As I’m sure you have gathered from the title I have become a Comment Luv convert as well as a do-follow blog! What this means for you is that you can get free links on this website by making engaging comments on this blog. The old me would never get involved in something “silly” like do-follow links for my comment section. But I have come to the revelation that with the proper Anti-Spam weaponry and diligent upkeep of the comments  I’ve got absolutely nothing to loose. In fact, it actually give great value to both you and me! Continue Reading

This is a list of tutorials that should help you if you get stuck. I’m in the process of updating it so bear with me. If you have any tutorial requests or suggestions make them in the comments.

SEO

http://www.seowizz.net/2009/03/seo-tutorials.html

http://www.seomoz.org/blog/the-beginners-checklist-for-small-business-seo

WordPress

http://codex.wordpress.org/Installing_WordPress#Famous_5-Minute_Install

http://yoast.com/articles/wordpress-seo/

Website hosting

Make my own tutorial.

Writing

Anylitics

Adsense

You Tube

adknowlege

Lead impact

Peer fly

Tracking202

Lets take a quick trip back to the year 2000 and take a look at an internet fashion retail company called Boo.com.  Things were just starting to look good after months of problems and delays. Sales were rolling in peaking at around $500,000. And then almost overnight the company was closed down and sold off bit by bit. What caused this company with over $135 million dollars in venture capital to fail?

Their business model. It was inherently flawed and absolutely backwards. They were relying on investors to fund them until the company’s sales caught up to its expenses. Not to mention their site, Boo.com, totally sucked! It was designed to be a fancy shopping assistant but it took over 5 minutes to load!!! In addition, that had a vast network of distribution points and clothing suppliers.

In essence, it was just too much for the management to handle. Don’t want meet your demise like Boo.com did? That’s why I’m writing this article; so that you can skip the crash and burn stages of your business. Here are some business models that are working brilliantly right now. I also happen to like these kinds of business models because they are easily accessible and bring in the green.

Blogging

Blogging is not really an end all business model in itself, but rather it’s a golden ticket to good business and is a staple in todays best practices no matter what niche you’re in. Most if not all of the fastest growing companies are leveraging their blogs in a way that delivers value, imparts trust, and gains loyal customers.

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing has got to be the simplest and single most effective business model ever invented. Paired with blogging, it’s like pairing a hot dog with a bun. I would say that almost every large business with an online presence is running an affiliate program.

Cost Per Action

What’s even easier that affiliate marketing? CPA marketing! Getting someone to take an action that doesn’t involve making a purchase is like slicing butter with a warm knife. Billions are spent every year on CPA offers, why not get your piece of the pie.

Outsourcing

I’m a firm believer in specialization. read about it HEAR. If you outsource everything you’re not good at your productivity (and profits) goes through the roof! One person alone doesn’t run google…no business is an island!

Branding

What’s better than getting people to buy stuff from you? Not getting them to by from you….Letting them want to buy from you no matter what you say! Building a powerful brand is the only way to build a long term sustainable business that you can rely on for years to come. I know you bought something because of the brand at least once in your life. Think McDonnell’s vs. Wendy’s.

If your business model doesn’t include the components listed above you might not fail…but you certainly are making life hard on yourself. These are the business models that I like and when they are all mashed up you’ll build one helluv’a business.

Niches! Niches! Niches!

I hear this word everywhere…everyone says you need to find a niche, research niches, dominate niches, make new niches, etc. But what does this really mean?

There are 3 definitions of niche that are applicable to our business.

The one that is most talked about is niche: “a distinct segment of a market.” What this means is that there are different parts within different markets that are different from each other. For example in the health market two different segments are bodybuilding and home remedies. These are niches. But it can get more niche than that. Two niches in bodybuilding are “getting a six pack” and “building broader shoulders.” We can even segment a market down to the geographic region and even down to the keyword.

Why shouldn’t you go for the whole market itself?!? It would be awesome to do that wouldn’t it? The fact of the matter is: its not practical to do that. You would have to beat your competition in so many freakin’ areas that your resources would be stretched thin(like the US military). Somebody spending all of their time and resources in one niche would win(like Al Qaeda). End of story. That’s not to say it can’t be done, but you don’t see Google trying to take over Gucci’s business.

The most basic rules of choosing a viable niche to build a business around are:

Evergreen Niche:

This means that the niche isn’t a fad or would quickly fade out of existence. Niches in the financial and health markets are usually pretty evergreen. Some fat person will always want to loose weight.

Low Competition Niche:

The lower the competition the easier it will for you to take over the competition.

Commercial Value niche:

If nobody plans on buying anything how do you expect to make any money? A good example of this is the movie trailer niche. Lots of people want to watch movie trailers, but nobody will pay to do it.

Niche with Demand:

If nobody is interested in what you have to offer than you should go back to your 9-5 job. Seriously the average paying internet consumer does not care about the Popsicle stick house that your little son or daughter just made.

These are just some general rules. You know as well as I do, rules are meant to be broken, so if there is an area that you think you can succeed in, don’t hold back just because some pundit (like me) tells you that you can’t go after a highly competitive niche. You’ll just have to be highly competitive.

Niche definition #2

This brings me to the next definition of niche and the less used version of it: “a place or position that is suitable or appropriate for a person or thing: to find one’s niche in the business world.” This applies directly to you. If you can’t find a place or that is suitable for you or if you can find a position that is appropriate for you no matter what market segment you are in you will fail miserably.

While the previous definition of niche talks about external attributes about your customers and audience, this definition is personal and speaks to your internal attributes. What are your strengths? Weaknesses? Skills? Passions? These are questions that must be answered while choosing a niche. If you hate babies, I don’t think starting a baby picture business is a good niche (in terms of both definitions) for you. Personally I’ve struggled with this end of choosing a niche because my passions are either not commercially viable, or they are very vague and unassuming.

I’ve found that starting with figuring out what you want to devote the next 10 years of your life to is a good place to start. Try to narrow down what it is you want to do and focus on that. Pinpointing this will be your ticket to success. Whatever you decide, it doesn’t have to be a perfect match or even a good one. Nothing is etched in stone (except some ancient artifacts and cave man paintings).

Niche definition #3

The last definition of niche  is used as an adjective. “Pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specific appeal: niche advertising.”

This is similar to the first definition, but the idea we can get from this is that if we try to appeal to everybody we won’t be focusing on a niche. What ever business you have must have specific appeal, You can read more about creating specific appeal HERE*. For example a commercial cleaning company that appeals to anyone who needs cleaning can really be called niche. But a company that appeals to large department stores that need daily cleaning is way niche. They are very specific.

If you need help with this you must dream up who your perfect customer or audience is. Find more HERE*.  Once you get you dream customer in mind than you’ll be able to find your niche both in your market and for yourself.

Here is a picture of the secret 4th definition of niche:

*Sometimes when I am writing an article I get an idea that needs more detail so I put the placeholder “HERE*” where I’ll put a link to an article that I have yet to write about the subject.

What is the most sexy, most desirable and most profitable model on the internet? Well…that all depends on your taste. Some guys will jump on any model and ride it into the ground, some are more picky as if they can pick up any model easily. We can’t try them all so we might as well put our skills to good use.

No matter how long you’ve been in internet marketing, you will never be able to master every way there is to make money online. There are tons! And to top it off, there are new ways of generating income online created every day.

“How can I choose which business model is best for me?” You may ask. Well before you jump in head first into a new method you better do research. No good comes from quick and uneducated decisions. You must examine your motivations, goals and abilities before you choose your business model. Continue Reading

Setting a Budget for your online business can be tough, but as the Wu Tang Clan said: C.R.E.A.M! (cash rules everything around me). I started making money with 0$ dollars. I didn’t even buy an e-book! Granted, I was spending 9-10 hours a day learning what I was doing, and then, through trial and error I managed to figure out something that works.

“But I don’t have that kind of time!” you say. In that case, Continue Reading

Google+ (or G+ or just plain old +) is growing at an unprecedented rate. Now with over 20 million users it simply cannot be ignored…

To be honest, I hate social media. It just rubs me the wrong way. Although that’s probably because I have no friends…(sad face)…despite this fact, G+ is going to be different for me and you alike.

What sets G+ apart is how integrated it already is into how Google itself works. As you well know, it’s already too easy to switch between all of your Google properties with your Google account. You don’t even need to sign in 90% of the time! G+ will be just as natural.

Soon it will become second nature to +1 stuff and share with your “circles”. Oh no, I’m not just talking about the techie crowd like you and me, but I’m talking about everyone. Yes everyone.

How can I say this? Google+ takes every thing that a person does online i.e. search share chat hang out and consolidates everything in one place. It’s like Skype, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn combined into a low calorie snack. No one feels guilty about eating a 50 calorie treat!

The real game changer is how all of these sharing habits will influence searches on Google. Every time someone searches they will be reminded of G+ and their buddies! That’s practically every time some one goes on the internet! Not only that, its a fact that people prefer a recommendation from a known entity over some guy off the street. So, the CTR for shared items in the search results will be through the roof!

What does this mean for twitter and Facebook? Twitter will still have a following I’m sure, but over time people will be won over by G+ because It’s hard to keep up on tweets. Tweets aren’t going to automatically show up in searches! Facebook will still have a following too, but it will loose out to G+ because of privacy concerns less intrusive ads and a more integrated sharing system.

G+ will change more how social marketers work. Instead of begging people to like your page, Marketers will understand that each share on G+ will have  a wider reach. I.e. circles & extended circles. In addition, these shares will get more targeted because of the nature of circles, for example how the user will categorize them. This may be where Google plans on focusing advertising or maybe they’ll just integrate it into Adwords as demographics.

Marketers will see the competitive advantage of G+ and plan accordingly by developing more valuable content and more viral content. It’s going to be a whole new playing field of influence and experts.

It is really bananas! You must start understanding G+ now before the space gets too crowded.

Even though I hate Social media I’m going to invest my time harnessing the power of Google+. I suggest you do the same (unless you’re my competition).

You can start by adding me to your G+ or asking me for an invite.

Strategic marketing plan part 2 (where to start)

This is part 2 on a series of articles about strategic marketing strategy. Part one can be found here: Strategic Internet Marketing Strategy Part 1 (introduction). This part is going to go over some basic stuff so you super affiliates out there probably won’t need to read this. If you’re not making over 5K$ every day, then this article might teach you a thing or two. Continue Reading

Strategic marketing strategy part 1 (introduction)

Hey everyone, I’m going to be writing a series on a strategic marketing strategy over the next days/ weeks.

Well, if you’re like the average Joe who is just getting started with internet marketing I bet you’ve heard that you can make a huge amount of money online with only a few hours of work every day. While this is very true, in that, it is possible to make upwards of 1000-4000 every week on autopilot, what you don’t know is that it’ll take you a lot of work to get to that point, unless you’ve got thousands of dollars to throw around. Continue Reading

Why are you the Internet marketing rebel with a cause ?

I’ll start with my cause first; to make an honest and profitable living inline from my home. I should also add and helping others like yourself to attain the same”.

Internet marketing is how I make my living. It is my passion. I actually enjoy most of the “work” involved and it makes sense to me that I can make money even while I sleep. Additionally there are things in my life that I want the freedom to do that a conventional job would not allow. Continue Reading