APD-Marketing Newsletter

Hello Again,

And welcome to the Christmas 2008 edition of the APD Newsletter. Yes, here we are again, the time for festive cheer and plenty of beer.

Indeed, it must be Christmas as I actually got an apology from Google last week! I just didn’t think that happened! As far as I knew Google was *ALWAYS* right…apparently not!

Here’s the story…

Now, you’ll notice I have been very quiet this last month - in fact, I haven’t mailed you anything since the last newsletter. As it happens I’ve been watching the plethora of Internet Marketing launches and have deliberately stayed out of the action, but more of that in a while.

The other reason I have been on the quiet side is I have been launching into a new market and this is how I got the Google apology! In fact, I’ve framed it and hung it on the wall.

I’ve actually been working in the health and fitness market for the last month or so…you can see the results at

www.learn-2-massage.com

I will use this site to demonstrate some good solid Internet Marketing principles as well as the Google apology…better than a slap any day! Yes, alright, I know you can’t wait to hear about it but patience…I’ll get there.

Back to learning to massage.

It’s a three DVD set with 9 bonus eBooks at the amazing price of just $67 (great Christmas present for the wife or boyfriend…end of plug).

Seriously though, here’s the lesson on Internet Marketing.

You can buy the entire series at the site above or you can buy a single DVD (plus 3 bonus eBooks) at the various individual product sites I have set up as follows:-

www.learn-2-massage.com/facial.html
www.learn-2-massage.com/full_body.html
www.learn-2-massage.com/indian_head.html

So, you can start to see the structure of the campaign emerge.

What about name and email capture I hear you cry? Good question. O.K, I have set up ad groups around “learn massage”, “how to massage”,
“massaging” and “massage techniques” – these are the root keywords I am going to test on.

I’ve also got some other ad groups planned out and am building a list of longer tailed keywords, should the test be successful.

These ad groups point to the following page…

www.learn-2-massage.com/learn_to_massage_squeeze.html

This is where I collect the customer’s name and email address in return for a free gift that you will notice is closely related to the main product for sale…this is important.

I have also set up ad groups around the three individual DVD main subjects…

“Indian head massage”, “full body massage” and “facial massage”, these point to the following pages.

www.learn-2-massage.com/Indian_head_massage_squeeze.html
www.learn-2-massage.com/full_body_massage_squeeze.html
www.learn-2-massage.com/facial_massage_squeeze.html

Now, some people say you should drive straight to the sales page. But, I was told by Armand Morin, in person, that…

1.  You need to build a list of customers as that is where you maximise future
sales and therefore profitability (back end).
2.  If they are not interested in your free giveaway they will NOT buy the
product, so you might as well “squeeze” that name and email that can be so
valuable anyway!

He has a point! I am not going to argue with him as he’s made $54 million online.

So, a valuable lesson, always, always, always use the squeeze page model.

Yes, you might have to be a bit “brave” about it, but it will multiply your long-term earnings!

And, finally, if someone buys a single DVD, they are, on successful payment, re-directed to a “stop page one time offer”.

You can see these at the following links…

www.learn-2-massage.com/oto_indian.html
www.learn-2-massage.com/oto_body.html
www.learn-2-massage.com/oto_facial.html

All these pages do is offer people who have purchased one DVD an upgrade to the full package for the extra $40 (a single DVD plus bonus items is priced at $27).

So, there you have a full Internet Marketing model that you can copy (and get your partner a great Christmas present into the bargain)! I am just so good to you…it must be Christmas!

So, what about that apology…don’t worry, I hadn’t forgotten.

This is what happened.

When I set up the ad groups, I kept getting messages from Google saying the URL didn’t point to an actual site. So I made some changes but kept getting the automated message back.

In the end I was absolutely sure I had everything right, (I even check clicked on one of my ads from within Adwords), so I re-saved the ads and sure enough back came the automated message.

So, after a while of digging I found the “email us” button (they don’t make it easy do they? Bless). Anyway, I politely asked (you must be polite with Google) if a human could have a look as I was as sure as I could be everything was right!

Less than 12 hours later an apology arrived for all the time and trouble Big G had caused me and confirming their system had blown a gasket!

What really interested me about all this though was…as soon as I posted the ad group I was given a quality score. Now, if the landing page is so critical to QS and they couldn’t read my landing page…how did they give me a Quality Score?

Answers on a postcard, best answer get’s a free set of massage DVDs! (And a
mention in the January newsletter – Wow, what a great prize!)

O.K, moving on.

I mentioned earlier the incredible amount of “how to” Internet Marketing products that have been launched over the past 4 or 5 weeks. I’ve also noticed the rapidly increasing ticket price on a lot of these products.

My belief is that as the recession starts to bite, more and more people will be looking to build themselves personal protection via an online or home-based business. People are realising it’s not particularly safe out in the job world at the moment and want to become self-sufficient.

Whilst I applaud that with gusto, I think many of the “Guru’s” are taking advantage of that new will and ripping off people with high-ticket items that are either not worth the money or aimed at the wrong sector of the market.

In fact I will be making big changes to my business in 2009. I have partnered with a long time Internet “co-hort” of mine, Lee Brooker, and we will be revamping APD over the festive period, so look out for some major changes in the way we “interface” with you.

The first example of our collaboration is a new home page for Total Control, which you can see at:

www.gain-money-and-power.com

You will notice the implementation of video…another must for the savvy Internet marketer!

As I say, though, next year will see big changes…for example the newsletter will become Blog-based fairly early on, and we will be implementing a co-ordinated Web2.0 strategy. Exciting stuff.

But…the main reason for raising this issue is simply this.

Lee and I are currently building a new product that will be a full, no-holds barred, in-depth detailed inside track “how to” on Internet Marketing. We’ll be showing you exactly how we build our own Internet Business.

It will be video-based training and launch in late January (hopefully)…and I promise you NOTHING will be left out.

The second question…what do YOU want included? What do YOU need to know to push your business to where you want it to be?

The top five answers will get a free copy of the product…and believe me this is one you will not want to miss!

Wow, that’s two give-aways in the same newsletter…it must be Christmas!

Back to all of those Internet Marketing launches, well, too much of the same stuff re-hashed for my liking. And a lot of it old stuff at that.

In my opinion the one that was really worthwhile recently was PPC Classroom, but that is full up for the time being. Keep an eye out in case Anik and Amit make spots available again. If you want to make a bundle in Affiliate Marketing, this is one of the best “how to’s” I’ve seen for a while. No affiliate link as nothing to sell, but keep an eye out if you’re not a current member…it’s good.

Right, that’s it for this festive, bumper, giveaway packed edition of the APD
Newsletter.

I don’t expect to be in touch before the new year now, not unless I get any major news from the markets (notice I’ve steered well clear of the doom and gloom this month as it’s Christmas).

So, all that remains is for me to wish you and your family a happy and peaceful Christmas, enjoy quality time with your family and friends and I hope you all have a prosperous 2009…stick with me and you may well do just that – despite it all!

Peace!

As always to *YOUR* success.

Cheers Now…and have fun!

Derek
www.apd-marketing.co.uk

How To Get Information Product Ideas

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

Hello and welcome to the November 2008 issue of the APD Newsletter.

I did say I wasn’t going to make comment on the financial markets and economic turmoil this month but I’m going to! I promise I won’t next month (unless something else outrageous happens)!

I have tried to avoid my old City chums this month to be honest, as the tales of woe are becoming a bit boring! But a few continue to call me with useful info, so I will very quickly tell you what I’ve learned as it is useful!

First up…Iceland. The Government knew in APRIL that Iceland was about to go bankrupt. How they could sit by and just let it happen without warning exposed consumers and businesses is absolutely beyond me.

In my opinion, this Government has made some serious gaffs, but that is the biggest of the lot…and it got very little publicity!

And what’s worse is that Gordon Brown has managed to spin the situation to make us think he’s the man to turn to in a crisis! God help us!

Secondly, I’ve had numerous calls telling me this is “the worst I’ve ever seen” in the markets.

I’m not only talking FTSE and Dow Jones type markets here, but also FX and Money Markets (and the like).

The Banks, despite the massive influx of Government funds are still unable to raise funds on the open market at reasonable interest rates. This is why, if you’re on a tracker mortgage, it’s doubtful yesterdays full rate cut will be passed on to you.

The Government may kick up a fuss about trying to get the Banks to pass on the cut and to lend more, but they have created a really juicy “Catch 22” with their actions.

You see the Government want to get the economy moving again so they want the Banks to lend at reasonable rates to get liquidity back into the economy. However, despite the capital injections (which just about saved the Banks) the Banks can still only raise money at 6-7% interest.

So, to make profits and pay back the Government they have to lend at high interest rates.

The rub for the Government is that if the Banks do as they wish and lend at low rates, they make massive losses and can’t pay back the taxpayers money.

What a wonderful Catch 22!

So, do the Government want the Banks to make profits and pay back to the public purse, or do they want them to essentially become “public servants” and help get the economy back on track by lending at a massive loss.

Oh…the irony of it all!

Now if we come back in to the real world what does this mean for the “man on the street”?

Well, I do remember telling you that this would be a mere ripple in the great scheme of things. Ummm…I might have been under selling the situation.

Neither I, nor my friends in the financial community realised the extent of the damage. It is now accepted the financial impropriety of the banks extends into the TRILLIONS!

I did say at the back end of 2007 we were in for a bumpy 2008. That was correct.

I am now predicting 2009 will be much worse! Globally!

This situation is now definitely more than a mere ripple.

If you have savings you will do well in the next 12 months, if you have debt you will not.

Inflation will melt away to be replaced with a degree of deflation. That means your savings will be worth relatively more (even without interest) but also in real terms any debt will become more in real terms.

House prices will continue to fall and by the end of 2009, they will be circa 33% below their peak.

The economy will shrink, by up to 3% - this is unheard of. There will be many bankruptcies and unemployment will rocket.

The services and banking sectors will contract violently. So will manufacturing, particularly areas such as cars and luxury goods (TV’s etc).

Credit will become even harder to come by.

In short, we are going into a very nasty recession that could easily tip into depression of the right decisions are not made at the top.

It is going to be the toughest year you have ever known. I was wrong about the ripple!

Whilst it’s still not a tsunami, it’s quite a big wave, but it could turn into the dreaded tsunami if world Governments are not very careful indeed.

Everyone I talk to, across all sectors are experiencing a severe slow down, 2009 is going to be pretty nasty – nothing and no-one is safe.

You have been warned, make sure you take precautions! I’m sorry I got this wrong, but…if the insiders didn’t know how bad it was what chance do you or I have?

On the bright side, whilst I expect the recession (that we ARE in) to be quite vicious, I do expect it to be over relatively quickly (12-18 months) provided all other things remain equal.

Enough of all that, let’s talk about how to make some money!!!

This month I’m going to talk about Pay Per Click marketing, a subject so vast and so complex…many people fail at this hurdle in their online business! Hopefully not you, and this month I’m going to give you some wise words on the subject of Google Adwords.

First up, if you want traffic quickly, Adwords is the way to get it. Free traffic takes time to build and is an ongoing process. Yes, free traffic builds over time and once you’ve done the ground work it keeps coming.

And, yes, PPC traffic is nebulous, you pay for it, it comes and mostly it goes again.

But, if you want traffic quickly, pay per click is the way to get it.

If you treat Big G right and play by their rules, it can be a real friend.

 However, treat Google bad, or in the wrong hands, it can become a money sucking monster that will quickly cripple your business.

When I first started out I spent £1,397 on Adwords in my first month and got…wait for it…3 (that’s THREE) sales. I sold £210 in products…so as you can see a whopping great loss.

It definitely pays to get good at Adwords.

The first major point you need to firmly ingrain in your brain is that Google’s sole reason for existing is search. Indeed, their sole reason for providing search is to provide the best search engine possible.

That means Google’s reason for existence is to provide totally RELEVANT search results VERY quickly – therefore remaining ahead of the competition and retaining their position as the search engine of choice.

Consequently Google places HUGE emphasis on relevancy of search results not only in the SERPS but also the paid results.

If you are not relevant, you will be slapped!

So, if you place the keyword “red shoes” in an ad group that advertises socks and directs to a landing page about socks, you will be slapped. You may argue the two items are “linked” but in Google’s eyes they are not totally relevant.

Now Google has changed its modus operandi recently. You used to get your
keywords disabled for search. Now, they simply tell you that you are not paying enough to get on the first page of search and tell you what outrageous rate you have to pay to get there.

This is Google “code” for “we don’t think you’re relevant”!

I did hear it called “Google’s Stupid Tax” made me laugh that! Stupid in who’s eyes??? Pardon me, we must respect Google…they will be spidering this :>)

So, when you create a set of keywords that are totally relevant to your ad and drop down to a totally relevant landing page, you will not see those $5 and $10 per click prices.

Here’s an example.

For example, you sell “dog grooming brushes”.

Your initial thought may be to bid on keywords like “pet” and “pet supplies.” Google considers these keywords as too general – not specific enough and therefore not relevant.

People looking for dog grooming brushes will not most likely search on the
keyword “pet supplies.” Think about it…would you?

The person looking for a dog grooming brush already knows what he or she wants.

You need to target your ad directly to the buyer. These sorts of keywords are often called “buying” keywords.

Do this and your conversion rates will increase. So, if you think about it, that’s as good a reason as any to be relevant.  It will also show Google you are relevant. This tends to translate into an increased click through rate (CTR) and a better quality score!

And of course, those two things mean a decrease in your cost per click. Not rocket science is it?

So, if you group and bid on keywords like “dog grooming supplies,” “dog grooming brushes,” and “dog grooming hair brushes”, you remain tightly focussed and relevant.

Each of these keyword phrases has one thing in common: the phrase “dog grooming.”

These are relevant. Make sure each keyword in each ad group has one common word or phrase.

You should always be looking out for new keywords and testing them.

Finding a list of converting keywords is an ongoing process!

You should use a keyword tool. You can use the keyword tool that’s in Google itself to generate new keywords on a regular basis. But don’t limit yourself to this tool when creating your keyword lists.

You can be as simple as using MS Word or other word processing program and enter some of your best keywords. Then use the built-in thesaurus. If your word processing program does not contain a thesaurus, go to www.thesaurus.com or any other online tool available.

This is a simple way to build a well targeted, original keyword list for
any successful PPC advertising campaign. The keyword tool in Google has recently been upgraded and does now offer much more functionality and information.

It is a good tool and of course the results come “straight from the horses mouth”!

You can find the Google Keyword Tool at the following link…

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

If you want to use a paid tool, in my opinion by far the best tool on the market is Keyword Spy. Using this tool allows you to build huge keyword lists in double quick time. And, what’s even better you can literally spy on your competition.

You can see their keywords, their ads and even see how much they’re paying.

If you’re serious about making money online you need this tool. It’s a little expensive, but it will pay for itself many times over very quickly.

Click below to have a look.

http://www.apd-marketing.co.uk/keywordspy.html

Next up you have to make sure your headline, body copy and display URL contain your keywords.

When someone performs a search, the keyword they searched for appears in bold, in the headline, body copy and web address. Ads with more bolded text stand out to the searcher, resulting in more clicks. Again, this is not rocket science but plain commonsense.

To take full advantage of this, you should try, wherever possible to have your keyword in the headline, ad copy and display URL. Sometimes it is just not possible without making your ads nonsensical or spammy, but generally the more often the better.

Again this helps you by driving more focused traffic to your site. Google will reward you for the higher CTR this brings with better quality score and giving you a higher position in the results for a lower cost. Your ad is shown more because you please the Google users because you provide exactly what they are looking for.

Again- The name of the game is relevancy – and Google will love you for it!
Finally, you should create a landing page for each root keyword you bid on.
One of the key “tricks” to getting higher relevancy and higher quality scores in Google’s mind is to drive traffic to highly relevant and specific landing pages.

Each keyword you bid on should be slightly altered so when someone clicks on your ad, they still see the same keyword or something very similar to it in the headline and in the body of your copy on your website.

To give you an example, if you search for “personal trainers in London.” If you then see an ad that says “Personal Trainers in London.” You will probably think “this is exactly what I want”. You click on the ad to go to the website.

The first thing you read on the web site is “3 Personal Trainers In London Reveal the Insider Secrets Of Special Fitness Programs That Can Easily Get You Fit And Looking Great In No Time At All.”

There is a pretty good chance this website gives you exactly what you are looking for. You are unfit, overweight and out of shape and you want a fix, and you just found someone local who can help you - now that’s relevancy at it’s best.

I guarantee you will have a high CTR, low CPC a Great quality score and loads of sales!

So, to finalise, just think relevancy from your ad groups through your keywords, into your actual ad and finally down to the landing page. Keep the root keyword common through the entire sales cycle and you can win the PPC game.

Hopefully you found that helpful. I’ll be back next month with…a bumper Christmas edition! I know, it just doesn’t seem possible does it? I haven’t shouted about it, but this is our second anniversary issue!

Yes, it’s true the APD newsletter is two years old today (well yesterday actually as I’m a day late this month). Why not have a dip into past issues, there’s loads of great info in them to help you in your quest for online profits!

Any questions, observations or comments drop me a line on the usual mail
derek@apd-marketing.co.uk

So, until next month, keep safe, keep positive and keep putting yourself out there.

Persistence is the only thing failure can’t live with!

As always…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now…and have fun!

Derek

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

Build Your Own Website

267 Great Information Product Ideas

If you feel this information may be useful to anyone else, please feel free to pass it on

Hello Again and welcome to the October 2008 edition of the APD Newsletter.

There’s an awful lot to talk about this month…on a number of varying subjects so it will be a bit of an unusual newsletter this month in that it will be a bit of a “mish mash”. I hope you will still enjoy my monthly missive though!

First up, I’m sure you will know that in the past I have been a “champion” of Stewart McKay at Adwords Excellence. I was hugely sorry to see the site disappear in September.

I haven’t been able to contact Stewart via Skype, email or ‘phone for 12 weeks now. I sincerely hope that Stewart is O.K and it is just that he has decided to “take off” in a new direction. There is no doubt he had become a trusted and respected mentor for me.

I know Stewart is a reader, and he hasn’t “unsubscribed, so if you’re out there Buddy, I’d like to record a very public thank-you and I wish you all the best.

If anyone does know what Stewart is “up to”, I would really like to know.

Moving on.

I decided I’d had enough of the British weather so, as it was Alison’s birthday, I decided to buy her (and me of course) a week away in the sun.

We went up and spent an amazing week in a very remote corner of Mallorca. You can do these things on a whim if you make your living online and are not beholden to “the boss” :>)

We had a week of beautiful weather, stunning scenery and outstanding food and wine!

It really was just “what the doctor ordered” in view of the summer we have had here in the U.K!

However, just one week away caused huge stress in the business!

If you purchased Dominating Clickbank 2 through my link you will already know about the technical woes I suffered!

If you didn’t…why not? Seriously though, if you have been wondering about DCB2, I’ve now had a chance to have an in depth look at the product and you can read my full review at…

www.apd-marketing.co.uk/dcb2review.html

Anyway, back to the story! First up my mobile failed to work in Mallorca, so that got me off on the wrong foot. Then my laptop decided to follow suit…so I had to find an Internet café and in such a remote spot it was not easy I can tell you. Then, as if to add insult to injury webmail decided to fail as well!

All that made managing the Dominating Clickbank 2 launch very awkward indeed!

They say things happen in “threes”, however, when I got home, and tried to log on, guess what? No Internet! It turned out BT had an “Internet outage” in St Albans that lasted nearly 48 hours. As if that wasn’t enough, when I finally got back online, I found ALL of my websites down!

I was beginning to think someone had something against me…and that someone must have been a powerful person (or Being)!

So, what’s the point of all this?

It’s simply this. Things will go wrong, planes fall out of the sky, trains crash and so do computers. It’s a fact of life. O.K, what I experienced was certainly a little out of the ordinary. And, I’ll admit I didn’t just take it all calmly, I did have a little rant here and there!

However, when things go wrong like this, as they are want to do ccasionally, it’s all too easy to just “roll over and die” – give up. It’s all too easy to blame someone else and rant down the ‘phone at BT or whoever.

However, think about it, what purpose does that serve?

If you were to devote that energy to solving the issue rather than trying to “fight against it” then you are likely to get a far speedier resolution.

And…sometimes there is nothing you can do other than “take it on the chin” and just get on with life.

It’s not what happens…it’s how you react to it that makes the difference. In situations such as these, I always ask myself the same question, which is…

“Is this situation life threatening”? I don’t think I’ve ever answered “yes”! In some situations where huge stress is concerned, the answer may be “only if I let it be” :>)

However, the bottom line is, just get on and do the things you can have an effect on and leave alone the things you can’t and don’t stress if you cannot change the thing!

I have to admit, it took me years to get this right, and I still don’t have it completely licked. Which sort of leads me into the next situation that I can’t do much about…

The financial markets! Oh Boy!

O.K, I’m admitting here and now, I really didn’t see the extent of this crisis coming.

In the great scheme of things this is still a ripple, but as I said recently, it is now a far bigger ripple that I originally thought it was going to be. In fact, it may turn out to be a little bit more than a ripple, but we won’t know that for a few months yet.

I remember talking to the IT head of an exotics desk about three years ago and he told me his particular bank were making hundreds of millions on derivatives. Even he, who had been in banking for 10 or 12 years, was astounded at the level of profits.

He said to me then, “if we are making all this money, someone MUST be holding the opposite position…I’d hate to be around when this lot unravels”.

That is exactly what’s happening now!

I have told you before how this mess came to pass, so I won’t go into that again, but…the question I was asking my old City chums today, was “how deep does the rabbit hole go”?

Nobody could give me a definitive answer!

However, shares on the FTSE have had their worst day ever and the index is at a five year low. Billions have been wiped off the value of British companies, and it’s the same the world over.

There has been a series of bank failures and rescues all around Europe in the last week. The idea that this is solely a U.S problem has been completely blown out of the water!

There has been confusion among the governments of the world as to what needs to be done, although it does appear a semblance of coherence has come out of Europe tonight with the leaders joint statement that they will do “whatever is necessary to maintain the stability of the banking system”.

So, just how deep does this nasty rabbit warren go?

My guess is pretty deep. One of my contacts described what’s happening now like “a game of kerplunk”! What a brilliant analogy!

When I asked what chance all of the marbles falling through? I was told 50/50.

Now, I personally don’t believe all the marbles will fall through, but some already have and others inevitably will.

So, practically…

First up, the major U.K banks all took refinancing positions late last year and everything points to the majors in the U.K being safe.

As far as any further major bad news in the U.K, my belief is that it is unlikely. After HBOS and Bradford and Bingley being taken over and nationalised, the view is that is the end of the seriously bad news in the U.K.

As far as the U.S is concerned, it’s my view was that most of the really bad stuff has happened, but that there are still quite a few smaller American banks that are “exposed”. Expect further rationalisation and maybe a couple of smaller failures.

We can expect major redundancies in investment banking. Indeed, UBS announced job cuts of 2,000 this week and with a huge swathe of Lehmans wiped out that accounts for another 2-3,000 jobs. Expect more of this in investment banks worldwide.

Of course, I don’t expect anyone to shed any tears as it is certainly true the banks are the architects of their own downfall by lending ever deeper into the sub prime and then cutting up the CDO’s (collateralised debt obligations – mortgage back securities to you and I) into more and more complex derivatives, futures, swaps, options etc.

The relentless pursuit of ever-higher profits at any cost is completely to blame!

However, the Bank of England has £40 billion standing by. This will be used to inject into the banking system to try and “free up liquidity” (so that loans and credit become available again at reasonable rates).

But with a country (Iceland) to all intents and purposes bankrupt, that £40 billion may not be enough. Iceland’s banks have borrowed £180 billion betting on interest rates and financing Icelandic business expansion against a GDP of just £80 billion. In other words they have borrowed over twice the value of the entire country and gambled it!

I heard it said that if Iceland had to actually pay this “bill”, tax would have to go so high that the average family in Iceland would not even be able to afford a fish finger per week after tax!

In case you weren’t sure about this…this is not good news! Icelandic banks are certainly intertwined in U.K business on the high street (Hamleys, Oasis), even in the Premier League with West Ham United (no wonder they didn’t buy any players in the transfer window).

One thing I couldn’t get information on today was the exposure British banks have to Iceland, but there are strong links between Iceland and the U.K. It is possible that this issue could still come back to haunt U.K Banks.

Government is now sure to get much more involved in regulating what is being seen as this wholesale gambling by the investment banks. However, there is a view that the U.S government has a lot to answer for by way of the Sarbannes Oxley legislation.

If you are not aware of what this is, it is a set of accounting legislation that U.S banks have to adhere to. As most investment banks are global organisations, it was pretty much adopted throughout the world of banking.

It has had a particularly nasty effect in investment banks.

In short, this legislation states that any financial institution can only put assets on their balance sheet at market value and herein lies the rub!

This is why Merrill Lynch had to be brought out before it collapsed.

Their mortgage-backed bonds were trading at 22 cents on the dollar so that is what had to be entered on their balance sheet.

In actual fact, it has been proven that, despite the wretched news in the U.S property market, the actual default rate on home loans will finally shake out at 20-25%.

So, in effect, these bonds were really worth 75 cents on the dollar. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realise that is one hell of a “hit” to take.

This same situation pertains in most of the investment banks, and is a major
contributor to the ongoing “crisis”.

If world (U.S) governments just relaxed the Sarbannes Oxley rules to allow banks to put something like the true value of their assets on the balance sheet, this entire “crisis”, I won’t say could have been avoided, but would have been far less severe!

So, a simple rule change by government could have saved the tax payers of the world billions of dollars.

Yes, ultimately it is you and I who will foot the bill.

It has been suggested that government should bail out the small and medium sized businesses that are suffering rather than the “fat cat” bankers, and I have some sympathy with that view.

However, we need the banking system and everything is provides to “oil the wheels” of the now global economy. It is, though, my view that the bankers have been allowed to get away with far too much in the pursuit of ever increasing, never-ending profits.

That will change and far tighter regulation will be put in place, but government (the world over) really needs to take a look at itself as well. I can’t believe they have missed the point so “obviously”. It does make you wonder if there’s not an alternative agenda – seriously?

So, what does this all mean for you? In the short term I have noticed that job vacancies are starting to dry up and figures from the high street and services industry look pretty awful at the moment.

Redundancies are starting to hit the headlines!

This is a very recent trend though, job vacancies, the high street, restaurants and the like have held up remarkably well until the last couple of weeks.

The Western World will dip into recession for sure. And there will be job cuts and things will not be too bright for the next 12-18 months. Only you know how exposed you are, but I would suggest you should have at least 9 months living expenses stashed away by way of savings if you are still working as a wage slave!

If not, you are exposed to at least some degree at the moment. Sorry, but there ain’t such a thing as a safe job at the moment.

The level of recession in any given country will depend on the level of household debt in that country – the U.K and U.S are not best placed in this league!

It was also interesting to note that one contact I met suggested that the government may be actively engineering a period of inflation to help wipe out some of the “value” of the extensive debt and build some equity in house prices again.

It’s true inflation would help reduce the debt burden and the true value of mortgages and make household finance more manageable, but the effect on savings and industry would be far worse than those “beneficial side effects”.

My belief is this is in the realms of “conspiracy theory”. If there is even a grain of truth in this…it is a hugely dangerous strategy.

The other thing you will notice is that 0% finance will quickly dry up. We have already seen casualties in the furniture business and this may well extend into car dealerships. But these companies raise their capital (and then sell the debt) on the markets and that funding just won’t be there any more.

Come what may, I believe 12-18 months down the line things will have stabilized, the (large) ripple will have passed and the economy will settle down and start to grow again. Slowly at first, but it will “bounce” back.

But, do make sure you are prepared for what could be a bumpy ride for the next 9-12 months. As I said up front, how bumpy, well, people couldn’t really tell me today as they simply don’t know. If I do get any further information over the coming weeks, I will get it out to you straight away.

But…it is important to remember, when all is said and done…it’s not what happens, it’s how you react to it!

I know I am beginning to sound like a scratched record here (for those who can remember records), but…now really is the time to make sure you protect yourself and your family by getting your online business up, running and profitable.

The information I provide through the APD main site can help you do that, so use it to get yourself started, move yourself forward and make sure your destiny is very firmly in your *OWN* hands!

The high street is starting to suffer, but sales online continue to grow…it’s the only place to be! Niche markets in areas such as health, hobbies and self-improvement continue to pull record profits.

Make sure you get your slice of the ever-expanding pie – you have no excuse and…you know it makes sense!

Just before I go, I have been on a mission to get the main site seriously upgraded with loads of new information since I got back from holiday. There is new “free stuff” for you to download, new APD products and quite a few new product reviews.

If you haven’t dropped by recently, do re-visit and have a look.

As always, if you have any questions drop me a line at   derek@apd-marketing.co.uk

And finally, finally. Please excuse any typos or spelling mistakes in this edition. I’ve sat down and written this long piece on the markets straight after getting in. I usually ask Alison to proof, but I wanted to get this important information out to you A.S.A.P.

O.K, that’s it for this month, a bit of a gloomy newsletter I know. However, you do need to be aware of how this situation will / possibly could effect you. And, you need to think about how you are going to deal with any curve balls that come your way.

I promise to get back to more positive stuff next month with a newsletter full of solid online profit pulling information!

Until then, as always…

…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now…and have fun (you might as well!!!)

Derek

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

Blogging For Profits

P.S – If you know of anyone who you think would benefit from this newsletter, please
feel free to pass it on.

P.P.S – If you want to use any of the information in this, or any of my newsletters of
on your own website, in your own ezine or newsletter, you are free to do so, but
please do add my resource box – thanks.

Hello and welcome to the cold, wet, windy September 2008 issue of the APD Marketing newsletter.

Well…where do I start?

I was in audience with Tom Hua yesterday afternoon and my mobile suddenly went beserk…much to my embarrassment! I thought I’d switched it off!

I mentioned on Friday that I was holding off the newsletter while I was waiting for some hot info from one of my old City chums, little did I know what was going down!

By now you will all have heard the incredible news about Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae.

To give this news a little perspective, these two giants of the U.S mortgage market underwrite (that means guarantee) nearly half of the U.S mortgage market.

What’s that worth? Well between them Freddie and Fanny “own” $5.3 TRILLION of mortgage debt.

That makes Abramovich and Mittal look like small fry!

It’s my guess that my City chum knew this was going down but couldn’t say until this morning…that’s what he alluded to anyway.

It’s also my guess that the Fed announced this on a Sunday to make sure they had at least some degree of control over how the markets reacted. If this had suddenly been announced once trading had opened today, all hell would have broken lose!

Sadly it stole my thunder a little, but I can live with that :>)

It was also interesting that the Nationwide takeover of the Cheshire and Derbyshire building societies was buried in that old chestnut “the bad news day”.

No fanfare, no big takeover, no windfall prizes for account holders, just relief that the smaller account holders savings and mortgages are now safe…after all Nationwide is safe. No, I’m not playing with you here, Nationwide is still a membership organisation (one of the few left) and it has to play by very strict liquidity rules.

So…what’s the point of all this?

Well, if you remember back when all this bad news was first breaking I wrote about how all this supposed economic turmoil was to a very large degree “whipped” up by the press and that these supposed economic tsunamis were, in the great scheme of things, just little ripples.

I still believe this to be true, although this ripple is turning out to be quite a bit bigger than I originally thought.

However, the fact remains that the economy (in the U.K) has just stopped growing. That means that multi billions of pounds worth of business is still completed each and every day.

If you look at the job pages in the papers, they are still full.

I guess an old recruiter never dies…yes, sad isn’t it? But…I still look around the job boards and still occasionally set up job search agents!

So, out of interest, I set up a few job agents for recruitment jobs and not to put too finer point in it was overwhelmed by responses.

The job market is alive and well (if you should happen to want a new job…can’t think why though). Although the City is squealing, but…that seems to be the only market that is. I had to cock a wry smile at that!

Coming back to the weekend. As I mentioned a small group spent the weekend being trained by Tom Hua. He also brought along Brett McFall and Ewen Chia (more of these guys in a minute).

The point is this. These guys are reporting their best ever sales figures. That means the online world is not only alive and kicking, it’s profiting from the uncertainty that abounds.

That uncertainty is more uncertain than I thought, but Internet Marketing will continue to grow and get bigger. And, it is at times like this that people, smart people like you, look to take their destiny into their own hands and build online businesses with long term residual income potential.

It really, truly is the only way to fully protect yourself against the economic “bad weather”. Yes, those ripples might be relatively small, but if you get caught on the downside of one, it can still hurt.

Indeed, if Freddie and Fanny had “gone down” that would have caused a tsunami. Now the poor old American tax payer is picking up the bill!

But, if you put all the hype aside, there is still plenty going on economically and online sales continue to grow exponentially (in all niches)…it really is the only place to be. To secure your own future!

So, what did I learn at the weekend?  First up, I got another serious injection of positive. I just love spending time with like-minded people who just want to learn and grow their businesses… secure their futures. Gain peace of mind.

Would you have been prepared to “give up”…I really should say *INVEST… a weekend to learn more about how to take your destiny into your own hands?

Here’s a little taster of what I learned over the weekend.

How about “how to get a ton of free traffic to your site”?

Sound good?

Actually, that “ton of free traffic” phrase is somewhat overused isn’t it? But, there are many techniques you can use to drive traffic to your sites for free.

And, there is a difference between paid traffic (pay per click) and non-paid traffic. The main difference is this.

Paid traffic is short term. You pay for it, it comes, hopefully it has a look, even more hopefully it buys…and then it goes…that’s it. It is because PPC traffic is so “nebulous” that you *MUST* have a contact capture mechanism on your site!

So that you can collect a name and email address and market other products and services…the money is in the list…but you know that don’t you?

However, free traffic has a more long term nature.

Take article marketing, a great way to get free traffic to your site.

If you write an article about your given subject and submit to an article directory, that article stays there forever.

The article itself should be 300-500 words long and optimised around a *SINGLE*  keyword. That keyword should not be generic or broad, for example “tennis”.

It should be at the “buying search” level (sometimes called “long-tail” keywords). Perhaps a review of the advantages of the “Dunlop Super Server 500” tennis racket. O.K, yes I’m sure you can tell I don’t play tennis! Does a “Dunlop Super Server 500” exist? No idea, but you get the point.

The article should be based around this keyword that people would type in when they have done their research and are interested in actually buying.

Now, having written the article you have the option to put a resource box at the bottom of the article with a back link to your sales page (for “Dunlop Super server 500” tennis rackets!)

Really hot tip…put a benefit in the resource box, don’t just make it about yourself. People (buyers) want to know “what’s in it for them”. Remember WIIFM (pronounced “wiffum”) – “what’s in it for me”. Everyone buys from their own perspective!

Now, here’s another really hot tip for you. You only need to put the article on one site!

Yes, all of the other article sites take from…

www.ezinearticles.com

That’s all you need do. This site is a PR6 and in the top 350 on Alexa! That is some serious “clout”. And…hey presto you have a back link to your site from a PR6 site and Google will start to take notice.

Other people can now use your article on their site, in their ezines (they have to keep the resource box) and suddenly you have a little workhorse out there pulling traffic to your sales page.

How easy is that?

Put twenty articles up and…well you get the picture. A couple of hours work…traffic for life.

If I’m honest I knew this before the weekend, but…it jogged my memory and reminded me that the last time I sent an article to ezinearticles.com was over 9 months ago!

I dread to think how much traffic I have missed out on because I’d forgotten this very simple, but hugely effective traffic technique.

That, is a great example of what you can learn when you go to events such as the (albeit private) one I attended at the weekend.

You get to meet great marketers in person, and they are genuinely giving people, they want to see you succeed, as I do!

They will give you as much time as you need to get your own questions answered and…they will impart great knowledge to you.

Yes, they will sell to you as well! But wouldn’t you in that situation :>)

However…you gain so much at these events.

I can pinpoint the moment my business started to really take off and it was when I started to attend these seminars!

Luckily for you, Tom Hua, Brett McFall and Ewan Chia, plus a host of others are pulling a 4 day repeat performance next weekend in London.

I seriously hope you will be able to make it along so that *YOU* can learn how to take your business to where you truly want it to be.

Click on the following link to get the full story.

www.apd-marketing.co.uk/apdrecommendswis.html

In short, you can spend 4 days rubbing shoulders with *ELEVEN* of
the Internet’s most successful entrepreneurs. Watch as they show you *LIVE* how to build an online business and secure your very own financial future. And I must stress…this isn’t theory, you will see live worked examples of money making websites and businesses built before your eyes.

You’ll get to see the insider workings of successful online businesses.

Do have a look.

www.apd-marketing.co.uk/apdrecommendswis.html

You know it makes sense!

O.K, that’s enough for this month. I hope to see *YOU* at World Internet Summit next weekend.

As always…to *YOUR* success

Cheers now, and remember to have fun!

Derek

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

Why not Learn to Massage!

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

Hi and welcome to the August 2008 APD Newsletter.

Wow, August already, and for those of us in the U.K summer still hasn’t really
started! Now if ever there was a reason to get your own auto pilot income business up
and running and profitable (so you can run it from beside a Spanish beach)…surely
the British weather has to be a major motivator!

O.K, if you’re not reading this from somewhere in the U.K, you might need to find
other motivation, but for Brits…I would suggest the weather is one of the best
motivators around. Most of my leisure time this summer has been spent in this green
and pleasant (and very wet) land, but I am now at breaking point so I’m off for some
sunshine in a couple of week’s time!

Anyway, enough of my weather rants, back to business as I take a further look at
some of the ideas that came out of the Andrew Reynolds bootcamp a few weeks back.

http://www.cash-on-demand-workshop.com/bootcamp/

I know many of you took up the DVD offer (link above) and I know you’ll be starting
to reap the benefits, but do still read this newsletter as I’ll be highlighting areas of
special interest.

One area that came through loud and clear was regards product development. I have
to admit I was cringing when I heard this! This was me when I first started!

Most people who are looking to develop a business, be that online or traditional,
develop the product first and then look to market it…wrong!

The first thing you MUST do is find a hungry market…before you do anything else! I
know I’ve said this before, but it still amazes me the number of people who approach
me with a product they have spent years developing without doing a scrap of research.

It seems blindingly obvious to me now, but when I think back…I had my idea and I
was totally blinkered. The rose-tinted glasses were on and my product was the best
thing out there and was going to sell by the thousand.

My first experience of this was as a very young and green twenty something. I spent a
fortune getting a range of sepiatoned photographic prints made up and expertly
framed. I then spent a lot more buying a stand at a huge craft fair which ran over three
days in Milton Keynes.

I then sat there on the stand for those three days and sold….wait for it…

TWO pictures. Did I learn my lesson?

Of course not!

When I first went online I read all of the books, watched a load of video tapes and
proceeded to get it wrong again.

Now I have learned my lesson. If I have an idea, I research the market first.

I look for competitive products (these are good by the way), I look for forums where
the subject is discussed, I do Google searches, I use keyword research tools to find out
how many searches are being done online. I look at the magazine racks…in short, I
make sure there is a market before I even think about launching a product.

And, when I first test a market, I do it as an affiliate. I find a product in that market on
Clickbank and I promote it. I set a small budget and I test ad variations and I see if I
can make money.

If I can make money in the niche, then…and only then do I look to develop my own
product.

As it happens, watch this space on this subject. A good friend of mine has developed a
product and I am going to teach him how to market online. At the moment he knows
nothing…and I mean nothing! Adwords got a completely blank look from him! So, I
am going to show him, top to bottom, how to go about marketing online.

Did he do his research? No, he didn’t! However, he was very lucky as he had picked a
very, very hungry market. As soon as he showed me the product I knew. There are
rare occasions when you do just know. And, when I did the online research it did
confirmed what I thought, so…we’ll be sitting down in the next couple of weeks to
market this product.

I’ll be filming the entire process and I’ll be making it available…this will be one you
won’t want to miss!

Anyway, the point is simple…before you spend anything on product development (be
that your time or money) make sure you KNOW for sure that there is a hungry market
waiting to buy.

One of the other things that I got at Bootcamp was a massive injection of positive.
Now, normally I am the most positive person around. Many people have been known
to hate me as I’m one of these annoying people that wake up in the morning and start
flying around at 100 miles an hour, singing and generally being noisy.

However, every now and then it is good to get a new injection of positive to keep you
on the right track and motivated. With the best will in the world, even positive people
sometimes have the odd dip here and there and…there is nothing like an influx of
positive input every so often.

Pat Mesiti was the PMA guru for the weekend…a real bundle of Aussie energy!
Hyper doesn’t describe him, but what great ideas he delivered…I’ll cover just a
couple of the main themes.

In short he said that if you want to have the money, lifestyle and everything that goes
with having a successful business, then your mind has to evolve to the level where
you can deal with wealth.

He cited the example of a very famous American heavyweight boxer who earned over $400 million during his career but was now flat broke and in and out of prison.

$400 million blown on nothing!

The essence of this is that you have to control your own attitude to life and show the
discipline needed to grow and develop with your business.

You do this by making sure you read and watch the right stuff, and set goals and
priorities for yourself.

For example, if you want to build a lifestyle for yourself where you have numerous
autopilot profit streams and you need to learn, say Google Adwords, to help generate
profits…would you give up the “game on TV” to learn what you need to learn?

I talked last month about going that extra mile. I’ve talked before about sitting there at
9pm on a Friday night writing this newsletter. I gave up a weekend to be at Bootcamp.

In short…I have my priorities right and it’s why this week I have spent a day out with
my eldest son, I’ll be off for a luxury week in Spain soon, I’ll be spending three
weeks in Vancouver soon and I got up at 9am this morning and walked the three yards
to “work”!

You see I took the hit a few years back. I put in the hard work, I got my mind focused
the right way and I did what it took to get me to where I am now.

What else did I do to get here?

I set goals. I know, I can hear the collective sigh from here “Yeah, we all know about
goals”.

Do YOU have your goals written down? Do you even have any goals set?

Every positive mental attitude book, DVD or CD will tell you the most successful 5%
of the population are those with written goals! It’s true so please get your goals
written down…ideally with pictures to support.

Andrew did a brilliant session on goal setting and it was an area I had let slip a little
(at least I’m honest with you).

However, after Bootcamp, I was re-invigorated and have re-set and massively
“upped” my goals.

You see…it’s that injection of positive again!

As it happens, Andrew still has the bootcamp DVDs available, and if you haven’t got
yourself a copy yet, I seriously suggest you invest. Click on the link below…

http://www.cash-on-demand-workshop.com/bootcamp/

Invest in yourself, was one of Pat’s main themes. If you want success and you haven’t
got it now, then it follows you will need to do something different in future to get you
to where you want to be. Simple stuff.

Investing in the “right stuff” for yourself (and your loved ones) is one of the main
support pillars of all successful people!

I’ve got some really interesting stuff coming up for you during the course of the next
month, so you will hear from me a little bit more often over the coming weeks, but it
will all be designed to help you really move your business and life to where you want
it to be.

So, stop making excuses and just “DO IT”…start doing something to secure your
financial independence and future lifestyle…NOW.

http://www.cash-on-demand-workshop.com/bootcamp/

O.K, that’s it for now, do read this newsletter again and think about what you really
want. Final word…I am nothing special, I spent 20 years as a recruiter (it pains me to
think about it now)…if I can do it – so can YOU!

As always…to YOUR success.

Cheers now, and have fun!

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

267 Information Product Ideas

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

Hello and welcome to the July 2008 APD newsletter.

I’m pleased to report I’ve just about recovered from the Andrew Reynolds bootcamp
the weekend before last. It was hard work, but as I said last week, well worth it. 9am
through until 7.30 for three straight days, and then of course…the delights of
Brighton’s finest restaurants and hostelries had to be sampled afterwards!

In fact, I had to go away for a few days R & R in the Lake District. My partner and I
got soaked on numerous occasions as we yomped up and down very large hills and
round very large lakes. Allegedly this was fun!

I deliberately didn’t take the laptop as an exercise in restraint. Do you remember I was
talking about that feeling of wanting to get back to your business if you were away?
With all of the new information I learned at Bootcamp, that pull was incredibly strong,
but I did resist!

Anyway, moving on…as I said a few days back, over the next few issues I’m going to
cover some of the content and ideas that came up at the seminar.

It really was an excellent three days and it certainly filled in some gaps that in all
honesty I didn’t know I had! It just goes to show that you can never stop learning in
this business. I guess that’s a lesson in itself. More of that a bit later.

Part of this need to keep learning is created by the pace of change in online marketing.
This was also a subject that was raised a number of times. You see, when you put
something “out there” online, no matter what it is…it’s there to be copied. And, if it
looks even remotely successful, believe me it will be copied and pretty darned quick
as well.

In fact someone asked Armand Morin “doesn’t it worry you that your ideas / products
(whatever) get copied almost as soon as you put them out there?”

His answer was a resounding…”no”.

His rationale was simply that he had to be better than the rest, more innovative and
put better products out at a faster pace. His view was to make his products so
valuable, over deliver to such an extent, that it made copying almost impossible. In
Armand’s situation, where his products carry a high-ticket prices that is certainly
easier to do.

His seminar offering went out at £2,497! Included were software and a
comprehensive Internet Marketing how to video series. He told me that the video
series alone had cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and 13 months to develop.
When you’re already earning $4.5 million a year, you can afford to develop products
such as these that pretty much takes most of the competition out of the equation.

Simon Coulson also talked on this subject as well. His early business model was to
sell low priced (£20) ebooks in very specific niches. He showed one particular
property ebook that he used to demonstrate the points.

His “take” on this was that a product (any product at these lower price points) only
has a finite “shelf life”. His view is that once sales start to decline or you are
overwhelmed by competition…you simply make the content into a free Adsense site
and enjoy the advertising revenue. What a great idea and certainly not one I’d thought
about!

However, the overriding theme for the weekend was the need for constant learning
and the fact that you (yes, that really does mean you) can do all of this!

You see, all of the so called “Gurus” that I met at the bootcamp are just ordinary guys
and gals like you or I. They are not technical whizz kids. Let me repeat that…they are
not technical whizz kids. In fact, many of them don’t know one end of a PC from the
other.

They are marketers and they use their knowledge to bring new ideas to market. They
use their skills to understand niche markets, to unlock the needs within them and then
build products to service those needs.

If they need technical stuff done, they outsource or hire young local talent.

This is something you need to get on board. I have said previously that I like to
understand “what goes on under the hood”, but I have re-committed myself to
outsourcing post conference! Indeed, I have just hired a new techie person into my
business.

From now on, I will be concentrating on product development and marketing. Yes,
I’ll still keep a “handle” on the tech stuff so I know how it all works, but…I won’t be
actually doing it from now on.

Now, I know there will be some people who trot out the “oh, it’s alright for you…”
line. But…one other message that came through loud and very clear is that all of these
hugely successful people have one other thing in common.

Any guesses?

Let me tell you…and this is vitally important.

They do WHATEVER it takes. They go the extra mile and beyond. This is especially
important if you are in start up phase. You need to do whatever it takes to become
successful.

Now that “whatever” can be in terms of learning or  making sure you have the right
information… the bootcamp was certainly the right place for that!

It can be in terms of working to uncover those niches, to build those products, to find
that unique twist on a product or market that ensures you win big.

It might be just putting in those extra hours outside of the day job…missing that
“important” football match or Eastenders.

Just how committed to your own success are you?

The lifestyle these guys talked about is amazing. To be brutally honest, I’ve got a long
way to go to catch up with the likes of Andrew Reynolds or Tom Hua, but…I’m
committed to joining that elite and I’m working very hard to make that happen.

To give you an example, it’s now 9.34 in the evening. I’ve been at the PC all day
putting a new product website up (not the IM niche) and I’m still here now writing
this newsletter for you.

That’s a commitment to succeed, a will to win. So, please don’t ever say “it’s alright
for you”, because I work damned hard to make it happen. How many of you would be
prepared to still be at the PC at 9.35 (now) in the evening?

So, if you need to hire some technical help, give up a night at the pub or a meal out.
That’s all it will cost to hire someone from elance or rentacoder to do whatever you
need done! It’s not difficult to do that if you are genuine about achieving success.

Finally, feed the mind. You need to get the right information. I mentioned constant
learning a little while ago. This is so true.

The Internet changes at breakneck pace, and you have to keep up with what’s going
on. The latest buzz is Web2.0, gaining traffic via YouTube, MySpace, Facebook et al.
How up to speed in these areas are you?

How up to speed on the latest niche markets and product development techniques are
you? Have you got up to speed with online video yet? The latest changes in Adwords?

You need to make sure you are fully armed with the latest information.

O.K, I know this makes it all sound very difficult, and I do have a certain sympathy
here.

It took me a long time to realise I just had to get in and learn as much as I could and
then take action to the best of my ability. If it turns out wrong…make sure you learn
and put it right next time!

You do have to make a commitment to learn what you need and then take action. No,
it’s not always easy, but…the rewards are worth it.

The ability to get out of bed and stroll across the landing to the “office” is so cool. To
switch on the PC or laptop and see how much you have earned overnight is even
better. The thrill of seeing the first order on a new product…

…the ability to live life on YOUR terms…not anyone else’s.

The ability to just go off on holiday as and when you want knowing your business
will tick over and a steady flow of orders will come in. Orders that will make you
money while you rest and get ready for the next assault. It’s so exciting to live life in
this way.

I really look forward to getting up in the morning…do you?

Surely it’s worth going that extra mile…isn’t it?

You see…you really can do it. If I can, you can too. I’m really nothing special, so go
on…make a pact with yourself that after you have read this newsletter you really will
go for it!

I’ll see you at the top…the view is bloody wonderful (and I’m only a third of the way
up)!

As always, to your success.

Cheers now…and have fun!

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

How To Build Your Own Website

Hello and welcome to the June 2008 edition of the APD newsletter.

Flaming June? That’s what they say isn’t it? Well…I wish someone would sort it out
so that we can have a summer. Last summer wasn’t wonderful and this summer has
started in the same way here in the U.K. Lots of cloud and rain!

Mind you we had friends over from Vancouver, they’re getting it even worse. They
went home yesterday and sent a mail saying it was 10 degrees and pouring with rain
when they got home! At least it’s reasonably warm in London.

Anyway, here we are half way through 2008, and…how have your plans progressed
this year? Have they progressed? Or are you still sitting there doing the day job and
trading time for money?

I have to tell you, that model is broken! But you knew that, you didn’t need me to tell
you did you?

Moving on. This month I’m going to talk about content.

You’ve probably heard it said that original content online is the best way to achieve
ongoing and long-term success with any Internet business. Even if you don’t want to
sell information (products) a website that is full of original content will help you
attract traffic and keep Google happy.

Once you have a good traffic flow, there are many ways to monetise that traffic.

However, in order to pull in and keep that traffic flowing, you do need to have plenty
of good and original content…not an easy task.

So, this month, I’m going to give you a few ideas on how to generate great content for
your website.

No matter what subject your website is about…the best way to gain and keep lots of
interested visitors and subscribers is to give them fresh, new, unique and useful
content on a regular basis…just like I do :>)

If this is true, it follows (just as summer follows spring) that you’ll need a source for
all of this content.

Most people restrict themselves to searching the Google main search page when
looking for content, but…did you know there is a whole plethora of tools that Google
offer to help you in your quest?

And…these tools can help you dig very deeply into most subjects.

So, here are the tools and some ideas on how you can use them.

Google News
http://news.google.com

On the Google News site you can search, by keyword, on well over 4,500 news
sources. That’s incredible!

Have you heard of Resveratrol? Probably not. I picked this keyword as it’s something
relatively new.

Resveratrol is an anti ageing, anti cancer substance found in red grape
skins. It’s in red wine too, which is my excuse for drinking the stuff! As an alternative
therapy it has only recently come to light. I found over 200 sources of information or
articles on Resveratrol.

Starting with Google News you can often find good quotes to base an article around.
So perhaps a couple of quotes and then use some of the other sources to build your
final content.

Google Groups
http://groups.google.com

Yahoo Groups
http://groups.yahoo.com/

These groups are made up of people (just like you) who like to discuss a given subject
online. So look up your topic in the groups and see what people are saying about it. In
these groups you will find people talking about what problems they have in the
subject area. Other users will tell you how they solved those problems.

Problems and solutions = products and great content.

So, use some of the ideas you gain in your content. Cover some of the arguments and
counter points these groups throw up. This is lively, entertaining and useful content
that will keep your customers coming back for more and your traffic figures high.

Google Blogsearch
http://blogsearch.google.com

Blogs are just a great place to find out what people think and what are the hot subjects
in a niche market of any sort. I did a search on Google Blogsearch for detox and got
over 2 million (yes that’s right) results. That’s more than enough information for
anyone to keep new content flowing!

Google Scholar
http://scholar.google.com

This is a bit technical! But, if you are into a technical or detailed subject, a search on
Google Scholar will find out what the world of academia has to say on the subject.
This is also a great source of expert comment in such fields.

Google Books

http://books.google.com/

Yes, I know you can go out and buy a book, but why bother when you can search
through the text of thousands of books on a multitude of subjects!

This book search is really mind blowing, right there at the click of a mouse, literally
thousands of books from classic literature through to in depth technical works,
marketing books through to children’s stories, the full texts of thousands of books.
What an incredible source of information!

Very few marketers bother to go this deep to find information. Having such in depth
content will make your site stand out for sure.

There’s one final very clever Google trick you can do. Did you know that there are
about 2 million PDF documents you can search out on Google? Amazing isn’t it?

Try doing a search on subject +free +filetype:pdf and see what comes up. You’ll be
surprised! I did a search on vinyl records, which is a pet subject of mine and came up
with 41,500 results! Incredible.

Again, this is a simple little trick that many marketers miss.

With these tools you can quickly gather as much information as you need on any
subject. Remember unique, new and interesting content will bring and keep visitors
for your website. There are enough ideas here to keep you “ticking over” for as long
as you need.

Just one quick reminder…if you do use an article in full, please make sure you seek
permission and give credit where it is due.

If you are still stuck after all of that…

…try Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org

I’ve often used this site as my starting point to get basic information on subjects. I like
Wikipedia because they also have related links that allow you to start digging into a
subject and also allow you to look at subjects closely related. This is a great way to
build Adsense sites and to build related subjects based around related keywords.

Of course, you can always get your content written for you, but that’s another subject,
for another day.

Just before I go, sales of “Instant Ideas For High Profit Info Products” have been
incredible. You just shouldn’t ever be stuck for product ideas again!

I knew I was giving it away far to cheaply. My partner would say…as always “I told
you I was right”, who am I to argue??

Anyway, if you didn’t get your copy, I will be taking it down soon, so…

267 Information Product Ideas

Grab it while you can.

That’s it for this month, I’ll be back next month, a year older. Yes, I hit the big 5-0 in
a couple of day’s time. Tempus Fugit, remember that and go do something positive
for your future…now!

As always, to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now…and have fun!

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

Learn Copywriting

Welcome to the May 2008 issue of the APD newsletter.

Yes….the nice weather is here! I played a charity football match
on Monday and got *seriously* sunburnt! You may ask what on earth
I’m doing playing any football matches at my age…especially
against a team of Under 18’s!

As it happens, I’ve been involved in youth football since my son
joined his chosen team at Under 8. He’s now finished at Under 18,
and for the last three seasons we’ve had an end of season
game…Lads v Dads (and guests…we need help!).

At Under 16, us Dads won 5-0. Last year we lost 3-2 to a hotly
disputed last minute goal. This year…well, it was the heat! O.K,
I’ll come clean, we lost 7-3. But, it was a great day out and
approximately £1,000 was raised for my chosen charity Action For
M.E. So, despite the reverse it was a worthwhile day. Monday
afternoon was spent in agony…I ached and hurt in places I didn’t
even know existed!

My son now goes off into senior football after having played for
the same youth team his entire youth football “career”…I applaud
his loyalty. His team have only ever won one trophy in 12 years,
yet he stuck at it and persevered…along with 3 of his friends who
also played all the way through.

That loyalty and persistence will serve him well in his life!

Moving on, it’s time to get down to business. This is part two of
the lengthy tome on how I built my online business. Get yourself
comfortable…here we go.

Last month I covered organisation, dealing with information
overload, the basics of online marketing and Adwords.

This month I’ll take you through the rest of my business model and
the tools I use to “make it happen”.

First up is affiliate marketing.

It took me an absolute age to get my head around what affiliate
marketing is! I have no idea why, resistance to new ideas maybe,
but it did. However, I am happy to report that it is really a very
simple concept. This should clearly demonstrate to you that if I
can do this, you can too!

In very basic terms you promote someone else’s product (through
your website, Adwords etc) and every time a sale is made from your
promotional efforts…you get paid a commission. Why did I have
such a problem with this?

If you want to promote “e” products then the best place to go is
Clickbank. Clickbank is essentially a great big marketplace where
product developers and vendors showcase their products and you can
get a special link that allows you to promote any of the products
“on show” in the Clickbank marketplace.

The link is called a hoplink, and it is a url that goes straight to
the product sales page and has your Clickbank “identity” embedded
within it. So, when a sale is made from that link, Clickbank knows
to credit you with your commission. Simple.

Everything is managed through Clickbank’s own systems and they pay
out commission cheques like clockwork every two weeks. Yes, they do
take a commission of their own, but Clickbank is proven beyond all
reasonable doubt and is the accepted method of affiliate marketing
for “e” products.

If you haven’t got an account, the sign up process is very easy,
just go to

www.clickbank.com

Now, when I first started it again took me a while to unravel
Clickbank, so I have two possible solutions that will really help
you to understand how it all works - very quickly.

Firstly there is the Affiliate Commandments a product from Chris
McNeeny of Day Job Killer and Google Assassin fame.

This is a great little product and it gives you the very, very
basics on how affiliate marketing works. This really is a beginners
guide for the “newbie” affiliate marketer. It shows you how to sign
up for a Clickbank account, how to generate your hoplinks and how
the entire process works in fine detail.

Best bit? It only costs $9.97, less than a fiver in sterling.

You can read my full report on AC by clicking here

Affiliate Commandments Review

Another superb product is Dominating Clickbank by Andrew Fox. This
not only shows you (in more detail and with more advanced
techniques) the affiliate marketing side, it also shows you how to
set yourself up on the product side once you have developed your
own products.

Dominating CB gives you detailed instructions on how to work
Clickbank to your massive advantage and how to make sure you know
exactly how to generate massive sales using the Clickbank system.
This really is excellent stuff and no stone is left unturned.

I’ve only just got this product myself, so I haven’t done a review
page yet, but you can have a look at Andrews sales page by clicking
here.

Dominating Clickbank

Now…don’t go rushing out to buy this product until you have
finished reading this newsletter! I’ll talk more about Andrew a
little later, he is definitely worth knowing!

(Editor Note 2009 - Andrew has more recently released Dominating Clickbank 2

For a free DCB2 report, click the link above)

If you want to learn more advanced affiliate marketing techniques

then I have extensively used Chris McNeeny’s (he’s alsoknown as Chris X)

products Affiliate Project X. and Day Job Killer

Some of the techniques in Day Job Killer in particular have come
in for some stick from Google in their most recent slap, but a lot
of it is still valid.

The areas that Google doesn’t now like on the search network are
the use of “sales puff and boast” type words. “Fr**ee”, “amazing”,
“incredible”, you know what I’m talking about!

The sketch is that on the search network now, you just have to be
totally relevant and totally honest. Your ad groups must be very
tight with a small number of *VERY* relevant keywords.

The rule is the keyword(s) in your ad group must be in and relate
to the ad and the ad must relate as closely as possible to the
landing page. Quality content is king. You see…Google is
committed to giving their customers (the people who search) exactly
what they want, so quality content and complete relevance are what
Google is looking for. Fail to do this on your site and…your quality
score will be poor and you will be charged a very high cost per click.

I heard it called Google’s “stupid tax” this week, whilst that made
me laugh; it sort of sums it up quite nicely!

While we’re back on the subject of Google, I’d like to talk about
keyword research. This is another vital strand in your marketing
armoury if you want to make money (big money) online. Sadly
Overture (now Yahoo) have removed their free tool, I think it’s
only available to customers who actually have a YSM account now.
However, there are still good free keyword research tools available
- thankfully.

You can use either of the following…

DigitalPoint  www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Free Keywords (Wordtracker)  www.freekeywords.wordtracker.com/

Once you get fully up to speed, I would suggest a proper Keyword
Research Tool. The best on the market by far… is Brad Callen’s
Keyword Elite, click here

Keyword Elite Reviewed

to read my review of this powerful tool. All of the top Internet
marketers use Keyword Elite.

If you want to go straight to Brad’s site click the following link.

Buy Keyword Elite

Quite simply, I have found that my effectiveness on both Adwords
and Adsense has increased dramatically since I employed KE.
Now…remember what I said last month, about the investment in time.
KE takes a while to learn and get right. There are extensive video
training libraries, but it does take some time and effort,
but…your efforts are rewarded in terms of higher profits.

Once you’ve understood the basics and you’re starting to make some
money, get KE, this is a complete ” no-brainer”!

You should also make sure you track *EVERYTHING*!

If you don’t know what Keywords are making you sales or getting you
sign ups, the chances are you will be wasting a lot of dosh on
keywords that are not effective. You’ll effectively be paying out
money for clicks that make you nothing back in return. You see all
keywords are not created equal! Some convert, some convert very
well, others just don’t convert at all.

If you don’t know what is and isn’t converting for you the chances
are that a high percentage of your Adwords spend is being wasted on
keywords that cost but don’t earn.

The best tracking tool by far is Xtreme Conversions by Amir
Darwish. This is the daddy of keyword tracking tools.

If you get the “lite” version, you will need to be prepared to work
in PHP to get your tracking sorted (it’s not hugely difficult, but
it does require a bit of technical understanding). As with all of
the products I recommend, there are excellent training materials.
With XC there are videos and a Wiki as well as a manual.

However, the new V3.0 “Pro” version does everything with JavaScript
and is much easier to use…obviously this is the suggested option!

Again, an investment in time to understand and learn is needed, but
tracking is crucial to maximising your profits.

You can track through Google Analytics, but this does require your
code being put on the vendors download or order page. In most cases
you just will not be able to make that happen. GA is fine for your
own sites and pre-sell pages, but not if you need to put code on
other people’s pages. Would you do that for an affiliate - probably
not? Plus the guys who’s products you will want to promote are very
busy, even if they say “yes” with the best will in the world, they
may forget. It is infinitely preferable to have your tracking under
your own control!

Again, I have only recently employed Xtreme Conversions so I’ll
just give you a link to the sales page please click on the link
below have a look.

Xtreme Conversions

Many people who come into Internet Marketing want to actually
“attack” the Internet Marketing niche itself. Now, I can fully
understand why as it is an insatiable market, and by the nature of
the fact that you are involved in IM, it seems logical to “sell”
into that market.

A couple of points.

IM is now a very advanced market and you do have to deliver *REAL*
value to compete.

It is also a very unique market and there is a very much a
“certain” way to approach the IM market…it is a law unto itself.

Think very carefully about going for this market.

I was going to recommend IM Annihilation by Rob Benwell for people
interested in this market. The product gives a really interesting
inside track on the vagaries of the IM market. Sadly it’s sold out!
But I can still give you a little insight. Rob only entered the IM
market a couple of years ago with his Blogging To The Bank product.
That has now sold approaching $1 million worth! No mean feat.

Rob’s trick is to simply find a new niche within the market or to
find a new twist on an existing area.

Blogging was new when he released Blogging to the Bank and he
demonstrated how he had used Blogs to make around $500 / day. A
clear concise instruction manual that showed something new and
profitable.

His latest effort is based around Web2.0, another growing market
and this eBook made $84,000 from a product development spend of
less than $500.

Obviously, I do work in this market, it’s why you subscribe to
this newsletter, but…it is not my primary market. I realised up
front it was a long haul taking on IM as there are a high number of
“Guru’s” who are very well established. They release top-notch
products that are difficult to compete with and I see it as a
long-term project. It’s a bit of a closed shop!

My two cents worth, as the saying goes!

If you’re looking at the broader niche online marketing field then
the two products I would recommend are Stewart McKay’s Adwords

Excellence as I mentioned last month. Yes, it was under the
“Adwords” banner last time, but he does, through the Ultimate
Adwords Strategy, reveal exactly how he researches and develops
non-IM niche markets. Just one more plug for Stewart as he’s been a
huge help to me click below to have a look (if you haven’t already).

(Edit 2009 - once again, I am sad to report AWE is no longer available)

The other strand to niche marketing is knowing how to communicate
and build relationships with your customer base. You see, the
online buyer has become much more “savvy” these past couple of
years. So, you have to know how to deal with your customer base!

Simply the best product in this area is another one from the Andrew
Fox stable. The Affiliate X Factor. This is an excellent product.
It does deal with IM to a degree, but in short it takes an example
of how to set up a new niche from start to finish. It shows you
everything from the inside out even down to the detail of the
contents of each email in a two month autoresponder sequence.
Andrew also goes deeply into the psychology behind what he writes.
He shows you how to put audio on your site, video and even polls to
help build customer loyalty.

This is a slightly more expensive product, but it is one that has
helped me tremendously with the customer interfacing side of online
marketing. You see I spent 25 years doing face-to-face selling.
And…whilst feature, advantage, benefit and situational selling are
relevant online, there is a different way of “talking” to people
online. There is a lot of character and trust building involved.

When you’re “face-to-face”, that just happens, online you have to
make it happen.

It took me a long time to even realise there was a difference.

I’ve only just finished this six-week course and it is gold, click
here to have a look

Affiliate X Factor

Now, the reason I told you to hold off buying Dominating Clickbank
is that…if you buy Affiliate X Factor, you get Dominating CB
included free.  This really makes AXF a highly recommended buy. It
really has helped me - big time.

If you just want to get Dominating CB on it’s own, the link is…
Dominating Clickbank

So, that leaves our final strand, your own products.

There are two schools of thought on this.

The first one is use PLR products as the basis for building your
own products. There are numerous PLR sites out there and you can
get monthly memberships for around $27-47. Some are free and a
reasonably good source at the free end is Gabor Olah’s site PLR
Wholesaler. Go and have a look.

PLR Wholesaler

If you want to use PLR products as the basis for your product
development a do have a look at Michael Green’s 20/20 Challenge.

Click below to read my review of this one

20/20 Challenge Review

or you can go straight to the sales page by clicking the following
link

Buy 20/20 Challenge

I have to say I am not a particular fan of PLR, I prefer to either
pay to have a product developed or…find a re-sale rights product.

If you do go the resale rights route make sure that only a small
and finite number of licences are being sold to the product. This
type of product should sell for between $197 - 497 and should
include a pre written sales letter.

I’ve been shown examples of $197 products that net $47,000 in
income, selling out at $27-37. A word of caution, such products are
getting more difficult to come by! A brilliant example of how to
work this is also shown in the Affiliate X Factor.

If you want to get your own product developed, which is my
preferred route, you have two options.

Firstly you can write or develop the product yourself. You have to
have some specialist knowledge that people will be willing to pay
for…although it is my contention we all have this, but that’s for

another day. Or…you have to source the product from elsewhere.

There are a number of ways you can do this. You can search the
Internet (simple Google search) for ghostwriters, or you can go to
one of the sites that allow you to hire a ghostwriter.

Here’s four of the best

www.elance.com
www.rentacoder.com
www.guru.com
www.need-an-article.com

You can expect to pay anywhere from $250-1,000 for a 50 page eBook.
A small price to pay if you can then generate even $20,000 in sales!

You can read reviews on most of the products mentioned in this
newsletter at the main site…

Internet Marketing From APD

O.K, that’s it for this month. There is an awful lot of information
here. It’s also why I am a couple of days late this month
(again…poor show). Seriously though, this edition took a lot
longer to write than I anticipated…I hope you appreciate it :>)

I now have brain ache as well, so I haven’t yet decided what I am
going to write about next month. Rest assured it will be solid
useful information to help you win online.

Until then, enjoy the weather.

Asalways…to *YOUR* success

Cheers now, and have fun!

Derek

www.apd-marketing.co.uk

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

Hello and welcome to the April 2008 edition of the APD newsletter. A couple of days late
this month courtesy of BT! Sadly, my Internet connection dropped out at 1.15pm on
Friday and has only just been re-connected.

I am now best buddies with the lads at the BT call centre in Chennai after spending at
least four hours on the ‘phone to them over the weekend! We’ve even talked about
cricket and how they are all upset at the pasting India took from South Africa in the
2nd Test!

It must be a thankless job working at a tech support call centre, I should imagine.
However, the BT lads have obviously been on some great training courses as I always
felt calm and collected after speaking to them, despite the fact I was stressing
massively without access to my ‘window on the world’.

If I had a fiver for every time one of them said, “It’s alright Mr Armson, please don’t worry about it”, I could shut down my Adwords campaigns, put my feet up and have a couple of weeks off!

Even though I was very worried about it, I always put the phone down in a state of
calm…amazing! It’s also amazing how reliant we have become on something we now
take for granted. I have to admit to feeling extremely uneasy without Internet access! I
may well write on this subject in the next few months once I’ve had a chance to
crystalise my thoughts!

The funny thing about the entire episode was that…in the end, the problem was two
miles down the road in St Albans! Hey-ho.

Anyway, to the business in hand, this is part 1 of a two-part epic! Are you sitting
comfortably? Then I will begin, it’s a lengthy tome this month!

I’ll start with some food for thought… “To achieve things you have never achieved
before…you need to do things you’ve never done before.”

Last month’s newsletter stirred up a bit of a hornet’s nest! It prompted quite a large
response and some of the comment was interesting. A lot of it went like this… “Oh,
it’s all right for you, you’re successful, you know what to do, how can I do that with a
day job, I don’t know how to do this, that, or whatever, blah, blah, blah.”

OK, here’s the score. Life ain’t a free lunch! No-one is going to give you something
for nothing. You have to put the effort in to get the rewards out!

I even had one email from a guy asking me to ‘give my stuff’ to him for free so he
could be successful and then pay me half his income once he was successful. He was
somewhat put out when I pointed out to him, that, on that same basis…as soon as he
became successful he too would have to give all his stuff away free and we’d both
lose! (Whatever that “stuff” might be).

I would also point out that, despite what many ‘gurus’ would have you believe,
starting an online business does take an investment in learning, which means time.

Again, many of the emails I received wanted to ‘know it all’ in 5 minutes. They
wanted to read a $27 eBook and suddenly be able to build a multi million dollar
online empire in two days.

Sorry to disillusion you, but that’s not how it is! The ‘Internet Marketing’ industry
can be its own worst enemy at times. All the glib sales letters promise you the earth
and to be honest, not that much delivers!

Making money on the Internet is NOT a ‘get rich quick scheme’. It is a proper business that rewards you (very well indeed) for learning the relevant key success skills!

If I was being cynical, I could suggest that many of the “gurus” don’t want to deliver
too much so that they can keep you “hanging on”. Sell you ever higher priced
products that…at each stage deliver a little bit more of what you need, but still keep
you firmly plugged into the sales funnel.

Controversial…but sadly in many cases true! Indeed, it’s what I found when I started
back in this market three years ago. I was caught a good few times early on!

Here’s the truth…it took me 18 months to find out what works and who I could trust,
even at the most basic level (the fact that I’m a technical bonehead didn’t help…still
doesn’t as it happens). However, it does prove that…if a technical bonehead like me
can do it…so can YOU!

You also have to deal with the massive amounts of information that gets thrown at
you when you’re trying to build an online business. I have talked before on the subject
of ‘information overload”’ and the subsequent ‘paralysis of analysis’ it almost
inevitably causes (and yes, I did suffer badly at one stage).

Yes, it took me a long time to cut through that crap AND to find out whom I could
trust in this market. To find the ‘gurus’ whose products really did help me. The ones
who would actually give me help if I needed it and whose products did genuinely
deliver.

So, if you want to leave now, you are excused. If you want to stick around for a hairy
ride and make your online dreams come true, stay tuned. As you know, I do tell it like
it is, I don’t dress things up. So, over the next two months I am going to tell you how I
did it.

This is going to be a warts and all timeline of how I won the online game. Some of it
you will already know if you’ve been a subscriber for a while, but a lot of it will be
new. This is how I went from well below zero to my chosen lifestyle in three years.

So, as the saying goes, “Let’s start at the very beginning, it’s a very good place to
start”!

Back in late 2001, my recruitment business had gone bust in the aftermath of 9/11. I’d
scrambled around trying to save it, finally found a white knight, which then three
months later (in early 2002) went bust as well! It was not a good time recruiting IT
staff into the City markets. Similar times to now, as it happens!

I lost a cool quarter of a million, in about 10 days!

So, I pfaffed around trying to scratch a living in recruitment, trying to re-find my
former glories…until 2005, when I made a ‘quality’ decision that a different path was
needed.

This is something that is vitally important. You will not achieve anything until you
make that true ‘quality’ decision that you (that’s YOU) are going to make it work. If
you haven’t made that honest, committed decision, no matter how hard you try, you
will not succeed, believe me I know. Only you can do this…if it is to be it’s up to me!

This is really a whole new subject on its own and one I will cover in a future issue,
suffice to say, much has been written about making that true commitment to succeed.
You simply must make that quality decision that you are going to commit and really
make it happen, otherwise you are wasting your time.

So…the first thing I did was sit down and researched everything I knew about making
money or starting a business. I got out all my old files, newsletters and books and I
researched and read for days on end.

I knew that I had to be responsible for myself and I knew that I never wanted to
answer to anyone else ever again! I was broke, down and out so I had to move fast.

One of the keys was managing the vast amount of information that was pouring ‘into
me’. So, the first thing I did was to find out how the hugely successful ‘icons of
wealth’ made their money and how they brought together their money-making
projects.

I knew that some of these projects were hugely complicated and I was intrigued as to
how successful business people looked at money making. I was also keen to learn
how they integrated the huge number and variety of tasks (and information) that was
required to deliver these projects.

The result was the Total Control eBook. In simple terms this little gem shows you
how to completely break through information overload and also details how money
making works at all levels from the most basic to the very complex.

The methods I discovered and published in this eBook saved my life…literally!

Turn Time Into Money

There is no doubt the ability to cut through the crap and to understand how money
making and information management works are absolutely key!

So, having got my ‘house in order’ and made the decision online was where I was
going, I had to find the best product for giving me the grounding and skills I needed to
make it online.

When I first had a stab at direct response marketing back in the late 90s the full power
of the Internet (as we know it now) had not been utilised. So, when I came back in
2005, things were very different indeed.

The tools I had used back in the late 90s were redundant, so I needed to research from
scratch once more.

The product I found that gave me my platform to build from was Jim Daniel’s Ez
Web Business Builder.

Ez Web Business Builder Review

I found this particular product the best at giving me a proper grounding in the
essentials of marketing online. Your Eguide ‘Paul’ (who looks a bit like a spiv and
sounds a bit like a macho Steven Hawking) takes you by the hand and guides you
through the following subject matter…

Getting Ideas / Niche Research
Keyword Research
Fine Tune Your Idea
Your USP v The Competition
Product Selection
Buying a Domain
How to Install the Free Web Design Software
Website Templates
Customising the Templates
Optimising for Search Engines
Hosting, DNS and Uploading
Other eCommerce Tools
Links And Ranking
Email Marketing
Content Sharing
Affiliate Marketing
JVs

As you can see a comprehensive ‘how to’ guide for the ‘newbie’. So, if you’re at the
‘get started’ stage, this is where I started, and I recommend this is as a pretty good
place for you to start too.

You can download a free report from Jim before you buy. Again, if you are totally
new to marketing online I strongly suggest you do this. It’s called “The Work At
Home Report” (click on the golden key to get it free) and it will ensure you know
exactly what you are letting yourself in for! It’s 187 pages (well, my version is) and
there is no fluff!

Click Here to review and get your Free 187 Internet Marketing Report

You can also see from the above listing that…clearly…being successful online is
going to take an investment from you in terms of time and learning. Be under no
illusion because there is one hell of a lot to learn and if you don’t get the right
information, not only will you fail but it will cost you a stack of money to do so.
And…you will leave Internet Marketing behind disillusioned and unable to
understand how it can work for others but not for you.

I was so very close to this point on a number of occasions. When I look back, I’m not
sure how I managed to stick it out some days when I truly felt like giving up, but, I
stuck at it and sought out the right information.

I’m glad I did!

As far as your own online business is concerned, I believe you should be aiming to
develop a multi-stranded business.

To give you an idea, mine is based on three strands

1.  Affiliate Marketing
2.  Own Products
3.  Adsense Income

Adsense has been the most recent edition to my ‘stable’. I view this as a long-term
project and so far it is only bringing in a few dollars here and a few dollars there. But,
it will build over time as the search engines find and index my information sites. To
be fair, it has been slower than I expected, but I guess I should know that by now :>)

Moving on, one thing I got totally wrong when I was building my business was that I
got some advanced Affiliate Marketing products before I even knew what I was doing
with Google Adwords! Aggghhh, I said it…Google Adwords.

OK, this is vitally important, so please…listen up.

If you are going to build an online business, in any niche, mastering Google Adwords
is an absolute MUST! I know I am sounding like a scratched record here but…in the
wrong hands, Adwords is a money sucking monster, but tame it and it will be a friend
that helps you build autopilot money making systems on a long term basis.

Perry Marshall has a good intro to Adwords product that I think sells out at $47, but I
have not used his products myself. He does come highly recommended, but no
affiliate link as I haven’t used the product and I only recommend products I use and
have paid for with my own money.

I did use Adwords Miracle at one stage and you can read my review here at
Adwords Miracle Review It’s a good product, but I found something much
better.

I think I mentioned Adwords Excellence last month. In fact, I know I have mentioned
it many times in my monthly missives. The reason? It’s the best Adwords product on
the market…by a country mile.

It’s actually a lot more than a product, and as I’ve used and grown with Adwords
Excellence, it reminds me that I must update my online review of this great
service…yes, let’s call it a service.

AWE (as it’s known) is run by a young Scottish Internet Entrepreneur called Stewart
McKay. Stewart is the absolute business when it comes to working with Adwords. In

short he has worked out a foolproof system (called the Ultimate Adwords Strategy)
that ensures you never get slapped by Big G and that your keyword costs are kept to a
minimum simply by playing by Google’s rules.

Stewart explains how to win the Adwords game in words of one syllable that even the
most unsavvy marketer can fully understand and easily implement.

Membership costs just $20 / month (although I think there are still lower level
memberships on offer free).

Included in that membership you get all the inside track on how to win the Adwords
game with bundles of examples of exactly how to structure your account, ad groups
and adverts.

You also get a FR*E*E niche website each month! All of the research is done for you
- the site is fully search engine optimised and all the affiliate programs are researched
and hoptlinks dropped in. All you have to do is make a few amendments to the
content and hoplinks and away you go, you have your own money making site alive
and kicking.

Here’s an example:  www.love-ur-dog.com

There are lots of free keyword research and analysis tools in the membership area as
well as unlimited access to Stewart himself via Skype or email if you have any
questions pr problems. There is also a vibrant and lively messageboard community
that I have personally found extremely helpful. Oh, you also get free hosting for
your sites as part of the deal!

(Edit 2009, I now use Tom Hua’s Hosting Bay - an excellent service)

One thing that is vitally important when setting up a new online business is that you
research your niche, fully and properly. After all, what is the point of selling to a dead
market. Many new online marketers fail because they perceive a market that is not
there. So, they build a product and then market it without research, then….they
wonder why it has failed! Please, do not fall into this trap (as I did a few times).

Stewart also gives you an insider guide to market research. He’ll teach you the best
places to research niches and show you exactly how he does it! Last time I asked him,
he had four niches on the go, making about $13k / month. If that’s where you want to
be, I suggest he might be worth listening to!

Seriously, I have learned so much from Stewart, he really does know his eggs and he
just wants to show and teach others how to be successful online.

Getting the key areas Stewart teaches in Adwords Excellence right will form the basis
of a successful and profitable online business for you. Q.E.D!

Here’s my review (which as I say does need updating as I use AWE much more now
than when I wrote the review)… www.apd-marketing.co.uk/awe.html  or if you want
to go direct to the site, it’s  www.apd-marketing.co.uk/apdrecommendsawe.html
Yes, that is an affiliate link, but as always, I’m sure you can circumvent it if you want
:>)  I wouldn’t be a good Internet Marketer if I wasn’t trying to make a little bit from
my newsletter now would I?

(Edit 2009, I really did champion Adwords Excellence, mainly because it was brilliant. Sadly Stewart McKay disappeared from the IM world in 2008 never to be seen again! The best product I have found since - to unravel Adwords - is Google Cash by Chris Carpenter. I stronly suggest you get this product if you wnat to really understand Google Adwords. Get Adwords wrong and it is a money sucking MONSTER! Get it right and it’s the key to untol profits)

And, finally. Technical. Awww, it’s worse than Adwords! I’ll be honest, I am very
poor technically. Very poor indeed!

Here’s my take. I have learned what I need to know technically and no more. The way
I did it was to find a local Computer Science degree student who wanted to earn some
beer money and employed him for between 5-10 hours a week. He taught me as he
went along. This was very cost effective at teaching me the basic stuff.

I am a great believer in that you should know how everything works ‘under the
bonnet’ and then it’s up to you how much you do yourself.

To leverage time I now outsource a lot of work. I outsource to India and Pakistan (two
companies I have come to trust) and I have also posted specialist projects on Elance
(www.elance.com)  Personally I found it very difficult to let go, but I can assure you,
it is the only way to go once you have some profits coming in. Read Timothy Ferris’
“The 4 Hour Work Week” for the real inside track on this area.

I use Dreamweaver and Frontpage, but you really only need the most basic skills in
both. I have also purchased Adsense and landing page templates. Depending on your
market, a simple Google search will reveal plenty of good examples.

Right, that’s it for this month. A long and involved newsletter, but…vital information
if you’re looking to create a profitable online business.

So, this month I have shown you how to get organised and to overcome  information
overload…and be able to integrate and deal with the huge information flow. How to
give yourself a basic grounding in online marketing and the resources I use to
research markets and win at Adwords. Key stuff!

Next month I’ll be showing you how I got into affiliate marketing and showing you
what I do and use in areas such as SEO and Keyword Research. I’ll also tell you who
the key players are in these areas and show you some of the resources I have used in
these other key success areas.

Until then, keep at it, and remember that persistence is the one thing failure can’t live
with!

As always, to your success.

Cheers now, and have fun!

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

267 Information Product Ideas - so you can start making money right away!

P.S. Please feel free to forward this newsletter to any friend or colleague you think
may find this info useful!

Hello and welcome to the MARCH 2008,  yes you read that right, the March edition of the APD
newsletter.

I remember writing, back in the July 2007 edition about time slipping away, I quoted that famous Pink Floyd song “Time” (funnily enough)…”and then one day you find, ten years gave gone behind you, no-one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun” and all that.

Well…it’s a subject I am going to return to this month albeit with a slightly different slant.

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s March, a quarter of this year has nearly gone already. It’s nearly
Easter and the clocks “go” in a few weeks, yes, the light nights will be back – let’s hope the
weather obliges as well!

The speed at which time now flies by never ceases to amaze me, OK, I know I’m beginning to
sound “old” here! But, as I move towards my big 5-0, I am convinced beyond all doubt that time is going more quickly. Perhaps it’s just that each second that passes is a (rapidly) decreasing percentage of the time I have left, I don’t know, but it’s flying by!

It only seems like Christmas was a couple of weeks ago!

If you have children you will know and relate to how quickly each school year passes. Sadly, my youngest is going to be leaving school in June – ouch!

It will be Easter in 3 weeks and then it will be time for your summer holiday and the kids will be
another year older – and so it goes!

So, what’s the point to this little ramble?

Well last weekend I was at a post football match “lads night out” (yes, OK, I know the term “lad”
can only be very loosely applied) but you know the thing, a few beers after football and a curry – a great institution isn’t it? Anyway, one of my friends was whittering on about his grandiose
retirement plans.

He was babbling on about how he had a world cruise planned and he was going to buy a top of
the range sports car and retire to that big house in the country…when he was 60. He’s 48 now.

I didn’t mean to take the wind out of his sails quite so violently, but when I pointed out that he may not live to 60 (a bit morbid but true, we really don’t know what might happen tomorrow) he was stunned. I then suggested that if he had things he wanted to do then why put them off if he could do them now? He just didn’t have an answer and sat there in a stunned silence!

Now I’m going to tell you a “home truth”, and it’s one that is probably going to make you feel
uncomfortable – sorry about that.

Most people put off doing the things that they really want to do and actually get on and do those
things that they feel they should to do. So, you get around to doing little things like your tax return (because you get told off by Big Brother if you don’t) but do you ever get around to the bigger ones? You know the dreams, the things that you really, deeply love to do? The things that you really WANT to do. Like…starting your own business.

Now don’t’ feel bad because this “intertia” has been programmed into you by society through peer pressure. You know this is true. What happens when someone asks you “what do you do?”

You immediately trot out the “oh, I’m an accountant” line. Most people do, like the compliant little sheep they are. This is what we are programmed to do.

Something like starting your own business is actually something you don’t have to do. In fact,
after three false starts, I very nearly didn’t start mine for that very reason. And…it’s outside of the norm. It’s different. How can you possibly earn as much as an accountant if you work 20 hours a week from home?

I sat for years (yes really) thinking about it and talking about it but never doing it, meanwhile I
made my employers very rich in return for a pittance of a salary. I reckon I used to earn about
15% of the GP I made for my employer. Is that fair for my damn hard work? Now…it’s 100%
mine, all mine! That is a lot fairer if you ask me!

So the message is simple, if you are going to start your own business do it now, today, don’t
waste any more time, it slips away at an alarming rate! All too soon you will turn round and those 10, 15 or 20 years will have gone behind you and you will be exactly where you were!

If you’re not prepared to do what it takes, then decide that you are not interested in that plan and stop deluding yourself and wasting your time. You will save yourself an awful lot of stress, I know.

If you keep kidding yourself you will come to regret your own lack of progress ever more and
even more. You will come to resent yourself. So, if you would feel much happier and better about yourself in a day job, make that quality decision and get on with it. Alternatively make that quality decision and give it everything you have got.

You may feel I am being overly harsh on you here, however, I believe it is best to be straight and to the point. If it’s not for you, fair enough, take a different direction. There is nothing wrong with that.

We all need to bit of motivation and pointing in the right direction occasionally, so having beaten you about a bit, I am going to offer you an “olive branch”!

My brother-in-law was over from Canada a couple of weekends back and he brought with him a
copy of a book that you have to read. If you want to make your own business really work, and
more importantly, have the time to enjoy it (which is really what we all want), you simply must
read this book.

The book is called “The 4 hour workweek” by Timothy Ferriss. It’s been flying off the shelves in
North America and is released in the UK on 3rd April.

Basically, the book’s philosophy boils down to this…

If you manage your time, your goals, and your priorities effectively, it’s relatively easy for you to generate a comfortable, full-time income working just 4 hours per week. Indeed, Tim clearly demonstrates how he earns between $50-60k per month working just 4 hours a week.

Goodbye trying to fit your social life around your 9-to-5 job, and hello freedom and prosperity! Welcome to the world of “The New Rich”.

Seriously though surely this is what you want…or you wouldn’t’ be here – right?

No wonder this book’s become an instant best-seller.

However, since its release, Tim has come under some fire from prominent “business people” who are whinging that designing your ‘ideal lifestyle’ of minimal work and maximum play is not that simple… that it takes YEARS of hard work, blood, sweat, and tears to make that happen.

You see back to what society thinks should happen and the pressure to conform!

But I beg to differ!I’ve known many people who have started their own money-making
Internet businesses from scratch.  And I can tell you for sure that the success people like us have achieved did NOT come as a result of how much time we’ve spent working on our businesses, but what we’ve DONE with the time we’ve spent. Yes, there is a learning curve, and there is an investment, but…

Someone with clear, precise goals and a step-by-step action plan will accomplish far more in just one hour than someone who is bogged down with information overload and paralysis of analysis will accomplish in an entire (long) day.

So, my recommendation to you is get “the 4 hour workweek” and be amazed at what you can do
to change your life. It does brush over some areas like the use of Adwords, but the basic message is clear.

The bottom line is that this book should be a bible for all aspiring Internet marketers and lifestyle designers. And, using it you too can design your own life.

No affiliate links, just a recommendation to get the book as soon as you can. I devoured it in one day, it’s scintillating!

One more thing before I wrap up this month. I’ve been watching Andrew Fox and his Affiliate X
Factor pre launch carefully this last week and a half. This is a really fine example of pre-launch
marketing. He’s also giving away some really interesting insider tricks pre launch (the product
goes live 20th March). As it happens, I’m testing one of the techniques over the weekend!

If you haven’t already been following this and you’d like to catch up then click on the following
link…  (Edit 2009, sorry link is now gone as pre sale is finished, you can still get the pre-sale info in the Affiliate X Factor product itself)  it’s an object lesson in the art of the pre-sell and worth it just to see how Andrew goes about things.

OK, that’s it for this month, I’ll be back in April with more great information.

Until then, any questions drop me a mail.

As always…to *YOUR* success.

Cheers now…and have fun!

Derek

Internet Marketing from APD

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