I plunked down my credit card, and signed up for the “basic” version of the program, which costs $67/month.

So what is Niche Profit Classroom, exactly?

Well, it’s the brainchild of Adam Short, and basically it’s a complete system he developed to enable you to build small, profitable niche businesses from scratch. In this case, your small niche business will consist of…

• A squeeze page, designed to obtain the e-mail address of your visitor in exchange for a free report.
• A sales page designed to sell the e-book you will have created in this niche.
• 10 or so keyword focused content pages (KFCPs) that will drive traffic from the Search Engines and PREsell your offering.
• Up to another 10 keyword-focused articles which will be submitted to article directories for in-pointing links and additional traffic.
• A download page for your customers to obtain their purchase.

And that`s it.

However, if you visit the Niche Profit Classroom at the time of this writing, you’ll be able to watch a short video of Adam, who early on asks the viewer, “what if almost all the conceptions you have right now about building a profitable web site were totally false?”

Nothing against Adam, but this is complete nonsense. It`s marketing, plain and simple.  There is absolutely nothing new about what Adam is doing – it`s been done for years by savvy net-marketers. The only way his system will challenge your conception of the way things are done online is if you have ZERO experience in the Net marketing field.

The difference is, he has developed a system so YOU can do it.

With that said, let`s get down to the nitty gritty. How good is the system, and just what exactly is included in your purchase? Let’s login and have a look…

As you can see, the back end of Niche Profit Classroom is pretty impressive looking, but we can distill everything here into…

1) Help & Instruction: One thing you cannot complain about at NPC, and that’s a lack of instruction. There’s a TON of it, all provided in video format. Each major section of the niche site building process is identified and then broken down into a series of videos.

As you can see here there are 8 sections: An Overview, Market Selection, Domains & Hosting, Website Content, List Building, Website Launch, Traffic Generation and Looking Forward. Obviously, each of these topics covers a pretty wide range of material; so these are general headings at best. For example, the section I have highlighted here, “Market Selection” consists of 28 videos, broken down into…

• Introductory material (market psychology, market factors, install SEO Quake into FireFox)
• Introduction to keyword research
• MoneyWord Matrix keyword research
• Expanding your keyword set Prt I
• Expanding your keyword set Prt II
• Accelerated Market Research
• Introduction to the Market Profiler
• Market Profiler Research (Amazon, ClickBank, forums, Adwords, etc)

Given that the help has to assume you have absolutely ZERO experience with the fundamentals of building an Internet business, you can just imagine how much material is presented here. Literally, it starts pretty much at the `this is a keyword` stage. And while tons of instructional material is certainly a good thing, it was the help, the sheer volume of it, and the format in which it was presented that frustrated me SO much in the end. Let me explain…

First, I do agree that using `video lessons` to educate your customer is a good idea… when they are presented as an adjunct to PDF files. With Niche Profit Classroom, there is only video instruction – there are no printable PDF files to be found (at the time of this writing, anyway). Since you can`t quickly skim a help file to see what you`re up to speed on and what you are not, you are forced  to watch all videos to ensure you don`t miss some piece of vital `specific to this tool` information. For experienced marketers like myself, it is hair-pullingly frustrating.

Next, the sheer volume of material means you need LARGE blocks of time to make it through any section of the Classroom uninterrupted. If you happen to have a family and a job, this can be a problem. For instance, I asked my girlfriend to proceed through the process to see if she would like to give it a try. She works long hours and only has a couple of days off in a two week period. Despite allotting generous amounts of time to the videos on days off and the few evenings a week when she did not return from work exhausted, it took her weeks to get through the Classroom.

I didn`t fare much better; with two growing, successful online business, an offline business and occasional consulting, huge blocks of time are an issue for me too; with conflicting priorities in the way, it took me over 3 weeks to get through all the videos. Not surprisingly, by the time I completed the final section of the classroom, I had forgotten vital elements of earlier lessons. And good luck finding the stuff you want to review; with umpteen zillion videos spread over 8 sections, it`s almost impossible to find a specific detail or strategy easily.

Of course, if there were accompanying PDF help files, none of this would be a problem – it would be easy to locate forgotten critical information, and quickly review vital elements of the program. The only way around this is to keep very detailed notes as you watch the videos… and by the time I realized this would be a necessity, I was already too far into the program to bother.

Extremely, EXTREMELY frustrating.

2) Software tools:

This is where you will access the various tools essential to the NPC classroom. The first one you will be using is the Market Profiler, which runs on the NPC server. Into it, you will plug the information acquired while researching the topic or niche of your choice.

On the other hand, the MoneyWords Keyword Tool is downloaded to your desktop and will run directly from your own computer. You will use this tool to analyze the keyword data generated by the free keyword tool provided by Google.

3) Downloads:

Most of the material in the Download section requires either an upgraded membership, or an additional fee. The Niche Packs are an exception; each month you are granted access to two new and completely ready-made niche businesses (includes ebook, sales letter, graphics, mini-course, traffic blueprint, optimized articles, keyword research and a market profile).

Don’t even bother with this; I downloaded one on growing tomatoes, opened one of the articles and copied and pasted a sentence directly into Google.

The result?

Tons of sites using the same articles, templates and sales pages to sell the same e-book. How many sales do you think this will convert for you? I’ll tell you… not to darn many. The value of Niche Profit Classroom will come from developing your own products and articles and selling a distinctly unique product, not banging up the same web site as dozens (hundreds?) of other NPC members.

4) Hosting:

Yes, you can even host your mini-sites at NPC – up to 15 of them if you like. It’s a simple matter of plugging in your domain name and pressing the “Host Domain” button. This sets up your mini-site on the Word Press platform, formatted in the single-page mini-site template style used by NPC.

If you create enough mini sites, this hosting option will certainly justify the cost of membership. If you only plan to create a site or two, think twice about using this service; it may tie you into paying the $67/month fee for perhaps much longer than you’d care to (yes, I am sure you can transfer the hosting, but who knows how easy this process is?).

5) Value Addons: forum, webinars, etc.

There’s no end of things going on at Niche Profit Classroom; there’s a vibrant forum, regular education webinars, and so on. Lots going on here, if you’re looking for a community.

OK, now that we’ve had a look behind the scenes…

Let’s discuss the NPC process.

After you complete the Classroom instruction, you’re ready to start creating your own niche profit web sites. Here’s the basic process…

1) First, you must identify possible niches and determine whether or not they offer any potential for profit. To do so, you must proceed through the Market Profiler’s 7-step proces. Some of the factors involved include…

• Number of related books on Amazon
• Number of Amazon reviews
• Number of direct competitors at Clickbank.
• Number of AdWords advertisers for your topic.
• Top 10 keywords for your root keyword
• Number of forums in the Top 10 SE listings for your root keyword

… and so on. Once completed, the Profiler spits out a “Market Value”  which is a numerical representation of how profitable (or unprofitable) your chosen niche is. At this point you either move forward (with a profitable niche) or begin researching another one.

This, quite frankly, is the most tedious part of the Niche Profit Classroom. And it’s probably the point at which newbies will get “hung up on” the most, especially if the Market Value generated by the Profiler doesn’t indicate an absolute “winner.”

“Do I move on with this niche, or not? Is it profitable enough?”

And so on.

More on this a bit later.

2) Once you’ve determined to move forward with a particular niche, it’s time to move on to the 2nd step in the process. At this point, you’ll have your niche, and a series of “profitable” keywords (i.e., keywords that show decent demand at the Search Engines, but are not overly competitive; being targeted by too many marketers).

Now it’s time to fashion your research into a “saleable” item.

How do you do that?

By developing an outline for your e-book (that’s right, you’ll be selling an e-book) and then outsourcing the production of it, and the keyword focused content pages that correspond to the profitable keywords you discovered, to a researcher and writer. Oh, and I almost forgot; you’ll need to have a mini-course created too (you’ll be using it in your autoresponder sequence) which can be loosely based on your e-book outline.

Yes, you can write the e-book, mini-course and articles yourself if you like. This isn’t the ideal scenario, however:

• Most people aren’t professional writers and simply don’t have the skills to create an e-book of the quality needed.
• Should you be lucky enough to possess the necessary writing skills,  creating your own e-books and articles is incredibly time-consuming, especially if you are not an expert on the topic in question.
• The whole idea of NPC is to leverage your time by outsourcing the creation of major time-consuming projects to overseas experts who will work for extremely competitive prices. That way, you can spend your time researching more niches and building more businesses. Your “team” does the rest.

Of course, the entire process is thoroughly documented in the video help.

3) Once your outsourced material has been completed, you’re ready to go live with a web site. And if you’re using the Niche Profit Classroom  hosting, getting your web site set up really is as easy as pressing a couple of buttons. Your WordPress-based sales template site will be created immediately – all you have to do is to plug your material into it.

If you are using your own hosting, you’ll need to ensure your host offers WordPress (most do) and upload the NPC WP plugin to the appropriate file (don’t worry, there’s full documentation on how to do all of this!)

4) Once your site is up, complete with mini-course, articles and full-fledged ebook, it’s time to put the 21-day traffic blueprint into action.

And that’s it. Now you’re ready to move on to your next Niche Profit business.

Very simply, that is the gist of the Niche Profit Classroom process.

Briefly now, let’s discuss the pros and cons of the system:

The PROS:

1) Extensive video documentation covers every task in complete detail so no one, no matter what their level of Net Marketing experience, can easily follow the process from start to finish.

2) The NPC series of proprietary tools combined with the applicable free resources do a decent job of identifying niches and profitable keywords.

3) Building a web site based on the NPC single-pages sales site template is dead easy.

4) This is a proven, money-making Internet-Marketing strategy.

5) Plenty of support and a vibrant community.

The CONS:

1) No written documentation. I detailed this issue earlier – there’s so much material here it’s almost impossible to get through it all in a timely fashion. And then, when you want to go back to review something, it’s almost impossible to find the relevant video file.

2) There’s no streamlined process for experienced marketers, something that would be addressed by PDF help files.

3) It’s not cheap; outsourcing a 75-100 page e-book and supporting articles and mini-course can cost anywhere from $400-$700. And this is a perfect example of where skimping is not a good idea; you need to sell a quality product or your refund requests will kill your business.

4) Finding the right professionals to outsource your product(s) to is not easy. In NPC, Adam outlines the system he developed to streamline the outsourcing process, as well as ensure you hire the right people the first time.

Well, I’m here to tell you that in over 10 years of doing business online, the vast majority of my outsourcing experiences have not been anything to “write home about.”  And that’s despite paying serious dollars to learn how to do so effectively!

At the end of the day, every time you hire someone you are taking a chance. Sometimes you lose your time. Sometimes you lose your money. Sometimes you lose both. Of course, if you DO find the right team, there’s no end to what you can accomplish. I’m not trying to rain on your parade here; just be prepared for some hair-pulling – this part of the process is a lot more of a problem than you might believe.

5) There’s a real danger of “paralysis by analysis” here, especially for newbies. In order to move forward with the NPC process, you have to trust your research, and the results generated by the various tools. If you don’t have a lot of experience marketing online, this might be difficult to do, especially when you are looking at a minimum $500 cash outlay to outsource the creation of your materials. If you are a marketing newbie, hesitant to drop large chunks of cash on an unproven niche, you can start by promoting related affiliated products. Although not the recommended means of leveraging NPC effectively, this way, you can “test the waters” before you make an investment.

6) The monthly fee is high: Yes, I agree: $67/month doesn’t buy you much anymore. And on the surface, NPC’s fee doesn’t seem unreasonable. However, when you compare Niche Profit Classroom against other online business building systems, it IS. SiteSell.com’s Site Build It!, for example, will set you back $30/month, and its suite of tools make NPC look like a child’s toy. Plus, you can build and monetize any sort of web site you like – meaning you don’t need to fork out big dollars for outsourcing.

So what’s the bottom line here?

The Niche Profit Classroom system is viable, but in my opinion, it is one that will be best realized as you get some experience with the research process and outsourcing of product development. In other words, the more niche profit sites you build, the better you will get – at trusting your judgment, identifying profitable topics, and outsourcing projects to credible professionals.

And, the more niche sites you have, the more likely you will be profitable. If you build a single web site and it’s a flop, you need to offset the loss of that web site by developing other profitable ones. Frankly, it’s the way of the Internet; some of your sites will generate loads of SE traffic and convert visitors into customers well. Others, not so much.

NPC is really about leveraging your time to create LOTS and LOTS of sites, each based on a solid foundation (which is the single-page squeeze page / sales letter template). That’s the power of this system.

So who is best suited to Niche Profit Classroom?

You really need two things; a willingness to work hard and some disposable income. Yes, you can use the system to promote affiliate products (which eliminates the expense of creating your own) or you can write the e-book, articles and mini-course yourself. But neither of these options is the ideal, recommended means of creating niche profit sites.

That means you’ll need to be willing and able to drop some fairly significant cash on each and every venture you approach. This is definitely NOT the business for you if you’re on a restricted budget due to a job loss or something similar.

So… is Niche Profit Classroom for you? Well, if I’ve done my job properly, you should have a pretty good idea one way or another after reading this review. If it appeals to you, maybe. If not, probably not. If you’re an Internet Marketing newbie, I’d be inclined to steer you in another direction. You’d be better off learning the ropes with a tool that does not require large injections of cash to get started.

Regardless, Adam does offer a $1 free trial. Yes, if you like the sound of this system, you can trial NPC for 14 days for a dollar.

A word to the wise though; Do not sign up for the free trial until you are sure you have a few days you can dedicate to get through it all. Otherwise, you simply will not be able to accurately evaluate the system within the 14 day period. That means you’ll have to cancel your membership prior to reviewing the system completely, or end up being charged the recurring $67 fee before you know it’s right for you.

Good luck!

And that’s the topic of today’s ramblings.

If you’ve just begun your Internet business in the quest to make money online, you’ll understand what I say when I tell you that as an Internet marketer, you have to wear many hats. At least, you have to wear many hats until you’re profitable enough to start outsourcing some of your tasks. For example, you need to…

• Create reams and reams of well researched, authoritative content.
• Perform basic SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tasks, such as on-page optimizing and link building.
• Investigate monetization options like ads from Chitika or Adsense, and relevant affiliate programs.
• Set up and write a bi-monthly/weekly informative newsletter (and a series of autoresponder messages).
• Investigate and evaluate new marketing options as they arise (i.e., video marketing).
• Seek out and approach joint venture partners.
• Daily tasks; moderating comments, updating RSS feeds, etc, etc.

And so on and so on and so on.

That’s a LOT of hats.

And there are two major problems with this.

First, it’s not uncommon to get paralyzed by the magnitude and sheer number of jobs in front of you. It’s easy to find yourself dividing your time up between umpteen different, yet equally important tasks on a daily basis. In the end, you make very little progress on anything.

The solution to this is simple; prioritize your tasks on a daily basis, and do not focus your energies on any more than one or two tasks per work session.

For example, on one day you may decide to focus only on content creation. On the next, some on-page optimization and link building. And the day after, a newsletter and a new message for your autoresponder. The key is to have your tasks set out the night before, so you know exactly what you are doing the following day.

A word about prioritizing your tasks; obviously, your priorities will vary according to the state of your online business. For example, if your site is new, you are wasting your time if you’re investigating monetization options, affiliate programs or linking opportunities. All your efforts need to be focused on creating enough quality content to…

• Address the needs of your visitors
• Drive “organic” traffic from the Search Engines
• Warrant a link from a quality directory or resource

Until this is done, everything else you do is a waste of your time (if you have no traffic, for instance, then the investigating of monetization options is pointless, since you have no visitors to monetize).

Once your online business is established, you can take a breather from creating content and focus more on marketing-related tasks. As an example…

For me, the creation of new content becomes a major priority every two weeks prior to the mailing of a newsletter (the newsletter provides updates on new material – without new material, there’s no point in sending it!). In the time between newsletters, I can focus on other tasks.

The other problem with wearing too many hats is that there will come a time when no amount of prioritizing of tasks and efficient work management strategies will help you grow your business at a timely manner.

And that’s where I am at the moment.

My main site, UltimateFatBurner.com, contains a thousand pages of content or more. It receives 5-figure traffic numbers daily. It continues to grow day by day, week by week, year by year. But it is growing s… l… o… w… l…y (there are, after all, only two of us whose main priority is the site). And, the larger a web site becomes, the more difficult it is to make dramatic changes to traffic numbers, in-pointing links, etc.

It’s certainly no longer possible for me to wear all my hats, work efficiently and move the site forward. I can’t research and write content, moderate comments, investigate JVs, create videos and pod/blogcasts, obtain in-pointing links, plus the 8 zillion other things on my “to do”.

The only way to continue to move forward is for me to take off some of my hats, by outsourcing some of my jobs to third parties. The question for me then becomes…

What tasks CAN I outsource to third parties?

Obviously, I am not willing to compromise the quality and integrity of UltimateFatBurner.com. And, since the foundation of those things lie with the high quality, well-researched content found on the site, clearly that is something I will need to continue to do myself. But things like video creation, blog/podcast creation, SEO… these are things I can outsource. After all, this is simply a re-packaging and leveraging of existing content.

I am going to talk about the outsourcing process more a little later – the point of this discussion is recognizing the number of hats you must wear as an Internet Marketer, and how that can seriously affect your productivity. What drew my attention to this over the last few weeks was the fact that I never seemed to be able to “deliver on my deliverables.” When I really did some hard thinking on this, it was easy to see the problem.

To address the issue, I spent some time clearly defining my role – specifically listing all the tasks I do week by week. Then I divided those tasks into those I could outsource, and those I could not. It’s been an illuminating experience, and one I hope will vastly improve my efficiency and the growth of my web sites.

Sometimes, you need to take off one or more of your hats in order to grow.

For those of you not ready to outsource yet, clearly defining your tasks on a day to day basis – according to the state of your web site – is a priority.

Give it a try. I think you’ll be pleased with the results.

Any guesses as to what that might be?

Yep… it’s the failure of individuals to make a committed effort to the diet plan they have chosen. Many continue to analyze new programs despite having chosen a solution, and before long, begin to second guess what they are doing – especially if they do not see immediate results. Surely a better, easier and more rapid solution to weight loss lies just around the corner?

Sound familiar?

It’s this “paralysis by analysis” that also prevents many people from making an income online.

If you happen to be subscribed to the newsletters of a guru or two, you’ll know exactly what I mean. There’s hardly a day goes by where one or another of them is not promoting the new key to instant online riches. And it’s easy to get drawn into the pitch. After all, these folks are good at what they do. Their PREselling copy is mesmerizing. Their offer, compelling. And, should you click through to the sales page of the promoted product/service in question – with its lurid, red, all-caps title and breathless promise of instant riches – you may find yourself seriously considering the offer.

Don’t.

There will be another one just like it tomorrow.

And when you see it, you’ll wonder if you made the right decision by buying the product / solution offered to you yesterday.

And so it goes. On and on and on.

The constant analysis of offers and opportunities is indeed paralyzing, and in the end, you’re unable to move ahead on anything. I can attest to buying dozens of products over the years that I have never used, and on occassion, never even looked at. After spending hundreds and hundreds of dollars, I’ve learned my lessons; my efforts are always best channeled towards my existing businesses, and there is no better, quicker, faster, or more effective way to make a living online. If you did your due dilligence when you selected the route you are currently on, don’t deviate.

Don’t alter your course. In fact, don’t even LOOK at other offers.

Paralysis by analysis is a killer.

Find high quality blogs and hub pages that are related to your niche and/or theme, and make relevant posts that provide real value to the readers of these resources. If applicable, provide a link back to a related, quality article on your site – but only if it genuinely supplements the article.

(Regardless of whether or not a “no follow” protocol is followed on the resource in question, obtaining in-pointing links on credible sites is a worthwhile venture, not only for the referred visitors, but the credibility they impart on your own site).

Notice how I said “it would seem like a no-brainer” link building strategy?”

If what I see on my sites is any indication, it seems the majority of webmasters can’t seem to grasp this concept. Or, they can’t be bothered to make the effort required to put together a decent post. And by decent post, I don’t mean…

“Great site! I have a site too – click here to read about my weight loss journey!”

With that said, let me talk a little bit about utilizing this link building strategy properly. Done right, it’s worthwhile. Done poorly, it’s a waste of time…

First and foremost, no quality blog is going to allow you to muddle up an intelligent discussion by posting tripe, material that provides no benefit to the site’s visitors, or material that has no obvious purpose other than to obtain an in-pointing link.

As a webmaster, I see this as an attempt to piggyback on the success and the traffic of my sites, but without the willingness to provide anything of value in return. Frankly, I find it insulting.

Bzzzzzzzt. DELETE.

If you can’t provide anything of value to a discussion, don’t post for the sake of posting. You’re wasting both your time, and the site’s moderator.

Second, just because you can’t add something of value to a quality resource right now, doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to. I recommend using a RSS reader (I recommend the free FeedReader) to stay on top of new posts on quality blogs, so you can jump in and make a relevant post when and if you can. Just find the “RSS” button and sign up to the site’s feed, and you’ll automatically be informed of any new content.

Third, in some cases, it may be worthwhile to create a brand new article that supplements a discussion, just so you can legitimately obtain an in-pointing link from that resource.

Fourth, take some time and put a little effort into your post. Remember, you’re essentially asking the webmaster of the resource for the right to piggyback on his/her traffic and credibility. S/he does not know you, and does not owe you any favors. If you want a link, earn it.

Here’s an example of a post that I made recently. Notice how it adds some additional, relevant material and is a valid attempt to add real value to the discussion? How could a moderator refuse this?

For great resources, don’t hesitate to offer a link from your own site, or some kudos to the webmaster… this does not go amiss either.

Take a look at this example, for instance. I was thrilled to find this great quality resource, and had no reservations about telling the webmasters that. In this instance, I also added a link to a relevant, high quality article on UltimateFatBurner.com, and as a service to my visitors, added their site to my Blog roll.

Bottom line?

If done properly, you can use this strategy to obtain quality in-pointing links from similarly themed blogs or hub pages. But it’s not a quick fix solution. You need to have something worthwhile to link back to, and you won’t always have that. In both examples outlined above, I knew I had an article that would be a perfect match for the topic in question. Had I not, I wouldn’t have made these posts.

In that case, I would have simply added both sites to my RSS reader, and waited until they covered a topic for which I could provide a link of value.

Badda-bing, badda-boom.

Easy as pie. If you do it right.

Do it right.

That said, let me explain why you should avoid using PLR articles on your web site if at all possible. Yes, I’m well aware that there are plenty of gurus who recommend using private label rights to beef up your site’s inventory of content. I don’t happen to agree with them.

At all.

And that’s even if you take the time to re-write them in your own words (usually the one stipulation made by the gurus who recommend this strategy), which most people simply don’t do.

There are several reasons why…

1) Excellent content rules the day: If you’re using a content-based web site to attract Search Engine traffic, build your credibility and effectively monetize your audience, PLR articles won’t do the trick. Today, providing generic, standard, readily-accessible content material is not going to establish you in your visitor’s mind. And it certainly will not establish you as a leader in your niche.

And I can guarantee you won’t find any revolutionary or particularly insightful information in any PLR package you buy. Certainly not at the $3-$12 per article price.

I know. I’ve actually bought numerous private label rights articles over the years thinking I could perhaps leverage the content somehow. Nope. Nien. Nyet. Nada.

Sure, it’s adequate, I agree. But comparing PLR articles to properly researched, insightful material of your own is like comparing a meal at a 5-star restaurant to a Swanson meat pie.  Sure, the meat pie tastes fine, is easy to prepare, and covers most of your immediate nutritional needs. But your guests aren’t exactly going to be crooning about your culinary skills. Nor are they going to beat a path to your door the next time you offer, “c’mon over for supper!”

To repeat, “adequate” just ain’t gonna “cut it.”

So why bother?

If you don’t have the time to create quality content of your own, you’re better off to wait until you do, or get into a different business.

I’m serious.

I’d rather have a small, slow-growing web site packed with unique, quality content than a large one based on PLR articles, syndicated material, and what have you.

2) Duplicated contented is not a credibility builder: As a little experiment, a few weeks ago I bought a PLR package of articles from a reliable source. I then copied and pasted the first couple of sentences of the first article directly into Google’s search box, pressed “Search”…

And “whammo!”

Dozens of results.

Plenty of folks had bought the same package I did, and posted the articles, word-for-word, on their web sites. Now I realize most folks are not going to know the posted PLR material is not unique to your web site. But it’s not something I’d be willing to risk.

And hey, let’s face it; it’s pretty cheesy.

3) Possible Search Engine (SE) issues: To date, I am not aware of any ranking penalties being applied to web sites making liberal use of private label rights articles. But it’s not improbable that the SEs could at any time start querying their databases for duplicate content and sites that are based heavily upon it, and begin applying a ranking penalty.

Think about it; the more likely a site is to be based on PLR material and duplicated content, the less likely it is going to be a genuine authority site. Ergo, the less likely it is going to effectively address a visitor’s search query.

Bada-bing, bada-boom. Say good-bye to your rankings.

So a big thumbs-down on PLR articles altogether?

Well, I’d agree that using PLR articles sparingly and re-writing them in your own words is unlikely to be detrimental to your web site and your business. However, I’d have to ask why you’d want to even bother investing time in this – how much longer would it take to write your own, unique, “one-off” articles, anyway?

Give ‘em a miss. That’s my recommendation.

This “mouse-over” action “peels back” or “peels away” the page to reveal a completely new message below, as if on a different sheet of paper (if you haven’t seen a page peel ad yet, you can do so here! You’ll need to use the Explorer browser though… this ad doesn’t appear to work in the FireFox browser).

As you can see, it’s a pretty funky effect!

Normally, page peel or peel away ads are displayed on splash pages and single page sales sites as an alternative to the more commonly used “popover” message. Based on Flash software, they can promote discounts, free special reports, free trials – anything and everything commonly used to obtain a visitor’s e-mail address so you can follow up with them after they have left your web site. The retailers of the page peel scripts, not surprisingly, claim they outperform typical “popover” ads.

I was interested in using page peel ads on UltimateFatBurner.com, to see if I couldn’t boost the number of subscribers to my newsletter. I was also curious to see how the page peel ads really measured up against the more common popovers.

I was already using Matt Callen’s Instant PopOVER software to create a slick “slide in” popover on the index page of UltimateFatBurner.com. However, I have a large number of pages that rank well with the Search Engines and serve as entry pages to the site. I figured I could use the page peel software on these pages. I’d offer my newly released free e-book, “Dirty Rotten Tricks; Supplement Company Lies That Cost You Money” as an incentive to subscribe to the newsletter.

I decided on PeelAwayAds Version 3.0 as the software I’d use to create these ads, made my purchase, and got to work.

The first thing I needed to do was have some custom page peel ads made (the software comes with a ton of them, but none of them were relevant to what I was doing). Once that was done, I implemented the page peel ads on 10 high-performing gateway pages (you can view one here with the Explorer browser), and tracked the results.

And how were they? How did the page peel ads compare to the regular pop over ads?

Well, see for yourself. For the three month period of Jan-Mar ‘09 Google’s Analytics software reports traffic as the following…

1) Index page (where the slide in popover was displayed): 128, 501 page impressions

2) 10 top performing gateway pages (where the page peel ads were implemented): 290,796 page impressions

At the same, time, Aweber reports 359 new subscribers to the account associated with the index page and the popover, and only 331 subscribers from the peel away ads displayed on ALL 10 page peel pages.

This works out to about a .2% conversion for the popover, and a .1% conversion for the page peel ads (this includes a generous 20% handicap for possible FireFox browsers). So the page peel ads obtained half the results of the popover ad, despite being displayed almost twice as many times.

Not too impressive, huh?

True. But consider this…

The value of the tyical popover ad is that it cannot be ignored. It has to be addressed. The visitor absolutely, positively, unequivocally must act when that window slides in. She will see your marketing message, and she will make a conscious decision on whether to close that window off, or enter her e-mail address to receive whatever offer you are promoting.

That is not the case with the peel away ads. You are free to ignore them if you like. I thought they might receive a higher conversion rate because they still aren’t that common. I figured the curiosity factor alone would contribute to that.

Looks like I figured wrong.

Additionally, if a visitor doesn’t move her mouse to the flickering page in the corner, she doesn’t get exposed to your marketing message – which appears below the page that “peels back.”

Does that mean peel away ads are of little value?

No, I don’t think so. Obviously, any single page site with a mandate of making an immediate sale is probably going to stick with popovers messages (of the “unblockable” sort, like those generated by Matt Callen’s Instant PopOVER software, which I do recommend). I would be surprised if these don’t outperform the peel away ads in almost every situation.

But what if you have a large content site like I do?

Although I recognize the value of popovers, I find them annoying and intrusive, especially if the webmaster opts to have them display on all pages, over and over (I set a cookie, so my visitors only see my popover once every 30 days). So I only display one popover, on the UltimateFatBurner.com index page. But many of my visitors arrive to top performing content pages, and a great many of them never see the index page. Page peel ads offer me a non-intrusive manner to entice them to become newsletter subscribers.

Is it incredibly effective? Hardly. But considering I don’t want to irritate the heck out of them, it’s a worthwhile one.

Bottom line?

I will continue to run page peel ads on top performing content pages, regardless of their miserable conversion rate.

Before I depart, I would be remiss to leave without making a few comments on the PeelAwayAds Version 3.0 software I used for this test. First the good…

Thumbs Up: Instructions and installation guide are well-written and easy to follow. I’m not incredible technically-minded, but it was a breeze to install and get working. In Explorer.

Thumbs down: I couldn’t get the peel away ads to display in the FireFox browser, so I sent in a support ticket about a week before Christmas ‘08 (I know they work in FireFox, because I can view them with it on  the PeelAwayAds sales page.) I didn’t receive a response of any sort until about 6 weeks later, when a staff member sent me a note and asked if the issue had been resolved. I explained it had not, and would like it so. I’ve never heard from anyone again. On top of that, I immediately began to receive fairly aggressive marketing messages for products of dubious credibility and ethics (i.e., “scraping” software). I unsubscribed from the customer mailing list immediately.

All in all, my experience wasn’t stellar – but who knows, one experience is not necessarily indicative of everyone’s. Nonetheless, I would not recommend this product if you think you’re going to require some technical support.

After a quick couple of searches on Google, I found this much cheaper option for page peel ads, but can’t comment on the software personally, as I have no experience with the product.

The C-T-P-M acronym was, to my knowledge anyway, first coined by my old boss, Ken Evoy of SiteSell.com. It very concisely “verbalizes” one of the most effective means of building a successful, long term online business.

C-Content: Create high-value, in demand content relative to your niche. Do the appropriate keyword research to come up with a list of highly profitable keywords (i.e., keywords that have a high demand – plenty of searches performed – and relatively little supply – a small number of sites coming up for these terms). Create quality content targeting these specific keywords.

T-Traffic: Such content, especially when it is based on sound keyword research, brings targeted, qualified visitors to your web site.

PREsell: Once the visitors arrive, your exceptionally high quality content material establishes your credibility and builds a bond of trust, so that you may now PREsell those visitors…

M-Monetize: Introduce your PREsold visitors to your various offerings, depending on your monetization models. This can include your own products, products you’re affiliated with, your eBay auctions, your Adsense ads, etc, etc.

Explained so simply, you may be thinking… “well, DUH! I’m using that same strategy myself.”

Yep. You may be using C-T-P-M yourself without even knowing it. My UltimateFatBurner.com is a C-T-P-M site, although I’d never heard of the concept when I began the site.

Nonetheless, the true beauty of C-T-P-M is that it makes it easy to determine what it is you should be doing, at any given stage in the online business building process. You’d be surprised how may newbie marketers skip the C-T-P and move directly to “M”. Yep, they are focused on how they are going to monetize their site’s traffic… long before it has any traffic.

Until you have a steady, daily stream of  visitors your site will earn you exactly ZERO, so all efforts searching out the ideal affiliate partnerships are a complete and total waste of your time.

Another common mistake is to focus on traffic building strategies (i.e., the “T” element) before the site in question has enough content to warrant driving traffic to it.

I’m a huge fan of the C-T-P-M process. In my opinion, using it as a guideline is the best option for the majority of individuals who are looking to generate revenue from the Internet.

Why? Let’s address the reasons…

• The C-T-P-M process is sound, plays by the rules, and will yield success if you stick with it. It allows you to build a resource which you have the opportunity to sell later if you like (over the years, I’ve had numerous 6-figure offers for my UltimateFatBurner.com web site).
• The C-T-P-M process is a practical, longer term approach to building a business. Why is this beneficial? Because unless you happen to have a background in advertising, business, or marketing you’re going to need to learn the “online marketing ropes.” And there’s a lot to learn. Building a business slowly allows you to learn as you go. Smart strategy. You’ll make less mistakes, and waste less money.
• The C-T-P-M process keeps you focused. When every guru in the world is offering some way to turn your computer into a magical cash magnet, C-T-P-M keeps you on the right track. Online, it’s easy to get caught up evaluating the merits of various money making schemes, and it’s easy to succumb to “paralysis by analysis.” Yep, you’ll be so overwhelmed by the options, you won’t be able to decide which path is the right one.
• The C-T-P-M process is cost effective. Let’s face it; if you want to drive traffic to your web site, you need to either pay for it (which can be expensive, depending on your niche) or have the Search Engines send it to you for free.

The C-T-P-M process is also the process followed by user’s of  SiteSell.com’s popular Site Build It! software. If you’re interested in learning more about C-T-P-M, and how you can put it to work for your own online business, click here!