Internet Marketing Secrets
Issue #84 - by Michael Campbell - January 12 2006
To subscribe free click ==> Internet Marketing Secrets Newsletter
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Breaking Internet Marketing News
Thank you to the hundreds of people that responded to my yearly survey. Last issue I asked for your opinion on a short format for this newsletter. Of those that responded, about a hundred were sent a little survey. And here's what you said.Articles from time to time are nice. In-depth coverage of one topic is easy to file - and refer to - for future reference. But for the most part, you want this newsletter to stay as it is.
Turns out that most of you have unsubscribed from all other publications except a handful. You rely on this newsletter to keep you informed of marketing trends, new products, SEO tactics, sneaky strategies, and answering your online marketing questions.
Ok, I gotta admit it. I was hoping to get lazy like some of my colleagues ;-) and fire off an article every three weeks with a few ads at the bottom. But you just won't have it. You expect me to keep reading dozens of publications daily, testing and reviewing all the information, so I can boil it all down and just give you the important bits.
So you got it. As I've said since September 1999, this is your newsletter. You decide what goes in it. So thank you for participating and don't forget to continue to sending me your opinions and questions on a regular basis.
Curve Balls and Fallen Souffle's
A weird thing happened as a result of the survey. I was actually blind-sided by it... having never thought of it.
I've learned that this newsletter is a two way street. Not only do readers expect me to tell them about new products, but many survey respondents were product creators who also rely on this newsletter... but in a different way. They need it to help get the word out.
Sheesh... I never thought about it that way. Not only do the regular readers benefit, so do the software programmers, ebook creators, private sites, etc. Without this newsletter in a "news" format, hundreds of content creators would loose a media outlet, and thousands of people would never find out about the products. (I guess that means I have to keep writing... huh?)
Another funny thing as a result of the survey, were people telling me that they don't really want a podcast edition of this newsletter. Seems like a lot of folks just aren't keeping up with the latest technology like blogs, RSS, podcasting and vidcasting.
(As much as we marketers love technology, we have to be careful not to assume our readerships are adopting new technologies as fast as we are. I know first hand when I tried an MP3 newsletter back in 2001, it bombed because the web just wasn't ready for it. Same thing happened when I tried video in 2003, it flopped in the beta stage because people just weren't ready to adapt. But all that's beginning to change.)
Right now it's an even 50/50 split between those of you, who would like to continue receiving this newsletter by email and web, and those of you who would like to receive it as an audio podcast. Who knows, maybe I can do both ;-) but for the first couple of issues this year, I'll continue with the usual written format.
So What Happened Last Year?
Changes are coming and the tipping point is near. Movie theatre ticket sales declined by 12% for the fourth straight year. DVD rentals were also down, as people rent less often, preferring to buy them and watch them more than once, on their home entertainment systems.
Overall, in all product categories, there was a 25% increase in online spending. A whopping 33% of all American families shopped online. The top retailers included Amazon, Walmart, Target and Best Buy. And for the first time ever, L. L. Bean and Neiman Marcus sold more product online than through their stores.
In addition, as I wrote in my last issue, podcasting was not only added to the American dictionary, it was nominated word of the year. We also saw the addition of television to Apple's iTunes site and with it, the birth of a new era. One where you can download and own short films, music videos and popular TV shows, a mere 24 hours after they've broadcast.
So where are we going? My crystal ball says... The "shift" has hit the fan ;-)
Video and movies - not on demand like the cable company provides it, but - ones that you download and own are just ahead. They will work out the licensing agreements this year, meaning a lot of people will loose their jobs in video stores, theaters, and the entire distribution networks that feed them.
In fact, the battle for online media distribution will be the biggest thing of the year. All the major players - Google, Apple, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft - will let you upload your own content and even charge people to see it. Apple is already doing it with iTunes. Google just announced their video store at video.google.com. Yahoo has added podcasts.yahoo.com and lets you "publish" your podcast through their network.
So when it comes to entertainment, people are demanding to listen and watch what they want, when they want, on the device that they choose. (I hope the employees in theaters and video stores can see the handwriting on the wall, so they can start training for new careers.)
The power has shifted. Podcasting and vidcasting are now in the hands of the consumer. And the smart marketers are already preparing for the transition.
New Software Makes Professional Podcasting a Breeze
Oh... and this just in. A few days ago, Apple Computer announced iLife 06. Podcasting is now fully integrated into GarageBand. Including royalty free jingles and sound effects. An artwork track. Automatic "ducking" effects for voiceovers. Plus an interview feature, where each person in the conversation is automatically assigned an audio track.
Then it's just one click to export to a brand new app called iWeb, which includes blogging software and one click publishing to your .Mac account, complete with an RSS feed so you can submit your Podcasts to iTunes, where an audience of millions awaits...
And no, I'm not kidding about the millions. Apple has an 83% market share, sold 14 Million iPods in just the last three months alone, making for a grand total of 42 million units sold. Not only that, over 40% of all cars sold in the U.S. in 2006, will offer iPod integration.
Macworld Video ==> http://macworld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/mw/index.html
Future of Podcasting ==> http://www.apple.com/ilife/
In addition, Apple just announced it's first laptop computer using Intel Core Duo chips. Now they have the best software (iLife). The best operating system (Unix). The best user interface (Mac OSX). And now the best chips (Intel).
So if you're feeling abandoned by Microsoft and their five year old Windows XP operating system. Or you're tired of the long wait for Longhorn. There's never been a better time or reason to switch.))
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Rock Solid SEO Advice
Forget about rumors, forums and gossip. Only scientific testing and tracking can provide the definitive answers. Don't you deserve the best in SEO?
Want the Best in SEO? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/jwn
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Herein Rests Modem 1983 - 2005 R.I.P.
Speaking of transitions, here's a little more proof that the tipping point is near. Apple computer officially killed the internal modem on desktop computers. Just like they did with the floppy drive in 1998 with the introduction of the iMac, their latest versions of desktop computers do not have a modem for dial-up internet services.
As manufacturers catch on to the trend, the bulky, old, expensive, space hogging, modems, floppy drives and RS232 ports can be dropped. Meaning that we'll finally see quality laptop computers breaking the under $500 mark. Making them - in a sense - almost disposable.
So modem, may you rest in peace and thank you for your 22 years of service. But it's really not a surprise, with broadband leaping ahead to the majority of households, dial-up is a thing of the past. But it's nice to know that if you really need it, you can get an external modem as a USB add-on.
TWiTs Don't Use Virus Protection
While listening to the TWiT (This Week in Technology) Podcast, I was surprised to find most of the expert panelists do not use virus protection on their Windows PCs. They claim that the virus protection slows down their machines, is not nearly as effective as it claims to be, and it's almost impossible to get rid of.
The experts use html based email, never open attachments, have graphics preview turned off, have a firewall on their computer and router, and use a little freeware program called Spyware Blaster.
The Blaster is not virus protection, nor does it scan your hard drive to remove viruses and spyware that may already be installed. What it does is prevent Spyware from ever getting installed in the first place.
Spyware Blaster ==> http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
Or... if you're worried that you might already have Spyware lurking on your computer and want to remove it once and for all, be sure to read this comprehensive $30 report by Adrian Ling called, "Spyware Secrets Exposed."
Ready to stop Spyware? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/sse
How One Simple Thing Can Boost Your Sales
Beef up your thank you pages. If someone just spent money ordering your product, my research has shown they are 400% more likely to continue shopping. That makes your "thank you for ordering" page some of the most valuable real estate you can own.
So why does the average thank you page have a 98% abandonment rate?
Think about it for a second. I've just ordered and I still have my card out. I'm staring at your thank you page. Now what? No links. Worse yet, no suggestive selling.
Smart marketers are using their thank you pages to suggestive sell related products... in context with the content. If - for example - I just sold you a juicing ebook, wouldn't it make sense to (affiliate) link out to a juicing machine right after the order?
Go take a look at your thank you page. If you're not suggestive selling products related to yours, or related to what the customer just bought... you're missing out on a lot of easy money.
Try it with newsletters too. Even if they're free. The thank you page is an excellent place to get people to sign up for another newsletter, sample complimentary goods or take a survey.
But how many items should you feature? Between one and four. (My research has shown that any more than four related items on the thank you page provides "too many" choices.)
So if you want more cash in your pocket, just avoid this fundamental marketing mistake. Especially after you've done so much work to get the customer in a buying mood in the first place. Never, ever, leave them staring at a blank thank you page, risk abandonment and lose potential sales. Just simply tell them what to do next.
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Take the Guess Work Out of Keyword ResearchYes, these guys really do make over $20,000 U.S. per month in AdSense revenue. But the real value - in my opinion - is the private forum showing exactly how they do it. You don't have to guess or face a learning curve. Just follow their step-by-step guide to setting up portals.
Imagine 20K per month in AdSense Revenue? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/kar
(Please note: Be sure to visit the site and get on the waiting list.
Membership is seriously capped at 500.)
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Google Goofed and Forgot to Mention it
By now, you're probably tired of me telling you to subscribe to Jerry West's SEO Revolution newsletter. Those of you who do subscribe received this urgent message from Jerry on December 30th.
""Recently, Google made a change and failed to alert the users of their Sitemap program. After you upload the XML feed, Google has you post a "verification file." An example would be: GOOGLEf69k2a2.html. The problem is, Google changed their naming convention on their server and "forgot" to tell us.
It is suggested that you go into your account and see if the sitemap is still being crawled or if it is "Pending." If it is "Pending," go on your server, and just rename your verification file from ALL CAPS to lower case on the word "Google" and you are all set.""
This is a classic example of... I told you so. You simply cannot rely on monthly SEO newsletters to bring you breaking news. Especially critical bits like the one you just read.
If you're trying to play the "organic" SEO game without Jerry's newsletter, you're at a major disadvantage. If it's important and it involves SEO, you'll hear it from Jerry FIRST! Now if only I could pay to keep it out of my competitors hands.
SEO Revolution Newsletter ==> http://www.cdzn.com/jwn
Internet Marketing FAQs, Secrets and Strategies
How to Syndicate Content for All Partner SitesQ - ""I have a client that acts as the head office for many independently owned businesses (like franchises). They have been asking me about setting up a blog for corporate communications.
What I'd really like is to have each web site update automatically, instead of trusting each owner to go read a blog on a daily basis. What would be best for my clients and the search engines?""
A - What's best for the search engines? Remember back to Leslie Rohde's Mastering PageRank video? Pages create PR and links distribute it. The best way to get more PageRank without a link exchange is to create more pages.
Have You Mastered PageRank? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/pr
Blogs are a quick and easy way to make more pages and get more PageRank. But having each franchise generate its own blog would be way too much work.
In addition, you can't trust each franchise to read a central blog on a daily basis. So what you really want is to publish once and have all the franchise sites update automatically. Here's a little twist to make it all work.
Set up only one blog. You post to it and control all the content. If the individual franchise managers need to post, they could. All you need to do is provide them with the password and url of the blog.
Then syndicate the content, which is a lot less complicated than it sounds. All blogs provide an RSS feed. Usually its as easy as clicking on the "Get RSS" button to get the url for the feed.
The next step is to add an RSS feed to each one of the franchise sites. Make it a static html one using Adrian Ling's Power RSS Software. Install one copy of the software on each client site.
Power RSS ==> http://www.cdzn.com/r2h
Now open the Power RSS control panel and enter the url for the RSS feed from your blog. This tells Power RSS where to get its information. Once you've set up all the sites to accept the same feed, you're ready to start.
Now comes the really cool part. Each time you post to your blog, all franchise sites get updated almost instantly from the RSS feed. It's beautiful. Post once once and get instant content on dozens or even hundreds of franchise sites.
You could have company news, sales flyers, weekly specials, announcements, special events, draw prize winners, industry news, interoffice memos, plus whatever else you want. No one could ever say they didn't get the message. All they have to do is look at their own website.
Then - of course - the other feature of Power RSS, is that it can archive an html page of all the blog postings at the end of the day, adding a page per day to each franchise site. And the more pages you have, the more PageRank you generate. PR that you can aim and control through nofollow tags, or the proper use of Dynamic Linking as explained in Revenge of the Mininet.
Want Revenge? ==> http://www.cdzn.com/rev
So there you have it. Thanks to Power RSS, all franchise sites update automatically by posting to one central blog. It's good for the franchises, good for the head office, and good for the search engines. If you blog every day, the search engines come back every day. It's like feeding a pet (search engine) spider.
Step Right Up... Only $10,000... For a Mystery Box?
Q - ""(Brand name marketer) has offered me a mentorship program. I have been interviewed and apparently "passed." They need to know by Monday if I am interested in going to the next level, which I understand is one step away from being in the program.
The approximate cost for "everything" is $10,000. I still have not received any answers as to what this covers. What do you think I should do? I am studying your Clickin' it Rich course (which is great BTW), and I have couple of other affiliate training courses.
Also, as your affiliate, do you track online sales, notify me when a sale is made, and allow me to track different product promotions that I am doing? Sorry to give you such a loaded email, but your help is really appreciated.""
A - Sheesh! Run away. You "passed" because - through their interview process - they discovered that you have $10,000. Then what... they want your account number so they can drain... er, I mean withdraw directly?
And of course they wont "tell you" what the cost covers, because that's one of the oldest tactics in (read between the lines) ahem el em marketing, vacuum cleaner and encyclopedia sales... they only tell you it's a "ground level opportunity" of astronomical proportions.
(And don't feel too special, as this "Internet Marketing Company" also "cold called" my sister after getting her home phone number from the whois record of her domain name registration. How lame is that? This pack of posers is only one evolutionary step above pond scum.)
My advice is to save your money for marketing your online business. With Clickin' it Rich and the Action Plan, you have enough "affiliate training" and just need to start taking action at this point.
Clickin' it Rich Affiliate Training ==> http://www.cdzn.com/cir
If you get anything else, get Perry Marshall's course for learning how to write Google AdWords ads. Then start working on your landing pages. The more you practice and track your results the better you'll get at it.
Perry's AdWords Course ==> http://www.cdzn.com/pmg
As for the other half of your question, yes, my affiliate program tracks clicks and notifies you when you've made a sale. Unfortunately it's not sophisticated enough to track individual campaigns for various products.
Google has free tracking software that you can use, after you sign up for an AdWords account. Put their tracking code into your "thank you" pages and it will track how many clicks on your AdWords ad lead to a sign-up or a sale. Although not extensive, it is free and works well.
And for those who are really serious about testing and tracking, most professional marketers doing PPC ads use a third party service like Hypertracker to track every single mouse click. With Hypertracker you can split test every single element in the sales process, see which pages perform better than others, and know exactly which keyword lead to the sign-up, click or the sale.
Split Test with Hypertracker ==> http://www.cdzn.com/htr
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Essential Study for Every Serious Student of Marketing
To free you from ineffective and mediocre advertising, you'll need to learn how to advertise. And when it comes to PPC advertising, Perry Marshall is the undisputed champion.
His research - thanks to the feedback from a large client base - is extensive. Simply put, if you want to write effective PPC ads, that get very high clickthrough ratios, get Perry's Definitive Guide to Google Advertising and savor every drop of knowledge.
Perry's AdWords Guide ==> http://www.cdzn.com/pmg
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Feature Article
Trick Out the Dupe Content Filters when using ArticlesIf you use articles for content, chances are there's lots of sites using the same articles as you. Combine that fact with the smarter dupe filters that are coming online, and your pages may start losing their positioning the in the search engines... or not get spidered at all.
Wait! Don't pull that content. Here's how you can keep using popular articles and keep your pages in the search engines.
The first thing you can do, is use an original layout or graphic design for your web pages. Rather than copy and paste the article as it exists, drop it into a template or web page that you created. While you're at it, be sure to change the keyword and description meta tags.
A critical element, is to change the html title of the page. You want to have it reflect the topic of the article, but not leave it exactly as the author had it. Be creative with synonymous words, as the search engines are getting much smarter in figuring out what a page is about through word stemming and semantics.
Now it comes to the actual content of the article itself. If you have partial rights and permission to modify the content, it's fairly easy to embellish what the author wrote, or to edit sentences out. Pull out a thesaurus and you can swap out all sorts of words.
But if the article is like most of the ones online, the author reserved all modification rights and you have to print the article as is. That's ok. There's still a lot of things you can do to add an original touch.
You can add an introduction to the article. It can be keyword rich if you need to beef up the keyword density a bit. You can add a sponsorship or "brought to you by" type of intro which could even include affiliate links.
You can put an interstitial or ad in the middle of the article. Keep the ad in context with the content for best results.
You can add a running commentary to the article. You could have what the author said in a different color text or different typeface.
You can add your own conclusion to article. This is the perfect place for an affiliate link that leads out to a related product.
So as you can see, all it takes is a little creativity. It's easy to add to an article, without changing it or violating any copyright laws. With an introduction, commentary, interstitial and conclusion, there's not a dupe filter on the planet that can keep your article pages from getting spidered and indexed.
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That's it for another issue my friend. Thank you for reading. We'll chat again soon. Until then, here's wishing you all the best for online success.
Michael Campbell
CEO Dynamic Media Corporation4644 Lancelot Court Richmond BC Canada V7C 4S2
Providing successful marketing strategies since 1988.
For marketing advice & coaching phone +1 604 339-5559
Author of....
Revenge of the Mininet... Advanced linking strategies and diagrams for increased revenue from search engine optimization and affiliate programs.
Clickin' it Rich... The complete work from home business training system. How to fire the boss and set up a home business using nothing but affiliate programs.
Nothing but 'Net... An internet marketing strategy that generated $750,000 in less than a year, with no advertising costs.
Internet Marketing Secrets Newsletter... Sign up now to get your free subscription. Learn how to tap into the money making power of multiple internet revenue streams like search engines, affiliate programs, paid advertising, opt-in email, newsletters, ebooks and a lot more in Michael Campbell's internet marketing secrets newsletter.
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Legal stuff...
Copyright 2006 Dynamic Media Corporation. All rights reserved world wide. All trademarks and servicemarks are property of their respective owners.
The information contained in this newsletter is the opinion of the author based on his personal observations and years of experience. Neither Michael Campbell or Dynamic Media Corporation assume any liability whatsoever for the use of or inability to use any or all of the information contained in this publication. Use this information at your own risk.
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