I recently added 2 affiliate programs to complement my web site’s content.

The first one is a CD shop, eil.com’s affiliate program which offer 7% per sale. Good profit margin because most of the items are very high ticket. Over USD $100 for rare CDs, DVDs, videos and other rare stuff. I purchased a domain name OasisMusicShop.com to redirect my visitors to the web site instead of asking them to enter the full URL in their browsers.

The second affiliate program is by MediaPlazza. A “mobile entertainment” affiliate for mobile ringtones, colour logos, wallpapers, screensavers and java games. I’m not so sure about the payout but it does have a comprehensive payout table at their web site. I particularly like the “Master Affiliate” model where you get 10% of another affiliate’s earnings your refer to MediaPlazza. Like the previous affiliate program, I also purchased another domain name OasisRingTones.com to redirect my visitors to the exact landing page.

Ok great…. Now’s the challenge of actually getting sales! Its one thing putting them up and another thing to actually make sales. To push it further, its quite a challenge to become a high earning affiliate because I don’t really have much of a clue how to do that.

I will need some help…. Firstly, I have emailed the affiliate program’s person in charge for tips and case studies of their top affiliates. Secondly, I have submitted my web site to a few forums to ask them to critic my approach and hopefully provide me with some advice that could improve my sales.

I’m actually putting myself up for criticism here… Yikes! Here are the forum topics:

http://forums.devshed.com/showthread.php?p=734053#post734053

http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/showthread.php?p=1327924#post1327924

http://www.jimworld.com/apps/webmaster.forums/action::thread/forum::site-reviews/thread::1091108400/

These are very popular forums and it would be good to see their comments on my web site and I hope they like it and provide some valuable feedback. First time putting my web site for people to review!

Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | No Comments »

I’ve been watching a television programme on Discovery channel about the various forms of martial arts. I’ve always been interested in martial arts since I was 5 when my best friend tripped me with a karate trick! Too bad my Dad didn’t allow me to take up martial arts when I was younger because he knew I would pick up fights with the school bullies!

Its been too long since I’ve really regained my interest in martial arts. After watching the TV programme, there are only a few martial arts that I would like to learn are Jeet Kun Do - Bruce Lee’s Way of the Intercepting Fist, Aikido - The Art of Peace and Brazilian JuJitsu.

Jeet Kun Do - Bruce Lee’s Way of the Intercepting Fist

If you’ve ever seen a video clip of Bruce Lee going "EEEeeeeeeyyyyyyyyahhhhhooooo!", screaming like a cat, throwing punches and kicks with lightning speed, you couldn’t stop but wonder what great skill this guy had. Too bad he died at age 33. Lucky for us, he did complete his creation of Jeet Kun Do before he died and had about 3-4 official students certified by him.

The nearest place you could learn from Jeet Kun Do masters would be Thailand by a 2nd generation trainer, Mark Stewart in Bangkok, Thailand. I forgot his website’s URL! This would not be a very good option for now because it would cost too much for me to travel there to learn it.

Aikido - The Art of Peace

When you think of Aikido, think about Steven Segal flipping his opponents off balance and slamming them to the ground. I was surprised to discover that Aikido is performed with such grace and simplicity. The aim is to leverage your opponent’s energy and use it against him.

I was interested in grappling after watching Brazilian Jujitsu but Aikido has a strong focus on spirituality. Furthermore when I made a search on the internet for Aikido in Singapore, I found a dojo within 5 minutes walk from my house. It is called the "Aikido Shinju-kai Headquarters Dojo" (see picture on the left), located at SPANS. They have lessons every almost everyday!

Brazilian JuJitsu

This is a rather "unglamarous" form of martial arts. The aim of the game is pin your opponent to the ground and force him into submission. It looks a bit like WWE wrestling. Without any grappling skills, you would most probably be knocked out within seconds in a no-holds barred match. This to me semms like the mother of all grappling skills.

There is a school in Singapore for Brazilian Jujitsu but it isn’t very formal at the moment. I heard from my friend the training ground is at some international school at Somerset. The highest ranking instructor is a Blue belt? I don’t have the full details yet.

Categories: Vincent's Updates | 1 Comment »

You know I wrote the fed up post out of frustration. Looking back, I feel like I was acting like a "victim" and not taking responsibility for myself. Firstly, I was dumb enough to believe some of the claims. Secondly, I got angry out of my own free will. I am in control of my emotions but I chose to get angry. Lastly, I can either make it work for me somehow or shut up!

I’ve decided to give Google Profit another go.

I’m creating a new Google AdWords Campaign right now on a Stock Trading affiliate program. The payout is very good but I’m afraid the competition for the keywords are too high. Anyway, let’s see how it goes.

I came across this picture while I was searching for a cool Bruce Lee poster. I believe the quote in the poster applies to me right now.

"Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do." ~ Bruce Lee

I’ve been giving myself too many excuses. Now let’s cut to the chase and DO IT!

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I first stumbled on this web site a few months ago but I lost the link due to my hard disk crash!
 
Anyway visit AdWords Strategies for free tips on ho to create effective ads on Google AdWords. The information here beats some of the basic ebooks on Google AdWords! Glad I found this web site!

Categories: Pay Per Click Search Engines | No Comments »

I’m very disillusioned with all the information products that I have bought and read. Maybe its just the way they conduct their business.
 
Here’s how I feel about the state of information products:

1. They TELL YOU WHAT TO DO but fail to SHOW YOU HOW TO DO IT.
2. If they want to show you how to do it, they’ll charge you a bomb for it.
3. They don’t want you to succeed, they just want to make money off you by preying on your dreams, ignorance and fears.
4. They are afraid of telling you to much, fearing that you might become a competitor
5. They don’t walk their talk, they have big claims of making X amount of money but they can’t show for it or won’t show it through their profitable projects.
6. They have terrible after sales support. No replying of emails, forums or updates of their products. They might call you after your purchase to try to sell you something more expensive again!
7. Their products are incomplete to reach the end goal they promised their product would educate you to. Most of their products have recommendations to other products for some critical area in their own product. For example, an ebook may have an affiliate link to another ebook for additional information. What that means is that you will have to spend more money!
8. They put you in a "merry-go-round" of a useless information chase. Cross-selling and up-selling their pricier products to squeeze more money out of you. Therefore if you truly want the real information on how to achieve your goals, be prepared to fork out a lot of money or have a hard time "figuring it out yourself".
9. They miss out "sub steps" in their "step-by-step" systems. More often than not, the crucial elements are in the "sub steps" they omit!
10. They put out ugly ebooks and CDs!

The solution to this terrible trend I see is actually to do the exact opposite of what most greedy internet marketing experts do. I’ll leave that for the next post.

Categories: Internet Marketing | No Comments »

I responded to an ad on my local newspapers about an e-business seminar. I signed up for it online and went to see what it was all about. Good thing it was free! I would never have paid for crap like that.
 
I knew they were either going to sell a home study course or a seminar. I was having none of it. I sat there with an "open mind" taking in whatever that was useful, knowing that I would never buy into anything the speaker wanted to sell.

He was a boring speaker…. He went on and on about the different paths to wealth generation like real estate, business, stocks and finally e-business. He gave us all the disadvantages of going into real estate, business and stocks but all the advantages of e-business.
 
The main advantage of an e-business is because of its low cost, low risk, high profit business model. There were 22 business models according to the speaker which include affiliate programs, membership sites, ebay, e-tailing, cyber-squatting, ebooks and more.
 
He runs a USD $3000 workshop sometime in August. His Unique Selling Point was that he teaches his students to apply "wisdom" to his courses instead of just teaching them how to start their e-businesses. He ever promised to have 1 year mentorship.
 
I was skeptical because I want to see proof of him making lots of money in the 22 business models before committing to anything. His sales letters were full of grammer mistakes and his course was grossly over-priced in my opinion. I would rather purchase Corey Rudl’s course for USD $197 than going to his seminar.

Categories: Internet Marketing | No Comments »

I emailed the webmaster about the phone call I received on the 9th of July. He told me the person who called me will contact me again.
 
I also emailed him to tell that person to email me instead like what he said he would. I also asked him to show me some real life examples of his strategies that worked in his ebook. No reply from him about this.
 
I specifically asked him for some screenshots of his campaigns, ad groups and keywords for some of his profitable campaigns. It would be nice to see some of his affiliate web sites for some ideas and to verify if his claims are for real or just hog wash!
 
We will see…..

Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | No Comments »

It was 11 + AM in the morning and I noticed a strange looking number on my mobile phone. I assumed it was a phone call from someone outside of Singapore and the only way that was possible was from a recent Internet order of the membership site “The Search Engine Institute“.

Well I knew I was in for some sales pitch once again from my experience with Jim Cockrum’s eBay ebook. This time the phone conversation was very much shorter than Jim’s. He asked me about why I wanted the ebook, whether I had a web site, heard of Gorilla Web Site Marketing. I believe he was trying to sell my something about Gorilla Web Site Marketing till he asked me whether I had “CREDIT”!

Hah! I knew it! I told him I don’t have a line of credit because I use a DEBIT card instead of a CREDIT card. That turned him off. He ended the conversation telling me that I would receive an email from him the next day. Crap!

I do not remember giving him permission to call me… He was insincere and this reflects very badly about their company. I am going to refund the USD $97 membership fees since its within 30 days. Their web site is loaded with a lot of FREE bonuses you could get elsewhere. After reading their ebook, actually its just a super long guide on their web site that took me quite sometime to print!

I already know most of the content from Google Cash. I thought they would provide very detailed instructions on how to make money with Google AdWords. I was in for a big disappointment. Their so-called software was just a simple CGI script that merged keywords together instead of generating keywords from Search Engines. The Overture Suggestion tool or Google Suggestion Tool would be a better option. Worst of all, the difference between the Gold and Silver membership is just a few short articles with run of the mill advice on how to rank at the top of the search engines. The free bonus web seminar has a “Coming Soon” text next to it. LIARS! The only web seminar I saw there was the Perry Marshall TeleClinic tele-seminar with Jonathan Mizel that came with the Google Cash ebook. So much for their fat promises….

Categories: Affiliate Program Marketing | No Comments »

Finally I’ve got my cartoon ready. It took so long from my cartoonist I almost got MAD. I’m not going to use that cartoonist ever again. They took their own sweet time and took forever to reply to me emails.

Anyway, I’m glad that its finally completed now. I’ll be adding the "head and chest" to the top left of this blog. Bet it will look fantastic.

I’ve got 55 more working days before I end my long and miserable time with the army. I’m very happy to leave an disempowering environment with people that I dislike. I just have to hang on for bit and it will all be over.

Categories: Blog Updates, Web Design | No Comments »

Ok I’ve finally managed to get a decent amound of clicks. I’m now getting a bit more confident with this Google AdWords thing.

I’ve been tweaking the ads by adding new Ad Groups with "plurals" of the keywords.

For example, I’ve added "vacation deals" on top of "vacation deal" to get more clicks. So far its working.

I’ve also added an alternative keyword "holiday" instead of "vacation". I have yet to the results of this. Need more testing.

Right now I am waiting for my clicks to reach abou 20 - 30 for each Ad Group so that I may delete the "losing" Ad, the one with the lower amount of clicks to make way for another Ad. I’m just split testing to see which Ad gets the higher number of clicks by comparing 2 Ads at the same time.

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