Are you sick of hearing the phrase, “The money is in the list”.

To be honest, I am.

But I have to say that unlike many of the urban myths that are peddled by some in this business, it is completely and utterly true.

So let’s take a look at the list building topic in a straightforward question and answer style!

Q: Why is building a list so important?

Because the list of prospects and customers is the most valuable asset in an online business.

Actually, there often aren’t that many other assets in web-businesses. They don’t (usually) have much in the way of fixed assets like factories, machines, real estate and so on. Instead it’s all about the contact details of the prospects and customers.

Another way to think about this is by looking at traffic. If you set up a web page that sells a product and drive traffic to it you’ll be doing very well if you can get 5% of people to purchase (the online average is actually closer to 1%). This means for every 1,000 visitors you will lose 950 people that you’ll most likely never see again anywhere near your website!

Obviously, this is a huge waste and especially because that traffic will have cost you time and/or money to generate.

So what if you send that traffic to a squeeze page offering a free gift instead of trying to sell straight off?

If your squeeze page is good then you should be able to get 50% of people (500) subscribed to your list. After they opt in you can still present your sales page to them and still make money.

Some will buy, some won’t, but either way you can now follow up to build trust and promote more relevant products that will help them.

Even better: The follow up emails can be done automatically using your autoresponder (I use and recommend Aweber – my affiliate link).

Q: How many subscribers do I need to make $1,000 per month?

This is a very common question from people that don’t have a list yet.

Often it gets dismissed but I think it’s a very fair question.

Unfortunately, it’s difficult to give an accurate answer as it really depends upon the niche you are in (e.g., weight loss is more profitable than needlework) and also how much time you put in to building trust with your subscribers.

This said, the benchmark figure is $1 per subscriber per month. Based on this the answer to the question is 1,000 subscribers.

Two things to remember here:

1. Remember this is $1,000 every month, not just this month. Which is why having a list is the best way to develop an online regular residual income.

2. $1 per sub per month is just a guideline. I can tell you I earn a lot more than this. And of course you can too. But only when you build your skills in relationship building and list management. It’s not hard and you learn as you go along but if you ignore it then you’ll earn less and (in the extreme) burn out your list by promoting to them too much!

Finally, and I’m almost certain you’ve heard this before but it’s the quality not the size of your list that matters. This is something else that you can easily get sick of hearing but again, it is true! To see this let me ask you a question:

Of the different lists I have let’s take two of them: One is 110 subscribers in size, each of whom purchased a $700 product from me. Another list is 800 in size and contains around 60 people who have purchase some kind of product through me (my own or affiliate product at $5-$97 price points) the rest have not yet purchased.

If I offer you ONE of these lists to keep for yourself, which one would you prefer to have?

Q: List building still sounds like hassle to me. Aren’t there other ways to make money?

Oh yes, of course. There are many ways to make money via the internet:

• Sign up as a freelancer and provide services like transcription, graphics or WordPress set up on sites like Elance or fiverr
• Create videos reviewing popular products and upload them to YouTube
• Place ads on your site and work to get traffic to those sites

There are many more besides but the problem is that you either swapping your time for money (i.e., the same as a J.O.B!) or making your life extremely difficult by working tirelessly to generate traffic and then wasting most of it!

On the other hand, picture this: You have a list of 1,000 amateur photographers. You write an email to them with a review of a new online photography course (or another product like a new tripod that’s come out) and place in it your affiliate link.

The email might take you 30 minutes to write (much less when you get used to it!), and you click send. Over the next few hours and days you’ll get affiliate commissions into your account. Better yet, whether your subscribers buy or not, they are still on your list so you can do the same thing again!

I can tell you, it’s a wonderful feeling when you write the email whilst on holiday/vacation click send and then check again an hour or so later and you’ve made a few hundred dollars already!

I don’t like the phrase really as it sounds hypey but what I’ve just described is the closest thing you’ll get to “cash on demand” ever.

But you need to build a list first.

Q: I don’t have a list. What’s the fastest way to build one from scratch and how do I get the traffic?

As we’ve talked about before on the GHG blog there are only 2 ways to build a list:

1. Sell something
2. Give something away for free

In the first you use a sales page to add customers to your list, in the second you use a squeeze page (or optin form on your website/blog).

I recommend you do both (as I do) so you have more than one “on-ramp” for new leads to enter your business.

For more information on this and traffic methods check out the previous post here where I show you exactly how I built my list from scratch.

There’s no magic, just consistent action required. Sounds like hard work and it can be (as I always say here on the blog) but the rewards can be life changing.

Q: How long does it take to build a list from scratch?

Good question.

The answer of course could be “it depends” but to give you an idea I’ll share with my own experience:

I made my first money online in the collectibles niche at the back end of 2010 (here’s the site which I still own). This was before I even knew that list building was important!

Then, in 2011, I moved into the stock market niche (something I’ve always been interested in and had worked in a related job as well). Simultaneously, I started this blog where I talk about “internet marketing” related stuff. I put up an optin form (see on the right) and gradually started getting subscribers (using guest posting, blog commenting, giveaways etc).

It probably took me 4-5 months to get to 400-500 subscribers. Then another 6-7 months to reach 1,500 subscribers.

From there I grew my list much faster but basically I reached around 1,500 in list size after 1 year.

This can be done much faster but of course, I was learning (and making plenty of mistakes) as I went along!

Also, if this seems like a long journey just remember that the next 12 months is going to fly past anyway, whatever you do. So why not spend it building your list? If you’d read this post and started a year ago then you’d be making regular residual income each and every month by now.

So don’t think too far ahead, just get stuck in and take consistent baby steps forward each and every day.

Agree/Disagree? Please do Tweet/LIKE if this helped you and let me know below of your thoughts! Cheers, Rob

The road in setting up any business – online or offline – is very bumpy indeed.

What I’ve learned since I started out in my 3 years online is that yes there are easy ways and shortcuts and it is worth investing some of your time and money in learning and receiving good advice from those who have gone before you.

However, it’s just impossible to eliminate all difficulties from your life and whatever you do these bumps in the road will still keep “coming at you”.

For many people starting out I’ve noticed they can get severely diseffected and demoralised by the problems they face and many of course, just give up blaming either bad luck, bad timing or simply themselves (“I’m just not up to this”).

What contributes to this is that a lot of us feel alone with the issues we face, especially online because when you start out it literally is just you and the computer!

Not only that but people look towards successful people (the folks that are where they would like to be) and everything seems so rosy. They appear relaxed, knowledgeable and polished in their approach.

When I was looking to start a business of some kind (and before I focused in on the internet as the model I wanted to follow) I attended a seminar where a very well known business person from the TV show Dragons Den was giving a presentation.

What really struck me was how candid and frank he was about the struggles he’d had.  For example, he explained how it took him years to turn his small business into a medium sized one: Winning contracts, then losing them, employees deserting at critical times, etc etc

But to look at his designer suit and relaxed demeanour you would have never guessed this was the case!

Since then I’ve attended many events and meetups where I’ve been able to speak with successful business people. And guess what? The story is exactly the same every time.

There isn’t a SINGLE person who is successful who hasn’t experienced challenges, potential “show stoppers” and seemingly insolvable problems along the way.

So I just wanted to let you know that you are not the only one!

In the last 12 months I’ve experience countless challenges, problems and difficulties ranging from corrupt websites, to miscommunications with joint venture partners and traffic failures.

If you follow me on this blog you’ll know I do write about some of these (e.g., here) as well as my successes. But obviously even I don’t share everything!

So I think this is worth pointing out and also my attitude in dealing with challenges:

1) I always try and adopt a “whatever it takes” attitude

2) I remember that every challenge I face whether technical or strategic is yet another point when someone else would quit thinking, “Oh, this is all just to hard.”

So if you keep this in mind then you’ll realise that every bump in the road is actually yet another opportunity to get ahead and progress forward.

Not only that but with this correct mindset you can do so with increased confidence so that – despite what you may feel in weaker moments – you are actually more than capable of overcoming challenges in the future and achieving whatever you wish.

Agree/Disagree? Would LOVE to hear your thoughts, comments and experiences and recommendations on this! Please help spread the word by Tweeting and Liking if you enjoyed this. Let’s talk below… Rob

I’d like to share some of the problems that prevented me making any money whatsoever for around 7-8 months after I began online almost exactly 3 years ago. I’ll also explain how I overcame them by giving some recommendations for each.

It’s quite interesting for me to see how my thinking and understanding of how to start and build a successful web business has changed over time.

But more importantly I hope you’ll be able to get a lot out of this because from talking to others I’ve learned that most people face the same challenges that I’ve experienced.

Let’s dive in with 7 things I was baffled by when I started out: 

1. How To Create Web Pages

Like all of us I visited lots of different websites on a daily basis but I really didn’t understand how to replicate them. Do you have to learn web design and HTML and get involved in the technical side of things?

Luckily, I was introduced to WordPress pretty early on. Although I have built a few pages in other systems (such as the free HTML editor Kompozer) I really never looked back.

What began as a blogging platform has now developed into a fully fledged content management system (CMS) for websites and for running a home business, there are very few cases when it makes sense to not use WordPress.

My Recommendation: If you don’t know WordPress. Learn it. Just create a simple personal blog and get acquainted. It’s time very well spent.

2. How To Get Traffic

I thought the only options were SEO (ranking your web pages high in Google) or Adwords (Google Paid ads).

Like most newcomers I didn’t want to risk any money so I went down the SEO path.

The trouble was by 2010 SEO was already becoming harder, more long term and increasingly uncertain. This didn’t stop me spending a small fortune on SEO software and training courses which resulted in virtually no revenue whatsoever.

My Recommendation: Traffic is a KEY element in your online success. So invest some time in learning about it. There are countless ways to promote your websites and many of them have been discussed on this blog (here and here for example). Also, although I wouldn’t completely ignore SEO, I also highly recommend you don’t rely on it. Less than 10% of my traffic comes from SEO – quite honestly I wouldn’t bother with it much at all!

3. Why The Websites Of Successful Marketers Didn’t Look Like Mine

During my “SEO phase” I followed several “gurus” who were very keen to tell me (and sell me) strategies which could rank my websites high in Google. Most of these involved setting up blogs, choosing the keywords, meta tags, headlines, H1 tags correctly and building backlinks to my site.

So how come when I visited these gurus’ sites they had none of these things? I remember checking the backlinks and wondering why there weren’t any? How could they be making money if they didn’t seem to do the things they were telling me to do?

Also, a lot of their websites just had places for your name and email address (what I later learnt were called “squeeze pages”) and had no content on them at all. Google wouldn’t rank these surely so I was baffled.

I was very naïve really. But it just goes to show if you don’t know something then you just don’t know.

Of course, the reality was the the gurus were using joint ventures (JVs), affiliates and paid traffic to promote their websites. As silly as it might sound it really took me about 10 months to fully recognize this.

My Recommendation: Always ask yourself, “Are the strategies that this person is teaching me what they actually use to make money themselves?”. You can’t always be sure but being aware of this question really helps!

4. Who To Trust

A biggy.

As with any business – online or offline – there are scams and people who just want your money. In the internet marketing area there are definitely these kinds of people but also many very genuine businesses and marketers who provide solid products and services which can help you.

My Recommendation: Rather than expand on this here I will refer to a previous post where we covered this issue in detail.

5. Which Niche To Go Into

Again, usually a problem most of us have, especially at the early stage of our business.

This is partly related to “I’m not an expert in anything” thinking but also because there are literally SO many different niches that it can become difficult to decide!

What I did was go into lots of niches. I don’t recommend this because you end up juggling so many balls that you can’t give the attention each niche deserves.

My Recommendation: Brainstorm niches you are interested in, check for sufficient audience size and profitability. Then pick one and go with it. Later on you can (as I have done) expand it more than one niche but that’s when you’ll have the experience of setting them up and promoting them. Also, understand you don’t need to be an expert: 1) You can learn, 2) You can get another expert to help (e.g., by interviewing them), 3) Many products (e.g., software) don’t rely on you being an expert at all.

6. How Can I Keep Up With The Information Coming At Me

Yes, the old information overload problem here!

What I specifically referring to though is the emails that I received as a result of signing up to people’s lists.

This distraction can manifest in at least 2 ways: 1) You are reading emails instead of implementing and taking action, 2) You get mixed messages and conflicting information which stops you taking action on your current plans by introducing doubt and shiny object syndrome.

My Recommendation: Unsubscribe from any list which just promotes things all the time. Follow the people you trust (or at worst think you trust!) – see above for tips on this. Pick one project and stick with it, emotionally detach (as best you can) and work on your business (imagine you are consulting on someone else’s business which helps) instead of in your business.

7. Sales Funnels

Again I’m admitting naivety here but after coming online I really didn’t understand the importance of having a funnel or even what one was!

Basically, the sales funnel is process people go through after they go up the “on ramp” into your business.

For example, they might sign up at for your squeeze page, get offered a promotion on the thank you page, receive email follow ups which offer free content and promotions which increase in price and value.

My recommendation: Be aware all the time of sales funnels and every time you purchase something or sign up for something watch what happens and take notes. I actually have a Word files called “Other Marketers Swipe” which I take notes on what I see from my journeys around the internet in different niches.

3 Final Tips

Overall, If I could go back in time and speak to myself when I started out I’d give this advice:

• Focus soley on building a list of subscribers in a profitable niche that you are interested in
• Go to live events and meetups
• Invest some time and money in solid training from people who have achieved what you want to achieve

If you can relate to any of my experiences I’ve described in this post then this is the same advice I’d give to you. Regardless of your history and where you are right now with your business the PERFECT time is NOW!

What things have baffled you in terms on setting up a successful web business? Please LIKE/TWEET if you enjoyed this and start some discussion by dropping a comment below. Cheers, Rob.

Here’s a superb tool I wanted to make you aware of!

Photoshop (the professional standard graphics software) costs hundred of dollars. On the other hand this is super powerful and totally FREE!

In the video I show you how to use it to create a header for your website.

Please Click PLAY Below:

Did you enjoy this? If so, please LIKE and TWEET. Drop a comment below too – your thoughts are always welcome! Cheers, Rob

As you know the internet changes rapidly.

Many profitable strategies that worked 5 years ago no longer work today.

Equally, what works today may not be viable in 1-2 years time.

I’ve noticed this can cause a lot of anxiety and worries for many people, especially those that are starting out with their online businesses.

Actually, when I began in 2010 I also worried about whether I’d “missed the boat” and if it was really possible to achieve success.

Today, I am fortunate to have the benefit of hindsight so let’s explode the myth of the “Good Old Days” by first looking at some common concerns that I’ve heard from people:   

Concern 1: “I’m too late. The internet gold rush is over”

Well, which gold rush are they referring too?

Today, a lot of people look back to the good old days as being the mid 2000s. But at that time others were having the same worries and looking back to the late 90s as being the real gold rush.

Although I wasn’t involved in the internet in the early 2000s I do remember a lot of comments about the internet being a flash in the pan and that the party was over. Perhaps you remember this too?

And look what has happened since!

Seriously, Facebook, Google and Amazon are merely teenagers. There’s a lot of growing to do and, as you probably know, online sales are increasing massively every year (including information products like eBooks), even during the recession!

Concern 2: “SEO is dead”

Well I agree with this one!

This year, in 2013, we are seeing a lot of internet marketing products along the lines of “SEO is dead, long live SEO!”.

Yes, many people are milking it because they know that SEO and “getting on page 1 of Google” training appeals to newcomers who think it’s the best way of getting visitors to your website.

In some cases, such as local business marketing where you are ranking a local plumber for “plumbers in Durango” then it is still a VERY good method. Equally, if you are a medium/large corporate with a marketing budget it makes sense to allocate some of it to SEO.

But for the average person starting a business from home? In 95% of cases SEO is the wrong strategy.

If you’ve followed me for any length of time you’ll already know this and that generally speaking I dislike SEO. I spent 8 months working at it in 2010 with almost no results whatsoever.

As you can imagine, after that experience I thought SEO was dead then so I definitely agree it’s dead now!

So if it’s dead, is this a problem?

Absolutely not.

As we’ve talked about many times here on the blog there are loads of other traffic methods (free and paid) that you can use to drive stacks of visitors to your sites.

Concern 3: “Paid traffic is too expensive now”

There were strategies in the mid 2000s that a lot of people made a lot of money with.

For example, using Google Ads (i.e., Adwords) to drive traffic to the sales pages of affiliate products.

But if you think about it this example isn’t really a business. It’s just an arbitrage: You aren’t creating products, giving away helpful information or building a list of customers. Instead you’re just moving traffic from Google to a sales page and making a profit.

So it’s hardly surprising that this didn’t last. Advertising costs rose as more and more people jumped onboard and the profits disappeared.

Adwords, like any advertising, is entirely viable. It’s just that you need to ensure that you have the right offers that generate a high enough customer value.

Evergreen methods

The overall point really with the concerns that we’ve been discussing here is that individual internet strategies (like SEO, paid traffic arbitrage, etc) come and go but the principles of business and marketing remain constant and effective.

The only thing you need to do is to keep up to date with how this is implemented on the internet. That’s what we talk about here on the GHG blog and if you embrace the changes it’s an awful lot of fun too!

As mentioned previously, business on the internet continues to grow so please don’t ever think you’ve missed the boat.

Plus when people think of the “good old days” they sometimes forget that things like web hosting, site design and graphics were incredibly expensive and required a lot of technical knowledge. Today, the startup costs are tiny and you need almost no technical knowledge whatsoever.

There’s never been a better time to get stuck in and moving with your business!

Agree, disagree? Please Like and Tweet if you enjoyed this and let me know your thoughts below… Cheers, Rob

Here’s a lovely little tip which will take you less than 60 seconds to set up but has BIG benefits!

Please click PLAY below to see it….

Did this help you? Please Like & Tweet if you enjoyed this and drop a quick comment below, I’d love to hear from you! Cheers, Rob.

Recently, I experienced one of the most powerful human emotions…

Nostalgia

It came about when I discovered a project on Kickstarter which was raising funds to create a new version of a computer game called Elite which I used to love when I was a kid (on the BBC Micro for anyone who remembers!).

To back up here for a moment, if you aren’t aware then Kickstarter is a website that acts as a funding platform for creative projects.

For example, if you’d like to raise funds to have a bench installed in your local park (like this) then you can use the site to do exactly that.

People who pledge money don’t get a financial return on their investment but they get some level of access to what is accomplished by the project: Use of the bench in the park or, in my case, a free copy of the new Elite game.

Why is this relevant, Rob?

Good I haven’t lost you yet then?

Well, it’s relevant because it involves the consumers of a product (park bench or video game) in the creation process. 

For example, after pledging my money for the computer game, I have received lots of updates from the software company how how the development is going, what features will be included and even have the opportunity to provide feedback which can influence the design of the game.

This is MASSIVELY powerful: What started as a brief shot of nostalgia has turned into an on-going addiction to follow the project and keep updated with it’s progress.

I open every email. Immediately.

This creates a huge raving fan base for the product, BEFORE it’s even been created! Similarly, if I’d pledged for the park bench then I’d definitely be keeping updated and I’d be racing down to the park to see it as soon as I heard that it was finished!

How you can use similar strategies yourself

I’m sure you can see from my experience and the logic that this is very very powerful.

But short of posting a project on Kickstarter, how can you increase engagement with your audience and ultimately create a tribe of passionate followers?

Here’s some things that you can do:

• Encourage interaction with blog comments by asking for them at the bottom of each post. Have you noticed how I always do this (see below)? It gives you feedback on what people like and don’t like plus it creates a situation where readers can talk amongst themselves boosting the sense of community.

• Create a Facebook Group. I did this for a product I released a while back. Get your visitors/subscribers/customers engaged in a community

• Run a survey. Here are the results of one of mine and how you can set one up yourself for free.

• Ask existing customers for product enhancement suggestions. I did this recently with SpyBar and received over 350 suggestions on how the product could be improved! I simply spent 2 hours compiling these, sent them to my developer and then issued a free upgrade. Again, people feel more engaged because they are involved in creating the product they are using.

Keeping these ideas in mind can really separate you from the faceless companies and gurus in your marketplace. Plus it makes your life easier as you know exactly what free content and products to serve up to your audience.

A no brainer? What other ideas do you have for creating a tribe? Have any blasts of nostalgia given you similar thoughts? Would love to hear what you think below and please LIKE/TWEET if you enjoyed this. Cheers, Rob

A really important thing to do in your business AND life is to test.

When it comes to building your web-business usually people think of split testing.

If you don’t know, split testing works like this:

1. Set up a web page (say a squeeze page which asks for an email address in return for delivery of a free report)

2. Duplicate that web page and make a small change. For example, try a different headline or the image.

3. Send traffic from any source you like (here are ones that I use). The traffic must be “split” – hence the name of this process – between the two pages.

4. See which page converts the best (e.g., which page produced the most sign ups?)

5. Get rid of the worst converting page, keep the other one, produce a new variation of it and repeat this process from step 3.

The steps above are called “AB Split Testing” as you are testing two version of the same page; version A and version B.

Now, split testing is something that people talk about a lot but most are guilty of not really doing it enough. And this includes me!

However, it’s EXTREMELY powerful. Quite often you can double your conversions on a particular page which, other things being equal, means a doubling of your profit.

When you consider that it really doesn’t take a lot of work to do this (see below for the tools I use) then you’ll see why I highly recommend you start testing if you are not already.

Even better, split testing is a lot of FUN!

Split Testing Examples

1. Squeeze Page Split Test 

Here’s an example which you might have seen from me a short time ago.

I sent an email to my IM lists to see if people were interested in being coached by me on a 1-on-1 basis. Those people got sent to 1 of 2 pages:

Click The Image Above To Enlarge

You can see that I almost doubled my conversions, all from changing the background.

I’d like to point out here that the text on both pages is identical. Not only that but I was deliberately trying to filter the people who were serious by using the words “hard workers ONLY” and “will not be cheap”. But still, the background image had a huge effect.

Images have a massive effect on all of us in everyday life not just on the internet. So if you aren’t sure what to test to begin with then I would suggest changing your images.

Let’s look at another example…

2. Facebook Ad Split Test

Here’s another little example for another niche I’ve been testing in:

Here I’m using Facebook ads to drive the traffic. When you create a Facebook ad you can choose the text and the image to use.

Again, you’ll see the text is identical only the image is different. But look at the difference in click through rates: 0.17% for the one on the left and 0.323% for the winner on the right. Generally speaking, a click through rate of 0.3% or better is consider very good in Facebook advertising.

But the main point here is that this again is almost a doubling in conversions!

Also, with FB ads testing is crucial because the higher the click through rate, the lower the cost per click. So not only do you get more traffic but that traffic is cheaper as well.

In fact in the example above I paid on average $0.31 per visitor for the ad on the left compared with only $0.13 per click for the ad on the right. A MASSIVE difference!

You never know until you test.

Split Testing Software

You might be wondering how to actually set up your test. Well you need some software.

• In Facebook you can duplicate ads with a single click and then FB will test automatically.

• To test pages in the amazing OptimizePress (my affiliate link – I really can’t recommend this software enough!) you can use the Google Website Optimizer which is free.

• I use Hybrid Connect (my affiliate link) to test the optins on this blog (you will notice different forms at the bottom of posts, sidebars etc) and another niche site I have set up. Like OptimizePress, it’s amazing value for money.

• In Aweber (my affiliate link) you have built in functionality for testing email subject lines and body test

There are a lot more services out there but this is more than enough to get started.

Finally, A Cool Resource For You…

If you would like to learn more about testing and get some really great ideas then check out WhichTestWon.

You can sign up for free and you’ll get a weekly email with some real life split tests that have been run along with their results. I’m not affiliated to them in any way, I just always look forward to receiving their emails so I thought I’d share this with you.

What do you think about split testing? Please Like/Tweet if you enjoyed this and I’ll respond to your comments below… :-)

One of the key benefits of having your own online business is supposed to be location independence.

In the extreme it’s the notion of sitting on the beach and having an “F5 refresh” party watching the money rolling into your bank account.

Of course, this is far from reality:

1. Most web business owners either work from home (as I have done since late 2010) or have their own office that they work from.

2. In order to sit back and watch the money roll in, you’ve got to put in a lot of time and effort first (funny how some people forget this isn’t it?!)

Now, this said, during my time online I have run my business from remote locations. I’ve sat in hotel bars and reception areas with my laptop and a coffee making quite a bit of money in locations including New York, Miami, Amsterdam, Barcelona and Montpellier.

However, I could only do that because I’d put the work in first before I jetted off!

In general though, for 90%+ of the time I work from my home office here in London. I like it here, my commute is around 10 seconds and I know that I can work whatever hours I choose.

Having said this, towards the end of last year I did start thinking that I am somewhat tied to my desk not least because all my files are on my main desktop computer.

This meant that if I went away working can become a little tricky: I forgot to bring that file I need, I didn’t remember the password for this site, where are my notes that I made last week?

Small stuff, but if you’ve ever tried it you’ll know it can REALLY slow you down!

Moving To The Cloud

“The Cloud” means all the computing resources you need being stored remotely on other computers and delivered over the internet.

For example, instead of storing a written article in Word on your computer’s desktop, with cloud computing you might store that article in Google Drive which means you can access it anywhere in the World (as long as you have internet access of course!).

So this is what I’ve been transitioning to over the last 2-3 months.

Here’s my basic set up:

1. Dropbox
This is a brilliant service which is also free.

When you install Dropbox you get an extra folder on your computer. Any files you put into that folder are stored locally on your computer but also copied to the Cloud.

At a very simple level this means I can put a file into my dropbox folder and then access it if I’m downstairs on my laptop watching TV or away for the weekend in a hotel.

I now store all my niche research, product development files and my TODO list. The last of these is really important on a day to day basis because wherever I am I can open my TODO list, which I keep as a simple text file, and carry on working through my tasks exactly where I left off.

2. LastPass
I LOVE this!

It’s a free piece of software that remembers all of your passwords (I have dozens). I won’t say too much more about this as we looked at it in this previous post, other than to say if you aren’t using it you are missing out in a big way!

3. Google Drive
Personally, prefer Dropbox to Google Drive but it’s still well worth investigating. It works in a similar way and I still use it a little bit, specifically for running surveys as I demonstrated here.

4. Amazon S3
I use this for storing my product and marketing files. So when someone plays a video it’s streamed quickly and efficiently direct from my S3 account.

It’s also incredibly cheap – I think the biggest bill I ever got way around $40 for a month and that was during a product launch where thousands of people streamed my videos. GHG members can see exactly how it works in this session.

So Go On, Start Moving To The Cloud!

These are the tools I use and of course there are literally hundreds of others.

But the main point I wanted to get across is that it’s a great idea for you to move to the Cloud. You don’t have to do it all at once. To start with just get going with LastPass, then start using DropBox and so on. The more you do it the more you’ll get addicted, it really is such a time saver!

Agree/Disagree? Do you use any other tools which others might find useful? Please like/tweet and drop your thoughts below

When I started out online in 2010 I was told to:

1. Find a profitable niche
2. Set up a blog
3. Place affiliate banners on the sidebar of the blog to earn money

This method is flawed and if you follow it you’re unlikely to make any money at all (read on to find out why).

Despite this I still see marketers teaching this and many more newcomers following it.

I can understand why because it seems like a reasonable plan at first sight. Surely a proportion of your visitors will click on the banners and buy the product that the banner is being linked to?

Well, if you have TONS of traffic, yes, you can make sales in this way.

But let’s look at the math (or maths depending on where you live in the World ):

According to Wikipedia, “In most cases, a 2% click-through rate [for a banner ad] would be considered very successful”.

This means that if 100 people visit your site then 2 people will click on your banner and go through to look at the product which is being advertised on its sales page. 

Actually, in my experience the average rate is less than that but let’s be generous here and use the 2% that Wikipedia suggests.

Next, let’s assume that the sales page which the banner links to converts at 5%. The online average is probably closer to 1% but again, let’s be generous.

This means that for 100 people clicking on the banner on your site, you’ll make 5 sales.

So in this example you need 1,000 visitors to your site to make a sale:

1,000 visitors > 2% or 20 people click on banner > 5% or 1 person buys the product

So to make 1 sale per day, you need 1,000 visitors to your site! And remember, we’ve been generous here with the numbers!

This is a huge amount of work for very little reward.

The Main Point

The point here is not that you shouldn’t use banners. By all means put them on your site (I do). But rather, don’t have this as your main strategy as I hope you can see from the example above that you need an awful lot of traffic to make any sales at all.

Far move effective way to make sales is to promote the affiliate product not using banners but by using email marketing.

For example, most of my emails average 15% click through rate. So if you have 1,000 people on your list then you can send an email and get 150 (15% of 1,000) to the sales page and make 7 sales (5% of 150).

So, what would you rather:

1) A list of 1,000 so you can send 1 email and make 7 sales
2) Have a blog with a banner on it that requires you to get 1,000 visitors to make 1 sale

Personally, I’d go for the first option every time (and this is exactly what I do).

Whatever way you look at it, email marketing is the place to start. So before you worry about putting banners on your blog make sure you have an optin form on there to get new subscribers.

Also, you should have a separate squeeze page and drive traffic directly to that. From there you can mail your list to promote an affiliate product. You’ll make a LOT more money doing this and whether people purchase or not, they’ll still be on your list for another day when you can repeat the process!

Agree, disagree? Please click Share/Like/Tweet if so and I’d love to hear your thoughts below…