I recently came across blogger Shane over at AskShane.org and was really impressed not only by the content he offers for the successful internet marketers-to-be, but also by the angle he takes in his posts. Rather than a lot of “oh, you just need some crazy secret tactics to succeed”, he’s genuine in his advice about what it takes to really become successful online.

I think this view is really helpful not only to get a realistic view on the fact that making money online over the long term isn’t always just push-button easy…. but also because I would hope a lot of us internet marketer entrepreneurs desire to have an internet business that’s stable enough to withstand the test of time and changing technology, market conditions, and other variables.

Anyways, check out his post here - http://www.askshane.org/daily-tips/my-blueprint-for-quitting-your-day-job.php - and let me know what you think. Are there any parts of your own business blueprint (if you have one) that you also find to be critical to your success so far?

As internet marketers, we’re generally in the business of making two key things happen: delivering value, and making money.

While there are a myriad of easy ways to increase the former, easy ways to increase the latter aren’t always as easy to come by.

Naturally, in order to make more money, you either need to reduce your expenditures, or increase your income.

But it can be difficult to do both at the same time - if you’re increasing your customer reach, you’re probably having to spend some amount of additional time or money to make it happen. If you’re intentionally reducing your expenditures (particularly on ads), you may be sacrificing potential income somewhere in your affiliate sales pipeline.

However, instead of sacrificing either, there’s a better alternative!

Increasing your conversion rate

While it’s probably not a new concept for you, (and this particular article isn’t particularly new, either) you may not be aware of all the tactics available to you to increase your conversion rates on your site - many of which are super easy to test!

I was reading Aaron Wall’s Interview with Conversion Rate Experts the other day and found this link to Ben & Karl’s site with 108 ways to get better conversions from your affiliate & sales sites… and if you haven’t, you may want to as well - I was really impressed not only by the width and depth of the advice they offered but moreover by their in-depth explanation of why a given element is important to split-test.

Their advice is not only essential to established marketers wanting to increase conversions but it also doubles as an excellent, excellent primer on how to construct a great affiliate/sales landing page. Best of all, the tips are clean & simple - no second guessing what they’re talking about or how to do it… so I’d highly recommend checking it out if you haven’t yet!

Karl Blanks & Ben Jesson’s 108 ways to improve your sales conversions

If you’ve been following internet marketing for more than a year or two, one thing you’ve probably observed is just the massive flood of new internet marketing tools, strategies, and resources that seem to crop up more and more frequently.

Undoubtedly a lot of them are decent, & worth checking out, but like most products, there’s some that are decidedly better than others.

However, the interesting thing is that, unlike you might expect, some of the better resources for certain things like PPC analysis, SEO optimization, Campaign creation are actually the ones that are free - not the high-end,  spendy ones.  And nothing is more frustrating than purchasing an expensive tool - and then finding a faster, better, free way to do it!

I got an email from CPA guru Gauher Chaudhry, and included was a link for his new, free 89-page CPA/PPC guide which details a complete strategy to take the best free & paid internet marketing utilities - and start really leveraging them to make some solid cash.

Unlike some other guides, he offers a pretty objective look at a fairly wide range of resources, making it easier to figure out which ones are most appropriate for your marketing efforts.

Additionally, I was glad to see that it’s all new material, not based on outdated tricks from a year or two ago - and very modern/relevant to people who are making a lot of money out there with PPC strategies leveraged against CPA offers.

As you’re probably aware, there’s a lot of money out there to be made with CPA… but knowing how to cater to the right crowd, do the proper research, and test/track your efforts isn’t always as straight-up intuitive as you might hope it would be… and that’s where I was really impressed with this particular guide.

Further.. if you haven’t done much with CPA, there’s a lot of helpful info here to get you started - basic terminology, strategy, and even some more subtle details of making CPA profitable for you.

Normally, I’d expect to see a guide like this packaged up as an ebook on Clickbank and sold for $39.99 or more.. but in this particular case, Gauher is really pushing the free line by putting this guide up for anyone to download.

So - check it out - and let me know what you think.

PDF: The Insider’s Guide To CPA Marketing Profits

While we as affiliates often spend a lot of time reading up on the right way to do things, we sometimes overlook the opposite perspective - what NOT to do.

In the case of PPC, it’s easy to make a lot of mistakes, and the reality is that without knowing what went wrong, it’s hard to correct mistakes & really be successful.

Anik & Amit over at PPC Classroom recently came out with a report aimed at helping to overcome some of the major issues newer folks have with PPC, and after reading it, I figured it was worth putting it up, since it’s free.

Let me know what you think - do you see yourself making any of these ‘big 5′ mistakes in your PPC campaigns?

5 PPC Mistakes You’re Probably Making.

As you probably know, Frank Kern launched (and as of now, 11pm on Tues. night) & is sold out of his famous (or infamous) Mass Control 2.0 earlier today… and just about every marketing also guru simultaneously launched a promotion for it with their own bonuses.

Since this type of “<Big Product> Just Launched, Get It And My Bonuses” email flurry seems to happen every time a major Internet Marketing product releases, and since a deciding factor about who to buy it from depends on the bonuses they’re offering, I figured I’d do a review of all the bonuses I’ve heard about from the guru’s who’ve emailed me about it.

Since Frank’s website currently says that he’s planning to put Mass Control 2.0 back up once more copies become available, I figured I’d do a rundown of all the people with a bonus for you if you buy it through them (If you’re an affiliate & have a bonus but don’t see your name on the list, let me know here). The bold bullet point under the Free Bonuses denotes this blogger’s personal favorite bonus of the set.

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The Affiliate: Rich Schefren

The Free  Bonus(es):

• Invite-Only call with Rich & Frank
• MP3 Call transcript with Rich & Dr. Robert Cialdini discussing a broad range of marketing tactics
• MP3 Call transcript with Rich & Dan Ariely discussing cutting edge techniques to understand your prospects’ behavior
• Access to Strategic Profits Social Media experts’ insiders call discussing the step-by-step process to constructing a profit-winning social marketing network
• Access to interview with Mark Earls, author of “Herd: How to Change Mass Behaviour by Harnessing Our True Nature”.
• Private access to hang out with Frank, Rich, and several other top gurus at Frank’s invite-only marketing summit in March.

The Link: Access Rich’s Mass Control 2.0 Bonus Package Here.

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The Affiliate: Keith Wellman / Gary Ambrose

The Free Bonus(es):

• Complete “Quality Lists” coaching series to help you build a list of qualified prospects very quickly
• A 2-hour, personal one-on-one call with Gary
• Guest Invite status for free to future live events to help improve all of the aspects of your business
• 3 “Diamond Memberships” - “The List Machine”, “Your Lucky List”, “The List Bandit” to help get you access to even more qualified prospects

The Link: Keith Wellman & Gary Ambrose’s bonus package available here.

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The Affiliate: Travis Sago

The Free Bonus(es):

• Personal email/phone/skype access to the master Bum Marketer.
• Personal Niche Selection assistance, helping you pick out a niche to launch into & be successful in it from the get-go
• Personal coaching with Travis and his small ‘mastermind’ group to follow up & give you a virtual ‘kick in the butt’ when you need it most
• Chance to potentially partner/JV with Travis on future affiliate products & daels
• Free Dinner with Travis at the MC Mastermind conference in March
• Some other mysterious/secret bonuses (which are usually pretty good, from my experience).

The Link: Grab Mass Control 2.0 with Travis’s all-star bonus here.

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The Affiliate: Jeff Walker

The Free Bonus(es):

• Super secret day-long affiliate conference with Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Jeff Johnson, Mike Filsaime, Ed Dale, and Andy Jenkins.

The Link: Get in the know with the secret affiliate summit with Jeff Walker & others here.

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The Affiliate: David Deutsch

The Free Bonus(es):

• Personal launch sales copy review for a product of your choice
  

The Link: Pinpoint the holes in your sales copy with Mass Control 2.0 & David Deutsch here.

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The Affiliate: Eric Rockefeller (”erock”)

The Free Bonus(es):

• PLR (Private Label Rights) to a niche market product Eric’s researched for a hot market…. Includes: Ebook written by expert ghostwriter, expert converting copy, professional marketing graphics
• Resell Rights to another high-converting, ready-to-sell ebook.

The Link: Get Eric’s ready-to-go eBooks & specially designed marketing materials with Mass Control 2.0 here.

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The Affiliate: Amish Shah

The Free Bonus(es):

• 1 Hour of video & 30+ slides revealing Amish’s highest-converting PPC tactics for CPA marketing.
• Full strategy to leverage Mass Control 2.0 through ad copy & landing pages, called “PPC Mastery using Mass Control”
• Insight into Amish’s personal live crowd-control techniques drawn from Mass Control 2.0 & applied to a live audience
• Free Hexatrack Pro account to help pinpoint niches & narrow down the most profitable keywords for your niche.

The Link: Get Amish’s PPC mastery package with Mass Control 2.0 here.

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The Affiliate: Andy Jenkins / StomperNet

The Free Bonus(es):

• 2 Months free StomperNet Elite membership
• 2 Free tickets to any StomperNet Live event of your choice
• Beta Tester access to Don Crowther’s NEW SMARTS 2.0 Social Media Traffic Strategies
• Entry for a chance to win a genuine Frank Kern Surfboard!
• Super secret day-long affiliate conference with Frank Kern, Jeff Walker, Jeff Johnson, Mike Filsaime, Ed Dale, and Andy Jenkins.

The Link: Find out what StomperNet is all about with Andy Jenkins & leverage mass marketing with Mass Control 2.0 here.

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The Affiliate: John Reese

The Bonus(es):

• Full audio recordings from John’s “2009 Business Accelerator Web Class”
• Choice between: “Reese Report Collection” (900 page / 40 CD internet marketing curriculum covering nearly all areas of internet marketing)   — or — John’s “Internet Marketing Advisor” (internet-marketing targeted sales, includes full digital downloads (PDF’s, etc)

The Link: Leverage John’s internet marketing knowledge & prowess along with Mass Control 2.0 here.

And finally, if for some reason you don’t find reason to take advantage of the incredible affiliate bonuses above, you can grab Mass Control 2.0 directly from Frank when more copies come up for sale here.

I was browsing the forums over at the Wealthy Affiliate the other day and found a really cool thread…

This guy known as “C.” (whose real name is Christopher Dittemore) was very generously offering a PDF eBook called “Not Making Money?” - a complete info Internet Marketer’s startup guide, actually - in return for a small donation to a charity….

… annd wow, after reading it, I’ll definitely say that C. knows his stuff.

It’s totally packed with nuts-and-bolts content… solid stuff that you could pick up & use to market & make money… even if all your previous attempts have fallen flat!

Not only is a terrific primer….

….on how to set up and run a solid, profitable Adwords campaign….

….on how to test and track your ad, landing page, headline, and offer conversion stats…

… about the best ways to do it all quickly and efficiently…

… but most significantly, it lays out for you the marketing mindset you MUST have in order to be successful online. Even if you’ve never made a single dime online, if you have the right mindset you WILL succeed!

Of course, the most fantastic part about this eBook is that it’s 100% free. Just head on over here & pick it up! I know it will be worth your time.

PDF: “Not Making Money?”

In my experience, one of the biggest killers of marketing productivity (and just plain ‘getting stuff done’) is that ever present desire to put off until tomorrow what need not be done today.

Ever thought,  “ahhh I should [write that article, line up that JV partner, implement split-testing]… but I’ll do it later”? I have.

It definitely happens to me: so often, if it’s not important or urgent that day, it probably won’t get done.

But as it turns out, there’s actually an easy strategy to use if you want to (seriously)  avoid procrastinating - or to stick with a difficult job when the chance of success seems slim.

In this article discussing the (fascinating) results of some psychological researchers, I was pretty surprised to learn that there’s 4 easy steps to keeping myself on track when it comes to my internet marketing - and that even implementing one of them could make a pretty noticeable difference in how much I’m able to get done each day.

Anyways,  what do you think about these 4 techniques (under the “Summary: how to get things done” section)?

Effective at staving off procrastination? Or just ‘feel-good’ mind tricks? I’d like to hear your thoughts.

Article:  “How to Avoid Procrastination: Think Concrete“

Just watched the latest (free) Frank Kern video (part 1) on the secret to creating infinite sales & cashflow for your internet marketing business… and will say I’m impressed.

Like most of his videos, he gets straight to the point & delivers some very valuable advice on the strategy behind your marketing efforts - and who exactly should do the ‘convincing’ to buy your product. He uses a simple strategy to demonstrate how easy it is to create value for others - & ultimately provide you with an endless sales cash flow.

Plus, Frank’s laid back, easygoing style makes it easy to pay attention & really learn from what he has to say. I never knew he had 3 garages full of surfboards!

So, if the gurus’ emails haven’t convinced you to watch his video, I’d highly recommend it. It’s only about 10 minutes long, and you’ll probably wish it was longer by the time it gets over! (@masscontrolkern says the next one should be available early next week)

Frank Kern’s Sales Formula (desire)