Internet Marketing or Not?

Aha! Zero traffic on Analytics.

2008-07-09T21:54:00.003+09:30

I put a link on a Social Networking site that doesn't seem to have been noticed. That's fine, one link doesn't cut it.

Hey, on another blog of mine I am getting some good traffic which is ramping up. I also wrote an article on a reasonable keyword phrase. The article is only about 2.5% keyword optimised and reads sensibly. Almost 100% original as well.

Currently that article is at #9 on the 1st page of Google for that phrase out of 2.6 million pages. Now I am impressed with that even if you're not ;-)

I now have a number of projects to pursue to get more traffic.

Write more keyword focussed articles.

Build some more software programs to give away.

Spread them both all over the place.

The idea is that by generating articles and software I will generate back links and traffic from both of these.

I will be targeting the other blog at wealth management tips rather than this one but I intend to put a link to this blog from that one.

Anyway, more 'ron.

Regards

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Well there you go then.

2008-07-03T23:28:00.003+09:30

Yet again I am posting here for my own benefit. I have just been on the Google Analytics site for this blog and it show that I have not had any visitors, that's in the last 6 months.

Now I find that actually a fascinating statistic. I have pages on other domains that are not SEO'd or anything that get visitors. I have pages that have no links to any other page that get traffic.

I am getting google ads which are more relevant to the post content though so that is an improvement over earlier posts where I only ever go public service ads.

I posted on another blog a video which had been emailed to me, very funny but definitely not PC. I emailed the link to only two (2) other people and that video has had over 20 views in a week.

See, people follow links. This site is linked to from other sites and pages which get traffic. So the question becomes, is there really no traffic at all or is the filtering of the analytics software discounting it? I can't answer that but they probably can.

I just read a document which claims to be the training manual, or part therof, for Google's page reviewers. It has the appearance of being genuine and the information makes sense. If it is genuine it confirms what I have believed for some time, that Google really do review some pages manually.

It appears that they are more likely to declare your pages spam if you have adsense ads on them, so they are targeting the arbitrage people. That makes sense really, if you have to pay money then you'll be a bit more careful with the ratings.

Overall though what they are looking for is actual content. Which brings me back to this blog. This is all original content, not updated as regularly as it should be but original none the less, so why doesn't it get some visitors?

I suspect that it is in the "we don't like you" basket. So what I think I might do is seriously drive traffic at this blog and track the links to see what shows up on the analytics pages.

Reporting later...

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Article Marketing - Is it dead?

2008-05-19T21:49:00.002+09:30

Article marketing is touted as the best way to get ongoing free traffic to our websites. I have to be honest here and say that I probably haven't really given this method of generating traffic a fair go.

I have produced some articles and posted them without any noticeable traffic from them. I am sure that I really should write a lot more articles to test this before I can it but, even though I actually can write coherent prose and I do have a better grasp of English and Grammar that most of those who create websites, blogs ebooks etc. I actually find it difficult to write a 600 word article that is SEO and keyword optimised.

To then create three or more non-duplicate articles on the same keywords for submission to the article directories would take me approximately 2-3 hours for each one.

For me, the notion of cranking out good articles in 20 minutes is completely alien. So I explored the 'article spinner' tools but they generate real crap. No-one should have anything to do with them at all, in actual fact Google have an ability to identify the articles that have been spun by the 'fingerprint' they leave. When they do catch them out they trash them from their index fast.

Having said all that I do use some tools to help with writing articles. I have just started using WordFlood, I am still in the 14 day trial period and I am not sure that I am prepared to pay for it yet. It is, however, pretty good. I also use DupeFree Pro which I think I like a bit more, partly because of the different way it assists you to create an article the same but not a duplicate. Did that make sense?

Anyway, DupeFree Pro is free. Get it from here. WordFlood costs only a small amount of money and I can't find the link for you so do a search.

Regards

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A bit more on getting SE Traffic and a gift.

2008-05-13T22:49:00.002+09:30

Another thing I recently discovered is that the Search Engines no longer count any site with less than 50 pages. This blog is now up to 36 pages and the adsense ads are actually beginning to show some relevance.

OK, I just added a Social Bookmark link to this blog. I am proposing to run a give away for the first 50 people who visit this blog.

I just finished a small report last night, it is in pdf format and is on business names ideas, the same techniques can be used to pick a domain name. At this stage I don't even have a download link for you so you'll have to leave a comment asking for it with your email address so I can send you the link when I have set it up (probably tomorrow night as it's already 11:00PM now and time is up).

You may ask why I am persisting with this blog when there isn't any traffic, the answer is that I figure if I can get traffic to this one then traffic anywhere else has got to be a breeze ;-).

Anyway, more tomorrow and a link. Will probably be on the kentberry site but I'll decide that tomorrow as well.

Regards

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How to Use Craigslist

2008-05-11T12:53:00.002+09:30

Google loves Craigslist. Most marketers use Craigslist to generate backlinks and traffic but there is at least one person who has worked out how to make a living by the same methods other people have mastered on eBay.

He has detailed his methods in a new ebook to show exactly how you can make up to $5,000 per month part-time just with Craiglist sales.

An all this is without any product or website of your own. Most Craigslist ads are free so the return on investment is brilliant.

You've just got to check this out for yourself. Craigslist eBook
.

Next post will be how to use Craigslist to generate backlinks and traffic.

Regards

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More about Clickbank Payday

2008-05-08T21:20:00.003+09:30

If you want to make money with Clickbank it is important to generated targeted traffic to the sales page. One way to do that is Google Adwords BUT 95% of wannabes do it all wrong.

Mostly that is because they have bought all the old books about how to do it the old way that don't work any more.

Mike Hill's book Clickbank Payday is current information and he shows you what works now.

There are a few other things you need to know. One of these is about Google's 'Quality Score'. Generally Google don't tell you everything you want to know about how they decide anything but it makes sense that your keywords, adsense ads and landing pages must match.

For example
keyword = wheelchair

add = Wheelchairs for Everyone
We have the Best Wheelchairs
Wheelchair parts and New or Used
www.wheelchairs.com

landing page = [Title] Wheelchairs for Everyone
[Headline] Wheelchairs.com can supply wheelchair parts,
new or used wheelchairs for all shapes and
sizes. All ages, all types.

You'd probably think that this site had something to do with wheelchairs.

Google would like this one. The reward is cheaper clicks. That's a summary of the Quality Score, there is probably a bit more but that's about all I know just yet.

Think about that next time you are setting up a campaign. Try using SeoQuake on your Firefox browser and look at the way the seobots will see the page.

Regards

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Can you Make Money with Clickbank?

2008-05-04T14:08:00.002+09:30

I actually have made some sales and made a little money with Clickbank. It is interesting that I have not manages to make enough money to quit my job yet but I am learning more all the time.

For instance, I bought the Clickbank Payday book from Mike Hill and learned a couple of interesting things about making money with Clickbank. I have implemented them in the website I have linked to above. The thing is that I am beginning to realise that to really understand how all this goes together I did need to buy a bunch of books.

Despite their claims to fame and claims of success most of the 'Gurus' actually make the bulk of their money directly from the list they built several years ago and the additions they get now by their cross promotions with each other. They do make money with Clickbank but not generally in the way they tell the rest of us.

This effectively keeps them well ahead of the rest of us. So what can we do to catch up? I have determined that what I have to do is generate lots of traffic.

I know, this is the cry from many, many people and they'll all tell you they know how to do that but it isn't as simple as they claim. Again, the 'Gurus' who tell you how to get 10,000 unique visitors per day probably don't get them from where we are being told they do.

One of the tips given in Clickbank Payday is to track your visitors and results. If you really want to make money with Clickbank you'll have to track not just the sales but the keywords which generated those sales. You need to know which of your promotional tools generated those sales and which parts of your sales or landing pages generated those sales from which keywords.

That is a massive amount of tracking but it is essential if you wish to optimise your traffic and results. What I have done on the new site is create a different cloaked link for each of the links to the sales page. I have two sets of keywords with two sets of ads sending traffic.

What I need to do now is work on generating traffic. I will put a link on my other sites using different cloaked links. I am planning some articles and I think I will buy some traffic. Even crappy conversions will make money and using crappy, cheap traffic will help optimise the landing pages so the better traffic will convert even better.

Regards

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Does Procrastination Kill Your Success?

2008-04-14T21:03:00.003+09:30

John Delavera, one of the Internets most successful marketers, has been around forever (well, as far as the internet is concerned) asks the question AND provides a solution. Check out the snippet below and follow the link.
*****
… and DO SOMETHING with that material… There are 100s of sites today that offer you articles on various niches… Take www.StealTheseArticles.com for example… Yes I know, another site of mine, but it’s the perfect example… Here is some news too: as you will see there is no order link on that site. This is because I decided to offer the access free to members of www.turbomembership.com - later on this month… Anyway… when you go on that site you will see there are many niches offered. Pick a niche. Get 10-20 articles… then WORK with those articles and create a HOW TO guide. You can do that. Just use the content and create a How to guide. It’s easy and if you cannot do that then ask for help in a forum.
***** more...

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Nathan Neal - Traffic Broker - BS...

2008-04-13T17:20:00.003+09:30

I've been watching this site for a while, it looks like a good deal but...

"Like I said, I poured my heart and soul into the creation of this course, making it so step-by-step that even my computer illiterate friends and family could follow along. Here’s just a taste of what’s covered inside…

*
My tested and proven business plan that even "lazy" people can use to cash-in on the Internet... ** absolutely no such thing **
*
How to profit by directing people to someone else's website - even when they leave without buying!
*
How teaming up with massive "Authority Sites" (like Google!) to promote other people's products is my biggest secret to success... ** Does he mean PPC? **
*
5 types of companies you should AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE and never promote!
** let me guess, adult, casino, horse racing, porn **
*
Amazing programs that pay you money just for getting people to enter their zip code into a form! (That's right, you can get paid REAL MONEY just for getting someone to enter their ZIP CODE into a form!) ** Only for USA traffic **
*
How free content can generate 10 times the amount of traffic as paid advertising. (I'm serious when I say you DON'T need to spend money to make money!)
*
The secret to competing with big companies who spend a fortune to advertise. (Using the "guerilla tactics" I'll teach you, you don't need deep pockets to succeed.)
*
How to tak advantage of established brands for big profits. (You win while the big companies do all the work!) ** he did mention illiterate people before **
*
...and much, much more!

In fact, that’s not even the tip of the iceberg! "

he is absolutely correct, there is absolutely no information on how to get any traffic at all despite the claims that you'll learn how to be a "traffic broker".

You can't 'broker traffic' if you don't have any so this one is full of it. I would suggest that you avoid this one.

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Adsense Whizz Kid: Automated Money from Google Adsense in 2007

2008-04-12T21:24:00.000+09:30

This is actually a test of a technique I am trying out.
It is part of a Blog-and-Ping tutorial. If this results in traffic on this or any other site then this technique will be written up here. Stay tuned.

Adsense Whizz Kid: Automated Money from Google Adsense in 2007: "Discover how to generate automated income from every single website in this new and unstable Adsense environment: March 2007.

The only catch is I will be letting 125, 76, 51, 39, 18 lucky people into the secrets: the strategies that set me, the Adsense Whizz Kid,
apart from the chasing pack...

....AND now YOU: if and only if you qualify
of course....."

See the above text actually came from a different website -- AND I am not at my blog posting this.

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This is an extremely interesting experience.

2008-04-12T18:58:00.002+09:30

I just had a look at the Google Analytics for this site and there has been NO visitors at all.

What is interesting about this is that I have other sites which get traffic, not much but some, with no promotion of any sort and they show up in the search results for some keywords. Well down the list but they are there.

This site is on Google's own site and gets spidered regularly, I ping it and link to it but the analytics show nothing. Someone, somewhere must be trying to get here but nothing shows up. Makes me wonder if there is a deliberate effort to either hide the site or hide the traffic.

So I have a request to anyone who actually reads this post to leave a comment and/or send me an email at burtm10 (at) brentmilne (dot) com just to confirm that you read this.

I am also going to set up another type of traffic generating link which I will talk about if it actually works.

Cheers for now.

Hey, Where are you?

2008-03-31T13:51:00.003+10:30

I was just having a look at the Google Analytics for this blog and apparently I have had no visitors at all.

So this is an exercise in wasted time. If I thought that I was involved in internet marketing with this blog I am completely deluded. I am now writing for my own benefit.

This of course frees me up completely, with no readers I can write any crap I like and I will not be able to offend anyone. No traffic = no readers.

That doesn't seem like a lot of fun but there you have it. I guess another advantage is that I can write this at work knowing that my boss will never read it along with the rest of the entire internet community.

Dribble for dribble's sake. Despite Google's avowed dertermination to eliminate the websites with no valid content I seem to find more and more of them every day. Everytime I search for anything there are always site with nothing but links to other sites which still go nowhere with actual content. So how can they justify getting traffic?

I put up pages with content but Google wants you to have lots of links to your site to show that it is valid. Many of the internet marketing sites I look at have been in existance for a very short period of time and yet they have lots of links and lots of traffic, how?

Then I look at the pages which are on the top of the search lists and many of them have no links at all, no metatags of any description and minimal content. Who do you think is pulling who's chain here?

Anyway, since no-one will read this I can stop at any point and so I will stop here for now.

Good Luck

New Asset Management Tool released

2008-03-14T22:25:00.002+10:30

One of the challenges of developing your personal finances is keeping on track. You want to get started but lack some confidence. You find some good information and need/want to keep track of it or make some notes but you keep losing all the data.

If you had the money to protect your assets properly you would probably pay for professional Asset Managment. But I don't and I suspect that you might not.

If you are in this situation and either a beginning or more experienced investor you do need to manage your asset base as it grows. The Personal Asset Management Tool has all the basic information you need to eliminate your debts, why you need to begin accumulating assets and how to get started. It adds more resources and tools to help you increase your personal wealth and assist you to better manage your assets.

Hey, there is this really cool function, well 2 actually.

You can add your own resources to this tool, web pages, pdf ebooks, audio or video. So you can build and personalise your own Personal Asset Management Tool.

The other really cool function is that you can add your own notes to each section. So if you like or dislike a section or if you find a better definition or whatever then you can make notes and you can print them out.

Wow, that's what I thought when I grasped the flexibility and power of these tow functions. Total customisation of the asset management tool to your knowledge and skill level. A tool which grows with you. A single point of contact to your assets and the management of those assets.

And then...the price. Would you believe free? I sure didn't. But it is a no cost tool. Where do you get your own copy od the Personal Asset Management Tool? Click this link and yes, there is one for the Macintosh as well.

Good Luck and successful asset management.

Just a Quick note

2008-02-27T23:08:00.002+10:30

This is really just to have a post and keep the content coming.

I have noticed lately that my Adsense ads are not producing any income. Not that I am getting much in the way of traffic either but that us something that I should be able to change.

The very few clicks I am getting have not generated any income since November last year and I find that very strange. Does this mean that the customers were running ads at no cost? Come on, since when does Google allow others to run ads at no cost. No, I think this is more proof that Google filters all the Adsense clicks through some algorithm which checks the source of the traffic and adjusts the payout to less than you paid (to destroy any arbitrage) or to zero if you happen to be in their bad books.

It seems that I am in that situation. I do wonder how many others are being similarly scammed by this behemoth. It is similar to that other American scam machine, Microsoft. They also scam the whole world with their back door monitoring of your activity online.

Some testing seems to be in order at this stage to find out if I can prove this. It would be nice if it was possible to test the Adsense links without breaching the Terms and Conditions but I don't think it is.

On another subject, I checked my Adwords campaigns. One campaign shows that my ad is showing at an average of position 3.7 and should be showing every time the keywords are used on USA sites only. I attempted to check the USA showing of the ads but cannot see them anywhere for any of the keywords.

So it seems that we are being conned again, Google is showing geographically specific ads even if you don't ask for them. How is it possible to fine tune your ad placement or CTRs if you have no idea where or when your ads are being shown?

I have been running a program called Adwords & Keywords on a small group of keywords, just 56 of them, after 3 1/2 hours it still hasn't delivered any results. Now I know that there will be people out there who would tell me that this program is brilliant and is blindingly fast but I get this problem with everything I try to use. I have upgraded the ram in this computer but I still can't sensible run video, the keyword tools are so slow they are pretty much useless to me. I have to tell you it is all very frustrating. Nothing seems to work as it should.

I have challenged a number of the USA based Gurus to come out to Adelaide with nothing, buy a s/h computer here, set up a new account with everyone and start as if from scratch and prove that their techniques work here as well as the tell us they work in the USA.

My belief levels are pretty low right now as I found out recently that most of the Adwords and Adsense numbers talked about to sell the latest book are actually from several years ago and they couldn't replicate them today.

OK, enough rant for now. This was going to be a short post. No-one will read this in any case since Google won't list this post any more than they have the others.

Good Luck on you efforts.

Can you make money online with Adsense?

2008-02-05T22:35:00.000+10:30

There are those who will tell you (and sell you the information) that you can make massive amounts of money online with Adsense.

They'll even show you lots of lovely graphics posing as income proofs which show $100's per day. Wouldn't that be lovely? What they don't show you, claiming Google's terms of reference, is the CTR and the sheer volume of traffic required to get that cash flow. They also don't show the value per click or the fact that Google adjusts the value you get per click based on their analysis of where the traffic comes from.

Whay else do you think the reporting is delayed by so much time? If I can put a simple script on the site and get instant reporting on the activity there, why can't Google?

The answer is obviously that they can but they don't. Google clearly makes money online, they also pay out $billions per year to adsense clients so others are making money online as well with Adsense.

So the result is that there are still people making money online with Adsense. The question now has to be HOW?

With some rough analysis of what Google says about Adsense and what the SEO people say about websites indicates that, yes, you do need lots of traffic. You get this by having reasonable content that you write, add some relevant RSS for variation and then get some traffic coming. Write an article or two with a resource block to link back to your site.

The only way to get PR on your site is to have incoming links with your main keyword as the link like this <a href="http://personalwealth.kentberry.com.au/Cashflow.html" target="_blank">Cashflow</a>. When you have this in your money making article and webmasters pick it up you get backlinks all over the internet.

You also get traffic from those sites and from the emails that are sent out with your article included. How many articles do you need to write before you get lots of traffic? I don't know, how good at writing keyword targeted articles are you? Hey, you might have to practice a bit before you get good at it but even the articles which don't get picked up still provide backlinks so just keep going.

The other problem with making money online with Adsense is that you might only make $10 to $20 per day with your site (sure beats $10 per month but I can see why you might not be totally stoked with that) either work on other ways to generate traffic or build another site.

So, can you make money online with Adsense? I think that you might see that you can.

More about making money online

2008-02-04T23:34:00.000+10:30

Should making money online be fun? Frank Kern would say so.

Most of you would have seen the Frank Kern's Mass Control online marketing exercise in the last week.

If you bought, good luck to you and I hope it pays off for you.

Frank certainly knows how to make money online and so did all his buddy gurus. Did you get an invite to the trough? No? Nor did I. Does it bother you that those in the Inner Circle get to make a bucket load of money online and the rest of us are expected to feed the beast.

Well it does me. I want to make money online, I don't need to make $1,000,000 in a couple of hours, I don't even need to make that much every year. Making money online for me is all about replacing the day job and being able to become independent and 10% of Frank's one day payday would make a good yearly income for me.

I am going to give you a single tip here, you should put up a website of some sort , a blog is good, and work on driving traffic to it. Why? Because that is actually pretty easy to do AND that is all making money online is about.

Don't believe me do you.

Think about this, if you have traffic to a website that you control then you can write an article on a particular subject "making money online" for example, post it to ezinearticles with a link back to your post on the same subject, add a freebie in exchange for an email address if you want to build a list, a freebie to bring visitors and offer an RSS feed, have a link to a product you recommend, some adsense ads etc.

Making your money online begins with somewhere to stamp your personality and somewhere to send traffic. Once you have some content and some traffic it gets easier and easier to make money.

Stop trying for short cuts, there aren't any. Frank Kern may have made $1million in a couple of hours but he has first been making money online for about 10 years and has many, many JV partners which puts his product in front of possibly 100,000,000 potential customers.

You can't do that, yet. Start getting traffic. Then make money online.

How to make money online with a blog.

2008-01-28T20:52:00.000+10:30

Now this really is interesting. There are many people who want to know how to make money online, including me. I don't have all the answers yet but I think I found out something extremely interesting just last night.

I was talking with my daughter about SEO listings and a new tool I was playing with which gives some very interesting information.

Sorry about being a little obscure here but I need to confirm what I saw as being repeatable before I go spouting off about the "latest Google Secret". I will tell you what I was looking at though.

I did a search on Google for the phrase "make money online" and examined the first few results to determine what factors made them rate so well. Fascinating. Now, according to Keyword Elite, the phrase "make money online" is searched for about 15,000 times per month and there are about 13,000,000 web sites using that phrase so the competition is fierce.

What I learned I have applied to this post, now we wait and find out if this blog rates anywhere (currently PR < 0, ranking of ???>. I really should give you a tip for reading this post. If you want to search for the phrase "make money online" you don't need to put the quotation marks on both sides of the phrase, you just need to put the quotation mark at the beginning of the phrase i.e. "make money online is all you need and the search engine treats the whole phrase as one. Neat huh?

Something else for you, according to the gurus, making money online is easy. Just buy their latest product which has been already shared with their fellow gurus and you'll make enough money to quit your day job. What is really interesting is that in part they are right. Their guru friends will make money by buying and then selling this latest product. They market to their lists (the money is in the list - right) and all of them have quit their day jobs.

The "make money online" product that they flog you will have some of the information you need but not all of it. The next entry is going to have some more data for you on what I have learned about making money online.

Still going, Still minimal results.

2007-12-26T12:23:00.000+10:30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More details later.

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

2007-03-28T20:45:00.000+09:30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now there's an interesting thing

2007-03-26T13:50:00.000+09:30

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

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

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

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

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

See you in the organic results...

Good Luck with your marketing.

Update For March - Reporting on the activity

2007-03-20T22:28:00.000+10:30

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good Luck with your efforts

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

2007-02-23T13:04:00.000+10:30

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

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

So, what is one to do?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck.

Some Results At Last!

2007-02-06T11:14:00.000+10:30

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Tomorrow for the good stuff.

The Google Guerrilla

2007-02-06T10:59:00.000+10:30

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

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

The Google Guerrilla

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

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

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

This is Unbelievable.

2007-01-20T17:29:00.000+10:30

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

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

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

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

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

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

Good luck with your efforts.