The Alpha Method

By: George Brown Page 1

The Alpha Method By George Brown

AKA -The 19 year old internet multi millionaire.

This (awesome) report‟s FREE! And therefore if you

like it, likewise feel FREE to pass it around – just

don‟t sell it please, that‟s not allowed

The Alpha Method

By: George Brown Page 2

Contents

Introduction ......................................................................... 3

Step 1 – The Sales Process ............................................. 5

Step 2 – The Alpha Review ............................................. 7

Step 3 – Alpha “How To” ............................................... 21

Step 4 – Research - The Alpha Way .......................... 28

Step 5 – Setting Up Your Alpha Site .......................... 36

Step 6 - Cloak Your Links!............................................. 45

Conclusion .......................................................................... 50

Copyright 2011 – George Brown.

By reading this document, you assume all risks

associated with using the advice given below, with

a full understanding that you, solely, are

responsible for anything that may occur as a result

of putting this information into action in any way,

and regardless of your interpretation of the advice

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By: George Brown Page 3

Introduction

Affiliate marketing. The concept is so simple, right?

Promote someone else‟s product, take a cut of the

purchase price while letting the product owner

handle fulfillment, refunds, support, etc.

In reality, it can be very frustrating to actually

accomplish affiliate marketing the way that you

were told to do it. You know, the traditional way

where you promote a product from a related

content kind of site or blog. The site itself is not

usually the hardest part – the hard part is getting

the enormous amount of traffic, coupled with the

right pre-sell in order to see the results you need.

Oh…and this all depends on whether or not you

have selected a product that actually converts well

in the first place!

Now, don‟t misunderstand – it is possible AND

lucrative to set up affiliate sites like this

(obviously). But it takes BOTH time and effort to

get the traffic and volume that is needed to be a

successful affiliate marketer. Even with the

Google Sniper method for instance.

Let‟s take the affiliate model down a notch and

make things a little simpler, shall we?

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Here in this report, we will discuss a method that

has withstood the test of time. This basic idea and

outline is not my own (I actually came across it on

a forum a couple of years ago) – And I‟ve

combined with some of the best methods I have

personally found online to date.

I‟m calling it „The Alpha Method‟ because it has

been used by some of the Big Dogs in Internet

marketing as well as taught by them as a way for

new marketers to get started!

With this method, you will learn a system that is

not only simple, it is leveraged too! Leveraged, in

that you will be taking advantage of the merchant‟s

own promotional and marketing efforts in order to

channel the buyer onto your links and see results

on your own affiliate site. This is a very effective

way to get started.

You will learn how to select an appealing, HOT-

selling product, how to structure your site, what

kind of reviews to create and how to add those

affiliate pages to your own site.

Are you ready?

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Step 1 – The Sales Process

We have to explain what happens in a normal sales

process in order to point out the place where you

want to be in that chain of events.

When customers are online, they are usually either

looking for a solution to a problem they are having

or they happen to notice an offer while they are

socializing or „hanging out‟ online in some other

way.

So – a customer is made aware of an online

product in one of two ways:

1) They are using a Search Engine like Google,

Yahoo, Ebay or even Amazon to look for

something OR

2) They are looking at something else and see

an Offer in the form of a PPC ad, banner ad

or newsletter etc.

At this point, they either make an impulse

purchase, decide not to buy at all or they decide to

research the product further before making

the buying decision.

This is where you want them to find YOUR site.

These are, effectively, soon-to-be buyers and are

on the verge of making that purchase. They will

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either get the first product they see, or they will do

some research and find something better.

In this research phase, what is it they are looking

for? They are looking for a combination of Proof

and Justification. We all want our money to be

spent in a worthwhile way and we all want to feel

justified in spending that money. Have you ever

spent time researching a product that you really

didn‟t want? Of course not! Customers research

products that they are already interested in. Think

about it.

Customers make the effort to look up “Best iPod

review” or “Best MP3 player for the money” etc.

(you get the idea) in search of real user opinions.

They are looking for complaints, problems, issues

and anything that will help them to feel good about

buying (or not) the product in question.

This is where you want be. You want to be able to

meet them in their research phase so that you

can divert their search over to your affiliate

site, where you will have the answers they are

looking for.

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The remaining steps are not necessarily in linear

order. Please read through the remainder of the

report before you begin to take action.

Step 2 – The Alpha Review

Of course, reviewing products is not a new

concept. However, you may have also noticed that

a lot of current „review‟ sites are not really review

sites, but instead are sales sites that don‟t really

offer much in the way of information.

This is where you will be doing it a bit different.

The aim here is not to sell the product – remember

that we are trying to come into the buying

decision already in progress and supply them with

the Proof and Justification that they are looking for.

Here is what you do: Create a simple „fact sheet‟

for the product and place these on the product

information page that is on your site. This page

will get organic search engine traffic for the

product‟s keywords that you have selected.

The „fact sheet‟ will need to contain at least the

following information:

1. Product name

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2. Product developer, creator or author

3. Official domain name

4. Company (or brand) name

5. For software etc. – the version history

6. Cost

7. Refund policy

For this portion of the review, you want the

language to be real and natural. You do not want

to „keyword stuff‟. Give as many real details as

possible as that will help the people searching (as

well as the search engines!). This is covered by

basic on-page SEO principles.

You also want to provide real, actual user

testimonials by doing your own research on the

product. Select several of the glowing and positive

comments that you find and then place “snippets”

of them into the review.

For example – let‟s say that you are promoting a

weight loss program. Here is what a “snippet” of a

user comment would look like:

“…boy, was I sore! But it was the most fun I‟d had

in awhile! I hardly knew I was exercising…”

--Real/Actual user comment from Example.com

OR

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“…my biggest problem has always been motivation

and being able to get myself going. Well, those

days are long gone…”

--Real user comment from AnotherExample.com

Forum

And on and on with these kinds of pieces of real

quotes…

It‟s a good idea to keep them as short as possible

so that you don‟t run into copyright issues. By the

way, I‟m not your mother or your lawyer, so please

do your own due diligence regarding that! If you

don‟t feel good about quoting like that, then please

paraphrase the comment and include it in your own

review. You can do this by saying something like,

“One user from ExampleForum.com said that they

were laughing and having so much fun, they didn‟t

even realize they were exercising! The pounds

came off before they even knew it! Now they are

dragging all their friends to the class.”

The main idea is to report the information, rather

than say you, yourself are the reviewer. You

should only say you have reviewed the product

when you actually have! Remember that you

aren‟t selling the product, so you want to keep the

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mood soft. No need for monster buttons and

headlines here!

You are providing a service by assembling the facts

and helping that customer to go to the search

engines, find your product-related keywords and

make that buying decision!

Of course, read the sales page and information

about the product carefully. Be sure you

understand what it is and/or what it does that is

beneficial and makes it an attractive buy. Then,

write the review as if you were telling your friend

about a product or solution you had found.

Successful reviews sound more like a discussion of

the strengths and weaknesses of a product, while

focusing on the product and the reader – not the

writer!

Be sure to leave out verbiage like “buy now” and

other hype in your reviews. Also, no text links or

pop up ads for other products. You want to keep it

as clean and simple as possible.

You don‟t need to do anything magical here – just

go to the sales page, take note of the benefits of

the product, then focus on those while being

sympathetic to the customers who are interested.

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Keep in mind that the sales letter for the product

already speaks to the target market, so your

review should follow the same basic format. Why

re-invent the wheel, right? Keep the tone light and

conversational and you‟ll do great!

Where can you find products to promote?

There are several really great places to look:

Clickbank

PayDotCom

Commission Junction

Amazon

Google Affiliate Network

Etc.

In each of these affiliate networks, you will need to

take a little bit of time to look around, browse

through their Help section and get a feel for how to

find products and how to promote them. For

example purposes, I‟m going to show you how you

might select a product from Clickbank.

You will first need to sign up for an Affiliate Account

with them. Go to: www.clickbank.com

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When you get to this screen, click on the “Learn

More” button under „Affiliates‟.

Read through their information about Clickbank

works on the next page, then click on the large

“Sign Up” button in the upper right and corner of

the screen.

On the next page, you will need to fill in the

appropriate information about yourself. At the end

of the form, you will see a box asking for your

Account Nickname. This is your affiliate ID and will

be visible at the end of your affiliate link as well as

at the bottom of the Clickbank sale page for

whatever products you promote – this is how you

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will know that you are being credited properly for

each sale.

I‟ll show you later how to test your links for this.

For now – understand that you want to create a

nickname (ID) that you don‟t mind people seeing.

Do not choose anything offensive! You can make it

initials or numbers etc. Just keep it professional.

Follow the prompts from Clickbank to finish signing

up for your account.

Once you have your login information, you can

start looking for products you would like to

promote.

Login to your new Clickbank account here:

https://www.clickbank.com/login.htm

Enter in your account nickname and password that

you created. You will be taken to your main

Account Home. Click on the “Marketplace” link in

the top menu bar.

You can then look through the Categories menu on

the left hand side of the screen – or search for a

product or topic from the search bar at the top:

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For this example, I selected the

“Business/Investing” category. On the following

results page, the products are sorted from most

popular to least popular. Take your time learning

how to read all the little icons etc. that are with

each listing and what they mean. The main ones

you are going to look at are the average $/sale and

the gravity. The $/sale is a personal decision. For

the gravity – you want a high number rather than a

low one.

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Now, read the description and click on the product

title so that you can take a look at the sales page.

The criteria here is easy – if reading the sales page

makes you reach for your wallet, then you found

your product to promote! If you aren‟t compelled to

buy the product for yourself, keep looking.

If you have found one that you‟d like to promote,

then you can start looking for your review

information as mentioned previously.

Your affiliate link is available to you by clicking on

the green “Promote” button next to each listing.

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When you click on it, a pop up window asks for

your account nickname.

Enter your nickname and click on the “Create”

button. The pop-up window will then display both

your raw, encrypted affiliate link as well as your

HTML “Click Here” link, like this:

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Either of these links is good to use, depending on

what you are doing.

To test that you link goes to your affiliate ID,

simply click on the “buy now” or “add to cart” sales

buttons. When you get to the Clickbank order page

like the one below, you will see your affiliate ID at

the bottom of the page:

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This example says [affiliate=none] because I

clicked the product link from the category page

listing, instead of the affiliate link itself. If you

have done everything correctly, instead of “none” it

will have your affiliate ID/nickname there instead.

The other affiliate networks work similarly to what

it described here. You will have to become familiar

with how to search their product base and how to

get your affiliate link…but other than that, there is

not too much to it!

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So, why is this one of the easiest methods to use

when you are not putting in all that much effort?

There are several reasons.

1. Instead of working hard to point customers

at the merchant‟s site from the get-go, you

are actually meeting their customers in the

middle. AFTER they have been exposed to

the offer in the first place and BEFORE they

have made the final decision to buy.

When a product generates a lot of chatter, it

also generates a lot of research traffic that

you will be getting in front of. They

promote like crazy, and you benefit!

2. The content you are creating is effective –

plus you now have a system where you can

quickly and easily put up review pages. You

aren‟t spending your time frustrated with

that learning curve we talked about at the

beginning. You are creating one „fact sheet‟

after the other with this systematic

approach. When you get the hang of it –

you will see that it takes hardly any time to

put up a 50 page site, filled with highly-

targeted and unique content.

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3. If you have struggled to build your own

email list – you will soon discover that you

are sitting on a gold mine with your site.

You are also targeting people that are doing

what? They are making a decision to BUY!

Your content is effectively prequalifying them

as buyers. You can easily build a newsletter

with this kind of site and find that your

subscribers are more responsive than most

others.

This „Alpha‟ method really does leverage all of the

merchant‟s efforts at promotion. They do the

selling and the catering to the demand of the

public. You are just stepping in to help the

customer with their final buying decision and

getting them to click on your affiliate link (and

getting your affiliate cookie into their browser)!

This is a tried and true method and its validity is

not in question among those Alpha marketers in

the „know‟. What is important here is to select the

right niche along with the right product. We will

get to niche research in a minute, but before we

do, let‟s take a look at how to make this strategy

work for you!

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Step 3 – Alpha “How To”

Now it‟s time to talk about the nuts and bolts of

this method. It‟s not complicated, but it will

require a basic knowledge of how to conduct

research online and how to set up a website.

1. Start with selecting a profitable niche

that also has lots of products available.

A profitable niche is usually also a popular

niche where people are spending lots of

money. You can look in any of the major

affiliate networks for one that you‟d like to

work with. Of course, you will learn more

about niche research a little later on in this

report.

2. Create a site that has your product

reviews on it, along with your „fact sheet‟,

real user comment snippets and affiliate

links that are plain to see at BOTH the top

and bottom of each product page. While the

site can be for a more general niche, each

product will have its own specific page.

3. The home page (or index page) of the

site should have links to each product,

your top product or your opt-in box. It

will be up to you to decide how you want to

layout your main page of your site. You

should also include a site map, a privacy

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policy page and a contact page. If you

decide to list short descriptions of each

product on the index page, it is okay to use

the word “review” in the link title. This will

help to target buyers. Keep the review

descriptions short and sweet, then at the

end use a “read more” or “like this? See

more here” kind of link to encourage click-

thrus.

4. Take your time building backlinks. There

is no need to go crazy and build as many

links as you can as quickly as you can. Do

that and you‟ll end up in the Google

sandbox. You don‟t want that, so just

submit a few articles to a few free directories

if you want. You can also take advantage of

paid links through 3WayLinks or LinkVana.

This will help you to build links without

worrying (or working at it yourself!) and it

looks more natural anyway. You could also

add links by doing your own blog (or forum)

commenting, or with Web 2.0 sites like

Squidoo or HubPages etc. Be sure to add

links that go directly to the product

review/info pages as well.

**A great way to gain extra exposure for

your site is through Article Marketing. If you

know this, then you may have also heard

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about the site, Associated Content. Well,

Associated Content has become Yahoo!

Content and you can submit all your articles

to them AND GET PAID! Yep, you can sign

up as a contributor and submit articles to

them and get paid either up front (if you

don‟t plan on using the article anywhere

else) or you can get paid each time your

article is viewed (this is suggested for this

method). If you like to write, you can also

take a look at their Assignment Desk and

write for others. The pay is not much, but

why not get paid to do what you were going

to do anyway?? You can sign up as a

contributor and find out more about how it

works here:

https://contributor.yahoo.com/signup.shtml

5. Stay on top of your sales and the traffic

stats. Okay, it may take a week or two for

the first amount of visitors to find their way

to your site – but this will build up over time.

You site will begin to gain some age and

authority over the coming months and this

will only help you. Often, even a small

amount of visitors is enough to get some

sales. Keep in mind that you have targeted

people on their way to a buying decision and

not just any old visitor.

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Pay attention to your traffic, which is coming

from your targeted keywords that you

selected during your product research,

verses sales. If you have traffic and no

sales, then you may be facing a conversion

problem. This means that your site may not

seem believable or perhaps your links are

buried and not easily accessible.

***At this point, we‟d like to mention that a

more traditional HTML site may work better

for this method than a blog. While

WordPress blogs are fantastic to use and

customize, you are often limited in the main

layout. A regular HTML site is often easier to

layout and be sure that your important

information is above the fold. This is

important! You want your site visitor to be

able to begin clicking on your links without

having to scroll down. In “research mode”,

most people are scanning sites and making a

quick decision to either stay on the site or

leave. Your main link needs to be easy to

see and right at the top of the page.

Nvu is a great WYSIWYG (What You See Is

What You Get) HTML editor. More specific

information regarding this is in Step 5 –

Setting Up Your Alpha Site.

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6. Take Action Now and Don’t Give Up! Too

many people give up too easily (you know

who you are!) or have what I call IM ADD

(Internet Marketing Attention Deficit

Disorder). : ) The reason this method

works is that you are finding products that

are appealing and that people want to buy,

and your reviews are written to be

compelling and effective. Yes, you need to

be reviewing HOT-Selling products, but this

comes through some amount of trial, error

and testing.

When you have found a winner, then for that

niche you will want to progress from the

„review‟ model to building a stronger

presence and scaling up your content. But

don‟t put the cart before the horse! It‟s okay

if your channel site sales are a bit sporadic –

these kinds of sites are consistent in that

they build search engine authority over time.

You will most likely have some sites that do

not get much in the way of results. That

doesn‟t mean that this method stinks. It

simply means that you need to select other

products, review them, and create another

site. Repeat the process until you have

some winners! It won‟t take long!

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Okay – by now you are probably wondering what

this kind of review site looks like. So here is a

really great example:

http://www.selfhelpinsider.com/

This site is a great example of how to write your

short reviews. You will want to combine them with

the „fact sheet‟ we showed you earlier, along with

the comment snippets and your affiliate link at the

bottom.

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Otherwise, this is also a good example of how you

may want to layout your main index page. Here

we see a list of products for a particular niche,

along with a brief intro and a call to action – “Read

More” The titles are also links that lead to the

review pages, then to the affiliate product itself.

Here is a bit more of a modified example:

http://www.insideyourdiet.com/

This site has a few introductory paragraphs

explaining what their site is about, and then they

list their reviews. On each review page you will

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see a similar layout to the „fact sheet‟ that you will

create.

Step 4 – Research - The Alpha Way

As already mentioned, the research to find a good

niche and thus, good products is the most

important part of this whole “Channel” method.

Selecting the right niche can make or break you.

You want to know before you even start all your

work that you have a niche that IS and HAS hot-

selling products.

There are many research methods, tools and

techniques. What you are going to learn here is

the underlying principle of conducting your

research. Not one methodology works for

everyone – so on that front you are left to your

own devices. Here is an overall view that will

hopefully allow you to see or ‘get’ the underlying

science to niche research.

The steps will be listed as “Step 1”, “Step 2” etc.

but you will probably need to go back and forth in

order to refine your searches until you have found

THE niche that you want to work with.

Research Step 1. Open up the Google SE in

your browser at www.google.com

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Research Step 2. Find actionable articles.

You can do this by running queries that find

actionable content. You can use the search

box as a regular expression (RE) engine

window.

As an example, in the search box, enter the

following - site:ezinearticles.com “2…6”

What results are returned for you? Here is

what recently came up for us…

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Do you see that all of the results are

ezinearticles.com articles that have the

number range of tips included? “Poker

Strategy for Pocket 2‟s-6‟s” etc. So you can

change the numbers to any range you like

(“3…7” or “5…10” etc.) or you could be more

specific and look for “3 tips” or whatever you

want. You can also look at different

directories like - site:articlealley.com

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Search where ever you are comfortable or

take a look at several. Take note of the

action words in the titles. Such as:

"How to"

"How do I"

"Ways to"

"Discover"

"Methods of"

"Steps to"

There are more – but you get the idea. You

will want to search past the first page and

perhaps even through all of the first 10

pages of the results. You can go through

more if you like! You are looking for ideas

from the articles that others have written.

You may also want to be sure the

information is fresh and current by searching

by date. You would enter this in the search

box - site:articlealley.com “December

1…31 2010”

This search will give you a list of all the

articles written and submitted to Article Alley

in December of 2010.

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You can also combine these searches to give

you more defined results. When you do this,

you will use the pipe symbol or the OR

directive in the search box. So you would

enter:

site:ezinearticles.com {"how can I"} | {"3..7

tips to"}

or maybe

site:ezinearticles.com "3..5 tips" OR "how

can I"

Do you see how that works? Now the results

would be sorted by both of your search

criteria and help you to drill down into the

kinds of information that you are looking for.

Research Step 3. Zero in on niche ideas.

You can now begin to ask yourself if the

article author is a true believer in the topic

they are writing about. If they have been

writing on that particular topic for awhile,

that is good. You want to see if the author

knows the topic deeply. Are they considered

an expert with a breadth of knowledge?

You want to take a look at the author‟s

profile and see if they have numerous

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articles in that niche. If not, then you can

safely ignore the author. (Not the niche –

just the author!) If they do have many

articles written about that particular niche,

then you will need to continue your research

on them. Now take a look at the dates on

the article submission. If the oldest article

was written some time ago and you can see

that they have been consistently writing

articles up to now, you will want to place this

niche on your list. This tells you that the

author is most likely making money with this

niche to be so consistent in their writing.

Now you want to look and evaluate the

articles themselves for keyword use. Do the

articles contain LSI (Latent Semantic

Indexing) throughout each article? LSI is

basically the use of secondary keywords to

support the main keyword or keyword

phrase. If the author is knowledgeable and

has done a good job, at least some of the

articles will show a balanced use of LSI. If

you don‟t know what some of the keywords

would be, you will need to conduct your own

search using the Google Adwords Keyword

Tool or the keyword tool of your choice.

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Research Step 6. Make sure you have a

viable niche. You want to repeat Step 5 to

find more than one qualifying author. If you

find several authors that are in the same or

closely related niche, then you probably have

a winner.

Take a good look at the niche to see if it is

Over-Competitive and if so, look to a sub-

niche that may be even better. By carefully

looking at the LSI you should be able to tell

what the sub-niches are. However, if the

main niche appears to be a good choice all

on its own, then that is when you can take a

breath. You have probably found “your”

niche!

Research Step 7. Qualifying your list of

“maybes” Now that you have a list of

possible niches, you can run this query on

Google. Go back to the Google search box

and enter:

site:ezinearticles.com {"how can I"} | {"3..7

tips to"} | {"4..6 steps to"} YOUR NICHE

KEYWORDS HERE

Of course, you can enter the search criteria

of your choice, but this is a good example of

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how to find articles that are providing

effective tips and information.

This is where you need to start to use your

instincts and the „research‟ starts to go

beyond the scientific. The results are not

going to scream out at you “pick me, pick

me!” but you will have to make a judgment

call and follow your gut about which of the

articles contains the best information that

will lead you to a great niche.

Research Step 8. Now you can evaluate

how the niche is monetized. Select the more

successful and qualified authors and take a

look at their website. They should have a

resource box at the end of their articles that

lists the link or address. Take a look at how

they are monetizing this particular niche.

See if they are selling their own product or if

they are promoting affiliate products. Are

they using CPA or other ads?

If you have a number of authors to look at,

cross reference them to see if they are

selling any of the same products or kinds of

products. Are they running pure sales

campaigns or are they running a CPA

campaign? Are more of the authors using

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Adsense? Are they promoting Amazon

products? A careful review of the sites will

tell you how they are making their money.

You should be able to now cross reference

the search volume of the keyword with the

kind of monetization being used to give you

a rough estimate of how much money is

possible with this niche.

*Additional Search Query – You may also want to

try this „intitle‟ search to find potential niches:

site:ezinearticles.com + intitle:"how can I"

Or

site:ezinearticles.com + intitle:"YOUR KEYWORD/S"

Step 5 – Setting Up Your Alpha Site

As already mentioned, the best way to create your

site may be with a standard HTML site. However,

you may also want to consider setting up a

WordPress site. They each have their advantages

and dis-advantages – but you will need to make

that call on your own! This report is going to give

you several options and you can decide from there.

The first thing you need to do – now that you have

your niche, is to purchase your own domain name.

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There are many places you can register your own

domain, and a great one is NameCheap.com and

for hosting, HostGator.com is inexpensive and

reliable.

Both of these sites have great information and

support to help you get set up. Take some time to

look at these sites and ask them questions if you

have any about their services.

Now that you have your domain name and hosting

for your site, you are ready to take a look at

creating either a standard HTML site or a

WordPress site.

For a standard HTML site, you will need an HTML

editor. Most commonly known as a WYSIWYG

editing program, the acronym stands for What You

See Is What You Get – and means that it provides

some of the flexibility of a word program so that

you can create pages for your site without knowing

HTML. We are going to use Nvu as our example

software.

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You can download it at: http://net2.com/nvu/ As

seen below, you simply need to click on the large

“Download” button on the right – it‟s free!

Follow the installation instructions. When that‟s

done, go ahead and open up the software. You will

see it is set up similarly to a regular Word

document file. Again, take some time to play with

it and see how the different menu options work.

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There are some really great videos on YouTube

that you can watch to learn how to use Nvu. View

them here:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=nv

u&search_type=&aq=f

You don‟t have to create your pages from scratch if

you don‟t want to! There are templates available

that are free as well as some that you can

purchase. You can conduct a search for „free HTML

templates‟. OR…take a look at these sites:

http://www.freelayouts.com/websites/html-

templates and http://www.templatesperfect.com/

Again, for example purposes, I download an HTML

template from one of these sites. You would

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download it like you would any file, unzip it and

save it to your hard drive. Then open Nvu and

click on the “Open” button in the menu bar. Select

the file called “Index” from your folder where you

saved the template and it should open in Nvu.

Here is my example:

As you can see, once the file was pulled up into

Nvu, I was able to start typing in my own

information. I changed the site title to “Alpha

Method” and then added “Welcome to The Alpha

Method!” as the title for the top section. You

would continue and input your own information into

any template you decide to use.

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Once you have a page the way you want it, it‟s

time to save the file and upload it to your website.

You will save it to whatever folder you want and

you will upload it via a FTP program. FTP stands

for File Transfer Protocol and allows you to transfer

files from your hard drive onto your hosting

accounts server. You will need to have your FTP

login information from your hosting account. This

you will need to gather on your own, since we have

no way of knowing which hosting company you

have decided to go with.

Once you have that information, you can use and

FTP program available. FileZilla is a well known

program, as well as FireFTP etc. You can conduct a

search to find one that you like. For this example,

FireFTP for FoxFire will be used. When you have

the program installed, you will need to login or

connect to the server using your login information

for FTP from your hosting company.

In FireFox, the link for FireFTP is in the Tools

dropdown menu. When opened, it looks like this:

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The folders listed on the left are the files on your

computer. When you connect, you will also see

your website files in your server on the right.

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You will click on the file you want to upload from

your computer files on the left, then click on the

file you are going to upload to on the right. This

will be the Public HTML file folder. Then click on

the arrow button that points to the right in the

middle gray bar to transfer and upload the file.

This effectively copies the file and does not erase it

from your hard drive on your computer.

You can visit this page to learn more about

uploading files using FTP:

http://fireftp.mozdev.org/help.html

Once you upload several pages to your site, you

can list the pages via links in your menu or by

creating links within your content.

It can take some practice to set up this kind of site,

but it is really not that complicated once you take

the time to watch some of the tutorial videos and

read thru some of the help information that each

program or software provides.

If all that seems just too much for you, then a

WordPress site might be the answer. You can set

up a free WordPress blog site by visiting

www.wordpress.com or you can have your own

dedicated site by visiting www.wordpress.org and

installing the WordPress software.

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The difference is that a free WordPress blog is

somewhat limited in the customization features and

what you can do with the site. Plus, you don‟t

actually OWN it and are really just renting the

space. For our purposes, you really should use a

WordPress.org site where you have to install the

software on your server and host your own site.

Using HostGator, it is simply a matter of using

Fantastico to help you install the WordPress

software. You can see how to do that here:

http://www.hostgator.com/tutorials/wordpress/2.7

/installing-wordpress-via-fantastico.htm

If you are not using a hosting company that has

Fantastico – you can download and install the

software yourself. Here is a great site that explains

how:

http://www.solostream.com/blog/tutorials/how-to-

install-wordpress/

Of course, you may want more of a middle ground

between creating your own HTML site, and a

WordPress blog…and I may have an option for you.

Weebly is a website creation site that allows you

to create your own website through a drag and

drop interface. The software is all integrated and

there is nothing to download. You sign up for an

account, then you can create a free site or even

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purchase your own domain name through them

and they will host the site for you.

Visit www.weebly.com to find out more!

Oh, Step 6 will not work as laid out if you do choose to

go with Weebly. You still will want to cloak your affiliate

links, but you will need to investigate an alternate

method. Just FYI!

Step 6 - Cloak Your Links!

Last but not least…it is important to keep track of

the affiliate products (and your affiliate links!) you

are promoting. There are many reasons to

thoroughly check out a particular product and its

owner to be sure that they are in possession of a

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good reputation. This will save you many

headaches later on down the road. It can be a

good idea to take control of your affiliate link by

being able to change the information on the sales

page quickly and easily.

Let‟s say that for some reason the product owner

decides to suddenly replace the current product

you are promoting with something else that is

drastically different or even inferior to the previous

one. Think about all of the places that you have

put up links to the sales page. It can be a

nightmare trying to change out all of those links!

Wouldn‟t you like to be able to put up a sales page

to a similar product instead?

Not to mention crooks out to steal your affiliate

commissions or people who by-pass your affiliate

link by clicking to go directly to the site. All of this

can mean money taken right out of your pocket.

On this note, you may want to consider placing

your affiliate sales page onto your own website.

This is also known as Affiliate Link Cloaking. There

are hundreds of different cloaking programs online

– some free, some not. Some just mask your

affiliate link or hide it. That is a start, but a true

cloaking will require you to have your own page on

your site.

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Here is a great program that you can use to

effectively cloak your link and give you control over

what is shown on the destination sales page. It is

from GLH Software and it is one of their free

webmaster tools. Here is the link:

http://www.glhsoftware.com/webtools/cloaker.htm

With this tool, you enter in the Page Title. This can

be anything you want, from the full product name,

to an abbreviation, to an ID number that you

assign it. If you feel good about the product‟s

longevity, then you should probably use the full

product name.

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Then you copy and paste in your full affiliate link

and finish off by naming the file. This will help you

find the file on your computer as well as be seen as

the extension on your website address. Thus, you

will probably want to match the Page Title.

Next, you click on the “Download” button and the

file is downloaded to your computer. Keep track of

where you download these kinds of files.

You will need an FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

program in order to upload your file. FileZilla is a

very popular FTP, as is FireFTP (which is a FireFox

addon). You can use whichever one you‟d like.

The file should be uploaded to your site‟s “Public

HTML” file folder. You can also create a subfolder

there if you‟d like to keep your products organized

better.

As an example, let‟s say that we are promoting an

article spinning software. You may have heard of

The Best Spinner software. A straight upload you

did of that sales page might look something like

this:

http://examplesitename.com/thebestspinner

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Or if you had created a subfolder and then placed

the downloaded file there, the link would look like

this:

http://examplesitename.com/recommend/thebests

pinner

Here, the “recommend” is the subfolder that the

file was placed into using the FTP software.

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Conclusion

There you have it – a method for creating simple

review sites that works for both physical and digital

products.

The most important part of this method involves

the research to find your niche – and you may find

that, at the beginning, it is also the most time

consuming. Believe me - it is time well spent!

Be sure to commit to really taking action and not

giving up until you have at least 5 successful sites.

Then you can move on to other business models to

scale up your online business and your profits. No

business model will pay you for just sitting on your

backside!

The Alpha Method really is a collection of some the

very best information on how to get started and

finally make money! Give it a chance and you will

see that it really is one of the easiest, truest

methods around.

Oh, and have some fun with it too! Don‟t be afraid to show your personality and be creative.

You‟ll be an “Alpha” marketer in no time.

George Brown