When I did the article marketing course /step by step in  Wordpress Goldmine I showed how to quickly and easily increase your click through rate to 20 or 30%. What I didn’t show at the time was a quick and easy way to check those CTR percentages so you can see what articles need to be worked on and which ones are performing well.

The Video below show a really quick method I’ve devised , there is probably an even quicker way but this works for me and I am not too good with excel!

If you have ever used Google Chrome you’ll know that it is fast and stable, exactly what we want from a browser. I predict that the OS will be the same. This is also not a bad thing to do with your sites.

Look at your sites and review exactly what do you need to make money..If it’s essential use it if not get rid of it. Your site should be “lean and mean”. I constantly try to refine my sites removing items that are surplus to requirements this is why you’ll rarely see sign up boxes, or rss feeds displaying news etc.

What I consider essential is good unique content, affiliate links , and product reviews. One benefit of removing non essential items is that the sites will load quicker ensuring more visitors get to see them.

Find it Hard To Concentrate on Your Sites?

I have yet to meet anyone who hasn’t had times when the last thing they want to do is to work on their sites it happens to me quite often and I need to force myself to focus on the job I need to do. I’ve written many times in the past about creating a working environment that is conducive to working effectively without interruptions. If you would like some more helpful advice please feel free to download the book I wrote a while ago on the Focussed Achievemnet Called “I Can ” there is no sign up required or no up sell… enjoy

http://mjthompson.net/giveaway/I_Can.pdf

One of the best ways to stay focused and productive is to surround yourself with people who are actually making things happen. One such place is to join forums where people are helpful and positive (avoid the ones where people are negative and have nothing positive to say, they can sap your will to live!!)

Finally today a big shout out to two guys who are active members of the Wordpress Goldmine Forum (A very very positive forum!!). These guys have taken action and are actually building themselves long-term businesses.

First up we have Jeff who followed the Product creation course we created a few months back and has released his first product on clickbank, this is in a great niche so please consider promoting it. You can check out his great work at http://www.learnguitarquick.com/

Also a big shout out for Marl who has set up an excellent social bookmarking service, which starts at $5 superb value!! you can read more at. http://wraptnotes.com/sitepromotion/

That’s it…. stay Focused!

There is a company in Santa Barbara called Ring Revenue who have recently received $3.5million of financing. Ring Revenue provide an affiliate Platform like no other. The platform they have developed and patented allows affiliate networks like CJ to track phone calls just like they track clicks. In fact the call tracking is much more accurate than the clicks.

The potential here is amazing. First off I means that I as an affiliate can advertise on radio, TV, Newspapers and magazines all i need to give is a toll free number and the network will track my calls and pay me commissions on sales.

As a Product owner I can employ an online sales team which generally convert at much higher levels than sales letters , sales letters generally convert at 1-3% sales teams at 30-50%. I can target specific demographics and collect real time data via the calls.

Just imagine how cool it would be for Clickbank to take on this technology and add a call center , each affiliate has a phone number that goes to a specialised team… I’d be happy to pay extra for this service as not only could I sell digital versions of my own products but hard copy versions as well.

I’ll be watching this very closely and I suggest that you do too. You can read More at www.ringrevenue.com

Meanwhile here is a graphic of how it works.

RingRevenue How it Works

Looking at that kid I realised that we are naturally programmed not to give up and to keep on trying until we master the problem facing us. Why then do so many people give up Internet marketing after a few weeks?? I actually asked someone who once asked for a refund why they were giving up after only 4 days. They said “Internet marketing is too difficult, I want an easy way to make money”.

What can be easier than looking at whats working for other people, pressing a few buttons to create a site and then spending a few hours in front of the computer driving traffic to the site you’ve built. Once you master it, it is possible to spend 4 or 5 hours working on a site and have that site earn you hundreds of dollars every month.

Internet marketing might be a lot of things but it’s not hard.

I lost count at the number of times I built sites that failed when I fist started. I would built a site then sit back and watch as it made about 5cents a day.. So i’d look at what I did wrong, once I’d found the problem I’d make sure that I didn’t make the same mistake again. Soon I was like that little kid,  instead of being able to walk two steps I could create sites that would make 50 cents a day.  After that it was just a matter of time until I worked out how to make sites that made me $10 a day.

If I’d listened to the part of me saying  ”give up it’s too hard”, I would still be struggling to make an income I could live on and I would probably be working for someone else doing a job I hated. Instead I have a great lifestyle I work on my terms and I am doing something I love.

Start to look at Internet marketing in a realistic way and be prepared to fail, and you will succeed it may take time but you will be a success.  Failure is a powerful tool, embrace it and learn from it.

Of course if you want to learn from my previous failures and reduce the time it takes to be successful then be sure to check out Wordpress Goldmine. Next month I am going to be reviewing peoples sites and suggesting improvements.

The first thing to say is that don’t take it personally, I’ve been turned down by loads of companies when i applied to be an affiliate usually a quick email get your application reviewed and accepted. The ones that don’t accept you usually come begging once you start to make $$$$. Strangely as soon as I had a $10,000 month On CJ.com some of the the very same companies that turned me down 3 months previously emailed me and asked me if i would be an affiliate…It gave me so much pleasure telling them where to stick their affiliate program.

Right back to EPN

Even if you follow the steps below you will probably initially get rejected by EPN however a few emails asking why your application got rejected and asking them politely to review your site and tell you why it’s not acceptable usually gets you accepted.

Step 1. Find a good niche and create a nice looking blog.

Step 2. Add several pages of good quality UNIQUE and relevant content

step 3. Add your contact details, a privacy policy and a TOS

Step 4. Do NOT Monetize your blog in any way shape or form!!!!!!

Step 5  Do not use privacy on the domain..eBay like to see your contact details if they do a whois check

Now ask yourself..If I was one of the biggest online companies would I like a site like this to represent me??

Now submit your application and expect to get rejected. If you do get rejected send a polite reply asking why. You will probably now get a cut and paste answer…cool we are almost there!!

Now email back and politely point out that you site does not fall into any of the categories mentioned. They will have now run out of cut and paste replies so someone will need to physically look at your site and if you’ve followed the guide above you will get accepted.

Just consider EPNs automated responses as a bit of gentle hazing, which would you rather have affiliates who take initiative and try to get accepted or ones that give up at the first hurdle.

Believe me that it is Worth trying that extra bit harder to be accepted by EPN it is probably one of the best affiliate programs available to you. Especially with tools like Phpbay, Bayrss and excellent and highly recommended Reviewazon (yes you can add ebay items to the posts & also overstock items)

My Answer is always very simple…”Do you believe that you can make money online” If they answer yes then I am happy to give them more information , If they say No then I change the subject.

So Let me ask you now… Do You Believe You can make money online???

If you answered no, then you really should consider if internet marketing is for you you probably won’t be prepared to put in the effort required to make money online.

If you answered yes then read on and i’ll give you some Ideas about how to make some money within 48 hours.

The quickest way to make money online quickly is to perform a service for someone else. You can find jobs on sites like elance or get a freelancer. You can also go to Amazons Mechanical Turk this is particularly good as you can withdraw cash when you’ve made $10. When I first started I supplemented my income from my sites by building sites and writing articles for people.

If you want to take this to the next level then you can subcontract the work out and just ensure that the quality is good and that the work is delivered on time. This way you can take on a lot more work than normal.

Another way to make money online is to purchase rights to a product and then sell it. Lets suppose that you buy rights to a product called “Make Quick Money Online” conventional wisdom would suggest that you set up a website and then promote it…forget it we want money now..so how can we do it.

Why not create adverts and place them in your local supermarket or print out leaflets and place them on cars. If you were desperate you could even print out a copy of the book place it in a nice folder and sell it door to door like people used to do with the Enclyclopedia Britannica. (ok it’s not strictly online but we want money now!) Also place free ads wherever you can usfreeads, craigslist etc.

Far from being difficult, making money online can be the easiest thing in the world you just need to believe you can do it and more importantly you need to take action.

To see just how powerful it can be and make your visitors  focus on anything you want  just watch the short Video below

Impressive wasn’t it!

If you want to keep your viewers interested you don’t need to go to such lengths, just keep the videos short and snappy.  Have a look at how TV adverts are condensed and streamlined to show just how a product can benefit a viewer. Another great source of inspiration is the short video ads that many sites show before you go tot he main page.

You don’t need lots of camera and equipment to make good Video adverts

Record your screen using the free http://camstudio.org/ software.  Use related images and add text and you have a Video. Alternativly create a powerpoint presentation and then record that.

With a bit of practice you can be producing videos and reviews that make many more sales that standard reviews.

If You answered yes to one of those questions then isn’t it’s time you did something about it?

It’s June 1st today so why not dedicate the next month to laying the foundation of a long term business.

I am not suggesting that at the end of the month that you’ll be able to retire but I am saying that you’ll have a usable system in place that you can build on. Rome wasn’t built in a day and neither is an Internet marketing career. I’ve been doing IM for over 4 years now it’s only in the past 9 months that I’ve finally got myself organised so that I can work a few hours a week if I wish and still maintain my income.

If you are willing to sacrifice 30 hours this month and $30 then you can succeed.

The first stop you should make is ezinearticles.com. Ezinearticles is a great place to research business models.  There are loads of categories here find one that appeals to you. Once you click on a sub-niche you’ll see a link to the top Authors in each niche. Follow this link and you’ll get a list of the Top Authors in that niche. Now all you need to do is to click on some of their articles and look at where their resource links go.

This way you’ll get to see the business model they are using, and believe me if they have bothered to write lots of articles it is working. Follow the process to the end and see all the tricks and tactics they use

It’s now down to you to replicate the business model.

Even creating your own product can cost less than $30.  The graphics on my Twitter Tips and Tricks Site cost me  $17, the domain cost me $9. I wrote the book in less than a day. Although I am giving away the product at the moment I could start to charge for it or even sell it as a complete business package via a site like sitepoint or digitalpoint.  Check out the graphics at www.twittertipsandtricks.com

Go On do it now!!  Build For Your Future

This is a warning you are about to get inundated with emails for yet another Clickbank product. Yes in a week or two CB Quantum will go live. The pre-written emails are ready to go along with the bits of video ready to get you warmed up. You’ll get pre written emails and bonus offers  all in an effort to get you to buy the product and earn the affiliate a very healthy commission.

I’m not even going to mention my views about the 3 guys producing this product. It would probably get me landed with a writ for defamation of character, lets just say I loathe the methods they use, and believe that the whole area of Internet marketing would be better off without people like them.

My issue with this is that this is yet another product about how to make money using clickbank. The thing that gets me is that these guys have been producing Clickbank guides for several years now …If I am not mistaken Clickbank hasn’t changed , the methods are still the same. Why are the methods that they once sold for $47 or $97 now worth $1000? If you get emails promoting this before you unsubscribe ask them why the other clickbank books they promoted are no longer valid!

Don’t be taken in by their slick sales letters, they make most of their money by selling crap like this to their lists of subscribers and then creating another book about how they made a million dollars and now own a Ferrari and yacht…then sell that to their lists.

Making money with clickbank is easy and you don’t need to spend $1000 to find out how to do it.

Here is how i do it…

Disclaimer… I don’t own a Ferrari or a Yacht so if that’s how you judge success then don’t follow the guide below. I do however get a nice payment from Clickbank every week.

1. Find a Product, Cbengine.com or CBsnooper.com are great for doing this.

2. Set up a landing page or a blog with a review of the product. I prefer the review method.

3. Find a series of keywords that people interested in that niche would use when searching for information.

4. Use the keywords to drive visitors to your site either by Article marketing Or PPC (I prefer Article marketing It’s cheaper and 1 article can get thousands of views!)

Thats it for this latest rant I’ll be unsubscribing from anyone who sends me emails about CB Quantum. It really is time we told marketers who really don’t care about their subscribers that enough is enough.

For me it’s not just the product that has to be good but the whole support system, after all what good is the best product in the world if it’s not working on your site. I had a problem yesterday and emailed the developer. Brad immediatly got back to me via his Iphone as he was out of the office and said he’d look at the problem as soon as he got to a PC. Within an hour he diagnosed the problem as being related to the browser I was using.. (google Chrome)

I’ll write a proper review later today and add it to www.TheProductReviewSite.com where I review all the products I recommend..(There aren’t that many!!) But I thought that the best way to show you the potential was to do a short Video.

If you like what you see there is a discount coupon you can use to get $10 off until the end of May The code is “reviews” Click on The following Link to read More. Reviewazon