Niche Diamonds

John’s Story Part 2

Dec 6, 2008 Advanced, Beginner, articles 1 Comment

For part one of John’s Story, click here.

 

Original by Noahwesley

 

 

John’s Main Marketing And Traffic Technique

 

In the pre-Internet days, if you were selling something, you found the publication to advertise in that was best for your product. The publication got the traffic (readers); therefore you did not have to do any marketing! But now with the Internet, you not only have to create a good looking web site – you must also get the traffic to the web site to even look at what you are selling! There are zillions of sites (competition) in cyberspace. Do you know how hard it to master Internet traffic optimization?  So if you want to get instant traffic, John says to do what he does. John says the logical place to advertise is on a heavily trafficked site and let someone else provide the traffic for you, sorta like a piggyback ride.

 

John will perform a keyword search on Google and look for sites that are semi-related to his product. Then John goes to quantcast.com and looks up the statistics for those sites. He only likes sites that are getting more than 750,000 people visits per month. Quantcast has two versions of monthly traffic: visits per month and people per month. The same person may visit the same web site several times per month so you want the people count, not the visit count.

 

John does not like a lot of other people’s banners on his site. At most, he might do a banner exchange of three.  A banner exchange is when you contact a web master or site owner and put their banner on your site and they agree to put your banner on their site. There is no charge for doing a banner exchange.

 

However, John prefers to pay a monthly charge to put his banner on the front page of a heavily trafficked site, preferably one that is somewhat related to what John he is selling. John knows it may cost $800 per month or more to advertise his banner on a heavy trafficked site, but he knows it is worth it. He thinks of all the moolah he will be making and he is happy to pay for the advertising.

 

 

Tidbits I got from John

 

• Money occurs to poor people as something you have (or don’t have).
• Money occurs to middle-class people as something you do (like a job).
• Money occurs to wealthy people as something you are.

 

“If you wish to know the road up the mountain, ask the person who goes back and forth on it,” said the ancient sage. What better way is there to know the secrets of making a million dollars than to learn from those who have done it?

 

                            Ability is what you’re capable of doing. 

                              Motivation determines what you do. 

                           Attitude determines how well you do it.

 

 

There is no one path to the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but many people of all backgrounds have been successful in obtaining it. We hope you enjoy all of the nuggets in this book.

 

 

John’s Money Habits to Live by

 

The three most important money habits are

• 1. A habit to earn money, 
• 2. A habit to save money, and 
• 3. A habit to compound money.

 

 

Millionaire Myths

 

The biggest myth of all is that owning a business will allow you to quit your job and make big money. Many times you are just trading one job for another. Look at all of the “mom and pop” businesses around.

The next biggest myth is that you need a college education to be successful. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Just look at this list below.

• Bill Gates, Microsoft founder – Harvard dropout in his junior year.
• Steve Jobs, Apple Computers founder – dropped out of college after one semester. 
• Michael Dell, Dell Computers founder – college dropout at the age of 19.
• Simon Cowell of American Idol fame, Record Producer – high school dropout.
• Richard Branson, Billionaire & the Virgin brand founder – high school dropout.
• Milton Hershey only had a 4th grade education yet established the Hershey’s chocolate business.
• And the list goes on and on.

There are a lot of self-made millionaires who started with little or no education, and with little or no money. All they had was a vision and determination. John says he barely made it through high school and had very little money whe he started his web site.

 

Your Business Image

 

Interaction:  Remember the difference when interacting with each of these groups:

 

• Superiors/bosses/authority figures: Be respectable, but keep your distance. 
• Peers/colleagues/friends: Relax and be yourself. 
• Inferiors/those who work for you: Be aloof and keep your distance.   Mind your manners – aloof does not mean arrogant.

 

Note: You cannot be friends with superiors or inferiors. Do not discuss your personal life with members of these two groups. You should be professional at all times when in the presence of superiors or inferiors.

 

Manners: No matter what the situation or whom you are interacting with, always be polite and courteous. If you are not current on manners then we suggest going to your nearest library or bookstore and getting a book on the topic. People always remember well-mannered persons. ALWAYS.

 

 

Quick De-Stress Formulas

 

• Take a quick shower (water revives and soothes the soul) and grab a cup of tea or cocoa or a glass of water. 
• Step outside and smell the fresh air for a moment. 
• Take the palms of both hands and cover your face and take ten deep breaths (this helps to equalize your body’s oxygen level and soothes the soul).

 

 

Surefire Way To Predict The Future

 

• Write the prediction down.
• Write the reason or reasons for the prediction.
• If you were right, write down why you were right.
• If you were wrong, write down why you were wrong. 
• Adjust the next prediction accordingly. 
• Eventually, you will start getting it right, and it will become easier and easier to predict the future.

 

Surefire Way To Control Your Destiny

 

• If you will cling to a goal, as if you are clinging to that last bit of oxygen in a tunnel, and NEVER give up — you will meet your destiny head on. 
• Use all of your abilities, opportunities, connections, etc., which are available to you, to reach your goal.
• You may have to make some adjustments, change directions, or change paths along the way, but do not view this as failing.  Rather, view this as moving towards your monetary goal.
• Do not let any obstacle stand in your way! Go under it, over it, around it, remove it – do whatever it takes – but keep moving forward to your monetary goal. Ninjas keep their eye on the end goal and do not let anything sidetrack them from reaching that goal. John says you should be like a Ninja.

 

Surefire Way To Build Self-Confidence

 

• Do some things that you thought you could not do.
• Start with small and simple tasks.
• After you succeed, aim for more difficult tasks.
• After your confidence builds, keep doing this periodically.

 

Cool and Useful Links

 

http://www.attractionmindmap.com/  - A nice site for positive thinkers.

http://www.dnaz.net/ - A free domain name analyzer.

http://www.seochat.com/  - An excellent site for Google SEO info and tools.

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal - Google keyword tool.

http://www.isitebuild.com/google-adwords.htm  - Google Adword/PPC campaign tutorial.

http://www.webseo.com.au/generator.html - Meta tag generator tool.

http://www.gosmallbiz.com/internet/  - Very helpful ideas listed here.

http://www.ezau.com/  - Home business webmaster tips.

http://www.knowthis.com/ - A marketing virtual library.

http://www.freebyte.com/  A good portal to the free web.

http://www.jooz.com/ - A nice collection for home business webmasters.

http://www.webmasterforumsonline.com/  - Lots of information.

 

Stirring the Pot

 

The important thing to do is to get your name and product in front of as many people on this planet as possible.  This is called advertising, public relations, marketing, and “stirring the pot”. 

 

You do this by GETTING THE WORD OUT.  How?  There are two ways and they are the Traditional method and the Internet.  A comprehensive list is below. 

 

Non-Internet Stirring the Pot

• Newspaper ads are the most popular. 
• Some other ways are outdoor billboards and Movie Theater advertising.
• Printed “give aways” such as bookmarks, mouse pads, ink pens, etc. 
• Infomercials, radio ads, TV ads, and magazine ads.
• Magnetic car signs, brochures, and leaflets. 
• Include your web address on all printed matter such as letterheads, business cards, fax cover sheets, etc. 
• Volunteer to help at high publicity charitable functions. 
• Send press releases to magazines and newspapers.
• Yellow page ads.
• Trade Shows.
• Direct Mail Campaigns.

 

Caution:

I do not recommend the following at all but do mention a few words:

If you do any kind of telemarketing then please make sure you know the telemarketing laws for the state you are calling from and to. 

 

Traditional Marketing with a Techie Twist:

Create an audio or video CD with some free info about a particular subject (and also include your web address and other contact details). Hand these out everywhere like you would a business card. People are less likely to throw away your CD.  

 

Internet Stirring the Pot

• Banner programs
• List in Directories such as Yahoo
• Start an online radio station http://www.blogtalkradio.com/
• Press releases
• Link exchanges
• Traffic exchanges
• Pay-per-click
• Newsletter ads
• Networking with webmasters
• Message boards
• Classified ads
• Online shopping malls
• Print your web address on all signature lines used in emails, business e-cards, articles, etc.
• List on trade boards
• Group advertising (MSN, Google, and Yahoo groups and news groups)
• Write an e-zine 
• Use social sites such as MySpace, Twitter and FaceBook.
• Exit exchanges
• Buy Expired domains and Redirect the traffic to your site.
• Mail list building and up sell.
• Write articles and promote them at places like http://ezinearticles.com/ and on a http://www.squidoo.com/ lens. Be sure to include a link back to your site in your signature line.
• Put free articles on your web site
• Email campaign – Give people an option to sign up for your e-zine or newsletter whenever you send an email out. Include a link and an offer in the email. 
• Contact webmasters with sites related to your product. If they sell gold coins, you might write a free report (that they put on their site) about investing in gold and include a link back to your gold jewelry web site in the report.
• Get listed on Google. 
• Podcasts. It is web site audio that is sent free of charge to an iPod or other audio player. Feedlinks are RSS, XML, PHP. Go to http://www.podcastalley.com/ for more info or to post a podcast. http://www.feedforall.com/podcasting-tutorial.htm to learn how to prepare a podcast step-by-step. Another great site is http://www.podomatic.com/  – create and send podcasts and videocasts.
• Forum Posting and Discussions (http://www.webproworld.com/) 
• Put free tools for use on your web site. This keeps people coming back to your site. 
• Put a Calendar of Events on your site. This also keeps people coming back to your site. Example – You could list money seminars around the country if money is your main topic.
• And don’t forget the power of You Tube! Post a video there and get it seen around the world by thousands in one day if it is a popular video. There are a lot of sites and books that offer information about how to do a video and post it. Very easy really. http://www.youtube.com/ has instructions how to make a video and post it. Popular videos are usually very funny or very controversial. 

 

COMMENTS:

 

There are still more methods available then we have listed here.  You can easily do a little research and find more.

I do not recommend using FFA’s, safe lists, nor pop up or pop under advertising.  Please don’t annoy people.

When purchasing traffic, try to purchase TARGETED traffic who also read the same language your web site was composed in.

You can send marketing emails BUT if you send email please make sure that you comply with the Can-spam Act, http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm 

I strongly suggestt using unsolicited emails — most of these are usually discarded without being read anyway. 

Just a little time, effort and research can go a long way.

 

Give your name as much as exposure as possible.  Self promote, self promote, self promote until you can outsource all of your work. To save money, you can hire grad students studying marketing, public relations and the Internet, or undergraduates, at any university. A lot of college students will do a joint venture with you – they will work for free on your advertising campaign or creating a product – just for a share of the profits.

 

John says you must take action and do something if you want to fill your bank account with lots of money.

John’s Story Part 1

Dec 5, 2008 articles Leave a comment

Note: I know I’ve promised to write about article marketing, but I received a few mails and tweets of ‘desperate’ people, trying to make a few bucks online, but just don’t know how. So I had this story gathering digital dust, and I want to share it with you over a few posts, so you don’t get overwhelmed. Hapy reading, I hope you learn something, and even more, that you APPLY it and turn it into money in your pocket. Let’s get started.

 

Original by Cayusa

 

 

Introduction

 

The story I am about to tell you is a true story. I tell it to you for these purposes:

* to inspire you and give you hope if you have been struggling with Internet marketing.
* to give you ideas to expound on.
* to give you a method you can use.
* to give you a story to glean nuggets from and use one or more of those nuggets for your specific situation.

Although this is a true story, I have changed the name of the actual person I am writing about in order to protect his identity. I have chosen to use the name John for the sake of this posts.

John is an American, born and raised in the American Heartland. He grew up in a very dysfunctional household. He never cared much about schooling and barely made it through high school. To this day, his written English is very poor and his spoken English leaves much to be desired.

John worked blue collar labor jobs after high school such as a janitor, grill cook, ditch digger, etc. He would drift from one job to another. One by one, his parents and all of his siblings passed away. John had no one to turn for help if he could not work for any reason.

So now, John was 40 years old, living paycheck to paycheck, and becomes depressed. He starts reading about wisdom. John, one day, decides that he needs a plan, not just any plan but a great plan, one that will allow him to break away from all of these backbreaking menial jobs.

He sits down and starts writing and comes up with this plan:
1. continue working a “real” job to pay bills.
2. live frugally and save all the money possible.
3. study the Internet in spare time.
4. start an Internet business.

So John studies and studies in his spare time and then John starts his first Internet business. The first business was an Internet business that sold non-Internet data to businesses in need of that data. He bought this data from another company at a good price and then just marketed it up and resold it. (I will tell you his secrets later. Please just keep reading his story for now.)

John then took the money from this first business and put it into developing his marketing techniques. He got quite good at marketing and sales. He started making good money, so much so, that now he could quit his day job. But John wasn’t just satisfied with one Internet business and just “getting by”, so he started a second Internet business while keeping the first one going. The second business was a virtual bookstore that sold “hard to find” hard cover books. John was getting quite good at doing research and finding things other people could not.

He noticed that one book in particular was selling really well so he now started researching that particular topic. He then put together his own book based on research he performed; and then John added an informational CD and also a DVD, both of which he also made.

Ladies and Gentlemen, today, as I write this, John is now consistently making $5000 per week, but a lot of times it is much more than that. I have witnessed him having $20,000 days. He has 3 employees working for him fulltime and he paid cash for a new car.

By now, all of you reading this must be wondering, how does John do this? I am going to streamline his ideas about the Internet for you. These ideas do not always fit the norm as you have been led to believe, BUT they do work because I have seen them work firsthand. So please keep an open mind.

I will now share with you these ideas, methods, secrets or whatever you want to call them.

They are not in any particular order.

The information herein cost John a lot of time and money to figure everything out so that he could make big bucks consistently with the Internet.

Please read through these Internet marketing ideas with an open mind. Some of the ideas you may already know about, some you may reject, and others you may want to apply to your Internet business.

These are not the total sum of John’s ideas. He has zillions more. But for starters I enclose some of the highlights which I have gleaned from John. He did not start an Internet business one day and then one week later, voilá!, he was rich. It was a slow learning process for John. But now, three years later, he can sit back and live quite comfortably. Oh, and one other thing, John is always studying the current market trends. He said that when one of his three Internet businesses starts to fizzle out, he must be ready with a new hot sizzling idea to replace it.

 

John’s Ideas

 

Now the first key to his success was that he had a real income to pay his bills while he started his Internet business. John says to keep your bills paid and put all of your extra income back into your Internet business.

How many times has someone sat at home with no job, no money, and piles of bills and past due notices and then wanted to make $10,000 in 24 hours with the Internet and they don’t even know a thing about Internet marketing? Really, if it were that easy to do, wouldn’t everyone be doing it?

John says don’t quit your day job. Once you make enough money consistently from your Internet business venture to sustain you financially, then you can quit your day job.

Next, you don’t get rich by doing certain things, you get rich by doing them a certain way. John developed a system and says you should too.

You must have a good system and then you must take action and implement that system, and then you must never deviate from that system until it stops making money. You can have as many as systems as you want to create.

John says it is impossible NOT to make money when you use a proven system.

The problem for most people who dream of making a zillion dollars is how to get from zero, or nearly zero, to a zillion dollars. That’s where the mental grid-lock happens. People can’t figure it out, give up, and get a job.
John says the solution to making money is having a good system and then never deviating from it so you do not have to start from scratch everyday.
Being wealthy is the end result of effort, perseverance, planning, and self-discipline. John gave up dating, splurging on extra desires, etc. until he “made it”.

 

John plays the numbers game 

 

• If you want to earn one million dollars in one year, all you need to do is make just $2739.73 per day.
• Duplication is the key to the numbers game.
• “Devise a way to make $1000 and replicate what you did 1,000 times” and you will have one million dollars. This is what John does.

Developing a unique business model to play the numbers game should be your number one priority. Again, many self-made millionaires made their millions by doing this.

John sells his developed products for expensive prices:

• a hard cover book for $250
• an audio and video CD for $750
• a DVD with 3.9 gigabytes of information for $2500

John says that if you sold one eBook for $10, then you would have to send out 40,000 emails per week to consistently make about $4000 per week. And this would be if you averaged 400 sales per week! John says that would be hard to do every week. Yet if you have just one product for $1000, then all you have to do is sell 4 items per week. John sells a lot of expensive items. John says that if an item is in demand, it will sell itself.

 

John says and does

 

• Study to identify an obscure hot niche’ and the main key words related to that niche’. (HINT: Check out the nonfiction bestsellers over at Amazon.)
• Get a top level domain name.
• Your web site name and url must have the HOTTEST keyword in it.
• It is best to create your own main foundational product.
• You can use other affiliate products related to your initial product as your upsell products.
• Only choose affiliate products that offer 50% or more in profits to you.
• Study the competition and blow them away. And John means blow. them. away. John is number one in what he sells.
• Have a ton of free info about your product on your site for your visitors to read. This gives you credibility. John’s web site has lots of pages with free information. People love going to John’s site.
• Do not put free reports, eBooks, etc. on your site for free download. John says it is better to put the info directly on your site.
• John does offer a free download of a 5 hour video if you give John the email addresses of five of your friends.
• Get visitor’s information when they visit your web site. Offer them a FREE V.I.P. membership which entitles them to product discounts or give them a free e-zine subscription. John does not like pop-ups. He says these cheapen a site and annoy people.
• Your web site must have awesome graphics. And I do mean awesome. 
• Your web site must be fast loading or people will click away from it.
• Your web site should have a contact phone number. John has an 800 number and an operator to take orders and answer basic questions. John will also personally call back people if they have detailed questions. John says that many times just having a contact phone number on the site will in itself make the sell.
• Conversations that are going to be extremely long upset John. He will tell a person they will have to pay him $300 to $1000 per hour to continue to talk to him.
• John says to offer large dollar items and follow up with personal phone calls. John does not like making less than $100 profit per item.
• John personally calls anyone who sends an email requesting more information before they make a purchase. He always gets the sell, and usually up sells too. John has no selling skills or expertise. People like John because he is just a regular guy and not a pushy salesman.
• John gets his business from buying HOT Google adwords and doing the Google PPC (pay per click) thing; up selling; referrals; search engine optimization of his site for Google; and his ultimate traffic comes from banners (more about this on a further post). That’s it.
• John writes articles, place links everywhere he can, etc. However, he says you should promote your site and product in the way that is best for you, in a future post of this series there are lots of promotion tactics. As for John, he just prefers being number one on Google when someone types in his keywords.
• John does NOT spare any expense when buying Google adwords.
• John studies the Google robot spider, meta-tags, keywords, etc. and applies this knowledge to his web site. He is always studying SEO (search engine optimization).
• John uses ACT software to keep track of everything.
• John advertises in real world publications, related to his products, about twice a year.
• John tries to outsource almost everything he does or hire employees to do the office work. He really doesn’t want to work too hard. “Work smart, not hard” is John’s motto.
• John does not try to monetize his site. He says this makes the site look cheap. You do not want a cheap looking site if you are trying to sell an expensive item.
• John favors money orders. He does not like chargebacks from credit card companies.
• John does not conduct tele-seminars, webinars, or have a blog. John is too busy spending his money to be bogged down with what he considers time wasters.
• John says that if you find a hot niche’ but you are having trouble creating a product, then you should do a joint venture with a freelancer. The freelancer creates the product and you sell it. You split the profits 50-50. The product MUST sell for over $200.
• John uses gmail.com, inbox.com and gmx.com for his email accounts.
• John does not like selling services. He only sells products. John says you can “up sell” a service related to your product if you have the time to do something like that.
• John does not have an affiliate program. But John sees nothing wrong with being an affiliate or offering an affiliate program. John does not like competition, so he does not bother with affiliates.
• John says please do not ask what he is selling. He does not like competition. John says to do your own research and find your own hot niche’.
• John says to be nice to people. It is okay to run specials or talk to a person and give them a break on the price. Just don’t do it everyday.

 

In a nutshell 

 

• John finds a hot niche’ and creates a very high dollar product for that hot niche.
• John builds a mind-blowing web site with awesome graphics.
• John optimizes his web site content and Meta tags for Google.
• John uses an Adword Pay Per Click campaign for Google only.
• John uses his banner idea for more traffic. (see next post for details)
• John uses employees to check the mailbox, package and ship his products, answer telephones and emails initially, process paperwork, and use his Act software.
• John continues to study and refine the steps above. He also continues to keep an eye on his competition.
• John is always looking for the next hot niche’ that has people craving more information than what is available.

 

on part 2 you’ll find

• John’s Main Marketing And Traffic Technique
• John’s Money Habits to Live by
• Millionaire Myths
• Quick De-Stress Formulas
• And much more

Win a Free Access to Santa’s Deal Time!

Dec 5, 2008 Freebies Leave a comment

Hi there

As you know, this is really not my M.O., but I just got some news from John Delavera, and here is how you can get access to Santa’s Deal Time
 this year (if you are 1 of the 5 winners).

Here is the contest and the rules:

1. Play the Game
2. When the game finishes you will be asked to insert  your name. Insert your FULL NAME and this id: 44285 Examples: J.Doe,44285 or Mary Smith,44285 etc.
3. You can play multiple times.
4. If you are 1 of the 5 top players on Dec. 7, 2008 at 9 AM EST, then you get EVERYTHING offered at [...] Continue Reading…

Explaining the absense

Dec 4, 2008 articles 1 Comment

Original: kevindooley
 

Hey all,

as promised, let me explain why I was absent from the internet for all this time.

It was actually a series of events. I don’t want to get too deep in it, but I have been in surgery in midst November, and I’m still recovering. Tracking back the hiatus, we have a ton of medical exams I had to make, the bills piling up, my regular J-O-B needing my attention so I didn’t leave loose threads, in case something went wrong, and on top of that, a sudden lack of energy and good mood.

I let it get to [...] Continue Reading…

my idea to really make a change in this holidays

Dec 2, 2008 news Leave a comment

Guys, sorry for the absense. I promise I’ll explain fully tomorrow, and I also promise I will make up for it.

For now, I leave you with this video. I hope you feel inspired after seeing it.

 

Article Page Length For Search Engines

Aug 17, 2008 Selling Online 101 Leave a comment

Note: This article is similar to Lesson # of our ‘Selling Online 101′ email course.

You’ve decided to create content for your web pages, but aren’t sure how many words each page should have to ensure that search engines and visitors come back often. It’s a dilemma that many web site owners face. They don’t want to have too little words, but they don’t want to have too many words, either. It’s a delicate balance that every web site owner has to know in order to have a site that is search engine optimized and visitor friendly. In this newsletter, [...] Continue Reading…

Outlines Make Writing Easier

Aug 16, 2008 Selling Online 101 Leave a comment

Note: This article is similar to Lesson #43 of our ‘Selling Online 101′ email course.

When it comes to writing articles, many of us use brainstorming to come up with article ideas. As nice as it is to know what to write about, you also need to know what to write. There are times when this can be just as difficult as deciding what to write about. One of the ways to solve this problem is to use an outline. In fact, an outline is a tool that can help save you time and even stress.
An outline is defined as [...] Continue Reading…

Easy Affiliate Profit Increasers

Aug 15, 2008 Selling Online 101 1 Comment

Note: This article is similar to Lesson #42 of our ‘Selling Online 101′ email course.

In today’s society, everyone is searching for easy ways to make money. In a way, affiliate programs can be considered one of those opportunities. If you have a website that receives a high amount of traffic, you may be able to make money with affiliate programs, with little or no work. Despite the possibility of making money with little effort, you may want to think about putting forth some effort. There are a number of relatively easy ways that you can go about increasing your [...] Continue Reading…

Get People To Promote For You

Aug 14, 2008 Selling Online 101 1 Comment

Note: This article is similar to Lesson #41 of our ‘Selling Online 101′ email course.

Have you recently created an e-book? If so, do you plan on selling that e-book? If you are interested in profiting from your latest creation, you can do so, but you may need a little bit of assistance. To make money, you need to rely on internet sales. The only problem is that to have internet sales, your product needs to be seen and known about. Unfortunately, there are many e-book authors who believe that this is too hard of a task. While it may [...] Continue Reading…

Choosing A Profitable Affiliate Program

Aug 13, 2008 Selling Online 101 2 Comments

Note: This article is similar to Lesson #40 of our ‘Selling Online 101′ email course.

Affiliate programs are a great way to make money online; if you choose the right affiliate program. That it why it is extremely important that you carefully choose which affiliate program or programs you want to join. When it comes to choosing an affiliate program, do you know what to look for you? If this is your first time joining an affiliate program, you are urged to keep on reading. Below are some guidelines that you may want to think about following.
Perhaps, the most important [...] Continue Reading…