No, I haven’t disappeared. I’ve been busy creating a new information product and planning several more.

Why the gap with no posts? Several reasons, but the most important is that I’m currently creating a new website that will incorporate selling information products, writing skills, and time management and productivity skills.

Other reasons:

Please stay tuned: the new site should be up and running around the end of the month. I’ll let you know and you can then go subscribe to it. I promise you’ll get all the same information and analysis you’ve been getting here.

And now I’m off to backpack in the Trinity Alps for a few days.

Enjoy summer!

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Is Pay-Per-Click Still Working?

by John Soares on July 19, 2010

I know this is a broad question that we’ve discussed before. And I know pay-per-click search engine marketing is working well for many people in many niches. But one person who’s been successfully selling information products for over 20 years told me recently that PPC isn’t working well for him and his colleagues anymore.

Here’s My Situation…

I have two potential information products in two different niches (not how to make money) that I know quite a bit about. Both would be a combination of e-book/audio/check lists, and I would sell one for about $17 and the other for $27 or $37.

In neither niche do I want to spend much time doing Third Tribe Marketing stuff: writing regularly on a blog, commenting on other blogs, becoming a well-known authority, etc. I want to create the products, build a simple site for each, do an occasional blog post for SEO purposes, write a couple of ezinearticles.com articles, issue a couple of press releases – and get the bulk of the traffic through PPC.

I’m not asking you to tell me how to do PPC. I already know a bit about it, and I’d learn a lot more before I started. And yes, I have a Google Adwords account and have been using it to do keyword research and get traffic estimates for given cost-per-click, etc. And I understand basic relationships between cost-per-click, closing ratios, the cost of the product, and profit/loss.

I’m Asking You…

What’s been your personal experience with pay-per-click over the last year or so? Are you making money with it? Have your closing ratios increased or decreased? Has the cost per click of your important search terms gone up or down?

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Free Podcast Interviews With Successful Bloggers

by John Soares on July 12, 2010

Many of us who sell and market information products online use blogs as a primary means of reaching potential customers. So we need to improve our blogging chops.

Fellow bloggers Sid Savara and Srinivas Rao have just what you need. They’ve created an excellent resource for you at BlogCastFM: an ongoing series of podcasts with successful bloggers.

Just Who Are These Successful Bloggers?

Many of them are Third Tribe Marketing types that I’m quite familiar with, including:

And there are many other well-known bloggers:

  • Yaro Starak
  • David Risley
  • Jonathan Wells
  • Dragos Roua
  • Dan Andrews
  • And a couple dozen others

What Do They Talk About?

Lots of stuff you want to know to improve your blogging, including:

  • How they got started blogging
  • Their successes and failures
  • How they get more traffic
  • How they get guest posts on A-list blogs
  • How they use their blogs to sell products and services

And each interview is at least 30 minutes long, so you get a lot of good information.

How Do I Get My Hands on These Podcasts?

You can download the podcasts for free and listen to them at your leisure. (I typically  do it when I’m driving.)

I’m getting a lot out of these interviews. They’re one of the best free resources you’ll find.

Let me know what you think of the podcasts!

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Consolidating Your Online Marketing Base

by John Soares on July 7, 2010

We all need to make the best use of our time as we pursue our goals, and we must make sure we’re doing the highest priority activities that will give us the highest return on the investment of our precious minutes and dollars.

To that end, I’m making some important changes in what I’m doing regarding selling information products and marketing myself online. I think of it as consolidating my base so I’ll have more secure footing for later expansion.

What I’m Doing More Of…

Concentrating on Creating Information Products

I have several products that I will create over the next few months that I think will be outstanding and of great value, both in the selling information niche and in the personal development niche. (See my Intelligent Productivity blog for more about the latter.)

Redesigning This Blog

Some of you may have noticed I put my picture in the sidebar. But that’s just the beginning. I’ll have an elegant, attractive, and user-friendly design completed by the end of July. (I’m using the same guy who redesigned Intelligent Productivity.)

Expanding My Use of Twitter

I’m having a custom background created. It may even be up right now at @TheJohnSoares. And please follow me! (I took the picture in Zion National Park.)

I’ve also started using Hootsuite to monitor the site and to schedule Tweets. I’m working on strategies to increase my number of quality followers, but I’m not rushing it. (And I’m always open to advice…)

Getting More Education

I just joined Dave Navarro’s More Buyers Every Month Group Mentorship Program.  Dave’s a Third Tribe member who I’ve been paying more and more attention to over the last couple of months. I’m very impressed with how he runs his blog and his mailing list, and I’m also very impressed with the quality of the workshops he has inside the More Buyers Every Month Group Mentorship Program. From what I’ve seen so far, he’s ethical and honest, and a very smart guy who knows a lot about creating and marketing information products. (Yes, those are affiliate links — proud ones.)

What I’m Doing Less Of…

Less Time Writing Blog Posts

I have four blogs I post on regularly, including this one, Intelligent Productivity, my hiking blog, and the nonprofit Mount Shasta Trail Association, plus I write occasional posts on the blogs that support my two e-books on freelance writing (click on the covers in the sidebar).

So I’m cutting back a bit on posting to my main blogs. I’ll post once or twice a week for the next few weeks while I’m finishing products, and then I’ll likely increase the frequency.

Less Time Commenting on Other Blogs

Don’t worry. I’ll still be around reading your blogs and commenting, but it won’t be as often. I’m taking at least a couple days a week to disconnect from social media entirely.

I love reading other blogs, and I know that commenting on blogs is a great way to connect with other like-minded people and bring folks here to my blogs. So I’ll keep doing it.

Consolidating My Base…

I’m doing what I need to do to take my career to the next level. I’ve assessed my goals, examined my current tools and methods, charted how I spend my time.

And I’m taking action.

What about you? What are you doing to improve what you’re doing online? How good are your time management habits? Any thoughts about what I’m doing?

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Planning For Future Products — Set Up The Website Now

by John Soares June 30, 2010

If you’re like me, you have lots of ideas for information products that you’ll eventually create and sell. I continually update lists of potential products, and for the best candidates I create folders and Word documents with ideas for developing and selling the product. As many of you know, I’ve been a full-time freelance writer [...]

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Blog World Expo 2010 in Las Vegas: My Unanswered Questions

by John Soares June 28, 2010

Many of you know that Blog World New Media Expo 2010 in Las Vegas on October 14-16 is a big deal. (See the discussion in the comments in a recent Kikolani/Kristi Hines post.) I’m strongly considering going. First I’ll discuss my goals, and then I’ll ask you important questions. What I Want from the Conference [...]

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Selling Information Products Weekend Reading 2010-06-25

by John Soares June 25, 2010

Selling Information Products On this blog I wrote about: 4 Reasons Why You Should Write the Sales Page First. You readers really liked the idea of getting the sales page done before you tackle creating your information product. E-Mail Marketing With Lists — Survey Results. I shared Paul Cunningham’s excellent survey of bloggers’ results using [...]

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4 Reasons Why You Should Write the Sales Page First

by John Soares June 23, 2010

I wrote last week that I’ve been busy with a high-paying freelance writing project, so busy I only had 30 minutes a day to work on my new product. With that 30 minutes I’ve been outlining the ebook portion and…writing the sales page? I say you should write the sales page first, before you create [...]

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E-Mail Marketing With Lists — Survey Results

by John Soares June 21, 2010

I found Paul Cunningham and his Blogging Teacher site recently on the Third Tribe Marketing forum. Glad I did, because he’s released a free 14-page report with detailed analysis from 30 bloggers polled on the Third Tribe Marketing forum and on Darren Rowse’s Problogger forum on how, why, and with what success they use e-mail [...]

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Selling Information Products Weekend Reading 2010-06-18

by John Soares June 18, 2010

Selling Information Products On this blog I wrote about: How I’m writing my ebook about information products in only 30 minutes a day — because I’ve been so damned busy. Why I saw a substantial traffic decline for one of my info product sites — and what I did it about it. Yet another major [...]

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