Tim's Wee Part of the World

I’ve been looking over my vast collection of websites and the question I’ve had to recently ask myself when looking at each of them is… What is the Purpose of this website?

What happens is,

1. I come up with a “brilliant idea”.
2. I find a good domain name and buy it.
3. I’ll create the site and throw up “some content” on it… and then
4. Come up with another great idea… and the cycle continues.

What results is a lot of “not very exciting” websites…

What is the Purpose of Any Website?

The Internet is the “World Repository of knowledge”. Which is a poor attempt at giving a fancy name to , what is a,  “Huge Library with information on just about everything…”!

How does that information get on the internet? It gets there by folk like you and I creating websites and putting what we know on them, that hopefully, someone will find useful.

So the Purpose of Any Website is to provide Content that the Visitor to that site will get some benefit from. Who wants to visit a website looking for a particular topic and finding either

• Not much about it
• Nothing related at all
• Just a Bunch of advertising.

It’s important to Plan your Website.

So if you are going to create a website, it’s important to have a plan on what it’s going to be about.

This particular website is a place where I can talk about anything that comes to mind. Is that a good thing? Possibly not. Being a personal website with my name plastered all over it does put me “out there” in plain view of the world. So I do treat this site as a “Blog” as such in the traditional meaning of the word.

Unlike facebook, I don’t write what I had for breakfast or what my dogs and cats did that was cute or strange  ( sometimes they are the same thing ).  I post things of what I find interesting and “Reviews” on products and services which I find useful or interesting.

Which makes me think, I should be writing on here a lot more as there is a ton of stuff to write about.

Niche Sites…

But if you are creating an informational website on a subject or topic, it doe help to sit down and work out what you are gonig to write about and stick to the topic. Remember Search Engines Love Good Relevent Content.

So if your website is about “how to  <insert topic>  for left handers “, you had best stick to that topic.

So it’s important to keep in mind, everytime you get an idea and want to create a website about “it” ( it being the topic ) to rough out some plan on what you are going to put on the site.

Your Visitors will get a whole lot more benefit if you do. And that is the purpose of any website. Well they have a few actually depending upon what they are about…

• To Inform
• To Educate and let’s not forget
• To Entertain.

I wonder if  I can claim fame with a new acronym, or is it an abbreviation, regarding websites. IEE, Inform , Educate and Entertain.

I think the Institute of Electrical Engineers might have a thing or three to say about that!

Anyway, one of the benefits of having a website is having a place to “write” things. Which would be amusing to my High School English teacher in my later years, as he had it in his head that I my grammer was “not very good” and getting words in the place of rightness wasn’t my strong point.

I won’t bore you with the “I also do Bad Speling aswell “. Really it’s doesn’t matter a whole lot. Well it shouldn’t be a reason not to put words to screen ( so to speak ) with the words from past English teachers haunting you!

Just Have Fun with it. When you are not having fun, go and do something else!

So back to doing some much needed programming on Project X… When that’s done, it’ll be a very good example of a Website with a Purpose!

Have a Grand One!

Cheers

Tim

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This is something I hear all over the place… “Google loves WordPress”.

Simply put… It’s a very misleading statement!

Google doesn’t give one hoot if you are using WordPress or Not! It just doesn’t care!

Having a WordPress Website means diddly squat to Search Engines…

What WordPress does do…

What a WordPress Website does do is offer a format that Search Engines – like Google – do like.

It’s the Format… It’s nothing to do with WordPress…

Ok I’m probably sounding a bit pedantic ( possibly annoyingly fussy), but you can create any website with anything that follows the “rules” and have the Search Engines “love” your site just as much!

What WordPress does do is help… and I’ll say it again… help… you by giving you a platform that allows you to easily create a site that could be  “interesting” and “noteworthy” to any search engine.

So what are the “things” any website needs to have?

At the end of the day, your goal is to make it “easy” for a search engine to be able to gather as much information as it can from your website. Search Engines do not have ESP, and those, like Google, are aware of certain “tricks” some folk try to pull.

I know that while most of the search engines are automated in their “searching of sites” on the internet… don’t be so sure that there are not “real humans” also reviewing websites…

The job of the search engine ( the good ones ) is to provide, relevent, interesting and informative websites regarding the topic or subject that the “searcher” is looking for…

So all you have to do is to provide that content… There’s nothing mysterious or secret about that!

Content. Not just any ole rehashed rubbish. It must be Relevent, Interesting content. ( not something I can always claim fame to ).

A Site Title.

A Site Description.

H1 Tags in your pages Title. Just like a Document has a title…

Keywords. This is a contentious issue. Some advocate the “Stuffing” of  “keywords” ( keywords are the words or sentences that folk will type into a search engine when they are looking for something). My view is that, if you write naturally about any topic, the keywords will appear naturally.

I’m not huge on writing anything for the sake of being able to place these “treasured” keywords wrapped with junk text…

Titles in Links. These “add” information regarding the nature of the link.

Alt tags in images. Again, these add information about the image. Search Engines cant see your images or figure out what they are about. So this let’s you tell the search engines what the image is about.

Good Content. Did I mention that all ready?

Helpful pages to have… The Privacy, Terms and Conditions and Contact pages etc… These just give more credence to the site. You’ll see these at the bottom of most “good” websites. Their purpose is to give more information. On this site ( at the time of writing ) I’ve just got a Disclosure Page on this site.

So basically it’s the use of everything that you can do to assist the search engines in determining what your site, pages etc are all about. You help them and they’ll help you get found. Simple!

And WordPress makes this easier to do.

So the statement regarding WordPress and other website building scripts should be… “WordPress helps you build websites that Google will be able to figure out what your site is all about IF you do things correctly!”

Ok it’s a bit more long winded than the original statement, but it’s closer to what the actual situation is.

I’ve only touched on the basics here.

WordPress “out of the box” is missing one crucial item that you should have. The ability to add a title, descriptions and keywords for each of your posts…

So to fix that, there is a plugin called “All In One SEO” that gives you the ability to add these details.

I’ve found from experience, just how vital this one plugin is. Without it, I had ranked on page 2 of google for some keyword BUT the description google had found didn’t have anything to do whatsover with the post it had found. Yikes!!!!

So I quickly went back and found that I hadn’t filled in the fields that the “All in One SEO” plugin gives you… Once I filled those in and Google took another look, it got it right!

That’s an example of what happens when you make it Hard for Google as opposed to making it easier for Google to find out exactly what your post is actually about. Which makes everyone happy.

So there is some food for thought.

Cheers

Tim

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In this post I’ll be talking about

• The Warrior Forum
• WarriorPlus
• JVZoo and
• Clickbank.

Which is a bit of a mix when related to the title of this post, but it does all tie in with what I’ll be discussing. I just thought I had better warn you!

Now I’ve been a member of the WarriorForum for a number of years ( You’ll see where I’ve posted things on there… ). It’s a great resource for anyone interested in Internet marketing, Website design and Programming stuff….I tend to jump in and answer programming related questions when and where I can offer anything sensible!

One of the “services” they provide is a Thread where you can Promote what they call “Warrior Special Offers”. These are where other Warrior Forum members that have a product or service can promote them to the other members at a reduced price to what they might be selling it for on their main websites… Hence the term “Special Offer”.

It’s a good proving ground if you are coming out with a new product and if done correctly it can be very lucrative for the Seller… But the products are primarily “Internet Marketing”  Related… It’s time that someone ( not looking at anyone…) should throw up something a little off topic… Hmmm.

Anyway, there is a service that was established called WarriorPlus.com in helping these sellers, Sell their products and also gave folk the facilities to become affiliates to promote the same products and services,while handling the payments etc.

It has a big product and affiliate base and there are some really great products and offers in there…

You can register and start looking for products to promote. When you find one you like, you need to submit a request to the Vendor ( product owner ) to get approval to promote it. Which in the majority of cases you get… But you must be a registered member of the WarriorForum to participate.

The WarriorPlus system has a few too many restrictions. So a prominent member or two on the WarriorForum have come up with a twist on what’s been available to date…

There are a few other similar services in the pipeline but right now….

JVZOO Is In Town!

JVZoo.com offers features like…

Sellers.

You can Promote Anything from Digital to Physical Products.

You can Promote Anywhere… It’s not tied directly to the WarriorForum, but you can submit WSO’s through it. The Warrior Forum charges $40 USD per listing on the Warrior Forum Site which is a separate fee from any third party service.

It’s Free for any Sellers wishing to list their products.

Download Security… Only those that actually purchase your products can get access to them via logging into the system using their username and password.

Sales Tracking – Each purchase is tracked through JVZoo so you get to see how your promotion is progressing. This also applies to affiliates.

You don’t need a website as you can create your Sales Page  via their WYSIWYG Editor. If you do choose this option, as opposed to using your own website, you will need to upload the product(s) to JVZoo.

You can create an affiliate program for your product.

If you have JV partners involved in your product, you can split the payment ( less the affiliate commission ) between up to 3 people. So they all get their cut automatically.

Affiliates

To become an affiliate you need to join as one (It’s a separate Registration) and any products you wish to promote requires that you ask the Seller for permission. Which is a click of a button and a response comes back Yeah or Nay! It’s usually Yes, unless you’ve done something to upset the seller!

This gives some control to the seller on who they allow to promote their products. Which depending upon your point of view could be a good or a bad thing! If you do want to become an affiliate, you do have to go through some extra hoops. Not sure on that one yet… Time will tell .

You get paid on your First Sale and all consequent sales… Unlike Clickbank that requires that you have 5 different payment sources before you are eligible to  “cash out”.

Once you make a Sale for a particular Vendor, the buyer is tagged to you for that Vendors future products…

As an Affiliate, you get paid when anyone you refer to the system makes an affiliate sale… ( which means if you decide to join via my links and become an affiliate, I will make a small commission on any affiliate sales that you make – end of disclosure… I like to be upfront about these things! )

It’s a whopping 10 cents per sale. But if you have a few affiliates under your belt then it can add up. This is something Clickbank offered in it’s early days to help boost it’s affiliate base.

Once you are signed up as an Affiliate or Seller, you become both! So you can both Sell and Promote.

Other Nice Features

The Affiliate program side to JVZoo is separate from the Product Purchase side. So Customers are separated from Affiliates and Sellers. The reason is that anyone who purchases can access their products instantly without having to deal with all that affiliate stuff pushed upon them.

All the products that are sold are accessible from the one place.  So when someone makes a purchase, they need to login to access it and they’ll get to see everything they ever purchased and have access to it… So no more – “Oh no I lost xxxx, where did I get it from…” It’ll become “Oh I got that via JVZoo – great, I can just log in and get it again”.

JVZoo is well on it’s way to making it’s mark upon the Internet. It has definitely made the entry into selling products using affiliate marketing a whole lot easier.

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Ok all you budding or professional Graphic Designers… Here’s a very interesting Website I’ve just found…

http://www.99designs.com

Basically, a Client who wants a Graphic Assignment performed, posts it on the site and prepays an Amount that will go to the Creator of the Winning Design.

So unlike the outsourcing sites that work on a  Bidding system,  Each contesting Designer submits their Graphic to be considered by the client. Its a Design Contest where the Winner gets paid!

The Downside of this is, each designer has to actually put in the time to create a Submission. The Upside for everyone else is you get to see the kinds of  Designs that are created and those that win.

Which makes it a great resource for seeing what is achievable  and the kinds of things that a customer likes based upon their “Design Brief” .

It might Spark a few ideas for projects you might work on.

What Kind Of  Graphics do they work with?

Quite a few…There are

• Logo Designs
• Web Design
• Business Cards
• Icon Design
• WordPress Themes
• Stationary Design
• Brochure Design
• Print and Packaging
• T-Shirt Design
• Banner Ads

How does it work?

A Client Creates a Design Contest in one of the areas mentioned above, and sets a fixed price… Then the Designers come along ( it could be you! ) and submit their design concepts.  The Client can give feedback to the designers to help them create the Design they are looking for and at the end… The Client chooses the Winning Design and the Designer gets paid the Set Payment.

Now the Payments are not Shabby… It’s not like getting a Logo designed for $5 from fiverr.com. Just as a quick guide – Logos are around the $100-500 range, Website templates are in excess of $1000. So if you are pretty handy with Graphics, see a Contest that interests you, you might win and earn a few dollars…

It seems an interesting way to get into doing commercial graphics if you are starting out.. Well it’s one of many options available to you.

If You are Someone in need of High Quality Graphics…

maybe for your New Business Website, Stationary etc, it seems a very good place to get your job done. Plus you get to work with the Designers and you have final say on what you’ll accept. For the Client, this works out much better than having to look for someone by making a bid at an Outsourcing Site where you have to Select One and hope for the best…

Anyway, It’s one of those sites I’ll be keeping in mind for any future projects or in the case where someone I know needs some work done, or if I know some Budding Graphic Designers…

If you have used this service, I’d love to hear from you about the experience you had with them ( Good Or Bad!)

Cheers

Tim

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It’s not about selling, it’s about value by providing quality content.

I’ve just been watching a replay of a webinar on “Dissecting A Profitable Affiliate Website” at Curtis Andrew’s InternetIncomeAcademy which is a part of the Learning Center material you get access to as a member. It’s just one of a few webinars he’s recorded on this one subject.

Disclosure:

Now I am a member and I do have an affiliate association with the site. Meaning that, if you do decide to join IIA via my link, I will earn a commission. But not for 7 Days as it only costs $1 for you to see this for yourself. If you decide to stay on, then I’ll earn 50% of the $27 Monthly membership Fee.

BUT…

If you do join, I Strongly recommend that you check out this Webinar. It’s going to put you in a much different place in regards to what actually makes a profitable affiliate website… Unlike most of mine… Which is why I’m reporting on this…

To get there, once you register, Click on “Learning Center” then on the left hand side, under Monetization, then Click on “Affiliate Marketing“, then select the Top Entry titled “Dissecting A Profitable Affiliate Website”.

Lots of clicks to get to it, as there is lots of stuff in there… The Webinar is over 2 Hours and it’s broken up into sections. If you wonder off at any stage the system knows where you were last so you can click on the link and head straight back in ( a nice feature to add to some of my sites ).

When you get to Video 3 – Curtis goes over 10 Money making Affiliate sites , covering lots of different subjects, and he critiques them explaining what is good, what is bad and how they could be improved upon.

It is a Pen and Paper Webinar…

You will be taking notes!

And this is just ONE of the many areas of marketing Curtis covers.

There is still  the Series on Building a profitable website from Scratch to money making website called  “The Affiliate Income BluePrint”.

Curtis likes to work on his sites one at a time until he starts pulling in a nice daily income… Hmm something I think we all need to be doing…

So if you really want a true look into what makes a real profitable affiliate website, you need to join for $1 and get viewing these videos.

Then you can do the activities that Curtis Suggests in his “Getting Started Guide”. Which is something you should do as well. It’ll will open your eyes.

Making Money Online isn’t hard… What is hard is knowing what to do and then getting down to doing it AND not ripping anyone off by peddling junk…

The Link again – InternetIncomeAcadmey.

It’s time for a change!

Cheers

Tim

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One thing that amazes me is the number of Spam Comments that get sent to my numerous WordPress Sites.

They don’t get published automatically, so on occasion I go through them, sending most to the “Blue File” or whatever color you imagine your Trash Can to be. ( Well it helps to be a little bit visual!)

While doing this I was wondering how these little visits affect your Traffic Stats. If they are counted as a “Visit”, it will give you what looks like great traffic numbers to get all excited about, but if they are just Visits from Spamming Comment Posters, then the numbers get a little less exciting.

Is it a good thing that your site gets looked at by Spammers? No Idea… Does it boost your Alexa Rankings? Again I’ve got no real idea but I imagine that it might…Does that hurt? Umm probably not..

But something interesting happened.

Sometimes these Spammers do sound convincing, so I do give those folk my due Diligence and check them out. One of these “hmmm is it someone being real or not” comments had what looked like a kind of legit website, so I checked it out.

Turns out it’s a blogger site and the provided link of BestOnlineProductReview.blogspot.com was now available. So I took it… It just also happened that I found a really nice product to promote on it. One that anyone that has a PC that runs like a turtle with it’s legs tied together would benefit from.

That includes myself and just about everyone that has a PC. It also includes a bonus Windows Optimization Guide, which is invaluable to anyone with Windows on their PC.

So by taking the time…

and looking over my Comments on my sites I actually might have stumbled upon something grand! Time will Tell!

If you do want to Post Comments on a Blog…

In No Particular Order

1. Use a name and not something like “SpeedyRedCars” or something a little more racey  ( excuse the Pun )
2. Have a Legitimate Website URL
3. Actually Post a Comment that is Relevant to the Post ( call me Captain Obvious if you must ).
4. Use a real email address, so the owner of the blog can write back to you.

Telling me how wonderful my writing is does give me a big head, but when I see that the URL is for cheap drugs or that other nonsense, you’ll hear me click “DELETE”. It’ll be fast so you’ll have to listen for it!

Some are just blatant junk… But I do appreciate the more creative ones… The Click of the Delete key is a little slower in those cases… Just after I Smile due to  it’s ingenuity  – Then it’s…Click! Gone!!!

Anyway…

Give this a look over at BestOnlineProductReview.blogspot.com No Onelikes a Slow PC…

Cheers

Tim

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I’ve just found a new WordPress Plugin called KeywordsToWebsites created by Mark Wielgus.

Now Mark is a programmer that has brought his experience into creating this Plugin and he’s done a very nice job.

Plugins like this abound on the Internet. Most times they are “thought” up by someone who then gets someone else to create them. Which is fine… but ultimately the functionality can be a little lacking. Also the quality of the Plugin can be , at times, questionable.

When you combine Programming Skills along with Marketing Skills, the result is.. well something like this plugin.

The Sales Page.

Marks Sales Page is quite good but I do have one complaint… The demonstration of the Plugin is a Video, but it’s a recording of a Screen using a Video Camera!!!!

It’s funny to read Marks statement that it’s very 2008 to use individual plugins to do what his plugin does. But to use a Video Camera???? It’s hard to see, the camera operator isn’t quite sure what he/she is meant to be focusing on. So it could lead to a few headaches and funny tummys by  watching it…

There is a second Video on how he has incorporated finding Hot Keywords on Ebay ( very nice ) and that is done with something like Camtasia! So I’m a little confused as to why he’s gone 2008 on us with the main demo video and 2011 on the Ebay Keywords Video.

The Landing Page, where did that come from?

I have this new habit where I open up my OpenOffice Writer and create a Mockup Landing Page. Which is what I’ve done for this… I do this for two reasons…

1. To quickly “nut” out the Idea.
2. To be able to save it in my file of “things” so I can get it on paper and get back to what I was doing.

And as I’m rather strapped for time.. Well I’m working on my own major Project at the moment so time is kind of “on the lean side” at the moment… I thought “Why not just toss it up on my Blog and throw it out there on a few Traffic Exchanges.”

Which is what I have done… Now I’ve got some other ideas on doing this… For one thing, having a landing page appear on the blog itself may or may not be a good thing. So I’m looking at creating a plugin that will let you – create a landing Page – and not have it show up on the blog as such, but still have it accessible to display on Traffic Exchanges and the like…

One of the Main Benefits that I see in using this technique, if you can call it that, is it…

1. Gives you an easy way to Create a Landing Page.
2. Drives Traffic to your Blog.

The idea being, it’s convenient and your Visitor , who might make a purchase, might also go off wondering around the rest of your website.

So this is the quick, get it done, and see what happens version.

It’s just a matter of creating a new post… Or I should have probably made it a page and tagged it as not to show on the menus etc…

I’ll try that later on. In the meantime, I’ll get back to planning and coding my new project and see what happens.

Oh and by the way… This plugin is a really nice way to get some content and affiliate products on your websites.

I’ve got a few keyword rich domains gathering dust, so something like this is just the ticket to get something on them with little effort.

If you can automate these tasks, then Do It! It’s better to have something than nothing at all.

Here is the Landing Page. While it’s rather simple and boring looking, it’s “there”  and not just a thought in my head.

If I don’t see you before hand… Have a Grand New Year and 2012 is going to be very exciting.

Stay tuned!

Cheers

Tim

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No Need for Separate Plugins, This ONE Plugin does it all!

Turn Your Website into

An Affiliate Product Candy Store!

Simply Paste your Keywords Into This WordPress Plugin

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Where You Can…

Instantly Promote Affiliate Products FROM….

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Shopzilla and Clickbank

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Bing Search, Yahoo Answers,

Google News, Bing Pictures,

RSS Feeds and Google Suggest.

You Have Total Control!

CAN – Be Run on Multiple Domains.

CAN – Cloak Images and Affiliate Links.

CAN – Choose which Content Sources you want to use.

CAN – Select the Order they appear in.

CAN – Create new Sites Using Import/Export to transfer all your affiliate id’s, api key settings to build a new site.Simply add new Keywords…

Click Here To Find Out How You Can Get This!

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Lets time travel… way way back to 23rd Nov 2008. Yes, that’s a major nose bleed kind of time travel.

I had purchased Alex Jeffreys -  Marketing With You course for, what wasn’t a small amount, but at todays prices it was an absolute steal.

Now what follows is more like a Shame File, or if you’d like – Hey Tim is a Wombat – kind of a story. Don’t worry , if I could kick myself up the bum,  I would.

I’ve had to do some hard soul searching of late because, basically, I’ve been working much harder ( or longer )  than I should be. Things were not getting done. Why? Well my old friend Mr Distraction and the ole, we can do this when my subconscious kicks in and whispers “Hey you are a smart fellow, let’s completely overcomplicate things and get nowhere”.

I’m onto you now Mr Subconscious.  When talking to one self in an effort to demonstrate a point doesn’t mean I’m crazy does it?

Ok so when things are getting out of control it’s time to put the foot on the brakes and jump off to take a look at what’s going on.

Back to 2008. Now Alex is one of these guys that I would call “Infectiously Enthusiastic” and definitely one of the few “Good Guys” when it comes to coaching. After all he’s been mentored by some of the best and he’s someone I listen too! Whoops well, I did back in 2008 but it would seem I went off, even after having Alex in my ear, and did lots of things that helped out a bunch of other folk, which led me to not be where I wanted…

Fortunately not all is lost! It never is! And Alex has been rattling around in my head… bugging me. Basically something must have stuck that’s been niggling at me.

So I went pouring back over my Diary… You do keep one don’t you… And I found the link to that course back in 2008 and it’s all still there… I’m back going over all the videos and DOING what he was teaching… As one of his gifts to get us folk off our backsides was a complete Squeeze Page, Ebook report ( rebrandable ) a Video Thankyou page.  Unfortunately that’s been taken down, but the videos from the course itself are still there… AND they are still as relevant today as they were back in 2008.  Alex must have had a crystal ball.

Oh how I would love to see that program available again (Hint to Alex if you are reading this ).

So here’s the bum kicking, Tim’s a Wombat Moment!

I had all this coaching. I had everything given to me on a silver platter, that would make me succeed. I had setup the website, drove a bit of traffic to it and for some unkown reason went off to do “other things”.

By the way, and I can’t show you any of this which is a real bummer…( another hint Alex!!!) is the stuff Alex teaches you is mind blowing. It’s not some system. Systems on their own are just things… Alex teaches you how to run a business. Everything he teaches from getting yourself writing up a plan, a diary and actually doing… is Golden. And in my case it must have fallen on deaf ears or I thought I knew better. Alex’s stuff is Challenging. It does force you out of your comfort zone… And after all this time it’s now screaming loudly in my head on what I should be doing.

Now I had been doing some of it… but a little bit of something isn’t the whole thing.  And without the whole thing, you only achieve a very little bit and you can take a long time doing it. If that makes sense I congratulate you! Seriously, if I could throw you across to Alex and get you into what he had available back then I would without any hesitation.

Now Alex had rung me back in March of 2011, as I applied to be in his personal mentoring group. Now I should have sold everything that wasn’t screwed down to pay to be in that. And although it was out of my reach at the time… The thing is, it shouldn’t have been. I should have been in the position to say “Sure I’m in, just made the payment and we are good to go!”

But I wasn’t. I should have ( oh no the ole famous “I should have…” are pouring out now )… But instead I had learned some expensive lessons with some other individuals whose names I wont mention. I’m hoping one of them is enjoying his time with his new room mate “Bubba “…

So I Missed out on joining in with Alex’s group! On the bright side ( this is the Pollyanna moment now ) I’ve got access to the course from back in 2008.

So I’m rescheduling my time and my access to others and I’m going to be pouring over those videos and implementing what they teach. I’ve absolutely no problems with any of the techie stuff… which after all the time I’ve spent learning it and using that knowledge to help others out, I should be an absolute marvel by now.

The Moral to this Story

So I guess the moral to this you need a mentor. You need a Coach… And you need to fond one you can trust and cringe when you have to do those “hard things” like plan out stuff, knowing it’s going to help, It’s going to work!

You need to have that person looking over your shoulder to steer you when you are heading off track…

Most importantly, you have to make a commitment and I guess the reason I’m writing this is to make public my new commitment to making my Business U-Turn, and growing my business, instead of helping everyone else grow theirs…

I’m actually very good at helping others and a real mongrel when it comes to helping myself… Which is why I love teaching as it’s when I’m helping others that all the knowledge and experience comes gushing out. Plus I’m not good at working on my own… Put me in a team and watch out… I’m a different person! Oh, a nice one I mean. None of that Mr Jeckle and Mr Hyde nonsense!

But I do truly believe in that little quote of  “When the Student is ready the Mentor will appear!”  So be ready! I’m definitely getting ready.

I’d love to hear your comments on this.

This has been more of a personal rant for want of a better term. So if anything has hit home about this, please let me know.

Do yourself a favour and Visit Alex’s site – http://marketingwithyou.com and Join his list. He’s very forthcoming in giving great advice. Plus you’ll get to meet him in his many videos he does.

He’s one of the nicest fellows you’ll meet but he doesn’t take kindly to Wombats ( which is an Aussie term for a silly person in an affectionate way, although Wombats are very loveable creatures).

I’ll be in your coaching program next time around Alex!

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Anyway, in my hunt for what’s good in AutoResponders and getting rather disappointed in my findings, I’ve revisited GetResponse and have been delighted in their offerings.

As I stated in my review of ListWire, one of the things I look for in an AR is the ability to pass a users information back to my Confirmation and ThankYou pages as it makes for a much nicer experience and if you have a few programming skills, a few other little tricks.

I’ve just discovered that they let you choose between using $_GET and $_POST which for us mad programmers is grand!

They’ve also totally revamped their user interface… It’s looking very nice but more importantly – useable. Although I did find a few little gremlins where they’ve not updated things across the site. Nothing major, more niggly things if anything.

And now you can get upto 1000 Subscribers for their base rate of $18 USD per month. Which doesn’t make them the cheapest, but I think if you start penny pinching too much you’ll get yourself into strife.

Now one little beef  is that their live support is only available during business hours. That’s ok but I’m on the other side of the Pond and that can make for a fun time when I’m scratching my head looking for answers. But when they are available, their support is exceptional. So that’s always a big bonus when it comes to customer satisfaction.

Their lowest package is $9.95 USD Per month for up to 250 subscribers. So that makes it an affordable entry price for someone starting out.

Now that I’ve been through the wringer , checking out these other AR Services, it all comes back to the big two. GetResponse and Aweber.

I’ve not been through every single one of course but I’ve tried, Listwire ( only if you really really have too) , Trafficwave.net(apart from the lack of being unable to pass any subscribers information back to your pages, it’s a very good option.) , EmailAces ( It’s interface needs to be like its Free Cousin, Listwire, otherwise it wasn’t impressive ) and the rest can wait another time.

The reason I went out looking, again, at the options is because I’ve got a ton of unloved sites that have various AR’s hanging off  them and it’s time to consolidate and clean things up and put a system in place. And strangely enough, I’ve got a serious writing bug again! ( which happens in spasms )!

So this probably hasn’t given you any real insight into AR’s and why I recommend GetResponse as a good quality 3rd party AR Service, but it’s given me something to write about.

I’ve had to vent a little tonight after spending too much time on doing this.. but it’s been worth it. I’m now much more wiser! Definitely older anyway!

Remember, the whole idea of using an Autoresponder Service is to build lists and give the subscribers good value information and also promote relevant tools as an affiliate. It’s what makes the world go around. So don’t be stingy.

The two most important things, after being honest and having integrity, is your AutoResponder Service and your Web Hosting.

I’ll be back to looking at Webhosting again soon, which is another thing I have to consolidate.

Have a grand one and happy ARing ( if that’s the right term… or it should be!)

[Update:]

I’ve set up a new campaign using GetResponse.  I’ve now set it up such that when my new subscriber clicks on the “Sign Up” button, they are sent to my own custom Thankyou and Confirmation Pages.  And I am able to pass their name and email address back to my site so I can Personalise those pages. Which to me, is a great plus.

The only little gremlin, which I have reported to the GR Crew, is you can set the Data Pass Through to be ON and to use the POST Method, which is located in the Webform Setup. It’s in the advanced section, which is a little hidden…

So the Thankyou Page, which is the page the new subscriber is sent to immediately after joining works a treat. BUT at the moment ,the confirmation page recognises it has to pass the subscribers information back via the setting, but it totally ignores the selected method and falls back to using GET.

Another little “trip up” is, is you are processing the webform id on your site, the POST Thankyou Page, it is called webform_id. In the GET for the Confirmation page it’s called webforms_id. A little ‘s’ has snuck in there. So that’s something to watch for. It’s a simple thing to do and it would appear no one has used this so it’s not been noticed before.

The main fields of name and email address are the same for both. As you would hope they would be.

So now I’ve got the system setup the way I like it, with FULL personalisation which makes for a much more pleasant experience for the New Subscriber.

The site I’ve done this on isn’t so brilliant, it’s one where I quickly knocked up the graphics using InkScape and threw it inside a little PHP CodeIgniter framework so I can expand on the system to give more interaction with the E-Course.

I always like the personal touch! Which not all Autoresponders allow you to do!

You can check out my new creation at… http://www.affordablelistbuilding.com

The Web Form Builder:

GetResponses Web Form Builder. It’s a Drag and Drop, click on it and change certain regions. It’s got a few other toys as well, but it’s very flexible and you don’t have to know anything about HTML or CSS. It’s very user friendly. So that’s a big plus over the others that I have seen to date.

So that’s about it. I’ve now got my system in place. I’ve found an AutoResponder Service that gives me all those nice things that I am after and off we go.

Talk soon

Tim

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