Keeping it real

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I finally found out how to make money with internet marketing!

Yes it has taken me a few years to get to this point; I have tons of shiny objects, gigabytes of info on my harddisk, dozens of high end special tools to use and a portfolio of dead and dying websites. Quite a collection. Cost me a lot of money and a whole lot of my spare time too.

This internet marketing income dream for me is necessity. Like a lot of baby boomers I find myself with few retirement alternatives other than working until I die. Of course the more I work at this internet business the more certainty I add to that last part.

But if you are listening I will give you some advice here, it is free for you but I paid for it (probably more than you would be willing to spend) so that old hack that free advice is worth every penny really doesn’t cut it in this case.

You will hear a lot of people telling you to FOCUS…. of course you have to ask focus on what? I mean there is sooo much to learn. WordPress, site design, graphics, photoshop, copywriting, sales funnels, SEO, cookies, affiliate offers and the list goes on and on! There is online and offline markets, Amazon, Adsense, CPA offers and that goes on and on too. FOCUS? You don’t know where to begin!

Well that is a problem really because you are going to need to know a little about most of what I told you or hire it done for you.

MOST of you will not want to spend the money to hire someone to do it for you thinking it is too expensive. But I am here to tell you it is cheap. Cheaper than spending the next two years of your life learning it and all the money you will invest in doing that. (It is pretty insidious how those little $7.00 WSO eat up your bank account.)

But I will give you a small hint, Fiverr.com is a savior even for the PROs. You can get just about anything you want done there for $5.00. Spend a bit of time researching that and you will be miles ahead of the competition.

The hardest part to the internet is figuring out in what market you will work. You can be an affiliate, a product maker, a service for local businesses, service for other internet marketers (SEO, article writing, etc) or just a blog maker that gets paid for displaying ads. But this is the part that is the hardest and why so many people have such a hard time. They try to do too many things without really concentrating on that ONE THING.

I heard a GURU say this about his bookshelf. He has hundreds of thousands in courses and spends tens of thousands a year to keep up to day. But he said something more significant – he said knowing what he knows now he could take anyone of them and make money today. What is it that he knows now that he didn’t know THEN?

DO ONE THING UNTIL YOU MAKE MONEY AT IT – THEN REFINE IT UNTIL YOU CAN MAKE MORE MONEY AT IT – THEN HIRE PEOPLE TO MAKE EVEN MORE MONEY AT IT! Do this and you will succeed at internet marketing, don’t and well it is learn the hard way.

Well there it is – the answer to the $64,000 question.

I will leave you with one last thought – while you are building this fortune for the future don’t get so fixated on the future that you miss the present, especially if you have a family. Mark Dulisse is an internet marketer that I really respect for his technical ability, and now much more for his honesty, just posted about this on his blog. Read it and take heed http://www.markdulisse.com/blog/news/family-and-internet-marketing/.

All the best to you – Really

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HACKED!

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No not me (cross fingers) but a few of my friends have been hacked. And the thing about the hackers is that are spammers using the hacks to send traffic to other sites. The ones that typically do this is porn sites, viagra and all the rest of the porn industry and the whole fake anti virus program group. It seems that like most of the genre it is make money at any cost.

It costs too, cost my friends sites being banned from Google. Hours of work to get rid of the infection then lost of income – and some of that is permanently because Google acts as if the innocent site owners are the culprits.

And now Google is getting hacked from China. So how does that feel, do you know what if feels like to be a victim yet Google? Google has not only it’s own resources but also the US Government has stepped in more than once. So how about the poor site owners that loose everything TWICE – once by the hack and once by the OVER REACTION of GOOGLE. It would be nice for once if Google could use a bit of the 15 billion dollars it has in the BANK and some of it expertise and help track down the real culprits that are using hacks to drive traffic to porn sites and fake anti-virus sites. Here is some info on the hack http://wewatchyourwebsite.com/wordpress/2011/05/what-hackers-wont-do-for-seo/

MMM wonder what their advertising budget is??? Oops well perhaps Google could just post some really good instructions on their web master forum to help clean the sites up. Oh yes and actually get a few people other than the janitor to review sites and give them a clean bill of health to help owners get back on line again.

That wouldn’t be too hard would it??

In the meantime – be real careful!

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SLAPPED BY GOOGLE

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Google Slap

I have been working OT in the aftermath of the latest “Google Slap”. If you are new to marketing here on the internet it can be one of the worst things that happen to you. The Google slap occurs when someone at Google get up on their white horse and surveys their domain and decides to get all the “bad guys”.

Now this is where it get interesting. Because what is a bad guy? Well if you go over to the search engine engineers (Matt Cutts) side of the house it is anything less than sparkling white (and they are not too sure about that either) that is anything less than an “authority site” on any subject you care to name. Meaning encyclopedia like content and no commercial intent.

Of course in the real world you have to wonder exactly what these guys are smoking and what they would do in the ‘real world’ if Google wasn’t paying them salaries..

Now over on the other side of the house (the side with 15 BILLION dollars in the bank), which incidentally pays the guys in white, they sell advertising. LOTS of advertising for a lot of money. And where do they sell this advertising? On web pages made mostly by people like you or I. Lets say we want to sell a new lawn mower because a lot of people buy lawn mowers. So we do the research, build a website, review a few different lawn mowers. Spend 40-100 hours getting our website working, then we spend a few months of hard work getting it to show up on the first page of Google. AND just for good measure we also include google’s ads on our web site. So if we are lucky someone looking to buy a lawn mower finds out listing in google and buys a lawn mower or clicks on a google ad (about what? you guessed it lawn mowers and garden supplies). So why did they come to our website – well it was about lawn mowers. Duh!

BUT WAIT there is something wrong with this picture! What could it be?

Well we took the initiative and the risk and developed a web site. We did the hard work of getting noticed (SEO) AND we were the BILLBOARD for Google and a place where people could get reviews and information on products. NOW we are the bad guys??

I always thought is we were the bad guys then no one would be interested in visiting our sites or buying from them.

Guess I should have consulted with a Google engineer about that. Of course I wonder how many people like my friend who lost his sites in Google search engine listing because he was HACKED by someone else. So there you go, don’t like someone – hack his site and then Google will delist him for you!

Whatever happened to “DO NO HARM!” Google?

Probably got covered over with a stack of $100 bills….made from PPC sales on all of those “SPAMY” content blogs.

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Having a bit of fun

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Sometimes you need to have a bit of fun! My nephew and I have a site that is just that. It is about the Superbowl and William Heinecke is a heck of a good sports writer to boot. We have both done a bit of experimentation with the site and as we started it too late to do any serious work it is a good place for Web Marketing Newbies to experiment.  The site is Superbowl History 2011.

One are I have been experimenting with is video. I like working with the dynamics of video and wanted to try and drive more traffic with it. So far traffic wise I have been pretty disappointed with the referral traffic. Interestingly Stumble is doing a much better job of driving traffic.

Here is the first promotion video that I have on youtube and about 12 other video sites right now.

Comments alway open here at Web Marketing Newbie but have to be cleared by admin before publishing.

Until the next time.

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Affiliate Marketing In My Spare Time

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First my apologies for not keeping this blog updated.

It is a time problem that is getting better in some ways and worse in others. I am learning to let earlier unprofitable ideas and sites go and concentrate on those things that actually make money.

Most of my past work has been in affiliate marketing and it is one income stream that I plan to keep in the future. But I have learned a thing or two about affiliate marketing in the process. My biggest grip is that the bigger brands are the stingiest with the affiliate marketing commissions. Not only are they bad about commission rates but they like to keep your money for 30-60-90 days before they give you _YOUR money. I think this is a completely stupid and short sited way to do business. Well if history teaches you anything is it that this type of short sited policy leaves an opening for someone to do it better and clean your plow in the process.

So with that introduction you might ask:

Who has the Absolute Best Affiliate Program?

First lets talk about a quiet revolution in Affiliate Marketing.

Oz (nom de guerre) of the Warrior's Forum is a one man revolution in various aspects of internet marketing. He is an acknowledged SEO expert and a great marketer. Normally they are mutually exclusive but in his case the marketing side is just waking up. 

I am one of his biggest fans and in fact I own every single one of his products. They are universally MEATY, Thought Provoking, Humorous and most of all FACTUAL! When you get a product of his, on any topic that he cares to write on, you will get all the above in every product.

Not only does he make great reading, but he thoroughly tests everything and then distills the lessons for you. Presenting it in such a humorous way that it keeps you wanting more.

So when Oz said he was about to change Internet Affiliate Marketing. You knew it was going to be something different.

In fact you can be sure it would be more than that, it would be revolutionary.

Does Oz have the Absolute Best Affiliate Program?

I say YES!

There are a lot of people who will give you a great commission on a hot product. And that is precisely the problem, you get a great one time commission on a short term product.

Oz's products are long duration products based on real wisdom, insight and truth that will serve the internet marketing community for years to come.

Revolutionary Affiliate Marketing On Steroids?

Who actually thinks up his titles! Well you can't do everything well..

The RAMOS report will revolutionize the way you do affiliate marketing.

Are you just beginning with affiliate marketing then start here – you won't regret it.

Are an experienced affiliate marketer – this is going to change your perception of the business.

Is it worth the $1997 product price point?  Probably but don't tell OZ that!

You will fall out of your chair when you see the price (less than the kids allowance for the week).

The first reaction will be disbelief!

And then you will be looking for the hook….

Finally, you will think at this price I have absolutely nothing to lose.

Yes the price stated is the full price of the product, there is no hook (unless you call getting paid for life a hook) and RAMOS?

shhhhh! (OZ is NUTS for doing this!)

Don't Believe me? See for yourself – the Ramos Report

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The Gremlin who stole TIME

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Who Stole my Time?

 

Well if there is one thing we are short on it is time. Besides working full time and being a full time father I am doing this internet business. I have a lot of irons in the fire at the moment with some new websites and services launching now through the end of the year. It means I have to really buckle down and be disciplined in what I do. So it means little time for reading or tv or anything other than work, work, work! One thing I am very conscious of is the time it takes from my son, so I have to get creative about that. Today I am at a big indoor playground. Great place, my son is playing hard for 3 hours and I am working hard for 3 hours icon smile The Gremlin who stole TIME

With this kind of a schedule I hate glitches. I have had one on this blog for quite a while. Some script (an exit script I used) messed up things pretty bad. So I finally had to just delete everything and start over again. In retrospect I should have done that to begin with!

 

But I have leaned one valuable thing, most people who don't succeed in this business do so because they have no time discipline. It is just to easy to get distracted by all the information, launches, forums and emails you get bombarded with each day. I can tell you this, if you want to succeed as a web marketing newbie then you have to do something that makes you money everyday. Just like a real brick and mortar business. The reason I think that people don't feel the pressure here that they do in a physical business is that the overhead is non existent. If you knew every morning you woke up that you had to produce $1000 in sales just to meet you basic overhead for that day, you would be getting right to it. But many people feel that "well if it doesn't work out I am not out that much". That is what is killing your internet marketing business. Take this as gospel from the web marketing newbie. YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING TO MAKE MONEY EVERYDAY!

Every day you need to be making sites, improving sites, getting new products to launch or promote and improving your traffic to all your sites. 

 

Well enough for today  from the Web Marketing Newbie- I am back to WORK!

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SEO by Plugins

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SEO for the Web Marketing Newbie

When you are first getting  started as an Web Marketing Newbie like I am, the task at the beginning is overwhelming. There are so many things to learn and so much information that has to be sorted out. That in fact is the hardest task of all is sorting through all that information and distilling it down to an action plan.

When I started the Web Marketing Newbie blog I had no idea of what I was doing at the time and it has started to evolve as I learn. I realize that I haven't been prolific in my writing but with my time limitations it is difficult to write a lot. 

 

What I want to share today is a few plugins that will really help your web page get ranked and help you with the task of optimizing your on page SEO. SEO or search engine optimization is one of the major tasks that all Web Marketing Newbies face. It is a rather daunting task at first. But let me share a bit of what I have learned so far.

First to get your on page SEO optimized because it will make the job of ranking your site on the search engines much easier. Now that sounds easy but if you were like me there was a whole lot of conflicting information on what you should do to optimize your web page.

WP Plugins for SEO used by Web Marketing Newbie

Fortunately I found a simple solution for that now. It is a Word Press Plug in from Daniel Tan. Daniel is an SEO expert that makes a living doing SEO for companies. He is one of a handful of people that I really try to follow now for SEO infomation. He is well proven and reliable so anytime you see a product of his (either software or an information product) buy it!

His plug in is called an SEOPressor. It is an amazing piece of software. It will tell you how your page rates for ON Page SEO and what you need to do to correct the problems. I can tell you it has really helped my ratings. If you searched for Web Marketing Newbie or Marketing Newbie you will find that this site is usually on the first page of Google. A lot of the credit for that goes to Daniel's Plug in. If you are interested (and if you use Word Press you should be) you can buy the SEOPressor Plug in here.

 

Other WP Plugins used for SEO by Web Marketing Newbie

There are a couple of free plugins that I use to help the SEO efforts, you can find most of them by doing a search for Word Press plugins. The are:

1. Platinum SEO plugin.

2. SEO Smart Links

3. Yet another related posts plugin (YARPP)

4. SEO friendly images

5. Tags to Techorati

6. WPing.FM

So for all the  Web Marketing Newbie followers out there I hope that you find this helpful. If you have any questions or comments you can leave comments here on the Web Marketing Newbie blog or email me at webmarketingnewbie at gmail dot com.

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Directions

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This last couple of weeks have been a time of reflection and seeking direction, not just for my business, but also the Web Marketing Newbie blog.

A change of direction for the Web Marketing Newbie Blog

I have changed directions a few times already with this blog and yet one thing that has always been in my mind was to try to share some of my own trials and tribulations with this learning curve in hopes that it would help any of those who might decide to read this blog.

So this last week things have jelled a bit in my mind and my business and I now have what I think is a much clearer view of where I am going with both.

I like to try things and have an idea of what I want to do but don’t always know HOW I am going to get it done. Consequently I have bought a lot of programs to (TRY to ) automate things. And last week I had a bit of an epiphany on success. So this will be a starting point for this week.

Here is what I learned:

1. I can rank on page 1 of Google and I can even get to #1 on Google, Yahoo and Bing with a little work and time. If I can consistantly do that then I can make a good living from the internet.

2. I still don’t know how to SALE properly. I am getting traffic and it is increasing but my conversion rate is horrible.

3. Big time marketers have help (i.e. staff), for me to compete with them I need to automate or I will spend all my time doing SEO, article marketing, press releases and backlinking and not building web sites. Which leads to #4

4. You cannot make a lot of money (unless you get really lucky) with 1 -10 web sites. You need 30 or more. Just like any business you also need to spread and mitigate risk. You do that by building sites in a wide variety of niches. You need to protect yourself against Google, the market and seasonal trends. The wonderful thing about this business is that it costs very little to do that (most of the time nothing but your time).

So I will be sharing a lot of what I have learned in those four areas with you over the coming weeks.

1st Web Marketing Newbie Video

Finally you have to keep learning in this business. You might have brought to this web page by my first attempt at producing a video. It is a simple one, something that you can do pretty easily yourself.

Here is how I did it:

1. I first made a Power Point presentation.

2. Then I uploaded it to http://www.authorstream.com/ where it was converted to video (takes a while but it is pretty good). One note here I prepared a slide show in power point by using the timings. Then the video used those timings too. I paid $2 for a conversion without their logo on it.

3. Next I uploaded finished video from Authorstream to www.animoto.com where I added the music and the click on this link at the end (which brings you to this website) – that feature by the way is lost in YouTube. (Just remember that is you try this same technique). Now one little problem that I ran into with Animoto was that it wants to do a series of 5 -6 second events and then turn that into a video. So you have to take a 5 second segment of your video by using their slider bar on the video editor to indicate a starting point. Then when you are done with that segment then you have to tell it to duplicate that segment again and indicate the new starting point for the next segment. It will be a little clearer to you when you try it once. If you buy the pro version you get free music and no logo. If you don’t mind the logo you can do both of these for free .

BTW I don’t make any money for recommending their services. They just work good without a lot of hassle or need to know a lot of hi tech stuff.

TA DAH here is the video (youtube’s conversion made it a lot worse…)

All for today for the Web Marketing Newbie - yours in the journey together!

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Things that Work

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Web Marketing Newbie list of things that work

This is the start of what  will be a new permanent page here on our blog. I will be adding to it as time goes on so you need to keep checking back to see what is the latest.

First off let me say that Host Gator is on our list of good guys. Simple to set up, has everything you can imagine (and want) in a hosting company. Word Press setup with their fantastico system is easy as 1-2-3 with no ftp or any of that messy stuff. Means you can get Word Press up and running on their site in minutes (literally) even a newbie like myself can do it. PLUS they have lots of how to do videos in their control panel area if you need help. And of course they actually have live help if you need it. So I recommend them. Click on that graphic at the bottom of the site and YES I will get paid as an associate. If you don't want to do that then don't – but I still recommend them.

Name Cheap (namecheap.com) is a great place to get domain names. Save a couple of dollars and you can manage all your domain names from one place. They also include domain guard which if you don't want your info made public is a good deal.

A do not recommend - FREE WEB SITES! Why well number 1 is you don't own it. If they don't like you they can just pull the plug on all your hard work and you lose. Besides try to get someone to remember www.freesites.com/88739 for a web page name. How funky is that? Don't do it – waste of time and it is just a come on anyway.

OK so you need training and free too. Well in this case you are in luck. There are two good sites with FREE and really good training for you (video and written). First is the  30 day Challenge. It is very thorough and you should do it for two reasons. 1 it is a great reference site with lots of material that you will use everyday. 2. You get to use the full version of Market Samurai free for 40 days (no where else can you get this deal). Believe me when you learn to use Market Samurai you will never use anything else.

Second site will get you up and running faster it is called From Zero to Website. It is very good and I recommend it.

 

Nick sorts out the problems of a web marketing newbie in short order, worth listening to…

So there you have it the first of the Web Marketing Newbie recommended products list… See you soon with more.

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Trapped!

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Newbie! Yep I fell into the newbie web marketing trap the same one that will get most of you!

The internet is a sea of information over a billion pages of it now and growing. Some of it junk and some real gems and a lot in between. There is no where in the web that you learn that faster than when you are trying to learn web marketing.

This is going to be another short post today because I need to leave my job and go home and get back to work on web stuff again. So I found that the last two weeks I have been reading and watching videos and spending waaaay too much money. The time is actually as bad as the money because being a single father it means I am taking time away from my son to do this business and I really hate doing that.


So today I am unsubscribing to a LOT of email lists and cutting back to the bone on reading and getting back to taking care of business with my web pages and start going through step by step what I need to do to get them ranked higher in the search engines.

I just wrote and submitted two articles last week and one of them already outranks my web site. So back to the grind stone and that is where you need to be if you want to get ahead.

Listen one last piece of advice to all you web marketing newbie types! Take the 30 day challenge – it is free and it is right one for teaching you how to do a website.

 

Back with you in a couple of days.

The best of web marketing to all you newbies!

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