Let’s talk today, about starting a Paid Membership Site. Whatever you call them – member only, membership, subscription, or mentor websites, the “normal” membership sites all have one thing in common.

They are bringing in steady and constant cash flow for their owners, month after month, from a few hundred dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. The array of the topics of these websites is endless. Examples are articles, eBooks, iPod Movies, Audio Books and mixed models.

Some of these paid membership sites provide mentoring or coaching, others publish useful articles or information in a particular field, product or niche. Read the rest of this entry

Hello my friends,

You may have been wondering why things at my site may have slowed down at bit! As always I am working and slaving away at my sites and building up my internet business.

But also there are times when one must take stock and see how things going around us and in your business. As there has been so much hype and information overload this year, and this really has become a joke, I thought it was a good time for a change in direction. Maybe not so much for the newcomers, but most definitely for guys like us.

So I have been analyzing all this and thinking about where this market is really heading too.

I believe the most disturbing trend has been by those so-called marketers over hyping the Butterfly Marketing OTO (One Time Offer) script. I mean it really has gone out of control.

Let’s have a look at this scenario, I came to your site because I was interested in your free or paid offer, but first of all you want to capture my name and email, why? Secondly, once you’ve got it, I then need to confirm it, and then am send to the OTO page, why? Instead of taking me to the product I was interested in I get those, “Hey Sir, just before we take you to your product have a look at this incredible offer”.

Well guess what, get lost because I am not interested in those 50-100 products for a $xxxx or whatever etc. And then when I decide to move on the product page, I get slapped in my face another pop-up, well Sir, maybe $xxxx is a little too much for, look we cut it in half and you can get the package it for $xxxx. Sorry, I am not interested, just take me to my product. And guess what, if that was not enough I get slapped another pop-up telling that they can even cut it back to $xxxx to suit my budget. My question is why are these guys so desperate, they are putting in your face marketing to shame!

And then those grandiose Free Give Aways to capture those leads, so that the JV partners can make back-end sales, yeah they must be dreaming!

So I have come to this conclusion, that I must start to control my own destiny and build a real internet estate. It is important that I can totally control this , not being dependent on the wimps of JV’s, Google, Affiliate Programs etc. and can continue to make money for years to come.

I strongly believe the traditional internet business opportunity is on the way out.

Let me explain and show you why!

1) One Time Offers are on the way out, to survive they must give interested visitors a straight offer, if the visitor likes it they buy, if not give them the courtesy to leave. Believe me those internet shoppers are getting smarter! The minute they see, the OTO page they go, I know I do!

2) Building lists is becoming harder and harder, people already know the purpose, and that is for you to get a sale. So they won’t subscribe, even if you give something for free, which is crap anyway! And they know that, just have close look at your own lists that you subscribe, most of them are time wasters! I now only subscribe to a half a dozen list, so I know what is going on. The others I only use one time with a throw away email to see what they got on offer, and only will subscribe with my real email address if the information is of use to me and will then later unsubscribe.

3) Email is getting harder and harder to send, even with auto responders 30% bounces and rejects are not uncommon(and not to mention that spamming is on the rise)

4) People are not reading emails anymore, they are becoming blind to it(the unsubscribe or email delete button is only one click away)

5) Information overload is epidemic, there is so much stuff out there, I mean where the hell do you start? Plus most products and software are of low standard and are poor quality, I don’t even mention customer service or support is often non-existent.

6) Installing products is becoming harder for the average buyer, I mean how many people know about Chmod, cPanel, how to set permissions, sub domains, how to upload etc. And if something goes wrong what you do? Try to get your money back? Forget it!(For example, I just bought and installed 4 Adsense sites, which without my skills I could not have done, and I can assure you I am not a novice! So people are becoming more reluctant to buy. Even two of the membership sites installed got never resolved!

7) Trends of products, I mean some of the products that have come and gone, you remember blog and ping, tag and ping, mass blog builders, Adsense in a Box, eBooks, Affiliates sites (I mean they not dead per se, but I can tell you they now require a lot more work for less cash)

8) And you may say what about eBay, MySpace, I tell you what they are saturated with buyers and sellers!

I ask you, can you really believe that the Search Engines, your ISP’s will warn you about system changes. Can you really trust Google(remember Google Slap) and MSM and Yahoo?

And what about the cost of emailing, what about if the governments get their act together and start charging you 25c for every email you send? I hate to think what that cost you if you mail every to your list of 25,000 people! Trust me, this will only be a matter of time as this will be the only way to stop spam!

Yes I make money online, but from now on, I am just restructuring the way I do business on the Internet.

Let’s put it this way, there are only 24 hours in a day, let’s say 12 hours @ 5 days per week that is 60 hours per week for the online business. Even that is too much, I work to live, not live to work!

Let me give you one example, to look at the hours you need to spend on to make money on Adsense Sites. The most important thing to make money on Adsense is fresh daily content as you will need traffic, lost of it as these clicks needs to be clicked on to make you money.

This means that you need fresh content at least every other day, that means at least 1-2 fresh articles either new, rewritten or re-hatched. To find, prepare, write and post will take about 1 hour, you then need to submit your article to the article directories, you need to bookmark it on social bookmark sites, write snippets to announcements blogs, that’s another 1 hour.

Here is the bad news, you need at least a 100 of those to make a living out of it, and then be happy if they make you 50c per site per day on average. Work out the hours 100 sites @ 15 articles each is 1,500 articles @ 1 hour per article = 1,500 hours! The bad news is I only have 250 hours per month and don’t let anybody fool you that RSS feeds helps, Google and people want real content not feeds! As you can see Adsense is dealing with constant change and I know hard work!

And I have even not talked about Newsletters, Email Lists, building and uploading and tweaking sites etc. So, I have decided to stop being a slave to my business. I am letting my Adsense sites go and they will be put on auto pilot, I put in an opt-in box on each with an eight article autosponder series and an eBook. I also and have put RSS feeds and Auto Pings on them. I scrapped my membership site project and will work only on few of my popular sites. Yes, you can outsource some of the work, but that is a lot of time and work too!

I have decided to start a new project, which I for now will keep under wraps. My plan is to build brand new simple mini sites that once it is build I only need to drive traffic to it, needs minor maintenance and tweaking, and no I am not talking about building Niche Sites! One thing I know is that this site can possibly make in one day what one Adsense site does in weeek, and that very little ongoing work!

So I suggest have a look at your own business and program, are you getting the returns on your investment and time, is your income dropping, look at it, unsubscribe from those time wasters, check it maybe it’s time for a change for you too!

The solution is to stay focussed on one program, here is a very nice reminder on this! I recommend you have a look at this video on how to  Stay Focussed!

To your success!

Cheers,

Bert

Adsense Arbitrage

Hello my friends,

Brad Callen has come out with a brand new book about Adsense Arbitrage. This about a real case study about a very detailed “unique” method of making money online, that anybody can follow… and I mean anybody, seriously.

It is a step by step plan showing you how 1 person is making a killing, with literally no knowledge of this in the past, and with very little effort.

It’s a method that can get you earning money by the end of the day today, at the latest…

It is a great read and it really shows that Adsense is not dead at all!

You can download it here Adsense Arbitrage and the best thing is, it’s free!

Cheers,

Bert

Basically, a free membership site is a site where the user is not charged a membership fee to use the site but is required to supply their e-mail address, choose a user name and password to enter the site, participate in the discussions and activities. Sometimes free memberships are limited to less useful information or access while paid memberships have full access.

A large entity like MSN, for example, allows members to access most things on their sites without the need for any sign in procedure at all but, in order to join a group, you must supply your email address, choose a user name and a password. The use of the site is still free. However, to use MSN as your ISP or to gain enhanced email resources you will be required to pay for it. Read the rest of this entry

People are willing to pay for online content. In fact, the “Online Publishers Association” said that pay-for content is emerging as a hot revenue model. Business content, personals/match making, and entertainment are the hottest niches. But even smaller niches, like DVD authoring, sports coaching, marketing services, and dieting are producing profits.

You can sell subscriptions for online content with your own Membership Site. Selling online content by way of a password protected website has become big business. Not only is it fast to set up, but the start-up and running costs are minimal. Work-from-home entrepreneurs and big businesses alike are tapping into this new-found revenue source. Read the rest of this entry

Affiliate programs are important to membership sites for a number of good reasons. An affiliate program isn’t really a program. It’s a business arrangement such as Clickbank or Commission Junction.

Affiliate programs are also known as associate programs, associates programs, referral programs and even bounty programs. Most affiliate programs are free to join.

Affiliate programs are a way to earn money without producing your own product.

Affiliate programs allow a membership website to generate additional (other than the membership subscription) income by advertising products that are relevant to the site’s theme.

Read the rest of this entry

eBay’s profits rose 23% in the last three months of 2009. Part of their success is down to an affiliate program.

To help this program along, eBay provides data feeds that let you place ads for eBay auctions on your site. You can then place Adsense ads alongside this free content.

If someone clicks on an auction ad and wins the auction or simply signs up and becomes an active eBay user, you get paid a commission. Read the rest of this entry

When you are deciding on the theme for your membership site, it is best if you can choose a theme that concerns something you are really interested in, even passionate about. Remember that you will be spending a lot of time keeping your membership informed, keeping your website interesting and keeping relevant and timely content on your website and in your ezine that you send out regularly.

If you choose to start a membership site about, say, .dogs. Just dogs in general won’t attract many members. You will need to choose a specific breed, .and possibly even narrow it down further. Instead of Poodles, your theme should be; Tiny Toy Poodles, Miniature Poodles, or Standard Poodles, for example. Millions of people are dog lovers and the theme of a specific breed of dog should do well. Read the rest of this entry

As I am running many mini sites, I would like to pass over to you my experiences on how to successfully setup and run mini sites to beginners and experienced marketers alike.

I will also be from time-to-time giving tips and exposing some of the techniques that I use for setting up and marketing my mini sites.

But first things first, and that is the requirement of a successful goal setting program. I am afraid to say that the famous saying of ” Plan to fail, fail to Plan” is so true, especially when you are building, marketing and and running 100’s of mini sites! Read the rest of this entry

What Is Pay Per Lead?

It’s One Of The Easiest Ways To Make Money Online! The two monetization models that you are most probably already familiar with are: (1) Pay Per Click and (2) Pay Per Sale (affiliate sale). Some of the best examples are found at Commission Junction.

Question: What Is Pay Per Click (PPC)?

Answer: You display PPC ads on your web pages. A visitor clicks on an ad. You make money per click. This is usually a small amount; mostly in cents. Read the rest of this entry

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