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Continuing on from yesterday’s blog post about the free SEO videos released by Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins (If you haven’t seen them yet check out the Stomper Blog which has direct links to all three videos - I have a feeling they are not going to be taken down next week like I originally stated since they appear to be well and truly part of the blog, but you never know) - just this week they also released a free PDF full of case studies from the clients they have worked with.

The PDF is a collection of stories about people attracting huge amounts of website traffic from natural search results and earning tons of money as a result. Note there is the usual amount of hype thrown in to this PDF but if you can stick to it you will learn something and no doubt be inspired. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t watch/listen to every case in the PDF - not enough hours in my day for that - but you should have a scan through the PDF and see which cases grab your attention.

Download the Natural Case Studies Special Report. [ PDF - 2.45 MB ]

Note - at the end of the PDF is a link to the early notice email list you can join if you want to keep up to date with the latest news (and get the freebies!) for this huge product launch. That link contains my affiliate ID so if any of my hardcore SEO readers do purchase the course released next week I thank you for the referral commission. However I recommend you search around the web if you do intend on buying the course because a lot of high profile Internet marketers are no doubt going to throw in a bunch of bonuses if you buy through their referral link and give them the commission.

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Back when I began working online and learning about search engine optimization the very first source of quality information I found was Brad Fallon’s free SEO course (aff). I still recommend it as the number one place to start learning how to improve your natural search engine rankings at no cost.

I hadn’t heard much from Brad lately in terms of information products and I assumed he was busy working on his business. Despite my perception of Brad being an SEO specialist, which he is, I’m pretty sure he makes most of his money from his online business. Like most online experts, Brad develops his skills from implementing and testing things on his own business website, which he reports back to us either for free or in information products (just like me actually!). Brad is famous for his online Wedding Favors business which does a stupid amount of online sales per month - we are talking about millions of dollars each month just online.

An Uber-Product Launch

If you are at all into SEO then you probably know about some great videos recently published by Brad and his business partner Andy Jenkins. Andy brings the conversion skills to compliment the SEO skills of Brad, making for a fairly lethal combination in terms of online marketing.

The videos are still available from here - http://www.convertlinks.com/ - but I think they will only be online for another week.

The videos are top stuff, no sales pitch and offering case study examples of both natural search and conversion techniques. I recommend you take a look if you are in charge of SEO or online marketing for your business.

Despite the lack of sales pitch at the moment you probably realize that this is the beginning of a product launch process by Brad and Andy. I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the pre-launch joint venture partner group because I know the manager of the launch personally (not Brad or Andy though). The idea behind this launch is to eclipse everything done before it in terms of information product launches.

Now if you are like me you are probably a bit tired of product launches so you might be sighing “ho-hum” at all the usual hype. There are two reasons this launch is at least worth watching -

1. Because Brad and Andy are attempting to do the largest launch ever they have put a lot effort into the free materials going out. The videos are great content so take advantage of them while you can. Remember you don’t have to buy anything to watch the videos.
2. This is about natural search. There really aren’t many good natural search resources available and certainly even fewer that combine conversion with natural search and teach it quite like Brad and Andy do.

Why Natural Search Is Important

Natural search (or organic search) is all about free traffic from ranking high in search engines. Natural search is beautiful because it’s free. Besides word of mouth there is no more powerful source of website traffic than natural search and to be honest I don’t think there is anyone out there with the skills that Andy and Brad have who are spending the time to teach it to others.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, ultimately it’s not a perfect science to convince the search engines that your site should rank highly, you can’t control how Google and Yahoo work, but when you start using advanced conversion methods along with natural SEO techniques you can control things to a very high degree. No guarantees of course, but it’s pretty close to full-proof - especially since in most industries your competitors won’t be doing it, so you have a big advantage.

Just for simplicity sake, in case I have confused you, I am talking about two elements:

1. Getting free traffic from ranking well in search engines and…
2. Taking that traffic and optimizing your website for sales conversions. To do this you run split tests on different elements of your website, for example headlines, or graphics, or any element - watch the first video for some great examples of how Brad did some tests on his Wedding Favors site.

   A split test is trying two different elements to see which gets better results - and when we talk about results it’s about convincing a website visitor to do something - to “convert” is the term used online. A conversion may be clicking a link, filling out a form or buying a product, or many other things.

You should watch the videos for more information on conversion testing.

What’s The Deal With The Launch - What Are They Selling?

I’ve enjoyed being on the “inside” of this launch because I’m learning a lot about the launch process. Although I’m not really on the inside inside, I am part of the initial promotion partners so I see things from that angle and know where the launch is going.

Unfortunately I can’t share with you what the whole story is, that would be a betrayal of faith and against the launch rules, but I can tell you this is a high-end product launch, so if you don’t have thousands of dollars to spend just sit back and enjoy the free resources.

If you are serious about your SEO and website conversion this may be one of the only opportunities you will have to learn from the best. Be sure to join the early notification list (aff) if you want first notice of all the resources being released for free and the upcoming product launch.

I don’t suspect I will be buying this product once it launches simply because all my info product money is going to Rich Schefren’s coaching this year, so I won’t be able to do an in-depth review for you like usual. Hopefully the free resources including the videos will be enough to convince you whether this product is right for you or not.

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Sometime over the next few days/weeks I am moving all my websites to a new server. There may be some downtime if you happen to access certain sites at certain times and also there is a slight chance any comments you make to my blogs may be lost in the move if you just happen to pick the exact moment the transfer is going on or your DNS hasn’t updated.

Keep your fingers crossed for me - I haven’t had to move WordPress blogs before so this will be a learning experience!

Yaro

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You know I’m a huge fan of email autoresponders. For proof just check in my article archives for articles like - Using Autoresponder Emails to Grab New Clients and Keep Them Coming Back for More and AWeber Email Autoresponder Review.

For many organizations autoresponders are used as a tool to maintain and build relationships with prospects and clients. I use autoresponders as my main client database resource and to send broadcasts and automatic marketing emails out periodically. Just recently I’ve started to make use of automatic emails as a passive income tool and it is fast becoming one of my favorite ways to monetize an email list.

Combining Affiliate Programs With Autoresponders

Essentially what I am talking about is promoting an affiliate product or service within an email autoresponder sequence. You write your email series, make sure you provide a ton of value to your subscribers, and filter in a soft sell of affiliate products. You might actually be using the autoresponder for a more specific reason, perhaps marketing your own product or service, and every email you send out clearly has this focus, but the occasional soft sell link or once-off affiliate promotion can work wonders as a passive income stream.

Here’s an example…

Let’s say you offer search engine optimizations services to your local small business community. You create an autoresponder series of 10 short lessons on SEO, including case study examples from your past clients (credibility building etc). Each lesson focuses on providing education to your reader as the primary message and you end every lesson with a short sales pitch for your own SEO services. When appropriate you mention you make use of a great SEO software tool, Brad Callen’s SEO Elite Software (aff) and recommend it to your subscribers. You might also explain how you use it when performing SEO for previous clients. As a result you make a few sales of the software and earn a commission.

Over time more and more people subscribe to your autoresponder series and every now and then you make another sale of SEO Elite. Later you add additional lessons to the sequence and include more product recommendations increasing your affiliate earnings. Over time this builds up into a substantial income stream, and best of all once you have written your autoresponder sequence, it’s pure passive income. If you have natural search engine traffic coming in (you should if you work in SEO!) or another cost effective means to generate new subscribers, your affiliate income will continue to flow indefinitely.

You can work this formula over time to build up an excellent source of passive income. It’s also a fantastic way to further monetize a list that you primarily use to build your client-base. The extra affiliate income may not be massive to start with but it certainly doesn’t hurt and you will learn some interesting things about your subscribers. For example, perhaps your list isn’t converting well at selling your $297 consulting service but you do sell a few $37 ebooks via affiliate promotions. Maybe you can change the focus of this particular autoresponder sequence to only sell affiliate products and find other ways to market your consulting service. Perhaps this teaches that you need to refine your sales funnel for your own services by selling a $37 ebook of your own first and then later you upsell your $297 consulting service.

Repeat Exposures

If you are in business or you have been reading my blog for a while you know that it takes multiple exposures to a product before a person buys. It’s been tested to take between three and seven exposures before you close a deal, depending on what you sell, whether it’s offline or online marketing and all kinds of other variables. The important point is that it takes multiple exposures, once usually isn’t enough, and the same goes for affiliate selling. If you are planning on becoming a super affiliate you need to build marketing tools that expose your subscribers and readers to your promotions over and over again, and email autoresponders are perfect for just that purpose.

Here’s another example…

You can tell I’m pretty happy with AWeber (aff), the company I use to handle my email autoresponders (a full review is here). You can also tell I know something about using autoresponders - I certainly have ideas, this article is one - so I could put together a sequence of lessons on how to make use of autoresponders.

I would set them up to go out in an autoresponder sequence and of course in each lesson I would recommend AWeber and perhaps some of the other email autoresponders like GetResponse (aff) as an affiliate. Provided I made sure my lessons offered really good ideas and advice, people would spread the word and no doubt I could continue to bring in more subscribers. Best of all AWeber offers affiliates ongoing referral commissions for the lifetime of the customer you refer, so if the people I sign-up to AWeber remain with the AWeber service I continue to earn a commission month after month. Do the math - if I get recurring commissions and continue to sign-up new customers via my email course about autoresponders - the income will compound - and it’s all automatic, once again provided I have a means to sign-up new people to my email autoresponder series.

This idea is so good I’m actually considering it. If I wasn’t focusing my energies on blogging I’d be writing that course right now. Whether it would be more profitable than my other ideas I don’t know, but it’s worth testing since it’s so easy to set up with the power of autoresponders and the income opportunity of affiliate programs.

Give It A Go

If you already have an email list going via an autoresponder it doesn’t hurt to test out a few affiliate promotions. If affiliate marketing is your game, or you intend it to be, you must use autoresponders for maximum return on minimal effort. Remember autoresponders aren’t just lead generation tools for businesses - you can use them specifically to sell other people’s products as an affiliate. Imagine setting up ten high-quality online courses which are all delivered automatically through autoresponders and all sell affiliate products. Once you have set things up you can sit back and watch the affiliate income come in provided you have a mechanism to bring in quality subscribers. It’s almost easy…

Yaro Starak
Autoresponder Affiliate Marketer

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I have finally made it to my destination - my other home, Toronto. Although I haven’t actually found my other home since this time I will be renting an apartment and not staying with my family the full time (I’m with family now), at least there is no more traveling and I can set up some nice regular patterns again - oh how I love those regular patterns and home cooked meals!

During my travels I made several observations that I’d like to share with you. I can’t remember them all but here’s a few things I that I thought about off the top of my head.

• My websites respond really quickly here. The combination of cable broadband and being closer to American servers has resulted in some lovely download speeds. Somethings remind me how far Australia really is.
• The amount of television channels here is insane. In Australia having cable is not accepted as “normal”, it’s a luxury item in general and it hasn’t really yet got traction down under. In North America it would be unheard of to not at least have some form of basic cable access which results in at least a good 30-40 channels - and that would be considered pretty low - you could get like 500+ channels if you wanted to. Not quite the same as good old 7, 9, 10, ABC, SBS and fuzzy Briz31 were I come from.
• Continuing the television commentary - when I landed in Hawaii just after leaving Oz I was saddened to learn about Steve Irwin’s death. What amazed me was the amount of coverage it received in the US. While of course I wasn’t in Australia to see the reaction of Australians first hand, and I know it was quite significant, I think the American media really really liked the guy - the 24 hour news coverage was testament to this, and I don’t think the Aussie media would have gone as far.

  I felt very humbled that a man from Australia had managed to impact the American culture to such a degree that they devoted so much attention to it. It was like an Australian version of Princess Diana’s passing, every little aspect of the event, from looking at sting rays, to Steve’s life, interviews with people he had met and influenced - everything you could think of was covered. Personally I felt mostly for Steve’s family, but the media attention in the USA is what really blew me away. It shows what one man can do, how many people’s lives he can influence in a positive manner, just by being passionate and true to his beliefs - there is a very powerful message in that.

• In terms of business and marketing I noticed little discrepancies which I always find funny when I head overseas. For example in Australia we have Lynx deodorant, but here it’s called Axe. Everything else is exactly the same, including the commercials, but the product is called Axe. The same goes for Brumby’s bakeries, which are called “Cobs” here, but have the exact same layout and design as Brumby’s. It makes me wonder what the marketing meetings were like when they made these sorts of branding/product decisions and the different local conditions that brought about these discrepancies.
• The Canadian mobile phone network is well, stupid. I’ve never experienced a system so convoluted that so poorly provides customers with what they want. The system here is expensive, you get charged for everything including checking your voicemail, outgoing AND incoming calls (yes you get charged when someone calls you!) and there is even a $6.95 per month “connection fee”. It just smells of a market that is either too heavily regulated or something dodgy where consumers are being ripped off because all the companies are working the same poor pricing model. I had hopes when Virgin came in when I left Toronto last time that it might have shaken the market up here, but it’s still just as bad.
• The recycling system is darn good here in Thornhill at least, not sure about the rest of Toronto. Pretty much everything is recycled and even compost - organic waste - is collected by the local municipality. That would be a smelly job!
• Two food ingredients are abused by many food outlets - salt and sugar. Everything seems to have had the salt and sugar levels boosted to extreme levels. Of course this has probably been done because it’s been tested to sell more food but my bland Aussie taste buds do not like it and I suspect it can’t be good for the population’s general health either.

That’s it for now. I’ll get back to some regular blogging since I’ve managed to catch up on my emails and things are smoothing out again. On a personal note I look forward to meeting the Torontonians who have kindly contacted me offering to meet up sometime. I will be in touch soon. I have few friends in Toronto so I appreciate the chance to meet the locals, especially those in Internet business. I’m also looking forward to meeting and chatting to the Toronto mastermind group I am a member of which came about as part of the Rich Schefren coaching program I joined last month.

Yaro Starak
Canadian

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