Stomping the Search Engines 2

Yesterday I finally received my copy of Stomping the Search Engines 2 (STSE2) via UPS, along with a copy of the Net Effect trade magazine. If you’ve already ordered your own copy of STSE2, you know that they try to upsell you on a few additional packages, and if you purchase all of the additional products you’ll spend over $400. If not, I want to make sure you know that. You also subscribe to the Net Effect magazine, so if you don’t want that, you’ll have to cancel it after your first order arrives.

Now I have to admit that I did purchase a couple of the extra packages. I opted to receive the StomperNet Insiders’ DVD of the Month that will accompany each issue of the Net Effect. I also ordered the Mega Pack, which is a collection of 4 or 5 modules covering additional topics such as Pay Per Click advertising. All said, I spent about an extra $100 on the upgrades.

So far I’ve watched the module 1 videos from the STSE2 disc, and while they were basic and introductory in nature (which is expected for module 1), the quality was excellent. I’m looking forward to watching the entire course.

My initial reaction to the Net Effect magazine wasn’t as positive. I quickly skimmed through it, read the first article, and thought that it wasn’t worth $30 a month. Later I decided to read through more of the articles, and they were all great. So while I’m still on the fence, I’m liking it more than I did at first glance, and have decided to remain subscribed through at least the second issue before making a final decision on it.

I haven’t had a chance to watch any of the extra videos from the Insiders’ DVD of the Month or the Mega Pack discs. When I do get a chance to watch those videos, I’ll post a note letting you know what I think of them.

If you have already started watching Stomping the Search Engines 2 or read the Net Effect (or watched any of the extra videos) then I’d love to know what you think of them! Please share your comments below…

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Three Reasons Why I’m An Affiliate Marketer

An endeavor without a clear mission and objective is bound to fail. If you don’t have a mission or an objective driving your affiliate marketing efforts, then you’re more likely to spin in circles and never accomplish anything great. A mission statement is crucial to your online success!

Do you have a mission statement? Do you clearly know “why” you’re an affiliate marketer?

Once you know why you’re doing what you’re doing, it is easier to make all of those critical decisions such as:

• What task should I work on next?
• Will I benefit from that software, or that training resource?
• Which affiliate programs should I promote?

Those are just some examples, but I hope you can see how those questions cannot be effectively answered without a clear mission statement driving your efforts.

Your Mission Statement Is Not A Goal

Please note that a mission statement is not a goal. Your goals are based on your mission statement, and are different and separate. Here’s an example:

• Your mission statement might state that you want to earn a full time living from affiliate marketing.
• A goal based on that mission statement might be to earn $4,000 per month from affiliate marketing.

Can you see the difference?  You can even change your goal without changing the mission statement.

Now I understand that the term “mission statement” sounds like something a non-profit organization should have. It seems a bit overkill for the single affiliate marketer… especially if you’re working at this part-time. However trust me when I say it’s still important to have this defined.

So let me explain a way you can easily create your own mission statement. The way to do it is to list out the “reasons” why you are an affiliate marketer. As I just mentioned, don’t list out goals (like “I want to earn this much per month”), but instead list out the reasons why you would need that money. Perhaps it’s financial freedom, or to pay off bills, or to travel to Europe… whatever the “reason” is that you’re an affiliate marketer is your mission statement.

My Personal Reasons

Here are three reasons why I’m an affiliate marketer:

• Earn enough money to eliminate debt. This one seems obvious, but it needs to be listed. Notice that I don’t want to be rich, or have a lot of toys. I just want to get out of debt and stay out of debt. If I can accomplish that in my life, I’ll truly have wealth and I will have financial freedom.
• Have a productive hobby. This might sound corny, but we all need to have distractions from the stresses of life. We all need hobbies. Well affiliate marketing is my hobby, and it definitely is a stress reliever for me. The gravy is that I can earn a handsome profit from it too!
• Help others. One of my overall missions in life in general is to be helpful to others. Affiliate marketing can be a way to do that.

So how do my personal “reasons” for being an affiliate marketer help to guide me, keeping me on track and make critical decisions?

Here Are Some Examples

• Since one of my “reasons” is to get out of debt, I can easily calculate how much debt I have, and in how many months or years I want it to be at zero. Then I can figure out how much affiliate income I’ll need to make each month, and set goals accordingly. Also when I’m thinking about investing money for new software tools or training resources, I can weigh the potential benefits of those tools or resources against my ultimate mission of eliminating debt.
• Another “reason” is to have a relaxing hobby. Therefore, if I’m working on a campaign or project that is stressing me out, it is easier for me to let it go. A personal example of this is when I gave up my directory submission service. While it was a big money maker for me, it caused a lot of stress due to the deadlines it imposed on me. I don’t want my affiliate marketing efforts to take away from family time, but directory submissions were doing just that, so I stopped doing it.
• The third “reason” I listed was helping others. So when I am evaluating an affiliate product or program, I can evaluate if the product is really worthwhile. Will people really benefit and be helped by the product? I can also find common problems that people have, and target my affiliate campaigns in a way that provides these people with solutions to them. That way the customers are being helped, and I’m rewarded for helping them with affiliate commissions. If a program seems shady or sub-par, it’s easy for me to justify passing on it, because it doesn’t align with the reason I do this.

Conclusion

I could probably write a book full of examples of how having a mission statement (”reasons”) is key to success, but the examples listed here will have to do.

So what are the reasons you are an affiliate marketer? Please share them in the comments section below!

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Organizing Your Affiliate Business With OneNote 2007

Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is an electronic notebook that can be used for organizing your affiliate business with to-do lists, notes and research, and so much more.

Product Name: Office OneNote 2007
Developer: Microsoft
Platform: Windows Vista / XP
Purpose: Digital notebook that organizes your notes, lists, audio notes, web site printouts, and anything else you wish to store digitally.
Price: $68.99 (as of 2008-09-01)

Introduction

When you run an affiliate marketing business, you have a lot of stuff you need to keep track of, including:

• To-do lists
• Affiliate program details
• Research notes
• Brainstorming ideas
• Keyword lists
• Membership usernames and passwords
• Etc.

It can be a daunting task to keep everything straight, but if you don’t, you end up being disorganized. When you’re disorganized, you don’t work efficiently, and so ultimately you lose money. Office OneNote 2007 is a software program that can help you stay organized in every area of your business.

Who Is This Product For?

In a nutshell… EVERYONE. There isn’t a person living who doesn’t need to stay organized. If you’re an internet or affiliate marketer and own a computer, there’s no doubt that you need to stay organized. So yes… that’s you!

If you already have software or a system for staying organized, and it works well, then you might not have a need for OneNote. However if you don’t have a system in place yet, or if your current system isn’t working that well, then you will want to seriously consider OneNote.

What Can It Do For You?

The premise behind OneNote 2007 is extremely simple:

• You create notebooks.
• Each notebook can have sections.
• Each section has pages.
• You can also create groups of sections containing lots of individual sections.

The beauty in the simplicity is you can use OneNote in the way that works best for your needs. It doesn’t “force” you to adopt any particular organizational method.

Key Benefits:

Here are some of the key benefits you get when you use OneNote 2007:

• Never Lose Your Work
  All of your notes are automatically saved in real-time. So you can work according to your own schedule, and you never have to worry about saving your work or losing anything.
• Stay Organized
  You can type anywhere you want on a page, just click and type. You can create as many pages and sections as you need. You can tag and flag selected text. You can organize things the way that works well for you, but if you misplace something inside of OneNote, it’s just a quick search away.
• Never Forget Key Tasks
  You can easily create to-do lists inside of OneNote, and checkmark tasks that are completed. You can even create Outlook tasks from inside of OneNote with a single mouse click.
• Remember Great Ideas
  If you’re like me, you often have a great ideas at times when you’re not ready to work on them. And if you’re like me, you sometimes forget those great ideas. With OneNote, you can easily type your idea onto a brainstorming list or page, and then move on to whatever else you were working on. Then later when you’re planning and researching, it’s easy to refer back to your ideas.
• Easily Manage Keyword Lists
  Forget about Excel or text documents for your keyword lists. When you manage your keyword lists in OneNote, you have your keyword lists, to-do notes, and project ideas all in one place.
• Work From A Single Workspace
  You can use OneNote to do nearly all of your work in one place. For example, if you had an affiliate campaign you were just starting, you could create a new notebook or section for that project. Then you would have pages for your research and brainstorming. Next you’d create a page for your project’s to-do list and keyword lists. Finally you could write your web site content (blog posts, content, etc) directly in OneNote, easily referring to your lists and research… all inside of one application! Then copy and paste your content into your web site or blog, and check off those tasks from your to-do list.

Unique Features:

OneNote 2007 contains unique features that I haven’t seen before in a single software application:

• Audio Notes
  Some people don’t like to type notes, they’d rather speak them. A lot of people own digital voice recorders for this very purpose. However going back through your recordings takes time and can be tedious. As long as you have a microphone on your computer, OneNote lets you record audio notes directly into the software. The audio notes can be stored on any page you want. Best yet, OneNote will scan and index the words in the recording and use them for search results. So if you spoke the phrase “Amazon affiliate program” in your audio note, if you later do a search for that phrase, your note will appear in the search results!
• Screen Clippings
  OneNote has the ability to create a screen clipping from anything visible on your desktop. The clip will then be saved as a graphic in your OneNote notebook. If the graphic contains any text, OneNote will detect that, so when you search through your notes, it will include the text from the graphic in the search results!

Are There Any Problems?

Sure, like all software, OneNote 2007 is not perfect. Here are some things I would improve if I were in charge of developing the software:

• OneNote doesn’t have an easy way to run in minimized mode. While there is a system tray icon running at all times, the actual software always appears as a normal application in your taskbar when it’s running. If you want to minimize the software, you have to close it. The program does launch extremely quickly, but still it’s annoying. I would add a ‘minimize to system tray’ option.
• Everything is contained in a single window. The software does have feature to launch a new window, but it doesn’t have any type of advanced window management. So if you want to view two different pages side-by-side, as an example, then you have to manually position the windows. I would add window management features like ‘view side by side.’

Conclusion

I realize this isn’t some sexy new affiliate software… it’s just some boring productivity software… right? Well here’s the deal: you need to stay organized.

It’s really that simple. If you’re not organizing your efforts, then you’re not working efficiently. If you’re not working efficiently, then you’re leaving profits on the table.

If you want to maximize your efforts and profits by staying organized, then Microsoft Office OneNote 2007 is a software product that will give you the tools you need to organize your work. It won’t make you money in and of itself, but it will help you stay organized so your money making tasks stay on track.

Value: 8/10
Return on Investment: 9/10
Ease of Use: 9/10
Overall: 26/30

Click here to learn more or purchase a copy:
http://www.amazon.com/Microsoft-OneNote-2007/

Bonus Savings Tip: OneNote 2007 is included as a part of Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007, which also includes Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. This package costs about $20 more than the stand-alone OneNote software, so it’s a better deal if you want the extra software.

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Google Myth Busters: You Will Not Be Penalized For Submitting Your Sitemap

When you read blog and forum posts about Google, you are sure to read a ton of myths. One of the most common myths I’ve read says that your site will be penalized if you submit your sitemap to Google. People honestly believe that if you setup a Google Webmaster Tools account and submit your sitemap to it, you will lose rankings… or it will take much longer to get ranked… or you’ll be inviting a manual review…

The myth is complete bunk. There is NO HARM in submitting your site to Google’s Webmaster Tools.

I mean come on… conspiracy theories are fine and all, but do you really think that Google has some sinister purpose for the Google Webmaster Tools? I can just picture it, some overworked Google engineer sleeping under the desk in his cubicle, muttering in his sleep: “Mwuhahaha… they setup their sites on Google Webmaster Tools and we crush them! Mwuhahaha…”

Myth: Debunked

Let’s debunk this myth with the overwhelming fact that Google WANTS to display the most relevant search results, so they can make more money!

It’s really simple:

1. Google displays the most relevant search results.
2. More and more people use Google for searching.
3. More people searching means more PPC ads being displayed.

So if you have a really great site full of relevant content, do you think Google is going to punish your site because you submitted your sitemap? I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make any sense to me.

Fact: What’s Really Happening

Here’s what I think is really happening that causes people to believe in this myth… people submit their sitemaps TOO SOON. When you read the Google Webmaster Guidelines, they are very specific when they use the phrase “when your site is ready.” Google doesn’t care about your site until it’s ready. What does that mean? Your site is ready when you have enough content to deserve to be ranked at Google.

So let’s say you’re building a site on blue widgets. Obviously you’re not going to rank #1 for blue widgets overnight, but does your site deserve to be listed anywhere in the search results for blue widgets? Does your site have at least a minimum level of design and content that’s completed, so if a visitor interested in blue widgets came to your site, they’d find something of value? If the answer to that question is yes, then you will have no troubles if you submit your site to the Google Webmaster Tools. If the answer is no, then you shouldn’t even allow your site to get indexed by Google, because it’s not ready yet.

Conclusion

There’s no harm in submitting a good site to Google’s Webmaster Tools.

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