Most people rely on the Google keyword generator tool to do their research and try to find long tail phrases that can be ranked for using sites like Squidoo, EzineArticles and other common places. And while this is absolutely still an effective method, it is very time consuming, and the results are sometimes difficult to get.

I have been doing this online marketing thing for a while now, and there is no bigger amount of time spent on any of my campaigns than researching keywords. In an effort to get more efficient, I finally took the plunge and purchased one of the most talked about keyword generator tools on the forums over at Wealthy Affiliate:  Micro Niche Finder.

Is Micro Niche Finder a good Keyword Tool Generator?

In three words: I  Love It!

Micro Niche Finder has not only saved me incredible amounts of time and effort, but has opened my eyes up to niches and keywords that I never thought were possible.

Want to see it in action? Take a close look at this screen shot:

Want to know one way you may have come to this post on my blog – it’s right there on the screen shot!

I fired up Micro Niche Finder, and typed in “keyword tool” at the very top and hit “Search.”

The tool generated a list of results for me, and I start scrolling through them.

Now, look at the middle of the screen shot. Two of the keyword ideas that the tool returned were “keyword generator” and

“keyword generator tool.”

Keyword generator gets over 5000 searches per month, and keyword generator tool gets about 1000. Pretty solid numbers!

But what about the competition? Can we rank for these?

Look closer – see that red X and the green check mark on the far right? That is what makes this tool so great!

That is called the Strength of Competition rating, and it is a specific measure of how much competition is out there for each keyword phrase.

In the Micro Niche Finder users guide, you will see than anything under 50 is a solid “go” for bum marketers.

In this case, the phrase “keyword tool generator” is only at a competition strength level of 4 (four)!

I also checked the famous quoted results, and what do you know, it is LESS THAN 10,000 quoted results.

To recap, in about 2 minutes (literally), I found a keyword (“keyword generator tool”) that has 1000 searches, less than 10,000 quoted results, and a strength of competition that is almost nothing.

Check Out Micro Niche Finder for Yourself :Micro Niche Finder

Think this is a good keyword? I would think so, because I am doing this entire blog post based on that keyword!

Micro Niche Finder is hands down my favorite tool for working online, and if you are at a point you want to invest a little, then I recommend you give it a chance.

Here is a link to check it out - : Micro Niche Finder

Keep working hard – results are made, not given!

Over the past several weeks, I have been reading several posts in the forums at Wealthy Affiliate regarding article submission tools. Most people are asking the question about which article submitting programs are most effective for affiliate to use to get their content exposure increased online.

While it is not necessary to use an article service to be successful, many people are finding they get increased traffic to their pages by using these services. So what are the ones that are most recommended?

For me, I currently use two services, one is a subscription service with no limit on articles per month, and the other is a pay per article service that I am seeing some good results from initially. Here I will tell you about both of them so you can decide for yourself.

Unique Article Wizard – This is the subscription based article service that requires some effort on your part to set up, but is a very powerful backlinking tool. UAW is a little pricey at $67/month, however, for one of my businesses who uses it regularly, we have 12 Google first page websites using nothing more than the linking strategy in One Week Marketing, plus one article blasted out with UAW. In most cases, these sites are getting to page one in Google within 2 or 3 weeks of being live online. Pretty astounding results, and worth the price of admission for sure.

UAW also as a free 3 Day Stealth Marketing Course that I recommend you take if you want to learn a little more about articles and how they work. Here is a link:  Stealth Marketing Course.

iSnare – I am currently testing iSnare, where they will distribute your articles and build a link wheel of sorts with them for about $1.50 per article. It is not much to pay to give it a test run, and I will update you on my results here in a few weeks. I am trying them out because a very well respected member at Wealthy Affiliate wrote a tutorial about using iSnare in the ShareZone of the site, and he is getting results approaching $1000 per 5 articles using a system of well researched keywords, and iSnare distribution.

I figure I don’t have much to lose to give it a shot!

So those are the two article submission tools that I am using right now. I am happy to hear of any others that you may be using that are of value. There is no question that getting your content out there and in the open on multiple sites is a huge key to success, and using one of these services, if you can afford it, is a smart decision!

The single biggest mistake in internet marketing that will kill your article or website conversion rate and click through rates in an instant is actually quite simple. I see this mistake happen over and over again, on an almost daily basis.

One of the things I do each day inside Wealthy Affiliate is look for new members who need a helping hand with a quick review of their first article, Squidoo lens, or website. Almost every single time, they are making this one mistake that is costing them.

That mistake: Not identifying with their audience.

Too many times, new internet marketers jump in the pool and throw up a bunch of articles that are focused towards selling a product. They are talking AT their reader, and not WITH their readers. Think about that for a minute.

To be successful, you need to research a little about your niche, and understand what would drive someone to be looking for the information you are promoting. Spend 20 minutes learning about the type of person who would be looking for it, then write your article or lens.

Your results WILL improve.

After two months, what I found was, the program was working to get me followers on Twitter rather well. I now have over 900 followers in my Twitter account:

(That screen shot is not so good, but you can also verify by looking me up on Twitter @makersnseven.)

Not too bad though! These followers are also targeted to keywords that I set up using the program software. The number is increasing basically daily. My next issue is going to be how to monetize this twitter traffic. I have done virtually NOTHING to monetize my followers to this point, but can tell you that I test “tweeted” the other day, and inserted a hoplink via tinyurl into the tweet, and got about 100 clicks off the single tweet with one sale.

Will using Twitter make you rich? Probably not! But if you are curious about Twitter and how it works, and want to learn some cool things about how you can use it to monetize your traffic, then maybe the program I used it worth your time.

Here is a huge hint as well: do NOT use it to gain followers of the make money online niche! Instead, think about applying our One Week Marketing and Bum Marketing methods…..what is a hungry crowd who may be tweeting? Maybe it is relationships, or dating type information? Just like writing articles for Ezinearticles or Squidoo, use it to build relationships, and drive traffic to your blog, Squidoo pages, and other places where you can then monetize it!

Here is what I used to get my followers (I can’t offer support for the software – as I am still testing it myself!):

Turbo Cash Generator

Yes, it is a fairly cheesy sales page, but it APPEARS to be working for me to get lots of followers. Now I need to implement the monetary piece of the puzzle……

Do you have an internet marketing business plan that is not working? Or do want to know how to start creating your plan to succeed? I see so many questions over at the forums in Wealthy Affiliate from members who want to learn, have the desire to succeed, but struggle getting off the ground with their internet marketing business plan.

And let me tell you, the quality of information in those forums can not be valued at any price. The members are the most helpful set of internet marketers I have come across.

However, what I see as the most common reason internet marketing fails is not budget, or hard work, or keyword research, or ability to create content.

So what is it?

Simple: Ability to Identify BUYERS

No buyers = no sales regardless of where you rank in the search engines.

So how do you identify buyers?

There is certainly no set formula, but here are a few steps to help you get your mindset right for finding buyers:

1. Pay attention to others – in your daily activity you are very likely to hear a friend or co worker talk about recent purchases, or hot topics. Write these down! Clearly, these are BUYING actions you can take advantage of.
2. Utilizing Amazon – At Amazon, you can go into any category and look at the Top Sellers list. These products identify niches that are ripe for the pickings. That does NOT mean you have to promote those products, but if you see the top product in books is a guide on pregnancy, go find on Clickbank or CJ a high commission pregnancy guide. You get the idea.
3. Google Trends – In Google, you can find the Hot Trends for a set time frame. While many of the top search items will be celebrity news or other such gossip, you will also find keywords and topics that are clearly from consumers. This can give you insight into buying trends as well. Here is a link: Google Trends

No matter your stage in online marketing, a huge key to success is finding the right buying crowd to get in front of!

How many times have you busted your rear end to get a sale on Clickbank, only to get that “Refund” notice the very next day? It has happened to me, and it sure is frustrating to know all your work was for nothing up until that point. And to be honest, I do not like promoting a product if it gets refunded a high percentage of the time. This means the product was garbage, and now my website, or name, or article is tied to that bad experience for the person who had enough trust and faith in what I was writing to get out their credit card and make a purchase.

So how can we avoid promoting a product that is a chronic refunder? While there is no exact way to really know other than taking a stab using the data available on Clickbank….until now!

I was hanging out over at Wealthy Affiliate the other day, and ran across a post from a user who had found that cool tool that I had never seen before. It is a site where you can get a very close estimate as to the refund rate of any product on Clickbank! Really cool stuff.

Here is the site: http://cbhelper.com/refund-calculator.html

Now, keep in mind that even this tool is an estimate, and there are some factors that are impossible to put into the equation (like if the owner has changed the selling price recently, or there are multiple price points for the product), however, this will give you a good, general tool to put in your toolbox for affiliate marketing!

In general, stay away from a product that has a refund rate over 20%, at least, that is MY personal rule. Anything under 10%, and I am going to promote the you know what out of it!

Play around with that site, there are some other really cool features on there as well.

Keep working hard!

Are You Suffering from Keyword Paralysis?

There seems to be so much information out there telling us what we need to find in a keyword that we seem to go into information overload and spend hours and hours trying to find just one keyword! What are the quoted results? What about the “all in title” and “all in anchor” results? Is it a ‘buying” keyword or something a tire kicker would input? What is the search volume? Is there ANY search volume? The list can go on for these questions.

So how do we overcome this if we are wanting to use bum marketing, One Week Marketing, or some other free methods to make money using Squidoo or other sites?

First, it is of course really important to find keywords that you can rank for, which means limiting the amount of quoted results and also the amount of Squidoo pages already indexed for that keyword. But, many people seem to struggle and give up when they can not find that keyword using the various keyword tools. I know several folks who have spent 10 or 12 hours and not found a single keyword to use.

My “Secret” to Unlocking Keywords You Can Use to Rank in Google for Squidoo and Other Sites

Here is what I do when I find myself stuck trying to find keywords. Have you ever noticed in  Google, when you are entering a keyword that you found off of the Keyword Tool, Google will give you SUGGESTIONS on what that keyword might be?

Lets say your phrase from the keyword tool is “bass fishing lure.” As we are typing this into Google, we get *this* from Google:

ALL those extra keyword are GIVEN to you by Google! I have found, in many cases, these keywords are NOT on the keyword tool results (some are, but some are not), & I have found, on many occasions that these are GREAT long tail keywords to rank for.

Google is TELLING us what people are searching for, so we should USE this to our advantage.

Try using this the next time you are stuck with looking for keywords. It is important to TAKE ACTION, get your content online, and repeat the process. An indexed lens that gets 10 visits per week is WAY better than a lens that is NOT indexed and gets zero visits!

Keep working hard!

In early August, Clickbank Pirate was launched with tremendous buzz as the latest and greatest system to make money online, but does Clickbank Pirate really work? I am never one to run out and grab a new product, or as we like to say – get distracted by all the shiny new things online, but I could not resist temptation on this one. The sales page is very effectively written in my opinion.

Check it out here: Clickbank Pirate.

Now, I think we all know that a great sales page really does not mean a hill of beans when it comes to making money online. But the concept they are promoting is certainly a different approach than any other I have seen.

How Clickbank Pirate Works

Clickbank Pirate takes a unique approach to internet marketing using the hottest trend today – video squeeze pages. CB Pirate provides you with your own video squeeze pages that you drive traffic too. The squeeze pages then capture the email address, or lead, of the traffic and will automatically get them into an autoresponder series for you.

Essentially, they do all the selling for you, and you get credit for the sale through your Clickbank id. And, since the lead is captured via email, they will continue to “sell” to your lead for months to come, meaning one person can buy again and again from their follow up emails.

The video squeeze pages are very nicely done and the system in general is likely very effective.  Clickbank Pirate also hosts all the pages for you, and gives you your own link to send people too. So your cost of using the program is only the membership cost, which is $37/mo as of this writing. Thats basically one sale per month using the video squeeze pages and allowing CB Pirate to send the autoresponder emails on your behalf.

Yes, that will save you a TON of time in writing content and everything else. It really is autopilot and a very simple system conceptually.

But, in my opinion, there is one HUGE problem here….can you figure it out?

The Problem with Clickbank Pirate is TRAFFIC Generation

All of the features are really very advanced and effective. But in order for them to work – you MUST send good amounts of traffic to your video squeeze pages!

There are two basic forms of traffic generation: Paid and Unpaid

Unpaid traffic is the premise of the the One Week Marketing plan that I am a fan of and use every day. But those who know and have used it realize that you do NOT get hoards of hungry traffic overnight. It takes effort and time to build up traffic streams.

If you are sending what traffic you can generate to your video squeeze page, it will take a very very long time to see significant results (i.e. several months). My opinion, you will need a budget of a couple of hundred dollars to really give the system a chance to work. $67 for initial cost, + $37/month recurring. 3 months expense will be about $200 out of pocket to you.

In about 3 to 4 months time, you would have enough traffic from your OWM campaigns going to the video squeeze pages that you will be able to tell if the system works for you or not.

Conversely, if you are familiar with AdWords and Google PPC traffic generation, then I think this is where the Clickbank Pirate is most successful. Sending PPC traffic to the video squeeze page will be the most effective and quickest way to see results. But a word of warning, PPC can be dangerous and expensive!

So in Summary:

Does Clickbank Pirate work? Maybe!

If you can drive traffic quickly to it, then it might be a good investment. Especially if you are a PPC affiliate with a budget to support it.

However, if traffic is a struggle for you, or you are just starting to learn One Week Marketing techniques, and Squidoo, and EZA, then you will potentially spend WAY too much money and not see any results. If you are a beginner to online marketing, my advice is to TAKE A PASS ON CLICKBANK PIRATE.

If you really want to learn how to create traffic, and make money online without spending a fortune, One Week Marketing is the best option in my opinion. More information on One Week Marketing Here: OWM Action Plan.

If you are an experienced affiliate, and have some budget to invest, then GIVE CLICKBANK PIRATE A SHOT!

As always, I am available to answer questions: Bryan@GetStartedMarketing.com

p.s. –> If you do decide Clickbank Pirate is for you, and you want help learning to generate traffic from Squidoo, EZineArticles etc…then check out my complete Campaign Creation services and Exclusive Coaching. I also offer custom rates on single lenses and just article packs if you want a few articles to try out ClickBank Priate. Email me with questions and for details.

There is no doubt that the new Squidoo policy regarding diet related lenses was a good overall decision for the health and longevity of the site. But there are many of us who realized how lucrative this niche can be, that it was a little bit of a bummer to lose such a high ranking SEO tool from our toolbox for that specific niche.

I want to stress, however, that Squidoo is STILL VERY EFFECTIVE for creating One Week Marketing campaigns and making money online. There are endless niches to explore and build campaigns around that will convert and make money. All my lenses that are non diet and weight loss related are chugging along nicely!

But what is another alternative for those of us who want to continue to profit from the weight loss industry?

I am excited to share with you an option that I recently found, and invite you to look at.

It is called Herbal Biz, and is an offer from the folks over at MarketHealth.com.

MarketHealth is one of my favorite affiliate programs and I am always surprised how few people actually know about it. They offer a wide variety of psyical products, from weight loss, to teeth whitening and everything in between. The commissions are huge, and there is virtually no worry about refund rates.

About Herbal Biz

Herbal Biz is a complete diet product store front that is pre-built for you. It is hosted by MarketHealth (meaning no hosting cost for you), and promotes all the products in the MarketHealth lineup.

The really cool part of this is since it is hosted on YOUR OWN DOMAIN NAME, you can direct link to your own domain name and web store from your other sources of traffic besides Squidoo! This might be a very promising solution for getting back into the health market without having to pay for hosting or developing your own website from scratch. The content is all there ready for you to start sending traffic too.

Please note: this solution may not be for everyone, as there is some cost involved. From what I have been seeing the cost is $9.95 for the domain name initially, and you have a trial period after that to test it out. After the trial period, the one time cost is $99. It is a little pricey, but considering you get $40 per sale of Hoodia or a teeth whitening product, you can recover the cost very very quickly.

Check it out for yourself here: Herbal Biz

Stick with me for a few minutes while I tell you a little story about targeted traffic, PPC advertising, getting rich quick, Clickbank, One Week Marketing, making money using Squidoo, and anything else internet marketing related! You see, this story is all of those things rolled into one!

About a week ago, I finally read the Maverick Money Makers website. The program seems to always have high gravity, so I have been meaning to see what the pitch page was all about. It is IMPRESSIVE.

About half way down the page was a 17 minute video – I normally skip right over those, but this time I stopped and watched it closely. The video was describing a new “stealth” method of generating super fast sales using AdMob.com.

AdMob.com is a pay per click advertiser that specializes in showing ads on iPhones. People see the short ad, touch it, and it takes them to the webpage of the merchant. A very exciting concept if you ask me. Because there are so many iPhones, and not many people know about this service, the clicks are ultra cheap – $0.03 cheap to be exact.

My Admob Experiment

So curiosity got the best of me, and I opened an AdMob account to take it for a test drive. I deposited $50 to start with, knowing that $50 would get me 1,666 clicks or so. A pretty substantial number.

Knowing that targeted traffic is what sells, I decided my ad would be for a Clickbank product that is all about downloading applications, movies, and music to your iPhone. I figured iPhone users who touch ads would want to get more applications, movies, and general gadgets for their iPhone!

So I wrote my ad, and set it free. Once the ad was approved (that took about 24 hours), it went live. I sat back and waited for some sales on Clickbank to come in. I figure out of the 1,666 clicks, I only needed TWO sales to make money on the venture. Thats a one tenth of one percent conversation rate!

Within minutes (literally), I received email that my account funds were depleted. Seems I must have hit a sweet spot, I thought!

I check Clickbank, and after about 30 minutes, sure enough, I had about 1600 hops recorded. And ZERO sales. Natta. Nothing. Zip.

I waited another 30 minutes, knowing sometimes there is a slight lag.

As of this writing, still not a single sale for all those clicks.

Does this mean Maverick Money Makers or Admob do not work? I do not necessarily think so. I believe these programs are so successful because they really do work, I just think I mad a very poor decision!

While this was in PPC field, it provides a VERY valuable lesson regarding targeted traffic! You see, once you think about it, there was NOTHING targeted about my traffic at all.

Why The Traffic Was Not Targeted

I was not able to pick out keywords that would trigger my ad, they just randomly show it to anyone who has an iPhone. This is the critical step in getting targeted traffic – all those clicks could have come from anyone and everyone, not necessarily anyone wanting more applications or movies on their iPhone. Maybe they were business or Corporate phones where those items are prohibited. The list could be endless.

So How Does This Apply to One Week Marketing and Other NON PPC Advertising?

The main lesson here, is keyword selection is VITAL to success. Keywords drive your targeted prospect to your page. Not all traffic is created equal, and even if you THINK your traffic is targeted, it may not be (as was the case with me).

When starting a One Week Marketing campaign to Make Money Using Squidoo, keyword selection is so important that I will often spend hours and hours looking for keywords.

Or, alternatively, if you don’t want to spend hours and hours on keywords, then MicroNiche Finder keyword software is one of the better paid services out there.

If you still would like help in your campaigns, I am currently coming up on a few openings for my package #2 – Instant One Week Marketing & Squidoo Campaign Creation. Just drop me an email to get started.

Now I am off to figure out how to recover the $50 I blew on AdMob!