Well, thanks to some very-much-disliked people, I have found a way to get new ideas and then use those ideas to home in on niches that are profitable. This doesn’t mean that there’s no longer any work involved, but it does give me some direction and help me find a starting point.

The best thing about this method is that it happens to be right in front of our faces and most of us just miss it completely!

I’ve posted a video for you to watch that shows you exactly how to do this and it only takes a few minutes to do. Best of all, there are no expensive tools involved in this at all

So click the screenshot below to watch the short video and then be sure to let me know what you think about it!

I hope this helps you get some new campaign ideas off the ground and moving you toward making some money!

Making a call to Google is always dreaded and I’ll call them ONLY if I absolutely have to. The arrogance of their company just oozes through the phone, even if the person who answers the phone is a nice person.

But when I call Yahoo or Microsoft, I get friendly people on the other end who don’t make me feel like I’m breaking every possible law when it comes to how I run my PPC campaigns. And best of all, they actually try their best to answer my questions!

No vague answers. No stepping around stuff just to avoid giving direct, helpful information.

Yahoo and Microsoft might not be the biggest search engines, but they’re certainly the best in my book

Why? Because Google search is saturated… too competitive. This doesn’t mean you can’t make money on Google search, so don’t take what I’m saying the wrong way. I still make money on Google search, but it’s not like it was a couple of years ago… not even close.

The search volume is still there, but there are so many restrictions and way too many competitors in most niches. And a good many of those competing advertisers get away with all the stuff Google tells you you can’t do. I don’t know how many times I have searched for some of my keywords and found blatant violations of Google’s terms of service, yet Google seems to turn a blind eye to them.

So what’s my solution? The content network.

Google’s Content Network is the single largest syndicated network of advertising sites in the entire world… bar none. Google’s Content Network is comprised of millions and millions of sites where Adsense ads are displayed, showing ads that are relevant to the content on the sites.

This means you can put your ad in front of the people who are actively interested in the niche that the site is about. They’re not searching… they’re reading. They’re looking for information and if you put your ad in their face, and write it correctly, you have a very targeted visitor. Pretty straight forward…

The trick is to get their attention as they’re reading. This requires writing ads differently than you would for the search network. Write ads that grab them by the eyeballs and force them to click, sending them to your landing page.

Matt Harward is a marketer that I met in Toronto a couple of years back. He’s an extremely intelligent guy who thinks outside the box. He’s developed several incredible tools over the years. Some of these tools he has sold, while others he has given away, absolutely free of charge. The tools that he gives away are every bit as good as the ones he sells, but Matt is a generous guy who has made a great living on the internet, so he believes in giving back to the community that has helped him become wealthy.

Two days ago I downloaded Matt’s latest free tool. It’s an automated image ad builder for Google’s content network. I’ve played with it off ad on since it was in initial beta stages a coupe of months ago. It’s a cool piece of software that can create hundreds of image ads in less than 15 seconds!

Matt is currently giving it away as a way of celebrating his upcoming 40th birthday. Stop by and grab your own free copy of it before his birthday passes by and it goes away!

www.IMWarfare.com

Keep your head up and never give up!

Curt

Aggressive Affiliates is a new IM product being put together by underground marketer Peter Parks and well-known Eric Rockefeller. The product is slated to launch on September 2, 2009.

I typically don’t write about upcoming launches, but this one is a little different for me. See… Peter Parks is my mentor. I have spent the past two months being coached by Peter on a daily basis. The things that Peter has taught me is incredible. I have learned things that are now taking me to the next level of marketing on the internet.

I’ve had an inside look at the content in this course and it blows so much of this other internet crap away.

Peter rolls in the dough every month and spends next to nothing on traffic. He’s figured out how to get most of his traffic completely free, and he passed a lot of that knowledge onto me.

Want to know how to do killer market research? Peter knows how.

Understand that when I tell you that Aggressive Affiliates is not the average IM product, I mean it. Like I said, I have had a very close inside look at the product. I wish I had known this stuff when I first started. My income levels would have been more than double what they are right now. Yes… it’s that good.

Check out Aggressive Affiliates. The number of spots available is limited, so you’ll want to be sure to get on the mailing list now.

By the way.. to get on my mailing list and receive updates about Aggressive Affiliates, and other IM related stuff, drop your email address into the opt in box at the bottom of the page!

In an effort not to keep you waiting to find out what this awesome tool is that I have been raving about, here it is, as briefly as I know how to keep it!

The tool is called SEnuke. (Search Engine Nuke).

SEnuke is the absolute best all-in-one internet and affiliate marketing tool I have seen. Period. I know that’s a pretty bold statement when you consider all the awesome tools out there, but when I get done showing you the ins and outs of SEnuke, I think you’ll heartily agree with me.

SEnuke has allowed me to add boat loads of money to my bank account over the last several months.

Here’s how it has done that.

SEnuke does niche research and does it well. SEnuke does automated site submissions and it does it well. SEnuke does article spinning and it does it well. SEnuke does keyword research and it does it well. SEnuke does… I think you get the picture.

SEnuke does so many things, it might be impossible to list them all here! No kidding.. it does that many things. And many of them are 100% automated. You tell it what you want it to do and click a button. It does the rest for you while you work on other things or kick back and grab a cup of coffee.

To demonstrate some of SEnuke’s awesomeness, I’ll be doing a series of videos over the next several days and probably for  a few weeks, to show what I know about SEnuke and what it does so well.

I hope you’ll check back for the videos soon. In the meantime check out SEnuke for yourself and take it for a free spin for a full 7 days.

SEnuke Free Trial

Now, go make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

Times have changed, though, as is evidenced by the constant numerous Google slaps, forcing people to scramble to keep their businesses going.

What most people have left out of the equation is that PPC is not the only way to go. I believe it is still the fastest way to make money, and probably the best way to make big money, but SEO shouldn’t be ignored, at all.

SEO traffic is free. Whats not to like about that? Ya.. it requires some learning and dedication, but there are lots of ways to make it easier and faster.

I have learned a lot about these ways in the past several months. First I started out trying to learn a bunch of different methods and different tools. You know.. site submission software, niche research software, article spinning software, and the list goes on.

Way back in August of 2008 I tried a new tool and said ti could do all of those things and get high SE rankings for niche keywords. They gave me a free 30 day trial to test it out.

I signed up for the free trial and downloaded this “cool new software”. Then I installed the cool new software. Then I opened the cool new software. And I sat there and stared at it.

I had no clue what to do with this thing. I mean it. I had no clue. I had a complete lack of understanding as to how to make this new thing work. It intimidated the heck out of me!

Now I’m no computer dummy. In my former business life I built and repaired PCs for a living. I know my way around software too. There usually isn’t much I can’t figure out when it comes to new programs. But this one had me scared of it!

It was so scary, in fact, that I only had it for less than two months, and then I canceled my subscription. Done… enough of the scary software!

Fast forward a few months to late 2008 -  early 2009.

I couldn’t get that cool new oh-so-scary software out of my head. It was almost like it was haunting me! No lie. It wouldn’t go away.

I guess that was because I recognized the potential it had. I saw past the intimidating awesomeness of it and saw that it was capable of doing.

So I did it… I went back to the website and signed up for it again. But this time I was determined I was going to master this thing!

So I set out on a journey to learn how to use this incredible tool to its fullest potential.

Once I started diving in, and learning what this thing could do, I was blown away by it.

Here’s an example: I created a new Hub Page for a specific keyword that this tool had helped me to find, and then I used this tool to submit this Hub Page to the Social Bookmarking sites. Less than two hours later I was sitting on Page 1 of Google for this keyword phrase. Uh huh! Page one

And the best part? Over two months later I am still on page 1 and that keyword phrase is still making me money

Stay tuned to learn more about this tool that was once so intimidating and now so valuable to me!

Now, go and make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

They should stick to what they are good at.

What they are not good at is understanding internet marketing and internet commerce.

Despite the fact that they have some of the most up-to-date technology and programming, they lack severely in the department of knowing what they are doing when it comes to internet commerce and the searches that are related to it.

Here’s why I say this.

Attempting to market anything on Google is a nightmare. Because they don’t understand how people search when they are shopping online, Google forces all internet marketers to jump through these next-to-impossible hoops, in an effort to create a “good user experience”. Their vague definition of a good user experience is “giving the user more information than they initially wanted”, so that the user would have gained some kind of insight or benefit from visiting your site even if you weren’t selling anything.

This is great for people who are just information-hunting. The casual surfer looks for this stuff. The buying surfer doesn’t. The buying surfer knows what they want and doesn’t want to have to wade through pages of extraneous crap to find it. Give them too much info and they’re gone in a matter of seconds. Give them a direct route to what they’re looking for and they’re more than happy to buy.

Google has confused these two types of traffic and has tried to force them all into one funnel, mercilessly beating marketers to death in an effort to get them to conform. Their insistence that every single website have pages and pages of content is overkill and is part of the reason that Google stock has dropped from a high of almost $800 per share down to half o that. Google’s PPC advertising income has dropped and their share holders know it.

Google is in trouble and they know it. So now they’re scrambling to try to fix it, and you and I (the marketers) are taking the heat for their lack of education in the e-commerce world.

Get a clue, Google, and stop cutting your own throat.

Let me clarify for you. If you are an affiliate for company XYZ, marketing that company’s Red Widget, Google says that you cannot have a single page with the sole purpose of getting people to buy red widgets from you, instead of buying them directly from Company XYZ. It’s OK for Company XYZ to have a single-page site for the sole purpose of selling red widgets, because they own those widgets. You don’t, therefore, you can’t.

With Google, they claim it’s all about a good user experience. What they fail to take into consideration and fail to put into their equation when calculating the quality of a user experience, is that some people are just plain looking for red widgets and don’t care if they buy them from you or from Company XYZ. Google’s logic is seriously flawed, but there’s no changing their minds about any of it. They are Google, which is just another way of spelling “arrogant”. Oh, and you might want to try to fit “stupid” in there too.

If john doe surfer is searching for blue shoes to buy and your ad says that you have blue shoes for sale, then what’s not a good user experience about you selling John blue shoes?

According to Google, you need to give John lots of relevant information about blue shoes. You need to tell John all about the history of blue shoes. You also need to do some market comparisons of different brands of blue shoes. And, while you’re at it, you might as well tell him how to lace up and tie those blue shoes. Then, and only then, will Google begin to think that you’re giving their precious users a good experience.

Here’s how Google defined it to me on the phone and in an email.

A user should want to visit your site even if they are not buying something. If a user visits your site and you give them something of value, such as information, then the user will be happy and Google says that this is a good user experience.

Information is good, but not everyone is looking for information!! HELLO Google…

Have you forgotten that a good number of people today use the web to shop? Or is that not good for their experience.. to buy something without reading through 5 pages of other crap first????

OK.. end of rant (I think).

Like it or not, we have to learn to deal with Google or we will eventually be driven out of marketing on Google. As marketers, we are being forced to build complete, informative sites in order to market as affiliates. It’s sad, but it’s true. The days of one-page sites are coming to a close.

You may have some really nice, really profitable one-page sites out there. Enjoy them while they last, because sooner or later Google will see your page and shut your ads down until you comply with their wishes and build out pages of useless information, which will only serve to lower your conversion rates.

Remember, Google is the search engine god and they like to flaunt that to everyone. Maybe they should flaunt it to their stock holders now that their stock is only worth half what it was a few months ago.

Someday… maybe someday Google will get a glimpse of reality and learn to bend a bit, instead of trying to rule with an iron fist and drive completely legitimate marketers away.

Anyway, go and make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

p.s. If you have ads or keywords that get rejected by Google, don’t call or email them to ask why. This will only draw their attention to your site and might give them cause to look more closely and then disable your campaign for using a bridge page. Quietly delete the rejected ads or keywords and move on… Don’t Ask – Don’t Tell.

Let’s turn the tables for a minute now. Let’s say someone else is doing market research and keyword research, and they click YOUR ad? Hmm.. seems like a little bigger deal now, doesn’t it?? That random click just cost you money, just like it cost the other marketer money when you clicked on their ad!

What to do??

First of all, when doing research, NEVER click on the ads of another marketer. You wouldn’t like it if they did it to you, so don’t do it to them. What goes around, comes around… right?

Just as importantly, let me tell you how to do research without even racking up impressions on your ads… or anyone else’s ads.

Instead of going to Google.com to do market research or ad testing, go here: Adwords WW

Using this tool will allow you to search and do research, without causing anyone to accrue impressions on their keywords and ads, thereby not hurting anyone’s CTR. This is an awesome way to check to see where your own ads are showing for any given keyword too, again without racking up impressions and hurting your CTR.

Remember… as with anything else, even in the marketing world, what you give is what you get.

Now, go make some money!

Be blessed,

Curt

First of all, some of the networks should be ashamed of themselves for even making you have to ask, and then some of those same networks should be even more ashamed for giving you your increase in little tiny pieces, like $.10 at a time, while they skim more profit from you than they deserve, and then make you ask for another increase over and over again. This is just plain stupidity and greed.

Anyway, let’s get back on track here. Let’s take a look at a hypothetical example of what a payout increase (a “bump”) can do for your bottom line.

Let’s use a good set of numbers so you can see how this really adds up over time. We’ll use a Free Trial offer that pays out $15 as our example.

So let’s say that you’re generating an average of 30 leads per day on this $15 offer. This makes your gross revenue $450 per day. OK, so now let’s say that your clicks are costing you $225 per day, for a 50% gross  margin. You’re making a dollar profit for every dollar you spend.

OK… not looking too bad are we?

So now let’s say that you’re running this offer for a few months and have built a good, solid foundation, creating that average of 30 leads per day. Now it’s time to ask for an increase.

Let’s just say that your affiliate manager goes to bat for you (which a GOOD affiliate manager should do) and he/she gets you a good increase of $5 per lead! Wow.. good increase!

OK.. now let’s do some math and see how this all adds up over the course of a year. Now, remember, this additional income isn’t going to cost you any extra money to make, so it’s 100% pure profit.

Now you’re getting $20 per lead, and at 30 leads per day, thats an extra $150 per day of pure profit!! Wow

So let’s take it a step further. Let’s see what that adds up to in a year. You ready for this? $150 per day, multiplied by 365 days equals how much?? $54,750.

Now how’s that for a pay raise?

Is it sinking in now? Can you see the power of the CPA pay increase? I hope so.

So now that you can see this in black and white, you have no reason not to ask for a CPA pay increase. In fact, you’re hurting yourself if you don’t ask for one, especially if you have been working hard and making money for the CPA network and the advertiser. They owe it to you… period.

Ask your affiliate manager for an increase, take your traffic elsewhere or ask for a new manager. Remember, your affiliate manager is supposed to be working for you, not over you.

Build a good relationship with your affiliate manager and you should have no problems with getting increases. Be sure, also, to scan several network and check their payouts, because many of the offers are available on several networks, and the payouts can vary as much as $10 from one network to another! Unbelievable, isn’t it??

Believe it or not, this short little piece of info can increase your annual pay by tens of thousands of dollars in a year’s time.

By the way, if you want to know which networks pay the most, based on my own personal experiences, here they are:

CPA Empire – Affiliate Manager Doug Davis

Clickbooth – Affiliate Manager Harald Anderson

Incentaclick (CX Digital) – Affiliate Manager Waseem Khan

Now, go and make some money.

Be blessed,

Curt