Not long after the change I got a virus on my computer. That’s why I’ve been gone for the past week. And it made me have a big realization…

I had all of my business stuff saved on that computer and didn’t have it backed up.

Luckily I didn’t lose everything on the hard drive. I’m getting all of the stuff I need off of it and then it needs to be completely erased.

I was about due for a new computer anyway so I ended up just buying a new one. This time I installed DeepFreeze on it so I don’t have to worry about viruses anymore.

DeepFreeze is a program that a lot of corporations/schools and other public places use to keep their computers safe.

The way it works is it makes a backup copy of all the stuff on your computer when you first install it. Then anytime your restart your computer it loads that backup copy. Anything that’s installed after is automatically deleted.

So even if I do get a virus on this computer all I have to do is turn the computer off and the virus will be removed. And any changes the virus makes to my computer will be reversed.

And beyond that I’ll have the old computer as a backup just in case anything else should happen to it.

Moral of the story: Backup Everything!

- Aaron Anderson

• An Ounce Of Protection Is Worth A Pound Of Cure
• The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
• I Have Been A Little Misleading
• You Comment I Follow
• Traffic Experiment Results: 308 Visitors In 6 Days

James Brausch never ceases to amaze me. Recently he had a 24 hour special for resellers on one of his products. In his post he mentioned that their would be a surprise included with each order.

“Big deal. He’ll just throw in some useless PLR ebook like everyone else does”, I thought to myself.

But I was wrong…

I should have known better. I’ve done business with him before and I know he’s a stand up guy. I’ve just been conditioned to not care about bonuses anymore after dealing with all the “gurus”.

Sometimes it feels like you’re a small fish swimming in a pond full of sharks. All anybody wants is your money.

I’ve been scammed just as many times as anybody else. Probably more than most. But that’s not the way James does business.

Not only did I get 10 copies of Muvar for $500 (regular price is $1000 for resellers) but he also threw in 10 copies of another one of his courses (which cost $100 each).

That’s a $1000 dollar saving ($1500 if you count Muvar)!

You think I’m going to do business with him again in the future? You bet!

That’s how you gain loyal customers.

He has another 24 hour special running on Muvar right now. It’s $100 a copy (regular price $300).

If you sell your own products you need this software. It’s a multivariate testing script that will improve your conversion rates.

I’m going to be selling my extra copies for more than that. So pick it up now if you want to improve your conversion rates.

Thanks James!

UPDATE: After receiving this huge box of stuff from James I didn’t even bother to count how many items there were. I could clearly see there were “at least” 10 of each.

I just got done counting and there’s actually 12 of each! This is incredible. Thanks again.

- Aaron Anderson

• Christmas Might Be Over But James Just Keeps On Giving
• How I Got A Link From A Site That Gets 206,350 Monthly/Visits 1 Day After Starting A Brand New Blog
• What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business
• Most Online Businesses Fail For a Few Very Good Reasons
• An Ounce Of Protection Is Worth A Pound Of Cure

I just got done listening to an excellent interview Willie Crawford did with my friend Tom Brownsword. Willie was interviewing him about computer and internet security. I picked up quite a few tips on how to make my blog more secure.

Tom has been working for 15 years in the computer security field so he really knows his stuff.

He’s having a 24 hour special tomorrow on the call and a video training series on how to better secure your wordpress blog. But it’s only for people who are on his blog announcement list. I don’t get any money for recommending this to you it’s just something that’s helped me out and something most people overlook.

Regardless of whether you’re considering taking advantage of his special or not you should probably sign up for his blog announcement list. He offers some great security tips there. As the saying goes… an ounce of protection is worth a pound of cure.

- Aaron Anderson

• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All
• Traffic Experiment Results: 308 Visitors In 6 Days
• The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of

“Someday, I’m going to have like a gazillion dollars. And I’m going to live in a castle. And I’m going to have my own army. Just like if I was the King of England.”

“That would be so cool. Okay how’s this one? Someday I’m going to live in a mansion soooo big that it’s going to have its own theme park in it. And I’m going to ride roller coasters all day. And eat cotton candy.”

Remember doing that when you were younger? Seeing who could come up with the coolest fantasy life. Some adults still do it. But of course their expectations are a lot lower now. Maybe you’re one of them.

A few days ago I went out to lunch with a couple friends from high school. And one of them was telling us how he’s going to open an online business “someday”. Sound familiar?

Now when I heard that I was confused. The sad thing is everybody else knew exactly what he meant.

When is “someday”? It certainly isn’t one of the days of the week. I know people who have been talking about “someday” for years and they still haven’t done a thing. Is there one “someday” every 10 years?

The truth is that there is no “someday”. All it is is a made up fantasy world to make you feel good about yourself. The same one you talked about when you were a little kid.

The 2% of people in the world who are successful don’t use the word “someday”. It’s not part of their vocabulary. The 2%ers take action now. They don’t wait around for “someday”.

What are you waiting till “someday” to do? Start a business? Visit another country? Run a marathon? Whatever it may be start taking action now.

Have you really started an online business? Or are you still playing around with adsense and affiliate programs? The real question is are you going to take action now or are you going to do it “someday”?

- Aaron Anderson

• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All
• Most Online Businesses Fail For a Few Very Good Reasons
• What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business
• Are These 3 Blogging Mistakes Costing You Readers?
• Traffic Experiment Results: 308 Visitors In 6 Days

Today is exactly one month from the day I started this blog. The growth rate of my online business has been soaring. The results have been far better than even I imagined.

It’s now ranked in Alexa’s top 100,000 websites (according to the daily and weekly averages anyway), Google has 249 pages indexed for this blog, and according to the SEO for Firefox toolbar Yahoo reports 338 links pointing to it.

Now I’m not just saying this to brag. I want to thank you for reading this blog. You are the reason it’s a success.

I also want to thank everyone who has helped promote it in any way (whether it be a link from your blog or submitting it to various web 2.0 sites). If I have your email address check your email. I sent you a little thank you note.

Marcus Hochstadt very generously did a review of this site earlier today. Make sure you check it out. Thanks Marcus!

So how have your results been this past month? Has your business exceeded your expectations?

If not I suggest you go read What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business. It’s one of the most important things you’ll ever learn about running an internet business.

- Aaron Anderson

• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• Thanks James!
• You Comment I Follow
• How I Got A Link From A Site That Gets 206,350 Monthly/Visits 1 Day After Starting A Brand New Blog
• rssHugger: Increase RSS Subscribers?

A tripod is defined as a “three-legged stand” in the Webster dictionary. Kick one of those legs out and what happens? It falls.

This isn’t exactly rocket science but failing to recognize this can have a devastating effect on your business.

Similarly an online business is held up by three “legs”. Knock one of those legs out and you’ll be part of the 98% of people who fail at making money online.

Anyone familiar with James Brausch already knows his magical formula to success. In fact, he has it in the header of his blog. Here it is:

traffic + copywriting + products = successful internet business

Now let’s go into detail in each one so you understand why each one is so important. The first “leg” we’ll go over is the most controversial one.

Products

Notice that the formula says traffic + copywriting + products. It does NOT say traffic + copywriting + adsense. And it does NOT say traffic + copywriting + affiliate products.

That’s a very important distinction. And here is why.

Adsense

If you are using adsense you are not building your own business. You know who’s business you are building? Google’s. You might as well just consider yourself an employee of Google.

Without any of the benefits of course. And without any pay raises. Most likely they’ll just continue with the pay cuts until everyone wises up and starts taking adsense off there websites.

Not only that but they can kick you out of the program any time the want. Is this something you want your business to depend upon?

Affiliate Products

You’re not building your own business by selling affiliate products either. You are building the product owners.

Why is that?

You can’t follow up with the customers after the sale. The product owner can.

Here is a direct quote from James’s website, “My own numbers show that it is 12 times easier for me to sell an existing customer than to sell a new customer.”

And guess what.

If you are an affiliate YOU are the one that is putting in the time/money for that first sale. And you get NOTHING for the sales after the first one.

That should be reason enough for you to start making your own products. I’m not even going to go into the issues of people not paying their affiliates. Or stealing sales from there affiliates.

Copywriting (Conversion)

The second “leg” of an online business is copywriting. You can have all the traffic in the world but without copywriting you’re not going to make much. The same goes for a great product. If you don’t market it effectively you won’t make much.

Now there are two distinct types of copywriting/conversion. One is well known. The other isn’t talked about very much.

First I’ll go over is blog design. It’s about getting visitors from your blog to your sales page in the most efficient way.

If you have a high traffic blog but can’t get people to click through to your sales page then your blog doesn’t help much. Even a small improvement on your blog design can have a huge effect on your bottom line. This area should be getting a lot more attention.

The next one is what everyone thinks about when they hear copywriting. And that is the copy on your sales page. You should constantly be improving this if you want to maximize your profits.

Traffic

The third “leg” is traffic. You can have the best copywriter in the world write copy for you but if no one reads it it won’t do you any good. And you can have the best products but if no one sees them once again no one will buy them.

This one speaks for itself. I don’t think it’s necessary to go into any further detail.

The key difference between a successful online business and one that is struggling is that the successful one continually improves on these three areas (traffic, copywriting, products). The 98% that fail get distracted on other trivial stuff that should be ignored all together or outsourced and they forget about the three “legs” that keep their online business up and running.

- Aaron Anderson

• You No Longer Have An Excuse For Writing Crappy Copy
• How To Get One Way Links
• The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
• Thanks James!
• Most Online Businesses Fail For a Few Very Good Reasons

Collin LaHay’s Mixed Market Arts - He has an interesting case study on the effects of being on the first page of Digg. He also has some tips on how to get there.

Sam Freedom’s Internet Marketing Controversy Blog - He has his own controversial version of the SEMMYS. If you like controversial marketing you love this.

Marco Richter’s MarcoRichter.net - He has a 25 post series on the 25 best ways to increase traffic to your blog. This is an awesome series. I picked up some great tips from this one.

Walt’s Walt Wide Web - He highlights the Ten Differences Between Those Who Dream And Those Who Act. If you’re business is not yet were you want it to be this is worthwhile to read.

William Hessian’s Blog Blog Cherry - He does a case study on Loose Change Vs Google Adsense. This one is probably my favorite. If you’re still using Adsense to monetize your site you need to read this and think if it’s really worth your time. Tomorrow I’ll make a post on how to really make money online.

- Aaron Anderson

• Traffic Experiment Results: 308 Visitors In 6 Days
• Direct Response Blogging
• Are These 3 Blogging Mistakes Costing You Readers?
• Friday, Saturday, Someday: The Day That Never Comes
• You No Longer Have An Excuse For Writing Crappy Copy

The Importance Of Authoritative Sites

To increase link popularity, it is important to get one-way online links from older, authoritative sites that have content relevant to your website’s content. One of the easiest ways to do this is to research the highest traffic, most credible sites that deal with related issues or which have a similar theme and find those which have online communities.

This strategy immediately gives you back links from an authoritative site. You can generally encourage other members to visit your site as long as you are not marketing products or services to them. You may be able to link to a helpful article on your site or to offer free downloads of helpful website tools.

Announcing a contest run by your website or blog on a high traffic forum can also be an effective one-way link building strategy. This is usually a great link bait strategy, as information about your contest will quickly be posted on other sites with a link to your website.

Blogging For Backlinks

Blogging can also be used as a part of a one way link building plan by guest-blogging on popular, related sites and including a link to your own site, and by posting comments on other people’s blogs and leaving a signature link. Using a blog pinging service, is another way to quickly spread your links as your new blog posts become listed with blog directories, search engines and other related sites. If you make it easy for readers to subscribe to your blog via RSS feed, your back links will grow even faster.

Article Marketing As A Link Building Strategy

Online links to your website can also be created quickly by submitting articles to multiple article directories. However, if you want those links to be high value, it is important to submit to a few of the high traffic directories. Mass submissions to hundreds of directories will certainly provide a lot of back links quickly. However, this one-way link building strategy can defeat its own purpose of improving search engine results position (SERP) because of the duplicate content filters. Unless of course you are submitting unique articles to each directory.

These are just a few ways you can generate quality back links to your website or blog. These online links allow you to receive cyber visits from already interested people. They also will increase your link popularity so that your search engine page rank can gradually improve. When you achieve a high SERP you will benefit from free search engine traffic. As the number of your quality one way links grow, so too will your online business. It is therefore important to make one way link building an important part of your overall website promotion strategy.

- Aaron Anderson

• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• How I Got A Link From A Site That Gets 206,350 Monthly/Visits 1 Day After Starting A Brand New Blog
• Here’s a Quick Way to Really Get Someones Attention
• How Changing Your Link Appearance Can Increase Your Click Through Rates By 34.9%
• What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business

Where Is All This Traffic Coming From?

You’ve may noticed that small advertisement over in my sidebar. It’s and advertisement for some other blogs.

It’s for people who are part of Entrecard. Entrecard is a place were blog owners exchange business card like thing called entrecards.

This is the way it works. You visit blogs in the network and you get one credit for each card that you drop their site. You also get one credit for each card that someone drops on your site. Then you use those credits to buy adds on other peoples blogs (like the one on here).

You’re probably thinking that it probably has a high bounce rate if all you have to do is drop a card. And you’d be right. It has a very high bounce rate actually.

Why Even Waste Your Time Then?

If most people are like me they at least look at the headline of a site they are visiting. And if it looks interesting then stop and read the page.

I admit I don’t always do that. Sometimes I get in a zone where nothing is going to get my attention. But that’s not always the case.

I’ve had more comments and more RSS readers since joining. So that backs-up my theory as well.

But It Does Require Some Work

If you want to get visitors you have to actively go out and drop your card on other peoples blogs. But if you’re not getting a lot of traffic yet it’s worth it.

And it’s a great place to network with other bloggers. I’ve found quite a few really good blogs that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.

If you need some tips starting out Sam Freedom wrote a couple really good articles on the subject. I highly recommend you go check them out. Here’s one to get you started: 10 Simple Ways to Squeeze the Most Out of Entrecard for Your Greater Advantage.

- Aaron Anderson

• The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
• Top 100k In 30 Days!
• How To Get One Way Links
• How Changing Your Link Appearance Can Increase Your Click Through Rates By 34.9%
• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All

So post a comment or send a trackback. I dofollow.

Thanks

- Aaron Anderson

• Targets For The First Two Weeks of 2008
• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All
• What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business

- Aaron Anderson

• What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business
• Is A Bad Domain Name Damaging Your Business?
• Friday, Saturday, Someday: The Day That Never Comes
• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• I Have Been A Little Misleading

rssHugger is an RSS directory. It was created to help blogger promote their blogs.

The way it works is after you get your account all set up you are listed in their directory in a few categories. But what makes this directory different is that there is also a top 100 list. The feeds are ranked by whoever sends the most traffic to rssHugger and it is reset each month.

For instance, if you were to join today and you send the most traffic to RSS Hugger this month you’d be listed as #1 on the list. Theoretically, with all this traffic coming everybody should be able to get new subscribers (I haven’t tried it yet so I can’t back that up).

The reason why I haven’t tried it yet is because before you get listed in the directory you have to either make a blog post about rssHugger or pay $20 to be included. Obviously I chose the first. So this is my blog post.

They set it up that way to keep spammers out and so it has a viral effect. Whether it works out the way they’ve planned or not I don’t know. But it only took a few minutes to set up so I figured why not? If this sounds interesting to you (or if you just want to give me a little boost :)) check out rssHugger.

- Aaron Anderson

• How To Get One Way Links
• The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• Top 100k In 30 Days!
• I Have Been A Little Misleading

Wish there was a way to prevent this?

Well there is. And Collin LaHay shows you how.

- Aaron Anderson

• Do You Take These 2 Steps To Create More Content In Less Time?
• Free Until January 6th. $105 After. Act Quickly!
• Little Known Ways to Linkbait Like an SEO Pro
• How To Get One Way Links
• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All

It is beneficial to submit your articles to article directories but there are hundreds of them. Unless you are using and automated submission service such as Unique Article Wizard it’s pointless to submit your articles to all of them.

You need to prioritize if you’re doing it manually. Forget about any of the ones not listed in the top 10.

So here are the top ranked article directories according to Alexa rankings along with their Google Page Rank:

- Aaron Anderson

• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• How To Get One Way Links
• Targets For The First Two Weeks of 2008
• Top 100k In 30 Days!
• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All

Header Graphics

What is the first thing you notice when you visit a site? Is it so big fancy header graphic? Well if it is that is… it’s a big mistake.

What’s the reason someone is visiting your site? I can almost guarantee you it’s not because they want to see a huge header graphic that takes up the whole screen.

The reason they are visiting your site is to because they want you to solve their problems. The first thing that should draw there attention is the headline for whatever they were looking for. Otherwise they are not going to know what the page is about. And they’re going to be confused and leave.

Sidebar

Another huge problem I see is blogs with 10,000 different ads and widgets in there sidebar. Do you really think that is helpful? All it is doing is distracting them.

It’s well known in direct response marketing that if you give someone two options instead of just one they are more likely to do nothing at all. What do you think having 10 different social bookmarking buttons and 10 different ads all at once are doing to your response rate?

And I’m not even just talking response rate in terms of the advertisements here. I mean as in someone actually clicking on the social bookmarking buttons. Having one or two is understandable… but some people go waaaaay overboard.

Message

And now on to the big one… the message. A lot of people seem to have a problem being consistent with there message these days. They say they are trying to help you yet if you look at there actions all they really want is your money.

How can someone become successful at running an online business if they are being bombarded with advertisements all the time. It’s very distracting and it just keeps throwing them off course. I know from experience. I’ve been there. Now I remove myself from there mailing lists immediately.

If you truly want to help someone run an online business… you need to start thinking from there perspective. Would it be helpful to get hit with sales messages multiple times a day from someone you trusted? With each one telling you a different product is going to fix all your problems?

These problems aren’t all that hard to solve. All they require is that you be consistent with your message in ALL that you do. If you say you are going to do something… then do it. And when you do it… present yourself in a way that is consistent with your message.

- Aaron Anderson

• Direct Response Blogging
• Get Rid of Information Overload Once And For All
• Traffic Experiment Results: 308 Visitors In 6 Days
• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• Top 100k In 30 Days!

The first part covers topics such as writing headlines, readability, customer-focused copy, copywriting techniques, trust & relationship building, email marketing, copywriting blogs & resources, transcription services, copywriters, public relations, blogging and persuasive online copywriting.

The second part covers copy length, word choice, formatting & usability, active vs. passive voice, writing for personas, branding + advertising brain food, monetizing content, and inspiration + fun.

Now you can get yourself a real copywriting education without spending a fortune.

- Aaron Anderson

• What A Tripod Can Teach You About Online Business
• Do You Take These 2 Steps To Create More Content In Less Time?
• Are You Making These 3 Common Article Marketing Mistakes?
• Server Change & Viruses
• How Changing Your Link Appearance Can Increase Your Click Through Rates By 34.9%

Eric Graham did a usability split test to find out the answer to this question. He tested 4 different link formats. The lowest click through rate was 26.9%. The highest was 36.3%. That’s a 34.9% difference just by changing the color. Want to know who the winner was?

It was blue and underlined. To find out exactly what he tested this against check out his usability split test results.

- Aaron Anderson

• Here Is One Tweak That Increased Conversions By 46.5%
• How To Get One Way Links
• You No Longer Have An Excuse For Writing Crappy Copy
• Here’s a Quick Way to Really Get Someones Attention
• Top 100k In 30 Days!

It’s a spreadsheet that organizes James Brausch’s RaSof Data and make it’s a whole lot easier to use.

If you use RaSof you need this software. You can get it free here.

- Aaron Anderson

• Christmas Might Be Over But James Just Keeps On Giving
• Thanks James!
• How To Get One Way Links
• Targets For The First Two Weeks of 2008
• Concerned Someone Is Scraping Your Content?

1. Confusing the reason for writing articles with the reason for promoting your business with articles.

There are several reasons for promoting your business with articles but their is only one reason for writing articles.

First lets talk about reasons for promoting your business with articles. Articles drive traffic to your website. They also position you as an expert in whatever field you are writing about. Now those are great and all but it should not be your focus for writing an article. Then why write articles?

The only reason you should write article is to provide value to your readers. If you have any hidden agendas it will be pretty obvious. And no one likes hidden agendas. If that’s the case you might as well not waste your time.

You need to provide value to your readers before they are going to trust you. Then in the resource box you let them know you have additional information on your website.

2. Not using the full potential of each article

Alright you wrote an article so what do you do next. Next you should make sure you have an attractive resource box. If you writing great articles but no one is visiting your website that’s not going to do much for you. Give your readers a reason to visit your site.

Another technique for increasing the effectiveness of your articles is putting your keywords as the hyper-link text in your resource box. That way you will not only get visitors directly from clicking through the link to your website but also indirectly by helping your website rank in the search engines.

Then you submit your article to article to article directories. And then you’re done, right? WRONG.

This is where most people get it wrong. Then you must submit your article to individual web publishers. Most of the people visiting article directories are just people submitting their own articles. Individual web publishers will post your article on their websites or submit it to their lists were actual people will read your article.

3. Writing articles that aren’t helpful to the reader

If you write articles that aren’t helpful two things are going to happen. And neither of them are going to help your internet business.

The first thing is that no one is going to trust you after reading your article. And that’s assuming that they finished reading your article. Which they probably won’t. More than likely they’ll just leave.

The second is that no one is going to put your article on their website. By putting your article on their website they are putting their own reputation on the line. If they put up a crappy article no one is going to trust them. So you won’t get many links from the article either. Don’t waste your time.

Article marketing is far from being dead. It may take a little more time to do it correctly but you will benefit tremendously.

- Aaron Anderson

• How To Get One Way Links
• Do You Take These 2 Steps To Create More Content In Less Time?
• Top Ranked Article Directories - According to Alexa and Google PR
• Targets For The First Two Weeks of 2008
• Little Known Ways to Linkbait Like an SEO Pro

Technorati Profile

- Aaron Anderson

• How To Find Blog Readers
• I Have Been A Little Misleading
• An Ounce Of Protection Is Worth A Pound Of Cure
• The Best Blogs You’ve Never Heard Of
• Top 100k In 30 Days!