Is This Freebie a Step Too Far?

Over the last two or three years I have, on several occasions, heard Armand Morin speak about internet marketing.  One thing that he always stresses is the importance of giving value for money.  In fact, not just value but more than value.

Recently I attended his webcamp on residual income.  At one point he was talking about membership sites and he said that if you're charging $97 a month for membership, then that membership should have a perceived worth (by the customer) of two to three times that amount. 

And Armand practises what he preaches.  For 18 hours of teaching, the price of the residual income webcamp was only $27.  I have in the past paid far more to hear other internet 'gurus' - and have got far less from their teaching.  As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm a great fan of Armand Morin!

But now I wonder if he's gone a step too far?  He's just announced that future webcamps (three days of live streaming online) are going to be free!  The only charge will be if you want to buy the recordings.  There will, of course, be some people who will want to do this - those who don't like writing notes or those who can't attend the whole event.  But, since the webcamps will be transmitted from North Carolina, they'll be available if not during daylight hours at least during waking hours to a large part of the English-speaking world.  So I imagine a lot of people will be happy to watch the live event and forgo the recordings. 

Which brings me to the question I started with - is this a step too far?   Is it clever from the marketing point of view?  Has Armand finally overstepped the line in his quest to give good value?  Well, no, I don't think so.  I think it's a win-win situation.

What Armand will get out of it is that a lot of people who have never attended his events before will sign up and thus make their way onto his mailing list.  And at some time in the future they may buy one of his courses or a piece of software.  And, of course, some people will buy the webcamp recordings.  But I also suspect that there is another advantage as far as Armand is concerned.  He loves teaching and it was mentioned at the last webcamp that he gets really excited by the numbers of people who come to listen to him and the feedback he gets from them.  It's a reminder that, if we love what we do, we can get far more from it than just an income.

What the attendees will get out of it is 18 hours of intensive, practical training from an extremely engaging and entertaining speaker who (having made millions on the internet) teaches from his own experience and freely shares his knowledge. At the next webcamp (which runs from December 6th-9th) he's going to be speaking on the subject that everyone wants to know more about - how to drive traffic to your website.  Even if it wasn't free to attend, this would be worth going to.  You can find more details here.

Seven Deadly Internet Marketing Mistakes

I have started my spring cleaning.  I don't have a lot of time for it, but a half hour here and there mounts up and I hope that the house will be pristine by the time spring arrives.  At the moment, I'm working on my study.  I've turned out the cupboards and the filing cabinets, and sorted through everything, and several large sacks full of paper have been sent off for recycling.  I've discovered three sets of headphones that I didn't know I had and more ball point pens and blocks of post-it notes than you can shake a stick at.

In amongst all the stuff on my desk were several spiral bound notebooks containing notes that I've taken at various conferences, workshops and online tutorials, and that I'd never got round to typing up.  So I spent a couple of afternoons doing that.  Most of the sets of notes said where they'd come from but there was one with no attribution.  However, it contained some very good advice and so I'm going to share it here and ask the person who originally came up with this list to forgive me for not acknowledging my source.

The list is of seven deadly internet marketing mistakes, and I offer them here with my thoughts on each:

1.  Thinking you’re not good enough. 
It's easy to do.  We come into internet marketing feeling very confident, looking at all the people who have been successful, thinking we know just how to do it and how to make money.  And then we hit obstacles that throw us off course or we just fail to make money.  And we lose confidence.  This is the point at which many people will give up.  But, in the time I've been in internet marketing, I've come to realise that the trick is to keep going.  Very few people make money overnight.  With some it can take two or three years before they have a decent income.  The important thing is not to lose faith in yourself.  Learn from your mistakes and you'll only get better.

2.  Forgetting what marketing is.
The person from whom this list originally came - let's call him X - says it’s not about creating products but, rather, about finding a group of people with a problem and giving them a solution.  It's the old saying about 'build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door".  Concentrating on producing something that interests you but that no one else wants is a sure way to fail.

3.  Being a magpie. 
You don’t need to know everything or do everything says X.  But it's a temptation and it's easy to get distracted.  We need to look at what we're doing and ask is it relevant?  If it isn't, stop doing it!  This isn't to say that we shouldn't try doing new things - because how else would we find out what we're good at - but it's a mistake to try them all out at once. 

4.  Listening to people who know less than you do
A lot of people who go into internet marketing find that their friends and family, not quite understanding what it is that they are doing, can be rather disparaging.  I remember Yanik Silver telling a story about when he was first getting started, selling information products.  His father looked at some of these and asked "And people actually pay you for this bullshit?"  Fortunately, Yanik was confident enough not to be undermined.  But comments such as "Why are you wasting your time on that?" can be very discouraging, especially when you're first starting.  A conscious decision has to be made not to listen to such criticism.

5.  Carving your own path rather than learning from the experts.
I remember Andrew Reynolds saying that, when he decided to become an entrepreneur, he went to a course and then he did exactly what the man at the front of the room had told him to do.  Mostly, this is sound advice.  But I have been to a few seminars where it wasn't the case because the information offered was out of date or was presented in a confused or confusing way.  Online or downloadable courses that offer you lifetime access to updates will get over the first problem.  (I have at various times bought courses from Armand Morin and Ryan Deiss in the knowledge that I'll will be informed of any changes in the system made necessary by the ever-changing nature of the internet.)  It's also important to ensure that the person who is teaching you really is an expert and that the system he is expounding has not only made him money but other people as well.
That said, I believe that there's always room for improvement.  Once you've copied somebody's system and it's worked for you, then you can start experimenting.  You may find that a few minor changes make it work better . . . or you may, indeed, find that the original was best.

6.  Living in a cave. 
 Internet marketing is about interaction with other people.  'X' stressed the importance of going to events and courses and discussing what works (and what doesn't) with other people.  One of the Ryan Deiss courses that I invested in fairly recently (and which I shall write about in due course) has the advantage of an online forum where people who have done the training can discuss how it's going for them and learn from each other.  If you're looking for somewhere to discuss your own marketing strategies and to ask questions, try Warrior Forum.

7.  Chasing the money. 
This clouds your vision, says X, and should not be your primary focus.  Sometimes you need to make less money to help people solve problems.  Admittedly, a lot of people have been successful in internet marketing simply because - thanks to redundancy or other problems - they have know that they had to.  But a lot of internet marketing is about service - offering products that people need and, as Armand Morin always stresses, over-delivering, giving them more value for money than they expected.  In this way, you will build a faithful following who will buy from you over and over again.  But if you concentrate on the money, you may tend to overprice your products which, in the long run, will result in you making less money, not more.

Does the Klout Score Really Have Any Clout?

Oh I had to laugh!  I've wondered for a long time whether a Klout score has any real value.  And I've just read an article, which seems to think it does.

Near the beginning, the author says: "Klout is a simple online influence analysis platform which gauges, pretty accurately, how much influence you have in the online world within your niche field of specialism."  (Note the use of the word 'accurately'.)

So I thought I'd check out a couple of big names in internet marketing and see what their scores were.  Mine is 51, so I would expect them to be in the high 90s.  But instead of that, I found that Derek Gehl has a score of 47 and Armand Morin has a score of 57.

According to Klout, I am only six points behind Armand Morin (multimillionaire, universally respected internet marketing teacher - and probably one of the most successful internet marketers on the planet) when gauged for my influence "in the online world within my niche field" which is, of course, internet marketing.

Now Derek Gehl is perhaps not as well known as Armand Morin but he's certainly a very successful internet marketer and teacher of internet marketing.  So what have I done to earn a place four points AHEAD of him on Klout.

Well, if you look at the Klout website it will tell you that scores are assessed according to the number of:

• Mentions, likes, comments, subscribers, wall posts, and friends on Facebook
• Retweets, mentions, list memberships, followers, and replies on Twitter
• Comments, +1's, and reshares on Google+
• Connections, recommenders and comments on Linkedin
• Tips done on foursquare.
• +K received on Klout
• Page importance, inlinks to outlinks ratio and number of inlinks on Wikipedia

Now, the Wikipedia references, fair enough.  If you're well known and influential you are likely to have a larger presence on Wikipedia.  But, as for the rest, it's just a measure of how busy you are in social media.  If you don't use it, or use it to a limited extent, like Armand and Derek, then you're not going to achieve a high score even if, like them, you're a world-class teacher.  So can Klout really claim to be an accurate gauge of influence online?  Well, not in the area of internet marketing.  Because, if you're a top marketer and you teach numerous people every year how to do it, you ARE influential online whether you use social media or not.

Perhaps in other fields - gardening or antiques or the theatre, say - the Klout score would be more accurate because the internet is not an integral part of these fields.  But as far as internet marketing goes, I think we need to take the scores with a pinch of salt.

Are We Losing Sight of the Importance of Good Value?

I went to a car boot fair this morning.  It's a large one and a lot of the stallholders are antique dealers who use the fair to sell off their less valuable or smaller pieces.  I was talking to one of the dealers who had some nice vintage glass.  He was bemoaning the fact that the distinctions between local prices and international prices are being blurred by so much being sold on eBay.  It reminded me of the Oscar Wilde quote about the cynic, who is someone who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.  

And that, in turn, got me thinking about the cost of the courses and software and so on that we sell as internet marketers.  I have noticed that there are some marketers who charge the same price for pretty well everything they produce  . . . it's all £197 or £247 or whatever.  (I remember hearing a year or two back that someone had actually done a trial and found that things sold better if the price ended with a seven rather than a nine, say, or a zero.  Go figure!)

And, certainly, I have heard it suggested that, if you're producing a new product, you should look to see what other people are charging for their products and price yours accordingly.  Now, in one way, this is sensible - you don't want to charge £300 if everyone else is charging £50 for a very similar product.  Nor would you want to undersell yourself and charge too little compared with similar items.  But I wonder whether, in all this, we are losing sight of the importance of quality and value.  If our product is genuinely better than everything else available, should we not charge more?  On the other hand, should we not make an effort to be aware of the shortcomings of our products in order to avoid charging more than they're worth?

I believe that some products being sold online are greatly overpriced.  I've written recently about the cost of buying Camtasia compared with the low cost of a subscription to Screencast-o-Matic.  I have no personal experience of Camtasia but certainly some reviewers seem to think it's not worth the £299 price tag.  On the other hand, I think there are some pieces of software that are genuinely worth their high prices.  Adobe Photoshop, for example, retails at around £500 but it can do things that (as far as I'm aware) other photo editing software doesn't.  I have used it myself and, for someone who does a lot of work with photos and graphics, I think it's worth every penny.

Similarly, I have seen internet marketing and other courses which, while useful and informative, are - to my mind - not worth anything like the £297 being charged for them.  I have seen single instructional DVDs that I would happily pay £8 or £10 for but not the £20 to £25 being asked by some sellers.  Conversely, I have bought courses from some people (such as Armand Morin) which, despite being pricey, have been such good value that I've gone back again and again for more.   

And that, surely, is what it should be about - offering good value to our customers so that they return time and time again.  It's all very well learning about the 'funnel' - lure them in with an inexpensive product and then promote increasingly expensive ones over a period of time - but if the first product is rubbish, they're not going to come back, no matter how cheap it was.

This, of course, is one of the problems with affiliate marketing.  We have to promote the product at the prescribed price and, if we want to be sure that it's worth the money, we have to buy it first and spend time reading it or watching it.  So although producing our own products can be hard work and time-consuming, it does give us much more control.  In the past I've sold my own products and I've sold other people's and, shortly, I'm hoping to launch a website where I can offer a range of quality products at  reasonable prices.  Value is everything in this business.  And, as Armand Morin - one of the most successful internet marketers ever - always teaches, give them more than they've paid for and they'll buy from you again and again.

What do We Have to do to Get People to Read Our Sales Letters?

I've been thinking about what it is that makes us read things . . . or, more specifically, what makes me read things.  I am at the moment reading a novel which is incredibly badly written - jam packed with cliches, the characters cardboard cut-outs, and a few real howlers (such as a shape being described as "an eight sided octagon" - presumably to distinguish it from an eight-sided square!).  But what is truly amazing is not how badly written it is, but the fact that I'm over three-quarters of the way through it.  So, why?  Why am I wasting my time when there are so many better books around.  And the answer is simple . . . it's an extremely good story-line and I want to know what happens.

Now, whether this is transferrable to the 'genre' of sales letters is debatable - but something tells me that, even if you're not an expert writer, it should be possible to hold the reader's interest for something that is, after all, a great deal shorter than a 500 page novel.  However, I'm all too well aware that I very rarely read my way through a long sales letter.  Either I lose interest halfway through or else I cut to the chase and scroll to the bottom to find out how much it is.  So my first rule of sales letter writing is: It's Got to be Short!

And, let's face it, most sales letters seem to be remarkably repetitive.  I may not have the most retentive memory in the world, but I can remember things from one paragraph to the next and if I'm told the same thing three times in quick succession, I'm going to stop reading.  Again, to give this novel its due (and, no, I'm not going to tell you its title!), it doesn't veer away from the action.  The author keeps the story line going . . . his eye is firmly on the ball, if not on his grammar.

OK, so a letter needs to be short, concise and to the point.  What else can we learn from this novel?  Well, because it's so badly written, it tends to be quite funny in places (I laughed out loud at the octagon).  And a bit of humour never comes amiss, I think.  I was looking, this morning, at an internet marketing website, and there was an article with the fairly dreary title of "The growth and evolution of the performance marketing industry".  What drew me to read the article, though, was the accompanying graphic.  At first glance, it looked exactly like the London Underground map.  But on closer inspection, the names of stations had been replaced with 'Social Media', 'Blog', 'Google', 'Newsletters', 'Adsense', 'Photosharing' and other keywords relevant to internet marketing.  I thought it was clever and amusing - and, as a result, I read the article.

Now, internet guru Jo Han Mok says "When you’re writing headlines, don’t attempt to be cute This is not the place for humour."  And, obviously, that's true.  You've only got a limited number of words for your headline and they've got to be hard-hitting.  But if you can write the actual letter in a witty way, the reader will enjoy it and will, for the moment, lose sight of the fact that you're trying to sell something . . . and thus (we hope) will be much more likely to read to the end.

Perhaps it's just about expressing why you love the product you're selling and letting the reader share in your enjoyment.  But please don't think I'm advocating great long screeds about how you've made X number of dollars and bought Y number of houses and Z number of cars.  I don't know about you, but when someone starts bragging about his earnings, I lose interest.  Because, as it always says at the bottom of the letter in very, very small type, the fact that he made zillions is no guarantee that I'll make any money at all.  I don't want to know what it's done for him - I want to know what it can do for me.

So . . . that's my ideal sales letter . . . short, concise, witty, readable and focussed on the buyer and not the seller.  And I suppose the fact that it's really quite difficult to produce such a letter is why so many people employ professional copywriters.  However, those of you who know my high opinion of Armand Morin, will not be surprised if, at this point, I mention his new WordPress Sales Letter Plugin which, I first mentioned here on June 7th.  If you can't afford a copywriter this, to my mind, is the next best thing.  And, even if you can, this is a whole lot cheaper!  The great thing about it is that it comes with built-in ideas for headlines, introductions, closing statements and so on which can be modified according to your needs.  So you don't have to worry about the actual construction of the piece because it offers the bones of the letter and all you have to do is to flesh out with a little humour and a lot of enthusiasm!

Why We Need Multiple Mentors

I have a friend who's an antique dealer.  She buys a lot of her stock at auction, but she also spends time every week going round antique fairs and exploring other people's shops.  And sometimes she finds some amazing bargains.  When she first told me about some of the things she'd bought from other dealers - and about the profits she'd made - I was astonished.  How come, I asked, that the people she'd bought from had priced the items at so much less than they were worth?  Simple, she replied - antiques is an enormous area and nobody can know everything about it.

It's the same, these days, with internet marketing.  Time was that you could buy one person's course on how to make money online and it would be much the same as everybody else's course.  It would teach the fundamentals - how to write a sales page, how to create a product, and how to drive traffic to your website by exchanging links with similar sites.  Then there came a point when not only was it getting much harder to exchange links but the links themselves no longer had the SEO value that they once had.  So along came the courses on article marketing and press releases.  And how to use Google adwords and other pay-per-click advertising.  Then backlinking became the thing to do - until recently when Google started to crack down on what it called 'unnatural linking' (see my post of April 7th).  And, of course, in recent times we've had the development of bookmarking and blogging and social networking - and while there are a lot of gurus out there who know a huge amount about how to make money online, I don't believe that any of them knows it all.  And they freely admit that they don't go to each others' seminars just because they're good friends . . . they go to learn from each other.

Now, if you've been reading my blog, you'll know that I'm an enormous fan of Armand Morin.  His products range from the amazingly comprehensive Internet Marketing Explained down to his free Internet Marketing Newsletter.  And I have learned stuff from him that I've never heard mentioned anywhere else.  But there are gaps - I don't think he yet has a course on how to use Twitter, Pinterest and other forms of social networking.  And it's possible that he may never produce one because it's not an area that he uses very much himself.  However, there are other people who are experts in the field, such as Melanie Duncan, whose 'Power of Pinning' course is based on her own successes using Pinterest, and Mili Ponce who has been called 'the Queen of Twitter'.

But it's not just to fill in the gaps that we need a multiplicity of mentors.  Sometimes they don't get it right.   For example, Armand Morin's FAST (Facebook Ad Secret Training) course works.  I've tried it and I have no doubt whatsoever that he is teaching here the best way to use Facebook advertising.  But recently I heard another guru talking about how to use Facebook ads.  And several of the things that he recommended were things that Armand had said NOT to do (and had explained why).   I'm sure that, if I had followed the suggestions of the second guru, it would not have been disastrous but I'm equally sure that I would not have got the excellent results I achieved from following FAST.  So it's not that they get it wrong, exactly, just that they don't get it right.  And the only way we can know this is by listening to several people on the same subject.

This is where 'bootcamps' can be so valuable.  I remember with great pleasure a couple that I went to that were organised by Andrew Reynolds, where we heard some twenty or so speakers over the course of three days.  And for each person in the audience there were some speakers who were outstanding, and some who were less so.  For me, the stars were Armand Morin and Derek Gehl and Simon Coulson - and I've since learned a great deal from all three of them.  So I remain very grateful to Andrew Reynolds for giving me the opportunity to listen to so many gurus and to be able to pick out those whose teaching spoke to me personally.

Now We Can All Write Brilliant Sales Letters!

For anyone who's ever struggled to write a sales letter (or been horrified at what professional copywriters charge) Armand Morin's new WP Salesletter will seem like a godsend.  Because not only does this amazing plug-in make writing a letter easy but it comes with built in, ready-written ideas for headlines, introductions, closing statements and so on which you can modify according to your needs.  And, of course, since all these ideas are crafted by experts, your chances of good conversion rates are very high.

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm an enormous fan of Armand Morin but, even so, watching the video he's made about WP Salesletter, my jaw dropped in amazement at its simplicity and its power.  And, as Armand points out, because it's a plug-in rather than a theme, you don't have to change the whole look of your website in order to write a sales letter.

At only $77 for a multi site licence with lifetime updates, I think this is amazing value, particularly when you compare it with what you might have to pay a professional copywriter for a single letter.  

Let's Cut to the Chase!

An article about the English language in the online version of the Times Literary Supplement has started me thinking (not for the first time) about the way we use language.  I am, I freely admit, a bit of a pedant on this subject.  After all, the purpose of language is to communicate and if the person listening to us or reading what we have written doesn't understand what we are trying to say then we have failed.

I was reading a book of short stories the other day.  The second paragraph of one of these read "But as I let the street suck my blood while I still have blood to suck we are not on terms and a glimpse is better than no terms at all until I stand all drained of psychic energy from nothing not even a glimpse, glimpses being untimable in a live long day of a full irregular masculine time-table and walk away quickly as if none of it mattered to unnumb my limbs while I still have limbs to unnumb all the way to the small flat in the square block in the big lonely city."  Do you have any idea what that means?  Because I don't!  The author lost me way before the end of this 96-word sentence.  I cut my losses and turned to the next story.

It's the same with sales copy.  If I go to a website because I'm interested in whatever it is that's being sold and I'm confronted by a sales letter that rambles on about all sorts of other things that I'm not interested in - the writer's house in Florida, his yacht, his glamorous holidays - then I don't read to the end.

As anyone who's read some of my previous posts here will know, I'm a great fan of Armand Morin.  If I go to his website to find out about the FAST (Facebook Ad Secret Training) system, there are no long screeds about how wonderful Armand is or how much money he's made but, rather, a powerpoint presentation that begins "Let me ask you a question . . . What if I told you there were 9 secret methods to advertise on Facebook which no one is telling you about?"  This, to my mind, is great copywriting.  My natural response is to want to find out about these methods.  I'm hooked within seconds.  As another marketing guru, Matt Bacak, has said "People love secrets".  Mention that you know a secret and everyone else will want to know it, too!

Recently I've heard several people say that the day of the long sales letter is past.  Well, hooray!  I'm too busy to waste time reading something that I'm not really interested in.  And, if you've read this far, then hopefully I'm practising what I preach!!

What Makes a Good Website?

There's a lot of advice 'out there' about how to write good copy for a website. Top gurus offer us the benefit of their experience, telling us, for example:

• Copy has to grab your attention in the first few words and hold that attention through to the point where you want to get your credit card out and order.  (Andrew Reynolds)
• If your sales page headline is not understood by a 12 year old, your headline sucks. (Jo Han Mok)
• People love secrets . . . share insider knowledge and translate it into a benefit for the reader. (Matt Bacak)
• The primary purpose of your sales copy has to be to understand, to empathize, and to emotionally connect. (Shaune Clarke)
• Before you can begin to know the real keywords that will bring you visitors who will convert to prospects, you must find out what they want. (Derek Gehl)

and so on.  There's loads of stuff telling you how to write copy and how to write headlines but there seems to be very little about the look of the website itself.  And, in my opionion, if your website is ugly then people won't stay to read your copy, no matter how good it is.

If you look at some of the top websites - such as Amazon, eBay, Google, Wikidpedia, Tumblr - it's easy to see what they have in common.  They're simple and they're readable.  They don't have flashing ads or garish colours or twenty different fonts.  I was told, some long time ago, that the only fonts that are reliable online (in other words those that you can be sure will show up as you want them to) are Arial, Times New Roman, Verdana and Tahoma.  Now, I don't know if that's still true, but I tend to stick to those fonts for my websites.  Because four is plenty.  In fact, four is too many.  You can get enough variety using just one or two fonts, with occasional use of bold or italic if necessary. 

One of the reasons why the sites I mentioned above are easily readable is because of the colours used - black type on a white background.  Now, it may be because the human race, since the advent of the printed word, has become used to reading black script on white, but there is no doubt that this is the colour scheme that most of us find easiest to read.  I went to a seminar some years ago and the only thing I remember about it is an experiment that we did on reading different colours.  The tutor had brought a large number of printed sheets, each of which was covered with a coloured transparent sheet of celluloid.  And the participants were asked to say which sheet they found it easiest to read.  Some people chose those covered by different shades of pink or red celluloid, others chose green, or blue or yellow or mauve or brown.  I don't think any two people chose the same colour.  So, if we give our website a light blue background and use dark blue type, yes there may be some people who find that easier to read than black on white - but the chances are that there will be others who find it more difficult.

Then, of course, there are those websites that decide to use yellow type on blue, or orange type on turquoise or other bright combinations that I defy anyone to read easily.  Have you ever found that the only way to read the text on a particular website is to select it and thus change its colour?  I have - on several occasions.

And it's not just the 'amateur' websites that get it wrong.  There are some out there that have clearly been professionally designed and you wonder how they got away with it.  Some months ago I bought a new computer and one of the sites I looked at was a nightmare to use.  (I'm not saying which site it was because I've looked at it again this week and they've changed it.)  Firstly, everything was on a black background.  Since the computers themselves were black, even the photos added to the gloom.  The text was white, and the whole site had a dead feeling to it.  What made it even worse was the navigation.  The visitor was advised to click on a picture to get more information about each computer.  The first few times I did this, I thought it wasn't working.  Then I realised that the information was coming up at the bottom of the page and I needed to scroll down to find it.  I made a note of a couple of models that I was interested in but, coming back the next day, couldn't find them using the search box.  I eventually tracked them down by going into the 'desktop' section and drilling down . . . but what a palaver!


The company asked for feedback after I bought my computer.  I told them that, yes, I would buy that make again . . . but I'd do so through Amazon or another outlet, rather than return to their website.  Interesting that the website has now been changed for the better - I wonder how many other people made the same comments that I did.

So, for me, a good website must be clear and easy to read, and easy to navigate through.  And it must provide the information that people want.  I remember some years ago Phil Gosling talking about a particular website he'd gone to.  This website was selling what he was looking for, but he needed to ask a question before ordering.  However, he couldn't see a way to contact the suppliers.  So in the end he gave up and bought on another website whose helpdesk link was clearly displayed. 

Sometimes the problem is not that there isn't enough information but that there's too much.  I belong to a certain professional organisation which has a website that is almost impossible to navigate.  I've found that, quite often, the only way to find what I want is to go to the site map and work from there.  Links to different areas aren't clearly delineated on the site and some of the headings are ambiguous.  I've always been able to find the information I want - eventually - but I do wish it was better signposted.

Nowadays, we're constantly being told to 'monetize' our sites.  Adsense has become ubiquitous.  Blogs and information sites are plastered with advertisements.  But do they work or are they counterproductive.  Perhaps the most important thing, if you're going to have clickable ads on your website, is to ensure that the site they're linked to opens in a new tab.  Otherwise, every time someone clicks on an ad, they'll be taken away from your site and they may well not come back.  Another thing to think about is how many ads you want.  I don't know about you, but I find it distracting to see loads of ads surrounding a piece of text.  I start wondering about the motives of the website owners - are they really trying to offer good information or are they more interested in selling me stuff?

Interestingly, Armand Morin will tell you that there are some shapes and sizes of banners that don't work because we're just so used to seeing them that our minds shut them out.  He always advises against using a long horizontal banner across the top of the page.  I don't know whether it's the same for adsense - whether adsense 'boxes' further down the page will sell better than the strip of three ads across the top of the page - but it's possible.

So there's a lot to think about and a lot to do when setting up a website.  And sometimes - if it's a fairly simple site - I think it's better to design it yourself rather than pay a fortune to a web designer.  Nowadays it's easy enough, using Wordpress or some website design software such as SiteSpinner.  But, whatever you do and however you do it, it's important to remember something that was said by one of my favourite gurus, Armand Morin: "You don’t have to get it right first time.  Just put something up and then improve it."  Keep an eye on your visitor stats and your sales and you'll soon know what's working and what's not.

A riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma - part 3

Mention Google's 'User Deception' policy to a friend of mine and you'll see steam coming out of his ears.  He is one of those who was caught out by the subtleties (or obscurities) of meaning in this policy.  Now, I have to say that this friend - let's call him Peter - is as honest as the day is long and will go out of his way to to do things ethically and fairly.  So, when Google told him that he had been suspended - and when he discovered why - he was appalled.

Peter had only recently gone into internet marketing.  He's a professional man, now retired, and had thought that he might share his knowledge and experience in his own field via a website.  He set one up and ran a successful short adwords campaign (based on Armand Morin's Secret PPC method) to drive people to the site.

Some time later, he signed up for Simon Coulson's Internet Cashflow course and found it both interesting and useful.  It was certainly something he'd recommend to other people, so he decided to promote the course as an affiliate.  And it seemed the obvious thing to promote it via Google adwords, using the same method as before.

Now, Armand's method requires the use of banner ads and, when you submit a banner ad to Google, you have to wait for it to be approved, unlike the ordinary line ads which go live as soon as they're submitted.  And so Peter discovered that he'd been banned not for running an ad that was contrary to policy but simply for submitting one for approval!  Believing that it must have been the wording of his ad that was at fault, he replied to the email from Google, explaining that this was a genuine mistake and asking them to reconsider.

The reply Peter received from Google was uncompromising.  He read in growing disbelief that his account had been suspended "due to submissions of ads that promote an Unacceptable Business Practice - get rich quick.  In response to the many complaints that we have received from users and publishers, we've decided not to allow ads which promote "get rich quick" sites."

How, he wondered, could a website which offered a year-long course, involving a considerable amount of study and work, be considered a 'get rich quick' site?  True, Simon Coulson promotes the course as being the system that he used to make £2 million and that his students have used to make considerable incomes, but does that make it a 'get rich quick' system?  Simon has made over £2 million and a number of his students have done extremely well using this system, so he's only stating what is true.

Once again Peter contacted Google, explaining that he had assumed (wrongly, it appeared) that a 'get rich quick site' was one that was underhand or was trying to pull the wool over people's eyes by promising them something that was unnattainable - for example, £20,000 in the first week with only half an hour of work a day.  He pointed out why, while Simon Coulson's site truthfully said that large incomes could be achieved with this system, there was no suggestion that this would be achieved quickly.  Google was unmoved.  However, he was told that if he 'changed the wording on the website' his case might be reconsidered.  When he replied that it was not his website, he was told there was nothing that could be done.

So there he was, banned for life for innocently trying to promote a perfectly genuine website selling a course which he had found very helpful.  And from what he has heard since, many internet marketing sites have met the same fate.  If you Google 'make money online', the ads that come up are all concerned with gambling or modelling for 'sexy cam' sites.  Personally, I'd rather see ads about internet marketing courses.

Finding Your Niche

One of the major buzz words in internet marketing has to be 'niche'.  There's a lot of disagreement surrounding this little word, not least of all how it's pronounced.  The British use the French pronunciation - 'neesh', while the Americans call it a 'nitch'. At the Armand Morin Live seminar that I attended in London, each time Armand said 'nitch', the audience would, with one accord, chorus back 'neesh'.

But the disagreement doesn't end there.  Some people say that you should look for small niches because those such as internet marketing, dieting and personal development are so overloaded with marketers that it makes it very difficult for a newcomer to get a toe-hold.  Others say that it is precisely because these areas are so popular that they make a good starting point - popularity means that there are people out there who are hungry for whatever information is available.

Some experts say 'follow your passion'.  But, as others point out, if your passion is French ormolu clocks or the life cycle of the sea horse, you're not going to sell many e-books.  To sell a lot of information, you need a large market.  And so the advice from practically every expert is to check out what's being searched for on the Google keywords site.  If only a handful of people each month are searching within that niche - forget it.

I knew someone a year or two back who made a very expensive mistake by not checking out her market.  She opened a mini leisure centre where her main offering was a floatation (sensory deprivation) tank.  She thought it was wonderful and assumed that others would too.  She advertised widely - but no one was interested.  If she had checked on Google before she started, she'd have discovered that fewer than 2500 people a month worldwide search for the term 'floatation tank'.  Little wonder that there weren't many people in her immediate vicinity looking for that facility.

And it's the same online.  You can produce a wonderful website and a brilliant and informative e-book and you can spend a fortune advertising it - but if no one's interested in the subject, no one will buy.  Of every person who reaches your optin page, probably only 30-40% will actually give you their email address and proceed to the next page.  And of the 30-40%, perhaps two percent will actually buy - that's six people buying out of every 1000 who visit your site.  So how many do you need to drive to your site each month to make the venture worthwhile?  The advice to do the maths before you start seems very sensible.

Finding a Mentor

In today's uncertain economic climate, more and more people are looking to the internet as a way of making money - either to supplement their income or else to provide an income after they've been made redundant.  But the question is - where do you start?  Some people are lucky enough to find a good teacher straight away.  But there are an awful lot of rogues out there.  And there are also quite a few people who've made good money on the internet and honestly try to teach others how to do it, but seem to lack the ability to do so.

I'm a great fan of Armand Morin.  His teaching materials are superb.  I went to an 'Armand Live' event some time ago - three days, and a wealth of information.  But his stuff does tend to be expensive.  Worth it, without doubt, but a difficult decision if you're on a tight budget.  However, if you've got the money to spare,  his Internet Marketing Explained is a superb course.  Or, if you want a less expensive, monthly tutorial course, try his marketing tutorials.

In the UK, Simon Coulson has proved himself a trustworthy teacher, and his Internet Cashflow course, which comes in monthly installments, is not expensive.