It makes me so mad when I see honest, decent folk spending hundreds of dollars on 'Get Rich Quick' schemes on the Internet.

Wave the prospect of lots of money in our face and even the most resilient can get blinded by those sales letters that go on, and on and on ... you know the ones: huge red titles over 4 or 5 lines and then lots of long copy, scanned cheques, testimonials, audio testimonials, no risk guarantees, a zillion dollars worth of bonuses etc etc etc

Despite all this money, money, money, somewhere at the bottom of the page will be the earnings disclaimer that says you're not guaranteed to make this money - and I've even seen some that promise untold wealth and then, as soon as you buy they tell you 'you can't make money overnight...'

Not many people can get rich quick without the help of a magic cow and a handful of beans - except those on the inside of these schemes.

Yes, these 'deals' will earn people money, because it's little people like me that pay hard earned money in the desperate hope of making more back...but in reality - most times at least - its only the guys at the top who are truly 'raking it in'

Remember the phrase: "If it seems too good to be true, it usually is"

For some free advice on how to make money online either take a look at my main site or check out this page full of free downloads and resources.

(Here's the link)

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August 3, 2006 22:25 - Free Guide to Being a Work at Home Parent

Working from home is often seen as a dream by many people, but perhaps even more so by parents.

By being at home you have the freedom to work when and however you can, while still caring for your children and doing all the household things you would have to do after coming home from work.

I work at home, and while it might not suit everyone, it is certainly the best answer for me.

This is a free ebook with handy information, advice and resources all about being a work at home mom, or dad!

I've included the contents page here so you can see what you will be reading about ;-)

Free eBook for WAHMs and dads:

Part 1: The Pathway to Internet Success

Step 1: Review the Offline Work Options for Moms 1.1 Working Outside the Home 1.2 Working at Home

Step 2: Going Online 2.1 Potential Online Income-Generators 2.2 Time to Reflect

Step 3: Build a Web business Via a Theme-based Content Site 3.1 Building an Information-Rich Website 3.2 Enjoying Total Flexibility, and Making Good Use of Precious Time 3.3 Earning the Income You Need 3.4 Getting Beyond 'Mom'

Step 4: The 'How To' Answer. The C T P M Process 4.1 Introducing the C T P M System 4.2 Content: The Crucial Element 4.3 Traffic: The lifeblood of Your Site 4.4 PREsell: Make Your Visitors Happy 4.5 Monetization: Earn Money From Your Site 4.6 Conclusion

Part 2: WAHM Case Studies Case Study # 1 Rena Klingenberg Case Study # 2 Claire Kolarova Case Study # 3 Kari Anderson

Part 3: The Background Story How this Guide Came to be Written

Part 4: “Is SBI! For Me?” Helpful Resources

Click here or the URL below (Here's the link)

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August 4, 2006 12:52 - "...enabling creativity 5 cents at a time"

Google Adsense and other contextual advertising companies are the probably THE best thing to happen to internet entrepreneurs - ever.

You can earn money from your website even when you're out shopping, walking the dog or taking a shower...as long as you get a healthy amount of traffic to your site, you will get people clicking on the Adsense links and earning you small commissions each time.

Now, many people sneer and say 'yes but only 5 cents for a click!' ... those 5 cents will soon add up. And, some advert links are worth a lot more than 5 cents (so, for example, sites to do with finance, insurance or online learning will rake in much more than 5 cents per click). The more competition there is the higher the payout you get.

This type of targetd advertising has helped many website owners make a passive income from their websites, no matter how obscure or how small.

Start a site, or a blog, about something you know, something you care about, research your keywords and slowly you will start getting targeted traffic and clicks on those monetized links - but do NOT focus on the money, focus on the content - the money takes care of itself if you get the content right ;-)

A recent article in the Washington Post talked about many sites being developed from relatively obscure concepts but which make the creators plenty of money:

"The biggest moneymakers tend to be people who started sites to document their passions" Yuki Noguchi, Washington Post, Friday, July 28, 2006

This 'passion' is something I keep going on about because I use Site Build It! - and myself and hundreds of other people are making money and enjoying our freedom, just from sites created from our passions, hobbies and interests.

Anyhow, I will stop here because I have a tendancy to rave about SBI :D

(Here's the link)

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August 5, 2006 14:14 - Top Affiliate Tips

WOW!!  Just listened to a podcast featuring an interview with super affiliate, Jeremy Palmer, and for the first time ever I took notes...
(Free resources list at bottom of page)

1.  How Much Does Your Affiliate Programme HELP YOU?

When choosing who to promote, look at the marketing materials that you are given, how much easier do they make your life when trying to promote them?  Someone who offers lots of juicy materials obviously cares, and wants you to succeed with their programme.

Things to Look Out For:

• Product Catalogues
• Deep Links
• RSS Feeds (for fresh, updated content direct on your site)

2.  Keep it Real - "build for people" and "be in it for the long term"

You must treat your affiliate marketing as a real business that you intend to stick by and grow. 

Also, design your sites to be excellent content for human visitors, not just highly search engine optimised!  (However, lucky people  like yours truly, can do both because the 'Analyze It' software from Site Build It! helps you maximise the pages for spider visitors too...so you are getting the best of both worlds)

3.  Google Adsense v Affiliate Links

Interestingly, Jeremy found that he would make more money  with well written, keyword optimised affiliate pages than those written with Adsense in mind.  Furthermore, when he put both on the same page, they seemed to cancel each other out and visitors clicked on neither format!

He attributes this to the content being 'diluted' and the visitor has too much choice , as a result, they do nothing.

Therefore, build your pages with your Most Wanted Response (MWR) in mind and guide your visitors down the desired path - don't risk losing them entirely by giving them too many options (and that includes navigation!)

Yeah this means more work, writing great content and not just 'made for Adsense' but it seems the rewards are greater!

4.  Pre-Selling

This really pricked my ears up! 

We are taught about this all the time with Site Build It! and to hear someone talk about it 'on the outside' was most re-assuring!!

Jeremy tested his affiliate links in terms of whether they sent visitors to 'his' landing page or straight to the Merchant's page and got some revealing results...

His conversion rate was 3 times greater when he sent them to his OWN landing page!

Surprised?

Don't be, this is what the art of 'pre-selling' is all about - it's about creating trust through a third party voice, adding value and credibility to the products.  Sending visitors straight to the merchant's page is too much hard sell.

5.  Helpful Resources:

Free Online Tools:
Search It! - Keyword Research, Reference Library for Content etc.
Check your Alexa traffic statistics - See how you, and your competitors, rank for traffic

eBook Downloads:
Netwriting Masters Course - Writing to pre-sell FREE
Make Your Content Pre-Sell
Affiliate Masters Course FREE

Websites:
Affiliate Marketing - How to...

(Here's the link)

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August 7, 2006 23:18 - How to Sell Your Brain on eBay

How to Sell Your Brain on eBay

What? Have you not seen any brains for sale on eBay?

Well yeah, they are usually hidden, in categories like 'eBooks' or 'information products' and, sadly, are not genuine brains!

100% genuine brain is hard to find!

I'm sure you know what I'm talking about - you see the 'same old, same old' ebooks and 'how to' books regurgitated over and over, re-titled and re-sold - boring! (and quite often rubbish too!)

Now, if YOU get sick of seeing all those identical listings then so must other people. People are searching for genuine, quality brains!

Which is where you come in.

There is a saying 'there's a book within everyone' - well it doesn't have to be a book, it can be a course, or a cheat sheet or a eBooklet...just as long as it's from YOUR brain.

Everyone knows something that other people will find useful - all you have to do is figure out what that is, then start 'telling', just as you would tell a friend.

How to sell YOUR knowledge

(Here's the link)

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August 8, 2006 23:35 - Site Build It! on Trial

The Webmaster Business

Some weeks ago I spoke to a local shop owner whose website left a lot to be desired - they had it hosted with 1&1 but it had been built quickly and unprofessionally. They were wasting their money on the monthly fees, and their Alexa rankings were non-existant.

I said I would look at their site and re-jig a few things according to what I learned from Site Build It! but they didn't seem interested...

...but today I got asked if I would re-build their site!!!

Well of course! The idea is to put all the Site Build It! theory into place and use all the tools to really see if we can turn this website around in a few months.

I'm so excited! This will enable me to say 'see, this is what I did for this client' rather than just 'my site works' - since I'm gonna say that anyway right lol

I am re-building their site for free - I'm doing it as a trial for me and for the Site Build It! process:

Content - Traffic - PREsell - Monetize

But then I thought, help!!! This could get tricky, I have enough on my plate with my own sites and one I'm doing for our local school, I don't want to be a slave to this site just because the 'business owner' wants to see fast results... so i need some sort of agreement in place as to what I will and won't be doing 'for free'...and luckily I knew where to find the right eBook to guide me!!

Site Sell have an eBook aimed at starting up a webmaster 'business' which goes into everything you should consider, legal aspects, useful links etc.

Your time is precious, grab this free book NOW so you can be prepared for the unexpected too!

(Here's the link)

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August 17, 2006 16:32 - The Psychology of '3'

Why does the brain like '3' ?

Elements, Fonts and Colours - how they work

'Three' seems to be our brains' favourite number whether you are talking about visual design, written copy or oral communication.

Three 'just works'...and the design of a website, or say a business card, can be hindered by having too much on it, thereby distracting the viewer.

"The brain finds it relatively easy to grasp threes -- elements, colours and fonts. Push that marginally up to four and the brain gets confused about where to look and what to do, and sends the eye scampering like a frisky puppy on a sunny day."

Harness the Psychological Power of '3' to Improve Communication Written by: Sean D'Souza

Neat little tricks to deal with cluttered design

Clutter is unfashionable these days, but sometimes you have to have a certain amount of crucial information on a web page or a business card (email, website, telephone .... that's 3, but what about company name, your name, your address etc etc etc - see those 'etcs' they're in three! LOL)

Lucikly, there are a few neat tricksthat you can use to fit everything in.

Take a look at the article I quoted above - it demonstrates visuallly how you can 'bunch elements together' so that you have all the information you need but still have the all important impact of '3'.

(Here's the link)

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August 21, 2006 11:20 -

How do you earn $200 with an average of only 150 visitors a day, with low paying keywords and in only 3 months?

This is how I did it...

To some, the figure of $200 is probably laughable - considering the big money you seem to read about all the time online!

But when you look at the 'smallness' of my site and daily traffic, I am thrilled!!

Step 1...

My card making content site went live at the end of March this year - I waited patiently until I had gotten listed in the DMOZ directory (and had at least 30 pages of my own 'unique' content) before I monetized the site with Google Adsense (this is as per the advice from the Site Build It! 10-Day Action Guide).

Step 2

... Then I put on some Adsense ads and learned how to maximize the money I get from them using these:

• Michael Cheney's Adsense Videos(although I haven't yet used the 'biggie' that he gives you the code for)



• Installed an extension for Firefox that lets me see my real-time Adsense earnings right here on my browser



• Site Build It!s "Integrating Adsense" Tutorials

With that information I could see my earnings steadily increase over time, going from just $1 a day, to perhaps $4 a day (and once a whopping $9 LOL) - and that is with LOW paying keywords that are not worth more than 30 cents a lot of the time!

Big deal? Well yes perhaps to some people - but, don't forget, this is just the START! Imagine how these earnings are going to increase as I create more pages...which brings me more (free) traffic from the search engines...which means more people, a growing percentage of which will click on my Adsense links...and if I research more 'valuable' keywords ...and I keep creating more content, which brings more traffic etc etc etc...

I made my first $200 with Google Adsense without any major strategy or analysis or tweaking … just simply put the ads up, blended in to my site, and left it to see what happened.

Next Step...

Now it's time to get serious with Adsense!!

RESOURCES:

1. How to start a money generating website: click here to get the FREE set of Site Build It! Action Guide Videos and printable manual.



2. Site Build It!s "Integrating Adsense" Tutorials



3. Maximise revenue with tips and tricks in Michael Cheney's Adsense Videos






5. When you have Firefox, install the excellent "Adsense Notifier" and watch the money coming in!

GOOD LUCK!!


(Here's the link)

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August 23, 2006 11:46 -

Working from home is often seen as 'not a real job', and often as an easy ride or 'just a hobby', with smart comments coming from those who have 'real' jobs ...

For example, a guy called in to a radio show that was being streamed through my doctor's waiting room, and my ears pricked up when he said that he worked from home but was taking a break...the presenter repeated what the caller had said in a sarcastic tone: "what, you work at home...and you're taking a BREAK?" - implying that if you work from home it's always a break!

Yes, working at home means you have the freedom and flexibility to choose when and how you work, and yes you can work in your pyjamas if you really want to...but most home-based workers 'work' just as hard at home as they would in a ...'real' ... job, and often with longer hours!

The picture is often painted of someone doing a couple of hours work and then shooting off to play golf all day - and this is the image used to lure people IN to the whole work at home thing, "earn a squillion dollars with just 3 hours work a week". But in reality, just like in a typical job, you work hard, you are serious and you put in the hours.

I just read an article about whether you should pay tax on eBay earnings, i.e. is selling on eBay a business or a hobby, but the same points can be applied to non-eBay sellers to ascertain whether people are actually 'working' from home...

The issues to consider (by you and the tax office!) are:

• Do you carry on the activity in a business-like manner, keeping records and tracking profit and loss etc?
• Do you put considerable time and effort into your 'hobby'?
• If you depend on income from your eBay activities for your livelihood?

You can read the whole article about eBay here, but I thought the questions above related quite well to the whole 'working at home isn't really working' thing.

So, next time someone asks you whether it's really 'work or just a hobby', assuming you answered yes to all the above questions, you can proudly tell them you have to pay your taxes just like they do!

RELATED LINKS:
Be Prepared to Defend Yourself
Advice on all aspects of trading on eBay

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August 27, 2006 22:29 - Ethical SEO Techniques?

   Affiliate Classroom Magazine August 2006 

**  Free Online Magazine  **

Contents & Articles:

1. Top 5 Affiliate Programs for August, 2006

2. SEO: What Color Is Your Hat?

"Search engine algorithms evolve. As some SEO'ers engage in keyword stuffing, reciprocal link programs, and other techniques employed only to gain rank and thereby traffic, engines look for ways to keep their results relevant to end-users".

• Make It Relevant
• White Hat and Black Hat Defined
• Keywords
• Back Links
• Redirects
• Summary

3. Brad Callen: 5 Steps to SEO Success

"Creating and managing a successful Internet business requires you to develop an effective search engine marketing strategy. But there's a lot of bad advice being passed around on Internet forums from ‘self-appointed’ experts. It’s hard to know what will get you top 10 rankings and what will get you banned from the search engines".

• What Determines Success?
• 5 Steps For Successful SEO

4. Black Hat Marketing—How NOT-To

"When I first heard the term “Black Hat marketing” I had no idea what it meant. The only image I could conjure up was that of gun-slinging marketers trying to figure out how to kill the competition. Though the term has become familiar, the line is still sometimes hard to draw between white hat and black hat practices. Some areas are gray."

• Hidden or Tiny Text
• Keyword Stuffing
• Web Templates
• Machine-generated pages
• Doorway pages/Sneaky
• redirects
• Link Farms or Selling PageRank

Get the Magazine now - online and printable versions available.

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August 30, 2006 00:00 -

My first Google Adsense earnings from my little card making site appeared in my bank account today - but I was a bit disheartened to see the amount in Sterling was a lot less than I had expected.

Why so? Because of the exchange rate. Now, I do not pretend to know anything about exchange rates and stuff like that but it was suddenly blatantly obvious that non-US affiliates and Adsense marketers etc are at the mercy of fluctuations in exchange rates, which is a bummer.

Basically, we Brits now get less money for our internet marketing efforts - I am usually able to 'suss' out a UK Sterling price at roughly two thirds of the US dollars amount . Now, it is about half :( So, even though you earned the same amount in Adsense revenue last month, you actually get less once it is converted into UK Sterling.

There will be many complex economic reasons for this ... but I sure hope this isn't going to last!

However, on the upside ... now is the time to buy all those internet marketing courses, web packages and ebooks because they will be cheaper than a few months back!

For example, my "bells and whistles" website package with Site Build It! generally costs me a measly £170 a year, but if I renew it now it will only cost me about £110 !!!

Why didn't I think about this before? doh!

So now I'm suddenly watching "the markets" with RSS feeds on my personalised Google homepage to watch the fluctuations daily ... HEHE

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August 31, 2006 23:06 - Who Else Does This?

Who Else Can do This?

There are stacks of 'create a website' sites out there, and on the whole there is nothing wrong with the packages they have to offer.

Except, these 'build a site in 5 mins companies cannot offer you the one thing you need: business success - what good is a website without it actually being successful for you?

I stumbled across Site Build It! and it might sound cheesy but I mean this: it changed the way I 'do business'!

I would say they are the most ethical internet marketing firm out there and not only do they offer a complete, affordable all-in-one package that includes ...

• website building
• website hosting
• website marketing
• site and traffic analysis etc etc and more etc!!!

...but they can also proudly boast this -->

PROOF of business success with their "C-T-P-M" step-by-step system. This page you are reading, is part of that proof :)

Click the image
for more on the
proven C-T-P-M process
that builds a business and
not JUST a website.

(Here's the link)

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