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Since I already had a Linksys router working, it was easy to hook them up.

Unfortunately, I soon had problems.

“Dad, the internet is slow” became a frequently heard complaint. I tried to tweak the settings. I tried to change the channel it worked on. I rebooted.

But we still had marginal connections.

The problem soon became obvious.

I have a stone fireplace running diagonally between the router and the PC.

The router worked fine downstairs, and in other places in the house. But the orientation of the fireplace meant the signal had to travel through several feet of rock. And it did not do that so well.

I lived with this problem for over a year because hard wiring was way too difficult and I had no good alternatives for moving the router.

A Solution

I finally found a solution while browsing the web. I read about a technology called PowerLine networking and a product called Cisco-Linksys PLK300 PowerLine AV Ethernet Adapter Kit


This is cool. You have a transmitter which gets plugged into your router via ethernet cable, and into the wall via AC cord.

You have one or more receivers which plug into the wall where you need the connection. The receiver I bought has three ethernet ports into which I can plug whatever I need connected.

The system sends and receives internet signals through the AC power lines that are already in your house.

I was skeptical, but it works great!

Another cool feature is that you can have multiple receivers – and I do.

The kit comes with one receiver and I used that downstairs in my home entertainment system. Good thing it has four ethernet ports because I am using three of them already:

* Xbox
* BluRay DVD Player (Connects to Amazon video rentals online)
* Dish Network Satellite receiver (allows remote recording)

I bought a second receiver and upstairs I connected the kids’ PC and my wife’s Mac.

Both receivers work perfectly, and my kids’ PC upstairs now
downloads as fast as it should.

A word about installation:

If you are like me, networking can be intimidating.

When I read reviews of the powerline they all stressed how easy and automatic the set-up was.

And believe it or not, it was!

I just plugged it in, and it worked. I didn’t have to tweak anything. No setting, nothing. It installs security automatically.

Cisco-Linksys had done a great job with this technology and it solves a real problem that many people have. If you have trouble spots in your house where you need a good connection, give this a try.

I bought mine at Amazon
because of their return policy – but I’m glad I didn’t need it. This is a keeper.

I needed batteries for a couple of my watches. There’s a kiosk that fixes watches and replaces batteries, so I dropped them off.

During the process, the clerk asked me if I wanted to have the battery replaced for $20 or did I want the lifetime battery guarantee for $35?

“What’s that?” I asked.

The clerk said that for the life of the watch, I could come in and get the battery replaced for free.

Wow – an upsell on batteries.

I thought that was very clever, although I didn’t buy it.

Why?

Two reasons. First, because it’s a kiosk. That’s not exactly a commitment to longevity, so I’m not real sure they will be around to honor my “lifetime” warranty.

Second, because after 2-3 years when I need a new battery, the odds of me remembering and finding the paperwork I’d need are really, really tiny.

Still – I was impressed with the marketing creativity. And I bet they increase their bottom line nicely with that little technique.

Honestly – not so exciting for me.

But as I was wondering around, I saw something that made me stop dead in my tracks.

This is a picture I snuck while the counter girl wasn’t looking. I blurred the details to protect the innocent, but you can see it is a list of names and phone numbers.

Across the top it says:

Name..Phone number…Call me for special events

And people are dutifully filling this out.

Hello? – is this 1983? 1965?

Nowhere on this form was a place for email.

So let me ask you this – who do you think is actually going to call the hundreds of people who are filling out this form?

My guess is: nobody.

They didn’t even specify a cell or home number, so they have no idea when to call or where they are calling.

Fools. I mean really – fools.

You and I realize that getting customer’s emails would be far more powerful.

Further, I would get some old $100 laptop, connect it to the wifi, and have a permanent email capture form telling customers the great benefits, sales, special events and discounts they will get if they just leave their email.

When they hit submit, I would take them to a page that tells them to go home and look for the confirmation email and click on the link to get their first special deal.

After 30 seconds, that page would redirect automatically back to the opt in page for the next customer.

With this method, Macy’s doesn’t have to get someone to enter hundreds of names and email addresses into some program. The customer takes care of it – and is happy to do so.

With a nice database of emails building up every day, Macy’s can run specials to get customers in the door.

I might even have the customers enter their cell phone number so I could do some mobile marketing. Maybe send a text message every once in a while when there’s a really good deal running.

All this would take is an old laptop, an hour or two of set-up, and a $29/month Aweber account.

Anyone can do this for any local business and help them tremendously. And at the same time, charge them for set up and even a monthly fee if you wanted to help them with the emails.

Here’s another idea.

What’s the #1 thing every local business wants?

It’s to show up on the first page of Google for their key search term, like “Merrimack NH Orthodontist”

Getting on page one of Google for something like that is far
easier than the kinds of competitive national terms you typically hear about.

Interesting SEO Lesson:

I originally posted this late at night. The next morning, I happened to do a Google search for “Merrimack NH Orthodontist” and, amazingly, my blog ranked #2 on the first page for the term.

This resulted from the use of quotation marks around the phrase. As people become more sophisticated searching with Google, more people will use quotes for their searches.
This indicates that it might be a good idea to use quotes around your key search term at least once in any pages you are trying to rank.

Another interesting note: I rank #2 when I search using Internet Explorer and #3 when I search using FireFox. Hmmmm…..

If you’ve been doing some reading and studying about internet marketing for any length of time, you already know enough to help local businesses with their marketing, and be paid nicely for your effort and knowledge.

Watch this video to learn more.

It seems like every week I acquire another eBook about some business tactic. I go through them pretty fast now, but it seems there are always at least a few good takeaways in each of them.

Now, with many of the higher end marketing courses being delivered as videos, there’s even more to keep track of.

I found I would read an eBook or watch a video course, get excited by some of the things I learned, and then promptly forget about it – or even worse, I would remember the basics of a tactic, but forget exactly where I learned it.

I finally got organized with a free tool that helps me keep track of the important things I learn in all this educational material.

I use a tool called Evernote.

You can download a free version at:

http://www.evernote.com

(If you really love Evernote and start using it a lot, you can upgrade to a paid version, but most people won’t need that.)

Evernote is a free-form notes tool that lets you create and edit notes in the form of text, screen shots, audio notes and more. You can even twitter yourself a note.

A few things make Evernote really cool.

One is that your data is saved “in the cloud” which means it is on Evernote’s servers and not your own PC.

That means it is accessible from anywhere, and from many different devices.

There are Evernote apps for Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android and Blackberry. I can create and save a note on my PC, and view it later on my Android phone in another country!

Evernote has a strong search feature, and you can tag notes with keywords to help you easily find information later.

I find myself using Evernote for a lot of things besides marketing notes. For example, if I order a wine I really like when I’m at a restaurant, I can jot a quick note in my “Wines” note so I remember to buy a bottle when I’m at the wine store.

When I am watching a video, I can do a quick screen capture and store that part of the video directly into Evernote. This can be very helpful for “how to” videos.

You can also copy entire web sites, which is great for creating “swipe file” of ideas for later use.

What useful tools are you using?

It’s a question I have heard many times. Of course, there is no “right” answer. Things change all the time.

But let’s assume that you’ve been reading about Internet marketing, maybe bought a few products, but you just haven’t found something you can really get behind.

One thing I’ve learned is that most people take for granted how much they know. If you’ve been doing a lot of reading and watching videos in this marketplace, you probably know 100 times more than the average person.

Example: Do you think your neighbor knows what page rank is?

Does your best friend know what an autoresponder is?

Every time you have read an e-book or watched an instructional video you have been learning valuable material. And most people have no idea about it.

Now consider another fact. In 2008, there were 29.6 million small businesses in the United States. The vast majority of these are tiny businesses with just a handful of employees. And the key fact is that none of those employees know nearly as much about Internet marketing as you do.

I believe this is a huge opportunity.

Virtually all of those businesses know they should be marketing on the Internet, or doing a better job of it.

Consider the local businesses in your home area.

Is the local restaurant building an email list?

If I was them, I would take an old laptop you can buy for hundred dollars, put it on the front desk, and invite people to add their email address for an instant 5% off tonight’s dinner.

With an email list they can broadcast specials on slow nights to drive business.

The same idea can work for virtually any business with walk-in traffic.

You could easily help them do that. Even if you don’t know that process 100%, you could figure it out quickly – and for very little investment.

Combine this with a twitter or text message marketing program and the restaurant can broadcast instant specials that actually reach people on their cell phones while they are out on the town.

Even if you haven’t personally done all these things, you know about them. And you could hire others to do them.

Imagine yourself as a local business Internet marketing consultant. My guess is that you could really help a lot of local businesses improve their Internet marketing.

You’ve spent a lot more time learning it then they have.

And while there are plenty of local website designers, the vast majority of them are very weak in marketing. This offers you an opportunity to partner with them, especially if you want someone to build websites while you concentrate on the higher value marketing.

If I was doing this I would charge an initial consultation and then a monthly fee depending on the services they wanted. These services might include search engine optimization, managing emails, providing the email service, managing twitter and FaceBook accounts, and mobile marketing.

My guess is you already know a fair amount about these things, or you have certainly seen products that would bring you up to speed.

Probably the biggest opportunity is in mobile marketing.
Do you know anybody that doesn’t have a cell phone? This is a monstrously growing area and offers big advantages for local businesses.

I have to confess I know very little about this mobile niche, and it probably offers the best way to differentiate yourself when doing local business Internet marketing.

If I was going into this area I would grab this Mobile Marketing course and get up to speed on it. Mobile is really important.

I would also join this free site on internet marketing for local business.

I have a membership and they’ve got lots of great resources including sample contracts, sales letters, and info on how to get started.

If you really want to build a business that helps people, leverages all the time you’ve spent building knowledge in Internet marketing, and offers the opportunity for significant and recurring income, online marketing for offline business may be a great fit for you.

Let me know what you think!

Check out http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

SUPER converts to and from a huge assortment of audio and video files – more than anything I’ve seen including the paid apps.

To download, go all the way to the bottom of the page and look for the text link.

Beware that there are ads on the site that may look like the software you want – but the real software is a text link at the bottom of the page (as of this writing).

This is not a trial of crippled freeware version. It’s everything you need, and a valuable tool.

It is AMAZING.

Way more than a phone, it’s a powerful tool for many facets of my life. Those of us who have never had an iPhone can finally see what a real smart phone can do.

I’ve been testing and using several apps that I have found quite useful. I’ll share a few of these in blog posts now and in the future as I discover them.

Example: I installed PhoneMyPc. This is a remote access software that allows me to view and control my desktop PC. I can be on a beach and log into my desktop PC, accessing any of the information or resources there. It also has a “live view” mode which I installed on my kid’s PC. With this, I can view what is live on their PC at any time – without them knowing it. Now let me be clear that they all know I have this. In fact, I went to great pains to show it to them. (I believe that they should get used to the fact that others, such as parents and employees, will be viewing and monitoring machines they are using.)

I also have an app that shows me Google Analytics on multiple sites I own.

Another amazing app is called Barcode Scanner. You point the camera lens at a barcode and it reads the barcode, recognized the product, and offers me a choice to do a Google search on it. All within seconds.

The other night I was in a store and saw a new camcorder with a form factor I’m considering. I scanned the barcode, quickly did a Google search and found a digital camera forum with a review on the camera. Turns out – it got slammed by reviewers so I didn’t buy it. All that happened in under two minutes. That’s a really useful asset.
Barcode Scanner also scans business cards and adds them to my contacts. Nice.

The Droid has the ability to share data and sync with my gmail, Google Calendar, Google Voice and Picasa accounts as well. That was particularly helpful with my contacts. I’ve never been really synced between contacts on my phone and Outlook, which I use on my desktop.

But Gmail allowed me to import my Outlook contacts, and then painlessly synced them to my Android. With a little fooling around, I had 600+ contacts on my phone. Most of whom I will probably never call…

I have also moved over to using the Google Calendar because it is also synched and will pop up reminders on my phone of appointments. No more missing consulting calls.

If you use Verizon, I highly recommend the Droid.

Got a favorite app? Leave a comment and let me know. Even if it’s on an iPhone, because many iPhone apps are being ported for Droid.

Get your free software at Trakkboard.com

The strange thing is, this was pretty simple.

But let’s start from the beginning.

I have a domain I had bought a while ago and never did anything with, so I installed a WordPress blog on it.

I found this free traffic-getting SEO software that works with WordPress blogs, so I thought I’d try it out.

Got it at:
http://ProvenMarketing.info/on/seosoftware Note: You have to opt-in to get the software.

You can see the domain at: read the rest