Recently, there was an email by Gabor Olah who talked about the reason why many people do not achieve success. When I read it, I knew he really spoke the truth and knew about what he was talking. It is always good to hear that other people struggle with the same problem that confronts you.

Here is what Gabor said:

“I find that many marketers have too many projects running at the same time. If you are serious about getting a website ranking in the search engines, you should focus a lot of time on that one site.

If you are trying to rank six domains at one time, then you better have plenty of time or help to promote these sites.

It is not as easy to rank a new website as it was five years ago, so you will want to spend your time building links to your sites.”

Now isn’t that so true. My to do lists are so long. Projects do get finished; however.

Recently, I read somewhere else–maybe in someone’s post–that multitasking is not always a good thing. Taking it a project at a time and completing each one before you begin the other is considered a much better way to do business.

Now a personal note. I have always liked having multiple tasks for a number of reasons.

1. When using outsourcers, you sometimes end up waiting for some task to be done by them. While you are waiting, you can be working on something else. That way no time is wasted.

2. It keeps me from getting bored. Having several projects is very stimulating and that actually makes me enjoy what I am doing even more.

3. It can have its efficiencies. In delegating, you have a number of tasks taking place at the same time, and there is little downtime.

And, here is the big plus–you do complete more projects in less time if you work it right. You just work so hard.

You know what the saying: “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” Well, maybe that applies to me. Doing my work a project at a time would be so difficult. What about you? Could you do it?

Here is an ebook that you can download that contains some good tips to help your business achieve success.
Just follow the link.

Best Business Blog Tips

Technorati Tags: business blogging, Internet Marketing, project management, Time Management

Have I told you before that I am a shopper? I have tried so many of the video making software programs trying to find one that was easy to use and produced nice videos without too much effort. The reason behind trying the various software programs is that I wanted to be able to outsource the videos to one of my outsourcers. Fortunately Eric is very talented and creative and makes great videos when supervised; but unfortunately, he does not write English well, and you have to make sure that there are no blatant errors.

The video program that won is Article Video Robot. One of its features is that you can also select computerized voices to do the voice. In the end the videos produced are nice–not great–but not bad. The only thing that makes them better is if you do voice-overs and do not use the computerized voices. Eric’s great images and clever manipulations makes them a lot of fun to watch. He can make them rather quickly and efficiently too. I just send him the article I want him to use as a script.

Now here is the bad news. Several people have told me that their AVR videos do not generate much traffic. That is also my experience. Simple easy little videos just do not attract attention.

After attending several meetings with the Traffic Geyser folks who said that it is very important to make outstanding videos that are funny, provocative in some way, or demonstrate something of great interest. Videos made from articles just do not generate traffic the way you would wish.

Thinking about how to make this type of eye catching video brought me back to Camtasia and making my own videos. Recently I took the time to become very proficient in using Camtasia and editing to make the videos very professional. It really is an over the top program that does an outstanding job. There is a bit of a learning curve, but you can start producing very nice videos rather quickly. There is this problem of not having Eric’s help.

One of the steps that I have taken is to have someone make the powerpoint slides for me. That way I can just jazz them up and do the voice-over without having to create the slides first. I do a quick run through so that I am fluent when I record.

If I am not too fussy, I usually do not have to edit them. Of course, there are times when I do want to insert other images and some transitions along with music to enhance the audio. It is true that these videos get much more traffic than the simple little ones.

Using the flip camera is also a good way to create some video that can be funny and perhaps more attention getting. I take it everywhere I go and have caught people doing some pretty funny things. They have more chance of going viral.

There are a number of ways that I have recently learned to pull more traffic from You Tube and some of the other video sites. That would be a whole post in itself so I will save that for another time. I can’t wait to tell you about some great tools I have found.

But until then, let me encourage you to download this special report that I would like to share with you. It has 21 website traffic strategies that are really good and can help you get more traffic to your website. Just click on this link and download the free report.

Website Traffic Strategies

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing, video marketing

This is a topic where I almost do not know where to start. There just isn’t enough time in the day to do everything I have to do to move my internet business along.

Just yesterday I watched a video by Liz Tomey where she gives tips on how you keep your focus and keep yourself on track. Her suggestion is to only work on tasks that are directly related to making money. Make a list consisting of one hour blocks of time with these money related tasks. She continued by saying that you should make sure that when you were working during those one hour blocks that you have no distractions. She even says get a babysitter for your kids if they are a problem. Of course, she quickly hastens to say that no one watches her kids but her. Anyway the idea is that you completely focus on what you are doing. Liz guarantees that by following this routine that you will move toward successful money making.

Now I can tell you from my own experience that one hour blocks do not work for me. And here is another thing. I like one block for learning something new or organizing to make the rest of the tasks go smoother. Another successful marketer named Robert Plank says he uses 4 daily two-hour blocks of time. What Robert does is to try to work only 8 hours a day so he can spend time with his family. Again he says focus and make sure you have undisturbed time. He says that this works for him.

There is one thing I can say for sure. Planning what you are going to do is far better than no planning at all. I am the queen of to do lists and action plans. You definitely will get more done and more projects finished. I admit that your days will often take off on their own and you do not follow your plan at all. Yes, and another thing, I confess I am a workaholic and stay on task like my life depends on my completing a project. But, I do not mind telling you that this internet marketing thing has challenged me to the hilt. Every night before I quit for the day, I set out what I need to do the next day. Sometimes I have more tasks than I have day. That is when prioritizing comes in. What tasks are more important to get accomplished first? Yes, and I use the Google calendar to chart events that have to be repeated for my websites. Laying it all out will make you realize how much you should be doing. You won’t skip steps like social bookmarking, pinging, making rss feeds etc.

O.K. everyone says outsource. I discovered that even outsourcing requires that you plan the tasks you want your helpers to do and you have to communicate with them regularly. All of that takes time. Depending on the difficulty of the task you have them doing, it may take quite a bit of your time getting them through their execution portion. Sometimes you have to look at the hours they put into the task that you might have had to put in to rationalize why it was worth your hours of supervising. Outsourcing at times seems to make more work–and supervising is hard to schedule.

Recently, I was very fortunate to spend two days with my mentor who is a 7 figure marketer. He has quite a few people working for him in an office that he has established for them. In addition to his in-office employees who are full time, he has workers not on site doing article marketing, software designing, etc. Now he spends some bucks maintaining that situation, but he accomplishes a lot every week. He knows he has people who he can depend on and most importantly delegate too. For me that would be the perfect situation—-but who wants that kind of overhead and that kind of pressure. Right now he is loving every minute of it. At least I get to see how that half lives.

Here is an example of how my time gets away from me. I joined Traffic Geyser to distribute videos. There was a learning curve to using it. The Traffic Geyser guys have been saying that the videos made by a service called Article Video Robot do not get any traffic. I hope I am quoting them correctly, but the groups said only good videos really do well. So I bought a set of videos called Camtasia Cash that is super fabulous that teaches how to use every feature of Camtasia. There was something like 22 hours of video to watch, but I did it by devoting about 90 minutes a day to watching them. I was competent, but really needed to feel more comfortable using that tool.

In addition, I decided to master the art of Powerpoint. I thought I knew how to use ppt but Microsoft Office 2007 is totally different so I had to learn how to use it again. All the terminology and the task bar had been totally changed. Anyway, I spent several hours figuring out how to import templates and use flash animation on the slides. Like I said, I am like a dog with a bone. You see where this is all going. Now I know how to use Camtasia like a pro and I have powerpoint making down so I am ready to make super-fantastic videos to distribute.

Now to get my assembly line going, let me talk about using outsourcing. My article marketing lady is going to convert some of the articles into powerpoint slides for me. She is breaking the documents down into slides. So my plan is to just be able to take the slides she prepares, redo them on the templates, and convert them to super fantastic videos that get traffic. For a while, I am going to do the voiceovers.

Can you see how much time this all took? Try scheduling all of that in. Everyday, I will have to schedule a 2-hour block to do videos. Hopefully, that will give me time to get at least 2 done. Unfortunately, you just have so many two hour blocks. Of course, all of the other tasks continue.

Basically what I need is a day stretcher. Do you see why I am so confused—and frustrated?

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing, Time Management

Backlinking is so important to the success of a website. It is absolutely necessary to build backlinks to get your site in the indexed position you want it to have. Most people when they do their keyword research know going in that they have competition for that keyword and yet they still want it to appear in the top three positions on that page in Google search results. Surely they know that it is going to take some work to get there.

Or do they? My experience in a number of forums lately make me think that people really just want to wave a magic wand and have all of the backlinks appear. If you buy one service that promises to land you on the first page of Google, is that all you have to do? The more you pay for the service the more powerful it is suppose to be. Does this sound cynical? I have heard too many times lately people saying that they are getting a refund when that magic did not occur after a few days or maybe a week or two.

They just do not get that building the backlinks takes work. You get backlinks from a lot of your traffic efforts too. They do not realize that backlinking and traffic building can go hand in hand. Article marketing builds backlinks (or it did) along with social bookmarking, blog commenting, forum posting, etc. They also build traffic to your website.

In fact the idea behind your backlinking strategy should be to build them in a normal pattern and have variety in the kinds of backlinks you have pointing to your site. Even a certain percentage of “nofollow” backlinks can help. Don’t ignore search engine optimization as well. SEO is so important to your success here.

The powerful services that build a lot of backlinks for you help too. Sooner or later you might hear that some of the automated backlink building doesn’t work as well as backlinks built manually. That is not to say that you should not use them. Give them a try. You might benefit in two ways–gain experience with them and actually get some good backlinks. Don’t just take someone else’s word. Try them out.

Learning some of these lessons can be difficult. The answer is not to give up. Anything worthwhile takes work. You are not going to fill your bank accounts by using magic wands.

To learn more about backlink building, please visit Backlink Building and download that great ebook so you can learn the best tactics to use.

Technorati Tags: Backlinking, Internet Marketing, SEO

When I first started internet marketing, my idea was this little nice business where I worked a few hours a day at the computer producing websites and products on the internet. That is before I discovered that there was market research, keyword research, website design, graphic design, sales funnels with their sales pages and thank you pages, checkout systems, tracking, backlinking and SEO, and maybe the most important of them all driving traffic.

Now multiply this by how many products you want to develop and how many websites you manage. This is the reason you need to outsource. Of course, I am telling this from my point of view and my experience. When I first decided that I had to outsource, I was nervous about it. You know how it feels when you have never done something before.

One night I was on a webinar and one of the guys mentioned that he was outsourcing in the Philippines. I quickly got his skype contact so I could talk to him. He said he would help me get started finding someone for me. He gave me some hints about what to say and do. Then as we were on the chat, he placed a Craigs list ad. We were going to each hire someone.

Like I turned on the faucet, the resumes started pouring in. We started interviewing and asking for information about the workers we liked. Before we knew it, we had hired our workers. But that is the easy part. Getting them trained and working with them daily until they knew what to do was the hard thing. It takes time and patience.

Well, easy come and easy go. One of the things you will have to learn is that the turnover is sometimes an issue. The workers are mostly young and sometimes they get easily distracted. When you find someone who sticks with you, it is great—but until then it requires some patience.

There are some people who prefer to hire from odesk, elance, rentacoder, etc. when they need help on a per job basis. That works for some projects and I have had good luck doing that. There are just so many tasks that are ongoing and it helps to train someone and then you know they can work on autopilot with just a little supervision.

It was one night on a webinar when I heard John Jonas of Replace Myself. Many people love and swear by his service. John said you want to hire a full time employee. He said it was better because they were loyal and worked hard for you. I decided to try his service for a while. He also has it set up to train them for you. I found that I liked to train my own employees better so I set up a training site where I put videos explaining to them how and what I wanted them to do in social bookmarking, blog commenting, forum posting, etc. I also had pdfs that they could download with instructions in detail. I found that worked much better for me and it was specific to my tasks.

Other than warning you about the normal difficulties that we all go through with outsourcing, I cannot stress enough how important it is for your business to do it. When you need extra hands for the repetitive tasks, it pays to have someone do it for you freeing you up to do the tasks only you can do.

Please follow this link and visit this blog I set up on outsourcing–Outsourcing

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing, outsourcing

This story is all about how wrong I can be. My eldest daughter is an avid Facebook fan and spends quite a bit of time on it chatting with her friends. She always keeps it updated with what she has going on. Her photo album is fantastic. Needless to say, she has a lot of friends and more requests come in every day. After her high school reunion, a lot of friends began to use Facebook to reconnect and keep up with each other’s comings and goings. She loves knowing what everyone is doing, who married whom, and who is getting a divorce, etc. We tease her about how much time she spends on Facebook.

Let me tell you why I am telling you all of this. Recently, she started selling a new product. I suggested she make a fan page for the business. After about 20 to 30 minutes, she had built a terrific fan page promoting her new products. She told her friends about her fan page and just that quick everyone was liking it. You would not believe how quickly requests for more information and orders for her product started rolling in.

Isn’t that a great example of how using a Facebook fan page is suppose to work? It could not have been any easier for her to do it. I am taking back my scolding her for spending so much time on Facebook. Now I am taking a look at my Facebook usage and how I can use it more effectively to promote my internet marketing business. Of course, one obvious point stood out to me. Her Facebook friends are really friends and not business associates as many of mine are. Should I be doing something different? What about you?

Also, we talked about placing a classified ad to promote the product. The cost involved for an ad was very reasonable and would be so easy to do. It would really make a different in her sales. Would it make a difference to yours? It can be for any site on the internet that advertises their business.

Facebook is one of the most efficient business networks available to you which helps people in discovering new channels to promote their business. This well-liked social network site has more than 200 million people addicted to it. It stood as the second largest website on the internet. Reasonably, it is a networking hub which has found support from all over the world. Wouldn’t it be a good idea to make it a part of your business strategy? Would you like to find out more information about using Facebook classified ads?

Click on the following link and download a free report that contains more information about Facebook Advertising and how to use it effectively.

How to Use Facebook Ads

If my computer–phobic daughter can use it so successfully, why can’t you?

Technorati Tags: Facebook, Facebook Ads, Facebook Advertising, Internet Marketing

I just noticed that I did not post in November. Bad! Bad! What does that tell you? It tells me that I need to get more organized. Actually I thought I was. I set a deadline for myself to complete three products by January 1 and have been working very hard to meet that goal. In other words, I was focused. At least that is progress.

That has started me thinking about all the “F” words that have been popping up on such a regular basis lately. I am constantly reminded that so many people in internet marketing are chasing “Financial Freedom.” They want so badly to become successes so that they can achieve the lifestyle that they know will make them happy. Some want to gain their freedom from working a nine to five job that they do not feel will provide them with the life they want for themselves and their family. They want the freedom to live as they please and go where they want.

Next, I have seen the word “Fear” used several ways. Here is a quote attributed to John D. Rockefeller quoted by Eric Rockefeller–”Don’t be afraid to give up the good to go for the great.” Also, when people do not succeed because they are afraid to take chances, it is often referred to as “Fear of Failure.” Both of these uses of the word can be connected to the desire to achieve success without limiting it in any way. When someone does not know what to do because they are in unfamiliar territory, they do not move forward because they are so afraid of making a big mess instead of achieving the success that they really are after. The end result is that they do nothing at all. Is this better than making a mistake and learning from it?

This leads me to “Follow-through.” I associate this with starting and not finishing. Many beginning internet marketers learn quickly that this is not a push button business. There’s a lot of work that goes into building a successful online company. Many do not learn this lesson until they have chased every flashing firefly down all the possible paths in front of them. The many guides that they buy offer the promise of a turnkey business with the click of a mouse. You will not be able to learn from a strategy until you follow through with each step until you reach a result. Only then can you make a decision whether or not it is a viable and workable plan that is right for you and if you continue to follow through with it will you achieve the success you seek. Chasing fireflies gets you nowhere.

Finally, “Focus” reminds us that constant flip flopping from one idea to another does not utilize time wisely. It still leads to failure and leaves many beginners to wonder why them are not making it. To understand focusing, it helps to begin by studying the way you spend your time when your working. If you find that a good deal of your time is spent in non-productive activities like reading emails or chasing other shiny bright objects that pop up in front of you, then it should become evident to you that you are spending too much of your time in activities that will not make you money. Focusing really begins when you give up those time wasters and focus on the high dollar activities. You must create a structure of focus where most of your time is spent in very productive money earning activities. When you are able to do that then you can say you are focused and on your way to success.

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing

Over the years students have asked me: “Professor, am I failing Accounting–or whatever course they were taking? Well now, I find myself in the same boat asking “Am I failing Affiliate Marketing?”

My first clue is that I am not yet making the kind of money I want to be making. Yes, I am working hard at building sites, getting backlinks, and sending traffic to my sites. I think I am following the best SEO tactics. So, why am I not making more money?

Suddenly, I start reading “Are you selling products that don’t sell?” During the past two days, there is a recurring theme that has jumped out at me–Are you selling products that don’t sell?

Here is a quote from Jason Gazaway’s Bloggers Pitfalls and Solutions: “Whatever the case, picking products that don’t sell are recipes for disaster as if others can’t sell them, what makes your blog so different that it can?”

But then, guess what else he said. “However, it should be noted that while choosing the wrong product is bad… choosing too many products is worse.”

Here is the reason he gives for why choosing too many products is worse: “….. your monetization options are going to be ‘stealing’ traffic from each other, as clicking on an advertisement would mean that a visitor probably won’t come back to buy from your affiliate link!”

Oh my gosh, am I guilty of doing these two things–picking the wrong products and choosing too many products? I hate to say it, but it must be true.

I went seeking more information and this is what I learned from Chris Rempel on his Lazy Marketer blog: “It’s WHAT you sell, folks. Not how “hard” you try…”

For me, this was eye opening. I had listened and read so much about how to pick a niche, how to find the best keywords, and how to follow my passion. There have been so many videos on how to select your products in the Clickbank marketplace? Didn’t this lead me to select the best products to sell?

I remember Greg Cesar saying it so well at one of the conferences I went to that you needed to find out where the demand was and go there. He emphasized how important it was to find out what was hot and go there. As Chris Rempel says, you should stand in front of the stampeding herd.

Chris also said this and it really hit home:

“You wanna know what’s sadly ironic?

What’s sadly ironic is that I (or any other experienced affiliate) could build and promote a site in 3 stinkin’ days that will earn more in affiliate commissions this year than most starry-eyed newbies would make even if they went ”full time” online – putting in 40 hours a week building sites, building links, etc.

Why?

Because I know what actually sells, and what kind of traffic to drive.”

Whoa! For me this was heavy! Of course, Chris talks about paying the price and going through his “ignorant years.” I guess that is what I am still doing–going through my ignorant years. Am I tired of it? Yes. Do I want to complete this phase of my learning? Again, yes. Unfortunately, I am still paying the price.

O.K. My journey through this maze of internet marketing information has been full of twists and turns. Sometimes I admit, I heard “how to” tips that were good, but weren’t relevant to me at the time. When I go back and look at videos again and reread ebooks, I do not always come away with the same information to use. There are times when I really get the significance of what is being said and other times it is wasted on me. This is all a part of the learning process.

In the end, I am making progress but I do not mind telling you that I am getting tired of the “ignorant years.” I do think I will be more cautious of selecting products from now on. How about you?

Technorati Tags: Affiliate Marketing, Internet Marketing, Niche Marketing

Maggie, this is for you! Maggie left this earth a little over a month ago and she is missed.

Maggie like so many “newbie” Internet Marketers had a goal to make money in IM. She was going to supplement her social security income by selling products with her blogs. First, she was focusing on internet marketing but eventually had decided to add a few more niches. Going green was one of her favorite new topics.

Let me tell you how I met Maggie. She, Randy, and Wizzer were regulars in a forum at Marketing Beginners, Randy’s membership site. What a trio! It is the kind of matchup you often find in IM. Randy the Guru lives in the Virgin Islands; Wizzer a British financial consultant, and Maggie the IM newbie ex-social worker. When I discovered the forum, I started posting and got acquainted with them. The four of us became regulars. Soon Maggie and I started telephoning. Maggie had a folksy self-deprecating way about her that really made everyone laugh. She had been dabbling in IM for almost 10 years and was still lost more than half of the time. It was because she kept starting and stopping and she was always starting over. Her life kept getting in the way!

Maggie had a remarkable life story. I do not want to say anything that would embarass her or would make her thump me for saying. Maggie was legally blind since birth. She had managed to graduate from college and had worked very hard all of her life. Even though I never met Maggie personally, I believe she had been a very attractive lady in her youth–tall and slender. Of course, she had to wear thick glasses. She said her vision was like looking through a straw. Maggie blew me a way the day that she told me she had been married 7 times. In her folksy fun way, she laughed and said that she was amazed at how easy it was to get men to marry you. In fact she said, they would rather marry than date. What a hoot!

Maggie said she was the reason for the divorces because she was too hard with whom to get along. She liked everything her way. Well, to get back to my story, Maggie worked on her blogs diligently and we shared every achievement. She ended up in Dayton, Ohio where her son Casey lived because she wanted to be with him. Maggie–here is another fact I left out–was always called Peggy by everyone else. On the Internet, she used Maggie. She had two children, a son and a daughter.

Maggie lived at the end in a building overlooking the tree tops. She had an efficiency apartment in low cost housing. It was cozy and it was her den where she worked on her computer. For company, she and I would visit on the phone. Maggie was the person with whom I could discuss my journey into internet marketing because my family was tired of hearing about it. Maggie was always encouraging and we shared so many hopes and dreams. Occasionally, we would have a bag on Google session when Google would make a change that affected internet marketers.

At the end, Maggie wanted her legacy to her son Casey to be money making blogs. She tried to get Casey interested but he was too busy with his own life. Maggie had had problems with her heart before and dreaded the upcoming surgery on her legs to unclog the arteries. She was really afraid of the upcoming surgery, but knew she had to do it to be able to walk as her legs just weren’t working the way they should.

While waiting for the surgery date, she still worked at her computer to keep her mind active and we planned what she would do with her blogs. Randy and Wizzer had started a membership site on blogging and was providing Maggie with information to help her.

When she went into the hospital, she had a horrible time. She sprang a leak and spent days in intensive care. When she finally came home, she was so happy to be there. Maggie called me and she sounded like good old Maggie again. She could not wait to get back to work when she regained her strength. We talked a couple of days in a row and she said she was getting stronger. We made plans. She would not let me come to visit her until she was feeling better and was her old self again.

Thursday we chatted about plans for the future and about building blogs for Casey. That night Maggie went to sleep. Maggie was an internet marketer to the very end. Now she is looking over my shoulder encouraging me to continue my pursuit. She knew I would always be the one to make it. I hope she is right. Love you, Maggie.

P. S. Maggie was 70 years old.

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing

It is funny the different directions your life takes. Until the end of May this year, I did not even know who Howie Schwartz was. When I attended PPC Live in Las Vegas, I had the opportunity to meet Howie there because he was one of the guest speakers. It is always great to meet someone from whom you get emails.

I began to listen to Howie’s story and experience in Internet Marketing and I realized that he was someone that had a lot of information that could benefit me in my business, but because I have buried myself with work lately, I did not feel it was a good time to take him up on his coaching program. But I listened to everything he said very attentively.

He teaches a strategy that was a little more elaborate than the one that I had already adopted as my own. It delighted me that it was basically what I was doing and it was easy for me to add those pieces to what I was doing. The strategy was working well so I knew that it could only get better.

When Howie started promoting IM Remarkable, I was eager to take in every morsel that he was sharing with me. Now I focused in on the way he did his drill downs and how he does his keyword research. I thought I knew keyword research so well, but the way Howie does his drill downs adds a whole other dimension to it. I am sure that if I add his techniques I can only get better.

If I was to write a review of Howie’s IM Remarkable Coaching Program, I would have to say that it will be fantastic. Yes, Howie has a cast of thousands to help him, but the techniques he uses are so sound and well thought out. I do not know how you could help but become highly success following them.

Because I am an honest lady, I will tell you that again I am going to pass on the coaching program. Primarily, it is because I am so focused at working my newly found strategy that I do not want to get diverted by anything –not even that cute Howie Schwartz. Now let me hasten to say, that if it does not bring me the results I seek, I will run screaming to Howie saying “Rescue me! Teach me what I did wrong!” And I would know he could.

Technorati Tags: Internet Marketing