Work Yourself Up!

Boo!

It's Halloween!!

And with Halloween comes a good opportunity for you to look at what scares you.  Probably not the kids (and adults) running around in costumes.

There is a lot of "scary" stuff in business.  Can't tell you how many times I've seen guys who are really sharp and really deserving of something better than they currently have, but get stuck and continue to live a life where they're spinning their wheels, not really moving forward and staying in basically the same income and general situation, year after year.

We've all seen out friends do this.  And it's easy for us to see that they're stuck.  It's easy for us to see that their relationship sucks or their work situation sucks.

So what's holding them back?  They're scared of the unknown.

It's the same thing that's probably holding you back.

So what do you do?  Shine light on it.  The darkness is never really as scary as it appears.

Take a small bite, the first step, or whatever else you need to do in order to get things going.  Those things add up.  And in a year from now, what you currently find scary won't be such a big deal after all.

The One and Only Way to Make Big Money Online

I've been thinking about this for quite some time.  If you sell information products or offer any kind of service for a fee online, this should interest you.

What does it take to make BIG money online? You see, it is easy to make money online, but it's not easy to make BIG money.

Let me explain...

It's easy to set up a site and slap some Adsense on it to make a few bucks or do some Adwords to promote an affiliate product. That way you can make a few bucks here and there.

But that's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking about the big bucks. Tens of thousands of dollars and even millions.

There is only one way to do it.

SELL HIGH PRICED PRODUCTS!

When you sell high priced products, you need just a few customers to make the big bucks. But with a low price, you need lots of people to sell to.

For example, if you want to make one million dollars, you need to sell 100,000 copies of a $10 product.

To sell to 100,000 people, you'll probably need about 2,000,000 targeted visitors to view your offer (That's a 5% conversion ratio). But if you sell a $1,000 product, you'll only need to sell to 1,000 people.

Another reason why I prefer selling high priced products is that those that buy them are easier to deal with.

You better believe that.

A person that pays you $1,000 will be more sophisticated and polite to you than the person that paid $10

Yes I know. It's their money and they have every right to ask questions. But that's not the point.

The point is YOU WANT TO MAKE BIG BUCKS so don't waste too much time on such people.

Your time is very important.

Now I'm not saying you should just go and change the price of your products from N2,500 to N25,000. Rather, find a way to add value to it so you can increase the price.

If you've got a big manual, try breaking it down into different parts and also
do an audio and video version. Think creatively and you'll come up
with your own premium priced products.

3 Reasons Why You Are Not Making Money Online

Why am I not making money?

That is the question a lot on new Internet marketers ask themselves. They wonder why they are yet to make money despite all the hype surrounding Internet marketing saying how easy it is.

If you’ve ever asked yourself that question, it’s time for you to do a self-appraisal. I’ve identified three (3) reason preventing you from making money online and what to do about them.

Reason One: You’re Waiting To Start

A lot of people want to make money online yet they don’t do anything about it. They don’t create a product, they don’t build a list, they don’t build a website. They don’t do anything.

The blunt truth is that you can never make money if you don’t do anything. You simply have to create an offer and drive people to it. There is no other way round it.

Reason Two: You Don’t Know What To Do

I’ve seen people coming online with the aim of making money online and yet they don’t find out what works and what doesn’t work. This is the highway to failure.

You have to equip yourself with quality information that will eliminate as much risk as possible. You have to pay for quality information because no one will give out his best money making information for FREE.

Reason Three: You Gave Up After Your First Attempt

This happens every time. A person comes online, loses $20 and withdraws thinking that the Internet marketing is a waste of time and money.

The truth is that if you quit, you will be the loser. Others will continue making money online while you will be going on about how Internet marketing doesn’t work.

If you lose some money, the best thing you should do is re-evaluate. Ask questions and find out what you did wrong. Correct it and give it another shot. That is the way to success.

Ask yourself if these reasons apply to you. If it does, it’s time to change the way you used to do it. Keep on doing the same thing and you will get the same results. But take another approach and you can expect something different.

A Great Way to Get a Logo (or Other Graphic) Designed

Working on some new projects under the "Work Yourself Up!" name and decided to get a logo.  Instead of going to my normal design team, who've designed everything from company logos, to web sites, to the books you see linked to the right, I decided to hit the contest page at SitePoint.com and look for new talent.

How it works:

1. Post something on the forum with what you want and how much it's worth to you.  This will run you about $40.

2. Designers come to you with their ideas.

3. You pick one.

This is great, because you get to see concepts before paying for them.  I love working with my regular team, and have done about 11 books with them, three sites, a couple of logos, stationery, and tons of other stuff, but as talented as they are, I wanted to see what a bunch of different designers could come up with on this one.

Here is the thread with sample logos which have been submitted so far.

Have had a good experience so far.  Will keep you posted on what I do...

$1,000,000/year Teaching Music Online?!

Sounds hard to believe, but you'll see it's 100% real when he pulls up a video with his sales stats.  Very impressive.

And this system doesn't just work for teaching music...it will work for your business, too.

As many of you know, I work in the music business, I can personally tell you that, if you can make something happen there, you can make it happen anywhere.  Musicians are notorious for their "starving artist" mindset.  Think about what you can do with a market that doesn't have that working against them?

TeachMusicOnline.com has all the details.

2 Free Traffic Techniques

The importance of having targeted traffic to your website cannot be over emphasised. Without traffic, your website is as good as dead.

No one will buy your products

No one will join your list

No one will click your Adsense ads

Your site will look like a graveyard.

To make money online, you simply have to attract targeted traffic to your website. That is the only way.

To attract targeted traffic can however cost big money. Cost of Adwords is skyrocketing day by day. You have to look for alternatives. Free ones precisely.

These simple traffic techniques below are free to use for anybody.

1. Post comments on blogs

Always visit other people’s blogs to place your comments. Whenever you receive a notification that a new post has been made, go there right away to post your comments.

Make sure you leave your website link behind. Leave useful comments and never in any way advertise your sire. Your comments will be deleted if you do.

The people that read your comments may click through to your websites if you leave great comments. Not only that, you will have lots of incoming links to your website which is good for your search engine rankings.

2. Sell your products on eBay

Ebay is a hotbed of shoppers. They’re already ready to buy. Simply put your product in front of them and you’ll get new sales.

Register for an account at eBay. You will start by registering for a buyer account then you can register for a seller account.

If your product is digital, you can write it on a CD to deliver so it gives your it more value.

These two traffic techniques are guaranteed to work. They are very simple to implement and can be done right away.

Don’t be deceived by the simplicity. They are brutally effective.

Low Investment Internet Marketing

One of the biggest problems for new internet marketers is learning how to advertise their products, affiliate products, or websites without spending a small fortune in PPC ads.  Luckily, there are several fantastic ways to go about this, some of which can help you to lower the costs of your PPC campaigns while others require no investment at all.  Let’s take a look at some of these methods for lowering the amount of investment you need to make when marketing products or services.

First, there are a few great methods for reducing the costs of your PPC ad campaigns.  Poorly constructed campaigns can drain your money faster than almost any other form of online marketing, and if you are a beginner, chances are you are making some crucial mistakes that are costing you big time! 

Keyword-targeted campaigns are the most commonly used campaigns, so keywords are either your best friends or your worst enemies.  Many sources of internet marketing “knowledge” seem to state that giant lists of general keywords are the best route for pulling traffic.  While this does pull lots of traffic, short, general keywords are more often than not the downfall of an otherwise good campaign.  Lots of traffic equates into lots of per-click costs.  General keywords, however, do not generally bring converting traffic.  The thing to remember about traffic is this – one highly-targeted potential buyer is worth thousands of non-targeted non-buyers.

Trim your keywords and remove general, slightly-related terms that are only meant to pull more people in.  These keywords, in almost every case, will not convert.  They will also cost you quite a bit more per click.  Go for the long-tail keywords and the highly-targeted keywords.  Allow me to explain.

Long tail keywords are keywords that consist of four or more words.  Let’s say you’re selling a product to teach people to make money online.  “Make money online”, “make money”, “earn money”, and similar search terms are some of the most awful keywords you could possibly use, as these are some of the most over-used and therefore over-priced keywords possible!  Use some keyword programs and sites to get some long-tail keywords however, and you may end up with a list with keywords such as “earn more money online today”, “make money as an internet marketer”, “how do I make more money online”, etc.  These terms are going to pull less traffic, but if you put together a good number of long-tails, you will still pull a substantial number of hits.  The great part is that long-tail keywords are going to cost you substantially less than the general keywords, and therefore you get twice the traffic for half the price. 

Highly-Targeted keywords are keywords such as “Buy product”, “Purchase product”, and “Order product”.  These terms are very specific, and will bring in those searchers who are ready to purchase a product right now.  This is some of the best traffic your site will see!

Site-Targeted campaigns in Google are an often overlooked but highly profitable way of running a campaign.  Find the sites at the top of an organic search for your keywords, put them into your site-targeted campaign, and watch those sites’ traffic filter into yours for a fraction of the cost of PPC. 

Finally, one of the most effective marketing methods is also free!  Article marketing has proven to be one of the best ways to drive quality traffic to your site.  The best part about article marketing, aside from being free, is that your articles can bring traffic for months or even years!  This is a cumulative effort – the more articles you write and put out there, the more traffic will continue coming to your site.  It’s brilliant, it’s easy, and it’s free – give it a shot!

This Guy Makes $1,000,000/year by Teaching Piano

I've mentioned Jermaine Griggs several times on this blog and in my newsletters on the music business. Online marketing people should also take note of him, because he took a tiny niche and turned it into a $3,000,000 business.

Jermaine started with $70 bucks when he was just 17-years old... and that was for the domain name, hearandplay.com.  (Domains used to be $35/year and you had to initially purchase them for two years.)

What I love about his story is that he went with his passion.  I don't want to ruin it, because I am in the process of setting up an audio interview with Jermaine and I'm going to let him tell it to you himself, but let's just say he went from living in the inner city of Long Beach, CA to being one of the highest paid piano teachers in the world.

Did I mention he teaches people ONLY how to play by ear? Who says you can't turn a tiny niche into a fortune?!

LISTEN UP!!

Jermaine is launching a private club on Tuesday, October 23, where he's going to reveal each month, everything he's done to build his company from $70 to over $3 million in the last few years in such an obscure niche.  You'll want to be part of this.

Here is a sneak peak.

Rush over to see what he's doing and keep checking back for that interview I'm doing with him.

Affiliate Marketing - Alternatives to Clickbank

Entering the affiliate marketing game can be a ruthless and frustrating exercise in futility these days.  There are gobs of people attempting to make it big online as affiliate marketers, and those numbers definitely play against you when it comes to PPC and organic search engine optimization.  It can be very costly to begin drawing traffic, and in many cases you still won’t get the kind of traffic you’re looking for.  Let’s look at a few things you can do to shift the odds in your favor.

First and foremost, learn to write articles.  Article marketing is free and will bring you quality, targeted traffic for months and months.  It takes awhile to learn to use PPC and profit, so allow yourself to dabble in PPC while focusing in article marketing for the time being.  You will find plenty of prospective buyers without spending a penny in advertising.

Next, let’s get to the real topic of this article – finding alternatives to Clickbank.  Why?  Because Clickbank is oversaturated with affiliates and want-to-be-affiliates, so your competition is very steep.  The most popular Clickbank products, the ones that really sell, will cost you a fortune in PPC campaigns.  It is surprising that so many beginning affiliates do not realize how unnecessary Clickbank is.  The only real benefit to Clickbank is convenience, in that you can search products all in one place, you get paid from one source, and you only need one account to do so.  The benefits of using other sources, in my experience, have far outweighed those conveniences.  Let’s look at some other options.

Did you know that most sites offer their own affiliate programs?  Do a search for a general topic that you want to find products for.  Find several of the top organic search results pages that actually offer a product for sale.  Now scroll to the bottom of those pages (in most cases).  On many of these sites, you will find a link for “Affiliates”, “Join Affiliate Program”, “Partners” or “Become a Partner”.  There are other variations, but it should be obvious that you are seeing an affiliate program.  Click there and sign up with the sites that you want to promote with.  Many direct affiliate programs offer more options and better commissions than Clickbank programs, and you have the added benefit of competing against much smaller numbers.  Try to pick programs that don’t also have a program with Clickbank, or you wind up in the same position as before.

By going straight to the product vendors and becoming affiliated with them, you put yourself in the unique position of being one of the very small percentage of online affiliates who are working with individual companies, which gives you a great competitive edge.  It’s amazing to see a campaign that costs almost nothing yield great results, when having been accustomed to watching expensive campaigns hemorrhage your money.  Cutting yourself away from the masses of Clickbank affiliates is one of the best advantages you can give yourself.  Let the professionals dominate, and let the want-to-be’s through away their money.  This way, neither of those will stop you from taking your cut, nor cause you to pay far more than you should for PPC ads.

Product Creation for Dummies

The best way to make money online, bar none, is to have your own product to sell.  Of course, it helps if that product is something needed, and if your niche is willing to shell out money for it.  There are some important factors to look at when creating a product.  Let’s take a look at how you can come up with your own wildly profitable product to sell online.

First and foremost, the biggest mistake most product creators make is creating a product first and attempting to find an audience second.  You should actually go about this in reverse.  Find a market, with an audience of thousands of people who want something, and then create a product to fit their needs.  This is a simple tip, but the most important one as far as having a product that is profitable.  Thousands of unwanted products sit online everyday and never make a sale.  This problem could have been remedied with a little research first.

Secondly, try to find not only a market that wants something, but a market that wants it desperately!  Information products do especially well on this point, and many of the most successful products are merely those that were marketed correctly to a desperate audience.  As you may know, internet marketers are desperate to make money online.  When was the last time you spent $97 on an e-book to help you do so?  Teens and adults who suffer from excessive acne are desperate to learn about what lifestyle changes or miracle cures are available to clear up their skin.  Someone worried about a pregnancy, a wedding, or a divorce would be desperate to get quick access to answers to the questions they have.  Pick a desperate audience and supply them with the answers they want, and your product will be a winner!

Finally, be prepared to step outside your comfort zone.  Maybe you found a market for some information that is simply not within your knowledge zone.  Spend a couple of days researching that topic, via Google, online forums, professional help articles, and through any other means at your disposal.  What you will find is that in most cases, you can gather the data you need from many different sources and then piece it together into one cohesive product fairly easily.  It’s not that most buyers couldn’t do the same thing, but they’re paying for the convenience of instant answers and not needing to research ad nauseum.  If two days of research yields you ten years of product profits, isn’t that a worthy investment?

So keep in mind, the most important part of product creation is to discover a product that needs to be created!  Find a market that is looking for something, and fulfill that need.  Then begin your online marketing efforts, and watch the cash flow in!