UPDATE: This review is now outdated. I’ve removed the links from this page, as I’m no longer recommending it. I will say that based solely on feedback I received from people who paid to join StomperNet, it was overall a good program, albeit the high price of admission. Some internet marketers have credited their success largely to what they learned from StomperNet.
Throughout the past years, StomperNet has received a lot of criticism from customers and even from former employees. From what I’ve seen, most of the criticism was related to poor customer service, poor treatment of affiliates, shady marketing practices, and an allegedly nasty split of StomperNet co-founders Brad Fallon and Andy Jenkins.
Just keep in mind that this article was written prior to any of that, and was based entirely on what was presented by Brad and Andy at the time of the original StomperNet launch. This article is not a currently held viewpoint regarding StomperNet or Brad and Andy.
Edition #80 – 8/28/2006
This is going to be short and sweet. I suggest that anyone who is involved in internet marketing should go watch this video:
(Link removed – no longer available)
I guarantee you that this will be the most talked about viral video of the season. In the video, Andy Jenkins and Brad Fallon explain how they are making $500,000.00 PER MONTH from one website using organic search traffic.
Maybe you saw John Reese’s $500k AdSense video earlier this year. If not, that’s OK. Basically it was just a 20 minute screen shot of John’s AdSense account (with vital statistics blocked out), while he talked about how he built this $500k/year “side business” using virtual real estate (VRE).
That video was so inspiring that it caused thousands of webmasters to jump into the AdSense game and resulted in the springing up of an entire “VRE” cottage industry. In fact, I’d say that video single handedly put the term “VRE” into internet marketing history, and into our daily vocabulary.
The problem is, he never mentioned HOW to do it. He basically just said he WAS doing it, and the rest was a mystery (which assumably might be revealed if you subscribed to his $100/month newsletter).
I’m not at all dissing John Reese… my point is simply this: The Andy Jenkins/Brad Fallon video is much more powerful than the John Reese VRE video. Here’s why…
They actually SHOW you the real site they’re talking about. They show you exactly what it’s selling. They show you the statistics in the backend of the control panel. They show you the search engine listings. They show you split-test studies that they conducted. They show you what platform they’re using to run the site. They even show you demographic research.
And here’s the best part, they’ve made this video available for FREE. So check it out now at…
(Link removed – no longer available)
Some things in the video for you to particularly pay attention to are:
In the next week or so, I’ll be discussing a little more about what they’re doing, and how you can apply it to your own business.
As always, you can leave your comments here in the blog.
Have a great day!
Hi Eric,
I watched the video with great fascination. Then, I went to the website to see if I could figure out how they actually got such high search engine rankings for the search terms so quickly. I may have missed something, but I didn’t see what they did to get such a high ranking so quickly for the search terms, long tail or short tail. There seems to be something missing. You can see that they have something like 5,000 pages indexed for the website (yes, 5,000). The home page has a Google PR of zero, but many of the individual pages have a PR of 4-6. Google doesn’t show many backlinks to any of the pages (and none to the home page).
I’m curious about what I’m missing here. They’re clearly getting a LOT of traffic (most INDIVIDUAL pages have an Alexa rank of less than 18,000), and are ranked in the top five for almost every keyword they use. They don’t seem to make any use of the metatags (every page has the same few general keywords). Any light you can shed on this would be helpful.
Eric,
You must have taken a few days off. (good for you) The video’s been up for a few days…Hah!
Although a great demonstration and well documented, their analysis of ppc versus organic clickthroughs are contrary to other demonstrations out there. Who in the heck are ya supposed to believe?
Eric –
Glad to see you promoting Andy and Brad’s video and your comments are spot-on.
Look forward to your comments as we wait for their next video installment.
James
You’ll also notice the use of PPC they do as well with the website they used in the video.
They’re not MAKING $500,000 / month, they claim they’re doing SALES of that value. Big difference.
$1,000 in sales might only mean they make $50-$100, there won’t be much margin for profit on wedding favors, competition is intense and people know how to use search engines when they’re looking for a bargain, don’t they?
Still nice though and I wouldn’t sneer at it, but how much would be left after staff have been paid, etc.
Sorry to be such a downer, but I’m fed up of hype like this, it would be refreshing to see some REAL business maths instead of just the ridiculously high figures that everyone goes “oooh” over. Something like, “we do half a million in sales which means $37,500 return on investment, and then after all the overheads, we clear $14,300 / month which is nearly $500 / day.”
THAT would be far more believable, and still very impressive…
Well done in the BM affiliate race BTW Eric, I loved your lateral thinking to increase sales while making a few dollars yourself, excellent work! And of course your name is extremely well known now for coming second, brilliant strategy! You’re my hero at the moment. 😉
Well, Eric,
I have another Website (not mentioned, yet) but the matter is really this one: THE VIDEO IS A MUST SEE – FOR EVERYONE.
It will help ENTREPRENEURS to perform better and SEEKERS to look better, next time.
It was a pleasure to recall my old classes in Public Relations and Publicity, too.
Congratulations for your finding, Eric!
PT
Sid- I wish I could give you a definitive answer, but that is something I’d like to grasp too. I know that part of the answer lies in the fact that “long tail” keyword strategy results in a LOT less competition. The further you move down the tail, the less competition there is. And in many of those cases, PR is irrelevant. Hopefully they will expound on this…
Frank- thanks for calling me out on that one, seriously. I’m usually the first one to point out that gross sales is not important, net income is. For me to emphasize the gross sales like that was a bit hypey, and for that I apologize. I too would like to know how much they are netting from the business. I’d be shocked if they weren’t making over 10% profit…
Great video Eric!
Just one thing – the link at the bottom of the page doesn’t work.
Carolyn
The latest bargain (crazy dollar offer) for webmasters:
http://www.carolynmctigue.com/recommends/cdo_iwa
Hi Eric
The ‘long tail’ priciple has been around for quite a while; and it can be done semi-manually just by using a few tools that google has begind the scenes so to speak.
I am sure many are aware of Google Labs; and it is this that assists in searching out those ‘long tail’ keyword phrases that Brad and Andy talk about so freely in the video…
The trick is in finding the correct combination with the absolute least amount of competition from other sites. To be honest you could choose one of about a million (probably more) niches to exploit in this way. So saturation should never be a problem for marketers generally. The problems only exist when all the marketers are chasing the same market. Unfortunately it always seems to be the ‘Internet Marketing’ sector that bears the brunt of the thoughts of most marketers.
Only in the last three weeks; I chose a ‘long tail’ that has over 15,500,000 (fifteen and a half million) searches per year against competition for keywords of only 10 (ten). Now how difficult would it be to show in the top ten on any search engines results with that type of ratio?
Combined with ‘cheap’ marketing techniques and a little push from an adwords campaign or three and your chances of increasing revenue to astronomical proportions is very possible; even predictable some would say.
So I guess it would all come back to finding the niche (high searches / low competition), search engine optimization and marketing! Same as it has always been and same as it will always be.
I must point out though that with Brad; you will get the absolute BEST software available to acheive these very basic necessities to your online business combined with the BEST and most truthful training….. a la this site 🙂
From the begining and throughout the video and on the first screen it said “Sales” not profits or net earnings or EBITA. Secondly, they have an affiliate program via CJ paying 12%. This tells me that they are serious about affiliate sales and have spent the money on CJ to offer the program.
Eric
having read most of your blags I am of the opinion in my humble role as a project manager/ ex sales engineer etc etc, that there is a lot of work put in with all this stuff. But the nett return if it is 10% IS NOT WORTH DOING.
I have worked for myself as a project manager for over 10 years and if I cannot price a job and make some 20- 30% profit ie 10-15% margin then it is not worth the effort.
As ever, in Europe the immigration factor is getting worse, The Poles god bless them (they helped UK & America win the 2nd world war) are selling electricians labour for £10/hr when existing London companies are having to sell at £19-23/hr.
Same thing goes with any internet selling where exactly is the profit margin?? is it at the front end with those who are in there first or, does the tail end charlie get less as the system explodes??
I understand the concept of wide area marketing and getting affiliates etc etc and the rake off of this.
Am I missing something here?? please explain???
Sceptic as ever??
James
Hi Eric-
Interesting video… I, like many of your readers, was asking what tools, methods, software was used to get the sales. (Let alone the argument of $16000/day in sales vs actual profit, as someone else pointed out.). Organic traffic is all great but I feel like we hit the pause button in the middle of a windup and now I’m left waiting for the pitch! Anyways, I’m sure all will be revealed in the upcoming weeks…for a slight fee of course. 😉
Anyways, I found it interesting that Brad Fallon and his wedding favors website have a glowing testimonial of using Brad Callen’s SEOElite. I couldn’t help but wonder if part of the SEO strategy they will be giving us in upcoming video’s include using this tool for organic traffic. Hmmmmm.
James- I’m not saying they’re making 10%… I was just giving what I would consider to be the lowest possible estimate. As Frank just pointed out, they have an affiliate program on CJ which pays 12% (plus they pay CJ fees on top of that) so that would suggest they must be making a minimum of 15% and likely a good deal more than that…
Even at 15%, they’d be making about $1 million per year in profit, plus they have other sites too…
I understand your point about ROI (I personally don’t do much unluss I can make 100% ROI), but with the kind of volume they’re doing it is definitely worth it even if they have a lower ROI.
DEAR FRIEND ERIC.
HOW ARE YOU TODAY?
I HOPE YOU IN GOOD HEALTH AND YOUR FAMILY TOO.
TRY TO COMEBACK TO YOUR JOB,THAT CAN MAKE YOU FORGET ALL SAD AND START NEW LIFE,FULL BY HOPE AND
SMILES.
JOD BLESS YOU. I PRAY TO YOU THIS DAYS.
TACK CARE.
SEE YOU SOON.
Hi Eric,
I’m sorry but your must see video from this message didn’t worked to see it so far.
But with your permission I’ll profit of your this message to announce you I already published my first own website.Its web address is http://www.pettudreviews.com
Please, take some minutes to see it and make you some observations to improve it.My website contain 10 pages and main page is ‘Writing Cash’ review page.
This month I’m going to promote it via AdWords and another methods as welland I need to improve it before.
Best Regards,
Petre Tudor
HI MY FRIEND ERIC.
HOW ARE YOU TODAY.
I HOPE YOU IN THE BEST MODE .
TRY TO WRITE TO ME AS USUAL,TO KNOW ABOUT YOU AND
YOUR PROJECT.
HAPPY WEEKEND AND LABOR DAY.
SEE YOU SOON.
Why is everyone so concerned with profit margin vs. sales? I think the point of the video is to show you can get top placement organically. Obviously, no one would enter any business if there were no profit involved. $500K in sales translates into profit – I assure you.
Videos does not work, or at least not any more. I still don’t know which slit testing software to use along with SEO…
Awesome video. I think that LSI or Latent Semantic Indexing will be the thing to learn how to do well in 2007.
Get those websites siloed!
-Kyle
The Stompernet guys are at it again… They’ve just released some great new “Going Natural 3.0” videos
DAAAAM!! Last post was in 2008?! lol.
No wonder… Just wanted to give you the heads up that the video is now taken down, and it goes directly to their sales page. 😉
I have an interview with Brad in a couple days, so I’m trying to find some good stuff to ask him… Doing some research… That’s how I found you.
That was a GREAT post man!
Keep rocking!
~Omar