It's starting to get sad.

Google is literally trying to copy ANY successful idea online in hopes of spreading their advertisements further.

Think about it...

• Oh. Mapquest rocks! Let's make Google Maps.
• Oh. Hotmail rocks! Let's make Gmail
• Oh. iPhone ROCKS! Let's make the Google phone!
• Oh. Twitter ROCKS! Let's make Google Buzz!
• Oh. Facebook Rocks! Let's make Google Me!

In fact... if you think about it. Just about every major product Google has BESIDES their search engine is not original but a copy of a once more popular service that Google recognized they could copy without breaking any laws.

It's kinda sad how desperate they're getting with the whole Google Me now launching.

This fact mixed with the way they treat their customers is what I see as Google's potential gradual down fall. Sure, they'll probably always be around but the brand that they once were is slowly starting to fade away. Specially in the internet marketing communities.

Anyway... let's see what Google copies next.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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Though it's been around for a while, I just started using Dropbox this last week and it's dramatically changed the way Jacob and I share work files. Rather than emailing attachments back and forth, we just put stuff in a shared Dropbox folder and it's instantly available to the other, on the website, and on any computer/device (iPhone, iPad) with Dropbox installed.

What's awesome is that as soon as someone else adds something to a shared Dropbox, a notification pops up from the Dropbox icon in the taskabr:

It's so sick! Right now we've been perfectly fine with the free 2GB of storage, but they even have 50GB and 100GB paid options as well.

Bonus: 250 MB More Storage

If you join through my referral link, you will get an extra 250 MB more storage space.

Go get a free Dropbox account now!

I love being able to access my work files from anywhere! This will make traveling to shows a lot easier!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2010.

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It amazes me how much of online business relies on email still.

Email is the primary way I communicate in my business. For this reason I wanted to write a post about one of the best things I have done for this sector of my business.

Most people are unaware you can do this, but all my important email addresses are actually hosted and use the gmail mail servers. This includes their spam filters, etc. All emails are directed to my outlook email inbox still. My own domain (thanvolk.com) is pointed to google's mail server and I get it all delivered to my outlook inbox.

This is a great way to increase productivity and one of the best moves I have made when it comes to email.

I say I increased productivity because when I would host the email on my own servers, I would get so much spam that it would take so much longer to filter everything out. Besides that, I would also have trouble receiving mail from certain carriers because I am far from an email mail server expert.

So to sign up, you can go to Google.com/a and either sign up for the premium account for $50 / year or get it free as a standard account.

If you're full time and have your own domain email, I highly recommend signing up for this service.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2009.

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Part of life is failing and I probably am an expert at it.

One of the main reasons why I am successful today is because I have failed enough times to know what to NOT do.

So often people start trying to make money online in a few weeks and tell me how they are frustrated because they can't get anything to work.

Failing since 2004

Let me put things into perspective for you. I have been working at making an income online since 2004. It wasn't until 2007 that I earned enough to make it full time. It wasn't until 2008 that I made enough for me to feel comfortable. It's now half way through 2009, 5 years later.

During the 5 years, I tried everything I could possibly try.

Edison failed over 1000 times before he created the lightbulb. Those failures are what defined his success.

You will never fail if...

You will never fail if... you never try. The bigger the risks you take, the bigger the success you're going to have. Plain and simple.

I know of numerous people who want to be full time internet marketers but don't want to risk PPC Money, advertising money, etc. Essentially they want no risk, and 100% reward. The times this happens are very few and far between.

Minimize Risk

There are a ton of ways to minimize risk in this game especially. When I was first starting affiliate marketing, I had very little reliable sources, which is one of the main reasons why I created this blog.

Now there are a TON of great resources out which I recommend to everyone who asks me. The hilarious part is that many people still do not take my advice because the resources usually cost something. Again, it's better that way because if you're not willing to risk $40 bucks a month for a training program, then you're not going to be willing to risk $1000 on PPC.

Resources to help Minimize Risk

If you're looking to start in affiliate marketing, the best place you can go to in my honest opinion, is PPC Coach. You can read my full review of PPC Coach.

Another great place is Affiliate Summit. Networking in person with people is a great way to learn new tricks, tips and overall gain a ton of valuable information.

So there you have it. Now go fail!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2009.

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About The Author

Dennis Yu is the author of this guest post. Dennis is the CEO of BlitzLocal, a localized internet marketing company. He is an amazingly smart and talented internet marketer. Also, thanks to Nick Abramovic, who assisted with concepts in this article

Why Most Bid Automation Packages Suck

At SMX Sydney last month, I spoke on the Expert PPC panel. There were several web analytics vendors (I won't name them here) who all but claimed that their proprietary bid optimization software would eliminate the need for you as a PPC marketer to do anything. Just watch the cash roll in. How does this software actually work? Well, you'd have to be a Ph. D in Statistics to understand-- but drill down and you'll find that it's really not that difficult. No bid management system we know can beat the power of a motivated human, who can account for brand terms, seasonality, competitive actions, what's going on in TV land, or any of a zillion factors that aren't quantifiable by a change in CPC, average position, and conversion rate.

Agencies scale not by creativity but by overhead. This is true even with agencies who use either in-house technology or license technology from others. Even the advanced agencies are not very sophisticated – they will use rules-based bidding that works half the time (you still need a human to double-check) and because they are rules-based – they require you to make customizations (or as they say “settings changes”) depending on your account/campaign. We've taken over a couple dozen campaigns from the big boys and when we look under the hood, it's still hampsters on wheels, not technology. If you're a small affiliate-- a one-person show, take heart to know you're not at a disadvantage! The emperor has no clothes.

What are some issues with rules-based bidding? Not enough data. So you've got 10,000 keywords x 10 positions x 10 ad variations x 10 landing page variations x 3 search engines. That's 30 million combos. And then the supposed bid automation tool vendor says they can manage those 30 million combos each day for you in real time. Why, certainly, you wouldn't want to manually try to look at that, would you? First off, just like the density of matter in outer space, 29.95 million of those combinations are likely to get you zero impressions, not to mention clicks or conversions. How is the tool to make a determination if there's no data?

What if Keyword A gets 10 clicks and 1 conversion, while Keyword B gets 8 clicks and 0 conversions? Can you tell if one term is better than another? I've actually interviewed someone who claimed they can determine if a keyword would convert in just 10 clicks. Reminds me of the old TV show "Name That Tune", where contestants compete to see how many notes they can name a tune in. While most contestants could get it in 5 or 6 notes, the reality with PPC is that required sample sizes are dependent upon factors such as confidence intervals and expected conversion rates. If an offer converts at 1 in 100 clicks on average, you can't tell with just 10 clicks.

So let's say you run the calculation and determine that you need 200 clicks to make a statistically significant decision. How many keywords meet this threshhold? What if you split those measly clicks further into time of day, destination url, and other factors? Pretty soon you've got but a handful of clicks to make a decision, no matter how nice your Taguchi tests are set up. The solution-- set up keywords into tightly themed ad groups. Make sure that keywords in an ad group mean the same thing and are equally likely to convert. Then you can bid at the ad group level.

What bid management software will group your keywords properly? None, unless there is one that can write and speak as well as you-- Alan Turing, we're a long ways off from that. So don't let magical software substitute for good old fashioned thinking. Use affiliate PPC tools appropriately. Landing pages are 10 times more important than ads, which are 10 times more important than keywords, which are 10 times more important than targeting, which are 10 times more important than bid optimization.

At one conference, I met an advertiser who boasted of having 3 million keywords in his portfolio. He wanted to get advice on how to manage such a complex campaign. I asked how many of those terms got at least one click in the last 14 days. About 15,000, he said. Get rid of the other 2.99 million keywords and you'll have an account that's easier to manage and will make you more money. His campaigns were complicated and crappy-- at least take the step to make them simple and crappy, where you stand a chance. No amount of cosmetic surgery will fix it.

You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit. So a great bid optimization package won't fix a poorly built campaign. Got extra cycles? Work on your landing pages and ad copy. Want to send competitors on a wild goose chase? Go on and on about how bid management through some magical software or other set of tools has been so key to your success.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2009.

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Tony Hsieh (prounounced shay), CEO of Zappos

I always love reading about successful entrepreneurs and CEOs of multi-million and multi-billion dollar companies.

Since I was young, I've been trying to decode the mindset of these type of people and learn how I can apply the good and chuck the bad that I glean from studying them.

Today, Mother's day (happy mothers day!), is a day that my family relaxes and spends time with each other. So my day consisted of hanging out with family and then lounging in the pool reading about the CEO of Zappos.com.

Personal Experience with Zappos:
Zappos.com is one of those websites that I love to use. I buy all my designer jeans from them both for myself and my fiance'. The reason I do is because of the amazing service. The first purchase I made, I got free overnight shipping and though it was a mistake that I got the package so quickly.

Another time, I had ordered my fiance' some diesel designer jeans which looked smokin hot. Sadly, when we got them, they just didn't fit right. I sent them back and got credit to zappos.com with no questions asked. AND I didn't even have to pay for return shipping! Awesome...

Aftermath:
After reading about Zappos.com, they say that they do not advertise free overnight shipping on their site on purpose. It invokes a response of surprise and almost a feeling like you got a little something extra for nothing.

As I was reading that, I smiled realizing that I responded exactly how they had intended me to respond. That is the goal in marketing. You want to get into your target audiences mind to the point where you know what to do to invoke the exact response that you desire!

Reading page after page of this CEO's mindset really got me thinking. He is considered a marketing guru by many and as I began to read more, it be came increasingly evident.

Employee Training:
Another interesting thing that Zappos does is have each employee go through 4 weeks of training. After the training they are offered $2000 plus time spent training to quit. They only want people with buy-in of the company.

At first I thought of all the people who would apply and then quit in hopes of getting that "essentially" free $2000 bucks. The more I thought about it, the more I realized what a great idea it was. By offering the $2000 bonus, they offered the employees a way to create a feeling of ownership of the company; it's almost like getting initiated into a clubhouse.

Management:
Tony encourages the Managers to fool around with the employees. No, I'm not talking about that type of fooling around. I'm talking about just messing, joking, hanging out, relaxing, etc. In the corporate world where stress levels are high, corporate thresholds are pressed onto the workers, and there is a strict, work only policy, this company is different and is thriving because of it.

There are no scripts that customer representatives need to follow... there are no forced way of doing things. People are encouraged to be themselves.

Customer Service:
One story I read about was where a Zappos customer had purchased a set of boots for her husband. Her husband dies shortly after the purchase and the lady wants to know if she can send the boots back. The customer support representative not only allowed her to send them back but the lady received a bouquet of flowers on the day of her husbands funeral from zappos. The customer support rep had ordered them (on Zappos' account) without permission from her manager or anything.

By doing so, the lady told every single person at her funeral. Not only did they have a customer for life (however long that was! ) but also had 30-40 new customers.

Now that is how a business grows from a small start up to over $1 billion dollars per year in sales and having sales days over $3 million dollars (and I thought a $24,000 dollar day was a good record...)

The list of things that you can learn from that company are quite large and as most of us on this website are those trying to make many millions (or more) online it's a great example to look to for innovative ideas.

Enjoy your Mothers Day!

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2009.

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In a few posts back, I talk about relationships.

Twitter is quickly becoming one of the great ways to connect with people and make yourself more of a face instead of a name.

For me, I've begun to connect with a few people who have done really well in the industry that I previously had not really connected with on a personal level.

Its seems like the more I use twitter, the more I realize the power in networking via twitter.

See many times when people want to "network" with me or others that have some sort of experience, they hit me up on AIM, say "hey" and proceed to ask me question after question.

This is not a way to network.

The way you network is by first building a relationship. Give a little, don't expect to get a lot up front.

That being said, twitter is a great way to build a relationship with people.

If you have not yet created a twitter account, go make one now!

After you've made your twitter account, follow me and I'll follow you back.

The other person you want to follow is NickyCakes! The reason you want to follow him is because by doing so, you enter yourself into a drawing to win a free 40" Samsung HDTV! There are other ways to enter, so please be sure to check the rules first..

See you in twitter land.

© JonathanVolk.com - A Blog about Making Money Online, 2009.

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