Hello and welcome to what will be the last regular APD Newsletter. It’s April 2011 and this is not an April Fools joke, the time for this Newsletter has passed. It has shuffled off it’s mortal coil, it is no more (well it won’t be from next month anyway)…it is an ex newsletter.

There are a number of reasons for me taking this decision.

In no particular order they are that I have pretty much lost interest in the “how to” Internet Marketing market. It is full of charlatans who are selling crap products to a hungry market of which they are taking huge advantage. You only have to look at the recent rush of product launches that are all offering “silver bullet” traffic software – all rubbish. None of these products will do a job for you long-term, despite the slick sales pages and thirty minute video presentations. Some of these Guys have more front than Sainsburys (a major food retailer here in the U.K) to even present their faces on video!

Sadly the “super affiliates” are all too happy to promote these sub standrad products to their extensive lists and cream in the commission. The whole thing is just plain wrong and taking advantage of people’s genuine desire to better themselves. It is taking advantage of people’s genuine desire to build a better lot for their families and it’s wrong. It sucks! I want no part in this market any more.

I have also noticed a dwindling number of people actually reading this newsletter! It’s a sad fact but it is a fact. Perhaps you want it all sugar coated and enjoy wasting your money on a never ending supply of useless products that sit there clogging up your hard drive. Products that it is highly unlikley you’ll ever use or more importantly will ever make you any money!

Don’t feel bad, Lee and I were there once, but we have learned (the hard way) and pretty much now know who does and doesn’t provide value for money and hard profitable information.

I have alluded to this before, but most of the products that are launched are either old re-hashed rubbish, or techniques that have stopped working for the Gurus. If it is a curremt technique that is working, then important aspects are left out. They are not going to give you the stuff that really makes them money for $47, or even $997 – it’s worth too much to them. If you take one thing from my four and a half years of newsletters, take this…

…you will NOT get rich buying “information” products and “how to” products from MOST Gurus.

How did I finally come to realise?

Simple, Lee and I spent a shed load of money finding people who really knew about PPC and SEO. People who could show us results in black and white and to our faces. People who revealed what the Gurus are teaching is just plain wrong for the most part!

We thought we had Adwords sewn up, we were wrong. Yes we were getting some excellent CPC and CTRs, but once we learned the real story it got even better. We thought we’d got SEO pretty much right, but when we hired a true SEO expert, the holes in our systems (gleaned and patched together from various Guru “systems”) became obvious and rather large.

So, as I mentioned a few months back, it is now time to pull away from this market and just quietly get on with my own stuff under the radar. I may post interesting stuff here sometimes, especially if I see something that I think people need to know about, but please do not expect a regualr newlsetter any more.

It’s been great fun and I have enjoyed it, but it is definitely time to move on to pastures new.

So, a couple of parting “shots”. People I do think you should follow are:-

For Newbies – Chris Farrell
For WordPress – Aaron Leighton and Sandi Krakowski
For Facebook – Jo Barnes (also check out Jared Elvidge – you can find him via Jo)

No affiliate links, but these people all give away great value, they have massively raised the free bar and you CAN build a business with what these Guys teach free! Sure there will be more in depth stuff you will still need to learn, but you can get the basics from these really cool people. And be aware Facebook is now a game changer, if you have any designs on building an online business you MUST have Jo Barnes on your radar.

For more advanced stuff, including building your own products, I have learned quite a lot from Armand Morin, most of which I still use, although he is expensive. However, he keeps up with current trends and is worth following.

Outside of that, there ain’t an awful lot of substance out there unless you go to very high ticket prices. That’s it I will not talk of Internet Marketing any more!

Final parting shot, I talked to a few of my people “in the know” last week. The feeling is that the economy is on the move. Yes, the Banks are all making huge profits again and I am seeing a huge increase in the number of job vacancies that still come into my recruitment in box.

All I can say is that the medicine dished out by the coalition seems to be working. There is no doubt in my mind that had Labour won last years election GB would now be heading towards bust very quickly. They were intent on spending billions more that we didn’t have and it would have been a disaster. I know the medicine is harsh, but it is far better than the alternative. It irks me to see people striking and protesting – don’t they realise that if we had carried the way we were going it wouldn’t be a pay cut or a library closing – they wouldn’t have a job next week, next month, next year, not for the next five years. It really was that close.

Fast Tube by Casper

We are not out of the woods yet as you can see from the video! But it is looking far, far better than it did this time last year. Unless anything really nasty comes along to upset the apple cart (like Spain needing a bail out), we will gradually climb out of recession over the next two years.

How will we do that? It will be small and innovative business, technological advances taking up the slack from what was the vastly over inflated public sector. This will eventually make Britain profitable again so that we can start to re-build and (hopefully) by the end of the decade finally pay off the legacy of 13 years of Labour misrule.

If ever a lesson was there to be learned this is it. I hope the British electorate will have the sense to realise the damage Labour did this country and keep them out of power for the sake of our future generations. Please don’t think I am a Tory supporter because I am not, far from it, but at least they reduce the burden on industry by way of tax and red tape and allow business owners to breathe and create – the lesser of two evils. However, that has to be better than Government poking its nose into every corner of your business and mine with punitive taxes and crushing red-tape!

Controversial maybe, but everyone needs to be free to create and build. This is the only way we can truly get the global economy back on its feet. Alternatively start taking Chinese classes now!

That’s it, there is no more. I hope you’ve enjoy and benefited from my newsletter. If you are still interested in following what I’m up to I will post current content on my Internet Marketing Local Facebook Fan Page, you can keep up to date with me there.

As always, have fun and make money!

Cheer now

Derek

Its serious stuff this month as Google have come out and slapped again, and this time it’s a BIG slap. Internet Marketers are moaning about it everywhere. Why? Well because it has had a negative effect on their business!

I’ll talk about why it’s had a such a negative impact in a little while, but first I want to talk about why it’s so important to be in those coveted top spots on Google. You see I became privy to some very interesting information over the last couple of weeks. This will blow your proverbial socks off!

Ready? O.K here we go!

These are some figures about the Internet and Google that I managed to get my hands on about ten days ago. They are accurate for the end of 2009. I reckon we’ve probably seen some exponential growth since then, so add a bit extra to bring us into 2011.

Do you know how many websites there are (or were then)? Have a guess….

Sitting down? One TRILLION! In case you’re not sure how many a trillion is, it’s a million, million. I looked it up on Wikipedia to be sure.

There were 139 billion searches performed online in 2009, that is 29 million per minute. Of those searches, globally 66% were on Google. Go into the U.K or U.S and that figure nears 90%. Reason number one to be sweet with Google.

I also found out what factors the Google algorithm in force at the time deemed most important and they are (in order of importance):-

• Trust / Authority of the domain
• Link popularity of the page
• Anchor text on external links
• On-page keyword usage
• Traffic and click through data

In terms of link building and keywords, it is vital that you have anchor text links (for your given keyword) pointing back to your deep page. You should have a variety of link sources (if you can get a .gov or a .edu that really helps) and you MUST have your keyword in the title tag.

Do, all these things and you will keep Google happy.

So, why did this recent slap upset so many people?

It’s really interesting actually. You have to go back to Google’s raison d’etre (their reason for being) to understand what has happened here.

It has always been Google’s ideal to provide the “best, most relevant, most informative possible search results for their customers”. This has been their stated aim since those very early days at Stamford. It is still their aim today, and that is why they keep tweaking the algorithm…to get closer to that nirvana of providing the best possible search results.

However, Internet Marketing types, keep trying to buck the system and find new and unusual ways of crashing the listings.

Most of the time Google deems this spam. Now I’ll be the first to admit I used to get annoyed with Google and their seeming attempts to eradicate Internet Marketers from the SERPS, this was my livelihood they were playing with, and I used to get angry.

But you have to look at the world through Google’s eyes.

So, if you’re in any doubt as to what it’s all about and where Google stand on this, read their Blog!

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/finding-more-high-quality-sites-in.html

If you read this, you’ll understand that all they want is to get crap and duplicate content out of the SERPS. And, how much crap have processes such as Auto-Blogging dumped into the search engines? I don’t know but I reckon it’s a lot!

Lee and I had a “play” with Auto Blogging and if I’m honest, we ended up with sites that were bloody awful, badly configured and full of irrelevant crap (for the most part). Indeed Google is specifically stating (in their blog post) that this method of building websites will be frowned on in future and dropped down the listings.

From my experience of Auto Blogging, I’m not surprised.

And, you are going to have to do this on your OWN website from now on it would appear. Even authority sites such as Hubpages, Squidoo and even Ezine Articles are having their content downgraded by Google. Ezine are saying their traffic dropped by 35% but I have seen an SEO site that suggests it was 90%! Come what may they have massively tightened their submission guidelines. Hubpages are reportedly down by nearly 87%, so you can see that this is a serious algorithm change.

The bottom line is this, do your SEO like I suggest above and provide unique, useful, interesting and relevant content and you will rise to the top of the search engine results listings. If you’re an affiliate marketer…make sure you add real value with your content.

We are certainly not going to further experiment with Auto Blogging and cannot recommend tools like Auto Blog Samurai and MPP. We will be building sites with original, unique and useful information and monetising via Amazon, CPA and occassionally Clickbank.

Of course this makes Niche and Market research even more key when setting up a new niche, but that’s for another day!

So, that’s it for this month, but I’m sure you will agree so serious and hard hitting content that, if you act upon, will surely increase your online profits and ensure you are not in the firing line for any further algo changes!

As always, have fun and make money.

Cheers now

Derek

Last month I mentioned I had been doing quite a bit of research on Facebook and building FB fan pages, and so I have!

Now, I was planning to do a piece of building FB fan pages this month, and whilst I am going to do that I am going so by referring you to the most amazing resource I have found on the subject.

So, rather than me tell you all about it and then refer you so you can read and watch all about it (in far more and far better detail than I could explain it…I am going to pass you over to a lady called Jo Barnes.

Jo has sort of sprung onto the scene, from, well, and I know she won’t mind me saying this…pretty much nowhere, or somewhere in the Far East actually. Originally from these fair shores, I think she now lives with her partner somewhere exotic. But…that is by the by. Over the last 9 months or so Jo has become the undisputed Facebook champion.

Her teachings are outstanding. She makes superb videos that are easy to follow and very guerilla which makes them hugely entertaining as well…although she can’t sing.

So, rather than me try and teach you all about the power of Facebook and how to make Facebook Fan pages, I thought it would be far easier to just “pass you over” to Jo.

Now I am sure you must be at least aware of Facebook and probably have an account, so the easiest way to do this is to give you her Facebook Fan Page URL which is…

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/freefanpagetemplates?v=app_4949752878

That is NOT, I repeat NOT an affiliate link.

Now I guess you want to know why I am not putting an affiliate link in the newsletter?

Well, it’s quite simple. I have learned an awful lot from Jo and what I have learnt Jo has given me free…so I am giving something back to her. Q.E.D. I absolutely love the stuff she teaches and the way she teaches it, so I am putting you in touch with Jo, free of charge. I KNOW you will get HUGE benefits from checking out Jo and what she teaches.

In fact what she knows about FB is quite amazing. And, as soon as something new happens on FB she is there with a new FREE video telling you all about it and demonstrating it, normally live – which makes life interesting.

In just one hour I learned how to make fan pages like these…

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/InternetMarketingLocal

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/pages/Brad-Francis-Media/182548638443288

(Go give them a “like”!)

…and have earned money from selling FB Fan Page builds for some friends (and showing them how to do it). I learned everything from Jo. So, as I have earned from her free teaching, so I am “playing it forward” and recommending Jo Barnes to you free.

I think that I’ve got a good deal, and if you want to learn everything there is to know about Facebook and how you can use it as a major part of your marketing arsenal, then visit Jo’s Free Fan Page Templates Page…you will not regret it.

She does have a paid for product as well, which is also excellent value for money. And, if you’re in the U.K and quick she is doing a training session in London in a few weeks time. Come what may you will get extreme value from Jo and have some fun into the bargain.

O.K, that’s it for this month, I’ll keep it short and sweet and let you get into learning Facebook marketing with Jo Barnes.

As always, have fun (and with this you will) and make money!

Cheers now.

Derek

Hello and welcome to another year of newsletters. First up I’d like to wish you and yours a very happy new year and hope that 2011 is a year when you really do prosper. Yes, I know it’s nearly time for February’s newsletter but I have only just got back from my Christmas holidays in Vancouver. We got delayed going out because of the snow in the U.K. so we stayed a bit longer.

Now I really don’t like to diss great British companies…but I’m going to. British Airways sort yourselves out!

The day we were due to fly out it snowed heavily and Heathrow was eventually shut down, but…four hours before our flight was due to leave we had two sources of information telling us the flight was cancelled and two other sources telling us it was going. The main source that said the flight was still going was the “my booking” page on the BA website. So, as it was “my booking” I thought I ought to take it’s advice, after all…it clearly stated “we will text and email you if there are any changes to your flight”.

No text, no email and three…yes THREE hours holding on the BA telephone system without getting to speak to an operator.

Sorry BA but completely useless customer service. In fact it was probably one of the worst experiences I have ever had as a consumer. Enough said, I have made my point, so moving on.

I am going to talk of many things this month…well a few, but I am going to start with the economy. I have said many times that watching the news is bad for your health! If you’ve been watching the news this last year, and believed it, you would be right to think that the sky is about to fall in as far as the economy is concerned.

It’s true we are in a pretty deep recession, but…most people still have jobs, and despite the fact most people are being much more careful with their money, there is still a lot being spent.

I was in Future Shop in Vancouver on Boxing Day and you should have seen the bun fights to buy 3D TVs, LED TVs and all sorts of electronics. Some things are sacrosanct, for example the kids Christmas money, and…the nephew duly went out and spent $240 on a Bose speaker system for his PC. The queues were out of the door, and it took him half an hour to queue up just to pay!

So, despite what the doom and gloom merchants tell you, there is still a lot of money sloshing around in the economy and people are spending it!

Generally what happens in a recession like this is that the money moves. It doesn’t disappear altogether, that’s not possible. Of course, it is possible to generate money out of thin air as most western Governments have done with the “Quantitative Easing”. And, hear what I say…this will come back to bite those economies very harshly on the backside!  We are already seeing stubborn inflation in the U.K as the first signs of that “free money” starts to work through. Inflation will get worse before it gets better and that will erode savings and stifle the uncertain growth. (Note U.K inflation up to 3.7% in December – published by the MPC 18th Jan 2011).You would have thought Governments would have learned their lesson. You just cannot put off the pain, you have to take the medicine! Yes, QE dampened the effect of the recession itself, but higher inflation will cause problems of a different nature, but problems nonetheless!

But the rest of the money, as I say, is still in the economy, it’s just in a different place with different people and some has gone to China as they have purchased Western debt.

Your job as an online marketer is to market to the people who are still spending and to make sure you offer outrageous value for money. Make your offer totally irristible. If you do that and what you sell solves a problem makes a hobby easier, cures pain etc you will still do well, despite what you see on the news and read in the papers.

Of course the Bankers have got away with “one”, both here and in the U.S. If you read my stuff regularly you’ll know I still chat to some of my banking chums every so often. I can assure you they will cash in with big bonuses this bonus season, and they won’t take a second glance back at the poor sheep who bailed them out and now sit in abject poverty. Ooo, controversial!

But it is true, Wall Street (and the City) really have no qualms. They’ll pay lip service to Government “requirements” and then just carry on. They knew that Government would bail them out because of the number of jobs they offer and the amount of tax they actually pay. Too big to fail was the phrase I heard used. More like “have your cake and eat it” if you ask me!

Anyway, enough of all this negative stuff, let’s talk about Big G, a subject guaranteed to make us all jump for joy!

It was very interesting to see that the EU are pursuing an anti-trust case against Google. The basis of the case is that Google does not treat all online business fairly and that their algorithm favours certain companies.

Now I have alluded to this in some of my past newsletters and on some of my other websites, but today I am going to lay it open bare for you.

Google has favourites and if you’re not one of their favourites, no matter what you do their algorithm will penalise you!

What do you have to do to be a Google “fav”?

Simple.

Either be a large corporate with a bottomless advertising budget that Google can plunder at will or spend a shed load of money with Google. More controversy :>)

Now, I know there are lots of conspiracy theories flying around, but I have prime face evidence that Google does this.

My Adwords spend is generally very small. I try to get most of my traffic free. However, I have been able to compare quality score on my small account against an account that has a £1 million per annum spend. Guess what? When I put just one keyword in an ad group and it was common through the ad, URL, ad group and landing page I got a QS of just 7.

I could not have been more relevant!

However, on the high spending account I have actually seen, with my own eyes, ad groups containing keywords that are at best laterally relevant getting a QS of 10. So, an ad group advertising, say “oak tables”, getting a 10 QS on the keyword “pine tables”.

Not fair is it?

I’ve also been told, although I am not certain about this, that big blue chip corporates can pay for position one for certain high level keywords, like for example “petrol”.

This re-enforces my view that Big G is trying to marginalize the small business person, and in particular Internet Marketers. I think Google sees people such as me as “clogging up” the SERPS with crap. I will be a very interested spectator at the EU enquiry.

I normally hate big bureaucratic monoliths like the EU, but for once I think they are doing something right. Probably for the first time they’re doing something pro-business rather than banning bendy bananas and cucumbers!

Finally for this month, I have yet another warning about an IM product. I know times are tough, but this is really beginning to annoy me. What is? Well this…people selling IM products and refusing refunds.

This time Auto Blog Samurai is in my sights. I have been testing out some autoblogging strategies over the past six months so I thought I’d see what it was like. The sales page is good and the intro videos were good, so I made a purchase of the top of the range re-bill product.

At first everything went well and I tested it on a Blogger Blog.

Then I tried it on one of our WordPress blogs and it worked initially, but was not bringing the right information in. So, I raised a ticket and got a patch. I employed the patch and it seemed to work for one run, then started to bring incorrect information in again.

By this time I had five blogs set up on ABS.

The next time I tried to auto blog it just wouldn’t bring in ANY information at all.

After numerous to’ing and fro’ing Paul Ponna (the owner) finally acknowledged it was a bug. So I asked for a refund, but after a number of further emails I was asked to hold fire and a fix would be sent to me.

To cut a long story short, lots of going backwards and forwards happened, until finally, when I got back from Vancouver and after another three patches and various versions to download the problem was still persisting. So, I again asked for a refund. I was referred to Clickbank, however, by this time the 60 day refund period had expired so I couldn’t refund through CB.

They are now hiding behind the fact that the refund period has expired. The fact I asked for a refund after three weeks and only agreed to hold on because they were promising a fix that never materialised has nothing to do with it I guess.

Yet more very bad business practice, bordering on theft to be honest. I know times are tough, but as I have said, always treat your customers with respect and you will be rewarded. This doing business “at any cost” will come back to haunt people like this! So, dear Friend, heed my words, please do not buy Auto Blog Samurai, it doesn’t do what it says on the box.

Long newsletter in the end! I’m just getting myself back together after an extended holiday, but I promise more “how to” stuff next month. I did quite a bit of exploration on Facebook and FB Fan Pages while I was away so I may do something on FB next month, how does that sound?

O.K, that’s it for now, take care and as always…

Have fun and make money.

Cheers now.

Derek

Amazingly this is the fourth Christmas newsletter I’ve written, yes the first ever newsletter was November 2006, so in all the excitement last month (our first ever video edition)…I forgot our birthday. What a twonk!

Anyway, ’tis the season to be jolly and all that so a very happy Christmas from Alison, Lee and myself.

One thing I would be very interested in knowing is if anyone has actually been with us since the very beginning. If you have let me know. To be honest I would be surprised, and I am surprised that the newsletter is still going, especially as I was threatening to stop it earlier in the year. And, as I have said, with the “Internet Marketing ” market not being our main focus these days, I’m not really sure why I do keep the newsletter going.

But, hey it’s the season of goodwill and I want to spread good cheer at this time of year!

However, to start with a definite lack of cheer. I have noticed recently there has been a lot of really slick video sales letters promising “new ways of getting traffic” and “not having to rely on Google” and “this is something totally different”. I guess I got hooked by the sales hype, so I got one of these products to have a look not really knowing what to expect. It’s ages since I bought one of these really hyped up IM products.

So, yes, I bought Auto Traffic Avalanche. At £37 (yes GBP) it seemed a real bargain considering what was being promised. Now I have to say, Lee did say to me “you know it will be full of hype and no substance” (actually he said bullshit), but I assured him I wanted to have a look and if it wasn’t any good I would instigate a refund – immediately.

A word of warning if you’re tempted by this or another similar product. DON’T. I really don’t like to “diss” other people’s products, but in this instance I have to warn you, this product is sub standard and doesn’t do what it says on the tin!

They promise powerful software that will allow you to make tons of profits without recourse to Google. The “software” is a Facebook Ad Scraper that simply shows you some of the ads being shown on Facebook! There is no ability to manipulate it, and if you do try and search it brings nil results. The tutorials show you how to put up a Facebook ad and also tell you about advertising on a Dating site. I’ve also been told that it allows you to submit and get ads accepted by facebook that would normally be rejected by their stringent rules. However I got no instructions on this and could certianly njot see how it might work!

Beware, the sell is brilliant, the product is not!

And, I am not the first to highlight this. I have received emails from at least two other IM’ers warning about this product.

And once they’ve got you…your email box is bombarded with offers that are sub standard as well. Steer clear of this lot! I am really sad to report the Guy behind it is a Brit! And I thought we were so squeaky clean and above all that shinanigans!

To cap it all off, I emailed three times asking for a refund and was totally ignored. I ended up having to go through Clickbank to get the refund. This is type of behaviour and poor product that gets Internet Marketing a bad name!

Anyway, moving on!

I hope you enjoyed last month’s newsletter video and I think it’s something I’ll probably do again when I have something that is mainly tecahing to offer in the newsletter.

Moving on, here we are at the end of another year, and to finish off this decade, I am going to give you some kick ass “butt kicking stuff” to propel you in to 2011.

You may know that I have a product out called the Life Mastery System. In very basic terms I teach you how to manage your life and interlock time with tasks so that you get any money making project you want completed quickly and with ease.

If you happen to be stuck with information overload or paralysis of analysis, then the Life Mastery System will help you overcome these problems with consumate ease! And go on to build money making projects of any size and complexity with that same ease…if you stick to the system that is. And therein lies the “rub”!

Why do I say that? Well here’s a little story!

As it happens a Buddy of mine has implemented the system and called me up this week. I was going to help him build a website for his new fledgling sales consultancy business and also build him a Facebook Fan Page.

Now, my time is valuable and I have been on at him for about six weeks to get me the imagery and content for the site.

That’s all he needs to do.

He rang me up on Monday after another deadline had passed and said, “Oh I’ll leave it until the new year”.

Then he proceeded to talk to me for 25 minutes while he had a stack of work that could have been earning him money. He has 8 contracts on board when he can really only service 3 or 4 and he has implemented the Life Mastery System…but…he’s not  sticking to it!

Now, to be fair, during that 25 minutes, I reinforced the system and told him how to manipulate the system to help him “get out of a hole” and also how to use the extra time over the holiday period to catch up and make a stack of money.

And I made him promise to have the web images and content be ready for me on 4th January. Watch this space!

First thing he is suffering from is information overload and paralysis of analysis. He has too much on and depsite having a system set up he is not sticking to it so he’s got stuck.

He’s also procrastinating which is an absolute  killer!

So, what’s the point of what I’m telling you here?

I may be repeating myself here, in fact I know I am :>)

You only get this precious life once…don’t waste it! Make the most of every minute and use it effectively to build the future YOU want for yourself and your family! This is NOT a trial run! You get one life and that’s it – ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

Ooo, that was a bit morbid for Christmas. But if it shakes you out of your complacency and you get out there and do something poistive then it has been worthwhile.

Have a system in place that allows you to manage your life effectively and allows you to achieve what you want out of life.

It doesn’t have to be my system, although Life Mastery is bloody good, but use something to organise, take action (massive action) and achieve.

I’m just re-reading the 4 Hour Work Week and what a great book that is for putting things into perspective. If you haven’t read it get it here UK, here US. This book is a must read for helping you decide what you want from life. Then use Life Mastery System to get it.

The other point to come out of this, is if you are employing a system like this, no matter what it is…even if it’s as basic as a “to do” list…you simply must be disciplined and stick to it. Because if you aren’t disciplined it doesn’t matter what system you have “implemented” it won’t work!

Discipline is one of the foundations of success. Everyone who is successful is disciplined enough to stick to their chosen system.

Add to that persistence and you have a winning combination.I once heard it said that persistence is the one thing failure can’t  live with…I like that!

Back to discipline…what is the point in implementing a system to help you succeed if that system dictates you need to spend two hours calling clients and you spend half an hour of that time surfing the Internet. I have heard so many people then turn around and blame “the system” for their lack of success. NO! It’s not the system, it’s the person (not) using it!

The most powerful phrase I have ever heard is this…and take heed…

“If it is to be…it’s up to me”.

What does this mean?

Simply this. If you are over weight and on a diet but not losing weight, it’s not anyone’s fault but yours. You are the one that puts that chocolate in your mouth. I don’t sit there and force feed you. You are the one that takes another helping of lasagne when you’re full. You’re the one that has a grande cap with four sugars, no-one forces you to. I probably shouldn’t have used the diet example to highlight discipline at this time of year, but hey, you understand!

Anyway, it’s the same with business and life management. I can afford to spend half an hour on the ‘phone wasting time, can you?

I have to question why you would spend half an hour doing something unproductive when your schedule says you should be making sales calls, or building that new squeeze page, or doing keyword research. I suppose it’s O.K if you have no desire to make money and achieve your life goals..if that’s the case go down the pub and drink yourself stupid! After all that’s what most people who have a job do at this time of year!

I also have to question why people are so addicted to soap operas but that’s another subject all together, suffice to say, in my opinion, such TV programs (along with reality TV) are a complete waste of life force. Oh, did you see….

So, there you have it, my kick up the ass for Christmas! And I make no apology. Most newsletters would do it in the new year, but I like to be first and different, so I’ll give yer both barrels for Christmas…something to mull over during the festivities, eh?

Why not use that extra time off over the holidays to get things in order ready to make a BIG push in the new year? Just a suggestion you understand…a very effctive one nonetheless.

Right…I will be back next year (Oh NOOOOO, I hear you scream, not more guilty ridden diatribe – but ask yourself…why do you feel guilty – OUCH! That struck home hard didn’t it?) to make you feel even more guilty! But if that makes you get up, take action and get successful then I have achieved my aim!

On a more serious note, I would like to thank you for reading over the last however long it is you personally have been reading and to wish you a very happy Christmas and a properous 2011.

I hope you feel I have added value to you, your business and your life generally over these past four years.

Please drop me a line and let me know what you think about these critical success factors (post a comment). Best comments get a free copy of the Life Mastery System…a Christmas gift…hopefully for YOU!

I’ll be the sole judge of that though :>)

Happy Christmas.

And, as always, have fun and make money

Cheers now

Derek

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If you remember last month, I talked about on page SEO (search engine optimisation) and how everything you do simply has to be keyword driven.

So, this month I am going to talk about off-page SEO. These are all the factors you do off of your web page that are designed to drive traffic. So, we are talking link building here! We’re talking social bookmarking, we’re talking Web2.0…oh yes we’re talking classifieds…and yes, we are talking social networking and a fw other bits and pieces as well!

You see there are two ways of driving traffic to your website (page).

You can pay for it through using the Pay Per Click model via Adwords, Yahoo Search Marketing or Bing (there are many others as well) or you can opt to drive you raffic for free.

The trade off is that if you decide to drive traffic for free by ranking highly in the organic results, there is a trade off in terms of the time it takes you to do it. The one thing I will say is that I haven’t placed an normal Adwords ad for over six months now (I still use placement targeting and image ads).

Why?

‘Cos it’s too darned expensive that’s why. Google (in it’s infinite wisdom) has decided it would like to major on getting corporate clients and therefore they want to keep the little people away…so the big corporate boys with very deep pockets who will pay ridiculous prices to be top of the paid search engine, will do just that. Pay Google lots and lots of money to stay there.

So, the small marketer is being priced off of Adwords.

How do I know this?

Well, I can’t name names (for obvious reasons), but I have been able to sneak a look inside a £1m per annum plus turnover Adwords account. And I can tell you they do NOT have to play by the same rules. Not only do they have a dedeicated Google account manager who actually rings them (yes, really). They do not have to keep their keywords relevant to anywhere near the same degree you or I do.

So, for example, if my £1m turnover Adwords account is advertising, lets say “chicken legs” they can get away iwth keywords such as “chicken wings”, “chicken breast”, “chicken meat” and “chicken dippers”. Now you or I would find our QS down at 3 or 4 (or maybe even 1) if we did that, but not with our big corporate client. Quality Scores of 10 all the way!

I’m willing to bet he could probably even get away with a 10 Qs for pork related keywords.

And, before you say anything…I totally agree. There is no way it’s fair. But it’s Google’s ball and we all know what they’re like if you don’t want to play by their (arbitary) rules. They’ll toddle off with their nose in the air and take their ball with them.

That is why we have decided we are not going to pay Google for traffic any more. Just to let you know Yahoo Search marketing and Bing are much more laissez faire, as are many of the smaller PPC engines that you can use.

So, nowadays we drive traffic for free by utilising a backlinking strategy.

Now I can hear your brain ticking over and thinking…so if this is the case…why do I still need to make everything I do keyword driven.

The answer is two fold. If you are going to pay Google for traffic via Adwords, then you have to be as tight as you can with your keyword from the keywords in your ad group through the ad itself to the URL to the landing page. Even then you’ll probably only get a 7/10 QS at best.

However, once you get into the search engine page results system, the keyword is everything.

You should be looking to optimise for one keyword alone and ranking as highly as you can for that one keyword.

So, I talked last month about the on-page facets that you can control, so how do you build a link infrastructure that will drive your page to the top of Google. Because this is the other 70- 80% or so.

There are a number of ways to do this and there are a number of online “tools” or “methods” you can use to drive traffic.

The way I describe this is to build JUICE for your site…juice it up with loads of links so that Google recognizes exactly what the page is about and because of the volume of backlinks pointing to your page…Google fires it up the rankings. I have managed to fine tune this process and can now get a page on to page one of google very quickly indeed.

The one problem…it’s time consuming!

So, you have your money page…you’ve worked hard, it looks good the content is great and it’s promoting a Clickbank product with good gravity, you’re all set to go.

So, now you just have to….

Build a series of Web 2.0 properties
Socially network the page
Socially bookmark the page
Write and submit a Press Release
Write Articles and submit to the Article Direstories with a well constructed resource box
Make a video and submit to all the video sharing sites
Submit to the RSS feeders

And then, just for good measure there are the Directories to submit to, classifieds, forums and finally things like Yahoo Answers.

Do all that and I’ll guarantee you page one – probably position one.

Let’s look at Web2.0 properties to start with. Here’s a list of the most prominent…

Hubpages
Squidoo
Knol
Wetpaint
Ximbio
Blogger
Webs
Xanga
Weblog
SOS Blog
My Opera
Thoughts
Web Node

Blah, blah, blah…just so as you are aware…I submit every bit of content to 17 Web2.0 properties.

I submit every link to 27 social bookmarking servcies.

So, it’s a HUGE job, although I probably don’t need as much as I do, but hey I’d rather do more than less :>)

And it’s interesting, in that I was chatting to a “newbie” Internet Marketer last week over coffee and he said to me “Sh*t, I never realised!”, he went on, “I thought you just put a site up and let the search engines find it”. Well, yes you can do that, but it’s a long drawn out process withvery little (possibly no) guarantee of success.

It’s far better to control this yourself. Yes, it is a lot of work, but it’s not difficult and it sure beats commuting every day, especially when we’re getting some wonderful autumn sunshine right now.

O.K, that’s far enough for this month. Next month (and I promised I’ll publish early), I’ll show you what the full link builing environment looks like. I’ve just got a really cool new graphics tool so I’m going to do you a graphic to illustrate everything…then I’m going to show you exactly how I do all of this with a nice video!

So, next month’s newsletter will be a new departure…graphics and video – how cool is that?

As always, until then…have fun and make money.

Cheers now

Derek

I’m siting here on the balcony of our rather spacious apartment overlooking the Med and supping a large glass of rather fulsome Rioja which I have to say is absolutely wonderul. There is also some chorizo by my side and some local pamboli bread (actually I think the bread is Mallorcan), I’ll have to Google it to find out!

And, funnily enough Google is what I want to talk about this month. In fact I am going to talk about SEO (search engine optimisation)  in terms of keyword choice and on page SEO. I’ll deal with off page SEO over the next two months as it’s a huge topic and I want to cover it properly for you. So, after dissing the IM world so heavily last month, I thought I’d give some really top notch information away free over the next few issues!

So, some really good content over the next three months to really help you drive lots of free traffic to your sites, after all, without traffic you are “dead in the water”. I’ve said before traffic is the lifeblood of your business.

The first thing I have to tell you is that everything you do simply has to be keyword driven. You have to understand what people type into the search engines to find what you have to offer. I will go into this subject of keyword selection in more detail at another time, but I will give you an example of what I mean to get you moving along the right path.

Your keywords have to have “commercial intent”. What do I mean?

Well, we have an affilate site that sells LED TVs, however, if I just optimised for the keyword LED TV, this keyword would be wrong on two levels.

Firstly, it’s too high level, not specific enough, it is a “research keyword”, something someone would type into the search engine when they are looking to find out what LED TVs are all about.

Secondly it’s way too competitive and it’s very unlikely I could rank for that term, even if I was the absolute best Internet Marketer on planet Earth…which of course I am…..

Moving quickly on. So, your keywords have to have some sort of commercial intent.

Commercial intent is shown buy the keywords people type in when they have got past the research stage and are actually ready to BUY…they have got their credit card out and the trigger finger is getting twitchy! They have made that quality and emotional decision to buy. The key to online success is to hit your prospects at this stage of the buying cycle.

So, what sort of keywords would they type in when they are ready to buy.

With the Internet being such a great research medium, people ready to buy will type in things like (sticking with the TV model)…

buy samsung 55 inch led tv
samsung un55c8000
samsung un55c8000 led tv

Do you see the difference between this and the much wider phrase LED TV? If someone types in “led tv” my guess is they are wanting to find out about LED TVs and don’t know what they want to buy – yet.

So, the trick is to use keywords that have buying intention.

Now I can hear you all shouting, but…the keyword “led tv” gets 5 million global searches and the phrase “samsung un55c8000″ only gets 4,400 (according to the Google External Keyword Tool on 7th September 2010). Yep – spot on! But, how many people in that 5 million are ready to buy…even if you can get to page one for such a broad and hugely competitive keyword. Which I very much doubt as it would be so extremely difficult. What’s the point of even trying to get a slice of that non-buying action. Even worse if you went the Pay Per Click route. I dread to think what positions 1-3 on Adwords would cost for the phrase “led tv”.

You need to be far more savvy.

Now, the people who type in “samsung un55c8000″ are probably ready to buy…and I have three out of the ten positions on page one of Google for that very search phrase. I sold a few last month!

Do you now understand the difference between these broad, non-buying keywords and keywords with commercial intent in them?

This is such a key element of Internet Marketing that you MUST understand if you want to be successful online.

Now having understood what sort of keywords we need to use, how to we ptimise for those keywords?

Here are a few very simple rules…and they are simple. These are the on page SEO steps you can take to make sure Google recognises and ranks you for the keywords YOU want!

Firstly…and this trips up so many people…ONE PAGE PER KEYWORD!

Oh, that is soooo much work you cry. O.K try and optimise for six keywords and see where you end up if you don’t believe me. You simply MUST have one page per keyword and that keyword must have buying intent.

Then you need to have the keyword in the <title> tag of your page (so that it shows up on the blue bar at the top of the page).

You should also use the kwyword in your headline tags, or <H1> tags as they’re called (because if you look in the HTML the headline is withing the tages <H1> and </H1>.

Then, the final major piece of on page SEO is your content should obviously be about the keyword. These are the main three factors Google takes into account.

Yes they do look at meta tags, domain names, page names and less prominent “H” tags, but you should get those main three facets absolutely right.

Do this and you will be some 20-30% along the road to getting a bundle of free traffic.

You can check out one of our affiliate sites if you like and see how we handle it…

Planet LED TV

Notice how all the factors I mention above are in place.

O.K that’s it from sunny Spain. I’m getting back to my Rioja and Chorizo, oh and the sunshine…and the wonderfully inviting pool. Only a couple of days left before we head back to the U.K so I need to get some serious R & R in!

Next month I’ll start to look at “off page” factors such as link building, directories, Web2.0 and social bookmarking, which provide the other 70-80% of the ranking juice you need to get to the top of the search engines.

Until then, as always…

…have fun and make money!

Cheers now

Derek

So…what happened to summer then? Huh? If you’re in the U.K (well the South of the U.K anyway), you’ll know summer started off really well but that it has now reverted to type. Yesterday it rained so hard Alison told me it reminded her of dark winter days in Vancouver (where it rains hard constantly in Winter).

So much for the U.K Met Office promising us a “BBQ Summer”. The second year on the trot they have promised us such a summer and the second time it has failed to materialize! So, we’re going to Spain to get some much needed sunshine – see ya!

On the basis that I’m waiting to go to the airport, it’s going to be a really quick newsletter this month. This and the fact that I have very little to say this month…for a change.

So, what’s been going on and why have I been so quiet?

Well, in short Lee and I have totally changed direction now.

We are now heavily into Adwords Consultancy (we have circa £1m worth of Adwords spend under management) and will finalise the Adwords course very soon. I know I said a summer launch, but it is going to be late September (because of holidays). But, it will be the best, most detailed Adwords course available. Some of the techniques will blow you away, Lee has managed to get a “line” into Google, some of the stuff he’s found out is real gold! Suffice to say, if you spend BIG there are different rules! More on this soon.

We have also finalised our new strategy for online profits and we are overjoyed with it! If I say so myself it’s bloody brilliant! whilst we’ll leave all our “Internet Marketing” stuff “out there”, we will not be developing or building any more products for that market. I’ll still let you know if anything interesting happens or a good product comes along and keep my finger on the proverbial pulse, but not much else.

We have yet to decide if we are going to teach this new strategy, certainly we have to thoroughly test it first. We’re just about to start testing and are still doing some research into added tools we might need. We also have a ITT out for some software development work. If you’re a top notch PHP developer drop me a mail, I may be able to utlise your services!

As for the Internet Marketing market, well not much to report to be honest.

I managed to have an in depth chat with a reclusive Internet multi-millionaire on Sunday and it was very revealing indeed. I can’t say who this Guy is, but it was interesting that he has made so much money that he is now a tax exile. And, he’s made NONE of it from the “how to make money” niche.

His view was very much in tune with my own that the market is full of pretty much duff information. It’s fair to say there are little scraps of useful information in most IM “how to” products that are released, but that is all, scraps.

I also picked up another very interesting snippet of information this week. Did you know that 95% of all “things” sold online are physical products. No ebooks, or download “how to” video, but hard physical products. TV’s, DVD’s, Olive Oil, Clothes and Toys.

It’s also interesting that my conversation also covered the fact that people now expect to buy one $47 “how to” product and make a million. Sorry to burst your bubble but that just doesn’t happen. Why would anyone sell you all their secrets for $47? Think about it, would you?

You see, and I have said this before, working online is like any other business. There are certain things you have to do to become successful, and…in line with other businesses you have to do a lot of them and build that unstoppable momentum  you need to become truly successful.

All the so called Gurus make loads of money online, but…and here’s the rub…they don’t make it from selling how to products to you and I, oh no!

They make it with little underground websites that sell all manner of things. The “how to” stuff they sell is the icing on the cake, but…it is normally re-hashed or out of date techniques that worked well and made them money at one stage. However, as other jump on the bandwagon the effectiveness of these techniques starts to wane and guess what…they sell it to you as a new technique for making money online! Q.E.D

Knowing my point of view at least you’ll know a product is worth it if I recommend it to you!

You see, you need traffic and driving traffic takes a lot of hard work. So, there is no quick fix. Sorry but that’s a fact. If you want to make money online you need to have a strategy and the automation tools to work it, then you have to apply and work that strategy. only then…and over time, and if you persist you will start to make money. Slowly at first, until you hit critical mass when you then have a residual type income. But…it takes a lot of web properties to achieve that, an awful lot!

Whetted your appetite?

More next month :>)

As always, have fun and make money.

Cheers now

Derek

I am going to be a little “dark” this month. Why? Well, if you believe what is being written dark times are with us, particularly if you live in the U.K, although I understand it’s not a bowl of cherries over the pond in the U.S either.

Why is this?

Well here in the U.K it’s simply that the outgoing Labout government have spent hundreds of billions of pounds that they simply didn’t have! That has left the Tories holding a baby they may well come to wish they’d never got to hold because they now have to administer the nasty medicine!

However, despite the fact that I try to stay “a political”, I know this needs to be done otherwise the U.K would simply implode like Greece.

It is interesting though that a Government is allowed to first of all sell the family silver, then borrow more than it could ever hope to pay back in the lifetime of three parliaments let alone one and get away with it. If you or I did something of such magnitude it would be called theft or fraud. This is why I stay out of politics…it makes me angry!

Oh, and then…Labour have the gaul to sit on the opposition benches and slag off the Tories for making the cuts. Why is there not a “no party” option when it comes to politics? Perhaps the time is ripe for something new and different, like…an Honesty Party – I just can’t see it though! Having said that I honestly believe Tony Blair came to power with good intentions, but got corrupted along the way. I think the same of David Cameron, but he has one hell of a task in front of him.

But, the bottom line in all of this is that Governments are not actually producers. All they do is spend money that they have taken (some may say stolen) from us by way of tax. Could it be different if Government were removed, tax was abolished and we just paid for all the services we needed directly? I think business would probably make a far better job of providing!

And there’s the rub, the point of this summer, sunshine filled newsletter!

All of the spending cuts will damage the economy. However, having 56% of the productive workforce working in the public sector being unproductive and supported by the productive 44% in the private sector was NEVER sustainable over any length of time…I just cannot understand why Labour think this is possible. The U.K would have crashed and burned if Labour had won the election.

However, what now needs to be done will likely make the Tories so unpopular they will never get elected again for a generation…leaving the door open to Labour to pull the same trick again 5 years down the line.

O.K, I’ll get off the soap box now :>)

As a small business owner what does this mean for you? How does all this information translate to what you need to do?

Well first up, as much as the current course of Government action is needed, the Government are not going to come along and bail you out if you get into trouble. So, it’s up to you! This is a subject I have talk about on many ocassions, the need for you to take responsibility for yourself and your actions. This is more so than ever today.

Why? because business is tight. People are cutting costs like never before and selling anything is going to be more difficult. You have to be the best, you have to shine out from the crowd.

This was brilliantly illustrated this week when we had an estate agent round to value our house.We were elaying a tale of woe from when we brought this house 4 years ago. There was one realtor who used every underhand tactic he could to try and grab our purchase for himself and then when all parties refused he tried to undermine the sale by gazumping.

Outrageous business practices. We were told, with some glee, by two local agents they had gone out of business.

You see, people have got wise, and if they are going to part with their precious money, they not only want the best goods or servcies, they want a keen price and a great overall package. You have to provide that to prosper…you should anyway. Offer outrageous service, be the best you can be and offer the best products and services – end of!

It’s time to stand up and be counted!

So, don’t complain about how dark it is and bemoan the fact you can’t see what’s going on. Put a light on! Do what Winston Churchill did in those dark days. He lit a candle of hope and everyone followed it. Do the same and you will prosper, be a champion in your market.

It is absolutely vital that you join me in a stand against all the negative that is going on! You and I need to stand up for the Entrepreneur, we need to stand up for freedom and business, we need to stand up against the “sheep” who are paralysed by the situation and retain our hope and positivism!

We need to take action – massive action!

Most of all, you and I need to retain faith and belief in our own ability! Our ability to drive our businesses forward no matter what! This is your life and your business and you live (or die) by your own eforts. This is the beauty of having and running your own business as opposed to being a wage slave in someone else’s pocket. Sure, sometimes it’s scary, but Oh, how good does it feel when you win! How good does it feel to se your inbox full with orders, how good does it feel to go shpping on a Monday morning when all the sheep are at work…how good does it feel to do what you want, when you
want and to live life on YOUR terms.

Recognise what is good in yourself and encourage that in others, be a beacon of hope! This will cause a ripple effect as you make contact with more and more people. Have the absolute joy of knowing that YOU MAKE A DIFFERENCE – For the better! There is without doubt no better feling of satisfaction than this!

I genuinely hope that this rousing little “speech” will help you go out and be the best you that you can be. To go out there and despite it all make a diference so that you and your family can prosper no matter how dark it gets.

Did you know that cosmetics giant Clairol was born during the great depression? A certain huge coffee company was also founded at the same time.

If you do need an injection of positivism, then get my Life Mastery System, it showed me the way, it can do the same for you!

Never let anyone tell you that you can’t do it, because I’m here to tell you, and the weight of proof says, that YOU can.

I believe in you! Go do it!

Have fun and make money!

Cheers now

Derek