Tim's Wee Part of the World » Thought of the day

Creating your Own Website isn’t difficult.

Tim Brownlaw — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:18:16 +0000

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There is a new course that has been released that is called “Make WordPress Easy”.

This be being touted as the best WordPress “How To” ever released and this is not just coming from it’s Creator “Ori Bengal”.

I’ll add in Ori’s own website where he raves on about lots of stuff…

9 Year Old Haylee has taken this course and she built herself one very impressive website where she now blogs on. You can take a look at her site at http://www.littlehandbigheart.com. Way to go Haylee!

Business Owners are using it to create or fix up someone elses efforts that they’ve already paid big dollars for.

Mums are using it to create websites for their friends. You’ll see in the video where one mum who had no experience with building a website, created one over the weekend. That’s one weekend which included taking the course and actually doing it!

Internet Marketers are using it to build their own websites.

If you have any reason to get yourself an Online Presence with a website, then you should seriously consider this.

Is it going to put Web Designers out of business?

Well the answer is NO! Why? Because there are folk who would rather just pay to get their sites done. They don’t have the time or the inclination to put in the time and effort to learn and do this. And that’s fine!

What it is going to do is create more Web Designers. By using this course to teach yourself how to create rather stunning websites will make it easy for you to get Web Design Work. Because you’ll know how to do it!

Everyday you meet someone that says…”We really need a website”… or… “Our Website sucks so bad and we’ve already spent so much on it, what can we do?”

I’m even considering showing this to some of my website clients so they can do this for themselves. Yes I’ll be loosing money but I’m a busy lad and if I can help someone out by doing this who wants to get themself a website and Learn how to set it up and more importantly – update it – change it around to their liking… then I’m all for it.

It’s better than telling them to go somewhere else and potentially suffer the old… It costs lots and it takes forever and it’s not what we wanted…

I might even be able to throw some work at those that have taken the course for other sites if I get swamped! I’ll know they have the knowledge to do the job! The big plus for me is that I don’t have to train them!

Is it for everyone?

Well if you do need to create a website, you have two choices.

You can outsource it and that can lead to a can of worms if you don’t already know someone thats

capable,
will do the job you want and
not take forever doing it.

OR… you can spend ( at the time of writing ) two installments of $47 USD for a total of $94USD and do it yourself and have your own website the way you want it to look!

Of Course Domain Name Registration and Web Hosting is extra… About $10 USD per year for a Domain Name and Hosting at around $8 a Month. Hostgator have a deal for $4.95 per month if it’s paid upfront for 12 months

Plus you’ll be able to make your own changes, how you want and when you want.

Plus you have the opportunity to create even more websites for yourself, friends or even paying clients.

The really nice thing is I’ll be picking up a few tips and tricks that I don’t know about. You never stop learning when it comes to website design and Ori has been doing this a lot longer than I have. So getting access to his experience is going to put a feather in my cap!

Be Prepared for the Video!

The sales page for this product is one interesting Video… It s rather long, but you’ll get to see and hear the many folk from all walks of life who have used this and have had success!

It’s a very good example on how to make an interesting and factual Video presentation.

You can see it at Make WordPress Easy.

Ori on Youtube doing Standup

One of Ori’s Talents is his comedy. Here he is doing a Standup Gig somewhere…..
Is he funny? Well you be the judge

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What is the Purpose of Your Website?

Tim Brownlaw — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 01:07:47 +0000

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 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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Why do Folk Say – Google Loves WordPress????

Tim Brownlaw — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 00:37:37 +0000

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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Keywordstowebsites Landing Page

Tim Brownlaw — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 01:17:38 +0000

Alex Jeffreys Online Marketing Coach

Tim Brownlaw — Sun, 11 Dec 2011 11:49:53 +0000

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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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ListWire Reviewed

Tim Brownlaw — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 06:52:07 +0000

So what makes this good?

Well the Free part isn’t the reason as good as it might sound.

These Services cost money to run, and so to run them as a Free Service they have to get paid somehow. You did expect that, didn’t you. I’ll go into that in a moment. (see my important update at the end as I finally found out more of the HOW and it aint too pretty…)

What I like about this are the features that you get, and they aint too shabby.

It’s very easy to create a campaign which in some AR’s is a barrier if you are just starting out.

There are a few things I “must have” in an AR and one of those is the ability to pass back the subscribers information to my thankyou page so I can personalise it.

You can do that with ListWire so it gets a big tick for that! Surprisingly, trafficwave.net doesn’t have this feature. It seems they are way behind the 8 ball on this.

You are allowed 12 Campaigns. If you think that’s not many, remember this is Free and a great way to get started out if you are on a low budget. 12 Campaigns are more than enough!

Unlimited Subscribers. Yep, apparently you can go crazy and build big lists with this.

Tracking. This is Vital to know how many emails have been opened, how many bounced and how many left your list. And it’s in a nice simple format that gives you all the Stats at a glance.

Broadcast Message Date and Time: A Broadcast isn’t like the messages you have saved in your Autoresponder Messages or Sequence that get sent out in a pre defined period from when your list member signed up. These are messages you can send out when you think of something important and urgent to say. So you can create these, and it might be like a little mini series for something that coming up, and schedule them when you want them to be sent. This is something you don’t normally find in any Free AR, but it’s included and it’s another feature that you will find invaluable!

Broadcast to Twitter and Facebook: Another handy feature to get your Broadcast “Out There”! So you can broadcast to your List(s) and also your Twitter and Facebook Accounts!

The overall Layout: Ok, well the first time you use this there is going to be a little learning curve. It’s unlikely you’ll think “Oh I need an Autoresponder…” and have it all up and running in 5 minutes. But having said that, once you get familiar with it, it’s a treat to use. I remember using other AR Services and getting completely lost and bamboozled. This is much easier.

Can You Add Subscribers: Yes you can, but the limit is 10 per 24 hour period. Which isn’t too bad. It’s unlikely that you’d be importing leads from another Autoresponder Service. Isn’t it?

Can you Export Your Subscriber List(s)? Again, yes. So if you do need to move your lists to another service, you can. (Please check the Services Terms and Conditions on Adding Subscribers from an existing list you have built).

What’s the downside?

Update – See the important update below, it’s describes a huge downside…

It has what is called a CO-REG (Co Registration) system. For instance, when someone subscribes to your list via the web form, they are taken to a standard Listwire Page which displays others folks Lists that your new subscriber can also join. It’s not compulsory that they do. But this really upsets some people…

Let me see now, Co Registration, hmm who else does that… Ah GetResponse does and that’s a paid service! But with GetResponse you can setup your own Confirmation and Thankyou pages and totally avoid the CO-REG page.

I see CO-Registration as a two way street… Yes, your newly subscribed member gets the opportunity to join other lists… But the same goes for you where your lists are displayed to others and maybe they might just join your list(s) from it!

You do still get the opportunity to have your new subscriber come back to your website where you can give them their information and show them other things…

I used a similar system some time ago, where you could register your site with your signup form to your list and to have it show to others, the “catch” or requirement, was you had to join 5 other lists of interest. That actually worked well and grew my list by great leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, at the time ( and we are speaking of many many years ago when I knew nothing…) I never knew what to write to them… Which I imagine is something that you might be facing.

There is a solution for that, but that’s for another post.

Where can you find out more?

Well the website itself is a good place to start, just go to the ListWire site and take a look.

Conclusion

It’s a feature packed Autoresponder Service and it’s Free! Which makes a lot of folk suspicious. Gary Ambrose is no dummy when it comes to marketing and the CO-REG system is a platform where he can sell advertising etc…So he’s not loosing money on this.

Think for a minute from Gary’s perspective… You build a Free Service that is actually useful… So lots of folk join…And Gary has built himself a list of all his ListWire Users… So expect some marketing emails from ListWire… and if you don’t like them, delete them! Simple. But there is more bad news…. read on…

If it’s a problem, simply don’t use this system.

Rating: 9.5 /10.

Rating: 4/10. (See the Important Update below to see why the Rating was decreased and I’m still being overly kind)

I’m actually really impressed with ListWire and I’ll be recommending it to everyone that’s looking for their first Autoresponder Service. It’ll leave them with a good feeling, because it is free, easy to use, which won’t leave them with a nasty taste in their mouth and they’ll get to build their list. Maybe they’ll get to build up all 12. Let’s hope so, you can never have enough lists!

Important Update – How this system really works!

This might have you looking elsewhere, I am now!

After a lot more testing, I’ve thought it imperative to let you know the actual “FLOW” of how ListWire appears to your Subscriber.

This might be a reason to Not Use this service.

After your visitor enters in their details and clicks on the Forms Submit button, they are taken to a page served from Listwire that informs the user that they’ll get an email with a link they have to click on… At the bottom of that Page is a Link that says … After You’ve Confirmed, Click Here To Continue.

So your potential New Subscriber has to leave that page open, to get back to your Thank You Page After they have clicked on the Confirmation Email Link. I’m sure folk will close that page and what then?

So saying they leave it open, find the verification Email that requires them to click on the link and click on it… They are then taken to the Co Registration Page. So there are a few listings that they can click on to Join! And to do so they need to click on another button – “Send me the Details”. OR they can click on the “No Thanks” Button.

This is where it can be sucky.

No matter which button they click on, they’ll AWLAYS get sent to someone elses website…

In the current case, It’s good Ole Mike Filsaime… Now what if I don’t want my subscribers having to stare at Mike’s ugly mug ( and I mean that in a nice way…) and have to decide if they should join that or not. It doesn’t help me in anyway and it certainly may not help my new subscriber… Who does it help? Well Mr Filsaime of course and also Gary Ambrose.

There is a link on the top of the page that says “No Thanks” but I’m guessing some folk might feel that they need to join this “Not Your” websites list thinking it might be related to you! After all, you did all the hard work to get them to this point and to have Mike butt in is a little rude.

So having clicked on the “No Thanks” link on the “someone else’s website” they get sent to Your Confirmation page… At Last ( that is if you have set one up!)

Then they have to go – “Oh now I can click on the link on that first page I saw….”. Hmm not very user friendly…

It’s then that they go to your Thankyou page.

There is a hole!

What if the your new subscriber decides to just click on the link on the first page they see. The Listwire Confirmation page. Well they go straight to your Thankyou page, bypassing the Confirmation page. But they’ll get to see that AFTER they find the email and click on the link…

So this system does have some major issues. And now that you’ve read this ( hopefully ) you’ll be able to make a better decision.

But it’s how you get this system for Free!!!!

Which now makes this a little – well – not very useable in many cases!

Yes, you are building your list and you are also sending your valuable, trusting subscriber, to someone else’s website. A Website that you have no control over.

The only workaround is…. Go for a paid Service. You get what you pay for! Which is probably why Gary has created this, to funnel folk into his EmailAces Paid Service!

I’m going to take a look at it… Stay tuned.

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One way to learn things – Part 1

Tim Brownlaw — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 14:41:00 +0000

Teach it to someone else!

And you might think, “Umm yeah, but I don’t know what to teach yet!!!”

Well you know the subject so how about writing it down. You can open up your MS Word or Open Office or text editor and start writing a “How To” guide!

Now don’t be silly and start of with something like “How to earn a Million Dollars in 5 Days”. Well maybe you could.

It wouldn’t be very detailed to begin with and would probably be something like “Get 1 million people to buy for a buck each and bingo!” or “Get 100,000 people to buy for 10 bucks each and bingo!” or Get 10,000 people to buy for 100 bucks each and bingo!”. Simple huh!

Ok back to reality!

So pick a subject and create a document.

The next step is to define what it is you want to learn.

Now from this, you’ll start to discover more detail. Start off using the search engines to look up terms you’ve come up with and start drilling deeper. So by the end of the exercise you should have a good outline of the things you need to implement or learn more about.

If you get stuck, simply ask.

Where can you ask?

Well you can ask at my new membership site – LookingOverMyShoulder.com where you’ll get either a full answer or directions where to find out more . It all depends upon the question. So give that a try, it’s Free to Join.

The idea here is to discover what you need to know and then find out more about the things you don’t, while keeping a written record of it all.

And what will you end up with?

In effect you’ll have your very own – guide or procedure you can refer back to again and again to do the task or whatever it was you were wanting to learn.

Once you refine it and test it out, you’ll have yourself a product you might be able to sell to those wanting to know the same thing.

You will definitely be able to teach others, and by doing that you will refine it even more.

It’s the process I go through when writing my guides for my students, but they are mainly of the techie kind but written in a nice easy to follow manner.

These also become guides/scripts for creating videos you can use as an accompaniment to the written version.

I’ve got to get my schedules sorted out and get more done myself.

So hope that gives you some food for thought!

Cheers

Tim

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I Used to Hate Marketing

Tim Brownlaw — Sun, 30 Jan 2011 07:51:59 +0000

Recommended Products

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I really did, the simple thought of it made me cringe.

I’ve been formerly trained as an electronics engineer and went down that path because of my love to design and build things. Which includes software and hardware and I still enjoy it but now I am contracting, if I take a day off, I don’t get paid.

Plus I’m a bit of a night Owl, late to bed and late to rise. Probably because it’s more quiet here once everyone goes to bed and I can concentrate better. It also gives me more contact time with my partners in crime in the US. I’m in Australia, in case you didn’t know.

Now it’s really since the advent of the Internet that my stance on marketing has changed. What I like about the Internet is it’s social aspects. I love yakking and I can vent my “creative” side via blogs etc. Actually I was talking to a mate of mine who said he loves to write. So of course, that sparked me up and off I went dazzling him with how he could set up a blog and get writing… But I do have a tendancy to go overboard when I start talking about my favorite subject, that being the Internet.

In fact I love to write about a range of things and while I keep this blog as my central playground, I do have other blogs about other topics where when the mood takes me and the content suits, I can rush over and get what’s in my head onto a blog and annoy people silly enough to read it.

So where does marketing come into this? Well I have the veiwpoint, that if you love writing, the internet gives you the platform to become a writer and as a side effect, depending on the subject material, you can monetize your website and earn a few dollars. While that’s not actual marketing, it is in it’s most basic form. Creating content that people can find, learn from or just get enjoyment or at the other end of the spectrum, think you are complete nutter… but if you can have say, affiliate products, programs related to your site or just adsense even, you may make a few dollars.

You’ve probably gone hunting (surfing) for information on something and then come across a website… It’s strange where you can actually end up… and you may have clicked an adsense ad, or looked at some book promoted on the site and ended up buying it. It’s something I do… If it’s answering a question I have and it’s going to offer me a solution, I’ll spend a few dollars to buy it. We live in a consumer market after all!

So when you do any of those tasks, you’ll be giving the website owner, from whence you purchased or clicked, a “bit of coin” in their pocket. You’re happy, hopefully, and the website owner is too.

So really thats marketing as a side affect.

Then there is the deliberate, lets build a website to make money from… Hmm, yeah for some strange reason, unless it’s something I’m passionate about, doesn’t get my all that excited. My “button” if you can call it that, is learning all the “stuff” you can do on the Internet and showing others how to do it. Which often comes about from someone saying in conversation… “I want to do “this” or “that” but I have no idea how to… And if I know it, they’ll get to hear about it. If I don’t, I’ll go and find out, if I have the time.

I know I keep drifting from the topic, but when it comes to marketing, I’ve probably digested as much information as you can. So it’s up there in my head. The problem is to marry that with what I love doing, that being Teaching. I’m also probably a bit “mind zapped” by what I’ve seen on offer before. Some has been really good , in fact exceptional as I’ve written about on here… But some has been crap.

So I’m not doing anything really new, but my main aim is not to teach marketing, it’s to help people get over their issues that stops them from doing their marketing…

Anyway, with all the programming stuff, which I’m naturally attracted to and combine that with marketing, I’ve got a few ideas to play with.

I’ve also really turned off from just chucking out – money sites. Ok, so I’ve got a mental issue about those things. I’ve bought so much rubbish over the years and ended up super dissappointed (strange why I’m even still doing this) I don’t want to be the perpetrator of being that “someone” who is going to give someone else those kinds of experiences. And I have to admit, I’ve fallen for the shiny things and then gone out telling the world about them only to find out later they weren’t so shiny once you looked really deeply. I never said I was a saint!

Which is why I really used to Cringe at the thought of marketing. But what is it really? My version of it is to provide people with quality services/products and by using marketing as way to get those people in need of an answer to see my offers and make the exchange. I get paid, and they get what they were looking for.

But for a very long time, I never “asked for the money”. Which I’ve since been told is due to some kind of “non deserving” attitude. Which is crazy. I mean when I’m working for someone, I’m happy to get paid for my time. It’s what we were brought up to do. Sheltered behind the walls away from customers. You don’t think of your boss as a customer. Which is strange when you think about it.

They (the company) had a need. You came along and said “hey I’m your Man ( or woman)”. They took you on. You do your job and get paid. Simple!

Then why is it so hard when I’m dealing direct or indirectly with a customer online. I am getting my head around the concept. I kind of blame the education system that teaches you to be a slave than an entrepreneur. Gee I even spelled that correctly the first go!

So I can talk you ear off ( cause I’ll re-explain anything you’re not getting a handle on – I’ve never had very long classes to make sure someone in the room understood what we were talking about – have I? Well everyone else in the room sure ends up understanding. Poor folk, but they hang around for hours on end lapping it up) and make you do the tasks needed so you “got” whatever it is we were talking about.

Since I’ve been following a few actually successful people who have their heads on straight and seem to know exactly where I’m coming from and how I should be getting to where I want to go, things have definitely opened up. My whole view on marketing has changed. Besides the marketing itself, what’s sparked me up is all the measuring you should be doing. The name for that is “metrics”. So simply, if you send out a bunch of emails promoting something actually useful, it’s kind of helpful to know how many people read them and how many ended up either subscribing your list and who ended up buying or not buying.

It’s a kind of science! So with my fascination with the techy stuff, I’ll probably get sidetracked coming up with more scripts etc. But you’ve got to realize alot of this stuff is already out there. It’s just knowing where it is and them working out how to use it. And this is why it’s very important to have a network. In my network, I’ve got some very good “sniffers” for want of a better word. They are very good at finding things I have no clue about. Things I wouldn’t find in a blue moon. So please, network with folk interested in what you want to do.

And find mentors, people who have already done what you want to do, and learn from them. This doesn’t apply to only marketing, it applies to any interest or occupation. Many minds make light work of learning what you need to know and helping put it into action. I’ve written on here about the “mentors” I’m now following after tailing behind some that were good to some real shockers, even one that I’m hoping is going to have a room mate called Bubba in a small room with a door he don’t have the key for.

Ok, well I think I’ve bored you enough in this rather disjointed rambling. What was it about again? Oh how I used to hate Marketing… Well it’s something that gives you a whole lot of options… I’m rather keen on being one of the folk that gets paid when I’m not actually working. Work hard once, get paid for sometime down the track.

It’s so very possible to do, and when you see how some are doing it and who those folk are, gives you even more hope! Never think you’ll never make it! You will.

Whoops I went on a little bit further…I had better get to doing some work now I’ve got this off my chest!

Cheers

Tim

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The Things You Find Online

Tim Brownlaw — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 10:20:17 +0000

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Here’s another project I’m working on after one of those moments where I “put down the keyboard” and let the brain have a rest, then it always wonders off to somewhere.

So after a little brainstorming or daydreaming, I came up with this phrase “The Things You Find Online” , more like an exclamation than something someones going to type into a search engine, but it’s a theme and I like Themed sites.

So this is another site where I can post about anything interesting I find online that isn’t Internet Marketing related. There are other folk out there!

In fact , I’ve put up a post trying to put people off IM, as it might look all bright and shiny, but if you aint in the right frame of mind or you get hooked up into the “Buy This, This is the answer you’ve been looking for….” cycle of product buying, you’ll be making someone rich and it won’t be them ( the person buying the stuff). I know, I’ve done it myself and even the seasoned business folk can fall victim to the cycle of buy buy buy….

I’d hate to think how many others I’ve made rich by buying into their promises. Hmmm, might be the way we have to go to get to that point to realize it. Nah, I don’t think so! If I can stop anyone from getting off on the wrong foot, I will.

Anyway I wasn’t intending to get on my soapbox about the IM traps for the newcomers and how hard it is to get off the Merry Go Round.

Back to the subject, yes so, http://www.TheThingsYouFindOnline.com has risen from a whim and a little planning and we’ll see where that goes.

I’m actually looking for contributors, so if you are interested there “is/will be” some information regarding that on the site. It never hurts to ask!

The WordPress Theme

One benefit of creating a new website , is that I do it all from scratch. Call me mad but each time I do, I find new things and each time it gets better. Although that is from a personal perspective. How it serves it’s purpose is another matter, but I do like all the shiny bits behind the scenes.

So as I was looking for a template, like I was doing it for the very first time ( kind of sounds like a Madonna Song , strange…) I stumbled upon this one..and I’ll plug it as it’s useful, well I think so anyway It’s called Graphene theme by Syahir Hakim. Its available within your WordPress admin area when you are adding a new template. Got to love WP and being able to do everything you’d ever need to in the Admin.

I’m kind of liking the rotator on the home page that cycles through the posts… Which is a little useless until you write some posts for the site. It’s more of rotating Post preview which I have no idea on how that will affect the sites SEO performance but it does give the visitor something a little different and it’s not overly annoying… Is it?

I’ve not made any changes to the theme as such. I have added a number of plugins though, some new ones to the “usual suspects” I install. I suppose you’ll want to know what they are… Dear me.. remember I’m still playing with these so these are not what I can really recommend. I’m just seeing what they can do. ( I’ve still got some silly ones on this site.)

Ok, we have in no particular order, ok well it is alphabetical, the following plugins.

WordPress Plugins I used on the site

About Me 3000 – It’s a widget that basically pulls up your profile. Useful for showing off the many contributors the site will have. Yes that is a HINT!

Comment Rating – Let’s your visitors rate the comments on your site. I had seen something like this used on http://saltydroid.info/(warning there is a lot of language used that might offend some – it even borders on my acceptance level but I found it a good read as it related to something I was researching…)

Cool Author Box – This shows the authors BIO including Gravatar , if you have one, on each post/page. It needs a little tweak in its styling ( I think ) but I’ve left it as it is.

Hikari Enhanced Comments Gives a little style to the comments. It’s by no means the only option out there for this.

SEO Ultimate – This is a Must Have. In my experiments this has made a huge difference in Search Engine Rankings as it lets you add the required SEO stuff each page should have. Works on single posts and pages and makes the Search Engines give more meaningful information, hence the improvements in rankings. Again there are other plugins available that do the same kind of thing. It’s what you like I guess.

And that about wraps up the plugins at this point in time.

Phew, I wasn’t planning to ramble on about WordPress plugins, but there you go!

In Summary

Ok so I’ve got a new website – “Big Woopty Doo” you might say.

The main thing when you are creating websites, with the plural meaning more than one is it’s a good idea to write out a procedure as you go. Just to make sure you do not forget the little things. So if it’s a task that you’ll be doing more than once, even if you do do it once, its a great idea to write out the steps.

Yes, that makes it a procedure. A procedure to implement, to complete a project. Procedures and Projects – the two things that go hand in hand and is the mainstay of any good business or endeavor.

Sounds like more soapbox stuff.

Then you’ve got to remember where you put them, but that’s a topic for another post.

I’ll let you give your eyes a rest now.

Till next time, be good, have fun and get something done!

Cheers

Tim

Handy WordPress Tip

By default the WordPress Editor is only 10 lines in height. If you like to ramble on like I do it’s a good idea to make it bigger, ie more lines to see.

You do that in the WordPress Admin area – go to Settings -> Writing and at the top is a box where you can set the number of lines. By default it is 10 and I like to make it 40, cause I write lots, but you can set it to whatever you like.

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WordPress SEO Plugin mistake!

Tim Brownlaw — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 06:48:56 +0000

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This has been a rather enlightening and also a little embarrassing event.
Enlightening because, if you use your WordPress SEO Plugins properly they do actually work. And I’ll show the results to prove it.

Embarrassing, because I didn’t do the right thing.

I was looking for my listing on Google.

In my last post, I wrote about Curtis Andrews excellent video course (I’m not biased ) on his Affiliate Income Blueprint.

I’ve also got more in to the habit of seeing how things are going. So I jumped into Google and typed in the words for that post. That being “Affiliate Income Blueprint“, without the quotes.

I discovered that it did get listed on Google, the very next day. BUT I had to go looking through a number of pages. And there it was, on about page 6.

Then my jaw dropped.

I was going to take a screen shot of the entry and I’m a little annoyed I didn’t. I was waiting to get onto Curtis’s Webinar and it came on as I was doing this…

(Curtis and IIA are about a whole lot more than just showing you the “Hows” . Curtis clearly demonstrated he’s all about the “Whats” and “Whys”, without which the “Hows” wont get you anywhere. Something to keep in mind! )

So I’ll have to describe what I saw on Google. I’m still in shock over what I saw.

The Title of the listing had nothing whatsoever to do with the keywords. It was Something completely unrelated about another post. Obviously I had filled in the SEO details on that Post.

The Description was a summary of the last 3 post titles, all in a row…Which included the words, “Affiliate Income Blueprint” but with the other stuff it made no real sense… I’m actually surprised it even got a mention on Google at all.

And the Link…..

Well it was the link to the post of this wrong title, as you’d expect. The wording in the Title and link didn’t even get a mention in the description. It’s an interesting side affect.

The AHA Moment.

Or the “Gee I’m a goose” moment.

Ok, it was blatantly obvious that the title etc were a lil screwed. So how do you fix that! It didn’t take too long to figure out – “hmm might help if I put the relevant information in the bit that the “All In One SEO Pack” plugin allows for.

So I did and saved it.

That was yesterday.

So today…

Well I sat down and got to work and wrote some stuff and thought – “hmm I wonder how those changes went.”

How about Top Listing on the 1st page of Google. Not bad huh!

Google Results for Affiliate Income Blueprint

Click the image above to see a larger version you can read.

The above image has not been doctored or manipulated in any way ( except for being scaled) . It’s what Google was displaying for me.

These are the results for Jan 1st 2010.
Google Results
Search Term: Affiliate Income Blueprint – returned results= 254,000 – Position 1
Search Term: “Affiliate Income Blueprint” – returned results= 23,100 – Position 1

Reasons: Relevancy? Probably. I don’t write wondering how the search engines are going to respond, I just write. I do check to see what they think though. You don’t need to perform any “tricks” to get ranked. You just need to write. Well there are a few rules to follow but they are really about writing proper html, ie using a relevant Title and Description. It’s all it took to go from the dark depths up to a nice position.

At the moment it’s actually outranking the site where the course is available from!

The Moral of the Story

There are a couple of points.

1. Make sure you follow up on things and check to see what they are doing. By not knowing your results, you can’t make any changes to improve or fix things. And you won’t get that warm fuzzy feeling seeing that what you’ve done is working.

2. On Any website, it is important to have the relevant Title and Description, and possibly the keywords.

So after this little revelation, I had better go and check all my other posts.

Note: Of course the results I’m getting today could change later on. Also it appears that the keywords are not highly searched for. The point of the whole exercise is to demonstrate, if someone does type in the keywords, they’ll find it.

Take Care

Tim

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