Learn Blogging & Affiliate Marketing with Rosalind Gardner
I had a really good chuckle over a comment made by Bob about ROI (return on investment) on the PPC Classroom blog in response to the “#1 Question: How Much Did Jeremy SPEND?” post.
The post reports Jeremy's earnings as follows:
EARNINGS: Slightly Over $1.4 Million
PPC SPEND: Slightly Over $560,000
Gross Profit: $837,465
ROI: 147%!
Bob's comment went as follows: [Read more…]
Have you ever wondered how top information marketers really THINK?
Would you like to know exactly how they build those big comprehensive projects and products? i.e. How do they think up all the elements and then organize them into a useful whole without going crazy?
Well, Yanik Silver has produced 3 videos that will give you insight. In the videos, he details his own thinking processes, including how he uses “mindmapping” to brainstorm new products, generate ‘hooks' and how he manages to organize his ideas so he can see everything all in one place.
This information is straight from Yanik's two sold-out $5,000.00 per person & $10,000.00 per person workshops he conducted during the past year. During those workshops he taught attendees everything he knows about how he sold $12M of information products with ONLY his wife helping him… i.e. he makes millions with NO employees! Amazing!
The free video training includes:
These are good videos to watch (the mindmapping one in particular) even if you don't plan to build a big product. They can be used to help you figure out your next site topic, figure out a better sales pitch or organize your thoughts around an article that you're writing.
Enjoy!
During yesterday's Oprah “Mothers Battle Autism” show, in which Jenny McCarthy discussed her son Evan's autism, she mentioned that she went straight to Google after receiving his diagnosis to begin researching a way to help her son out of his ‘trap'.
She immediately found a ton of great dietary information (i.e. eliminate wheat, milk and artificial coloring) that did in fact help her to help her son start breaking down those walls.
Oprah responded by saying “Thank God for Google!“.
No kidding. I often wonder how the heck we all actually managed to accomplish anything before we could ‘Google it!'.
As an online entrepeneur, I probably use Google's services more than the average person. But like Jenny and Oprah, I use Google.com to find answers to all sorts of different questions – beyond the new and weather that I peruse every day.
Questions related to health, finance, entertainment, shopping, TV and technology.
I use it to expand my culinary expertise and experience, i.e. I found a recipe for lamb shahi korma that was so delicious that an East Indian friend asked for the recipe after I prepared it for him.
I also use Google to find fabulous out-of-the-way vacation spots about which my travel agent doesn't even know, and use Google Earth to do virtual trips around the planet.
Forget wasting money on long distance telephone calls, my friends and I have agree that Google Talk's reception is better than either phone or Skype, not to mention free. We share and manage project doduments using Google Docs.
That's just the tip of the Google iceberg, but here is a list of 15 Google services that I use regularly.
So, like Oprah, I too am thankful for Google and particularly grateful to its creators, Larry Page and Sergey Brin.
So… which Google services do you like and use?
[tags]Oprah, Jenny McCarthy, autism, Google, Google Talk, Google Earth, Gmail, Google Calender, Larry Page, Sergey Brin[/tags]
I decided to give John Reese's new Blogrush widget a try here at NPT and on my Roamsters.com travel blog this morning.
The picture to the left shows how the widget is supposed to display on your site. However, just a few minutes after I installed it, the display was replaced with text that read, “We are currently experiencing some technical issues and the site will be back online shortly. Please come back in a few minutes“.
HUH?
That strikes me as really odd text to use in a placeholder on someone else's site. MY site IS online, my visitors are already here, so why would I want to show text that reads ‘come back in a few minutes'?
Wouldn't it make more sense to display nothing at all than an error message?
Anyway, I trust that John will get the technical difficulties sorted out quickly and Blogrush widgets will soon be displayed all over the net… or at least on Internet marketer's blogs.
So, what's Blogrush?
BlogRush is a free blog syndication service intended to help bloggers increase traffic to their blogs. When you sign up for the service, place the widget on your site, you earn credits based on the number of impressions of the widget as well as the number of referrals you send. In return, your latest blog post titles are distributed on related blogs also using the Blogrush widget.
All well and good in theory – but as of now, you can't see your stats. When I clicked ‘Reports' within the Blogrush interface, I saw “Under Construction – We're hard at work creating some cool custom reporting features for you! Please check back soon.”
I was surprised to say the least. Coming from an uber Internet Marketer / uber affiliate, I would have expected John to have everything solidly in place prior to launch.
Anyway, let's just say that the jury is out on Blogrush for now. I may leave the widget up on Roamsters for a day – but I really really hate to waste good traffic.
Gives maximum ergonomic benefit to the sitter…
Ever since my car accident in late August, I'd been having trouble sitting in my standard office chair for more than about 20 minutes before my back and shoulders would start to ache.
Considering I like to put LOTS of time in at the computer when I'm working, so I can take LOTS of vacation time when I'm not, I had to rectify the problem ASAP.
The solution came from Gabriel-Ross and their Humanscale Freedom Chair – Saddle Seat which comes with numerous frame, textile, caster and base color options. (I got the bright red one.)
The design forces you to keep your back straight when used properly — i.e. sitting in a â€saddle†posture, which lowers the thighs and puts the spine into a lordotic curve. Although I've caught myself using it like a standard stool, more often than not I'm using it properly now, and voila! no more back pain! Yee-ha!!
Another benefit of the â€saddle†posture is that it allows users to get closer to their work — which is great when your eye-sight is diminishing (no doubt due to too much work at the computer) and you refuse to wear reading glasses. I guess those will be the next purchase. 🙂
You can see the chair in action in my Home Office Video.
What's your biggest concern as an affiliate marketer?
If your approach is anything like the hundreds – no, thousands – of affiliates whose questions I've fielded over the years, your primary concern is probably how to get more traffic to your site.
What I've discovered while reviewing their sites however, is that these affiliate marketers are putting the cart WAY before the horse.
All it takes is a quick spin around the site to know that even if they did get gobs of traffic every day, these affiliates probably wouldn't earn enough to buy their daily Starbucks double tall non-fat no whip mocha.
What the heck are they doing wrong?
Well, more traffic won't help the affiliate whose copy couldn't sell air to a drowning man.
In other words, they've neglected to address what should be their first objective – turning browsers into buyers, or sales conversions.
Affiliates shouldn't really try to sell products, however. That's the merchant's job.
What affiliates need to learn is what Ken Evoy of SiteSell refers to as pre-selling.
I consider what I do as ‘selling WITHOUT selling‘. Almost exclusive use of that technique is the reason my merchant partners tell me that I'm their top affiliate or have the ‘best conversion rates‘ they've ever seen… often both.
Furthermore, I spend far more time trying to get the message just right than on traffic generation.
When you focus on conversion rates first and foremost, any and all traffic to your site becomes more valuable. Furthermore, that focus is absolutely essential to get a satisfactory ROI (return on investment) when using pay per click (PPC) marketing.
If your affiliate site doesn't convert at least 2 percent of your visitors into buyers or if you want to improve your conversion rate, you need to read my short article ‘How to Sell WITHOUT Selling‘.
Ken Evoy offers MYCPS! (Make Your Content PreSell) as a FREE download.
Ken says “There are actually two ways to build a Web site online. The first way is all about “keeping it real.” Add to the Web. Write, and write well, about what you know and love. Overdeliver great content to please visitors and make the Search Engines love you at the same time.”
What he says is absolutely correct. Furthermore, preselling is about writing to communicate and it is skill that you can learn through this book.
Download MYCPS! (Make Your Content PreSell) now.
Bob asked the question, “Does this mean that affiliates can promote soft games in the US and not come into conflict with the law?” following my ‘Gaming Affiliates Set Sights on New Opportunites in Lucrative Niche Markets‘ blog post.
Although I'd love to provide a definitive answer (in the affirmative) for you, skill games promotion seems to be a big “gray area” in U.S. law, with some games deemed acceptable while others that one might assume qualify as skill games are not eligible for promotion.
And before I delve into confusing you further, here's my caveat; a) I do not work in the gaming sphere, b) I live in Canada and c) I am not a lawyer.
That said, I found this answer to the “Is it legal to promote Skill games in USA? ” question in the BetonBattles affiliate FAQ …