So...

I'm ASKING you... what would you like to know more about? After all, this is YOUR blog. So post some comments about what you'd like to see me teach more about, and I'll start teaching it. Fair enough? :)

...Are You Ready For It?

There's no news yet about Microsoft creating its own AdSense program (not yet anyway) but there is news that Microsoft is going to be launching its own AdWords type advertising service for its search engine. This is the first step towards (hopefully) them having an AdSense program of their own.

The story was reported by Financial Times.

It just keeps getting better and better.

Check out the story here.

Yahoo is already building an opt-in notification list for publishers that are interested in their "upcoming programs." Get on the list NOW to be notified when Yahoo rolls out their own AdSense-like program.

Wow, an opt-in notification list. I wonder if Yahoo watched the Traffic Secrets roll-out. ;-)

Add your info to Yahoo's publisher list here.

Over a year ago, I predicted that Yahoo would follow Google's AdSense lead and release a similar program of their own. They'd have to in order to keep up as Google is cleaning their clocks with the increase in revenue they are getting from AdSense.

That day is getting close. VERY CLOSE.

If you snoop around the 'Net (and know how to do it effectively) you can uncover some interesting stuff...

Like web sites running what appear to be 'experimental' Yahoo ads that are very much like AdSense ads. They are (no surprise) ads being served from Overture's database (which Yahoo owns).

Check out the ads on the leftside of this blog.

If and when Yahoo releases and AdSense competitor this is nothing but GREAT NEWS for marketers like us. AdSense is a fantastic way to make money from publishing web sites. BUT... right now it's very dangerous. There are many markets right now that wouldn't be very profitable if AdSense went away. Other affiliate programs just won't make much money on these sites. So we NEED a competitor. You never want all your eggs in one basket with anything you do with your marketing and AdSense is no exception.

A similar program from Yahoo will only spur competition with Google and most likely drive AdSense revenue higher.

Let's hope that this experimental ad program turns out to be something REAL.

As an avid tester, I am discovering some interesting things about how long visitors stay on a web page, how far down they read, etc. Average visits are producing trends of SHORTER AND SHORTER visit times.

I think the entire Web is skimming and scanning web page content more than ever now -- and it's only going to get worse.

Do I think long form sales letters are dead? No, of course not. But I think in the coming months there will be some new discoveries. We're going to see some NEW sales letter models.

I've been testing some new stuff that's very exciting. I'm not ready to let the cat out of the bag yet, but if my findings are consistent, the sales letter site as we currently know it will become extinct.

Stay tuned.

We are about to experience a major explosion during the next 5 years and it will all be centered around Virtual Real Estate -- which is the development of web sites.

There will be many millionaires created from Virtual Real Estate and several MEGA MILLIONAIRES. Mark my words...

Online Advertising has finally rebounded from the Dot Com Bust and it's only going to grow from here on out. The Internet is a fantastic direct marketing medium for generating targeted leads for any market or industry. And these leads (traffic) are only going to become more and more valuable.

There's never been a better time to develop content-rich web sites that can generate tons of traffic. With the popularity of Google's AdSense program (and Yahoo's which should be coming soon) Virtual Real Estate is BACK and poised for major growth.

I say it's "back" because VRE (as I like to call it) was once a fantastic opportunity during the Dot Com gold rush days. I know because it made me a fortune. My company at that time developed web sites for this very purpose -- to generate leads and traffic that could be SOLD.

But once the market crashed when the Dot Com Bubble burst that opportunity faded for awhile. Online ad rates crashed. A site that used to make $5,000/month from serving ads on it was lucky to be making $100/month within 90 days of the crash. It truly was pathetic.

But The "Good Ole" Days Are Coming Back. And They Are Here To Stay.

Well, that is if you're a smart marketer and know what you're doing.

I'll be writing more about "VRE" in the coming weeks and months. It's a very exciting opportunity.

I have dedicated an entire column in my new The Reese Report to discussing VRE every month. (And where money can be made.)

Check out this fantastic article for proof that VRE is a valuable trend waiting to happen.

This is the first real look at the very first issue of The Reese Report -- THE monthly source for the best in Internet business opportunities, Internet marketing techniques and strategies, and much more.

I have a few Charter Membership spots left, but they are going fast. Everything is going to press this Friday. After Friday it's too late to get this first issue (where I reveal some incredible stuff.)

If you're still "on the fence" you better hurry before you miss out. Visit the full information site here.

Here are some things you should keep in mind in 2005:

1. If you are already successfully selling your own product, you must create new things to sell to those that have already purchased from you.

2. Make a list of all the tasks and things you do on a monthly basis. Make a note of all the ones that someone else could actually do for you. Start by paying someone to do the things that take up most of your time -- allowing you to use the most free time to make more money in your business (and more than pay for that person doing the work.)

3. If you have an ebook, create a higher priced physical version of your product.

4. Set aside time every month to create new content for your site(s). From blog entries to articles to special reports. These pieces of content will bring you more search engine and referral traffic, more target prospects, and ultimately, more sales. Content is king and it's also a magnet for more sales.

5. Work on improving your mini course or autoresponder series to provide the best possible content you can. If you sell an infoproduct, actually giveaway bits and pieces of your product in your free email series. If your content is good, more people will end up buying the actual product.

6. Spend more time away from your computer. Don't waste so much time caught up with the checking-email-looking-at-stats-reading-news cycle. It's a waste of your valuable time that you could be using to generate more income.

7. Setup at least one new web site per month. This site can just be a new content "funnel" to generate leads for your main site. Find a new "angle" or alternative group of keywords that relate to your target prospect.

8. Start using the PHONE to build relationships with others in your market.

9. Test some new advertising sources each month. Invest a little bit of money in a place you've never tried before. Finding new profitable sources of leads will grow your overall sales on a regular basis.

10. Set your goals for 2005 to be twice as much as you originally planned. So what if you only accomplish 50% of it. That's still the entire goal you originally had planned. :-)

How many times have you ever heard any of the following...

"There are no 'secrets'..."

"It's all just common sense..."

"You can find out any information you want for FREE..."

Well, if you're a marketer and you actually BELIEVE those statements all I cay to you is...

GOOD LUCK!

Okay, so this entry is more of a "rant" than anything else, but it's lonnnnng overdue. I'm completely fed up! I'm so sick and tired of reading discussion forum posts online where marketers are giving other marketers advice and they put so much energy into telling people that there, "are no secrets."

People that state there are no secrets (or undiscovered tactics) are basically saying one thing...

"I ALREADY KNOW IT ALL!"

I'm sorry, but NO ONE knows it all. NO ONE.

If you don't know something, it's basically a SECRET TO YOU. There are a gazillion marketing secrets I'd love to get my hands on. For example, I'd gladly pay (RIGHT NOW) $100,000 IN CASH to have a report showing the test results from all of Dan Kennedy's marketing campaigns. Believe me, those are some VALUABLE "secrets." While Dan has certainly shared 'some' of them, I'm sure there are MILLIONS OF DOLLARS worth of value in knowing the rest of the results.

It's also funny to me that most of the people saying, "there are no secrets" in these forums are almost always people that aren't making much money. Another trait they have in common is that they are trying to sell "I'll teach you how to get rich on the Internet" stuff. Why? Who knows. I guess, they actually BELIEVE that they know it all. They just don't get it. Not by a longshot.

It's a FACT... there are thousands upon thousands of marketers out there testing things everyday. There are major breakthroughs and discoveries that are found EVERYDAY. The minute you start thinking that there is nothing new to learn, or nothing new for you to discover for your marketing, YOU'RE IN TROUBLE. Now THAT is a FACT.

There's a reason I personally spend a small fortune buying infoproducts and courses from other marketers. Because *I* will continue learning and evolving as a marketer, for the rest of my life. I realize that there are many people out there discovering things that I will never discover. Now I test things like CRAZY. You should know that by now about me. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that there are very few people on the entire Internet that test more than I do. However, who cares? I don't. Why? Because while I *do* test a lot of techniques and tactics, there will ALWAYS be others that test things I never thought of.

So those people know "secrets" that I don't. I don't know about you, but I'm willing to pay to find them out if they can benefit my marketing.

2005 is coming fast. If you want to have the most successful year of your life, you MUST spend some of your time researching, learning about, and applying the techniques that others have discovered. The only way to continue gradually improving whatever it is that you have is to find new things to test.

On another note... there's one thing worse than a "know-it-all" and that's someone that actually DOES know a lot, but doesn't use it. If you look around, you'll see a lot of marketers like that online. It's a shame. They know a tremendous amount but don't do anything with it -- except spend most of their time preaching to other people that they know it all.

Never stop learning and continue to test the new things that you learn.

The single biggest mistake that non-marketing-wise business owners make is the focus on FEATURES instead of BENEFITS. Then educated business owners that become decent marketers (or at least think they are) learn to make the distinction of putting their marketing focus into the benefits of what it is they sell, BUT...

I see many marketers (especially online) missing the boat when it comes to using benefits.

One of the greatest copywriters on the planet, John Carlton, teaches a very powerful concept... he calls it the "benefit within the benefit."

For example, if you sell a product that teaches someone how to make money (such as with a stock trading product or real estate investing or business opportunity, etc.) the benefit really ISN'T "making money."

The true benefit for your prospect is about what having that money will do for them.

The focus of your marketing should be all about...

How Will What I Am Trying To Sell Make My Prospect's Life BETTER?

So for this example of selling a product that teaches someone how to make money, the true benefit would be buying a new car, being able to go on a nice vacation, being able to afford a new HDTV set for their home, buying a new boat, a Rolex watch, or maybe even just being able to afford to go to eat at a nice restaurant. Those are the benefits of your offer. THAT is how your prospect's life will potentially be better if they buy what it is that you have to sell.

Let's take another example...

Let's say you sell an infoproduct that helps people cure back pain.

Is the actual benefit "no more pain"? Well, Yes, of course, but that's not honing in on the real "benefit within the benefit." The benefit within the benefit of no more pain would be being able to sleep all the way through the night without tossing and turning because of the pain. Being able to ride in a car with a friend for more than 15 minutes without having to get out of the car to take a break because of the pain. Being able to bend over and pick up your grandchild and see the smile on their face. Being able to play tennis with your best friend again. Etc. etc.

THOSE are the real benefits of what it is that you are trying to sell. The better job you can do of expressing those "benefits within the benefit" to your prospect the more you will sell -- GUARANTEED.

I know, because I was once one of those people.

It happens everyday. We, as entrepreneurs, surf around the Internet. We visit web sites, read news, check out competitors ads, investigate new products and services of interest, and more.

And while we are doing all of this "research" something happens...

We get that thought once again...

"I could make money here."

And so off we go. We get out our notepad or make plans on our computer. We write up some ideas and details for our new little business that's going to make us a fortune. We get really excited for a few days and begin to wonder how we are going to spend all of the money that comes in from this new project.

But then it happens.

We find another potential moneymaker while doing some surfing. Then another. And another.

Yet, what actually happens is that we never really get anything done. We never really get these ideas developed and marketed. Therefore, these ideas end up making us... ZIPPO. ZERO. NADA.

If you haven't figured it out yet, there's more money to be made online by doing one thing GREAT than doing 10 things FAIR. Write that down. It's worth millions if you really grasp the concept.

If you take just ONE idea and fully develop it, you should have a BUSINESS on your hands, not just a moneymaker. With a real business you should be able to continously reinvest in it, and continue to grow your profits.

Everything you do online should revolve around you building a BUSINESS. You should be spending your time growing something everyday (like getting more affiliates for your products and services, doing more deals, testing more places to advertise, finding more keywords you hadn't tried before, adding more content to your site that the search engines can spider, and much, much more.)

If you're not making more this month than you were last month, or the month before that, you're doing something WRONG. Making more money online is EASY if you follow the simply philsophy of GRADUAL IMPROVEMENT. (Which is one of my favorite business principles.)

On a week-to-week basis you should be giving yourself a PAY RAISE by steadily growing your business and having it make more money.

But you CAN'T do this if you are constantly focusing on new ideas and "potential" projects. You need to STOP RIGHT NOW and just got off your butt and put the project with the best SHORT-TERM profit potential into action and see what happens.

If it makes any money at all, then you're next step is easy...

MILK IT FOR ALL IT'S WORTH!

I see too many entrepreneurs launch a new product or service and do well with it, only to move on to something else quickly. ARE YOU NUTS?

If you have ANYTHING that makes money online, there's a realistic chance that the same business can be making 5 to 10 TIMES what you're currently making. You do realize that right? Don't even tell me that you've exhausted every potential place to drive leads to your site. Because there's NO WAY that's true. The Internet is a gigantic place. Your business is only scratching the surface of sales you could be making.

So stop messing with so many "ideas" and new projects. Ideas themselves are worth JACK CRAP!

You do realize that a bad idea, that's at least executed and makes a little bit of money, is worth far more than the greatest idea in the history of the Internet that's never put into action right?

My advice to you is to take what you currently have that's making money and sitdown with a legal pad and a pen for a few hours (in a quiet environment) and don't get up until you can write down *100* new ways to generate more business for THAT project.

Then prioritize those ways in the order of which ones stand to make you the most money fastest -- and do those first.

On this call we'll be discussing the foundation for business growth.

If you were on the call, click the "comments" button below if you'd like to share a few comments of what you thought of the call and got out of it...

$1,080,496.37 in just under 24 hours.

If you haven't read it, you can read my Tell All Report to learn exactly how I did it.

* Post some comments below to share your thoughts on this special report!

Have you started to feel the "shockwave" that's being produced online by the massive marketing campaign for my Traffic Secrets course?

The campaign "process" has only just begun. STAY TUNED! It's about to get a lot more exciting.

THERE'S AN EXCITING *TWIST* ABOUT TO HAPPEN...

...BUT THEY'RE IN FOR A HUGE SURPRISE. :-)

In the near future, I plan to detail the exact steps I took to launch this massive marketing campaign. There are a lot of things involved that most people don't realize. This will be great for you to learn because you can apply them to your business -- regardless of what niche market you are in.

Have You Felt Some Of The *Shockwave* From The Campaign Yet?

Sound off by clicking the "comments" link below and adding your comment about it!