making money online.

It should be evident by now that I have been trying to demonstrate the power of backlinks when it comes to making money online. It doesn't matter what niche you are in or what form of monetization you are after - without traffic you will starve. You can waste your time courting social traffic only to find out that other bloggers will not spend money on your site, use your affiliate links or click your ads. (or even give you useful links when they do link to you). Or, you can target search engine traffic right from the get go and find out how well targeted traffic converts compared to bloggers. Ranking on top of the search engines will send you a continuous flow of people who are actually looking for what you have.

Most of my readers know this by now. The problem is that most of you are unable to get the kind of backlinks needed to rank well in the serp's.

In most cases you are targeting niches that are too competitive for your resources. I have tip toed around this issue on several occasions, most recently with my credit card post. Many of you are targeting keywords that are dominated by professional marketers and this means that while you are busy getting links from articles and do-follow blogs etc, the big guns are busy buying the types of links that do the most good. This doesn't mean you are doomed but it does mean that at some point you will all have to decide just how far you want to go with your online business. I am not trying to dissuade anyone - just trying to keep things real.

I set up a little contest back in February on a blog called Asia'h Epperson and challenged my readers to outrank my site for the term "Asia'h Epperson". I offered $500 to anyone who could outrank me for the term.

As of this date no one has been able to accomplish the feat.



I will bring the contest to a close at the end of this month - October 2008. I hate leaving things open ended and have decided to split the money between the top three sites as of the end of the month. The highest ranked site will get $350, second will get $100 and the third place position will get $50. I hope this will be amenable to all involved. I had promised not to do anything with the site until a winner came forward but I would like to put the blog to use and can't until this issue is resolved. Should anyone overtake me before the end of the month they will of course get the $500. If this doesn't occur please email me at month's end with your blog and ranking and add a name to your blog so that I can verify who is who in relation to the top finishers. Should you be a winner please acknowledge the receipt in a blog post of your own just so people know I have sent out the cash as promised.

I also thought this would be a good time to explain why you have all had such a hard time overtaking the site. It all comes down to links folks. And speed. And a little luck as well.

First off. The blog was created to take advantage of short term niches. To this end you have to be fast when a popular topic suddenly appears in the news. I was quick and got the best keyword url when I started the blog. In fact the only terms in my URL are the keywords "Asia'h" and "Epperson" - nothing else. http://asiahepperson.blogspot.com/

Always use your keywords in the URL when you can. You can still rank well without them but having the right URL is a big advantage and almost impossible to overcome if the site has the right backlinks.

Btw, did any of you happen to snap up sarahpalin.blogspot.com just asking...

Because I had the right URL, Blog Title and was fast with getting properly anchored links I jumped to the second spot in the serp's instantly. This is where luck came into play. Because I ranked so high the blog was noticed by others - notably the LA Times and AOL.com Television. As a result both these sites linked to my blog and the contest was effectively over before it began.

Click to enlarge all images.

The LA Times Link.



The AOL.com Link.



Both of these links are worth a ton of juice as both websites have a great deal of trust with Google - regardless of the PR of the page the links are on. Both used the right anchor text in the links.

I got to the top quickly by simply linking to the Asia'h blog from this site. This site also has trust in G's eyes and the link was followed instantly and the Asia'h blog was indexed and ranked within hours. That is the power of having a healthy flagship blog like this one.

The screenshot below shows a partial list of the links the Asia'h blog has. You will noticed that the anchored text used is almost exclusively "Asia'h Epperson". You will also notice that most of the linking pages have no PR at all. I have mentioned this before - the right anchor text is the important part in getting links - not the PR of the page sending the link. PR is great if you get it but isn't necessary to ranking well.



Now some of you may wonder about Google Bombing - ie. too many links, too fast all using the same anchor text. In the case of this blog I was not Google bombed because it is natural to predominantly get links using the right anchor. The keyword is a person's name, the site uses that name in the title and the URL. It would have seemed strange NOT to have got so many perfectly optimized links - what other links could it have got?

In any event the cards were stacked against anyone trying to outrank the blog right from the start.

I realize that most of you don't have the resources to get the links I get but that isn't the point of this. The real point is to concentrate on niches that you can compete in until you build up a healthy stable of sites to draw upon in future. Further more, concentrate on getting what works and don't waste time with other endevours. Like my new WP make money online blog the Asia'h blog didn't require a lot of content to rank well. Both only have 5 posts. Neither have a huge amount of sites linking to them. Asia'h has about 35 links and the Griz blog has about 100. Both are only PR3 sites. The Griz site isn't at the top yet but is well on it's way and now outranks millions of older sites with thousands of links and higher PR.

So what is the common equation - the quality of the backlinks. Specifically I build sites with optimized anchor links. I concentrate on getting backlinks that use my keyword and don't waste time with anything else. This accomplishes a number of things. I get ranked fast and high up in the serp's. It sends me traffic fairly quickly. The traffic is targeted to my keyword. I know what the traffic is looking for and can monetize the sites accordingly.

The Asia'h blog was a dud for making money but so what. I still have a nicely juiced PR3 site that I can use for other things such as sending links or targeting other celeb stories. The point is that if you do things right you never waste your time and continuously build up your network.

Folks - stick with keywords and niches that you can dominate with your current resources. Build your network one site at a time if you have to but make sure you spend time doing the right things. Many of you have more posts than backlinks. What is wrong with that?

I know getting backlinks is tough. I have been trying to build up our little community over the past few months in order to help you achieve better links. If you haven't joined in on our Niche Support program I urge you to. (Note: You can use a different name and email if you wish to keep your identity quiet.) You can read more about it here. Finding Links for Niche Blogs. Also I have provided a page full of bloggers who have quality flagship sites who understand the value of helping each other out. You can visit that page here. Friendz of Griz. If you are new here then spend some time getting to know the blogs I have highlighted and get to know each other as well. Help each other.

On a related note...

I Hate Defending Google but

Sites that have been using the services of payperpost have been seeing their pagerank dropping like flies for the past few days. It appears that most are dropping all way back down to a PR0. Needless to say there is a new round of Google bashing going on and you can check out the payperpost forum ( I'm not linking to it with a ten foot pole ) for a sense of what the populace thinks. I also noticed several posts on Blogging Zoom this morning that touch on this new round of woes.

The general concensus seems to be that everyone wants to stick their head in the sand and pout.

Here are a few of the comments I've read this morning;

"Really, I don't care about PR. I'll sell links and reviews on my blog even if it remains a PR 0 for the rest of its life..."

"It's all about networking. That's where 95% of my traffic comes from anyway."

"I think you have the right idea. We can't worry too much about something we have no control over. Besides, if we crawl back out of this hole they'll probably just smack us back down again."

These are completely natural reactions - a lot of small blogs have just lost their main source of income. I sympathize with them and I know one day I will do something to get slammed by Google as well. When it happens I will lose a big chunk of my income. I will be mad too - the only difference is that I will be mad at myself and not Google.

People are trying to convince themselves that Google is a big heartless monster out to take away income from the people who need it most. They act like this was unexpected and Google is only doing it to reduce competition in the advertising market. They are convinced that Google is going to get sued for anti-trust violations and it serves them right.

People are mad and want revenge.

People are also saying that they don't care about PR, it's meaningless and they will keep on doing what they have been doing.

This is great news to you if you are smart.

A different viewpoint on Google.

First let me say that my opinion is based on my motives online. I am online to make money. So are most of you or you probably wouldn't be reading an article on a blog that exists for the purpose of explaining how to make money online. I have no view on the moral/ethical questions posed about Google. People can debate whether Google is evil until the cows come home - I don't care. I only care about how Google works because knowing this allows you to make money while all the competition drowns in their sorrows.

Google was not wrong in what they did. It is true that they have effectively eliminated a source of competition but the competition wasn't really selling advertising - it was selling paid links for the purpose of passing PR on to buyers.

Google states very clearly that you can sell paid reviews and advertising on your site. You just have to add the no-follow tag. They aren't eliminating the competition, you can have all the paid ads you want and you won't be penalized. You are not allowed to sell your pagerank. This is the simplest way to put it. Selling pagerank is gaming the system - lesser sites can buy their way to the top of the serp's. Do you want Google to start spitting out crappy, spammy sites on the front page of the listings again? If they hadn't put a stop to paid links this is what would eventually happen. Believe me when I say you don't want this to happen because honest bloggers like you will never make it to the top of the serp's - the black hatters would take over, again.

I'm not a lawyer but as far as anti-trust goes Google isn't violating my understanding of it. They own a proprietary software and can use it and tinker with it all they want. They aren't stopping competition. If you want to be listed on their index then you have to follow the rules. They have the right to make the rules and you have the right not to use them or care about them.

I have the right to make rules on my own blog. If I run a contest I can say that only 1 vote will count and you will be eliminated if you vote more than once. Oh and you are not allowed to pay someone for their vote. This would make the votes meaningless as the biggest spender will win. If I catch you selling votes you will be banned.

This is what Google is doing. They offer a search engine. They rank sites on the basis of who is most relevant to your query. They use a system of votes to help determine who the most relevant site is for each query. Each vote you get from others increases your authority. You are not allowed to buy those votes or sell your votes.
If you sell or buy votes (links) then Google has the right to drop your PR or even de-index you. They can list who they want for any reason they want. They can ignore anyone they want too. You can ignore them too and not care if they index you.

So, did Google do anything wrong? Nope. They warned people not to sell links. They warn people not to game the system. Payperpost exists solely to broker link sales between buyers and sellers. The higher your PR the more money you get for a link. This was all disguised (poorly) by claiming that the buyer was getting paid advertising for his money and that a link would be included so the reader could click through to the source. The only problem with this is that PPP wouldn't allow users to use the no-follow tag on the links. This wouldn't be a problem for PPP if the buyers were actually just buying advertising. They wouldn't allow the no-follow tag used because they knew that the only way they could get buyers was by offering the passing of pagerank. No one will pay for a review on a PR5 blog that has no traffic unless they get a link out of the deal.

For everyone that is upset with Google you should really think about this. You only made money by taking advantage of a system that was set up to game Google. Google caught you and the system gaming them and stopped you from doing more of it. They weren't in the wrong and have once again offered the rest of us a less competitive playing field.

If you say that you don't care about Google then you are a noble soul but you are going to have a hard time making money online. Sure you can turn to the social sites and work on getting traffic. This traffic won't make you money but it will increase your alexa ranking and as flawed as alexa is it will be the new measurement used to determine who can sell paid reviews. PPP will be unveiling a new ratings system shortly based entirely on traffic. Instead of PR you will be offered better paying reviews based on how much traffic you have. This will mean that most low traffic sites won't make a dime. It will also mean that people will start Gaming Alexa to increase their traffic stats - it's easy to do. Advertisers will quickly complain that they aren't getting their money's worth and stop buying. Depending on this type of model to make money online is unsustainable and a waste of your time.

You should care about Google because if you follow the rules you do get rewarded. PR is far from dead. PR is necessary in order to drive search engine traffic to your site. Search engine traffic is more profitable than social network traffic. If people really do stop caring about pleasing Google then the rest of us have a lot less competition to worry about.

For the past week I have been posting on ways you can make money with adsense. I have talked about how content and learning how to target keywords can increase your adsense earnings. I may have downplayed the importance of PR but make no mistake - the higher your PR the more you can make. You don't need a lot of PR to make money with Adsense but the more you get the better. You should concern yourself with PR - follow Googles rules and you will get it.

TNX.NET - Caution Alert

I received an email from Vistic Vladmir who purports to have a new service for buying text links called tnx.net.

Read the email,

Dear makemoneyforbeginners.blogspot.com owner,

I am interested in advertising on your BLOG. We have created a revolutional system (www.tnx.net) that fully automates the process of selling/buying links for the owners of various websites/blogs and SEO companies and it's getting popular fast. We would like to buy a review from your website about our service. We are ready to pay via paypal.


We'll give you information about our service, so you could read about it and write your own review. You will be able to test the service and also use your referral link in the review. Please tell us the price of the review and your paypal email.

my contact information:
Vistac Vladimir
www.tnx.net
ICQ 839708
vishtak@gmail.com


Waiting for your reply.

Thank you.

I emailed him back with one question - "Does your service use No-follow on the links?"

I haven't heard back.

From what I have seen this is yet another PPP type system that is intended to pass pagerank from high PR blogs to those willing to pay them for a review. I didn't get an answer back but obviously the only way this works is with do-follow. If you didn't learn the first time around with PayPerPost, if you participate in one of these programs Google will strip you of your pagerank - and rightly so.

Vistic, if I am in error please feel free to email me back with your answer.

I noticed Bruce at DayJobNuker wrote a post about this yesterday so it's likely to start showing up everywhere soon and I wanted to caution everybody to stay clear if it's another paid links program and it certainly appears to be. It appears Bruce was unable to find out if no-follow was used either.

The good news Vistic is that you got my review for free.

Not all reviews are as bad as this TNX.Net review. The link will take you to a review I have done for RevResponse which is a useful program for making a little money generating leads and will pay you $50 just for mentioning the program. (July 2008 Only for the $50)

How to Develop Money-Making Niche Sites with WordPress

I get a lot of requests like this but they are usually rudely worded and the people asking make it obvious that they aren't familiar with my site - a word to the wise, if you are asking someone for a favor don't start your email with "Dear makemoneyonline.blogspot.com" - it's not hard to find out my name - sheesh!

Anyway Caroline asked quite nicely and since I like her I would love to help her out. I do have one concern with her book though - it is more of a "wordpress primer" than a guide for "money making niches". Frank at OpTempo did a good review of her ebook and I hope she understands that I don't want to mislead my readers. Her book is quite good but the title is a bit misleading.

More moving on...

The Sandbox

Let me start by saying that no one knows the ins and outs of Google's mysterious Sandbox - it doesn't exist and yet it does. I can only give you my two cents based on my experience with building blogs.

If you start a new blog on any popular subject you will likely get sandboxed - you will get indexed, stick around on the serp's for a few days and then poof! - your blog will disappear from the index. This is the sandbox. If you continue to post and show that you are not a spam site Google will release you back into the index. This can take a month or it can take 6 months.

Is there anything that you can do to avoid it?

To a degree yes but as much as what I am going to tell you helps there are times I still get sandboxed. There are forces at work here that only Darth Vader understands.

Monetizing your Blog

The best way to avoid it is to not monetize your blog. A new site with monetization all over it screams "spam". If a site is not monetized it's likely legit - why else would someone start a blog and not monetize it unless they truly just wanted to impart their knowledge to the masses. Google loves fresh unique content and has no reason to sandbox a site that isn't monetized. The exception to this is starting a blog aimed at the taboo niches like "law", "online drugs", "loans", "adult" and the rest of the spammers favorite targets. With or without monetization these type of blogs are sandboxed.

How long do you have to wait before you can monetize the site?

This answer sucks but "It depends". I have found that waiting until you develop keyword authority is the best route. The faster you develop it the faster you can monetize and this depends on how many keyword anchored backlinks you can produce over a reasonable amount of time - say a month or two - and how much original content you can produce over the same period. I didn't say how fast you could produce the backlinks as this is a mistake. You have to appear natural and getting 100 links the first week to a new blog is not natural and this will get you sent to the sandbox as quickly as monetizing your blog will. Take your time and build up your backlinks slowly but efficiently - get proper anchor text for your main keywords - not just one keyword but several different variations of it. Again this is how a natural site would grow. If every backlink uses the same term - sandbox. Be smart.

How do you know when you have enough keyword authority?

You know when you start writing new posts optimized for your keywords and they are immediately indexed and you see a movement up the serps from one post to the next. I am not talking about PR - I mean keyword authority. You can have a PR0 and rank well on the serp's if all your backlinks tell Google that you are an authority for your keywords.

To understand this use this blog as an example. In the recent PR update I lost a point - I went from a PR5 blog to a PR4 and yet most of you know I just climbed onto page 1 of the serp's for "Make Money Online". I lost PR but gained serp rankings - this is because of my keyword authority.

Once you see that you have authority then you can introduce monetization on your site and usually this will keep you out of the sandbox - not always but most of the time.

Adding Outbound Links to Your Blog.

Just like monetization, if you start a new blog and pack a bunch of links on it to other sites you will get sandboxed. Think about this - why would you put links on a new site? You want to send backlinks to other sites and usually to your own. This is why spammers create thousands of sites - they use them to send links (keyword authority - not PR) to their anchor sites or money sites. The moment you add links to a brand new blog you are seen as a likely spam site - don't do it. Wait until you can monetize the site.

The best way to avoid the "box" is to take your time writing lots of original keyword rich posts and work on your backlinks - be patient, always think about how a natural site would grow and mimic it. You aren't going to have a lot of traffic in the beginning anyway so not monetizing isn't costing you anything. Be patient and be smart.

Where did my Post Go?

On a side note I have noticed a lot of people commenting about their posts being ranked well one day on the serp's and then suddenly vanishing the next day. This refers to established non-sandboxed sites.

This is completely natural and this is why. When you write a new post on any given topic Google jumps on it because it's fresh. Fresh content is prized by Google - it keeps their index up to date on all the latest news. If you don't have enough keyword authority to take you to the first (and sometimes the second) page of the serp's you will get listed on page 3 or higher for a few days and then drop down to page 90 as other newer fresh content replaces you. You will bounce around the back pages for a while until you build up your authority. More relevant posts on the topic will help your authority just like proper backlinks do.

If you make the first page (and sometimes the second) then you are an authority and will likely stay there until some prick like me decides to bump you out by any and all means at my disposal. Don't get complacent when you reach page 1 - always add backlinks in order to keep others from overtaking you. A couple of sites on page 1 of "make money online" got complacent and are now wondering who the ass with the cheesy blogspot blog is that just passed them by. There is never a finish line folks - it keeps moving away from you as you try and catch it.

I was going to yak about Adsense and Social Traffic today but I want to optimize an entire post around the topic so it can wait until next time.

A final comment. My email is as good as broke so please ask your questions in the comments. I have noticed that my emails are from all the beginners who find my blog through the serp's and that my comments are usually from friends and experienced bloggers. I suspect that beginners are too intimidated to ask "stupid" questions in public and choose to email me instead. Please do not be intimidated as there is no question too "stupid" to ask. Everyone of us started out as a beginner and we all had to learn the same way - by asking questions. I can guarantee that none of us will ever ridicule you for asking questions - ever. I am here to help and so are my readers who I have come to know as caring and decent bloggers. If you use the comments to ask your questions they will get answered - if you send me an email I don't know when I will get to it. Fair enough? Don't be shy as you will make a lot of friends using the comments - I have.

Till next time,

TNX.net - Part Two

In one of my previous posts about Niche Marketing I revealed a little tactic I use to rank on page one of the serps by being negative. A serp troll if you will. I like to do this with programs that are dominated by affiliates pushing their links. This is a simple way to get traffic.

The first page of the search listings for the keyword tnx.net contains 10 affiliate sites all pushing this program. How many searchers will read all 10 sites? Not many - usually only the first couple of sites will get any traffic at all. When you search for information on a topic are you only interested in the opinion of the people who are pushing the program? No, what you really want to find is an opposite opinion so you can gauge a product from both sides. Is someone selling a product going to be as honest about it as someone who isn't selling it?

If 1 site in ten has a negative review then it will draw the majority of the traffic looking for information on the product. I posted yesterdays "negative" review and waited for the Google bot. It wasn't long after that I checked the serp's for "tnx.net" and this is what I found...

Make Money Online in Canada

Wait - this really isn't just about making money online in Canada. It's about post titles and they are the lifeblood of getting traffic for your long tail keywords. In the last post I mentioned the importance of using your main keyword in your Blog Title tag and preferably in your URL if you want to attract visitors from the search engines. See Making Money Online with Social Traffic.

Whether you are trying to make money with your blog or just after social readers then the next step is to pay attention to your post titles. Most social bloggers use catchy titles in order to grab their readers interest. This, unfortunately, doesn't work too well with the search engines. If you are writing a post about a subject then you should really try and fit the topic's keyword into your post title - Google will index you for the term and with a few anchored backlinks containing the same term you can quickly find yourself ranking well for it. The thing is - you want a term people will be searching for and most searchers don't search for snappy titles.

For some reason Google doesn't rank this blog very well in several data centers - Google.ca (Canada) is one of them. I am attempting to change that and this post is step one. I could have used a reader friendly title like "Hey G, WTF! Why don't you rank me in Canada?" The problem with this is that it wouldn't get me in the right serp listings and it wouldn't reinforce my main keyword - "make money online". When possible always try and combine your post subject with your blog's overall theme. If you are trying to earn money from your blog this tip is mandatory. (Your post title determines the type of Adsense ads you will get among other things) If you are a social blogger then you can take this under advisement - I know many of you don't want to turn your readers off and prefer to use an eye catching title. I would suggest adopting more of your keywords in the post title if you can.

This isn't going to be a long post today as I'm short on time but for those of you who took my advice about changing your Blog title - well done - and now one more tip just to raise your awareness. Put the keyword first. Both Kathy and Turnip made the changes I suggested in my last post but, in both cases, they added the keyword after their regular Title. ie. Kathy's Humor for the Masses keyword follows her "The Junk Drawer" which shows up in the browser as "The Junk Drawer - Humor for the Masses". Turnip's Social Networking site now reads "Turnip of Power - Social Networking".

Both sites should read as follows; "Humor for the Masses - The Junk Drawer" and "Social Networking - Turnip of Power".

Why? Because the serp's list the most relevant sites first when users type in a keyword. Hence when someone types in Humor blogs then the sites are listed (usually) in order of who shows the keyword first in the Blog's title. Search for that term and you will see what I mean. Once all the sites with the term "Humor" used at the beginning of their blog title are listed then Google lists all the blogs that have "humor" used elsewhere in their title. Always use your main keyword first.

In the two example sites just mentioned both bloggers could increase search traffic by adding their keyword in each or most of their post titles. Kathy's latest post is called "Why did the chicken cross the road?" A better search engine title would be "Humor - Why did the chicken cross the road?" As I said this may not appeal to social bloggers as it may look a little goofy - it will bring in traffic from the search engines though.

In Turnip's case his/her (I don't really know - sorry Turnip) latest post is "Social Networking Contest Update", which is absolutely perfect as is.

Here is another tip that most Canadians know about. In Canada we spell humor as humour and color as colour and center as centre and various other words differently than in the States. I mention this because most spell checkers are based on the American spelling. If you have a site that uses keywords like Humor you can increase traffic by using the Canadian spelling in your post as a lot of Canadians refuse to spell it the American way when using search. The important thing is to only use the misspelling once in your post - G will ignore it as spam if you use a misspelling more than once. I mention this because you will find yourself ranked high in the serp's for the misspelled term and gain traffic from Canada and elsewhere. Btw - this applies to any misspelled keyword - only use a misspelled term once - never twice.

Okay that should get me started on my Canadian serp campaign as I cleverly fit Canada into this post enough to hopefully get G's attention. Hence the post title that 1) Uses my main keyword "make money online" and 2) combines it with my (short) long tail for this post - Canada. Now all that is left is to gather some backlinks that use "make money in Canada" in the anchor text.

That is really all you need to know about SEO folks.

A quick note - Google is busy doing another Google shuffle at the moment and the result is that you may find your blog ranked well one day and totally gone the next. They have been doing this periodically for most of the last year. I don't really know what they are up to other than it appears to be another house cleaning. Several readers have wrote me in a panic and I have told them to just relax as there is little that can be done. Several of my sites have disappeared for a day or two and then reappeared a few days later. Some with better rank than before and some farther back in the serp's. In the past this has gone on for a few weeks before things settled down so wait it out before making any abrupt changes to your site. You will likely find yourself back in the rankings as if nothing occurred provided your site isn't a spam blog or you have not been doing things that G frowns upon.

Cheers,

Griz

Oh Btw - just in case you are wondering how effective targeting keywords in your post titles are - this post didn't take long to start bringing in traffic...

John Chow

Today I want to talk about John Chow and his blog called "johnchow.com". Like Gobala, John is also offering to give you a backlink from his site in return for you writing a review of his site. Unlike Gobala, John is not using a "nofollow" attribute on his links which means that you can pick up a backlink from him which is supposed to help to move your own site up the Google ranking charts.

John Chow dot Com is a blog that claims to help you make money online. If you do a review of his blog, he’ll link to you so his readers can check you out.

So why should you do this?

You shouldn't. He has been Google slapped for Google Bombing his site with the term "make money online" and the end result is that he lost PR and had his site tossed into the depths of the serp's for the very term he was trying to dominate.

John Chow has little useful advice for anyone and he makes money by convincing noobs that they should sign up to all the programs he promotes on his site. The programs are useless at making noobs money but since John is paid to promote them he does just fine.

Do yourself a favor and take everything he says with a grain of salt - you might be interested in knowing that this blog does occupy a page 1 listing on Google for the term "make money online" so I might be worth listening to.

Project Payday Update

Note: As of Sept 2007 the Project Payday eBook is now available for free. You can get it by simply trying out the system and filling out an offer on the Project Payday site and make 1 dollar in the process. I have cautioned against paying for this material in this post and several others but now that you can get the material without paying for it I would recommend you sign up and read it. - Grizzly

The name of this system is more accurately described as "Making Money with Incentivized Freebie Websites" or just "Freebie Websites".

The people behind "Project Payday" were smart enough to zero in on one of the few "real" opportunities to make money on the net. I say "real" as in the sense that this system is really just a job and you will get paid if you do the work. At first I promoted the eBook but after sober second thoughts, I came to believe that they were profiting ($35.00 per person) for selling little more than a few instructions and a few links. Don't get me wrong - the info and links are quite true and valid - it's just that you can get all the info for free simply by joining one of the forums involved. (I have explained the system in previous posts on this Blog - Check the Project Payday Labels below this post)

Over the past few months this system has become widely talked about and the number of people now making money from IFW's has skyrocketed. With most online systems it is the case that once too many people start doing the same thing - competition increases and effectiveness is severely hampered. Not so with Incentivized Freebie Websites - in fact the opposite is true. The more people that join the better it is for everyone else. Why? Simple. Offers can only be filled out once - once everybody has filled out all the offers the system comes to a standstill until new people are recruited.

Freebie sites are popping up faster than just about anything else on the net at the moment and that is a good thing. A word of caution though - stick to the main forums to avoid the scammers. The forums track all the sites and quickly list all the bad players.

A note to all non - Americans. (OK - that would be the other 5.7 billion of us.)

This system only works for people with an American IP address and an American Postal Address. Sadly the advertisers who are paying for this system are only interested in selling to the American market.

The one exception to this is that Canadians can also join in but you will find far fewer offers in which you qualify. ( Note - there are now a lot more Canadian offers available as of Jan 08)

The IFW Forums

The following forums are all you need to get started

FiPG Forums

A very popular message board for everything related to IFWs. The trading sub-forum is very active and you can quickly and efficiently network with others who are looking to buy, sell or trade "greens". You'll frequent this forum often, but be sure to familiarize yourself with the rest of the site as time allows.

Anything4Free

Another very popular community message board, covering everything related to IFWs. Their trading forums are awesome and make it a snap to buy, sell or trade "greens". The trading post has been broken up into three separate sub-forums.

Referral Swapper

A network of people who are looking to buy, sell or trade "greens". Allows you to quickly and easily find possible matches and then initiate a trade, and then monitor all aspects of your trades, whether it is a proposed trade, current trade or past trade.

For Complete Beginners (There's something for you experienced folks below)

As expected since the popularity of "Project Payday" has taken off, there are now several others trying to cash in on IFW's by selling more eBooks that essentially explain the same thing as I have outlined for free in my previous posts on this subject. Do not spend your money on these! Read my posts and join the forums - the experienced people will help you out. They need your referrals - they will be nice to you and best of all they will pay you.

I want to mention one of these info sellers and suggest you check them out. At the moment you can get the info for free but they are claiming that they will be charging $17 for it soon. I doubt that they will but if they do - don't buy. I mention them only because they have set up an easy system for beginners to start with and they will pay you for your referrals. Right now - today.

The site is instantpaypalcash.com

I have not used hypertext for the link for a couple of reasons. I am not affiliated with this site and I can not vouch for their history when it comes to paying for completed offers.

If you give them a name and email they will let you into the site which does a good job of explaining IFW's and lists all the links you will need. They also offer to get you started by having you complete offers for them - $115 if you complete 10 offers that they have listed. I have not done their offers as I have already completed them elsewhere so I can not verify their claims to a speedy payment. You might want to ask about them on the forums and see what the history is.

If anyone has trouble with this site please let me know.

Experienced IFW Members

I am starting to get a few emails from people who want to take this system to the next step. Actually 2 steps really. Once you have mastered getting paid for filling out offers most of you have begun paying others in order to get the bigger prizes and cash. This is the logical next step.

Once you have exhausted this step where do you go.

If you haven't figured out the whole "Big Picture" yet then let me fill you in.

What are incentivized freebie sites actually doing? I mean besides paying people for completing offers. What is really going on behind the scenes is that large corporations are buying leads - something that they have been doing for decades. The difference now is that they are finding that the internet is a far cheaper means to getting leads than standard print and television methods.

In effect these organizations pay people to send them new leads. The people sending them the leads have created a whole network of Freebie sites that pay end users to become the leads. The end users make a little money and this is great until the offers run out. When this happens the end user starts paying others in order to claim the bigger payouts offered by the freebie sites. This is great as well and can continue as long as they don't run out of bigger prizes or new recruits.

So who makes the most money?

The freebie site owners of course. What you don't know is how much they get directly from the corporations. You have probably done the math and realize that it costs them a pretty penny to offer the kinds of payouts they have. If they can payout $300 for 10 leads then you know that the corporation is paying them considerably more.

Now before you run off to set up your own freebie site hear me out. I am not suggesting you do this at all but go ahead if you know how. I began to look at doing this myself but as I was learning how to do it I began to see the real "Big Picture".

What I found out is that these Incentivized Freebie Sites are really just small players in a small pond. Essentially these sites - hundreds of them - are all collecting leads using the same offers for the same handful of companies - and American companies at that. This limits your earning potential to just these products and companies and limits your lead collections to just Americans.

So what?

This is what. Every company on the face of the Earth wants leads. And not just American leads.

To make a long story short I found out that there is a far bigger market than IFW's, a market known as Un-Incentivized Lead generation. This market gathers leads and sells them to every profitable niche business out there.

This is a quick overview of what I am taking about.

Let's use a company that sells Paris Bus Tours as an example. I am making this up but I have researched other tour companies and will use the stats I have for them.

The Paris Tour company is competing with a dozen other operators. They all have websites and they all have adsense ads displayed when people search for "Paris Tours". The average cost per click on these ads is $6. They get little free traffic because their websites are not optimized for Google - they run tour buses and know little about SEO.

The highest ranked page in the Google search is for a website that is optimized for the Keyword "Paris Bus Tours" and this site doesn't sell bus tours. This site gets most of the clicks though.

The site is a squeeze page that gives out a ton of info on Paris bus tours but doesn't sell anything. Google just loves sites like this.

The site then asks the reader if they want more info on available Bus Tours of Paris - Name and Email - we'll send you what you are looking for. Every person that gives their name and info becomes a lead. The website then simply contacts one or all of the real Paris Bus Tour Companies and sells them the lead. Do they buy it? Wouldn't you want the name of someone that has shown an interest in taking a bus tour of Paris and you just happen to provide this tour?

In a nutshell this is lead generation. It can be done for just about any business that exists. Every business from Real Estate firms to Scrapbooking Supply shops need leads and will pay for them.

How much you ask?

$5 to $5000 per lead depending on the business. The higher the product sale the more the lead will make.

I admit that I haven't been at this for very long but I have set up some squeeze pages in some very refined niches much like the tour bus example. One site has made the 1st page of Google and brings in 2 or 3 leads a day for free. I am using adwords to collect leads for a second site as it has yet to rank well. The second site is averaging 8 leads a day and costs me about $25 daily in pay per click costs.

This is the important part - I found a company to buy the leads from my first site and agreed to a price of $12 per lead. Yahoo I would get rich soon! Not exactly - by the end of the first week the company canceled my order saying that they hadn't converted enough of my leads - sorry your leads suck. Back to square one. In the end I realized that the company was not the most suitable business for the type of lead I was recruiting. I approached several other businesses with my leads and after several failed campaigns (still no conversions) I finally found 2 businesses that could convert my leads. They are still buying from me and I have even increased my asking price to $15 per lead. At the moment my site is making me between $60 - $90 per day from the 2 or 3 leads generated.

The second site is still pretty new and I have only found 1 buyer so far. I'm only getting $5 per lead but it's enough to cover the PPC and leave a few dollars in the kitty.

This type of online business is not for beginners. I only mention it as an option for those of you that have asked me about expanding your IFW empire. If you know seo and can set up squeeze pages then this might be something for you to look at. There is more to this than what I have covered and I must warn you that you could spend a few bucks tracking down all the info needed to pull this off successfully. I bought several very pricey books and paid for a mentor to get started. If you are interested then stick to Mark Vurnum's "Lead Generation Videos" as they are the best single source of info I have found so far. It's not available from the usual sources but you can get it through this link - "Lead Generation Videos" He provides the videos for free but as usuall you will have to give a Name and Email.

One last note;

I get 2 or 3 emails a week from people promoting their new Freebie Site or rather wanting me to promote it for them as I get a lot of Project Payday traffic. Please stop sending these to me - if the forums don't have you verified then I am not going to mention you to anyone. No offense but I have no way of knowing how legit you are and don't have the time to find out.

That's it for now,

Ewen Chia's Autopilot Profits - A Real Review

I mention that this is a real review because I did some surfing this morning trying to find a decent review of this product. What I found were a dozen or so articles claiming to review the product and yet every one of them turned out to be an affiliate flogging the ebook as the greatest thing since sliced bread. This really makes me gag.

Quite frankly the ebook is ok - but only if you are a complete newcomer to Internet Marketing. Autopilot Profits does not have a single new thing to add to the world of Internet marketing strategy, nor does it do the work for you that some might be led to believe. If you have any experience at all then this book will be a regurgitation of things you already know.

This doesn't make it a bad product - in fact he does a good job of outlining all the processes needed in putting together an effective internet marketing campaign. If you know nothing about affiliate marketing then this would be an excellent primer.

For the rest of us - you might want to pass on this.

He tells us how to find a niche. Um... most of us know how how to use keyword tools.

He tells us how to get traffic. You already know about Adwords, writing articles, submitting to directories, etc.

He tells us where to find products. Gee... what's that site called - oh right - Clickbank!

He tells us how to automate everything. I think you already know about autoresponders.

I think you get the picture.

To his credit the product if very professional and thorough and he has kept the price at a reasonable $27. As I said, there is nothing new here for anybody other than a complete newcomer.

My verdict - I'll pass, now I just need to get my $27 back.

Adwords 180 - A Review

You will notice a surge in Guru emails in the next little while pushing a product called Adwords 180.

The sales pitch is coy and less than informative but in general you will be told that this system will get you pay per clicks (PPC) at less than a cent a click.

Before I reveal everything to you I want to make two points;

1) This system has been known for awhile but it is only now that someone has figured out a good method to capitalize on it.

2) This is NOT for beginners - you will lose a lot of money if you are not already a competent adwords user.

I would not normally review a product like this on a beginners site but I have received a number of emails asking me about this system and I thought it best to clarify things before a lot of you jump into this.

This is not for beginners for a number of reasons but most notably because the program does not bother to explain the basics of adwords - things like setting up Clickbank accounts, setting up Adwords, navigating the affiliate networks. It leaves out all the stuff other Adwords books use to fluff out their manuals. It does this on purpose because it is aimed at an experienced adwords user.

You'll also notice that the sales letter is a "Blind Letter". This is a marketing tactic that basically doesn't tell you what you are buying until after you buy. Never a good thing for a beginner.

It tells you what you will be able to do but doesn't tell you how you will do it. This tactic is generally used by marketers that have something to hide - and this program is hiding something; it doesn't want to reveal that it only has one trick up it's sleeve - the whole book concentrates on a single aspect of adwords.

This is not a bad thing but by hiding that fact they hope to sell the program to people who think they will be getting a full blown Adwords book. Beware, the book only deals with a single way of using Adwords to get extremely cheap, targeted traffic. If the author came out and told you there was only one trick to teach, it would make the product much less appealing to buyers.


The Adwords180 Plan

Using The Google CPM Network

Google's CPM is a method of advertising with Adwords that lets you pay a certain amount for 1000 impressions of your ad. The drawback of this method is that regardless if you get clicks or not, you still get billed.

While you won’t pay too much for 1000 impressions, often only a couple of dollars, CTRs are usually really bad and you end up paying more per click than otherwise and this results in a quick campaign ending.

Adwords 180 sets out a strict criteria that allows you to pick the best pages on the best sites for your CPM ads to appear on.

This system will allow you to find the right page for your precisely tuned ad to appear on. You will also know before hand how much traffic you can expect the chosen page to receive which tells you in advance what you’ll be paying.

By using the methods outlined in Adsense180, you should and can get CTRs of 25% on your ads.

Using CPM, a decent bid for 1000 impressions of your ad is $2. Remember that this guarantees you nothing at all except that your ad will appear 1000 times. You might not get even one click…

If done right though, you can realistically get a 25% CTR or 250 clicks. If you do the math this would bring your cost per click down to $0.008 which is incredible. Less than one cent a click.

Location Domination:

The scoop.

You've seen Adsense ads and are familiar with how Google displays 4 small ads in the popular rectangle size? This is what happens when you target your ad in that box to meet Google's quality score for the page it sits on:

First, your CTR goes way up, and that tells Google your ad is perfect for the visitors on the page. Google likes that and they may reward you by eliminating your competition.

Instead of showing your ad with 3 others, Google gives you the whole ad block box to yourself - no competition. This boosts your CTR up another notch and the ad should pull a decent amount of traffic to your site.

The whole concept hinges on the fact that other advertisers can’t compete with you since you own the whole ad block.

Conclusion on Adwords180

If you know what you’re going to do with this cheap traffic and you have a plan to make it convert into money - through Adsense, Affiliate landing pages or Squeeze pages - and you have the money to invest in the method, then by all means purchase Adwords180 but...

Beware of this problem.

If you don’t know how to write ads that grab attention, you won’t be able to do it.

If you can’t convert the traffic into subscribers, buyers or Adsense Clicks, you’ll lose money in spite of the traffic.

All beginners should take note that making conversions is the key and ultimately remains the major hurdle in nearly all Adwords Marketers’ campaigns.

If you know how to set up successful campaigns and you want cheap traffic, go ahead and get Adwords 180. If you don't have experience in these areas then don't even consider this - you will be wasting your money.

Instant Money Vault - Review

Maybe but not likely.

The term scam is used far too frequently when it comes to internet marketing products. Every time a product doesn't live up to expectations it gets labelled a scam. This is not necessarily a fair assessment in most cases. The Instant Money Vault program is a typical example of what I am talking about. Here me out...

This program is quickly being labeled an outright scam and I understand why. The product is nothing more than an old Private Label product that has been around for a year or more now. The current marketer "Michelle Andrews" has simply put a new face and name on it and has begun flogging it as the next great thing. The "she" is rumoured to be a "He" in disguise. A marketer by the name of "Mark Warren" - founder of the "Ultimate Wealth Package". And surprise, surprise, the "Ultimate Wealth Package" consists of the same business model - selling review sites to people who in turn have to promote them on Google Adwords.

Does this make it a scam. No - just because it is not new doesn't mean that it doesn't work. Is it deceiving? Not really - it gives you what it says. The problem is this. If you are a complete beginner or "newbie" (I really hate that term, aside from the patronizing aspect of it - it always makes me wonder at what point is someone NOT a newbie. How is this decided? I digress.) then you would buy this product and find lots of info you don't yet know about. If you are a more experienced "newbie" then you might say - hey wait a minute! I already know this stuff! What a scam! You see my point.

The most experienced or inexperienced "newbie" will also probably call it a scam when they don't make $100,000 at the end of the first month using the product. 99% of the readers will not even try out the info, instead they will try to sell the product to others and then not make the afforementioned $100,000 and scream scam!

Your evaluation of this or any other product will be a reflection of your expectations and every product that fails to meet your expectations will be labelled a scam.

They aren't scams... they were just the wrong product for someone with your level of experience and knowledge.

Of course, some things are just outright scams. They don't deliver what they promise. I mean information and not the "Million Dollar" come on. Anybody this far into the "get rich on the net scene" that still falls for a "get rich quick" pitch should really give their head a good long shake. A real scam is not something that doesn't deliver the million dollar promise, rather it is something that doesn't give you the info it promised or the program doesn't work as promised. Everything else falls into two main catagories;

1) Seen This - Done That and now I'm pissed off... Man what a scam!

2) Wow, something new... Hadn't thought of that, this is a great product.

You of course realize that every single product on the net could get both reviews - it just depends on the person who bought it.

In this light I am going to review products on a different basis.

It's either;

An outright scam and why

or it's only suitable for someone with such and such ability.

Instant Money Vault is not a scam but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

It has the content from a Private Label Ebook by Michael Rasmussen and has nothing new in it's pages. Even complete beginners can find far better content in other products. If you want a good product which will explain all the Internet marketing basics to you get Holly Mann's ebook called "Honest Riches".

Every other product on this aspect of internet marketing is nothing more than a rehashing of Holly's book albiet the odd twist here and there. This is what internet marketing has turned into - thousands of products each trying to tell the same story. Basics are basics and you can only dress it up so much. Holly's eBook is as good as it gets and all a beginner really needs. You can relax your sphincters now - there was no affiliate link. You can buy her book in complete assurance that nobody will make a dime off of you other than Holly.

The last comment was not meant to be snide. The truth is that internet marketers are their own worst enemies. If you thought I would make a dime off of my recommendation then you would likely not buy the ebook or at best you would replace my affiliate link with your own. Buy not using an affiliate link some of you beginners might actually take my advice and read her book. Some of you are so new that you don't have a clue about what an affiliate link is. All you need to know is this - stay away from selling anything in the internet marketing community. You will only find yourself complaining that you can't make any money because everyone knows how to substitute their link for yours. Why does everybody do this? Hey I don't mean to screw you friend but let's face facts - I can get up to a 75% discount by using my own link.

And that's all you need to know about the IM community and the people you are trying to sell to.

While I'm dishing out advice - and nothing new here - stick to selling stuff to the other markets or niches. Why. Simple really, the rest of the civilized world doesn't know an Affiliate link from a Fig Newton. Nor would they care if they did. They just want to buy something and if you give them what they want - you will actually make some money.

(I have kinda wandered off topic here but what the hell, I'm in a mood for a rant and the old fingers are itchin' to type.)

Where was I...

Oh... If you absolutely insist on trying to make money in the IM community then wise up right now and save yourselves a pile of money. The only people who really make money doing this are the folks who create all these products.

They create something for nothing, hype it using some twist they have discovered and then get YOU - the minions of the IM underworld to a) buy it and then b) sell it. And you do - maybe once or twice, maybe getting your money back while another 10,000 people sell a couple each until the window of "newness" has elapsed and the last batch of buyers can't even sell a single product. The products' creator made 25% - %50 of each sale times ten or twenty thousand sales and ends up with a pot of cash and the best part for them was - they didn't do much of anything. Instant Money Vault is a prime example of this. How much work goes into re-labeling an existing eBook?

The long and the short of it is this - create your own product or sell to other markets or both. Just don't sell to the IM maket unless you want to live in disappointment.

OK. That's enough.

Verdict - don't buy Instant Money Vault. There are better ebooks available.

How to use HavAds - Part 2

You can read the first article in this series here HavAds - Review

Do to the overwhelming amount of emails since Sunday I am revisiting Havads to answer a number of questions you have.

As you scrolled down this page you passed 4 ads at the top. You probably thought they were the usual Google ads. Nope. They were created using HavAds and I put them on this site yesterday. I was planning on giving them a week and then telling you of the results. I've changed my mind as it has become obvious as to how well they work after just the first day. Let me explain...

For the past six months I have placed Google adsense ads on the top of this page. As my site traffic has increased I have come to expect $5 to $10 a day from people clicking on these ads. Not bad but not the stuff of "Living the life" either. I know the amount of clicks these ads averaged but I have not known how many of those clicks resulted in sales for the advertisers - sales that didn't pay me commissions even though I was the one that sent them the customer.

Yesterday I put my own ads on this site and here are the results.

23 clicks

6 sales ( 25% click thru rate)

Income = $382.26

Lost Adsense revenue = about $6.90

Net gain = $375.36

Oh in case you were wondering - all the sales were for the same product.

You can see why I don't need to wait till next week to share the results.

If you read my review I explained that I have started doing this on my high traffic sites - none of which have anything to do with internet marketing - and the results are just about as good. ( I have not had a 25% click thru on any other site - 10% is about average )

I have one site that sells Dog Calendars - don't laugh as I have found that pet owners like to spend money on their pets. I should say my site doesn't sell calendars - it just has a few articles and lots of dog pictures on it. The Google ads were for "Dog Calendars", "Dog Toys", "Dog Houses" and the like. I replaced these ads with mine and quickly found out that "Dog Calendars" sell like hotcakes. Each sale is small but they are adding up fast - and I haven't touched the site in months other than changing the ads.

So... your questions.

Thanks for the info Grizzly but this only works if I have traffic to my site. I only get a few people a day to my site. I need to know how to get traffic.

Susan G.

I could post about 30 more emails but they all come down to the same thing. Traffic!

Unfortunately there is no easy answer to this problem. We are all in the same boat and driving traffic is a continuous exercise in trial and error.

Here is a brief list of the things I do but keep in mind that "time" and "patience" seem to be your biggest allies.

The first thing I do is post a few articles which gets my site picked up by other sites. I like GoArticles.com for a few reasons but mostly because I have a system that gets my articles downloaded the most in most 30 day periods. Being the top downloaded article brings me decent traffic and lots of backlinks. The backlinks in turn vault my page up the Google search results. This of course brings in more traffic.

I won't tell you my system as it will lose its effectiveness but I will prove it to you. After publishing this post today - the 15th of May, 2007 I will post an article about HavAds on GoArticles.com and if you check the top downloads section at GoArticles.com tomorrow you should see my article at or near the top. The link is (no longer current)

When you have verified my claim shoot me a comment with the title of an Article you want posted (So others can see this is legit)and then email me the article. I will do the same for your article on GoArticles. The first 5 people will get my help. You will have to give me a Name and valid email address in order to set up a GoArticles account for each of you. You can pick any niche you like for your article. My system works for anything as far as getting top downloads but if you want to sell something on your site you should pick something popular.

Other methods that work for driving traffic in order of effectiveness are;

Forums - get your signature on them and use the forums frequently. If your site gets recommended by someone on the forums you might be surprised at the traffic you get. This site receives a ton of traffic from whydowork.com because someone mentioned my review about project payday.

Speaking of Forums there is an interesting thread related to these HavAds posts on the Warrior Forum - Here Warrior Forum


Write review articles on your site. - people Google for reviews on everything before they buy. I get a lot of traffic from Google because of all the reviews I write here. Be sure to include the word "review" in your post heading. My HavAds review is only a few days old and I am already getting Google traffic for it.

Use traffic exchanges but be warned that Google doesn't like them. The traffic is mostly useless but your alexa ranking will go up.

Use Link Exchanges - I will post a full article on this soon. I have a really sleazy way to use them for my own ends. For now just wait till I post my system.

Get a site with decent traffic to put your link on it. Ha. This of course is the easiest way to get traffic and of course it's the hardest to accomplish. You can pay high ranking sites to do this but make sure your link is on the main page in a good location.

or

I will help some of you out and put your link on this page for a week at a time just to see what happens and because I'm such a swell guy.

There are some conditions;

I have to approve of your site - no porn or garbage.

I will only do 3 sites per week.

You must let me know how many visitors you got. (Use Stat Counter - it's free)

It would help if your site is related to this site.

That's it. Just email me and I will start a list and begin tomorrow.

Keep in mind that this blog only gets 200 - 300 visits a day so I am not a high traffic site. It has a page rank of 2 at the moment so this might help those of you with a lesser rank.

Anyway let's see if it helps some of you to get going.

Oh... I get way to much mail (I'm sorry if I haven't answered you) and I can't physically get through it all much less answer everyone individually. I tend to browse it looking for people I already know first and then dive into the rest. I will try to answer everybody in future posts so keep reading. For those who want to take me up on these offers make sure to write "Grizzly Link" in the subject of your email if you want your link on here or "GoArticles" in the subject line if you want your article posted by me.

Ok that's it for now. Good luck folks.

Make Money with HavAds - Review

Hi everyone, (Happy Mother's day all you Mom's out there - you really are our better halves - bless you all)

One of the things that has bugged me for a long time is that while Google makes a killing with adwords, those of us displaying the ads (the adsense side of the equation) on our sites are making pennies. A couple of years ago Google allowed advertisers to bid different amounts for content ads (the ads on your site) rather than paying the same price for search ads (these are the ads shown when doing a Google search). While the search ads still cost an advertiser big money (and it all goes to Google) the content ads can be had for just pennies and you only get 50% of this.

When you hear of advertisers paying $50 a click for a "consolidated student loan" ad don't be fooled - they only pay this on Google search. The same advertisers ad on your site will only cost them a fraction of the search price and you will only earn pennies. Nobody makes a decent per click amount with adsense anymore - and this sucks.

Last month I had 10,189 visitors to one of my best sites - this generated 507 clicks on adsense for a whopping $86.23 - basically it paid my phone bill and nothing more. If I work my ass off and create 100 sites with this much traffic then I might be making some decent cash. Thing is I have 100 sites but getting enough traffic to them all is the hard part - too much work and I have mentioned before that I am extremely lazy.

What's the solution?

A few months back I was posting articles to a blog of mine that had to do with a very popular search term on technorati - each post I made generated several thousand hits for about 30 minutes until my post was usurped by newer posts on technorati. By the way I call this the Blogarazzi method to making money online and I will be posting more on it soon. The point I want to make is that one day Google placed an ad on my site that converted like crazy - 3 of 4 people coming to my site clicked the damn thing - an unbelievable %75 click thru rate! What's more - the ad kept coming back day after day for about three weeks and averaged a click thru rate just over %50 for the whole run. This meant a couple of things - I made almost $3000 in adsense during this period and the advertiser spent a ton of money but they kept on spending so they obviously were making a profit.

This got me to thinking...

How come Google doesn't give me ads like this one all the time?

I knew what the ad was for and why it converted so well and I knew what the landing page was selling and why they were making money.

What if I could have put my own ad on my site instead of Google's and had people going to my own landing page selling the same thing?

Wait a sec... why couldn't I?

I could! And I did!

Even after the topic had died down to only a few hundred hits per blog post I put my own ad up sending people to my affiliate page where I sold the same product as the original advertiser. The difference was that they were now giving me %50 of the sales instead of paying me the adsense fee. Guess what...

My click thru rate on my ad was just slightly lower than the original ad (%47) and these clicks made me $2300 in sales in just over a week. Had I stuck with Google I would have earned about $180 for the same clicks and none of the sales. The topic's popularity on technorati then dried up to almost nothing by this point and I quit the campaign.

Long story short. Since this experiment I have been using Google to find out which ads have a decent click thru rate and then I dump adsense and put up my own ad that looks exactly the same (except there is no "Ads by Google" blurb on them). My ads then send people to my affiliate page and I make the commissions for finding the traffic that others were previously cashing in on without giving me a dime (ok - they paid me pennies for adsense).

I know what you are thinking - most of you don't know how to create your own ads and aren't in the mood to learn html,javascript etc. I admit I had to pay a programmer to do this for me and if it hadn't worked I would have spent a good sum of money for nothing. Fortunately it did work and I found out something after the fact that would have saved me some money - there already is a program available which lets any moron like me write their own ads - exactly like Google's! And it's cheap cheap cheap!

A couple of clever Aussies figured out this same system and took it a step farther by developing a software program that will create your own ads and they look just like Google's. (You want them to look like Google's because people are already trained to click on them.) The designers are Ian Richardson and Carl Bradbrook and the product is called HavAds

Before running off to get this product I have added a short blurb from the developers below for you to read. To make the most from this product do what I do. I copy the ads that perform well. How do you find these - simple. Let me show you.

Take a popular search term in Google. Let's try "Make Money Online". Check out the Sponsored Links on the right hand side and see if you recognize ads that you have seen before - to do this properly you should keep checking for a few weeks as the ads that make money will still be there and the duds will fall by the wayside. I picked this term as you are all familiar with this Niche and I know you will all recognize one ad in particular;


Sponsored Links


I was scammed 37 times
These websites are absolute scams I
will show you the ones that work
Dannys-Scam-Review.com

Have you seen this one before? I bet you have because it is run day in - day out and costs the advertiser a small fortune. It must also bring in a small fortune or you wouldn't see it so often.

If you click on this ad you will be taken to a sales page that basically sells two affiliate products. Both products are available at clickbank and I'm sure you have heard of them - WWW.ULTIMATEWEALTHPACKAGE.COM and WWW.INSTANTMONEYVAULT.COM

What have we learned here? If you are selling to the "Make Money Online" crowd then you now know that this ad converts and the two affiliate products convert. I bet you have even seen the ad on your pages and been paid 6 cents everytime someone has clicked on it.

So... what would happen if you put the same ad on your page but sent the people to your own affiliate page selling the same products?

I suspect I have made my point.

Get smart folks and do what the winners are doing. No real trick here - just copy them!

OK here is the blurb from HavAds...

Pro Blaze

In our never ending search for traffic I want to mention a new service available called Pro Blaze. The following is the sales pitch but I should mention that the first 1000 memberships are upgraded to Gold status for free and there is still room as of this posting.

Here is the sales pitch;

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Let ProBlaze...
Set Your Ads On Fire!
Simply The Most Advanced, Easy-To-Use & Effective Safelist System Available!

We Give You Two Different Mailing Systems + Unique"ARS" Internal Advertising;

*
Mailer #1- The Simple Mailer:
Using the simple mailer you can send your ads to the entire list one time per 2 days for free members. This feature is great because it lets you mail even when you don't have any credits left.
*
Mailer #2 - The Credit Based Mailer:
With the credit based mailer you can email your ads to the safelist up to 6 times a day as long as you have credits left. One credit = one person you can mail to. You will get 5000 credits just for joining. Earn credits for reading mail and for referring others 5 levels deep. You can choose the amount of credits you use. This is a really good feature because it allows you to save your credits and use them whenever you want to.

New Features Exclusive to ProBlaze!
Our special credit links GUARANTEE that people will visit your site! Our members receive credits for reading other member's ads. But in order to receive any credits they need to visit your website and stay there for 15 seconds. Our special script will check this automatically, so you get GUARANTEED TRAFFIC!

Earn Money PLUS Credits For Referring Members!
Every member of our safelist can earn money and points for referring other members.

Free Banner & Text Ad Rotations
Put your banner (or your text or html ad) throughout this website! Every member of our Safelist may put his/her banner or text ads here. There is no limit on how long your banner will be rotated. It will be displayed as long as you have credits. Why not to put your banner or your sponsor's banner with your own affiliate link to our website right now?

Our Safelist Bounce Mail Solution
Only clean mailing list! Your mailing is GUARANTEED to reach members - We employ a one-of-a-kind proprietary method that ELIMINATES bounces, ensuring the list is 100% deliverable and clean.

We are always adding new features to make this safelist better!

Link removed as the site has had a continuous problem with bandwidth.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That's the gist of it folks - I can't say how well this will work but as it's free of charge I thought I would pass it along to my readers.

Make Money Selling "Get Google Ads Free"

As I mentioned before there is a lot of controversy over this new product, much of it being played out at the Warrior Forum. I won't rehash all the details as you can check out the forum for yourself. It is interesting to note that the nay sayers who initially trashed this product are now finding themselves up against a small but vocal group of supporters of "Get Google Ads Free". The irony is that all the publicity over this product has turned it into a mega seller - and this is what I want to talk about.

Beginners should pay attention - new product releases sell well! Really well! If you are trying to make a buck with affiliate marketing then you should spend the majority of your time selling new releases until the cycle is over. Because of all the hype surrounding new products you won't have to do much selling of your own - people already know about it - you just need to lead them in the right direction.

The people behind "Get Google Ads Free" have turned all the publicity over their product into a unique sales pitch that invites readers to check out the Warrior forum and make an informed opinion. Reffering people to the nay sayers is definately a unique marketing ploy but it appears to work. You can read a recent email from the product owners below. They mention how their sales have skyrocketed since the Warrior Forum got involved and while I can't verify their claims I can say that my sales of this product has grown steadily over the past few weeks - best day was just shy of $1100.

My point is this - strike when the iron is hot if you want to make money with affiliate sales. How? I admit that I get a good amount of free traffic to this site which helps but most of that traffic is comprised of knowledgable internet marketers - the hardest people to sell too. You are probably one of them. I began a PPC campaign when this product became available and have done quite well with it. I spent $200 plus a day for several days on adwords until my price per click came down to a level I can make a good profit. (It's about $50 per day now) Each sale brings in $52 and the first sale each day covers my costs - the rest is gravy. I admit that I lost money the first week but have made this back several times over since then.

Keep in mind the reason most people don't succeed with PPC ads is that they don't have a product that converts well and/or they don't stick to the strategy of paying for expensive clicks long enough for Google to reward them with lower PPC costs. If you have a product that sells - you have to take the initial loses in stride - most bail out after a day or two - and wait for the products momentum to take over. This only happens with new products. I should mention again that "Get Google Ads Free" explains this PPC strategy in detail and I find it interesting that I was able to use it successfully in selling "Get Google Ads Free". Any program that makes me back the purchase price is alright in my books. This program has made me a very nice income this month. If you are interested in selling it then you had better hurry while it still has momentum. Good Luck.

For your info here is the latest email from "Get Google Ads Free";




IMPORTANT NOTE:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Please read below as we think you'll get a kick out of this!

Plus:
-------
Find out how one Warrior Forum Member (in an effort to put us down)
may have actually helped us make over $44,000+ in sales in a SINGLE
DAY!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


Grizzly,

The other day we sent you this:

=> http://www.affiliatekb.com/articles/cohen-interview.html


It reveals the TRUTH about the gentleman (a retired medical doctor)
who created the system for getting Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other
search engine paid-for ads, but for free.

A lot of people were amazed at this man's life (revealed in the
article above).

But not surprisingly a lot of people were also very *embarrassed.*


Why?...

Without a doubt our ebook "Get Google Ads Free" has caused quite a
stir online -- some have even labeled it a "controversy."

Regardless, there have been mostly people divided into two (2)
camps of thought:

>> Some people are calling it a scam
>> But more people are calling it the BEST thing ever released
online!


But how can it be "both?"

It can't - just like something can't be both 'ON' and 'OFF' at the
same time.

There are a lot of *TOP* Internet & Affiliate Marketers going into
Forums right now fighting it out with other posters (what many have
now labeled "armchair marketers" - ha!) putting them into their
place with precision comebacks, and for calling our system a scam!


You can see this for yourself at these pages:

http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=145060&whichpage=4
http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=145060&whichpage=5


You are most likely an intelligent person, Grizzly, and can
see through the people's arguments who just outright say they think
our system is a scam because they don't like the site at:

GetGoogleAdsFree.com


Most of these people have never made any money online, and focus on
such arguments as:

"I don't think the man really owns that fancy car ... so I know
this is a scam!"

"Yeah, I didn't order the ebook either ... but I can just tell
that this is rubbish!"


But by contrast the numerous POSITIVE comments are pouring in from
people who are actually very well-versed Internet & Affiliate
Marketers.

They fully recognize that in Get Google Ads Free are some really
new, very refreshing, original ideas, techniques, and "twists" on
traditional strategies that now applied online have resulted in
anyone being able to get their Google ads free (as well as at
practically every other search engine that has otherwise paid-for
advertising!)


TRY NOT TO LAUGH!...
======================

But we will acknowledge one Warrior Forum member above all others:

The member who goes by the name of "dustybin."


"Dustybin" is amazing!!

Although he (or she as it may turn out) is opposed to our system
because he/she has a problem with our site's salescopy, we applaud
this person's efforts at trying to keep people from buying our now
very much "PROVEN" system at getting your ad costs completely
eliminated.

=> Obviously this person wants to help you by keeping our secret
from you (as do some others at the Warrior Forum - and which
we still fully endorse as a wonderful place for the exchange
of ideas and meaningful discussion).


We at Web Business Secrets LLC (the company that owns and operates
GetGoogleAdsFree.com in New York) have a 'betting pool' here at the
office about who "Dustybin" really is.

=> 32% of our office believes simply that "dustybin" is just
someone with nothing better to do than stay at home, collect a
welfare check, and spend it on cheetos while yelling &
screaming in the Warrior Forum at everybody else.

Note: Russ Guthrie, a WF member, suggested that "Dustybin"
does nothing in that forum without a "thesaurus in hand" (ha!)
See it for yourself at near bottom at:

http://www.warriorforum.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=145060&whichpage=4

=> 46% of our office believes that "Dustybin" may have been
severely picked-on by other children as a child, and uses the
Warrior Forum as a means of expressing him/herself. (And which
is understandable if correct; and we wish to apologize on
behalf of those other mean kids, Dustybin; as now as adults
they would surely tell you that they were sorry).

=> 18% of our office actually believe that "Dustybin" has in a
roundabout way helped us make more money than we would have if
he/she hadn't complained and made such a BIG FUSS about "Get
Google Ads FREE!" and our website.

Interestingly there may be some proof of this as we noticed
that when "Dustybin" yelled and whined the loudest our daily
sales reached a record high of:

$44,200+ in 1 day!!

If so, perhaps we should send "Dustybin" at least some form of
commission. ("Dustybin" if you are reading this and can prove
you are in fact the same "Dustybin" at the Warrior Forum having
made now well over 500+ posts, please email us your name and
mailing address so we can send you your paycheck!)

=> The remaining 4% of our office believe we should actually hire
"Dustybin" (with his/her "thesaurus in hand" -- thanks, Russ)
to work for us as our Editor because we have never witnessed
anyone on the entire planet who is as precise and careful a
'stickler' for semantics and the gift of language as "Dustybin"
surely is.

The ONLY problem we foresee in doing so would be that no one
perhaps would understand our salescopy as "Dustybin" has a
most exhaustive vocabulary not even the likes of Winston
Churchill or Eleanor Roosevelt could have understood.


Anyhow, we only wish to tell you all this so that you,
Grizzly, can decide for yourself.

With perhaps 40% or more of the negative comments made by
"the-lesser-informed-&-incorrectly-opinionated" in the Warrior
Forum, our own Dr Jon Cohen (the creator of "Get Google Ads FREE!")
refuses to remove it as a recommended resource for your use as an
affiliate located at the Affiliate Page for our product at:

www.GetGoogleAdsFree.com/affiliates.html

...and as he sincerely believes that intelligent people should be
allowed to hear all sides of an issue before ruling one way or
another. (And also because people like "Dustybin" may actually be
helping us make more sales than not! - Ha!)


Our Gravity Score is still around 700 or so, our daily sales are
still in the $13,000-$15,000 a day range.

And not only that, but literally 100s of people having claimed
their own copy of "Get Google Ads FREE!" for themselves over the
past 6 weeks are now sending us their results!


-------->
Look at some of them just below:
-------->

"Hi Dr Jon ... I'm now getting over $120 a day in Google ads free!"
-Roger W. Ann Arbor, Michigan

"I now get over $5,000 a month in ads free at Google thanks to your
system!"
-Stacy McDonald, Warren, Rhode Island

"Thank you so much as now my pay per clicks are free!"
Bradford Lambford, Leesburg, Virginia

"I hate it that you've shared your system with the entire world as
I wanted to be the only one (other than maybe you) who could do
this ... now everyone may find out!"
-Dustybin, from The Warrior Forum
[Ha! Just kidding; he/she didn't really say that! We just couldn't
resist though! Ha! Ha! Ha!]


Seriously, this system is ROCK-SOLID -- so we invite you to use it
fully.

And please let us know (as well as everyone else in the Warrior
Forum!) how well your results turned out after having applied it!

Most sincerely,

The Staff
(Including the 4% who still want to hire "Dustybin" as our Editor)
Web Business Secrets LLC


PS -- "Dustybin" you have now gotten well over 15 min of fame here!

Make Money with 7 Dollar Secrets

I was unable to resist the urge to buy Jonathan Leger's ebook "$7 Dollar Secrets". I spend more money on coffee on any given day so I thought what the heck. I can't say I expected much for seven bucks and on one hand I wasn't disappointed. On the other hand he provides a clever and invaluable download that is worth far more than 7 dollars. It's 30 pages of mostly fluff about stuff I already new. Must have taken all of 15 minutes to read.

Would I recommend it? Depends. If you have experience in the "make money online" field then you won't get much from this program that you haven't already tried or at least know about (there are a couple of exceptions). If you are a beginner then this is probably an ideal starters project.

In essence the book explains the strategy behind writing and affiliating ebooks. Nothing new here. What was worth the 7 bucks was the down-loadable scripts and PDF info that was included. Having written ebooks myself I know how much work is involved in writing it, setting it all up and then coordinating your landing page, Paypal, download page etc. To my surprise Jonathan provides a much simpler and faster system for doing all this. Idiot proof actually. If you have never produced an ebook but want to then I strongly encourage you to spend the 7 bucks. If you are a beginner then this is the best program I have seen for teaching you how to do it.

The Scripts

He gives you a complete set of pages that set up and install on your site that looks after the entire process involved in selling ebooks online. This is worth far more than 7 dollars my friend. The bonus is that it is already configured for affiliates to use in selling your products. You write an ebook (he provides some links that help you find what topics or niches are popular) and then use the scripts provided to immediately start selling it online. It's fast, easy and even a complete beginner could have an ebook online before the day is out. (assuming they have written one or have resale rights to an existing one)

What you get for 7 Bucks

- 30 pages of text, covering ebook publishing and sales techniques

- provides the software that allows you to write a PDF ebook for free - beginners take note as this is worth a few bucks.

- a complete set of scripts that allow you to sell your ebook online instantly - this is the best value of the package.

- a turnkey setup that allows affiliates to start selling your ebook without the hassle of clickbank.

- provides numerous links for related products (ie. where to get book covers etc.)

- a concise step by step strategy for producing and marketing ebooks.

Note: The scripts can be used for selling other peoples ebooks as well as your own. If you are an affiliate with tons of resale rights ebooks that you have collected but have never done anything with then this program is ideal. I must have a hundred such ebooks that are collecting dust on my hard drive - now I have a fast and simple way to start selling them.

In summation it's hard not to recommend something that only costs 7 dollars. As I said if you are an experienced ebook publisher then this is probably not for you. I would say that the script package will simplify your efforts tremendously though and you might do well to pick them up if nothing else in this is new to you.

For beginners I would encourage you to get this as you will not find a better resource online for producing ebooks.

Link for " rel=nofollow target=_blank>7 Dollar Secrets

Good Luck