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	<description>Making Money Online by Milking the Internet!</description>
	<pubDate>Sat, 17 May 2008 03:21:24 +0000</pubDate>
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		<title>Business Goal Setting and the Exercise Bike</title>
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		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/business-goal-setting-and-the-exercise-bike/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 May 2008 02:40:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Offline]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[blogging]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=941</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[You go to the gym and get on the treadmill, you have no real goal in mind and so you hit the &#8220;Quick Start&#8221; button and just go. You know of people that are in really good physical shape and they absolutely love the treadmill and you want so much to look like them so [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>You go to the gym and get on the treadmill, you have no real goal in mind and so you hit the &#8220;Quick Start&#8221; button and just go. You know of people that are in really good physical shape and they absolutely love the treadmill and you want so much to look like them so you are going to try it.</p>
<p>At first it is a breeze and actually is a little fun. You have your headphones on, rocking on to your favorite music and you play around with the buttons and settings on the treadmill thinking to yourself how this is actually not too bad. You look at the treadmill beside you and see that person is on level 9 and so you crank yours up to level 10 just to show them that you are better.</p>
<p>Then it starts, your legs get a little tired, and start to burn. The fun is starting to disappear and you watch for a chance that the person on the treadmill next to you is not looking so you can turn the level down a little.</p>
<p>Suddenly the thoughts start&#8230;</p>
<p><em>&#8220;I need to get off this thing, I hate this stupid thing!&#8221;</em></p>
<p>60 seconds later all inhibitions are gone, you don&#8217;t care who is looking, you crank down the level to the lowest it can go&#8230; your just to darn worn out.</p>
<p>30 seconds later&#8230; you hit the big red STOP button and justify to yourself&#8230;</p>
<p><em>&#8220;Hey, its been 7 minutes, thats long enough, I will go longer next time!&#8221;</em></p>
<p><strong>What Failed Here and What the Heck Does This Have to do with Business Planning?</strong></p>
<p>Hopefully you can see where we are going here but if not, we are sure you will get it in a moment.</p>
<p>For anyone starting a business, if you do not set yourself a goal right up front, chances are you are going to be just like the person on the treadmill and jump ship the moment things start to get rough. Things are always fun and exciting at first but what about when tough times hit?</p>
<p>You NEED to set for yourself realistic goals.</p>
<p>You see, with exercise the big goal is usually to lose weight but if you do not have a specific amount you want to lose&#8230; well then as soon as you lose a little and times get tough you are going to be like the guy on the treadmill and simply quit.</p>
<p>With your business, we can pretty much guarantee you that times are going to get rough. There are going to come moments that you look at your results and or finances and feel so over whelmed and paranoid, that you suddenly fall into analysis paralysis. You start to feel like you are failing, that it is too hard, that you can&#8217;t do it and then the inevitable happens&#8230; You Quit!</p>
<p>You chalk this up to the system not working (it is never our own fault), the tools are no good, the person who you learned this from scammed you&#8230; this whole business thing is a scam and does not work</p>
<p>I have heard this more then once. Someone fails to plan and because of that, jumps ship the moment the waters get rough and then blames the ship for them drowning when it was them that jumped off the boat into the water.</p>
<p>Whether you are starting a blog, creating a PPC campaign, or even starting an offline business, you need to make sure you set yourself goals that get you through to the end. You need to stay focused on the end prize.</p>
<p>Here are two scenarios&#8230;</p>
<p>1. Lets say for example you want to start building niche blogs. So your initial plan is to build a few of them (you are not sure how many) and make loads of cash. A few months into it you start getting discouraged because you are barely making any money and these sites are taking lots of time and effort. You cant see the reason &#8220;why&#8221; for what you are doing, so you abandon them and move on to something else.</p>
<p>2. Now a different person wants to build some niche specific blogs. This person plans that they want 6 blogs built and promoted by 6 months. They figure out the time and effort to do it and they plan that at the end of the 6 months they would take the two that are doing the best, sell the other four at sitepoint and then focus only on those two that were looking promising. Now after a couple months, this person has 4 done and none are doing that well however, this person does not quit&#8230; why?</p>
<p>The reason is this person knows the &#8220;why&#8221; of what they are doing. They see a goal and focus on it&#8230; they know they need 6 blogs done and then it is time to make a decision on a new goal. At the end of the 6 months they have achieved their goal and find the two sites that are the best of the batch and now focus all efforts on them.</p>
<p>When the doubts and distractions pop up, as long as they are not deal breakers (life altering kind of events) they are able to stay focused on the end goal and push their way through to the end.</p>
<p>~ I sure hope this makes sense to you!</p>
<p><strong>Now for some serious questions to you&#8230;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Do you have any idea what your goals are with your business right now?</li>
<li>Are you just winging it and hoping for the best?</li>
<li>If you had an employee that gave the same excuse you have for not having a goal&#8230; and you were paying them by the hour and they were just &#8220;winging it&#8221;&#8230; would you feel that was a good investment?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Have you signed up for my latest Cowpetition yet? You can win some pretty awesome prizes!</strong></p>
<p><strong>Check it out at <a href="http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition">http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition</a></strong>
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Could Blogging Actually Be Better than Dr Phil?</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/291205507/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/could-blogging-actually-be-better-than-dr-phil/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 15 May 2008 21:27:56 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=937</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Question of the day &#8211;&#62; Could blogging actually be better than Dr Phil?
We are always looking and researching for new strategies, ideas and inspiration, to help us stay on top of this blogging game and today we came across something that we normally would not think to be interested in. Actually, we may get a [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Question of the day &#8211;&gt; Could blogging actually be better than Dr Phil?</strong></p>
<p>We are always looking and researching for new strategies, ideas and inspiration, to help us stay on top of this blogging game and today we came across something that we normally would not think to be interested in. Actually, we may get a little mushy in the next few words&#8230; but we hope you find a little inspiration in this like we did.</p>
<p>A few hours ago we came across a blog from a woman who lives in Boston (USA) who began blogging back in October of 2005 (her blog is <a href="http://snickollet.blogspot.com/">http://snickollet.blogspot.com/</a>). She began blogging about how her husband was suffering from pancreatic cancer and how the two of them we’re going through infertility treatments to get pregnant. She blogged about what she was going through with her husband but also during her pregnancy. On April 11th 2007 her husband passed away and she blogged about her day and how she crawled into bed with him and held onto him until he passed away, yet she continued blogging as a form of therapy.</p>
<p>We think that perhaps many people see blogging as a way of therapy, a way to get their emotions out there, a way of being heard and venting feelings. We all know what it is like to just need someone to talk too&#8230; maybe thats why we love blogging?</p>
<p>If you are stuck on what to say&#8230; simply say whats on your heart or mind&#8230; after all is not that what this whole blogging thing is about?</p>
<p>Got any thoughts on this&#8230; other than we probably sound like a women in this post?
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>WIN Over $2300 in Prizes with Our Cowpetition</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/290240745/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/win-over-2300-in-prizes-with-our-cowpetition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 15:31:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[John Cow vs Garry Conn]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Market Research]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=934</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Got some questions for you…

Want to learn first hand how to “truly” make money online?
Want to see from start to finish how we plan, research, build and market a blog to dominate and grow viral buzz?
Want to see a real life case study from start to finish?
Want a chance to WIN over $2300 almost $3000 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Got some questions for you…</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Want to learn first hand how to “truly” make money online?</li>
<li>Want to see from start to finish how we plan, research, build and market a blog to dominate and grow viral buzz?</li>
<li>Want to see a real life case study from start to finish?</li>
<li><strong>Want a chance to WIN <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">over $2300</span> almost $3000 in prizes?</strong></li>
<li>Want it all for FREE?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/">&gt;&gt;&gt;Click Here Now&lt;&lt;&lt;</a> </strong>to visit our &#8220;Official&#8221; Cowpetition page and learn exactly how you can enter to Win!!!
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Cow vs Conn a Case Study for Making Money Online</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/290243193/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 14 May 2008 10:36:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[John Cow vs Garry Conn]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=935</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Got some questions for you…

Want to learn first hand how to “truly” make money online?
Want to see from start to finish how we plan, research, build and market a blog to dominate and grow viral buzz?
Want to see a real life case study from start to finish?
Want a chance to WIN over $2300 almost $3000 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>Got some questions for you…</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Want to learn first hand how to “truly” make money online?</li>
<li>Want to see from start to finish how we plan, research, build and market a blog to dominate and grow viral buzz?</li>
<li>Want to see a real life case study from start to finish?</li>
<li><strong>Want a chance to WIN <span style="text-decoration: line-through;">over $2300</span> almost $3000 in prizes?</strong></li>
<li>Want it all for FREE?</li>
</ul>
<p><strong><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/"></a></strong></p>
<p><strong>Check this out&#8230; You can WIN&#8230;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>A FREE Copy of <a href="http://www.affiliateelite.com" target="_blank">Affiliate Elite Enterprise Edition</a> ($550+ value)</li>
<li>A FREE Copy of <a href="http://www.traffictravis.com/" target="_blank">TrafficTravis</a> ($97 Value)</li>
<li>A FREE 1 Year Membership at <a href="http://plrpro.com/" target="_blank">PLR Pro</a> ($1164 Value)</li>
<li>A FREE Copy of <a href="http://www.easymemberpro.com/" target="_blank">Easy Member Pro Unlimited</a> ($297 Value)</li>
<li>A FREE Copy of <a href="http://www.videopostrobot.com/">Video Post Robot</a> ($197 Value)</li>
<li>Just Added - A FREE copy of the Full <a href="http://www.blogmastermind.com/" target="_blank">Blogging Mastermind</a> Audio Series from Yaro Starak with over 10 hours of up to date blog training ($397 Value)</li>
<li>Just Added - A FREE copy of <a href="http://www.web20marketingtips.com/">Web 2.0 Marketing Tips</a> from Miguel Alvarez, author of <a href="http://www.marketingfactor.com/" target="_blank">Marketing Factor</a> ($135 Value)</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>All you have to do is the following&#8230;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><strong>Mandatory &#8211;&gt; Registration and 1 Ticket: </strong>Subscribe to out RSS feed via email</li>
<li><strong>4 Tickets:</strong> Twitter a post about us and link to this page (Need to comment a link to your twitter so we can verify it)</li>
<li><strong>10 Tickets:</strong> Twitter a post and become a follower of my Twitter at <a href="http://twitter.com/johncow">http://twitter.com/johncow</a> (Need to comment a link to your twitter so we can verify it)</li>
<li><strong>25 Tickets: </strong>Make a blog post about the cowpetition and the prizes and link to this page</li>
<li><strong>50 Tickets:</strong> Create a video and submit it to Youtube</li>
</ul>
<p>So if you register for our RSS via email, Twitter and follow, create a post and video, you can be awarded 90 tickets. That means that if there are 10 000 tickets registered all together then your odds of winning a prize would be 90x&#8217;s greater then someone who just registers <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT:</strong> You must subscribe to our RSS feed via email to register and qualify and we will record the selection process for the winner so you can all see first hand that the more tickets you have, the better your chances to win are. One individual could actual win every prize, as long as the have at least 5 tickets. The winners will be selected on June 18th and be notified by a post on the this blog <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>This is a 100% WIN/WIN for everyone involved here&#8230; I promise to completely share everything we do, through out this entire cowpetition between <a href="http://www.garryconn.com/">Garry Conn</a> and ourselves and you will see first hand how we make a very profitable living online.</p>
<p>So get your pencils sharpened, your notepads ready and sign up to learn how to Make Money Online!</p>
<p><strong>Rules of the John Cow vs Garry Conn Cowpetition&#8230;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Starts Monday May 19th</li>
<li>Sites will be listed on <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/" target="_blank">SitePoint</a> on Wednesday June 18th</li>
<li>Winner of contest will be decided by which site generates the highest sale</li>
<li>Blogs must be on a brand new domain</li>
<li>Blogs must be 100% original work</li>
<li>Blogs must not be a premade or bought and put on a new domain</li>
<li>Blogs will be listed on <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/" target="_blank">SitePoint</a> with full disclosure of who bought them and for how much</li>
<li>Listing will be 100% handled by sitepoint (for fair third party listing)</li>
</ul>
<p>We already stated in an earlier post that after we win 100% of the proceeds are going to go to <a href="http://www.worldvision.org/">World Vision</a> and we will record the transaction so you can all see for yourselves that we are following through on that promise.</p>
<p>We are going to be fully disclosing all the details of this cowtest&#8230; how we decided on a market, how we planned out the blog, researched, built and promoted it. You will see first hand exactly how to do this for yourself. We are actually crazy for doing this as people pay 1000&#8217;s of dollars for this type of info&#8230; but our readers deserve the best <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><strong>Disclosure &#8211;&gt;</strong> We are making it clear right now that there are paid tools that we use that you will need to get if you want to do what we are going to share, so please don&#8217;t complain about that. We are not going to use this to pimp tools we do not use&#8230; but we are going to show you the tools we do use and most important the why and how we use them</p>
<p>Also, we are not making any guarantees to anyone about the success you will achieve following what we are going to show you&#8230; we are just showing you what we are doing. The good thing to know is we DESPISE theory in our teachings and stick to only proven facts&#8230; so you are going to learn what we &#8220;KNOW&#8221; is proven to work.. not what we think &#8220;should&#8221; work.</p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong>&gt;&gt;&gt; Subscribe Now to Learn and WIN &lt;&lt;&lt;</strong></p>
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<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Cow vs Conn and WIN Affiliate Elite Enterprise</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/289542787/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/cow-vs-conn-win-affiliate-elite/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 May 2008 16:31:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affilates]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[John Cow vs Garry Conn]]></category>

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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=929</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[COOL SURPRISE &#8211;&#62; Got a surprise email this morning from Brad Callen who was pretty happy to see us mention that we like his product Affiliate Elite, and here is what he had to say&#8230;

If you cant read it&#8230; here is what he said&#8230;
&#8220;Thanks for mentioning AffiliateElite on your blog, I am anxious to see [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><strong>COOL SURPRISE &#8211;&gt;</strong> Got a surprise email this morning from Brad Callen who was pretty happy to see us mention that we like his product <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/AffiliateElite" target="_blank">Affiliate Elite</a>, and here is what he had to say&#8230;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-930" title="brad" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/brad.jpg" alt="" width="469" height="123" /></p>
<p>If you cant read it&#8230; here is what he said&#8230;</p>
<p><em>&#8220;Thanks for mentioning AffiliateElite on your blog, I am anxious to see how you recommend using it. I see that you sponsor the odd contest every now and again too and if you would like to give away one free copy of the Enterprise Edition I can set you up. Let me know and if there is anything else I can do for you.&#8221;</em></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/AffiliateElite"><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-931" title="affiliateelite_box" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/affiliateelite_box.jpg" alt="" width="292" height="240" /></a>First of all.. what a gentleman&#8230; thanks Brad, this puts you even higher in our books as one of the top IM gurus out there&#8230; we would most certainly LOVE to take you up on this offer and we are sure our readers would be more then happy too win a copy as well <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/AffiliateElite" target="_blank">Affiliate Elite</a> is a kick ass piece of software and as you read in our last training post, we use this ourselves.. and will be showing you how in the next lesson. It is not a cheap one though and has a monthly use fee with it so, for one year alone this is a $570 + value&#8230; and that is only if you paid for 1 year. So you can see, this is not a cheap prize!</p>
<p>So, here is what we are going to do&#8230; On May 31st we are going to have a draw to see who wins&#8230; but too be entered to win, this is what you are going to have to do&#8230;</p>
<ul></ul>
<p><strong>&gt;&gt;&gt;MAJOR CONTEST UPDATE&#8230;. PLEASE VISIT <a href="http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/">http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/</a> for all the details&lt;&lt;&lt;</strong></p>
<p>This is a 100% WIN/WIN for you all&#8230; you can get a chance to win this kick butt program and you will also receive all the details of how we built our blog so you can implement the exact same strategies. Can you moo the word&#8230; COOL!!!</p>
<p>Oh and we almost forgot&#8230; We had a good talk with <a href="http://www.garryconn.com/" target="_blank">Garry (no chance whatsoever of winning) Conn</a> yesterday and it was kind of funny&#8230; we thought he was joking that he thought he stood a chance, but the little guy really believes it. He is so cute, it really warms our hearts to see the little guy all excited. Too bad we are going to have to stampede all over him&#8230; especially since we have started to grow fond of the little guy.</p>
<p>We also found out that <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/" target="_blank">SitePoint</a> has decided to jump on board with this and is going to help out with sponsoring this contest&#8230; which we thought was pretty cool.</p>
<p><strong>Here are the official Rules of the Game&#8230;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Starts Monday May 19th</li>
<li>Sites will be listed on <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/" target="_blank">SitePoint</a> on Wednesday June 18th</li>
<li>Winner of contest will be decided by which site generates the highest sale</li>
<li>Blogs must be on a brand new domain</li>
<li>Blogs must be 100% original work</li>
<li>Blogs must not be a premade or bought and put on a new domain</li>
<li>Blogs will be listed on <a href="http://www.sitepoint.com/" target="_blank">SitePoint</a> with full disclosure of who bought them and for how much</li>
<li>Listing will be 100% handled by sitepoint (for fair third party listing)</li>
</ul>
<p>We already stated that after we win 100% of the proceeds are going to go to <a href="http://www.worldvision.org/">World Vision</a> and we will record the transaction so you can all see for yourselves that we are following through on that promise. Garry is not doing that&#8230; he is keeping it all for himself (can you say boo).</p>
<p>We are going to be fully disclosing all the details of this contest&#8230; how we decided on a market, how we planned out the blog, researched, built and promoted it. You will see first hand exactly how to do this for yourself. We are actually crazy for doing this as people pay 1000&#8217;s of dollars for this type of info&#8230; but our readers deserve the best <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><strong>Disclosure &#8211;&gt;</strong> We are making it clear right now that there are paid tools that we use that you will need to get if you want to do what we are going to share, so please don&#8217;t complain about that. We are not going to use this to pimp tools we do not use&#8230; but we are going to show you the tools we do use and most important the why and how we use them</p>
<p>Also, we are not making any guarantees to anyone about the success you will achieve following what we are going to show you&#8230; we are just showing you what we are doing. The good thing to know is we DESPISE theory in our teachings and stick to only proven facts&#8230; so you are going to learn what we &#8220;KNOW&#8221; is proven to work.. not what we think &#8220;should&#8221; work.</p>
<p><strong>&gt;&gt;&gt;MAJOR CONTEST UPDATE&#8230;. PLEASE VISIT <a href="http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/">http://www.johncow.com/cowpetition/</a> for all the details&lt;&lt;&lt;</strong>
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Keyword Research - Show me the Money… Words that is</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/288982955/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-show-me-the-money-words-that-is/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 22:05:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Market Research]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[success]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=904</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[SHOW ME THE MONEY!&#8221;
In the movie Jerry Maguire, the character Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding Jr) gets Jerry (played by Tom Cruise) to repeat the phrase &#8220;Show Me the Money&#8221;. The scene that this took place in was very energetic and fun. The basis of what was happening in the movie was the character [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>SHOW ME THE MONEY!&#8221;</p>
<p>In the movie Jerry Maguire, the character Rod Tidwell (played by Cuba Gooding Jr) gets Jerry (played by Tom Cruise) to repeat the phrase &#8220;Show Me the Money&#8221;. The scene that this took place in was very energetic and fun. The basis of what was happening in the movie was the character played by Cuba Gooding Jr, was making it very clear to Jerry McGuire that he did not care about any of the (uhn hmm&#8230; pardon the french here) Bullshit, that Jerry was throwing at him&#8230; what mattered to him was the money. Dont fancy talk me, dont tell me how great it will or could be&#8230; SHOW ME THE MOONEY!</p>
<p>When we are doing market research, this principal should be front and center. All the fancy numbers and calculations that most of the keyword tools out there tell us, are completely meaningless&#8230; We want to see the money!</p>
<p>What we mean by that is, before we invest any time or effort into creating a blog, we want to see that people are spending money and more important of all&#8230; people are making money in the market that we are targeting. We are not talking about the actual affiliate product here&#8230; we already know people are making some money selling that, what we are referring to here are the keywords.</p>
<p><strong>How to Find the &#8220;Show Me the Mooney&#8221; Keywords</strong></p>
<p>There are three tools that we absolutely love, when it comes to keyword research and we are going to explain about each one and why we like them. We really wish we could tell you that the only tools you need are free ones but that is just not true, we want to show you exactly how we do this to earn some kick ass affiliate revenue and this is how we do it&#8230; with these tools.</p>
<p>As we go through the remaining lessons, we hope you will fully understand why we not only recommend these tools but we use them.</p>
<p><strong>1. <a href="https://adwords.google.com/" target="_blank">Google Adwords Toolbox</a> &#8211;&gt;</strong> In our opinion this is the most powerful tool of them all. If we had to choose only one tool out of them all, we would honestly stick with the free Google tools. The data that Google provides is absolutely incredible and once you understand it, you can uncover beautiful words&#8230; and we are going to show you exactly how we do it.</p>
<p>We do recommend that you do not use the publicly accessible tools, but instead create an Adwords account to access the tools from the Adwords control panel. To register for Adwords, you will have to set up a mock adwords campaign but you can pause it right away and then access all the tools.</p>
<p><strong>2. <a href="http://johncow.com/TrafficTravis" target="_blank">Traffic Travis </a>&#8211;&gt;</strong> We love this tool and we bet that a lot of you (if not most of you) have never heard of this one. A good friend of ours named Mark Ling, who is a very successful internet marketing in the non IM field, created this. Personally we think the name is terrible and the interface is kind of cheesy looking but once you understand what is under the hood of this bad boy, you will absolutely love it and as we get further into the training you will see why.</p>
<p><strong>3. <a href="http://johncow.com/AffiliateElite" target="_blank">Affiliate Elite</a> &#8211;&gt;</strong> This is a fantastic tool that should be part of every affiliate marketers arsenal&#8230; in our opinion of course. We absolutely love the spy tool and to be honest with you, is the only part of this software we really use. Not to downplay the rest of the functionality but this is what helps us identify the winners from the losers.</p>
<p>Other Tools&#8230;. there are lots of other fantastic tools available, such as WordTracker, Keyword Discovery, SpyFu and more. We have used them all and still use some but the above three are our favorites and in our opinion are all that are needed for very effective keyword research and are what we will be sharing with you in the following lessons.</p>
<p>Now before you go out and buy these tools, you may want to follow along and judge for yourself&#8230; you may even already own some tools that you can use in place of them.</p>
<p><strong>Lets Get To It - Enough talk, lets get our Hoofs Dirty!</strong></p>
<p>The remainder of this lesson is going to focus on the initial step of digging out the words with Google. In the next lesson we will show you how to take those words&#8230; expand of them and then use <a href="http://johncow.com/TrafficTravis" target="_blank">TrafficTravis</a> and <a href="http://johncow.com/AffiliateElite" target="_blank">Affiliate Elite</a> to filter out the crap and focus in on the money makers.</p>
<p><strong>Step 1: </strong>Log into your account at <a href="https://adwords.google.com/select/Login" target="_blank">https://adwords.google.com/select/Login</a> and then select &#8220;Tools&#8221; and &#8220;Keyword Tool&#8221;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-920" title="adwords" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/adwords-300x225.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="225" /></p>
<p><strong>Step 2: </strong>Check the &#8220;Website content&#8221; box and enter the true URL of the site you are going to promote and select &#8220;Get Keyword Ideas&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/keywordtool.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-921" title="keywordtool" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/keywordtool-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br />
Click To Enlarge Image</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 3:</strong> Google will now list all the keywords that they feel are directly related to that site. They also organize the info into &#8220;Groups&#8221;. Click on the &#8220;Avg Search Volume&#8221; to sort in order of highest to lowest.</p>
<p><strong>Step 4:</strong> Open a notepad file and copy down the top keyword from each group.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/topword.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-923" title="topword" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/topword-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br />
Click to Enlarge</a></p>
<p><strong>Step 5: </strong>Now we are going to look where the discussions are happening. Go to Google.com and now search for&#8230;</p>
<p>&#8220;Keyword Phrase&#8221; Forum</p>
<p>&#8230;for each of the keywords that you listed from step 4, such as&#8230;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-926" title="daytrading" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/daytrading-300x166.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="166" /></p>
<p>This is a very powerful step, because this is where the people in the market actual go and talk. This is where the problems are discussed, the resources are discussed and more.</p>
<p><strong>Step 6: </strong>Click on the top forum that shows up and you want to browse through the forum and look for keywords that are not in your list and are not phrase matches to your list words. For example, since the example list has &#8220;day trading&#8221;, we would not use a word such as &#8220;forex day trading&#8221; since my keyword already covers that&#8230; instead I want to look for words that are completely different. You want to look for words used by experienced members in the forum as well and in discussions that have a lot of responses&#8230; that shows interest in the subject.</p>
<p>For example, we found the word &#8220;EuroBund Daily Notes&#8221;, there is a good discussion on this and it is not something we have on our list&#8230; so we added it.</p>
<p>Make sure you do not waste too much time here though&#8230; you can get into analysis paralysis here. Just browse around, find popular discussions and look for hot topics and the words being used.</p>
<p>Not every keyword will have a quality forum associated with them, but a lot of them do.</p>
<p><strong>Step 7:</strong> Now go to google.com (the search engine part) and enter each keyword from your entire list, one at a time and copy down the urls of all the adsense ads on page one of the results only. Repeat this for every keyword that you copied down from the previous steps.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-924" title="urlsadwords" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/urlsadwords-191x300.jpg" alt="" width="191" height="300" /></p>
<p><strong>Note &#8211;&gt; </strong>The reason we are doing this is to focus on keywords from sites that &#8220;PAY&#8221; for traffic&#8230; they are the ones that know which keywords to focus on (did a light come on yet?)</p>
<p><strong>Step 8: </strong>Once you have a list of all the URL&#8217;s, go back to your AdWords tool and now enter each URL, one at a time into the &#8220;Keyword Tool&#8221; &#8211;&gt; &#8220;Website Content&#8221;. Click on the &#8220;Add all&#8230;&#8221; under each group to add all the words to the right side of the screen.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-925" title="addall" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/addall-300x126.jpg" alt="" width="300" height="126" /></p>
<p><strong>Step 7:</strong> Repeat this with every URL that you found from step 7. You will find that there are a few of words that are shared but there are lots more that are new.</p>
<p>By the time you have finished this you will have found a lot of great keywords&#8230; but the important thing here is to realize these are not keywords related to just anything&#8230; they are keywords related to sites paying to use those words. That is powerful because that shows the words are worth something.</p>
<p>Once you have compeleted this step, export the keywords in text format and save them to your computer.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-927" title="download" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/download.jpg" alt="" width="217" height="113" /></p>
<p>Thats is it for today!</p>
<p>In the next lessons, we will show you how to take these words and filter them to find the hidden diamonds.</p>
<p>Check out the other lessons in this series&#8230;</p>
<ol>
<li><a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-are-you-basing-it-on/">Lesson 1 - Keyword Research: What are you Basing it On?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-the-cart-before-the-cow/">Lesson 2 - Keyword Research: the Cart before the Cow</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-for-may-i-ask/">Lesson 3 - Keyword research: What for may we ask?</a></li>
</ol>
<p>PS &#8211;&gt; We truly hope you are enjoying these lessons and would love to get feedback from you on them&#8230; so leave a moo below about the lesson.</p>
<p><strong>&gt;&gt; Remember to subscribe for our RSS Feed to stay up to date on the next lesson we post!&lt;&lt;</strong>
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Winner of Answer My Questions for $100 at Amazon</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/288926466/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/winner-of-answer-my-questions-for-100-at-amazon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 12 May 2008 20:18:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=918</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We went through and re read the moos a couple times and it just kept coming back to the first one by Jamie Harrop of http://www.jamieharrop.com/
There were a few excellent moos, but Jamie&#8217;s just kept coming up #1.

Jamie, contact us through our &#8220;Mail Us&#8221; form and let us know what email address and name to [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We went through and re read the moos a couple times and it just kept coming back to the first one by Jamie Harrop of <a href="http://www.jamieharrop.com/" target="_blank">http://www.jamieharrop.com/</a></p>
<p>There were a few excellent moos, but Jamie&#8217;s just kept coming up #1.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.johncow.com/answer-my-questions-for-100-at-amazon/"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-919" title="jamie" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/jamie.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="274" /></a></p>
<p>Jamie, contact us through our &#8220;<a href="http://www.johncow.com/mail-us/">Mail Us</a>&#8221; form and let us know what email address and name to put the gift certificate too.
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Learn How to Kill Your Competition - A Case Study of How We Beat up Garry Conn</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/288079303/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/learn-how-to-kill-your-competition-as-we-beat-up-garry-conn/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2008 14:27:04 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=915</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Over the past few days, there has been some smack thrown around by Garry Conn over at his blog, who was making some claims about the practices of this blog. Well, in the powerful and emotional and tear jerking words of the legendary leader and visionary Popey the Sailorman&#8230;
We&#8217;s taken all we&#8217;s could stand and [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p style="text-align: left;">Over the past few days, there has been some smack thrown around by <a href="http://www.garryconn.com/" target="_blank">Garry Conn</a> over at his blog, who was making some claims about the practices of this blog. Well, in the powerful and emotional and tear jerking words of the legendary leader and visionary Popey the Sailorman&#8230;</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><em>We&#8217;s taken all we&#8217;s could stand and we&#8217;s can&#8217;t stand no more!</em></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">Man, those words send shivers up our spine&#8230; so powerful&#8230; just so damn powerful&#8230; oh, ah.. uhm anyway back to what we were saying.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">We thought it was time to put up or shut up and so we called out Garry to a competition, a competition that would have us each putting our practices into place and we would each build a blog focused on a specific non-IM niche. Then at the end of 30 days we would compare results&#8230; but this is where the problem lies.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">What results to compare&#8230; revenue, traffic, selling the site and the price point&#8230; what???</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">You see, things are changing around here&#8230; for the better and the focus of this blog is to teach, inspire and well we would be lying if we did not say make money&#8230; but making money through true principals and practices and showing you how to truly do it for yourself. If you have been following along the Keyword lessons, you see that we are not sharing crap strategies here&#8230; this is stuff people pay money to get access to and took a lot of trial and error to figure out and best of all&#8230; makes us money <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p style="text-align: left;">So, when someone was saying we are full of bull@#$t&#8230; it got our hackles up because we have worked damn hard to create what we have and we are willing to prove this anyway we can.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>The Important Thing However is &#8211;&gt; How can we do this so everyone benefits?</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">You see, Garry is a great guy, we actually have loads of respect for him and his blog. He does share good strategies and he is a smart guy&#8230; and it is not like we are out to destroy anyone&#8230; BUT we also do NOT want to be called things that WE are NOT.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">So this competition needs to be first of all a benefit to the readers..YOU. We are going to show you everything, step by step that we do.. from start to finish so you can follow along and learn for yourself. After all, it is you the readers that make this blog what it is.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">This is why we (Garry is too) are treating this very serious and making a real case study for you to follow along with and so the first thing you should do, right now, is enroll to be in the loop&#8230; this way you can be first in line to see every single communication on this and follow us step by step. To do that, simple enroll here&#8230;</p>
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</tbody>
</table>
</form>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>We Also NEED Your Ideas and Input!</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: left;">The next thing we need from you is ideas&#8230; we want your opinion and ideas as to how to best judge the competition. Keep in mind that the system needs to be proven. We are not at all worried about anyone cheating but the problem is the skeptics will start rumors and conspiracy theories and stuff like that.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">So please, think about it and then post a comment below as to what you think would be the best way to handle this.</p>
<p style="text-align: left;">We have already stated that if the contest involves monetary value.. we are donating it all to <a href="http://www.worldvision.org/" target="_blank">World Vision</a>&#8230; so keep that in mind when thinking up ideas.</p>
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		<item>
		<title>Happy Mothers Day to All You Amazing Moms!</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/288028798/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/happy-mothers-day-to-all-you-amazing-moms/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2008 12:26:42 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=913</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We hope this is an incredible mothers day for all you amazing moms that us mama boys would be so lost with out! XOXOXO

Special Deal: Get a 15% monthly recurring discount on the best hosting plan on the planet at Top Hosting Center. Use coupon &#8220;JohnCow&#8220;. (Three months free hosting when you get a 12 [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We hope this is an incredible mothers day for all you amazing moms that us mama boys would be so lost with out! XOXOXO</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-914" title="loveyoumom" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/loveyoumom-300x299.gif" alt="" width="300" height="299" />
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<item>
		<title>John Cow dot Com called out Garry Conn dot Com</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/287771420/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/john-cow-dot-com-called-out-garry-conn-dot-com/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 May 2008 00:33:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[John Cow vs Garry Conn]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[garry conn]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[john cow]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=912</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[OK.. some words were thrown (ok, maybe more tossed), some assumptions were made (we all know what assuming does) and finally enough was enough&#8230; one cow could only take so much. We dropped the hammer and called Garry (yes there are two r&#8217;s&#8230; I kept forgetting that) out for a fight. Well actually, not really [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>OK.. some words were thrown (ok, maybe more tossed), some assumptions were made (we all know what assuming does) and finally enough was enough&#8230; one cow could only take so much. We dropped the hammer and called Garry (yes there are two r&#8217;s&#8230; I kept forgetting that) out for a fight. Well actually, not really a fight, just a competition.</p>
<p>Announcing&#8230;.</p>
<p><strong>Garry Conn vs John Cow </strong></p>
<p>We are going to go head to head and build a blog completely from scratch in a non IM niche and after one month, whoever gets the highest price for there blog from sitepoint&#8230; will be the winner. (tentative plan)</p>
<p>We still need to work out all the details but we will let you know as soon as Garry (remember the two r&#8217;s) and us figure it all out.</p>
<p>The cool thing is we are going to share everything we do, so you can all see first hand what we are doing, how we do it and you can maybe (hopefully anyway) learn a thing or two.</p>
<p>Oh&#8230; and we are going to donate our winnings (because we are going to win.. yes Garry, that means you are going to lose) to <a href="http://www.worldvision.org" target="_blank">World Vision</a> (a pretty darn good cause in our opinion).
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Answer My Questions for $100 at Amazon</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/287469527/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/answer-my-questions-for-100-at-amazon/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 10 May 2008 12:34:17 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[The Net]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[blogging]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[contest]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=905</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We are in the middle of finishing up the next keyword post but we wanted to ask a question, that came up based on a couple moos from the post &#8220;What Would X Do Without The Internet?&#8220;.  The comments were&#8230;

If you cant read it, the moo says&#8230; &#8220;It’s really wierd how easily these famous [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We are in the middle of finishing up the next keyword post but we wanted to ask a question, that came up based on a couple moos from the post &#8220;<a href="http://www.johncow.com/what-would-x-do-without-the-internet/" target="_blank">What Would X Do Without The Internet?</a>&#8220;.  The comments were&#8230;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-906" title="ajith" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/ajith.gif" alt="" width="500" height="152" /></p>
<p>If you cant read it, the moo says&#8230;<em> &#8220;It’s really wierd how easily these famous bloggers get away with the online money for writing basically nothing useful… Are we hooked too much into the online stuff?&#8221;</em></p>
<p>A couple of moos down, another reader &#8220;Caleb&#8221; responded with&#8230;</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-907" title="caleb" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/caleb.gif" alt="" width="500" height="198" /></p>
<p>Again, if you cant read it, the moo says&#8230; <em>&#8220;Ajith: I don’t really see those particular types of posts -like when Chow shows pics of his dinner for example- as nothing useful because it gives the reader a sense of the blogger’s personality and lifestyle. This makes it more REAL to the reader…<br />
…and YES we are hooked!&#8221;</em></p>
<p>So our question to you is&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>What is your opinion on this topic? </strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Should blogs be all business ONLY?</li>
<li>Is not one of the attractions of blogging &#8211;&gt; getting inside the mind of the blogger?</li>
<li>What do you look for in a blog and what brings you back&#8230; what gets you hooked?</li>
</ul>
<p>The way this is going to work is there will be one winner of the $100 Amazon Gift Certificate and that will be based on quality of answer. We will select the winner on Monday May 12th&#8230; and if there are more then one &#8220;high quality&#8221; answer, which based on the majority of your comments already we are sure there will be, then we will simply pick a number&#8230; but you MUST put a little thought in your answer. The winner will be notified by a blog post here and so you may want to subscribe to our rss feed to be notified <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>PS &#8211;&gt; If you have not already, <strong>sign up for our RSS Feed</strong> to stay up to date on fun contests like this and to be notified when the next &#8220;Super Awesome&#8221; Keyword Research post is made.
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Keyword Research - What for may we ask?</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/286869094/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-for-may-i-ask/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 09 May 2008 14:42:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Affilates]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Market Research]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Wordpress]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[affiliate programs]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[clickbank]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[keyword research]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=894</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Before we start searching for keywords, we prefer to have a goal in mind and that means that we want to already have the product or service we are going to promote selected. We have been down the path of general market research to uncover a niche (pronounced neesh) and in our opinion it takes [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Before we start searching for keywords, we prefer to have a goal in mind and that means that we want to already have the product or service we are going to promote selected. We have been down the path of general market research to uncover a niche (pronounced neesh) and in our opinion it takes way too long and is way too complicated.</p>
<p>Instead we prefer to find a product or service that is already selling or at least starting to sell and then we figure out who is buying it and what words they are using to buy it. Once we know that, then we can figure out how to make a better offer. This does not mean we actually build a competing product (which is a possibility down the road) but instead we figure out a unique selling position (USP) that makes our offer better then the rest so people buy through us. But before we get into that, we need to find a product.</p>
<p><strong>Finding the Right Affiliate Product</strong></p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-903" title="help" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/help.gif" alt="" width="241" height="213" />There are different ways this can be done and just today we were asked by a friend of ours, Sheena Brown, how do you find good products to sell. We asked her why and she mentioned that she came across a really cool gaming product, called the Razer gaming keyboard, that has an affiliate program and she was considering selling it.</p>
<p>Our response to her was&#8230; &#8220;that&#8217;s the first step.. look for products that you yourself would buy.&#8221;</p>
<p>This is extremely important because this shows through in your marketing efforts. People tend to be able to smell cow dung from a mile away and you may be able to fool a few people some of the time but you cant fool all the people all the time, so if you try promoting a product that you yourself would have no interest in buying, this often will show in your message.</p>
<p>OK, thats great if you already know a product you want to promote but what if you don&#8217;t&#8230; where would you find these type of products or services?</p>
<p>In our opinion the easiest place to start is with the main affiliate networks such as ClickBank, Commission Junction, Link Share and so on. These networks take a lot of the hard work out of the process because they act as the middle man between the sellers and affiliates. They manage the tracking, finances and all that good stuff and make it very easy to search through and find products to sell.</p>
<p><strong>List of Top Affiliate Networks&#8230;</strong></p>
<ul>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.clickbank.com/affiliateAccountSignup.htm?reseller=johncow1" target="_blank">ClickBank</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="https://signup.cj.com/member/publisherSignUp.do" target="_blank">Commission Junction</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.linkshare.com/" target="_blank">LinkShare</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.regnow.com/" target="_blank">Regnow</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.shareasale.com/" target="_blank">Shareasale</a></li>
<li><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.performics.com/" target="_blank">Performics</a></li>
</ul>
<p>The other option is, if you know the product you want to sell then you can see what stores have affiliate programs available. To do that simply type in the keyword or product name and include &#8220;Affiliate Program&#8221; in the search such as&#8230;</p>
<p><em>razer keyboard &#8220;affiliate program&#8221;</em></p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/affiliteprogram.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-896" title="affiliteprogram" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/affiliteprogram1-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br />
Click Here to Enlarge<br />
</a></p>
<p>Or, if you know the site that sells the product and you cant see if they have an affilaite program, simply search using the google site filter such as&#8230;</p>
<p>site:www.thedomain.com affiliate</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/affiliteprogramsearch.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-897" title="affiliteprogramsearch" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/affiliteprogramsearch-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br />
Click Here to Enlarge</a></p>
<p>This however does not really solve the problem of helping you find the right product to choose and the reason is, if you don&#8217;t already have something in mind then where in the world do you even start?</p>
<p>So, we need to back up a little&#8230; and for those of you that already think you know what you want to promote, don&#8217;t worry about it. We will get back to you momentarily.</p>
<p><strong>So Where to Start?</strong></p>
<p>If you are just starting out and do not already have a certain market you are involved in, this can actually be a stressful time for you. We can get so riled up over this that we actually give ourselves anxiety. Some of us just grab the first thing that crosses or path or we see some guru promoting and decide that is where to start, only to fail because the competition is so fierce. Others over analyze each product to the point where no product could ever satisfy them.</p>
<p>The best place to be here is in the middle, you want to look for products that are being promoted&#8230; but not by every person under the sun and you also need to understand that there is no perfect product out there but you want a product that is not a piece of junk.</p>
<p>The very best place to start for anyone just beginning is with ClickBank. Yes, we know you have probably heard this before and maybe even tried to promote ClickBank products before, but trust us&#8230; if you do it right, ClickBank can be a goldmine. The reason we like ClickBank the best for starting out is once you are registered, you can then promote absolutely any product in their database. Unlike other programs, where you still have to apply for certain products and unless you already have a presence online, your chances of getting approved are pretty small.</p>
<p>The downside to ClickBank is it is 100% digital products (ebooks, software, videos and so on) and there is a lot of crap products in there. On the bright side however, there are also many solid products also.</p>
<p><strong>Finding The Right Product</strong></p>
<p>If you do not already have a ClickBank account, sign up for one now at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.clickbank.com/affiliateAccountSignup.htm?reseller=johncow1" target="_blank">ClickBank</a>, the process is extremely easy.</p>
<p>Once you have signed up, to find products simply go to the ClickBank marketplace at <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm" target="_blank">http://www.clickbank.com/marketplace.htm</a></p>
<p>Once there, the first step is to pick a market that you have somewhat of an interest in or perhaps you already have a site on. Don&#8217;t get too hung up on this however, if you really are not interested in anything or have no real care in the world as to what market to start in then just pick a the first category to start with and work your way down.</p>
<p>It is nice to start with a market you are knowledgeable with but this is also a cause for analysis paralysis because we try to find the perfect fit. Over analysis is the enemy.. remember that!</p>
<p>Lets for example just pick a random market&#8230; we will start with the the first category &#8220;Business to Business&#8221; and the first subcategory &#8220;Education&#8221;. Keep the settings with &#8220;Sortby&#8221; at Popularity and the &#8220;results per page&#8221; to 20.</p>
<p><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/clickbank.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-898" title="clickbank" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/clickbank-150x150.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="150" /><br />
Click Here to Enlarge</a></p>
<p>Now ClickBank will list for you in order of popularity, the most popular products in their database but they also give you some other fantastic information. What we personally like to do is scroll down the page and look at the titles but we also look at the &#8220;$sale&#8221; number that ClickBank provides. This is the estimated revenue you can expect to make per sale from that product after refunds, chargebacks and clickbank fees are taken into account.</p>
<p>This number is very important because you want to make sure that the product you are promoting makes at the very least $15 per sale. This is the absolute lowest we will go and the reason is, we want to spend our energy where the money is, so why spend time researching and promoting something that makes you $5 compared to the same effort that can make you $25.</p>
<p>So we scroll down the list and a few products stick out to us right away. The first is the &#8220;<span class="siteHeader">Instant Forex Profit System</span>&#8220;, this pays out over $40 per sale, which is excellent.</p>
<p>The next number we look at is the <span class="mpgreen">&#8220;%refd&#8221;, this tells me the amount of sales that are made by affiliates. In my opinion the higher the number the better here because if no affilaites were making any of the sales there would be a cause for concern. This particular product as over 90% of the sales coming from affiliates.. which is a good thing. </span></p>
<p><span class="mpgreen">Now we look at the gravity. This is basically a representation of the amont of affiliates promoting this product. Now it is not a direct 1 to 1 relationship, clickbank takes things like time since last sale and more into account for the calculation but personally we like it when this number is not too high because it tells us there are not a lot of competitors to fight against. There is no magic number here because there are so many variables that you have to take into account. For example, if the product is brand new then this number would be very low&#8230; personally we like between 10 and 50 but we have promoted products lower then that and higher then that.. but that is the average we look for.<br />
</span></p>
<p>So for this product the $sale is good, the %ref is good and the gravity is not too high&#8230; this is looking like a potentially good product. Now is the time to check out the sales page itself. To do that,  click on the &#8220;create hoplink&#8221; in the directory.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-900" title="hoplink" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/hoplink.jpg" alt="" width="259" height="102" /></p>
<p>Next, enter your ClickBank ID and click create. Now copy the URL they provide and paste it into your browser. This is important because you want to see exactly how the page appears to the end user and you also want to test the links on the page. The first things we look for are&#8230;</p>
<ol>
<li><strong>A nice clear headline</strong>: We want people to get their attention grabbed right away and be sure that it is compelling.</li>
<li><strong>Clean design and nice graphics</strong>: Is the page professional looking or like a mid 90s college student page.</li>
<li><strong>Social proof</strong> (testimonials, screenshots): Prove to me the solution works.</li>
<li><strong>Up to date</strong> (no old copyright date or 3 year old screen shots): You will be amazed how many people click off a site just because of an outdated copyright date.</li>
<li><strong>Clear call to action:</strong> Do they do a good job of showing the visitor how to buy the product.</li>
</ol>
<p>Once we have looked at these elements we then will click on the buy now link to ensure that our affiliate ID is correctly used. Simply click on the &#8220;Buy Now&#8221; and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and make sure you see [affiliate = YourAffiliateID]</p>
<p>One thing to watch for as well is an opt in form. These can be very beneficial to you but make sure you opt in and see what the message is they send you. Some people can be real scumbags and will actually put a different affiliate link in the email message so when you click on it, it overwrites your cookie with theirs and you lose the sale. Make sure they link directly to the page and your affiliate ID still shows up on the bottom of the order form.</p>
<p><strong>IMPORTANT THOUGHT &#8211;&gt;</strong> Should you buy the product before you promote it? In our opinion, Yes, but not yet. Until we are sure this is the right product and the keywords look good, there is no sense in buying it. This is not a mandatory step for everything you promote but it is wise, as you can then do videos about the product and really explain in details the advantages to the end user. You can also contact the vendor after all your research is done and ask for a review copy&#8230; most will be more then happy to oblige if they see you are serious.</p>
<p>We personally feel that too much time is spent on over analyzing products. If the initial data looks good and the sales page looks good then chances are you can make a couple bucks from that product.</p>
<p><strong>What about non ClickBank products?</strong> &#8230; how do we decide if we should move forward with those?</p>
<p>Not all, in fact very few, affiliate programs give you details like ClickBank does. The biggest thing we look at for non Clickbank products is the % commission we can make. If we cant make $15 per sale at the bare minimum, then we don&#8217;t bother. Also, we check out the sales page, the same as we do with ClickBank. So with the initial example of the Razer keyboard, we would look at the commission rate and the price of the product. If we could make at least $15 per sale, then we would consider looking more into it. If not, then we move on.</p>
<p><strong>Time to Contradict Ourselves &#8211;&gt;</strong> We would not always not move forward with something if it is less then $15 but we would already have to have a related site set up that we could just write up a promotion for. But for full blown market research, it must be $15 or more per sale made.</p>
<p>Once we have the product or service that we want to move forward with, the secret is now to find out how others are making money with it&#8230;. so it is time to start digging for keywords!</p>
<p>That my friends is going to be in the next lesson.</p>
<p>Lesson 1:<strong> </strong><a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-are-you-basing-it-on/">Keyword Research - What are You Basing it On?</a></p>
<p>Lesson 2: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-the-cart-before-the-cow/">Keyword Research - the Cart before the cow</a></p>
<p>Lesson 4: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-show-me-the-money-words-that-is/">Keyword Research - Show me the Money&#8230; Words that is</a></p>
<p><strong>&gt;&gt; Remember to sign up for our RSS Feed to stay up to date on the next lesson we post!&lt;&lt;</strong></p>
<p>What is your feedback on this lesson&#8230;other then the fact that this is freaking long!
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Vista vs XP Petition for you sorry PC users</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/286289333/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/xp-vs-vista/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 May 2008 19:22:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[microsoft]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Petition]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[vista]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[XP]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=891</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Has anyone heard the news? We should all know by now that Microsoft plans on taking XP off of store shelves as of June 30th. (Will it actually happen, who knows? Especially since Microsoft has already pushed back this date before.)
Well it’s not a big shocker that many users are not fans of Vista. Do [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Has anyone heard the news? We should all know by now that Microsoft plans on taking XP off of store shelves as of June 30th. (Will it actually happen, who knows? Especially since Microsoft has already pushed back this date before.)</p>
<p>Well it’s not a big shocker that many users are not fans of Vista. Do we remember when XP first came out? It took users quiet sometime before they fully opened up to the idea of XP. (Well maybe for some it wasn&#8217;t that hard to convince, especially if they were using the crappiest OS ever, Microsoft ME) Now over the past few years since XP was first released, many of us can safely say that we feel like XP has become a stable and decent OS.</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-893" title="boxing21" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/boxing21.jpg" alt="" width="271" height="182" />That’s not to say that Microsoft hasn&#8217;t been doing everything that they possibly can to get users to embrace Vista.</p>
<p>Watch out faithful Halo gamers! In order for us to play Halo 2 on our PC’s, we have to have Vista, and oh when Microsoft finally decides to put Halo 3 on shelves for our PC’s (When that date is going to be, who knows since it took them forever to get Halo and Halo 2 out for our PC’s) guess what, Halo 3 will also need Vista to run. <img onclick="grin(':evil:');" src="../wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_evil.gif" alt=":evil:" /></p>
<p>Can we say Fun? <strong>Not</strong> so much.</p>
<p>Really can we all head out to a computer store and pick up a brand new system that has XP on it? No, but what we can do is pick up a copy of XP on the side and downgrade from XP to Vista.</p>
<p>Oh but here’s the kicker that happened to us about a year ago. We pick up a machine that has Vista on it not long after the highly anticipated Vista release. Well guess what, many of the programs we needed to run won’t work properly on Vista, so what do we do? Why we format and reinstall XP. Here’s where it gets funny, we’ve often heard different pieces of information regarding hardware being XP compatible.</p>
<p>Not so much in our situation. All we can say is thank god we had the old system still lying around because there sure were parts that we had to take out and put in the new system.</p>
<p><strong>Backwards Compatible</strong> our ass!</p>
<p>What many of the users who love and embrace XP want Microsoft to do, is to hold back before they take it off of the shelves and retire it forever along with 95, 98 and ME. (ME, Ha what a piece of crap that was) What many of these users want is for Microsoft to keep XP on the shelves until at least 2010 when their next version of Windows is set for release. <img onclick="grin(':shock:');" src="../wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_eek.gif" alt=":shock:" /></p>
<p>Oh yay! <img onclick="grin(':roll:');" src="../wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_rolleyes.gif" alt=":roll:" /> Another two years and we’ll get another crap OS that we have to wait a few years before it’s considered *stable*. Oh the joys, no wonder the world is heading towards Mac’s.</p>
<p>If your interested in signing the petition, <a href="http://reg.itworld.com/servlet/Frs.frs?Context=LOGENTRY&amp;Source=entdesk&amp;Source_BC=13&amp;Script=/LP/80276783/reg&amp;" target="_blank">click here</a></p>
<p>So here&#8217;s our question of the day&#8230;How do <strong>you</strong> feel about XP Vs Vista?</p>
<p>P.S. Stay tuned for our next installment of our keyword training. Make sure to sign up for our RSS feed to be notified as soon as our next lesson has been posted.
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Keyword Research - The Cart before the Cow</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/285871493/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-the-cart-before-the-cow/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 08 May 2008 06:05:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Market Research]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[success]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[affiliate programs]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[keywor research]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[keywords]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=890</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the toughest parts of creating a new blog or some other type of website, is knowing what niche to start in and what angle to take in that niche. We can spend countless hours banging our heads against the wall trying to figure out what market to start in. We actually become perfectionists [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>One of the toughest parts of creating a new blog or some other type of website, is knowing what niche to start in and what angle to take in that niche. We can spend countless hours banging our heads against the wall trying to figure out what market to start in. We actually become perfectionists before we even know what we are doing!</p>
<p>The process that we are going to walk you through is targeted at building a blog or website that focuses on promoting affiliate products. The reason is, it is our feeling this is by far the easiest and fastest way to get started and you do not have to worry about customer service, technical support, shipping, credit card processing or any other of these business headaches. You simply promote the product or service and get paid a share of any sales that happen. Its beautiful!</p>
<p>The challenge with this however is it always comes back to the question&#8230; Where do we start?</p>
<ul>
<li>Do you research potential markets and then search for affiliate programs that fit?</li>
<li>Do you find the programs already running and figure out what keywords to use to promote them?</li>
<li>What type of affiliate programs do you start with?</li>
<li>&#8230;and the list can probably go on and on.</li>
</ul>
<p>The way we look at it is, why reinvent the wheel?</p>
<p>We do not want to spend countless hours looking at different markets and then having to try and find appropriate affiliate programs to match up with them. What we recommend is to actually put the &#8220;cart&#8221; before the &#8220;cow&#8221;.</p>
<p><em>START OF COW RANT &#8212;&gt; Please understand that there are many different ways you can do market research. We will probably get some anal retentive person in here arguing about this process but the bottom line is&#8230; </em></p>
<p><em><strong>Show me the Money!</strong> </em></p>
<p><em>We have tried many different methods and this process is the one that worked the best for us. This is important to know as well because it all comes down to understanding facts and not theories. If all you do is read and research but never put things into practice, then what are you doing thats tangible? </em></p>
<p><em>We strongly believe that you need to make your own plans and strategies, but use what you learn from others and work it into your plans and strategies. Every time you screw up, remember what you did and improve on it&#8230; and every time you succeed do the same&#8230; remember what you did and improve on it. When you have something that works for you, do not let some theory munger come in and say you shouldn&#8217;t do that&#8230; YES YOU SHOULD! </em></p>
<p><em>If it is working for you, then it works! &lt;&#8211; END OF COW RANT<br />
</em></p>
<p><strong>Ok, so why the cart before the cow?</strong></p>
<p>In the 1970&#8217;s, the Japenanse car manufacturers were the joke of the world. They were tin cans that no one took seriously&#8230; but in the 80s this changed and in a HUGE way.</p>
<p>What happened was instead of trying to reinvent the wheel, the Japanese realized they needed to change the focus of their energy and instead of trying to invent things, why not instead take what is already working and simply make it better. It was this mindset change that skyrocketed Japan into becoming an automative giant in the world.</p>
<p>They figured out how to make a better mousetrap and the results were more reliable vehicles that they could make more effeciently and they were even able to charge a premium for it which exploded their profits.</p>
<p>So now let us ask you this.</p>
<p>Do you want to reinvent the wheel and try to uncover new territory or would you rather take what is already working and use that to your advantage?</p>
<p>Both have there pros and cons but the big difference is time commitments and chance of success.</p>
<p>Here is how we see it&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>Option #1 &#8211;&gt;</strong> If you want to break new ground, then great, good luck with that. You are going to need to spend your time finding potential keywords, then figure out what people are looking for with those keywords, then try to find products that people are buying and see if there are affiliate programs available, then hopefully after a while some of your words will be profitable and after a few months you can have a site making some money.</p>
<p>This option can be incredibly profitable, but it takes a lot more work and there is a lot less chance of success.</p>
<p>OR</p>
<p><strong>Option #2 &#8211;&gt;</strong> Look at what is already making a few people some money, find out what they are doing to make money (spy on them.. bwa hahahaha),  easily uncover the keywords that people are actually using to buy the products and then offer a better reason to buy through you (your unique selling position).</p>
<p>This option takes the view point of look at what the customers already are saying they want and give it to them. After all isn&#8217;t it easier to give people what they want instead of convincing them they need something new.</p>
<p>OK, I know, I am not covering the whole big picture with these options, but we feel we are covering the main points and it really comes down to how to best spend your time and effort&#8230; always focus on ROI. Is what you are doing now giving you the best return on investment.</p>
<p>In tomorrows post we are going to get into finding profitable affiliate products to start this process with. Once we have the product, the rest of the research is VERY easy!</p>
<p>Whats your opinions on options 1 or 2?</p>
<p>If your interested in learning more, then <strong>subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow along</strong> as we lay out this step by step process with the exact tools and techniques we use.</p>
<p>Lesson 1: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-are-you-basing-it-on/">Keyword Research - What Are You Basing it On?</a></p>
<p>Lesson 3: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-for-may-i-ask/">Keyword research - What for may we ask</a></p>
<p>Lesson 4: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-show-me-the-money-words-that-is/">Keyword Research - Show me the Money&#8230; Words that is</a>
<p><strong>Special Deal</strong>: Get a <strong>15% monthly recurring discount</strong> on the best hosting plan on the planet at <strong><a href="http://affiliates.tophostingcenter.com/click.php?id=johncow1">Top Hosting Center</a></strong>. Use coupon &#8220;<strong>JohnCow</strong>&#8220;. (Three months <strong>free hosting</strong> when you get a 12 months plan!)</p>
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		<title>Keyword Research - What Are You Basing It On?</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/285037577/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-are-you-basing-it-on/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 May 2008 01:58:08 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Market Research]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[The Net]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Traffic Tips]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[keyword research]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[keywords]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[traffic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=885</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We have a question for you and we want you to really think about this.
What are the most important metrics that you use when doing keyword research?
1. Traffic
2. Competition
3. KEI
4. ___________ (Fill in the blank)
There are lots of fantastic tools online today and each one has their good points and bad points&#8230; but one thing [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We have a question for you and we want you to really think about this.</p>
<p>What are the most important metrics that you use when doing keyword research?</p>
<p>1. Traffic</p>
<p>2. Competition</p>
<p>3. KEI</p>
<p>4. ___________ (Fill in the blank)</p>
<p>There are lots of fantastic tools online today and each one has their good points and bad points&#8230; but one thing that 99% of all these tools have in common is they simply give you a calculated guess using their own custom algorithim, that simply tells you how many competitors there are and how much traffic you can expect. Some make up a fancy term to use, such as KEI, but the bottom line is it is simply a traffic and competition ratio.</p>
<p>Now this seems logical doesn&#8217;t it?</p>
<p>Of course we want to know the amount of traffic a keyword could expect and hopefully we can find those hidden golden nuggets that have virtually no competition and lots of traffic.</p>
<p>But why is it then, when we find these keywords, research and create good solid content, build back links and work our asses off to dominate the search engines, are we not making any money?</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-889" title="why1" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/why1.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="143" />The traffic is great!</p>
<p>The rankings are fantastic!</p>
<p>The content is stellar!</p>
<p><strong>What could be wrong???</strong></p>
<p>This is where keyword research gets tricky and was our biggest discovery in transforming our affiliate marketing business. The discovery was that there is a gigantic difference between &#8220;traffic words&#8221; and &#8220;buyer words&#8221;</p>
<p>You need to understand that just because certain words get lots of traffic, this does not mean at all that the people searching with those terms are even remotely interested in purchasing anything.</p>
<p>A good example of the is the &#8220;dirt bike&#8221; industry. There are loads of traffic to be gained from this market but the demographics of this market tend to be generally teenagers who really cant afford to be spending a lot of money. Their searches are for interest&#8230; because they are fans of the market but few are spenders.</p>
<p>Does this mean there is no money to be made in this market?</p>
<p>Not saying that at all. There may be potential profits from AdSense and other revenue streams but not (in our experience anyway) a lot in the affiliate side of things. Now there are probably some of you out there making a killing in this industry online and if so.. good on ya! We are not debating whether a profit can be made but pointing out that depending on the revenue model you are going for, traffic and revenue do not always go hand to hand.</p>
<p>For those of you that have experience in PPC, you see this a lot. You can have two words that are almost identical yet one converts into sales like crazy and the other does next to nothing.</p>
<p><strong>Why is this?</strong></p>
<p>There are lots of guesses and theories as to why but honestly we don&#8217;t know all the reasons. What we do know however is that it is a fact that there are certain words that are more often used by money spenders then just general interest surfers. The challenge however is how do you uncover these keywords?</p>
<p>Well there are two ways this can be done.</p>
<p><strong>1. Slow and Painful</strong></p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-thumbnail wp-image-887" title="slow" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/slow-150x87.jpg" alt="" width="150" height="87" /></p>
<p>Build lots of pages focused on lots of keywords, get lots of backlinks, record and track everything and wait months to figure out what is working.</p>
<p><strong>2. Fast and Furious</strong></p>
<p><img title="fast" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/20514363.jpg" alt="" width="167" height="130" /></p>
<p>Find out what is working for others and use that information to get your research time reduced to only days instead of months.</p>
<p><strong>Come on now&#8230; you can&#8217;t be serious cow?!</strong></p>
<p>Oh but we are!</p>
<p>Traditional keyword research is great. There are loads of tools to use and they tell us some fantastic information but the problem is they are only using &#8220;traffic&#8221; and &#8220;competition&#8221; to tell you what to focus on.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>What about &#8220;Sales&#8221;, &#8220;Revenue&#8221;&#8230; PROFITS</strong></p></blockquote>
<p>Would you not rather focus on a keyword that only gets 20 visitors a day but converts 2% then 100 visitors an day that converts 0.01%?</p>
<p><strong>But how now John Cow?</strong></p>
<p>There are no keyword tools that know what kind of profits people are making, they don&#8217;t know what words are making sales and what ones are not&#8230; do they?</p>
<p>Yes and we are going to prove it to you over the next few days. We are going to walk you through step by step, the exact process we use to uncover &#8220;Killer&#8221; keywords, that not only have good traffic and little competition, but are also already proven by others to be fantastic money makers.</p>
<p>Lesson 2: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-the-cart-before-the-cow/">Keyword Research - The Cart before the Cow</a></p>
<p>Lesson 3: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-what-for-may-i-ask/">Keyword Research - What for may we ask?</a></p>
<p>Lesson 4: <a href="http://www.johncow.com/keyword-research-show-me-the-money-words-that-is/">Keyword Research - Show me the Money&#8230; Words that is</a></p>
<p>If your interested in learning more, then <strong>subscribe to our RSS Feed and follow along</strong> as we lay out this step by step process with the exact tools and techniques we use.</p>
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		<title>Skribit Review - How Is It Going So Far?</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/284345491/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/skribit-review-how-has-it-going-so-far/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 06 May 2008 02:52:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Social Marketing]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[skribit]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[skribit review]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=884</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A few days ago we posted about the new service, called &#8220;Skribit&#8221;  (we think it is pronounced &#8220;skribe it&#8221; but we could be wrong&#8230;. if it is &#8220;skrib it&#8221;, it sounds like a frog). This service helps provide a way for bloggers to further interact with their readers and find out what it is [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A few days ago we posted about the new service, called &#8220;Skribit&#8221;  (we think it is pronounced &#8220;skribe it&#8221; but we could be wrong&#8230;. if it is &#8220;skrib it&#8221;, it sounds like a frog). This service helps provide a way for bloggers to further interact with their readers and find out what it is they want&#8230; well sort of.</p>
<p>We promised that we would update you with a more detailed Skribit Review once we had more information and so here it is.</p>
<p><strong>1. Traffic is a Must:</strong> This was stated in the comments and is 100% the biggest factor for the success of using this tool. If you have a brand new blog, you should have loads of content and new ideas to write about anyway and you need to focus on growing your readership. Once you have an established blog and readership, then this tool can be worthwhile.</p>
<p><strong>2. Multi Votes:</strong> Clear your private data or use a different computer and vote up the story you like. With every tool out there, it is easy to find ways to abuse the systems. Skribit is not a perfect tool of course and as a result there are ways to manipulate results into your favor. If you visit a site using Skribit everyday and vote up the story you want, you can influence its ranking very easily. Now the only possible way around that would be to make everyone register and log into an account before voting and therefore barely anyone would use it&#8230; unless of course we figured out how to reward them for thier effort.</p>
<p><strong>3. Open to Smart Asses:</strong> Well, since we are pretty much some of the biggest smart asses around, we can see why people would be tempted to do this,  but the fact remains that people can post what ever they want as a response to your questions with Skribit. Make sure to check it regularly to delete unwanted posts.</p>
<p><strong>4. Interactive:</strong> Anything that can help get your readers more involved and interacting with your blog is a great thing. Not everyone of your readers may interact with it but no matter what you do, you will never get all your readers involved all the time.</p>
<p>Ok, so what is our overall opion of Skribit?</p>
<p>We like it!</p>
<p>As we stated earlier, anything that provides more interaction for your readers is a good thing. The system can be used to find out what readers want you to write about, what they liked best, thier opinions on topics and more. Being that it is user generated content, the variety of uses is pretty huge.</p>
<p>Personally we do not recommend you use it all the time. Mix it in and out of your blog and change its use. Do not keep the same question up for too long as it can look bad on your blog, you do not want to give the impression that no one ever visits your site and nothing changes. Also we recommed that you prefill some responses off the start the first time you use this. People do not always like to be the first to speak up and by seeding it with some responses you can get others to chime in.</p>
<p>Last of all make sure to promote your use of it. Let your readers know it is up on your blog and what you want them to do. Give instructions and explain what you are asking that specific request for.</p>
<p>Now We have two questions for you&#8230;</p>
<p>1. How do you pronounce Skribit?</p>
<p>2. What are your ideas for possible uses of Skribit?</p>
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		<title>What Would X Do Without The Internet?</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/283429427/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/what-would-x-do-without-the-internet/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 04 May 2008 18:16:54 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=800</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We all take the Internet for granted these days and a lot of us are actually making a living online. But what if the Internet was never created&#8230;what would all of those high-profile bloggers be doing these days? Lets round up a few of the most read bloggers in the MMO niche today and look [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We all take the Internet for granted these days and a lot of us are actually making a living online. But what if the Internet was never created&#8230;what would all of those high-profile bloggers be doing these days? Lets round up a few of the most read bloggers in the MMO niche today and look where they would have been if there was no Internet.</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-880" title="used-car-salesman" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/used-car-salesman.jpg" alt="" width="105" height="215" /><strong>John Chow</strong> - Perhaps one of the most controversial figures in the business. He manages to generate over $30K per month by telling the public what he had for lunch and what new free stuff he&#8217;s received from companies like Apple and Dell. Love him or hate him, John Chow is one of the blogging superstars this year.</p>
<p>So what would he do without the Internet? We&#8217;ve thoroughly scanned his work and analyzed his personality and have come to the conclusion that <a href="http://www.johnchow.com">John Chow would be a second hand car sales man</a>, if it were not for the Internet.</p>
<p><img class="alignright size-medium wp-image-881" title="lettermanhdx" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/lettermanhdx.jpg" alt="" width="206" height="135" /><strong>Jeremy Shoemaker aka Shoemoney</strong> - Shoemoney this, Shoemoney that, every blogger loves to talk about Jeremy.. heck even non bloggers like John Reese love this guy. He&#8217;s built quite the reputation for himself in the last few years. Aside from the stuff like his <a href='http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-affiliate-pro.php?id=26' onmouseover="top.window.status='Elite Retreat'; return true" onmouseout="top.window.status=''; return true" target="_blank">Elite Retreat</a> program, the $132K Adsense check and AuctionAds.com, Jeremy is very open about his personal life and his overweight past.</p>
<p>We strongly believe that <a href="http://www.shoemoney.com">Oprah would have some serious competition from Jeremy</a>, if it wasn&#8217;t for the Internet.</p>
<p><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-882" title="tour_guide" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/tour_guide.jpg" alt="" width="174" height="185" /><strong>Darren Rowse aka Problogger</strong> - The godfather of blogging for money some would say, the only resource a new blogger would need to succeed in this cut-throat MMO niche. Darren has proven to be a hard worker, a great networker and a fountain of wisdom for all the blogosphere.</p>
<p>Now, going by the data we&#8217;ve collected, we feel <a href="http://www.problogger.net">Darren would make an excellent Australian tourguide</a>, if he wouldn&#8217;t have had the Internet.</p>
<p><strong>DoshDosh</strong> - Another familiar face is Maki, who is the author of doshdosh.com. Perhaps not as big a name as the others mentioned, but never the less an authoritative blogger in his field. If you&#8217;ve had the pleasure of reading his blog, filled with all sorts of top tens and anime girls, perhaps you&#8217;ll agree with us when we say that <a href="http://www.doshdosh.com">Maki would have made on hell of a columnist for a womans gossip magazine</a> <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_twisted.gif' alt=':twisted:' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>What would <em>you</em> have been without the Internet?</p>
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		<title>Shut Up and get to work</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/283413949/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/shut-up-and-get-to-work/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 03 May 2008 05:11:39 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Offline]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Make Moooney Online]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[business]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[work ethic]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=878</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[This is just a rant and we are not sure why it got under our hide so bad, but it did and so we are blogging about it!
Here is the conversation that we over heard&#8230;
Girl 1: &#8220;I need a job really bad&#8221;
Girl 2: &#8220;The restaurant is hiring&#8221;
Girl 1: &#8220;No, I mean a decent job&#8221;
Cow: &#8220;Hmmm&#8230; [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>This is just a rant and we are not sure why it got under our hide so bad, but it did and so we are blogging about it!</p>
<p>Here is the conversation that we over heard&#8230;</p>
<p>Girl 1: &#8220;I need a job really bad&#8221;</p>
<p>Girl 2: &#8220;The restaurant is hiring&#8221;</p>
<p>Girl 1: &#8220;No, I mean a decent job&#8221;</p>
<p>Cow: &#8220;Hmmm&#8230; obviously she cant need a job that bad&#8221;</p>
<p>Now to be completely honest, as frustrated as we got with this girl, she made us think about some things that really got our minds racing. How many of us out there are just like this girl, sitting there waiting for the &#8220;Perfect&#8221; situation to happen, the&#8230;</p>
<p>BIG RED BUTTON</p>
<p>We want things to fall into place and do it with as little effort as possible. We want to be hand fed.</p>
<p>So many of us are afraid of the &#8220;W&#8221; word but the fact is &#8220;WORK&#8221; (yes, that is the W word) is a necessary part of getting what we want out of life.</p>
<p>Looking back at that girl, put yourself in the position of a potential employer&#8230; who would you rather hire?</p>
<p>Girl A: Currently working in a greasy spoon type restaurant, has always been employed</p>
<p>Girl B: Not working and has never had a job because it is not the type of job she likes</p>
<p>OK, we realize that there is more to it then that. Obviously education and a few other things are factors as well but the way we look at it, if someone is not employed and the main reason is they do not want to work at certain places and would rather be unemployed then work there, what is going to be their work effort when you need them to do jobs they are not going to like doing?</p>
<p>Now to take this a step further, lets look at the MMO world. Obviously their is money in selling the BIG EASY RED BUTTON&#8230; just look at ClickBank and what their best selling items are. They are always some software or ebook that promises to help you make mooney faster then you ever dreamed possible at the top of the list.</p>
<p>Is this wrong?</p>
<p>Absolutely Not! We all want things to be easy, we all want greener pastures and we all want to have more time to enjoy life and not stress over money. What we think is wrong however is the mindset that&#8230;</p>
<p>&#8220;I should not have to work for it&#8221;</p>
<p>Look at big successful companies and entrepreneurs. It is easy to look at them and convince ourselves that it was easy for them, that they are so lucky, that we deserve what they have and more.</p>
<p>Now give your head a shake and open your eyes. These people achieved what they did because they worked there asses off for it. There is no magical button, formula or software that will make anyone in this world successful if they are not willing to do one important thing&#8230;</p>
<p>WORK</p>
<p>Get off your ass and stop making excuses. If you have a full time job and want to start your own business then suck it up and realize you are going to need to get up earlier and stay up later to work on your business. If you never have time, then make time and stop convincing yourself you are so much busier then everyone else. Stop telling yourself &#8220;if only I had this&#8221; it would be better&#8230; face it, you are stuck with what you got so work with it and make it better.</p>
<p>There, glad we got that off our chests!</p>
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		<title>Skribit Social Suggestions - Might be cool</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/283413950/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/skribit-social-suggestions-might-be-cool/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 02 May 2008 02:59:28 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Traffic Tips]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[posts]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[skribit]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[social]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[writing]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=876</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Was Twittering and noticed a reference from &#8220;Problogger&#8221; about this new tool he was checking out called Skribit. The concept of the tool is to help bloggers (like us) figure out what to write about based on readers (like you) requests and votes.
Like any &#8220;Social / Web 2.0&#8243; tool, the effectiveness of this will be [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Was Twittering and noticed a reference from &#8220;<a href="http://twitter.com/problogger" target="_blank">Problogger</a>&#8221; about this new tool he was checking out called <a href="http://skribit.com/" target="_blank">Skribit</a>. The concept of the tool is to help bloggers (like us) figure out what to write about based on readers (like you) requests and votes.</p>
<p>Like any &#8220;Social / Web 2.0&#8243; tool, the effectiveness of this will be directly related to the involvement from its users, but personally, we really like the idea!</p>
<p>No matter what your business is, it is always wise to listen to your readers, customers, listeners and so on.  Now for bloggers, Skribit makes it very fast and easy&#8230;. or so it seems.</p>
<p>So is this tool worth while?</p>
<p>Dont know yet, we just installed it about 45 minutes ago and need to give it a bit to see if any of you actually send in suggestions <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p>Check it out and let us know what you want us to moo about. To use the tool, simple locate the &#8220;Skribit&#8221; box in our sidebar, directly under the sponsor banners and click in the &#8220;What should we write about?&#8221; section. Next enter the topic you would like us to write about.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-874" title="skribt" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/skribt-300x215.png" alt="skribit suggestion" width="300" height="215" /></p>
<p>OR</p>
<p>If you like a suggestion already there, then vote for it.</p>
<p><img class="alignnone size-medium wp-image-875" title="skribt2" src="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/skribt2-300x207.png" alt="skribit vote" width="300" height="207" /></p>
<p>It looks like when a suggestion is answered it disappears&#8230; need to figure that out for sure though.</p>
<p>Thats pretty much all there is to it that we can see right now. We will update everyone on our opinion after a few days of use.</p>
<p>Interested to know if any of you have any previous experience with this and any feedback about it? Also, if you have not tried it, what is your initial opinion of it?</p>
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		<title>And the Winner Is….</title>
		<link>http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/JohnCowDotCom/~3/283413951/</link>
		<comments>http://www.johncow.com/xbox360-winner-and-more/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 01 May 2008 13:21:30 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>John Cow</dc:creator>
		
		<category><![CDATA[Contests]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Ramblings]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Videos]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Wordpress]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[E3]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Games]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Grand Theft Auto]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Grand Theft Auto IV]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Halo 3]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[PlayStation 3]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[Video game]]></category>

		<category><![CDATA[xbox 360]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.johncow.com/?p=872</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The WINNER of the &#8220;Top Hosting Center&#8221; XBOX360 / GTA4 is Erica DeWolf, owner of http://ericadewolf.wordpress.com/
Congratulations Erica and we have forwarded your information to THC and will be needing details from you as to where to ship it.
Oh and Erica&#8230; we expect a nice big picture of you with your xbox when you get it [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>The WINNER of the &#8220;<a href="http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-affiliate-pro.php?id=32"><a href='http://www.johncow.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-affiliate-pro.php?id=32' onmouseover="top.window.status='http://www.tophostingcenter.com'; return true" onmouseout="top.window.status=''; return true" target="_blank">Top Hosting Center</a></a>&#8221; <strong>XBOX360 / GTA4</strong> is Erica DeWolf, owner of <a href="http://ericadewolf.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">http://ericadewolf.wordpress.com/</a></p>
<p>Congratulations Erica and we have forwarded your information to THC and will be needing details from you as to where to ship it.</p>
<p>Oh and Erica&#8230; we expect a nice big picture of you with your xbox when you get it <img src='http://www.johncow.com/wp-includes/images/smilies/icon_smile.gif' alt=':)' class='wp-smiley' /> </p>
<p><img class="aligncenter" src="http://www.johncow.com/images/winner.jpg" alt="Xbox Winner" /></p>
<p><strong>Additional Random Thoughts By Cow&#8230;</strong></p>
<p>Ok so the contest is over and with all the hype over the new GTA4, it made us moo over a few things this last 24hours.</p>
<p>Think back to the end of 2005 when Microsoft’s Xbox 360 was on the verge of being released.</p>
<p>Do we all honestly remember the hype that came along with it? Microsoft’s ‘Great White Hope’. Okay but here’s the funny thing about what Microsoft did when the Xbox 360 was first going to hit the market. The hype around this console was utterly crazy. The day of its launch, people lined up outside of stores for hours just to be able to dash through (If they could), maybe try to stampede over some people, push them over a counter to be able to grasp that holy cow of consoles. The Xbox 360.</p>
<p>However if you take some time to think about Microsoft and what exactly they did with the Xbox 360, maybe we should all just give them a nice pat on the back (not really but there is something to learn from the evil empire).</p>
<p>Since we can remember, there has been a Console war of Xbox VS PlayStation. It’s been a large debate from gamers for years and generally it breaks down to just which console they believe is better.</p>
<p>See Microsoft knows about this debate, as does Sony and they took advantage of it. When the original Xbox was released, Microsoft came out with Halo: Combat Evolved. Now the only way you probably won’t know about this game is if you’ve been living under a rock in the pasture for the last, oh we don’t know…7 years.</p>
<p>Microsoft released Halo: Combat Evolved on November 15th 2001. Want to know their great marketing plan behind this? Unlike other games that are released for multi platforms, Halo was only released for the Xbox.</p>
<p>Now this worked out GREAT for Microsoft, due to the fact that Halo was dubbed “Game of the Year”. So all of the gamers who are hell bent on just owning a PlayStation; well now if they want to get their hoofs on one of the best killer app’s game’s around…</p>
<p>They had to fork out the mooney for the Xbox.</p>
<p>Another great marketing strategy from Microsoft was with the release of the game Halo 3. For gamers to be able to play Halo 3 they have to be able to purchase the new Xbox 360. Now many of us know that Halo is available for our home PC’s as well, however, Halo 2 and Halo 3… (When it becomes available for the home PC…don’t get your panties in a twist. There has been no word about a release date just yet&#8230; so you need an XBox for now to play them) …are available for&#8230;. are you ready for this&#8230;</p>
<p><strong>Vista only!</strong></p>
<p>So now’s the time that we should give Microsoft a pat on the back (or kick in the ass if you really want to); they know how to market their biggest features. By simply using one game and one game only. The largest selling video game in gaming history. They just ensured that gamers are spending anywhere from $99-$310 on a copy of Windows Vista or paying anywhere from $300-$500 for a version of the Xbox 360.</p>
<p>Not too shabby, right?</p>
<p>Check these Console stats out:</p>
<ul>
<li>Nintendo Wii – As of March 31st 2008 – Unit’s Sold World Wide – 24.25 million</li>
<li><a class="zem_slink" title="Xbox 360" rel="wikipedia" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360" target="_blank">Microsoft Xbox 360</a> – As of April 25th 2008 – Unit’s Sold World Wide – 19 million</li>
<li>Sony PlayStation 3 – As of April 21st 2008 – Unit’s Sold World Wide – 13 million</li>
</ul>
<p>Are we seeing the hype that is coming from this?</p>
<p>So do we all agree? Think about how much mooney each of those consoles cost, and that’s not even including the biggest selling games of the year.</p>
<p>That’s a whole lot of Mooney!</p>
<p>Look at Grand Theft Auto IV. The newest game in the Grand Theft Auto series which was launched on April 30th 2008. Before this game even hit the shelves, people we’re already saying that it could bump Halo 3 out of top stop for selling the most copies during it’s first week (not likely). Stores we’re being opened at midnight on Monday night to allow gamers in and purchase what they had in stock. Gamers all around the world we’re taking days off school and work just to be able to play the game. The Movie Iron Man is worried that the hype of this game will hurt its opening weekend (look like a cool movie too).</p>
<p>Games and Consoles get amazing marketing hype before they even reach the shelves. We often see cool trailers for games or the console, it’s all over the media and we’re sure it doesn’t help that they have their own expo each and every year.</p>
<p>Do you know it? ‘Electronic Entertainment Expo’, well actually now it’s known just as E3. Everybody who’s anybody in the video game industry is at this expo each and every year showing the gaming world the hottest new items that are up and coming in the market.</p>
<p>So the question is this?</p>
<p>What are we doing wrong and how can we bring this sort of hype into our world?</p>
<p>If we can break into this tactic and achieve the type of hype that new consoles or video games can bring to the market…do you know what would happen?</p>
<p>We’d all be filthy stinking rich!</p>
<p>Here’s the thing however, sure hype like this can be great for sales. Being able to purchase a Nintendo Wii is becoming almost impossible due to the lack of consoles in stores and when they do come in, they only ship limited numbers.</p>
<p>Xbox 360’s and PlayStation 3’s are in stores and can often be found, but not everybody is going to be able to spend around $300-$600 on a console.</p>
<p>Speaking of PlayStation 3, does anybody remember when the console was first released?</p>
<p>Do we remember the news during the first week or so?</p>
<p>Check this out:</p>
<p><object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" width="425" height="355" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0"><param name="wmode" value="transparent" /><param name="src" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bhp1ElO4MiA&amp;hl=en&amp;rel=0" /><embed type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="355" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Bhp1ElO4MiA&amp;hl=en&amp;rel=0" wmode="transparent"></embed></object></p>
<p>Can you say INSANE!!!</p>
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