I haven’t made a single post in a long time.

I have been busy with some other projects outside of the Internet Marketing (IM) niche.  while most IMers keep reselling to the same people and new IMers, I tend to look for other markets and not just digital products such as ebooks, software, affiliate programs and the like.

There is a ton more to be made selling physical items online. The fact is ther are more people searching for “stuff” than most marketing gurus want to admit. And the people buying “stuff” are generally easier to sell to.

No matter if you are selling blenders or cars or even homes it can be sold online.

There are 2 different ways to approach selling physical items:

#1 is to find out what people are looking for and then sell it to them.  This is the best approach for digital products, ebooks, etc.

#2 is to find a product first and then find out if there is a market for it. If there is, then you make your sales pages and try selling it.  Most guru’s think this is backwards, but here is why it’s not:

It’s a Huge Time Saver!

What good is it spending time researching a niche and then start looking for a product that you may never find?  In reality it is pretty easy to figure out what items people want to buy. We are talking physical products here. People do buy blenders and other kitchen appliances. They do buy pet products and home products and gifts and garden tools and on and on and on.

Find good product suppliers. Select some products that you want to sell (they should be related to your website). Do some keyword research find out the best way to list them on your site by utilizing the latest and greatest SEO techniques. Make a killer website with better than average ecommerce abilities (shopping cart, buy buttons, etc).

Most of the same marketing techniques that work for IM products also work wonders for physical products.

This post is not about finding product suppliers or where or even how to sell physical items online. That’s a topic for another day. I am just giving you my cliff notes on how I make the majority of my income.

Have a great day!

To your success!!

Looking for product ideas? Want to know what the latest trends are?

If so, Google has taken care of you with two similar tools:

Google Trends

Google Trends for Websites

Google Trends will tell you the hottest topics people are searching for. Definitely useful to jump on the latest craze. They provide some interesting data on the search terms such as how popular the term is over a span of time. It will also show you news stories on these keywords which often triggers the spike in the amount of searches on a particular keyword.

Google Trends for Websites is similar but will let you know what other websites and keywords people are looking for that visit the site. So for instance if you are in the market selling pet products and you type in petsmart.com it will bring back a list of other terms people search for that visited that site.

In this case, a quick look shows me people that visit Petsmart also searched for dog crates in addition to other websites competing with them. Using this, one could look into dog crates a little more to see if there is enough market data to promote this product using affiliate marketing.

Are you *qualified* to start an Internet business?

If you’re like most people, you probably measure your qualifications
by your technical skills…

Your ability to design a web site…

Your ability to write sales copy…

Your ability to drive traffic…

But the reality is, NONE of that matters.

Building a business is a FORMULA. If you can understand instructions
and follow the formula, you WILL make money online.

So if it’s that simple, why do SO MANY people fail at it?

Personality!

See, there are certain personality traits — inherent in some, but
LEARNED by others — that allow people to easily succeed, and
other traits that cause people to constantly FAIL.

If you could identify those traits, wouldn’t you have a better
chance at being successful?

Well, here’s your opportunity to find out…

… because I’ve been authorized by none other than Derek Gehl
*himself* to offer you a FREE copy of his brand-new report,
which lays out the exact traits necessary to succeed online.

The report will be available within the next 48 hours, and is
based on Derek’s personal observations following a DECADE
of working with thousands of successful Internet entrepreneurs
from around the world.

And like I said: he’s allowing me to offer a copy to all of my
best customers for free… no strings attached.

When you get it, you can do one of two things:

1. Nothing… which is definitely an “unsuccessful trait”.

2. Study it and figure out if you have the inherent prerequisites
for success, or if you need to LEARN them.

So if you would like a copy of this report, for FREE, go to:

http://www.marketingtips.com/qualify/t/1144423

… and follow the instructions there!

Wishing you the best of successes!
- Jerry

http://www.marketingtips.com/qualify/t/1144423

There is a popular thread on the Warriors forum asking what your favorite 3 books of all-time are.

Since that is a marketing forum, most of the books listed are marketing books. I felt it was worth sharing what the most popular books were as I feel we can never learn enough and now we can learn from what others have read.

The most popular books in no particular order are:

1. Influence by Robert Cialdini
2. The 4 Hour Workweek by Tim Ferris
3. Rich Dad, Poor Dad - Robert Kiyosaki
4. The Trick To Money Is Having Some! - Stuart Wilde
5. Think and Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill

My choices were:

1. Positioning, The Battle for Your Mind by Al Reis and Jack Trout.

This is an excellent read and gave me a big a-ha moment. This is particularly important for those trying to promote a brand.

2. Instant Cash Flow by Mark Nolan. This book offers some tremendous insight on getting publicity and has given me much motivation.
This is available as a download from my website and is a must have in my opinion.
http://www.runtheweb.com/recommends/instant_cash_flow.htm

3. Anything by Anthony Robbins. Personal Power is a great starting point.

4. Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill

I have not read the first 4 books chosen as the most popular so it’s time to hit my favorite book seller.

I hope these inspire you to get reading as well.

P.S.

One other book that was mentioned quite a few times was the Bible. I must agree on that as well. THis is without a doubt the most successful book of all time.

A fellow blogger David Pankhurst also was inspired by the best books post and has given his opinion that I would like to share with you. You can read his blog at:

http://activeblogging.com/info/best-book-to-succeed-in-business/

It’s every day now. Major product launch after product launch of the next thing you just have to get to make money online. I get dozens by the day. I have resisted removing myself from all these so called newsletter subscriptions but I am not sure how much longer I can.

What ever happened to newsletters that offered useful advise? I always try offering useful advise. And I will admit that I am still on some lists that do the same. I realize that selling products is the name of the game, but more importantly in my book is relationships.

Listen, you do not need the latest course to make money online. No not even my product the Putz Seller. You can do it without the latest “must-have”. I still recommend finding a good system which will save you a lot of work and money in the long run, but to be fair you can do it without shelling out for every offer.

The latest product launch you may of heard is a free product. I won’t name names, but all you have to pay is shipping and you’ll get the latest info on how to earn tons more on affiliate programs than the affiliate program even pays out. Then unless you cancel you just pay $29/month.

Truthfully, I don’t even care what is in it or how much the author makes. In another month someone will release the secret free-for all anyways.

Ok enough of a rant. If you buy the program, drop me a line after you read it and let me know what you think. I hope you get your 250% more than your affiliate programs pay out.

I have found a great free report that I want to share with you by Terry Gibbs.

If you are not familiar with Terry, he has a very successful website and ebook on selling on eBay, but he has his hands in all sorts of products.

Terry now has a website called “Slacker Profits - Make Money Online Doing as Little as Possible“.

Since this sounds awfully close to my manual “The Putz Seller, Easy and Fast Methods to Sell Stuff Online” I was immediately interested. Well, first I am glad to report he’s not copying me, rather it’s more about doing things in an easy manner, which is what being a Putz, or a Slacker or a Bum Marketer is really all about. Not to get bogged down in detail, making everything perfect or creating huge ebooks, etc.

He has a free report on his website that I suggest reading. Overcome 14 Common Mistakes Preventing You From Succeeding Online” You can get it here:
http://www.runtheweb.com/slacker.htm

Go, download your free report and make the most out your putz selling activities.

Wishing you the best of successes!
- Jerry

I came across a post on Tony Blakes forum written by the one ond only Marlon Sanders regarding how he is getting top rankings in the search engine.

This is a really informative post which is re-printed here with permission:

Google Top Ten Rankings: How to Really Get Top Ten Rankings
In Google In 37 Minutes, Really, For Real!

Subtitle: Why Everyone Is Choosing The Keywords For Their
Articles, Blogs Web 2. 0 Sites, and Videos In The Wrong Way
And The Only Way That Makes Sense.

Subtitle: Eleven easy steps to those top ten Google rankings

By Marlon Sanders

Just this week I got top 10 rankings in 37 minutes. I’ll show you
how YOU can do it today for keywords that have TWO MILLION
search results. And probably do it without breaking a sweat.

This article shows WHY I believe the way MOST people do their
keyword research is entirely wrong. And a better way to do it.

I reveal 2 sites I got ranked in top 10 this week. Even though by
revealing them, they’ll probably get nuked by someone who wants
to prove they’re smarter than me. I ask you to please be considerate.

I realize some or many of you ARE seo gurus. I make zero claims to that title.

See, I’m not a big seo person. And some or many of you can add to
or possibly even correct what I have to say below. Feel free.

I’m working on a new product, so I have to get my ducks in a row.

The first thing people do in search engine optimization, that
is creating pages to get ranked in the search engines is to
find key words to target with their pages.

This is the link to the easiest free tool I’ve found:
http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

So you type in your topic and hit submit. What most people
then do is look for keywords that have a smaller number of
daily searches. So, for example, if you type in the key
word “dog training” you might select “dog training collars”
instead of dog training.

The wrong way to do it is to choose keywords by a low number
of daily or monthly searches, assuming that means low
competition.

Let me show you this:

You can have a word in Google that LOOKS like it has
two MILLION pages to compete against. Yet, in reality, there
are almost none.

Type this in Google: sales letters cold calls

When you type it without quotes, I use the pay per click
terminology and call it the “broad phrase. ”

If you look at the number of search results Google returns,
it’s in the range of 1,790,000. The ebooks you read will
tell you to choose keywords with under 1,000,000 results.

But that is WRONG. Check it out. Type this in:

“Sales Letters Cold Calls”

In other words, do it in quotation marks. That searches ONLY
sites with the exact phrase.

Now look at the results:

SEVEN! There are ONLY 7 basic sites to compete against.

Let me prove this works. Look at this:

sales letter cold calls

That’s singular instead of plural “letter”. 239,000 results.

Now type it in in quotes — “sales letter cold calls”.
I call that the exact phrase.

There are FOUR results! And the first two are mine. I am
listed in page two. And I only submitted the page on
Apr 25, 2008 03:30:17 GMT

Here’s another:

greatest direct mail sales letters

368,000 results.

The exact phrase in quotes? Only 1,760. And look at number
four: www.hubpages.com/tag/worlds+greatest+direct+mail+sales+letters/hot

That would be MY page. And I only submitted it on
Apr 25, 2008 03:30:41 GMT.

Literally a few of these rankings I got in 30 minutes to one
hour! See, when you’re really only competing against 4 sites
or 2,000 sites, it’s NOT so hard!

NOTICE: Since I’ve publicly posted these results, I’m sure they’ll get
zapped. That almost always happens when you make something like this
public. The sites you post publicly are sacrificial lambs to demonstrate
your point.

Here is how to get YOUR top ten rankings TODAY! Like in one
hour from now if you’re lucky.

Step one: Go to: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

I usually just go to seobook.com and type my term in the box at the right.
You can also use nichebotclassic.com or ANY other keyword tool.

Step two: Search your topic

Step three: Start selecting keyword phrases and type them into Google
with the exact phrase in quotes.

Step four: Find a phrase that has only a few search results. Preferably
under 10. But under 2,000 is good.

Let’s say you bought the private label rights to an ebook on dog training.
You type in: training dog choke collars. You see 1,850,000 results. YUK.
But in quotes “training dog choke collars” you find only THREE stupid
competitors!

This is taking top ten Google rankings like taking candy from a baby!

Step five: Build several web 2. 0 sites on the exact phrase as the
title. Post an article to the site with the phrase in the title
and in in the article once in bold.

For example, a squidoo lens on “training dog choke collars”
would be http://www.squidoo.com/training-dog-choke-collars

Blogger would be:
http://www.training-dog-choke-collars.blogspot.com

Write quality content that is unique and original if possible.

Try these properties:

squidoo.com
wordpress.com
blogger.com
hubpages.com
zimbio.com

Step six: Digg your new site at digg.com

Step seven: Submit a story on it to propeller.com
(Just a few paragraphs with your URL. )

If it’s a blog, you can submit the URL with
pingoat.com or pingomatic.com.

Step eight: Put the URL in a Twitter.
(Sign up at twitter.com. ) This one I’m not sure works. I’ve
read it does.

Step nine: After one hour, paste the URL of the site into
Google and search for it. For example, if this was your blog,
you’d paste the whole URL into Google search:

http://sales-business-letter.blogspot.com/

Now, as you can SEE, it ain’t in there. I don’t know why!
I’m still learning nuances. I’ve only been at this four
days!

Step ten: Add new posts to your site, new articles,
videos or content daily.

Step eleven: Every time you add new content, posts, videos or
articles to your site, bookmark it with a couple of the
bookmarking services like simpy, del.icio.us or furl.
You “might” use onlywire.com for this. I’m not sure on that
one.

On most ALL the sites, there’s a way to “insert video”
and you simply put in your youtube URL and BOOM! You have a
video on the site.

At the end of the day, you need content humans WANT to read.
You create sites for humans, NOT GOOGLE! At the end of the
day, you gotta have sites people want to read and that help
and benefit them.

Otherwise, your site won’t be evergreen.

Oh, updating your site frequently is how you keep the Google
bot coming there and how you stay IN the rankings without
sliding down.

Now, if you’re lucky, Google will spider and list the site in
under an hour. I got mine in there in 37 minutes. Thus, the
title of this article.

On the other hand, I have some Squidoo pages, a Blogger blog
and a Wordpress blog that I can’t even get Google to spider
yet. I’m trying to figure THAT one out!

If any of you are seo gurus and can tell me WHY these sites
get NO Google love, post on my blog:

http://saleslettersoftware.wordpress.com/
It doesn’t show up in Google at all.

https://sales-letter-software.pbwiki.com/Sales-Letter-Software
Ditto.

OK. So you have to create sites in multiple web 2. 0 properties.
Some will stick. Some won’t. What Melvin Perry, an seo guru I
like told me is with different niches, different things work
better.

In some niches a Blogger blog or Wordpress blog does great.
In some, it’s Squidoo. It depends on the niche.

If you do more than one of these sites a week, go to:
www.apple.com/safari

Download the Safari browser and do ALL your work in it vs.
Firefox or IE. Why? If you select “Edit, private browsing” it
turns off cookies and history.

If you’re checking your sites all the time, I have a feeling
(but no proof) Google then thinks you’re an seo king and
they penalize you. But don’t quote me on that.

I think that is why several of my sites above aren’t spidered.
I searched them too many times using Firefox and Google figured
I must be up to no good!

So, I’m NOT saying it’s all gonna work 100% of the time. At
least, not until I figure some more things out.

Back to work.

Marlon

For free podcasts, free videos, free articles, go to:
http://www.marlonsnews.com.

You can hit me with your comments and feedback on this issue.

How can you be sure you won’t waste time creating a product that no one wants?

How can you be sure your idea will be a winner?

Before putting all the time and effort into creating a product and then marketing it - and then hoping people want to buy it, you can do some simple, free and inexpensive tests to see if there is enough interest to proceed.

If your test proves unsuccessful, maybe you should move on to a different project. However after a successful test you will know that people want your product.

If your test proves successful you can feel confident that spending the time to create it will pay off in Spades.

Here are seven very easy free and inexpensive ways to test the viability of your idea:

1. Do some keyword research.

The most common way to do keyword research is by using tools like WordTracker, Nichbot, Keyword Discovery and the Google Adwords Keyword Tool.

These will give you an indication of how many people are searching for the type of information that you are thinking about creating a product on. The more people searching on your main keywords, the better.

2. Use the search engines.

Type your keywords into Google and see how many other people are selling similar products. Too much competition may be bad, but some competition is healthy - it tells you there must be a market for your idea. No competition might just be telling you that no market exists for your idea (hint: do more testing).

3. Visit forums and newsgroups on your topic.

See what people are asking. Does your product answer their problems?

4. Create a survey and ask your prospects if they are interested in your product.

Email your email list and ask them to fill out the survey.

5. If you do not have your own list, ask the owner of another list if they will send out the survey to their list.

Tell them you will give them a free copy of your product when it’s done.

6. Place some pay-per-click ads.

This is a very fast way to get results. Place some inexpensive ads on Google utilizing the keywords that target your product and point the ads to a simple one-page website or blog.

Your click through rate alone will give you some indication of interest. Even better, get your visitors to sign up to an email opt-in list by offering them a free tip sheet, article or check list related to your topic.

This can be a very simple to create by just utilizing some of the ideas you are considering in your main product. PPC advertising can be a very inexpensive test if you do not have too competitive of keywords and you can keep the cost lower by setting a budget for what you are willing to spend.

7. Test with eBay.

Place an inexpensive classified ad for your tip sheet and collect those email addresses with an opt-in form.

Remember we are talking about testing the market for an idea on a product that is yet to be created. The idea here is to not spend the time creating a product unless you get some good indication that there is enough interest to put the time into it.

To learn more marketing be sure to sign-up for my newsletter

The short answer is yes, no, maybe.

There are many naysayers such as friends and family that may tell you that making money online is some type of pipe dream. “If it’s that easy, everyone would do it” is a common saying for those with no will to try.

Try telling the millions of eBay sellers that it’s impossible to make money online. Many of these people are making a good part-time and even full-time living on eBay alone. Then there are millions of other web merchants selling any number of products of services online from their own websites and blogs.

My own experience has found both easy and hard ways to make money online.

I believe eBay is the easiest and fastest way to make money online - not the “best” way however, just the easiest. Take a photo, make a listing and upload the photo and in a few days to a week, more times than not an easy sale is made. Oh I have found some items that did not sell so well and others that sold extremely well. Finding products to sell is the hard part.

Specializing has worked well for me. I have a few selling accounts that specialize on different niches. I sell both high and low ticket items and I always make more money with the high ticket items, yet for some reason I also continue to sell low-priced items too. … Hmmm maybe I need to re-evaluate that one and focus on my more profitable items.

Selling info products such as ebooks and reports is probably the most touted way to make money online by perhaps the majority of the marketing gurus. There is definitely a hurdle here for the newbie at Internet selling, but it’s a small hurdle. There are so many reports and ebooks on how to sell reports and ebooks it would make your head spin to see the long list of them.

If you can’t write your own info product, there are many ghostwriters just waiting to write one for you on the cheap. Then there are private label rights where you can resell a book or report written by someone else and keep all the profit. Sometimes you can even brand it as your own if you have master rights to it.

The market is flooded with reports and eboooks, especially on the topic Internet Marketing. If I did not absolutelty love it, I would not write about this market. However I do write on other niche topics that also do real well for me (sorry not divulging at this point, I like un-saturated markets).

Promoting affiliate programs is extremely easy. I make a decent amount each month recommending other peoples products. It is a little more work than eBay because you have to develop a list and market your website more. Some clever people do well by promoting affiliate programs through article writing or videos.

The most sound method of making money online is to focus on a topic you like and par it down into a tight little niche whether you sell physical products, info products or promote affiliate programs.

Last I want to mention selling a service. Can you write? Design websites? Write scripts? Proofread? Graphic Design? These are just some of the services people need that turn to the web to find someone to do it for them.

Go to Elance.com where people post what services they need and start replying to them. Build-up your references, do good work. The more good references you have the more you will be able to get for your services.

I used to design websites for other people which was very easy money for me, now there are others that can do it much faster and better than me as I have focused on selling products online over the past few years.

One thing is for certain; you won’t make money online without taking action. So get off your duff and take action. Take one step at a time and I guarantee you can make money online too.

Easy and Fast is the motto I have a bunch of free tools I will be sharing with you to help you make money online. I will also be posting some information about advertising and marketing methods as well as product and website development.