Just yesterday, a friend and I went out to lunch. He’s starting out a new local marketing business and we were throwing ideas back and forth on how to approach prospective clients.

He tells me that the BIGGEST problem he’s facing is that most of the people he talks to when he walks into a local store, are the staff.

Something like 70% of the time.

So we’re talking about this and come up with the idea to leave a pamphlet behind that we can ask the staff to give to the business owner.

Then last night I was checking out one of the latest videos by Ryan Deiss…

And he was going on about a local marketing system that got the business owners to call you!

I’m thinking, “Yeah, right!”

But Ryan keeps going on and on about how it was working for this one lady, who even was signing up clients…

While stuck in a HOSPITAL BED!

That got my attention.

So I keep on listening and Ryan’s talking about how it all works by sending out a simple, one sentence email…

Which converts into sales 80% of the time!

Anyway, to cut a long story short, I thought, “Okay Ryan, I’m going to check this out.”

So I bought it.

Instant Local Traffic

Then I spent a few hours going over the content, and sure enough he wasn’t lying…

This system is SPECTACULAR!

It’s so easy that anyone can make it work. Even someone like myself that HATES approaching people to solicit business.

Really easy money can be made with this, and the best part is, you’ll be helping out business owners and they will LOVE you for it.

Even better…

They’ll sign THEMSELVES up as your client and pay you hand over fist for your services!

And there’s no rocket science involved in what you’ll be doing… even better, outsource it all and just focus on building up your client base.

Look, that’s enough of my rambling. Check it out for yourself. You’ll thank me for passing you onto this.

Here’s the info:

Instant Local Traffic

John

P.S. If there’s one product you buy this year, this will be it.

Instant Local Traffic

Recently I was asked by a subscriber the following question:

“G’day John,

What are your thoughts in regards to [squeeze page] domains?

I’m looking at the information marketing page and I can get betterinformationmarketing.com or information-marketing-guide.com.

I have read a lot of conflicting information in regards to domains with hyphens and words before the main keyword I want to rank for. Do you have any views one way or the other?

Thanks

[name withheld]“

This is a good question regarding domains.

SEO

When deciding on the domain name for your squeeze page, you don’t have to register something that is keyword-rich nor worry about other SEO factors. This is because your list building site is designed more for capturing email leads than trying to optimize to rank high for the search engines.

In fact, search engines DON’T like to rank squeeze pages at all. They only like to rank sites that provide content, e.g. authority sites, blogs, etc.

This is why you want to have your blog on a separate domain, and also attract visitors to your squeeze page via viral video sharing sites (like Youtube) and through article marketing, social media sites (e.g. Facebook and Twitter), etc.

Domain Name Length

When considering a domain name for your list building site, it’s good to keep it as short as possible. This makes it easy for people to remember. Something catchy is also great. It’s also good to keep it relevant to your offer.

If you find that all the good, short domain names are taken up… don’t despair! There’s PLENTY of good ones out there if you think smart.

Not long ago, I needed to register a domain for a free CD I was giving away about list building. The obvious domain names of listbuilding.com and listtraining.com, etc were already taken. Here’s what I did next…

I went to thesaurus.com and looked for synomyms of the words training and trainer. From that quick research, I came across the term ‘mentor’. Listmentor.com was available to register. It was a perfect name for my site and a short name too so I registered it straight away!

Another great option is just to use your own name, e.g. johnlagoudakis.com . I’d only recommend this if your name is easy to remember and spell

Hypens and .com’s

.com domains are the most trusted, so it’s good to stick with a .com domain for the best conversion rates.

If you really wanted to register a specific domain name, and it was already taken as a .com, then my next recommendation would be .net.

When it comes to hyphens, I try to avoid them. I don’t think I have any domains with a hyphen in them.

Out of the two domains you’ve mentioned above, I would go with betterinformationmarketing.com, though it is quite a long name.

Hope this helps

John

Building an email list is super important for any business. For those that take the iniative to do this, you usually will use different traffic methods. These may include viral videos, blogs, article marketing, list builders, traffic exchanges, jv partners, Facebook, and so on.

While it’s great to use a variety of methods, you want to make sure you spend your time wisely. You don’t want to be spending too much time on traffic methods that are just not working, while spending too little time on those methods that are bringing in most of your optins, or the better quality optins.

That is why it is essential that you track where your email optins are coming from.

The great news is that this is super easy to do, and the method I’m about to show you won’t cost you one cent, and it only takes a minute to set up!

Here’s how it works…

When someone opts in to your list, if you’re using Aweber as your autoresponder, you’ll receive an email notification which gives you a whole bunch of information, including the page that the subscriber signed up on (see below).

Now, when you’re giving out your squeeze page url, all you need to do is append the following code:

?trafficsource

(replace “trafficsource” with a unique id that will identify where you are sending people from. e.g. ?facebook)

For example, if you had a squeeze page at mysqueezepage.com and you were sending people from Facebook to your squeeze page, on your Facebook page you would use this link:

http://mysqueezepage.com?facebook

By doing this, people will still be taken to your exact same website, and when they optin to your squeeze page, aweber will display the full url, including the tracking id that you’ve added!

Here’s another screenshot where a tracking id was used:

And that’s all there is to it!

If you want to know how I make a full-time income online, make sure you check out my free training at http://makemoneyonlinewithjohn.com

Right now I’m listening to an amazing audio book by Carol Dweck titled, “Mindset: The New Psychology of Success“. What I love about this book is the simple, but powerful, way it explains why some of us achieve so much in life, while others of us struggle.

People with a ‘fixed mindset‘ don’t achieve as much as they could have, and therefore, don’t have as much of a fulfilling life. Those that have a ‘growth mindset‘ are always trying to improve and to achieve more. The thing is, almost everyone doesn’t realise that they have either a fixed or growth mindset. I didn’t.

The Fixed Mindset

People with a fixed mindset are those that believe that the natural talents and abilities that we born with define us. A fixed mindset person believes that some are more intelligent, more co-ordinated, more musical, etc than others and nothing can change that.

Fixed mindset people enjoy being praised for their achievements and don’t like to go beyond them, because it might mean failure. A fixed mindset person likes to always be on top and will do anything to keep the status quo, when it is in their favour.

The fixed mindset person doesn’t like to see others go beyond what they have achieved.

The Growth Mindset

People with the growth mindset are those that believe that you can learn to do anything well. A growth mindset person believes that no matter what talents or abilities they possess, they can learn to become proficient, and even the best, at any task, sport, creative art, etc if they learn the correct skills and apply themselves.

Growth mindset people don’t need to be honoured or praised to be motivated to achieve high standards. If they struggle with a task they don’t see it as a failure but rather that they just need to work harder and/or smarter. They don’t care if they come up first, they are content in knowing that they did their all.

The growth mindset person tries to elevate those around them to their level and beyond.

Are You a Fixed or Growth Mindset Person?

Looking back on my life, I can see that I have displayed both qualities of a fixed and growth mindset. Probably more so I was a fixed mindset person growing up. While I am starting to move more over to the growth mindset, it has helped a lot to identify the two ways of thinking. This will definitely help me to eliminate fixed mindset habits out of my life much easier.

I highly recommend that you read or listen to this life-changing book. You can download it from Audible or buy it on Amazon.

Recently I attended a seminar featuring a very successful business person. During the seminar he outlined a very simple but profound money management system. I fell in love with it and adopted it as my own. Even better, I took action and I’m beginning to see great things happen already.

Only after a few months of implementing this system I’m motivated to earn more, and much more focused on achieving my goals.

Here is the breakdown of my money management system:

Go to your bank’s account manager and ask him or her to open for you six separate bank accounts. Label each account as follows:

1. Financial Freedom Account
2. Long Term Savings Account
3. Education Account
4. Necesseties Account
5. Play Account (this one is awesome!)
6. Give Account

I’ll go into each one of the above six accounts in detail very shortly.

Here’s what you need to do next; take any money you earn (after tax), and divide them into each account as follows:

Financial Freedom Account – 10%

Long Term Savings Account – 10%

Education Account – 10%

Necessities Account – 50%

Play Account – 10%

Give Account – 10%

Now, let me explain what each account is to be used for:

1. Financial Freedom Account

This account is what I’ll call your ‘Golden Egg’ account. NEVER spend this money. Continue to build this fund until you can live off the interest you will earn from the principle. Even after you pass away, don’t distribute this fund. Instead set up a foundation or trust so that your family (or a charity) can benefit from this fund forever.

2. Long Terms Savings Account

This account is for saving up for something special that will take you at least a year to save up for. For example, a nice car or a holiday. If you have more than one thing you’d like to save up for, open more accounts, however, don’t put more than a total of 10% of your earnings in these accounts combined.

3. Education Fund

Educating yourself is SO important. Steven Covey refers to it as the ‘sharpening of the saw’. Invest in your mind, it is your greatest asset and will bring you huge returns. Educate yourself in all areas of life; in relationships, business, health, etc.

4. Necessities Account

This account will take care of all your basic needs; your food, shelter and essential clothing. As you begin earning more and more money, this percentage can be reduced from 50% and the money transferred to the other accounts. Rich people are usually living off around 35% of their income.

5. Play Account

This one is definitely my favourite. I find it hard to spend money on myself but with this account you’re FORCED to! In fact, you HAVE to spend this money every month. Use this money to a night out at a fancy restaurant, or to upgrade yourself to a first class flight. Pamper yourself!

(Hint: this account motivates me to earn more money than any of the other accounts)

6. Give Account

If you truly want to be wealthy and happy, then you have to learn how to give. Use the money in this account to give away to any person, worthy charity, pay tithing, etc.

Managing your money using the above strategy will profoundly change your life. It has mine and I highly recommend it.

Do you find that your Contact Form 7 form is not working anymore?

For a few years now I’ve been using Contact Form 7 on almost all of my WordPress sites and haven’t had any issues with it. A couple of days ago, one of my website visitors said they couldn’t submit a form; once they clicked the ‘Submit’ button, all they saw were spinning arrows that went on forever.

Sure enough, when I tried it myself (on a couple of different web browsers) I got the same problem!

Normally you can update your version of WordPress and the plugin itself and that might solve the issue. I tried that but it didn’t help.

Next, I did a search on Google for this particular problem. A few results came back, mainly forums. There was a few different suggestions, but after trying all those, the problem still hadn’t been resolved. Frustrating!

The only thing I could do was look for a different WordPress contact form plugin. After searching and testing different plugins I found a perfect replacement… Fast Secure Contact Form.

The first good sign about this plugin is that it has been downloaded over 2 million times. The more plugins a download has, typically the better it is.

Next, Fast Secure Contact Form is very easy to use but at the same time is highly customizable. This is rare!

Also, I needed a contact form plugin that would allow users to send me attachments. Fast Secure Contact Form has this capability.

There was only one downside to this plugin, and it is a big one; it won’t successfully process a submission if someone enters “http://” into one of the fields. It took me hours to figure that out!

To get around this, I’ve put a little warning next to fields were users might enter a url, and asked them to leave out the http:// and paste rest.

From the time that I found out that Contact Form 7 wasn’t working, until I could make the replacement with Fast Secure Contact Form, it took me two whole days! This was particularly frustrating because I hadn’t made any changes to my site when Contact Form 7 stopped working.

If you’re using Contact Form 7 and you’re having similar issues to mine, my recommendation is to not try to fix it. Go and grab the Fast Secure Contact Form plugin from WordPress.org and swap over to that.

What are some of the characteristics of a good trainer, a good coach, or a good leader? Here’s some that I came up with…

• passion
• generosity
• compassion
• honesty
• energy
• focus

Are leaders just born with these qualities? No! We all have them within us but we have to learn to develop them. A leader is someone who knows who they are and lives life to the fullest. Do you believe you have greatness inside of you? You do. Can you be a leader? Yes!

What’s been holding you back in life is that you’ve been settling for ‘good’. I make a good living, I have a good job, etc.

You were born to be GREAT. You don’t have to be shy about that.

The Difference Between Good and Great

The difference between a good teacher, trainer and coach and someone that is great is this one word:

Ruthless

• ruthless passion
• ruthless generosity
• ruthless compassion
• ruthless honesty
• ruthless energy
• ruthless focus

One of the most important characteristics of a leader is honesty. Great leaders, trainers and coaches are honest. They are honest with those around them but, more importantly, they are honest with themselves.

Another essential attribute of a leader is focus. A leader knows where he is going and, therefore, can lead others. They have a vision and help others to see the vision.

I’ll let you in on a little secret, you already are a leader! We all are. Each of us influences others in one way or another.

The real question is, do you want to be a great leader? I hope that you do. Here’s why…

Great leaders are the happiest people in the world. They live life to the fullest and leave behind a legacy that lasts forever. Wealth and fame disappear like a flame in the wind, but the legacy of a leader inspires people in all ages.

Do you know what you want?

Most people don’t get what they want because they don’t know what they want. It’s all about clarity.

The sad truth is; most people don’t know what they want. There’s a dialogue in the classic fairytale, Alice in Wonderland, that applies to many…

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.
“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

A lot of people have no objectives. They’re playing the game of life without any goals.

When it comes to your online business, how much do you want to be earning per year? $100,000? $1 million per year?

Learn to systemize your business so you don’t have to be there. When you have financial freedom, and time freedom you can then change after people’s lives.

Unfortunately we’re taught the rat race plan that keeps you tied up and unhappy, i.e. get an education based on a high-paying job. And what happens next? You work 40+ hours for 35 years and then if you’re lucky you can retire and then share your gift with the world.

But what happens when you retire? You’re killing the golden goose. It’s so sad when retirees have to struggle to feed themselves or feel like they’re a burden to family or to society.

People don’t really want to be rich, they want financial freedom to be able to share their gifts with the world. Warning: if you’re not growing, you’re dying. We are just like the rest of nature.

So, what is financial freedom to you?

Financial freedom is the ability to live the lifestyle you desire, without having to work or rely on anyone else.

How can we have income without working? Passive income.

Are we taught passive income in school or at home. No. We’re taught to go out and get a job.

Can you earn passive income that will give you total financial freedom? Yes, but you have to be willing to give up your story. Your story are the excuses that you give yourself when you don’t achieve your goals.

To win the money game means to be making enough passive income to live the lifestyle you desire. You know you’ve achieved financial freedom when your passive income is greater than your expenses.

It all starts by having a vivid image of what you want to achieve. Write it out; make a statement to yourself. Say it out loud. Believe and make specific plans to achieve it. You can.

Can you make money selling Amazon Kindle ebooks? Absolutely!

In fact, I didn’t realize just how it easy it was until I a friend of mine, Ty Cohen, revealed to me that he was making well over $30,000 a month from it… as a side business!

And it really is super easy. Look, I know almost every way there is to make money online; Adsense, Amazon and Clickbank SEO sites, email marketing, CPA offers, viral videos, product launches, etc but none of them comes close the simplicity and power of making money publishing ebooks for Amazon’s Kindle platform.

Here’s some of the advantages of selling Kindle ebooks:

• 70% commissions
• Don’t have to drive traffic. Google loves Amazon Kindle ebooks. Use your keyword in the title of your ebook and you’re good to go!
• No customer service. Amazon handles all the ordering, refunds, etc
• No capital required. You can write your own ebooks, or if you don’t want to do that, hire someone to write them for you
• No other fees. Creating a publisher account and uploading ebooks is totally free
• No ad copy skills required. You don’t need a sales page to sell your product
• No technical skills required. If you know how to write up a Word document, then you’ve got what it takes

3 Steps To Making Money Selling Amazon Kindle Ebooks

Here’s the 3 steps you need to take to start making money selling Kindle ebooks:

Step 1: Keyword Research

When searching for a keyword to base your ebook on, pick keywords that have a combined Global Search of 10,000 to 100,000.

Titles are so important. Create your title after a specific keyword. This is awesome for SEO but make sure it makes sense.

Google loves Amazon.

When creating your title, use title enhancer prefixes. These title enhancers will typically answer the question people have in their minds. Here’s some good examples:

• How to
• Quickest way to
• Fastest way to
• Easy ways to
• Tips to
• Ways to
• Cheapest way to
• Best way to

When researching possible keywords and niches, do a search for “how to [keyword]“, e.g. “how to garden” and see what comes up in the results.

Step 2: Create the Content

Content is king. Always put quality of content over quantity of content.

Don’t like to write or don’t have the expertise on a particular topic? Hire others to create the content for you. You can hire retired English teachers, stay at home moms, out of work bloggers, and others that love to write.

Step 3: Publishing Your Ebook

Here’s what you need to do to publish your Kindle ebook:

Amazon signup url: kdp.amazon.com

After you’ve signed up for your account you can upload your ebook. Enter your Title and your Description. The Description should explain what the reader can expect to accomplish by reading your book. Be honest and straight-forward. Use good ad copy and as much of the 4000 words available as possible.

Select English as the language.

Always select “this is NOT a public domain work…”

Don’t use Private Label Rights (PLR) material or public domain material because Amazon don’t like it.

Pick highly relevant categories only.

Don’t use general keywords like “health” or “weight loss”. Instead use “women’s health”, etc

After your Title, the second most important element in selling your ebook is your cover. Not a Photoshop expert? You can hire someone at fiverr.com to create it for you cheaply.

Use .doc file type to upload your ebook.

Stick with Worldwide Rights.

Pick 70% Royalty. Most ebook snare sold between 2.99 and 9.99.

$8.97 is a great price point. $2.99 doesn’t sell more than the higher price points. $8.97 is better overall return.

Set price points at other currency at same price (after conversion).

That’s it! You’re now an ebook publisher.

If you’re looking for a great (and super easy) way to make money online from home, that is truly automated and residual, then I don’t know of many better than this strategy. And because Amazon Kindles are selling like hotcakes and growing in popularity exponentially, this opportunity will be hot for many more years to come.

If you’re serious about making money selling Kindle ebooks, then I highly recommend you check out the webinar I did live with Ty Cohen (who makes $30k+ per month with this method). You can watch the webinar replay by clicking here.

Here’s a scary subject line I just saw in my inbox today:

“Your Aweber Account Has Been Flagged”

It’s every email marketer’s nightmare!

Over the past few years, I’ve heard of quite a few Internet marketers having their Aweber autoresponder accounts suspended for various reasons. This is the last thing I wanted to happen to me.

It’s a big hassle moving autoresponders, especially if you have multiple lists and optin forms all over the place!

I opened the email expecting the worst, and this is what I saw…

The message was this…

Here at Aweber we take our customers security seriously.

According to our daily reports we believe that someone with a different IP was trying to access your account without a valid permission.

our security system has detected an unusual activities on your account earlier,

for your own security we flagged this case to be high risk.

In order to solve this problem and establish a new secure environment on your account,

please follow the instructions in our secure hosted web by clicking the link below

http://www.awebercomplaints.com/users/flsa_reset_aff_password.htm?ra9tocp3n2vg3xq2r7s8haapqhhh&email=johnlagoudakis@gmail.com&action=resetpassword

we usually give a maximum of 7 days to our customers to respond to our security warnings

if no action will be taken from your side in the next 7 days your account will be temporary deactivated for future.

if you believe you are receiving this message by mistake please contact our account security department
for more information regarding this case

AWeber Communications, Inc
Account Security Department
Mike T
MikeT@Aweber.com

Fortunately, I’ve been around a while and could tell this was a fake email. There was a few things that rang the alarm bells:

• Aweber (or any other company) won’t respond to a suspected security risk by sending you an email with a “reset your password here” link. This is an obvious phishing scam. A phishing scam is one that tries to capture your login details.
• Gramatical errors. Many of the sentences don’t begin with a capital letter.
• Non-official domain. The link in the email points to an unofficial Aweber domain (awebercomplaints.com).

In short, this message is an Aweber scam. It is designed to get your Aweber login details so that the scammer can access your autoresponder account and steal your subscriber lists.

Whatever you do, don’t follow the instructions in this email!

Want to be sure that your Aweber account is not at risk? Contact Aweber support directly and ask them to verify the status of your account

If you’re reading this post, it’s most likely you are an email or Internet marketer. Right now I’m running a webinar that reveals the email marketing strategy that I use to make a full-time income online. You can register for my webinar here.