Forays into Internet Marketing

by admin on February 6, 2010

So you want to start an Internet Marketing Home business? So do I.

One big problem is, until recently,  I never even tried to start an Internet Marketing Home Business by myself.  For some reason,  I thought the people that do know how to start an Internet Marketing Home Business would be happy to help me;  as long as I didn’t take up too much of their time.

Was I ill prepared for what followed!

An awful lot of people said sure,  just buy  ‘this or that’ or my friend’s  ‘this or that’.  A lot of these people had a very large numbers of ‘groupies’.  I am really not sure how else to describe their followers because when I bought ‘this and that’,  and then followed the directions to ‘this and that’,  nothing seemed to happen.  My income certainly never went up enough to even pay for  ‘this and that’.  Maybe I just did it wrong.  You know, did ‘that and this’  by accident.  I certainly have done things like  that before. So, in my never-ending quest,  I bought someone else’s  ‘this and that’ and tried it.  I even bought some pretty expensive ‘this and that’s’.  It just didn’t seem like there could be this many people selling ineffective  ‘this and that’s’ out there.  Maybe it was me.  I figured  it wouldn’t hurt to get a second set of eyes on some of these  ‘this and that’s’.  So that is what I did.

This second set of eyes is pretty smart.

Psychology is one of their strengths, though a practicing physiologist they are not.  Obviously I don’t have permission to divulge their identity,  and I don’t blame them.  But it was an eye opener for me.  With some of the  ‘this and that’s’  I didn’t understand some of the references,  I was, after all a complete newbie.  Some of them,  I just plain didn’t understand at all and never even tried to implement them because of that.  They had been written for people a little more advanced in this field than I was.  Then there was some of the  ‘this and that’s’  that looked as if the failure to succeed had been designed into them!  Sometimes in just the right place when someone attempting to implement that system would be most likely to become discouraged there would be a missing step. I guess that is to be expected,  I just wasn’t thinking that people outside the car business where I spent 25+ years were as competitive as those in it. Naive is what it is called I think.  Personally,  I could never do things like that,  even when I was in the car business where it is expected and sometimes, even demanded.  Live and learn.

Around this time, someone asked me if I would handle their web site

and manage their pay-per-click  (PPC) campaigns.  I had no idea how one would manage a PPC campaign, but I was determined to find out.  Where should I go?  Who should I ask?  The answer was obvious,  the number one PPC  ‘guru’  in the world just might be a good start.  The surprise was,  he was not only ethical and accommodating,  he also understood that some of his followers would be starting from ground zero.  In short,  I lucked out when I started following Perry Marshall. (Google his name. You’ll have fun;  take an afternoon.).

He led me to a few other PPC geniuses

and soon I was able to figure PPC out and get a pretty good handle on it.  But managing PPC campaigns isn’t really rocket science,  (unless you start listening to Glenn Livingston who takes the art to a whole new level).  And because of a car accident,  I was unable to spend  as much time typing on a keyboard as managing enough PPC campaigns to make a living would call for.  I understood there was no magic pill in spite of what some would have you believe.  Usually the same ones that have pretty pictures of  fast cars and faster boats on their sites.  Also many of the same systems that were seemingly designed to fail; strangely enough.  But I did need something a little less ‘keyboard intensive’.  I like writing, even though my style may lack a certain Sauvé Faire.  So while blogging is attractive,  I will never be one of those that can post on 15 blogs a day or write 10+ articles for article directories and other writing intensive pursuits.

Another thing that I really like is to help other people.

With little or no regard as to what I will get out of it.  I have no ideological need to be sure I get nothing out of it.  Certainly if I am to be of any help in the Internet marketing home business field,  I would have to try anything I recommended and if anyone paid any attention to me,  I suppose eventually I would get something out of it.  It just isn’t my number one motivation.

One thing I never wanted to do was get into the Internet Marketing Home Business Business.

There are way too many people in this business already.  And most of them are very ethical and caring in spite of my experience.  The only trouble is not all of them have someone else’s concerns at heart. Many who have just lost their job are spending their last few dollars on ‘this or that’  in order to figure out how to feed their families.  The choice between the good,  the bad and the ugly is not always obvious.

Besides, there are far too many ways to make a living on line

for me to ever implement them all. I’m lucky to implement a few. Helping local small businesses is my passion anyway.  So what is this category on my blog even doing here?  Maybe if I share enough of my own travels in this strange new land I will able to point a few struggling people to places I know to be ethical and helpful.  But my most important reason is,  I can more easily keep up with the changing landscape of the Internet.  That knowledge will mostly benefit my local clients and who knows,  maybe I will even make a dollar or two, though that is not my main concern with it.

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Students That Blog

by admin on February 6, 2010

First, it is a well-known fact that 87% of all statistics are made up on the spot. (Lol).

Second, two sources will usually give you two different results for the same statistics. (Unless one got their statistics from the other source). Try to keep these two things in mind as I continue.

There are some statistics, that though they may vary, can be enlightening

due to the fact that though they are different, the statistics they give are extreme enough that no matter which one is closer to reality, the information is still useful. A great example follows.

Depending on where you get the information and how old it is,

it is widely reported that there is anywhere between 173 million and 200+ million blogs on the Internet. The interesting part is every place I have found that information also reports that less than one third of them are ‘active’! (Except some places that leave that part out, as it doesn’t help them make whatever point they are attempting to make).

The definition of ‘active’ is usually described as a blog that has been posted to within the previous six months.

Personally I think if a month has gone by without a post, it shows the blog owner has pretty much lost interest in that blog. But that is just me.

What does this information mean?

Everyone can make their own decisions, but to me, it means two thirds of people getting into blogging either give up or move on to other things. My guess is most give up. A successful blog does not happen overnight. Sometimes it may take months or years to have a loyal following develop and that is if what you are blogging about is even interesting to enough people to develop that following. You may never develop a large following. (Although we will discuss in future posts some ways that can help you achieve that).

For a minute lets make some assumptions we have no basis to make.

How many of those one third of blogs considered active are merely waiting until six months have passed and they are considered ‘inactive’? I am betting a lot. So while there may be a lot of blogs on the Internet, I suspect few continue to be effective in whatever area they were originally designed to be effective in.

Basically what I am trying to get across is,

the competition in the blogging arena is not any where as high as one might think. Another point I am trying to make is, many people do not have the where-with-all to make a plan and stick to it.

My other point is, if I was going to hire someone for a position

and had the choice of two applicants. One of the applicants had the credentials to do a GREAT job, but lacked tenacity. The other applicant had acceptable credentials, but has shown an exceptional tenacity. I would be more inclined to hire the second applicant. But again, that is just me.

Here’s the main point.

Blogging over a long term does several things. It helps improve your writing style. (Which you can see I need badly). It shows tenacity. Perhaps most important, it can position YOU as an expert in your field.

How can this help you?

Let’s make some assumptions again. Let’s say you are in college as a sophomore or Junior. Lets say when you graduate; you want to work in a field of your choosing for a company instead of for yourself. During your school year, it is usually required to write papers. (Many of them are really long… unless things have changed that much in 35 years). A 3,000-word essay can be easily broken down into 5 or 6 blog posts. What if you were to start a blog and keep up with it, even when it seems you are just writing to yourself most days?

You get to control everything you post to that blog.

If you have a passion and an interest in a topic, you can create a blog around that passion. As you add posts about that subject, you create the perception that you are well informed about that field. Chances are if you are posting on a regular basis, some research on the subject becomes necessary. Eventually you are not just perceived to be an expert in that field, you are one.

How can blogging help you?

It can show tenacity. It can prove that not only are you the best choice for a position you want because you do not give up, but it can make you the person that has the best credentials for the job you are seeking. For a person looking to hire, their job just got a lot easier. They can hire not just the person with the most tenacity, but the one with the best credentials, as well. (Or they can hire that person with the picture on-line of them shooting beers).

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Prestige Blogging

February 5, 2010

Blogging For Fun & Profit (Not to Mention Prestige)
Does blogging now have higher prestige than magazine writing?
It used to be that newspaper and magazine writers were insisting that blogging wasn’t journalism. Now we have unpaid bloggers saying that magazine writing isn’t really blogging!
The above was taken (out of context) from Andrew Gelman (Feel free to [...]

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More on the JVE

December 8, 2009

So, I am an ABB JVE believer.
(At least my bank account is.)  Everyone I have met that is in this program is top notch in the caring department.  Myself,  I joined and did nothing to promote it until I was sure it was an up and up deal.  But’s just me.
I decided to add the [...]

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A New Era In Internet Marketing…

December 7, 2009

Times, they are a changing…
This post was never in my original plan for this section of this site.  ‘Forays into Internet Marketing’ was originally to be followed by a series of posts about different methods of Internet Marketing.  That will still happen,  But this world changing business model passed my desk and I felt compelled [...]

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