Wednesday June 13th, 2007: Issue #811
I had an amusing email from a Kickstart reader yesterday saying how she finds it funny when I talk about the weather being beautiful here in London because her image is of thick fog and driving rain!
Of course, Elsa lives in Buenos Aires so can be forgiven her less than rosy image of London! 
It is true that London used to suffer from what were then known as ‘pea-souper’ fogs - thick, yellow smog caused mainly by pollution. Mostly they had died out before I was born as anti pollution measures were introduced in the early 1950s. I can still remember one though. It was when I was very young - maybe six or seven - and it was so strange to not be able to see your hand a foot in front of your face!
England still gets occasional fog - although these days it is the more healthy hot/cold air kind that mainly affects more rural areas. Not so heathly for the idiots on motorways who see fog as a challenge to how fast they can drive in it!
As to the rain that we are so famous for - well global warming seems to have put a stop to that! Last year the south of England suffered a prolonged drought and although that seems to be over, this year has been exceptionally warm and sunny so far.
It seems that our mental images of how other countries are are going to need some radical readjustments as this old world of ours changes.
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There has been a a lot of talk lately about programs that monitor lists of keywords and tell you which Google AdWords ads are running for those words. The idea being that if you see an ad running consistently for a period of time you ‘know’ that it must be profitable.
After all, advertisers don’t keep on running unprofitable ads, do they?
When you find a ‘profitable’ ad, the purveyors of these programs tell you that you can copy the ads and start your own AdWords campaign to sell the same product.
I wrote about the biggest product launch (the one that wanted to charge you $500 for the software and an ongoing $100 per month) a little while ago in Kickstart. As you may remember, I wasn’t impressed.
Well, as an update, here is a true story from one of my own AdWords campaigns that shows how silly the concept is.
As all Kickstart readers know, I love the program Niche Inspector. So much so that I made a video to talk about it. Apart from sales of the program that I make through Kickstart, I also run AdWords ads that send people to my video page. It doesn’t make many sales, but it more than covers the AdWords costs.
Well here’s the thing. I have a small list of keywords that I bid on. Currently about 25. Some do well, some don’t. But I’m lazy, the outgoings are small and the overall profitability is about 300% - so I don’t bother to optimize it. I just leave it running.
Now, if you were monitoring my keywords (and they are all fairly obvious ones for a program like Niche Inspector), you’d see a list of about 25 that your software would tell you are ‘profitable’. After all, if the same ad has been running for the same keyword for any length of time it *must* be profitable. Right?
But … the fact is that I could drop 23 of my 25 keywords right now and hardly affect my campaign’s profitability at all. That’s right - almost all my sales are coming from two keywords (no, I’m not going to tell you what they are, but they aren’t the obvious ones!)
Of course, if you were using software to spy on my campaign you wouldn’t know that.
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The thing about the Internet - and making your living from it as I and many of my friends do - is that you have to be prepared to keep learning. New things pop up all the time and unless you are careful it is very easy to get left behind.
One area where I have been in danger of being left behind is this thing that everyone calls Web 2.0.
Web 1.0 is the old, familiar Internet of pages that you can go and visit, read and leave. Basically, a Web 1.0 website is a one-way flow of information, outward to you.
Web 2.0 is the next development that makes websites much more interactive. You can add comments, vote in polls, post your pictures, talk to other people on the site. The information flow is much more 2-way.
You’ve been using Web 2.0 sites without even realizing it! Blogs were probably one of the first big applications of Web 2.0 thinking, and forums certainly are.
The trend was given its name when a whole genre of websites began to emerge that had interactivity at their heart - not just as a quite interesting add-on. And now the Internet is fast becoming dominated by mysterious things with peculiar names like MySpace, Digg and Squidoo.
I have to admit that as I’m a little older than 13 most of these new sites have been a mystery to me. But, I managed to learn how to program the video recorder (before it became obsolete) so I figured I should make an effort to get to grips with some of these new-fangled webby thingamybobs.
I decided to start with Squidoo.
Squidoo (that’s a very difficult name to type fast) is the brainchild of marketing genius Seth Godin. Seth figured that the best source of information about a subject is from someone who knows about that subject. But, ten ‘experts’ are likely to have ten different takes on that subject. They all have something to say.
The problem with sites like Wikipedia is that they can only have one entry on a given subject. And the problem with search engines is that they judge the value of a site on a lot more criteria than what really matters - the value of the information it offers.
So he came up with the idea of Squidoo - a site where people who think they know about a subject can quickly and easily build a page of their own (called a Lens) on any given subject they choose. And if ten people all choose the same subject that’s great because visitors to the site will have a broader choice. But here’s the kicker. Every Lens is ranked according to its popularity - so the Lenses that people like the best float to the top, while the really bad ones sink to the bottom.
Squidoo has been running for over a year now and is really starting to take off. There are currently over 161,000 lenses and that figure is going up rapidly. Over 1,000 have been added since I checked yesterday.
Joining Squidoo is free - and if your Lens becomes popular you can even make money from it.
You can use your Lens for virtually anything - and building one takes only a few minutes.
My first lens is at http://www.squidoo.com/easy_time_management/ - please take a look. If you like it please vote by clicking on the stars at the top of the page (the further to the right you click, the higher your vote!).
To open your own Squidoo account just click on the green ‘Make your own page’ button underneath my mugshot.
If you haven’t dipped your toe into the waters of the Internet yet, Squidoo is a fast, free and easy way to get a site of your own up and running. I strongly recommend that you have a go.
If you are already an Internet marketer, Squidoo is a wonderful opportunity to promote your other sites, get backlinks, develop Google rankings and promote products.
Just keep it focused, keep it interesting and tell everyone about it!
Tell you what - let’s start a Kickstarter’s Squidoo directory.
When you have your lens running, go to the Kickstart Forum at http://kickstarttodayforum.com/ and share it with the rest of us.
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Despite being a person who buys endless ebooks and attends more seminars than are probably healthy, I suspect that I’ve learned more about the basics of Internet marketing from forums than from all the rest put together.
The best of the lot is the Warrior Forum. At least, it used to be,
It is still the best IM forum online, but the noise-to-signal ratio has increased alarmingly recently.
Part of the problem is that you used to have to pay to join. It was only ever a nominal amount, but that payment kept out the blatant self-promoters, the argumentative idiots and the people who know so much less than even they think they do.
It was a place where experienced marketers were happy to share their knowledge with newbies and in the process, everyone learned a huge amount.
Then the doors were opened to everyone and despite constant attention from a team of moderators, the fools began to take over.
It is still a great place to go to learn, but you are more likely to be taught by someone who doesn’t know much more than you do than by a real expert now. Many of the top names in Internet marketing have simply got fed up and left.
There is now a big gap in the market for an Internet marketing forum that has a restricted (paying) membership that experts can feel comfortable in again, and newbies can know that they are getting real advice.
We’re in luck. Robert Puddy thought so too. And for anyone who doesn’t know Robert - when he decides that something is needed, he doesn’t wait around for someone else to do it, he acts. That’s why he is as successful as he is!
Robert launched his new forum yesterday and it seems that everyone in Internet marketing is climbing over each other to join. I signed up last night.
The joining fee is only $10, but that should be enough to keep out the time wasters.
It is certainly a brilliant investment. In just 24 hours there have been over 400 posts, and I’m sure that this place will very quickly take on a life of its own.
Sign up here: http://www.urlnex.us/ForumKnowHow/
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ClickBank still haven’t approved my book ‘14 Days to Total Time Control’ but I expect it will happen today or tomorrow.
Until they do I’m offering it at a huge discount to Kickstart readers: just $19 instead of the $37 that it will be when it goes on sale through ClickBank.
If you haven’t bitten my fingers off to get your copy yet, then please PayPal me $19 to [offer now closed] and I’ll send you the book and the extra bonus book by email.
You can read the sales letter at http://www.totaltimecontrol.com and if PayPal is a bit of a mystery to you, I’ve made a very short video to show how easy it is to send money with them - http://www.totaltimecontrol.com/paypal/
This offer will end at midnight tomorrow.
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My request (on Monday) for alternative suggestions for anti-virus software was met my a huge response, and a confusing array of recommendations.
Nobody jumped to the defense of Norton or MacAfee but several people came out in support of the AVG program that seems to be causing me problems right now.
Here is the list of software that has been mentioned - what do you vote for?
Zone Alarm
Comodo
Avast4
Steganos
NOD32
Kubuntu
F-Prot
Goodness! I’ve never heard of half of them!
Incidentally, one other suite has been mentioned, but in a much more negative ‘don’t touch with a 10-foot pole’ way! That one is called Kaspersky. Anyone have any opinions on that?
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I’ll be sending out an announcement to the London Lunch list later today with news of the next date. So if you are on that list, please keep a watch on your inbox.
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An Inspirational Thought
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The great motivational speaker and writer, Richard Denny once ended a seminar by getting all 2000 members of his audience to stand up and lift their chair above their heads.
20 people discovered a £5 note taped underneath their seat.
The moral of the exercise was that the only way you stand a chance to make money is to get up off your backside!
I love practical demonstrations like that, don’t you?
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The Quote of the Day
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Christian Bovee said,
“Self-distrust is the cause of most of our failures … they are the weakest, however strong, who have no faith in themselves or their own powers.”
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Today’s Power Thought
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I’m going to get weird here today. Please don’t be put off - there is a reason!
Many years ago I went to visit a medium. I didn’t mean to - it was an accident. I was accompanying a friend who delivered something to an old lady. It turned out that the old lady was a medium and ‘had a message’ for my friend.
I thought the whole thing was rubbish, but my friend was intrigued enough to play along.
What ensued was fascinating, but not particularly convincing.
Until the old lady turned to me and said ‘Would you like to know what your Spirit Guide has to say?’
I was skeptical in the extreme, but didn’t want to seem rude.
“He is your Grandfather”, she said.
“Which one?” I asked.
“Your Father’s Father.”
“Okay then, what’s his name?”
She muttered a bit and then said he was called Arthur.
My Dad’s Dad was called Josh, so I ignored everything else she said.
Later that week I was relating the story to my Grandmother and when I told her about Arthur, she went white.
“But that was his name!”
“I always knew him as Josh though.”
“That was his nickname. He was christened Arthur, but nobody ever called him that.”
That was thirty years ago and I’ve never seen a medium since. I still don’t know if I believe in that stuff.
But … and here comes the point of my ramblings … it did open my mind to one very important idea. The idea that there are things that we don’t understand, and that denying their existence doesn’t necessarily make them go away.
Ever since that weird wake-up call I have tried to keep an open mind about all kinds of things - business ideas, self development ideas, personal thoughts.
Now, when people tell me things that my own personal experience says can’t be true, I remember Arthur.
And quite often, they turn out to be right.
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Fascinating Facts
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Having spent the whole of Sunday with hiccups, that only disappeared when I went to bed, I’m interested to learn that men get hiccups more often than women.
I’m better off than Charles Osbourne though. He, poor soul, had hiccups that lasted for 68 years!