In fact, email marketing is so important to my online business,
that I'd be out of business if email ever became illegal. It's that crucial.

Tom Kulzer launched AWeber back in 1998. His low-cost "email robot service"
leveled the playing field for small-to-medium sized website owners
looking to automate their email marketing efforts…

… Instead of manually sending each message to our mailing list,
AWeber lets us upload pre-written messages.

Each subsequent message is sent out by a predetermined interval
(I typically email almost daily and skip Fridays and Sundays).
AWeber even gives us the option to time when they're delivered
(I find the best response is between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m.).

Once configured, AWeber does the rest… sending out each batch
of emails all at once – automatically:

Even the drudgery of maintaining an email list is done behind the scenes -
unsubscribe requests, address changes… even bounced emails are
automatically handled without me lifting a finger.

Using an Email Service Provider (ESP) like AWeber to automate
my marketing is the ultimate set-it-and-forget-it tool…

… AWeber literally created a new industry within the online marketing space.
And nowadays, there are literally thousands of similar copycats to choose from.

But AWeber stood out from the crowd back in the Spring of 2008
when it introduced email web analytics. In addition to automating
the email sending, they're able to offer us insightful tracking reports to
help improve our email deliverability and return on investment.

While every report offers valuable intelligence, my favorite is
Aweber's unsubscribe report:

In a glance, I can see that message #15 is getting higher-than-normal
unsubscribe rates. Armed with this intelligence, I can tweak this message
(or remove it) to lower my unsubscribe rates.

For the longest time, I used in-house email delivery software, but this
was a big mistake. I had surprisingly low delivery rates and lots of
maintenance hassles.

In April of 2011, I made the switch to AWeber, and it was the
best business move I've ever made. In fact I wished I used AWeber
when I first started online back in November of 1997.

AWeber is so good, it ranks tops in my
list of World's Best Online Marketing Sources.

Unfortunately, you're not alone. My clients are seeing
across-the-board decreases in their website ad revenue.

And for my portfolio of websites, I've taken quite a hit after
coming off a great year in 2011.

My advertising income is dropping like a rock ever since January of 2012.

Most have relied exclusively on Google AdSense to bring in
cash for empty spots on their blog and/or webpages.

For some, this website advertising revenue has been so lucrative,
they've been able to quit their jobs and live a full-time internet lifestyle.

But over the years, Google has been quietly (and strangely)
banning site owners from participating in their AdSense advertising
revenue-sharing partnership.

It's a head scratcher indeed, because when Google ends its
relationship with us, it would seem we both lose out.

Fetching pennies on the dollar

In almost every case, these banning comes without any detailed explanation.

Often, we're told it's something about the "potential" for invalid click activity.

Even worse, appealing to Google about this often triggers an almost-instant
form letter of rejection.

On very rare occasion, Google comments publicly (if you know where to look).
And in this Google blog post, we see them try to explain away why our
AdSense revenues are falling off a cliff:

This particular sentence is quite troubling:

If a click is determined to be less likely to lead to a business
result like a purchase or a newsletter sign-up, an advertiser’s
maximum bid may be reduced.

In plain English, Google is creating an on-the-fly penalty for us
website owners if THEIR advertising clients don't know
how to create decent landing pages.

That is, if their advertiser's newsletter-signup form or webletter
isn't converting well, strangely we're somehow to blame.

But wait. There's more nonsense…

… Ex-Google AdSense product-development staffer Keith Mander was
interviewed about AdSense Smart Pricing and admitted this:

So in addition for getting penalized for Google's client's ineptness to
create good landing pages, we're also penalized if we serve ads to
visitors in "bad neighborhoods."

As a result, Google is slashing the average click price we earn.
This has been happening in earnest since the Fall of 2010.
And in many cases, once lucrative payouts are now paying
pennies on the dollar.

And if you're banned, you lose out on your final payment.
Google claims to pay this back to advertisers.

(I don't believe this for a nanosecond.)

But the worst part is we're willingly handing our visitors to our
direct competition for mere pennies on the dollar – and in almost
every case they're not coming back to our site.

18 reasons AdSense bans your account

As much as I hate rules, some are obvious and needed to
participate in a program that pays us to display ads in
your site's empty spaces.

Click Fraud
Rule #1 is to never click on your ad. This goes without saying.

You should absolutely get banned if you're ripping off
Google's sponsors. Agreed.

Click rings
Another surefire way to get your AdSense account banned is to
participate in click rings.

As the name sounds, people hookup for the sole purpose of
clicking on each other's ads.

This person blatantly posted in a forum publicly promoting the
opportunity to scam Google and its advertisers:

Again, I'm all for rules that thwart fraud. Count me in.

But the other 16 reasons to get your AdSense account
banned range from the silly to the ridiculous.

And as you're about to see, Google's Draconian rules makes it
harder and harder to monetize our empty webpage spaces:

Duplicate content
This boggles my mind. What's so wrong about having the
same content on one website showup on another website?

News sites have duplicate content. It's called syndication.
The same article read in the Miami Herald is EXACTLY the
same as an article read in the LA Times. Each online paper has a
completely different audience.

Yet according to Google, this is a way to get your AdSense account banned.
This is mind boggling to say the least.

As an advertiser, I couldn't care less about duplicate content.
Just show my ad to the visitor who arrives on this site.

Displaying copyrighted content
The law is so ambiguous at times. I'd bet the majority of website owners are
breaking some kind of copyright law without even realizing it.

But again, if I'm an advertiser… I don't care if the site visitor sees
copyrighted material or not. I just want my ad to be clicked on.

Copyright disputes should be settled between the website owner and
the rightful owner of the content, not by a search company.

Of course, Google could end this problem overnight by not
showing a web page in their search results which somehow
violates copyright law. Problem easily solved.

Rated R
The Big G wants to be the world's biggest online cop.

And if it deems that our content is somehow unsavory,
there's a high risk of getting banned.

So if I sell a natural supplement to eliminate allergies,
Google claims this is against their rules (can't offer pills) -
and as a result bans our AdSense account.

Unauthorized tongue
Yep, it's true. If your website's primary language isn't on the
approved AdSense list, you're in violation of Google's Terms of Service.

Tamper with the supplied AdSense code
Over the years, Google has gone away from its "keep it simple" design.

And these days, their AdSense toolbox is a head scratcher -
it's disorganized and hard to configure. It's no wonder some
website owners edit the code.

Google could hire a UX (i.e. User Experience) designer and make it
ten time faster and easier to create an AdSense block that matches the
theme of our blog or website.

Instead, Google has us jump through several pages just to grab our
AdSense code.

Clicks from a paid traffic source
This rule just blows me over. Why in the world does it matter if a
visitor comes from a paid traffic source or not?

Google refers to this as M.F.A. (i.e. Made For AdSense).
And I know it's against the Big G's ridiculous rules, but why?
What's their deal with this?

Of course Google will scream that MFAs breed a lack of quality, but
that's not always the case.

As an advertiser, I'd be THRILLED to pay for a visitor that came from a
pre-paid traffic source – whether the webpage has quality or not.

Asking others to click on your ads
On the surface, this sounds like a reasonable "rule."

But every seasoned direct marketer knows it's best to lead a horse to water.

Surprisingly, most people need to be directed to take an action.

Why is it such a crime to ask a visitor to click on an ad.
I'm sure advertisers wouldn't mind it.

Graphics
Study after study shows that adding a visual next to a text link
significantly boosts clickthru rates.

But Google doesn't like this – and doing so can get you banned.

Creating multiple AdSense accounts
Savvy business owners protect their ASSets by forming separate
corporations for each website in their portfolio. And to keep accurate records,
they need to create separate AdSense accounts.

But Google uses "triangulation" to track us down. They partner with
Facebook, Twitter, FourSquare and others to keep tabs on us.
And if they think we're somehow gaming the system by creating
multiple AdSense accounts, we run the high risk of getting banned.

Displaying AdSense alternatives
Google claims it's okay to show both AdSense and ads
syndicated by Google's competitors.

But Google bans AdSense accounts if these alternative
ads have a similar format, layout and/or color scheme.

Disclosing the math
It is against Google's Terms of Service to reveal your earnings,
clickthru rates or number of ads displayed.

This rule was implemented back in 2003… and it was clearly
foreshadowing what was to come – super low numbers that
Google is certain to be embarrassed by – now pennies on the
dollar for clicks.

Placing ads in popup windows or on thank you pages
This Google rule tends to drive AdSense partners crazy.

Thank you pages are one of the best-kept secrets of online marketing.

Savvy website owners focus a lot of their attention on this
VALUABLE piece of 'net real estate. After all, when someone
subscribes to an optin or buys our stuff, they are in "take action" mode.

And that includes clicking on AdSense links.

Popup windows (more specifically, floating windows) are valuable just as well.
Across-the-board studies show these floating spaces get noticed way
more than ads embedded directly on our webpages.

Incentivizing clicks
When you offer some sort of reward to click on AdSense ads,
that's a surefire way to get your account banned.

This is kind of odd seeing we infomarketers give away bonuses and
gifts to nudge prospects into buying our stuff.

Webmaster guidelines
Part of the AdSense Terms of Service is to adhere to the
webmaster quality guidelines.

At first glance, it seems reasonable to strive to publish quality stuff.
After all, how many times have we searched Google and landed on
an obvious webpage of junk.

But that's Google's problem, not ours.

Google needs to work on their search results, not us.

Weeding out obvious web spam is relatively easy to seek and destroy.

The Google 'Plex has an endless parade of software coders
who could filter search results of this obvious web spam.
Yet Google has promoted this scourge for donkey's years now.

Sadly, today's search results on Google contain just as much
web spam than it did many years ago.

Either way, why is it up to us to do Google's job?

But there's another issue to consider here:

Having quality content is unprofitable.

It's true.

Think about it. If your content engages your reader, because
it's stuffed with quality content, that same visitor is MUCH
less likely to flee and click on your AdSense ads…

… Which leads into the next tactic that's a surefire way to
get your AdSense account banned:

Content below the fold
Each visitor's computer monitor acts much like one
would read a newspaper.

Everything on the screen is considered above the fold.
Once the visitor starts to scroll, the rest of the content is
considered below the fold.

Savvy AdSense partners found that placing content below the fold
(and ads above the fold) generated a tremendous click-thru
rate on their AdSense ads.

But Google considers this practice a big no no.

Why does Google hate us so much?

Clearly, the Google AdSense Terms of Service neuters us
from using honest, ethical and proven marketing strategies
to get AdSense clicks.

It's beyond obvious that Google is setting us up to fail.

The question is, "Why?"

Why is Google so insistent on making it so hard for us to profit?

I just called the police -
Google is stealing from us

We all know something is wrong here.

Almost every site owner I know is watching their
AdSense earnings quickly erode away.

Here's the math over the last three years of my AdSense earnings.
I ran a report for each May's Revenue Per Month (a.k.a. RPM):

May 2010 $19.19 R.P.M.
May 2011 $9.74 R.P.M.
May 2012 $4.63 R.P.M.

Some might question the quality of my traffic. And as the world's
most critical thinker, I commend you on your skepticism…

… But the reality is quality of traffic is even higher than it was
just three short years ago.

And my content is of higher quality, too. That's because I fell for the
Google propaganda of raising the free bar.

(As I've discussed above, I realize this is a whopper of a lie -
strangely, high-quality content actually puts less dough rey me
in the bank account).

The bottom line is Google is stealing from us.

They are stealing our traffic for mere pennies on the dollar.
And the worst part is we're giving them full permission to do so.

I'm so done with Google. It's time to put an end to
the plundering and pillaging.

So earlier this month, I deleted all AdSense ads from my
website's pages. And I've contacted my clients to do the same.

We are Google's enemy

I lurk at a ton of marketing forums and blogs. And site owners are
flat out ticked off at Google.

If you're not paying attention, it would seem that the Big G pulled
the rug from under us in quick fashion.

But the truth is Google has been hating on us since 2003.

For almost a decade, Google has been using a military tactic
known as the Fabian Strategy to gradually lower our web advertising revenues…

… This method S L O W L Y wears down the enemy so they
don't even notice it – akin to the proverbial frog in boiling water story…
a metaphor that when a frog is placed in boiling water, it will jump out,
but if it's placed in cold water that's slowly heated, it doesn't
recognize the threat and gets cooked to death.

We are the frogs. And we frogs are the enemy here.

Hurricane Google

Google makes over 500 minor changes to its secret search result's formula
every year.

But when Google makes a bigger-than-normal change,
the SEO industry takes notice.

Users at the popular forum Webmaster World even create names for
these major updates as if they're hurricanes.

The first-named update was called "Boston" (inspired by the
SES Boston tradeshow back in February of 2003).

Since that time, Google updates have gone by these names:

Panda 3.7 – June 2012
Penguin 1.1 – May 2012
52 Pack – May 2012
Panda 3.6 – April 2012
Penguin – April 2012
Panda 3.5 – April 2012
50 Pack – April 2012
Panda 3.4 – March 2012
Search Quality Video – March 2012
Panda 3.3 – February 2012
40 Pack – February 2012
Venice – February 2012
17 Pack – February 2012
Ads Above The Fold – January 2012
Panda 3.2 – January 2012
Search Your World – January 2012
30 Pack – January 2012
10 Pack (Version 2) – December 2011
Panda 3.1 – November 2011
10 Pack (Version 1) – November 2011
Freshness Update – November 2011
Panda Flux – October 2011
Panda 2.5 – September 2011
Panda 2.4 – August 2011
Panda 2.3 – July 2011
Panda 2.2 – June 2011
Panda 2.1 – May 2011
Panda 2.0 – April 2011
Panda 1.1 – February 2011
Attribution Update – January 2011
Panda 1.0 – January 2011
Social Signals – December 2010
Negative Reviews – December 2010
Caffeine 2.0 – June 2010
May Day – May 2010
Caffeine 1.0 – August 2009
Vince – February 2009
Dewey – April 2008
Buffy – June 2007
Universal Search (now called Blended Results) – May 2007
False Alarm – December 2006
Big Daddy – December 2005
Jagger – October 2005
Gilligan – September 2005
Bourbon – May 2005
Allegra – February 2005
Nofollow – January 2005
Brandy – February 2004
Austin – January 2004
Florida – November 2003
Fritz – July 2003
Esmerelda – June 2003
Dominic – May 2003
Cassandra – April 2003

As we see in the above timeline, Google introduced major updates
just a few times each year.

But over the last few years, we've seen major updates every month or so.

Google claims these updates are necessary to fight back against
web spammers. And that might be true to some extent…

… But for me, it's clear that Google has declared war on us.
Their slaps have slashed our AdSense revenues (or have banned us
from participating in their web advertising program altogether).

Here's EXACTLY how I'm
fighting back against Google

The ultimate payback is simple:

I'm COMPLETELY ignoring the Big G.

Instead of fretting about every little hint Google puts out…
and instead of investing hours visiting forums and blogs
trying to crack Google's secrets, I'm LASER focused on
creating content (to attract visitors to my site) and selling
my premium infoproducts.

If I don't get a single Google search engine referral, I'm totally cool with that.
Because I've brainstormed a never-ending supply of ways to replace my Google traffic…
everything from getting featured in Wikipedia to having my direct competitors
BEGGING to link to my site… to even getting Oprah to send me her loyal viewers.

Ironically, now that I ignore Google, I've been rewarded with an upswing of
Google search-result referrals.

And my life is infinitely less stressful as a result. I now make business moves
based on what's good for me, not Google.

Of course, I now sort of kick myself for not ignoring Google years ago.

Ah, live and learn.

Cutting ties with the Big G helps me invest my time and energy on my
online business' two most important needs: traffic and cash…

A king, his crown (and his checkbook)

I got my first taste of monetizing my content when I was a sophomore at
West Chester University.

I created a dorm newsletter and pitched the owner of Burger King to sponsor
my new publication. I promised to hand deliver it to my dormmates.

I offered to slide each newsletter under the doors. And my pearls of wisdom
featured a coupon for a discount on a Whopper.

To my utter surprise, the owner interrupted my pitch and handed me a check for $50.00.

I remember being absolutely blown away. Getting the check was almost too easy.

Unfortunately, my first attempt of publishing my pearls of wisdom didn't
have a happy meal ending.

My University didn't take a liking to my delivery method
(they shut me down within minutes). And not a single person redeemed
their coupon for a delicious flame-broiled Whopper.

Nevertheless, the concept of corporate sponsorship fascinated me
more than 17 years ago…

… And the Internet makes the entire process of selling private advertising
100 times faster and easier today.

Introducing the Instant Internet Riches money mirage

When AOL launched way back in 1983, I knew Main Street
would do business over the 'net.

In the Fall of 1997, I sensed my postcard mailing service was suffering
during the recession at the time. I hated overhead and employees.

And my expenses were out of control.

So I quietly created a backup plan. It was later known as the
$10,000 Marketing Tip of the Day. I delivered it daily by email.

For years, I steadily published this free internet marketing advice.
My goal was to build a list of over 10,000 loyal subscribers before I monetized it.

Once I reached my goal, it was time to cash out.

So in October of 2003, I tested this new program called Google AdSense:

On paper, the idea sounded almost too good to be true.

Just insert tiny classified ads into the empty spots on your
webpage and Google agrees to split the advertising revenues.

Even better, Google offered to direct deposit each month's
split into my bank account on (or before) the 27th of the following month.

This was even better than my Burger King experience as Google was
big enough to attract virtually unlimited corporate sponsorship.

But even better… Google also handled distribution – sending their
search result's traffic to my content.

This seemed like one of those can't-miss biz opps – but boy was I wrong.

Because for years I struggled to figure out the right combination of content,
ad position – even the most profitable position on each webpage to make
AdSense pay off.

And of course, Google's never-ending silly rules made it hard to have
AdSense really pay off.

For years I struggled… generating mere pennies per click. As a result,
I got turned off, distracted and ultimately gave up on AdSense.

But then Google lured me back in.

Google was sending me steady traffic to one of my webpages.
It was about a topic that I was never able to monetize.
So I threw up an AdSense block to see what would happen…

… I also decided to invest an entire month becoming an AdSense "ninja."
I kept hearing stories about how people were making a full-time living on
AdSense alone. And I wanted to do the same.

After reverse engineering a few under-the-radar online marketers
(and after searching through a ton of forum posts about boosting
AdSense revenues)… I was eventually able to significantly boost
my AdSense revenues.

In fact my new system worked so well, I offered up a tutorial for
my private clients:

But in the end, all of this tweaking was for not as today,
Google AdSense is out of my online life.

Affiliate fortunes down the tubes

More than 10 years ago, I developed a fast love affair with
affiliate marketing…

… That was when I promoted Yanik Silver's various infoproducts.

Back then, I was a close friend of his (just as he was becoming the
online-marketing rockstar he's earned today).

And I'll never forget getting my first big PayPal payment for
recommending his stuff – over $1,000.00 in net payout.

"Isn't that great! Imagine promoting 10 more similar products and
adding a zero to your commission total!" he said.

On paper, this sounded just amazing. All I had to do was find
more offers and promote them with similar success.

In fact, I ultimately promoted more than 200 other affiliate programs
over the next few years…

… But reality struck when a high percentage of these offerings didn't pay off.
They either didn't convert well, or if they did, getting payment was
all but impossible.

That's the dirty, best-kept secret about affiliate marketing -
because for some reason, affiliate program managers hate paying
our properly owed affiliate commissions.

Instead, they like to take our commissions and use them for their own
personal gain (like flaunting their internet lifestyle in our faces).

CPA riches gone awry

The newest spin on affiliate marketing came in the form of lead generation.

Instead of getting paid a commission for referring a sale, we got
paid for forwarding leads to companies.

This is now commonly referred to as CPA marketing.

Affiliate marketers went bonkers for this scheme, because it's
far easier to sell a form submission than a purchase.

What's interesting is some CPA offers paid more than
traditional affiliate commissions.

CPA offers violate my golden rule – do onto others as you
would like done onto you. CPA promotions often involve flat out trickery.

Other's are flat out scams.

And CPA networks often held back payments for a variety of bizarre reasons.

The good news is I never dipped my toe into the CPA world. And I'm glad
I avoided it as there are a lot of CPA networks in bankruptcy court these days.

Can you trust anyone?

It's easy to see the pattern of failure here.

Because whenever I let someone control the intake of money,
it NEVER worked out for me.

But whenever I collected the money, it's ALWAYS benefitted me.
Every single time.

Today, I trust myself. No one else. All money is handled on my end.
I control the entire process – from content curation to final payment.

As a result, I get a great night's sleep knowing as long as I pay
my webhosting bill, I'm not in danger of getting banned, slapped or
stiffed out of getting paid.

Are we seeing the end of paid infoproducts?

Last year, Phil Alexander asked me if I thought paid infoproducts
were becoming extinct.

He thought the over abundance of free stuff on the internet made
it harder than ever to justify spending money on info secrets.

While I was doing well selling my own infoproducts all throughout
last year, 2012 started off on a really bad note. And it's gotten worse since.

We got hints of this if you looked in the right places.

For starters, I keep a watchful eye on ClickBank sales.
And as we see here, the trend is not the friend of the infoproduct industry:

ClickBank once bragged about having over 100,000 digital products
available for affiliates to promote. But today, that number is about 14,000.

The bottom line is all of the promises of making a full-time income from
our website efforts seem to be crumbling fast. A lot of people don't know
what to do next. Some have given up. Others are looking for direction…

How to survive (and thrive)
during tough economic times

Over the last few years, I've traveled around different parts of the country.
And in some areas, it looks like billions of dollars were dropped over entire towns.
Business continues to boom.

Recession? What recession?

Yet in other parts, once thriving areas are now ghost towns.
Crumbling vacant buildings dot Main Street. People are raiding their piggy banks
just to buy a few gallons of gas. Restaurants are half empty (even during
what was once their busy days of the week).

They even created a word for this: austerity.

It seems to me that the catchphrase (and proverb),
"The rich get richer and the poor get poorer" is ringing true here.

We get mixed signals 24/7.

The news tells us things are really bad.

Yet the talking heads on CNBC brag about record corporate profits.

Then there's this live, under-the-radar graphic I was able to track down
from the St. Louis Federal Reserve:

Source: http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/data/BORROW_Max_630_378.png

I'm no economics' expert, but this graph looks downright frightful.
Because for the first time in the history of tracking this stuff, that
thin blue lines soars virtually off the charts. That can't be a good thing.

Here's the dirty little secret about
depressions and riches

If you're a intrepid, real history buff (like me), you know what we're
taught in school and what the various media outlets can't be trusted.

The idea that small business is the engine that bails us out of trouble is
actually a flat out whopper of a lie…

… It's ALWAYS been big corporations and Public-Private Partnerships
(PPPs) that create the riches.

And yes, Google is a PPP. (But hey, don't let the facts get in the way of a
great rags-to-riches story.)

Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) are the REAL power that move up
the economic needle from behind the scenes.

Government is just a front cover of seeming ineptness that allows the real
power brokers to divert monies from the poor to the growing rich.

The facts tell us this is true, because there are always more
millionaires created during "tough economic times."
It was true during the "Great Depression" starting in 1929 and
continues to be true today.

And the number of billionaires (who are able to keep their billions)
here in the States continues to grow exponentially -
we see it happening since 1982:

It's always been this way… ever since the first corporation
was created in 1347 when King Magnus IV of Sweden
granted a corporate charter to The Swedish copper mining
company Stora Kopparberg in Falun.

Yes, that's no typo. Corporations have been around before we're told
Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492.

The Big G illusion (revealed)

Google's AdSense revenue-sharing opportunity once leveled the
playing field for the little guy like me.

It made it a cinch to play online matchmaker between visitors to
my blog and bigger corporations starving to pay for branding and
lead generation.

But today, Google is pulling the rug from out underneath us.

Even worse, Google makes no apologies for this.
The worst part is Google is now using their massive power
(which we helped them achieve) to turn against us and wipe us out.

Many are throwing up their hands… quitting their online ventures
as a result of Google's heavy hand.

But I forge on. In fact I'm more inspired than ever to exchange
my website content into cash without the help of the mighty Big G.

Beware of the "Google 15"

Over the last few months, I've witnessed complete u-turns.

I've seen a rush of ex-Googlers (and current staffers) turn
against their once-loved employer.

At this website (which has been conveniently scrubbed),
a whopping 859 former and current Google employees
give us a peak of what's really going on behind the scenes
at the "Plex" (and it ain't pretty):

As expected, just about every active Google employee had
nothing but great things to say about their current employer.

And as a "Googler", what's not to love?

Google employees work with some of the brightest and
energetic people on the planet.

Delicious catered food is free any time. In fact it's so good
insiders warn to fear the "Google 15" (putting on 15 pounds).

They get freebies galore – everything from child care to
medical care to even the use of a Toyota Prius to run errands.

Headquarters is located in the Silicon Valley, California -
over 300 days of beautiful sunshine a year.

And the paycheck is amongst the best in the industry.

Trouble brewing at the Google "Plex"

But not everyone loves Google these days.

I stumbled upon several ticked off ex-Googlers:

Whittaker's story got lots of press coverage. He reveals how
his once-loved workplace vanished almost overnight.

He claims instead of innovation, Google is focusing hard
on the bottom line.

In addition, gone is the infamous "20% time" – giving staffers the
perk of being able to set aside one out of every five hours worked
on an innovation or entrepreneurial pursuit.

But wait – there's more from this ex-Googler:

Holy guacamole. O'Church threw Google under a very big bus.

In fact, if you sleuth around, Mr. Church leaves a fascinating
cookie trail of what's really going on behind the scenes in Mountain View.

Here's the short of the long story:

The climate at Google changed in 2009. The Big G hired
"real managers" from places like Oracle, IBM and Intel.
This interfered with the once care-free culture.

And as a result, the new G is evil. And a growing number of "Googlers"
(i.e. employees at Google) are in shock.

Bottom line: What Google used to be is now gone.
Google's employees are amongst the smartest and
talented money can buy, but their bosses and executives
are driving this once great company into the ground.
And as a result, this is affecting us as AdSense partners.

Google's biggest shill turns against the Big G

One of the most ironic u-turns ever is the story about
Tim Carter of AskTheBuilder.com.

Carter was a poster boy of AdSense and darling of Google.
But that all changed when his site got "slapped" by
a Google SEO update.

What's interesting is Mr. Carter struck gold when he first ventured online -
landing a stagaring $15,000.00 private advertising payment
(even before many visited his home improvement site).

But apparently the promises of push-button riches was too hard to ignore.
And as a result, Carter copied and pasted the AdSense ad code to his webpages.

At one time, it worked so well he volunteered to be Google's AdSense
walking endorsement. He even lobbied Congress one time on the
Big G's behalf.

Today, Carter is amongst Google's biggest critics.

He's quite ticked off at Google… even suggesting that we
website owners take Congressional action against them.
(Personally, I feel this is horrible advice as I'd rather invest
my time on solutions).

The good news is Carter is once again offering private advertising
on his site to make up for his loss. Now he's charging
$29,997.00 for just one private ad displayed on his webpage:

Now it would be easy to assume that a $30k private ad is going
to be shown to millions of visitors… but the fact is (according to Compete.com),
AskTheBuilder.com only attracted 121,762 unique visitors last month.

Google does "know" evil

There's a boatload of good news for us.

In addition to Google turning evil and trying to wipe us out,
there's collateral damage here…

… Because these same corporations that are flush with cash are
getting banned from Google AdWords.

And literally overnight, these advertisers were cut off from their branding and
lead generation efforts. And they're scrambling to find a
Google AdWords alternative.

These same corporations and bigger companies are BEGGING to
track down website owners like you and me and pay us for sponsorship.

I keep remembering back to my sponsorship with my local Burger King franchise.
It's basically the same concept, only instead of delivering my pearls of wisdom
in printed form, I'm publishing my content over the Internet.

And since the 'net is worldwide (and more important it's searchable),
I'm able to grow my visitor counts as large as I desire.

There's really nothing stopping me from adding a zero to my daily visitor counts.
Heck, I could add two zeros if I worked hard enough at it.

I love private advertising (and think you should too)

Private advertising puts back the control into OUR hands.

Private advertising bulletproofs us from out-of-control monopolies like Google.

And the best part is private advertising allows us to fully control the money
collection (my favorite part).

Since WE control everything, we're rewarded with MUCH higher payouts.

Private advertising isn't a new concept. It's been around for centuries.
The most profitable companies in the world (newspapers, cable companies and
phone directories) make the bulk of their profits selling private ads.

For example, the most profitable space on any minor league baseball field is
the private advertising billboards in the outfield.

Bus companies make a ton of profit selling private ad space on their fleet.

Plenty of Fish (a FREE dating site and one-time AdSense partner)
switched to private advertising and fetches millions and millions of dollars
in ads.

I could go on and on.

And when you visit various online marketing forums (like I do) and see
the struggles of website owners losing their AdSense accounts,
you often see two types of solid advice:

- There are no viable AdSense alternatives
- Replace AdSense with your own private ads

True. Very true.

How to offer private advertising
on your blog or website

There are two basic options to host private ads on your site…

… The first is to do all of the work yourself.

Using this method, you control EVERYTHING.

And the best part is you get to keep 100% of the ad money
(minus any credit card processing fees).

Surprisingly, you're going to get a steady flow of sponsors asking to
advertise on your site when you have a link to "Advertise on this page."
(This is especially true if you're getting at least 500 visits to a webpage.)

Increasing the number of potential sponsors creates a sort of bidding war.

People desperately want something they can't have. And if you've only
got four open slots on a blog or web page, advertisers are going to
pay higher-than-market value. This is simple supply vs. demand economics.

The way to boost the number of potential sponsors is to actively go after them.

Here are my 3 favorite ways to spread the word about my
private advertising opportunities:

Contact the mailing list
It's amazing how many competitors sign up for our mailing list for
competitive intelligence reasons.

And I'm THRILLED to let my competitors pay me for sponsorship…

… So I prewrote an email that's sent to any of the new subscribers of
my mailing list. I also use my subscription thank you page to alert my
new subs about sponsorship.

Guest comment
When done the right way (not spammy and not too promotional),
I post comments on my competitor's blogs and lure potential sponsors
to my related web page.

This is VERY effective. And these comments have a long shelf life -
delivering to me a steady flow of leads well after I've commented.

Here's an example of me pimping my amazing chocolate chip cookie recipe:

Message boards
This is my hand's down favorite way to promote myself.

My direct competitor is allowing me to hijack their precisely-targeted
visitors and funnel them to my site.

Most make the mistake of spamming a message board.
And that's a surefire way to get your post deleted.

Instead, I post a series of valuable tips on a subject that I've blogged about.

I never (initially) leave a link to my site… but instead end my tip with a question.

This simple question gets tons of replies (which gets my post popular).
Then a few days later, I edit my post with a quick blurb and a hyperlink
to my blog post.

Here's a message board post I offered about private advertising.
At first it didn't include a link to my site, but a few days later,
I edited the post like this:

Fish where there's lots of fish

But the most efficient and most effective way to land lucrative corporate
sponsors is to contact Google AdWords' advertisers directly.

There. I just said it. I poach Google's current roster of pay-per-click
advertisers and claim them as my own. This is what I do and the
response is really strong.

Since I'm still approved with AdSense, I could look at each ad
displayed on my webpages, flesh out the website address and
contact the site for followup.

But I find these AdSense ads aren't always targeted.

Sometimes they feature "retargeted" ads (i.e. messages that
follow me as I surf the 'net, not the theme of the webpage -
very creepy actually).

And the worst part is Google only displays a handful of ads.

Instead, I find websites that embed the AdSense
search function within their site.

One such site is the popular EzineArticles.com… just enter a
search query that matches the theme of my blog post
(or webpage) and I get an "endless parade" of sponsors to contact.

For example, this search shows results for the phrase "low carb diet":

In about the time it takes to eat a pork rind, I'm able to track down
dozens of potential advertisers for the opportunity of sponsoring
my webpage.

And the best part is there's nothing Google can do to stop me.

Even better, it's a lot easier to convert these leads into sponsors,
because they're already familiar with private advertising.
They already know how to register an account, submit ads
(and most important – submit their credit card for payment).

All we have to do is show up. Because a lot of these sponsors
are always on the lookout for additional branding and lead-generating avenues.

Selling them on sponsorship is relatively easy.

Introducing my #1 secret
to track down big-time corporate sponsors

Today is much different than just 25 years ago.

Before the Internet, it was virtually impossible to contact
decision makers hiding from us in their corporate offices.
Only those with connections could connect with them.

But today, everything is different. Finding decision makers is
almost child's play (if you use my secrets which I'm about to
share with you below).

Here's how to proceed and find decision makers who
place private ads:

A large percentage of websites feature a "Contact Us" page.

It almost always reveals at least one hint on how to track
down decision makers…

… These contact-us pages feature everything from Facebook and
Twitter account listings to email addresses and contact forms.

In fact, just yesterday Facebook announced a new policy that
made it even easier to contact just about anyone:

Now any email sent to a Facebook user @facebook.com gets
redirected to that user's "Message" section. (No "friending" necessary.)

So for example, I could email:
donaldtrump@facebook.com

… And my email is going to get redirected to Donald Trump's
Facebook account and converted into a private message.

(HOLY WOW! I can see the spammers having a field day with this.)

Sometimes, a website's contact us webpage is hard to find.
What I do is open the source code of their webpage and cycle
through these most common links to their contact page:

/Contact.aspx
/Contact_Us.html
/about
/contact
/contact-us
/contact-us.asp
/contact-us.aspx
/contact-us.html
/contact-us.jsp
/contact.htm
/contact.html
/contact.php
/contact.shtm
/contactUs.html
/contact_us
/contact_us
/contacts.htm
/contactus
/contactus.asp
/contactus.aspx
/contactus.cfm
/contactus.jsp
/contactus.php
/email.htm
/feedback
/reach.htm
/support

In particular, I LOVE contact forms, because they forward my
message by email directly to the website's gatekeeper.

In many cases, the person getting these contacts are also
the person in charge of spending money on private ads.

Put a set-it-and-forget-it
private ad "toll booth"
on your blog and web pages

This is option #2:

Since I'm a marketing geek, I've been working on a way to
COMPLETELY automate the private ad concept.

Honestly, managing a private ad offering is a lot of work.

But the good news is everything can be automated.

And that's what I'm working on right now.

Later this Fall, I'm releasing set-it-and-forget-it private advertising software.

It handles everything for you without lifting a finger.

My software even automates the selling part – getting sponsors.

While I'm sleeping, my software automatically finds all advertisers
in my niche and cordially contacts them (just once) about my
private ad opportunity.

This software does all of the hard work in the wee hours of the
morning (extensive testing shows it's the time that works best).
And I wake up in the morning to see new advertisers registering accounts.

Unlike AdSense, I get paid every time my sponsor's ad displays… not on clicks.

And the best part is the cash – because with my system, sponsors
must prepay advertising credits to "play." There's no billing or
chasing bad debt. With my system, I'm instantly cashflow positive.

Later this Fall, I'm releasing this software to the public.

If you'd like to be amongst the first to try it out,
click here to get on my alert list…

… So I registered with the site last week and ordered a FREE sample batch.
Yes, that's FREE as in even the shipping was gratis.

And just a few moments ago, my wife dropped off the mail
(she's my gatekeeper – and this package got right thru).

Immediately, I recognized the company name on this package.
So I asked my wife to open it for you to see – take a look at this
quick video demonstration:

This is just awesome!

Ever since I moved my entire business operation online,
I swore off getting business cards…

… But this entire presentation was so awesome
(and the business cards are REALLY cool, too)…
that I might even think about placing an order.

Kudos to Moo for thinking outside the box (pun intended).

Did you know one of the world's most successful (and legitimate)
affiliate marketers resides in the UK?

It's true.

FinchSells.com [@FinchSells] is a blog crafted by Martin Osborn.
It details his adventures and journeys as an affiliate marketer.

Electing to bypass college, Osborn darted straight to the internet to
become an online matchmaker between people with problems and
companies offering solutions. These solution providers give
affiliates a "bounty" in exchange for this match.

There's only a tiny handful of blogs I read each morning.
And FinchSells tops my list (in addition to Ryan Healy's and
Doberman Dan Gallapoo's blog).

Martin Osbourn is the real deal. His advice seems
authentic to me (as similar blogs make
affiliate marketing seem insanely easy and
lucrative – it's not).

And Osborn's writing style is both
easy on the eyes and addictive.
I often hoped he'd blog more often.
Finch averages a post per week.

I keep a close eye on a handful of affiliate marketers
as they're constantly pushing the envelope and
testing new ideas out.

Their industry is both highly competitive and
notoriously corrupt…

… Affiliate programs routinely fail to pay affiliates on time (or at all).
And affiliates jump from promoting one affiliate offering to
another without even a hint of loyalty. This toxic relationship
sure does make watching it from a distance entertaining
(and I'm being kind).

But the worst part about affiliate marketing is stability (or lack of it).
Most affiliate program offerings are VERY short-term
windows of opportunity. Within weeks (sometimes even days),
programs close their doors and affiliates must keep tabs on
what not to promote. Needless to say it's far from the
set-it-and-forget-it business the industry wants us to think it is.

With that said, I find Finch Sells is one of the most legit' and
reputable affiliate marketing blogs amongst a sea of insanity.
Osborn details both his successes (and most important to me)
his failures on his most-excellent blog.

Whether you're an affiliate marketer or online marketing junkie
(like me), I HIGHLY suggest bookmarking Finch Sells as your favorite.
That's why he's one of my favorite online marketing sources.

Every morning of each business day,
I visit a handful of online marketing blogs…
and copywriter Ryan Healy's Business Growth Strategies' blog
is on my shortlist of must-visit sites.

Unfortunately, most IM bloggers are full of
hot air, hype and flavor-of-the-week schemes.
They fill their blog posts with fluff and unproven theories…

… But not Ryan Healy. His blog is a
breath of fresh air (and equally fresh
business-building ideas).

Even better are those who comment
on his blog – I often pickup even
more ideas from other internet marketers
joining the conversation (although this goes
against my thoughts on blog commenting).

In the short number of years I've personally known Ryan,
he's helped me put a lot of cash into my bank account.

One day last year, I held a teleconference for my clients.
Ryan joined the call and accepted my challenge -
to create and layout a new online order form.
The catch was we had less than an hour to do it…

… In that short amount of time, Ryan helped me
create a "webletter" that immediately
banked me an average of $2.43 into my
PayPal account for every person that visited this webpage.
That’s because (on average), one new buyer
joined my private members-only site every time 18 people visited.
That was a 5.56% conversion rate (pretty amazing since it’s cold traffic).

Ryan doesn't know this… but one of his "link bait" tips
inspired me to create this World's Best 50 Internet Marketing Sources of 2012 -
which is going to send me a TON of well-targeted visitors to my site.

The bottom line is I pay very close attention ANYTIME
Ryan Healy speaks (or publishes a post on his blog)…
and I highly recommend you do the same.

Back in the Fall of 2010,
I stumbled upon a fascinating blog
published by a crazy cat named
"Doberman" Dan Gallapoo.

It turns out it was one of my
most profitable "stumbles" ever
(but not for the most obvious of reasons).

Odds are you've probably never heard of Dan.
That's because he's an under-the-radar kind of guy…
avoiding the "guru" spotlight (while writing
response-pulling ad copy).

But one day EVERYTHING changed, and
Dan hooked up with legendary direct marketing copywriter
Gary Halbert. In fact, Halbert literally begged Dan to
move back to the United States (from Costa Rica)
to help him with client work. And the secret is
out of the bag… it was Dan who ghostwrote
a lot of Gary Halbert's best-performing promotions.

You see, Dan is a classical-trained,
old-school direct marketer. He's written
hundreds of successful ads, sales letters,
direct mail packages, feature articles,
press releases, and newsletters…

… Now you might have noticed
that all of these advertising vehicles are
offline methods. So how in the world
does Doberman Dan show up on my list of the
World's Best Online Marketing Sources?

The answer is email…

… Dan took what he uses from the
offline world and successfully applied it to his
email marketing campaigns. As a result,
it's virtually impossible to ignore Dan's emails.
Each one BEGS to get opened. And once viewed,
he uses carefully chosen words to literally hold me
by the hand and get me to click a link to
visit a blog post or a recommended website.

I've never seen anything like it.

And while some email marketing
"gurus" and "experts" brag about
getting a 50% email open rate,
I've personally witnessed Dan's
email campaigns regularly generate a
50% clickthru rate. I say personally
because I've worked on projects with Dan and
get to see his statistics. His response rates
are beyond mind blowing.

The really good news is late last year,
I asked Dan if I could pick his brain and
come up with an email marketing course
that I could sell as an infoproduct.
He agreed… and even better, he's
giving it all away for you…

… Here's how to get it FREE -
just type in this password:

amazingsecrets

And enter the password (above) here:
http://www.dobermandan.com/EMS/login.php

By the way, Doberman Dan offers to
send you updates to his course -
so make sure you register for these as the
emails double as a fantastic swipe file.

All of these custom-designed eBook covers were
designed by the same guy who charges $100.00:

… But you can hire this same designer and
get your own custom eBook cover for
just $5 using Fiverr.com. (I'm not kidding).

In fact, Fiverr is so awesome, I created a
tutorial on how to make the most out of it…

… Click here to get my Fiverr online reference guide.

Fiverr matches buyers with outsource freelancers
who are willing to do just about anything for a
measly $5 per project.

As a website owner (and marketing junkie),
I use Fiverr to help me with a
variety of tasks such as:

- Article Writing
- SEO tasks
- Graphic Design
- Video Services
- Website Design (including setting up WordPress)
- Website Coding
- Data Entry/Transcribing
- Press Release Services

For me, outsourcing with Fiverr freelancers
has been a lifesaver. I've been able to
job out all of the nitty-gritty grunt work
I hate doing – all for just $5 a gig.

Think about all of the things you've been
putting off in your business because
they're either too time consuming,
too tedious or you don't possess the proper skills…

… Even worse, you want to delegate these tasks,
but you don't know where to find someone and/or
you think it's going to cost you an arm and a leg.

But with Fiverr, outsourcing these tasks
have never been easier (or cheaper).

In addition to an easy-to-use interface,
Fiverr provides a free escrow service
(so you never get ripped off).

Fiverr is so awesome, it ranks tops in my
World's Best Online Marketing Sources of 2012.

It's AMAZING to me how often I see hints of the
fear of success from the online entrepreneurs I
stumble upon each and every day.

It's easy to get it. We've been brainwashed
all of our lives that "failure is not an option."

For example, we're tagged as a "loser" if we
start a business and crash it into the ground.

Even entertaining the idea of bankruptcy is
worse than a new case of Herpes simplex encephalitis.

What's confusing is our education system (and the media)
brainwashes us into thinking that failure is a bad thing.
Yet they give us mixed signals because they also
quote stories of how now-successful business gurus
relied heavily on failure as inspiration that ultimately led to their success.

This is "Orwellian doublethink" – a word coined by
George Orwell in the novel 1984… describes the
act of simultaneously accepting two mutually
contradictory beliefs as correct.

In simple speak, we're constantly told that
failure is not an option, yet the most successful
business people we know failed a lot to
ultimately become successful.

It's like saying voting is rigged, but vote for Ron Paul.

It's no wonder everyone is confused.
And it's easy to understand why most
sit on their hands instead of moving forward.

Went broke, then made millions (or billions)

I can name several examples of this twisted logic…
one of the biggest failures in modern history is Donald J. Trump.
Trump managed to pull off at least 19 business failures
over the course of 17 years,

Another example of a mixed message is the story of
Colonel Harlan Sanders (of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame).
We're told the Colonel failed 1,009 times before someone
bought his secret fried chicken recipe when he turned the
ripe old age of 62. (Talk about persistence.)

But wait… there's more: Microsoft founder and super-rich "geek"
Bill Gates dropped out of Harvard and started a company called
Traf-O-Data (a service that read the raw data from
roadway traffic counters and created reports for traffic engineers).
It was a colossal failure as the company only booked a
few thousand of dollars in revenue.

Henry Ford (reportedly) went broke five times before
successfully launching the Ford Motor Company.

I could go on and on with these rags-to-riches stories,
but I'm guessing you see the pattern… that is,
successful people failed a lot.

In fact, I only know of one business person I've
ever met in my life (a well-known Philadelphia jeweler)
who claims to have hit it big without a hiccup.
Everyone else failed their way to the top.

So why are we given two completely opposing mantras
about the path to success?

It sure is confusing. In fact, it was this email I got this morning
which inspired me to write this blog post:

Markus,

I need a little guidance. Since the health and fitness niche is so big should I be concentrating on trying to pick something that we can put a unique twist on or should I pick something that everyone is selling and let your marketing system do the rest. I think I'm getting caught up in the fact that I'm trying to find a niche within the health and fitness area that is not totally saturated and it's driving me nuts. Maybe I'm looking at this the wrong way and over thinking it.

John

John is a client of mine…

… (I teach writers how to create online infoproducts).
And I sense John is like most business people I consult.
It sounds to me as if John is under tremendous pressure to succeed.
And his social network (i.e. family and friends) are subconsciously
pressuring him to get to the top without failing.

Motion beats meditation

The IDEA of failure is so immense, that most find it easier
(and way less risky) to delay or overthink than to "just do it."

Copywriter Gary Halbert is often quoted as saying,
"Motion beats meditation."

While there are very little guarantees in life,
I'm 100% certain that suffering "analysis paralysis" and
stressing about failing is a surefire way to get stuck.

And it's a terrible condition because most tend to get
distracted and procrastinate when they're stuck (rather than do stuff).

Tiger Woods and his balls

Say what you will about Tiger Woods -
but you've got to admire his attitude on the golf course…

… One reason he wins is he doesn't fret about failure.
For example, I've never seen Tiger putt a ball and
have it stop short of the hole. Because if the putt
lands short, it's impossible for the ball to drop into the cup.
His putts either go into the hole or they roll just past the hole…

… The same is true in my world, if I don't type,
my words won't get read. If I don't create videos or audios,
my content doesn't get seen or heard. And since I'm
not a believer of remote viewing, if my stuff can't be
soaked in by my website visitors, I don't get paid.

On the flip side, when I publish content,
my bank account increases. No exception.

Let me repeat this because it's important…
every time I publish content on this blog
(or as a paid infoproduct), I make money.
And that money gives me the ultimate prize – FREEDOM.

The importance of this simple, yet crucial advice
shouldn't be overlooked… the bottom line is if
I don't publish stuff, I don't get paid. And that's 100% guaranteed.

I'm the founding member of the
"I-Don't-Give-A-Crap-Club-For-Men" -
(Wanna join me)?

I do quite well selling my online infoproducts these days…

… But that wasn't always the case.

That's because I wasted over 12 years of my adult life
analyzing, worrying, wondering and stressing about
whether or not someone wanted to buy my writing.

"Will they buy my infoproduct?"

It didn't end there. I worried about what people
thought about the brand name of my sneakers…
my religious affiliation… even the kind of car I drove.

I worried so much about how I was perceived that
I didn't have enough time to care for myself.

Over time, I S L O W L Y realized that
catering to others was insane.

As a result, I've developed a very thick skin over time.
And I made a conscious decision to eliminate the
barriers our society challenges us with.

Eventually, I got over the social stigma of this
odd thing known as failure.

Today, I don't see failure as a result of making mistakes.
Rather, I see failure as a necessary process to
reach my personal goals.

Now don't get me wrong – I don't rush things
just for the sake of "taking action." That's just careless and
ultimately leads to unnecessary stress.

With that said, I no longer fear failure.

My solution was to setup a sort of secret organization inside my head.
I refer to it as the "I-Don't-Give-A-Crap-Club-For-Men".
And as the name suggests, I make decisions that benefit me first.
Everyone else in my life comes second.

This goes totally against what we're told to do.
They even invented a word for this (i.e. selfish)…

… But something rather remarkable happened as I
adopted this controversial mantra. As a result of being selfish,
I'm truly happy for the very first time in my life.
The stress of making everyone else happy has
evaporated into thin air. My stress level is near zero…

… And much to my surprise, I've had a bunch of people RESPECT
me for this new lifestyle (instead of spurning me for being so damn egocentonic).

Just say no to "friends" and family

With this said, some people HATE the "new me".
They want the old Mark back… you know -
the guy who was all politically correct,
\got pushed around, etc. Unfortunately for them,
those days are over. Because there's a
new sheriff in town and his name is Markus Allen.
Ya'll be cool. Right on (and I quote Eddie Murphy in the movie 48 Hours).

Here's what I've discovered. Once I put myself first,
it's impossible to go back. And yes, there's collateral damage.
I've lost a bunch of friends over this… even family members, too.

But the good news is life is really awesome these days.

Say adios to toxins

The reality is most people I used to hang out with
were toxic to me which ultimately delayed reaching my #1 goal – FREEDOM.

I used to hang out with people who LOVE their servitude
(working 9 to 5). They'd rush home from their job,
barely wolf down dinner, dart off to their "kids'" games,
limp back home exhausted – turn on the TV and
hit the sack.

Rinse and repeat.

And if life wasn't complex enough,
the worst invention in the history of mankind
has completely taken over our lives…

… Of course I'm referring to those smartphones.
Nowadays, these same slaves (yes, I said slaves)
are now 24-hour-a-day workers as "the corporation" is
tethered to these workers via their smartphones
every single second of the day – even weekends and holidays.

Yet everyone thinks this technology is somehow cool
This is FRIGHTENING to me.

In order to cope with the stress of this nonsense,
these "friends" were intolerant, drugged up,
out of shape and made really poor personal
choices in almost all aspects of their lives.
And they would bitch about their life to me.
Even worse, they were always a paycheck away from
homelessness (and ruin).

That's no way to live life. Instead, everyone I used to
hang out with were miserable. And their misery
bubbled over to me. So if I wasn't politically correct and
endorsed their life of servitude to the corporation,
I was "uncaring", a "kook" and "weird."

Ending my toxic relationships took time.
It wasn't easy. At first, I was lonely and
wondered if I made the right decision.

But today, I KNOW it was the
best move I ever made in my entire life.

"Take massive action"
(Another "guru" stretch of the truth)

Ask any guru or expert why their "students" fail and
they'll always scream, "They didn't take massive action."

Yes, it's true – sitting on your hands and doing nothing is a
surefire way to nothingness. But at the same time,
taking the WRONG action isn't going to help, either.

If I lost everything today and was forced to start all over,
I'd be doing the EXACT same thing I'm doing right now.

I can't think of any other business I'd rather be in.
Because for a little more than $100 a month, I own a
REAL, online business (that I started from scratch) with
VERY low overhead and VERY high profit margins.
As an infoproduct publisher, I literally get paid
every time I write, replay an audio file or show a video.

I publish content. I get paid for my content.
My freedom increases. Rinse and repeat.

The best part is I "create the wheel" once, and
I turn it over and over again for life. It's the
ultimate set-it-and-forget-it business.

Let me tell you about a "failed" infoproduct I crafted
more than a decade ago. It was called,
101 Instant Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business.

It was literally my best 100+ marketing ideas ever -
all organized by category and complete with quick how-to tips.
I literally POURED everything into this online book.
I even invested a ton of money having it professionally edited
(which in retrospect was a colossal mistake by the way).

And I was CERTAIN it would be a runaway best seller.

Unfortunately for me, it didn't sell so well.
In fact to this day I have no idea why it didn't take off.
I mean, it's packed with my best stuff. The
online salesletter hit on all of the right pain points.

And it was priced right (at $19).

What's interesting is those who bought it RAVED about it.
Yet word of mouth referrals never spread. And over time,
orders stopped coming in.

Now, I could have pulled out the violin and
chanted "Shakespearean" woe is me -
hoping that somehow that would change things…

… Instead, I waited many many years and
created an online infoproduct system that would
revive my online book.

(Click here to get my FREE infoproduct training course
to see my system in action).

And that's exactly what I did – I pulled the
online book off the market. I updated it.
And now I use this online book as a giveaway.
To get it FREE, just enter the access code of:

amazingsecrets

Here:
http://www.marketing-ideas.org/101/login.php

Turn lemons into dough rey me

Giving away this online book
gets new visitors onto my email list.
And from time to time, I send announcements of
new infoproducts I offer for sale. A percentage
of those on my list buy my stuff.

Taking my "failure" and giving it away to build my list
is just one of many ways I get paid to write.

So back to John's original concern:

I think I'm getting caught up in the fact that I'm trying to find a niche within the health and fitness area that is not totally saturated and it's driving me nuts.

First of all, creating infoproducts should be
super fun, obscenely profitable and stress free.
If this is "driving you nuts", let's fix that pronto.

The beauty of my infoproduct creation system is
there's no pressure to sell sell sell. Your cost of
doing business is the same whether you
sell one infoproduct or 100…

… That is, webhosting and your email marketing service provider
are basically the same cost month to month. And once you
create an infoproduct (using my evergreen strategies that are timeless),
you can create it once, and sell it for life – right from your website.

Because we're NOT selling our stuff the traditional way
(e.g. bookstores, Amazon or even ClickBank),
there's no need to worry about profit margins.

With my system, there are no affiliates to pay and
no cost of goods sold. You're merely selling
how-to solutions to people with problems -
all delivered over the Internet.

There's nothing to lose -
this business is OBSCENELY profitable

It's all ones and zeros… so there's
no real cost to deliver your infoproduct.
For the exception of processing fees,
you get to keep the VAST majority of the
revenue for yourself.

The only business that comes even
close to this model is religion…
but my business has no need for
expensive buildings with stained glass and
doesn't have to payout billions to quiet the pedophiles.

No matter what topic you pick, there's
always a demand for it (when you use my system).

For example, if I try to sell something
(and it's not selling well), I pull it and
offer it as a bonus gift inside one of my
other infoproducts. Or, I offer it as a
FREE giveaway (to capture leads into
my email autoresponder). I can even
use it as fodder for my blog or even
content for a guest post on my competitor's blog.

Turn each word you write into cash

Either way you look at it, every word you write…
every audio you record and every video you capture is
going to always pay off. It's literally impossible
not to make money with my system. Impossible.
(Of course the amount of money you make is
directly proportional to your work ethic.)

This concept is SUPER DUPER IMPORTANT to grasp.
Because every minute you think about it (instead of doing it),
you're missing out. Every time the clock ticks and
you're not offering your pearls of wisdom in
one way or another, you're GUARANTEED a $0 payoff.

Let me offer this example to inspire: this blog post about the
fear of success is going to generate some nice dough rey me
into my bank account over the coming years.

On average, the ads at the top of this page
pays me roughly $50.00 every time 1,000 people
see this post.

Even better, a percentage of the visitors reading this are
going to join my email list. The industry average is roughly
$1.00 per email subscriber per month. (I'm a bit
lower than that because I don't hype
crappy products to my list.) Let's go on the
really low side and say each email subscribe
on my list is worth 50 cents a month…
the math tells me just 100 new subscribers
who stay with me for 5 years is worth a whopping $3,000.00.

(And yes… with my system, most of my subscribers
stay on my lists for years.)

Again, that's just for getting merely
100 subscribers onto my email list.
That's a PIECE OF CAKE with my infoproduct system.

The bottom line is if I didn't write this post,
I'd LITERALLY be giving up thousands and
thousands of dollars in easy, long-term money.

If I instead suffered analysis paralysis and fretted
whether or not to figure out what niche I wanted to
start with, I'm to be GUARANTEED zero dollars from
my lack of effort.

My suggestion is to just get started. Use my Keywords for Traffic and
Customer Pain Points' tutorials to find a starving niche to serve.
These tutorials combined show you EXACTLY what to write about…
it even shows you how to get your buyers to help you
write your online salesletter for you.

But the best part is these tutorials help you
create content so the search engines refer you
precisely-targeted traffic to your site (who have
credit card in hand and are virtually
BEGGING to buy your infoproduct)…

… Then take a few moments picking a niche that
you're most passionate about (because it's
much easier to create content in a niche that you like)…
and start cranking out the content…

… If you find that your content isn't selling well – that's cool…
just take it in another direction. Pull apart your product into
several "chunks" and give it away to build your email list.
Then shake off the setback and try it again until you
find a niche that is willing to pay you
handsomely for your solutions.

I don't know of a single business person that
wins 100% of the time. Most are THRILLED
when one of of five ideas pay off.
And you're never going to find that winner
unless you're doing the work.

Remember, motion beats meditation.

Bottom line

Never give up.
Always be creating content that offers solutions to the pain points of the marketplace.
Just say no to the fear of failure.

But the old tried and true methods aren't working anymore.

In the past, web marketers could rely on 100 different ways to get more traffic to their sites. Unfortunately, those days are over.

For example:

Pay per click is almost 1,000% more expensive than just six years ago. And "Quality Scores" almost neuter our ability to convert visitors into leads (or customers). Even worse, Google and Facebook are banning us from paying for traffic – often without giving us notice (or the reason why we're banned).

Social media marketing is impossible to rely on. I've tracked Twitter clickthru rates for years and they're embarrassingly low. For example, when Oprah "tweets" to her 10 million Twitter followers, less than a few thousand actually click onto her recommendations. That's brutally bad. And it's an unreliable traffic source because many "follow" just so you follow them back.

Mobile marketing is certainly growing, but it's still not very responsive. Most still prefer their computers to take action (like subscribe to an optin or buy something).

Even FREE organic traffic (i.e. search engine referrals) is getting hit hard these days. Real hard. Even if your site is rich in content and doesn't employ a single black-hat scheme, many sites are getting "de-indexed" (i.e. your website's pages are getting deleted from showing up in a search result).

Even offline methods are becoming quickly irrelevant. Do you remember that thick stack of pages called the phone book? Even coupon carriers like ValPak are replaced by the online sensation Groupon.

TV ads? Dead. Newspaper advertising? Dead. Telemarketing? Dead.

And what in the world is going on with the postal service? I understand more than half of all bulk-mail processing centers have quietly been shut down.

All marketing channels lead to the Internet, right… but the little guy (like us) is getting "slapped."

Yikes… every traffic source is dried up -
what do we do now?

Obviously, this is VERY troubling. To get more traffic to your blog (or website) is crucial. It's the lifeblood of any online marketer. And without leads, we have no buyers to spend money on our stuff.

But while most are complaining about this, I instead focus harder than ever to fix this problem…

… And for me, one of the answers is to focus on the Big G – because Google is the King of this mountain. And whether it's fair or not, they dictate much of how we survive (and even thrive) into the foreseeable future with our online marketing efforts.

Tap into the second-largest search engine tonight

Did you know Google owns the second largest search engine on the planet? It's true… Google bought YouTube back in the fall of 2006 (yep, almost six years ago).

And in this video, I reveal four solid and dependable types of YouTube traffic that I'm able to tap into to funnel precisely-targeted visitors to my website:

Click here to see my Fiverr tutorial…