In the year ended 2007, Barnes and Noble, Borders and Amazon had collectively sold $13.59 billion worth of books and other information products such as music and DVDs. And this is in North America alone. That’s a lot of dollars.

But what exactly happens when someone buys a book or a CD? Are they buying the paper that the words are printed on? The plastic that the CD comes in? No. They are actually buying the “ideas” behind the book. And these ideas are of GREAT value to the people who buy them.

For example, the “ideas” behind a book can solve problems, entertain and even help the reader to make money and improve their lives. It’s all about delivering the right ideas to the right people when they need it most.

So if the value of the book (a $13.59 billion industry) is not in the book itself but rather the “ideas”, then the Internet offers the ULTIMATE VEHICLE to get the right ideas to the right people.

Why? With the Internet, you can tell EXACTLY what “ideas” consumers are looking for, you can promote and sell the ideas on a web store front, you can collect money for those “ideas” via a payment service like PayPal and you can deliver your “ideas” instantly to your customers!

As an information marketer, I’m very clear about this. Whether its an eBook, MP3 audio download or Camtasia videos or even software, I am actually solving problems and adding value to my customers with ideas through the process above.

I love this because there’s no “hard sell”. A good marketer delivers the right product to the right person just when they need them - that is, when they are searching for the solution online.

There’s so much potential in the online information marketing industry that I can’t even begin to explain. For example, you can tell what “ideas” are hot in the marketplace by researching the number of searches for particular keywords.

For example, I can tell you that there are 81,100 searches per month around the word “Hypnosis” and that there are 324,906 searches per month around the word “foreclosure”. By digging deeper into these keywords you will be able to formulate a clear idea about what the searcher is looking for and even determine if they are willing to pay for this information!

Then its just a matter of matching the searches with the information product. With information products, you could create your own or find products that offer an affiliate program on ClickBank for example. This entire process of analyzing what consumers are searching for is called “Keyword Research”.

One of the best tools I have found so far for doing keyword research is Keyword Elite by Brad Callen. I like this tool because its simple to use and very effective. I use it almost everyday. But I’ll be digressing from this post if I go too much into it. I’ll probably do a post about how I use in on another day but if you visit the site, Brad has already created 5 videos to show how you can profit from effective keyword research.

So now you know what I do. If you are looking for new opportunities, then I recommend selling ideas on the Internet too. ;)

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If you ever wondered what plugins I use on my WordPress blog, here are my top recommendations:

1. Akismet - Comes with the standard installation of WordPress for eliminating comment spam! A real must.
2. All In One SEO - allows you to create custom tags and permalink titles
3. Audio Player - allows you to add audio to your blog posts.
4. AYB Javascript in Posts - A plugin that allows javacript to be used in your Wordpress post.
5. Executable PHP Widget - A widget that allows PHP code to work in your sidebar.
6. Google XML Sitemaps - automatically creates and submits your blog sitemap to Google.
7. LightBox 2 - creates a lightbox effect on any linked images in your posts.
8. Recent Comments - a widget that displays a list of your most recent comments added on your blog
9. Recent Posts - a widget that displays a list of your most recent posts.
10. Related Posts - displays a list of related posts at the end of each blog post
11. SEO Friendly Images - automatically adds relevant tags or keywords to the “alt” tag of your blog images.
12. Sociable - allows your reader to quickly submit your post to major social bookmarking sites and social media sites.
13. Subscribe Remind - adds a reminder at the end of every posts to subscribe to your blog.
14. Subscribe to Comments - allows your blog commentators to leave an email so that they can be notified of new comments.
15. Top Commentators - A widget that displays a list of your top commentators.
16. Ultimate Google Analytics - inserts your Google Analytics tracking code in your entire blog. A real time saver.
17. Viper Video Quicktags - allow you to use a simple video tag to add YouTube videos to your posts instead of having to use the embed code. Also compatible with other popular video hosting/ sharing sites.
18. Wordpress.com Stats - provides detailed analytics of your blog
19. WordPress.com Popular Posts - Displays a list of your most popular Wordpress posts based on the statistics gathered from the Wordpress.com Stats plugin.
20. WP-Table - allows you to create a table in your posts. Additionally, the tables are editable, sortable and you can even create hyperlinks in you tale data.

I am always on the look out for cool plugins. If you have some cool plugins to recommend, please post a comment and tell us about it!

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Five years ago, one of my mentors taught me a mantra or motto or whatever you call it. Its basically a phrase that characterizes your actions. A phrase you live by. That phrase was “Live With Passion”.

I have those words written on a wrist band that I wear everyday, its on my instant messenger title, and even my social networking profile pages. Yes, and even on my laptop and phone.

This simple phrase has changed my life so much for the better that I can’t even begin to tell you. But that’s for another story.

Recently, I adopted a NEW and specific mantra for my online business that I want to share with you. It’s “LEARN BY DOING!”. I have already seen this doing wonders for my business so I think if you like the idea, try it out.

I spend thousands of dollars each year on information products - basically seminars, books, software and courses. Inevitably, I get exposed to so many concepts and ideas that I sometimes think I already know them - just because I read about it or heard about it or seen a video about it. But not true. With my new mantra, I don’t consider KNOWING something until I have actually DONE it.

This is especially helpful for my online business where things are constantly evolving. Sometimes, I will read a report or watch a video tutorial and think, “yep, I know this one”. BUT, if I have not actually USED it for my business to get results, I cannot say I know it. So now, I have a habit of documenting and putting it on a to-do list on my “brain wall” as I call it so I am constantly taking action daily.

Now I find that I am really LEARNING something new each day. And with each new learning my results keep improving. I’m really excited of how this new mantra will improve my results in the next few years!

If you are keen to try this mantra, write it out on a nice sheet of paper and post it on your wall, on your laptop and keep it somewhere present so that you are reminded of it and let me know how you go with it. :)

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