I’ll bet you understand my frustrations with online advertising. When writing advertising copy for the web you have to address the same concerns that a salesperson deals with face-to-face, but without the direct feedback or ability to adapt your words to new questions or objections. You have to anticipate everything before you start writing your advertising copy.

Master copywriter and direct marketing entrepreneur Joseph Sugarman, in his 1999 book Triggers, discussed and illustrated 30 different ways to motivate, influence, and persuade people when writing. It was an inspiring read. But, I had trouble getting all of those great ideas into my copy. Whenever I started getting traffic to a salespage I wrote, my results were zero. I couldn’t translate my knowledge into effect sales copy.

I felt like all of my promotional efforts were wasted because I couldn’t write copy that people responded to. I was stuck. I needed some framework to build on that would get me consistent results. Then, I discovered the 3 F’s of Advertising Copywriting.

Feel, Felt, Found (Discover)

While reading an e-book on email ad campaigns, I discovered the 3 F’s. I had found the structure I needed to build effective sales copy for my web pages. Once I learned to recognize this pattern I began to see it everywhere.

The 3 F’s are feel, felt, and found (or discover.)

You start off by letting your reader know that you understand how they feel – you’ve felt it yourself! Then you let them know that you felt the same way until you found whatever secret, product, or service you are trying to persuade them to accept. What you found changed everything and now you want to share it with the whole world.

You understand how they feel, because you felt the same way until you found the thing that changed everything.

This is a very powerful technique you can use to gain the trust of your audience and lead them to your product or service. Look for it on other websites you visit and work it into your writing.

The Go-To Guy

P.S. I hope it was pretty obvious that I was trying to use the 3 F pattern to structure this article. It was a fun excercise. Let me know how well I did and share your results using the 3 F’s in your copywriting.

While reading an article on Yahoo! about search engine marketing, I was introduced to the work of Jennifer Laycock, managing editor of the online Search Engine Guide newsletter. The site turned out to be a useful resources, but the real treat was the free e-book she was giving away. It’s not your typical web market e-book.

Jennifer’s new book, Zero Dollars, a Little Talent, and Thirty Days, is a compilation of thirty daily articles she wrote chronicling her efforts to start a new online business with no cash, and turn a profit. She made money – not the overnight millions folks usually brag about – but a real profit. I also get the feeling she’ll continue to make money from the site and be able to work less to keep it going.

Zero Dollars, a Little Talent, and Thirty Days outlines what she did, day-by-day and step-by-step, while also helping you understand why she made the choices she made. Jennifer includes a running tally of her income and expenses throughout. You get to see both her successes and her mistakes and how they affected the bottom line. In the end she gave it all away – her profits to charity and her hard earned knowledge to us.

Read the book! You can’t beat the price ($0.00) and you will be entertained, inspired, and educated by Jennifer’s story.

Thanks for the great book, Jennifer!

The Go-To Guy

I went through the e-books I’ve collected over the past couple years and pulled together all of the ones that give permission to re-distribute. I put them all on the site today for you to download.

They’re mostly about sales and marketing online. If you come across any books that you think should go on the pile, send them to me and I’ll put them online.

Enjoy,

The Go-To Guy

Over the years I’ve come across any number of e-Books for free and for sale. Some are good, some are junk, and some give permission to sell or give to others. Below are a few that give permission to pass along.

These are provided for entertainment purposes only. I do not endorse any of them, and (*unless otherwise indicated) don’t stand to profit in any way if you follow the links embedded in them. I’ve read most of them (or at least skimmed them) and found them interesting and worthwhile.

Are you glad you found a great resource page like this? Did it save you time and/or money? Make a donation to the Tip Jar and help support this site.

Have fun,

The Go-To Guy

P.S. If you are like me, reading on-screen gets old fast. I wrote a tutorial that shows a cheap and easy way to print and bind your e-Books for offline reading. (Offline copies also let you take notes in the margins.)

Downloadable e-Books

First Name:

Primary Email:

Integration Marketing, by Mark Joyner
Mark Joyner is one of the pioneers of Internet marketing and his latest book covers a powerful marketing approach that can really boost you business. You have to sign up for a free account at his IntegrationMarketing.com website to get access to the book – but it is well worth the effort.

How I Made My First $100 Online, by Andrew Seltz – The Go-To Guy!
This free ebook and audio book package was created by yours truly (that’s even my voice on the audio version of the ebook!) This is a bonus product for joining my Internet Marketing Insights newsletter, so there is a signup box before you can download the product.

Quick Niche Product Create, by Duncan Chua
Learn the shortcuts to creating your own original content in no time at all.

Niche Marketing Riches in 30 Days, by Patric Chan
Patric lays out a detailed 30 day plan for earning money online.

Your First $1000 Week Online, by David Perdew
David tells the story of how two online marketers helped him get to this first big milestone in his business.

Real Life Marketing Interviews
A collection of interviews with some of the biggest and most well known names in the world of Internet marketing.

Confessions of an Adsense Girl, by Liz Tomey
Learn 60 cut-throat answers to questions about making money with Google Adsense.

An Insider’s Guide to Writing Articles, by John Colanzi
A straight-forward guide to writing articles for niche websites, blogs, or article marketing campaigns. Following this plan, anyone will be able to write an article quickly and easily.

Google Adsense Alternatives
Looking for other ways to make revenue with your website (or been banned from Google Adsense?) This 40 page report outlines the options available for those of you wanting an alternative approach.

Unlimited Traffic Secrets, by Gabor Olah
101 tips for improving the traffic to your website. Olah covers a wide range of techniques for building web traffic for a site.

Unleashing the Ideavirus, by Seth Godin
This classic book from the height of the Internet boom is still relevant today. Word-of-mouth marketing is everywhere today and this book will lay the foundation for understanding how it works.

Really Bad PowerPoint, by Seth Godin
If you ever have to make a presentation on behalf of your business, you will probably find yourself using PowerPoint. Take pity on your audience and read this book first.

SEO Made Easy, By Brad Callen
This book is an excellent guide to the world of search engine optimization. It is full of clear explanations of the basic concepts involved and specific strategies you can use with your sites.

How To Make a Six-Figure Income Online, by Jimmy D. Brown
A clear step-by-step blueprint for building and online business. There are even daily checklists of tasks to complete that will grow your business.

*The Butterfly Marketing Manuscript – The Leaked Chapter, by Mike Filsaime
This book is everywhere, so you might already have a copy. If you don’t, DOWNLOAD THIS NOW AND READ IT! I have been looking at several different online marketing resources and creating a strategy for a new project. I saw several viral marketing systems and made notes about the best features. I hunted for solutions to affiliate program managent and marketing. When I read this book I realized that the best solutions I had seen online were created by students of Mike Filsaime’s course – using programs and services he created for Butterfly Marketing. Read the book, you’ll realize that Mike really knows his stuff. (Now I just need to raise the money to buy the full program!)

The Instant Author, by Fabio Marciano
A solid step-by-step outline for planning, writing, and publishing your own non-fiction. Fabio did a good job designing the book, so it is easy to read (that can’t be said for many e-books.)

The Article Profit Formula, by Josh Jenkins
Writing short articles and posting them to online directories is a pretty good way to generate traffic for your site. This book (which seems more like a collection of articles – no table of contents!!!) does a straight-forward job of explaining the process.

*Article Writing Secrets, by Jeff Dedrick
Write articles to generate traffic and profits.

The Best Articles Ever Written, by Patrick Chan
16 articles by as many info marketers. You will recognize several of the names. You have the rights to reprint them as well.

*SEO Predictions, by Jeff Dedrick
See into the future of search engine optimization and keep your site on the leading edge.

How To Use Free Press Releases to Get Listed In Google, Fast!
A report from www.NicheJournal.com. The title explains it all.

52 Secrets My Mom Never Told Me About Internet Marketing, by James Maduk
I heard James interviewed on a podcast about creating and marketing informational products and really enjoyed what he had to say. So, I looked up some of his stuff. In addition to a lot of great text, this book contains videos that require purchasing a license to view.

Blogging Secrets, by James Maduk
Another e-Book I found after hearing James speak on a podcast. (I’ve got to get interviewed for one of those things!) In addition to a lot of great text, this book contains videos that require purchasing a license to view.

5 Quickest Ways To Massive Windfalls Of Cash Online
(The Special Report) By Ewen Chia
A Guy can dream, can’t he? I’m still waiting for my waves of cash, but there is some useful information in here.

Cash Stuffing Secrets of the Written Word, by Ewen Chia
Another special report filled with tips on writing ad copy that will part folks from their money. All kidding aside, the content is usefull for people learning about writing advertising copy.

63 Killer Marketing Strategies, by Dan S. Kennedy
A collection of interviews with succesfull business people discussing effective marketing strategies.

Adsense -vs- Affiliate Programs, by William Charlwood
In the death match for cash, who will come out on top? Read this report and find out!

The Adsense Mint, by James Fraser
By low, sell high and rake in the dough. (I haven’t managed to make this work yet either!!! I must be doing something wrong.) While I’m still not a millionaire, I found the methods described for evaluating niche markets and keyword values useful. A very interesting read.

Inside the Minds of Winners, by Charles Burke
I just love the title of this collection of profiles and essays of “Winners.”

The Greatest Money-Making Secret in History, by Joe Vitale
It is so much fun reading Joe’s books. What’s the secret… The best way to make money is to give it away! Karma, baby!

Free Hypnotic Sales-Letter Templates, by Joe Vitale and Larry Dotson
Just what the title says, a whole bunch of templates – just insert products and benefits.

Million Dollar Emails, by Yanik Silver
Internet marketer Yanik Silver shares sample marketing emails and explains why they work. Also includes lots of info about email marketing and mailing list development.

7 Hidden Psychological Secrets To Maximum Sales, by Yanik Silver
Learn the 7 ‘hidden’ secrets to persuading people to buy. Be warned, you must promise to only use this information for good – no evil allowed!

The Greatest Marketing Secrets of the Ages, by Yanik Silver
Human nature doesn’t really change. The same types of arguments that persuaded people a hundred years ago still work today. Yanik gives plenty of examples and explains why they work. You are not sworn to use this only for good, but it’s probably best to avoid using it for evil just on principle.

Scientific Advertising, by Claude Hopkins
Advertising does not have to be a gamble. Applying the scientific method to your advertising will help you improve your profitability online and off. This book is an advertising classic.

*The Affiliate Masters Course, by Ken Evoy
This 10 day course is designed to teach you how to become a high performing affiliate. Ken’s system breaks down to this: Content-> Traffic-> Pre-sell-> Monetization! This is a clear, well-written approach to making money on the web.

*Make Your Net Auction Sell, by Ken Evoy
Are your using auction sites like e-Bay to make money? This is an excellent guide to maximizing your profits from your online auctions.

*Net Writing Masters Course, by Ken Evoy
This work-at-your-own-pace course is focussed on helping you improve your online persuasion skills – and, by extension, making more profits online.

*The Service Sellers Master Course, by Ken Evoy
Do you run a service oriented business? This intesive 10 day course is focused on helping you use the Internet to find more clients and boost your business.

*The Webmaster Business Master Course, by Mark Frank
Running a Webmaster business? Do you dream of running your own webmaster business?This course will help you establish your business on solid footing and position yourself as a successful independent designer.

*WAHM-IT! The Master Course, by Elizabeth Martyn, Cate Brizzell, Jennifer McVey, Erin Nield
The work-at-home mother’s guide to building a successful business on the web. These women joined forces to document their experiences building their own web businesses.

*WAHM-IT! Get organized, by Elizabeth Martyn, Cate Brizzell, Jennifer McVey, Erin Nield
Tips and tricks to help work-at-home mothers get organized and run their own Internet-based business. A companion to the WAHM-IT! Master Course.

*WAHM-IT! Case Studies, by Elizabeth Martyn, Cate Brizzell, Jennifer McVey, Erin Nield
This companion to the WAHM-IT! Master Course examines 8 successful web businesses run by work-at-home mothers.

List Building Online, by David Pineda
A responsive opt-in mailing list is the foundation of a successful online business. David promises to show you how to build your own list by creating business systems that work.

AutoResponder Magic
Are you looking to put your website on autopilot? This claims to be the ultimate collection of autoresponder scripts available. 500+ pages of advice and sample scripts.

Personal Magnetism, by Theron Q. Dumont
Do you want to win friends and influence people? Then try this old school course on personal magnetism and get to work.

The Power of Concentration, by Theron Q. Dumont
This is one of those great old self help courses from the early 1900′s. He wrote several other books that I would love to get my hands on. If you have electronic copies of “Personal Magnetism”, “Practical Memory Training”, “Successful Salesmanship”, or “Master Mind”, please send them to me.

*These e-books DO contain affiliate links that will generate income for me if you click on them and purchase services or products. The e-books are listed here because I believe they contain excellent information that is useful whether you purchase anything from the embedded links or not.

Technorati Tags: free ebook downloads, free ebooks, internet marketing ebooks

Over dinner this evening, my wife, a close friend of hers, and I were talking about the phenomenon where single folks can’t get a date to save their lives, but as soon as they start seeing someone everyone starts flirting. I noticed this back in my single days and developed a theory – when you are single, nobody wants to take a chance with you because there might be a good reason why you are alone. But, when they see you with someone else, you’ve been vetted. Another human being has gotten close enough to see flaws and stayed. The mind begins to wonder, “maybe I missed something – I ought to take a closer look!”

When I got home, there was an email in my inbox from Yaro Starak, The Blog Traffic King, talking about ‘social proof.’ This is when people visit your website and think it is valuable because they see proof that other people are visiting your website. The fact that others stop to look implies it’s worth looking at! How’s that for synchronicity?

If you haven’t already, check out Yaro’s blog: www.Entrepreneurs-journey.com. I came across it while surfing back in December and have really enjoyed his writing. He writes about marketing, but he’s run non-marketing web businesses that have made money. That perspective makes a difference. (The hairs on the back of my neck go up when I hear someone selling their marketing expertise and all they’ve ever done is run a business selling marketing expertise. Reminds me of the stories of the people who sold mining and panning equipment during the gold rush – they made money, but their customers rarely did.)

Hope you enjoyed my moment of synchronicity,

The Go-To Guy!

Related Articles: Niche Marketing Website Experiment and Niche Marketing Experiment Update

It has been several months now since www.ColossalTV.com went online and it’s time to look back on where I am with this little project. So, where am I?

I Haven’t Retired a Millionaire Just Yet!

I had 3 unique visits in my first month in January. Depressing, but that jumped to 569 unique visits in February, 732 in March, 825 in April, and has drooped back to 400 unique visits this month (there are still a few days to go).

So far I’ve managed to get:

• Natural search engine hits
• Hits from links in free articles I’ve posted on article services
• Traffic to the site from a couple of small Adwords campaigns
• The whole site spidered by the major search engines
• All of the ColossalTV.com pages show up in the Google index

The financial results have been less than impressive. There was a brief spurt of initial Adsense activity, but so far my earnings are about $22. Not enough to cover my hosting fees for the site and a loss when you deduct the cost of my modest Adwords campaign. I haven’t made a single sale from any of the affiliate links on the site either. But it’s not a total loss – I’ve learned a lot of new things along the way and the price of the lesson is a lot less than college.

So, What Have I Learned About Niche Websites?

Here are some of my biggest insites:

• Effortless Adsense Riches are a Sales Pitch and little more
• Original Content is King
• Be Prepared to Work For Traffic
• Building Traffic Takes Time

Effortless Adsense Riches

There are hundreds of websites and e-books floating around the web that promise thousands of dollars flooding in overnight using Google Adsense and niche websites. Scratch the surface and you’ll find that many advocate that you scrape and regurgitate content that is already online and make sites that are basically spam. Not all of the advice is like this, but little of it seems to lead to effortless riches (if you know some secret, please share!)

Maybe I’m at a disadvantage because my niche site is not focussed on web marketing – more than a few programs involve making money selling people information about how they can make money selling people information about how they can make money selling people… you get the idea!

Content is King

I haven’t put much in the way of new content on the site in about a month and the traffic numbers are slipping.

In the first few months I was regularily writing articles to post and also submitting them to article services for others to pick-up and publish. The numbers were growing then. Now that I’m not writing, the numbers are dropping. By contrast, this blog has 5 times the traffic and I write here almost every week. (Although I’m still not making any money here either.)

I was reading an article recently about creating a successful site in 12 months and one of the most important items discussed was writing fresh articles every day. The author, Brett Tabke, says that before you even decide on a domain name you should have a plan for writing at least 100 pages of relevant content (‘about us’ pages and privacy policies don’t count.) This leads to the next point.

Be Prepared to Work For Traffic

If hundreds of pages of valuable, keyword targeted, and original content are the keys to successful websites, then be prepared to work. There are no shortcut programs that will scrape an original article off the web and drop it into your site. You either have to roll up your sleeves and write, or open up your wallet and pay a writer.

I get one or two hits a week from the articles I’ve written and syndicated. They also draw a few search engine hits too. Imagine if there were 200 or more pages out there. I’d be getting hundreds of hits. But, writing a good article that makes people want to visit your site takes more than 5 minutes. Which means…

Building Traffic Takes Time

The only way to build that pile of content that will attract people to my site is by writing articles one at a time. This won’t happen overnight and I am learning that you have to be patient and persistent.

What’s Next for the Niche Marketing Website Experiment?

I’m going to keep experimenting with this site. I’ve got a few ideas I’d like to try out and it’s a good place to experiment. I’d like to build some Amazon Web Services based features into the site to add a little dynamic content and also present opportunities to get more relevant affiliate sales sales links on the site.

Another approach that looks promising is to create online tools that people will come to the site over and over again to use. I have a couple ideas developing for this.

I will continue to refine and optimize the site for better search engine performance. I just found a new e-book on Search Engine Optimization today and will see if there’s any new things to think about.

Finally, I’ll be writing – for all of my sites. Content is king!

I’ll keep you posted as I learn new things,

The Go-To Guy

The Internet is flooded with questionable tools for making money. I know, because I’ve looked. Everyone is trying to convince you that you’ll be an overnight millionaire if only you buy their e-book for $49.99!

In my searches I’ve found a few sources of valuable information. One of them is Ken Evoy. He’s created a wealth of resources to help you build a real business on the web – not some free clone website, but a real resource that turns browsers into buyers.

You Don’t Have to Take My Word For It!

Visit Ken’s SiteSell.com website and try some of his web tools, like SpamCheck, or download one of his Master Course e-books, like the Affiliate Master Course, absolutely free.

There are 5 free online resources and 10 free e-books to choose from.

The Go-To Guy

If you have a website, odds are you are always looking for new ways to bring in traffic and get relevant links to your site. Writing articles can give you the following benefits:

• 1000′s of potential promoters distributing your content
• Relevant links to your website
• Stature as an expert in your topic area
• Fast listings in major search engines

The Article Writing Process

The process is simple. Write a short article that is related to the content on your website. You can excerpt something you have already created for your site or generate something new (which you can then put on your website.)

Next, create a by-line for yourself that includes a link to your website. The by-line is your chance to advertise yourself and your website and make readers want to see what else you have to say on the subject.

Finally, register with websites such as eZineArticles.com and ArticleCity.com and start posting your content onto the sites. It usually takes no more than a day to get your article approved and listed on their article databases. Then, E-Zine and website producers from around the world will start finding your articles and including them in their work.

Each person who uses your material will include your by-line with a link to your website. As search engines re-index their sites, they will find your content and the links back to your site. These producers get relevant free content and you get free advertising.

The Results

It has been three days since I posted my most recent batch of articles to the article directory websites. Already, 3 of the top 10 links that come up when googling “Andrew Seltz” are to the articles I submitted to eZineArticles.com and ArticleCity.com. 10 article links show up in total.

Keep in mind, these same articles have been published on my websites for weeks. Those websites have all been submitted to the major search engines for indexing. Yet, not one listing that showed up is from one of my sites. It took less than 4 days for those articles to start popping up in Google – and each instance has a link back to one of my sites!

A recent check of my website stats shows that I’ve already received traffic to my sites from links in these articles. I expect that these websites will keep my articles in their systems for a while and that I will continue to generate traffic for months from people following the by-line links back to my sites.

What if I Can’t Write Articles?

First, don’t overthink the process. You aren’t creating a literary masterpiece, you are conveying helpful information. Find a topic in which you have helpful knowledge and experience, then follow this basic model:

• Tell them what you are about to tell them
• Tell them
• Summerize what you told them

Use bullet points to summarize information and headings to mark the different sections of the article. Write short focussed paragraphs and include examples from your experiences to illustrate what you ar talking about. When you’ve written a draft that you are happy with, let someone else read it and ask them to point out anything confusing or places where your writing sounds awkward.

I suggest you visit one or more of the article websites I’ve listed and read a few articles in your topic area. Get a sense of how others are writing and model your work on theirs. (Note, I didn’t say copy. Find you’re unique perspective on the subject and distinguish yourself from all of the other voices out there – plus, copying without permission is illegal.)

If the process of writing articles is a real struggle for you, you might want to consider something like the 30 Minute Article Writing System, by Melanie Mendelson. She swears she can teach anyone to write a quality article in 30 minutes using her system (I just googled her name and got back over 18,000 results – she’s prolific.) There are other methods out there for helping you through writers block, just remember not to overthink the process. Save your criticism for your second draft.

Build on Your Successes

Save everything you write. Over time you will find that you’ve created a valuable body of work. This collection of short and useful articles might be re-edited into a book or serve as the foundation of a course or seminar. You will be gathering together the building blocks for your future work and also finding an audience for it along the way.

Happy Article Writing,

The Go-To Guy

If you are running a website of your own, there are a number of very useful online resources that I’ve come across for improving search engine listings, uncovering the relationships between your site and others, and evaluating the value of keywords and key phrases to help you focus your site’s content.

Here’s my list of handy web marketing Go-To links:

Google Links

http://www.google.com/webmasters/ – Find out lots of details about how Google sees your site, such as:

• Info about Links to your Site
• Info about pages that have your site’s url
• Current Google Cache of your Site
• Info Google Has about your Site
• Pages that are similar to your Site
• General page ranking
• Errors that the Google Bot has encountered

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox – Find out the popularity of search keywords on Google.

http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist.html – A snapshot report of what people are searching for on Google.

Other Website Info Links

http://searchmarketing.yahoo.com/rc/srch/?mkt=us – ***Very Highly Recommended*** Several tools for finding keywords, finding out what advertisers are bidding for keywords, plus many other articles and resources for planning an ad campaign or evaluating an online market.

http://www.nichebot.com – This site provides access to several online services for evaluating keywords through one simple front-end webpage.

http://buzz.yahoo.com/ – A snapshot look at what people are searching for on Yahoo and search trends.

http://www.imagine-msn.com/insider/ – Find out what people are searching for on MSN.com.

http://hot.aol.com/hot/hot – Find out what searches are hot on AOL.

http://sp.ask.com/docs/about/jeevesiq.html – Discover what people are asking Jeeves.