The Rich Jerk is one of my favorite online marketers of all time. Not because I love her products or even have tried any of them, but the way she has create a persona for herself that is magnetic and brash at the same time. The Rich Jerk is not your average marketer. You see, top marketers tell you why their products rock and why you shouldn’t leave without them. Some bombard you with testimonials and bonuses to get your attention. The Rich Jerk does that and more. For starters, he uses geocoding and advanced technologies to grab your attention. So when you log in to his landing page, you are going to see your own city show up on the page. You are also going to get so many bonuses, your head is going to spin.

These landing pages all come with benefits, features, proofs, testimonials, content break down, call to action, and extreme call to action. And the colors used on these pages are proven to be the most effective when it comes to increasing conversion rates. The Rich Jerk’s landing pages are magnetic as well. You are constantly reminded how rare this opportunity is and how it can change your life. But there is more. The Rich Jerk doesn’t mind insulting you while she is at it. Not that she really wants to insult her visitors. But it’s a cool way to grab the attention of visitors and give them something they have not experienced before.

So why is the Rich Jerk so successful? It’s very simple. She is too frank and her words bring out emotions in people. You read it, and you feel the need to get the material to get to where the Rich Jerk has gotten selling products online. As I have mentioned, I have not tested any of the Rich Jerk products. I don’t know too much about the Rich Jerk, but I can see why she is so effective with her sales copy and landing pages. Her approach is outside the box and innovative. Is it to brash for my taste? Maybe. But there is a reason she has made lots of money selling her course. This approach is not going to work for everyone, but the Rich Jerk has adopted and implemented this strategy to perfection. Who says differentiation is too hard?

Amazon is one of the most comprehensive online retailers around. That’s the understatement of the day. The company has been around for years, and it’s truly amazing to see how the company has come progressed from a small book seller to a huge global retailer. Amazon gets a lot of hits everyday. You don’t have to be  genius to realize that. But did you know you can actually put your products in front of people on a PPC basis? That’s exactly what Product Ads on Amazon allow you to do. It’s actually very simple and powerful. If you are a small business hoping to get the word around about your product, Product Ads is a must try service.

In order to take advantage of Amazon Product Ads, you need to upload your catalog to the system. Amazon then will charge you on pay per click basis, depending the type of product you are trying to promote. Here is how the fee works out:

So how does this service work? It’s pretty simple. If you have bought products from Amazon before, you have probably seen those third party sellers who you can’t buy from on Amazon.com. You have to log on to their website to make the purchase. That’s a Product Ad. The sellers only pay for clicks while they get the traffic they need to grow their business from Amazon. Here is an example:

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Have you been stuck in a company that is not really paying too much respect to its pay per click unit? Maybe your top management folks say the right things and do the right things, but if pay per click is not really a big part of your company’s strategy, it’s going to show sooner than later. I had a similar situation when I worked as a marketing expert at a company that was making money from PPC but was not paying too much attention to SEO. We did everything we could to help the company generate lead for free through Google, Yahoo!, and MSN, but when the recession hit, our budget was cut and the project was finally discontinued. The same thing has happened to a lot of pay per click professionals.

The latest U.S recession has been tough on many small and big businesses. A lot of companies have laid people off and many others have decreased their advertising budgets to stay afloat. But recession is not the time to cut your advertising budget. Think about it. If you own a product or promoting affiliate offers, if you cut your advertising budget, you are going to get less leads and make less money in the process. A lot of affiliate marketers have the option to focus on the social media or search engine optimization tactics to offset the effects of reducing their PPC budget, but a lot of companies don’t have the option. If you are a small business, you are going to need a certain level of business to break even. It may be difficult to generate enough business without proper spending in advertising.

The recession has been a big eye opener as far as big companies are concerned. When a company decides that the first unit to get laid off is its online marketing unit, you know where its priorities lie. If you have been spending time at a company, hoping to take their PPC to the next level, you probably wouldn’t expect the company to pull the rug from under you. In reality, a company that is not willing to spend money advertising online during recession is either dying a slow death or is not dedicated enough to its pay per click marketing and SEM channel. A lot of people may be upset about losing their marketing jobs, but if your company is not smart enough to keep its advertising going during these tough times, it’s probably a waste of time working for it anyway.

Pay per click marketing is not the only way to generate business online, but it’s probably the fastest way and gives you a lot of control as far as your message, keywords and landing pages are concerned. The times may be tough but if your business is not dying and has cash in hand, wouldn’t it be smart to spend it on generating new business? PPC may not be right for your company but it shouldn’t take a recession (or depression) to figure that out!

Maverick Money Makers is one of those Internet marketing products that has been around for months, and it has been at the top of the bestseller charts for just as long. I am personally no big fan of Internet marketing products. A lot of them are scams. I have spent thousands of dollars on products that repackage the same content you can read in a book but you end up paying $100 or more for them anyway. I am no big fan of membership clubs either. Most of these clubs are overrated anyway. Maverick Money Makers and Immediate Edge are the only two membership clubs that I have tried and actually didn’t hate. The content is great, and you can’t really find more value elsewhere. But more importantly, these two clubs provide you with a blueprint on how to create and market your own product online. That’s really the key when purchasing any of these products. You don’t buy the product, read the content, and just forget it. You should try to study how the folks behind these products are pushing their business online, and what you can learn about the quality of their content, how they have set up their business, and how they are using their affiliate army to push their products.

Maverick Money Makers is one of the best seller product, and it has been for months. People are pushing the product on Google, Yahoo, MSN, and other channels to generate sales. And that’s where learning can happen. You see, Maverick Money Makers is not a mainstream product. By that, I mean it’s not a computer or a laptop, so the keywords that you can bid on and the ways you can promote the product are much different than when you are pushing a blu-ray player online. When you use the word blu-ray in your ads, a lot fo people already know what you are talking about. When you write a piece about blu-ray players, there is a lot of technical stuff involved. That means your copy can be terrible but as long as you are hitting the right technical notes, you may end up selling a good amount of blu-ray players anyway. With Maverick Money Makers, you are going to have to do a bit of work to develop your proper keyword list and develop strategies on how you want to promote the product. The same can be said about Immediate Edge.

Pay per click marketing may not be right for every product but I can tell you a lot of folks have made a fortune by selling these courses online. That means you are going to have a lot of opportunities to learn and develop strategies to sell any type of product. If you can develop a killer PPC campaign for Maverick Money Makers, you can develop one for any product. These membership sites provide you with very valuable content, but if you are selling them online, you must have the right copy, the right keywords, the right campaign structure, and maybe even the right bonus product to get a good commission check. You may not be at a point in your PPC journey to know how to do all this. That won’t matter. You should always follow the latest online marketing products and how people are pushing them online to find out how to develop your own killer strategy. You can read all the PPC books on the market but nothing beats seeing things in practice, and what a better way to do that than observing PPC professionals who are making a killing selling others’ products online.

Finding a job over the Internet is fairly normal these days. There was a time when the Internet was an overrated channel as far as job hunting was concerned but not these days. With all social job hunting sites and networking sites out there, many have found it easier to find jobs online. Communities such as Linkedin, Facebook, and even Twitter are great for reaching out to people, find new contacts, and find out about those not-so-public job openings. If you are involved in these communities and play your card right, there is no reason you can’t find a job online fast. And then there’s Adwords. Believe it or not, Adwords can be a great channel to pursue to get your name out there. You’ve got to choose the right keywords and do a whole lot of research, but the opportunity is certainly there to find a job using a combination of all these tactics.

So what do I mean by playing your cards right? It’s one thing to be involved in these communities and hoping for the best. It’s another thing to have a clear strategy and implementing it step by step. It’s not enough to just have a social media strategy or just an Adwords one. You have to pay attention to both channels. Here is how:

• Landing page: your landing page is where people find out about who you are and what you do. You want to make a lasting impression here. Don’t direct traffic solely to your Linkedin profile. It may work, but it’s always better to have your own landing page so you can track your traffic and find out how you can optimize your page.
• Domain: always buy your own domains. Preferably, you want to register your own name as well as a few more specific domains with your core keywords (e.g. BestITanalyst.com).
• Content: make sure your website has all the information a recruiter would need to decide if you are right for a job. Give them an easy way to get their hands on your resume. Don’t go overboard but do share the right kind of information.
• Keywords: do focus on long-tail keywords, but make sure your visitors know what your website is about. Have a descriptive title for your own website and develop the right information structure to help your visitors find more information about you.
• Profiles: you should get your name out there as much as you can. Don’t just focus on Linkedin. There are many other communities you can be a part of. Use a service such as DandyID to manage your social media profiles. Once you have all your profiles ready to go, you can push them on your website.
• Social Networking: be involved on social networking websites. Ask and answer questions on LinkedIn. Participate in Facebook groups. Join rooms on Friendfeed. Blog on StumbleUpon. You get the point.
• Adwords: approach your job hunting process as you would promoting a product. If you have the budget to spend a lot of money on Adwords, make sure you do it the right way. Focus on more specific terms and structure your campaigns the right way.
• Analytics: don’t leave things to chance. Track your traffic and find out how they interact with your website. It’s good to know what pages your visitors are visiting the most.
• New Media: you do want to test things out on your website to see what works the best. You can create a video resume and push it on your website.

There is really no major difference between advertising yourself or a product on Adwords. The audience will be different, and the keywords may be different in nature as well. Think of yourself as a product and market yourself the right way. If you play your cards right, you are going to get a lot of traffic to your website (through SEO, PPC, and Social Media) and get surprise job offers. The job market may be tough but there are jobs out there. You just have to better market yourself and get the word out.