David, this one's for you

Our group member, Mark needs our messages of support.

His 7 year old son David, is due for open heart surgery today. I'm sure Mark and his family could use some comforting in this trying time, so let's all try to leave them a message of support on the blog.

I've had the pleasure of communicating with Mark on several occasions and would like to take this opportunity to offer my heart felt best wishes for the success of young David's operation.

David, my prayers are with you. For Mark and his family, I'm sure things will go well and young David will come out of this like a champ.

David, This one's for you.

Shotgun Marketing Update

Pretty good. Pretty good indeed....

Results for my keyword phrase have now gone up to 405,000 (thought this would be a good one, but this is rising faster then I had hoped for).

Current Top 10 in Google results is as follows:

1. My Ezine Article
2. My Free site
3. My Free site indented
4. My other Free site
5. My other Free site indented
6. My blogger blog
7. My GoArticles
8. My wordpress,com blog

First 8 out of the Top 10, with 2 indented listings (Viva title variations !!!)

Plus another 6 listings on page 2 and 4 listings on page 3

So over all, I'm sitting on the Top 8 and a total of 18 of the Top 30 results.

My money site is sitting at 11, BUT this is rising fast as I get more and more back-links to the site and traffic is increasing. The site stats are rising fast. Quick Alexa screen shot below:

As you can see from the Alexa screen shot above, my money site is getting increasing traffic and reach in a niche which is growing in popularity.

I haven't even done any video submissions yet, so when those get done, I expect some more listings. I'll let these grow naturally as I don't want the video urls to go over the site urls.

Not only listings, but sales as well. Averaging 6 free trials a day, which is the thick end of $150 plus some actual purchases, for a total around $270 a day from this niche, which is growing in popularity very fast.

When I got into this niche, results were 334,000 on November 17th. Two weeks later and results are at 405,000 which is around a 20% increase. More people targeting = more people searching, so I'm sitting pretty.

November 17th AdWords estimate was $0.15. Today that is at $0.25, so more and more people are bidding on the keyword phrase. Happy days !!!

Doing the splits

No, I'm not talking about aerobics or anything like that.

The splits here are "split testing".

We all read a lot about split testing ads, split testing titles, landing pages, graphics, links, etc, etc.

How many of you though have split tested your monetization methods? Not Affiliate Products to AdSense. Actual monetization plans for your Web 2.0 properties.

Well, I've been doing a LOT of monetization split testing and the results are pretty amazing. Just changing the way I monetize some of my sites has seen these sites go from hundreds of dollars a week to hundreds of dollars a DAY.

The difference is pretty dramatic. To see a site go from $400 a week to $270 a day is pretty drastic. Same kind of products, same niches - different monetization model.

Next issue of the Group Newsletter is due Wednesday 26th November, so look out for some pretty interesting data from monetization testing.

$270 a day is a lot simpler then you think !!!

Also in the next issue of the Newsletter, my step by step tutorial to Social Bookmarking.

Social Bookmarking Why, How, Where

Wednesday 26th November. Pencil it in and look forward to the biggest issue of the Newsletter so far.

A Tale of Proxies and Outsourcing

Lots of questions regarding these two topics.

Reliable proxies seem to be high on people's letters to Santa, seconded only by people seeing listings being pulled due to duplicate content.

Proxies
As far as a reliable proxy goes, I've been using GhostSurf Platinum for a while now with zero problems. It's always available, fast and secure and gives me the options to regulate the degree of "invisibility" depending on what I want to do.

This is the "Invisible" setting - proxy used

This is the "Normal" setting - no proxy

Easy to setup, works with Firefox and Internet Explorer (my main browsers) and always uses English language settings.

Why are the language settings so important you might ask? Well if you're trying to create and post to free sites and using a proxy which defaults to anything other than English, you won't get any results.

I've tried all sorts of free proxies. Although some might work for a while, the amount of traffic they get is sending out a red flag to the sites I post to, so it kind of defeats the object of the exercise.

Ghost Surf Platinum is available for a Free 15 Day Trial. Give it a go, very, very worth while.


Outsourcing
Content creation and graphics. The big bang of the outsourcing world. We'll I've decided to offer an outsourcing service to group members for articles and graphics.

Unique Content
This I can help with, I know I can - it's a subject very close to my heart as I probably spend more $$$ on article creation and content variations than anything else (with the exception of keyword analysis software - sad I know).

It's all too easy to get sucked into using PLR, then finding everybody and their dog is using the same packs of articles and sites are getting de-listed or banned in bulk.

The search engines are getting increasingly crafty at spotting duplicate content. On a limited basis, duplicate content will probably just result in sites being ignored by the search engines. Use duplicate content more extensively, and the probability of an account ban is coming more and more into play.

So how can I help?

You have an article you need re-written. Email me the article and I'll re-write it for you, 10 versions at a total cost of $20.

This isn't some crappy spinner service. I'll personally re-write your articles and provide you with the 10 unique versions.

If you need more versions of your articles, then you won't need a calculator to work it out. 10 versions at $20 = $2 a version.

• Turn around time? 48 hours per article pack
  
• How to send me articles? Use the email address you get the newsletters from
• Payment? PayPal with the order please
• Samples? No
• Volume Discounts? No
• Keywords? Can be changed in articles. I'll need your keyword list
• Minimum? The minimum is the 10 pack
• Maximum? As many as you like, although I would suggest 20 as a safe ceiling
• Language Settings? I use UK English

Header Graphics
Want your sites to make a great impression? - you need a great header.
If you like the look of the header on this blog, then I can help.

Email me the dimensions, information, look and "feel" of your site, send me $65 via paypal and I'll get a header back to you within 48 hours.

Totally original, no copies and no versions. Your header will be your header.

Any images required will be included in the price.

Interested? Email me at the newsletter address for further details.

Shotgun Marketing

Today was a good day. A pretty long day, but a good day none the less.

I've been putting the finishing touches to Shotgun Marketing and using the full process for a run I did on a Weight Loss related niche.

Anybody who's ever tried to break into the weight loss niche knows it's competitive. Ultra competitive, but with commissions as high as $30 for giving FREE stuff away, it pays VERY well.

Decided to try for a search term with 334,000 results, less than 20,000 results in quotes, but a very big "buying" term. OCI on MSN came out at 85%, which means the chances of somebody searching this term and wanting to buy (commercial intent) is 85%. HIGH...

Trends are showing a 600% increase in search volume.... I'm in the right place (or places as I've got the top 2 spots) at the right time.

Here's a couple of screen shots:
334,000 results for the broad search term.

Used the Shotgun Marketing methods today November 17th 2008 and got the following results:



These are for the broad search term, NOT "quotes".

I've blacked out the urls. This is a pretty nifty niche, and at $30 a pop, I'd like to keep it that way.

What you can make out though is the date and time these 2 sites were setup. November 17th 2008. One site is 6 hours old (Position 1) and the other site is 7 hours old (Position 2).

All I've done is posted to these 2 sites. No other articles, no RSS submissions, no video. Nada. Zip.

So the 2 top spots out of 334,000 results. These are the broad search results, not in "quotes", so I'm topping the whole enchilada, the full 334,000 results.

My commission on each sale is $30. OCI is 85%. I reckon this could be pretty good...

When I run the other elements of Shotgun Marketing - Articles, RSS and Social Bookmarking then things will really take off. Keep in mind these are SITE urls, not feeds, and I occupy the Top 2 spots after 7 hours.

No.3 is a big PR4 site - so they must be pretty pissed off
No.4 is the shopping results (mostly EBay) so I've jumped them
No.5 is a HUGE PR3 site - and I KNOW they are pissed off because that particular site is promoting the same product I am.
No.6 is an Ezine Article (that will go as soon my Ezine Article passes review - which it will)
No.7 is a blogger blog (that will go as well as soon as I submit my Blogger Blog)
No.8 is a Wordpress Blog (ditto the blogger comment)
No.9 is a feed (ditto wordpress and blogger comments)
No.10 is a PR2 site

As things stand I have SITES at positions 1 and 2 after 7 hours. When I submit RSS feeds these will grab a couple more spots in the Top 10.

When my Ezine Article passes review that will occupy another spot.

My Blogger and Wordpress blogs will take up another 2 spots, so I should be looking at something like 7 of the top 10 spots.

Shotgun Marketing is about 13 sites, so I should have 13 SITES on the first 2 pages, plus all the other listings the articles and feeds will occupy.

Pretty nifty and all in a day's work.

Website layout for Web 2.0 Marketing

I've had a ton of feedback from Group Members wanting to know more about site layout, so I decided to put all this in a PDF report and send it out.

Typically it worked out to be much longer than initially anticipated. It was originally going to be a quick list of things to do, but it turned out to be 14 pages long with a real life example included.

I even designed a site for this specially, so you could all refer to screen shots with the notes included in the actual site pages.

This is being sent out as I type this, so you should all receive it shortly.

It's not meant to be a definitive study on website design - it's a simple layout that works and provides the most bang for your buck when it comes to Web 2.0 marketing and using Web 2.0 properties to promote your sites.

A Tale of Opinions and Options

Mostly positive feed-back on "Uncover Your Niche" so many thanks to all who sent me their feed-back.

Some varying opinions and how and why for each option in the blueprint, but everybody is entitled to their opinion.

I know some of the options in the blueprint might seem a bit long winded and time consuming, but it all boils down to what you want to achieve with your network of sites.

• Short term sales - no stickiness: Go with Option 1
• Long term income building - long term stickiness: Go with Option 4

Sort of in the middle???
Check Options 2 and 3.

Your network of free sites will mature into a long term investment if you treat them right and do the extra work in Option 4, but it's a potentially mighty big return for what amounts to a couple of extra hours of work per run.

Try to get your sites as unique as possible. Keep them all alive and kicking and they will add to your internet real estate and your bottom line.

Once your sites are live and working for you, try to keep them fresh, even if it's only a question of a quick post every other week. Even if you have to manually log-in to your sites and add a post (only option for the time being), like that well known sports company says:

"Just Do It"

The rewards are kind of nice...

Thanks