Stuck For A Blog Post Topic? Make A List!

It’s quite hard at times to think of a topic or subject for your blog post.  When you find yourself in this position try making a list and writing your post around that.  For example, Barry Wells recently wrote a great post about a timely topic – Twitter.  His post is called ‘Twelve Twitter Tips …

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Can You Really Make Money Online?

When you are looking for a way to make money at home you probably have fallen over all those marketing pages with someone lounging on the fender of his sports car or at a pool in a famous resort.  If you were fascinated by the list of headline enticements to follow the links to get …

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Scratch Your Niche Itch – Create A Free Blog

There’s always been a definite interest in making money from home, even if you have a fulltime job.  Now that economies are crashing all over the world and people are losing jobs at an unreal rate, that interest has become a real need and less of a dream. There are several online methods you can …

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Falling In Love With Google

It would be easy to have a constant love-hate affair with Google when you are trying to create your blogs and build products to sell.  Since Google is the premier search engine on the Internet, you cannot ignore formatting your online business to match Google’s “opinion” of how to do it. Your first task when …

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Heat Up Your Blog And Make Some Money

Most blogs are set up online to make the owner some money.  As a fulltime blogger your primary goal is to create an income stream for your blog, or monetize it, in the web vernacular.  There are many ways to do this, so let’s look at some to get you started in the right way. …

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Stuck For A Blog Post Topic? Make A List!Can You Really Make Money Online?Scratch Your Niche Itch – Create A Free BlogFalling In Love With GoogleHeat Up Your Blog And Make Some Money

Sep 26

The Low-Down On List Building

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List building is an important part of any Internet Marketing career.  One question often asked by new Internet Marketers is ‘why do I need a list?’  That seems like a really basic question for any seasoned Marketers because you know that an opt-in list is necessary if you want to be successful online.  There are always stories from big-time marketers telling us all they do is send out an email to their list and each email makes them a large sum of money.  So that is the first answer that comes to mind, but it isn’t the only reason.  Here are 5 more reasons why you should build your list:

  • People on your list are your fan base who will comment on your blog, thus giving you credibility and helping new visitors to trust you.
  • They’ll talk about you on forums – they know what products you offer, will trust you, and won’t hesitate to tell others in need.
  • They know who you are at Internet Marketing conferences, seminars and meet-ups, which means they’re happy to talk to you because you are not a stranger.  Some great joint ventures have come out of these conferences.
  • Subscribers to your list will ask you questions and seek your help with problems.  Not only do these problems allow you to help people and feel good about it, they give you something to blog about and often suggest excellent ideas for products to create.  Their wants equal desired products, which in turn equals happy customers with loyalty, resulting in more products and more income earned.
  • Many of your subscribers will become friends if you work to establish a relationship with them.  They build you up when you’re going through a rough patch and chastise you if you’re heading off in the wrong direction!  You only need to read the comments section on this blog to verify that – Dawn Kay is a great one for keeping me on track and motivated!  There are many benefits to having a list community.

Having a list that people will stay on for longer periods of time is not always easy.  You have got to earn your subscribers’ trust.  They may not automatically like you from the outset.  What makes you different from the other gazillion marketers?  What can you do for them?  These are questions you’ll need to work out.

First and foremost, you can’t abuse them by bombarding them constantly with promotions.  When you do that what you are saying is that you care more about your wallet than you do about them.

Secondly, help them, give them information that is valuable to them, and offer more freebies than just the initial one that got them on your list to begin with.  Build their trust by keeping your quality constantly high, and always fulfil your promises.

Your subscribers should be the most important thing to you as they will also form an integral part of your customer base, so be sure to treat them properly and you will find that you are part of a supportive community that can help you to get ideas for products, provide you with amazing joint venture opportunities, and help you to feel good about the fact that you can help others.

You need to start building your list at the first available opportunity.  Always have an opt in box on your blog, and work towards increasing your list size consistently.  Giveaways are an important tool for list building.  Check out Keith Purkiss’ Push Button Giveaways 2.0 for a quick and easy way to enter lots of giveaways simultaneously.  And if you want to see a blogging community in action go over to Sally Neill’s blog and read all about her ‘cool crowd’!






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Aug 22

My First Video Post

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Video

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Following a great competition over on Barry Wells’ blog I have decided to enter my very first video blog post!

In this short video I will show you how to add an opt in box with a graphic to your sidebar on your WordPress blog using a text widget.  I walk you through the steps to create the code for the widget and then position it on your blog.

So, I hope you like the video and learn something useful from it!  Please leave me a comment.

Enjoy the journey.






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Jul 17

Goal Setting Really Does Work

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I’ve always been a strong believer in setting goals, even if I haven’t always lived up to my own expectations!  Early in June I set out a list of goals I wanted to achieve in the space of a month, essentially between Northallerton Meetups.  Part of the reason for this clearly was to get myself motivated and taking action, but also I wanted to have something great to report back at the July meetup!  My goals for the month can be seen in my post, All For One And One For All – Be Accountable.

So what exactly have I achieved in this month?  Well I set myself 5 goals, some of which were easily achieved in my opinion, others not so easy.  However, I have completed all the goals I set, which I am very pleased about.  I wasn’t sure I would get them all done, but everything worked in my favour and I was able to go back to Northallerton with a positive result.  So you see goal setting really does work.

One of the best results is the giveaways, that have been really successful for me and I now have a strong list of responsive sign ups.  I used the Push Button Giveaways 2.0 to record and enter my gifts.  It saved so much time and was really easy to use.  I will now use it for all the giveaways I enter.  If you want to take a look click the banner in the sidebar.

One of the great things about the goal setting is that it motivated me to do so much more than just the 5 things on the list.  While looking at monetising my sites in a more effective way I chose to have this site customised by the theme creator so I could accomodate sidebars down both sides.  Now anyone using the Graphene theme will know that there is already a 3 column option, but when I changed to it I found the central text area far too narrow, in my opinion.  So I wrote to the designer and asked him to customise the size for me.  There is always a solution to any problem we might face.

So what are my goals for the coming month?  Well, before the weekend a couple of long term colleagues asked if I could help them to prepare the blogging section of their internet marketing membership site, as blogging is my main focus, so I have set time aside to write that for them primarily so they can launch on 21st July.

In addition to that I want to:

  • Complete my Facebook Fan Page
  • Record two Power Point Presentations I have written using Camtasia
  • Work on my latest product, Conference Confidence
  • Cycle every day (part of my new fitness plan!)

This last one is to improve my overall well being, as we must all take responsibility for that alongside our working life.  I sometimes have felt that I spend too much time online and don’t always create opportunities for the important things that help my overall health and wellbeing.

Do you make time for fitness each day?  Even just half an hour of brisk walking will help to expand your lungs and keep the blood flowing.  Try it.

And don’t forget to set your goals for the coming month.  Goal Setting Really Does Work!





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Jul 01

Take Action To Achieve Your Goals!

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In June I was lucky enough to attend Randy Smith’s Northallerton Meetup.  You can read about the experience in my last post.

I can honestly say that attending this event really is the single most important step I have taken in my online career to date, even though I did not essentially know it at the time.

It has been all of the things that have happened since then that have brought me to that conclusion.  Not only did the meeting help me to set defined goals and make myself accountable to both myself and others, but it helped me to define the steps I have taken to get to this point where I am today, and I want to share those steps with you.

Step one:

  • Believe in yourself.  I have thought long and hard about including this as I wavered in my self belief at a point just before going to the meetup; in fact the meetup was a pivotal turning point for me in terms of KNOWING that I truly believe in my abilities, but I recognise that occassional self doubt is completely natural, however constant self doubt needs working on.  You must change this first of all, and believe in you.

Step two:

  • Have A Plan.  Indeed this is an incredibly important step.  Even if you do not stick to your original plan it is essential to have some plan that you can work to, to give you incentive, motivation and goals to work towards.  You must know where you are heading, and if you don’t believe you can do it, go back to step one!

Step three:

  • Take Action.  You will have heard it so many times before, but nothing will happen if you do not take action.  You must have a plan, goals to work towards, but they will not happen until you take action!  If you reach a goal and find it isn’t what you wanted don’t think of it as time wasted, recognise the valuable learning curve you have gone through to get there.

Sometimes believing in yourself is hard to do, particularly when things are not going so well, maybe something technical doesn’t work the way you wanted it to, or a great planned product launch falls short of your expectations.  Don’t think that it is all going to happen either quickly or easily.  In order to succeed it takes hard work, determination and perseverance, all of which is within your reach, especially when you believe in yourself.

In fact, today, I am going to help you with that self belief, if it is a stumbling block for you.  Just click on the image below to download a free seven day short course that will help you to believe in you, and if it makes a difference and gives you a step up the ladder then I’ll be very glad to have helped.

7 Days To Enlightened Change

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Jun 06

All For One And One For All – Be Accountable

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One of the most important things I learned at Randy Smith’s Northallerton meet up was the power of being in the same room with other Internet Marketers.  It changes your whole attitude to your business and although you might find yourself thinking in very different ways about what you do that is actually a good thing.

If you have never made the effort to go to a seminar, conference, meet up or other event with other Internet Marketers you should consider doing so.  Not only can it be a great personal boost to your enthusiasm the networking you can do and support you get from the other attenders is unparalleled.

I was supposed to be having a few days holiday after the meeting but decided to come home instead and start to put into practice the ideas I had been able to develop, with the help of the other attendees there.

So then I got home to find I had made a sale over the weekend, which was a great discovery, and today Sally Neill answered my comment on her blog post ‘United We Brand, Divided We Fall‘ suggesting to me that I should write a blog post about the ideas and set my intentions for this next month, so I would be accountable to all of you who read it!

My goals are really quite small because there’s nothing I hate more than saying I am going to do something then not achieving it, so I’d rather exceed my expectations at the end of the month!  So my goals for this month are:

  • Finish the two products I have had sitting on the back burner for an age
  • Take a really good look at my lack of monetisation on all of my sites
  • Work harder to promote my sites in the right places (I have a better idea of where those places are now)
  • Re-organise my giveaway offerings to create better monetisation of the products (again, amazing advice given at the meeting about that)
  • Do something productive with all the niche domains I have sitting doing nothing that could be online and earning money for me

Does that all sound a bit money orientated?  Maybe, but at the end of the day I am trying to make a living out of this online business, and I’m not going to do that if I don’t consider monetisation and how I can earn that cash each month.  As I say on this site, I am blogging to make money, it’s not only for fun.

So your goals for this month will be look at how well you monetise, can you make improvements to what you are doing to bring in more cash?  And if you know of a meet up you can go to make the effort.  It is well worth the time.  If you live anywhere between Norfolk and Northallerton (A17 to Newark then straight up the A1) I’d be happy to car share.





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44 comments

Jun 01

Specific Goals To Attain Your Dreams

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Everyone has dreams of one sort or another.  They could be dreams you’ve nurtured in the back of your mind for years while wishing you could actually bring them into your current reality.  They could also just be a picture in your mind of a romantic beach or other getaway you have been saving for and, try as you might, you’ve never been able to save the money you will need to do it.

Your spouse or family might know about your secret dreams and, when you talk about them, they tell you to “Get Real” or “Grow Up” and walk away shaking their heads.  For your information, dreamers make the world a better place and create opportunities for great improvements in several realities all the time.

You can too!  Don’t shed your dreams because nobody can see the potential possibilities or benefits your dream can bring to your life or others.  There are several steps you need to take in order to get your dreams out of your head and on the road to completion.

First, you have to get a good focus on your favorite dream.  You might have several dreams rolling around in your head, but it is a more powerful force if you take them one at a time.

Start defining the steps you need to take to bring your dream into your reality.  Here’s a few to consider:

Do you need a certain amount of money?

  • How much?
  • How much can you save every payday?
  • How much can you earn by working some overtime?
  • Can you get a part-time job on weekends?
  • Can you hold a yard sale to clean out your attic and garage?
  • Can you quit stopping by Starbucks’s on the way to work?

Do you need more training or education?

  • Where can you get what you need?
  • Are there community colleges nearby with evening and weekend classes?
  • If you have Internet access, can you get the training you need with online classes?

How much time can you devote to bringing your dream into your life?

  • Hours before or after work?
  • During lunch?
  • Weekend and holidays?
  • Vacations at home?

Most dreams stall in the dreamer’s mind because what you need to bring it out in the sunshine seem insurmountable.  As an entire project, it might be true, but everything starts with one detail or one small step.  You thought I was going to finish that with “for mankind,” didn’t you?

The truth is that every project, no matter what the subject, begins with a dream and one small step.  Don’t be afraid to take that step.

But, whatever you decide to do, don’t quit dreaming!

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May 01

Passionate Focused Thinking

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This post has been written for the Masterclass Blog Carnival.  The topic for May is ‘Passionate, Focussed Thinking’.  To read the other contributors’ posts in the Carnival please click this link to our advertising page at The John Thornhill Fan Club, Masterclass Blog Carnival.

When you first start to create blogs and products to sell from them, it is very easy to lose your focus in the blur of marketing emails and guru promises for easy money.  Almost every new Internet Marketer has fallen prey to the easy money promise, even me.

In a short time, most will learn that 6-figure incomes will NOT be made in 24 hours, or even in several months.  Another valuable lesson is to get off the roller coaster of empty promises and think for yourself.  Return to your passion and focus like a hungry shark.

Once you’ve started building your reputation as a legitimate blogger with a definite passion for a specific niche, you have taken your first step onto the Internet marketing freeway.  This is the perfect moment to sharpen your focus and move away from being considered a newcomer to a blogging marketer.

It is so easy to get distracted when you are trying to focus on building your business.  All that new information and strange processes will be distracting and at times you will believe that you will never be able to be successful as an online marketing blogger.  That thought can be changed with a swift return to focusing on your passion and nothing else.  Remember why you wanted to blog in the first place.

Build your business one step at a time, in your own way.  Your most powerful tool will be your calm, focused mind.  Refine your passionate, focused thinking, create the blog you want and have a great ride on your own roller coaster.

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Apr 15

Make Sure You Have An XML Sitemap

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One very important thing you should do for your blog is to make sure you have an XML Sitemap.  This item will help you to get your blog indexed better by the search engines.  Crawlers will be able to see the complete structure of your blog easily and they will be able to see pages that might not normally be picked up by the ordinary crawling process.

You can achieve this by installing a plugin.  You can download a free one here:  http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/

Once the plugin is installed it will inform the search engines each time you update your blog, which is a great benefit of having a Sitemap plugin.

Another option is to go to http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and generate an XML Sitemap and upload it to your site.  Once you have generated the Sitemap you can check all kinds of stats for your blog which can be very interesting.

To do this scroll down the homepage a little way and you will see a box where you can enter your url.  You have the opportunity to change a couple of settings but I would suggest leaving them alone.  Go to the bottom of the box and click ‘start’ and watch the generator scan your blog pages.  It takes a few minutes so be patient.

When your Sitemap is ready click ‘download your Sitemap here’ and upload it to the root directory of your site.  To do this open your ftp client and double click ‘public_html’ on the right side of the screen.  Find your domain you just generated the Sitemap for and double click it, then upload the complete file  from the left side of your screen by right clicking and selecting ‘upload’.

Next you need to go to Google Webmaster tools, sign in with your Google account details and ‘add a site’ on your home page if your domain is not already registered there.  You will be asked to verify ownership.  I do this via the ‘alternate method’ which is the second tab on the page.  I choose to ‘upload an html file to your server’.  Check the box and it will give you a file to download.  Upload this in the same way and to the same place that you uploaded the previous file, then click ‘verify’.

You will now be presented with a dashboard for your site which may or may not have data on it. If it does it’s very interesting, but if your rank is very low at the moment it will have no current data.

On the bottom right of this page click ‘submit a Sitemap‘ then click the button ‘submit a Sitemap‘ and your domain should appear with a blank box to the right of it.  Write ‘sitemap.xml’ in this box and click submit.

You have now successfully submitted your XML Sitemap!





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26 comments

Mar 24

Are You Alexa Ranked?

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If you are new to Internet Marketing you may well ask what does being Alexa Ranked mean?

Basically your Alexa Ranking is the place that your website sits amongst all of the other websites in the world.  Obviously in some cases that will mean you will see a number in the millions.  Hopefully you will build your Alexa Rank so your site appears in the thousands, but considering that you are competing with every other site in the world it takes hard work and a bit of knowledge to rank well.  In addition to this it is quite possible that your site will show no rank at all, meaning it is way down the list!

There are a number of things you can do to improve your Alexa Ranking. Good traffic to your blog, great content and lots of comments all help, so does having a social bookmark plugin activated.  Backlinks are another strong factor and one way you can get these is by visiting other blogs and leaving valuable comments, making sure to attach your URL in the signature box.  If ‘commentluv‘ is activated on the site make sure you use it by leaving your name@your keywords in the ‘name’ box.

Another thing you can do to help your rank is to ‘claim your site‘.  Essentially Alexa give you a piece of code to put on your site for them to search for, when they find it they allow you to create your own profile and download a customised widget to add to your site to show your rank (see my Alexa widget in the right sidebar).

If you do not understand what you are to do with the code here’s the instructions:

Put your URL in the ‘claim your site‘ box, then log in with your Alexa account details.  If you have not already registered you can do this now on the login page.  You will need to confirm the account by clicking a link in an email sent to the address you register.  You will then choose your password.

Click on ‘site tools’ to continue with your site claim.  You will be given two options, download a text file or add a meta tag.  Click ‘download text file’ and copy the text provided.  Paste this into notepad and save the file, naming it the code number enclosed in quotation marks within the text and adding ‘.txt’ to the end.  Here is an example:  <meta name=”alexaVerifyID” content=”Pq7S8Alxh7ownXIQ183dq4″ />.  Call your notepad file ‘Pq7S8Alxh7ownXIQ183dq4.txt’.  Obviously your ID code will be different to this example.

Go to your ftp client and upload this notepad document into the html part of your site (this is called the root directory).  You can find this on the right side of the ftp window, named ‘public_html’.  Double click this then double click your website name to open that area.  Locate your notepad document on the left side of your window, right click and select ‘upload’.

Go back to Alexa, click the back button and then click ‘verify my text file’.  You will now be able to create your own profile, choose SEO options if you wish, and download widgets for your site in ‘site tools’.

If you can, you should start to implement some strategies to increase your Alexa Rank today.  Leave a comment below for a backlink – it’s a good start!

If you go to the video tutorials page you can watch a video that will take you through these steps.





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38 comments

Mar 09

Why Use WordPress?

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There is a wide range of ideas and opinions about the best blogging platform, but WordPress is the most used platform available.

If you are looking for versatility and ease of use then WordPress could be the best solution for you and your blog.  There are literally thousands of free tools to help you to set up your WordPress blog and make it look as you would like it to, ranging from free themes and templates, to really useful plugins that can do anything from helping to make your site more visable to the search engines, to making your blog more secure for you.

Plugins are so very easy to use.  You simply download the plugin from the site it is listed on, and upload it to your plugins directory.  You can do this in your WordPress admin panel as a zipped file, or you can unzip it and upload using your ftp client.

There is a wide range of ideas and opinions about which are the most effective plugins to use on your WordPress blog.  At the end of the day it is up to you, the owner, to decide which plugins you want to have activated, but primarily it is essential to activate Akismet to prevent your blog getting masses of spam comments, as these often contain links to ‘unsavoury’ sites!

You should also choose a good quality SEO (search engine optimisation) plugin, and it is always a good idea to have a link cloaking plug in on your blog.  A social bookmarking plugin is another essential if you want more traffic as this allows your visitors to link your post to their own social network to encourage more viewers for you.

There are a number of sites that recommend the combination of plugins you should use, but it really is up to you to discover which work best for your particular business model.

So the main reason you should use WordPress is ease of use, but alongside that is the vast array of helpful tools you can obtain free of charge for your WordPress blog.





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