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.

One Million Dollars. For many of us this sounds like a lot of money. However is the concept of this being outdated valid? Does the word millionaire still bring thoughts of luxuries, excessive lifestyles, fast cars, fine dining and waterfront living. Or do we have to “up” it a level where no longer does a million dollars put you on the level of society’s elite.

I’m going to list the things one million dollars will buy you today:

• 1/4 New York Apartment
• 1/2 season in the GP2 racing championship
• A few good diamonds
• 5 yrs off
• 1/2 Bugatti Veyron
• Medium sized yacht
• 1/100 of the way to creating GTA IV
• An investment property (then the value will plummet and you no longer have close to 1million!)
• 2-3 Yrs Medical Insurance (As a practicing Doctor)
• 200,000 McDonald’s Happy Meals
• 500,000 Mars Bars
• 10,000 bottles of Moet
• 1 Law suit
• You business overdraft (Interest only!)

Its a pretty strange list but you’d expect a strange list when your wondering how to spend a million bucks. But after you write the list the only things you can buy substantially are smaller ticket items (ie the Mars Bars). The stuff your teen dreams are made of, or those investment and work essentials, are no longer the calling cards of those who have stumbled upon that magic million.

Yes one million dollars is a crap load of money but the bar has been raised. To shake the hand of a millionaire isn’t what it once was.

It’s an awfully kept secret that the majority of good Internet Marketers are from North America. It’s not surprising really as the region is to me, the entrepreneurial nexus of the world. A lot of the good stuff comes from there (except cars.. why is it when there are 4 wheels and an engine they go all loopy?). Silicon Valley houses some of the greatest start-ups with investors willing to pump millions of dollars to support the dreams of budding entrepreneurs.

A lot of what I do everyday is a result of entrepreneurial insight from the region. I Jump on my computer (DELL, Austin TX, USA 1984) check my emails using Outlook (Microsoft 1975 Albuquerque, New Mexico), search using the Google search engine (Menlo Park, California, 1998), visit the Shoemoney Blog (Lincoln, Nebraska) using the Firefox browser (Again North America) and then when I feel thirsty I grab a Coke (take a guess?).

This isn’t surprising or a revolutionary insight by any means but I think its important to note the effect this has had on marketers. I’m an Australian but when I write a post or release a product, I know that the majority of the people making use of what I have to offer will be from the US. When I was writing my eBook I had an extremely enlightening recommendation from one of my reviewers who questioned my use of Kilograms instead of Pounds. I used the word ‘bootstrap’ in the title instead of ’shoestring’.

Tailoring my approach to suit the people most likely to follow me is now second nature to me. Whenever I’m asked to fill out contact details online, I instinctively put a +61 in front of the number. I even get excited when I purchase something and then realize that its in Australian dollars, thinking I’m getting a bargain because I’m so used to paying in US (about 80USc for $1AUS).

However something happened the other day which I never thought would, I felt I had an accent in my own mother tongue. I was creating a screen capture video and realized how ‘different’ I sounded to all the other Internet Marketers. I’m so used to hearing marketers from the US speaking in Audio and Video that my voice, even to me, sounded quite alien. Even after a few attempts I was considering a voice over! Obviously I didn’t take this route as I understand the importance of using myself as my brand so this was simply not an option, but the fact that the thought came to mind really made me think.

So I’m wondering whether other non US marketers have felt this sense of Internet Marketing alientation. The Internet is such a global medium yet there is a prominant ‘language’ in the IM world. Not that it bothers me at all, its just an observation which I find intriguing.

So Facebook have just released their vanity URL feature. So now instead of having some elaborate confusing URL, you can simply choose yours username. For example I chose just my surname (I got in early) so my username is www.facebook.com/bakhos.

The reason I chose this was that I wanted my full name, when searched, to link to this blog in the search engines, not my Facebook page.

I can imagine all the people taking all the “make money online”, “Internet business” names and it will become extremely transparent after a little while. The shame is that now when people do populat internet marketing searches we are going to end up with Spam pages or link farms via Facebook. I think we see enough of these on the net already but lets see what happens.

Any reasons why you have chosen the username you did?

If you havn’t got your username and are already a member of Facebook then I recommend that you do, mainly so you don’t end up suffering from some opportunistic creep stealing your name. You can do it by visiting Facebook Username page.

So where to for these money churning start-ups? I’ve never quite understood the business models of some websites and I’ve openly stated that. I’m talking Digg, Reddit, Twitter etc. They are backed by big-in-the-pocket investment firms, VC’s and angel investors yet no one bothers to stop and say, how are we going to make money?

Twitter is now trying to find a way to make money. Interestingly enough they have no clue how they are going to do it. They have already stated that advertising is not an option they are currently considering for their revenue model so where will it lie?

My take on this is simple: why start a business with no revenue model whatsoever? No you might think that this is quite a narrow minded view but the main reason for thinking like this probably isn’t what you think.

Let’s use a few examples (I love my examples!) and take Facebook for example. Now Facebook has always had some type of advertising on the site and I remember the first type of ads were tower banner ads. That was pretty much it and probably didn’t make them a lot of money. But it set a precedence. Users were comfortable with the advertising. So ramping up the ads into a full blown network, although not the most successful, didn’t put too many people off because it has always been there.

Same with Google. I’ve always known Google with two columns, one for organic and the other for sponsored links. Of course at some stage it was just organic search but the ads were put in quite early on, showing a defined revenue model and the users happily accepted it.

On the other hand you’ve got other start-ups like Twitter. These guys have built a massive following and have in no way monetised it. The negative effect isn’t in the fact that they are not making money now but the inability to easily implement a revenue model in the future. Taking the earlier examples, their revenue models crept up early on and didn’t cause to much of a flutter among the users. However Twitter has always been a free, non ad-obtrusive service with a host of loyal followers. Throw in a need to charge for anything and their loyal base will be kicking and screaming. This is their own doing.. they dug a hole from day one.

You can find clear evidence of this when reports came through of an agreement to form Twitter TV and Twitter’s most famous user Ashton Kutcher, made the following statement: “Wow I hope this isn’t true. I really don’t like being sold out. May have to take a twitter hiatus”. This shows any sign of Twitter trying to profit from their micro-blogging service, they are shunned by their most loyal and popular “Tweeters”. I can’t help but feel that if they implemented some type of revenue strategy from day 1… it may not have been so difficult.

I am absolutely astounded at the difference between the really good online marketers and the not so good ones. What I’m astounded at is that the difference is not as obvious as you may expect. You’d think some have flashy videos, great graphics and unique designs but it just doesn’t work like that.

I’ve been checking out some of the best online marketers and trying to figure out what makes them so successful. I have even gone to the extent of screen capturing their sales pages to try and understand what it is. It’s hard to compare my own because I become subjective so I feel it’s best to use others and take a completely objective point of view. The truth is in the detail and the delivery. It’s not much really and can range from a better fonts, bolder boarders, use of keywords and their uncanny ability to make you like them. This is probably one of the biggest marketing factors that most people are yet to fully understand and that is that the real good internet marketers are hard to hate although you think you should.  What do you think about the Virgin brand? I don’t know too many people that hate it because the brand is just so likable.. now what makes the Internet Marketing industry any different?

Then on the other end of the scale you’ve got the guys who have scam written all over them and the sad thing is, these are probably legitimate online marketers. However because they used a few over-zealous words, a dodgy squeeze page and maybe a few too many bells and whistles they are dismissed and placed in the Internet Marketers dregs pile. Think of any telco and compared it to Vodafone. They might both offer great product but for me personally, I struggle to hate Vodafone because of how to hold and promote their brand.

It’s sad really, a few choice words and a different colour can be the difference between being successful in this industry and being an ‘also tried’. My advice, and I can’t believe I’m saying this… find the good guys, observe, analyse and implement for a solid foundation. Only then may people tolerate your re-invention of the wheel and if not, you’ve still got a fat pocket to survive off until your next charge but remember wash up before you go out again.

There seems to be a definite pattern with people who want to get into an online business of some sort in that they start with the same questions: where do I start and what should I sell? Well I think these two questions actually fall under the one action, because before you do anything, you should probably decide on what niche you wish to get into. So I’m going to outline a few points that will nail the initial questions so you can get started on the meaty stuff.

Before you do anything, think of a field that you know a lot about or think of yourself as an expert in. Try to find something you are really passionate about as this helps, but it not necessarily an essential. Now once who have a few ideas, put them to the following tests:

1. Is there competition?

People often associate an industry that has plenty of competition as being an industry you should stay away from. I think that’s quite a silly approach because why else would there be plenty of competition other than the fact that it’s a profitable market? If there are plenty of people advertising to this market then that’s a good sign. If the market wasn’t profitable then why would people keep advertising? Use you competitors as your market research.

How do you do this? Let’s use “weight loss” as an example. The first step is to do a Google search for, you guessed it, weight loss! Now once you do a search have a look at the right hand side of the page at the sponsored listings. Its full. Check out the more sponsored links tab the the bottom. 54 pages of weight loss ads! 54 pages! I feel sorry for the guys on like page 32.. Who’s ever visiting these guys? Now go back to the original search and visit the top sites in the organic search. Do they contain a lot of advertising? Banners? Adsense? You get the picture.

2. Clickbank it – Is it popular lately?

No not Google it. Clickbank it. Clickbank is the largest affiliate network for digital products online. I’ll go into a little more detail of Clickbank later in this report but for now quickly visit Clickbank (www.clickbank.com), go to their marketplace (small link top-right of screen) and do a search for your niche to see what comes up.
Now you need to take note of how many products are for available for promotion and the more the better. Its for the same reason we did the Google search earlier. More advertisers = more people buying.
But most importantly you need to have a look at the “gravity” of the product. You can find this under the product description in a faded grey text with other info such as $/sale, %/sale and so on.
I’m not going to explain gravity because that would take me forever and I’ll end up getting confusing myself. Just take my word for it. You want a higher gravity. The higher the gravity the more that item has been promoted and sold recently. Gravity places emphasis on recent interest and sales of that product but in short, the higher the better.

3. Google Keyword Tool

This is different to simply doing a search in Google. Google’s Keyword Tool (do a search for Google Keyword Tool) allows you to see the volume of searches for particular keywords. So back to the weight loss example, the search term “weight loss” has a global search volume of 5 million searches. To put that into perspective “learning guitar” is at about 350,000 searches and “cheap flights” is almost 24 million.

4. Ebay Pulse

A great final test especially relevant for physical products is using Ebay Pulse. Visit pulse.ebay.com. Ebay pulse tells you what’s hot on Ebay right now, a great indicator of what is selling well on the internet. Great to use especially if you want to sell physical products.
The conclusions? You want to sell something that is high in demand, being sold recently and is a proven profitable market. If your product gets a tick for all these tests then your product is sellable and most likely profitable. Don’t be afraid of big markets just because there is plenty of competition. Where there is plenty of competition there is even a bigger market and getting a small piece of the cake is much easier than trying to take the whole thing!

(This is straight out of my ebook, Bootstrapedia. If you want to get a copy, first grab your version of Think and Grow Rich and I’ll also send you my book!)