help other people along the way. Since that time, I have had numerous "Internet Marketing" conversations with people that were just curious or just getting started.

In many of those discussions, I have found myself using words that people didn't know -- terms that were specific to computing and/or Internet Marketing.

A Resource For People

So, I decided to build a place inside MasonWorld.com where I could collect Internet Marketing terminology and explain what the words mean at the most basic level.  Thus, the MasonWorld Internet Marketing Dictionary was born.

As it happens, WordPress blog posts make a perfect medium for something like a living dictionary, as they allow for easy editing, comments and debate (which I encourage).

You'll notice that the initial dictionary is fully functional but "light-weight" in terms of content.   To start the dictionary, I obtained some PLR definitions and used those as a starting point for this project. So, there are lots of terms missing.  I'll be adding definitions throughout the year.

If you see some Internet Marketing terms that you think should be included, feel free to drop a comment in the dictionary.

Note that you do not need to opt-in to my email list to access the dictionary.

Enjoy.

Join My Mailing List And Get Free Stuff

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the other free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar). As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,

Mark

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

I have written in the past few weeks about how to make money writing your own eBooks, and I even published a report on how to write your own eBooks. I published the report using the $7 secrets formula for it's distribution.

But I Don't Want To Write

Don't want to write? You can also make money using Private Label Rights content (content written by other people that you have the rights to use).

To help you understand that, I have a free report from two famous internet marketers that I personally trust available for you this Friday. The title of the report is: Private Label Rights (PLR) Secrets: How To Use PLR Products To Create A Money-Making Small Reports Business.

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar). As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,
Mark

I have been working with niche sites with Firepow a lot over the last month, and many of my niche sites are monetized with AdSense.  So, I have had AdSense on the brain lately.  As it happens, a valued customer of Niche AdSense Themes contacted me this weekend.  He may choose to reveal himself in the comments, but in case he doesn't, let's just call him George.  George had just gotten a generic email from Google, and wanted some help figuring out what he had done wrong.  Here is an excerpt:

Hello,

While reviewing your account, we noticed that you are currently
displaying Google ads in a manner that is not compliant with our
policies. For instance, we found violations of AdSense policies
on pages such as mycustomerswebsite.com.

Publishers may not place Google ads on pages that violate
Google’s webmaster quality guidelines
(http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=35
769#quality). While we've included the following excerpts from
these guidelines, we recommend that you take the time to review
them in their entirety.

The problem is, this email went on to discuss the webmaster guidelines generically, but never indicated what George had done wrong.  His site was not on a forbidden topic, and was not "black hat site."  It was mostly legitimately republished content -- but that content was republished with permission.

Now, getting ads pulled from your site is not the same as getting banned from AdSense.  George's other sites are OK at the moment.  Oddly, the site was de-indexed by Google at the same time.  This is a more severe action, and suggests that the search engine people are talking directly to the AdSense people.

Anyway, the bottom line is, we are not sure what happened exactly.

Usually, AdSense advice is blunt -- "don't click on your own ads".  In my research this weekend, I was reminded of five more subtle things that you need to keep in mind when building sites for AdSense.  Here they are, in no particular order.

Make It About Google's Customer

Ultimately, Google search cares about getting the user a great search result so that the next time the user needs a search engine, they will choose Google.  It is all about Google's market share.  If they put spam at the top of their search results, people will eventually look for a better search engine.

So, if you do something to trick Google to rank your content so that you can make a buck -- that is OK.  Have fun.  Lots of "black hat" guys make a lot more money on the internet than I do.  Business is business.  As long as what you do is legal, you can make your own decisions.  Google is not the law.  But, don't ever forget that they do own the search engine and they answer to Google share holders.  So don't be upset if they yank your listings.  It is their search engine, after all.

Same goes for AdSense.  Always remember that the customer for AdSense is the advertiser -- not you, and not the person who clicks on the ad.  If your content does not generate clicks, or if clicks coming from your site do not increase revenue for the advertiser (Google's customer), you should expect Google to address that.  They do that by paying per click, smart pricing, and banning some sites from AdSense.

Create Some Unique Content

As I mentioned above, Google Search is about the searching user.  If your content is 100% duplicated content from elsewhere on the web, why would Google want to show it?  If they can figure out where it is, they will prefer to show the original content (all things being equal).   However, it is not clear to me that AdSense should care about duplicate content.  There is some hard-to-understand language in the Webmaster Guidelines about duplicate content, but I personally believe that passage refers to mirror sites and not PLR and other "duplicate content."

As I mentioned above, George had a lot of duplicate content.  While it is possible that this got his site banned from AdSense, I really don't think that was the reason.  Still, good unique content is a valuable defense against getting your site banned.

Be Careful About Competing Ads

While it is not clear what ads are OK, be careful about putting ads on your site that "look like" Google Ads.  Google is sensitive about protecting their brand, and will ban your site.

George did have competing ads on that site, and those ads had a footer encouraging people to refresh to get"fresh ads."  We are not sure if this matters to Google or not, but I think it might.  This is my best guess as to why George's site got banned.

Be Careful About Ad Placement

The AdSense ads on George's site are highly optimized to maximize click-through.  One concern we had is that Google gets upset if you try to "trick" the user and make them think that they are clicking on something other than an ad.

Because of this, one thing that people debate a lot is how close ads can be to page titles.  For example, let's say you have a page with the title "Used Cars For Sale" and right below that title you have an AdSense block that makes it seem that the AdSense ads are actually cars for sale on your site.

You can interpret Google's guidelines in such a way as to conclude this violates their TOS.   While I am sure you can violate their TOS this way, I don't think this is an issue with George's site.  However, it is something to keep in mind.

Make Sure You Have A Privacy Policy (and Disclaimers)

As of about last April, Google started requiring a privacy policy.  Make sure you have one on every page that serves AdSense Ads.  I also recommend a disclaimer, although this is not required by Google.  Fortunately, this was not an issue for George -- he did a bang-up job here.

The Bottom Line

Here is the real bottom line -- Google can pull your site for any reason or no reason at all.  So, my strong recommendation is that you do not put all of your eggs in one basket here.  Diversify with other affiliate offers and your own products.  You'll be glad you did.

Regards,
Mark

P.S. -- I know the title said three tips -- I got carried away and inclided five or six.  Sorry about that.

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

As a reminder, the information you need (URL and password) to get access to all the free internet marketing goodies in the archives is available in my Internet Marketing Newsletter each week.  You can subscribe in the sidebar to the right and I will send you immediate access to the entire archive.

This week, I am adding an eBook to the collection.  The topic is Article Marketing -- and how to drive traffic to your niche websites using article marketing and re-written PLR.

The eBook is by Matt Callen and addresses a lot of the questions that came up the other day in the comments of my post about his Simply PLR Membership Site.

It's a pretty good read, and I agree with most of the stuff in the eBook.

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar).

Thanks,
Mark

On a whim I bought Matt Callen's SimplyPLR product tonight to see what it was all about.  Basically, the product is a membership site that delivers 225 limited distribution Private Label Rights articles each month.  The articles are delivered in two formats -- normal text files and "spin ready".  The membership site is hooked up to the free spinner at ArticleApps.com -- which gets you 12 versions of the spun articles at a time.

There is also a cool automatic blog posting feature that will allow you to post to your blogs automatically using the XLMRPC feature present in WordPress and other popular blogging platforms.

I am pretty impressed by the slick nature of the user interface inside the membership site.  Also, I am totally impressed with the quality of the articles that I reviewed (just a few at random so far).  Pretty quality stuff.  The spun articles are high quality as well (mostly spinning complete sentences).

Here is an example of a couple of paragraphs out of a spun article titled "Enterprise Rental Cars:

Some people don't own an automobile. Even in America it's a fact. Many times people own cars but aren't at home and thus need temporary wheels. It's rental cars to the rescue when people don't want to put wear and tear on their car, or need a car for another reason. Enterprise is one of the most popular auto rental businesses. That's because Enterprise car rentals are not overly pricey, they're generally in good shape, and Enterprise will even pick up the renter from home, from the office, or from the airport.

Enterprise has many locations all over the nation. Compact cars, full size cars, sedans and coups are all there for the taking. There are even luxury cars and convertibles for rent. Why not take advantage of the sun and weather especially when it can be expensed? They even have cheap rates. A weekly rental for under $300 can be a great deal. Do the math on this one. Use public transportation for the daily commute. When cars are about $20 per day, on the weekends, run errands. All the car needs are then taken care of for about $60 weekly. Even a car lease can't match the value of $3500 a year for auto use.

And here are those same 2 paragraphs out of another spun version of the same article.  You can tell the article is similar, but it is very unique compared to other spun content that I have seen.

Not everyone owns a car. It may seem impossible, but it's real. There are also people who have a car but travel to different cities where they'll need a car. Whether it's for a trip near home over the weekend, running errands that can't be done via public transportation, or getting around while 1000 miles away from home, that's where rental cars come into the picture. And one of the companies people choose most often is Enterprise. these cars are reliable, cheap, and Enterprise will pick people up from home, the office or at the airport.

Enterprise has many locations all over the nation. They offer a variety of cars from sub compact all the way up to SUVs. Some even offer sporty convertibles. Life is short, why not live a little? They even have cheap rates. $300 for the week is a real bargain for a car. Get out the calculator. Use public transportation for the daily commute. When cars are about $20 per day, on the weekends, run errands. For about $60 a week all the car needs are fulfilled. Once price, insurance and all the other car costs are taken into account, under $3500 for a rental year is a lot less than owning.

All in all I am very impressed with this the Simply PLR membership site after looking around for about an hour.  Each month there are articles on topics chosen by Matt's team.  You do not get to choose the topics, which is the only downside that I can see to this site.

Still, if you are paying $47 a month for this site and you are getting 225 spin-ready articles (15 topics) each month, that is only $0.21 per article.  That's crazy cheap.  Let's say you build a website from each article pack using a tool like Firepow.  Now that would be cool.  You could easily build 15 sites a month with Firepow and SimplyPLR in combination.   I may do that this month.  Do that for a year and you would have a small blog empire.  Then you could use the spun versions for marketing through article directories (they don't generally like PLR, but this stuff looks really unique to me, especially if you spin and then rewrite a little).

All in all, I recommend this if you are looking for PLR.   Matt Callen's SimplyPLR is a class act.

Regards,
Mark

Today, I show an example of how to use Master Resale Rights content and the $7 Secrets Script to build your list.  You can see the offer for PreSelling Secrets here.  Read on to learn more.

On Thursday, I talked about the importance of lists, and how I was rethinking my entire list strategy thanks to Josh Spaulding's New Age Email Marketing Report.  This caused me to start work on an experiment with $7 Secrets (which I described Saturday). Committing to a $7 secrets approach meant that I needed a new eBook to sell -- something that people would really want that was worth a lot more than $7.  Well, I went ahead and wrote one that was appropriate for this experiment. It's all about how to write your first eBook, and I am launching the eBook (called "First eBook Now!" tomorrow.  Stay tuned and you will be among the first to know when it goes live (hint -- around noon CST Tuesday).

But I Don't Want To Write An eBook

One thing that I hear from time to time from people is that they "can't write an eBook" or "don't want to write and eBook."  Now I personally think that everyone has at least one great eBook in them, especially if they already have a website full of content that they can draw inspiration from or perhaps even re-purpose.

I'll admit, however, if you have never written an eBook before it can be a little intimidating at first.  Based on that revelation, I will be releasing my own $7 eBook tomorrow about how to write your first eBook.  I think it will help get you over the hump.

Of course, there are other options apart from writing your own eBook.  You can purchase Private Label Rights content (discussed in my post on Friday where I give away some Weightloss PLR) and put that content together into an eBook.  Sometimes, you can find entire PLR eBooks that you can purchase and put your name on.  Or you can hire a ghostwriter.  Still another option is that you can purchase Master Resale Rights to a eBook and sell that.

Using Master Resale Rights With $7 Secrets

If you are not familiar with Master Resale Rights (MRR), you should know that when you purchase MRR with an eBook, you usually get permission to resell the eBook and keep all of the profit.  Sometimes, the MRR package even comes with a sales page and graphics that you can use.  These restrictions can vary from package to package, and you should always check before you make your purchase.

Honestly, I don't usually use MRR content for anything.  However, in support of this blog post I decided to find some quality content so I could demonstrate the idea for you.  I happen to own Master Resale Rights to Johnathan Leger's Preselling Secrets - an excellent eBook that my audience should value.  Since it is one of Jon's books, it happens to be set up for use with $7 Secrets - so it was really easy for me to set up.  You can see PreSelling Secrets here.

In fact, you can even buy the Master Resale Rights to PreSelling Secrets in a one time offer that is available to you after you buy the report.  That means that if you buy the Master Resale Rights you can use Preselling Secrets for your own $7 Secrets experiment (while you are writing your own eBook).

The Bottom Line

There is no substitute for having your own product.  But in certain situations, it can make sense to find quality MRR products that people will value and promote them using $7 Secrets.

Regards,
Mark

I hope you survived Halloween. I simply cannot believe it is November. Where did the year go?

Over the last couple of days, I have been on a posting rampage about the importance of lists in Internet marketing.  Yesterday, I told you about how you could build your list buy giving stuff away.  This works well, but fills your list with "freebie seekers."  Wouldn't it be better to have a list full of people who had already trusted you enough to give you money?

The Magic of $7 Secrets

What seems like a long time ago (2007), I remember hearing about Jonathan Leger's magical $7 Secrets report (complete with scripts).  There was a lot of buzz about it at the time.  But back then, I had never worked with Jon Leger, so I was not sure if I could trust him.  After all, I did not know him at all. I sort of forgot all about $7 Secrets.

Since that time, I have come to know Jon as a trustworthy Internet Marketer (and a really smart guy).  I read his blog, exchange email with him, interact with him on forums, purchase many of his products, etc.  I've even recommended some of his stuff (like IAW Pro) to my readers.  Bottom line, Jon is a good guy who works very hard and has lots of good ideas.

I was reminded about $7 Secrets when my friend,  Internet Marketing Coach Josh Spaulding, told me he was writing some $7 reports.  That got me interested in Leger's 7$ secrets again.  (Note that since then, Jon sold the product to Don, who is doing a great job supporting it).

What is Seven Dollar Secrets?

Simply put, the $7 secrets approach takes a high value item (a small eBook) and offers it for sale at a price that is way below the percieved value.  $7 is typically used as a sales price because it is widely reported that prices that end in "7" convert better on the internet.

The key piece of the $7 secrets approach is the viral marketing part.  The $7 script that comes with the $7 secrets report is set up so that people can make money selling the report that they just purchased -- and they can do it instantly.  By simply adding their paypal address to the URL for the product, new affiliates can instantly make 100% commission on sales.

The checkout part of the script even has a "tell a friend" area where people can make commissions as they complete their purchase by sending a promotional email directly to their friends.  Pretty slick.

The $7 script also allows you to make money on the back end of your sale by supporting "One Time Offers" for higher priced products.

So Why Offer 100% Commission?

If you are selling an eBook with the $7 Script, you are doing it because you are wanting to collect emails.  The script is set up to collect emails once the purchase has been made.  You don't care about the $7 -- you want the email.  So, if someone is willing to promote your report to their list, you will happily trade them the $7 commission for a chance to get the prospect email.  It is as simple as that.

Affiliates love it because it is usually easy for someone to decide to spend $7, especially if the content is great.

My $7 Report

The best value that I have seen lately for $7 comes from Josh Spaulding.  He recently released his New Age Email Marketing report under the $7 Secrets script.  You can go check it out to see what a great $7 Secrets promotion looks like.

My $7 report will be coming out on Tuesday, so stay tuned.   In the mean time, I recommend that you seriously consider getting yourself a copy of $7 Secrets (complete with the script) for $7 and writing your own eBook.

Regards,

Mark

Hey -- Happy Halloween!

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

As I promised yesterday, we are spending a week blogging about lists. The problem is that it is also Free Stuff Friday, and I know how you love that. So, I am combining Free Stuff Friday with a post about lists.

If you read my blog, you already know that you can use "free stuff" to get people to sign up for your list.  This is a good approach because it provides value and builds trust.  A better approach is to get people on your list by selling stuff (as done with $7 Secrets), but giving stuff away is a great place to start.

You can give away information, software, content, merchandise, discounts, you name it.

In this example, we'll talk about giving away PLR content.

What Is PLR Content?

One thing that you hear about a lot in Internet Marketing circles is content that comes with "Private Label Rights (PLR)." Typically, if you buy content with PLR you are licensed to use that content in various ways. Things that you can usually do with PLR might include use it to make eBooks, publish with or without modification, combine it into longer content, split it apart into shorter content, use it in an autoresponder series, put your name on it, etc.

I say "usually" because PLR rights are almost always given specifically for the content you are buying, and restrictions can change depending on the authors wishes.

One thing that you usually cannot do is resell unmodified PLR to other people.

What are Master Resale Rights?

Master Resale Rights (MRR) usually gives you the right to resell something and keep all of the profits as long as you make no modifications to the content. MRR does not usually give you the right to reuse the content for another purpose (like re-publication under your name).

To illustrate all of this for you, I bought Master Resale Rights to a package of PLR articles on weight loss. I am making these articles available to you these articles as this weeks Friday Freebie.

Specifically, when I bought this PLR with MRR rights, I got the rights to:

(Yes) Submit to article directories
(Yes) Can be offered as a bonus with other Products - if changes are made to the articles
(YES) Can be edited completely and your name put on them
(YES) Can be used as web content
(YES) Can be used as a blog post
(YES) Can be broken down into smaller articles
(YES) Can be combined to make larger articles
(YES) Can be used as an e-mail/auto responder sequence
(YES) Can be added to a membership site
(YES) Can be Sold at any Price

I am NOT giving you MRR.

I am giving you PLR rights to these articles.

This means that you can:

(YES) Can be used as web content
(YES) Can be used as a blog post
(YES) Can be broken down into smaller articles
(YES) Can be combined to make larger articles
(YES) Can be used as an e-mail/auto responder sequence
(YES) Can be added to a membership site
(No) Can be Sold at any Price (Unless completely edited)

As usual, all you need to do is join my email list (see the opt-in box at the right) to download this report and other free stuff. Why not sign up today!

So How Can This Help Me With My List?

Now, I don't use a lot of PLR -- but here are at least 3 ways you can use it to help build a list.  Note that I always recommend that if you do use PLR that you rewrite it completely, adding your own voice and augmenting it with your own experience or research.

• Give PLR (when you have MMR) away to your readers as an opt-in gift (like this post)
• Use PLR on a blog as posts to attract readers to your opt-in box
• Send PLR content to your list as valuable content after they opt in.
• Use PLR to write an eBook for use with $7 Secrets

Enjoy.
Mark

P.S. -- If you really want the resale rights to this package of articles, you can have the resale rights for $5 by purchasing through the paypal button below.  Your paypal receipt with the title "Weight Loss MRR" will serve as your license to resell these articles (or use them as you see fit).  Note that you will still need to opt-in to the email list to get them, as I have not set up a separate download just for MRR.

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.

A few weeks ago I wrote about the value of your time and how you should consider outsourcing in your online business.  Of course, the ultimate goal of outsourcing should be to create a more profitable company while keeping the owner sane.

I find that many people are afraid of outsourcing.  If you are one of those people (and even if you are not), you may be interested to hear about how to avoid common outsourcing mistakes.  This will make the process go much smoother and keep you from spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

One of my favorite PLR gurus, Nicole Dean of www.OutsourceWeekly.com says "You must plan your outsourcing wisely. Otherwise, you're simply throwing money into the wind."

Just like anything, outsourcing has its good and bad points.  If you are aware of the potential problems before hand, you dramatically increase your chances of an enjoyable experience.

So, without further delay, here are 5 potential outsourcing mistakes every online business owner should be aware of, in order to avoid making them.

Failure To "Know" Your Contractor

If you ask around, most business owners who outsource will tell you the biggest benefit of doing so is the fact that their assistants work remotely. But that usually means you have never met the person you are working with.  So, the number one problem when it comes to outsourcing is not thoroughly checking out the contractor or company who will be performing the work.  You need to keep in mind that sometimes this independence can work in the "wrong direction" if not taken seriously.

Action: Make it a point to carefully interview the people you are considering working with before assigning a task or project to them. The person or company should be someone you can trust to represent your business.

Failure To Communicate

Whether you are outsourcing tech support, writing, web design or something else, you must keep the lines of communication open.  If you allow your workers to do work for you without communicating your goals and what it is that you need, you will find that they your work will not be done as you'd hoped. Assistants are not mind-readers and do need guidance.

Action: Take some time to make sure that you and the people you outsource to understand your expectations.  This is an important part of making sure that you get what you need.

Failure To Budget

If you want outsourcing to work properly, you'll need to keep a good eye on what you are spending for the work being done. While some projects will require single payments to your assistant, others may involve recurring or retainer payments and you will more than likely have some type of contract or agreement that binds you. Some of your assistants may charge by the hour while others may invoice by project or expect payment based on a commission of some sort.

Action: Take the time to figure out how much money you can afford to spend on certain tasks and budget appropriately.

Failure To Efficiently Use Resources

When you choose to outsource certain tasks, make certain you are using your assistant to their fullest capabilities and not just outsourcing for the sake of outsourcing or splitting up work between two assistants when it makes more sense to have one handle both jobs. Sometimes you can find freelancers who are willing to work on a recurring basis or who will complete larger projects at a reduced rate in order to get and keep your business.

Action: Ask potential contractors if they have room for more than just one or two jobs and don't outsource something just to say that you're on the outsourcing wagon.  Set aggressive goals and have a plan.

Failure To Be The Owner

As the one doing the outsourcing, you need to understand your role. In order for the relationship between business owner and assistant to flourish, you'll want to keep the lines of communication not only open, but clear as well.

Action: Be detailed in what you expect from your help.  Also keep in mind that you are probably not their only client and as much as you would love to have them all to yourself, that probably isn't the case. Be respectful of their time and give feedback on their work. This will help them do a better job and respect your time in return.

The Bottom Line

Making yourself aware of possible problems that often occur in the outsourcing relationship now allows your business to grow by leaps and bounds. Don't be afraid to start your outsourcing journey, especially that you are now better prepared to do so.

If you want to learn more about oursourcing, Jimmy Brown and Nichole Dean have an outsourcing course that you can take.  I have not taken the course mysely, but it comes hightly recommended.  Check it out at www.OutsourceWeekly.com

One of the first things that I needed to do when I finished my Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress product was create a sales page.  Now, the best thing to do in this case is spend a couple hundred dollars to hire a pro that does this for a living.

But, I was on a budget for this project, so I decided to create the sales page myself.  To do that, I bought some simple mini-site templates with PLR.  Since I know you might need to create your own sales page, I have decided to give them away as a bonus to my list subscribers (the rights that came with the purchase allow this).

So, if you want the same templates that I paid for to start my first product site absolutely free, just enter your name and email address below and they are yours to use on your own sites.

I hate spam too, so you will never get any spam from me (privacy policy).

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

The Beatles said it best - "The Best Things In Life Are Free." Of course, the hook to that song is "Give Me Money - That's What I Want." It's pretty clear to me that John, Paul, Ringo and George would have made a great Internet Marketing Team.

Many of you know that I have a 3 part strategy for my internet marketing business. I am building adsense mini-sites, thin affiliate sites using phpBay and popshops, and working on information products and list building.

Since internet marketing is a hobby for me, I have been trying to learn about information products without spending $1997 on an internet marketing information product that may or may not be great. Pretty funny -- I am trying to avoid buying the kind of product that I want to build. I may need professional help.

The Best Things In Life Are Not Free

In the last few days, I have come across two "free" products that are worth mentioning. I have put "free" in quotes because they both require opt-in emails. Make no mistake here -- the reason that these people are collecting your email is because they want your permission to market other products to you. So we are clear on that, right?

Also, if you use my links to click through to these products, I will get credit for referring you. If you buy something, I will get a commission. Note that I am actually not endorsing any of those paid products. They are probably great, but I have not reviewed them. The free porducts that I did personally spend time reviewing are great. My point is, I am not trying to sell you anything, but there is an affiliate program and I want to be crystal clear about that.

So we are clear on that too, right?

OK, great!

Excellent Free Video Course

The first thing that I want to tell you about is the free video course on mini-sites from Michael Rasumssen called Mini-Site Profits Exposed. Like everyone else, I got email bombed by everybody from Mike Filsame to Jimmy Carter on this one this week. I never know what to think about these huge launches, but I decided to take a look. All of these big money guys are "Moving The Free Line" and that means that there is some quality free stuff coming out these days.

I was interested in this because if I am going to be successful selling information products, I will need good mini-sites. This free video series comes in 12 parts, and is really great. The quality of production is surprisingly high. The video series provides an excellent introduction to mini-site design, structure and flow. There is a section on squeeze pages, sales copy and site automation. Michael covers affiliates, sales growth strategies and traffic. The amount of content in this free video course is amazing. I don't agree with absolutely everything in the series, but I am also not making the kind of money that Rasumssen is making.

Excellent Free Slacker Report

If you are wanting to get started in information products and you are bogged down trying to figure out where to start (we have all certainly been there) -- then I have a eBook for you. I got an email from James Jones promoting a "free" eBook called the Slacker Way that James co-authored with Terry Gibbs. I like James and his Micro Niche Finder product, so I decided to take a look.

In the eBook The Slacker Way, primary author Terry Gibbs discusses a collection of topics that information marketers need to know. He covers what it means to be a "slacker," how to get started with an information product, how to build a network of affiliates and JV partners, how to knock off your own products, how to use pseudonyms, PLR content, public domain content, and a host of other topics.

It's a good read and a nice free guide. If you are thinking about getting into information products, this is a good free resource.

Regards,
Mark
photo credit: Cane Rosso

There has been a cool contest going on over at Caroline Middlebrook's blog. I really like her stuff, so I am playing along. From an internet marketing standpoint, this is very clever. This contest causes you to do two things -- dig through all of Caroline's old content and create links to that content. This is a really great example of what is called "linkbait." Caroline has basically set up a contest that generates deep links back to her site. This will improve the value that Google places on her content as Google considers inbound links as "votes" for the importance of stuff. What's cool about this contest is that it is pretty classy.

If you are interested in participating, the contest ends soon (tomorrow UK time).

If you are reading my post -- no cheating. You have to find the eggs yourself (he he).

This is my favorite egg location: Caroline's Case Study of a Niche WordPress Site

You should read these posts anyway:

Twitter-Stumbleupon Deadly Combo
My Favorite eBook: Zen to Done

Doubling Subscribers to You Blog
Stats, Stats and More Stats
Keywords Will Set You Free

Others include:

101 CSS Galleries Backlinks

Focus or Deversify
Grow Your Twitter Audience
Caroline Who?

Cats Need Pagerank Too
Embedding Youtube in Your Posts
Blog HTML Validation
About Caroline
Niche Site Creation with WordPress

Warrior Forum Tour (great post)
Do Follow Please

Thanks to all the Stumblers

Pointless Blog Posts
Products that Sell (like teaching)
Building Assets, Skills, Wealth, Happiness and Harmony
Marketing Email Lists
IM Ebooks
PLR Content

Writing Ebooks Is Not So Easy
Ebook Project, Torrent File
Yaro Rocks!
Link Lovin
The Prize -- Email Course Project

Successful Blogging Secrets - Where's Your Head?

Regards,

Mark

Just a quick update from the trenches.

I've been hard at work on multiple fronts the last few days. As you know, this blog is about part-time Internet Marketing (and making money on line). The part-time aspect of that phrase means that I have a really limited number of hours to do IM-related things each day. Interestingly, I think there are a lot of people like me that are trying to get started part time. Thus, this blog. If I can help a few people get started, I'm declaring success.

Just so you know what I've been up to, I have been working with a hot-shot pro developer on this fancy new blog theme (more on this in a future post). We're not done with all the tweaks yet, but I am really happy with the new clean, professional look. My eventual goal is to be a recognized authority on part-time online business with a focus on affiliate and information marketing. I plan to get to that place transparently -- no snake oil, get rich quick, or black hat stuff. (Side note -- there is a lot of gray hat stuff out there. We'll have to discuss that in another post). With the new theme in place, I feel like I have a better platform from which to reach that goal. So, this blog will continue to be about my experiences -- blogging in the open about all the stuff I wish that I had known -- it will just look nice now.

One thing I am realizing is that this blog must also about internet lifestyle and time management. If you are going to work on the internet part time, you must figure out how to keep it from taking over your life. So, we'll be talking about various tools that I use to try to make that happen (including virtual assistants). This includes my latest favorite eBook, Zen To Done. That eBook deserves its own post in the future (coming soon).

So, stay tuned. I have recently been working on the promised marketing efforts for HistoryofElvis.com. I have located PLR content, hired someone to write articles, purchased blog posts, and obtained link directory submissions. I've also started a super-secret side project that I'll be revealing in two weeks.

Thanks for dropping by! Let me know what you think about the new theme. I strongly recommend the guy that did it -- he's a real pro. More on that later too. Talk to you soon.

Best regards,

Mark

It's been almost two months since I initially got the bug to "make money on the internet." At that time, I stated my goal was to work at this part time, and that I was not interested in "black hat" money-making schemes. Just before Christmas, I published my initial plan of learning what I was doing by working on a few sites. Those sites are up, and boy have I learned a lot. Since Christmas, I have experimented with b2evolution and Joomla, and settled on WordPress as a content management system and blogging platform. I have played with Adsense, Azoogle, Commission Junction, ClickBank and other affiliate programs. I have written php code. I have purchased some software (like phpBay - affiliate link), and spent a lot of time reading. Tons of time reading.

Like everyone else, I've read John Chow and ShoeMoney, free SEO books, four million posts at DP Forums, etc. Right now, my favorite blog for this stuff is Caroline Middlebrook's site. I really like her style (she has been given the moniker "The Honest Blogger" by many of her loyal readers). Caroline is basically trying to do full time what I want to do part time. She recently released a good e-book about how to build a niche site with WordPress. It's a good read, especially if you need help with the mechanics of installing WordPress and other technical details that often get left out of other eBooks.

Inspired by Caroline's eBook and some of her postings, I am ready to integrate all of the knowledge that I have accumulated over the last 2 months in a live day-by-day demonstration. I have decided to build a niche site live as a case study on how to do this. Caroline's excellent eBook discusses building a "simple" niche site that relies on Adsense. That's an awesome place to start and perfect for the purposes of her eBook. I will be expanding Caroline's ideas to include discussions on PLR article content, news feeds, eBay auctions, backlinks, affiliate marketing, etc. The result will be a fully integrated niche site rich with content, ads and stuff to buy. I'm calling it a "Niche Super-Site." Pretty nifty, huh?

I'll post daily on my progress for a month or so, and we'll track the blog stats and progress together throughout February. I'll be accepting reader suggestions and ideas, and will grow the site live throughout the month. Along the way, I'll be handing out the "link love" posting links to all the references that I use to get the site operational.

So, stay tuned. It should be a wild ride.

Tomorrow, we'll tackle the topic of beginning with the end in mind, followed with a discussion about how to select a niche for our super-site. I will announce my choice for a niche after that and we'll subsequently register a domain name. Goal is one post/step per day (which is consistent with my part-time internet monetization strategy).

See you tomorrow.

Related posts:

%RELATEDPOSTS%