The first one I heard on Twitter from my friend Garry Conn and Internet marketing guru Joel Comm (almost at the same time). According to CNET Google is adding support for Adsense in video games. That is very cool news for game developers. While there are already ways of monetizing games with in-game advertising, Google Adsense entering this market is really good news for game developers.

Secondly, I heard from Michel Fortin that YouTube will soon be introducing the ability to add “Buy Now” links to videos. Video has become an excellent way to market products and services and YouTube is about to make it even better. This is great news for video marketing.

Next week you can expect my second to last post in my Getting Started series. Have a great weekend!

For a limited time (you knew that was coming, eh?), Joel is allowing you to get your hands on AdSense Secrets v4.0 for just $9.95!

If you are new to making money online with Adsense or you want to learn Joel’s latest strategies for making money with Adsense then you should click here to go check it out for yourself.

Although this was announced on the 8th of January 2008, some people may not have been aware of the changes that will soon be implemented by Google regarding the Adsense referral system (I had only noticed an e-mail from Google the other day mentioning their changes), and some of you may not have realised how/why Google is changing the system.

Basically, Google have decided that the Adsense referral system isn’t working well enough for them (not making them enough money, no doubt). Therefore, they have decided to scrap the referral system for those of you who are based outside of Latin America, North America, and Japan. This hardly seems fair that someone should be favoured based on their geographical position, but that’s the stance that Google has taken.

If you do live in Latin America, North America or Japan, then congratulations. However, there is still some bad news for you. Google will be reducing the payment structure to that of previous years. You will now only be earning $100 when your referrals earn $100. Obviously this is quite a drop from the previous system, but at least you can still earn from the referral system. A lot of people will be forced to remove their Adsense referral units from their websites and will probably end up resorting to promoting other advertising programs, too.

Obviously, this won’t affect everyone. Not all people will have Adsense referral units on their websites, but I’m pretty sure that those of you who do will be pretty annoyed with Google. As of yet there seems to be no real alternative, so it seems that some webmasters will simply have to suffer a drop in revenue from their website. However, it appears likely that the main blogs and sites that will be affected are those who discuss ways to make money online, just like the Can I Make Big Money Online blog does.

John Reese is an Internet marketing genius who has been making tons of money online for a very long time. If anyone’s site should be ranked number 1 for the term “make money online” it would be his.

I have been a Reese Report subscriber now since March of 2007 and I LOVE THE REESE REPORT! Did I say that loud enough?

If I could have access to ONLY one Internet marketing product it would be the Reese Report.

Every month John puts out a new edition of the Reese report and every month my brain absorbs everything he has to say.

What Do You Get When You Join?

The Reese Report is a monthly subscription site that offers a monthly video newsletter and pdf file. You also get a CD with the newsletter video and printed copy of the pdf that goes with the video newsletter.

John lays out his newsletter with a new lesson every month. Each newsletter includes:

• An in-depth Monthly Internet marketing Lesson


• Hot New Tool Reviews


• Website Marketing Make Overs


• Virtual Real Estate Ideas


• Info product Ideas


• and more…

His site also includes a membership forum where you can ask questions and get good answers from members, moderators, and John himself.

Once John releases his paid membership section of income.com, Reese Report subscribers will be grandfathered in and will get both the Reese Report and the income.com membership for the same price as the Reese Report alone. I am really looking forward to that!

If you aren’t already a member, then click here to download a free preview of the Reese Report. Check it out and let me know what you think…

Hmmm… Did I just create a new term?

I will have to go “Yahoo” it… back in a sec.

Nope, Yahoo shows 999 results for Googlesphere, rats!

Anyway, the biggest news of the week across the blogosphere was that Google is lowering the pagerank of sites that sell text link advertising. I don’t know if this includes buying and selling banner links or not, but it should since banner ads normally don’t use the no-follow tag.

I think that those who made this decision at Google don’t understand how powerful the blogosphere really is, or they expect most bloggers to act like sheep and fully support Google.

Here are some of the many posts I have read this week about paid links causing websites to lose Google page rank:

Official: Selling Paid Links Can Hurt Your PageRank Or Rankings On Google (I read it here first)

Part Three – NoFollow is for Blog Spam…no Paid Text Links, wait…Paid Ads…Aww Heck, Just Stop Linking and Let Calacanis Decide the Rankings

Penalty Confirmed – But I Don’t Sell PageRank

Dancing With The Gevil – Defamed By Google?

Garry Conn and Google

How to Profit from Google’s War on Paid Links

Last, but not least, Aaron Wall pretty much takes the words out of my mouth on this topic:

Google is Becoming Wikipedia Without the Talk Page

So, what am I going to do about this issue?

I haven’t decided yet. On the one hand, I have come up with a plan that could REALLY tick off Google, on the other hand I can be a sheep. Decisions, decisions...

In other news…

Tiny start-up rival to Google?
A new company called Proximic has come up with a very cool new technology. From the sounds of things it might become a great way to monetize your site and be a huge competitor to Google’s Adsense. Microsoft, Yahoo, Google… let the bidding wars begin!

Lastly, I got an email from Google’s Adsense program last night about a new service that lets you make money from YouTube videos. I am very excited about the possibilities for some of my other blogs.

That’s it for now…

The other cool thing about the report is that you can make money online from this report by letting other people know about it. When they download the report using your affiliate link you earn a dollar. Russell is using the same technique that Scott Boulch introduced to the Internet Marketing community when he released (and others copied) “The Death of Adsense Report“. It seems like a great technique for building a list… if you have the money to pay for that many people to join your list.

Anyway, I suggest you go check it out and pass it along to your friends if you like it.

Click here to go download the IM-Myth Report now.

Introduction: Who Is Garry Conn?

Hello. My name is Garry Conn. I have been following George’s blog for quite some time now. I own and maintain well over 100 various dot Com ventures. However, my heart and soul gets spilled into my personal blog. I enjoy helping people. I hate to see people down on their luck. And when people, especially bloggers, who work so hard to achieve a goal but can’t succeed, I totally feel for them. I want to see people achieve success. I want to see people reach their goals. And I know from experience what it feels like to be down on your luck and I don’t wish that upon anyone.

Agenda: Why Am I Blogging Here?

George and I have known each other for over a year now. We communicate back and forth between our blogs and through email. George and I have a lot in common and I am here to provide some breathing room for him. We all know how busy of a guy he is… and I am too for that matter. However, in May of 2007, I have set a goal to venture out and make guest appearances on other successful blogs. And after talking with George about this, he invited me to come on board and help pull some of the weight here on his wonderful and highly successful site. It is a privilege to be here, and I want more than ever to see George lead the way in teaching thousands if not millions of people about the many different ways you can make money online.

A Modern Day Approach: Finding Success With Google Adsense

I spend quite a bit of time visiting other blogs. Typically these sites are authored by bloggers who share a very similar interest: Making Money Online. However, on so many of these sites, when I contact the authors and get to know them better, they typically say the same thing: “I want to make money online, I have joined and participate in many programs that are supposed to make money, but none of them do!” 

Because I am such a caring person, I really feel their pain and in most cases I spend time with them and show them what they are doing wrong and provide solutions to help them gain success. The most common rant that people talk to me about is their failures with Google Adsense. And with that being said, this is what my first article is about here on Can I Make Big Money Online.

The root of most failures with Google Adsense is caused largely by the fact that most people who participate in the program also roll out and launch the program on their sites that attract readers who already know about the program. Think about it… when was the last time you clicked on a Google Adsense ad? Granted, it happens, and I click on a few here and there as well. But because I know about the program, it is human instinct for me not to click.

...When Was The Last Time You Clicked On An Adsense Ad?

Why Don’t I Click On The Ads? Well, I am not sure what your reasons are, but for me, the main reason why I don’t click very often is because I know that they are advertisements. They are sponsored links that have nothing to do with the owner of the site. Yes, they are relevant… but they are ads that link to pages outside from the site I am visiting. I don’t do this on purpose… it’s just an instinct or habit.

How Do I Find Success With Google Adsense?

I find success with Google Adsense simply for the fact that I author and maintain numerous dot Com websites that attract people who don’t know about the program. The fun part of this is the fact that most of my sites don’t even generate over 100 visits per day. But because of the time I invest into each of my sites by providing creative, unique and strategic writing, I generate extremely relevant ads. Having all this coupled with well thought out and very strategic placement of the ads in addition to highly micro-managing my content and incoming/outgoing links, I produce an unbelievable click through percentage. And to be honest… I have only been doing this for a few months now. On the flip side, it has taken me three years to discover what I have learned. I have participated in many programs on the Internet that make money online. However, Google Adsense has been my golden brick. And three months ago, the blind was removed from eyes and today, I know how to be successful using Google Adsense. I stand by the program 110% and now that I know how to use the program, I am now starting to reap the benefits.

Again, my name is Garry Conn. I write primarily about successful blogging tips. I am a guest writer here for my friend George who runs a very successful, useful and informative blog. If this is your first time visiting the site,  or if you are a regular reader and haven’t already done so; I strongly recommend that you subscribe to his feed. Sit back and join the fun and witness George Manty archive his goal of making big money online. He wants to make $1000 dollars a day! This blog documents his progress and also draws you a map so you too can make money online and follow along the way!

If you don’t know much about Joel, he is the guy who has several popular Adsense products (The Adsense Code, Instant Adsense Templates, etc). Before making money with Adsense Joel co-created Yahoo! Games, which he sold to Yahoo! for over $1,000,000.

Anyway, he is launching the site on Wednesday. After I check out the rules, I might enter the contest. I don’t really want to be away from my family for two weeks, but it could be a great opportunity. The winner gets a $25,000 cash prize and an opportunity to become Joel’s next joint venture partner.

You can learn more by clicking here.

How to Make Money with a Video Blog: An Introduction and Guide
I haven’t read the guide that Maki talks about yet, but I can tell you from experience that this is an excellent way to make money with blogs. Like I said in the comments, “...I have been considering turning some of the blogs that I don’t have time for, into mostly video posts. I also tend to get more links to the posts with videos. I highly recommend testing this out. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.”

Copy Is Not About Selling, It’s About Serving
Excellent post by Michel Fortin on the future of copywriting.

Should You Build a Blog or an EMail Newsletter List?
I totally agree with Chris’ conclusion in this post.

Interview with Search Engine Guide’s Jennifer Laycock
Excellent interview with some solid SEO advice.

Stay Away from In-Text Advertising
I removed Kontera ads from this blog, but I am continuing them on my other blogs for now. I might discuss this more later. Come join in on the argument (errr… discussion).

Clicking Adsense Ads
Interesting discussion on clicking Adsense ads. Do you click on them or ignore them?

Unique Content – Where to Find Topics and Ideas
Good post by Gayla on places to find topics to write about. I currently use all of them.

There were other good articles that I read this week, but between part 1 and 2 you should have plenty to read…

Allan I am honored to interview you. I have been a regular reader of your newsletter since I signed up for it 2 years ago.

Q. On your site, you say that you’ve been making a good living from affiliate programs since 1998. Did you do anything before that to make money online? What led you to affiliate marketing?

I started online in 1996 with a hobby business website aimed at people like me who have an intolerance to gluten. My wife, Joanna, and I had spent a lot of time experimenting with gluten-free recipes so I wrote and sold a gluten-free recipes ebook – although I’d never heard the word “ebook” in those days. I called it a “digital book”, which probably puzzled most of my visitors!

That old site still exists but I give the recipes away now.

Selling the book wasn’t terribly successful, especially at first, so I spent a lot of time studying how to market on the Internet. One of the books I bought had an affiliate program. I found the book useful, so I started promoting it on a niche website and received a few commission cheques.

I thought “This is great!” and wanted to find more affiliate programs. I searched for an affiliate directory and couldn’t find one, so I started my own. That’s how AssociatePrograms.com was born, early in 1998. Apparently there was already one affiliate directory, but I didn’t find it.

In a fairly similar way, in 1999 I saw people on a discussion list asking for a list of pay-pay-click search engines. I couldn’t find one, so I created PayPerClickSearchEngines.com and handed it over to an employee to manage.

Q. What were you doing before you started your online business?

I was a journalist – reporter, sub-editor, chief of staff – for daily newspapers in New Zealand and Australia.

Q. Who most influenced you when you were starting out?

My boss. I’d grown to hate my job and was striving to escape from a control freak boss. That was mighty powerful motivation.

I was broke when I started and made the time-wasting mistake of trying to do things purely by trial and error. As soon as I could afford to, I started buying marketing manuals and read voraciously. The first marketing book I read was written by Jim Daniels. I learned a lot from Corey Rudl, Ken Evoy, Marlon Sanders… and lots of other people.

Q. What was the best thing you did to increase your online income?

I sat down and analyzed my skills and interests and decided to build a business around them. I’d wasted a couple of years online before doing that.

Now I always advise people to design their own businesses to suit them. For me, starting websites and newsletters in fast-growing niches was a really good decision.

Q. How has affiliate marketing changed in the past ten years, and how do you see it changing in the next five years?

Whew! It would take books to answer that, because there have been so many changes, so many hyped up fads. However, in all those hectic years, one thing has remained constant: If you build a truly USEFUL, interesting website which genuinely helps your visitors, you’ll have a very good chance of success. I don’t see that changing much in the next five years, although things will inevitably get more intensely competitive.

I think it’s inevitable that search engines will get better at sorting out the junk and auto-generated stuff. They’ll have to.

The whole “Internet marketing” scene is crazily competitive now. Wise affiliates are getting themselves established in less competitive niches.

I think affiliate merchants will have to work much harder to reward successful affiliates and encourage them to stay loyal.

We’ll also see a lot more video, more effectively used – I hope.

Q. In your last newsletter you mentioned how video is helping people sell their products. How can affiliate marketers utilize video to improve their conversions promoting other people’s products?

Yes. It’s good to see people pioneering the use of video for affiliates. I really must make the time to get more involved in video. I’ve seen some good videos created by affiliates who use Camtasia to show you how to use software or they take you inside a membership site – with the merchant’s permission, of course.

There’s fantastic potential for affiliates to do more of this.

It’s the old story. The affiliates who do some work instead of just pasting a link into their site, are more likely to get sales.

Q. Are there any questions you ask yourself about a product before promoting it?

I nearly always test a product before I promote it. I’m swamped with offers to promote stuff, so I can choose only those I strongly believe in. As well as being sure that the product is high quality, I like to know as much as I can about the people behind it. That’s really important to me. I like working with merchants I know and trust.

I’m also keen on programs which pay residual revenue, the sort we review at LifetimeCommissions.com. I like doing the work once and being paid over and over again.

Q. What kind of sites does affiliate marketing work best for? Are there any types of sites that should avoid affiliate programs?

They work well on review sites, where someone in a buying frame of mind types “product XYZ 478659” into a search engine and finds a favorable review just when they’re considering buying the product. That’s powerful.

Affiliate programs work well on any sites where the affiliate has gone to the trouble of researching the products thoroughly and writing in-depth case studies describing in specific detail how the product has helped someone.

Here’s a bad use of affiliate programs…

If I’m promoting product A, I hate seeing affiliate links on the sales letter promoting product B, on which I don’t earn a commission. I saw an affiliate merchant site the other day which had a pop-up which not only included an AdSense ad – against the AdSense rules! – but also promoted a third-party product. That sort of behavior isn’t fair to affiliates.

If affiliates spot this sort of thing, I think we should not only avoid the affiliate merchant but also tell them why.

Diverting traffic to non-commissioned sales is a really dumb thing for an affiliate merchant to do because experienced affiliates – the ones most likely to produce good sales – will see what’s happening and not sign up.

Q. What is the most important thing to remember when promoting an affiliate program?

The affiliate’s job is to help someone decide what to buy. You have to make a conscious decision to do this, not merely present a few facts.

Try to see things from your visitor’s point of view. Try to imagine what is going on in your visitor’s mind, and help him or her decide what to buy. This may sound simple, but it’s so easy to forget to do it.

Obviously, it’s really important to promote high quality products so you can enthusiastically endorse them. Enthusiasm sells.

Q. What is the biggest mistake people make when trying to promote an affiliate program?

The most common mistake is for an affiliate newcomer to create a site about how to do Internet marketing – when they know almost nothing about Internet marketing.

There are tens of thousands of affiliate programs and millions of products you can choose from. New affiliates often overlook the fact that it’s easier to succeed if you choose a less competitive niche. I own a bunch of websites in non-Internet marketing niches.

Here’s an article I wrote describing 12 mistakes affiliates make:
http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/108/1/12-mistakes-affiliates-make

Q. What are your favorite affiliate marketing tools?

My mind and my fingers on the keyboard. Sorry if that sounds flippant, but it’s so true. When I look at how I spend most of my time, that’s what I do – answering questions on our affiliate forum, writing my affiliate newsletter and writing articles.

Of course keyword research is hugely important when you’re researching a new site or writing an article. I have an annual subscription to Wordtracker and dip in there every now and again.

I’ve never really been one for in-depth tracking and analysis, but I know it’s hugely important. That’s why I teamed up with Jay Stockwell, who created KeywordWorkshop.com for us. He loves doing that stuff.

Q You are one of the most recognized names in affiliate marketing. If you were to write a formula for affiliate marketing success, what would it be?

I think far too many new affiliates try to run before they can walk. They should start with something fairly easy and earn while they learn.

That’s why I strongly recommend that every new affiliate should start by creating a useful niche content site, weave in a few affiliate links and AdSense ads, and get good links to it. By doing this, you gradually learn all the main facets of Internet marketing, while generating revenue at the same time.

Who knows? You may do so well with this formula that you never venture beyond it.

My Affiliate Program Tutorial, which I wrote when our bookkeeper started asking questions, explains this in more detail:

http://www.AssociatePrograms.com/articles/188/1/Affiliate-Program-Tutorial

Q. One last question. What is the best way I can learn more about affiliate marketing from you?

Thanks for asking! Explore the hundreds of articles on AssociatePrograms.com, explore our affiliate forum, subscribe to my newsletter, and explore the newsletter archives. If it all seems too overwhelming, start with my free Affiliate Program Tutorial. It sums up years of experience – and a lot of hard work.

I haven’t tried it, but it looks interesting. I may use it to help build my next email list.

Warning: Scott uses some colorful language when describing his tell-a-friend script.

Anyway, I moved the ads from inside the posts (like on this blog), to a banner above the first post and a skyscraper ad in the left navigation bar. I actually like the way it looks better, so I might keep it that way. Anyway, you can check the new look on our Positive Sports News blog by clicking here. Depending on the results of the test, I may make more changes and/or change some of our other blogs.

PS. We have a new writer on our sports blog and I will write about that later today.

Anyway, Jennifer does a great job of making sense of the Adsense TOS changes and I highly recommend you check out her post.

It looks like none of the changes will affect my sites and blogs, but with all the restrictions I can see why Darren Rowse (who I first found this story from) says:

I’ve already heard from a number of publishers that if given the choice between AdSense and YPN that they’ll jump to YPN because of the less stringent requirements – this change has put one too many hoops to jump through in front of some publishers.

Google might have just added the straw that broke the camel’s back. Personally, I really like Adsense and I don’t plan on switching to YPN. However, the constant changes to the Adsense TOS are getting to be annoying. I do plan on experimenting with YPN at some point. It certainly has the advantage of being less restrictive and there is something to be said for that.

Scott Boulch the author of “The Death of Adsense” came out with a new free ebook “The Autopsy” that looks like it will be a good read. I am going to download it when I get back to Texas and take a look at it. You can click here and go check it out for yourself and let me know if it’s any good. I think you also get some sort of bonus mp3 for referring 3 or more people to it, but I haven’t really looked closely at the details yet.

My friend Austin is friends with someone who was heavily involved in the original “Death of Adsense” book. I may talk more about that some other time, but… now back to vacationing!

If you own The Product Launch Formula you know that there are going to be a lot of product launches while I am in Florida. This is both good and bad…

Good – because I won’t be tempted to buy proucts I don’t need.

Bad – because there are products I am seriously interested in buying and won’t be available to buy them on the days they launch, which means I will have to pay more for them.

The one product I am most interested in buying is launching on January 10th – Joel Comm’s Instant Adsense Templates membership site. I will be in Disney World when it launches, which means there isn’t much of a chance I will be able to sign up the first two days it is offered.

In the world of blogging, the biggest blogging product being launched has already been launched. It is the half price deal that Andy Wibbels is giving on all of his blogging products combined. He is calling it the Season Pass. For those interested in becoming professional bloggers, I recommed you click here and check out Andy’s offer.

Anyway, you can expect one or two more posts from me, before I head off to Florida. Then I won’t be posting much (if at all) until I get back.

Which Google Adsense advertising placement annoys you the most?

Here are the results:

• At the Top of an Article: 50% (34)
• In the Middle of an Article: 25% (17)
• At the End of an Article: 0% (0)
• At the Top of the Site: 4% (3)
• In the Navigation Bar: 4% (3)
• Don’t care: 16% (11)

Total Votes : 68

I am not sure how this is going to affect my Google Adsense placement.

Personally, I find it most annoying when ads are in the middle of an article, because I have to pause and stop reading in the middle of an article.

Ads at the top of articles make me the most money, so it’s hard to move them. In fact, this poll showed that Adsense placement that makes the most money is also the placement people find the most annoying. Adsense placement that makes the least amount of money is also the least annoying.

So all website owners are faced with the problem of making money vs. annoying our visitors. That kind of makes sense, since nobody really wants to see advertising.

What do you think of the results?

Do You Have the Time to be an Internet Marketer or AdSense Publisher

Its not that hard to make $100 US Dollars a month part time

Marketing Your Business on Craigslist

And just for fun, these two blog posts:

Google Copies Yahoo

Yahoo Copies Google

If you haven’t heard, Google announced this new way to create a custom search engine using the Google search engine. You can create one yourself by signing up for Google Co-op here.

I created a custom search engine for our homeschooling site and called it “The Homeschooling Search Engine”. When you use our Search Engine you are only searching from homeschooling sites that I or someone else has added to the Search Engine.

What is really cool is the whole social aspect. Anyone can sign up to be an editor for the search engine and add their favorite homeschooling sites.

You can even make money with it, by associating your Goolge Adsense account with the Search Engine.

Anyway, you can check out our Homeschooling Search Engine by clicking here. It’s a pretty cool technology that I have been meaning to play around with. I am glad I did!

Tags:

homeschool homeschooling Home education Home School google co-op co-op

The following is an interview I did with Austin, that I am sure you will enjoy…

Q. Austin, how did you get started in Internet Marketing?

A. I wanted to work from home by myself, make my own hours, not have to actually sell anything, like on Ebay, home school my kids and travel with my family. That pretty much narrowed things down to online stock trading…which I did for a while and lost money, and building a website and promoting products and services that someone else would mail out and take all the responsibility for.

I quit my day job, which is funny because I was the owner of a family auto repair shop in Houston TX that my grandfather started in 1937. I left the company and my father came out of retirement to take over. I knew nothing about the Internet and how to build a website or what and how to sell online, but I was determined and that is all that mattered.

I sat down at my computer and started to learn HTML, SEO stuff, link building skills, how to get listed in top positions in the search engines, how to become an affiliate for other web marketers etc. etc. etc. It took me about a year to really get everything under my belt…but I did EVERYTHING myself which I do NOT recommend. There are tons of places online now that can show you how to build a site, find products and start promoting them very quickly.

I had no idea what an affiliate marketer was so I had to start from scratch, and I was afraid to spend money on education, so it took me a longer time than it should have to get up and running and making a profit.

Q. If you don’t mind sharing, could you let us know what are the favorite sites you work on and why?

A. Sure, I have a direct relationship with an auto insurance company and they are my top revenue producer for me. Google adsense is my second largest revenue producer, then Alldata which is an online auto repair manual program that pays me per new subscriber. Clearly Adsense is the easiest and fastest to implement, but the days of large per click pay outs might be gone.

A year ago there where many, many marketers that were making $10,000 + a month easily with Adsense. I personally know of a handful of marketers that were making well over $50,000 a month JUST in Adsense.

If you can get a direct relationship with an advertiser, you will probably get more money and have more access to statistics and banners etc. than if you used a third party provider like http://www.cj.com which I still use, but look for a direct advertiser first. If you have a quality site, generate a fair amount of traffic and can prove to be worth the extra effort for the advertiser…you should not have a problem asking the advertiser directly.

Q. From the polls I have run on this blog, one of the top questions people have about Internet Marketing is “How do I get more traffic to my website?” Can you give us a brief description of one of your favorite methods to generate traffic to your site?

A. Hands down, KEYWORD RESEARCH! Most site owners make sites and post to their blogs about topics that they as the site owner THINK are of interest to the reader. I do things backwards. I do my keyword research FIRST, find the most traffic for the search term, then I will Google the actual keyword phrase to check out my competition.

I want to get on the top 10 on the first page…or I won’t waste my time making the webpage. So, an example would be the phrase “New Jersey Auto Insurance” and according to http://www.goodkeywords.com using the Overture search engine I see the search volume for that phrase just last month and just on the Overture search engine had about 1059 searches. Now that is JUST Overture, so I take that number and multiple by 5 to include the other top search engines Like Google, Yahoo and MSN ( I count Google twice because of its large search size). So in this example I can estimate about 5500 monthly searches or about 180 daily searches for the phrase “New Jersey Auto Insurance” .

Now I will take the phrase “New Jersey Auto Insurance” and do a Google search to look at my competition. I am looking to see how many sites are Top Level sites, meaning the main page of the site is what Google returned. i.e. http://www.trustmymechanic.com is the top level and www.trustmymechanic.com/newjersey_auto_insurance.html is a secondary page within the site.

If the top 10 competitors are all top level sites…my chances of beating them from my secondary page is going to be very tough, and I would look for other keyword phrases to compete against.

Now, if you did the Google search for New Jersey Auto Insurance, you probably found my page http://www.trustmymechanic.com/newjersey_auto_insurance.html and if you noticed the title of the page, not the title of the article on the page….the actual title of the page you can see what other keywords I am targeting and how I used them in my title so it still reads well, but will pick up on all the varieties of the phrase I wanted to target. Which are

· NJ car insurance

· NJ auto insurance

· New Jersey Car Insurance

· Car insurance NJ

· Auto insurance NJ

If you add up all the potential free search traffic from those keyword phrases it is well over 10,000 monthly potential visitors from those searches. My page http://www.trustmymechanic.com/newjersey_auto_insurance.html gets returned on Google using many of those phrases because I themed the page correctly for each phrase AND I have links from other websites linking to that page using those phrases in the anchor text. The anchor text is what the visitor clicks on, like “Click Here” except I get my link partners to link to that page with “NJ Car insurance” which in turn gives me link popularity credit on the search engines. The more links I can get pointing to that page…the higher the search results I will go.

So the moral to the story is that ONE page on my site http://www.trustmymechanic.com/newjersey_auto_insurance.html is now getting listed in the top 10 results on the first page in the major search engines AND is making money. Incidentally I made that page about 2 years ago doing my keyword research I found that most major auto insurance companies DID NOT write policies in NJ. There is some whacky law that the big insurance companies don’t like, so they just don’t write auto insurance policies in NJ. I got on the phone, and spent days on the internet tying to find an advertiser that WOULD accept NJ traffic and built a relationship with them.

Keyword research is tricky and time consuming, but if you do it right….you will be rewarded handsomely. Don’t forget misspellings in your keyword research….I would bet more than 30% of the search volume contains a misspelling. I purposely add the misspelling and the proper spelling within the articles like this popular page on my site http://myhonestmechanic.com/articles/pontiac-soltice.shtml

I went to the Houston car show early this year and took my own pictures and made my own car review from all the free literature they pass out. You would not believe how many new vehicles that are coming on the market that are prime candidate for misspellings. Think about the visitor and how they might misspell the words you are trying to target. According to the Goodkeywords.com program almost 200 people using Overture last month searched for “break pad” instead of brake pad. 130 searched for nsurance instead of insurance….take these search volume numbers and multiple by 5 to represent the other engines and you can easily see a LARGE amount of easy search traffic that can be picked up utilizing the same articles on your site..

Q. Another thing people always seem to want to know how to do better is monetizing their site. Could you tell us about one of your best money making techniques?

A. From what I see, most webmasters make it too difficult for the visitor to take the action the site owner wants them to do. If you want me to enter my zip code and get a free online auto insurance quote, tell me that upfront on the center of the page…get my attention, make a compelling reason WHY I should get a quote in the first place and why should I get it from YOUR site? Don’t be afraid to be a little pushy. People read a webpage very quickly usually just skimming the content of the page looking for the information they typed in the search engine….make it easy for them.

Back to the NJ auto insurance page from above, look at the page text…I reinforce the same keywords you used to get to the page via Google…it’s my page title with a BIG testimonial from me telling you why you should get a quote from my site and all the reasons why I made the page in the first place….to HELP you find good insurance, because I have already done my research and can save you lots of time and frustration. Bulleted lists work very very well!!

If you have an affiliate program that will allow incentives ( you will give the visitor something in exchange for them doing something for you) then you should make your incentive offer irresistible to the visitor, and your incentive offer must be something they visitor will perceive as valuable and worth their time and effort. Like on my NJ auto insurance page, I will give a free copy of my ebook explaining how they can lower their car repair expenses….its something that is on the same lines as lowering their auto insurance…so the visitor sees value there and takes me up on my offer.

Here are a few good places to find incentive allowable affiliate programs, http://www.modernclick.com (owned by a friend of mine) and http://www.bulletads.com among many other affiliate programs you can Google to locate.

Q. You mentioned to me that you have tons of Internet Marketing products. What is your favorite one? Knowing what you know now, would you have bought as many products as you did or would you have different buying habits?

A. I think I learned the most from Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins, both are super nice and very knowledgeable guys. Here is their latest venture http://www.instantseoexpert.com/ which QUICKLY sold out. The offer lots of really great info for free! I still buy online marketing ebooks all the time, I want to stay on top of what others are doing and if I can learn just one new idea from a $97 ebook…its more than worth it to me. There are lot of SEO tricks out there, but to be totally honest….keyword research, having good unique content, getting inbound links to your page from other quality sites AND having an affiliate program that will convert visitors to customers is 95% of the game.

Q. If you could only give one piece of advice to someone just starting out in Internet Marketing, what would it be?

A. Find your niche, do your keyword research and consistently add great unique content to your site on a daily basis. The visitors will bookmark your site, tell their friends about you and others will begin to find your site valuable as well. I am giving a BBC radio interview later today, they found me via a Google search and from a recommendation of a listener of their show. If your site helps the visitor…you will be successful.

Q. What do you consider to be the most important thing you have done to increase your online income?

Without a doubt, taking the time to do my keyword research BEFORE I make a new website or even a new page on my websites.

Q. Are there any other things you would like to tell someone just starting out?

Find someone in your area who is making money online whom you can meet with on a regular basis for lunch to discuss new ideas, get your ideas and sites critiqued. You can find people online on the webmaster forum boards pretty easily. I would also spend the money and the effort to go to a few SEO seminars like the http://bigseminar.com/ and http://bradfallon.com/. I have been to both of them and have met and interacted with both marketers…..and learned A LOT from them in a short period of time. Don’t be afraid to ask other marketers. I visit a lot of SEO seminars and trade shows and I ALWAYS hand out lots of my business cards with my email and website address. You never know who you will run into and how it can benefit you later on down the road.

First of all, I wanted to let you know that I will be doing an interview of someone I recently met, who earns his living from Internet Marketing. He has been working entirely from home for a while. I know he has some really good information to share. (ps. he doesn’t make all his money from Adsense).

I am also working on writing a series of posts on affiliate marketing. This will primarily be geared towards beginner and Intermediate affiliate marketers. This should be very helpful for those looking for new ways to monetize their blogs and websites.

Also, I have quite a bit to discuss about some of the things I am doing business wise.

Lastly, I wanted to end by wishing everyone in the States a Happy Thanksgiving holiday.

Now, I am off to go write my newsletter for November. See ya after the break…