Dear losers,

A lot of you out there think you need money to start your online business. The fact is you really don’t. There are so many ways to do stuff for free online nowadays, even if you’re broke and one step away from living on the street, you can still get your online business going.

But let’s say some of you need the extra money to get something going, because you want to buy a domain name, host your own website, buy some software, or WHATEVER. Fact is, you need to pay for something, and you ain’t got no MFM.

To those of you looking for some start-up capital, I have one word for you…

EBAY.

Ebay is awesome. Why? Because that entire website is set up to make people money! So I’m going to tell you how you can get some start-up funds using this great service.

1. Sell your crap

How much stuff do you have lying around that you don’t need anymore? TVs, baseball cards, old computers, George Foreman grills…

Take all the crap you have an no longer need and SELL IT ON EBAY. People on Ebay will buy anything. I’m sure by getting rid of all the stuff you don’t want anymore, you can make a few hundred dollars - enough to start your online business.

2. Sell your services

You can also use ebay to sell your time and efforts to do tasks for other people. Did you know you could offer to send out 1,000 friend requests on Myspace in exchange for $100? Seriously, there are people on Ebay doing that type of thing!

Think of some type of service you can offer people and auction it off - make money that way. Its easy! It just takes a little bit of time and effort on your part.

3. Sell your body

People auction off their body parts on Ebay all the time. Pregnant women auction space on their fat bellies. Some people auction off their foreheads. Basically, the winner of the auction pays to get a temporary tattoo applied to the person’s body part. You hear about these auctions all the time. As long as you have no shame, go for it.

4. Broker auctions

Go on classified ad websites (like Craig’s List) and see what people are looking to buy. Then email them a link to an ebay auction that has what they’re looking for in it, but use your affiliate link instead of a direct link. That way, if they sign up and buy the auction, you get money!

Simple right? So easy, a brain damaged poodle could do it. So what’s stopping you?

Quit complaining about how you got no money and make some money!

Later,

-RJ

Some chick named Linda wrote:

How do I get advertisers to my website, since my company is quite pricey on a monthly basis? Thank you.

Linda Parrino

Okay, Linda, I got two questions for you…

Question 1: Are you hot?

Question 2: Do you put out?

Answer the second question first. Send it to groupies@therichjerk.com. Include a headshot.

Now that I’m done with my questions, here are my statements…

First of all, if you want to get advertisers on your website, it’s really easy. Google’s Adsense program is an ad program. Use them. Or, sign up for Adbrite.com and use those guys. They’ll be happy to serve ads on your site.

Will you make a lot of money off these ads? Probably not. A little, yeah, but not enough to retire on.

Why? Because ad rates are entirely dependent on how much traffic your stupid little website is getting!

If you ain’t got no traffic, why should some advertiser shell out lots of money to advertise there?

See what I mean?

So unless you’re getting a million unique visitors or more a month, you ain’t gonna be able to charge a lot for advertising.

But there are ways to change this. The first is to get more dang traffic to your website. The more traffic you get, the more money you can charge.

However, that’s only half the equation. You also need to know a very important metric, called eCPM.

eCPM stands for “Effective Cost Per Thousand.” (Why? I don’t know. Some dumb-ass decided to throw a roman numeral in there or something.)

This metric basically says “How Much Money Do I Make For Every 1,000 Impressions Of This Ad?”

See, in order for you to calculate and maximize what each of your web pages makes, you must break down every ad shown down to an eCPM value. Then, you add up the values on that given page, and that gives you an idea of how much that page is worth to advertisers.

So let’s say you have a single banner ad running at the top of your web page, and it earns $0.75 cents for every click the banner receives.

Let’s say after showing that ad 10,000 times, it received 500 clicks. This means you’re averaging 50 clicks for every 1,000 times that ad is shown.

Since you are earning $0.75 per click, you are making $37.50 every time that ad is displayed 1,000 times on your web page.

Therefore, this web page is worth $37.50 to you every time it’s viewed 1,000 times. Or eCPM = $37.50.

So let’s say you have 100,000 page views a month. Divide that by 1,000 to get 100. Multiply 100 by your eCPM of $37.50, and you get $3,750. That means you can get away with charging advertisers that much to show their ads on your site.

Of course, eCPM changes depending on how many ads you show on a page, and what kind of ads are shown. So first you have to decide what the optimum number of ads on your page is to maximize eCPM. Then you need to test out different offers to see what gets the best response.

How do you do this? Well - go to Quantcast.com and look at what kind of demographics your website is getting. Then, figure out what advertisers are targeting those demographics, and test their banners to see how many clicks you get. Assume a conversion rate of 0.5% and multiply that by the average price of their products. This will give you an idea of what type of eCPM that advertiser could expect from your website.

Then, email the advertiser with your results, and let them know “Hey, this is how much we estimate you can make by advertising on my website.” Then give them a price quote for a monthly ad buy. If you estimate they can make $1,000 a month in sales from advertising on your site, quote them a monthly ad rate of $500, so they are making a 200% return on investment.

See if an advertiser will turn you down then!

This is how the game is played, boys and girls. Enjoy.

Later Losers,

-RJ

Some dude named Rob posted this on my blog…

Hay guys,

I have been a memeber of the rich jerk for 6 months now and you are very right that most programs you buy on the net are a hole lot of information and they do not tell us how to put it in to motion! I have made close to $1000.00 in the last 6 months using bum marketing methods “means I try not to spend money on advertising”! Here are some examples of lens that I would love some help with!

The pre-school lens has had 500 hits since 02/28/08 but has not been converting very well at all, whats wrong?

http://www.squidoo.com/top-used-car-auctions
I have no idea what is wrong with this lens, I did the reseach and seems to struggle, Any ideas on this one!

http://www.squidoo.com/loweryourgolfscores This is my favorite but I get no traffic at all, maybe 5 hits a day and I have tried social booking it to death and I even tried the lastest tool Comment Kahuna and still NOTHING!

It would be awesome to have some people help me out with these DUDS!

Thanks evereyone
Rob

Well, take out your happy-pipe, Rob, ’cause RJ is gonna lay some knowledge on your sorry ass.

But first, let me just say you are the type of guy I like to see posting on my site. Your ass may be sorry, but you ain’t no loser. You’ve made your first $1,000, you haven’t been spending jack on traffic, and you’re motivated to improve. Gold star to you, junior.

All-righty, on with it…

I took a look at your Squidoo Lens at http://www.squidoo.com/top-used-car-auctions. And I can tell you the number one problem right away is this:

YA GOT TOO MUCH STUFF ON THERE.

There is just too much for visitors to click on, follow, and do. Making money is about a FOCUS OF ATTENTION. If you have three affiliate programs you want to promote for car auctions, make three damn lenses - one for each program.

Sell one thing and one thing only. Make your entire page centered around selling that one thing. You’ll see your conversions go up instantly.

Get rid of sending people to places that don’t make you money. Yeah, the Youtube and Ebay and RSS shit is fun and easy to put on a Lens, but it don’t make you no MFM. (That’s mother-f*ckin’ money for you who aren’t hip to my jive)

Only put stuff on your Squidoo Lens that’s going to make you dough. Period.

Second of all, you make NO attempt at all to try and connect to the people who visit your lens. It’s just a bunch of faceless, formal info on car auctions. Ain’t no one gonna buy that.

People want to buy from “Bubba, a broke-ass plumber from West Virginia, who’s crappy 1978 camaro broke down and he needed a cheap car which he found through this great and dependable auction site. Here’s a picture of my lame-ass camero, which nearly killed me when the transmission fell out the bottom of it. Oh, and here’s a picture of my new car, a shiny dodge pick-up truck, which I got for a steal because I was smart enough to use this special website I found. You should check it out by clicking this snazzy banner they gave me when I made my purchase.”

People like pages built by real people, offering real experiences and real advice. The more “home made” something is, the more people believe it’s real and of value. The more faceless and corporate, the less likely they are to trust what you’re selling.

Selling is about storytelling. Ya gotta tell people a story when you’re selling them something. They have to be able to identify with the character who basically is a physical manifestation of what they want to be.

Is your average customer some moron who knows nothing about cars, but needs a new car and doesn’t have a lot of money? Guess what - I’m a moron who knows nothing about cars and doesn’t have a lot of money, but I used this website to get a great deal on my new car, and if it helped me, it’ll help you too, because I’m just some out of work plumber from West Virginia.

Catch my drift?

Okay, now onto your traffic quandary.

Trying to get free traffic is like trying to get free sex. Sure, you can get it for free, but you either have to work really hard for it or settle for something you aren’t really happy with.

If you’re going the free traffic route because your broke-ass can’t afford adwords or whatever, here’s what you do.

First off, bookmark your lens. I know you said you already do this, but you’re probably doing it wrong. Go to www.onlywire.com. Create accounts for everything on that bitch and then use those accounts to bookmark your lens.

Now, the big mistake here is that people try and get people from the social bookmarking sites to visit their lenses. Uh-uh. Wrong. What you do after you bookmark that bad boy is take the RSS feeds from all the accounts you created, and then you go to Ping-o-matic.com and ping them bitches. You ping the RSS feed for every dang bookmarking account you made.

What does this do? Well, when you ping your RSS feeds, you’re basically going out to all the search engines and saying:

“Yo! Search Engines! Get off your lazy asses and come check out my website!”

The Search Engine spiders will then visit the bookmarking accounts you created, see they’re linking to your lens, and visit your lens. And then the spiders will say:

“Well shit, look at all these bookmarking sites linking to this Squidoo page. We better index this MF.”

So then your lens gets in the search engines. Then what you do is you start creating a “link network” linking back to your lens for the keyword you want to rank for (in this case, golf scores). You do this by creating hubpage accounts, wetpaint acocunts, wordpress.com accounts, blogger accounts, and other squidoo lenses. All of which link back to your page with your keyword term in the link. And you create brand new bookmarking accounts too.

Then, you PING all those suckers too!

And you do this EVERY FREAKIN’ DAY until your lens starts appearing on the first page of the search engines. (Usually Yahoo and MSN are the first to notice and rank you. Google can be a bitch.)

You can use these tools to keep track of your progress. They’re free.

Keep using your Traffic Kahuna software to get backlinks from blogs. Then ping the comment feed for those blogs.

Remember: building up free traffic is a PROCESS. Process is shit that needs to get done every single day. If you’re not spending 4 hours a day on building your traffic, you’re wasting your time.

And if you can afford to outsource the traffic building, that’s even better, because to be honest with you, doing that stuff yourself sucks ass. The sad reality is that unless you’re willing to spend some money, getting traffic to your site is a SLOW endeavor.

Unless you have an email list you can blast to whenever you want. Then it’s fast. But that’s another matter all together.

Repost a comment when you start making the changes and let me know how it goes.

Later Losers,

-RJ

Some chode-breath named Lee posted this in one of the comment threads….

My problem with you guys, why I do not bother with you, you lode us with too much Info, that I don’t have time to read, and fallow.

And by the time I reach a few page of the how, and do, you told us about,something else.

so you do not have time to see what works.

You guys just go for the almighty dollor, you dont really care about people, and how they make it.
As long as you get your e-book sell.

when I see sincerly care in what ever you or trying to sell me I will ack.

Blessings

Lee

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaa! You give me too many great ideas to make money with! Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

I have a low IQ coupled with ADD and failed hooked on phonics, so I can’t read all your stuff! Waaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!

I hate you because you’re rich, and I’m a loser, and even though you’re practically TELLING me exactly what I need to do to become rich too, I’m too freakin’ LAZY to find the time to actually do what you tell me!

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Lee, if you were here right now, I’d happily bitch slap you until you cry like a little girl.

Seriously.

If we ever cross paths, just let me know who you are and I will immediately plant a rosey-red palm-print on your dumb, stupid, loser face, and you can brag to all your buddies about how honored you are the Rich Jerk graced you with a nice big can of “STFU.”

You know what? You’re right. I AM all about the money. I could give two flying poops what you do with your life. I’m rich, and your not.

But honestly - do you want to learn from someone who ISN’T about the money? Do you want to learn from some lame-o who’s poor but nice? Or do you want to learn from a take-no-prisoners mercenary who’d sell his grandma for a nickel because he worships at the church of capitalism?

I make money. Lots of it. So shut up and listen to me.

If you don’t have time for my advice - MAKE time. Stop looking for excuses to fail, and start looking for reasons to succeed.

Stay up an extra hour every night and just focus on what I tell you to do.

Find ONE THING I suggest you think is interesting or fun, and just DO THAT. There’s lots of things you can do to make money, but you only have to start with one. The others will still be around and working after you’ve mastered that one thing.

Be a winner, not a victim. Victims talk about the reasons why they CAN’T do something - like you. Winners think of reasons why they CAN do something - like me.

You think I just magically became the head of this huge multi-million dollar online empire overnight? HELL NO! I worked at it, damn it. I found the time to learn the skills I needed. I found the time to see what works and what doesn’t. I found the time to do what I needed to in order to succeed.

What I DIDN’T do is go one someone’s blog and bitch and moan about how helpless I am.

Anyone can make money on the internet. ANYONE. There are some guys who are two IQ points away from legally being retards who are making millions.

So as long as you are not mentally handicapped, YOU CAN TOO.

And if you think you can’t, stop trying. Seriously. Go get a job at McDonalds. That’s nice and safe and predicable. They’ll tell you how to make fries and heat up hamburgers, and that’s IT. You’ll have plenty of time on your hands to learn that, I’m sure.

Later Losers,

–RJ

So some loser named Brian was bitching in one of my other blog posts. Check it:

Brian whines:
HOW THE HELL IS GETTING MORE TRAFFIC GOING TO HELP ME IF I DON’T HAVE A BUSINESS NEVER THE LESS A WEBSITE.

I WAS HOPING YOU COULD HELP ME OUT
ENJOY YOUR MILLION’S AND NOW I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON A $100.00 BILL WHILE TRYING TO LIGHT
ONE OF YOUR EXPENSIVE CUBAN CIGARS.

LATER JERK.

First off - I wipe my butt with $100s. I light my cigars with $1,000 bills. Get it right, loser.

Are you seriously asking me this question? Seriously.

Seriously?

Are you writing to me from one of those special institutions where they tape pillows to the walls so you don’t hurt yourself when you start banging your head in your cell?

Do you find you’re often forced to wear earmuffs and a football helmet at the same time?

Are you hijacking your neighbor’s internet connection and writing to me from your single-wide trailer on your lunch break from the porta-potty-emptying business?

How will traffic help you if you don’t have a business? Gosh. Sometimes it’s all I can do to keep from ramming my multi-ringed-in-expensive-jewelry-fingers through my laptop.

Okay - retard - here’s how you start an online business. I’ll use small words to help you follow me so you don’t get confused.

Ready? Here we go…

1. Go to www.clickbank.com.

2. Sign up for an account.

3. Pick a product to promote.

Boom! You’re in business.

You don’t need to create a store, you don’t need to make a website, you don’t need to warehouse or ship anything. All you need to do is send traffic to OTHER PEOPLE’S STUFF.

And then they give you money.

Is that so hard to understand? Really? Maybe I’m actually the smartest man on the planet and just don’t know it. I don’t know. But you know what? This is why I am a winner, and you Brian, are a LOSER.

Because you bitch and moan about not having stuff. If I don’t have something I want, I figure out a way to get it! I’ll actually take time off from lounging in the hot tub, and sit and think, and go “Hmmmm… how can I get this thing I want?”

If I can’t figure it out on my own, I call up someone I know who could advise me.

If they can’t help, I go online and try to find people who’ve gotten what I want and then do what they did.

What I don’t do is sit around and BITCH ABOUT STUFF.

Complaining never gets you any results. It just makes you feel better because you get to play the helpless victim. Well, I got news for you, buddy –

THERE ARE NO VICTIMS IN BUSINESS.

There are just winners, losers, and consumers. Period. Ain’t more complicated than that.

Listen - making money on the internet is so easy. Heck, you don’t even need a website anymore. You don’t need to know HTML. You don’t need to buy a domain name. You don’t have to make or write anything. You just sign up for a good affiliate program, use their materials, send traffic their way, and make some Gursh Durn money.

Write me again when you graduate from first grade.

Later Losers,

-RJ

John Reese, one of the few marketers out there I really respect, has a pretty cool post about YouTube shenanigans you need to check out.

YouTube has just added some new features and a new layout.

Look at the “Statistics & Info” tab under a video.

This tab will show you any ‘awards’ that video has won but more importantly will show you REFERRING SITES and how many clicks those incoming links have sent to the video.

* It currently appears to only show the top 5 referring sites.

EDIT: These stats have been available before but many marketers chose to ‘hide’ them. (Read on.)

This is extremely VALUABLE marketing information.

Now you can look at any of your competitor’s videos and see ‘where’ most of their traffic is coming from!

This is a great way to find new JV partners or content publishers in your market that would be ideal to send traffic to YOUR videos.

Users can apparently hide this information but YouTube displays it by default with the new layout. (For now.)

So GO NOW and do some valuable research into your competitors’ videos before they HIDE this referral data.

UPDATE: I meant to emphasize that it looks like ALL of these stats have been turned on by DEFAULT. A lot of this info was already there although the layout has changed. In the past this information did not appear to be turned on all videos by default — not sure if this is an error by YouTube that will be corrected soon.

So what can you do with this information?

Well, let’s see… find videos on YouTube related to your market. Copy all them websites referring to the videos into a spreadsheet. Go into google adwords and site target those bitches. Relevant Content + Market Message Match = Money.

Then, make your own damn video and post it as a video comment - make sure your website address is in that sucker. Watch the traffic roll in.

Then go back to using YouTube to watch videos of girls making out with each other.

Later losers,
-RJ