Rolodex

E-Commerce Confidential™ Resources

To succeed online, you need access to the right tools information. Finding out what works and what doesn’t can be a very expensive proposition. I know because I’ve spent thousands of dollars and countless hours checking out various products and services. Some great, some not so great.

I’d like to share the winners with you and help you avoid the losers. What follows is a list of my favorite resources. I’ve used almost every resource on this page at one time or another in my business.

Wherever possible, I’ve added my personal mini-review rather than give you the usual plain vanilla description. If you’d like to recommend a product, service or other site for this section, please email me via the ‘Contact Info‘ section.

Simply click on any of the category items below to be taken to a list of resources. Or, if you prefer, simply scroll down the page.

Clickalyzer – This stats service is built for marketers. You get stats that are useful rather than a list of meaningless IP addresses, etc. Originally marketed under the name Nitrostats, Clickalyzer, the company owning the technology parted ways with Nitro Marketing late last year. Things have improved tremendously since my initial review last year.

This is the only service I know of that will monitor not only your websites but your affiliate links, too. Also, you can see how far down a page the visitor scrolls in addition to the usual time spent stats. While I’ve found the scrolling feature is not accurate 100% the time, this kind of info can help you spot problem areas in your sales copy and nobody else offers it. A single account will take care of all your websites and three price levels are available.

Netbreakthroughs – This is a membership site created by Terry Dean and now run by Kirt Christensen. I visit a lot of forums but this is always first on my list. Rather than just recommending ad techniques, here you’ll find actual results of ads Kirt and other members have tested on various ezines, etc. The Friday afternoon chats are worth the price of admission alone. This is the site you’ll see the some top marketers hanging out on providing excellent advice.

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AssociatePrograms.com – This site from Allan Gardyne is an excellent resource for affiliate programs, tips, articles as well as a directory of programs you can join.

Secrets of Top Affiliate Marketers Exposed – Lisa Frenzel interviews several ‘Super Affiliates’ like Allan Gardyne, Brian Garvin, Frank Garon and Shane Pearce to find out how they generate big monthly incomes through affiliate programs. Some good bonuses with this one, too.

Super Affiliate Strategies – Jimmy D. Brown’s latest on how to significantly increase your affiliate commissions for any program. You learn how to go beyond using the often weak and overused materials most affiliate programs give you to work with. This one comes with resale rights, too.

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AssocTRAC – One of the best programs available but it’s pricey at $677 initially plus $47 per month. If you’re just starting out, I’d start with one of the less expensive options like Ultimate Affiliate.

Ultimate Affiliate – This is a software that’s installed on your website so there’s no monthly fee involved. It’s totally reliable and is used on hundreds of websites.

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1 Shopping Cart – I use this service for all my websites. You get order processing, ad tracking, autoresponders, list management, affiliate software and more in one single package. There are no installation or setup fees. It will work with Paypal or any other number of credit card processors. The customer service is excellent.

Quick Pay Pro – Similar to 1 shopping cart but a little less expensive. At one point, QPP had the edge over 1 Shopping Cart but they’ve fallen behind in adding new features and they’ve had lots of outage problems in the past year. Their customer service is extremely slow.

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Autoresponse Plus – Excellent autoresponder package that’s installed on your website so there are no monthly fees. Loads of features and excellent customer service. The one downside is that if you’ve got a list of over 30,000 names it’s very slow sending out messages. For lists over 30,000, I’d recommend AWeber.

Marketer’s Choice – This shopping cart service offers an Autoresponder only account.

AWeber – Recently upgraded from single to unlimited autoresponders for $19.95 per month. Lots of personalization features and excellent customer service. AWeber is also the best service for handling mailing lists of 30,000 or more.

Get Response – Upgraded recently from single to unlimited autoresponders for $17.95 per month + a free version (the free service ads an ad to the bottom of every email message). Lots of bells and whistles but not as much beginner training info as AWeber provides. The free service might be OK for non-profit and hobby sites, the ads that are added to each outgoing message will make a for-profit website look amateurish.

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BlogSearchEngine.com – Search Engine and Directory of Blogs.

Clickbank Marketplace – While the Clickbank Marketplace carries over 10,000 downloadable products, suprisingly, they don’t offer anyway to search for a specific topic. Thanks to a clever programmer, I now have a search page that allows you to search on specific keywords in Clickbank.

Clickbank – For digital products only, no tangible products that have to be shipped. Although their rates are higher than most payment processors, Clickbank does a lot of the work for you and it’s very easy to get started. A plus is that their service has a built-in affiliate program and they handle tracking and paying the affiliates for you. They also handle refund processing.

Paysystems – This is the service I use for most of my CC processing. The rates are a little higher than a traditional merchant account but there are no monthly fees, a $49 setup fee, clear & concise monthly statements and it only takes 24-48 hours to get started.

2Checkout – Very similar to Paysystems. Quick & easy setup, no long term contracts and reasonable percentages. I’ve not used this service but I know several marketers that do and they’re happy with 2Checkout.

Total Merchant Services – Traditional merchant account. Recommended for sites selling high-ticket items or doing at least $2,000 or more in monthly sales volume. Lower rates than the other services listed here but a higher setup fee, lengthy application process, monthly statement & gateway fees as well as monthly minimum sales volume (bottom line: you’ll pay around $45 a month in monthly fees if you’re doing low sales volume). Also, if you have multiple websites, you’ll have to get a separate account for each one.

Ibill – Payment processor that I recommend specifically for paid membership sites. At 15%, they’re expensive for any other purpose but nobody does recurring billing better and they also handle affiliate management as part of their service. Ibill is the Clickbank for membership site owners.

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Million Dollar Web Copywriting by Terry Dean – Excellent course that shows you everything you need to know about copywriting. Unlike some of the more traditional books, Terry also covers specifics on what works online. The package comes on audio tapes and a transcript so you can read it as well. Lots of bonuses included, too.

Michael Fortin (The Success Doctor)– One of the top copywriters around, Fortin will write your sales letter or critique an existing sales letter. His site has several free articles and I highly recommend his Profit Pill ezine.

The Ultimate Sales Letter by Dan Kennedy – This is the book I started out with and it includes an excellent system for writing sales letters. Includes numerous examples including several of Kennedy’s own excellent work. A bargain at under $10.

Scientific Advertising by Claude Hopkins – Probably the best book ever written on marketing and advertising. This one is on every top marketer and copywriter’s list of must-read info.

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Gigtime – The best registrar around, Gigtime sells domain names for $8.97 per year or less. Their control panel is very easy to work with and helps me keep track of all my domain names.

Insider Secrets of an eBay Millionaire – Excellent and very
comprehensive course from The Internet Marketing Center.

Ebook Generator – Excellent product from Armand Morin with more features than any ebook compiler I’ve seen. Great customer service as well.

Ebook Pro – By far the most secure of the ebook compilers out there but you pay a price for that extra security. Unlike the other compilers listed here, Ebook Pro requires the user to use a free ebook reader to open your ebook. The installation process is complicated enough that you’ll end up answering a lot of emails from customers having problems with the install. Also, distributing the unique usernames and passwords is difficult with most automated systems.

Ebook Creator Toolkit – Basic compiler from Jimmy D.Brown without a lot of bells & whistles. Simple to use and priced for the budget conscious.

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Mailloop – Corey Rudl recommends this one to all website owners but it’s pricey and offers less features that most site owners need. No monthly fees but you will have to keep your computer on and connected to the web at all times. If you have a large list, are fairly computer savvy, Mailloop might work for you. If not, I’d look elsewhere. While tech support used to be excellent, it now can take a week or more to get a response.

Postmaster Direct – Unlike Mailloop, this stand-alone software gives you unlimited autoresponders. It’s available at a few different price points depending on your needs. Good customer service and training materials. I haven’t used Postmaster but both Terry Dean and Frank Garon give it thumbs-up recommendations.

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Secrets to their Success – If you have doubts about succeeding online, visit this site and sign up for a free 1 month trial.

You’ll discover people actually succeeding online, making a full time living. Sometimes they’re big fish that got in early in the right niche but even those are usually one or two person businesses not some giant dot COM.
These are the types of interviews you rarely see in business magazines. Membership includes access to the archives.

ABlake Forum – Anthony Blake’s free internet marketing forum where you can go to get
questions answered, site critique’s and more.

How To Internet Marketing Forum – Michael Green’s free Internet marketing forum.

Auction Hints – Jim Wilson’s excellent discussion area for eBay and other auction site issues.

Bill Myers Online –
Bill Myer’s membership site on product creation.

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Elance – You can find freelance writers, web designers, programmers, virtual assistants and much more on Elance. The downside, if any, is the service providers have raised their prices quite a bit as Elance has grown.

Scriptlance – Similar to Elance and my first choice among the three services listed here. I recently found a programmer here that installed three scripts and customized two of them extensively for one of my websites. My cost? Only $30.00, an incredible deal.

Rent-a-Coder – Similar to Scriptlance and you can pay for your projects using Paypal. Lots of providers and similar deals to Scriptlance.

WebDesigners123 – A directory website with links to web designers, hosting, programmers and SEO help. I haven’t used any of the services on this
site but it’s a directory edited by humans, not a link farm so it’s worth a look.

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Host4Profit – Highly recommend, my primary host. Lots of features + includes membership to the Warrior forum, one of the best Internet marketing forums around. Single account is $24.95 per mo. Additional accounts $5 per domain. While there are cheaper hosts around, none match H4P’s customer service. No phone support but email response is fast and the techs are sharp, no newbies answering the phones reading solutions out of a manual. They also pay $10 per mo. for referrals.

2M Host – Great for mini-sites designed to move visitors through an affiliate link. At $1.50 a month, they’re hard to beat. Slow customer service and limited features but that’s not usually important for landing page type sites. Wouldn’t recommend for your more important sites.

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Insider Secrets – Corey Rudl’s course is probably the best selling Internet course of all time. Very comprehensive, lots of examples, sample letters and so forth. The search engine section is a bit dated but this is a vary solid (and at $197 expensive) course. It arrives in two huge binders although had they not gone with single sided printing, it could have fit in one.

The Amazing Formula – Marlon Sander’s classic marketing course is excellent. It’s in a PDF format so there’s no shipping cost and you can opt to print it out or read it on screen. Marlon always throws in lots of bonuses, too.

Instant Income Streams – This course from Terry Dean & Frank Garon arrives on audiotapes (a written transcript is included) and several bonuses are included including a free consultation with Garon. This is primarily a course for beginners although I picked up some good tips and I’ve been online for a while.

Big Seminar Home Study Edition – Attending this seminar was the catalyst that initially took me from earning a few hundred dollars a month to making a full-time income online. You get a solid 90-minutes from 12 marketing experts like Alex Mandossian, Jimmy D. Brown, Armand Morin. Available on CD or cassettes.

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How to Get Millions of Free Visitors to Your Web Site Using Joint Ventures – Terry Dean’s joint venture course comes on cassette but includes a written transcript, email templates you can use to model your joint venture proposals as well as several other useful bonuses. Terry built his business doing joint ventures so he knows what he’s talking about.

Chip Tarver’s First Contact Secrets – Most joint venture ebooks and programs suggest a one-size-fits-all approach. This often fails because no two people are alike. If you’re marketing to webmasters or anyone in the ‘make money on the Internet niche’ and wish to do joint ventures, this is the best course on the market. Chip Tarver interviewed 43 of the top marketers on the planet asking them essentially ‘How to you prefer to be approached to do a joint venture’. You know what approach to take because each marketer tells you their preferences as well as revealing what’s worked for them.

Coming Soon –

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AuthPro – Website password protection, membership management to control access to your membership site. Handles lost passwords, registration and more. Can be used with Paypal or a processing service like Ibill.com.

Boardhost – Free customizable message board software. No popups or banners added to your membership site. Coupled with Authpro, you can setup a membership site quickly and inexpensively.

Membership Client Pro – Complete automation of membership sites that will work with Paypal, 2Checkout and Authorize.net. Excellent service. The one downside is it does not have a built-in affiliate program although it will work with 3rd party software like Ultimate Affiliate.

Paid Member Sites – Excellent course from Terry Dean, Kirt Christensen and Ted Ciuba. While I’m not a big fan of Ted Ciuba, Terry Dean and Kirt Christensen really know the ins & outs on running a paid membership site. Both have membership sites generating over five figures PER MONTH! It’s all here in this package which also incudes complet business plans for 3 different membership site models and a 30 day quick start guide.

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How to Get Rich in Network Marketing in the Internet Age – Terry Dean & Frank Garon team up on this 6 Tape Set. I’ve always been skeptical of network marketing but this set has made me think twice about it. Frank Garon has a completely different approach than what I’m used to seeing from network marketers. Hint: You don’t have to bug family and friends and have a garage full of useless products. Lots of good tools included with this one, too.

Good Keywords – Free software to show you how often particular keywords or keyword phrases are being searched on in several search engines.

Wordtracker – Paid service that shows you search popularity for keywords and phrases to help improve your pay-per-click campaigns. The reports generated are far more detailed than what Good Keywords produces. They also offer a free service that emails you the top searched for words each week.

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21 Ways to Maximize Your Profits on Google AdWords – Andrew Goodman’s ebook is THE resource for putting together a Google AdWords campaign.

Ad Word Analyzer – Software to help you find keywords and phrases that other marketers have overlooked. Type in a keyword like ‘baseball’ and you’ll get a long list of phrases that include baseball and for each, you’ll see how many bidders there are in Google and Overture. It’s a great way to spot phrases that you can pick up for the minimum 5 or 10 cent bid. If you’re on a tight budget, I’d suggest using the free Good Keywords software first.

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Google Adwords “Legal” Popup – Free script creates a DHTML pop that is legal with Google AdWords because it does not open a new browser window like most popups.

Pop-Up Generator – Armand Morin’s software makes creating pop-ups, opt-in boxes and the like easy. Includes resale rights.

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Profits Vault Monthly – Jimmy D. Brown gives you a new product to sell every month. Although you will get an
occasional mediocre product, most are first rate and a single sale will recoup your investment. Each product includes a complete web page that you only have to add order links to. Brown also pays you $20 per month for referrals.

Revenge of the Mininet – Michael Campbell’s course has excellent tactics for increasing your search engine rankings by linking within your own websites rather than depending on links from outside sources. Campbell also includes some excellent affiliate marketing strategies.

The Unfair Advantage Book on Winning the Search Engine Wars – Unlike most ebooks, Stephen Mahaney’s book is updated every month. It also includes six months of the paid newsletter and archives for what’s considered the best SEO resource available.

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Search Engine Goldmine – Dave Kelly’s membership site is a great resource for SEO tactics. Since the search engines are constantly changing, this site keeps you informed about what’s working right now.

Copernic – Very powerful search tool that checks multiple search engines simultaneously and allows you to save the results. The free version is excellent and fully functional.

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Ask Database –
Run a survey where you ask visitors or subscribers what they want using this service. Can be used to identify niches, ebook topics, find new
product ideas, etc. This is great for people with no technical or HTML skills.

Rent-A-Bridge – Conference call services are valuable not only for teleseminars but are
a great way to record interviews on the fly for creating audio products. I’ve evaluated dozens of conference call services and not one can touch Shannon Seek’s “Rent-A-Bridge” for customer service and pricing.

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AceHTML 5 Pro – My primary HTML editor, this is a straightforward HTML editor, not a simple program like MS Front Page or Dream Weaver. A fully functional trial version is available and the program is relatively inexpensive.

Dreamweaver MX – One of the more sophisticated HTML programs around, this is the program of choice for most professional web designers. They offer a free 30 day trial version that’s fully functional.

Table Genie– Creates rounded-corner style mini-site templates inexpensively.

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Mini Site
Creator Course – Excellent, step-by-step multi-media course from
Jim Edwards for beginner or experienced marketers & webmasters.