Saturday morning (2nd Sep 2006) saw Joel Comm talk about “Cracking the AdSense Code“.

Joel has recently written a book called “The AdSense Code” which became a New York Times Best Seller.

As you can probably gather, Joel Comm is an AdSense espert and his session was based upon his experience of building a large, regular passive income from Google AdSense.

Joel’s background on the internet goes all the way back to 1995 when he created WorldVillage.com.

In 1996 he started ClassicGames.com which is now part of Yahoo Games (Joel is the model for an avatar on the site).

He started with AdSense in June 2003 when it was first launched. Back in the early days he was making anything up to $7 a day.

By early 2004 he still wasn’t making a great deal and promised himself that he would give it a couple more months and if there wasn’t a marked improvement in his earnings, he was going to quit.

By April 2004 he was earning $80+ a day and since then he has been experimenting by moving the code and changing the type of ads. These days he can boast an AdSense income if some $600-$800 a day from his content sites.

Joel covered the AdSense basics such as the different tactics you can use; Black Hat, Grey Hat and White Hat.

The conclusion he reached was that you should only use “White Hat” techniques for AdSense content sites as this is the only way to build long term profits. AdSense publishing is not a get rich quick scheme, it is a business which needs building up over time to create a regular passive income.

He also went through the benefits of quality content and how to get of it, the Top 10 mistakes made by AdSense publishers and also 5 strategies to use to increase AdSense income.

I had stopped using AdSense on one site as I was barely making any money at all from it.

After this particular talk I went home and re-added Google AdSense adverts to the site but this time I used the tips and techniques that Joel had given us.

After 1 and 1/2 months I have seen a huge improvement in earnings – just from changing a couple of things about placement of the ads and ad types.

My earnings/impressions ratio has increased by a massive 137%.

You can find Joel’s eBook: “What Google Never Told You About Making Money With AdSense” at the following website:

https://www.AdSenseSecretsRevealed.co.uk

On Saturday afternoon the presentation was given by Mike Filsaime.

Mike is the man behind the massive launch at the beginning of this year – Butterfly Marketing.

His 90+ minutes session was dedicated to describing some of his advanced marketing secrets including using TCF Marketing to increase profits.

What does TCF mean? Well, that’s Traffic, Conversion and Frequency.

Mike’s a very astute marketer and that came across whilst he was talking to the room. One of the first things he said was that if you have a product, make sure you bring it to the market first – don’t get beaten.

It makes sense because when you release a new product or service then at that point it is technically the worst it will ever be. You can improve it as you go along, once you have already made sales. If you hold off forever, it will take longer and longer to get your product to the market and by that time, someone will have beaten you to it.

Another excellent point I noted; do what you do best but outsource everything else. If website building is something you are good at, do it but for everything else, get someone else’s input.

Third, work on just one project at a time. Mike showed an example of how if you work on more than one project you hold back the others. The lesson learnt was that you should wait until your first project is done, then start another. If you have ideas in the meantime, note them down and come back to them later.

Another top tip – make everything in your business as automated as possible. “Email will destroy your business”; i.e. use a helpdesk when you have a lot of customers or prospects to support.

There was a whole load more information which he passed on, lots of great and useful techniques.

To show this wasn’t all just “talk”, Mike proceeded to show us some real-life examples of the power of his marketing techniques. Past students such as Michael Cheney and Jim Daniels were quoted, both of whom had earnt huge amounts of money by following Mike’s Butterfly Marketing methods.

This was a great presentation and I look forward to seeing Mike Filsaime speak again in the near future.

Shortly after the seminar I purchased Mike’s latest product, the Butterfly Marketing Manuscript:

https://www.ButterflyMarketingManuscript.co.ukA full review will follow…

When you are at a 3 day event which you know starts at 9am each morning, it pays to get an early night and a good bout of sleep. Of course, that is easier said than done.

Friday night was another late one with lots of the Focus 4 the Future attendees staying up for a few drinks and several impromptu “brain-storming” sessions.

So, a little worse for wear, I proceeded from breakfast to go into the seminar room again and watch the first session of the day – a hot seat.

This time around another Dave, owner of a eBook-producing software product, displayed his site on the front screen and then braved the chair.

Although this was technically a hot seat session, the experts agreed that there wasn’t too much wrong with Dave’s site but were still able to offer plenty of constructive critisism.

The content “above the fold” i.e. where the site naturally lies on loading, the part visible without scrolling – was fine.

Advice included that he should remove the company name, emphasise the USP (Unique Selling Proposition) and quote the number of users of his product in the headline.

The big suggestion though was that he should remove the clickable links from his testimonials as it is a customer leak. By all means mention the URL but do not allow users to navigate away to someone else’s site.

On visiting the site today, it looks like the victim has actually took to heart the suggestions and changed the site!

As of September 2006, EasyeBookPro has actually sold 12,000 copies which is proudly displayed in the headline.

You can view Dave McGregor’s site at:

https://www.EasyeBookPro.co.uk

By now we are up to the afternoon spot on the first day of the Birmingham F4TF seminar and the spotlight landed on Martin Avis.

Martin’s subject of choice was Private Label Rights or, as it is usually known, PLR.

If you didn’t already know, when you buy PLR material you have the right to change anything about the information in order to make it your own content or product.

Private Label Rights material is usually delivered as simple text files which are ready for editing into unique products such as eBooks, articles, newsletter content or website content.

As Martin pointed out during his presentation, the hardest part of marketing on the internet for most people is actually getting started. With PLR material, however, you get almost everything done for you.

You get market research, keyword research, commissioned writers already working on your behalf and professional content for your products. And you can get this regularly through membership sites.

It is quite possible to be able to output 2 or 3 quality eBooks per month using just the material you receive from a $30 per month subscription to a Private Label Rights membership site.

Perhaps the biggest bonus of using PLR is that the saleable material is provided for you so that you can concentrate on the profitable part – selling your products.

Martin covered a lot of ground during his 90 minutes or so – I managed to make a whole load of notes.

His talk included details about 11 ways to use PLR books, 18 ways to profit from PLR articles and a new plan he is developing for a technophobe relative called the “Kickstart, Quickstart Plan”.

He even spilled the beans on how profitable using PLR can be. When he first stood up to talk at around 2.20pm, he mentioned that, on checking his stats 5 minutes before, he had made around $500 since breakfast!

The point he made was that it isn’t hard to make a website using Private Label Rights which could bring in $10 a day – but $10 a day is $3,650 per year. Make 10, 20, 100 sites and you are talking about a huge income.

It was a great session from which I learnt a lot about a subject I hadn’t really researched before and topped off a very interesting day.

You can buy Martin Avis’ book:
“Unlock the Secrets of Private Label eBooks”
from the following site:

https://www.PLRSecrets.co.uk

Following on from yesterday’s account we come to the mid-part of Friday.

After Robert Puddy’s “speech” the speakers and one guest took part in a very useful feature which is a trademark of the Focus 4 the Future seminars – the “hot seat“.

The hot seat is a great idea and a very useful experience for all attendees.

The basic idea is that one member of the audience volunteers to have their site put up on the screen at the front of the room and then the expert speakers “rip it apart”.

They go through the site and point out all potential problems – from likely visitor leaks to useless links and features. It’s brutal but fascinating – a superb source of ideas for everyone, no one’s site is perfect afterall.

Of course, once they have ripped the site apart they help the owner to repair the “damage”. He gets a thorough make-over to assist him in optimising the site for its primary purpose.

What I found was that I was making a lot of the same mistakes as many of the volunteers – so soon after the seminar I fixed the leaks.

Results?

Well, my subscriber rate is now around 50% where it used to be around 28% so I certainly got my money’s worth 🙂

The victim for the first hot seat was David, the owner of:

https://www.TheNettle.com/index.php.

I’m sure he won’t mind me outing him as a volunteer for the hot seat – soon after the seminar I signed up for his subscription-only member’s site and newsletter. Although he hasn’t made the changes suggested by the seminar speakers yet, I do know that he has almost finished the new look to his site, which will be implemented soon.

You can get a free trial of The Nettle by going to:

https://www.TheNettle.com/freetrial.php

Next time – Friday’s afternoon session with Martin Avis…