Hi,

 

I'm glad you enjoy my blog.

 

Yes, I purchased Ad Word Analyzer. I run it before I set up my Google AdWords campaigns to find out how many other advertisers there are to compete against for keywords I want to target. If there are a lot of them then I know the

keyword bid prices will be high, which doesn't necessarily mean I won't target them in my campaigns.

 

I will also be able to see which keywords have just a few

advertisers on Google and Overture and probably a low keyword bid price. This might be especially handy when you want to pick up some cheap keyword bid prices in a very competitive niche market.

 

More important than those two features to me is the ability

to find keywords in any niche market that have a low R/S

(Results/Searches) number.

 

I use to find R/S by using the Overture Suggestion Tool to find the demand (searches) and then I would use Google to find the supply (# of web pages listed). So the Ad Word Analyzer saves me a lot of time since it finds the R/S number for you automatically.

 

I'm mainly interested in finding the R/S numbers of keywords. I build web pages with good content that target these low P/R keywords, which helps me get a better ranking with search engines.

 

Besides having a low R/S number, a keyword should also have a decent number of searches every month on Overture, which might be 500 or more.

 

Lastly, you also have to check the other websites that are displayed on the Google search results page for any keyword to see what their Page Ranks (PR) are because if they all have a higher PR than your website it will be hard to compete for that keyword.

 

Best regards,

Barry

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Friday, Jan. 2, 2004

 

Today is the sixth anniversary of my BarrysBeanies.com online business. It was approximately 6 years ago that I started selling Beanie Babies on eBay.

 

eBay became too much work for me so then I built a website. Now the website is too much work for me so now I'm building an affiliate marketing business.

 

The Beanie Baby website really isn't too much work since it only takes me about one hour a day to run it. I'm just tired of dealing with hard products. A digital product business is so much easier to automate and it gives you much more freedom.

 

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I spent some time last night doing searches with Ad Word Analyzer for keywords that have a lot of searches for them on Overture, but have very few Google AdWords ads listed for them on Google. I found four keywords that meet this criteria.

 

Next I used Affiliates Alert software to do a search for affiliate products in the niche market that targets the above four keywords. From the resulting list I picked what I thought were the four best affiliate products to promote for these four keywords.

 

I started one new campaign last night for one of these keywords. I'll start additional campaigns for at least one more of these keywords and see how it goes. All the keyword bids are set at .06 cents.

 

I stopped my second diet campaign. It had over 100 click throughs and only one sale. I also ended the two other New Years resolution campaigns that both failed to be profitable after about 75 click throughs. They were both in the health niche market.

 

So now I know I don't like to promote diet or health affiliate products. I think many of the people who search for these topics are looking for free information. Both these niche markets have cheap keywords associated with them. You just have to find something that people will buy. They certainly weren't buying my products.

 

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I received and email earlier today from Affiliates Alert to let me know that the ClickBank Market Place had been updated and new affiliate products had been added to their database.

 

Now there is no way for you to find these products in ClickBank since they are new and they are buried somewhere in the bottom of their categories. However, I was able to use the Affiliates Alert software and do a search for products that are new within the last week and up comes a list of all the new products.

 

If you upgraded to the professional Affiliates Alert you will be able to see these new products right now. If you are using the standard free version of Affiliates Alert then it will be about 7 days before you will be able to see them in a search.

 

These new products don't have a track record yet so it is hard to pick out the ones that might be profitable with a Google AdWords campaign, but if you have been reading my blog for the last couple of weeks you will know what makes a great merchant website and use that criteria to evaluate these new products and websites. Based on that information you should be able to spot potential profitable affiliate products.

 

I found two new products that meet the criteria that I look for when I critique a merchant website and I'll do a test campaign for both of them within the next few days.

 

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Affiliates Alert 101

 

The other day I posted the following history rank chart for the affiliate program ProfitCalc. This chart shows the product moving up steadily in it's rank for this category. This is a "new killer product."

 

 

There are pros and cons to "new killer products." .

 

Pros:

• It is moving to a higher rank quickly which means sales are increasing.

• If you can promote this product quickly you should be able to make money. (Google AdWords, pay-per-clicks, email lists, your website and running ads in ezines.)

Cons:

• Other people know how to find these "new killer products" using Affiliates Alert so you will have competition, but maybe not enough to prevent you from making money with a campaign.

• Many times products like these will only have a short window of opportunity to make money with them since other affiliates start to promote them also as soon as the word gets around. Also, many times you are on the tail end of a "new killer product" when you start reading all about them in the Internet marketing forums.

The good news is that if you miss one of these "new killer products" that there is always another one coming along.

 

Affiliates Alert is brand new and it will probably be a while before other affiliates catch on and start using it. Right now most of the other affiliates are going into the ClickBank Market Place to find affiliate products. It is impossible for them to know that this is a "new killer product" without having access to the Affiliates Alert data.

 

Besides, most affiliates choose the wrong ClickBank products to promote. They usually go for the best sellers, which is OK, but many times they won't work with a Google AdWords campaign because there are just too many other people doing the same thing.

 

There is a better group of affiliate products to promote, but before I get into that I want to post a rank history chart for a "dying product."

 

 

This affiliate product doesn't sell like it used to. Something is wrong here for sales to drop-off. Maybe a bad product or a lot of refunds?

 

This next chart is for an "underexposed product." This is where you will find some "gold." These are the affiliate products that are underexposed and since they are not in the top 10 they are harder to find then the "newer killer products," but you have to check them out very carefully and make sure they meet the criteria so far as having a great looking website and product.

 

 

And here's an "all time killer" rank history chart. This product is hard to sell now with it's own campaign since so many other affiliates are also selling it. You can make money with these, but not a lot of money this late in the game. Especially not with a Google AdWords campaign of it's own.

 

 

The last group of affiliate products that you should watch out for are the new products. If you have the ability to recognize a great website and product then you might just be able to find the "gold" way before anyone else does.

 

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I just received a commission for an affiliate product sale. Funny thing is that I stopped the Google AdWords campaign for this product about two weeks ago. This website has an opt-in to collect email addresses in order to do more follow ups and try to make the sale. Evidently that is what happened since I never have marketed this product any other way. Just shows the benefit of a merchant website collecting email addresses of all visitors and doing follow ups.

 

It's 5:42 PM PT and I have seven affiliate sales today for a total of $140.80 in commissions. One more sale and I'll set a new one day record for myself.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Saturday, Jan. 3, 2004

 

I got nine affiliate product sales yesterday with total affiliate commissions of $179.25, which are both new one day records for me.

 

The funny thing is that two of these sales were for one product which I no longer promote with Google Adwords or anywhere else. I mentioned this yesterday, the sales most likely came from individuals who opted in for a special report on the merchant's website and the merchant was able to make the sales by following up with more emails to them.

 

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I have had my BarrysBeanies.com website hosted with BigStep.com for about three years now. It has worked out very well for me.

 

When I first hosted my website with BigStep.com I had no knowledge of website design or e-commerce. BigStep.com made it easy for me to get started.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: As I previously stated, I only use BigStep.com for my BarrysBeanies.com Web site and I no longer recommend it for hosting Web sites. If you are looking for a place to host your site I'd recommend Host Gator, where I've hosted this site and others for over 3 years. Host Gator is cheap, reliable and has outstanding customer service.

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BigStep.com has many templates you can use for your website design. Most templates work fine if you personalize them by making minor changes to the color scheme and by adding some professional looking graphics. You can also upload your own website designs to the BigStep.com server if you prefer.

 

The management area within my BigStep.com account is easy to use and understand. There are tutorials for everything there in case you get stuck.

 

BigStep.com also can provide you with an online catalog and a shopping cart. They take care of everything. All you have to do is follow directions when you are setting it up.

 

Basically you have to add descriptions for the items you are selling, add the product photos, the prices and the shipping options. It is easy enough that even a fifth grader could probably do it.

 

BigStep.com will also handle your application for a merchant account so that you can accept credit cards. Of course you could always set up a free shopping cart from PayPal.com.

 

However, I think you would be better off if you are able to accept credit cards directly with a merchant account. I think it is too much to expect for people to sign up for a PayPal account just so they can pay you.

 

The complete BigStep.com package will cost you $49.95 a month. You'll also pay about a 2.5% discount rate to the merchant account for processing your credit card transactions.

 

I think an online store might be a low risk way for many people to get started doing business online.

 

Only other thing I would recommend to anyone wanting to start an ecommerce website is to not open a "mall" or a "gift" website. The secret of making money with an ecommerce website is to specialize. You have to target a small niche market where you won't find five million other websites selling the same thing that you sell on your website.

 

What can you sell on a website?

 

You can sell arts or crafts that you make or you can find "wholesale products" to sell online. Many of these "wholesalers" will also drop-ship products to your customers for you. A lot of my Beanie Babies are drop-shipped to my customers by my suppliers.

 

The best products to sell are easy to ship and don't break easily. Did I hear Beanie Babies? Maybe, but I think it is too late for Beanie Babies since the market has already peaked. What still makes it profitable for me is all the "wholesaling" I do to non-profits, schools and companies for special promotions.

 

One of the best products would be something that is consumable and would have to be reordered on a regular basis. Like vitamins or maybe some type of food. Just seems like it would be easier to build a large customer base that will order again and again from your website if it was a consumable product, rather than doing a one time sale.

 

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Before starting my online business I did in-home sales for kitchen cabinet re-facing and countertops.

 

Prior to that I sold cars on and off for over 20 years.

 

During that time I always read many books on selling.

 

Sales experience and knowledge has helped me with many aspects of my business.

 

You need to know the basics of human nature and why people buy if you expect to sell your products and/or your ideas to others.

 

If you lack sales knowledge and skills it can hurt your business. You can either educate yourself or hire others to sell for you.

 

I know some people will say, "Barry, I don't want to sell."

 

Well, guess what?

 

You are "selling" all the time so you might as well get good at it.

 

Just like the wife who "sells" her husband on the idea of going to the restaurant she wants to go to for dinner. Or the father who "sells" his son on the idea of why he shouldn't smoke.

 

The bottom line is that knowledge of selling will help you in both your personal and professional life.

 

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I'm thinking about buying DeskTopAuthor. I cannot get those flipping pages out of my head. I went through the tutorial on their website for creating ebooks and it looks very easy to do.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: If you want to create ebooks get Adobe Acrobat and not DeskTopAuthor because Acrobat is the leader in the field and what the majority of marketers use. If you know someone who is attending college have them buy you Adobe Acrobat Standard in the college book store where it will cost about $100.

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I thought it would be a good idea to create ebooks that contain great content and subtle links to affiliate products.

 

Few ideas on marketing them:

 

1. Sell them on eBay and start with a low bid. I don't care if I make money. I'll be happy to break even. I just want to get these ebooks in people's hands and I really don't care if people make copies and pass them around. I'll have my affiliate links plus a link to my website throughout the ebook.

 

2. Make them available on my website for a free download.

 

3. Run ads with Google Adwords and offer them for free.

 

This is new to me so I'm going to have give it more thought and perhaps I will get some feedback from others on what they think.

 

Main thing holding me back right now is creating the content for the ebooks, but I guess I could always pay someone to do it for me. Maybe do a joint venture. I like doing graphic design and desktop publishing, but I don't care much for writing.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: An excellent source of content for ebooks is public domain content and private label products.

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I know that is hard to believe, but I have probably done more writing in the last 6 months than I did in the previous 20 years. LOL

 

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These are the Google AdWords campaigns that are still running after deleting a couple of the unprofitable affiliate products I was promoting.

 

Niche market of the product    Avg. Cost-per-click (CPC)

Recreation #1                                                   .06

Recreation #2                                                   .06

Home based business #1                                  .16

Home based business #2                                  .22

Home based business #3                                  .26

 

I have had two of the above affiliate products since November, which was my first month using the Google Cash System. The other three products are new campaigns.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Jan. 4, 2004

 

Yesterday was another record day for me. I made nine affiliate product sales for a total of $193.02 in affiliate commission. That matches yesterday's nine sales and about $14 more in commission earned. My total commission earned for this pay period so far is now $457.18.

 

My number one Affiliate Money Maker (AMM) is still going strong and averaging 4½ sales a day, which puts me ahead of last month's average of 3½ sales a day.

 

My other profitable affiliate product from last month, with 16 sales, has turned into a number two AMM, which is on target to make about 60 sales this month. 60 sales would be about $1,380 dollars in commission.

 

I am getting many more impressions and click throughs this month with the number two AMM product than it received last month. I accomplished that by adding a couple hundred more keywords to the campaign. It will be interesting to see if it can keep up with the two sales a day it is now averaging. Only time will tell.

 

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I received the Money Making Opportunities magazine yesterday. I don't know how I got on their subscriber list, but the magazine is free.

 

The magazine deals with home based opportunities and different types of money making opportunities. I like to read all the display and classified ads . Some of the full page ads contain some great sales copy.

 

When I look through the magazine I'm also looking for ideas on different types of words and short word phrases that would make for good sales copy in my Google AdWords ads.

 

Here's a partial list of some of the them I found today:

money making opportunity

Fast, easy

shortcuts-to-success

earn a second income

If others can do it, so can you.

powerful cash source

guaranteed approval

high profit

low start up

Tired of the 9 to 5 life?

perfect home based business

red hot

$180 per hour

easy income

gateway to freedom

over 100 years of success

professional pay

learn now, earn later

It's a necessity

free dealership

buy below wholesale

home workers urgently needed

the gateway to freedom

make hundreds daily

 

Lastly I'm looking for new ideas for niche market products. I found one ad that caught my attention. I checked some of the keywords on Google to see how many people were targeting them with Google AdWords. To my surprise very few Google AdWords were targeting this large group of very specific keywords.

 

Next I did a search with Affiliates Alert to see if there was a product that could target this niche market. I was able to find the perfect product. Well, almost perfect.

 

The main problems were with the merchant website. There is no opt-in to try and collect email addresses of visitors and there is no guarantee for their products. It also only pays about $13 in commission per sale. I prefer $20 commission or higher.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn't promote a website like this, but most of the keyword bids are only .05 cents each so I thought I'd give it a short test run, so I set up a test campaign for it last night.

 

If you would like a free subscription to the Money Making Opportunities magazine send a postcard to:

Success Publishing International

11071 Ventura Blvd.

Studio City, CA 91604

 

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My affiliate marketing business is really starting to take off. My number two AMM has already made three sales today.

 

I've had this product since early November, but today is the first time it has had more than one sale in a day.

 

The only change I made with this product was to add a couple of hundred related keywords.

 

It took me a while to find the keyword group that is now getting more click throughs and sales.

 

What's great is the fact that my average Click Through Rate (CTR) has gone up.

 

It is important to test everything you can when running your campaigns.

 

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January is the third month I've used the Google Cash System. Since the beginning of November I have run about 45-50 test campaigns with Google AdWords. Out of all those campaigns I have only found two Affiliate Money Makers (AMM), but these two AMM will make me about $3,500 dollars this month in affiliate commission.

 

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I got my new domain name set up. This is the domain I bought  to promote my best selling affiliate product, number one AMM in offline classifieds.

 

I'm doing a frame forward with the domain to the merchant website. That way I'll list the short domain name in the classified ad rather than having a long affiliate URL that wouldn't look good.

 

I'm also thinking about including a 800 phone number in the ad, but I'm not quite sure yet how it would be used. I'll have to think about this some more.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Monday, Jan. 5, 2004

 

Yesterday was another good day for sales. I made eight affiliate product sales for a total of $178.21 in affiliate commission.

 

What is exciting is the fact that I made five sales of my number two AMM affiliate product yesterday. This is the one I had 16 sales for all last month. I've already had 11 sales for it this month.

 

So far I have made $669.21 in affiliate commission this month. I am on a pace to make somewhere between $4,000-$5,000 in affiliate commission this month.

 

I think anyone can duplicate what I am doing if they read Google Cash and apply themselves. Of course it wouldn't hurt to read my marketing blog to get an idea of how I do it. My way isn't the best or the only way, rather it is just one approach of many that works for making money with Google Adwords.

 

You also have to keep in mind that I have run about 45-50 test campaigns since I began about 68 days ago. So if a person keeps trying they will eventually succeed. They just have to keep in mind that one successful campaign can make them over $2,000 dollars a month in commission as my number one AMM did for me in December.

 

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When I first start a new Google AdWords campaign I don't spend much time on the keyword selection. I just make a list of the most obvious, important ones and then insert them into the Google AdWords campaign.

 

Once they are in the Google AdWords campaign I click on the link that estimates the traffic the keywords will receive.

 

Below is part of a screenshot I took that shows you what you will see after you click on the estimate traffic link.

 

 

Next I click on the suggest keywords links for all of my original keywords and add any of the new displayed words if they vaguely relate to my affiliate product.

 

I don't care if I don't match all my keywords 100% with my product since my theory is that the only people that will click on my Google AdWords are people that are interested in my offer.

 

I really don't care where people find my ad listed. I'll let Google determine whether or not my ad is relevant to the term being searched for and whether or not it gets shown. If a keyword gets disabled then I just delete it.

 

Once I go through all my original keywords this way I will then do the same for all the new secondary keywords that I created. I literally click on these suggest keywords links until I run out of keywords to add to my list.

 

Once a product is profitable and a keeper I try to add as many more new keywords as I can come up with to the campaign.

 

Now it is time to do some brainstorming.

 

The first thing I do is to go through a Thesaurus for ideas for more keywords.

 

Again, I'm looking for any keywords that are vaguely related to my niche market product.

 

Here's an example. When I first started advertising my BarrysBeanies.com website with pay-per-click engines I bid on keywords like Beanies, Beanie Babies and Ty Beanie Babies.

 

Then when I saw that my pay-per-clicks were paying off I would then go for more general keywords like toys, stuffed teddy bears, hobbies, fundraising, charities, kids, etc.

 

I start the test campaigns with the most obvious keywords and then I go after anything and everything that might relate to the product I'm marketing.

 

Most people who click on your ads know they are ads and have a pretty good idea that they won't find something for free. That's why I think you get more buyers from the pay-per-click engines than a regular search engine listing on Google.

 

I also use most of the following free tools to try and find even more keywords.

 

7Search.com Keyword Suggestion Tool
Allows you to enter keywords or keyword phrases in order to get additional keywords and keyword phrases suggestions. You'll also be able to see how many searches were done for the last month on 7Search.com for each keyword and phrase.

Good Keywords
Free Windows software for finding the perfect set of keywords for your web pages. Knowing the right keywords to target is very important because your site should provide what people are searching for.

 

Keyword Finder Tool

Just type in the keywords you are researching and you will get many other keyword suggestions.

KwMap
A keyword map for the whole Internet.

Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool
Provides you with a list of related search terms based upon a term or keyword you enter related to your web site.
 

Then when I'm finally done with my new keyword list I insert all them into my Google AdWords campaign as above and once again I go through the Google Suggest Keyword Tool until I run out of keywords to add.

 

Both of my AMM campaigns have somewhere in the range of 2,000 keywords each.

 

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Millions, or perhaps even billions of people are using the Internet every day. So it isn't hard to imagine being able to make at least one affiliate sale every hour of the day. If that was the case and you averaged $20 commission a sale, then how much would you make after 31 days? After one year?

 

Well, 24 hours in a day x 31 days = 744 hours x $20 a sale = $14,880 a month x 12 = $178,560 dollars a year.

 

Now what if you created your own product and you had 20 affiliates, each making 5 sales a day. And we'll assume you are doing a 50-50 split for a $40 sale. 100 sales a day x $20 = $2,000 a day x 365 = $730,000 a year. I don't know about you but that works for me.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Tuesday, Jan. 6, 2004

 

I tied my record for affiliate sales for one day yesterday with 9. Total commissions made were $173.43. That gives me a total of $860.84 for the first 5 days of this month, which means I'm averaging about $172 a day. $172 x 31 days = $5270 a month.

 

One of my new affiliate products has made one sale the last two days. It only pays about $12, but right now I'm only paying .06 cents a click through and getting about 50 click throughs a day. I'll raise my keyword bids in order to see if I can get more impressions and hopefully more click throughs and sales.

 

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I was going to blog about the next step to take after you have a profitable affiliate product and want to build upon your success and perhaps start new campaigns on the other pay-per-click (PPC) search engines.

 

Well as it turns out someone asked exactly that question on one of the forums and here is my reply.

 

Hi,

I would wait for about 300-500 click throughs to see if you really have an Affiliate Money Maker (AMM). If it is a real AMM then you should be able to at least double your advertising expense with the commissions you earn.

Lets say that you make $20 a sale and you are paying an average of .20 cents a click through.

For every 100 click throughs, which cost $20, you should be making 2 sales for a total of $40 in commissions to consider it a real AMM. If you are making more than 2 sales per 100 click throughs then you have something that is special.

Any time I can get a 100% return on my investment(advertising expense) I'm happy. Especially if I can do that every day.

First thing I would recommend is to expand your keyword list if you are getting that 2% conversion rate. I go into how to do that on my blog.

Next thing you should do, if you haven't done it yet, is to set up a separate campaign for this product.

Then break down all your keywords into separate Ad Groups based upon similar keyword terms. You might end up with 5-7 Ad Groups.

Then you can more closely target each Ad Group with the ad you run for it to match some of the most common keyword terms. This will help you get your ads more relevant for the keywords and help you get a better position for your ads in the Google AdWords displayed.

 

Once you start a new campaign for your Affiliate Money Maker (AMM) and have broken down your keyword list into numerous Ad Groups then you have to monitor them closely for a while.

I usually set a budget at 50% of what my daily average total commission is for the product. So if my daily average is 3 sales at $20 each = $60, I'll set my budget for this campaign at $30.
 

You should be willing to pay more for click throughs on your more targeted keywords then you do for your more general keywords. I'm always adding more keywords that give my ads more impressions and hopefully more click throughs.
 

There is no best way for doing all this. You just have to test, measure and keep score. The longer you do it, the easier and more automatic it becomes. I can only tell you what is working for me right now.

Then your next step is to take this campaign to all the other PPC search engines.

Right now I'm testing the next step which is running classified ads in the appropriate publications with a URL I own and redirects to the merchant website.

Best of luck,
Barry Stein
 

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I get quite a few e-mails from people who have questions about selling on eBay.

 

eBay is where I started doing business online over 6 years ago. I was selling Beanie Babies and was one of the top sellers on eBay at that time. My first full month on eBay I sold over $18,000 worth of Beanie Babies.

 

However, I have not done many sales on eBay in the last 3 years. So although I can provide answers and opinions on some aspects of doing business on eBay, many other things have changed.

 

The point I'm getting at is that I think anyone who has an eBay question would be better served if they would post their questions on Jim Wilson's forum, Auction Hints.

 

That way you will be able to get responses from many people who are actively selling on eBay and have more information about many aspects of eBay that I may be in the dark about.

 

I'll usually answer some of the questions on Auction Hints. The truth is I'm addicted to forums and you are most likely going to see my posts everywhere.

 

The main reasons I like forums are these:

• I can get answers to all my questions.

• I can get new ideas for affiliate products.

• I can network with others in my niche market.

• I can answer questions. After a while people will see me as somewhat of an expert.

• I can practice my writing skills.

• I can create an optional link title with my URL (anchor text links) to different web pages on my website, which will help me get a better ranking for those web pages.

• If I use a keyword in the title of the post then there will be a good chance that the search engines will find it and that web page may get a good rank in the search results for that keyword. And then people who do searches for that keyword might click on the forum web page and perhaps read the post. Then they also may click on my optional link title with my URL (anchor text link) that will take them to my website.

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It looks as if I have found another profitable affiliate product. It has made 3 sales in the first 108 click throughs.

 

This affiliate product only pays about $12 so I made about $36 in affiliate commission. However, the average click through rate (CTR) is only .06 cents. My total AdWords expenses has been only $6.47 so far, which means my profit is about $30.

 

That doesn't sound like much, but if I can keep sales at 3 a day then I could make $30 x 31 days = $930 a month from just this one product.

 

I'll have to wait until it gets about 300-500 click throughs and see what the results are, but it looks very promising right now.

 

What is hard to believe is that no one else is promoting this affiliate product with Google AdWords besides me. So this is looking real good.

 

By the way, it is 7:38 PM PT time here in Redmond, WA and

I have set a new one day record with 10 sales today and I have about 5 hours left.

 

I haven't beat my one day record for total commission of $193.01 yet. My total for today right now is $179.54. So one more sale will put me over the top.

 

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It's 8:31 PM PT and I just made my 11th affiliate sale today. My total affiliate commission made today is $200.01. Both of these are new one day records!

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2004

 

I broke my record for total sales yesterday with 12 sales and I also broke my record for one day affiliate commissions with $211.09.

 

I found a good tip on one of the forums yesterday with regards to running Google AdWords.

 

When people do searches on AOL the search results show four sponsored listings that come from Google AdWords. They are located at the top of the AOL search results.

 

So you might want to do a search on AOL for your most important keywords for any of your campaigns and see if you have one of the sponsored Google AdWords ads shown.

 

You might be able to get one of these top sponsored listings by adjusting your keyword bids slightly higher. Having your Google AdWords ad listed on AOL is going to make a BIG difference in the impressions your ad gets, the click throughs your ad gets and hopefully the sales you make.

 

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I received an e-mail alert from Affiliates Alert today. ClickBank has added new products to it's database. If you have upgraded to the Pro version then you will be able to see these new products now, which you probably already knew about since you also received the same e-mail alert. If you are using the free version then it will be about a week before you will be able to view the new products with your Affiliates Alert software.

 

If you are new to this forum I highly recommend that you download the free Affiliates Alert.

 

The Affiliates Alert software is so easy to run that even a fifth grader would have no problem using it.

 

You'll be able to search for niche market products, which is something you cannot do in the ClickBank Market Place.

 

And best of all it is free!

 

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Mini websites are quick and easy to build. They can be one page or more.

 

A simple, professional design usually works best. The most important aspect of the mini website is a good professional design, great copy and the ability to get your visitors to do what you want them to.

 

You may want your visitors to sign up for your ezine, sign up for an e-course or perhaps make a purchase.

 

I decided I'd provide some links to examples of some great mini websites to give others ideas of what great mini websites look like. Not to copy them, but to use them as an example to launch their own ideas.

 

It is important that people do their "own thing" with their websites. Copying someone else's "thing" usually doesn't work. You have to put yourself into your websites.

 

That's why it is so much easier to stay with a website that deals with a product or subject you are passionate about. You are going to have an easier time having a successful website because your enthusiasm and interest in your niche market will be contagious to those who read your website copy.

 

I received an ezine that I subscribe to that is published by Andre Chaperon. What caught my attention at the end of the ezine was the list of websites that Andre has created.

 

What is quite impressive is the fact the Andre has only been doing business online since April 2003 when he began part-time. It has only been since November 2003 that Andre has turned it into his full-time occupation.

 

I e-mailed Andre and asked him if it was OK with him if I posted links to his websites here. He answered back and said it was OK with him.

 

Andre is a real gentleman and is always willing to help others whenever he can. He contributes regularly to online forums. He is especially knowledgeable on the subject of doing business on eBay.

 

I recommend that you visit his websites and sign-up for any of the ezines that he publishes that interest you. Besides the great information he provides, he also knows how to present a very professional image. Not only with his ezines, but with everything he does.

 

Below is a list of a few of Andre's websites.

 

I watched this first website evolve from a website that was so-so to a website that makes me think WOW! A one page sales letter for his Auto Digital Delivery ebook.

 

The website is professional looking and has great sales copy.

 

The only thing I don't like about this website is the fact that it has a pop-up on exist, which means it cannot be promoted directly with Google AdWords. I much prefer the use of pop-ins, which I predict you are going to see more and more of as time goes by.

 

Automate eBay eBook Delivery          www.AutoDigitalDelivery.com

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: Andre sold the AutoDigitalDelivery.com website.

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This next website is for Andre's free 9 Day Secret eBay course, which I would recommend that you sign-up for if you are selling on eBay or you want to. The course is geared more towards someone who is new to eBay, but even an old eBay dog like myself was able to get some new ideas from his course.

9 Day Secret eBay Course                 www.AuctionHelpGuide.com

The last website is a one page sales letter to get people to subscribe to an ezine to improve their health.

 

I like these one page websites for collecting e-mail addresses. I see how I could create some one page websites of my own.

 

They would be used as landing pages for Google AdWords campaigns for affiliate products in my niche market. Instead of having an ezine I'd offer a 10 part email course which would allow me to collect e-mail addresses. The e-mail addresses would go into my customer database also, but I would have the 10 courses set-up on an auto-responder. This would give me 10 more opportunities to pre-sell the affiliate product and provide a link back to the merchant's website.

9 Days to a Healthier You               

www.GrinningCatEzine.com

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: GrinningCatEzine.com is no more.

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I thought it would beneficial to me and others if I could find out a little bit more about Andre and his business and get an idea how it all happened.

 

So with Andre's OK again I had him answer some questions from me. Kind of like an interview.

 

1. Where do you live?
United Kingdom -- England

2. What is your education and work background?
Standard schooling in South Africa (did not go to university) – then spend 10’ish years in an IT background end on November 23, 2003 as an IT Technical Consultant.

3. How long have you been doing business online and do you do it full-time or part-time?
Part-time since April 2003 – Full-time since November 23, 2003.

4. What was your first online business?
Auto Digital Delivery on eBay – an eBook detailing on how-to automate the delivery of eBooks on eBay (www.AutoDigitalDelivery.com). Went live in June 2003.

5. What types of online businesses are you involved with today?
Primarily list building of which I have three specialist mini-sites:
(www.AuctionHelpGuide.com)   (www.HomeBizProfitSecrets.com)  

(www.GrinningCatEzine.com).

Other then my product website (#4 above), I’m also involved with affiliate marketing to a small extent. Currently I’m writing my second eBook to be released later this month.

6. How many products do you market that you created and how long have you been marketing them?
I have only actively promoted (www.AutoDigitalDelivery.com) since November 28, 2003. This is my only product to date but I’m currently creating my second product.

7. Can you tell us about one of your products? What is it? How it is used? How does it benefit people?
Auto Digital Delivery on eBay  (www.AutoDigitalDelivery.com)  – an eBook – It’s an illustrated guide on how-to automate the delivery of eBooks on eBay - In seconds you can deliver your eBook to your customer quickly, easily & automatically with no intervention at all.

8. What are your 3 favorite ebooks and/or software that has helped you with either your Internet marketing education or something that is helping you right now with your online business?
Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet by Corey Rudl (I have an early version though) -- 33 Days to Online Profits by Yanik Silver (a great all-rounder guide that points you in the right direction) – A GOOD autoresponder is essential (I use AutoResponse Plus).

9. What are your online goals for this year so far as your online business is concerned?
To steadily grow from month to month as I learn. I set myself achievable mini-goals every month. If I achieve my monthly goal, I simply increase the ante slightly to make the following month challenging and fun.

10. What is the best advice you could give to someone who is new to online business and wants to eventually be able to make a full-time living doing it?

The most powerful advice I can – and do – give is this: Ask questions! Questions make you move forward. I have learnt more from asking cleaver questions then from all the eBooks I have read together. Don’t get me wrong – eBooks and very important for honing your skills – but the real knowledge is obtained from asking questions, listing to the answers, then doing your due-diligence in the form of research. Never be afraid to ask a question. The only stupidity is with the person that doesn’t ask the question (excuse the cliché).

 

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It's 5:40 PM PT and I have 8 sales for the day and $170.01 in affiliate commissions made. Looks like I have a good shot at breaking my record of 12 sales and $211.09 in commissions in one day.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Thursday, Jan. 8, 2004

 

I missed beating my one day commission record yesterday by .15 cents. I ended up making $210.95 in affiliate commissions with a total of 10 sales.

 

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It's 1:29 PM PT and I have just broken my one day record for total affiliate commissions made. I'm at $234.39 with a total of 11 sales made with another 10½ hours to go.

 

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Writing great text ads for Google AdWords is very important. If you expect to get people's attention and have them click through to the merchant website you will need to learn how to do it correctly.

 

When you write your ads ask yourself these questions:

Does the headline grab my attention?

Does the headline promise a benefit?

Does the body of the ad motivate me to click on the link?

 

The headline Is the most important part of your ad. If you cannot get someone's attention with the headline they will not read the rest of the text of your ad.

 

What you are actually doing is qualifying your prospects.

 

The headline should focus on a benefit or an end result. Think about what is important to the prospect and try to work it into your headline.

 

You should also try to work your most important keyword into the headline. If you are unable to do that then put it in the text.

 

The text of your ad has to give enough information to motivate the prospect to act and click on your link. It is important to create interest with your text. What usually works best is to provide a benefit and hopefully they will want to click through to get the rest of the information.

 

It's all about self-interest. What's in it for me? What will the product do for me?

 

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It's 6:02 PM PT and I now have 17 sales for the day and my total affiliate commission made is $356.91. Both new one day records for me. I guess people are in a buying frenzy today. That's OK with me.

 

I have also passed my last pay period commission total of $1,562.35. I'm at $1,587.78 for the present pay period. I'm on pace to make $6,152.65 in affiliate commission this month.

 

This is my 67th day using the Google Cash System.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Friday, Jan. 9, 2004

 

I smashed my one day sales and commission record yesterday. I ended up with 19 sales and $397.85 in affiliate commission.

 

My total commission for this first pay period is now $1672.69, which makes my daily average $209.08. At this pace I would make $6,481.67 in commission this month.

 

What is great about yesterday's sales is the fact that I only spent about $120 for advertising expenses.

 

I have most of my campaigns fine-tuned and on auto-pilot. I am in the process of creating additional Ad Groups for my second best AMM.

 

Up until yesterday I had over 2,000 keywords for this campaign in only one ad group. Once I get finished putting similar keywords into their own Ad Group it will improve my CTR which will give on ads a better position with Google.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Saturday, Jan. 10, 2004

 

I had 9 affiliate sales yesterday for a total of $171.35 in commissions, which is more in line with my daily average.

 

The moon must have been in perfect alignment with Mars yesterday because the19 sales for a total of $397.85 in commission was quite unusual since my daily average is 10 sales with $200 commission. Very unusual in deed, but also very nice.

 

$200 a day average x 31 days = $6,200 commission a month, which isn't too bad considering I have only been using the Google Cash System about 2 months.

 

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I decided against using DeskTopAuthor to create eBooks with. I think the best way right now would be with PDF or EXE format since these are the formats that people are familiar with.

 

I think it would be too much trouble to educate people about the new DNL format that DeskTopAuthor works with and then expect them to download the software for it so they could read an eBook.

 

I give the PDF format an edge over the EXE mainly because a lot of people don't like to download EXE files because of concerns about viruses. Also, Mac owners cannot view EXE files.

 

Maybe the best solution would be to create an eBook in both formats and offer your customers the option of downloading the one of their choice.

 

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Based on the success of my second Affiliate Money Maker (AMM) I have decided to buy a domain name for it and promote it offline in the classifieds of magazines as I'm going to do with my #1 AMM product. #2 AMM has a broader appeal than #1 AMM so I think it can be even more profitable advertising it offline than #1 AMM.

 

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NOTE: 03-20-07: I basically broke even with my test of marketing an affiliate Web site with an offline classified ad in a magazine.

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The only way I'm going to be able to determine whether or not my offline advertising is working is to measure the clicks from the URL address I list in the ads. There is no way for me to know how many sales result from the ads since the sales take place on the merchant's website.

 

Historically I know how many clicks it takes to make a sale for both products. I'll use that information to determine approximately how many sales the classified ads are producing. I can do that if I can count the clicks that the ads are producing.

 

I have also been fine-tuning both my AMM's campaigns by breaking down Ad Groups into more Ad Groups. By making each Ad Group target similar keywords I am able to improve their Click Through Rate (CTR), which in turn helps my ads get a better position without bidding more money.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Sunday, Jan. 11, 2004

 

A person can make a lot of money from a profitable Affiliate Money Maker (AMM) that is promoted with Google Adwords, but unless they take this profitable campaign to all the other pay-per-click search engines they will never get the full profit potential out of their AMM.

 

Once I started promoting my AMMs on the other pay-per-click search engines my sales really took off. That is how I got my commissions to go from about $1,200 my first month in November to about $3,000 in December and probably $5,000 to $6,000 this month.

 

If you use the same keywords you use in your Google AdWords campaigns in the other pay-per-click engines then you will basically get the about the same Click Through Rate (CTR) and sales ratio.

 

One of my goals when I have a profitable AMM is to try and dominate all the most relevant keywords on Google AdWords and all the other most important pay-per-click search engines.

 

I don't necessarily need the number one position for my keywords, but I do want to be in the the top 3 positions.

Because if you don't have one of the top 3 positions with Google AdWords then your ad will not show up on the AOL search results for your keywords for the top positions there, which will mean less opportunities for making more sales.

 

I make it hard for other affiliates to promote my AMM product by keeping my keyword bids high. Most affiliates are conservative when they start a new campaign with a new product and will keep their bids low. This will put them on the bottom of the Google AdWords positions. So there is a good possibility that they will never know the real profit potential of this AMM product and hopefully they will become discouraged and move on to other products.

 

My most important concern when I have all these various campaigns going on at pay-per-click engines is my bottom line. I'm willing to spend $3,000 a month for advertising if I am making $6,000 in commissions. I prefer not to, but if that's what it takes to dominate my niche market keyword bids then I'll do it.

 

You can do a search on just about any pay-per-click search engine on the web for my most important AMM keywords and you will see my ad listed at or near the top in the results for those keywords.

 

I only have two AMMs and I'll make over $5,000 this month with them. So my recommendation to anyone who has a profitable AMM is to fully develop and promote it in as many different ways as you can. This should be your main concern even before trying to find another AMM. An AMM is hard to find, so when you do find one you have to make the most of it.

 

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I was just adding some links to my links page.

 

Link exchanges are important for a couple of reasons.

 

First of all having lots of links pointing to your website is going to help you get a better position with the search engines.

 

When you do link exchanges be sure to include the most important keyword or phrase for your website in the title (anchor text).

 

By targeting a specific keyword or phrase in your title you are helping your website get a better search engine position for your keyword or phrase. You can target more than one keyword this way.

 

Theoretically, if you did enough link exchanges with the word "genius" as your anchor text you could quite possibly gain the number one position for that keyword even though your website might be about sunflowers.

 

That is why it is important when you post in forums to make your link one of the keywords or phrases that you want to target. That is why I post a lot in forums with "marketing blog" as my link. I'm targeting this web page with that keyword. I target my home page with the keyword phrase "homebased business."

 

Keeping that in mind I would not target a keyword with too much competition (Too many pages showing up in the Google searches for that keyword or phrase). Use the Ad Ad Word Analyzer to help you locate keywords with low Results/Searches (R/S) ratios. Also be sure to choose the keywords that have a lot of monthly searches for them.

 

Many people don't like to exchange links with websites that compete with them, but those are exactly the websites you should be seeking out. Only do link exchanges with websites that are closely related to the theme of your website. Search engines don't seem to like websites that have a zillion link exchanges with other websites that aren't in the same niche market.

 

The truth of the matter is that very few people will visit your link pages. Even so don't make it easy for people to find the links page. If you check the home page of this website you will find a small "links" link at the bottom of the page. Anyone who wants to exchange links with me will know where to find it. Most other people will not even notice it, which is OK with me because I don't want them clicking away from my website.

 

The reason I put a link on the home page is so that the search engines find and spider through it. Just as I want my link partners to have a link on their home page for their links page so the search engines can find my links.

 

So the moral of this story is that if you are going to have a website that makes it's way to the top of the search engines then you are going to have to do some link exchanges.

 

 

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Marketing Blog Update

Monday, Jan. 12, 2004

 

One of my favorite tools on my Free Internet Marketing Tools web page is ABAKUS Topword V.1. You can click on this link and a new window will open. When finished viewing close it and you will be back on this page.

 

Abakus Topword analyzes web pages for top keywords and phrases. Then it will show you the changes you need to make to the page with regard to the title, meta description and meta keywords. This will enable you to optimize the web page for the search engines.

 

Enter a URL address into the displayed box and click on the analyze button. No need to change any of the options shown.

The next page will show all the main keywords and phrases that are on your web page and recommended changes that should be made.

 

Another way I use this tool is to help me find related keywords I can target for a merchant website that I'm promoting with Google Adwords. Just enter the merchant URL (not your affiliate URL) and then you will see all the keywords and phrases you should include in your Google Adwords campaign. Be sure to brainstorm for additional keywords besides the obvious ones.

 

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A word of caution to anyone promoting ClickBank merchant websites. When you promote a new merchant website try the affiliate URL you are provided with for the merchant website and proceed as if you were going to actually order the product and make sure the order page is for a ClickBank transaction.

 

A couple of times I did this with merchant websites only to find out that they were not set up to do a ClickBank transaction. It seems that some merchants sign up with ClickBank, but don't complete everything they need to in order to accept ClickBank payments. I guess they either get busy or forget to do it.

 

So you don't want to be sending people to a merchant website that isn't set up to do a ClickBank transaction because you won't make anything on the sale.

 

Another thing is with the displayed URL in Google AdWords ads. You put the merchant website URL as the displayed URL that shows up in your ads and not your ClickBank affiliate hoplink URL. The affiliate hoplink URL should not be visible and is the active URL that people are actually sent to.

 

I have actually seen ads on Google where the affiliate has their ClickBank hoplink URL as the displayed URL for the ad and it really looks funky and funny.

 

This should not be the displayed URL in the Google AdWords ad: http://hop.clickbank.net/?YourClickBankID/MerchantName

 

The merchant website should be the displayed URL:

MerchantWebsiteName.com

 

If the merchant has a great domain name be sure to set it off by using capital letters where they will do the most good for your ad.

 

Example:

Instead of this: makemoneynow.com

Use this: MakeMoneyNow.com

 

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Just received an Affiliates Alert email. New products have just been added to ClickBank database and also new rankings are in place. If you have the professional version of Affiliates Alert you will be able to see these changes right now. If you use the free version then you will not be able to see the changes for about a week.

 

 

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