A few months back it was Joint Ventures. Lately it seems membership sites are the “in thing. What’s next? Or the better question is, will you jump on the wagon along with every one else?

There is nothing terrible about following the crowd, it’s actually much easier. It’s less thinking and stress on your brain. You don’t have to be as creative either.

Joint ventures can dramatically increase your business and membership sites and can build a healthy income.  As that famous sneaker company says, “Just Do It”.

But what if, just what if, you did your own thing? What if you did something new or different?

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Many people seem to believe there is some magical formula when it comes to getting search engine traffic. No one can say exactly what it takes to get top ranks and keep them, unless they work on the inside. If some one tells you they can guarantee top rankings, they are full of you know what.

Even if you don’t know the secrets there are basics, that are just that basic search engine optimization, that can go a long ways to get your some traffic.

Keywords: It amazes me how often I see people guessing at keywords. I’ve seen people talk about ranking high for a particular keyword or phrase even though its a keyword no one searches for. Although it seems like common sense, you need to use keywords surfers actually type into the search engines.

Title: The first word or words in your title should be your keyword(s). Follow this up with other related words. A good website to find related words is Clusty.

Top of the Page: It is recommended to use your keywords at the top of your page surrounded by <h1> tags. The only problem with this html tag is that it makes the text quite large and might not fit well into the design f your site. An easy fix is to use a CSS stylesheet to make the text appear how every you’d like.

Though-out your page: Next you need to sprinkle your keyword though-out the rest of your page, usually at around 2%-8% in relation to the rest of your text. Too much and your pages will look like spam, to little and you would’nt be backing up your keyword or keyword phrase. The best tactic is to just write as you normally would, the search engines love natural web-pages.

Other will also say to use <h2> and <h3> tags around your keywords on your pages. Although the jury is out as you’ll see different opinions, to me it could’nt hurt. I personally would’nt use them more than once or twice on a page.

As I said these are basics, but will get your off to a good start. This is also what is called “On Page”  optimization. Next time I will go over “Off Page” basics.

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I am a avid reader, though I never seem to find enough time to read as much as I’d like. Even with a growing stack of yet-to-be-read books, I still find myself walking around Barnes and Noble, looking for yet another gem to add to my collection.

The reason for this post was my amazement at the checkout counter on a recent visit to my favorite bookstore. Of course the service was perfect, very helpful, friendly and happy to take my money, but it’s what the clerk did’nt do that surprised me. She did’nt put a bookmark in any of my newly purchased books. It got me to thinking, a major bookseller, second probably only to amazon, and they did’nt understand a perfect, little and inexpensive piece of marketing.

What better to remind me where I purchased my books? Every time I stop reading, I place a bookmark to keep track of my page. I’ll probably see that little piece of paper at least a few dozen times before I finish the book. Guess what? I start a new book and I’ll need a bookmark again. Not only a constant reminder, but a reusable one. How much better does it get? Well, my point, they don’t get it.

I have yet to figure out how to include a bookmark with an e-book, after all it is not a physical product. But how often can you remind your reader about yourself or your products and services in your next e-book or free report?

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Okay it’s crossed my mind also, I’ve fell victim far more that I’d like to admit.

So many people complain it’s getting harder to make money on the Internet. They say there’s too much competition. Boo Hoo, poor you.

Tell me something. Has traffic to the Internet decreased for some odd reason I don’t know of? Of course it has’nt, every day more and more people are getting on the net. So what is the problem?

You could say there are more and more marketers on-line trying to get a peice of the big pie. What would that be? Just an excuse. Sorry to rain on your parade, but it’s true.

We are all full of excuses, I have plenty of my own, but excuses are just thoughts in our head that keep us from taking action. False thoughts to boot.

I’ll let you in on a big secret. If you take massive focused action you’ll leave most all the competition in the dust.

Check out comments on many marketing or money making blogs. Most folks talk about buying all these e-books and they are not making money. You don’t see them say every e-book they have bought does’nt make money do you? What they really are saying is, “I just keep buying stuff but take no action”.

Like I said I’ve been there many times. Taking action, I  believe is one of the toughest obstacles for any one to get over. But if you get over the action hurdle, there’s plenty of gold on the other side. You know there is plenty of traffic and buyers to go around, you just have to take action to get your share. How big your share is depends on, as I said before, how much massive focused action you take.

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The other day I posted a rant about support. A couple people wrote asking if the post was about a certain product. While it was my experience with a particular product, I wanted to make sure readers understood why I made the post.

While I was not happy with the support for the product I purchased, my article was meant to stress the importance of properly supporting your product. More a first hand perspective from a customers point of view, something I believe many marketers don’t seem to think about often enough. In reality the post was not to made to put the spot light on any one business or person. It was more a wake up call, least I’d had hoped it would be.

We’ve all purchased something at some time and some of those purchases did not go as well as we’d have liked. We all know what it’s like to be unhappy after the sale, so why don’t we think about that possibility, when we put a product on-line to sell?

Something else that does’nt seem to cross all marketers mind is that a bad situation can often be turned around if handled correctly. A unhappy customer can often be turned into a prized free word-of-mouth marketer for your product or service.

Here’s a great example. Recently I purchased an e-book and after paying through paypal, I could not get back to the merchant to download my e-book. I was’nt upset, I merely e-mailed the marketer and explained what happened. Not only did I get a reply very quickly with a link to the product download, this marketer also gave me a free e-book for my trouble. It was no trouble to me, but just the fact he went out of his way to make sure I was taken care of, says volumes. As I write this I feel his support was so superior, I should mention his name, he goes by Sean Mize.

Who do you think I’ll buy from next time? Who do you think I will trust next time?

Moral of the story, this post and the previous one, step out of your marketing shoes and think like a customer from time to time. What a difference it can make.

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If the shoe fits that is.

Recently I purchased a Internet marketing type book. I am always looking to learn and add new income streams. You do know how wise that is right? Multiple Streams of Income. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

The e-book was written about marketing on a certain social network. Although the idea’s where pretty good and some what sound, these same tactics could only work with certain tools. Tools that I found out no longer even worked.

I realize things happen, somethings are beyond our control. When we rely on others tools that is.

Needless to say I contacted the sellers to voice my concerns, my money bought a plan that did’nt seem to work.

The only course of contact was an e-mail address, that was the only solution. My e-mail seemed to go unanswered, or it never made it to it’s destination.  The entire thing ended up a mess on a forum, I should have known better. I did get my problem solved in a round about away.

So my question to you, if you sell your own products, what type of support do you provide? You do realize e-mail is not 100% perfect right? You do realize that by only having a e-mail contact for support that some of your little concerns could turn into major public problems right?

I was taken care of, problem solved. I learned from the “episode”. I am still wondering if another person learned. The jury is still out.

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If you read my blog, you might have read my post on the big media sensation know as “The Secret”.

I am always devouring any self-improvement or self development media I can find, a trait I started a few years back. It’s made a huge difference in my life and my income.

Long story short, A week or so ago, I spotted a hardback copy of the “The Secret” at the local grocery store. It was in my cart without hesitation.

Reading it this morning,  the latest chapter really hit home and made sense.

In this chapter they talked about how to start your day. If you really stop and think about it, does’nt your morning often control your day? If you awake crabby and negative how does the rest of your day usually go? I know from experience, it does’nt go very well. The book went so far as to say that every morning you should be grateful for everything you have in your life.

What do we as humans normally focus on? All the things we don’t have, all the negative. So what will we attract in our lives?

What do you think would happen if you constantly focused on what is good in your life? Every morning?

Years back I learned a similar tactic, I believe it was from Anthony Robbins. His idea was that as soon as you awoke in the morning, you stretched your body as far as possible and with passion you say it’s going to be a great day. Most would laugh or say thats weird, least in front of others, but I’ve used it and strange as it sounds it works ever well.

But, it’s like a muscle, you always have to work it, or it will get flabby and out of shape.

So it’s up to you. Do you want to control your day or let your day control you?

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No one can dispute, search engines base much of a sites ranking on the given sites linkbacks. If you don’t know what a linkbank is, it is simply a link or hyperlink on another site that is linked or hyperlinked to your site. Clear as mud?

Another website on the Internet puts a link on one of their webpages that  links to one of your webpages.

One thing to remember, every linkback is not the same. It’s really quite simple, the more popular the site, the better quality that linkback will be. It counts for more if you will. The better quality linkbacks you achieve, the more ranking power your pages will have. On the same hand, the higher quality your linkbacks are, the less you may need to rank better in the search engines.

Just a few things to keep in mind when your looking for links.

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Many people are surprised how important a 404 page can be, some have no idea what it is or what it does. I’ve been there.

What is it? When some one visits your website from a link somewhere else and that web-page is no longer there, the surfer will get a 404 page. By default it is just a standard browser page that says “Document not found”. How blah is that? Even worse, it does’nt give the best impression of your website. But stuff happens, some times it can’t be helped.

There are a few ways you can turn the missing page problem around for you.

The easiest way is to forward them to your main or index page, most won’t even notice. It’s not exactly the page they were looking for, but it sure beats the ugly default 404 text showing up.  Another option is to create a custom 404 page. If you can make a web-page, you can make your own 404 page, that’s all you are doing is making a web-page and saving it as 404.html

Along the same lines, many people will create a 404 page to sell products or services. The only problem with this is that if the offer does not match what the surfer was coming to your page for, will you sell them? If they came to your web-page to buy a dog and your custom 404 page is selling cats, will you sell them?

One more thing to learn, what an htaccess file is. This little file can control many things on your webpage including 404 pages. This file is saved or named as .htaccess, this is a period before the file and no extension, also make sure to save it as a text file.

This is how the file will look, you are welcome to copy and paste:

RewriteEngine On

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yoursite.com/404.html

Of course you will need to change http://www.yoursite.com to of course your sites url. You can also create your page as 404.hm if you prefer to use that extension for your pages, just make sure to change the .htacess file to reflect the different file name. As I mentioned, if you would rather forward all 404 errors to your index page, simply change the http://www.yoursite.com/404.html  to http://www.yoursite.com. Basically the line ErrorDocument 404 tells your website what to do with a 404 error.

Easy Peasy.

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If you read the James D. Brausch blog you may know he’s running some interesting contests.

Just a week or so ago he was giving away a cruise, to join him and talk shop. Not a bad deal it seemed. The only requirement was to submit an entry why you should be choosen and James would pick a winner from all the entries.

I did’nt bother submitting an entry because of a couple of reasons. For one, some family matters have me busy and for how long I am not sure. The other, and I really, really, really hate to say this, was that I did’nt need any one to pay my way anyways. The reason I am not crazy about making the statement was because thats pretty much what the winner had said. But what can I do, it’s true.

Although I did regret not putting in my two cents for the cruise give-away because it seemed James got very few entries. As he put it, it seemed to prove his theory that only 2% take action. I’ve built a pretty solid online business over the years, although I am trying to move on to something that is a better investment of my time, I know I am in the 2% range. I do have to agree with his logic, I have people all around me in my life that want more, that never do anything but wish, hope and dream. Thats all good and well, but action is what makes things happen.

If you did’nt hear, Eric Graham, also know as the Conversion Doctor won the cruise prize and deserved it.

The main reason for this post is the fact that James has another call to action. This time he’s giving away a DVD recorder and VCR combination, you can read about it on his latest call to action post. This time, I’m not going to be seen as part of the 98%, hence the post here. I don’t need a new electronic gadget, already have plenty around the house, including a dvd recorder and a new VCR. Plus my whois needs to be updated so it would’nt reach me anyway.

Problem solved.

My prizes, which I will purchase myself, will be a copies of Glyphius and MuVar. I want to create more income with less work, not record more tv. It’s a good prize James, but as I’ve said before, “Not for Me”.

One last word on the subject of prizes. If any one deserves a prize, it’s my wife. Since I’ve been away from home, she’s done a completely amazing job of taking care of life back home. Between the household “stuff” and our active children, she’s come through as steady as a rock, well very close. Not to mention the support she’s provided me. But like me, she does’nt need another electronic gadget, we’ve got far too many as it is, and it seems we watch too much tv anyways. I do know we have a few dates to make up for and she’s going to get some fine dining.

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