So, I was speaking with my buddy, Mark Mason and he mentioned some software he had been using called “phpBay” to create stores on his sites. He sent over a few examples and I was sold. I bought a copy and set up my first store in no time flat at http://www.madcacher.com/shop/.

What is phpBay

phpBay is a very powerful PHP script, which allows anyone to create a shop, which contains various Ebay items targeted to your niche. After you install it you simply insert your Ebay affiliate ID then generate the code that will make your shop work by inserting a simple keyword or phrase. The script will generate a very professional, user friendly shop that will display only items that are related to the phrase you inserted! And of course, every sale that is generated through your shop equals money in your pocket, which is the best part!

If you want a shop on your WordPress blog you’re all set because phpBay offers an easy to use WP plugin, which is what I’m currently using on madcacher.com

But, it’s not specific to WordPress. You can use this script on any PHP based website. MOST servers are PHP based, so if you’re not sure, most likely your server can run this… the file extension just needs to end with .php instead of .html or other formats. This can be easily changed though.

How many shops can I create?

You can create an UNLIMITED amount of sites on an UNLIMITED number of sites! To me that’s very important! I don’t ant to spend money on something I’m using for a little niche site and not be able to use it on my other sites as well!

Is this only for U.S. based customers?

Nope, phpBay supports seventeen different Countries!

What I like

I really like the easy of use and the potential here. The WordPress plugin is as simple to install and integrate as any other plugin, which is incredibly easy. The income potential is great. Obviously traffic is key, but this is the easiest way I know of to get a shot up on any of your sites within minutes, with no additional work!

What I don’t like

I always try to find things I don’t like about products I’m promoting, because to be honest, it adds to credibility. What kind of a reviewer would I be if I loved everything I was reviewing? Well, this time I honestly haven’t seen anything I don’t like about phpBay. I’m sure I could find a few small things here and there, but I haven’t yet. It’s pretty cut and dry… install it, insert a few settings and your shop is up and running.

How much does it cost?

phpBay normally sells for $79, but I’ve worked out a special deal for my readers. You know I take care of you So, If you order through the link below and use the following coupon code, you’ll get a 20% discount, which is far less than what everyone else, including myself, is paying. However, after 100 orders this coupon code will no longer be valid. (If the coupon code is still there, the offer is still good)

coupon code: 6BC288DE3A
Order Link: http://ez-onlinemoney.com/recommends/phpBay

Whether you use phpBay or not, having a shop for each niche you target is an excellent idea, especially if you’re a niche marketer with several small, niche sites. A one-time investment can add a new monetization model to your entire business and unlike ads, it’s not intrusive and actually adds to the credibility of your site!

But, I know there are many people out there who still aren’t sure, so if you’re one of those people, I’d like to tell you the basics of a very cool and very popular technology… I felt like saying “new” technology, but RSS has been around for a while now.

I’ve been marketing online for several years now, but I didn’t get started blogging until about 3 years into all of this. When I started my first blog I had no idea what RSS was and to be honest, I barely knew what a blog was

But I started reading other blogs, got mine established and learned the basics… now I’ve been successfully blogging for a couple years.

What is RSS?

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication” although other say it’s “Rich Site Summary.” I’m not sure if there is a different between the 2, but for myself and other basic “users” it really doesn’t matter.

I’ll explain with an example. You find a good feed reader, like Google Reader or Bloglines (free.) Then you get the RSS feed from your favorite blogs and/or news sites and add the RSS feed URL to the feed reader and you can keep up with your favorite blogs all in one spot (within the feed reader.) You will be alerted only when there is a new post, instead of manually visiting each site to check for updates.

There are other uses and RSS isn’t specific to blogs and news sites, but they are the main 2 types. An RSS feed is simply a URL and if the site has an RSS feed (almost ALL blogs and news sites do) they’ll have an image, link or both somewhere on their pages for you to grab.

How to Subscribe to a Blog’s RSS Feed

There are a few different ways to subscribe to an RSS feed; an easy way and a REALLY easy way.

The Easy Way - The process is very simple. Just visit the blog you would like to subscribe to and locate their RSS feed. In the case of this blog you’ll see it in the right navigation menu toward the top… a big, orange button that says “RSS.”

In FireFox you can right-click that image/link and select “Copy Link Location” from the drop down menu. If you use another browser and you’re not sure how to copy a URL, just click on the RSS image/link and when it opens a new window, just copy the entire URL in the address bar of your browser. In the case of this blog, you would be copying:

http://feeds.feedburner.com/ez-onlinemoney/KVBf

Once you’ve copied the URL you just need to add it to your feed reader. There are many different feed readers out there, but probably the 2 most popular are Google Reader and Bloglines… both are very easy and straight forward in regards to adding a feed.

The REALLY Easy Way - This is your best option if you don’t want to mess with a feed reader, but unfortunately not all blogs and news sites offer this option. Many blogs do though, including this blog. I’m talking about subscribing to a feed via email. Instead of the feed being sent to your feedreader account, it’s sent to your email.

To subscribe to a feed via email, the site must offer it and it will be a simple form asking for your email. On this blog you’ll see that to the right of my orange RSS image… it says “Email Updates.” You just enter your email address and updates will be sent to your email every time a new blog post is published and you’ll also have the option to click the link in the email to visit the actually blog post.

That’s basically it. RSS is a big time saver especially for those who read a bunch of different blogs and/or regularly keep up with the news. Now go ahead and give it a shot

==================================================================

Image credit: Matt Forsythe’s RSS Icons… for more cool RSS icons see the Ultimate list of Free RSS Feed Icons.

Believe it or not I made that website to honestly help tourists in Germany, so I wanted good info. So I turned to Wikipedia. Although there is no guarantee the info is 100% accurate, it’s typically relatively good stuff.

So I created a new page about Mountains in Germany, copied a bunch of content entirely from Wikipedia onto the new page and published it.

A few months later, not only is the page ranking, it’s OUTRANKING Wikipedia, from which it was copied for “mountains in Germany” and “German mountains” (without quotes) and holding a top 10 ranking for “Germany mountains” along with several other phrases.

Many of these phrases are also holding a top 10 ranking in Yahoo as well.

Granted, these phrases aren’t extremely competitive, but most people would take 592 unique visitors each and every month from a page they just copied and pasted I believe

Why is this Duplicate Content Ranking so Well?

Simple - Optimization! If you type the phrase “mountains in Germany” or “German mountains” into Wikipedia, you’ll get a page saying “No page with that title exists.” But if you type in the names of each of the different German mountains, you’ll find a page with content that is the same as the content for that particular mountain on my page… I created a page full of duplicate content that was targeting keywords that Wikipedia wasn’t, and still isn’t, targeting. In other words, I filled a gap in the market and it worked to my advantage.

The Bottom Line

Google cares about 1 thing, user experience! They want to give searchers what they’re looking for, whether it’s duplicate content or not. If you need to use some content from Wikipedia on your site(s) use it! But, don’t go overboard! If your entire site is full of duplicate content Google probably isn’t going to reward you with top 10 rankings, but if you have a page or two of duplicate content from an authoritative source, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that!

photo credit: im.idea

After several years of hard times, one of my sisters got her act together, began to stay out of trouble, live a healthy life and she’s been doing it for a few years now. She’s been managing a furniture store and although the pay could be worse, it could be ALOT better too.

She asked me how she could make some money online for some extra money, so I got an article writing service going for her. She wrote a bunch of articles for a bunch of people and did well, but wasn’t really enthused about it.

After a while she got a raise at work and decided to stop writing articles for now, which I completely understood, nothing wrong with that.

However, I’ve told her several times in the past if she wanted to start a Website I’d help her do with it whatever she wants and help her make some money with it… I even registered her name domain. She never got excited about it and that domain is still empty, with it’s own account on my server.

She recently got tired of her boss and said she was ready to start doing what I’m doing online… I said, “no you’re not”

So, why won’t I help her? Simply because she doesn’t have the passion that it requires to do well online. It doesn’t take skill… it doesn’t take knowledge, that comes with time, it takes passion and determination. Those who are successful online (in business in general for that batter) are those who LOVE what they do!

People who are just happy to be building things that MAY or MAY NOT make them alot of money. People who understand that it will probably take a long time to make a good deal of money, but keep going because they just LOVE doing it!

Unfortunately MANY people who get into Internet Marketing, especially these days with the current economic conditions, aren’t getting into it because of their passion, they’re doing it because they think they can make some quick easy money and 99,999 times out of 100,000 that’s just not the case.

If my sister told me she completely understands that it may take YEARS to make good money online, although with my help it wouldn’t take that long at all ) and she just wants to do it because it just seems really exciting, I’d be helping her in every way possible! But it’s not a passion of hers… it’s simply something she sees me making good money with, so she figures she can make some easy money with it too.

So, if you don’t honestly enjoy this whole Internet Marketing thing, I highly recommend you find another occupation, because it’s very likely that you will fail.

On the other hand, if you honestly enjoy doing this, stick with it and NEVER give up! It takes time, but when you truly have a passion for something, you WILL succeed… some take longer than others, but eventually you will!

photo credit: Tracy O

Today I’d like to share with you the top 5 most profitable Internet Marketing Business Models. #1, #2 and #3 can all be nearly just as profitable depending on how they’re worked, but I believe the order I put them in is pretty accurate.

You’ll notice that blogging isn’t one of them. That’s because blogging should NEVER be a business model! It can be a valuable part of many different profitable business models, but blogging alone is NOT a business model!

1. Pay Per Click (PPC) - PPC and Email Marketing are both extremely profitable and although I’m not personally a PPC super affiliate, I see the EXTREME profit potential! The problem with PPC (the good thing for those who choose to get serious with it) is that since it takes money to make money and there is no guarantee of profiting, MANY people give up right away!

However, there are several super affiliates out there who make thousands and thousands of dollars each and every day! This is something I’ve toyed with over the years and I’m just now starting to get serious with. There is a fairly large learning curve and if you’re struggling to feed your family I don’t recommend getting into PPC. Only do this when you have some capital to invest on your PPC “education” ie. learning from your mistakes. You WILL lose money at first… how much depends on the spending limits and budgets you set.

2. Email Marketing - Email marketing is a close second to PPC although some people would argue that… I do believe PPC is a bit more profitable though when comparing the most successful people in both fields.

However, email marketing is something just about ANYONE can get started with and it can be VERY profitable if done correctly! This is my absolute favorite business model and as you may come to realize after reading the report I just released “New Age Email Marketing” Email marketing accounts for approximately 80% of my total income these days… there’s a good chance you came across this post through one of my emails… see what I mean?

3. Membership Sites - The profit potential with membership sites is absolutely obvious. Instead of a single, one-time payment, people send you money over and over again! The trick is to obviously give them something so valuable that they decide it’s worth it! Over-deliver and there’s a good chance you’ll make a bunch of money. Under-deliver and there’s a good chance you’ll make little to nothing.

I collect recurring payments with my coaching forum and although it will never account for a great deal of my income due to the increased work load for this type of system, it generates a little extra money and I get to truly help people at the same time, so the payoff is good for me.

How you decide to run your membership site is up to you… it could be a forum, a free content site etc. etc. There are no rules here… just provide something that people want and are willing to pay each and every month for access.

4. Electronic Product Creation and Marketing - Don’t think because I have product creation listed as #4 that it’s not profitable because it is indeed VERY profitable. When we’re dealing with electronic products the real power is in affiliate marketing.

Having OTHER people promote your product(s) is like a dream really. You do absolutely nothing and other people do the hard work. Of course it take some initial hard work, but it happens. I earn money every single day from affiliates promoting “AMD” and my other products.

The catch? Just like anything else you have to provide quality. No one wants to promote crap, but everyone wants to promote quality!

I’ll be sending out an email to my list in the very near future with a discount for an excellent ebook written by my buddy Mark Mason, on how to create a quality ebook and profit from it. Yeah, it’s an ebook on how to make an ebook Look for that on the 4th of November.

5. Niche Marketing - This can be defined in several different ways, after all, “Niche Marketing” is a very broad phrase. But the definition I’m referring to is building and promoting small, white-hat mini-sites monetized with Adsense and Affiliate programs.

I’ve made a good deal of money in the past doing this. You may have read my report “The $5 Mini-Site Formula,” which outlines my overall niche marketing formula.

You’re basically filling gaps in the Internet information world. There are millions of tiny, long-tail sub-niches that have little to no relevant pages in the SERPS… you simply find them and fill them with your articles and pages. The smart ones will only target high-paying niches. I’m talking niches that pay over $1 for each and every Adsense click!

————————————————————————————————————————–

Are you using one or more of these models? I’d love to hear your feedback!

photo credit: joeltelling

I still own the website and you can take a look if you like (still as ugly as ever and goes against some of the most important SEO advice I provide) http://www.TheGermanTruth.com/ After developing that site I moved on and created a new site, which is basically the exact same type of site, but I integrated what I had learned into the new site. You can see it at http://www.EverythingAboutGermany.com/. Why am I telling you all of this and how does it relate to Adsense? You’ll see in a minute.

Most people, including myself, started off online with one monetization model: Adsense… generate clicks in any way possible (hopefully ethically and within their TOS though.)

So, we either learn how to put up a site with FrontPage or Dreamweaver or we start making free blogs etc. that allow you to run adsense ads or we do both. I personally learned the basics of Dreamweaver, with the help of a friend, and did it on my own.

We then start writing content for the site and put up some realllllllly ugly graphics that we made, which at the time we think are awesome. Every chance we get we capitalize words and center the content, because that will get the readers attention, right? lol

Somewhere along the way we hear about affiliate marketing too, but adsense seems so much easier… they click, you make money, so easy. So we just do both. We put adsense up and LOADS of affiliate banners allllll over the place, because the more ads there are, the more likely the visitors are to buy, right? uhhu ok

Then we learn a little bit about promotion. We learn that we need to build links and that we can exchange links with other Webmasters, but the best way is to write compelling content. However, we don’t believe these people… we think we have to manually do it all, because so far, noone has linked to your “compelling content” right?

If that sounds just about like your story when you started, or where you’re currently at, you can rest assured I, as well as just about everyone else in this business, went through the SAME THING!

Fortunately we learn as we go and we learn that we don’t need to capitalize everything or make everything bold to get people’s attention… we learn that things we’re not good at (graphic design in my case) should be outsourced or we’ll scare people away… we learn that the more banners you have DOESN’T necessarily mean the more sales you make (often times it’s opposite of that) etc. etc.

If you visit just about any Internet Marketing forum or read many blogs, you’ll notice that many of the newer Internet Marketers will frequently talk about Adsense, while the more experienced Internet Marketer will only speak about Adsense on occasion. Obviously there are several different business models out there and some advanced marketers do talk about Adsense quite a bit, but overall they don’t. Why? because they started diversifying their income years ago!

I don’t know how many times I’ve written about creating multiple sources of income, but it’s a bunch and I’m saying it again!

If you’re new to the business create some sites and put some effort toward adsense revenue, but DON’T spend all of your time on it or you’ll end up like I did and wait 2 years before you’re earning enough money to make a full-time income when you could have done it in under a year!

The website I spoke of at the beginning of this post (EverythingAboutGermany.com) now earns me a steady $200/month and while that’s an incredibly small portion of my income, it’s there and I do NO WORK AT ALL to keep it up. As a matter of fact, I haven’t added content to that site for over a year and it’s been even longer since I’ve manually built links! The only thing I’ve done to it is replaced the template with a better looking one (click here if you’d like the same template.) And oh by the way, it holds top 10 rankings in Google for many germany related phrases like “Germany Tourism” and “German Mountains” (without quotes) etc.

So, to answer the question, YES, “newbies” should be concentrating on Adsense starting out, but they DEFINITELY should NOT be concentrating solely on Adsense, as it’s not a quick money maker by any means!

One can see some very quick money through Adsense using a technique like my $5 Formula, but a raw newbie wouldn’t have a chance with it because it takes some experience and know-how to do proper keyword research etc.

Build an email list through the same sites you’re promoting for Adsense income. Learn the basics of Pay Per Click and test out an offer every now and then. Create a product as soon as you have a good amount of knowledge in any particular field…. but NEVER concentrate solely on Adsense income!

http://www.NewAgeEmailMarketing.com/

This is the exact winning strategy I use in order to earn approximately $1,000+ with each and every promotional email I send out with what many would consider a “Tiny” list!

This is a very simple technique that anyone can use and the best part is, it’s Ethical and it actually helps people! As a matter of fact, the entire process is based on helping people and not being a sleazeball by sending promotion after promotion!

Take a look at the site, where I explain in more detail, provide some screenshots of the very impressive results of only a couple of the promotions I’ve sent out to my “small” list and reveal the extremely low price, and my reasoning behind that price: http://www.NewAgeEmailMarketing.com/

And as always, I’d love to hear your thoughts, whether on the report, or on email marketing in general!

Whether the following are ineffective due to one or more of the above, or for some other reason, they are indeed overused and ineffective techniques that Internet Marketers commonly use:

1. Using quotation marks around a phrase to judge it’s competition - If you want your page/site to rank #130 for your targeted phrase then this technique is effective. But if you’re like me you want a top 10 ranking, so there are only 10 pages you care about; the top 10 competing search results!

2. Article Submission for links - If you’re submitting articles strictly for links and not doing your keyword research, you’re not getting the most out of your articles. Article marketing is very effective and the links are nice, but it’s the article directory’s ability to get our articles to rank in the top 10 of the search results for our well-researched keyword phrases that makes article marketing so effective, not the link building aspect!

3. Assuming that because “guru’s” send too many emails to their lists, that you should do the same thing! Many well-known marketers send too many promotions to their lists… it’s a fact. However, that doesn’t mean it’s the optimal strategy! Many times promo’s are sent out to “pay back” a buddy who promoted that persons product etc. Just because someone you consider to be a guru sends loads of promos to their list, doesn’t mean it’s the most effective strategy! Help people… that’s the best strategy!

4. Targeting “Make Money Online” with an Internet Marketing blog/site. They’re two totally different niches with 2 totally different target markets. More on that in my report: “The Make Money Online Niche Exposed”

5. Concentrating only on Search Engines - I don’t know how many people told me this when I first started online, but I just ignored them and worked on SEO. I obtained some very impressive results, but it took me 2 years of concentrating almost entirely on SEO to be able to support my family. It was about the 2 year mark when I realized, “there has to be an easier way to make a living online” so I started getting into blogging, email marketing etc.

In other words, I diversified my business and my income has been steadily increasing ever since! You should never rely on one individual business model especially if that model is SEO because algorithms change, markets change etc. Diversify, diversify, diversify!

image credit: e453753

But first, I’ll tell you what it is in case you don’t know.

Twitter is a social network, but it’s MUCH simpler than most others and doesn’t take hours, or days to understand. Twitter is often called “micro blogging” and you’ll understand why in a minute. Here’s how it works (very easy.) You sign up, find some people to “follow” and hopefully they’ll follow you back.

You have a little spot when you’re signed in where you can type a “blurb.” This blurb must be 140 characters or less. Those who are following you will see your blurb and that of everyone else they’re following and the same goes for you (you’ll see the recent blurbs of everyone you’re following”

That’s basically it… very simple! You can also send direct messages to users, so only you and them will see the message and you can attach the @ symbol directly before any username and that user will see that in their “replies” example (@Josh_Spaulding)

Below you can see the web interface. Notice the box under “What are you doing?” that’s where your blurb goes. Directly below that are the recent blurbs from people I’m following.

To the right you’ll see how many people I’m following and how many are following me etc.

What’s the Point?

Networking and Outsourcing! Let me give you a few examples:

Example 1. I recently needed some writing done for a new review site I put up. I took about 20 seconds to login to Twitter, post a “tweet” (blurb) letting people know what I was looking for. Within ONE minute, I had 4 people respond telling me they were ready to start writing immediately! I had all of the work completed that day!

Example 2. I recently had 2 different coding issues I needed fixed on two separate blogs of mine. Just as with example 1, I posted a tweet and within minutes had several people offer to help. I had both problems fixed in UNDER 10 MINUTES and the guy who did it didn’t even charge me because I had gotten to know him on twitter and we have developed somewhat of a friendship! Try accomplishing that with ScriptLance, RentaCoder or elsewhere!

Example 3. On MANY occasions, when tweaking the design, adverts etc. of any of my sites, I’ll go to Twitter and ask people how things look from their side. Many times it’s different in other locations, especially with ads (Geotargeting etc.) and other people use different browsers, operating systems etc. Twitter is an excellent way to get a quick opinion on something and people are typically glad to help!

Example 4. I’ve met and established several profitable JV’s via Twitter, which wouldn’t have happened otherwise! Some of the biggest names in Internet Marketing and Technology are on Twitter and it’s an EXCELLENT way to get to know them, and more importantly, for THEM to get to know YOU!

Why Some People Don’t Like It

There are alot of people who really dislike Twitter. Including some smart marketers like Andrew Hansen. Andrew’s a good guy, but I’m going to convince him that he’s wrong, it’s on my list of things to do

The reason some people don’t like Twitter, I believe, is because they don’t understand the true value. Many people are led to believe Twitter is a good traffic generator and while it can and most likely will drive some traffic, that’s not what makes it so valuable!

They create an account, start posting tweet after tweet about their new blog post, or send people to an affiliate link… they don’t establish any relationships, they simply spam it, then eventually they notice it didn’t make them any money, so they quit and tell everyone it sucks!

I’ve been actively using Twitter for several months now and if it were a waste of time you better believe I’d be writing a much different post right now!

If you’re looking for a traffic generator, there are better ways of doing it. If you’re looking for a way to improve and increase JV’s, Outsourcing and Networking in general, Twitter is where you need to be!!

If you’d like to follow me, I’m at http://www.twitter.com/Josh_Spaulding

With that being said, you’d think there would be plenty of good information out there on the subject, right? Well there’s not! The reason being, many people just don’t understand it and there’s good reason for that.

There are 2 steps one must take to researching any given keyword and/or phrase:

1. Determine an accurate search volume
2. Conduct competition analysis

Both are equally important! Do #1 correctly, and #2 incorrectly and you may find that your article or post will never hold a top 10 spot. Do #2 correctly and #1 incorrectly and you may get a top 10 ranking, but no traffic!

The goal is to find keyword phrases, which have as much search volume as possible, with the least amount of competition.

The basic principles are pretty simple and straight forward, but understanding the overall principles and actually conducting keyword research are two completely different things!

In the past I’ve shared a more advanced keyword research method at Coaching with Josh, in the $5 Mini-Site Forumla and elsewhere, but most people just end up wasting time and resources because they don’t seem to get it and I don’t really blame them. To really dig deep and do 100% accurate keyword research, you really need to know what to look for… you basically need a few years of experience.

However, you can still do good keyword research, very quickly and easily without being an experienced SEO.

How to Conduct Quick and Easy Niche Keyword Research

Keep in mind, this is “hit or miss” and isn’t 100% accurate, but it’s very quick, easy, fairly accurate and doesn’t require much SEO or marketing knowledge.

1. First find a good keyword tool like the one at SEO Book. Most tools get their data from the same place (Wordtracker) so the data is typically the same. You can also use Google’s tool if you’re more familiar with that, but for this example we’ll use the one at SEO Book because that’s what I use and I know it’s fairly accurate.

Now do a search for a fairly broad term, which is extremely related to the niche you’re researching. Copy and paste every single relevant phrase that has approximately 100 daily searches and paste them into a notepad file. If you can’t find enough in that range, do some more searches on related phrases. Keep in mind, the 100 daily searches figure is for niches sites and articles. If you’re not looking for longtail phrases, obviously you’ll raise that number.

One thing to note, no keyword tool is 100% accurate. Nope, not even Googles! Why? Because what was searched last year, may not be searched this year, what was searched last month may not be searched this month, what was searched yesterday may not be searched today etc. etc… trends etc. They also count searches done by us marketers and other worthless searches that weren’t done by targeted prospects… just FYI.

2. Now go to Google and do a search for each and every phrase you pasted into your notepad file. Don’t worry about exact phrase matches etc. etc. just look at the Google PR of each of the top 10 listings in the SERPS. If the average of the top 10 is a PR of 3 or less, keep that phrase, it’s a winner. If the average is 4 or higher, dump it.

That’s it!

Now, for those of you who are thinking “Google PageRank is useless, why would I even consider that?”

Google Toolbar PageRank is known to be inaccurate in some niches, but when averaging a big group of pages (10 in this situation) the average PR is actually a fairly accurate measure of the overall authority in that long=tail niche.

Like I said, there will be hits and there will be misses, but overall it works and it’s easy!

photo credit: chrisjohnbeckett