Online Success and You

Hi Everyone,

I have just got back from Washington DC where I was attending Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar. What an amazing event – truly the Best Underground Online Seminar ever and the first time I was a speaker. (The Young Moguls Day was a huge Success)

Michael Dunlop and and Vishen Lakhiani Enjoying Yanik Silver’s Underground Online Seminar Speakers Dinner

This was the 5th time in a row that I had attended Yanik’s event and I have to say Yanik’s Underground Secret Agents (Speakers) really delivered. Much Inspiration, Many Ideas and Lots of FUN

There will be more about The Underground Online Seminar on IncomeDiary.com in the coming weeks but for now I want to ask you a question:

Are You Too Clever For Success?

OK, it may appear a rather silly question but I was inspired Vishen Lakhiani (From MindValley.com) and his presentation in particular. You see Vishen proudly proclaimed to the audience that he was a C+ Student.

My personal view having seen Vishen speak at Underground Online Seminar is that he is appears more like an A Star Student than a C+ but I think the point Vishen was making is that you don’t have to be CLEVER in the ACADEMIC way in order to be SUCCESSFUL.

Now, don’t misunderstand, I am not saying it is wrong to be clever, of course that is good, but when being ‘too clever‘ gets in the way of your success you need to look out.

Being ‘too clever’ as defined by thefreedictionary.com is:

To be too confident of your own intelligence in a way that annoys other people

Personally I think being ‘too clever’ is nothing more or less than arrogance – and unnecessary confidence which stops people learning from people that they consider of lower intelligence to them.

Many of the most successful entrepreneurs I have met have Flunked School / Dropped out of College – yet have went on to create hugely successful businesses.

In my experience:

Successful Entrepreneurs are Smart, Capable and Confident in their abilities

Successful Entrepreneurs BUY Talent by hiring the A + Students!

Any of you who have been following my blogs for any length of time will know (and have noticed) I am Dyslexic. I try not too make too big a deal of it – it is a challenge, but over the years I have worked out ways to make it look less obvious in print. (Spell Check etc). I have also been know occasionally to email a Blog Post to my mother for her to check the grammar.

That said occasionally (quite often) a grammatical error or spelling mistake will get published. I am fortunate in that I have a dedicated band of loyal readers who will politely point out my errors (thank you) — but then occasionally I get an email from a ‘clever person’ that frankly can only be described as rude.

I may not be ‘clever’ in an Academic way – but I do believe I am SMART. Smart people ask questions.

Smart people hustle while ‘clever people’ would be afraid to – that ultimately explains why Smart People become successful entrepreneurs.

One email I received recently was particularly offensive. I will not repeat it here (they get automatically deleted in any case) – but basically they said they did not respect me, thought I was ‘dumb’ (that’s putting it politely) and thought the Internet would be a better place without people like me writing blog posts!

I suspect this person would describe themselves as CLEVER and I dare say that academically they are – and almost certainly they are quite ‘intellectual’ but alas I think their superior ‘intelligence’ and thought pattern is actually going to mean they will end up as bitter, sad and relatively poor people, simply because they cannot see the big picture.

(I wonder if this person would have sent a similar response to someone who was blind or physically disabled in some way?)

In my experience, Smart People Ask Questions

I know from speaking to other successful bloggers (some of whom really are very clever) that we all get BITTER emails like this – seems to be that is you want to inspire people to make money online or break free from mediocrity that you can attract Hate Mail.

Of course in the end these sad individuals and their response do themselves more harm than then can ever do me – but I do get ‘upset’ when people like this steal the dreams of other people.

I have said this before – but I will say it again:

If a young college dropout and dyslexic can succeed online – why not you?

Of course I know I know I have many A+ Students reading this blog. Indeed one thing that really impresses me is the number of Professional and VERY CLEVER people who read this blog — some with MANY Letters after their names. These people clearly get what I am about and they have not allowed their superior intelligence get in the way of their success. I respect them for that.

Thank you for indulging me on this rant – but when you meet the number of people I meet who are trying every way they can to achieve online success you do naturally get UPSET with these sad individuals who are trying to steal the dreams of others.

Finally here is a quote by Henri Bergson – it pretty well sums up my strategy for business and life success:

Think like a man of action ~ Act like a man of thought

Let me know your thoughts and your experiences with people trying to steal your dreams AND do check out the PS’s

Very Best Wishes

Michael

PS: This short clip shows the closing session from Vishen Lakhiani’s amazing presentation at Underground. Vishen literally Rocked The House!

PPS: On the subject of cleverness – to find out why insanely smart people from around the world give up traditional job ideas and instead come and work for Vishen Lakhiani and MindValley visit mindvalley.com/careers YOU WILL BE IMPRESSED!

PPPS: I don’t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody ~ Bill Cosby

I received an email from Google AdSense team yesterday announcing that Google is going to allow Google-certified ad networks to compete with AdWords advertisers to show their ads on the AdSense Content network. I’m sure every AdSense publisher have got this email.

This seems to be a good news to the webmasters and bloggers who use AdSense to make money on their site. The AdSense publishers used to display ads of advertisers from Google AdWords network only, allowing other advertising networks to compete with Google AdWords advertisers for ad exposure could lead to more high paid ads to be shown on the AdSense publishers’ site. So the AdSense publishers can earn higher pay per ad click which means higher AdSense earning.

But, anyway this is just a little theory I came up on my mind, not sure this will happen. I’ll be monitoring my AdSense account to see if there is any positive impact. But one thing that can be confirmed is that the AdSense publishers will have more ads to shown to their website visitors.

Guest Post by Shaun Connell

Every moment of every day, millions of dollars are spent over the net. Type in a keyword, click, and a ‘personal shopper’ called a search engine has scanned thousands of data bases and found just what you’re looking for. And, the only ‘legs’ needed for this virtual shopping expedition are keywords. From anywhere in the world, people are searching a global mall where their choice has been narrowed down to a few top rated web sites—and all this, because someone somewhere knew how to make money online by picking keywords.

Keywords Make Money
Anyone who knows the net understands the enormous marketing and advertising impact of keywords. Every day millions of dollars are paid to the people who create, develop and disperse keywords. Whether by advertiser cost-per-click, blogs, or creating links to a well-written hub, the people who know how to make money on line by picking keywords are making lots of money. And although content is important, in some cases, it is not automatically ‘king.’ If an on-line marketing company is tasked with helping to restore an individual’s or company’s reputation, their chief concern is to implant keywords throughout the text, ‘the story is not important. What is important is that the anchor text is worked seamlessly into the narrative 3 times.’

Location, Location, Location
To find the best keywords, know exactly what the customer is looking for; what is their Unique Selling Point? What words are triggered for example, if people are looking for ‘how to make money online by picking keywords’? If an aunt or uncle were looking for information about this topic, what words would they use? Once discovered the keywords should be placed within every piece of text. Notice some stores have the same goods located in different areas throughout the store; keywords are just like that; they must be everywhere a search engine might look. The same keywords need to be mirrored in the web content, blog and every article submitted or linked to hubs.

Window Shopping is Good Advertising
Of course, every article needs to be useful and informative otherwise people won’t be bothered to read it. But if the text doesn’t have the keywords embedded in it, it’s a waste of time as far as the virtual shopper is concerned. Keywords are the highlighted passages; which clearly mark the way to a web site. Without them, potential visitors will be left searching in the dark and they may never find what they are looking for. Keywords also help keep the text remain focused and to-the-point. If the text is vague or ambiguous people will get lost. If the text is about ‘lower left back pain remedies’ it’s no good putting in a keyword about hot-tubs (unless that is the specific remedy), so keep keywords relevant, and specific. Finally, for people who are interested in how to make money online by picking keywords they need to be word smiths. A client may want their text to be ‘not promotional, self-serving or comparative.’ In other cases they may want, ‘a story which reflects the subject in each hyperlink. Whatever the style of writing in all cases it keywords are critical.

Author Bio:
Shaun Connell runs several websites dealing with debt consolidation loans and loves to teach others how to make money online.

Guest Post by Darrell

Internet Marketing can be tough on you emotionally and physically. You can go weeks, months and sometimes years without making money online. You need to realize one important fact and its location, location, location. Just like real estate, they always talk about the location. In this case, you want to be in the top 5 inches of real estate on the search engine results. With all the crap out there, its time you got straight talk on how to actually build and rank an authority website?

Below, I have included several key parts to what you need to build a mega site. Those include, research and keywords, niche marketing, domain selection, back linking tips, and some computer software tools that can reduce your time and boost your productivity like an article spinner. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back and enjoy the article, as I reveal some insider secrets to building your own authority site.

There really is lots of misinformation online, and it comes down to several important key factors that search engines like Google, need to see to display the top results. They want to see high quality and the most relevant information showing up for their customers when doing an organic search. This is actually part of the problem, given the quantity of information that’s added on a second by second basis to the internet.

My definition of an authority website, is when you finally rank on page 1 for your keyword on Google. From what I’ve noticed, authority sites for the big keyword terms, can easily have several hundred articles on a website. That is different from a niche website that can have 1, 5 or 10 articles focusing on specific niche markets. Keep in mind and depending on your long term plan, any niche web site can become an authority site.

The Importance of Research and Keywords

Too many people getting in the online marketing game are going after large keyword categories like, home based business or make money. That is one of the biggest errors you’ll make when starting off. Don’t try and compete against the big dogs out of the gate. Its like running a marathon. You don’t decide one day to run 26 miles and can’t even run 1 mile. You need to build up your endurance over time to actually running 26 miles.

Likewise, the competition for big keywords is extremely fierce and you better have your “A Game” on if trying to compete with them. Of course ranking on page 1 is definitely the best place to be, but start off in low competitive terms. You will thank me later.

Niche Marketing Strategies

The foundation in my opinion for ranking any authority site is being on page 1 for many long tail keywords. The real method to accomplish this objective, is by focusing on your niche marketing efforts. By starting off on the lower end of long tail keywords and working your way up to bigger keyword ladder, your website will gain strength. I’d say, look at 1000 to 5000 searches per month along with low competition. You’ll have a significantly better chance of ranking on page 1 and making a little coin in a shorter period of time. Remember, you need to check page 1 and see what your actual competition is like. I’m always looking out for keywords that have articles on page 1 for results. If its only web sites on the first page, I might be in for a lot of competition.

I can’t stress enough, how important this phase is to your overall success. Keyword research is one of the 2 most important elements to making money or not online. You really need to invest the time at this stage and look at all of the factors before just picking one that sounds good. Pick the wrong keywords or go after the big ones with lots of competition, you will likely end up belonging to the 95% club. Those are the ones that don’t make money. If you want to be in the 5% club and make some money, look at the people that are successful and give you straight talk on how to actually do it.

Choosing Domain Names and Hosting

As much as possible, I try and match the key phrase term I picked, to a domain name. You can even add a prefix like “about” or dashes between the title is all right. The reality is you don’t have to, but it helps to have your keyword term in the domain name. That is just another SEO tip this week for you newbies.

One other over looked area that people miss out on is aged domains. Over the past few years, many people have talked about the value of picking up aged domains whenever possible. Google and the other search engines love aged domains and it can certainly help your rankings because the site may have built up trust with the search engines. Keep that in mind, next time you are registering a site. If you have the budget and one is available, consider buying it.

I know this doesn’t directly relate to building your authority site, but where you register and host your websites are important. For registering your domains, just do a search to find domain registering companies and decide for yourself who you like best. When it comes to hosting, make sure you do your research and go with companies that have 24/7 actual phone support. If your website goes down, it could be in the middle of the night and you will want to have access talking directly with live human being. I like Hostgator personally and have used them for years. Very reliable and they have 24/7 support.

Building Back Links and Ranking Your Websites – The Key Factor

Back Links Defined

A one-way link is when one web site points back to another site. The more quality one way links you get, the higher in the search engines your website will rank. You should really have an internal link structure as well. Which means, your internal pages point from 1 web page to another page within your site.

It also doesn’t mean you point all of the internal links back to your home page either. You may as an example, point 10 percent of your links back to the home page. This is just an example and you will need to experiment with this figure to see how your results go. The stronger your internal link structure is, the stronger your overall website will be.

Getting One way links – A Straight Forward Approach

In reality, the process of obtaining one way links is boring. Seriously, its true because you’ll have to keep rinsing and repeating the process in terms of writing and re-writing the same content. At the end of the day, how many times are you able to discuss acne removal cream (lol). But, you may improve your back linking efforts by writing high quality content versus the trash kind in my humble opinion. Yes, it takes longer, however, more individuals are likely to read your articles and return back to your website. They may even use your article and post it on their website with a hyperlink back to you.

Also, try to follow the 80 – 20 rule. Meaning, 80 percent of your links should be pointing back to your internal web pages. I see too many people get this part wrong and wonder why their website is no where to be found in the first 50 to 100 pages. Remember, a strong overall website is what you are aiming for.

I have discovered that the top places to publish your new content are places like Ezine Articles, Go Articles and Idea Marketers. Your website is likely to get indexed within a few days. One other tip to remember, is that I only submit 5 to 10 posts to each place. In my view, its the law of diminishing returns. The search engines will only assign you so much SEO link juice from each directory. Besides, you need to include as part of your overall approach, making comments at numerous do follow boards, blogs and making some guest article posting at authority sites. I’ve done that and it provides you a quality back link.

Now before moving on, I need to stress the importance of getting one way back links. This is where you will be spending most of your time in getting your website ranking for your keyword terms. I would look at spending 80 to 90 percent of your time writing content and posting it all over the place. Too many people spend time making their website look pretty and that’s fine, but is that bringing you any traffic? Probably not – right? Focus your time and energy on activities that produce results.

Leveraging Your Time and Productivity – Article Spinner

If you want to make money online, then you have to be on page 1. There are 2 major approaches to getting lots of content out all over the place. First, submit good original content to top quality article directories, websites and Blogs. Then, to get more link juice out of each article, you can manually re-write each article. I’m sure the blogging community will be happy to see you do that. But, how much money is that approach making you?

Second, you can utilize software tools to assist you in getting more unique content out to various article directories. Bottom line, if you want to rank on your keywords and generate income, then make use of every legitimate method out there, because your competitors are utilizing all kinds of software tools to leverage their time like a content rewriter.

Prior to even looking at anything like an article rewriter or article spinner, I used to rewrite my content over and over again. As well, I tested a theory out myself for 1 year to see what my results would be. I had set up 150 Blogger accounts and used to post the same article to dozens of the same Blogger accounts. I wanted to see firsthand what duplicate content would do for my results.

Would you like to know what happened?

Keep in mind, I tracked my results for a year and at the end, only a couple of Blogger accounts actually got indexed and showed up in my results for various keywords. The rest ended up in a place I like to call, Google’s Duplicate Repository. Yup, they never got indexed. If want to bypass the filters and get full SEO link juice, you need to have unique content.

So, there you have the method of creating an authority site the Google way. Start via doing key phrase analysis, drill down into the assorted niche markets, choose your domain name, and the most essential ingredient to really ranking your website, developing high quality one way back links. Also, I touched on one area to help you leverage your time more effectively with the help of software tool like an article rewriter or what some people call article spinners. However, the bottom line to being successful and making money is actually doing the work.

Resource Box:
To learn how to leverage your time more effectively, make money online and get more out of each article?

Go Here: Article Spinner

I was reviewing one of my favorite books the other day and it reminded me that we really should all be building out internet businesses just like Ray Crock did at McDonalds. Of course, the book I’m talking about is The eMyth by Michael Gerber. Actually, the latest version is called The eMyth Revisted.

A lot of people mistakenly believe that The eMyth is about the electronics age, or email, or ecommerce, but actually E is for entrepreneurial myth. In The eMyth Gerber goes through an example of how McDonalds was able to franchise its business all across the world and the systems they used to do that.

As a matter of fact, Gerber points out that a new McDonalds franchise opens somewhere in the world every eight minutes. This is truly remarkable and only possible because the McDonalds business is completely systemized.

Every tiny detail that is involved in running a McDonalds is documented in McDonalds’ procedure manuals. How big the hamburgers should be, what the buns should look like, how thick the patties should be, they even have a procedure for where the pickles go. Crock recognized that if you place the pickles in a particular configuration you could keep them from falling off of the hamburger into the customer’s lap, therefore increasing customer satisfaction.

All of these tiny details are precisely documented in McDonalds’ procedure manuals. The impact of this careful documentation is twofold. One, it makes McDonalds run like a finely oiled machine. It gives consistency of experience at every McDonalds that you go to. In fact, I’ve been to McDonalds in Tokyo and Korea, in Texas, in Tennessee, they’re all the same.

Actually, as a side note, McDonalds in Tokyo also serves noodles, which kind of freaked me out a little bit, but that’s neither here nor there.

Is Your Business Like McDonalds?

So, the point is if you systemize your business you can give consistency of customer experience. The other point is you can make your business where it can easily be run by someone else or sold. That’s what makes McDonalds franchiseable.

When somebody buys a McDonalds shop they’re buying a turnkey business that makes it possible for anyone who’s got the money to invest to buy a McDonalds and be successful on a very predictable schedule. The great thing about McDonalds in this regard is that they have so much data, because they’ve sold so many hamburgers they know exactly what’s going to happen the moment you buy the franchise.

How does all this gibberish about McDonalds apply to your internet business? Well, the same two ideas apply. If you are able to completely procedurize and systematize your business you can easily do two things. The first thing you can easily do is you can easily outsource the work in your business.

If you’ve carefully documented the procedures, for example, for transcribing and posting a blog post then you can outsource the transcription and posting of a blog post. In fact, this very blog post is being transcribed at this very moment by
my transcriptionist, Loretta.

The second thing you can do is some day sell your business. After all, you would expect a website to typically be worth about 10 times the amount of money that it earns in a month. Some people say 12, some people say 14, but you get the idea. That value goes up tremendously if the business doesn’t depend on you actually running it.
There’s actually a third benefit, and that is if you have a successful business and you’ve got it carefully documented, that successful business can be duplicated, exactly in the McDonalds case. You can change these businesses and duplicate them yourself or you can document the way you are running your business and sell that as an ebook that can help people understand how to successful run an internet business.

So, run your internet business like McDonalds and just like Ray Crock you will love the results. Thanks. My name is Mark Mason, I’m from MasonWorld.com and I’m happy to help you learn how to run a part time internet business successfully.

Have a great day!

photo credit:
riNux

Thanks for subscribing to my RSS Feed. As a thank you for subscribing, I’d like to offer you this free gift. If you like that, and you want to get all the latest information from MasonWorld.com, be sure to join my Internet Marketing Newsletter. Subscribers enjoy access to the MasonWorld Members area. Have a great day!

Build Your Internet Business Like McDonalds

Related posts

• Why Is Lifestyle Design Important (1)
• Using ecto For Blog Posting (6)
• Understanding Off-Page SEO and rel=”nofollow” (4)
• Transcription Crash Course Review (1)
• The Truth About Internet Marketing (5)

Guest Post by Thomas Westling

With many services and Web sites available today for consumers to sell products or services online, it can be challenging to figure out which one will work best for you. But regardless of where you decide to sell online, there are basic sales principles you can follow that will make a difference between achieving a profitable sale and having a prospective customer skip right past your product listing. Following these rules will help call attention to your listing and put your offering in the best possible light to prospective buyers.

1. Be honest. If your item is five years old, don’t call it brand new. Describe how long you’ve had it and what wear it has gotten. Otherwise you are wasting the potential buyer’s time and creating distrusting.

2. Do your research. When selling a product or service online, spend some time researching similar items for sale and how they are being advertised. This will help you decide which information to include in your listing, what features to highlight and what price to ask for your item.

3. You’ve gotta see it to believe it. People want a chance to see an item before offering to buy it, so include a high-quality photograph showing the item. If it’s a large object like furniture or a car, use more than one photo with multiple angles in your listing. Research by the advertising industry proves that photos catch more buyers’ eyes and increase sales.

4. Pay atention to speling and grammer. See what we mean? A successful listing is written and proofread carefully. Is all your spelling and grammar correct? Many sites allow you to preview your listing before posting, which could save you from losing a potential buyer.

5. Don’t forget this is a business deal. Respond to all customers promptly and politely. Answer all emails with a greeting and closing, full sentences and your name. Be clear and complete in your descriptions of the product, price and delivery options. If you meet a buyer, be punctual and courteous, no matter how the negotiation goes. If you send your product to the buyer, be sure to package it securely to protect against damage and make sure it arrives to the buyer promptly. You are selling yourself just as much as you are selling your old things, so pay careful attention to how you deal with potential buyers.

Author Bio:
Westling is the founder of AmericanListed.com, a new online classifieds site presenting consumers and businesses with a more effective way to sell and buy products and services within their cities, towns, or even within the ultra-local confines of their neighborhoods. AmericanListed.com is the only free site offering a user and family-friendly online selling arena.

Guest Post by Stephen Phillips

You can easily make money using the internet. There are various useful methods which will help you to make reasonable money online. You can take online surveys, turn a blog in to a cash machine or sell other’s products (affiliate marketing) thus making huge commission. There are other methods as well but affiliate marketing is considered as one of the most trusted ways to make money from the internet.

Why Affiliate Marketing?

Affiliate marketing is all about selling the products online and getting commission on each such sale. If you are good in marketing, you will be able to make a lot of money from the affiliate marketing. You will need to setup a website, although you can use free blogs also. Three best things about Affiliate Marketing are:

1. You don’t need to have a product of your own.
2. You need not to worry about technical support and customer complaints. Product owner is only one responsible for that.
3. You need not to spend money to start. You can start it for free.

3 Steps of Affiliate Marketing

1. Product Selection
In order to succeed in the affiliate marketing and making money online, you will need to select the proper product. A product that suits your marketing style and at the same time is in demand will surely give you a great start. If you want a head start then you should select a product which you know a lot about. This will allow you to market it even more effectively.

2. Landing Page Creation
You will also need a high quality landing page with a good sales letter on display. Remember that the sales letter and the landing page play an important role to increase the number of conversions. You should also make sure that you are building a list from your landing page as well. You can offer things like free eBooks etc in return for subscription. This will help you build a wonderful list for the future prospects.

3. Online Marketing
You should ideally market your products on all the fronts. You should use the paid advertisement and at the same time you should also try out the free methods. Some of the free methods are more beneficial than the paid advertisement. For example, you can create a product page on all the front runners in the social networks. This will help you to market your product directly and without any cost. It will also help you to develop brand recognition among various sectors of online society.

It is easy to make money online especially from the affiliate marketing but for this you will need two things i.e. hard work and smart work. It is a hard truth that most of the affiliate marketer fails because they don’t work in right direction. While hard work plays a role, the smart work enables you to take the lead. Smart work will save you a lot of time and effort and will also make sure that you are getting the maximum from your resources.

About Author:
Stephen Phillips is an experienced affiliate marketer. Read how he turned from a struggling affiliate to making 5 figure monthly income at his blog, Affiliate Marketing Masters. Here you can also read his personal review of Maverick Money Makers.