What happened in October through to November 2009 is unprecedented in terms of internet marketing’s short history. If its not then I don’t really care because personally, I have never seen anything like it.

What happened? Well Google decided to go out and ban thousands upon thousands of adwords accounts, leaving many marketers scratching their heads for a few minutes, followed by the declaration of war again the search engine giant. Reactions ranged from: “well, it was bound to happen”, through to “Why me? I did nothing wrong? Can’t I sell rebill offers people can’t get out of? You F*@#&#”.. and so on.

I am a firm believer in that for every step back, there will be an equal or greater step forward. The problem is that many people chose to just get angry and essentially ‘waited’ for something to happen that would improve their situation. ie… Google changes their mind.. guess what? They are still waiting.

Others saw this as a wake up call or an opportunity. When I saw all the accounts getting banned I realised that I simply can’t reply on Google because in any moment, they could be gone.. and along with it, my traffic. Google’s blanket ban should have opened up the eyes of all the Internet marketers out there and encouraged them to spread their risk and not reply on one body to put food on the table.

The funny thing is that those that were banned are probably better off right now. The ban essentially forced them to look elsewhere and expand their portfolio. Many of those left relying on Google are still worse off and because they were not ‘forced’ to look around, many haven’t. Unfortunately they may only learn their lesson only when Google slams its finger down once again.

Back to that saying about a step back leads to an equal or greater step forward. I wouldn’t take it too literally. That step back doesn’t have to happen to you, but learning from what happens to others can allow you to skip that step and take the steps forward anyway. Why wait?

Its been way too long between drinks essentially because I have been swept away with a whole heap of business stuff that I was forced to put this on wayside.. way way side.

So I will be doing my best to start writing in this thing.

What have I been up to?

In the past year I have focused predominantly on my internet businesses. Remember this? Well these have grown nicely and as of now, I receive a nice half a million hits a month for each site.. bringing in some nice admob advertising cheques (more like paypal payments) each month. Nothing to really rave about but it pays off a car, without having to do anything for it.. nice.

I have also been doing affiliate marketing which has been great fun and rewarding and now have taken up various consulting projects, making recommendations to various companies on how to optimise their web presence. I am still amazed that there are so many companies out there who simply havn’t moved past the initial stages of SEO and PPC. Adwords accounts still have 1 group and 1000 keywords and SEO is all about keyword stuffing and meta-tags.

I have been under the impression that much of this stuff is common knowledge but it just isn’t. I have heard from Internet Marketers that teaching these companies and organisations the new way of the internet is in fact ‘the next big thing’. Although I never doubted them, I never really thought about how it could impact me. I do my thing, stay under the radar, automate my businesses so I can support my lifestyle. Thats it. What I never really understood was the value I was generating simply trying to build and automate these profitable online businesses.

What I’m getting at here is that for many Internet Marketers out there with a decent knowledge of the ins and outs of online marketing, understand how valuable your skillset is. You can create an average full time income because you feel like it, in whatever geographic location your in and yet we take it for granted. This is special and strangely enough we are the only ones who don’t realise how special it is.

We know that Twitter has roughly 20 million plus users and growing. Actually by the time I write this post it could have doubled.. who knows? Anyway, you also know that these 2o million people are answering to their followers and the world, the question, ‘what are you doing now?’.

Imagine there was a way you could find out what people are wanting, what they are asking for, what questions they have that have remained unanswered, by simply asking the question: What’s everybody doing? How powerful would that be? If you knew that one of the most asked questions and problems people faced bringing home a brand new puppy was actually  ‘what should I name my dog?’, would you do things differently? How many profitable products could you release based on what topics are really hot right now?

You also know what whenever you search a question in Twitter you will receive a load links to information and affiliate products rather than genuine concerns and questions. Even if you find the good stuff, filtering through the clutter would take forever and a day. So doing the above is virtually impossible without endless days of work.

Well I’ll tell you that it is possible. I’m going to show you a way you can cut through the clutter, find the information you need so you can create relevant products and sell them for profit. Are you ready?

Ok here it is:

Visit Twitter Search. Now Type this in: (obviously replace keywords with whatever you like)

-http Insert Keywords Here since:2009-05-30 ?

What have I done?

1. By putting the ‘-http’ I have removed most links so you don’t get people trying the redirect you through to a page of information or their affiliate product.
2. The ’since:2009-05-30′ asks Twitter search to only find stuff relevant since that date. You can take it back as far as you like to get a larger response. (in the Year/MM/DD format).
3. The “?” at the end tells the Twitter search engine that we are only after questions. ie Anyone know how to stop a dog barking?. Also because we have removed the links we won’t get any questions like this -> Want to know how to stop a dog barking? Visit http://etc etc. So we have filtered out all the rhetoricals and commercial questions and replaced these with genuine concerns. You can remove the “?” and you will get more responses including both statements and questions so either way will work. I just used the ‘?’ in this example to show you another feature you may want to implement.

What do you do now?

Essentially the fiddly time consuming stuff that would usually takes days, even weeks to do, has already been done! Now go through the findings in Twitter, read the posts and jot down the concerns one by one. You will start to notice a pattern developing about what people are after and what’s in demand. This is your market research data. Take this, run with it and create an in demand and profitable product.

To see this in action check out my video at the Bootstrapedia Blog

Since the introduction of the Internet, people looking for information have always expected stuff for free. It used to be that people look for whats the cheapest, but now cheapest just doesn’t cut it. We want FREE!!!

Internet marketers have for ever been trying to work their way around this embedded net culture by producing more influential sales copy and creative deliveries. They focus on the value and utility a product provides and work with the emotional side of the consumer to make them think “this is really worth it… if I was to buy 1 coffee a day for”.. and so on.

However I have noticed a recent change in marketers, notably Internet marketers, and the way they go about selling their products. It looks like we are heading into a world where everyone is starting to understand the power of the word FREE. 6 months ago you would never have seen it but today the net is full of FREE digital products with many of these products worth several thousand dollars. If they are not free then they are free + shipping. You buy the product for free, they send it out and all you pay for is shipping and handling. Easy.

So how are they making their money?

The answer is in the back-end. Every good marketer (even every bad marketer!) knows that once someone has committed to buying from you, then they are more likely to buy from you again no matter the size of the initial investment. This is because you already have them saying ‘yes’. Even if you give something away totally free you have already started the ‘yes’ process and developed an emotional need for the consumer to reciprocate. What do I mean by reciprocate? Well if you give something away for free you trigger something inside your consumer saying “man I should give something back, I got this for free.. may I should..” This is purely subconscious but its a fact and it’s extremely powerful.

What is in the back-end and what do they do?

Once you have said the first “yes” they simply hit you up with a few upsells and upgrades to the original product. Or put you into some type of continuity program where you get the first month free and then are charged a monthly fee for there newsletter or whatever it may be. Some people may think this is sneaky but most good marketers will make it very easy for you to opt out. The easier it is for you to opt out, the more likely you will hold onto it on your own accord because you have been given the option and therefore built an element of trust.

Do the numbers add up?

You bet. Imagine you were selling a $97 product and were able to sell 100 of these with a recurring of $30 a month. You would make $9700 + $3700 per month. Ok now imagine you were to offer that $97 product for Free! Think about the numbers you would receive. Say the amount you sell has increased to 300 which means you will make $0 + 9000 per month. This means you forgo the original hit but make 3x per month, every month, comfortably making more revenue over the next 2 months. Not only do you make more money, its a hell of a lot easier to sell something for free than to try and charge $100 for it! On top of this you can always offer back-end upsells and the more people you have exposed to these back-end offers, the more money you will make. If you offered these upsells to the original 100 buyers then you would simply have less numbers going through your sales funnel meaning less additional revenue.  Also remember that the more people you have on your buyers list, the more you can sell them in the future!

So its a no brainer really. For your next launch, try offering something for Free. Promote it like mad and then hit them up on some great back-end offers and a continuity program. You’ll be surprised how easy it is as well as the long term benefits it provides.

Don’t think about your big up front as this can blind you. This about your list, your backend and your reccuring. This is where the money lies.

Will September 2009 signify the end of Affiliate Marketing? This is not some gimmick headline either. I’m completely serious. After reading an article on Copyblogger then addressing the source at the Washington Post I’m intrigued to what will happen to the industry.

Fittingly, I have only recently written an article about affiliate marketing and whether affiliates should hide behind their links using cloaking. I take the approach of being transparent especially when communicating directly to my community. My reasoning is that I prefer to promote the fact I’m using an affiliate link with the hope that my users will appreciate this. The rational is, “hey guys, I’m providing you with some awesome information so if you like it and want to buy, use my link so I can keep providing it”. Not particularly greedy or unfathomable and I believe it’s quite fair.

Back to the issue at hand, will this signal the end of affiliate marketing as we know it? Well if it is implemented and policed diligently then I believe it will cause some changes. Will these changes be bad? No I don’t think so.

First of all, reading the Washington Post article it definitely seems to focus on the blogging side of things. Reading between the lines however makes me think it may turn into a full blown affiliate marketing disclosure ruling. That means PPC marketing will get a hit along with the review based affiliate sites that go with it. I can imagine there are many affiliate marketers out there who will start kicking and screaming as their revenues dive or they begin receiving ‘cease and desist’ notices from the FTC or whoever. PPC programs and courses will become pretty much outdated as their approach to PPC marketing will become void and technically illegal.

Think about Twitter! How many affiliate links do you receive a day from optimistic Twitterpreneurs hoping you’ll be the one to make them their commission? Will they, or you, need to disclose the fact that an affiliate link is being used? Where will that fit in the 140 characters? The phrase (affiliate link) on its own including parenthesis is 16 characters which means over 10% less room and a reduced chance of a click through. Maybe it isn’t so bad, I think I’ve seen enough of the Maverick Money Makers sales page for a lifetime.

Even if it’s a full industry crack down I can’t see it as being the end. What it may do however is clean up a sometimes sneaky industry. Maybe it might promote the need to develop relationships with people before you can start earning an income. Maybe it may turn white hat completely legitimate marketers into black hat masterminds.

I’m interested to see how things develop. I think my approach will lend itself to the changes but how some of the other guys and my Acai Berry buddies deal with this is going to be interesting to watch. Stay tuned.

Today I decided to take advantage of Bing’s search engine marketing. Bing, Microsoft’s new search engine is picking up steam and growing every day. I thought here is a great opportunity to jump in early with some PPC advertising before the market gets completely saturated.

I signed up (of course wanted to get a nice $50 credit!) paid a small $30 deposit and was excited about getting a new ad running. But wow… what an interface! Absolutely horrendous. just unbelievably tedious, exhausting and frustrating. Bing has used Yahoo’s search marketing with the platform and interface being probably the most frustrating I have ever used (and seen). I have in the past used Yahoo search marketing and I remember it was very complex but I went into this open minded thinking maybe things have changed. Yet the colors are still dull, you don’t know what tab takes you where and to be honest, being on it for too long actually makes me kinda depressed.

I would have thought Microsoft and Bing would have really made something special out of it. Looking at the actual appearance of the Bing search engine itself, its obviously very consumer orientated bringing up warm emotional and fuzzy feelings with cute animals and picturesque landscapes. Then when it comes to the backend, they screw everything up by using antiquated UI outlines (again).

This is the very reason Apple is trumping them at the moment. As an Apple user you are always exposed to sleek, impressive and user friendly functionality no matter what level your at, business or consumer. However when your with Microsoft your left with programs like Frontpage and back-ends like Bing advertising which leave you feeling somewhat gloomy. At the moment Google is search engine’s ‘Apple’ and Microsoft is, well, Microsoft.

Link Cloaking – a bunch of Internet Entrepreneurs involved in marketing who cloak affiliate links do so to avoid commission sabotage and people stealing their commissions. I’m still undecided about doing this.

Just in case your not sure what I’m talking about, link cloaking involves hiding your affiliate link extension, making it look like a normal link so that people don’t know that your an affiliate. ie the normal link might look like www.bootstrapedia.com as opposed to an affiliate link looking like www.bootstrapedia.com/aff=id1450. So cloaking will remove the ‘aff=id1450′. The reason why people would cloak is to prevent people from sabotage or robing you of your commissions by just removing that little extension. I guess some people just don’t like to be the one helping other people profit. Call it greedy, mean, harsh or whatever but it happens.

Well of course I don’t want people to sabotage my links robbing me of a well deserved commission. At the same time I would hope that my community trusts me enough that I’m not just going to promote rubbish just to make a quick buck. So I havn’t been cloaking my links to my list at all and what you see in the url is what you get.

Once thing I really don’t want are my users thinking I am trying to ‘trick’ them. I believe complete transparency is valuable in developing trust among your users. For example if I was to sell a product to my list and they find out that I made a commission from it, I don’t think they will think less of me, but maybe if I had been completely open about it they would actually gain further respect. I know what I’d prefer and am happy to risk a couple of sabotages in return for gaining more respect from my users.

My approach is just to tell my users: “here is my affiliate link, if your interested in the product then I’d recommend to give it a go”. I don’t know but I don’t think that its a bad way to go about it. Its open, up front, honest and trust building. Again, whether it’s as profitable as the cloaking method I don’t know but I definitely feel better about it.

I’m not dismissing the concept of cloaking as ‘bad’ because using it on the front end of your blog is probably a great idea as your blog may attract plenty of viewers who are commission sabotage happy. On the other hand cloaking to your list, your loyal community and your fans is a whole different ballgame.