Andy Jenkin's Review
James Martell is a Canadian businessman who took advantage
of the de-regulation in Canada’s telephone industry to make himself
a good living. As the industry died, he thought it was time to look
to the Internet to find an alternate source of income. And so he did.
James Martell is one of those guys who had the right
idea at the right time. Using only affiliate programs, James built himself
up a little company that grosses over $15,000 a month. Now, let me make
sure you understand me here…When I say “Grosses” keep
in mind that this means the total money that his affiliate web sites
made him. Now, consider for a moment the overhead that he has for these
sites…Hmmmmm. There is, well, the cost of his domain names. Let’s
call that $50. Then there is his hosting. Let’s say $60 for that
for 3 sites. Okay, how about an ISP-we’ll assume he has DSL or
a Cable modem, so right around $50 a month. Coffee? Could we factor
in Coffee? Nah. Pencils? Oh wait; this is an INTERNET BUSINESS…right.
Gas? No, he works at home. Fine…so after paying a one-time fee
of $50 for registering his domain names, he shells out an amazing $110
a month to make about $15,000. James Martell probably spends more money
on wealth management than he does on acquiring his wealth. Sign me up!
So here is what James did. He went out and found 3 of the fastest
growing consumer products in North America and created an affiliate
web site for each. They are:
- Credit Cards – No fee, Low APR, Bad credit, etc.
- Cellular Phones – Pay as you go, Free Phones, Free Minutes,
etc.
- Satellite TV – Free Systems, Set Up and Monthly Program deals.
Is your head spinning with Ideas now? Good, It should be. James simply
finds affiliate programs of In-Demand Consumer products and offers little
web sites that contain 5 or 6 of the most popular Credit Cards, Satellite
TV Services and Cellular Phone Deals out there. For the consumer, it’s
VERY convenient. I remember when I was looking around for a Low interest
credit card and I ended up going to about 30 sites until I decided on
NextCard, which went out of business last month (Lucky Me…) And
just a few months ago, I got a chance to Edit a Commercial Spot about
DirecTV and saw how much money these companies are throwing at promoting
their product. My point is James cornered a tremendous market. Not only
that, he offered a REAL service to his audience – Web sites where
folks who are short on time (who isn’t?) or not willing to do
a ton of research (guilty) can go and get Free, Deeply Discounted, or
Highly rated products, and have a choice to boot. James is one of my
new Internet Hero’s.
James decided to write a book about his adventures and sell it to
folks who are looking for a Home Based Business. Sound familiar? Well,
here is James Martell’s unique selling proposition. Amidst all
the theory and history of Affiliate programs, James outlines 8 steps
to building your affiliate web site. Nothing-new here right?
WRONG!
Let me illustrate the difference between what James Martell does and
what some other (unmentionable) authors do when they say that they will
teach you step by step.
Bad Authors:
- Go find a product
- Register a domain name
- Build a web site
- Submit it to the search engines
- Get a merchant account
- Take your orders
- Ship your product
- Drive your cash to the bank
Doesn’t sound too bad…and of course, every author will
give you some in-depth information about what each one of the categories
entails. But James Martell and his Affiliate Marketers Handbook is a
bit different.
The Affiliate Marketers Handbook is so detailed that
it’s like you’re following James Martell's every mouse click.
And standing by the old “Teach a man to fish…. feed him
for a life” adage, he will then spend a fair amount of time telling
exactly why he (an presumably, you) is doing what he recommends.
For example, James uses Front Page to create his web sites. He also
recommends that you use a pre-designed template in order to facilitate
quick construction of your site. He goes a step farter by actually showing
you screen shots of how to install a Front Page Template onto your computer.
Folks, let me tell you that just about every critical operation that
James has you execute is delivered in as much detail as this. So, if
you have ever wondered where to go to get information about Affiliate
Programs, James not only provides you with the URL, he SHOWS YOU A SCREEN
SHOT!
Yeah BABY!
Now, I am a HUGE proponent and advocate of visual learning. And visual
learning has never been more important than now when it comes to teaching
folks about how to use the Internet. Couple that with James Martell's
method of illustrating how to build an Affiliate Site and market it,
this system is POWERFUL indeed.
James covers what he calls “8 Critical Steps” to starting
your affiliate web site. And when he says steps, he means it. Once you
complete, go to the next-in order, no skipping around.
Here are a few key points that he covers in his system.
James believes (rightly so) that search engines are KEY to a successful
affiliate business. So he wrote a good amount of material about how
to optimize your keywords, your Meta tags, your title tags, your description,
etc. Again, I want to emphasize that he illustrates a lot of these techniques
so even a dolt like me can grasp their importance.
In a nutshell, here is his theory.
Search engines thrive on content. Content, Content, Content! Nowadays,
keywords play an ever less important role There used to be a time when
you could spam the same keyword in your keyword meta tag an get high
positioning on a search engine. Not only are those days long gone, many
search engine specialist believe that keywords play a very small role
in search engine ranking. James believes that the key to getting high
search engine positioning is to use a combination of carefully researched
keywords with content that REFLECTS the subject matter of those keywords.
Here is an easy example:
Your keyword is “Good Movies”
Your content is about a good movie called Lord of the rings.
Close. But you can do better.
Keyword=Lord of the rings
Content=Movie review of Lord of the Rings!
Good… you’re re getting there. James
does one better!
Your site is called www.The-Lord-of-the-Rings.com.
Keyword=Lord of the Rings
Content= Movie review of Lord of the Rings
Hyper link TO Lord of the rings site
Hyper link FROM Lord of the rings site
Ta Da! According to James, having consistent relevance like this is
the first, best way of getting highly ranked in the search engines.
Now this is a simplified example with NO explanation, but in the Affiliate
Marketers handbook, you will find information about what you just read,
but in large amounts.
Link popularity is also one of James Martell’s commandments,
as they are becoming more and more important with the search engines
these days. He describes a way to create link popularity WITH IN YOUR
OWN SITE! This, I have to say is Gold information. It’s not that
complex, but it’s beyond the scope of this review. Trust me, you’ll
want to read this material.
During the reading of the Affiliate Marketers Handbook,
I had one of those “Ah Ha!” moments. As my faithful readers
will attest, these moments don’t happen too often, so I find it
important to write about them. This particular revelation was about
a simple search engine characteristic that I had no idea existed. Did
you know that most search engines would ignore words less than 2 characters
long? So, if you wanted to have a web site called www.lordoftherings.com,
but that domain was already taken, you could simply call your site www.A1-Lordoftherings.com
Accordingly, your content can still be geared towards Lord of the Rings
and not A1 Lord of the Rings. James uses this to great effect by naming
his Cell Phone site www.1st-in-cell-phones.com
AhHA!
Okay, so I’m a fan of James Martell's Affiliate Marketers
Handbook. But it has some warts.
The first one is the price. Generally, people will pay whatever they
think a product is worth, but in the industry of Home Based Internet
Business, that threshold seems to be less than $100. James charges almost
$170 dollars for his product. Is it worth it?
Let me fall back on what I have always said about
Home Based Internet
Business and the purpose of this site. If you don’t waste money
of crap, you can afford to spend more on 2 or 3 GREAT products that
will take care of most of your needs.
The simple truth is that there is an acute shortage of systems and
information on Affiliate Programs in general. Sure, they are everywhere
you look, but a condensed and focused product is very hard to find.
So, James is in a Niche position and is taking advantage of that. Fine.
I have also said that his Visual Teaching Style is unique and VERY effective.
There isn’t any fluff, and most of the material is straight “DO
This, then DO That!” which I love. It’s worth the cash,
but…I wish it were half that price. Not because it’s not
worth it, but because more people could get it at that price point.
The second wart? James has already taken the best affiliate idea that
I never had! Rats!
Seriously, there isn’t much to dislike about this product.
James Martell gets a Thumbs Up from me, with the qualification that
it’s a little on the pricey side for such a niche product.
Visit:
Home Based Business.
About Andy Jenkins
Andy Jenkins, author of
Yahoo!
Store Profits, a
popular self help guide on how to develop, create, build and promote a
profitable Yahoo! Store.
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