Review of Honest Riches by Holly Mann

Holly Mann wrote the book Honest Riches which is a comprehensive guide which explains how to set up a website, build content, advertise, SEO, creating e-books with tips and tricks on internet marketing throughout as to how she personally gets her websites out there within weeks or a few months.   She is an internet marketing guru who has written Honest Riches to assist those individuals looking to make money online.  Her book helps beginners learn what approach to take and where to go for resources.  She puts a huge focus on free resources since she is aware that many people starting out in internet marketing have little financial means.  Is it really possible to make passive income online (being continuous income earned currently for one time efforts performed in the past).  Yes it is.  Holly Mann’s book Honest Riches, updated for the third time in 2008, tells you how to accomplish this in short order.  You should also be aware that Holly Mann is sharing with you in her book Honest Riches, her personal techniques for making money online in 280 packed full pages.  She prides herself on being an honest marketer.

Why Should You Buy Holly Mann’s Book called Honest Riches

This book is and/or will:

• an excellent resource for beginners and intermediate internet marketers and even senior web marketers will find new ideas and resources in her book• provide you with resources for FREE information, programs, website building, autoresponders, cloaking devices, keyword searching, etc. for those on a tight budget• packed full of information, advice, procedures, web tool resources, programs and links to the best websites available for information in internet marketing• resources to cut to the chase and get down to making money quicker• help you move in the right direction from the onset which will save you hours of time doing the research yourself• teach you affiliate marketing basics, how it works, the difference between independent and network affiliate programs set out in a detailed precise chart, recommendations on what networks to join, how to find good affiliate programs, and even information for those outside of North America in other countries and what programs and networks are available to them, and a detailed checklist on what questions you need to ask when picking a network or program• provide an explanation on cloaking and how necessary it is for you to understand why it is important to use it with your links together with free sources for cloaking software• teach you how to profit without having a website including explaining niches, using forums to profit, forum signatures and how to use links within to promote your business, etc.• provide you with tips on how to write a sales letter and/or review of a product, where to find the hottest and newest products to review and sell, where to submit your reviews online without a website, additional sources for learning how to write articles• provide you with how to use social networks, web 2.0 and e-mail marketing to obtain business• provide you with a detailed explanation of what autoresponders are and where to find the cheapest and best autoresponders• teach and explain to you how to create a website including providing explanations about domain names, IP addresses, website hosting, website designs, special advice for beginners, HTML, PHP, content management systems, free websites• provide you with how to hire a web designer, contracts for services, website design resources, and how to hire a web designer for free• provide an explanation of RSS feeds, readers, finding and adding feeds, e-mail subscriptions for RSS feeds, and how to add an RSS Feed to your website• provides an explanation and links respecting various types of advertising methods free and paid on the web including press releases, articles, directories, classified ad websites and how to websites, pay-per-click, and free reports with tips for all forms of advertising• provides advanced monetization techniques including visual card directory, Amazon stores, social network marketing• provide you with many tips, tricks, things to be careful about, top websites for matters discussed throughout the book, and many many resources for freebies• The book is well written and easy to read, contains charts and diagrams to make the concepts easier to understand and has two indexes for ease of finding information

When I found Holly Mann’s book, Honest Riches, I was blown away by the amount of advice and information contained in the book.  The Honest Riches book was recently expanded and updated to go from 95 pages to 280 pages packed full of new and current information and resources.   I received the updated version free of charge because I had previously bought version 2.   The 2008 version breaks down the procedures for doing online marketing more clearly so as to assist the beginner who has no concept of what making money online is all about and provides many more resources.

What’s In the Honest Riches Book

For those of you who really like to know more specific details about a book which normally cannot be easily ascertained from online marketing, the following is a book review of Honest Riches which is very long and detailed so that you can determine more carefully whether the book will cover the subject(s) that you need training on, information about or resources for.   If the subject is covered in this book you can be assured the information comes from an excellent source.  Holly Mann spends considerable time looking into the programs she promotes and always buys and uses all programs she promotes.  She does not promote programs that she does not think are worthwhile.  Holly Mann also includes her own personal tips and tricks.

Her current 2008 version of the book, Honest Riches, is really 10 books in one and focuses on the following:

• Affiliate Marketing  • Research & Preparations • Profiting Without a Website • Website Creation• Search Engine Optimization• Advertising Methods• Product Creation• Advanced Monetization Methods• Internet Marketing Toolkit• Holly Mann’s Personal Resources

Below is a summary of each of these books and what they will offer you.   This book is for those who are at beginner or intermediate level in internet marketing.  It can also assist senior internet marketers for new information they may not be aware of.  Holly Mann is very proactive at providing new and updated information to her audience.  She spends her time looking at all of the many ways of making money online so that she can provide these resources to her readers as time goes on.

Affiliate Marketing (Book 1 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

In this book Holly Mann explains what the different types of affiliate programs there are, how they work and how you get paid.  Holly indicates in this book that affiliate marketing was her key to financial success online.  She explains the difference between independent affiliate programs and affiliate networks and gives links to a number of the most popular and reliable affiliate networks, how they work and how you get paid by them.  She also recommends a number of networks that deal with individuals who live anywhere in the world.   She further provides a list of questions that you should ask yourself when you are thinking of picking a program or network and what you need to watch out for.

One of the interesting tidbits she provides in this book is about affiliate link cloaking.  She goes into great depth about what it is, how to set it up and how it protects you from affiliate link theft.   I had read about cloaking before but had no idea why it was such a benefit.   Thanks to Holly Mann I now realize that I need to use cloaking for my affiliate links.  You will too if you purchase her book. 

Research & Preparations (Book 2 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

In this book Holly Mann has spent some time showing you what the difference is between goals and direction in order to ensure you proceed in the right manner from the onset.  Remember she has already been through all this when she started to learn internet marketing and she has given you some tools for ensuring you do not get side tracked from your ultimate goal of making income on the web and the importance of “dreaming big”.  For those of you such as myself who have spent many hours looking at a number of websites unsure which ones were the best to spend time on, this book will help eliminate some of those extra hours of work for you.

Holly Mann goes into great detail about keyword research tools.  If you are not aware of what keywords are you must learn since it is a mandatory for being successful online.  She goes into detail about what “keywords are, what “niches” are and provides resources for a variety of free and paid keyword research tools and the benefits of each including Wordtracker which has been claimed to be the best available for keyword research.  Holly Mann claims that she has used Wordtracker regularly for all of her internet marketing research. 

Profiting Without Websites (Book 3 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

In this section of Honest Riches, Holly Mann explains how to make money without a website through forum postings, writing reviews, ***.  When I first heard about this concept I thought that I must have heard wrong since I could not fathom how this could actually work.  Holly Mann sets out the different procedures including a discussion about how to make money adding affiliate links to forum postings without being considered spam and gives a number of different ways in which it can be done. She also gives a website that she personally made thousands of dollars from posting a simple short advertisement.  In this book Holly Mann describes how to properly set up a signature in forums and the benefits of this.  She further tells you how you can find the hottest items to focus on when selling online.  She explains how to make money without a website by writing reviews of products and submitting them online in various places and provides you with links to some of the best places to post your reviews. 

She even provides some excellent links to learn how to write effectively for the internet if you feel you need this.   Some of these courses give excellent tips to assist you with your writing and even good writers can find new techniques that will improve their online writing which is another form of writing.  There are also references to sites where you can write articles for others and be paid for them as well.

This section also includes information on how to make money using social networking websites, web 2.0 (being websites created by a community of users) and e-mail marketing (which includes an explanation of what autoresponders are and how they can help you make money and where to get an excellent one for a great price).

Website Creation (Book 4 of Honest Holly by Holly Mann

This book goes right through the entire process of setting up websites in various forms and includes ways of obtaining free resources.  It is written for the beginner.   She provides an explanation of what domain names and IP addresses are.  Holly Mann explains what hosting your website means and gives you some excellent tips on what to look for in a hosting company along with a reference to a hosting company that I would recommend myself as a matter of fact.  I was glad to see she promotes the same one since when I did my research Bluehost was my hosting company of choice and at that time I was not really knowledgeable to make the right decision. 

There is a great section on website design which tries to teach you what not to do.  Holly Mann does not want you to make the same mistakes she did and end up with hours of extra work.    She has some very clear advice on this that should be looked at.  Holly Mann gives you some recommended software to help you create the HTML and explains what HTML is and how to write it.   She further goes into an explanation of PHP with excellent tips on how to use it on your website.

Holly Mann recommends everyone use content management systems (CMS) instead of HTML for the simple reason that everything is set up for you and making changes is very easy.  Content management systems give you the ability to add, update and edit your site without needing an HTML editor or software to do so which provides for more flexibility and control.  She also tells you where to go to get a  number of good content management systems for free and describes two of her favourites in detail.

In cases where you might not want to prepare your website yourself, she has provided information and references for hiring a designer with tips on what to watch out for. She even has tips on how to get someone to do your website for free.  Holly Mann always thinks in terms of the person who does not have a lot of funds. 

She includes a website design lingo dictionary to assist you with terms you will need to understand and service contracts that you can use for hiring a web designer.

The last chapter in this book gives an explanation of RSS Feeds and how they can benefit you.  She provides an explanation of feed readers, finding and adding RSS Feeds, e-mail subscriptions for RSS Feeds and how you can have an RSS Feed on your website. 

 Search Engine Optimization (Book 5 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

This is my personal favourite book in Honest Riches.  Holly Mann goes in detail about how search engines work, how to get indexed in the search engines right away, how to do research on the market for your website.   

She gives a research example on the SEO steps that should be taken for your new website which would be akin to a business plan.  This is great because in this process she goes through the process in baby steps so you can learn how she would handle the SEO steps for a new project step by step.

Holly Mann has created over 150 websites and provides some input into her own personal experiences with SEO techniques to help you avoid making the same mistakes.   The steps she provides for you are the exact same steps she uses herself every time she sets up a website.  She has indicated that every single niche website she has optimized has reached top ranking in the search engines.  

There is a step-by-step SEO Guide which includes keyword research, how to analyze your competition, linking strategies, purchasing a domain name, web hosting, website plan, articles, etc.   She has many resources in this section including where to go for webmaster tools and free site map templates.  She teaches you how to do reverse searching, what a robots text file is, and what you need to know about bots, spiders and crawlers when setting up your website. There are also some SEO Tutorials included.

Advertising Methods (Book 6 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

This is another one of my favourite books.  One of the first methods she recommends are Press Releases and she provides you will information on what they are, how to draft one and a list of links where to go to publish them for free.   I tend to use Holly Mann’s links for particular sites before I go to others since if she feels it is a good website to advertise in then that is enough for me.  She also gives you tips on how to pay a small amount to get a higher ranking quicker and at what websites she feels it would be a good idea to invest.

Holly Mann discussed bringing your website up in the rankings by adding articles to article websites, adding your website to directories and adding advertisements to websites and provides tips she uses herself with respect to these submissions.  She also discusses how to establish a presence online with “how to” websites and how to accomplish this and how to provide free reports and up sell at the same time and even includes a tutorial on how to prepare a free report.

There is a chapter explaining pay-per-click advertising, how to test campaigns and on affordable advertising for those who do not want to wait to get to the top of the search engines. 

Throughout all of this section there is tip after tip from Holly Mann as to what she feels you should consider and focus on when trying to get your website up in the rankings quickly.  Holly Mann explains how she has her site indexed within 2 weeks of putting it up.  After I finished reading the 2008 guide I realized why my website was still not high enough in the rankings and exactly what I needed to do in order to improve my traffic.

Production Creation (Book 7 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

This book goes into great deal on how to create and sell an e-book online including tutorials on research, creating and selling, self-publishing, brand creation.

Advanced Monetization Methods (Book 8 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

This section is for the more advanced internet marketer and if the beginners follow Holly’s tricks and tips throughout, by the time they get to this section they will have enough understanding of how to use these advanced techniques.

Some of the things that she discusses are visual card directories, how to create an Amazon store, using videos to advertise your product, social network revenue sharing, video websites, targeted text-link traffic.

Holly Mann provides a lot of information on how to market on social networks and which networks you should go with in order to get the most impact and how to gain from this exposure.

IM Toolkit (Book 9 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

Holly Mann starts off this section by saying that almost everything required for internet marketing can be obtained for free and provides information and resources for open source software, public domain software, copylefted software, non-copylefted free software, GPL-covered software, GNU software, freeware, shareware, free website design templates, free Wordpress Themes, free scripts, DHTML goodies, free fonts, images and graphics, photo software, and vector images, and goes into detail about what these different types of resources can provide to you. 

There is a chapter on website ideas for making money and she provides examples and procedures for a number of types of adventures including certain types of websites that can make money and master resale rights. 

Holly Mann’s Personal Resources (Book 10 of Honest Riches by Holly Mann)

Holly sets out her own personal resources in this section of the book and outlines some of her personal preferences such as e-mail programs, web browsers, web design software and much more.  She also includes a list of her favourite internet marketing gurus that she recommends with links to their resources.

Summary

At the time of reading the third and most current version of Holly Mann’s book called Honest Riches, I felt I was at an intermediate level for understanding internet marketing.  I have found many new and exciting ideas and resources in her book to continue me to senior level.  If you are determined to make money through online marketing as I am, Holly Mann’s book can certainly help you get there quicker.

Although you can read specific sections in the Honest Riches book that might pertain to what you are interested in knowing at the onset, it is important that you read the entire book because there will be tips throughout that will help you with different aspects of your internet marketing.

This new 2008 version of the Honest Riches book very simply is 100% better than the previous versions.  My main critique of the previous version 2 would have been that although it was geared to the beginner the information was provide in short context which made it hard for the beginner to understand if they did not have a lot of knowledge.  She has definitely solved this problem by taking the time to explain very clearly from beginning to end what a beginner has to do to accomplish each aspect of internet marketing and added even more resources for everyone to take advantage of.

As a critique, I would suggest that a sub-index should have been included with the main index at the front of the book (as was done in a previous version so that it is more clear what each chapter in each book in the set deals with, however, the index at the back helps a lot to assist.

Even though there are now substantial tutorials throughout the book, it is still a book of resources and should be considered same and is there fore those beginners who need to watch their budget as they are growing their marketing online.

For more information you can go to http://ebooklibrary.canadianbusinessresources.ca/hollymann.html