Separating the A+ internet marketing products from the class clowns…

	“A MUST HAVE for anyone creating info products or brainstorming new markets.”
	Price:	$97.00
	Link:	Desperate Buyers Only

Overview:

This is an expensive book, but you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better instructions for creating a successful information product or for brainstorming new markets to enter. Equally valuable, the book comes with a free phone consultation with Alexis - that’s worth more than the price of the book.

Pros:

First of all, this book will not outline all of the steps you need to get an internet marketing project up-and-running, but then again, Alexis isn’t really trying to accomplish this. What she is doing is showing you her playbook of how she has used a laser-beam strategy to generate healthy passive income day after day and year after year.

I’ve seen surprisingly few internet marketing books that address market selection and/or product creation. Alexis addresses both exceedingly well. If you’ve run out of ideas (or never had one to start with) about where to make money online, or were wondering how to make the leap from affiliate marketing to selling your own products, then this is the book for you.

Second — and this is the real gem of buying Desperate Buyers — is the free phone consultation with Alexis that accompanies the purchase of the book. I had Alexis provide feedback on a sales letter for me, and I was really impressed with the level of detail in which she critiqued my sales copy. She suggested both strategic and tactical changes to the letter that I still re-use in other letters to this day. This in and of itself was worth the price of the book. She was even nice enough to give me a second follow-up consultation for no charge (although I did end up sending her a token of my appreciation via PayPal for her great advice).

Include pages 7-26 and pages 87-93 in the Keyword Research tab of your binder. (huh?)

Include page 94 and pages 27-33 in the Content Development tab of your binder. (huh?)

Cons:

Alexis’ book leaves out a LOT of details if you’re looking to comprehensive book on starting an internat marketing biz. And that’s just fine by me. Others, such IttyBiz and Caroline Middlebrook do a good job of filling in the details of getting your site set-up, and customers in the door (so to speak).

Another con is the singular focus of the book on short (and I mean s-h-o-r-t, i.e. 10-20 page) reports. I would have a hard time justifying charging someone $40 for a 15-page manual created largely from publicly available information, but Alexis seems to have a constant stream of happy customers using exactly this strategy.

Where to Get It:

Non-affiliate link: Desperate Buyers Only

	“Outstanding step-by-step internet marketing video course”
	Price:	Free!
	Link:	30 Day Challenge

Overview:

The Thirty Day Challenge is a (get ready for it…) 30 day email course designed to walk beginners step-by-step through the process of researching a niche, then setting up, SEO optimizing, promoting, and monetizing a website.

The actual challenge is to find a suitable keyword and go through all the steps to generate $1.00 in ad revenue. Let me be clear, this is the best free resource for beginner internet marketers IF you can tolerate sitting through 10 hours of video, and are ok with not having a good source of reference material to fall back on afterwards.

Pros:

Now, I consider my search engine placement skills to be pretty damned advanced at this point, and I learned a TON of new things from this email series (most notably, the importance of social bookmarking sites, and using Squidoo and Hub Pages to generate high page-rank inbound links). If you have no idea what I’m talking about in the last sentence, no worries, Ed and the gang will walk you through everything you need to know.

The best part is that once you get your first email, you can view all of the video lessons immediately by going to the site.

Make notes on the Squidoo and Hub Pages videos and include them in the Off-Page SEO tab of your binder. (huh?)

Cons:

I’m not a huge fan of video, and I find it a pain to sit through a half-hour clip when I can scan a document in 10 minutes and get the highlights. Ed and the gang are entertaining to watch, but video is still a drawback in my book. Each video page includes a transcript, but it is not a suitable replacement for the videos. Another drawback is that it is hard to create reference material from videos. If you want to revisit the material, you have to re-watch the video. Bummer. If these guys were to write a book, I’d be all over it even at $200. Unfortunately, the videos are the best we can do for now.

Where to Get It:

Non-affiliate link: 30 Day Challenge

	“Nuts-and-bolts of setting up a WordPress site quickly, easily, and primed for SEO.”
	Price:	Free!
	Link:	Caroline Middlebrook’s Free eBook: Build Niche Sites with Wordpress

Obvious Observation…

I realize everything I’ve recommended so far has gotten an ‘A’ grade. I’m working through a list of resources that I’ve found to be really helpful. Trust me, I will get to all of the duds later, but for now, I want to make sure you know about a few of the better ones out there.

Going forward, I will generally spend less time going through all the details of free resources that I recommend - especially if the resource is easily downloaded (i.e. if it is not buried 2 months into an autoresponder series). You can check out the free resources for yourself, and trust that I won’t waste your time recommending free resources that are crap.

Overview:

Caroline comes from a more technical background (like me), and it shows in her ability to bring the most technical aspect of internet marketing to the masses. If you are intimidated by setting up a website (or if you are paying a techie all your revenue to set it up for you) give this book a try.

Pros:

I like this ebook because it goes into the exact steps needed to set-up a website using the cheapest possible resources.

If you want to set-up several sites (like Court’s Internet Marketing School recommends), this is a great checklist to set-up sites quickly. I use a version of this checklist every time I set-up a website to age.

If you want to set-up a Wordpress blog as the basis for your 5-page website (for either Adsense or an information product), you will appreciate the excruciating detail about how to:

• install Wordpress
• FTP themes and plug-ins to the correct folders
• change the theme
• setting up Adsense
• activate the plug-ins
• change URL slugs to be more SEO friendly

I must say that I still pull out Caroline’s book each time I set-up a new site to age - even after having set-up nearly 10 Wordpress sites in the last few months. I wish more books went into the level of depth as Caroline does in her book.

If you want to set-up a new website quickly, and want to be sure that everything is ready for search engine optimization, then Caroline Middlebrook’s free ebook on Building a Niche Site with Wordpress is a must read!

Include the entire ebook in the Website Set-up tab of your binder. (huh?)

Cons:

Caroline focuses heavily on setting up sites for AdSense (which is also the primary focus of the projects she discusses on her blog). If this is not your schtick, then you will need to modify several of the steps outlined in the book to meet your needs. I do not use Adsense on any of my sites, but I still found the steps helpful in bring me up to speed on Wordpress.

Where to Get It:

Get Caroline’s free ebook “Build Niche Sites with Wordpress“

	“Adwords PPC Cheat Sheet written by Your’s Truly”
	Price:	Free!
	Link:	N/A: Read it below!

It’s All About Relevancy!

Both PPC and search engine placement are all about relevancy. Google rewards relevant authority websites higher search engine rankings.  Similarly, relevancy is rewarded within Adwords with lower cost-per-click (CPC) rates.  Here’s the skinny on making your Adwords campaigns more relevant, and thus, more effective in terms of cost:

Relevant Keywords:

In a perfect world, each keyword in your campaign would have its own Ad Group.  Subsequently, each Ad Group would have exactly 2 ads: 1 control ad which represents the CTR for this keyword that you’ve found so far, and a test (a variation of the control ad that you are testing in an attempt to come up with an even higher CTR ad).

When testing it is important to set your Ad Group settings so that each ad is shown equally (i.e. don’t allow Google to run the higher CTR ad more often - you are trying to make that determination in a more controlled manner).

Once you see 30 or so clicks on both ads within the ad group, select the winner as the control, and then create another test ad and try to “beat the control”.  Repeat this process continuously.  Never stop testing!

Relevant Ads:

Again, ideally each keyword has 2 ads (the control, and the test ad).  The headline of the ad should always contain the exact keyword phrase.  This ensures that the headline will be bolded within the search results (if you notice in any Google search results, Google highlights the term that was searched on in bold).

If you do this, you will experience higher CTR in almost all cases, but again, you want to continually run A/B split tests on your ads to keep finding higher and higher CTR ads.

Relevant Landing Page:

In a quest for ever increasing relevancy, Google examines each ad/landing page combination to determine relevancy for the pair.  The 3 possible scores are Great, OK, and Poor.  Higher scores are rewarded with higher placement within the ads list, which directly translates into lower CPC (meaning, you can bid less for that keyword, and still rank highly within the ads list).

Google wants to make sure that your landing page is optimized for the specific keyword that you’ve bid on, so if you humor them with an optimized landing page, you will be rewarded with lower CPC.

CTR and Bidding Strategy:

Google takes feedback from search engine users to determine if a particular ad is relevant for the search term.  This is measured largely by the CTR.  So, if your CTR is extremely high, Google will show your ad near the top of the ad list.

If you drop your bid price, and the ad still does better than most of the competing ads (again, as measured by CTR), then Google will start moving it back up again.  Lather, rinse and repeat until you find a point where you can’t create a better performing ad and your CTR (and position) starts to drop when you lower your bid price.

Include the Adwords Cheat Sheet in the Google Adwords - PPC tab of your binder. (huh?)

**Please excuse my self-grading. I hope you think as highly of my cheat sheet as I do

	“Informative email newsletter that includes a fantastic search engine placement cheat sheet.”
	Price:	Free!
	Link:	Mind Valley Labs

Overview:

Mike Reining and Vishen Lakhiani at MindValley Labs take a scientific, but accessible, approach to PPC and search engine placement. These guys mainly focus on starting and running their own niche sites (much like I do), and as a result, only offer consulting services and a monthly membership site.

I get the impression that Mike and Vishen are passionate about internet markering and offer these services not to make a killing (trust me, there are much easier, and more profitable, niches to try and dominate than internet marketing!), but rather to share the substantial knowledge they’ve gained over the years.

Pros:

The MindValley Labs free newsletter offer more tips and tricks than a lot of paid products I’ve purchased! If MindValley recommends a tip, you can rest assured that it has been exhuastively tested on their own sites, and is a proven money-maker. These guys are even more anal retentive about testing and re-testing than I am (god help them…)

The real gem in the newsletter comes on the 3rd or 4th day of the autoresponder series in an email called “Can You Get More Traffic by Kissing Google’s Ass?“. If you click the link within the email, you will be taken to their site where you can download (free!) an “SEO Cheat Sheet” that tells you step-by-step everything you need to do to increase your site’s search engine placement for your particular keyword.

I was in the process of creating a similar cheat sheet for my own use when I found this one. The MindValley Labs version is really good, and best of all it is free.

Include the SEO Cheat Sheet in the On-Page SEO tab of your binder. (huh?)

Cons:

Since this is a free resource, I can’t find much to complain about. You have to provide a name and email to receive the newsletter, but the emails are not too frequent, and the info is great (I find myself opening the email as soon as I see it in my inbox).

Where to Get It:

Click Here to Learn More About the Mind Valley Labs Email Newsletter (this is a non-affiliate link)

	“Easy-to-read resource for beginners looking to learn the essentials of SEO.”
	Price:	$39.00
	Link:	Itty Biz SEO School

Overview:

Naomi Dunford decided to re-release her popular SEO School ebook this week, and if you’re new to SEO, or are confused by all of the more technical SEO books on the market, then this is your lucky day. Naomi distills a confusing topic into an easy-to-read 53-pages that will get you off to a solid start if you are looking to learn SEO. A must-read, in my opinion.

Pros:

Naomi’s writing style is entertaining to say the least (she curses like a drunken sailor even in her writing), but she knows her stuff. I know, because I’ve paid her over 4-figures just to call her and bounce ideas off of her. I bought the book when I was about 4 months into learning SEO, and I still didn’t have a good grasp of the big picture. This book set me squarely on the path to learning SEO.

I like to think of Naomi’s book as the “course syllabus” for the rest of your SEO education - which is why I’ve chosen to review this book first. You will not learn everything here, but you will learn the basics in a structured way, so that you can be intelligent about going out to find more granular information on a particular topic.

Without this book, my approach SEO would be a lot less organized and structured than it is today. In particular, 3 chapters are must-reads:

1. What to Rank For: Naomi does a great job explaining the process of finding a profitable niche. More importantly, the book tells you which keywords you absolutely do NOT want to go after for a particular niche. The competition section is great as well, and goes into detail about how to evaluate your chances of ranking for a your keyword phrase.

Include pages 15-24 in the Keyword Research tab of your binder. (huh?)

2. On-Page Optimization: this chapter walks you through the process of optimizing your site for a particular keyword step-by-step. I have since found more detailed explanations of each step, but this is what got me started, and it is still an excellent resource to have.

Include pages 25-33 in the On-Page SEO tab of your binder. (huh?)

3. Off-Page SEO: I like this chapter because it is the best overview of off-page SEO that I’ve found. You will not learn everything you need to know here, but this will provide a solid foundation from which to build.

Include pages 35-40 in the Off-Page SEO tab of your binder. (huh?)

Cons:

If you already know a lot about picking the right optimization keywords, and on- and off-page SEO, this is not an essential book for you. You’ll learn some new things for sure, but nothing is earth-shattering here. Having said that, I still read the keywords section from time-to-time because it is the best book on the topic that I’ve seen.

Where to Get It:

Click Here to Learn More About IttyBiz SEO School

Non-affiliate link: IttyBiz

Like I mentioned in my first post, the goal of this blog is to help you create your own 3-ring binder that represents the bulk of what you need to know to succeed in internet marketing.  I’ve spent the last 6 months scouring the internet for good resources (both paid and free) to help me learn the ins-and-outs of internet marketing, and I want to pass along what I’ve learned to you.

Here’s the scoop:

• Each blog post will be a review of a new product or resource.
• I will assign a grade of A, B, C, D or F for each resource which represents my opinon of the usefulness of the product.
• If the resource made it in to my binder, I’ll tell you which pages I found to be helpful and which pages you can throw away.
• I’ll include 2 links for each paid resource: 1 affiliate link, and 1 non-affiliate link.  So, you can click the affiliate link if you want to help me out (if you choose to buy any of the paid resources, you pay the same amount whether you click the affiliate or non-affiliate link.  Clicking on the affiliate link simply tells the seller of the resource that I sent the buyer to them, and they give me a commission).  I’m including 2 links because I know online reviews are inherently biased, so I want to give you the option to buy it where I don’t receive a commission — if that helps you sleep better at night.
• I will post 2 reviews per week.

Internet Marketing Categories (i.e. the tabs in my binder)

My binder is divided into 8 “tabs”, so each resource that I want you to include in your binder will be assigned a category corresponding to the tab in your binder.  Here are the 8 categories:

• Keyword Research
• Website Set-up
• On-Page SEO
• Off-Page SEO
• Copywriting
• Content Development
• Google Adwords - PPC
• Tools

Other Random Items…

From time-to-time, I will include posts to update you on what I’m up to with my own internet marketing efforts.

I encourage you to leave comments and to suggest new products to review.  There is a lot of stuff out there, and I know I am missing some good resources, so if you run across something you’d like me to include in the list, please hit me up.

Hi everyone, I guess this is my "Hello World" post. I am a relative new-comer to internet marketing, and have been working full-time as an internet marketer for about 6 months now.

My background is in management consulting and information technology. I am a graduate of Stanford Business School, and most recently worked in real estate development prior to the housing market collapse and the credit crisis. I’ve never been a great employee, and it took me a long time to realize that I’m not cut-out to work for someone else.

Like many of you, I got sick-and-tired of going to work for someone else everyday, and decided I had to make a change for my own sanity. It has been an absolute blast so far, though the learning curve has been incredibly steep to say the least!

I’ve run across a lot of great blogs that deal with starting and marketing small business websites (IttyBiz and Caroline Middlebrook are a couple of my favorites). I want to share my experience, but I also don’t want to reinvent the wheel, so to speak, or to try and replicate the fantastic service these other blogs are providing.

I hope you will find my approach to this blog helpful and unique.

The Challenge of Starting Out in Internet Marketing

I haven’t seen anyone address what I’ve found to be the biggest challenge in getting my internet marketing off the ground, and that is filtering through all the junk that is for sale from so-called "gurus" and "superstar" internet marketers.

Like many n00b internet marketers, I spent a small fortune chasing the latest and greatest internet marketing product that would guarantee the success of my site. Many of the products have been great, and a lot have been next to worthless.

Many of the best products are free, and many "free" products have ended up wasting a lot of my time (the most valuable resource any of us has!).

Learn from My Mistakes

Since I’ve started my business, I have distilled, edited, and refined all of the material I have found, purchased, or otherwise come across into 3-ring binder of material that I reference every day in my business. I consider this material to be the definitive internet marketing bible, if you will (sorry, I’m already sounding like a cheesy internet marketer!). Some of the material in my binder was purchased, and a lot of the material is free.

The Purpose of this Blog

My goal, over the next several months, is extremely specific. I want to help you recreate the 3"-binder that I’ve put together that I consider to be the absolute core material you need to learn and reference on a daily basis to start and maintain a profitable internet marketing career.

I’ll provide reviews of materials that you should avoid, as well as products that I’ve found to be helpful. I’ll show you where to get the best free info. I’ll even tell you which pages are worth keeping in your binder, and which ones can be thrown away.

Full Disclosure Time: (e.g. How I make money…)

Yes, I am in the business of making money. However, I want to earn your trust by providing reliable information and honest reviews. For each product I recommend, I will provide an affiliate link (i.e. a link where I get paid if you purchase the product), as well as a non-affiliate link (i.e. I do NOT get paid if you buy the product). You are free to click either link you choose. If you like my reviews, and think the information I provide is worthwhile, you can help me out by clicking the affiliate link.

Let’s get started, this should be fun!