This Blog

A blog carnival is a simple concept - here’s the description from the Blog Carnival web site:

“…where someone takes the time to find really good blog posts on a given topic, and then puts all those posts together in a blog post called a “carnival”.”

So why would you want to do this?  Yes, it’s just another ‘thing’ you have to do with your blog posts (submit to bookmarking sites, Digg, etc…) - but the payoff is that this technique really works.  You get great relevant backlinks from sites similar to yours- AND relevant, convert-able traffic to boot.  Just hop over to Blog Carnival and set up an account - add the carnivals that apply to your web site to the ‘Favorites’ section and submit away.

Be kind to carnival owners, however.  Don’t submit every post, particularly if you post daily with short posts like  ‘Check This Out….[link]…’.  Submit posts that would be truly useful.  Also, don’t submit your Internet marketing tips to the Spirituality Carnival- keep on topic.  If you can’t be insightful in your posts, at least be helpful.  That is kind of my motto on this blog, I don’t try to pontificate on strategy or trends, I just try to post helpful information.

Submit to blog carnivals for a couple of weeks and watch your inbound links and traffic increase.

I have spent the last year marketing online, and frankly, I’m tired. I did make some good money this past year, but I earned every penny.   I’ve marketed my own electronic products, promoted rebrandable e-books, sold on eBay, offered digital downloads, ran an affiliate program, created autoresponder messages, cloaked my affiliate links, tracked my sales, advertised on AdWords, promoted joint ventures, built an email list, created a blog, set up a merchant account, signed up for Clickbank,  optimized my search engine position, created membership sites, did one-time offers, created DVD’s marketed PLR products, created product feeds, gave away free bonuses, tested my sales copy, used friendly urls, did keyword research, optimized my robots.txt,  revised my permalink structure, created xml sitemaps, dropshipped products, wrote articles, syndicated my content, put a product on Amazon.com, sent a newsletter, submitted to social media sites, wrote paid reviews, and all of this while I regularly created fresh, engaging content on numerous blogs.  I even managed to get one of my domains banned from Google.   No wonder I’m tired.

Since I’ve done all of this stuff, I figured I could make some more money by telling you, gentle reader, how you can do it, too.  I just don’t recommend you trying to do it all in one year’s time.

I’m in the process of implementing a new e-learning site, yet unnamed - where I’ll spill the goods on how to do all this stuff, and more.

Sign up for my announcement list, and I’ll send you a free pass for the site’s grand opening.  Stay tuned for updates.

Ebay banned digital download products as of April 1 - ruining more than one internet marketer’s business plans. I jumped over to Ebay today and did a search in Everything Else ->Information Products and found there are still a few sellers who have digital items for sale. I would imagine it will take Ebay a while to weed out all of the sellers still posting these products.

Another chapter has now passed in the saga of the information product- a market that has seen huge successes as well as some pretty shoddy and useless products over many years. What started as simple reports delivered by mail offered in magazines and newspapers has grown and flourished in the digital age.

The problem with digital items sold as information products is that there is no hiding poor quality. Dan Kennedy tells a story about a copywriter who sold a tape/workbook package that was so bulky that you’d have to go to Wal-Mart and buy yourself a bigger bookshelf to hold it. The idea was that bulk or sheer weight made the product good. You don’t have that crutch with digital information products. If your e-book, DVD or video CD-Rom stinks - it’s readily apparent.

This blog is going to talk about the technical aspects of creating and selling information products, but we won’t forget content, quality and promotion. Stay with me, and you’ll watch how I create a Interactive Learning membership site from scratch. I’ll be posting my progress here - (and will be offering premium content as well).

You may have seen my blog before in it’s many iterations. I’ve learned a lot about the business side of the Internet since I began this site in 1998. I’m glad you stopped here - sign up for my announcement list, and I’ll send you updates, special post passwords and deals on my own products and services.