APD-Marketing

Hello and welcome to the March edition of the APD newsletter.

At last, some nice weather here in the U.K, Monday and Tuesday last week were wonderful. So, I took a day out on Monday and Alison and I went for a nice walk around the Hertfordshire countryside in the sunshine.

It was absolutely wonderful to be out walking without a coat for the first time in 2010. It sort of reminded me that we haven’t had a holiday for a few months! Mind you Lee and I have been hugely busy as you will have seen with the launch of Internet Marketing Strategic. If you haven’t joined yet, and you are interested in making some money online, get along and join. It’s free, and you have my promise that it will always remain free.

So far there’s great video tutorial series on running your website (everything you need to kow about control panel), affiliate marketing, SEO and Adwords. There’s also loads of eBooks and website and Wordpress templates…oh, and a huge file of website graphics…all totally gratis.

Join Internet Marketing Strategic Now…it’s free!

There will be more great info added soon, so make sure you use it to help you get yourself up and running and making some money on the Internet. Even if you know what you’re doing there’s still some great resources, you have nothing to lose.

And, if you know someone else who might be interested do them a favour and tell them about Internet Marketing Strategic

I have also totally revamped the APD site during February, so you can now find that at APD Internet Marketing - loads of Internet Marketing product reviews and links to all of our own products, which brings me nicely to…

..the launch of my Life Mastery System.

I’m giving you the “heads up” on this because it’s at a special introductory price at the moment, only for APD subscribers…so get in quick before I withdraw the offer.

What is it? Well, it’s the distillation of how I turned myself around from no-hoper to the lifestyle I’ve always dreamed about in just a few months.

It’s a short concise eBook (with some bonus items) that shows how I learned from some of the “money-power” giants of this world. How I learned to control time, money and therefore my life and destiny.

It’s hugely powerful stuff that shows you how to break down time and money into their smallest component parts, exercise absolute control over them and then build powerful money making systems from those minute parts.

You see, most people just do not understand time and money at the most basic level. If you can master the art of doing this, you gain complete and utter control over your life and destiny.

Life will be dancing to your tune, not the other way around!

Please go and have a look at www.control-your-life.info/Life_Mastery_APD_Offer.html

Be quick though as I will be taking this offer down on Friday12th March 2010 and then it’s gone forever…even if you plead with me :>)

O.K, I hope you’ll indulge me blowing my own trumpet a little this month, it’s not very often I take a major chunk of newsletter space to do so :>)

So, let’s get on with some money making info for you.

I talk to a lot of people over the course of any given month and obviously, being in “Internet Marketing” I tend to talk about the subject an awful lot. In talking to many people on this broad subject, one of the things that comes up time and again, particularly for those just starting out, is how do you build a website? I’ll admit it was the same for me.

I don’t know about you, but I have a chromosome lose that dictates I just HAVE to know how everything in my business works. So, as sure as night follows day, I had to know how to build a website :>)

So, I am going to make a very bold statement right here, right now.

This “personality defect” has cost me many thousands of dollars over the last four or five years!

Why, I hear you ask?

Well, it held me back in terms of the time it took me to learn how to build even the most basic website. And, it also held me back because the websites I built were, not to put too finer a point on it…complete and utter crap!

There are three issues here.

Firstly, the time issue, which I have alluded to already, secondly a tools issue and finally a training or knowledge issue.

I’ll take these in turn.

Time, I’ve talked about time many times before and by now you will know my view that time is a very precious commodity indeed. This life of yours is NOT a trial run. This is it, you get one chance and once your race is run that’s it…there is no more. A bit unnerving that, isn’t it?

So, if you’re like me and not wonderfully good technically do one of two things. Either, get yourself some proper training in order to make your self good…or get someone who is good and time efficient at building websites to build yours for you.

By default we have gone into the knowledge aspect of this here. What I will also say is that gaining the knowledge can be very time consuming and costly as well.

Where did I go wrong? Well, I guess I tried to learn Dreamweaver, which is a fairly complicated program, by myself from the ground up. It was a stupid task when I should have been concentrating on the making money aspect.

So, talking of tools, there are now tools that can make your life a whole lot easier. I now use Blue Voda, and it’s great, it’s also FREE - yipee! If you can use Word, you can use Blue Voda with about an hour in the online tutorials.

It’s a great tool and when I do build sites, it’s what I now use and I am now reasonably proficient.

However, it’s still NOT a good use of my time…if I’m honest I have come to enjoy pottering around in Blue Voda, but I can get “lost” in it for hours on end. I repeat it’s not a good use of my time.

So, when it comes to technical stuff, if you enjoy it and you are good at it, then great go for it. But if you are not that way inclined…outsource!

I use Rentacoder and Odesk. I’ve stopped using Elance because prices were going up and I just didn’t seem to get what I wanted on the ocasions I did use it.

When you outsource you do need to be prepared to “kiss a few frogs” first. I had a situation where I was looking to hire someone to do a one week “socialisation” project for me.

I ended up hiring a young lady from China, first time I had used her and she was quite aggressive on pricing and closing the deal. I felt she really wanted the work so despite a slight nagging feeling I hired her.

She never did a drop of work, and I ended up having to go through arbitration to get my money back. I guess the lesson here is trust your instincts, if something appears to be too good or doesn’t feel right, be more diligent in checking it out!

But don’t be put off, because this is a very cost effective way to get work (of all sorts) done and after a while you find a number of suppliers that you trust and deliver good work on time and to budget.

I now have a list of “go to” suppliers for websites, writing, SEO and socialisation.

Outsourcing is how you really start to leverage time in your favour and I have become a great fan. It has also taught me that I don’t have to understand in finite detail everything that goes on “under the hood” of my business…I still like to know though :>)

Oh, and just before I go, one other little trick I have used to good effect in certain circumstances is to use the local University for technical resource. I have developed links with a couple of local educational establishments that have Computer Science departments.

One two occasions I have used final year students to do web development work for me. This is a real win/win as the student can use the project towards their course and you get a young, enthusiastic and hungry technician who is very keen to please to do your work for you…for beer money!

It does take some time and effort to find the right people to talk to and to gain trust, but it can be a worthwhile tap into some excellent resource.

And talking of leveraging time, I had to go out in the rush hour this morning! My daughter came round last night and stayed over (she can’t resist my amazing roast dinners), so I had to get her to college by 9am this morning! It’s a seven mile run, door to door, and it took….54 minutes.

What a waste of time and life force! Although clearly I enjoyed extra time with my daughter, but…I queued in traffic for most of the seven miles! Frightening, why would you want to do that just to go to work? Stay at home and make money online, it’s much more fun!

O.K, that’s it for March, I’ll be back just after Easter with the April newsletter. Argghhhh, Easter, haven’t we only just had Christmas?

I’m sure time goes more quickly the older I get…but that’s another subject for another day.

Until next month, have fun and make money!

Cheers now

Derek

Hello and welcome to the February newsletter.

The nights are drawing out here in a very unleafy Hertfordshire and as I sat there looking at the sunset tonight, I wondered what to write about this month. A beautiful sunset indeed, and inspiration indeed…this month the Internet Marketing Guru industry gets it with both barrels!

You see I have been watching what’s been happening recently very closely indeed, and I have some very interesting observations. This is gonna be a hairy rollercoaster ride so hold tight!

Here goes.

First up, what a huge fanfare and who-ha about Twitollower, oh boy!

I watched the video and thought, yeak O.K, how much?

Then when I saw the “just $97 a month” I got really angry. This has to be the worst sort of rip off. I’m sorry if this offends anyone, but…if you pay $97 a month for this then more fool you .

Now I didn’t set out to be controversial here, but it annoys me for two reasons!

Firstly Lee and I only started to engage with Twitter back in the autumn. Lee being the technical one in the partnership did some research on follower automation and came up with Tweet Tank.

We had tried manual follower building and it was very time consuming and didn’t seem to be providing much in the way of results.

So, despite the fact it took a bit of working out, Lee implemented Tweet Tank on one of our Twitter accounts and we added over 2,000 followers in something like 5-6 weeks.

Pretty cool you’d think? And, we are still adding 10-20 followers each day, and we’re getting listed. Little tip here…if you do use automation to build followers, I think Twitter has sussed these programs. They don’t seem to mind you using them, but…they will work about four times better if you do a few “manual” tweets each day… I’ve done some testing on this!

Back to the story…I’ll be honest here because we might have missed something in our Twitter marketing as we haven’t looked at it in any great depth, but…we are still not making much from Twitter. (Oooo, honesty from an Internet Marketer!)

So, the second reason? Well, I am beginning to think Twitter has just become “noise”. Yes it’s O.K if you have a reputation or high profile and people already want to hear what you have to say, but I don’t think you can now use Twitter to build a reputation. You just get lost in the noise.

Ask yourself, how much attention do you pay to the thousands of tweets that you see each day? I rest my case.

I would be really interested to hear if anyone is making any decent money using Twitter, drop me a line. As I say, we may have this wrong, but…the fact remains, $97 /month on an ongoing basis versus a one time $27 payment, errr, it’s a no brainer!

So, that’s me off my soap box having got that off my chest!

Now, this whole Twitter thing got me thinking…watch out here comes some real heavy stuff!

Twitter has been hailed as the silver bullet by so many Guru’s over the last six months. It’s the new thing, it’s your saviour, you can build a list of thousands really quickly and make loads of money marketing on Twitter.

How long has Twitter been around?

Actually I don’t know the answer to that and I can’t be bothered to look it up. However, this got Lee and I chatting and we thought that maybe…just maybe there might be a recurring theme here.

New “thing” hits the street. A few savvy top-level marketers pick up “thing” play with it work out how to make bundles of cash using new “thing” techniques. They may even be “in the know” prior to “thing” happening.

So, they, being top level Gurus (with technical staff they can allocate to work out how “thing” works), take their “thing” technique to the BIG GURU weekend where they share with the top level Gurus.

All the top level Gurus implement and make a bundle of dosh.

All the top level Gurus then share the “thing” techniques with their top level mastermind groups (which are filled Tier 2 Gurus), so you now have Tier 1 and Tier 2 Gurus using the new “thing” techniques.

Then the Tier 2 Gurus implement and make some money, but the techniques are now starting to get a little bit wide spread and diluted. Some clever “non-Gurus” work it out.

Then the Tier 2 Gurus share with their own high ticket paying “students” who then go away and implement the “new” “thing” techniques.

By now the “new” techniques are starting to get really watered down, but…the top level Gurus can show amazing proof of concept and earnings…

…so, NOW (drum roll please), it’s time to roll the techniques up into a $1997 product!

So, the Tier 1 and 2 Gurus sell this package to their best “non student” customers and so the “thing” techniques scale down another tier.

Over the next six months or so a plethora of clone products flood the market at prices anywhere from $497 down to $47 and they achieve massive sales based on the huge proof of concept shown from when the technique was brand new and not being used by all and sundry. It’s not a fair cop!

Of course by now the technique is with the masses and is virtually useless. The masses however are rabid buyers of IM “how to” products.

Most who buy in this price range don’t even do anything with the product!

But the Gurus are happy because they ripped the technique for huge profits when it was new and then did the same when it was clearly past it’s “sell-by date” by selling it as a “how to” “silver bullet”.

Now you may think I’m being cynical here, and maybe I am, and maybe it’s not quite as clinical as that…but it does make you think and want to ask questions doesn’t it?

And…it was interesting to see Adeel and Booby launch Software Submitter this week. Now funnily enough Soctrates Socratous did a free video series on exactly this technique about 6 months ago.

So I tried it.

Admitedly I tried it on a hugely competitive keyword. Want to know my results?

O.K, are you sitting comfortably?

5 list signs ups in 3 months. Somewhat different to what Adeel and Bobby are spouting about. Although in all fairness and in the interests of complete transparency, I only submitted to one directory, they offer you twenty I think.

And do you know what has really upset me about this launch?

I purchased (with my own money) Mass Article Control (including an article submitter) from Adeel and Bobby, and there’s a full review of it at http://www.apdinternetmarketing.com/massarticlecontrol.html

And, it’s not a bad product, but…they are still promoting Mass Article Control - big time, yet, in the sales copy for Software Submitter, one of the major selling points is that article marketing is
dead!

I’m sorry, but that is just not acceptable. It’s wrong and it’s ripping people off.

No doubt I will get shredded by some of the Gurus for opening up like this, but…Lee and I (notice I drag Lee into this) are determined to stand firm…

…and that’s why we launched Internet Marketing Strategic last week.

If you don’t know what it is yet, it’s simply a FREE Internet Marketing Training Membership site.

So far training on Cpanel, SEO, Market Research and Affiliate Marketing  is included as well as a stack of eBooks on similar subject matter. We will be adding more training each month so do get signed up and do keep a close eye for new additions.

Lee and I have also revamped the main site and moved it to http://www.apdinternetmarketing.com

We have taken away a load of the crap and made the site a simple link to all of our products and a simply structured IM product review site.

Again keep watching for new reviews all of the time.

All of the old APD free stuff will soon find a home within Internet Marketing Strategic.

Final word, Lee and I are determined to bring a new freshness and clarity to the Internet Marketing world. It’s about time someone told the truth and stopped the rip off of the uninformed. By massively raising the “free bar”, we hope we have given that process a massive boost…thanks to Armand Morin for the idea!

Why do we want to risk the wrath of the Gurus?

It’s simple…the Internet is BIG enough for everyone. There is room for you, me, the Gurus and most of the population of the world…it’s huge. This rip off doesn’t need to happen, so we are going to do our best to remove the smoke and mirrors and bring transparency.

I hope you’ll join us on our crusade!

Peace and happiness…and lots of fun for all!

Until Next Month - Cheers now.

Hello and welcome to the first newsletter of the decade!

I hope you had a brilliant Christmas and have seriously thought about your goals for 2010.

To be honest, I think I’ve done enough about goal setting and getting focussed on what you want to achieve so I’m not going to cover that this month! After all, if your inbox is the same as mine you’d have had enough of so called Guru’s kicking your backside to get moving for 2010!

If you want practical advice and help on setting goals, getting motivated and general kick-ass positive mential attitude…go have a look back at some of the old January newsletters… there’s three years worth for you to choose from :>)

So…what am I going to talk about this month?

Well, I am going to talk a little bit about market and keyword research.

Not to put too finer point on it, there are a lot of shiney tools out there you can buy to help you in this area and there is also a whole lot of bull talked about niche and particularly keyword research.

So, I’m going to try and cut through some of the crap this month.

The first thing I would say on this subject is that it is absolutely KEY to your success online.

Go into a market that doesn’t spend and you will not make any money, pick the wrong keywords and you will lose a lot on top! So, it’s a double edged sword!

And, it can be very difficult to see where you’ve actually gone wrong if you don’t know what you are doing.

So, market research. The good news is that the amount of business done online continues to increase at an amazing pace. When I spent three days with Armand Morin just before Christmas he showed me some figures that suggest 70% of all advertising dollars are now spent online.

I have said many times before, the online world is NOT partaking in this recession that seems to be going on elsewhere.

That figure is all you need to know to suggest that your business MUST be online, that’s the first point. I know I keep labouring this one, but if you’re not online you are losing out!

There are many places that you can go to assess how much activity there is in a given market.

You can check:-

• Amazon Hot List
• Ebay Pulse
• Yahoo Groups
• Wikipedia
• MSN Groups
• YouTube
• Do a Google Search

…there are hundreds of places you can look to assess a niche.

But, for my money, the quickest and easiest indicator of commercial viability is looking at how many people are advertising on Google Adwords.

How can you do this?

Simple…go to https://adwords.google.com/select/adtargetingpreviewtool

There you’ll be able to see all the ads for a given keyword as well as see how many ads there are.

Are there more than 10 or 15 ads?

Then there is a market.

Now some people see 387 ads and run away because there is too much competition.

Competition is GOOD. It shows there is a vibrant market and if 387 people are spending their advertising dollar on Adwords, then they must be making money…and there is a market!

It’s your job to be better than them and usurp their market!

So, it’s easy to find a market, you don’t need any special tools.

Think how would I search for this product or niche or market, and then see what people are doing in that niche. The deeper down you can split the niche the easier it is to dominate!

Lee and I will be releasing the first two modules of Internet Marketing Strategic in January, the first module covers market / niche research in depth, watch out for the launch - it’s free!

So, keyword research. Now this really is where there are a plethora of shiney, all singing, all dancing tools that you can buy for a shed load of dosh.

I have said in the past that I use Keyword Elite and I do. I do like the KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index) rating that shows you how profitable a keyword is likely to be.

But, and I will be honest, I haven’t paid out to upgrade to version 2.0.

Why?

Well, version 1.0 does everything that I need and over the last year I have come to realise that I am just as good using Google itself. If you do want to get yourself a keyword research tool Keyword Elite 2.0 is the best and I do recommend it.

However, Google have over the last 18 months really upgraded the functionality available in the External Keyword Tool and it really is as good as anything you can buy.

My tips on keyword research.

Try and get as deep into the breakdown of the niche as you can.

Try using the * query to find keywords you wouldn’t have thought of. This little trick can reveal sub niches you would never have thought of and that are ripe for picking.

All you do is enter the * in your search string and Google will fit in missing words for you!

So, if you entered a search string of “Google * my life”, Google will fill in the blanks…so you’ll get results like “Google changed my life”

The site I picked this up from is http://www.googleguide.com it’s well worth a visit.

Imagine what you could find in niche markets using this tool. I tried it in the fat loss market and found some amazing sub niches. I found niches in “how to lose armpit fat” and “how to lose pectoral fat”…would you have ever thought of those? Me neither!

You should also use the External Tool to dig deeper, so if you see a keyword with lots of hits in your initial results, type that in as well.

Also make sure you check out the alternative keyword suggestions that Google offers you at the bottom of searches. Most people totally ignore these suggestions. Google puts them there for a reason…that being that Google thinks they are related!

Also, use the search options. At the top right hand corner of the search results, there is a link to “options”.

This allows you to chop and change your search results based on various criteria such a Forum results, Blog results or News Stories. I use this extensively to find out what is hotand being talked about in a market.

And, finally, use the Wonder Wheel. It’s in the options side bar under the “Standard View” section.

The wonder wheel is a great way to dig deep into a niche and see graphically, what Google thinks is relevant to a given market.

I did a quick video on the Wonderwheel which you can watch at the following link.

Google Wants To Help You!

It’s a very cool tool.

Now, this next point is vitally important. You need to make sure you get your modifiers right!

What?

Keyword modifiers, these are the little words or phrases that you add to your keywords to  take you into the BUYING area! You want keywords that people type in to actually BUY products not just research them!

So, modifers such as “buy”, “purchase” and “get” are the sorts of things people type in when they are about to actually buy. These are the keywords you want “buy dunlop max 500 tennis racket”.

Model numbers are also good. “pentax z653 slr camera”. By the way I have no idea if these models actually exist, but you get the idea!

Final tip, look for opportunities within a niche.

What do I mean?

Well, where do images come in the search results? What about video? If images come up in the number one slot, then you know that your marketing needs to include images.

Google does vary this from market to market. You may find that in some markets images are not high in the results. But search on something like “Abs Workout” and you’ll see images and videos are very important in that market.

If you search on something like “Credit Repair” you won’t find any images (at least not last time I looked).

So, look for small windows of opportunity that can help you dominate the SERPS.

O.K, there is a lot of very useful information there, I hope it helps you draw more profit from the Internet

There’s been a lot happening in the background at this end, which is why Lee and I have been fairly quiet recently.

To be honest the weather here in the U.K has been horrendous since mid December and it has stopped us getting much needed time together to finalise and pull together our plans.

But, despite it all, I am hopeful we will have everything ready in January.

It’s an exciting time and you, as one of my valued subscribers, are going to benefit massively from sticking with us in 2010. We are going to be giving so much away, it’s, well, quite frightening.

Our aim for 2010 is to change the way the Internet Marketing niche works. To pull the rug out from the Gurus that don’t give value and just re-hash a load of old bull! It’s a huge challenge but Lee and I are up for it, and you are going to be the benefactor!

I am so excited about this new decade, and I hope I can make some of that excitement “rub off” on you, because over the course of the year Lee and I are going to give you EVERYTHING you need to build a huge online business. ..and we’re gonna give it to you totally FREE!

Nothing left out!

As always, but more so than ever in 2010…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now

Derek

Hello and welcome to the Full of Festive Frolicks December newsletter…

…and what a bumper edition I have for you this month.

Back, fresh from the World Internet Summit at Heathrow, London I’ll be revealing some of the great tips and techniques I learned at the conference.

I’ll also be revealing something that Lee and I are going to be launching in January that you are absolutely going to want to get your hands on!

Think of it as a Christmas present from Lee and myself. One that will last you all the way through 2010! And…it ain’t gonna cost you a single dime.

Well, after all ’tis the season of goodwill to all men (and women, let’s not be sexist), and what we are going to give you in January will certainly make you very merry!

So, without further ado, I’ll crack on.

The World Internet Summit is rapdily becoming the Internet Marketing Seminar of choice and it’s easy to see why.

At just $197 for you and a guest, it’s great value.

If I’m honest, the flip side of this great value is that all of the speakers do get to sell to you at the end of their presenatations.

However, I think it’s a price worth paying for some of the great profit making information you get given during the course of the event.

So, here’s a few of the gems that came out of the November World Internet Summit over at The Thistle at Heathrow.

The first thing that came out was the move by Google to offer more local services through Google Maps.

If you are running a local business how would you like to have a virtual clear run at a Page One Google ranking? Sounds good doesn’t it?

Well, go to Google Local and that’s what you can have.

This one is a real no brainer for local businesses. Just follow the instructions to set up your local account and enter your business details and you will immediately be on Page One of Google for any searches on your business niche with the relevant local qualifier (town name, zip code etc).

Why will you be on page one?

Two reasons…

Firstly, did you know that 67% of Google searches use a geographic qualifier?

Google ALWAYS listens to what the searcher wanst…and that’s why they have had a “local” campaign  and made this service available through Google Maps.

Secondly, most local business people have not found out about this yet and therefore don’t know - and even if they did know they wouldn’t know what to do about it.

Dominate now, while you can if you are local.

It’s like being able to take everyone else’s entries out of the yellow pages and just leave your one there!

Final word on this, big time Internet Marketers have cottoned on and are now developing products around this, get in quick before this becomes common knowledge.

Get Your Copy Of The World Internet Summit DVD’s Click HERE.

One of the most interesting things that I heard was that global online sales are expected to hit $500 billion plus in 2009. Yes you did read that right $500 BILLION! (Estimates do vary to be fair, but it’s always between $200-500 Billion).

That makes the Internet the biggest market place - EVER.

That makes the Internet the most POWERFUL sales medium EVER!

Who said there was a recession going on? How many times have I told you the online world is simply not participating in “the recession”.

And…the Internet is becoming ever more “social”. It’s about giving and sharing your information.

You only have to look at what people like Howie Schwartz are giving away these days to know that the top marketers are making an absolute mint by giving loads of stuff away!

You see, if you give away loads of (good) stuff, you gain trust VERY quickly. People like you more, tell more people and you build a reputation for quality very quickly.

Lee and I have taken this on board :>)

Remember that Christmas present? Keep reading!

So, the key to Online Success?

It’s a SEVEN step system!

1. Fine a Hot Niche Market - Remember the product comes second, the hot, rabid niche is the first and most important thing!

Solve a major problem and you have a WINNER!

2. Create a product that gives the market what it wants - remember a want is much more powerful than a need. A want allows you to sell on emotion!

3. Create a powerful and compelling sales message - vital.

4. Design a SIMPLE site that converts prospects to buyers. Think…

K - Keep
I - It
S - Simple
S - Stupid

Who are the most successful websites?

Google?
Amazon?
eBay?

What do they all have in common? Lots of white space and powerful messages. Copy the best!

5. Bring Traffic using search engines and PPC. Have you tried Bing? I hear there are some very buyer friendly clicks going at very cheap rates!!!

6. Use eMail marketing to convert yet more buyers.

7. Have an army of people to sell your product for you. That means your own affiliates.

You simply HAVE to get your business online!!!

Learn From The TOP WIS Experts In The Comfort Of Your Own Home Click HERE

Moving on, Nicola Cairncross a Brit who lives by the sea, was one of the most amazing speakers over the entire course of the weekend.

She lives a very simple life here in the U.K, drives an old Volvo but lives one of the most enjoyable lives you can imagine. Totally stress free and not working very much at all!

Before she made a living online she was a financial analyst. Working long hours, she re-assessed her life. Then she took her skills and built a membership site aimed at helping small business manage money more effectively.

She now turns over many times what she made offering her services one to one and because it is a membership model that she has built…

…her income is residual in nature and pours in month after month.

The moral of the story?

Membership sites build massive residual income.

Think what you might be able to develop a membership based model on - it’s a key to easy and recurring income online!

Throughout the entire weekend, one message came through LOUD and CLEAR!

Video is where the immediate future lies.

The most successful online marketers are now using video to sell. Most now use video sales letters and you simply MUST get video skills on board.

If you are not using video you are missing a MAJOR trick. I did a feature on this a few months back.

Did you know YouTube now gets 2.7 BILLION views each month (and the figure is growing).

In fact, you Tube is now a social network. You can build friend lists, market, chat, share, everything a self respecting social site should do.

You see Google now sees YouTube as an integral part of the new and rapidly forming Google Social Infrastructure that I talked about last month.

You have to get yourself fully immersed in the new Google fabric. Why?

Because the more you do in it, the more hard coded links you will have to your sites held on Google servers…and such links carry one hell of a lot of ranking juice.

It’s also interesting to note that everything is driven by Google Friend Finder and…it’s self policing because you have to agree to connect to someone!

Have you noticed you don’t get spam in Gmail?

So, I have started building a Google infrastructure. You should to!

You can connect to me if you like…

derek.armson@googlemail.com

Add me to your GFC or Google Wave.

Indeed, Lee and I will be looking to do some free Q & A waves early in the new year to test out GWave, why not join in?

Anyway, I digress, back to youTube.

The average person watches 150 videos a month on YouTube. No wonder the traditional T.V companies are struggling to get advertising these days!

Yes, that’s another upshot of all this…

…traditional advertising budgets are now making a massive move online. It’s getting close to 70% of all advertising spend being allocated to online advertising.

Ask yourself…how often do you watch T.V these days?

Do you watch more online videos, or do you watch your favourite programs on the T.V company “players”? I know I do!

Sorry, I digress again…it’s such an interesting subject!

Anyway, get your videos on YouTube and you can guarantee getting to page one on Google, normally position four…and you can do it for keywords that you would have no hope of getting a page one listing for otherwise.

Check it out, you’ll see the videos come up in position four!

Just make sure you have the keyword in your title, filename and tags and you’ll be there.

What further incentive do you need to get into video.

And, it’s easier than ever as technology advances.

I use Camtasia to render my video. But, if you get yourself a flipcam, you can record and upload to YouTube in one easy movement!

It’s never been easier to get yourself online and making some money!

All you have to do is TAKE ACTION!

Learn Loads More Great Internet Marketing Techniques With The WIS DVD Set - Get Your Copy NOW - Click This Link.

Yes, I know here I go again…but NO! It’s Christmas, it’s the Holidays, so I shall be gentle on you. I’ll talk about getting off your lazy ass after the festivities :>)

Seriously though, I know many people suffer from not knowing the easy bite sized chunk steps you need to take to be successful online.

So, in January (maybe sooner - watch this space) Lee and I are going to launch Internet Marketing Strategic.

What is it?

Simples!!! (Sorry, only U.K residents will understand that).

It’s a F*R*E*E, yes F*R*E*E Internet Marketing “How To” membership site. I’ll send you the joining link as soon as the first modules are live.

This is my Christmas present to you. I am going to REMOVE all of your excuses for now being successful online.

Beginning to end, chapter and verse, every little thing you need to know to build a successful online business, Lee and I are going to give you!

The first module is seven in depth market research videos - as I said above you need the niche first.

This module is just about ready.

The second module is how to do all that nasty techncial stuff behind the scenes in Cpanel. Everything you need to know in 23 short two - three minute videos. So you can learn in easy bite sized chunks.

Over the course of 2010 we will be releasing modules (regularly) that cover every conceivable Internet marketing subject, all gratis!

Now, I have to say, this is a VERY bold move and may well lead to a certain amount of indignation amongst the IM community…but we don’t care!

You NEED to know exactly how to do this, so Lee and I are gonna damn well show you!

And, finally, I know this may not relate to you and is nothing to do with Internet Marketing, but…

…you may have seen in the press this week Gordon Brown talking about Child Internet Security.

As it happens, we have just launched an Online / PC Child Security product to the world. Please check it out at:-

www.parental-software.org

If this is helpful to you, fantastic. If not and you know someone who is keen to protect their children online, please feel free to pass the link on.

And, finally…

…I promised to tell you about the car key episode at World Internet Summit, embarrassing as it is. Here’s some Christmas fun at my expense!

At lunch on the Saturday, Lee needed to get something from the car, so I gave him my car keys!

At the end of the day Lee went off to chat with Brett McFall while I was chatting to some potential JV partners for the Secure Kids Online product.

We agreed to meet at the car, and when I got there, I realised I didn’t have my keys (no sign of Lee)! Completely forgetting I had given them to Lee, I spent the next half an hour rushing around every place we’d sat at or had coffee in the entire hotel searching and asking if anyone had seen my keys.

Returning to a now empty reception Lee was standing there looking very puzzled.

“Where have you been?”

“I’ve lost the car keys!” I pleaded.

“****, I’ve got them”.

Talk about look and feel a complete Twonk!

Yes, you’ve done it too! Admit it!

O.K, that’s it, there is no more for this month and indeed 2009! Wow, where did it go? Don’t know about you but I’ve had a complete BALL in 2009 and I can’t wait for 2010! It’s great to always look forward with excitement at what the future will bring.

So, I would like to close by wishing you and your family a very happy and peaceful Christmas and a Prosperous 2010…come join me at the TOP! The view is amazing!

Peace and Happiness

Cheers now

Derek

Hello and welcome to the November 2009 issue of the APD Marketing newsletter.

I hope you are well and I find you in fine fettle this month.

Another year is drawing to a close! I won’t go on another one of my “time flies by” rants, but it does focus the mind. After all, we will all be making new years resolutions again soon!

So, what am I going to talk about this month? Well a bit of a mish-mash really. Time, sort of, but more the pace of life…particularly in the world of Internet Marketing.

I recently wrote about a new wave of technology and the changes that were coming. Part of that change was Google Wave, and you’ll be interested to know that Google is now rolling out Google Wave (or Gwave as it now starting to be called), so you should get yourself signed up.

http://www.wave.google.com

Sign up and give me a “wave” at “internetmarketingstrategic”

Gwave is going to become a very important tool for you in your Internet Marketing quest.

Indeed, Google generally is starting to move in more and more interesting circles.

The sixty four million dollar question of the Internet world has been “Why doesn’t Google play in the social media market”?

That question is about to be answered.

Google Wave looks like it is going to be the glue that holds this entire thing together, but…if you look at the tools Google has now developed and is now delivering at an incredible pace…their mission seems to have been re-stated as world domination.

What got me started on this whole thing was a great little product I got from Howie Schwartz a couple of weeks back. You would have got my marketing email about it.

Go Trick or Treating With Howie

I know some of you picked this up and the feedback I have had from the people that did make the purchase is very interesting.

I’ve been watching Howie for a long while but always thought his stuff was full of hot air. Not so.

This product (it is still available) is like a sneak peak into Howie’s world and it made me realise what a very sharp marketer he is.

You see he is master of Web2.0. We told you how to automate Web 2.0 with the Instant Social Traffic Formula, and this little product shows you some great new Web2.0 techniques that I certainly wasn’t aware of.

Lee and I will be incorporating some of this stuff into an upgraded version of Instant Social Traffic in the next couple of months once we have tested and made sure we understand how it fits together and works.

And, now Google has started on it’s own quest to dominate the social environment…well it got me thinking!

Now first up, what is Google doing?

Well, it looks like they are pulling a number of tools together to form a monster social networking “environment”. As I said above I believe Gwave is going to be the glue that holds this all together.

Firstly there is Gmail. This is going to be where you keep your friend list. Some new Gmail tools are going to make it easier to find and connect with people as well as save your friends lists.

Google Reader is going to make it simple for you to keep up to date with what is happening on the favourite sites you follow.

They already dominate video with YouTube which is becoming more and more a social network and they are also releasing Google Friend Connect which is the new friend finder in Gmail.

Then their is Google Profiles where you can keep your online “business card”.

Mix this all up, add Gwave and what you have is an all out assault on Facebook, Linked In, Mixx, Digg blah, blah, blah.

Google is set to dominate again!

Now it is my contention that Facebook is not easy to use. It is a social tool that Facebook are now trying to monestize. As it wasn’t a money making model in the first place monetization is proving awkward.

But, with all these very cool tools from Google coming together it is like they are generating a perfect “online marketing storm”.

If you are going to succeed online…you have to be in at the forefront of this stuff! Because as sure as eggs is eggs, Google will give their own tools the highest weighting in the search results!

And, despite what anyone might say, Google is where it’s at. Yes, they have taken their time in maturing this plethora of tools, but it is clear they intend to retain their dominant position on the Internet.

You have to see the online marketing world through Google’s eyes. It’s vital to your success.

And with tools like the “show options” and “wonderwheel” it is becoming much easier to do just that and see the world through Google’s eyes.

It’s like they are telling anyone who cares to look exactly what you need to do to succeed online.

See the World Through Google’s Eyes!

So, to learn all this stuff and implement becomes somewhat time consuming. Add to that the time needed to do all of your Web2.0 and socialization and you need to be in control!

So, this month, I’ve got two things to help you.

I have just revamped Total Control and added some even more powerful time management techniques to it. The bottom line, you need some advanced tools to overcome information overload and paralysis of analysis these days.

The workload to dominate Google is now more than ever. The savvy Internet Marketers are working behind the scenes, using these Web 2.0 and Google Tools to complete dominate any niches they choose.

You simply have to control the most valuable resource you have – time!

Control your time, means a controlled life. Total Control will help you achieve more than you ever thought possible. And, as you massively increase your effectiveness and time and money come under control,..You will feel stress melt away – I can vouch for this!

Get in control now!

Secondly, Lee and I have been working hard on a new review site for you. It’s called Internet Marketing Strategic and you can see the bare bones of it at www.internet-marketing-strategic.com

It should start to gradually come online over the next two weeks.

What is it?

Quite simply we are going to be reviewing all of the new Internet Marketing product releases so you will know, up front, if any given release is right for you.

We’ll be doing in depth product reviews and telling how, where and why you should (or shouldn’t) use any product.

I don’t know about you, but my inbox is bulging every day with new product releases. It’s impossible to tell what’s good and what’s not most of the time. So, now we’re gonna do it for you!

I know some of the Guru’s ain’t gonna like us for this, because if a product is out and out crap, we’re going to tell you.

So, keep an eye out for Internet Marketing Strategic - enter it in your Google Reader account :>) there will be regular updates! If you are subscribed to this newsletter, by the way, you don’t need to get signed up to that list as well

Finally, Lee and I will be at World Internet Summit from Thursday through Sunday next week. There is stunning line up for speakers including Tom Hua and Brett McFall (obviously), but also Armand Morin, Sean Roche, Ewen Chia, Howie Scwartz and a host of others.

At just $197 (plus a free guest ticket) it’s a ridiculous price to help secure your future…plus there’s always the chance you could be the subject of the World Internet Challenge and be invited up on stage to start an Internet business live at the event…and KEEP all of the profits! At the last event in Singapore the lucky subject earned over $22,000 and fainted when she found out how much she’d earned in just four days!

Sign up for the World Internet Summit here.

Anyway, if you are there, look us up, we’d be delighted to say “hi”!

O.K, that’s it for this month, I’ll be back with a bumper festive edition in December!

As always…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now.

Derek

P.S - If you feel anyone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to pass it on.

 Hello and welcome to the October issue of the APD newsletter. Sorry it’s a bit late this month, Lee and I have been negotiating some big deals in what for us will be new markets.

It’s exciting stuff and I hope to be able to tell you a bit about it before Christmas (Ouch…I said Christmas…did you see the Christmas ads on the T.V this week? How ridiculous!)

Anyway, as promised last month, I am going to finish off the Internet Marketing route plan to success in this newsletter.

Blame Google for the delay :>)

If you remember back to August I was just about to configure your autoresponder.

Once you have set up your autoresponder (with the “global” settings) and your confirmation page… you will need to send the course parts in sequence.

Now, you can send the content within the body of your emails if you like, I have done this in the past. However, you want to subtly sell stuff in your course…to try and make some money.

Yes, you can have affiliate links in your email, but I prefer to send readers to a page on my site where the course is housed.

This gives me many more options. I can add graphics (and make them affiliate links) or have Adsense on the page, show banners and also have hyperlinks to my own related products or…to be honest whatever I like.

I get so much more flexibility if I get them to a page on my site…plus there are links to the rest of my site! This is not really rocket science is it?

Just a quick note on the subscription confirmed page…this is the web page that your subscribers will be sent to when they click on the confirmation link in the email they receive from your autorsponder (to check they actually did sign up for information).

I don’t sell to my prospects on this page. I simply thank them for subscribing to my mailing list and give them a brief overview of what they can expect. You can use this page to sell or direct to a pre-sales page if you wish.

So, your site is set up, now you have to get people to come to the site.

I will talk on market research in depth over the next couple of months as it is an absolutely KEY area that you must get right…along with your keyword research.

Normally I like to send people to a squeeze page to collect their name and email address so that I can plug them in to my autoresponder. They get value from me in terms of the eCourse and I can sell to them on an ongoing basis. Yes, the money is in the list!

You’ll need to have a way for people to sign up to your list and for this you need to get the html code for a subscription box from your autoresponder. Insert this html in the appropriate place on your squeeze page.

So, your autopilot system is now ready.

Before you do anything in terms of live marketing…TEST out your system. From top to bottom, start to finish!

Here’s a list of things you MUST check!

Once you are sure that everything is working, you can start marketing!

During your market and keyword research you should have worked out all of the main root keywords (for example “social traffic”) as well as a full list of long tail keywords associated with each root keyword.

Again, I will return to how this should be done (in detail) over the next two months.

Once you have found your ten best (high KEI) keywords, you need to market around these. Again, I will deal with the criteria you should use in the research newsletters.

Write articles at the “authority” sites (HubPages, Squidoo, MySpace etc)

Post articles at the main article sites. Lee and I have just tested out Mass Article Control, you can read our review by clicking this link.

The problems are now sorted and I highly recommend this product as a huge time saver!

When you set up your article site memberships make sure you write a relevant author resource/bio box. This is a crucial part of the system that you need to spend some time on. Don’t waste the efforts of your article writing by slapping down an ineffective bio box like, “Derek Armson is an Internet Marketing expert. Click here to find out more info www.internetmarketing.com”

Your author resource box is a mini salespage where your one goal is to get that reader to click on your link. You only have a few sentences to hook the reader with curiosity and then give him a powerful reason why he should click on your link.

In our example, I would probably use something similar to the follow:

“Derek Armson is a Internet Marketing expert who recently developed an eCourse that details a step by step process for building a profitable online business. If you are interested in learning “How To Make Money Online” then get this eCourse and get yourself up and earning in no time at all, please click here: http://www.internetmarketing.com”

Note…most article sites DON’T allow anchor text links in their bio boxes. Where they do, the link would read “click here to find out How to Make Money Online”

Better isn’t it?

So, your article sites are now set up, so pick your first long tail keyword, and write an article about it.

Be sure to include the keyword phrase in the title, the article keywords and an article density of about 2-5%

Writing articles is a pretty basic action. You start of by saying what the article is about (using your keyword phrase). Then you talk about the importance of the keyword phrase and how to improve on it. And then you end with a paragraph summarizing what you just wrote about.

An easy solution is to create “tips” articles, people love these particularly if you use a number as well. I’m not sure why this works so well, but it does! So if our first long tail keyword is “make money with affiliate marketing”, the article would be: “Ten Great Tips to Make Money With Affiliate Marketing”.

The next bit is important. The authority sites have VERY strict rules on duplicate content. Post your articles there first adding videos and images.

Before you post to the article sites, make sure you change your articles! You need to change them at least 15%. This is easier said than done and is why I use Mass Article Control as it has a great article spinner in it which makes it easier to get that variation in a relatively quick time span.

You now need to repeat this process with the remaining 9 keywords! Who said this was easy!

Why so many so quickly? Like I said before, most newbies tend to get discouraged prematurely because they don’t see immediate results. By forcing yourself to write and submit the initial 10 in one shot (over 24 hours), you will see big results quickly.

I can write a decent article in about 20 minutes, but most people (I believe) take a little longer. With practice, you’ll get much faster.

Now, the critical part is to “socialise” your articles, hubs and squidoo pages.

If you use the Instant Social Traffic Formula this is all automated and you can do this very quickly. If not, it’s a long slog!

But you need to bookmark all of your articles and authority pages to as many of the social media as you can.

If you do this you will find that you start to rank very highly on Google Page One for your target keyword. This will of course bring you a flood of traffic.

Clearly you can use Adwords to get paid traffic quickly, but it is becoming expensive and there are more and more hoops to jump through.

If you have done your market and keyword research correctly, your keywords will automatically be in relevant groupings for your ad groups. However, the vagaries and “ins and outs” of Adwords are not for this month!

Having got to this stage, give yourself a break!

eriously, it’s intense stuff. Which is why I use tools such as Mass Article Control to help! (Remember I only ever tell you about tools I actually use and have PAID for out of my own money).

After a couple of days find the next ten keywords and rinse and repeat!

Try and get in to the habit of writing and submitting at least one new keyword rich article every day. Somedays you will do two, or three articles, somedays it just won’t happen…but always try to get at least one done. It should take you no more than an hour a day. Whenever you run out of keywords, build a new group of 10!

Very quickly you will have 40 or so articles floating about. Once you get to this stage you should be getting a fair amount of traffic to your squeeze page. My squeeze pages convert between 15-40% of website visitors. Yours will probably do the same.

You should start to see the gradual increase in daily Adsense income generated. You will also get a growing number of affiliate product sales as your subscribers go through the series of autoresponder messages you are sending them.

At this point, you should have a consistent and growing source of income. If you keep writing and submitting articles the proper way, you should maintain or further grow your monthly income.

What does this mean to you?

Remember to keep plugging new messages into your autoresponder sequence to not only promote new and different products aligned to the niche, but also to give away free valuable information.

I like to give free information two out of every three emails and promote one out of three. It shows you are keen to give true value to your customers.

And with the unlimited lists you can keep on your autoresponder, you can repeat this process as many times as you like in as many niches as you like!

What if you were able to get your first stream to generate $1000 per month? Wouldn’t you be confident that you could repeat that amount in a different niche?

This plan can work in any niche. Just follow it and you’ll do O.K!

Oh, and don’t forget about the ability to send broadcasts out.

Say someone who has a new product wants to do a joint venture with you. He’ll split the profits with you 50/50. So then you send out a broadcast to your list recommending this new product.

Because you have taken the time to develop a relationship with your list, you will have created a level of trust with them - and that is vitally important.

So when you recommend a product, many of your subscribers will definitely review the offer. And you will get a fair number of sales for virtually no work other then sending out an email to your list. I repeat, the money is in the list.

So, that’s the end of part two! I hope this plan helps you. It’s much easier when you have a step by step plan to follow!

That’s all for this month, I’ll be back at the normal time in November, when I will talk about niche research.

Until then…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now and have fun!

Derek

Instant Social Traffic

Easy Info Product Creation

If you think anyone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to forward this link.

Hello and welcome to the September newsletter.

I know I have written about time flying in the past, but I truly can’t believe how quickly the summer has flown by! I don’t suppose the very dreary summer we have had here in the U.K has helped, but…where did it go?

I’ve just got back from our usual summer jaunt to Vancouver (by the way, the weather there was stunningly good) and it seemed that no sooner has we arrived than we were back off to the airport…and we stayed four weeks this time! (Which is why the newsletter is a bit late this month).

It was also very interesting to note that the plane was full, not a seat to be had. Although I was most disappointed at the lack of goodies in the BA Club Lounge in Vancouver, the previous London flight was delayed so they’d stayed in the lounge and eaten all the food!

Having said that, the flatbed coming home and consequent ability to have three or four hours sleep whilst in the air is a “Godsend”. Firstly it makes the nine hour flight seem a lot shorter and secondly, it virtually negates jet lag…you really should get your online business earning you the necessary dosh to do this stuff…I highly recommend it!

Moving quickly on. I was going to do the second part of The Internet Marketing Route Plan For Success this month, but…Google has some big news…so I’ll finish that off next month – promise!

So, my favourite subject Google – again! I seem to talk about Google an awful lot at the moment. Mind you, it is a key component in your online business so you do need to know what Google is “up to” and how you should respond.

And, at the moment, Google is making a few interesting changes.

Basically, Google is about to launch a new and upgraded version of its search engine. At the moment only the “developer” version is available. This is a pre-launch version Google makes available to technical and marketing people who work closely with Google and use the search engine on their own sites, or integrate with it in some way. So, it’s not available to the “general public” just yet.

I understand the full launch will be sometime in October.

So, in wanting to bring you the most up to date news, I scoured the globe for people with a developer copy. And…I managed to get talking to some of the guys that have been blessed (by Google) with a developer version of the new search engine - code named…CAFFEINE. (Awful isn’t it?)

So, what did I find out?

First up, it seems that whilst Google had been planning to move the search engine forward their hand has been forced by Bing and also a new better Yahoo offering (although they won’t admit to that). If you want to know more about Bing (Microsoft’s search engine) then check back to the June newsletter on the new waves of technology coming through (it’s a great read).

For Google’s part, they are saying that “Caffeine” will improve the speed, accuracy, size, and comprehensiveness of Google search. To be honest, Google delivers all of this already and, in my opinion, any betterment in these areas is only going to be at the fine edges of the margin. It will also provide the basic structure and foundation for Google to move more of a real-time / contextual search model in the future (again more on this subject in the June issue).

There is the odd quirk in the existing Google (like not being able to find a Google Wave image on a Google image search – again see the June newsletter). If these oddities can be ironed out then that will be a step forward albeit a small one.

As far as speed is concerned it seems that “Caffeine” is quicker. About double the speed on some initial tests I have seen the results of. However, the developer version doesn’t have image and video search enabled so that may be a bit of a curve ball.

The number of pages delivered also seems to have been massively increased. A friend with the developer version did a search on the phrase “dog” and got 52 million results in 0.25 seconds on “old” Google and…wait for this…359 million results in just 0.12 seconds on “Caffeine”.  There did appear to be a deterioration in performance of ”Caffeine” when quotes or added search commands were used.

Clearly, though, the index has been extended, made more efficient or whatever, although I can’t imagine anyone trawling through even 52 million results? I have a life to live! And, yes, the speed has doubled, but will the normal user really notice the difference at such speeds? I think not. So, yes Google has managed to double the speed, but will that make a difference to you and I? This is marginal stuff in my opinion.

Accuracy and relevancy are the most vital aspects of search and have been Google’s raison d’etre since its inception.

I guess accuracy is subjective, but in talking to people who have a test version of “Caffeine” most say the results are better in terms of accuracy, but they couldn’t really give a concrete reason why they felt that. When testers looked at “temporal” accuracy, ie; breaking news stories, both versions performed at about the same level.

So as a website owner what do you need to be aware of?

Well, if you have a good architecture, have your SEO set up correctly, your PPC set up correctly and apply your social techniques efficiently, you should see very little difference. The only minor differences you might notice are as follows:-

An increased weighting on domain authority and some authoritative tag type pages ranking (like Technorati and Facebook tag pages) as well as pages on Scribd ranking for some long tail quesries based mostly on domain authority  and anything spammy on page text.

Maybe, just maybe slightly more weighting on exact domain name matching.

Certainly a slightly better (at this stage) understanding of related keywords and synonyms. This will become more and more important as the full benefits of the new architecture gradually roll out.

In conjunction with this as a forerunner to full contextual search more reliance will be placed on keyword search strings as opposed to single keywords. This will help with PPC costs if you do your keyword research properly, but it does make that research far harder.

Tuning down the exposure of video (to a certain level)..yes, I was surprised at this one!

So, there you have it, the first step towards true contextual searhcing as predicted by this very newsletter in June…this really is the place to be for all the hot news :>)

And, talking of HOT news…Lee has gone bananas and dropped the price of Instant Social Traffic. So, get along quickly and get a ton of free social traffic and a Page One Google ranking for your site!

If you are already a paid member, don’t panic, Lee is putting together a very special free bonus for existing members. He’s worked out how to get even more leverage…I’m not sure how he does this, but I’ve seen the beta test results and they are very impressive - it will be with you soon!

O.K, that’s it for this month, back to the IM plan in October, until then…keep healthy and have fun!

As always….to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now

Derek

Instant Social Traffic

Gain Total Control of Time And Money

If you feel anyone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to pass it on.

Hello and welcome to the August edition of the APD Newsletter.

If, like me, you are in the U.K, you will have noticed that the Met Office retracted their promise of a B-B-Q summer last week.

Talk about stating the obvious. It hasn’t stopped raining since mid June! It’s apparently due to the fact that, for the third year in a row, that naughty old jet stream has failed to “go north”.

So, it’s sitting right above us dropping one low pressure system after another on top of a wet and soggy U.K. If they ever talk about droughts again!!!

Add this to the recession, and as usual the press are having a field day peddling the doom and gloom.

And, this was the subject I was talking to a friend about a couple weeks back. He was fed up with his job and the weather and was looking for a way out. Now the interesting thing is that he had totally ridiculed my Internet marketing efforts when I first got started!

However, he had come to realise that I was having much more fun than him so, given his own situation, he started asking some questions.

In the end, he asked for a route plan he could follow to get started online, so…this is what I gave him! A step-by-step guide to getting your online business up and running…I am good to you :>)

Firstly, a plan is vitally important. Failing to plan is planning to fail! O.K, I know it is awful, but it is true…it’s vital you have a proper strategic plan.

This is where most people starting out fail. I have said many times, and I repeat, there is so much information out there (most of it not very good) that it is very easy to fall into the information overload trap.

If you have a plan, this problem is immediately overcome, you can read my Hub on this issue here, just click the following link Internet Marketing Pitfalls.

The first thing I advised my friend to do was to make the best of his knowledge and interests. Maybe look at a specific talent or experience. List them out.

Then go and have a look in Clickbank and see what products match your areas of experience or interest. Look for products that you have experience in, or a passion about. This is key as you will already understand some of the motivations and mindset of the market.

Having researched Clickbank, pick the first niche you are going to go for!

Then, having decided on your niche, list all of the products and pick the best three based on…

Sales page effectiveness (hint…does it sell to you?)

Gravity (higher the better)

Percentage Commission (at least 50%)

Commission payout (ideally at least $25).

Next, you need to register a domain name that is relevant to the niche. I recommend Namecheap, as the name suggests, it’s cheap - $8.96 If you can’t afford $9 for a domain, then you shouldn’t be here.

Despite what some might tell you, you definitely need a domain. Having a domain name that is relevant (like www.instant-social-traffic.com) helps in so many ways!

It keeps your PPC costs down, increases your quality score and generally helps get you recognised by the search engines (and added PR) because relevancy pertains throughout!

Is this message starting to sink in? The thread through your entire campaign MUST be common! Even down to keyword level (more on this subject in Part 2).

So if we have a site about German Shepherd Dog Training, the domain www.germanshepherdtraining.com would be ideal (no idea if it exists by the way). I tend to use hyphens if the domain I want is not available, as in www.instant-social-traffic.com

There is a lot of argument about this and many people say using the hyphenation harms your effectiveness. I have not found that, and it does allow me to create keyword rich domains that might otherwise have been taken.

Having got your domain, you now need to get it hosted.

I use Hostgator and Hosting Bay for all of my sites. They are both good as recommended in last month’s newsletter, I’ll say no more on this subject.

Both are really easy to use and give you explicit instructions on how to transfer your domains to them. Generally two or three fields to fill in and click the button!

Now, the bit most people dread…you have to put up a website, or at very least a squeeze page to promote your products. Make sure you have a mechanism for collecting names and email addresses. (You will need an autoresponder for this – more in a minute).

Three years ago I couldn’t have built a website if my life depended on it! However, as with all things Internet marketing, there is a learning curve…and you simply MUST make that investment in learning unless you can afford to outsource.

Initially I learned to use Dreamweaver, which is a fair task for a technical bonehead (that’s me by the way).

Nowadays I use Blue Voda. This is a free download product and is so easy to use my Mum can do it! It took my Mum three years to learn email and she still rings me to ask questions about it! So, that gives you an idea as to how easy it is to use Blue Voda. If you can use Word, you can use Blue Voda with about an hours learning – maybe less.

If you can afford to outsource your web build, great go for it.

I use the following outsource sites when Lee or I don’t have the time to do our own web work…

Elance

Odesk

Rentacoder

There are others, but I have built good relationships with service providers at all of these sites.

They can be a bit “hit and miss” to start with and I had some horror stories, but over about 6 months, I have found a number of providers who have done excellent work and I can now trust. If I need work done, I turn to these trusted suppliers.

It’s the same as everything, you have to start somewhere and you can’t expect everything to flow right away. As long as you learn and gain experience from the setbacks, it makes you more effective in the long run.

I’m sure I have said before every negative has the seed of at least an equal or greater benefit within it. Sometimes you just have to look a little!

Back to autoresponders. You need one. I use Aweber.

It’s the best for the budding Internet marketer! There are free autoresponders, but…beware, many of them are blacklisted so your delivery rates will be poor.

Aweber is $19.95/month and worth a bundle more than that for the functionality you get. It’s a professional, well-respected service that will stand you in good stead in the market.

An autoresponder will automate all of your communication with your customers and potential customers.

Why do you need one?

Well, research has proven that it takes seven contacts for people to buy. After years in sales I can confirm this is true. Your customers need to trust you before they will buy as a general rule…and that takes around seven contacts from you. So, if you do not follow up with people who show an interest, you are leaving money (lots of it) on the table!

I like using the seven part free course that allows you to market the products subtly and build trust at the same time.

Again, Aweber is so easy to use. If you can point and click you can do this. And…Aweber now have extensive video training so nothing is left to chance. Everything is demonstrated in fine detail.

Now you need to enter information into your autoresponder.

As I said, at least a seven message sequence.

This is where I think it’s important that you have an interest and understanding of the niche you are attacking. If you have that understanding, then you’ll be able to write your messages as an “insider”. People will relate to you and you’ll be on the “same page” as your readers.

This is so powerful when you are trying to sell – that you can sell from your prospects “point of view”. That you’re seen as an “insider” who understands their problems and troubles.

Yes, you can outsource the writing of your content and autoresponder series, but I don’t like doing that. I like to have intimate knowledge of what I post online so that I can respond effectively to any questions. I think that is important and show’s you are serious about your niche.

There is a lot of information in this month’s missive! I still can’t believe I give all this away free to you every month! I was reading about the Red Hat business model this morning (they give their software away free), but I am convinced that if I keep giving all this great free stuff away…I will be rewarded in full (plus some) for the products I do sell.

Plus, I enjoy writing the newsletter, it’s my subject and it’s fun – and so we come full circle!

One final thing, Lee and I have upgraded the Instant Social Traffic free members area. There is now at least $497 worth of freebies in there that show you how you can start to profit from “social traffic”.

The product itself has been delivering some spectacular results for paid members. I’ll be putting a video up with some case studies soon. Keep an eye out for that.

O.K, that’s it for this month, I’ll be back with part two of the IM plan next month when I look at configuring your autoresponder, the sales process, keyword research and a few other sneaky marketing methods!

Until then, as always…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now.

Derek

Instant Social Traffic

How To Control Time and Money

Instant Social Traffic

Instant Information Product Ideas

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 Hello and welcome to the July 2009 APD newsletter.

Wow, what a hectic and amazing month June was! I can’t believe we are already in July and a couple of days late with the newsletter!

However, it has all been worthwhile with our first major launch the Instant Social Traffic Formula.

I’ll be the first to admit we had a few teething problems, but being a first launch I guess that was to be expected! The main issue was the flow through the sign up process…and if you did have problems trying to get signed up, the entire process is ironed out now.

The new sign up process is very smooth, so if you tried and got slightly befuddled, do have another go! And, just to make it truly worth your while, we have added some extra goodies in the free members area. Lee reckons we have something like $497 worth of free social traffic pulling PDF’s and videos in there!

That’s good value in anyone’s book! Here’s what you can look forward to in your free membership area…

7 Easy Ways to Profit from Social Bookmarking

• A list of every social bookmarking site to use right away
• The Power of Social Networking and how you can profit from it
• A list of every Social networking site so you can get started NOW!
• Easy Blogging techniques and how you can apply them for profit
• Why You *MUST* get involved in Video sharing if you want to build an online business
• A list of every video sharing site…and you thought it was just YouTube!
• Insider “Profit from Stumble Upon” video revealing little known money-making strategies

After all, PPC is getting expensive…although I’ll be looking at how you can help reduce your PPC costs in this month’s newsletter.

So, without further ado, let’s get on with it!

You are probably aware that in Adwords your Quality Score (QS) is of vital importance. Get a poor QS and you will pay through the nose for your clicks.

I’m sure, just like me, you have been a victim of the famous “Google slap”! I mean, you just haven’t earned your Internet marketing spurs until you’ve been slapped around by Google a few times!

You know the sketch, when you get that nasty red message and are suddenly “asked” to pay $1.50, $5 or even $10 to make your keywords active again.

But, get a good QS and you can safely sit in position one of the paid results and pay far less than people below you.

So, what’s the hot news from Google then?

Quite simply this. Google has announced that it has decided to change the way QS is calculated (again)! As I’m sure you also know, being in such a dominant position, Google is want to change their view of the world at a moments notice. They do so regularly and without due (any) regard for how it might effect people plying their trade online.

So, in their infinite wisdom, Google has decided that landing page load time is now a very major factor in the calculation of your Quality Score.

What does this mean for you? Well, if your landing page loads more slowly than others competing on your keyword, your QS will drop and you will pay more per click to compete.

That cheap hosting now doesn’t look anywhere near as cost effective all of a sudden!

The bottom line is that Google wants people to use the best and fastest, most reliable hosting companies, so…they penalize poor load times.

And, if you don’t like it, I’m afraid it’s tough. It’s Google’s ball and indeed for the most part their game…and they’ll simply take the game away from you if you don’t play by their rules.

I know some people who find this hard to take and try and fight it, but it’s the nature of the game and…if you do play by the rules you can win big time. It’s simply a case knowing how to do that!

So, make sure you have quality hosting. If you’re on one of the $5 per month hosting plans you are sharing your server with hundreds of other people. If you can afford it a dedicated server is around $170-200 per month. It’s worth it if that falls in your price range.

If not make sure you are on a decent plan with a provider like Hostgator or Hosting Bay (these are the two services I use and I have had no problems).

Secondly, get your webpage / site code cleaned up and optimised for quick loading. If you’re not sure how to do that, just hire someone from eLance, Rent-a-Coder or Odesk. You should be able to get this done for a few bucks.

I’ve had great success using Odesk and have found a few trusted service providers who I turn to whenever there is something Lee or I don’t have the time (or inclination) to do :>)

Finally look into Managed DNS. If your provider gives you a dedicated IP address (if they can’t, change provider!) you can utilise a managed DNS service.

Without going into great technical detail, this spreads your load across 5 different DNS servers all on different backbones. This will effectively give you a significant decrease in your load time as well as a marked increase in reliability.

So, what should you do in the event that you do attract a much-feared slap?

Thankfully there are some easy remedial actions you can take to rectify the problem.

First up do make sure you know what your QS actually is, and with the new Adwords interface, it is much easier to track!

Firstly make sure your landing page is relevant to your ad. They keyword (or phrase) should be in the ad title, in the body of the ad and ideally in the URL.

The landing page should have the keyword in a density of between 3-6%, depending on what is needed to make the page read properly.

On the landing page you should have the keyword phrase in your meta description, meta keyword tags and in the title.

Now this is a hugely important point. You will need multiple landing pages! Sorry, but you do need to put the work in here. You simply cannot optimize the same page for two different keywords or phrases. Therefore logic dictates you have to have separate landing pages each optimized for the relevant phrase or keyword.

Check out the Hub I wrote on this subject as I give actual examples - click the link below.

Basic Google Adwords Guide

If you do put all of this right and your QS doesn’t come back up, there is a “shock” treatment you can apply.

Now I don’t want to be responsible for you burning hundreds of dollars in wasted Adwords costs, so listen very carefully, I will write this only once :>)

If the above doesn’t work…then raise every keyword in the ad group to the bid price the slap is suggesting. This is why I say you need to be very careful with this. To make sure you don’t burn a fortune, DECREASE your daily budget and then make SURE you monitor your spend VERY carefully. Like every 10-15 minutes!

If you apply this technique, you will normally see your QS start to rise within a few hours. Then gradually decrease your bid prices and up your budget until you are “back to normal”.

You have been warned though, this technique does require careful monitoring and I am not responsible if you mess it up!!!

If this fails and you are sure everything is right, contact Google and ask if they will review manually. If you can’t get them on the ‘phone raise a ticket. They are a bit slow to respond but generally very forgiving and do try to help.

However, you should not only rely on Google. As we have proved with the Instant Social Traffic Formula, there are many ways to skin the proverbial cat!

As at 9.30am U.K time this morning, 8^th July 2009, the Instant Social Traffic Formula occupied positions 1-17 on Google for the keyword phrase “instant social traffic”, now that is true power!

All Lee, Alison and I did was apply the formula – Q.E.D!

If you have anything you’d like to say, please add your comments below or drop me a line on Derek@apd-marketing.co.uk and I’ll get back to you as quickly as I can.

As always…to YOUR success

Cheers now

Derek

APD Internet Marketing

The Instant Social Traffic Formula

If you feel someone else would benefit from this information, please feel free to pass the address on. If you want to use any of this information on your own site, again, please feel free, but please credit APD Marketing with the information and place a link back to us - thanks :>)

Hello and welcome to the APD newsletter for June 2009.

Wow, we are having such great weather here in the U.K! It’s been absolutely beautiful. And, it’s great to be able to take advantage of the nice weather we’ve had over the past few weeks. I am already sporting a rather nice suntan for this time of year!

Having said that, it has only been snatching five minutes here and ten minutes there in between finalising the Instant Social Traffic Formula.

And, I am pleased to tell you that the product is finished and we have just about got Butterfly Marketing configured (it’s another one of those IM learning curves), so…we’ll be going in to pre-launch this coming Sunday 14th June - exciting times!

What’s it all about?

Simply unlocking Google’s secret back door to page one ranking…overnight!

Indeed, Lee and I have worked out how to use social marketing techniques and tools to ensure page one Google listing in no time at all.

The best thing is…it’s worked every time we’ve done it and now we’re releasing this information to everyone. This is one you are NOT going to want to miss out on, because without it…you’re at a competitive disadvantage in the SEO wars!

More of that in the next few days, I’ll be mailing you soon.

Moving on, this month I am going to talk about what’s happening in the technology world. A new subject for the newsletter, but vitally important if you want to stay on top of the Internet marketing game.

During the last two or three years the pace of technological advancement has been steady and fairly slow, there haven’t really been any stunning “quantum leaps”.

However, over the last couple of months, that seems to have changed with some startling new announcements.

I’ve been doing some research for a side project I’m working on and have found out some really interesting “stuff”.

It’s common knowledge that Google and Microsoft have been engaged in a “tech war” since Google first rose to prominence in 2000.

Initially Microsoft decided the money was in software not search and were somewhat “gobsmacked” when Google finally made search pay big time. Since realising they’d made a mistake Microsoft have been trying hard to take a chunk of Google’s search business.

In the latest salvo Microsoft has launched a new search engine called Bing.

Bing is the upgraded version of the much-maligned “Microsoft Live Search”. In layout it looks very similar to Google, although it has a pretty picture as the background as opposed to the white screen.

I decided to try out Bing and to be honest it delivers almost identical results to Google at the detailed search level. However, with more broad terms it’s clear a different algorithm is being used, as the results are significantly different. This is a good thing in my opinion

Bing also has some nice and different features on the results pages. Overall I thought it was pretty good although I did get some pretty naff results on some searches I ran.

But, it is worth putting on your favourites and using to get a different view occasionally. I also think this will help draw new users to Microsoft Ad Centre, that is also good in my opinion.

As far as Google is concerned they have been making some changes on search recently and seemed to have made the “content is king” and “relevancy” maxims even more central to their raison d’être.

Google have been promising a major announcement on search for some time, so keep your eyes open. But, I think I know what is coming, more on this later.

Another change is that we are starting to hear the term Web3.0 being banded around. What is Web3.0?

Well, Web1.0 was very static and very much a one-way street in that users accessed static information and there was little or no user interaction.

Web2.0 delivered that “interaction” through Blogs, forums and social media. It allowed people to become masters of their own destiny and the small “man on the street” to compete with the “big boys”.

In essence, Blogging and social media changed the face of the Internet.

So, what changes we will see from Web3.0?

The best definition I could find for Web3.0 is that it will be a task based “journey”. Seeking information to seeking validation to seeking entertainment. O.K, what does that mean?

Well, for the technicians…”information will be held in highly specialised silos and will be moderated by a “cult of personality”. Information will be validated by the community and put into context with the inclusion of meta-data through widgets”.

Any the wiser?

Let me try and explain, well my understanding anyway. At the moment search is based around keywords or keyword phrases. These search terms let you see chunks of data based on the keyword (or phrase) you use to search. It’s linear with results presented en masse in order of relevance.

Indeed relevance has been the key word (excuse the pun) for Google over many years.

However, remember the word “context”.

Web2.0 gave us tagging, which I really like as it allows me to market on MY terms as opposed to Google’s…I like tagging! As it happens, it’s a subject I cover in depth in the Instant Social Traffic Formula. Basically, though, tagging allows searching more in line with how people think.

Web 3.0 will take this one step further.

Say you are searching for information on cars. In the Web3.0 environment you would search as you normally do, but contextual algorithms will bring back results that include not only the main keyword, but also sub categories.

So cars might return automobiles, Ford, Honda etc.

So, if you were to dig deeper into the search and say decide to major on Ford (can’t think why) you would then be able to capture an RSS feed that would keep you updated with news on the subject of Ford cars. In reality you would probably dig deeper down to actual model level.

This “contextual” technology will permeate into the social media over time.

Moan for the day! I have to say; I do find this all a bit rich coming from Google though.

Why?

O.K, why don’t you try to put up an Adgroup with the keywords car, automobile, Ford and Honda in it. I have no doubt you would get slapped – very hard! For Google to cry “relevancy” in one breathe and then introduce contextual search in another seems to be at odds?

Maybe Google might change its view, but they do seem to like having their cake and eating it as well. Maybe if Bing can make inroads it will force change upon Google, but somehow I doubt it!

Moving on, but…more on Google a little bit later!

Let’s have a bit of fun and talk gaming for a while. Like you I thought Wii was a pretty major step forward in gaming. Here’s the rap, Wii is going to look pale in comparison to Microsoft’s latest gaming technology.

Announced a couple of weeks ago, have a look at the video below which show you examples of Natal in action.

 Project Natal In Action

I mean, bloody hell, is that cool or what?

Sales of the Xbox and most gaming consoles are on the way down as the market reaches saturation. So something new was needed. Yes, Wii was slightly different, but Natal has NO controller.

Your body becomes the controller. This may even persuade me to take up gaming! It’s physical and properly interactive. Soon, you’ll be able to have a great workout in your front room, and the best bit…it will be fun!

But also check out this video with interactive “child star” Milo. This is truly stunning technology. To be able to transfer data from the physical world into the electronic world so effortlessly is a real quantum leap forward.

You Just Have To Love Milo!

Now I know this is the gaming world and it’s very different from business, but I am sure you agree this is a major jump forward in technology. It can only be a matter of time before Microsoft finds business applications for this technology.

Which brings me neatly back to Big Google and the wave.

Last week they premiered their new Google Wave technology.

I actually sat down and watched an entire 1 hour 20 minute demo. Normally nothing can capture my attention for that length of time. This is going to change the way we work, plain and simple.

So, what is Google Wave?

It’s a web-based tool that allows instant messaging, e-mail, real-time collaboration, forum functionality, wiki and source control all in one hugely functional tool.

Here’s just one of the advantages. Think Skype. If I message you, you have to just sit and wait while I type my message. Then I have to sit and wait for your reply. Still fun, but very inefficient!

With Google Wave we can see each other type in real-time. Not only that, but we can both add information and amend it at the same time. You can invite anyone with a “Wave” account to join in. You can even make some parts of the wave available publicly and some private between nominated participants.

You can import video, pictures, text, whatever you like and the entire wave is hosted centrally with full real-time access for all.

What’s more, it’s open source so anyone can create their own wave environment and have wave applications on their website!

Have a look at the demo yourself. As I say, it’s long but it’s worth it.

Google Wave Demo

My mind was racing! Video sales letters are rapidly becoming the norm in the Internet marketing world. But, what about interactive sales letters? How much of a competitive advantage would that be?

But the part that really interested me is the spell checker. What? The spell checker, why is that so important I hear you cry?

Here’s the REALLY interesting part, the spell checker is truly contextual. In the demo, the demonstrator types in “Icland is an Icland” and in a nanosecond Wave corrects it to “Iceland is an island”.

Now that is very cool indeed.

However, what this shows is that Google has managed to get contextual algorithms working.

This means that the Web3.0 contextual search I mentioned earlier can only be just around the corner!

Contextual searching will definitely change the way search works. It is also sure to mean BIG changes in the way Pay Per Click works as well.

I haven’t thought through how that might happen yet. But if you want to stay ahead of the pack, you will need to understand and integrate these new and upcoming technologies into your business plan!

Exciting and daunting at the same time! Come what may, it looks like we are at the start of a new and exciting “wave” of technology!

One last thing! I was writing on this subject for a new Hubpage. So, I was looking for an image of Google Wave. Naturally I searched on Google images, but found nothing. Here’s the rub, I found the image on Bing! You have to laugh!

O.K, that’s it for this month, another rather long, but I think useful newsletter. I do like to deliver true VFM :>)

Keep a watch out for the Instant Social Traffic Formula, it’s going to be huge, so you will need to get in quick. I’m planning to give my APD list (that’s you) a head start for the pre-launch, so as I say, watch this space. In fact, if you go there now, I think the pre-launch sign up is working!

More next month, until then…

…as always, to YOUR success.

Cheers now and have fun!

Derek

APD Internet Marketing

Instant Social Traffic Formula