WordPress is without doubt now the leading website creation platform online. And hardly a day goes past where we don’t see questions in the web design forums about some WordPress Theme or another … is it any good, what works best, what get better conversions etc. The questions are endless.

Fortunately the solutions are not.

Following is a list of the TOP TEN BEST SELLING PREMIUM WORDPRESS THEMES for last month from one of the largest providers of Premium WordPress Themes online, StudioPress.

If you’re looking to put your website or Blog online, maybe upgrade your existing website; then get serious about these themes – ignore the rhetoric of the so-called “Guru’s” out there, their recommendations are based on your ability to click their link an make *them* money with *your* sale. This top-10 list is based on what real people just like you and I have actually done – IN the trenches, not from the ivory towers.

Take a look!

10. Driskill

Separating the best from the rest is the Driskill theme by Bill Erickson. Clean and contemporary, it’s no surprise this is used for both personal and professional sites of all kinds.

9. Minimum

Sometimes less really is more. The popularity of Minimum theme proves that solid content with great navigation can be all you need.

8. Modern Blogger

A strong seller since its introduction to the Genesis Child Theme Marketplace in September, Lindsey Riel’s Modern Blogger theme marries comfortable design with modern sensibilities.

7. Associate

When your company’s image is on the line, you need to be sure you’re putting your best foot forward. The Associate theme empowers you to do just that.

6. Generate

If this theme had another day or two to sell, it would have likely made the Top 5. Released last month to rave reviews, Generate is the theme to use if you’re serious about growing your email list.

5. Magazine

When you have a ton of content and need a sleek way to organize it on your site, the Magazine theme is an excellent choice. With lots of customization options and easy navigation, your content is free to steal the spotlight.

4. Lifestyle

The Lifestyle theme never ceases to amaze me. People are using this flexible theme for every kind of site imaginable, and considering the number of design options provided, Lifestyle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

3. Enterprise

The Enterprise theme offers a professional frame for corporate-style sites, giving you the approachability you desire and the trustworthy image you require.

2. News

Savvy publishers know that the key to content-heavy sites is simple, yet stunning, navigation. The News theme offers that and more for publishers of every type of media.

1. AgentPress

Boasting 5 color styles, smart homepage designs, IDX integration and simplified posting options for listings, AgentPress continues to lead the StudioPress theme charge. Check out the AgentPress showcase to see how smart real estate professionals are letting Genesis work for them.

Beautiful aren’t they Take a closer look here – I recommend StudioPress.

Link building is becoming more and more a crucial factor in SEO success. However, there is ‘link building’ and then there is “LINK-BUILDING”… Spam or Can. I just think that Smart-Linking is the way to go. Enjoy this guest article!

In the world of link building, getting an authority link to your site/blog has been one of the most important aspects of growing your blog. Back in 2009 Page Level Link Metrics and Domain Level Authority Features accounted for over 46% of your pages own authority:

In 2011, that percentage has dropped, but only by 4% [42.58%], suggesting that link building will continue to be a critical factor to your blog/website’s success.

But we pretty much know that not just any link will do. The better the site the link is coming from, the better the link.

That’s why your link-building campaigns need to be built around attracting authority links. But how do you do that? And what exactly is an authority link? Let me explain.

Absolute and relative authority links explained

There are two types of authorities. There are the absolute authority sites like Huffington Post, The Daily Beast and Google’s blog. These sites are also labeled “informational” authorities versus navigational authorities like DMOZ.

On the other hand, you also have relative authority sites. These are sites run by bloggers or webmasters that are authorities in a niche. Bloggers like Robert Scoble, Dooce or Mashable are authorities in their markets. While the link juice they’ll give you if they link to you is not as high as what an absolute authority site could give you…they are definitely worth attracting.

But how do you actually get a link from these sites? Here are the ten golden rules to attracting authority links.

Rule 1: Write content that attracts Editorial In-content Links

The most fundamental tactic of attracting authority links is to write content that is worth a link. What does this content look like?

• Cornerstone – this content fills an obvious gap in the web information world that you fill with expert advice, detailed posts and well-reasoned arguments. This content will also define you, so it’s important to establish up front what your blog/site is going to focus on. This is also a large portion of the content you share.
• Personal content – About a quarter or less of the content should contain personal stories about yourself that helps your readers to understand who you are and where you come from. My How Being a Patel Made Me Somewhat Successful is a great example. It stays within the cornerstone content of the site, but it gives you a peek into my personal life.
• Spicy content – This is a small fraction of your content and is made up of controversial posts you write about. Typically you attack a high-profile idea or person or explain why something popular is really dumb. These are for linkbait purposes typically, but generally also give your readers an idea of who you are.

Building up a blog/site with this kind of content will take time, so you may not pick up a natural authority link out of the gate. Better yet, once you have a solid archive of content, approach these authority sites and ask for a link. Give them a good reason, which could be one of the following:

• You wrote about the author and now he might be interested in sharing with his circle the blog post that you published.
• You wrote a post that works well with a series that he wrote our compliments it. You could even critique something he or she did, which might spark an across-blog debate. If that sparks a firestorm of other responses…then you’ve won!

Rule 2: Fix other people’s broken links

Links die all the time. People shut down website or pull web pages. When these documents or sites vanish all the links pointing to them are dead.

For example, if you work through a web page by a publisher who links out a lot and the page is a few years old, you are bound to find at least one or two dead links on that page. Work through the entire site and you could find dozens.

Mashable is a good example of a site that links out a lot and will probably have a lot of dead links on older pages since they tend to report on startups that don’t always last.

You can easily solve this in 2 ways:

• Manual – Make a list of all the dead links you find, then approach the author of those pages. It’s better if you focus on one author/one person and offer several options for content instead of having to contact different authors for each dead link. That can become an administrative nightmare.
• Link validator – Use a tool like the W3C’s Link Checker to find dead links on a website or blog. It’s pretty easy to do. Here are the steps I took to check Mashable.

Drop link into sub form:

Choose your options:

Click “done” and then wait 644.47 seconds:

You can then work your way through the status report:

From that report you can build a list of dead links, the pages that need to replaced and the authors you can approach if it is a multi-author site like Mashable.

Rule 3: Create a desirable image library

If you have high-quality images on our site, you can use those images as an incentive to get people to link to you. Imagine you have a gallery of large, high-resolution pictures…well, then offer a contact form that allows a person to grab the file and linking code right there on the page.

You don’t have to go all out like a photl.com:

Or freepixels.com:

But more like a Haw-lin:

The last site specialize in photos, for you though being a content publisher looking for ranking juice, you could build a sub-domain devoted to photos like these.

Here’s what you have to do, though.

• Hire a decent amateur photographer – If you are not a good photographer and to keep it inexpensive you could hire a local photographer who is good but not really good to charge outlandish fees.
• Use your phone – Now a days, however, most cameras on smart phones can take high-quality photos. It’s often the skill of taking a good picture…like having the right angle and light…that a decent photographer should know about. In any case, the better the photos, the more likely you will get interest in the images.

And to help you benefit fully from this tactic, keep this in mind when building a library of images:

• The higher the quality of each image the better link building potential these photos will have.
• Search out affordable ways to take pictures. This could mean hiring a inexpensive photographer or buying a decent smart phone with a great camera.
• Each image should be posted on its own page.
• The delivery service should be as easy as possible. Test different set ups and use the one that makes adoption easy.
• Add images on a schedule, whether one a day or once a week.

Rule 4: Offer to write a column or do a guest post

Giving a publisher practical, highly-researched content as a guest post is a great way to get links to your site from him or her.

Keep in mind this tactic typically be easier to pull off for those relative authority content sites than absolute authority sites due to their blogging policy. But if you have a guest posting strategy that involves focusing on building links, traffic and exposure via guest posting on a select few relative authority sites, you’ll eventually have an arsenal of content that you can pitch to the absolute authority sites.

Some authority sites like Open Forum or Huffington Post have so much need for content that you can usually get a post on there. But you typically still have to provide a portfolio of posts so they can understand what level of writing you are at and not just someone off the street.

Here are some resource to help you write, submit and get published guest posts:

• A Quick and Dirty Guide to Writing Your First Guest Post
• Neil Patel’s Guide to Writing Popular Blog Posts
• Write a Guest Post for I Will Teach You to Be Rich (while Ramit Sethi focuses on tips on how to write for his blog…they are valuable for any blog, really.)
• Why Submit Your Best Posts as Guest Posts?
• How to Land a Guest Post Without Fail: 21 Secret Tips

Rule 5: Go to where your target audience hangs out

As bloggers and people of the internet we often forget about all of the face-to-face connections that can provide us with valuable links from relative or absolute authority site publishers.

For example, travel to conferences and hook up with some of the people you want to influence and convince to link to your site. Don’t be a pest to these people, but hang out, be cool to them, and then leave them alone for the rest of the events. You then need to go to the after-event event at the bar. This is where you can make things happen by simply buying them a drink or two.

If you really want to take it to another level, offer to take them out for dinner and pick up the check. During that dinner suggest they link to you in some purposeful way…perhaps you offer to create an infographics or a beginner’s guide.

But even if you don’t get some agreement like that you can say as you grab the check, “No, let me get this. You give me a link or something.”

That way the person thinks, “A $50 dinner for a link? You got it.”

Rule 6: Fill gaps in content

As I mentioned above, when you are talking to content publishers, ask them what content they are missing…and offer to create it for them. It could be a video interview of Guy Kawaski or a periodic table of the fundamentals of link building. It could be an idea they’ve had for an ebook.

Whatever it is, offer to create it for them.

Once you create the content you will get the credit as a link back to your site. Make sure you offer content that you can create professionally and will attract people who are in your target audience. Creating a weight-loss calculator for a site when you are in real estate will drive traffic to your site…but it will be the wrong traffic. You might as well done nothing.

Rule 7: Contact big media at the right time

When you are trying to attract the attention of big media sites like CNN or The Economist, knowing when they publish their content is important.

For those sites who are less tied to a content schedule, like a Drudge Report, you will not need to know when they publish their links because they do it pretty much as the story breaks.

Still, having some kind of bead on when that time is will improve your chances. Here’s a guideline to follow:

• For many absolute authorities like the one I mentioned above, you can be certain that they will plan Monday’s content on Sunday.
• Around 6:30 am to 9:30 am, the media staff will put together a list of their top 15 stories for the day. This is the news list. Contacting them during this time is more likely to influence their decision even more than if you called or emailed them the day before.
• The next step for the media staff is to present the completed list of news stories to a team who will then decide which stories will get front page billing. This usually happens around 9:30 am to noon. This is your last chance to send anything. Do it now, because unless you have something spectacular, sending anything over after 1 pm will end up in the trash.

And even if you do get coverage…it won’t be a lot and it probably won’t be a link. Late content entries are typically reduced to the show that doesn’t impact SEO at all.

8. Approach government or education sites

A sure sign of an authority site is a .edu or .gov. This could be a link from a college like Harvard or Stanford or a link from the White House or Usability.gov. Getting those links are not always easy.

One example is to look for ways you can register accounts with these institutions. For example, Harvard has The Harvard H20 Playlist Project. It’s simply a series of links to books, articles or content that hopes to spark content.

Simply create a playlist and add a link to a useful post inside your site.

Creating meaningful, researched content or break an interesting story and these sites might naturally attract these sites might link to you. Examples of content that you could write that might actually grab their attention include:

• Write a solid, thorough review about one of their programs, pulling in information from historical data sets, current events and future predictions. This will likely catch their eye.
• Sponsor a student event. This will not cost very much.
• Volunteer to be a guest speaker for graduates.
• Approach their business school and offer to be a case study.

The kind of content you could create that would attract a government link could be:

• Create a community page/sub-domain on your site that supports some club or event in your city.
• Create content that supports some sort of charitable cause.
• Put on an event. Not only the .gov sites will approach you, but the local press will do so as well.
• Run for an office in your community. The commitment is usually low, so it’s not like you will be consumed with it.

In some cases you will just have to approach these institutions. When you do, you are more likely to get an answer however, and a positive one at that, if you inspect their site, identify the content gaps and then offer to fill them.

Again, it’s going to be important that you have something to show that you can pull off the content professionally, so don’t try this tactic until you have a good catalog of posts in your archives.

9. Buy links without penalty

It’s no secret that buying links violates Google’s policy and the penalty can be very stiff. So you may be wonder why I’m suggesting you buy links.

There are ways to buy links that will not be a violation of Google’s policy. Here are two:

• Donate to a charity – Depending on how much you donate, some organizations will display you name and donation amount on their sites.
• Offer to pay influential bloggers to post on your site – The content is simple. Give an authoritative blogger some kind of incentive like cash to write a post you can post on your site. In all likelihood they’ll link to it once it’s published.
• Fund research – Sometimes when you fund research projects people will link back to your website to show people who provided them with the funding. It’s their way of saying “thanks” and showing appreciation.

As you can see these examples are based on an exchange of value between two people and their websites that can relate to the relevancy of content…so it’s an ethical way of buying links.

Rule 10: Know the difference between a good and a bad site

Finally, one of the most fundamental rules to link building is knowing the difference between a good website and a bad one. This might sound obvious but it’s sometimes easy to get tricked into asking a site that looks like an authority but is in reality spammy.

What are the elements that determine if a website is a bad one? Here are five ways:

• Negative PPC – If you come across a site that has SEO links based on pills, casinos or porn, then it’s not a good site to get a link from.
• Link overload – Also avoid sites that have a high link-to-content ratio. Anything above 20% links to 80% content is probably too high.
• Keyword stuffing – Some sites that rank high in search engines will be notorious for keyword stuff. You’re first clue is the title description. If it looks like someone treated it like a keyword meta tag, they are probably employing spam techniques elsewhere, too. Perhaps it’s in the footer, behind images or in the source code.:
• Ad overload – These sites will be like a sore thumb when it comes to the number of ads they have. They’ll have ads down both sidebars, above the header and multiple times throughout the content.
• Poor content – Another clue this is not a great site is the low content-to-ad ratio. This one can be tricky because even absolute authority sites can push the limits when it comes to displaying ads. Look at Marketing Pilgrim, for example:

  Ads easily dominate 2/3 of the real estate. But it’s a legitimate website with pretty good content. If that’s the case, then evaluate the copy. Is it well written, heavily researched and specific? Is there an author attached to it? Is there a convincing author bio page? These are all elements you need to look at to determine whether you should write a guest post for them or not.

• Poor design – Does the site look like they used a free theme? Are the fonts irregular in size or shape? These are usually signs that someone has not spent anyone on the site…which is a signal they could be spammers.

Conclusion

Trust me when I say that you will not be wasting your time if you invest it in attracting authority links to your website or blog. Remember: nearly half of what determines the rank of your site is based upon the types of links driving to your site. Hopefully this guide has given you the tips and the tools necessary to help you succeed.

About the author: Neil Patel is the co-founder of KISSmetrics, an analytics provider that helps companies make better business decisions.

Armand Morin is without doubt one of the ‘nets top internet marketing strategists. Many years ago I was fortunate enough to share the stage with him and can say that he truly is one of the “nice guys” in internet marketing. If you’re looking to find someone from whom you can model your own business on, then why not follow one of those who I follow; Armand Morin.

This article is short and sweet and worth several hundred dollars in consulting wisdom – easy! Enjoy.

***

I get approached by a lot of different people who all have questions about making money online. They generally ask questions like: “What’s the latest and greatest?” “What’s the new information out there?” And, “What’s changed?”

I always tell them what’s on my mind at the time and then try to answer their questions. One of the things I’ve been thinking about lately is the answer really isn’t about what’s new. It’s kind of about what’s old.

It’s “what aren’t you doing right” to begin with.

I market products and services on the Internet quite frequently. I’ve made millions of dollars doing it, but there’s honestly only three ways to really make more money on the Internet.

1. Get more traffic to your website.

If you have a website right now, one way to increase the amount of income you earn is to get more traffic coming to that website. If you get more traffic, no matter what your conversion, you’re going to get more people to buy. That’s easy enough to understand.

2. Increase your conversion.

Increasing conversions means you need to get more people to buy.

For example, if you had 100 people coming to your website, and you had 2% conversion, which means two out of 100 would buy, then you’d have a 2% conversion. For most people, that’s a good number, but what if you had five people buy? Then you’d have a 5% conversion. You could make one tweak on your website, get more people to buy and instantly make more money.

Those are the two primary things that people focus in on.

1) Ways to get more traffic to your website
2) Ways to get more people to buy

They are usually tricks like pop ups, popovers, ways to interrupt people when they’re on your site in order to get them to pay attention to your marketing messages.

I have to tell you, there are some amazing tools out there that will help you do this, but sometimes I run across a site that has every single one of these tools on it at the same time. How ridiculous is that? In this case, you’re just pissing off the customer or the prospect when they come to your website. You don’t want to do that.

The third way though, I think, is a way most people don’t even think about. In fact, It’s what I call the mystery element.

3. Have a great product.

It seems strange that I would say the mystery element is to have a great product, but it’s true.

Most people don’t really think about how great their product is. You see, we can put all these tricks in place, we can get more traffic, we can figure out ways to use all kinds of tactics to get more people to buy from us, but at the end of the day it’s still the same product. If the product is crap, people are not going to buy and if they do, you’re going to get refunds.

I was thinking about this the other day. You can spray air freshener on dog crap, but at the end of the day it’s still dog crap. So, what you need to do is increase the value of your product.

Ultimately, if you want to make more money from your website, you have to do ALL three things. You have to increase traffic. You have to increase your conversions. And you absolutely have to have a great product.

Armand Morin’s Internet Marketing Newsletter is one of the best in the business. No hype. No crap. No Bull.
Subscribe here http://www.internetmarketingnewsletter.com/

Hey, small deviation from internet marketing strategies for today. Here’s a post I want to share with you about improving your personal productivity.

The one great leveller out there is time. There’s only 24 hours in any one single day. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. So what’s important is what you do in those 24 hours.

Forget time management…. You can’t manage time. To become more productive it’s about managing YOU better.

I hope you get this. If you do, you will transform the QUALITY AND QUANTITIY OF GREAT WORK that you deliver to your customers – and that can only have a positive impact on your bottom line!

Interested in reading further?

I’m going to start by asking you a pretty simple question…

What’s the very first thing you do when you get to your desk in the morning to start work?

And don’t kid yourself, think about it. You do it every single day…

Then again, you don’t even need to tell me the answer. I know already – EMAIL. That’s not really a great way to start your day off on a positive footing…

Before going any further, let me get one thing straight…. email (when used in the appropriate way) can be a great communication tool. BUT it is so often (if not always) abused.

Here’s my simple summary of how email negatively impacts your productivity.

“Email allows others to set your daily agenda”

It simply does not matter how well you planned your day the night before, all that changes IN AN INSTANT when you run off doing those ‘urgent’ assignments as a result of reading your email. Forget it. Ignore it. Being busy doesn’t mean you’re doing great work.

And let’s face it, most employees make a career out of being busy.

Instead of switching on your email client first thing in the morning, I’ve got a much better proposition for you. How about this?…

“Spend the first two hours of EVERY work day focussing 100% on your top priority projects that support your long term business or personal goals”.

Now, I’m not proposing that you work 2 hours without any break period. That would be a little silly – your mind can’t focus for that length of time. Let me tell you what I do. I do focussed great work for 55 minutes, then have a 10 minute break (take a stroll, have some water, few push ups…. whatever, just stop working) and then work again for a further 55 minutes.

It doesn’t matter who you are or what you do. You could be an employee or the founder of a fledging internet business. Just do one thing every day to improve your bottom line….

Do some great work.

You’ll be simply amazed at the great results you’ll quickly come your way if you do this every day.

When you start applying this technique, I can guarantee that you will easily get distracted. It’s just too easy to open up your web browser and email client every few minutes or take that phone call from a friend or work colleague.

Just remember that’s simply not conducive to improving your productivity.

If you’re going to work, DO GREAT WORK!

Results won’t come your way overnight, but you will complete your key priority projects quicker. Your work output increases. The quality of the work will be significantly improved because you are 100% focused on one task without being continually side-tracked.

There have been countless research studies demonstrating that if you are distracted from what you are doing (to quickly read an email, for example) it takes you ANOTHER 20 minutes before you are completely focused again. Wow!

Hopefully, you can see that I’ve provided you with a great tool to improving your productivity:

Focus 100% on your most important project for the first two hours of every work day.

But here’s one great excuse I often hear…

“My office environment doesn’t allow me to focus for two hours on one task first thing in the morning. I have meetings to go to, etc.”

Simple answer here, get to work earlier. Get a head start on the competition by starting the day one hour before people arrive at the office.

Back to email for a minute. The first time I check my email – it’s not before midday. And if you’re really worried about what people will think if you don’t respond to their email first thing in the morning, just let them know that you don’t do email in the morning.

If it’s something really important they know where to find you. Don’t give in! Don’t dismiss such a simple business productivity enhancement tool. If you’re planning your escape from the RAT RACE, tools like this that you can implement today will become key to your success.

This post was written by guest author Jack Richards. You can find similar articles on improving productivity or how to start an online business at Jack’s site Wealth-Health-Self.

But that’s not the best part…

The BEST PART is that I’m Going to Give you FULL RESALE RIGHTS so that you can CASH-IN instantly and make money with this project by on-selling it to your list!

Make Money Opportunity # 1 -
Start Selling the Product Tomorrow and CASH IN.

Make Money Opportunity # 2 -
Open the product, watch the videos, LEARN HOW to make money 24/7 on FULL AUTO-PILOT creating residual income that pays you all day… EVERY DAY!

Introducing:

Look, $17 is NOTHING compared to what you could get in return for these amazing strategies…. and now, with Resale Rights… this is incredible!

And don’t worry, if for any reason you’re not happy with the content, you have a complete guarantee to protect your investment.

That’s about as fair as it gets, don’t you agree?

Well let me tell you what I’ll also do to make this the best investment you ever make. I’m going to throw in some free bonuses that could literally be worth more in money terms than this program itself!

Simply grab your copy of “How to Make Money with Membership Sites” right now, and here’s what I’ll throw in:

FREE BONUS #1: A PERSONAL RESALE LICENSE TO RESELL THE PRODUCT!

his amazing bonus is all about you starting to make money right NOW!

You’ll get:

• Professionally designed website graphics in fully layered PSD format for easy editing.
• High Quality product graphics in PNG format for easy delivery.
• $400 value!

Not bad, right? But that’s not all you get! Because I’m also throwing in:

FREE BONUS #2: “THE SALES COPY TEMPLATE I PERSONALLY USE”

Now the “sales copy” purists will hate this, but I don’t give a damn. This template has served me well and made me tens of thousands of dollars over the years. Now I’m giving it to you!

Are you beginning to see how valuable this package is? With this bonus you’ll be able to set up your sales page and make sure that it still sells but is still *different* from others who purchase this license.

All you have to do is this:

• Read through the page and get a feel for the content
• Start at the top and work your way down
• Fill in the blanks (everything is set out for you)

We all know the biggest problem with resale licenses is having dozens (or hundreds) of people selling the same product with the same sales copy… no more! You can set this up totally in less than an hour and people will read it! Hey, you are reading this, aren’t you?

Well the good news is, that’s still not all. Because I have another gift for you.

FREE BONUS #3: PLR LICENSE TO MODIFY THE PRODUCT (with multiple file format deliver)

You don’t know it yet but with this bonus you will be in complete control. Let me ask you… do you have the tools, resources and time to re-record the audio tracks for the 6 different videos? If you do, great! If you don’t, great! In this bonus you get both READY-TO-SELL and READY TO EDIT file formats (you decide what works for you!)

Here’s the short list of what this amazing bonus contains:

• Ready to sell MP4 and PDF product (just upload them, plug them in to the download page and they’re done).
• READY TO EDIT PowerPoint slides in both PPT and JPG format.
• Audio free AVI videos if you want to record your own audio track.
• READY TO EDIT Word DOC to add your own content in for PDF delivery.
• READY TO EDIT HTML webpage.
• Ready to sell MP3 audio files (a great bonus for customers)
• Ready to sell MPV (iPod) video files (awesome bonus for customers)

Let me sum it up for you: you get two powerful download packages (1) The Complete Ready to Go Resale Rights Product, and (2) All my original source files if you want to go PLR and customise it for yourself!

They’re each worth every cent. But hey, they’re yours FREE. Congratulations!

However, I don’t know how long I’ll offer the PLR resale rights. It’s part of a marketing test I’m doing. I’ve NEVER OFFERED PLR ON ANY OF MY PRODUCTS BEFORE – EVER and this is worth a lot to me in my heart, so at any time I could take this down forever. If you want it, get in quick.

Look, here’s the deal – I’ve been creating and selling product online for over 10 years now. In that time literally tens of thousands of people have benefited from my training. Personally, I believe it’s the best, unparalleled in the internet marketing industry.

But hey, don’t take my word for it, check out these testimonials from some of THE BEST IN THE BUSINESS about what I offer:

I’ve known Paul Barrs since he published his first audio eBook way back in 2002. Since that time his online training seminars have literally gone global helping countless thousands of people start their own website businesses.

Yes, it’s true that there is an avalanche of stuff these days to help people make money online. But it’s also true that Paul’s passionate training style is what will help you create your own avalanche and get ahead of the pack mentality – Paul will show you how to stand out from the crowd and get noticed!

If you’re serious about working online and building a long-term sustainable business then listen up, Paul Barrs is the man to get you there.

- Willie Crawford
WillieCrawford.com

If you want to make a living online with internet marketing, then Paul Barrs is the coach you want standing alongside you. His down to earth approach and straight to the gun style will help you see the truth like no one else can. And from there – the sky’s the limit!

Paul has been doing online audio now for nearly ten years and in that time has helped tens of thousands of people learn how to work from home and run their own online business. So if that’s what you want to do, then now’s the time to listen carefully.

- John Delavera
JohnDelavera.com

I’ve known Paul for years, I know he always delivers great content whether it be physical and/or digital products!

All I can say is “Run, don’t walk” – get this – get inside his head – understand his internet mindset – you’ll profit exponentially from the implementation of his vast knowledge.

Paul, all I can say is “awesomeness at it’s best”. Well done mate!

- David Cavangh
DavidCavangh.com

As they say, the proof is in the pudding. Thousands of my customers have been super happy. Just like you’ll be.

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Warmly,

Paul Barrs

P.S. Don’t forget, you’re getting over $2,000 worth of bonuses for just a fraction of that price. Everything to get you started in setting up and profiting from making money with memberships sites. So if that’s what you want to do, this is the opportunity you’ve been waiting for.

RESALE / PLR License Conditions.

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[NO] Can offer ‘resale or PLR rights’
[NO] Can be given away on public download
[NO] Can be used as free web content
[NO] Can be broken into multiple chunks
[NO] Can be offered through auction sites
[NO] Can give away
[NO] Can be added to membership sites (free)
[NO] Can be given to list subscribers
[NO] Can pass on website, graphics, videos masters
[YES] Can edit sales letter (included)
[YES] Can add videos to membership sites (paid)
[YES] Can package PDF with other paid products
[YES] Can be used as bonus for paid product
[YES] Can brand or co-brand and put your name as author or co-author
[YES] Can be sold as stand alone product

Note: Recommend retail price for this product is $47

This product is copyrighted and protected by all applicable laws. The PDF and the accompanying audios and videos may be redistributed as a whole only without change or alteration unless permission is given by the author prior as per above license conditions.

Today is the final day of your outsourcing training!

Let’s get stuck in…

How To Delegate and Manage Your Freelancers…

As you build your freelancing team, these tasks – delegating and managing – will be the bulk of what you do.

That’s because you’ll already have hired and evaluated freelancers.

Yes, you’ll need to hire and evaluate on an ongoing basis, but you’ll have a team in place for long-term and ongoing projects.

And this team will require you to delegate tasks and manage on an ongoing basis.

So let’s go over five dos and don’ts for accomplishing this step…

Don’t Treat the Freelancer Like an Employee…

The first thing you need to remember is that you don’t own your freelancer’s time.

That means that you shouldn’t assume that he will take on your projects, especially within your required timeframe.

Because your freelancer is an independent contractor, he usually has several other clients.

This means that he may be booked, so you can’t expect nor demand him to take on your project.

Indeed, even if his schedule is free, you still can’t demand that he can take on your project.

The second thing you need to be aware of is adding extra work to the project after you’ve already talked about the scope of the project and set deadlines.

If you need something extra, you’ll need to ask the freelancer if he has extra time in his schedule to accommodate you.

And if not, you’ll need to get a second deadline for the extra part of the project.

Example: let’s suppose you’ve hired a ghostwriter to create a 25,000 word book. You give your writer an outline, the two of you set deadlines and the writer prepares to start working.

Then you realize that you forgot to add an important topic to the outline, so you revise it to include an extra 5000 words.

You can’t just send the ghostwriter the revised outline and ask him to add it to the project.

Instead, you need to sit down together and revise the deadline. In this case, you may get the first 25,000 words as per the original deadline, with the extra 5000 words coming at a later date.

If, however, you’ve hired a freelancer to create something like software – and you’ve extended the features on the software – then the entire project delivery date will probably get moved when you extend the scope of the project.

Do Continue Using Briefs…

When you first start working with a particular freelancer, you’re sure to create detailed briefs, offer examples and in general give thorough instructions.

As time goes on, you may be tempted to send less information since your freelancer always seems to know what you want.

Do NOT do this…

One of the reasons you and your good freelancers likely work well together (and why you get good results) is because you provide thorough briefs and project instructions.

If you stop doing it, you’ll probably see your results drop off.

At the very least, you’ll probably create more work for your freelancer, since he needs to guess what you want and/or ask a lot of follow up questions.

So make it easy on both of you by continuing to provide detailed briefs.

OutVeo removes all the guesswork!

Do Manage Ongoing Projects…

If you have a large project – such as a long ebook or a big software project – be sure to ask for regular follow ups.

If you’re just starting to work with a particular freelancer, you may ask for updates every day or every other day.

As your relationship grows, you may be comfortable getting updates every three to four days or so.

However, even if you have a great relationship with a freelancer, be sure to get updates at least once a week for large projects.

That’s because you don’t want several weeks to go by without hearing anything, only to find out later that the freelancer isn’t on track (which of course derails your project).

Secondly, remember that your freelancer is an independent contractor and an expert, so don’t micromanage the project.

That is, do NOT tell the freelancer how to complete the task.

The exception, of course, is if you’re training a freelancer – such as a virtual assistant – who may not know how to do certain tasks. Which brings us to our next point…

Don’t Neglect Training…

If you expect to work with a freelancer on a long-term and/or ongoing basis, then you’ll probably want to spend some time training him with regards to your preferences and/or your expectations.

Example: If you hire a writer from the U.K. but you want the content directed at people in the U.S., then you may need to train your writer how to avoid British sayings, slang and spellings. (E.G., the spelling of the word colour versus color.)

If you’re hiring a virtual assistant who’ll do a variety of tasks for you, then you’ll need to set time aside each week for training (at least in the beginning).

For best results, you should create training materials, such as training videos or instructional manuals.

Example: Let’s suppose you’re teaching a virtual assistant how to submit articles to article directories using submission software.

You can provide a video that shows the step-by-step process of logging into the software, uploading the article and submitting it.

In-depth training and instruction like this leaves little room for error. Do Offer Praise Generously You’re likely to need to correct your freelancers from time to time or at least request that things be done differently.

Example: Perhaps you want your customer service representative to handle refund inquiries in a slightly different way.

Or maybe you want your ghostwriter to deliver your document in a different format.

However, be sure that you don’t get in the habit of only pointing out what was done incorrectly or what you’d like changed. That can dampen the morale of your freelancing team.

Instead, you should regularly point out what was done right by offering generous praise.

Indeed, you can even praise your freelancers right alongside your corrections.

Example: “You did a GREAT job handling the pre-sale questions this week.

Well done.

However, I wanted to talk to you about using a slightly different approach when handling refund inquiries…”

That concludes our training – unless you want to work on weekends… but you don’t have to!

Congratulations – you now know how to run your business in just 60 minutes per day!

All the best!

Brian Terry and Paul Barrs

P.S. Want a little secret? The easiest way to manage your outsourced workers and make sure you get 100% output from them is through this unique software program.

This makes outsourcing a breeze…

==> http://OutVeo.com

If you’ve been around for long, you know I tend to emphasize skills over the “technique of the day.” The basics, as it were. There’s a reason for that. Let’s take a look at the WSO section of the Warrior Forum to see why that’s so important.

While we do, keep the online success formula in mind:

Traffic x Conversion = Profits

It’s probably a good idea to keep that in mind no matter what online business activity you’re messing with, but we’re going to focus on the WSO section for a moment.

This great post from Paul Myers will open your eyes to lessons that can be learnt *anywhere*.

Enjoy -

Warrior Forum WSO Lessons

The forum is growing at a fairly steady rate. Of the new members coming in, only a relatively small percentage will make a regular habit of visiting the WSO section as potential customers.

At the same time, a lot of people are signing up because they’ve read somewhere that the forum, and especially the WSO section, are places they can make money. And some of the most popular WSOs over the past year have been about selling products through WSOs.

The ratio of sellers to buyers is getting more and more skewed. That creates more competitive pressure, which translates among the WSO crowd to “price competition.” Down, down, down.

At the same time, the folks who’ve run a number of successful WSOs in the past control a fair bit of the traffic. Those same people have figured out the conversion factors in that environment, so they have an easier time getting affiliates. They can run up the visitor numbers, sales and comments so quickly that their offers catch fire almost every time.

That attracts the attention of the casual browsers who weren’t sent directly to an offer by an affiliate, and are just looking around the place. Over time, that gives the established sellers an even bigger chunk of the group to email, adding further to their edge in that market.

If you know how to craft an offer that converts, and network well with existing or potential affiliates, you can start to play in the deeper end of the pool. If not, you’re left with whatever you can manage from the casual browsers until you learn.

For all the hype about the various “WSO Success” systems, it really all comes down to basic skills.

That’s the open secret most of these guys never tell you.

It’s tempting to learn in the WSO section. I mean, the traffic is already there, and it’s targeted, right?

Sure, if you sell to the sellers. Or if you can create something useful for them. Bill Guthrie, a WordPress expert, did just that recently. The product was so good that he got some affiliates, made a bunch of them happy, and showed a lot of customers that his products really were worth a lot more than he asked for them.

But what if you can’t make your products fit? Or what if you just don’t want to play in that market space?

You can still learn a lot from watching the WSO section. It’s a miniature version of every market out there. And the progression of players from newbie to “power seller” is the same in all of them. With one major exception:

Very few markets move as fast as the WSO section.

If you develop the skill needed to make offers that convert better than the competition’s, you can walk into almost any market and grab the lion’s share of affiliates. Make them money, and they’ll keep coming back and promoting your stuff. Which gets you more exposure, and more customers, and more affiliates.

From there, it’s just a matter of how far you want to take it.

Every one of those people you see raking it in with offers in the WSO section have a big advantage: They know how to make their offers convert. It doesn’t matter if they’re selling backlinks, or pushing WP themes, or rolling out mini-reports on the cheap. If they’re doing well, they’ve learned to sell.

That’s their real edge. If you can sell, traffic becomes easy.

And if you can attract affiliates or make a profit on paid ads, you can ignore Google and the rest. You can quit worrying about search engine changes, or spending time and money on backlinks and optimization strategies that may or may not work.

That gives you real control over your own business.

THAT is why I emphasize skills. That is why I stay away from most of the “flavor of the day/week/month” uber-hyped promos. If you can’t convert those visitors, or you can’t get the visitors in the first place, the rest is pointless.

Quality traffic is what matters in terms of visitors. People who already want what you’re selling. That’s why most of the automated traffic systems end up being such huge disappointments. If they work at all, they usually attract random visitors, with little enthusiasm for the offer before they land on your page.

If you really want to take things up a level or four this year, work on your skills. Master the basics. And start with learning how to sell.

Paul Myers
http://talkbiz.com

Note from Paul Barrs: If you’re one of those online marketers who enjoys BS free zones on the internet, then I strongly suggest that you take a look at Paul’s Talkbiz Newsletter. You won’t get blasted with ads, but you will LEARN STUFF that can help you make money online.

Are you looking to get started on your new business adventure? Those trying to sell you “something” will tell you that it’s going to be exciting, rewarding and your path to golden dreams. Well, yes…. it *can* be that, but it can also be difficult, hazardous, and fraught with financial risk. In today’s guest post by Evan Fischer of HirePulse.com.au you’ll get an insight to the most common mistakes that new businesses make… and how to avoid them! Enjoy -

Starting a business is no easy undertaking at any time, but given our current economic environment, it’s even riskier. This means that new business owners need to be twice as diligent in order to ensure that they can remain afloat long enough to gain a following, turn a profit, and ultimately, succeed where so many competitors fail. However, there are a lot of challenges facing the uninitiated in the world of business ownership, and if you don’t know what hurdles you could be facing you can’t hope to be prepared to overcome them. But you aren’t reinventing the wheel here; many feet have tread this path before and you can learn from their mistakes.

Here are just a few common blunders that you’ll definitely want to avoid.

1. Spending snafus. There are two ways that businesses fail when it comes to spending accordingly at the outset: overspending and under-spending. And both can ruin your business before you even start. The ramifications of overspending are pretty obvious; you’ll end up with unmanageable debt that your business simply can’t support. Under-spending is a bit more difficult to nail down, as you are probably inclined to assume that saving every penny is a smart move. However, failing to properly promote your business or compromising quality because you’re afraid to spend is just as certain to end in failure. Spending smart means knowing which costs are an investment and which are a waste of money.

2. Borrowing snafus. Again, the problem here is twofold: borrowing too little or borrowing too much. If you fail to account for all possible costs, you could find yourself with overhead that you simply can’t pay. On the other hand, a huge influx of cash (say, from investors) often requires that you give up some measure of control over your operation and potentially get forced into growing faster than you’re prepared to. Each can be equally fraught with peril for your business and its prospects for success.

3. Being generic. This is a major problem for many startups. You want to stick to tried and true products and services, but there are probably already plenty of established brands doing it better than you. For this reason it is imperative to find your own niche. You can certainly offer something that people have seen before as long as you spin it so that you’re offering innovation and added value. That’s how you’re going to get the attention of consumers and beat out the competition.

4. Failing to reinvest. Have you ever heard the old adage “you have to spend money to make money”? Because you are a business owner, it’s easy to assume that the money coming into the business is yours. Wrong! Anything the business earns belongs to the business. You get a salary which provides for your personal needs, but anything left over should go to the needs of the business. If you treat your company like your personal piggy bank you’ll soon find that you’re getting out exactly what you put in (which is to say, nothing).

5. Under-planning. You can absolutely NEVER be too prepared. So start off with a comprehensive (but flexible) business plan that accounts for possible failures (and successes, for that matter) and stay up-to-date with changes and advances in your industry to ensure that you’re ready to face any situation that may arise. Being prepared for any outcome is paramount to success in business.

Evan Fischer is a contributing writer for HirePulse, an online service that allows employers to select an independent contractor that meets their business needs.

We’re getting really close to wrapping everything up here with only a couple more days to go…

If you’re not using OutVeo yet to help you manage your outsourced workers and the projects you give them I highly recommend taking a look.

Yesterday I showed where to go to find the best people to outsource your projects to…

Today is all about knowing which people to choose (the most important lesson of all!)

How To Evaluate Your Candidates…

You’ve got your list of freelancers.

But don’t hire anyone just yet.

That’s because the next thing you need to do is sort through these prospective candidates in order to uncover those who’re most suitable for the job.

Before we get into the details of this process, let me make a couple points:

1. Spending time upfront saves you time and money down the road…

Yes, this process does take some time upfront as you do your due diligence and perhaps even go through an interview process.

However, the time you spend now will save you time, money and frustration down the road.

You see, some business owners simply skip this process and instead assume that anyone advertising as a professional freelancer must be reputable professional who’ll produce good work.

However, that’s not always true.

Some freelancers can’t seem to keep projects on track, meaning they’re always missing deadlines (and thus derailing major parts of your business).

Some freelancers simply aren’t very good at what they do.

And worse yet, some freelancers are actually scammers, meaning their goal is to take your money without any intention of doing the work.

As such, it’s extremely important that you go through the due diligence process. Consider it a good investment of your time.

2. Make the process proportionate to the job and the relationship…

You’ll want to do your research and due diligence every time you hire a freelancer.

However, you don’t necessarily need to do the same amount of research for every freelancer.

Instead, you’ll need to keep the amount of research you do in proportion to the relationship you expect to have as well as the cost of the project.

Example: Let’s say you’re hiring someone to do a one-off task, such as fixing a graphic for $10. Obviously, you’re not going to spend hours researching this person’s background.

Instead, you’ll spend maybe five minutes checking the person’s portfolio and feedback ratings.

On the other hand, let’s suppose you’re hiring a customer service representative to work with you on an ongoing basis.

In this case, you may go through a full due diligence process. You may even spend a few minutes on Skype interviewing the person.

That’s because you want to hire the best person for the job right away so that they can do a good job for you in the long term.

3. Good freelancers for others may not be good for you…

Another thing to keep in mind is that just because a freelancer has great feedback and comes highly recommended, that doesn’t mean this person will work well with you. You’ll learn more about this important factor just a bit later.

4. Don’t shop around based on price alone…

Finally, don’t base your research on price alone. High prices don’t necessarily mean better quality work. Low prices don’t necessarily mean inferior work.

You’ll need to do your full due diligence and research in order to determine how well suited a particular candidate is for your specific project.

Tip: It’s true, sometimes you can find someone who produces extremely high-quality work at a low price. Possible reasons include:

* The person is just getting started and trying to build his portfolio. He may even specifically advertise that his prices are going up once he’s built up his portfolio.

* The person lives in a place with a low cost of living and is trying to be competitive.

This is especially true of someone who’s mainly working with business owners in a local area.

However, if this person expands and starts working globally, he may raise his prices to reflect his skill level.

* The person doesn’t yet know his or her worth in relation to others in the marketplace.

Some freelancers who’re fairly new simply don’t yet realize their worth and/or they think they’ll lose business if they raise their prices.

If they truly are good at what they do, then they’ll have a LOT of business. If they over-schedule themselves, the quality of their work will go down.

Alternatively, they may just eventually start raising their prices.

Point is, while there are legitimate reasons for spectacular freelancers to have dirt- cheap prices, there’s a good chance that the prices won’t stay low forever.

So, that means you either need to be prepared to pay higher prices or you need to spend an incredible amount of time constantly looking for new freelancers at discounted rates.

Truth is, you waste a lot of time and money if your freelancing team is constantly turning over.

It’s better to either find a good freelancer upfront (even if she/he charges more) or pay a good freelancer’s higher prices if she/he starts raising them. In other words, it’s not always a good deal to constantly be seeking out low-price freelancers.

Evaluating Freelancers…

Okay, so now you know why you should invest time upfront to do your research and find the best candidates.

Now let’s look at some of the steps involved in the actual due diligence process…

Check feedback ratings…

If you’re hiring a freelancer from a freelancing site (like Elance), then you have the advantage of checking the person’s feedback and ratings from other business owners.

Ask around…

Whether you’re hiring offline or online, you can ask around to see if anyone has any good or bad experiences with this freelancer.

Example: Let’s suppose that you notice a local business owner has a “designed by” tag at the bottom of his website. You can ask him if he was satisfied with the quality of the work.

Review the portfolio. This is actually one of the first things you should do if you’re hiring certain types of freelancers like writers, graphic designers and similar.

Point is, you want to make sure that your freelancer is capable of handling the type of work you require.

Example: If you’re hiring someone to create an ebook, you should look for a sample ebook in the person’s portfolio.

That’s because a person may do a great job writing articles or blog posts, but perhaps he falls short when pulling together a well-researched ebook.

Look at testimonials. Don’t believe everything you read, though, as a testimonial is easy enough to fake.

Use Google.

Finally, one of the best ways to do your due diligence is to research the freelancer’s business history and background in Google.

Do NOT just cherry pick one or two of the above methods while ignoring the others, especially if you’re looking for a freelancer for a big, expensive and/or ongoing project.

Instead, go through all the steps above (where applicable) so that you get a clear picture of the freelancer’s:

* Ability to produce great work…
* Ability to meet deadlines…
* Ability to be professional…

Once you’ve done your due diligence, you’ll find that your big list of prospective freelancers very quickly gets whittled down to a select group.

All the best!

Brian Terry and Paul Barrs

P.S. Want a little secret? The easiest way to manage your outsourced workers and make sure you get 100% output from them is through this unique software program.

This makes outsourcing a breeze…

==> http://OutVeo.com

If you’ve been online for any time now you’ll know that without doubt the best and potentially most successful strategy for generating income is through Joint Ventures.

The problem however for most is that the idea of “contacting the top performers” (so-called Guru’s) is completely out of the question. I mean, even if you spark up the courage to actually try to contact them, 99 out of 100 times you never hear back from them do you. That of course means that you most likely *never* hear back from them because you’ve given up well before 99 attempts; this is OK, after all, we can only handle so much rejection before it gets to us.

These problems have faced people working in the sales industry for decades. There’s nothing new about it, it’s just the way it is.

But –

Even though almost everyone out there says that ‘you have to contact the big guns’ to access the big lists to get a successful joint venture, I’m here to ask you… do you? Really?

Sure, it is true that one successful JV with a big list is going to put you in front of more people, and because of this you shouldn’t ever give up on that strategy, but perhaps you could also consider this one –

Let’s say for example that it takes 99 strike-outs to get that one, and you get access to a list of 50,000 or more. OK. Well, at the same time you could hunt around for the ‘small to medium players’ who have been established online for a year or two and probably have lists in the 1000 – 5000 range (I’m talking QUALITY here, not tens of thousands of pointless email addresses).

In this second example you’re more likely to get a successful ‘home run’ each 4 out of 5 times when you approach them. Doing some simple maths, for the 99 attempts it takes to pull in the big one, assuming only 3 in 4 wins and an average list size of 2,500 – that would give you the opportunity to put your offer in front of over 180,000 people… nice.

That now out of the way; where do you find them? Well, gazillions of places – eZine directories, article directories, online forums, and targeted keyword searches etc. The list is endless.

An opportunity that’s also good is through the use of Google Alerts.

I came across this one recently because I keep track of what’s happening online with my name and my products, and by using Google Alerts, each time there’s a change made to a page with contains my “Google Alert” search criteria, I get a notification about it sent in summary form each evening.

So how can we find Joint Venture Partners in this? Easy. The Google Alert system allows me to input any type of search parameter from which it will then send me an update on. So you could use your name… or your favourite “guru’s” name, or your targeted search term for your website / product or whatever. When you get the alert, you simply go to the relevant website, make sure that it all looks OK and contact them. Tel them how you came across their site and compliment them on it, then offer your JV.

What makes it really work though is this – consistency!

Sometimes you’ll only get 2 or 3 updates in your alert. If this happens continually, don’t get disheartened, be happy. Because it’s far easier to research and contact 2 or three people a day than 20 or 30. One of the biggest mistakes I see in business both online and offline is the setting of unrealistic goals. Be careful not to let yourself fall into that trap.

Your goal here is to plug people into your affiliate program through a specific joint venture invitation – people who may never have found you otherwise. Do it regularly, slowly and consistently; after a short period of time you’ll have a dynamic JV affiliate list that produces powerful results every time you mail to them.

Have fun!

- Paul Barrs