Affiliate Honesty

Why did I decide not to promote "Butterfly Marketing"?

It's all to do with my conscience!

I've nothing against Mike Filsaime. He's produced some great products from which I have benefited. And it's nothing to do with the Butterfly Marketing product, which I have not seen.

Quite a while ago I made the decision that I would not put my name against any product which I had not personally reviewed and liked. It's subjective, I know, but that's the way I work; I sleep easier at night :-)

Mike Filsaime is an astute marketer whom I admire and, in some ways seek to copy. His pre-launch of Butterfly Marketing was brilliant. But there was a flaw, in my opinion. A big one..

No-one, except a privileged few, saw the product - or even the sales page - until launch day on 31 January. Yet dozens of people sent out email after email extolling the virtues of the package; many of them will not have even seen the sales page. Is that being honest? I don't think so!

OK, I believe and respect the opinions of some of the 'big hitters' who probably did have sight of the product, and, having seen the sales page when "Butterf'ly" was launched, I think that they are right in saying that it it is a great product - for certain types of people..

But having read the sales page several times (and I re-read it just before writing this), I am still happy with my decision. My impression is that "Butterfly" is not for inexperienced marketers, and quite a few people will have bought it thinking it will solve all their problems.

The whole concept of Mike Filsaime's software and home study course is, I believe, brilliant. But from what I've read - and what other people are saying - if you are not already an established marketer, "Butterfly" is unlikely to be very helpful to you.

But, bear in mind that this is my uninformed opinion. I could be wrong. Remember, I haven't seen or experienced the product. If you want to decide for yourself then go to the website: butterflymarketing.com and make up your own mind. Incidentally, I can't put in the full URL for "Butterfly" because it's already in a "block" list!

Not for you? Here's an alternative

If you decide that "Butterf'ly" isn't for you, there is an alternative which I do endorse. It's the late Cory Rudl's "Insider Secrets To Marketing Your Business On The Internet" course. I've owned it for a couple of years now, and a few weeks ago I took delivery of an updated version.

This is a home study course for both 'newbies' and experienced marketers alike. The course comprises two thick ring-bound manuals and three CDs. One of the manuals covers the basics of internet marketing and the other deals with more advanced techniques (some of them were real eye-openers for me).

What I really like about the course is not just the content, but also the presentation. This makes the course highly readable. There's too many topics covered in the course for me even to put them here - there's a good description on the sales page (you have to wade through a lot of hype, though!)

Again, you will need to form your opinion. Here's the sales page - and yes, it is an affiliate link!

Have a look at it now

(From my Marketing Magic "News Update" newsletter)

Yahoo! Challenges Google AdSense

I've been a very happy Publisher with Google's AdSense program for a few years now. It's another very profitable income stream for me, with the context-relevant ads appearing on two of my main websites.

What has astonished me is that there's been no serious competitor to AdSense over the past few years.

Well, maybe that's going to change! Yahoo has now entered the field, very tentatively, and restricting itself to website publishers in the USA.

A recent article on my Marketing Magic website by Merle (she doesn't admit to a second name!) takes a look at what Yahoo!'s Publisher Network ("YPN") is offering to website owners. She goes into a lot of detail. So, if you're looking for an alternative to AdSense..

Read her article here

A Marketing Experiment

I don't know how regular this is going to be, but I've written a diary of three very hectic days I've had this week.

I set myself a challenge - build a 500-page content-rich AdSense website and launch a new niche product.. within a week. I managed it in three days. My diary is far too long to go in this newsletter, so I've put it online:

http://www.marketing-drive.com/the-experiment/

In it, I take you step-by-step through all the processes I went through, from first selecting the niche to finally launching both websites.

I give you links to the resources I used, own up to the errors I made, and put some useful tips throughout the diary.

Set aside a few minutes and see what you can learn from me:

http://www.marketing-drive.com/the-experiment/

Oh, and the niche topic I chose was completely unrelated to internet marketing. It was all about "Learning Yoga". Here's the content-rich site:

http://www.learning-yoga.com

.. and here's the new product's sales page:

http://www.learning-yoga.com/beginning/

My task for the coming days and weeks is to drive traffic to both sites!

What's Your Plan For 2006?

A few days ago, I listened to some very inspiring planning advice from a top marketer. And I followed his advice and made some notes whilst I was listening to his audio. I'm sure that he won't mind me sharing his thoughts with you.

It's all about what you are going to achieve in 2006. There's five steps you need to take to reach the goals you really want to achieve:

• Decide the life you want to live - don't let other people interfere with your dreams. Plan it in detail; imagine it in detail - and visualise it in great detail.(Me? Some years ago, I visualised myself driving a top-range Volvo estate car - five months ago, I took delivery of a Saab Aero Turbo.. much better than a Volvo!)
• Write down exactly what you want, and make it measurable - e.g. make a hundred thousand dollars by June 1st. Don't limit yourself. High expectations are the key to everything.(Me? My wife, Ruth, who's also my accountant, sets my targets. I ignore them, treble them and achieve them!)
• Take ACTION. Everything starts with ACTION. The faster you move forward, the more you'll get. Focus on your goals, not on your mistakes.(Me? I have a little notebook with the label "Ideas Journal". Each time I get a new idea, I write it down - check it daily, and cross it off whenever I achieve or reject the idea)
• Measure your results, and take corrective action. Do it weekly. Aim for your results.(Me? I have a series of spreadsheets which, on a daily basis, I record my financial results for the previous day. I always know when I'm hitting my targets)
• Enjoy your life! Imagine the possibilities of your life, and decide to attain them. Have fun! You'll achieve more if you enjoy what you are doing.(Me? I really do enjoy everything I do at work and in my ample leisure time!)
  
  Don't just read these words - act on them. It's powerful advice. It's worked for me!

I'm Still Pumped Up!

In the coming weeks, I've got a host of really powerful internet marketing advice and information to share with you.

A couple of weeks ago, I spent all weekend at the Internet Marketing Center's "Bootcamp" in London. It was an incredible two days. My adrenelin started flowing on Saturday morning, and I still haven't come off the ceiling!

I thought that I was "experienced" in many internet marketing techniques, but during the weekend, I came away with 30 pages of notes and 51 action points for me to implement (I've done four of them!). In future posts in "Marketing Sparks", I'm going to be telling you about some of the ideas I came away with - and I'm going to let you know about my experiments with them.

Amongst other things, I'll be covering:

Technology:
Blogs - how you can use them to get high search engine rankings and drive traff'ic to your site (I've had a blog for 2 - 3 years and done little with it - that's going to change)
RSS - what it is, why it's easy to use, and why it's so powerful for marketers (I've dabbled with it, but not really seen its power until now)
Podcasting - again, what it is, why you should start using it and again, how it's simple to implement (I'm going to make my first "Podcast" in the next 2 days)

Marketing:
Copywriting - what needs to go on your sales page - and where it should go (I'm going to be making major changes to my sales pages in the coming weeks)
Email - methods of ensuring your emails are delivered.. and read (I use some of them, others were new to me)
Affiliate marketing - if you've joined my affiliate scheme, you're going to see even more help from me in the future!
Search engine marketing - how to use Pay-Per-Click effectively and how to boost traff'ic from the "organic" search engines (Google, Yahoo, MSN etc). Again, I found that this old dog can still learn new tricks. I'll describe them, and tell you how successful I've been

So, there's going to be some hot stuff in future posts in "Marketing Sparks", kicking 2006 off to a great start! And no, despite the source of a lot of this info, I won't be angling the material towards affiliate links to the Internet Marketing Center!

Building Content-Filled Websites - Update

After using ContentDesk for six weeks, I decided it just wasn't for me. The online software was a little clunky, I found it difficult to find enough articles for the niche site I'm building, and the user support was not ideal.

But what I have come across is a lovely bit of free software called "Orwell". It doesn't automate the site building very much, but it enables you legally to trawl article directories.

The trouble with the "scraper" type of software is that article directories are increasingly banning automated interrogation of their websites. And Google is getting wise to websites built of "scraped" content, and is rooting them out.

I came across "Orwell" through a fascinating report about this change in Google's policies, and you can only download "Orwell" from this report. I asked the author of the report is I could make it available for public distribution, and he said "yes".

So, if you want to experiment with "Orwell" for rapidly gathering a lot of tightly focused articles, download the report from here. It's in PDF format.

Inside the report, there's a link to the download website and (important!), the PDF also includes the software's unlock code.

With "Orwell", I managed to find about 80 articles on "cold calling" and "sales prospecting". With ContentDesk, I only managed half a dozen or so.

A shameful confession..!

I've been involved in internet marketing since about 1997, and I've been selling my own products for the past five years.

But it's only today that I've finally got around to setting up an affiliate scheme.

I hate to think how many extra sales I could have made if I'd set up the scheme years ago. I've known, from my conversations with other internet marketers, that the majority of sales in this market sector are made through affiliates.

Well, at last I've done the deed. Here's where you can sign up to become one of my affiliate partners:

The Webmasters Cheat Kit Affiliate Scheme

I'm offering a generous 60% commission on the first product in the Scheme - my Newbies Starter Kit.

I'll be adding more products to the Scheme in the next few weeks.

Building Content-Filled Websites

There's been a spate of "article scraper" tools recently. These scour various article directories for articles, based on keywords, then stuff them automatically into a website template.

On the face of it, they seem to work well. I've built a 100-page site in less than 10 minutes: Management DataVault. But there are two problems with these systems:

1. Some article directories are stopping the automated "scraping" of their sites
2. There is evidence that search engines such as Google are able to detect and ban such sites.

Recently, I've taken the plunge and invested a large monthly sum to become one of the 400 Charter Members of "Content Desk". This is a huge set of resources which automates the process of building content-filled websites, but with a few significant differences from "scraper" software:

• Articles are pulled from Content Desk's own vast directory of articles
• The system can be automated so that new articles are added at regular intervals
• Article summaries can automatically be posted to blogs
• .. and quite a lot more

You can find information on Content Desk and its Chartered Membership here. Since membership is restricted to 400 people, I don't know if there are any vacancies when this entry is read.

The Rich Jerk - Reviewed

There's been a lot of controversy recently about a guy who calls himself "The Rich Jerk". He's brought out this short (40 pages) eBook, claiming to reveal precisely the methods he's used to make in excess of $1 million every year for the past few years.

Some people reckoned he's a charlatan, others say the eBook is brilliant.

I had to see for myself. Should you buy it or not?

Read my review here

Skype - It's Not Hype!

I've seen a lot of hype about VOIP mechanisms in the past! But, after having used Skype for several weeks, I can definitely recommend it as a marketing tool.

It has a vast user base - 150 million downloads, I think - and there's usually about 3 million users online at any one time.

Like any popular system, Skype has attracted a lot of 3rd-party developers, and there's an increasing number of add-ons and plug-ins. This is where the marketing interest lies for me.

Today I installed "Skype Card" on one of my websites - look at the footer on any page on my TKA website The Skype Card allows my website visitors to contact me in a variety of ways (if they have the correct plugins installed). The Card even shows the visitor if I'm online with Skype (again, if they have the plugin installed).

My feeling is that Skype is going to get better and better. If you're not Skyped yet, then get it. And the service is free.

All the info is here

Update On Google's "Back Door"

I was right not to have invested any cash in expensive software to build the "sitemap.xml" files, needed for the fast-track submission of pages to Google.

I've found two free pieces of software which do the job - and even better, a free web service which produces the XML file in just a few minutes.

I'm now carrying out an experiment to see how fast I can get a completely brand-new website into Google's index. I'm making a video of this experiment and will be releasing it to subscribers to my "News Update" weekly newsletter. Like the web service, this video will be completely free.

You can sign up for the newsletter at any page on my Marketing Magic website

A Backdoor Into Google?

I got an email today, pointing me towards some software, which claims to be any easy way to get all the pages in a website listed very quickly in Google, using a "backdoor" method.

The software's sales page pointed me to a fairly new development - Google Sitemaps.

I've had a quick look, and seem the underlying principle.

Basically, you turn a list of all the pages in your site into an XML file, feed it to Google Sitemaps, and your pages then get into the Google index faster than any other way.

As I said, it was only a "quick look" I had today, and it seems fairly heavy technical stuff.

I'm not investing in the software which claims to make the job easy. But I will be digging deeper to see if I can use this new method. Read more at:

Google Sitemaps

.

When To Say No To Offers

Over the past six months, I have invested some serious (for me) money in buying digital goods.

• Some have been information products which I think can help me to improve my skills
• Some have been software items which I think will help me to do my job better / quicker / cheaper.
• Many have been various types of rights to products which I think I can add to my portfolio.

I haven't wasted too much money of the first two categories. I've been fairly selective, and most of the info products / software items I've used and found useful. If they don't live up to their expectations, I ask for a refund. I very rarely do this, and when asking, I always explain to the vendor why I'm asking for a refund. It's only fair to them.

But where I do fall down big time is in the third category.

I have a butterfly mind. There - it's out; I've confessed!

Currently, I've got 1 product about to be launched, three in preparation, five waiting in the wings for me to look at seriously - and half a dozen which I can't ever see myself devoting enough time bringing them to market.

And I've spent quite a bit of money buying these half dozen products. I'm talking of $200 - $400 each.

That's serious money to me.

So why not learn from my mistakes. Here are my rules on when to say "no" to 'irresistable offers'..

1. Does it fit in with my mainstream product line? If not, say no.
2. Have I got the time to use it profitably within the next 8 weeks? If not, say no.
3. Am I really enthusiastic about this product? If not, say no.
4. Can I afford to spend the time / money developing this product idea? If not, say no.
5. Is it going to improve my cash flow within the next 12 weeks? If not, say no.
6. Do I trust the person selling this product to give me reasonable support? If not, say no.
7. Is it going to lead me into new markets which have a reasonable chance of becoming acceptable within 12 months? If not, say no.

OK, I'll stop there. I'm sure that there are other "rules" which I could think of. Do you have anything else to add? If so, please comment on this article.

Personalised Web Pages

Personalised direct mail has been with us for many years. You know the stuff:

"Only you, Joe Bloggs, has been selected from the residents in High Street, Anytown, to receive this offer".

Old technique! But still effective.

Personalised emails are now also well established. I start my weekly newsletter, "Marketing Magic News Update" with:

"Dear {FIRSTNAME}"

.. and my autoresponder picks up from its database the first name of each recipient, and personalises it: "Dear Joe"

Again, not a cutting technique.

How about personalised web pages? There's a variety of techniques.

The simplest is one which gets a website visitor to enter their first name in a form. When they submit the form, the resultant web page is personalised with their name, wherever the webmaster chooses to insert the personalisation.

I've got a simple little PHP script which enables me to send out my newsletter to my subscribers which contains URLs such as:

http://www.mydomain.com/salespage.php?{FIRSTNAME}

Again my autoresponder picks up the subscriber's name from the database, and inserts it wherever I put a bit of code on the page.

There's also a third technique which works on any web page found by a search engine. It picks up the key words (or phrases) which the visitor used to find your page, and repeats them wherever you want - for example, in a headline:

Wanting to find keyword or phrase? You've come to the right place!

But do all these personalisation techniques work? I've yet to be convinced.

I'd appreciate your comments here on this.

Some Blogging Research..

At last - I've found a way that I can put this blog as a scrolling "news ticker" type of box on my websites.

I am now in the process of writing a short report explaining exactly how it is done. The method is very simple, and it's free!

My report will also be free, and I'll put a download link from this blog once I've completed it.

OK - back to writing the report..!

Good Service Is Appreciated

I experienced an excellent example of good service recently.

I decided to invest in some software called ClickBank Download Manager. Basically, it has high levels of security in terms of preventing online products from being stolen. It uses very sophisticated ways of protecting your download links, and it works with PayPal. These are the two payment processors that I use.

So, I downloaded the software, and installed it on my web server. It's very easy to install. The only server-side requirement is that it must have PHP installed (most Unix servers do). And, despite it keeping a record of previous purchases, it doesn't use MySQL, which I found surprising.

However, when I started to investigate all its facilities, a few doubts came into my mind about how well it would meet my needs.

So I shot off a list of 10 questions to the owner of CB Download Manager, Sam Stephens, and I got a detailed reply back within the hour. And Sam is in Australia, where it must have been very late in the evening.

The result of this excellent service: win-win. Sam kept the sale, and I've got a superb download protection system which I now understand a lot better.

If this type of product interests you, have a look at it:

ClickBank Download Manager

Marks Out Of Ten For Your Website?

I had some of my websites "marked out of 10" this morning. I was quite pleased. They all get more than 8 / 10 !

The "marker" was SiteReportCard.com

Now what they are offering isn't new. But the way that they present the service is original.

Basically, they test any web page you give them, and it looks at broken links, spelling, HTML errors and so on.

It then scores each element of the analysis and gives you an overall score out of 10 points.

It's worth testing your websites from time to time in this way. Errors can easily creep in.

Incidentally, I found the site from a posting on The Internet Warrior Forum, probably the liveliest marketing forum on the Web. I visit it on a daily basis.

A Sad Day For Internet Marketers

Yesterday I learnt of the tragic death, at the age of 34, of Corey Rudl, one of the world's leading internet marketers.

I've been an associate (although not a very active one in recent years) of Corey's "Internet Marketing Center" since 1999. I remember his first, very primitive, website; but his marketing messages rang clear and true.

His Internet Marketing Course was a world leader. It continues to sell in record numbers today, having gone through numerous updates. I am deliberately not putting my affiliate link to his course as a mark of respect.

Corey lived life in the fast lane, and he "walked the talk". He made $8 million a year online. He died as a passenger in a Porsche Carrera GT on the California Speedway in Fontana.

He was the same age as my daughter, with whom I'm staying as I write this entry. I have three granddaughters. Corey never had this priviledge.

My thoughts go out to his young widow, Tracey.

This is a sombre reminder that life can be short; money can seem to be important in the short term.

But in the longer term, spiritual matters seem to come to the fore.

Later news: There is now a memorial website for Corey where you can add your tributes:

http://www.remembercorey.com/

Finding High-Ranking Link Partners

Pay attention! You'll need to concentrate on the next few lines..

Everyone knows that a website's Google rank is improved by having inbound links to it.

And a lot of people know that the higher the Google Page Rank of the site providing a link, the better the ranking of your site will be.

A few people even know that your ranking will be higher if the content of the site providing the link is similar to yours.

I've had a reciprocal links scheme for a long time, and I run it manually. But I'm getting increasingly choosy about my link partners. I insist on their home page having a page rank of at least 4. I reject sites with content that doesn't match that of Marketing Magic. By the way, if you have a website which meets my demanding criteria, and you'd like to exchange links, follow the instructions on this web page.

But I've been struggling to find enough high-quality sites to exchange links with. I know how important it is. But it's a question of time. I don't have too much of it to spare!

I've recently invested in a tool that has now started to save me a lot of time - and it is finding high-quality reciprocal link partners for my various websites.

I'm not going to take up space here describing exactly what it does. But if you (a) have a website and (b) are trying to get reciprocal links (and you should be!), then have a look at "Rank Retriever".

Full details are here

GoLexa - A Useful Tool For Webmasters..

GoLexa is an interesting site - especially if you are obsessed with website stats!

It combines a Google search with plugs into a range of other sites which provide website data. The GoLexa search results page gives you the click-through options for such info as:

• Google PageRank
• Alexa Rank and web traffic info
• NetCraft's info on the web server hosting the site
• Link Popularity on Google, MSN, Yahoo, AltaVista and more
• Search Engine World's keyword and meta data analyser

.. and so on. Have a look for yourself at GoLexa