The Blog of Mark Shilensky

Archive for the ‘Internet Marketing’ Category

I’ve been involved in Internet Marketing and especially Affiliate Marketing, today I had the chance to review an amazing new product called Commission Blueprint that was created by Steve Clayton and Tim Godfrey.  This is a complete training package about how to maximize both affiliate profits and click-thrus using Clickbank and Google Adwords in combination.  This course is, according to the authors “a no-holds barred step-by-step course showing every last secret we know”.

This product consists of a one-time $97 charge for both videos and training manuals that provide more details and examples of some of the more technical material discussed in the videos.

The Creators

Tim Godfrey is an internet marketer that has been successful in the health and golf niches and ran a very profitable online gambling website.

Steve Clayton is an expert on marketing and technology and was a VP for a Fortune 500 company in North Carolina and currently manages over $1,000,000 in Google Adwords campaigns each year.

Commission Blueprint: The Product

The videos are narrated by the creators.  In all there are more than three hours of video that explains how they creators used this exact system to become a super affiliate with Clickbank.  This product claims to be a step-by-step training in how to find the best Clickbank products to use with the system and what you need to do to get the most out of marketing these products.

What’s Included in the Product:

• Keyword Research
  • How to pick four to six products and test them for profitably
  • How to avoid making the costly mistakes of paying too much for Adwords and lose money rather than make a profit
  • Explained how to read and understand all of the statistics that Clickbank provides
  • Defined the terms Clickbank gravity, cost per click, conversion rate, commission payout and click inventory then explained why they are important
  • Showed how to use a spreadsheet that is part of the product to decide if a product is worth marketing and explained what number combinations make a product worth pursuing
  • Demonstrated tools that he uses for keyword research
  • Provided a formula to determine which keywords are profitable and how much you should pay for them
  • Performed a step by step demonstration on how to do keyword research and use Google Adwords statistics to analyze them to determine which one are most likely to be profitable for you to use
  • Showed how to estimate the amount of traffic for a given keyword using google’s free tools
• Domain Names and Hosting
  • Steve explained why you need a domain name and what factors you should consider when selecting one such as length and demonstrated a few tools to help you choose good keywords
  • Explained the best type of web hosting to buy to make running your business easier
  • Explained how to use domain names in your Adwords ads
  • Demonstrated how to set up the correct DNS server for your domain name
• Creating Landing Pages for Adwords Campaigns
  • Explained how to set up landing pages and what you need to do to get a good quality score from google and how to create a page that will sell your product
  • Explained how to make sure there is sufficient continuity between the Adwords ad, the search term, the story you are telling and the offer made by the Clickbank product and why it is important
• Managing Adwords Campaigns
  • Explained how to use the Adwords information in combination with the data from Clickbank to manage your keyword ad campaigns for profitability
  • Demonstrated how to determine which keywords are not converting well enough to prevent losing money
  • Explained why you need to use Adwords Editor
  • Showed how to optimize your ad position and click through rate
• Scaling Your Affiliate Business
  • Explained how to scale your business (how to increase your daily commissions)
  • Discussed the methods that have proven successful for increasing your earnings as your campaign matures
  • Demonstrated how to optimize your bids to increase profitability
  • Discussed when it’s time to move your ad campaign over to both Yahoo and MSN
  • Discussed when it makes sense to do offline advertising
  • Discussed when to use email campaigns or JV with other marketers
  • Discussed when to start using SEO for you campaigns
  • Discussed when to use opt in pages
  • Explained how to create Thank You pages
• Cash Flow
  • Explained how Clickbank pays out its commissions so you know how to budget your money to pay for your Adwords campaign and made several recommendations on how to manage your budget
  • Explained why you need to get a tax advisor and/or an accountant to prevent problems with the IRS if you live in the USA

Conclusion

Once you get through the introductory fluff in videos 1 & 2, this is an excellent product that will benefit anyone trying to get an affiliate marketing business up and running.  The templates provided in the package are very well designed and work perfectly with the system presented in the videos and manuals.  They provide templates for: a review site, a sales letter, and two for opt-in pages.  The opt-in page allows you to insert your own video and is great for the technically challenged.

For More Information and To Purchase This Package, CLICK HERE!

Ok. I admit it.

>> I LOVE blogs! <<

And thankfully, so does Google

For getting targeted traffic and high search engine rankings, blogs can’t be beat.

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The Controversy Around Corporate Blogging By Mark Shilensky

Corporate blogging is a relatively new idea, and the jury is still out on whether it will succeed. This controversial marketing tool may be the beginning of a new kind of advertising strategy, or it may fizzle out in a matter of months. Many companies are looking for ways to capitalize on the blogging trend, and many of these corporations have determined that a great way to ride the blogging wave is to keep a blog on their corporate website. These blogs are often created to appeal to the demographic that the company needs to court, and the content may have quite a lot to do with the activities of the corporation, or it may have very little to do with the company itself. Often, a corporate blog will focus on the kinds of content likely to attract the desired surfers, even if that content is not related to the product or service that the company provides.

Some bloggers feel that corporate blogging is a kind of validation for the blogging movement, and shows that this exciting new medium has really infiltrated the mainstream. Other bloggers consider the kind of viral marketing that corporate blogs practice to be unethical or distasteful. In any case, watching the evolution of corporate blogs and whether they survive and proliferate or fail and disappear promises to provide some interesting insight into today’s consumers.

Learning How to Make Money Blogging by Mark Shilensky

There are two major types of business models that entrepreneurs use to make money blogging. The first and most common way to turn a blog into a profit making machine is to sell advertising to different companies and brands who want to reach that blog’s readers. The second kind of money making blog is one that helps a single brand improve its image by creating positive associations between the blog and the product in the mind of consumers. Both kinds of blogs can make a lot of money, especially if the creator has a keen mind for marketing.

If you are blogging with the goal of selling advertising, there are two basic ways that you can go about recruiting sponsors who want to put ads on your site; you can let someone else do all of the legwork, or you can do the work yourself and keep all of the revenue. Within the first group, many people make money blogging by selling space through Google’s AdSense program. The advantages of this program are numerous, as it requires very little effort on the part of the blogger or webmaster to begin raking in profits. However, most people discover that they make less money through this method than they had hoped that their blog would earn.

Selling advertising directly to companies who want to put banner ads or sponsored links on your blog can take quite a bit of time, but it is often fairly lucrative. If you have a lot of contacts in industries that are related to the topic of your blog, you may want to try to go this route. People who have a strong background in sales and are experienced at pitching proposals can make quite a bit of money by renting blog space to interested companies. The most serious problem with this model is that you often have to build quite a sizable readership before you can attract advertisers, which can mean that you have to do several months of work before you start to make money blogging.

As blogging becomes a more and more lucrative business, a lot of established companies are considering how they can get into the action. One way that companies are capitalizing on the blog movement is by having blogs that provide a kind of friendly face for their corporation. Often, a company will employ an established blogger to create a weblog designed specifically to appeal to that company’s customers and to create positive associations with the brand in consumers’ minds. More than one writer who never even dreamed that he or she could make money blogging has been approached by a company and offered quite a pretty penny for this kind of gig.

Three Ways to Build a Successful Membership Site

Membership sites are built by providing access to specific
information that consumers are in need of. Successful sites provide
convenient, sought-after information in an accessible manner. Content
is king, and finding and distributing much-needed content on your site
will make it both successful and profitable.

To bring potential subscribers into your membership site, focus on
their needs. Information consumers have a need for useful content on
their topic of choice, a need to know the newest information, and a
need for a sense of belonging. By meeting each of these needs, and
demonstrating how you plan to do so in your sales letter, you are on
your way to increasing your membership.

First, you’ll need to consider which topics are profitable. What
content is highly in demand at the moment? What do people need
information about? What do people want to know how to do? If you are
answering a frequently asked question, you just may have the right
topic for your membership site. Spend some time on forums, and notice
what questions pop up repeatedly. Find answers to those questions. Find
products that teach skills people want to know. Market to this need for
useful content, and you’ve got a great start!

Next, consider that some potential subscribers may already know the
information you found in your above search. Each market will have
subscribers with basic, intermediate, and advanced knowledge – you want
to sell your memberships to all three types. Research the newest,
hottest information on your topic of choice. Did a new method of
organizing widgets just hit the media? Be sure you have updates on this
information for your widgets membership site. Provide your members with
hot new products and information, to ensure they keep coming back for
more.

Last, cater to your members need to belong to a group. Potential
subscribers, like most people, want be part of successful groups of
like-minded people. Market your site as just the group they want to
join. Check in with your members often through forums and email
newsletters, and be sure that new members know they can ask you for
help if needed. Provide a sense of community, and pride in that
community. This will help ensure that your new subscribers become
steady subscribers.

When building your membership site, focus on profitable topics. Be
sure to include new, up to date information for subscribers with an
intermediate to advanced knowledge of your topic. Work hard to build a
community of like-minded individuals. This will ensure your continued
success in your site-building efforts.

For more information on how you can set up your own membership site, visit  Membership Academy. At Membership Academy there are comparisons, reviews, forums and videos on membership software and payment systems. You can also discover how to start-up and run your own profitable membership site.

Photo and Video Blogging May be the Pinnacle of Modern Technology by Mark Shilensky

Many people feel that photo blogging is the most exciting kind of blogging that exists. Building and maintaining a photo blog is no more difficult than creating and updating a text-based blog, and many people feel that the internet’s high speed, full-color technology reaches the pinnacle of its appeal with the transmission of images. Posting photographs in a blog format on a daily, weekly, or occasional basis is a great way to express yourself while reaching viewers in an emotionally charged and aesthetically engaging way, and surfing photo blogs can help you to get a whole new perspective on the world in which we live.

Many people who run image blogs are photographers by trade, but photo blogging is also very popular among hobbyists and amateur shutterbugs. To be certain, a lot of the most popular photo blogs have gained attention because the pictures on them are of the highest artistic caliber, and a lot of the people who run these striking blogs are graduates of prestigious art schools and have impressive professional portfolios. However, some of the most well known and most often visited photo blogs are as notable for their concepts as for the pictures themselves. Certain photo blogs, like the popular “Cute Overload” which features picture after picture of adorable animals, are more about the thematic content of the pictures than they are about the style in which the snapshots are taken.

The fact that photo blogs range from forums to display the work of highly skilled artisans to playful collections of curiosities shows that photo blogging is a truly diverse form. The fact that photo blogs are so easy to build and to update makes this kind of visual communication very democratic, and enables people at all skill levels to become a part of the global conversation about the nature and value of photography
today.

Whether you are an artist or hobbyist who wants to create a photo blog, or whether you are just somebody who enjoys learning about new places and things, spending some time looking at the most popular photography blogs on the internet can be a very rewarding endeavor. You can travel to another place or another time by seeing pictures of faraway locations and long-gone eras. You can see your own neighborhood with fresh eyes by discover how local artists have photographed the town or city in which you live. Photo blogging allows people to communicate all of these things and more, which makes it a very exciting part of the modern blogosphere. If the best thing about web technology is that it allows people to reach each other in a very personal way from across great distances, then in many ways photo blogs are the most successful kind of web sites.