Wednesday, December 26, 2007

Still going, Still minimal results.

Well, nearly a new year. Seasons greetings to you, my reader.

My apologies for not updating this during the year. I have actually been pretty busy through most of the year and still working on the goal of making sufficient income from internet marketing to to be able to quit the day job.

The actual financial goal isn't actually very high, I just want to replace the combined incomes of my partner and I so neither of us need to go to work. I won't actually put the amount here but you can understand that it isn't actually a huge amount. none of this 'make $100,000 in the next 30 days' stuff.

OK, here is the current plan. I have created a product, I have created a website for that product, I have created an Affiliate program for that product and some emails for the registration type thing. I am in the process of creating a $7 ebook for affiliates to use to help generate instant income (100% of the sale of the ebook) and I am building brandible links into the ebook for for the product links as well.

I am also experimenting with a different type of ezine. Not too much detail right now but think of your monthly glossy magazine from the newsagent, bookstore or supermarket but delivered as a dynamic desktop program, where the content changes every month and you can still access the archived products, add your own notes to the magazine to make it more useful to you.

At this stage you can go to the website and check out the product, there is a free to use page where you can do almost everything the desktop product does, you can also download the desktop tool from links on the site.

The site is Spam-Killa.com check the site and come back here to comment, I would appreciate your feedback. If you download the desktop version, use the code 0001 when you register the package.


I should tell you that the product I have developed is a simple, 100% accurate spam blocker. A tool which will block all spam, and everything else except what is in your white list. Not only that but it deletes the spam directly from your email server before it gets into your inbox.

This tool works with all email programs and all pop3 email accounts. No tricky set up, download, register, set up your accounts and use. Unlike lots of software being sold, the developer (me) actually uses this almost every day and has since August 2007. In fact I have a tally of the number of spam emails deleted, from my own (main) three email accounts, since then posted on the website.

More details later.

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

So how will I know when Google has listed the Blog?

Yeah, I don't know either 'cause there are NO stats available anywhere in the dashboard that I have found yet. It might be when the . ads finally show proper ads instead of the Public Service ones that are currently running.

I could put some script in the template and track it myself offsite. In fact I think I will do that. I will use Adspy Tracker. I am using this fabulous program on a couple of pages I have been testing and the results are amazing.

The page is not doing anything spectacular but the reporting on which ads are being clicked on and which keywords are generating the traffic is superb. This is information that . will not supply you.

This lends more weight to my suspicions that . are actually actively and deliberately ripping me, you and everyone else off. By delaying the results they deliver they can "adjust" the amount they charge per click vs the amount they pay per click.

This doesn't mean that you cannot make money with or but it does mean that you might be being shafted because you are not in their favourite customer list.

Hey, maybe that's why this blog isn't in the search results anywhere. . don't like negative opinions. They might be censoring my thoughts.

Time for some tracking and traffic generation from other sources. Lets see what happens.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Now there's an interesting thing

I was just checking how many of the posts on this site have been listed by .

You know, type Links: in the search bar and you'll get the number of sites linking to you, this site got none. So I typed in the URL of the site to see how many pages were cached, none.

So that explains why no-one ever visits. But, this is a owned service, does this mean that they don't spider their own sites or does it mean that I have done something wrong here to be de-listed? I don't know the answer to that one so what I will attempt to do is to blast this site into other search engines rankings and see what happens.

Added same evening
That also explains why the google ads shown on this blog are crap or totally not related to the content. have not spidered this site.

Right then, I have decided to give some of the Web 2.0 traffic generation techniques a spin. I have done some pinging as normal but I need to have a go at the Web 2.0 stuff to see what can be generated. Be a real good test because there is no right now.

See you in the organic results...

Good Luck with your marketing.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Update For March - Reporting on the activity

Well, no sales to report. More traffic but, despite the keywords, it must be poorly targetted because I don't seem to be able to attract the "click that pays".

I followed the Day Job Killer strategies, put them into action, built
landing pages, scraped keywords, borrowed ads, payed up to $5 per click
and optimised the ads to get that back down to $0.50 per click to be in
position 2-3. Generated 10% sign-up rate on the squeeze page and 1 sale
on the sales page which got refunded. No sales from the emails I sent
out to date, and that was on the market that Chris says he makes
$1,000,000 per year from.

I'd be happy, at this stage to make
more than I spend in this or any market. I have made an interesting
approach to several of the more successful Internet Marketers to mentor
me through to some positive ROI, I don't expect $10,000 per month, and
I will post the step by step process, the ads, the landing pages and
the results here.

It should be clear that I am not getting any
results on my own efforts so if mentoring turns that around then you'll
be able to track it here.

I would suggest that I would be
posting slightly delayed so that I can get some results before everyone
else floods the niche, after all, the whole point of niche marketing is
to work a niche. What most of theebooks tell you is generalisations on
keywords that they don't use, ads they haven't run, landing pages that
they have never put online and theoretical results because the GoogleTOS (apparently) forbid the actual results.

Hmmm... I have some adsense pages running, recently I have been getting lower and lower CTRs
on those pages and fewer impressions. I have also had the interesting
experience of getting clicks with no value. How does that happen? Look
for theebook coming soon.

Good Luck with your efforts

Friday, February 23, 2007

So, now here's the Truth as I see it.

My Clickbank account shows that of the two sales I made, one has asked for and got a refund.

Since then 1 more sale but essentially all my campaigns are absolute rubbish and I am just losing money. I really despise this state of affairs. I have followed the instructions to the letter, I get good CTRs, I even cloned Chris' million dollar racing campaign but have spent large amounts of money for no result.

So, what is one to do?

I have set up a couple of adsense pages with proper content that I wrote and keyword optimised. I set up some adwords to test the results with and I get about 55% CTR on the visitors who arrive which is OK, the ads cost me $0.05 and I am getting approximately $0.03 average per visitor. This means I am in front by $0.01 per click, can't see myself retiring on this just yet.

I bought a video package which is brilliant for Adsense Marketing and really helped me a lot regarding the optimal positioning of ad blocks etc and the one thing which you are realling missing out on with all the other "guru's" B.S., the one thing they don't tell you about that really makes the difference.

Now I'll come back to this point in a moment but right now I can tell you that even with Perry Marshall's book, Google Adwords, he talks about CTR and how to get the best results for your ads and he shows you traffic numbers, clicks etc. but even he misleads you severely. All the "Gurus" do. Perhaps this is unintentional but I doubt it, I suspect that they don't know where they get their sales from but I am positive that they do not get them from Google Adwords. I suspect that they don't even know this themselves because they don't track their results properly.

I have sent over 2,000 visitors to a sales page which claims to convert at 2.5% but got no sales credited to me. The "Gurus" steal your visitors by signing them up to their email list and then make the sale from there or signing them up as affiliates and allowing them to make their purchases via their own affiliate link. Either way I lose money to Google and have commissions stolen by the "Gurus".

What can I do about this? In the words of Baldrick "I have a cunning plan..." I am developing a program which will suck in the sales page and modify any part of it to whatever I choose. I can track clicks on links, I can remove/redirect links, I can modify text on the page, change the images displayed etc. I might even sell this program later or not, I doubt the the "Gurus" will be at all happy with me for this but they might like a copy for themselves as well.

I don't see this as theft but as making sure I don't get robbed, I haven't actually implemented this yet as I am still testing and fine tuning but soon....very soon, and the reports will be posted here.

In the mean time the secret they don't tell you. I know, I know everyone tells you that "this is the secret the gurus, banks, Google, Microsoft, etc. etc. don't want you to know" but this really is true. They often allude to this but they never state it outright. You need lots and lots and lots of traffic to make any money online. You need to get 500 to 1,000 visitors per day.

Most of the sales pages you send your traffic to only convert around 1% so if you make $20 per sale, you'll need to send 1,000 people per day to get $200 per day. If your Google campaign is costing you $0.20 per click and you are getting a 5% CTR then you'll need 10,000 to 20,000 impressions per day to get 500 to 1,000 eyeballs on the sales page and it will cost you $100 to $200 per day to get the sales. You cannot make any money doing this. But the "Gurus" will because they are not paying anything for their half of the sale.

Is it any wonder that they don't tell you any of this stuff? You, my friend, and I have been conned and continue to be conned by these thieves and they continue to sell you the dream while only delivering it to themselves. This is fraud.

Now, Google is a great place to test and develop your ads and keywords but a really bad place to be trying to make an income from because the CTR price is just too high mainly due to the "Gurus" promotions which have pushed the prices up considerably for non-performing keywords. When you have got a good CTR on your ads you should set up your campaigns where you can get much cheaper traffic. Where can you get traffic for 1/10th of the Google click?

Head over to the Adsense videos here http://www.kentberry.com.au/presents/video and buy the package, it is genuinely worth the money. Have a look at the promotional material on the sales page and look at views side of the image, not just the income side. See how the traffic increases overnight from around 50-100 views per day to around 20,000 views per day. Would you like to be able to turn on an extra 19,900 views per page for your campaigns? I know I would. I have begun to implement these strategies and will report results soon.

Good luck.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

Some Results At Last!

I have been following with some interest the emails from Chris regarding his new book about how to make the adwords marketing work.

His new book is Day Job Killer and is due for release tomorrow, I suspect that he will sell around $25,000 worth in a couple of hours.

This is due to the amazing promotion he has been running for the last month or so building up the interest. If his book is 1/2 as good as he is claiming then it will be superb. Assuming I can get a link to it I will post it here tomorrow.

Now, onto the real news. I have made 2 sales in the last two days. I know that isn't earth shattering compared to Chris, who has a video up showing how he made over $1million last year but it is the first sales I have made for a total of $48 at a cost of (in this campaign) $150. Numbers rounded for simplicity.

I found a pretty good niche for traffic and enthusiasm, I have got my ads working. Actually, I cannot believe what I did this morning, I actually changed an ad which was giving me a 2.4% CTR. Why? The other ad is giving me a 4.5% CTR so I am trying to beat that one.

On another campaign I am actually reducing my maximum bid because the ads are too high in the list, they are all average 1.5 (approximately) and I want them to be around 3. These are also giving me about 2% CTR at the moment but I don't have enough clicks to determine which one to change yet.

Want to know how to determine that? Go here and follow the instructions, no charge for this tip folks.

Changing tack yet again, I bought a cheap ebook on ebay yesterday but I have not yet got a download link. They have until tonight to contact me before I start hammering them all over ebay and here for fraud.

An ebook should be delivered instantly, there is no excuse for any delay so I might have been scammed on this one. Still, via eBay and PayPal, I should have no problem getting a refund and these people charge with criminal activity if that is what is required.

Tomorrow for the good stuff.

The Google Guerrilla

Some of you might have seen the promotions for getting a $299 website for free. They have been coming via email and in Adwords ads from many different places.

Here is one I prepared earlier so you can see what is on offer. I have to confess that I was sceptical but I fell for the Free tag. Seriously, I doubt that any of these have been sold for any price.

The Google Guerrilla

It isn't a scam, you really do get a free website but you pay for the hosting and you pay for Yahoo marketing.

What you are really paying for though, is to market for the host. There are pop-ups which promote gambling sites, ringtone sites etc which I suspect do not have your affiliate links on them.

Because of the pop-ups and exit pops you cannot promote these directly through Google using adwords. However, I have found a way that will work for you profitably and is perfectly within Google's rules of conduct. I am still perfecting this method and trialling it with some adwords campaigns to "bench test" the system. I will post the details here when I have some genuine results.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

This is Unbelievable.

I set up a new campaign in Google on Thursday night (18/1/07) for a relatively high traffic set of key words.

After 10 hours I had 32 clicks, I looked at the keyword group and decided to split it into two groups with two new ads. Both sets used the same URL which sends the visitor to the same sales page via a cloaked link.

Today Saturday (20/1/07), one of my keywords has had a 200% CTR, others are above 50% so the traffic is good. But no #$%^ sales. What is happening here?

The other group is doing pretty well with CTR's as high as 33%. Total clicks sent to the sales page today is 94. The sales page claims to have a 3% conversion rate so I should have 2-3 sales by now but I don't have any, I just checked Clickbank to be sure.

So how many of you are also having the same problem, got your ads converting well, in a high traffic niche, found a good product with a good(?) sales page and no sales? Got any input for me on how to fix this?

I am also running some experiments with web 2.0 that I will report on later.

Good luck with your efforts.

Tuesday, January 02, 2007

Happy New Year, a Resolution.

OK. I have spent a bit of time recently putting a package together to assist Newbies in their Internet Marketing and general Internet activities.

What I have done is join two organisations for their content. One provides a large number of Adsense, Clickbank, Amazon and Ebay affiliate links. You can customise your site by domain name and content so no two sites will be the exactly the same (which suits Google) but you don't need to have any specialised knowledge to make it all work. This is a paid site but it is pretty cheap, a bit less than normal web site hosting so it is good value and should generate at least the hosting fees with minimal promotional activity.

The other site is a free to join site with some very useful ebooks for the user to buy or sell.

This allows all Newbies to begin their Internet Marketing activities no matter what their existing skill or financial level.

I plan to put in a forum for the Newbies as well but that will come later if the rest of the site works well.

The link to the promotional/sale page is Marketing 101. I have called this a sales page because it still has to persuade people to join up but there is no cost to join so sales is a bit of a misnomer.

I have also set up tracking from the download links so I can log each download against the affiliate id. The point about doing full on tracking is that I can then determine if the new affiliates actually download the free ebooks.

I can't make the affiliates read the ebooks but if they have downloaded them then I can use sections from the ebooks here and in the emails I send. I can also deliver hints and tips relating to HTML, FTP, PHP, JavaScript, CGI, etc. etc.

I think that this is a way of tapping into the Newbie market. I am certain that I can assist them with learning the ropes and weaving their way through the Internet maze and helping them avoid the scams, con artists etc.

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