How to Make Money Online

Internet Marketing 101 - Part 4 Traffic Methods - Free

In my last post I talked about PPC, in the next 3 posts I’ll be talking about “Free Traffic” that you can obtain via seo, social networking and articles etc.

Today’s focus will be on Articles and other methods to drive traffic to your site. While social networking could fall into this article, I’m going to dedicate more time to it in a separate one later.

What are some of the methods to drive free traffic to your site?

• You can ask friends to show up
• You can post links in directories
• You can create articles
• Add signature and post in forums

Can asking friends really help?  Yes in someways it can.  If you are running a site that contains forums, the more people you get to sign up and post the more likely new members that come across your site are to join.  Nobody wants to go to a forum to talk to no one.  There are services out there that will accept payment to fill your forums with seeded posts.  I have never used one but they are out there, just search some on google and you’ll find a few.

Posting links in directories will allow you get start getting some inward links to your site.  It is important to understand that google doesn’t always favor some of these directories, but several it does consider authoritative.  It is important to do  your research, see what googles PR is for the directory and choose wisely.  If you have a site on pets it doesn’t make sense to get a link in a computer directory, and the more of these little “mishaps” you have the more likely Google will penalize you for those actions.

Creating articles is a good road, but a pain.  You might want to promote yourself but the best sites are very particular about what you are allowed and how many links you can have etc.  I’ve learned that the hard way.  It is important to make sure you have plenty of keywords in your article that you are interested in having people find you under.  So if you want people to find you for “internet marketing” make sure you have that phrase a few times in your article.  If you are not looking for internet marketing, but online marketing make sure you use that phrase often as well.  It is important to understand that these short tail phrases are more difficult to rank for an phrases like “home based internet marketing” are easier for you to show up on Google.  The reason “home based internet marketing” is called long tails is because it has at least 3 words, usually 4 words in the phrase.  They are less often type, but much more targeted.

Adding links in your signatures on forums.  If you are a pet site and you have a pet site you want to promote get active with pet communities.  Don’t go off pandering your goods from day one, but become a known expert in that field.  This way people get used to you, and you are not spamming the forums.  After you post several posts feel free to make a comment about your site, or simply put it in your signature.  Now depending on how the forum is set up, every time your signature is viewed by Google you have some links from that post going to your site.  So again y our are building authority in the eyes of the community, but also in the eyes of Google.

Let me know if you have any questions on this one!

Internet Marketing 101 - Part 3 Traffic Methods - PPC

Part three in my series on internet marketing.  This will not be an all encompassing article, but I will respond to any questions asked.  To me this is such a hit or miss method for generating traffic.  The basics are simple, you find a search engine or site to put an ad on and every time a user clicks on your add you get charge an amount for that click.  Now this does not guarantee a sale it simply says, “Hey someone thought your ad was compelling enough to click on it”, OR “Hey the owner of the site cause a click on your ad to earn revenue” (aka Click Fraud).  The largest player in the PPC market is Google so I’ll focus my comments on them.

First where do your ads show up?  In Google they show up across the top or the right side.  The top ads are are generally in a lighter background to separate them from organic results.  The advantage of using PPC is to force your site to be seen even if it doesn’t have Organic Rankings.  It is important to understand that even with organic ranking you can produce far more sales using PPC in conjunction with it.   A report from Atlas stated that if you have a PPC ad you are likely to make “2 sales” and organic linking “1 sale”, having both you make “4 sales”.  While I haven’t seen this myself, it is a reliable source and I’ll take that to heart.

Google forces you to bid for positions, but they do not tell you what you need to get into the top spot.  They use some level of black magic to determine who gets top slot.  They look at Ad Copy, Landing Page, Bid and Click through rate.  Now if you have a high CTR and high quality others you will actually pay less than your “Bid”.  Also you can big less and get higher position.  It all gets convoluted, but you need to make sure you have a high Quality Score in Google and you’ll reap the benefits.  (post questions on adwords if you have any and I’ll answer the best I can)

So now you’ve placed your bids, you can choose to have ads show up on Google, their search partners or in their content network.  The content network is by far their largest audience, but it also their more dangerous place for click fraud so if you are going to use it, watch it very carefully and you can restrict certain sites from displaying your ads or you can chose to show your ads only on certain sites by url/placement.  But unfortunately many good quality sites that have adsense do not have this option turned on (TURN IT ON!).

A couple of key items are to make sure you have a strong ad, and strong url to send people too.  Many people working with affiliate marketing will try to send people to the same url. So now they are all competing for the same property.  (Google, Yahoo etc will only allow one ad per url to appear).  Later on I promise I’ll go over landing pages, url’s and ads for ppc and other advertising.  My experience is very different than most so hopefully people will gain some knowledge.

Key things to keep in mind, you’re shirt needs to stay on  your back you need to MONITOR your campaigns or you will lose a LOT of money.

Internet Marketing 101 - Part 2 Affiliate Marketing

Part 2 in my series of posts about internet marketing.

Today I’m going to discuss affiliate marketing and explain why it works for both the affiliate and the product owner.  Before I get started understand the relationship of affiliate marketing.  The product owner creates the product and offers a portion of the sale to the affiliate if the affiliate brings them a customer that buys something.  This could be for e-books or physical products, both work very similar in regards to the affiliate aspect.

First lets cover the affiliate.  Why would you want to sell someone else’s product?

1. You don’t have to be an expert
2. You don’t have to deal with creating the product
3. You don’t have to deal with returns / support
4. You can make good money off someone else’s work!

Let me go over each point to clarify them a little bit.

You Don’t Have to be an Expert- If you see there’s a demand for COGs in the market, but you have no experience selling or marketing COGs, how could you create a product about COGs?  You wouldn’t, you would either find a person that is an expert and has written a book or created a product to fill the niche and offers an affiliate program.  Now they’ve done the work for you and you simply gain a commission.

You Don’t Have to Deal with Creating the Product- As mentioned above if you are not an expert you won’t be writing or creating a COGs product.  Also since you are not an expert you shouldn’t do it anyways.  Why would anyone want a product about COGs from you if you don’t know anymore than they do?  It’s simple that a quality product sells and an inferior product is returned.  So let the expert do it and ride their coat tail to COGs success!

You Don’t Have to Deal with Returns / Support- If you’re not managing or selling you don’t have to deal with disappointed customers.  You simply send folks too a site, and the owner sells them on the product and supports them after the sale (some times even before).  If a customer is unhappy and wants to return the product you DO NOT have to deal with them, you just have to understand that you will lose the commission if it happens.  But your life is MUCH easier.

You can make good money off someone else’s work!- Some affiliate programs offer 3% - 75% commission on each sale.  Why are some so low and other high?  The lower ones tend to be on physical products that have a higher manufacturing cost and lower margin.  The higher ones are e-books that have almost no production cost except the authors initial time.  I think 50% commission is a good starting point for any program.

Now I’ll cover a little bit from the product owner site, why would you give someone money to sell your product when you have the ability to market it yourself?

1. VOLUME
2. Marketing power
3. Reach

VOLUME- If you have multiple people trying to sell your product you have will get more people to your site.  Let’s do the math on it.  If you spend $400 to get 1000 people to your site and 3% buy your $50 product you would make $1500 less your advertising so you make $1100, now lets say you have 500 affiliates that each send 4 people to your site and you have 3% conversion.  You now sell 60 books totaling $3000 in sales.  Take away a 50% commission (for this example) and you have $1500 in profit.  You can see even though you gave away 50% you ended up with $400 more.

Marketing Power- The more people that know about you the more “marketing power” you have.  Now imagine all of the affiliates promoting your product and more people start to hear your name?  You become more and more known in your industry simply because others are talking you up.  Brand is everything, let other build yours!

Reach- With the two items above you’ll see that you have gone from marketing in one or two places (since that’s what you can manage), to possibly being in hundreds: Articles, Blogs, Forums, All PPC engines, 3rd party advertisers etc.  You have now taken your reach and extended it exponentially! You are a marketing Genius!

Well that’s about it for now, more coming soon in Part 3!

If you are interested in an affiliate program I’m putting together check out Produce Money for my affiliate programs.  Currently they are pet centric and I’ve got 4 more products waiting to release in that niche and then I’ll be expanding to more!

Internet Marketing 101 - Part 1

I’ve decided to write a couple of posts that will explain different types of internet marketing. I will be going over the following:

1. Introduction
2. Affiliate Marketing
3. Traffic Methods - PPC
4. Traffic Methods - Free
5. Search Engine Optimization
6. Social Networking

Introduction to Internet Marketing:

While I would not consider myself an expert in making money by selling products online (yet), I am an expert on the internet and marketing on it. In my professional career I work marketing on it every day. My goals are to obtain leads, increase sales, make sites more visible and purchase 3rd party advertising. I am responsible for a multi-million dollar budget, so it makes it hard to simply turn around and do marketing on my own as my habits need to be changed from work to personal. I have to be much more fickle with my own money while starting out. Now that you have a little on me…

Internet marketing is a large ocean of opportunity. It is estimated that 1.4 BILLION people use the internet and that’s only 21% of the world population, and it continues to grow daily. So that is a potential customer base larger than any single market. If you have a product that is of interest to .1% that is still 1.4 MILLION customers that are interested in what you are selling.

Internet marketing is about using different methods to help people find something they want, and hopefully that is something you have to sell. There are many different methods that I will talk about in the next few posts, but suffice it to say it will not be exhaustive. If you want to get started today check out traffic tactics world, it has a lot of information to offer if your just starting out.

Up Next: Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate Millions

The otherday I ran across the website for “Affiliate Millions“.  As you can see by a few of my other posts I’ve seen several things from Michael Cheney.  This product really helped open my eyes to the whole affiliate marketing and product selection.  It’s well worth the money to dig in and see.  Not only does the site provide videos, but also MP3’s and PDF transcripts so I was able to put it on my MP3 player and take it along with me.

Some of the top notch items

• “How to Make Money as an Affiliate”
• “How to Pinpoint the Most Profitable Products”
• “How To Create Cascades of Cash With Killer Conversions”
• “How To Power Up Your Profits Using TV’s Secret Formula”
• “How To Create Hungry Hordes of Happy Buyers”
• “How To Activate Auto Pilot Affiliate Riches”
• “How To Create A Cash-Erupting Volcano Using Viral Video”
• “How To Turn On A Tornado of Traffic To Your Affiliate Offers”
• “How To Create Money Magnets”
• “How To Get a List of Red Hot Prospects”

Also if you head to the site and make the purchase you’ll find a special bonus on the purchase page!

Head on over to “Affiliate Millions” now and let me know what you think!

Interview With A Traffic Expert

Michael Cheney Talks Traffic - Interview With A Traffic Expert

Michael Cheney, one of the most-respected names in Internet marketing, has been online since 1995 and is the man behind the 6-Figure launches of AdSense Videos and 11 Days To List Profits. He has unveiled a new videos product - “Michael’s Traffic Videos” which covers everything to do with traffic and comes with 100,000 instant ad credits and a tailored Fast-Track To Traffic Action Plan.

We managed to grab some time with him recently and quiz him on his favorite topic - traffic.

You’ll get a lot out of this interview including a killer 40-page E-book on traffic that Michael has written to help you avoid the Top 20 Traffic Disasters!

So let’s get started.

Q. Firstly Michael, thank you for joining us today in your busy schedule.

A. Hey no problem. Good to be here.

Q. We all know that traffic is important but could you just explain a bit about traffic for the beginners out there?

A. Sure. Traffic is the lifeblood of any business online. Without it you just die. We all know that. But what a lot of us don’t realize is that just like everything else on the Internet traffic changes very quickly. That is, the methods of getting traffic are changing all the time and that’s where people get caught out.

Q. What do you mean by “caught out”?

A. Well people fall into the trap of thinking that just because they know one or two traffic generation methods that they are some sort of traffic master. In reality just because you know how to start a pay per click campaign or a little bit about search engines doesn’t make you anywhere near a traffic expert. I’m trying to spread the word that there is a massive array of traffic tactics that most people aren’t even aware of, let alone using or mastering.

Q. Can you give us some examples?

A. Sure. Offline for example. You might immediately think that getting traffic is a purely online activity but the truth of the matter is that there are lots of things you can be doing offline to get people into your website. And it’s usually these sorts of areas that are being under-utilized and therefore there is less competition for that traffic as well.

Q. So by offline you mean advertising offline?

A. Not necessarily. That is one method, yes, but I’m thinking of more creative ways to get people into your website. It all comes down to the fact that having asked people on my list it came as no surprise that most people want to know about free rather than paid traffic sources. I’ve had to become an expert in free ways of getting traffic in my time online.

Q. What do you mean - I thought you were running a successful online business with lots of cash flow?

A. I am. But it’s not always been this way. When I first started out in 1995 I had nothing. No money to play with. Just my own initiative and imagination.

Q. So are you saying you’re against paying for traffic online?

A. No. No I’m not saying that at all. What I’m saying is that, especially when you first start out, you always want to focus on the free methods. You get the traffic in for free, make some sales and then you can reinvest some of that money into paid methods of getting traffic. This speeds up the process.

Q. So what particular offline methods are you referring to - can you give us some examples?

A. There’s one tactic I used that costs nothing to implement, is relatively quick and ended up getting me thousands and thousands of targeted visitors into my websites. When I’ve shared this tactic with other marketers at seminars they’ve started laughing and slapping their foreheads when they saw how easy it was. They were also embarrassed that they had failed to use this tactic. It was quite amusing.

Q. So are you going to tell us what this method is?

A. No! (laughs) It’s in my course! I truly believe in rewarding those people that are most eager to learn so instead of giving away all my traffic tactics in interviews like this I’ve put some of them in an E-Book I’ve written. It is free though if people want to get it.

Q. So how can people get hold of it?

A. It’s called “How To Avoid The Top 20 Traffic Disasters” and you can get it by going to Michael’s Traffic Videos - you’ll see it mentioned on that page.

Q. What’s in it?

A. Well I really wanted to raise the bar on a free E-Book so I spent a lot of time creating it. It’s 40 pages long and stuffed with juicy content on what NOT to do when it comes to traffic. As far as I’m concerned too many people out there tell you what you should do but not what you shouldn’t do. That’s where this E-Book comes in.

Q. Okay. I think we’re about done is there anything else you want to tell everyone?

A. Just that if they are serious about getting more traffic into their website they need to goto Michael’s Traffic Videos and get that free E-Book.

Q. Cool. Well thanks for your time Michael and speak to you soon.

A. My pleasure. Speak soon.

How To Make Money Online

How To Make Money Online (yes, even if you’re a newbie)

Have you noticed how difficult it is to actually get any REAL information about how to make money online?

It’s a nightmare isn’t it? You start off buying up everything you come across - all promising your overnight riches but only to disappoint you and leave you out of pocket. Well it doesn’t have to be like that as Michael Cheney is about to explain in this interview.

Michael Cheney, one of the most-respected names in Internet marketing, has been online since 1995 and is the man behind the 6-Figure launches of AdSense Videos, 11 Days To List Profits and Michael’s Traffic Videos.

After receiving 1489 responses to a survey he put out to his list one big request came back from almost everyone;

“Give us something easy, step-by-step and proven to make money online that anyone can do!”

So that’s what he’s giving you in the new product Start Your Profits Today.

Q. Michael, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with us today.

A. My pleasure - I know a lot of people out there want to get started making money online so it’s my job to get out and spread the word about how easy it is.

Q. So what do you see as being the main hurdles to newbies being able to make money on the internet? What is it that’s stopping them?

A. To be honest with you I think the main thing is information. There is just so much BAD information out there. Scams. Cons. Just bad information that is leading people astray and wasting their time and money. I mean you get onto the Internet and the first thing you see almost is these get-rich-quick schemes. It’s not your fault for seizing these so-called opportunities as they are presented so well. And believe me - I know there are thousands of you out there who have been taken for a ride by things like this. People on my list have been telling me this.

Q. Yes, you ran survey didn’t you to ask your list what they wanted? What sort of questions did you ask them and what did they say?

A. Well I asked how I could most help them. You know - I’ve been online since 1995 and make a lot of money online but I was keen to tap into their BIGGEST challenges and needs. So I asked them what sort of information they wanted to learn. What style of learning they preferred and how they wanted this information to be delivered. I was totally blown away by the responses - I got 1489 people completing the survey!

Q. So what did they say?

A. There some big common themes that kept coming up as I looked at the responses and all the comments. These were that people want something that is STEP BY STEP, something that is AFFORDABALE and something that takes you right FROM BEGINNING and doesn’t leave anything out. You can get really frustrated when you start investing in products that claim to make you money online only to find that leave out a massive piece of the jigsaw. Or they forget to mention that you need to buy X, Y and Z just to make their system work. And that’s where Start Your Profits Today is different.

Q. How do you mean exactly?

A. Well, for the first time - I take you, as a total newbie beginner, right through the entire process from beginning to end on making money online. You discover how to get your own website address, how to create your website and how to start bringing the money in by selling other people’s products. This is a distilled version of the best making-money techniques I have ever used in my 13 years’ online experience. This is quite simple the fastest, easiest and best way to make money online and I show you what to do every step of the way.

Q. Sounds great. So how do you take people through all these steps?

A. Simple - I have recorded short videos on-screen of me actually doing each of these steps so you just follow the simple success formula - WATCH. COPY. EARN. You cannot go wrong, even a child could do it. I’m serious!

Q.You’re right, it does sound really easy. So tell me, what are some of these steps that you go through in Start Your Profits Today?

A. You learn how to pinpoint the most profitable products to promote. You like that title?! I like to have snappy titles that inspire you to take action as it’s not all sexy make-money stuff right from the beginning. There are obviously crucial steps you need to take in preparation. You know - to get your website online, to get your website address and to add words and pictures to your website etc.

Q. So what exactly do you need if you’re a beginner starting out trying to make online? Are there some items you need to buy?

A. Great question - yes you do need to have a few essentials. You just can’t make money online without them. You’ll need your own website address and of course your own website. I show you where to get this and the best, cheapest place to go for this in Start Your Profits Today. Other than that you can do everything else pretty much for free.

Q. So you don’t need to buy lots of different things to get started online?

A. No not all. I’m a big believer in doing things that are free! I started out with nothing, working from my bedroom in a poxy one-bed bachelor apartment. Now I live in $800,000 house in the country. My point? When I started out if there was a free way to do something - I found it! And I’m still that way now so I uncover some of these insider money-saving secrets in the videos as well.

Q. So wrapping up then - who would you say would benefit from these videos? Do you need to have a basic level of knowledge on the internet to get started?

A. If you can turn on your computer you are good to go! Seriously! You’ll see that I take you by the hand and guide you through every step of the way. I hate jargon so you won’t see any of that and it’s all explained in simple English and you can go along and progress through to the money at your own pace.

Q. You really do seem to have created a product that every newbie is going to want! So I guess the big question is - how much money can they make using Start Your Profits Today?

A. Well this all really depends on your attitude. If you have a great attitude and you put in the time to go through the steps then there is honestly no limit. You could quite easily be bringing in a few hundred to a few thousand extra dollars a week once you are up and running. What you need to remember is that is exactly the same system that I use in my multi-million dollar business. It works for me, it works for thousands of other people and it will work for you too.

Q. That’s great Michael. Thank you again for your time today, I really appreciate you doing this interview for us. Well all that remains now is for anyone listening to this interview to get over to Start Your Profits Today and start your profits today!