Anyone new to the internet who happens to chance upon this site we welcome you.

Much of the information on this site is now extremely outdated so please be advised to ignore most of our worldly wisdom..LOL

The past year has seen the way the internet worked, turned on it’s ear.

Many people have lost their livelihoods overnight due to the changes. Google has introduced revolutionary changes called things like The Panda Update and The Penguin Update. Please search them online if you have no knowledge of these updates if you propose starting a business online.

No-one can really complain as many folk have had a pretty good run over the years. It is unfortunate that there wasn’t more warning for some internet marketers from Google of forthcoming changes.

With some warning they could have put in place plans for another income. There were young Dads and Mums out there whose sole income was from the internet. Overnight it disappeared!

In the past getting ranking with Google was all about getting links – well that is finished. Certain links can actually harm your site.

If you are new to the internet and thinking of running an online business then take note of the consequences of Google’s latest changes for some marketers. Their income has completely gone.

Therefore our message would be to ensure you diversify with your income. Remember that old saying about putting all your eggs in one basket!

Allan and Dawn

Writing articles is time consuming and yet it is still important that you get the backlinks out there. When we first started we did what most others do and went hunting for the spinners that were free. Unfortunately we were disappointed. The free spinners out there simply produced an extremely awkward piece of rubbish to read. At that stage we were quiet happy to reject spinning but we have since learnt that submitting articles and getting backlinks is important for SEO.

If you are new and don’t understand what an article spinner is it is software that churns out new spins on your article by changing words and phrases using synonyms. Hundreds or thousands of versions of articles can be spun from one article. The better article spinners do an acceptable job. Up to date we have used Best Spinner but now there is a new spinner available which appears to address the issue of incorrect grammar. It is called Spin Rewriter and it has received an overwhelming response from marketers. The problem with spinning software has been that words in the English language can have more than one meaning. For example penning a letter is quite different to penning some sheep. Article spinning software cannot tell what meaning you want for the particular word. So you can end up ‘writing in sheep’ because the software did not know you meant the other penning! Spin Rewriter reputedly addresses this issue! Also this software is online which permits a lot more convenience. We shall be interested to see how it goes.

For a small annual outlay of money one article can be spun into many different articles and then submitted. This obviates the problem of submitting duplicate content. You will find as you go along that time is the issue with creating an online business…there is not enough of it. Therefore if you could reproduce ten articles from the one this saves you a heap of time. Remember to put back links in your articles or the bio back to your sites to collect your hard earned link.

cheers

Allan and Dawn

For beginners to Internet marketing one of the biggest challenges is finding a niche to work in. It is in fact one of the most misunderstood areas of starting an online business. Folk simply don’t know where to start to find a niche. They spend hours scratching their heads to no avail.

Well this is how you find a niche.

Either you have some qualifications, for example, you are a plasterer and this is the niche you are going to go into. Let’s say you have worked as one for twenty years. Okay so you are an authority on this topic and Google likes to see an authority in the particular niche. Your site is going to be obviously DIY plastering and you are going to show people how to plaster. You may even make a series of videos and sell them in a package further down the track. You could sell artifacts to go on walls or anything really in the home décor market that is appropriate. Now the next step is for you to move out onto the net and make contacts. That is you have to get backlinks. You need to write as many articles as you can and submit them to article places, eg Squidoo (this site didn’t lose its page rank by Google in the Panda update like Ezines and Hub Pages did). Now depending upon the competition in that field will depend upon how quickly you are going to get yourself onto the front page of Google. You can pay an SEO team to get you there but that is going to cost. You will also need to do your SEO on the site and in all articles you submit.

For the other folk who can’t think of a niche it is actually easier in a way to decide upon one. Your goal should be to find a keyword (niche) with very little SEO competition and little SEOC competition. If you don’t know what we are talking about at this point then go and Google up both terms SEO and SEOC. You will get your answers. The easiest way you are going to find a keyword(niche) with low competition is to get hold of Market Samurai. Please note, we are not making any money from this, this is not an affiliate promotion. We just think it is a great tool and the free version they offer does a nice job at keyword research (they offer both a free and paid version of the tool, there is no need to upgrade to the paid in my opinion if you are just doing keyword research.  The paid version does offer a lot though).

Now you have to start trolling and looking for keywords that have at least 22,000 visitors per month but with the sort of low competition that is going to enable you to break into that market. You do not have to have an inkling about the subject. The world wide net is awash with information. The only sites you are going to avoid going near are medical sites. UNLESS you have qualifications to back up any information you are giving out. Google has paid out big time in litigation in relation to medical sites so they will watch you like a hawk if you try and set one up without the right authority.

Once you have decided you have a niche then set your site up and start back linking like crazy. What do we mean by that? Articles, articles and more articles. At this point spinning your articles will save you a lot of time. Commenting on other sites will also get links back to your site however this is more when you are looking for some page rank. Set up your Google profile and let Google know you are declaring yourself an authority in this area. If need be and further down the track when your site starts pulling in some money then you can hire someone who is an authority in the niche. You then can pay them to put content on your site. Obviously this is a quick overview to getting your site going.

However finding a niche is NOT you sitting trying to think of something you may know something about. The ones making money online have done their research using either free or paid tools to find keywords. It is doing research and finding niches out there that are low competition. These marketers pick their fights. For an example it is pie in the sky stuff to think you are going to get a foothold in the internet marketing niche without hundreds of thousands of dollars to get the help to start up. Even then this is a market that is saturated. BUT this is not to say it can’t be done but success if you are just starting out is highly unlikely in a niche that has formidable competition. Finding a niche is all about doing research first. Please feel free to send any questions through we would be happy to help….

cheers

Allan and Dawn

Always our short discussions here are aimed at the beginners to internet marketing. There is so much to understand when you first start. Certainly if you can afford a mentor or coaching it will circumvent some of that learning you will have to do for yourself. However finding a coach you are satisfied with is not easy. So many new marketers invest in a coach and then become disgruntled with the partnership. However you choose to unravel this learning you will all make mistakes and goof up along the way as we all do.

We were recently looking at a Twitter account we had forgotten about. It was one we actually paid money to someone and in exchange this whizz programme they were selling was going to get us followers. For a monthly fee we were given followers. Followers, who we are sure are very nice people, but who were never going to be of any use to us in a business sense!! This account has sat there for ages and we just remembered it. It made us laugh because in our naivety all these people did which we paid monthly for them to do was followed other people. Naturally when you follow someone on twitter you will find they generally follow you back. If they don’t you can simply unfollow them. When we first started we didn’t know this and so we put good money into someone’s hands to do such a simple thing for us

Nowadays we have realized that getting followers like that is not going to be of any use to you anyway. Google only places authority and recognizes the significance of Twitter accounts that are predominantly those that have followers with very few people that you follow. The reason this is so is because you don’t need to follow other people since you are in fact the authority in that field. Therefore you don’t want to be following hundreds of other people because that tells Google you are not an authority in your niche. Whereas if your list of followers far outnumbers the ones you follow obviously spells out that folk are following you because you have something to offer.

So don’t do what we did – that is pay someone to get you followers on Twitter because it is of no use to you anyway. Better to simply wait until you find your own particular niche and allow folk to follow you if they feel you have something that is of value to their lives.

cheers
Allan and Dawn

For anyone starting out online in internet marketing the dilemma is knowing where to start. There is no easy way around it but to start with the basics. One of the easiest ways to build an understanding of how the internet works is to start your own blog. By creating this and working on it slowly you will gradually expand your knowledge and learn how things work. When you come across something you don’t understand then Google up the answer.

None of this sounds too exciting and it is tedious at times. However it makes sense to gain an understanding of the basics before you take the next step. Included in understanding how to move around the net with the basics is the concept of analyzing your work. In the offline world if you are in business naturally one would monitor the effectiveness of certain strategies. You know it is no different online. Once you decide upon a direction and start an online business then you will be needing to monitor the effectiveness of what you are doing. Google Analytics is a good start for beginners here. Simply get yourself a free account with Google Analytics and go poke around.

The ability to analyze your traffic and where it comes from is essential. You will learn to look at spikes in traffic and relate it back to a certain event. So that worked, you try it again and see if you get the same response. Analyze what people are interested in and give them more of the same. Google analytics will tell you what countries your traffic is coming from and how long they stayed on your site. All rather ho-hum stuff but you need this understanding before you think of marketing.

Affilate marketing is an obvious choice for beginners.Once again most information you need on this can be gleaned from the net. The one point conveniently over looked especially by those who would coerce you in to being their affiliate is that they fail to mention that you will need TRAFFIC. That is you will need customers. Getting traffic and customers is going to require some effort. This is unless of course you have big bucks to buy traffic. Most folk starting out certainly do not generally have lots of spare cash.

Getting traffic the old fashioned way with SEO still works. That means firstly knowing sufficient concerning SEO. Once you’re onto that then the sequence of back linking begins. The number and quality of links are very important to Google. We used to stress about the Page Rank (PR) but in fact the backlinks is what you should focus on and the PR will follow….

Cheers
Allan and Dawn

Internet marketing is overwhelming for most folk when they first start. Especially as more and more of the ‘baby boomer’ generation come along to dip their toe in. We are of that generation so we do understand. Computers aren’t second nature for us. Younger folk grow up with this stuff so they do have an advantage here. However being computer savvy isn’t necessarily all it takes to create a business online for you. As with any business online or off knowing the nuts and bolts is important but not all that is required.

If you have lots of extra cash lying around you can actually buy yourself into an online business. This is not much different than an offline business. Starting a business offline can cost enormous amounts of money and it can be some time before any of it begins to trickle back your way. Many newcomers believe it is different online somehow or other. If you have these false beliefs then it is not your fault. You have been cleverly marketed to by many of the successful marketers. It serves their economic purposes to mislead you that after only 6 months they began to earn a couple of hundred dollars a day. Well let’s get the record straight because these are fabrications (fibs) in most cases. Naturally there may be a handful of folk out there this worked for but it is certainly not the norm. Maybe this happened quite often ten years ago – but not today!

They don’t tell you about the money poured into hiring the pros and resources to get them started. Many of these folk that would have you believe that after a short time they were on their way to the top spent a lot of money testing and getting advice. This was done many times over and for years leading up to their success. The more honest marketers will tell it as it. That it took them many many mistakes, disappointments and years of hard work before they hit the big time. We respect these marketers that are up front with new folk.

Now none of this is intended to be discouraging because the reality is that it is possible for anyone of us to create a successful business online. Most of us are now aware that Google has been making some rather drastic changes on the net. This can be off putting but don’t let it be the case. Google had to make changes because it stood the threat of losing its dominance on the net. These changes will only serve to help the top marketers in the IM niche. However as we see it there are opportunities opening in other niches.

The practical advice for newcomers has always been don’t simply start up in a niche because it is an interest of yours. What was necessary was to find a niche that didn’t have much competition and get cracking on that. It was all about SEO being used to your advantage. With the latest Google innovations the wheel may gradually be turning. SEO is gradually going to lose its high priority. Not any time soon but in time to come we are going to see changes. Google is starting to look for genuine authority and interest in sites rather than the contrived SEO and backlinks which money combined with knowledge can buy. Do we still have to do our SEO? Of course but it is going to help if you love a topic and could gladly write every day on it. There’s a good chance you will know a lot about this topic and have contacts. This will be reflected on your site and in links to your site. Over time these changes may just swing in the favor of genuine enthusiasts for a topic.

This is our take on it anyway from observation on the recent changes. It will be interesting to revisit all of this in time.

Leave us a comment if you have any thoughts on this.

cheers

Allan and Dawn

cheers

Beginners to internet marketing are often unaware that they need to move around the net to gain recognition for themselves. Google will judge you and your importance as to the number of links you have collected in your travels around the internet. And like it or not, the internet is still all about Google – for now anyway.

When we say move around one of the easiest ways to do this is to write articles on your topic and submit them to article directories. Share you and your interests around the world wide web. Whether you are an authority or not on your topic a short 300-400 word article is what is required. If you don’t know much about your topic then you can research it – there is tons of information out there on any subject you care to think of.

Squidoo is one of our favorite places to put articles. The benefit to you is a backlink from a high authority site. Also, if you use your keywords carefully this will lead to organic traffic coming to your site. Teach yourself to add some pictures into your articles in Squidoo. This improves the experience for your readers when they visit your submission. Go over to Squidoo if you haven’t already been there and open an account. It’s free to submit content. A warning that it may take a few times of submitting before you become familiar with the process.

Gaining recognition from Google is all about back links to your site. This tells Google that there are folk out there interested enough to pop in and visit you. Now as we know one of the best ways to make friends is to be friendly yourself. Therefore wander out on the net and stop at other people’s blogs. Leave a comment and your url and this will lead to a backlink for you. However, be sure to read the other person’s blog and understand their message before you leave a comment. We don’t want to start leaving inane conversations that are not relevant to the site. All this does is annoy folk.

If you have any queries please feel free to leave a comment and we will see if we can be of assistance.
Cheers
Allan and Dawn

Okay! We are back.
Now if you are a beginner to internet marketing follow on and learn a valuable free lesson. Let us share with you how things really work on the internet.

Firstly a little pre-amble. We stopped placing content on Allan and Dawn because we were doing other things. Also when we were placing content regularly, promoting keywords was not done in any order and we didn’t spend much time backlinking. Search engine optimization was haphazard to say the least. Certainly we have never agonized over trying to get page rank. We just kept adding information that might help newcomers.

Anyway while we have been away working on other sites for the last three months Google has quietly come along and slapped a Page Rank 2 on it. So what you say! Well PR2 certainly isn’t a PR3 – but it is better than a PR1. Your page rank gives you some authority when Google is trying to decide where they will place you in the search engine ranking page (SERP’s) for your keywords. Please understand though that page rank does not beat good content. A site with lower page rank can figure higher in the serps if it has great unique content.

Now the good thing is that you can actually use the PR of one site to link to another site and pass what is called a bit of link juice. If you have a new site and you can make reference to the same topic between sites then it’s like giving your new site a bit of a leg up.

So how does that affect a newcomer who may not even understand some of what has just been said here. Firstly get yourself a blog set up. We have a free guide of how this is done. Then start writing, writing, writing. Don’t know how to write? Read some of our earlier posts because it doesn’t matter if you are not an accomplished writer. The secret is to simply keep adding content.

As you gain confidence then venture out and look at some other blogs. Start putting some comments on other blogs and start chipping away because that’s what it takes.

cheers
Allan and Dawn

Possessing writing skills and an understanding of copywriting are a gift for would be internet marketers. Copywriters do not come cheap so it is a worthwhile investment in yourself to learn a few basics when starting out. You can then DIY and save your valuable money.

The underlying intent of Copywriting is to influence the reader. There are small, easy things that you can do that will have dramatic results here. One simple thing that can really put some sparkle into
your copy is to use lively verbs. Readers lose interest in flat copy that uses mundane lifeless verbs.
Instead of writing ‘walk’ you could try using words such as stride, skip, stagger, totter.

In the presence of other people it’s much easier to convey our messages. The actual words we use count for little. It is the tone of our voice and other things like body language that can be used to communicate. A smile carries great influence – there’s no need to use any words!

Unfortunately when we write to communicate it’s not so straightforward.

Also if you are like us, in our day to day conversation our choice of words aren’t anything special. Therefore when we go to write and use these colorful vibrant verbs they don’t come to mind easily. It is almost an unnatural way to write.

Also it can almost give you the feeling of being a bit sneaky. You see we deliberately used that word ‘learn’ in the first paragraph because that is what we actually meant.  Now be honest – how many of us truthfully wan’t to LEARN! Wouldn’t we rather discover, digest, gain access to, obtain or take in – especially copywriting! You see how these words make ‘learning’ sound boring!

Luckily, the marvelous thesaurus which we all have will do most of the work for us. Simply pop in the drab colorless verb.

Copywriting Comes Alive!

Straight away, hey presto, back he comes with a selection of wonderful verbs that are so alive they nearly dance off the page.

So remember using lively verbs in our copywriting will alter the results.

Cheers
Allan and Dawn

When we were starting out in internet marketing we knew so little. Things like posts, keywords and blogs were like talking in another language for us. The list of all these strange words just went on and on and on and it all went over our head. Another one was PLR – what in earth were people on about and why did they think it was so good.

We soon discovered PLR is Private Label Rights. This means basically you can take someone else’s work and flog it off as your own.  Incidentally in our opinion most of the PLR products we have laid our hands on are awful!

So finally we ended up doing a coaching course for beginners in internet marketing – best thing we ever did.

You see there’s a major dilemma for beginners. It’s like you are given lots of pieces of a tricky jigsaw to learn. Then you have to try and juggle and struggle to put each piece where it’s meant to go.  The trouble is where to put each piece? This all takes time and you make mistakes and then have to backtrack and start again. Most times beginners don’t know what the finished product is going to look like anyway. This makes it doubly harder.

What a coach can do for you is put what you need to do in sequence. They will save you heaps of time and frustration. By following a sequence the jigsaw pieces begin to slot into place.

The content of coaching courses that are available for beginners varies enormously. We would suggest you ask questions before commencing any course. Make sure the content will be appropriate for the level you are currently working at. Obviously if you are still wondering how the internet works you will be wanting different content than someone wanting to get stuck into SEO tutorials.

If you cannot afford coaching at the moment then at the very least find yourself a friend online. Ideally it will be someone you can share your experiences and knowledge with. What is that saying ‘two heads is better than one’ plus it won’t be so lonely for you. Most importantly it makes such a difference to have some support from a pal on your down days.

cheers

Allan and Dawn