This may be the single most important blog post you may ever read.

Please understand, that sentence isn’t just some attention-getting marketing copy with the intention to get you to buy something. What I am about to tell you can change your life — but only if you let it.

What I am about to explain to you contains the ‘code’ for you to generate Internet riches. But most people that discover this ‘code’ will fail to take advantage of it.

I MUST WARN YOU… it’s very possible that the first time you read this post you will overlook it’s power. It’s very easy to do.

So I beg of you… PLEASE follow just two rules before you continue…

1. You must PRINT-OUT this blog post before reading it. I want you to read this entire post while being able to hold it in your hands. This will give you the best chance of getting it.

2. Read this entire blog post with an OPEN MIND. Promise yourself that you will not cast judgment, ‘react’ or even try to discount anything you are about to read until you have read the entire post all the way through AND have given it all a chance to sink in.

If you can follow those two simple rules you are ready to continue. You are ready to change your life.

After you click the “read the rest of this entry” link below PRINT THE PAGE FIRST then proceed to read it.

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Do you know where your market is going?

Do you know what is the primary thing on their minds right now?

If you aren’t yet using it, make sure to start keeping an eye on your market with Google Trends.

Google Trends is an awesome free tool you can use to see how the search volumes are trending for your market. It can be a very valuable tool if you use it to adapt your business to the changing trends and needs of your market.

Jeremy Schoemaker and Rand Fiskin recently got into a healthy debate about their thoughts on disclosing affiliate links and other financial relationships. They pretty much had opposite opinions.

By now you should know who “Shoemoney” is as I recently interviewed him for nearly two hours. Jeremy is the creator of AuctionAds.

*There’s a reason I just used that AuctionAds affiliate link. It’s so I get to use my new Disclosure Button. I’ll explain it in a moment…

If you don’t know who Rand Fiskin is you need to. He’s one of the top SEO experts in the world. I highly recommend you check out his site - great stuff!

Andy Beard recently chimed in on the discussion and had some great stuff to say about this blog disclosure issue.

I’ve become a big fan of Andy’s blog and highly recommend it. He does a great job of creating very thorough posts.

So what do you think? Do you think a blogger should clearly disclose that they are being compensated for posting affiliate links on their blog? (Or other links where they receive compensation.)

Here’s What I Think

I think it’s best to be as open and honest with your prospects and customers as possible. Trust is a major issue online and anything you can do to gain that valuable trust the better.

The ‘laws’ regarding this type of marketing disclosure are still a little unclear. Some think it’s fine to just include a small link somewhere on the blog that discloses that the blogger receives compensation from certain activities on their blog. Others feel there needs to be more transparency than that.

I agree with those that think there should be more transparency. There is already an abundance of deceptive tactics being used online — and Internet users are realizing it more and more everyday.

I believe we, as marketers, need to start doing more things that build TRUST with our users. It’s just like publishing great content. The more VALUE you provide your audience the more it will benefit your business.

And oh yeah, it’s probably also just the right thing to do anyway.

And here’s the ironic part for marketers that are afraid that their compensation activities will suffer if they bring more attention to it.

I believe the opposite is true.

If you aren’t aware of the psychological implications of reciprocity then you need to read (or reread) Robert Cialdini’s valuable book Influence.

If you’re delivering tremendous value to your blog readers they will actually want to help you. And this includes making purchases or following your recommendations when they are fully aware that you are being rewarded for it. They want you to be rewarded.

Because blogger disclosure is still very much a voluntary thing, I want to do my best to set a good example and start doing more for the Income.com Blog.

Starting today, if I ever make a blog post that contains an affiliate link or any other link that directly compensates Income.com in someway, I will include a little ‘button’ at the bottom of the post to indicate it. The link next to this little dollar sign button will say Contains Compensation. When someone clicks on this link this is the message they will see:

Financial Relationship Disclosure

This blog post contains one or more links that Income.com is being financially compensated for and we wanted to be open and honest with you about it.

From time-to-time other companies will pay us a commission on any referred sales or other compensation if we send any of our site visitors to their web site.

Although we are sometimes compensated for making such recommendations please rest assured that Income.com will NEVER willingly promote poor quality products or services.

You have OUR PROMISE that we will only recommend products and services that we honestly feel will provide you with tremendous value.

You can test the new button at the end of this post.

Why am I including this at the bottom of all those posts and not just putting a link in my sidebar or footer menu? It’s simple…

Because most people WON’T SEE IT in the sidebar or footer menu. And if most people won’t clearly see it, it’s just like not having a disclosure policy at all.

A tiny sidebar or footer link might protect you legally but it’s not going to increase the trust with your blog readers.

Since 95% of the attention on a blog happens within the space where the blog posts are displayed, I feel it only makes sense to include it in the same section.

So that’s what I’m going to do.

* I’m working on a solution for my feed since they can’t view the button.

Contains Compensation

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Jeremy Shoemaker AKA Shoemoney.

What was originally planned to be a candid discussion for about 20-30 minutes turned into an all-out marathon of a call that lasted nearly TWO HOURS.

Jeremy is one of the foremost authorities in the world when it comes to making money with Affiliate Marketing and we had an amazing discussion about different ways that any webmaster can make more money from their web sites and blogs.

This interview delivers more value than most Internet Marketing ebooks being sold.

In this interview we discuss a number of ways that anyone can start making more money from their existing web site traffic. We also talk about Jeremy’s incredible AuctionAds service and technology.

If you haven’t yet tested it on your own sites, don’t walk but run on over and create an AuctionAds account and immediately start testing it on your pages.

AuctionAds doesn’t conflict with the AdSense Terms Of Service so it’s okay to use it on a page where you might already be running AdSense.

What’s amazing is how fast AuctionAds is growing virally — and it’s powerful to see how participating webmasters earn money when other webmasters join after clicking the ad blocks displayed on their pages.

It’s definitely one of those… I wish I would have thought of that.

Download and listen to this incredible interview. I promise you, it will be well worth your time. If you pay close attention to what the interview reveals it could earn you a small fortune. And that’s no joke.

Right-Click here to download the MP3 file of the interview [76MB].

* Disclosure: The above links to AuctionAds are affiliate links for Income.com. It will take you to a page where you can get a bonus $5 just for signing up. If you’d like to go directly to the site you can just go to AuctionAds.com

Contains Compensation

I recently made a post that had some long overdue praise for Internet startup, PayPerPost.

As I mentioned in that post, I had never met PayPerPost’s Founder/CEO, Ted Murphy, even, though, PayPerPost is also located in Orlando where we are.

Ted emailed me after seeing my blog post and invited me to join him for lunch. And after spending a couple of weeks trying to get our schedules to cooperate, we were finally able to get together for lunch this week.

Ted and I had a great lunch and enjoyed sharing “war stories” about our adventures as entrepreneurs. We had a lot in common.

I talked with Ted in great detail about how PayPerPost was doing and picked his brain about his Master Plan for the company…

Let’s just say the Internet will soon being seeing a lot from PayPerPost.

Ted’s a sharp guy and I could really tell he’s very passionate about what he’s trying to build with PayPerPost. And my initial thoughts were definitely confirmed — he sincerely cares about the “Posties” that allow PayPerPost to even exist.

It was a lot of fun to visit PayPerPost’s headquarters. It’s quite a setup. They have bright colored walls and ‘fun’ stuff everywhere. Most of the employees have decorated their work areas with toys, memorabilia, and all kinds of personal objects.

PayPerPost has pretty much outgrown their existing offices as they have people working very close to one another in a large open room. But what I thought was truly amazing was how absolutely QUIET it was in their office.

Everyone was extremely busy and just quietly working away.

My visit to PayPerPost pretty much confirmed my thoughts on what I thought their company would be like… a team of hard-working people that really cares for and appreciates its customers.

Google just announced that they will be releasing a major update to their algorithm and to the format of how their results are displayed.

Their new results page is called “Universal Search” and it will combine results for Video, Images, News, and the rest of the Web.

This is a MAJOR change that will have a massive impact on the world of SEO. 

It will also have a big impact on the traffic some were getting from search results.

For example, a site that used to rank #7 for a specific keyword phrase will probably now receive traffic as if it were ranked #12 or #13 — because the Video, Images, and News listings will push the web site listings farther down on the page.

We will now most likely see a lot of new SEO strategies that target Video, Images, and News.

I think Video-optimization will see the most activity since News will be too hard for marketers to game the system.  Images will seem like the easiest target but I’m sure Google already has some tricks up their sleeve to keep people from gaming the system there as well.

I believe Video is where we will see the most activity — and it will probably be a combination of user ratings and other factors that determine which videos get displayed; not just a matter of video tags.

Here’s a great detailed write-up about these changes from Search Engine Land.

Here’s more on this important story from Search Newz.  And here’s an article from CNN.com.

 

  I truly believe anyone can make a small fortune on the Internet.  But it all starts with the first move being one that validates that the product you want to sell (and the marketing you’ve set up for it) will work.

 I don’t care how great you think your product is or how amazing you think your marketing plan is.  When trying to sell anything online it all needs to start with one thing and one thing only - The Exact Targeting Test.

Your overall marketing process should begin with Market Research - let’s not forget that.  You need to do the proper market research to see what others are selling successfully, what certain markets want/need, etc. etc.

But once you know what product or service you are going to sell, and you setup a landing page (or complete site) to sell it, your marketing strategy needs to begin with a test that I call The Exact Targeting Test.

Here’s How The Exact Targeting Test Works…

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   I’ve received amazing feedback about The Rebirth Of Internet Marketing report.  We’re heading towards *500* comments on that one blog post. 

Others have written about the report on their own blogs or in articles to their ezine lists.

I would say that 95% of the comments and feedback have been positive but there has been some criticism.  Which I certainly welcome.

Several people have raised some interesting points about different sections of the report and in my next few blog posts I want to address them…

“I disagree about the Internet getting more competitive and becoming a harder place to make money.  As more people start using the Internet around the world there will be more opportunity to sell things to those people.”

Of the people that had some criticism about the report this was by far the #1 reaction and disagreement.

Some even claimed I was preaching “Doom & Gloom” merely as a marketing tactic to promote Income.com as the solution to a false fear that I was making up.  (Now that made me laugh!)

I stated in the report that it is going to become increasingly difficult to make money online because the competition is growing by the second.  Generating an income from the Internet is the ultimate business and more people are figuring this out everyday.

ANYONE can start an online business without much capital or technical experience — so the low barrier to entry is going to grow competition at an extremely fast rate.

So let’s examine the argument of as more people start using the Internet there will be more people to sell to…

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  As many of my longtime ezine subscribers already know, I love to travel.

Well, in the past 10-12 months I’ve done a lot of traveling.  I took trips to Japan, Scotland, England, France and Italy.

 And I finally made it to China for the first time.  Unfortunately, I got really sick and it ruined the trip.

I went on all those trips because I was feeling a bit burned out from all the business projects I had going on.  I desperately needed to get as far away from the computer as possible.  So I did.

While I was away I had a lot of time to think…  to figure out what was and wasn’t making me happy in my life.  I did some serious soul-searching.  And as I previously wrote in my ezine, I decided to pick just one project and get out of the rest — to keep from going insane and to be able to focus on doing one thing great rather than several things fair.

As a serial entrepreneur this is something I have battled with my entire life.  There’s never a shortage of opportunities and it’s just too easy (especially online) to try and conquer multiple projects at the same time.  But it rarely turns out as well as it would have to just focus on ONE project.  So I had to make a major change…

That decision process led me to take my ’side business’ of teaching Internet Marketing and to focus on helping as many people as I possibly could with it.  And that’s exactly how Income.com came about.

But while I was traveling around the globe I still took time out to check email here and there as well as catch up on my favorite blogs and other news sources.  (Internet cafes rule.)

During the time I was away a major FIRESTORM of controversy hit the ‘Net.  Blogs all over the world were going crazy.  People were getting fired up.  Mainstream media outlets got involved.  It was nuts.  And it was all concerning one little startup company…

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Welcome! As you can probably tell this is the first post!

Make sure to visit this blog often.  Unlike my previous marketing blogs this one will be posted to quite often.

To kick-off the official Income.com blog I have just completed a 53-page special report for you.  This report is titled, The Rebirth Of Internet Marketing.  It contains some extremely valuable information that you need to know.  In this report, I discuss the present and future of Internet Marketing.

The end of this report contains an UPDATE on the status of Income.com.

To download the special PDF report right-click here and “Save Target As…”

After you read the report make sure to post your comments below!