The Ramblings of a Journalist and Internet Marketer

One of the first ebooks I bought when I was learning how to market products on the Internet was Day Job Killer. To this day I don’t know quite why I bought it. Perhaps I got caught up in the hype about it at the time.

Whatever it was I really thought I was being given the lowdown on getting traffic to my websites and blogs using PayPerClick advertising (which Google calls ‘Adwords’ and others just call PPC). I read the book, put together my PPC campaigns and sat back and waited for the results.

But they weren’t as I expected. Yes, there was plenty of traffic, but no, I mean zero, conversions of visitors to sales. In fact I lost a packet on this one Adwords campaign. And it put me off PPC advertising for life.

Or so I thought. Because when I started talking to other marketers some of them were using PPC campaigns and making a mint. One of the guys I met who was making a more than comfortable living out of Adwords was Amit Mehta.

So when he and Anik Singal launched his PPC Classroom recently I was one of the first in behind the doors. Now, in my usual way, I haven’t joined the razamataz of the recent launch party in the way that other affiliates have. Instead I wanted to start PPC Classroom myself to find out whether it really does deliver the goods.

So far I have to say I’m impressed. I can’t give you the lowdown on the whole course because tuition continues on a monthly basis. But what you get up front when you first enter PPC Classroom is certainly very impressive.

I expected PPC Classroom to restore my confidence in Adwords, but it’s done more than that. I’ve already picked up enough to start a new PPC campaign which, this time round, is actually bringing in some sales. In fact I’m already in profit, which is a huge turnaround of fortunes in my estimation of PPC.

So if, like me, you’ve wondered how the heck you can turn a profit from PPC campaigns I suggest you take a close look at PPC Classroom, here,  today. I’ll see you inside.

As a result of my coaching offer in my last post I’ve had a fascinating time answering people’s questions about ‘how to get started’. I have to say it is a real eye opener seeing the areas in which people who are starting out on their online career are having trouble with.

One of the questions that I get asked most is ‘how did you get started?’. It is actually a simpler story than many imagine.

I think I’ve mentioned before that I discovered Internet Marketing because I needed to sell physical products online and wanted to know the best way to do it. I am also an avid eBayer and wondered whether what I’d learnt there could be applied to websites.

When I saw how marketers were selling through websites, however, it made my mind boggle. Just what was a squeeze page’ and how did it differ from a ‘landing page’? How did you use an autoresponder? How was payment collected and how was the buyer directed to the download page? And what is all this talk of an OTO?

To find all this out I would have to buy a host of ebooks and training courses, and how could I be sure that the promises on the salesletters (as you have seen I’ve an anathema to hype and BS) would be kept?

But then I found something. Something unique. Something I hadn’t counted on. A friend told me about Steve Wagenheim’s ‘My Secret Articles’. He said this was a complete course in itself. OK, it didn’t contain the complete secrets of the online universe, but it did answer all my questions.

What’s more ‘My Secret Articles’ comes in two forms - pdf, for you to read, and Word documents that you can edit. Would you believe it that you can take these docs and use them like a PLR (Private Label Rights, that’s something else I learnt), edit them and then put your own name to them as products?

Wow. I was intrigued. A course on all the ins and outs of Internet Marketing AND a product source as well.

I had to try it out. The usual guarantees were in force if I didn’t like it. But I did like it, in fact I LOVED it. The course is broken down into twelve months of content such is its extent, with over 52 ‘articles’ covering just about every aspect of Internet Marketing.

Such is the depth of ‘My Secret Articles’ that I am still referring to this course today, adapting pieces of it to make articles, email messages and ebooks or reports which I can use for giveaways or to sell as part of a package.

Can you begin to see how valuable ‘My Secret Articles’ could be to you if, like me, you were just starting out? You can find out more about ‘My Secret Articles’ by downloading Steve’s report here. I’d be really surprised if it doesn’t answer all your questions.

I have a confession to make - I am Dreamer (but I turned into a Doer too)! Let me explain…

I was on the way home last night from choir practice (I am a bass singer and also chairperson of our local choral society) and a fellow chorister and I were talking about a forthcoming event that was supposed to be ‘organized’ already (it’s only two weeks away and nothing’s been done yet). She pointed out that the ‘organizer’ was more of a Dreamer than a Doer, and that got me thinking.

Because, for many years, I was a Dreamer. I’d been dreaming since I was a kid. I had big ideas. I was headed for fame and fortune. I just knew I would make it big one day once I’d thrown off the shackles of whatever was holding me back.

Of course, as a kid, it was my parents that were preventing me from fulfilling my dreams. Then, when I reached University, I knew that once I was a graduate I’d put those dreams into action. And when I got my first job I was sure that, once I’d amassed enough money, I’d get started.

Then marriage intervened, followed by children. I was following life’s path, and creating and living new dreams, but my kid’s dream of fame and fortune hadn’t happened. It was always going to happen, maybe I’d get started tomorrow, or perhaps next week once I’d…

Well, you know the definition of procrastination? ‘Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow’! That was me. I didn’t do things until I was forced into a corner and, even then, only with reluctance.

But then, because of financial constraints, I had to face up to it - was I a Dreamer or a Doer? Yes, I had great ideas. Lots of them. But none of them ever got going.

So what happened? How did I turn from Dreamer to Doer?

One day that song from Supertramp kept on going round and round my head…

‘Dreamer, you’re nothing but a dreamer, well can you put your hands in your head, oh no’

I’d never really understood that song before, but it suddenly jumped out at me. I had to put my hands in my head and use them to mold my dreams into reality.

Deadline Approaches

So I set myself a deadline. I knew I had to have a routine to work to. I invested in Michael Green’s ‘2020 Challenge’ simply because it gave me a deadline and daily tasks to follow. I knew, instinctively, that if I followed those tasks I’d get there. Because whenever anybody asked me to do something, I would do it and do it well. And it worked - the fact that you’re reading this today is proof of that.

What’s the point of this story? It’s simple. I meet Dreamers every day. People who say to me ‘oh, I’d love to work from home’ or ‘how I envy you, great house, lovely family, plenty of leisure time, how do you do it?’  I always tell them ‘just do what I did’ and show them the way. But, you know what, they don’t do it ’cause they’re dreamers, not doers!

So, today you have a choice - are you going to face up to it? Are you a Dreamer or a Doer? Here’s how you can find out. In fact I’m giving you three choices. Why three and not one? Because not everyone has the same requirements, or the same expenditure. If you want to turn from a Dreamer into a Doer here are those 3 choices…

Choice Number One:

Follow this link to create your own product and start selling it and profiting from it in just 20 days. It’s straightforward, I’ve done it, I know it works. What’s more I know it will work for you too.

http://jonathanpaston.com/recommends/2020Challenge

Choice Number Two:

Follow this link to kick-start your online marketing career. There’s no time limit on this one but I know that if you follow this step-by-step routine you’ll start seeing results within 30 days and will be generating a substantial income in three months.

http://jonathanpaston.com/presents/HomeBusinessEmpire

Choice Number Three:

Follow this link to become a successful affiliate marketer. Now I know that this is the dream of a lot of people because affiliate marketing, when done right, gives you instantaneous income. The problem is that most people don’t follow the correct route to become successful affiliates. Here is the path that actually will work if you follow it as Tim lays it out for you…

http://jonathanpaston.com/recommends/ProfitPraxis

One more thing

Now there’s one more thing before you go and turn from being a Dreamer into a Doer. You’ll need some help. In fact I only reached my full potential when I received some mentoring from my friend Frank Haywood (www.frankhaywood.com). So I’m going to offer the same sort of help to you.

If you’ve subscribed to this blog, or any other list of mine, then you’ll have my email address (it’s at the bottom of every download page). Whichever choice you make from the three links above just send me your receipt and I’ll help you with any questions you may have, either when you’re getting started or as you are following each course, or even when you get to the end.

Why am I doing this? I like helping people. I want to see more people become Doers instead of Dreamers. In fact it pains me to meet so many Dreamers who have dreams that are never fulfilled. Make your dream come true - start today by making one of the choices above and turn, as I did, from a Dreamer into a Doer!

A couple of posts ago I wrote about typical marketing hype and whether it had any relevance to today’s buyers. The comments I received, both on this blog and by email, told me what I expected - people are, in general, fed up with the overblown BullSh*t that goes under the title of ‘Internet Marketing’ on many of the salesletters that they see everyday.

Now, as an affiliate, I do get to see some of these salesletters in advance when I receive JV offers, and there’s one coming up soon that is so hysterical I have to give you advance notice of it. The product is from Michael Cheney and goes under the moniker of ‘The Golden Thread’.

I’m not going to outline what the product does, or doesn’t do. You can catch a glimpse of what it aims to do by clicking here …

http://jonathanpaston.com/a/TheGoldenThread

What I want to focus on today, however, is the sort of language that is being bandied about in Michael’s salesletter. For example…

not to mention…

Now if this is the sort of language that turns you on you’re going to love Michael’s ‘Cash Cannons’ description…

so it’s hardly surprising that…

when you find out it is going to cost you $1997 to avail yourself of Michael’s Cash Cannon ’secret weapon’ strategy!

Now I can’t imagine many of you jumping on that bandwagon, even if the language of the salesletter does happen to appeal. So here’s something much more down to earth.

I was so incensed by this BS hype from Michael Cheney that I went out and found a product that will do exactly what it says on the tin. Here’s the salespage of what I found, and purchased out of my own pocket, yesterday…

http://jonathanpaston.com/introduces/HomeBusinessEmpire

As you’ll see it’s a complete contrast to the hype merchants - watch the videos - they’re honest and to the point.  This is a site that tells you just what the product is, what it can do for you, and why you should buy it. ‘Nuff said?

I wouldn’t be surprised if most of the readers of this blog arrived because they were searching for a revealing review of the latest money-making software or book. That’s why we’re marketers, right?

Wrong! We’re marketers because we’ve taken action. We’ve gone out and set up a website, started an email list, promoted some valuable products or maybe even created a product and started selling it. We’re not marketers just because we’ve bought into someone else’s hype.

Most people I talk to are like sheep. They want to follow a shepherd, in fact they want that shepherd to look after them, tell them where to go and what to do when they get there. They’ll gladly fork out some of their hard-earned shekels to buy the latest whizz-bang marketing training course in the hope that it will tell them what to do to earn millions.

Usually that training course, ebook or program sits on their hard drive doing nothing. They might start on it but then get distracted and put it aside for another day when they’ve got time. But you know what? That other day never arrives.

Instead yet another ‘cash sucking’ ebook comes out and off they go again. It’s like a download mania. Actually I think it really does become addictive after time?

Change your mindset

So how can you overcome this and actually start to take action, to actually do something that will earn you some money online?

Well first of all you have to change your mindset. Most of us believe that the keys to fame and fortune are in the pockets of the privileged, that somehow other people have found a hidden door to becoming famous and wealthy.

It doesn’t work like that. Yes, there are a few who are born into privileged backgrounds. But these are the rarity and, let me tell you, a lot of them amount to nothing.

Because the really successful entrepreneurs, actors and artists are those who realise that success is only within the reach of those who take action.

Forget what you’ve been led to believe all your life, that other people are in some way better than you, more gifted than you, more intelligent than you. This is the way that society keeps you in your place and the way that the people who are successful manage to feed off your sense of failure.

Look at any highly successful person and you’ll see someone who is driven - driven to succeed at all costs. Now if that frightens you, if you cannot see that drive, that ambition, within yourself, don’t worry. It’s because you’ve been told that you’re useless, that other people know what is good for you!

Today is the day to change your mindset. Today is the day you’re going to take action to improve your life. Today is the day that you’re going to delve into your hard drive and dig out that program, that system, that training that you always meant to follow but never got round to.

And if you haven’t got anything like that on your hard drive then have a look through the recommendations on this blog. The two systems which have proved most popular, both with my readers and myself, are Profit Praxis and MOLB. Both give you the keys to success. Both follow a step-by-step process that is guaranteed to work if you actually follow them through. Read my reviews (by clicking the titles above) and then the salesletters for each and see which appeals to you.

Then, most important of all, start thinking like a marketer. You know you really can do this, all you need to do is make a start and the rest will follow.

Alternatively lie back on the couch, switch on the TV and put it off for another day. The choice is yours!

Over the weekend I checked my sites only to find that every single index page on every site had been replaced by an interloper - the Q8hack. Luckily this wasn’t too damaging. About an hour’s work and I’d restored all the correct index files again.

One unfortunate aspect, though, is that anyone who tried to access any of my sites will have seen the hacked page and, unless they hit refresh when visiting again, their browser cache will continue to show the incorrect page.

However I got off likely. One of the sites at which I’m a member, Earn1kaday, found that their forum had been shut down because their webhosts had found an ‘infestation’ that was attacking and damaging other sites.

How these attacks happened I don’t yet know. Clearly the hackers have to break security to get into the servers to perform these ‘infestations’. We’ll probably never know the answer.

I could warn you, if you run your own sites, to always make sure you have a backup of each site ready to restore just in case a server hack brings your sites down. But, in my experience, people don’t bother about backups until the worst happens!

But it does remind me that I was going to write a report on avoiding email hacks and scams which are far more prevalent. I’m seeing more intelligent use by email scammers of clever tricks these days and, whilst I’ve concocted a recipe for avoiding these, not everyone manages to avoid the ravages of an email opened by mistake.

So I’ll start writing and I’ll get this report to you as quickly as I can. If you’re a subscriber you’ll get it for free.

For some reason I was suddenly struck, today, by the relatively meaningless adjectives that some marketers use in their emails and/or copy.

Here’s a couple of examples from some email messages I received today…

“I’ve done some killer videos revealing some cool traffic tactics”

“Here’s a sneak peak of what’s waiting for you if you decide to take a risk-free look inside this amazingly detailed system”

“Discover How YOU Can Have Instant Access To Your Very Own
Line Of Smoking Hot, In-Demand Software”

“It’s Shocking but true… At one time, I was incredibly broke.”

“the dudes at Stompernet are dying to give away this
stuff, but they have had one hell of a time with their
server being overloaded because of the crazy offer.”

OK, so I’ve highlighted some verbs as well as adjectives in that last one, but I included it because it wasn’t server ‘overload’ that stopped the latest Stompernet offer going out on time but a delay because not everything was quite ready for the launch.

But you see what I mean, I hope? Does Internet Marketing speak really need to be used to get the message across? Do we actually need to tell ‘white lies’ to provoke some action by the reader?

To be fair there are a lot of marketers who don’t use Internet Marketing ’speak’. Their messages are straightforward, to the point and highly descriptive. Generally those are the ones that grab my attention because they seem more sincere. But I’d like your comments, please.

Do you respond to adjectives like the ones I’ve highlighted above in a positive way or a negative way? Do words like ‘killer’ and ‘cool’ make you sit up and take notice or just yawn and look away?

In other words do we really need to speak like this to get attention or make a sale - or is it all just hot air that’s wasted on everyone who reads it?

Look, the concept of Internet Marketing is simple. Here’s how it works - no messing about - this is it in a nutshell…

1. Find a hungry market

2. Find a product that everyone wants

3. Set up a webpage to sell the product

4. Sit back and watch the money flow into your account

It’s so simple that a huge number of canny marketers, like me, do this each day, day in, day out. We call this Niche marketing.

I can hear you already asking questions. Like ‘How do I find a hungry market?’, ‘How do I get people to my salespage?’ and a bunch of other queries that I asked myself when I started learning about Internet Marketing.

It took me over three years and thousands of dollars spent on niche marketing courses before I figured it all out. Now I look back on it I wish there’d been a single, step-by-step system that spelled out how to go about it. I could have not only saved myself a lot of time and money but I could have started earning a lot sooner!

At last someone’s put down all the steps you have to take to become a Niche Marketer in one ecourse. It’s called Niche Blitzkrieg simply because it shows you how to start with one site, make it profitable, then quickly rinse and repeat to build up your own niche empire.

This isn’t some pdf book full of words that don’t add up to anything concrete - Niche Blitzkrieg is an online course with over 100 pages broken down into easy-to-follow explanations and videos.

Niche Blitzkrieg has been put together by Michael Brown following his own successful system. In fact once he’d perfected this system he was able to quit his job and concentrate on building up his army of niche sites to bring in a regular income on autopilot.

Now he’s giving you the chance to copy his success with his 30 day Niche Blitzkrieg system. I’m not going to bang on about this anymore. You’ll either recognize this opportunity or spend the next three years learning about Internet Marketing the hard way - just like I did!

If you finally understand that you need all the help you can get to start earning from Internet Marketing, then there’s an introductory $70 discount on Niche Blitzkrieg right now. Click here to find out more.

One of the great things about reviewing Internet Marketing products is that, occasionally, I find something so hilariously outrageous that it would have buyers falling about laughing if they hadn’t already paid through the nose for it!

Generally the majority of Internet Marketing products have substantial worth, though not all are as good value as we might hope. However The Rich Boy takes the biscuit. Read on to find out why…

First of all check out the promises made on the salespage (www.therichboy.com). It’s full of the usual ‘I’m rich, and now I’m going to show you how’ stuff PLUS the guarantee of ‘an Endless Stream of Residual Income’. So far so absolutely typical of the ‘get rich quick’ sales technique.

Further down the page there’s a ’sneak peak’ of what’s inside the book. This looks promising - everything from income through Adsense to how to use PPC marketing, followed by a bunch of extra ‘bonus’ items.

Then, oh boy, this is where you know this probably isn’t the sort of thing you should be buying when you reach the ‘what I own and how I live’ pictures. Are people really taken in by this? Don’t they have dreams of their own on which they’d spend their ‘endless stream of residual income’? And, erm, who’s paying for his lifestyle?

Well, actually, you are once you plonk down the $49.95 for this ebook. So, you click the order button and pay and then you can’t wait to get your grubby hands on the book which is going to make you rich. Except that you’ll have to wait. Because this is what you see…

Now don’t, whatever you do, be tempted by the ‘I’m looking for a limited number to join my ‘Advanced Coaching Team’. This is just a way of getting your phone number so that one of his salesmen can call you up and persuade you to spend even more money on ‘advanced coaching’.

I’m used to One Time Offers of more products or additions to products (like video training) but, usually, there’s a way past the OTO so you can get to your purchase.

Not with The Rich Boy! You HAVE to fill out the ‘free consultation’ application and click submit before you can get to the download page. I call this despicable.

Even then you don’t get to your download. First you have to join The Rich Boy’s email messaging system and then, and only then, do you get a download link. Except you don’t, because once again you’re faced with the ‘Free Consultation’ application. As the man said ‘I don’t BELIEVE it’! Thankfully, this time, you get a link underneath to the download page. Phew.

Great,  now we can get started on how to earn a fortune. Oh, but what’s this? It’s not a normal ebook; it’s an exe file that opens the book as a downloaded web page. And there, near the top is…

You guessed it - the ‘Free Consultation’ application form again!!! Really, is this guy for real?

So, scroll down and let’s get to the meat of this ebook - the training.

First there’s a bit about starting a blogger blog with some Adsense thrown in. And a bit more about choosing a niche. So how do we find a good niche? We do some keyword research. How? We use the keyword optimizer at www.searchterms.com. But, unlike the free tools at Wordtracker or Google this one costs $9.95 a day or $299.95 a year. And no guesses for who gets a nice affiliate commission on that!

But perhaps you aren’t happy with the look of your blog. Well why not try some website templates instead? And who better to provide them than  www.easyadsensetemplates.com for the princely sum of $99.95? (The Rich Boy gets another $50 of your money for that one).

By now you should be getting the message of how this book works. Let’s say you’ve created your website and are now looking to get visitors to it. Maybe you’d like to be on the front page of Google? How? Oh, that’s simple according to The Rich Boy, just buy SEO Elite for $167! (and there’s a nice fat commission going to The Rich Boy there too).

Next you are going to learn about affiliate marketing. Now this looks promising. First find a product to promote. Where? At www.click2sell.eu of course. Oh, why not Clickbank or any of the other well known affiliate marketplaces? Because Click2Sell is where you can become an affiliate for… wait for it…

The Rich Boy!

Oh, yes, you too can learn how to make $37.46 by selling ‘Make Your Cash Stack’ - the very book you’ve bought and, of course, stuffing more money in The Rich Boy’s pocket as a result (erm, at a conversion rate of 0.21%, I don’t think so).

What’s the best way of advertising your affiliate link? Why, by using Adwords of course. Here’s a quote from the book that really sums it all up better than I can describe…

“I won’t be going into extreme amounts of detail here about how to effectively advertise on Google Adwords…”

Of course you won’t, Rich Boy; because you can send your readers off to buy ‘The Google Cash Guide’ for $67 instead (and fatten your Rich Boy’s wallet a little more). Except that…

…the link doesn’t work!!!

Ha, I almost fell off my chair at that one!

But, don’t worry, if you’ve turned the pages and got this far then you’ll find ‘The Mystery Bonuses’!

Yes, you too can ‘earn’ money by making a killing on the ’science’ of Sports Betting! Or you can make money ‘the easy way’ by filling out online surveys! Or how about getting paid to enter data into forms? How? Spend just another $197 (Sports Betting) plus £27 (Online Surveys) plus $49 (Data Entry) and you can do all of them. Wow, am I the lucky one to be getting these bonuses! Thanks Rich Boy!

But that’s not all! Spend even more money and you’ll get books that will reveal the profit secrets when you ’submit photos to the Internet’ or ‘get paid to shop and eat’.

Any more dodgy systems you can think of Rich Boy? Oh, yes, one last one. Just in case you’ve emptied your wallet buying all this useless stuff you can at least save some money by converting your car to ‘burn water’ not gasoline (www.easywatercar.com)!

Read enough? Bear with me. There’s one last offer you can’t refuse (to learn about, that is). Because you’re so impressed, by this point, with The Rich Boy’s book ‘Make Your Cash Stack’ you can sign up to resell it - an auction template for eBay is provided. The cost of your resale license? $49.99 for the first month and $9.99 a month thereafter!

I checked on eBay and there’s one poor sod in the UK who has failed to sell a copy at £6.00. Another in Canada has managed to sell one copy for $6 (plus postage). Remember every copy that sells adds to The Rich Boy’s alleged $50,000 per month income through the affiliate commissions loaded inside.

There’s one thing that doesn’t quite add up here, though. If The Rich Boy is really so rich, how come he’s using the FREE version of ‘ebookmaestro’ to compile his ebook? Can’t he afford the measly $34.95 for the PRO version (which you’re supposed to use for ‘commercial’ ebooks)? I won’t say ‘there’s one born every minute’.

I thought I’d seen everything but The Rich Boy almost leaves me speechless. I have only one word left to say…

Un-FRICKEN-believable!

‘Oh no, not another affiliate marketing product’, might be your reaction to the brouhaha surrounding Affiliate Payload. Hardly a month goes by when yet another ’secret’ affiliate marketing system arrives, usually just a re-iteration of all the advice that is out there already (see MOLB and Profit Praxis if you want some good advice there).

So, when I downloaded the Affiliate Payload manual, I was expecting more of the same. Wrong! Affiliate Payload attacks affiliate marketing from a completely different perspective.

The biggest struggle with affiliate marketing is in persuading people to buy whatever it is you are promoting. The other things you have to do, driving traffic using PPC or article marketing, getting people to sign up to a free offer, are easy by comparison.

What Affiliate Payload does is shows you how to make money from affiliate marketing without having to sell anything. If that sounds odd then you haven’t come across CPA.

With CPA (Cost Per Action) an advertiser pays an affiliate for an ‘action’ linked to an advertising page. All you have to do is drive traffic to that page and prompt the visitor to take action. Usually this is as simple as entering an email address in order to enter a free draw or get a gift, or it could be filling out a form, for example applying for a credit report. Both of these are a more specific form of CPA called ‘Cost Per Acquisition’.

Rarely is selling involved. As a result the ‘reward’ for the affiliate is typically a few dollars rather than tens or hundreds of dollars, but the conversion rate (number of people taking action per site visitor) is so astronomically higher that CPA can be an extremely lucrative business.

But before you rush off to find CPA offers there are a few things you should know. For a start CPA advertisers don’t just sign up anybody who asks. Nor can you just go to an affiliate market, like ClickBank, to find them. That’s where Affiliate Payload comes in.

Affiliate Payload gives you the exact methodology with which to approach advertisers, a comprehensive list of places to find CPA advertisers, and what to look for to find the most lucrative offers.

Not leaving anything to chance Affiliate Payload also gives you the lowdown on how to use PPC effectively so that you don’t end up spending more than you gain.

Inside Affiliate Payload you’ll find 130 pages of concise explanation where a whole raft of CPA opportunities is open to you. There’s also a couple of ‘do it this way’ videos to lead you though the basics.

So, if you are interested in a ‘different’ form of affiliate marketing where there’s no product to sell, and that means you don’t have to do the hard sell but the easy one instead, then Affiliate Payload might just be right up your street. If you think it is then you’ll find more details by clicking here.