You see it everywhere online. The claims of easy work-at-home riches are all over the place. You see huge numbers being shouted, like it’s easy to make tens of thousands of dollars per month – if you just know the one secret that the guru of the moment is trying to sell you. For only $2000 you can have that secret. Then the dream life can be yours too.

But reality always shows up.

It’s not easy to make thousands per month. Or even hundreds.

If you’re like Ellery Bennett and you’ve given up your day job in pursuit of that dream, and you’ve gone deeply into debt chasing it, reality can be crushing.

Internet lawyer Mike Young posted Mr. Bennett’s tragic story on his blog. What began with a dream has ended in death, and a little girl that no longer has parents. Her mom is dead and her dad will be going to prison for a very long time. Between the dream and the tragedy was nearly $600,000 in debt and the pending loss of a marriage.

There are no magic beans out there. None of us should burn our bridges behind us in pursuit of an easy work-free fortune. It’s time to wake up and take control before it’s too late.

News links about this story:

• Man is charged in wife’s stabbing
• West Bloomfield stabbing suspect: Wife attacked first
• W. Bloomfield man charged with murder in wife’s death
• West Bloomfield Husband Ellery Bennett Charged With Murder

Damn that felt good!

I just spent about 30 minutes in my email account, clicking the UNSUBSCRIBE link to a bunch of “guru” newsletters. I intend to do more as they arrive.

I may keep getting a few, but only because I get some value from what they send. They’ll have to keep earning their way into my inbox as time goes on.

This has been coming for a long time but the final push was provided by the Salty Droid (warning- VERY adult language used on The Droid’s website). You’ll find most of the names of my unsubscribe victims in that article.

This has also given me the spark for a direction to take this site.

More to come…

Adsense
Google runs this ad serving programs that allows website owners to gain revenue by displaying ads on their websites. Google provides text, image and video advertisements that appear on participating websites. These ads appear based on the keywords and content present on the website.

Adsense has become one of the most popular methods to gain revenue from a website through advertising space. Adsense ads are less intrusive than traditional ads. Since the ads are picked based on the content of the website, the ads are also more relevant than traditional banners.

Web masters are paid when an Internet user clicks on an ad on their web page. Depending on the ad, the revenue may be a few cents up to a dollar per click. The ads used in Adsense are gathered from participants in Google’s Adwords advertising program.

Since web masters are paid regardless of whether anything is purchased at the advertiser’s site, it may be tempting for the web master to click on all of the ads on his or her site. However, Google watches for this type of activity, which is called “click fraud.” If a web page is showing signs of click fraud, a web master may lose their access to Google Adsense permanently.

Web masters can discreetly encourage clicks on their website by using three main techniques:

• They can use a wide range of traffic generating techniques to get more visits to their website.
• They can add valuable content to their site, to attract Adsense ads that pay higher per click.
• They use copy on their website to encourage visitors to click on the ads. Some of the most common phrases are “Sponsored Links” and “Advertisements.” It is against Google Adsense policy to post statements like “Please click on my Adsense links.”

Adwords
Google’s advertising product and main source of revenue. Adwords offers pay-per-click advertising for text and banner ads. When advertisers use Adwords to promote their product or service, their ads appear on any related website that is using Adsense.

Adwords advertisements are short, and consist of a title and two content lines. Advertisers pick keywords that relate to that their ad, and then bid on these keywords. They pay each time someone clicks on their ad. The advertisement will take the clicker to the merchant’s website.
Keywords cost more when they are more popular. If a lot of people are bidding on the word “internet marketing” the cost per click will be much higher. Depending on the keyword, a click may cost anywhere from $0.10 to several dollars.
Mastering the use of Google Adwords and effective pay-per-click campaign management is one of the keys to success in online business.

Affiliate
When you become an affiliate with a specific company, or affiliate program, you are awarded for every visitor, subscriber and/or customer that you provide to the company. Affiliate marketing is one of the most popular forms of business on the web, and an effective way to promote businesses and products.
The basic set up, from the affiliate’s side, goes as follows: You (the Affiliate) find a company or product that you would like to promote. You join the “affiliate program” of the company and receive the tools by which you can send customers to the company’s website. This most often includes a special URL link, which will let the company know that the customer has come from you. You will get credit when people visit the companies website. Details can vary, but in most cases you receive a percentage of the revenue from sales that customers make from following your link.

AIM
This is an anagram of AOL Instant Messenger. You do not actually have to use AOL as your Internet Service Provider in order to use AIM. The program is downloadable by any Internet user. AIM is available as a free download at www.aim.com.

Applet
A small program or application, which is usually written in Java, and runs on a Web browser. An applet powers some of the fancier features of Internet pages, such as animation. They download quickly and are used both online and offline.

Attachment
A file of group of files that is included with an e-mail message. You can attach files through most e-mail programs. To attach a file to an e-mail, simply click the “attach file” button (or similar button). This will open a menu that will allow you to browse through your computer to find the file or image that you’d like to attach. Never open any attachment you receive from someone your do not know: it may contain a harmful virus.

Autoresponders
Autoresponders are automatic e-mail response programs. They have become one of the most essential tools for Internet marketers, affiliate marketers and other who do a large amount of business on the web. The autoresponder program will send pre-entered e-mail messages instantly to people who request information from a website, newsletter or online merchant. One of the most common uses for autoresponders is to create a learning course to inform and educate potential customers about the benefits of a business or product. Autoresponders also allow Internet business people to effortlessly follow up with their clients from time to time.

Avatar
An icon that represents you on message boards, chat rooms, IM programs, 3-D chat rooms and virtual worlds. Your avatar can be whatever you want it to be. There are graphic elements, animals, cartoons and pictures used as avatars on the Internet.

I’ve been following the adventures of iCop vs the content pirate. jl Scott of iCop tells me that her website content has been removed from the other site.

In my previuos post I pretended to be suspicious of the timing of this – jl has just released a book about protecting your content from crooks called Beat Web Thieves at Their Own Game!. I was being my usual smartass self.

This sounds like the tricks used be some of the “gurus” when they launch a product. You’ve seen them too haven’t you?

• The “our server crashed” so we’re extending the deadline trick.
• The old “oops, I sent the wrong link” trick. This let’s them send you another email, but not appear to be spamming you. If they can’t get a link right, should they be teaching you to do Internet Marketing?
• The forced or at least well hidden continuity program.

So I wouldn’t be shocked if some of these guru types posted a fake website and then attacked it to make their product look better. But I’m not sure I was clear in the end about pointing out I’m sure jl scott didn’t rig this whole thing to make her book sell better.

After reading my post, she sent an update to her list. In it she mentioned this.

I should tell you – this didn’t just “happen” during my launch
of the new ebook.  The domain registration on that web site says
it was registered in May, 2010.  So, that copy has most likely
been there for nearly four months.

I DID just happen to find it as I was doing a search Monday
while using a method I had forgotten about when writing the
book.

I wasn’t expecting to actually FIND anything.  Guess I should
check more often than every six months!

I’ve seen her promote products for a long time. She’s always done it in a straight forward manner. She raises hell about deceptive practices in web marketing in her newsletters. She started a company to promote integrity in web business practices.

So, if in my attempt to be clever in a blog post I seemed to be accusing her of doing this type of underhanded marketing, I’m sorry. I wasn’t.

She doesn’t roll that way.

I’m not really sure this can even be real.

For years I’ve been reading the newsletter of jl scott, the Director of iCop. iCop is a members organization that promotes – make that demands – honest dealings in online business. If you join and follow their guidelines and rules, you can display the iCop seal on your site. This helps your site visitors feel more confidant and safe dealing with you.

Her newsletters are almost always interesting and thought provoking. She goes on a rant from time to time. I agree with her feelings about the need for integrity in any business, especially online business.

After years of following her, I think she’s a pretty good person and a straight shooter – but if we ever got into a discussion about politics – it could probably get ugly pretty quick.

jl has been pretty consistant down through the years in ranting about people stealing other’s intellectual property. She says it happens all the time. It seems a lot of people will lift a picture, or even some copy from another website, then post it as their own work. The real low-lifes just link to your pictures so they use your bandwidth to display them on their site.

So she’s just written a book about the problem, and how to protect yourself and how to deal with it if it happens.

Here’s the Unbelievable Part

jl just sent out an email. It seems she has become a victim of web piracy. And not just a picture was lifted. Not just a hot link to that picture so they’re using her server resources. They took the whole iCop site.

What kind of jackass would do that?

She gives these links to her site:

http://www.i-cop.org/index2.htm
http://www.i-cop.org/guidelines.htm

And then this one:

http://chamberofclergy.org

Now give them credit – they did change the header and add a background image (sarcasm intended). But they took her content word-for-word.

And this is supposed to be a church organization. Holy crap Batman!

So let’s get this straight… jl scott comes out with a book about protecting yourself from web piracy, and during the introductory period for the book some bozo steals her entire website?

Who has timing like that?

That’s just too good to be true isn’t it?

Shouldn’t that be making your scam alert radar start blasting, “Whoop! Whoop! Danger Will Robinson! Danger!”

Most of the time it would. But I don’t think so this time. I think this is just one of those Truth Is Stranger Than Fiction moments.

This Is Really Sweet

One of the best parts of all this.

This is really on there.

Down at the bottom of the page, in the footer, you’ll find this graphic about copyright infringement.  It links to a kind of cheesy Internet Law site warning about the evils of using other’s web property.

I’m not making this up.

I pretty much ignored jl’s book and her warnings, but maybe I’ll have to rethink that decision.

http://www.i-cop.org/thieves.htm

It’s a crazy world.

P.S. Note to the FCC, FTC, FDA, USDA and friends: There are no affiliate links in this post. Thank you for asking though.

I don’t watch much TV. Mostly football and basketball. And NCIS.

I really like NCIS, and I’m not alone, because it’s the top rated show on TV. And I’m sure I’m not alone when I tell you I love Abby on the show.

The USA network has NCIS marathons pretty often. They’ll have NCIS on all day on a Saturday or Sunday. They even had one NCIS marathon that featured Abby. Abby was even there between shows answering questions from viewers. That was a great day in entertainment history.

I had a different marathon yesterday. We were travelling last weekend, so the yard work didn’t get done. Weekends are about the only chance I get to do those chores. So I was playing catchup yesterday.

So I had a Sonia marathon.

Sonia is Sonia Simone of Copyblogger, Teaching Sells, and Remarkable Marketing Blueprint fame.

Remarkable Marketing Blueprint is a comprehensive training program for starting and running an online business. The lessons are delivered in MP3 audios. I have them all on my iPod.

So yesterday I had them playing one after the other – for hours. Total immersion.

I like doing this deep immersion way of learning. It helps clear the clutter. Brings things into focus. I also makes yard work more enjoyable.

So thanks for the company Sonia, and for the education.

Well week one of The Challenge is over. And I’m behind already.

In the past – in the days of The 30 Day Challenge – I would be hopelessly behind. My old slow Internet connection and the fast pace of the training didn’t allow catch-up. Things have changed for the better.

The Challenge has a new format of one week on, then one week off. Catch-up time.

We went on a vacation last week. I had high speed Internet in my hotel rooms – I won’t stay in a place without it. So I did download the lessons. But I never got to watch them. But now I can watch them without falling even more behind. I can watch them more than once if I need to.

This weekend I’ll be able to get my micro-niches worked out. I’ll be ready to hit the ground running when the training resumes on Monday.

I like this new format.

Thanks Ed.

Homework

I’ve been doing my homework for day 2 of The Challenge. Trying to find some interesting micro-niches.

They suggest using the Google search-based keyword tool to hunt for ideas. So I’ve looking through their list of suggestions.

I was looking through the pets category. The screenshot above is cats subcategory.

Wow Google, what are you thinking?

Weird Results

Keep in mind these are The Great Google’s suggestion for keywords for this path:
Pets > Pets By Breed > Cats

Adobe Illustrator
I have no idea how this one gets here. An expensive illustrator program from Adobe. Nothing to do with cats. I guess you could draw one with Illustrator.

Cat in the Hat
This is a Dr. Seuss Book. It was one of my youngest son’s favorite books. But it isn’t about pets.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
This is an old movie. Don’t think it was about pets or cats.

Hobie Cat and SeaCat
These are boat manufacturers. They have nothing to do with pets.

That Google sure is entertaining. 

Day 1

Today was day 1 of The Challenge. I’m going to blog about my thoughts here as things procede.

Today was about the differences in markets, niches and micro-niches. We learned  that we need to get down to the micro-niche level so we can really focus in and avoid some of the competition.

Drilling Down

Here is an example of this drill down process

Market: Dancing – this is a big and really popular market right now. Shows like Dancing With The Stars bring dancing into our TV rooms and have increased interest for all forms of dance. Dancing is much too broad for us to go after.

Niche: Belly Dancing – This narrows the market to a specific niche. A lot of people would stop right here and go after the belly dancing niche, but our task is to find a micro-niche.

Micro-Niche: Belly Dancing Costumes – This gets into a very tightly defined area.

More research would be needed to see if that would be a potentially profitable micr0-niche.

Doing The Research

In the pre-training leading up to the start of The Challenge, Ed Dale shared his concept of the “Symphony in Four Part”s that he showed last year. Those four parts are:

1. Research
2. Traffic
3. Conversion
4. Product

There was no real instruction on how to do the research yet. I’m sure that’s coming up in the next few days. Here are some niche selection and research ideas for you.

Do You Need to Love Your Niche?

There is a debate in Internet Marketing over whether it matters if you actually like the subject of your niche. Do you have to care about it or does it just need to offer a profit potential?

It would certainly be more fun to blog about a subject you care about. Do a personal Inventory.

• What have you done in the past?
• What are your hobbies?
• What have you learned?
• What jobs have you held?

Micheal Campbell offers his workbook called The Uncovery for free, no opt in required. It goes into a very detailed examination of your interests. Get it here.

So it would be nice if you could love your niche, but this is supposed to be a business, so it still needs to make money. After all being broke isn’t much fun. As was pointed out in the video, the keys to success are:

1. The Markets You Choose
2. The Keywords You Target

So how can you find niches that people spend money on?

Use Someone Else’s Research

Do you have millions to spend on market research? No? Would you like to use the research of companies that do spend millions on market research? You can do just that, and you don’t have to get out of your chair.

Amazon

If people spend money on a niche you will find books about it. Publishers don’t spend money putting out books with no commercial market.  Go to Amazon.com and look for your niche. Are there several books on the subject? Look at a few of the book pages. Are there reviews of the books? This is an indicator of passion for the market. While you’re there you might make note of the language used in the reviews. You might find some special language that will let you speak to your ideal customers. But that’s for later.

Amazon.com

Magazines

A market with a good profit potential will have magazines published about the subject. No magazines for you niche is a big warning sign. You can go to one of the really big book stores and browse the magazine racks or you can do this research online too.

Amazon.com/magazines

Magazines.com

Dummies Books

The popular For Dummies books are another good place to find niches that people spend money on. The huge number of categories and subcategories you’ll find there is amazing. Look for your niche at their website. If you find a Dummies book for your topic you can bet there are customers spending their cash in that niche.

Dummies.com

These are good places to do some quick market research. Read the table of contents for books you find – Amazon shows them online. You can often find micro-niches ideas in the chapter titles of the books.

Do you know more?

Perhaps you’ve heard of The Thirty Day Challenge?

I’ve joined the 30DC several times in last few years. But for one reason or another I’ve always fallen behind. I’ve had to deal with a VERY slow dialup connection. 30DC has been heavy on videos. Dialup and videos just don’t play well together. And sometimes life has just gotten in the way.

So today the The Challenge begins for 2010.

Did you notice the name change?

This program used to run over the month of August. It was fast paced. I didn’t keep up and it seems I had a lot of company. So Ed Dale, Dan Raine and crew have changed the format.

Now the info will be presented in smaller chunks, with time between the weekly burst of lessons. So the 30 day thing is out the window. Therefore, The Thirty Day Challenge is now just The Challenge (TC2010).

Play Along if You Like

TC2010 starts today. It’s free. It’s fun and interesting. Yes, you’ll probably be asked to sign up for a trial account to some tool they want you to use along the way. That trial period has been free in the past, probably will be again. When The Challenge ends you’ll probably be offered a chance to join The Immediate Edge, a paid training membership. You don’t have to join.

You can sign up for the free training here:

http://www.challenge.co/