It may come as no surprise to you that I’ve been calling myself an idiot for the past week. (Yes only the last week).

I’ve finally discovered a Social Networking site that doesn’t feel like a juvenile game playing site and where I’m not spammed with the usual assortment of garbage.

I’m talking of course about Linked In and I’m an idiot because I’ve been a member there for some time and I’ve been about as active as a sloth on valium.

So what’s so special about Linked In?

Its a professional network full of people looking to network with like minded people.  There is a massive distinction here from sites like Facebook which are social networks by design.

According to a recent survey, by Lab42  almost 40% of users pay for a professional membership at Linked In – 40% is a massive number and it begs the question why Internet Marketing “gurus” and social media “experts” don’t actively encourage people to purchase pro membership at Linked In.

The answer of course, is obvious.

Linked In don’t pay commissions.

Their service is what it is – you either want it or you don’t.

Many people obviously want it.

Of course, I know many people reading this will be intimidated by the words professional network and feel that they couldn’t possibly contribute.

You are limited by your own expectations – think and behave like a human being and you will be welcome at Linked In.  Behave like a  spambot and get treated like one.  Simple really.

My advice to you is to check Linked In out, join a few groups that interest you and are relative to your business interests, participate in discussions  and seriously consider upgrading if and when you can afford it.

Oh and next time you are considering paying for advertising ask yourself this simple question.  “Does this offer as much value as Linked In?”

Time to be honest with myself more than anything.
Internet marketing as most people, who read this blog understand it has become monotonous, dull, incredibly me-tooish and quite frankly a pain in the butt.
Honestly, 98% of programs and methods being advertised in the “make money niche” are  a total waste of time, money and gigabytes.
I seriously am finding it increasingly difficult to be interested in or involved with the whole network marketing/MLM/affiliate marketing industry aimed at people looking to make money on line.
The industry is full of snake oil salesman, hopeful gamblers and cynical business people.  There are easier markets to be involved in.
This year this blog will record what I’m doing away from the hype fuelled madness that Internet Marketing has become.
Don’t get me wrong – there are some wonderful people in Internet Marketing and some great programs that can work for you if you are prepared to work them hard.
I have to confess that over the past 12 months I’ve found easier niches that reward me more for the time and effort  put in than the constant effort and time involved in setting up and maintaining a serious presence in the make money niche.
I have said privately to a few online friends that I can never desert the niche entirely but I have  been significantly scaling back my advertising and involvement in the whole field.
To put it simply Internet Marketing has given me the tools, and expertise to pursue new more lucrative channels.  It has taken me twelve months to get to this point and while I occasionally want to wade back in boots and all, I just find the whole market terribly boring.
Where does that leave me and you?
I will continue to own and maintain Break Free Traffic.
I will continue to communicate with subscribers about quality resources and methods.
My major focus’ this year will be on off line business  through several strategies, highly targeted affiliate marketing campaigns based on keyword research and site flipping.
As you can see, there isn’t a whole lot of room for building downlines, list building and advertising through List mailers and Traffic Exchanges – right now they are on my nice to do list – not my have to do.
Its a massive change from three years ago but the world has changed too…..

OK, so I’ve been real quiet for the past month.
I usually am at this time of year. I spend some time at the beach, I catch up with family and I take time out to think.
This year has been no different other than to say I believe I’ve used my time more wisely than previous years.
To put it bluntly my business has reached a critical point. I have opened income streams that I never knew existed two years ago and I’ve been steadily winding back my online marketing, particularly in the make money niche.
Its been real hard for me to scale back, and I have to say that on the whole I’ve realised that I never really can close the door on the Internet Marketing niche. I have too many friends, a strong contact list and a reasonable presence.
But I only have so much time, and I’ve found that much of my time has been poorly spent in the past year trying to be someone I’m not.
While I appreciate the force of social media, I can honestly say I find it on the whole mind numbingly boring.
OK I’ve said it. So shoot me.
Social media can be quite productive for people who are born social networkers but it can be a massive time waster for the rest of us.
And for people like me who don’t suffer fools gladly, I think that social media may actually be adversely effecting my online business.
I’m not disagreeing with those people who use social media effectively – all power to them but…..Internet Marketing is about advertising.
Social media to my mind is icing on the cake.
Social media will not drive traffic by itself, but traffic can drive social media. That’s just my opinion and I’m quite prepared to hear a contrary argument.
I can only act upon and recommend what I know works.
That’s what I’ll be doing over the coming months.
My Internet Marketing involvement will be scaled back but much more focussed and targeted.
I mean, I have one product that generates 75% of my income and I don’t actively promote it – why on earth would I not be recommending it?
In any case I’m looking forward to this year in all aspects of my business – I wish you all the best in yours.

John Lennon said something similar a lifetime ago, and I think its fair to ask the question not only of me but of you, the reader as well.
I’ve been involved in Internet Marketing for eleven years. I’ve loved every minute of it but its fair to say that what I was doing eleven years ago wouldn’t cut the mustard today. In fact what I was doing two years ago is no longer satisfactory, nor profitable.

Internet Marketing as I knew it five years ago is dead.

Internet marketing as I knew it two years ago is on its knees and in dire need of a transfusion or two.

My home business is alive and well but it wouldn’t be if I stayed where I was two years ago, in fact, I could well be filing for bankruptcy about now.

So what has changed?

Internet marketing in the “make money” niched is getting harder and harder. The big guys have got the market cornered – you either throw a lot of money at advertising and have a great sales funnel or work your butt off in social media, traffic exchanges and list mailers and hope you have a great sales funnel.

Either way its a tough gig getting tougher.

The same can be said for the big niches – weight loss, dating, guitar, body building, health products in general – if you’re not a player now, you’re not going to be…ever – unless you throw a lot of money at it.

But the internet changes and is constantly evolving – new niches open up constantly – of course you need to be ahead of the curve and that takes time, research and an ounce of luck, but if you pick the right trend you can get lucky quick.

But I’m over all of that.

Over the past twelve months I’ve spent roughly 20% of my time doing off line marketing i.e helping local businesses get their business online. Its very lucrative and it has to be said way easier than trying to sell Internet Marketing products to Internet marketers.

My Internet Marketing knowledge – the nuts and bolts – HTML, Autoresponders, Facebook, Twitter, SEO is paying off for me and it should – there’s eleven years experience there.

There is no doubt that my online marketing life is paying off for me, but it wouldn’t if I kept looking inward to the Internet Marketing niche. Only by looking outward have I been able to substantially grow my business.

So that brings me to a fork in the road.

I know where my business future lies but I can’t tear myself away from what I have loved doing for the past eleven years, but it has caused me to review everything I do and it has led me to some tough decisions.

Here they are -:

My eBook and marketing system Break Free Traffic needs to be rewritten entirely to reflect the reality of current traffic generating methods. I have always felt that it has been targeted incorrectly – a rewrite discussing broader traffic generation methods is the only way forward.

Traffic Exchanges have reached a critical juncture. Systems that promote an inward looking focus are bound to fail in the long run. The best system I know within the Traffic Exchange industry is TE Profits – because it promotes a system that uses Traffic Exchanges but looks beyond them. Recent changes at Traffic Hoopla are also encouraging.
Accordingly, the only TE related system that I will promote within Traffic Exchanges is TE Profits.

A review of TE performance recently has led me to believe that many TE’s that I have faithfully used and recommended for many years no longer provide the results that they once did. It is fair to say that most of these are promoting an inward looking focus. I will be reviewing all upgrades at these services.

List mailers take time and effort but by and large can be rewarding. My advertising budget will be allocated accordingly.

Ezine advertising needs to be given a higher priority.

I’m looking forward to the coming year.

I trust that you are too.

A little while back I tweeted a quote from “funny quotes” – it went something like “if you die in an elevator – be sure to push the up button”.
It got lots of retweets and as a result I managed to pick up a few new followers.
I love humor in business – I’m more likely to interact with people who can laugh then those who can’t and of course not everyone thinks what I think is funny funny, but people who like to try and laugh generally are good people to be around and be involved with.
Injecting a little humour into your daily business dealings helps a lot to paint you as a real person.
A great source of tweetable quotes with lots of free funny quotes is Great Quotes dot com. Check them out and inject some humour in your business

I had basically finalized my marketing plans for the next six months when I received an email from Bill Carr at Traffic Hoopla alerting me to some fairly bold changes in the Traffic Hoopla format.

Traffic Hoopla has been around for ever and a day and Bill has his finger on the pulse on what works and what doesn’t in an advertising sense.

People can argue all day and night about his rankings but the bottom line is is that he has made a name and a business out of analysing and tracking advertising results.

I can remember when he used to rank Yahoo groups for effectiveness – (I guess he got sick of all the spam like I did).

In any case, a little while back, Bill sort of carved Hoopla up into Traffic Hoopla (ranking the top 10 Traffic Exchanges and the Top 10 List Mailers) and TE Hoopla which ranked the best 42 Traffic Exchanges.

Now he has gone a step further and introduced List Hoopla – ranking the top 21 List Mailers using his criteria of responsiveness and profitability. I though that was pretty cool as I have found list mailers to be very responsive of late, although I have to admit to getting tired of following every List Mailer launch every other day.

But Bill’s gone a step further introducing some really cool advertising resources in his third join area at Traffic Hoopla. I’m really excited about some of these which give huge potential to reach way beyond the usual Internet Marketing places.

I highly recommend joining Traffic Hoopla, List Hoopla and Te Hoopla.

You can join them all by clicking the banner below.

I am writing this post with the most conviction that I think I’ve ever had about anything that I’ve discussed about on line marketing.
The truth is that on line marketing is really hard work, and at times it can be terribly frustrating, almost infuriating.
There are systems and methods that work, but most people never have the time, the patience or the money to make them do so.
Twelve months ago, I decided to acknowledge that Internet Marketing in a network marketing sense was a constant treadmill that demanded that I continually work long hours generating leads, most of which never took any action, because they wanted the big red shiny button that prints money.
I love online marketing, but I’ve found affiliate marketing in the true sense of the word to be more lucrative and less time intensive but much more boring than network marketing.
Affiliate marketing when done correctly requires keyword research, regular blog, video and article writing and maybe some Pay per Click advertising. In its truest sense, its find a market and give them what they want.
The realisation that I get better results as an affiliate marketer than a network marketer kind of cut me a little deep – I consider myself to be a people person but the evidence suggested my time and money was better spent away from people.
While I was wrestling with this conundrum, Mark Dulisse, the man who taught me how to succeed as an affiliate marketer told me of how Carl Vanderpaal was applying his SEO knowledge and servicing off line businesses.
This excited me – here was a chance to apply my knowledge and expertise to actually help real people in my local area.
I took some decisive action based upon what Mark told me that Carl was doing and I made $3000 in a week.
It was the easiest money that I’ve ever made.
Carl and Mark have just joined forces and will release a quality product called Local SEO crusher on the 6th December 2011.
I know several things about this product.
I have the genuine experience to know that what these guys recommend works.
I know that Mark Dulisse has a proven track record of releasing seriously good quality Internet Marketing products.
I know instinctively that 99 people out of 100 will not get involved with this product because they would prefer to believe that there was a big red easy button out there somewhere waiting for them to discover it.
I know that you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it….
You can read my full review of Local SEO Crusher here

Today I received a message from a good friend wanting my affiliate links for a number of programs in a particular niche.
He stated that he had read a blog post by a fellow marketer who had inspired him to join the programs and he wanted my affiliate links.
That made me uneasy.
Firstly I was flattered that he wanted my affiliate links and took it as a huge compliment.
But….
I didn’t recommend anything to him and it felt like stealing from a fellow marketer who I know and respect and who had taken the time and effort to write a blog piece that made my friend want to get involved with what he was talking about.
So I suggested that my friend use the links that were supplied in the original piece he read.
He replied immediately “but why should he make money from me when you, my friend can?”
Its a good question and it creates some ethical questions about online marketing.
I have stated many times that I see Internet marketing as a dog eat dog world, why shouldn’t I reap the rewards of my friendship?
Call me old fashioned but I do respect others work.
I have no problems recommending specific programs to others -it’s how I make money. I have no problem offering bonuses to people to encourage them to join under me that’s fair and reasonable.
But I draw the line at making money off other people’s work.
Don’t get me wrong I could have done with the money – particularly this week as I’ve been hit by a couple of fairly large surprises and maybe I’m just too precious.
Anyway, what would you have done?

Today I feel the most excited about Internet Marketing that I have been in at least three years.
For the past six months or so, I’ve been steadily and almost intentionally going backwards as I struggled to grasp concepts and ideas that I’ve previously shied away from.
Good people have told me things that I at once understood and simultaneously hashed and tried to meld into my existing business model and yet I’ve felt quite strongly that I’ve been close to moving from a day to day income to something much more substantial.
Internet marketing is stripped down to its bare essentials is devastatingly simple whilst appearing to be incredibly difficult and complex.
But at the heart of everything it boils down to one word.
Traffic.
Without traffic Internet marketing is wishful thinking.
Basically much of my Internet marketing model is built upon the foundations and philosophies of a wonderful book – Traffic Jam by Graham Hamer and one of its key recommendations a program called MPAM which sadly no longer exists.
Both programs served me well and while MPAM bit the dust, basically being blind sided by WordPress and the blogging revolution, there were plenty of other programs with very similar ideas – the best of these was TE Profits – a wonderful highly targeted program aimed at a specific niche within Internet Marketing – Traffic Exchanges and to a lesser extent, Safelists.
But the world has moved on…the Internet as a whole has become much more interactive, and while Traffic Exchanges still have their place they only reach a very small proportion of a much wider potential audience.
I knew this two years ago….
And I spent a good part of twelve months trying to compete in the tough world of SEO against people with more money and better software. I had some victories but it was hard hit and miss work.
All the while I kept looking at Facebook and trying to figure out how that worked.
It just didn’t make sense to me and I read many good people’s thoughts telling me to get social to build a network and while it kind of worked, I just couldn’t see how being social just one person at a time was ever going to deliver the kind of traffic that I kept getting told that Facebook could deliver.
Bit by bit the puzzle has begun to solve itself. Facebook fan pages are part of the key, automation (now there’s a dirty word for all the social marketers)is another. Demographics is yet another.
But the final part of the jigsaw fell into place when Perry Marshall this week said two things about Facebook

Facebook is about targeted advertising not social interaction.
Of course he’s right and yes I know Facebook ads are dear but…..the principles of TE Profits can be taken and applied to Facebook advertising

This is critical. Most marketers walk away from failed advertising campaigns and give up. Good marketers use the data they obtain from their failed marketing campaign to build tehir next one.

A couple of days ago I tweeted that I had cut my advertising down with very little change in results – I cut the ads down across a variety of advertising channels like List Mailers and Traffic Exchanges
and I’ve been busy investing my time and energy into understanding Facebook advertising.
This is where the people are this is where the money is.

About two years ago I had a discussion with Mark Dulisse, who was a rising Clickbank affiliate star and has since become something of an SEO and WordPress guru (its an overused word but Mark actually deserves it in the truest sense.)

I recall Mark telling me quite bluntly to find out where the money was and follow it.

I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed and it took me a long time to fully understand what he meant.

Mark made his initial breakthrough reviewing Clickbank product launches and he really killed it.

But he didn’t just follow any product launch – he went after the big name product launches. Products launched by Alex Goad, Brad Callen and the like. In short he leveraged off these people’s massive exposure.

Think about this let’s use Mike Rasmussen as an example.

Mike has a product launch due very shortly. there is already massive hype about this product and it’s sure to be very heavily promoted by everyone from people like Ewan Chia down to struggling affiliate marketers with lists of under 500 names.

Many many people will be interested, many will buy blindly, but some will opt to do some due diligence.

When they do they will most probably use Google to research the product.

What Mark did was position himself to catch those people with a balanced logical review with a bonus offering.

Remember the people researching have already been warmed up by other affiliates looking to promote the product. The pre-selling has already been done.

This can be done – it has worked for me to a certain extent but I have to admit I’m not as meticulous as Mark and I tend to leave everything too late to get quality SEO rankings – (Best I’ve done is bottom of Page one and then my bonus was not up to what others were offering)

The money is there. The competition is fierce but the rewards can be massive.