look there”s not too much of substance in here today, because I”m jet lagged…so feel free to stop reading now…but if you do, come back next week won”t you 🙂
Well if you”re going to keep reading, thanks.
I”ve just surfaced again after 3 weeks offline. No way to run an Internet business, I know…but it can”t be helped. And anyway, I”ve had lots of fun, which is what it”s all about really.
Got back from 8 nights in a remote cottage on the Yorkshire Moors, but immediately raced off to London for a few days to The Smarter Business Expo and also The Internet World Exhibition. (see below).
Then I managed to grab a quick visit to Paris and Normandy before flying to Osaka in Japan for a few days.
Boy, talk about jet lag when I arrived home….don”t know how I ever woke up again.
Anyway, enough of my life-of-an-Internet-entrepreneur- designed-to-make-you-jealous ramblings, and on with the show….
Alexa Surprise…
Had a nice surprise today when I finally settled down again to some serious work. I was scanning through my mail, looking for stuff that need answering urgently, when I came across a promo email from Marlon Sanders, for the new version of his excellent Push Button Sales Letters software
Marlon”s email was called “How to make YOUR Alexa traffic rock!”
Alexa is a kind of search engine which shows traffic rankings, user reviews, and other information about sites, and rates sites on popularity rather than content and keywords.
Anyway, I went to Alexa to look at the Movers and Shakers list featuring Marlon”s site, and then took a look in the small business section to see which sites were the most popular.
And I had a shock. The top 5 sites were:
Microsoft bCentral
Quicken
Entrepreneur Magazine
the SBA Small Business Administration site
and my newsletter site. Wow!
Here”s the Alexa link, though it”s updated daily so it could have changed by now.
Read the amazing true story of how one woman, with no previous business experience, earns 400,000+ per year … selling other people”sstuff online!
In her down-to-earth, sincere and often humorous style, Rosalind Gardner guides you through the entire process of building an affiliate marketing business on the “Net. In 270+ pages, and more than 73,000 words, you”ll learn how to pick the best programs, negotiate a commission raise and save time, money and effort on everything from affiliate software to web hosting. To learn exactly how she does it, Click Here.
The Super Affiliate Handbook…
There”s a big push going on at the moment to promote Rosalind Gardner”s book “The Super Affiliate Handbook”.
So I thought I may as well join in and tell you about it.
Only problem is I haven”t read it yet, and recommending something that I haven”t used or read is kind of against my policy.
However…several people I respect, including the venerable dean of affiliate programs, Allan Gardyne, have given it the thumbs up.
Plus I”ve had a printout of Rosalind”s interview from the “Secrets To Their Success” interview site buried in the piles of paperwork on my desk since last September. Now and again I dig it out and have another read.
You could say I”m a big fan of hers. When you”re into affiliate marketing how could you not be a fan of someone pulling in over $400,000 a year from affiliate programs?
Anyway… like I said, I haven”t yet read the book but I”m going to this coming week.
If you”re enthusiastic/serious about affiliate marketing you should read it too.
Mind you, Rosalind reckon”s mini sites don”t work for her. They might not work for her but they do for me and plenty of other people. This past few weeks while I”ve not been online promoting myself, my mini sites have made me a weekly (passive) income bigger than I managed to spend in London, Paris, and Osaka.
Ok…here”s the link to Rosalind”s book
(and here”s the link to my book Mini Site Profits if you haven”t read it yet)
Quality of Life?
Just took part in a survey on Workz.com called “What is the main reason you started/plan to start a business.”
I voted for “Better Quality of Life” ..which in my mind means I can stay home, work when I want, take time off to travel, spend time reading or walking the mountains. (here”s a pic I took a few hours ago from my backyard…you can see why I like working from home)
But most people opted for “To be my own boss” while just 7% chose “Make extra money, and 6% picked Spend more time with family.”
This probably means that when you”re putting content together for your marketing type web sites or articles or ebooks, you should concentrate on how to become your own boss, rather than talking about the lifestyle or income benefits.
Went to some interesting seminars/talks at the Smarter
Business Expo at Earl”s Court in London.
“Sales on a Beermat” by author Michael Southern (The Beermat Entrepreneur) was interesting, though a lot of it wasn”t relevant to us work-from-home types.
This was immediately followed by “Knowing when to call it a day” – a talk by a banker, which could have plunged anyone not doing too well into the pit of doom…and probably did.
“Say PANTS to the constraints of online retailing and marketing” by Kevin Higgs from Brass Monkeys cheered me up again.
While “How do you value your assets” by accounting firm
KPMG got me worried again.
What assets? I thought.
All I”ve got is my laptop and my brain. And I think my laptop
would sell for more.
Also spent a day at “Internet World”
It”s the second year in a row I”ve attended and it seemed
smaller and more downbeat this time around. But that
could just be my imagination.
Anyway, while I was there, the friendly chaps at Overture
UK told me that they have something really interesting in
the pipeline, but wouldn”t divulge what it was.
Probably a more efficient way of sucking money from our
credit cards.
The most interesting product of the show – for me – was
an Outlook search engine from Wizsoft, which lets you
very quickly search through all your emails to find the
info you”re looking for.
I know there”s a search facility built into Outlook, but
compared to this product it”s slow and inefficient.
Wizsoft even searches through your attachments folder,
including .pdfs. Take a look at it at http://www.wizsoft.com
