Internet Business Blog by Jack Keifer

Do you have a digital product such as an ebook, video or audio product?  Maybe a software product of some type.  One of the biggest benefits of having digital products in my opinion is that you spend time at the beginning to develop your products, then you get paid forever.  It's kind of like having an "internet vending machine" for each product that you have.  That is, if its a download-able product.  The down side of downloadable products is that there are some pretty sharp crooks out there that will dedicate a lot of time to figuring out your download folder.  Experienced product hackers have lots of tricks up their sleeve which they can use to figure it out.  Fortunately, a vast majority of your visitors are pretty honest, but it only takes one.  Now maybe it wouldn't be so bad if they just kept it to themselves, but that's not normally the case.  These kind of people like to show off their talents by sharing your products with pirate forums, warez sites or even illegally selling your product somewhere like eBay!

So what's a product owner to do?  Well, you can give your download folder a really funky name with lots of numbers mixed in to slow down the hackers. You can hope that your download folder won't be shared with the world by some shady customer, or you can use a security product like Download Guard.  Download Guard was created by Sam Stephens and protects your download links like a fortress.  This is a full blown security suite written in PHP and has an easy to manage admin area to setup your download links.  I use Download Guard with both my Clickbank and Paypal products.  DownloadGuard handles it all.  DownloadGuard even handles your thank you email automatically, so that everything happens without the need for any intervention on your part.  You just setup your product, plug in the info to Download Guard, generate a payment link, and that's it.  When you make a sale, an email is automatically sent to your customer with the protected download link.  The customer clicks the link and is taken to a professional download page where they can click the download button to retrieve their product.  The link is dynamically generated and encrypted so the recipient never knows the true location of the download folder.  You can also add bonus products to your download page.  Also set the links to expire after a set number of hours.  I usually set mine for 48 hours.  If your customer misses their window for some reason, you can simply reset their link for them.  

I've been using Download Guard now since the very beginning.  I released my first product in 2005 and purchased Download Guard within a couple of weeks afterwards.  In the beginning, I had an issue with my web host and DLG.  I contacted Sam Stephens via his support forum and he went well above and beyond the call of duty to get me up and running.  It turned out to be my host, but he actually created a fix into his product just to address it.  He even tied into my FTP account to set everything up.  It was incredible and he set an example for me right from the start.  Over deliver on making your customer happy and you'll have them for life.  Download Guard was without a doubt the best investment I've ever made for protecting my digital assets. I don't just recommend things lightly.  This one gets my 100% endorsement. 
Check it out!

Probably one of the biggest challenges in running your own internet business (or nearly anything requiring self discipline for that matter) is fending off the distractions.  None of us are immune to it.  I've let myself take my eye off the ball more than once as I fell prey to distractions.  

Back in 2005, I decided that I wanted to get into the world of online business.  I started out the way most probably do.  I would spend hours surfing the net for information.  Hang out in the forums and buy all the latest products that offered the magic button that would do it all for me.  You know, the marketing equivalent of the "easy button".   Other products would include the "how to" stuff.  Surprisingly, many of the info products did have some valuable information within them.  The key was applying that info.  Only 2% ever really apply what they learn anyway. 

Well, now I was armed with lots of knowledge, it was time to turn it into experience.  Let's see…  hmmmm, I like playing guitar & I kick butt on Van Halen's Eruption, why not make a video tutorial?  Yeah, my first product!  I sat down to map out my strategy with the TV playing in the background.  Eventually, the program playing in the background was so "interesting" that I watched the rest of it.  Ok, the first night is shot.  The next night I left the TV off. Now to get down to business, but first, I better check my email.  Hmmm, an interesting new post in the forums.  Better go check it out.  Before I knew it, I blew another couple hours.  Other distractions seemed to come at me everyday.  The phone, email, friends dropping in.  It was a continuous cycle.  

After about 5 weeks, I was still no closer to starting my tutorial.  I looked back and began to ponder my situation.  I realized that I had just wasted over 5 weeks of my life that I could have dedicated to my new pursuit.  That 5 weeks was gone forever, never to be recovered.  I began to realize that I was actually welcoming these distractions!  I was programmed for failure.  I was one of the typical 98% who get involved with internet business.  I knew that if I were to have any chance of success, then a radical alteration of my thought patterns was in order.

I knew that I had to develop a procedure for eliminating distractions and begin focusing on the task at hand.  I set aside 3 to 4 hours a day to dedicate solely to my business, starting with my guitar tutorial.   Since my J.O.B. already consumed 8 + hours of my day, I was only left with about 4 good hours. The first thing to eliminate was the TV.  TV is the single most destructive device that you can have in your house.  By eliminating the TV factor, I easily had freed up a couple hours.  I was never much of a TV watcher, beyond the Discovery & History Channel, but distraction is distraction.  I had also unplugged the phone & let friends & family know that I would not be available during these hours.  Email was not to be viewed until my work was completed for the day.  At some point, I had also deleted the forums from my bookmarks.  I had read a post by James Brausch on the evils of the forums and how one's income was inversely proportional to the number of posts they had under their belt.  This made perfect sense to me, once it was pointed out.

It was amazing how quickly I had my first product ready after following these simple steps!  Now it was getting exciting!  I started out on eBay while I was getting my website together.  I already had a Paypal account that I opened around 1999 or 2000. I soon opened a Clickbank account upon completion of playkillerguitar.com.  

The transformation was staggering! I was getting things done and making money at the same time.  I was learning that the best way to learn was not from the forums, it was by DOING!!! Once I realized this everything changed.  The 2% crowd are doers.  The 2%ers don't think about taking action, they just take it.  If you find yourself caught up in this distraction cycle and actually enjoying it, then you must make a decision.  Are you going to waste another day? Another week, or even another year?  Where do you want to be in January 2009?  Give it some serious thought and decide whether you really want to break off your romance with that deceptively pleasurable thing called distraction.  If you do, you won't regret it.  Your biggest barrier to success will finally be yesterday's history lesson!

It appears that James Brausch has relocated his business blog!  He is now located at jamesbrausch.org.  I'm curious to see if he will be letting his readers in on the mystery of why he moved.  

His location is well established with top rankings in the search engines along with a page rank of 5, it's interesting to ponder the reasoning.  Being the master of search engine reverse engineering, perhaps James is up for another challenge.  Perhaps to prove that he can take a new site and crank his rankings in a relatively short time using rasof (his very effective website optimization product to obtain high search engine rankings).  Perhaps a .org domain carries more weight as an authority site in the eyes of Google?  Hmmmm, these are only speculations of course. I am by no means an expert in reverse engineering of the search engines.  For that matter, his relocation may have nothing to do with ranking at all.

Another reader commented that he may be expanding his presence because of his posting power via his intern program.   Whatever the reason, jamesbrausch.org has a clean, fresh new look with the familiar mug shot in the upper right corner.  Sooner or later James will come clean to his readers as to his motives.  Until then, I'm sure he'll enjoy reading the speculation circulating around the net!

Many people in my experience who bring up the subject of Internet Business, or "Internet Marketing" as commonly referred to by the forum junkies, seem to always have a reason that they are in the same boat now as they were a year ago.  A common response is "I've been trying to do internet marketing for the past year, but I just haven't gotten anywhere yet."  Oh? Trying?  Why are you trying?  Trying is not going to make you successful!  DOING is the only way.   I can sit in front of my computer and TRY to turn it on, or I can actually DO IT by reaching over, pushing the power button and turning on the computer.  The first is Non-Action (trying), The second is ACTION (doing). 

One reason people use the "trying" excuse is from being short on funds.  So you say, "I'd like to create a product, but I don't have the funds to buy the software that I need to do it."  Sorry, that's just another lame excuse.  Did you know that you can get all the software that you need to make an info product for free?  It's true & I'm not referring to the pirated stuff either, it's all open source, and they will empower you to declare your freedom.  That is, if you're ready to drop the excuses.  Here are some of the goodies out there:

Camstudio

One of the best types of information products to create is video products.  Customers see the best value in video products.  You can allow your customer to peak over your shoulder while you take them step by step through a procedure.  For example, I created an internet business blogging course using Camstasia, a paid equivalent with with some fancy, but not essential features.  With CamStudio, you can create your product from start to finish and within hours have your own product ready to sell to the public.  I've used Camstudio in other projects and it performs exceptionally well.

Audacity

If audio based information products or audio books is your bag, you should check out Audacity.  This is an audio editing suite where, like Camstudio, you can create an audio product from start to finish and have your own info product ready to go before you know it.   There's a ton of audio formats available including those for streaming and podcasting!

Open Office

If eBooks are your thing, or if you simply want a great alternative to the expensive Microsoft Office suite, Open Office is the way to go!  I frequently use Open Office myself and love it.  Frankly, I'm amazed that such a quality product is free!  You can do everything (and more) with Open Office that you can do with the Microsoft version.  Plus, if you are using the Word Processor to create your eBook, you can export it to a .PDF file when you're finished!  No need for shelling out 600+ bucks for Adobe Acrobat!

Gimp - PhotoShop Alternative

 If you're looking for an image manipulating program, this is a great one.  This is the same open source software that I used to create the header graphic on my blog tutorial info page.  In my course, there are three videos stepping you though using Gimp to create the header.  If PhotoShop and other image software are too pricey for your budget right now, Gimp is a great alternative.  This software has many photoshop like features and will enable you to create professional looking graphics, headers, banners and more.

Ok, now that I've eliminated the excuses for not having the money to buy the stuff that you need to make an info product, you know what the next 3 steps are:

1. take action

2. take action

3. take action!

Brendan Brewster has posted his top ten Internet Business blog list.  I made the list based on the top Google rankings for the term "Internet Business Blog" (without the quotes).  

I find this quite interesting, because jackkeifer.com is almost a year old (probably keeping me out of the Google sandbox), but my blog was only just recently relocated here.  I currently reside on page four.  I have been using James Brausch's Rasof to help in my webpage optimization for the search engines.  After just a couple of weeks, it seems that I've already propelled into the top few pages of Google for this term.  Hmmmmm, that's gotta say something for Rasof!  Currently, the term "internet business" itself is still in the stratosphere for me, but the night is very young, in organic search engine terms.

Brendan Brewster has an interesting blog and I've been following it for the past few weeks and like what I see.  It has a nice layout and interesting articles.  Just like me, Brendan has also recently moved his blog.  Brendan is one of the few who really take action on their desires and has been quite active on his blog and product promotions.  At the moment, Brendan's business is related to affiliate marketing, but his blog covers much more than that.  I wouldn't be surprised to see him release his own product at some point soon.  I think that Brendan has the 2% mindset required to make the sky the limit.  

Of all those who participated in my "testimonial" special for the AmazingCloaker last year, Brendan was the only one who held up his end and actually followed through.  That just goes to support that 98% will never do anything, while the 2% will be the true successes in 2008.

Keep up the great work Brendan! 

Everyone who has created or sold a product has to to deal with refunds.  No matter how great your products are, you're gonna get them, it's just another fact of life.  When I first started making digital products, I used to take it personally to a small degree.  I say a small degree because logic has always dictated that this is a normal variable in doing business.  Yet, human nature may dictate otherwise, at least in the beginning anyway. You can't help but to wonder in the back of your mind what was wrong.  Did my product suck?  Was it over priced?  Maybe I'm too much of an amateur and it's showing through.  Maybe they're just gaming me to get a free product.  All kinds of things will go through your mind if you dwell on it.

Fortunately for me, refunds are few and far between.  Maybe that's because I only have 4 digital products offered to the public so far or maybe its because I'm a stickler for quality.  Whatever the reason, I'm certainly not complaining.  Normally, a refunder will give a reason when requesting one.  That's OK because it can help me to determine if there's something that I can improve upon.  If they refuse support & insist on a refund shortly after purchase, most likely they're just ripping you off.

I wrote a script that I use to blacklist refunders from future purchases & specials.  It works great.  So why the script?  Sour grapes?  No, strictly business.  Many refunders are habitual and not the quality customer that you want to keep.  You're better off filtering them out from future purchases.  The only customers that count are the people that actually USE and appreciate your products.  Those are the quality people that take their business seriously.  Those of you who buy my products and / or who simply enjoy & follow my blog are what I care about.  

Don't let it get you down if you create a digital product & end up with a refund or two right in your first week.  It's going to happen at some point & unless you intentionally created a shabby product, the refund has absolutely nothing to do with you.  Just write it off.  The percentages are ALWAYS going to work in your favor anyway!  Your CURRENT customers are the ones that count.  Be there for them if they have a problem with your product.  A little communication goes a long way.  They'll thank you for it and will be back again the next time you have a product that they can use.

Ok, if refunds are scaring you from making your first product, get over it.  No more excuses.  Get busy and make 2008 the year that you took control of your freedom! 

Many times I have been asked by people "which is better, affiliate marketing or creating your own product and marketing it yourself?"  I suppose that a lot of that depends on what type of goals you have and the business model that appeals most to you.  Some people are drawn to affiliate marketing because of the "set it and forget it" mentality. 

Affiliate marketing can be appealing in the sense that you get paid a commission just for recommending a product.  The visitor clicks on your affiliate link and a cookie is then set which allows the affiliate to receive a commission if the visitor happens to purchase the product.  If your websites draw a decent amount of traffic, you can make a pretty sizable income without the hassles of customer support, dealing with refunds, shipping and other headaches.  Serious affiliate marketers pull in a comfortable living with income that is quite passive.  Using a method of capturing email addresses to build a list for promoting  products and offering useful information is important.  They also have essential tools in their arsenal for product & keyword researching, PPC (pay per click), and link protection (also known as url cloaking).  My product, the AmazingCloaker is one such url cloaker.  The AmazingCloaker has an added feature of embedding a cookie into your web page to simulate a click through which will asure that you will still receive your commission in case some hairball bypasses your affiliate link.

On the down side, affiliate marketing can be a tough game to master.  Getting traffic to your website is a big one.  Blogging is a great way to attract traffic and promote your product without spending a fortune.   The trade off is that you have to constantly come up with fresh content to make it work.  Pay per click (PPC) such as Google AdWords, Yahoo Search Marketing, MSN, etc can be a viable way of drawing a ton of traffic and still turning a profit if you know what you're doing.  If you don't, you can blow a lot of cash right out the window.  Finding the right products to promote can also be a challenge.  Affiliate marketing isn't the effortless lazy man's way to make money that the so called "gurus" will have you believe.  It takes time, effort and dedication to make it work, just as with any business.

My personal favorite is Product Creation.  I believe that if you truly want to "make it" in the internet business world, creating your own products is the key.  Creating a product should only take a few hours (or a couple of weeks if you're into eBook writing) to create.  Once your product is created, you simply create a sales page and you're in business.  Of course having an established blog and/or network of websites to promote your products is an excellent advantage.  If you don't, then it should become a part of your business plan.

Having your own product will allow you to offer an affiliate program in which you can build an army of affiliates who will be more than happy to promote your product.  It should be a quality product that offers value to your customers, of course.  Once you release your first product, just rinse & repeat.

Now the down sides of product creation.  By marketing your own products, you have to offer support for your product, deal with refunds, etc.  In my experience, creating a product with a high quality standard reduces the refund rate significantly.  Even with the highest quality and best documentation, the refunders and time vampires are unavoidable.  Its just a fact of life.

So which is better?  In my opinion, creating your own digital product is much easier and more profitable.  With a little effort in the beginning, your products will continue to produce income over and over again.  Some people prefer getting their feet wet with affiliate marketing and then evolving into their own product creation.   Whichever route you go, just remember that taking action and sticking with it will guarantee results.  Stay focused and stick with it.  Success will follow.

As I promised a couple days ago, I now have a review ready of Richard Lee's Blog Content Roadmap.  If I was only given three letters in which to describe Richard Lee's product, I could only put it two ways: Wow! & Bam!  This is just the ticket I was looking for.  It's not often when you buy an info product that you can walk away in the end feeling excited and ready to apply what you've learned!  In my experience, most info products make me feel short changed.  Some products have even gone as far as causing my body to physically contort straight into an anti-gasm!  Is that a word? Oh well.   

Richard, this product is fantastic!  It's worth well above your asking price of 50 bucks.   There is absolutely no fluff in these videos.  This is a straight up, get down to business pure meat & potatoes gold mine of information!  The videos are very well articulated and Richard doesn't miss a beat.

The main video is called the Blog Content Roadmap video.  The first subject in the video covers why we should post daily as opposed to occasionally or just a couple times a week.  This is a topic that is debated quite often by some of the forum junkies.  The reasons given by Richard for posting daily are spot on in my opinion.  In fact they are undeniable!  It's as simple as that.  Richard lists quite a few reasons as well.  some of which I never really considered before.

Next, Richard delves into the mechanics of writing.  The first mechanic, getting down to writing your blog, points out something that you should absolutely NOT do!  It also happens to be something that I've been guilty of in the first degree every day!  At this early point, I already knew that I was on to something good!  Other sections of writing mechanics includes a system for capturing ideas, creating an idea incubator and what he calls the "bullpen" where the best ideas are ready to be brought out.  By this time I was already formulating ideas in my head for optimizing my blogging.

The next area covered is "The System".  Richard Lee includes a .pdf file containing the same system that he uses himself for creating content on his blog.  This is a nice addition.  His system is mapped out so that you can adopt it directly to your own blog, or simply use it as a guide for creating your own system which is more tailored to your particular subject matter.  In fact, the system is designed to encourage this. 

In the next part of the video, he gives pointers on discovering your own formulas for creating great content for your blog.  I was impressed with his methods for creating great content.  Although creating great content is very good, it's not going to get you very far if you can't keep it going on a regular basis.  This is where Richard Lee really delivers on an already great system.  By the end of this video you have all the info you need to start blogging quality posts every day.  Richard also maps out a challenge at the end.  He has a task list mapped out for you to follow for each day for six days.  If you take him up on the challenge and follow the list, I'm convinced that you will succeed.  I'm going to take the challenge starting today.  Simply repeat the steps in the system every week and you just can't lose.  Don't just take my word for it.  Stick around this blog and see if you don't see regular and (hopefully) quality posts every day!

As an added bonus, the roadmap is rounded off with another video which shows you a free tool that's available for getting ton's of content ideas sent directly to your email every day or once a week! What an obviously cool idea!  

I'd like to offer some cons about the Blog Content Roadmap to give some balance to this review, but I honestly can't think of any.  I'm a thoroughly satisfied customer.  That's kinda strange, because I'm pretty good at identifying the flaws in a product.  If Richard ever releases this into a physical product, I think it would be useful if the video's were also in a DVD format for more flexibility.  

After viewing the videos, I can honestly say that I have a new sense of empowerment.  I no longer feel that I'm a slave to starring at a white screen with a bad case of writer's block hoping that maybe tomorrow will be a better day.

If you're serious about taking your blog to the max, then you owe it to yourself and to your readers to get the Blog Content Roadmap today!  By the way, there are no affiliate links in this post.  My recommendation is based purely on the merits of the product itself.  On what I've seen here, I have a feeling that I'm going to be a fan of Richard's products for a long time to come!

The Ultimate Blogging Course For Marketers has been released!  The blogging course is made up of 19 videos which are designed to take a raw beginner by the hand and step you through each process of creating your own blog using WordPress.

The course starts out with a "blogging 101" video that explains what blogging is and how it benefits you as an internet business person to have one.  Next you move on to setting up your own domain.  This video can be skipped if you already have a domain or know how to set one up.  If you're brand new to the internet marketing arena, this is a very handy video to show you how to get your domain and web host set up. 

After that you get into the meat of the course with downloading and installing wordpress.  I even walk you through the process of creating the MySQL database.  This is probably the single most intimidating factor for the newbie.  The newbie may find this worth the price of admission by itself!

Next we choose a theme and set it up to give the blog a more professional look.  This video is followed by those that cover installing plug-ins, installing using widgets, making your first blog post, and setting up a capture form for email subscribers.  The capture form videos start with signing up for your auto-responder account through GetResponse.com, setting up your auto-responder, and installing the form to your blog.

The next area covered is creating a logo for your site.   This is all done using open source software.  In other words, FREE software!  I didn't see any sense in using Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks because I didn't want new marketers to be left out in the cold if they didn't own one of these fine, but pricey products.  I show you how to get and download the software, and take you step by step through creating the logo!

Finally, in the last video, I tweak and refine the blog for its final look.  The internet business blog that is created in the blogging course is JackKeifer.com.  The domain name was purchased during the creation of the video as was the entire blog.  Everything that you see in the blog including the blog posts from May 14th, 2007 was created entirely in the video course.  The July 15th Sales Letter Post was created after words of course.

If you're new to the game of blogging and want to take it to the next level but never knew how to really do it right, then here's your chance.  Check out the Ultimate Blogging Course now! 

[tags]how to make a blog, marketing blog, internet business, Ultimate Blogging Course For Marketers, affiliate marketing, website design, wordpress, photoshop, macromedia fireworks[/tags]

If you've been reading in this blog for any length of time you'll know that I follow James Brausch's blog regularly, because of the valuable information that he shares with his readers. I've yet to come across a blog where the reader is so often and directly challenged to take action on their life / business. His latest challenge is to come up with a "freedom plan" to declare your independence in three months and take off to somewhere like Costa Rica. Well, not being someone to back down from a challenge, here is my plan.

First of all, as a programmer, I was taught that every program that you write naturally follows a procedure. You write your code to follow a predefined set of rules so that the compiler can interpret it correctly and that you have a bug free application when finished. When your application is working, then nothing has to be changed. Every time the computer "runs" the program, it follows the specified procedure every time without fail. I believe this should also apply to your business.  First map out a procedure. This is my procedure for the "Freedom Project".

Step 1 - Create a Product

1a. Brainstorm a list of products that I think will "fly". This list can be compiled by simply listing the things that you are good at. What are your hobbies? what do you like to do? What don't you like?, etc. Now narrow down your list to what you can apply online. For example, I created this blog to promote my product, AmazingCloaker, I also like to write software and custom scripts for my internet projects, I like guitar, etc.

1b.  Market Reasearch your potential products next.  I'm going to create a "How to build a blog for marketers" product. It will be designed for the raw beginner starting from the very basics and progressing into more advanced areas such as customizing your look, and optimizing for the search engines.  The finished product (the blog) will also be my sales page. Now go out to http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/ and use their keyword suggestion tool and type in your main keywords.  In my case, I'll type in keywords such as "creating a blog", "blog marketing", "web design", etc.  For "creating a blog" I scored 1,747 monthly searches, 998 of them from Google, which is ok if the competition isn't to stiff. These are conservative figures and are probably much higher in reality.

Ok, now let's get an idea of our competition. Go out to Google and type your best keyword. Now take a look at the right hand column where the Google Adwords advertisements are located. If there are more than 10 ads listed you will see a link at the bottom of the column that says "More Sponsered Links".  Click on it.  There will be 10 ads listed for each page.  Click through each page at the bottom of the list until you reach the end.  This will give you an idea of what kind of competition ratio you have to monthly searches.   Each page contains 10 ads, so if you scroll through 5 pages before it runs out, you would have 50 advertisers.

In my example - "create a blog" I got 8 advertisers, not bad at all. A more competitive keyword like "designer handbags" has 172 advertisers, seems like pretty stiff competition for that product, but you also have 32,000 searches a month. In a perfect world that's around 186 visitors per advertiser.  In reality we're talking high bid amounts for first page positions for such a competitive keyword.  Anyway, back to our blog product.

Now that we have our product, the next step in our procedure is to:

2. Get a website. Pick a domain name, preferably one with your best keyword in the name. Get your domain before anything else.  The domain will help commit you to the project as well as get the clock ticking for Google to list it.  Now host it of course, and make a quick home page.  Put a couple of paragraphs explaining your new product and how this is going to be something really worth having.  Put an email capture form below to catch & notify interested prospects when your product is released.  This will allow you to generate a list of interested buyers before you even get started!  If you don't have an auto-responder like GetResponse, or Aweber, go sign up now, otherwise you're really not serious enough to keep reading on.  Now I can do some quick promotions via existing blogs, forums, web 2.0, etc. 

3. Create Your Product using Camstasia Studio or the free equivalent (camstudio). I will be using Camtasia to create my "how to make a blog for marketers" course. I suggest opening wordpad first and writing out the steps that you will take in creating your product. This will help you move along smoother and allow your customers to grasp what you are teaching more easily. Now just create your product as you narrate what you are doing. Try to keep each section less than 15 minutes. 10 is better. Having each section broken down is easier to digest. Besides, Camtasia won't compile over a certain number of frames for the web.

4. Create a bonus video (optional), in my case, an HTML primer video and offer it free to anybody who signs up on your new web page.

5. Publish your project and upload to your website.

6. Create a sales page using Glyphius to generate your most effective sales copy. Keep your page short & sweet. Maybe 3-5 pages (Not more than 7 pages at the very max).

7. Add your order link and thankyou pages. Use PayPal or Clickbank, or any program you prefer. (Clickbank is a good choice because you can then easily allow people to affiliate with you, who will then spend their own money on advertising your product). Set your auto-responder to send the link to your customer immediately after they purchase your product.

8. Promote via PPC to get initial traffic rolling. Optimize web site for search engines with keyword rich all-in-anchor text, title, tag, h1, h2 tags, body, footer, etc.  Remeber, you're writing your content for the visitor first, so don't make your web copy look phony & keyword stuffed.  Start getting backlinks to website via blogs, forums, directories, StumbleUpon, diggit, flickr, del.ic.ious, etc. If you have the funding, sign-up at rasof.com to get the best SERPs.

9. Purchase SuFAQ (recommended) or install if you already own it to automatically handle tech support questions. Remember, FREEDOM is the keyword here, so we want zero headaches here.

10. Create a new product repeating steps 1 through 9.

11. Create a network of 10 - 20 domains / websites with related content to your successful product(s) webpage and interlink all your sites together to push up your rankings and boost your business.

If you've been there, done this and are ready to step up to the next level, get yourself a mentor. James Brausch offers a mentoring program through his magical e-mail address. The price is always increasing, so don't wait too long.  He will personally answer any questions that you have on building your business and becoming successful.  There's only one hitch, however.  You have to follow through with what he tells you.  He will give you the path to success, but it's up to you to walk down it.  Are you up for it?  I'm going for the freedom challenge.  I'll keep you posted these next few months how the procedure is working along with any ratcheting that I may do if any.  Until then… I'm off to create a product!

[tags]James Brausch, Internet Business, Creating a Blog, marketing, Google, Information Products, marketer, make money online, SEO, business opportunity, glyphius, rasof, magical email address, sufaq[/tags]