It seems even more true than ever before given that search engines have made major adjustments to their algorithms to favor content-rich, authority sites at the expense of "thin", commercially focused pages such as squeeze pages, landing pages or other thin mini-sites. 

But wait a minute, some things really don't add up…

1. Didn't massive content sites like EzineArticles get hit as hard (or harder) than thin, spammy sites in the latest Panda updates last year?
2. Aren't people buckling under the sheer amount of content that is available to them online to the point where they are ignoring most of it?
3. Isn't it rue that there is more content produced in 48-hours currently than was produced until 2003? 
4. Aren't we ignoring most email to the point where email open rates are brutal? 

So there is a disconnect here…and what we are really hitting is a wall where the quantity and type of content matters more than ever before.

Are You Ready For The Next Marketing Revolution?

We are hitting a revolution that will have huge implications on marketing, I have tried to summarize them into 3 main actionable trends:

1. Content aggregation around urgent questions/demands is becoming hugely valuable. 

Google's Panda update struck a balance between penalizing massive unrelated content farms, dismissing thin niche sites that were motivated only on commercialization at the expensive of quality while elevating relevant, useful content. 

Perhaps the biggest trend we are seeing emerge around valuable content aggregation is the growth of the InfoGraphic.  What's an infographic?  Take a look at this blog post from Jeff Bullas, you'll see how he uses InfoGrpahics to clearly aggregate useful content into a graphic that can easily be read with ease. 

How else can we aggregate content – how about succinct 3-5 minute video updates that clearly summarize facts or answers to urgent questions?

A slide-show placed on Slideshare that provides a summary of useful information in 3-5 slides?

Can you think of other ways to help aggregate, simplify and at the same time, be relevant and interesting with content?

Do yourself a favor, become good at presenting aggregate information and you will do well over the next few years. 

2. Hitting It Big By Going Small Town.

When you have so many options overwhelming you, who do you look for to help?  Your network of course.  Unlike ever before our decision on what information to read, what opnions will influence us and what products we buy are coming from our social networks…that means you not only must participate in social networks such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumlr…but you must learn to become a relevant, interesting and effective social networker…a new skill that our grandparents may know more about than we do. 

3. Deeper Before Wider

 It is my firm belief that becoming an authority, expert or influencer in one or two key areas is far more valuable in a world that is fraught with information overload rather than going "thin" and wide.  In other words, I would be spending more time building out authority sites around a niche market you rae passionate about where you build blogs, forums, video channels, webinars, products, online training, etc…rather than building dozens and dozens of "thin", tactical sites.   These "thin" sites may show some early promise, but the trend toward content saturization dictates they will not remain relevant over time. 

Each of these trends has dramatic, lasting impacts to business and marketing…will you be on the leading-edge or trailing edge of these trends?

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I've always had the entrepreneurial bug so being reliant on a job for any of these things has seemed suicidal – but I do recognize the fact that there are only a subset of us that feel this way.

But today, in an environment that is FILLED with uncertainty, where desparation is the norm and where the very concept of business and corporate America is largely crumbling under massive forces of change, what is being reliant on our job like these days?

What is the impact on your health?

How about what it is doing to your quality of life?

How "free" is your mind when you get time off? 

Can you really count on taking that next vacation 6-months from now? 

Will you have to move somewhere you don't really want to go just to find a decent job in the future?

This is the turmoil nearly everyone around me is going through right now…so suddenly being reliant on JUST your job is NOT the norm any longer is it?

YOUR EXPERTISE IS THE NEW CURRENCY

Look, what you know and how you apply that to bring value to other people is the new currency, the new security that has taken the place of a job.

Think about it…

If you know how to help people feel better, look better, achieve what they want you will find opportunties all around you — your biggest challenge will be how to pick the biggest when they all look so sweet.

If you want a top job, you can get it because they see you as an expert in high demand.

If you want to start your own business, you can do that because everyone wants what you have to offer.

If you want to organize an automated business and run it from the sidelines, you can do that because you know how to match the desires of your market with those who do badly want a job. 

In a word, you are in control when you become an expert in your field.

Over at InfoMarketer'sZone we help turn people's passion, skills, knowledge and research into information that brands them an EXPERT - in doing so they find themselves involved in a brand new career that is highly financially rewarding, secure because they can go wherever they want and fulfilling because it is aligned with what they really want to do. 

If you feeling uneasy about being stuck in the OLD economy, then start the transition now….learn to brand yourself and expert and control your own currency as we move into 2o12.

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The challenge though is knowing the exact steps required to properly find, analyze, evaluate and select a winning niche market as well as a niche focus or niche topic that will attract traffic and profit your way. 

Over the last 5-years we have expanded our initial online niche market targeting writers and infoproduct publishers into 4 additional niche markets, dominating each one with a variety of products and services that feed us continual profits.

Not one of the these niche markets failed to bring in substantial profits through our various sites…so how did we find niche markets that worked for our online business?

SYSTEM FOR FINDING  NICHE MARKETS THAT PRODUCE PROFITS

After ucnovering and operating multiple online busineses in 4 niches (and counting) – our process looks like this:

1. We start with a topic related to an interest, experience or passion we have (my first two sites leveraged my own interests, next two were done with partners around their interests).  Ideally you start with 6-8 potential niches (music, gaming, personal battle with weight loss, anxiety, stress, relationship challenges you have overcome, etc…)

2. You want to then narrow that list to one (to start with) by looking at a combination of search demand, competition and commercial potential

 - Search demand simply means keyword research and making sure that you find enough keywords to provide several thousand (at least) searches each month
 - Competition – here you look at sites ranked in the top 10 for your keywords, now this gets a little technical, but you want to look at age of domain, keyword targeting, size of site, etc…to see if you can break into the top listings
 - Want to know your options for monetization, are others spending money on ads (if they are, chances are they are making money), what are they selling?  What commissions can you earn or price can you set for your own product? 

By far, this is the most important, most technical and tricky part of the process of finding and evaluating niche markets – we go through detailed training on the steps, tools and techniques you can use to master this step inside InfoMarketer'sZone.

3. Build a site (I prefer blogs) structuring them around content and monetization – generate your content, do some basic backlinking and watch your profits grow.

Steps 1 and 2 must be done correctly in order to pick a niche market and niche topic that is automatically appealing to your site visitors while step #3 demands daily, consistent action. 

When combined, these 3 steps form that basis for 6 and 7-figure online business empires. Following this process means you are setting the best foundation for continual, unlimited, upward growth in profits over the coming months.

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The answer is you DAMNED WELL BETTER!  

In fact, you should be going out of your way to get your market to ASK you more questions – even though on the face of it, that may seem rather suicidal when you barely have enough time to run your business as it is. 

But remember, questions are the way your market get to know you, trust you and help share your passion and mission with the world. 

Not only should you send them an email response, you may consider other ways to make SURE they know how good you really are for them…making it so they MUST come back to you and buy from you in the future. 

I've even jumped on Skype or on the phone with them, produced a quick tutorial video for them or, on occasion, made a tweak to their site or software for them. 

Your subscribers and visitors are the FOUNDATION of your business - especially in today's day and age of social networking.

I've had people on my list that still communicate regularly after 10-years!

I had someone send me an unsubscribe a couple of weeks back apologizing that they were leaving my list because they have moved on to another job and have sold their online business (for a nice profit I may add!). 

They felt as though they were somehow letting me down by leaving my list…go figure!

Here are some business reasons why you want to respond to 100% of your subscriber, non-customer questions:

• Reciprocity - once you have given them your valuable time and knowledge, they will feel compelled to reciprocate (this can mean buying something or simply being a champion for you)
• Trust and Credibility – I can't tell you how many times I've had a customer buy minutes after receiving a response to their question, they were (sometimes without knowing it) testing to see if our business was trustworthy and credible
• Re-use content.  Here's a little secret I have rarely told anyone outside of my InfoMarketer'sZone members – most of our new products are put together by simply answering user questions…we compile those questions and answers in different ways, but after a month or two of responding to subscribers, we have the foundation for a new proudct that we can sell to tens of thousands of others…pretty cool!
• Word-of-Mouth.  The entire basis of marketing is changing from invisible push to highly visible pull…rather than blasting an ad from a virtually invisible company, your customers now buy based on visibility and word-of-mouth.  Who do you suppose will be the champions that will give you the word-of-mouth boost you need to have to lead in this new internet marketing world? 
• You learn with each question your market asks.  The old addage that until you can teach someone else to do what you know, your information is useless really is true.  By making sure you help your subscribers and emailers, you are refining your products, messaging and positioning at the same time.  The result is MUCH higher profits in your pocket. 

Aside from the business reasons to answer your non-customer emails, I am a huge believer in being passionate and being fulfilled by the products and services you market.

By helping every person that comes your way, you feed that passion and motivation to do even more – the return shows on your monthly order reports. 

Finally,all of this is not to say you can't promote paid products and services – we certainly do that as well.

In the process of answering questions or providing help to our subscribers, we use the following test…

If a paid tool or service is likely to help a prospect realize at least 3X more revenue than the cost of that product or service is to them, then it makes sense to share that with them…even urging them to adopt the recommended resource. 

So yes, make sure you spend time answering 100% of your market's questions…you will get payback many times larger than the time/effort you put in down the road.

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Internet businesses are popping up everyday, but very few go on to lead their market…that's because MOST of them are followers. 

Being ahead of the crowd guarantees that the crowd will follow you.

Instead of always being one step behind, you can be one step in front…and for that you get the wicked benefits of:

• Massive free publicity – your market seeks YOU out instead of the other way around
• Huge "benefit of the doubt" thinking breaks down barriers between you and your market
• Premium perception – you are automatically awarded premium status within your marketplace

How do you pull into the lead?

Simple…be better than anyone else at taking action in the trenches. 

To see the top of the mountain faster you need to be climbing, not watching from the bottom.

So, the real power in business (as it is in life) comes from taking action, paying attention, adjusting your course and continuing to take action. 

When I work with people over at Information Product Creator to develop their own information books, ebooks, reports, courses, etc… we quickly identify the market and goal then push straight into a 6-week action plan that is designed specifically to catapult them toward the top of their market…no theory, no touchy feely crap…just execution of an action plan that works. 

You will learn more about your market, your customers,  money making opportunities and how to reach the top in a few weeks of action than you will in years of "researching" or "thinking about" a business. 

So today's concept is ACTION!

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• Keeping search engines from indexing your Thank You page
• Making your thank you page hard to find
• Allowing a script or program to only allow access to the download links on your thank you page to specific customers
• Not including download links on your thank you page at all…instead sending them out of band

Here are 4 ways we have used to secure our thank you pages in the past.

1. Avoid including direct download links on your thank you page…in this case your buyer is forwarded to a Thank You page that simply  acknowledges the order and tells them of the next steps.  How do you get them the download instructions then?

a) The simplest way is to link your autoresponder to your order entry cart (1ShoppingCart allows this for example) where an automated message gets sent to customers once the order is processed informing them of the location and username/password for downloading your files.  This does depend on you setting up a username and password through your webhost control panel for the directory where your files are stored.  While not the most secure (as there is only one username/pswd for the directory at a time which all customers use), this is a good method for most digital infoproducts.

b) A more secure method is to use a method where each customer gets their own unique, time limited, obscured link to the downloads – using the 1ShoppingCart digital download protection function or a product like DLGuard (which will work with Clickbank and Paypal) will serve this purpose in a highly effective and automated way

2.  Include Meta Tags on your Thank You page (html) that tell the search engines you don't want that page indexed…
[code]<meta name="ROBOTS" content="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW">[/code\] While this is not foolproof since some search engines have a spotty record of paying attention to the NOINDEX, NOFOLLOW attributes, it will lessen the chances of your Thank You pages being found through search

3. Use hard-to-guess names for your Thank You page. Many people name their Thank you page using obvious page names such as http://www.yourdomain.com/thankyou.html or http://www.yourdomain.com/download.html  - these can be easily guessed, so instead using something like http://www.yourdomain.com/xrty-382.html  where the chances of guessing your Thank You page are virtually null

4. Change your thank you page name frequently - say once each week will keep people from telling others about your download page and will make it harder for someone to find you on a frequent basis.

When you get started you may want to begin with options 2-4, but eventually you will want to move to either option 1a or 1b. If you have the small investment for using 1ShoppingCart that would be my first choice since they also give you a built in autoresponder, ad-tracking module, affiliate management as well as a very full-feature shoppingcart...DLGuard would be another option if you were not ready to move to 1ShoppingCart yet

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There are 3 main reasons for this…

1. Many are buried deep in continuing to improve and grow their business, they just don't have time to be telling others about it…it is not their focus and laser focus is what has helped them get as far as they have so quickly
2. They often make their Million in a market OTHER than internet marketing – relationships, weight loss, health, a hobby, pet training, financial planning, golf, you name it…but their main focus is not helping others to do the same – at least not initially
3. They don't share everything they know for very little…after all, what they have figured out is worth Millions, so why give it away? 

Yet there have been a few cases of highly successful internet marketers sharing their results and how they achieved them.

Here are two nice examples:

1. 2KnowMyself.com- as posted at Problogger (a guest post) shared his tips on hitting a million dollars online which include:

• Warming up cold traffic before selling
• Being different
• Developing your own products (you will see a trend here, over and over again the big money earners online have their own info products even though they may have started some other way…see InfoMarketer'sZone to make that part of your own online business)
• Taking time to build your business right
• Remove negativity

To this list I would add…know your market and treat them well, but clearly the biggest point shared here is to create your own information products (ebooks, books, reports, etc…)

What is interesting about the offerings from this author is his use of limited monthly recurring programs – for example, he offers a course on gaining self-confidence that sells for 5 equal monthly payments of $19 (a nice way of selling a $100 high-end product without scaring people with sticker shock) while other products he sells go for $30 or less. 

2. The second example is Problogger himself Darren Rowse who made it big with his Problogger community as well as a photography blog. 

In his January income update, Darren outlines a healthy mix of Adsense, affiliate marketing, ebook sales and direct ad revenue – of particular note is his ebook income which really has been growing over the last year…a new line of income from a few months of packaging his best material from the blog. 

Pick a market, focus on building a platform with content and sell them things they want making sure to mix your own products in maximize revenue and profit – that is the formula to make a Million online.

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So, here are a few questions that often get people stuck when they get started online — (If you have others, leave a comment and we can build this into an amazing resource for information product professionals)

1. What do I use to write and publish my ebook or written info product.  If you already have it, then use MS Word to develop your ebook, report or infoproduct.  We have some great looking templates to use that will give your MS Word ebook that professional look inside InfoMarketer'sZone, but you can do it yourself as well.  Another alternative is Open Office – a terrific, free Wordprocessing program that also has a built-in ability to generate PDF published versions of your ebook.  Ultimately, that's what you want to have – a PDF version of your ebook to distribute online.

2. What do I use to create my website?  It used to be that I would always say HTML is still the best and that you use a simple editor like CoffeeCup to create your webpages – and you still can do that, I do it all the time.  But today, you have other options such as using Wordpress (free blogging software from Wordpress.org) where you can use some of the more advanced templates out there to create your own sales pages as well as the typical blog look you have as part of your Wordpress install.    Today, I would not hesitate to go Wordpress all the way – for static pages (like your sales pages and articles) as well as dynamic posts (typical of daily blog posts). 

NOTE:  If you get your webhosting from a C-panel host such as the one we recommend at Hostgator, they will include a quick install that automates the process of intalling and configuring Wordpress blog on your web domain. 

3. What do I use to take payments, provide an order page, handle all transactions (returns, sales, etc…) and allow me to manage my own affiliate program?

Ejunkie with Paypal is certainly one easy way to take payment and operate an affiliate program

Clickbank is another – which does pretty much the same thing, costing you a little more in fees/commissions but also opening to a wider potential Marketplace of affiliates

You can also go with a more robust option that gives you everything from a front-end shoppping cart, ad trackers, integrated autoresponder, affiliate management and more that works with Paypal or other payment processors – we like 1ShoppingCart for this sort of application. 

4. How do I build a list, setup automated autorresponder follow-ups , send out newsletters and broadcast new announcements to my list?  list building is one of the best ways to increase your profits – many marketers earn a full-time living from a few thousand, high-response subscribers to their lists.  The foundation of your list including the up-front sign-up forms, ongoing autoresponse messages, newsletter templates and broadcasts, list management and integration with social networking sites is your Autoresponder Service.  Pretty much the unanimous choice is Aweber - we have used them for nearly a decade with great success and satisfaction.

5. Where do I get professoinal looking graphics for my ebook covers, ebook title pages, webpage banners, blog banners, logo's and the like…?

Regarding professional graphics – I ALWAYS get them outsourced.

There is a great source of royalty free images online here where you can often get some great pictures and graphics to add to your info products and/or websites.

Otherwise, for $50-$100 you can get great looking graphics developed by professionals on outsource sites such as  elance, or vworker.com

6. What is a squeeze page and how do I create one of those?  Squeeze pages can be done in Wordpress or HTML – there are many, many templates available for each or you can more or less copy the design (not content or graphics) from pages that you want to emulate. Simple, strong message and above the fold are the keys to a successful squeeze page

Here is an example of a squeeze page targeting ebook writers we have that converts extremely well.

Yes, this all seems like a ton of learning and can be overwhelming, but really you are learning skills and tools that can build you a high-income online information product marketing business – once you know this stuff, you can duplicate it again and again in minutes – well worth the effort for sure.

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High Profit Internet Business

Is there anything more discouraging than putting hours and hours of effort into your online business only to see it creep along like a snail?

Or maybe you have experienced the quick burst of growth followed by a dip down – a cyclical effect that sees your internet business profits taking one step forward and then two steps back? I call this the "tease and please" cycle, at first it teases you with profits and then leaves you pleading please to help rescue your dying profit the next month.

Like A History Lesson, But More Fun…

I remember when I started online back over 10-years ago I did some things extremely well (like recruiting partners and affiliates and creating a product that was super strong), but other things I did very poorly like generating content, understanding the value of keywords, staying consistent, engaging more with my market, and list building.

So yes, I quickly turned up a 4-figure per month profit, but getting to 5-figures took far longer than it should have.

I know many other online entrepreneurs are in the same boat – they are either stuck at a few hundred dollars or low 4-figure income wondering what it takes to be more consistent and continue to grow their online profits toward the next level.

The Secret To A High Performance Internet Business

For the high performance engine to run, many factors come into play…a clean air filter, high quality fuel, perfect timing, good design, etc…

The same thing goes for your internet business…for most people their online business never fires on more than 1 or 2 cylinders, they never get to experience a high performance business machine in action.

This is what Mike Cliffe-Jones over at one of my favorite blogs "Mike's Life" is getting at with his post "How I Managed To Leave A Full Time Income On the Table This Year"

Not many marketers would share their mistakes with you, after all as entrepreneurs we are all pretty ego driven creatures that rarely admit our mistakes even though we are more likely than anyone to make them…

Mike is spot on though when he mentions some factors that MUST be in place if you want your internet business firing on all cylinders:

• Effective list building technique
• Learning to get the attention and engage your market
• Developing products – a must for any internet entrepreneur and the focus of InfoMarketer'sZone
• Mixing high-value affiliate products to help provide value to your market and monetize your effort

Everyday I talk to new and long-term internet business people who still struggling to make a living online, and in 99% of the cases it can be traced back to absence of or inadequate methods such as the ones listed above.

So, make sure you read Mike's post, but most of all take a good look at your own business and ask yourself, "what pieces am I missing that would prevent me from having my own high profit, high performance internet business?"

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First, a quick clarification – when I talk about Internet Marketing business I tend to think in terms of a business first and marketing that business on the internet second.

In other words, any business must have a market, real people in that market with a desire to fulfill and a tendency to buy to fulfill that desire…then you ask the question – can I reach a all or a good portion of that market online…if the answer is YES, then you have the basis for a strong Internet Marketing business.

A good portion of our online blueprint, tools, templates, processes and techniques are updated weekly inside InfoMarketer'sZone for those that are looking for help growing their internet business.

The Awesome List of Internet Business Benefits!

1. Leverage: Earning more for the same or less effort is the holy grail of living.  Given that we spend the majority of our life trying to make ends meet, we all would like to find the secret to bringing in more cash without having to spend more time or energy doing it.  With the internet there are multiple points of leverage…

• Syndication – you produce content once that can be re-published over and over again through blog syndication, article syndication, press release syndication, video syndication…it is simple to not only leverage once piece of content across the same format, but to re-format that content for syndication across multiple formats makes marketing on the internet highly leveraged
• Information Marketing – the concept of researching and packaging information into a product that can be sold for months and years to come is perhaps the best form of leverage ever.  With this InfoProduct Profit Blueprint you can have a top selling ebook, home study course or online training program ready to roll in 45-days or less and then leverage that information over and over again as more and more people come looking for the answers your product provide
• Building Your Own Affiliate Program – When you own the rights to your own content or products, then you can massively leverage your effort by starting an affiliate program and attracting partners to share your products with their market through their website, blogs, videos and other content.  That way instead of 1 of you constantly marketing your product, you have an army of partners that already have solid relationships with your market recommending your product to their top subscribers and readers – now that is leverage
• Social networking - one of the newest forms of online leverage, by building relationships with your followers you build up a tremendous amount of leverage with your marketplace as you set the seed for word-of-mouth marketing…just as you share what you like with your friends offline, suddenly you can have a large community online doing the same

2. Low Start Up Costs – Blessing and A Curse: For sure, there are many cases of internet entrepreneurs starting their own online businesses for $800, $200 or even less…with a great idea, fearlessness, action oriented attitude and persistence anyone can succeed with very little start-up capital.  At the same time, for most people this ends up to be a curse.  If you don't have $10,000 or $50,000 of your own cash on the line, chances are you won't take that business as seriously as if you do.

The key then is to have the same drive, determination, care and dedication to your online business as you would if you had have just bought a $100,000 franchise – the difference being that YOU must drive yourself with the smaller initial investment

3. Scale, Reach and Unlimited Potential – As someone who has several successful products and web businesses operating, the piece that many people may not get (at least at first) is the incredible ease with which I can communicate and receive ongoing feedback from my market.

Before a customer buys one of our products, I have most likely already surveyed, polled, or communicated with him or her through some means…then when they buy, again there are automated follow-ups that take them through a series of questions and feedback solicitations which give us a near endless pipeline of ideas for new products or improvements we can make to existing products.

Customers too become more loyal when they get to engage with you…leading to more sales and more feedback.

Treat your market right online and you will have a business that automatically scales as big as you want it to grow.  The same principles apply offline, but executing is much tougher – online it is a cinch

There are many other benefits to building an internet business including the money (sweeeet!), the great people you get to interact with, control over your own time, energy and creativity and a platform that you can expand offline in many different ways (if you wish).

I'm sure I missed some…what appeals to you the most about starting and growing your own online business?

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