Internet Marketing Secrets Newsletter Issue #95 Thursday July 27 2006 In this issue: The simplest revenue stream that I've ever discovered. How to get astronomical click rates. The future of search engine optimization is here. Article Underground III is coming. Does your site need to be "big and fresh" to compete? Plus... It's bittersweet and true, my ebooks are coming off the market and the affiliate programs are closing soon. Find out why it's really a good thing for everyone. All this and a lot more in this issue of IMS. Enjoy! - - - - - - Sponsor - - - - - - Want Fast & Easy Content, Links and Traffic? Imagine getting 400 articles each and every month. Fresh content for use in your websites, portals and blogs. You get... - keyword research into popular categories - 18 ghost writers doing the work for you - 400 keyword rich articles every month - 22 announcement blogs for incoming links - tons of video showing how anyone can do it You don't have to do any market research, creative writing, or reciprocal linking. It's so easy to make money with this system. Just modify the articles to your liking, paste in your AdSense code, upload them to your web properties, and start making money. It's as simple as that. Want Easy Content and Traffic? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/aup - - - - - - /Sponsor - - - - - - INTERNET MARKETING NEWS Michael Campbell Goes Underground... Sorta It's a little sad but very exciting at the same time. I'm shutting down my affiliate programs and taking Clickin' it Rich and Revenge of the Mininet off the market. The products had a great run in their day, thanks to all my affiliates, who did a wonderful job selling the products. I'm offering Clickin' it Rich and Revenge of the Mininet for 30 more days, starting August 01 2006. As of September 01 2006 the affiliate program will be closed, and the products removed from the market. The affiliate sign-up pages and autoresponders were taken down months ago, and I'm not accepting any new members at this time. (But if people find me through Clickbank there's not much I can do about it.) Yes, I know "first hand" it's a real pain when affiliate programs change. But all projects - like ebooks - must eventually come to an end. I hope you understand as I'm trying to be open and honest and not take advantage of anyone. I didn't want you doing any unnecessary work in the next month, promoting the products, setting up new web pages or taking out ads. So why am I doing this, even though the advice in the books is still evergreen, relevant, and some of the best out there? Sales have slowed down over the years, to under 20 units per month for each title. So it's no longer worth it to keep them open... for me... or for you, which I'll explain later. You see... when you have your own product, you need to balance revenue against the customer service involved, like refunds, chargebacks, download issues, and constantly answering questions. And yes, I do try to answer every single question that comes from my customers. Sometimes, helping people can take most of the day... (But don't get me wrong, I still plan on helping people in an abundant way, but through my free newsletter and blog, instead of making them buy an ebook to get the same advice.) Then there's the biggest problem with affiliate programs... so many of them come and go, that I have to constantly update the ebooks every few months. Yes, I still maintain that ebook publishing can be fun and profitable. But it's really hard work to prevent "link rot" and keep the content fresh. Affiliate managers constantly change their link codes, affiliate networks, or the way they link, or have links that expire, drop product lines, or they go out of business altogether... sheesh! I've also come to realize, that there's a lot more money to be made with (maintenance free) AdSense revenue sites, and selling other people's stuff - like BBQs and music gear - through affiliate programs, and not supporting my own product line. It's frees me up from the ebook updates, customer service, answering content questions, and other time sinks, so I can concentrate on research and experiments. But I'm not going totally underground... As I implement each strategy and learn new secrets, I plan on sharing my new found wisdom, tactics and strategies, with you through the newsletter. But the only way I can find time for site building, research and testing, is to take what used to be time spent on customer service, and spend that energy elsewhere. So yes, it's a pain in the rear to drop my products from your content (unless you used an htaccess redirect like I taught you, then it's like 10 seconds. ;-) But face it, the products just aren't selling anymore anyways. And if you think about it, you'd actually be doing yourself a favor... Like I mentioned, instead of spending my time answering questions about that diagram on page 15 of Revenge of the Mininet... I can be building new affiliate revenue sites and AdSense sites and sharing with you the strategies and tactics that work. So let me ask you... as my affiliate... which would you rather have? A couple of sales per month... or results from my research and testing that you can apply to your own business models? Think of it as ground work for "Clickin it Rich 2007." :-) I hope to bring as much revelation as when that ebook was first published in 2001. So join me in this new chapter... the next stage of evolution. It's going to be lots of fun as we uncover the long term revenue strategies, and short term tactics that it takes to succeed in today's internet. And yes, I plan on sharing every thing that I learn. Just remember to take down your affiliate links, redirect them elsewhere, or heck... leave them up if you really want to. The sales letters will stay up for an indefinite time, but people won't be able to buy the products after September 01 2006. Thank you again to all my sales people and affiliates for doing a wonderful job. Thank you to Adrian Ling for being my webmaster over the past couple of years. And a big thank you to Neil Shearing, Phil Wiley, Allan Gardyne, Terry Plank, Robin Nobles, John Alexander, Leslie Rohde, and all the people at Planet Ocean for helping me launch the products in the first place. I couldn't have done it without you! - - - - - The Future of Search Engine Optimization II Sometimes I figure that Colin McDougall has his head on backwards. Who in their right mind would set up a brand new site, and compete for search terms like creditc^rds. (So competitive it won't make it past email filters!) Would you battle it out against the deep pockets of conglomerate giants? Well he does. And wins. Colin can get ANY website of his choice to blast past the other top ranking websites and achieve top 10 position within a short time. And it's a completely legitimate system as opposed to trying to trick the search engines. The long term strategies in the book, come from a long series of email and personal conversations that Colin had with senior Google engineer Matt Cutts. What Colin learned was that VEO, is all about trust. Does Google trust you. Are you on their list of trusted sites? In VEO you don't play against the search engine algo, you ignore it completely. You don't focus on keyword densities, you aim for a happy visitor. You don't hard sell products like an affiliate, you brand the site and soft sell the products through articles. It's revolutionary. And it works. Want the VEO Strategies? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/veo If you missed the first round of VEO last year, it's now bigger and better than ever. Colin has expanded the course and added the missing chapter on SEO tactics. Not only that... after a little arm twisting ;-), I'm happy to announce that Colin has agreed to open up the VEO affiliate program. Now everyone can join and make a generous 50% commission on sales. (And trust me, this course is very easy to sell. It's a totally new approach to SEO, and it works in the most hotly contested categories. Colin is living proof and so are his top-ranked sites.) So if you want the future of SEO, then now's your chance to spread a white hat strategy that's practically endorsed by Google. Join Colin McDougall and the VEO team. You'll earn a generous 50% commission on every sale. Ready to Join VEO Team? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/vea - - Adv - - Quick and Easy Portals for Clickbank Revenue Looking for a new way to build profitable portals? Now you can build them the fast & easy way using Clickbank products. Just choose your topic. Pick a template. Press a few buttons. And the software makes a nice looking site. Plus, it embeds your Clickbank ID into all the products. Take five minutes to watch the Flash demo... it could change your life... ok, maybe not your life ;-) but could change how much you're making in affiliate revenues. Clickbank Niche Builder ==> http://www.cdzn.com/cnb - - /Adv - - Article Underground Phase III Launches Aug 01 2006 Keep your eyes peeled for a flurry of announcements this week, as phase three of Mike Liebner's Article Underground gets released. It's another exclusive set of 400 articles per month to just 350 members. The first two phases sold out rather quickly. This one is expected to do the same. Mike is giving a first-come first-served notification, so if you go to the web site and sign up now, you're almost guaranteed a spot. So what does one do with 400 articles a month. You can collect them and put them into loosely related categories. You could have a health and fitness site, a tech site, a sports site and a travel site. Just add some new articles every couple of days. Heck just four or five of theses topical sites would make a really nice revenue stream. Each time that you add a new article, you announce the addition to several of the Underground blogs to get instant incoming links. And that's a major reason to join the Underground for $97 a month. Just a few months back, buying two PR5 links to your site would cost $97 a month. Now for the same price, you can add as many PR4, 5 & 6 links as you want. And you don't "have to" link them to article sites. Use the blog network to link to any kind of site, including your blogs, directories, portals, mininets, etc. (Remember that buying links is against Google's terms of service, and can get you banned, unless they add a nofollow tag to the purchased links. Links from the Underground Blog Network are perfectly legit and will continue to pass the PageRank, Reputation and Link Popularity to your pages.) Just keep adding articles and adding to the size of your site. Pretty soon, you'll be recognized as an authority site and people will naturally start linking to you as a resource. The higher your search results will go, the more AdSense clicks you'll get, and the more money you'll make. Ready to Join the Underground? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/aup - - - - - INTERNET MARKETING & SEARCH ENGINE FAQS Article Site Template Gets Astronomical Click Rate Question: I've had a look at smArticle Composer and see that it's a quick site generator, but it seems more limited than XSitePro. The main concern I have with it is the distinct lack of templates. I'd love to knock out sites quicker without them looking formulaic. But my gut feel is that Xsite Pro sites with modified templates are going to have more staying power. Other than speed and initial layout, what makes you so confident about smArticle Composer? I'm curious ;) Answer: Yes, I agree that the template does look plain. And as with any template, it's best to remove any footprints and modify the html so it doesn't look like a "cookie cutter" or machine made site. But it's hard to beat that 50% click rate on the ads from the original template. That's the main reason why I see this site builder as a killer app, for niche AdSense sites. Want the smArticle Composer? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/ace I had build a ton of portals in the past. Most are shut down now. These smArticle sites focus on articles... and they're just "good enough" in providing real content and value to the visitor, that they're not likely to run afoul in the search engines. So far, none of my smArticle experiments have been purged, culled or banned. And I like how "sneaky" the template is, in getting visitors to click on the ads. So even though the sites created by smArticle are as "plain Jane" as it gets, the astronomical click rate, ease of use, and sheer speed in site creation make this one a winner in my eyes. Not taking anything away from XSite Pro, as it's still my favorite site builder for generating affiliate revenue sites. Get XSite Pro for Affiliate Sites ==> http://www.cdzn.com/xsp - - - - - Is a Big and Fresh Site More Competitive? With smArticle Composer, you are creating links to the article pages and placing them under the Adsense ads, so they "look like" the ads themselves. If I have 50 articles for the site, won't the page end up looking like a spammy links page? I really can't see how the small sites created by this software will stand a chance. Won't the search engines see them as 'dead' or static sites which are not growing. What am I missing here? Answer: Yes, Gary Burton (the developer of the software) has stated that, ""You do not want to use more than 10 articles when building these sites. Use four, five or six maximum." "Any more than that and you'll lose effectiveness, and it would be more normal for you to build using some other program. The whole point of this software is to build tiny sites. Tighten your niche right up."" I agree with Gary. Keep in mind that the SEO smArticle template has been thoroughly tested. Adding more links, or more articles, may affect the click rate on the ads. For example, my modified template gets a 36% click rate, which is much less than the 50% click rate of the stock template. It's the price I'm willing to pay, to make my sites look original. (Plus I'm still tweaking the layout.) But if I were you, I wouldn't worry about putting up larger sites. Google's TOS says you shouldn't put more than 100 links on a single page. Other than that, do what you like. I also wouldn't worry about having small sites or about the freshness issue. I have a two page site that's over a year old. It's slugging it out for an intensely competitive phrase, yet it's usually in the top 10 results. I have other sites in the 10 page range that are consistently in the top five spots. (The point I'm trying to make is that search engines are in a constant state of flux. Some sites go up, others go down. The trick is to have enough sites and enough revenue streams, so no matter what the engines do, you always have money coming in.) Then, every once in a while - when I'm staring at my long list of domains - I add a link to some of my small sites from a blog, or other web property I own. Rarely - like once a year - do I modify the content. But these days, since I belong to the Article Underground, I can link to my modified pages using their network of high quality announcement blogs. 22 Sources of Incoming Links ==> http://www.cdzn.com/aup So yes, it's always possible to have a tight theme in a good niche. Find the sweet spots with low hanging fruit using tools like NicheBOT.com. Then build your site, announce it with the Article Underground, and move on to the next site. As for a which site builder to use, if you keep your sites small and focused, then yes, SEO smArticle is a great choice. If you want to get into creating large sites, then reach into your toolbox and pull out XSite Pro, Rapidweaver or your favorite html editor. Want the smArticle Composer? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/ace And finally, I wouldn't worry about the longevity of these sites. They are article based and the content is evergreen. It's not scraped content, or black hat, or auto generated gibberish... they are real sites, albeit plain and a little ugly... but somehow they manage to get a humongous click rate on the ads. - - Adv - - An Avalanche of Abundance Imagine getting 300 fresh articles a month. Long term revenue strategies. Step by step article marketing. Hundreds of training videos. Keyword research tools. And helpful forums with thousands of posts. If your goal is to make money online, then just about everything you need is here. And it's very well organized, so you won't get lost, or suffer from information overload. Ready for Abundance? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/ka (Please remember that right now you can get "grandfathered in" and lock-in your membership for $57 a month. A few days from now it will be going up to $97 a month. If you want to be part of this fast growing community, with it's Avalanche of tools, ideas and content, don't wait to click, ok?. - - /Adv - - FEATURE ARTICLE New Domain Tool Reveals UnTapped Revenue Stream This tool has to be the coolest thing to come along in a long time. What it does is deceptively simple. It finds domain names that match popular search terms. Now before anyone moans about "how all the good names are gone" this tool will make you change your mind in a hurry. Just the other day I registered ten new domain names including the likes of GadgetTechnology.com, InformationManagementTechnology.com and others. It's easy to use this tool in several different ways. Most people will look for domain names for their article sites, or their affiliate sites. What I use it for is entirely different... and a little on the sneaky side. I look for type-in traffic from experienced web users. (Less than 19% of people are new to the web. That means that over 81% are experienced.) Very often, one of the searches experienced people do, either before or after a search engine, is to type the keyword phrase .com directly into the address bar at the top of their browser. Now here's the cool part. The Suggestion Tool will automatically find domain names that get typed in. You get instant traffic. You can monetize that instant traffic with a simple one page microsite and AdSense ads. Nope... It's not a landing page. It's not illegal or against any TOS (terms of service) that I'm aware of at the moment. And it's so easy... It's a parked page. I took the tip from the parked pages at Godaddy.com. They put sponsored ads on all my parked pages. At first I thought... what the F! But then I thought... hey, wait a minute. If they can do it and not violate any TOS... maybe I can too. It was time to set up a little experiment. Sure enough, I got dollar-a-month hosting from Hostica.com and put up a single page. The sneaky part is to make it look like you're trying to sell the domain name. And maybe you are ;-) So across the top of the page put, "This domain name (state the dot com name) is for sale. To make an offer phone (your phone number)." Then you can add a few paragraphs on the topic - to better control the types of ads that get displayed - but it's not required. Then drop in your Google AdSense code and put above the ads "Sponsored Links." That way, everyone knows there's nothing sneaky going on... even though there is. ;-) My first test on one parked page, with a simple "for sale" notice at the top and a bank of AdSense ads in the middle, got a whopping 57% click rate. It also generated over $50 in revenue in just 26 days. It's simple, yet super effective. Why? Well what would you do? You just typed a domain name into your browser and up pops a domain that's for sale. On it, you find several highly relevant links to the topic. Would you click on one? The early stats show that 57% of people do. Another cool thing is that the Domain Suggestion software works in the background while you do other tasks. Then once you've run your current keyword list, you can rush off to your favorite domain registrar like GoDaddy.com to secure your booty of names. It may not seem like a whole lot of money at first... But whip out your calculator and do the math. You can see how the cost of this page, $20 a year for a domain name and hosting, plus five minutes to make the page, compares to the $600 or more it will earn over the year. (The more type-in traffic you get, the more money you'll make.) Want the Suggestion Tool? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/dst Other than printing one dollar bills - which isn't legal where I live ;-) - this has to be the easiest revenue stream that I've ever discovered. Really it's just a question of, "How many of these one-page sites do you want to make?" UPDATE: Google's Official Response to Ads on Parked Pages I emailed Google and asked for their "official" company position about placing ads on parked pages. Here's what I asked and how they answered. (MC) Recently I noticed that the Domain Registrars have put ads on all my parked pages. It doesn't seem fair that a domain name that I own, is earning them click revenue while I'm trying to sell the domain name. My question is, instead of the Registrar hosting my parked page, may I host my own parked page and put a block of AdSense ads on the page (similar to the Registrar), while waiting for offers to come in on the name? I make it very clear that the page is parked and domain name is for sale. The exact text on the page is: This domain is for sale. If you wish to make an offer, please contact Michael Campbell, which is followed by my phone number and a block of ads. If the ads are in violation of your terms of service, please let me know and I'll remove the ad block right away. (But it just seems fair that if the Domain Registrars can do it, why not the individual, who is trying to recoup registration and hosting fees while entertaining offers on their parked domain names.) Or, if you prefer, I can add at least 5-10 pages of relevant info on each domain, to keep the ad block on the pages. Please let me know with a definitive answer so I can honestly stay within your TOS Guidelines. I just want everyone to be happy."" (Google) ""I understand you want a clarification on putting Google ads on domain parked sites. In regards to your question, we do not allow AdSense ads on domain registration sites or non-content-based sites in the AdSense online program. We kindly ask that you remove the Google ads from these pages. I understand your unhappiness with these policies, but we've put them in place to help ensure the effectiveness of Google ads for our publishers as well as our advertisers. Please do know that if your site generates more than 750,000 page views per month you may be eligible for our AdSense for domains program. If you meet this requirement and you'd like to learn more about the program, please visit http://www.google.com/domainpark ."" (MC) Just wanted to say thank you so much for providing a definitive answer for me. I want everyone to be happy and certainly do not want to do anything against your TOS. I will remove the AdSense ads from my domain parked pages immediately. Instead, I will put up five or so related articles of content on each site, so I may continue to run the ads to recoup hosting and registration costs. (Google) ""I'm glad I was able to clarify the issue. Please don't hesitate to let us know if you have any other questions or concerns in the future."" So in a nutshell, Google doesn't want the little guy putting ads on their parked pages. But if you get over 750K page views a month, then it's ok, and they'll even help you set it up. That's really unfair! Ok, I'm not one to mope about it... so let's move on to plan B. Grab smArticle Composer, take five to ten articles from either your Article Underground or Keyword Avalanche collection, and put up a minisite on the same topic as the domain name. Yes, it's a little more work. But look at it this way... you still get instant type-in traffic from the domain names, you stay within the Google TOS, and you still get to run ads on all the article content pages. _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ That's it for this issue my friend. Thank you for reading. We'll chat again soon. Until then, here's wishing you all the best for online success. Michael Campbell Author of.... Clickin' it Rich ==> http://www.cdzn.com/cir Revenge of the Mininet ==> http://www.cdzn.com/rev Internet Marketing Secrets ==> http://www.cdzn.com/yes P.S. Please forward this newsletter to your friends. = = = = = = = = = = Legal stuff... Copyright 2006 Dynamic Media Corporation. All rights reserved world wide. All trademarks and servicemarks are property of their respective owners. The information contained in this newsletter is the opinion of the author based on his personal observations and years of experience. Neither Michael Campbell or Dynamic Media Corporation assume any liability whatsoever for the use of or inability to use any or all of the information contained in this publication. Use this information at your own risk. Privacy Policy: I never sell, rent, trade, or lend my email list to anyone, for any reason, whatsoever. I assure you that your privacy is respected and well protected.