Have you been scratching your head wondering what terms like PPC, PPL, CTR, CPC, etc. means? I think all newbies will have the same problem (I encounter the same problem as well when I first started off with Internet Marketing).

I would like to share with you a site that contains a list of Internet Marketing terms, along with their meaning, arranged alphabetically. The following is a screenshot of the site:



To access the site, please click here.

If there are any Internet Marketing terms you are not sure of and you can't find in the web above, do let me know and I'll personally explain them to you.

Talk to you soon!

Yours Sincerely
Jun Yuan Lim

Today's post is specially useful if you are new in Internet Marketing - you do not know how to start, you do not know where to find products to sell, you do not know how to set up your website, etc. I have a solution for you today.

Ewen Chia, Singapore's very own millionaire Internet Marketer, has created a web called "Internet Business for Newbies" specially to help newbie Internet Marketers. Unlike other websites, where the site owners do nothing but sell you products consistently, most of the things in his new web are free.

Here's a screen capture of Ewen's "Internet Business for Newbies":



In his very first posting (titled "Hey! Even Newbies Can Be Successful!"), Ewen has included a video link, which you can download (its about 96mb), that teaches you how to create your own website, step-by-step. It's very comprehensive. I would say its a "must-watch" if you are serious about carving out your future in the Internet Marketing world.

What's the Link to Ewen's "Internet Business for Newbies"?

Click here (website will open up in a new Window) to go to Ewen's "Internet Business for Newbies" web. If you like to take down the actual address, here it is - http://www.think-rich-grow-rich.com/internetbusinessfornewbies.

That's all from me today. Continue to stay tuned, as I'll be sharing with you more about Internet Marketing in the next few days. :)

Meanwhile, if you have any questions, thoughts, opinions, complaints, compliments, please feel free to email me at ljunyuan@msn.com. I'll be most happy to answer any questions you may have.

Cheers!
Jun Yuan Lim

The reason many of us jump onto the Internet Marketing speed wagon (myself included) is because it is possible to make big money on the Internet. There are lots of money -making opportunities available on the Internet for us to get rich. Having said that, many of us will be stuck with questions like “Where should I start?”, “How do I get started”, “What should I do first?” when starting off with Internet Marketing.

If you are having problems in answering the above questions, don’t fret. Let me give you the 3-step formula you need to get started with Internet Marketing:

Step 1: Research Your Market, And Decide What To Sell Online

One of the first things you should do to get started is to take a piece of paper and start writing down a list of everything you are good at and have a serious interest in. The reason why I asked you to do so is because if you try selling something that you do not have good knowledge in, chances are you will not do well.

If you are stuck in identifying the things you are good at and have a serious interest in, let me help you out - You can ask yourself questions like:

- What am I interested in?
- What am I passionate about?
- What are the things I do during my spare time?
- What subjects / topics do you know a lot about?
- What are people always coming to me for advice about?

I hope you’ve managed to write down something.

After you have identified the list of things you are interested in, you need to do a market research. You can go to Overture (http://inventory.overture.com) and find out how many people are looking for information on your area of interest. If the number is high, it means that the chances of you making money in that area are high as well. You can also sign up for online forums to find out what people are looking for specifically (People go online to find solutions to their problems. Therefore, the products we sell must be specific to their problems).

Step 2: Look for Products To Solve People’s Problems

After you have done your research, you need to look for products that will solve people’s problems you’ve identified.

You need not create your own product to sell (its very time-consuming and tedious). You can sell products as an affiliate (selling as an affiliate means you’re selling someone else’s products in return for a commission. You need not worry about handling transactions, product delivery, etc. The product owner will do it for you. All you need is to get people to buy their products) in the following:

- Click Bank – Deals with electronic products such as ebooks, audios, videos, etc. (www.clickbank.com)
- Commission Junction – Deals with physical products, i.e. products that need to be shipped physically to the buyer. (www.cj.com)

Signing up for both Click bank and Commission Junction is free. You also need not pay anything to sell as an affiliate.

Step 3: Create Product Awareness

In order for your product to be able to sell, you need to first let people know about the product that you have. There are several ways you can do to create product awareness – both free and paid methods.

Let me first talk about some of the free methods you can use – you can write some articles on the product you are selling and post of article directories such as Ezine Articles (www.ezinearticles.com), Articles Factory (www.articlesfactory.com), Idea Marketers (www.ideamarketers.com), etc. You can post an advertisement about the product in free classified advertisement sites, such as US Free Ads (www.usfreeads.com). You can also advertise on your website, blog, or even in your Friendster or MySpace account. There are many ways to advertise for free. The above are just some of them.

For paid advertising, you can advertise the product you are selling in search engines, such as Google, Yahoo and MSN.

For Google, your product link will appear under the “Sponsored Links” column (see picture below). You only pay Google when someone clicks on your link to visit the product page (this is called pay-per-click (PPC) advertising).





Once you are done with the 3 steps I’ve listed above, you can now sit back, relax, and wait for your commission checks to come in.

If you like to find out more on how you can advertise your products on the Internet, you may want to grab a copy of Derek Gehl’s Insider Secrets 2007. It covers everything you need to know about selling as an affiliate – from identifying the products you can sell to the various methods of advertising your products on the Internet to tracking the number of people going to your product page, etc. It is a very comprehensive guide and I would suggest you to order your copy of “Insider Secrets 2007” if you want to do well in affiliate marketing. Click here to find out more.

To your success
Jun Yuan

I have just listened to an exciting one and a half hour tele-seminar conducted by Stuart Tan with Dr Ron, the Niche Professor. It was very inspiring and I can’t wait to share with you what I’ve learnt from this one and a half hour tele-seminar. It was simply amazing.

Before I start writing on the learning points from the tele-seminar, let me first introduce who Dr Niche is. Dr Niche is one of the most influential figures in the world of Internet Marketing. He has great knowledge in the area of finding a profitable niche market, SEO, Internet Marketing, etc. With all the experience Dr Niche has, he is certainly considered as the guru of all gurus in the world of Internet Marketing. You can read more about him at http://www.nicheprof.com.

In Stuart’s tele-seminar with Dr Niche, he has covered topics such as how you can find your profitable niche market, how you can build up your Internet business to reach out to potential customers, what is the cost of starting an Internet business, etc.

If you want to start up a profitable business on the Internet, this article is a must-read for you. Enjoy! =)

Finding your niche market

There are 1,001 areas which you can write about - from business to IT to biomedical science to books to sports to entertainment, etc. Choose the area which you are most familiar in to write about (if you choose an area which you are not familiar, you’ll find yourself “stuck” at a certain point, when you run out of ideas).

Let’s say you are interested in music. You want to write about music. Music itself is very broad topic. Under music – there are many categories of music – rock, pop, jazz, classical, contemporary, etc. Under each category of music you have different singers. There are also many different types of musical instruments – guitar, piano, violin, drums, keyboard, etc. Under each type of music instrument you have different brands, prices, quality, etc. These are called sub-niches. Music itself is the niche.

In order to make money online, you have to write articles on a particular sub-niche. You have to zoom in to a particular group of people whom you want to attract. However, before you get started on a particular sub-niche, you have to make sure there is a demand on the topic you are writing about. You may like to go to this site called niche.classic.com to find out the statistics on how many people are searching for the topic you are going to writing about. inventory.overture.com is another good site for the same purpose. You can also do a search on the topic you are going to write about in Google.

You can also ask potential site visitors / customers what they want to know about the topic you are going to write about – run an “Ask” campaign. Ask them what they want, and cater to their demands. That way, you’ll be able to drive traffic to your website once it is up.

Is my niche profitable?

To find out whether your niche is a profitable one, do a search on Google. Let’s say, if you have a website sharing with people information about guitars, you can do a search on Google by typing in - guitar “affiliate programs”. Google will list out for you all the sites on guitar affiliate programs. Join these programs as an affiliate (it’s free to join) and advertise them on your web. You will earn commission whenever people click on your affiliate links to purchase the products.

Monetization before targeting market?

Many people have this mis-conception of looking into monetization first before targeting the market. This is strongly not recommended. The reason is because by doing you, you are simply doing opportunity hopping. By doing so, you’ll never be able to profit in the long run. Therefore, it is very important to stay focussed on a particular topic. Choose your topic and stay focussed on that. It will certainly benefit you in the long run.

Why are there no click-throughs (people who purchase products from you through your affiliate link) even though I have identified a niche market?

Remember, when you create a website about a particular niche market, you are targeting your articles to your potential customers. Therefore, it is very important to write your articles based on what they want, and not what you want.

People, before they buy something, will want to know how the product will benefit them, how it can help make their life better, how it can avoid their pains and enhance their pleasure, etc. That’s human nature. I am sure when you go out and purchase something, you’ll choose a product that will best benefit you, am I right? It’s as simple as that. Therefore, you have to give your potential customers valuable content in your articles. You have to show them how the product can help solve their problems.

You may also want to include testimonials – people are more likely to purchase the product if they read from others that it is good. If you can have audio and video testimonials, that’s even better, because people can not only just read, but to be able to listen and see how the product has benefited others. Videos are especially good because not only can they hear what they say, but they can also see their non-verbal communications, their facial expressions, whether they are speaking from their heart or reading from the text.

What’s the fastest and cheapest way to reach out to the market?

The quickest way is through pay-per-click campaign (such as use of Google Adwords), or you can make use of social community (such as MindSpace, MyWebTalk, DirectMatches, etc.)

Alternatively, you can be part of a big “give-away” program. Give products to people for free in return for their contact information (usually name and email address). By doing so, you can build up your database of potential customers and can email them on any products and services you are offering.

What’s the start-up cost of doing an Internet business?

Start-up cost will include domain name registration, hosting, research, design, etc. You may also want to invest some money (about $10 - $15) on pay per click (PPC) campaigns on Google – in PPC campaigns, Google will advertise your products on the Google Search Engine itself, as well as in other people’s websites.



Whenever someone clicks on the link to visit your product page, you’ll have to pay Google a certain amount of money (ranging from a few cents to a few dollars – you decide the amount). Before you invest in PPC campaigns, make sure the product you are selling is not priced too low. Otherwise, your ability to advertise will be very low as well (I’m sure you won’t want to pay $10 for advertisements when your product is selling for only $5, right?)

Building up your customer base and selling your products to them

In order for you to be successful in Internet Marketing, you have to first build your own list of potential customers (by giving away free products). By building up your pool of potential customers is not enough – you have to establish enough relation with them, by giving them adequate information (if you give too much information, people will think you’re a pest) on what they need. Therefore, you need to create products based on what they are looking for.

Treat all your potential customers with respect and honour them. DO NOT violate their trust in you. The first time you trick your potential customers by not delivering, it will be very difficult to get them to trust you again.

Everything circles around trust and relationship.

Learning from people who has done it before

The good news about Internet Marketing is – you need not re-invent the wheel. There is a certain way to become successful in Internet Marketing. All you need to do is to find out - ask the Internet Marketing gurus, they’ll tell you how to go about doing it. Keep asking them questions, learn from them. Learn from their experiences.

Take Action

Last but not least, I hope you will start applying what you’ve learnt from this article. Do not shelf this article at the back of your brain. If you do so, then you’ll never be able to become a successful Internet Marketer. You need to take action right now.

I’ll like to wish you all success in your Internet Marketing adventure. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at ljunyuan@msn.com.

To your success,
Jun Yuan

I went for Stuart Tan’s Chinese New Year Subscriber’s Nite yesterday. It was really a very good information sharing session. I met up with people who are also into Internet Marketing and we shared some pointers. Learning is all about sharing pointers with one another, which is what this posting is about – to share with you what I’ve learnt last evening.

Stuart invited 2 online marketing gurus to the session – Frank (fjpmarketing.com) and Ben (evenmorestuff.com) to share their experiences, as well as some tips on selling online.

Finding your sub-niches

Everybody has been saying that in order to be able to make money online, you have to target a particular niche market.

However, there are now so many people selling in any niche market. Take the topic “Golf” for example. Do a search on Google. There are so many sites on it – ranging from golf balls to golf shoes to golf clubs to golf t-shirts to golf bags to golf caps, etc. There are also sites on golf for beginners, golf for intermediates, golf for professionals, how to play like Tiger Woods, etc. There are 1001 sub-topics on the word “Golf” itself. These are sub-niches. Narrow down your content to these sub-niches. Chances are you’ll find yourself getting better sales compared to when you are writing content on a general topic like “Golf”.

Ben’s model of selling

Ben writes reports on a particular topic and gives them away in eBay for free. He also allows people to freely distribute or re-sell these reports. So how does he make money by writing these reports? You see, in each of his reports, not only does it contain information about a certain topic, such as golf, it also contain affiliate links to golf products – such as golf hats, golf balls, golf shoes, etc. He’ll receive commission when people click on the affiliate links to purchase the products.

In order to download his report, you will have to first access his webpage, which will contain some information about the report, followed by a box asking you to fill in your name and email address. You will then be directed to a page where you can download the report. The contact information you entered will be captured into Ben’s database of potential customers, which will allow him to follow-up on the products he is selling, and also to introduce new products.

So how does Ben capture the contact information of other readers of his report, if they did not download directly from his website, but receive it from their friends?

What Ben does is that he’ll write a message “To download the most updated version of this report, please visit my website” at the very first page of his report. People will normally want to read the most updated version (that’s human nature) of the report. They’ll click on the link to go to Ben’s website and download it. However, before they can download the report, they have to provide their name and email address. Bingo! Their contact information is now being added to Ben’s database of potential customers.

Simple concept, yet effective, isn’t it? If Ben can do it, so can we! To find out more about Ben’s products, visit his web at http://www.evenmorestuff.com.

Selling as affiliates

There are a whole range of products where you can sell as affiliate in Clickbank (www.clickbank.com) and Commision Junction (www.cj.com).

Clickbank sells mostly digital products (e.g. ebooks, videos, audio programs, etc), while Commission Junction sells mostly physical products (e.g. vitamin tablets, golf apparels, watches, etc). When you sell a certain product as an affiliate, the merchant will give you a unique link (which is your affiliate link), that identifies you uniquely. When the buyer clicks on your affiliate link to purchase the product, they will credit the commission to your account.

I would like to wish you all the best in your affiliate success.

If you have any questions, please feel free to email me at ljunyuan@msn.com. Thanks.

Yours Sincerely,
Jun Yuan

I would like to share with you some interesting information.

The statistics on the number of Internet users today are as follows (Updated on 27 Nov 2006, from www.internetworldstats.com) :



From the above table, you can see that the world now has over 1 BILLION Internet users, and this figure is still increasing.

What does this mean ? This means that your Internet business can reach out to over 1 billion potential customers around the world ! That’s tonnes more than the amount of people you can reach in a traditional business, where you can only reach out to people within your own country. Unlike traditional businesses, your Internet business can operate round the clock. This means you can even make money when you are sleeping, or relaxing outside with your friends and family members !

How much can we earn ?

Let’s do a simple calculation. Imagine you set yourself a target of making JUST $1 from every person on the Internet every month. How much can you possibly make every month on the Internet ? OVER $1 BILLION DOLLARS ! (I’m not lying about this – the stats above say everything).

Ok. I know that it is impossible to get every person on the Internet to purchase from you, as each of us has different interests. But, lets think of it this way – if we aim to get JUST 5% of the WHOLE Internet population to make purchase from you every month, and you get to earn $1 for every purchase. How much will you be able to earn every month ? Let me take out my calculator and do the calculations :

5% out of 1,076,203,987 Internet users – that will be about 53,810,199 Internet users purchasing from your web per month.

With that, you can potentially make $53 million per month !

You may be asking me if it is possible to have such high volume of business. My answer is this – “YES ! IT IS ABSOLUTELY POSSIBLE !”

Does this excite you ? It certainly does excite me ! So let’s get started !

What can I sell on the Internet ?

The first thing you probably ask yourself is “What can I sell on the Internet ?” Well, you can sell almost ANYTHING on the Internet – from books, clothing, DVDs, electronic products (whole range of products such as computers, hi-fi set, laptops, mobile phones, mp3 & mp4 players, television), food, furniture, magazines, music CDs, recipes, stationeries, watches, and many more. You can sell practically ANYTHING you have in mind on the Internet.

Some of you may tell me this - “I have cracked my brains out to think of what I can possibly sell but I cannot think of anything !!”

Don’t be frustrated. Because on the Internet, you do not necessary have to sell physical products. You can also sell non-physical products such as ideas that you have in your head.

What do I mean by this ? This simply means that you can sell your knowledge and experience – some of you may be experts in building a Personal Computer from scratch. You can write an e-book on “Step-by-Steps to Setting up a Personal Computer”. Some of you may be very good in fitness, and you realise that there is a huge demand for books on how to keep fit in this busy society of ours. You can write an e-book to teach people how to exercise and keep yourself fit in say, 10 minutes a day ? (I am sure everybody will have at least 10 minutes of free time in a day.) You may be an expert in vehicle maintenance. You can write an e-book about 101 steps to taking care of your vehicle. The list goes on and on and on… The most amazing thing about selling an idea is that it is TOTALLY FREE ! You need NOT pay for your own ideas. And the best thing about it is that you can get paid for your ideas ! Simply by penning them down into an e-book and sell them online. BINGO ! Money will start coming in before you even know it !

Even if you do not have any business ideas, don’t worry. You can always look to improvise someone else’s ideas and turn them into yours, and start making money on the improvised idea. In my next posting, I’ll be sharing with you real-life stories on how people improvise someone else’s idea and turn them into their own business.

That’s all for now. Please look out for my next posting !

Cheers
Jun Yuan