They’ve recently started marketing SBI as a complete online business course. It’s about time, too, since their Action Guide really is a complete course. It’s a very specific course, designed to allow you to create content sites that compete on high profile keywords.

The secret of SBI is that anything that can be automated has been automated. You don’t worry about search engine optimization, you just pick keywords according to the guidelines in the action guide, and put them in the places you’re told to do so. Everything else just happens. There are tons of other features like that that make it worth the yearly fee.

Your only responsibility to your SBI site is to create content consistently. That might mean one page a day, it might mean one page a week, or one page a month. Just keep creating content at whatever rate you can, and your site will keep creeping up in the search engine results.

SBI is not for people who want to create a site and forget about it. My upcoming ebook is for that audience, but SBI sites require tender loving care on a regular basis. Think of them as high maintenance friends. Give the sites what they need, and they’ll start earning for you.

To take advantage of the 2-for-1 Christmas special, click on that link and click on the Order link at the bottom of the page.

1 Comments

• At February 3, 2009, Ruby wrote:

  I didn't realize that your last post was so long ago. What are you up to lately?

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My general philosophy on upsell packages is that they should be unique content that makes using the original product much easier for the customer. So those customers that are willing to pay for the upsell package get an easier experience than those who don’t. For my ebook, video tutorials made a lot of sense.

Unfortunately, the freely available products for creating video tutorials fall just a bit short of being as convenient as they could be. My biggest problem is that I’m often demonstrating using a variety of applications, which require dynamically zooming in to show detail. The paid products will do that, but the free ones don’t, at least not so that I can work with them.

Another problem is me…I’m a perfectionist, and it’s nearly impossible to get through even a short video segment without making some sort of mistake. I know that I need to move on and get over it, but I keep wanting to redo the video to fix the mistake (and of course I’ll make a different mistake).

Obviously my talents don’t run to creating videos! I’ll keep at it, though, and get them done.

9 Comments

• At November 18, 2008, On Stage Lighting wrote:

  Hey Jay,

  All of us looking for new conent channels eventually look to creating video content. This brings new promotional channels, like YouTube, and the possibility of improved personal connection with your audience.

  However, making videos (even screen dump tutorials) is harder than it looks. Even A listers like Aaron Wall at SEObook don't always get it right (Aaron has made a few "talking head" videos which IMO could knock his percieved value as he is not a presenter).

  I am also putting the video content on the back burner until I can spend time improving my skills or justify paying someone else to do it for me.

• At November 18, 2008, Jay wrote:

  I think I'd do better at a talking head video (since teaching is what I do in my day job) than at the video-demonstrations of software and procedures.

  Paying someone to do it for me is getting more and more attractive, but as you say, hard to justify. We'll see if the frustration level reaches a point where it becomes easier to justify!

• At November 19, 2008, Caroline's Debit card loans wrote:

  Sometimes you just have to pay to get the tools you need.:)

  Being a perfectionist is a problem, you find you change some things so many times they end up worse than they were when you started. The trick is to know when to stop.

  One way I do this is if I feel I am getting a bit picky about something I leave it and do something else then come back to it the next day with a fresh perspective.

• At November 20, 2008, Graham Cox wrote:

  I think Internet marketing through videos is definitely on the rising and no longer a new method to reach out the audience. Some of the sites like Youtube have thousands of videos just being put to promote their website or some sort of things.

• At November 27, 2008, Connie wrote:

  I'm working on learning to make better videos too. I have to learn the art of editing which to me is very difficult. I end up laughing because I make so many mistakes in my videos. Maybe I should just leave them in and do a blooper edition.

• At December 9, 2008, Leslie wrote:

  This is exactly what I'm trying to get into actually. I just started a program that teaches you how to add video to your blog professionally and it convinced me to get into it. There is soooo much that can be done where that is concerned. I decided to run out and buy equipment, lighting and so on and build a Home Video Studio in my basement, lol.

  I hear what you are saying about being a perfectionist. I have that same problem. However, then I look around the net at people who are doing very well with videos on their blogs and realize that they have a bunch of mistakes, but it doesn't necessarily take away from their blogs. My recommendation would be the following:

  1. Plan out a simple outline of your videos. For this I am using a free program called Free Mind. You can google it and find it.

  2. Write out your script. If you are a perfectionist, this will really help.

  3. Get teleprompter software and install it on your computer. You can google that too.

  4. I went out and bought some construction lights and bounce them off the ceiling. It makes a world of difference in the quality of the video.

  If you're a teacher, then the presentation will be the easy part. Just keep it simple and you should be fine. I'm also a teacher (highschool science and math) so the presentation is the "easy" part.

  Best of luck. Don't give up on video. It's a great thing!

• At December 12, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Hi Leslie, thanks so much for the tip about telepromter software! I never even considered that, but it makes so much sense. I think that tip alone will help my efforts considerably, along with writing out the script. I'd been approaching this like a classroom setting (where I ad lib a lot) rather than a speech, but I think the speech model (write it out and practice it first) is a better one.

• At December 12, 2008, Leslie wrote:

  Not a Problem. Actually, I think it's best to look at it as a combination of a classroom setting and a speech. If you are trying to provide people with information, teaching is the way to do it. But the script really does help even though you are teaching. I just did my first video and it was not the best, lol. However, I didn't follow my own advice. I just wanted to test out my webcam and I put something together really quick. It ended up seeming like I was just rambling, lol. I'll be writing scripts from now on.

• At January 13, 2009, Galin Terry wrote:

  I think video is one of the great tools that help to connect with your audience. Sometimes a professional, well-done video may replace a long story in written form. By the way, for me it is more interesting to watch either to read.

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Every time I start working on the upsell package (a video tutorial series, plus some Wordpress goodies), it’s ever so tempting to just come over here and write a blog post instead.

Blogging is easy, and that’s part of what makes it attractive. Who wouldn’t want to make a living writing about what you had for dinner the night before, or what you watched on TV? Writing blog posts is just about the ideal job for anyone who is literate. You don’t have to put too much thought into them, you don’t have to think too far ahead, and you don’t have to spend the entire day at it.

By contrast, Internet Marketing is more time consuming, and harder to put together. The possible returns are greater, but putting the effort into getting there is tough, when the ease of blogging beckons.

Average blogging income is pretty limited, though, which will keep me working on my IM projects. My tests with Adsense on this blog, which gets about 100 unique visitors a day, is that it’ll earn $0.50 a day. Granted, the IM audience isn’t crazy about clicking on ads, but that’s still pretty low.

So, the work continues…

6 Comments

• At November 10, 2008, On Stage Lighting wrote:

  Hi Jay,

  I'm sure you are right about the IM community and low ad income. But I would like to shout out for niche blogging for a decent revenue. Even Adsense, without other aff programs, can be a good blog earner.

  It's just a question of subject matter, advertisers and, heaven knows, traffic.

  Best wishes

  Rob

• At November 10, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Hi Rob, thanks for the comment! I have seen much higher income with other niches, on the order of twice the income for a tenth of the traffic. Finding an audience who aren't click-shy is critical there.

  I'm not really down on blogging as an income earner, even though the post probably sounds like it. It's more that blogging is a seductive time consumer; it'd be easy to continue doing posts, rather than pushing my skills in other areas.

• At November 11, 2008, Ruby wrote:

  Blogging is great as a past time activity but will end up being stressing once taking as a career. Yes there are a few that has achieved great as professional bloggers like ShoeMoney, John Chow, etc. But it's only for the chosen few I think.

  A blog can be your supplementary income but not what you only relying on.

• At November 13, 2008, Armen Shirvanian wrote:

  It sure is true that writing in a fashion that requires very little thinking is an easy alternative to putting effort out to connect ideas and present them in an inventive fashion. Although writing about one's daily activities for the public to see might not be too useful, it can have a positive effect on certain individuals that will then be able to see what they do in longer terms. This could lead to alteration of one's routine in a beneficial way.

• At November 20, 2008, Graham Cox wrote:

  Sounds interesting. I think many people now a days are into this blogging for making money online either part time or full time, while there are many other ways of doing so. I would like to appreciate your views as a blogger.

• At November 28, 2008, Matt Hayden wrote:

  It's true that blogging is much easier and more fun than promoting a website. If you just keep posting, the traffic seems to build automatically!

  But then it's a great profile raiser to help with other ventures. And you can always use your blog posts as the raw material for longer articles that bring targeted traffic to your website.

  And there's always the potential to use these for a book after a while, too. That's another great profile raiser, and potential earner.

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I figured I’d get a case study out of it, promoting a simple low cost program to see how it did in various advertising venues. I’d hit safelists, traffic exchanges, the usual places. It’d give me something to write about while I’m still working through all the details on my next ebook (the ebook itself has been done for quite a while, but getting the site set up and figuring out how to make money from it is harder going).

So, what is Work For 3 Dollars?

List Builder

This is one of those sites that says it’ll build your list for you. It’s a bit like a safelist, except that you can only email the people who are in your referral tree. The tree goes 15 levels deep, though, so that could be quite a lot of people. You can email them once a week.

Since they’ve paid $3 to be part of the program, they’re prequalified as far as being willing to spend a little money for a larger return. This isn’t the audience to send a mailing about a high ticket item like Perry Marshall’s Bobsled Run. But low priced ebooks and other one-time payment programs might do well.

Digital Products

The member’s area has digital products you get with your membership. Right now there are four ebooks there, but I’m sure that’ll grow with time. The four that are there now are: Million Dollar Emails and Autoresponder Magic by Yanik Silver, 1001 Newbie-Friendly Tips by Bob McElwain, and Working with ClickBank by Tom Hua. Each comes with resale rights.

The books are a nice bonus, and worth the $3 one-time fee.

Income Opportunity

You earn $0.50 for every referral you bring in, regardless of where they end up in your referral tree. You also earn $1.00 for every person on your first level, and $0.12 for every person on any other level, down to 15. The matrix is 3 wide.

So, if you recruit two people directly, you have your $3 back. If your upline recruits three people into your first level, you have your $3 back. It’s a pretty easy program to get into profit. From there it depends on whether the people you’re recruiting are active themselves, or if they’re just waiting on spillover. With an active downline, your total potential is pretty good.

Conclusions

While this isn’t the sort of program you get into to make a ton of money in, it is a good value for your $3 one-time fee. You get some quality ebooks as well as the opportunity to refer others for income.

If you’re just starting out, or (like me) want something low cost to test different advertising methods, Work For 3 Dollars is a good deal.

1 Comments

• At November 11, 2008, Ruby wrote:

  Great stuff to get involved in there. They do require a lot of time though I think but all worth it in the end.

  Digital products are supposed to bring in the most money from the three.

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Generally, the advice runs in two flavors. One set of people say that you need to submit your site and do a fair amount of work. These are generally the people trying to get you to pay them to do the work. Another set of people say, just put some links out there and Google will find you.

I subscribe to the second theory, but had it brought home to me recently just how easy it is to get a site indexed in Google. Remember that Google *wants* to index good sites. That’s its job, to index good sites and deindex bad sites.

I wrote a site about places to get organic food in the small town where I live. The search volume on the town’s name and “organic food” was non-existent (I was probably the only one searching on it). So I didn’t bother creating links to this site anywhere, submitting it to Google’s webmaster tools, I didn’t create a sitemap file, etc.

What I did do was use Google Analytics, so I could see how few people visited the site, and I sent out a few emails to local people I knew who might be interested.

Less than a week later, the site was indexed. Maybe sooner than that, since I didn’t bother checking until a week later, out of curiosity.

So the moral is, if you’re creating a site and you don’t want it indexed, don’t use Google Analytics, and don’t send the URL around in emails that might pass through Google.

4 Comments

• At October 15, 2008, Caroline wrote:

  It's interesting that Google might be indexing new sites mentioned in Gmail emails.

• At October 28, 2008, Tom At The Home Business Archive wrote:

  Google seems to work in mysterious ways, it seems that Google indexes you faster if you use some of their own services, like Blogger for instance.Thanks for sharing this information.

• At November 13, 2008, Armen Shirvanian wrote:

  It is entertaining to think about the non-standard situation of where someone would not want their material released over search engines. It could be tough to do this without putting a block on spiders that travel around. Search engines find material in locations that we forgot or did not know existed.

• At January 23, 2009, loco wrote:

  didn't know that my free voice email number hasn't been working, who knows how long.......i believe it was through evoice......does anybody know another good free email number site?

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As part of that site creation, I needed to display a list of dates in the sidebar. I run an organic food co-op, and members need to know when to order, when to expect delivery, etc. I wanted a solution that did not require any manual updating on my part.

What I found was the Google Calendar Wordpress Plugin.

This was really ideal for my needs. I could set up in Google Calendar repeating appointments specifying ordering and delivery dates, so that my only manual updating would be around holidays when the dates shifted slightly. The plugin would then automatically display the next 5 (or however many you specify) dates from the calendar, so that co-op members could hop onto the web site and check the upcoming dates just by looking at the sidebar.

I also embedded the full view of the calendar inside the pages dealing with ordering and delivery, but the sidebar view was far more convenient for members doing a quick check of dates.

If you deal with anything involving displaying recurring appointments, Google Calendar plus the plugin will make it a hands free affair.

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There are essential elements required to become a successful online affiliate marketer. The first is the ability to attract a reasonable number of visitors to your website(s). The second is making the correct choices about which affiliate program(s) you choose to promote.

The first question you have to address is demographics. Who visits your website(s)? Men, women, or both? How old are they? What are their interests, needs, and consumer habits?

These questions, and the answers to them, are nothing less than critical. You’ll need to spend a lot of time thinking about which products and services are most likely to be attractive to your audience. Even more important than determining what they buy is identifying what they are willing to buy online. And, be prepared to make changes in what you offer them if your initial attempts are unsuccessful. A bit of trial and error can often be effective.

When considering affiliate programs, you might also want to give extra consideration to those that pay you for leads rather than actual sales. Some programs pay more than $70 for a qualified sales lead. Mortgage companies, banks, schools, colleges, and insurers are only a few of the kinds of organizations always looking for more leads.

Because these and other organizations want to grow their mailing lists, you can also earn a commission when one of your website visitors signs up for a coupon, a free restaurant meal , free business cards, introductory offers of various kinds, or other freebies.

Of course, you should try to choose affiliate programs which pay high commissions, but commissions by themselves won’t determine your earnings. Try to find those which will pay you for attracting other affiliates. Those with two, three or more tiers offer even greater potential.

You should probably limit yourself to affiliate programs which:

1. offer you daily online tracking and meaningful statistics so you can determine how you are doing and make necessary changes quickly.

2. attractive, tested banners and/or text ads that get results.

3. respond to your inquiries quickly, provide you with good suggestions and advice, and pay you on time.

4. offer your website visitors a good product at a reasonable price.

Lastly, here’s the best business advice I was ever given… track and carefully analyze everything possible to identify trends and areas in which you can make adjustments to increase performance.

Daniel Kane creates and maintains websites (supported by affiliate advertising) on scholarships, career schools, career colleges, college admission, online degrees, and online colleges.

5 Comments

• At October 1, 2008, Lassar wrote:

  I myself have not had much success with using clickbank as a affiliate program.

  I am talking in terms of selling one of my software programs on

  clickbank.

  I have have more success selling my software program on my website then using clickbank to sell it as a affiliate program.

• At October 2, 2008, Jay wrote:

  [quote comment=""]I myself have not had much success with using clickbank as a affiliate program. I am talking in terms of selling one of my software programs on clickbank.[/quote]

  That's interesting. The main advantage of selling on clickbank would seem to be the huge number of affiliates already there. But there are so many products, it's probably tough to attract any of those affiliates unless you have one of the typical big release IM products.

• At October 6, 2008, Tom At The Home Business Archive wrote:

  Clickbank has good products.Finding the starving crowd for the kind of solution you are offering is the most important task.

• At November 13, 2008, Ruby wrote:

  Clickbank has good products.Finding the starving crowd for the kind of solution you are offering is the most important task .

• At November 24, 2008, Graham Cox wrote:

  Thanks for the post. Yes I agree that Clickbank is a good place to start affiliate marketing campaign. I think Commission junction is also worth a try for the newbies who are in the starting phase.

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Phase One of the blog was the initial phase, where the focus was on regular posting and education. This was a year long phase, and most of what I was sharing was what I was learning as I was going, although a portion was the typical “Here’s a new program” sort of post.

Phase Two also focused on regular posting, although not quite so often, but more on mentoring. That phase focused more on posts from my actual experiences, designed to be helpful to those just starting out. I also started an official mentoring program over at The Advisory Panel, but that didn’t do well. It’s apparently tough to find people actually willing to put effort into being mentored.

Phase Three has come upon me as a bit of a surprise, because of other (non IM related) projects I’ve gotten involved in. I haven’t had the time for regular posts for a couple of weeks now, so I’m going to make it official. From now on, every post on this blog will be directly related to IM projects I am working. There will be no more of the “Here’s a new program” type of posts, unless I have tried and seen value in the program.

Frankly, I expect the irregular posting to kill my search engine rankings. I’ve made some good money in the last year and a half from Google sending people my way (and continue to do so, through residual income), but I’d rather increase the quality of the posts than keep them coming at regular intervals.

So, what can you expect as an RSS subscriber? Less frequent posts, so don’t delete the blog from your RSS reader. The posts will all directly apply to either a project I’m working on, or a technique or service that I have personally tried (whether I’ve seen positive or negative results from it).

I hope you all stick around for Phase Three, and enjoy the posts!

3 Comments

• At September 12, 2008, Gaje Master wrote:

  Well, this should be interesting. At least I will know about a program in advance. Thanks for the hard work and dedication.

• At September 16, 2008, Ruby Web wrote:

  But it's hard to tell for sure if an online opprtunity is legit or not. There are so many fake schemes out there.

• At October 14, 2008, BobNikonson wrote:

  [quote comment=""]But it's hard to tell for sure if an online opprtunity is legit or not. There are so many fake schemes out there.[/quote]

  All "fake schemes" are well-known in online and are old as a world.

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As a reasonably healthy adult geek, I knew intellectually the opportunities that the Internet provided for people who couldn’t work otherwise. But I didn’t really appreciate how much opportunity there was until I started the Advisory Panel and met Connie (she writes Brain Foggles, along with other blogs). I get migraines, and moan and complain when they’re bad, and pretty much am laid up for the duration. But I cannot imagine coping with what Connie copes with every day, and still being cheerful and energetic, and earning her income online to boot.

I applaud the people who are blogging about invisible illness, and the folks at Rest Ministries who are sponsoring this conference.

If you have a chronic condition, or know someone who has, head on over to one of the links above.

2 Comments

• At September 9, 2008, Connie wrote:

  Thanks for sharing this info Jay! And thanks for the compliments too. I hope that people will take a look at the website if they can't listen to the speakers. There's an important message to this conference - don't judge people by how they look. It's an old message but it's one that needs to be thought of in a new way.

• At September 9, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Hi Connie, I hope the event gets all the exposure it deserves. It's definitely an important message, both for the people who might feel helpless because of a chronic illness, and the people who might only see the illness, and not the person.

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This one’s an ebook, but rather than a general information ebook like Link Cloaking 101, this one is going to be a down and dirty, nuts and bolts, how-to for creating your own neglected niche sites.

I’ve posted now and then about my neglected niche sites, and how they’ve done surprisingly well, given how little work they require. In the new ebook I walk you through creating and promoting such a site, using one of my latest as an example. The site I use as an example is currently on page 1 of Google and in the #1 spot on MSN for its keyword, so you’ll be able to verify that the techniques work.

The ebook itself is ready, but I’m determined to do this one right, so I’m setting up Rapid Action Profits to handle the distribution of the ebook.

I’ll let you know when it’s ready for download.

6 Comments

• At September 3, 2008, Christmas wrote:

  Don't forget to let us know. I think your ebook will be worth reading indeed

• At September 4, 2008, pearl wrote:

  [quote comment=""]Don't forget to let us know. I think your ebook will be worth reading indeed[/quote]

  looking forward to the ebook Jay.. about "I am determined to do this one right" Is there another one too?

• At September 4, 2008, Jay wrote:

  Hi Pearl! The Link Cloaking 101 ebook was the first one...about the only thing about the whole distribution process for that I did right was requiring an opt-in to get it. Beyond that there wasn't any process for following up, providing needed tools at a commission, etc. I'm realizing it all has to be laid out in advance to expect to have much benefit from giving away valuable information.

• At September 14, 2008, Michelle wrote:

  i`m also looking forward into this...

• At September 16, 2008, Ruby Web wrote:

  Great! I'm looking forward to it. It sounds like a very to the point book. I like that. Well you could just leave a link here on this website for us when it's ready.

  Thank you,

• At September 16, 2008, Jay wrote:

  [quote comment=""]Great! I'm looking forward to it. It sounds like a very to the point book. I like that. Well you could just leave a link here on this website for us when it's ready.[/quote]

  I'll definitely let you all know about it when it's ready. There should be an opportunity to earn something from referring others to it, so I'll announce it here well before advertising it elsewhere, so readers can benefit first.

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