The question I get is: “How do I use ‘the cloud’ for my business?”
More specifically: “How do I use Amazon’s EC2 and S3 for my business?”
About 18 months ago we switched the hosting for my blog to use Amazon EC2 Cloud Computing and Amazon S3 Cloud storage.

It wasn’t simple.

(since…we’ve moved everything over to Amazon’s web services)

Why I moved to “the cloud”

My goals with moving my blog to “the cloud” were to:

• understand how to use the cloud effectively
• document how to use amazons cloud
• see how much it would cost (about $80/month to host my blog, which gets between 1000-2000 visits per day, and runs LOTS of bandwidth with all the videos)
• and make everything accessible to people who maybe don’t have a tech staff

My experience setting it up

I had one of my GUYS set up everything and document every step of the way.
He did an amazing job of it.
We’ve been running my wordpress blog on amazon’s EC2 cloud for about 18 months and have learned A LOT!
We’ve been through crashes, downtime, expensive time, and now cheap time.
We’ve figured out things to do and things not to do.

Documentation for how to use Amazon’s cloud computing

You’ll notice 2 things about the doc:

1. The dates on the title page are older. We’ve updated the document, we just haven’t updated the title page.
2. It’s written by a Filipino. He’s a programmer, not an english major! (you’ll laugh at some of the language

Who this is for (and who it’s NOT for)

This document is for you if:

• you’re technically inclined
• you want to use “the cloud” but don’t want to spend all the time figuring stuff out
• you’re interested in using reliable dedicated servers at a reasonable price

This document isn’t for you if:

• you struggle with FTP
• the word “server” scares you
• you’re not making money with your current website

Why I’m doing this

I want feedback!
I know the document is rough.
I want a few people to follow it and implement what it goes through in their business. Take notes and let me know what’s missing, what you don’t understand, and how you figured it out.
I’m interested in making this document a more thorough guide so more people can take advantage of this resource for their business.
If using this interests you, read through it. See if it’s way over your head. See if it makes sense. See if anything jumps out at you immediately as being lacking.
I hope to make this a guide which more people can use.

It’s free!

http://clues.yahoo.com/analysis

It will show you who’s searching for the keywords you’re targeting by:

• age
• gender
• location
• search volume
• alternative keywords

Put in “photoshop” and “learn guitar” for some surprising demographics (at least…surprising to me!).

It would be super easy to be marketing to the wrong demographic if you’re in those markets.

It was really popular (and REALLY profitable) from 2000 – 2006.
Since then, everyone say it doesn’t work anymore.

I’ve heard people say “You can’t do direct linking, Google won’t allow it.”

While direct linking doesn’t work as well as it once did, I’m here to say:
YES! “DIRECT LINKING” DOES STILL WORK!
I know because we do it.

Here’s proof.
I took screenshots of an adwords account and of affiliate income from the past 6 months (November – April).

Expenses:

Income:

To sum it up

For members of ReplaceMyself.com, the business model we use is outlined in detail in the “Business-in-a-Box.” All members have access to it.
The “Business-in-a-Box” is designed to be given to a Filipino employee and have them implement it for you.

Like I’ve always said, this isn’t something that will make you rich. It’s not designed to make you $100,000,000,000.
It IS designed to help you get someone working for you quickly, with little to no intervention on your part, and hopefully have them start making money for you.

We just finished updating the “Business-in-a-Box” training so it’s current and has all the training someone needs to get started doing it today.

No, I’m not getting rich off this income.
Does direct linking still work?
YES, yes it does.

Here’s my answer:

I recorded this video in the foothills a few minutes from my house. (I have the ipad in my hands to look at my notes)
It’s beautiful here.

Here is the gist of what I say in the video:

1. Focus on understanding the business you’re going to implement. Understand the process and the steps. Don’t be the one to do the work (Outsource it)
2. Don’t worry about building a list, creating one-time-offers, upsells, downsells, or continuity. Focus on making the first sale. All the rest of the “you have to do this” stuff can come later. In the beginning, the money is NOT “in the list.”
3. Make your website have one purpose. (Hint: it’s not to get them to friend you on facebook or follow you on twitter) MAKE SALES on your website. That’s the only purpose.
4. Find out what your market wants to BUY, not just what they WANT.
5. Get traffic to your website (refer to this post about My
   websites aren’t making money, what do I do for a traffic generation plan.
6. Follow a plan. You’ve already bought someone’s product for how to make money, now stick with it! Follow the steps…after you understand them.
7. Outsource it all. DON’T be the one doing all the work. Be the CEO of your business. Learn to outsource at ReplaceMyself.com

“I have lots of websites and they’re not making me money. What do I do?”

I recorded this answer while I was in Paris.

Here are bullet points of what I suggest to do:

1. Pick one of them and focus on it.
2. Pick the one where you can see the end from the beginning, where
   you understand everything that it needs.
3. Don’t try to convert random people to buying random things. Be Specific. Know who you’re trying to sell to.
4. Self Replicated MLM or Mortgage or Real Estate sites don’t work. (or…I’ve never seen it work)
5. Re-evaluate the effectiveness of the site you have. Study some
   copywriting techniques and do things to increase conversions on your
   site. Whatever you’re selling, give people a reason to buy it
   (give incentives, tell them why it’s the best, it has a problem and I’ll solve it, …)
6. Make sure your site only has one purpose. It has one goal when someone
   comes to the homepage. Get rid of widgets unless they serve a purpose.
7. Get traffic. Buy a little and see what happens. Don’t overspend. Don’t pretend to be macho with google adwords. Learn a little about it.
8. A quick plan for getting free traffic:
   1. write an article and submit it to ezinearticles.com
   2. create a squidoo lens. put 2 pieces of content, link it to your site
   3. create a short video, submit it to tubemogul (and verify it worked)
9. If you built the sites following a blueprint or something, stick
   with it for a bit before moving onto something else. Sometimes these
   things just take time.
10. Don’t give up! You’re going to fail some. This is a business.

In in Paul describes exactly how he chooses clickbank products to promote (it’s really ingenious), when he promotes them, how he promotes them, and how he gets top rankings in Google for super long tail keywords that make him lots of money for years and years.

Paul has really created a gem of a marketing system, and he describes it very well on this webinar.

He does a great job of showing how upsells/downsells work and how the process should work.

The audio is a bit quiet…sorry for that.

Here are the steps I use to get PERFECT video AND AUDIO gotowebinar or gotomeeting recordings using Camtasia.

1. Get Virtual Audio Cable.
   You have to use the full version because the demo version won’t let you create enough audio repeaters.
   You have to use this so you can record the webinar sound.
2. Set up Virtual Audio Cable like this:
   
   You’re really just setting up 4 “audio repeaters.”
3. Open “Audio Repeater” windows
   You need to open up 4 “Audio Repeater” windows from the Virtual Audio Cable menu
4. Set up the “Audio Repeater’s” like this:
   
   What you’re doing with this is redirecting the different sounds from your computer so it can be recorded with camtasia. You now have your microphone’s input and Virtual Cable 2 going to “Virtual Cable 3.”
5. Redirect GoToWebinar/GoToMeeting to Virtual Cable 2.
   Click on “File” -> “Preferences” -> “Audio”
   Leave your microphone selected for the microphone, but change the “Speakers Setup” to send sound to “Virtual Cable 2.”
   
6. Modify Camtasia Studio audio recording settings
   Open up Camtasia Recorder. Click on “Tools” -> “Options” -> “Audio”
   Then change the Audio device to be “Virtual Cable 3″ like this:
   
7. Start all of the Audio Repeaters
8. You’ll need to plug in a headset.
   If you use speakers for your sound, the audio from the webinar will play through your mic and you’ll get an echo
9. Start or join a webinar or meeting on GoToMeeting/GoToWebinar
10. Hit record on Camtasia

With this setup you should get a fantastic recording of both your voice (straight from your microphone) and the voice of anyone else participating in the webinar (straight from GTW/GTM).

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