Archive for January, 2006
January 06 4th Week
January 26, 2006 8:48 pmIf you are trying to sell a product or service on the
Internet, then you are probably doing so through an
affiliate program. You signed up as an affiliate (usually
for free) and they gave you an affiliate ID (user name or
number).
They may have even given you a basic marketing package
which includes text ads, banner ads, and solo ads with a
link to your affiliate sales page. All you have to do is
use these tools to get traffic to your affiliate sales page.
Well that sounds pretty easy, doesn’t it? This process
actually works too, except that your probability of
converting your traffic into sales is very, very, very low.
In other words, you may have to have thousands of people
to visit your affiliate sales page before you ever see your
first sell. Now those aren’t very good odds, are they?
Unfortunately, that is what most people do. They spend a
lot of time, effort, and money getting all of those people
to that affiliate sales page and then they finally make a
sale and earn a referral fee or commission.
But wait, it can get even worse. Let’s say that you made
one sale and earned a $10 commission. That’s great, right?
Well not really, because in the terms and conditions of
your affiliate program, you don’t actually get paid until
you have accumulated at least $20 of commissions. So get
back to it and get another sale and finally get paid. Good
grief!
Don’t quit! Internet marketing is a great way to make
extra money, but you have to know some of the secrets.
Here’s one. “Don’t advertise your affiliate program
directly.” You must use a four step process.
Four Step Process…
1. First, you must provide something of value. The easiest
valuable thing that you can give away is information. An
informative email course, special report, or ebook are all
great ways to give away free information.
2. This step goes along with the initial step above. Don’t
give away your free information until you get an email
address. You must capture the name and email address of
your prospective sale in order to be able to implement the
next step.
3. If the information that you are providing is good and
helps people, then you will earn some trust.
If someone gives you some information that saves you time,
money, or effort; then you are going to closely read
anything that they send you - as long as the information is
still valuable.
This is why it is so important that you get that name and
email address before you start giving away your
information. Now you can keep the information flowing
through an occasional email to your prospect.
4. Finally, if you have been providing valuable
information and earning trust from people, it is much more
likely that they will buy something that you recommend.
This is especially true if you can convince them that what
you are recommending will help them and that it is worth
their money.
The easiest way to do this is to recommend something that
you have actually purchased and use yourself. Just tell
them how it helped you and why you think that it was worth
what you paid for it!
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Just a quick heads-up about a free report called “The
Easy Way To Calculate Your Performance Metrics”.
If you don’t know what your site metrics are, you’re
wasting huge sums of money. But don’t worry - we’ve all
been there - however if you’re serious about growing your
business in 2006, this report is essential reading…
Go grab your copy at:
www.megastep.com/reports/metrics.pdf
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For your enjoyment (and information), here is this week’s
quick trivia question…
What is a blogosphere?
As usual the answer can be found later in the newsletter.
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Featured Article
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Find Your Niche and Follow It!
By Rob Taylor - (c) 2005 Megastep International
www.megastep.com
Mark Twain once said: “Find out where the people are going
and get there first”.
With the advent of the internet you can certainly find out
what folks are wanting. Being the first at the front of the
line to bill them might not be quite so easy.
But there are ways to find out if there’s an existing
hungry crowd for your information product, and more
importantly a crowd with pockets bulging with cash to give
you.
In this article I’m going to share some tips that will
save you much heartache from chasing after the wrong market.
Firstly I believe that it is very important that what you
sell interests you, otherwise you sign up for a life of
struggle and worse… Boredom!
Motivating yourself to sell something you have no interest
or belief in is soul-destroying at the best of times, so
don’t do it.
Just because *rubber cat suits* is your thing doesn’t mean
the rest of the planet digs them at all. I mean that’s a
pretty small niche with less than 560 searches performed a
month. Yes I did actually go and check out the stats for it.
One of things I’ve found in this marketing-malarkey is
that I am able to explore interests that I simply don’t
have the time or inclination to actively get involved in.
Take archery, I can twang a bow as well as the next man,
and have done for the past couple of years. But the idea of
traipsing off to all those shows every weekend,
predominantly talking a load of rubbish just doesn’t do it
for me.
BUT sell this bunch of Robin Hood wannabees an infoprod,
and I’m game. Seriously though, I love archery, it’s one of
the few sports the British government hasn’t actually tried
to ban… yet!
And that brings me to my point…
What do you have an interest in that also has a large
number of people willing to do what I call *the wallet
flip*. You need to be looking for markets where the folk
won’t even blink at spending $100 a year on the products
you will be selling.
OK time to take some action:
=> Draw up an initial list of 10 of your interests.
=> Scan your bookshelves to see what reference books
you’ve bought in the past, and on what subjects or hobbies.
=> Pay attention when folk you meet start talking about
their hobbies, their passions.
=> Pop down to your local magazine store and see what
interests are being catered to.
=> Can’t be bothered to pad down to your local store, then
click over to www.mediafinder.com and do some
searches.
=> Buy a stack of these magazines and go through the
classified ads with a highlighter. Call up the ones you’ve
circled and ask for their information packs. Make a note of
which ones you’ve called and see how soon the information
arrives.
How are they selling? Good, bad, OK? Could you improve on
the quality of what they are offering? Over five to six
issues how many of the adverts are repeated? Make a note
and watch that market like a hawk. If they weren’t making
money the ads wouldn’t be running.
=> Hop over to eBay to research all the different sub-
categories. Which ones are active? Which ones are
commanding high prices?
=> Are there any discussion forums related to your potential
market? Buzz over to www.forumfind.com and
do a search.
This is just the beginning. I want you to start paying
attention to what people are interested in. This can simply
be as easy as listening to folk banter when they’re in the
checkout line.
Scan the news, open your eyes and mind to opportunities.
You’ll be amazed at how your brain kicks into “selective
perception”.
Don’t know what that is? Ever bought a car and then
suddenly you notice the whole planet is driving the exact
same model. It’s like everyone decided to buy the car YOU
just bought. Well that’s “selective perception” at work.
Same thing happens when you actively go hunting down niche
markets… actually it can work great for an awful lot of
other things… building keyword lists is another example,
and another story.
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This Week’s Trivia Answer
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Here’s the answer to the trivia question I asked earlier…
What is a blogosphere?
A blogosphere is the collection of all bloggers, blog
sites, blog readers and blog text.
The blogosphere has a number of aliases, including
blogland, blogistan and the blogiverse.
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Healthy Body… Healthy Mind
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Motivation Magic - 5 Time Management Tips to Complete your
Goals!
Reaching a goal is easy to say, but in real life can be
harder to do. That’s why staying motivated during the times
that you just don’t feel like it, or when you don’t even
want to try is so important. There are keys as to why you
might not feel you’re at full potential. It could be you -
a not very self confident you.
If you think you can just fake it and you’ll be
successful, then think again. It won’t work. So what can
you do?
Start by looking your self confidence issue square in the
face and then change it! No one else can, and to be honest
no one else cares as much as you should.
Write down why you feel the way you do and make a list of
the areas you would like to improve or change totally about
yourself. Be honest and know what is really important to
improve on, and what can be changed.
Develop a plan for your spiritual life too. If you don’t
have grounding in a spiritual or religious life, take the
time to find one. It will change how you handle life, and
any curve balls it throws at you.
You only have one life to live, so live it to your
fullest, and to the best of your capabilities. Without
addressing your self confidence issue - no time management
skills matter, but don’t be to hard on yourself change
takes time, but begin today changing your future.
Here are 5 tips that you can use to stay motivated, and to
achieve whatever goals that you’ve set out for yourself in
your life.
1. Make a plan to stay motivated.
Write it down. Look at the different ways that keep you
motivated and write those down too. There are endless
possibilities for motivation that you can use, and there
will be new ones that you might discover along the way.
Take some time to read some books from inspirational power
leaders such as Tony Robbins, or use spirituality to
inspire you and give you hope.
2. Take the time to write down every morning, or even the
night before, short term lists for goals that you want to
achieve that day or the next. By focusing on a few short
term goals your long term ones will become closer and well
defined. Take your long term goals and shorten them into
easier to accomplish steps.
3. Walk from room to room and post some brightly colored
post-it notes listing all of the positive things that will
happen in your life by achieving your goals.
Taking a look at the goals you will accomplish will
inspire you to reach for the goal and not to give up.
4. Use time wisely by taking care of your body.
Regular exercise and a healthy diet in conjunction with a
steady sleep routine will keep you alert and focused on the
goals ahead.
5. Reward yourself when you reach a milestone toward your
goal.
Do this by taking some time for you, in other words take
the time to smell the roses. Soak a little longer in the
tub, buy a new outfit, and take a day off to spend with a
loved one, or just nap the afternoon away. Do whatever it
takes to make you feel good about what reaching out for
your goal.
As you go along with your plans always recognize that when
the bad days hit, there will always be a tomorrow. However,
if you notice that you just can’t get out of the
unmotivated mood you’re in, then it could be signs of a
physical problem that could be causing you experience
depression.
Imbalances in the body can really play havoc on your
goals, and delay the time for you reaching your goals.
By reaching for the stars and succeeding you’ll find
things out about yourself that you never knew. The most
important thing to remember is that you should never quit,
even when the chips are down. Why?
Because you understood and put into practice your own
version of the 5 time management tips and beat the odds!
The best thing is if you did it once you can do it all over
again.
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Have You Got Any Comments?
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This is your chance to speak out.
Comment on articles I’ve run in the newsletter, give me
your thoughts on changes or your ad testing results or
questions relating to your business, etc.
In other words, just talk to me about what you think I
need to do to improve the newsletter.
Be sure to include your website address too, because if
I use your comments in a future issue of the newsletter,
I’ll thank you by posting your address so that you can get
additional free traffic to your site!
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That’s a Wrap for this Week
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That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you
enjoyed this issue.
Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you
may have to the Feedback Loop. I would be only too happy to
help you in any way that I can.
From time to time I’ll send you important updates
that will provide information that has the potential to
greatly improve your online business… and of course
your profits!
However, you can rest assured that I will only ever
recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value
and will provide indisputably benefits to help you grow
your business… that’s my guarantee!
Your friend,
Gilles Rais
Categories: Newsletter Issues
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Using An Ad Tracker Is Key To The Affiliate Marketer
January 22, 2006 12:56 amThere’s a lot of money in affiliate marketing. This is true, however, only to those are seriously and zealously working on his affiliate program.
Success in affiliate marketing varies in every individual affiliate and for the most part, it depends on his will and perseverance.
No matter how good an affiliate program is, it will not prosper if the affiliate marketer does not pay the price of hard work.
One must exert extra effort especially on the aspect of promotion. Nothing will happen if the links or banners would just lie idle in a web page, an affiliate must be able to convince the visitor to click it and proceed to the business site to buy the products.
No click-throughs means no income for an affiliate marketer.
You can actually generate a full-time income by means of affiliate marketing and you can do it at home, and yes, even while you sleep. This is one of the things I enjoy in the most: checking my emails in the morning to see how much I ‘made’ last night! ![]()
You must have a good web site to begin with. It must have good promotional and informative contents, pleasing design, inviting banner ads and all other important elements in an affiliate marketer’s web site.
It would be great if you have exhausted other means of advertising such as newsletters, email marketing, message boards and ad listings such as Google AdWords.
You just have to go online once in a while to check your site and update it and to watch over the development of your marketing program. Does this sound so easy?
It can be this easy if you have planned your affiliate program well and have taken all the steps towards success carefully and diligently.
Now, there’s a tool you can use to help you go through the program with ease and confidence, the Ad Tracker. For many experienced and successful affiliate marketers, the Ad Tracker is a key to a successful affiliate marketing program.
What precisely is an ad tracker? It is a marketing tracking software or program that allows you to trace and take note of every click-through made by visitors of your site and by other customers who got your referral link.
There are ad tracking service providers as well, so you will just have to pay them to do the tracking for you. With the ad tracker, you can keep an eye on the progress of your marketing campaigns even offline.
This tool or program is especially helpful if you are engaged in several affiliate and pay-per-click programs and have placed ads in emails, pop-ups and pop-unders, message boards, auto responders, Ezines, forums, several web sites, surveys and various ad service providers.
Of course, you don’t want all your efforts to be put to waste so you want to make sure you are getting paid for your hard work.
Likewise, you want to make sure every dollar or cent you disburse in your advertising campaigns is wisely spent.
With the help of the ad tracker, you will know accurately how many and which of your links where clicked on, how many clicked on your links, how many of your emails were opened and how many of those who opened your email clicked through the business site and purchased a product, how many products were purchased, which of your banner ads or links brought the most leads and sales and many other pertinent facts and figures you need.
Sales records and all data stated are necessary in any business as this could determine if your affiliate program is still worth continuing.
This would also help you determine which of your marketing strategies is most effective and which is most beneficial for each product or service you are promoting.
Every decision and plan you make must be well grounded on facts. That decision or plan of action may not be the best, but it is something not to regret about when you had valid reasons for coming up with such decision or plan.
You cannot just decide to terminate your affiliate program, just because you don’t earn big in an instant.
If you are serious with affiliate marketing, again and again, keep in mind that your success lies mainly on promotion and your hard work.
If you don’t seem lucky enough to convince many of your site users to buy the products, don’t be disheartened and jump into a conclusion that your affiliate program is a failure.
If it works for others, it could work for you, too. Know whether your advertising techniques are effective or not, which works best for your program and which doesn’t.
Get an ad tracker to help you know all these and you’d surely be on the right track towards success!
I use and thus highly recommend AdTrackz for advanced tracking of your campaigns & link cloaking.
This includes my “Thank You” pages for my affiliates so they can accurately track their sales.
Get a Discount on AdTrackz with the provided link. Grab now your copy at $67 instead of $77.
Benefit from this limited time offer now! (Note that the offer may be discontinued at this time)
Gilles Rais
Categories: Articles
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January 06 3rd Week
January 21, 2006 2:40 amToday I am going to discuss how to prepare yourself
mentally for business.
You may have heard some people saying that starting your
own business is difficult. Guess what? They’re not kidding.
Starting a business, in many ways, is a lot like having a
child and before you get started there are lots of things
you need to think about and discuss with anyone you can.
Can You Afford to Fail?
You might have heard the old saying ‘only gamble what you
can afford to lose’. Well a large percentage of online
businesses fail in their first year, so if your financial
situation is such that you will agonise over every small
amount you spend, starting a business is probably a bad idea.
Put it this way: Expect that you will not to make any
money in the first few months as very few people achieve
success immediately. Most often it takes anyware from 3 to
6 months before you start to see a return for your efforts.
Note that this doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t believe in
yourself and your business - simply that you have to
realize the kind of odds you’re up against and stay
realistic.
Will You Stick at It?
You can’t get halfway through all this and have a sudden
change of heart, or feel like you’re doomed to fail. All
successful business spend plenty of time doing badly before
they start to pick up. You need to prepare yourself for a
steady stream of failure being slowly replaced by success.
Don’t expect the world all at once.
Could You Take the Stress?
Starting a business is one of the most stressful things
you can do. It will affect you mentally, physically and
emotionally. You need to be strong to deal with this kind
of stress, and you need to have someone to turn to for
support.
Are You a Survivor?
There are some people who always seem to make it in the
end, regardless of what life throws at them. You need to be
the kind of person whose response to things going wrong is
to work harder and get it fixed, not someone who cries and
goes into hiding.
Many entrepreneurs say that this, more than anything, is
the secret of success. You need to be a ‘never say die’
kind of person. You need to be always ready to try again,
no matter what gets thrown at you. Remember that it’s not
when things start to go wrong that you fail - you haven’t
failed until you’ve given up.
Be Prepared to Work Hard.
If you’ve been doing a standard nine-to-five job, you’re
probably used to a world where it’s someone else’s
responsibility if the work doesn’t get done - you work as
fast as you can for the hours you’re told to, and if it’s
not done on time then it’s the manager’s fault for not
hiring enough people.
When you work on your own, though, there’s no-one to blame
- the buck stops where it starts, with you.
You Need to Satisfy Every Customer.
When you run an online business, you can’t afford to lose
your customers. You need to always be nice to them, trying
to meet their needs. You have to remember that you’re the
most senior person they can talk to in your organisation,
so you have to act like it.
When there’s no-one other than you to handle complaints,
you have to either give in to customers at every
opportunity or watch them take their business elsewhere.
Do You Really Love What You Do?
If you don’t love what you do, then sooner or later you’re
going to want to stop doing it - and when you run an online
business, that’s difficult. Besides, you can’t run a
business if you’re always sitting and thinking about how
great it’ll be when it’s the weekend.
Think of it this way:
Could you run up to someone on the street with a leaflet
about your business and tell them all about it in a way
that would really leave an impression?
It doesn’t matter whether you actually could or not - if
you think everyone will be interested, then, believe me,
they will be.
All the best and good luck
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Russell Brunson has just released a new viral software and
for a short time he’s allowing me to let you get it for
free (valued $147).
You can download your copy at…
==> http://www.LinkBrander.com
I’m sure you will find this very useful.
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For your enjoyment (and information), here is this week’s
quick trivia question…
What is a machinima?
As usual the answer can be found later in the newsletter.
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Featured Article
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What Really Sells Online?
The success of an online business depends on a number of
things. The way the business was branded plays an essential
role, of course, and so does traffic. The contents of a
website will attract the visitors, and the marketing
strategies will keep them coming. These things can never
be undermined.
But there is one factor that is of utmost importance,
without which the business is as sure as dead. We’re
talking about the products which are to be sold.
Most definitely, an online business should sell products
that the market actually needs. There should be a high
demand for it, otherwise your online enterprise would just
experience poor sales.
As much as possible, you would want the need for the said
product to be constant, because only such could guarantee
consistent sales, and correspondingly, consistent earnings.
Here is a method that is quite popular for determining the
profitability of a planned product:
1. Know the subject of the product you have in mind.
2. Run a search for the subject in
www.inventory.overture.com or www.nichebot.com. If you
have some funds to spare and if you desire more
comprehensive statistics, open an account with
WordTracker.
These sites offer tools that would allow you to check how
many searches were made for the subject of the product you
are considering. The more searches there are, the higher
the demand there is.
3. Run a search for your subject in any of the search
engines in the net to determine the amount of supply. The
more results there are, the higher the supply for the needs
of the subject.
4. Naturally, you would want to follow the most basic law
in economics: the law of supply and demand. A market is
said to be profitable if there is a high demand for it (in
our case, a high number of searches) and a low supply that
caters to its needs (in our case, fewer number of results
in the search engines).
This is a trial and error method that may take some time
to master. It would require a degree of patience on your
part as well, and some supplemental knowledge of current
market trends.
If you want to know what really sells online, here are
some ideas that could help you out:
* Information products such as eBooks and special reports
will always be hot sellers.
People use the Internet to acquire information on a matter
they need. If you will be able to supply this information,
then you’re in business!
The fact that information products can easily be delivered is
a plus to their marketability. On your part, it wouldn’t require
a lot of financial investment to come up with your own
information product.
* Actual books will also always be a hot commodity in
online trading.
Books require no sensory guarantees. They need not be
smelt, felt nor heard to determine their quality.
Descriptions and reviews would be enough to entice
potential customers into actually buying them from your
business.
* Travel packages are also good sellers.
People prefer the convenience of having their itineraries
arranged for them, and the comfort of merely having to
choose and arrange a deal with the click of a button is
easier than going to a travel agent. People will always
travel, so this field will always be profitable.
Hard to find items have also carved a niche of their own
on the net. Out of print publications, and items which have
gone out of circulation are blockbusters in auctions sites.
The Internet is an avenue where collectors converge, and
collectibles will always have a place in the web.
* Health products, especially those that are not usually
carried by most pharmacies, also experience brisk sales in
the online world.
None of these items, of course, are guaranteed to be
hot sellers forever. As the market trends change and as
the internet further defines itself, the things that people look
for will shift. Good business practice dictates that you study
the flow of the industry so that you may keep abreast of what
people really want.
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This Week’s Trivia Answer
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Here’s the answer to the trivia question I asked earlier…
What is a machinima?
A machinima (muh.SHEEN.uh.muh) is an animated short or
movie created entirely on a personal computer and “filmed”
in real-time using computer graphics rendering software or
computer game technology.
In other words, Machinima is a blend of machine and
cinema. The cinema connection is clear, but why “machine”?
Computers are machines, of course, so that’s an obvious
influence. On a more subtle level, the software that
creates machinima’s scenes, lighting, and actors is called
an engine.
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Healthy Body… Healthy Mind
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Motivators for Success!
Keeping yourself motivated during a fitness program can be
challenging, even for the most experienced exercisers.
Working out can get dull and your routine can seem endless
when you’ve been on the same route forever. Avoid the
pitfalls of discouragement and disenchantment by planning
ways to reward yourself for a job well done.
This is the only body you’re going to have, so you must
take care of it to have the best life possible. You need to
follow a regular workout program but it shouldn’t be a
punishment or something you have to force yourself to do.
That’s why it’s important to build in regular rewards to
maintain your motivation.
The best forwards to incorporate into a fitness program
are ones that do not involve candy or any kind of food. A
common method of “treating” yourself or making yourself
better after a tough day is to buy a candy bar or box of
cookies because “you deserve it.”
Nobody deserves 300 extra calories to get rid of! Calorie-
laden treats are not the way to motivate yourself because
those kind of “rewards” will only involve more exercise
later down the road.
Instead, sit down and make a list of activities, music and
books you enjoy. Choose the things that appeal to you the
most - try to have a variety of small, medium and large
rewards to correspond with small, medium and large
accomplishments.
If your goal is to lose weight then plan appropriate
incentives for smaller goals. If you wait until you’ve lost
20 pounds to give yourself a pat on the back then the
journey seems much harder. Plan to give yourself some kind
of reward for every five pounds lost - buy a new CD or a
DVD of a recently released movie.
Another method is to keep track of how many calories you
burn each day and when the total reaches 3500, reward
yourself by buying a magazine off the newsstand that you
normally wouldn’t purchase.
Incentives for your mind and soul are better for you than
rewards for the stomach. When your goal is simply to
increase fitness and build muscle strength, set up reward
points for lifting or pressing heavier weights, for running
two miles instead of one, and for being able to exercise
for longer periods of time.
Use the same type of incentives - magazines, books and
music. Simply the knowledge that you will reward yourself
can make workouts feel easier.
Exercisers who partner with friends or family to reach
goals can use this method with a slight variation. Each
person should write down his or her own reward ideas -
things that you would like to receive as a gift to yourself
for caring for your body through fitness.
Partners should then exchange lists and whenever one
person reaches a goal, the partner chooses one of the items
from the list to reward the accomplishment. This introduces
an element of surprise into the routine and can encourage
you to press on to more accomplishments in order to earn
the incentives you like the most.
An important note to keep in mind is that incentives
should match the size of the accomplishment. Buying
yourself a new piece of expensive jewelry in return for
losing a few pounds will lead either to dissatisfaction
with your other incentives or bankruptcy, since you buy
more and more jewels.
Instead of going overboard on smaller incentives, reward
yourself with an item that you like and enjoy but rarely
buy or take yourself to a movie (but skip the concessions
stand).
If you meet a mid-size goal like running five miles when
your ultimate goal is ten, buy some new fitness clothes or
take a day off work to relax.
Accomplishing your ultimate goals calls for the biggest,
splashiest incentive you want. If you have worked and
sweated your way out of thirty pounds or more, take a spa
weekend to pamper your beautiful new body!
Or if you prepared for a marathon for months and then
completed the 26 miles, take a mini-vacation to a nearby
scenic retreat and spend your time relaxing and reveling in
your accomplishment.
Keeping your motivation high can be challenging with the
demands of everyday life. Adding incentives to encourage
you along the way will not only help you reach your goals
faster but will make your life a little sweeter as well.
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Have You Got Any Comments?
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This is your chance to speak out.
Comment on articles I’ve run in the newsletter, give me
your thoughts on changes or your ad testing results or
questions relating to your business, etc.
In other words, just talk to me about what you think I
need to do to improve the newsletter.
Be sure to include your website address too, because if
I use your comments in a future issue of the newsletter,
I’ll thank you by posting your address so that you can get
additional free traffic to your site!
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That’s a Wrap for this Week
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That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you
enjoyed this issue.
Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you
may have to the Feedback Loop. I would be only too happy to
help you in any way that I can.
From time to time I’ll send you important updates
that will provide information that has the potential to
greatly improve your online business… and of course
your profits!
However, you can rest assured that I will only ever
recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value
and will provide indisputably benefits to help you grow
your business… that’s my guarantee!
Your friend,
Gilles Rais
Categories: Newsletter Issues
No Comments »
How To Continually Grow Your Affiliate Checks
January 19, 2006 12:51 amThe promise of earning profits without really doing much of anything has enticed a lot of people towards affiliate marketing.
But does affiliate marketing really work this way?
As an affiliate, all that is required of you is to simply place the merchant’s ad on your website. Then after that, you virtually do nothing but wait for anyone to click on the merchant’s ad and later collect your profits.
Easy, right? Well, not quite often. Many affiliates earn almost nothing from their affiliate programs simply because they do nothing.
Remember that affiliate marketing is but another form of marketing, and you’ll definitely need to market your merchant’s product for you to earn something.
Successful affiliates in any affiliate program simply don’t sit there and wait for money to come. Why? Because there is no money in simply sitting and waiting.
If you want to be successful in affiliate marketing and if you want to continually grow your affiliate checks, you’ve got to do something.
Think of ways on how to promote your merchant’s business and products better. Think of ways on how to induce other people to click on the link or ad provided to you by your merchant.
Think of ways on how to make your affiliate sales increase!
So if you’re new in affiliate marketing and you try to follow the easy go lucky pit that most unsuccessful affiliate marketers follow, then you’re definitely on the wrong track.
But we’re not advising you to stop right there. No. Rather, we want you to take some steps to make your affiliate program work better and gain more commissions for you.
How? Here are a few guidelines that may help you to continually grow your affiliate checks:
Become an expert on your affiliate product.
You can promote your merchant’s product better if you know a lot of things about it. To become an expert, the best thing you can do is purchase your merchant’s product yourself.
This way, you can tell your customers about your first-hand experience using the product. You can even write a testimonial or a personal endorsement ad about it.
But if any condition does not permit you to purchase the product, you can at least make a thorough research about it.
Host your own website.
Or at least have a domain name that is short and easy to remember. You certainly wouldn’t expect a visitor to remember a very long and incomprehensible URL.
And if that’s so, you also wouldn’t expect him to visit your website any time soon. That means less traffic for your page and the less chance for your affiliate ads and links to be clicked.
It is also a good idea to create a private website and offer access to it to anybody who clicks on any of your affiliate ads. Visitors usually get interested with these private websites.
Private websites also gives you a venue to promote your back-end affiliate products.
Write your own affiliate ads.
Many merchants usually wouldn’t mind if you write and design your own ads for their products, for as long as you ask permission from them and present them your ad before posting it on your site.
This gives you a greater advantage over a lot of other affiliates who must be advertising the same affiliate products.
Participate in chat rooms, discussion boards, and forums related to your product.
If you use to ignore them before, then it is time for you to start focusing your attention on them. You can start your own chat or join an existing chat related to your product.
You don’t have to promote your affiliate product at once, but find the chance to advertise and promote it as you go along. The same would be true for message boards, discussion boards and forums.
Create a free ezine or newsletter.
Ezines and newsletters are periodical publications whose aim is to inform a group of people about a certain subject.
In your ezines and newsletters, you don’t always have to promote your merchant’s product for this may greatly annoy your subscribers.
Rather, find a way to insert your affiliate ads and links on some portions of the letter. Also, don’t forget to promote your ezine or newsletter on your website.
These are but a few guidelines on how you can increase your affiliate sales and continually grow your affiliate checks.
Sure there can be a lot of other tips that out there, and if you think they would work, we won’t discourage you from following them.
What’s important is that you be able to find a way to: attract more traffic to your site, induce your visitors to click on the ads on your site, and be able to promote your merchant’s products even outside the boundary of your website.
If you can do these, there’s no reason for you to fail in affiliate marketing.
Gilles Rais
Categories: Articles
No Comments »
How To Set Yourself Apart From Other Affiliates
January 18, 2006 1:15 amConsidered today as one of the best and easiest way to earn some money, affiliate marketing is now attracting many people to represent themselves in this type of business.
But as competition is getting a bit bigger, you may need some ways to distinguish yourself from the rest of the affiliate marketers.
For the major reason that many of your competitors including you are promoting the exact same program, in the exact same zone or on the exact same websites perhaps.
Now here are some tips that you may consider in order for you to stay in this business and have the chance to outwit and outplay other competitors of yours.
The first thing is for you to have your own website. It is very essential for you to have your own website in considering affiliate marketing as your professional career.
Secondly, potential customers primarily go to websites in order for them to search and sometimes purchase items they were looking for.
For the same reason that it is much easier to remember than a certain URL that you may be using and you can just point to your visitors the affiliate page in your website.
Another thing to remember is to have your own ad. A lot of times affiliates marketers have published the same ad two or three times done by advertisers. In this case, you may email the owner of your affiliate program asking that you make your own ads.
This way, people may not become immune to ads, because sometimes seeing the same ads over and over again, may just make your potential customers to just skip it all together.
Besides, your primarily purpose is to attract or encourage people to click and read your ads and be curios enough to click through your website.
Step three, have some products of your won which are only available through your website. Once you have your website going, it is important to have some products or services that your customers can’t find with other affiliate’s site.
You want your customers to keep coming to your site and the best way to do that is to have something on your site that they can’t find on others.
Being an affiliate marketer we must then choose a certain market segment where you can have a potential leadership or at least a strong challenger role.
The fourth step is to build a strong relationship with people who already buy your product.
Now, in order for you as the marketer to fully answer the query of your potential customers, it is best to try and buy the product by yourself. With this particular notion, you can better sell the product that you are trying to market.
You can share to your potential customers what a great experience you had with the product, and this can make them interested enough to buy the product.
You may also be able to provide a support if necessary or you may provide a confident tutorial or steps on how to use the product that you are trying to market based on your personal experience.
Entailing this idea is to be totally honest about the product that you are trying to market. If you find out that the program you were promoting is a scam, stop promoting it and inform your readers about it.
This will help you build credibility with your lists.
We all make mistakes and admitting your mistake will boost your reader’s confidence in you. Lastly, don’t try to market everything you see.
With services such as Clickbank, it is easy to become overwhelmed and try to market everything in the Clickbank Marketplace. That is not a good idea. It’s better to focus on one market and market products that they would want.
This is called niche marketing.
Try also to promote a certain product, which conforms to the specifications measured through indications of customer-satisfaction, rather than indicators of self-gratification.
It is the customer who decides what to buy and not the company or the affiliate marketer. The company simply produces products catering to the needs and wants of their chosen market segment.
Today, different types of business are emerging from all over the world in a multinational level to reign supreme on their specific market segment that they are trying to dominate, and affiliate marketing is one of them.
Affiliate marketing is definitely here to stay and it can become a great way to earn extra or even part time income. However, it won’t happen overnight.
Like everything else in life, you’re going to have to put a lot of hard work into it. Good luck to you in your new venture.
Gilles Rais
Categories: Articles
No Comments »
Drive Traffic To Your Website Using Google AdWord
January 14, 2006 12:47 amHighly targeted traffic is one of the most important entities in the internet universe.
Any website owner or administrator recognizes the importance of driving traffic to a website.
The success of any website does not rely entirely on the site itself.
You may have a terrific idea for a website, offer an excellent product or service, or have an exceptionally designed site with superb content, but if you do not use the right strategies to advertise, your site would not attract the high traffic you need.
Attracting targeted traffic is a task that should be taken seriously for any site to succeed or make a profit. Fortunately, there are internet-marketing tools that help the website marketer to drive traffic to his website.
One of the most significant, and effective, of these tools is Google’s Adwords. Adwords is one of Google’s advertising services.
How does Google Adwords work? Google is the largest search engine on the web receiving over 200 million queries each day through its various services.
As Google is the most popular search engine today, webmasters are keen on having their websites achieve a higher ranking in the search engine results it provides. A high ranking can mean high traffic for that website.
The search engine results page is also a great venue for advertisers to promote a product or service through ads and links.
Consequently, Google launched its Adwords service, as a way for businesses to advertise products and services to a targeted audience. Google Adwords can guarantee instant traffic.
In this service, Google displays relevant text based ads within its search engine results page termed as “Sponsored Links”.
Whenever a particular keyword is searched on, these relevant links appear in a separate section giving excellent exposure to the sites listed.
How do you use Google Adwords? First, you have to open an account with the Google Adwords Service.
Then, you should indicate your target language and country. This is important because you would not want your products advertised in countries where your product or service cannot be sold.
Afterwards, you should now create an ad group. This involves designing the ad, selecting keywords and determining maximum cost per click that you are willing to spend and defining bid amounts.
The most important step in creating a successful Adwords campaign is selecting an effective title tag that will catch the attention of your target audience.
The title tag, generally a short phrase, is the most important part of your Adwords campaign so make sure that it is attractive and catchy. You should describe the website clearly and accurately.
The most effective advertising conveys a clear message to the target audience. With a clear message, you will be attracting qualified leads, which can eventually convert to sale.
Thus, the importance of selecting the right keywords cannot be overemphasized.
There are keyword variations you can adapt to reach more prospects. Using these varieties, misspellings and derivatives can help increase the chance of your ads being served.
Broad match is targeting keywords in a loosely defined manner. Here, the ads appear based on the keywords that have been queried by other users as opposed to exact match, which calls for the keyword to match the query exactly.
Meanwhile, a keyword phrase set to phrase match will only appear when the exact phrase is searched on. A negative keyword is helpful in filtering unrelated pages.
After you have decided on what title tag to use in your ad, you must now define a budget in order to maximize exposure.
Google Adwords recommend a daily budget for each campaign. However, you should determine a budget that is suitable and affordable. You should also determine the maximum cost per click.
Google will offer a recommended cost per click, but you do not have to stick with this. Usually, a number one position is not ideal as it can also attract unwanted traffic and useless clicks.
A number two position is more preferred as it can filter useless clicks and provide traffic with a higher conversion rate.
To conclude, Google Adwords is an excellent strategy and tool in giving your site maximum exposure. Nevertheless, Google Adwords should not be your sole advertising campaign.
It will definitely help you find the all-important, highly targeted traffic you need.
Interested? Find the link to Google AdWord on the right sidebar of this blog.
Gilles Rais
Categories: Articles
No Comments »
Free Ebooks, Courses & Software
January 10, 2006 9:00 pmThis post is always updated (last edit: August 2, 2007).
Everything here is free for My Software Gold Mine Subscribers. Please don’t download the packages unless you want to signup with my free Newsletter. They only work for registered Subscribers.
These products are distributed through Viral Master List Builder.
Please note: packages are in .exe format and will only work on Windows OS.
Mac users will be able to access PDF files after subscription.
eBooks Package 1 (4.9Mo):
- Big Yellow Book of Turbo Marketing Secrets
- Google AdWords Made Easy
- SEO Made Easy
- Social Bookmarking Report
- Turbo Secrets Report
eBooks Package 2 (3Mo):
- Article Writing Secrets
- Getting Started With Google AdSense
- Public Domain Turning Ideas to Dollar$
- SEO Predictions
- SEO Report
eBooks Package 3 (4.2Mo):
- 9 Email Tips
- MySpace Cash Machine
- Powerful Private Label Rights Articles
- Setting Goals
- Turbo Money Machine
eBooks Package 4 (4.2Mo):
- Affiliate Masters Course
- Make Your Net Auctions Sell Master Course
- Make Your Prices Sell Master Course
- Netwriting Master Course
- Service Sellers Master Course
- The Getting Started Action Guide
- Webmaster Business Master Course
eBooks Package 5 (2.1Mo):
- AdSense Arbitrage
- Bookmarking Demon
- Boost Your Traffic
- Super Affiliate Mini Training
- Think Outside The Box
Solo eBooks / mini reports (.exe format only):
- 7 Part Affirmation Course
- AdSense Guide
- Home Business Guide
- How To Pick Your Niche
- List Building Power Course
- Newbies Guide to Web Design
- Popcorn Marketing
- Promotion on a Budget
- Search Engine Optimization Report
- The Resale Rights Report
- Selling Products Online
- Starting Your Own Internet Business
- Traffic A To Z
- Understanding PC Hardware
- Viral Marketing Tutorial
- Wireless Networking
Go to the Ebooks section to get:
- The Best Free Ebook. A collection of ebooks you can brand;
- Discover How To Write Salescopy That ROARS;
- Ken Envoy’s Make Your Site SELL!
- Ken Envoy’s Make Your Content PREsell!
- Ken Envoy’s Make Your Net Auctions Sell!
- The Science of Getting Rich. Not at all what most people think.
Free Software:
- Affiliate Link Encryption software, designed for those Affiliates who wish to obscure their Affiliate links within their Source Code to help keep Link Hijackers at bay;
- *Affiliate Fire Extinguisher. Check, protect and prevent your affiliate links being lost with improper link cloaking / redirect;
- *Affiliate PDF Brander. The easy way to create brandable PDF files for your affiliates to promote your product(s);
- *Article Rewriter Pro. Generate unique article content automatically;
- Article Submitter. Submit your website to hundreds of article directories instantly;
- AX Gold Collection. A package of 12 great Webmaster Tools (6Mo);
- Blog Commentor Lite. A free version of the Blog Commentor;
- CovertAffiliate. Advanced javascript techniques to protect your affiliate links and page source. Scroll down the page to get the free trial;
- Link Brander. Use it to shorten your URLs & brand your links. Clickbank links compatible;
- SEO Elite free trial;
- ScreenGrab. A simple, yet effective screen capture utility for Windows;
- Surf Shark. Deletes all traces of Internet activity with a single click. Scroll down the page to get the free trial;
- Tag Automator Lite. A free version of the well known Tag Automator.
Help Yourself!
Gilles Rais
Note: You’ll need a FREE Version of WinZip and Adobe Acrobat Reader to open the files.
*Make money promoting this free trial version. No Website needed. Click here for more informations.
Categories: *Free Ebooks, Courses & Software*
No Comments »
January 06 2nd Week
6:12 pmHere is a secret that may be difficult for you to believe,
so prepare yourself. It is an extremely important secret
that can have a most profound impact on your business
success or failure.
Let’s start by asking a simple question… Do you enjoy
sales?
The truth of the matter is that when many small business
owners are asked this question, they respond with answers
like, “No way” or “I can’t stand sales, let someone else do
it.”
Why is your answer to the above question so important? No
doubt you have seen headlines like the following, which
glorify how easy and simple it is to succeed in business:
“The Ultimate Lazy Way To Start Your Own Business”
“Cash In On A Multi-Billion Dollar Industry In Your
Underwear”
“Easily Generate A Lucrative Income While Sleeping”
We are constantly being bombarded with these “easy ways”
to make a million bucks. Does success in business actually
work this way? Not in reality! Is it realistic? Not even
close!
The bottom line in operating a successful long-term
business comes down to your ability to sell your
product… period. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. You
can either sell your own product or resell somebody’s
else’s product.
Either way, your success or failure will ultimately depend
on your ability to market it. If you don’t enjoy sales, you
have very little chance to succeed in business for
yourself.
The most prevalent attitude of many new business owners is
that their product, once launched, will miraculously sell
itself. After all, the product is awesome and everybody
will absolutely, positively want one. People should be
lining up to buy it, right?
Here is another truth about sales - It will take 5-7 sales
attempts to close 80% of your sales. Yes, you read that
correctly. That’s 5-7 attempts before people will say “Yes,
I want to buy your product.”
Running an advertisement one-time or making a sales pitch
to a potential customer once in a while does not qualify as
effort. Hearing that first “no” and subsequently giving up
means the demise of your business and gives someone else an
opportunity to turn that NO into a YES.
What most people don’t realize or fail to accept is that
it may take weeks, months or even years to get a product to
sell according to your expectations. You may have to
frequently change your sales pitch, web site, advertisement
or even the product until you get it right.
This dedication and determination is what separates the
very few successful business owners from the many
“wannabes” and fly-by-night hopefuls.
The bottom line is that to be successful in ANY business
you will need talent and the ability to sell, sell, sell.
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Make sure you checked the *Free Ebooks* section of this blog.
Many new freebies have been added this month. Don’t miss
them!
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For your enjoyment (and information), here is this week’s
quick trivia question…
What does the phrase “walk the cat back” mean?
As usual the answer can be found later in the newsletter.
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Featured Article
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If Only I Had Known…
Hindsight, we all know only too well, is a wonderful
thing. For example, if we had only known that the ceiling
on membership at a popular site was going to be subscribed
so quickly - we would have joined up the minute we heard
about it.
If we had only known that niche marketing was going to be
so wildly popular we would have focused on that instead of
MLM.
If we had only known that Google was going to change its
algorithm and the rules of AdWords were going to change we
would have…
Stop, stop, stop.
In the world of Internet marketing, you can safely bet
that the only constant is the rate of change!
There’s always news of the latest product dropping into
your email inbox. There’s always another promise of quick
and easy money. Google will keep changing its algorithm,
and new search engines are quite likely to pop up to
challenge Google.
What can you do about this? Four main things:
1 - Continue to Educate Yourself!
Understand that those who rise to the top of any field -
whether it’s internet marketing or something else - are
good at what they do. This means that they never stop
learning. There are always new materials, new techniques
and probably new ‘experts’ showing the way.
Most of us learn in three main ways: (a) from experts who
specialize in a certain niche related to our field; (b)
from others who are following the same path as we are, and
(c) by trial and error, from our own results.
You will find that the more you immerse yourself in the
world of internet marketing, the more you will be able to
analyze which products, services and opportunities are
right for you.
2 - Focus. Pick One System and Give It a Fair Go!
Countless people who start out on the internet with high
hopes follow the same pattern. They get excited about a new
product or system. They throw themselves into it and invest
long hours (and potentially quite a bit of money) in
getting it up and running.
It might be e-books sold from mini-sites; it might be
setting up an eBay business; it might be directory-type
sites with text manipulators; it might be AdWords or
content sites optimized for AdSense.
Then one day they get wind of another new system (probably
one created by someone who claims “the gurus are angry with
me for giving away all their secrets…”). Discouraged by
the lack of results with the first “opportunity”, they
decide to let it rest for a while and try the new one.
Back they go into the cycle of try-the-new-product, get-
discouraged, discard-it-and-try-the-next-thing.
And so it goes on. Months pass. Perhaps years pass. They
struggle to pay the credit card bills mounting from buying
into every new system that comes along… with very little
money coming in to offset their ‘investment’.
As they look back, they start muttering “If I had only
known then what I know now…”
If you can recognize yourself in this scenario, the good
news is this: Now you DO know better. You don’t know what
the next new product will be that’s going to set the
internet world abuzz, but you do know enough to choose a
system that’s right for you and stick to it.
3 - Take the Time to Plan!
Give yourself from two to four weeks to regroup. Go
through all the products you have on your shelves or on
your computer. Make a list. Decide which products you know
(so wise with hindsight!) to be worth keeping. Then analyze
the ‘keepers’ and pick on the best system for YOU to use at
this time.
(This will depend upon your level of knowledge and which
one you would enjoy most. Work with your strengths.)
Finally, devise a game plan. You are going to focus on
this ONE method and devise a practical time-line to achieve
results. Don’t be in a rush. Make sure you give yourself
enough time to see it ‘take hold’ so the money starts
flowing in. That will give you the motivation to continue.
Clear the decks, physically as well as mentally. Put all
the products that don’t fit in with your plan in boxes or
on disk for safekeeping. You may return to them one day,
but if you’ve chosen the system that’s right for you, you
probably won’t.
4 - Don’t Get Distracted by New Products!
Resolve to buy ONLY products or services that will save
you time or money in implementing the system you have
chosen.
Never buy anything on impulse. Print out the sales letter,
read it through, then put it aside. Read it through again
the next day. Does it still seem so appealing? Check out a
few forums to listen to the buzz.
If a product doesn’t deliver, you’ll soon hear about it.
If it is exceptional value, you’ll hear about that, too.
Some questions to ask: “Will this help me to streamline
the business I have chosen? Is it worth the money? Will it
make a significant difference?” And above all, “Do I need
this, or is it just another distraction?”
Resolve to make this the year you will succeed. No more
pocket change. No more “If I had only known…”
You DO know.
So make it work!
About the Author:
David Isaacs is the co-owner of a site where you can get
over $17,286 worth of quality products, services and
training programs you can use to begin generating an
online income for less than a candy bar a day.
Find out more at Infinite Revenue.
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This Week’s Trivia Answer
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Here’s the answer to the trivia question I asked earlier…
What does the phrase “walk the cat back” mean?
Walk the cat back: To attempt to understand the true
nature of a situation by reconstructing events
chronologically from the present to the past.
The forward-looking effort to spot trouble on the horizon
has a counterpart in the backward-looking effort to figure
out what went wrong after trouble has in fact arrived.
Intelligence analysts, who often have to second-guess
themselves after defections and other failures, have a
phrase to describe this kind of diagnostic deconstruction:
‘walking back the cat.’
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Healthy Body… Healthy Mind
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Setting and achieving your goals can be one of the most
stressful and sometimes futile things you ever do in your
life.
Each new year brings new resolutions. People make
unrealistic promises to themselves knowing that many of
them are sure to be broken. But we do it anyway, because it
is a tradition that has been passed down through many
generations.
There are several ways to plan for reaching your goals
that can greatly increases your chances for success and
reduce the amount of stress involved.
First, you must understand that while goals should be
written down, they need not be etched in stone. For
instance, say that you want to lose 20 pounds in the next
two months, and two months later, you have only lost 15
pounds.
Many people would see this as a failure, get depressed,
and go back to their unhealthy habits. The results are
predictable. They gain back the weight they lost (or more)
and end up back at square one.
Achieving a goal is like driving to a different city. You
never travel in a straight line. You make turns, take
detours, and sometimes get lost (although most men would
never admit to this). Do you go back home and start over?
Of course not. You just make adjustments from your current
location.
Taking the above example once again, losing 15 pounds
instead of 20 is not failure! Absolutely not. You simply
need to make the necessary adjustments in your goal and
continue on.
Instead of dwelling on your inability to lose 20 pounds,
consider that you now only need to lose five pounds. Since
you just lost 15 pounds in two months, losing five more in
the next month should be a snap. But if you do not, you
simply make the necessary adjusts once again from that
point. Each goal gets easier and easier.
You should also make reasonably achievable goals. If you
need to lose 100 pounds, do not plan to lose it in the next
six months. That is not only unreasonable, it can be
dangerous to your health. However, losing 100 pounds in 12
months breaks down to slightly less that two pounds per
week. That is certainly within reason.
If your goal is to earn a million dollars in the next
year, that is admirable. But have you thought about how you
are going to do that? If you are starting from scratch,
that may not be a reasonable goal. Perhaps you should start
by building a foundation first and shooting for your first
million dollars next year.
Of course, if you plan on making a million dollars next
year and only make 20 bucks, you only have $999,980 to go.
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Have You Got Any Comments?
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
This is your chance to speak out.
Comment on articles I’ve run in the newsletter, give me
your thoughts on changes or your ad testing results or
questions relating to your business, etc.
In other words, just talk to me about what you think I
need to do to improve the newsletter.
Be sure to include your website address too, because if
I use your comments in a future issue of the newsletter,
I’ll thank you by posting your address so that you can get
additional free traffic to your site!
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That’s a Wrap for this Week
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That wraps up another week’s newsletter and I hope you
enjoyed this issue.
Don’t forget to send me any comments or questions you
may have to the Feedback Loop. I would be only too happy to
help you in any way that I can.
From time to time I’ll send you important updates
that will provide information that has the potential to
greatly improve your online business… and of course
your profits!
However, you can rest assured that I will only ever
recommend products that are considered to be of HIGH value
and will provide indisputably benefits to help you grow
your business… that’s my guarantee!
Your friend,
Gilles Rais
Categories: Newsletter Issues
No Comments »
By Perry Wolf, creator of covertLinks.
Da-dump…Da-dump…Da-dump…….
Lurking in the background on millions of PC’s is a threat few even notice. Only tell tale signs show it’s near, but to the unwary, they will not know it’s there, even when it hits!
No, it’s not a shark swimming with it’s dorsal fin splitting the water’s surface like a hot knife through butter, it’s Parasite Software running as a process in the background on your PC.
Parasite Software has become possibly the worst threat to any Affiliate Marketer as it infects millions of PC users, allowing Parasite Software owners to overwrite your Affiliate Cookies at whim, effectively stealing your Affiliate Commissions and creating a huge need to protect your affiliate links through various means, including affiliate link cloaking. Yet, surprisingly few Affiliate Marketers are aware of this threat, simply trying to protect their Affiliate Links from regular Link Hijackers without realizing the greater threat to them.
It’s difficult to determine whether or not Parasite Software is running on your PC, but one of the first signs that it’s there is slower PC or Browser Surfing performance. Another surefire sign your computer’s been infected is if your Home page in your web browser suddenly changes to one you didn’t set. This is commonly refer to as a “Browser Hijacking”.
Different forms of Parasite Software effect your Affiliate Commissions. Some is software that is inadvertantly installed and runs in the background on your computer, monitoring which websites you visit, waiting for one it’s affiliated with to do it’s evil magic. Others often use Browser Toolbars, most often in the form of Search Helpers or Price comparison toolbars etc. that a Web Surfer willingly installs in their web browser. It must be noted though, there are many helpful and legitimate toolbars out there.
How does this Parasite Software present a threat to Affiliate Marketers?
They tend run in the back ground through a process on your computer, and when the web surfer visits your web page and the Parasite Software is affiliated with product being promoted, it’ll serve up Pop-ups ads or directly send the surfer to the Merchant’s sales page through it’s own Affiliate URL that will set Affiliate Cookies for it’s owner. The Parsite Software will overwrite YOUR affiliate cookies with it’s own, making you lose your affiliate commission should a sale be made, even though you sent the visitor to the Merchant’s sales page first.
Parasite software ends up on user’s computers usually bundled with Free Software, such as free games etc. This free software may, or may not, mention the additional software being installed at the same time through it’s End User License, a document few ever take the time to read anyway. However, Parasite software in the form of Browser Helpers, (toolbars), is often installed willingly for the supposed helpfulness that the Software will provide the Surfer with.
Some Affiliate Marketers have contacted various Affiliate Managers and have imposed upon them to ban these people who own and run Parasite Software companies. This is met with questionable results. In many cases, these Parsite Software companies result in some of the highest Sales numbers for products listed, making it almost a ludicrous suggestion to drop an Affiliate Marketer even if they are referring these sales in an illegal manner. In other cases, when they do actually ban the Affiliate Marketer in question, it doesn’t help because these Affiliate Marketers just sign up again under a different name and keep going.
The better solution in this case would be for Affiliate Marketers to take steps towards negating the effectiveness of these Parasite Software programs. How can this be done? Well, through Link Cloaking, of course.
Affiliate Link Cloaking is managed several different ways, but the vast majority isn’t effective against Parasite Software. Most Affiliates simply use Redirect Links in order to hide their Affiliate Link at the source, however, this doesn’t protect their commissions from being stolen AFTER the visitor has arrived at the Merchant’s sales page…and that’s when the nasty Parasite Software likes to hit!
The key to effective protection against Parasite Software is to protect your Affiliate Links after the visitor has arrived at the Merchant’s sales page.
This could be done through Framing the Merchant’s sales page on your web site using your Affiliate Link to that Merchant for the Frame’s Source, (”src”). One GLARING problem with that though…Unless the Merchant’s web site, or the Affiliate Management web site, (if your link goes through one), has a “Compact Privacy Policy” in place, Internet Explorer will block your Affiliate Cookies from being set from within a Framed page…Ouch. That’d lose you 70-80% of your Commissions!
However, Perry Wolf of covertLinks.com has com up with a solution. Perry’s new covertLinks Software manages to Cloak your Affiliate Links both BEFORE, and AFTER, your visitor has arrived at the Merchant’s sales page. He Offer’s two versions, a strictly HTML version, and a PHP Version.
The HTML version creates Encrypted Framed pages for you that will protect your Affiliate Links after your visitor has arrived at the Merchant’s sales page, showing the Affiliated Merchant’s page on your web site, but it will also ensure your Affiliate Cookies get set successfully.
The PHP version shows the Merchant’s sales page through your Affiliate Link on your web site WITHOUT using Frames! The PHP version also provides additional protection by blocking the HTTP Headers sent by the Merchant’s sales page, something some Parasite Software is triggered from.
This is all done through an easy to use Software interface that only requires Copy & Paste abilities. No HTML or PHP knowledge is necessary, altough your own web site is. This can be a paid web site or any of a multitude of Free Web Sites available.
You can learn more about this new form of Affiliate Link protection at Perry’s Web Site, covertLinks. Visit Now & get a free Affiliate Link Encryptor!.
Please feel free to use this Article on Your own web site. Permissions are only that you do not change the Content in this Article in any way, shape, or form. If you’d like to get this Article preformatted to include your own Affiliate Links, join covertLinks.com’s Affiliate Program.
Take care,
Gilles Rais
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Google Adsense Profits Mixed In With Affiliate Marketing
January 8, 2006 12:40 amAre you a webmaster who needs funds to keep your website running? Or is your website the only way for you to earn income?
Whichever you are, for as long as you are a webmaster or a web publisher and you need cash, affiliate marketing may work well for you.
With affiliate marketing, you may get a lot of cash pouring into your bank account easily.
And if your website is rich in great contents and you want to earn more profit, why not get into the Google Adsense program as well?
Why Affiliate Marketing?
Well, simply because affiliate marketing is the easiest and probably the best way to earn profits online, unless otherwise you are a businessman and would rather sell your own products online than advertise other businessman’s products on your site.
But even online retailers can benefit from affiliate marketing programs, because affiliate marketing actually works for merchants as well as it works for the affiliates.
Affiliate marketing, simply said, is a relationship or agreement made between two websites, with one site being the merchant’s website and the other being the affiliate’s site.
In the relationship, the affiliate agrees to let the merchant advertise his products on the affiliate’s site. The merchant, on the other hand, would agree to pay the affiliate in whatever method they have agreed into.
This would generally mean easy income for the affiliate, as he would do nothing but place the retailer’s ad on his site.
This would also be very beneficial for the merchant, as getting affiliates to advertise their products would be a lot more affordable than hiring an advertising firm to promote their products.
There are a variety of methods on how the merchant would compensate the affiliate for his services, and for the webmaster, these methods simply translates to the method by which he would earn easy cash.
Among the more common methods of compensation are the pay-per-click method, the pay-per-lead method, and the pay-per-sale method.
The pay-per-click method is the method most preferred by affiliates, for their site’s visitor would only have to visit the advertiser’s site for them to gain money.
The other two methods, on the other hand, are better preferred by merchants, as they would only have to compensate you if your visitor becomes one of their registrants or if the visitor would actually buy their products.
Getting much profit on affiliate marketing programs, however, does not depend so much on the compensation method is it does on the traffic generated by your site.
A website that can attract more visitors would generally have the greater chance of profiting in affiliate marketing programs.
What about Google Adsense?
Google Adsense is actually some sort of an affiliate marketing program. In Google Adsense, Google act as the intermediary between the affiliates and the merchants.
The merchant, or the advertiser, would simply sign up with Google and provide the latter with text ads pertaining to their products.
These ads, which is actually a link to the advertiser’s website, would then appear on Google searches as well as on the websites owned by the affiliates, or by those webmasters who have signed up with the Google Adsense program.
While one can find a lot of similarities between Google Adsense and other affiliate marketing programs, you can also see a lot of differences.
In Google Adsense, all the webmaster has to do is place a code on his website and Google takes care of the rest. The ads that Google would place on your site would generally be relevant to the content of your site.
This would be advantageous both for you and for the advertiser, as the visitors of your site would more or less be actually interested with the products being advertised.
The Google Adsense program compensates the affiliate in a pay-per-click basis.
The advertisers would pay Google a certain amount each time their ad on your site is clicked and Google would then forward this amount to you through checks, although only after Google have deducted their share of the amount.
Google Adsense checks are usually delivered monthly. Also, the Google Adsense program provides webmasters with a tracking tool that allows you to monitor the earnings you actually get from a certain ad.
So, where do all of these lead us to?
Where else but to profits, profits and even more profits! Affiliate marketing programs and the Google Adsense program simply work, whether you are the merchant or the affiliate.
For the merchant’s side, a lot of money can be saved if advertising effort is concentrated on affiliate marketing rather than on dealing with advertising firms.
For the webmaster, you can easily gain a lot of profits just by doing what you do best, and that is by creating websites.
And if you combine all your profits from both the Google Adsense program and other affiliate marketing programs, it would surely convert to a large amount of cash.
Gilles Rais