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Mike McMillan

Welcome, Mike McMillan here. Hope you’re interested in creating books, ebooks, and selling them online. That’s what we do here. And–if you’re an affiliate marketer–we’ll have some cool stuff for you too! Basically, we talk about making money online. So have fun and learn some cool stuff here. But consider taking your affiliate marketing efforts to the next step by joining my Big Money With Little eBooks newsletter.

Get huge tips in each issue for getting top Google rankings, link building, SEO, and basically just learning how to sell more ebooks on line… either your own or those as an affiliate. Get started today and unsubscribe at any time. You’ll get free downloads of helpful materials related to taking your online business to the next level.

And here’s the really cool thing. Once you subscribe, you will receive an email with links to download my eMail Marketing Inferno ebook. It’s 57 pages of cool ways to make more money from emailing your lists–in any niche, and in any market. And–you will also get a free batch of email swipe files and fresh PLR articles geared to the Internet marketing niche. Use them today and profit!

A Couple Tips On Pre-Sell Pages

If you’re an affiliate marketer creating pre-sell pages to promote products, here are some things to consider. The vast majority of your competitors are using Wordpress blogs to create their pages. Big surprise, huh?

One thing I highly recommend (and this may seem obvious) is to make sure that your name is prominently displayed on the page as the creator. You would be surprised how many pre-sell pages that rank on the first couple pages of Google, especially in the IM niche, are zombie pages–no one’s name appears on the page. Personally, I would never consider buying a product through a page put up by an anonymous marketer.

Another thing that does more harm than good has to do with AdSense ads on pre-sell pages. Look, if your goal is to create an AdSense empire, of course you want some good content and, of course, your AdSense ads. However, if your main goal is to make money by affiliate sales–get those freakin’ AdSense ads off your pages. You’re creating leakers and making pennies per click in AdSense revenue, and losing tens or hundreds of dollars in affiliate commissions.

A good pre-sell page doesn’t look like a sales page, it should look more like a letter to a friend. Too many banner ads, AdSense ads, and things like that can over-commercialize the page and distract from your main message. The sole goal of a great pre-sell page is to get visitors to click on the affiliate links. Anything that distracts visitors from doing that should not be on the page.

Squidoo Advisory…

I am no longer advising students to use Squidoo to set up pre-sell pages for affiliate products. As a matter of fact I am advising not to even visit Squidoo pages. Over the past two weeks they have been locking lenses with affiliate links in them by the thousands. I’ve had 14 lenses locked in the past ten days and some of these had been up for over 3 years. People like me help to build Squidoo with our pages and now all we get is a kick in the ass from them. I wouldn’t waste my time with Squidoo–and that is exactly what you will be doing building lenses there. End of rant–Mike

Made It Back Alive!

Got back from Italy the last week in June and had a great time. Stayed in a 16th century villa in Tuscany up in the mountains with friends for my daughter’s wedding. It was great to get away and re-charge a bit. Spent a day in Rome, but the best touring we did was in smaller towns. We had roast wild boar one night (with too much great wine), and no–I didn’t kill it with my golf club!

Amy & Gabriel's Wedding

Nisey, Amy & Dad

Nisey, Me, Sean, Angela

Amy and Gabe are dancing at their reception in at our villa, and there’s my wonderful girlfriend, Amy and I–and finally Denise, the old man, my son Sean and his soon to be wife Angela. I’m getting them all married off this year! Amy and Gabe have been in London for a few years but have just moved back to Santiago to settle in. Thanks for your emails and wishes for them. It’s great to be a dad at times like these!!!

Why Creating Your Own Product Is So Important

Sure, most of us sell affiliate products online. That works, I won’t claim it doesn’t. But if you are an affiliate marketer without a product of your own to sell, you aren’t completely leveraging the traffic you get to your pages.

Creating your own product helps to establish you as an authority figure in your niche. It also means  you will have affiliates driving visitors to your sales page where you can opt them in to your list. And as you know, list building is one of the very biggest factors of success in online marketing. Once you get a person on your list, you can market to them again and again by email. This is where the real profits come into play.

As your list grows, you will be able to JV with other online marketers in your list. If you promote their products, they will be more likely to promote yours.

If you are interested in developing your own book or ebook, I would suggest you check out my newly revamped Big Money Writing Little Books. I have added some huge bonuses just this past week, but they won’t be there forever. Stop by now and check it out. Get your own product out in the marketplace and working for you now!

I Ran A Little Survey…

About a week ago I posted a list of 100 email subject lines I got from emails in one of my accounts. All were from Internet marketers selling one thing or another. I did this on the Warrior Forum. I asked for input as to which of the subject lines would make people want to open the emails. There was some interesting feedback.

Anyway, the winning subject line was: (New Video) Free tool reveals YEARS of split-testing data

That was pretty interesting I thought. It did make me at least open it. That particular email was from Kim Roach. I did read the email and I clicked on the link to see her video. To my surprise it was not a promotion of any kind. It was, in fact, a highly informative email that delivered on what her subject line promised. I did the survey because one of the keys to maximizing your email marketing campaigns is to actually get your emails opened.

Anyway, if you’re interested, you can check out Kim’s video at her blog http://superaffiliateclub.com. Just scroll down the page until you come to the post titled, Free tool reveals YEARS of split-testing data, and click the link. The video opens and it really is quite informative. It’s worth a check.  –Mike

This stuff is all around us!!!

A well respected friend, Dennis Gaskill, put a post up on the Warrior Forum a few days ago. I got such a chuckle out of it, I asked him for permission to repost it here.

What's wrong with this sign?

This is a sign that was erected about 40 miles from me. The only word spelled correctly is “exit”.

There’s a lack of professionalism everywhere, it seems. If you want to set yourself apart from a good many online businesses all you need to do show a little professionalism.

* Proofread
* Spell check
* Make sure your links work
* Respect other people’s time
* Use real words, u r not in a chat room

Act the part of a professional if you want to be respected as one.
http://www.boogiejack.com/

Get real with the email!

All of the gurus will tell you that, yeah, the money is in the list. But the real money lies in building strong relationships with your subscribers before you try to get them to buy from you. And yes, that sounds good, but the the big guys are not very good at following their own advice. Here are the subject lines from the first dozen or so emails I received this morning…

Mike, 2 simple ways to make serious money online..
this is a big $*&!ing deal…
I got cool FRE.E stuff for you… (from Andrew Fox)
Mike, You NEED To Look At This!
Ex-Oil Rig Worker Drives A BENTLEY?
Mike, the Short Cut
Mike, here’s your first $100 per day
marketing BLACK OUT sale
exciting test results (new video on blog) (From Frank Kern)
“SUPER mike” vs. the Gargantuan Grape
Do you have this problem?
Mike, Niche Dominion is Live Right Now, Check…
Are you broke? Do this…

All but two of the emails were filled with nothing but junk text filled with affiliate links. Two of them, one from Andrew Fox and one from Frank Kern, actually had some great content. Guess whose emails get opened next time around?

My point is that if you expect your list subscribers to respect you, you must first earn that respect by providing them with something of genuine value. Do that and they will end up being much more receptive to your offers!

Beauty & The Beast…

Just got back Sunday night. I’ll get some cool stuff up for you in a day. Here’s a picture of the old man and his most wonderful daughter in Santiago (left). Here’s the beach we visited on the Pacific (center). And that’s a beautiful sunset in the Andes at 12,000 feet (right).

Gone, but not for long…

Taking off in the early morning for a week of rest and recovery in Santiago. It’s 85 degrees and sunny. Sure beats the heck out of Michigan right now. I’ll get you something really cool to download when I get back Sunday night. See you soon…