Hey there.  It's 5AM here and I am just about to head off to my day job.  I am running behind in assigning tasks to my VA for the Niche Site Duel.  In fact, we have done very little to work on the site since we put it up.  The one exception is that one VA is still rewriting the articles on the site (a few every day).  There is no real strategy there -- just trying not to spend too much money on the site all at once.

Most of the traffic on the site is probably coming from people like you who are reading about the duel and then directly typing in the URL.  So, don't be too impressed by the traffic stats below.  However, I will show the traffic so you can get a sense of what is going on.

What is interesting is that I am starting to see some traffic from organic search (but just a trickle).

And finally, I am seeing one or two clicks on affiliate links.  That is really interesting since I have not even set up the affiliate IDs correctly yet.  Man, I need to get busy here.  Of course I have no idea if these clicks are coming from real visitors.   I suspect that the visitor that was searching for Silverhill Guitar Knobs was a real visitor, however.  That is pretty neat - and it a natural effect of organic search.  You always end up ranking for stuff that you had no idea you would rank for.

That's all for now -- I really need to get on the road to work.  More on this later.

Happy to answer any and all questions about the site, the data, or the strategy.  Just leave your questions below.

I hear this all the time when people are talking about old-school static HTML sites versus newer WordPress sites.  They say it loud and proud as if it were a law of nature like gravity or something.

Google Loves WordPress!

The truth is (as far as I know) that there is no real data that says Google prefers static WordPress versus HTML (or vice-versa). There is no reason that they should care -- and I don't think that they do.

People say "Google loves WordPress" because they see WordPress because they see WordPress sites doing well in Google. The question is this: is this correlation, or causation? In other words, are these sites doing well because of WordPress, or for some other reason.

If two sites were COMPLETELY identical, Goggle would not care if a site was WordPress or Static HTML. In fact, if they were truly completely identical, Google could not tell easily which was which.

I don't think Google loves WordPress.

Why WordPress Sites Perform Well

Rather, I think Google loves what most WordPress installations do automatically (and most static HTML sites do NOT do at all).

If you install WordPress with a decent theme and use a few popular plugins, you get some killer stuff that is not present on many plain-jane HTML sites:

• Ping-O-Matic to announce new content
• Blog pinging to encourage back-linking
• User-generated content (comments)
• An RSS feed (promotes traffic)
• Auto SEO optimized titles and URLs (in most cases)
• Good automatic intra-site linking (in most cases)
• et cetera

This is why "Google loves WordPress". It is not because there is some unfair bias in Google or some magic in WordPress itself. All of the above things are possible with an HTML site, but people usually do not do them.

So, while it looks like Google loves WordPress, what they really love are well constructed sites. Constructing site well is something that WordPress does automatically.

Build good site, follow the webmaster guidelines, and you too will live a long healthy and happy web life.

photo credit: AlbertaAndMe

My very personal favorite and my nemesis is that you’ve got to avoid bright and shiny objects as a part time internet entrepreneur.

Marketers are really good at marketing, there’s a newsflash for you. These people, some of them are amazing. They can sell ice to Eskimo’s. You need to recognize that.

You don’t need to run away from it, you don’t need to be upset with them about it, but just understand that they’re professional sales people and marketers out there and they’re going to try and sell you stuff. Your best defense is only to buy stuff that you need.

I’ll tell you the big way you can evaluate this is to ask yourself whether or not this particular purchase, the purchase that you would be considering that might be a bright and shiny object that’s going to detract you from your part time business, does it take you closer to your goal or further away? If it takes you further away don’t buy the product.

By the way, Jimmy Brown, a very famous marketer, taught me something that I’ll never forget. Jimmy said,....

“If you weren’t looking to buy something , if they found you, odds are you don’t really need it.”

Buy the stuff when you need it, when you’re looking for it. If they came to you, chances are you probably don’t need it.

When possible wait before you buy. There are very few circumstances where you really need to act now, so stew on it for awhile. The worst thing that can happen is that thing that’s going to change the internet forever will sell out. Let me tell you, very few things change the internet forever. There are a few gems out there, but when possible you need to wait before you buy these things.

This has been another post in our Part-Time Internet Business Series at MasonWorld.com, where we build successful internet businesses one night at a time.

The next thing you need to do as far as getting your head right and owning your plan, which is the second piece of the strategy, is you’ve got to know what you’re doing.

I’ll submit to you that there are anywhere between 10 and 100 real legitimate ways to make money online.  As a part time internet entrepreneur you’ve simply just got to pick one. I don’t mean pick seven, I mean pick one. You need to pick a business model and you need to execute around that business model.

For example, Sterling and Jay teach an excellent proven business model at the Internet Business Mastery Academy, but there are other ones I like too.  No matter what you choose for your business model, you need to work through that and pick a single business model to execute on as a part time internet entrepreneur.

Once you pick it you need to be single minded and task oriented.

In future articles, I'll be talking a lot about how to handle the task oriented side of things.  For internet entrepreneurs that are working part time, I strongly recommend some sort of project focused next action driven plan, like the Getting Things Done program, GTD from David Allen.

If that’s a little too dense for you, and quite frankly, it’s a little too dense for me, there is an excellent ebook out there called ZTD, (Zen To Done). Take a look at that. That’s kind of a short version of GTD. Those are both great resources.

No matter what, you need to have a good task management system so you can stay focused and single minded.

This has been another post in our Part-Time Internet Business Series at MasonWorld.com, where we build successful internet businesses one night at a time.

It's Thursday again and that means Part Time Tips! This week we're going to look at your motivation and what drives you to make your internet business a success (whether it's part time, full time, or some time in between!)

You really need to understand what your motivation is and what it is that you want to accomplish with your business. What do you want to have when everything is all said and done?

Believe me, there are going to be times when running a part time internet business is going to be difficult.  For example, your business is going to compete with other things that may or not be going well in your life.  So, you’re going to need to make choices about whether or not to work on your business -- every day.

If you don’t know why you’re doing it, you won’t be successful.

The other thing that you need to know when you’re talking about why you’re building your internet business is what kinds of business situations do you want to avoid? What are you trying to stay away from? What kind of personal situations are you trying to get out of by running your internet business?

Do you hate working with people?  Do you hate working alone.  Do you hate being tied to a city.  Do you want to work in your house?  Do you need to get out of the house?  You get the idea.  What are you goals for your BUSINESS LIFESTYLE?

The question that I often ask people (and I completely stole this from my friend Jennifer “Pot Pie Girl” over at PotPieGirl.com) is this:

Are you willing to do what other people won’t do for a little while so that you can do what they CAN'T DO for a lifetime?

The thing that they "won’t do" usually means "work hard."   Are you willing to do that for awhile so that you can do what other people can’t do for a lifetime?  Usually that means a lifetime of retirement on passive income, a lifetime of living the internet lifestyle, whatever it means to you.

Are you willing to do that? You need to know the answer to those questions. We'll be back again next week to dive a little deeper!

This has been another post in our Part-Time Internet Business Series at MasonWorld.com, where we build successful internet businesses one night at a time.

Welcome back to another weekly edition of Part Time Tips for your internet business. This week I want to talk briefly about what you need to be successful in your part time internet marketing business. Don't panic, I'm not going to list a bunch of stuff for you to buy, this more about you and your mindset when it comes to working your business. We'll keep things really simple

The first thing you need to do is get your head wrapped around your plan.  As we say in Texas, you’ve got "get your head right with ball." You’ve got to really have the proper mindset to be successful in internet business in general, but it’s really true for part time internet business.

There are three fundamental areas that I think are the highest leverage:

You’ve got to own your plan. By that I mean you’ve got to have focus. You’ve got to know exactly what you’re doing and you’ve got to be executing to that plan precisely. You don’t have a lot of room to be smoking and joking around. You’ve got to know exactly what you’re doing and be doing it every day.

You really need to leverage tools and resources. You can’t afford to be inefficient, so you’ve really got to get out there and leverage the things that are available that have been made available by the people who’ve come before you.  This is not just about investing in software or hiring people.  It's more about learning from a mentor, investing in yourself and  and following their example (more on this in the coming weeks).

Finally, and maybe more importantly, you’ve got to foster the right habits. You’ve got to develop habits that are particularly effective for part time internet entrepreneurs. I’m going to share those with you throughout our weekly tips sessions here on the blog.

Now, as far as getting your head right as a part time internet entrepreneur, the very first thing you’ve got to know is why in the world you are trying to start this business. In fact, why do you want to start a business at all, let alone an internet business? Think about that for awhile and we'll be back next week to discuss this a little further.

Understand why you are doing what you are doing will help you stay focused and motivated in difficult situations.

See you next week.

This has been another post in our Part-Time Internet Business Series at MasonWorld.com, where we build successful internet businesses one night at a time.

Today we have a great guest author, Tom Hickman, here to share with us 20 blogs that he reads and enjoys and on the web that are relevant to our recent outsourcing discussions. Outsourcing is something that I do often and encourage you to do as soon as you are able to, it really does make a huge difference in your business and your ability to focus on the things that grow your business. It's always good to have a variety of different sources that you can go to and trust when it comes to outsourcing your projects. With that, I give you over to Tom...

Waiting too long to learn about outsourcing and whether it might be right for your company could cost you big time. If you are looking for some relevant blogs when it comes to outsourcing, here are twenty that might fit your needs.

1. Global Sourcing Specialists Product Development and Sourcing

Brought to you by Global Sourcing Specialists, their blog, hosted by Aston Udall, is geared toward the building of your products, business, and the global economy.

2. IT Outsourcing India

Found at www.it-outsourcing-to-india.blogspot.com, IT Outsourcing India covers a variety of IT outsourcing and industry related news from counties around the world.

3. Pragmatic Outsourcing

Through his blog PragmaticOutsourcing.com, author Nick Krym uses his 25 years of experience in the IT industry to bring you his 'Thoughts, Tools, Tips, Tricks, and Traps of outsourcing.'

4. Outsource Portfolio

From titles like 'Rural Outsourcing Not About Anti-Globalization/Patriotism But Alternative To Offshoring' and 'New challenges and opportunities for the Indian outsourcing' there is plenty to be found regarding outsourcing subject matter at founder Mani Malarvannan's, OutsourcePortfolio.com blog.

5. Infinit-O

Read about outsourcing trends, strategies, and a variety of other industry related subject matter at business process outsourcing provider Infinit-o's blog.

6. Legal Process Outsourcing

For those looking for information, activity, and developments related to what may be referred to as Legal Process Outsourcing or Legal Services Offshoring, Rahul Jindal's blog could be a good blog to check out.

7. Outsourcing Leadership

Supported by Alsbridge, a consulting firm providing advice on 'Outsourcing, Shared Services, and Offshoring', Blog.outsourcingleadership.com's contributors provide subject matter related to 'outsourcing, offshoring, shared services, and benchmarking.'

8. Law Scribe

Lawscribe is a Legal Process Outsourcing company. Their blog, Legal Process Outsourcing, focuses upon the LPO and offshoring industry as well as the legal profession both in the U.S. and U.K. While it was geared toward the U.K. legal industry, the site's title, 'Low Value Personal Injury Claims Ripe for Outsourcing' from September 2009, was a particularly interesting read.

9. Sourcing Mag

From categories on BPO and offshoring to companies and call centers, the Sourcingmag.com blog offers hundreds of articles written by a variety of authors about a number of outsourcing topics and aspects.

10. BPO Blog

Hosted by Manoj Jain, the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) Blog, discusses and shares information relating to BPO, as well as BPO in the US and India. Manoj claims over a decade of experience in the infotech industry as well as being founder, managing director, and CEO of several companies.

11. Software Outsourcing

The Software Outsourcing Blog, hosted by Prakash Rajput, updates you with some of the latest software outsourcing news and developments. There's plenty here for audiences from a number of countries around the world who are interested in software outsourcing.

12. Talent Gurus

At the TalentGurusBlog, you can select their 'BPO', 'ITO' or 'Outsourcing' tabs for a variety of industry related posts.

13. TriNet HR Blog

At blog.trinet.com, you can find TriNet's HR Blog. You can select their 'HR Outsourcing' tab from their categories list for industry related posts.

14. Accenture.com/global/accenture_blogs

Accenture offers a number of blogs from which to choose. You might want to check out their 'Accenture Blog for Internal IT'. As a company whose internal IT organization supports a workforce in 52 countries, you might find some relevant industry information here.

15. Outsourcing Buzz

Brought to you by Kathleen Goolsby, the Outsourcing Buzz Blog provides a forum for a variety of voices, opinions and conversations relating to outsourcing. Their BPO, HR Outsourcing or ITO archives may be good places to start.

16. Talking Outsourcing

Join Mark Kobayashi-Hillary as he posts about a variety of outsourcing topics. You can investigate a number of categories including, 'offshore outsourcing', 'outsourcing', 'management', 'innovation' and others.

17. HR Outsourcing

If you're looking for a blog about HR outsourcing, HRoutsourcing.org could be a good blog to try. In their 'HR Outsourcing Blog Categories,' you can find tips, how to posts, and get ideas.

18. Information Week

Information Week provides a variety of pertinent outsourcing posts by various contributors. You might want to check out a post by Michael Healey entitled, 'What's Your Outsourcing Vision?'

19. Horses For Sources

If the name doesn't hook you, maybe the posts will. Founded by Phil Fersht, the Horses For Sources site offers a broad array of posts on topics like avoiding sourcing catastrophes.

20. Inside Outsource

Here you can find Tom Hickman hosting Inside Outsource, his blog where he utilizes his years of experience with software and IT systems to fill you in on outsourcing and outsourcing related topics.

Tom Walker designs graphics and writes blog posts for an online supplier of HP 901 ink cartridges, toner and other supplies to the print industry. He often writes about advertising design and art on their blog, CreativeCloud.

I am writing this post using Windows Live Writer 2009.  Normally, I write WordPress posts in Firefox using the admin interface inside of WordPress.  That is not the best environment sometimes – especially since you have to be online to use it.

I looked at these type of desktop-based web publishing tools a couple of years ago and they were not great.  I’m looking again because I noticed that Microsoft released a version of Live Writer for 2009 (I guess I missed it).

First task will be to insert a picture of this window.    I’ll do a screen capture and jam it into the post right here.

Cool – that worked well (at least here in the editor).  I was able to load a GIF, resize it and place it in the text.  There are image editing choices and the like available.  Looks promising.

Spell checker works as expected.

I am able to insert a hyperlink to the download location for Windows Live Writer without any trouble at all (as expected).  One neat thing is that it will allow me to link to previous posts, which is something that you should always try to do.   It even lets me set the link to nofollow.

Surprising, there is a preview tab – and it knows what the post will look like on my blog.  Check out this screen shot:

Wow – for a 5 minute review I am pretty impressed with the ability to create a draft.  Now I will hit the publish button and see what happens….

TaDa!

That just worked.

One thing that I see in here that I like is the ability to insert a table.  Here is a table of projected revenue for the MasonWorld Empire for 2010.

Neat.  Might have a keeper here.

What do you use to write your posts?  Leave me a comment and let me know.

In this episode of the MasonWorld Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, we continue with our series introducing the different ways that you can make money online. Specifically, we take a look at how you can make money blogging.

We also put our special interview schedule on hold for an episode to make room to talk about the latest communication from the FTC.

When the transcript is available, it will be here.

In the podcast, I mention that I have been spending time in Lynn Terry's forum.

In the main segment of the podcast, I talk about Blogging. I mention that you need to look for

• A topic you care about
• A topic other care about
• WordPress.org
• Some good cheap hosting

Some links mentioned in the podcast

• Moonlighting On The Internet (a real book)
• Ten Ways To Make $10K On The Internet (free)
• Lynn Terry Elite Member Forum
• The FTC communication
• My old disclosure page

Be sure to leave us some feedback and subscribe in iTunes!

Podcast Alley is another option:
My Podcast Alley feed!

Here is the Raw RSS Feed.

I'd love to hear what you think about the podcast. Drop me a line here on the blog on on the digital recorder at 214-444-8655. Ask a question or leave a comment and we may use it on the show.

This is the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, Episode 5.

You want to build a business that you can call your own, but you can’t imagine abandoning the security of your day job. You are confident that you can find a few hours a week to pursue your dreams of creating a business on the internet, but you don’t know where to start. You’re looking for a plan.

Congratulations! You just found one. You are listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, with your host Mark Mason, building internet businesses one night at a time.

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. I’m your host Mark Mason. It’s great to be back on the microphone. I hope you’ve had a fantastic couple of weeks since I talked to you last. I hope they were very productive for you.

I know I’ve been incredibly productive over the last couple weeks. In fact, in some ways a little too productive. I tend to get too many tasks going all at the same time. I don’t know if you have that problem. That’s a huge problem for a lot of internet marketers.

I was talking to Lynn Terry about this over in her Elite forum the other day. Her theory, she had a post in that forum about this, is that you really need to focus on something, one thing extensively until that thing is finished to really get the maximum productivity. I’m really going to need to look at that a little more carefully.

I’ve really been enjoying Lynn’s forum. I spend a lot of time over there. I’ve been getting to know Lynn, she’s great. Some of you saw the video on my blog of Lynn opening up the Elvis bobble head that I sent her. That was kind of fun.

If you get a chance to check out Lynn, I recommend that you do that. You can check out the information about her Elite Membership Forum at MasonWorld.com/recommends/lynn. If you just want to kind of get a taste of what that’s like, you don’t need to pay any money at all. You can go over to her blog at ClickNewz.com and check it out.

There are links to the forum over there, and she’s got a free side to the forum too and that’s really excellent. I’ve been having fun over there with Lynn. She’s got lots of cool peeps that hang out with her over there in the Elite Forum, it’s really good stuff.

The other thing that I’ve been working on this week is a site with my nephew. We’re going to talk about that a little bit in the interview. My nephew and I have been working on an affiliate marketing site for the last couple of weeks. I’ve actually got him on the podcast today as the featured interview as a new internet marketer.

He’s going to tell us the three things that he learned from me this summer working on an affiliate site. He actually cleared over 100 dollars on that site in the month of August, which was only one month after we really started working on it. So, he’s pretty pleased with that.

We’re using the phpBay plugin to work through eBay to sell some comic books online. We’ll talk about all of that in the feature interview.

Before we get into that, let’s take a look at the feature segment and see what we’ve got going on today.

It’s time for the feature segment.

It’s time for the feature segment today, and we’re continuing our discussion about all the different possible internet business models. We’ve talked about affiliate marketing, last week we talked about eBay, we’ve talked about information marketing.

One thing I wanted to talk about today, because it’s timely, is the idea of creating residual recurring income through membership sites. In order to understand why membership sites are important, you really need to sort of understand the idea of a sales funnel. So, we’ll talk a little bit about sales funnels, and we’ll talk about membership sites.

This, again, points to one of the resources that I’ve provided you for this discussion, and that’s Jimmy Brown’s excellent report, which is called 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 Dollars Every Month. In Jimmy Brown’s report, item three in that report is tap into the back end automatically.

Jimmy basically talks about the idea that most marketers really are concerning themselves with the creation of the sales funnel. If you’re not familiar with a sales funnel, I can sort of explain it to you like this. When you have an initial contact with a perspective client, you bring that person in to your range of influence and you essentially get their permission to receive your message.

Now, if you’re a person who’s being effected by TV marketing, sometimes you barely even have permission, you just happen to be watching the channel and you see a commercial and that’s sort of your first contact into the sales funnel for whoever is selling something to you on television. In the context of internet marketing, this sort of thing usually happens when you sign up to an email list.

You’re at the top of someone’s funnel, they’ve gotten your permission to market to you, basically. So, you’re at the top of their funnel. Then you might at some point buy an inexpensive product from them. That moves you a little further down the funnel.

You’ll find that a lot of internet marketers spend a lot of time creating more and more products at higher and higher price points to move you further and further down the funnel. You see, there’s a big difference between someone you’ve never talked to before, at the top of your funnel or just entering your funnel, and someone who’s bought two or three products from you over a period of time, who trusts you and understands the quality of your product.

So, that sales funnel should be architected to move you further and further towards purchasing higher and higher end products. That’s a classic marketing strategy. It’s not unique to internet marketing, but it’s used very well in internet marketing in a variety of product lines.

One sort of special version of that, that can replace the sales funnel to some extent, is the idea of continuity programs. One way to implement a continuity program is through a membership site. Now, a continuity program simply means, you can think of it as monthly billing.

Continuity programs have gotten a bad rap over the years, because of various problems, usually having to do with them being deployed in a sneaky manner. You’ll recall that Joel Comm had a problem where he had a continuity program attached to one of his Adsense books, I believe it was, and it wasn’t clearly indicated on the order form. A lot of people were upset with Joel, because he didn’t make it clear that in addition to buying the ebook for 9.95, you were also signing up for his 27 dollar continuity program.

Now, I happen to know Joel, Joel Comm is a really good guy. I really personally don’t think that was something that he did maliciously, but he upset a lot of people. So, continuity programs in general have gotten a bad rap.

Russell Brunson and others, particularly Jimmy Brown, have been talking about several ideas around continuity that make a lot more sense. One of the things that they talk about is micro-continuity through membership sites. Jimmy has an excellent course on this that he calls Membernaire. We’ll have a link to that in the show notes.

Membernaire is an opportunity to create what Russell Brunson calls a micro-continuity program. The way Jimmy does it is he creates courses that are finite duration. It’s one thing if you tell somebody that they’re going to need to pay 27 dollars, or 67 dollars a month for their rest of their lives.

But, what Jimmy says is, “Hey, we’re going to have a continuity program with a finite term. It’s going to be 6 months long, or a year long, it’s going to be 27 dollars a month.” You know the cost up front. It’s spread out over time.

Jimmy actually implements all of his stuff completely automatically, which is really neat. So, if you’re the product creator for a Jimmy Brown style membership site. Then what you can do is you can create these sites one time, market them, and then they run on autopilot all by themselves. It’s pretty interesting.

Now, there really are sort of three kinds of membership sites that Jimmy points out. Maybe four, I would say, Jimmy points out three. The first site that Jimmy points out, or sites that offer a service, if there’s something that you need over and over again rather than paying for it piecemeal you can create a membership site that offers that service over and over again or on a monthly basis. Web hosting is a really good example of that, that Jimmy offers.

There are other kinds of membership sites you can imagine. Help with homework would be an excellent example, or tutoring. Those kind of things you can offer in the form of a membership site. Related to that can be a site that offers lessons on a topic.

You could have 6 month, 12 month, or 3 month courses on how to get an online business up and running. That’s the example that Jimmy offers. How to start a restaurant, how to do home repairs, or how to do whatever it is that you know how to do.

That’s one of the exciting things about the idea of a membership site. If you’re an expert in something, and you can break it up into 48 or 50 or 100 easy lessons, then you can easily create a membership site that just drips those lessons out to your customers at a fixed rate. You just tell them up front, “You’re going to get one lesson a week, and here they come. As long as you keep paying, you keep getting lessons.”

The other kind of membership site that you hear about a lot is a site that offers a new product each month. So, each month you get a new PLR product or each month you get a new something that you need, new templates for a website, new content, new something, new cross stitch patterns, whatever it might be. People subscribe because they want that new fix of whatever it is that they need.

The other kind of membership that I think Jimmy didn’t mention, but he certainly knows all about this, because he does these sorts of things, are coaching programs. I think those are a special kind. They’re sort of like offering a service, but basically you’re paying to have some person on retainer to help you with whatever your problem. Usually those are implemented as a forum.

That’s just a few ideas that Jimmy covers in his book. He says, basically, you need to choose a niche, find out what they’re buying, and what they want, and then go build a membership site around that. I think that’s a really good idea.

The reason that I bring that up in this podcast is two fold. One is these are very, very important. In fact, I had a graphics guy tell me today that I was talking to by email, he’s over in Europe and is the guy who does most of my graphics for my sites, he told me there are four weeks out on graphics because of all these micro-continuity sites they’ve been doing based on Russell Brunson and Jimmy Brown’s sort of programs. So, they’re just swamped with work over all these membership sites that are being created. That’s one reason why I bring this up to you.

The second reason that I bring this up to you is if you’re interested at all in this, Jimmy is offering a webinar, and I’m going to give you the details on that at MasonWorld.com/jimmywebinar. That webinar is currently airing this Thursday. If you’re listening to this in a time shifted manner, go ahead and go to the link, it will give you the current next time for the webinar.

Basically, it’s an hour long tutorial from Jimmy on webinars. I’m going to see it for the first time tomorrow. I can tell you that I can recommend it without seeing it, because Jimmy is just a fantastic guy. If you don’t know Jimmy, it’s worth going over to the webinar just so you can get a sense of what he’s all about.

He’s really a fantastic marketer and somebody that I’ve really enjoyed getting to know over the last year or two. His stuff is top notch. He knows what he’s doing. He has personally created, I know for sure of two, but maybe it’s six of these sites, where he has over 1,000 members in each site. You go do the math. If you had 1,000 members in a membership site, each paying you 27 dollars a month. I think you might like that result.

That’s the main segment for today. I just wanted to tell you about that other income model, which is membership sites. The bottom line is if you know how to do something that people want to learn how to do, and you can figure out how to bust that up into courses, kind of like a Dummies Guide to Tennis, or a Dummies Guide to Fitness, or a Dummies Guide to whatever it is that you’re interested in, you can make that into a membership course.

You can recruit people into that course and have a recurring stream of income. You can set the whole thing up automatically, and Jimmy Brown is the guy to teach you how to do that. So, that’s another way you can make money online, and that’s well covered in the 10 Proven Ways to Make at Least 10,000 Dollars Every Month. That’s Jimmy Brown’s ebook, and that’s available at MasonWorld.com/10ways.

Thanks. That concludes the feature segment.

And now the feature interview.

Okay. Now it’s time for the standing interview segment that we’ve been having for the last couple of weeks. What I’ve been promising you is that I’d interview successful internet marketers and ask them the three most important things that they wished they had known about internet marketing when they first started.

This has been very exciting. But, recently I’ve been working with my nephew on his first website. He has an affiliate marketing site based around comic books, which is something that he is interested in. He’s a sophomore in high school, very intelligent young man, highly motivated, but didn’t really know anything about how money was made on the internet. Kind of like a lot of us when we first started.

So, I thought, “Wow. Here’s a guy who just learned how to make money on the internet.” He’s made his first 100 dollars, I think his site made 136 dollars in the month of August. He’s very excited about that. We’ve got big plans for the site, because we made that 136 dollars and we’re not even ranking on the first page of Google for our search term yet. So, we’re real excited.

I thought the interesting was 2 months ago he didn’t know anything about internet marketing. He’s done all the work himself. I’ve sort of led him through it, and helped him and coached him, but he’s done all the hard work, and he’s got a result to show for it.

So, I wanted to ask him what were the three things that he knows now that he didn’t know 2 months ago. The things that really stuck out for him. I got a very, very interesting answer from him and I wanted to share that with you.

Now, he’s a minor under the age of 18. Like I said, he’s a sophomore in high school. So, I’m not using his real name. we’re calling him Bob here for the purpose of this interview, which is really hilarious, because that’s not his name at all. So, you may hear us giggling a little bit in the interview about that.

The other thing I’ll tell you, I want to apologize in advance, this interview we did in my study. We had to move the microphone around, and I forgot to put the p-pop filer on. So, I’ve edited the interview to try and cut out the pops from articulating the letter P, which is the world’s most annoying sound.

I don’t quite have them all out of the interview, but I did the very best I could. I enjoyed the interview so much, I didn’t want to do another take. Here it is live, raw, and with the pops, my nephew Bob and our discussion about his internet marketing experience.

…

Mark Mason: Hey, this is Mark Mason. I’m actually in studio with my nephew today. A lot of you who have been following me over on Lynn Terry’s forum know that I built with my nephew a website about something that he was interested in, actually the website is about comic books. We built that website and in the first month were able to generate some revenue with eBay’s affiliate program. That was a very interesting process.

So, what I thought I would do is get some insights from my nephew, who is a sophomore in high school about what he’s learned from his experience making money online. I’ve been telling people, “If my nephew who is a sophomore in high school can make money online, you can make money online too.” I think that’s a pretty straight forward kind of way to think about things.

Now, I’ve agreed since my nephew is a minor under the age of 18, I’m not going to use his name. So, I’ve agreed to call him Bob for the purpose of this interview. Hi, Bob, how are you doing today?

Bob: Hi. Good. How are you?

Mark Mason: I’m doing great. Bob came over, he lives nearby. How long have we been working on this website together, Bob?

Bob: We’ve probably been working on it maybe since the beginning of last school year.

Mark Mason: Yeah, something like that. So, we worked on it for a couple of weeks, then we kind of dropped it, but then we hit it really hard this summer. Right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: So, my recollection was we didn’t make any money or really generate much of any content last year at all. We really started working on it about in July.

Bob: That’s right.

Mark Mason: We started making money on the website in August, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: Okay, great. So, the website sat idle for awhile, and after about a month we started seeing a little revenue. That’s been really exciting. I guess it’s been exciting for me, has it been exciting for you?

Bob: Yes. It’s very exciting.

Mark Mason: Okay. So, you’re actually in a very prestigious position. I’ve been interviewing internet marketers from all over the world on this podcast and asking them the three things that they wish they had known when they started internet marketing.

I thought I’d turn things around today and ask you what are the three things that you’ve learned over the summer with your first experience in internet marketing that you just didn’t know before, that you’d want to tell someone about your internet marketing experience?

Can you think of one thing that just occurs to you just right off the top of your head, Bob? That’s not your real name, I know, but it’s kind of funny. Something that you learned over the summer, that you didn’t know before.

Bob: Yes. First, is how easy it is to get a website going. If you use a website like WordPress you just pick a theme you like, get it going, and put it up. It’s just easy to make one.

Mark Mason: That’s right. So, basically, what we did was we just simply found a theme that worked well with our topic of comic books. We actually found sort of a play on Superman theme, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: We just used that on top of WordPress to create our little kind of ecommerce site. That worked out pretty well. It looked pretty cool?

Bob: It looks really cool, yes. A lot of neat features.

Mark Mason: I think, if I remember right, we asked a virtual assistant to make some small modifications to the site.

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: Right. So, we started with a theme that was pretty close to what we wanted, and we had a virtual assistant make some changes. Just a few dollars, literally a few hours work, someone offshore. It’s pretty much exactly the way you want it right now, right?

Bob: It’s perfect. Yes.

Mark Mason: Great. That’s the first thing. So, that point is a really good one. That is that basically anybody without a lot of technical savvy can have a website up and running very quickly by using WordPress. Is that pretty much what you’re saying?

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: Okay, great. That’s thing one. That’s an excellent point. What’s your second thing that you kind of picked up this summer working on your WordPress website?

Bob: Probably number two is if you want to get your website going, something very important to use is keywords through Google. Pick out a keyword phrase, get backlinks to your website to get viewers to come to your site.

Mark Mason: Now, before this summer, did you have any idea, you’ve always used Google, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: But, did you have any idea why pages came up on the first page of Google? Did you understand any of that before this summer?

Bob: I had no clue. I just thought it was random.

Mark Mason: So, we basically spent. I don’t know, about an hour? So, we got you started with the Easy SEO report from Josh Spaulding,that was really cool. Then we picked a keyword with some traffic. Where are we now with that keyword?

Bob: Just by using that one keyword we’re almost to the first page of Google. We’re kind of floating back and forth between page one and page two.

Mark Mason: So, we’re down kind of at the top of page two. We’ve got some tricks up our sleeve, maybe we’ll talk about that at the end of this, where we think that’s going to get us to page one.

Basically, pick a keyword that people are searching for and get backlinks to the website. That’s the offpage SEO part, getting the backlinks, but we also optimized the homepage for the keyword. Right? We’ve got it in there.

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: Kind of in a natural amount of time. So, that’s just kind of common sense SEO, and you were able to pick that up pretty quickly, right?

Bob: Yes, sir, I was.

Mark Mason: Okay. So, the first thing that you learned this summer was that you can easily build a site with Wordpres.

The second thing that you learned is that once you build a site with WordPress, you can optimize it, both on the website and off the website, so that you’ll get listed in Google for a keyword that’s getting some traffic.

What’s a third thing that you learned this summer?

Bob: The third important thing I learned was if you can get traffic to your website, you can send them to other websites and earn commission off their views.

Mark Mason: Yes. We talked about that quite a bit this summer. That’s affiliate marketing. Of course, for our website, because we’re dealing with comic books, that’s just a perfect fit for eBay, right, because that’s where comic books are being sold.

Bob: Yes, sir.

Mark Mason: And you knew that already. You’d already been buying comic books on eBay. That’s in fact, how we got the idea.

Bob: Yes, I had.

Mark Mason: So, Bob is into comic books a little bit, and knew that there were transactions going on at eBay. All it took was for me to explain to you that you could build a website that drove traffic to eBay and get commissions, and we’re off to the races, right?

Bob: Yes.

Mark Mason: What we really want is to be on the first page of Google. So, why don’t you tell everybody what you have planned for, I guess we’re hoping to get the first draft of it done this weekend, you’re doing all the work. What do you have planned for this weekend?

Bob: We’re planning to write a press release to put out there to get our website on the first page.

Mark Mason: Yes. We’re following the Google First Page Formula, that’s the ebook that I’ve shared with Bob. He’s going to write a press release according to the Google First Page Formula, and we’re going to see if we can get the same results.

I’ve actually got a special link for that ebook, where I’ve got a discount available for the listeners in honor of Bob, since he’s going to be doing that this weekend. You can pick that ebook up for a 20 or 30 percent discount. I’ll be sure and put that link in the show notes. In fact, that will be at MasonWorld.com/press.

That’s great. Bob, I really appreciate you being on the show tonight. Tell me what you’re thinking about doing next. Are we going to build some more sites? How many more are we going to build or what are you thinking?

Bob: We’re just going to keep going until there’s nothing left to do. For all those people that are doing websites, don’t give up. It takes time, but it pays off.

Mark Mason: That’s excellent advice. I really appreciate it. Thanks for coming over. Have a great day.

Bob: Thank you very much.

Thanks for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. For more information about this program, and to get the show notes, be sure to visit our website at MasonWorld.com/podcast. Follow @MasonWorld on Twitter.

Have you got a question or comment for Mark? Let us know by leaving us a voicemail on our digital recording line at 214-444-8655. We may use your message on a future episode of the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

Did you like our podcast? Help us out by telling your friends and leaving your review on iTunes by going to MasonWorld.com/iTunes.

Finally, always remember that all business involves risk. Internet business is no exception. Your ability to make money with the concepts discussed in this program and on MasonWorld.com depends on many things, including your effort and capability. Since these factors according to individuals, we cannot guarantee your success or income level, and we are not responsible for any of your actions.

Thanks again for listening to the Mason World Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast, building internet businesses one night at a time. Have a great day.

Well, it's finally here.  The first ever episode of the MasonWorld Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast.

In this episode, I discuss why I am doing the podcast and what I have planned.  I also reveal what I consider the three most important things that a new Internet Marketer needs to know.

Some links mentioned in the podcast

• Moonlighting On The Internet
• Ten Ways To Make $10K On The Internet

Be sure to leave us some feedback and subscribe in iTunes!

Podcast Alley is another option:
My Podcast Alley feed!

Here is the Raw RSS Feed.

I'd love to hear what you think about the podcast.  Drop me a line here on the blog on on the digital recorder at 214-444-8655.  Ask a question or leave a comment and we may use it on the show.

Thanks!
Mark

Update:  Looks like this was the foundation for GMail Autopilot.

Now that is more like it.

Is this Google's April Fools joke this year? Lame.

I like the old stuff better.

Last year, I wrote about the really funny time feature that Google added on April 1 in recognition of April Fool's day.  You may remember that one:

Big fun from Google on April Fools Day. Imagine my surprise when I went to read my mail just around midnight, only to find that Google had just released a new feature for GMail called GMail Custom Time.

With GMail Custom Time, you can date your email in the past. Just click "Set custom time" from the Compose view and Bingo! -- any email you send to the past appears in the proper chronological order in your recipient's inbox. You can opt for it to show up read or unread by selecting the appropriate option.

Well, while waiting on the new April Fools joke from Google, I decided to take a look at a blast from the past (Plus, this year's joke looks lame.)

Introducing Google Romance.

After all -- Romance is just another search problem.

You'll begin your Google Romance romance by uploading your profile.

Note: those who generally favor the “throw enough stuff at the wall” approach to online dating might find it useful to employ our Batch Profile Uploading option.

Several months ago I posted that I would be working on my sales letter for Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress.  You probably remember that this was one of my very first products, and that I am always learning by doing.  Man, that first product seems like a lifetime ago.

Edit -- See my special guest post invitation to real copy writers in the post comments.

Since I was "learning" on that product I did a "toss" rather than a launch.  What I mean by a "toss" is that I did not do a full court press trying to get anyone and everyone to promote the themes.  Rather, I worked with a few friends to do an initial promotion:

• Josh Spaulding and Garry Conn promoted the themes to their lists and blogs.
• Josh featured the themes in his excellent eBook $5 Formula.
• Caroline Middlebrook featured the themes in her excellent Niche Site Video
• James Jones sent my Micro Niche Finder Video to his list

The Results Of My First Attempt

Well, I learned a lot about having a product.  I thought that you might be able to learn some stuff too.  I actually made lots of sales.  From my perspective, it was a huge success (and continues to sell).

But, as usual, there were lots of opportunities to improve.  Here are some highlights (and opportunities to improve):

• Highly targeted traffic from a list that was expected to convert at 5% or more only converted at 3.5%.  What's worse,  less targeted list traffic converted very poorly.
• Less targeted traffic from blogs in the make money online niche converted at much less than 1%
• Traffic from ClickBank affiliates was converting at a very low rate.

Increasing Sales Page Conversions

So, I decided that based on that information, that I needed to look at the sales page.  Since I am a glutton for punishment, I posted a request for feedback on and criticism of my sales page on both the Warrior Forum and Digital Point Forums.  Well, as you can imagine, I got some.  You need flame-retardant undies to withstand the comments I got.

Note to new Internet Marketers out there -- don't get your self-esteem wrapped up in your sales copy if you are going to ask for feedback on a forum.  And, be prepared to hear from people that have no idea what they are talking about.

I also got some very helpful feedback from of my very own readers.  That was awesome, and I really appreciate it when readers take the time to comment.  Here are some feedback highlights:

• Work on the headline and sub-headline. It was described by one guy on the Warrior Forum as a "confusing wreck." The great thing was that he offered me a couple of much better alternative headlines that really illustrated his point.
• Work on the copy -- let it breath. Again, a member of the Warrior Forum supplied new copy to illustrate the point.  I got similar feedback from a reader of the blog.
• Make the site look more professional. The one comment from Digital Point pointed out the fact that a website that was selling wordpress themes needed to be "very professional looking."   I agreed.  Josh actually made fun of my graphics (several times).

Taking Action

So, based on all that feedback, I changed the sales template to something more professional, I changed the headline, and I re-did the copy.  Conversions are up considerably.  You can see the new Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress sales page here and you can compare it to the old sales page.

What do you think?  Did I make it better or worse?  Time and split testing will tell (I will be making a post on how to implement split testing next week).

Let me know your thoughts.

Regards,
Mark

• Watching WordWorld on PBS with my little guy. He loves it! #
• @jeremyfrandsen he rocks, but I did not use John Melley. I hear other people copying you, and I am trying not to be that guy. #
• @jasonvo thanks man. Taking it slow. I am trying to make sure I have a podfade-proof plan. #
• @jasonvo Took delivery of my Intro and Outro today for the upcoming MasonWorld.com Late Night Internet Marketing Podcast. #
• @lansa Hey, Other Mark Mason. Are you the markmason.com Mark Mason, or is that a third Mark Mason? in reply to lansa #
• @imtw If you never had a list, why would you know where spam filters get their filter data? So some people are just ignorant of impact. #
• @imtw Agree about spam, but I bet there are many ppl that don't realize that marking email as spam auto sends info to spam filters. #
• Hey - this solves the biggest problem Internet Marketers face http://aweber.com/b/1jxMR #
• @peoplepond I would love an invite code, please #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Hey - read this before you leave another blog comment http://aweber.com/b/WTGx #
• @jarret Oops -- are you watching this too? LOL #
• Watching @GarryConn on UStream -- I have no idea why. http://tinyurl.com/dddbfb #
• @GarryConn Excellent question. Basically "how to build an online business while working a day job". Would target newcomers. #
• Considering starting an internet marketing podcasts targeted a new part-time internet marketers with a day job. Your thoughts? #
• - you need to see this report http://aweber.com/b/1F0i7 #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

• Bacon and eggs! Need I say more? #
• @bestreflections No problem. I totally stole it from @Josh_Spaulding -- It helps a lot. #
• @bestreflections Not OK -- and I state in my comment policy that I will remove affiliate links. http://tinyurl.com/anjqux #
• @bcnola I have in the past -- but I am wanting to try out something new this time. #
• @potpiegirl I thought your spent your days on the phone with high-rollers like Seth -- So cool that he called you. #
• Caught myself humming the campy @imtw theme song this morning. Ugh. It's a sickness. #
• I need some quick feedback on my new twitter background. What do you think? http://twitter.com/masonworld Too wide maybe? #
• - see my contest-winning video! http://aweber.com/b/1NJ5t #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

I am happy to report that I am back on my regular posting schedule after winning 2nd prize in Colleen Slater's 30 day blogging challenge she started over at the Warrior Forum (Colleen is a wildly successful affiliate marketer and author of Blog Inferno).   One of the prizes is a month of 1:1 coaching with Colleen and I am really excited about that).  I hope I am teachable.

I Won The Micro Niche Finder Video Contest

Colleen's contest is actually the second contest that I have won recently.  In December, I won second prize in the Micro Niche Finder video contest with my video about building eBay affiliate sites.    (In case you missed it, you can see my original post about my Micro Niche Finder video contest entry here).  I that video, I show how I created this BMW Car Parts site.

Part of the agreement in the contest was that James Jones would be able to use my video however he wanted as promotional material for his tool.  He did just that.  He set up a page showcasing my video, sent his list to the page, a promptly crashed my video hosting account.   I got that fixed quickly, so it was not big deal (but boy was I impressed with the amount of traffic that he can throw around).  Sheesh.  No doubt, the money is in the list.

Micro Niche Finder Video Frequently Asked Questions

As you can imagine, with all that traffic I got a load of email asking me questions about the video.  I love that, because I love helping people that are trying to figure stuff out.  Based on those emails, I thought it might be useful to list and answer some frequently asked questions about the video and the site.

Q:  What did you use to make the video. I love the picture-in-picture.

A:  Camtasia Studio. Expensive but worth it.  Try it for free for 30 days by going to the Camtasia website.  It is $299 there, but I found a Camtasia Studio discount at PC Mall where they have it for $249.

Q:  Are you selling from your own eBay store? Do you own a real auto parts store?  Are you storing BMW parts in your spare bedroom?

A:  No, I use a plugin for WordPress called phpBay to show items that are currently listed for sale in eBay.  I am a eBay affiliate through the PepperJam Network (registration is free).

Q:  How is the site doing? Have you retired from your day job yet?  Can you make the payment on a new BMW using proceeds from the site?

A:  Depends on your point of view. To be completely honest, I have not promoted it (I created it just for the contest).  Still, it has 80+ pages indexed and is getting some very light search traffic.  I have some clicks through to eBay but no sales yet.  I suspect that the direct traffic is from the video, but the trickle of search traffic is real.  Looks like I need to promote this one with article marketing or 1-Way-Links or something like that.

Here are a couple of screen shots of the traffic.

Q. What WordPress Theme are you using? Can I use my favorite blah blah blah theme? Do I have to use a premium theme? Is there a best theme for this sort of thing? What's a WordPress theme anyway?

A. Well, that is an easy one. A WordPress theme is a "skin" for WordPress that controls the way your WordPress site looks. I use my own product, Niche AdSense Themes for WordPress. You can use any WordPress theme -- but I like a clean look, so I used mine.

I hope you find all of that helpful.  If you have additional questions about the site or the techniques used to create it, please don't hesitate to leave a comment.

Thanks,
Mark

• @GarryConn Yes. Had a website before my IM exploits, and I would have one if I was not making money online. Probably not 50 sites though. #
• @JohnCorbett Thanks for the RETWEET the other day. Lots of traffic to the free links offer. http://is.gd/hHJ2 #
• @Josh_Spaulding Nothing better than a steak cooked at 1500 degrees served on a 500 degree plate! Yummy! #
• - what would you have said? http://aweber.com/b/1BDtN #
• @JeffWalker Only if sleeping #
• @NameCheap I like it. I love the tag line (What will your next domain say about you). Might be cool to crossfade from ASCII to Actual pics #
• @NobleSamurai New feature request -- ability to tag stuff and add notes. Or flag stuff to make a list of "selected keywords" etc. #
• @jeremyfrandsen @cmiddlebrook uses Bluehost. Are you looking for VPS or dedicated? For shared, I would probably just use the gator. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

I had a funny conversation with someone this weekend.  They were thinking about building a website using FrontPage.  Now, don't get me wrong, FrontPage was OK once upon a time, but the idea of creating a static site these days using a tool like FrontPage makes my skin crawl.

Now my conversation was non-technical.  So, I thought other people might be interested in a non-technical view of this issue.  There is plenty of room for technical debate, but the people making these decisions are often decidedly non-technical.

So, if you are in the process of designing a website for your business, you may be wondering if you should use Frontpage or WordPress.  Or, if you have already created your website, you may be wondering if you should make the switch to WordPress.

The Non-Technical Difference Between FrontPage And WordPress

For many people, price can be a big issue.  FrontPage and other competing programs are available for retail purchase at prices around $100 and higher.  In the case of FrontPage, this is already outdated software, as Microsoft has since released Expression Web, an updated HTML editor that replaces Frontpage.

WordPress is a free, open source blogging platform that can also be used to create websites.  It is very easy to install and new versions are being released all the time.  These “upgrades" are also free.

There is a large community of WordPress users, and if you ever need assistance you can find help through one of their many forums.  Many WordPress have also created widgets that can be used to make WordPress work exactly how the owner wants it to work.

For instance, there is a widget that creates a message that can be displayed at the beginning and end of each post which thanks the reader for visiting and invites them to sign up for the site’s RSS feed.

FrontPage is a program that needs to be installed on your computer.  If a business owner hires an assistant or helper for website updates, that person will need to have FrontPage to make sure everything is compatible.

WordPress is web based, which means that a user can sign into their account from any computer with an internet connection.  If they hire an assistant that person can log into the site from their computer and upload their own work.  This can save the business owner a lot of time and open up the range of people with who they can work with.

Anyone who is familiar with Microsoft’s word processing software, such as Word or Works, will find it easy to navigate FrontPage.  The program offers various windows that allow users to build their website in different ways.  New users can choose to use the “design window”, which features the “what you see is what you get” editor, also known as WYSIWYG for easy website building.  Experienced users can use HTML code in the “code window”.

WordPress is also very easy to use and allows their users to use the WYSIWYG editor or view their entry in code.

Both programs offer many benefits, but one thing is for sure:  more and more people are switching over to WordPress.  Even if you decide that WordPress isn’t for you, it may be worth your while to get at least a little comfortable with it, since so many other people are using it.

Got a question about FrontPage or WordPress?  Drop me a comment.

• @rondavis007 thanks Ron. #
• @gushin bread was fantastic! #
• @rondavis007 TWIT? #
• Listening to NLP based podcast. Wondering if NLP really works, or is it just nonsense. #
• In the ER with youngest daughter and possible broken foot. Ouch! #
• Eating homemade jalapeno beer bread straight from the oven. Yum. #
• Finally celebrating Christmas with my parents. Better late than never. #
• My friend just started a new blog, and his first post is up. Check it out! InkHammer.com Stumbles appreciated. http://inkhammer.com/?p=10 #
• @jarret Check this out http://tinyurl.com/2tdkkj in reply to jarret #
• @colligan Right. But twitter is the tech. You are using the tech to some end. The nature of that tech is shaping the end result. in reply to colligan #
• @jasonvo @colligan But you cannot separate tech from the product. eg. Twitter. Before twitter, we would not have a 140 char debate. in reply to jasonvo #
• @aaronabber I am thinking that an IM product might generate more interest for your purpose. Like a copy of some cool course or software. in reply to aaronabber #
• @colligan I heard those 5000 people were all trying to fix Vista. Apparently, they gave up. Beyond repair. in reply to colligan #
• - Are You Having Trouble With AdSense? http://aweber.com/b/10B5Z #
• @PatrikBerggren It is going well but slowly. It is not my top priority right now. I have 30 sites up, creating content, and seeing some $. in reply to PatrikBerggren #
• Up early this morning preparing for a meeting. Need more coffee. #
• Just entered the $497 Blog Mastermind contest. You can win by following @JohnChow and retweet. http://xr.com/master He follows back too! #
• @jasonvo Are NDAs needed for mastermind groups? in reply to jasonvo #
• @jasonvo Should there be free alcohol at mastermind meetings, and if so, how much. Who should be responsible for bringing the blender? in reply to jasonvo #
• @jasonvo Mastermind group. Should there be a business profit model for a mastermind group, or should the group be "not for profit?" in reply to jasonvo #
• Wondering how to integrate my Google AdSense/AdWords/Gmail and Docs accounts under one login. Won't let me associate the accounts. Help? #
• Calling my grandmother. Sadly, she does not have twitter or facebook. #
• Taking kids to school. Rocking out to the Jonas Brothers CD. Not bad for pop music. Well produced. #
• @jasonpotash I don't go to bed. I write blog posts. LOL in reply to jasonpotash #
• Yep. Thanks. On my way. #
• IPod interfaced to car video. Watching @jasonvo how to register domain name tutorial on my car video. Too cool. #

Powered by Twitter Tools.

One of the cool things that you can do if you are a geek is help a friend start a blog.  I have done this several times, and it can be very rewarding.

The latest one that just got started by my friend Richard is InkHammer.com.  He bought me pizza and I told him about WordPress.

Remember what is was like when you did your first post?  Quiet.  Really quiet.

If you have a minute, I would appreciate it if you would go drop a comment or stumble the page. Richard is a former newspaper journalist, and plans to blog about the intersection between blogging and professional journalism.

Here is a link to his very first post:  Reporting versus Blogging.

As Richard mentions in the post, he has a lot of work to do on the site.  But, his first post is up and that is a huge deal.

One of these pieces of advice that I constantly hear regarding blogging is that bloggers should post on a regular schedule.  If you've read my blog for any amount of time, then you know I am terrible at this.  The excuse that I use is that I have a day job and sometimes I am just too busy to write a post.

The reality is sometimes I know I need to write a post but I can't decide what to write about. Some people call this writer's block. I call it a lack of inspiration. I think perhaps the best name for this problem in this context is blogger's block. Do you have bloggers block?

Here are a few ideas for beating bloggers block:

1.  Keep a list. The best way to defeat bloggers block is to maintain a list of great blogging ideas. Any time an idea occurs to you, you should add it to the list. This means you need to keep the list with you in the shower. I will leave it to you to figure out how to manage that.

2.  Steal from other bloggers. Very seriously, one of the best ways to create blog posts is to write about other blog posts that you have read that you consider to be valuable or just plain incorrect. The blogs that you are discussing will appreciate the back link, and your readers will appreciate you passing along pointers to other valuable information.

3.  Write in a series. People really like ongoing series where blog posts build on each other. For example if you are working on a major project, and the project is interesting to your readers, discussing how you're getting that done on a day-to-day basis can make for excellent blog posts over time.

4.  Simple How-To. Simple articles describing how you did something interesting are great for your readers and make excellent search engine food. If you just work for an hour to figure out how to get the brand-new XYZ plug-in to work in WordPress 2.7, you can save 1000 other people one hour by writing a post describing your experience.

5.  Completely off-topic personal information. Did you have a terrible day or great day or did something crazy happen to you that makes a great story? Tell your readers.  people love to hear about the personal experiences of people they are following. This is the very phenomenon that makes twitter so popular.

Do you have great ideas for how to get unstuck when you have bloggers block? Be sure to leave a comment and let me know.

Regards,
Mark

Photo:  photo credit: Vince Kusters

As I have mentioned before, I am a forum moderator at Coaching With Josh.  That program is set up to help a wide range of people, including beginners.  Today, I got the below question, and I thought many people might be interested in the answer.

Of course, I have changed the names and some of the details to protect the innocent:

For the last couple of days I've been checking out XYZ product on ClickBank and I think it's a great product to promote as an affiliate, due to the fact that commissions are paid through ClickBank and the sales letter is really good.

I've been considering promoting it on specialized forums and on EZA.

I'm a newbie with no previous marketing experience.

The thing that really makes my head spin is keyword research. I don't know what tool I should use and how to tell which keywords are profitable and which ones are not worth it.

Also, my idea is to start generating not only keywords related to "xxx xxxx xxxx", but also to the "yyy yyyy yyyyy" term.

Since I've never designed a website in my life, I would like to know if starting with a blogger blog is a better option.

So, should I use the wordpress blog or start fresh with a blogger blog?

Now, I should say that entire $2000 courses are built around the above question.  So, it is hard to answer this kind of question in a single blog post.  I am not pretending to give all the answers here.

Additionally, I don't know much about the product that was mentioned.   I did check out the sales letter and  I agree the sales letter looks good.  The problem is that it is hard to judge how they will convert without testing.  I recommend always asking the publisher for conversion stats, and asking them what support they have for tracking your own conversions.

To promote a product like this, you have many options.  I am not a PPC guy.  I like organic traffic.  For organic search traffic, you can put up a site with a URL like http://TheProductURLReview.com using wordpress.

To get organic traffic to that URL, one option is to create pages that rank for keywords that are related to the product that you are trying to sell.  For each keyword that you want to target, you can write a short article talking about the product and linking to it with an affiliate link.

You can see one new site that I have like this here:

http://www.1waylinksreview.com

It's so new that I have not done much with that site, but you get the idea.

You can also take this approach with article marketing or a blogger blog.  But, I always think it is better to have a specific domain that you own.

Fundamentally, it boils down to conversions.  Get visitors to your site, presell them, get them to click through to the sales page, and a certain percentage will convert to sales.

Photo: photo credit: Dina Middin

Web hosting is to an Internet Marketing business what water and electricity are to a restaurant business. You cannot make money when your site is down.   Yesterday, I mentioned that MasonWorld.com was going down for a few minutes, but I did not say why.  It turns out that my blog was going down because of excellent customer service.

Huh?

You heard me.  Excellent customer service was taking my blog down.  It turns out that over the last couple of weeks I had been noticing some "performance issues" on MasonWorld.com and some of the other 50-some-odd sites that I host on this server.

Running A Business Using A Virtual Private Host

Unlike a lot of web host accounts that you can get for just a few dollars a month, the server that hosts MasonWorld.com is a Virtual Private Server (VPS).  If you are not familiar with that term, a VPS is like a dedicated server, only there are "several" truly isolated and private environments running at the same time. Each customer maintains root access, their own software and they can depend on guaranteed resources.

A good VPS provides enterprise-class features such as off-server backups, redundant power supplies and hot-swap components.  For example, my VPS (server) at ServInt has the following cool features: 1 GB Burst RAM, 384 MB Guaranteed RAM,15 GB Storage, Unlimited Domains, Unlimited User Accounts, CentOS 5 Operating System, cPanel, Dual Xeon 3 GHz or Better, 8 GB Registered ECC RAM, U320 SCSI HD in Hardware RAID 10, etc.  You get the idea.

But My Server Was Sick - I needed Help

I am not sure why, but my server was sick.  I was seeing slow page load times and other weird behavior.  I am a tech geek guy, but I could not diagnose the problem.  So, I put in a ticket with the ServInt (Network Operations Center) NOC.  I explained my situation.

Within minuted the service team assigned the ticket to a tech and got to work.  I could tell that they were working on the system almost immediately because I got notices about services restarting and other stuff.

So here is the cool thing -- they apparently could not quickly identify the specific problem.  Now, at this point other web hosts that I have been with in the past would have blamed me or claimed the problem was not on their end.  In these cases you get a ticket response like "reinstall WordPress" or "it's working fine here."   Not these guys.  They just simply moved me to another server.  It took a few minutes of down time, and BINGO!  Problem Solved.

That was way better service than I expected.

Demand First Rate Customer Service From Your Hosting Company

I have heard so many horror stories about bad hosting companies.  To that, I say -- don't settle for it.  If your hosting company has poor customer service, find another one.  Ask the new company to help you move your account and all your files (most will do this happily).

I love the service I am getting from ServInt.  You should expect the same from your hosting company.

Regards,
Mark

Photo: photo credit: schoschie

It's Free Stuff Friday again, and time for the Friday Freebie.

This week I have added a collection of free themes with Master Resale Rights to the collection. There are lots of times when you might need a quick and dirty free theme for a project -- so here you go. The themes are in HTML, WordPress and Joomla formats.

I have not really checked out these themes from a quality perspective, so if you like them (or don't), be sure to let me know by leaving a comment below.

The themes cover the following five niches: Business, Computing, Health, Sports and Travel.

Here's what you can and cannot do with the themes:

[YES] Can be given away
[YES] Can be packaged with other products
[YES] Can be edited completely and your name put on it
[YES] Can be added to free membership sites
[YES] Can be added to paid membership sites
[YES] Can sell Resale Rights
[YES] Can sell Master Resale Rights
[NO] Can sell PLR rights

Enjoy.

Join My Mailing List And Get Free Stuff

As always, opt in to my list to get access to all the free stuff (opt-in box in the right hand sidebar). As soon as you opt-in and confirm you subscription, you'll receive instructions on how to log into the members area.

Thanks,

Mark