Butterfly Reports

I came across Mike Filsaime's Butterfly Reports website and I just wanted to let everyone know what it is and why you should sign up. It's a membership website that allows anyone to join - even FREE.

At the basic membership level you are allowed to make upto 25% commission on products that are featured in the report and submit your own reports at a rate of 1 per month into what is called the 'Marketplace'.

If you have pre-written reports then why not upgrade to the paid membership level that allows you to make 50% commission on featured products and you are also able to submit 4 reports per month.

Whether you're a newbie or an Internet Marketing veteran there is a plan for you so check out http://www.butterflyreports.com/ today!

P.S. If you'd like to view one of these viral reports then head over to my free Xdrive space and download one for yourself, it's at http://www.xdrive.com/.

Market Research Made Easy?

I was looking for some free SEO tools to write up on here and I stumbled across something called Google Trends. I really like it because you can either search your own trends or you can view the top 100 hottest trends. The results are brilliant as they give you linear graphs, related articles and blogs!

This tool could save somebody a lot of time and frustration and if you couple that with bum marketing you can even test the market without risking a single penny. Well done Google!

Head over to http://www.google.com/trends to test this tool out for yourself.

Late Night Viewing

I came home this morning just after 04:15 and I decided to turn on the TV. I didn't expect anything interesting to be on, but I did see something on the teleshopping channel and it gave me a brain wave. I was looking at an advert for the "bricky" which is a tool anyone can use to lay down a perfect 10mm bed of mortar or "muck" as it's commonly known in the trade. It's being promoted for a limited time offer of £29.99 and it comes with loads of tools and a DVD as well and I thought it might be a good product to market online.

I have just looked at the Google Keywords Tool and typed in "bricky" to see what would come up and it seems it has a very low keyword search volume, but it is being marketed via Google AdWords (as indicated by the competiton volume indicator). I then looked at the website at http://www.bricky.com/ to see if they accept affiliates, but alas no joy. It seems they are the only ones marketing this product.

The moral of this story? Think outside of the box. It's this kind of thinking I am starting to love about this industry. I didn't think I would be that creative, but when faced with the prospect of finding products to promote I guess I got my brain juices going.

Time Waits For No Man... or Woman

You've heard of the saying "Time Waits For No Man", well this saying definitely applies to me. When I started this experiment I was full of enthusiasm and excitement and after just a few days I feel different (it's probably because I work nights and I feel tired) and reality has certainly kicked in.

It's also weird when you have high expectations for something and it doesn't really happen that way. You're probably thinking "What are you on about?". The truth is I don't really know. I guess I'm just rambling on.

Right! Let's get back on track. I have just entered into a micro-niche for the first time ever and it is one that is hugely saturated with other Internet Marketers. The reason why I have entered into this micro-niche is because I know a lot about this subject and I'm still finding my feet in all of this. It would then make perfect sense to go into a market you know a lot about so you can formulate your own marketing processes for when you enter a market you know little of.

As soon as I have finished my article and supplental guide I will then write up my experiences here for those who are struggling to come up with ideas.

Your Thinking Time Is Precious

As my job requires me to work a lot of hours per week I have come to realise that my thinking time is a valuable resource and I was wandering how I could make more effective use of it. All you need to do is free your mind, well actually it's a piece of software called FreeMind and best of all it's completely free of charge.

It works by allowing you, the user to create notes in a pictorial format much like a brain storming session. If you're like me and write copious amounts of notes on paper then you will instantly realise the time saving features this piece of software will provide you with especially when researching keywords for your current articles.

You use it by putting the main topic in the middle then using branches or nodes start making a kind of spider diagram like so:

I tend to use it for planning markets I would like to enter into, article ideas and designing websites from a linked map perspective. It really is a versatile piece of software.

In order for you to use this software you must have Java installed which can be downloaded at http://www.java.com/. To download FreeMind just goto http://freemind.sourceforge.net/.

So go on give it a try!

What Is Bum Marketing?

In case you haven't heard of bum marketing before I will give you a brief description of what it is. Bum marketing is about being able to make money online with no startup capital, using no contacts and definitely no joint venture partners.

If you want to know more about bum marketing then you can sign up to the free course at http://www.bummarketingmethod.com/. Whilst you're reading the free course you might be wandering why Travis is giving this fantastic information away? The answer is because he wants to help people like you and I.

Also I might add he is an affiliate for a piece of software called AdWords Analyzer. I have purchased this piece of sofware myself in the past as at the time there wasn't anything like it on the market, but I have managed to find something very similar to it that is provided by Google for free.

If you goto https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal there you will find a great tool that will enable you to do your market research. To use it you just enter the keyword(s) you'd like to research and click on the "Get Keyword Ideas" button.

After about 10-20 seconds you will see the columns being populated (you might have to scroll down first). You're looking for the following:

1. Keyword(s) that have a high Search Volume for the current month (this metric shows you if people are searching for the keywords right now).
2. Keyword(s) that have a high Average Search Volume (this metric shows the average for the past 12 months).
3. Keyword(s) that have a high Advertiser Competition (this metric shows people are willing to pay money into this market and it could be profitable).

There you are. I can't say any more than that as I haven't started to make money online yet. I'll leave you to play around with Google's Keyword Tool and after I have entered into a few markets myself I'll give you guys an update into how effective the tool really is.

Ciao for now!

My Internet Marketing Experiment

After having read various ebooks on Interet Marketing I have decided to take the plunge and see if it's possible to make money online. Over the coming months I will give as much detail as possible and I won't be pulling any punches.

The rules I have set myself are as follows:

1. I can only use tools, ebooks and downloadable products that are freely available on the Web.
2. I must report my findings on this blog.
3. The deadline for this experiment is 01/01/2009.

There you have it. I have only set myself a few rules so I can keep focused and hopefully be able to help others who are thinking about getting into Internet Marketing.