Most online webinars suck!

How many times have you had this happen..you get an invite to a webinar, teachin you how to do something really cool, and bam. They sit there and talk about themselves and all their accomplishments for the first half of it. And then the last quarter of it is a sales pitch, so really there’s only about 25% of ACTUAL CONTENT.

Is that bullcrap or what? I had that happen to me just this morning. By a person I really respect, at least somewhat, no less. I was super excited for the days leading up to the webinar. And then I had to sit through a half hour or more of him just bragging about all the products he’s sold, etc.

Does anyone really care about that stuff? Not really. It’s cool if you wanna spend 5 minutes or so lettin everyone know who you are, but why just sit there and say “This is how awesome I am.”

I wish people, especially online business type folks, would start puttin out REAL CONTENT, not just the same crap you hear everywhere else. People are so lazy nowadays. People need things that add value to their lives, they don’t need to be sold to every 5 minutes.

Speaking of which, people generally don’t do webinars, unless the main purpose is to sell u somethin at the end. Which is also complete bullcrap. That’s fine to do every now and then, but every time?

Marketers are getting too pushy, and I’m getting really tired of it. So tired of it that I felt the need to vent a little. How do you feel about this?

Why aren’t people reading your blog?

why aren't people reading your blog?

There are lots of reasons why people fail at blogging!

Most bloggers never get substantial readers to their blogs, and their are lots of reasons for that. Most people just give up after a few months, which is fine, if that’s what you want. One of the main reasons people aren’t reading your blog is probably that you’re not getting it out there, in front of other people.

Many bloggers are too shy and afraid to promote their own blog and get it in front of lots of eyeballs. It helps to share it with your friends and family to start with. Of course you can’t just spam people, you have to be tactful about it.

Another reason people probably aren’t reading your blog is that you’re too negative. You may be one of those bloggers who blogs a lot about your personal life, which is really awesome. Those types of blogs are really fun to read! But try to aim for positivity in your posts.

Nobody wants to read “my life sucks because this happened, and it’s so hard because of this….and boo hoo”. In other words, don’t just sit there and constantly complain. People don’t want to be dragged down into negativity, they want to be uplifted :)

You can be real on your blog, without being TOO overly real. You want a balance. Some thoughts are better left inside your head! :) It’s always good to make your readers laugh and inspire them, whenever possible.

Another reason that you may have low numbers of readers is that you don’t blog enough. People like to know that when they visit your blog, even every day in a lot of cases, that there will be fresh new content for them to “consume”. LOL. Sounds funny, but it’s true.

It also helps of course to touch them emotionally in some way or another, in other words, bond and connect with your readers…they’re like your extended family. Your readers are ultimately what will make or break your blog, along of course, with your own determination.

Too many bloggers are too plain and lifeless! They don’t even bother to involve their readers at all..which is really sad :( I’d love to hear your thoughts on this. How many readers do you get to your blog? Do you feel like you could improve that? Are you afraid to become a popular blogger?

The key to building backlinks to your blog

building backlinks to your blog

What’s the key to building backlinks to your blog? If you’re a serious blogger, like I am, you’ve probably heard of SEO..which is basically getting your blog to rank high in the Google search results. This in turn will bring you lots of FREE traffic to your blog. More traffic basically means more money, too.

Why you should focus on building backlinks

Backlinks are like “votes” for your blog, in Google’s eyes. To put it simply, the more links from other sites that point to your blog, the higher your blog will rank in Google. And that means more exposure for you! Building backlinks is much more important for ranking in Google, than on-page optimization (putting keywords in your blog posts). You need to focus on getting as many backlinks as you can.

Building backlinks the right way

There is a right, and wrong way to build backlinks. The wrong way is to go out and get as many as you can in one day, spammy style. Google hates this because it screams out “I’m trying to cheat my way to the top of Google!”. This is bad. It used to work fairly good, but since the Panda update that just doesn’t work anymore.

The right way to building backlinks is to MAKE IT LOOK NATURAL! Yep…slow and steady wins the race. You need to build them at a slow pace, starting out at 1 or 2 a day, and gradually increasing that number.

But also you need to make the anchor text of the links look natural. That means, don’t make every single link back to your blog say “seo blog” exactly like that. You want to make each link different…this really looks more natural to Google. You could switch it up with “check out my seo blog” or “this seo blog” etc.

Also don’t forget to switch up the link sources..you can get some links from blog comments, some from social media, some from social bookmarking, some from ezine articles, etc. The whole key to SEO now, since the Panda update, is to make everything, especially your content, look as natural as possible! Building backlinks can be fun, and when you do it right can bring you hoardes of free traffic.

SEOpressor plugin review – is it right for you?

seopressor wordpress plugin review

Does SEOPressor work?

Yea, I’m following a post about selling, with a product review lol…pretty shameless lol.  I wanna review the SEOpressor WordPress SEO Plugin for all of you who are currently on WordPress. This only applies to self hosted WordPress users! This plugin is talked about a lot in the blogging community, but many people haven’t tried it, so this post is for you, if you haven’t.

What is this “SEOPressor”? (Wierd name..)

Ok so what is SEOpressor? Well, it’s a WordPress plugin that guides you through doing SEO (search engine optimization) on your blog posts. Why do you even need to do SEO? Well, you don’t, unless you want completely free traffic from Google.

Most of my free traffic comes from Google, which is one reason this plugin helps me so much. But it may not be right for you. I’ll give you the facts about the plugin, and you can go ahead and make up your own mind.

Once you install the plugin, there will be a new section in your dashboard when you write a blog post. Basically you put in whatever keyword you’re trying to optimize the blog post for, and then you click a button, and the plugin will tell you exactly what you need to do to optimize that post for Google. Pretty cool right?

Well it definitely takes a lot of the mystery out of doing SEO on your blog posts. But it’s not for lazy people that’s for sure! If you can’t spend an extra 5 minutes on your post, then this plugin isn’t for you. It is honestly easy to use if you take the extra 5 minutes.

So now the part you really wanna know about…does the damn thing work? Well, I’ll be honest, it works really good, most of the time. I get on on the first page of Google at least half the time I use it, and the rest of the time I’m usually on the 2nd or 3rd page. SEO is not a game where you win ALL THE TIME. Google is very fickle sometimes, and your rankings depend on over 200 factors.

If you’re trying to optimize a blog post for a low competition keyword, then the plugin should work just fine and get you on the first page. I’m not gonna blow smoke up your arse and tell you that it will get you on the first page everytime. That’s impossible.

The price: that’s what you really wanna know. It’s 47 bucks one-time to use on a single blog, 97 bucks to use on as many sites as you want. Will this plugin bring you that make money online, beachfront lifestyle you always dreamed of? I don’t know, maybe. But making money online takes more than just buying an SEO plugin.

Is SEOpressor worth it?

It was for me, but it may not be for you, so I don’t know. It’s kinda just one of those things you have to decide for yourself, I can’t put a gun to your head and make you buy it.  Click here to check it out SEOpressor for yourself. If you decide to buy it, you’ll be supporting my alcohol habit, which is good :) Just kidding, I hardly ever drink..but I do make my living through blogging, so if you decide to buy it, I’ll earn a commission and that’ll be awesome! :D

Internet marketing vs. selling

internet marketing vs. selling online

There is a difference between marketing and selling online!

I just had to do a post about this, I couldn’t resist. Are you one of those people who confuses marketing online, with actually selling online? It’s surprising how many people still use these terms interchangeably.

Most people who make money on the internet go around calling themselves “internet marketers”. I’m guilty of this myself. But let’s not get things confused. The actual act of marketing online is NOT what makes you money.

The definition of “marketing” is: Bringing the market to desire your product or service. It’s that simple. Many people also see internet marketing basically as spreading the word about your website or product. But it’s more than that. There is a right way, and wrong way to get people to come to your website.

Are you building curiosity with your marketing? Are you using emotional triggers? Many people are very skilled in marketing, but very poor at selling. Let’s make this very clear: SELLING is what makes you the money, not marketing.

If you can manage to get people to come to your website to check out your product, that’s one thing. And that’s awesome if you can drive traffic well. But can you actually get people to make a purchase? That’s the real trick, isn’t it?

Most folks in the make money online business still mistakenly think that all you have to do is get people to come to your website and bam, they’ll buy your stuff. Wrong…you need to get people to like, know, and trust you.

And you can’t be fake about it either. If you’re only in it for the money, people will see right through that! Your main goal, as I’m very fond of saying, should be to give VALUE and truly help people change their lives..and the money will follow!

So do you just market on the internet? Or do you actually sell stuff and make money online?

3 things to focus on in your online business

3 things to focus on in your online business

If you focus on the right things, you will succeed :)

When I say “online business“..it could mean anything from a blog, to a network marketing business, to a niche website and more. One area where many people get stuck online is that they don’t know what to focus on.

Focus is the key. If you can focus on the tasks that are really important for your business, then you’ll succeed – guaranteed. Of course you have to be persistent as well. So here are the 3 things, or areas you NEED to focus on to succeed online.

1. Traffic – Let’s say you’re a blogger for example. What’s the lifeline of a blog? Readers! You need to have eyeballs coming to your blog in order for it to be successful. One of your biggest focus areas should be getting the word out about your blog (or online business). Of course you wanna do it without spamming people and shoving it down their throats :) . The more traffic you can command online, the more money you’ll make, period. Traffic = money. This applies to blogging, affiliate marketing, network marketing – everything.

2. Offer – Your offer is basically what’s gonna make you money online. Again taking blogging as an example, if you’re not actually selling something from your blog, you won’t make any money. You can sell advertising space, affiliate products, or if you’re really savvy, you can make your own products. I’m an affiliate blogger myself, which means I recommend other people’s products from my blog, and get paid a commission when you buy them :) So please support my blog by buying something ;) Keep in mind that your offer should be something that has value for your marketplace (or readership). Something that they WANT and will actually help them! Also, you don’t wanna just spam your audience with product offers, the main focus of YOUR blog should be your content. :)

3. Conversion – Conversion is, simply, getting people to buy your stuff. Converting them into customers. What good is an online business if you can’t make sales and make money? Getting good conversion rates is as simple as testing, testing, testing. Testing different blog design aspects, different ad copy, different opt-in form headlines, etc. You have to continually test in order to improve all aspects of your business.

Those are the 3 things you need to be focusing most of your effort on. Everything else besides those, you can eventually outsource and have other people help you get them done. Please share this post if you found it helpful, so that other people can check it out too. Thanks :)

What do you get out of what you do?

personal fulfillment and happiness

Happiness is important :)

Whether you’re a Blogger like myself, an online marketer, a business owner, or all 3…there are a few things which are important. There should be reasons why you do what

you do. You obviously should be getting SOMETHING out of it, whether it’s just personal fulfillment, money, friends, or all 3.

Why do you do what you do? Why do any of us? Sadly probably most of what we do is motivated by money and material things. I’m not saying money is bad, it can be really good…as long as that’s not all you care about.

What do you get out of what you do? If you do it because it makes you happy then that’s the right reason. If you do it only for profit, but don’t really enjoy it, that’s the wrong reason. In other words, it’s a fake reason.

You need to find a balance between profitability and personal fulfillment. For example, I blog first and foremost because I love it, and I have a passion for it. I do make an income from it, but that’s a side effect of enjoying it.

If you want to make money from something…say a Youtube channel for example, don’t just throw up a channel in hopes to get some quick cash, it doesn’t work like that. You need to bring VALUE to your readership/marketplace/fans, whatever.

So really you need to be doing something that is personally fulfilling, profitable, and that provides VALUE. In other words you need to help people by givin em cool free stuff! Any kind of information can be packaged in an entertaining, fun, cool way.

In my opinion those 3 things are the most important things you should get out of doing something, but like I said, first and foremost, whatever you do should make you HAPPY :) I wish you the best in whatever it is you do in life :)

Please share this post if you enjoyed it :)

4 Ways To Get Backlinks To Your Blog

This post may seem kind of basic for a lot of you, but even still, there are many bloggers out there who don’t understand the basics of SEO and how to make your blog rank highly in the search engines.  There are MANY factors that contribute to how high you rank, but the most important one, as agreed by most, is the number and quality of backlinks (links pointing to your blog).

To put it simply, the more links you have pointing to your blog, the more highly you will rank in Google and all the other major search engines.  Think of backlinks as “votes” for your blog.  The more votes you have…well…you get the idea.  Any serious blogger should be able to go out there every day and build a few backlinks.  That is, if you want FREE traffic from the search engines!  And who doesn’t love to make their blog grow?

Keep in mind there are quite a few legitimate methods of building backlinks available to you as a blogger.  The key is to focus on a handful that work well for you, while at the same time creating a diversity of types of backlinks.

ways to get backlinks to your blog

Well enough rambling, I’m sure you wanna hear the backlink methods so here they are:

1.  Blog Commenting:  Yes, I’m sure many of you have heard this one before.  But regardless of how over-used it is, it actually still works.  And the great thing about this method is that it’s easy to simply leave your anchor text (that you’re trying to rank for) as your name in the comment.  (Although keep in mind this doesn’t always work as many blogs have spam filters turned on.  It works well on blogs hosted on Google Blogger though.)  I can’t stress enough how incredibly easy blog commenting is to implement.

2.  Articles:  You can write articles that are relevant to the topic of your blog, and then submit them to article directories, namely Ezine Articles.  Many article directories tend to have a high Google PageRank, so they rank highly in Google, and so a link from the article back to your blog will do wonders for your search rankings.  Be sure to include links with your anchor text when you write the article, and try to deep link to some of your older blog posts too if you can, this will help not just your home page rank well, but some of your deeper pages as well.

3.  Forum posts:  You can join forums, specifically that are relevant to the theme of your blog, and you can join in some of the discussions there.  Create a signature with a link back to your blog, so that every post you make there is a link back to your blog.  Many forums also tend to rank very highly in the search engines, so links from them are golden.

4.  Social Bookmarking:  Many people think this doesn’t work like it used to, but it actually still does.  Once you write your blog posts or articles,  submit them to some of the various social bookmarking sites such as Reddit, Digg, and Stumbleupon.  This works two fold, not only to boost your search ranking, but also to bring you traffic directly from those sites.  And who knows, your article might go viral on those sites and bring a stampede of visitors back to your blog!

Remember that these are only a handful of the methods you can use to get backlinks to your blog.  Keep in mind that you must write good content, that is, content that is helpful and provides value to your readers.  Or you can just entertain them, that always works too!  I hope you enjoyed these backlink tips, share this post with your friends if it helped you.

 

6 Reasons You Should Start A Blog

If you’re reading this post right now, there’s a good chance you’re a blogger already.  However, there’s also a chance you’re not.  Not everyone that reads blogs has a blog of their own.  In the last few years, blogging has really taken off, and now blogs are one of the most common type of websites.

Nearly everywhere you look online, you’ll see a blog of some kind.  An example is Huffington Post, which covers breaking news.  News blogs like that are actually all over the place now.  But blogs come in a variety of styles and “flavors”.  Here’s another example. The beauty of it is, you can start a blog on any topic that interests you, and if you build up a large enough readership, you can even make a lot of money doing it.

As you can imagine, there are a multitude of reasons for you to start a blog of your own.  And there’s no better time than RIGHT NOW.  Here are 6 reasons why you should start a blog today and not be left behind.

1.  You can express yourself in writing.  Yes, believe it or not, blogging is a form of writing, and to many, including myself, it’s considered an artform.  Blogging is a great way to express your thoughts and feelings with your friends and peers..and in the process learn more about who YOU are.

2.   You can get your message out to many people.  Didn’t you hear?  Millions and millions of people are on the internet everyday, and a large portion of them are bloggers and people who love to read blogs.  By starting a blog, you can get in on the action and get your message out to as many people as you want (provided that you put in the effort to build your audience.)

3.  You can build a real business.  Did you not know?  Blogging…YES, blogging, can actually be a real business model.  You may not believe it, but some bloggers make tens of thousands of dollars a month just by blogging.  The ways to monetize your blog are many, ranging from affiliate marketing to selling advertising directly, to doing sponsored reviews, and the list goes on and on.

4.  You can make lots of friends.  Yes, being that there are a ton of people who blog, by starting a blog you will inevitably become friends with a lot of them.  You will build lifelong connections that in turn can help skyrocket your own blogging career.  You may even meet your new bloggy friends in real life!

5.  Blogging is fun.  This one speaks for itself….blogging is a great hobby/career and is a great way to kill some time, and have a lot of fun in the process!

6.  Blogging is therapeutic.  There’s nothing better than “venting”..or in other words, getting your thoughts and feelings out there into the blogosphere.  Blogging is a great stress reliever.

3 Ways To Tell If You’ve Found The Right Blog Topic

Blogging is an artform, but it’s more than that, it’s also a communication channel, and a way of entertaining people.  If you’re reading this, you may already have a blog, or you may be wanting to start one.  Well either way, it’s important to choose a topic, or (topics) that you are deeply passionate about.

Blogging doesn’t have to be limited to only one topic, although the more tightly focused your blog is the easier you will make it on yourself.  If you choose to blog about multiple topics, try and have one overall theme of your blog, with random stuff thrown in.  Many successful bloggers have followed this formula.

Choosing the right topics can mean the life or death of your blog, and can determine your overall success with blogging.  It can determine how many readers you attract, and how much money you make in the long run.  So here are 3 ways to tell if you’ve found the right topic (or topics) to blog about.

1.  You are deeply passionate about it –  This kind of goes without saying, but you should really love what you blog about.  It should make you so happy that you can blog on and on about it for hours if you want to.  If you don’t have any passion for it, you will fail because you won’t be able to produce consistent content for your blog.

2.  You can blog every day about it –  This is also super important.  If you don’t blog every day, or at least 3 times a week or so, your blog will probably never reach the levels you want it to.  If you’re passionate enough you will be able to blog on and on about it and never get bored, because you deeply enjoy it.

3.  The topic has an audience –  you might be surprised how many people choose a blog topic that no one wants to read.  That’s not saying that your audience has to be millions of readers, but there should be enough of a demand for it that you can attract a decent sized readership.

There is a lot more to blogging than just these 3 aspects, but this should give you an idea if you’re on the right track with your chosen topic of blogging.  When all else fails, just blog about something you are really crazy about and you will succeed eventually :)

 


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