October 23, 2008 By

I Will Be At The SMART Seminar Malaysia and Singapore

image It’s been more than a year now since World Internet Summit Singapore and WIME in San Francisco. It’s time to get to an Internet marketing event, and this year it’s The SMART Seminar by Stuart Tan and Simon Leung.

It happens on the 7-9 November in Malaysia and from the 14-16 November in Singapore.

Events like this are a great way to meet other Internet marketers, socialize, and maybe even form new partnerships. To all Malaysians, you can get a discounted ticket price from me so I hope to see more of you at the event.

To all my Singapore friends, I hope to see you at the Lion City and maybe catch up on some stories.

Filed Under: Internet Marketing Malaysia, Internet Marketing Singapore Tagged With: , , ,
October 22, 2008 By

PPC Classroom Review – Affiliate Marketing With Pay Per Click

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A few days back I had the chance to really go through my copy of PPC Classroom, and the first thing that caught my eye is the wide range of PPC and keyword research tools available to members. Besides that the course looks great, and it was developed from the collective knowledge of Anik Singal and Amit Mehta, who generated over 2.4 million in affiliate commissions last year from PPC marketing.

One thing I noticed about PPC Classroom is that it’s not an “ebook” – all the content is presented via web pages protected by the members area. This way they integrate the text / audio / video parts very well. Once there, you can select the different modules via a drop down menu or go through them one by one.

  • Forward: Hitting the Tipping Point to Super Affiliate Success
  • Module 1 – Market Research
  • Module 2 – Keyword Research and Building a Killer Profit Pulling Keyword List
  • Module 3 – Direct Linking, Landing Pages, and Your Own Affiliate Site
  • Module 4 – How to Set Up Your AdWords Campaign Properly
  • Module 5 – How to Design a High-Converting Landing Page
  • Module 6 – Understanding the Google Quality Score
  • Module 7 – Launching Your Campaign… Do You Have a Dud, or a Winner?
  • Module 8 – The Importance of Split Testing and How to Do it Correctly
  • Module 9 – Bid Optimization Strategies

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You can also take the PPC Classroom quiz after c going through the modules, and view your scores. If you pass a certain score you’ll receive certification from PPC Classroom – this is the incentive they give their members to not abandon the modules.

I’ve dabbled with Google AdWords since 2003 when there were very few advertisers, clicks were cheap and the program itself was very straightforward. But ever since, AdWords has become ever so more complicated with the introduction on Landing Page Quality Score and other metrics that makes PPC though, and risky, for the absolute beginner.

However the allure of being able to set-up an ad, pay for some clicks, and make money before you go back home from work is what makes PPC so darn attractive. PPC is definitely something you wouldn’t want to learn from “trial and error” as every mistake you make costs you money. If you have no idea what to do, when to do it and how to do it, you’re going to lose more than just pocket money.

If you’re thinking of getting PPC traffic to your blog, as I mentioned in Super Affiliate Blogger, I highly recommend you get at least the basic PPC Classroom course. They also have additional videos and “Behind the Scenes Bootcamp” which you may want to get if you’re truly serious about PPC.

Overall, the way PPC Classroom is done gives me inspiration to revamp the way I sell and design my own information products. Great stuff.

Filed Under: Free Tips Tagged With: , , ,
October 22, 2008 By

Get Big Fast or Die Slowly

image Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon, had a simple but revolutionary concept that literally changed the world of e-commerce and it’s place in history. He called it “Get Big Fast”.

Let analyze the sanity of this theory, and how to apply it to your online business.

GET BIG FAST.

Well actually, similar ideas have long been covered in self-help books, using the term “delayed gratification” although it was used in reference to the individual and not a business. It basically means instead of reaping the fruits of your labor now, why not invest it for the future? The rationale is that if you can delay gratifying or satisfying your needs now, you can have even more in the future.

For example lets say you just made $200 on the Internet in the last month. You have two choices: spend the money or re-invest it into your business.

The first option gives you instant gratification, and after all it’s your hard earned money so why not spend it to give yourself a treat? By all means go ahead, spend your first online check on brining your family out to a fantastic dinner.

But what about the next check you get? And the next? And the next?

Do you go out and buy a new car (like so many Malaysian business people do) or re-invest it into your business to create more products, get more leads, build a stronger brand and woo new partners?

That’s exactly what Jeff Bezos thought about when Amazon was but a dream. He decided to forfeit all profits to expand the Amazon brand, customer base and inventory. According to Jeff, when you’re in a rapidly growing market you should forget about profits and focus instead on market share. That’s because when the market matures, you will be one of the biggest players in it and stand to get the highest profit.

Amazon should have, and could have, been profitable much earlier. Amazon’s first “reported” profitable quarter was in 2002 – but it was really profitable at least a year before that. All the profits went into making the business bigger,faster. This helped Amazon evolve form a small startup into one of the largest online economies of our time.

Have you ever wondered how history could have been much,much different if Bezos decided to take out Amazon’s first profits and get himself a nice Ferrari or yatch?

History is littered with thousands of would-be millionaires who just could not control their urges of self-satisfaction and leading “the good life”. Lets try not to be one of them.

Get big fast. Do it.

Filed Under: Entrepreneurship Tagged With:
October 20, 2008 By

Buying and Selling Websites for Profit

sunny-tan-small Welcome to our guest speaker for the November BootCamp – Sunny Tan!

Most of you may have already met Sunny, and while Sunny and me started out about the same time, we took very different paths. Suny focused more on building content-driven sites and monetizing them with Google AdSense, helping him earn a 4-figure USD income which eventually gave him the confidence to become a full time Internet marketer starting January 2008.

Sunny eventually discovered that other people are more than willing to pay him thousands of dollars to buy his sites, and hence started a new business model of “flipping” websites for profit.

In this short podcast, Sunny explains how it works and what t expect. To discover more on buying and selling websites for profit, make sure you attend our bootcamp!

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Filed Under: make money online, Podcast & Videos Tagged With: ,
October 20, 2008 By

Unique PPC / Keyword Research Tools

image Was going through the PPC Classroom material finally, and I found their range of keyword research tools to be awesome. I’ve been doing some PPC using Google AdWords for a long time now but I’m not a hardcore user like pure PPC affiliates are. I just relied on my trusty Keyword Elite to do most of the work, while I also use the Keyword Suggestion Tool.

I know that serious PPC affiliates always recommend more tools to get even more keywords and get an advantage over everyone else who just relies on the “common” keywords. But I never seemed to find any that I could understand and use easily.

But in PPC Classroom, I found several simple but effective keyword tools:

Keyword List Cleaner - Enter your list of keywords, and you can remove duplicates, whitespace and even convert keywords from/to uppercase or lowercase.

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Google Match Type Tools – Easily build Google "match type" keyword lists and negative keyword lists. Plus they have done all the hard work and listed tons of common negative keywords you can use for most campaigns. You can also generate exact / broad / phrase matching keywords.

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You wonder why AdWords doesn’t allow you to do this easily within their system?

Key Phrase Multiplier – Enter your primary and secondary keywords, and it generates a whole lot more keywords based on possible combinations.

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AdWords Ad Writing Tool – This is perhaps the most interesting tool of all – it helps you write AdWords ads easily. There’s a chose of Headlines, Ad Copy and “Power Words” that you can basically just select to create your ad, then fill in the blanks with your keywords.

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The problem with writing AdWords copy is that the space is extremely limited. So you tend to settle for words other than what you really want to use. With this tool you are presented with many synonyms you can use. It also tells you how many characters are left.

Typo Generator – Misspelled keywords are a gold mine, and although my trusty Keyword Elite does give me typo keywords, this tool allows you to specify what type of typos you want, such as:

  • "Missing Letter" will systemically delete letters from each keyword.
  • "Double Letters" will systemically double letters within each keyword.
  • "Reverse Letters" will systemically reverse letters within each keyword.
  • "Skip Spaces" will remove space between multi-word key phrases.
  • "Inserted Letter" will systemically add each letter of the alphabet within each keyword.
  • "Missed Letter" will systemically replace one letter from each keyword with each letter of the alphabet.

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PPC ROI Calculator – Enter your keyword cost data and your sale commissions as well as conversion rate, and it will basically tell you if the campaign is profitable or not. Good to roughly predict the profitability of affiliate programs you want to promote.

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Long Tail Keyword Generator – Most keyword research tools will not give you massive long tail keyword data. For example using this tool you can add colors, city / area names and other words before or after the keyword to create long tail keywords easily.

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Geo Keywords – Sometimes people go to Google but type in keywords to find information about their specific state or city only. This keywords lets you add those “geo” locations to your keywords.

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The basic idea with all these keyword tools is to create a massive keyword list, hopefully uncovering keywords that are not used by too many people yet. Then you would have a lot of clicks with virtually no competition.

PPC Classroom also comes with a full guide to AdWords / Pay Per Click advertising designed by Amit Mehta, who made over $2.4 million dollar in affiliate commissions last year with no list, no products and no website. From what I see, the information in there is really good plug it’s an “ongoing education” thin which means that they will be adding webinars, teleseminars and additional content from time to time.

I highly recommend you check out PPC Classroom.

Filed Under: Google AdWords Tagged With: , , ,
October 18, 2008 By

What I Think of Internet Explorer

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A picture speaks a thousands words. I hate Internet Explorer.

The only thing worse than IE is a newer version of IE. I have long a go renamed my shortcuts into “Stupid IE” and out it into a folder so I can’t see the icon too often.

But for the sake of your online business, you need to understand that most of your readers or customers are using IE. Why?

Because it was bundled with the Windows OS, that’s why. And if your customers aren’t too tech-savvy they would have no idea what a “Firefox” is. My GobalaKrishnan.com stats reveal that 45.9% of readers are using IE, and that’s taking into consideration that YOU are more likely to be among the class of “savvy” Internet users probably hooked to Firefox, Safari or Chrome.

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You’ve seen the light, but what about your customers who have not? If you’re writing an e-book, developing software or designing CSS-based themes or templates, check them for IE-compatibility. IE sucks and it makes your life harder. But you need to check anyway or end up with disgruntled customers.

Filed Under: General Tagged With: ,
October 14, 2008 By

Why I Stopped Working From Home

Early this year, I got myself a real office, bought some furniture and computer hardware, built a small team, and took my “home based” business to the next level. It cost me a bomb but have never regretted it – and I’ll tell you why.

A lot of people since have asked me why I no longer work from home. It’s a choice I made based on several compelling reasons. Keep in mind that I have been working from home full time for about two years before making the leap. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with working from home – don’t panic if you’re home based!

My reasons are pretty simple actually:

  • I wanted to build a team – I want to build a team of people, and it wasn’t possible to do that from home. I was working one year by myself, then I had some part time team members and eventually now I have two full-time team members. This is my most important reason for starting an office.
  • I was losing concentration – It’s pretty easy to push yourself forward when you’re “working in your underwear” so to speak. Money was no longer an issue and I was getting pretty lazy with a lot of other distractions on my mind. Productivity was going down the drain. Working at home can get pretty lonely sometimes too.
  • My offline business needs – I’m also into a lot of offline events this year including my coaching sessions in Malaysia. I also published a book so it would make more sense for my customers to have an office address they can mail to and drop by, just in case they needed some help. I used to stay at home a lot because it took a lot of will power to get dressed and go out (for work purposes) but now I have better access to most companies I need to deal with for my business, and I’m also ready to just get in my car and drop by their location if need be.

I still do work from home, but rarely. I’m currently living in a rented apartment which is pretty uncomfortable to work in. Plus the TV is only a few steps away. However, I’ve already bought a new apartment which I’ll be moving into early next year. In that apartment I will re-create my working space so that I can work from both my office, and at home too.

There was this strong connection to working from home, especially when I teach people how to make money online while working from home. That’s exactly what I did too till December 2007 and I was already making a stable five-figure income from the Internet by then. But my journey isn’t complete and this is the route I must take.

Who knows what the ultimate destination may be? It might bring me to a different country, it may even bring me back to my home office.

Filed Under: My Journey Tagged With:
October 14, 2008 By

Catch My Interview With Malaysian Business

IMG_0724 I was recently interviewed by Malaysian Business, a local publication that focuses on business markets in Malaysia. Interview was conducted by Mior Hashim who himself is trying to develop some of his websites like Dunia Dapur and Dunia Kek.

My interview touched on topics like how to work from home with an Internet business, as well as several tips from my own experiences as a full-time home based business owner since 2005.

My interview will appear in the October 16th issue. You can get Malaysian Business in most local bookstores and magazine outlets. I have previously also been interviewed in Yellow Post, NST Tech&U as well as Malay Mail.

I’m considering to be a columnist for Malaysian business, what do you think?

gobala-malaysian-business

Filed Under: My Journey, Seminars & Events Tagged With:
October 13, 2008 By

31 Followers On Twitter By Doing Nothing

image I logged into my Twitter account finally after setting it up ages ago and found that I already have 31 followers. It’s important to say that I have never posted a single tweet before today and my profile is completely empty. Yet people found me and became my “followers”.

What confuses me is how did I start “following” 7 people when I didn’t even use this darn thing? Perhaps this has happened automatically at some point when I read other people’s tweets?

Some twitter expert please come and share some light here, please, I beg you.

Filed Under: Social Networking Tagged With:
October 12, 2008 By

GobalaKrishnan.com Goes to PageRank 0 – But Who Gives A ****?

image Google updates PageRank – and GobalaKrishnan.com gets the big zero. For the past three years this blog has started from zero, to PR3 and even PR5 and now it’s back to square one. But how important is PageRank when advertising or selling text links is not your main profit source?

How much does PageRank effect traffic?

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My Awstats shows a traffic increase from September 2006 to September 2007, traffic was doubled. But September 2008 (last month), my traffic didn’t change quite much at all. The reduction was probably due to the fact that I hardly posted anything in this blog.

PageRank for me isn’t that important, since I mostly make money from affiliate marketing, selling my own products and from email marketing, all of which do not depend on Google’s unpredictable rankings.

However, I do agree that SEO is important. If you’re using WordPress then it’s a little bit easier as the default installation of WordPress is already quite search engine friendly. You can increase the effectiveness of it by reading up on some practical SEO tips for WordPress.

At the end of the day though, what is really important are the royal readers of this blog, my customers, and all my subscribers. To you guys, thanks for reading GobalaKrishnan.com and coming back to see what’s new even though I’ve had some sort of writer’s block recently. I feel much better now!

Google on the other hand, can **** off.

Filed Under: Search Engine SEO Tagged With: , , ,