I thought I’d take this opportunity to talk about what I feel is wrong in internet marketing. My opinions here may not be shared with a lot of other internet marketers but I’m going to talk about them anyway. Maybe other people hoping to get in to this internet marketing game will read this and decide to avoid some of these things…

Mailing without actually knowing what the product is about.
This is something that really frustrates me and I know it has to frustrate a lot of other people. People do adswaps in which two people both mail out to their lists for the other person. Adswaps can be great and I think it is probably one of the best ways to grow your list when you are first getting started. I would never tell people not to do them and I even still do them from time to time. My issue comes with the fact that most people don’t even look at the product of the person that they are swapping with.

People go in to forums or chat rooms, find people to swap with, and then agree to swap based on list size. I would say that a vast majority of the people who swap don’t thoroughly look in to the product of the person that they are swapping with. This kind of behavior only ruins your relationship with your list. People end up taking the swipe copy that’s given to them, pasting it in to their autoresponder and blindly mailing out to their list.

There is a lot of junk out there. If you blindly arrange swaps, you’re going to end up sending your list a lot of crap and that’s going to reflect badly on you.

On the rare occasion that I arrange an adswap, I thoroughly investigate my swap partners product. I opt-in to their list myself to see what the page looks like after they opt-in. I look at the product that they are offering to make sure that it’s not rehashed junk. If your site looks spammy, refers my subscribers to an affiliate link, or makes it insanely difficult to find the freebie, don’t bother lining up a swap with me. I will deny you.

This same type of behavior is often seen with affiliate promotions and product launches. List owners need to make a couple extra bucks so they will line up a product promotion without ever checking out the product for themselves. For all they know, they can be sending their subscribers to a total scam or some rehashed PLR product. This will result in lost credibility and probably a lot of refunds.

If you are new to affiliate marketing, buy the product and check it out before promoting it. Once you are a little more established, you can start requiring that you receive a review copy of the product before promoting it to your list.

My only exception to this rule is for new product launches from people that I really trust. The Frank Kerns and Mike Koenigs of the world have proven themselves to put out quality products. These types of promotions, however, are the exception and not the rule.

Sweet Ferrari
This has almost become comical to me. You get people posting pictures of themselves in front of “their ferrari” or sweet new ride. The internet lifestyle has been good to them and now they need to show the world how good their life is by standing in front of their new car.

Does this even work anymore?

I don’t mind the people that go out and buy the awesome car because it was their dream and now they can finally do it but do they really have to pose in front of it on their sales pages? I see someone posing in front of a Ferrari on a sales page and I think “What an asshole”. Half the time, I know for a fact, it’s not even their car!

When you start studying copywriting and the psychology of selling, you learn that you want your customer to relate to you. You want your customer to see that you are just like them. How does posing in front of your rented Ferrari make me relate to you? I know that you’re selling the lifestyle but, in my opinion, the time freedom is a much better selling point than the car that’s most commonly bought by middle aged, recently divorced, men who have some sort of anatomical deficiency.

The car is an ego thing and nothing more. It’s someone saying “look at me, I’m better than everyone else”.

One day I may have a flashy car too so I can’t talk too much crap about them. However, you’ll never see me posing in front of it at night with my shades on for the sake of selling a product.

Selling “how to make money online” products without ever having made money online.
People think that the easiest way to make money online is to create a product about how to make money online. Do people really think that others can’t see through this? I can spot a product from someone who has no idea what they are talking about from a mile away by now. There is so many things wrong with this career path.

First of all, if you do this you are a scammer and a con-artist. This is like someone who has never made a single investment in their life selling investment advice to others. You will quickly be found out about and exposed as a liar and a scammer.

Second of all, these people are completely wrong about how easy the “make money online” niche is. In fact, it’s the most over-saturated niche on the internet. Everyone is out there teaching their systems and customers have thousands of options of what the best formula for them is.

If you’ve made a good income online and you have a system that honestly works then, by all means, teach it… And charge a lot for it. Otherwise, start out in a niche that you may know something about.

I created income-generating blogs for three years before I ever decided to create my first product. When I did create my first product it was about how to setup blogs. After a year of documenting everything I had done to make money online I finally released my product about how I did it.

With that being said, I don’t even know if I would make another product about how I make money. It’s a tough niche and a lot of people just don’t take action. You end up with a lot of people claiming your methods don’t work when, in reality, they never took the action to make it work.

It’s a tough niche to be in and there are a lot of people who have absolutely no business being in it.

I guess that’s enough of a rant for today. I’m sure there’s many more things that I can come up with that really frustrate me about what’s going on in the industry. Please give me your feedback in the comments below. I really appreciate all of the comments.

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Please leave a comment about what you think of me doing more videos or your thoughts on promoting The Autopilot Cash Formula.

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If you are curious about how I made this poll and how you can implement one on your site, check out Blogpolls.com. It literally takes about 4 minutes to set up a poll.

Please make yourself heard in the comments below. If there’s something you’d like me to talk about that is not mentioned in the above poll, let me know.

Thanks so much for you input!

Anyway, enough ranting and giving excuses. I want to tell you how to make money. So many people seem to way over complicate the whole process. I don’t quite understand. The more I study it and the more I work towards building my income, the concept just seems easier and easier to me. Once I finally grasped the real trick to the whole damn thing, I just kinda smacked my head and said “Aha!, it’s so simple!”

I’ve had a couple of people come to me and say that they would never make any money on the internet because they don’t have a product. They aren’t creative enough to make one or they don’t know how to do anything, so what could they sell? But that’s the problem! You don’t need to have your own product! Who said anything about creating a product? It’s not necessary in the beginning! It’s really not!

Here’s the trick… Build a damn list! Build your mailing list by offering something for free. It doesn’t even have to be something that you created. It can be a product that you purchased that gave you resell rights or you can offer ?a contest for people to join your list and give something away. My recommendation though, is to create a short ebook, maybe 10 or 12 pages, about who you are, why you are doing what you are doing, and what you have learned. The book is free! People will sign up for it.

Now send some e-mails out that are nice and conversational. Get people to like you and get them to want to hear what you have to say. Don’t start promoting anything right away. Just send out friendly tips or things that you’ve learned in your journey so far. After you’ve got them hooked, you can start sprinkling in affiliate links. Start recommending products that you have used or that you think will create great value to your readers. Boom! You are making money. If your list likes and trusts you, you will start making money when you promote things that you honestly think will give them value! That’s the big damn secret! Build a list, get them to trust you, promote products that add value…

After that whole cycle has created some income for you, guess what… You now have an idea for a product to create! Create an ebook or a video tutorial about how you built your mailing list and how you made money with your mailing list… Give some of the secret away for free to build your list even more and then upsell them for the rest. Then, once again, you’ve got another product idea… You now know how to make money creating and selling your own products. The cycle continues.

Internet marketing is really that simple. (Ok. I oversimplified a little but that’s the whole darn concept!) No. Internet marketing is not fast. It does take time. But I do believe it can be really easy!

Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.

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I believe I have the Alex Jeffreys coaching class to thank for these triumphs. I have offered to help any student that needed it within the class, I have been very active in the forum, and I have posted on most of the people’s blogs who have given their link within the forum. I think that these three things have generated a ton of traffic for me. I have also began to post comments in blogs outside of the coaching, and I have started to become more and more active in the Warrior Forum again.

I have also noticed that my site has been getting ranked in Google for some pretty good keywords. The other day, I landed on page 1 of Google for the search term Hide Affiliate Links. That’s a pretty well searched keyword!

I feel like I’m really moving up in this online world! I have made some huge connections with some great people. We have already started to plan joint ventures for the future and I am really starting to feel like things are going to work out in my online business.

I think one of my biggest accomplishments, however, is managing to launch my own product that I created myself. I launched the first version of The WordPress Classroom and it has gotten some amazing reviews and attention. I am so excited to see how that develops and grows. It is a really exciting time for me!

I think all of these small triumphs are what keep on pushing me forward. People need to set big goals and small goals alike. Accomplishing the small goals continues to give them the drive and motivation to keep pushing towards the big goals!

Here are some people that have really helped me out so far that I just really want to thank. Please check out their blogs, they are great people and everyone can learn a lot from them!

• Josh Bartlett – He helped me come up with the idea for the WordPress Classroom. He is also helping me design the layout for the new version that will be released shortly! Me and Josh bounce ideas off each other for hours at a time sometimes! This is one smart dude!
• Joe Fier – Joe was my business partner before I started the coaching. Me and him support each other 100% and we are constantly doing what we can to help the other. He is usually the first person to comment on any blog post that I make and the guy has got some mad graphic design skills!
• Marcus Passey – Marcus has got so much passion and drive to be a success online. I think that is why we relate so well! He is just a motivational guy with a great attitude and outlook. This guy is going to go far!
• David Chamberlain – This is another guy that I spend hours at a time just bouncing ideas around with him. He is a smart guy and he always offers me help and advice. We promote each other’s blogs via the social bookmarking sites and I just think he’s going to be a great friend and contact going in to the future.
• Rob Willis – Rob helps me with ideas all of the time too. He always has some good ideas and he always sends me cool tools and resources to check out.
• Alex Jeffreys – My coach and mentor. This guy is one cool, down to earth dude. He is basically a marketing genius that has helped get me organized and on track. If it wasn’t for Alex, I would still be out there buying up every ebook that promised quick riches. He knows his stuff, he stays up until ungodly hours of the night to help people, and he’s just an all around nice guy

There are so many other people that have helped me here and there. I realized half way through making that list that there’s no way I’m going to be able to list them all in one post. I will make sure that everyone who has helped me along the way will get their due thanks. Anyone I haven’t mention, Thanks So Much!

This experience has been amazing and it’s just getting started!

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I don’t know why I call these sneaky marketing tricks. They are really tricks that help you earn commissions but add value to your customer.

Offer a complement.
The main trick that I like to use involves adding a complement to the product that you are trying to sell. If you remember in my previous post about how to make a WordPress theme, I offered to personally create the theme for anybody who signed up through PowWeb. This little technique can be used for so many different products. I am a fan of the theme creator Artisteer, so I offer free tutorials and personal help to anybody who purchases through my link. If you can think of creative ways to complement the product that you are trying to sell, you can gain an upper hand against the competition selling the same product.

In the past, I have also pushed products through Clickbank. This method works extremely well for digital products as well. The trick that I like to use is that I look for areas where the e-book or digital video product may be lacking a little bit. I then explain to my readers how this product lacks. But then I offer a complement to the product to offset the deficiency. It is an insanely powerful marketing method. The whole idea behind this method is that you are grabbing people who would buy the product anyway but convincing them to purchase it through you instead of somebody else.

Offer your product for free.
The other technique that I commonly use is to flat-out offer a really great product for free. Give the people who are going to be reading or using this product extreme value. When somebody accesses your product and they see what great value you offer, they are going to want more, and they are going to want to purchase your follow-up products. This technique also relates to list building. You offer your product for free in exchange for an e-mail address. Once people realize the great value that you are giving to them for free, you will have them on a mailing list to offer your follow-up products. This technique only works if your free product is truly a great product. If you offer the people a crap product, they are going to think that your paid product is crap as well.

Only promote products that you feel strongly about.
Many online consumers have an ability to see past insincere product promotions. It is important to promote products that you have used and that you feel strongly about. This works in two ways. First, it is so much easier for you to write about it because you feel strongly about it and you understand its worth. You can honestly recommend this product and feel confident that the people you are recommending it to will enjoy it as well. Besides, if you are offering a complement to the product, how will you know what to offer or how to offer it if you do not really know what you are promoting? The second reason this is important is because most online consumers can feel your passion and your sincerity towards the product. It is so much easier to sell a product. When you know exactly what you are promoting and exactly how your customers will benefit from it.

Use some of these “tricks” and watch your commissions grow. Have any other tricks or want to let me know how these have worked for you? Please leave your comments. I love the interaction.

As you can see it’s a real simple process. You are going to log in to your WordPress dashboard, download a plugin called GoCodes, and use that program to hide your affiliate links. This will keep people from stilling your links and throwing their own code in them. It will also give readers the impression that they are just clicking around inside of your blog, as opposed to clicking on affiliate links. This plugin has worked wonders on my other sites. Like I said, I keep the link hiding to a minimum on this site. (Full Disclosure… Remember?)

Anyway, please comment below if you found this helpful at all. I really do appreciate all the interaction I have been receiving from people. I like to know when people find what I’m giving them valuable. Please comment. Share your thoughts, questions, better ideas, etc. below!

Tomorrow I will be giving you some awesome free tools for internet marketers. I will also give a progress report on my coaching with Alex Jeffreys. Trust me, good things are starting to happen!

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To begin with, we are going to focus on affiliate marketing. I was going to really go in depth about PPC advertising with adsense but decided that affiliate marketing is probably a better way to start. I don’t think that posting Google Adsense ads on sites about internet marketing is the best strategy. The main reason being that people who visit internet marketing sites tend be a little more web savvy. They tend to be more blind to adsense type ads. Promotion in the internet marketing niche is much better and much more profitable when you affiliate your self with products and companies that you like to promote.

What is affiliate marketing?
Basically, when you are doing affiliate marketing, you are promoting someone else’s product. When the product sells, you get a cut of the profits. I believe CDNow was really the first company to start affiliate marketing on a grand scale on the internet. Nowadays, Amazon.com and eBay use affiliate marketing heavily. Each company that you sign up for has their own process of bringing on affiliates. I can’t really go in to the process of how to sign up for each of them on this blog.

How can I make money with affiliate marketing?
First let me give you an example of affiliate marketing in action. My blog has a recommended reading section. You’ll notice that in this section, I am talking about all of my favorite books. If you click on one of the books and decide to purchase it, Amazon will give me something like 4% of the sale. As you can see, it’s not huge money. 4% of a $15.00 book is $0.60. I need to sell a lot of books to make real good money. Another example of an affiliate is PowWeb. My blog is hosted over there and I am a huge fan of their services. Every time someone clicks on their link and signs up for an account, they pay me $77! It only costs someone $45 per year to sign up! They are counting on the fact that people are going to sign up and hang around and continue to renew. As you can see, I do not need to get a whole heck of a lot of people to sign up over there to make a good income. This is the power of affiliate marketing! There’s some good and some bad but if people trust you enough and value your opinion, it can all really add up quickly.

Another great place to find affliates is called Commission Junction. They have a whole bunch of different companies that you can promote with all different types of offers. This is where you can find any product from any niche to promote. If promoting eBooks is more up your alley, I recommend Clickbank. Here you can find all sorts of eBooks that offer up to 75% commission.

Here’s what you should do.
Signup for the affiliate programs at Amazon.com, Commission Junction, and Clickbank. Find some products between those three companies that you think you can promote and that your readers would enjoy. The companies will give you a special link with a unique tracking code. Use that link every time you talk about the product. People will click through the links and, hopefully, buy the products that you recommend.

Tomorrow I am going to teach you how to cloak the links. This will make the URL that people see in the status bar look different from the actual link you are sending them to. Psychologically, people may respond better when they don’t think they are being sent to an affiliate link. I don’t do much cloaking on this site (It’s called Full Disclosure Internet Marketing for a reason) but I do want you guys to understand how to do it. It will definitely come in handy.

Until next time, you should now have the tools to get a blog set up and start making some dough.

If you have any questions, comments, or better suggestions about affiliate marketing, please leave them in the comments! I will thank you for it and so will the other readers that would greatly appreciate more advice!

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