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ANALYSIS 1 - THE MAIN MANUAL
The main manual covers a lot of content, from SEO
(Search Engine Optimization) to driving traffic from social network sites
through to finding the right market for you...and just about everything in-between.
There is actually a very good intro to the manual,
which
gives some solid advice on getting and staying focused. I know
from personal experience just how important this is, and how often it
is overlooked. I also enjoyed the bullet point outline of
the requirements to run
a successful affiliate marketing business online. This stuff is seldom
shared.
If you're new to Internet marketing, the intro will give you a
good solid grounding before you start getting too deep into the details and
wonder why you're doing what you're doing at all.
It starts with SEO and
covers pretty much all you need to know as a beginner with "on the page SEO" (The things you need to do
to your web pages before you publish them in order to increase your
chances of being found in the search engines) before moving on to "off page SEO"
(The things you need to do on other websites to link back to your site
to increase your rankings).
This is pretty basic stuff really and best suited to
either new
marketers or the many people who really are not technically savvy.
There's
certainly more to SEO than is covered in the manual, but I do think
that it is enough info to get the basics covered before you move onto
the more
"undercover" tactics. After all, the Secret Affiliate Code 2 is not
really about
technical SEO stuff, it's more about using various resources to pull
lots of traffic to your sales page.
Then we move on to market research, were we are taught
about identifying your target market. This is something previous guides
always leave out so I am glad this has been included.
This is all about identifying who your ideal customer is, how old they
are, their income etc. Sounds a bit strange I know, but I failed to do
this properly for my first 12 months online and it cost me a packet!
It really is crucial if you want to connect with the
people that
you're trying to sell to and is essentially marketing 101. Strangely
enough, most Internet marketing guides fail to teach this so it was
great to see it included.
After you've successfully identified your target market, you are then
shown in impressive detail how to start researching what people
are drawn to in that market and how you can emulate that in order to
start getting attention (and traffic of course). This starts with
looking at existing blogs and communities to extract certain pieces of
info, which Secret Affiliate Code goes into more detail in. This was really good stuff, and very sound advice.
At this point, I could already see that Secret Affiliate
Code 2 was far more in depth than most similarly priced guides. If the material continues in such a well planned out and
detailed way, then this guide might end up with a great score.
But as you know, I am not biased in my reviews and I will continue to
find drawbacks and downsides in this product at every stage. So, let's
move on..
As part of the research stage, the main guide goes into a significant amount of detail about Twitter.com and how to use it to carry out research. There are several pages on this, at first I thought
this was a little over the top. .
Twitter is a social networking site that is getting a
lot of attention in the
Internet marketing world lately and SAC2 shows us how to best use the
power of
Twitter.com, not only to research your market, but also
to reach your potential customers. This section of the guide does
in fact do a great job
of showing you how to start building a following almost immediately,
which is good news for those of us with limited time to spare.
Then the guide moves onto other places to find and develop our target audience...
Note: At this stage, I became a
little concerned regarding the order in which we are being taught. I had
noticed that the guide is focusing on how to find an audience
before showing you how to find a profitable niche to operate
in.
There is a later chapter, which covers finding a
profitable niche so I will reserve judgment for now, but I personally
think that the niche training should have come before the customer
training.
Anyway, so we are now going to look at video sharing
sites ...Youtube etc. as a source of traffic. Once again the principles
are simple here in terms of driving traffic from video site but
if you are a
beginner or somebody who is struggling to generate traffic from those
sites, these are solid and easily actionable tips. Possibly
the best part about of the
techniques in this section is that they cost nothing for you to
do, are simple to implement and in my experience they can result
in a large amount of web traffic very
quickly.
Next we are taken through some of the top
social networking sites this is a predictable list with the usual suspects such as Facebook, Ning and other key players in
the social media world. The section covers how you can target the traffic
and the present buzz going on at these sites and how to quickly tap
into the traffic.
This section is nothing new and may be something
you have already learned from other products. But once again if you are
a beginner or
someone who has been reluctant to get involved in Web 2.0
marketing, this is
a good starting point, delivered by somebody who really understands the
power of web 2.0 and how to get the most from it.
Then we move on to other sites and
platforms that you really should consider using, such as the
bookmarking sites and forum posting. Again, this is nothing new for many
people but invaluable for beginners.
The section following backlinks deals with tracking,
which as an
experienced Internet marketer I can assure you is essential. This shows
how to
set up your tracking so that you can monitor where your traffic is
coming from, which of your efforts are paying off and which can be
dropped from your advertising campaign. Once you have this information,
you can
simply put more of your time and attention into the things that are
working for
you instead of wasting time on the dud sites that don't bring in any
results.
What I particularly liked was the explanation on how to
set up link tracking on a Word Press blog, which I have been trying to do
for a long time without any luck, for me this nugget of information was worth the purchase price alone.
There's also quite a lot of mention of other sites you
can use to improve your conversions, page layouts and overall response
from your visitors. I do think it is a good idea to have something like
this in the guide, as most people don't bother. I have found that it's
one thing
getting traffic but another thing keeping it on your site or having
people perform the action you desire of them. So well done Craig for going the
extra mile.
Step by step action plan
This is the Niche research section, you're taken
right from step one on how to find a profitable niche and roll it
out to make the good profits. As I said earlier, I still
think this section is totally misplaced. What is it doing half way
through the manual? Shouldn't it be one of the first things you do when
starting out?
Either way, I found this niche research section
to be as good as it gets for affiliate marketing beginner. Yes, I have
seen more detailed explanations but they are sold as products in there
own right, so I would have to say it's good enough for the average
part
time marketer who needs to make some quick cash online.
The manuals approach to researching a product to promote is
methodical, but a little basic. However, from experience I can tell you
that if you follow the research steps outlined in this quick start
guide, you will
find a winner, as you get more experienced you will learn more about
product research, and quite possibly do things a little differently,
but as long as your finding the winners I guess it doesn't matter too
much about the route you take.
So, now you have a hungry market, a product
and traffic to send to your site, you just need a website to pull
it all together..
Once again, if you follow the guide the way it's laid
out then this section is going to seem misplaced. In fact I'm starting to
get the feeling that this quick start section should be read completely
separate from the main guide. Keep that in mind.
So in this, the final part of your guide you're shown
how to set up a blog
(Craig explains why it's a good idea to use a Wordpress blog for your
site, and I totally agree) and you get a list of all the plug-ins you
need to use on your blog
to get the maximum exposure from it. I know that sounds like the dreaded
tech stuff, but let me tell you I was doing this within an hour of
reading my first guide, that is one of the reasons I would recommend
Word Press, its just so easy to use.
Ultimately, it's pretty simple even for a
technophobe and there's always a forum or two where you can go for a
quick bit of help if you do run into any problems, so don't let this put you off.
Moving on to the secondary method
called "Covert Affiliate Method Part 2". This is a slightly different
approach to affiliate marketing, which is quite sneaky and intuitive
compared to the more traditional approaches we have just learned about.
This method is about getting inside a
merchant's (product creator and seller) inner circle and getting the drop on what's happening or
about to happen before the rest of the competition knows about it, it
focuses in particular on when a new product launch is going to happen, but the possibilities are far greater than that.
The main benefit of doing this is that armed with
this information you can dominate that particular product launch
and make a huge stack of cash
in a very short amount of time, operating as an affiliate. This section
is a little short in my opinion, but defiantly a great idea generator
and is one of the recognized ways to stay ahead of the herd.
Finally, there is a small section included on
copywriting, which I
am sorry to say I thought was lacking quite a lot. If you're
serious about making money online, you will need to be able to
either find a business
partner who can write good sales copy or you'll need to learn to do it
yourself.
You might be thinking why would you need to be able to
write sales copy if you're selling other people's products?
Well, the truth is that in order to sell products as an affiliate
you're going to have to presell people on the product you are an affiliate for. This
means, whatever content you create for your website should be gently
preselling the visitor into buying the product from your link.
You don't need to be a world class copywriter or to hire
one, and you certainly don't need to be the pushy sales person, in fact
I would discourage that. But I do
strongly recommend learning how to write basic presell content as this will
make you more money per visitor as a result.
That's why I think this brief mention of copywriting in
Secret Affiliate Code 2 should have been expanded upon, as there's not much good solid advice for
beginners.
Clearly, this guide is aimed for relatively new
starters in the affiliate marketing world, or online marketing in
general, so I don't understand after doing such a great job in the
earlier sections why this one has been so rushed. Anyway I explain the
answer to this problem later.
There is a lot of very good advice layed out here, which
covers all the essential starting points to get you making money as an
affiliate in the shortest amount of time possible.
I do think that the sales page is over hyped for what
you get, but that doesn't mean that the product is overpriced. I just
think that sales page hype has gotten a little out of hand in general.
Some of the information you'll receive is not so well
known and very useful when getting started, but I would say that there is also
a lot of information contained in the guide that you can probably hunt down and find for free online,
in forums and articles etc.
However, trying to piece together all of
the required information from forums and articles is very time
consuming and a real nightmare of a task...and even if you manage to do
it you're still not going to be sure if the information is actually
sound advice or not.
Craig Beckta is clearly an affiliate marketer who knows
his stuff, I have bought his products in the past and lisened to
several interviews he has done, and I can also speak from experience
when I say that the techniques you'll
learn in this guide are good grounding for your affiliate marketing
future.
ANALYSIS 2 - THE CRACKED CODE 2 MANUAL
This is just a quick reference manual to
accompany the other material in Secret Affiliate Code 2. It is
a short pdf that contains diagrams and some text to help you get a
better
overall picture of the system used to generate traffic to
your websites.
This was also present in the first Secret Affiliate Code product,
and is once again a very welcome addition to the main material as the process of
getting traffic can be confusing at first to say the least.
The Cracked Code is a document that you can print off
and put up
on the wall or somewhere on your desk to keep you
focused if you are starting to feel a little lost. I used my copy
several times with the first SCA, but once you have followed the system
a couple of times, it really becomes second nature.
The Cracked Code also condenses all
the steps required in the manual to drive traffic to your site. Whilst these steps
are not the only way to drive traffic, they are certainly a valid and
well proven method in the online marketing world. But be warned, they will take some
effort on your part, the results however will be well worth your efforts.
I like this step by step simplicity of the Cracked Code
but you should remember it is only to be used as supporting material
and should not be used to skip the main materials.
ANALYSIS 3 - SEARCH ENGINE DOMINATION MANUAL
This is another of the smaller complimentary guides to
the main core manual, again it is rather to the point. This short
guide should be used in a similar way to the "Cracked Code" manual
and can be used as a quick
printable reference, in this case getting
found in the search engines.
Getting the search engines to find you online is tough when you don't have a big
budget and/or big partners.
Therefore, this is a useful part of the course and well worth including. However, in my opinion it is a little basic.
I'm a big fan of the simple step by step list
of things to do and although all of the steps are very
straightforward, they are described very briefly and I do feel that
there is room here and there for beginners to get potentially
stuck on the smaller details.
Don't let this worry you, support is offered from Craig
Beckta (the product owner) so there's no reason to panic if you do get
a little stuck.
ANALYSIS 4 - INTRODUCTION TO INTERNET MARKETING
I think the title of
this additional pdf should be "Introduction to Affiliate Marketing
Networks". This is a quick explanation of affiliate marketing and a
list of the most popular affiliate networks where you can sign up
for to
start promoting people's products.
I don't really see the reason for this being included as
a separate manual,and not simply a chapter in the core manual. I can
only assume this particular "additional guide" was added to boost the
perceived value of the overall product.
The reason I say that is because after reading the sales
page and the other material contained in this product, you
would already know what affiliate marketing is, so it really is a
pointless pdf.
I wasn't too impressed on this part.
ANALYSIS 5 - DAILY PLANNER FOR INTERNET MARKETERS
On the other hand this is a part of the Secret Affiliate Code 2 that I can
see adding a lot of value to the purchase for almost anyone who decides to run with the
techniques taught in the guide.
The manual addresses one of the most common problems I
have found in
self employment and affiliate marketing in particular. That problem
being
time management and keeping your focus. If we don't know how to best
use our time
and what to focus on and when, the tasks ahead can soon become a giant
blur, which is then very difficult to follow effectively.
I have personally held the opinion that this is why so
many people give up
too soon on Internet marketing for quite some time. Therefore, I
welcome this particular addition with open arms, because it is
literally a step by step, day by day plan that
outlines everything taught in the main manual you can literally
follow along daily.
This is something I haven't see offered in many other guides and
courses and believe it is really important for people know.
This is literally a weekly planner from Monday to Sunday
for you to keep track and make sure you're doing everything you need to.
ANALYSIS 6 - MONEY MINDSET
Again I felt that this is something that
could easily
have been included in the main manual, but after second thoughts,
I now believe that by doing so would clutter up the main guide so
I can
see an argument for why
this has been created separately.
I found this to be a pretty interesting read, which works well as an addition to the main course. This is by no means a
practical guide to making money online but is a great inspirational
piece of material and should be used to get yourself in the right mindset for getting results.
Whilst some may see this as a little 'hokey', I can tell
you from experience that this stuff is just as important as any
of the actual step by step material, and is often sold separately for
big bucks. That's because your daily actions will be affected by your
mindset and with the wrong
mindset you will suffer because of it. If your mindset is not
correct about success and making
money, then that will sure as anything translate to a poor performance
in your work.
I am not saying that it's impossible to be successful with
this guide, without reading this part of the material, but I can tell
you that for the 10 minutes it will take you to read it, it is
worth it!
ANALYSIS 7 - WILLIE CRAWFORD ON TWITTER
This is a lengthy audio interview with
Internet marketing guru Willie Crawford. Willie is a very well
established expert in the Internet marketing world and certainly knows
what he is talking about.
This particular interview focuses solely on Twitter and why (and how) to use it effectively for Internet marketing purposes.
This is interesting material and goes into great detail on
how to drive traffic without coming across like a spammer, right
through to attracting "followers" (a term used for people
who regularly read Twitter posts).
There's so much more to Twitter than I ever realized
before listening to this interview with Willie, which I am personally
grateful, and will be implementing the things I have learned. Things such as branding on Twitter, using groups, using
titles effectively, building out the profile in a way that markets your
business properly and much much more.
It seems that this whole Twitter thing is going to
be really big and many big name Internet marketers also say the same. For that
reason alone, it's is a good idea to learn as much as you can from a
marketing point of view when it comes to Twitter...and I cant think of many better
people to learn from than Mr Willie Crawford.
ANALYSIS 8 - ALEX GOAD'S 30 MINUTE METHOD
I have been aware of Alex Goad for quite some time, I
was in fact one of the founder members of Alex's Players With Money
club. Alex is known for his underground tactics and not being afraid to
speak his mind. He is also known for being one of the most inventive and
original marketers operating today.
Because of this I listened to his audio and with great anticipation about half way through a
major "aha" moment, he had done it again!. This interview discusses methods that very few people talk about. This
is a method that bypasses all the slow, and sometimes painful methods of
generating traffic either as an affiliate or with your own product.
Without giving too much away, what Alex talks about is
a way to leverage already existing authority figures such as the Internet marketing Guru's and become
associated with their business dealings in a way that makes YOU look like
the new up and coming authority in the market, oh, and as a by product of this you also get tons of free
traffic and a loyal following of subscribers, not bad Mr Goad, not bad at all.
If you're struggling to make those sales, get targeted
traffic and
ultimately become the super affiliate that you want to be,
this method is undoubtedly the most surefire, effective
and slightly "underground" way to do it. This is basically something
that most marketers are simply afraid to do or just don't think about.
I don't want to appear secretive, but I will say
that this is simply rubbing up against the right people in your
industry who have
everything you want and taking a small amount of what they have, whilst
giving them something in return. It's pure gold and possibly
more valuable than everything else put together in this entire course,
I can assure you of that!
Yes, this method requires a little guts
and some confidence, but is not beyond the reach of the
"little guy". Simply because it is all based on psychology and
basic human
nature. Great additional bonus that in my opinion is understated in the
sales page.
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