Archive for the 'My Own Musings' Category
Sorry for the long absence. Took time out to find something I can do in internet marketing and do well. Took time out to find a guru that gave you ALL the information you needed. In other words I found some non-guru’s that hang in a tight circle and are making good money. They went through the same b.s. and have designed some excellent systems for themselves with ALL the components in it. Now they share it as a course. And more importantly they have real live help and forums filled with people who care and will answer your questions QUICKLY! None of that several days to several weeks crap to get back with ya.
well gotta go.
It will probably be a couple more weeks before I am back. I’ll tell ya about then.
P.S.
Hot DAMN I am making money (right now, nothing to right home about) my websites are starting to rank in google and they are getting good traffic (not stellar yet, but very, very good consistent growth traffic.
FINALLY!!!
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It’s got lots of choices for you and even eco flowers!!!.
Go take a look!
Posted by Mike Young · 20 CommentsGmail
When you go to an Internet marketing event, you don’t run around the room telling all your potential competitors your new business ideas and trade secrets. And if you find spyware on a computer filled with your business documents, you don’t leave it there to harvest your confidential information.
Why not?
Because you want to implement your plans before someone else does.
Yet the odds are good that you’re telling Google your business plans and other confidential information on a daily basis. And if you believe Google’s informal “Don’t be evil” motto, then perhaps your trust is well-placed.
But are you willing to take the risk?
Here’s an example…
I recently sent an e-mail to one of my Gmail accounts from my law firm as a test. The e-mail described a nonexistent “Project X” as being being important, potentially the “next Google,” and the need to get a patent right away to protect intellectual property rights.
Checking the message in the gmail inbox, I was hit with a bunch of sidebar ads by attorneys including patent lawyers.
Think about that for a moment.
If Google is willing to sniff through your e-mail to target advertising, what is it willing to do when it comes to your business ideas that you’re communicating back and forth daily by e-mail?
Note that I”m not picking on Google. The same could be said of Yahoo! and others. Google just happens to be a very good example because major Internet marketers prefer to use it because of ease and functionality. However, this convenience comes at a price…the privacy of your business plans.
If you develop a better widget, understand that your e-mail communications are not private. And when it comes to gmail, know that the content is being actively scanned for keywords…at least for advertising. Perhaps more. Who knows? Maybe your widget plans will become Google Widget 1.0. If so, good luck trying to collect royalties.
On a lighter note, check out this related humor video regarding Google and privacy.
internet legal forms
Gmail Privacy: Are You Giving Away Your Business Plans to Google?
Posted by Mike Young · 20 Comments
When you go to an Internet marketing event, you don’t run around the room telling all your potential competitors your new business ideas and trade secrets. And if you find spyware on a computer filled with your business documents, you don’t leave it there to harvest your confidential information.
Why not?
Because you want to implement your plans before someone else does.
Yet the odds are good that you’re telling Google your business plans and other confidential information on a daily basis. And if you believe Google’s informal “Don’t be evil” motto, then perhaps your trust is well-placed.
But are you willing to take the risk?
Here’s an example…
I recently sent an e-mail to one of my Gmail accounts from my law firm as a test. The e-mail described a nonexistent “Project X” as being being important, potentially the “next Google,” and the need to get a patent right away to protect intellectual property rights.
Checking the message in the gmail inbox, I was hit with a bunch of sidebar ads by attorneys including patent lawyers.
Think about that for a moment.
If Google is willing to sniff through your e-mail to target advertising, what is it willing to do when it comes to your business ideas that you’re communicating back and forth daily by e-mail?
Note that I”m not picking on Google. The same could be said of Yahoo! and others. Google just happens to be a very good example because major Internet marketers prefer to use it because of ease and functionality. However, this convenience comes at a price…the privacy of your business plans.
If you develop a better widget, understand that your e-mail communications are not private. And when it comes to gmail, know that the content is being actively scanned for keywords…at least for advertising. Perhaps more. Who knows? Maybe your widget plans will become Google Widget 1.0. If so, good luck trying to collect royalties.
On a lighter note, check out this related humor video regarding Google and privacy.
Well I am back!! Went on a super long vacation visiting family and trying to avoid the cold weather as much as possible. I just totally dropped the ball on everything and boy do I have a mess to clean up!
I am soooooooooo far behind it’s…not speakable.
Well I’d had better start posting. Found some got stuff, but will probably never get them all up.
Dorothy, you’re NOT in Kansas anymore…
The landscape, it’s different. The way to do business changed unnoticed. Dorothy, where did your traffic go? The Big Bad Witch Google and her minions have been acting really strange lately. A bit uppity. But the Old Witch is not interested in you and if it pleases, she’ll take the rest of your traffic.
Not to mention the other Wicked Witches, FTC and Attorney General, are busy casting ugly spells on marketers who have been busy tricking the good citizens of Oz. The Munchkins and Hobbits say it’s about time someone did something to those tricky marketers. Watch what you do, you might get hit with an massive ugly spell.
Where’s Kansas? You’re conversions have been sucking way too much wind lately and to boot, clicks cost more, profits are down and it’s getting worse. What’s going on?
The people who did search for your keywords are now searching for different words. Leave it to Harry Potter and his friends to start a new search trend. What kind of magic is this? The people are different. They think differently. No more leave it to Beaver. Beaver left and didn’t tell you.
Now instead of being Humpty Dumpty sitting high up on the wall raking in the profits, you’re down picking up the pieces of what use to be profitable campaigns. The market is changing. Things were better last year.
And while you are down there picking up the pieces, you notice how busy and crowded it has become. There are new goblins in the market. Goblins with money that, according to the economy, they aren’t suppose to have. Worse, they are driving prices up and screwing stuff up. Damn Goblins!
You look up the wall and notice that there is an even bigger gap between affiliate marketers. Very few at the top and a huge writhing mass at the bottom where you are now. What happened? It’s down right difficult to make money now. Not like the good ol’ days. The Magic is gone.
Making things even more difficult is the Big Bad Witch. Her minions of monkeys have been threatening you with low Quality Scores, demanding better sites, landing pages and overcharging for clicks. What’s an affiliate to do? Who’s gonna help you Dorothy?
The Fairy Tale Land of Big Profits is about to be over-run. Oz, it’s capital, is in turmoil. Chaos will reign supreme! Or will it? Will you allow yourself to lay down in the poppy field and slip into oblivion?
The Good Witch, just before she left Kansas, left a message: See The Wizard.
The Wizard, the Top CPA Marketer, is in and has plenty of tools, gadgets, strategies and tons of out-of-the box thinking caps to help you. He’s a wise Wizard, been at the CPA game a long, long time. But you must go to him. So follow the instructions below very carefully.
Click your mouse on the link below 1 time, close your eyes and say “I want to be a Top Marketer” 3 times.
Happy Halloween!!!
This video has an message that you should get. It’s the new craze that’s being marketed. Well just starting to be marketed to the masses. Has long been known to those in the know.
I am not promoting this guys’ product, I am not an affiliate, even though it sounds very promising. I want you to listen to his story and how his money is made. And the distinctions about affiliate marketing. The last minute or so is his pitch. You might have to replay it a couple of times to catch the message.
Once you catch it, think about how you can apply it.
Which came first – the chicken or the egg?
For those marketing on the internet it would be; which came first – the lead or the sale? The traffic or the conversion? Well that seems pretty obvious, huh! The answer is …? Confused? Think about it.
Why do so many of you work on the traffic when your site does not convert? The question is which should come first? Traffic or conversion? The conversion.
If the entire world clicked to your site and you did not get one single sale, did all that traffic make a difference? Did you make money? You spent a lot for sure, but produced none.
Go to your website and check it’s conversion rate. Are you happy with it? Could you be doing better? It is not always the ad that is the problem.
Is your site a:
mess? stuff all over it, unorganized, confusing, full of animation, lots of large bolded headlines that really say nothing, opt-in box way below the fold, a long and boring video, a long and boring sales copy, no reason or benefit for why the consumer should buy from you, no sense of urgency, way too many graphics – looks like Las Vegas, beautiful but lost, paid way too much for the site, too much about you or your product and nothing about the consumers problem being solved, just plain not organized, does not tell the customer what he/she should do next, are you to proud of/in love with your site to change things. And this is just a few out of many things that could be wrong.
Bottom line if your site does not catch the leads attention in 3 seconds or less you’ve lost out. If it does not explain to them how there problem is solved with you in the next 3 – 5 seconds you’ve lost out. If they have got to search for the buy button you’ve lost out.
If you are running analytic software (Google for one, it’s free) on your site you can see where they left, how long they were on each page and what keywords brought them to the page and if they came back.
You must get your site to convert first. Then blow it away with traffic.
It’s a beautiful fall afternoon and I am being lazy. Sitting looking for a website I forgot to bookmark. Hate it when that happens. The next thing I know I come across this video on the Recipe for Success. Hey, I am also hungry. Need to hire a cook, would save me some money from eating out. Anyway, I checked it out.
The recipe is awesome. Gonna go try it!
I have owned mac computers for 12+ years. Not once has one crashed and burned. Compared to my Windows pc, my macs are immortal. It had lived through everything – storms, power outages, operator headspace, kids, idiots who think they know everything about a mac, being used as a table top, handwarmer in winter, lots of traveling, dents and scratches and just plain old life.
Then on Tuesday it died after the thunder storms the previous day shut the power off 9+ times . It was unplugged, but apparently I missed a storm.
Ya know the mac had the nerve to die when I was very, very busy on it trying to accomplish several projects at once and was doing a darn good job of it. It totally ruined my laid out schedule, brought everything to a screeeching halt! HOW DARE IT! Couldn’t it have given my a sign first? Sent a message?
It knew I had not backed up anything, nothing, nada. And dear old mac tried to take everything with him. He must have felt abused and under appreciated. I had been working around the clock for 3 days straight and I guess he couldn’t take such schedules any more. Macs had always gotten me through. I am pissed.
For 3 days I was without a computer and I was in the middle of a big project and making headway. Everything thing I needed was on that computer. I thought I had a back up mac, but found out it could not be used. The processor was different and the disk space was 1/5 of what it needed to be. Oops!
Emergency expenses suck. $2000+ for a new 13″ macbook pro until the big 17″ gets repaired at a cost of $1240. The 13 will be my back-up computer and this time I will use not only time machine but an external drive as well.
I mean macs don’t crash, what do you need back up for? Well I guess they do crash. I thought it was a myth. If it turns out to be power surge problem I can get my insurance company to pay for parts replaced and I can get my Belkin power surge protector to pay up as well.
I tell you what I was very frantic for 3 days. The old macbook pro was starting to degrade and we couldn’t get the data off of it to transfer to the new mac. Now power, no hard drive, no response to any test. Then suddenly It came back to life one more time and gave up the data. Whew! I had no copy of any of the software or files I had on it.
To make things worse the nearest Apple store was 75 miles away! I was driving back and forth for 3 days trying to get my mac back. That totally ruined my schedule. Now trying to get use to this new mac and tiny screen is something else.
Lesson Learned: Make sure you have a compatable back up computer, not just your data backed up. My other mac was not compatable (different processor’s) nor big enough to handle data(60G and almost full vs 250G at over half full). Even if I had the data backed up somewhere I still could not get to it.
Warning! Apple Care has changed their policy for repairing damaged computers. Use to be you could turn in a damaged one and get a new one for free. So people took advantage of it and abused it. So now if you have any dents, dings or scratches on your computer you will have to pay $1240 before it is sent in for repair. Ouch! It doesn’t matter what the repair cost is that is what you will pay.
Oh yeah! Make sure you get a laptop cover for your laptop. Those dents are a killer on the warranty.
I know we all wish we could choose our experiences, especially those on the internet. I mean, how in the world do you learn or know what guru is the right one to follow right off the bat? Ocassionaly we get lucky. But what if…
You’re new to the internet. You did some research. Mind’s made up, it’s the new trend. It’s time to put your business online. Your excited, can’t wait – thousands of dollars will be rolling in in no time. Your gonna be rich! No recession for you!
You know that you got to have SEO- it’s very important, as well as keywords, adsense, a catchy domain name, lead generation, blogs and some kind of host and zines and banners and ads and affiliates and links and…and…
And 4 months later your site is a mess, not even half way done. You’re fried. Smoke drifts from your credit card. You’re in debt. Are these 6 and 7 figure per month income producing gurus for real? The light bulb turns on… you understand, their courses don’t work…for you that is.
You got suckered. Credit card hangs exhausted from your wallet. It’s still to hot to touch and so are you. You’re no techie. Had a heck of a time following instructions. If that’s what you want to call them. Forget getting help.
But one thing you did catch on too….everytime you needed something to improve your site (for some reason you needed everything) you had to fork over more money. Wasn’t it supposed to be included? How are you suppose to make money? Where are those thousands of dollars?
Does this nightmare sound familiar? Very familiar for me. That was my experience. Maybe it was yours as well.
Now after reading all of the guru’s hype I was expecting to have the life I had always dreamed of. That’s the life that was suppose to happen If I followed their instructions…
Oh yes, I can feel the breeze now…
It’s a gorgeous, beautiful sunny day outside. You step lightly, energetically to your computer. Easily slip into the expensive handcrafted chair. Your hands float over the keyboard and magically things come together. Just minutes later you are done. You smile, even chuckle a little as you think to yourself how easy this all is.
You feel creative, masterful, in charge. You ask and you receive. The universe bends to your every desire. Thousands flock to your award winning, profit generating websites to buy. Search engines bow down to you. And best of all, your bank accounts are bursting with money. You’ve got more money than you know what to do with. Even after helping hundreds of charities.
With grace and poise you rise from the chair. Your body poster speaking volumes – I am Powerful. You stand tall, relaxed and listen to the ocean waves calling you. Aahhh, yes, it’s time for the beach, my friends and family are waiting. Well, they didn’t have to wait long. These systems I put in place does all the work for me.
Content with your days’ work, you head for the door.
Your credit card, dejected and rejected stiffles a sob. It’s wonders when you’re going to use it. It remembers, not that long ago, the two of you use to be hot together. Smoking hot.
So what happened? A gadzillion products and thousands of dollars later you are still in the nightmare.
Believe it or not, there are a few products out there that really do work. You don’t need to be a tech geek, have a hugh ad budget, complicated SEO or be a MIT genius. Certainly not. Look at the guru’s, most of them can barely spell their name. And just about all of them had a helping hand along the way and they were all broker than shattered glass.
Who’s going to help you? Short of the Guru coming in from the beach – A good step by step detailed course that let’s you work at your own pace, at your own budget and with an excellent call center for questions is about as good as it gets these days.
If you are a small business that has a product then what you and most everyone else needs is a way to generate leads to your site and to get that site to convert the trafiic into paying customers. What you need then is a course detailing all the ways one can generate traffic for free and to what your budget can handle.
Here are a few ideas that are popular today to get your brain thinking: video’s, free offers, Stumble Upon, social media, Google Radio-TV-Print Ad, Press Releases, blogs-yours and others, free video’s that offer useful tips, direct mail, forums, charity functions, craigslist, articles, email ads and the list goes on.
Remember you don’t have to do all this yourself, you can outsource or task it to one of your employees. There is a way to generate traffic to fit any budget of time and or money.