Archive for the ‘Tools’ Category

I feel like I’ve mostly been writing ‘how to’ style articles recently, which while they’re great for SEO traffic and good as ‘pillar content’, they can be kind of dry.

I’ve also realised that I need to put more personality into my marketing online, as I do have a personality, and several people quite like it. Consequently, I’m going to start doing more video posts, or at least, integrate video tutorials and ideas into my blogging.

(Note to self: Get a decent lapel microphone for my camera)

I’ve been asked about my move from TotalBusinessCart to GetResponse by a few of my subscribers, so I wanted to answer it here for all to read.

Basically, the majority of the ‘problem’ is me and the fact that I like things to be very simple and clear. I felt like TotalBusinessCart (TBC) wasn’t.

The reason I signed up with TBC (which is a UK clone of 1ShoppingCart) was because a mentor of mine, Neil Asher, recommended it to me as his ‘go to’ solution for autoresponders and for use as a shopping cart. Neil has since bought TBC and is now the proud owner of it. Incidentally, the fact I’ve moved to another provider has nothing to do with Neil, who’s always given great advice and guidance and who remains a friend and mentor in the internet marketing world.

TBC is actually very good as a shopping cart and I have used it as such to good effect. However, I quickly realised that I didn’t really need the shopping cart function for what I was planning to do (affiliate marketing and listbuilding).

What I did need was an autoresponder that had the following attributes: Read the rest of this entry »

Well, it’s been a while since my last blog post, mostly due to a few significant advances in my business which I’ll be charting in a blog post at the start of next week. With more things happening to make me money via the internet, I’ve realised that I’m at a crossroads in my online business…

Either I can work hard, taking on more and more things to do, thus sacrificing my personal life, or I can work smart and be more productive.

Obviously, that’s not really a choice, as it’s blindingly clear which way I need and want to go. However, in order to work smarter, I need to know how to be more productive with the time and work I have.

So, I went to do some reading and picked up my rather tattered copy of The One Minute Millionaire. I was looking for some gems of wisdom that would help me to see how I could make better (more productive) use of my time and resources.

What I found was a couple of pages packed with some excellent tools and thoughts on how to be more productive. I’ve set them out below. I hope you find them as useful as I do and that you use them on a daily basis to enhance your business and life. Where appropriate, I’ll put my own thoughts in within square brackets.

1. Focus on the Critical Few – Eighty-five percent of the things you do account for only 15% of your results. And vice versa. Therefore, only work on the critical things and you’ll get there faster and with less effort.
2. Throw Away Your To Do List – Create instead an 85/15 list. Write the top priority items at the top in the 15% box. Write the lower priority items at the bottom. Only work on the top of your list. [I've just started doing this and it's amazing how it unclutters your 'to do' list and gives you the focus to concentrate on the critical few]
3. Do Your FTF: Feared Things First – Which activity on your list do you fear the most? That’s your FTF. When you start your day, ask yourself, ‘What’s my FTF today?’ Start your day with that activity. By training yourself to do your FTF, you unconsciously urge yourself to tackle tougher tasks. [I love the psychology of this one. For a brilliant example of why you should Just Do It, you might want to read my friend Steve's bungee jump story]

Read the rest of this entry »

When it comes to making money online, ensuring you do the best keyword research possible is essential.

What do I mean by ‘the best keyword research‘?

Well, it’s actually disarmingly simple but so many people get this wrong, so I thought I’d explain what my definition of that phrase is, along with the ways to do it effectively. Plus, I’m going to show you a tool you can buy which will put you miles ahead of the competition.

If you want to go straight to the Market Samurai Review, simply scroll down and watch the two videos below.

OK, so for me, good keyword research is all about finding keywords with the following attributes:

• You can rank highly for them relatively easily (with perhaps only a few hundred backlinks maximum).
• They are what the market is looking to buy, not information keywords.
• They are not confused with other possible uses. For example, some keywords are also names of products in other markets, so you need to be wary of these. For a great example of this, read this post and watch the video on Pat Flynn’s excellent blog.
• There are exact match domain names available upon which I can build targeted sites.

So, with that in mind the next obvious question is: What is the best keyword research tool?

Well, it’s worth saying that there are plenty of good free keyword research tools out there. When I first got started I used:

• Google’s Keyword Research Tool
• The SEO Book Keyword Tool – Go to Keyword Suggestion on the main page and you’ll find the keyword tool. You need to register but it’s free to do so.

However, both of these fall down because they don’t go far enough. You see, I want my keyword tool to tell me not just the amount of potential traffic (accurately), but also the value of that traffic. I would also like it to tell me what the phrase-to-broad-match ratio is, because this will determine how much ‘extra’ traffic I get from other similar searches and whether or not my keyword will get drowned out by those searches.

If it could tell me the competition I’m facing too, that would be awesome.

For me, the best keyword research tool is Market Samurai, because it does all of the above and tons more. I’ve been using it for a while and I have to say, I’m still regularly amazed by how good it is and how much quicker and more accurate it’s made my research.

In the following videos, I show you a full piece of keyword research from start to finish, using Market Samurai. Enjoy the full review as you watch over my shoulder and if you want to get a free trial simply click any of the Market Samurai links or the banners in this post.

Read the rest of this entry »

Well folks, it’s finally here…

It’s taken a fair bit longer than I anticipated it would, but it’s here. I’m proud to say that this is the 100th post on Adventures in Internet Marketing. Hurrah! [cue fireworks]

To celebrate, I wanted to create something special and above all, really useful for my readers. I was stuck for something to do, when I happened to have a chat with my Mum about ways to promote her website. She’s a very good writer (having been an English teacher for many years) and knows a lot about her subject, but as we all know, it’s not enough to reach the level of traffic you want.

She needs to share that info with the world. The best way I could think of to marry her writing with her knowledge was for her to write good, keyword-rich articles.

So, I set about planning a video course for her.

Thing is, I realised that many of you might benefit from it too. And as it’s the 100th post, I thought:

‘What better way to thank everyone and provide great value than by giving away an article writing course for free?’

So, here it is. All I ask is that you leave a message below if you enjoyed and used the info in the videos and that you share it with anyone you think might also benefit from it.

Here goes:

Video One – Introduction

Video Two – Keyword Research

Read the rest of this entry »

I was chatting to my friend Penny Snowball earlier today and she mentioned that she had a few readers in Russia who were interested in translating the site, in order that she could help/reach more people.

Incidentally, Penny’s site is all about her journey from being a drug addict to getting clean and taking control of her life. It’s pretty uplifting reading, showing how you can take control at any moment in your life.

Anyway, one of Penny’s readers in Russia had a real breakthrough thanks to her writing. So it makes sense for her to ‘go global’ and find a simple and inexpensive way of translating her site.

Enter Matt Duggan, stage right…

I had a little dig around and found something that’s ideal for what we wanted.
Read the rest of this entry »

UPDATE: I’ve found another excellent resource on succeeding online from my fellow blogger Yaro Starak. I model a lot of what Yaro does as he’s made a very successful business from blogging. Check out his great article here.

So, to my article:

Last week I was starting to feel a little bit lost. The only reason I wanted to share this with you is because I want to show you the highs and lows of this business and, most importantly, the solutions that I’ve found. If you find yourself in this position, then my hope is that this will help you.

First of all, let me explain…

I’ve been working and learning online for a year now. My first ever product went live in October 2009. Since then, I’ve learned a huge amount, started this blog and begun marketing in earnest. However, for the first few months I hardly made any money. There were sales here and there but my outgoings were more than my profits. In some of my newer ventures (like the newer CPA networks I mentioned in my previous post), I’m still testing them to see if they will be profitable.

It’s also been quite a solitary experience until Read the rest of this entry »