Tim Kerber

This ebook has gotten a lot of publicity and controversy lately. Here's the truth behind The Whole Truth

There has been a lot of buzz in the online marketing circles about the ebook by Stephen Pierce. It's long title is "The Whole Truth, Nothing But The Truth About Internet Marketing - Under Oath".

The background of the author is a seemingly straight forward success story. He is 34 years old and relatively new to marketing on the internet. Last year he cleared $800,000+ in sales in NON-internet marketing related products.

His story is more dramatic because it WASN"T acquired by catering to the oversaturated internet marketing crowd.

The Good

There is no doubt that this ebook has some very solid and original ideas in it. One of the things that impressed me the most is that several of the good points have not been rehashed from other sources. (I have read many dozens of marketing ebooks and know repeated ideas when I see them).

In particular, some of the more impressive points made were:

• How to easily find under developed products to market for profit
• Very valid points about the difference between the top internet gurus techniques in managing their newsletters as opposed to those struggling to make it
• Excellent advice on creating a loyal, grateful and receptive customer base
• Applicable ideas which any small business web site owner could consider putting in place for side avenues of revenue

I was mentally inspired (and taking notes) when he outlined his linked sites which cater to similar targeted customers. Each site had a different focus and purpose. The way that he worked them together to feed off of, and into each other was well worth noting.

There were some very valid tactics that have not been written about before (at least I have read). I had actually been doing a couple of them myself as I am sure some other internet saavy site owners might have. I had not however seen anyone write about them before. Truthfully I felt a little disappointed that the methods were talked about (!) I didn't mind that it was not common knowledge. For those of you that have the ebook already, I am talking about pages 136-141

Stephen's after sale followup marketing is excellent. One of the best actually. If nothing else, pay attention to the emails and the way he works his backend sales. There is a LOT to be learned from his example. (I made it a point of saving all of his followup emails for future reference). Stephen knows what he is talking about AND he practices what he preaches.

The Bad

This ebook takes a while to get going. You can basically toss the first 21 pages out as Stephen is simply proving his success. I can save you a few minutes: he has genuinely had VERY good success. Skip to page 22

Several typos throughout the book. I shouldn't talk because I have been known to let one slip by on occasion, but they do distract you a bit while reading. As a side note, I took a moment and pointed out a few to Stephan via email. I was very impressed with the speed and polite (grateful) nature of the replies.

The bonus report is one of the main reasons I bought the ebook. The report was supposedly a nonbiased review of dozens of marketing products and services that Stephen has used. I was curious because I had a similarly large list of purchases for many of these products myself. I was wondering how substantial his reviews were. I was a bit disappointed.

Not all of his reviews were sugar coated. Stephen was upfront in debunking a few of the bigger products out there such as WebPositionGold.

A few of the others that he gave a high rating to, I was frankly very disappointed in. I invested in one in particular after his full recommendation and was totally underwhelmed with it.

Another course he gave a glowing review to I thought was a waste of (big) money. I know I am not going to agree with every reviewer, but I wasn't overly impressed with most of the reviews in the bonus ebook.

This (Could Get) Ugly

Stephen offers some very interesting and controversial advice on getting highly ranked in the google search engine. He starts off with some very good points and more legitimate means of keyword specific web pages. It starts to get controversial when he transitions towards a formula he calls "Smart pages". Controversial because the tactics really do appear to work (some have for me on a lesser site). The problem is, there is the eventual potential for google to catch on to the tactic.

Unfortunately, google has a past history of penalizing and/or removing sites from their listing who are not "playing fair". In fact very recently evidence has started to show that some of Pierce's own sites are getting dropped from google.

There has been some controversy however whether this is simple because people are taking the time to point out his sites to google to get them delisted. I have seen suggestions that google employees have watching this whole matter pretty close so it doesn't surprise me if he gets penalized.

Stephen claims it is not manipulating the search listings but I don't buy his argument. It is apparently is exactly what it is doing. Google isn't ranking the page because of good content, it ranks them because of manipulated content.

Because it does work, it is a tempting to abuse it.

Use this tactic with discretion! Would I try it on a small unrelated site?

Yes, in fact I have and it does work.

I would not do it with a site that I couldn't afford to have penalized. If you are still tempted to try it, you probably want to stay away from the javascript version and stick with the flash smart pages.

Regardless of this whole google controversy, the rest of the ebook has solid material. Even if you choose to ignore it, there is still plenty in the ebook to learn from.

Bottom Line

Despite any hesitations I have about a few points in this purchase, this is a very good ebook.

I was very satisfied with the purchase. It was one of the few ebooks I bothered to even print out. After placing it in a loose leaf notebook I went over it highlighting and circling some very good tactics that I am confident can work.

I've already implemented a few of the strategies outlined and can truthfully say that the ebook paid for itself within a few days for me.

My take on the controversy is this:

Stephen has been able to generate a lot of buzz with this ebook in a very short amount of time. A lot of this buzz has unfortunately mainly focused only on his google strategy.

If you ask me, that is not where it is really deserving.

Yes I can and have seen the potential of those tactics. In my mind however, I don't even take that into account with my evaluation of the rest of the contents. I really feel that it is only a short matter of time before google cracks down on the strategy and at the very least, makes it useless. Even if you remove this portion from evaluation (which I did), there are tips and techniques with real substance in here.

Overall, I give "The Whole Truth" one of my highest recommendations. I found it refreshingly good, unique and applicable for anyone doing business online.

Rating:

Glad I bought it

The ebook is available here: http://whole-truth-ebook.com

Well love it or leave it. I have tried to give my honest review of this ebook.

Your Feed Back Is Very Important!

If you have a moment, please give me some feedback on the review. That is a strong motivator for me to do more in the future.

• In particular I am looking for comments on the review. Was it substantial enough?
• Would you want other products reviewed in a similar fashion?
• Should I even bother?!?
• Any products in particular you have been curious about?

Let me know.

Can't find what you are looking for? Try Google Search!