John Dilbeck Musings

The more I participate at Squidoo.com by building lenses and adding those lenses to groups, the more I see pages on Squidoo referenced in my traffic stats on various sites I have.

What?

I mean that Squidoo is sending an ever-increasing stream of traffic to my sites, blogs, and forums.

Thinking about that, I took a little time this morning to create a new Get A Free Marketing Site lens on Squidoo.

Then, I found several related groups and submitted my new lens to them.

This morning, my lens is ranked at over 180,000. I’m guessing it will jump to about 30,000 or less in the next 24 hours. Then, who knows where it will end up.

To make it a bit more interesting, I added a Plexo module where you can vote for your favorite marketing book on the lens, and I added an RSS feed for marketing articles from 21st Century Articles, my article directory specializing in business, communications, technology, and self-improvement articles.

If you don’t see your favorite marketing book on the list, please feel free to add it.

I have been getting tens of thousands of page views to my Get A Free Marketing Site suite of marketing tools at LinkScout, and I know it has been worth the time and effort - and money - I’ve invested in it.

Therefore, I feel confident in recommending it to you, too.

Act on your dream!

JD

PS. I also recommend that you start building as many Squidoo lenses as you need to promote your business, talk about your hobby, or write about anything in which you are interested. It’s free, and you may well get paid by Squidoo. I earn a small check from them every month, and that’s a lot better than buying advertising, in my opinion.

If you have a blog on just about any topic, you should create a related lens at Squidoo, and don’t forget to use the RSS module to syndicate your blog feed.

It brings me more visitors, and I’m sure it will work for you, too.

Nancy Williams, a resident of Graham County, North Carolina, announces the publication of her new book, A Matter of Destiny. If you are interested in a fast-paced story that combines UFOs, aliens, government conspiracies, and political intrigue, this book may be right for you.

Her background in the US Air Force and knowledge of ham radios, combined with an actual incident that occurred in Brookhaven, NY in 1992, make the fictional story more realistic and exciting.

The sequel, Agenda 21 Conspiracy, will feature a plot set in Andrews, Murphy, and the Nantahala Gorge in western North Carolina.

A Matter of Destiny is available in Murphy, NC, at the Curiosity Bookstore in Shoppes of Murphy on Valley River Avenue; in Fontana Village at Ditmore Drugs; in Robbinsville at The Graham Star; in Hayesville at Lloyd Bookstore; and in Waynesville at Osundu’s.

You can order the book from her website at www.NLWilliamsWriter.com.

To order offline, mail a check for $15.95 ($12.95 and $3.00 shipping) to: N. L. Williams, P. O. Box 1477, Robbinsville, NC 28771.

Nancy Williams will be making a number of personal appearances over the coming months. Don’t miss the chance to get an autographed copy.

Brad Fallon, CEO, has recently introduced Free IQ, an interesting new website that brings content providers, purchasers, and affiliates together.

Free IQ looks to me like it combines some of the features of several sites that are doing well: Squidoo, Lulu, CafePress, and a few others.

Like Squidoo, Free IQ asserts that most people are an expert in something, and then provides a platform for you to express your expertise.

Lulu.com offers a place to sell your ebooks and also offers extra features for print on demand real books as well as help in marketing your real bound books in bookstores and online retailers.

CafePress provides services for selling your CDs and printed ebooks.

Free IQ offers some of these services, but in a totally different way. They do not offer print on demand services. They don’t offer an unlimited number of one-page lenses as Squidoo does, but they do offer multiple categories on your publisher’s page.

Here’s a brief introduction from the Free IQ “Learn More” page:

We believe everyone knows something that’s valuable to someone else.

And some people know things that are very valuable to many other people.

So who decides whose ideas are more valuable?

The answer, of course, is everyone! We all do. This is the “Marketplace for Ideas,” where the best knowledge, ideas and information rise to the top. At Free IQ, the best content appears at the top of every search, based on actual reviews.

In a nutshell, we base our search result rankings on the feedback and reviews by people all around the world. (In fact, Free IQ has more than one patent pending based on the way in which the very best ideas rise to the top of our search results.)

Do you have knowledge and ideas to share?

Are those ideas presentable in a video or audio format? How about an e-book or an article?

Whatever your choice of media (video, audio, or print), Free IQ is the place to offer (present?) your knowledge to the world. And we’ll host your materials and stream them - for free!

This is why, when you want to learn more about almost anything, Free IQ is the ideal place to learn from the world’s best experts - for free.

We believe that internet video offers the best way to learn what you want, when you want - and the best thing is, it’s Free!

Go ahead and try it. Search for any topic you’re interested in learning more about - from business management to marketing to software to your favorite hobby - and see all the experts and authors and speakers on that subject.

Our patent pending search algorithm causes the best information to appear at the top, based on the reviews of the free information by other people interested in that same topic. In fact, other Free IQ users all over the world screen all the available information for you, so when you want to know something, the best video and audio presentations come out on top.

Now that’s a Marketplace for Ideas!

You can read more on their site by clicking the “Learn More” link at the top of the page.

If you have information you want to share with others, you can upload your ebook, video, teleseminar, audio, or other presentation to Free IQ and make it instantly available to others.

Now, I’m brand new to this site, but I already see a problem developing.

Many people have uploaded some of the free ebooks that Ken Evoy wrote. Yes, as affiliates, they have the right to upload copies of Make Your Site Sell! or the Affiliate Masters Course.

However, this will clog the system with duplicate content, the only difference being whose affiliate links are branded in the copy that’s being distributed.

Free IQ claims that their review system will bring the best content to the top of the page, so why do we see the exact same ebooks spread throughout the page? I’m not saying the best content won’t bubble to the top over time, I just see this as one way the system will be clogged with duplicate content.

I think it would be better for a Five Pillar affiliate to write a report of his/her own and recommend good resources for people who want to become an affiliate master or sell from their sites. Then, it would be easy to reference the resources you recommend and still provide unique content that you can show on your publisher’s page.

Now, that’s how I intend to test this site. To that end, I’ve created my publisher’s page for John Dilbeck.

Currently, there is not much on the page, but I’ll be adding some articles or small ebooks as I have time to develop them. Free IQ looks to be an excellent way to market and provide your content on a site that is relatively easy to use.

Not only that, but it will help you build your mailing list. If you have an Aweber account, you can plug your mailing list in directly. If not, you can choose to have leads emailed to you.

Back to finding info on Free IQ. Just go to the Free IQ home page and either enter a search term or click one of the tags.

You will be taken to a page that has free content in the left column and paid content in the right column. In other words, you can read, view, or listen to (as appropriate) the information in the left column for free. You can purchase, should you decide to do so, the information in the right column.

If you want to review an item, give your opinion, or leave feedback, all you have to do is Join for free and create your account.

Content Providers

If you are an expert on almost any topic, Free IQ may be a good place to display your expertise and pass along your best ideas.

At the moment, while Free IQ is still in beta, there is no limit on the size of the files you upload. They will stream or let others download your products for no cost to you. If you are providing content for sale, there is no monthly fee to use the Free IQ shopping engine to sell your information products. When you make a sale, Free IQ will charge you 5% of the sales price, plus credit card processing fees. You don’t even have to have a merchant account.

Once you’ve created your free account (see above), you can upload your content and see how well the system works for you.

Currently, I’m not sure if each content provider has to take part in the affiliate program, or not.

Affiliate Program

One of the things that attracted me immediately to Free IQ is their two tier affiliate program.

If you join the Free IQ affiliate program, you will get paid for the purchases made by anyone you refer, not just once, but for an entire year! Of course, many of the people you refer will buy nothing or maybe one item. However, if he or she does buy multiple items, you’ll get paid for each of them for an entire year.

You also get paid a percentage of any content sold by any Content Providers you refer.

While not as good as having a lifetime customer, getting paid for a year of purchases beats getting paid (maybe) for a single purchase.

If you are interested, you should read the affiliate program page to learn more about some of the innovative things Free IQ is doing.

You are invited to join their affiliate program and see for yourself how it works for you.

It’s free to join and you can quit at any time if you find it doesn’t work for you.

Again, to recap, this site is still in beta and there is no way to tell if it will gain market share or not. It looks interesting to me and that’s why I’m passing it along to you.

Join hundreds of thousands of other creative people who are selling their designs on CafePress.

Whether you are an artist who creates original paintings and drawings, or you have wonderful photographs, or are talented at finding just the right words to express an opinion, you can sell your creative originals at CafePress.

Perhaps you want to self-publish a book or sell your CD through CafePress.

They make it easy for all of us.

All you have to do is create your design and upload it to their server. Apply your design to dozens of products and let Cafepress handle all the production, shipping, customer service, returns, and website.

You promote your products online and offline and, when a product sells, you earn a commission based on the price you set. Each product has a baseline price and you are free to set your price over that minimum price. You earn the difference between the two prices.

There is much more information at the CafePress site about how to sell through their service.

I’m regularly selling designs I uploaded months ago and I always enjoy depositing the commission checks I receive from CafePress. You can, too.

Start selling today!

Several years ago, I needed a way to earn a living while staying home and being a full-time caretaker for my Mom.

I tried several things before I decided that affiliate marketing was for me.

There were many reasons for this decision. There was a low cost to entry since I didn’t have to buy merchandise, pay for inventory or interest, hire staff, set up an online order entry system, manage customer service, deal with shipping and returns, and do many of the other things that are necessary when you are selling products or services to the general public.

As an affiliate marketer, basically I work in advertising and marketing, and someone else handles all the rest of the necessary activities.

The downside to affiliate marketing is that there is a lot to learn, there is cut-throat competition, what works for me may not work for you and vice versa, and the Internet and online marketing is changing all the time.

At first, I knew a lot about the technical aspects of building websites, but I did not know nearly enough to be effective as an affiliate.

Fortunately for me, I found Ken Evoy and I have been successfully following his advice for several years. My affiliate marketing business is growing and I’m earning more as time goes by.

Ken provided a couple of things that made a huge difference in my affiliate marketing success. I appreciate his down-to-earth, practical advice and the products he has created to help me become a more-effective affiliate marketer.

The first was a free email course he called the Affiliate Masters Course. It was a five part course sent via email. Later, it was redone as an ebook in PDF format. Earlier this month, he released the November, 2006 updated edition of the Affiliate Masters course. I just finished reading it and the updated edition offers lots of information that was not included in the previous version. I recommend this book to you.

The cost? It’s free.

Download your copy of the Affiliate Masters course now. You’ll find about 160 pages of outstanding information. Others sell ebooks with much less information for $50 or $100 or more. Get this one and read it. Learn what you need to know and put it to work. I believe your affiliate marketing efforts will be more successful if you implement what Ken tells you.

Along the same lines, Ken wrote an ebook called “Make Your Site Sell!” a few years ago. The original version sold for under $20 and the updated 2002 version sold for about $30.

A couple of months ago, Ken decided to offer Make Your Site Sell! 2002 as a free download.

This multi-volume ebook contains over 1,500 pages of outstanding information and has been worth thousands of dollars to me in revenue I may not have earned if I hadn’t followed Ken’s advice.

While some of the information is a bit dated, the core information remains very valuable and you will find much information of use to you in this PDF format ebook. I regularly refer to it and continually discover useful tips and techniques to improve my marketing efforts.

If you want to build an online business, you need to read this ebook. Download it today.

These two ebooks made a great impact on the effectiveness of my online marketing and my affiliate marketing business continues to grow today based on what I learned from them.

Of course, reading and learning isn’t going to build a business. You have to take what you learn, plan how it will help your business grow, and then put it into action.

Act on your dreams!

Only one week after deciding to stop charging $30 for Make Your Site Sell! and to give it away for free, Ken Evoy decided to give another of his products away as a free download.

Now, Make Your Content PREsell!, which sold for $10, is free and you can download it without even giving your email address.

This ebook, in .PDF format, can be read in a relatively short time span.

If you are attempting to earn all or part of your income through online marketing, you should read this book at least once. There is absolutely no risk. It’s free.

Dr. Evoy, through the information released in Make Your Site Sell! and all the integrated tools and webhosting incorporated into Site Build It! in the years since MYSS was released, has proven that his C-T-P-M model of online marketing works successfully.

What does “PREsell” mean?

It is the job of a merchant to do the selling.

It is the job of an affiliate to offer information of value that will help the reader get into a more receptive frame of mind and then link to the merchant.

This process of passing along valuable information and linking to a merchant is called PREselling.

It is not our job to sell, just to get the reader interested enough to click on the link and see what the merchant offers.

You can learn more by downloading Make Your Content PREsell!, reading it, and learning how to more effectively communicate with the people who visit your websites and blogs.

Don’t miss this free offer.

I don’t usually use three exclamation marks in a headline. That’s just not my style.

But, in this case, I’m going to make an exception and try to pass along my excitement about the announcement I just read.

I’m a few days behind on my email and I just now read an email Ken Evoy sent me last Saturday.

Among other interesting announcements, he told us that Make Your Site Sell! 2002 is now available as a free download. You don’t even have to give your email address. Just go to the link and get your free copy of what I think is the best information about earning an income with a website that is available at any price.

I bought the original version for $17 and was surprised with how much information was in this exceptional ebook.

Not only was there more information than I expected, the very format of the ebook was an example of how information should be presented in PDF format.

Make Your Site Sell! was updated in 2002 to a seven volume ebook with over 1,500 pages of outstanding information about building a successful website. The name was changed to Make Your Site Sell! 2002 in order to reflect this additional information. The price was raised from $17 to $30.

Now, I’ve seen ebooks selling for nearly $100 (usually $97) that only had a tiny fraction of what Ken offered for less than $30. Ken’s motto has always been to UNDERprice and OVERdeliver and this was certainly appropriate for Make Your Site Sell! 2002.

Go to the page and read what is in the ebook. Then, don’t waste any more time, download the ebook and start putting it to work for you.

Don’t add this to your collection of un-read ebooks. If you want to build a site that is successful, read this information, study it and put it to work for you.

Of course, a lot has changed in four years and parts of MYSS is starting to show its age, but I still refer to this information several times a month. I always find something I never knew or things I forgot in the interim.

So, why hasn’t this book been updated and why is it being given away now for free?

Over the last several years, Ken and the folks at Sitesell have been focusing their efforts into making Site Build It! into the the best set of tools for identifying your niche, designing a website, researching and creating the content, hosting it, and promoting it to the world.

The concepts that were presented in MYSS live on in Site Build It, so there really is no reason to update the ebook when Site Build It! puts those concepts into action.

I just renewed my subscription to Site Build It! a couple of weeks ago and it never even crossed my mind not to do so. I have dozens of websites and SBI offers me more value than all the others put together in terms of helping me do my best on the net.

But, you don’t have to spend $300 to get a Site Build It subscription to learn much about the concepts that lead to this outstanding tool.

You don’t have to spend a penny.

Just go download Make Your Site Sell! 2002 and put what you learn to work for you.

Yes, there will be some things that are no longer up-to-date in the ebook, but don’t let that distract you from all the good information and advice you will find.

I can truthfully tell you that I’ve wasted a good bit of money buying ebooks and following their advice.

But, that does not apply to Ken Evoy, Make Your Site Sell, and Site Build It. Everytime I follow Ken’s advice, I make more money. When I stray to other paths to test the waters, sometimes I make money, but much of the time I just lose my investment. That has never been the case with anything I’ve purchased from Sitesell.

My best advice is to tell you to subscribe to Site Build It! and give yourself the best advantage and the best tools to build a profitable online business.

But, if you can’t afford the $300 or if you just aren’t convinced, then put your credit card back in your pocket and download Make Your Site Sell! 2002.

See what created all the fuss a few years ago when MYSS was called “The Bible of Selling On the Internet.”

It helped me.

If you read it and put it to work, it can help you, too.

If you have been reading my blogs for any length of time, you are already aware that I am not one of those people who follow the latest fad or breathlessly tell you why you just have to purchase the next great whatchamacallit.

I’m not going to start now, either.

I’ve gotten several emails over the last couple of weeks about “The Death of Adsense,” and, since I earn enough from Adsense every month to cover my hosting and advertising expenses, I wondered what it was all about.

So, I downloaded the ebook and read it.

The author makes some good points, but I have no idea how it will all play out.

I’m not even going to try to tell you what he says in the ebook. You can download it yourself and get it “from the horse’s mouth.” It’s only 18 pages long and you should be able to read it in less than a half hour.

When you sign up to download the book, you become an affiliate, and for a limited time, he is paying affiliates a half-dollar for everyone who follows your link and downloads the book. Not bad, making fifty cents when someone downloads a free ebook.

However, that’s not why I’m telling you about this. If his analysis (or hypothesis) is correct, then you need to be aware of this if you depend upon Adsense for income.

I am not saying that Adsense is dead and I don’t fully agree with what he says in the ebook.

And, here’s the spoiler, the ebook ends just as he is about to tell you the alternative to Adsense. That’s why I haven’t been talking about this.

Today, however, he is supposed to release the second ebook that explains his alternative income system. Will it be worth the read? I don’t know.

I do know that, in the past, it looks to me as if he created websites that were designed to skim as much money from Adsense with as little work as possible, and I’m sure these sites were low-quality at best. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’m assuming this is the case.

(You know what they say about assuming….)

Anyway, later today you may be able to get the “Life After Adsense” ebook. I’m sure there will be a lot of people trying to download it, so it may or may not be available.

I’m not going to recommend either ebook to you, but I will tell you how to get your own copy and decide for yourself.

I am a full-time affiliate marketer, but this time, I’m not going to use an affiliate link to send you to his site. I don’t want the 50 cents if you download the ebook, because I cannot truthfully tell you that I recommend the information contained in it.

So, buyer (or downloader) beware, use your discretion and think for yourself.

Am I going to download the “Life After Adsense” ebook to go along with the “Death of Adsense” ebook I downloaded a few days ago? Yes, I am.

Am I going to do what it says? I have no idea. I’m going to read it and think about it before doing anything.

What you do is up to you.

Here’s the site to go to: http://www.thedeathofadsense.com/

I have not seen a decline in my Adsense revenue, and I’m hoping it is because I do my best to build sites with the best content I can create. I try not to take any short-cuts and I’m willing to build my business using a slow and steady model - the tortoise approach rather than the rabbit approach.

Am I curious about what’s in “Life After Adsense?” Yes, I am. But, at this time, I don’t have any plans to change my business model or redo my marketing plan.

That may change tomorrow. Maybe, maybe not.

What do you think?

On Saturday, September 9, 2006, I posted a note about Ken Evoy’s interview with Chris Anderson about his long tail marketing concept and book.

You can find the previous article here: Chris Anderson - Long Tail Marketing for Small Business.

I posted, “Ken Evoy, President of Sitesell, Inc., recently interviewed Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail, at Long Tail Marketing For Small Business.”

I was going to suggest that Ken include a transcript of the interview, but, before I could do so, I learned that it is already there. The link is at Long Tail Marketing For Small Business, right below the link to the audio interview.

Thanks!

I just set up a page titled Tag Roll where I added the code to show my tag cloud, or what del.icio.us refers to as a tag roll.

If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment.