I was just thinking today how cool it would be
to have an expert team of traffic strategists
and ninja split-testers at your command.

Imagine what it would be like to have your
very own marketing lab full of mad scientists
who test and tweak your business for maximum
conversions and sales.

Just the thought gets me juiced with excitement!

Sitting behind your computer with a few switches
and dials that allow you to release a highly-targeted
flow of traffic at your command.

You can see I watched WAY too much
Pinky and the Brain when I was little :)

But…

The truth is that you CAN have this same
exact marketing firepower when you have
a list of highly-engaged subscribers.

In fact, I’m able to send an average of
3,000 clicks per email.

Now imagine being able to command that kind of
traffic. Sending 3,000 people to your latest blog
post. 3,000 people to a webinar registration page.
3,000 people to an affiliate promotion.

That’s the power that comes with doing email
marketing properly.

Unfortunately, there are VERY few marketers who
are doing email marketing the right way. And even
fewer who are teaching it.

More on that in a bit…

But first I want to drop a few golden nuggets on you.

I was rummaging through my Aweber account today
and found some subject lines that were dramatically
OUT-Performing the rest.

So I thought I’d share some of them with you :)

Check out these little doozies…

* 117+ Instant Traffic Sources

* Why I Don’t Do SEO?

* 3 Cool (kinda weird) traffic tricks

* (Friday Awesomesauce!) 153+ Free Tools I Couldn’t Live Without

* 21 Steps to 1,000 Visitors Per Day (checklist inside)

* Birthday Photo Attached

* An Unusual Business Model That Works Like Crazy…

But…

Guess what!?

It doesn’t really matter what your open rate is if you’re
not able to convert that traffic into sales.

I mean – who cares if you got a 30% open rate if it didn’t
add anything to your bottom line.

If you want to learn how to create fun, entertaining emails
that generate sales like popcorn, then check out my own
personal Email Marketing Formula…

http://www.buzzblogger.com/secret-door.html

This course is ONLY available inside our Marketing Lab.

In this very special training video I go
deep into the trenches to show you exactly
how to use emails to dramatically increase
your conversions.

Learn how to humanize your business and
turn your subscribers into a community
of raving fans.

I recently spent $500 on an email marketing
course that doesn’t come anywhere near the
value you’ll find in THIS video (exclusively
for Marketing Lab Members…)

http://www.buzzblogger.com/secret-access.html

This video alone could easily double your
profits this year.

Back to the Lab!

- Kim

P.S. If you’d like private access to all of my split-test
results, email campaigns, and exact traffic sources
then grab your party hat and go now to:

http://www.buzzblogger.com/secret-access.html

Think about it…

Do you really need a blog to make money online?

Nope.

In fact, if you took everything from me, dropped
me off in the middle of a tropical resort and
challenged me to rebuild my business I would
use just 3 marketing tools:

1. Web hosting & a domain name (I can get those together at BlueHost.com)
2. An Aweber Account (My list is like a magic genie)
3. A squeeze page

That’s it!

No blog.

No Fancy Facebook page.

No Twitter account.

Just a simple squeeze page with an opt-in box.

THAT is how I would build my entire business.

I’ve been doing a LOT of testing this year.

And I can tell you that 95% of our profits come
directly from email marketing.

And guess where the MAJORITY of those subscribers came from…

a SQUEEZE PAGE!!

That means that about 5% of our subscribers and sales
come from the blog, social media, etc…

That’s like a little fart in study hall compared to
the marketing power of our email list.

Now – don’t get me wrong.

There is NOTHING wrong with social media. It can be
a great platform for engaging with your community.

But…

It’s NOT going to build your business quickly.

If you want to build your business FAST – then keep
it “Old-School”. Cause ‘Old School’ is still ROCKIN!

In fact, most six and 7-figure online businesses are built
on the basics – “squeeze page, follow up emails,and an offer”

To see what else is working RIGHT NOW in our business,
go to…

http://www.buzzblogger.com/behind-the-scenes.html

Back to the Lab!

- Kim

P.S. I’m also doing a LIVE Case Study this month
where you can watch me step-by-step as I
generate 5,000 subscribers in just 30 days.

If you want to see EXACTLY how a six-figure
business ACTUALLY works on a day-to-day basis,
come join us…

http://www.buzzblogger.com/behind-the-scenes.html

Lots of marketer’s love to throw out a bunch of
theory. I say, come look at my stats.

Let’s go behind-the-scenes…

http://www.buzzblogger.com/behind-the-scenes.html

Unfortunately, only a handful of people make it to that point.
Most bloggers burn out in the process. At the end of the day,
they have a hobby, NOT a business.

If you want to build a REAL business online, your blog should
serve to build your list, provide massive value, engage with
your audience on a deeper level, and lead your readers into
your sales funnel.

In this article I’m going to show you 7 ways to turn your
blog into a REAL money-making asset in your business.

1. Sidebar Image Ad.

Most people aren’t making the most of their Sidebar. Instead
they’re using it to list their ‘latest comments’, ‘latest posts,
and their ‘latest tweets’.

Well… that ‘latest’ information is not going to make you a dime.

So instead, let’s use that valuable real estate to promote
your own products (or an affiliate product).

Create an enticing, eye-catching banner that converts your
visitors into buyers.

You can see an example in the right-hand sidebar of this blog.

The LESS you have in your sidebar, the better!

Because it INCREASES the chance that they’ll click on
what YOU want them to click on.

So declutter your sidebar and see what you can take out.
The more widgets your plop onto your sidebars, the more
confused your visitor gets. And a confused visitor does
not take action. They leave.

Instead, limit your sidebar to 3 items at most and make
them the critical, money-making items in your business.
(i.e. Opt-In Box, Product Promo, and Affiliate Review Pages)

2. Post Recent Reviews in Your Sidebar.

Now that we’ve got your sidebar cleaned up, let’s optimize
it for maximum profits.

Instead of listing your ‘latest’ blog posts or your ‘most popular’
blog posts – why not list the articles that make you money!

I would recommend listing your product review pages in
the sidebar. If you’re going to list any of your blog
posts in the sidebar – why not make them your most
profitable pages?

Let’s be more strategic…

Find out EXACTLY which of your blog posts is most profitable.

Which one’s are converting more visitors into sales?

To figure this out you’ll need to use tracking links.

But for starters, let’s put the product review pages
in the sidebar. These are specific pages that review
some of the best products from within your industry.

So for example, in my market I might list product reviews
for Aweber, Bluehost, OptimizePress, and Easy Video Player.

And instantly, you’ve now maximized your chances of making
affiliate sales.

3. Teaser Posts

If you have a membership site, here’s something super simple
you can do to increase sales…

In addition to your regularly scheduled blog posts, create
a ‘teaser’ post each week that highlights some of the
best content from your membership site.

In this post, you’ll give an overview of your premium content.
You tease the reader about what’s ‘behind the curtain’. Tease
the benefit but don’t give away the details.

As said best by Jimmy D. Brown, ‘useful but incomplete’.

Then underneath the teaser post – put a link to the
sales page where they can get the rest of the content.

When done properly, this alone can bring in a steady
new flow of members into your site.

4. Footer Image Ad.

Once someone has read your blog post, they’re going to be hungry for more!

So give them an opportunity to get more information on that topic.

EVERY piece of content should LEAD somewhere.

If I’m writing an article about how to build your subscriber
list, at the end of the article you can transition naturally
into recommending your favorite pop-up software.

One of the BIGGEST mistakes that bloggers make is NOT
integrating their valuable content with useful product promotions.

You can see an example of one of our own footer image
ads at the end of this post.

Notice how I’ve used a bit of creativity to grab attention
and funnel my visitors to the sales page.

Remember, the more eyeballs you get on the sales page – the
MORE sales you make.

5. Johnson Box at the TOP of each Blog Post.

This is perfect for when you’re running a holiday special.

Put a Johnson Box at the TOP of each blog post that points
to your special offer.

For example…

“Click Here to Save 90% off of ALL of our VERY Best Products…”

OR

“It’s my Birthday! Get Everything Half-Off!”

Of course, you’ll want to use these special offers sparingly.

Otherwise, they would no longer be special.

But when used properly, they can bring in cash windfalls
throughout the year.

6. Featured Post: On the front page of your blog.

Do you have ONE blog post that performs especially well?

One that does a REALLY good job of converting readers into buyers.

If so, then why not feature that at the TOP of your homepage.

This is super simple to do in Wordpress – but the feature is
kind of hidden.

So when you’re editing a post, look at the “Publish” settings
on the right-hand side.

Click to Edit the “Visibility” settings. From there you’ll
be able to make that particular post sticky.

That post will now be positioned at the very top of the
home page. Driving more traffic and increasing your
profits!

7. Pop-Over

If you aren’t building a subscriber list, then every single
person who leaves your blog is gone (and probably for good).

It’s highly unlikely that they’re going to remember to come
back to your site.

So instead, why not build a perpetual traffic machine?

With an email list, you have traffic on tap.

A lot of people (especially bloggers) make the mistake of NOT
building their subscriber list. When in reality this should be
the #1 focus in your business.

This is where the MAJORITY of your profits will come from.

So you need to be making every effort to convert your
visitor into a subscriber.

And one of the best ways to do that is using a pop-over.

Your subscriber list is the lifeblood of your business. It’s the
money engine in your business.

I wish someone would have kicked me in the butt, knocked me
in the head and forced me to start building my list from Day 1.

When it comes to building a business online, nothing generates
on-demand traffic and long-term revenue like a list of engaged
customers and subscribers.

I’m personally able to send an average of 3,000 clicks per email.

Imagine being able to command that kind of traffic. Sending 3,000
people to your latest blog post. 3,000 people to a webinar
registration page. 3,000 people to an affiliate promotion.

That’s the power that comes with doing email marketing properly.

Working on my first Cup ‘O Joe this morning :)

And I thought I’d share a quick case study with you…

One of the biggest questions I get from subscribers is:

‘How do I get traffic to my website?’

And today I want to solve that problem for you.

If you’ve struggled to get traffic to your
website, then pull up a chair because I’m
about to whip out the gravy.

Don’t get scared though cause I’m about
to go a little ‘Old School’ on you.

In fact, this traffic strategy that I’m
about to share with you is so simple
that it’s probably hiding right under
your nose.

This traffic source just recently sent us
92 visitors, 37 subscribers and 3 sales
in just ONE hour!!

Are you curious yet?

Lean in just a little closer…

I don’t like to give my secrets out to just
anyone.

Ok… you ready?

This golden traffic ALL came from ONE hour
of forum marketing.

I spent ONE hour providing value in 3 different
forums and in return I got 92 laser-targeted
visitors, 37 subscribers and 3 sales.

Sure… it’s not a windfall – but ANYONE can
do this.

And more importantly, if you’ve got a bit more
time on your hands you can scale this strategy
up even further.

Imagine if you spent 3 hours doing forum marketing.

You could triple your results!

Way too many people are looking for the shiny
new object when ‘Old School’ is still ROCKIN!

If you’d like to find out EXACTLY how I
structure my forum marketing to generate
those kind of results, go here…

http://www.buzzblogger.com/marketinglab.html

In fact, this month I’m doing a LIVE Case Study
where you can watch me step-by-step as I generate
5,000 subscribers in just 30 days.

Lots of marketer’s love to throw out a bunch of
theory. I say, come look at my stats.

Let’s go behind-the-scenes…

Watch exactly what I do over the next 30 days
to generate 5,000 subscribers.

http://www.buzzblogger.com/marketinglab.html

Back to the Lab!

- Kim

Happy New Year everyone!!

Like most of you, I have been planning my strategy for 2012.

I’d love to hear what you guys have in store for 2012 and I
thought I’d share some of my
own goals as well.

We hit the six-figure mark two years ago so a lot of what I’ll be
doing this year is more of the same.

That’s one of the biggest keys I’ve learned – staying laser-focused
on the fundamentals. You don’t build a six-figure business by
purchasing every bright shiny object. In fact, you build a six-figure
business by ignoring and filtering most information while staying
laser-focused on the high-leverage tasks in your business (i.e. list
building, product development, and conversion)

Remember, at the end of the day every successful business is
really built around 3 main principles.

* Traffic

* Offer

* Conversion

So without further ado, here are some of my own goals for 2012…

1. Build a list of 60,000 subscribers.

This is my big, hairy audacious goal for 2012. We’re just about to
hit 30,000 subscribers. And this is definitely a BIG goal but it’s much
easier to scale once you’ve already built some leverage into your business.

And my subscriber list is THE #1 asset in my business. So it’s also
our main focus. Building the list and providing massive value to our existing subscribers.

At the end of each day, I ask myself 2 questions…

1. What did you do today to build your list?

2. What did you do today to engage with your list?

Ask yourself those two questions every day and you’ll
have your best business year ever.

2. Build our new membership to 1,000 members in the first quarter of 2012.

I launched a new membership site at the end of 2011 and we brought
in a little over 600 new members. Which I am still celebrating :)

But in the first quarter of 2012 (by March 31st) I want to take that
up to 1,000 members. Of course, with a membership site – you’re
always going to lose some of them as well. But we have a number
of retention strategies in place to keep members engaged and active.

3. Create 7 Profit Centers.

Products and offers are the cornerstone of every business.

The main funnel in our business is centered around our membership
site. So the squeeze page and the follow-up sequence all lead people
into the membership site.

But I also plan on releasing 6 other products and promotions
throughout the year. This could be content that we repurpose
and repackage from the member’s area. Along with some
Firesale / Blowout sales – which have always done really well for us.

4. Humanize My Business on an Even Deeper Level.

One of the biggest things you can do to stand out in your market
is to add your personality into everything you do.
(emails, video, articles, podcasts, etc…)

Personality is becoming the MAGIC sauce in your business.

The old ways of marketing are no longer going to cut it.

People are buying from people they know like and trust.

And more often than not, people are buying from ‘personalities’.

Some of the people who do this REALLY well online include:

Travis Sago
Chris Farrell
Mari Smith
Gary Vaynerchuk

People rush out to buy Oprah Winfrey’s recommendations because
she own’s massive emotional equity. She has incredibly loyal, raving
fans because she ‘HUMANIZED’ her business.

You want your readers to ‘tune in’ to your content like they would
their favorite talk show or their favorite tv show.

I’ve infused my personality into my content and email for a long
time now but this is something I plan on taking to a MUCH deeper
level in 2012.

One of the biggest steps I’ll be taking to humanize my business
on a MUCH deeper level is…

* LIVE Video (posted to my blog and on Facebook)

There is NO comparison to LIVE video where people can see your
face and read your body language. It’s one of THE fastest ways to connect with people.

5. Reach 12,000 Facebook Fans by December 31st, 2012.

As part of humanizing my business, I’m also going to be engaging
and interacting more on Facebook. Facebook is a REALLY great place
to engage with your audience.

I currently have 2,125 followers on my fan page and I plan on
taking that to 12,000 followers by the end of 2012.

My main focus in business will ALWAYS be my email subscriber
list – but you simply can not ignore social media anymore.

It’s becoming a VERY effective platform for growing your community,
engaging with your subscribers, and spreading your message.

When you’re in business for yourself it’s critical that you stay
focused on the high-leverage, profit producing activities in
your business.

That’s why I’ve centered all of mine around activities that will
push my business forward. Remember, it’s all about TRAFFIC,
OFFER, & CONVERSION.

6. Create Systems & Processes that Give Me More Time to Focus on High-Leverage Activities.

We often start a business in order to spend more time with
our families, to escape the daily grind, to travel, and to live
a life of our own design – but what often happens instead is
we become chained to the business itself.

At this point it becomes more and more important to create
systems and processes in your business – which you can then
hand off to a virtual team member. You create step-by-step
systems in your business that handle customer support, affiliate
support, tech tasks, shopping cart setup, forum moderation,
membership management, etc…

So that’s also part of my plan for 2012.

Creating processes and systems that free me up to focus on
creating great content and other high-leverage activities.

As you guys know, I LOVE the game of business – but a business
should serve the lifestyle you want to create.

It’s about living more, not just working less.

Let’s make 2012 an EPIC Year!!

I’d love to hear some of your goals as well so please leave me a comment below :)

Cheers,

Kim

But today while I was running I almost had a weak moment.

For a few seconds I actually thought about quitting. I almost started
walking in the middle of my run.

The devil on my left shoulder was telling me to stop. To give in.
Reminding me of how tired I was.

But then the angel on my right shoulder whispered 2 little words
in my ear that made all the difference…

“Jerry Rice”

Uhhhh. What???

Well, if your a football fan you’ll know that Jerry Rice was the
greatest wide receiver in NFL history. (Just cause I’m a girl
doesn’t mean I don’t know my football ;)

But his story goes much deeper than that.

He dominated the game at a level higher than almost any
other player.

The average career of an NFL Player is 3.3 years. But Jerry
Rice played for 20 years in one of the most dangerous
positions on the field.

They simply couldn’t catch him :)

But what really made Jerry Rice so good?

*** He worked harder. ***

His intensity during practice and in the off-season was
border-line obsessive.

Rice would practice long after the rest of the team had
gone home.

And he was perhaps most famous for his off-season workouts.
Six days a week he would run a steep, five-mile trail. Followed
by ten wind sprints up the steepest part.

Then an equally grueling weight-lifting session in the evening.

Rice knew all about the hustle. He lived it. And he loved it.

So today while I was running my 5-miles around the lake I
thought of Jerry Rice.

Someone who gave it all in EVERY practice. Who continued
to drive through after every one else had gone home.

When my legs are burning and my breath is shaking that’s
the kind of stuff that keeps me going.

People like Jerry Rice who know that nothing great comes
without hard work.

There are no push-button solutions, loopholes, or shortcuts.

If you don’t come to play hard, you’re not gonna win this game.

Doesn’t matter if it’s football, running or building a business.

If you’re not willing to put in the work…

Staying up till 2am. Doing whatever it takes to REALLY build
your business.

Then get off the field.

Cause this game takes work…

And that doesn’t mean wandering around the forums for
hours on end.

It means doing the REAL stuff. Creating content. Creating
squeeze pages. Building a list. And delivering massive value.

I know lots of “gooroos” like to make it sound easy. But I’m
not gonna sell you that kind of sugar-coated bologna.

At the beginning, it takes a whole bunch of hustle :)

But it’s definitely worth it when you start seeing those
PayPal payments and Clickbank checks coming through.

It’s worth it when you start building a business that fits
around YOUR lifestyle and not around some boss
that gets to dictate your every move.

It’s worth it when you get to have the flexibility to work your
own hours and spend the rest of your time with the people who
matter most.

So stop chasing after shiny objects, loopholes, and imaginary
shortcuts.

This game is won on hard work. It’s built on the ‘foundations’.

And you need to ask yourself whether or not you’re really cut out for it.

Are you willing to do the work and put in a little
‘Jerry Rice’ style hustle?

If so, then you’re definitely someone that I want to work with.

More on that coming soon :)

But if you ever just want to chat or hit me up with some
questions, feel free to shoot me an email!

I love to chat marketing and I answer all my emails. Cause I’m a
crazy ‘Jerry Rice’ style marketer who simply can’t get enough
of this stuff :)

Cheers,

Kim

NameCheap.com – Cheap domain registration with an excellent control panel
for managing all of your domains.

BlueHost.com – Bluehost.com is the finest web hosting company I have come across. And I’ve tried quite a few of them. I’ve found Bluehost to be the very best in their class. They provide incredible support, unlimited domain names, and an excellent service for an affordable price.

However, I’ve just recently had to change web hosts because our site was simply getting too much traffic. We went with a Virtual Private Server at LiquidWeb.com which I’m really happy with so far. Some other really good options include RackSpace.com and SoftLayer.com.

Aweber.com – Hands-down One of the best services online for managing your email newsletter.

GoToWebinar – Webinars are one of the most powerful tools for marketing and engaging with your community.

Amazon S3 – The Amazon Simple Storage Service. I use this service to store and publish almost all of my videos. They have extremely reliable internet storage, which is great for hosting large files like videos and podcasts. Using Amazon S3 you’ll never have to worry about running into bandwith problems. This can be extremely helpful – especially when you’re running a product launch.

EZS3 – Ok, so now you have your files uploaded to Amazon S3 but how do you publish those files and create video players that you can post to your website? That’s where EZS3 comes in. EZS3 takes the technical side out of it – allowing you to quickly and easily upload your files, create video players, mp3 players, and then upload your media onto your website. Plus, they also have a complete stats program to show you exactly how many people viewed your video, listened to your podcast, or read your pdf. Pretty cool! And a must-have for anyone like me who really doesn’t like to mess with the tech stuff.

UptimeRobot.com – A Free service that notifies you if your sites ever go down.

FileZilla – Free FTP software (I use this on a weekly basis to upload new files and pages to my website.)

Zamzar.com – A Free online conversion tool that allows you to convert nearly unlimited types of media file formats, including documents, images, audio, videos, etc… Convert your files to different formats quickly and easily.

If you’re not tracking your visitors, then you’re flying blind. If you want to build a massively successful business, then you need to continually improve your conversion rates. That means testing your subject lines, open rates, squeeze pages, sales letters, calls to action, and everything in between. Anytime you aren’t testing is an opportunity you’re wasting.

Google Analytics – Get a much deeper insight into your website visitors. Find out exactly where your traffic is coming from, where they’re clicking, and how long they’re staying on your site.

Adtrackz Gold – This is one of my all-time favorite tools. And one of the most important. Adtrackz Gold allows you to create tracking links to see exactly which
traffic sources are sending you the most visitors, subscribers, and sales. It provides an additional layer of very important data that’s not easily tracked in Google Analytics. This one is a must-have if you want to scale your business to six-figures and beyond.

Google Website Optimizer – Best free tool online for creating A/B split tests. Like everything online it does have a learning curve. But this is definitely one of my favorite tools for split-testing sales letters, squeeze pages, headlines, and more.

Visual Website Optimizer - Visual Website Optimizer is an easy to use A/B testing tool featuring point-and-click test designer and WYSIWYG editor for creating variations. In addition to being dead-simple split testing software for marketers, it also dramatically shortens time to go live with your A/B tests because of the innovative “tag-less” integration (not to mention it reduces your dependency on IT and web development department for uploading code snippets again and again)

Optimizely – Simple, fast, and powerful. Optimizely is a dramatically easier way for you to improve your website through A/B testing. Create an experiment in minutes with our easy-to-use visual interface with absolutely no coding or engineering required.

Unbounce.com – Design and split-test your landing pages using a visual point and click WYSIWYG editor. Unbounce is unique in that it comes with built-in templates that allow you to create, publish and optimize your landing pages without all the technical gumbo. But keep in mind that Unbounce is designed to A/B test *new* landing pages – not your existing website.

ClickTale.com – Creates a visual demonstration of how people move through your website. Watch movies of visitors browsing your website. Find out exactly how people are interacting with your website. See every mouse movement and every click.

http://www.abtests.com/ – Community website for sharing A/B testing results and case studies.  Lots of golden nuggets here :)

http://www.whichtestwon.com – Want to test your marketing skills? Vote for which version you think won… and then see real-life test results.  A treasure trove of a/b split test results to help you format your own website, sales page, or squeeze page for optimal results.

99designs.com – 99Designs has created a revolutionary design process where you actually have multiple designers competing to win your bid. So you can have hundreds of different designers creating multiple designs for you and you only have to pay the one you like best. This is one of the main services I use for graphic design. Also a great place to get new design ideas.

Hatchwise.com – Similar to 99designs.com but more affordable. You rate, review and provide feedback (constructive criticism) on all the designs you receive and then you pick the one you love the most, pay the designer the fee and download your design!

MiniSiteGraphics.com – Top-notch designer used by Jimmy D. Brown, Russell Brunson, Josh Spaulding, and Ewen Chia.

KillerCovers.com – Amazing designs for your eBooks, DVDs, CDs, etc.

DesignGuruRyan.com – Top online graphic designer. Used by Mike Filsaime, Ryan Deiss, Chris McNeeny, Ewen Chia, and many others.

Pixelofgenius.com – Another top-notch designer.

PSD2HTML – Convert your PSD designs to high quality, cross-browser compatible, valid XHTML / CSS markup.

DimpleArt.com – Very affordable, high-quality caricatures you can create for your website, squeeze page, and overall branding. Also makes a great gift for JV partners.

KillerSalesVideo.com – Create killer promo videos for your product launches.

SamuraiSalesVideos.com – Incredibly powerful sales videos with killer design.

GraphicsGenie.com – Some of THE most talented video designers in the business. They’re a little bit pricier but do incredibly good work.

VideoProducerOnline.com – Scott Lundergan is an award-winning Video Producer that can create a wide-variety of videos for your business.

If you’re looking to create a decent promo on the cheap, then Fiverr.com is a good place to go. They usually have some good video templates that they will customize with your own words and graphics.

WriteSyntax.com – Cori Padgett is one of the best ghostwriters I’ve ever come across. She’s worked with a number of high-level clients including Jimmy D. Brown, Gabor Olah, Jenn Dize, Sandi Valentine, Ron Davies, and many others.

What really makes her writing stand out is her ability to infuse character and personality. She’s also had her writing published on sites like ProBlogger.net, CopyBlogger.com, Kikolani.com, FamousBloggers.net, TrafficGenerationCafe.com, and many others.

She has a variety of content packages available, including blog posts, media distributions services, newsletter content, and just about everything under the kitchen sink.

SixDegreesContent.com - Courtney Ramirez has a top-notch team of writers who can whip up high-quality blog posts, autoresponder emails, press releases, ebooks, and reports.

ArticleZ.com – A highly-skilled team of writers that will crank out blog posts, autoresponder emails, reports, and more. High value and highly affordable.

Chris Haddad
Kevin Rogers
Vin Montello
Mike Jezek
Brian Keith Voiles

Top Autoresponder Copywriters:

AnitaAshland.com – Writes autoresponder emails for Stephen Pierce and many other top marketers.

Jay White – Has written emails for Mike Filsaime and many other top marketers.

To build a successful online business, you’ll need an ongoing supply of high-quality content. But creating all that content can take up huge blocks of time. And let’s face it, sometimes the hardest thing about writing is looking at that blank screen. But you can crank out content quickly using some high-quality PLR. PLR is content that you can use as your own. Modify it. Repurpose it. And put your name in the byline. Here are some of my favorite sources of high-quality PLR.

SpecialReportClub.com – Hands-down some of the best Internet Marketing PLR content online.

AllPrivateLabelContent.com – High-quality PLR that includes article bundles, autoresponder bundles, and reports.

EasyPLR.com – Very High-quality PLR articles & reports. Created by Nicole Dean: one of my favorite online marketers.

PLRSO.com – Exclusive PLR rights to some of Jimmy D. Brown’s best selling products. This is hands-down some of the very best PLR content available online.

PLRMiniMart.com – PLR content created by one of the best ghostwriter’s online, Tiffany Dow, “Ghostwriter To The Gurus”. Here you’ll find top-notch PLR articles, blog posts, autoresponder emails, ebooks and reports.

Niche-Content-Packages.com – High-quality PLR packages for blogs, websites, eCourses, newsletters and reports.

DIYPLR.com – Run by one of my favorite marketers – Alice Seba. Specializing in step by step, check lists, etc.

Clickbank – Excellent All-In-One Solution that allows you to accept payments (via credit card and PayPal) and it has a built-in affiliate program. One of the best parts about Clickbank is they will pay your affiliates every 2 weeks so you don’t have to worry about sending out checks or doing mass PayPal payments. On the down side though, Clickbank does have a rather high processing fee.

PayPal – I Use PayPal for most of my products because it’s super simple to setup and they have a much lower processing fee. You can also sign up for Website Payments Pro – which allows you to accept payments via PayPal and by credit card.

Merchant Account – You can also accept credit cards by setting up a merchant account. One of the most trusterd merchant account companies online is PowerPay. I like this one in particular because they understand online businesses – and information marketing in particular.

Chargify.com – This one is a new-comer but looks very promising. If you’re looking for an alternative to PayPal then I would highly recommend taking a look at Chargify. Plus, they have a really nice backend admin area that allows you to easily analyze your business and manage your customers.

Over the years, I’ve compared a number of different shopping cart solutions… InfusionSoft, NanaCast, 1ShoppingCart, Clickbank, etc, etc, etc…

For anyone who has compared different shopping cart solutions, one of the first things you realize is that there are pros and cons to EVERY solution. The key is to choose the one that best fits the needs of your specific business. Here’s a quick overview of the top shopping cart solutions online:

Clickbank – As noted above, Clickbank is actually a payment processor and shopping cart all built into one. The biggest benefit of Clickbank is simply ease of use. It’s a very plug-and-play solution that allows you to get up and running very quickly. However, Clickbank also has some down sides.  They have a high processing fee (7.5% plus $1 on every sale).  Also, with Clickbank you’re always going to have a higher refund rate and  commission hijacking. One of the big problems with Clickbank is that affiliates can very easily buy through their own links – resulting in commission hijacking. Which is a disservice not only to you but also to your affiliates.

InfusionSoft – One of the premier shopping cart solutions available online. InfusionSoft is EXTREMELY flexible and feature-packed but at the same time it’s VERY technically involved. You pretty much have to hire a programming team to get it up and running to fit your specific needs. So the learning curve is definitely going to be a bit higher with this one. But it is a VERY good solution and offers a lot of incredible features for scaling your business. InfusionSoft allows you to implement upsells, downsells, order page bumps, lifetime affiliate tracking, and much more.

Nanacast – Has many of the same features as InfusionSoft but with a softer learning curve. Nanacast has one-click upsells, downsells, order page bumps, dime sales, fire sales, membership site management, and much more. Nanacast is incredibly feature-packed and you can find out more about them on their website.

Rapid Action Profits – This is a shopping cart that I personally used for our Traffic Dashboard product. It has a number of excellent features but one of the biggest benefits of RAP is that it allows you to do 100% instant commissions via PayPal. This is incredibly powerful for recruiting an army of affiliates. You can read my complete review of RAP here.

1ShoppingCart.com – I haven’t personally used 1ShoppingCart.com but I do know that it has a lot of great features and it’s definitely one to consider.

Digital Access Pass – If you’re looking to run your membership site with Wordpress, then Digital Access Pass is definitely one of the best solutions out there. DAP comes with a built-in shopping cart that lets you do 1-click upsells, coupon codes, and dime sales. It also comes with a feature-packed built-in affiliate program that let you pay per-lead or per-sale. DAP integrates perfectly with Wordpress, allowing you to drip-feed all types of content, including Wordpress pages and posts, PDF reports, Videos, Audio files, Zip Files, and even images. Built-in File and download protection. Plus a host of other features which you can check out at http://www.digitalaccesspass.com/.

Wishlist Member – Wishlist is another great option for turning your Wordpress blog into a full-blown membership site. On the technical side, Wishlist is probably easier than Digital Access Pass. But I personally prefer DAP because of the extra layer of features.

Membergate – Membergate is the Rolls Royce of online membership sites. It’s used by Chris Farrell at ChrisFarrellMembership.com and Jo Barnes at TheSocialNetworkingAcademy.com. I also used it for the Super Affiliate Club and I can tell you it’s an incredibly powerful all-in-one solution.

EbooksCreated.com – Have your complete product done-for-you with EbooksCreated.com. For just $999 you can get a 50-page ebook, complete minisite design, and an effective sales page ready to go.

TheProductMachine.com – Another top-notch product creation service. They also have additional packages which include follow-up emails, squeeze page, short report, affiliate page, and affiliate tools.

InterBerry.com – A Top-notch team of programmers. Read a complete review at:

http://www.tylercruz.com/2-more-reasons-why-you-should-hire-interberry/

ActionWebApps.com – Kent is one of the best programmers online and has worked with a number of top online marketers. However, he does stay booked up most of the time.

InternetTranscribers.com – One of the best transcription services available online.

SpeechPad.com – Provides guaranteed quality transcription services at a low cost. Easy to use with fast turn around time. Used by HubSpot, SeoMoz.org, and Mixergy.com.

TranscriptionsByTara.com – Another top-notch transcription service.

VerbaLink.com – A very popular transcription service used by companies such as Dell, HBO, SONY, FedEx, HP, and many others.

CastingWords.com – A well-known transcription service that charges $1 per minute.

Ginny – One of my favorite transcribers on Fiverr.

Sar777 – Another great transcript provider on Fiverr.

Voices.com – Voices.com is the industry leading website for voice talent.

Voice123.com – Another top-notch site for voice over talent.

Disk.com – Used by many of the top internet marketers. A full service shop for software duplication, replication, printing, packaging, and fulfillment needs.

Kunaki.com – Print and ship on demand. They will drop-ship to any address with no minimums, commitments, or contracts.

Vervante.com – On-Demand Publishing and Fulfillment. Used by Ali Brown and many other top marketers.

LastPass.com – LastPass is a password manager that makes web browsing easier and more secure.

DropBox – One of the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online.

EverNote – This is one of my favorite tools online. I use it every day.Evernote makes it easy to capture and organize your life online. Allows you to take notes, save url’s, web clips, files, images and entire webpages.

I use it to create my online swipe file. Mark down ideas for new products. Keep a running list of article ideas, subject lines and more.

FreeMind – My favorite free mind mapping software. I use mindmaps to outline articles, new products, and business ideas.

RememberTheMilk.com – Website that helps you keep organized. lets you make lists and will send you email reminders when things are due. Integrates with Google calendar.

FocusBoosterApp.com – A free application that will allow you to get things done faster by setting a time for each task.

Enounce.com – Change the playback speed of Flash videos for faster learning, or easier understanding. From YouTube to educational and training videos, you’ll enjoy a more dynamic experience with the variable-speed “slider bar” that gives you the power to change the playback rate from 1/3 to 5 times normal speed!

TimeTrade.com (aka TimeDriver) – Take the headache out of going back and forth trying to coordinate a meeting with all your partners – let them schedule a meeting based on your availability.We used this for our high-level VIP coaching program.

Tungle.me – Online scheduling made easy, no need to send emails back and forth and convert time zones to meet with someone. Free accounts available, but you can also customize your platform to keep your personal branding.

TeuxDeux.com – Online app that allows you to manage your weekly to-do list. If you like making to-do lists as much as I do, you will love TeuxDeux. It’s an intuitive platform that allows you to create to-do lists, check off items, delete items, and move tasks around.

LeechBlock – A Firefox extension that allows you to block those time-wasting sites that can suck the life out of your working day.

The Action Machine – One of my favorite productivity tools that lets you organize your day and complete tasks so that you stay on track. Simply enter your tasks and set a time limit for each one. This software will turn you into an action machine!

InternetDownloadManager.com – A Cool tool that will increase your download speeds by up to 5 times.

KeywordSpy.com – Find out which keywords your competitors are bidding on.

Trellian – Find out exactly where your competitors are getting their traffic from. Find out which sites are responsible for sending traffic to their pages. Extremely Powerful!!

T3Report – Find out who your competitor’s top affiliates are.

WhosMailingWhat.com – A vast library of direct mail data, which allows you to learn from their tests and direct mail controls!

Copernic Tracker – Monitor website changes. Find out when your competitors are split-testing or changing their websites.

Website Watcher – Similar to above. Monitor websites for updates & changes

WayBack Machine – Find out what a website looked like in the past. An excellent tool for seeing what your competitor’s websites looked like in the past in order to find out how they have changed their website over time. You can then use this data to increase the conversion rate of your own websites.

DomainTools.com – Allows you to find out who owns a particular domain along with what other websites they own.

Yahoo Site Explorer - Analyze your backlinks or the backlinks of your competitors

*** QuarkBase.com – Find out LOTS of information about any website.

BufferApp.com – Automates your tweets and sends them out during optimal times.

Timely – Schedule your tweets for maximum impact.

Tweet Adder – The ONLY automated tool I recommend for maximizing your Twitter marketing.

MyBlogGuest.com – Website directory of sites that accept guest posts. Great way to get traffic to your site free of charge.

RocketClicks.com – Top PPC management company

BuySellAds.com – Purchase ads that go live within 24 hours.

SendOutCards – Send your subscriber’s postcards in the mail with the simplicity of an autoresponder. SendOutCards will print the card, write your personal message to your clients in your own handwriting, upload and print your pictures, address the cards, and even ship it out for you for just $1.00 per card. You can even create a personalized follow up series of postcards for your customers to upsell your backend products. SendOutCards will automate the entire process.

VoiceShot.com – Web-based voice broadcasting allows you to send voice broadcasts to your subscribers. Extremely powerful!

SocialBakers.com – Social media statistics for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google Plus.

WildFireApp.com – Build interactive social media marketing campaigns within minutes.

EasyVideoPlayer.com – World-Class video player that allows you to add opt-in forms inside your videos. Embed clickable buttons inside your videos. Integrates with Amazon S3. Instantly redirect viewers to a website or shopping cart after your video. Include Retweet and Facebook Share buttons directly in the video. Detailed anatlytics and much, much more.

EmailOnAcid.com – Preview your email in 48 variations of the most popular email clients and mobile devices. Plus advanced spam analysis to make sure your email gets in the inbox. This service will even test your emails to see if it gets delivered through common spam blockers.

BackTweets.com – Find out who has tweeted your content. Includes automatic expansion of shortened URLs so you can find links even if you don’t know how they’ve been shortened.

Safe-Swaps.com – Largest online ad swap community. One of the best tools for growing your list of subscribers.

WarriorForum.com- Another great place to look for marketers who are actively looking to do ad swaps or solo ads.

DirectoryOfEzines.com – Largest online directory of ezines. Allows you to search their database for newsletters that accept advertising. Also a great tool for finding large ezines that accept article submissions.

SoloAdDirectory.com – Reed Floren’s Solo Ad Directory. Another good place to find marketer’s that sell solo ads.

WebinarSwaps.com – Find webinar partners for promoting your products and building huge lists of subscribers.

osTicket – A widely-used open source support ticket system. It seamlessly integrates inquiries created via email, phone and web-based forms into a simple easy-to-use multi-user web interface. Manage, organize and archive all your support requests and responses in one place while providing your customers with the accountability and responsiveness they deserve. osTicket is an attractive alternative to higher-cost and complex customer support systems; simple, lightweight, reliable, and easy to setup and use. The best part is, it’s completely free. (Used by Jason Fladlien – easily installed from cPanel using Fantastico).

HeroDesk – Virtual assistance for your customer support needs.

PopUpDomination.com – The Ultimate Wordpress Pop-Up tool for capturing more subscribers on your blog.

BackUp Wordpress – This plugin is a Backup & Recovery Suite for your Wordpress website. It allows you to easily backup your Wordpress blog and restore previously saved versions.

Fast Secure Contact Form – A super customizable contact form that lets your visitors send you email.

Feedburner – This plugin redirects all feeds to a Feedburner feed so you can track every possible subscriber.

Google XML Sitemaps – This plugin will generate a special XML sitemap which will help search engines to better index your blog.

Platinum SEO Pack – An extremely powerful all-in-one SEO plugin.

All In One Favicon – Easily add a favicon to your blog without having to edit any wordpress files.

Wordpress Automatic Upgrade – As you may already know, Wordpress upgrades their software quite often. However, it can be quite a job to update your Wordpress version every time they come out with an upgrade. Thankfully, this plugin automates all of that, allowing you to update Wordpress with just a few clicks.

Breadcrumbs in Wordpress – Adds a breadcrumb navigation system to your Wordpress blog. Some quick easy link juice.

WP Super Cache – This plugin is an extremely efficient page caching system that will make your site much faster and responsive. This plugin is very useful for handling sudden bursts of traffic coming from social bookmarking sites like Digg, Twitter, and Delicious. WP-Super Cache basically creates static versions of your pages so that they can be served to your visitors without querying the MySQL database.

Popularity Contest – This plugin will help you see which of your posts are most popular and feature them in the sidebar.

Disqus Comment System – Disqus is truly revolutionizing the blog comment system, allowing you to instantly turn your blog into a social media community. Disqus allows you to create a much more interactive blog community that connects seamlessly with all of the top social media sites online.  Disqus also provides threaded comments, which allows your commenters to engage with other commenters directly, rather than replying in general to all. The threaded replies are indented, making it easy to track sub-discussions. They also allow for video commenting through Seesmic.

DISQUS also encourages the viral promotion of your blog posts. For example, using Facebook Connect, Disqus provides your readers with the option of posting their comment on their wall in Facebook. Readers also have the ability to send their comments to other services (like Friendfeed and Twitter), which again increases the viral promotion of your content. If you want to build a stronger community on your blog, connects seamlessly with all of the top social media sites online via blog comments, and increase the viral promotion of each of your posts, then Disqus is definitely for you.

MobilePress – With mobile devices becoming more and more popular, you’ll want to make your mobile users as happy as possible. This plugin allows you to do that by turning your Wordpress blog into a mobile friendly blog that’s easy to view on any cell phone, iPhone, or other mobile device.

SEO Slugs – This plugin will help you optimize your blog post URLs for search engines. Removes common words like ‘a’, ‘the’, ‘in’ from post slugs to improve SEO.

Wordpress Duplicate Content Cure – The default Wordpress structure can create lots of duplicate content within your website with the same archives, categories, and built in search pages. Each of these pages feature excerpts of the full posts with the same content repeated over and over again, which dilutes the value of the most important pages on your site, which are the posts and pages. So this plugin allows you to solve that problem by preventing search engines from indexing wordpress pages that contain duplicate content like archives and category pages.

Pretty Link – This plugin allows you to cloak your affiliate links with ease. Using this plugin you no longer have to build redirects by hand or upload a bunch of PHP files to your server. Pretty Link allows you to shrink, track, and share any URL on the internet from your Wordpress site. Pretty Link also allows you to track each hit on your URL and provides a full, detailed report of where the hit came from. This is an excellent plugin for anyone who wants to cloak their affiliate links and track their click stats.

Internal Link Building – Optimize the internal link structure of your Wordpress blog.

BrowserShots.org – Very cool web design tool that allows you to see what your website looks like in different operating systems and browsers. It is a free and convenient way to test your website’s browser compatibility in one place.

SocialMention.com – Social Mention is a social media search engine that searches user-generated content such as blogs, comments, bookmarks, events, news, videos, and microblogging services. Find out where people are talking about you, your content, and your products.

NameChk.com – Check to see if your desired username or vanity url is still available at dozens of popular Social Networking and Social Bookmarking websites. Promote your brand consistently by registering a username that is still available on the majority of the most popular sites. Find the best username with namechk.

GoToMyPC.com – Remote access to your PC from anywhere. Great tool to use while your traveling.

Google Docs – Free service from Google that allows you to create an collaborate on projects easily with shared documents.

IfByPhone.com – Text-to-speech phone service.

BuiltWith.com – Use this site to find out what technologies are being used on a website.

ViralPDF.com – viralPDF brings full re-branding functionality to all your PDF ebooks. Unlike any other PDF customizing tool available today, it lets you use unlimited, re-brandable links and email-addresses, add an expiration date and more. Use viralPDF to turn any PDF file into a viral marketing tool: eBooks, special reports, articles,… you name it!

Notepad ++ – The best text editor ever! A free open-source code editor.

Kompozer.net – KompoZer is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing. A great free piece of software for creating web pages.

IdeaOffer.com – Cool site where you can get help developing your idea. You can also get paid for helping others with their ideas.

Mozy.com – Backup and store your data.

Skype – Free video conferencing and online chat.

Xero.com – Powerful online accounting software

FireShot – Firefox AddOn that allows you to take a screenshot of an entire webpage in one click.

Recipe: Chocolate Dipped Ritz Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients:

Ritz Crackers
Peanut Butter
Chocolate Almond Bark

Directions:

Spread 1 teaspoon of peanut butter between two Ritz crackers. Make as
many as you want and set aside.

Melt chocolate bark in a double broiler. (I used a large glass bowl and just
heated the chocolate in the microwave – mad cooking skills :)

Dip the sandwiched crackers in the chocolate with tongs (or just a spoon ;)

Place on wax paper until cool.

Enjoy :)