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I have a couple of quick updates for you today as I have to run away from the house with the cleaning lady here.

Help! My Business Sucks!

Andrew Lock who I refer to as the eBay expert with the cool British accent, has recently started producing a web based television show called Help! My Business Sucks!.

The show focuses on entrepreneurship and Internet marketing, with Andrew as the host. If you are looking for another example of a new way to use Video online to spread your message, educate and entertain, take a look at what Andrew is up to.

The show can be found at - http://helpmybusiness.com/

Perry Marshall AdWords Update

Next, some important advice from Perry Marshall - the only AdWords expert I follow. I’ve been on his newsletter for years now, it was one of the very first I subscribed to and one of the only ones I remain a subscriber.

Perry sends out actual advice to his newsletter and rarely promotes any other products than his own. I’ve never seen him participate in an Internet marketing product launch, so if you are sick of “launch emails” and you are looking for a great newsletter covering Google AdWords, general Internet business, lead generation and conversion advice, you can’t go wrong with Perry’s Newsletter.

You can join his free AdWords e-course, which is great, and that will get you on to his newsletter too.

Google AdWords New Feature: Automatic Matching

Perry recently sent through something I thought was critical for anyone currently running a Google AdWords campaign, regarding a new feature called Automatic Matching. Perry presented a warning regarding this feature, so if you have never heard of Automatic Matching, here’s some advice you need to read…

Google is phasing a MAJOR feature into the AdWords
program. If you log into your account you’ll see a notice
that says,

“New! Automatic matching has been enabled in your
account. Your ads will now show for additional relevant
search queries based on the keywords, ad text, and landing
pages in your ad groups. You can opt out by visiting a
keyword-targeted campaign, and then clicking on edit
campaign settings.”

If you edit your campaign settings, you’ll see a check box
that says:

“Automatic matching: Show ads on more search queries
without adding keywords.”

And in your ad groups at the bottom of your keyword list,
you’ll see a new column labeled “Automatic matching total.”

What this means is, if you’re bidding on a keyword like
“dog grooming”, Google may show your ad for a keyword
like “pet grooming brush” even though you’re not bidding
on it at all.

The question is, do you want this?

First of all, there’s no way to know for sure unless you’re
using conversion tracking.

In fact, you should disable this feature immediately unless
you have conversion tracking enabled and hold Google
accountable for the quality of traffic they’re sending you.

***DO NOT USE THIS FEATURE UNLESS YOU TRACK
THE CONVERSIONS FROM ‘AUTOMATIC MATCHING’
TRAFFIC.***

Automatic Matching traffic will seldom be better traffic,
except maybe for people who simply do not know what
they’re doing in AdWords.

AdWords advertisers who learn this game from me are
always control freaks. They don’t want to just take what Google
gives ‘em. (Hey, that’s how you gain an advantage that Google
doesn’t have.) The ideal way to do this would be to use
the bootstrapping technique I’ve taught for years, which is:

-Campaign 1 has bids set at, say, $1.00 with Automatic Matching OFF
-Campaign 2 has bids set at, say, $0.75, with Automatic Matching ON

This will shift all the Automatic Matching traffic into Campaign
2 and you’ll have complete control of it.

Source: Perry Marshall Newsletter

Perry went into more detail than the above excerpt, but I don’t feel right publishing his entire newsletter here (although I almost did!).

Unfortunately I’m not sure if you can get back-issues of Perry’s newsletter, but if you want more info along the lines of the above, take his free e-course and you will never miss another newsletter.

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This from Perry Marshall about the recent Microsoft buying Yahoo to beat Google news -

Unfortunately…. In My Humble Opinion, expecting Microsoft and Yahoo to be better than Google by getting together is like pairing up two people each with an IQ of 75 and putting them in a spelling bee and hoping that together they’re a 150 genius.

NOT. They’ll just argue with each other about how to mis-spell everything.

Source: Perry Marshall newsletter

Lol
I have to agree with Perry, I can’t imagine combining the Yahoo culture with the Microsoft way of life resulting in anything that could compete with Google. The enemy of my enemy is my friend just won’t work in this case.

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You know how sometimes you get that uncomfortable feel when reading marketing materials, especially long sales letters and hypey emails, and how that feeling can transfer to the marketer so you have this icky feeling about them and what they sell?

I think you know what I am talking about.

There’s one Internet marketer who I have never ever felt that way about and he’s actually the guy I first came into contact with (well his materials anyway) when I began studying Internet marketing many years ago now.

His name is Perry Marshall, and chances are you know him already, probably as the guru of Google AdWords.

I’ve been on Perry’s email list for a long time. I bought his Definitive Guide to Google AdWords - I think it was the first e-book I ever bought online. I also joined his Renaissance Club marketing print newsletter, which is the first product I ever promoted as an affiliate on this blog and still continues to pay me ongoing commissions.

Perry has a certain style and I like it. His information is honest, valuable - he tells a great story - and at least for me, I never have that “hype” taste in my month after reading his materials. In fact it is Perry’s style that I model my own email newsletters and promotions after. You can learn a lot from just mimicking how this guy plies his craft.

Simply put, Perry has my respect.

Work With The Best

If you currently have a Google AdWords campaign and/or a successful business that has cashflow, then you are in the right situation to consider Perry’s Google AdWords Intensive Coaching that Starts September 25.

This is NOT a cheap program and it’s by application only, most people reading my blog probably wouldn’t qualify. However if you are in charge of a somewhat successful online business and you want to take it to the next level and work with Perry personally, this will interest you.

Here are the details direct from Perry -

Is Google AdWords an important part of your business? Do you want to pay less for every single click and earn more from every visitor?

If so, you’re entitled to a rather bold guarantee: If you’re accepted as a team member in Perry Marshall’s 12 week “Bobsled Run” and if you complete the homework assignments, you’ll recoup your tuition by December 2007 (through AdWords cost savings and increased sales), and you will make at least $25K more next year than you would have without the course, or your money back.

Step by step, you will master:

-Google AdWords: Discover the nuances of the most powerful advertising medium since television, and walk away with complete mastery

-Google Analytics: Find out exactly what’s positively persuasive on your site, and what’s not, and plug all the holes (this is where much of the profit-making wizardry is!)

-Google Site Optimizer: Try different headlines, colors, graphics with ease - get double-digit improvements to your opt-ins and sales nearly overnight

-Email, Autoresponders and Copywriting - find out how to develop powerful bonds with customers over time, further distancing yourself from me-too competition

-Sales and Pricing Strategies for maximum profitability - in most cases it’s possible to increase your sales 30-40% and profitability by 60%, with my plan for extracting maximum profitability from every click

-Live workshop in Chicago, October 6-7: Accelerates your learning and implementation with hands-on, in-person expertise.

The course starts September 25. Find out all about it at:

perrymarshall.com/adwords/personalcoaching.htm

Yes this is an affiliate promotion but like I said, Perry is a guy I have no problem recommending to you and if I was a heavy user of AdWords right now I’d be signing up for this myself just for the chance to have Perry as a guy I can call a contact, even a friend, and get to know personally.

Anyway, that’s enough Perry’ lovin. You will know if this program is right for you and if so, please go check out the details and consider applying for a position in his program.

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I’m seeing this point made over and over, both in the wise words from the experts (like below from Perry Marshall), from my own experience running Internet businesses and in case study examples of business models that provide the contrary result, which proves the point.

What am I talking about? I’m talking about building an Internet business based on a sustainable, long term model.

99% of the business opportunities that I come across are focused on short term thinking and unsustainable methods of making money. It could be that they rely on using content of little value, or chasing search engine traffic using very inconsistent methods, or relying on tapping markets that are only lucrative short term.

Some of these models may make money, but as the made-for-adsense years prove, something that has little resistance to replicate and provides no real value to people, will not be making money long term.

My income curve has increased significantly in the 8 or so years that I have made money online, yet each time I move up a bracket I again realize that the entire process is about building on past work. In all cases shortly after receiving a nice boost in cash flow, I’m taking big chunks of it and reinvesting in growth and preparing for the future.

The trick is to reinvest current cashflow into sustainable business models, so you compound on your previous work and create greater overall value, even if you reduce your current profit margin - this really is a swimming strategy. This is analogous with taking equity from your current assets to purchase more assets.

Wise Words From Perry Marshall

Here’s what Perry Marshall had to say about this topic in a recent email he sent out to his Renaissance Club members (still the best marketing newsletter I know of!).

A couple of years ago, the rage on the web was clever little programs that generate thousands of garbage pages that get picked up by the search engines. You’d stick AdSense ads on them and make some money - because when people come to a junky page they either hit the back button or click on something that looks good.

It’s getting harder and harder to even find such pages as the search engines get wise to this.

As ephemeral as the web may appear, it really is more like real estate.

Long term value is built over time, and things of value are usually still there years later. There are almost a million sites that link to Amazon, and regardless of what Amazon does or doesn’t do today, those links will still be there tomorrow. Yes, there is the surface turbulence and flavor of the month on the web, but in the long run, real content and valuable links are an investment.

I cannot overstate the foolishness of fake content.

Every now and then we get emails from people that go something like this: “hey dude, i really need to make 5000 dollars in the next 3 days, can your ebook help me do that if it works ill buy your book thanks matt”

Sorry, lower-case matt, can’t help you. If you want to spend your life wandering the ghettos of the Internet, be my guest. But don’t blame me if you get stabbed by a heroin addict.

The Internet is just like real estate. So why would anyone want to build a building this month, knowing the wrecking ball is coming through the East wall next month? When you build on a solid foundation, you don’t have to start all over again next week after the search engines get wise to your game.

Oh yeah, and there’s another thing too: When you build your business on a solid foundation, when you cultivate your customer base, when you nurture your customers like watering a garden, guess what? If you need $5,000 in the next 3 days you can get it. Gotta plant the seeds first though.

Source: Perry Marshall’s Renaissance Club

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Thursday was my 28th birthday (thanks for all the well-wishes everyone!) and this weekend I’m having a BBQ with friends to celebrate. In the meantime I have some recommended links I’ve been saving up. There’s some real gem resources in this list that I expect you will enjoy…

Recommended Links

• Alan at The Marketer’s Podcast has started up his podcast interviews again and has come back with a bank, interviewing Perry Marshall and Ari Galper in recent weeks.
• John Reese (income.com) interviewed Jeremy Shoemaker (Shoemoney) and you can get the MP3 directly from this post - Reese VS. Shoemoney (Round 1). It’s a great audio covering all kinds of topics related to make money online, blogging and affiliate marketing. The two guys carry on a conversation that we get to listen in on and given the calibre of success these two have had, you get what you would expect - some amazing insights into how they do what they do.
• My friend Will Swayne is looking for a full time web developer. If you can work in Brisbane you might be interested in this job.
• Bestseller Interviews (Jon Morrow) targets marketing genius Seth Godin with ten questions.
• Paula Mooney has updated her list of blogger salaries to include general webmasters, domainers, affiliate marketers and content scrapers - essentially a list of some of the highest earning web based entrepreneurs today.
• I was featured in a podcast interview about how blogging can help you sell books courtesy of Kim from AudioWorkshop.MarketAbility.com.
• Bobby Walker from the Niche Blog Affiliate Profits, one of my sponsors, has just released his product of the same name as his blog that you can check out here - www.nicheblogaffiliateprofits.com/. I haven’t read my copy of his product yet so I can’t tell you whether it is good or not (it’s only $9.95), but if you look at the page you get a special bonus - me!

That’s it for now everyone. Stay tuned as I’m starting my next pillar article series soon - all about how to launch a membership site.

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