A drink, a few meetings, a catch up, and a scam.

I was in a real hurry, but I really wanted to catch up with some people at Lee’s workshop in Manchester, so I booked the hotel for 1 night.

The Palace hotel was a fascinating place, with great Victorian ceramic tiled walls, and 5ft wide doors, that must have been 9ft tall, at least. I took my wife with me, on this trip, and a couple of business partners, she loved the hotel.

After arriving late, around 7.30pm, I quickly registered the rooms, and made my way up to change into some evening clothes, nice room, it even had its own staircase in it, but the 20ft high curtains were a challenge to use!

OK, it’s around 8pm, I’m ready to network, but the bar is empty, well no familiar faces anyway, thats where forward planning kicks in. I realised that the Palace hotel was smack in the middle the Manchester nightlife scene, and those marketers would not miss an opportunity like this.

What copuld I do? I phoned a freind. Matt Garret answered his phone, in a very noisy bar, stating that he didn’t know who I was, and he told me the name of the bar, off we went to find the alpha pack.

We had caught up with the gang, just as they were ordering food, what great timing. Matt apologised for not hearing me, and he had completely forgotten, that I said I would be meeting him, anyhow, we soon got settled in, and greeted old friends, and new.

Alex Jefferys was in great spirit, as usual, and I was pleased to see him, although he might have got fed up with me saying, “have you brought us in here” when we all changed bars to a loud music venue, I didn’t let on, but I loved the place, lol.

Another friend that’s had a difficult year was Tahir Shah, it was good to have Tahir back to his marketing self. Chris Breville was there for a meet up, he did his business, then went on his way, with a few hours of driving ahead of him, Chris did well to stay around until around 11pm.

Someone that I had never met before, was John Thornhill, and he’s a nice guy.  Now I’d seen the face before, but never put 2 and 2 together.

I met Lee McIntyre, who I had not met before, wished him well, but apologised for not being able to attend the workshop, sometimes it just works out that way.

I was impressed by Lee’s enthusiasm, and transparency, he gave me a report to absob, and you can download it here.

Randy Smith was in full flow, with his girl, Rachel, and I was glad to hear that Randy is on the up, with his wizard autoresponder becoming a major success story, well done Randy.

The beer flowed, and we made our way to the noisy place next door, the Varsity, where I was legally scammed!

You see, owners have devised a method of making some entrants pay twice, very cunning, but also very underhand, so I’m voting with my feet, and never going back there again.

This may catch on, so be warned.

We arrived, from next door, and paid a small entrance fee, around £5, I’ve no problem with that, so I paid my guests, and myself in, then went to the bar, and ordered some drinks. After around an hour, my addiction started to kick in.

I am amongst the small group of people that still smoke, and, due to the smoking ban in public places, I have to nip outside for a smoke, here’s the kicker.

As I wandered towards the exit door, one of the 4 or 5 doormen asked where I was going, my reply, cigarette in mouth, was “outside for a smoke.” “You need to go over there and see that guy” they replied, so over I wander, and find a man, sat at a tall table, near the door with a cash register, and a fist full of armbands.

“50 pence pal” he remarked, as he held out an armband, when I asked what for, he replied that you must pay a premium to be allowed out for a smoke, WHAT!!!

I found that very amusing, then went back to my table, to tell my party the scam, but sooner, or later, my addiction got the better of me, and I paid the money, got the armband, and went out for my smoke.

The final indignity was, that the grumpy doormen, (they always are, unless you are a 21 year old model in a mini skirt) moved us across the road, stating that we were not allowed to stand outside the bar, they own the pavement now do they? To compound things, when I woke the morning after, there was the wristband, still intact, and guess what it had on it?

An ad for manchestervarsity.com

A Blogger blog is website that you can get for free from Blogger.com. They are owned and operated by Google, so if you have a Gmail account or a Google Account, you can use your existing user info to set up your Blogger account.

If you do not have an account with Google already, you can create one forfree, at http://www.Blogger.com or Gmail.com.

Once you log in to blogger.com, you can create a blog right away! You get your own domain name that will look something like this:

www.YourName.Blogspot.com

Of course, you would replace “YourDomainName” with whatever you want your keywords to be. Most of the time, people choose keywords that are popular search terms on, so that the blog ranks higher on the search engines.

If you are in the weight loss niche, you might want to choose a name like “LoseWeightFast.Blogspot.com” for example, because the term “Lose Weight Fast” is a very popular search term and brings up over a million results.

The fastest and easiest way to make money with a blog, is with this formula: RB + AL + AM + T = $$$.

You might be saying, what the heck is that?

Don’t panic, I hate math too…just watch how easy this is:

RB = “Review Blog” – This is a blog that you will create with Blogger.com and you will use it to post product reviews, about products that you are promoting as an affiliate.

AL = “Affiliate Links” -At the end of each product review, you would include your affiliate link to the product you reviewed. Your “affiliate link” is the URL that you send people to, so that you can earn a commission on the product if they purchase it.

AM = “Article Marketing” – By writing articles (or outsourcing them) you can drive quality, targeted traffic to your blog.

T = “Traffic” – This is the traffic you will receive from both the articles, as well as people who are sur?ng Blogger.com for blogs in your category. The more popular of a niche market you choose, the more traffic you will likely receive.

$$$ = MONEY! – This of course represents the money you will earn when you make an affiliate sale!

Think about it…this WHOLE ENTIRE process won’t cost you a dime. The blog is free, with blogger.com. Becoming an affiliate of Clickbank.com, Amazon.com, Ebay.com and CJ.com are ALL 100% FREE.

Writing and submitting keyword optimized articles toEzineArticles.com or GoArticles.com is also 100% FREE and that is all it takes to make money with a blog.

Many big name marketers use this method to make tons of money…and the more articles they have out there, the more money they make. If you choose to outsource articles, this would be an expense and it could cost you anywhere from $2 – $12per article for quality articles from a freelance writer.

OK, that was just the gist of it. Let me give you more elaborate details and instructions so that you can start doing this right away.

Step 1 would be to sign up as an affiliate with Clickbank.com. <—At this link, you can sign up as an affiliate for FREE, right away. Then, you can browse the marketplace for niches and products that you want to promote! All you have to do is click the small link at the top of the page that says “Marketplace.”

The products over at Clickbank.com are “digital” products. A digital product is either an eBook or a software application. The reason why they are called digital products is because they can be downloaded immediately after purchase and there is no need for shipping or sending a physical product. An ‘eBook’ as most of you know (but remember this report is for complete newbies), is a book that can be read right from your computer screen and can be downloaded immediately after purchase. You can also print it out to read it if you prefer, or use one of those new electronic eBook reading devices.

The great thing about the products on the Clickbank.com marketplace, is that they offer stunningly high commissions to their affiliates (you). Most of them offer a 75% commission! If you were promoting an eBook that is $47,in the Weight Loss niche or the Make Money Online niche, you would earn $32.50 for every copy you sell. The best part is, you don’t even have to sell them the eBook…the sales page that the product creator made will do that for you. All you have to do is refer people to your ‘affiliate link.’

An ‘affiliate link’ is the link that is provided to you, so that you can promote a particular product (of your choice). This link will take the customer to the same EXACT page that the product creator uses to sell the product, but it will have YOUR affiliate ID in the URL. Your affiliate ID will be the username that you select for your Clickbank account. Here is an example of an affiliate link:

http://d1e28r5duovc-0xlu9u50bpj8r.hop.clickbank.net/?tid=SPLR

This link goes to Matt Callens PLR site, and the code is now encrypted with the hotlink shield, so you don’t see the affiliates ID, the end part is a tracking ID that you can add if you want to.

 You won’t need to be guessing any codes though, all you have to do is click on the link that says “Create Hoplink” located underneath the listing of the product that you wish to promote — on the Clickbank Marketplace. After you select the category and subcategory you will be taken to a page full of listings of products to promote. You can view the product price, the commission percentage, and the gravity. The gravity is how many people (affiliates) earned a commission on that product in the past one or two week pay period. You can also view the sales page, which is where your affiliate link will send people.

The magic of your affiliate link is that it takes the customer to the same destination they would go to if they hadn’t been referred by you. The only difference is that since your affiliate code is hidden within the link…you earn the commission and the money shows up right in your Clickbank That’s where the review blog comes in. If you write product reviews of three Books on Clickbank, post them on your blog and then include your affiliate link at the bottom of the review. A certain percentage of people who visit your blog and read the reviews will click on your affiliate link. Out of those people, a certain percentage of people will actually purchase the Book once they visit the link. A common conversion rate is 2%. So, out of every 50 visitors to your affiliate link, you should have 1 purchase. That would net you $32.50. It is very easy to get 50 visitors to your blog and even much more.

Step 2 would be to sign up with Blogger.com. <—At this link, you can sign up for Blogger.com for FREE –and start creating as many blogs as you want, right away. You can be up and running in just minutes. If you don’t have a Google Mail account already (Gmail, Adwords, Adsense) you will have to create one, but that is 100% free. Then, you will proceed to the “Create a Blog” section, by clicking on the “Create a Blog” link.

Here you will create a name for your blog as well as a domain name. The domain name will be the web address that people type into their browser to get to your blog site. Depending on the product(s) that you are promoting.

Step 3 would be to go back to the Clickbank.com Marketplace and choose a product or products to promote. Here you can pick a category and even a sub-category. For instance, a popular niche is “Health and Fitness” and the most popular sub-category of the Health and Fitness market is “Diet.”

Step 4 would be to write a product review about the product you choose to market. Remember, you are marketing a product here…the product is already made.

It is your job to ?nd the people who want/need the information you are offering –and then give it to them. They will buy it if/when the sales pitch sells itself.

But, you do NOT have to give or write the sales pitch…the sales page for the product you’re promoting will have one already — Most likely written by a professional sales copywriter. All you need to do is guide people there, If you can not write a product review to save your own life, you can easily outsource it to someone on the warrior forum. A freelance writer would not charge too much for a product review for a Clickbank product. You can expect to pay anywhere from $3 – $20 for a custom written product review, depending on the writer and the word count of the review.

Step 5 would be to add your affiliate link to the bottom of the product review. It can be a short review, something like 250-500 words or more if you wish. At the end, you can give a strong “Call to action” so that the reader will be compelled to click on your affiliate link. Something like, “To check out (ProductNameHere), visit their website at (Your Affiliate Link) and (Something positive that the product will do for them –such as lose 9pounds in 11 days!).”

So, your call to action at the end of the product review would look like this (if we were promoting a weight loss product) example:

“To check out Fat Burning Furnace, visit their website at: http://561b3qwdsq1bz3-n74k41ghg-9.hop.clickbank.net  learn how you can shed weight and remain in shape healthily!”

Step 6 would be to drive traffic to your review blog. You don’t just want any traffic going to your site, you want ‘targeted’ traffic. Targeted traffic is visitors who are actually interested in the product that you are reviewing. They are in the market for what you are offering basically. That is the beauty of niche marketing…you ?nd the people who need what you are offering and you simply give it to them. It’s easy money, and you are helping people at the same time.

The way to drive targeted traffic to your review blog is to write articles for it and submit them to Ezinearticles.com and GoArticles.com. These article directories are the top, most popular ones and rank very well on the search engines –especially Ezinearticles.com. If you write articles in the niches that you are promoting, and you give away some good information and of course include a link to your review blog in your resource box at the end of each article, you will have targeted traffic to your blog, which will convert into sales, which means you will earn affiliate commissions!

Step 7 includes additional methods of driving quality, targeted traffic to your blog. This includes (but is not limited to) back link building, social networking, pinging your blog, paying for traffic via Pay-Per-Click advertising, traffic exchanges (not so great), offline advertising such as business cards, classi?ed ads, yellow pages, etc. The more targeted leads you drive to your  website…the more sales you will make. It’s simple, but it does take work.

There you have it. This simple, yet effective method of creating a review blog to market affiliate products costs nothing to do and can earn an potentially unlimited income. Depending on how much traffic you drive to your blog and the conversion rates, you can build a $20,000 per month business or more using this exact model.

Good luck and I wish you the best of success with your blogging.

Now go and make some money!

New From XSitePro

Having been a top affiliate for XSitePro for a number of years now, I was curious to see why Paul Smithson of Intellimon was emailing me this week.

It turns out that Paul has been very busy these past few months, creating, and getting ready to launch his latest product, The Complete Guide to Website Building course.

I have taken a look around, and even sat the test, although, even I didn’t score 100%, only because some of my SEO differs slightly form Paul’s, LOL. There are literally hours and hours of video, each with a set of detailed instructions to enable the user to pause, and click their way to website creation success.

This course is designed for people that are just starting out, and finding all the usual stumbling blocks to web design. Sooner or later, the newbies that have stuck around long enough to figure out that they need a website, get started on the long road of confusion and learning curves. This new course could knock months off the frustration.

The Complete Guide to Website Building. 

You simply work through all 26 modules in order, because each module builds on the ones that precede it. The e-learning system will keep track of exactly where you are in the course, so you can take a break whenever you need and return to the place where you left off.

The column on the right lets you know which modules you have completed, which you haven’t viewed yet, and the percentage you have completed for the module you are currently working on.

I have mailed my list with a chance to win one of ten free spots, which has now closed, but will be repeated again, web design course.

My Verdict

The complete website building course will be a great asset for those that need it, and the easy to follow steps definitely hold your hand through all the 26 different modules. Start out by creating your basic site, then add your bells and whistles, optimize your rankings with SEO, and you will have served your apprenticeship.

After completing the course you will have acquired a level of web-building expertise that takes most people several years to acquire. Not only will you know the intricacies of building great looking web sites, but you’ll learn about lots of related topics too, such as list building, research, content, search engine optimization, etc.

ps, if you want to own the XSitePro2 software, and would like more value for your money, then checkout the XSitePro Bonus Website, where there are over 1gb of extras up for grabs.

Lets face it, in these hard times quitting your job might not be your decision!

There are layoffs and redundancies everywhere you look, and I thought you might want to have a relaxed read about your options.

Quit your job in 90 days

Quit your job in 90 days is now placed on the first page of my home business site, http://homebizassistant.com/

Although the book details a 90 day preparation to launching an Internet career, someone unfortunate enough to have 90 days on their hands, might find it just the ticket. The ebook, which is a free download is from the Author, Tony Sheperd, who launched his online publishing business a few years ago with the one month magnate.

In between writing, Tony is helping 500 people through an intensive online course that he also runs. Course entrants gain free access to the book where he shows you the exact method, he used to earn $8000 in 8 weeks.

Back to the credit crunch

I hate that term. What is a credit crunch? It’s certainly not the self inflicted greed driven, near catastrophic meltdown of our globally economy that we all know and love. We are in recession, and the grip is still on. Despite France and Germany reporting growth, I still suspect either figures manipulation, or central bank deal.

Do the people in the streets of these 2 countries feel in a growth environment? I doubt it.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still very successful business around, they just tend to keep it a little quieter in these times. Myself, I have never been busier, and have seen improvements in my business constantly throughout the credit crunch, but I work online, and that’s the difference.

A recent survey recently showed that people tightening their belts to save cash were willing to give up a great many items, butit was highlighted that the computer and Internet access were not an option. Think about it for a minute, my customers, refuse to  give up broadband access because they value it too much. That means they will see more of my ads, buy more of my products, and keep the Internet alive and vibrant throughout the entire length of this dreadful recession.

Who could have predicted it?

It’s a funny old world,

 

Pete

I’ve just been given my login details from the LFM deal that I purchased over the weekend at the marketing event in Bristol.

The deal was for the Launch Formula Marketing script, and a pre made site that is good to go, the site I chose is List Starter Guide.

I also have full use of the membership script for installing on any site I own, and I have a lot.

These are all unique sites, and not your cookie cutter stuff, anyone wishing to see the setup that Bob has put together, head over to LFMpirebuilders, and take a look around.

Pete

Ok, Ok, enough is enough!

This is actually an update on May 12th 2009 to the original “Hello World” post.

I’ve just returned from Bob Puddys LFM seminar in Bristol, the seminar content, but, to be honest, I only went to catch up with old friends, and make some new ones. Here are some pics from the weekend.

The first thing I saw, out in smokers corner was Simon Hodgkinson electrifying Randy Smith with a joke pen, oh yes, this was going to be another cracker.

Several flaming absinthes later, the mood was set and the talking stepped up a gear.

I went in my usual confident and cheerful mood, but this year, my friends all had the same underlying message.

“Why are you still messing around with those affiliate products, and where is yours?”

The thought that my friends were unhappy with my marketing performance was unsettling, so, here I am, updating a 2 year old blog that I’ve not even used yet!

You see, affiliate marketers can operate from the backroom, I needed to get out more!

Bye bye comfort zone… Hello Internet Marketing, head on.

The other thing that I managed to bring home from the event was Bobs LFM script, already packaged up in a custom site, I’ll keep you posted on the way it performs, and will run the script on some of my other membership sites once I get the hang of it.

I have a hundred and one tasks to do, so can’t spend all day blogging, must dash…

 Just a quick link test I’m doing here recurring incomes.

Pete