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Are You Ready To Learn How To Make Money on the Internet? 3 Serious Questions To Ask Yourself To Find Out!

Posted on 22. Jun, 2009 by Derrick.

Are you ready to learn how to make money on the internet or how to achieve any desire, dream or goal you might have?  here’s 3 Serious Questions to ask yourself to find out if you’re a contender!

I’ve just read Alex Jeffrey’s New ebook - Newbie’s Nightmare which you can download for free, and thought I would do a 3 part review mixed in with some of my personal thoughts and ideas :).  Firstly its relatively lightweight and easy to read- only 46 pages, about a 45minute read (1 page a minute) but it contains some highly concentrated concepts, and strategies, including detailing Alex Jeffrey’s basic marketing strategy.

Although Newbie’s Nightmare does not have chapter headings or sections, it is basically split into 3 parts (hence the 3 part review). - Here is my breakdown of the sections:

1. 1. The Prelude - The Prerequisites to being successful online
   2. The Problems - The 3 common problems newbies face
   3. The Pathway To Success - Understanding The Internet Marketing Method (This last part includes the hurdle that is stopping 99% of newbie’s from ever making money.

So in this first part of this Review I’ll be giving you my slant on the Prerequisites - and there are only 3!

1. TIME

Do you have the TIME to invest to become successful? Sometimes we are in a very busy place - everything seems to be happening at once - we have problems at work, financial challenges, relationship issues, health problems or just as possible - they could all be good but stressful events - eg buying a new house or moving house, planning a holiday, getting married, getting promoted at work.  These are probably not the best times to begin a new venture.  I believe these are valid reasons why you may not have the time right at the time, but they will only delay the determined individual for a short period of time.

Generally most of us we usually do not have all these things happening at once and if we really wanted to, we could MAKE THE TIME. Just think about all the time we sometimes waste on unimportant things that really have little or no impact on the quality of our life (I know I wasted my first 30min this morning just surfing and reading some news when I should have started preparing for the day).  So really, the question is not do YOU have the time to invest to become successful, but do YOU WANT to invest the time to be successful.

You need to ask yourself - Am I Prepared to set aside time, MAKE TIME EVERYDAY to do what is necessary to become successful at something (whether that be making money online or learning a new skill).

2. TARGET

Do you have a TARGET?  do you have a goal, a dream a desire? Something you really want?

It doesn’t have to be big or amazing. but whatever it is it does need to BE SPECIFIC.  It can be an income value, it can be to lose weight, to get that six pack, whatever it is, you need to know exactly what it is and be committed to it.  As most of you are reading this because you want to make money online, it should be a dollar value.  Once you have locked your Target in - you must develop a game plan - a plan of attack,  a map to give you the most direct route to reach your destination.

This is the value of having a mentor, a coach an advisor,  someone who has been where you want to be, so they can guide you on the path to success.  Of course this information doesn’t always have to come through direct guidance as much of the information these days is available online, in books, magazines etc. . but really the most powerful way to learn and make the fastest progress is having someone coach you.

Having a network of people who want to join you on the journey can make a big difference as well.  - Get yourself a TARGET that inspires you and gets you excited in the morning!  and BE SPECIFIC!

3. FOLLOW THOUGH.

Probably the most important of the 3 prerequisites, as without this one, you’ll be wasting your time.  I think this is probably the biggest reason for not hitting the target.  Not taking action on the information and guidance provided.

We start enthusiastic, even taking action on everything (which in itself can be a problem:) , but then progressively laziness creep in, things become a little too difficult - it becomes too hard to make that phone call or send that email, because you don’t have the persons contact details right on hand - I mean its going to waste 5 minutes trying to search for that phone number on my computer or address book, I think i’ll just continue surfing the web and waste my time that way - I’m a lot more comfortable with that. . Target? what Target? . . . .

This happens to often when we let our focus fall to the menial or seemingly insignificant task before us rather than keep our eyes and mind on the prize.  Know your Target, Keep it alive in your mind.  BE COMMITTED TO FOLLOWING THROUGH on a proven path and you must Meet with Success!

Hope you enjoyed part one of my review and thoughts on Alex Jeffrey’s Newbie’s Nightmare.  Love to know if you found this useful - Please post any questions or comments below. . . part 2 of the review

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Writing Articles - 5 Key Principles To Write A Kickass Article And Maximise Qualified Traffic To Your Website

Posted on 12. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

• Not sure where to start to write your own article?
• Don’t know what to write about?
• Have no idea how to write a good article?
• Or maybe you’re just looking for some extra article writing tips to confirm you’re on the right track?

Wherever you are, I’m glad you’ve come to this article, because the goal of this article is to simplify and demystify the art and science of article writing for the web. However, before we look at the “How to write an article” its important to know the “Why Of Writing Articles“.

Here are my three reasons:

• You want to share valuable information.
• You want to increase your exposure, build your credibility and your brand
• And you want to drive qualified traffic to your website

Article writing has long been recognized as a great way to drive not only traffic to your website - but qualified traffic.  This means rather than your visitor clicking to your website from reading a short advertisement, or some other less meaningful link, they click through, from your article. This means they have had to read through your whole article to get to your link at the bottom - so they must be interested in who you are, and what you have to say.  Because they are more qualified, they are more likely to surf around on your site, give you their email address or even buy from you.   And of course the big kicker for articles is that it costs you nothing! The downside is - you do need to spend time and effort in writing your articles - though you do get better and more efficient as you practice more

But where do people find your articles?  There are hundreds of article directories on the Internet like www.ezinearticles.com, which gather and organize millions of articles written by millions of authors.  By submitting your articles to these sites you get your articles out there, plus you also give the right for others to reprint / republish your work on their sites, so effectively increase your reach!

Ok, now we’re ready for the How -

My 5 Key Principles for Article Writing:

1. Choose Your Area Of Specialty

- Ideally you want to pick an area you are passionate about, as your passion and enthusiasm for the subject will shine through otherwise just pick an area that you know, or at the very least are prepared to research well.  You need to sound like you know what you are talking about, and your information needs to be true, otherwise, you will shoot your credibility and destroy the brand you’re trying to create.

Once you have selected an area, you need to hone in on a specific problem or issue, so you can address it with your solution.  For example, let say your area is Televisions. There are so many different types of LCD and plasma TVs these days, an obvious initial choice for topic would be how to choose the right TV for you.

2. Know Your Audience -

Your ability to develop rapport and connect with your reader is directly related to how well you know your audience.  By knowing who your target audience is, you can connect with them based on their problems, their desires, their likes, dislikes and their language level.

In this example I could write the article for mums and dads - i.e. not a teenager or a geek.  So therefore I write the article with very simple terms, and if I were to use any jargon, I would make sure I explain it.  Also I need to consider what issues they may have - such as having legacy hardware like old school VCR’s and so one of the areas I could cover is how they could check for compatibility with their older equipment

3. Come Up With A Title -

The title is considered one of the most important aspects of an article (besides the article itself:) Often it is the power of the title that will draw the reader into the article, so you must have an attention grabbing title.  There are 3 Aspects you need to consider when creating your title:

1. Ensure title is Keyword rich - for people to find your article it needs to contain the keywords people would be searching for.   So you need to do a little research on keywords (you can use Google’s Keyword tool which is free).

In this example I would do a search for LCD and Plasma TV - and look at what keywords show up, and target the more common ones - after doing a quick search I discovered that LCD HDTV scored over 4 million searches, as compared to LCD HD TV which only got 135,000 and PLASMA HDTV just over 1 Million - so Now I know what I should definitely use and not use in my title.  Note also that keywords in the body of your article are also important and will help keep your article highly ranked within articles for the topic.

2. Get Creative and Make Your Title Attention Grabbing - you need to stand out from all the articles that cover the same kind of information, so you need a title that has the x-factor - Think about all those gossip magazines, that try and grab your attention at the supermarket

It would be easy just to write: How to Choose your next widescreen LCD or Plasma TV which is ok, but not the best - after doing the keyword research above, I would probably go with something more like: PLASMA or LCD HDTV? 5 Questions You MUST Ask before Buying your Next Widescreen TV. Ask yourself if you were given the choice of these two titles, which would you more likely click through to read?

3. Check your title is unique - the main reason for this is so you can keep a track of your article - by doing a search for the complete title of your article in a search engine, you can see how many copies of it are being distributed around the web.  If other people have the same title, you won’t know at a glance which are yours or theirs, making it more difficult to assess the distribution and reach of your written article.

(You can check this by typing the complete article title in the search engine with quotation marks at the beginning and the end - that way the search engine searches for those words in that exact order and sequence.  Typing my title above, I confirmed it was unique (at the time of writing:)

4. Write the Article -

If you’ve never written before, don’t worry. These days most people write as they speak, so don’t be too concerned that you need to write something at a scholarly level, you don’t.  In fact most people prefer to read articles that are more conversational, informal and light hearted.  The key point is that you are providing value in your article.  Here are few tips to writing your article

1. Know what you want to share with your audience - what is the point of your article and what are the key ideas? - Scribble these down on paper

2. Brainstorm - What questions do you have yourself about the topic - do some research if needed

3. Organize the key ideas into some logical structure

4. Fill out the ideas with examples, stories, analogies, metaphors and quotations to help illustrate the points you are making

5. Write the article - remember people are time poor these days, so the more concise and succinct your article the better - (It is recommended to keep under 750 words) Make it easy to ready by clearly breaking up the paragraphs and using bullet points and numbering.

6. Read and Revise - I recommend printing your article out to read out aloud - I find it gives you a better overall view of your piece, and I think its easier and faster to make notes, revisions and formatting changes.  Also by reading out aloud, you will be able to judge the sense and flow of your article much better.   Once you are happy, just spend a few minutes making adjustments to the final typed draft.

7. Proof & Publish - Finally reprint the final draft and do a final proof read for spelling, grammatical and logical sense. (Also, it’s always good to get the feedback from people whose opinions you value:).

Once you are satisfied - Publish your article to an article directory! - You can also use programs like article submitter which will simultaneously publish your article to hundreds of article directory sites saving you hours of time and effort.

5. Call To Action -

Don’t forget one of the key reasons you are publishing is to get people to visit your site.  So insert your link at the end of your article!

Thats it, What do you think? Are there any other points you feel I left out?

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Gravatars - Setting Up Gravatar Plugin for extra features for Wordpress 2.7

Posted on 04. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Please note that wordpress 2.7 already has the gravatar function (I found this out after I did this video), however this plugin, provides more functionality (will detail these in later post).  To customise and adjust settings for using the standard Gravatar in wordpress 2.7 , go to settings > discussion and scroll down to find the Gravatar settings.

Just click play to watch the video below

Gravatars - How to Install Gravatar Plugin for Wordpress 2.7 (For enhanced functionality)

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December 2008, First Progress Report

Posted on 03. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Ok. . I have been meaning to do this report a while ago, but now that a whole month has passed, I thought I would do a complete month report on what results I have achieved and how much time and money I have invested so far:

Web Traffic Statistics

So first up are the statistics: below is the google analytics for the month of December. Bear in mind this current Blog was only established on the 21st December (prior to that I was using my personal domain name) so really it is for the first 10 days and over christmas. Click on the image to open into a full size image:

Just over 100 Visits - So nothing amazing there (Yet) - and haven’t reached my initial target of 1000 visitors.

Google Analytics Dec 2008

But what have I actually achieved in this time?

1. Got my head around wordpress and an understanding of how to set up a word press blog
2. Learnt about some of the best ways to get traffic and started using them.
3. Started to get to know some of the other students!

Capital Invested:

1. Alex Jeffreys‘ Coaching Program : US$497
2. Domain Names : US7.69
3. Aweber Autoresponder Account : US$19/Month
4. Screencapture Software US$89.00
5. WebHosting US$24.95

Total Costs Accrued : $637.64

Time Invested

Total Time :  87 Hours (Approximately 2 Weeks full time)

Breakdown Of Time Dec 2008

So what are the takeaways.  Looking at the time breakdown, I definitely probably shouldn’t have spent so much time working on the look and feel of the blog itself, and spent a bit more time on traffic generation strategies.  I think that would be the main takeaway, focus more on the things that will make the biggest impact on my blog.

Also I’ve been rather picky with the look of my site. . you may notice the site changing quite a bit as I find the right look for it, to the left is  a screen shot of how it looked before.  .any comments thoughts and suggestions would be most appreciated.  The reason i’ve changed from that theme, is because I was told by other students, they thought it looked too comical and not serious enough - what do you think?

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Get Recognised, Build Your Identity - Get A Gravatar!

Posted on 02. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Just made my second How-To video, This time on Gravatars, part one explains what they are and why you should get one and part two shows you how to set one up and get it working.

Please note I had some audio sync issues with a new piece of software I’ve been using, so please excuse this until I get it sorted

Update 3/1/09  - Reuploaded 2nd Video - Audio sync problems have been fixed

Enjoy, and don’t forget if there is something you’d like to know how to do, please leave a comment, and I’ll do my best to answer,

Derrick

Gravatars - What are they and why you should get one:

Gravatars - How to set one up and get it working

NEW! - 3/1/09

Gravatars - How to Install Gravatar Plugin for Wordpress 2.7 (For enhanced functionality)

Please note that wordpress 2.7 already has gravatar function (I found this out after I did this video), however this plugin, provides more functionality (will detail these in later post).  To customise and adjust settings for using standard Gravatar wordpress 2.7 interface, go to settings > discussion and scroll down to find the Gravatar settings.

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Twitter - Free Video On How To Add 100’s of New Twitter Friends Quickly & Easily

Posted on 01. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Happy New Year Everyone!

Just watched the first sunrise of 2009, had a snooze, and thought I’d post my first Video of the year. I had a question from Mark Luciano about how to add poeple to twitter, so I thought the easiest way to show how I did it, was to make a short video. I only had about 20+ people following me, about 24 hours ago, but after discovering this method, have already increased my followers to 300+. . So here’s my video showing exactly what I did!

Off to a New Years BBQ now. . enjoy. and please leave comments, and feedback below, and of course any thing you would like me to do a video on!

Derrick
Click Here To Follow Me On Twitter
http://twitter.com/Derrick_Siu

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