So… of course I started checking into it.

Stop #1:  The Sales Page

Strictly speaking, the first page you see when you visit The Clickbank Code is actually a splash page, but  I have to tell you that the splash page is really a work of art.

1. There is very little distracting information on the page, including minimal links.
2. The layout is professional and eye-catching.
3. Everything that you need to see is above the fold — You don’t have to scroll to see it.
4. It has an effective lead capture system.  You have to submit your name and email to see the next video.
5. The video on the splash page is engaging and plays automatically.

It was worth visiting the The Clickbank Code just so that I could take notes on the sales system that they’re using.  I love to see how other people are doing it and discover new strategies that work well!

If you’re new to the idea of splash pages or looking into creating your own splash pages, you should seriously check this one out.  It’s pure art… all the way down to the headlines, colors, graphics, etc.

Even the arrows work effectively.

Stop #2:  The Sales Page

As you can tell, I’m a big fan of the splash page… not as big a fan of the sales page.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a well done sales page full of the same professional graphics and videos.  I just thought it was a bit of a let down after the splash page.  Michael Jones, the product owner, claims that the conversion rate for the sales page is over 7%, so the sales page must work pretty well.

I may just have to borrow a few of the ideas here.

Bottom line:  I’ve visited both the splash page and the sales page and I still don’t have a really good idea if I’m interested in this product or not.

Stop #3:  Online Reviews

As you might expect, there are tons of “honest reviews” of The Clickbank Code available online.  The vast majority — 99.99% of them are candy-coated reviews designed to elicit affiliate sales.

That’s hardly a review at all!

Of course, there’s also the anti-reviews or “scam alerts” that are written to capture affiliate sales for other products related to The Clickbank Code.  Those aren’t particularly honest.

I still have no idea if this is a product that I’m interested in or not.  I’m certainly curious about the product, but not willing to pony up out of shear curiousity.  I honestly expect that the product is really just a re-mix of the same old information about Clickbank, SEO, PPC, etc.

But how can I find out?  YouTube!

Stop #4: Get A Sneak Peak

So my last stop is to check out the various YouTube videos out there that show sneak peaks of the product.  My goal is to get that “insiders view” of The Clickbank Code so that I can decide if it’s something that I’m interested in either buying or promoting.

After viewing the videos, I decided that I’d like to promote the product and see how it performs for me, but I’m not interested in buying the product at this time.  From what I can see in the videos, the majority of the information available in The Clickbank Code is stuff that I either already know how to do or currently use in my business.

I’ve been in this business a long, long time… there’s just not that much that’s totally new to me anymore. (Am I showing my age?)

But I do think there’s some really good stuff in The Clickbank Code for those who haven’t been in the game as long as I have.  That’s why I offer the best sneak peak videos that I could find for you below:

In the end, I can’t personally recommend The Clickbank Code because I don’t own a copy myself.  It looks very promising for those who aren’t making as much money as they’d like at Clickbank and I’m planning a PPC campaign around the product to see if it really lives up to that 7.1% conversion rate claimed.

If you want to check out the splash page or sales letter, here’s the link to The Clickbank Code.

If you own this product yourself, tell me what you think about it.

Is it worth the price?

I’d love to hear from you!

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Buy Twitter Power: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time (Hardcover) at Amazon

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Twitter is an awesome tool for connecting with people personally and professionally.  You can talk to others in your niche or area of interest, share advice, provide resources, and network with people all over the world.

I love it and I’m becoming a total Twitter addict.

It’s so much easier to write a short 140 character post on Twitter than to write an entire blog post… especially when I only want to make a quick point and move on.

I have several different accounts that I use for my different niches.  After all, it wouldn’t make sense to use my Arvada Yates Twitter account to communicate with my friends in other niches unrelated to internet business and marketing.  And having all these different accounts is what made me realize how obvious it is that internet marketers don’t know how to Twitter right.

In my other accounts, I can:

• Communicate directly with like-minded people and tweet back and forth.
• Have online disagreements with others who have a different point of view.
• Post cute jokes or comments about current events.
• Add occasional links to interesting blog posts, news stories, or videos.

In my Twitter accounts directly related to internet marketing, I get a constant barrage of links to affiliate programs and promotions from other interent marketers.  There’s nothing that I can have a conversation about, make a comment on, or connect with.

It sucks!

And it totally takes the fun out of using Twitter… so I don’t spend much time on those accounts and opt to participate in the accounts that allow more interaction.

And that’s where internet marketers are totally missing the point of Twitter.

Twitter is about interacting with others and creating relationships.  It’s kind of like email… you have to build rapport with others and provide useful information before you start slamming offers to buy stuff down their throats.

So here’s my top three ways to improve your results with Twitter:

1.  Start a conversation.  It’s easy to do if you’ve got followers that are real people instead of automated accounts.  In addition, you can always join another conversation that’s taking place… just jump in and be a real person!

2.  Stop posting links every time you Twitter.  Links take time to follow and pull followers out of Twitter… plus too many links undermine any hope of having a relationship with your followers.  If you’re going to post links, post links to articles on your blog.  That’s what I usually do.  In fact, I never post links directly to products.

3.  Post tips and real information to your account.  People love short tips and they can also double as a conversation starter.

I’m sure there are a few self-declared internet marketers out there that are trying to Twitter the right way… but the majority of them seem to see Twitter as an opportunity to spam us all with sales materials.

It’s a shame… Twitter can be so much fun!

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According to the author of The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009, the Latest Edition is everything you’d Expect From A Beginner’s Guide To Starting An Online Business with over 1,250 pages of detailed, moneymaking strategies and techniques have been carefully laid out in bite-sized, easy to grab-and-apply sections, making it dead-easy to determine what you need, apply it to your business, and move onto the NEXT step.

The “Insider Secrets” system claims to carefully guide you through all the critical steps:

1. Helping you decide what you should sell…
2. Easily get a sales website live…
3. Attract your first visitor…
4. Accept your first credit card payment!
5. Ramp up sales & traffic quickly!
6. Automate your business to be “hands free”

Course Examples

Here is a small sample of what you will find within The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Course…

• How to use powerful automated research tools to quickly multiply your hobbies and interests into HUNDREDS of potential business ideas!
• The simple “measuring stick” that will instantly tell you if your product idea has REAL income potential… before you spend a penny developing it!
• The SEVEN best ways to make money from a website — add each one to your website like building blocks and watch your income explode!
• How to get paid BIG commissions by recommending other people’s products on your website!
• How you can quickly become a “Super Affiliate” and earn a full-time, six-figure income — without EVER selling a product of your own!
• Plugging NEW Revenue Streams into Your Website to Incrementally Build Your Online Income by $1,500 to $8,000+ Per Month!
• Secrets for Squeezing WAY MORE Sales and Profits Out Of Your Existing Traffic, Subscribers, Products, and Website!

Additional Benefits Reported

Here are some additional benefits reported in The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet course:

• Students receive real time updates with the latest online marketing strategies.
• Streaming videos for ease of student learning.
• Downloadable content for iPod, iPhone or other mobile device.
• The Master Blueprint for Launching and Expanding Your Internet Business is shipped Free to students.
• Foolproof goal-setting DVD and workbook provided to all students.
• A Private 30-Minute Phone Consultation With a Personal eBiz Trainers.

Product Details

Company Information: The Internet Marketing Center has a 12 year long track record of Over-Delivering on their products and providing good customer value.

Product Spefications: Complete guide to starting and growing an internet business in an electronic, web accessible format plust five business building bonuses valued at $443.

Price: $197 after 30 day trial at $2.95

Return Policy: “DOUBLE Your Profits In 1 Year… Or We’ll Pay You $200 Just For Trying!… in addition to a 100% refund of your purchase price.”

Actual Customer Feedback

“The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009 is a must have course for anyone serious about having their own Internet business. If you want to make money online, I highly recommend that you get access to this tremendous online business building course now.”

Shelley Lowery, web-source.net

“There are precious few courses that I can recommend without reservation. Insider Secrets is one of them…highly recommended.”

Kevin Tenzo, warriorforum.com

“I give Insider Secrets VERSION 2009 a perfect 10 out of 10 without hesitation. The Internet Marketing Center continues to be the leader in helping people go from nothing to big money online.”

Valeriu, internetmarketingprofitscenter.com

“We’ve used this course as our blueprint to grow the business to $500,000 per year!”

David Gray, mortgagewatchdog.com.au

“Using all that valuable information, I built my first website which now brings in $300,000 per year in sales, on average!”

Larissa Carrus, airbrushing-made-easy.com

“I can honestly say that I have never had so much fun learning anything in my life!”

Darren Salkeld, down-feather-bedding.com

““Insider Secrets” is the first investment anyone should make in their Internet businesses. It will shave off years of trial and error time, and will also save you a lot of money in the long run, by preventing you from making the kinds of mistakes Corey and Derek made as Internet marketing pioneers. I can’t emphasize that enough. Learn from this system and you’ll be so much further ahead.”

Shawn LeBrun, shawnlebrunfitness.com

“The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet has been a great tool for me. It is a very comprehensive course. I would recommend this course to anyone who wants to start an online business!”

Taylor Knight, yourparrotplace.com

The way the positive review stack up, you can’t go wrong… especially with that return policy!

Read more reviews of The Insider Secrets to Marketing Your Business on the Internet Version 2009.

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If you never really thought about being at war when it comes to your blog and trying to get notices among the millions of other blogs on the planet, then you’ve got to check out this entertaining and enlightening post from Copyblogger.

If you stop and think about it, you’re in a battle for visitors, subscribers, and customers… and you’re fighting all those battles at the same time.

Want to actually start waging war and winning those battles? Check out the link below and play to win:

Your Blog vs. The World: 7 Steps To Winning The War for Attention

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Here are eight public domain use ideas to get you thinking:

1. Use public domain to increase your organic search engine traffic.

As I said in the idea above, you can cut up public domain content into separate articles and distribute them, but you can also slice it up to create articles for your own website. Make these articles keyword rich and submit them to search engines to gain a high search engine ranking for your keywords. The number one reason people go online is for information research. By setting up keyword and content rich webpages, the search engines will rank you higher and more of those targeted visitors will find you.

2. Use public domain products to upsell your own products.

Upselling is a really powerful strategy for increasing your revenues, if you have additional products to offer. Public domain can give you the opportunity to offer an ‘upgrade’ to your customers. Simply use a public domain product as it is or modify it slightly and you have a product to use in your upsell.

3. Create a digital information product.

This is probably the easiest and most often used method for taking advantage of public domain. You can easily compile the material as is (or with a few slight edits) and turn it into an ebook. Then you can sell the ebook, give it away to subscribers, offer it as a backend, etc.

4. Use public domain as a bonus to your own products.

Just like we talked about using it to upsell your products, you can also use it to create really great bonuses for your products. People love bonuses. Sometimes people will buy a product just for the bonus if it’s something that they view as unique.

5. Use public domain on your website as content and partner with Google AdSense to generate revenue.

Use the material you gather from public domain to create an information rich website. Then place Google AdSense ads within the site. Every time someone clicks on the AdSense ads, you earn a percentage of that advertising revenue. If done right this can add up very quickly.

6. Create a physical information product.

Just as you can create a digital information product out of public domain material, you can also create a physically delivered product and ship it to customers. The real advantage to creating a physical product is that it may work better for your niche audience (especially if they aren’t very sophisticated) and physically delivered products can generally command a higher price.

Some options for a physical product could be to read public domain material into a a microphone and then record that onto a CD, divide the material into sections and turn that into a home study course, or simply repackage the information into a booklet.

7. Create articles or mini courses out of the public domain content.

People and online businesses are starving for great content. You can literally slice up the material you get into smaller articles and distribute them online to gain traffic to your website. This is called article marketing, and it’s a great way to gain targeted visitors to your site, especially when the content actually comes from public domain works.

8. Create s product based on a public domain work.

Some people call these types of products derivative works. All it really means that you use the public domain material as the basis to create something completely different like a video, software, Cd, etc.

There are tons and tons of other ways that you can utilize this freely available material and make money with it. Hopefully this will give you some idea of the possibilities and give you a good jumping off spot for using public domain in your own online business.

Want to know more about public domain?  Get your Free Copy of 10 Days to Smokin’ Traffic Now!

Click the link to learn more about
Public Domain Riches

Or learn more about the
Public Domain Treasure Hunter’s Kit

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So that’s why I created a short video to explain what pinging your blog means and how to set up your WordPress blog to take care of the whole thing for you automatically.

After you watch the video, you may be interested in getting a list of all the ping services that are out there.  It’s a constantly changing list.  Some services go under, while others change their URL’s to keep up with the changes in technology.

For the most part, you really only need to use a few of the ping services in order to get the majority of the ones in existence because many of the big services inform the smaller ones as part of their ping.  (Hopefully that made some sense!)

Pingomatic is the largest of the ping services and automatically pings many others, so you should be sure to include that URL along with a few others to reach the majority of services.  Here’s my short list:

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://ping.myblog.jp

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://bblog.com/ping.php

If you have any kind of special interests that are outside of the normal blogging sphere, you may want to do a search for your topic + ping service to add those URL’s to your update services.

And if you’re looking for the long list, here’s pretty good one… but I can’t warrant that it won’t go out of date.  URL’s tend to change frequently.

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://1470.net/api/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping

http://api.feedster.com/ping.php

http://api.moreover.com/ping

http://api.moreover.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/RPC2

http://api.my.yahoo.com/rss/ping

http://bblog.com/ping.php

http://bitacoras.net/ping

http://blogdb.jp/xmlrpc

http://blog.goo.ne.jp/XMLRPC

http://blogsearch.google.com/ping/RPC2

http://blogmatcher.com/u.php

http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc

http://coreblog.org/ping/

http://mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatt

https://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZFinance.woa/wa/pingPodcast

http://ping.amagle.com/

http://ping.bitacoras.com

http://ping.bloggers.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blogmura.jp/rpc/

http://ping.blo.gs/

http://ping.cocolog-nifty.com/xmlrpc

http://pinger.blogflux.com/rpc/

http://ping.exblog.jp/xmlrpc

http://ping.feedburner.com

http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php

http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php

http://ping.weblogs.se/

http://rcs.datashed.net/RPC2/

http://rpc.blogbuzzmachine.com/RPC2

http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/

http://rpc.britblog.com/

http://rpc.icerocket.com:10080/

http://rpc.newsgator.com/

http://rpc.pingomatic.com/

http://rpc.tailrank.com/feedburner/RPC2

http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping

http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2

http://rpc.wpkeys.com/

http://services.newsgator.com/ngws/xmlrpcping.aspx

http://signup.alerts.msn.com/alerts-PREP/submitPingExtended.doz

http://topicexchange.com/RPC2

http://trackback.bakeinu.jp/bakeping.php

http://www.a2b.cc/setloc/bp.a2b

http://www.bitacoles.net/ping.php

http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2

http://www.blogoole.com/ping/

http://www.blogoon.net/ping/

http://www.blogpeople.net/servlet/weblogUpdates

http://www.blogroots.com/tb_populi.blog?id=1

http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php

http://www.blogsnow.com/ping

http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi

http://www.holycowdude.com/rpc/ping/

http://www.lasermemory.com/lsrpc/

http://www.imblogs.net/ping/

http://www.mod-pubsub.org/kn_apps/blogchatter/ping.php

http://www.newsisfree.com/RPCCloud

http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php

http://www.popdex.com/addsite.php

http://www.snipsnap.org/RPC2

http://www.weblogues.com/RPC/

http://xmlrpc.blogg.de

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You probably never really thought about all the pre-selling tools that are available to today’s online entrepreneur, but technology makes it possible to connect with your potential customers in tons of new ways!

I’ve written about what pre-selling is before, so I won’t go into the details again.  Here’s a short definition to make sure we’re all on the same sheet of music:

In the online world, pre-selling is the art of warming up your visitors, building trust, and putting them in the frame of mind that they want to do business with you.

If you need a more in depth explaination, check out the article, “What is Pre-Selling?”

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s start talking about the actual tools you can use to pre-sell your visitors and turn them into customers.

Of course you already know that basic written content is one of the best pre-sellers.  In fact, you probably already write and distribute articles, load your website up with relevant content, and send your content out in a newsletter.  That’s kind of the “standard internet marketing” that everyone does.

So let’s think out of the box a bit and take a look at some of the pre-selling tools that you may not be fully utilizing…

Pre-Selling Tools

1.  Blogs

Well-done blogs go beyond the basic website and take pre-selling a little more seriously.  Generally speaking, blogs show a little more of the personality of the owner than websites do because they’re less formal, more spontaneous, and friendlier.

When you visit some blogs, you feel like you’ve entered the inner sanctum of the writer… this can be a great pre-seller when it’s done correctly!  A great blog that welcomes visitors with a smile can go a long way toward turning visitors into customers.

2. Reviews

It surprises me how few people take advantage of the great pre-selling power of writing reviews.  Keep in mind that I’m not talking about the kind of candy-coated reviews that claim every product is excellent and worth buying or the bogus reviews pre-written by merchants for affiliates.

I’m talking about buying a product and writing a genuine review of what you liked and didn’t like about the product.  Believe it or not, I often sell more of a product when I write a less than stellar review!

People appreciate and reward honesty.

3.  Commenting

I kind of lumped this one all together to mean several different things so this article wouldn’t be soooo long.

Any time you leave a comment on someone’s blog, on a forum, in a message board, at YouTube, etc., you are pre-selling youreself.  It pays to make your comments useful and timely because visitors will often follow the links in those comments to learn more about you.

It’s kind of like pre-selling them on YOU, inviting them to your little part of the world (your website), and then using other pre-selling tools at your disposal to pre-sell them on products that you promote.

4.  Newsletters and Ezines

Newsletters and ezines are a really great pre-selling tool because they give you the opportunity to build rapport with potential customers over the long term.  This long-term relationship with your subscribers allows you to pre-sell them on a wide variety of products and services over the lifetime of the relationship.

5.  Freebies

There are soooo many freebies that you can put together to pre-sell whatever you want to recommend to your visitors.  You can create ebooks, audios, videos, reports, ecourses, or just about any other freebie that you can think of.  Each free product that you create helps to establish a relationship with potential customers and increases your pre-selling potential.

6.  Podcasts

Podcasts are a great way to instantly build rapport with potential customers and establish an immediate relationship.  There’s just something about hearing another human voice, no matter what they’re saying, that establishes an immediate connection.  All you need to do to use this great pre-selling tool is to provide great information.

Just remember, it’s not a radio commercial!

7.  Videos

Just like podcasts, videos are also a great pre-selling tool.  Not only can visitors hear your voice as you’re helping them solve a problem (that ultimately leads to a product available for purchase), but they can also see either you or your visual props in the video to help solidify the message in their minds.

In addition, well-done videos go a long way toward promoting you as a professional who is credible… all worthy goals when you’re pre-selling!

8.  Social Networks

This is probably the most important pre-selling tool in your toolbox because of the very nature of a social network.  Pre-selling and social networks fit together like hand and glove.

In a social network like Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, or Twitter you’re building a social relationship with others online… the very definition of pre-selling.  In other words, you become friends with others through these social networks, pre-sell them your products, and your “friends” buy the products that you’re pre-selling because you have an established relationship with them.

And that’s my short list of the best pre-selling tools available to online entrepreneurs.  If you aren’t taking advantage of these options, you really owe it to yourself to start taking a look at how you can integrate some of these pre-selling opportunities into your business… especially social networks.

If I’ve missed a really great pre-selling tool here, I hope you’ll let me know!

I can virtually guarantee your pre-selling success
with this one tool… read more.

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If you’ve been watching the news, you probably heard the news that a HUGE snow/sleet/ice storm blew through my neck of the woods last week.  We lost power at our house on Tuesday night and spent two days in below zero conditions.  (luckily, our house held the heat pretty well the first two days and it didn’t dip below zero until the second day!)

As we were about to pack up the kids and move to a hotel to wait out the power (it was just too cold to stay here), my husband lucked into finding a generator (a long story… but he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.  I think it was divine intervention!).

We hooked up the heat and waited it out until the power went back on Saturday night.  Boy did we have a lot of laundry to do!!!

Anyway, let’s just say that I have a new appreciation for all our modern conveniences… especially electricity!

I can’t believe how much I missed my work on the internet too! Cable was out.  Dish was out.  Cell towers were out.  Even landline phone lines were missing in action.

What did we do in the old days (you know when we were kids) and didn’t have access to all that technology 24 hours a day?  It was kind of like stepping back into “Little House on the Prairie.”

Enough about my cold week…

SMM FAQ

Let me ask you a question… How much do you know about SMM?

I have to admit, Social Media Marketing (SMM) is an area of interent marketing that I’m still learning about, so I’ve been doing a fair amount of research into the subject.

To that end, I came across a Social Media Marketing FAQ put together by Steven Snell that comprehensively answers a lot of commonly asked questions about SMM.

It’s really well put together… just in case you’re looking for a few answers of your own!

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If you want to get the rest of the story, you’ll have to subscribe to Answers eMagazine and read the January 2009 Edition.

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