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03. February 2010:

TCH Free Internet Marketing Article Directory Update

I recently launched a new article directory, specifically for internet marketing related content and have been making some improvements over the last few days, to ensure that signing up and posting your content is a worthwhile exercise.

So, here's the good news.

Using a variety of plugins and tools, all articles posted on the directory will now be automatically disseminated to a variety of social networking sites on the web. This increases the exposure of your content immensely as posts will now be syndicated on places such as MSN Live Spaces, Multiply, SPNBabble, Posterous and Xanga with more to come in the future, including several micro blogging sites such as Plurk, Identica, Jaiku, YouAre and Twitter. Integration with MyBlogLog and BlogCatalog is also in hand.

Registering as an author is free and submitting a blog post/article is just the same as posting on any Wordpress blog. Once your post is approved it will be published on the site and also syndicated to all the above mentioned services. All this is done for you, all you need to do is register and submit your content.

The directory is internet marketing focused, so if you write about internet marketing, affiliate marketing, niche marketing and blogging, SEO, social networking etc. there is a place for your articles and they won't get lost in a flood of unrelated posts about fishing, cooking, golf, mortgages etc. etc.

A further benefit is that the site feed is syndicated on our marketing toolbar so all users will have access to your articles right from their browser if they have the bar installed. The toolbar itself provides some great functionality, and even if you are using Firefox with a selection of add ons you will still probably find some useful features in the bar - Internet Explorer users will probably benefit even more from the webmaster tools I've included.

You can even be notified direct to your desktop when new content is added to any of our sites, including the article directory. Just download our instant desktop notifier application and every time there is new content an alert will pop up to let you know. 

I am open to suggestions for additions to the bar, whether it be blog feeds, products or services, or links to specific sites, either yours or others - if they are relevant to our theme and you think it would be a worthwhile addition, use the contact form to let me know about it. 

TCH 



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08. January 2010:

Internet Marketing In 2010 at The CaymanHost

Starting 2010 is an exciting time for me and is going to see a number of changes here and on some of my other sites.

First off, we are going to be moving to a new home on the web as we have outgrown our present hosting plan - more of that in a separate post. We have suffered a lot of downtime in recent months and it as done a fair bit of damage to our rankings which is another reason why we are making the move.

I have been considering the future of this blog for sometime and although the new hosting arrangements will allow it to remain without eating up too many resources, the fact that it is a non Wordpress blog is one of the reasons its future is uncertain. Moving it to Wordpress is so convoluted that I doubt I will try it for this site so I'm considering all options carefully before making a final decision.

If you haven't visited our main site recently, please drop by and see what we have been up to - a new series of video tutorials on things like Wordpress, Cpanel and other blogging and web hosting related subjects are to become a regular feature and are proving very popular. My blogging focus will probably shift to this site far more as the year progresses - visit TheCaymanHost Here

I have been busy elsewhere this past few months both online and off and my wife and I are about to open a physical offline business having launched a new website last year and the move into a retail premises is the focus of our efforts at present. We used Wordpress for the site and you can visit Arteccentrix for another example of what can be done with the software and associated plugins, it really is a versatile platform - it's not internet marketing related.

So, 2010 is going to be an exciting and busy year! I hope that all my loyal readers will stick around and enjoy it with me.

To kick off this new year I'm starting with a few tips that will help your marketing efforts online this year.

URL Redirection and Affiliate Marketing - if you are still using the TinyURL service to shorten your links you may want to rethink the idea. Why? Well, it has been a much abused service and as a result you could be losing a lot of traffic and visitors if you continue to use it. Browsers like Google Chrome now include a feature for users to preview every TinyURL as so many links led to undesirable or spammy sites. This means that instead of redirecting to your page, users will see something like the image below. This is plainly not a good thing!

So, if you're looking for a better alternative there are plenty out there nowadays - ViralURL is one option and can help you with more than just redirection, as can the excellent and new service from Skadoogle. 

However, I recently discovered that ViralURL also has problems associated with it - having been unfairly flagged (imo) by the Spybot Search and Destroy software, anyone running Spybot and Internet Explorer is unlikely to see any of your links at all. I'm not sure how many users Spybot S&D has, but it's a pretty well known tool and it's free. CNET alone cites the number of downloads from its sitealone at 111,925,794 so it has to be borne in mind. ViralURL id certainly going to be crippled on a lot of machines out there. Rightly or wrongly SpybotS&D have decided to "protect" their users from ViralURL links and have refused to remove the flag, despite the best efforts of ViralURL to state their case. I think the people at Spybot are morons judging by the comments they made on their forum and simply do not understand viral marketing or any form of affiliate marketing at all. Needless to say I choose to use alternative software for parasite detection.

If you want a professional link cloaking script for your own domain we still say that Samurai Stealth Cloaker is the best out there. You can visit my hub on link cloaking and redirection for more tips too.

When it comes to marketing online, your list is going to be one of the most important aspects of those efforts and if you are still baulking at the thought of getting started with your own list, make 2010 the year you get to grips with building your own list of subscribers. You can choose from countless list building programs but the bottom line is that most of them are a waste of time - sorry to say that but it's true.

For some great listbuilding tips try Josh Spaulding's report on email marketing, it's a steal and contains some great information. 

I'm often asked what programs and services I would recommend for beginners to the world of internet or affiliate marketing but it is such a huge subject that without a clear idea of exactly what model you are intending to use it's very difficult to answer.

If you are just starting out, there is a very good 120 video course available called IM For Newbies that covers all kinds of topics and explains how to do a whole range of things - it's not the most advanced stuff but if you're wanting to accelerate your learning curve it's very worthwhile and good value for money at only $7. For anyone wanting to learn how to set up affiliate marketing sites or niche sites, the free training videos at the Clone Cash System are well worth a look too.

If you are planning to use Wordpress in your online marketing there are a huge number of free and paid resources available - take a look at my main site's Wordpress tools section and check out some of the Wordpress Training Videos too. You can even get a free membership site software for Wordpress at Memberfire, so if you are looking to set up your first membership site for free or paying members, it's a great place to start.

As far as free services go there are a million and one that claim to be the answers to your prayers, but they can't all possibly be telling the truth. That's not to say that some will work better than others for different people and their online ventures. There are literally thousands of options, tools and sites out there, so many that it can be difficult to know what to do and where to begin but my advice would be to try as much as you can cope with - test and discard anything that does not bring results. Do not just take someone else's word all the time - if you like the look of a free service try it - there can often be some nice surprises when you do so.

You will have noticed  several buttons in the sidebar for free advertising sites - if you have no advertising budget to speak of these can be quite effective - I know because I've seen some good results with them in recent months so give some a try and see if they can help you too. In my experience if you have the right product/service they can be good for list building and even sales. I'm also currently trying some banner advertising with an exchange that seems to be performing reasonably well although I've never been a fan of such things before - it all depends on what you're advertising but it's a no cost way of getting your sites seen in more places and there is a Wordpress plugin available too.

If you stick with me on this blog or subscribe to my list, I will post results and ideas of my own to help you further your online goals at the start of this new decade!

I'll report back on the hosting move once it's underway - if the new service is as good as people claim, you can be sure I'll be giving a full and detailed review of my experiences and the services provided so look out for that in the weeks ahead.

TCH 



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29. December 2009:

Free Affiliate Software For Webmasters & Bloggers

For those looking to monetize a site these tools are definitely worth a look, regardless of what niche you are working with.You can also find out more in the free report "7 Simple Ways To monetize your Website or Blog" which you can download as a PDF or simply read online through the aforementioned link.

I've been testing many of the tools available through Skadoogle and although it's too early to say how effective they have been on the sites I'm using some of them on, the signs are encouraging in several areas.

All I would say is that when adding various codes to your sites, check to make sure there are no conflicts arising with other plugins etc. because certain tools did cause a few minor issues on certain sites of mine. Having said that, Skadoogle respond very quickly to support tickets even if you are a free member, so if you want to give them a try you'll have access to fast and easy help.

 


Get the Affiliate Software of the Century - FREE

 

Once inside the members area you will find a lot of useful affiliate tools and it's all pretty simple to use, having said that it's also worth watching the instructional videos to make sure you understand the full range of options available to you.

If your sites are not making you the money you hoped for, try something new - Skadoogle is just one option you may find useful.

If you haven't yet joined the newsletter, you'll now find a convenient opt-in box top right of this page and you'll get a copy of CamStudio if you decide to opt-in - it's not Camtasia but it does a similar job without all the bells and whistles and without the $300 odd price tag.

One last thing before I pack things up for 2009 here at TCH - my hosting company of many years, now known as GVO, are offering their subscribers a chance to win a BMW M3 - it's a cool ride and if you click on the following link you'll see some pictures and video of the car and find out how to have a chance at winning it. You have as much chance as anyone!

Find Out How To Win A BMW M3 With GVO

Happy New year to all my visitors, subscribers and customers see you all in 2010!



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13. August 2009:

ScribD Sucks And Not Just For Marketers

Free PDF hosting is something people seem to search for pretty regularly judging by my stats and until recently I was using the services of Scribd among others.

However, I received an email yesterday advising that my account had been terminated after a fellow user reported one of my documents for advertising. I was a little surprised by this as I have had a number of documents there for some considerable time. It wasn't too big a deal, these things often happen if you are involved in marketing online, but I was a little unhappy with the tone of the email and the blatant hypocrisy it demonstrated.

For those unfamiliar with the site, ScribD allows members to upload all kinds of documents, text, PDF etc. that can then be viewed directly on the site through the use of Flash technology. It has sometimes been called the YouTube of documents which is probably, on reflection, rather unfair to YouTube. There has been plenty of negative comment and argument about the technology and its merits and that isn't what I wanted to talk about in this post. Just Google "Scribd sucks" and you'll find plenty of information supporting and attacking the idea and the technology employed.

The email I received stated that another member had reported one of my documents and that as a result my account had been closed. Once you have been kicked out by Scribd there is no appeal process and no restitution. You are not permitted to join the site ever again. They are another company who include a catch all in their TOS that states they can close your account without warning or having to give any reason and this really should be a red flag to any internet user thinking of joining any site.

After a little bit of investigation it would appear that Scribd is not a smart service to use, so perhaps the loss of my account is a good thing. Let me expand a little further.

The site contains a lot of copyrighted material and although they claim they will remove any such content following a request from the copyright owner, it is a slow and laborious process and suggests they have little sympathy for people whose content is stolen and placed on their site. Many believe that this will be the downfall of the service and that eventually a legal issue will see them in trouble sooner rather than later. How accurate this assessment is remains to be seen.

Recently there have been reports of a 50% drop in the site's traffic and allegations of overly aggressive SEO methods causing Google to become a little upset with them but again, I haven't investigated any of these allegations very deeply. Someone also suggested that following promotion of the site by people like Stompernet and other marketing/SEO services there have been some rather hasty and ill conceived policy changes at Scribd due to their claims of link spamming and the like.

Regardless of the merits of any of these claims and allegations, Scribd is pretty much dead in the water for anyone involved in marketing. One of their latest rules apparently is that documents containing hyperlinks are no longer allowed.

This seems a rather extreme and stupid policy change and smacks of an attempt to close the stable door after the horse has bolted. It is hardly surprising that their visitor numbers are dropping.

 

Scribd Hypocrisy

After the email from them I went and did a quick search on the site to find countless incidences of self promotion, affiliate links, viral marketing documents etc. all of which would supposedly be in violation of their terms. This suggests to me that they have no way of monitoring the activity on their site effectively and are reliant solely on members snitching on other members to enforce their policies. This is hardly professional or encouraging to potential users of the service. Snitching on others is done for a variety of reasons so it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that anyone with an axe to grind can soon sobotage anyone they choose.

Now, I freely admit that I had documents on Scribd that were promotional in nature, but they were also very useful, at least to the target audience. What really makes me mad about sites like Scribd is the hypocrisy they demonstrate in their email to members who are removed.

Someone described Scribd as an internet parasite which, although maybe a little harsh, also contains a ring of truth. This is a site reliant solely on content from other people, much like an article directory. Their words to me were that they offered the service free of charge and that it must not be used for commercial purposes which, on the face of it is fair enough. They go on to say that they have worked really hard to keep the site free of advertising in the interests of their "community". This is the point when I start to get a little upset about the email because of its sanctimonious and, quite frankly hypocritical nature.

Scribd uses other people's content to make money. The site is littered with Adsense ads around every document and yet they claim that advertising goes against all that is holy for their membership. To raise the flag of altruism around a blatanly commercial venture is the height of hypocrisy. There was actually a thread in their forums where some members had been enquiring about the possibility of revenue sharing being introduced on the site. the last time I looked, this had been studiously ignored by the site owners and will probably continue to be ignored. It is another prime example of big sites and big money saying - do as we say, not as we do.

I honestly don't care whether the site fails or recovers and goes on to spectacular success in the future, but I do think that a great deal of what they aim to stand for is just a lot of hot air. The bottom line is that they want to make money from other people's content but don't wish their users to see any financial or promotional benefit whatsoever. That's fine, but at least have the decency to be honest about it.

Ultimately, if you use or are thinking of using Scribd as a means of driving traffic or gaining something in the SERPS, certainly anything of a marketing nature, you might as well not bother. The site owners seem to have no systems in place to control what is posted there, which explains the copyright issues and demonstrates a rather cavalier attitude to preventing such infringements if you ask me. The snitching policy is all they have to administer their terms so you may see a document survive for a little while, as getting under the radar of a non existent radar isn't difficult as much of the current content proves but I don't think it is a site worthy of your time or your work. I fell for it but I'd advise you not to do the same.

Photo Credit : Technicolorcavalry

 



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21. June 2009:

Internet Marketing Lies and Stupidity

I have a bee in my bonnet today, and it was caused by an email I received on one of the lists I am subscribed to.

If you are or have been involved in internet marketing for any length of time, or even if you haven't, you've probably at least seen examples of what I'm going to write about today.

I'm going to cover several points in this post

1) Marketers who speak with forked tongues

2) Marketers who patronize their so called "valued" subscribers

3) Marketers who forget that credibiilty is easily shattered

4) Marketers who believe that to mislead or outright lie in pursuit of a dollar is the acceptable norm and is actually fiendishly clever.

The email I recieved was one in a familiar vein, that went something like this:

"If you missed the launch of product blah blah....."

"It sold out in fifteen minutes so don't bother visiting the link because they've all been disabled...."

"BUT, I am going to do you a huge favor! I'm going to give you a copy entirely free, all you have to do is...."

Marketers Lie TooOK, at this point I'm going to say that this kind of ridiculous pop psychology approach to marketing really annoys me although I concede that it probably works on a proportion of the people out there or they wouldn't do it.

Sold out? Really? A digital video information product that is sold out?  So they have no more copies of these videos, they destroyed the files themselves or did someone break into their homes and steal their hard drives, raid their hosting company and carry of the servers in the dead of night?

Maybe that is what happened but surely they could contact one of the mugs, sorry, customers, who bought it and ask them for a copy, or am I being naive here? Where is my free copy going to come from? It's all very worrying.

OK, so they've taken down the links on the salespage temporarily. Let's be honest here folks, we all know it will be back up and running in the near future, if it's such a great seller why would you stop selling it? It's not a membership site or a software product, it's just a bunch of videos.

So, I think we can say that heroic email marketer is guilty of sins one through four above already, but not satisfied with this he makes it worse with his special offer to me, his "valued subscriber".

Now remember, although it is sold out, he is going to give me a copy for free. Lucky me, I can't wait, it's too much excitement for a hot and muggy Sunday afternoon in the Caribbean. He tells me that ALL I have to do is take a trial of another Clickbank product for just $4.95. As it's a product I'm very familiar with, I already know that after taking that trial period I will have to hand over a monthly membership fee of $67.00 should I want to keep using it. I also know that the product in question pays a healthy recurring monthly commission to affiliates.

Now, lest we forget, he is doing me a favor, not the other way around, so of course the email neglects to mention any of these pertinent facts.

This is marketing at its lowest level. I don't care what labels the promoter might put on it - bonuses, deals, never to be repeated, you'll thank me forever etc. etc. The truth of the matter is that it is good old fashioned bullshit designed to trick the unwary or inexperienced. The product he is trying to sell, in order for you to get something for "free", is not for the inexperienced either, something I also know for a fact. It's not a bad product, but as usual the sales copy skims over a lot of the facts with a lot of these $$$$$$$! Besides, doesn't something stop being free the moment you hand over money?

My point is this - if you are new to the whole internet marketing hooplah, don't be taken in by people like this who are the reason that marketing online is so damned hard a lot of the time, and please, whatever you do, don't think these kinds of tactics are the only way to succeed and are something you should be emulating.

Find some decent and helpful people to learn from and help others by passing on your knowledge and experience.

For this subscriber, it was a very quick bye bye to that list and I hope I'm not the only one either. Why build a list and completely destroy your credibility with emails like this? (For information on how to use email marketing in an ethical and non-scummy way I recommend you read the New Age Email Marketing Report)

If you genuinely feel that life is too short to live it honestly and don't believe that there is more to life than easy money on the internet, or anywhere else, then you won't care what I think. The "nice guys finish last" philosophy might help people like this guy sleep at night, but do you really want someone like that to get their grubby hands on your hard earned money?

Think about it. That's all I'm saying.

PHOTO CREDIT: ATENCION



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16. May 2009:

Automating Traffic Sales & Leads (Yeah Right!)

Most of the time when you see a claim like this it turns out to be nothing more than hot air. People use lines like this in their sales copy because they know that thousands of people are looking for that marketing holy grail where they can sit on the beach and sip cocktails with their laptop sitting jauntily under the shade of a palm tree alongside them.

I'll be straight with you, as I always try to be on this blog - that is just a pipe dream and most succesful marketers have worked very hard to achieve success.

I've been absent from the blog a lot in these past few weeks as my wife and I have been hard at work setting up a new business unrelated to internet marketing. We invested a lot of money in that business but we are pleased to be able to say that we did not have to get into debt - no bank financing, no business plan to present to the pencil necks, nothing. We did it due to a combination of luck, being in the right place at the right time, and sheer determination and willingness to risk most of our capital on a new venture we see as having a great future.

The new business has already made us a nice amount of money and we will soon be in a situation where we can draw profits and salaries from the business. Trust me when I say, I haven't done a lot of sitting on the beach sipping Hurricanes - it's been a mixture of blue and white collar work, it's caused some blisters and a true redneck from working out in the sun, but it's one of the greatest feelings in the world to walk across the yard (under those stereotypical palm trees) to get to work, to work the hours I want, to take a break or a day off whenever I choose and to be working in partnership with my wife who fronts our new operation and is doing a great job of generating business.

So, what is the point of this story........? Well, making more money than I've ever done at a conventional job in our first few weeks of operation is the first thing, and secondly, in comparison with my online ventures it's been a lot more physical in many ways and even the light stuff requires a lot of hands on time.  I'm enjoying the physical skills and developing my craft, it's very rewarding and a completely different challenge from internet marketing.

I certainly wouldn't want to give up on affiliate marketing, nor my online trading efforts - it's not the easy money that some would have you believe, but it's not that hard either and who wouldn't want regular checks arriving in the mail or deposits into their payment processing accounts? That's the dream right? That's why you're here reading my blog.

My new situation is going to demand a lot more of my time, time that would previously have been spent online, doing what I've done for the past few years. So, I could really use that mythical automated money machine!

That was when I stumbled across something that I found truly interesting and something that I think all my readers will too.

I received an ad for something called the "Automated Sales System" and I almost closed my browser. I'm glad to say that something stopped me and clicked on the video link on the sales page instead. 

I listened to the owner of the site talking his service up and demonstrating just what the sytem does and how it can literally help anyone build traffic, generate sales and capture leads. It can do this for any niche, for any product or service you care to name. 

It doesn't matter whether you are selling your own products or are working as an affiliate. You don't even need your own website, and that is something I don't say lightly, because I believe all affiliates should have sites of their own. However, this could change that, and without investing every cent you have into PPC advertising.

You don't even need your own autoresponder, because the system supplies them for you, although you can freely integrate your GetResponse or Aweber accounts if you wish.

It all sounds too good to be true right? Well, at this point, I recommend you head over to check out the Automated Sales System for yourself. Watch the video and think of the potential. I honestly believe this is as close to automation of three of the most important internet marketing tasks as you are ever going to get.

That said, it isn't free of course but after you've watched the video, click on your browser's close button and you'll get a really great offer that I think you'll want to buy. (Let's just say it's going to cost you less than 5 bucks to try this for yourself). There is a monthly subscription after that, but it's cheaper than an autoresponder account from any of the big providers!

Every now and then, an idea like this crops up and just stands out from the crap and hype that make up so many product launches and internet marketing crazes. I think it will be a huge success for anyone who gives it a try and will open up new avenues of revenue that you've never even considered before.

I'm going to try it myself and I'll let you know how I get on. Maybe it will make up for the time I'm going to have to spend elsewhere to maintain my beach bum lifestyle in the Caribbean.

When you think of all the possible uses for this it's quite astounding. When using it on social networks for example you can add links to any site, at the same time giving yourself the opportunity to capture opt-in information or just provide a link to one of your own pages. That increases your potential sales and visitors by an untold amount! Without the need to spam you can send people to ANY link, allowing you to share quality information from all over the web and "piggy back" off that information. Just as an example here's a link from one of my recent Twitter messages

Now. if you are put off by the cost of the system let's put it in perspective. No hosting costs, no need to pay for separate autoresponders, - that's a saving of at least $30 per month even as a conservative estimate. If you use a free blogging service or even if you have no website at all, this will be of huge benefit, enabling you to build your own list. So, think about it seriously if you are looking for a great marketing package.

Now where did I put that cocktail........?



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01. March 2009:

Easy Video Producer Free Viral Video Software

Can Viral Video Really Be This Easy ... And FREE?

With the launch of Easy Video Producer, the answer is a resounding YES! Joel Therien, president and CEO of the hugely successful Kiosk.ws, has released a state-of-the-art software package that online marketers are going to love. The program automates the process of recording and embedding video into affiliate marketing web pages with opt-in form templates and built-in backend auto-responders. What is uniques about this is that the software package is being given away for free.

Easy Video Producer is a feature-rich software package that not only records video from your computer's web cam and automatically encodes the file for insertion into any web page, it will also allow you to insert the captured video files into a selection of stylish video templates which are also included for free in the giveaway package. The beauty is in its simplicity as it is very user friendly, requires no technical knowledge and makes video sharing available to everyone.

You can also import video files from other sources to embed into the templates with a couple of mouse clicks.

Easy Video Producer
However it does not end there. This web based software package does much more than just record and embed video. It's a complete marketing system that includes a built-in autoresponder and affiliate marketing system complete with a back office website.

The look and feel is crisp and it has a very user-friendly interface. All in all, the program is quite impressive and definitely something that most people would be more than willing to pay for.There are some similar and very popular products on the market that are currently selling (and selling well) that cost between $300-$500 on the low end. The introduction of this free option is certain to create a bit of a stir among the competition.

The concept behind Easy Video Producer is to provide a tool for those who sign up and download the free software to be able to generate a massive viral wave of opt in subscribers to grow their own mailing list. Most online marketers will understand the power and importance of this and EVP's free software may be the best tool that most online marketers will have to build their own massive opt in subscriber lists. You don't even need a website or autoresponder of your own to use the system as it is all included in your back office.

Easy Video Producer is poised to be a huge success for anyone who downloads and uses this free software. By giving this away to others, not only are you helping them and giving them a great tool to use, you are also helping yourself. Classic viral marketing at its very best and using something that appeals to a huge online audience, not just the make money and internet marketing crowd.

The official "launch" is today, right now, and the sooner you get in line, the more successful you're going to be in using the power of this new program. Go and take a look inside your own EVP members area, it is free and will always be free, and start using the service to create and share your videos privately or publicly. This is one program that you will want to share with everyone you know or work with and you are getting the chance to join at the public "prelaunch" phase.

Easy Video Producer Free Account - Sign Up Here

You can also read about some more useful video tools for webmasters in our free PDF report Video Scripts That Sell.

TCH



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06. November 2008:

Creating Your Own Ebooks | Tips and Tools For Digital Info Product Creation

Many marketers they will tell you that one of your key online strategies for making money should be product creation. In this post I thought I would take a look at just what you need to start creating your own digital information products, ebooks and reports. Before we begin however, there are a couple of points to consider, after which we'll move on to the slightly technical stuff which is the part that often scares people away.

 The first important thing is to know your subject and to research just how much demand and how much competition there might be for your intended target audience/niche. If you really can't be bothered, you can always outsource the whole process, including the writing and then just sell the resultant product. All joking aside, many info products have been born this way and if your pockets are deep enough maybe it's something to consider.

Secondly, you have to have a clear idea of the purpose of your book - from your perspective. Are you going to make a saleable product, or do you want to use the report or ebook as a viral marketing/promotion vehicle? This will have significant impact on how you proceed.

In the first scenario, let's assume that you decide to write a free report. You either want to

a) use it as a means of gaining subscribers for your list or

b) to promote and spread site(s) or services in which you have an interest, perhaps as an affiliate or perhaps as the owner of said product or service.

For option a. all you need to do is create a product that you think your target audience will find useful. You can add in some affiliate links to relevant sites and services and create opportunities for sales or to send people to sites where you are running Adsense or similar PPC ads. The concept is simple - give good free information and point people to places where they can find out more and where you may be able to make sales or commissions.

For option b. you may want to consider making your report rebrandable, therefore making it more attractive for people to pass along to others. If they can populate your ebook with some of their own links, they will be more likely to do so. You can still ask people to opt-in of course, it is just a question of whether you think that might stunt the viral effect. Many people are reluctant to offer up their email addresses, no matter what reassurances you offer, so you viral ebook may well do better if you just let visitors download it.

Having decided the direction in which you are going to go, you do not need many tools to do the job. Creating a PDF ebook is the obvious choice because practically all computer users can read PDF's on their machines. Creating PDF's is a lot more straightforward than it used to be. I prefer to use eWriterPro because you can write and edit the book, insert all your hyperlinks and convert the finished product to PDF all with one program.

Alternatively, you can use Open Office, which won't cost you anything at all and will do a good job. For those needing instruction take a look at this post on PDF creation with Open Office.

To make a rebrandable ebook you are going to need some rebranding software. By far the best known is ViralPDF which is very easy to use and represents excellent value. It uses a simple system of tags, enabling you to create special links in your ebook that will convert into rebrandable fields in the finished product. People who download the book can also download a small rebrander software. Whether you give this away or ask people to opt-in to a list or even charge a fee for it is entirely up to you. However, if the viral effect is your biggest priority, you will probably want to make it all as quick and painless as possible for your customers. 

The biggest drawback with rebrandable PDF's is this - many affiliates will not have a website of their own, and this method will exclude them from promoting and giving away the book, even if they want to. If your product is non internet or techie related, a great number of people may therefore be unable or unwilling to promote your viral book. Until recently this has been a problem you just have to live with, but, if it concerns you, read on.....

There is now an ingenious way around this, and no, it's not using .exe format ebooks (which are not a very great idea in my opinion). It basically enables your visitors and customers to rebrand something without having to download any software, without having to host any files or build any landing page or do any of that tedious technical stuff that so often prevents people from taking action. You can find out more by visiting my page at the Ultimate Rebrander where it is explained in detail. To my mind this could well be the way of the future when it comes to rebranding electronic products. 

Moving on to the second scenario - you decide to create and sell a PDF ebook.

Having decided that there is a market for your product, the process of PDF creation follows the same format as the first example. You probably won't want to create rebrandable links, but if you do, the options are also the same.

Once you have written the ebook you will need a few other things in order to bring it to market. These are all vitally important for a commercial product and can signify your success or failure.

Professional graphics are a must, unless you are a Photoshop wizard yourself. You could conceivably use a graphics authoring program like The Web Graphics Creator, but sometimes it's best to stump up for a design professional. The cost should be easily recoverable if your product is a good one. (My last free report recovered the cost of graphics within a couple of days.)

You also need to decide how you are going to sell your product and the obvious choice would be Clickbank or PayDotCom. The cost to list a product in Clickbank's marketplace is a one off $49.95 but again, you should soon make that back if you are selling at $27 to $47 for example. The benefits of using either service is that you will access the huge number of affiliates. Bear in mind that you will need to pay decent commissions if you want affiliates to promote for you - the norm for Clickbank is anything from 30-75%.

You could go it alone of course and stick to selling through PayPal or Alertpay for example, but you lose out significantly by not leveraging the large number of affiliates working with the aforementioned services. Then again, you could use your own affiliate program and if you are launching a low cost or even free product you might want to take a close look at something like the $7 Secrets Script by Jonathon Leger.

Alternatively, for serious product launch power you could also consider using the extremely comprehensive Rapid Action Profits. You can see exactly what this script can do for you over at the sales page, (a long but impressive read) and although it's not cheap, you can see the potential for selling a lot more product is entirely genuine and therefore makes the software a very good investment. I haven't used it myself yet, but when I finally put together a commercially viable ebook it's going to be right up there on my list of marketing must haves. It really does do everything that would normally require a host of various scripts that may or may not all work together to achieve the same end result. I've not mentioned a high end item like RAP on my blog before but for those launching a new ebook, it really is a great solution to a host of problems.  

The other thing you will need is a way to ensure that you don't suffer from theft of your product. (if you're not using something like RAP). Using a static download page is a no no nowadays, especially with social bookmarking sites being so prominent. The last thing you want is your download page plastered all over any one of them. There are several options, but I would recommend SmartDD which I have posted about here in the past - for the full details you can read about SmartDD here. The best thing about it is that it is free for up to five products and can be integrated with Clickbank, taking care of your thankyou page which is a requirement for selling anything through their marketplace as well as protecting you from theft and automating all your sales.

When it comes to launching your product there are plenty of options. If you can persuade anyone to JV with you and plug your book, all well and good, but you will need to offer something in return. Sometimes handing out a copy to potential partners for free is a good starting point and enables them to make a decision about promoting your work from a position of knowledge. If you don't know anyone well enough to offer that kind of trust you could always offer some copies for sale at a heavily discounted price to help things get moving. You may want to post about your book on a few forums and spread it around your social networks too. When it comes to promotion there is much you can do to get the word out. Hopefully you can achieve a snowball effect once you start things off.

If a free viral book mentions certain products, get in touch with the owner, they may well agree to promote to their own lists and members if they think it will help them make more sales. When approaching potential JV partners don't be shy - fire off an email - the worst they can do is say no, and plenty probably will, but don't let that dishearten you, you might be surprised at some of the support you can get. 

So, there is some advice and things to consider. For many people the thought of creating an ebook is intimidating and yet it shouldn't be. If you can write and have a subject on which you have a decent amount of knowledge, you are already good to go. With the technical aspects covered in this post you should now be able to get your product up and running and hopefully selling like the proverbial hot cakes.

I'm sure there are plenty of things I've not covered, but if you have anything to add please leave your comments and share your knowledge with other readers.

Photo By Athena



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