Blog Marketing

I must admit to being pretty astounded by how well Blog Marketing works in the Internet Marketing niche. I’m more than aware that in my other niches – ranging from website building, dogs, on through heath, jewellery to even more diverse niches,  that blogs are possibly THE single best tool for both directing traffic to my sales websites and for making direct sales from my blog.

 I though in this niche – Internet Marketing – that people would be much more cynical than that – after all as marketers we know exactly what blogs are, and more importantly how to use them to drive traffic and make sales. So I thought nobody would be interested in reading my blog.

I was really wrong.

The amount of traffic I’ve generated from a few links and a few forum posts is amazing. I’m getting more hits than I ever thougt possible, including comments and emails. I’ve also been indexed by Google.

You can find out how I did all this (and more that goes on behind the scenes) by reading ‘Blog Your Wage’ at http://www.blogyourwage.com

 Even better – the book is free!



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Child cruelty and Internet Marketing

I sometimes speak to my children like a Victorian Disciplinarian Father – ‘Sit down and keep quiet child or I’ll sell you to a chimney sweep who’ll put you up chimneys to clean them!  I growl in a deep and menacing voice.

They know it’s a game and squeal with laughter or giggle and call me silly. It’s one of those private family joke things that is loving and fun and bonds us together.

Unfortunately I sometimes forget and last month did my ‘Victorian Dad’ routine in a shopful of people. My daughter as usual giggled and ran up to me and hugged my legs. But to the people in the shop she looked like a terrified urchin about to be given a taste of the whip.

I didn’t realise this until I looked around at the faces of my fellow shoppers, whose expressions ran from disgust to terror. I’m surprised nobody called social services.

The week after we were at a village gathering to welcome Christmas into the village. It’s actually very early for Christmas being November still, but in actuality I think the ceremony dates back to pre-Christian times and they’ve covered it up by shoving Christmas on the top to make it respectable.

This time my daughter was being genuinely naughty. She was bashing her brother with a squeaky stuffed (cloth) hammer and ignoring all attempts by my wife to get her to stop.

I leaned forward and said (in a not too quiet voice) ‘Please will you stop doing that – would you like being hit with that hammer?!’

Of course I said this just as there was a break in the music so my voice carried all the way down the street and into most of the next county. You could have heard a DNA unwind.

Of course as I looked up who was there but one of the more disgusted people from the shop episiode, and to make it worse my darling daughter looked up at me with big eyes and said ‘please don’t hit me with the hammer daddy’.

If my wife hadn’t dragged me away I’d have been lynched on the steps of the church (where they really used to do it 600 years ago)

Recently I’ve also had some very minor website problems. One poor man in particular was left waiting for his download for almost 24 hours when it should have been instant. I apologised and sent him a bonus but guess what?

The next time I had problems with a site, who should decide to buy?

Yep – my patient customer. I tried to explain that it was a co-incidence but polite though he was, I’ll never see him again. He got a snapshot of my business through bad luck, bad timing and technical difficulties. Nothing I can do about that except smile and hope he comes to visit my sites on a good day. You can’t control everything – so don’t sweat too much about the stuff that you can’t. Work on the stuff that you CAN change, and if you want to, change it.

Likewise my homelife.

What’s the betting that the next time my neighbours see me and my daughter, she’s got tomato ketchup all over her face and I’m walking behind her with the big stick I use for unblocking leaves from the drain?

I give up.



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Want to make money? Give things away for free!

I’ve never understood why most Internet Marketers are so mean when it comes to giving things away!

And if they do find it in their black, shriveled little hearts (sorry – not had my coffee yet) to actually give something away to their list or their subscribers it’s usually a manky little report that’s stuffed full of links.

Strangely enough – if you want to make money the opposite works. Provide something that is excellent value – worth at least a genuine $17 – and give it to them for free. Sure put maybe a single link back to your blog or newsletter page but don’t stuff it full of annoying URL’s that distract from the content.

And of course make sure that the content iself is valuable. Let’s not take the p*ss here – people know when they’ve been offered something of poor value that’s been knocked together by some lazy marketer who then expects his subscribers to circulate it all over the net just so he can grab the traffic. People are not stupid –  Marketers are (me included)

 If you provide quality freebies people realise that the your paid work will be of a high quality. I regularly offer top rate freebies to my subscribers with no catches (sign up for my newsletter on the right if you’re interested) or strings attached.

Sure I might include an upsell in the deal, but the link for the freebie is always obvious and obtainable without hassle. in the example I’m about to give you, the free link is at the bottom of the second page.

Check out the following free report – http://www.streamingaudio4free.com

See if you like the model – the idea – the marketing strategy, and if you do – use it with your own people – everyone will be much better off if we treat each other with respect and realise that there is intelligent life out there. Be nice!

Now sod off I need my coffee.



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How to outsmart a guru….

A quick hello to my US readers – thanks for not telling me it was Thanksgiving. I spent a whole day going through my website stats trying to find the reason no one was coming to my sites or buying anything. I now know you were celebrating instead. 

The very best of belated good wishes from the UK for your Thanksgiving holiday 🙂 

If you’ve been in Internet Marketing for any length of time you’ll be pretty familiar with the concept of the ‘tuesday launch’. Some expert somewhere who tests much more than me decided that Tuesday is the optimum day for launching a new product.

Incredibly – in my village that’s the day the shops shut for half a day so everyone is home at their computers! Now THAT’S extensive testing – this expert mush have checked loads of factors to make sure the most people possible were not doing anything else on Tuesday except waiting for a new product launch. No wonder they’re called experts.

However a couple of months ago I sent out two promo mailings, about 3 weeks apart – one on a tuesday (as recommended by Internet Marketing geniuses (genii?), and one on a Sunday evening (UK time).

 You know what I’m going to say don’t you?

The Sunday evening one outsold the tuesday one by about 3:1

Now the products were different I admit but I have an idea how much I’ll usually sell from a mailing and let me tell you I’ll be sticking to Sunday evening mailings.

 On tuesday afternoons my inbox goes a little crazy as all manner of weird and wonderful offers plop into it, and I often wonder why the experts stick with tuesdays because obviously as more and more people do the same thing on the same day the competition goes up.

So I think I’ve found the answer.

A Christmas Day launch!

I reckon that no other Internet Marketers will be launching a new product on that day so I’ll have the whole Internet to myself.  I’m not sure what I’ll be offering yet but I expect to wake up a millionaire the day after!



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Rebrandable Master Resell Rights – Limited

I’ve just released ‘Become A Squidoo Guru In 24 Hours’

http://www.24hoursquidooguru.com

It’s 80+  pages long, comes with fully rebrandable master resell rights, sales page and graphics. It’s a great tutorial – you can be building profit pulling squidoo lenses in 24 hours – so can your list or your subscribers.

My rebrandable master resell rights packages are usuallu only offered to my newsletter subscribers, but as an experiment – (I’m testing!) – I’m opening it for a limited time to readers of my blog.


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Man-ego and Google rankings

If you type ‘Tony Shepherd’ into Google you’ll sometimes find me at the top of the rankings and sometimes some DJ bloke from London with the same name.

 At the moment it’s him – I’m fourth.

If however you type ‘Tony Shepherd Internet Marketer’ not only do I have the top position, but I also have second, third fourth …. in fact every single Google position on the first page is mine. Pretty good .

But I’m still fourth if you type in my own name. Not too bad because my name is relatively common, which in IM is not always a positive thing. If I was called John Smith I’d be happy to get on the first page but if my name was Byron Rocketboost III I’d pretty much expect poll position.

My point is that it doesn’t really matter. When people search for you or your products in an Internet Marketing sense, they’re happy to look all the way down the first results page. And from (a bit of) research I’ve also found that if they don’t find you the first time they’ll refine their search by typing in an additional phrase or the name of one of your products or whatever.

So I think Internet Marketing (and male) ego are what constantly makes me try to get position number one for my name, even if the entry is about how I defraud little old ladies or steal children’s Christmas money (both of which I’ll be giving up as a New Year’s Resolution)

But now I’m delighted to report, both my Internet Marketing ego AND male ego is happy, because my name is now being used as a keyword for Google Adwords! More than that, when you type in ‘Tony Shepherd’ it’s MY adwords ad that appears above that of my DJ nemesis’

Does this mean I’m now more famous than my DJ rival?

Possibly. And I was happy with that for a while…until curiosity got the better of me and I clicked on his link. And now I have a new crisis on my hands because not only is he better looking than me, but he’s younger too!

So now I’m desperately (beer in one hand, mouse in the other) scrabbling round the Internet trying to find out how much a Capital Radio DJ earns…..

And if it’s more than me, I might have to change my name to Rufus Ganglehorn…



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Treat yourself like an idiot

Idiots – you know – the sort of people who are going somewhere to do something but get distracted by something shiny on the floor.

I’m one.

I’m not distressed by being aware of my idiocy, nor am I proud of it. It’s just there, like my nose or the frog that’s currently hibernating under the barbecue in my garden (I think he’s an idiot too).

But in order to be successful at what you do – in my case Internet Marketing AND be an idiot, you have to come up with little ‘idiot aids’ to help you.

One of these is my ‘always to do’ file on my PC. Sometimes when I come to the end of a project I’m at a bit of a loose end. Once something is completed I struggle a bit deciding what to do next. The problem isn’t that I have nothing to do – it’s that I have a bloody great list of ideas, projects and businesses that all need work. The hard part is deciding what to do.

I know from experience that if I try to actually think about what to do next I end up staring into space, looking at websites I shouldn’t or emailing people who are higher up the idiot tree than me. None of these gets any work done. Not too bad if I had a real job where someone would pay me to stare at the wall, but because of what I do, if I don’t work I don’t eat.

So the folder on my PC is a bit of a lifesaver because it allows me to do small, relatively quick tasks that serve two purposes:

1. They bring in money

2. They allow my brain to decide ‘what comes next’ because it takes some time off from wall-staring doing something which doesn’t involve TOO much thought so it can plan for the future at the same time.

One of these ‘folder’ tasks is to create a small viral report then set if ‘free’ on the net.

Thus it wanders forth and periodically sends money back into my Paypal account. If you want to know how to create these have a look at http://www.viralsneakiness.com

The other things in my folder include stuff like adding autoresponder messages to my sequence, posting on my blogs and writing reports. All of which give the reader some kind of way of sending me money, which of course is what working online is about.

So I was thinking the other day about income streams and what percentage of my income arrives from where. And while the big launches, high profile JV’s and flashy sites obviously generate cash, a very healthy proportion – very healthy – comes from small repetitive tasks like viral reports, stocking up the autoresponders, OTO’s (one time offers) and giveaways with upsell.

It’s small stuff that drives the big bucks in IM.

And I’d be an idiot to forget that.



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‘Blog Your Wage’ – free edition

This is an email that went out to our subscribers (my own and Sara Brown’s) a couple of days ago. I’m putting it on my blog for a limited time.  If you want access to subscriber offers like this, subscribe to my newsletter using the form on the right

You’ve probably noticed that at Laycock Publishing we’re keeping our blogs much more up to date at the moment – probably more than we ever have done before.

That’s because we’ve had a shock – a bit like someone throwing an
ice cold glass of water into your face – and the shock is this:

Blogs are UNBELIEVABLY profitable.

So to follow the WordPress Guru ebook we gave you some weeks back,
have a look at:

http://www.blogyourwage.com

I’ve mentioned before that we (Sara especially) came to blogging –
serious blogging – much later than I should have and now I can’t
believe how well it works.

Not least because of the income it brings.

And we’d like to offer you a product that explains how we’re doing
it.

The BEST news of all is – it’s free.

This subscriber freebie shows you how to put up and profit from
simple – REALLY simple – blogs even if you hate writing and you
don’t know the first thing about blogs

I won’t take up your time – you’ll see the value in this
immediately.

We expect this to get a lot of traffic so here’s a second link in
case the first gets clogged up.

http://www.sara-brown.com/blogyourwage

Best Wishes

Sara Brown
Tony Shepherd



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My Failures Seem To Be More Popular Than My Successes

People are much more interested in how I fell down a 12 foot hole while heading toward the pub (it would have been much more understandable heading home after a few beers) than they are in how I first went pot holing in my early teens.

They’re more interested in how I got arrested by the police while illegally putting posters up around town advertising my band’s up and coming gig than they are by the fact that I was first published as a writer at the age of 12 (a very short piece I’ll admit, but I did get paid for it).

So I came to the conclusion a log time ago that failure is just as important in life as success – perhaps more so, because you can’t enjoy one without the other, and in terms of learning a lesson from the ‘University of Life’, failures are like being awarded a doctorate, but without the fancy hat.

 Which must be why of all issues of my newsletter it’s issue 5, where a bad Internet Marketing business decision left me out of pocket by $1,000 is the most re-visited newsletter on the whole site. Yes it makes interesting reading , but I’m no Milton – instead there’s one HUGE reason why people like that particular newsletter – people can relate to failure.  

And that’s the reason why no marketer, no matter what level they’re at should ever try to hide or gloss over their cock ups.

As marketers this should be obvious to us. Most of us haven’t made a fortune from a pottery factory but I can’t think of many people who haven’t dropped a plate at some point.

Your subscribers/readers will get tired pretty quickly of hearing about how you earned $100,000 last month from this or that deal, especially if you leave them with sketchy details or miss out some vital information. It’s boring.

Yep – making $100,000 a month is BORING if all you do is read about someone somewhere in some gold plated office somewhere is doing it and you’re not.

 How useful is ‘I made $100,000 over the last 30 days through affiliate marketing’?

It’s not – unless you tell your subscribers and readers exactly how you did it.

Don’t leave out the detail (we all know that’s where the Devil is but it’s also where the DOLLAR is) because every piece of the puzzle, no matter how small contributes to success.

I try and leave in every detail of my successes and failure in my newsletter – (you can subscribe and get instant access to the back issues using the opt-in form on the right) and that’s why I have both a loyal readership and a lot of egg on my face.

New marketers especially who think they have nothing to contribute because they haven’t yet started earning online, listen up-  your failures, are you best marketing tool.

Start a blog documenting how you tried to make some money using ‘so and so’ method, or by promoting whatever opportunity. Then set down in detail what you did and why you think it didn’t work.

Blogs/websites/reports like this are GOLD DUST in an industry where too many people try to ‘fake it till they make it’. Be honest with your readers – they’ll opt in to your newsletter or list to find out how you’re going on, and when you do finally pull in that elusive first hundred dollars (and you will) they’ll be there to buy the ebook or report you write about it, because they trust you, they want to know your methods and they can relate to you.

Just never forget they were attracted first of all by your failures.



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Why your business is failing?

Not that I’m obsessed with being 40 of course – no mid life crisis here although I’m aware I mention my age a lot…..BUT….you’re a lot easier on yourself as you get older.

I always think there are a lot of people out there who are all too eager to give you a hard time so why do it to yourself too? I’m rather lenient with myself – more like a friendly, encouraging schoolteacher than a drill instructor. I sometimes buy myself beer too.

But it took me a while to work this out.

From birth we’re getting certain messages from all sorts of places, and by the Gods they don’t half stick with us through the rest of our lives. I once remember reading something by of all people Billy Connolly. He said that you don’t realise how much ‘baggage’ you carry round with you until someone lifts it off you.

I went for an Indian head massage a bit back. The clinic was on a busy road, and I’d parked my car just round the corner on a sidestreet – maybe 50 yards away.

After the massage I came out into the sunlight and the weirdest thing happened. I burst out laughing – SERIOUSLY cracked up, tears rolling down my face almost wetting myself hysteria. I could hardly get to my car and as luck would have it there was a huge line of cars all waiting for the lights to change, ALL staring at me. I must have looked insane.

When I finally got home I phoned the clinic and they told me it was a common response to massage, reflexology etc. Some people laugh, cry or file for divorce. It’s due to release of stress I’m told. It was a wonderful feeling.

This ‘baggage’ or whatever you want to call it can affect your online business too and I seriously believe it is why some creative, intelligent people fail online.

I get emails from people who want hand holding every step of the way and their most frequent question is ‘is this right?’ or they tell me they didn’t ever launch that website they were telling me about because they were scared of ‘getting it wrong’.

Let’s put this into perspective – if a bomb disposal expert ‘gets it wrong’ then he’s in deep poop. If you don’t quite get the font on your new website correct – you get a second chance.

I’m stopping this post here because I have a free report for you that explains it far better than I’m doing here. it’s interesting stuff – it could explain why you’ve never had quite the success online you think you deserve (and you DO deserve). It’s certainly worth a read anyway. http://www.laycockpublishinglimited.com/youtheguru



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