"How my ONE simple idea turned into a surprising $300 dollar profit in 1 month...and how I plan to do it again, and again, and again..."

By Greg Alan

©copyright 2007. All rights reserved

Hello, and welcome.

Simple and ugly website, I know...but there's a reason for that.

A while ago, I sent my current GregSays Newsletter subscribers this link because I was kind of excited about something.

I don't have that many subscribers (it's limited to 100 members), so I didn't feel the need to fancy up the site. My excitement came from my finding (finally) an idea that generated a healthy amount of money on the internet. Not gobs of money. Not "$4,569 Dollars Last Month on eBay!!" or some other outrageous amount. Just $300 bucks (at first).

In early January of 2007, I posted on this site the particulars of what I found. I had multiple screen shots, detailed examples, and almost a full explanation of what I did. It was really just a way of thanking my subscribers and showing off a little bit. Well...since then, I've had more than a few requests for more details. In researching more ways to do this, I started viewing discussion forums and blogs in an effort to learn more. I couldn't help myself. I posted comments, a few blog posts, some articles I wrote...that's how excited I was about the idea. I realized that a lot of people beginning to attempt what I did had many questions that I thought I had the solution for...so I started telling them about this little page too. It began to take up more time than I wanted it to...

So, I decided to expand on that original explanation. I started writing and writing...refining...editing...until I came up with what I thought was a good little eBook that explains it all. A lot more detailed even than the original info. I even came up with some new ideas from that original one and put that in there too...

• More than 40-pages of information (the original more detailed summary was only 1 page...this one)

• The 3 Keys that you must understand before trying this idea

• Tips and Super Tips that will help you think outside the box and avoid the $2,500 dollar mistake I made

• Exactly how I did it...with keywords, up-to-date figures, and a truly cool tip that could be worth thousands of dollars (psst...it involves the IRS and it's legal. See here.)

Now, I'm selling the idea. Still, I thought it would only be fair of me to leave some of the original information on this page for others to find...benefit from...and as a way of convincing them that the idea was genuine...valuable...and that I wasn't kidding around or trying to scam people. So, with that said...please continue to read.

OR...if you came to this site from the self-contained One Neat Idea website and want to get back to where you were, click here.

THIS IS THE PUBLIC RELEASE SUMMARY OF MY ONE NEAT IDEA.

YOU ARE GETTING THIS INFORMATION FOR FREE...AND IT MIGHT BE ENOUGH TO GET YOU THINKING.

OR - You can purchase it right now for $30 bucks. Your choice.

I plan on charging $55 dollars for it after the initial release, but for now it only costs about as much as a tank of gas. Not much when you consider that the idea generates more than $800 dollars a month for me now...

All right...here's the free summary. Those of you who were with me in the beginning may spot the fact that some of the information you remember being posted back in January is now gone. I've moved that to the eBook I wrote and expanded on it considerably...so enjoy...

-------------------------edited original summary---------------------

I spend approximately $320.00 every year to host and operate my website. Mostly as a hobby, I've done that for the past five or six years...because of my former radio career. While it was a nice tax deduction because I was using it in my career, it was also an enhancement to what I was doing on the air as an announcer.

Since that has now ended, I've considered several options for the website recently.

1. Give it up entirely

2. Keep doing it as a hobby and something to pass the time with

3. Go in an entirely new direction with it

4. Try to make a few bucks

It really started as sort of a hobby years ago, but only recently have I been interested in making money from the site. Mostly, my intention was to pay for the cost and only the cost, but I stumbled on an idea that could very well do much more than that. It's also been kind of fun. I've always enjoyed tinkering with computers ever since I got my first Apple IIe all those years ago. This internet thing is a whole new playground for me and it's always been a matter of curiosity with me. How stuff works. I've always wondered how people made money on the internet...especially since most people think that the information is there for the taking. Do a search, click on a website, and you get what you want. After the dot-com bust of the 90's, I was even more suspicious and curious how things would work on the internet. It used to be - all you needed was a catchy name for a website and you could sell stock in an IPO and retire to Key West. For years, big companies like Amazon and even the mighty Google wouldn't show any profit year after year. After all, how in the world does a search engine make money?

I have no way of knowing exactly how much my time and effort is worth in keeping the site up and fresh and operating. I do all of the programming, website design, email replying, and a lot of the basic functions that go into the hosting of GregAlan.net. I pay my hosting company about $150.00 every year to maintain the server. The other costs are for programming license fees and other costs.

In the beginning, I thought I could beg for money by putting a donation box on the website and that would be that. I signed up for a free account through PayPal and put the donation button on my website. Without actually asking for donations, I relied mostly on the ability of my readers to find the button and then leave it up to them to decide whether to contribute. I didn’t actually beg until I found myself unemployed a number of years ago with a wife who was 8-months pregnant. Even then, I only received enough to keep up with expenses and pay for the first round of diapers. The donation button is still there on the site, and I still don’t get too many contributors…but I don’t beg for them either.

About 2 years ago, I found what I thought would be a way to make a few bucks with Google AdSense. I have had Google AdSense on my website for some years and I get paid $.03 cents every time someone clicks on one of the advertisements. I’m sure you realize just how many clicks and how long it would take to make up for the yearly costs for the site. Still, it’s there just the same. It was easy and free to sign up for Google AdSense. In the material I read about signing up, it said that Google would select advertisers relevant to the content of my blog and insert them in the banner at the top of the page. I could screen out anyone I felt was inappropriate to my site. So, after doing minimal work, I put it on my site and made about $25 dollars each year. Only recently, because of the idea I stumbled on, I’m making more now from Google AdSense than I ever did.

My idea began when I asked a very basic question one day. 

• If I’m getting paid $.03 cents for each click, “How much are the advertisers paying Google to be listed on my site?”

Since I hadn’t been to the Google AdSense site in a while, I checked into it and discovered Google Adwords…another free service of Google. I signed up without even thinking about it because I wanted to tinker with it like everything else I like to learn about.

Google AdWords allows you to place advertisements on search terms. Very simply put, you pay a fee to have your ad show up whenever someone does a search for a particular keyword. The fee could be as small as a penny. The idea behind it is to allow people to promote their own websites. You create a campaign by writing a three line text ad; putting the web address you would like it to link to; and bidding on keywords to have your ad linked to.

For instance (and just an example, not an actual URL)…

I use capital letters sometimes because it makes a website or words stand out better. When done correctly, here's what the ad would look like when searched on Google:

There are a few things to explain here. The “Display URL” is the weblink that people actually see when your ad comes up. The “Destination URL” is the site that the ad actually links to that the person searching never sees. It’s theoretically possible to send someone who clicks on the advertisement to a completely different website than advertised…although, they do have to have some relevancy to each other. Google screens the ad for accuracy before they will approve it. I also found out there are some other rules...no guns, no porn, no gambling. Not that I would ever do that sort of thing...but Google has a very weird screening process for each ad they allow. But it's their website and they can do what they want with it I guess...

The next thing to do was some keyword research. If I wanted to advertise my website, I would write the above ad and have it displayed whenever people searched for keywords relevant to the content on my site. (no need to capitalize)

And so forth. I could have as many keywords as I wanted.

The next thing to do was to set my budget…how much I was willing to invest and pay Google for each click on my ad. The budget had to be set in two ways: 

• The total amount of money I was willing to pay per day…I set it at $10.00 normally.

• The total amount I was willing to pay per click…you can start as low as a penny.

If I were a normal business promoting something I was selling on my website, I could figure out how much I was willing to pay for each of those items. Since I was just a goofy blogger and I wasn’t selling anything, I didn’t see the point in attracting people to my website…other than the self-esteem that might come from a larger audience for my goofiness.

So I put the idea of paying people to come and see my website away for a while.

It was only until I started to do more and more surfing that I asked another very basic question, “How do I get people to pay to be sponsors of my website?”

I could sell advertising. Find some local sponsors in the area, design a nice banner for them and have them pay me a monthly fee. It seemed like a lot of work, but if I got just three or four to pay me $50 bucks a month, I could make a little side money too. Other sites similar to mine had all kinds of advertisers and banners listed on their sites. I wanted some, so I asked a friend of mine where he got his and how much they were paying him to be on his site. He said he was only getting a percentage of the sales made through the advertisement banner.

What was that? He didn't actually have to sell advertising to people? 

When people click on his ads, they go to the sponsors’ website and if they buy anything, he gets a percentage of the sale…in some cases, up to 50% from each purchase. If the item someone eventually buys costs $100 dollars, he gets a check for $50 dollars.

The next thing to do for me was to find a bunch of advertisers I could convince to let them put ads on my site in exchange for a percentage of sales they make. As it turns out, there are clearing houses full of them. And many of them offer incredible incentives just to be on a site.

I was truly stunned at the name brand advertisers who I could sign up to be sponsors of my website. Some, you already know about having been to my website – Ebay, Austad’s Golf, Netflix and Peerflix, Blockbuster, Countrywide, PetCo, Mastercard, and many others. Some you have to ask directly, but most are automatically approved when you select them to be on your site. Once approved, you’re considered to be an “affiliate” of the advertiser and you’re entitled to some percentage of sales you make for them. Heck, if I wanted to, I could just fill up the entire side of my website with sponsors...but that would be a little cheesy, so I chose only those I'm actually interested in and use. I golf, so I chose Austad's...I see movies, so I chose PeerFlix. They all have different percentages and amounts they will pay you too. One of my favorites – and the reason for my writing this – is eBay.

(Excuse me...those of you from the One Neat Idea website...if you feel like that's enough for now and want to return to the area you came from. Otherwise, continue reading.)

Most people are familiar with eBay, so I won’t go into too much detail. I’ve sold a few things on eBay and I’ve always wanted to devote more time to actually making some bigger money from the worlds largest marketplace…but I never wanted to devote the time and effort to really work at it. So, I chose the affiliate route because I don’t have to sell anything other than eBay itself. And since it’s so well-known, I don’t really have to do a whole lot of convincing and education about them.

What do you mean you don't have to sell anything on eBay to make money from eBay?

If the person who clicks on your ad signs up to be a member of eBay’s website you get nothing. However, if they buy an item from eBay, you get a percentage of the fee that eBay charges when someone sells an item on their site. On a $1000 dollar item, it’s possible to make $25 dollars per sale. I am currently promoting only one item, and the average sale price is around $400 dollars…so I make about $10 dollars per sale. I tell you exactly what item that is, but you can do any item you want. This month, I’m responsible for more than 50 sales. I’ll let you do the math.

Additionally, for each person that becomes an “active member” of eBay – meaning they list their own item for sale on eBay – you get a flat fee. And it’s not based on whether or not they sell anything. If 1-hundred people click on your advertisement, and even if only 10% of them become “active members” of eBay, you’ll get a check. This month, I’ve had 19 people become “active members” after clicking my advertisement.

• JUNE 2007 UPDATE: eBay pays a flat $25 dollar fee now for active members. Each. I made $250 dollars in ONE DAY last week (6/23/07)

Okay, enough with the basics. I know you probably have a question by now, “What the heck was the idea and how did you do it?”

I’ll give you a few more hints:

• Google AdWords sends people to a website by connecting advertising to the keywords people use to search on the internet.

• Commission Junction allows you to become affiliates with e-commerce websites like eBay.

• Affiliates get paid commissions on sales they help deliver to their sponsors.

All I had to do was figure out a low cost way to send people to eBay and make them want to sign up or buy an item on an auction. Sounds simple, right? It’s not. Especially since eBay’s affiliate agreement doesn’t allow you to use the word “eBay” as a keyword search term.

• There's a way around that, though. I call it my "convenience store" tool.

Then, I went to my old Google Adwords idea that I gave up on a while ago because I didn't think I needed to pay people to come to my website. Things were different now.

After re-reading the material and doing some more research, I created an advertising campaign that would send people to my new Nintendo Wii website. Here's a screenshot copy of the actual ads I have running on Google for certain keywords:

The biggest hurdle for anyone trying this is keywords. Google requires that you list a price you are willing to pay for the keywords you select. Since I remembered my old AdSense payments of $.03 cents for each click, I figured I would start there...at 3-cents per click. In addition, you can set a daily budget amount...which if you use up, Google will stop showing your ads. It's ideal for any small business who wants to advertise their website. You'll never pay more than what you budget for each day. Since I had just sold my other house in a real estate transaction that left us with a hefty profit, I took a $1000 dollar amount and set it aside for my experiment. I set my daily Google budget limit at a whopping $25 dollars a day. If I don't see anything happen after a week, I'd only be out a possible $175 dollars.

Choosing the correct and cheapest keywords isn't easy, but one nice suggestion to start is by putting yourself in the mind of your estimated customer. I did that for years as a professional broadcaster on the radio...it was practically a requirement for gaining listenership. I chose my keywords carefully and only after a really good understanding of how they work and a lot of research...

(Excuse me again...those of you from the One Neat Idea website...if you feel like that's enough for now and want to return, go ahead. Otherwise, continue reading.)

I don't want you to get the impression that this was too easy to do. Once running, making the money was pretty easy and I really haven't had to adjust the way it functions at all over the past couple of months and I've made very good money. Enough to pay most of my mortgage payment each month with a very simple idea. It's something I plan to continue and try with other similar ideas I have along the same vein. But keywords being the (pardon the pun) KEY to doing something like this, you can't just think up words and list them as keywords and have them be a success for you. I'll repeat that in loud letters for you...

You can't just guess at keywords and hope they work for you...

This little example is only meant to serve as an idea starter for most of you. Since I started doing this, I have heard a lot of horror stories of people shelling out thousands of dollars to Google because they chose the wrong keywords, didn't budget correctly, and chose the wrong way to advertise it. Most didn't make a dime on their advertising. I was lucky...yes...but also very careful about what I did once I got the idea. So, I guess my overall advice is...don't try this at home unless you really know what you're doing or you get some major help.

With that warning and disclaimer said, let's continue.

With my website page setup to show the list of "ending soon" Nintendo Wii items, the Google Adwords search advertising link setup, and the eBay affiliate program applied, I started watching the progress by checking in to the my account to see how I was doing. I was a bit nervous at first because the costs to advertise on the Google search engine was taking money out of my bank pretty fast...here's how the first week went:

As you can see from the first two weeks, I paid over $300 dollars to Google for the number of clicks I had. I started the rate-per-click at 9-cents each because I wanted the ad to show up on the first page of search results. I could have set it to only 3-cents if I wanted to, but I would have my ad listed on the 3rd or 4th page of results. I figured I'd take the gamble and pay a little more because I guessed that people using Google wouldn't go through much more than the first page to find what they were looking for.

A bit of explanation about some of the terms above:

My current budget was set at $25 dollars a day. I had over 600,000 (Impr.) impressions - meaning my ad was shown that many times because it was a highly searched for item. People clicked on my ad more than 4-thousand times. CTR is the Click Through Rate and mine was at a little more than 1/2 a percent...meaning the number of times my ad showed up, divided by the number of clicks I got. CPC means Cost Per Click, and I was paying an average of 7-cents for each click. My ad was showing up (Avg. Pos) as the 7-th listed on the sidebar of the first page of results. There are more detailed statistics to look at within the Google AdWords program, but this gives you the basic idea.

I patiently waited while my wife complained about the $300 dollars that came out of our account at the end of the first two weeks. People list auctions for a select number of days...anywhere from 3-to-7 days for most items. After the first few days, I was making some money. Five or six dollars each day at first. But remember, I was paying out nearly $21 dollars a day in costs, so making only $5 or $6 dollars each day was going to put me in a pit. I was losing money...in a hurry. You get a better return at a casino sometimes.

But then...

A little thing called "batch transfer" came to my attention. After researching out of desperation and nervousness, I found out that eBay doesn't update the commission information minute by minute. They do mass dumps of data at the end of the day...sometimes only every three days. I was checking constantly...expecting live results. I decided to lay off watching it and stopped logging on to check as often. In fact, I purposely didn't log on for a week solid - figuring I would let nature and technology take it's course.

After my 1-week hiatus, I nervously logged to my account again and checked my numbers. Here's what it showed:

I had a few good days there! I even created enough revenue to qualify me for a bonus from eBay. They paid me an extra $60 dollars that day because I had helped generate more than $2000 dollars in total sales. And anyone that can do math can see that the $441 dollar total in commissions was certainly more than the $300 dollars I was paying to Google for the ads themselves.

I made a $141 dollar profit in two weeks...with just one idea. This was kind of fun. Could I do the same thing with another hot item on eBay? How many items sell on eBay anyway? Could be millions, I guess. Hmmm...millions.

(Excuse me ONE MORE TIME...those of you from the One Neat Idea website...my big mistake in purchasing other eBooks was that they didn't tell me much about expenses when they advertised their "Money Making Profit Machines" - I won't do that to you. In fact, I explain fully how I made that big mistake and tell you a little something else that can make those expenses go away. You can return to the main page if you want. Otherwise, continue reading.)

That led me to the final question I had, "What else could they click on to make me some money?"

Remember AdSense and the $.03 I was being paid per click on my blog site? Since the site I had set up was my very own, I thought it might not be a bad idea to take advantage of all that traffic to the page and give them something else to click on. I did it, and I got some fairly good results. Here's how that worked out...

I earned another $17 dollars in revenue from people clicking the other ads on the page. It wasn't much, but it was about half the amount I made in all of last year with the blog. In a matter of 14-days.

So that's how I made an extra $300 dollars in the first month. Now...it's more than double that!

As I said, I have made some slight changes and tweaked a few things a little more and I'm getting better numbers than ever. I am currently on track to have enough to make a significant dent in my mortgage payments.

Now, I have a few another question...

"If that's just one idea...one affiliate...one product...on one page...can I do the same thing with another product or item?"

eBay sells millions of items each day. There are currently over 60,000,000 members of eBay in the US. That leaves about 240,000,000 who aren't. I think I could find one or two more to work the same way, don't you?

And as I said, there are currently hundreds of e-commerce websites you can apply to be an affiliate of and sell their products for them and earn commissions. Some pay a flat fee, some pay when they sign up for more information, some pay just when someone clicks on them. Citibank for instance pays their affiliates $50 dollars for each person that fills out and gets approved for a new credit card.

Can others do this?

Sure...I don't know why not. It takes research, time and attention to detail, setting goals, and a lot of patience...but there's no reason to think I'm any smarter than anyone else. I have a few suggestions and useful tools that take a little understanding to use - but they are immense helps in the technical department. I may share those with some of you if you're interested. It also takes a very key understanding of how keywords work on search engines like Google and how to best decipher good marketing ideas.

Most people don't think of how search engines work when they use them...they just put in their three or four words and expect a result. I just had an idea and tried to imagine myself in the mind of an average person searching for what I was offering. Maybe I got lucky...I don't know. But through careful research and analysis - my initial curiosity has so far has paid off.

For some people, an extra $300 dollars in a month is enough to satisfy them. For my family, it has so far been enough of an incentive for my wife to not get a part-time job. I'm not cherry-picking things either. I chose eBay for very simple reasons...some of them mere coincidence. I have sold things on eBay, I know they have huge name recognition.

It was just an idea that I acted on. Just driving along in the car I get ideas sometimes I have to pull over and write down. Some ideas come to me early in the morning. But I don't act on all of them. Some I store for later and think I'll work on them at some point in the future.

I guess my overall point was maybe just to tell my story. I think it's kind of fun...and like anything...if I apply myself enough, maybe I can make something more out of it. Not to put too much of a "rah rah" attitude to it...but it's still possible to do that in America. And the internet is global, so there might be more to discover out there.

Thanks for paying attention to my nonsense.

Since this is a publicly available website, you can forward the link to anyone you think might be interested in what I've told you so far. Or like some of my ideas, bookmark it and save it for later.

Greg Alan

©copyright 2007

(Those of you from the One Neat Idea website...if you want to return to the area you came from and purchase, click the link with my thanks.)

You want more?

Tools used and descriptions of content:

Affiliate Masters Course - it's a free PDF book that will be very useful for advanced users and beginners alike. Download immediately from my own website by CLICKING HERE.

Google Cash - the original version was good enough, but Chris Carpenter created a very simple guide for beginners to start with. It has now since been updated and is in it's 3-rd edition for 2007.

5 Bucks A Day - Dennis Becker helped me immensely by reminding me to focus on the small things first before believing all the hype about "How to Make Millions" trash out there.

The New Basic Guide to Selling on eBay - a Skip McGrath winner that you've probably seen at Barnes & Noble. Basic and simple for anyone interested in using eBay to profit in their spare time or as a new business opportunity.

10 Very Hot Niche Markets - but there's a lot more to Skip McGrath and eBay than just selling stuff from your house. Here are 10 simple ideas anyone can do in their spare time that could earn some extra change. Highly profitable niche businesses anyone can do.

The summary is fully expanded in an eBook you can have delivered directly to the email address you provide. I won't even use your email address for anything else unless you want to subscribe to my GregSays Newsletter (which most often doesn't contain affiliate marketing content and such).

The eBook is a PDF file you can download, print, read, re-read (hopefully) and use as your own idea starter.

• More than 45-pages of information (the original summary was only 1 page...this one)

• The 3 Keys that you must understand before trying this idea

• Tips and Super Tips that will help you think outside the box and avoid the $2,500 dollar mistake I made

• Exactly how I did it...with keywords, up-to-date figures, and a truly cool tip that could be worth thousands of dollars (psst...it involves the IRS)

THIS IS THE PUBLIC RELEASE SUMMARY OF MY ONE NEAT IDEA.

YOU ARE GETTING THIS INFORMATION FOR FREE...AND IT MIGHT BE ENOUGH TO GET YOU THINKING.

OR - You can purchase it right now for $30 bucks. Your choice.

Buy Now using PayPal...safe, secure, and a jillion ways to get the money to me. You DO NOT have to be a member of PayPal to process this transaction. I will email you the eBook as soon as payment clears. As you can see, I am always available for questions, comments, or problems you have with this transaction.

©copyright 2007. All rights reserved