Clickbank For Newbies | Essential Reading

I often write about Clickbank on this blog because there are so many affiliates and so many products to promote as an affiliate.

However, did you know that around 90% of Clickbank affiliate accounts are inactive? Quite shocking huh? Well, it's true, and the main reason for this is something that few people talk about, tucked away in Clickbank's terms of service and it proves to be a killer for many hopeful Clickbank affiliates.

Before getting paid you need to need to meet the Clickbank Customer Distribution Requirement. Here's what that means...

"In compliance with US law, ClickBank will withhold payment of any account balance until the following criteria
is met:
* Sales made with 5 or more different credit card numbers and
* Sales made with two different payment methods (either Visa, MasterCard, or PayPal). Note: PayPal
purchases do not count toward the minimum 5 different credit card numbers".

OK, so maybe that's not so bad but it gets worse because of the way Clickbank treats "dormant accounts". Basically here is what they say...

"Accounts with a positive balance but no earnings for an extended period of time are considered dormant. Dormant accounts are subject to a charge of $1 per pay period after 90 days of inactivity, $5 per pay period after 180 days of inactivity, and $15 per pay period after 365 days of inactivity"

Ouch! This is the major cause of Clickbank affiliates losing heart and giving up. Harvey Segal, the author of many Clickbank ebooks and owner of the CBGuide has come up with an ingenious answer to anyone facing this problem and it's free for anyone who wants to read it. You don't even need to opt-in to a list to get your copy.

This is another piece of essential reading for anyone working as a Clickbank affiliate and I recommend you go and get your copy now. As with all of Harvey's offerings, it's a very well thought out and executed product that will genuinely help people to succeed with Clickbank.

Download Your Copy of Clickbank For Newbies here.

If you are thinking of selling your own products in the Clickbank marketplace you might also like to read the http://wackywednesdaysale.com/042909/?e=caymanhost" title="Clickbank Results For Vendors">Clickbank Results report which will give you an excellent grounding in how to get affiliates promoting your products rightout of the gate.

TCH

PPC Web Spy Reviewed

Brad Callen, the man behind such programs as Affiliate Elite and SEO Elite recently released a new piece of free software called PPC Web Spy. Brad's previous offferings have achieved great sales and high acclaim from marketers and SEO folks, so PPC Web Spy seemed worth a little attention.

The software is basically a keyword research tool and claims that it enables users to spy on the keywords that Adwords advertisers are bidding on and using in real time. After installing the software, users will see some additional information on their screens when conducting a search on Google - the most noticeable being a green button under each sponsored result entitled "view keywords". Clicking on the button allows you to see a selection of the keywords being used by the advertiser in question including the cost per click, the amount of clicks they are getting for each and the position they hold in the sponsored listings for each keyword.

The website for PPC Web Spy contains a full demo video so you can see it in action for yourself.

Now, I've seen one reviewer blast the software as a useless piece of junk, claiming that it does nothing that you cannot do for yourself and although that is true, to a degree, a lot depends on your knowledge levels. For those experienced with Adwords and PPC who can confidently navigate their way around Google's webmaster tools, it could be said that PPC Web Spy is a bit of a white elephant but to my mind it does offer some very useful shortcuts and makes some interesting data far more easily accessible.

Whether you are a PPC advertiser or not, the software can give some useful insights into the keywords you need to be targeting and offers a quick route to alternative suggestions. In short, it's a helpful tool and as it costs nothing there is nothing to lose by giving it a try.

As with a lot of free tools there is an upgrade option available and this is where the aforementioned reviewer got a little hot under the collar. Those who upgrade the software are able to view a lot more keywords than with the free version and I would say that in itself that is not really worth the upgrade cost. The second benefit for those who upgrade is an interesting viral element that is explained in the video. Basically, any upgraded member who refer others to the free version will be able to get their Clickbank, PayDotCom and Amazon affiliate links appearing at the top of the results when those free users conduct a search on Google. This depends on them having PPC Web Spy installed and activated on their computers and will extend not only to direct referrals but also free users who they give the software away to.

The real problem with this is that most of the users are going to be marketing focused and it's debatable how likely they might be to click on your affiliate links and buy through them. That can certainly be called into question. All I can say is that it doesn't do any harm to spread your affiliate links in any way you can.

PPC Web Spy works only with Firefox too. Would I recommend it? I think on the face of it, my answer is yes - I've found it pretty useful when looking at search results and as a free tool there's nothing to lose for potential users. Would I recommend the upgrade? That's a trickier question and will depend a lot on how much benefit you think the viral aspect might deliver for you. I upgraded myself, partly so that I could write this review having used the software. I've recouped my investment several times over, so obviously others feel that the upgrade was desirable. Don't think that PPC Web Spy will lead to internet milllions overnight but use it for keyword research and you should be reasonably happy with it.

TCH

Make Millions Secrets or Clickbank, Adsense and PayPal Scams

This post follows on far more quickly from my post about online goals for 2009 than I expected but it's worth it, trust me.

Why?

Because I am going to show you, (with the help of a couple of other bloggers who turned me onto this method) how you can make an unlimited amount of money with Clickbank, Adsense and Paypal in as little as a few seconds. If you are skeptical I guarantee you will be laughing on the other side of your face a few minutes from now.

What's even better is that this information will not cost you anything at all - I'm giving it away for free. You are about to see how some online marketers have burst onto the scene to make millions overnight with no special skills, just a little known and rarely seen method of filling up your PayPal, Adsense and Cickbank account with thousands or even millions of dollars with a few secret keystrokes.

I guarantee, 100 per cent that this is for real and you will want to share this with every blogger and internet marketer you know. In a few moments you will be able to pass this knowledge on to all of your friends and online contacts and you should. Please share your new found knowledge in every way you know how - please promote this post as widely as you possibly can because it is truly an eye opener!

OK, before I tell you the secret I have to thank The Marketing Mouse who first directed me to this video and of course to the video's creator, Patrick Chan at the You Chan Do It Internet Success Blog.

Enough fanfare - watch this video now - it might well be the most powerful information you read this year about marketing online and how easy it can be to put millions into any online account you choose.

See How Some Marketers Are Making Millions With A Few Top Secret Key Strokes (Opens In A New Window)

Below is a screenshot to prove that even I can do this.....let's just say it's not something I'm going to publicize but it took me all of a few minutes to find out. THIS SCREEN SHOT IS NOT GENUINE. Click on the image to enlarge. If it's something you're already wise to all well and good - please don't post the method in the comments field because it won't get published. It may be simple but why give the dishonest marketers any help? 

The moral is of course - do not believe everything you see. If you doubt the veracity of a screenshot, check with the company concerned. Just because it's dishonest and stupid does not mean that people won't do it and if they are reported I'm sure action will be taken against them by the companies they misrepresent with their deception.

Keywords and Getting On The First Page Of Google - A Reality Check

This subject is something I've held my peace on for a long time but I received an ad today that made me think it was time for a reality check.

For those of you who don't know much about Google, or any major search engine, and keywords, let me first say that I'm no expert but I know a little about the subject, much of which I've learned from those more experienced than I.

The ad I received went something like this......

"Suppose you want to make money generating leads for credit card companies. Discover, for example, pays 40 bucks for every new card member you send their way.Sounds good, until you do a Google search for "credit card" and realize there are 56 MILLION sites in the results. Kind of hard to compete, wouldn't you say? But Discover gives a 5% cashback bonus on gas purchases. And when you do a search for "credit card gas rewards" you get 56 results. Now you can not only compete, you can make money. No matter what kind of marketing you do, it stands to reason that if you target overlooked, under-the-radar keyword phrases, you'll divert more traffic and convert more of that traffic into profits".

Now, none of that sounds unreasonable and if someone promises to sell you something based on these words of advice, you might well be tempted right?

Well, here's the reality check. There is nothing untrue about what this marketer is saying, it actually makes perfect sense. Let's give him/her the benefit of the doubt and assume that they just picked a bad example. Why is it bad?

Well, do your own keyword research and you will soon see the flaws in the reasoning. A search for "credit card" actually returns 213M results and without the quotes 30.6M. OK, these numbers are always fluid, the point is still that these are huge numbers.

So let's look at the example given "credit card gas rewards" and sure enough, the numbers follow the pattern with only 5000 or 259,000 without the quotes. Certainly better odds though still not great. BUT, and it is a big but, and I keep trying to tell people this, ranking for a keyword is all well and good if people are searching for the term or phrase in the first place.

The estimated search total for the term "credit card"  is around 1200 per day on Google, rising to around 2400 for "credit cards".

Want to guess how many searches there are for the keywords you are going to make all that money on? The answer is....zero! (Go to the front of the class if you got the answer right) Yep, nobody seems to be searching for that exact phrase - even if you mix the words around a little Google estimates that there are around 3 or 4 searches per day.

So.....now that product is perhaps not looking so promising. All I'm saying is, don't believe all the hype about front page Google rankings either. Here's an example of how easy it is to get on the first page of Google - I know of lots of little methods that work.

Here's just one little experiment to reinforce my point. I recently launched a free toolbar for those interested in hosting and marketing. Obviously I wanted to get the word out and get some organic rankings in Google and elsewhere. Since the launch I've checked a few of the keywords I would expect and hope to be ranking for so let's take a look at a few of them:

Marketing Toolbar - Position 9 on the front page out of 11.9M results returned.

Hosting Toolbar - Position 13 on second page out of 7.1M results returned

Free Hosting Toolbar - Position 3 and 7 on first page out of 548,00 results returned.

Hosting and Marketing Toolbar - All but two of the front page results on Google including the number one spot out of 253,000 results returned.

I should also add that the same searches on Google video will see me on the front page every time. But I also know that searches for these phrases are probably very thin on the ground. Virtually zero in actual fact. That's why it's a good example of what I'm talking about. If all this is new to you, before you read this post you might have thought I was some kind of Google genius but as you now know, you have to read between the lines when dealing with many marketers or those who would relieve you of cash! 

Now obviously, the tighter the focus, the better the results as you can see when our search becomes more specific. Long tail keywords is a term you have probably heard before. What annoys me is that so many "experts" will try to feed you this fluff as proof of their SEO prowess and potency of their software or ebook and so much of it is just BS.

I will also go on to say that being on the front page of Google does not guarantee you anything at all, and certainly not hundreds of thousands of dollars. Just being there does not mean that people are going to buy whatever it is you are selling. That involves so many variables it would take me all night to even think of some of them. Let's just say that even if I'm on the front page for some s*** hot product that everyone wants - they just read my page, look at the price, and head off to shop around and soon find someone selling it for less or offering a better deal in other ways. No sale for me, but hey, I'm on the front page of Google so whoopee doo for me, I can expect to be a millionaire tomorrow perhaps or at least by the end of the week ;-)

Here's the deal - I bet that you can rank on the first page of Google within 24 hours whenever you feel like it. Don't believe me? I know of a top secret keyword for which there is zero, yep, zero competition just waiting for someone to grab it. As you've read this far I'm going to give it to you for FREE! Just write your blog post on "Hoofaloofadoofa" and be amazed! I guarantee results or your money back.

Finishing on a serious note though, I will talk about how to increase your chances of a high SERPS result as the year goes on. I'm not going to be selling any secrets, just passing on some methods that I have found to work during my efforts online. Do your own keyword research. Use SEO Book's Free Keyword Tool and Keyword Buzz Elite (free download from the toolbar with no opt-in if you prefer) use Google's keyword tools here and their search based keyword tool here and you won't go far wrong and you won't have wasted any money. You can also download and use the excellent SEOQuake Firefox plugin and free tools like PPCWebSpy and SpyFu to further enhance your keyword research and targeting.

Since writing this I came across an excellent article entitled Celebrating Useless Keyword Victories which is well worth reading too.

TCH

What Are Your Online Goals In 2009

Photo Credit: Last NYC Hero

Looking forward to 2009 I decided to answer a few points that I see time and time again online in both the "make money online" and internet marketing arenas. There is a constant stream of people joining the mass ranks of those trying to make some money from the internet and, as people keep reminding you, many of those people will fail. If you believe the statistics at least 95% of them!

I'm no internet millionaire or guru, but my experience has shown that it takes a lot of work and dedication to make any money at all online. For a few, massive success on the internet has been quick in coming but I would suggest that for the vast majority, it's going to be a lot more difficult. Most honest people will tell you that it took them some time to find a successful venture and that it certainly didn't happen overnight.

To kick off 2009, here are a few suggestions to both the new hopefuls just taking their first steps, to the frustrated and hard working hopefuls who have yet to make a dent. This is the most basic of advice, but it is truly important:

1) Decide on a business model and plan of action at the outset and try to stick to both.

2) Learning is vital and time consuming but learning is only half the battle. After you learn - do.

3) Be prepared to invest in your dream of making money online. At some point you will have to pay for the things you are going to need, whether it be information, software, advertising, the expertise of others, web hosting etc. Whatever your budget, try to invest wisely in the things you really need.

4) Leading on from number 3. Many things are available for free including information and advice and some of these things can be very good. However, if you have expectations of making tons of cash without spending any you will be disappointed. When you do find something for free, expect to have to put in some good old fashioned hard work to see results from it. Joining free "programs" and systems will only ever work if you follow the instructions and take action. Many people write off good systems and tools as a waste of time because they do not do anything after filling out their details on an opt-in form for example.

5) If you are new to the whole idea of making money online, please do not be taken in by the thousands of websites making fantastical claims of wealth, no matter how alluring the sales pitch or the slick graphics. Mostly, any money you give them will just disappear into a black hole and you will be left feeling cheated, let down and foolish. Move on and.......

6) Don't ever be tempted to send money to complete strangers in return for nothing more than the promise of loads of money arriving in your bank account or at your front door via UPS, Fedex or anyone else. Things like this are doomed to failure and are often illegal to boot. Don't be fooled by slick videos or websites - look underneath the gloss and glitz and tempting claims. Always ask yourself this - what am I getting for my money? If the answer is nothing but promises, remember that "a promise is a comfort for a fool". If, as they claim, you are going to earn a lot of money, ask yourself where it is coming from. If it is just from more people like yourself being persuaded to hand over money for nothing, walk away. You really will be doing yourself a favor. Most of these types of "programs" are variations of the Ponzi or pyramids your great, great grandmother would have warned you about had she been alive to do so.

I always suggest that you think of any of these things by taking the internet out of the equation.

Has anybody given or posted or deposited thousands or even hundreds of dollars to you or your bank account in the past? Did they do this without knowing who you were and solely on the basis that another complete stranger told them to do it? If it did happen wouldn't you be the tiniest bit surprised and perhaps think that they were a little crazy? If I met you in a bar, struck up a conversation and suggested that you send a certain amount of money to half a dozen people whose names I handed to you on a piece of paper and claimed that performing this action would guarantee to make you rich wouldn't you be inclined, just slightly, to laugh in my face? Thought so.

Have you ever made a mistake that you are embarrassed or more than a little reluctant to admit for fear of being seen as a fool? Sure, haven't we all? Remember that if you made a mistake that cost you a fair wedge of money, you'd more than likely be reluctant to talk about it or, perhaps to try and recover what you'd lost, be outright untruthful and pass the promise on to others until you managed to balance the scale again, telling yourself: "well I fell for it and I know that others will too". You see the pattern here I'm sure. So please,do not think that these scams will make you any money - if it were as easy as these people claim, we'd all be wealthy already :-)

7) Think. Whatever you decide to try and profit from, you are going to need visitors to your websites, blogs, ecommerce pages, affiliate links, opt-in forms etc. Without quality visitors and potential buyers you will not make much money. This is probably the hardest thing to achieve for any small online business. 

8) Whatever you decide to try in 2009, be it blogging, niche marketing, ecommerce, affiliate marketing, list building, product creation.....my last little slice of wisdom is the good old standby "Do not give up". You will experience lows and failures and sometimes pressure from others to just throw in the towel, but keep going. When you fail, dust yourself off, look again at what you've been doing and if you can think of improvements, try them. Eventually you may have to concede that certain things do not work for you and sacrifice them for other untried methods or entirely different business plans.

If you're hoping to start making money online in 2009 but have yet to decide on what you are going to do, my first suggestion would be to get yourself a relevant domain name and a web hosting account and start building some form of online presence. The possibilities really are so varied and numerous that it's impossible to give you a blueprint or guarantee of success but it is, as far as I'm concerned, a very good place to start. There is no magic bullet and if it were easy the conventional capitalist society as we know it would not even exist :-)

As for me I have a lot of things planned for my own online efforts and I hope you will all continue reading - we'll see how they turn out by this time next year!

Have a great 2009. I wish you prosperity and success, but more than this I wish you health and happiness.

TCH

Internet Marketing Blog - 2008 In Review

We say goodbye to 2008 here at TCH with mixed feelings. On a personal level the past year has been filled with such extremes of highs and lows that in many ways I shall be glad to see the back of it, whilst at the same time feeling that it has been one of the most formative years of my life. I became a father for the first time but parenthood has hardly been realized in a conventional manner and my wife and I have spent the last seven months away from our island home, living on savings and the kindness of others. The huge upheaval in our personal lives has had a knock on effect on everything we do, including work here at the blog and all aspects of my internet ventures. Now that our micro preemie son, T.J. is growing stronger, we hope to return to Cayman in a few weeks. Before moving ahead into 2009, I thought a quick recap of the past year should be posted here.

I kicked off the year with a guest post about article marketing that gave some good insights into common mistakes made by authors. These all still hold true and I can testify to the fact that as an article directory owner the vast majority of articles submitted to me over the past twelve months have ended up on the cutting room floor. If you are thinking of running an article directory yourself, I would say a couple of things - it is very labor intensive if you are serious about maintaining a quality resource. It is not easy to get a directory off the ground, nor to maintain good rankings. Google reduced my own directory's page rank from 2 to zero some time ago and it has never recovered. Adsense income has been patchy, and probably not nearly enough to cover the work put in. Having said that, I intend to continue with the free article directory so if you have prose to submit, please do so.

In the Spring I kicked off with a rant about the state of a popular internet marketing forum and having read some recent posts elsewhere it seems I am not alone in my disillusionment. On a more positive note I released the free ebook  "The Absolute Beginner's Guide To Web Hosting" which has gone on to be a very successful little book and has helped a number of people with their first steps online. This has been very gratifying for me and has also helped me to introduce more customers and affiliates to my team at Kiosk.ws.

In April I announced a free ebook that has turned out to be its own minor success story this past year and I still recommend it very highly to everyone from raw beginner to more established marketers. The return on the Ultimate Supertip has been extremely good and if you have never made any money online before, it's a good way to start. You won't become a millionaire but for an injection of extra income and profits into the 1000's per cent it's hard to beat. You should at least read the book as it's entirely free to download.

In the same month I also released "Article Marketing Expert" another free ebook which has once again proved popular. It is already in need of an update but unfortunately until I return home I am unable to access the PDF for alteration. It will be done sometime in 2009.

During May, blissfully unaware of the events that were about to take over our lives so suddenly, I wrote at length about choosing an autoresponder service and dipped my toe into the world of micro blogging with Twitter.

After that, things became rather sporadic when Nikki, my wife, was airlifted to Miami in a critical condition having gone into very premature labor with our first child. Fortunately the medical professionals got her to hospital in time (just) to save both her and the baby, but for a husband standing on the sidelines it was a frightening and sobering time. Our son was delivered into this world on May 31 at around 10.30pm and weighed just one pound and four ounces. This of course was just the beginning, and after over seven months away from home, many of them spent in the NICU sitting beside an incubator, the help, kindness, prayers and skills of so many people, we hope to return to Cayman with "T.J." before the end of January. He is, for the record, a chubby little eleven pounds as I write this and doing remarkably well.

Despite all this work did carry on, albeit at a slower a pace and the later months in 2008 saw me working from the hospital thanks to their guest internet connection. The delayed launch of Viral Clickbank Footprints was lower profile than hoped but the free report has gone on to prove fairly popular and downloads continue to grow. the report is free and can be rebranded with your own links, making it an excellent viral Clickbank tool that will help you to make more money. I consider it another successful release that has paid good dividends for me and many others.

The year's end also saw the release of our RSS widgets and the hosting and marketing toolbar which we hope all visitors will find useful. Every download of the toolbar goes a little way to helping us with the costs of our enforced exile in the States so if you find it useful please do share it with as many people as you can.

Elsewhere from the blog, the CaymanHost web hosting directory has seen many changes including the implementation of a proper review and rating system for hosting companies where you can read and submit honest hosting reviews by customers. As a dofollow site, your reviews will earn you a little link love too. You will also find hosting coupons and offers, links to all the top forums, and many interesting articles on the world of web hosting as well as details on how to set up your own Wordpress blog for free and all the Wordpress plugins you will need to optimize your blog for traffic and rankings.

Furthermore, you can now buy advertising on the hosting directory at very reasonable rates and we have also introduced a hosting link exchange for other webmasters and bloggers involved in the world of domain names and hosting.

I also launched another blog by way of example dealing with the Cayman Islands, home sweet home. This is just in its experimental stage and I shall monitor things closely during 2009.

The year has been a tough one, and I hope that despite all the glitches you will continue to read and hopefully learn some new tricks during the course of 2009. I am pleased to say that The CaymanHost has staged a recovery in terms of Alexa and Google rankings and traffic hes returned to the levels before the slump midway throught the year.

For me, online earnings have been less than my intended goals, but the strongest performance has come from affiliate marketing, including Clickbank and my core business at Kiosk.ws Sales of my own products have been slower than hoped for too, but have contributed a reasonable amount to the bottom line. After all the upheaval, I have to be content with what has been achieved in a very difficult year.

All that remains is to wish you all a healthy, happy and prosperous New Year.

TCH