Rather than throw you head first into my very long sales page for the opening of Membership Site Mastermind, I’m going to show you just the video here on my blog, to help keep you on focus .

This video was taken directly from my sales page, however it’s full of great content – not just a pitch – including my story about why I decided to launch a membership site after spending the previous year writing an ebook (which I still haven’t released!), how I launched my membership site and why I think it’s so important you sell your own product online if you want to make serious money.

Here’s the video, just press play to begin:

I encourage you to watch this from start to finish whether you want to join my membership site training program or not and even if you have seen it before.

After watching this video if you’re keen to join the program, you can sign up here -

Join Membership Site Mastermind Here

Or if you want to read all the details about the program, you can view the full sales page right here –

Membershipsitemastermind.com/signup/

If you have any questions, please leave a comment to this blog post and I will reply as quickly as I can.

Yaro

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Get your bonus copy of my book
“How To Start An Internet Business
& Make Your First $1,000 Online”
Download Here

It was early 2006. I had been blogging for over a year and felt I had achieved something.

My blog had recently surpassed 1,000 RSS subscribers (what is RSS), making it at the time the most popular website I had ever built. The income was solid – up to $2,000 a month at best – and it was growing. I loved what I was doing.

My plan, based on all the Internet marketing advice I studied from the experts to “create a product”, was to start by releasing an ebook to test the waters as my first product. I had already begun to grow my email list, focusing on the idea of teaching other bloggers how to build traffic, since I felt that was something I was becoming good at.

One of the keys to my success with traffic was how well I was doing in organic search results. I was literally famous in the Internet marketing space because all the top Internet marketers would find my blog when searching for their name or their products or terms related to our industry.

This is incredibly powerful leverage, if you want to meet important people in your industry, or as an affiliate marketing technique, because you can just write about something often enough if you want a top ranking for a certain term or name.

My blog’s solid search engine performance has continued as a trend today, with about half the traffic I attract to this blog still coming from Google search queries. Considering how much more competitive the environment is now, with so many blogs on the same topic as this one, I consider my consistency an achievement.

I don’t really talk about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) much on this blog anymore, mainly because I don’t believe much has really changed over the past few years. The fundamentals are still the fundamentals. You will find plenty of articles on SEO in my archives under the SEO category if you’re keen for study materials.

However, SEO was a huge part of my early studies of Internet marketing, primarily focused on attracting more traffic to the business I used to own, BetterEdit.com, a proofreading service. When I was running that business, 50% of new client acquisition came from Google search, which was important – it made the business much more hands off for me to run when you have a steady stream of customers coming in without advertising expense.

As a result of the focus I had back then and the results with my blog, I considered myself half-decent at SEO. By no means was I an expert, and I certainly didn’t pretend to be one, but I felt I knew enough that I had something to share.

As a result of this, my intended first product, was to be an ebook called “The Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers”, which as you can guess, was designed as a guide to help bloggers improve their search engine rankings and attract traffic from Google and the other search engines. The ebook was almost complete and I even went so far as to have a cover created for it, which you can see inset (including the big haired, old suit photo version of me).

The book was never sold publicly because I decided to release a course on traffic. I can’t really remember why I decided to switch gears so late in the development of this product. It could have been because I thought selling a course at a higher price would make more money, but it was more likely due to some kind of fear based decision making or distractions. I just didn’t have the follow-through at the time to do a launch.

I registered the domain name BlogTrafficSchool.com, which I still own, and focused on releasing that program instead.

Of course if you know my story, the product never saw the light of day either, so I ended up having a 75% complete course on Blog Traffic, and a near complete ebook on SEO for blogs. Thankfully the third time I finally got something out the door, and released Blog Mastermind as my first product. The rest is history.

Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers – Revamped And Ready For Release

I recently began reviewing my ebook on SEO for blogs and was quite impressed to see that it’s still full of fantastic advice. It only requires about 10% revision work and I believe it could become one of the most helpful, and true to my style – simple guides – to follow on how to get more traffic from Google to your blog.

The book is over 100 pages and includes insights into how search engines work, how to optimize the internal structure of your blog, some very solid advice on linking strategies – including 75 link building techniques, with some case studies of my own experience using them – a quick launch checklist, and more.

It’s all content of course, direct from my experience and research, into your hands.

So do you want a copy?

I will release the book for sale later in the year, however I have some good news for you if you want a copy now.

This is the primary bonus (there’s more below) I’m throwing in as an enticement and I can’t think of a more powerful companion ebook to go along with the membership site course.

To launch your membership site you’re going to need an audience, and using a well search engine optimized blog has to be the most affordable (almost free) and long-term viable technique available. You just need to do the work, and the Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers explains this in some detail.

As one final enticement to make this an irresistible offer (or bribe!) to get you into my membership site coaching program, I’m going to throw in my entire mega-bonus pack, which I’ve outlined below.

How To Claim The Bonuses

All these bonuses will be sent in an email to all members of Membership Site Mastermind (including any person who has already joined this week and all my previous members – see I look after you too!) on Wednesday the 17th, that’s next week.

To make sure you get that email with all the bonuses, you have to join the program by Tuesday at the latest, if you join after, you will miss the email.

Note you won’t get the bonuses immediately after joining, you get them on Wednesday, so busy yourself with the course itself until then.

Here’s the sign-up link when you’re ready to go –

The Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers Plus Mega Bonus Pack

Here is a break down of all the bonuses –

Bonus 1: The Definitive Guide To SEO For Bloggers (Revamped for 2010 and never before released)

You score the entire 100+ page ebook written by me (Yaro) as a complete guide on how to optimize your blog for search engines and attract waves of free traffic.

Inside the guide you will learn –

• My simple three step secret formula that is the foundation of my blogs search engine success
• An outline of how search engines work so you can give them what they want, rather than fight them (this is so simple when you think about it, yet incredibly important too)
• A guide on how to optimize the internal structure of your blog to give it the best chance of ranking well – and you only need to do these things once, it all happens on autopilot after that
• A link building guide, including 75 detailed link attracting strategies where I explain techniques I’ve used to attract authority links to this blog
• How SEO fits into the overall blogging formula, which if followed, can result in life-changing income, fame and real recognition for your work

Bonus 2: My Live Presentation On Buying and Selling Websites

I very rarely present on stage, and besides the people in the audience when I’m on stage, most people never see me talk in person.

This presentation is from an Andrew and Daryl Grant 4-day workshop held in Brisbane, Australia. My talk was about how you can buy and sell websites for profit, and includes -

• A breakdown of my formula for website flipping, which focuses on a certain type of website
• Three real life case studies where I show you what websites I purchased, how I made them more profitable, and then sold them
• How I automated the management and “renovation” process so I could flip sites as a passive income strategy
• Where you can go to find websites for sale and how to get the most money for your website when you are ready to sell

Bonus 3: My Live Presentation Of How To Build A Massively Profitable Blog

This presentation is also from a Grant’s workshop, but this time in Sydney and the topic is all about making money from blogs. This is a comprehensive presentation, talking about the foundation of a successful blog and includes -

• What structure you need in place to start blogging the right way
• How to create powerful blog content that attracts people like a magnet
• What methods are available to really ramp up your income from blogging, that goes way beyond just adsense
• How to use your blog as a lead generator for a proper online business, not just a hobby

Bonus 4: The Keys To A Powerful and Profitable Blog Training Videos

These are special recordings of some of the key concepts that go into building a successful blog. This content has only ever been viewed by the paying members of the Become A Blogger Premium program and features 100% content from me, Yaro Starak.

The focus of these videos is very practical training on how to build and then profit from your blog. If you are looking for the specific techniques I used to build my blog and still use today to profit from my writing, this series of 13 incredible videos will help you. Topic covered include –

• The critical pages your blog must have if it is to succeed
• How to find your focus when blogging
• An in-depth look at what Pillar Content is and how to create it
• 7 Quick and easy ways of getting Traffic to your Blog
• How to profit selling advertising and promoting other people’s products
• And loads more on Building Traffic and Making Money through blogging

This really is an incredible bonus, you don’t want to miss these videos.

You can join here -

Bonus 5: “How To Use The Power Of Video To Market On The World Wide Web” – Teleconference Recording With Gideon Shalwick

During this fantastic call with Gideon Shalwick I drilled him on how exactly he creates quality video using both PC and Mac. Gideon started off as a PC user and later switched over to Mac, so you’re going to learn why he did this, and what exact software and tools he uses to create video.

Here’s what you will learn in this audio download -

• Exactly what kind of equipment you’ll need to record perfect video
• The secret formula for creating powerful video scripts
• How to setup your shooting area to increase the quality of your videos
• How to capture and record your first video
• How to edit your video using a free and easy to use editing program
• How to get your new video onto your own blog or website

Bonus 6: “How To Boost Critical Conversion Points In Your Blog Business” – Teleconference Recording With Will Swayne on testing elements of your blog and email newsletter to improve conversion rates

Will Swayne and his company, Marketing-Results.com.au, helped manage all the conversion testing for my business in 2008. They tested my opt-in forms and sales pages to increase conversion at each point in my business process.

In this recorded teleconference with Will, we reviewed the critical conversion points of a blog business, including -

• What are the critical elements of a blog post to test to make more sales
• How to sell more affiliate products by improving upon what you already do
• Simple tweaks you can make to your email newsletter to improve open and click-through rates
• How to change your newsletter opt-in form to boost how many people join your email list
• And lots more simple tips to improve your conversion rates…

Mega Bonus Pack Available Until Tuesday Next Week

All the above bonuses are going to be sent via email to all the members of Membership Site Mastermind on Wednesday the 17th of March 2010. If you don’t join by Tuesday, then you will not receive these bonuses.

All the details about my membership site coaching program and the order form are here –

I can’t wait to see you on the inside of my program, and congratulations if you qualify for the bonuses.

Yaro Starak
Throwing In The Kitchen Sink

---

Get your bonus copy of my book
“How To Start An Internet Business
& Make Your First $1,000 Online”
Download Here

guest post by Kelly Diels

warning: there are lessons and even actionable advice in here, but it is buried inside a story. I write stories because I love you and don’t want to bore you and because if you laugh then chances are that you’ll remember the educational bit, too. There’s actual research that this works – it is not just because I am in love with bloviation but hey, tomato tahmahto.

I have big love for tech. You could not pry my dishwasher out of my house without bloodshed and death, most likely yours. And the internet? Don’t even get me started. I want to french-kiss the web. In fact, I’m pretty sure that’s my job or at least my blog’s mission statement.

Still, I’m more of install (or pay someone to install) and hope-it-works kind of gal. I want the fuss without the muss.

And I have this theory about tech: some key pieces of hardware and software make a huge difference and everything after that amounts to tweaks and hacks. But the good tech, like a great love, (initially) inspires awe, affection, and respect and make your life much better on a daily basis. You think: how did I ever live without you, front-loading washer? We wasted so much time.

And then, after the infatuation fades, you get on with your happily functioning and newly-enhanced life and start taking your love, machines, shockingly-white-whites and programs for granted.

I like it like that. I like low-maintenance relationships (don’t tell anyone) and I LOVE that electricity just works and I don’t have to think about it. I like finding the right things, that work, and let them do that in the background. Nearly invisible function is hawt.

WordPress is one of those key pieces of tech that made a big difference in my life. It is like a long distance lover. I don’t quite understand it and I should probably spend more time with it but damn I like it a lot. It does me right, mostly virtually.

Actually, let’s be honest: I LOVE WORDPRESS. My blog is my boyfriend. I adore it. I spend all my time with it. Because of all the fabulous people who love me up in the comments, my blog sates my unabashed lust for attention – which, in turn, has started saving me from terrible IRL relationship decisions.

(Wordpress is saving the world from needy girlfriends. Someone call the Nobel Peace Prize Committee.)

So the thought of someone getting their sweaty, malicious hands on my boyfriend blog and doing dirty things to it makes me nauseous.

It happened to a friend of mine, Kelly Livesay. One of her blogs was hacked and posts and theme modifications deleted.  It happened to journalist Helen Mosher. If you Google her name, the first search result is now “Cheap Viagra Online”. This is not – perhaps obviously – what she intended for her blog. It happened to Robert Scoble, who lost two months of blog posts and gained a very serious sense of personal violation.

And that sense of violation is exactly the prompt for this post: the movie The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo completely FREAKED ME OUT (capitalization absolutely appropriate and required).

Do you know The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo? It is the first of a trilogy of books by Swedish author Stieg Larsson who completed this epic series and then promptly dropped dead. It is a gripping book and it almost killed me, too. I read it in five hours.

And then I got my hot little hands on the movie. Lisbeth, the main character and dragon-wearer, is one tough chick. You don’t want to mess with her. She’ll hack you.

Because that’s what she does. Lisbeth is a freakishly talented hacker. She works as an investigator and conducts her investigations from the convenience of her laptop. She gets into your computer and reads your naughty e-mails, your work memos, your sexts, your bank statements, your browsing history, and then uses that information as she sees fit, for her clients, or herself.

And if you’re on her side – I mean, who doesn’t want her to catch the lady-killing villain? (the villain) – then you’re with her, all the way, as she uses her scary powers for good.

So: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Wrenching read, haunting movie. Great entertainment, especially if you’re looking for a new reason to become deeply paranoid about all the ways people can screw with you online.

Robert Scoble’s not kidding when he says that he feels his virtual house was burgled. Thanks to this paranoid movie, I now feel his paranoia pain and I’m deeply worried about my boyfriend blog.

Still, I don’t  understand the point of hacking blogs, so I asked my friend Dave Doolin (Website In A Weekend), who knows Serious Stuff about WordPress, code, programming and How Things Work.

Kelly Diels: What’s the point of hacking a blog? Why would someone want to break into a blog and make it say BUY VIAGRA! instead of just building a sex blog to sell Viagra?

Dave Doolin: Honestly, I’m not really sure, but I’ll hazard a guess: it’s cheaper to spray spam by the trillions than it is to create your own site and work at building traffic. It costs next to nothing to hire people to send a e-mails, so even a really tiny conversion rate generates profit.

Kelly Diels: So how do we keep hackers out of our blogs? On your site, you recommend that bloggers change “Admin” to something specific and then delete the Admin user, so I did that, and Amanda Farough told me to make a unwieldy, ridiculous password that is actually a sentence with random capitalization and characters.

Dave Doolin: Yeah, those two things are a good start. You do want a long, complicated password. The other thing that everyone should do is read the WordPress Development Blog and Other WordPress News. They’re both in your dashboard, and they’ll keep you up to date on the latest hacks and security threats.

(I studiously ignore those two boxes in my WordPress dashboard but now, as of right this minute, I’m going to pay attention.)

And, now that I’m paying attention, I checked in once again with Amanda Farough, who is my designer/developer/chief-cupcake-sharer/coder-extraordinaire. She takes care of my site, because, as I mentioned, I like my tech to work but I’m not really inclined to make it work myself.

Kelly Diels: So, Amanda, what are we doing to keep my site secure? And by “we”, I mean you. What advice do you have for bloggers to keep their blogs on the unhacked side?

Amanda: Here’s my security short list:

1. Change your .htcaccess to protect your database name and password by adding the following line of code: <FilesMatch ^wp-config.php$>deny from all</FilesMatch>. In the event of someone hacking your blog, they won’t be able to determine where your tables are, protecting you from losing everything.
2. WP-DB-Backup is your new best friend. Get it emailed to you once a week or, if you’re really paranoid, once a day (note: Dave Doolin said we should do it once a day and I heart paranoia. That’s totally where I’m living right now. Thanks, Dragon Tattoo conspiracy). Don’t trust your server or your email server. Save copies of the database to your local drive as soon as you get the email. That way, you’ve got two copies: one on your email server and the other on your local drive.
3. Update Wordpress every single time you’re prompted to. These releases are the blogger’s equivalent to driver updates: they fix holes in security, functionality, and usability. If you’re running 2.8 when we’re on 2.9.2, then run that update. You’ll be glad you did.

And that – according to my friends in the know, because trust me, I didn’t know – is the short story of how to keep your blog safe and out of the sweaty, dragon-tattooed hands of malicious hackers itching to delete your hot copy and sell us sex aids in your name.

WordPress Security Summary:

• Get rid of your Admin user account
• have a long, complicated password
• keep up to date on WordPress tips and news by reading WordPress
  Development Blog and Other WordPress News
• BACK IT UP, baby
• Protect your database name and password
• UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE

 __________________________

Join the Dragon Tattoo Blog HUNT - an internet wide scavenger hunt tied to the feature film launch of bestselling book The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Win great prizes – free movie tickets, books, movie soundtrack, posters and more. To join the contest, start at the beginning of the HUNT by visiting www.dragontattoofilm.com/contest for full details and the first clue. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is in theaters near you starting March 19th.
THE NEXT CLUE:

This site explores everything Apple, but don’t tell Steve Jobs because this weblog is officially unofficial.

 

Kelly Diels writes for ProBlogger every week. She’s also a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

Blog Security: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo Scares Me Into Taking It Seriously.

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Lots of people make the argument that you should not ever pay for any “How to make money online product” because all the information is out there for free. And for the most part I agree with that… if you have years to research it.

Well Right now you can pick up a real gem from Frank Kern… one many people paid thousands of dollars for called the 4 day cash machine. And for the next 2 days its 100% Free.

The 4 day cash machine is a straight up cut and paste 4 day email campaign that you can send to your list. It also comes with a video where Frank walks you through exactly why it works and what you need to edit to crush it in your business. He also has some amazing testimonials from people who have done big things with some really small lists. Dont miss this download the 4 day cash machine now.

But I can already hear you… “WTF Shoe you are trying to pitch us something called the 4 day cash machine?”.

Yes… This 4 day cash machine is good shit and most of you can instantly put it to work -

but seriously listen up.

Frank Kern is an Ordained Reverend Pimp Daddy when it comes to selling things online. Right now there is nobody better.

While you are playing pranks on your friends sticking their hands in hot water to get them to piss their pants.

Frank is getting helicopters and trying to convince his friend John Reese the man is out to get him… watch here:

So what is my point?

Kern is macking it hard,  raking in many millions per year.  And for those of you hip to the whole “I know hes just giving this away cause he wants to sell me something later” game even you should get in on this 4 day cash machine because you are right… eventually Frank is going to make a pitch for his new product called List Control and you have a chance to watch the master at work.

His free 4 day cash machine dealio was released yesterday morning and throughout all of the day it was consistently ranked as the Alexa hot url beating out all post Oscar coverage:

For me this is where the real value is. Half of the time when I buy these products its more of a “thank you” because just by being on their pre-launch lists and watching how they do things I learn so much and have so many takeaways.

So no matter who you are. Get in on this latest Frank Kern pre-launch, Get in on the early bird notification,  Get some FREE awesome stuff, and take notes as the man does his thing.

Get a sneak peak at the all new ShoeMoney System

This Post Is From ShoeMoney’s Internet Marketing Blog

4 Day Cash Machine More Popular Than Oscar Coverage

Why Word of Mouth Doesn’t Happen

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

This post is a special Make a Referral Week guest post featuring education on the subject of referrals and word of mouth marketing and making 1000 referrals to 1000 small businesses – check it out at Make a Referral Week 2010

Sometimes, what you do is done as well as it can be done. It’s a service that people truly love, or a product they can’t live without. You’re doing everything right, but it’s not remarkable, at least not in the sense of “worth making a remark about.”

What’s up with that?

Here’s a smörgåsbord of reasons:

1. It’s embarrassing to talk about. That’s why VD screening, no matter how well done, rarely turns into a viral [ahem] success.
2. There’s no easy way to bring it up. This is similar to number 1, but involves opportunity. It’s easy to bring up, “hey, where’d you get that ring tone?” because the ring tone just interrupted everyone. It’s a lot harder to bring up the fact that you just got a massage.
3. It might not feel cutting edge enough for your crowd. So, it’s not the thing that’s embarrassing, it’s the fact they you just found out about it. Don’t bring up your brand new Tivo with your friends from MIT. They’ll sneer at you.
4. On a related front, it might feel too popular to profitably sneeze about. Sometimes bloggers hesitate to post on a popular source or topic because they worry they’ll seem lazy.
5. You might like the exclusivity. If you have no trouble getting into a great restaurant or a wonderful club, perhaps you won’t tell the masses because you’re selfish…
6. You might want to keep worlds from colliding. Some kids, for example, like the idea of being the only kid from their school at the summer camp they go to. They get to have two personalities, be two people, keep things separate.
7. You might feel manipulated. Plenty of hip kids were happy to talk about Converse, but once big, bad Nike got involved, it felt different. Almost like they were being used.
8. You might worry about your taste. Recommending a wine really strongly takes guts, because maybe, just maybe, your friends will hate the wine and think you tasteless.
9. There are probably ten other big reasons, but they all lead to the same conclusions:

First, understand that people talk about you (or not talk about you) because of how it makes them feel, not how it makes you feel.

Second, if you’re going to build a business around word of mouth, better not have these things working against you.

Third, if you do, it may be a smart strategy to work directly to overcome them. That probably means changing the fundamental DNA of your experience and the story you tell to your users. “If you like us, tell your friends,” might feel like a fine start, but it’s certainly not going to get you there.

What will change the game is actually changing the game. Changing the experience of talking about you so fundamentally that people will choose to do it.

Seth Godin is author of ten books that have been bestsellers around the world. His most recent titles include The Dip and Linchpin. His books have been bestsellers around the world and changed the way people think about marketing, change and work.

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17 Terrific Tactics to Inspire Customer Love (and Get New Business)

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

This post is a special Make a Referral Week guest post featuring education on the subject of referrals and word of mouth marketing and making 1000 referrals to 1000 small businesses – check it out at Make a Referral Week 2010

There are two fundamental approaches to generate more business: The first is to focus on making your existing customers insanely happy, so that they want to tell others about how much they love you; the second is to simply be a resource, or be helpful, to those who aren’t customers yet.

Specifically, here are 17 tactics:

1. Have a goal. Set a clear goal with a specific timeline – for example, you want an x increase in referrals over the next six months. You know that old adage about how you can’t get there if you don’t know where you’re going? It’s true.

2. Monitor the web and primary social channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) for people talking about you or your company. Say thank you (if they are saying nice things). Reach out and ask how you can help (if they aren’t).

3. And if they aren’t, BTW: Apologize for mistakes and solve problems fast. Speed is your ally.

4. Monitor the web and social channels (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) for specific keywords relevant to your business. Be approachable, conversational, and helpful there. Engage, don’t sell.

5. Join LinkedIn groups relevant to your expertise or industry, and build conversations with relevant individuals. Chime in when you have something to contribute, and be helpful with your advice, suggestions, opinions. Again: It’s about engaging, not selling. (This bears repeating.)

6. Create a blog with content that helps your customers with a problem, or gives advice on a difficult situation, or walks them through a hard decision, or just takes the customer’s point of view, generally. Be a resource, and don’t simply toot your own horn.

7. When someone comments on your blog, respond. Talk back. Thank them for participating with a follow-up email. This is a dead-simple thing, and something a lot of people don’t do.

8. Read other relevant blogs in your industry, or by your customers, or would-be clients. Comment there, too. How? I almost want to repeat that bit about engaging-not-selling again, but I know you get it.

9. Put something on your front door (if you have one) that reminds people to tell their friends about you. (This is an idea from my friend Andy Sernovitz.

10. Put a “tell-a-friend” form on every page of your website. (Another idea from Andy.)

11. Put a special offer in easily forward-able mail.

12. Add a small gift and a word of mouth tool to every package you sell. Do something unexpected. (Andy once sent me a few packets of Bacon Salt with a copy of his new book, for example, which inspired me to blog and tweet about it.

13. Create a mechanism to keep in touch with existing customers or clients, even if they aren’t in buying mode. Perhaps you publish and “insider’s” newsletter, guest-blog on their blogs, or pick up the telephone and call every once in a while, just to say hello.

14. Be generous in your business practices. Go the extra mile. Offer extra service or follow-up support as a routine way of doing business.

15. Be generous with your own referrals.

16. Say thank you. Someone refers new business to you? Send them a note. An especially nice touch in this digital age is a handwritten card. The kind that arrives in the mail.

17. Be nice. Does this sound lame? It’s not. People refer people who treat them well, are approachable, and likeable. Be that person.

Your turn. How else do you generate referrals, or inspire positive word-of-mouth?

Ann Handley is the Chief Content Officer of MarketingProfs, the world’s largest community of marketers. Follow her on Twitter at @marketingprofs

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Is Google Local Search For Sale?

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

I’ve always assumed that Google Maps (and other local search directories) would build up the free local directory, drive other for pay players out, get us hooked on their service, and then start charging to be listed in the prime spot. In this case the prime spot for local search is the Google Seven box shown below for a search for “Attorney Houston, Tx”

Click to enlarge

Something else you might notice is that while optimizing your web site to appear in the lucky seven box is a great idea, the majority of these results are sponsored. That’s right, Google is playing with selling enhanced listings in several cities and looks to be headed towards paid listings in local search.

At first this may not seem like such a bad thing to those on the outside looking in, but it may price some folks out of yet another organic search option.

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When I first saw the title of Adam’s new book, I thought to myself…”Why would I possibly want to unautomate my finances?” If I’m getting by with the status quo, why would I ever need to change things up?

The truth is that there are a lot of us who are just coasting through our financial lives and living from paycheck to paycheck. And because we still manage to get by, we tend to ignore all of the little things that negatively affect our financial livelihood in the long term.

In his book, Adam provides concrete steps and tutorials on how to “unautomate your finances”. In other words, he teaches us how to re-sensitize our financial lives, to start saving and to stop getting by with excessive debt.

Who Is Adam Baker and Why Should I Listen To Him?

For all of you who don’t know Adam, he runs the popular blog Man Vs Debt. If you have never ever visited his blog before, I highly recommend that you go over and check it out. He’s an excellent writer and his blog posts are both inspiring and fun to read. If you do check out his blog, I would definitely start with one of my favorite articles of his Tyler Durden’s Guide To Personal Finance.

Now Adam’s story is pretty unique. He and his wife just “got by” for many years. They managed to pay their bills on time and never saved much money at all. But as time went on, their expenses kept piling on and they soon found it increasingly hard to juggle all of their payments. In a short period, they managed to accumulate a mound full of debt ($80,000 to be exact and that didn’t even include the mortgage on his house!).

However instead of continuing down the path to debt hell, Adam decided to make a drastic change to his lifestyle. He found that by simplifying his life and by consciously focusing on his finances, he could take control of his financial life. In just one short year, he has managed to eliminate a good chunk of his debt and now also has a fairly sizable nest egg as well! His story is truly inspiring and he shares the exact steps that he took to take charge of his finances in his book.

What Do I Think?

All I can say is that this book is Adam Baker at his best. Even though I’m not in debt and have a pretty good fix on my finances, I read his book cover to cover in a single sitting because I like his writing style. Even though he and I differ in our philosophies on credit cards and how to track financial data, his advice is fundamentally sound.

The type of individual most likely to benefit from his book is someone in debt. Someone who is living paycheck to paycheck and not saving any money. For people who already have a firm grasp on their finances, the book is less useful from a practical perspective but there are a few cool extras that he is throwing in. Here are some things the book comes with.

• A 27 minute interview with Leo Babauta (ZenHabits) (Leo also wrote the foreword)
• An audio interview with J.D. Roth of Getrichslowly.org
• 2-page printable PDF budgeting template
• Minimalist excel template of same budget

Where To Buy

If all of this sounds interesting to you, Adam is selling his book for $17 here. This is not an affiliate link. In fact, MyWifeQuitHerJob.com has no affiliation with ManVsDebt or Adam Baker in any way. Hope you enjoyed the review.

While I get many questions from bloggers asking for advice on ‘how to blog‘ perhaps one of the biggest questions a new blogger needs to ask themselves before they move on to the HOW to blog question is ‘WHAT will I blog about?’

There is no real right or wrong answer to this question as blogs come in all shapes and sizes and focus upon all manner of topics. However thinking through the question before you start a blog will help you make some of the other decisions that you’ll want to make later on in this guide (for example the domain name and the name of your blog will probably come out of this decision).

Reasons to Focus Upon a Niche with Your Blog

Choosing a niche to blog about is important for a number of reasons. These include:

1. Niche Blogs Appeal to Readers

My first blog was a personal blog with no real niche focus. It did start with a main focus upon Spirituality, but over time began to cover a large range of topics including blogging, photography, culture, politics, personal stuff that I was doing etc. The more topics I covered the less I appealed to everyone.

Sure a certain group of people were interested in Spirituality and Blogging, but less of them were into photography, even less also liked my stuff about Australian Pop Culture….. each topic narrowed the chances of me writing something that would appeal to all of my readers. I started to get complaints from them – ’stop writing about XXXX’.

When I began to break topics out onto their own blogs my audience responded well – those who were into photography gathered around that topic, those that were into blogging gathered on that blog.

In the end this is about relevance – people seem to be drawn to niche focused blogs because they know that they’ll see content on them that focuses upon the things they are specifically interested in.

2. Niche Blogs Monetize Better

I tried to make money from my personal blog for a while but found the going really tough. At the time I mainly tried to make money from advertising and found that sponsors were simply not interested in promoting their product (which had a specific focus) to an audience who were there to read about a whole range of things.

What camera manufacturer wants to promote their latest camera on a blog about photography that also touches on spirituality, politics and what movie I saw on the weekend?

Niche blogs also tend to work better with contextual ad networks like AdSense. AdSense is getting better are providing ads that related strongly to what is on a specific page of content but I have seen instances where blogs covering lots of different topics attract ads that don’t always relate to content on a particular page.

The other thing about AdSense is that it is a system that gives advertisers the ability to target specific sites. These types of targeted campaigns can be quite profitable but they are less likely to happen if a blog covers a large range of topics, many of which don’t relate to that advertiser.

When I went niche I found monetizing with advertising a lot easier. In fact monetizing with a variety of methods seems to be easier on niche blogs. Affiliate promotions and selling your own products work better because your audience is there to get information on certain topics – so when you promote products on those topics…. they’re much more likely to buy.

3. Niche Blogs Do Better in Search Engines

It is possible to rank well for all kinds of topics on a generic/multi topic blog. It’s possible – but I find it is easier when you have a blog with a focus upon a niche topic. If your whole site is about the one topic Google treats it as more of an authority on that topic the more content you add, the more you interlink the posts, the more other sites in your niche link to it etc.

There are certainly exceptions (mega sites like Wikipedia are obvious ones) but unless you have the pulling power of a massive site like that a niche focused site could be the way to go.

4. Niche Blogs Build Credibility and Profile

One of the consequences of moving to more of a niche focus with my blogging was that I noticed I was starting to become known for that topic.

The first time this happened was after I started my first photography blog and 2 months later had a phone call from a city-wide newspaper asking for a quote on a photography related story. This had not happened to me before as a result of my personal/multi topic blog but having a site purely focused upon a single topic gave a perception that that topic was ‘my thing’.

For me having niche focuses has helped me to become known on different topics – which has led to all kinds of opportunities in those niches – including writing books, speaking opportunities around the world, main stream media appearances and all manner of partnership opportunities with wonderful people in my industries.

Not everyone wants to build their profile and become known in an industry – but if that’s part of your goal then a niche blog on those topics can be powerful.

Note: Niches Need Not Just be Topic Related

Before I conclude this post on niches I thought it might also be worth noting that a blogs niche need not only ever be focused upon a topic. I explored this more fully in a post titled – Does Your Blog Focus Upon a Niche Topic or a Niche Demographic? As the title of that post suggests – there are some successful blogs around that cover a variety of topics – that appeal to a similar type of person or demographic.

So instead of just writing about video games – a blog might choose to blog about topics that appeal to teenage boys – video games being one of the topics that they might have an interest in.

Worth noting though is that if you do decide to target a niche demographic rather than a niche topic – you could be opening yourself up for a lot of work. Covering a diverse range of topics can certainly work – but to cover them all comprehensively can take a lot of time and energy.

How to Choose a Niche for Your Blog

Now that we’ve looked at some of the reasons WHY a niche can be a powerful thing to think about before you start looking at HOW to blog – later this week I’m going to continue this post with a followup post exploring a number of factors that those looking to start a blog might consider when choosing a niche.

Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.

How to Blog: Choose a Niche for Your Blog [Why Niches are Important]

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Bake a Referral Engine Into Your Business Model

This content from: Duct Tape Marketing

This post is a special Make a Referral Week guest post featuring education on the subject of referrals and word of mouth marketing and making 1000 referrals to 1000 small businesses – check it out at Make a Referral Week 2010

Have you ever squirmed when a seasoned businessperson asked you “what sets you apart from your competition?” or “what are you truly great at, that no one else in your market can do better than you?”

You are not alone.

Many new entrepreneurs get uncomfortable with the notion that they have to be an expert in their field to have a successful business. This is because they think that they have to know every last thing about the market in order to be considered an expert.

Here is the good news: one of your unique differentiators can be your ability to refer your clients to fantastic people who compliment your work. You don’t have to know everything. You just have to know people who do.

I have designed my business this way. I feel exceptionally competent helping corporate employees figure out which business to start. I can wrestle their snarling fears with confidence. I can help them with branding and marketing plans, and teach them how to grow their network using social media.
But if they ask what kind of business structure will protect their assets, I draw a blank. That is why I have tax attorney and business process guru Kyle Durand on speed dial. If they are creating a new software product and want to know how to wade through IP laws and trademarks, I send them to Jill Hubbard Bowman.

If they have no idea which shopping cart to use on their website, I send them to research maven Crystal Williams, otherwise known as Big Bright Bulb.

If they want killer branding design with great copy, I send them to Reese and Kelly Parkinson.

If they know what to do but get paralyzed by procrastination, overwhelm and creative blocks, I send them to Charlie Gilkey.

If they decide they don’t want to start a business after all and want to get a job, I send them to the best career coach I know, Michele Woodward.

And if they are incredibly difficult to work with, I send them to John Jantsch. (Just kidding John! J)

Knowing I have world-class business partners who will not only deliver excellent service to my clients but will also be fun and easy to work with allows me sell my strengths and refer the rest. My clients are happy, I am happy, and my circle of partners is happy. Our combined networks generate lots of new business, and many opportunities to collaborate on programs, products and services.

How can you bake a great referral network into your business model?

• Define the problem your clients are trying to solve. Are they trying to start a business? Make more money? Simplify their life? Build a product?
  Break down all the knowledge and support they will need to solve the problem. Think about which tools they may need, which decisions they have to make and what skills and competencies they require.
• Identify your strengths. As you examine all that’s needed to solve their problem, think about what you love to do, what interests you, and where people say you excel.
• Structure your services around your strengths. If you love doing big picture strategy and get bored with implementation, don’t offer that service. By focusing only on what you do best, you will set yourself apart from so many others who struggle to provide everything to everyone.
• Identify ethical, competent people who are great at solving the rest of the problem. Use your personal networks, social networks and research to find excellent referral partners. Watch closely the first few times you send a client their way. Make sure they deliver great results and make your clients happy. After awhile, you will send them business with your eyes closed. And they will do the same for you.

Baking referrals into your business model will not only grow your business, it will make your brand shine. As Miguel de Cervantes said in Don Quixote:
“Tell me what company you keep and I’ll tell you what you are.”

Pamela Slim is a business coach and author of the award-winning book Escape from Cubicle Nation. Find her at www.escapefromcubiclenation.com and follow her on Twitter @pamslim

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