Affiliate Marketing How to Video

Affiliate Masters Course

2012-06-10T12:34:00.001-07:00

ntroduction

The Affiliate Masters Course is an intensive 10-DAY course on becoming a

high-earning affiliate champion.

How? By “building income through content,” the proven, C T P M way!

An affiliate business is one of the easiest ways to get your feet wet in e-business.

You send visitors (i.e., potential customers) to a merchant’s Web site that you are

representing. If they buy or complete a required action (for example, fill in a

form), the merchant pays you a commission. No fuss, no muss!

That, in essence, is the beauty of the affiliate concept. You can be up and

building an online business in record time, at minimal risk. Top-notch merchants

supply everything (i.e., excellent products, ordering, credit card processing, and

delivery). All you need to do is to put yourself in the path between customers

and quality merchants... and earn a commission for your efforts.

So what’s the best way to put yourself on that critical pathway?

Follow the natural, proven CONTENT TRAFFIC PRESELL MONETIZE

process…

1) Recognize the fundamental reality of how people use the Web. Eliminate

offline thinking of “location, location, location.” Online, people search for

solutions through “information, information, information” (i.e., Content). So plan

to build a tightly-niched Theme-Based Content Site.

2) Do the critical up-front thinking and planning...

• develop the best site concept/theme, based on what you know and love…

perhaps a hobby or past work experience can be your springboard.

• brainstorm the most profitable topics related to your theme.

• select the best related affiliate programs.

3) Then put yourself into the click path of your visitors. Achieve this by...

• delivering customer-focused Content (i.e., information that meets the

needs/wishes of your target group).

Affiliate Masters Course

• getting Targeted Traffic by building pages that please the Search Engines and

rank highly on a search results page. The higher the ranking, the easier it is for

interested and targeted traffic to find you. More traffic means more potential

sales, which means more potential commissions for you.

• PREselling (i.e., “warming up” your visitors) through valuable content that

establishes credibility. Once you have that, your recommendations carry more

weight. The difference in Conversion Rates between visitors who arrive PREsold

to your merchant’s site via an in-context text link vs. a banner can be as high as

20-fold.

4) Eliminate dependency on any single source of income. By diversifying

into other complementary Monetization models beyond affiliate programs, you

reduce risk and increase stability. You are protected in case, for example, your

merchant partner goes bankrupt, or shuts down its Web division, or reduces

commissions, or fails on its payments.

Multiple income streams also have the potential to make every visitor to your site

count. A particular offer might not spark any interest but another one may be the

match that lights a fire!

The C T P M process for affiliate marketing boils down to this…

Create searched-for content (the “C”) that pulls in targeted traffic (the “T”).

Warm up (i.e., PREsell) your visitors so that they click on your recommendations

with an open-to-buy attitude (the “P”). And then generate income through those

PREsold visitors (i.e., monetize) using the low-risk affiliate model -- as a primary

source of income (if you have no product or service of your own to sell) or as a

profitable secondary source (the “M”).

Is this process difficult?

Not at all! But do keep in mind that this is not a “get-rich-quick” scheme. You

need to bring effort and passion to the table. After all, you are building more

than a Web site. You are building a real business!

C T P M works, if you work it!

Make this your affiliate business mantra and you will succeed!

The Affiliate Masters Course and its 10-DAY program will show you how to

execute the C T P M process on your own. Each of the 10 DAYS has a

specific “Goal-of-the-DAY,” a clear target that you can easily meet. By the time

Affiliate Masters Course

you finish DAY 10’s Goal-of-the-DAY, you will have a Theme-Based Content Site

up and running and generating traffic and income.

Each DAY also sets an “Ongoing Goal.” A Web site is always evolving. The

Ongoing Goal is what you should be achieving on a regular basis. The Ongoing

Goals provide the pathway for building maximal income over the following weeks

and months.

What’s the bottom line? Upon completion of this course, you will have the power

of C T P M working for you, helping you to build a flourishing, profitable

and stable online business. With the right process, you get the right results!

Be forewarned about the Affiliate Masters Course, though. The material we

cover will be extensive in scope. It will require effort and commitment on your

part, as does anything important that yields rewards. Most folks have to train or

go to university for years to prepare to earn a substantial income stream. Your

mini-university course will accomplish this by the end of this e-book.

I don’t mean to scare you. All of it is manageable. Take your time to digest the

information properly before you start to work on the prescribed action steps.

Use the Goals-of-the-DAY and Ongoing Goals as your guideposts, your beacons

of light. Understanding the concepts will boost your confidence level in applying

them. Even as adults, we never lose our need to know why things work the way

they do.

It’s critical that you finish each DAY of this course before you begin the next. The

DAYS build on each other. Always keep in mind that you are following a step-bystep

process.

Please don’t feel that you have to rush. Work at your own pace, as time allows.

This is not a race. Sometimes, you will be able to devote large blocks of time

each day to the course. At other times, you may have only 15-30 minutes per

day to spend on it. In this situation, it could take you a week or more to complete

a “DAY” of the course. And that’s perfectly normal!

It does not matter how long it takes you to complete the course. The key is

to set aside a realistic amount of time each day to “do” the course. You’ll find it

was time well, no best, spent.

Final piece of advice...

Affiliate Masters Course

Print out a hard copy and make your own textbook! There is just too much

information in the Affiliate Masters Course to learn by reading off a monitor

screen.

Underline the important parts. Add your own notes and ideas. I promise you’ll

get lots and lots of great inspiration as you go along.

Please, please work with a printed version of this course. If you are at all serious

about following this course to build a serious income stream, start right.

Here’s a super little printing utility that will allow you to print 2 or 4 pages to a

single 8.5” x 11” piece of paper. It saves you paper, space, and money...

http://www.fineprint.com/

OK. Ready to begin DAY 1 of the course?

Sound the bell. Class is in session...

Affiliate Masters Course

1. DAY 1

Intro To Affiliate Business Basics

Being a great affiliate is NOT about

selling... It’s about PREselling.

Goal-of-the-DAY... This is the only DAY where you have nothing to do except

read the material. Actually, that’s wrong. Your Goal-of-the-DAY is to

understand, understand deeply, the concepts outlined here, culminating with the

concept of PREselling to maximize Conversion Rates.

With this goal in mind...

1.1. Focus on Maximizing Profit

The goal of any business, including your affiliate business, is to maximize

profits. Profit is simply your income minus your expenses.

As an affiliate, there are exactly two ways to increase your income (i.e., the

amount of money your business makes)...

1) Refer more visitors to the merchants that you represent.

2) Increase the Conversion Rate (i.e., the percent of visitors that you refer to

your merchant… visitors who deliver the response for which the merchant

pays, whether that’s a sale, or a lead, etc.).

Simple formula, right? If you refer 100 visitors per day to a merchant and 1%

buy, you get paid for that one purchase. But if you send 1,000 visitors per day

and 3% buy, you get paid for 30 purchases.

Yes, thirty times more! So it’s pretty clear how to maximize affiliate income!

Of course, every business has expenses, too. Maximizing profits does not imply

that you must minimize expenses, too. After all, if you spend no money or time

on a business, you have no business! You must get the best possible trafficbuilding

and sales-converting results for every dollar you spend... and for every

hour you spend on your business.

Affiliate Masters Course

Time is money. Don’t count your hours as zero cost simply because

they do not cost you “out of pocket.” Assign your time a dollar value -- it

will put your affiliate business on a solid, professional “business footing.”

Let’s examine expenses by asking two questions...

Question #1 -- What does it cost to build traffic to your merchants’ sites?

Traffic-building, no matter how you cut it, will cost you... in terms of both time and

money. Spending dollars is optional, but spending time is not.

There are many ways, both offline and on, to drive targeted traffic to your

merchants’ sites. This course will show you the most highly profitable, time-anddollar-

effective way to build traffic to your merchants' sites...

Build your own Theme-Based Content Site -- one that is loaded with high infovalue

Keyword-Focused Content Pages that rank well with the Search Engines

and that get the “click throughs” to your merchants’ sites.

Let’s break that down for closer examination. For your affiliate Web site to

generate targeted traffic to your merchants, it must do two things well...

1) Rank well at the Search Engines so that it pulls in lots of targeted traffic. So

far, though, that traffic is still on your site. Therefore, it’s not generating income

yet. Your visitors are just “looking around.” So...

2) Get those visitors to click through to your merchants. (Some affiliate

program models can actually place merchant offerings on your Web site. In this

case, your traffic does not actually visit your merchant’s site. But you still have to

“get the click” to generate income.)

It makes sense, of course, that a Web site is the way to go. After all, this

is the Net!

http://blogorbuild.sitesell.com/

And there are loads of other ways for affiliates to drive targeted traffic to

their merchants, both offline and on.

SiteSell’s 5 Pillar Program provides all the tools, information and

strategies you need to PREsell effectively and generate substantial

commission income.

http://affiliates.sitesell.com/

Affiliate Masters Course

You can easily apply these marketing theories/strategies to your other

affiliate programs as well.

OK, that wraps up expenses and traffic-building. Now for our second question

about expenses...

Question #2 -- What does it cost to maximize Conversion Rates?

Good news! Maximizing your Conversion Rate (CR) is simply a question of

doing things right. There is no extra dollar or time cost to boosting CRs at your

merchants’ sites. This course will show you how to achieve this goal, too.

Remember… when this course talks about Conversion Rates, we are

talking about the Conversion Rate at the sites of the merchants that you

represent as an affiliate. So we are talking about how you will maximize

the percentage of referral visitors who deliver the response for which the

vendor pays, whether that’s a sale, or lead, etc.

If you think that it’s impossible for you to change the sales-effectiveness

of your merchants’ sites, you are in for a big surprise.

Your primary goals are...

1) Maximize targeted traffic to your merchants, spending only dollars and time

that maximize profits.

2) Maximize Conversion Rates. Do things right (no expense).

Don’t do just one. Do both. Why? Because, as you saw above, your payment is

determined by traffic multiplied by the CR... not “added.” Your profits grow

geometrically when you concentrate on maximizing both traffic and Conversion

Rates.

I have spent quite a bit of time reviewing the difference between 5 Pillar Affiliates

who refer high traffic to us and who deliver high Conversion Rates

(% of visitors who purchase), and those who deliver low ones.

The #1 reason for low traffic and terrible Conversion Rates?

Banner ads! No content!

Retinal studies have shown that Web surfers actually avoid banners. Yes, their

eyes look away!

Affiliate Masters Course

Our study found that 5 Pillar Affiliates who relied solely on banners had an

average CR of 0.5%. But those who used “in-context” text links (i.e., text links

that are part of the content of the Web page) averaged over 3.5%!

How’s that for a reason not to use banners?

Banners are cheesy and hurt your credibility. If visitors happen to click through

(a big “if”), they arrive at their destination feeling “pitched” rather than informed.

They have a resisting mindset, rather than with an open, ready-to-buy attitude.

Remember that example where you sent 100 visitors per day to a merchant and

1% bought? If you rely on flipping up some banners, it will be more like 10

visitors per day and not one person buys!

We reveal a lot about 5 Pillar Affiliates during this course. But it is not the

5 Pillar Program that is important here -- it’s the lessons to be derived.

This course is about making any affiliate of any program more successful.

Conclusion?...

Don’t use banners.

Yes, I know “they're so-o-o-o-o easy.” It’s always easy to not make money.

That’s how all those get-rich-quick-guys do so well... the allure of easy money.

No such thing.

I must repeat… don’t rely solely on banners.

If you simply must use banners, save your “in-context” text links for super

companies with wonderful products that deliver true value to your reader.

Beside the obvious futility of banners, I’ve spotted another major point. This one

is more subtle, but it’s important… extremely important.

The #2 reason for low traffic and terrible Conversion Rates?

After banner advertising, it’s the second most common error. And it’s an even

bigger shame because this boo-boo involves a lot of work... misplaced work. If

you’re going to fail, the best thing would be not to spend much time at it, right?

Reason #2 is...

Selling instead of PREselling.

Some 5 Pillar Affiliates have really made great efforts in creating sites to promote

our SiteSell products. And they are building some sales and traffic. But when I

Affiliate Masters Course

see a low CR (i.e., CR under 2%), I know that something is amiss. Great efforts

deserve greater results than 1%.

Yes, I agree that these efforts are better than banners. But remember… creating

these sites takes a lot more work than tossing up a couple of banners. We’ll see

in a moment that it’s misdirected work. (The good news is that this course will

redirect those efforts into high-profit areas.)

Time for a philosophical perspective...

In life, the vast majority of people just keep doing the “same old thing.” Life

seems easier that way. But “doing the same old thing” guarantees the “same old

results.” So in the long run, it’s actually much, much harder.

In the movie, “The Renaissance Man,” Danny De Vito’s character makes a

profound statement...

“The choices we make dictate the lives we lead.”

To paraphrase...

“Where you are today is the result of all the choices and actions that

you have made in your life.”

When he said that, I remember thinking, “You know, he’s right. Except in rare

cases of extraordinarily good or bad luck, people basically end up where they are

as a result of choices they make and courses of action they take.”

People tend to blame a lack of success in life on “bad luck” or “poor timing” or

other people. And yes, at times, that can be accurate. A heck of a lot of factors

beyond our control can blindside us. In the long run, however, as long as we

persist in our efforts, these factors tend to even out and De Vito's statement

remains valid.

Now, here’s the good news...

E-commerce is simpler than life. Due to its digital nature, there are fewer

variables... so the outcome is more controllable. Which means that we can boil

De Vito’s statement down to “The #1 E-commerce Reality.”

This Reality is almost self-evident, yet it’s so easy to forget. Your success with

anything you do in the world of e-commerce flows from it. Internalize it and act

upon it... and you will succeed.

Yes, it’s that fundamental. And that leads me to…

Affiliate Masters Course

The #1 E-commerce Reality

“Nothing happens by accident in the world of

computers, the Net, and customer response.

There is always a reason for what happens,

good or bad, and that reason is YOU.”

When I see some 5 Pillar (“5P”) Affiliates with CRs over 10% (and a few over

20%!), I figure that those with CRs at 1-2% or less could be multiplying their

sales five-or-more-fold. How?

Not by working harder, but simply by channeling their motivation in a better

direction.

Let’s continue with the case of 5P Affiliates who make “great efforts” but get soso

results...

As I reviewed many of these affiliate sites (those who are getting sales but have

CRs under 2%), I realized that almost half were basically one big sales letter for

SiteSell products and Ken. Which means that these affiliates are selling (with

sales copy) when they should be PREselling (with great, and related, content

that is of value to the reader).

There’s really not much point in straight selling off your site -- that's what your

merchant’s site needs to do. Picture this...

A visitor arrives at an affiliate’s site that is really just one, big sales site. Yes, I

know that the words are sincere -- I owe all 5P Affiliates a big thank you for the

truly wonderful things they say. But put yourself in these visitors’ shoes for a

moment. They don’t see inspiring, editorial content. They see a sales effort.

But they were searching for content!

“CONTENT!” I said. (Sorry for yelling.)

People resist sales efforts, so your click-through actually goes down. And if a

visitor does click, what does she see when she arrives at an SBI! site? More

sales effort. And, in some cases, many of the words on SiteSell’s site are similar

to the words that she’s just read. Result? Poor Conversion Rate.

If your site is basically a “bunch of sales letters,” you have not yet built your

credibility and likeability with this visitor. Your visitor ends up feeling “pitched.”

And then she feels double-pitched if (chances are low) she clicks through to your

merchant’s site. That’s why the CR actually goes down.

Affiliate Masters Course

To make things worse, as she “smells” a sales effort, she becomes less likely to

click! So referred traffic drops, too.

Women represent 50% of all surfers. And they control approximately

80% of all shopping dollars. To reinforce this in your mind, we’ll use the

feminine pronoun to talk about readers/visitors/customers. To keep

things simple and even, we’ll use the masculine pronoun when referring

to affiliates.

OK, let’s see...

1) Referred traffic down.

2) And Conversion Rate down.

But these are the two ways to increase your income. (That’s what we talked

about near the beginning.) We’re going in the wrong direction!

Conclusion? Don’t sell!

Instead, warm your visitor up for your merchants by PREselling her with great

content that she values and respects. She’ll click-through with pleasure, arriving

at your merchants’ sites in an open-to-buy mindset.

It’s your PREselling effort that will boost your traffic-to-merchants and CR, which

in turn maximizes your income.

This brings us to our second philosophical premise…

“The #1 Affiliate Reality”...

“Your CR will literally vary from 1% to 10%

(and at times, as much as 20%!), purely

because of...

1) HOW YOU REACH your visitor, and…

2) WHAT YOU SAY to her, and…

3) HOW YOU REFER her to your merchant.”

Your CR depends upon what you do and how you do it. You do not need Lady

Luck, Sir Serendipity or anyone else. There is always a reason for how well you

do, and that reason always relates to what you do and how you do it.

Affiliate Masters Course

Once you realize this, then you know success really is do-able. Some people do

succeed... big-time… but not necessarily the first time. Just keep trying until you

find the right approach.

To quote Calvin Coolidge…

“Nothing in this world can take the

place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common

than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is

almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of

educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone

are omnipotent.

The slogan 'press on' has solved and

always will solve the problems of the

human race.”

Of course, the goal of the 10-DAY Affiliate Masters Course is to reduce the

amount of trial-and-error persistence that will be required before you find your

own successful formula!

Why is “The #1 Affiliate Reality” true?...

Because how you reach your customer, and what you say once you reach her,

and how you refer your visitor to your merchant directly affects your visitor’s

mindset when she arrives at SiteSell.

A positive mindset turns into a purchase with amazing regularity. A negative one

is nearly impossible to overcome.

And that is what “high-CR affiliates” have known all along…

*******************************************

“They refer people to their merchants

in an OPEN-TO-BUY frame of mind.”

*******************************************

Best advice? Write “The #1 Affiliate Reality” onto a yellow Post-It Note and stick

it onto your monitor...

“Your CR will literally vary from 1% to 10%

(and at times, as much as 20%!), purely

Affiliate Masters Course

because of...

1) HOW YOU REACH your visitor, and…

2) WHAT YOU SAY to her, and…

3) HOW YOU REFER her to your merchant.”

Some people contact our Support team after reading this course, refusing

to believe that we have affiliates who can generate a CR exceeding 20%.

Do they do that every month? No.

But we know a high CR is not a fluke. Why? The reason is simple.

Although each affiliate’s CR may fluctuate in any given month, a “high-

CR” affiliate does not suddenly become a “low-CR” affiliate. The good

ones score high, and make significant dollars, every month.

And the proof is in the pudding. SiteSell’s astounding success is affiliatedriven.Instead of paying for very costly advertising like other companies

do, we pour our money into making you succeed by giving you the best

business-building system in the world…

http://proof.sitesell.com/

It is amazing what a great product, successful customers and proud-loyal

affiliates can achieve!

OK. Take a quick stretch and then we’ll continue.

Back already? Let’s go...

1.2. PREsell To Convert

Your strategies and actions as an affiliate directly affect your Conversion Rate.

This section deals with how to PREsell effectively. (Later in the course, we will

cover traffic-building in more detail.)

Let’s look at examples of how “low-CR affiliates” create negative mindsets by

making how-you-reach, what-you-say, or how-you-refer boo-boos. We’ll begin at

the top…

1) How to Reach Your Visitor...

Free-For-All Sites (FFAs) are a great example of how not to reach people. For

the most part, FFAs have become so seamy and useless that no matter what you

Affiliate Masters Course

say, you’re doomed from the start. I once made a request to all 5 Pillar Affiliates

for FFA success stories... not a single success story! I won’t bother to ask again.

Compare this with how smart and open-minded your visitor feels when she finds

you via a Search Engine!

2) What to Say to Your Visitor...

Don’t write a site purely devoted to “hard-selling” your merchants’ products.

Imagine a visitor who hits your site and reads an immediate sales pitch. That

person will resist because she does not know you. Then, if she clicks to your

merchant, she gets another sales pitch on the SiteSell site ==> Negative x 2!

Never devote your site to one company’s product line. No matter what you

do, no matter how sincere you are, this kind of approach always ends up

“smelling” like a sales pitch. It simply makes no difference that you honestly love

the products -- your visitor will mistake your devotion for selling. Remember, she

doesn’t know you!

It’s far better to develop a concept that relates to that company’s products and to

other products from other companies that are complementary. Develop related

content that PREsells. Then “get the click” through “in-context” text links.

3) How to Refer Your Visitor to Your Merchant...

Banners, as we discussed earlier, are the best example of how not to refer your

visitor to your merchant. In plain and simple language, people feel “pitched”

when they click on a banner. And people who feel “pitched” are difficult to

convert into a sale.

Now for a critical Action Step...

Review your site or whatever other means you are using to reach, talk to, and

refer visitors to your merchants. Put yourself in your customer’s brain. What will

she think, how will she feel, at each of the 3 major steps from above?

If you’re doing everything perfectly, congratulations! You must have a high CR.

If you don’t have a high CR, or if you see some big mindset mistakes, consider

how much higher your CR would be if a visitor…

• found you in a bona fide manner (ex., as a result of doing a search on a

Search Engine),

Affiliate Masters Course

• became “your friend” (or your “trusting admirer” if you do a truly awesome job!)

because you provided excellent content

• and finally was led to a context-appropriate recommendation. (There will be

more on recommendation vs. sales pitch shortly.)

Key learning point?

Always consider how these actions affect your visitor’s mindset...

1) HOW YOU REACH your visitor, and…

2) WHAT YOU SAY to her, and…

3) HOW YOU REFER her to your merchant.

Get inside your visitor’s head. Realize how she will feel each step of the way.

Whatever you do, consider the impact on your visitor -- if it does not make her

more “open to buy,” don’t do it.

PREselling is really all about selling yourself (i.e., your credibility) to your

customer, every step of the way. You reach your targeted traffic in a proper

fashion, you deliver valuable, appropriate, editorial content, and you recommend

merchants to your visitor after she has come to respect and like you. Your

CR will soar.

Why does PREselling work so well?

A sale via any affiliate program is really a two-step process. It requires the

delivery of two “Most Wanted Responses,” yours and your merchant’s.

As an affiliate, what is your Most Wanted Response (MWR)? No, it’s not to get

the sale. That’s the second step and it's also your merchant’s MWR. Your MWR

is to “get the open-to-buy click” (i.e., your visitor clicks through to your merchant

with an open-to-buy mindset).

Writing to PREsell does not require genetic talent. It’s not a “gift.” Writing

to PREsell is a skill you can acquire. Make Your Content PREsell!

(MYCPS!), the only book of its kind on the Net, shows you exactly how to

do it. Learn how to...

1) Write to communicate.

2) Develop your own “voice” with flair and substance.

3) Spin your site/biz/self into a unique position.

Affiliate Masters Course

4) Honestly convince people to trust and like you.

Everyone, regardless of what they do online or offline, needs to know how

to write effectively. For more information about this free, must-have

resource, please visit…

http://mycps.sitesell.com/

Let your merchant’s site do its job and get the sale. I remember when I used to

tell my star baseball pitcher, Joel Leonoff...

“Joel... you don't have to strike 'em all out. You’ve got a great team

behind you. Let them do their job.”

The same goes for your merchants. Let them do their job.

Our “Top 100” 5 Pillar Affiliates all provide useful content. They PREsell. Then

they let the rest of their team (us here at SiteSell) get the sale.

It’s a two-step process that builds to the sale...

STEP 1 You PREsell to get an open-to-buy click-through to your merchant.

STEP 2 Your merchant gets the sale.

So, whatever you do, however you do it, it should always pull your visitor one

step closer to delivering your MWR...

Get an open-to-buy click through to your income-generating source!

Whoops! I was just about to move on to the next point. Good thing I heard you

asking...

“Ken, if I leave it up to the merchant's site to get the sale, I still

don’t see how I have any influence on the Conversion Rate. I'd much

rather sell the visitor on my own site.”

First, let’s make sure we have our terms straight by examining a real case study.

Elad Shippony, from Israel, is an excellent example of an infopreneur. He is

creating fun and entertaining content to drive traffic from the Search Engines,

and then monetizing that traffic, without selling a product or service.

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/infopreneur-elad.html

PREsell effectively, and your CR will zoom. But if it reads like a “hard-sell sales

pitch,” you’ll quickly lose credibility with your audience.

Affiliate Masters Course

On the other hand, let’s say that you do not have a mega-content, ultra-high

traffic site. You really love SiteSell products and that's why you’re so proud to

represent them. After all, you’d never want to just “push stuff” on people,

products that you do not believe represent true value-for-dollar.

Site Build It! (SBI!) gets results at an affordable price…

http://results.sitesell.com/

Do not represent merchants who simply bribe you with a high commission

to recommend overpriced products. A short-term gain like this ends up in

long-term pain. Your reputation is your foundation. Build it on rock rather

than sand.

Watch the SBI! Video Guide for an inside-look at how SBI! provides all

the information, strategies and tools needed to progress from

brainstorming to content-development to traffic-building to growing a

profitable business.

http://demo.sitesell.com/

You create a Web site that really raves about SBI! and other SiteSell products.

You mean every word of it, of course. And you are really proud of your site. And

you know that you are doing visitors a favor by telling them about the SiteSell

products.

Whoa! Let’s shift the focus from YOU for a second. Let’s focus on your visitor’s

mindset. Up above, I said...

Get inside your visitor's head -- realize how

she will feel each step of the way. Whatever

you do, consider the impact on your visitor

-- if it does not make her “open to buy,”

don't do it.

So maybe you see an honest site that tries to share the benefits of SBI! with your

visitor. But your visitor does not know you or your motivations. And most

importantly, she is not reading the relevant information that she was searching

for. (The fundamental reality of the Net is information, information, information).

Your visitor sees a straight sales effort. With no other true content, it would be

hard for “an outsider” to see it any other way.

It does not matter what you see. If your visitors basically perceive a straight

sales effort for your merchants, you’re selling, not PREselling. That means that

the two-step process is now SELL-SELL...

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Redundancy = Turned OFF customer = LOW CR.

But if you develop great content, it will lead to the click. You become a friend

making a recommendation rather than a stranger making a sales pitch. And if

you create a truly great site, you’ll actually become a trusted expert making an

endorsement.

Recommendation = Turned ON customer = HIGH CR.

In other words, don’t push your visitor to the click. Make her want to click. It

makes all the difference if your visitor feels that it’s her idea to deliver your MWR

(the open-to-buy click).

Another question? Geez, I was about to grab a coffee. Fire away!

“Can you give me another example of using content to PREsell?"

Sure. Let’s say that you love Make Your Words Sell! (MYWS!), the perfect

bookend to Make Your Content PREsell!. Your plan is to create a Net

marketing site.

Whoa! My first recommendation...

Do not create another Web marketing site. There are zillions of them.

However, if you can develop a unique twist in the way you present high-value

Web marketing information and build at least 30 quality content pages about this

subject, then go for it. But don’t limit your monetization efforts to PREselling Site

Build It! exclusively. Instead, diversify.

For example, let’s say you create a content page about “how to write persuasive

sales copy on the Net.” Within that page, include in-context text links to your Top

3 books about copywriting.

Add Make Your Words Sell! (a free book)

http://myws.sitesell.com/

… and include a #2 and a #3 recommendation. Why?

First, this approach gives your page extra content value -- it shows visitors that

you have their best interests at heart. Second, it adds extra credibility to the #1

choice (ahem!). And third, it gives you three possible links for your visitor to click

upon.

Affiliate Masters Course

Include your favorite book about writing “offline” copy, too. Naturally, it’s an

affiliate link to one of the online bookstores!

It’s a WIN-WIN-WIN situation for you, your visitors, and your merchants.

Now, please think about the following for a moment...

Why would I, a merchant, recommend that you not create “yet another Web

marketing site,” and especially not one that is dedicated to selling Site Build It!?

It’s because I know you’ll waste your time. The two-step SELL-SELL does not

work. Period. Sure, you’ll get a few sales. But you won’t make enough money

to stay motivated to build your business. I’d rather give you a far more powerful,

successful approach…

http://affiliatemarketing.sitesell.com/

…and have a smaller piece of your larger and more successful attention!

Bottom line?...

If you want to create and build a site that is related to Net marketing, take your

time and do your homework. Find a new concept, or a unique twist, or a trend

that you think will become important, and be the first one to do it. Do not be a

“me too.”

Better yet, find your own unique concept.

And where do you find a great concept for your site? Inside you!

You do know stuff other people don’t... things people would pay to know. You

might have learned it “on the job” or through your hobby. There’s a good chance

that you don’t even realize what you know. It’s often right under your nose. But,

as you’ll see in DAY 2, everyone is an expert about something.

In the meantime, check out how these small business owners have created their

own unique site concepts based on what they know and love. Find out how they

discovered SBI!’s most valuable benefit of all…

http://ilovesbi.sitesell.com/

Here’s a real concrete, non-Web-marketing example that will succeed...

It’s all about creating a Theme-Based Content Site that is loaded with Keyword-

Focused Content-Rich Pages. Your theme?...

Affiliate Masters Course

You love concrete. Yes, cement! It’s been your hobby, your passion, for years...

Concrete statues. Concrete painting. Decorative concrete. Concrete in the

garden. Repairing concrete. The various types of concrete. Hand trowels.

Things to do with cement blocks. Concrete trade shows. Concrete and

swimming pools. Concrete molds. Cleaning concrete. Ready mixed concrete.

Concrete countertops.

For this example, I had to brainstorm topics for concrete. I know nothing

about it. I chose “concrete” because it was the first thing to enter my

head. But I could develop topics about concrete forever. (There is more

about brainstorming and developing high-profitability topics later in the

course.)

Anyway, let’s say that you decide to create a Theme-Based Content Site that is

all about concrete. Your home page explains how your site is the site for

everything concrete, from structural to esthetic.

Of course, you create high-value, content-jammed Keyword-Focused

Content Pages. For example, your page about concrete statues explains all

about how to make striking statues for the home and garden. You could even

expand it into an entire “Statue Section,” with a page on the history of concrete

statues and another one about how to market and sell the statues that the visitor

makes.

The main point, though, is that you create truly excellent, high-value content that

attracts and delivers what your readers sought at the Search Engines, “warms

them up” and increases your credibility…

C T P

You also weave relevant, “in-context” text links right into the content (i.e., your

recommendations)…

• Books about the topic (ex., concrete statues if that's what the page was about)

• A garden supplier for concrete molds, trowels, etc.

• A concrete supplier

• Consulting services -- your own, of course!

Affiliate Masters Course

See what’s happening? When you write about a niche that you know and love,

the content is easy. I’ll show you how to attract even more targeted traffic by

ranking well for the Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization) later on.

By providing great content, you PREsell your reader, increasing your click

throughs and your CR. And by monetizing through related and excellent affiliate

programs, and other appropriate monetization models, you develop multiple

streams of income from one site.

This is the way to go.

I’d love to have just a small piece of your attention on a site like this...

perhaps a button link “Powered by SiteSell.com” or perhaps a page called

“How I Built This Page.” If you can create a way to make it fit on your

site, I’d love to be with you.

OK, we can summarize this section into a key take-home lesson. I am giving it

this title...

“The Road to Becoming a Master Affiliate”

The more I researched successful 5 Pillar Affiliates, the more PREselling

techniques I found. But, no matter how they do it, they all accomplish the same

thing in the end...

**************************************

“They refer people to their merchants

in an ‘OPEN-TO-BUY’ frame of mind.”

**************************************

What's the key? PREselling. Not selling.

You must, must, must know how to PREsell!

Basically, The Affiliate Masters Course delivers the single most productive

approach to affiliate income. It will show you how to PREsell your way to a CR of

5-10% and at the same time, maximize targeted traffic to your site and your

merchants’ sites (and your other monetization options, if applicable).

This brings us to the bottom line of this DAY...

If you’re drawing targeted traffic to your site... and if your site is getting a great

Click-Through Rate (CTR) to the merchants that you represent (and your other

monetization sources)... and if you are converting a high percentage of them into

sales...

Affiliate Masters Course

You are following the roadmap to becoming a high-earning affiliate

champion!

Let’s summarize the whole point of PREselling with this question...

Which would you respond to?...

A stranger with a sales pitch?

Or… A knowledgeable friend making a recommendation?

Before proceeding to DAY 2, please complete your DAY 1 Goal-of-the-DAY, and

take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Deepen and focus your understanding of this material. Re-read it once per week

for the next eight weeks, monthly after that. As you progress through DAYS 2

through 10, it’s going to be easy to lose sight of the “big picture” presented today.

And there’s another reason to re-read regularly. It will mean more and more to

you as you gain each DAY’s new perspective.

And with that, it’s on to DAY 2….

Time to begin the blueprint for your Web site. Take the first step by

brainstorming your Site Concept…

Affiliate Masters Course

2. DAY 2

Brainstorm Your Site Concept

“Do What You Love...

The Money Will Follow”

Goal-of-the-DAY... Identify the top 3 Site Concepts that you know and love.

Before you take this next step, take a moment to decide how you want to spend

your time. Benjamin Franklin gave us this valuable advice to follow…

“By failing to prepare,

you are preparing to fail.”

2.1. PREpare, Not REpair

You have just arrived at the most important part of your entire affiliate business.

Yes, I know some of you haven’t started yet. And I know you really want to get

going! And yes...

Wrapping up the necessary preparation work before you begin “doing business”

on the Net will, of course, delay your grand opening. But it’s important that you

take your time to prepare well now. Then there’ll be nothing to repair or repeat

once you launch. You’ll just roar ahead!

****************************************************

The few hours or so that you spend here,

in preparation, will determine exactly

how big your success will be.

****************************************************

Most people fail in any business because they don’t plan adequately. That’s

three times as true for an Internet business and five times as true for what you

are about to do. Here’s why...

If you pick the wrong concept, if you develop the wrong topics, if you pick the

wrong affiliate programs... you’ll get the wrong results.

So many small businesses fail to start at the beginning with Content. Instead,

they start at the end with Monetization.

Affiliate Masters Course

They spend time and energy setting up a shopping cart and a merchant account

or some other way of “collecting the money.” That’s putting the (shopping) cart

before the e-horse of traffic. As we saw earlier, Monetization comes last. It’s the

final result of doing everything else (C T P) correctly.

The hardest part, where 98% of small businesses fail, is in attracting Traffic, the

visitors who convert into income. Yet many start with the cash register!

The solution? The only solution?...

Content Traffic PREsell Monetize

SBI! sites follow the process, generating ongoing targeted traffic…

http://ctpm.sitesell.com/

This part of The Affiliate Masters Course focuses on what you need to do

first. It guides you past the barriers and hazards and sets you on the road that is

right for you…

Your road to success.

You are embarking upon a truly rewarding journey. Have no doubts -- this is

“winnable” e-commerce. It’s totally under your control.

What you are about to read is likely a radical departure from what you have been

doing. Take your time and read carefully. Receive the key to becoming an

Affiliate Master.

OK, enough “kung-fu grasshopper” stuff.

Back to real-time preparation. You have already started your journey in the right

direction by completing the first preparatory step, the foundation for all future

actions...

• Understand PREselling and its Effect on Conversion Rates (DAY 1)

There are three more preparatory steps...

• Brainstorm Your Site Concept (DAY 2)

Brainstorm a high-potential idea. Discover the best Site Concepts for you. Then

narrow them down to the one with the most potential. Remember... it takes just

Affiliate Masters Course

as much time to build a low-potential business as a high-potential one. So invest

the time now to maximize your returns later.

• Develop High Profitability Topics (DAY 3)

Develop hundreds of possible Keyword-Focused topics for your concept, then

narrow them down to the ones with the most profitability. Relax, it’s a snap once

I introduce you to a few Net tools.

And then it’s on to the final preparatory step...

• Plan Your Monetization Models (DAY 4)

Here’s where it starts to get fun. Based on the concept and topics that you

developed, research affiliate programs that excite you and that fit your concept.

At this point, plan for affiliate marketing to be your primary monetization model.

However, it is also important to consider other potential income streams that

would be suitable for your business. Diversity fosters stability.

Don’t rush through the prep DAYS. They are easy -- so it’s tempting to zoom.

Don’t. Even though they are not difficult, they do require thoughtful

consideration.

I hate to be a nag, but please remember what I said before... Building a

profitable business is a process.

The Video Tour takes you through the C T P M process…

http://videotour.sitesell.com/

Take as much time as necessary to do each DAY properly. There is no

stopwatch ticking. Some careful planning and fine-tuning will pay you big

dividends down the road.

Let’s move ahead and...

2.2. Find Your Passion

Everyone, absolutely everyone, has a special interest... a passion. Everyone

knows something that is of value to others… something that others on the Net

seek.

Affiliate Masters Course

Passion makes work fun and easy…

• What is it that you love to talk about? Read about?

• What is your hobby?

• What do you do for fun and games?

• What are your natural talents?

Don’t forget to look right under your nose...

• What special body of knowledge have you learned from your job?

• What do you do day after day, without even thinking about it (ex., child-rearing,

taking care of sick parents, renovation contractor, customs inspector).

Think about what you do in a typical day, and what you’ve learned from it…

• What sections of a bookstore or a magazine shop do you automatically

gravitate toward?

• What kind of TV shows do you tend to like most? Movies?

What activities do you enjoy most about your current occupation?...

• Is it research?

• Helping customers achieve their goals?

• Managing other people?

• Teaching or explaining things to others?

• Talking/selling on the phone?

• Organizing things?

• Making a process easier?

• Discovering or creating new products or services?

• Marketing products?

Affiliate Masters Course

Problems are also a good source for ideas because problems need solutions!…

• What bugs you?

• What’s tedious?

• What does not work?...

We all encounter obstacles, problems, and nasty people in the course of

whatever it is that we do every day. What are the three biggest problems in your

work place? What are your biggest pains as a parent, or as a teacher, or as a

gardener, or as a single mom, etc.?

Now repeat all the questions above, except pretend that you are in a “five years

ago” time warp. Yes, ask yourself the same questions, except place yourself

where you were five years ago. Next, repeat for ten years ago. To paraphrase

an old saying...

“You’ve forgotten more about some things than other folks will ever

know.”

Call friends. Ask your kids. Phone your parents or your siblings… or anyone

else who can jog your memory. It’s so easy to miss what others see.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (!), and it is not as easy as it

sounds, is to find a subject that you really know and like.

Here are a few examples of starting points to get your neurons firing...

Advertising

Aerospace

Agriculture/farming

Antiques and

collectibles

Apparel/clothing/fashi

Architecture/buildings

Arts & Crafts

Auctions

Automotive

Aviation

Beverages

Books

Chemicals

Children/parenting

Cleaning

Communications

Computers

Construction

Consulting

Conventions/Trade

Shows

Design

Disabilities

Education

Electronics

Employment

Energy

Engineering

Entertainment

Environment

Ergonomics

Financial services

Food

Gambling

Games

Government

Health

Hobbies

Home/garden/flowers/

plants

Hospitality

Information

Jewelry

Law

Manufacturing

Minerals

Affiliate Masters Course

Music

New age

Office supplies

Publishing

Real Estate

Religion/Spirituality

Research and

Development

Retail management

Science

Security

Sex

Software

Sports

Telecommunications

Toys

Trade

Transportation

Travel

Video

Weather

Take your time on this -- the final concept will, after all, form the foundation for

your affiliate business. So, now that you have read this far, review all the above

brain-stimulators with pen and paper (or keyboard) in hand.

Write down concepts as they hit you -- make the list as long as you can. Don’t

censor yourself. Just write down ideas for Site Concepts as they occur.

Next, pick the three concepts that you love the most and that you think would

have some appeal for others -- this is your “short list” of Site Concepts.

Remember... if a concept really turns you on, you won’t be working. You’ll be

playing. So focus on topics that you love.

Believe it or not, plain, unbridled enthusiasm or passion is the best

PREseller you have. When visitors know you share their passion, there is

an instant bond. They approach your solutions with less caution and

distrust.

Narrow down your top passions using this free decision-making tool. Is it

Option A or Option B?…

http://chooseit.sitesell.com/

You are now at a critical “Loop Point.” What do I mean by that? Well, at this

point, there is no way to tell you which Site Concept to pick. Here’s why...

You definitely know which Site Concept excites you the most, but you have no

idea which one is most profitable. You do not have enough information yet.

Solution? Simply start with the Site Concept that excites you the most. As you

accumulate more information during DAYS 2, 3, and 4, grow your concept so that

you maximize its profit potential.

For example, let’s say that your passion is the Renaissance artist, Sandro

Botticelli (1445-1510), a highly individualistic and graceful artist who fell out of

fashion and died in obscurity. (Hey, in art, ya gotta be good to die broke!) It’s

your passion to give this man his due on the Net.

Affiliate Masters Course

At first glance, the focus is rather narrow. It might be difficult to develop enough

HIGH-PROFITABILITY topics to attract sufficient targeted traffic (DAY 3). And

there may not be many affiliate programs to develop a substantial primary

monetization model (DAY 4).

On the other hand...

• that may not matter to you -- the passion may be primary, while the money is

secondary to you.

Or...

• since you really are an expert, you just may succeed in developing tons of

Keyword-Focused topics to be able to create lots of high value Keyword-Focused

Content Pages about Botticelli. You may end up “owning” this niche. And, while

completing the prep work, you may discover...

• a superb art gallery that specializes in Botticelli, but that gets zero Net traffic

• a stock photo service that features a comprehensive selection of Botticelli art

• a Botticelli museum in Florence.

The stock photo service has an affiliate program. You set up a private referral

arrangement with the other two. You’re in e-business heaven!

Or...

• you conclude that while you love Botticelli, there is not enough income potential

for this narrow niche. So you expand it. How far?

Do you stop at Botticelli?...

Or do you grow your idea to include all Renaissance artists?

Or do you grow it into a comprehensive art portal?

Of course, you don’t have to go “the whole hog” all at once. You can start with

Botticelli and widen the scope of your site over time.

How big should you grow your Site Concept? How much should you change it?

Only you can decide. And you’ll be able to do that when you finish...

Affiliate Masters Course

DAY 3 -- Develop high-profitability topics

DAY 4 -- Plan Your Monetization Models

If the financial potential seems limited after you have finished the above, you

have three options...

OPTION 1) Expand the concept -- make it more general. But remember... you

don’t have to start huge. Build it over time.

OPTION 2) Loop back to this point and try the next concept on your “short list”

of Site Concepts.

OPTION 3) Recognize that you’re “in it” for the passion, and not for the

money. Botticelli rules!

It’s all up to you. Let those creative juices flow. (A word of caution, though.

Before you decide on your final choice for your Site Concept, do DAY 3 and DAY

4.)

Before proceeding to DAY 3, please complete your DAY 2 Goal-of-the-DAY, and

take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Revisit this only if you want to build an entirely new and different Theme-Based

Content Site.

Now that you have 3 Site Concepts that excite you, let’s find out where the

profitability lies...

Affiliate Masters Course

3. DAY 3

Develop High-Profitability Topics

“Why do you rob banks?” the officer asked

infamous bank-robber Willy Sutton moments

after he arrested him...

“I go where the money is.”

Goal-of-the-DAY... Use the SUPPLY and DEMAND WINDOWS to build a

Master Keyword List, fully researched, of 5 high-profitability keywords for each of

the 3 Site Concepts (brainstormed in DAY 2).

With this goal in mind...

Let’s say that you love fashion. You eat, live and sleep it. You read all the

fashion magazines. You head straight to that part of any bookstore. Your friends

beg you to talk about something else “for a change!”

It’s time to brainstorm and prune. Initially, you’ll brainstorm as many related

“Keyword-Focused” topics as possible that are related to fashion. Then you’ll

prune out the low-profit-potential ones.

First thing you do? Power up what I will call your “keyword tool center.” There

are three WINDOWS of information that you will be researching...

1) DEMAND

2) SUPPLY

3) BREAKOUT

Open your browser and start with...

WINDOW #1 -- THE DEMAND WINDOW

Time to brainstorm some Keyword-Focused topics with Search It!...

http://searchit.sitesell.com/

If you're not tapping into the unlimited information on the Web, you're missing

out. Search It! converts you into a business power-surfer.

Affiliate Masters Course

OK, let’s fire up Search It!. A search could involve three or four steps. STEP 1

and STEP 2 both utilize a drop-down menu.

I highly recommend that you click on the link, “Click Here for information About

Search Type AFTER completing Step 1 & Step 2,” every time you do a search.

These short tutorials will help you get the most out of your research until you get

more comfortable with Search It!.

Now that the mini-orientation is over, let’s get started.

STEP 1… Select “Brainstorming” from the Search Category menu.

STEP 2… Select “Wordtracker Free Tool” from the Search Type menu. (Don’t

forget to click on the help link before you proceed!)

STEP 3… Enter the keyword “fashion” (without the quotes).

In this course, the term “keywords” includes both single words and multiword

phrases. When building a keyword list, never limit yourself to single

words. Many more people search using multiple-word keywords

composed of two, or even three, words.

Since there is no STEP 4 for this particular search, you can now hit the Search It!

button. (Do not use the Enter or Return key.)

Let’s quickly recap your search formula…

Search It! > Brainstorming (STEP 1) > Wordtracker Tool (STEP 2) > fashion

(STEP 3)

Please note… we will use the above shortcut style when outlining the steps of

future searches.

Affiliate Masters Course

OK, onwards and upwards. Got your DEMAND WINDOW ready? Here are

some examples of the most common keywords (at the time of writing) that Web

surfers search upon that contain the word “fashion” at Yahoo!…

3083 fashion

3054 fashion games to play

1366 fashion bug

1268 fashion accessories

387 fashion design

You can also try the other search types in the Brainstorming category to expand

your keyword list.

OK, what do we have so far? We’ve got a good idea of what your potential

visitors want. In other words, we know what’s in demand, and by how much, for

a variety of keywords (some of which will become your high-profitability,

Keyword-Focused topics) that contain the word “fashion.”

Now it’s time for...

WINDOW #2 -- THE SUPPLY WINDOW

Ready to prune out the low-profitability topics?

Before we can start pruning, we need to check out the SUPPLY of your

“fashion-containing” keywords. In other words, how many sites already provide

content for the keywords that we found in your DEMAND WINDOW (i.e.,

WINDOW #1 above)?

Let’s start the ball rolling with “fashion design.” Open Search It! once again.

(You did keep it handy on your desktop, right?)

Search It! > Competition (STEP 1) > Google Single Keyword SUPPLY

(STEP 2) > fashion design (STEP 3)

This specific search yields this information… Results 1 - 10 of about 18,100,000

for “fashion design.”

Repeat the same process for each of the “fashion”-containing keywords that you

found in your DEMAND WINDOW. Yes, seriously, do a search for each

keyword. It is a bit tedious, but the research will pay off in spades.

Before you do those searches, create a Master Keyword List. I recommend that

Affiliate Masters Course

you do this either in a simple text file or via a database or spreadsheet program.

A database or a spreadsheet will speed things up and provide you with extra

functionality.

If the idea of a database or spreadsheet scares you, simply stick with a text list.

It’s a bit inefficient so it will take you a little longer, but it will do the job just fine.

Whatever you decide, please, please, please...

Do use a Master Keyword List. It will evolve into the master blueprint for your

entire site. If you follow these instructions, the site will almost build itself!

OK, here’s what to do with your Master Keyword List. Create four columns and

label them KEYWORD, DEMAND, SUPPLY, and SUPPLY SITE INFO. For each

“fashion”-containing keyword in your DEMAND WINDOW...

1) Enter the keyword itself into the column labeled KEYWORD -- copy-and-paste

to avoid typos.

2) Enter how many times it is searched (info that you found in the DEMAND

WINDOW) into the DEMAND column.

3) Enter how many sites Search It! finds (in your SUPPLY WINDOW) in your

column labeled SUPPLY.

4) Read the listings for the Top 20 sites that Search It! returns for each

keyword. Make brief notes in the fourth column, SUPPLY SITE INFO -- no need

to visit the sites yet (perhaps just a quick click to the home page if you need a bit

more info). Just get a flavor for the kinds of sites that each KEYWORD search

delivers.

I’ve started your Master Keyword List for you...

KEYWORD DEMAND SUPPLY SUPPLY SITE INFO

fashion 3,083 577,000,000 See NOTE...

NOTE: “Fashion” is too general. Don't bother researching this word for

products/services. The real opportunities lie in the niches, in topic keywords that

have more specificity.

fashion design 387 18,100,000 Design principles, patterns

Affiliate Masters Course

Add as many notes as you like for SUPPLY SITE INFO. I’ve kept it very brief

here, since it is only an example.

Finally, make two more columns, one labeled POSSIBLE PARTNERS and the

other called IDEAS FOR CONTENT. Time for some in-depth, professional,

SUPPLY WINDOW research...

Review as many sites from these results as you like. I’d suggest at least the first

10-20 sites. But you may find merchants in need of traffic help (i.e., you!)

deeper down.

As you get into this in-depth research, you’ll notice three types of sites...

• irrelevant -- for whatever reason (off-topic, geographic, lousy site, etc.), they

just don't fit. Skip these.

• merchant -- in POSSIBLE PARTNERS, enter what kind of merchandise they

sell. If they have an affiliate program that fits your concept, enter the URL of the

“join page” for the affiliate program of that merchant. These are indeed potential

merchant-partners for you.

Even better, you’re automatically organizing the POSSIBLE PARTNERS

according to each keyword. This means that you are already pre-planning each

Keyword-Focused Content Page’s “in-context” text links and setting the

groundwork for the “M” (Monetization) stage.

• content -- these sites are your direct competitors. They make money through

affiliate programs, too. And good news! They’ll speed up your learning curve by

giving you a lot of information. Why? Because they've already done a ton of

work for you!

Here’s what to do...

i) As you review these content sites, you may get some great ideas for content

on your own site. Enter these ideas into the IDEAS FOR CONTENT column.

ii) Browse the site, drilling down into the content. Click on the banner ads and

text links, following these links out to their destinations to see what kind of

merchants they have chosen as affiliate-partners. Or perhaps it’s a straight

advertising deal -- make a note of these merchants as potential advertisers, too.

If a given merchant fits your concept and has an affiliate program, enter the kind

of merchandise it sells, and the “join page” URL, as you did just above. Once

again, you are preparing for the “M” stage.

Affiliate Masters Course

QUICK TIP: It can be a tedious pain to look for a link to a merchant’s

affiliate program. Some home pages are quite crowded. Here’s how to

find it quickly...

1) See if you can find a reference to it with a quick scan of the top, left

and bottom navbars (graphic or text links). If not...

2) Do a quick find on the home page. Press on the control+f keys on your

keyboard (command+f if you are using a Mac). Then enter “affil” (the first

few letters is fine and reduces chances of a typo) into the box of the

window that pops up. Try also for “assoc” (short for “associate”) and

“refer” (short for “referral” or “referrer” program).

3) Use the site search tool or online support chat (if it has one) or 1-800

line, or send an e-mail. If the site doesn’t have an affiliate program, ask if

the Webmaster is interested in buying pay-per-click advertising (more on

selling pay-per-click advertising a bit later on in the course).

If you still can’t find an affiliate link after that, forget it. The site probably

doesn’t have an affiliate program.

ANOTHER QUICK TIP: You can also find MERCHANT sites via Search

It!. Select the Inbound Link Opportunities category (STEP 1).

Obtain content sites by reviewing the top 20+ search results from Search

It!’s Competition category (STEP 1).

Or use its Monetization category and choose this search type, “Find

Products/Programs at ClickBank” (STEP 2).

Plow through your Master Keyword List until you have completed all six columns

for all of your high-profitability “fashion”-containing keywords.

Expected results?...

• lots of good content ideas for the site

• some good monetizing leads to merchants who could need pay-per-click

advertising from you a bit later

• a few merchants who have affiliate programs (but the real mother lode for

affiliate programs -- more “M” -- will come in DAY 4!).

Important Note...

Affiliate Masters Course

I can’t over-emphasize the importance of your Master Keyword List. Your entire

site, including its most profitable directions, lies in this blueprint. Please do this.

If you find creating your own list (with a database or spreadsheet program) to be

too daunting, and if a text list is too awkward, let Site Build It!’s server-side

Brainstorm It! do your work for you! Click here to see this easy-to-use tool in

action…

http://demo.sitesell.com/day2/day-2-f.html

Want to accumulate even more information about the intensity of the

competition (i.e., the SUPPLY of keywords) for top rankings for your

keywords? Investigate other search types in Search It!’s Competition

category. (I told you that you would use this versatile tool often!)…

One special note... If your search on a keyword returns sites that seem

inappropriate, it’s likely that your keyword does not reach the people you

thought.

For example, let’s say that you want to write a page about how to price

products. This page is meant to show e-commerce merchants how to

price new products. But your research shows that surfers searching for

the keyword “price” are not business folks looking for “pricing” info. They

are consumers looking for deals.

Save yourself time and money... “price” is not a good word to focus upon.

Repeat for the keyword “pricing.” BINGO! This is the right word.

OK, where were we? Oh yes...

Your DEMAND WINDOW’s search generated many “fashion-containing”

keywords, along with the DEMAND for each keyword.

Your SUPPLY WINDOW’s search revealed the number of sites (i.e., the

SUPPLY of sites) that provide information about each keyword, as well as a lot of

leads to possible merchant-partners and even some ideas for content.

Now it’s time to pick the keywords with the best profitability. These will be the

keywords with high DEMAND (i.e., tons of searches) and low SUPPLY (i.e., not

too many sites found). Eliminate any words that appear too competitive (i.e.,

SUPPLY is too high in WINDOW #2 or bidding competition is too intense),

especially if they are not searched upon very often (i.e., DEMAND is low in

WINDOW #1). And especially if there do not seem to be many POSSIBLE

PARTNERS for them!

Bottom line?...

Affiliate Masters Course

Your best words should have HIGH DEMAND and LOW SUPPLY.

This is a rough protocol, so don’t become a slave to it. Follow these two general

guidelines...

1) Eliminate only the worst combinations of high SUPPLY and low DEMAND and

low number of POSSIBLE PARTNERS.

2) When you’re ready to write your site, start with the keywords that have the

best combination of high DEMAND and low SUPPLY (especially the ones that

you really enjoy and know!) and a good number of POSSIBLE PARTNERS.

As you start to see patterns for the kind of sites that appear in your SUPPLY

SITES and POSSIBLE PARTNERS and IDEAS FOR CONTENT notes, you’ll

refine your Site Concept. Ultimately, you’ll create Keyword-Focused Content

Pages that...

• fit with your final Site Concept

And...

• have a good SUPPLY/DEMAND ratio

And...

• have a good number of POTENTIAL PARTNERS

AND that...

• you enjoy writing about.

Now you are ready to work on…

WINDOW #3 -- BREAKOUT WINDOW

By now, you very likely have enough keywords to keep you busy for a while. If

so, give this a quick read and move on to the next section. But...

If you need more high-profitability keyword topics, or perhaps you just want to be

as thorough as possible, work through this third and final WINDOW. It just might

affect the final concept that you refine and the domain name that you select.

It’s easy to get “concept-keyword-bound.” Resist the urge. Keep in mind that

Affiliate Masters Course

SUPPLY and DEMAND numbers are still merely gross guidelines that point out

some interesting big pictures. Make your brain the ultimate judge.

No single keyword, no matter how profitable it may calculate out to be,

makes or breaks a business. The overall quantity and quality of all your pages

are, ultimately, what makes your business snowball and gain momentum.

The money (i.e., your income) is in C T P M...

Develop a wide variety of different keywords, and then build Keyword-Focused

Content Pages (KFCPs) that deliver high-value information. Those pages attract

and PREsell targeted visitors, who then click through to your merchants and

other sources of income.

OK. Let’s see where we are in the process. We started with a basic “Concept

Keyword” like “fashion.” All the brainstorming and pruning revolved around that

word. Let’s now BREAKOUT (i.e., widen the field) a bit. What we need is a good

sharp knock on the side of the head, so that we can come up with keywords that

are related to “fashion” but don’t necessarily contain the word “fashion.”

Use the one and only Search It!.

Search It! > Brainstorming (STEP 1) > Google AdWords Keyword Tool (STEP 2)

> fashion (STEP 3)…

You can then use those new keywords to brainstorm and prune some more

keywords in your DEMAND and SUPPLY WINDOWS. And that means more

potential high-profitability topics for pages on your fashion-oriented site!

One special note about our BREAKOUT Brainstormer. Don’t reject words

outright. Ask yourself… “How does this fit in with my target market?” You might

be surprised! It’s an amazing idea sparker.

Affiliate Masters Course

Ready? Let’s see a small sampling of the results…

fashion

fashion design

fashion designers

mens fashion

fashion show

spring fashion

fashion trends

fashion magazine

fashion week

couture

clothing

Use these words in two ways...

1) Use the ones that fit your Site Concept “as is” to create more Keyword-

Focused Content Pages, (ex., a Web page about “spring fashions” or “fashion

trends”). Add these to your Master Keyword List and complete the DEMAND,

SUPPLY, SUPPLY SITES, POSSIBLE PARTNERS, and IDEAS for CONTENT

columns for each one.

Or a bigger idea...

2) Extract “General Keywords,” like “couture” and “clothing.” Feed these

fashion-related “concept-level” words back into your DEMAND and SUPPLY

WINDOWS to brainstorm and prune a whole new series of high-profitability

keywords.

Add these to your Master Keyword List, too. (Or start a new Master Keyword List

for any “concept-level” keyword that is different and strong enough to stand as

a separate site.)

For example, “fashion shopping mall” would be an excellent topic to include

(especially since it includes “fashion shopping” and “shopping mall” within it.)

You can keep right on BREAKING OUT in WINDOW #3, then brainstorming in

WINDOW #1 (DEMAND) and pruning after doing research in WINDOW #2

(SUPPLY). You will really come up with original, non-obvious keywords and

affiliate programs that are right for your target market and that are part of major

new directions related to fashion, but that don’t contain the word “fashion.”

You may even discover a concept that is so strong that you decide to adjust your

first concept, or even replace it with this new one!

Affiliate Masters Course

Here’s another way to BREAKOUT. Use this really interesting feature…

Search It! > Metasearch (STEP 1) > Ixquick (STEP 2) > fashion (STEP 3)

In this search, a site gets one star for every major Search Engine that

scores it in its Top 10 (i.e., on Page #1 of search results). So it’s a fast

way to check all the major engines at the same time.

Any site on the first page of this search result with three stars or more is a

good performer. These sites know what they're doing and are not there

by accident. Getting two stars is good. One star could just be a fluke.

Ready? Search for “fashion.”

At the time of this writing, Fashion.net scored top stars. Click to that site.

Now click on “Fashion” in the menu. Click on “Designers,” then “New

York,” and finally “Betsey Johnson.”

Now go to the menu of your browser...

VIEW > SOURCE

This shows the HTML source code for this page. Look for the “META

keywords tag” within this page’s HTML...

betsy johnson, Betsey Johnson dresses,Betseyjohnson,

glamour,beautiful,clothing,catalog,catalogue,pants,dresses,skirts,jackets,

shirts,shopping,gifts,style,lingerie,sexy,apparel,shoes,online

store,sale,footwear,jewelry,fun,fashion,fur,sequins,trends,sweaters,blous

es,jeans,denim,swim,bathing

suits,swimwear,footwear,club,trend,tees,tops,college,evening

dress,sportswear,capris,tanks,tubes,bracelet,necklace,earrings,belts,han

dbag,knits,poncho,ponchos,casual

wear,intimates,bra,camisole,panties,underwear,bikini,halters,corset,shoes

,designer,stylish,satin,tailored,classic,formal,evening,accessories,outerwe

ar,t-shirts,handbags,heels,pumps,strappy sandals,giftcard, gift

certificates,logo,rhinestone,hats,hosiery,leather,suede,strapless,suiting,su

it jacket,tee shirts,sweatshirts,fitness, mini skirt,playful" />

Yes, this site makes a common mistake of listing tons of different

keywords. But that’s OK... they’ve done some brainstorming for you!

Continue researching the Fashion.net site. Or try other sites on the first

page of your Search It! results. Or do a new search at Search It!.

Affiliate Masters Course

Depending upon your time restraints, repeat the process for all of your

high-profitability “fashion”-containing keywords.

One final note…

If a particular search uncovers a merchant site, and if it has an affiliate

program that fits your Site Concept, enter what kind of merchandise it

sells. Also insert the URL of the “Join Page” into POSSIBLE PARTNERS

for that keyword (as explained above).

If it’s a “content site,” review its content and follow the “links out” -- add to

your POSSIBLE PARTNERS and IDEAS FOR CONTENT columns.

OK, let’s get out of the three windows for a moment. They have focused on the

“KEYWORD END” of brainstorming...

KEYWORD END.............………………..CUSTOMER END

(BRAINSTORM & PRUNE) -- KFCPs -- (BRAINSTORM & PRUNE)

Now let’s look at the CUSTOMER END. Get into your visitor’s shoes.

Answer these questions...

Q -- Who is she?

A -- Writers, software companies, or manufacturers in any industry you can

imagine. I’ll come up with a lot more answers and then figure out how to reach

each one. I’ll be specific and break them down into niche segments. What do

they do? What kinds of things would they search for at a Search Engine that is

related to their occupations?

Q -- What is she trying to do?

A -- She is looking to sell her products or information and has no idea to do it. As

an affiliate of SiteSell, I know that Site Build It! can help her... she just doesn’t

know it yet.

I’ve figured out every way that she could possibly search for that information (ex.,

and I’ve even run those through WINDOWS #1 and #2!

But now for the million dollar question...

Q -- What other stuff does she look for?

Affiliate Masters Course

A -- She'll look for anything that is related to her business. I have to figure out

what problem a member of my target market is trying to solve when she does a

search.

I’ll trace her steps as she develops her product, writes her site, builds traffic,

takes orders and ships product. I’ll intercept her with my message. What

words would she look for? My site must solve that problem.

An example... what’s a common issue for people selling products on the Net?

“Fulfillment,” just to name one. “Taking orders,” “shipping,” “product

development,” “market research,” “feasibility studies,” “writing sales copy,” “credit

card processing,” “shipping,” to name just a few others. There are so many

starting points that the head spins.

People looking up terms like the ones qualify themselves as serious business

people with serious needs. Exactly the right kind of people for Site Build It!.

So I’ll intercept them when they search for, let’s say, fulfillment-related topics,

provide them with great content about fulfillment, and then also introduce them to

the concept of effective Web marketing. I’ve added a whole new major direction

-- and income stream -- to my site simply by thinking about my target’s other

needs.

Are you thinking...

“What does fulfillment or customer service or sales have to do with

Site Build It!?”

Absolutely... positively... everything.

Am I suggesting that you fool business people who are looking for information

about these topics? No, not at all. Here’s why... if someone is searching for

“fulfillment” (in the non-Zen sense of the word!), she already has a product. A

product that needs a Web site that works.

Obviously, Keyword-Focused Content Pages about building a Web presence are

much more tightly targeted to our SBI! product. It’s easy to write a good page

that ends in a recommendation to visit the sales site. And of course, this is a

“must do.” It's easy and effective.

But let’s say that someone just found my page about order fulfillment. It’s a

terrific high-value page that delivers just what she was searching for. But how to

lead that into a click to SBI!?

Affiliate Masters Course

Remember this golden nugget…

PREselling is really about building trust and credibility with your potential

customer through great content. So, once I have PREsold with great content

about fulfillment issues on the Net, I lead into a few closing links.

First, I join the program of a good fulfillment company. I provide a link to them.

Then, I add a link like this…

--------------------------------------------------------------

Before you can sell and fulfill orders

online, you have to first attract targeted

traffic and gain their trust. Site Build It!

is the solution.

Build a site that attracts a strong,

endless stream of free, warm, willing-to-buy

visitors... success guaranteed.

http:/buildit.sitesell.com/

--------------------------------------------------------------

CLICK!

Our target customer does not necessarily have to be looking for site-building info

-- if we can intercept her in any of her daily needs, we can make her aware of this

wonderful product that she will realize she needs.

Bottom line? If your keyword attracts your target market, there is always a way,

with just a touch of creativity, to stretch her to other products that are also likely

to fall within her “list of needs.” It’s all part of effective communication on the Net.

(And that’s where Make Your Content PREsell! comes to your rescue!)

Wow! What a DAY!

Take three little WINDOWS (DEMAND, SUPPLY, and BREAKOUT). Approach

matters from two different directions (from the KEYWORD END and the

CUSTOMER END). And you’ve got a great list of profitable content topics,

almost ready to write itself!

Before proceeding to DAY 4, please complete your DAY 3 Goal-of-the-DAY, and

take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Use each of the SUPPLY, DEMAND and especially the BREAKOUT WINDOWS,

to grow your Master Keyword List ever bigger, ever more profitable. This yields

the raw material for new Keyword-Focused Content Pages.

Affiliate Masters Course

Consider getting Site Build It!’s Brainstorm It! to do it all for you. It can build,

research, and help you analyze an endless stream of high-profitability keywords.

What a time-saver!

No other product does what the Site Build It! does at such an affordable price…

http://compare.sitesell.com/

Phew! That was a long and complicated section, I know. Here’s the good

news... you’re over the hump. It all gets easier from here on in.

Please, please, please note...

It’s important to take your time and work through the strategies and examples

until you “get it” and “do it.” DAY 2 (Brainstorm Your Site Concept) and DAY 3

(Develop High-Profitability Topics) literally build the engine of your business.

So take your time and stay with it. Your business, and you, deserve this effort.

Time to re-quote Calvin Coolidge...

“Nothing in this world can take the

place of persistence.

Talent will not; nothing is more common

than unsuccessful people with talent.

Genius will not; unrewarded genius is

almost a proverb.

Education will not; the world is full of

educated derelicts.

Persistence and determination alone

are omnipotent.

The slogan “press on” has solved and

always will solve the problems of the

human race.”

Stick with it. The 10 DAY plan of action works... if you work it.

And by using Site Build It!, you can avoid the tedious, complicated parts of trafficbuilding

and achieve impressive results, regardless of what kind of business you

own (or hope to own)… http://find.sitesell.com/

So take a relaxing breath of air and let’s keep going…

Affiliate Masters Course

4. DAY 4

Plan Your Monetization Models

“Show me the money!”

-- Jerry Maguire (1996)

Goal-of-the-DAY... The overall goal is to expand your site’s blueprint by planning

how you could potentially monetize visitors interested in your niche (i.e., Site

Concept), starting with the affiliate monetization model.

Your specific goal will be to choose 3 affiliate programs that fit with each of your

3 Site Concepts/5 high-profitability keywords (per concept) that you developed in

DAYS 2 and 3. You must rate these merchants as excellent, and you must feel

good about representing them. Do not associate yourself with those merchants

who could adversely affect your credibility.

You will also consider appropriate secondary monetization models to diversify

your Web income and give your business stability.

It’s time for a quick check-up. So far you have…

• examined PREselling and its effect on Conversion Rates (DAY 1)

• identified a potential topic for your Theme-Based Content Site (DAY 2)

• brainstormed a list of profitable keywords (DAY 3)

DAY 4 continues your excellent preparation efforts. The finish line is in sight

where you will register your domain name, confidently knowing that you have not

missed a step along the track. That’s why you will be “thinking” about “M” now,

and “doing” it after you have C T P well in control.

The ideal Site Concept should give you enough flexibility to generate income

through your primary source of income, plus two or three or more additional

streams.

For example, let's say that you have an information site about “home

decor.” Where do you find related e-books or digital products to

represent as an affiliate, one of your monetization models?

A fast way is to use Search It!...

Affiliate Masters Course

1) Select the “Monetization” category in STEP 1.

2) Choose “Find Products/Affiliate Programs At ClickBank” in STEP 2.

3) Enter the term "home decor" in STEP 3.

Your search turns up four potential e-book candidates. Decide which

one(s) you want to promote and you're off and running! ClickBank guides

you through the set-up process.

Tip: Always select the best, related products to represent as an affiliate

and group them according to your high-profitability keywords.

As a “home decor” infopreneur, your monetization options are wide open.

ad space. Or use SBI!’s Form Build It! to make referrals to local vendors

(for a fee).

See how easy it is to diversify, even without a product to sell?

Why is this important?

Two valid reasons come to mind quickly…

• Ideally, you don't want to leave any money on the table. Your visitor may not

respond to your primary Most Wanted Response, but she may be attracted to

one of your secondary offerings.

• The key is to never be dependent on any one income source -- “all your eggs

in one basket” is a high-risk strategy. By diversifying, you increase your revenue,

stabilize your business, and take charge of your own business destiny.

DAY 4 is all about getting a feel for possible monetization models before you go

on to create your domain name. For example, if you narrow your niche/Site

Concept too much, or position your business wrongly, you might limit your

opportunities unnecessarily… profitable opportunities, that is.

With monetizing in mind, let's look first at the affiliate model. I am assuming that

this will be your primary model -- after all, you are “doing” the Affiliate Masters

Course! So get ready to…

Grow a list of good merchants with affiliate programs that have product lines that

fit. Then choose the best ones and group them according to high-profitability

keywords. For example, you may want to investigate Amazon’s aStore…

http://astore.amazon.com/

or eBay’s Editor Kit…

Affiliate Masters Course

https://www.ebaypartnernetwork.com/files/hub/en-US/index.html

Yes, you have already started this process on DAY 3 by using Search It! to build

groups of POSSIBLE PARTNERS for each keyword in your Master Keyword List.

However, DAY 3 was more focused upon getting good ideas for content and a

feel for your market space (DEMAND, SUPPLY, SUPPLY SITE INFO).

Now it’s time to grow your list of POSSIBLE PARTNERS…

4.1. Grow A List Of Possible Affiliate Partners

Remember how we brainstormed the list of KEYWORDS and then chose the

best? We're going to choose affiliate partners in the same way. And, of course,

Search It! will be our super-efficient assistant as per usual.

Solid research sets a solid foundation. That’s why the strategies below try to

cover almost every angle for choosing POSSIBLE PARTNERS. However, being

this thorough can be overwhelming, especially if you are already time-crunched.

So pick and choose the strategies that you know you can realistically execute.

For example, And then do them!

I highly recommend that you do at least four types of searches if at all possible.

You want to increase your chances of finding quality affiliate programs that fit

best with your business blueprint. But more importantly, you want to be confident

about the merchants that you represent.

4.1.1. Grow Through Search Engines…

I guess a good place to start your search for merchants would be, of course, at

the Search Engines! Do a search for one of your keywords, plus the word

“affiliate.” Let’s use this example...

+fashion design +affiliate

(The “+” sign means that both words must appear on the Web page returned by

the search.)

Now open Search It! and do this search…

Search It! > Straight up Search (STEP 1) > Google, no quotes (STEP 2) >

+fashion design +affiliate (STEP 3)

Affiliate Masters Course

If you have time, try a second search for the same term and compare…

Search It! > Straight up Search (STEP 1) > Yahoo!, no quotes (STEP 2) >

+fashion design +affiliate (STEP 3)

4.1.2. Grow Through Directories...

Search and/or Drill Down

Directories are also a good place to research POTENTIAL PARTNERS. An

interesting place to start is…

Search It! > Inbound Link Opportunities > Yahoo! Wide (STEP 2) > fashion

(STEP 3) > fashion design (STEP 4)

Since this is a large directory and there is a substantial annual fee, it has only

serious merchants. Many of the sites listed here will have affiliate programs so

this search is like hitting pay dirt in a gold mine. Simply enter your Site Concept

word and hit Search It!.

4.1.3. Grow Through Specialized Affiliate Directories

Now let’s investigate your POSSIBLE PARTNERS and add some new

merchants, too. How? Easy...

Search It! > Monetization (STEP 1) > Find Affiliate Programs at Google (STEP 2)

> fashion (STEP 3)

Visit a site that appeals to you. If it has an affiliate program that fits your

Site Concept, first enter what kind of merchandise it sells and then enter the URL

of the “join page” into POSSIBLE PARTNERS for that keyword (as explained

above). Check the top ten sites -- twenty if you are feeling ambitious -- and

record those with potential.

Repeat the process for each keyword in your Master Keyword List (i.e., replace

“fashion” above with another keyword like “fashion model”), starting with your

specific high-profitability keywords and then following up with your general

Concept Keywords (ex., “accessories” and other “concept-level” keywords that

you develop, such as “design,” etc.). Read the review of each potential match.

Affiliate Masters Course

You can also look for “cross-concept companies.” These are companies selling

products that, because of their nature, fit with most or all Site Concepts. For

example, whether your concept is about “Renaissance art” or “pricing” or

“fashion,” you’ll find books about it. So always include a bookstore in your group

of affiliate programs.

If you want to be really, really, really thorough, and you have more spare time

than I do, you could check out these affiliate directories…

Associate Programs

http://www.associateprograms.com/

Refer-it

http://www.refer-it.com/

1webindex

http://www.1webindex.com/

4.1.4. Grow Through The ClickBank Network

ClickBank, through its fast-growing Marketplace, gives you access to over 10,000

digital products and a commission range that extends as high as 75%.

http://www.clickbank.com/

Its account setup is simple and free. And ClickBank’s tracking and payment

procedures are reliable and accurate. The company manages the publisher

(merchant) relationship so you always receive your payment.

Use Search It! to find digital products and their affiliate programs.

4.1.5. Grow Through Other Affiliate Backend

Providers/Networks/Aggregators

There are several companies that provide the tools, technology and services that

online businesses need to register, track, report and pay affiliates. In other

words, merchants don’t have to “do it themselves” because these companies

provide all the backend functionality necessary to run an affiliate program.

The “backend providers” prefer to call themselves “affiliate networks.” Why?

Affiliate Masters Course

Because they do more than just provide merchants with affiliate software. They

also provide merchants with affiliates, and vice-versa. Since they have a pool of

hundreds of thousands of affiliates, a merchant’s program gets instant exposure

to potentially interested affiliates.

And affiliates get exposure to a wide variety of merchants. It’s a good idea to join

each of these backend providers. You will likely come across many of the same

merchants that you found in the affiliate directories. But you will also find new

ones. So it is worth checking to see whether they feature any programs that fit

with your concept. For example...

Commission Junction

http://www.cj.com/

Clickbooth

http://www.clickbooth.com/

LinkShare

http://www.linkshare.com/

If you find merchants with products that fit, enter what kind of merchandise they

sell and also enter the URL of the “join page” to the POSSIBLE PARTNERS

column in your Master Keyword List for each keyword that is relevant.

4.1.6. Grow through Alexa or Quantcast

Use Search It! to find potential affiliates through Alexa or Quantcast.

Choose the Popularity search category.

Alexa, for example, displays traffic ranking, in-pointing links, and even visitor

reviews! Once you establish which sites in your niche are the big players, use

the Related Links tool from Alexa to expand your horizons!

4.1.7. Grow Through Search Engines & Directories...

Favorite Tricks

Now for a few of my favorite tricks...

Affiliate Masters Course

How else can you find merchants through the Search Engines? Easy!...

1) Visit the advertisers!

2) Sniff affiliate sites. (They’ve already done the homework for you!)...

These “linked-to” merchants already have affiliate programs -- all you have to do

is check them out and see if they fit with your Site Concept! Add the ones that

do fit with your list of POSSIBLE PARTNERS.

4.1.8. Grow Through Back Links

Find other sites that link to a site with this query….

Search It! > Back Links (STEP 1) > To (sub) from All Other Sites (STEP 2)

Many of these sites will be content sites that also link to other fashion-related

merchants as affiliates (you can often tell by the linking URLs). More than likely,

these linked-to merchants already have affiliate programs -- all you have to do is

check them out and see if they fit! Add the acceptable ones to your list of

POSSIBLE PARTNERS for each keyword.

And you can use this Search It! link-finder technique for all of your POSSIBLE

PARTNERS for all of your keywords!

4.2. Reduce Risk by Diversifying

One of the major attractions of becoming an affiliate is the small amount of risk

involved. As an affiliate, you have little or no...

• product development expenses

• advertising costs

• inventory to maintain

• overhead expenses (salaries, physical location, etc.)

In other words, affiliates do not have millions at stake.

Affiliate Masters Course

But you do have one big risk...

If a merchant or backend provider goes out of business, it takes you with it. Let’s

talk briefly about how to minimize this risk...

After you review the affiliate directories and backend providers, you should have

a good selection of programs. How many programs should you choose? How

do you know which ones are solid?

You don’t, really. Yes, you can weed out the dogs by doing the basic research

outlined below. But most of us just don’t have the ability or time to thoroughly

analyze a company, its financials, and its business model… and then predict

success or failure.

So your best bet is to spread your business among as many programs as

possible that fit with your Site Concept. But there are some important qualifiers

to this policy...

1) If you represent 10 programs, don’t put them all on the same Keyword-

Focused Content Page. Work in only the few that are tightly relevant to the

content of each page.

2) Pick the best-of-breed from each category of merchant. For example, if you

plan on representing a Net marketing company, SiteSell would be the obvious

choice (ahem!).

If you plan unusually heavy support for a given category of product, you might

want to represent the best two merchants. For example, suppose you foresee

hundreds of book links on your site. It might be a good idea to choose the best 2

online bookstores -- if Bookstore A and Bookstore B fit with your concept and

both seem to be stable companies, then use these two. No more, though...

3) Don’t choose too many programs. Tracking each program takes time, so 10

programs is probably a good balance. If any one of them dies, you don’t lose too

much.

4) Your best results will come from focusing on a smaller group of quality

programs (from within the 10). Their products must...

• be excellent

• be complementary with, even enhance, each other

• fit your concept

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and...

• be from a rock-solid company. Since you will give these companies more

attention than the others, you must feel very comfortable with their business

prospects.

Here’s the bottom line...

Don’t give too much emphasis to any single program, unless you have some

special reason to feel unusually comfortable with it.

Things happen. So protect yourself by choosing a variety of affiliate partners.

Of course, you can also reduce your risk by weeding out the dogs through some

basic research...

4.2.1. Prune by Eliminating

High-Risk Programs

Find the good programs and eliminate the dogs by considering the following plus

signs, minus signs, and red flags. Let’s start with the plus signs, signified by +

(which means “good things to look for”). Here they are, in the approximate order

of importance...

+ High quality product or service -- Remember, it’s your reputation that is on

the line (and online!). Don’t recommend products that UNDERdeliver.

+ Merchant has a good site that sells effectively.

+ Ability for affiliate to link straight to individual products, rather than just to

the home page. (If the visitor has to find the product that you recommend, your

Conversion Rate plummets.)

+ Type of payment model... Pay-per-sale and pay-per-lead are good. This is

true “performance marketing.” If your referred visitor delivers the desired

response, you get paid. What about “pay-per-click?” See red flags below.

+ Affiliate Support...

• Accurate, reliable, real-time, online accounting, preferably with some kind of

ability to “audit” by spot-checking

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• Detailed traffic and linking stats

• Notification by e-mail when a sale is made

• Useful marketing assistance -- provides traffic-building and sales-getting tools

• Quality newsletter that educates, trains, and provides accounting

• Professional marketing materials available

• Affiliates receive discount on products

Great affiliate support is important for a “between the lines” reason, too. It

indicates a high degree of commitment to the program and its affiliates.

+ Pays good commission -- Hard goods have lower margins than digital ones

so their commissions will be lower. Still, you should make at least 10% (hard

goods) or 20% (digital goods) on any product that you recommend. Don’t be

scared off by low-priced products if they offer a good % commission -- the lower

dollar value per sale is offset by the higher sales volume.

+ Must be free (no charge) to join, no need to buy the product.

+ Lifetime commission -- If the program pays a commission on future sales of

other products to customers that you refer, this is a huge plus.

+ Two-tier commission -- If the program pays a commission on affiliates who

join because of you, this is also great.

+ Lifetime cookie -- Do you receive a commission if the person you referred

returns and buys within one month? Three months? The cookie that tracks this

should not expire.

+ Restriction on number of affiliates -- You won’t find many of these. But if

you do find one, grab it.

+ Monthly payment, with reasonable minimum.

Do all those plus signs have to be present? No. But the more, the merrier.

Minus signs are definite detractors. Naturally, if you are unable to give a + to

any of the criteria listed just above, consider its absence to be a minus. And

watch out for these negative factors...

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— Slow and/or poor support.

— Unethical conduct of any kind.

— Reports of late (or lack of) payments.

— Allowing spam, or seeming to send spam themselves.

— Defective affiliate-joining process. Hey, if they can’t get this right...

— Clauses in the agreement that you find unacceptable.

• Example -- If lifetime customers are important to you, then a clause that allows

unilateral termination or modification of the agreement at any time by the

company without just cause effectively makes the lifetime commitment of no

value.

• Example -- No exclusivity (i.e., you should be allowed to represent more than

one book vendor).

And perhaps the most worrisome factor of all…

— “The dark side” of affiliate programs. Is the program really just a way to

legally bribe folks to recommend overpriced, UNDERdelivering products in order

to collect excessive commissions?

There is a commission that is “just right” for each product. If the commission is too low,

it is not interesting enough for affiliates. If it is too high, it’s a consumer rip-off.

(Excessive commissions also push the price of the product up to levels that cannot

survive for long in the competitive Net marketplace.)

Your job as an affiliate is an important one. You deliver high-value content that gains the

confidence and trust of your visitor/reader. You include recommendations and referrals

to your new friends as part of your service and content. Recommending anything less

than sterling products is simply sophisticated, subtle fraud.

If you find products that fit your theme but that don’t deliver quality, sell the distributor

advertising on your site. This way, you don’t compromise your ethics or your reputation

because the customer recognizes advertising for what it is... a promotion. Nothing

wrong with that at all, because her “guard is up.”

Bottom line...

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Don’t allow yourself to be bribed into recommending such products -- in the long run,

your reputation will be ruined. And so will your business.

On the other hand, when your visitors are rewarded repeatedly by your rich

recommendations, they will increasingly like you and respect your judgment and they'll

keep coming back for more!

Red flags are warning signs...

“Pay-per-click” method of payment. In this method, you get paid

whenever a visitor clicks on your link. No purchase or lead-generation necessary.

Unfortunately, it’s wide open for abuse -- very sophisticated folks create

incentives to get thousands of people to click on their links. But the visitors could

care less about the products being promoted. The scam is virtually unstoppable.

And merchants end up paying for nothing.

Sooner or later, merchants seem to throw in the towel against the onslaught. So

be wary -- this kind of affiliate program tends to dissolve or mutate into a different

model.

Multi-tier commission. This is online Multi-Level Marketing (MLM), which is

perfectly legal. Do your due diligence to make sure, of course, that a multi-tier

program is not an illegal pyramid scheme. If the “game” is to earn income by

signing up others, you are most likely dealing with a pyramid. Many people

confuse honest, legal MLM with dishonest, scammy pyramid schemes.

With MLM (also known as Network Marketing), it becomes as important to build a

strong downline as it does to sell product. Also, MLM companies are subject to

numerous regulations (to prevent them from becoming pyramids, basically). Not

all online companies are complying (or even know about this!).

Watch for a big shakeout with many of these companies going belly-up. If multitier

interests you, I would recommend that you check out established offline

MLMs that are now online. Investigate all others extremely carefully before you

decide to invest a lot of time in these.

If you are a Network marketing representative who is using Site Build It!,

go like crazy! You have a big edge over 99% of Network marketers who

are mostly failing on the Web.

http://networkmarketing.sitesell.com/

Affiliate Masters Course

Be sure to join the 5 Pillar Program before you tell your entire downline

about how much Site Build It! has built your online business…

http://affiliates.sitesell.com/

Poor or little info about affiliate program available. What kind of priority

could it have?

Dead links on merchant site.

No clear anti-spamming policy visible on site.

Site that promotes “get-rich-quick” gimmicks.

Financially unstable. You can lose a lot of momentum if a company goes

under, especially if you are banking on lifetime customer/2-tier promises.

4.2.2. How To Use Alexa.com To

Get the Goods On Merchants

If you haven’t used this strategy yet, now is a good time to use it.

Alexa serves as a wonderful final check in two ways…

1) Its stats indicate how successful a program is.

2) The related links suggest good competing merchants.

Check out SiteSell’s stats as a trial run…

Search It! > Popularity (STEP 1) > Alexa Ranking (STEP 2) >

sitesell.com (STEP 3)

4.2.3. Prune Possible Partners

By PageRank Score

Google uses the quality (and to some extent, the quantity) of in-pointing links to

measure the importance of a page. The higher the score, the more highly

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Google regards the page. A score of 5 or higher indicates a certain degree of

success.

Once again, Search It! pulls in that information conveniently for you.

Search It! > Popularity (STEP 1) > Google PageRank (STEP 2) > domain name

that you are researching (STEP 3)

Great investigation! You've grown and pruned a list of affiliate programs for your

Site Concept. This may well be your main monetization model. Following the

principle of using more than one basket for your eggs, you have spread your

programs among several merchants.

Now diversify further still. Take full advantage of what the Web has to offer and

investigate other potential income streams…

4.3. Check Out Other Monetization Models

Your “Most Wanted Response” may be to have your visitor buy from one of your

merchants. But what if you visitor doesn't want that product today? Instead she

notices another one of your offerings.

This is a WIN-WIN situation -- your visitor is happy and your Web site is steadily

bringing you a stable income.

Some of the following monetization models will be as low-maintenance as

affiliate programs are (i.e., no product to develop, store, ship, support, etc.).

Others will take more of your time.

Which will work for you? Only you can decide the best fit.

Start now. Investigate and plan your site's monetization models. Take a week, if

necessary -- money is involved!

Even though “CTP” is first and “M” comes last, you do have to plan the

“M” now.

Why? Because if you don’t investigate and plan “M” now, it would be

depressing to find out that your particular Site Concept has very little

“monetizability” after you’ve spent months building informative, creative

Content!

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Also, you may adjust the Site Concept, fine-tune its approach, according

to the Monetization Mix you develop now.

Summary: Plan “M” now. Fulfill it later.

Your two basic goals are...

1) Investigate and assure yourself that this Site Concept can indeed make

substantial profits. Of course, not every monetization model has to start

immediately. But the potential must be there!

2) Lay out your plan for the monetization mix. Which one will be your primary

income stream? How and when will you lay out the others? Which others?

You don’t have to sell anything to customers if this does not interest you. Some

of the most successful SBIers create pure “information” sites. They are

“infopreneurs.” They do not have a product or service to sell. They monetize

traffic several ways.

Let’s do a quick overview of some possibilities…

• Google’s AdSense Program -- AdSense is tailor-made for Theme-Based

Content Sites. Combine participation in the AdSense Program with membership

in two or three quality affiliate programs and you have a solid monetization base

in place.

How does AdSense work? Upon acceptance in the program, Google selects

relevant ads for you to place on your Web pages. You are paid for every ad

clicked upon.

http://adsense.sitesell.com/

See how Michelle monetizes using AdSense on her site…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#WAHM

• Referral/Finders’ Fees -- With this model, you send visitors to specific

businesses (offline businesses, especially) and get paid for the lead or sale that

results.

Nori explains how she earns income through referrals…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#FINDERS

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• Net Auction Selling -- Auction products (hard or digital goods or services) that

relate to your theme. Put eBay to work for you.

Merle and Pam use their site to funnel prospective clients to their eBay

auctions…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#AUCTION

• E-good Creation/Sellers -- Almost anything can be digitized and sold… ebooks,

photos, software.

Shaun and Marney show you how…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#EGOODS

• Services -- Offer a service related to your niche. Build a client base,

locally and/or globally as Nick and Nadir demonstrate…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#SERVICES

Marc and Richard hung out their Webmaster shingles…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#PROS

• Network Marketing -- Use the networking power of the Web to generate

warm, willing-and-wanting-to-talk-to-you prospects... people who will call you, not

the other way around.

Jim and Sara use their sites to extend their “warm circles of friends”…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#MLM

• Online store -- Sell hard goods that are related to your theme as Jim and

Richard do…

http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#HARDGOODS

• Local Business -- Increase your local reputation and expand your client base.

Let John and Judd tell you about their successes…

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http://case-studies.sitesell.com/#LOCAL

Bottom line?

Too many small businesses start out thinking that they “want to be an affiliate,” or

sell hard goods through an online store. Instead, think of it this way... if you

don’t monetize a visitor one way, convert her into dollars another way! The

more you diversify, the more stable and sustainable your business will be.

And that brings us to an important decision you need to make…

4.4. Move Ahead or Loop Back?

You want to select a Site Concept that can accommodate a variety of

Monetization models. If you haven’t been able to find enough good affiliate

programs or identify other potential income streams, you may want to reconsider

your concept.

Return to DAY 3. Keep BREAKING OUT and adding more HIGH

PROFITABILITY keywords. Come back to DAY 4 and find more good programs

that fit.

If your concept is just so narrow and esoteric, you may want to stop the jet from

taking off. In that case, return to DAY 2 and investigate the next concept on your

“short list” of Site Concepts.

The key is not to feel that you must have your entire business worked out

“to the nth degree” by working on DAYS 3 and 4 forever. I don’t need to remind

you that Rome was not built in a day, do I?

With that perspective in mind, please allow me to remind you of a small-business

truism. The two biggest mistakes any entrepreneur makes are actually

opposites of each other...

1) FIRE-READY-AIM -- the person who leaps before he looks. If this fits you, I

can only repeat Ben Franklin’s quote...

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

In other words... ignore the preparation work at your peril.

Affiliate Masters Course

2) READY-AIM-READY-AIM-READY-AIM -- the person who researches, then

researches some more, then some more.

For this person, I can only offer this profound wisdom...

Fish or cut bait.

Or, as Nike would say...

Just do it!

In other words... Don’t get stuck “perfecting” DAYS 3 and 4.

So... if you have brainstormed a good Site Concept, picked your HIGHESTPROFITABILITY

topics, selected excellent merchant-partners that you are proud

to represent, and if you have identified other potential monetization models, then

you are ready to roar ahead.

Time for me to hop off the old podium and remind you...

Before proceeding to DAY 5, please complete your DAY 4 Goal-of-the-DAY, and

take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Find, research, and select more POSSIBLE PARTNERS. Rotate the technique

used (i.e., Search It!, Affiliate Directories, etc.). Keep your ears and eyes open

for other potential monetization opportunities.

Let’s keep going! Are you ready?

Geez, what a question!

After all that preparation, you’re super-ready!…

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5. DAY 5

Refine Final Concept

And Register Domain Name

A rose by any other name

Would smell the same...

But not a domain!

Goal-of-the-DAY... Narrow or broaden your Site Concept until it is, to quote

Goldilocks, “just right.” Not too narrow... not too broad. Before you register your

domain, consider Site Build It!.

It’s no longer about Web hosting. It's about success -- your success! SBI!

owners consistently build profitable businesses. Join the top 3%.

5.1. Refine Your Site Concept

It’s time to do some rigorous evaluating of the info you’ve collected in your

MASTER KEYWORD LIST and to make any adjustments to your Site Concept.

Earlier in the course, we chose “fashion” as a Site Concept for our primary

example. We also looked at other concept examples like “Botticelli” and

“pricing.”

These Site Concepts were mere starting points. As you worked your way

through DAYS 2, 3, and 4, you built your Master Keyword List for the “fashion”

Site Concept.

This list is literally your site blueprint. for each of your keywords, it...

• shows you SUPPLY and DEMAND data -- best idea is to start writing pages

about words with the best numbers for profitability

• contains SUPPLY SITE INFO... information about sites that rank well

• suggests POSSIBLE PARTNERS, merchants with affiliate programs that you

would be proud to represent

• gives you IDEAS FOR CONTENT -- possible topics for you to write about.

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Now, is that a blueprint, or what?

Time to start building!

I once asked you...

How big should you grow your Site Concept? How much should you change it?

Only you can decide.

Now let’s use the info in your Master Keyword List to refine your concept. Here

are the factors to consider before finalizing your Site Concept…

1) Expandability -- Choose a niche that you can broaden. Remember the future

-- you will very likely want to broaden your concept after you fill your niche.

2) Your passion and knowledge -- You’ll be much more effective if you stick to

what you know and love.

3) Your available time -- If time is a limiting factor, stay narrow.

4) Profitability -- Review your SUPPLY and DEMAND data. Your niche Site

Concept should have solid potential (i.e., loads of high-profitability keywords

associated with it).

5) SUPPLY SITE INFO and IDEAS FOR CONTENT -- Read what others are

writing about, and review any ideas that you have had. Do you want to cover

similar topics (nothing wrong with that, especially if you do it better!), or do you

see a niche or approach that has not yet been done?

6) POSSIBLE PARTNERS and Monetization opportunities -- How many solid

affiliate programs are a good fit? Is Google’s AdSense right for this?

7) Search Engine “Winnability.” -- Three points here...

• It’s hard to win a Top 10 ranking in search results for broad-concept keywords.

• As we’ll see later, the Search Engines will be concentrating more and more on

the theme of the overall site. So if you choose to develop a broad concept with

several major sub-themes, it will be harder to win the war for the sub-themes

than if you dedicated a single site to a sub-theme. In other words, the “nichier,”

the better.

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• Register a descriptive concept that is Search Engine friendly. It must contain

your Concept Keyword.

8) The amount of content and number of keywords -- If you used all three

WINDOWS (SUPPLY, DEMAND, and BREAKOUT) to their full potential, you

should have no shortage of high-profitability keywords. But if your topic is just

too narrow (ex., “Norwegian fashion models from the mid-1700’s”!), you may

need to broaden the concept somewhat (ex., “Scandinavian fashion models”).

And a final consideration if you sell your own product or service…

9) PREselling effectiveness -- Will broadening your niche dilute your ability to

PREsell our product/service effectively? In other words, will it attract people who,

for the most part, will not be interested in what you have to offer?

If that is the probable outcome, can you convert this traffic into secondary

revenue streams? Generally it’s best if your Site Concept/theme has a clear

connection to the products or services that you provide.

So... “How broad should your concept be?”

The single best recommendation... “As narrow as possible, yet... still with

lots of profit potential!”

(Yes, I do want to have my cake and eat it, too.)

Seriously, every success story starts small, and then builds. And if you’re like

most people, you don’t have the time to flesh out a huge concept all at once.

And it will actually hurt you at the engines if your concept is too broad. It’s better

to start narrow, but with enough profit potential (as determined by

the above 9 factors), and then grow the concept.

We’ll use some examples to illustrate how to finalize a niche Site Concept.

We’ll also develop your domain name at the same time, since the two go handin-

hand.

5.2. Develop Your VPP

Ideally, your domain should reflect your Valuable PREselling Proposition

(VPP). Your VPP answers, in very few words and hopefully with just a touch of

character, the two critical questions about your Site Concept...

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1) What specific and high-value information does your site deliver?

2) What is your unique positioning for this delivery (i.e., what is your angle of

approach)?

A good VPP transmits these answers loud and clear to your visitor so that she

immediately understands what your site is about. And the single best way to do

that?...

Include your VPP in your domain name!

There’s no room for “cleverness” or subtlety here. Leave that to the moneylosing

dotcoms. Include your Concept Keyword in your VPP and add a

“marketing angle/theme” to it. That way, your concept is clear to your visitor, and

your Concept Keyword is clear to the Search Engines (the engines will rank your

site a touch higher for your Concept Keyword if it is included in your domain

name).

Focus your efforts on developing a VPP that is “not too narrow, not too broad”

-- it needs to be just right.

5.2.1. Example 1 -- A Tight Niche

“Pricing” is a nice, tight concept. You can use your SUPPLY and DEMAND

WINDOWS to brainstorm many high-profitability keywords that are directly

related to pricing. And, as we saw, you can also BREAKOUT into other areas,

too... areas that would be of interest to serious business people (ex., “fulfillment”

or “copywriting” or “product development”).

Here’s the problem, though... if you developed many Keyword-Focused Content

Pages about fulfillment within your pricing site, you’d dilute that site’s Search

Engine effectiveness for pricing issues. So “concept-level” keywords like

“fulfillment” really deserve their own sites.

Keep your theme pure. You will do better with the engines and you will be

more credible to your readers, too.

Business people who are interested in fulfillment will also be interested in pricing.

Well, the reverse is true, also. So your pricing pages can also refer people to a

good fulfillment company... not to mention a company with a good solution for

customer support!

Affiliate Masters Course

Since “pricing” is wide enough to be profitable and narrow enough to be

winnable, make “pricing” your Site Concept Keyword for your new Theme-Based

Content Site.

Now let’s develop your “pricing” Concept Keyword into a Valuable PREselling

Proposition (VPP). We’ll explore two different directions…

i) pricingadvisor.com, or THEpricingadvisor.com

VPP = pricing advisor. This says that you are delivering pricing information.

(Your Concept Keyword must, of course, be included in your domain.)

And the "advisor" part establishes you as the expert -- it tells your visitor that

you'll be delivering some great pricing advice!

ii) pricing-on-the-net.com

VPP = pricing on the Net. Again, it’s clear that you are delivering pricing info.

The “on the Net” part says that you are specializing in pricing info specifically on

the Internet. Since there is not much info about pricing on the Net and since your

potential visitor is certainly there looking for Net-specific info, this is a good

approach.

Same idea for “netpricing.com” and “cyberpricing.com.”

When do you use dashes in your domain name? If both versions of a

3-or-more-word domain are available, use dashes if it helps readability.

For example, which is easier to read?...

pricing-on-the-net.com or... pricingonthenet.com

Generally, do not use dashes if your domain name has only two words in

it. See how “netpricing.com” and “cyberpricing.com” don’t really need the

help of a dash?

Do use dashes (even if the domain has only two words) when the nondash

version is not available. But be sure that you are not violating

anyone’s trademark.

NOTE: Since your affiliate business is 99%+ online, the offline issues of

dealing with dashes are not so important (i.e., telling people how to spell

it, people forgetting to put the dash after reading your print ad, etc.).

Here’s the bottom line... domain names are so cheap that it’s a good idea

to take both versions (with and without the dash), just to make sure that

a competitor does not take names that could be confused with yours.

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SBI! owners and 5 Pillar Affiliates can park domain names through Name

Park It!. Its $9.95 per-domain fee includes domain-redirects and

unlimited subdomain-redirects. No additional purchase or hosting

required. And it’s the perfect way to hide any long and ugly affiliate link

from any program!

Name Park It! is not available to the general public. If you are interested,

all you have to do is join the 5 Pillar Program…

http://affiliates.sitesell.com/

You are under no obligation to promote SBI! or our other free products.

Bottom line? Same Concept Keyword, but two different VPPs that outline two

different Site Concepts.

Which of the above approaches is best? Ahhh... my work is done. You know

your prospective visitor best. Which approach do you think works best?

5.2.2. Example 2 -- A Bit Too Narrow

Now let’s look at a few possibilities for our second Concept Keyword example,

“Botticelli” (you’re pretending to be a big fan of his.) Only one problem...

You find yourself in a bit of a bind. Now that you’ve done DAYS 3 and 4, you

can’t find enough profit potential (high-profitability keywords and related

POTENTIAL PARTNERS) to make a pure “Botticelli site” sufficiently profitable.

So you keep doing DAYS 2 and 3 on progressively broader concepts until you

find enough profit potential to proceed. Work your way up from Botticellli, to

Renaissance art, to all artists, to “everything art.”

What to do? At this stage, you have four options...

OPTION 1) Loop back to DAY 4 to grow your list of POSSIBLE PARTNERS.

OPTION 2) LOOP back to DAY 3 and brainstorm more high-profit keywords, and

find more POTENTIAL PARTNERS for those new keywords.

OPTION 3) Loop back to DAY 2 and develop a whole new Site Concept.

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OPTION 4) Recognize that you’re “in it” more for the passion than the money.

Botticelli rules!

For this example, let’s assume that you’ll widen the concept and then use the

BREAKOUT WINDOW to find more keywords. Then find more POTENTIAL

PARTNERS for that wider concept.

How broad should you go?

Remember the single best recommendation…

As narrow as possible, yet... still with lots of profit potential!

In other words, work your way up from Botticelli, to Renaissance art, to all artists,

to “everything art.” Stop as soon as you find a level that has solid profit

potential. Keep your niche as narrow as possible, so that you can build a site

“to fill that glass,” yet still make good profits.

Let’s say that…

As you work your way up the Botticelli concept, you find that you have solid profit

potential for some broader, related concepts…“Renaissance Art” and other

Concept Keywords at this level (ex., ancient art, cubism, impressionism, etc.).

So you register renaissance-artchive.com, ancient-artchive.com, cubismartchive.

com, impressionism-artchive.com, etc., etc. And you also register

artchive.com and artchives.com.

Once you establish renaissance-artchive.com, and then ancient-artchive.com,

and then cubism-artchive.com, you’ll launch a master home page, artchive.com,

to tie it all together as “the place to come for all things art.” This home page will

contain a global “what's in it for you” message and then provide links to all

your other domains that are already up and running and successful.

Secure one more domain -- register store-artchive.com. This could either be an

affiliate-based store where you will PREsell the products of your merchantpartners

(including a bust of Botticelli!), or it could be a true online store.

Just before we move on to our last example (“fashion”), let’s review our

artchive.com domains to make sure that they meet our VPP (Valuable

PREselling Proposition) needs...

Your VPP answers, in very few words and hopefully with a touch of character,

the two critical questions about your Site Concept...

Affiliate Masters Course

1) What specific and high-value information does your site deliver?

2) What is your unique positioning for this delivery (i.e., what is your angle of

approach)?

Artchive.com is a smart, but not too clever (i.e., so subtle that many visitors

would miss the point), play on words that tells the visitor immediately, and with

character, that it is THE place to come for all things art. It contains your Site

Concept word, “art,” and each of your “lower level” domains do, too (ex.,

renaissance-artchive contains the “renaissance art” keyword.)

Bottom line? What started with Botticelli now has a clear do-able step-at-a-time

plan to become an art mini-portal. And you start at a level that you know will be

profitable.

Best of all worlds.

On to our final example…

5.2.3. Example 3 -- A Bit Too Broad

With “pricing,” we found ourselves at just about the right profit potential level. So

it was not necessary to grow the concept.

With “Botticelli,” we needed to widen the concept to capture more profit potential.

With “fashion,” we’ll need to do the opposite -- narrow it down to a “do-able” yet

profitable level.

Heck, “fashion” is just too broad...

• You won’t be able to develop the unique positioning required by a good (VPP).

• It will take forever to fill a general fashion site with enough content so it does

not look bare.

• Winning the Search Engine wars for a General Keyword like “fashion” will be

extremely difficult. And even if you do win it for your home page, people

searching for “fashion” are so non-specific, looking with so many possible

different topics, that your site is unlikely to meet their needs.

And that’s why...

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The only strategy on this over-congested Net is to target a specific niche with a

specific Site Concept and a strong VPP that tells people quickly what specific

and high-value information you are delivering.

When you start with a wide-open concept like “fashion,” you have two basic

choices...

1) Narrow down to a “fashion”-containing Site Concept that excites you...

something about “fashion design” or “fashion model” or “fashion designer.”

2) Change course somewhat, based on your BREAKOUT research.

(In fact, while you’ll start with one or the other, you will quickly end up using

both choices, as we’ll see now...)

Let’s cover each quickly, from a VPP point of view...

OPTION 1) Narrow down -- Remember some of our HIGH-PROFITABILITY

“fashion”-containing keywords?...

fashion magazine

fashion model

fashion designer

fashion design

Let’s focus on what excites you... designing and publishing. You decide to

publish an online magazine about fashion design and designers...

fashion-designers-magazine.com

The domain contains your VPP. It says exactly what your site delivers, and that

you’ll be delivering it through the format of an online magazine/Web site.

No, the name is not particularly clever. Using words like Herald or Express

would sound and look much slicker (ex., FashionDesignExpress.com). But using

“magazine” gives you a better edge with the Search Engines, for two reasons...

i) There’s a slight advantage to having your keyword within the domain name.

But more importantly...

ii) You’ll be using your name over and over in your copy. No one searches for

“FashionDesignExpress.” But lots of people search for “fashion magazine.” And,

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since few people use quotes when they search, the “fashion” and the “magazine”

do not have to be together. So this gives you “findability” for “fashion magazine”

and “fashion designers” and even “designers magazine.”

Add a byline like...

“The Fashion Design Magazine

By, About, and For Fashion Designers”

Include this on every page, under your logo.

Your magazine format gives you the flexibility to cover a wide range of topics

related to fashion design and designers. Use the BREAKOUT techniques

described in DAY 3 to generate more and more topics related to fashion design

and designers (jewelry topics, famous designer bios, etc., etc.).

You’re off and running with a great concept like this. Just one more thought...

Let’s say that fashion-designers-magazine.com succeeds really well...

Hey, it should! You’re doing everything right. But...

It will be too late to register related domains later. Do it now, with an eye to

expanding your concept in a few months or so (as discussed above for

artchive.com)...

• fashion-model-magazine.com

• fashion-products-magazine.com (your future store?)

• factory-outlet-stores-magazine.com (see below)

• And, of course, tie it up all together with a Master Domain, fashionmagazine.

com or THEfashion-magazine.com. This Master Site will be launched

once your other sites are all up and running, much the same way that you did for

artchive.com above.

Do you see the difference from these vague, more general, wide-concept,

standalone “fashion” approaches?...

• “world-wide-fashion-web.com”

• “fashion-express.com”

• “best-fashion-products-on-the-Net.com”

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They are all too generic and fail to capture a useful niche-keyword in the

VPP (i.e., in the domain name).

Let’s discuss your second option when dealing with a wide-open General

Keyword like “fashion”...

OPTION 2) Change course -- Earlier, we used Search It! to find other “fashionrelated”

words like “factory outlet stores.” This term has far better DEMANDSUPPLY

ratio (searches compared to competitors) than “fashion design.”

Research like this may even point you towards changing your concept away from

the “concept-level” keyword of “fashion,” perhaps aiming more toward “discount”

and “outlets” -- run these two keywords through Search It! to check both SUPPLY

and DEMAND. Your best Concept Keyword may actually be...

discount outlets

or…

factory outlet stores (that’s where we got that domain, “factory-outlet-storesmagazine.

com,” above).

Surprise, surprise!

Of course, you also have to consider...

i) whether this different direction excites you as much

and…

ii) the nature of the kind of customer who will search for your keywords. Make

sure that you aren’t marketing to a personality type that is hard to convert, no

matter what you do... ex., the “freebie-seeking tire-kicker” or the “marketingphobic

tech-type.”

You want to attract a personality that is open-to-buy. In other words, you want

people who will buy something after reading your content and clicking through to

your merchants.

With this in mind, think about this possible new direction...

People searching for outlet malls are certainly doing so for a reason... to save on

buying! And you find lots of good online malls and other merchants that fit with

your Site Concept. And you can still marry your concept of fashion to “factory

outlet stores” like this...

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• WorldsBest-FashionFactory-outlet-stores.com

Geez, if this goes as big as you think it could, you could expand this concept, too!

So you also register...

• WorldsBest-SportsFactory-outlet-stores.com

• WorldsBest-ElectronicFactory-outlet-stores.com

• WorldsBest-FurnitureFactory-outlet-stores.com

• WorldsBest-MusicFactory-outlet-stores.com

• WorldsBest-WhateverElseExistsFactory-outlet-stores.com

And you’ll register a strong Master Domain to tie all your successful niche sites

up into one big mini-portal. So what if that’s a year or two down the road?...

• WorldsBest-Factory-outlet-stores.com

VPP = world's best factory outlet stores. It says that you have done all the

research for your cost-conscious reader and will be delivering only the cream.

And think of all the creamy topics!... Articles on shoes, fur, dresses, etc., etc...

leading to great outlet links (and other affiliate links, of course).

Then you do the same for basketball, football, golf, etc., etc. My goodness!

You’ve found the mother lode.

Bye-bye fashion magazine. Hello world of discount malls!

Here’s the whole point of DAY 5...

Take your time on the domain name and the concept -- the choice you make

here will literally make or break your results.

Remember what Danny De Vito said in “The Renaissance Man”...

“The choices we make dictate the lives we lead.”

If I had to summarize the entire Affiliate Masters Course into just two lines, it

would be the two you just read...

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***************************************************

Pick something you know and love...

... AND that has excellent PROFITABILITY!

****************************************************

One without the other is much less likely to succeed.

Yes, you can win by doing something you don’t enjoy doing. But it’s a heck of a

lot harder.

And sure... you could just say, “Hang what people will pay for. I want to do what

turns me on”... and that would be OK. You might even “luck into” a winner of a

concept. But it would be luck. On the other hand, if your payoff is the sheer

enjoyment of doing a hobby, that’s great, too.

It takes a cold-hearted businessperson to make money at something that he

does not particularly like. Few of us qualify. Of course, if you do, don’t hesitate

to go where the profitability seems to be, first and foremost!

But, for most folks...

Pick something you know and love...

... AND that has excellent PROFITABILITY!

You believe you have the right domain name, but wait…

Don’t rush out to register it just yet. Your domain name will be with you a long,

long time, showing potential visitors just what you have to offer. Take one more

step before you make the final decision…

5.3. Refine Your Domain Name

A good domain name is...

• short and sharp

• meaningful -- conveys a clear message

• easy to spell

• easy to remember

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• unique, descriptive, and “you”

• solid, classic, not hokey

In general, if you follow the above guideline for creating your VPP, you won’t

need much help coming up with a great domain name. But if you really want to

make sure that you've left no cyber-stone unturned, Search It! can help you.

We’ll be using our first example where the keyword is “pricing.” The second

keyword reflects our VPP, in this case, “advisor.” Ready to go?

Open Search It! and take the following pathway…

Search It! > Domain Names (STEP 1) > DomainBots Domain Namer (STEP 2) >

pricing (STEP 3) > advisor (STEP 4)

Special note… do not register your domain at any of these services until

you’ve seen your “very best” below.

A good domain name ends in “.com,” “.net” or “.org.” These are well established,

unlike some new entities -- “.tv” for example. When you are developing your

domain name, think about your visitor’s mindset. Which name has the most

credibility?

What about using a country ending like “.ca” or “.com.au”? Even if yours is a

local business, you will sound more impressive with a .com/.net./.org ending.

And your local business could easily add global income once your site is up and

running.

I highly recommend “.com” as your first choice.

If you already have an idea for a great name and just want to check to see if it’s

been taken...

Use Search It! again…

Search It! > Domain Names (STEP 1) > Check Domain Availability (STEP 2) >

factory-outlet-stores.com (STEP 3)

Don’t register your domain yourself. If you use Site Build It!, domain

registration is included in the price.

http://order.sitesell.com/

Got a great and available name? Super! Now check for trademarks. We’ll use

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Trademark Check -- Us as an example…

Search It! > Site Legalities (STEP 1) > Trademark Check -- US (STEP 2) >

factory-outlet-stores.com (STEP 3)

It’s not necessary to trademark your domain. But do make sure that you

don’t violate someone else's mark before you register your domain.

It would be a shame to build up a great business and then have someone who

owned a trademark (before you registered your domain) force you to take it

down.

Just before you register, think about expandability and brand. Generally, you

should start narrow-niche and then expand when all goes well. And, as I said

earlier, when the time does come to grow beyond “pricing,” you should not add

“fulfillment” or “customer support” to your “pricing” site. You’ll dilute its Search

Engine effectiveness, not to mention cloud the message to your visitors.

So give some thought to expansion now. Suppose that you decide upon

“THEpricingadvisor.com.” Why not register “THEfulfillmentadvisor.com” and

“THEsupportadvisor.com,” etc., now. Eventually, you’ll link them together

through a master site called “THEmarketingadvisor.com.”

Registering domains is cheap. Why not lock them all in right now? That way,

your expansion path won’t have potholes when the time comes for you to grow.

Next? Registration…

5.4. Register Your Domain Name

To register your domain name, you need the services of a registrar. There are

zillions of them. If you are using one that makes you happy, stick with it.

Otherwise, check out...

A comprehensive list of registrars...

http://www.icann.org/registrars/accredited-list.html

By the way, Site Build It! automatically takes care of domain name registration for

you. The cost is included in the annual subscription fee. So your very best bet is

simply to let us take care of it.

http://affiliatemarketing.sitesell.com/

Affiliate Masters Course

A simple but powerful ending to DAY 5. Before proceeding to DAY 6, please

complete your DAY 5 Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Now that you have found your perfect, “just right” Site Concept, consider the

bigger picture. When you “finish” this, your first site, will you broaden the concept

until you have your own mini-portal?

Or will you start a second, unrelated site?

All the necessary prep work for your affiliate business is finished. You finalized

and registered your domain. The foundation is now secure.

Get ready to build your site. We’re going back to Content (C ), where it all

begins…

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6. DAY 6

Build A Site That Gets The Click!

Rome.com was

NOT built in a day!

Yes, finally! We’re ready to start building!

Let’s just take a look back at what we’ve done…

• examined PREselling and its effect on Conversion Rates (DAY 1)

• identified a potential niche concept (DAY 2)

• brainstormed a list of profitable keywords (DAY 3)

• researched quality affiliate programs and other income streams (DAY 4).

• chosen a domain name that reflects your VPP (DAY 5).

Impressive work! You truly do have a rock-solid foundation to build upon.

During DAY 6, you will create a structure for your site. This is where you start

the C T P M snowball rolling by writing content designed to “get the

click!” Let the construction begin!

Goal-of-the-DAY... Build a home page, and one TIER 2 Keyword-Focused

Content Page.

Don’t know HTML? Intimidated by FTP and other Web technologies? Relax.

Site Build It!'s “through-the-browser” site-building tools can help both the

seasoned pro and the complete “newbie” build a vibrant and profitable online

business easily! SBI! makes the technology invisible so you can focus on

building your business!

New features are constantly being added to SBI! at no added price...

http://tools.sitesell.com/

6.1. Follow the Winning Formula

Showtime! Like any great show, whether it’s baseball, or the theatre, or the

Olympics, a successful outcome is all about preparation. And boy, have you

prepared!

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And all that preparation has convinced you that your show should be...

WorldsBest-FashionFactory-outlet-stores.com

Yes! What started out as “fashion” has turned into a site about fashion factory

outlet stores. After all, you yourself love buying clothes and shoes at a great

price. Oh the thrill of stopping by a new freeway-side outlet mall and finding

beautiful, cheap buys at a Tommy Hilfiger outlet!

While you love the idea, money talked, too. Search It! indicated a good

Demand: Supply ratio (i.e., profitability). Your methodical research has

uncovered a high-potential business!

Now it’s time to build income through content (i.e., to build a site that “gets the

click.”) Since I’m still in “2-line-summary mode,” let’s boil down the essence of

“building income through content”...

***************************************************

Deliver valuable content to your readers...

... AND tasty content to your spiders.

***************************************************

Your site must be a WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN proposition for four parties...

1) your visitor

2) the Search Engines

3) your merchants, and...

4) YOU!

Let’s look at each WIN...

6.1.1. Your Visitor Wins

Your visitor must get what she is looking for -- outstanding information.

OVERdeliver with original, high-value info. If you don’t do this, she simply clicks

the BACK button to the Search Engine and says... “Next!”

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6.1.2. The Search Engines Win

The Search Engines are in business. Their product is the quality of their search

results. Help them make their product better, and they’ll love you.

Search Engines use computer programs called spiders to go out and bring your

site back to its home (i.e., the Search Engine’s database). Then when someone

looks up, let’s say “factory outlet stores,” another program decides whether your

site or a site with a similar theme is more relevant.

You must honestly convince each Search Engine that you are the most relevant

(at least in the Top 20 search results, preferably in the Top 10) for the keywords

that you target. Trick the engine and your success won’t last long. When the

Search Engine discovers your game, it will ban you.

Why? Tricks hurt a Search Engine’s product instead of helping it.

Help the searcher -- your potential visitor and your merchant’s potential

customer. Solve her problem or her quest. Satisfy the whole reason why she is

doing the search.

Do this and you add value to the Search Engine’s product.

Use this approach and you will never have to worry about the Search

Engines. They become partners with you in an effort to deliver quality

content to searchers. And that means…

• No tricks in comment tags or invisible links.

• No fear about the SEs banning you because of your “tactics.”

• No worrying about using your keywords in the right place/amount.

• No wasting time, and trying to “stay on the cutting edge” ahead.

• No 8 versions of the same site, one for each major engine.

• No off-target keywords to suck in untargeted customers.

• No competitors will complain about your tricky methods.

• No multiple domains, hidden inter-linking, etc.

There’s simply nothing to fret about. Sleep well and enjoy solid, stable

results by doing everything right the first time with the right process

and tools…

C T P M

Keep your focus on creating one “best fit” site which scores well with most

of the engines for most of your words most of the time. Write your page

for the customer, first and foremost. No games.

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OK, on to the third win of WIN-WIN-WIN-WIN...

6.1.3. Your Merchants Win

Your merchants want sales. As we have seen, the best way to deliver that is

through outstanding content that gains your visitor’s confidence and increases

your credibility. Then use “in-context” text links to refer/recommend/direct those

visitors to places that you believe will deliver great value.

6.1.4. You Win

YOU must win, too, of course. How?

Ah, that’s the easiest part. If you get the first three WINS right, you will succeed.

Think about it...

OVERdelivery to your visitor ensures repeat visits, confidence and ongoing

sales. The Search Engines will never ban you. And, as you become a superaffiliate,

your merchants will pay you more and more, perhaps even giving you

special bonuses and deals!

I call the road to your WIN this special name...

6.1.5. FIND-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-KACHING

Follow the sign-posts along this winning road…

1) FIND -- Your potential visitor must find you in the Top 10 (no worse than top

20) of the search results for your keyword. If your potential customer does not

find you on the first or second page of the Search Engine’s search for your

keyword, well, you simply don’t exist for that word.

Game over.

2) CLICK -- Your potential visitor must read the “Title and Description” that the

engine uses in the search results, and must find them sufficiently compelling to

Affiliate Masters Course

click to your site. If your Title and Description are boring or tacky, your potential

visitor will probably not click to your KFCP (Keyword-Focused Content Page).

Game over.

3) CLICK -- Your visitor finds high-value content, learns to trust you as someone

honest who delivers, and so follows your recommendations... CLICK again! If

your page delivers poor, low-value info (or even worse, a sales pitch), you still

get the click... on the Back Button to the Search Engine’s results page. “Who’s

next?”

Game over.

4) CLICK-kaCHING -- Finally, your visitor arrives at your merchant in a “feeling

smart about myself” and open-to-buy mood, ready to click that buy button!

Did I just hear a cash register?... kaCHING!

Ahhh... if you get the FIND-CLICK-CLICK right, that last CLICK-kaCHING is

almost in the bag!

FIND-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-kaCHING...

To accomplish that, all you have to do is...

Get the first three WINS right. The fourth WIN, your WIN, follows

automatically. And all you have to do to nail down those first three WINS is...

***************************************************

Deliver valuable content to your readers...

... AND tasty content to your spiders.

***************************************************

OK. Let’s start with the physical layout of your new site...

6.2. Think “Pyramid” For Your Site

Your Theme-Based Content Site is made of a home page that gives the “what's

in it for me” about your site. It elaborates on the VPP (Valuable PREselling

Proposition) and delivers the major benefit statements (more on content-building

in the next section).

Affiliate Masters Course

Think of your site as a pyramid…

Now for the details…

6.2.1. The Structure of Your Site As A Pyramid

The home page crowns the pinnacle. It’s a Keyword-Focused Content Page

(KFCP) that focuses on your Site Concept keyword. Your home page should

never link out of your site -- it’s too early. (The only possible exception would be

for Google ads.)

Its job instead is to link to 5-15 KFCPs that you expect to be most profitable. It

must get the click to at least one of these pages. This is important for two

reasons...

1) Your visitor hits a “money page” -- Your most profitable Keyword-Focused

Content Pages weave “in-context” text links to your merchant-partners while

OVERdelivering great content. This is how you make your income, so you want

to lead your visitors to your highest potential pages ASAP.

2) Your spider-buddy follows the links and indexes (i.e., brings back to the

Search Engine’s database) your most important pages first, and most

reliably… the deeper a spider has to go, the more likely it is that he misses and

fails to bring your bacon back to his database home.

So we want to structure the site so that your most valuable pages have the best

chance of being dragged back to all those spiders’ homes.

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These 5-15 pages are called TIER 2 pages because they are on the second

TIER below the home page.

Each TIER 2 page should…

• focus on a keyword that has a high profitability score

• fit with your best monetization opportunities

• be a good “hub” page.

Links on TIER 2 pages can go in four different directions...

1) Links Down Link to related TIER 3 pages. Each TIER 3 page should be

related to or a subdivision of its TIER 2 (ex., "Anguilla Villas" TIER 2 links to a

variety of individual Anguilla villas, each of which is a TIER 3). Again, the more

good content you have, the more favorably you are viewed by humans and SE

spiders. And the bulk of your content will be, should be, TIER 3.

2) Links Up Link back up to the home page. This provides both the human

visitor and the SE spider with added value.

Every TIER 2 should have the above two types of text links. The next two are

optional, according to circumstances...

3) Links To Money Link to a monetization option (i.e., where you make

money). For example, this could be as simple as placing Google AdSense ads

on a TIER 2 page or blending in-context text links to ClickBank affiliate merchantpartners

into the content. Or it could be links to a sales page for your e-book or a

4) Links Out Link to outstanding, related, non-competing content authorities in

your niche. These non-affiliate links provide you extra credibility as a true

content site in the eyes of editors from directories (like Yahoo!), reviewers from

Google AdSense, and even with the engines.

Don't use many of them, though. Convert as much of your traffic into income as

possible. And do make these links pop up into a new window so that you don't

lose your visitor completely.

TIER 3 pages are KFCPs, too. A TIER 3 page fits as a sub-category, or a subthought,

of its connecting TIER 2 page. The topic of each should relate to the

topic of the TIER 2 page that links to it.

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TIER 3 pages may not be as profitable as the TIER 2 page that linked to them,

but there are a whole heck of a lot more of them. Create enough of these and

the traffic adds up pretty fast, thanks to geometric progression (i.e., 1 x 15 x 15).

In other words, TIER 3 pages “make it up on volume.”

OK. Time to use all of your previous research…

Review your Master Keyword List and select your seven best keywords. (Select

on the basis of profitability and fit.) You will link your home page to these

seven, both within the body copy, as you outline what the site is all about, and

from within a text or graphic navigation bar (navbar).

You likely won’t pick the absolute 7 highest potential keywords. Some will

be too close in meaning. Others may not easily lead to a TIER 3, as we’ll

see in a second. So you pick the 7 that make the most sense and help to

form the strongest site overall.

Each TIER 3 page should relate to the TIER 2 page that links to it. For example,

let’s say that “outlet malls” is one of the most profitable keywords that your

research has found. What do you do?

Create a TIER 2 Page (“outlet-malls.html”) called...

“Top Factory Outlet Malls Where You Can Shop Via The Net”

This page links to TIER 3 pages...

• a page that ranks the top shoe outlets that allow you to shop via the Web

• another that rates the top clothing outlets

• another to the best fur discount malls, clothing outlets, Nike outlets, etc.

Here’s a key point about TIER 3...

Your main TIER 3 keyword might not be so profitable. There is not much

DEMAND for “fur discount malls.” But that does not mean that your “best fur

discount mall” page has to suffer. Find a stronger, more in DEMAND, related

keyword.

For example, I would focus on “fur coat” (use your DEMAND window to verify, of

course). Offer great content about fur coats… and then lead into the best places

to get great bargains on these expensive items.

Affiliate Masters Course

The formula is the same... OVERdeliver great content. Then “get the click” to

your merchant partners.

FIND-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK-kaCHING!

So, your TIER 1 home page links to 5-15 TIER 2 pages. And your TIER 2 pages

each link to TIER 3 pages, back to the home page, and to TIER 2 pages where

appropriate.

This clean, 3-TIER approach yields an easy, navigable site... for both your

visitor and your spiders. Spiders always come in through the front door, as long

as you submit the home page to them. (More details on SE submission later).

From there, you’ve left a nice trail to follow so they can easily index the rest of

your pages.

Humans, however...

They may find any page, TIER 1, 2, or 3, via the engines. So each TIER 3 page

should provide a link back to its related TIER 2 page. And the same goes for

TIER 2 to TIER 1 pages. Otherwise, keep internal linking only to what’s really

necessary and relevant.

Remember that your real goal is for your visitor to click to your merchants or your

other income-generating source.

After 3 TIERS and 50-70 pages, it gets tougher to get pages indexed. By this

time, however, you should pretty much own this little niche. And your time will

yield greater returns if you set up your next niche site. For example...

WorldsBest-ElectronicFactory-outlet-stores.com

Affiliate Masters Course

Remember, each niche stands on its own. But once you have three niches established,

there's one more TIER, above all the other ones. Let’s call it TIER ZERO...

• WorldsBest-Factory-outlet-stores.com

This “super home page” links to all the other home pages and again, delivers the VPP

and major benefits of your mini-portal.

As the spiders gather up your TIER 1, 2, and 3 pages, the computer programs

that analyze them are getting smarter and smarter... and theme-focused. What

does that mean to you?...

1) They’ll analyze all your pages in their databases and decide upon the overall

theme of your site. So none of your pages should be off-theme, or you’ll

confuse the spiders. If you have a great idea for a highly profitable Keyword-

Focused Content Page that is off-theme, save it for your next niche.

2) Have you already created a bunch of “gateway pages” by simply duplicating

one of your pages and then replacing one keyword with a different one? Search

Engines look across all your site pages and penalize duplication. Ditch the tricks.

Seek to please.

Now let’s fill that structure with content that accomplishes our critical two goals…

***************************************************

Deliver valuable content to your readers...

... AND tasty content to your spiders.

***************************************************

Build your site, supported every step of the way by the SBI! Action Guide

(written and video versions) and Site Central’s extensive online help. To

see how everything is integrated (no technical experience required!) into

a powerful system that guarantees success, sit back and watch…

http://demo.sitesell.com/

6.2.2. The Content of Your Site As A Pyramid

Your home page introduces your theme and your Valuable PREselling

Proposition. It answers the “what’s in it for me” question that a visitor is probably

asking herself about your site. It can make or break that important “first

impression” of your business.

Affiliate Masters Course

Focus on your Concept Keyword. Always, always, always remember you have

two audiences -- your visitor and your spider. There’s no point in creating a

fantastic home page that no one will find.

As you write each Web page, use a specific keyword slightly more than your high

school English teacher taught you as “good English.” This is the keyword that

you want the Search Engines to rank highly. We’ll refer to this as a Specific

Keyword from now on.

Choose your Specific Keywords from the Master Keyword List of

High-profitability keywords developed during DAY 3 (and continue to

develop). A Web page’s Specific Keyword needs to do double-duty...

• as the PREselling topic for the page and…

• as a page-ranking element ( SE “on-page” criteria)

The term General Keywords refers to more generic words that are

associated with your Specific Keywords. You’ll never win the Search

Engine war for General Keywords by themselves -- you don’t really want

such non-specific traffic anyway.

But many people use WORD COMBOS to search. They’ll enter a

Specific Keyword and also a General Keyword. For example, a searcher

might enter...

“penny stocks and investing” or…

“+penny stocks +investing” or…

“penny stocks investing” or…

“investing penny stocks.”

As I said, you’ll never win at the engines for the General Keyword

“investing” -- there is just too much competition. In any event, even if you

win, the traffic is just too non-targeted to be interested in your specific

niche.

But if you include the General Keyword “investing” in some of the major

parts of your Web page (outlined below), you’ll do well when searchers

use WORD COMBOS. And these are excellent, highly targeted visitors!

So... blend some General Keywords with your Specific Keyword.

You need to include them only once or twice -- you’re not trying to win the

war for General Keywords, just for the WORD COMBOS. There is no

need to use them nearly as many times as your Specific Keyword for that

page.

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This is definitely worth doing. Why? Let me repeat... WORD COMBOS

bring excellent, highly targeted visitors.

OK, back to our home page. For your home page, the Specific Keyword is your

Concept Keyword... “factory outlet stores” in our example. That does not mean

that you should start like this example...

“Welcome to WorldsBest-FashionFactory-outlet-stores.com,

your home for news and information about fashion outlets.

I have spent a lot of time researching and will now share

all the best information right here.”

No-o-o-o-o-o...

Keep it fun, bright, intriguing! Bring out the appropriate emotions for whatever

your topic happens to be.

For example...

“Ever been on the road, far from home, when

what do you see?...

A mall jammed with fashion outlet stores!

Clothes outlets by the dozens. Shoe discount

stores. Tommy Hilfiger. Polo. Other big names,

and some intriguing ones you’ve never seen

before...

Nirvana, right? The pulse quickens in

anticipation. The wallet tingles in fright!

Is that you? If so, welcome! You may be reading

this at home, but you’re on the road...

... a cyber road to Outlet Heaven.”

Yes, you can write like that. Really, it’s a snap since you have lived this stuff.

First, just feel the emotions that you feel. What are they? How do you feel?

When do you feel them? You know this, right? Now put yourself into the skin of

your reader. Put those emotions into your page.

Use Make Your Content PREsell! as your mentor. Learn how to write to

“communicate” with your visitors. Spark a connection, a lasting rapport

with your audience. It’s a skill you can acquire on your own, even if you

have never written anything before!

http://mycps.sitesell.com/

Affiliate Masters Course

From here on in, you’ll deliver the benefits of your site. As you do this, you

continue to work in your Specific Keywords (and, to a lesser degree, your

General Keywords) everywhere and often... but not too often.

6.2.3. 80-20 SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

The next several pages will introduce the 80-20 best practices of Search Engine

Optimization (SEO). Effective SEO improves the likelihood your submitted page

will obtain a Top 10 to 20 ranking position for your Specific Keyword on a Search

Engine’s results page. The higher the ranking, the better are your chances

that a surfer will see your listing and click over to visit your site!

Please follow these recommendations but be careful not to go overboard. Some

online marketers fall into the trap of constantly experimenting with on-page

criteria in order to obtain better rankings. There are so many criteria factored into

the SEs' ranking algorithms that such efforts are extremely low-yield. The key is

to build your pages properly the first time, and then focus on the “C” of…

C T P M

SEO is comprised of two elements…

• On-page ranking criteria -- This refers to ranking elements occurring directly

on the Web page you are creating. For example, the “Page Title” of your article

as it appears on the <TITLE> tag of your page is an on-page criterion.

• Off-page ranking criteria -- This refers to ranking elements that do not occur

on this page but yet affect its ability to rank well and obtain listings. Off-page

ranking criteria are important indicators of human behavior. Visitor reaction

reflects the quality of a page.

An example of such a criterion would be an in-pointing link (i.e., another site

has your URL on its site). While your first priority will be to create and optimize

your pages, obtaining a few credible in-pointing links should be a close second.

This is known as building link popularity. (We’ll see how to do it in DAY 7.)

Both on-page and off-page criteria are necessary for success. Let’s begin by

highlighting the most important standards for on-page ranking criteria.

To rank well at the SEs, your page’s Specific Keyword must be integrated in all

the right places. Where, exactly?...

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1) TITLE tag

2) META keyword tag

3) META description tag

4) H1 and other header tags

5) Body copy

6) Link tags

7) File name/domain name

8) Image ALT tag and name of image

Let’s look at each of these “on-page” criteria quickly...

1) TITLE tag = World’s Best Fashion Factory Outlet Stores,

The Cream of Cyber Discount Fashions

• Must contain your Specific Keyword at least once, no more than twice, and with

some kind of variation or synonym. Try to include your most important General

Keyword, too.

• Use up to 70, even 80 characters. Get your most important message in, right

at the beginning. If the engine cuts your title off at 60 characters in its listing, you

would have been able to fire your “big gun.” Meanwhile, some engines will show

up to 90 or so characters.

• Remember, the title appears as the link in Search Engine listings. It must “get

the click” -- so make sure it’s attractive, without being misleading. Getting your

Title right for both your reader and engine is the single most important thing you

can do.

The TITLE tag is the key on-page elements. Make sure every single one of your

pages (yes, even your TIER 3 pages) contains a relevant, keyword-rich TITLE

tag.

In general, it's a good idea to position your Specific Keyword near the

beginning of your page elements… TITLE, META description, headline,

body copy, etc. Search Engines give greater prominence to keywords

that appear closer to the beginning, rather than the end.

2) META keyword tag = <META name= “KEYWORDS” content=”factory outlet

stores”>

• Consider adding a common synonym that has a nearly exact meaning (ex.,

“outlet malls”) but don’t dilute your META tag with a million synonyms.

• You could add a few General Keywords that people might add when they

search (ex., “discounts, shopping”).

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• If you do put more than one keyword in this META tag (separated by commas),

always put your most important one, the one that this page focuses upon, first.

Here’s an example of an expanded META keyword tag...

<META name=“KEYWORDS” content=“factory outlet stores, outlet malls,

shopping, discounts, mall”>

Don’t lose sleep fretting over your META keyword tag. It is rarely factored into

ranking algorithms these days. Just include your most important keywords and a

couple of variations, and move on.

3) META description tag = <META name=“DESCRIPTION” content=“Ever been on

the road, far from home, when what do you see? A mall jammed with

fashion outlet stores! Nirvana, right? Welcome! Take this cyber-off

ramp to “Outlet Heaven.”>

• The META description often comprises a portion of what searchers see in the

Search Engine’s listings (SEs display their results slightly differently). So, like the

Title tag, make sure it’s attractive, without being misleading. Your goal is to

entice the prospective visitor to click through to your site. A gentle, good-natured

tease, like the above, will do well.

As with the META keywords tag, most SEs do not place much ranking weight on

the text inside META description tags. So focus on getting the click through, and

don’t worry too much about just the “right” blend of keywords for this tag.

• Use 150-200 characters. Some engines cut off the Title listing at as little as

140 characters. So again, make sure you get your “#1 benefit statement” up

front. Remember, a “benefit statement” does not have to be “in your face” -- read

the META tag above.

• Should contain your Specific Keyword at least once (try twice if it fits and see

how it ranks). Include one or two of your most important General Keywords.

Also, use common synonyms 2-3 times more (ex., “outlet” and “mall”).

(Synonyms will work better and better as engines become more and more

sophisticated. But your first priority is to place sufficient focus on your Specific

Keyword.)

• Remember, do not repeat the TITLE in this tag. The reader will just see the

same phrase twice in the Search Engine’s listing, once in the Title and then again

in the description. That’s wasting valuable “word real estate.”

4) H1 and other header tags = Fashion Outlet Stores Nirvana.

Affiliate Masters Course

The headlines are more important than your regular body copy. That’s true

for both human readers and for the engines. As far as ranking criteria goes, it is

likely that the <H1> tag is second only to the <TITLE> tag in importance.

Please keep in mind that some engines don’t use the META description tag to

form the second part of their listings (i.e., after the Title) in their search results. In

those cases, they will usually use the first words on the page -- your H1 tag (first

headline), and the first words in the body copy after that.

Here are the key “musts” for your H1 tag...

• Contains your Specific Keyword at least once. Try to include an important

General Keyword, too (different from the one you used in your Title).

• Does not exceed 80 characters, 40 is better. Long headlines feel rather

“hypey.”

• Helps to “get the click” -- so make sure it’s attractive, without being misleading.

• Does not contain your Title. Otherwise, if the engine uses your H1 tag, your

listing and H1 tag will both say the same thing... needless repetition.

Consider this strategy…

Take your META description tag and chop it into two pieces -- one part for the

headline and one part for the opening paragraph of your body copy.

If a single discussion warrants more than a single headline, use a smaller

headline (<H2><H3>) containing variations of your page’s most important

keywords.

Special Note… Every single content page must contain a <H1> or <H2> tag for

maximum ranking relevancy. If you are not using these tags, you are missing out

on free Search Engine traffic!

5) Body copy

We started the body copy at the beginning of DAY 6. Let’s see what our search

result listing would look like for those engines that don’t use the META

description tag. First of all, the Title appears as a link...

World’s Best Fashion Factory Outlet Stores,

The Cream of Cyber Discount Fashions

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This is followed by the H1 tag and the beginning of the body copy...

Fashion Outlet Stores Nirvana

Ever been on the road, far from home, when what do

you see? A mall jammed with fashion outlet stores!

Yes, that would pull me through to your page! So you see how important it is to

start your body copy strongly, as we did above. Now don’t blow it! OVERdeliver

great content in your body copy.

Your intro paragraphs establish your VPP while quickening the pulse of your

reader. After that, you’ll deliver the benefits of your site by answering the

“what’s in it for me” question that every visitor asks when arriving at a site.

And you’ll do it while blending in your keyword. You should work not only

“factory outlet stores” into your copy, but also common synonyms and variations

like “outlet stores” and “fashion outlets” and “fashion malls” and “discount

fashions” and “discount outlets” and “discount malls.”

And also work in General Keywords that would likely be associated with your

keyword (ex., shopping, shops, savings, discounts, etc.). If someone searches

with part or all of your Specific Keyword and one of these General Keywords,

you’ll have a good shot at being found. And you’ll have a high-quality, interested

and motivated visitor!

Remember, though, that synonyms and variations should not reduce your main

keyword (factory outlet stores) to near invisibility. Establish your main keyword

and then sprinkle in the synonyms and variations.

How many times should you use your specific keyword in your body copy? As I

said before, do use your Specific Keyword more than your high school teacher

would have liked -- keyword density is of some importance for the SEs.

However, don’t overdo it, either. Don’t cross over the line between properly

optimized content and spam. The best rule of thumb is to read your page aloud,

and ask yourself…

“Does this sound natural?”

If too many incidences of your Specific Keyword are making your page sound a

little odd, then replace these with appropriate synonyms. Surprisingly enough,

top ranking SE pages have keyword densities a lot lower than you think --

varying from as little as 1-4%.

What about keyword prominence (i.e., the location in your page text where your

keywords appear)? Yes, keyword prominence has a role to play as well. Make it

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a point to use your Specific Keyword more heavily in the opening two paragraphs

(it must be in your opening sentence), and also in the closing paragraph. And

then, like a good chef, sprinkle throughout!

Your keyword scatter pattern should look like an hourglass... bigger (i.e., more

frequent usage) on the top and bottom, and less (but still present) in the middle

of the page.

If you like, you may experiment with different numbers, frequencies and patterns

of keywords as you build new pages. But again, don’t waste much time on this

keyword density or prominence. The growing importance of off-page ranking

criteria makes such efforts a low-yield effort.

Follow the 80-20 best practices approach to SEO (which, as you will see later in

DAY 7, also includes a good links programs), you’ll be fine. In the meantime, you

know what to do…

C T P M

Question: How long should a page be?

As long as it needs to be, but no longer!

Don’t worry about what the Search Engines think about length -- that’s important

only to your reader. It makes no sense for an engine to score a short page any

better than a long one. If length is of any importance, it’s minor.

One caveat…

The longer you make an article, the greater the chance you will wander off-topic

and dilute the importance of your Specific Keyword. Slice-and-dice lengthy

articles into smaller ones. This improves readability and gives you additional

opportunities to rank well with the Search Engines.

Bottom line?

Use common sense, and avoid abuse.

Keep your content focused to a single theme per page. Do not ever get offtarget

and introduce a second topic to a page -- you’ll dilute the effectiveness of

your Specific Keyword. And that goes for your site as well. The more you laserbeam

on a single theme, the better you’ll do with the Search Engines.

Of course if you’ve followed your passion, you will have lots of ideas for

content. You may not know all you want to, but when you love your topic,

learning more about it will be a pleasure.

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Whether you know a lot or a little to begin with, research can add pizzazz

to your site. Search It! is a researcher’s dream.

Reference Library for Content (STEP 1) includes an impressive list of

links -- articles, news, quotations, encyclopedia entries, etc. And if that

weren’t enough…

Use Images -- Video -- Sound (STEP 1) to find extras you can use

judiciously. Just remember that “Content is King”!

6) Link tags

Links create the TIER 1-2-3 structure. They must flow naturally and smoothly

within the content.

Think of your links as providing a service to your readers. You are giving them

beneficial recommendations or tips. So don’t just save your links for the end of

the page. Add an in-context link within the body of a paragraph where

appropriate.

It’s not just your readers who see your links. The engines do, too. So include

your Specific Keyword, and variations and synonyms thereof, in visible, blueunderlined

text in your links to your merchants.

Don’t just say… “Click here.” Say… “Click here for the best outlet

malls, region by region.”

This format clearly telegraphs the link’s ultimate destination, making it easier for

your user to decide whether to click or not. Using a Specific Keyword within each

link will help the SEs determine relevance for each page and for your site.

While the use of internal links is unlikely to affect your site’s link popularity, it

makes it easier for the SEs to accurately categorize your site.

7) File name/domain name

Include your Specific Keyword in the filename of your html page. This action

might also add a relevancy point or two with the engines.

So if your Keyword-Focused Content Page is that TIER 2 page about “outlet

mall” that we discussed earlier (“Top Factory Outlet Malls Where You Can

Shop Via The Net”), let’s name the file...

“outlet-malls.html”

The full URL, therefore, would be...

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http://www.WorldsBest-FashionFactory-outlet-stores.com/outlet-malls.html

The only exception to this, of course, would be your home page. The home page

must be named “index.html” -- but that’s OK. We already have its Specific

Keyword included in the domain name, because it is your Concept Keyword!

8) Image ALT tag and name of image

Although this is probably the least important in terms of ranking relevancy, it’s still

a worthwhile strategy to follow, especially now that the major SEs all offer an

“image search” option. Depending on your unique niche or topic, image search

may be a significant generator of traffic.

What should you do? Name a graphic on a page according to its keyword focus.

For example, on your outlet-malls.html page, name its photo “outet-malls.gif”.

And make its ALT tag “outlet malls,” too. This is a bit complicated so ask a techie

friend for help if necessary.

SBI! has a module, Analyze It!, that trains you how to construct a page in

such a way that you meet the on-page needs of the engines (i.e., the

Specific Keyword is placed “just right” in the Title, Description, Headline,

Body Copy, etc.). Your job is to deliver information of great value to

human visitors.

And if this is “all geek to you,” don't worry. SBI!'s SiteBuilder trains you to

build an effective Web page, block-by-block. Very much like a bike with

training wheels, once you “get your balance” (5-10 pages), you can take

the wheels off and easily transition to a free and simple “What You See Is

What You Get” (“WYSIWYG”) HTML editor.

http://buildit.sitesell.com/

OK, that’s basically how to put together a high-value content page that hits both

key points...

***************************************************

Deliver valuable content to your readers...

... AND tasty content to your spiders.

***************************************************

The essential strategy is simple. Aim to get on-page criteria within an

acceptable range for the Search Engines to rank you well. A good ranking is

critical for pulling in free, targeted traffic.

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More importantly, though, don’t sweat the small stuff. If you’ve done your

homework and built a list of profitable, niche-related keywords, achieving top

rankings won’t be a difficult task. And remember what I said earlier…

The SEs are placing more and more emphasis on off-page ranking criteria

(human reaction to your site, for example). On-page ranking criteria are

important, but they are only one part of the picture. To achieve the rankings you

desire, both on-and-off page criteria must be addressed. (Off-page criteria

will take center stage in the next chapter.)

SBI!’s Analyze It! tool simplifies Search Engine Optimization. This tool

analyzes each of your pages for well over 30 important ranking criteria. If

your page violates any of them, simple instructions explain how to rectify

the situation.

Use the same approach for the TIER 2 and TIER 3 Keyword-Focused Content

Pages. While the home page focuses upon the fundamental Concept Keyword,

the other pages each focus upon one of the high-profitability keywords that your

Master Keyword List has identified.

Ultimately, you create Keyword-Focused Content Pages that...

• fit with your Site Concept and VPP

AND...

• have a good SUPPLY/DEMAND ratio

AND that...

• you enjoy writing about.

Each page wraps a high-value topic around each Specific Keyword, following the

guidelines outlined above.

SBIers have four exceptional resources to keep them on track and up-todate

in the Search Engine World…

1) Traffic HQs (reports and stats)

2) The SBI! Forums (Friendly, Success-Focused Discussion).

3) Tips and Techniques HQ (topical resource articles)

4) Site Build It! Xpress (a weekly newsletter)

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6.3. Question and Answer Period

Whoops! What’s that? Some hands are up. Questions?...

Question: Why do Search Engines like theme-based content sites?

A Theme-Based Content Site creates real content, easily accessible from your

home page or TIER 2 pages. You’re creating value, not simply spider bait! And

you’re addressing the needs of the visitor and of the SEs.

C T P M is the only long-term solution for small business people

who want to build sustainable profits online. Instead of trying to outguess

or outplay the Search Engines, create a site that stands out as a winner

when the spiders come to call.

Make Your Links WORK! provides an excellent “big picture” perspective

regarding Search Engine Optimization, in-pointing links and other trafficbuilding

strategies. Download your free copy of this must-have resource

here…

http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/

Another question?...

Question: What do the Search Engines look for?

Answer…

So glad you asked! DAY 7 will examine this question more closely but for now,

here’s a quick answer…

Search Engines want to satisfy a visitor’s need by delivering the best possible

results for his/her search query. And why does a Search Engine care so much

about this? The Search Engines must satisfy its clients.

To determine who the SEs’ true clients are, just follow the money. Advertisers

pay the SEs, not surfers. Therefore, advertisers are the true clients!

So the #1 goal of a Search Engine is to provide lots of exposure to their

advertisers’ ads. If search results are relevant and of good quality, satisfied

surfers will return to search another day, generating more ad impressions. If they

are not, the surfer will leave to search somewhere else. If this happens enough

times… well, you see where this is going. Ad revenues fall, advertisers go

elsewhere, and the SE slowly dies or fades away.

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Bottom line?

The SEs’ primary mandate is to deliver relevant and quality search results to

surfers. It’s WIN-WIN-WIN all around… The surfer wins by finding what she

needs. The advertisers win by getting lots of exposure to prospective new

clients. And, the Search Engines win when they generate the revenue they need

to survive and remain competitive.

And how does a Search Engine recognize relevance and quality?

Except for the top executive and a few select professionals at each individual SE,

nobody knows the exact algorithms used to evaluate page relevance. However,

we do know for certain that on-page and off-page criteria form the backbone

of any SE’s ranking algorithms.

Much of what we’ve been covering so far in this course has to do with on-page

criteria. Now for a brief note about off-page criteria…

Obviously, an SE will always have to examine the elements of any Web page to

determine its context. A page about porcupines, for example, would have the

word “porcupine” in the TITLE and heading tags, in the META keywords, and

sprinkled throughout the page text. The word “zebra”, on the other hand, would

be conspicuously absent from such a page.

And what about off-page criteria?

As Search Engines become more sophisticated, they track more external

factors to determine a page’s relevancy. For example, if a high-value, topicrelated

site links to your site, the Search Engine considers your site more

credible by association. If a dozen sites do the same, your site appears even

more so.

I’ll talk about link strategies in much greater detail in the next chapter. For now,

recognize that credible links are an important measure of human behavior. Any

Tom, Dick, or Jane can use software to create a perfectly optimized page about

porcupines, for example. But only a high-quality, relevant document written by a

porcupine expert will garner in-pointing links from credible porcupine authorities.

It is this combination of off-page criteria that reflect human behavior and on-page

criteria (as outlined earlier) that most SEs use to determine relevance.

I was just about to call it a day, but let’s go with one more question…

Question: Just how important is design?

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104

Hmm. This changes the direction of our discussion a bit but it’s a good question

all the same!

Design is not as important as most folks think. Words do the PREselling, not

graphics or colors or font styles.

Start with a clean and welcoming Look & Feel. Add a simple but professionallooking

logo. Make your site easy to navigate. Then get out of your own way

and let your words do the talking.

Question: Can I follow the C T P M approach on a free Web

hosting service?

Answer… Absolutely. But remember that success is much more than just

putting up a site. Don’t be caught by the “cheap-quick-easy” advertising lure.

Free sites have two huge strikes against them. They’re treated with disdain by

both the visitor and the engines.

Let’s talk about humans first. When I notice that a site’s URL is at a free hosting

service, I don’t bother clicking to visit. If I have a special reason, I might go -- but

I arrive at a free site with doubts. Most folks harbor the same kind of bias.

And what about the engines? Free sites don’t get treated with much respect by

the Search Engine spiders, and below zero respect by the directories like

Yahoo!.

Even on the Net, there's no such thing as truly free. Think about it... a company

has to make money to survive. One way or another, hidden or not, the service

costs you. But the low credibility of free sites costs you way, way too much…

your time.

If engines don’t spider you, or if customers don’t respect the site, or if

advertising lures your customers away and hurts the sales-effectiveness of your

site, you’re wasting your time. And that’s way more valuable than less than $25

per month to host your own site. You must put a value on your time if you want

to succeed. All successful people will tell you that time is their most precious

commodity.

A non-free site with your own domain is a prerequisite to building credibility with

your readers and with the Search Engines. So find a good Web hosting service

and put up a real site. For the $25 or so per month, it’s worth it.

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Site Build It! builds a site that is a powerful traffic-builder and customerconverter.

No other Web hosting company provides such success. Why

build just a Web site when you can build a business?

These SBIers tell you why they love SBI! and how it changed their lives…

http://ilovesbi.sitesell.com/

OK, one last question...

Question: Geez, Ken. You seem to be convincing folks not to market

marketing programs. Rather, they should build sites of passion, write

about what they know, and then marry that to profitable affiliate

programs. Doesn’t that leave you and SiteSell out in the dark?

Answer… No, not really. I encourage 5 Pillar Affiliates not to erect Web

marketing sites. One thing the Net does not need is another Web marketing site!

But here’s a neat little twist for you to think about. You think that only consumers

search for “fashion model” or “fashion designer” or “fashion design”?

Nope. If you write a wonderful page about “fashion design,” lots of merchants

will find your page. After reading your excellent content about fashion design,

you lead into a recommendation about SiteSell products, especially SBI!.

So not only does your “fashion-passion” site generate income for you by sending

fashion consumers to a select group of fashion merchants, you can also send

fashion merchants to SiteSell, creating an additional income stream!

For example, here’s how your “fashion design” page could do this...

First, you write your content. This content must deliver good “information value”

about fashion design. Since this is your area of expertise, that’s a snap. Your

content closes by leading to in-context text links (those caught using banners will

have a detention!) for small business owners and consumers...

For fashion small business owners...

“Are you a fashion design consultant? Or are

you a designer looking to sell your fashion

designs on the Web?

The best way to expand your client base is

with a Web site that works. Site Build It!

has proof of success!

Click here for more information... ”

For fashion consumers...

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“Are you looking for a top-notch school of

fashion design?

Click here for the best school in the US Northeast.

Click here for the best one in the US Southeast.

Click here for the top institute in the US Southwest.

Click here for excellence in the US Northwest.

Click here for the Fashion School Directory.

Each of the “best school” links sends the visitor to a school that you

represent as an affiliate!

This is just an example, but I hope you get the idea. You’ve created multiple

streams of income from both small business owners and consumers in an area

that you love and know.

Try not to fall for the lure of the Web marketing field. It’s too competitive. You

would be up against very ambitious marketers who are extremely good at writing

to please Search Engines. The outcome is predictable. They would win.

You’ll do far better by working your “niche of passion” and creating your

“brand of one.” It’s a flexible strategy that anyone can do. Bend it and

twist it. Add your own ideas.

Here’s the bottom line. Every single success story has focused on a niche

that the affiliate knows and loves… finance, insurance, children, etc. That’s

the fastest road for you, too.

And while you are on this road... I’d love to have you as a partner-in-sales. To

Before proceeding to DAY 7, please complete your DAY 6 Goal-of-the-DAY, and

take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Create one Keyword-Focused Content Page per day. Start with the TIER 2

pages. Then keep adding TIER 3 pages, 1 per day. Create 50-70 maximum. At

that point, consider starting a new Theme-Based Content Site.

If your time is limited, reduce the goal to a page every 2 or 3 days. Even then,

you’ll have a traffic-building, income-earning site in three months. Consistency

and discipline are the keys, not speed. It’s OK to be the tortoise… as long as

you stay the course.

What’s next? More visitors, more traffic… the lifeblood of your business…

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7. DAY 7

Build Free Traffic

“Build it and they will come.”

-- Field of Dreams (1989)

Goal-of-the-DAY... Generate free targeted traffic by doing these actions…

1) Work the free major Search Engines.

2) Understand why "tweaking" is a low-yield exercise.

3) Build a quality links program to improve your link popularity.

4) Seed link-building buzz. Work your niche.

Talk about a “field of dreams!” If you just simply build it, your content site might

as well be a cornfield in Iowa, visited only by ghosts!

Yes, it’s true. This course has shown you how to develop a strong Theme-Based

Content Site, completely loaded with high-profitability Keyword-Focused Content

Pages. These pages OVERdeliver to your human readers, and at the same

time, satisfy the Search Engines.

So you’re way ahead of 99% of e-business people on the Net. You have

created a diamond, shining brilliantly with terrific content. Does that guarantee

you success?

Sorry to say... nope! Why not? Because it’s just sitting there, buried in the

middle of that huge cornfield, that field of dreams. What’s missing in order to turn

your dreams into reality and build income through content? Free, targeted

traffic.

If you can't attract free, targeted visitors via the Search Engines, you’re

immediately at a huge disadvantage. That’s because you’re going to have to pay

to drive traffic to your Web site. While paying for supplemental traffic can make

sense for many online businesses, you definitely do not want this to be your

primary source of traffic. There are a number of reasons why not…

1) Depending on your niche or topic, advertising can be very expensive. It also

prevents you from ever really owning your own business. When you stop paying

for advertising, your business disappears.

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2) If you do not know what your ROI (Return On Investment) is or exactly what

each and every visitor is worth to you, advertising can be a bit of a gamble. This

is especially true for brand new sites that are still feeling their way around.

3) Visitors who arrive from advertising campaigns recognize that the relationship

is purely commercial, and they expect to be pitched. Obviously, they will have

their guard up and will be more difficult to convert into customers.

On the other hand, when you “get it right” at the Search Engines, the engines will

deliver more and more targeted traffic on daily basis.

Take-home lesson?

Concentrate on ways that will consistently deliver the largest amounts of lowcost,

sustainable traffic. Don’t try to “do it all” right off the bat.

OK. Let’s begin with the engines…

7.1. Work With The Free Major Search Engines

The Search Engines will provide you with lots of traffic as long as you work with

them rather than against them. That requires some patience, motivation, and a

collaborative, WIN-WIN attitude.

The traffic-building process boils down to these actions...

1) Build an “on-page-optimized” Keyword-Focused Content Page, one that

delivers content that will “WOW” human visitors.

2) Submit that page to the Search Engines. If you don’t submit your pages, you

won’t get into a Search Engine’s database at all. And, if you’re not in a Search

Engine’s index, you’re invisible on the Net. Build another Content page after you

submit your page.

3) Check for each spider's visit. Continue to build more Content pages.

4) Check for the presence of your page in each Search Engine’s index (i.e.,

database). This can take anywhere from 6 to 8 weeks, or even longer.

Uh, should I say it? Yes... Continue to build more Content pages.

5) Evaluate performance of your page. You guessed it! Keep building more

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Content pages.

6) Track your performance on a regular basis. As you start to see results, you will

do #3-6 less and less often (and SBI! takes care of #2). Why? Because you'll be

busy building more Content pages.

It may take 2-3 months, but your efforts will pay off. You will start to rank well for

a few pages at one engine, and then more and more pages at different engines.

That success will grow as you continue to build out your site’s content. And that

can only mean increasing volumes, month-on-month, of targeted traffic. This is

the beginning of the snowball effect in action!

Right now, though, let's see how SBI!'s integrated tools make the traffic-building

process a snap...

Phase #1) Once you are finished building a page (on-page-optimized with

the help of Analyze It!), WorldSubmitter automatically adds it to your

sitemap file and pings (notifies) Google, Yahoo! Search, Bing and Ask to

let them know about the new page.

Phase #2) SpiderWatcher checks your site’s log files regularly, looking

to see which of the major engines’ spiders have visited, and which of your

pages they “took back to their mother ships.”

In all cases, SBI! reports the most recent dates for SE submission,

spidering, and listing. So, if a spider revisits at a later date,

SpiderWatcher will report that date, overwriting the previous one.

Phase #3) ListChecker watches for when each engine lists (i.e.,

“indexes”) each of your pages (that have been spidered). The dates are

recorded in the Submit-Spider-List Report.

At this point, the pages are officially in the database, but not yet ranked.

If you do not become listed within a certain amount of time, or if an engine

ever drops you from its index (i.e., its “listings”), WorldSubmitter

automatically re-submits it according to each engine’s acceptable limits,

as outlined in the section on spiders above.

Phase #4) After your page has been submitted, spidered, and listed,

the Keyword Ranking Report tells you where your page ranks, at each

major engine, for the specific keyword that the page focuses upon.

Phase #5) The Keyword Searches Report tells you the keyword

searches that found each page (and # of times), which Search Engine(s)

found each page for each keyword (and # of times) and how you rank

today for that keyword search.

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See how SBI! makes the process a snap? You get the exact tools and

data you need to win at the Search Engines! The reporting tools help you

see how your pages fit in your particular “Web-niche world,” (i.e., vs. other

sites that are focusing on the same niche).

http://order.sitesell.com/

To sum things up...

Working with the Search Engines is essential. However, do not allocate more

than a half-hour per week to monitor SE performance.

The creation of quality relevant content always serves your business best.

Remember, Content drives C T P M, not the engines. The engines

merely (and naturally) serve their own interests best by ranking your site highly.

Now that we have the big picture of where we are going, let’s get down to

business…

7.1.1. Submit Your URLs

Submitting your site to the engines is a necessary task. If you wait for the SEs’

spiders to find and index your entire site, you could wait forever. Submission

hastens the entire listing process along, and guarantees your site doesn’t get lost

“between the cracks.” Result? You gain maximum and controlled exposure.

The four major free Search Engines will account, either directly through their own

search services or indirectly through partner sites, for about 95% of your traffic.

That’s right, just four!

What about the service I saw the other day offering to submit my site

to 1,000 Search Engines for $29.95?

Avoid these services like the plague. “Submit to all 1,000 Engines” services

submit mainly to free-for-all links pages. They are totally useless, and will do

nothing for you but fill your inbox with an endless barrage of spam.

OK, let’s begin the submission process. I’ve included each SE’s current

protocols here, but please double-check each one to ensure nothing has

changed in the meantime.

Ready? We’re off to the top of the list…

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Google

http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl

Yahoo! Search

http://search.yahoo.com/info/submit.html

Bing

http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx?FORM=WSDD2

Ask.com

http://about.ask.com/en/docs/about/webmasters.shtml#18

7.1.2. Track The Engines’ Spiders

Even after you do submit, some of the engines take weeks, even months, to

send their spiders over to your site to “bring back the goodies.”

No problem. A real business takes time, unlike those get-rich-quick schemes

floating around on the Net. So while you’re waiting, build more content pages

and obtain some quality in-pointing links. These efforts will hasten the listing

process along.

How can you tell when a spider visits your site?

The answer is simple. Each SE’s spider has a name, which shows up in your log

files when it visits your site. For example, Google’s spider is called “Googlebot”.

Yahoo!’s is called “Slurp.”

So keep your eyes peeled for a visit from one of these friendly little creatures in

your log files. Although a spider visit does not mean your page has been added

to an SE index, it does mean that the SE has not forgotten about you! Your site

is probably queued for addition.

If you don’t see an engine’s spider within a certain amount of time after

submitting (varies for each engine), you can resubmit according to each engine’s

acceptable limits. Generally though, if you haven’t been indexed and listed with

6-8 weeks, do the following…

1) Resubmit according to each SE’s protocols.

2) Build your link popularity. Quality in-pointing have a credentializing effect.

Without a few to validate your site, some SEs may be hesitant to list you in their

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indices. If you have no links, and you can’t seem to get listed, this is very likely

the issue.

Even if you aren’t listed immediately, don’t lose heart. Every new Web

business has to go through the hassle of establishing itself with the SEs.

That’s true whether you have $100 to invest in your business, or $10,000.

Keep your focus on the “C” of…

C T P M

… and making your site THE authority on your theme.

7.1.3. Check And Monitor Presence

First, the good news… you’ve been spidered! That means you’re in, right? Not

necessarily. However, it does mean that the Search Engines know about you.

Yes, you are on their radar, but you may not yet be included in the databases

from which they draw their results. So that leads you to your next mission…

Monitor each engine to ensure it lists your pages. Once your pages start

showing up in each SE’s database, they are ready to be delivered to an eager

search audience.

Hooray! Targeted traffic!

The best way to check your listings is to use Search It!…

Search It! > Indexed Pages (STEP 1) > Pages in Google (STEP 2)

This query will show you every page of your domain that is listed in Google.

Repeat this search to check your presence at each of the other engines.

7.1.4. Evaluate The Performance Of Your Pages

At this point, your pages are spidered and indexed. But there is one small catch.

In order for people to visit your site, they must find it first. Being indexed is not

enough. Ideally, you need to have a Top 10 listing on a SE’s search results

page to get any exposure at all. Most surfers will not check out more than ten

listings in their search for information.

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Luckily, you are way ahead of the curve, and miles ahead of your competitors

due to this course. By building a comprehensive list of niche-focused, profitable

and “in-demand” keywords, your ranking potential gets off to a roaring start and

can only go upwards!

Now let’s see how you can evaluate the performance of your pages…

1) Manually -- Surf to each SE, and search for each of your KFCP’s Specific

Keyword (just as a prospective visitor would). For example, let’s use this

keyword, “dangers of high cholesterol,” to illustrate. Check to see where it shows

up and in what position. Keep track of your results in a simple database.

2) Automatically -- Use specialized software to automate the evaluation

process.

Site Build It!’s Search Engine HQ provides ranking reports for all your KFCPs.

And for any poorly performing page, SBI!’s Analyze It! tool shows you how to

optimize it better.

3) Through the use of log files -- Use log file analyzer software (server or client

side) to identify the keywords that people used to find you. Check with your Web

host to see what kind of online traffic statistics they can provide. More than

likely, though, they will not give the keyword stats that you need.

Tracking your rankings can be a long and tedious affair. If you’re not careful, it

can eat into a lot of time. Instead focus your attention on those efforts that will

bring your affiliate business the best results, the fastest.

7.1.5. To Tweak or Not to Tweak?

How to Avoid the SEO Quagmire

Many Webmasters, experienced and otherwise, fall into the trap of excessively

adjusting or tweaking their Web pages in order to improve SE rankings. (I use

the term “tweaking” to refer to the constant experimentation with keyword density

and keyword placement in the various page elements.) It is absolutely essential

that you avoid the quagmire of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), and focus

instead on building your business.

Never, except in extreme circumstances, tweak your low-performing Web pages.

If a page isn’t ranking for its Specific Keyword, don’t worry about it.

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Follow the guidance outlined so far in this course and get your on-page criteria

correct (Analyze It!’s job). As you build pages, you might try experimenting by

increasing or decreasing keyword presence. But once you have optimized your

page as best you can, it's time to move on. Focus on creating new pages.

In the “good old days” (circa 1996-2001), the SEs were relatively simple to

reverse-engineer. Tweaking efforts were generally rewarded with higher

rankings, and an accompanying surge of visitors. Today, however, it’s a different

story altogether.

Due to the SEs’ increasingly complex ranking algorithms, and a heightened focus

on off-page criteria (which collectively form an important indicator of human

approval of a Web page), the practice of “tweaking” has become a low-yield

affair. The key to top rankings lies off-page (ex., credible in-pointing links

from recognized authorities in your field) and not on-page with the

manipulation of keyword densities.

Bottom line?

Tweaking diverts you from more fruitful efforts -- the creation of more

optimized content, the acquisition of some credible in-pointing links, the

establishment of joint venture partnerships, building some word-of-mouth buzz,

and so on. Keep in mind that each new optimized Keyword-Focused Content

Page that you create represents another opportunity to rank well at the SEs.

I'm going to repeat that last sentence because it’s such an important concept...

Each new optimized Keyword-Focused Content Page that you create

represents another opportunity to rank well at the SEs.

What do you think an engine ultimately is going to prefer? 200 “Analyzed” pages

that humans love or 50 pages that you've tweaked like mad?

Important Tip… We are finding evidence that the sheer size of your site counts

as an “off-page” criterion. The total body of your work counts. It’s a waste of

time to tweak your pages when the key to a top ranking may lay off-page, not onpage.

Trust the process. Build a content-rich site, and deliver great information about

the theme related topics (keywords) that your brainstorming has found. Create

Content, Content, and more Content. If you do that, your pages will deliver all

the off-page criteria you need!

It always boils down to the same four letters, and “C” starts it all...

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C T P M

Leave the tweaking to your competitors. Let them “fiddle while Rome burns.”

Your main priority is to build a vibrant, profitable business!

But let’s suppose that not a single one of your pages is ranking at the SEs for

any of your keywords. Is there a time when tweaking your pages is appropriate?

Sure but please do run through this short checklist first before you tweak…

1) Review your keywords. Have you targeted generic, highly competitive terms

(ex., health, travel, or worst of all, “Web marketing”)? If you've done your

research and brainstorming well, you should have a nice blend of keywords --

from the more general, “bigger-topic” keywords (ex. “Anguilla”) which are

generally best used for a home page to a range of keywords appropriately

planned for TIER 2 and 3 pages (ex. “best Anguilla restaurants”).

Do not expect to rank highly for the most competitive keywords at first. They will

be the last to rank well. Generally, the most focused, specific keywords will start

ranking first. And that first trickle of traffic, combined with securing a few inbound

links, is what starts momentum building.

Proper keyword research is one of the most important elements of

building a profitable Web business. Keywords are the lynchpins to your

success.

Target the wrong keywords, and you’ll get the wrong results. If all your

keywords are highly competitive or generic, you’ll find it very difficult to

start the momentum. Traffic starts by “eating at the edges.” Win the

battles for the less competitive words first (generally TIER 3 pages, but

occasionally TIER 2, depending on how the topics layout best for your

site).

As your site grows, as off-page criteria grow, your overall rankings for all

keywords rise steadily over time. For example, anguilla-beaches.com

initially never ranked in the Top 1000 for “Anguilla.” Over time, as the site

grew, more and more people found and loved her site and gave her links

from other sites about Anguilla. As a result, the off-page criteria grew.

Build your site. Deliver great content for a wide variety of keywords,

including some easy-to-win ones that fit with your site. Good things

happen as this interview about “The Long Tail of Marketing” explains…

http://longtail.sitesell.com/

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OK, you have a good mix of keywords and over 20 pages, yet not a single

keyword is ranking yet. What to do?

2) Double-check that you heeded all the recommendations outlined in this

course. Assuming that you have and all is OK...

3) Build your site's link popularity by securing some quality in-pointing

links from related credible sites. (More on this in the next section.)

Still not ranking? Not even for your easiest keywords? Now's the time for some

tweaking... but do not tweak existing pages. It’s still not worth it.

Instead, experiment as you build new KFCPs for easy keywords. Add an extra

keyword to your Title. Increase the keyword density of your page copy. Vary the

keyword prominence somewhat. Don’t be afraid to push the envelope a bit --

add here, subtract there.

Every site concept sits in its own “microenvironment.” You are not competing

against every Web page in the world, just those in your particular niche. So it

may take a bit more or less to “find your sweet spot.”

Before long, you will begin to rank well. Stick to the easier keywords and

experiment until you do. It’s critical that you do not veer away from...

C T P M

Do not let SEO dominate your thoughts. The CTPM process simply works

Some businesses start the traffic trickle within a month’s time. Others may take

six months. Certain businesses take longer to mature in the SEs. What does it

matter? You are building a long-term business.

Simply keep doing what you are doing. Patience rules. Every business has a

hump stage... a period where you seem to be stagnating. But it will pass.

To sum up everything… Content drives the C T P M train.

Content builds authority with the SEs, garners in-pointing links from Webmasters,

and builds your credibility with your visitors. Every newly optimized page offers

another opportunity for top rankings.

Tweaking diverts you from creating new content. It is a low-yield, timeconsuming

process that derails your business, is frustrating, and puts your focus

on all the wrong things.

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Your business is not SEO... it’s generating revenue from something you know

and love!

SBI!’s reporting tools provide you with an informative snapshot of your

site. Take the Quick Tour to see first-hand examples of the different

reports…

http://quicktour.sitesell.com/

7.2. Improve Your Link Popularity…

Build Incoming Links

“Pleasing” the Search Engines and your human visitors is why it’s important for

you to develop an effective linking strategy. Links are one kind of off-page

criteria that measure human reaction to your content.

The more sites that link to your site, and the more important the linking sites are,

and the closer the linking sites are to the theme of your site (even to the topic of

individual pages), the more “popularity points” Search Engines award to your

site (and page).

This chapter provides a brief introduction to link popularity. For the full

overview, download the free Make Your Links WORK! available at…

http://value-exchange.sitesell.com/

Get the jump on your competition!

Search Engines consider the number of in-pointing links to a site as a way to…

1) Establish credibility. An in-pointing link from a quality, related site tells the

Search Engine that another Webmaster thinks highly enough of a site to link to it.

See how the link becomes representative of human feedback? The link

constitutes a vote of confidence.

And the more highly a Search Engine regards the site that provides the link, the

more powerful that “vote” is! For example…

Suppose you have a Web site all about porcupines. The Web authority on

porcupines decides to link to your site. In essence, this tells the SEs…

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“This is a credible porcupine resource. As such, it deserves to be

listed in your database.”

This recommendation carries weight because the Web authority on porcupines

already has established credibility with the SEs. Obviously, there’s no better

judge of the quality of a porcupine site than a porcupine expert. Links from

lesser authorities or from sites with related themes or topics (i.e., zoo, or animal

sites) are helpful they don’t carry the same weight.

And what about off-theme links? Do not attempt to solicit links from sites

unrelated to your topic or theme. Why would a Web site about Viagara or

online casino games link to your site about porcupines? Usually it’s because

they want to artificially increase link popularity, and manipulate the SEs.

The SEs don’t like to be manipulated, as it jeopardizes the integrity of their

search results. So you can expect them to ignore, and at worst, penalize you for

off-theme links.

2) Formulate ranking algorithms. More and more, Search Engines are

factoring link popularity and link credibility (i.e., where your in-pointing links

originate from) into their ranking algorithms. That’s why it’s so important not to

fall into the trap of continuously tweaking your on-page criteria.

Without a few credible links, you may find it difficult to get listed in some of the

major SEs (especially Google). And of course, your site won’t make it into the

databases of SEs that do not permit site submission. Their spiders must find

your site on their own.

The good news is that for most businesses, a very small number of credible links

will do the job. 99% of most Web sites do not have many in-pointing links. (If the

SEs were to weigh in-pointing links too heavily, they’d make 99% of the Net

disappear!)

Of course, if your topic is much more general in scope (i.e., “e-commerce,”

“computers,” “sports cars,” and that sort of thing), obtaining links becomes more

and more important.

Some people misunderstand the role of links. While links will bring in

some traffic, it is a miniscule amount. A properly optimized KFCP wins

hands down.

Creating content should always remain your #1 priority. Use links to

build your site’s credibility with the SEs. Content is what builds traffic,

not links.

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Question: When do I start building my link popularity?

That’s a good one! Don’t worry about link popularity until you have built at least

20-30 content pages. Why?

Webmasters will link only to sites of value. Quality content is the currency of the

Web so you will need a sufficient amount of it before you go link hunting. To get

a Webmaster’s “vote” of confidence, your site must provide some benefit to

his/her audience.

Directories too, are only interested in adding Web sites of substance and value.

A more mature site will also help you impress a human editor and secure a

major directory listing.

Directories Are Different From Search Engines

Think of directories as gigantic bookmark lists, organized into categories

and sub-categories, and sub-sub-categories, etc. They do not spider

pages. For many directories, humans review and decide what “gets in.”

If a directory was a nightclub, the editors would be bouncers. If you don’t

add to the scene, you don’t make the scene!

The major directories drove significant amounts of traffic in the “good

old days.” Yahoo!'s directory sent as many visitors as Google does today.

Today, you pay the $299 (commercial site fee) for Yahoo!’s directory (not

their engine) mostly for the quality of the link, not for the traffic (although

certain less crowded niches may still send some traffic).

The directory model has faded badly because it is human-compiled. That

is simply too slow and inefficient to keep up with the rapidly growing Net.

Very few surfers use directories to perform their keyword queries because

they cannot provide the breadth of diversity and relevance of search

results that the major SEs can.

Bottom line? A directory listing's value today is not the traffic it

brings, but the quality of the inbound link it provides.

The best directories to be listed in are managed and maintained by

human editors. Every site in these directories has met a certain minimum

standard of quality. If a major free Search Engine finds your listing in

DMOZ.org (Open Directory Project) or dir.yahoo.com (and, to a lesser

extent, the second tier human-reviewed directories), it knows your site

belongs in its database as well, and deserves a couple of “quality kudo

points,” too.

Securing a major directory listing is a particularly good way to accelerate

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credibility for a new site. Unfortunately, DMOZ is slow and Yahoo! costs

$299/year for a commercial site, as much as all of SBI!.

How To Maximize Your Chances Of Acceptance

Note: These comments apply to both major directories and second tier

ones (discussed in the next section).

1) Increase Number of Pages

Wait until you've built your site up to at least 20-30 pages before you

submit to the directories (free and paid). Anything less is likely to be

rejected for reasons of insufficient content.

2) Follow the Requirements

Each directory has a set of requirements you must follow when submitting

your site. Failure to follow them can mean an immediate rejection.

Always submit to the correct category, and do not submit to more than

one category.

3) Delay Monetization

Apply before monetizing (especially before you add Google/Yahoo! ads

and affiliate links). Many Tier 2 directory editors are anti-commercial, as if

making money somehow lessens your site. So patience pays...

Some SBIers have tried to apply to Yahoo!'s directory as non-commercial,

but it’s not wise to try to fool Yahoo! this way. Since you should apply as

a commercial site ($299), it’s fine to have some monetization. But don’t

cover your site in Google AdSense ads. Remember, editors are human!

If you are receiving 50 visitors per day, and already have a few nondirectory

in-pointing links, don’t wait… Monetize!

What To Do If Rejected By A Major?

Keep things in perspective. The editor system is a subjective one. Do

not let it bother you. Instead, learn.

Apply again to a month later, this time in a different category (hopefully

with a different editor). But only do this after improving your site. (More

details to come.)

Once you have your 20-30 high value pages, build a simple inbound link

program, sprinkled with a few high-quality value exchanges (be patient) and even

a couple of super-high-quality outbound-only links.

Here’s how to get your link program rolling along…

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#1) Get IN-coming links from the major directories, and second tier

directories.

Second tier directories are not quite on par with the majors. That shouldn't

deter you, though. Remember, you are not after the traffic from these

directories. You want the valuable in-pointing link.

There are other advantages, too, that make a 2nd tier directory a valid

option to consider...

• Entry is easier.

• They are also relatively cheap.

• You can generally get a good link in a relevant category, at a higher

level than you would in a major. (Generally, links closer to the top level

directory are worth more -- i.e., a listing in Shopping > Clothes is worth

more than one in Shopping > Clothes > Women’s Clothes.)

• Your listing is not diluted by a million other links in the same category,

making it more valuable to a Search Engine (the more links on a page,

the less value is bestowed to each link).

Look into theme directories for your niche, along with local directories for

your state/province or region. Start with these two resources...

1) Strongest Links is a list of directories that you can sort by name,

Google PR, Alexa ranking, whether they have free submissions, and the

cost of paid submissions.

http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

Click on the link at the top of each column to sort the list. When you're

done with that list, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the link to

the geographic and niche directories.

2) InfoVileSilencer is another site with a list of directories (many are not

included in Strongest Links).

http://info.vilesilencer.com/

#2) Get IN-coming links from theme-specific sections of the major free

directories.

Explore Search It!’s Inbound Link Opportunities category…

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#3) Participate in SiteSell’s Value Exchange. It is the simplest, fastest, most

efficient, and (most importantly) most real way to identify high-value sites that

want to link to your site.

It's also a true ethical use of the Net, exactly the way Search Engines want you to

do it -- relevant sites linking to relevant sites only. See this blog post…

http://blog.sitesell.com/sitesell/2008/07/in-my-previous.html

#4) OUTbound-link with high-quality theme-related, non-competing sites as

you happen to discover them in the course of normal business or surfing --

exchange links with them, if possible.

Linkage counts both ways, IN-pointing and OUT-pointing. If your outgoing

“linkees” go to an income-generating source for you, even better!

Links OUT count with the human editors of directories and your visitors, too. If

directory editors see that you provide bona fide links to other quality sites, your

site is more credible, a more valuable resource for their directory. Visitors

appreciate being presented with quality, credible links to related material that

further enhances their surfing experience.

On the other hand, nothing is more damaging to you, your credibility and your

ability to build your business than linking to an inferior Web site. By providing a

link, you are in essence placing your seal of approval on the linked Web site.

Should that site be of low quality, visitors will question your judgment.

The SE’s will not take a positive view of such practices either. Should you linkout

to a low quality site that practices deceptive linking strategies, the SEs may

penalize you. After all, you are in essence condoning such activity.

What’s the take-home message here?

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While you can’t control which sites link to your Web site (and therefore cannot be

held responsible for it), you must choose your out-pointing links wisely.

IN-pointing and OUT-pointing links are both important. In general, of course, you

want to have far more in-pointing. And don’t make all out-pointing links purely

monetary links. You want to show your visitors that you have their best

interests at heart, not just yours!

By far, the easiest, long-term strategy for building link popularity is a passive one.

Simply build a site of such high quality that people want to link to it in order to

increase the value of their own visitors’ experiences.

What could be easier? Your link popularity builds itself!

7.3. Seed Link-Building Buzz

Building a buzz about your niche site is a secondary traffic-building technique.

Depending on your situation, some of the strategies outlined in this chapter will

work very well for you. Others will not.

Either way, wait to investigate secondary strategies until after your business has

a solid foundation of quality content. In other words, until you have at least 50

quality content pages, your efforts are better utilized by focusing upon…

C T P M

… and building traffic from the major Search Engines. As far as “bang for the

buck” goes, this approach yields a far better Return On Investment (ROI) for your

time.

How do you build buzz? First piece of advice, don’t bother with those

“recommend-a-friend” scripts. Less than one visitor in a thousand fills them in.

There’s a far simpler way to get “word of mouth.” Deliver great content.

Want an example? Let’s say that you have a wonderful theme-based site about

succulent plants (i.e., cactus, euphorbia, etc.). You have a terrific page about all

the tricks you have developed for propagating them.

Other aficionados find that page at the engines. Do you think they’ll tell friends,

or forums, or cactus associations, about this terrific info? Sure they will. Just one

more huge benefit of OVERdelivering! But one big warning…

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Average content = near-zero world of mouth. After all, have you ever been

excited by “average?”

Great content is the only way to go!

Have visitors create content for you when you use Content 2.0.

Turn any page into an irresistible invitation for visitors to join in the fun.

Other visitors then comment and rate the pages.

For a general overview, visit http://c2.sitesell.com/

When the time is right, use these other techniques to seed link-building buzz,

especially if you are selling your own product or professional service…

• write articles for e-zines or article distribution sites

• make posts in forums, discussion groups, mailing lists, newsgroups (depending

on your niche and situation, these can be fairly effective… or totally useless)

Forum postings can build up your site’s link popularity somewhat,

provided they are closely related in topic to your site. Use Search It!

(Inbound Link Opportunities) to identify best choices.

• publish your own blog, a Web log/diary (discussed in DAY 8)

• use a signature file (i.e., contact information, including your URL and preferably

your VPP) in your daily e-mail correspondence.

• social bookmarking sites

http://www.furl.net/

http://del.icio.us/

http://friendfeed.com/

http://www.stumbleupon.com/

• participate in Yahoo! Answers

http://answers.yahoo.com/

• send out press releases

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Depending on your circumstances, some or all of the above techniques could be

effective in seeing an increase in the buzz around your business…

Circumstance 1) The “nichier” your site, the better. If your site covers a topic

already well-addressed by a zillion other sites, it will be much harder to stand out

from the crowd and make an impression with your visitors.

Circumstance 2) Your site should have over 50 pages. There must be

substance.

Circumstance 3) Your content should be of outstanding value to targeted

visitors.

If all three circumstances are present, then investigating these strategies makes

sense. There’s no point in making a post or writing an article otherwise.

OK, suppose you’ve got a high-quality content-rich niche site that delivers

outstanding content. You make a fantastic post at a relevant forum, including

your conservative signature file. What happens next?

Forum visitors visit your site, tell their friends, put a link on their site to yours, and

discuss your site at relevant forums and discussion groups. Talk about a homerun

buzz!

A word of caution… Even the best forum posts won’t generate traffic like

a properly optimized content page. Forum posts will yield a short-term

blip of traffic until your post cycles off the main page of the discussion.

On the other hand, properly optimized KFCPs deliver traffic 24/7, 365

days a year. A forum post has a relatively short lifespan in comparison.

Now, before you proceed to DAY 8, please complete your DAY 7 Goal-of-the-

DAY, and take note of your Ongoing Goal...

Create more relevant, quality content. Build a solid links program. Be patient

and trust the process.

If you have an immature Web site, you really should investigate a few of the

directory options presented in this chapter. You don’t need to spend a lot of

money but a couple of decent links will go a long way to keep the SEs spidering.

Let’s now move towards deepening the relationship with all that targeted traffic…

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8. DAY 8

Build Relationships

Big shots are only little shots who kept shooting

-- Christopher Morely (1880-1957)

Goal-of-the-DAY... Identify a way to communicate with your visitors on a regular

basis and build a relationship based on trust and credibility. Become a friend

rather than a stranger.

“We all prefer to do business with those we like and trust.”

That simple truth has existed since prehistoric (wo)man traded mammoth-tusk

carvings for new-model wheels. It’s a shame so many business people forget or

ignore this. In the faceless online world, this concept may seem as extinct as

those mammoths. In fact, it is more valid than ever.

Your goal is to build a quality, long-term, repeat-exposure relationship with your

visitors/customers so that they will happily return to your site frequently... and

monetize! Site-blogging and e-zines are two strong ways to deepen the

PREselling that your high-value content has begun.

You need a Backup Response, an alternative reason to visit. A good Backup

Response must...

• deliver a benefit to your visitor at a “no-brainer” price (free is best), and...

• provide you with an ongoing opportunity to remind your customer about you and

your product/service or the merchant-partners that you represent.

Sooner or later, a healthy percentage of those who trigger your Backup

Response will deliver your MWR -- a sale or a contract, depending on your

situation. Why? Because you’re building a quality, long term, repeated

exposure, one-to-one relationship with your visitor/customer.

8.1. Build Relationships With A Site-Blog

Blogging is taking the world by storm. Or so it would seem if you’ve been

reading anything from Newsweek to the most specialized online publications

(and you should not be -- SBI! does that, so you can focus on business).

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A “blog” (“web log”) is, at its simplest, merely a journal of entries that one

makes on a Web page. Each entry has a “permalink” to a dedicated Web

page. The most recent entries are sorted to the top, meaning that Web

pages are sorted chronologically rather than topically.

Blogging gained popularity rapidly when “RSS” (more on this below)

became a simple way to distribute these journals. It is the “perfect

medium” for communicators and thinkers who have “something to say” on

a frequent basis.

Here’s the bottom lines on blogging. Most small business people don’t have...

• the time

• the inclination

• the subject matter.

While full-blogging is only right for some small businesses, blogging is

recognized by more and more regular Web surfers. The mass market is

subscribing to blogs. And...

Since your visitors like your content, they will want more of it. It’s your pleasure

to give it to them, as long as it does not require you to master a new technology

and create more content than you are already doing now.

With SBI!, all you have to do is click to set up a site-blog. There is no

new content to create since SBI! will simply, automatically reformat your

newest content into a blog!

http://blogorbuild.sitesell.com/

Don’t confuse a blog with RSS. Your blog is the content. RSS is how you

distribute your content. Think of it like your local newspaper. The blog is the

newspaper. RSS is the paperboy.

But what exactly is RSS?...

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication.” And that is exactly what it is... a new

way for you to distribute content. That content can be any electronic

communication (i.e., Web pages, mp3s, video, etc.)

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RSS/Blog It! converts your SBI! site into a blog. It turns your RSS feed into a

perfectly formatted and visible TIER 2 Web page. Of course, that gets the

attention of both your human and spider visitors!

And here’s the fun part. Every time you create or modify a Web page, those

changes are distributed through RSS to the world. It even automatically pings

every major RSS/blog engine/directory, saving you the tedium of doing that every

time you post.

Visitors subscribe to your site, the way they subscribe to your e-zine! It’s the

best of both worlds. Publishing a site-blog is a fantastic, non-intrusive way to

maintain contact with your visitors.

Your site blog lets them know “something's new.” Since they like your material,

they click to re-visit your site. Bingo!

Use Search It! to find breaking information that you can pass on to your

visitors.

Search It! > Reference Library for Content (STEP 1) > Google News

(STEP 2) > cactus propagation (STEP 3)

Site-blogging is so easy, and such an effective way to build a following and build

traffic faster, you should enable it within your first 10 pages.

8.2. Build Relationships With An E-Zine

A common Backup Response on the Web is the e-zine (an e-mailed newsletter).

Once you have some decent numbers, it takes only a day to get an e-zine up and

running.

A good e-zine tells its readers to revisit you…

• to click on something missed during the first visit

• to respond to an announcement you make

• to see new content you’ve added

The e-zine builds a relationship of trust between you and your visitors. Put

yourself in the visitor’s mind. A new e-mail arrives from you. Full of excellent

content that meets her needs, the e-mail prompts her either…

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• to click on the link back to your site to take you up on your great offer

• to click on a link to one of your affiliate partners

• to file in her memory that you are the person with the answers to her questions.

You will use the content in your e-zine to get your MWR. It’s fine to give lots of

information. But use that information to PREsell. Give your visitor a reason to

click on a link back to your site or directly to one of your affiliates.

The WIN-WIN provides information for your visitor and income for you.

8.2.1. Build a Sales Page For Your E-Zine

How good of you to provide a free e-zine! But will your visitors subscribe?...

It’s free but… you still need to sell the idea that another piece of e-mail is a good

idea. After all, your visitor is going to give up her e-mail address and the time it

takes to read what you send.

While she’s on your site, she needs to feel that continued contact with you will be

worth her while. So you will…

• stress the benefits of your particular newsletter

• add a clear “call to action”

• finish with a subscription form

Make sure the benefits are clear. Add a testimonial. Link to back issues. (Some

Web masters write an issue or two no one else receives so they will have back

issues. Visitors can see what they will get.)

Stress that your e-zine is free.

Add a professional look with a great cover like those at

Killer Covers.com

http://www.killercovers.com/

Then tell her exactly what to do… Subscribe!

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SBI! back-issues each issue of your e-zine and submits it to the Search

Engines (once only). You can either include a link on your site to your

back issues to show off the quality you deliver, or you can reserve back

issues for your subscribers’ viewing only. It’s your call.

8.2.2. Develop A Format Template…

And Stay With It!

Readers like familiarity and predictability… so develop a template, and stick

with it. Make only minor, incremental changes every now and then, saving your

last issue as the template for the next one. From top to bottom, here’s a quick

list of things to address in your format...

1) Name your e-zine -- you want your subscriber to smile in recollection when

she sees it. Make the name short, memorable, descriptive, and relevant.

2) Subject, including Issue Number and Date

3) Small logo

4) First text block -- start off your e-zine with a catchy benefit-oriented slogan. For

example, under your Cactus Gardening logo, you might type into your first text

block...

“Prickly Issues, Creative Solutions”

5) After that, experiment with a combination of text blocks, line breaks and divider

lines, so that you can deliver the following “starting information”...

i) Valuable PREselling Proposition -- stress the key points of your e-zine.

ii) A promo pass-along -- add something like this...

If you like this e-zine, please do a friend

and me a big favor and “pay it forward.”

If a friend DID forward this to you and if

you like what you read, please subscribe by

visiting...

(Then add a link to your page that promotes your opt-in newsletter.)

6) Issue number and Date (you did it in the subject, now repeat it in the body)

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7) Table of Contents -- show your reader what you’re covering in this issue.

Provide tantalizing “read me” headlines in your TOC.

8) From this point, experiment with…

• headline blocks to start each section

• dividers

• line breaks

9) Then the content!

10) You might want to add one more text block before the closing information

(unsubscribe, etc. -- details a bit later) for your readers. This text block could

include anything, for example...

Comments? Ideas? Feedback?

I’d love to hear from you.

Just reply to this e-zine

and tell me what you think!

11) Closing information. You need to give readers a chance to unsubscribe, etc.

Make sure to save all this as a template for future e-zines (more on this below),

so you don’t have to do it all over again.

From a building block approach to setting up a template, to creating a

subscription form, to automating the mailing list, to tracking statistics like

open rates, SBI!’s MailOut Manager does it all.

http://buildit.sitesell.com/

8.2.3. Set Up Your Subscription

You’ve already created a form for subscribers on your sales page. You may opt

to include this form on other pages, or at the least include a link from other TIER

2 or TIER 3 pages to your sales page.

Do include an e-zine button on your navigation bar so visitors can find the sales

page easily. And be sure to include many references to your e-zine so your

visitor has many opportunities to sign up.

To prevent spamming and/or to prevent people from giving other people’s names

and addresses without consent, use the “double opt-in” approach… your visitor

must confirm her subscription.

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Although adopting a double opt-in policy means you will grow your list slightly

more slowly than a marketer using the single opt-in approach, there are several

reasons why it is smart to adopt such a strategy...

1) A double opt-in policy builds a truly qualified, high value list. Do not be

concerned about losing a few subscribers. The confirmation step ensures that

your subscribers are interested in you and your product or service.

2) A double opt-in policy establishes your credibility with the subscriber, and

emphasizes the value of your publication.

3) A double opt-in policy lowers the risk of being reported to a spam policing

server by an overzealous surfer.

The value of a qualified subscriber’s list? Priceless -- no credit card can buy that

kind of confidence!

8.2.4. Advertise Your E-Zine

List your newsletter in major e-zine directories on the Web. You’ll find these

work much the same way as the main directories. Drill down through the

categories and sub-categories to find the best place and submit your newsletter

to the most appropriate section of the directory.

Some submission tips to consider…

Try some tinkering first. Do a search for your most important keywords at each

directory, and note from which categories the returned results are coming.

Check for keywords in the Title and the Description, as well. Remember, your

subscriber is most likely to find you as a result of a keyword search. So do your

best to ensure your site is listed for each particular keyword.

Keep in mind that your Description is the only impression a directory visitor will

get of your e-zine, so make sure you sell it!

Bottom line on the e-zine directories?...

It depends. If your e-zine is about a popular topic that is likely to generate many

keyword searches and you’ve listed your site properly (with a compelling

Description), there’s no reason why these directories shouldn’t bring a constant

trickle of subscribers to your newsletter.

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Of course, if your newsletter is about a highly specific niche topic, your major

concern will be listing in directories that receive enough traffic to generate

keyword searches for that topic. It’s ideal if you can find a directory dedicated to

a category that includes your theme.

All in all, if you can hit the major e-zine directories in an hour or so, it’s not a bad

way to spend your time. Just be sure to do your homework. Learn how to

submit properly, or you’ll be wasting your time.

There are free resources where everybody and everyone can list their e-zines for

nothing. These include...

New-List.com

http://new-list.com/submit/

Newsletter Access

http://www.newsletteraccess.com/

EzineAnnouncer

http://www.ezineannouncer.com/

There’s a pleasant bonus when you market your newsletter. Not only will you

build your e-publication, you will build more traffic to your site (if you provide a

link from your subscription page to your home page). On top of that, you will also

generate some all-important link popularity which is always a good thing!

An e-zine is not the only way to stay on your visitors’ radar screens…

8.3. Build Relationships With Forms

Forms are an easy and safe way to communicate and interact with your visitors

and customers. SPAM-bots can read e-mail addresses off your Web site so

having a Contact Form in place of an e-mail link is essential.

Forms usage is limited only by your imagination…

• conduct a survey or poll

• create a series of sequential Autoresponder messages or an e-course

• collect feedback from your visitors

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• get leads or referrals

Start your research with these products…

Quask

http://www.quask.com/

SmartDraw

http://www.smartdraw.com/

XIGLA

http://www.xigla.com/absolutefp/

Ready for the wrap-up?…

DAY 8 is all about building a quality, long term, repeated exposure, one-to-one

relationship with your visitor/customer. It’s about building trust, credibility and a

sense of community. Once you achieve this, you become a knowledgeable

friend making a recommendation. You are no longer a stranger.

You have only one day to go to complete the course. Before proceeding to DAY

9, please complete your DAY 8 Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing

Goal...

Reach out to your target audience, whenever and however you can. Make them

think about your business first and not your competitors.

Now it’s time to analyze your traffic base from different angles...

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9. DAY 9

Know Your Visitors

Knowledge is power...

Power to boost income.

Goal-of-the-DAY... Familiarize yourself with a good traffic-reporting package.

Convert your Theme-Based Content Site's OUTgoing links into special tracking

links (no need to do this with Site Build It! -- all links OUT are automatically

created as tracking links)...

It has cost you time and money to generate your INCOMING traffic. Your

outgoing traffic generates income for you. You can measure both… income

minus expenses equals profits.

If we stopped here, your site would be a black box. A “black box” is a concept

used in physics. You can measure what goes into the black box, and you can

measure what comes out of the black box... but you don’t know what the heck is

happening inside of that black box. In other words, you don’t know why things

happen.

And for your long-term success, that’s critical. Why?

Because if you know more about the nature of your INCOMING and OUTGOING

traffic, you can maximize your returns for every dollar and minute that you spend!

Yes, that is kind of important... “critical,” even.

And what do you need to know?

1) Traffic

2) Links in

3) Links out.

Let’s start peeking inside your “black box” by studying your traffic...

Traffic, of course, is your lifeblood. You need the means to do some “blood

tests” to determine your site’s health.

Unfortunately, all the traffic analysis packages out there are written by techies...

for techies. They give you so much data... just because they can! But all you

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need to know is... what you need to know! You need information, not reams of

useless data.

The key to traffic analysis is to simplify. Forget the 150 different ways that

traffic-analyzing software slices and dices hits, visits, pages, page views, and

visitors. You simply don’t need to know how many left-handed Norwegians visit

your site between 3-4 AM on Sundays.

So let’s prune away all the useless data, and keep just the “need to know”

information...

9.1. Analyze Your “Big Picture” Traffic Stats

First, the big picture...

All traffic-reporting software packages cover the basics... average number of

visits, visitors, and pages viewed per day, as well as the totals on a per-month

basis. Here’s what those terms mean...

• Visits -- the number of visits to your site

• Visitors -- the number of different people who visit your site (ex., a visitor

could account for 10 visits)

• Page Views -- the number of pages viewed by all the visitors during all the

visits. A single visitor might view only one page... or twenty.

Question: What about hits? Everyone talks about hits!

Short answer... forget hits.

A hit is simply a line in your site’s log file. If a page has 3 graphics on it, that’s 4

hits (1 for the html page itself, plus 3 for the graphics). But if that same page has

100 graphics on it, that’s 101 hits!

See why the number of hits is a useless stat?

Yes, but why does everyone quote hits, then?

Two reasons... either they don’t understand the term, or they understand it and

use hits because it sounds bigger! In any event, “hits” is a useless thing to

measure to understand your traffic.

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By comparing your monthly “big picture” data, you should be able to see

steady growth in your site’s overall traffic. If not, the “patient” needs a good dose

of traffic-building medicine (luckily, that medicine is nearby... just above,

actually!). Ongoing traffic-building is a good idea even if traffic is building nicely

-- you can never have too much!

Now that you have the big picture, it’s time to delve inside and pull out some

important details...

• Daily statistics -- visits, visitors and page views must be reported on a

day-by-day basis, in both absolute terms and as a percentage of the total

(ex., percent of total visitors). If you do a special traffic promotion on a certain

day (ex., run an ad in an e-zine), a daily statistic report is an easy way to gauge

the response.

• Most popular pages -- your page view stats must be delivered on a per-page

basis, with the page generating the most page views reported first. By

understanding which pages are most popular, you understand better the needs

of your visitors. Correlate this with your link-tracking data (more on this below)

to make sure that your most popular pages “get the click” to your incomegenerating

programs. Also, use this data to get a better feel for what your market

wants... and, just as important, what it does not want.

• Most popular entry pages -- same as the previous section, except that this

specifically tells you which pages are the most popular “entry” pages. A page

counts as an entry page when it starts a visit. Correlate this with how people

find you (referrers and keywords, discussed just below), and you have a wealth

of insight into how your site is being discovered, and what people want. Use

these conclusions to give you ideas for other related, profitable areas for content

development.

• Most frequent exit pages -- these are the pages from which people leave

your site. Some people look upon high numbers for a given page as “bad.” But

you have to correlate this with other data. If a “high entry” page is also a “high

exit” page, that’s not really a surprise. If a “high exit” page is also generating

tons of links out to your income-generating programs for you, that’s not so bad

either, is it?

• Referrer URLs -- this tells you where your traffic is coming from... Search

Engines, other Web sites, link exchanges, etc. Extremely useful info!

• Keyword search -- which keywords are people entering into engines to find

you? That’s what this super-valuable data tells you!

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Taken together, referrer page and keyword search data tell you where and how

your visitors find you, which gives you a base to build even more traffic-building

ideas!

As you can see, traffic analysis is actually a pretty simple task... when you know

what you’re looking for, and how to turn data into information.

Site Build It! provides you with exactly these traffic stats. No need to

install or configure any software or to figure out what’s important. With

SBI!, you have everything a good content site needs at your fingertips.

And the information is presented cleanly and in an easy-to-understand

manner.

Traffic analysis is the base. It tells you what you need to know about quantities

of visits, visitors, and page views. It shows you where they come from (if via the

Web) and what words they used to find you at the Search Engines. But you

need more…

Now that you understand traffic flow, you need to be able to see exactly what’s

working in the two bottom-line areas that matter most...

1) how you spend your traffic-building time and money -- what’s working, and

what’s not. Spend only on the techniques that bear fruit.

2) how you make your money -- gear your content more and more towards what

gets the click. Because that’s what builds your income.

So how do we get this information? Through two forms of analysis that are

specialized for content sites like yours...

• Click IN Analysis

and…

• Click Through Analysis

Before we go further, let’s talk about two different kinds of links...

1) OFF-SITE links that bring traffic IN to you

2) ON-SITE links that send traffic OUT.

OFF-SITE links do not appear on your Web site. People will not actually click

upon these links while they are on your site. Rather, your potential visitors see

these links off your site... in e-zine ads, or offline print ads, in flyers that you

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distribute at trade or hobby conventions, or in your sig file (at the end of your

e-mail). And they’ll use these links to come into your site.

Since you spend time and/or money on these traffic-building activities, you need

a way to measure this, to track which off-site promotions are working, and which

are not. Once you know which of your expense-generating activities work and

which ones don’t... you know where to spend your promotional time and money!

And where to stop! You build upon your successes and fix your weaknesses.

Let’s contrast that with ON-SITE links...

ON-SITE links appear on your site, and send visitors out of that page. These

links all go to income-generating sites (merchant-partners via affiliate programs,

your own online store, or your own sales site for products that you have

developed). In other words, ON-SITE links generate income.

So how do we track these two kinds of links?...

It all boils down to this. We track how to best spend our traffic-building time and

money via Click IN Analysis. We track what’s generating income by Click

Through Analysis.

9.2. Explore Click IN Analysis

Let’s talk about Click IN Analysis first...

Click INs occur when people click on an OFF-SITE link and come into your

Theme-Based Content Site. Click INs cost you time and/or money (explained

above).

So analyze what works (do more of it) and what fails (drop or improve it).

In order to do Click IN Analysis, you create special tracking links. You create

these links specifically to track the success of your OFF-site promotional

campaigns. You place a different link in each of your promotional campaigns so

that they are easy to track.

When the user clicks on a tracking link, she first goes to a computer program that

records the click, and where it came from. Then the program sends the visitor to

the page in your site that you had specified.

Click IN analysis yields the following...

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• total clicks coming in, for all your special links, and also for each special

tracking link that you create

• “first-time vs. repeat” click INs, for all click INs, and also on a link-by-link

basis. In other words, has the person who is clicking on a link clicked on it

before?

You now have a way of measuring the exact traffic-building success of every offsite

promotional campaign, whether you’re...

• bidding for keywords on Pay-Per-Click engines

• buying ads in e-zines

• posting an ad on the bulletin board of your local grocery store

• no matter how you promote!

Here are some of the uses and advantages of Click IN Analysis...

1) The Untraceable Link -- Some links have no Referring URL, so it’s

impossible to know where they come from through regular traffic analysis. But

geez, we need to know this data. For example...

i) links from a free e-book that you are using as a promotional tool.

ii) links from e-mail of any kind... sig files, links in mailing lists, Autoresponder

campaigns, links in the e-zine that you publish, ads that you buy in

e-zines.

iii) links from non-Web based newsgroups

iv) links that are simply typed in, often due to offline exposure (especially

targeted print media). Tracking links are great for any kind of offline promotion.

v) links from your blog.

By creating a special tracking link for each of these “untraceable links,” you’ll

know what has been previously impossible to know.

2) Testing e-zine ads -- set a different tracking URL for each ad that you write.

That way you can measure which ad generates a better response. Here’s how...

Run Ad #1 in E-zine #1 and Ad #2 in E-zine #2, then switch a month later. Which

ad got more responses overall? Stick with what’s profitable. Drop the rest.

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E-zine advertising becomes very cost-effective when you can drop the dogs and

increase your budget for the winners.

3) Test Web-based advertising -- Even if your promotion is Web-based, it’s

more convenient to run tracking links than to review the Traffic Stats Referrer

information (which do tell you which sites links originate from). So use your

special tracking links to track the performance of banners, Pay-Per-Click Search

Engines, even posts to forums and discussion groups.

So far, we’ve talked about tracking the various possible origins of the tracking

links (i.e., the OFF-SITE places where potential visitors see and click on your

tracking link... e-zines, pay-per-clicks, etc.). And we’ve assumed that the

ultimate destination of those links is to your Theme-Based Content Site.

But you have several options for the ultimate destination of your OFF-SITE

tracking links...

1) Your Theme-Based Content Site -- Let’s say that you have a terrific page

about a special kind of flower. That page has several in-context text links... links

to books, growers, affiliate programs, etc, etc. You take an e-zine ad. Where

should the ultimate destination be?

Easy... to your Keyword-Focused Content Page! Since you have worked so

many in-context text links into your OVERdelivering copy, you have a whole

bunch of chances that a sale occurs on at least one of your merchant-partners’

sites.

2) Straight to a merchant-partner -- On the other hand, suppose you write a

wonderful article about this special flower as content for a prominent e-zine

published by a third party. Your “payment” is that you can include your URLs.

Where should these links point?

Easy... work those special tracker links into the content of the article, and point

them straight to your merchant partners. One link for each merchant. Since

anyone who clicks passes through the tracking script first, you’ll see exactly how

many people clicked on each link! No point in directing them to the same info on

your site, right?

3) A free trial download -- Even a download URL can be the destination.

Offering a free e-book on that special kind of flower? Take an ad in an e-zine,

offering the link straight to the download. Naturally, the e-book will have links to

your various merchant-partners, and to your Theme-Based Content Site. Every

one of those in-book links should be special tracking links, too!

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4) Your online store -- Same idea. If you have an online store that needs traffic,

and if the situation dictates that you’re better off by sending visitors “directly” to

your store (after passing through the tracking script, of course), then do that.

The same point goes if you have a site that sells single products or your services.

If an ad costs you $100, but you see that it generated 500 visitors, and if you

know that 2% of your visitors buy... it’s easy to figure out whether your ad is

profitable!

No matter where these visitors originate from, and no matter where you send

them to, Click IN Analysis reports how well each promotional effort is working.

Click IN Analysis is vital for anyone building income through content.

Unfortunately, existing services are very expensive.

Site Build It! provides all this. The Tracker Library makes it a snap to set

up your special tracking links. And you get complete Click IN Analysis

reports at the click of your mouse!

Cost? Included in Site Build It!…

http://order.sitesell.com/

9.3. Explore Click Through Analysis

Click throughs occur when people click on a link on your Theme-Based Content

Site and leave it. (They don’t actually leave since you pop open a new window for

them!) We should actually call them “click outs” -- but since the industry is used

to “click through,” we're stuck with that term!

Click throughs earn you income. Why? Well, it all depends where those click

throughs are going...

• affiliate programs -- a percentage of those turn into sales or leads (or whatever

action your merchant-partner pays for).

• your own online store -- a percentage will buy, yielding you a profit.

• your “order page” that sells an e-book or software that you developed, or even

your services.

• your Net auction listing.

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To maximize click throughs, of course, you know that you must create highvalue

content that OVERdelivers what your visitors were looking for. Blending

“in-context” text links into your copy gets the click through.

Once you’ve done that, of course, you need a way to know what's “getting the

click”... and what’s not! And that’s where Click Through Analysis comes into

play.

In order to do “Click Through Analysis,” you convert your regular OUTGOING

links (i.e., links to your merchant-partners, your online store, and your sales site)

into special tracking links. When your visitor clicks on such a link, she first goes

to a computer program that records the click and where it came from. Then the

program sends the visitor to the income-building site that you had specified.

Click Through Analysis yields the following...

• total click throughs for all your ON-SITE links, as well as for each ON-SITE link

(i.e., on a link-by-link basis)

• “first-time vs. repeat” click throughs for the total of all click throughs on

all your ON-SITE links and also on a link-by-link basis. In other words, has the

person who is clicking on a link clicked on it before?

• and, of course, the clicks divided by the page views, which gives you your

“Click Through Rate” for all your links as a group, and also on a link-by-link basis.

Excellent Click Through Analysis would even slice and dice your click through

analysis like this...

1) It would present you with link-by-link data, broken down for every page that

each link appears upon (in other words, if LINK A appears on Pages 1, 2, and 3,

it shows you how LINK A performed on each of those pages)

2) And it would present you page-by-page data, broken down with the

performance of every link on each page. (In other words, if Page 1 contains

LINKS A, B, and C, it shows you how each of those links performed on that

page.)

And perfect Click Through Analysis would give you all this data for any time span

that you request!

Bottom Line?

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With Click Through Analysis, you have an exact success rate of every single ONSITE

link. And that, dear reader, measures income... your money.

This analysis is totally integrated with Site Build It!’s site-building tools.

All you have to do is click your mouse to get the reports.

You’ll know exactly what people are clicking upon and what they are not. From

that point, it’s just a question of building upon your successes and fixing your

weaknesses to maximize your income.

Click Through Analysis is as critical for your Theme-Based Content Site as Click

IN Analysis.

POWER-USER TIP: Want perfect tracking of how effective your e-zine

ad is? Combine Click IN Analysis and Click Through Analysis!

Do this...

1) Place an ad in an e-zine, or bid on keywords from a Pay-Per-Click

Search Engine. The link goes to a page on your site that receives clicks

only from this ad. It can be a simple duplicate of one of your site’s preexisting

pages. But it should not receive links from anywhere else,

including even from your own site.

2) On that page, create new tracker links to your affiliate programs, links

that are unique for this ad. You should not use these tracker links

anywhere else.

3) Now your Click IN Analysis can track the INcoming traffic and your

Click Through Analysis can see how many of those folks coming IN

actually go to your income-generating programs (or your sales site, online

store, etc.)

You’ll know exactly and you will be able to say... “This e-zine ad on this

day (or this Pay-Per-Click listing) brought in this many visitors of which

this many clicked on to this and that merchant.”

Since you know the Conversion Rate for each of your merchant-partners

(or your sales site/store), you know whether it makes sense to keep

advertising, or to find more targeted e-zines, or more targeted keywords

on the pay-per-clicks.

This technique works for e-zine ads, opt-in mailings, or article

submissions that direct readers to your Theme-Based Content Site, and it

can be very helpful to test the cost-effectiveness of the Pay-Per-Click

Search Engines.

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As I said, though, this requires a fair degree of savvy and some work.

Definitely for power users only.

And, if it’s more appropriate to send readers directly to your merchants

(instead of a page on your site), then this extra step would not be a good

idea. It’s something to keep in mind.

Take-home lesson for DAY 9?...

Know your visitors, the heart of your business, by following traffic stats. And

tracking links in and out is the key to maximizing income by getting the most

return from all your traffic-building expenses.

Please complete your DAY 9 Goal-of-the-DAY, and take note of your Ongoing

Goal...

Create one OFF-SITE promotion with special tracking links per week (or

whatever fits for you).

Review traffic stats, and do both Click IN and Click Through Analysis regularly.

Watch for trends. Build on your successes and either drop or improve what does

not work.

What’s next? It’s the moment that we have delayed gratification for, ever since

DAY 4. Let’s harvest the fruits of your labor...

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10. DAY 10

Monetize!

Goal-of-the-DAY… C T P M... It's finally “M” time! Implement your

Monetization plan.

You have a solid and growing foundation of high-quality content pages. You are

value-exchanging selectively and garnering quality in-pointing links from niche

directories. Targeted traffic is building.

Your PREselling efforts are becoming more refined as you build your “Brand of

One.” You are nurturing trust and credibility with your new (and repeat!) visitors

by OVERdelivering relevant, original, high-value information (through your site,

Blog It!, e-zine, etc.). People like your content... and you!

Now, your site is ready to convert those ever-increasing numbers of PREsold

visitors into income. How? By blending together your primary monetization

model with a few others, in order to create a diverse, stable online business.

In DAY 4, your focus was on “show me the money.” You needed to be sure of

the monetary potential. Now it’s time to “make me the money.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the question, “When do I monetize?” As a

general rule of thumb, do not monetize before you...

• have at least 30 pages

• have at least 4 relevant, quality in-pointing links, of which two should be

from directories (ex., DMOZ, Yahoo! (dir.yahoo.com), niche directories)

• have started to receive a steady stream of visitors (at least 20 per day).

Why wait? If you have less than 20 visitors per day, there is

nothing to monetize (unless you sell an expensive service or

specialized product). But there are all kinds of potential downsides

to adding AdSense ads and affiliate links too soon on your site.

Why risk it?

Does your site meet the above guidelines. If not, keep adding content and get at

least a few solid in-pointing links. Don’t worry about how much money you could

be making from those “15 visitors per day.” You are not ready for M yet.

Once you can say “yes” to the above 3 criteria, ask yourself three more

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questions. These ones are “softer” (i.e., qualitative) but they are even more

important for your long-term success.

1) Have I created value for my target audience?

2) Does my content/information focus on the needs of my visitors first, rather

than my need to make money?

3) Does my site have a clear VPP and voice or does it sound like an

encyclopedia? You are not Wikipedia. Rewrite if you answer “encyclopedia.”

Write to PREsell. Do it now, before you realize you have to rewrite 100 pages!

Always remember...

You are a “Content Provider” first and foremost. You are not your

monetization model.

High-quality, relevant Content is what drives the CTP engine that delivers high

volumes of PREsold visitors who love you. Once you have a solid traffic base,

monetization is easy.

If an affiliate link or an e-book (your own creation, or someone else’s effort from

ClickBank’s Marketplace, for example) truly adds value to your visitors and it

won’t hurt your traffic-building potential (i.e., it might keep you out of a directory if

its editor objects to your site’s “commercialization”), then you might consider

monetizing earlier. But...

Really think it through, though.

Would you add this offering even if you were not being paid for it? Does it truly

help solve a problem for your visitors? Does it complement your site?

Make an objective judgment -- don’t rush just to earn a few dollars right now.

There is even some evidence to suggest that affiliate links on a “young site” can

hurt your site’s reputation at Google.

Be careful. Tread lightly. There is lots of time to blend in the M.

Bottom line?

Monetizing too soon will slow down your business-building process. Be patient.

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Determine what your most important priority is right now and whether or not

Monetization is it.

So... ready to monetize? Great! Go back and review your DAY 4 plans.

You know much more about your Site Concept now. Different monetization

models may strike you as being appropriate.

No matter what your monetization strategy is, diversify to take full advantage of

your PREsold traffic. Introduce at least two or three income streams, improving

your chances of making every visitor to your site count.

Diversification also brings stability. Never put all your eggs into one monetization

basket. Add each income stream one at a time, weeks or months apart. Assess

each one. Optimize it. Keep building content while you focus on building more

targeted traffic for your primary monetizer.

Once one model is well-established, add another. Take your time. Running too

fast and adding a whole bunch of money-making schemes will get you nowhere

fast. Follow your plan, steadily and surely.

Monetization, if done properly, is not about adding a pile of affiliate links and a

ton of Google ads all over the place. Think it through. Remember your visitor’s

experience. Although you are building your business to generate revenue,

monetization is a careful, deliberate, and delicate process.

Keep two prime considerations in mind while monetizing...

1) Get into the mindset of your visitor. Match the unique needs of your audience

to the most ideal products and solutions.

2) Avoid jeopardizing the goodwill (i.e., the PREselling) that your customerfocused

content is building.

You want to please most of your visitors, not all of them. You will receive

a few complaints about ads or other monetization options that you offer.

As long as they are few and far between, ignore them. They are signs

that your balance is right. The complainers will never be customers,

merely greedy, cynical freebie-hunters. Don't take them seriously or

personally.

Effective monetizing is a constantly evolving process. And that brings us to your

Ongoing Goal…

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Periodically evaluate your monetization strategies to ensure that you are still in

sync with the needs of your target audience.

Monetization is mostly about inclination (how much are you willing to find and

build new models?), motivation (even if you're willing, it can take some courage)

and circumstances (some folks need the income desperately, others are happy

with lesser amounts of passive income).

Folks who figure out monetizing (i.e., who graduate beyond AdSense and affiliate

programs) are the ones who start thinking about active ways of making money,

rather than just the more passive, infopreneurial ones. (Of course, there is

nothing wrong with the passive ones. Depending on your niche and your

inclination, they can do very well for you.)

On the next DAY...

Wait! There is no next DAY! You are at the end of your masters course. Bring

on the wrap-up!…

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11. The Road To Success

What a long way you’ve come. Take a look! The Affiliate Masters Course has

helped you to...

• understand the difference between selling and PREselling (DAY 1)

• develop your best Site Concept (DAY 2)

• brainstorm profitable topics (DAY 3)

• plan potential monetization models for your site (DAY 4)

• refine your Site Concept and registered your domain name (DAY 5)

• build a site that gets “the click” (DAY 6)

• generate free traffic (DAY 7)

• establish credible long-term relationships with your visitors (DAY 8)

• use statistics to know your visitors (DAY 9)

• implement your monetization models (DAY 10)

As I said back in the introduction, successful business-building on the Net is all

about following the right process and smart work. Do things right the first time,

step by step... and good things do happen.

Remember, YOU have no brand. Amazon has a brand. Google has a brand.

You must build one. And there is only one way to build your “Brand of One”…

CONTENT TRAFFIC PRESELL MONETIZE.

That, in a nutshell, is what builds the core for a long-term, ever-growing business

with sustainable profits and true equity.

Please, please do not waste your time on playing the Search Engine

Optimization game. It’s doomed to “keeping up” with thousands of the smartest

minds on the planet.

Instead, leapfrog the SEO game players by “keeping it real.”

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By following the CONTENT TRAFFIC PRESELL MONETIZE process,

your site will simply do better and better. And your online business will grow

bigger and more profitable!

The process works…

http://order.sitesell.com/

Let those well-heeled advertisers pay for their traffic. You have the knowledge

(and with SBI!, all the tools all in one place!) to build your affiliate business as big

as you want. After all, it’s your road to success!

Ultimately it all comes down to what one of my favorite entrepreneurs once said...

“How to succeed? Try hard enough.”

-- Malcolm Forbes (1919-1990)

There’s nothing else. Go get ‘em.

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Affiliate Masters Course

No part of this publication may be stored in a

retrieval system, transmitted, or reproduced in any way,

including but not limited to digital copying and printing.

The author, Ken Evoy, and the publisher, SiteSell Inc,

have made their best effort to produce a high quality,

informative and helpful book. But they make no

representation or warranties of any kind with regard to the

completeness or accuracy of the contents of the book. They

accept no liability of any kind for any losses or damages

caused or alleged to be caused, directly or indirectly, from

using the information contained in this book.

Screenshots in this book are directly from publicly

accessible file archives. They are used as “fair use” under

17 U.S.C. Section 107 for news reportage purposes only, to

illustrate various points that are made in the book. Text

and images available over the Internet may be subject to

parties. Some images copyright www.arttoday.com.

SiteSell Inc.

Montreal, Quebec

Canada H3G1S0

The Affiliate Rocket by Daniel Schwede

2011-07-27T23:00:00.000-07:00

The report is free of charge. You do not have any Master Resale Rights and may not change this report. If you want to sell it, go to my website and fill in the contact form. Copyright © 2011 DanielSchwede.com

Welcome and Thank you for downloading this exclusive eCourse. After reading, you will be able to understand the most important tips about internet marketing and how to make a serious and steady income. If you have ever heard about Internet Marketing lately, than you will know that this is the most profitable niche.

What is This Report About?

I will show you the fastest and also easiest way to make your first dollars online and then scale it up to the horizont. The pretty thing about Internet Marketing is that the sky is the limit. You can either work a few hours a month and get an additional income or you can be a full-time marketer and earn more than five figures a month. This is a Step-By-Step guide showing every phase that needs to be included by you. Though the system requires some set up time, it will pay out in the end. The best thing is, that you set it up and then totally forget about it while cashing in.

The course is split into three modules. The first module shows you how to select a niche that includes hot products. You always want to get maximum commissions but we will talk about this later in the module. There are some crucial parts that have to be said, because this will lead you to success or failure.

After this we will talk about module two. This includes a technique which is all about setting up a main website, which is called „Money Site“. You will then build micro niche sites around your money site on the same niches or almost equal niches. www . DanielSchwede .com

www . DanielSchwede .com

In the last module we will discuss some traffic methods and how to get backlinks for ultimate traffic. It is an easy formula: More (quality) Traffic = More Sales = More Money. It is simple as that and we will even go more into detail. So lets do this!

Module 1 – Which Niche Is Profitable?

Read the next steps very carefully. This decides whether if you will make a few pennys or serious cash. This step is all about choosing the right niche. Take your time on the keyword research and see if the niche is profitable. First off, check if you can make any money with the niche you are about to choose. While some are really evergreen and totally money makers, other niches are not monetizable even if you have a really good business plan.

I personally check, if there is any competition in this field. If there are only a few competitors than it might be a sign that there are no potential buyers or if there are a lot of substitudes available. Another example is that if there are many competitors dominating Google than there is definately a high potential of buyers but it will be difficult to outrank them and make good sales. I personally do not like to trust the inner feeling on important keyword research. Therefore I use a pretty valuable keyword tool. I recently got Micro Niche Finder, which is one of the most powerful tools for Internet Marketers. It is used for keyword research and shows you if your niche is saturated or very profitable. One of the best investments I have ever made and my ROI (Return on Investment) went highly up! You can use the Google Keyword Tool also which is free to use. www . DanielSchwede .com

www . DanielSchwede .com

Alright so now you have found a niche which will hopefully be profitable. Now lets monetize it and get some nice pay checks.

Now we will have to find one ore more products from our niche. You can either go for physical products or choose digital products depending on your niche. I started with physical products but then additionally did some websites about digital products. The conclusion to this: Digital Products have the highest commissions. You can find a lot of them on a website called Clickbank.com which you might have heard of.

You can simply register for free on Clickbank. After filling in all your details, you just have to confirm your email adress (which needs to be valid in the registering process) and you will be an affiliate. You are now able to promote all the products all round the marketplace. This can be done in under 5 minutes and may change your life. Find some products related to your niche. This is a very easy part so feel free to skip all the following details., if you already know this. This guide is absolutely newbie friendly, that is why I do not leave any detail :-). Write down all the products in a notepad and then go to every single sales page. Would you buy this product? If you can answer this questions with „YES“ then keep it on your list. If your answer is „NO“ then skip the product and remove it from your list. A good sign for a good converting product it the „Clickbank Gravity“ which will be shown under each product in the list. Just make sure that you choose a few good products that will not be to hard to convert and stay in your niche or sub-niche. www . DanielSchwede .com

www . DanielSchwede .com

Module 2 – Your Own Affiliate Site

When it comes to affiliate websites then WordPress.com is the most known blog service. A wordpress blog can be set up in under 10 minutes if you have any experience with it. First off you do not even have to download or set up WordPress manually. If you do not have a webhost yet, than I recommend JustHost.com for you. I've been using JustHost for almost 3 years know and they do a great job. Get your hosting with a free domain here. For the domain you should use a name with the keyword of your niche in it (e.g. yourniche42.com or yourniche-reviews.com). You can then use a built in plugin called „Fantastico“. It will install a WordPress blog in seconds. Oh yes, in seconds! You will see that WordPress is a very easy but powerful program. You can then add some related content to your niches and write valuable product reviews. Always make sure that your quality should be the first priority. You do not need to be good a copywriting. Just make sure that your reviews are honest and built up trust with your future visitors.

After adding like 5-10 posts about your products you can start to continue building up your sub-niche/micro niche sites related to the topic. Make sure every time you make a post to your micro-niche-sites, that they will link back to your „Money Site“. People will then visit your micro niche sites and check out your main page. Another good effect is, that you are building a link-wheel around your money site, which will increase search engine rankings for your product-keywords. You will see that setting up the whole process will dramatically increase from blog-toblog. Your producivity will raise, because the setup and content writing will decrease and this means a better Return On Investment for you. And it even gets better in Module 3, because we will Automate every step to the maximum.
www . DanielSchwede .com

www . DanielSchwede .com

Unannounced Bonus

Want to get more money out of your site? Yes of course you do! Then get a list. Start to use Aweber, an email marketing software, on each blog. You can easily implement a short form where you collect emails off your highly targeted customers. After getting their emails (and names) you can send them automated and scheduled emails with related product to that niches. I highly recommend Aweber Email Marketing Software, because this is absolutely user friendly (costs only $1 first month) and even the biggest Internet Newbie can install this on a blog. This is by the way the most effective methods to a high internet income.

Ok, what have we learned in this module? We get a host and a domain at our favourable webhosting company and then install a WordPress blog. After this we customize the blogand fill it with content related to our niche. Then we made some more Wordpress blogs and created a link-wheel #Optional: Setup an Email Marketing software like Aweber for automated profits.

Module 3 – Be an Internet „Marketer“

After taking action on the last two steps you are now ready to master this course. You are an Internet Marketer and that means that you have to market your website. The goal is to get the best rankings in Google. You can achieve that with a lot of link building and of course consistency. Get up some more content on Social Bookmarking, Article directories, use RSS-Feeds, Ping your website, make valuable blog comments on other websites and be active in related forums. The main point is, that the tasks seem very easy, indeed they are easy, but they are also time consuming if you want to achieve good results. I was doing all the submissions manually and wrote all the content myself. Each and each article was created by me. Though they are all unique but it was to time consuming.
www . DanielSchwede .com

www . DanielSchwede .com

I then found a Software called Article Marketing Robot, which posts your content to over 3000+ Article Directories fully automated. Best investment in my Internet career and thanks to the creators. Read more about Article Marketing robot here.You do not need to buy this, unless you want to automate this step, because it is a pain doing it manually. The last thing that you need is patience. If you want to scale your system up then you need to use software. From my personal experience there were a lot of crappy products that were totally overhyped by the internet guru's. However I found myself the most valuable products that I still use in my whole business plan.

These Internet Marketing tools are:

• Micro Niche Finder (Best Tool for Niche Research)
• The Best Spinner (Content Spinner, A real time saver)
• Article Marketing Robot (The best automation tool for Article Marketing)
• Bookmarking Demon (Not necessary, but good for automating SocialBookmarking)

That is basically it. You are now able to use this solid internet marketing system that cashes me a decent amount of dollars every month. Feel free to create your own system and to improve some steps above.
I hope you liked this course and if you have any question just contact me under support@danielschwede.com

Make Sure To Subscribe To My Website To Receive The Best Internet Marketing Tricks That The Guru's Won't Tell You. Visit http://danielschwede.com

2011-07-27T14:46:00.000-07:00